Rating Action: Moody's assigns Aa1 to White Plains' (NY) GOLT Bonds 2020 Series A and Series B

Global Credit Research - 21 Jul 2020

New York, July 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Aa1 rating to the City of White Plains' General Obligations Public Improvement Serial Bonds, 2020 Series A and Public Improvement Refunding Serial Bonds, 2020 Series B. The bonds have anticipated par values of $11.4 million and $14.2 million, respectively. We also maintain a Aa1 issuer rating and outstanding general obligation limited tax (GOLT) rating. The issuer rating is equivalent to the city's hypothetical general obligation unlimited tax rating (GOULT); there is no debt associated with the GOULT security. The outlook is stable.

RATINGS RATIONALE

The rating assignment reflects the city's solid fiscal position inclusive of cash and reserves that were stable as expected in fiscal years 2019 and 2020 and place the city in good position to continue its conservative budgeting practices and ably manage the economic uncertainty stemming from the coronavirus outbreak. The rating also reflects the city's well sized tax base, strong resident wealth and position within the greater New York City metro area economy. The city's debt burden and retirement costs are manageable though it has an above-average unfunded long-term liability.

We consider the outstanding debt to be GOLT because of limitations under New York State law on property tax levy increases. The lack of distinction between the GOLT rating and the Issuer rating reflects the city council's ability to override the property tax cap and the faith and credit pledge in support of debt service.

We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. White Plains is not susceptible to immediate material credit risks related to coronavirus. The longer term impact will depend on both the severity and duration of the crisis. The situation surrounding Coronavirus is rapidly evolving. If our view of the credit quality of White Plains changes, we will update the rating and/or outlook at that time.

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RATING OUTLOOK

The stable outlook incorporates our expectation that the city will continue to maintain financial operations consistent with rating as a result of cautious budget practices, a wealthy tax payer base, and an economy that remains sizeable and dynamic.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OF THE RATINGS

- Continued growth in reserves

- Significant reduction in unfunded long-term liabilities

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

- Inability to maintain structural balance, accompanied by significant declines in reserves

- Material economic weakness resulting in appreciable reduction in resident wealth or tax base contraction

LEGAL SECURITY

The 2020 bonds and outstanding GOLT bonds are secured by the city's general obligation pledge as limited by New York State's Property Tax Cap-Legislation (Chapter 97 (Part A) of the Laws of the State of New York, 2011).

USE OF PROCEEDS

Proceeds of the Series A bonds will finance a variety of capital projects including the improvement and replacement of water/sewer infrastructure and rehabilitation of parking structures. Proceeds of the Series B bonds will be used to refund portions of existing bonds.

PROFILE

The City is located approximately 22 miles north of New York City and encompasses an area of approximately 10 square miles. The city is the seat of Westchester County government and serves as a major commuter hub as well as a suburban regional center The city's population was estimated at 58,109 by the U.S. Census Bureau's 2019 estimates.

METHODOLOGY

The principal methodology used in these ratings was US Local Government General Obligation Debt published in September 2019 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBM_1191097. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

Michael Wertz Lead Analyst Regional PFG Northeast Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 7 World Trade Center 250 Greenwich Street New York 10007 US JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Nicolanne Serrano Additional Contact Regional PFG Northeast JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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Berlin: Two more former executives at bankrupt German payment company Wirecard were arrested on Wednesday in the fraud scandal that brought down the one-time tech star and its former CEO was taken back into custody after the case against him was expanded, prosecutors said.

The former Wirecard managers are suspected of defrauding investors of some 3.2 billion ($5.2 billion) by inflating the company's balance sheet.

Munich prosecutor Anne Leiding announces the charges against the former Wirecard managers. Credit:Bloomberg

The two newly arrested ex-managers are the company's chief financial officer until the end of 2017 and its former head of accounting, Munich prosecutor Anne Leiding said. She identified them only as L. and von E. respectively, in keeping with German privacy rules.

The case against ex-CEO Markus Braun was expanded and a judge ordered him to be kept in custody, Leiding said. Braun was first arrested last month on suspicion of market manipulation and falsifying financial results, and then released on bail. A fourth former executive, the head of a subsidiary in Dubai, was arrested in early July.
(Source: AAP, Getty)

Australian unions, social service groups, charities and political figures have criticised Prime Minister Scott Morrisons revised JobSeeker scheme for not going far enough to support Australians in the long-term.

Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg yesterday announced cuts to the JobSeeker and JobKeeper schemes that would see JobSeekers coronavirus supplement slashed by $300 to $250, and JobKeeper brought down to $1,200 a fortnight for full-time workers.

While those who have long advocated for a permanent increase to the JobSeeker base rate have cautiously welcomed the supplement extension, they argue it still falls short and that an eventual return to the original rate would push even more Australians into poverty.

With the JobSeeker COVID supplement slated to be reduced from September but continued until at least December, we are incredibly disappointed the Federal Government hasnt taken this opportunity to lock in a permanent floor to income support that keeps people out of poverty, said Mission Australia chief executive James Toomey.

A permanent increase to income support payments would go a long way in injecting more money into the economy and relieve the pressure on organisations like Mission Australia who provide emergency relief and homelessness services, he said.

We cant turn back to $40 a day at the end of the year.

This will return people to poverty and leave them unable to meet their basic needs, including housing at Christmas and into 2021.

A recent report by the Australia Institute prior to the announcement of the revised JobSeeker and JobKeeper schemes found that 650,000 more Australians would have been pushed into poverty at the end of September.

Mozo research found that 1.3 million Australians wouldve been unable to afford their homes if JobKeeper and JobSeeker had ended in September.

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As the number of people who are unemployed rises, we urge the Federal Government to commit to permanently lifting income support payments to not only lift people out of poverty, but also ensure they can regain control of their finances, access transport, and other resources to look for work and be job ready, said Toomey.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese said he was very concerned the government has not increased JobSeekers base rate.

$40 a day is not enough to live on, the current [JobSeeker] rate. And to just say that once we're through this pandemic, it'll just go back to that figure is, in my view, completely unacceptable, he said.

Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services Linda Burney added that the JobSeeker extension was a step in the right direction, but warned about the dangers of a return to the old rate of $565.70 a fortnight.

A permanent increase is required that will help keep people out of poverty and into secure work. The governments introduction of the Coronavirus Supplement was a clear acknowledgement that the old Newstart base rate of the payment was inadequate, she said.

It trapped people in poverty and stopped them getting work  with many unable to afford things as basic as fresh food, school excursions, clothes or transport costs. Snapping back to the old JobSeeker rate would also threaten our economic recovery and hurt local businesses and jobs.

PM, Treasurer respond

The prime minister has indicated the government is not currently considering a permanent increase to the base rate.

Thats not a matter that were looking at, at the moment, Morrison said yesterday.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks during a media conference at Parliament House on July 9, 2020 in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by David Gray/Getty Images)

Weve increased JobSeeker significantly through the pandemic and were still in the pandemic phase.

And given that we have no  intention of that going back to the original JobSeeker base payment certainly by the end of December  I would be very surprised if we werent to extend it beyond then.

Speaking this morning on Sunrise, Frydenberg responded to critics of the scaled-back JobSeeker scheme and said it was not unreasonable for the government to bring back former requirements for the income support payments.

Seeking up to four job searches a month I dont think is unreasonable, engaging with your employment services provider is not unreasonable, he said.

We want to give the public who are on JobSeeker the best possible chance of getting into a job.

The Prime Minister has also announced a couple of billion dollars for additional training and skills programs and thats going to be a great help to people who may not be in employment today, because we understand they may need to reskill and retrain to find work.

Business lobby group the Business Council of Australia (BCA) welcomed the JobSeeker boost extension as a sensible approach.

We welcome a sensible and targeted approach to phasing out the critical support which has helped keep people connected to their employers and position us for a strong recovery, said BCA CEO Jennifer Westacott.

It is absolutely right for the government to take a responsible approach.

The continuing temporary payment to JobSeeker recipients is welcome, but at the end of the day most people dont want to be on welfare, they want a job.

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Update: Fourth and fifth-graders will be in the elementary schools. and not in the middle school. That building will likely be used for high-needs special education students, according to district officials.

Elementary school students will be separated into two groups, each attending school only two days a week and learning from home the other three days.

Middle and high school students would take classes from home every day. Theyd never go to school for class.

Fearful parents of elementary students would get a choice: They can keep their kids home every day and the school will support remote learning. Any older student with no internet could come in and set up at the high school.

These are the hard choices in the draft of one Central New York school districts reopening plan.

Central Square School District in Oswego County is among the first to release a tentative plan, which the district has sent to its parents and presented to the school board.

The plan hints at whats to come across New York in the next 10 days. Central Squares proposal puts the priority on face-to-face teaching for the youngest students, and it offers options for kids who cannot learn at home or whose parents insist on keeping them home.

Officials are fine-tuning the document and may make adjustments before submitting it to the state at the end of the month.

School districts across New York are working furiously to design proposals. These are due by July 31, and must be shared on the district websites.

Districts have flexibility in how they implement the plans, as long as they follow state education guidelines, released in a 145-page document last week. Districts also must meet state health guidelines.

Some school districts are still surveying parents. Some plans are nearly complete; other districts need more time, although they may not get it.

Bob Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, said districts want to include key people in developing their plans but many are away on vacation.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he will decide in the first week of August whether schools will open for in-person education.

Most districts are looking at hybrid plans, in which some students come to school while others dont.

Lowry said some districts are leaning toward having elementary students in the classrooms, with older kids learning from home.

Central Square Superintendent Thomas Colabufo said getting every student inside a classroom is not feasible with the required six-foot distancing of desks. The district doesnt have enough classrooms or buses for that.

The district didnt want to leave elementary students at home every day, when their parents might be working, Colobufo said.

He said not all parents are happy at having their older students continue springs remote learning, but its the best solution right now for the district with 3,700 students. He said he believes many other districts will prioritize putting elementary students in classes.

Central Squares draft plan highlights:

Elementary (kindergarten to fifth grade) students will be divided, with half attending Monday and Tuesday, and the other half Thursday and Friday. The schools will be deep-cleaned Wednesdays, with everyone engaged in virtual learning that day.

Students of any grade without internet access can come to school, and high-needs special education students also will get in-class instruction. The high schools larger rooms will be used for those students who dont have internet access. Middle and high school teachers and their teaching assistants will be in that buildings classrooms to run remote learning.

The parents of elementary students could choose to keep their child home every day for remote education. In a district survey, about 10% were considering that option.

Colabufo estimates about one-quarter of the school population and 45% of the elementary students will be in a classroom on the four days of in-person instruction.

Everyone attending in-person school will have their temperature checked as the children board the bus six feet apart. They will wear masks on the bus, with one student to each seat. Parents will be asked to take temperatures first.

Students would attend a four-hour day, likely 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Teachers would work a full day.

Music, band and chorus instruction will most likely be virtual. So will art. The days children are in school will be devoted mainly to the core subjects for those elementary kids.

Middle and high school students will take distance learning, with every teacher using the same software platform. Students will sign on at a specific time, attendance will be taken, and instruction will be delivered. Everyone has been given a notebook computer.

Kids without internet access may take the bus to the high school, where they will be spread out in large group instructional areas such as the library, large lecture hall and cafeteria.

Meals will be picked up by families at the start of the week, and kids will eat lunch in the classroom. No hot lunches. Kids will be six feet apart, or barriers will be put up between them. Elementary students wont have to wear masks in class, as they will be spaced apart six feet.

Gym is still a bit of a wild card, but there will likely be 10 in a class and no contact activities. It will run 30 minutes once a week, with a second virtual session.

Sports and band will go on this fall if it is approved by the governor, but thats still up in the air, Colabufo said.

We are imposing no additional restrictions other than what has already been put on us by the governor,' he said.

One smaller district, Cato-Meridian in Cayuga County, is preparing to teach more students in-person. It has a tentative schedule for reopening with K-6 attending four days a week and conducting online learning Wednesdays.

That district also has grades 7-12 coming in to the classrooms. Those students are divided alphabetically into two groups, with each group attending two days a week. Its online learning on the other days.

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With the economy gradually reopening, UAE residents are hopeful about their personal monetary situation and a third (33%) think their finances will get better in 12 months time, says a study.

Some 23% expect them to remain in the same state. The number who think they will get worse stands at 25%, YouGovs economic recovery tracker run between May 7 and July 2 reveals.

The proportion of residents who said their financial condition has deteriorated (compared to a month ago) during the crisis has reduced from 56% in May to 42% at the end of June.

On the contrary, claims of their monetary situation improving or remaining unchanged has gone up from 6% to 11% and 33% to 41%, respectively.

In order to deal with the financial implications of the virus, a majority of residents were actively reducing their non-essential expenses, and still seem to be doing so.

A third (34%) were relying on their savings to take care of their expenses but this number has come down from 34% to 27% since the initial wave of the survey.

At an overall level, the proportion of residents who said the Covid situation in their country is becoming better has increased since May, and by the end of June, the majority feels UAE has made progress in this regard.

The figures seem to align with the reopening of businesses in June and we see a gradual increase throughout the month.

Confidence in the recovery of the economy also seems to be growing. When asked about UAEs economic situation in the future, 27% residents believe in the next twelve months the countrys economy will be growing or booming. This is up from 17% who said this in early May. However, 33% still believe the economy will be in a recession or depression, even though the number is down from 40% who said this in early May.

A similar trend is evident when it comes to job security where although a large proportion of public are still insecure about their jobs, the number seems to be declining week-on-week. 57% admitted to feeling less secure about their jobs when we first ran the survey in May.

However, with the reopening of businesses, this figure has decreased and now (June-end) 47% said they are insecure about their jobs. A parallel movement is clear in the level of business activity, where the number of respondents saying they have experienced decreased level of business activity has fallen down (from 67% to 48%) while those saying it has increased (from 7% to 17% saying this) has trended upward between May and June.-- Tradearabia News Service
New Delhi, July 22 : In a major relief for IT companies, BPOs and their employees, the Centre has extended the relaxations of norms for such companies to allow 'work from home' for their staff till December 31, 2020.

The relaxations to the norms brought about for the convenience and safety of the IT sector employees amid the pandemic were due to end on July 31.

"DoT has further extended the relaxations in the Terms and Conditions for Other Service Providers (OSPs) upto 31st December 2020 to facilitate work from home in view of the ongoing concern due to #COVID19," said a tweet by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The government had first relaxed the norms till April and later extended it till July 31.

The industry has hailed the decision.

Thanking Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and DoT Secretary Anshu Prakash, Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh tweeted that the move will ensure business continuity and employee safety along with increase of the industry's talent pool in tier-II and tier-III cities.

Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji tweeted: "Thank you to the government for their tremendous support on the new ways of working from day 1. This has helped tremendously in further elevating our standing and responsiveness globally."

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said this week the United States would sell more arms to Taiwan as part of a $10 billion deal approved by Congress. He also said the U.S. military would reposition forces across Asia to prepare for a confrontation with China in flash points including self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and has vowed for decades to take by force if necessary. Inside China, the government has faced growing calls from hawkish military pundits and nationalist commentators to grasp the current strategic window to seize Taiwan, an accomplishment that could rally the Chinese population and burnish leader Xi Jinpings political legacy.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: In view of the surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the last few weeks, the Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday announced a complete lockdown in nine out of 10 districts in Kashmir from Wednesday evening till July 27.

Complete lockdown in all Red districts (excluding Bandipora) of Kashmir division from today evening till 6 am on 27-7-2020, the government announced on Twitter.

Out of the 10 districts in the Valley, nine have been declared as red zones while Bandipora in north Kashmir is the only district not to fall in this category.

Jammu and Kashmir, especially the Valley, has witnessed a surge in cases and deaths in July. J&K has recorded a total of 15258 cases and 263 deaths. Kashmir accounts for 12125 cases and 243 deaths.

Doctors and other sections of society in the Valley had been pressing the government to impose a complete lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus and break the chain.

The government while announcing the complete lockdown informed that agriculture, horticulture and construction activities would continue as per DMRR guidelines.

The movement of goods carriers and LPG & oil tankers will continue unhindered, the government further informed.

Officials said a decision to extend the lockdown or ease it would be taken on July 27 after assessing the ground situation.

The strict COVID-19 lockdown was enforced in Kashmir on March 19 and remained in force till June. However, with the easing of the lockdown, people began moving out without masks and without following social distancing norms.
(Natural News) The Michigan House has passed a bill to protect the privacy rights of its state government workers, who will soon be given the option have implantable microchips injected into their bodies.

Sponsored by Rep. Bronna Kahle, the bill aims to address an inevitable future where people are receiving RFID marks inside their skin that, if not properly protected privacy-wise, could expose their personal information to hackers.

With the way technology has increased over the years and as it continues to grow, its important that Michigan job providers balance the interests of the company with their employees expectations of privacy, Rep. Kahle is quoted as saying.

While these miniature devices are on the rise, so are the calls of workers to have their privacy protected, she further added.

After moving to and through the Senate, Rep. Kahles bill would then go to the desk of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who presumably will sign it into law. From there, state government employees and other workers would have the option to get tiny microchips about the size of a grain of rice implanted into their skin for identification and security purposes.

They [are] not battery powered, and are instead activated and used as individual ID for the employee when introduced to a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader, reports the Jerusalem Post.

The chips can be used as a key fob for the office, time cards, a credit account for the cafeteria or vending machines, a way to access company laptop or office devices and, more controversially, as a way for employers to track employee productivity.

Thanks to coronavirus, the world is now ready and primed for the Antichrist and mark of the beast

Beyond this, the RFID chips will function as tracking devices to monitor when employees arrive to and leave from work, as well as what they do throughout their days. It is the ultimate in spying and surveillance, brought to you by Big Tech and Big Government.

The bill specifically allows for employees to opt out of the system and not get chipped, but one wonders how long this will last before Big Brother decides to make the technology mandatory to ensure the safety and security of all employees.

All of this has been predictively programmed in shows like Netflixs Stretch Armstrong & The Flex Fighters, which in an episode entitled SmartMark depicted characters lining right up to receive implantable chips to buy and sell without the need for cash.

The Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has also greased the wheels in accelerating this process with global lockdowns, touchless payment systems, and the recent shortage of cash and coins. Soon, there will also be immunity passports and even microchip-enhanced vaccines, which we reported could contain an enzyme known as luciferase, a derivative of lucifer.

Everything related to COVID-19, the global lockdowns, the crashing of the worlds economies, the digital Immunity Passports, and now the race riots are all connected and will bring the entire world to the doorstep of Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast, reports Now the End Begins.

Be sure to also check out the below video showing how Swedish train operators are already accepting payments from travelers using RFID-implanted microchips:

The forerunner to the mark is potentially here and the powers that should not be are trolling Christians by making a cartoon showing what might be coming out in the years to come, wrote one Now the End Begins commenter about what we see unfolding.

Voluntary? Thats what they said about wearing a mask. Voluntary my hinny, wrote another.

For more related news about the push towards a cashless society, be sure to check out Collapse.news.

Sources for this article include:

NowTheEndBegins.com

NaturalNews.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:21:43|Editor: huaxia

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by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- As with many countries and regions worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the daily life of students in Bangladesh.

All of the country's educational institutions have closed since the outbreak of the virus here on March 8.

Students, as a result, have been attending online classes from their homes and socializing remotely as their daily lives have had to adjust due to the effects of the pandemic.

Some students while talking to Xinhua recently in the capital city of Dhaka shared various insights into their new lives and situations amid the pandemic.

Some of the pandemic-induced changes have actually been for the better, some of the students said, as they have been able to spend more time with their family members, especially with parents who would ordinarily be busy working.

Fatin Hasnat Chowdhury Ishti, a student at Dhaka's Imperial College, said, however, that he misses his classmates and other friends.

"I'm bored after staying at home for months since March," said the student who just completed his first year in college.

"Learning and socializing remotely helps me to a large extent to cope with the boredom and social distancing measures," he added.

"I just want to go back to my school soon and play with my friends," said Abrar-N-Karim, a student at the Oxford International School in Dhaka.

"I've had enough of the boredom!" He exclaimed.

"I want all countries and regions around the world to step up efforts to eliminate the COVID-19 virus that has made our lives hell," the standard 1 student added.

For Dhaka University student Rubel Hossain home was just a place to rest his head at night.

"But now home is my everything. I understand the situation and know there's no way to change this new reality, even though it's really tough," said Hossain.

After a few online classes in the morning, Asif Mahmud, a student of Dhaka's North South University, said he now passes time with friends mostly on social media which is the only way to connect with friends.

Mahmud and his friends are doing something benevolent on social media. They have joined a blood donation group of 2,000 people which helps people in need of transfusions.

He said they have supported many people who have recovered from disease and are ready for plasma donations.

Mahmud said the global pandemic created an opportunity for him to spend more time with family members.

"For the first time in many years after college, I've spent a lot of time at home with my family members, including my working parents."

"For this reason I'm happy, although the pandemic has messed with my life," said Mahmud.

Some students, meanwhile, said the COVID-19 pandemic has offered opportunities for them to learn how to cope with grim situations.

"I've been supporting my mom to prepare food these days," said Tasmia Jahan Chowdhury Arpa, a student of Dhaka's Ideal School and College, adding this has been a great experience for her.

"Now I know how to do so many things on my own. This will surely help me in the future to stand on my own feet," the seventh grade girl said. Enditem
New Delhi: TV turned movie star Hina Khan is raising the mercury levels with her bold and sassy photo shoot giving major boss lady vibes. She posted a few pictures on Instagram recently and ever since fans have been drooling over her.

Check out a series of pictures here:

The gorgeous face is a social media stunner and her posts break the internet, minutes after she makes any update.

Hina made her Bollywood debut in Vikram Bhatt's 'Hacked' this year along with Rohan Shah, Mohit Malhotra and Sid Makkar in lead roles. The film has been produced by Amar P Thakkar and Krishna Bhatt.

Hina made her debut at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival red carpet in 2019 where her maiden movie 'Lines' first look poster was unveiled. She also bagged an international project named 'The Country Of Blind'. The telly fashion icon will be seen playing a character named Gosha in 'The Country Of Blind'.

Hina also featured in a music video with 'Bigg Boss 11' buddy Priyank Sharma. The song by Arijit Singh is titled 'Raanjhana'.

Hina Khan also featured in a web film titled 'Unlocked: The Haunted App' by ZEE5. The horror flick also stars Aditi Arya and Rishabh Sinha. It directed by Debatma Mandal.
Precautions have already been taken in case of an apocalyptic disaster. On the isolated Arctic archipelago of Svalbard is the Global Seed Vault, also known as Norway's Doomsday Vault.





The seed vault contains over a million seed samples in a bunker designed like a fortress that is the most invincible seed bank on Earth.

Svalbard Also Has The Arctic World Archive

The lonely archipelago of Svalbard doesn't only protect millions of seeds, but it also protects data. On the same mountain that the Global Seed Vault is on, you'll find an abandoned coal mine that is now being used as another safe house.

The other safehouse is the Arctic World Archive, which has the purpose of keeping the world's data safe in case of an incident that causes an unfortunate future. But GitHub has given a contribution that is genuinely incomprehensible.

GitHub is a website that is often deemed the world's largest host of open-source code for many different programs. This site has transmitted every single one of its active public code repositories to the Arctic World Archive. Well, not every repository, since they got all the data on February 2020.

This move by GitHub is one stepping stone of the company's goal to create the GitHub Arctic Code Vault.

The director of strategic programs at GitHub, Julia Metcalf, has stated that the site's mission is to keep open-source software somewhere safe for future generations. They do this by preserving the code in an archive designed to last over a thousand years.

The project was first brought to light in 2019. GitHub made their first deposit to the vault a bit before the end of 2019, where they donated 6,000 of their most significant open-source code repositories.

Read More: Study: People Are Playing More Video Games Since Quarantine Started





Will The Open-Source Code Film Reels Last?

They have managed to deposit this new batch during all the consequences of the global coronavirus pandemic, which has about 21 terabytes of source code written onto almost 200 reels of piqlFilm.

PiqlFilm is a digital archival film that's built to last for over five centuries. Simulations have shown that it will last even longer than what it's made for, which is better than expected. These reels are stored in a steel-walled container in one of the Arctic World Archive's sealed chambers that is more than 200 meters deep.

If you look closely at the film, you'll notice it looks like miniature QR codes. Each film frame contains almost 9 million microscopic pixels, while each one runs for about 1 kilometer. This information should help you realize how much data is being preserved.

The company behind the film, piql, has claimed that the reels can endure extreme exposure to electromagnetic waves. It has gone through extensive testing for accessibility and longevity.

This piqlFilm will hopefully preserve the world's open-source programs so that those of the far future will check out the code if they ever need it.

It's quick for people to think that future humans won't need our irrelevant software. Still, the preservation of the open-source code is intended for the different futures that we don't expect.

When those unexpected futures come to life, the people of that time might not know how to access or use the code in the reels.

This situation is why there's a separate easily understood real called the Tech Tree that explains the technical history and the cultural context of the archive.

The Tech Tree is a primer for future humans to let them know what the archive programs are and what kind of technology they need to run on to work.

It will contain information that explains the various layers of technology's foundations responsible for how modern software works. It includes microprocessors, semiconductors, electronics, networking, as well as technology from long ago.

This information will help whoever inherits the archive to understand how the technology of our times worked, which might lead to them learning how to recreate our computers and how to use the archive's software.

Read More: Cytus II' Taken Down in China Due to a Composer's Song Containing Hidden Pro-Hong Kong Morse Code Message




Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and BioNTech, a small German firm, have reached a $1.95 billion agreement with the U.S. government to supply up to 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.

The vaccines production facilities include the Pfizer plant in Kalamazoo County.

The U.S. government places an initial order for 100 million doses, and can acquire up to 500 million additional doses, according to the agreement announced by the White House.

Americans will receive the vaccine for free, the announcement said.

The companies have completed Stage 1 clinical trials for two versions of the vaccine. Those trials enrolled up to 360 healthy subjects into two age cohorts: 18-55 and 65-85.

Michigan-made coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer in clinical trials

The vaccines were granted fast track status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week. The companies are expecting to start a Phase 2b/3 trial later this month and are anticipating enrolling up to 30,000 subjects. Regulatory review could begin as October 2020, the announcement said.

If the ongoing studies are successful, and the vaccine candidate receives regulatory approval, the companies currently expect to manufacture up to 100 million doses by December and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

The initial clinical supply of the vaccines are being made in Germany, but Pfizer and BioNTech plan to scale up production in the United States, including at its Michigan facilities.

Initial U.S. manufacturing is taking place at Pfizers manufacturing plant in Kalamazoo County, and the overall supply will be made in Andover, Massachusetts and Chesterfield, Missouri, the companies have said.

For more statewide data, visit MLives coronavirus data page, here.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Read more on MLive:

As Michigan braces for another coronavirus surge, here are 6 concerns among public health officials

Coronavirus recoveries now exceed 55,000 as daily cases stay above 600

Donald Trump Jr. expects Gov. Whitmer to block campaign rallies under guise of COVID pandemic

Michigan at tipping point in fight against coronavirus


By Do Je-hae



President Moon Jae-in is likely to reshuffle some of his key aides soon as a part of efforts to rebuild public trust and strengthen his administration, following continuing public criticism over his policies including on housing.



According to ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) officials, Cheong Wa Dae is likely to replace Kim Jo-won, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, and Kang Ki-jung, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, and several others in a reshuffle that could take place as early as next week.



But Moon is likely to retain chief of staff Noh Young-min, who has become one of the symbols of the Moon administration's failing housing policy after controversy erupted surrounding his ownership of two houses in southern Seoul and Cheongju, South Chunngcheong Province. He belated announced a decision to sell both houses after his initial announcement to sell the less expensive home in Cheongju caused a public uproar.





Earlier this year, Noh recommended multiple homeowners at the presidential office to sell properties other than their main residence. Civil affairs secretary, who owns two homes in the affluent southern Seoul area, reportedly refused to follow the recommendation.



The expected reshuffle comes amid rising public discontent over President Moon's housing policy and his and the ruling party's response to a series of sexual harassment scandals involving DPK heavyweights, including the late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon. Earlier this week, Moon' job approval rating hit its lowest level since October last year when a corruption scandal involving his close aide Cho Kuk, Kim's predecessor and a former justice minister, emerged.



Replacing Kang, who has served at Cheong Wa Dae for a year and seven months, is seen as Cheong Wa Dae's attempt to establish better relations with the opposition parties with the opening of the 21st National Assembly. The main opposition United Future Party (UFP) has stepped up its criticism of the President's "unilateral management of state affairs" and has been refusing to cooperate with some key issues brought up by the DPK.



There is also speculation that Moon will replace senior members at the National Security Office (NSO), including First Deputy Director Kim You-geun, who has been a key figure in Korea's responses to the conflict with Japan over the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA).



While Cheong Wa Dae is hoping that the reshuffle will help improve public sentiment toward the President, concerns are rising that simply changing a few presidential aides will not be enough to assuage the people's rage toward the administration, under which housing prices have soared to record levels.



Calls are rising for a Cabinet reshuffle to properly address the policy missteps in areas of housing, jobs and the economy.



Over the past few weeks, the opposition has called for replacing Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee and Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki, who is also the minister of economy and finance.



Moon received a briefing from Hong regarding next year's budget, Tuesday. During the undisclosed meeting, Moon showed confidence in the deputy prime minister, according to the presidential office.




Key indices are trading with small losses in early trade. At 9:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 70.15 points or 0.18% at 37,860.18. The Nifty 50 index was down 18.70 points or 0.17% at 11,143.55. Most Asian stocks were trading lower.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.11%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was down 0.14%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, is negative. On the BSE, 661 shares rose and 819 shares fell. A total of 64 shares were unchanged.

Earnings to watch:

Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Bajaj Auto and Bajaj Holdings will declare their April - June 2020 quarterly results today, 22 July 2020.

Stocks in news:

Axis Bank jumped 5.37%. The bank's net profit dropped 18.82% to Rs 1,112.17 crore while total income remained almost flat at Rs 19,125.57 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019. The private lender's profit before tax (PBT) fell 31.28% to Rs 1,427.98 crore in Q1FY21 as against Rs 2,078.18 crore in Q1FY20. Tax expense slumped 55.40% to Rs 315.81 crore in Q1FY21 compared with Rs 708.10 crore in Q1FY20.

Hindustan Unilever (HUL) fell 2%. HUL reported standalone net profit of Rs 1,881 crore in Q1 June 2020 as against net profit of Rs 1,755 crore in Q1 June 2019. The FMCG major's revenue from operations stood at Rs 10,560 crore in Q1 June 2020 as against Rs 10,114 crore in Q1 June 2019. The board of directors approved a special dividend of Rs 9.50 per share. The record date is fixed as 31 July 2020.

Bajaj Finserv rose 1.49%. Bajaj Finserv reported 44% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 1,215 crore on 16% rise in total income to Rs 14,192 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019. Profit before tax (PBT) stood at Rs 2,568.08 crore in Q1 FY21, up by 13.9% from Rs 2,255.24 crore in Q1 FY20. Total tax expense fell 19.37% YoY to Rs 645.86 crore during the quarter.

Wipro fell 1.58%. Wipro Gallagher Solutions (WGS), a Wipro company announced its partnership with EXOS Technologies, a division of ServiceLink. EXOS' cutting-edge platform provides techenabled mortgage services throughout the lending life cycle. By combining EXOS with WGS' NetOxygen Launchpad and NetOxygen LOS systems, lenders will experience the first-ever fully integrated, end-to-end digital mortgage solution.

BEML rose 1.15% after the company received order from Ministry of Defence (MoD) for supply of 1,512 Track Width Mine Plough (TWMP) for T-90 S/SK Tanks at an approximate cost of Rs 557 crore.

IndiaMART InterMESH surged 10.75% after the company reported 128.7% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 74.10 crore on 15.59% rise in total income to Rs 186.80 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

Polycab India dropped 3.66% after the company reported 12.57% fall in consolidated net profit to Rs 117.60 crore on 48.62% fall in total income to Rs 1,019.94 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

Global Markets:

Overseas, Asian stocks are trading mostly lower on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump's comments regarding the country's surge in novel coronavirus cases.

Japan's factory activity contracted for a 15th straight month in July. The au Jibun Bank Flash Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to a seasonally adjusted 42.6 from a final 40.1 in June, as broader conditions remained fragile though the pace of decline was the slowest in four months.

In US, U.S. stock-indexes finished mostly higher Tuesday as investors snapped up beaten-down energy and financial stocks amid a slate of corporate earnings reports, including Coca-Cola and Lockheed Martin's second-quarter results.

Market sentiment also was encouraged by the promise of additional U.S. fiscal stimulus, after the European Union forged a historic budget package intended to dampen the economic impact of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Investors were awaiting developments on another fiscal stimulus plan by Congress as a $600 per-week federal unemployment package is set to expire at the end of the month.

President Donald Trump warned Tuesday the coronavirus pandemic in the United States will probably get worse before it gets better.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also unveiled an $775 billion plan to revive the economy during the pandemic, called the 21st Century Caregiving and Education Workforce, with a promise to bring 3 million new jobs to workers, while also helping fortify universal child and elder care in the U.S.

On the economic front, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for June, a composite of 85 indicators, rose to a fresh record 4.11, marking a record high going back to 2000, from a 3.5 in May representing a level that was raised from the previous May reading.

Back home, key equity benchmarks ended with strong gains on Tuesday, rising for the fifth straight session. Global shares advanced as European Union (EU) leaders agreed on a 750 billion euros package aimed at funding post-pandemic relief efforts in the region. The barometer S&P BSE Sensex jumped 511.34 points or 1.37% at 37,930.33. The Nifty 50 index rose 140.05 points or 1.27% at 11,162.25. Both these indices jumped about 5.25% in five sessions.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 2,265.88 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs), were net sellers to the tune of Rs 727.39 crore in the Indian equity market on 21 July, provisional data showed.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As face masks have become the accessories du jour, our coterie of carryalls has been furloughed, relegated to relic status at the backs of our wardrobes as we feel out the new era of hands-free life.

Once upon a time you probably didnt leave home without your beloved bag  holder of all your secrets - but now, thanks to Miss Rona, you just never leave your house.

But Im here to make a case for the humble straw bag; while real life requires a zipped closure and internal compartments, in the absence of said real life  and, sob, maybe even your annual sun-drenched getaway  why not channel your inner Jane Birkin and opt for a wicker bag to transport your anti-bac?

The wicker redux can largely be credited to Spanish brand Loewe, which launched its now-cult straw holdall in 2018 to rapturous applause from fashion insiders. So hotly-anticipated was the launch that the brand garnered a wait list of more than 1,000 before the totes had even launched. The revived trend is still going strong in 2020; searches for straw bags are increasing 12 per cent each month, according to fashion search platform Lyst.

AAKS' latest collection / AAKS

For straw sacks with a conscience, turn to AAKS and Muun. The formers bags are ethically hand-crafted by female collectives in Ghana using ecologically harvested raffia from local family farmers, while Muuns all-vegan designs are also made in northern Ghana, in a village called Nyariga. On the high street, Scandi go-to & Other Stories boasts a selection of retro-inspired totes, as does its slightly-cheaper sister brand H&M.

Straw lover: Simone Rocha SS20 / IMAXtree

If youre really keen on embracing all-things-raffia, then take a leaf out of Irish designer Simone Rochas book. So committed is she to the trend that she opted out of just touting a straw tote and instead embellished her signature floaty frocks with straw at her SS20 show.

Simply snuggle your straw arm candy in the nook of your elbow and don your frothiest maxi dress/skirt for maximum style points. Et voila! A star in straw is born.

AAKS

AAKS Oroo Natural Tote Bag, 210, buy now

The White Company

The White Company Woven Straw Tote Bag, 79, buy now

Luisa Viaroma

Loewe Woven Straw Basket Bag, 350, buy now

& Other Stories

& Other Stories Large Woven Straw Tote, 55, buy now

Selfridges

Muun Micro Claudia straw bag with pouch, 130, buy now

Arket

Arket Large Straw Tote, 99, buy now

The Outnet

Kayu Benitta striped woven straw tote, 58, buy now

H&M

H&M Straw shopper, 17.99, buy now
And then theres the fact that drinking is not compatible with wearing a mask, he wrote.

The lawsuit filed by bar owners is substantially different than others filed recently by the owners and operators of gyms and fitness centers. The gym owners contended  but have so far failed to get judges to rule  that they were able to operate in a safe fashion and should be allowed to reopen.

By contrast, the outcome of this case will determine the scope of gubernatorial power.

At the heart of the issue is the law that allows the governor to declare an emergency. That statute then gives him the right to exercise  all police power vested in the state by the constitution and laws of this state to deal with that emergency.

An attorney representing bar owners from around the state, Ilan Wurman, claims the flaw is that the Arizona Constitution rests all of those powers in the hands of the Legislature.

He said none of his clients are arguing that government cannot close down their businesses in appropriate circumstances.

The question is who within our constitutional system of government has that power, Wurman said.
Its almost impossible to tell, but the man featured in the photos below doesnt exist. He is a deepfake, a persona created by a computer algorythim. However, the articles this journalist published in several popular newspapers are very real, and a sign of things we can expect from a fast-evolving AI.

Oliver Taylor first got the attention of international news agency Reuters after being alerted about him by London Mazen Masri about an article Taylor had written about him and his wife, Palestinian rights campaigner Ryvka Barnard, in which they were described as known terrorist sympathizers. The couple were taken aback by the allegation, especially since it came from a a university student. But the more Masri looked at Taylors profile photo, the more convinced he was that something was off about him

Photo: Cyabra/Reuters

Mazen Masri contacted Reuters about the mysterious Oliver Taylor, and the news agency started an investigation which turned up some pretty interesting results. The University of Birmingham, which he was supposed to be a student of has no record of him ever attending, his online presence is pretty dubious, with his only footprint being a Quora account which was only active for two days in March, and his only available profile photo appears to be an AI-generated deepfake.

The distortion and inconsistencies in the background are a tell-tale sign of a synthesized image, as are a few glitches around his neck and collar, digital image forensics pioneer Hany Farid told Reuters. Artist Mario Klingemann, who regularly uses deepfakes in his work, also agreed that Taylors photo has all the hallmarks of a deepfake.

Reuterss investigation could not uncover who this Oliver Taylor really is, and Dan Brahmy, whose tech company Cyabra specializes in detecting deepfakes confirmed that people trying to find the origin of such photos are left searching for a needle in a haystack  except the needle doesnt exist.

Photo: B A/Pixabay

But just because Oliver Taylor doesnt seem to exist as a real person doesnt mean he can do serious harm as an online persona. He has had articles published in well-known news outlets like The Jerusalem Post ot Times of Israel, despite never meeting anyone at these newspapers face to face.

Editors at the Jerusalem Post and The Algemeiner told Reuters that they published his articles after he pitched them stories over email. He didnt ask for payment for his work and they didnt take any steps to vet his identity. Were not a counterintelligence operation, one editor-in-chief said

Although Oliver Taylors articles didnt have the highest engagement, they are still very dangerous because they can spread disinformation from behind a realistic mask that is becoming increasingly difficult to spot as fake.

Photo: Cyabra/Reuters

Sadly, Oliver Taylor is not a one-off. Last week, The Daily Beast exposed an entire network of deepfake journalists spreading propaganda online. So if you thought dont believe everything you read on the internet was true before, its about to become even more so.
London, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to The Business Research Companys latest report, the global CAR-T therapy market is expected to reach $3.1 billion by 2030 from a value of nearly $2.2 billion in 2023 growing at an annual growth rate of above 32%. This rapid growth of the market can be attributed to increase in investments by biopharmaceutical biotechnology companies in CAR-T therapy, which has proven to be a highly effective therapeutic tool for treating different types of cancers, especially hematological malignancies.



Biotechnology companies are focusing on acquiring or partnering with biopharmaceutical companies to develop and promote the CAR-T therapy market. There have been several partnerships in recent years which helps these companies to increase their CAR-T therapy portfolio, enhance their revenues and share the costs. For instance, in May 2020, EdiGene, a biotechnology company collaborated with Immunochina, a pharmaceutical company in China, for the improvement of allogeneic CAR-T therapy for cancer which will help in future treatments. In addition, there is unlocked potential in the market needing more investment, particularly in four areas - expanding the number of healthcare settings that administer CAR-T therapy, optimizing autologous CAR-Ts for liquid tumors, innovating in the manufacturing of next-generation CAR-T cell therapies, and shortening the innovation cycle time to enable success in solid tumors.

However, the CAR-T therapy market is expected to be negatively impacted due to the spread of COVID-19. Along with the clinical and logistical complexities inherent to cellular therapy, in the era of COVID-19, or a similar pandemic, additional anticipated challenges include staff shortages due to potential exposure, limitation of resources in personal protective equipment, hospital beds, intensive care unit (ICU) beds, and mechanical ventilation, as well as potential delays in the shipment of cellular therapy products, and blood and platelet shortages

The Business Research Company s report titled CAR-T Therapy Market Global Report 2020 covers the global CAR-T therapy market and its segments. The CAR-T therapy market is segmented by Target Antigen into CD19, CD22, Others. By application, the market is segmented into acute lymphoblastic leukemia, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, multiple myeloma, and others.

Request A Free Sample Of The Global CAR-T Therapy Market Report:

https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/sample.aspx?id=2808&type=smp

Oncology companies will also have a major impact from COVID-19 since patients with cancer are more susceptible to viral infections, especially after chemotherapy, stem cell transplants, or surgeries. This has caused a production decrease as countries started to report a significant number of cases daily, the pharmaceutical focus has shifted to finding a cure for COVID-19. This has resulted in the suspension of clinical trials.

CAR-T Therapy Market Global Report 2020 is one of a series of new reports from The Business Research Company that provide market overviews, analyze and forecast market size and growth for the whole market, segments and geographies, trends, drivers, restraints, leading competitors revenues, profiles and market shares in over 1,000 industry reports, covering over 2400 market segments and 56 geographies. The report also gives in-depth analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on the market. The reports draw on 150,000 datasets, extensive secondary research, and exclusive insights from interviews with industry leaders. A highly experienced and expert team of analysts and modellers provides market analysis and forecasts. The reports identify top countries and segments for opportunities and strategies based on market trends and leading competitors approaches.

Here Is A List Of Similar Reports By The Business Research Company:

COVID19 Rapid Test Kits Market Global Report 2020-30: COVID 19 Implications And Growth

Medical And Diagnostic Laboratory Services Global Market Report 2020-30: COVID-19 Impact And Recovery

Interested to know more about The Business Research Company?

The Business Research Company is a market intelligence firm that excels in company, market, and consumer research. Located globally it has specialist consultants in a wide range of industries including manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, chemicals, and technology.

The Worlds Most Comprehensive Database

The Business Research Companys flagship product, Global Market Model , is a market intelligence platform covering various macroeconomic indicators and metrics across 60 geographies and 27 industries. The Global Market Model covers multi-layered datasets which help its users assess supply-demand gaps.




Airborne and potentially deadly, the virus that causes COVID-19 can only be studied safely under high-level biosafety conditions. Scientists handling the infectious virus must wear full-body biohazard suits with pressurized respirators, and work inside laboratories with multiple containment levels and specialized ventilation systems. While necessary to protect laboratory workers, these safety precautions slow down efforts to find drugs and vaccines for COVID-19 since many scientists lack access to the required biosafety facilities.

To help remedy that, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a hybrid virus that will enable more scientists to enter the fight against the pandemic. The researchers genetically modified a mild virus by swapping one of its genes for one from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The resulting hybrid virus infects cells and is recognized by antibodies just like SARS-CoV-2, but can be handled under ordinary laboratory safety conditions.

The study is available online in Cell Host & Microbe.

"I've never had this many requests for a scientific material in such a short period of time," said co-senior author Sean Whelan, PhD, the Marvin A. Brennecke Distinguished Professor and head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology. "We've distributed the virus to researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and, of course, all over the U.S. We have requests pending from the U.K. and Germany. Even before we published, people heard that we were working on this and started requesting the material."

To create a model of SARS-CoV-2 that would be safer to handle, Whelan and colleagues - including co-senior author Michael S. Diamond, MD, PhD, the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine, and co-first authors Brett Case, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Diamond's laboratory, and Paul W. Rothlauf, a graduate student in Whelan's laboratory - started with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). This virus is a workhorse of virology labs because it is fairly innocuous and easy to manipulate genetically. Primarily a virus of cattle, horses and pigs, VSV occasionally infects people, causing a mild flu-like illness that lasts three to five days.

Viruses have proteins on their surfaces that they use to latch onto and infect cells. The researchers removed VSV's surface-protein gene and replaced it with the one from SARS-CoV-2, known as spike. The switch created a new virus that targets cells like SARS-CoV-2 but lacks the other genes needed to cause severe disease. They dubbed the hybrid virus VSV-SARS-CoV-2.

Using serum from COVID-19 survivors and purified antibodies, the researchers showed that the hybrid virus was recognized by antibodies very much like a real SARS-CoV-2 virus that came from a COVID-19 patient. Antibodies or sera that prevented the hybrid virus from infecting cells also blocked the real SARS-CoV-2 virus from doing so; antibodies or sera that failed to stop the hybrid virus also failed to deter the real SARS-CoV-2. In addition, a decoy molecule was equally effective at misdirecting both viruses and preventing them from infecting cells.

"Humans certainly develop antibodies against other SARS-CoV-2 proteins, but it's the antibodies against spike that seem to be most important for protection," Whelan said. "So as long as a virus has the spike protein, it looks to the human immune system like SARS-CoV-2, for all intents and purposes."

The hybrid virus could help scientists evaluate a range of antibody-based preventives and treatments for COVID-19. The virus could be used to assess whether an experimental vaccine elicits neutralizing antibodies, to measure whether a COVID-19 survivor carries enough neutralizing antibodies to donate plasma to COVID-19 patients, or to identify antibodies with the potential to be developed into antiviral drugs.

"One of the problems in evaluating neutralizing antibodies is that a lot of these tests require a BSL-3 facility, and most clinical labs and companies don't have BSL-3 facilities," said Diamond, who is also a professor of molecular microbiology, and of pathology and immunology. "With this surrogate virus, you can take serum, plasma or antibodies and do high-throughput analyses at BSL-2 levels, which every lab has, without a risk of getting infected. And we know that it correlates almost perfectly with the data we get from bona fide infectious SARS-CoV-2."

Since the hybrid virus looks like SARS-CoV-2 to the immune system but does not cause severe disease, it is a potential vaccine candidate, Diamond added. He, Whelan and colleagues are conducting animal studies to evaluate the possibility.

###
Lawsuit claims bond investors should be made aware of climate change risks to Australias ability to repay its debts.

A 23-year-old student has filed a lawsuit against Australias government alleging it has failed to disclose climate change-related risks to investors in the countrys sovereign bonds, in the first such action.

According to the litigation filed on Wednesday, Kathleen ODonnell claims investors who buy Australian government bonds should be made aware of the risks due to climate change that might make it difficult for Australia to pay back its debt.

A spokeswoman for Australias Treasurer told Reuters news agency the government was aware of the lawsuit.

Legal representatives are considering the matter. As it concerns current court proceedings the government will not make any comment, the spokeswoman said.

The litigation comes amid a global call for a green recovery in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic and as many large investment managers pledge their commitment for net zero carbon emissions by 2050 across their entire portfolio.

Climate change has long been a hot button issue in Australia, becoming even more so since last summer when intense wildfires raged for about four months across large parts of the country, killing 33 people and millions of animals.

Australia is materially exposed and susceptible to climate change risks, according to the statement filed with the Federal Court of Australia in Victoria state.

Accordingly, (a) those risks are material to an investors decision to trade in exchange-traded Australian government bonds (e-AGBs) and (b) an investor is entitled to be informed of those risks.

ODonnell is seeking a declaration that the government breached its duty of disclosure and an injunction restraining further promotion of e-AGBs until it complies.

Australia has more than 600 billion Australian dollars ($428bn) of sovereign bonds on issue, enjoying a coveted AAA rating from all three major ratings agencies.

The country contributes only 1.3 percent of the worlds carbon emissions but is the second-largest emitter per capita behind the United States and is a leading exporter of coal.

Better transparency

Climate change-related disclosures have become more mainstream globally in the past couple of years, with stakeholders expecting better disclosures and transparency on climate risks.

Australias Great Barrier Reef is particularly vulnerable to the effects of warming seas [File: Lucas Jackson/Reuters]

Global financial authorities are also pushing banks to improve transparency on their exposure to climate-change risks, arguing that disclosures on climate exposure are a prerequisite for market participants  an issue referenced in ODonnells litigation.

As a promoter, the Commonwealth (government) owes a duty of utmost candour and honesty to investors who acquire or intend to acquire e-AGBs, according to the statement filed in court.

The Commonwealth breached its duty as a promoter by  failing to disclose any information about Australias climate change risks.
(Natural News) A charred body has been found in the burned-out remains of a pawnshop in Minneapolis nearly two months after the massive rioting in the city had subsided. The store was reportedly the target of an arson attack at the height of the citys civil unrest following the death of George Floyd.

Investigators from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), with the help of the states fire marshals division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discovered the body, believed to be of an adult male, on the morning of Monday, July 20. They were reportedly acting on a tip when they found the burnt remains in the rubble of Max It Pawn.

The pawnshop is located just several blocks to the east of the MPDs currently shuttered 3rd Precinct, which was overrun and then burnt down by a violent mob during the worst part of the citys engineered rioting. (Related: Its mass destruction: Another Minnesota man charged with participating in the destruction of Minneapolis Police Departments 3rd Precinct.)

The body appears to have suffered thermal injury and we do have somebody charged with setting fire to that place, said John Elder, spokesman for the MPD. He added that homicide detectives will be handling the investigation from now on, and that the citys medical examiner will be releasing the identity of the victim after they have completed an autopsy, which they hope will be able to determine the precise cause and manner of the death.

Ashlee Sherrill, a spokeswoman from the ATF, declined to comment on the case they were working on with the MPD because the investigation had not been completed yet. The agency has opened several dozen other investigations of arson attacks following the rioting in Minneapolis and in neighboring Saint Paul.

The ATF is continuing to work these arson investigations across the Twin Cities and following up on these leads as they become available, said Sherrill.

The Star Tribune reported in early June that Minneapolis firefighters searched a liquor store nearby which also burned down after witnesses reported that a person had failed to make it out. However, the fire chief said that, due to the condition of the building, their preliminary search had to be called off. They did not find any trace of the body, and it still remains unclear whether the two reports are connected.

Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and learn about how the mainstream media is conducting an ongoing gaslighting campaign to make Americans believe that the Black Lives Matter demonstrations are actually very peaceful.

Suspect in arson attack of Max It Pawn might be the murderer

Montez Terrill Lee, 25, from Rochester, Minnesota  a small city that is nearly 100 miles southeast of Minneapolis  was brought into custody on June 15 for allegedly participating in the arson attack on Max It Pawn. According to the criminal complaint filed against him, investigators from the ATF received several videos from an anonymous source that shows an arson attack being committed at the pawnshop, supposedly be Lee.

Erica H. MacDonald, U.S. District Attorney for Minnesota, said that the video they received shows a masked man, who was identified to be Lee, using a metal container to pour some kind of liquid substance throughout Max It Pawn. The liquid is presumed to be something flammable, such as gasoline.

A second video taken from the event shows Lee standing shirtless outside the now-burning pawn shop. The video also recorded him shouting [Expletive] this place. Were gonna burn this [expletive] down.

Lee appeared in court on June 16 and was given a federal arson charge for his alleged connection to the burning down of Max It Pawn, which carries with it a sentence of between five to 20 years in jail. If the city medical examiner finds that the charred body passed away due to the blaze, then this sentence can be increased to between seven to 40 years in jail.

If the death of the man is ruled to be a homicide, it would currently stand as the citys 36th murder  compared with 18 at the same time last year, representing a 100 percent increase in the citys murder rate.

This would also be the second fatality connected to the engineered rioting in Minneapolis, the first being of Calvin Chuck Horton, Jr., 43, who was killed by John Rieple, 59, the owner of another pawnshop, Cadillac Pawn. Rieple, who was arrested but then released without charge, alleged that Horton was looting his store when he fired upon him.

Learn and keep an eye out for what other crimes Antifa and their allies in the Black Lives Matter movement are conducting across the United States by reading the latest articles at AntifaWatch.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

FoxNews.com

StarTribune.com

KTTC.com

Law.Cornell.edu
A Russian submarine carrying land attack missiles has been intercepted in the English Channel by two Royal Navy warships.

The Krasnodar sub was spotted passing through the Dover strait, close to UK waters.

It is feared it may have breached treaty rules that forbid the route except for exceptional repair reasons.

HMS Mersey was deployed to take over from HMS Tyne to make sure the sub was accompanied

The Krasnodar submarine was spotted entering UK waters by the Naval authorities

It comes as a bombshell report by the UK government's Intelligence and Security Committee accused Russia of meddling in Britain by interfering in the 2014 Scottish Referendum, flushing dirty money through London and conducting cyber warfare.

The vessel, built in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy in the 1980s, was met by Royal Navy patrol ships, HMS Tyne and HMS Mersey.

The Krasnodar submarine was sailing from the Eastern Mediterranean with its ocean-going tug Sergey Balk in support.

HMS Tyne was launched from Portsmouth to meet the sub first and guide it through waters

HMS Mersey HMS Mersey is the youngest in the fleet after setting off on its maiden voyage back in 2003 It is a River-class offshore patrol vessel is 79.5 metres long and can achieve a speed of over 20 knots The HMS Merseys commanding officer is Lieutenant Commander William Edwards-Bannon He has served at sea on national and international operations as well as in Whitehall, at the Ministry of Defence Advertisement

HMS Tyne, based in Portsmouth, picked up the sub at the south-western end of the English Channel after the French Navy tracked its journey through the Bay of Biscay.

After sailing the Channel, sister ship HMS Mersey took over duties as the Russians headed through the Strait of Dover and into the North Sea on Monday.

It may have breached the Montreux Convention which stops submarines and boats going through the Bosphorus Straits, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, unless heading for repairs.

Lieutenant Justin Shirtcliff, HMS Tyne's Operations Officer, said: 'Tyne responded in a coordinated effort with allies to shadow the Russian submarine and her escort while transiting the English Channel.

'This routine undertaking is an enduring task for the Royal Navy, in which Tyne and her sister ships of the Royal Navy's Overseas Patrol Squadron play a key role.'

HMS Tyne HMS Tyne is one of the fleets busiest vessels spending over 300 days a year at sea The ships main duty is to safeguard the UKs fishing stocks and has a top speed of over 20 knots It is 80 metres long and is commanded by Lieutenant Commander Richard Skelton, who has been in the Navy since 2005 She also carried out duties including University Training but also protecting and patrolling in the Strait of Gibraltar Advertisement

The passing of the Krasnodar comes just two weeks after Russian warships - including the submarine-hunting destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov - were shadowed through the Channel.

Lieutenant Commander Will Edwards-Bannon, HMS Mersey's Commanding Officer, said: 'It has been impressive to see, first-hand, the seamless coordination between allied ships and aircraft from various nations involved in this operation.

'I am very proud of the disciplined way in which my ship's company has responded to the challenge of maintaining our readiness for operations through the challenges of Covid-19 which, along with the support we receive from our families, has enabled Mersey to once again successfully play our part in protecting our nation's interests.'

Submarine Krasnodar Submarine Krasnodar is a project 636.3 Kilo Class diesel-electric underwater vessel She had been based in the Black Sea but left on March 14, 2019, citing repairs needed In reality the sub has been on a 15-month operational deployment as part of the war in Syria It can carry a crew of 52 and caries Kalibr missiles to strike at surface and ground targets Advertisement

The Kilo Class attack submarine had been tracked by open-source intelligence analysts from Syria to a point near start of the English Channel, roughly level with Lands End, according to PlymouthLive.

It came hours before the Intelligence and Security Committee published its report into allegations of Russian interference in the EU referendum.

The document said the UK government "badly underestimated" the threat and what it should do to tackle the problem.

It accused them of "playing catch-up" and should have taken "immediate action".

The Navy's mission to intercept the Russian sub comes just a week after one of its own vessels came to the public's attention.

One of their nuclear submarines came within 30 seconds of colliding with a car ferry packed with hundreds of passengers.

Disaster was narrowly averted when a lookout on the bridge of the when a lookout on the bridge of the Stena Superfast VII spotted the submarines periscope slicing through the choppy waters 250 yards ahead  and the ferrys captain ordered a sharp turn to port.

The ship, carrying 282 people, was sailing between Belfast and Cainryan in south-west Scotland, when the terrifying incident unfolded in the North Channel on November 6, 2018.

Details on the near-miss were only revealed for the first time last week.

MI5 'to get tough new powers to make UK a harder environment for Kremlin spies to operate in' after report said Government 'took eye off ball' dealing with Moscow's hacking, disinformation and political meddling

London - dubbed 'Londongrad' - has become a 'laundromat' for dirty Russian money, MPs' review concluded

Report highlighted how agents were able to spy unnoticed due to Britain's 'dusty and largely ineffective' laws

Former head of MI5 Sir Andrew Parker told the intelligence and security committee the rules dated back to World War One and mean it is very hard to pin down a spy unless they are caught red-handed

Home Office believed to be urgently pushing through new counter-espionage legislation to shore up Britain

It takes the American Foreign Agents Registration Act as its template, which requires people working for foreign governments, officials or political parties, to notify the US Department of Justice

'Register of foreign agents' will make it illegal to secretly work for foreign power to undermine UK, insider said

MI5 are to be granted tough new powers to make the UK a harsher environment for Kremlin spies to operate in after a damning report by MPs said the Government 'took its eye off the ball.'

In a devastating and long-awaited report, intelligence and security committee said the UK 'badly underestimated' the Russian threat as a campaign of hacking, disinformation and political meddling was waged.

London  nicknamed 'Londongrad'  has become a 'laundromat' for dirty Russian money, with Putin-linked elites able to act with 'impunity', the review concluded.

The government is planning new counter-espionage legislation which they say will make the UK a 'harder environment for adversaries to operate in,' The Times reported.

It takes the American Foreign Agents Registration Act as its template, which requires people working for foreign governments, officials or political parties, to notify the US Department of Justice.

The 48-page report on Russian infiltration highlighted how agents were able to carry out their business largely unscathed due to Britain's 'dusty and largely ineffective' security laws dating back to the First World War.

Former head of MI5 Sir Andrew Parker told MPs: 'Today it is not an offence in any sense to be a covert agent of the Russian intelligence services in the UK - just to be that, to be in covert contact, to be pursuing a brief - unless you acquire damaging secrets and give them to your masters.'

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (C-L) speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin (C-R) during the International Libya Conference in Berlin, Germany, 19 January 2020

Chair of the committee Julian Lewis (centre) with members Kevan Jones and Stuart Hosie - Russia sees the UK as one of its 'top targets' in the West, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee

Sir Andrew added: 'We are left with something which makes it very hard to deal with some of the situations we are talking about today in the realm of the economic sphere, cyber, things that could be more to do with influence.'

His scathing critique came as sources said the Home Office was planning an overhaul of security laws to crack down on spies, saboteurs and hackers.

A formal 'register of foreign agents' will make it illegal to secretly work for a foreign power to undermine the UK, an insider said.

The report's publication yesterday  nine months after it was cleared for release by spies  led to calls from all political parties for ministers to get tougher on Moscow.

The MPs and lords on the committee said Russian oligarchs had penetrated to the heart of British democracy by donating to political parties and hiring peers for their business interests.

They warned that ministers needed to 'attach a cost' to President Vladimir Putin's actions and take 'immediate action'.

The report described Russian influence in the UK as 'the new normal' and said any measures now taken by the Government would merely constitute 'damage limitation'.

The report  much of which was redacted for national security reasons  also exposes how:

Peers with business links to Russia are at risk of being exploited by the Kremlin;

Lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR professionals working for wealthy Russians have, wittingly or not, become 'de facto agents of the Russian state';

The UK government failed to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 Brexit referendum;

Russia used its 'sophisticated' cyber capabilities to target the Foreign Office and the top secret Porton Down military laboratory in Wiltshire soon after the 2018 Salisbury poisonings;

Social media companies have not done enough to remove covert material posted by hostile states, and the Government should 'name and shame' them;

The UK is one of Russia's 'top Western intelligence targets' for disinformation and political influence operations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Kerch, in the Crimea, on Monday. he UK is one of Russia's 'top Western intelligence targets' for disinformation and political influence operations, according to the report

In response to the report, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Russia was a top national security priority and the UK was prepared to 'call out' Moscow over issues such as cyber-attacks.

Speaking at a press conference alongside US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, Mr Raab said: 'We are not for a second complacent about the threat Russia poses when it comes to cyber.'

But the ISC said that 'until recently, the Government had badly underestimated the Russian threat and the response it required'. It noted there was an 'inherent tension between the Government's prosperity agenda and the need to protect national security'.

Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said that 'on every level, the Government's response does not appear to be equal to the threat'.

Tobias Ellwood, Tory chairman of the Commons defence committee, said Britain needed to up its game on cyber-warfare.

He added: 'If this is the new battlefield we need to upgrade our 21st century offensive and defensive capabilities so we are better protected and better armed.'

'Londongrad laundromat': Oligarch allies of Vladimir Putin have used London to wash illicit Russian money, report warns

By Larisa Brown and John Stevens

Oligarchs with links to the Kremlin have used London like a 'laundromat' for illicit Russian money, the report warned.

Britain welcomed Putin's cronies 'with open arms' because of the cash they brought with them, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said.

In damning claims, the report said oligarchs had penetrated British democracy by donating to political parties and hiring peers for their businesses.

MPs and peers on the ISC concluded that rich figures from Russia have turned the UK capital into 'Londongrad' by laundering their money, making Russian influence in the UK the 'new normal'.

The committee said 'few questions if any were asked about the provenance of this considerable wealth'.

MPs and peers on the ISC concluded that rich figures from Russia have turned the UK capital into 'Londongrad' by laundering their money, making Russian influence in the UK the 'new normal'

British professionals  including lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR experts  have become 'enablers' for these oligarchs and are 'de facto agents of the Russian state', whether they realise it or not.

The report said: 'A lot of Russians with very close links to Putin, who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, are accepted because of their wealth.'

Britain has become a 'particularly favourable destination for Russian oligarchs and their money'.

Aided by the UK's 1994 investor visa scheme, Russian money poured into charities and cultural and political institutions with 'few questions  if any  asked about the provenance of this considerable wealth'.

The ISC warned that Kremlin-linked figures have given money to British political parties in a move that could see them used to 'assist' Moscow. It did not name any of the Russians living in Britain it suspects of having close links to Mr Putin, or specify which political parties have benefited from Russian donations.

The ISC said: 'Several members of the Russian elite who are closely linked to Putin are identified as being involved with charitable and/or political organisations in the UK, having donated to political parties, with a public profile which positions them to assist Russian influence operations.'

The investor visa scheme, established by Sir John Major's Conservative government, offered 'ideal mechanisms by which illicit finance could be recycled through what has been referred to as the London 'laundromat'.'

The report said: 'The money was also invested in extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishment ... contributing to a 'reputation laundering' process.

'In brief, Russian influence in the UK is 'the new normal', and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth. This level of integration  in 'Londongrad' in particular  means any measures now being taken by the Government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation.'

Responding to the report, the Government said it was determined to tackle 'dirty' money.

A spokesman said: 'The UK has one of the world's largest and most open economies. These factors make the UK attractive for legitimate business, but also expose the UK to money laundering risks.'

The Government added that it agreed with the ISC that 'transparency' about political donations is important.

Will these Lords be forced to list dealings with Russian firms? Peers should have business links with Russia 'carefully scrutinised' to ensure they are not being exploited, Commons committee says

By John Stevens

Peers should have their business links with Russia 'carefully scrutinised' to ensure they are not being exploited by Vladimir Putin, the Intelligence and Security Committee has said.

In its report on Russia's influence in the UK, the committee called for greater transparency about the financial interests of those in the House of Lords.

It said members should have to register any individual payments of more than 100 which they receive for employment outside Parliament.

Defence: Lord Mandelson (left) & Aluminium: Lord Barker

Oil: Lord Skidelsky (left) and Lord Fairfax (right)

The ISC, which did not name any peers, said in its report: 'It is notable that a number of members of the House of Lords have business interests linked to Russia, or work directly for major Russian companies linked to the Russian state.

Oil: Lord Ponsonby

'These relationships should be carefully scrutinised, given the potential for the Russian state to exploit them.' The committee said it was important that the code of conduct for members of the House of Lords and register of interests 'provide the necessary transparency and are enforced'.

According to the members' register of interests, peers with links to Russian companies include crossbencher Lord Skidelsky, a non-executive director of Russian oil refining company Russneft.

Conservative peer Lord Fairfax of Cameron is a director of shipping firm Sovcomflot UK, and Labour peer Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede is a director of Russian oil firm RNG Joint Stock Company.

Former Tory energy minister Lord Barker stepped away from the Lords last year to focus on his role as chairman of aluminium giant EN+. Lord Mandelson served on the board of Russian defence conglomerate Sistema and, according to his register of interests, holds shares in it. In 2018, the House of Lords commissioner for standards launched an investigation into Lord Barker and Lord Fairfax after then-security minister Ben Wallace claimed they had 'requested government assistance for Russian associates'. Both peers were cleared of any wrongdoing.

In its response to the ISC report, the Government said the code of conduct for peers was 'the responsibility of the House [of Lords] itself'.

Scalding rebuke for years of naivety: EDWARD LUCAS, one of the experts who gave evidence for Russia report, presents his damning verdict on Kremlin interference

By Edward Lucas

As I took my seat in the spartan, bug-swept offices of the intelligence and security committee's anonymous Westminster headquarters in the summer of 2018, my excitement was tempered with trepidation.

Since watching the Soviet empire collapse 30 years ago, I had been sounding the alarm about Russia's reluctance to give up its dreams of empire.

Yet now the committee was launching a much-awaited, much-delayed inquiry on exactly the topics that have taken up so much of my life: the shadowy fusion of organised crime, big business and the old KGB.

On that July day, I was the inquiry's first witness. The Kremlin, I explained, had refashioned the traditional Soviet tools of political espionage, adding sophisticated digital tools and all the opportunities presented by globalisation  shell companies, offshore finance, cross-border trade and investment. In short, I said, Britain's response had been pitiful.

A view of the Moscow Kremlin and Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge across the Moskva River

Yet all those months ago, even I couldn't begin to imagine how devastating yesterday's report would be.

Put to one side its dramatic calls for further investigations into the use of money, cyber-attacks and propaganda in the Brexit and Scottish independence referendums, as well as recent general elections.

Even the language of the report  with repeated use of words such as 'surprised' and 'disappointed'  constitutes, in the careful lexicon of government, a scalding rebuke of decades of short-sightedness.

For a start, the ISC explicitly highlights the way in which previous governments  Labour and Conservative alike  have foolishly overlooked the threat from Russia. Such naivety dates all the way back to 1994  when changes to the UK's investor visa scheme allowed holders to smoothly turn them into British passports, with all the rights those precious documents entail, including the ability to make legal donations to political parties.

In no uncertain terms, the report sharply concludes that 'the key to London's appeal was the exploitation' of this scheme.

But that was just the first in a string of blunders. Indeed, the ISC damningly recalls its previous warnings to the Government, pointedly quoting anonymous spymasters who sheepishly claimed their focus on counter-terrorism took priority.

As for the notion that Russia might dare to attack our political system, the report reveals it was barely considered  as demonstrated by the fact that MI5 replied to the committee with only six lines of text on that matter. That was enough for the committee to note there was 'credible' evidence of Russian influence during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. Yet the clueless Clouseaus of MI5 apparently thought this and any other suggestion of Russian mischief was not worth investigating. On cyber-warfare, the ISC notes with shock, nobody appears to be in charge.

With concern dripping from every page, it's hardly surprising the report poses more questions than it answers.

It however makes immediate recommendations that will directly affect the security of all of us. It confirms that the outdated Official Secrets Act of 1989 needs to be replaced with a new system that ensure the registration of those who peddle political influence on behalf of foreign powers. The Computer Misuse Act of 1990 is similarly obsolete, predating the era of mobile phones. Another much-needed recommendation is for a thorough investigation of Russian meddling in our political system. As the report highlights, the authorities have been scandalously incurious about this.

Why does GCHQ, it asks, not look at who lies behind the Twitter accounts that peddle hoaxes and scare stories.

Of course, it does seem that our intelligence services have belatedly turned their attention to online political manipulation  as demonstrated by some tantalising asterisks, reflecting redaction of secret material  scattered throughout the section of the report dedicated to it.

But it is all too little, and shamefully late. As for the report's calls for further investigation into pernicious Russian influence, I fear that there is little prospect of the report's forceful conclusions being matched with real action.

Take the committee's alarm at Kremlin's pinstriped accomplices  the bankers, lawyers and accountants whom it calls unwitting or even witting agents of Russian influence.

Dealing with such rot in our system will need new legislation and a revamped National Crime Agency. Even if that were possible, we cannot ignore the fact that it may be too late already.

To put it bluntly, our country is afloat on a sea of dodgy money. And the bitter truth is that this is our fault.
Its been a hot minute since Hannah Godwin and Dylan Barbour got engaged on Bachelor in Paradise Season 6. So naturally, fans are constantly searching for updates on the couple, from wedding plans to whatever comes next in their relationship. But now, it seems Godwin and Barbour wont be getting married anytime soon due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, the Bachelor Nation alums might be making a major move together soon.

Hannah Godwin and Dylan Barbour are engaged after Bachelor in Paradise Season 6

RELATED: BIP: Will Hannah Godwin and Dylan Barbours Wedding Be Filmed?

For the most part, Godwin and Barbour stayed out of the drama after getting together on Bachelor in Paradise. But once the pair decided to connect, they were in it for the long haul. Then in the summer spinoffs grand finale, Barbour got down on one knee and proposed to Godwin.

Now, its been over a year since Godwin and Barbour got engaged. The Bachelor Nation couple celebrated their one-year engagement anniversary in Huntington Beach, per Us Weekly.

Happy 1 year anniversary to me telling you how fd you are for agreeing to marry me, Barbour wrote on Instagram.

Then in a separate Instagram post, Godwin wrote, What a whirlwind. thanks for the most epic year of my life @dylanbarbour. I never knew I could be so happy, to many more!

Hannah Godwin and Dylan Barbour put wedding plans on pause

RELATED: BIP: Hannah Godwin Wants To Shock Dylan Barbour With Her Wedding Dress

Clearly, Godwin and Barbour are still smitten with each other after Bachelor in Paradise. But unfortunately, Godwin recently revealed her wedding plans with Barbour have been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Before the pandemic, we began looking into venues, dates, etc., Godwin said in the above interview with Us Weekly. But with the unknown state of everything, were putting things on pause and just enjoying being engaged.

That said, the BIP alum hinted she knows where the big event will take place.

The West Coast definitely has our hearts so we are thinking somewhere in California as a spot to tie the knot, Godwin said.

She also confirmed members of Bachelor Nation will be invited to the wedding, including Chris Harrison.

[Chris] been a huge part in our relationship so he can definitely get an invite, Godwin said. Though she suggested the host may not be officiating. Our engagement party included some of our closer friends from Bachelor Nation. So it wouldnt surprise me if they got the invite. As for bridesmaids and groomsmen  stay tuned.

Do Hannah Godwin and Dylan Barbour live together now?

Hannah Godwin and Dylan Barbour from Bachelor in Paradise | TM/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

RELATED: BIP: Hannah Godwin And Dylan Barbour Reveal The Three Things They Definitely Want At Their Wedding

When Bachelor in Paradise Season 6 wrapped in 2019, Barbour and Godwin said they wanted to move in together. However, the couple acknowledged they would be spending some time apart. Godwin worked in LA. Meanwhile, Barbour lived in San Diego. But after quarantining together amid the pandemic, Godwin and Barbour are ready to take the next step.

Ive been back and forth from my LA spot and Dylans San Diego place for a while now, Godwin said. Getting to spend more time in San Diego has definitely made me realize how much I love it. And getting to spend more time with Dylan makes me realize how much I love coffee in bed every morning.

She added, We are definitely on the hunt for a bigger San Diego place that we can both call home.

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Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra government to explain the reasoning behind the prohibition on filming for cast and crew over 65 years of age. While the government has allowed the resumption of film shoots amid the coronavirus pandemic, it has asked cast and crew over 65 years to not participate in filming. A petition filed by actor Pramod Pandey was was heard by the High Court on July 21.

The order also prevents actors below 10 years of age along with 65 years and above, from appearing on the sets due to the COVID crisis. The senior cast and crew members, whose earnings have already been impacted during the lockdown, is now presented with a new challenge.

In a relief of sorts, the Court has asked the government to submit a reply by Friday. It asked the government to explain how senior crew members would earn and live a dignified life if they are not allowed to work. It has also sought explanation on the data used to reach at this order.

Pramod Pandey who filed the petition said that for many actors the film industry is the only source of livelihood. He added that the age cap has put them in a spot. He argued that health of a patient cannot be ascertained without tests and pointed out that COVID-19 does not discriminate on the basis of age. "It is our constitutional right to work and earn a dignified living. But the state government order doesn't allow us to work. We may survive because of corona but will die of unemployment and starvation if we don't work," he added.

Pandey underscored that there is no work for actors like him currently. "I struggled all my life and earn around 40 thousand per month but now there is no work. In fact there are no audition calls as well. The clause for small kids is understandable and they have parents to take care of them but what will actors and crew members who are 65 years plus do. They will die," he argued.

The Court also questioned the state's guidelines that casting should be done through video apps. It said that actors who have small roles to play have no option but to visit studios since no director or producer would agree for such casting.

Also read: Jobs make a return! Hiring activity jumps 33% in June

Also read: HCL Technologies to hire 15,000 freshers this year
WASHINGTON  The United States ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, escalating tensions between the worlds largest economies as President Donald Trump ramps up punitive measures against China ahead of the November U.S. election. Beijing denounced the order Wednesday as outrageous and said it would draw a firm response if not reversed.

The physical closure of the consulate, one of Chinas six missions in the United States, marked a dramatic step in increasingly contentious relations that have been strained not only by the conronavirus pandemic but disputes over trade, human rights, Hong Kong and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.

Previous Trump administration measures against Chinese officials, students and researchers have included travel bans, registration requirements and other steps intended to reduce the countrys footprint in the United States. The administration has also announced its outright rejection of virtually all Chinese maritime claims in the South China Sea.

These actions have come as Trump has sought to blame China for the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., where cases have soared, threatening his prospects for reelection. Trump himself said more closures could be coming if China doesnt change its behavior. Its always possible, he told reporters at the White House.

The State Department said it ordered the consulate closed within 72 hours after alleging that Chinese agents have tried to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system statewide and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

There were indications consulate staff were preparing to leave: Papers were being burned on the consulate grounds late Tuesday night  a common practice when a diplomatic post is being shuttered on short notice.

Cai Wei, the Chinese consul general, told KTRK-TV in Houston the order to shut down was quite wrong and very damaging to U.S.-China relations.

Asked about accusations of espionage and stealing data, Cai said, You have to give some evidence, say something from the facts.  Knowing Americans, you have the rule of law, you are not guilty until you are proved guilty.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that the closure was to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

The United States will not tolerate (Chinas) violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated (Chinas) unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior, she said.

Testifying before Congress on Wednesday, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun lamented that relations today are weighed down by a growing number of disputes, including commercial espionage, intellectual property theft and unequal treatment of diplomats, businesses and journalists.

Those factors led to Trumps action, he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Department of Justice on Tuesday had announced the indictments of two Chinese hackers on charges of trying to steal pharmaceutical secrets from U.S. companies related to the COVID-19 pandemic that originated in China. Although there was no indication the indictments and the consulate action were related, the U.S. has long alleged China is involved in nefarious activity around the country, including from its Houston consulate.

Even before the U.S. announced the closure, which was conveyed privately to the Chinese ambassador on Tuesday, China strongly condemned it.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. He warned of firm countermeasures if the U.S. does not reverse itself.

Wang accused the U.S. of opening Chinese diplomatic pouches without permission multiple times, confiscating Chinese items for official use and imposing restrictions on Chinese diplomats beginning last October and again in June. He also said that U.S. diplomats in China engage in infiltration activities.

In Houston, firefighters responded to reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds Tuesday night but were barred entry. On Wednesday afternoon, consulate staff could be seen loading cleaning supplies and paper products into a van parked outside the building. A U-Haul truck was also parked outside the consulate

First responders were told that people inside the consulate, that they were burning paperwork because they were in the process of being evacuated from the building, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said.

Foreign diplomatic missions operate under legal immunities accorded by international law and may not be entered without permission. However, the destruction of confidential documents at a facility that has been ordered or otherwise forced to close on short notice, including U.S. missions, is not unusual. Most recently in the United States, Russias consulate in San Francisco made news for burning large amounts of material when it was ordered closed in 2017.

Aside from the diplomatic ramifications, the closure of the Houston consulate will make it more difficult for China to provide assistance to its citizens in the southern United States and for U.S. nationals seeking visas and other services there.

In addition to its embassy in Washington and its mission to the United Nations in New York, China has consulates in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. In an apparent bid to stave off the reciprocal closure of an American diplomatic mission in China, the State Department told the Chinese that it would not reopen its consulate in Wuhan, according to two U.S. officials who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. consulate in Wuhan was shuttered in late January at the height of the coronavirus outbreak that started there, but the State Department had informed Congress in early June that it planned to reopen it, possibly this summer.

Besides Wuhan, the U.S. has four other consulates in China  in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenyang  along with its embassy in Beijing and a consulate general in Hong Kong.

In a reflection of Chinas economic importance, a Houston business group expressed regret at the announcement, saying the consulate has been important in building trade, investment and cultural ties. It noted that the Houston consulate was Chinas first in the U.S. when it opened in 1979.

___

Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Juan Lozano in Houston, Texas contributed.
The Montgomery Independent School District wont welcome students back to the classroom in August during the novel coronavirus pandemic as instruction will be held online until at least Sept. 8.

Following an informational presentation during Tuesdays school board meeting, which officially named its new superintendent Heath Morrison, school officials announced that instruction will be held completely online until at least Sept. 8. After that date, parents will choose either in person or online learning.

The districts decision follows a guidance letter from the Montgomery County Public Health Authoritys Dr. Charles Sims and the Montgomery County Hospital District EMS Medical Director Dr. Richard Dickson, which advised the date for postponing opening schools for in-class instruction. Conroe ISD and Willis ISD have also elected to follow the guidance of the public health experts.

The letter states the advisement is due to the number of growing COVID-19 cases in Montgomery County, near capacity caseload of patients in all of the area hospitals, and concern for the spikes in cases that have been noted 10-14 days after holiday weekends earlier this summer.

This decision should give schools the best opportunity to open safely and while potentially reducing the risk of a forced closure later in the year, the letter stated.

Personal experience

The total number of COVID-19 cases in Montgomery County this week passed 5,290, with more than 2,500 active cases and more than 2,630 recovered cases. Among those who have recovered, includes Montgomery ISDs Lake Creek High School Principal, Phil Eaton.

Eaton battled and beat COVID-19 while hospitalized more than 50 days in intensive care at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center, where he continues to visit doctors for rehabilitation from the destructive virus that nearly claimed his life. As the numbers continue to climb around the world, he recalls believing nothing could get him as a kid and thinks of the late Broadway actor Nick Cordero, 41, who was healthy and in the same boat he was in but did not recover.

As he continues to wear a mask and avoid crowds, he says he is proud of the schools leadership and appreciates them for making a decision that may not be popular with everybody. He believes Texas will adopt its approach.

Theres not that many folks who have survived this in my situation, so every time I get down about anything my default is that I survived it and every single day is just a great blessing, Eaton said. One of the great blessings for every educator is working with kids, watching their growth and success. We know they are biting at the bit to get a normal routine going and that part is frustrating, but it takes us back to our number one thing and that is everyones safety right now.

I hope they can come up with something sooner than later that will help us, a vaccine that will support peoples health, Eaton continued. But in the meantime I trust our health officials and believe they have our best interest at heart.

Remote learning

The details for the plan for the new school year, which begins on Aug. 13, is posted on the Montgomery ISD website. It addresses both remote learning and in-person learning options, attendance requirements, special services, extracurricular activity and more.

The plan states that remote learning is expected to be more structured than it was in the spring semester and the district said grades will be given according to the same guidelines as traditional, in-person learning. Students will be subject to the 90 percent rule for attendance to gain credit. The district said truancy rules will apply and the attendance will be taken based on daily participation and progress on assignments in Seesaw.

All students will be given a schedule and will be expected to follow the schedule daily, the plan states.

In highlights posted on social media about the meeting by Montgomery ISD Board President Jim Dossey, which represents his opinion and not the opinion of the board as a whole, he said the goal of the plan is to design the learning environment to enable immediate and seamless transitions between online and in-person learning.

He stated all staff will wear and be provided with face coverings; students age 10 and up will wear masks and there will be a single sign-on for all instructional applications called ClassLink.

This was a major pain point for students in the spring, he stated.

Dossey shared secondary campuses, including Montgomery Junior High School, Oak Hill Junior High School, Montgomery High School and Lake Creek High School will go to an A/B schedule while all students participate in remote learning.

Online learning will not look like how it was done in the spring, he stated. Students will be expected to spend 240 minutes per day in class. Teachers will still take attendance and monitor participation.

Surveys and challenges

The district will send out a technology-oriented survey and another survey before Sept. 8 that will ask parents to make their decision about online or in-person learning. The district asks parents to complete the survey that is intended to determine the technology access in each household by July 29.

Montgomery ISDs plan for remote learning states students are permitted to participate in UIL and extra-curricular activities and are subject to the standard eligibility rules. They will also be subject to take all state and district assessments for accountability and progress monitoring purposes.

There are some challenges that the district is still working through, including after Sept. 8.

Transportation is still an issue and there is not a good solution at this point, Dossey stated. Most students will need to be brought to school by parents. The state continues to provide new guidance every day. This plan will certainly change as we learn more.

For detailed information on Montgomery ISD's plan for moving forward, visit: http://www.misd.org/page/dis.montgomerymovingforward

mellsworth@hcnonline.com
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Linkedin Johannes Ledel (Agence France-Presse) Stockholm  Wed, July 22, 2020 14:04 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406686c0f0 2 Lifestyle Nobel,Nobel-Prize Free

The Nobel Foundation, which manages the Nobel Prizes, on Tuesday cancelled its traditional December banquet because of the coronavirus pandemic and said the award ceremonies would be held in "new forms".

This is the first time since 1956 that the lavish banquet has been cancelled, according to the foundation.

The event traditionally marks the end of the so-called Nobel Week, when the year's prize-winners are invited to Swedish capital Stockholm for talks and the award ceremony.

"The Nobel Week will not be as it usually is due to the current pandemic. This is a very special year when everyone needs to make sacrifices and adapt to completely new circumstances," Lars Heikensten, director of the Nobel Foundation, said in a statement.

Heikensten added that the laureates and their work would be highlighted in "different ways", hinting that prize winners would receive their awards in their home countries or at embassies.

Traditionally, the prize-winners join the Swedish royal family and some 1,300 guests for the banquet at Stockholm's City Hall after the award ceremony -- held on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the prizes' founder Alfred Nobel.

The winners, except Peace Prize laureates who are honored in Oslo, also usually give speeches during the dinner.

Many of the events would be held under new arrangements because of the uncertainty around large gatherings and international travel, the foundation said.

Read also: Five things to know about the Nobel prizes

The announcement of the prizes (Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace and Economics) would still be held scheduled between 5 and 12 October, the Foundation said.

The Nobel Banquet was last cancelled in 1956 to avoid inviting the Soviet ambassador because of the repression of the Hungarian Revolution, Rebecka Oxelstrom, Head of Press at Nobel Foundation, told AFP.

"An unofficial dinner was nevertheless organised, without the ambassador, in another room," she said.

The banquet was also cancelled during the two world wars and in 1907 and 1924.

While no prizes were awarded during World War II, they were during World War I -- although the ceremonies were postponed, Nobel expert Gustav Kallstrand told AFP.

"A ceremony and dinner, without royals, was held in the summer of 1920 when they handed out the awards for previous years," Kallstrand said.
A pro-Trump artist has put up a banner over the Staten Island Expressway depicting Bill de Blasio holding up Lady Liberty's severed head, as he claims the New York City Mayor is turning the Big Apple into a 's***hole.'

Scott LoBaido  who has been painting murals for 25 years  created a mock-up that shows the 59-year-old politician smirking while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt.

He explained about the image that appears as if blood is dripping from the statue's neck: 'It's what he's doing to New York, he's severing the head of the greatest city on earth.'

His eye-catching painting came as the real statue - a gift from the French who were allies in defeating the British during the American Revolution - reopened to the public after coronavirus shutdowns.

A banner depicting Bill de Blasio holding up Lady Liberty's severed head appeared over the Staten Island Expressway on Tuesday. The artist said it was to 'fire up the masses'

Scott LoBaido claimed about Mayor Bill de Blasio: 'New York has turned into a s***hole because of this guy'

But as people began returned to Liberty Island and its neighboring Ellis Island to commemorate its history as a site for processing immigration from 1892 to 1954, across the water LoBaido was making his own statement over exit 13B at rush hour.

It evokes memories of the Tyler Shields image that depicted comedian Kathy Griffin holding President Trump's decapitated head in 2017. It sparked an FBI investigation, lost her jobs and garnered her death threats.

LoBaido's anger comes from the mayor's response the recent Black Lives Matter protests.

The mayor has opted to take $1billion of the NYPD's $6billion funding and inject it into housing projects and youth initiatives in a bid to combat crime.

Trump has threatened to bring troops onto the streets, prompting some cities to look into taking legal action against it.

Like LoBaido, de Blasio too explored his creative side recently and helped volunteers paint Black Lives Matter murals, one of which President Trump denounced and said would denigrate the luxury 5th Avenue shopping area.

The banner evokes memories of Kathy Griffin (left) depicted holding Trump's severed head in a 2017 photo. The banner had to come down 90 minutes after it went up, upon the request of police

The bold banner came as people return to Liberty Island to see the real statue after coronavirus shutdowns

De Blasio responded to Trump's tweet: 'Black people BUILT 5th Ave and so much of this nation. Your 'luxury' came from THEIR labor, for which they have never been justly compensated. We are honoring them. The fact that you see it as denigrating your street is the definition of racism.'

LoBaido told the New York Post on Tuesday that the authorities built NYC.

'New York has turned into a s***hole because of this guy,' LoBaido said about the Manhattan-born mayor. 'He hates the true New Yorkers: police officers, firefighters people who built this city.'

The Black Lives Matter murals have been vandalized a number of times and de Blasio's critics have lashed out at him because the artwork outside Trump Tower has been touched up with paint faster than various pieces of graffiti around the city that shine a negative light on police.

LoBaido did his own road mural of thin blue line outside the 122nd Precinct on Monday in support of cops as the Black Lives Matter movement draws attention to police brutality against people of color.

Within it he etched 'DIAAH' which stands for 'De Blasio is an a** hole.'

The Staten Island artist said about the Manhattan-born politician (left in Staten Island on June 19): 'He hates the true New Yorkers: police officers, firefighters people who built this city'

He was also infuriated after someone wrote 'Black Lives Matter' and 'BLM' on a thin blue line he painted outside a precinct because they found it 'divisive'. 'That thin blue line separates anarchy from civilization,' he claimed. He painted it blue again

LoBaido was infuriated after someone wrote 'Black Lives Matter' and 'BLM' on it.

'That thin blue line separates anarchy from civilization,' he claimed.

He told the Post he pulled the Liberty stunt to 'fire up the masses'.

The artist reported many vehicles blew their horns in response to the striking image. But he was asked by police to take it down an hour and a half after it went up.

He plans for it to reappear elsewhere soon.

The person who sparked his thin blue line fury later came forward. A 21-year-old woman named Skylar said she didn't like the 'divisiveness' it created.

'It seemed like a direct response to the 'Black Lives Matter' mural, and it didn't sit right with me,' she explained to SILive.

'Many people drove by, cursing at me, telling me to "get out," "get off the Island," "you hate America,'"but that's not the case,' she said. 'I did it because I love this country and I see the potential in this country, so that's why I did it.'

LoBaido repainted his blue line and it hadn't been touched again as of Tuesday night.
HOLYOKE  A city resident was seriously injured in a stabbing that occurred in an alleyway Wednesday afternoon.

The victim, a man in his 40s or 50s, was taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield by ambulance after the assault, said Police Lt. James Albert.

He told us it was someone he knows and it was a dispute over money, Albert said.

The victim did not give detectives the name of his assailant so police are continuing to work to identify the suspect, he said.

The stabbing occurred at 1:09 p.m. in an alleyway near 308 Walnut St., he said.

The Detective Bureau is investigating the stabbing. Officers are asking anyone who witnessed it, has any video of the area about the time the crime occurred or if they know anything about the assault to contact them at 413-322-6900, he said.

This is the second violent crime that has taken place in the past two weeks in the city. Detectives are continuing to follow leads in the homicide of Jose Bonilla, 43, of Holyoke, who was shot to death at about 9:45 p.m. near 56 Suffolk Street.

Holyoke detectives are working with Massachusetts State Police assigned to Hampden District Anthony Gullunis office to investigate the crime. They are also asking anyone who knows anything about the crime or has video of the area around the time it was committed to contact them, Albert said.

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LATEST July 22, 4:50 p.m. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is further building up the state's supply of personal protective equipment, directing the Department of Public Health and Office of Emergency Services to increase the stockpile of N-95 respirators and surgical masks for essential workers.

Newsom asked that the stockpile of N-95 respirators be increased to 100 million and surgical masks to 200 million by early fall, the governor's office announced in a press release.

BYD North America is being contracted by the state to produce 120 million N-95 respirators and 300 million surgical masks for California.

To read more, head here.

July 22, 3:45 p.m. Another death row inmate at San Quentin State Prison has died, likely due to complications from the coronavirus.

John Beames, who has been on death row since 1995, died Tuesday at an outside hospital, the 14th San Quentin inmate to die of a likely COVID-19 infection. Beames, 67, was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend's 15-month-old daughter in Tulare County.

As of Wednesday, 2,092 inmates at San Quentin have tested positive for the coronavirus.

July 22, 2:50 p.m. A mass outbreak at the ManorCare Health Services-Tice Valley in Walnut Creek has left 12 residents dead.

The skilled nursing facility confirmed Wednesday that 92 residents and 38 staff have tested positive for COVID-19. Read more about the outbreak here.

July 22, 1:30 p.m. San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Wednesday the expansion of free COVID-19 testing in the city that aims to bring more testing options to the hardest hit parts of the city, including the Bayview, Mission, Excelsior and Visitacion Valley.

Two new pop-up, mobile operations that could test up to 250 people a day will rotate through different neighborhoods, and the pre-existing testing site on the Embarcadero will add 400 new slots a day to its schedule, Breed said. Whats more, the city is looking to open a permanent testing site in the southeast part of the city and will announce a location soon.

Dr. Grant Colfax, the director of the Department of Public Health, said the city is urging residents with healthcare to seek testing from their providers rather than from the free testing sites to free up resources for those without insurance.

July 22, 1:15 p.m. Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody provided updates on case numbers at a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.

Since June 5, when outdoor dining and indoor retail reopened, the county saw a significant uptick in confirmed cases reaching over 250 cases a day in the second week of July.

However, Santa Clara County has the lowest case rate per 100,000 in the Bay Area at 122 positive cases per 100,000 people. In comparison, Marin County has an 815.6 positive case rate per 100,000 and the state has a 295.8 case rate per 100,000.

The Bay Area is generally doing better than the rest of the state, especially when compared to Southern California counties, according to Cody.

Daily hospitalizations per day have also seen significant upticks since the June 5 health order, nearly reaching the same number as the peak of the pandemic in early April, with more than 160 patients in the hospital as of Monday. In the last 14 days, the county has seen a 92 percent increase in hospitalized patients.

Long-term care facilities have done very well in controlling the transmission of COVID-19, seeing a very little spike in cases, according to the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange.

COVID-19 is still disproportionately affecting East San Jose and South County. East San Jose makes up 22 percent of the county population but 35 percent of positive cases. South County makes up 6 percent of the county population and 9 percent of positive cases.

This also means that the Latino population is disproportionately impacted. They make up 27 percent of the county population but 44 percent of positive cases. In comparison, the Asian population is 33 percent of the county but only makes up 6 percent of positive cases.

Cody also pointed to an increase in case rates among young adult residents ages 18-34.

"This is important because although there may be lower rates among hospitalization and severe illness in young adults, this is where the epidemic is spreading most quickly. It will eventually spark a chain of transmission that will ultimately reach someone who is more vulnerable," Cody said. "As the epidemic grows ... we all need to pull together and dedicate ourselves to crushing it once again."

Bay City News contributed to this story.

July 22, 11:30 a.m. San Francisco's Ferry Building Marketplace is closed after malls were ordered to shutter Monday due to the county landing on the state watch list for increased transmission of the coronavirus.

"Shops on the interior Marketplace without dedicated doors to the outside are restricted from serving customers until further direction is provided from the SF Department of Public Health and the City Attorney," according to a statement from the Marketplace. "Interior shops can offer curbside pick-upall transactions and orders may only occur online or by phone."

The following shops with dedicated exterior entrances are open: Acme Bread Co., Blue Bottle, Boulette's Larder, Hog Island Oyster Co., Gott's Roadside and Sur La Table.

The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market and outdoor dining tables will continue to operate normally.

The Ferry Building remains open for ferry passenger and commuter traffic, and for merchants operating for curbside pickup, delivery, and online retail.

Updates will be available on the Ferry Building website on an ongoing basis.

July 22, 9 a.m. A lawsuit filed by a San Francisco law firm against Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration alleges California's statewide order requiring schools to meet public health criteria before being permitted to hold in-person classes is unconstitutional.

The Dhillon Law Group and attorney Harmeet Dhillon's conservative nonprofit group the Center for American Liberty filed the suit on behalf of nine parents and one child.

This decision by the Governor violates the California constitutional guarantee to a basic education, federal due process and equal protection guarantees, and the federal right to an effective education for disabled children, read a statement from the Center for American Liberty.

July 22, 8:50 a.m. San Jose opened its first outdoor dining street Wednesday on San Pedro Street between Santa Clara and St. John streets to support local restaurants.

July 22, 8 a.m. California surpassed New York Tuesday to become the state with the most confirmed coronavirus cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

California, the country's most populous state, has recorded more than 409,000 confirmed cases of the virus, while New York, the fourth most populated state, stands at about 408,000.

It's important to note that when New York was in the midst of a major outbreak in March and April, testing was limited and many cases went unreported.

Florida falls in third place with just under 307,000 cases.

New York has the highest number of coronavirus-related deaths with more than 32,500. New Jersey has the second most with more than 15,700 deaths. California ranks No. 4 with just under 7,900, according to Johns Hopkins.

Deaths in New York may also be underreported and short by thousands, according to analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

July 22, 7:45 a.m. The Marin County Board of Supervisor voted unanimously Tuesday to form a new task force to clamp down on people and businesses violating the coronavirus public health order by issuing fines to violators.

The urgency ordinance goes into effect immediately and allows town, city, and additional county personnel to collaborate with law enforcement officers to address violations of health and safety codes and curb the spread of the virus. The task force will also respond to tips about rule-breaking businesses sent to the SIPviolation@marincounty.org email address.

The fine for businesses that don't comply ranges from $250 to $10,000, depending on the severity of the violation. Individuals can also be fined from $25 to $500 for non-compliance, such as not wearing a mask in public.

Factors determining the size of a penalty include risks to public health, previous warnings, lack of good-faith efforts to comply, and increased revenue generated from noncompliance.

Read more about the health order here.

July 22, 7:15 a.m. San Mateo County's Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $2 million fund to support child care programs negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, local child care programs were struggling financially due to low wages and high operating costs, according to a board memo. The pandemic has only made things worse as facilities must now limit enrollment and incur increased operational costs to uphold physical distancing requirements.

A June survey by the county's COVID-19 Child Care Response Team found that 56% of programs expect a net loss of income in the fall and 48% have one month or less of cash on hand. The relief fund will help them stay afloat by providing grants to cover up to one month of operations.

The county plans to provide $1.35 million to child care centers through grants of up to $55,000 each, and $650,000 to family child care homes through grants of up to $10,000 each.

The total fund represents 1.5% of the county's $134 million Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds, approved by Congress in March.

Bay City News contributed to this report.

Coronavirus in the greater Bay Area: Links you need

COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENTS

Alameda County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Contra Costa County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Lake County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Marin County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Monterey County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Napa County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

San Benito County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

San Francisco County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

San Mateo County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Santa Clara County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Santa Cruz County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Solano County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

Sonoma County: Find the latest COVID-19 numbers and health order.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Here are answers to your most frequently asked questions about coronavirus

Coronavirus cases in California are surging: When will the spike end?

SF's health director: Avoid 'hard-to-resist' gatherings

WHEN WILL THE BAY AREA REOPEN?

Gavin Newsom and state officials vs. Bay Area counties: 7 days of confusion

Gov. Newsom orders California schools on watch list stay closed

San Francisco releases guidelines for schools
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WASHINGTON - Joe Biden accused Elizabeth Warren last year of holding an angry, unyielding viewpoint. She embraced that label and slammed Biden as naive for thinking he could work with Republicans as president. She warned Democrats against picking a Washington insider and pointedly refused to endorse Biden until weeks after exiting the race.

Now, those bitter primary clashes are a distant memory.

Warren, a Massachusetts senator and leading progressive, has become an unlikely confidant and adviser to Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. They talk every 10 days or so, according to aides to both politicians who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely describe their relationship. Those forums have provided opportunities for Warren to make a case on top policy issues to Biden, who ran a more centrist primary campaign.

He adopted Warren-endorsed plans on personal bankruptcy, expanding Social Security benefits and cancelling student-loan debt for millions of Americans. She also helped devise important portions of his post-pandemic economic recovery proposals.

Warren, meanwhile, is lending Biden her progressive credentials and frequently hosts campaign events for him, including one recent fundraiser that brought in $6 million. Only former President Barack Obama secured a greater haul.

Vanquished presidential hopefuls are often called on to rally around the nominee, especially if they want to become vice-president, a role Warren has expressed interest in. But the relationship between Warren and Biden is notable given that they were never particularly close before. It also illustrates a more pragmatic side of Warren, whose presidential campaign was built around economic populism that championed everyday Americans over the rich with the slogan Dream Big. Fight Hard.

Shes interested in problem-solving. Shes more practical than she sometimes seemed during the campaign, said Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor who briefly ran for president himself. She fights for the outcome, but because shes so smart and shes so creative, she can think of more than one way to get there.

Biden has promised to pick a woman as his vice-president and has faced pressure from African American activists to choose a Black running mate as an acknowledgment of their political importance and a response to institutional racism. Warren, who is white, nevertheless remains a finalist.

Even if Warren isnt chosen, she could easily take on the role of treasury secretary or lead the Federal Reserve, where chair Jerome Powells term ends in 2022. That would ensure Warren continues to be an important voice in a Biden administration.

Adam Green, a close Warren ally and co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee advocacy group, said the health and economic fallout of the coronavirus has made the policies she championed as a presidential candidate more vital than ever. He said her strength is pulling and pushing the levers of power to maximize big results no matter the hand she happens to be dealt at the time.

Warren displayed that adaptability with other rivals during the primary, incorporating into her campaign key parts of Washington Gov. Jay Inslees climate plan, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrands family-leave proposal and California Sen. Kamala Harris efforts to promote abortion rights after all had left the presidential race. She also built a close friendship with former Obama administration official Julian Castro, who later campaigned around the country on her behalf.

They werent all feel-good moments, however. Warren feuded with former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and her scalding attack on Mike Bloomberg during the Las Vegas debate was the beginning of the end for the former New York mayors once-promising White House bid.

Indeed, it was a perceived hard edge that made Warren a star on the left long before she ran for president. Ironically, a clash with then-Sen. Biden during a 2005 congressional hearing over a bankruptcy law was the first time many Americans laid eyes on Warren, who was teaching law at Harvard University at the time. It ended with him conceding, Youre a very good teacher, professor.

Warren later conceived of a watchdog group that became the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and, while its creation was still being debated in Congress in 2010, suggested that a watered-down version was unacceptable. Warren said then that shed rather have no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor. After the agency was created, Warrens polarizing nature came through when the Obama administration passed her over to become its first full-time director, fearing a Senate fight.

While running for Senate herself in 2012, Warren squared off with popular Republican incumbent Scott Brown, who tried to use the blood and teeth quote against her.

This is not someone whos willing to be at all flexible and compromise on anything, said Colin Reed, a veteran of Browns 2012 campaign. He said that now Warren has been helpful to a guy who, in a prior life, she had been pretty disdainful of in Biden.

Her presidential campaign didnt go particularly well, Reed said. I dont know if this is her saying, For my next political act, I have to offer something new.

A Warren spokesperson declined to comment for this story, and Bidens campaign has refused to speak publicly about its running mate selection process. But Warren has lately become a visible face of the Biden campaign.

During a recent virtual event meant to appeal to younger voters, she talked about her aversion to coffee by laughing at her own reputation for being extremely high energy: Can you imagine me with caffeine? Warren also showed off her golden retriever, Bailey, who was a staple of her own presidential campaign, declaring, Bailey for Biden.

During the virtual fundraiser she hosted for Biden last month, Warren described how the former vice-president called after her eldest brother died of the coronavirus when I needed some kindness and comfort. The moment was so intimate  despite coming via video conference  that Biden responded by calling her Elizabeth before catching himself and going back to the more formal Sen. Warren.

Were so lucky to have you on the front line, Biden said.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio issued an out-of-state travel advisory for states with above a 15% test positivity rate to protect against spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Wednesday.

A testing positivity rate means how many people, out of those tested, are positive for COVID-19. Ohios is around 6%, according to state data released Wednesday.

People traveling into Ohio from one of these states or returning Ohioans should self-quarantine for 14 days. This advisory is based on a seven day rolling average, and the list of states will be updated weekly.

As of Wednesday, this includes:

-- Alabama

-- Arizona

-- Florida

-- Georgia

-- Idaho

-- Mississippi

-- Nevada

-- Puerto Rico

-- South Carolina

-- Texas

DeWine referenced a case where students traveled to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. Out of 45 travelers, more than half now have tested positive for the coronavirus. He said in the states conversations with health departments, many of them are tracing cases related to out of state travel.

Ohio has been placed on similar lists made by other states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In New York, travelers who do not self-quarantine and fill out travel forms could face a fine and mandatory quarantine.
Vietnams Ministry of Health documented five imported cases of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Wednesday morning, bringing the countrys tally to 401.

Patient No. 397, a 58-year-old Ho Chi Minh City woman, returned to the country from the U.S. on July 16.

She landed at Van Don International Airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh and was brought to a quarantine center in northern Hai Duong Province.

She tested positive for the novel coronavirus twice on July 17 and 20 and was transferred to a hospital for tropical diseases in Hai Duong for treatment.

Patients No. 398 to 401 are four Vietnamese men, aged 24 to 25, who were all repatriated from Russia on July 17.

They were quarantined in the northern province of Hoa Binh and tested positive for the novel coronavirus on July 21.

The patients are now being treated at Hoa Binh General Hospital.

Vietnams COVID-19 has reached 401, with 365 having recovered. No death from the disease has been recorded.

The country has not documented a community infection since April 16.

More than 270 Vietnamese citizens were repatriated from Romania and Poland on Wednesday morning. They were transported to a quarantine center after landing in the central city of Da Nang.

A total of 308 Vietnamese citizens were also brought home from Malaysia on Tuesday afternoon.

The Ministry of Health is planning to repatriate about 120 Vietnamese COVID-19 patients stranded in Equatorial Guinea in August.

The flight carrying these patients is expected to be accompanied by four doctors. They will be admitted to the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi following their arrival.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Palladium One Mining Inc. (TSXV: PDM) (FSE: 7N11) (OTC Pink: NKORF) (the "Company" or "Palladium One") is pleased to report the first drilling results from the Phase 1 winter 2020 drill program at the Lantinen Koillismaa ("LK") PGE-Cu-Ni Project, located in north-central Finland.

Highlights:

32.55m grading 2.86 g/t palladium equivalent (Pd_Eq)*, from 33m down hole, in hole LK20-001 Total platinum-group elements (PGE) of 1.82 g/t Individually by metal, 1.22 g/t Pd; 0.46 g/t Pt; 0.14 g/t Au; 0.23% Cu and 0.16% Ni

Including 16.00m grading 3.64 g/t Pd_Eq Total PGE of 2.43 g/t , Individually by metal, 1.67 g/t Pd; 0.59 g/t Pt; 0.18 g/t Au; 0.27% Cu and 0.18% Ni

Including 1.30m grading 5.70 g/t Pd_Eq Total PGEs of 3.96 g/t , Individually by metal, 2.78 g/t Pd; 0.93 g/t Pt; 0.25 g/t Au; 0.41% Cu and 0.25% Ni

Reported widths are "drilled widths" true widths are estimated to be approximately 90% of drilled width

President and CEO Derrick Weyrauch commented, "We are very pleased with the results from the first hole of the Phase 1 program. These results highlight the high grade, PGE-rich nature of the Kaukua open pit deposit."

Holes LK20-001 through LK20-005 targeted a previously untested up dip portion of the Kaukua deposit (Figure 1 and 2) with the goal of upgrading current inferred resources to indicated and outlining near surface mineralization which could form part of a future bulk sample. The Kaukua deposit hosts 635,600 Pd_Eq ounces of Indicated Resources grading 1.80 g/t palladium equivalent, and 525,800 palladium equivalent ounces of Inferred Resources grading 1.50 g/t Pd_Eq (see press release September 9, 2019).

Table 1. Phase 1 Drill Results

Zone Hole From (m) To (m) Width (m) PGE g/t (Pd+Pt+Au) Pd g/t Pt g/t Au g/t Cu % Ni % Pd_Eq g/t* Kaukua LK20-001 33.45 66.00 32.55 1.82 1.22 0.46 0.14 0.23 0.16 2.86

Inc 45.00 61.00 16.00 2.43 1.67 0.59 0.18 0.27 0.18 3.64

Inc 48.60 49.90 1.30 3.96 2.78 0.93 0.25 0.41 0.25 5.70

Story continues

Palladium Equivalent "Pd_Eq" is calculated using metal prices (in USD) of $1,100/oz for palladium, $950/oz for platinum, $1,300/oz for gold, $6,614/t for copper and $15,432/t for nickel as used in the Company's 2019, 43-101 mineral resource estimate on the Kaukua Deposit (see press release September 9, 2019).

** Reported widths are "drilled widths" true widths are estimated to be approximately 90% of drilled width.

The Company suspended the Phase 1 exploration program in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has announced plans to restart drilling in August. (see news release July 14, 2020).







Figure 1. Greater Kaukua Area showing IP chargeability anomalies and Phase 1 drill hole locations.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6502/60243_2b9998c924b4183b_001full.jpg







Figure 2. Cross section of the northeast portion of the Kaukua Open Pit deposit. Showing hole LK20-001 and historic holes and the combined palladium block model from the 2019, 43-101 resource estimate.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6502/60243_2b9998c924b4183b_002full.jpg

QA/QC

The Phase I drilling program was carried out under the supervision of Neil Pettigrew, M.Sc., P. Geo., Vice President of Exploration and a director of the Company.

Drill core samples were split using a rock saw by Company staff, with half retained in the core box and stored indoors in a secure facility, in Taivalkoski, Finland. The drill core samples were transported by courier from the Company's core handling facility in Taivalkoski, Finland, to ALS Global ("ALS") laboratory in Outokumpu, Finland. ALS, is an accredited lab and are ISO compliant (ISO 9001:2008, ISO/IEC 17025:2005). PGE analysis was performed using a 30 grams fire assay with an ICP-MS or ICP-AES finish. Multi-element analyses, including copper and nickel were analysed by four acid digestion using 0.25 grams with an ICP-AES finish.

Certified standards, blanks and crushed duplicates are placed in the sample stream at a rate of one QA/QC sample per 10 core samples. Results are analyzed for acceptance at the time of import. All standards associated with the results in this press release were determined to be acceptable within the defined limits of the standard used

Qualified Person

The technical information in this release has been reviewed and verified by Neil Pettigrew, M.Sc., P. Geo., Vice President of Exploration and a director of the Company and the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Palladium One

Palladium One Mining Inc. is a palladium dominant, PGE, nickel, copper exploration and development company. Its assets consist of the Lantinen Koillismaa ("LK") and Kostonjarvi ("KS") PGE-Cu-Ni projects, located in north-central Finland and the Tyko Ni-Cu-PGE and Disraeli PGE-Ni-Cu properties in Ontario, Canada. All projects are 100% owned and are of a district scale. LK is an advanced project targeting disseminated sulphide along 38 kilometers of favorable basal contact. The KS project is targeting massive sulphide within a 20,000-hectare land package covering a regional scale gravity and magnetic geophysical anomaly. Tyko is a 13,000-hectare project targeting disseminated and massive sulphide in a highly metamorphosed Archean terrain. Disraeli is a 3,100-hectare project targeting PGE-rich disseminated and massive sulphide in a highly productive Proterozoic mid-continent rift.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Derrick Weyrauch"

President & CEO, Director

For further information contact:

Derrick Weyrauch, President & CEO

Email: info@palladiumoneinc.com



Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release is not an offer or a solicitation of an offer of securities for sale in the United States of America. The common shares of Palladium One Mining Inc. have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration.

Information set forth in this press release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address a company's expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks associated with project development; the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mining and mineral processing; fluctuations in palladium and other commodity prices; title matters; environmental liability claims and insurance; reliance on key personnel; the absence of dividends; competition; dilution; the volatility of our common share price and volume; and tax consequences to Canadian and U.S. Shareholders. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60243
On the Frontline Against China, the US Coast Guard Is Taking on Missions the US Navy Can't Do

Competition with China has drawn more Pentagon resources to the Pacific, but the most visible U.S. military presence there...
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Palladium One Mining Inc. (TSXV: PDM) (FSE: 7N11) (OTC Pink: NKORF) (the "Company" or "Palladium One") is pleased to report the first drilling results from the Phase 1 winter 2020 drill program at the Lantinen Koillismaa ("LK") PGE-Cu-Ni Project, located in north-central Finland.

Highlights:

32.55m grading 2.86 g/t palladium equivalent (Pd_Eq)*, from 33m down hole, in hole LK20-001 Total platinum-group elements (PGE) of 1.82 g/t Individually by metal, 1.22 g/t Pd; 0.46 g/t Pt; 0.14 g/t Au; 0.23% Cu and 0.16% Ni

from 33m down hole, in hole LK20-001 Including 16.00m grading 3.64 g/t Pd_Eq Total PGE of 2.43 g/t , Individually by metal, 1.67 g/t Pd; 0.59 g/t Pt; 0.18 g/t Au; 0.27% Cu and 0.18% Ni

Including 1.30m grading 5.70 g/t Pd_Eq Total PGEs of 3.96 g/t , Individually by metal, 2.78 g/t Pd; 0.93 g/t Pt; 0.25 g/t Au; 0.41% Cu and 0.25% Ni

Reported widths are "drilled widths" true widths are estimated to be approximately 90% of drilled width

President and CEO Derrick Weyrauch commented, "We are very pleased with the results from the first hole of the Phase 1 program. These results highlight the high grade, PGE-rich nature of the Kaukua open pit deposit."

Holes LK20-001 through LK20-005 targeted a previously untested up dip portion of the Kaukua deposit (Figure 1 and 2) with the goal of upgrading current inferred resources to indicated and outlining near surface mineralization which could form part of a future bulk sample. The Kaukua deposit hosts 635,600 Pd_Eq ounces of Indicated Resources grading 1.80 g/t palladium equivalent, and 525,800 palladium equivalent ounces of Inferred Resources grading 1.50 g/t Pd_Eq (see press release September 9, 2019).

Table 1. Phase 1 Drill Results

Zone Hole From (m) To (m) Width (m) PGE g/t (Pd+Pt+Au) Pd g/t Pt g/t Au g/t Cu % Ni % Pd_Eq g/t* Kaukua LK20-001 33.45 66.00 32.55 1.82 1.22 0.46 0.14 0.23 0.16 2.86

Inc 45.00 61.00 16.00 2.43 1.67 0.59 0.18 0.27 0.18 3.64

Inc 48.60 49.90 1.30 3.96 2.78 0.93 0.25 0.41 0.25 5.70

Palladium Equivalent "Pd_Eq" is calculated using metal prices (in USD) of $1,100/oz for palladium, $950/oz for platinum, $1,300/oz for gold, $6,614/t for copper and $15,432/t for nickel as used in the Company's 2019, 43-101 mineral resource estimate on the Kaukua Deposit (see press release September 9, 2019).

** Reported widths are "drilled widths" true widths are estimated to be approximately 90% of drilled width.

The Company suspended the Phase 1 exploration program in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has announced plans to restart drilling in August. (see news release July 14, 2020).







Figure 1. Greater Kaukua Area showing IP chargeability anomalies and Phase 1 drill hole locations.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6502/60243_2b9998c924b4183b_001full.jpg







Figure 2. Cross section of the northeast portion of the Kaukua Open Pit deposit. Showing hole LK20-001 and historic holes and the combined palladium block model from the 2019, 43-101 resource estimate.

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6502/60243_2b9998c924b4183b_002full.jpg

QA/QC

The Phase I drilling program was carried out under the supervision of Neil Pettigrew, M.Sc., P. Geo., Vice President of Exploration and a director of the Company.

Drill core samples were split using a rock saw by Company staff, with half retained in the core box and stored indoors in a secure facility, in Taivalkoski, Finland. The drill core samples were transported by courier from the Company's core handling facility in Taivalkoski, Finland, to ALS Global ("ALS") laboratory in Outokumpu, Finland. ALS, is an accredited lab and are ISO compliant (ISO 9001:2008, ISO/IEC 17025:2005). PGE analysis was performed using a 30 grams fire assay with an ICP-MS or ICP-AES finish. Multi-element analyses, including copper and nickel were analysed by four acid digestion using 0.25 grams with an ICP-AES finish.

Certified standards, blanks and crushed duplicates are placed in the sample stream at a rate of one QA/QC sample per 10 core samples. Results are analyzed for acceptance at the time of import. All standards associated with the results in this press release were determined to be acceptable within the defined limits of the standard used

Qualified Person

The technical information in this release has been reviewed and verified by Neil Pettigrew, M.Sc., P. Geo., Vice President of Exploration and a director of the Company and the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Palladium One

Palladium One Mining Inc. is a palladium dominant, PGE, nickel, copper exploration and development company. Its assets consist of the Lantinen Koillismaa ("LK") and Kostonjarvi ("KS") PGE-Cu-Ni projects, located in north-central Finland and the Tyko Ni-Cu-PGE and Disraeli PGE-Ni-Cu properties in Ontario, Canada. All projects are 100% owned and are of a district scale. LK is an advanced project targeting disseminated sulphide along 38 kilometers of favorable basal contact. The KS project is targeting massive sulphide within a 20,000-hectare land package covering a regional scale gravity and magnetic geophysical anomaly. Tyko is a 13,000-hectare project targeting disseminated and massive sulphide in a highly metamorphosed Archean terrain. Disraeli is a 3,100-hectare project targeting PGE-rich disseminated and massive sulphide in a highly productive Proterozoic mid-continent rift.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Derrick Weyrauch"

President & CEO, Director

For further information contact:

Derrick Weyrauch, President & CEO

Email: info@palladiumoneinc.com



Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release is not an offer or a solicitation of an offer of securities for sale in the United States of America. The common shares of Palladium One Mining Inc. have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration.

Information set forth in this press release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address a company's expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks associated with project development; the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mining and mineral processing; fluctuations in palladium and other commodity prices; title matters; environmental liability claims and insurance; reliance on key personnel; the absence of dividends; competition; dilution; the volatility of our common share price and volume; and tax consequences to Canadian and U.S. Shareholders. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60243
US Conducts Airstrike Against ISIS Terrorists in Somalia

The U.S. military announced it carried out an airstrike against ISIS terrorists in Somalia on Tuesday, saying the fighters had recently targeted local forces.

U.S. Africa Command conducted an airstrike against ISIS-Somalia terrorists after they attacked partner forces in a remote location near Timirshe, Somalia, July 21, the command, known as AFRICOM, said in a statement on Wednesday.

It added that when this airstrike occurred, U.S. forces were in the area in order to advise and assist Somali and partner forces. The force said it conducted the airstrike in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia.

It was not immediately clear whether American military personnel was involved in the incident.

AFRICOM noted that at least seven ISIS terrorists were killed in the strike. No civilians were killed or injured in the strike.

We continue to apply pressure on terrorist groups and assist our Somali partners in disrupting their operations, said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Miguel Castellanos, with AFRICOM, in a news release. We continue our support to rid Somalia of the likes of ISIS and al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab is an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network that has carried out numerous attacks over the past two decades, namely in Somalia and Kenya.

U.S. forces were in the area to assist and advise Somalia forces, according to the statement, which added that ISIS and al-Shabaab have used propaganda to incite and intimidate locals.

Mistruths and lies are the terrorist weapons of choice, said Col. Chris Karns, with AFRICOM. ISIS-Somalia and al-Shabaab have bankrupt narratives and visions of the future. Our partnership to unmask and degrade the capability of these terrorists is essential to security and stability in Somalia.

ISIS in Somalia is reportedly active around the northeastern Puntland region of Somalia. The last confirmed U.S.-led airstrike against ISIS in the country occurred last October.

Meanwhile, the United States has approximately 500 troops in the country.

Earlier this month, AFRICOM confirmed an airstrike in a different region of Somalia, targeting al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group al-Shabaab.

Al-Shabaab are using checkpoints to threaten, extort, and restrict the movement of innocent people in Mogadishu and Lower Shabelle region, U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Bradford Gering, the director of operations for Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, said in a statement in confirming the airstrike. Al-Shabaabs actions continue to impede much needed economic development and progress.

AFRICOM said there were no civilian casualties caused in the incident. Its not clear if a drone was used to conduct the strike, as is often the case in the region.
There are mounting fears of a renewed escalation in military confrontations in Libya, after Egypt made moves indicating it may potentially be ready to intervene with ground troops there for the first time.



Late on Monday, Egyptian lawmakers approved the deployment of its troops abroad, though they did not name Libya.



The lawmakers' approval comes after a warning by Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi that Egypt would not remain idle if there is a threat to its national security or to neighbouring Libya.



Lawmakers stopped short of providing a time frame for any intervention or naming the oil-rich North African state in their latest vote, but they said it was to defend their national security on the "strategic western front against the work of armed criminal militias" and what they described as "foreign terrorist elements".



Egypt is among three countries that have been overtly supporting Libya's renegade General Khalifa Haftar's military operations.



This includes his 2019 year-long failed bid to overtake the capital Tripoli - which is the power-base of his rivals, the internationally recognised government headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.



The Libyan government is militarily backed by Turkey.



In the last two months, the front line has gradually shifted towards central Libya's City of Sirte - which is the gateway to the country's oil in the east.



On the weekend, France, Germany and Italy warned that they were ready to consider possible sanctions against countries that continue to violate the UN arms embargo on Libya.



France has previously been accused of supporting Gen Haftar as well - which it denies.

Source: BBC









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
Singapore launches SDG45 million campaign to spur local consumption of lifestyle and tourism offerings

Singapore has set aside SGD45 million to support local lifestyle and tourism businesses, as well as encourage residents to explore different sides of the sunny island.

Titled "SingapoRediscovers", the campaign is a joint initiative by Enterprise Singapore (ESG), Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) and Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

"With SingapoRediscovers, we have collaborated with various partners to create value for consumers through engaging content, quality experiences and attractive promotions," said STB Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Keith Tan.

"Through this campaign, we hope that Singaporeans will gain fresh perspectives, and take a short holiday  or a Singapoliday  to rediscover their own country and help support local businesses.

Photo: Connected to India

In a press statement, STB said that this is the largest campaign introduced in Singapore to drive local demand. It is the first since Step Out Singapore after SARS in 2003, and BOOST (Building on Opportunities to Strengthen Tourism) in 2009 after the Global Financial Crisis.

SingapoRediscovers focuses on helping locals discover hidden gems and collaborating with hotels, tour operators, attractions and precincts to develop quality experiences and attractive promotions. Precincts will be packaged as mini-holiday destinations, where locals can embark on a Singapoliday.

We recognise the challenges that many of our local F&B and retail businesses face, even as the economy gradually reopens," said ESG Deputy CEO, Ted Tan.

"Aside from the targeted measures rolled out earlier to help these sectors address immediate needs, we hope that they can create new revenue streams and encourage increased consumer spending through exciting promotional programmes."

Thien Kwee Eng, CEO of SDC, added, As one of the key leisure destinations in Singapore, we believe Sentosa is in a good position to stimulate the tourism sectors recovery. Through SingapoRediscovers, we will build on our island charm and unique value proposition to encourage locals to rediscover Sentosa, while helping businesses rebound from the effects of the pandemic.
Photo: BC gov. Flickr Dr. Bonnie Henry

Thirty new confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been identified in British Columbia, 11 of which have come from the Interior Health region.

In a written statement from Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix, the province announced there have been 3,328 total positive tests province-wide, with 291 in the IH region.

Currently, there are 266 active cases of the virus in B.C., with 75 active cases in the Interior. Interior cases have skyrocketed following multiple exposure events earlier this month in Kelowna.

Currently, 15 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in B.C., three of whom are in intensive care.

By region the number are:

1,043 cases of COVID-19 in the Vancouver Coastal Health region

1,731 in the Fraser Health region

140 in the Island Health region

291 in the Interior Health region

69 in the Northern Health region

54 cases of people who reside outside of Canada.

There have been no new COVID-19 related deaths for a total of 189 deaths in British Columbia.

There have been no new healthcare facility outbreaks. In total, one long-term care facility and two acute-care facilities have active outbreaks.

There are several community exposure events and one active community outbreak. Public health teams are actively contact tracing and requesting the assistance of anyone who may have been exposed to monitor themselves closely and follow public health guidance.

Health officials are urging British Columbians to bend our curve back down to where it belongs and they attribute many of the new cases to an increase in social interactions this summer.

The recent community cases have meant that some restaurants, wineries and recreational facilities in the Okanagan and Lower Mainland have been notified of potential exposure with some employees.

"Let's play safe and stay safe, and make sure COVID-19 doesn't spoil our summer. Let's put out these hot spots and keep our firewall strong."
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum on Wednesday urged a judge to declare it unacceptable for federal officers to engage in unconstitutional police state-type tactics'' by scooping up citizens and placing them in unmarked vans without probable cause.

The attorney general relied on the statement of Mark Pettibone, a 29-year-old Portland man who said he was placed in a van on July 15 as he was walking home from a protest in downtown Portland by men in camouflage uniform, taken to the federal courthouse, questioned and released without facing any charges.

The state also is relying on a widely circulated video on social media of another, unidentified man dressed in black being approached by men in camouflage, being detained and walked to an unmarked van and driven off.

That is terrifying. Its terrifying for the people who are being marched into an unknown van by large, unknown men. And its going to terrify who witnesses it and everyone who hears about it, said Sheila H. Potter, chief deputy trial counsel in Rosenblums office. It was designed to terrify to quell protests.

David M. Morrell, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney, argued that the state doesnt have standing to sue the federal government and failed to prove that the detention of Pettibone or the man captured on video was unlawful. He also pointed out Rosenblum withdrew a second video exhibit contending the same practice by federal officers, after learning that the video depicted someone in San Diego, not Portland.

Regardless of Mr. Pettibones state of mind, the state has offered nothing to suggest there was no reasonable basis to believe Mr. Pettibone engaged in criminal or violent conduct, Morrell said.

U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman heard about 90 minutes of arguments during the hearing held by video conference and didnt rule from the bench. Hes expected to issue a written ruling soon.

Rosenblum late Friday filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, the Marshals Service and the Federal Protective Service seeking to bar federal officers from illegally detaining anyone without probable cause on city streets and whisking them off in unmarked rental vans.

The suit alleges that the actions by federal officers have violated free speech and due process rights of Portland residents and resulted in unlawful seizure, creating a public nuisance. On Wednesday, Rosenblum urged the court to grant a temporary restraining order to restrict the federal officers actions.

Morrell asked the judge to give deference to the federal officers and allow them to defend the downtown federal courthouse and themselves from violent demonstrators at night as the city marks the 56th day of protests against police violence and systemic racism.

What the state is seeking also could curtail investigatory stops by officers, known as Terry stops, which are based on a different legal standard of reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause and are a lawful investigatory tool, he said.

Officers must make split-second judgments in tense, uncertain, rapidly-evolving circumstances, Morrell said, and he asked the judge to use caution and not allow the courts to direct how police do their jobs.

Any injunction issued that could hold an officer in contempt would have a serious chilling effect on the way in which law enforcement officers attempt to discharge their lawful obligations in the course of their duties, he said.

The Hatfield courthouse did not damage itself. It was the result of intentional, repeated, violent conduct by protesters, Morrell said. It would be a very bad precedent for a court to superintend law enforcement operation in a very trying dynamic in a violent atmosphere.

Lawyers for the state attorney general repeatedly pointed out that the federal government still, as of Wednesday, had not explained why Pettibone was detained, who picked him up or why.

The federal government has given us nothing, said attorney Steven M. Lippold, the states chief trial counsel. Either there was no probable cause or reasonable suspicion, or it goes to the fact that they dont know who did it either, because there are so many different agencies involved.

Rosenblum asked the court to order federal officers to identify themselves and their agency before pulling someone off the street, why theyre being detained and not proceed without probable cause or arrest.

Say who they are, where theyre from, what theyre doing, Potter said.

The secretive maneuvers make other protesters fear theyll be snatched off the citys streets, Potter argued. They have a chilling effect on free speech and assembly, she said.

Theres no other reason for law enforcement not to take five seconds to say, were with the U.S. Marshals. Youre under arrest,' other than to terrify people, she said.

Mosman said he agreed for the purposes of the hearing that Pettibone likely wasnt involved in any criminal activity and was held without probable cause. But he pointed out that the state had provided little information on the man detained in the video circulated on social media and whether federal officers had a lawful reason to seize that man at that time.

In an apparent response to the video, Mark Morgan, a senior official with Customs and Border Protection, wrote on Twitter last week that Border Patrol agents had approached a man on the streets of Portland and moved the suspect to a safer location'' for questioning to avoid a large and violent mob, suspecting he had previously assaulted a federal officer or destroyed federal property.

The judge characterized the states main argument as all we want is the arresting agencies to use their words, to say who they are?

In a sense, yes, Potter replied, noting that few people recognize the different insignias on the different uniforms worn by agents from the various federal agencies.

In both Pettibones case and in the video of the other man, federal officers wore fatigues with POLICE patches on their uniforms, Morrell said.

The judge focused his questions on whether the conduct by the federal officers was unlawful, what evidence the state had to support it and whether the state has legal status to seek court relief.

Its terrifying to be lawfully arrested. The fact that what law enforcement does is terrifying doesnt advance your case very much, Mosman told state lawyers. I cant stop law enforcement from doing things thats terrifying, if thats lawful.

Morrell argued that the state doesnt have standing to sue the federal government distinct from Pettibones individual right to challenge the federal actions.

In court papers, U.S. Department of Justice co-counsel Andrew Warden said the state cant seek relief from the court based on at most two alleged past encounters involving federal law enforcement officers, when Plaintiff has not demonstrated that similar incidents will take place in the future. But Plaintiff has also failed to demonstrate that even those past encounters violated Oregonians rights.

Rosenblum and her lawyers countered that the state has a greater interest in this case beyond Pettibone to protect the welfare of all the citizens of Oregon.

If federal officers are not obeying laws and taking people into custody without probable cause, the people of the state of Oregon are confused about what is happening... and there will be a lack of trust in state authorities when theyre trying to advance local law enforcement, Lippold said.

Rosenblum, in closing, told the court: These are very extraordinary times. These are very extraordinary circumstances. We are asking for extraordinary relief from the court today. We want our cities to be safe, that the U.S. and Oregon constitutions dont get suspended under any circumstances ... so that we can proceed to have a city that we can be proud of, that can be safe and that we can all get along in.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
UPDATE : The testing has been canceled.

RIDGEFIELD  Drive-thru COVID-19 testing will be offered at Scotts Ridge Middle School this weekend.

The testing site at 750 N. Salem Road will be open Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Those interested in getting tested should click here to register online.

People who are uninsured should select cash in the insurance section of the online registration, and submit for reimbursement from the government at the time of their visit.

Those getting tested must bring insurance and ID cards on the day of testing. To speed up the process, people are encouraged to also bring a copy of each card.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:28:55|Editor: huaxia

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HELSINKI, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Employees in Finland are returning to work faster than expected, labor and business statistics officials said here on Wednesday.

"The number of the furloughed has now come down to 90,000 from the peak of 170,000 in Finland," the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment said.

Tens of thousands of Finns have been laid off due to the pandemic. Under Finland's furlough scheme, people do not lose their jobs and can be re-hired quickly without the need to go through the recruitment process.

"The number of furloughed people is declining faster than we expected in the spring," a ministry official told the national broadcaster Yle.

As the service and catering sectors reopened in early June, the number of furloughed employees has declined in Finland. However, the number of furloughed experts and specialists has grown, the business daily Kauppalehti reported on Wednesday, adding that unemployment among young people is also on the increase.

In the capital Helsinki, last month, the number of unemployed people under the age of 25 was 158 percent higher than a year earlier, and the respective figure was 131 percent for the 25 to 29 age group, according to Statistics Finland's Labor Force Survey released this week.

There were 47,000 more unemployed people in June than a year ago. Last month, the country's overall employment rate was 72.4 percent, and the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. A third of the unemployed were furloughed only, according to the survey.

Full-time furloughed people are included in the national unemployment figures, while those employed part-time are not. Enditem
A girl from Afghanistan has shot and killed two Taliban fighters and wounded several others after they dragged her parents from their home and murdered them for supporting the government.

Daughter's vengeance

The Taliban fighters in the province of Ghor stormed the home of Qamar Gul last week. They were looking for her father, who was the village chief before they shot her parents outside their home.

Gul then got out of their house with an AK-47 on hand and opened fire. She killed two Taliban fighters who shot and killed her parents and she injured several men. Her father was open about his support for the government, which was why the Taliban went to his house and killed him.

According to the local police chief Habiburahman Malekzada, when his wife resisted, the two men dragged them outside the house and shot them both.

Also Read: Son of Federal Judge Assigned to Epstein Case Assassinated by Man Dressed as Fed-Ex Driver

According to officials, the teenage girl is between 14 to 16 years of age. It is common for Afghan to not know their exact age. After the shooting, a new group of Taliban fighters came back to attack Gul's house but the villagers and other militiamen who are pro-government drove them away after a gunfight.

Security forces have now taken Gul and her younger brother to a safer place, according to the spokesman to the provincial governor, Mohamed Aref Aber and as reported by the Daily Mail.

Since the incident, numerous social media platforms have been flooded with praise for the heroic act of the teenage girl. In the past few days, a picture of Gul wearing a headscarf and holding a machine gun has gone viral online.

Facebook users have written their admiration for the teenager, saying that her revenge will eventually give her peace.

The Taliban are known to kill people regularly, especially after they find out that the person is pro-government. They kill those that they suspect of being government informers or informers of the security forces. Despite the agreement for a peace talk, the Taliban still attacked security forces in the past months.

Who are the Taliban

Led by Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, a religious scholar, the Islamic Taliban movement is a force that fights the Afghan government and is a major threat to the country, as reported by the BBC.

In 2001, the group was removed from power by an invasion led by the United States, but they gradually regained their strength and they now control more territory, as reported by the Washington Post.

Since 2018, the group has been bargaining with the United States, and both are looking to compromise and end the conflict that has run for decades and has cost thousands of innocent lives.

Also called "students" in the Pashto language, the Taliban started in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan. The group was formed after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It is believed that they were formed in religious seminaries and was paid for by money from Saudi Arabia.

The Taliban promises to restore peace and security in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that they will enforce their own version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once they are in power.

The popularity of the group was due to their success in curbing lawlessness, stamping out corruption, and making the areas and roads under their territory safe for commerce.

However, the group also introduced and supported punishments such as public executions and amputations for those who are guilty of theft. The men were required to grow beards and the women had to wear a burka.

The Taliban had also banned music, television, and cinema and prevents girls aged 10 and over from going to school. The group was accused of human rights and cultural abuses.

Related Article: Two Italian Teens Pay Bitcoins to Watch Livestream of Children Being Tortured and Murdered

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Protests around the country have been largely peaceful, with spikes of conflict usually arising in clashes with law enforcement. While polls show that a majority of voters support the Black Lives Matter movement, Mr. Trump and some of his advisers are counting on a backlash, so far nonexistent, with white voters in the fall that will boost the presidents numbers.

Clearly what theyre looking to do here is scare the living hell out of seniors, said Pia Carusone, a Democratic ad maker. But, she said, the new Trump ad falls short in the realm of believability. Youre making the assumption that the voter that youre hoping to convince is going to relate and think that this could happen. And then you have to make the leap to blame Biden or the Democrats or whoever. And I think it fails that first test.

Stuart Stevens, a Republican strategist who now works with the anti-Trump group known as the Lincoln Project, said Mr. Trumps team was focusing on an issue that doesnt rank at the top of voter concerns.

Id bet a lot that the actress they hired for this is more worried about Covid-19 than a phony threat about cops, Mr. Stevens said.

Of the $24 million the Trump campaign has spent over all on television ads over the past 20 days, roughly $20 million has gone to ads that focus solely on the issue of the police. About 70 percent of that $20 million has been spent on a singular ad that shows a split screen: One side depicts an empty 911 call center, with an answering service asking callers to select their emergency, and the other displays violent scenes from the protests.

The Trump digital apparatus has also been running a torrent of ads warning of a country in crisis: Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem, one ad with 308 variations reads. They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting.

The Trump team has spent at least $2 million in the past two months on Facebook ads with similar themes, according to Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm.
WASHINGTON - The president's maskless appearance at Trump International Hotel this week - in apparent defiance of District of Columbia coronavirus regulations - caught the attention of local authorities, who inspected the hotel on Wednesday to check forcompliance with city rules.

The investigator found no violations at the time of the visit, but the agency pledged to continue monitoring the hotel.

District Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, this spring ordered people to cover their faces while in the lobbies and common areas of hotels and to maintain six feet of distance from others, in an effort to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

But President Donald Trump did not wear a mask while greeting GOP congressional candidate Madison Cawthorn on Monday at his downtown Washington hotel, according to video of their interaction. Nor did multiple guests standing near one another in the lobby, the video shows.

ABC News reported Tuesday that guests at Trump properties have repeatedly flouted face-covering mandates. A Facebook invitation for a birthday party scheduled for Saturday at the District hotel featured a "NO MASKS ALLOWED" disclaimer, the network reported. The invitation did not appear to be visible on the social media site Wednesday.

An inspector from the District Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, which fines businesses with liquor licenses that don't comply with city regulations, visited the hotel on Wednesday afternoon. Inspectors can only issue fines or warnings for violations that they see in person, and all hotel staff members and visitors during the inspection were wearing masks, ABRA said.

Representatives of the hotel and the Trump Organization did not immediately return requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee said organizers took precautionary steps before a GOP fundraiser at the hotel on Monday that the president attended, including requiring those present to pass coronavirus tests that day and undergo temperature screenings and wellness questionnaires.

The campaign of Cawthorn, the North Carolina congressional candidate who shared the clip of the president's maskless appearance at the hotel, did not return requests for comment.

Despite overwhelming support from public health experts, masks have become a political litmus tests of sorts, with many Republicans eschewing them.

As virus cases have spiked in the South and the West, however, a growing number of Republican elected officials have taken to wearing face coverings and calling them necessary.

Trump has recently softened his long-standing resistance and hostility to the use of masks to reduce coronavirus transmission. On Monday, he tweeted a photo of himself wearing a mask and called it patriotic - hours before he showed up at his hotel without one.

He urged Americans to wear masks the next day, at his first daily virus briefing in months.

Bowser has worn a mask in public and urged Washingtonians to cover their faces for the past several months. She expanded her mask mandate Wednesday to include any time outdoors when people are likely to come into contact with others.

Penalties for violating social distancing rules remain rare in the capital, however, with four establishments fined in the past month.

Trump International Hotel has posted dozens of images on social media with employees wearing masks in recent weeks. The hotel also attempted to open its outside sidewalk cafe, as other restaurants and hotels have done during the pandemic, but closed it again after guests were being bothered by passersby on the street.

The hotel's compliance with the city's mask regulations came under scrutiny after Cawthorn, the congressional candidate, shared the video of him meeting Trump on social media.

The clip showed Trump, accompanied by his attorney Rudy Giuliani, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., greeting an enthusiastic Cawthorn. Among that group, only Giuliani wore a mask.

Other people visible in the video did cover their faces.

Greg Aselbekian, who was listed on the Facebook invitation as the host of the "NO MASKS ALLOWED" birthday party Saturday at the hotel, did not return requests for comment made through his social media channels.

- - -

The Washington Post's Jonathan O'Connell and David A. Fahrenthold contributed to this report.
(TNS) As coronavirus infection rates continue to spike around the country, states and cities are diverging in their response on how to contain the spread of COVID-19.

President Trump and many governors are insisting that public schools reopen for the fall, as is the case in Florida, while other states and regions are adopting a more cautious approach.

Los Angeles and San Diego, for instance, announced last Monday that their public schools would be online only this fall. On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered that most school classrooms in the state stay closed. And he has rolled back the reopening of many businesses and closed indoor dining and social spaces, even as Georgias governor rescinded local mask orders.

Political leaders in California have largely had public support for their decisions. One reason may be that Californians have greater faith in scientists than do people elsewhere in the country.

New data from the American Enterprise Institutes Survey on COVID-19 and American Life show that California residents hold science professionals in high regard. The survey asks how much confidence, if any, respondents have in various groups of people  local government, news media, college professors, federal government officials  being able to act in the best interests of the public.

Some 45% of Californians said they had a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public, compared with 38% nationally and only 35% of Floridians surveyed. The inverse is true in the case of President Trump: Only 12% of Californians have great confidence in him acting in the publics interest, compared with 20% of Floridians.

The data reveal that 68% of California residents think scientists make decisions and recommendations based on fact and systematic investigation. Other parts of the country think differently. Only 47% in Texas, 51% in Florida and 54% in the South (17 states, including those on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, up to Maryland) believe the same. These are significant differences and may help explain the political reticence and delay among leaders in some of those states to impose tighter coronavirus restrictions, such as mask mandates, despite the surge in new infections.

No surprise, these sentiments toward science during the coronavirus crisis play out in attitudes about personal behavior in the pandemic. For instance, when asked whether one would be comfortable attending a worship service in person, 50% of Californians said they would be very uncomfortable doing this, compared with 39% of Floridians and 42% for the rest of the nation. Similarly, when asked about attending a sporting event, 60% of Californians said they would be very uncomfortable, compared with 43% of Floridians.

The same pattern is seen in socializing with friends and taking children to playgrounds. Californians are more cautious because they are aware of the dangers of such behaviors.

In terms of public policies, Californians are more apt to accept the evidence and advice that doctors and scientists have presented to the public. The survey also found that when asked to weigh the costs and benefits of shutting down businesses and social life, 65% of Californians supported shutdowns to keep the public safe. That number was appreciably lower in Florida and Texas  both at 54%.

Californians are not experiencing COVID-19 differently from the rest of the country. Almost 90% are following the coronavirus news closely and are feeling the dire economic impacts, just like Americans everywhere else. Its important to note that Californians are not embracing scientific evidence because the state is overwhelmingly liberal. The survey shows that California leans slightly to the left; 37% of Californians say they are liberal, 33% say they are conservative, and the remaining 28% declare themselves as moderate. California leans a bit more left than the national average, which generally leans to the right.

As White House officials push to reopen the country and public schools, most Californians are rejecting that dangerous impulse  based on science.

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
When tested in vitro, arsenic trioxide killed tumor cells and prevented the formation of new colonies. This leukemia drug also boosted the effect of radiation therapy on medulloblastoma, a type of central nervous system tumor most common in children

By Andre Juliao | Agencia FAPESP  Researchers affiliated with the University of Sao Paulos Ribeirao Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP) in Brazil have demonstrated the potential of a leukemia drug, arsenic trioxide, to treat medulloblastoma, a type of brain cancer most common in children. When they tested arsenic trioxide on cells taken from one of the most aggressive subgroups of this type of tumor, they obtained promising results in terms of tumor cell death. The drug also made the tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, was supported by FAPESP.

Twelve medulloblastoma subgroups are currently recognized according to their molecular characteristics, which also indicate the prognosis. One of the subgroups with the worst prognosis is known as SHH. This tumor has a somatic mutation in gene TP53, and its treated with chemical and radiation therapy, said Paulo Henrique dos Santos Klinger, first author of the article, written as part of his masters research at FMRP-USP, and supported with a scholarship from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

The study was part of the project Interactions between emerging therapeutic targets and developmental pathways associated with tumorigenesis: emphasis on pediatric malignancies, which is led by Luiz Gonzaga Tone, a professor at FMRP-USP.

The project focuses on an in-depth investigation of dysregulation of the signaling pathways that control normal embryonic development and its link to the onset and progression of pediatric cancer, Tone said.

Radiotherapy can have severe adverse effects on a childs brain, causing cognitive, endocrine and motor problems. Hence, the importance of developing therapeutic strategies that reduce or eliminate the need for radiation is important.

In the study, the researchers selected different SHH tumor cell lines and tested different doses of arsenic trioxide, a medication used to treat acute myeloid leukemia. They also tested different doses of radiation in conjunction with the administration of the drug.

On its own, arsenic trioxide proved capable of killing tumor cells and preventing the formation of new tumor cell colonies. The effects were enhanced when the drug was combined with radiation therapy. The drug was not found to be significantly toxic when applied to healthy cells.

Moreover, arsenic trioxide alone could be used to treat pediatric medulloblastoma patients as old as three years, possibly in conjunction with the chemotherapy drugs typically used to treat this type of cancer. Children in this age group with brain cancer cannot be treated with radiation therapy since it may cause irreversible damage to the central nervous system.

Mutation

The drug was chosen because it is a well-known blocker of the SHH signaling pathway in leukemia. The SHH pathway is essential to human embryonic development and is deactivated when embryogenesis is complete. If the pathway is reactivated for some reason, which are currently unknown, then cancer can develop, including some types of skin cancer and various types of leukemia and medulloblastoma.

Another advantage of arsenic trioxide is its capacity to cross the blood-brain barrier, which protects the central nervous system from circulating toxins or pathogens. Previous studies showed this penetration to be reasonable in medulloblastoma, said Elvis Terci Valera, last author of the published paper. Valera is an attending physician at the teaching hospital (Hospital das Clinicas) operated by FMRP-USP and a professor at the institutions child health program.

The prognosis for SHH-type medulloblastomas is typically intermediate, with 50% of patients responding well to treatment. However, the prognosis is worse when a somatic mutation occurs in TP53 because this gene plays a key role in cell division control via the SHH pathway and can counteract alterations that can lead to cancer.

The germline mutation of this gene points to Li-Fraumeni syndrome, characterized by several clinical factors but generally involving the loss of function of TP53 and increasing the likelihood of various types of tumors, Klinger said.

Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) confers an inherited familial predisposition to a range of cancers. In children, it entails an augmented risk of the occurrence of medulloblastomas, especially those of the SHH subgroup.

The researchers now plan to test the drug in animal models to determine whether the results are the same as those of the cell experiments. If they are the same, then the treatment may subsequently tested in humans.

###

About Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at http://www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at http://www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.
New Delhi, July 22 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called upon the US industries to take advantage of the recent reforms in India by investing in sectors as diverse as space and healthcare.

Addressing the India Ideas Summit hosted by the US-India Business Council via video conferencing, Modi said that now is the best time to invest in India.

He cited sectors such as agriculture, aviation, insurance and finance, defence and space, among others, which offer long-term sustainable returns and scale.

Exhorting investors, he said that tapping into the country's food processing, aviation and power industry can be beneficial for them as key reforms have been carried out in these sectors.

He enticed the US industry by saying that special incentives are being provided to the investors.

On the FDI front, the Prime Minister revealed that India attracted $20 billion in foreign capital during April-July despite the Covid pandemic.
KENTWOOD, MI -- Police were called to keep the peace at a Tuesday Kentwood City Commission meeting after loud protesters brought the session to an early end.

The protesters were at the meeting to urge city commissioners to pass a resolution supporting state legislation that would grant drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants in Michigan.

Geme Lowe with Movimiento Cosecha GR acknowledged people were chanting inside City Hall when commissioners adjourned the July 21 meeting early.

Kentwood police were called to the scene but made no arrests. They only advised the protesters that they were locking the lobby and people needed to leave.

Lowe said her group had approached Kentwood City commissioners three times in the past, asking for a resolution but with no results.

Its very important for us. It could be a matter of life and death not to have a license, Lowe said.

More from MLive

Drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants wont be backed by West Michigan city

Pro-immigration caravans to push for worker protection in coronavirus crisis
Through my many years of self-searching, prayers, and meditation, I have cleaned out the old for the new life. This has created a new foundation upon which to build my new life of joy, gratitude, living in the presence of love. I am learning to respond to all circumstances and situations in life with a loving solution. These problems are opportunities for my practicing to live from a loving motivation and my heart. In doing this, I take responsibility, today. This is the process of growing up and maturing.

In childhood, my information came from family, friends, and religion. I listened to the doctors and ministers and more problems multiplied. I became addicted from doctors' prescriptions and my minster thought I should stay in my tormenting marriage. I did not find my answers in reading autobiographies, either. I read every one I could, looking for how famous people arranged their lives.

My family modeled their beliefs and mindset; however, it was not working for me. I was a sponge and followed my parents lead. At that time, I did not understand that people pass down what they learn without question and keep perpetuating what does not work. Learning that I could create my own mindset to overcome my inherited genetics, not volunteer to be a victim, and release all false beliefs brought freedom. My parents did not mature, but I can. I do not have to live my parents' life.

I acted as a child reacting in my older years as this was the only way I knew. In the past, I came from immature reactions of fear. Today, I have become aware that changing to responding in love is the responsible way to live. There have been many traumatic occasions in my life in this growing up time for me to practice.

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11 I understand today that I cannot change overnight or by a magic wand. It is a step by step doing it differently. My book, "Paradigm Busters, Reveal the Real You", at Amazon has the details chapter by chapter for moving forward in your life.

Through faith and truth, it is possible to rise above the fear and past family patterns of immaturity and live beyond its influence in faith. Moving into the "eye of the hurricane" where there is peace and calmness sounded wonderful to me. As fear and old beliefs are outgrown, maturity develops. This is a good time to seek a spiritual counselor or someone who can help restore total well being from healthy actions. Living in the "Now' and not recreating the family dysfunction creates fearlessness brings maturity, gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and unconditional love that is also labeled Christ Consciousness.

When turning my life over to a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, I felt a new power and direction to continue in my spiritual journey. My walk in faith moves me further from the qualms and turmoil of the past. I yield to being in the presence of peace.

I gave up being the director of my life. I daily surrender to a beneficent loving force of the universe for guidance and direction from the love within my heart. I believe submitting to a loving basis for my life was the most difficult decision and action I have taken. Love had always been there, I was afraid to listen and be vulnerable. This was the turning point in my life. Making the decision to allow love to be my assistance and bring direction created a new basis for my life. I changed from being a fear-based person into being a love- based person. Becoming an agent of love is powerful.

Who will I become? Maybe people will not like the real me. How will my life be different? Will I even have a life? Telling the truth can be scary. However, expressing my secrets with a trusted person/counselor is freeing. What you see is what you get. I will have integrity. I will be genuine.

I cannot recreate a new past. Therefore, to accept that I can learn from it and move on is a new independence. The past is history. For me the change brought forgiveness for all past, present and future people, and events in my life. I give up the emotional strings to be free of reliving my parents' life and my growing up.

Finding forgiveness, compassion, gratitude, and unconditional love for all, creates a new life in joy. Living in the "Now" is a gift that is why it is called "The Present". This has brought insight and understanding that I did not expect.

My efforts have produced wisdom for my counseling, books, monthly columns, blog, and many articles on the internet. I have come through major challenges of life and have a new life in the presence of love. Knowing the truth sets me free. Extending this information has become valuable for helping others to move into a better life.

I am an ordained spiritual minister and medium for readings, counseling, regression, and healing.

Check out my website https://www.angelicasgifts.com/



My 173 videos on You Tube athttps://www.youtube.com/user/puyallup98372.



My blog at http://marilynredmondbooks.blogspot.com./

Contact me at marilyn@angelicasgifts.com
'The PSBs ended up recording Rs 7,709 crore losses in the March quarter compared to the Rs 11,688 crore profits of their private peers,' reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.

Three perennially loss-making banks have returned to the profit track.

IDBI Bank Ltd, which carries the soul of a public sector bank in a private bank's body, recorded a net profit of Rs 139 crore in the March quarter of FY20.

Indian Overseas Bank's net profit is even higher -- Rs 144 crore.

Kolkata-headquartered Uco Bank too came back to the black, albeit with a smaller profit of Rs 17 crore.

Why does this call for celebrations?

For IOB, it's profit after 18 quarters. It had been making losses since September 2015 when the Reserve Bank of India decided to take a close look at the banks' bad loans through an intense inspection called asset quality review.

Since then, till December 2019, the Chennai-based bank's accumulated losses had been Rs 25,037 crore.

Uco Bank had got into the red zone a quarter later, in December 2015. Till December 2019, in 17 quarters, its accumulated losses had been Rs 16,274 crore.

IDBI Bank's return to profit has been relatively quicker -- after 13 successive quarters but its quantum of losses has been more than that of the two banks put together, Rs 41,832 crore.

Like Uco Bank, IDBI Bank, too, started its losing streak in December 2015, but unlike the other two, it had made small profits in the June and September quarters of 2016.

The return to profit of these three could have made March 2020 a landmark quarter, but some of the larger banks have spoilt the party.

Bank of India tops the list with a Rs 3,571 crore loss, followed by Canara Bank (Rs 3,259 crore), Union Bank of India (Rs 2,503 crore), Central Bank of India (Rs 1,529 crore), Punjab National Bank (Rs 697 crore), Punjab & Sind Bank (Rs 236 crore) and Indian Bank (Rs 218 crore).

Overall, of the 12 public sector banks, seven had posted losses in the March quarter.

As a pack, the PSBs ended up recording Rs 7,709 crore losses in the March quarter compared to the Rs 11,688 crore profits of their private peers. The number of PSBs has shrunk following consolidation and I am not clubbing IDBI Bank with them.

There is a silver lining, though: All PSBs have made operating profits. Collectively, that is Rs 38,013 crore -- not very far behind the private banks' overall operating profit of Rs 46,304 crore. But their entire operating profit has been eaten away by provisions for bad loans.

The group of PSBs has set aside Rs 50,318 crore for bad loans in the March quarter, about 50 per cent higher than the private banks (Rs 32,687 crore).

This brings us to the most critical aspect of a bank's balance sheet -- the non-performing assets or NPAs. The gross NPAs of all PSBs have been coming down.

Still eight of the 12 have gross NPAs in double digits.

As a percentage of the loan book, Central Bank has the highest gross NPAs of 18.92 per cent, followed by Uco Bank (16.77 per cent).

Another five PSBs have more than 14 per cent but less than 15 per cent gross NPAs. None can, however, dislodge IDBI Bank from its numero uno position. It has 27.53 per cent gross NPAs.

The new entrant in the high bad-loan club in the private sector is Yes Bank Ltd (16.80 per cent). It had been in bad health for the past few years, thanks to all sorts of dubious exposures, but kept on fooling the regulator through many innovations.

Among the government-owned banks, State Bank of India has the lowest gross NPAs -- 6.15 per cent; in the pack of private banks, HDFC Bank Ltd (1.26 per cent).

After setting aside money, the net NPAs of IDBI Bank is 4.19 per cent, the highest among private banks but lower than many PSBs.

Six of the PSBs have at least 5 per cent or more net NPAs.

Led by Punjab & Sind Bank (8.03 per cent), the list features Central Bank, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank, Uco Bank and IOB. State Bank has the lowest net NPAs in this pack -- 2.23 per cent.

The net NPAs are an indicator of a bank's health.

The gross NPAs could be high but if a bank has provided for bulk of them, the net NPAs drop. The provision makes sure that once it is able to recover the bad loans, the money recovered will add to the bank's profits.

The rise in the listed private and public sector banks' deposit as well as advance portfolios in the financial year 2020 ending March has probably been the lowest in recent history.

The growth in deposits has just been 5.64 per cent; the credit growth has been even more tepid -- 3.31 per cent.

Let's take a closer look at some of the banks' business growth. HDFC Bank's deposit growth has been 24.3 per cent; Bandhan Bank Ltd has grown its deposit portfolio at an even higher pace, 32 per cent, although on a much lower base. Yes Bank's deposit base got depleted by 54 per cent.

Among the majority government-owned banks, only State Bank has recorded a double-digit deposit growth -- 11.3 per cent, of course on a very high base. Its deposit portfolio in March was Rs 32.4 trillion while the entire pack of private banks' deposit base was Rs 38.9 trillion.

Overall, the private banks' deposit pile grew at 5.21 per cent against 5.86 per cent growth of PSBs.

This busts the myth that there is a crisis of confidence in the private sector and that customers are rushing with their money to the PSBs, seeking implicit government guarantee.

When it comes to advances, HDFC Bank's growth has been 21 per cent and that of Bandhan Bank 60 per cent. A few private banks have shown a drop in their advance portfolio.

Yes Bank's loan book has shrunk by 29 per cent. Barring IOB and Uco Bank, all PSBs have shown growth in their loan books -- in single digits.

Indian Bank tops the chart with a 9.6 per cent growth.

Most banks have provided for a large part of their bad loans. With recovery gathering momentum, their health would improve. Or, so we had thought in March. But the pandemic has queered the pitch.

Barring a few, pain and uncertainty will be the way of life for the industry in 2021.

For some banks, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel has turned into a flicker.

Tamal Bandyopadhyay, a consulting editor with Business Standard, is an author and senior adviser to Jana Small Finance Bank Ltd.
Amsterdam, NL, July 22, 2020 - The Journal of Parkinson's Disease and its publisher IOS Press are proud to announce the two articles that have won the first Parkinson Prize, recognizing these outstanding contributions to the advancement to Parkinson's disease research. Recipients of the award are lead investigator Thomas Foltynie, MD, PhD (research article) and co-authors Heiko Braak, MD, and Kelly Del Tredici, MD, PhD (review article).

The winning papers are: Aviles-Olmos I, Dickson, J, Kefalopoulou, Z, Djamshidian, A, Kahan, J, Ell, P, Whitton, P, Wyse, R, Isaacs, T, Lees, A, Limousin, P, Foltynie, T (2014) Motor and Cognitive Advantages Persist 12 Months After Exenatide Exposure in Parkinson's Disease. J Parkinsons Dis, 4, 337-344; and Braak, H, Del Tredici, K (2017) Neuropathological Staging of Brain Pathology in Sporadic Parkinson's Disease: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff. J Parkinsons Dis, 7, S71-S85. They are freely available to everyone to read, download, and share.

These papers were selected by members of the Journal of Parkinson's Disease's Editorial Board from among 461 research articles and 153 review articles published between the journal's launch in 2011 and 2019. Awardees will receive a commemorative plaque. The Parkinson Prize will continue as an annual award, and in 2021 an article published in 2020 will be selected.

Importance of the Work

The Foltynie study adds confidence that the potential beneficial effects of exenatide for the treatment of Parkinson's disease may be related to more than transient symptomatic benefits. The trial participants, who used exenatide for one year as part of the investigators' first trial, were reviewed a year after stopping exenatide, and their "off dopaminergic medication" video assessments remained improved compared to participants who were randomly assigned to the control group.

"We have learned that careful long-term follow-up can be hugely instructive and have embraced the long-term follow up strategy in the evaluation of exenatide in our current phase 3 trial. My co-investigators and I are very honored that the Journal of Parkinson's Disease has chosen to recognize this article in this way," commented Prof. Foltynie.

Prof. Braak and Dr. Del Tredici review the development and rationale for the six-stage staging model they proposed for brain pathology related to sporadic Parkinson's disease (Neurobiol Aging 2003) and ensuing controversies. This staging model continues to fuel discussions as well as new hypotheses and new experimental models pertaining to the pathogenesis and pathomechanisms of Parkinson's disease.

"Neuropathological staging of protein misfolding disorders helps to provide insights into the regional distribution of pathology, its potential systemic spread or propagation along neuroanatomical connectivities, and the selective vulnerability of specific types of neuronal and non-neuronal cells, whereby the prion-like concept of the synucleinopathy and the theory of selective vulnerability in Parkinson's disease are by no means mutually exclusive," explained Prof. Braak and Dr. Del Tredici. "We would like to thank the Journal of Parkinson's Disease Editorial Board members for their recognition of our work."

2020 Parkinson Prize Recipients

Tom Foltynie, MD, PhD, is Professor of Neurology in the Department of Clinical and Movement Neurosciences, UCL Institute of Neurology and Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London. He is responsible for movement disorder patients, particularly Parkinson's disease patients, undergoing advanced treatments such as deep brain stimulation, apomorphine, and duodopa. He is chief investigator for a series of trials of exenatide, a potential neurorestorative treatment for Parkinson's disease, as well as the lead clinician at UCL for trials of alpha synuclein antibody treatment for Parkinson's disease and Oxford BioMedica / Axovant's gene therapy product for Parkinson's disease, and the Transeuro Parkinson's disease cell transplantation program.

Prof. Foltynie trained in medicine at UCL. After qualifying in 1995, he worked in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. From 1999 to 2003, he undertook his PhD in Cambridge looking at the heterogeneity of Parkinson's disease, describing differences in cognitive abilities between patients under the influence of various genes including COMT and BDNF, and tau. He finished his neurology training between Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London before taking up his consultant clinical academic position in London in 2008. He was promoted to Professor in 2016.

A native of Kiel, Heiko Braak, MD, completed medical school at the University of Kiel, receiving his doctorate in 1964. After the habilitation in anatomy (1970), he became Professor of Anatomy in Kiel (1974). As Visiting Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School (1978), he worked with Prof. Norman Geschwind and published the monograph Architectonics of the Human Telencephalic Cortex (1980). He directed the Institute for Clinical Neuroanatomy, Dr. Senckenberg Anatomical Institute at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main (1980-2002). After retiring from university teaching, he was appointed Guest Researcher (2002-2009) at the Anatomical Institute until moving to Ulm University (2009), where he is Senior Professor and co-group leader of the Section Clinical Neuroanatomy (Department of Neurology, Center for Biomedical Research).

Prof. Braak is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (Halle/Saale) and the 2014 recipient of the Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson's disease Research (Michael J. Fox Foundation). In 2018, he was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany's Great Order of Merit. His research interests include neurodegeneration, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and pathoarchitectonics of the human cerebral cortex. He was married to Prof. Eva Braak until her death in 2000 and is now married to Kelly Del Tredici.

A native of San Francisco, Kelly Del Tredici, MD, PhD, came to Germany on a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University (1989) after studying at Loyola University of Chicago and Fordham University. She completed medical school at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, receiving her doctorate in anatomy there in 2004. Following medical residency at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Neurology in Winnenden (near Stuttgart), she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Dr. Senckenberg Anatomical Institute (Institute for Clinical Neuroanatomy, Goethe University) in 2006. She moved to Ulm University (2009), where she is co-group leader of the Section Clinical Neuroanatomy (Department of Neurology, Center for Biomedical Research). She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Her research interests include neuroanatomy, neurodegeneration, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Kelly Del Tredici is married to Heiko Braak.

"The entire Editorial Board is delighted to formally recognize these important contributions to the literature on Parkinson's disease and is honored to have the opportunity to publish such significant work in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease," stated Editors-in-Chief Patrik Brundin, MD, PhD, and Bastiaan Bloem, MD, PhD.

###
After his meeting with the Congressional Republicans, United States President Donald Trump said that "good things" are coming to Americans in the second COVID-19 stimulus relief package, Monday.

However, despite Trump's optimism, fresh challenges arose due to the new divisions between the White House and the Senate GOP. These problems are caused by the worsening crisis yet also expiring emergency relief.

The senate has been ready to roll out the second stimulus package worth $1 trillion in just a few days, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.But the release of the relief aid has been complicated by some of the administration officials who interjected other priorities, including criticizing more testing money for the virus.

Meanwhile, Trump said in the meeting that there has already been a lot of progress in terms of relief aid. He also acknowledged the sudden rise in cases and COVID-19 death in the country, saying that it is unfortunate that something very tough is once again happening, ABC 27 reported.

With the cases of COVID-19 once again worsening in the states, Congress is left with little choice but to draft another form of relief package for Americans. The sudden rise of cases has again prompted businesses that ere just getting back to shut down. Many schools are still not fully opened and jobs are also scarce. This is all happening as the $600 unemployment benefit is set to expire.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called out the attempts by the White House to block the money allocated for testing. She said that doing so is going beyond ignorance. She also emphasized how crucial it is that the country be able to end the spread of the virus.

Read also: Blacks, Latinos, Poor People Less Likely to Receive $1,200 Stimulus Checks

On the other hand, USA Today reported that Trump's meeting with the congressional republican leaders, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that distribution of the second round of checks is being put into consideration, as well as the payroll tax cut. However, he stated that these could still change since the relief measure is still being drafted.

McCarthy also did not go into the specifics of the provisions, but it can be recalled that Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has proposed to limit the number of those who will receive the check to people with an annual income of $40,000 or lower.

McConnell was also asked about the possibility of a payroll tax to be included in the Senate bill, but he refused to give any specific information about the provision. Instead, he said that they will be having a follow-up discussion at the White House to further discuss a common approach to the issue. He also added that they would need to approach the Democrats to discuss.

If the payroll tax cut will be included in the package proposed by the Republicans, this would be a big change for the GOP lawmakers since they have been very insistent on refusing the president's call for it. Trump has repeatedly argued that the payroll tax cut will help boost economic growth.

"I think it's an incentive for companies to hire their workers back and to keep their workers," Trump told reporters.



Related article: $600 Unemployment Benefits to End in Days: Mitch McConnell, Republicans Encourage People to Work

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
India: Christians faced 135 cases of persecution in first half of 2020; believers lynched, sodomized

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In India, 135 cases of persecution occurred in the first half of 2020, including a lynching, community ostracization, and the sodomization and murder of two Christian men, a new report has revealed.

According to a new report from the Delhi-based Evangelical Fellowship of India, amid the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, Christians faced more opposition than ever from their communities because of their faith, primarily at the hands of Hindu extremists. Between January and June, numerous reports surfaced of Christians being falsely accused, threatened, and attacked.

Uttar Pradesh, ruled by the Bhartiya Janata Party, topped the persecution scale with 32 cases of hate crimes. Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India, with nearly 200 million people. However, only about 350,000 Christians live in the state.

In Odishas Kenduguda village in Malkangiri district, a 14-year-old Christian boy was allegedly crushed to death with a stone by a group of people who then chopped the body into pieces before burying the remains in several places. In the report, police noted the victim and his family had adopted Christianity three years before the murder.

In Tamil Nadu, a Christian father and son were tortured, sodomized with rods, and murdered by local police. In Chhattisgarh, there were six documented cases of targeted violence against Christians just in April despite the national lockdown being in place.

In Bastar and Dantewada districts, Christians faced stiff opposition to bury their dead, and in Jharkhand, Christian women were sexually assaulted and others socially ostracized. In Pundiguttu village, Christian converts were ordered to renounce their faith or risk being denied water from the community well and other penalties.

While 135 cases of persecution were reported, the actual numbers might be much larger, notes EFI. Many cases go unreported due to fear among the Christian community, a lack of legal literacy and, the reluctance or refusal of police to register cases.

The police have been very reluctant and slow to register FIRs in these cases involving recognizable offenses despite being duty-bound to do so under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Even in the cases registered with the police, most never come to court, EFI notes.

The report also cited incidents of persecution against other religious minorities, including Muslims. In June, groups of young men in East Delhi district were directed by their handlers to kill members of the minority Muslim community, the report found. Additionally, mosques were burned to the ground and academic institutions and small shops destroyed.

EFI warns that persecution is likely to increase in future years due to proposed changes to laws and policies in India. It specifically cites the push for an all-India law against conversions from the Hindu faith.

Currently, eight out of 29 states in India have adopted anti-conversion laws that seek to prevent any person from converting or attempting to convert, either directly or otherwise, another person through forcible or fraudulent means, or by allurement or inducement. However, such laws are often used by Hindu extremists as an excuse to disrupt church services and harass Christians.

Concluding the report, EFI appealed to the government of India and the leaders of the states named in the report to ensure the rule of law and the security of religious minorities in India.

We especially appeal to the State Governments of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, to deal stringently with the various right-wing organizations operating in these states whose primary agenda is to create an atmosphere of fear among the Christian community and other religious minorities, it said.

A separate report from Persecution Relief, which tracks anti-Christian persecution and harassment in India, reported 293 cases of Christian persecution in the first half of 2020. Most recently, a Christian pastor and father of four was abducted and murdered in Bhatpar, Maharashtra state.

Persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA notes that since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP party rose to power in 2014, Indias Christian minority has faced increasing persecution from Hindu militant groups.

The country is ranked at No. 10 on Open Doors 2020 World Watch List of the countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian. According to the CIA World Fact Book, about 80% of India's population is Hindu.
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Starved savers who are desperately seeking a decent return are being targeted by fraudsters posing as genuine investment firms.

Reports of investment scams soared by 45 per cent over lockdown, with 1,600 cases recorded in June, reports Action Fraud.

Experts warn that an increasingly common - and convincing - tactic is for crooks to mimic legitimate companies.

Reports of investment scams soared by 45 per cent over lockdown, with 1,600 cases recorded in June, reports Action Fraud

The copycat con artists lure in savers by advertising top-paying deals on Google and social media sites under the real firm's name.

When investors click on the link provided, they are directed to a fake website that looks identical to the real one.

The cloned site will use the same logo, pictures and wording. It will even duplicate the company registration number and address, so that it appears legitimate if investors cross-check the details with Companies House and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The crooks often use names and job titles belonging to genuine employees to reassure investors who may check to see if they really exist.

The bonds offered typically pay slightly higher returns than genuine ones on offer, usually between 3 per cent and 5 per cent, to entice savers desperate to earn a better return.

Tricked out of 85,250: 86-year-old widower Tom Hill

Often, it is not until the promised monthly or quarterly interest payments fail to arrive that investors even realise they are the victim of fraud.

Since the end of last year, around 300 scams involving copycat firms have been reported to the Investment Association - with the majority of incidents occurring during lockdown.

Victims lost around 4 million. The FCA has put out 249 warnings about copycat firms this year alone.

Widower Tom Hill lost 85,250 to fraudsters posing as brokers for Swiss bank Julius Baer.

Tom, 86, had stumbled across the firm at the start of April when searching on Google for a risk-free investment bond that paid a regular income.

Before investing, the father-of-two checked the details on the website matched those on Companies House and the FCA register.

He says the two men he spoke to claimed to be a senior broker and the head of compliance and were well-spoken.

Tom, who lives near Trowbridge, Wiltshire, says: 'They were able to answer any questions I had. And every time I called they answered the phone as if they were from Julius Baer. It seemed legitimate.'

Tom had asked for a low-risk investment and was recommended a one-year Barclays bond paying 4.734 per cent. The former teacher knew this was a good rate but that it didn't sound too good to be true.

Tom transferred 85,000 on April 9, plus 250 to cover a supposed broker fee.

When Santander called him to query the transaction, Tom said that, to the best of his knowledge, the investment was legitimate.

The payment was cleared two hours later. But, later that week, Santander called to tell him the investment was a scam after receiving information from HSBC, the recipient bank.

On May 19, he received a letter from the bank saying it would investigate the fraud. But, as of this month, Tom had still not been told if he'd get his savings back.

Probe: Asked about Tom's case, a Santander spokesman says it is investigating and waiting on information from HSBC

He says: 'After I found out about the scam I felt physically sick for some time. I did all I could to check the firm was genuine.

'Days later, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and it felt like everything was happening at once. I was banking on the income to pay for my transport to and from the hospital in Bath.'

Julius Baer says it is aware of the issue and has warned about cloned firms on its website.

A Santander spokesman says it is investigating and waiting on information from HSBC.

Another fraud victim, Mat Booth, 48, was tricked into transferring 200,000 to fraudsters posing as the SG Group.

The father-of-two, from Buckinghamshire, was cold-called at the start of last year by a supposed broker offering investments that could deliver profits of up to 10 per cent.

Bank fraud failings Banks have been accused of ignoring a new code of conduct introduced last year to protect scam victims who have taken a 'reasonable' level of care. They are also supposed to provide 'effective' warnings to alert customers. Following a report in April that revealed some banks are still unfairly blaming victims to avoid paying refunds, the Lending Standards Board, which oversees the code, launched a formal review of it last week. The code is voluntary but most major banks have signed up.

He mentioned the company's name to a friend who works for an investment bank, who confirmed it was legitimate.

He also checked the registration and address details matched those on Companies House.

Satisfied the company was legitimate and its market performance was good, he transferred 100,000 to a Santander bank account and 100,000 to a Barclays account, both in the SG Group's name.

The supposed investments included Deliveroo, an Amazon merger, plus all sorts of seasonal investments he really liked.

Santander flagged the first 100,000 as suspicious and returned it to his bank account. When he called who he thought was SG Group to report his concerns, the scammers said there had been a technical glitch and then blocked his calls. Mat reported it to his bank Lloyds, but it said it was unable to claw back the second 100,000 payment from Barclays and refused to refund him.

Mat, who runs a car business, says: 'I didn't sleep for the last few weeks of December and most of January. I was in a dark place and felt as if I had fallen off a cliff.

'I have run a firm for 28 years and never been caught up in anything like this and there I was having to explain I had lost half my wealth to my wife and children.'

Richard Emery, fraud consultant at 4Keys International, says: 'I do not see any basis for Lloyds refusing to refund this customer. What else could he have done to check the firm was legitimate? Lloyds needs to take responsibility.'

A Lloyds spokesman says: 'Our decision not to refund was not connected to Mr Booth ignoring any warnings before transferring large sums of money through his business account where there were frequent high value payments made to car auctions.

'While he did take steps to ensure a company in that name existed, he didn't validate that the people who approached him about the investment opportunity were from the genuine firm, which would have highlighted the scam before he lost any money.'

a.murray@dailymail.co.uk
The Tweedy Browne Global Value Fund (Trades, Portfolio) recently disclosed its portfolio updates for the second quarter of 2020, which ended on June 30.





The fund operates as part of New York-based value investing firm Tweedy, Browne Co. LLC. The portfolio managers aim to invest in a diverse range of companies in developing countries, with an emphasis on undervalued securities, in order to achieve long-term capital growth.

According to its investing criteria, the fund's top five buys for the quarter were for Coca-Cola Femsa SAB de CV (NYSE:KOF), CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd (HKSE:00001), Kuraray Co Ltd (TSE:3405), Jardine Strategic Holdings Ltd (SGX:J37) and FUJI Seal International Inc. (TSE:7864).

Coca-Cola Femsa SAB de CV

The fund added 573,975 shares, or 59.79%, to its investment in Coca-Cola Femsa SAB de CV, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.44%. During the quarter, share traded for an average price of $42.06.

Coca-Cola Femsa is the world's largest Coca-Cola (KO) franchise bottler by volume. Based in Mexico City, the multinational beverage bottling company offers 131 brands to nearly 290 million consumers daily.

On July 22, shares of Coca-Cola Femsa traded around $42.20 for a market cap of $70.79 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 35.88.

GuruFocus gives the stock a financial strength rating of 5 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 6 out of 10. The cash-debt ratio of 0.42 and Altman Z-Score of 2.06 are average for the industry and indicate the company is not in immediate danger of bankruptcy. The operating margin of 13.67% and net margin of 6.22% reflect slight downtrends over the past few years.

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CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd

The fund also upped its stake in CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd by 2,744,500 shares, or 135.43%, which had a 0.31% on the equity portfolio. Shares traded for an average price of 53.94 Hong Kong Dollars ($6.96) during the quarter.

Story continues

Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison is a multinational conglomerate that mainly operates in ports, shipping and related services, as well as retail, infrastructure, energy and telecommunications.

On July 22, shares of CK Hutchison traded around HK$50.85 for a market cap of HK$195.90 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 4.88.

GuruFocus gives the stock a financial strength rating of 4 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 7 out of 10. The cash-debt ratio of 0.31 is below 60.19% of competitors, while the Altman Z-Score of 0.68 shows the company could be in danger of bankruptcy. Revenue and net income have seen growth in recent years, with a three-year revenue growth rate of 11.4%.

ed6b35fb9bc4263a32bf11851dc0617e.png

Kuraray Co Ltd

The fund purchased an additional 1,101,000 shares of Kuraray Co Ltd, increasing the position by 133.16% and impacting the equity portfolio by 0.20%. During the quarter, share traded for an average price of 1,111.18 Japanese Yen ($10.37).

Kuraray is a Japanese company that manufactures chemicals, fibers and other materials. The Tokyo-based company makes products for a wide variety of industries, from medical to textiles.

On July 22, shares of Kuraray traded around ?1,105 for a market cap of ?381.54 billion and a price-book ratio of 0.75.

GuruFocus gives the stock a financial strength rating of 6 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 7 out of 10. The Altman Z-Score of 1.84 suggests potential issues with solvency, but the interest coverage ratio of 38.7 is higher than 75.17% of competitors and indicates the company can continue making payments on its debt. The operating margin of 9.02%, which is above the industry median of 6.97%, contrasts recent declines in revenue and net income.

527bcc2791d739df3fc6431e2c1b190e.png

Jardine Strategic Holdings Ltd

The fund added 505,100 shares, or 116.25%, to its holding in Jardine Strategic Holdings Ltd, impacting the equity portfolio by 0.19%. Shares traded for an average price of $21.97 during the quarter.

3b9977d5a747d0faa0499a287c0e1243.png

Operating as part of Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (SGX:J36), Jardine Strategic Holdings is a Hong Kong-based holding company that owns a wide variety of business, primarily in Asia. Some of its subsidiaries operate in the property investment, retail, transport, insurance and restaurants industries.

On July 22, shares of Jardine Strategic Holdings traded around $19.80 for a market cap of $38.14 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 8.91.

GuruFocus gives the stock a financial strength rating of 5 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 6 out of 10. The interest coverage ratio of 6.15 and Altman A-Score of 1.34 indicate the company could have solvency issues within the next couple of years. The return on capital declined to around 35.30% for the most recent full fiscal year, which is still better than 82.71% of competitors.

916c0c05b9160cd47342cc55cd170504.png

FUJI Seal International Inc.

FUJI Seal International Inc. was the fund's only new common stock buy during the quarter. The fund purchased 212,000 shares of the stock, which had a 0.07% impact on the equity portfolio. During the quarter, shares traded for an average price of ?1,981.68.

f98f8d6e8a0e2a23da08b63086b1c9a1.png

Fuji Seal is a packaging machinery manufacturing company based in Japan. It is primarily engaged in developing, manufacturing and selling packaging systems, including shrink-sleeve and self-adhesive labels.

On July 22, shares of Fuji Seal traded around ?1,954 for a market cap of ?108.35 billion and a price-earnings ratio of 12.55.

GuruFocus gives the stock a financial strength rating of 8 out of 10 and a profitability rating of 8 out of 10. The interest coverage ratio of 201.16 is higher than 93.12% of competitors, while the Altman Z-Score suggests the company is not in danger of bankruptcy. The ROIC (return on invested capital) is consistently higher than the WACC (weighted average cost of capital), indicating dependable profitability.

17abaf5f44bff3685ef38445de52e3cc.png

Portfolio overview

As of the quarter's end, the fund held shares in 87 stocks valued at a total of $5.77 billion. The top holdings were Nestle SA (XSWX:NESN) with 6.84% of the equity portfolio, Roche Holding AG (XSWX:ROG) with 5.26% and Diageo PLC (LSE:DGE) with 4.48%.

In terms of sector weighting, the firm was most invested in consumer defensive, financial services and health care.

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Disclosure: Author owns no shares in any of the stocks mentioned. The mention of stocks in this article does not at any point constitute an investment recommendation. Portfolio updates reflect only common stock positions as per the regulatory filings for the quarter in question and may not include changes made after the quarter ended.

Read more here:

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This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






MICHIGAN  The latest round of grant applications for the Michigan Small Business Restart Program was announced this week, with businesses able to get loans up to $20,000.

The program is administrated through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, with $100 million in funding from the federal CARES Act available. The funds are meant to help support workers and their families facing economic uncertainty during the coronavirus pandemic.

The funding will be distributed across 15 local or nonprofit economic development organizations covering all 83 counties in the state.

The Michigan Small Business Restart program will provide a significant opportunity to address immediate needs of small businesses and nonprofits negatively impacted by COVID-19, said Michigan EDC CEO Mark Burton in a statement. Combined with other MSF (Michigan Strategic Fund) programs and services, as well as local federal economic development support, we can help ensure small businesses throughout the state to recover from the short and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Huron County falls under the Flint and Genesee Chamber, along with Tuscola, Sanilac, Lapeer, St. Clair, Genesee, and Shiawassee counties. The total amount of funding available for this economic development organization is $8,045,455.

These counties are grouped together as they are part of the East Michigan Prosperity Region.

The application process will last from July 15 through Aug. 5, with applications accepted online at www.michiganbusiness.org/restart.

In order to qualify for grant support, businesses must meet the following criteria:

 Is a business or nonprofit with fewer than 50 employees that can demonstrate it is affected by the COVID-19 emergency

 Needs working capital to support eligible expenses.

 Demonstrates an income loss as a result of the COVID-19 emergency.

The funds received can be used as working capital to support payroll expenses, rent, mortgage payments, utility expenses, or other similar expenses. At least 30% of the funds awarded must be provided to women-owned, minority-owned, or veteran-owned eligible businesses.

The Michigan EDC anticipates that more than 5,000 businesses stand to benefit from this program.

In the previous round of the Small Business Restart Program, five businesses in the Upper Thumb received funds through this program, Pyro Paradise and Valley Gear and Machine Incorporated in Huron County, Blue Water Enterprises and MainStreet Cafe in Sanilac County, and Laser Marking Technologies in Tuscola County.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- No bars or restaurants on Staten Island are among the 27 New York businesses that had their state liquor licenses suspended since the start of the pandemic.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo made the announcement during a Tuesday press call, and a spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporations said none of the businesses are on Staten Island.

Four of those suspensions happened Monday in Queens and Suffolk counties after a weekend that saw large crowds congregating, including those caught on social media posts in Astoria.

The restaurants and bars that encourage young people to congregate threaten to bring us back to the hell we experienced three months ago - yesterday, the State Liquor Authority suspended the liquor licenses of four bars and restaurants, Cuomo said calling on localities to increase their enforcement efforts.

This is a dangerous situation, and the bad operators will make it worse for themselves and everyone, so be smart, wear a mask, stay New York Tough, he continued.

The state also announced that it would be adding 10 additional states -- Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Virginia and Washington -- to its travel-advisory that requires people coming from those states to quarantine for two weeks.

Levels necessitating quarantine are based on a seven-day rolling average of either 10% statewide infection or a new-case rate of 10 per 100,000 residents.

The state saw only two deaths related to the disease on Monday bringing the total to 25,058, and 855 positives in the 66,169 tests conducted, according to a media release from Cuomos office.
The upcoming Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will sport a 6.9-inch WQHD+ Dynamic AMOLED Infinity-O display with 19.3:9 aspect ratio and 120Hz refresh rate.

Samsung has already announced that it will hold the Galaxy Unpacked 2020 event on August 5. We will most likely be witnessing the launch of new Galaxy Note 20 smartphones alongside new earbuds, foldable phones, watch and more. Although none of this has been confirmed, there already are a bunch of leaks showcasing the upcoming flagship handset. But in a new leak, even the full specifications are out in addition to price information and colour variants  leaving nothing to our imagination.

As mentioned by a German blog WinFuture, the upcoming Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will sport a 6.9-inch WQHD+ Dynamic AMOLED Infinity-O display with 19.3:9 aspect ratio and 120Hz refresh rate. The punch hole is said to feature a 10-megapixel camera with dual-pixel autofocus. The screen will also feature an in-display fingerprint sensor.

Whats interesting is that the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra might be the first phone to come with Corning Gorilla Glass 7.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will support Xbox cloud gaming: Report

As we have seen in leaked images, there might be a triple rear camera setup. This could comprise of a 108-megapixel primary camera, 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a 12-megapixel telephoto camera. Out of these, the 108-megapixel sensor is said to shoot up to 8K resolution videos while the telephoto camera may feature a periscope lens with 5x optical zoom and 50x Space Zoom. Surprisingly, it wont feature the 100x zoom that Samsung introduced with Galaxy S20 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. (Windfuture De)

Powering the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will be the Exynos 990 SoC in Europe and India along with 12GB RAM and 256GB/512GB storage options. Yes, there will be a microSD card support as well. And on the software side of things, the smartphone may sport Android 10 based OneUI 2.x UI version. Besides this, the upcoming handset, as per the report, may feature automatic OneNote synchronization and optimized cloud gaming via Project xCloud.

Also read: Galaxy Note 20 to Galaxy Z Fold 2, Samsung to launch these premium devices on August 5

Gaming is also a focus this time as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra may give access to 90 gaming titles via Xbox Game Pass.

Backing up the handset will be a 4,500mAh battery that is claimed to go from zero to 50% in 30 minutes, adds the blog. Some other features mentioned are S Pen stylus with 9ms latency, USB-C 3.2, IP68 rating, Wi-Fi 6 support and AKG-tuned stereo speaker.

There will also be dual SIM card support with eSIM facility. And as it has been leaked before, the device could come in two colors - Mystic Bronze and Mystic Black.

Finally, for the price, the report claims the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra to be priced upwards of EUR 1000 (roughly 86,000).
ALTON  No injuries were reported Wednesday when three grain hopper cars jumped the rails at the Great River Road in Alton, forcing the roadway to be closed several hours.

Shortly before noon Wednesday, the 15-car train stopped on the Great River Road, also known as Illinois 100, when three of its cars jumped the rails.
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Restaurant discovery platform, The Infatuation , today announced the exciting line-up for All You Can EEEEEATSCON, a new weekly virtual event series inspired by the celebrated, twice annual, bi-coastal food festival EEEEEATSCON, presented by the American Express Gold Card and Resy .

While there will be no in-person EEEEEATSCON this year, starting today, July 22nd, The Infatuation will host a free virtual event on Wednesdays at 7pm ET / 4pm PT for four weeks. Each event will focus on a different type of food and bring together a panel of special guests to debate just what makes it so good.

In addition to incredible chef talent, the first two events will be co-hosted by some notable names and familiar faces including SAG-award winning actor, writer and director, Paul Scheer and The Infatuation Los Angeles' editorial lead, Brant Cox. Co-hosts for the remaining two events will be announced at a later date.

As long-time advocates and supporters of the restaurant industry and diners, American Express and Resy are teaming up with The Infatuation to continue to connect people with the restaurants they love through an interactive virtual experience.

In addition to the virtual events, viewers will be able to order an "EEEEEATSCON in a box" meal kit through Goldbelly that corresponds with each week's event theme. These Goldbelly kits will feature iconic items from some of the participating guests, allowing anyone to eat along while they watch. Each week's meal kit can be ordered here . Plus, enrolled American Express U.S. Card Members can spend $50 at Goldbelly and get $10 back, up to three times, on purchases made on or before September 16, 2020 (enroll here prior to purchasing). Gold Card Members can also order locally while tuning in, and earn 4X Membership Rewards Points on restaurant purchases, including takeout and delivery.

The Schedule for the 4-part event series is as follows:

Wednesday, July 22 - The Great Bagel & Lox Debate featuring, Josh Russ Tupper (Russ & Daughters, New York City ), Dianna Daoheung (Black Seed Bagels, New York City ) and Alon Shaya (Saba, New Orleans ), co-hosted by Paul Scheer and Brant Cox .

- featuring, (Russ & Daughters, ), (Black Seed Bagels, ) and (Saba, ), co-hosted by and . Wednesday, July 29 - The Great BBQ Debate featuring Kevin Bludso (Bludso's Bar & Que, Los Angeles ), Orchid Paulmeier (One Hot Mama's, South Carolina ), and Jon Gray , Lester Walker and Pierre Serrao (Ghetto Gastro), and co-hosted by Paul Scheer and Brant Cox .

- featuring (Bludso's Bar & Que, ), (One Hot Mama's, ), and (Ghetto Gastro), and co-hosted by and . Wednesday, August 5 - The Great Pizza Debate featuring Marc Malnati ( Lou Malnati's , Chicago ), Dominic and Chris Bartolini (Bartolini's Restaurant, Midlothian, IL ) and Emily Hyland (Pizza Loves Emily, New York City ) hosts to be announced.

- featuring ( , ), and (Bartolini's Restaurant, ) and (Pizza Loves Emily, ) hosts to be announced. Wednesday, August 12 - The Great Dessert Debate featuring Arnold Wilkerson and Danny Garcia (Little Pie Company, New York City ), Lauren Ko (@lolokitchen and author of Pieometry) and Bryan Ford (@artisanbryan and author of New World Sourdough), hosts to be announced.

To RSVP and attend these virtual events visit: https://allyoucaneeeeeatscon.splashthat.com/

Since 2017, EEEEEATSCON has been a food experience built in the spirit of a music festival, but with restaurants as the headliners. Created by The Infatuation, EEEEEATSCON originated in Santa Monica in 2017 and launched in New York City for the first time in the Fall of 2018. The event is designed for people who want more from a food festival than just tasting-sized portions and cooking demonstrations. In addition to dozens of the best restaurants from around the world, EEEEEATSCON has also featured the likes of: Awkwafina, Dan Levy, Dwyane Wade, Lizzo, Questlove, Darren Criss, Adam Rippon, Smokey Robinson, Cameron Diaz, D-Nice, and more.

For more information visit The Infatuation online, download The Infatuation app , follow The Infatuation on Instagram , Tik Tok , Twitter and Facebook and sign up for your city's newsletter .

About American Express

American Express is a globally integrated payments company, providing customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Learn more at americanexpress.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

Key links to products, services and corporate responsibility information: charge and credit cards, business credit cards, travel services, gift cards, prepaid cards, merchant services, Accertify, InAuth, corporate card, business travel, and corporate responsibility.

About Goldbelly

Goldbelly is the leading Food-E-Commerce platform that connects the top food makers with Foodies around the US, regardless of where they live. Iconic regional rockstars delivered to your doorstep. Shop from our over 600 makers here . Learn more About us or see what others are saying . Connect with us on Facebook , Instagram & Twitter .

Press Contact: Michael Sinatra - [email protected] - 551.574.8031

SOURCE The Infatuation

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Former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said his party JD(S) cannot 'unsettle' the ruling BJP in the near future and that their erstwhile partner Congress was now repenting for wrongly assuming that the dispensation would collapse on its own.

The JD(S) leader told his party workers during a video conference that Congress leaders nurtured false hopes that the BS Yediyurappa led BJP government would be in power for just six months and then collapse on its own.

"This was their (Congress leaders) calculation, but now they are repenting. They thought that the government will fall in six months and Congress would come back. That situation is not there now," Kumaraswamy said.

The JD(S) leader was referring to the Congress-JD(S) coalition government he had headed for a year from mid 2018 to mid 2019 when it collapsed due to rebellion by MLAs of both parties. This eventually helped the BJP government come to power in July 2019. Kumaraswamy has been blaming certain Congress leaders in Karnataka, including Siddaramaiah, for the collapse of the coalition government. The former CM said there may be internal differences in the BJP, but it was not a party that would let go of power that easily.

"You party workers are making all efforts to work for the people. There is still time to establish a pro-people government...we cannot unsettle the BJP government in the near future," Kumaraswamy said.

Refusing to comment on the issue, Congress Legislative Party leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramiah said there was no point in recalling the past, "which is a closed chapter. "It's more than a year since the coalition government collapsed. The BJP government is going to complete one year in office. We should speak about the BJP government and not Kumaraswamy," he told reporters here.
The Zambian parliament on Tuesday adjourned following a surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, Trend reports citing Xinhua.

The adjourn was unanimously supported by all lawmakers after the parliament reported 19 positive cases.

Vice-President Inonge Wina said the emergency of the pandemic requires the parliament to adjourn in order to protect the lawmakers and staff from contracting the virus.

She noted that it was unfortunate that despite measures put in place to contain the pandemic, the pandemic has continued unabated.

She further urged all lawmakers to undergo testing following revelations by the health minister that only six out of 156 lawmakers have so far voluntarily tested for COVID-19.

Jack Mwiimbu, leader of the opposition in parliament, said the statistics being revealed showing an increase in both cases and deaths, painting a gloomy picture for the country.

He said unless the country acts swiftly to contain the pandemic, more people will die.
Researches say, "students can balance a fulfilling sleep through a 1.5-hour mid-afternoon nap added to 6.5 hours of nocturnal sleep, to achieve 8 hours in total across 24 hours to maintain vigilance, working memory, speedy process, and positive mood"

Adolescents in academically competitive societies often fail to obtain adequate sleep on school-day nights. 85% of secondary school students from top schools in Singapore obtain less than the 8 hours of nocturnal sleep recommended by the US National Sleep Foundation, and average, only 6.5 hours a night on weekdays. In prior work, Researchers from Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, showed successive nights of 6.5 hours of nocturnal sleep does not suffice, giving rise to degraded vigilance, short and long-term memory, and positive mood.

To makeup, students report being more likely to nap on weekdays and to sleep longer over weekends. Greater sleep extension on weekends, staying up late to study, coupled with early school start times are deeply entrenched societal norms. Is there a way forward for sleep-deprived youths?

A recently published research paper from the National University of Singapore, in the leading journal Sleep, found a sleep schedule students could adopt to fulfill sleep requirements while being socially acceptable: a 1.5-hour mid-afternoon nap added to 6.5 hours of nocturnal sleep, will achieve 8 hours in total across 24 hours.

Their quasi-laboratory study evaluated 53 adolescents aged 15 to 19, over 15 days, simulating 1.5 school-term weeks. During school nights, all participants had a total sleep opportunity of 8 hours per 24 hours  one group slept 8 hours continuously at night, while the other split the 8 hours into 6.5 hours at night and a 1.5-hour afternoon nap. Adolescents on the split sleep schedule showed comparable vigilance, working memory, speed of processing and mood compared to those who slept the entire 8 hours at night. Although only about half these students declared they habitually take naps, everyone was able to nap on multiple afternoons during the study, without significant adverse impact on nocturnal sleep. Such structured napping opportunities are certainly preferable to the brief, ad hoc ones that teachers regularly observe in class.

This study is the fifth in the series of Need for Sleep studies that evaluated adolescents sleep and cognitive performance across different sleep schedules in a simulated school-term. In earlier studies, relative preservation of cognitive performance came at the possible expense of a weaker response to a glucose load that could have metabolic system consequences. Adequate total sleep over 24 hours may thus be a pre-requisite to optimal health and cognition.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Great Wall Motor (GWM) launched on July 20 three all-new technology brands, dubbed Lemon, Tank and Coffee Intelligence, demonstrating its ambition to drive the transition to being a global mobility technology and service provider from being a mere vehicle manufacturer.



The automaker announced on spot the launch of two automobile platforms, namely, the Lemon and the Tank. Involving over 20 billion yuan ($2,863,934,000) of R&D investment and integrating GWM's global resources, the two platforms are designed to produce the models that target global markets.



(Lemon platform)



The Lemon is positioned as a global high-intelligence modular technology platform that eyes the next decade, according to GWM. The vehicles built on the platform will boast lightweight technology, high performance and high safety, which are in tune with lemon's quality of portability, freshness and popularity.

GWM's said the Lemon platform will be compatible with the model development from A0 to D segments, and covers SUV, sedans and MPVs. Besides, it will be adaptive to four powertrain solutionsinternal combustion engine, hybrid power, BEV and FCEV.



According to Mu Feng, GWM's vice president of R&D, the Lemon-based vehicles will have a thermal efficiency of 41% for traditional engines and 42% for hybrid powertrains in 2022. The number will increase to 51.5% in 2025.



(Mu Feng, GWM's vice president of R&D)

Moreover, the vehicles built on the Lemon platform will be paired with a 7-speed or a 9-speed dual clutch transmission. Three types of battery-- ternary-lithium battery, lithium iron phosphate battery and cobalt-free battery will be offered in the future.

Mr. Mu added that GWM plans to launch in 2021 the first-generation Lemon-based FCEV that has a range of over 900km and can sprint from 0-100km/h within 8.9 second. The second-generation one will be released in 2023 with the range growing to over 1,100km and the 0-100km/h acceleration time dropping to 4.56 seconds.



(Tank platform)



The Tank is positioned as a global professional intelligent off-roader platform that contains SUV and pickup models in the segments from B to D+.

GWM noted that the Tank platform will adopt the 2.0 GDIT and the 3.0 GDIT engines, which are paired with 9-speed automatic transmission. Notably, the 3.0 one is able to pump out a maximum of 260kW and 500 Nm of peak torque, delivering a thermal efficiency of 38%. In addition, the Tank-based vehicles will feature a basic wading depth of 965mm and an active suspension height adjustable range of 120mm.



(Li Peng, GWM's chief digital officer)

The Coffee Intelligence will specialize in automobile intelligence. According to Li Peng, GWM's chief digital officer, the brand works on the R&D of smart cockpit, intelligent driving and intelligent electrical/electronic architecture.

The first Coffee-powered model will be a flagship WEY-branded model which is expected to go on sale at the end of 2020. Going forward, the technology will be applied across the entire lineup of GWM photo source: Great Wall Motor's WeChat account).
The officers went in and arrested Dixon, then his friend Antwon Scott. Dixon pleaded guilty to a drug charge simply to get off of home confinement when he was about to be kicked out of the place he was staying, the petition states. He was sentenced to two years probation.
W. Va. gov. urges caution after COVID-19 breaks out at churches in 7 counties

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Five days after the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department announced it had tracked at least 24 cases of COVID-19 to the North Charleston Apostolic Church, Republican Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia announced on Monday that 75 new cases of the virus have been tracked to churches in seven counties.

Weve absolutely got to stay on top of this with all in us, Justice said during a press briefing. Please know that the church setting is the ideal setting to spread this virus.

Cases of COVID-19 related to churches have been identified in Grant, Logan, Wood, Boone, Kanawha, Raleigh, and Taylor counties.

Dr. Sherri Young, health officer and executive director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, urged churchgoers to practice caution after leaders at North Charleston Apostolic voluntarily agreed to close for three weeks to deep clean their building as congregants were asked to self-isolate.

We dont want to discourage people from going to church, Young said. In the middle of a pandemic, people may need spirituality more than ever. But COVID-19 is still out there and we have to be very careful. Please consider attending services electronically, especially if youre at high risk for complications from COVID-19. If you are attending an in-person service, wear your mask, keep six feet between you and other congregants and wash your hands frequently.

Officials at North Charleston Apostolic Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Christian Post Tuesday but confirmed on their website that their services had been canceled.

Last month, at least 51 members of Graystone Baptist Church in Lewisburg tested positive for the coronavirus, WCHS reported. Officials at that church also told CP Tuesday that they were not doing media interviews at this time but video from the churchs Facebook page showed the pastor preaching outdoors to his congregation on Sunday.

Congregants at the church, according to a report from The New York Times, began to get sick 10 days after Sunday services resumed in late May, with masks being optional. Charles Hiser, 82, was the first of three churchgoers to die after contracting the virus.

Libby Morgan, his daughter, told the publication that her father lived alone and had been cooped up during the states lockdown period. Even though she spoke with him regularly on the phone and brought him groceries, he missed attending his church where he had been a member for about 30 years. As soon as the church resumed regular services, she said he went back without a mask. Two weeks later, he tested positive for the virus.

I felt like, gosh, I was thinking hed be safe there, Morgan said. You know, youre in church. Just like a child that goes to school is supposed to feel safe.

Gov. Justice urged West Virginians in church settings Monday to follow the states safety guidelines, including using every other pew, maintaining social distancing, and wearing face coverings.



I know these things are really difficult to do, Justice said. But for right now, they have to be done because if we dont, all were going to do is lose more people.



We could very well lose a lot of our grandmothers and grandfathers  people who have so much wisdom to still continue to pass on  we absolutely dont need to be losing these great West Virginians.
Laura Anderson defiantly hit back at trolls on Wednesday as she shared a bikini-clad snap after being trolled for being 'too skinny'.

The Love Island star, 31, revealed she had hesitated to post the photo, which showed her posing by the beach in Barcelona, over fears she would be inundated with cruel taunts over her slender physique.

Wearing a blue bikini top and denim hotpants, Laura penned a lengthy caption: 'I hesitated to post this photo as I look extremely thin and we all know any trolling against your body, whatever shape is never fun.

'I look like a beanpole': Laura Anderson defiantly hit back at trolls on Wednesday as she shared a bikini-clad snap after being trolled for being 'too skinny'

'Reality is pictures can be deceiving and I really want to highlight this on here today. It's just a picture, an angle, lighting, maybe a filter.'

Laura continued: 'I like this photo because it's a happy memory of Toms and I's favourite day of our holiday together but I know my body 'at this angle' will be at the forefront of some Susan's mouths out there, am I right or am I right? (Sorry if you're name is Susan).

'On the flip side, we all naturally choose the best photos of ourselves, is this a crime? Can pictures be too deceiving? How can you please everyone?

Slender: Laura penned a lengthy caption: 'I hesitated to post this photo as I look extremely thin and we all know any trolling against your body, whatever shape is never fun'

'This photo is even deceiving to me as I'm the heaviest I've ever been but I look like a beanpole above (nothing wrong with being a beanpole to my fellow long limbed angels out there)

'I shouldn't have to mention my weight and neither should you. I just knew it would be discussed negatively below today if I didn't.'

Laura's followers rushed to the comments to praise her own the candid post and gush over her incredible physique.

Upsetting: Laura told fans she was the heaviest she's ever been but still gets trolled by people calling her 'too skinny'

Fellow Love Island contestant Rosie Williams wrote: 'Oh you look amazing babe!!!'.

Another typed: 'Well I think you look perfect and no one should tell anyone how they should look its absolutely disgusting behaviour. You are beautiful and healthy ignore them!'

A third chimed: 'If you have a good healthy body you are proud of don't ever be ashamed to show it. Whatever your shape'.

Hitting back: The reality star said: 'I shouldn't have to mention my weight and neither should you. I just knew it would be discussed negatively below today if I didn't'

Support: Laura's followers rushed to the comments to praise her own the candid post and gush over her incredible physique

Last Friday, Laura revealed she and her boyfriend Tom Brazier had been left extremely shaken after they were targeted by a thief as they enjoyed a late-night walk in the Spanish city.

Taking to her Instagram stories, the emotional star urged her followers to be safe as she recounted the terrifying incident where they tried to steal Tom's 22,000 Hublot watch.

She said: 'So last night was horrible. Me and Tom decided to walk for a bit, try and get a photo and basically got mugged.

'Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. You just get this gut feeling these two guys were watching us. Tom kept saying "it's fine, it's fine" and we hailed a cab to go home.

'Tom opened the door for me and was like "in you go" and I was like "it's fine, I'll go round to the side" which I'm glad I did because when Tom went to get in, the guy came from nowhere and pushed him.'
Former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, has described his relationship with his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, as okay.

Goodluck Jonathan said this shortly after his meeting with the President in the statehouse in Abuja yesterday July 21.

You have been seeing me coming and I have been having friendly conversations. So, our relationship is ok. he told statehouse correpsondents after he was asked to speak on their relationship

The former President applauded President Buhari for naming the largest station along the Warri-Itakpe railway route  the Agbor railway facility and station after him.
Anyone who is interested knows in their heart that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, on behalf of the government, bugged the cabinet room and other offices of the Timor Leste government in 2004 to give Australia a major edge over our impoverished neighbour in negotiations for the ownership of massive underwater oil and helium reserves. The two countries had solemnly agreed to negotiate in good faith.

Pressing for an open trial: lawyer Bernard Collaery. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Coyly, the federal government has neither confirmed nor denied the bugging. But if there was no bugging, it would not breach official secrets laws to say there was. The operation was conducted under cover of an aid project  a cruel, modern take on the Trojan horse. The bugging was almost certainly a crime in Timor Leste and, according to written advice of a former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nick Cowdery, it was likely also criminal under Australian law.

Yet the government is prosecuting a former ASIS officer, Witness K, who was troubled by the operation, for disclosing secret information. It is also prosecuting his lawyer, the former ACT attorney-general Bernard Collaery, for using the information provided by K to help Timor Leste overturn the deal on the boundary line, on the basis that the negotiations with Australia were tainted by the bugging.

A certificate was needed from the federal attorney-general for the prosecutions of Collaery and K to proceed. For over two years, the former attorney-general, George Brandis, had sat on the request for the certificate. His successor, the current Attorney-General, Christian Porter, was not so squeamish. Collaerys case is now moving to trial in the ACT Supreme Court. Ahead of that, Porter has issued certificates to court seeking that much of Collaerys trial be held in secret. And the government recently passed laws requiring the judge to give greatest weight to the Attorney-Generals view on the secrecy issue.
Thiruvananthapuram, July 22 : Kerala continues to break all records as the number of Covid positive cases on a single day crossed 1000-mark for the first time and touched 1,038, taking the total cases to 15,032.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday said presently 8,818 are Covid positive in the state and with the cases spiking, the government might have to think of complete lockdown, but nothing has been decided as yet.

"Of the new cases, 785 are local infectees, of which the source of 57 are unknown. The situation in Thiruvananthapuram is serious as 226 new cases were registered of which 190 are local infectees. Even as things remain serious, the state is fully geared to meet this spike as Covid first line treatment centres are ready," said Vijayan.

But Vijayan, even while admitting the role of the media as playing a good role, turned critical on a particular media which he said was giving headlines on Wednesday that the death toll in Kerala on account of Covid is increasing.

With one Covid death reported on Wednesday, the death toll in Kerala touched 50.

"I am not speaking of all the media, but some which levels baseless allegations and airs untruth. While some of them correct their wrong, some others fail to give the correction. The state is passing through tough times and during such times, untruth should not be aired. This applies to Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, who is giving factually wrong statistics. We do not know from where he is getting it," said Vijayan and read out the total number of positive cases on a single day in states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which was several times more than in Kerala.

He said the Firing Range under the control of the Kerala Police will now be converted as a treatment centre for Covid positive police officials.

"Till now 67 nurses and 43 doctors in the state have turned Covid positive. If one looks into the other states, the medical professionals turning positive is high. We are giving high priority to the safety of health professionals. Strict action will be taken against those who do not provide the required safety protocols for the health professionals," added Vijayan.
- A US couple, Elizabeth and Isaiah Linscott, have been placed on a house arrest following their refusal to sign a self-isolation order

- The couple said that contracting the virus has made them really popular in a way that affects their privacy

- The law in Kentucky mandates that every infected person must go into self-isolation and contact health authority if their case deteriorates

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A couple in the US, Elizabeth and Isaiah Linscott, have been put on a house arrest with ankle tags for refusing to self-isolate after testing positive to coronavirus.

Mirror UK reports that under the Kentucky law, infected people are to stay at home and call their authorities in case their situations worsened.

Elizabeth was not comfortable with signing. Isiah, on the other hand, commented on the sudden attention contracting the virus brought on them.

"I open up the door and there's like eight different people Five different cars and I'm like, 'What the heck's going on?' This guy's in a suit with a mask, it's the health department guy and he has three different papers for us. For me, her and my daughter, he said.

The wife, on the other hand, wondered why the sudden interest in them, saying "we didn't rob a store, we didn't steal something, we didn't hit and run, we didn't do anything wrong."

A collage of the couple with the ankle devices. Photo sources: Mirror UK

Source: UGC

Meanwhile, a Nigerian doctor with the Twitter handle @the_drterry said that days after he started showing symptoms for Coviid-19, his test result back positive.

He said that he went through the very hard symptoms like fever, throat pain, chest pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, chickenpox, among others.

The medical officer said the time was really a difficult one for his family, friends, coworkers, and the hospital where he works. @the_drterry said that he went through a tough time for 14 days before he tested negative for the virus.

He, therefore, advised everyone out there to be very careful by adhering to all safety rules like wearing face masks, regularly washing hands, and staying away from public gatherings.

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Endothelial dysfunction is driving pathophysiological processes such as congestion in heart failure, shock in sepsis, and lung dysfunction in COVID-19

Bioactive Adrenomedullin (bio-ADM(R)) is a proprietary biomarker for real-time assessment of endothelial function in acute and critical care settings.

High blood levels of bio-ADM(R) have been shown to predict septic shock, to diagnose residual congestion in heart failure, and the need for organ support in critically ill patients, including COVID-19

IB10 sphingotest(R) bio-ADM(R) runs on SphingoTec's automated Nexus IB10 point-of-care platform and quantitatively measures levels of bio-ADM(R) directly in blood samples

HENNIGSDORF / BERLIN, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Diagnostics company SphingoTec GmbH ("SphingoTec") today announced the launch of its IB10 sphingotest(R) bio-ADM(R), a CE-IVD-marked point-of-care test to quantitatively determine blood levels of Bioactive Adrenomedullin (bio-ADM(R)). Blood levels of bio-ADM(R) reflect in real-time the functional status of the endothelium, the inner cell sheet of blood vessels. The test is made available on the company's rapid point-of-care platform Nexus IB10 that uses whole blood samples without any pre-processing, requires less than three minutes hands-on-time, and delivers results after 20 minutes. Nexus IB10 can be flexibly deployed in laboratories or near-patient settings such as intensive care units (ICUs) and Emergency Departments (EDs).

In numerous studies on more than 22,000 patients admitted to ICUs and EDs, bio-ADM(R) has been shown to predict distortions of the inner cell sheet of blood vessels, the endothelium (1). Failure of the endothelial function has been demonstrated to precede edema and the life-threatening blood pressure drop that causes shock and multiorgan failure e.g. in patients with sepsis at ICUs and EDs (2-3). In heart failure patients, bio-ADM(R) blood-levels reliably and objectively reflect tissue congestion and residual congestion (4). Recent data show that elevated blood levels of this functional biomarker also identifies patients in the general ICU patient population who require immediate life-saving therapeutic interventions (5). In ICU patients with severe COVID-19, endothelial dysfunction has been identified to play a crucial role in the disease progression, thus providing a rationale to monitor bio-ADM(R) to guide the therapy stabilizing the endothelium (6).

Story continues

Dr. Andreas Bergmann, CEO and founder of SphingoTec commented: "The endothelial function plays a key role in a large number of critical care conditions, such as sepsis, septic shock, acute heart failure, and COVID-19. A distortion in the endothelial function predicts the patient's progression to a critical stage. Therefore, bio-ADM(R) screening can identify high-risk patients who require early life-saving therapeutic intervention. With the launch of this rapid test for bio-ADM(R) on our widely established Nexus IB10 immunoassay platform, we aim to support earlier treatment decisions and improve outcomes of acute care patients."

The IB10 sphingotest(R) bio-ADM(R) assay is commercialized in Europe and other regions that accept CE-IVD certification through SphingoTec's network of distribution partners for the Nexus IB10 platform, together with a broad menu of standard tests for acute and critical care.

###

References:

(1) Geven (2018): Vascular Effects of Adrenomedullin and the anti-Adrenomedullin Antibody Adrecizumab in Sepsis. Shock. doi: 1097/SHK.0000000000001103

(2) Mebazaa (2018): Circulating adrenomedullin estimates survival and reversibility of organ failure in sepsis: the prospective observational multinational Adrenomedullin and Outcome in Sepsis and Septic Shock (AdrenOSS-1) study. doi:10.1186/s13054-018-2243-2

(3) Caironi (2017): Circulating biologically active adrenomedullin (bio-ADM) predicts hemodynamic support requirement and mortality During Sepsis. Chest. doi: 10.1016/j.chest.2017.03.035.

(4) ter Maaten (2019): Bio-adrenomedullin as a marker of congestion in patients with new-onset and worsening heart failure, Eur J Heart Fail. doi:10.1002/ejhf.1437(5)

Lemasle (2020): Bioactive Adrenomedullin, Organ Support Therapies, and Survival in the Critically Ill: Results from the French and European Outcome Registry in ICU Study, Crit. Care. Med, doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000004044

(6) Varga (2020): Endothelial cell infection and endotheliitis in COVID-19, Lancet,

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30937-5



About SphingoTec

SphingoTec GmbH ("SphingoTec"; Hennigsdorf near Berlin, Germany) develops and markets innovative in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests for novel and proprietary biomarkers for the diagnosis, prediction and monitoring of acute medical conditions, such as sepsis, acute heart failure, circulatory shock, and acute kidney injury in order to support patient management and provide guidance for treatment strategies. SphingoTec's proprietary biomarker portfolio includes Bioactive Adrenomedullin (bio-ADM(R)), a unique biomarker for real-time assessment of endothelial function in conditions like sepsis or congestive heart failure, Proenkephalin (penKid(R)), a unique biomarker for real-time assessment of kidney function, and Dipeptidyl Peptidase 3 (DPP3), a unique biomarker for cardiac depression. In addition, SphingoTec develops a portfolio of novel biomarkers, which predict the risks of developing obesity, breast cancer and cardiovascular diseases. IVD tests for SphingoTec's proprietary biomarkers are made available as sphingotest(R) microtiterplate tests as well as point-of-care tests on the Nexus IB10 immunoassay platform by SphingoTec's subsidiary Nexus Dx Inc. (San Diego, CA, USA) alongside a broad menu of established and commonly used tests for acute and critical care.

About Nexus Dx Inc. and the IB10 Platform

Nexus Dx Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of SphingoTec, headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA, is a global provider of a near patient testing system and advanced diagnostic solution. The company is improving patient care by providing the medical community with rapid and reliable information at the point of care (POC), delivering patient information when and where it is needed most. The company has invested over $160m to develop and market the IB10 analyzer system which, without the need for sample preparation, automatically separates plasma from whole blood with subsequent reliable and quantitative detection of biomarkers in the plasma by means of antibodies. With a hands-on-time of less than 3 minutes the easy-to-use system provides in only 20 minutes test results for biomarkers that are crucial in the management of critical care patients. The portfolio of IB10 assays includes tests for established critical care parameters such as Procalcitonin, Troponin I, CK-MB, Myoglobin, NT-proBNP, and D-Dimer as well as tests for SphingoTec's proprietary biomarkers such as DPP3, an assay for Dipeptidyl Peptidase 3, a unique and proprietary biomarker for cardiac depression, Proenkephalin (penKid(R)), a unique and proprietary biomarker for real-time assessment of kidney function and the IB10 assay for bioactive Adrenomedullin (bio-ADM(R)), a unique and proprietary biomarker for endothelial function.

About bio-ADM(R)

sphingotest(R) bio-ADM(R) measures blood levels of bioactive adrenomedullin (bio-ADM(R)), a hormone maintaining endothelial function. The endothelium contributes to blood pressure and separates blood from the surrounding tissue. Elevated blood levels of bio-ADM(R) predict blood pressure break down and leaky vessels resulting in oedema. Imbalanced endothelial function is the major cause of shock ultimately resulting in organ dysfunction and death. Early identification of an imbalance in endothelial function allows guidance of vasopressor and diuretic therapy in critically ill patients to improve outcomes.



Contact

SphingoTec GmbH

Ruxandra Lenz

Sr. Manager Marketing and Communications

Neuendorfstr. 15 A

16761 Hennigsdorf

Germany

Tel. +49-3302-20565-0

press@sphingotec.de

www.sphingotec.com

SOURCE: SphingoTec GmbH via EQS Newswire





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/598423/SphingoTec-Launches-Point-Of-Care-Test-for-Bio-ADM-a-Biomarker-for-Life-Threatening-Endothelial-Dysfunction




Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:40:42|Editor: huaxia

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LHASA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Wednesday welcomed members of the first trans-regional tour group since the COVID-19 outbreak.

The 20 tourists in the group are from five provinces and cities -- Tianjin, Hebei, Zhejiang, Shaanxi and Jiangsu.

They arrived at the railway station in Lhasa, the regional capital, at 12:45 p.m. and will spend three to 11 days in Tibet from July 23.

Tibet announced resumption of trans-regional group tours from July 20, and tourist spots were allowed to host up to 50 percent of their daily capacity, up from the previous 30 percent, said Ji Yue, deputy director of the regional tourism department.

On January 27, Tibet barred tourists from all scenic spots in the region, lifting the restriction in March as the epidemic situation improved across the country.

Tibet experienced the country's best tourism recovery rate in the first half of the year, especially in May and June. Enditem
Rajasthan rebel Deputy CM Sachin Pilot has stepped up against Congress MLA Giriraj Malinga who accused Pilot of offering a bribe of Rs 35 crore to defect from Congress and join the BJP in the larger scheme to break the Gehlot government; legal notice served amid ongoing legal battle between the two newly emerged camps in Congress to decide the fall of CM Ashok Gehlot's regime.

Congress leader Sachin Pilot has served a legal notice to party MLA Giriraj Malinga, for claiming that the former had offered him money to join the BJP.

Former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot has served a legal notice to Congress MLA Giriraj Malinga for his Rs 35 crore bribery allegation, a source close to Pilot said.

Earlier, addressing a press conference, Malinga said, Those MLAs who are stuck either in Haryana or Jaipur, are running after money. To say, they are not, are false claims. Even I was offered the same by Pilot, which I had refused. Came to this party knowing BJP and Congress do not accept money to give tickets.

When asked by the reporters whether he was offered Rs 35 crore, he claimed by saying, Yes, 35. The MLA claimed he was himself the prove when the reporters asked for the same.

Also read: Rajasthan HCs breather to Team Pilot questioned: Speaker CP Joshi to move SC

Also read: Journalist shot in the head near Delhi, 9 arrested

The political situation in Rajasthan is in turmoil after Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot sacked his then-deputy Sachin Pilot and the latters confidants from his council of ministers. The Congress has also claimed that BJP was trying to buy its party MLAs.

On Monday, the Rajasthan High Court had said that it would hear the petition filed by Pilot and 18 of his loyalist MLAs on July 24, against the disqualification notices issued against them, a lawyer said.

The arguments in the matter have been concluded. The court has heard the arguments from all the parties. The High Court has slated the matter for orders on July 24, Advocate Prateek Kasliwal told reporters after the hearing.

Also read: Cong will be reduced to a party that only tweets: Prakash Javadekar slams Rahul Gandhi

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
Ethiopian PM said early filling of the massive dam was completed without causing harm to anyone.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has hailed the historic early filling of the massive dam on the Blue Nile River that has stoked tensions with downstream countries Egypt and Sudan.

Addis Ababa had long said it planned to begin filling the dams reservoir this month, in the middle of its rainy season, drawing objections from Cairo and Khartoum who wanted to first reach a trilateral agreement on how the dam would be operated.

Ethiopias announcement on Tuesday that it had hit its first-year target for filling the dam came as the three countries were participating in talks overseen by the African Union (AU) to try to resolve the dispute.

The completion of the first round of filling is a historic moment that showcases Ethiopians commitment to the renaissance of our country, Abiy, the 2019 Nobel Peace laureate, said in a statement read on state television on Wednesday.

The fact that we reached this milestone by our own efforts when no one else believed in our capabilities to accomplish such initiatives makes the moment even more historic.

We conducted the filling of the dam without causing harm to anyone, said Abiy.

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The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been a source of tension in the Nile River basin ever since Ethiopia broke ground on it in 2011.

Ethiopia said the colossal dam offers a critical opportunity to pull millions of its nearly 110 million citizens out of poverty and become a major power exporter.

Downstream Egypt, which depends on the Nile to supply its farmers and booming population of 100 million with fresh water, asserts that the dam poses an existential threat. Sudan also views the dam as a threat to its water supplies.

After Tuesdays call with the AU, leaders from the three countries said they had agreed to continue with the negotiations, though it was unclear what concrete progress had been made.

In a statement Wednesday morning, Egypts foreign ministry stressed the necessity of reaching a binding legal agreement on the rules for filling and operating the Renaissance Dam that would include a legally binding instrument to resolve conflicts.

Ethiopia has resisted a legally binding dispute resolution process. Its officials said the dam would not harm downstream countries.

They have also said this years filling was a natural and inevitable part of construction.

By filling the reservoir with 4.9 billion cubic metres (173 billion cubic feet) of water, Ethiopia is now in a position to test its first two turbines  an important step on the way towards actually producing energy.
The Telangana government on Wednesday ordered closure of the century-old building of Osmania General Hospital that was inundated with rain and sewerage water last week, drawing a lot of criticism from opposition parties.

In a letter to the hospital superintendent, Telangana Director of Medical Education Dr K Ramesh Reddy asked him to vacate the building and shift the patients to other wards (in adjacent blocks).

The DME ordered that the old building should be closed and sealed after intimation to his office. He said no activity will be undertaken in the building hereafter. Any deviation from the above instructions will be viewed seriously, Reddy said in the letter.

President of Telangana Medical and Health Gazetted Officers Association Jupally Rajender said the process of shifting the patients and offices of the doctors in the OGH building had already commenced and it would be completed soon.

The building is dilapidated and is crumbling. We cant take the risk of continuing the hospital in it, Rajender said.

In all, six wards and two operation theatres have been moved into new buildings in the same campus to prevent any untoward incident as the structure is crumbling. The decision was taken to avert any accidents and in the best interest of patients, in-charge superintendent of OGH Dr Pandu Naik said.

The decision of the government to close down the OGH has lent credence to the apprehensions that the Telangana government is planning to demolish the OGH building, which is a notified heritage structure.

Ever since heavy rains that lashed Hyderabad resulted in flooding of several wards in the hospital last week, there have been representations to the government from a section of doctors and some associations demanding that the old heritage structure be demolished to pave the way for a new multi-storeyed hospital complex.

The members of the Telangana State Government Doctors Association who formed a Joint Action Committee (JAC) have been staging a dharna in front of the hospital for the last two days demanding that the government construct a new building on the OGH campus.

The OGH is one of the oldest and largest hospitals in India constructed during the Nizams reign. While it started as the Afzal Gunj hospital in 1866 AD, the present hospital building was completed in 1919 on orders of the last Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan. It was designed by British architect Vincent Jerome Esch and Nawab Khan Bahadur Mirza Akbar Baig in the Indo-Sarcenic style.

In 2015, Telangana chief minster K Chandrashekhar Rao announced a plan to demolish the building. This sparked outrage among heritage activists, and he immediately retracted the proposal.
French|West|Vaughan has been selected by Quest Diagnostics to support the companys growth in North and South Carolina. FWV has already kicked off its work for Quest, with a focus on sharing news about its COVID-19 infection and antibody serology testing and growing number of testing sites throughout the region. Quest has 45 patient service centers and serves more than 2 million patients each year in the two states. The Carolinas are a key market for us in the Southeast, and when we set out to find a partner to help tell our story, we knew FWV was the right one based on its excellent track record and strong relationships in the heart of North Carolina, Quest VP Alan Myers.

LEWIS has been named U.S. PR agency of record for cloud data protection and management company Druva. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, Druva is a privately held company funded by Sequoia Capital, Viking Global Investors, Tenaya Capital, Riverwood Capital, and Nexus Partners. It currently serves over 4,000 enterprise customers throughout the world. LEWIS deep technology expertise and innovative, creative approach made the agency the ideal partner to support our expanding communications efforts, said Druva CMO Thomas Been.

Nicholas & Lence Communications has been enlisted to craft messaging for the City of New Rochelles initiative highlighting the citys strength and solidarity. NLC, which developed the initiatives tagline, New Ro Strong, will work with the client to share stories about efforts made by the citys business and real estate community to help out during the COVID-19 crisis. NLC is now also representing Nassau Financial Group; ShelterZoom, a virtual negotiating room and platform that promotes safe, secure, efficient and transparent real estate transactions and the Banquet Event Strategic Taskforce, a professional events industry trade association and recovery group for COVID-19 in New York City.
A United States convent lost 13 of its nuns to Covid-19 in just two months.

Between Good Friday (April 10) and May 10, Felician Sisters Convent in Livonia, Michigan, lost 12 of its nuns, aged between 66 and 99.

A thirteenth nun appeared to recover from Covid-19, but then died weeks later after her health declined. Another six nuns contracted the virus, but survived.

The convent was once home to over 800 nuns, but in recent years its population had shrunk to just 65 sisters before the pandemic struck.

The Felician sisters say they followed social distancing guidelines, but their confined conditions and average age led to the convent experiencing its heaviest loss of life since the 1918 Spanish flu.

Convent superior Sr Mary Andrew Budinski told the Global Sisters News that "the raw grief" has yet to come.

"I get chills thinking about that", he said. "The raw grief is yet to come, I think."

Sr. Noel Marie Gabriel, director of clinical health services for the Felician Sisters of North America said it was "our most tragic time".

"We couldn't contain the grief and the sorrow and the emotional impact", she said.

"We went through the motions of doing what we had to do, but that month was like a whole different way of life.

"That was our most tragic time. It was a month of tragedy and sorrow and mourning and grieving."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  New rules being proposed to local government units could mean a month-long jail time for people caught without masks or violating social distancing rules in public, Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano said.

He revealed details about the proposed uniform rules for quarantine violations which may be adopted by local government units during the third Pre-SONA Forum for Cabinet officials on Wednesday.

"Out of the result of our dialogue with local chief executives... magkakaroon na lang kami ng uniform implementation kung paano ipatutupad ang health standards and protocols, and number of days i-imprison kapag nag-violate ka [we will have a uniform implementation of the health standards and protocols and the number of days imprisonment when you violate these]," Ano said during the media briefing.

He said the proposal will send a person caught not wearing a face mask or disregarding social distancing when in public to jail for 10 to 30 days, or will slap a fine worth 1,0005,000.

RELATED: Duterte wants quarantine violators detained 'to learn their lesson'

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque previously mentioned the proposed uniform ordinance but did not share details, saying the measure must first be adopted and passed by respective municipal and city councils or provincial boards to take effect.

"With this also, we would like to really implement 'yung mga standards na ito. If we can do that, actually we will prevent further spread of this COVID virus," Ano added.

There are 70,764 confirmed cases in the country as of Tuesday, with 45,646 considered as active patients. Some 23,281 people recovered while 1,837 died. More than a thousand new cases are reported each day for the past week.

Ano said authorities did expect the number of infections to rise after authorities relaxed stay-at-home restrictions, as they now seek to reopen the economy. However, the official said it's still too early to say how this will affect the quarantine classifications for August.

RELATED: CHR raises alarm over arrests during COVID-19 quarantine

The Cabinet official added that authorities apprehended close to 200,000 violators since the lockdowns started, but said 112,826 of them were only given a warning and sent home. He added that 34,134 people were fined while 64,814 were arrested for staying out during curfew hours. Those under custody are being processed through online inquest proceedings, a compromise to also decongest local jails.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra denied criticisms that the government is biased against the poor in terms of arrests, saying they apply the law "as uniformly as possible."

"I wouldn't really say that there is inconsistent application of the rule of law, but it just so happened that a greater number of those arrested came from the lower income groups. That's simply because they are the ones who are caught in the streets," Guevarra said, pointing out that those with money or are in power are also being probed, alluding to the "celebrated" case of Senator Koko Pimentel and Metro Manila police chief Debold Sinas.

"It doesn't mean at all that there is an unfair application of the law," he added.

READ: UN sounds alarm on PH's 'highly militarized' lockdown response

Guevarra said Pimentel and Sinas are both under investigation for their supposed lapses.
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Media accreditation now is open for NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station  the first operational flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket after certification by NASA for regular flights to the space station.

The launch is targeted for no earlier than late-September, following a successful return from the space station and evaluation of NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 test flight with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley.

Crew Dragon commander Michael Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Shannon Walker  all of NASA  along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission specialist Soichi Noguchi will launch on the Crew-1 mission from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Media accreditation deadlines for Crew-1 are as follows:

International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 4 p.m. EDT Monday , Aug. 10.

, Aug. 10. U.S. media must apply by 4 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24 .

All accreditation requests should be submitted online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

NASA continues to monitor the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, and a limited number of media will be granted access to Kennedy in order to protect the health and safety of media and employees. Due to COVID-19 safety restrictions at Kennedy, international media coming from overseas will need to follow quarantine requirements.

The agency will follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the agency's chief health and medical officer, and will immediately communicate any updates that may impact media access for this launch.

For questions about media accreditation, email [email protected]. For other questions, contact Kennedy's newsroom at 321-867-2468.

Reporters with special logistics requests for Kennedy, such as space for satellite trucks, trailers, tents, electrical connections, or work spaces, must contact Kathleen Ellis at [email protected] by Monday, Aug. 24.

NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry through a public-private partnership to launch astronauts on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil. The goal of the program is to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station, which will allow for additional research time and will increase the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity's testbed for exploration. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

For launch coverage and more information about the mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


Back in January, the plan was simple.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg would present San Antonio voters with a chance to renew the citys Pre-K 4 SA program during this years May 2 election. Then he would concentrate on passing a November referendum asking voters to redirect a 1/8-cent sales tax from aquifer protection and linear creekway trails to public transit.

The strategy adhered to a fundamental political concept: Keep things simple. You dont want to risk confusing voters with multiple sales-tax proposals on the same ballot.

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted those carefully crafted plans.

Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

Facing public-health concerns about the safety of conducting an election in May, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a proclamation allowing local election officials to push back the May 2 election to November.

Then Nirenberg cooled on the idea of putting a public-transit referendum on the November ballot.

He privately expressed the feeling that a fire was raging in San Antonio, in the form of the coronavirus. He believed that he needed to put out the fire before he could address long-term objectives such as the expansion of public transit.

Kin Man Hui /Staff photographer

For Nirenberg, that meant asking voters to approve a 1/8-cent sales tax dedicated to an economic recovery package.

The VIA Metropolitan Transit Board, however, saw its already anemic revenue base shrinking from the economic fallout of COVID-19 and concluded that waiting was not an option. So the board went forward with plans to put a 1/8-cent sales tax referendum on the November ballot.

This created the possibility that voters would soon be presented with three sales-tax items  Pre-K, public transit and economic recovery  and only enough sales-tax capacity to cover two of them.

Given those fears, it was a relief to learn last week that Nirenberg and VIA reps (with diplomatic assistance from former Mayor Henry Cisneros) worked out a deal which will enable the mayor to go forward with his workforce-development package while committing to hand over the 1/8-cent sales tax to VIA after three years, if voters approve the arrangement.

Its not an ideal situation for VIA, which could certainly use the funding boost right away. But it offers the promise that help will be on the way. It also means that this new revenue stream will be locked in, by voter decree. And it means that the mayor will be a proponent and not an opponent of the VIA sales-tax campaign.

VIA Metropolitan Transit

VIA trustees hoped all along that a deal could be brokered with Nirenberg. When the board unilaterally decided to move ahead with a referendum, it was a concession to a ticking clock: the looming August 17 deadline to get a proposition on the ballot.

Recent polling shows that local voters support the idea of increased funding for transit projects. That support only softens if voters think public-transit funding is in competition with something else that they like.

A San Antonio poll conducted by Baselice & Associates from June 11-15 found that 69 percent of respondents favor an initiative to enhance funding for public transportation. The same poll also found that 82 percent of respondents agree with the notion that during the COVID-19 pandemic, VIA is needed more than ever.

A February poll released by the Bexar Facts group similarly demonstrated local support for VIA, with 64 percent supporting a new 1/8-cent sales tax dedicated to public transit. But that support hinged on the assumption that Pre-K and aquifer protection would also get their funding.

When asked to pick a top priority for allocation of the 1/8-cent sales tax, 42 percent said water, 30 percent said Pre-K and only 7 percent said transportation.

The new agreement offers the hope that voters can get all three of these wish-list items, plus Nirenbergs proposed adrenaline shot for the local economy. (Aquifer protection likely will get absorbed into the citys general fund.)

At this point, a 1/8-cent sales tax in San Antonio translates into about $36 million of annual revenue. But under the conditions of a Texas statute that applies to advanced transportation districts, the transit tax would be split in three ways, with VIA getting half of it and the city and the county each taking a fourth.

In other words, even after the three-year wait stipulated by the VIA-Nirenberg deal, the transit agency will still end up getting only a piece of what it needs to meet all its service goals. But this will move us in the right direction.

Keep in mind that when Nirenberg successfully challenged Ivy Taylor for mayor in 2017, he did so with the slogan, The City You Deserve.

Nirenbergs campaign door hangers defined such a city by promising to get San Antonio moving with a modern, comprehensive, innovative transportation plan that is citizen driven and voter approved.

In November, hell start to make good on that promise.

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Gilbert, become a subscriber. ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
Advertisement

It has been a sandwich filler that has satisfied families for generations - but Wiltshire Ham as many know it could be on the way out.

A new study suggests the traditional meat curing process should be changed after it was found to contain seven times as many cancer-causing nitrites than ordinary bacon and ham.

Food scientists based at the University of Nottingham discovered huge swings in levels of the controversial chemical across popular UK supermarkets' brands.

The experts said the increased health risks are created by 'nitrite baths' that are used to produce the cured products  a method dating back to the First World War.

The new survey showed the level of nitrites in Wiltshire Ham from UK supermarkets including Waitrose and the Co-op

Ham nitrites: Which slices have the most? Co-op outdoor bred British wafer thin cooked ham - 8.3mg/kg Morrisons low fat carvery baked ham - 5.3mg/kg Sainsbury's British ham- 13.3mg/kg Tesco prime cuts cooked ham dry cured British - 19.7mg/kg Waitrose succulent British ham - 8.6mg/kg Co-op Irresistible Wiltshire cooked - 77.4mg/kg Morrisons the best thick sliced British Wiltshire - 17mg/kg Sainsbury's TTD 4 Wiltshire cured- 27.3mg/kg Tesco finest Wiltshire cured - 9.4mg/kg Waitrose succulent British Wiltshire cured  73.2mg/kg Co-op outdoor bred unsmoked rindless back bacon - 28.9mg/kg Morrisons unsmoked back bacon  34.1mg/kg Sainsbury's unsmoked back bacon  8.3mg/kg Tesco unsmoked back  17.5mg/kg Advertisement

And their investigation found top supermarkets Co-op and Waitrose Wiltshire slices had the highest nitrite concentration out of 14 different bacon and hams tested.

Leading NHS cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra today said the results questioned whether the traditional Wiltshire-cure practice should continue to be allowed.

He told MailOnline: 'Given the overwhelming scientific evidence that has linked nitrite-cured processed meats to colorectal cancer, it is high time we phased out the use of these chemicals in our bacon and ham production.

'It is astounding that Wiltshire-cure producers are still allowed to add nitrites at such high levels, despite a growing consensus that when nitrite-cured meat is cooked and ingested, highly carcinogenic nitrosamines form in the human stomach.

'Not only should the Government take immediate steps to reduce the levels at which nitrites can be added to meat, they should put in motion measures to encourage the total elimination of nitrites from processed meat production altogether.

'Food producers around the world have demonstrated these chemicals are no longer required to make the delicious bacon and ham so many millions love. Five years on from the World Health Organisation's landmark report linking nitrite-cured processed meats to 34,000 cases of colorectal cancer a year worldwide, the failure of governments globally to respond demonstrates a total breakdown in policy-making that will be costing lives.'

The research showed Co-op and Waitrose Wiltshire slices had nitrite levels found to be 77 milligrams per kilogram and 74 milligrams per kilogram respectively.

Co-op's ordinary wafer thin cooked ham contained just eight milligrams of nitrite per kilogram.

Sainsburys unsmoked back bacon rashers had just 8.5 milligrams per kilogram.

Food regulations allow the chemicals to be added and there are no rules banning them being put in to the levels found in any of the foods in the study.

But the World Health Organisation has already made a direct link between nitrites in processed meats and the development of colorectal cancer.

Researchers from Queen's University Belfast have also established a 'strongest link yet' between nitrates in processed meat products and cancer risk.

Co-op Irresistible Wiltshire cooked (left) had nitrites of 77.4mg/kg, while Morrisons the best thick sliced British Wiltshire (right) contained 17mg/kg according to the new study from food scientists based at the University of Nottingham

Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Wiltshire contained nitrites of 27.3mg/kg while Tesco finest Wiltshire cured had 9.4mg/kg

Waitrose British Wiltshire cured ham had 73.2mg/kg nitrites, while its succulent British ham only had 8.6mg/kg nitrites

Nitrates and Nitrites: What is the difference from similarly named chemical compound? Nitrates and nitrites are two different types of chemical compound and despite similar names have different properties Nitrates are inert and considered safe but when a reaction is caused - like being added to brine - they can be changed into more problematic nitrites There is a growing consensus of scientific opinion that nitrites produce carcinogenic nitrosamines when they are added to meat and ingested. Experts have drawn a direct link between the consumption of nitrite-cured meat and bowel cancer. Advertisement

Nitrates on their own are generally safe, but it is when they are turned into nitrites that they become more dangerous.

The Wiltshire-cure has pork injected with nitrites, before soaking it in a bath of brine and nitrates.

It is this process of adding it to the brine that causes the chemical reaction turns them into the nitrites.

Ruth Dolby, the food scientist who led the investigation, said: 'We recognise from the World Health Organisation that there is a direct link between nitrites in processed meats and the development of colorectal cancer. It is therefore vital consumers know the level of nitrites in different bacon and ham products.

'It has already been established that nitrite-cured bacon and ham pose a direct risk to health if eaten in high regularity. Our study is significant because it demonstrates the often much higher levels of nitrites contained in Wiltshire-cured varieties.'

These new laboratory tests reveal the nitrite-levels in the meat at the time of purchase.

The researchers say there will have been significant depletion of nitrite-levels in the days following the products' original production to the day they were tested, which would suggest the chemicals are being added to the meat could be even higher levels than these results initially indicate.

While nitrites are allowed to be added to ordinary bacon and ham at up to 150 mg per kilogram, special legal dispensation for the century-old Wiltshire method means producers of these products can add 250 mg of nitrates per kilogram to Wiltshire ham, which convert to nitrites in the production process.

The Co-op was contacted individually for comment, but responded with a statement from trade association the British Retail Consortium.

Elizabeth Andoh-Kesson, Food Policy Adviser at the BRC, said: 'Food safety is paramount to our members and they implement strict policies with their suppliers to ensure all products comply with UK food legislation.

'Additives such as nitrites are controlled and their use is regularly monitored by the food safety authorities.

'A comprehensive survey by the authorities in 2017 concluded levels in food were safe for all age groups and there was no need to change them.'

A Waitrose & Partners spokesperson added: 'Due to the traditional process used to cure Wiltshire ham the nitrite levels will vary, however these results are well within the authorised levels.

'Overall we've been working hard to reduce nitrites across our ranges, already reducing it in our bacon and gammon.'
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Edgemont Gold Corp. (CSE: EDGM) ("Edgemont") is pleased to is pleased to announce that it has effectively tripled the size of its Dungate copper/gold project near Houston, B.C. by staking an additional 1,035.8 hectares in three claims contiguous to its current holdings. This additional ground was staked based on soil sampling and a magnetic survey conducted in 2019 that identified a possible additional Quartz Feldspar Porhyryr ("QFP") intrusive underlying the property that appears to extend to the north from the initial claim area. A map showing the possible intrusive identified last year at the Dungate project is available here.



Dungate Project Area

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6955/60210_680b883de435aa8f_002full.jpg

The staking was continued further north to include a mineral showing identified at Mud Lake in 1986 (MINFILE 093L 011) that returned assays up of 4.56% Cu, 27.9 g/t Ag and 3.1% Zn from historical grab samples. According to Assessment Report #13733 filed by Amanda Resources in 1986, the "mineral assemblage present is considered typical of massive sulphide deposits similar to the Equity mine", a past producing silver mine approximately 36 km to the south.

Edgemont has also begun summer field work at the Dungate project. Initial work will include additional geological mapping of the property area, including detailed mapping of existing trenches discovered during field work in 2019. A 16 line kilometre Induced Polarization (IP) survey covering the inferred area of the quartz feldspar porphyry ("QFP") intrusion in the south central part of the property and its margins has been scheduled for August. This survey will allow Edgemont to map the three dimensional distribution of sulphides on the property. Drill targets should be apparent after these activities have been completed.

The Dungate property is mostly underlain by volcanic rocks of either the Jurassic Hazleton Group or the Eocene Endako Group. These rocks are intruded in the south-central part of the property by a possible Eocene age QFP intrusion. The currently known mineralization on the property is proximal to the immediate area of this QFP intrusion. The geological environment hosts potential for porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum mineralization similar to the Berg deposit (Carter, 1974) or disseminated silver-copper-gold deposits similar to the past producing Equity Silver Mine (MINFILE 093L001).

The technical information contained in this news release has been approved by Joseph Campbell, P. Geo, a Director of Edgemont, who is a Qualified Person as defined in "National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects."

About Edgemont

Edgemont is focused entirely on gold exploration in Canada. It is currently actively exploring the Dungate copper/gold porphyry project located 6 km south of Houston in the Omenica Mining Division of northern British Columbia. The property consists of five mineral tenures covering 1,582.2 hectares. Investors are encouraged to review Edgemont's recent prospectus and the technical report for the Dungate Property available at www.sedar.com.

For further information, please contact:



Stuart Rogers

Chief Executive Officer

Edgemont Gold Corp.

Tel: (778) 239-3775

www.edgemontgold.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as the term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60210
Three days after a man killed his wife and two children at their rented home in outer Delhis Shiv Ram Park near Nihal Vihar, police arrested the 39-year-old man on Tuesday from Paschim Vihar. Police said the man was living on the pavements posing as a homeless person in order to avoid arrest.

The man, Gagan Kumar Sahu, was planning to flee to Nepal, officials said.

Police officers associated with the case said Sahu told them that he had become insecure and was enraged with his wife, Preeti Gupta, as she often threatened to leave him and take along her children.

Police said two days before the murders, the couple had a fight and the woman had assaulted Sahu. Police said this left Sahu seething with anger.

He planned to take revenge by killing his wife and children, said a senior investigator, who did not want to be named.

On Saturday night, the investigator said, Sahu went to bed after dinner and pretended to sleep. Sahu heard Preeti speaking on the phone, after which he took out a hammer and killed her, the officer said.

Sahu first allegedly attacked his wife. When their two children, aged 9 and 7 years, woke up on hearing their mothers screams, Sahu allegedly attacked them as well with the hammer, killing all three on the spot.

He then washed his hands, changed his clothes, and hid the bloodstained hammer in the kitchen before leaving the house around midnight, the officer said.

On Sunday, around 11.30am, Preetis father Ram Chandra Gupta, who lives in the same area, came to check on her as she was not answering his calls. Gupta found Preeti and the two children dead on the bed and their faces smashed in. He raised the alarm and alerted neighbours. The police were called and the three were shifted to a nearby hospital, where they were declared brought dead.

Gupta suspected his son-in-laws role in the murders, as he was missing. A murder case was registered and the police sent a team to Sahus native home in Jamalpur, Bihar. Another team kept surveillance on Sahus relatives and friends to whom he might go for shelter.

As we knew Sahu did not have money, we activated our intelligence network and we came to know that he had been seen at different places in outer Delhi. Our team searched and caught him sleeping on a pavement in Paschim Vihar area on Tuesday night, the officer said.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday in a press conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif that Tehran-Moscow relations are increasing exponentially, Trend reports citing IRNA.

He added that Zarif delivered President Hassan Rouhani's message to Vladimir Putin on phone.

Expressing satisfaction over Tuesday's talks, Lavrov hailed growing trend of bilateral ties.

Iranian and Russian health ministries are currently concluding good agreements, he said.

Zarif also said during the press conference that the Treaty on Iran-Russia bilateral relations will come to an end in near future and it will be extended for five years automatically.

He further noted that he discussed bilateral relations with Lovrov during today's meeting.

"We are trying to sign a new long-term deal and present to the two countries' parliaments for approval," he said.
The Chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rev. Dr. Paul Kwame Boafo has asked Christians to play active role in politics in order to bring sanity into the body politic of the country.

Asked whether Christians should stay away from core politics, he said, "We rather call on them to be involved in politics to straighten things, to bring sanity and dignity to it."



Rev. Dr. Boafo was speaking to journalists after going through the registration process at the offices of the Adentan Municipal Electoral Commission (EC) in Accra Wednesday.



Call on Christians, Muslims

He believed that when Christians took such positions, they would bring the Christian values to bear on the activities of their political parties and ultimately on the country.



Rev. Dr. Boafo said the call had been to both Christians and Muslims in the country to enter politics to help change the face of politics and let their values reflect in the body politics of the country.



So, I will call on those who are ready to get involved, so that we can sanitise our political system, he added.



Disturbing news

Rev. Dr. Boafo said it was worrying and disturbing news that there were violence and disturbances in some of the registration centres.



I am very worried, as the Chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana and Im very, very worried as the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, hearing of the violence in other parts of the country, where people even die as a result of this.



People should not die as they go to register. It should be peaceful, as I have seen here. Everything here is orderly and that is what should be happening everywhere, Rev. Dr. Boafo said.



Lessons

He said violence should be out of the body politic of the country, adding that as a nation, we have come very far in terms of democratic dispensation.



The Presiding Bishop said Ghanaians should have learnt their lessons such that activities such as violence and disturbances should not be repeating every election year.



We should have gone past this long time ago and that is why I will ask that we learn our lessons from here, he said, praying that those fomenting violence should stop.



Registration process

He described the registration process as smooth and friendly, adding that he enjoyed every aspect of it and called on all qualified Ghanaians to go out and register to enable them exercise their civic responsibility as to who should take up the leadership role of the country.



My advice to the general public is that it is good to go out there and register because it is for the sake of our country and for the peace and governance of our nation, especially when you are 18 and above with sound mind, Rev. Dr. Boafo said.



He said registration and voting were peaceful processes and that should be the ultimate desire of every Ghanaian, reminding the political parties that they would need a peaceful environment to rule.



So, if we go through the process of registration and election with chaos, violence, there will be no peace for them to rule and that is why from start to end, it should be peaceful. Peace is what we are all looking for, he added.



Registration so far

Briefing the Presiding Bishop on the registration in the Adentan Municipality, the Municipal Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr. Gerald Roberts said the turnout had been impressive, adding that the commissions projected figure of 115,000 based on the 2019 estimations could be exceeded.



He said 13 days into the registration exercise, a total of 79,916 people had so far registered and was hopeful that the municipality would exceed the projected figure and hit 130,000 or even more by the end of the exercise.



Mr. Roberts attributed the rise in numbers to the fast growing nature of the municipality and also because the area had become a safe haven for many.



He said the commission in the assembly had its complement of the electoral materials and also the personal protection equipment (PPE), adding that it was not compromising on the various COVID-19 protocols.









Source: Daily Graphic









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Judicial authorities in Germany are conducting an in-depth fraud investigation on the use of more than 200 000 diesel 'defeat devices' in cars produced by an international automotive group and international commercial vehicle manufacturer, as well as their subsidiaries.

Coordinated searches to gather evidence are being carried out in Germany, Italy and Switzerland. The action was planned and coordinated with the support of Eurojust to ensure secure and efficient information exchanges between involved judicial and law enforcement authorities, agree on joint prosecutorial strategies and prepare operational actions, including today's searches.

The Frankfurt am Main Prosecution Service  Center for Commercial Criminal Matters  is leading the investigation in Germany against a number of responsible people working in the international automotive group.

The investigation is focused on the suspicion that diesel engines installed in several car models sold by the company would be equipped with an illegal defeat device.

Whereas the vehicles meet the emissions standards under test conditions, the defeat device allegedly effectively shuts down the emissions control system in real drive conditions. Such defeat devices are illegal according to the European Union regulations in place. Vehicles with defeat devices are not approved for road usage in the EU and consumers with such devices installed in their cars face possible driving bans. In Germany, more than 200 000 vehicles are subject to the investigation, including larger vehicles, such as camper vans.

The Prosecutor Office of Turin, Italy, is also investigating the crime of fraud in the framework of a parallel proceeding linked to the same case.

Today, investigators from Germany, Italy and Switzerland have started searching three commercial properties of a company located in Baden-Wurttemberg and Hesse (Germany), as well as in three locations in the Piedmont region (Italy) and one location in the canton of Thurgau (Switzerland), to gather evidence on the defeat device, the marketing of vehicles and individual responsibility linked to these action. The duration of the ongoing searches is currently unknown. In addition, UK authorities have ordered two companies in London to produce relevant documents.

Photo  Shutterstock
President Trump during a news conference at the White House on Tuesday. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

President Trump, six months into a deadly pandemic and less than four months from Election Day, conceded Tuesday that the coronavirus would "get worse before it gets better" and urged all Americans to wear face masks "whether you like the mask or not."

"If you can, use the mask," he said. "Think about patriotism."

He admitted his more sober assessment of the virus, which he read from a binder of prepared text, was "something I don't like saying, but that's the way it is." His remarks came on a day when the country recorded more than 1,000 deaths from COVID-19 for the first time since May 29.

Moments later, however, Trump responded to a question without notes and delivered his familiar refrain: eventually "the virus will disappear."

The president's first appearance in the White House briefing room since late April marked a shift in rhetoric and strategy that was simultaneously sudden and, in the eyes of many of his advisers, long overdue. It also marked a tacit recognition that the months he's spent offering unrealistically rosy assessments about the virus or attempting to avoid it altogether have deeply damaged him politically.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll last week showed that 64% of Americans don't trust Trump's statements about the virus, a statistic he dismissed as "fake" in an interview Sunday with Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace.

Polls show Trump trailing the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, by a double-digit average nationwide and that a number of swing states have tipped toward Biden, with the public giving the president low marks for his coronavirus response.

In recent weeks, Trump had sought to focus on other issues, holding events to highlight regulatory rollbacks, efforts to defend Confederate statues and administration actions on immigration, a strategy to divert the country's attention from the pandemic advocated by his chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

Story continues

But Trump's counselor Kellyanne Conway and others inside the White House, playing to the president's vanity, eventually succeeded in convincing him he could be more effective if he returned to the podium to directly address the issue of singular importance to the country that also happens to be his biggest political liability.

Trump held lengthy briefings seven days a week in March and April, as the country was first overtaken by the coronavirus. He halted the briefings, which often lasted more than two hours and grew contentious, after a disastrous appearance in which he suggested that bleach injections could serve as a therapeutic in the absence of a vaccine.

Tuesday's briefing lasted just 35 minutes and featured the president on the dais alone, taking only a handful of questions. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, who was a fixture at past briefings, said an hour before the briefing began that he was not invited. Dr. Deborah Birx, who leads the White House coronavirus taskforce, was also absent, although the president, asked why his top public health experts weren't there, claimed Birx was "right outside."

With the virus surging across the Sun Belt, Trump selectively cited statistics to assert that the recent spike in cases has mostly affected younger Americans.

His remarks betrayed no awareness of how he had politicized the act of wearing masks or prioritized commerce over public health by pressuring governors to lift stay-at-home orders and allow businesses to reopen quickly.

He claimed that governors, several of whom have complained about the lack of assistance from Washington, don't "need anything right now" and were in harmony with the White House.

"I think we're all responsible," he said of himself and governors. "I view it as a team."

Trump did promise vaguely that a new national strategy was in the offing, months after he and aides predicted the coronavirus would be gone.

"We are in the process of developing a strategy that's going to be very, very powerful," Trump said.

Before leaving the briefing room, Trump was asked if he's ready to be judged based on his response to the coronavirus.

"This, among other things," he said.
CLEVELAND -- Judges are powerful people. Each and every day, judges make decisions that can build or destroy lives. They send people to prison for decades. Or not. They order people to pay others large sums of money. Or not. They evict families from homes. Or not.

Given the immense power they wield, what qualities/attributes do you think these people should have? Integrity is high on the list. An even temperament is beneficial. Patience. Attentiveness. Knowledge of the law, of course. But I believe most people would want, most of all, that their judge be fair.
Technavio has been monitoring the global automotive climate control market size and it is poised to grow by USD 0.21 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of 1% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005720/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Automotive Climate Control Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire).

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Air International Thermal Systems Inc., DENSO Corp., Hanon Systems, Japan Climate Systems Corp., Keihin Corp., MAHLE GmbH, Marelli Holdings Co. Ltd., Sanden Holdings Corp., Subros Ltd., and Valeo SA are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The growing popularity of automotive thermal systems has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the sharp decline in automobile production and sales might hamper market growth.

Automotive Climate Control Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Automotive Climate Control Market is segmented as below:

Technology Manual Automatic

Geography APAC Europe North America South America MEA



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44348

Automotive Climate Control Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our automotive climate control market report covers the following areas:

Automotive Climate Control Market size

Automotive Climate Control Market trends

Automotive Climate Control Market industry analysis

This study identifies the increasing adoption of HVAC systems in trucks as one of the prime reasons driving the automotive climate control market growth during the next few years.

Automotive Climate Control Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the automotive climate control market, including some of the vendors such as Air International Thermal Systems Inc., DENSO Corp., Hanon Systems, Japan Climate Systems Corp., Keihin Corp., MAHLE GmbH, Marelli Holdings Co. Ltd., Sanden Holdings Corp., Subros Ltd., and Valeo SA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the automotive climate control market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Automotive Climate Control Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist automotive climate control market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the automotive climate control market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the automotive climate control market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of automotive climate control market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Technology

Market segments

Comparison by Technology

Automatic Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Manual Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Technology

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Air International Thermal Systems Inc.

DENSO Corp.

Hanon Systems

Japan Climate Systems Corp.

Keihin Corp.

MAHLE GmbH

Marelli Holdings Co. Ltd.

Sanden Holdings Corp.

Subros Ltd.

Valeo SA

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005720/en/

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Jesse Maida

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Email: media@technavio.com

Website: www.technavio.com/
Gov. Tom Wolf spoke out in defense of Dr. Rachel Levine Wednesday and assailed the Bloomsburg Fair fundraising event that mocked Pennsylvanias health secretary.

Levine, a transgender woman, has been a target of slurs in recent months as shes gained increasing visibility in the Wolf Administrations efforts to combat the coronavirus. The governor denounced the hate and transphobia that has emerged in recent months.

The latest controversy emerged after photos were shared from at a fundraiser held at the Bloomsburg Fair. The fundraiser, which was organized to raise money for area fire companies, included a dunk tank where a man wore a dress and wig, and a post to the Bloomsburg Fair Association Facebook page indicated the man was meant to resemble Dr. Levine.

Wolf leveled sharp criticisms at the fair and urged Pennsylvania residents to speak out against discriminatory remarks aimed at the transgender community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought hate and transphobia into the spotlight through relentless comments and slurs directed at Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, who is a highly skilled, valued, and capable member of my administration and Transgender, Wolf said in a statement Wednesday. The derogatory incident involving the Bloomsburg Fair is the latest of these vile acts, which by extension impact Transgender people across the commonwealth and nation.

I want to talk about the transphobic incident involving the Bloomsburg Fair.



This is the latest in a relentless series of vile slurs directed at Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine  a highly skilled and accomplished member of my administration.  Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) July 22, 2020

The Bloomsburg Fair Associations Facebook post was deleted Monday, but it gained widespread attention and criticism.

Dr. Levine? Thank you you were a hit and raised a lot of money for the local fire companies. Wonder why so many were trying to dunk you, said the Bloomsburg Fair Associations post, which included a smiley-face emoji.

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., said Levine is owed an apology. Bloomsburg University also issued a statement condemning the fairs post.

Dr. Levine is an honorable public servant whose tireless work to keep PA safe and healthy has saved countless lives. She is owed an apology. https://t.co/VMzwuDn6Ue  Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) July 21, 2020

Fair officials initially said the man in the dunk tank, a local fire chief, intended to look like Marilyn Monroe. Then in a news conference Tuesday, fair officials apologized to Levine and the events sponsors and supporters, saying they meant no harm.

A fellow dressed up in a dress to get people to throw balls at the dunk tank to raise money. It turned into where people thought we were offending Dr. Rachel Levine, and that was no intention at all, Fair President Randy Karschner said in a report by the Associated Press.

Fair organizers called it a serious lapse in judgment.

Wolf said jokes aimed at mocking transgender individuals can be harmful.

Hate has no place in Pennsylvania, even in the smallest transphobic joke, action or social media post, Wolf said in his statement. Im calling upon all Pennsylvanians to speak out against hateful comments and acts, including the transphobia directed at Dr. Levine and all Transgender people in our great commonwealth.

Rafael Alvarez Febo, executive director of the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs, assailed the fairs actions and spoke out on Levines behalf.

The leadership of the Bloomsburg Fair knew they were catering to Transphobic sentiments when they chose to impersonate Dr. Levine, Alvarez Febo said.

Marginalized communities know when we are being targeted and will not be gas-lit into thinking this was just about Dr. Levines position as Secretary of Health, the statement continued. In times of crisis and pain LGBTQ individuals are united in pushing back against Transphobia of any kind. Commissioners believe that the health and safety of Pennsylvanians should not be undermined due to these toxic and personal attacks.

The commission previously issued a statement of support of Levine last month in the wake of vile and toxic transphobia.

In a news conference Tuesday, Levine said she aims to concentrate on her job and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

I am going to stay, no matter what happens, laser-focused on protecting the public health in Pennsylvania, Levine said at an event at WellSpan York Hospital on Tuesday. Our vision at the Pennsylvania Department of Health is a healthy Pennsylvania for all. And Im going to do absolutely everything I can to achieve that, whether people agree with me, or if they dont agree with me. Their health is still important to me.

Wolf praised Levine for her work during the pandemic, even as she has endured hate-fueled attacks.

Dr. Levine is a distinguished and accomplished public servant, Wolf said. She is committed to keeping Pennsylvanians safe and healthy, even those who direct hate-fueled attacks at her. Im proud of the work she has done in her five years serving Pennsylvanians, and her success at leading our commonwealth during the COVID-19 crisis is a testament to her intelligence and work ethic.

Sean Adams of PennLive and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More from PennLive

Bloomsburg Fair fundraiser dunk tank targeting Rachel Levine criticized as transphobic

Rally held at Capitol to protest mask mandates, Gov. Wolfs coronavirus restrictions
A Pakistani man has been fined eight buffaloes and eight gongs by a court on the Malaysian part of Borneo for insulting indigenous groups, an official said Wednesday. The island is home to a kaleidoscope of tribes and, in the Malaysian part, special courts deal with indigenous laws and customs. Amir Ali Khan Nawatay was ordered to pay the unusual fine by a native court in Sabah state after he pleaded guilty to making insulting comments about indigenous groups in May and June. Kota Marudu district chief Baintin Adun, who presided over Tuesday's case, said recordings of the 50-year-old businessman's comments had spread on social media, creating a lot of anger. "We want to make this an example so other people don't do the same thing again," he told AFP. "I want to appeal to society that if there are misunderstandings or arguments, don't mention another person's race." He did not reveal exactly what the Pakistani said. The businessman is a permanent resident of Malaysia, official news agency Bernama reported. Baintin said Amir had one month to pay the fine, or risked incurring a 4,000 ringgit ($940) fine or 16 months in jail, or both. Buffaloes and gongs are traditionally viewed as valuable items in indigenous communities in Sabah, and so can be used as a form of payment to settle grievances or even wedding dowries. Race is a sensitive issue in multi-ethnic Malaysia, and Sabah is one of its most diverse states, with numerous indigenous groups. Borneo, shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, is home to vast swathes of jungle and numerous exotic species.
Fighting failed real estate deals in court can be futile  and expensive  as shown by the verdicts in two recent Ontario cases.

In February, 2020, Mohammad Jafar Haghollahi and Parvaneh Yaghoubi signed an agreement to buy a property on Lockwood Circle, in Newmarket, from Gregory and Tara Butt. The contract price was $1,755,000 with a $75,000 deposit.

The property, a two-storey home with five bedrooms and five bathrooms, a pool, cabana and above-ground hot tub, has a title subject to two usage rights, or easements, sanitary and storm sewer access by the town of Newmarket.

A standard title clause in the agreement said title had to be clear except for easements that included drainage, storm and sanitary sewers.

A building location survey of the property, clearly showing the easements, was attached to the agreement as a schedule. It also contained references to the registered easements.

Prior to closing, the lawyer for the buyers submitted a formal demand that the easements be removed from title. The sellers lawyer responded that the title objections were not valid.

The buyers applied to the court for a declaration that they could rescind the transaction and get a return of their deposit

Ruling in favour of the sellers, Justice Jill Cameron concluded on June 28 there was an inference that the existence of the easements is not the real motive behind seeking rescission of the agreement.

Cameron noted that the sellers had good title to the property and could convey substantially what the purchasers contracted to get. The sellers were awarded the $75,000 deposit that the buyers had paid.

A similar case was heard in Newmarket court this past February. In 2017, buyers Hong Phat Tran and Thu Thuy Thi Dinh agreed to purchase a house on St. Johns Sideroad W., in Aurora, for $2,130,000 from Il-Jung Joo and Hae-Sun Joo. They paid a $100,000 deposit.

The title search of the property revealed two registered sewer easements to the town of Newmarket, an easement to Bell Canada for maintenance to telecommunications facilities, and easements to Aurora Hydro and Aurora Cable TV.

A survey of the property attached to the offer depicted the easements and their locations.

The lawyer for the buyers demanded the easements be removed from the propertys title. The sellers refused and the deal did not close.

The sellers resold the property for $1,700,000  a loss of $430,000.

In awarding the sellers $430,000 plus $18,000 in costs without the need for a trial, Justice Gregory Mulligan found that the buyers had breached the contract and noted there is no indication as to how the property would be serviced by the utilities, including hydro, telephone or cable TV, if the easements were removed.

As I see it, three important takeaways from these cases are:

1. There is little point in litigating a failed real estate transaction on the basis of standard easements on title.

2. Always attach a land survey to a purchase agreement.

3. Courts do not like technical excuses for getting out of a purchase contract.

Bob Aaron is a Toronto real estate lawyer and a contributing columnist for the Star. He can be reached at bob@aaron.ca or on Twitter: @bobaaron2

July 27, 2020  Editors note: This column has been edited to clarify details of the transaction involving Mohammad Jafar Haghollahi and Parvaneh Yaghoubi and Gregory and Tara Butt.
Last week, the Twitter accounts of Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Barack Obama and other high-profile users were hacked in a bitcoin scam. The hack brings up several nightmare scenarios about how social media platform could be used to foster carnage and chaos.

What if the hackers had been seeking not profit, but conflict? What if, rather than tweeting a crude bitcoin hoax, they had tried to provoke war? What if the tweet came from a government account, such as U.S. Strategic Command? Our team at King's College London has been researching precisely those scenarios. Here's what you need to know about the risks of conflict escalating via Twitter.

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The United States is asymmetrically vulnerable to escalation by tweet

A group of hackers apparently used an internal Twitter tool to take over the accounts of prominent individuals and, from their accounts, to tweet a bitcoin scam that raised over $100,000 in two hours. Twitter shut down hundreds of thousands of verified accounts to stop the scam from spreading further.

The United States is particularly susceptible to Twitter disinformation. About 20% of Americans use Twitter, while only 6% of Russians and 1% of Indians do. This means Americans are more likely than any other nationality to read tweets and will be more exposed to disinformation on the platform.

- - -

Twitter could contribute to crisis escalation in three ways

First, governments could inadvertently escalate a crisis because of miscommunication and misperception. Collateral messaging - a term meaning a message intended for a domestic audience but interpreted differently by an international one - is a long-standing problem in diplomatic communications, and particularly challenging over Twitter. For example, when President Donald Trump referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "Little Rocket Man," he probably intended to project a strong image to the U.S. public. But North Korea would have perceived it as baiting and aggressive.

Twitter could also thicken the fog of war and sow confusion. That's complicated by the fact that leaders can generate information overload, making it difficult for the public, allies and adversaries to differentiate background noise from the intended message.

Over the 10 days of the U.S.-Iran crisis this year, Trump tweeted more than 181 times; 69 of the messages were about Iran. Conversely, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a relatively active tweeter, tweeted about the crisis just 12 times. Trump generated a large amount of background noise, making it difficult for outsiders to sift through the messages and understand his true meaning.

Next is intentional escalation. A malicious government might use Twitter to distribute disinformation or amplify alarmist stories to try to influence another government's behavior. In a NATO-Russia conflict, Russia could tweet disinformation to provoke an American response, such as nationalist calls for military intervention based on fake news.

And, finally, a third party, such as a group of hackers, could push governments into a conflict through social media. This could be done through a leak of sensitive materials, disinformation or a politically motivated hack against a major political party. Such nongovernmental groups are increasingly active on social media. Bot activity is on the rise, and often observers can't tell if they're run by governments or outside groups.

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A Twitter shutdown will not solve the problem

Several of Twitter's decisions have a public impact. The company's response to the recent hack was to freeze more than 300,000 verified accounts. While necessary, such a blanket shutdown could be dangerous in a crisis.

People rely more on social media during times of uncertainty, research finds. In a survey of more than 25,000 consumers in 30 markets conducted from March 14 to 24, the consulting firm Kantar found that the coronavirus pandemic prompted a 40% increase in global use of Facebook and WhatsApp. One study found that during a major U.K. snowstorm in 2010, Twitter activity spiked as snowfall increased, and that government officials used the platform to respond directly to public queries. In another example, research found that Twitter was essential in helping direct humanitarian aid during the 2010-2011 electoral crisis in Cote d'Ivoire.

Twitter's internal security - or lack thereof - affects not just its profitability but the public. Last week's hackers told Vice that they had paid a Twitter employee for access to the accounts, saying, "We used a [Twitter] rep that literally done [sic] all the work for us." This would be particularly troubling during a crisis.

Twitter could mitigate many of these risks by developing a more sophisticated response plan to future hacks, rather than a massive shutdown of verified accounts. It also could share information about the most recent hack to inform research into how to prevent future hacks and how to respond to the next one, particularly if it occurs during a crisis.

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Governments need Twitter crisis management plans

Governments may wish to create a crisis management plan to mitigate the risks of Twitter escalation. Our research suggests that precrisis management is particularly important, because once a crisis begins there may not be time to develop a plan in real time.

Toward that end, governments could develop an interagency guide of best practices for tweeting during crises and for coordinating social media activity across government accounts to avoid working at cross purposes.

This year's U.S.-Iran crisis can help demonstrate how mixed messages could escalate a crisis. On Jan. 3, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent 23 tweets about meeting with regional allies and expressing the U.S. desire for a peaceful resolution to the crisis. The next day, Trump tweeted that the United States had targeted 52 Iranian cultural sites and threatened that Iran would "BE HIT VERY HARD AND VERY FAST." Which message were Iranians to believe: Pompeo's calls for peace or Trump's threats?

But once a crisis starts, our research suggests that the most valuable step governments can take to avoid escalation is simple: Stop tweeting individually and only allow official pronouncements. This would ensure that the U.S. government is sending coordinated and consistent messages to minimize the risks of inadvertent escalation. Otherwise, next time the damage could be much more serious than $118,000 in bitcoin.

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Williams is a lecturer in the defense studies department and the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King's College London. For other analysis and commentary from The Monkey Cage, an independent blog anchored by political scientists from universities around the country, see www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage.
CHICAGO - State and city officials on Tuesday pushed back hard against Trump administration plans to deploy federal agents to Chicago, saying they are determined to avoid a repeat of the escalation that has brought swelling crowds and chaotic scenes to the streets of Portland, Ore.

The presence of Department of Homeland Security forces in Oregon's largest city - dubbed "Trump's troops" by the governor - has inspired protesters to turn out in large numbers, drawing new faces opposed to what they call an assault on local rights.

But with Trump threatening to send in federal agents to combat crime in cities run by "very liberal Democrats" - and with Homeland Security officials drawing up plans to deploy in Chicago - the standoff appeared poised to expand from the Pacific Northwest to America's Midwestern hub.

"We're going to do everything we can to prevent them from coming," Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said Tuesday. "And if they do come, we're going to do everything we can from a legal perspective to get them out."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, was more measured, saying the city would cooperate if federal reinforcements work with existing federal agencies in Chicago. If not, she said, she will fight the deployment in court.

"We welcome actual partnership," she said in an afternoon news conference. "But we do not welcome dictatorship, we do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents."

Governors and mayors across the country have reacted with alarm to Trump's threats. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf called on him to "stop slandering diverse, progressive cities like Oakland in his racist dog whistles and divisive campaign tactics."

In Portland, Trump administration officials have defended the deployment of agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection as necessary to help defend federal buildings and officers.

"The well-organized mob in Portland has become increasingly aggressive, especially against law enforcement," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday.

But the agents' presence has been met with condemnation from local officials for tactics they say have included detaining protesters and whisking them away in unmarked vans.

Rather than dampen protests that have been a staple of downtown Portland all summer, since the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, the presence of federal agents appears only to have energized them. The crowd on Monday night was the biggest that many longtime activists had seen since June, with a city park and streets around the police force's boarded-up Justice Center overflowing.

"A lot of new people out here tonight," observed one activist at the front of the crowd as hundreds cheered. "Next time you come out here, bring a gas mask, goggles. . . . Remember, [the federal agents] bring weapons."

The crowd included moms in yellow shirts, bike helmets and masks, as well as dads wearing orange and holding signs with messages such as, "defend black lives, defend human rights, defend our city!"

Seasoned protesters decked out in all black - helmets and gas masks hanging from their backpacks or bodies - mingled among newcomers who had arrived with little more than cloth masks over their faces and signs held aloft.

The Department of Homeland Security has not said exactly how many agents have been dispatched to Portland, a city where Trump has said the unrest is "worse than Afghanistan" - a view that matches an overriding theme of his struggling reelection effort.

Federal officers armed with tear gas, stun grenades, pepper spray, rubber bullets and more have fired on crowds of people and made more than two dozen arrests in the area around the federal courthouse since July 4.

Many at the protests this week said they had never attended one before. But watching the images of federal agents in their city persuaded them to act.

"There's been a call for those of us who are white and able-bodied and can be out here putting our bodies on the line to come protect our community," said a 39-year-old named Abby, a pair of pink children's swim goggles pulled up around her bike helmet. "Our community is under threat right now."

Abby, who like many others declined to give her last name out of fear of being targeted in the federal crackdown, held a sign above her head that she had originally made for a small protest at her 9-year-old daughter's elementary school

"All mamas were summoned when George Floyd called out for his mama," it read.

The escalation in Portland is what Chicago officials hope to avoid.

Lightfoot said Tuesday her understanding of federal plans is that additional agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be "plugged into existing agencies that will help manage and suppress" street violence.

In a letter to Trump on Monday, she warned that agents operating outside of locally managed commands would not be welcome, a point she repeated at her Tuesday news conference.

"I don't put anything past this administration, which is why we will be diligent and why we will be ready. If we have to use the courts to stop them, we will," she said.

Other Chicago leaders said they were deeply suspicious of Trump's intentions.

"This is pure political gamesmanship," said Matt Martin, a member of the city council. "Whether he sends in troops or not, you can't lose sight of the fact that whatever he does will be driven primarily by what he thinks the political benefits will be and not what is best for the city of Chicago."

Police union leader John Catanzara, Trump's primary ally in Chicago, sent the president a letter over the weekend asking him to intervene to address rising crime.

"Mayor Lightfoot has proved to be a complete failure who is either unwilling or unable to maintain law and order here," he wrote. He told Trump he "proudly and repeatedly" wears Trump gear when he speaks before the council.

But for many residents, the prospect of federal agents on the streets was deeply unnerving.

"My neighbors are scared," said state Rep. Will Guzzardi, a Democrat, who represents a suburban Chicago district. "It feels like something from a dictatorship on the other side of the globe. Not something we'd expect to be happening in our backyard."

Meanwhile, activists are preparing, with the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter mapping out a protest plan and giving members details about how to deal with clashes on the street.

Aislinn Pulley, founder of the Chicago BLM chapter, said she considers what happened in Portland over the weekend "a test case for what [the administration] is planning across the country, and Chicago is the next phase."

For some in Chicago's activist community, the confusion over what role federal agents will perform is overshadowed by what they say is a clear attempt to scapegoat protesters for gun violence and civil unrest.

"[Authorities] think us not backing down is us being violent," said Alycia Kamil, a 19-year-old organizer with the anti-violence group Good Kids Mad City, who used her middle name for safety reasons. "No, us not backing down is us being powerful and showing we have courage."

In recent days, organizers have protested police funding near Lightfoot's home and marched through downtown to denounce the plan to deploy federal agents. But in Grant Park on Friday, a group police described as "vigilantes" attempted to topple a statue of Christopher Columbus. Videos from the scene showed protesters pelting police with cans and water bottles, while officers were seen striking people with batons and accosting journalists.

Kamil cited a video in which an officer punched a young woman while she backed away and knocked out a tooth as evidence of the need to keep demonstrating.

"When you go to these protests and see police smacking teeth out of young girls, how can I stay at home and not work toward what we need changed?" Kamil said.

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Lang reported from Portland, Bellware from Chicago and Witte from Washington. Scott Wilson in Santa Barbara, Calif., contributed to this report.
The FBI has linked the Sunday shooting attack at the New Jersey home of federal judge Esther Salas  which left her 20-year-old son dead and her husband critically wounded  to the murder of an attorney earlier this month in Southern California.

Multiple law enforcement sources told CBS News the suspect, 72-year-old attorney Roy Den Hollander, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was found in a car in upstate New York Monday. The suspect came to Salas' house wearing a FedEx uniform and a COVID-style mask, sources confirmed. Salas was in the basement at the time of the attack and was not hurt, but her husband, Mark Anderl, remains in critical condition. Her son, Daniel Anderl, was killed.

Investigators believe Salas was the "intended target" of the attack, a law enforcement source told CBS News. Den Hollander had a history of pursuing what he called "antifeminist" lawsuits, alleging gender discrimination against men.

On Wednesday, the FBI Newark confirmed they are working with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office and have evidence linking Den Hollander to the fatal shooting of another men's rights attorney, Marc Angelucci. The 52-year-old Angelucci was shot and killed at his Crestline home July 11, reports CBS Los Angeles.

Longtime friend Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition For Men, told the station he had known Angelucci, who served as the organization's vice president, for more than 20 years.

"He was loved by virtually everybody in the men's rights movement," Crouch told CBS Los Angeles. "He was like our right leg."

Marc Angelucci / Credit: CBS LA

Crouch said he learned from people at Angelucci's home that the shooter was dressed as a delivery person, and said he "immediately saw a link" to the attack on Salas' family. Crouch told the station he knew Den Hollander, describing him as "nut job." Den Hollander was once on National Coalition for Men's board, he said, but was removed after threatening Crouch.

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FBI officials in Newark, New Jersey, on Wednesday would not describe the evidence or explain how it ties into the two cases, reports the Associated Press. Den Hollander is considered a prime suspect in Angelucci's killing, a source said.

Den Hollander had previously been an attorney in a case before Salas in which a female plaintiff argued that it was unconstitutional to prevent women from registering for the draft.

Den Hollander had been involved in other gender-related lawsuits in the past, including one in which he sued Columbia University claiming its women's studies program represented "bigotry against men." The case was dismissed. He also tried and failed to have the Violence Against Women Act overturned.

Den Hollander had been apparently diagnosed with terminal cancer before his death, according to a law enforcement source.

Salas' husband, Mark Anderl, is a criminal defense attorney and former Essex County prosecutor. His law partner David Oakley said Salas' son, Daniel, was a college student at the Catholic University of America who "was planning to follow his mother and father into a career in law."

Salas is best known for presiding over the case of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" star Teresa Giudice and her husband, Joe Giudice. They pleaded guilty to fraud charges in 2014. Teresa was sentenced to 15 months in prison while Joe was hit with a 41-month sentence.

The Associated Press reports Salas is presiding over a lawsuit in which Deutsche Bank investors assert the bank made false and misleading statements about its anti-money laundering policies and didn't keep tabs on "high-risk" customers including convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

CBS News' Pat Milton and Andy Triay contributed to this report.

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A moratorium on evictions from homes with federally backed mortgages is set to expire on Friday, putting millions of households at risk of eviction as the economy continues to struggle under coronavirus shutdowns.

The eviction ban, part of the CARES Act passed in March, applies to tenants who rent in homes owned by a homeowner with a federally backed mortgage held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

The Urban Institute estimates that about 12.3 million households have been protected by the moratorium, or about 30 percent of all renters nationwide.

Once the moratorium lapses, landlords will be able to give their delinquent tenants 30 days' notice and then begin filing eviction paperwork in late August.

Renters hold up signs as they protest calling for more protections from eviction in California on July 17. A federal eviction moratorium is set to expire on Friday

Many cities have their own local eviction moratoriums covering all residential and commercial tenants, including New York City (through August) and Los Angeles (through September 20).

One in four tenants in New York City haven't paid rent at all since March when the coronavirus pandemic began, according to a report from the Community Housing Improvement Program.

In many other cities and states, local eviction bans put in place early in the pandemic have already expired, leaving the federal moratorium as the last defense for tenants in federally backed homes who have been unable to make full payments in the crisis.

Thirty-two percent of Americans did not make a full on-time housing payment in July, up slightly from 30 percent in June, according to industry analysts at ApartmentList.

In early April, the percentage of Americans unable to make a full on-time housing payment jumped to 24 percent, then rose to 31 percent in May and 30 percent in June.

Thirty-two percent of Americans did not make a full on-time housing payment in July

Younger and poorer renters were the most likely to miss a full housing payment in July

House Democrats have put forward a proposal for $100 billion in rental assistance in their $3 billion HEROES Act bill, which faces steep challenges in passing the Senate. That proposal would help renters at the lowest income levels for up to two years.

Alternatively, Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, has backed a bill that that would ban evictions and foreclosures for a year while giving tenants up to 18 months to pay back missed payments.

The debate comes as jobless rate remains in double digits, higher than in the last decade's Great Recession.

Last week, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland published research showing that evictions have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels in parts of the country where local moratoriums have expired.

The regional Fed bank looked at eviction data from 44 U.S. cities and counties, finding it fell sharply in the early days of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic as many jurisdictions enacted bans on eviction filings, hearings or both.

However, the researchers found that evictions have already surged in places where local moratoriums have expired.

The year-over-year change in eviction filing activity is seen in four markets studied by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, rising sharply when eviction bans expired

This chart shows the proportion of rental units in the Fed study under various pandemic evictions policies over time, from March 1 to July 7

'As of July 7, roughly one-third of rental units in our study are no longer covered by temporary policies, and eviction filings have now returned to their prepandemic levels in those places no longer covered,' the researchers wrote.

Eviction filings remain lower in areas that have continued their bans.

Moreover, it could get worse in the weeks ahead as a number of the emergency relief programs enacted by Congress to assist tens of millions of unemployed Americans start to expire at the end of July.

In addition to the federal eviction moratorium expiring, federal supplemental unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of July.

The Fed researchers, Rebecca Cowin and Hal Martin, call it 'a situation which further raises the risk of eviction for households impacted by the crisis.'
After living through the presidency of Donald Trump, the Chicks are rethinking how they feel about President George W. Bush.

The women who make up the group  Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer  said as much on Tuesdays episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, when the host asked.

Yes, Maines said. I dont rethink that I didnt want to go to war and that weapons of mass destruction were a lie but yes, it would be a huge lovefest if I saw George Bush right now, because of where were at with this current president.

The Chicks appeared on Watch What Happens Live. (Photo: Getty Images)

Maines further explained her stance Monday when she equated Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic to second-degree murder.

Cohens question on Watch What Happens Live followed one about whether the women had seen the backlash that talk show host Ellen DeGeneres received last year after she hung out with Bush at a Dallas Cowboys football game. They had.

Maines quipped, I joke that today I might actually make out with George Bush.

The Chicks were infamously shunned by much of the country music community in 2003, after Maines criticized Bush in the lead up to the Iraq War. During a performance in London, she said, Just so you know, were on the good side with yall. We do not want this war, this violence. And were ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.

Although the Chicks said they hadnt come into contact with members of the Bush family since the incident, Maguire explained that she and her sister, Strayer, used to encounter Bush at Texas Rangers baseball games. They would attend to sing the national anthem, while he was a part-owner of the team.

Cohen asked the group, too, about their feelings on Taylor Swift, an artist theyve collaborated with and who cited them in her January documentary, Miss Americana. In it, Swift said she was warned early on that she shouldnt speak out on issues she cares about precisely because of what happened to the Chicks. Swift, who released her first album in 2006, when she was 16, has increasingly spoken out about political issues and the causes she cares about since late 2018.

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You know, she started her career when she was so young, Strayer said, that, I think, she had people that she went to as kind of a panel when she was younger, so its good to see her as she becomes her own woman questioning these things and saying, No, I really do want to talk about it.

Strayer wasnt surprised Swift had been told not to be like the Chicks.

Thats not news to us, either, Strayer said, but, I dont know. Im proud of her. Shes awesome!

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
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By PTI

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump raised a whopping USD 20 million during his first ever virtual fundraiser, his campaign said.

Over 300,000 donations contributed to this virtual fundraiser hosted on Tuesday by President Donald J Trump and Trump Victory Finance Committee National Chair Kimberly Guilfoyle, a statement said.

"Trump Victory's groundbreaking fundraising record proves the American people are passionate about gaining four more years under President Trump's strong leadership.

"Across the nation, the SILENT MAJORITY are coming together to donate their valuable time and hard-earned money to help make this President's re-election a reality," Guilfoyle said in the statement.

"The most important measure of success in this race is enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm from President Trump's supporters cannot be matched," she said.

Trump is being challenged by former vice president Joe Biden from the Democratic party in the November 3 presidential elections.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Biden has been holding most of fundraising virtually from his residence in Delaware.

But for Trump, who is seeking re-election for his second four-year term, this was his first virtual fund raiser.

In addition to virtually meeting with this group of donors, Trump held a Zoom call with our contest winner, a supporter from Texas who teaches at a school for students with learning differences, his campaign said.

The Trump campaign did not provide any other details.
The study, from the Century Foundation, a liberal think tank, calculates a target funding level for every school district in the country. The formula assumes that more money is needed for places with large numbers of children in poverty, with disabilities and who are learning English. It also takes into account the cost of living, teacher wages and the size of the district to account for economies of scale.
A U.S. subsidiary of a Thailand-based company proposing to build a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant in Ohio announced it is finalizing an agreement with a company to store liquid natural gas at an underground facility in the state, according to a statement. PTT Global Chemical America said Mountaineer NGL Storage, a subsidiary of Energy Storage Ventures, would store 1 million barrels of ethane for PTTGCA at the underground facility that will be built in eastern Ohios Monroe County. The plant is seen as a potential economic savior for an Appalachian region that has long struggled economically from the loss of jobs in steel, aluminum and glass manufacturing decades ago. The plant would create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal has agreed to hear a legal challenge that could put the brakes on photo radar.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal has agreed to hear a legal challenge that could put the brakes on photo radar.

In a written decision, Justice Holly Beard ruled that the full appeal court should hear arguments about the legality of provincial photo radar legislation and whether it violates Manitobans' charter rights.

"I am satisfied there is an arguable case of substance that the provisions of (photo radar in the Highway Traffic Act)... that make an owner guilty of a driving offence without proof that he or she was the driver create a reverse onus and breach Section 11 (d) of the charter regarding an accused's presumption of innocence and that this issue merits the attention of the court," Beard wrote.

The judge noted the law allows thousands of photo radar tickets to be issued every year and affects a large number of people.

"This case is really about the person guilty of the offence and not someone who happens to own the vehicle."  Lawyer Markus Buchart

Lawyer Markus Buchart, who represents vehicle owner Raymond Bernier, said Tuesday he was happy with the decision.

"(The judge) said it's a high hurdle to convince them to hold a hearing and we did," he said, noting a date for a hearing will be scheduled later.

"This case is really about the person guilty of the offence and not someone who happens to own the vehicle. I don't know if it would strike completely all of photo radar, but it would take away the shortcut the city is allowed to do.

Justice Holly Beard ruled that the full appeal court should hear arguments about the legality of provincial photo radar legislation and whether it violates Manitobans' charter rights.

"Sometimes people are out of the country and they get a ticket."

When the matter was before the court on Jan. 30, Beard was told Bernier's vehicle was caught speeding by a photo radar camera in 2016 and 2017.

When Bernier was charged with the offences, he appeared in provincial court and pleaded not guilty, arguing the law "violated his presumption of innocence."

Both the provincial court judge, and later Court of Queen's Bench justice, convicted him. They ruled that his argument had already been dealt with in the late 1980s by the appeal court.

However, Buchart argued before Beard that there had been a number of other legal decision across the country since then, including in New Brunswick where an appeal court ruled on a similar photo radar case and found that charging a vehicle owner violated their rights.

Last month, the Winnipeg Police Service announced photo radar revenue had dropped due to the pandemic and would affect its 2020 budget. Revenue has dropped $7.9 million, expenses have climbed $5.6 million, leading to an overall $13.5-million shortfall.

"The issue of being able to charge the owner of a vehicle, and not the driver, is long overdue to be heard. That's why we're pleased with this decision."  Todd Dube, Wise Up Winnipeg

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Todd Dube of Wise Up Winnipeg, which says photo radar is a cash grab and not about making Winnipeg streets safer, calls the legal action "the biggest and most important case of all the cases of photo enforcement.

"The issue of being able to charge the owner of a vehicle, and not the driver, is long overdue to be heard. That's why we're pleased with this decision."

Dube said if the current photo radar practice is struck down, the city could always follow California's example in which two cameras are used: one to capture an image of the licence plate and the other to take a photo of the driver.

"Then a server has to go to the address with hope of seeing the driver, otherwise no violation," he said.

"The only other applicable law is for a non-moving violation like with a parking ticket. But when dealing with a moving violation, it is a whole other matter. A moving violation not to the driver is really inappropriate."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca




Abubakar Malami, Diezani Alison-Madueke and Ibrahim Magu

Suspended acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, has told a presidential panel that the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, is the person frustrating the extradition of Diezani Alison-Madueke to Nigeria for trial.

Recall that Magu had been previously accused of refusing to cooperate with crime-fighting authorities in the United Kingdom to facilitate the return of a former petroleum minister, Diezani, to face prosecution in Nigeria for alleged corruption.

But the former acting chairman of the EFCC told a probe panel investigating allegations of corruption against him that it was his accuser, Malami, who was actually frustrating the extradition of Diezani to Nigeria, Premium Times reports.

Magu said the EFCC had made several requests to the UK authorities through the AGFs office demanding the extradition of the former petroleum minister so she can face charges in Nigeria.

He said Malamis office never communicated Diezanis extradition request to the UK authorities.

According to Magu, several requests through the AGF for the extradition of other high profile Nigerian fugitives abroad have not been responded to by Malami.

Meanwhile, Wahab Shittu, legal counsel of Ibrahim Magu, has expressed belief that his client will scale through the floodgate of allegations levelled against him.

Shittu made this known on Monday, July 20, adding that Magu and Nigerians should expect positive surprises from the Justice Ayo Salami-led presidential panel probe.

Speaking on the heels of a comment made by Garba Shehu, senior media aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, Shittu assured that Magu will come out clean from the investigation.
ALTON  Main Street United Methodist Church (MSUMC) is creating a new normal, the same as most churches, businesses, institutions or, for that matter, individuals, are trying to do during the current unprecedented times.

Main Street Methodist also recently welcomed Rev. Alberto Ramirez as its new pastor after former pastor Rev. Tim Pate retired.

Ramirezs previous appointment was a three-point charge  with two Illinois churches in Momence, and one in Grant Park. A naturalized American citizen, Ramirez is originally from Mexico. He became a pastor in the Methodist Mexican Church in 1995, serving mostly in churches in the area of Baja California, Mexico. His last church in Mexico was in Tijuana.

In 2008, he was invited to serve in the United Methodist Church in Georgia to a mostly Hispanic and Latinx congregation. In 2016, he moved to Illinois to be the pastor of two English speaking congregations and one Spanish speaking group in Kankakee County.

And while coming to a new church understandably has a certain amount of challenges, no matter when it is, a pandemic poses unique obstacles.

Basically, I can say that we need to be creative and open to trying new things, Ramirez said. For several pastors, who in the past had no idea how to do an online service, it has been very challenging.

Pastoral care is another area  not being able to visit the hospitals or the homebound, he said. In the past few months, I did three funerals with no more than ten people each, and I think now the most difficult call for pastors who really care about the safety of their parishioners is when and how to get back to worship inside.

But thank God, MSUMC has an outdoor worship center where we will continue to worship outside, at least until Labor Day weekend, he noted.

Right now, the church is offering worship services at 9 a.m. on Sundays at its outdoor worship center at 4501Wesley Way, in Godfrey, where Ramirez preached his first MSUMC service July 5.

Ramirez knew since he was a child that he wanted to be a pastor.

I grew up Roman Catholic, and I remember I wanted to be a priest, he said. I was a member of the choir and drama group of my parish, and served as acolyte. Later, my mom started to attend a Methodist church where I was involved in the childrens ministry, youth group and missions.

When he was 17 years old, he helped to establish a new church, and preached for the first time.

Later, in a regional meeting of my denomination, I felt the call to go to seminary when a group of seminary students talked about the need for pastors, he recalled.

He completed his seminary studies at the Juan Wesley Seminary in Monterrey, Mexico, and studied psychology in Tijuana.

Ramirez said MSUMC is a great church, with committed people, a passion for missions, great full-time and part-time staff, very talented and skilled volunteers, and people, who know how to make things happen, and do it with excellence.

My priorities now are to listen, see and process information about the people and dynamics of the church to move forward to the next level, he said.

I will spend most of my time in the upcoming weeks on building relationships among the members of the church and among the community. I know COVID-19 will make this a little bit more difficult than a transition in normal time, but I will find ways to make this work.

His described his dream has always been a church that practices love, justice and mercy in all its relationships between members and its relation with the community; a church that advocates for the most vulnerable and that will be the voice for those who have no voice; a church that denounces the evil and injustice in society; a church whose members worship not only on Sundays, but with their lifestyle the rest of the week; a church that has Jesus Christ as its foundation; a church where children and youth can be accepted and not judged; a church, open for all, that practices racial hospitality and reflects a diverse community.

I like Alton. Before I came here, all my friends told me, You will love Alton, he said. It is a large town with a small-town flavor. There is more respect for diversity.

His wife, Juanita, plans to be involved in ministries doing work with women, community projects and where a hand is needed.

The two have an adult son and daughter, and a 5-year-old granddaughter, who all live in Georgia.

In addition to its outdoor service, Main Street is responding to the pandemic by providing an online pre-recorded worship video, and might begin live streaming the outdoor service. The church office is open, and meetings and some events are being held with under 50 people in the building, while following safety guidelines. Sign-in is also required for people entering the church building.

Main Street United Methodist Church: A long, impressive history

Main Street celebrated its centennial in 2017, along with a period of great growth.

The current sanctuary was built in 1973; an education wing was added in 1986; and, in 2001 the library was built. The building immediately prior to the current structure was constructed in 1924, on the site of the present church parking lot.

Around the same time, the church merged with what was then Washington Avenue Methodist Church and became known as Main Street Methodist Episcopal Church. Its present name was established in 1968.

The first service was held in 1817 in Upper Alton (a village that wouldnt become part of the city of Alton until 1911), at the home of one of its six members. Samuel H. Thompson became the first pastor in 1818, and private homes continued to be the place of worship until the first Methodist church building in Alton (a frame structure) was built in 1835, known as Wesley Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church. It was named for Methodist Church co-founder John Wesley.

A brick church was built in 1849. Others followed, with the current church building serving the area for 45 years, with a few additions and tweaks since that time.

During the Great Depression, the church was in debt, and when the bank called the loan, in a particularly amazing example of church support, members took out mortgages on their own personal property to pay off the debt, then cooked and sold lunches at the church to pay themselves back.

Numerous pastors have served the church throughout the years, many for short periods of time, and others longer. Peter Cartwright was a circuit rider and a nationally known Methodist preacher, born in 1785, who travelled from one Methodist church and conference to another, from Kentucky to Illinois, Tennessee and other states, and made a difference in the growth of Methodism, in general.

Outreach programs at Main Street United Methodist include Honduras mission trips since 2005; the Water is Life Liberian mission team; support of the Crisis Food Center, missions to Bulgaria through the In Mission Together program; the nearly-50-year-old Encounter Youth Choir and the Serving Area Kids summer lunch program, which started again July 2.

The Alton school district provided lunches until the end of June, and Main Street picked up after that. Pickup is at several locations on Monday and Thursday mornings, where recipients can get five lunches total, distributed only on the two days.

For more information on Main Street United Methodist Church, visit www.mainstreetumc.net.
Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of Slack, waits to do a television interview after ringing the opening bell the New York Stock Exchange in New York on June 20, 2019.

Slack filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission alleging anticompetitive behavior, the company said on Wednesday.

Slack alleges in the complaint that Microsoft abused its market dominance to eliminate competition for its Teams work communication product by tying it to its popular Office productivity suite. Slack claims that move meant millions were forced to install the app without the ability to remove it. Slack runs a service that competes directly with Microsoft Teams.

Slack's stock fell 5.1% Wednesday and Microsoft's rose 1.4%.

In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "We created Teams to combine the ability to collaborate with the ability to connect via video, because that's what people want. With Covid-19, the market has embraced Teams in record numbers while Slack suffered from its absence of video-conferencing. We're committed to offering customers not only the best of new innovation, but a wide variety of choice in how they purchase and use the product. We look forward to providing additional information to the European Commission and answering any questions they may have."

A spokesperson for the EU Competition Commission confirmed it received the complaint and said in a statement, "We will assess it under our standard procedures."

The complaint stems from previous frustrations at Slack. CEO Stewart Butterfield told The Verge in an interview in May, "Microsoft is perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with killing us, and Teams is the vehicle to do that." Still, Butterfield told CNBC earlier that month that "Teams is not a competitor to Slack," even though a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission names Microsoft as Slack's "primary competitor."

On a call with reporters following the announcement, Slack Vice President of Communications and Policy Jonathan Prince said Butterfield's past comments were meant to highlight the different propositions of Slack and Teams, and noted Microsoft also lists Slack as a competitor in SEC filings.

Microsoft has largely avoided scrutiny from antitrust authorities in recent years after the landmark case against the company brought by states and the Justice Department around the turn of the century. In that case, U.S. officials accused Microsoft of maintaining a monopoly by bundling its browser, Internet Explorer, to its Windows operating system. Prosecutors argued that this limited the marketplace for competing browsers for Windows.

Slack's complaint echoes aspects of that earlier Microsoft case by claiming the company bundles its Teams product to its Office suite.

"Microsoft is reverting to past behavior," Slack's General Counsel David Schellhase said in a statement in the press release announcing the complaint. "They created a weak, copycat product and tied it to their dominant Office product, force installing it and blocking its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behavior during the 'browser wars.' Slack is asking the European Commission to take swift action to ensure Microsoft cannot continue to illegally leverage its power from one market to another by bundling or tying products."

Prince said that Microsoft's recent finger-pointing at other tech companies has deflected attention from its own practices. Microsoft President Brad Smith said at a Politico event in June that there should be more antitrust scrutiny of app store rules. Though he didn't name names, Smith criticized practices by rivals Apple and Google. Recently, Smith reportedly raised his concerns with Apple to the House Antitrust Subcommittee, according to Bloomberg and The Information.

"Of course they're saying things like that, they mounted since the 90s a decades-long attempt to kind of burnish their image and portray themselves as kind of paragons of healthy competition while behaving very very differently," Prince said on the call.

Slack's move to file its complaint in the E.U. is telling. Though both companies are based in the U.S., Slack is undoubtedly aware of the E.U.'s recent history of aggressive antitrust enforcement under Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. Vestager has brought record fines against Google and has announced or is reported to be investigating several other major U.S. tech companies including Amazon, Apple and Facebook. Spotify used a similar strategy in March of 2019 when it filed an antitrust complaint against Apple in the E.U.

On the press call, Schellhase said Slack's decision to file its complaint with the European Commission was made "very deliberately."

"The European Commission has been very forward-thinking and very vocal about anticompetition law and their desire to create a level playing field for all competitors for the benefit of customers, obviously," he said. "They've signaled also a desire to resolve things very quickly. They've signaled that they're going to be creative about remedies."

Schellhase said Slack has asked for remedies including separating Teams from the Office suite and give the product a visible price.

Still, the complaint is likely to raise questions among U.S. antitrust authorities, whose investigations of the tech industry have been among the most closely watched. Schellhase said that while Slack has yet to take similar actions in the U.S., executives are talking to "relevant authorities" and "we're keeping all of our options open."

Microsoft hasn't completely escaped scrutiny by U.S. officials, though it has certainly seen less attention than many of its peers. The Federal Trade Commission's Office of Policy Planning included Microsoft in its review of past acquisitions in the tech industry, a project that is not part of its enforcement arm but could dig up potential enforcement issues.

-CNBC's Steven Kopack and Steve Kovach contributed to this report.

WATCH: How US antitrust law works, and what it means for Big Tech
ED sleuths were assisted by personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother on Wednesday as part of countrywide searches in connection with a money laundering case linked to an alleged fertiliser scam, officials said.

ED sleuths were assisted by personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), who were seen standing guard at the farmhouse and residence of the Gehlots' in Mandore area of Jodhpur district.

The searches come at a time when a political slugfest is currently on between CM Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot.

Pilot, a former Union minister, was recently sacked as the deputy CM and PCC chief of the state.

Officials said the raids are being carried out against Ashok Gehlot's elder brother Agrasain Gehlot, who is the promoter of a seeds and fertiliser company identified as Anupam Krishi.

Responding to the raids, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told reporters in Jaipur, "Prime Minister Modi has created 'raid raj' in the country but we are not going to be scared."

When the Centre's "gimmicks" failed to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan, ED raids started at the premises of Gehlot's elder brother, he said

The agency, officials said, is searching at least six locations in the desert state including at the premises of a former Congress MP, who is alleged to have business ties with Agrasain Gehlot.

They said the raids are being conducted by the central probe agency at 13 places in the country including Rajasthan, West Bengal (2), Gujarat (4) and Delhi (1).

The action came after the agency filed a criminal Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), ED equivalent of a police FIR, in a 2007-09 Customs department case of alleged irregularities in the supply of subsidised Muriate of Potash (MOP) to farmers and investigation in this case was finalised in 2013.

The ED complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been filed after studying the FIR and chargesheet filed by the Customs and its specialised probe arm Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), they said.

The raids are aimed to collect evidence in this scam case which is stated to be worth about Rs 60 crore, officials said.

Officials of the agency are carrying out the searches under the provision of the PMLA.

Sources alleged that Agrasain Gehlot and his company have been slapped with a Customs penalty of about Rs 7 crore in this alleged fertiliser supply scam.

The ED is also probing an alleged forex law violation case against a Jaipur-based businessman Ratan Kant Sharma, who is alleged to have had business ties with Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav in the past.

The Income Tax Department on July 13 had carried out multiple raids at over 40 premises of three Rajasthan-based business groups on tax evasion charges and officials had said it seized about Rs 12 crore cash and vital documents.

The premises linked to two state Congress leaders and a business group stated to be close to the top party leadership of Rajasthan were searched.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes had later said that "several incriminating evidences in the form of loose papers, diaries, digital data were found that indicate bullion trading in cash, investment of cash in properties among others."
A musician is offering children trumpets in exchange for guns in America.

Shamarr Allen started the project last week in New Orleans after a nine-year-old boy was shot and killed.

Before announcing the scheme, he checked with his local police force to make sure none of the participants would get into any trouble for handing the weapons in. Officers also agreed to safely dispose of the guns.

Taking to social media, Mr Allen said: "To all the youth in New Orleans bring me a gun and I'll give you a trumpet no questions asked. I am doing this until I run out of trumpets."

Speaking to broadcaster WVUE-TV he later said: I have a nine-year-old son and I grew up in that environment so I understand what those kids are going through.

"They arent bad kids, they just dont have anything to do."

He also told another news channel that his life changed when he was 12 or 13 and first played for tips in the French Quarter.

He told WWL-TV: I realised, OK, I can do this'. Now, Im travelling the world, this is my career because of that trumpet.

"So if it can do that for me, it can do that for someone else.

He began by donating trumpets he wasn't using and soon other people began to offer help.

This was bolstered by an online fundraiser, which generated $8,800 in four days, and though sales of slogan t-shirts with the words "Trumpet is my weapon" stamped on them.

Children who had in a gun get to "pick out the trumpet" they want from the selection as there are lots of different options.
HOUSTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As students prepare to return to school amid a worsening spread of COVID-19 across much of the United States, Integrated Viral Protection (IVP) today announced a transcontinental partnership with three manufacturing companies  U.S.-based Dust Free, LP, Canada-based Engineering CPR, and Mexico-based Instalaciones y Especialidades Metalicas SA de CV  to produce IVP's new s1 BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM for schools. The IVP s1 model is an affordable, mobile, plug-and-purify device proven to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 (99.98%), anthrax spores (99.9%) and other airborne contaminants through a heated filter without impacting the temperature of the ambient air.

For a video explaining IVP's BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM for schools, please view it here.

The results are independently endorsed by premier researchers including Professor Gang Chen at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): "Timely work with significant real world implications;" Professor George Crabtree, Director of JCESR at Argonne National Laboratory: "will effectively serve as a mask for indoor ventilation," and Professor Paul Chu Founding Director at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at University of Houston (Father of Superconductivity, Nobel Prize Nominee and National Medal of Science Awardee): "as a much needed single hope in this long depressing pandemic."

The research team is led by Dr. Zhifeng Ren, Director, Texas Center for Superconductivity at University of Houston and Dr. Luo Yu, along with Dr. Faisal Cheema at University of Houston College of Medicine under the leadership of Dean Steve Spann, Vice Chancellor and Vice President of Research and Technology Transfer, Dr. Amr Elnashai, and Chancellor and President Renu Khator, Dr. Slobodan Paessler, Distinguished Chair of Biodefense at Galveston National Laboratory and colleagues including Dr. Johnny Peterson and Dr. William Lawrence, Texas A&M University, Vice Chancellor of Engineering and National Laboratories, Dr. Kathy Banks, Associate Dean for Research, The Texas A&M Experiment Engineering Station, Dr. Joe Elabd and Director, NanoBio Systems Laboratory, Dr. Arum Han and John Sharp, Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.

"The time for action is now," said Monzer Hourani, inventor of IVP's BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM and CEO of Medistar Corporation. "Let us engineer our way out of this crisis and be more prepared for the next. Lives are being lost daily, and we need to accelerate manufacturing and installation of this critical BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM which is the only technology proven to remove the coronavirus from the air instantaneously. Partnerships between public and private entities are critical to making this protection available for as many as possible, as rapidly as possible."

A new study shared by the CDC reported that aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 has now been shown that it can remain infectious for up to 16 hours, underscoring the urgency of providing indoor air protection. "As schools begin to reopen, protecting our children and teachers is a top priority," Mr. Hourani added. "Manufacturing of the s1 has begun, and we are currently working with pilot schools in Texas, Florida and Arizona." The s1 school unit is capable of powerfully recirculating air 10 times an hour at 1,800 cubic feet per minute for a standard-sized classroom (30 feet by 30 feet by 15 feet dimensions), exceeding the re-opening guidelines issued by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

"We're excited to partner with the innovative team at IVP to manufacture this breakthrough BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM and bring it to market quickly," said Dust Free, LP CEO Gregg Burnett. "These challenging times call for leadership, and we are proud to be part of the solution to address the threat from the COVID-19 pandemic and help our schools open safely this Fall."

The s1 unit is adaptable for use in large spaces, including cafeterias, gyms, hallways, libraries and auditoriums. The product features a boost circulation mode for high-traffic areas and a quiet circulation mode for use during classroom instruction. IVP also has plans to begin retrofitting current HVAC systems in schools with its BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM, beginning with pilot installations in select COVID-19 hot zones, such as Texas, Florida and Arizona.

"This transcontinental partnership, initiated and led by Monzer Hourani, is a testament to the benefits of the recently enacted United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and the power of our three countries working together to solve a global problem," said Garrett K. Peel, MD, MHS, FACS, executive vice president and managing director of Medistar Corporation, and principal of IVP. "This is a pivotal moment in our world's history where leadership and partnership will be the determining factors of our global response to this pandemic and our preparations for the next."

Dust Free, LP manufactures a wide variety of residential and commercial air purification equipment. The company also provides indoor air quality training for its distributors and has a very active research and development program designed to meet the indoor air quality needs of the future. FDA-registered Engineering CPR is a leading designer and manufacturer of medical devices and other specialty technology and will produce the design history file required for FDA Covid-19 compliance. Monterrey, Mexico based Instalaciones y Especialidades Metalicas, led by Joel Garza, specializes in large scale technology fabrication and manufacturing. Together, these three manufacturers have quickly answered the call to partner with IVP and bring this important technology to market in true humanitarian spirit, and with more public and private partnerships.

The patent-pending BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM is FDA Compliant to Enforcement Policy for Sterilizers, Disinfectant Devices and Air Purifiers During the Coronavirus Disease - 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency | 21 CFR 880.5045 Medical Recirculation Air Cleaner and 21 CFR 880.6500 Medical UV Air Purifier | Class II Device) and permitted by the FDA to be sold during the Coronavirus disease. For more information on IVP, please visit IVPair.com.

ABOUT INTEGRATED VIRAL PROTECTION (IVP)

Integrated Viral Protection (IVP) is a technology solutions company that specializes in the design of biodefense indoor air protection systems, such as its recently tested product shown to be 99.8% effective at killing the COVID-19 virus. The patent-pending technology is currently in compliance with FDA's Enforcement Policy for Sterilizers, Disinfectant Devices and Air Purifiers During the Coronavirus Disease - 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency. Data from scientific peer reviewed publication show significant promise for reducing the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the air, safeguarding people against the dangerous, life-threatening pathogen. IVP has formed a public/private partnership with a team of scientists, engineers, and virologists and has collaborated to develop a promising BIODEFENSE INDOOR AIR PROTECTION SYSTEM that combats COVID-19 in commercial, transportation, residential and personal environments.

Media Contact:

Roxanna Ulrich

Edelman for IVP

[email protected]

(979) 997-8195

SOURCE Integrated Viral Protection
Members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) have described the death of their former General Secretary, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John as a big blow to the party.

The NPP members made this known during the one-week commemoration of the passing of Sir John today, July 22, 2020.

It was held in Sir Johns hometown, Sakora Wonoo in the Ashanti Region.

Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and other high ranking government officials, as well as members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), attended the ceremony.

Before his passing, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie was the Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission.

Speaking to Citi News at the ceremony, former Member of Parliament for Bantama and Board Member of the Forestry Commission, Henry Kwabena Kokofu described the death of Mr. Owusu Afriyie as a shock to the NPP and Ghana as a whole.

It is a big blow. We cannot discount the contribution of Sir John in Ghana politics; the upbringing of a political party to power. And I can say with all certainty that Akufo-Addos presidency much more depended on Sir John and many others. The Forestry Commission has lost a gem. If I were to recount the words of the NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Sir John had always been a brother to him and many others. So we as NPP have lost our former General Secretary. Someone who aspires to inspire, weve lost him, he lamented.

The leadership of the National Democratic Congress led by its General Secretary, Asiedu Nketia also graced the occasion to commiserate with the bereaved family.

Speaking on behalf of the NDC delegation, the Ashanti Regional Secretary of the party, Kwame Zu described Mr. Owusu Afriyie as a politician who was loved by all, irrespective of their political differences.

He said: Sir John was a kind man. He was indiscriminate. It didnt really matter whether you were a member of the NPP or the NDC. And that has been amply demonstrated in the showing of love across the political divide. It is rather regrettable that we are in difficult times. Otherwise, you would have seen the entire entourage of the NDC at the funeral today. Otherwise, you would have even seen everyone who matters in Ghana here today. Be that as it may, the presence of the many great men in this country at this funeral today is a demonstration of the kind-heartedness of Sir John. Well forever remember him.

Sir John passed away at the Intensive Care Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on Wednesday, July 1, 2020, after testing positive for COVID-19.

---citinewsroom
Scientists race to develop an effective COVID-19 vaccine

With the global pandemic still in full swing, scientists are working to develop a vaccine in record time. While everyone wants an effective vaccine, they don't all agree on how to get there and what "effective" really means. Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, spoke with researchers, doctors and business leaders to shed light on some of the challenges vaccine developers are facing.

As of mid-July, the World Health Organization reported that over 160 vaccine programs were in progress, an unprecedented effort toward a common goal, writes Associate Editor Ryan Cross. Although traditional vaccines are made with weakened or killed virus, many modern vaccines use part of the virus itself to teach immune cells what to home in on. For SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that part is the spike protein, which the virus uses to attach itself to human cells. Both types of methods can be time-consuming, and traditional approaches are potentially dangerous because companies need to grow large amounts of virus. This has caused some scientists to turn to experimental gene-based vaccines. Researchers put the genetic code for the spike protein into harmless viruses that act as vessels, or simply use DNA or RNA to deliver the genetic information to human cells. Human cells would use these instructions to make the spike protein, which would trigger an immune response. These types of vaccines are very fast for scientists to design and make, but the technology is largely unproven, and it remains to be seen whether these kinds of vaccines are effective. Furthermore, there are many different modifications that scientists can make to the spike protein, which could change how our immune systems respond to the real virus.

Vaccine makers are focusing on the ability of candidates to produce high levels of neutralizing antibodies that would prevent the virus from entering cells. But this area of vaccine research also faces challenges. For example, the methods for quantifying the antibody response in the laboratory are not ideal. In addition, it's unclear just how much neutralization is good enough and for how long the effect would last. If antibody levels aren't high enough, a person might only be left with partial immunity, which could prevent severe symptoms but still leave them with the ability to infect others. And what works in one person might not work well in another. Questions about safety still loom, and experts warn that moving too fast with an unsafe vaccine could shake public confidence. In the end, vaccine developers note that no single company can do this alone, and several types of vaccines will likely be needed.

The article, "What Will it Take to Make an Effective Vaccine for COVID-19?," is freely available here.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS' mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people. The Society is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a specialist in scientific information solutions (including SciFinder and STN), its CAS division powers global research, discovery and innovation. ACS' main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Mary (Walker) Clark doesnt remember much talk of her fathers time in the war.

Charles Walker was a busy man. He was a local farmer, owner of Walker Brothers Produce, owner of The Ice Company and was a member of the City National Bank board when the family lived in Plainview. War wasnt a topic he particularly enjoyed discussing when he was home with his family.

So when he died in an industrial accident in 1966 when Clark was just 16  her brothers were 17, 14, 12 and 10 at the time  the family knew relatively little about the retired 2nd lieutenants time in the United States Army Airforce. And the family didnt ever really talk about his death.

About 15 years ago, that all began to change.

I was at a family reunion in Lubbock, Clark said. She (Clarks aunt) said I met a man, a pilot who flew with your father in World War II.

Clarks aunt had interviewed the man and presented her niece with the cassette tape of the recording.

Listening to Mont Jennings story opened the door to a healing experience Clark didnt expect or even know she needed.

This interview was so wonderful, Clark said. The world just became real to me.

Walker and Jennings were pilots and flew together for Walkers last flight in the military.

Clark (also recognized in Plainview as Sisti when she was growing up) listened to Jennings speak letting his words give new life to Walkers memory in her mind.

She found herself itching to learn more  an effort that culminated in a book. Landing In My Present by Mary Walker Clark is now available on Amazon or via her publisher, Hellgate Press out of Oregon.

Walker was a U.S. pilot tasked with flying over the Himalayan Mountains through an area dubbed The Hump and described as one of the most dangerous airlift routes for the Army Air Force. The route had rough terrain, often extreme weather conditions and the land was under Japanese control.

My father flew that 150 times, Clark said. It was hazardous. He was fortunate to survive.

Had it not been for her aunts initiative to speak with Jennings, Clark might never have known that about her father.

Prior to that, shed had nothing more than a grainy black and white photo of her dad during his time serving the military. As she began to do research for her book, Clark found that many of her fathers war records had been burned. There were relatively few chronicles of her dads military experience.

Jennings described the barracks  primitive and wet with the constant rains filtering through the walls  the food they ate, what it felt like to see the Himalayas from a cockpit, the monkeys, the vaccinations and countless other details.

He was able to paint for me a journey to India, Clark said.

So she listened and took notes and shared them with her siblings. They found it interesting, she said, but not quite as much as Clark did. She kept prodding.

For the first time, I really reached out to my family, my brothers, cousins, I had one aunt still surviving  she lives in Lubbock still, even friends who would remember my father and gradually was able to gather memories and remember more, Clark said. It really brought my father back into my life.

It also inspired her to plan a trip.

The retired lawyer loves to travel. Clark said shes been abroad about 50 times and has set foot on every continent except Antarctica.

Her brother joined her for this trip and together with their spouses, they got to trace Walkers steps overseas and see for themselves the place where he spent his days as a young soldier serving his country.

We had an incredible trip to India and China, Clark recalled.

The travel party visited the military base (they weren't allowed to enter as its still active) where her father was stationed. She saw the control tower that would have directed her father. She also got to visit a memorial in Kunming, China dedicated to The Hump which she describes as quite emotional.

When Clark thinks about the immediate impact her fathers death had when she was 16, shes reminded of the term silent grief. Nowadays, Clark said, when a child loses a parent, the familys likely to take some time to grieve. When Walker died, Clark and her brothers went to school the next day. They never talked about it. They never coped. They just moved on.

We never talked about it, Clark said. Im finding that what I was experiencing was being experienced more broadly.

Clark shed therapeutic tears as she wrote about her father.

I wish Id talked to my dad, Clark said before adding that she hopes her book brings a therapeutic experience to readers. She hopes it inspires someone else.

I think its just I want people to hear about this pretty amazing guy but also to know that you can still bring back memories even when you think theyre gone.
The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), US Nagar, did some tough talking on Tuesday asking the criminals to either surrender or be ready to face the consequences.

The newly-appointed SSP, Dilip Singh Kunwar, issued a stern warning to the criminals. He asked them to surrender in 15 days. He also said that the police will not hesitate in carrying out encounters for those who try to escape.

There are 144 wanted criminals including 45 who have a reward on their heads. The ones with reward should surrender before courts, police stations or police checkposts concerned in next 15 days while the remaining wanted criminals should surrender within seven days. The deadline will start from tomorrow (Wednesday), Kunwar said on Tuesday, informing about his letter to his subordinates.

If the criminals dont surrender, then they will arrest them. And if in the process of arrest if any criminal attacks police to escape it, the police will reply accordingly including encounter. Police will not hesitate to resort to encounter if needed in such cases, he added.

Emphasising on reducing the crime in US Nagar district, which borders Uttar Pradesh, the senior police officer said, Criminals have no place in the society and are meant to be dealt with stringent possible action. I have instructed all COs and SHOs on the same lines.

Out of the 45 wanted criminals with bounty on their heads, some of them are from outside the district while others belong to US Nagar. Two of them have a reward of Rs 20,000 and Rs 10,000 while others have reward ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000.
Chinese tourists with face masks watch a traditional Thai dance at Erawan shrine, a popular spritual landmark in Bangkok on January 27, 2020. Mladen Antonov | AFP | Getty Images

Thailand has over the past week lost several government ministers  including those holding crucial economic portfolios  as the coronavirus pandemic slams the tourism-dependent Southeast Asian economy. The country has a history of political instability and has also experienced one of the highest numbers of military coups in modern history. The latest upheaval has come at a time when the government faces pressure to improve the country's economy while large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations have called for the resignation of the government. So far, six ministers have resigned from their position, reported Reuters. That include Finance Minister Uttama Savanayana and Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, whom the Reuters report referred to as an "economic policy czar."

The resignation of Somkid, who was the architect of Prayut's economic policies, causes some policy uncertainty at a critical time when the economy is going through a deep recession. Nomura analysts

It's not yet clear who will take over those positions, but Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has said he will announce a cabinet reshuffle by next month. Some analysts said delays in replacing the country's crucial economic architects could hurt investor confidence at a time when the Thai economy is expected to register the worst contraction in Asia this year. The Thai currency and stock market have also been among the worst performing in the region despite the country's relative success in containing its virus outbreak. As of Tuesday, the Thai baht had lost around 6% against the U.S. dollar while the benchmark stock index, SET Index, has fallen close to 13% so far this year.

'Intense jockeying for cabinet seats'

The ministers' resignations followed earlier reports of a power struggle within the ruling coalition's largest party, Palang Pracharath. The party and its political partners control a slim majority in Thailand's 500-member House of Representatives. Before their resignation from the government, four of the ministers  including former Finance Minister Uttama  quit Palang Pracharath as party members, reported the Associated Press. Uttama was leader of the pro-military party.

Harrison Cheng, associate director and lead analyst for Thailand at consultancy Control Risks, said the cabinet reshuffle has triggered an "intense jockeying" for government positions among members of the ruling coalition. That could also worsen infighting among members, he added. He explained in a note last week that the prime minister's plan to recruit "reputable individuals" from the public and private sectors to lead several economic ministries will "trigger deep resentment" among the different political factions.

Disagreements are likely to flare up both within the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and among coalition members, and could delay the finalisation of the reshuffle by up to two months. Harrison Cheng Control Risks

Still, the Prayuth government is likely to stay intact as parties within the ruling coalition have little to gain from withdrawing, said Cheng. The opposition also doesn't have the numbers to challenge the ruling coalition, he added. "Disagreements are likely to flare up both within the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and among coalition members, and could delay the finalisation of the reshuffle by up to two months, which is likely to hurt investor confidence," wrote Cheng. Prayuth has reportedly invited a top Thai banker to join his new cabinet lineup. Some local media reports also named the country's outgoing central bank governor Veerathai Santiprabhob as a possible candidate  but Reuters reported that Veerathai has ruled out joining the new cabinet.

Political uncertainty 'not new'

The Thai economy, which is heavily dependent on tourism, is expected to register the worst economic contraction in Asia this year, according to forecasts by Capital Economics. The consultancy projected Thailand's gross domestic product to slump by 9% in 2020. The Thai parliament in May approved a 1.9 trillion baht ($59.8 billion) economic stimulus and the government has penciled in a larger deficit for its fiscal year starting Oct. 1 as it seeks to revive the economy.
South Asia is battling torrential monsoon rains which have pounded the region for weeks, causing widespread flooding, killing more than 250 people so far.

At least 81 people have died in flood-prone Bangladesh, where almost one-third of the impoverished nation is under water in one of the worst deluges in recent years.

Since Nepals monsoon season began last month, landslides, flooding and lightning have killed at least 131 people and left 48 others missing as incessant rainfall since Sunday inundated parts of the southern plains.

In Indias northeastern state of Assam, the death toll since the start of July has passed 60, with nearly three million people displaced.

In Indias Bihar state, at least nine rivers swollen by heavy downpours in Nepal rose beyond their danger levels and inundated many villages.

Bangladesh officials have warned of an extended disaster.

The flood has been going on for at least 20 days, the deputy chief of Bangladeshs Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre, Udoy Raihan, told AFP news agency, adding that flooding usually lasted two weeks.

And it is likely [to] continue for another 10 days due to heavy rains in Bangladesh and India.

The annual monsoon is critical for replenishing water supplies, but also wreaks havoc across vast swaths of South Asia, causing widespread death and damage.

Floods, landslides and lightning strikes between June and September kill hundreds every year in the densely populated region.
Some 22.5% of pollees share the opposite opinion.

Over 66% of Ukrainians say they do not consider Ukraine is "really independent."

The option "Ukraine declared its independence on August 24, 1991. In your opinion, Ukraine is not a really independent state" was chosen by 66.5% of those polled, while 22.5% had the opposite opinion and 11% found it difficult to answer, Chairperson of the Board of Social Monitoring Center Olha Balakireva said at a press conference.

Read alsoOver half of Ukrainians do not trust official COVID-19 statistics  poll

During the press event, Balakireva presented findings of the respective poll, according to an UNIAN correspondent.

"If we look at the regional split, we will see there is a significant difference between the responses of residents in the western and other regions. That is, the level of assessment that 'Ukraine is not a really independent state' ... is quite high in the central region, in the east, in Donbas, in the south," she said.

"And the opinion that Ukraine is a really independent state secured a high level of assessment (42%) in the western region," she added.

At the same time, she clarified, even in the western part of Ukraine, the balance is not in favor of that assessment, because more than 51% of pollees in that area chose the answer that "Ukraine is not a really independent state."

The poll was conducted by Kyiv-based NGO Social Monitoring Center from July 8 to July 15 using face-to-face interviews. Some 3,000 adult respondents were polled in all regions of Ukraine except Crimea and other Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine, namely certain districts in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The margin of error is within 1.1-1.9%.
Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) has completed the migration of its postpaid customers and brought them all under the Vodafone RED umbrella. After the migration, all Vodafone Idea customers will be able to avail of the benefits that come with Vodafone RED.

Vodafone, through the migration, will provide a unified service to both Vodafone and Idea customers.

The integration will help the call centre agents to solve customer queries more seamlessly as they will get a holistic view through customer insights. The customers will also receive real-time alerts and notifications for overconsumption, Telecom Talk noted.

Besides, there is no separate onboarding and service process required for existing customers on Idea Nirvana postpaid plans. They will automatically be migrated through the operator. When customers visit the Idea Nirvana website, they are automatically redirected to Vodafone's site.

According to Vodafone Idea, it has merged 92 per cent of the total circles taking the total count of integrated circles to 18. This means that people who are currently not using Vodafone Red plans or are using Nirvana plans have been moved to the Red offerings. In other words, this would mean that all the new postpaid customers will be merged under Vodafone Red plans whereas the existing users will be migrated to Red.

Vishant Vora, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Idea, in a statement said: "The consolidation of Vodafone and Idea postpaid customers is a major step towards our vision of one company, one network. One of the biggest and fastest migrations in the telecom space, this has led to operational synergies and process standardisation for both our postpaid retail and enterprise customers. It enables us to provide enhanced customer experience to our postpaid users."

The change is also applicable to Idea Nirvana and Idea post-paid customers. It has been a year since Vodafone and Idea Cellular merged their India operations in August 2018.

Vodafone Red currently has three postpaid plans under the Individual section. These plans are priced at Rs 399, Rs 499, and a REDX plan that offers priority 4G network at Rs 1099.

The Rs 399 Vodafone RED postpaid plan is a limited offer and gives 45GB data with 200GB rollover data. It also offers Vodafone PLAY subscription for 1 year worth Rs 499 and ZEE5 subscription worth Rs 999. The plan also offers 100 SMS per month.

The Rs 499 Vodafone RED postpaid plan offer gives 75GB data with 100SMS per month. The plan brings with it Vodafone Play subscription for 1 year, worth Rs 499, Amazon Prime subscription for 1 year, worth Rs 999, and ZEE5 subscription, worth Rs 999. This plan also offers 200GB roll over data and 100 SMS per month.

The Rs 1099 Vodafone REDX postpaid plan is a premium plan for priority customers. It was paused by TRAI but is currently being reviewed and has been allowed to run for the time being. The plan offers unlimited high-speed data with a host of added benefits. The benefits of this plan are 1 year Netflix on TV & Mobile, worth Rs 5988 per year, 1-year membership to Amazon Prime (Video, Music & Shopping), worth Rs 999, ZEE5 subscription worth Rs 999, and other added benefits.


The long history of how Jesus came to resemble a white European

No one knows exactly what Jesus looked like, and there are no known images of him from his lifetime. Art history professor Anna Swartwood House writes in The Conversation about the complicated history of the images of Christ and how historically they have served many purposes.

The portrayal of Jesus as a white, European man has come under renewed scrutiny during this period of introspection over the legacy of racism in society.

As protesters called for the removal of Confederate statues in the U.S., activist Shaun King went further, suggesting that murals and artwork depicting white Jesus should come down.

His concerns about the depiction of Christ and how it is used to uphold notions of white supremacy are not isolated. Prominent scholars and the archbishop of Canterbury have called to reconsider Jesus portrayal as a white man.

As a European Renaissance art historian, I study the evolving image of Jesus Christ from A.D. 1350 to 1600. Some of the best-known depictions of Christ, from Leonardo da Vincis Last Supper to Michelangelos Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, were produced during this period.

Sallmans Head of Christ.

But the all-time most-reproduced image of Jesus comes from another period. It is Warner Sallmans light-eyed, light-haired Head of Christ from 1940. Sallman, a former commercial artist who created art for advertising campaigns, successfully marketed this picture worldwide.

Through Sallmans partnerships with two Christian publishing companies, one Protestant and one Catholic, the Head of Christ came to be included on everything from prayer cards to stained glass, faux oil paintings, calendars, hymnals and night lights.

Sallmans painting culminates a long tradition of white Europeans creating and disseminating pictures of Christ made in their own image.

In search of the holy face

The historical Jesus likely had the brown eyes and skin of other first-century Jews from Galilee, a region in biblical Israel. But no one knows exactly what Jesus looked like. There are no known images of Jesus from his lifetime, and while the Old Testament Kings Saul and David are explicitly called tall and handsome in the Bible, there is little indication of Jesus appearance in the Old or New Testaments.

Even these texts are contradictory: The Old Testament prophet Isaiah reads that the coming savior had no beauty or majesty, while the Book of Psalms claims he was fairer than the children of men, the word fair referring to physical beauty.

The earliest images of Jesus Christ emerged in the first through third centuries A.D., amidst concerns about idolatry. They were less about capturing the actual appearance of Christ than about clarifying his role as a ruler or as a savior.

To clearly indicate these roles, early Christian artists often relied on syncretism, meaning they combined visual formats from other cultures.

Probably the most popular syncretic image is Christ as the Good Shepherd, a beardless, youthful figure based on pagan representations of Orpheus, Hermes and Apollo.

In other common depictions, Christ wears the toga or other attributes of the emperor. The theologian Richard Viladesau argues that the mature bearded Christ, with long hair in the Syrian style, combines characteristics of the Greek god Zeus and the Old Testament figure Samson, among others.

Christ as self-portraitist

The first portraits of Christ, in the sense of authoritative likenesses, were believed to be self-portraits: the miraculous image not made by human hands, or acheiropoietos.

This belief originated in the seventh century A.D., based on a legend that Christ healed King Abgar of Edessa in modern-day Urfa, Turkey, through a miraculous image of his face, now known as the Mandylion.

A similar legend adopted by Western Christianity between the 11th and 14th centuries recounts how, before his death by crucifixion, Christ left an impression of his face on the veil of Saint Veronica, an image known as the volto santo, or Holy Face.

These two images, along with other similar relics, have formed the basis of iconic traditions about the true image of Christ.

From the perspective of art history, these artifacts reinforced an already standardized image of a bearded Christ with shoulder-length, dark hair.

In the Renaissance, European artists began to combine the icon and the portrait, making Christ in their own likeness. This happened for a variety of reasons, from identifying with the human suffering of Christ to commenting on ones own creative power.

The 15th-century Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina, for example, painted small pictures of the suffering Christ formatted exactly like his portraits of regular people, with the subject positioned between a fictive parapet and a plain black background and signed Antonello da Messina painted me.

The 16th-century German artist Albrecht Durer blurred the line between the holy face and his own image in a famous self-portrait of 1500. In this, he posed frontally like an icon, with his beard and luxuriant shoulder-length hair recalling Christs. The AD monogram could stand equally for Albrecht Durer or Anno Domini  in the year of our Lord.

In whose image?

This phenomenon was not restricted to Europe: There are 16th- and 17th-century pictures of Jesus with, for example, Ethiopian and Indian features.

In Europe, however, the image of a light-skinned European Christ began to influence other parts of the world through European trade and colonization.

Adoration of the Magi. Artist Andrea Mantegna. The J. Paul Getty Museum

The Italian painter Andrea Mantegnas Adoration of the Magi from A.D. 1505 features three distinct magi, who, according to one contemporary tradition, came from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. They present expensive objects of porcelain, agate and brass that would have been prized imports from China and the Persian and Ottoman empires.

But Jesus light skin and blues eyes suggest that he is not Middle Eastern but European-born. And the faux-Hebrew script embroidered on Marys cuffs and hemline belie a complicated relationship to the Judaism of the Holy Family.

In Mantegnas Italy, anti-Semitic myths were already prevalent among the majority Christian population, with Jewish people often segregated to their own quarters of major cities.

Artists tried to distance Jesus and his parents from their Jewishness. Even seemingly small attributes like pierced ears  earrings were associated with Jewish women, their removal with a conversion to Christianity  could represent a transition toward the Christianity represented by Jesus.

Much later, anti-Semitic forces in Europe including the Nazis would attempt to divorce Jesus totally from his Judaism in favor of an Aryan stereotype.

White Jesus abroad

As Europeans colonized increasingly farther-flung lands, they brought a European Jesus with them. Jesuit missionaries established painting schools that taught new converts Christian art in a European mode.

A small altarpiece made in the school of Giovanni Niccolo, the Italian Jesuit who founded the Seminary of Painters in Kumamoto, Japan, around 1590, combines a traditional Japanese gilt and mother-of-pearl shrine with a painting of a distinctly white, European Madonna and Child.

Nicolas Correas The Mystic Betrothal of Saint Rose of Lima. Museo Nacional de Arte

In colonial Latin America  called New Spain by European colonists  images of a white Jesus reinforced a caste system where white, Christian Europeans occupied the top tier, while those with darker skin from perceived intermixing with native populations ranked considerably lower.

Artist Nicolas Correas 1695 painting of Saint Rose of Lima, the first Catholic saint born in New Spain, shows her metaphorical marriage to a blond, light-skinned Christ.

Legacies of likeness

Scholar Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey argue that in the centuries after European colonization of the Americas, the image of a white Christ associated him with the logic of empire and could be used to justify the oppression of Native and African Americans.

In a multiracial but unequal America, there was a disproportionate representation of a white Jesus in the media. It wasnt only Warner Sallmans Head of Christ that was depicted widely; a large proportion of actors who have played Jesus on television and film have been white with blue eyes.

Pictures of Jesus historically have served many purposes, from symbolically presenting his power to depicting his actual likeness. But representation matters, and viewers need to understand the complicated history of the images of Christ they consume.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Banner image photo credit: Painting depicting transfiguration of Jesus, a story in the New Testament when Jesus becomes radiant upon a mountain. Artist Raphael /Collections Hallwyl Museum, CC BY-SA



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VANCOUVER, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Mawson Resources Limited ("Mawson") or (the "Company") (TSX:MAW)(Frankfurt:MXR)(OTC Pink:MWSNF) is pleased to announce an historical summary of the Redcastle epizonal gold project in Victoria, Australia following the recently released overview and work plans for the project.

Highlights:

Redcastle, located in Victoria, Australia is one of the most significant historic epizonal goldfields in the state, with high-grades and common visible gold in a quartz (+/- stibnite association);

The first mined of three historic central Victorian goldfields (ca. 1859). Mining at the nearby Costerfield and Fosterville began later in ca. 1860s and 1890s respectively (Figure 1);

Extremely high gold grades were mined over a 4.5 x 7 square kilometre area containing over 24 historic mining areas that extend over a combined 17 kilometres of combined high-grade vein strike;

Mawson to commence a detailed geophysics programme during July, followed by a diamond drilling campaign in at both the Sunday Creek and Redcastle projects in Victoria, commencing from mid-August.

Mr. Hudson, Chairman and CEO, states, "The extremely high grade, free and visible gold associated with quartz and stibnite at Redcastle developed over a significant area make it one of the key high grade epizonal gold fields in Victoria, along with the Swan Zone at Fosterville and the Costerfield Mine, which lies immediately along strike to the south. It remains astounding that the project remains untested below the water table (50 metres average depth). Mawson will commence geophysics at Redcastle during July, followed by a diamond drilling program in late August/early September."

Redcastle History

Redcastle was discovered in 1859 at the Staffordshire Flat alluvial field. The first hardrock gold discovery was Clarke's Mine in 1859 by a party of Italians and Austrians, led by Antonio Geronovitch, then named the Balmoral Diggings. 'Redcastle' a name of Scottish origin, displaced Balmoral (also of Scottish origin) in 1860. In Bailliere's Victorian gazetteer (1865), it was reported that Redcastle had police and court facilities, a post office, two hotels and three quartz-crushing mills. Mining was most active between 1859 - 1865 and to a lesser extent from 1866-1896. The last hotel closed in 1913, the school closed in the 1930s, and by 1972 the district's population was estimated to be three people.

Exploration and development of the Redcastle goldfield was earlier than that of Costerfield gold-antimony field to the south. Many of the Redcastle mines were already abandoned prior to the development of the Costerfield mineralization in the 1890's. The Redcastle mines were documented to have closed in the 1800's through a combination of factors, including inadequate pumping to dewater the mines below the water table and continual water shortage for crushing and treatment issues associated with iron oxide coating of gold in the oxide zone and stibnite in the hypogene zone. Faulting of mineralization, with difficulty extending workings across fault zones, and a lack of geological knowledge (only 3 mines in the field were investigated by geologists) also led to abandonment. The rush to pay dividends versus appropriate capitalization of the mines, and the high cost of mining in hard rock and the transportation costs to offsite batteries (only 3 mines had their own crushing plants), combined with a transient labour force and the rush to Bendigo in 1871 also led to further demise at the time.

Redcastle Economic Geology

During the 1800's the average mining width was approximately one metre on quartz veins with visible gold (individual reef widths were less than 0.6 metres). The length of workings combined is 17 kilometres with several reef systems extending for kilometres. Spurs off the main reef systems were recorded to have been worked for distances between 15-33 metres. It is a characteristic of Redcastle that reefs are closely spaced, on the western side of the field 14 reefs are recorded to occur in a cross-strike distance of 900 metres.

At Redcastle, the key historic targets were narrow but continuous thin (0.3-1 metres) very high-grade structures continuing to depth. Historical records however, continually reference gold found marginal to reefs in the country rock (wall-rock of quartz-vein structures) with shallow modern-day reverse circulation drilling and trenching confirming that gold extends beyond these high-grade quartz-vein structures. Beyond the high-grade visible gold in quartz-veins, additional targets included vein stockworks in sandstones and dyke-hosted mineralization. The largest dyke was mined to a depth of 27 metres and was 11.5 metres wide at 25-120 g/t gold from 160 tonnes suggesting the dyke may have been selectively mined, although the width of the dyke suggests scope for a larger scale and lower grade target. Wider zones in stockworks (2.4-4.8 metres wide) and breccia zones at Beautiful Venus have been recorded up to 20 metres in width.

A selection of the more notable mining areas at Redcastle, none of which have been tested below old workings by drilling, include (Figure 2):

Welcome or Clarkes Reef: A reef system covering 800 metres in strike length, traced for 4.8 kilometres between workings along the same trend and reefs close spaced with 14 reefs recorded in a cross-strike distance over 900 metres. The final mining depth was 125 metres and reports state that 21.8 g/t gold was left at the base of the mine. The group produced 35,000oz of gold of which 28,850oz were produced from 8,669.5 tonnes at a grade of 103.6 g/t gold. The water table ranged between 42-76 metres depth which restricted deeper mining.

The McIvor Times reported that 60.9 tonnes of quartz for 969 oz at 446 g/t gold were mined within a year of its discovery in 1860. The Clarke mine went on to produce 20,583oz at 254.6 g/t gold in the following six years from 1859 to 1865. Sporadic mining continued until 1896. In 1885 Forbes and Murray reported the line of workings had exceeded 3 kilometres in length at surface and the mineralized zone as 1.2 metres wide with individual laminated veins from 5-7cm wide to 35cm wide. The quartz was described as "very-rich in gold - every piece knocked out from either side containing fine gold well disseminated not only in the seamy portions but in the solid stone itself". Murray (1894) reported the main shaft had reached about 76 metres depth and the lode mined for nearly 800 metres in strike length, and ceased at the water-table level. Adjacent to the main shaft yields were stated as being up to 1,171 g/t gold. Forbes in 1898 reported the shaft had reached 110 metres and the reef had been stoped out from surface to 73 metres depth for 36.5 metres to the north and considerably further to the south and averaged 20 cm to 38 cm in width. In this zone a shoot of "golden stone" over 53 metres in length, 0.2-0.4 metres wide, averaged 167 g/t to 558 g/t gold and pitched 25 degrees to the north. The mine passed through 15 owners because of uncoordinated efforts between of the companies working the trend, unnecessary shaft duplication, plant and machinery and hungry shareholders.

Why-Not Reef: The McIvor Times reported in 1879 that the reef was 4.9 metres wide and the last crushing produced 128.3 oz at 21.6 g/t gold from 188 tonnes. In 1885 Forbes and Murray, although they did not visit the mine, stated that the mine is said to contain a formation of mullock and quartz veins (stockworked) 3.6 metres thick from which bulk crushings of about 279 g/t gold were obtained. The shaft reached 61 metres deep with reef width from 2.4 to 3.6 metres and yielded 85 ozs gold at 29.1 g/t gold from 90.7 tonnes.

Mitchel Reef: In 1893 the McIvor Times reported the Mitchel line of reef was in parts 1.2 to 2.4 metres thick and yielded from 5.6 g/t to 111.6 g/t gold. Thousands of tonnes of mullock was on surface and graded 8.5 g/t gold.

Beautiful Venice Reef: Murray (1894) stated that there are four reefs located about 2.5 kilometres east of the Welcome Group. The deepest shaft was 76 metres and good stone was left underfoot. Yields of up to 418 g/t gold are reported and thickness from the old stopes is from 0.6 metres to 0.9 metres. Another reef here known as Chapmans line was worked for 366 metres in length and down to 61 metres, auriferous the whole way and only abandoned because of water. Forbes (1898) reported workings over 61 metres at surface down to 30 metres at the bottom of the shaft, with the reef between 0.6-0.9 metres thick, antimony associated with it and yielded between 23 g/t and 42 g/t gold. Another reef about 55 metres west of Chapmans was worked for 21 metres in length and 46 metres in depth over 0.23 metres to 0.46 metres width and yielded from 223 g/t to 279 g/t gold.

Mary-Ann Reef: Hird 1976 reported that both his father and grandfather had worked their entire lives in the mines at Redcastle, Costerfield, Mount Wills and Bendigo. His father said that the Mary-Ann reef was in his opinion the best mine in Redcastle and the reef left in the bottom of the winze was good in both antimony and gold and a very good size lode.

Hit and Miss Reef: Hird 1976 reported it was worked to about 46 metres depth, the reef very broken but very rich. A new shaft sunk to 76 metres missed the ore but, it is believed that it was sunk too far to the south as the ore probably dipped to the north, as is common on the Redcastle line. Hird believed this reef "a good bet for anyone with a diamond drill".

Burgess' Mullocky Reef was opened in 1898 with a shaft to 18 metres depth. Lidgey (1898) described the reef to consist of folded and contorted beds of slate and fine-grained sandstone, traversed by innumerable small quartz veins. Forbes in 1898 described the reef to be a crushed sandstone with fine threads of quartz and bulging from 0.3-2.4 metres thick.

Chapman and Babbage: In 1893 the McIvor Times reported a new reef discovered about 1.6 kms north of Why-Not that produced 6.3 tonnes of ore from a 3 metre thick zone yielding 30 g/t gold. Forbes in 1898 described a shaft was sunk to 24 metres with only a 7.6cm wide reef and coarse gold evenly distributed. Two shoots were worked from surface to 12.1 metres deep, and a second from 15.2 to 18.3 metres.

Union Reef: Murray (1894) reported that this reef is located about 1.6 kms eastward from Clarkes and the shaft was 30 metres deep. Rich antimony shoots in pipes from surface were mined up to 3.6 metres long and 0.61 metres thick. The stibnite ore was very pure and contained considerable amounts of visible gold.

Modern Exploration

The first modern exploration at Redcastle took place in 1985. Previous workers have exclusively focused on heap leachable near-surface gold at Redcastle. No prior explorer has searched for high-grade gold beneath and along strike from existing mines. Apart from a ground magnetic survey in 1988 on a 400 by 40 metre grid, no systematic geophysical coverage of any type has been undertaken at Redcastle.

A total of 270 of reverse circulation ("RC") and rotary airblast ("RAB") drillholes have been drilled at Redcastle since 1985. The deepest hole is 81 metres and average drill hole depth is 38 metres. All drilling tested for low-grade oxide halos around old workings. None tested for high-grade extensions below the historical high-grade gold mines. Selected drill results at Redcastle included: 10 metres at 2.5 g/t gold from 22 metres (RRC26), 2 metres at 10.7 g/t gold from 39 metres (RRC41) and 2 metres at 6.3 g/t gold from 26 metres (PR16). None of the drill data have been independently verified at this time. The true thickness of the mineralized intervals is not known at this stage. Significant soil rock-chip sampling and costean sampling have taken place on the project.

All mining areas are within areas of outcrop however, approximately 50% of the tenement area lies underneath thin alluvial cover within extensive gullies (Figure 2).

Mawson's Plans

Mawson plans a twofold approach at Redcastle. Initially the Company will systematically collect "tenement-scale" data to understand the broad mineral system and allow it to also explore beneath the significant alluvial cover. This includes ground magnetics, gravity and gradient array induced polarization ("IP") to test the entire Redcastle mineralizing system.

Secondly the company plans to start drilling from late August 2020, to test beneath the high-grade old mines by combining the "tenement scale" data with dipole-dipole IP and detailed analysis of historic mine records.

A geophysical contractor will mobilize to site over the next week, followed by a drill contractor from mid-August, 2020.

Victoria

Victoria hosts one of the giant orogenic goldfields in the world with more than 80 Moz extracted since 1851. The State is now experiencing its third gold boom with the discovery of the Swan Zone at Fosterville (current proven and probable reserve 3 Mt at 21.8 g/t gold for 2.1 Moz). There are two distinct sub-types of orogenic gold mineralization in Victoria (mesozonal and epizonal), formed during different metallogenic/orogenic events: the first recorded from the ~445 Ma Benambran Orogeny, and the second from the ~370-380 Ma Tabberabberan Orogeny occurring within distinct regional geological domains. The majority of gold recovered from the Victorian goldfields has been produced from the older, Benambran-aged mesozonal gold-quartz vein systems, targeted by the old-timers in the Bendigo and Stawell zones. More recently, Fosterville has rewritten the Victorian geological opportunity for epizonal gold deposits. We now understand that epizonal systems can develop extremely high-grade, free gold deposits, as the miners in 1859 demonstrated at Redcastle.

Redcastle Option and Joint Venture

Mawson has the option to earn an up to 70% joint venture interest in the Redcastle project from Nagambie Resources Ltd (ASX:NAG) ("Nagambie") by incurring the following exploration expenditures: A$100,000 in the first year and an additional A$150,000 in year 2 to earn 25%, an additional A$250,000 in year 3 to earn 50% and an additional A$500,000 by year 5 to earn 70%. Once Mawson earns 70% a joint venture between the parties will be formed. Nagambie may then contribute its 30% share of further exploration expenditures or, if it chooses to not contribute, dilute its interest. Should Nagambie's interest be reduced to less than 5.0%, it will be deemed to have forfeited its interest in the joint venture to Mawson in exchange for a 1.5% net smelter return royalty ("NSR") on gold revenue. Should Nagambie be granted the NSR, Mawson will have the right to acquire the NSR for A$4,000,000. Mawson is also a major shareholder of Nagambie and owns 10% of the company.

Technical and Environmental Background

Michael Hudson, Chairman and CEO for the Company, is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and has prepared or reviewed the preparation of the scientific and technical information in this press release.

None of the drill data have been independently verified at this time. These historical data have not been verified by Mawson and are quoted for information purposes only. Assay techniques for gold and antimony are unknown at this stage.

About Mawson Resources Limited (TSX:MAW, FRANKFURT:MXR, PINKSHEETS:MWSNF)

Mawson Resources Limited is an exploration and development company. Mawson has distinguished itself as a leading exploration company with a focus on the flagship Rajapalot gold-cobalt project in Finland and its Victorian gold properties in Australia.

On behalf of the Board,





"Michael Hudson"

Michael Hudson, Chairman & CEO Further Information

www.mawsonresources.com

1305 - 1090 West Georgia St., Vancouver, BC, V6E 3V7

Mariana Bermudez (Canada), Corporate Secretary, +1 (604) 685 9316, info@mawsonresources.com



Forward-Looking Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Although Mawson believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate, and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Mawson cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, capital and other costs varying significantly from estimates, changes in world metal markets, changes in equity markets, the potential impact of epidemics, pandemics or other public health crises, including the current outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 on the Company's business, planned drill programs and results varying from expectations, delays in obtaining results, equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions, local community relations, dealings with non-governmental organizations, delays in operations due to permit grants, environmental and safety risks, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in Mawson's most recent Annual Information Form filed on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Mawson disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

Figure 1: Map of Redcastle in relation to Fosterville and Costerfield. Redcastle is one of the most significant historic epizonal high-grade goldfields in Victoria. A high-grade epizonal gold system with visible gold in quartz (+/- stibnite)

Figure 2: Map of the Redcastle tenement showing historic workings and key historic mining areas

SOURCE: Mawson Resources Limited

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598525/Mawson-Details-Mining-History-of-the-Redcastle-High-Grade-Gold-Project-in-Victoria
David Schwimmer also spoke about the upcoming reunion episode of Friends on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show

Actor David Schwimmer, who played Ross Geller in popular sitcom Friends, finally put an end to the debate on whether his character and Jennifer Aniston's Rachel Greene were really on a break from their relationship.

E!News writes that the debate started on Season 3 of the show in the episode "The One with the Morning After", when Ross sleeps with another woman (played by Angela Featherstone), a decision he made within hours of his and Rachel's argument. Rachel accuses Ross of cheating, but he responds, "We were on a break." The line was frequently repeated on the show.

In a virtual appearance on Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show, the host asked Schwimmer whether the onscreen couple were really on a "break." "Yeah, it's not even a question. They were on a break," the actor told Fallon.

Here is the clip

During the interview with Fallon, Schwimmer also spoke about the upcoming reunion special episode of the famous sitcom. "It's unscripted. It's basically a really fun interview and then some other surprise bits," he said.

Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and Schwimmer were all scheduled to reunite for the unscripted reunion. The special was set to film on Stage 24, the original Friends soundstage on the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank.

Fallon recently returned to the The Tonight Show sets at NBCs Rockefeller Center headquarters. Fallon, along with other late-night hosts, have been working remotely the past few months of months. The coronavirus pandemic shut down TV and film production in March for safety reasons. New York has slowly been reopening as other parts of the country are now feeling the full effects of the epidemic.

(With inputs from Asian News International)
Banks have opposed the Finance Ministry's proposal to decriminalise the cheque bounce offence. "The offence of cheque return under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments (NI) Act, 1881 should continue," banks requested the finance ministry, through Indian Banks Association.

Banks said they resort to legal action in cheque dishonour cases only where borrowers wilfully default on loans. "The fear of criminal action acts as a deterrent to such borrowers," they stated according to the Business Line report.

Currently, bounced cheques can lead to imprisonment of up to two years and a fine of up to twice the value of the cheque or both under the Negotiable Instruments Act.

The Finance Industry Development Council (FIDC), a representative body of asset and loan financing non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), too, has opposed the Finance Ministry's move to scrap Section 138.

Mahesh Thakkar, Director General, FIDC, said that decriminalising the offence would lead to further deterioration in the enforcement of the contract, especially in terms of honouring acknowledged debt and liability.

"Small and medium enterprises, apart from NBFCs, will be the worst affected and the marketplace will be relegated to cash and carry transactions, with cheques losing their value as a means to secure transactions," Thakkar said.

As per reports, the Confederation of All India Traders has also urged the government not to decriminalise bouncing of cheques saying that it will create problems in recovering legitimate business dues and private loans.

The Finance Ministry on June 8 proposed decriminalisation of certain economic offences under 39 sections of 19 acts. One of the suggestions included making cheque bouncing and dishonouring of cheques a non-criminal offence under the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.The proposal also included decriminalising some offences by individuals under the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act, 2019.
Charlie Pagliazzo, Vice President of Channel and Wholesale Distribution, Granite Telecommunications Now more than ever channel partners have taken on a significant role in helping businesses to understand, source and successfully deploy advanced technologies. And, I am honored to be recognized by the channel community as a trusted leader.

Granite Telecommunications, a $1.5 billion provider of communications services to multilocation businesses and government, announced today that Charlie Pagliazzo, Vice President of Channel and Wholesale Distribution for Granite, has been recognized as a Top Gun 51 by the editors of Channel Partners and Channel Futures along with premier leaders in the indirect IT and telecom channel.

Pagliazzo, a 27-year telecom veteran, joined Granite 17 years ago to establish the companys channel program. In that time, he has built the companys channel organization, which now brings in more than $250 million annually. As Channel Chief, Pagliazzo has championed and overseen significant strategic investments in Granite Channels, including the additions of regional channel managers to provide local support to sales partners in market.

In addition to Granites expanded channel management team, the company has invested in layers of support for partners, including teams for partner sales support, client solutions development, sales engineering, project management, account management and customer service.

The strategy is working. Granite Channels has grown as a percentage of Granites overall business over the last several years, and in 2020 is growing at its greatest rate since its inception.

Todays channel leaders must be futurists, accountants, technologists, marketers and crisis managers, said Kris Blackmon, senior content director for Channel Partners and Channel Futures. Its important to recognize these outstanding executives on the basis of insights from within the community itself. We want to thank all everyone who helped us assemble this years list.

To compile the Top Gun 51 list, determined each year in tandem with the annual MSP 501, Channel Partners and Channel Futures editors invited those who know channel executives best  distributors, master agents and industry analysts  to nominate leaders who exemplify channel advocacy and leadership. All nominations are strictly confidential.

A channel leader was defined as possessing integrity, knowledge and confidence, the ability to inspire others, commitment and passion. He or she must be adept at recognizing the increasing diversity of partner types, revenue models, and partner and customer journeys.

Those tasked with selecting the Top Gun 51 were asked to consider three criteria for selection:

1. Advocates for the channel model with internal leadership. Proof points: Minimal or no house or named accounts. Product or service has channel-friendly features and meets advertised claims for end-user functionality. Few operational roadblocks to success within partner program.

2. Is committed to partners business success: Proof points: Has increased the percentage of revenue coming through partners during tenure. Can show data to support innovative programs for, for example, use of MDF funds, training and certifications. Provides effective enablement.

3. Works to earn trust: Proof points: Considered ethical and honest by partners. Is transparent about direction of company and limitations of product or service. Minimizes risk of engagement.

For nearly two decades, I have been a steadfast advocate for the channel inside and outside of Granite, said Pagliazzo. Now more than ever channel partners have taken on a significant role in helping businesses to understand, source and successfully deploy advanced technologies. And, I am honored to be recognized by the channel community as a trusted leader.

Pagliazzo and the rest of this years #TopGun51 will be recognized in a special program during Channel Partners Virtual: Digital Events for the Modern Channel. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 situation, the Channel Partners Conference & Expo and Channel Partners Evolution have been combined into a three-day online event to be held Sept. 8-10.

The complete 2020 Top Gun 51 list is available at Channel Partners.

About Informa Tech

Channel Partners Online, Channel Futures, Channel Partners Conference & Expo and Channel Partners Evolution are part of Informa Tech, a market-leading B2B information provider with depth and specialization in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. They help drive the future by inspiring the technology community to design, build and run a better digital world by providing market-leading research, media, training and event brands. Every year, they welcome 7,400+ subscribers to their research, more than 3.8 million unique visitors a month to their digital communities, 18,200+ students to their training programs and 225,000 delegates to their events.

Background

The 2020 Top Gun 51 list is based on data collected by Channel Partners and Channel Futures from a list of well-known master agents, distributors and channel analysts. Data was collected online from May 13 to June 3, 2020. All nominations are held in strict confidence.

About Granite

Granite delivers one-stop communications solutions to multilocation businesses and government agencies throughout the United States and Canada. The $1.5 billion company serves more than two-thirds of the Fortune 100 companies in the United States and has 1.75 million voice and data lines under management. Granite launched in 2002 and grew quickly by helping businesses to simplify sourcing and management of local and long distance phone services with one point of contact and one invoice for all their office locations nationwide. Today, Granite is the leader in aggregating Plain Old Telephone Services (POTS), and has extended its unique value proposition  one company, one contact, one bill  to include a range of advance business communications services, including Internet access, SD-WAN, wireless WAN, hosted PBX, SIP trunking, mobile voice and data, mobile device management, managed security, network integration and much more. Granite employs more than 2,100 people at its headquarters in Quincy, Mass., and nine regional offices nationwide. For more information, visit http://www.granitenet.com.
History is filled with moments of great triumph and success that in some way shaped society. It is also marred by moments that can only be described as huge mistakes. These events tend to result in devasting loss, whether it be human or financial. Fear, negligence, happenstance, and schnapps all play some role in one or more of the mistakes explored below.

It is said that history is written by the victors, but the following proves that it can also be the product of blunders and slip-ups.

The Kerkoporta Gate (1453)

Painting by the Greek folk painter Theophilos Hatzimihail showing the battle inside the city of Constantinople, Constantine is visible on a white horse.

Since its establishment as the new capital of the Roman Empire, defensive stone walls surrounded the city of Constantinople to protect its citizens from outside forces. These walls were considered impregnable, giving the Romans a false sense of invulnerability. However, in May 1453, while under siege by the Ottomans, a single guard accidentally left the Kerkoporta Gate unlocked overnight. Aware of the blunder, fifty Ottoman soldiers snuck inside, attacked the guards, and raised their banner atop the inner wall. Panic ensued, resulting in a drastic loss of Roman morale which contributed to the eventual fall of the great city.

The Chinese Treasure Fleet (1525)

A stationary full-size model of a "middle-sized" treasure ship (63.25 m long) at the Treasure Ship Shipyard site in Nanjing. It was built c. 2005 from concrete and wooden planking. Image credit: Vmenkov/Wikimedia.org

Throughout the fifteenth century, China enjoyed the benefits of international travel and trade due to its superior Treasure Fleet. At the height of its power, this fleet was made up of 3,500 ships that were roughly five times the size of any European vessel. However, the political elites were growing concerned about the rise of the merchant class who were gaining influence as a result. At their behest, the Chinese government set fire to the majority of their navy, leaving the rest to rot from lack of use. By 1525, the entire Treasure Fleet had been destroyed. Chinas economy soon crippled and their global influence diminished, allowing Europe to emerge as the worlds economic and technological powerhouse.

The Battle of Karansebes (1788)

Battle of Karansebes. Image credit: Craciun Cristiana/Wikimedia.org

By 1788, the Austrian army and the Ottoman Empire were engaged in what is known as the Austro-Turkish War. In September of that year, they were fighting for Karansebes. One night, Austrian scouts patroling the outskirts of town ran into travelers who offered them schnapps. When they refused to share with a group of passing infantrymen, a skirmish broke out. Back in town, the Austrian soldiers were convinced that the ruckus was the result of Turkish invaders. The drunken scouts returned in alarm to the cries of Turks! Turks! In the dark, they were mistaken for the enemy and a bloodbath ensued. By morning, approximately 10,000 soldiers had been killed. When the Turks arrived two days later, the Austrian army was so battle-weary, they took Karansebes with incredible ease.

The Alaska Purchase (1867)

With this check, the United States completed the purchase of almost 600,000 square miles of land from the Russian Government.

Russias economy was shattered following their defeat in the Crimean War. During this time, their Alaskan territory continued to be a hub for international trade. Concerned that the British might take advantage of their weakened state, Tsar Alexander II sold the land to the United States for $7.2 millionor $125 million today. At the time, the deal was quite sensible; it helped strengthen ties with the United States, while simultaneously annoying the English. However, the aptly named Alaska Purchase turned out to be a mistake as gold was soon discovered in the region. It is estimated that within the first fifty years, the United States had earned back their money 100 times over.

RMS Titanic (1912)

In April 1912, the RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton to New York. Considered unsinkable, it was the largest passenger ship ever built. On the evening of the 14th, the Titanic lay approximately 460 miles south of Newfoundland. Despite receiving seven early warnings via wireless radio about icebergs, the crew maintained the same speed, only alerting the ships course slightly. At 11:40 pm, the Titanic collided with an iceberg measuring up to 100 feet high and 400 feet long. The ship quickly took on water and sunk. It had only been equipped with twenty lifeboats for the 2,208 passengers on board. In total, 1,517 people died as a result of the crew ignoring those early warnings.

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, his wife and children.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the inspector general of the Austro-Hungarian army and heir to the throne. In 1914, he accompanied the army to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to demonstrate its awesome might. On June 14, after delivering a speech at the town hall, the archduke decided to visit a group of injured dignitaries at the local hospital. Because of the language barrier, the Czech chauffeur did not know about the schedule change and stuck to the original planned route. Once he was made aware of his mistake, he stopped the car right in front of Gavrilo Princip, a nationalist seeking to end Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia. Princip assassinated both the archduke and his wife. Due to the fragility of Europe at the time, historians consider this event to be the short-term cause for World War I.

The Four Pests Campaign (1958  1962)

The Eurasian tree sparrow was the most notable target of the campaign. Image credit: Andreas Trepte/Wikimedia.org

After banning private farming in favor of collective agriculture, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the extermination of rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. With a sudden absence of birds, the insect population grew exponentially, ultimately contributing to what is known as the Great Chinese Famine. These insectsparticularly locustsengulfed the country, destroying the crops the Four Pests Campaign was designed to protect. There are reports claiming that the situation was so bad that people succumbed to cannibalism to fill their bellies. According to the Chinese government, approximately fifteen million people died of starvation, but some scholars put the number as high as 78 million.

The Chernobyl Disaster (1986)

Abandoned amusement park in ghost town Prypiat. Image credit: Paparazzza/Shutterstock.com

In April 1986, a group of technicians performed an experiment on one of the four reactors housed at the Chernobyl nuclear power station near the Ukrainian city of Pripyat. The experiment was poorly designed and resulted in a catastrophic explosion that released radioactive material into the atmosphere. The Soviet government attempted to cover-up their mistake, but this proved to be a futile effort as the chemicals spread as far as France. An estimated 200,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes; those that stayed behind, including the livestock, suffered radiation-related illnesses. There is no official casualty statistic, but it is assumed that around 125,000 members of the clean-up teams had died by 2005. As of that year, the UN predicted that another 4,000 might die. The Chernobyl disaster is regarded as the worst nuclear accident in history.

The Mars Climate Orbiter (1999)

Artist's rendering of the Mars Climate Orbiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Corby Waste/Public domain

Back in December 1998, the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) was launched with the intent of studying the planets climate and atmosphere, among other things. After almost ten months of space travel, the MCO entered a trajectory that brought it too close to Mars where it eventually disintegrated upon entering the atmosphere. After investigating the cause of its destruction, scientists discovered that the team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had used the metric system in its calculations, while the company that built the spacecraft, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, used the imperial system. Such an avoidable mistake cost NASA approximately $125 million.

The Space Shuttle Columbia (2003)

Crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia who perished in the tragedy. Image credit: NASA/Public domain

After being delayed eighteen times, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched on January 16, 2003. Within the first two minutes after liftoff, a piece of insulating foam detached from the shuttles external tank and struck the left wing. Some NASA engineers did not believe it was a big deal, while others wanted to use ground-based cameras to examine the orbiting shuttle for damage. In the end, the foam incident was all but forgotten and so, on February 1, the Space Shuttle Columbia embarked on its return journey. Consequently, it disintegrated upon re-entry, killing all seven crew members. As a result, NASA was widely criticized for their failure to take all necessary precautions.
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From Ahmad SAKA, Bauchi

A Human rights group known as Prison Inmate Development Initiative (PIDI-Nigeria) has accused a

38 year old man has been accused of raping a five year old girl in Bauchi state and demand for justice on behalf of the helpless girl.

The accusation came Despite growing concern over incidences of rape in Nigeria and its attendant consequences been proposed at various levels of governments, a

This was contained in a press release by ithe group executive director Cate Iya Rize issued to journalists Tuesday in Bauchi alleged that a five year old girl Mariya Suleiman was raped by the man at Unguwar Hardo area of the Bauchi state capital.

It is now a saddening case of Mariya Suleiman (Ummi) who was drugged and raped by one Saleh Hassan (Shoe Shiner) in Paparanda Unguwan Hardo.

Saleh Hassan is a 38 years old, single and he is also the chairman of Peace and Security Committee (YAN Committee) in Paparanda Unguwan Hardo in Bauchi State.

The suspect also lives in the same street with the parent of the Victim, Mariya Suleiman.

The case was reported to the Paralegal Unit of PIDI-Nigeria on Saturday and the monitoring and Investigation unit of the organisation went for the investigation.

On getting there, we met with the mother of Mariya, Mrs. Sureya Abubakar and her father Malam Suleiman Idris.

Findings by PIDI revealed that Mrs Sureya had on the 16th day of July 2020, sent the victim (Mariya) to go and buy Spaghetti at about 7:00am but didnt return on time. She said.

Cate further narrated that the mother of the noticed that she was leaping on returning home and asked where she had been and what was wrong with her and learnt that she was raped.

On persistent inquiry, the victim alleged that she was raped by one, uncle Saleh, saying that when she got the spaghetti, on her way coming home, he called her and asked to take one medicine.

She said it was after she took the medicine that she slept off, so when she woke up, she said he showed her a knife and said if she tell anybody, she will be killed.

The statement which said the suspect is being detained by the police said when the victim was taken to a gynecologist at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital in Bauchi, several tests on her revealed a forceful penetration in her private part.

PIDI-Nigeria regretted that the minor has been rendered helpless and hopeless calling on the police to prosecute the suspected rapist, chief Judge of the state and every other organization that has to do with justice in Bauchi state to ensure that proper justice is served on anyone that commits such offence regardless of the age or gender of the victim.
The 700 MW Kakrapar power plant in Gujarat achieved 'criticality'. This means the atomic power station reached the normal operating condition of a reactor.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday praised the nuclear scientists as the Kakrapar atomic power plant-3 achieved 'criticality', calling the indigenous reactor a shining example of the "Make in India" campaign.

The 700 MW power plant in Gujarat achieved criticality, meaning it reached the normal operating condition of a reactor. It indicates that the plant is now set to generate power.

"Congratulations to our nuclear scientists for achieving criticality of Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3. This indigenously designed 700 MWe KAPP-3 reactor is a shining example of Make in India," the prime minister tweeted.

Congratulations to our nuclear scientists for achieving criticality of Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3! This indigenously designed 700 MWe KAPP-3 reactor is a shining example of Make in India. And a trailblazer for many such future achievements!  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 22, 2020

He said it is a "trailblazer for many such future achievements."

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu congratulated the nuclear scientists who worked at the atomic project and hailed India's prowess of indigenous technology.

Compliments to our nuclear scientists for achieving another impressive feat!

The Kakrapar Atomic Power Project, Unit-3 (KAPP-3), Indias first indigenous 700 MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) attainined its first criticality today.  Vice President of India (@VPSecretariat) July 22, 2020

Union Home Minister Amit Shah also applauded the scientists for "stellar achievement" and said "new India is marching ahead to realise Narendra Modi's vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat".

Big Day in Indias Nuclear history as indigenously designed 700 MWe Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3 in Gujarat achieved criticality. Nation salutes our scientists on this stellar achievement. New India is marching ahead to realise PM @NarendraModis vision of #AatmaNirbharBharat.  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) July 22, 2020

Ministers who responded to the achievement of nuclear scientists and engineers for designing the 700 MWe KAPP-3 reactor:

Another feather added in the cap of Gujarat.

Moment of pride as Indigenously designed 700 MWe Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3 in Gujarat achieved criticality. Congratulations to our nuclear scientists.#AatmaNirbharBharat  Vijay Rupani (@vijayrupanibjp) July 22, 2020

Kudos to the entire team of nuclear scientists and engineers as the indigenously-designed Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3 achieves criticality. Another great step towards the making of #AatmaNirbharBharat! My best wishes for future endeavors.  Shivraj Singh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) July 22, 2020
Bayonne officials are calling for an investigation after a user posted a racist and threatening image in a private Bayonne-centric Facebook group.

In the group Bayonne Talks Freely, a user with the name Scott Guzzi posted a disturbing image of a body hanging from a tree, writing Time to Bring this back, according to screenshots seen by The Jersey Journal. The photo was apparently posted on Tuesday in response to a video of a fight at an airport.

The screenshots show Guzzis profile picture was an emoji of the O.K. hand sign, which is also classified as a white supremacist hate symbol.

On Wednesday, the post quickly condemnation from officials at multiple levels of state government. State Assembly members called for an investigation of the image. In a Facebook post, state Assemblyman Nicholas Chiaravalloti wrote, Just because we live in the most diverse region of our country does not mean that we are protected against bigots and racists.

The idea that someone thinks it is OK to post images of a man hanging from a tree and others endorse lynchings sickens me. There is no place in our society for such hatred.

In an emailed statement, assemblywoman Angela McKnight also condemned the post, writing, Im upset to learn that people who live in my district would spew such racist remarks in this day and age.

This type of language and attitude is reminiscent of a hurtful past that my ancestors had to overcome and it pains me as an African American woman that people in my district would be so cruel as to post pictures of lynching and make such hateful comments, she added.

A statement sent by Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis called the image horrible and threatening.

By Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Phil Murphy weighed in about the picture, writing on Facebook, Hate and bigotry have NO HOME in Bayonne or anywhere in New Jersey.

Bayonne Talks Freely, a private group with more than 4,000 members, describes itself as the place for adult residents of Bayonne to talk openly and freely about their concerns in and around the city, without concern of their opinions being blocked.

As of Wednesday morning, the post had apparently been taken down. Guzzi, who appears to have taken down his Facebook page, could not be reached for comment.

A group administrator, Tony Zanowic, did not return requests for comment. But in a pinned post, Zanowic wrote, this type of violent post cannot be, and will not be tolerated in this group. ... In the interest of this group, and of our city of Bayonne, we are temporarily shutting the group down to revamp and look at what positive things we can do for our community together.

Las year, Bayonne police found a noose hanging from a tree in Dennis P. Collins Park. The police have yet to make an arrest related to the incident.

Both Davis and Chiaravalloti said they reported the image to the Bayonne Police Department and the Hudson County Prosecutors Office, with the assemblyman saying on Facebook that he believed the picture aimed to provoke violence.

The people who are allegedly involved with this online posting are a very small group that does not represent the Bayonne community, Davis said.
Tom Reel / Staff photographer

Austin Mayor Steve Adler is urging all available nurses and skilled technicians to volunteer and join the state's COVID-19 response.

Adler posted about the need for first responders on his Facebook account Monday evening, writing that all licensed health professionals can register through the Texas Disaster Volunteer Registry, which is a site maintained by the Department of State Health Services.
The return of Syria to the Arab League looks more likely, but the recent imposition of the Caesar Act by the US could hinder efforts writes Syrian Scope.

The Arab League has made it clear that Syria is welcome to return, as a result of the efforts made by some member states, in cooperation with Russia.

Assistant Secretary General of the Arab League, Hossam Zaki, said that the return of the Syrian delegate to the League needs the same level of consensus that was reached when the countrys membership was frozen years ago.

Zaki added that Arab League member states have made several observations regarding the performance of the Syrian government, in addition to the existence of fears that such a return might, carry negative consequences at the level of Arab coherence, which is already burdened with divisive factors.

In statements made to the press, he pointed out that Syrias return to the League must be handled with care because it is a very sensitive matter and in order to avoid further divisions, which already exist among Arab ranks.

Zaki stated that the Secretary-General of the League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, suggested that countries continue their dialogue until there is no additional division, adding that the return must be by consensus rather than differing opinions.

Some Arab countries have sought to reintegrate Syria into the League, but those endeavors were met with an unequivocal American veto.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Ukraine says it has canceled visa requirements for citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

As of August 1, tourists from the six countries will no longer need a visa to visit Ukraine if their visits do not exceed 90 days.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed the decree on July 21.

Last month, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was looking into the possible cancellation of visa requirements for visitors from several countries, including China, in order to attract more tourists after restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus are lifted.

Last year, Ukraine introduced electronic visas for citizens of 52 countries, including China and Australia.

Citizens of all former Soviet republics, the United States, Canada, the European Union,and several countries in South America can enter Ukraine for up to 90 days without a visa.

Citizens of five former Soviet republics -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Uzbekistan -- can enter Ukraine without a visa for an indefinite stay.

With reporting by Reuters
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will unveil the largest budget deficit in more than 70 years and the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression in a fiscal update revealing the destruction wrought on the country's finances by the coronavirus recession.

Mr Frydenberg on Thursday will use a special budget update, the first since December, to reveal heavy hits to government revenues that will see the nation record the two largest consecutive budget deficits since World War II.

Company taxes alone are expected to be $13.2 billion lower than forecast for the just completed financial year while in 2020-21 they are tipped to be $12.1 billion lower. The falls are akin to those suffered during the global financial crisis.

Business investment had been forecast in December to grow by 1 per cent in 2019-20 and then 6 per cent this year. That has been downgraded because of the recession to minus 6 per cent last year and minus 12.5 per cent in 2020-21.
Egypt's only demand from Ethiopia during renewed talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is that Addis Ababa discharges water during periods of drought that would reduce harm on the country and its vital Aswan High Dam, a member of the Egyptian team in the dam negotiations said.

Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum agreed to resume negotiations over the giant hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, one of two tributaries of the Nile River, during a mini summit between the leaders of the three countries on Tuesday.

During a fresh round of negotiations sponsored by the African Union from late June, Egypt has focused on regulations governing the filing and operations of the giant dam during dry periods, when water levels are below average, to ensure the country's share of Nile waters is not affected, Egyptian negotiator Alaa Al-Zawahri told Al Arabiya news website late on Monday.

"We have set for the Ethiopians a certain amount of water at which they should halt the storage and release amounts [of water] to Egypt and Sudan," he said, adding that Cairo has provided recommended amounts of water to be discharged, storage volume and proposed quota to be received by Egypt.

Cairo, which depends on the Nile for almost 98 percent of its freshwater, fears the project will cut its already scarce supplies. But Ethiopia believes the dam is key to its development efforts and its plan to become Africa's largest power exporter.

Under a 2015 Declarations of Principles (DOP) signed between the three countries, the massive project is not a water-consuming dam, but is rather dedicated to generating electricity, the Egyptian official said.

Power generation only requires flood water to flow into turbines and then be released naturally towards Sudan and from there to Egypt, Al-Zawahiry said.

Ethiopia has continued to put forward new demands and drift away from major points with the aim of stalling the negotiations, he said.

While Egypt and Sudan demand an accord regulating the filling and operation of the massive dam, Ethiopia's main problem is that it believes that any agreement would limit its freedom to build other future dams unilaterally, said Al-Zawahiri. This is the secret behind its intransigence."

"The Ethiopian side sees that the agreement would limit, in the future, its demand to have a full share of the Blue Nile, as it presents itself as a defender of the rights of the Nile Basin countries, although the water coming from Ethiopia is shared only by Egypt and Sudan, not by the Nile Basin countries, he said.

Al-Zawahiry said Egypt has come up with alternative scenarios for the next coming 100 years to deal with the impacts of the GERD.

The Egyptian technical negotiation team has put forward all these scenarios during the talks to ensure the least possible harm to Egypt, while allowing Ethiopia to operate its dam and generate electricity at the same time.

"We negotiate with Ethiopia based on all these scenarios, so in case we reach the worst scenario we can deal with it," he added.

The latest round of negotiations that concluded earlier this failed to produce an accord on the major points of contention over the filing and operation of the hydropower project.

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The US House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan legislation, urging China to peacefully de-escalate the situation with India along the Line of Actual Control.

The legislation on Tuesday came a day after the House unanimously passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), slamming China's aggression against India in the Galwan Valley and its growing territorial assertiveness in and around disputed areas like the South China Sea.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5. The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

The resolution, sponsored by Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi along with eight others, was passed by the House along with National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2021 and condemned Chinese aggression towards India along the Line of Actual Control.

Through the passage of today's bill, the House has sent a clear, bipartisan message that the government of the People's Republic of China must peacefully de-escalate the situation along the Line of Actual Control with India, Krishnamoorthi said in a statement.

China's military provocations of India are unacceptable, and the peaceful resolution of their border standoff will help restore greater security to the Indo-Pacific region, he said.

Through this vote, the US House of Representatives has reaffirmed the readiness of the US to stand with its allies and partners like India against Chinese military aggression, Krishnamoorthi said.

Other co-sponsors of the resolution are Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna and lawmakers Frank Pallone, Tom Suozzi, Ted Yoho, George Holding, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Haley Stevens and Steve Chabot.

In the months leading up to June 15, along the Line of Actual Control, the Chinese military reportedly amassed 5,000 soldiers; and is trying to redraw long-standing settled boundaries through the use of force and aggression, the Congressional resolution says.

Noting that India and China have reached an agreement to de-escalate and disengage along the Line of Actual Control, the resolution says that on June 15, at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unconfirmed number of Chinese soldiers were killed in skirmishes following a weeks-long standoff in Eastern Ladakh, which is the de facto border between the two countries.

The Government of the People's Republic of China should work toward de-escalating the situation along the Line of Actual Control with India through existing diplomatic mechanisms and not through force, it said.

It is the sense of the Congress that there is significant concern about the continued military aggression by China along its border with India and in other parts of the world, including with Bhutan, in the South China Sea, and with the Senkaku Islands, as their aggressive posture towards Hong Kong and Taiwan.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

China has impeded commercial activity like fishing or mineral exploration by countries like Vietnam and the Philippines.

Ties between China and Japan have been strained by a territorial row over a group of islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China.

A day earlier, the House had passed a similar NDAA amendment moved by Congressman Steve Chabot and Indian-American lawmaker Ami Bera which said that India and China should work towards de-escalating the situation along the LAC and also expressed concern about Chinese aggression in an around disputed territories like the South China Sea.

The resolution comes days after the House of Representatives Caucus on India and Indian-Americans in a letter to India's Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, said that over the last few months, the Chinese authorities have been acting with impunity and have attempted to transgress on the LAC, which resulted in diplomatic discussions to implement a process for de-escalation along the LAC on July 6.

It was led by Congressmen Holding and Brad Sherman and signed by seven other lawmakers.
Deal reached by EU leaders earmarks 30 percent of package for climate protection, but cuts key climate programmes.

European Union leaders clinched a deal on Tuesday for a huge stimulus package that the European Commission said will make fighting climate change central to Europes economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Climate advocates say the agreed 750 billion euro ($865bn) recovery fund negotiated alongside a 1.074 trillion euro ($1.24 trillion) EU budget for 2021-27, was a mixed bag, with large sums earmarked for green investments, but cuts to key climate programmes and insufficient rules to ensure cash does not support polluting investments.

Here are the climate elements of the deal.

30 percent climate spending share

The deal earmarks 30 percent of the entire package for climate protection and says all spending must contribute to EU emissions-cutting goals.

There are too many things that still need improvements. Dutch Green legislator Bas Eickhout

This could see nearly 550 billion euros ($635bn) spent on climate initiatives over 2021-27  an enormous sum, but far below the 2.4 trillion euros ($2.7 trillion) in investment researchers say is needed to meet EU climate goals.

Just transition fund

The EUs flagship fund for weaning countries off of fossil fuels received 17.5 billion euros ($20bn)  less than half of what was previously proposed. The conditions for accessing it were also watered down.

Countries that have not signed up to an EU-wide target to become climate neutral by 2050 will only get half of their share of the Just Transition Fund.

Previous proposals would have forced countries to commit to climate neutrality at a national level  but EU officials said this was a red line for Poland, the coal-heavy country expected to receive the biggest chunk of the money.

People cross the city bridge between Frankfurt (Oder) and Slubice, after Poland reopened the borders with the European Union countries [File: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters]

Money was also shaved off InvestEU and Horizon Europe, two programmes earmarked for sustainable investments, as EU leaders conceded cuts to appease frugal northern countries.

Green taxes

New green taxes will help fill EU coffers, with an EU-wide tax on non-recycled plastic waste scheduled for next year.

A plan to slap levies on polluting imports should be ready by 2023, and a scheme to use carbon market revenues to shore up EU funds will be considered later.

People wearing protective face masks wait before the opening of the department store Le Printemps Haussmann in Paris last week on the first day of summer sales [File: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters]

Spending safeguards

The EU deal does not say what rules it will apply to ensure funding goes to climate-friendly schemes and some members of the European Parliament  which must approve the package  refused to commit their support without tougher conditions to block polluting investments.

There are too many things that still need improvements, said Dutch Green legislator Bas Eickhout. The deal is not over yet.
Turkey Central banks and UAE sign agreement worth almost $5 billion

Blinken: Western countries need unity to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine

Iranian President performs evening namaz in Kremlin after talks with Putin

Turkish police detain women protesting price hikes in hygiene products

Delegation headed by Chief of the Cypriot National Guard General Staff has meetings in Armenia

Merkel refuses job in UN structure

Greece receives the first batch of French Rafale fighters

NEWS.am daily digest: 19.01.22

Azerbaijan hopes Pope to mediate in relations with Armenia

Talks between presidents of Russia and Iran start in Kremlin

Armenian FM: This is not first time Baku makes nonconstructive statements

Ombudsman: I urge not to give in to Azerbaijani manipulations, to visit Artsakh

Armenian FM: Armenia passes a package of proposals to Azerbaijan

France names the main favorite of presidential election

Garo Paylan concludes address in Turkey parliament in Armenian

Russian Foreign Ministry believes there is no risk of large-scale war in Europe

Dollar goes up in Armenia

Sharmazanov: Armenia ex-President Sargsyan did not decide to hold press conference, he did not change his mind

Blinken: Russia has plans to increase force on Ukraine borders

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Azerbaijani military participate in Turkish drills

Taliban say all conditions for recognizing legitimacy of government are met

Azerbaijan MFA statement distorts events of Armenian massacres in Baku 32 years ago

Karabakh ombudsmans office: Azerbaijans anti-Armenian, genocidal policy has clear chronology

US official, Barzani are photographed against backdrop of Greater Armenia and Kurdistan map

Armenia ex-defense minister, army General Staff chief, some others criminal case court hearing kicks off

FM: Most important direction continues to be international recognition of Artsakh

Armenia revenue committee chief on opening of Turkey border: Shall we live with closed borders? In fear?

US selects Los Angeles to host Summit of the Americas in summer 2022

Karabakh Foreign Minister: Return of refugees can only be like mirror

Iranian president arrives on official visit to Moscow

All CSTO peacekeepers leaves Kazakhstan

Artsakh Foreign Minister: Unacceptable to bracket NKAO and NKR together

Karabakh FM: Format of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs' visits needs to be restored

Media: Air communication between Turkey and Armenia will start on February 2

Artsakh FM: Azerbaijan attack on Karabakh will mean attack on Russia

Gold prices hardly change

American professor angers Erdogan's son-in-law

Hovhannes Khachatryan is elected Armenia Central Bank Deputy Governor

15 years pass since Hrant Dink assassination

563 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Guterres offers Merkel job at UN

Armenian church revamped in Iran

World oil prices going up

Newspaper: ECHR rulings increase after Armenia revolution in 2018

Newspaper: Armenia ex-President Sargsyan to give interview instead of press conference

Azerbaijan MFA falls into hysterical rage by France FM statement

The Pope to donate 100,000 to help migrants on border of Belarus and Poland

Fourth vaccine against COVID-19 is not enough for Omicron

World is on verge of country defaults

French Foreign Ministry considers unacceptable Azerbaijan statements about Pecresse

US to return two valuable artifacts over 4,000 years old to Iraq

Germany may consider halting Nord Stream 2 if Russia attacks Ukraine

Israel successfully completes test of anti-ballistic missile system

Plane landing in Sochi struck by lightning

Putin and Aliyev discuss Ukraine situation

Greek PM Mitsotakis threatens Turkey with sanctions

Handelsblatt: US and EU abandon idea of disconnecting Russia from SWIFT international payment system

Artsakh President meets representatives of non-governmental organizations

Avalanche kills person in Iran

Erdogan says he is pleased with decline in volatility of lira

NEWS.am daily digest: 18.01.22

Turkey and Azerbaijan to start laying gas pipeline to supply Nakhichevan

UK begins to supply Ukraine with anti-tank weapons

Armenian PM holds meeting on Armenia's Transformation Strategy until 2050

Nagorno-Karabakh: Remains of another Armenian soldier found in Jrakan region

Tehran to not accept any border change in South Caucasus

Dollar holding relatively steady in Armenia

Armenia special representative: Future process depends on Turkeys constructiveness degree

Erdogan: Gas from Mediterranean to Europe can only be pumped through Turkey

Iranian Consul General discusses customs cooperation in Nakhijevan

Inecobank brings Apple Pay to customers

Parliament vice-speaker says he is familiar with Armenia proposals on border demarcation commission work

US Secretary of State to visit Kyiv

Russia, Iran and China to hold joint naval drills

OSCE Chairmanship on Aliyev statement: We reiterate our full support to Minsk Group Co-Chairs

Artsakh NSS denies rumors about penetration of Azerbaijanis into Karabakh villages

Indonesian parliament approves bill to relocate capital

Armenia PM to Bulgaria colleague: Our interstate relations are marked by continuous development of cooperation

Armenian President meets Abu Dhabi Crown Prince

Azerbaijan to ban foreigners from visiting Nagorno-Karabakh occupied part

European Parliament new speaker elected

Armenian National Interests Fund participates in Abu Dhabi Sustainable Development Week summit

North Korea fires missiles for fourth time this year

ECHR recognizes violation of Armenian PM's rights after 2008 elections

Turkey reveals plans to produce combat aircraft

Karabakh official: Azerbaijan presidents impudent behavior is due to OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs silence

Azerbaijan special services force Artsakh resident to intelligence work

Copper price is stable

Minister of State: OSCE MG Co-Chairs must accept exercise of Karabakh people's right to self-determination

Armenia President, UAE Minister of State discuss possibilities of cooperation in science and technology

Investigation into criminal case of several Armenia soldiers returned from Azerbaijan captivity is over

Canada sends detachment of special forces to Ukraine

Armenia ex-President Kocharyan, former deputy PM now MP Gevorgyan case trial resumes

2 more persons die of coronavirus in Artsakh

Armenia family has 10th child

Converse Bank brings Apple Pay to customers

Gold is getting weaker

Lacote: French institute to operate in Armenia (PHOTOS)

Ardshinbank Brings Apple Pay to Customers
An Amazon driver hilariously played along with 'special instructions' for a family's delivery, which had been sneakily changed by a 13-year-old.

Lynn Staffieri, from Magnolia, Delaware, was left baffled after seeing the driver sprint away from her home on her family's security camera.

She was unaware that her son Jacob, 13, had left instructions for the driver to knock on the door three times, 'scream abracadabra as loud as you can and run super fast away'.

The amusing security footage shows the Amazon driver calmly approach the house and put the parcel on the floor, before banging on the door three times.

An Amazon driver hilariously played along with a 13-year-old's 'special instructions', asking whoever dropped off the parcel at his home in Magnolia, Delaware, to knock three times, 'scream abracadabra' and 'run super fast away'

Amusing security footage shows the driver play along with all of Jacob Staffieri's instructions

The driver shouts the magical phrase before running away from the house and back to her van at full speed.

The driver plays along and adheres to all of Jacob's instructions  even leaping over a pot as she sprints away.

But Jacob's hilarious delivery instructions went unnoticed by his mother until the parcel was finally delivered.

Lynn, 47, received a notification on her phone, where she saw a delivery driver suddenly running away from her house in security footage.

Thinking the driver had been scared by a dog, Lynn went home to check the original footage with sound.

As she was watching the security video, Jacob, who was standing nearby, suddenly started laughing.

The driver shouts the magical phrase before immediately turning and sprinting away from the house in the hilarious moment, which was later discovered by Jacob's mother Lynn Staffieri

He explained to his mother what he had done when the delivery was placed months earlier, and was amazed that the driver had actually played along.

Since sharing the video on Facebook, Lynn said she has received positive comments from all over the world, including Germany, Italy and Lebanon.

She posted the footage, which has been viewed more than two million times, with the caption: 'Thank you to this great Amazon delivery woman!'

Lynn said Amazon told her that the driver does not have social media but that she would receive some kind of recognition.

The driver even leaps over a bucket as she follows Jacob's hilarious instructions and has since been praised for her actions, with people suggesting she deserves a promotion

Jacob's mother Lynn, 47, (both pictured) was baffled months later when she saw an Amazon driver sprint away from her home at full speed on her security footage

Lynn said: 'I would hope people understand that this was not meant in a malicious way at all, and hopefully the driver would understand that it was a child who put those instructions in there even though he shouldn't have.

'I think she had a good time with it and understood that it was a child.

'She's a good sport. Even though we're all stuck in these times that we are right now, we can still have some fun and enjoy what we do.

'Maybe not take ourselves so seriously and enjoy what we can.'

Thousands of people have praised the driver for her commitment to her job, even suggesting that she deserved a raise and a promotion for her hilarious actions.

Lynn saw the hilarious footage on June 15, months after her son entered the amusing instructions for the delivery.
Anesthetic skills can be gained by doctors by using lego as a practical tool, according to a new research. The study has shown that simple tasks using building bricks can help build technical skills. This finding could improve medical training and patient safety.



Scientists from the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology and School of Medicine developed a task where people copied shapes using bricks that they could see in a mirror. They found this simple training improved student performance in an ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia task. The results of the study have been published in British Journal of Anaesthesia.



Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia is when anesthetists inject local anesthetic medicines around specific nerves to provide pain relief after surgery. The anesthetists commonly use an ultrasound machine to direct their injections into the correct position around the nerve and minimize the risks of the procedure. Training new doctors in these skills currently relies on extensive practice on expensive simulators and learning during clinical care.
22 July 2020

WINCANTON PLC ("Wincanton" or the "Group")

Result of AGM

Wincanton PLC, the largest British third-party logistics company, announces that at its Annual General Meeting held on 22 July 2020, all the resolutions, as set out in the Notice of the Meeting, were duly passed on a poll.

The votes were as follows:

RESOLUTION VOTES FOR % VOTES AGAINST % VOTES TOTAL % OF ISC VOTED VOTES WITHHELD 1 Reports and Accounts 91,318,091 99.98 18,965 0.02 91,337,056 73.34 3,181 2 Annual Report on Remuneration 91,139,535 99.82 167,442 0.18 91,306,977 73.31 39,761 3 Directors' Remuneration Policy 88,034,224 96.45 3,243,796 3.55 91,278,020 73.29 68,717 4 Elect M.Jayaweera 91,256,472 99.96 37,686 0.04 91,294,158 73.30 52,580 5 Elect J.Wroath 91,279,072 99.97 31,428 0.03 91,310,500 73.32 30,946 6 Re-elect G.Barr 91,276,978 99.96 33,214 0.04 91,310,192 73.32 31,243 7 Re-elect P.Dean 91,199,124 99.88 111,197 0.12 91,310,321 73.32 31,048 8 Re-elect T.Lawlor 91,276,590 99.97 26,387 0.03 91,302,977 73.31 38,458 9 Re-elect D.Lentz 91,265,668 99.95 43,993 0.05 91,309,661 73.32 31,774 10 Re-elect S.Oades 91,171,833 99.86 129,504 0.14 91,301,337 73.31 40,098 11 Re-elect M.Read 91,188,631 99.86 127,459 0.14 91,316,090 73.32 23,708 12 To appoint Auditor 91,205,153 99.89 99,633 0.11 91,304,786 73.31 35,160 13 Remuneration of Auditor 91,309,595 99.97 23,534 0.03 91,333,129 73.33 10,859 14 Amendment to share plan rules 91,105,246 99.81 169,344 0.19 91,274,590 73.29 70,147 15 Donations of political organisations and political expenditure 90,821,052 99.48 471,773 0.52 91,292,825 73.30 53,127 16 Allot shares 88,752,568 97.21 2,548,347 2.79 91,300,915 73.31 43,001 17 Disapply Pre-emption rights 90,990,731 99.66 314,186 0.34 91,304,917 73.31 36,522 18 Purchase own shares 91,169,319 99.83 156,738 0.17 91,326,057 73.33 15,388 19 Notice of meetings other than AGMs 90,607,196 99.21 719,221 0.79 91,326,417 73.33 15,029

The number of the Group's shares in issue as at the date of the meeting was 124,543,670 ordinary shares of 10p each.

Please note that each share carries one vote and that a 'vote withheld' is not a vote in law and has not been counted in the calculation of the proportion of the votes for and against the resolution. Any proxy appointments which gave discretion to the Chairman have been included in the 'votes for' total.

Copies of the Resolutions will be submitted to the UK Listing Authority and will shortly be available to the public for inspection.

For further information please contact:

Wincanton Plc Tel: 01249 710 000

Lyn Colloff, Company Secretary

Buchanan Tel: 020 7466 5000

Richard Oldworth/Vicky Hayns

Notes to Editors

About Wincanton

Wincanton is the largest British third-party logistics (3PL) company, providing supply chain solutions to some of the world's most admired companies across a wide range of industries including retail, construction, defence and energy.

As a trusted and respected business partner, we design and implement services and solutions that range from setting up and operating distribution networks, through to bonded warehouses, technology hosting, container transport and storage. We strive for operational excellence in everything we do.

We work hard to understand and respond to our customers' needs, build long-term relationships and use our skills and expertise to deliver a smarter, added value service, every day. Our customers rely on us to make their businesses operate more efficiently and to gain a competitive advantage in their sector.

Key facts:

 19,100 colleagues

 200+ locations

 Responsible for 3,500 vehicles

 Revenue 1.1bn

 5,500 drivers

14m sqft of warehousing space
Serum Institute of India on Tuesday said it will be starting trials of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca by the end of August on up to 5,000 Indian volunteers after getting the necessary nods, and launch the vaccine by June next year if all goes well.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The Pune-based companys chief executive Adar Poonawalla said the company, which is the largest vaccine maker in the world, is putting USD 200 million at risk by manufacturing nearly 300 million doses before the final nod to launch the vaccine in market, which is expected at best by the end of the year.

Oxford University on Monday announced satisfactory progress with the vaccine, making it one of the leading ones among the dozens of vaccine candidates being developed around the world.

The varsity has tied up with Serum Institute of India (SII) to manufacture and supply the vaccine to India and over 60 other countries having a combined population of 3 billion, Poonawalla said.

We are making this application within the next 48 hours to the Drug Controller General of Indias office. They will probably take about 1-2 weeks on what kind of study and trial we will have to do, Poonawalla said, speaking to CNBC-TV-18 news channel.

It will take another three weeks to inject patients in hospitals, he said, adding, We are talking about a month or month and half maximum from today...may be even sooner. The vaccine under development will be injected into 4-5,000 volunteers in Pune and Mumbai -- which have high rates of coronavirus infections -- as part of the crucial phase three of the trial which will determine if the antidote can be introduced in the market or not.

Poonawalla said there is no dearth of volunteers and added that unlike the exclusion of older people in the initial phase of trials at Oxford, the Indian trials will include elderly people and health workers as well because the initial phase has conclusively proven the safety of the vaccine.

Parallel to the process of applying for trials and having actual trials on humans in India, the company will be applying for a special permission to start manufacturing the vaccine in the country, which exposes it to a commercial risk if the vaccine fails at the last stage, he said.

As part of the special permission, the company will manufacture up to 70 million doses of the vaccine per month up to October, and plans to take it up to 100 million per month by December, so that it is ready to hit the market once the final approvals are in place.

If this goes to plan, the phase three trials will take two months after the patients get injected and the vaccine gets a final nod by November, he said, adding that in such a scenario, it can get introduced either in quarter one or two of next year.

The company has already manufactured around 2-3 million doses of the vaccine for getting the process correct and also stabilising its machinery, Ponnawalla said, clarifying that these will never be used on humans.

If you look at the process right now, the risk of the opex (operating expenditure) which we are putting in is more than USD 200 million. If this vaccine fails, we will be down (by) USD 200 million, he said, adding the expenses exclude the opportunity cost of using the same facility for some other purpose.

Poonawalla also said SII is looking at external investors for the vaccine-related endeavour and added that it has tie-ups with five other vaccine candidates which will be housed into a separate step-down subsidiary, where the family will dilute its stake by 15-20 per cent.

Apart from the five tie-ups already forged, SII is in talks with two other candidates, he said, adding that a manufacturing plant with capacity to produce 1 billion units of the vaccine per year will also get housed in the subsidiary.

He further said it is extremely likely that the Covid-19 vaccine would require two or more doses, like in the case of antidotes for measles and other diseases.

We have got a lot on the line and bet big on this (Oxford-AstraZeneca) candidate. And we really hope it works, he added.

Meanwhile, Poonawalla Group Chairman Cyrus Poonawalla said SII is committed to producing 1 billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine after it gets the necessary approvals. He was speaking at an online discussion organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), Pune Chapter.

The company wants to make the vaccine available at the lowest price possible so that even the poor can afford it, a statement quoted Cyrus Poonawalla as saying. Asked if there could be any setback in terms of productivity and output of the vaccine, he said chances of failure look remote.

If the approvals are in place and trials are completed successfully, then lot of companies will manufacture the vaccine and India will be the largest producer of the Covid-19 vaccine in the world, he added.
There are eight contestants for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket for the October governorship election in Ondo State.

They are Agboola Ajayi, Eyitayo Jegede, Boluwaji Kunlere, Eddy Olafeso, Ben Okunomo, Bode Ayorinde, Godday Erewa and Sola Ebiseeni.

The primary which is expected to come up on today (Wednesday), at Dome Centre, Akure, is chaired by the governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

On Monday, the leadership of PDP led by Uche Secondus, held a meeting with all the aspirants who signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support any candidate who emerges at the gubernatorial primary election.

Whoever emerges as the PDP candidate is expected to be the main challenger to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, who is the candidate of the ruling party, APC.

PREMIUM TIMES highlights the profiles of the contenders for the PDP governorship ticket.

Agboola Ajayi

A lawyer and businessman, he has been into politics since the 80s and has served in different capacities as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and recently, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

He was a Chairman of Ese-Odo Local Government Area between 2004 and 2007 after which he was elected to the Federal House of Representatives to represent Ilaje/Ese-Odo federal constituency.

Agboola Ajayi {Source: Official Twitter Handle}

He was the chairman, house committee on NDDC between 2007 and 2010. He was also a member of various committees, which include gas, habitat, justice and industry between 2007 and 2011.

He left the PDP for APC to contest as running mate to Rotimi Akeredolu, in the November 26, 2016 governorship election. They were sworn-in on February 24, 2017.

Mr Ajayi fought with his boss ahead of this years election. He dumped the APC and returned to PDP where he is currently vying to become the partys flag bearer.

Eyitayo Jegede

Mr Jegede is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) from Ipele town, near Owo in Ondo State. In May 2009, he was appointed the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice.

Eyitayo Jegede SAN [PHOTO CREDIT: @TayoJegedeSAN]

He is also a former Chancellor of Anglican Communion of Jalingo, Taraba State. He was once the Chancellor of Anglican Dioceses of Yola and a member of Implementation Committee of American University, Yola, Adamawa State, as well as a member, Chairman Board of Governors, ABTI Academy International School and member, Board of Trustees, Elizade University, Ilara Mokin, Ondo State.

Mr Jegede was the winner of the PDP primary in 2016, polling 760 votes. He is one of the most popular aspirants in the opposition party and has vowed to defeat other contestants.

Boluwaji Kunlere

He is an indigene of the Igbotako in Okitipupa Local Government Area of Ondo State. Mr Kunlere is a lawyer and former senator for Ondo South.

He contested the Senate seat for Ondo South in April 2007 on the Labour Party platform, but was defeated.

Boluwaji Kunlere [PHOTO CREDIT: Senator Boluwaji Kunlere on Facebook]

In March 2009, he was appointed Special Adviser to Governor Olusegun Mimiko on Political Affairs and Legal Matters.

In August 2010, he resigned from this position so he could compete for the Ondo South Senatorial District slot.

He was elected senator in April 2011 national elections under the Labour Party.

Ben Okunomo

He is a graduate of pure and applied biochemistry with upper class division from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State in year 2001.

Mr Okunomo is from Ilaje local government.

Ben Okunomo [PHOTO CREDIT: Hon Banji Ben Okunomo on Facebook]

He was the spokesperson of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) workforce in the nine oil producing states in Nigeria between 2007-2010.

He served as chairman of Ilaje local government in Ondo-State from 2011-2013.

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He is also a former publicity secretary of the PDP in Ondo State.

Eddy Olafeso

He was born in Okitipupa in Ondo State and obtained First Class honors in English from the Obafemi Awolowo University in 1985.

He has experience in the courier industry, working in managerial capacities in Red Star Express and DHL International for over a decade.

Eddy Olafeso [PHOTO CREDIT: Olorogun Eddy Olafeso 2020 on Facebook]

He also held various positions in the PDP in Ondo State including Secretary PDP, Ondo State 2007 and Chairman, PDP State Contact Committee.

He has been a member of the Institute of Management since 1990 and Marketing Association of Nigeria since 1991.

Mr Olafeso was elected Vice National Chairman (South-west) in the PDP elective convention held in December 2017.

Sola Ebiseeni

Mr Ebiseni is a human rights activist, lawyer, politician, and Chancellor Ilaje Diocese, Anglican Communion.

He represented Ondo at the World Conference of Local Authorities in Oslo Norway, 1991.

Sola Ebiseeni [PHOTO CREDIT: ondoevents.com]

He was appointed director, Oluwa Glass Company, chairman of the state law commission, and commissioner by two different administrations.

Bode Ayorinde

He was a member of the 8th Federal House of Representatives; Representing the Owo/Ose Federal Constituency.

He served as the chairman of the tactical committee on economic reforms, chairman of the house ad-hoc committee on economic recession, and deputy chairman of house committee on rules and business.

Bode Ayorinde [PHOTO CREDIT: bodeayorinde.com]

Mr Ayorinde is the author of Banking Reform in Nigeria: The Law, The Prospects and The Challenges.

He is also the Pro Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council, Achievers University, Owo.

Godday Erewa

Mr Erewa is an industrialist from Ilaje. Not much is known about him.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Sudans government calls itself transitional, but what it is attempting is transformational. In the latest raft of reforms announced earlier this month, it abolished a law against apostasy, ended punishment by flogging, criminalized female genital mutilation, dropped rules requiring women to get a permit from a male family member to travel with their children  and loosened prohibitions on the sale and consumption of alcohol.

Last week, the government also began the final phase of peace talks with rebels that could see the latter join the administration.

Still a month short of its first anniversary, the government  headed by a council of civilian and military representatives, and led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, a former United Nations economist  seems determined to dismantle, without delay, the poisonous legacy of the ousted former dictator Omar al-Bashir. Sudanese activists and international rights groups are cheering it on.

It is also being encouraged by the Trump administration, which has upgraded diplomatic ties. After a gap of more than two decades, Washington now has a Sudanese ambassador. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the U.S. will appoint an ambassador to Khartoum.

But the U.S. continues to hold out on the gesture that would mean the most to the transitional government: removing Sudan from the State Departments list of countries that sponsor terrorism. The designation, which it shares with Iran, North Korea and Syria, restricts the countrys access to aid, investment and remittances.

As I wrote last year, shortly after Hamdoks appointment, Sudan doesnt belong on that list. Indeed, many in the national security establishment in Washington argue that it should have been dropped years ago. For all his tyranny, even Bashir had long been cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts. The Trump administration acknowledged this in 2017, when it removed most U.S. sanctions on Sudan.

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And yet, the U.S. remains reluctant to take the final step, even though the transitional government has repeatedly demonstrated its eagerness to curry Washingtons favor. Pompeos explanation, that we always measure twice and cut once before we remove someone from a list like that, is vague at best.

There are other voices in Washington counseling caution. Keeping Sudan on the list, they say, gives the U.S. leverage over the military, to ensure that it doesnt undermine the democratizing process. Better to save delisting as the final reward, for an elected government after the three-year transition has been completed.

The risk of recidivism exists, of course. Witness a violent mutiny by members of the intelligence services in January. In March, Hamdok escaped an assassination attempt. Although the government has been able to imprison Bashir and some of his closest lieutenants  they face trial for genocide and other war crimes at the International Criminal Court  other dangerous figures in fatigues still wield considerable power in Khartoum. Mohamed Hamdan Hemedti, leader of the infamous Janjaweed militias blamed for the genocide in Darfur, now runs the Rapid Support Forces, and portrays himself as a hero in the countrys fight against the coronavirus.

But to imagine that keeping Sudan on the terrorism-sponsors list will ward off counter-revolutionary forces is to greatly exaggerate American leverage  and to underestimate the protest movement that brought down Bashir. The protesters maintain a sharp-eyed vigilance on the military, and despite the pandemic, have kept up pressure on the government to stay the course on reforms.

Certainly, they could use international help to keep the government honest. To prevent backsliding in Khartoum, the U.S. has plenty of carrots and sticks it can use.

Smoothing the way for investment and aid, for instance, would allow Hamdok to rebuild Sudans economy, which was decrepit even before the pandemic. Some investors, having taken their own measure of Africas third-largest country, are not waiting on a formal delisting. American companies ranging from Visa Inc and Oracle to Yum! Brands (which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut) have announced partnerships in Sudan. International donors last month pledged $2 billion in aid. Many more would undoubtedly be emboldened to follow if the terrorism-sponsorship designation were removed. And success on the economic front would do much to legitimize civilian rule.

Moreover, the threat of sanctions should suffice as a disincentive. After all, for those who need reminding, being taken off the list of terrorism sponsors is not a permanent condition: North Korea was delisted in 2008, and subsequently relisted by the Trump administration.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Comet Neowise, which is about to reach the closest point to Earth as it heads out of our solar system, has drawn Pennsylvanians out into the night to gaze skyward in hopes of catching a glimpse or maybe a photo.

Social media has been ablaze with their sharing and comments, which led us to ask them to share some of their photos here.

For those who have yet to catch a glimpse of the comet, the best opportunities are upon us.

Comet Neowise photographed by Larry Moquin from Breezy View Overlook at Columbia.

Comet Neowise photographed by Bob Erlsten from Columbia Hill in Montour County.

Neowise  aka Comet C/2020  is now visible with binoculars and in long-exposure photos beginning about a half-hour after sundown above the northwest horizon directly below the Big Dipper. Its position will move a bit higher into the sky and a bit to the left each night.

Comet Neowise photographed by John Siefert from Bunker Hill Road at Womelsdorf.

It will make its closest pass to Earth on Thursday, July 23, and for a few days after that. It will be about 64 million miles from Earth, which is closer than the 93 million miles away for the Sun.

After the comet fades away in August its not expected back in our part of the solar system until the year 8786.

Comet Neowise photographed by Eric Sweigard north of Palmyra.

Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.
After the July 12 provocation on the border with Azerbaijan representatives of the nationalist forces of Armenia became more active in Europe and the United States. Yesterday, representatives of the Armenian Diaspora in Los Angeles surrounded the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan and held a rally using aggressive anti-Azerbaijani slogans. A few days earlier, Armenians living in the Dutch city of Hague staged a similar rally in front of the Azerbaijani embassy in the Netherlands.

The protesters demanded that the Azerbaijani military unilaterally stop all the hostilities, which began in response to Armenian attacks in the Tovuz region. Perhaps those people were misled that they became victims of propaganda, so they now claim that their country was attacked by Azerbaijan, not vice versa. However, there were those who were not misled among the protestors. They are active nationalists, members of the terrorist organization ASALA.

The photo and video taken during the rally in Hague clearly show a young man in a T-shirt with the inscription ASALA (ASALA - "Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia") and its symbols. This led observers to suspect that these protests were organized, if not by members of this terrorist organization, then with their active participation and support.

The Armenian terror became an integral part of international terrorism over a century ago. Back in 1885, the first Armenian terrorist organization "Armenakan" was created, followed by the "Khnchak" and "Dashnaktsutyun" groups. Representatives of these and other organizations subsequently tried to implement the idea of creating the "Great Armenia" through terror. Today, the list of Armenian terrorist organizations operating around the world reaches almost two dozen, and one of them is ASALA, created in 1975, operating in the Middle East and Europe and included in the list of terrorist organizations by the US State Department.

The list of terrorist operations carried out by ASALA, which official Yerevan does not denounce, is huge, and the fact that representatives of this organization were present at the rally organized by Armenians near the Azerbaijani embassy in Hague should alert Europeans.

Representatives of the Azerbaijani diaspora tried to prevent chaos near the building of the Azerbaijani embassy in the Netherlands, while participants shouted the names of the settlements of the Tovuz region attacked by Armenia into loudspeakers, as well as the names of those killed during the border conflict. Armenian nationalists pelted them with stones and bottles. The crowd attacked three dozen Azerbaijanis, trampling photos of soldiers killed in border shootings. There's no way of knowing what would have happened if the police didn't intervene.

Now the Armenian diaspora finds itself in a difficult situation: on the one hand, its representatives unswervingly represent Armenian people as a victim, starting from the "genocide" of 1915 and ending with the last confrontation on the border, on the other hand, it's a diaspora that is suspected of sponsoring the terrorist network, the consequences of which is very serious for many countries.

With rallies in the United States and the Netherlands, Armenian nationalists have demonstrated their aggressive nature to the world. It is obvious that there are notorious nationalists behind the young people who came out to the rallies, whose policies have led today's Armenia to a political and economic catastrophe. Now this shadow has fallen on the Armenian diaspora in prosperous countries - the poison of nationalism and hatred will seriously affect the image of Armenians in the world, and the attitude towards them may significantly change. Aggression and calls for violence are a violation of the laws sacredly revered in democratic countries. Everyone is equal before the law, regardless of their nationality. The rallies of the Armenian nationalists looks especially frightening in the United States, where the riots provoked by the death of George Floyd are continuing.

Additional information: The "Secret Armenian Army for the Liberation of Armenia" (ASALA) aims to create "Great Armenia" in the territories of Eastern Turkey, Northern Iran, Nakhchivan and Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. ASALA carries out terrorist acts against the citizens of Turkey and Azerbaijan. During criminal case against this terrorist organizations the main defendant was its leader Hakob Hakobyan. Hakobyan, who took the blame for the murder of a Turkish diplomat in 1980 in Athens in an interview with the New York Times on 01.08.1980, stated the following: "Our enemies are the Turkish regime, NATO and the Armenians who do not cooperate with us." In April 1980, ASALA reached an agreement with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) on joint terrorist acts and carried out its intentions in Lebanon. On on April 28, 1993 in Beirut, ASALA announced its intentions to impede the implementation of the project related to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

Members of the organization carried out terrorist acts and armed attacks on Turkish diplomatic bodies and political assassinations of Turkish diplomats. In 1981, ASALA militants carried out an armed seizure of the Turkish consulate in Paris and carried out a number of terrorist attacks in France, Italy and Switzerland.

In 1982, members of the organization took hostages at the Ankara airport - 9 people were killed, including an American and a citizen of Germany. Armenians periodically became victims of the terrorist actions of ASALA in different countries of the world

In the 1990s, Armenian radicals also launched several terrorist attacks in the Transcaucasus. The victims of these terrorist attacks were residents of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Russia, including Armenians, who did not support the policy of terror. For example, in 1990, ASALA militants blasted the Tbilisi-Agdam bus, and in 1994, they carried out two terrorist attacks in the Baku metro. As a result of these terrorist attacks, several dozen people died.
At the time, the entire Kimberley region was under the strictest border controls in the nation, having been declared a Commonwealth biosecurity zone. At 8.25am on April 1, Dr Robertson sent an email to an unknown recipient asking to discuss three hotel quarantine exemption applications, which included Mr Stokes and his wife. By 2.33pm the same day, the Chief Health Officer voiced his support for Mr Stokes and his wife to quarantine in Perth, but not Broome. The federal minister personally sent Mr Stokes' doctor's letter to WA Premier Mark McGowan's chief of staff Guy Houston 'hoping' it secured him authorisation to quarantine in Broome. Credit:Nine Publishing "This has been discussed with [redacted] and our director general [Dr Russell-Weisz]. Given Mr Stokes' health condition and the measures he has taken to self-isolate, I would support him self-isolating at home for 14 days in Perth," Dr Robertson's email read.

Loading At 10.30am on April 3, the federal minister personally sent an email to Mr Houston with a letter from Mr Stokes' doctor to "help" him get approval to self-isolate in Broome. The minister revealed he had discussed Mr Stokes' arrival with Mr McGowan. "Have been discussing this with the Premier. Attached is letter (sic) from Mr Stokes' personal physician," the federal minister said. "Hope this helps secure the necessary WA Chief Health Officer authorisation for arrival and self-isolation at their residence in Broome."

Mr Houston then forwarded the email to others, redacted in the documents, for "review". When news of Mr Stokes' home-isolation broke on April 23, Mr McGowan denied he had anything to do with the application or knew what he had applied for. "No, I am not aware of what exemptions [Mr Stokes] may or may not have applied for. Obviously, these matters are handled by the Police Commissioner on advice from the Department of Health," Mr McGowan told media on April 26. At 11.09am on April 3, Mr Stokes' private secretary sent an email to the minister with his proposed itinerary for his return to WA on April 8.

"Dear Minister, thank you for all your help," the email read. The federal minister then sent the itinerary to Mr Houston, who forwarded it on to a WA Health email for review. At 4.11pm that same day, Dr Robertson emailed a WA Police address discussing the itinerary and reiterated Mr Stokes should quarantine in Perth, not Broome. About 2 hours later, Dr Robertson emailed another address stating he had received verbal approval from WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson that Mr Stokes could self-isolate at home in WA, provided it was in Perth. Quarantine applications are meant to be apolitical under WA's border regulations, with WA Police the ultimate deciding authority, but it seeks advice from the health department through the State Health Incident Coordination Centre.

In March and April, most exemption applications in WA were made using a standardised form forwarded to a generic police email. In some instances, the WA Police Commissioner could delegate decisions to sergeants and inspectors and lower-level health department officials provided advice. In other quarantine exemption approvals seen by WAtoday, police liaisons to the WA State Health Incident Coordination Centre have made the final call on whether to grant quarantine exemptions in cases where travellers have requested exemptions to visit dying loved ones in hospital or leave quarantine early to leave the state. A spokesman for Mr Stokes said he had complied with all quarantine exemption requirements but declined to comment further to a detailed list of questions about the process. WAtoday asked WA Senator and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann whether he was the minister in the emails, to which a spokeswoman replied it would not be appropriate to comment on any specific constituent inquiry.

"The minister assists constituents in a number of ways, including by connecting them with the appropriate authorities to address any issues as appropriate," she said. The spokeswoman said hotel quarantine decisions were made "exclusively and independently" by WA authorities and at no point had Mr Cormann made any judgements on what the appropriate quarantine arrangements would be in "a particular set of circumstances". A spokesman for Mr McGowan denied any wrongdoing by him or his office and said the emails showed the exemption process had been working correctly. "The Premier's office is not involved in any applications," he said. "As the emails show, these matters are handled by the Police Commissioner, in his capacity as the state emergency coordinator, on advice from the Chief Health Officer.

"The Premier's office receives a significant amount of correspondence from a range of people related to COVID-19, and that correspondence is rightly passed onto the relevant authorities." Despite Mr McGowan stating publicly on April 26 he did not know what exemptions Mr Stokes applied for, his spokesman said when he was made aware the matter was referred to police and the health department. By mid-June, more than 6000 people had entered hotel quarantine in WA, and in the early days of the policy in April, the WA government was particularly harsh in enforcing the rules for most returning travellers. One of those upset at their treatment was Barry Preedy, a WA man who tested positive for COVID-19 and was refused permission to leave his hotel room to visit his wife Maureen as she died of the same disease in a Perth hospital.
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A boy awaiting university admission, Mr. Maren Ibrahim Mafuyai has been killed in Plateau.

Maren was shot in the leg and chest while keeping vigilance on Monday evening with fellow youths in Fit-ma-Kusho village of Mazat/Marit Ward of Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, located 15kms north east of the Plateau State University, Bokkos.

Armed men believed to be herdsmen had invaded the village shooting at random but Maren and his fellow watchmen managed to distract them at the outskirts saving over 500 women and children.

He was not armed. None of us was, said an eyewitness on guard with him, Mr. Dadung Bulus Wash, But we moved together in clusters, crawling in grasses as the attackers opened rapid shots on us, he said.

The attackers, after trying and failing to take out the ambushers, retreated but took cover in nearby bushes, unknown to the villagers.

When the deceased attempted to change position after about 30mins of ceasefire, a resuming gunfire from the bushes hit him in the leg, exposing his position, it was gathered.

The attackers rushed him with more gunfire, said eyewitnesses and fled soon after, before securities arrived.

His shouts before giving up made the attackers to flea, afraid that other watchers might pounce on them.

He gave his life to save the entire village, said leader of the Community, Mr. Ishaya Musa.

The attack was not the first in the locality, said a former Councillor, Mr. Tigana Buba.

Weak security presence has made communities in the area more vulnerable, said Buba.

Armed government securities have however not been spared in the attacks.

Two Policemen were shot and their rifles stolen in another attack same night in Barkin Ladi General Hospital, 10kms from Fit-ma-Kusho village.

The Policemen survived with severe gunshots, as a hospital worker, Member Representing Barkin Ladi Constituency in the Plateau State House of Assembly, Mr. Peter Gyendeng confirms.

A civilian guard in the hospital was however killed, it was gathered.

This is a challenge that government must admit and rise to face without playing politics, said the former Councillor of Mazat/Marit Ward, Tigana Buba.

Officials have repeatedly denied the existence of insecurity in the State, a situation observers say is preventing relevant help from reaching the State.
Wiseburn Unified School District Supt. Blake Silvers stands in front of a sign where the name of former California Gov. Peter Burnett has been covered with black plastic and duct tape. The school will be renamed. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

As one by one, monuments and markers linked to California's racist past were being toppled by protesters last month or hastily moved out of sight, a small school district in Hawthorne set its sights on an elementary campus named after the state's first elected governor.

Peter Burnett Elementary, one of three primary schools in Hawthorne, opened in 1956 as the namesake of California's first chief executive, whose public racist biases targeted Black, Chinese and Native American people in the 1800s.

Wiseburn Unified School District Supt. Blake Silvers said the school's moniker had come under fire previously, but it wasn't until the June protests following George Floyds death that he more fully considered the hurt the name inflicted, particularly on people of color.

At a Black Lives Matter protest organized by district students, Silvers saw one boy toting a sign stating: "Did you know our school is named after the racist Peter Burnett?"

Rising-fifth grader Levi Meeker learned about Burnett's history last year after he and his grandfather decided on a whim to research the school's namesake. The two were horrified to learn about the former governor's vitriolic hatred.

"A lot of people looked at it, and a lot of people seemed very surprised at that," Levi said of his sign at the protest.

Word about Burnett spread among the families at the rally. Silvers listened too.

Ali Wood, Levi's mother, said Silvers told parents and students they should submit comments ahead of the school board's June 10 meeting. Nearly 30 people sent in their thoughts. At the beginning of the meeting, an emergency measure to remove Burnett's name from the school was added to the agenda.

District parent Ann Carlson was among those who weighed in.

Peter Burnett wouldve hated our diverse community and all that it stands for. How can we ask our students to study under his name? she asked.

The virtual meeting started with the Pledge of Allegiance. A photo of a fluttering American flag filled the Zoom screen as tiny boxed images showed school board trustees standing at home, hand over heart. Board Vice President Neil Goldman took note of the significance of the words.

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The last line says, 'with liberty and justice for all, Goldman said. These are inspiring, aspirational words; but the reality in this country falls well short of this idea.

Early in his political career, while serving in the office of provisional supreme judge in what is now Oregon, Burnett in 1844 signed the state's first exclusion laws, forcing Black people to leave the region or face floggings. Six years later, as governor of California, Burnett declared in his State of the State address that a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct. And even after leaving politics, he was an advocate for the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the movement of Chinese immigrants in and out of the country.

Because of those beliefs, many say his name has no business on a school.

Gary Stickel, a former UCLA archaeologist who works with the Kizh Nation of the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians, said Burnett called for the extermination of Californias Native Americans and even put bounties on them.

Burnett was a terrible racist," Stickel said. "Not only was he against Indians, he tried to pass a law that no African Americans could live in California and shot and killed an African American man in cold blood." He noted that the governor was forced to resign after only one year in office because of his broad unpopularity.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned Burnett in an apology for historical violence against Native Americans, using the word genocide to describe the brutalization his predecessor promoted.

Over the last six years, schools in Long Beach and San Jose have dropped Burnetts name. Silvers said it was time for the Hawthorne school to do the same.

So many community members submitted remarks during last month's school board meeting, exhausting the 20-minute public comment period, that some had to be read at the next meeting, two weeks later. All but one favored a name change.

How can we honesty tell our children  particularly our children of color  that they are welcome and equal in our schools while memorializing a man who did not even treat their ancestors as human beings? parent Kayli Weatherford asked.

Burnett student Tyler Tuttle said: I am not proud to attend a school named after someone who is the opposite of 'Bulldog Best,' referencing the school's mascot.

The board unanimously agreed, and selected 138th Street Elementary as the temporary name for the third-through-fifth-grade school.

Since then, the district has gone about scrubbing Burnett's name from the campus. Websites have been updated to reflect the new name, and signs at the school with the former governor's name have been covered.

We wanted to immediately eliminate the name, and so from that point, weve actually covered up as much of the signage as we could cover up, which is difficult because there are things carved in granite, Silvers said.

Levi, who was among the community members who submitted comments to the meeting, is glad for the change.

"Naming someone as our school is basically commemorating them. You dont want to commemorate someone who was racist and was not inclusive of all different types of people. Even though we do want to know about it, to know what we shouldnt do, we should commemorate people who did the right thing, he said.

Still, he said he doesn't deserve credit for the change. The whole community played a part, he said. And as such, the whole community  including the elementary school's students  should play a role in picking the new name too.

Silvers said he hopes a fresh title will be adopted by the time school starts in early September, but a community advisory committee still needs to be established. He said he'd like to see students help pick the new name, noting that the board has already received dozens of suggestions, including Kobe Bryant, Michelle Obama, Jackie Robinson and Mae C. Jemison, the first black woman in space.

Stickel has his own proposal.

Theres no one more appropriate to rename this Burnett school for than Toypurina, the tribal archaeologist said, citing an oft-overlooked indigenous woman who he said led a revolt against the Spanish Empire that brutalized local tribes in the name of the San Gabriel Mission.

She fought for human decency and freedom, and to me, shes a great American, unsung.
President Donald Trump.

Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

A Maine brewery canceled an event on Wednesday after the owners said they were unaware it was listed as an official Trump campaign event, the Bangor Daily News reported.

Brad and Nancy Nadeau, the owners of Stars and Stripes Brewing, told the newspaper that they had been told that campaign members and Lara Trump would stop there for drinks and get pizza nearby. But they said they were surprised to see their brewery included in the campaign's online event listings.

"I tried so hard to keep this brewery positive, and we haven't had any backlash because we don't do anything that's negative," Brad Nadeau told the Daily News. "But when it comes to politics, people are so far on either side."

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A brewery in Freeport, Maine, canceled an event on Wednesday after the owners said they weren't aware it was an official Trump campaign event and received negative comments, the Bangor Daily News reported.

The owners of Stars and Stripes Brewing, Brad and Nancy Nadeau, told the newspaper that they had been told that some campaign members and Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, would visit the brewery for beers and get pizza from a nearby restaurant.

But they said they were surprised to see the brewery included in the Trump campaign's online event listings as the first stop on a "Women for Trump" bus tour. The owners told the newspaper that Stars and Stripes Brewing did not promote political candidates or host political events.

Brad Nadeau, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq, said that after receiving backlash, he called the campaign on Tuesday to cancel the event. He said he planned to close the brewery on Wednesday.

"I tried so hard to keep this brewery positive, and we haven't had any backlash because we don't do anything that's negative," he told the Daily News. "But when it comes to politics, people are so far on either side."

Story continues

A Trump campaign press release listed the event's new location as Jimmy the Greek's, a restaurant in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Insider
Author Kim Bong-gon Courtesy of Munhakdongne Publishing



By Park Ji-won



Two publishers  Munhakdongne Publishing and Changbi  announced Tuesday that they would refund readers who purchased controversial author Kim Bong-gon's two books and take inventory of the books in bookstores to retrieve them.



The author's works have been under fire over privacy concerns, after it was alleged he shared private information and may have even disclosed people's sexual orientations without their permission.



Munhakdongne said it will recall the books "Summer, Speed" (2018) and "The 11th Young Writer Award Collection," (2020) which includes Kim's "Such Lives" from local bookstores and would refund those who already purchased them.



It added that it will republish the collection book without Kim's work which won the Young Author of the Year Award.



Changbi Publishers also said it has started to recall "Times and Mood," which includes Kim's "Such Lives," and will refund the book.



The two publishers made such decisions days after the eruption of controversy about the author. Kim was known to have used his private conversation with his acquaintances in his books without prior consent from them.



Two acquaintances of the author claimed on social media that Kim cited their private messages and smartphone chatting app texts exchanged with them in his two novels "Summer, Speed" and "Such Lives" without their consent.



A woman disclosed last week that her private conversation with Kim on a chatting app was used in his novel, claiming she is the character identified as Sister C who appears in Kim's "Such Lives"



Her bombshell disclosure was followed by a man who claimed the conversation Kim's character Young-woo had in another novel "Summer Speed" is from his actual exchange with the author. He said Kim hadn't asked for his consent to use the conversation.



On Tuesday, Kim offered an apology in a statement.



"My apologies to those who suffered because of my novels, as well as readers, publishers and fellow writers," he said. He said his careless writing has caused many to suffer.



Kim said his personal troubles hurt his credentials as a writer, so he'd like to return the Young Author of the Year Award to Munhakdongne Publishing, an offer the publisher accepted immediately.



Kim debuted in 2016 as a novelist. He came out of the closet and said he is gay. He has been gaining popularity for his semi-autobiographical books as a gay man. He is often associated with queer literature in Korea.


FunnelAI, the industrys first real-time B2B artificial intelligence (AI) based semantic search platform, announced that Laura Ryan has joined the company as chief operating officer (COO). Laura has a 25-year proven track record of leadership and growing industry-leading businesses in automotive. As COO, Laura will be responsible for the development and execution of the strategy that will ensure accelerated growth in all areas of the company with immediate focus on product, sales, and marketing initiatives.

Before joining FunnelAI, Laura led Purdy Mobility as Chief Executive Officer. Purdy Motor Group is a Costa Rica based company with operations in the U.S., including Texas-based franchised dealerships. In this role, Laura was responsible for strategically expanding, broadening, and diversifying Purdy Motors operations in the United States.

Laura previously spent 19 years with Gulf States Toyota, Inc., a private distributor for Toyota Motor North America; most recently as Vice President, Market Representation & Dealer Development. In her twenty-five plus years in the automotive industry she has held positions in all aspects of the business which have provided her valuable knowledge and experience in the industry.

Lauras proven success and track record of performance in the automotive industry; specifically, in areas of implementation, execution, and business and strategic development, over the course of her career makes her an excellent addition to the FunnelAI team, stated Sri Kamma, CEO and Co-Founder of FunnelAI. Right now, the auto industry is going through a drastic change and we want to make sure were available to help our current customers and new customers with their transitions.

Laura has held state-level public service roles for the past nine years. Currently, she serves on the Texas Transportation Commission (TxDOT) as one of five commissioners appointed by Governor Greg Abbott. Prior to this, she was appointed TX Department of Motor Vehicle Board (TxDMV), representing the vehicle manufacturing/distribution industry, where she served as Chairman.

Laura attended Penn State University and is an avid learner and a student of both business and leadership.

FunnelAI is seeing an increased demand due to the need for intelligent solutions, in the automotive sector, that ensure customers complete the entire buying journey from the comfort and safety of their homes, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By adding new leadership, FunnelAI is continuing to disrupt innovative solutions within the auto industry.

FunnelAIs real-time AI platform solutions include:



Products that harness the power of digital communications to bring not only the information, but the intent, of digital conversations from over 2,000 social platforms and forums in real-time. Providing businesses with opportunities to engage with qualified consumers that have expressed a high purchase intent.

Products that understand a consumers life cycle events and then provide businesses the information and ability to proactively engage in real-time based on specific life events to ensure the right communication at the right time. This level of engagement and connection will build relationships and increase retention.

Products that provide analytics and market intelligence for automotive dealerships, businesses, and OEMs; including market dynamics, brand awareness, competition placement, product feedback, online reputation, and prospective and current customer profile management and analysis.

About FunnelAI:

FunnelAI is a Texas based B2B Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform provider offering the industrys first and most intelligent real-time semantic search, discovery, and engagement platform. Its mission is to increase growth opportunities and provide market intelligence for businesses by pushing the boundaries of technology using big and open data for next-generation conversational marketing and sales solutions. FunnelAIs true AI-based, deep learning, and machine-language technology maximizes business processes by identifying consumers and personalized-content that allows businesses to engage with consumers with high-purchase intentions in real-time; and to understand the intent of social communications to ensure businesses can be proactive in repeated engagement. FunnelAIs Natural Language Processing Technology won the Innovator of the Year award by globally renowned AI Tech World(https://aidevworld.com/awards/#winners) in 2019. To learn more, please visit http://www.funnelai.com

Trademarks: FunnelAI, Aingine and Ottolytics are the registered trademarks of FunnelAI, Inc.

FunnelAI Media Contact:

Esme Araiza

press@funnelai.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:51:30|Editor: huaxia

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Aerial photo shows a China-Europe freight train, also the "China Post" CR Express 1st block train, ready to leave the Tuanjiecun Station in Chongqing Municipality, southwest China, April 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Tang Yi)

CHONGQING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China-Europe freight trains to and from southwest China's Chongqing Municipality have made more than 1,000 trips as of Wednesday, up 12 percent for the same period last year.

On Wednesday, a train carrying laptops, printers and liquid crystal displays left Chongqing for Duisburg, Germany, becoming the 1,001st train to shuttle between the Chinese metropolis and European or Central Asian cities.

The China-Europe rail service is considered a significant part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Chongqing started the rail cargo service to Duisburg in 2011.

In the first half of this year, the total value of goods transported by the trains to and from Chongqing went up 47 percent year on year to around 37 billion yuan (about 5.3 billion U.S. dollars).

While shipping Chinese goods such as laptops, mobile phones and integrated circuits abroad, the trains bring back commodities, including imported automobiles, food, and mother and baby products, from Europe and Central Asia.

China-Europe freight trains have played a crucial role in helping with the global fight against the COVID-19 epidemic as massive quantities of medical supplies were sent through them to affected countries and regions.

According to the China State Railway Group, during the first half of 2020, anti-epidemic supplies totaling 3.67 million items and weighing 27,000 tonnes were sent through freight trains. 
As of 12 p.m. July 22, 2020, the Pa. Department of Health reports that there are 103,396 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania. There are at least 7,063 reported deaths from the virus.

According to Johns Hopkins University, 77,073 of those cases recovered from the virus.

Click the image to see a data page including an interactive map for the state. (Please click the link in the previous sentence if you cant see the image.)

Click here for a ZIP code breakdown of cases provided by the Pa. Department of Health.

The state is also providing detailed hospital and respirator data here for desktop users and here for mobile users.

The state reported 631 new cases of the coronavirus. Below is a breakdown of the new and cumulative cases and deaths in the state.

Adams

There are 424 total cases with 3 new cases reported. 15 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Allegheny

There are 6670 total cases with 96 new cases reported. 214 total deaths have been reported in the county with 3 new deaths announced.

Armstrong

There are 129 total cases with 7 new cases reported. 6 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Beaver

There are 1046 total cases with 35 new cases reported. 82 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Bedford

There are 109 total cases with 3 new cases reported. 4 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Berks

There are 4889 total cases with 24 new cases reported. 362 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Blair

There are 159 total cases with 10 new cases reported. 1 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Bradford

There are 69 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 3 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Bucks

There are 6513 total cases with 46 new cases reported. 573 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Butler

There are 513 total cases with 5 new cases reported. 14 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Cambria

There are 182 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 3 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Cameron

There are 5 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 0 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Carbon

There are 335 total cases with 5 new cases reported. 28 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Centre

There are 299 total cases with 5 new cases reported. 9 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Chester

There are 4414 total cases with 38 new cases reported. 337 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Clarion

There are 70 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 2 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Clearfield

There are 105 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 0 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Clinton

There are 105 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 5 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Columbia

There are 438 total cases with 2 new cases reported. 35 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Crawford

There are 114 total cases with 2 new cases reported. 1 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Cumberland

There are 1058 total cases with 12 new cases reported. 69 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Dauphin

There are 2466 total cases with 20 new cases reported. 152 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Delaware

There are 8003 total cases with 41 new cases reported. 675 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Elk

There are 38 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 2 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Erie

There are 813 total cases with 8 new cases reported. 13 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Fayette

There are 288 total cases with 9 new cases reported. 4 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Forest

There are 7 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 0 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Franklin

There are 1109 total cases with 13 new cases reported. 46 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Fulton

There are 19 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 1 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Greene

There are 91 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 0 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Huntingdon

There are 272 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 4 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Indiana

There are 185 total cases with 4 new cases reported. 6 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Jefferson

There are 48 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 1 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Juniata

There are 120 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 6 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Lackawanna

There are 1823 total cases with 6 new cases reported. 212 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Lancaster

There are 5158 total cases with 36 new cases reported. 393 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Lawrence

There are 257 total cases with 14 new cases reported. 9 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Lebanon

There are 1518 total cases with 9 new cases reported. 52 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Lehigh

There are 4600 total cases with 15 new cases reported. 334 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Luzerne

There are 3085 total cases with 2 new cases reported. 183 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Lycoming

There are 279 total cases with 3 new cases reported. 20 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

McKean

There are 26 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 1 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Mercer

There are 276 total cases with 17 new cases reported. 9 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Mifflin

There are 82 total cases with -1 new cases reported. 1 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Monroe

There are 1534 total cases with 4 new cases reported. 120 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Montgomery

There are 9282 total cases with 60 new cases reported. 839 total deaths have been reported in the county with 2 new deaths announced.

Montour

There are 86 total cases with -1 new cases reported. 3 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Northampton

There are 3669 total cases with 12 new cases reported. 288 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Northumberland

There are 366 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 11 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Perry

There are 98 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 5 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Philadelphia

There are 24092 total cases with -1 new cases reported. 1664 total deaths have been reported in the county with 6 new deaths announced.

Pike

There are 517 total cases with 2 new cases reported. 21 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Potter

There are 20 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 0 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Schuylkill

There are 828 total cases with 2 new cases reported. 49 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new deaths announced.

Snyder

There are 85 total cases with 3 new cases reported. 2 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Somerset

There are 100 total cases with 3 new cases reported. 1 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Sullivan

There are 10 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 0 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Susquehanna

There are 202 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 26 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Tioga

There are 33 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 2 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Union

There are 113 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 2 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Venango

There are 53 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 0 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Warren

There are 14 total cases with 0 new cases reported. 1 total death have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Washington

There are 603 total cases with 11 new cases reported. 10 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Wayne

There are 148 total cases with -1 new cases reported. 8 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

Westmoreland

There are 1214 total cases with 21 new cases reported. 41 total deaths have been reported in the county with 1 new death announced.

Wyoming

There are 53 total cases with 1 new cases reported. 7 total deaths have been reported in the county with 0 new deaths announced.

York

There are 2067 total cases with 15 new cases reported. 76 total deaths have been reported in the county with 2 new deaths announced.
The Supreme Court Wednesday approved Uttar Pradesh government's draft notification for appointing former apex court judge Justice (retd) BS Chauhan as chairman of the 3-member inquiry commission on the killing of eight policemen and the subsequent encounter killings of gangster Vikas Dubey and five of his alleged associates.

A bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde directed that the inquiry commission should start functioning within a week and the probe be concluded within two months.

The other two members of the inquiry commission would be  former high court judge Justice (retd) Shashi Kant Agarwal and retired Director General of Police of Uttar Pradesh K L Gupta.

The bench, also comprising Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, cleared the draft notification and asked the Uttar Pradesh government to notify it.

"We direct that the notification constituting the Commission and incorporating the Terms of Reference as approved by us, shall be issued immediately. The Commission shall sit at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and start functioning within a period of one week from today," the bench said in its order.

"It is made clear that the secretarial assistance for the Commission shall be provided by the Central Government, from such services/Departments as may be directed by the Chairman of the Commission," the bench said.

The apex court was hearing a batch of petitions which have sought court-monitored probe into encounters of Dubey and five of his alleged associates.

Some of the pleas have also sought probe into the killing of eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, who were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on July 3.

In its order, the bench said that commission shall submit a report to the apex court and the state government "in accordance with the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, within a period of two months from the date on which the Commission starts functioning."

"Needless to mention that any party to the present petitions may apply to the inquiry commission for being heard," it said.

The bench also directed that the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which has already been constituted by the Uttar Pradesh Government, "will be free to inquire into any of the related incidents which are the subject matters of the case".

"List the matter thereafter along with the report of the Commission," it said.

In an affidavit filed in the apex court last week, the UP government had said that it has constituted a three-member SIT, headed by UP additional chief secretary Sanjay Bhoosreddy on July 11, to look into the crimes committed by the dreaded gangster and the alleged collusion between Dubey, police and politicians.

The bench noted in its order that during the hearing through video-conferencing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing Uttar Pradesh government, has "displayed on the computer screen, the draft of a notification appointing an independent three-member commission to inquire into the incidents" mentioned in the petitions.

It noted that as per the draft of the revised notification, the commission is to comprise of  Justice (retd) Chauhan, Justice (retd) Agarwal and former DGP Gupta.

"The proposed terms of reference of the said commission were also read out for the benefit of the court as well as the counsel appearing in the matter. After hearing all the counsel, certain modifications were suggested and they were agreed to be carried out," the bench noted.

During the hearing, the apex court observed that scope of investigation to be conducted by the inquiry commission should be wide enough.

The bench said the top court is not in favour of "tying the hands" of the commission and it will not be wise to have a term of reference for it.

The bench asked Mehta to look into the names of other gangsters, provided by one of the petitioners, and ensure that similar incidents of such encounters and killing of cops do not recur.

Mehta informed the bench that Justice (retd) Chauhan has given his consent to be a part of the inquiry commission.

Mehta told the bench that the commission would also probe the circumstances under which Dubey, who was facing 65 FIRs, was released on bail.

Dubey was killed in an encounter in the morning of July 10 when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area, the police had said.

Prior to Dubey's encounter, five of his alleged associated were killed in separate encounters.

On June 20, the apex court had said that it is a failure of the institution that a person like Dubey got bail despite several cases lodged against him.

It had asked the Uttar Pradesh government to consider having a former apex court judge and a retired police officer in the inquiry committee probing the encounter.

It had told the state government that they have to uphold rule of law.

It had suggested changes in the inquiry panel and sought a draft resolution from the state government by today.

The Uttar Pradesh government, in an affidavit filed in the apex court in the matter, had said that the police party escorting Dubey from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to Kanpur had to fire back in self-defence as he had tried to escape and was killed.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell joked about 'randy Andy' while watching a secret video of the Duke of York with a topless woman, according to a former employee of the financier.

'Tiffany Doe', 48, told The Sun she walked in on the pair in a 'television control room,' dark, colossal and packed with screens at Epstein's 77million New York penthouse.

'I do not know who the girl was on the video but she was topless. I really can't say what her age was.' Ms Doe said. 'I couldn't see all of Andrew so I don't know if he was clothed or not. It looked like it was filmed in a bedroom. I don't think Andrew knew he was being filmed.'

She added: 'Then Ghislaine said, "Oh that's Randy Andy for you." Jeffrey laughed at that and I of course immediately recognised who it was on the tape.'

The Duke has always denied any allegations of improper conduct, and there is no suggestion he was aware of underage girls at Epstein's parties in the late 1990s.

Prince Andrew, Virginia Roberts, aged 17, and Ghislaine Maxwell at Maxwell's townhouse in London in 2001

Ms Doe, a former lapdancer, who is helping lawyers in the States who represent Epstein and Maxwell's victims, claimed it was common knowledge that the paedophile secretly filmed some of his elite friends.

She said Epstein had cameras installed in the bedrooms of the Manhattan mansion and would spend hours watching the videos.

'I wish her well, frankly': Trump sends message of support to Maxwell and says he 'doesn't know situation with Prince Andrew' Donald Trump last night gave a message of support to Ghislaine Maxwell as she awaits her trial for sex trafficking minors. When asked by a reporter whether he thought Maxwell would name powerful people in a plea deal, the president replied that he 'hadn't been following it too much' but said, 'I just wish her well frankly.' He added: 'I've met her numerous times over the years especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach.' Trump then reinforced his well-wishes for Maxwell but said he doesn't know about the 'situation' with Prince Andrew. 'But I wish her well whatever it is,' he said. 'I don't know the situation with Prince Andrew. I don't know, I'm just not aware of it.' Trump knew Epstein and Maxwell for decades before the paedophile's conviction in 2008. He has since sought to distance himself from the pair over the years after they were all fixtures on the affluent society scene back in the 1980s and 1990s - before Epstein was convicted of being a paedophile. Advertisement

She added she was sure he had videos of people having sex which he enjoyed as voyeur.

Ms Doe told The Sun that she met Epstein when she was 22 and she claims he manipulated her into procuring young girls on his behalf.

Epstein, who was found hanging in a prison cell last August while awaiting trial, compensated Ms Doe for bringing girls to his events.

Ms Doe said she wishes to make amends for this and help the victims to get justice.

The woman, who has previously testified against Epstein, described last year how Prince Andrew had 'motorboated' her and said she should be in a magazine for 'big-breasted women'.

Recalling their alleged meeting, the former lap dancer said: 'The Duke seemed in good spirits and was out to enjoy himself. I always thought, Andrew liked my breasts. When he started to say hello he looked at them first rather than me.

'He leant forward and put his face on them and blew a raspberry. I was shocked, but I laughed, thinking 'Wow what was that?''

She claimed that Prince Andrew would attend Epstein's parties 'a couple of times a year.'

The woman claimed Epstein 'wanted to make Andrew happy' and that she had been 'specifically selected' to please him.

She added: 'After Andrew motorboated me he tried to remember what it was meant to be called. He didn't quite know the term 'motorboat'. He said, 'motor something?'

'He was trying to come off cool, but he didn't know the words. I found him quite awkward, quite clumsy. He said I should be in a magazine for big-breasted women. It was a normal thing to happen at those parties.'

Ms Doe said she stopped working for Epstein in 2000 because she was revolted by his depravity.

Epstein and British socialite Maxwell, 58, were friends for decades and she allegedly served as his madam.

She is now being held in a Brooklyn jail and pleaded not guilty last week to trafficking minors for Epstein.

She was denied bail and will go on trial in July 2021.

Prince Andrew taking a stroll through New York's Central Park with Epstein in December 2010 following the financier's prison term

Maxwell was friends with Prince Andrew and introduced him to Epstein.

The Duke of York has admitted to flying on the millionaire's private jet, staying on his island in the Caribbean and at the sprawling New York penthouse.

One of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre (Roberts), claims she was coerced into having sex with the prince as a 17-year-old in London.

He has denied any allegations of sexual misconduct in the strongest terms.

A spokesman for the duke's legal team said of Tiffany Doe's claims: 'There will doubtless be a welter of these kind of "recollections", some ten or more years after the fact, particularly where claims on the Epstein estate are concerned. Where is the evidence?'
A new ordinance passed Wednesday by the City Council aims to prevent seniors from having to conduct wellness checks themselves. It requires building managers to check on residents at least twice a week, unless residents choose not to be checked on. If a wellness call is not answered by a resident, managers must follow up with a home visit. The ordinance will take effect Aug. 1.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that racists have run for president in the past, but that President Donald Trump was the first to win the nations highest office.

In a question-and-answer session with the Service Employees International Union, Biden accused Trump of spreading racism by blaming the Chinese for the coronavirus pandemic.

"What President Trump has done in his spreading of racist  the way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where theyre from  is absolutely sickening," Biden said in a virtual chat with union members.

"No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never," Biden added. "No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. Weve had racists, and theyve existed, theyve tried to get elected president. Hes the first one that has."

When asked about Biden's comments, Trump said Wednesday his administration overhauled the criminal justice system, which he said Biden and former President Barack Obama were unable to accomplish, and spurred investment in urban areas. Unemployment rates were low among nearly all groups of racial minorities "prior to the China plague coming in  floating in  coming into our country and really doing terrible things all over the world," Trump said.

"Ive done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln," Trump said. "Nobody has even been close.

History does not support Biden's suggestion that Trump is the first racist to win the White House. At least 12 presidents owned slaves  including eight who owned slaves while in office. Many early presidents held racist views.

Although he signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves, President Abraham Lincoln said before the Civil War that he did not think Blacks and whites could coexist and favored sending freed slaves back to Africa.

Such views did not disappear with slavery. President Woodrow Wilson infamously held a White House screening of "Birth of the Nation," which depicts the Ku Klux Klan members as heroes who saved the South from Black domination.

Story continues

More recently, audio recordings revealed that President Richard Nixon regularly used racist slurs in his conversations.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump are on opposite sides of the vote-by-mail issue.

Bidens comments came in response to questions about his proposal to spend $775 billion over the next decade on caregivers for children, the elderly and disabled.

Suk Kim, a home care provider for SEIU Local 2015 in California, said Trump blaming Asians for the pandemic is part of the reason for racial tensions in her community. Other customers in a store recently looked at her as if she were some kind of germ or "wasn't human," she said.

"They made me uncomfortable and very upset," said Kim, who immigrated from South Korea. We are working so hard to support our families, like everybody else."

Trump has routinely referred to the coronavirus as a virus from China and even as a Kung Flu, phrases that have been criticized as racist and that stigmatize Asian Americans.

Kung flu. COVID. COVID-19, Trump said in Phoenix on June 23. Some people cant explain what the 19  give me the  'COVID-19.' I said, 'Thats an odd name.' I could give you many, many names. Some people call it the Chinese flu, the China flu. Right?

Katrina Pierson, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said the president loves all people and works hard to empower all Americans.Pierson called Biden's comments and "an insult to the intelligence of Black voters."

Biden accused Trump of trying to divide the country, to win reelection from his partisans.

Hes just using it as a wedge, Biden said. Hes trying to shift the blame.

Bidens voice rose as he talked of supporting immigration, mentioned that his great-grandfather sailed to the U.S. from Ireland.

Im sorry to get so worked up about it. It makes me so angry when I find that people, based on the color of their skin or their national origin, are somehow viewed in a different way, Biden said. Look what (Trump's) doing now. Hes blaming everything on China. Hes blaming everything on the Chinese.

Mary Kay Henry, international president of SEIU, welcomed Biden's support.

We really appreciate your passion, Henry said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Joe Biden accuses President Trump of spreading 'racist' division
A new TV series is on the lookout for farmers who would like to receive expert advice and ideas on how to diversify and supplement income.

STV Productions is looking for farmers across the UK who are interested in diversifying in order to develop new sources of revenue.

The company, who make Catchphrase and Antiques Road Trip, said the series is due to film later this year and early 2021.

Experts will be on hand throughout the journey to help farmers explore opportunities and realise their ambitions.

The series will be hosted by TV presenter and celebrity farmer Adam Henson.

Executive producer, John Redshaw said the show would like to hear about diversification ideas or plans already in production.

Were keen to meet with farmers to take part in what we know will be a hugely positive and upbeat experience  and might even be life changing," he said.

"By learning about the history of their farms, and studying the potential within their agricultural landscapes, we want to join farmers on their journey to make their diversification dreams a reality.

"Please spread the word, get in touch and help us celebrate the next chapter in our great farming community.

Farmers interested in participating are asked to get in touch with the production team at farming@stv.tv or 0141 300 3806.
BILLINGS, Mont. - U.S. wildlife officials on Wednesday rejected special protections for a rare, freshwater fish related to salmon thats been at the centre of a long-running legal dispute, citing conservation efforts that officials say have increased Arctic grayling numbers in a Montana river.

The Associated Press obtained details of the decision not to protect the fish under the Endangered Species Act in advance of a public announcement.

The move comes almost two years after a federal appeals court faulted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for arbitrarily dismissing threats to grayling from climate change and other pressures.

While some of those threats will persist, government officials said conservation measures have improved the fishs habitat and will lessen future temperature increases in the cold waters where they reside.

Known for their iridescent appearance and sail-shaped dorsal fins, Arctic grayling are members of the salmon family that can reach 30 inches (76 centimetres) in length and are prized by many anglers.

Officials credited a conservation agreement involving landowners and government agencies for recent improvements to the graylings river habitat in southwestern Montanas Big Hole Valley.

The Big Hole River and its tributaries  home to one of the few native populations of the fish in the Lower 48 states  saw grayling numbers roughly double during the last decade to about 1,500 adult fish, said Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Jim Boyd. The population figure was derived from an estimate of the number of breeding fish.

If you can increase the number of breeding individuals, you can start to feel really good about the conservation efforts and know they are truly working, he said.

Wildlife advocates criticized Wednesdays decision and said the worsening climate crisis leaves the graylings survival in doubt. Even with a commitment from ranchers along the Big Hole to reduce the amount of water withdrawn to grow hay, flows drop sharply during dry periods and imperil grayling, they said.

Despite recent habitat improvements, Arctic grayling occupy only a fraction of the streams across the upper Missouri River basin where they were historically widespread. The species declined over the past century because of competition from non-native fish and after their habitat was significantly altered by dams and high summer water temperatures.

The commitment of landowners along the Big Hole River is commendable and absolutely essential for the survival of grayling. We question whether its enough, said attorney Jenny Harbine with Earthjustice, the environmental law firm that represented wildlife advocates in a lawsuit over the fish.

Montana Tech professor Pat Munday, a plaintiff in the lawsuit who fishes the Big Hole regularly, said grayling have become increasingly scarce over the past three decades. Munday alleged government biologists were cooking the books by inflating population estimates to justify their decision.

The biologists and technicians get better and better at knowing where to anticipate grayling and they get better at finding them, but that doesnt mean the numbers are increasing, said Munday, a professor of science and technology studies and author of Montanas Last Best River: The Big Hole and Its People.

Efforts to protect Arctic grayling date to at least 1991, when wildlife advocates petitioned the government to add the fish to its list of threatened and endangered species. Officials determined in 1994 and again in 2010 that protections were needed. But they were never imposed because other species were given a higher priority.

The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2014 determined that protections were no longer needed because the landowner conservation agreement had helped the fish rebound. Wildlife advocates then sued in federal court and prevailed before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018.

The appeals court faulted the government for not taking into account data that showed the fishs population in the Big Hole River was then declining and for dismissing the potential for climate change to cause lower water flows and warmer temperatures.

Federal wildlife officials said steps already taken, such as more shade trees on stream banks and the reduced water withdrawals, have decreased the duration of warmer water temperatures that can hurt the fish. Those measures also will help protect them going forward, they said.

We can decrease water temperatures despite the fact that air temperature is increasing, Boyd said.

Arctic grayling are native to river drainages around the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay and the northern Pacific Ocean. A population in Michigan was wiped out last century, but scientists are seeking to reintroduce the fish to parts of the state.

___

Follow Matthew Brown on twitter: @matthewbrownap
Bureau of Prisons officials had previously allowed him to serve the remainder of his 36-month sentence at home. Cohen had documented a medical history of hypertension and respiratory problems, which paved the way for his early release in May. It was among a wave of compassionate releases for inmates across the country who were considered high risk for contracting the novel coronavirus. Cohens sentence ends in November 2021.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 00:01:08|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 crisis threatens to "exacerbate child poverty" in Germany, according to a study published by the German Bertelsmann Foundation on Wednesday.

According to the study, more than one in five children and young people under 18 in Germany -- 21.3 percent or 2.8 million -- are threatened by poverty over several years in their childhood. Child and youth poverty remains an "unresolved structural problem in Germany" despite years of good economic development before the coronavirus crisis, the Bertelsmann Foundation noted.

Parents of disadvantaged children and young people are hit particularly hard by COVID-19 as they are more likely to work part-time and therefore belong to a group with a high risk of losing their jobs or receiving comparatively little or no short-time work compensation.

Children from poor backgrounds were less likely to have the necessary technical equipment for homeschooling during the COVID-19 lockdown in Germany and, in some cases, had no chance to learn undisturbed, according to the study.

"The prevention of child poverty must become a political priority, in particular during the coronavirus crisis," said Joerg Draeger, member of the foundation's Executive Board, while calling for new social and family policy concepts, such as a "transparent and participatory financial service for children and young people."

Germany's federal government has rejected accusations of inaction on child poverty.

A spokesperson of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs referred to the national child supplement, a benefit for families with low income. The number of this supplement's recipients has increased significantly, the spokesperson said.

According to Ulrike Demmer, deputy spokesperson of the German government, numerous measures, such as tax relief, have also been introduced to improve the situation of families and single parents. Enditem
Add to the pandemic lexicon another once-obscure term that's come into common usage: "herd immunity.

Along with "flatten the curve," "social distancing" and "super spreader," it's a phrase that prior to Covid-19 was casually uttered mainly by epidemiologists and public health officials. But while the meanings of those other terms are now clear to many, herd immunity is a concept that is more complex, more nuanced and often misunderstood, scientists say.

For example: With no end to the pandemic in sight, some public figures are arguing that nearly all restrictions and required precautions should be lifted so enough people become sick to achieve herd immunity.

But epidemiologists and other public health experts say that's a really lousy idea.

"It'll kill millions of people," said Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Institute for Global Health at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Millions of people will die."

So, what exactly is herd immunity? Is it a good thing? And, if it is, what's the best way to achieve it?

Q. What is herd immunity?

A. Herd immunity occurs when enough people become immune to a particular disease to make it extremely difficult for the disease to continue spreading.

Dr. Emily Landon, executive medical director of infection prevention and control at University of Chicago Medicine, explains it this way:

People "are either contagious, susceptible or immune. The more contagious people you have and the more susceptible people you have, the more transmission there's going to be," she said. "The more people that are immune, the less likely it is that a contagious person is going to have contact with a susceptible person."

Immunity can develop through illness, vaccination or both. The human body can form two types of antibodies, plus T-cells, all of which may work to kill, defang or block the virus from invading cells. Vaccines are designed to trigger those mechanisms without making people ill.

Murphy said a key statistic for herd immunity is another epidemiological concept called R naught.

That's a measurement of how many people on average catch the disease from a single infected person. When the figure drops below 1, meaning each infected person is spreading the disease to less than one other person on average, the disease starts to die out.

"Even if it's 0.9 and every one person gives it to less than one other person, the whole thing goes away," Murphy said.

Herd immunity has been achieved for measles, mumps, polio and chickenpox through vaccination. That's why none of those diseases rages through the wider population anymore, even if isolated, smaller outbreaks sometimes occur.

Herd immunity goals are set by percentage and depend on how easily a particular disease spreads. In the case of highly contagious measles, anywhere from 90 per cent to 95 per cent of the population must be immune to achieve herd immunity.

When it comes to Covid-19, many epidemiologists believe a target of 60 per cent might do the trick (though some think the number might be higher), particularly if people who aren't immune continue to take the precautions of washing hands, social distancing and wearing masks.

If herd immunity is achieved with Covid-19, that's the point at which epidemiologists believe it would be safe to fully reopen society.

Q. How do we get there?

A. The people arguing to lift restrictions in the hopes of achieving herd immunity say that strategy acknowledges the inevitable and would keep the economy humming.

But Murphy says he knows of no expert in the field who endorses the idea. Landon called the approach "dangerous, shortsighted and risky."

One problem is that when people start getting infected in large numbers, it leads to more hospitalizations, potentially overwhelming medical facilities and causing vastly more deaths.

"It's not feasible for us to use illness to get to herd immunity," Landon said. "We'd just kill a lot of people, because they wouldn't be able to get medical care."

Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security with expertise in infectious diseases, notes that Sweden did not enact the extensive limits on movement and other restrictions that were implemented in other European countries. What followed was more deaths and no herd immunity.

"In Stockholm, they did not reach herd immunity, and the price you pay for that is that you get transmission chains that end up landing on a vulnerable individual who then can be hospitalized or die from this," Adalja said. "If you are going to do that, it's very hard to keep your infection from landing on a vulnerable individual."

In addition to more deaths, Landon said, "you have the problem of survivors having long-term problems." Those problems, which can include lung, heart and kidney damage as well as skin conditions, can lead to the need for organ transplants or cause death later on.

Adalja, Landon and Murphy all said the better way to achieve herd immunity, if possible, is through vaccination. With a sound vaccine, you won't make people sick in the process, they said.

While the work on potential vaccines continues, Murphy bluntly questions the wisdom of taking advice from pundits and doctors without extensive training in infectious diseases.

"If you want to listen to an idiot, you can listen to them," Murphy said, referring to several pundits who have espoused the idea. "If you want to listen to somebody who has trained their whole professional career ... you listen to the public health experts. It's pretty straightforward."

Q. Can we get there with Covid-19?

A. Although herd immunity has been achieved for other communicable diseases, scientists are not yet sure it can be reached with a coronavirus.

Immunity against other coronaviruses has been shown to wear off in a matter of months. So far, and the matter isn't yet settled, it appears that immunity to the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, also wears off over time, perhaps in a matter of weeks or months.

The Covid-19 immunity that's been tested is based on antibodies. Some hold out hope that disease-fighting T-cells, which work differently than antibodies and last longer, will afford longer protection. But so far there's little if any evidence of that, Landon said.

She compares illnesses caused by coronaviruses to the common cold caused by rhinoviruses. People can get colds from rhinoviruses every year because the antibodies wear off.

That, she added, makes it highly unlikely that herd immunity to Covid-19 through infection could even be achieved. Everyone would have to get sick within a few months of one another, and months later it could all wear off - after overwhelming the health care system.

"There's going to be a timeline," Landon said. "There's going to be an expiration date on your immunity. I'm certain about that. I would be really surprised if there's a lifelong immunity after getting sick."

But that doesn't mean a vaccine won't work, she said - though it's possible people will have to be vaccinated annually until the disease is extinguished.

"I think in the end this is likely to be something that we'll find co-formulated with our flu vaccine, and you have to get it every year," she added. "That seems like the best-case scenario to me. Hopefully, it will last long enough to make that possible."

Murphy agreed that "booster" vaccines might be needed every year.

"With the herd immunity, even if you had to have a booster every year, you may extinguish the virus," he said. "If you keep that R naught factor below 1, ultimately the whole thing may go away. So you may only have to have boosters; the whole thing could go away in a couple years."

Adalja said more studies of the course of the disease and immunity are needed for the medical and public health community to know how long immunity lasts. It's been done with other diseases, but not enough time has passed since the new coronavirus emerged in China late last year to figure it out for Covid-19.

Q. What should people do now?

A. In the absence of a vaccine, the best weapons against Covid-19 are social distancing, hand washing and mask wearing, the experts all agreed.

"The three W's - wash your hands, watch your distance and wear a mask - are really important," Landon said. "And I would say wear your mask properly: over your nose, not under your nose."

Murphy also said masks are key for the time being, and he said he's also concerned about bars remaining open, given that people seem to be getting infected in those locations.

"I think we're at the stage now where they just have to close the bars and enforce the mask use," Murphy said.

All of the experts also hold out hope for a vaccine that could lead to herd immunity, without the casualties that would be caused by mass infection. They note many vaccines are being researched, with some in final trials.

"I have great hope" for a vaccine, Murphy said. "There's 200 in development. Fourteen are already in human trials. A couple of them have to work. And it's really opening the door on vaccine technology development, so hopefully, if we're a little bit more prepared next time, things won't be so bad."

---GNA
BREESE  The Clinton County Health Department has asked at least 160 residents to quarantine after large gatherings where people did not wear face masks, according to agency officials.

Sean Eifert, the health department administrator, said people infected with the virus traveled to bars and other businesses the weekend of Saturday, July 11, but he declined to publicly identify the locations.

The health department believes it tracked down all residents who had close contact with the infected people at the gatherings, according to agency spokeswoman Louise McMinn. She said close contact is being within 6 feet for 15 minutes.

The 160 Clinton County residents who were asked to quarantine, and encouraged to get tested, had close contacts with infected people, McMinn said.

For other patrons who visited the same places as the 160 people, the risk for infection is low, but not zero, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

When the Clinton County Health Department announced Friday that the large gatherings happened, it said hundreds of people were exposed to the virus during the events. Eifert, the administrator, reiterated that point in an interview Monday.

Eifert said the health department is not publicly identifying the places where the exposure occurred at this time because of the potential economic fallout for businesses associated with the coronavirus and liability for the health department. He said the department may decide to name the businesses if customers or workers outside of the close contact group test positive.

There are consequences in terms of potential civic liability, the loss of liquor license or other action a State of Illinois agency may take, Eifert wrote via email to the Belleville News-Democrat.

He said the health departments role is largely to educate people about the safety measures. He did not know if the people or businesses involved in the recent large gatherings in Clinton County would face consequences.
New Delhi: Even as Prime Minister Modi is busy strengthening India's relations with America, China has refused to retreat from the disputed border areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Instead of retreating from the Finger 4 area near Pangong Lake, the Chinese army has deployed 40,000 troops on the LAC, according to latest reports.

The recent disengagement talks between India and China appear to have hardly any effect on the Communist nation, which initially showed the signs of easing border tensions, but that appeared to be merely an eyewash. The Indian Army has started preparations in view of the upcoming winter season, according to the DNA.

Indian Army has also started deploying large numbers of soldiers with other logistic support, apprehending that the standoff may last till winter or maybe even longer. China's current gesture clearly shows its abhorrence for peace initiatives.

India too does not trust China and therefore it is vigilant and prepared to deal with any situation. If this standoff lasts, conditions will be very difficult as the temperature of Ladakh reaches minus 50 degrees in winters. Indian Army, however, is used to such situations and the world is pretty aware of its strength and capability in mountainous areas.

The responsibility now lies on China to follow the promises it had made during the four rounds of Commander-level talks to ease tensions on the border areas. India, therefore, is leaving no stone unturned in its vigilance as well as preparations.

A meeting of Indian Air Force commanders also started at its headquarters in Delhi, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was also present today. Rajnath Singh is learned to have asked the Indian Air Force to be ready to deal with any situation on the LAC while addressing the inaugural session of the Air Force Commanders Conference.

The Defence Minister appreciated the proactive response by Indian Air Force in bolstering its operational capabilities over the past few months, lauding the IAF's airstrikes in Balakot as well as rapid deployment of IAF assets at forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in Eastern Ladakh.

Air Force Chief RKS Bhadauria also said that Indian Air Force was well prepared to counter short term as well as strategic threats, and the units were evenly poised to counter any aggressive action by the adversary. He said the response by all Commands in ensuring deployment and readiness of forces was prompt and laudable while emphasizing the need to focus on the ability to handle situations at a short notice for ensuring a robust response.

The Air Force has already made tremendous preparations along the LAC by deploying Sukhoi-30 MKi, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft at strategically important bases in Ladakh. It is also scheduled to receive 5 Rafale fighter jets next week. The MiG-29K fighter aircraft of the Indian Navy will also add to India's military strength in Ladakh.

As China has once again shown its deceptive mindset by not disengaging its troops from border areas, the US has criticised the Chinese PLA for initiating clashes in Ladakh. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Wednesday said: "clashes initiated by" China`s PLA and "its aggression" in Eastern Ladakh was an example of "unacceptable behaviour" by the Communist Party of China.

Speaking at the India Ideas Summit, hosted by US-India Business Council, Pompeo referred to clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley last month and said he was deeply saddened by the loss of lives of 20 Indian soldiers. He said PLA`s latest aggression is "unacceptable behaviour and is condemned."

"Important that democracies like ours work together at a time when we see the true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Recent clashes initiated by PLA are examples of CCP`s unacceptable behaviour. Deeply saddened by deaths of 20 Indian service members," the US Secretary of State added.

Pompeo also supported the Indian government`s decision to ban 59 Chinese apps including TikTok.

Meanwhile, the US has taken strong action against China ordering the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, thereby, heading towards a major diplomatic confrontation. The move, it said, was aimed "to protect American intellectual property and private information," hinting at cyber espionage.

Reacting strongly to the US move, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin has termed it as an "unprecedented escalation" and warned retaliatory measures.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over the killing of a journalist and said people were promised 'Ram Raj' but got 'Gundaraj' instead.

He also condoled the death of Ghaziabad-based journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot in the head by miscreants on Monday night and succumbed to his injuries early Wednesday.

Joshi had lodged a complaint with the police alleging harassment of his niece on July 16.

"Journalist Vikram Joshi was killed for opposing the molestation of his niece. My condolences to the bereaved family. The promise was of giving 'Ram Raj', but gave 'Gundaraj'," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

Congress leader Ahmed Patel said the killing of the journalist is shocking and another example of the breakdown of law and order in Uttar Pradesh.

"It is also a grim reminder of how the media has been systematically intimidated since the last six years," he said on Twitter.

"Our condolences to the family of Mr Joshi. We stand behind fearless journalism," he said.

'Crime virus' more active than coronavirus in UP: Mayawati

The BSP chief on Wednesday said "crime virus" spread by criminals is more active than coronavirus in UP.

"The way heinous crimes like murder and those against women are continuing unabated, it is clear that instead of law and order, jungle raj is prevailing in UP. Crime virus of criminals is more active than coronavirus in UP. People are fed up and the government must address this issue," Mayawati said in a tweet in Hindi.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister did not mention any specific incident in her post.

'Atmosphere of fear created in the country', says Mamata

The West Bengal Chief Minister on Wednesday expressed shock over the killing of Ghaziabad-based journalist Vikram Joshi and said that an atmosphere of fear has been created in the country and voices are being muzzled.

Joshi, who was shot in the head by some assailants on July 20, succumbed to his injuries early on Wednesday, his family said.

"My heartfelt condolences to the family of Vikram Joshi, a fearless journalist who passed away today. He was shot in UP for filing an FIR to book his niece's molesters. An atmosphere of fear has been created in the country. Voices being muzzled. Media not spared. Shocking," Banerjee said in a statement.
On Monday, Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot (D-of course), sent a letter to the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, grudgingly agreeing to the president's offer to send 150 federal agents to the city to help it cope with rising crime, "mostly peaceful" riots and looting, and skyrocketing shootings and murders.

Well, if they must come they can, but "Mayor Lori Lightfoot says Chicago expects influx of federal agents to help city fight violence, 'but we do not welcome dictatorship.'"

Oh, of course not! Her letter continues:

What we do not need, and what will certainly make our community less safe is secret, federal agents deployed to Chicago. Any other form of militarized assistance within our borders that would not be within our control or within the direct command of the Chicago Police Department would spell disaster.

She later reiterated her opposition, tweeting, "Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump's troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents."

A half an hour after that tweet, long before the scary federal agents could arrive, disaster struck.

14 people shot in exchange of gunfire at funeral in Gresham neighborhood on South Side, authorities say

The shooting occurred outside a funeral home; the deceased had been shot and killed a few days earlier. As this had been a presumed gang killing, the Chicago police, not yet "defunded," had prudently stationed a squad car outside the funeral home. And many of the funeral attendees, perhaps gang members themselves, had prudently added guns to their going to a funeral outfit even though guns are strictly outlawed in Chicago. Thus, when the shooting began from a car driving slowly by, some were able to return the gunfire. The police found over 65 gun shell casings. Eleven of the victims remain in serious condition at area hospitals, where they joined the "more than 20 people [who] were shot Monday and after a deadly weekend in which 63 people were shot and 12 were killed."



YouTube screen grab.

The shootings happened about five miles from former President Barack H. Obama (D)'s mansion, adjacent to an area he formerly represented in the Illinois state Legislature before his election to the U.S. Senate and the U.S. presidency.

The victims were all black; the shooters, who apparently do not believe that black lives matter, were also black.

Several hours after the shootings, Mayor Lightfoot tweeted, "We cannot give shelter to killers. People know who are responsible."

Yes, they do. President Trump should send in the federal agents because he believes that all lives matter, black lives matter and too many innocents are suffering.
Council, other groups will look at downtown parking concerns

There have been several downtown businesses requesting reserved parking spots prompting the council to make some changes to the parking ordinances.
Teaching my kids to celebrate whats special and make the most of any situation, even, and especially, if its not your first choice, is a life tool, she says. Also, it gave us something to do together. Most of the time they are in their rooms on their phones and want nothing to do with me.
ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose has said younger workers 'lack the resilience' of older generations and 'need to be thanked' for performing their jobs.

Ms Buttrose, 78, made the candid comments under Chatham House Rules at the Australia-United Kingdom Chamber of Commerce in London on Wednesday.

'It seems to me that today's younger workers, they need much more reassurance and they need to be thanked, which is something many companies don't do,' Ms Buttrose said, insiders told The Age.

ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose (pictured) candidly criticised Millennial workers thinking her comments would be confidential under Chatham House Rule at the Australia-United Kingdom Chamber of Commerce in London on Wednesday

'They're very keen on being thanked and they almost need hugging  that's before COVID of course, we can't hug anymore  but they almost need hugging.

'You have to understand that they seem to lack the resilience that I remember from my younger days.'

The former editor of Woman's Weekly also said Millennials demand more transparency from management than their older counterparts.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (centre) appointed Ms Buttrose (left) as chair of the ABC last year. Ms Buttrose said younger generations lacked the resilience of hers

Ms Buttrose left school when she was just 15 years old in 1957 to become a copy girl at the Australian Womens Weekly magazine.

She then became a reporter and later, the woman's editor for the Daily Telegraph.

The hard-working journalist was a founding editor of Cleo and the youngest ever editor of Woman's Weekly at just 33 years of age in 1975.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison appointed her as chair of the ABC last year.

NSW Young Labor activist Belinda Thomas (pictured), 19, appeared in the Facebook video whingeing about having to apply for less glamorous jobs in retail before she became an adult

Ms Buttrose's criticism of millennials comes after New South Wales Young Labor activist Belinda Thomas, 19, appeared in a Facebook video whingeing about having to apply for less glamorous jobs in retail before she became an adult.

'When I was 17, I needed income to support myself in order to have a claim of independence from my family situation,' she said in a video filmed at trendy Chippendale on the fringe of Sydney's CBD.

'Unable to use my 12 years of training as a classical musician to find a job, I ended up sending about 10 applications to retail jobs and only ended up scrounging one by chance.'

Ms Thomas said she was only able to score this job because she 'had the exact same name as the interviewer's best friend' as she delivered a piece-to-camera monologue outside an art house Palace Cinema.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The Aviation Office under the Ministry of Communications of the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya has extended the ban on flights and the closure of Libyan airports for a period of 15 additional days
The Pontifical Foundation "Aid to the Church in Need UK" sends PPE for priests and religious who are helping some of the poorest families in Bangladesh.

By Vatican News

The UK office of Aid to the Church in Need has announced a raft of initiatives to help the Church in its response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Aiding the most vulnerable

One of those projects involves keeping priests and religious in Bangladeshs Barisal Diocese safe from the disease as they go about their pastoral work tending to those hardest hit by the pandemic.

Speaking to ACN, Bishop Lawrence Subrato Howlader of the diocese of Barisal said, As soon as the pandemic started, the Barisal Catholic Diocese tried to stand by the people so that they could control the spread of coronavirus.

Bishop Howlader added, With protective equipment (PPE), the parish priests feel secure to respond to sick calls and provide viaticum, go to funerals. The religious who are nurses feel confident to take care of patients with safety and without spreading the virus.

COVID in Bangladesh

According to the Bishop, the diocese has been in consultation with medical experts and every parish will benefit from PPE and medicines.

As of July 22, Bangladesh reported 2,744 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total to 213,254. There have also been 2,751 deaths.

Earlier this month, Archbishop Moses Costa of Chittagong, in south-east Bangladesh, died in a hospital in the capital Dhaka, after suffering a series of strokes. He had recently recovered from COVID-19.

Many people in the country have suffered severe economic hardship as a result of the lockdown imposed to stem the spread of the disease. Bishop Howlader explained that people cannot go for work and therefore, no salary is given to them. Farmers and small traders are also in trouble, as they cannot sell their products without transportation. Without any income families are starving.

Other aid packages

Other projects ACN is supporting include: subsistence aid for the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus who are supporting poor communities in rural areas of Uganda during the pandemic, the formation of the novices at Argentinas Abba Padre Monastery, and the renovation of the Greek Catholic church in Beius, Romania.
Tyler Perry helps bring Atlanta police, local community together with 1,000 gift cards

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Film and television mogul Tyler Perry is helping to bring unity in Atlanta after social unrest tore through the city following the police-involved death of Rayshard Brooks this year.

The Tyler Perrys studios founder bought 1,000 Krogers supermarket gift cards to bless the local community and asked the Atlanta Police Department to be the ones to hand them out.

This is about the good police officers who do their job well every day, some of whom are my personal friends, Perry said in a statement. This is about trying to bridge unity in a city that adopted me and held me up high enough to reach my own branch on the tree of success.

Photos on Twitter this month showed the officers of the Atlanta Police Department going door to door with Perrys donations.

500 food boxes were distributed to families in need this morning during the grocery giveaway event at the Dunbar Rec Center, the department shared last week on Twitter. @tylerperry donated 1,000 Kroger gift cards to give out to the community. Thanks to all of those stopped by & to our partner agencies. #APDCares #WeLoveATL

It's been such a good day! We went from Zone 3 to Zone 1 to give out more of the @kroger gift cards provided by @TylerPerry. Thanks to everyone who spent time speaking with us. #OneAtlantapic.twitter.com/JgAyi1XcYe  Atlanta Police Department (@Atlanta_Police) July 16, 2020

Protests grew increasingly violent following the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks in a Wendys parking lot in Atlanta. Brooks shooting compelled Perry to pay for his funeral and supply college tuition for all four of Brooks children.

Due to his personal relationship with the local police, Perry thought to try and bring unity between the people in his new home and the authorities.

Atlanta has been the dream. It has been the promised land, the Madea actor added in his statement. So when I got here, this whole state and city has been amazing to me and I wouldnt trade that for anything.

Perry is known for his philanthropy. In April, Perry used some of his $600 million fortune to gift several employees at one of his favorite restaurants in Atlanta.

According to TMZ, Perry visited the West Paces location of Houston's in Atlanta and left a $500 tip for everyone on staff. In total, he gave $21,000 to the 42 "out-of-work" servers employed at the restaurant while grabbing a to-go order for himself.
Company CEO Ryan Roslansky said that the company will be "thoughtful and compassionate" in the process, ensuring comprehensive financial, healthcare and career support to the affected employees

Professional networking platform LinkedIn announced that it will be slashing 960 jobs, or 6% of its global workforce, as its paid services have taken a hit amid the pandemic.

The Microsoft-owned company announced that job cuts will happen across sales and hiring divisions of the group globally. Company CEO Ryan Roslansky wrote in a post on the company website, saying that its Talent Solutions business continues to be impacted as companies, including LinkedIn, have reduced the volume of hiring.

"After weeks of discussion and deliberation, the executive team and I have made the extremely difficult decision to reduce approximately 960 roles, or about 6 percent of our employee base, across our Global Sales and Talent Acquisition organizations. Im sharing this news today so that everyone has the complete picture of these changes and why we are making them, and I want you to know these are the only layoffs we are planning," he wrote.

The layoffs, however, may not take simultaneously in all LinkedIn offices across the world. The affected employees in North America, Brazil, parts of APAC and Dubai will be notified of their status in the next 24 hour.

"Employees in Ireland, the UK, and Australia have begun consultation about potential impacts to roles and we will continue to work through those locally. Employees who work in France, Sweden, and Spain will learn more about proposed impact to roles during August, and employees in Italy will hear about proposed impacts in September," he wrote.

He also added that the company will be "thoughtful and compassionate" in the process, ensuring comprehensive financial, healthcare and career support to the affected employees.

He also added that this was the only reduction that the company is planning.

Read more news about (internet advertising India, internet advertising, advertising India, digital advertising India, media advertising India)
Phoenix, Arizona - July 22, 2020 (Investorideas.com Newswire) SinglePoint, Inc. (OTCQB: SING) a fully reporting public company with core holdings in solar energy and hemp consumer products intends to prioritize and reallocate company assets and business strategy around the emerging and growing market opportunities in residential and solar energy and specific hemp based consumer products. The company's long term strategy is to increase shareholder value first by targeting accretive deals that have the potential to increase profitability, cash flow and to improve the balance sheet by paying down high interest or unfavorable convertible notes. We will continue to look to access capital with more favorable terms and judiciously utilize our stock to facilitate transactions that meet our acquisition or growth criteria.

Company Positioned to take Advantage of Nearly National Solar Network by Leveraging Internal Market Insight, Experience and Relationships to Focus on Solar Acquisitions that will Strengthen our US Solar Footprint:

Management unveils a residential and small commercial solar centric roll up strategy designed to increase market share, revenues and most importantly build a future business focused on profitability.

Intends to grow by initially targeting specific installer or developer based solar related acquisitions identified by its subsidiary, Direct Solar America, to capitalize on the emerging consolidation trend in the Solar Industry as evidenced by the recently announced Sun Run and Vivint Solar combination to compete with Tesla.

Solar Industry is rebounding from manufacturing (panel) tariffs while local and state mandates and credits and low cost of implementation position historic solar opportunity in anticipation of increased infrastructure and clean energy programs featuring solar.

Company focused on the two most promising long term strategic initiatives Hemp and Solar: other non core businesses to operate autonomously while being positioned for sale or strategic partnerships.

Residential installations and Smaller Commercial Projects (

Direct Solar America ("DSA"), a wholly owned subsidiary (acquired on May 14, 2019) now operates in 34 states which is a leading if not the leading national solar sales brokerage company. In the past year DSA has added a commercial and a capital division. DSA has continued to build valuable referral and financing partnerships that enhance its deal flow and can improve margin and profitability on residential and commercial solar projects.

National Solar Network

The acquisition of Vivint Solar by Sun Run for $1.46B in stock and assumption of $1.8B in debt signaled to the market that the solar consolidation phase has begun. The Vivint-SunRun combination is estimated to control approximately 15% of the current residential solar market. This is a significant deal for solar and puts smaller providers in a precarious position as the economies of scale will be very difficult to maintain. SinglePoint believes that this deal solidifies management's plan to roll up targeted solar installation companies providing savings and enhancements related to sales acquisition costs and shared back office services. We intend to build a national solar installation network targeting acquisitions primarily within our existing solar sales footprint then expand into high growth potential areas. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) report last updated June 11, 2020, the "supply chain, overhead and margin" are listed as over half of the average industry costs of $2.83 per installed watt.

In addition to the economies of scale, the planned vertical integration of our leading sales network and local installation will provide additional opportunities to create a network that has a multiplying effect on value creation and scale throughout the companies as opposed to simply having singular, siloed or "non-connected" solutions. Direct Solar America's early stage acquisition criteria is centered on multi-year installers that are doing between $5M - $15M in annual revenue. The current financial environment due to COVID-19 has impacted many businesses to the tune of 35% or more. Industry forecasts show that in 2020 the residential and non-residential markets will see 25% and 38% decreases in year-over-year installation volumes, respectively, as the segments face challenges posed by work stoppages, and permitting delays. We don't believe this to be a long term impact to solar as many leading industry outlets project a quick recovery and to resume projected growth in 2021. In fact, prior to the COVID-19 temporary slowdown, Solar has been growing quickly as overall prices have become affordable and competitive. Overall 2019 was a banner year for solar with nearly 40% of all new electricity was added by solar centric solutions.

The Solar+ Battery Storage opportunity

2021 and beyond represents a massive opportunity for solar as both parties have introduced or supported legislation earmarking billions of dollars towards infrastructure spending is a critical and essential tool to drive economic growth. Continued ESG focused investing alongside potential infrastructure and clean energy policies, including solar focused stimulus and incentives have the potential to provide sustainable tailwinds in the near future.

Excerpts from a recently published report (Morningstar Analyst Sees Potential for US Energy Independence with 100% Renewable Sources) by Travis Miller states that the country as a whole has a chance to make energy independence based on renewable sources: "Solar alone will never supply 100%. But when you combine solar with wind, with batteries and with some other non carbon or renewable energy sources, then I do think you can get to 100%. Solar already is at the top of the investment list for nearly all investors, from utilities to corporates, who want to expand their renewable energy profiles. Most of the market agrees that solar is the accepted choice for incremental renewable energy. It will only grow over the next decade as utilities and energy companies try to meet the demands from policymakers and corporates."

Direct Solar America - Residential Brokerage expands Nationally and adds Commercial and Capital Divisions and is now positioned to be a national solar provider capitalizing on the Solar+ Battery Storage market opportunity

In May 2019 SinglePoint completed the acquisition of Direct Solar of America, a solar energy brokerage business that helps its clients find and install the best available solar energy system for any building residential or commercial. From acquisition to year end 2019 the company surpassed $2,000,000 in revenue primarily in the Residential division, helping SinglePoint achieve its largest revenue year in the company history. Currently, Direct Solar America residential unit currently operates in 35 states being led by Texas, Illinois, Florida and North Carolina with plans to continue expansion. The 2020s has been labeled as the Solar+ decade as residential consumers and business owners continue to implement Solar+ Battery Storage solutions.

A Streamlined Focus on our most promising Core Business Assets

The past few years at SinglePoint have been focused on preparing the public company to become fully reporting and seeking out investments and capital partners to support the growth or acquisition of companies we felt had a high growth opportunity creating a diversified business platform with high risk and high reward possibilities. Moving forward we will concentrate a majority of our efforts to look for acquisitions or to make improvements in our go forward core business segments in the solar and hemp categories. Senior management is committed to continuing to look for accretive acquisitions, supported by favorable capital that will ultimately build profitable business units that with revenue growth in addition to utilizing future profits to pay down unfavorable term debt, improving cash flow, and the balance sheet. The Company filed a prospectus in June 2020 allowing for the resale of up to 320,000,000 shares of our common stock with a maximum value of $7,000,000 USD. The shares of common stock will be issued pursuant to the equity financing agreement with GHS Investments LLC. dated April 21, 2020. The equity financing agreement provides SinglePoint access to lower cost financing which will ultimately lessen dilution.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds for product development, repayment of debt, including less favorable convertible notes, sales and marketing, working capital, capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes. The Company is committed to having the ability to access capital in order to maintain and grow its existing core business units and as a potential component utilized for acquisitions which will result in further dilution to the existing shareholders.

Our ultimate goal for our stakeholders and shareholders is to uplist to a higher exchange, we are positioning the Company for that eventuality but it will take improvements in revenue and profits, shareholder equity, price per share to get to a higher listed exchange. It is our belief that eventually uplisting on a higher exchange provides additional liquidity for our current shareholders and investment groups. We are committed to taking the appropriate actions at the appropriate times to continue to drive the company towards achieving its goals.

"Our unveiling of Direct Solar of America/SinglePoint acquisition strategy comes at a unique time following the combination of Vivint and Sun Run signaling a potential consolidation phase in the Solar Industry. We are focused on building a national installation network that leverages our recent expansion of our virtual sales network currently covering 34 states," states Wil Ralston, President SinglePoint. "We intend to take advantage of the slight downturn in the market caused by the Covid19 pandemic to bolster and build our market share through targeted acquisitions. We believe that we have a compelling opportunity to build a truly national solar network and the time is now for us as a Company as consumer demand for cleaner energy will continue and be enhanced by the historical proposed infrastructure spending that is on the horizon."

About SinglePoint, Inc.

Founded in 2011 SinglePoint, Inc (SING) invests in and acquires brands and companies that will benefit from injection of growth capital and the sales and marketing expertise of SinglePoint. The company portfolio currently includes solar, hemp and technology applications. SinglePoint is working to grow the company to a multinational brand.

Connect on social media at:

https://www.facebook.com/SinglePointMobile

https://twitter.com/_Singlepoint_

https://www.linkedin.com/company/singlepoint

https://www.youtube.com/user/SinglePointMobile

For more information visit: www.SinglePoint.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.

Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.

Corporate Communication

SinglePoint Inc.

888-OTC-SING

investors@SinglePoint.com

SinglePoint.com

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Technavio has been monitoring the global automotive high-performance brake system market size and it is poised to grow by USD 1.74 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of 5% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005714/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Automotive High-performance Brake System Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Akebono Brake Industry Co. Ltd., APC Automotive Technologies LLC, BERINGER SAS, Brembo Spa, Carlisle Companies Inc., Continental AG, Freeman Automotive (UK) Ltd., Wilwood Engineering Inc., and ZF Friedrichshafen AG are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The increasing electrification in vehicles has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the regulations restricting formation of brake dust might hamper market growth.

Automotive High-performance Brake System Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Automotive High-performance Brake System Market is segmented as below:

Application Hatchbacks And Sedans SUVs And Pickup Trucks

Geography Europe North America APAC South America MEA



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44350

Automotive High-performance Brake System Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our automotive high-performance brake system market report covers the following areas:

Automotive High-performance Brake System Market size

Automotive High-performance Brake System Market trends

Automotive High-performance Brake System Market industry analysis

This study identifies the increasing popularity of additive manufacturing in the automotive industry as one of the prime reasons driving the automotive high-performance brake system market growth during the next few years.

Automotive High-performance Brake System Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the automotive high-performance brake system market, including some of the vendors such as Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Akebono Brake Industry Co. Ltd., APC Automotive Technologies LLC, BERINGER SAS, Brembo Spa, Carlisle Companies Inc., Continental AG, Freeman Automotive (UK) Ltd., Wilwood Engineering Inc., and ZF Friedrichshafen AG. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the Automotive High-performance Brake System Market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

Register for a free trial today and gain instant access to 17,000+ market research reports.

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Automotive High-performance Brake System Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist automotive high-performance brake system market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the automotive high-performance brake system market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the automotive high-performance brake system market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of automotive high-performance brake system market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Application

Market segments

Comparison by Application

Hatchbacks and sedans Market size and forecast 2019-2024

SUVs and pickup trucks Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Application

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd.

Akebono Brake Industry Co. Ltd.

APC Automotive Technologies LLC

BERINGER SAS

Brembo Spa

Carlisle Companies Inc.

Continental AG

Freeman Automotive (UK) Ltd.

Wilwood Engineering Inc.

ZF Friedrichshafen AG

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Campus News

UB artists latest project aims to get people listening

As currently envisioned, the installation will consist of two sets of brightly colored, 8- to 10-foot wide sculptures that will look like egg-shaped pinatas cut in half.

By BARBARA BRANNING

I hope that the bright, beautiful colors will attract people of all ages, and that they all take in the powerful message of listening, communicating and understanding that we want to pass on. 

UB professor and transdisciplinary artist Shasti OLeary Soudants high-concept, large-scale exhibits are known for getting people talking.

Her latest project, bound for two lakeside locations in Erie, Pennsylvania, is bound to get people listening, as well.

OLeary Soudant, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Art, College of Arts and Sciences, is one of seven artists selected by Erie Arts & Culture to be partnered with less-established Erie-area artisans to create works for the Creating with Community Artist Residency Program. The project was designed to empower local artists from underrepresented backgrounds, and to create opportunities for them to engage in more ambitious projects.



EAC paired OLeary Soudant with Esther Ortiz, an Erie-based pinata maker. Ortizs work is sculptural in nature and she has a tremendous grasp on proportion and color theory, said Patrick Fisher, executive director of EAC. Shasti's work is playful in nature, as is Esthers, so it felt like the two would be a great pairing.

OLeary and Ortizs concept is to create two pairs of sculptural whisper dishes, like those first used in Europe during World War I. Whisper dishes are large, parabolic, acoustic listening devices that collect sound at a focal point and project it to another dish some distance away. The artists sculptures will allow people to speak in normal tones into one dish and be heard by someone at another dish more than 50 feet away.

The concept arose from community meetings we were able to participate in before COVID, which brought to the fore the importance of underrepresented viewpoints being clearly heard, which is especially important at this juncture, OLeary Soudant said. They also have a socially-distanced payoff, which is bizarrely fortuitous.

At two community meetings in February, OLeary Soudant said, community members were seated in a circle, so no one felt relegated to the back of the room.

It made me really understand the value of being given room to speak, she said. It was great to see the audiences reaction to be listened to, to being heard.

I came away profoundly affected as a white person. Those are the three tenets of being human  to be seen, to be able to speak and to be listened to.

OLeary and Ortiz were both deeply impacted. It posed the question: How to create the opportunity for people to be heard, OLeary Soudant said.

Thus, the concept of the whisper dishes was born.

The collaboration has been successful because the two women have chemistry that is off the charts.

Both women have a strong sense of humor, a playful disposition and a focus on serving the community, Fisher said. Shasti is very animated and outgoing, while Esther is a little more reserved. But both are incredibly creative and talented, as well as resourceful.

While OLeary Soudant works mostly with sheet metal and Ortiz with cardboard and crepe paper, there are similarities between the two mediums. Sheet metal is forgiving and challenging and fun, OLeary Soudant said. It has a correlative relationship to paper. The two sensibilities dovetail.

Shasti is incredibly talented, Ortiz said. The way she can listen to a community and use art to represent their voices is impressive. I was over the moon to know I would be working with someone I consider a role model.

OLeary Soudant said she was fascinated to learn the history of the pinata, and praised her Pennsylvania partners brilliance as a pinata maker.

Pinatas are all about celebration, but they have a history, OLeary Soudant said. In the seven-point star of the traditional pinata, the points represent the seven deadly sins. So, you are beating back sin  beating back Satan  when you hit the pinata. Then a reward is showered down on you for beating back Satan.

She said they wanted to retain the idea of a sculpture with delightful things hidden within.

Pinatas are these lovely things with frills and bold colors that are delightful to look at, OLeary Soudant said. We wanted to create an installation that had a secret reward when you engage with it.

The women have rendered designs for the two pairs of sculptures, and the plans are with a fabrication plant in Erie that is pricing out the project. EAC provided each of the seven teams of artists with $10,000 to bring their visions to reality. The women also will go back to the community members to make sure the concept and design have widespread approval. If not, they will go back to the drawing board, OLeary Soudant said.

As currently envisioned, the installation will consist of two sets of brightly colored, 8- to 10-foot wide sculptures that will look like egg-shaped pinatas cut in half.

The color schemes that Esther has devised speak to the notions of spectrum, diversity and vibrance, as well as a metaphor for equality and balance, OLeary Soudant said.

I hope that the bright, beautiful colors will attract people of all ages, and that they all take in the powerful message of listening, communicating and understanding that we want to pass on, OLeary Soudant said. With the COVID-19 pandemic going on, we want to show that there are many ways to stay in touch safely. I also hope that these beautiful large sculptures will be a great place for people to take selfies, get together, share ideas and communicate.

The artists havent decided on a title yet, but OLeary Soudant said Erie is Listening is a strong contender.

The coronavirus outbreak pushed back the timeline for the sculptures to be installed.

Originally we hoped to have all residency projects concluded by October 2020, Fisher said, adding that each participating artist team has been offered an extension of up to six months.

The COVID-19 crisis also curtailed OLeary Soudants planned trips back and forth to Erie this spring. Instead, she and Ortiz have been collaborating via weekly Zoom meetings. The project had also called for OLeary Soudant to conduct community workshops this summer. Those will be conducted virtually now, as well.

OLeary Soudant, whose best-known work in Buffalo may be her brightly colored double helix-inspired Gut Flora sculpture in the Niagara Frontier Transit Authority station on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, said she is moving toward doing public art exclusively.

I really believe in the power of public art, she said. Its a type of service. Its an incredibly powerful tool.

She said her own journey from being a professional to a student to an educator has brought home to her the power art has to bring people together.

Just because people dont participate in creative endeavors regularly doesnt mean that they arent able to engage if they have the opportunity, she said, More and more Im feeling that everybody in the world deserves to be able to engage with something beautiful. Art is not just for people who can afford it.


CNBC.com's MacKenzie Sigalos brings you the day's top business news headlines. On today's show, CNBC's Bob Pisani looks under the hood of the S&P 500 to explain why even though the index is in positive territory for the year, more than half of its stocks are down. Plus, CNBC.com's Christina Farr breaks down her reporting on the coronavirus response in Taiwan, where only seven people have died from Covid-19.



How Taiwan beat the coronavirus

When Catherine Chou arrived in Taipei after flying from Los Angeles, authorities told her she would need to quarantine for two weeks. For Chou, a citizen, that meant booking herself into a hotel at her own expense, although subsidies are available and the government has paid stipends for some stays.

When she first arrived, she got a welcome package including dish soap, nail clippers and laundry detergent. Food was delivered to her doorstep. Several times a day, a representative of the local district's office phoned her to check in and thank her for doing her part.

She's now almost wrapped up her hotel room stay. Once she's officially cleared of Covid-19, she'll be free to go. After living in the U.S., which is still partially closed in various states, she's looking forward to simple pleasures like visiting her family at home or sitting in a coffee shop with a good book. Taiwan allowed many of its restaurants and bars to reopen in May.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 02:41:09|Editor: huaxia

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KUNMING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Law-enforcement authorities from China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand joined forces on Tuesday for the start of the 95th Mekong River joint patrol.

Two Chinese vessels departed from Jingha Port, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, in southwest China's Yunnan Province, while vessels of the other three countries departed from ports in Laos and Myanmar. The patrol will last four days and three nights.

Before the patrol, law-enforcement authorities of the four countries held a video conference to discuss the security situation of the river and reach agreement on jointly cracking down on illegal activities such as drug and gun-related crimes.

The Mekong River, known as the Lancang River in China, is a vital waterway for cross-border shipping.

China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand have been carrying out joint patrols on the Mekong River for eight years. Enditem
Two women  Jennifer Eckhart, who worked for Fox, and Cathy Areu, who was an occasional guest on Fox shows  filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Howard Kurtz, Gianno Caldwell, and Ed Henry of a wide range of alleged sexual misconduct. The accusations against Ed Henry, whom Fox fired earlier in July, are especially extreme, accusing him of a violent rape. On the other side of the spectrum, the accusations against Carlson are ridiculous, and it's these charges that are the subject of this post.

Superficially, Areu accuses Carlson of ordering his employees to restrain her in a chair so that he could solicit her for sex. Then, when she rebuffed him, he dumped her as a guest. When you get to the details, though, you realize that the charges against Carlson are ridiculous.

Areu alleges that she was a frequent guest on Carlson's show, appearing at least 17 times in 2018. Her last appearance was in December 2018. After she completed her segment, she contends:

[O]ne of Mr. Carlson's producers or writers whispered in Ms. Areu's ear, while she was on set trying to get out of the chair, and told her that Mr. Carlson wanted her to stay under the very end of the show to chat with him.

The complaint implies that Areu desperately wanted to avoid this little chat but couldn't. Instead, she had "no choice" because she "was attached to the chair." Oh. My. God! Carlson used bondage on the set to keep his guests trapped.

Well, not quite. Areu had a microphone on her that ran through the chair and wore an earpiece "that the tech crew refused to take off." I'll be the first to admit that I'm not conversant with the set for a TV news show, but I'm pretty sure that, if you really want to get away, you unclip the mic and remove the earpiece.

Next, Carlson changed his clothes in front of Areu. Ick! Except that wasn't really what happened. "Mr. Carlson changed on set into his leather jacket for the annual Christmas party," where he told Areu he planned to make a "quick appearance."

After all this, we finally get to the real allegation, which was that Carlson propositioned Areu. Except that isn't really what happened, either.

According to Areu, Carlson, "hardly making any effort to hide his intentions," told her he was staying at a hotel in NYC that night without his wife or children. "Without question," Areu alleges, "Mr. Carlson was probing to see whether Ms. Areu was interested in a sexual relationship."

Areu, who looks like a very pretty little gnome, apparently has an ego that knows no bounds. She's like the negative, evil version of Eric Idle's famous Monty Python character who saw a double entendre in every word anyone said.

Amber Athey, an editor at Spectator USA, has done a series of tweets ripping apart those of Areu's factual allegations that revolve around the Christmas party:

Here are two social media posts about the FNC Christmas Party (this appears to be the party for all of the shows ... the individual shows also have their own parties the following week). Both posts are dated Dec 10, 2018. pic.twitter.com/sXGaR0A1RL  Amber Athey (@amber_athey) July 21, 2020

Here are the relevant portions from Areu's lawsuit where she claims her last appearance was before the Christmas Party pic.twitter.com/8cLmnab603  Amber Athey (@amber_athey) July 21, 2020

What's more, I cannot find any evidence that Areu appeared on the show on December 10, 2018. Here is a YouTube video of that show: https://t.co/1B7M7nNnbb  Amber Athey (@amber_athey) July 21, 2020

Tucker also did not pop into the party for ten minutes. He attended the entire thing. It was a small party for his staff and his absence wouldve been noticeable.  Amber Athey (@amber_athey) July 21, 2020

For the left, Tucker Carlson is a dangerous man. The New York Times appeared poised to dox him, although it backed off once Carlson made the Times' intentions public. Lawfare is another honored leftist tactic to derail someone inconvenient.

I know nothing about Carlson's private life or work habits, but I do recognize a poorly pleaded complaint when I see one. Ms. Areu's complaint is laughable on its face and, if Athey is correct, factually unbelievable.

Image: Twitter screen grab.
Dai An Industrial Zone (IZ)

A few weeks ago, the northern province of Hai Duong proposed to transform Dai An Industrial Zone (IZ) into an industrial urban township, which is being looked at by the ministries of planning and investment, construction, and natural resources and the environment. The current occupancy of Dai An IZ is 85 per cent and if expanded, about 60,000 jobs will be created in the IZ and a further 40,000 in a services zone.

The transformation into an industrial urban township is being considered to realise the concept of establishing a services zone in the IZ, run by Japanese engineering construction service provider Fujita Corporation since 2018.

That year the government issued Decree No.82/ND-CP on management of industrial parks and economic zones, including industrial-urban-service areas. These are designed to have functions such as support and provision of public utilities. The transformation of the IZ in Hai Duong is demonstrating the change in mindset of developers and localities regarding industrial property.

In addition to Dai An IZ, northern industrial property group Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation met with and proposed to Nghe An Peoples Committee to introduce land for developing an industrial and urban area in the central province to provide more services.

In the southern provinces a few months ago, Tan Thanh Long An Investment Development JSC started construction of a 1,800-hectare industrial complex combined with urban development area in Long An province. It will offer work-live-play opportunities and enhance social interaction and liveability of residents and workers.

Talking to VIR, Le Thanh, chairman and CEO of Tan Thanh Long An Investment Development, said that the project is targeting to seize investment flows expected to return to Vietnam after the coronavirus pandemic. The US-China trade war and the pandemic have greatly influenced foreign investment inflows. This is an opportunity for Vietnamese businesses to co-operate and receive such flows from leading and international partners, Thanh said.

He added that the development of IZs has also been leading to the demand for residential accommodation. Thats why we reserve one third of the total space for residential development, he shared.

Le Thi Huyen Trang, head of market research and consultancy at JLL Vietnam, said that the model has been developing for a long time worldwide, and is suitable for countries interested in exporting. In Vietnam, after many years of evolving IZs, this is a good chance for models combining industrial and urban areas.

Currently one of the biggest players in this regard is a joint venture in the form of Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP). The alliance between Becamex IDC and Sembcorp Development (Singapore) has successfully deployed industrial-urban-services complexes over several years in numerous provinces across the country, including VSIP 1 Binh Duong (500ha), VSIP 2 Binh Duong (2,045ha), VSIP 1 Bac Ninh (900ha), and VSIP Haiphong (1,600ha).

In Vietnam over the years, as shown by the VSIP facilities, international developers have been leading the way in this area, and now Vietnamese developers are beginning to recognise the potential and value of the model, with numerous projects being carried out.

The largest one yet is set to be the Binh Duong Industry-Urban-Service Complex from Becamex IDC Corporation, located on nearly 4,200ha  including 1,800ha for industrial, 613ha for high-end service area, and 1,662ha for urban and resettlement areas. It is hoped construction of the venture will be completed this year, with operation to follow next year.

Another project from the corporation, approved in-principle in February, is the Becamex Binh Dinh Integrated Township and Industrial Park, which is expected to mobilise $2 billion of investment into the industrial sector. Phase 1, which will last until 2022, covers an area of about 1,425ha of industrial land, residential, and resettlement areas, while the following two years will cover 883ha for urban, services, and commercial areas.

Despite not including high-end services like those in the IZs of Becamex, the norths largest industrial property developer Viglacera Corporation has developed a service centre and workers dormitory in Dong Van IV IZ in Ha Nam province, as well as Yen Phong IZ in Bac Ninh province.

Vu Cong Tru, an expert in industrial property and investment promotion, said that the model is not too popular because very few developers can carry them out.

During the evolution of this sector, previously industrial areas were always far from residential areas and concentrated in IZs. When those zones filled up, local employees are not able to meet demand and recruit have to be brought in from other provinces. And so, Tru explained, industrial urban townships are now being established, including worker dormitories and other services.

Tru confirmed the model is suitable for Vietnams economy, and that this model along with its advantages will attract investment from overseas. However, developers should mobilise enough money and resources to follow such huge projects.

This will generate a lot of added value to developers, and improve the attraction of industrial property and investment climate of the country. However, in order to increase the number of industrial urban areas, they need support policies from authorities, as well as the vision and ability of developers, Tru added.

Meanwhile Trang from JLL Vietnam said that industrial urban towhships should be located strategically, with the favourable conditions for trade, transport, and export-import to lure more employees and residents. An industrial urban area will succeed, Trang added, if there are enough residents surrounding it who commit to live there for long.
90 Day Fiance fans are not happy with Nicole Nafziger. Viewers have already expressed their disapproval of Nicoles decision to stay in Morocco with Azan Tefou while her young daughter, May, is in Florida with her mom. After opting out of several flights back home, 90 Day Fiance fans are now angry about her latest clickbait posts on social media.

90 Day Fiance stars Nicole and Azan

90 Day Fiance fans believe Nicole is missing out on her daughters childhood

Nicole flew to Morocco back in March when the coronavirus pandemic was just heating up. After countries started to close their borders, Nicole found herself stuck abroad, thousands of miles away from her daughter.

Fast forward a few months and Nicole is still in Morocco and has not seen her daughter since March. The reality star has, however, been updating fans on social media and recently posted a photo of one of Mays drawings.

Nicole wrote that she is so proud of Mays handiwork, telling her followers to look at those art skills. But fans quickly noticed that the drawing featured a dark figure in the background that many people thought represented Nicole.

Some 90 Day Fiance fans went on to tell Nicole that she is missing out on Mays childhood and that children are only those young ages for a very short time. They also wondered if Nicole was going to miss out on some important moments in Mays life and when she was going to finally return home.

Nicole has also faced accusations of abandoning May to spend time with her fiance. With Nicole still in Morocco, her latest post has ignited another round of negative comments.

Fans bash Nicole for posting clickbait

Nicole, of course, claims that she cannot find a flight out of Morocco because of the pandemic. While it is very difficult to return to the US at the moment, the American embassy in Morocco has offered to front the money for special flights back to the states.

So far, Nicole has refused to accept the offer. The reality star says that the cost of a ticket is still too high and she doesnt want to pay back the money at that price point. Unless things change in the coming weeks, Nicole will likely remain in Morocco.

With that in mind, 90 Day Fiance fans are still unhappy with Nicoles decision to travel to Morocco in the first place. And her latest post on social media has stirred up even more drama with her followers.

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance Fans Blast Nicole Nafziger For Abandoning Her Daughter Despite Being Offered a Flight Home From Morocco

Taking to Instagram, Nicole has been sharing articles from various outlets about her romance with Azan. She hasnt commented on any of the articles, most of which amount to nothing more than clickbait.

Instead of posting about her relationship woes, 90 Day Fiance fans believe Nicole needs to worry more about how she is going to get home. After all, May has not seen her mother for months and the burden of raising the young girl has fallen on Nicoles mother.

Nicole fires back at 90 Day Fiance fans

In light of all the criticisms, Nicole recently addressed the reports that she could easily return to the US and reunite with her daughter. The reality star assured fans that booking a flight to the states is not easy and that the price of a ticket is at least double what it normally is.

Yall think youve got it all figured out because of whatever you hear but [were] you one of the people who had to actually email the government to see? Nope. Stop judging my [life] and decisions. Just an idea. I know you wont listen because its easier to pin me as a bad mom and gossip about the drama. Soon enough, yall can take a [peek] into my real life. Maybe, she stated.

Nicole has also commented on several other rumors that are circulating about her love life. This includes reports that she is expecting her first child with Azan. Those reports surfaced after the 90 Day Fiance star posted a photo of a clickbait sonogram on social media.

No, I am not pregnant, Nicole stated. Sorry for the confusing post. Hope everyone is staying safe out there! Peace and love to all.

It is unclear when Nicole will find a suitable flight and return home to be with her daughter. Until she does, fans will probably continue to criticize her for not being with her daughter at such a critical time.

Given how she and Azan have yet to tie the knot, there is a good chance that her time in front of the cameras isnt over just yet.

New episodes of the 90 Day Fiance franchise air Sunday and Monday nights on TLC.
Harish Murali By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday orally observed that a Governor being a constitutional authority cannot be sitting idle, despite the state government's recommendation to release all the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

The two-member bench comprising justices R Kirubakaran and VM Velumani made the observation while hearing a habeas corpus plea moved by T Arputham, the mother of life convict AG Perarivalan.

Arputham urged the court to intervene and grant 90 days parole to her son Perarivalan who is suffering from various medical ailments.

The bench said, "A time limit is not prescribed for deciding on the case, as trust and faith is attached to such a position of high constitutional authority. However, if the authority fails to take any decision within a reasonable time, then the court has to intervene."

The bench then directed the state prosecution to file a detailed counter on granting parole for 90 days.

According to the petitioner, Perarivalan has been suffering from urinary tract infection and benign enlargement of the prostate for which the urologist has prescribed medicines and periodical checks. He has been regularly visiting Stanley Medical College and Madras Medical College.

Doctors advised him to have check-ups every 15 days to control the infection. Recently he has been missing his periodical check-ups as hospitals are overflowing with COVID-19 patients, which has resulted in acute pain.

Due to COVID-19, at least 50 inmates in the Puzhal prison have been infected and there are high chances of Perarivalan contracting it, emphasized the petitioner.

The bench recording the submissions also directed the High Court Registry to inform the counsel of the Governor's office to get appropriate instructions on the status of releasing all the convicts based on the state government's recommendation. The bench adjourned the plea to July 29.
Covid-19 has proved catastrophic for a family in Dhanbad after an old woman and her five of her six sons died in a span of 18 days at different hospitals in the state.

The fifth son of the woman succumbed to Covid-19 at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi on Monday.

Till July 21, Jharkhand had registered 61 Covid-19 casualties but this is the only incident of its kind in the state where six members have died of the infection.

The 89-year-old woman, a resident of Katras Rani Bazar, died at Nilam Hospital at Chas in Bokaro district on July 2. Her eldest son (66) died at Patliputra Medical College Hospital (PMCH) in Dhanbad on July 10. Next day, her second son (63) died at the dedicated Covid-19 Hospital (Central Hospital of BCCL) in Dhanbad and on July 12 third son (60) succumbed to infection at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi.

Four days later on July 16, her fourth son (55) died at Tata Main Hospital (TMH) in Jamshedpur. He had been admitted at PMCH Dhanbad and later shifted to Asian Jalan super specialty hospital. On July 15, he was referred to TMH Jamshedpur.

The womans fifth son (50) died at RIMS, Ranchi, during treatment on July 20.

One of the grandsons of the woman, Shashank Agrawal, said the entire extended family of around 30 members, are in trauma due to the unprecedented chain of deaths.

No one knows who will die and who will survive. All family members had assembled for participation in a marriage ceremony, but it turned out to be a gathering for gloom, said Shashank.

The womans only surviving son did not come from Delhi to attend the marriage ceremony in the family at Katras in Dhanbad, which was attended by others.

Two of the brothers lived in Delhi, one in Rourkela (Odisha) one in Dhanbad city and two at Katras. The marriage of one of the womans grandsons was organised on June 27.

Shashank said his grandmother had come from Delhi on June 21. She felt uneasiness on June 30 and was admitted at a private nursing home of a close relative, Nilam Hospital, in Chas. After her death on July 2, her five sons had performed the last rites in Bokaro district.

Dhanbad district health department swung into action when her samples tested positive for Covid-19 following her death.

After getting the report we turned it into a containment zone and collected samples of 70 members of the family who attended the marriage as well as in last rites of the old lady. Among them only three brothers came positive while the test report of two other brothers was negative, said Dr Manish Kumar, medical officer in-charge of Baghmara block community health centre (CHC), under which Katras Rani Bazar falls where the victim family lives.

Dr Manish said three brothers were admitted to a Covid hospital on July 8. The health department later referred one of them to RIMS on July 9 after his condition deteriorated.

Two other brothers who had tested negative went into home quarantine at a resort in Govindpur block which has tie up with district administration for paid quarantine facility.

The eldest brother was the first to die on July 10 late night at the PMCH after he complained of difficulty in breathing in the Govindpur resort. Dr Shailendra Kumar, PMCH principal said he showed symptoms of a heart attack and did not survive. He tested positive for Covid-19 In post after his death.

One of younger brother admitted at Covid hospital died in his sleep the next evening and third at RIMS on Sunday

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A mum of four has died in a freak accident after she was choked by two dog leads during a walk.

On July 8, Deborah Roberts was found faced down while walking through a grassy field in Wrexham, in North Wales in the UK.

According to The Sun, a coroner heard the 47-year-old was found by a young girl who alerted two men nearby a woman was choking.

Ms Roberts was found with two leads wrapped around her neck and dogs pulling on the leads at either end.

Despite the efforts of paramedics, the mother died at the scene.

Deborah Roberts was walking when she was strangled by two dog leads. Source: Facebook

North Wales East and Central senior coroner John Gittins said a post-mortem found she had died from asphyxia due to strangulation, The Sun reported.

There are no suspicious circumstances surrounding her death.

The events leading up to the horrific death are not known and an inquest will be held into her death at a later date.

Ms Roberts son Callum posted on Facebook following the tragedy, thanking people for their support.

My brothers and I are so overwhelmed by all the lovely comments about my mum, she really was one of a kind and well miss her so much, he wrote.

Her son revealed his mother had also been battling Huntingtons disease when she died  a rare condition that causes the degeneration of nerve cells in the brain.

Deborah Roberts has been remembered as a wonderful person. Source: Facebook

It is the second tragedy to hit the young sons, with neighbour Dai Jones telling The Sun Ms Robertss husband died about three years ago.

She was a kind, lovely woman. When my wife died many years ago, Deb took me under her wing and helped me get through it. She was wonderfully kind, he said.

She lost her husband, Paul, around three years ago and that was hard for her and their four sons, who were her world.

This will be so tough for the boys to take. Theyre young men now, but they still need parents, like all young men do. It is so, so tragic.

Friends wrote on Facebook they were absolutely heartbroken by the death.

She was a true angel, one said.

She was the craziest, most loveliest person I ever knew, another commented.

Story continues

A third said she was a wonderful woman with a heart of gold.

Its a privilege to have known her.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.
PORTLAND, Ore. - A thick wall of tear gas crept closer to the wall of moms in yellow shirts chanting, "Don't shoot your mother," as they faced off with federal agents during another night of nonstop protests.

As the gas enveloped the group late Tuesday, some began to cough. One mom ripped off her goggles in frustration - they didn't seal around her eyes and the burning gas had seeped in. She rubbed her face and let out a groan, but she didn't leave. Neither did hundreds of other self-identified moms who showed up at the latest round of protests to stand, arms linked, between armed federal agents and demonstrators.

In front of the federal courthouse, federal agents in tactical gear used batons to push back the moms in bike helmets. Dozens were tear-gassed. Some were hit with less-lethal bullets fired into the crowd.

Still, they stayed.

The fledgling collective, formed less than a week ago, has dubbed itself the Wall of Moms - and new chapters have already formed in cities around the country from St. Louis to New York, Chicago to Philadelphia and even in the nation's capital. The groups have organized in anticipation of a national deployment of federal law enforcement personnel to Democratic-led cities - a nascent plan President Trump announced he was putting into action earlier this week.

Trump has defended his administration's use of force in Portland, where officers from various federal agencies have clashed nightly with protesters, made arrests and pulled demonstrators in for questioning in unmarked cars. The president called the protests in Portland, a liberal Pacific Northwest city, "worse than Afghanistan."

Mayors, members of Congress and state officials have pushed back, telling the federal government they do not want or need federal troops in their cities. Portland's Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler has for days called for the immediate removal of federal troops.

Washington Post photo by Marissa Lang

Now, the moms are getting involved.

Many of the mothers say they were summoned when George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis in May, cried out for his mother with his last breaths.

"When you're a mom you have this primal urge to protect kids, and not just your kids, all kids," said Wall of Moms organizer Jennie Vinson, 43. "To see a grown man reaching out and calling for his mother - I think that was a transformational moment for so many of us. It's like: What choice do we have but to do this?"

Angie Noriega, 43, attended her first protest on Monday with a group of seven other mothers who piled into two minivans and drove downtown. Noriega, a health-care worker who has two black children, ages 3 and 7, said after weeks of avoiding attending protests in person due to the coronavirus pandemic, seeing the moms of Portland mobilize inspired her to get more involved.

"It's been such a struggle to balance being afraid, but wanting to do the right thing for my kids," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "I want to be a role model for them, someone they can be proud of. But I also want to make it home safely."

Before she left home, Noriega's 7-year-old daughter begged her not to leave. She's old enough to understand the risks of facing off with heavily armed police officers, Noriega said.

"But we talked about that and I said, 'Sometimes we have to be brave and do the right thing even when it feels scary,' " Noriega said.

As Rachel Weishaar, 34, was preparing to leave her home on Tuesday, she said, her 3-year-old offered this wish for her mother's safety: "Tell the police officers to be more gentle," the girl said.

Weishaar carried her daughter's words on a sign she held outside the federal courthouse.

The night before, hundreds of moms joined to sing a lullaby outside the Multnomah County Justice Center, the site of the county jail and police headquarters. The lyrics were simple: "Hands up, please don't shoot me."

Though the Wall of Moms has become an overnight Internet sensation, the group has also attracted skepticism. Some scholars and racial justice activists have criticized the group and the attention it has attracted for centering the voices of mostly white mothers.

Black mothers have been calling for criminal justice reform and racial equity for many years. They have lost sons and daughters at the hands of police. A group of seven mothers who have lost African American children to police action or gun violence, known as the Mothers of the Movement, have toured around the United States to protests and conferences. But they have never gone viral quite like the Wall of Moms.

Wall of Mom organizers said they want to help amplify the voices of mothers like these - mothers who have suffered losses and who have for years fought for systemic change in police practices.

"When you have the privilege that we have as white women, you have to use it for good, and I hope that that's what this is," said Vinson, who is white. "I think it's really, really important that we gain the trust of the black community here and that's going to take some work, because we haven't always been dependable. We have an obligation to be humble, to listen and center black voices."

Vinson, a cancer survivor who joined about 50 other moms at their first rally on Saturday night, said the moms continue to show up for as long as the protests go on.

She was joined Tuesday by her husband, Scott Vinson, 42, donning an orange T-shirt that has been adopted as the uniform for Portland's emerging dad activists, known collectively as the PDX Dad Pod or DadBloc.

While the moms chanted and sang in the face of wafting tear gas, a dad in orange strolled toward the cloud of gas with a leaf blower slung over his right arm. He turned it on and blew the fumes away, back toward advancing law enforcement officers.

The moms cheered, waving sunflowers and peace signs into the night.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  FirstEnergy Corp. tried and failed more than once to convince state lawmakers to subsidize the companys two Ohio nuclear power plants, but was unable to achieve its goal until Larry Householder became speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives in 2019.

As speaker, Householder wasted little time pushing through House Bill 6, legislation that included the $1 billion nuclear plant bailout at the center of racketeering charges leveled against Householder and four others on Tuesday.

Householder is accused of heading up a criminal enterprise dating back to early 2017 that took in $60 million from FirstEnergy to put Householder and his supporters in power and to ram the bailout legislation through the General Assembly.

House Bill 6 was imminently important to FirstEnergy. It culminated years of work by the struggling Akron-based utility to get out from under crushing debt. But with the federal charges Tuesday surrounding the lobbying effort behind the bailout, some organizations are already calling for its repeal.

Ohio House Bill 6 was an ugly corporate bailout from the beginning, and it hasnt gotten any prettier, the conservative Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based think tank, stated on Tuesday. The Buckeye Institute calls upon policymakers to rectify the previous error and take decisive action to move the state forward and away from subsidizing crony companies while sticking ordinary Ohioans with higher energy bills.

Early calls for help

FirstEnergy let it be known as far back as 2016 that it wanted relief for Perry nuclear plant in Lake County and Davis-Besse nuclear plant east of Toledo.

During an annual energy conference in early 2017, Rep. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, revealed that First Energy was in substantial financial trouble. First Energy proposed something called zero emission credits, which would allow the utility to charge extra on electric bills because it was generating carbon-free nuclear power.

The credits would allow FirstEnergy to collect $300 million a year in perpetuity.

Bills that would have created the Zero-Emissions Nuclear Resource (ZENR) Program were introduced in the House and Senate in April 2017 and they drew plenty of testimony.

The bill would enable Ohio to take control of a critical component of its energy future by ensuring our nuclear plants are compensated for the many benefits they provide, then First Energy CEO Charles Jones said in a statement to the House Public Utilities Committee.

A legislative failure

Testifying before the same committee, Ned Hill, a professor in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at Ohio State University, referred to FirstEnergy financial engineering as fanciful.

The Committee members have heard that energy markets are complex. And the Committee has been presented with a complex, Rube Goldberg-like financial instrument, Hill testified. My advice to you: Protect your constituents wallets whenever an issue is advertised as being complex, and the person offering testimony does not try to provide clarity and simplicity.

The House bill and the companion Senate bill never made it out of the committee. Changes were made and a new bill was introduced in the House in October of 2017, but it too languished in committee.

The Ohio Consumers Counsel and the Ohio Manufacturers Association were among those who opposed idea as did then-House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger.

A new plan of attack

FirstEnergy wasnt about to give up. In March of 2018, First Energy announced plans to get out of the nuclear power business within three years by closing Davis-Besse in 2020, and the Perry and Beaver Valley plant near Pittsburgh in 2021.

Shortly after the announcement, FirstEnergy Solutions Corp, which was the nuclear division of First Energy, filed for bankruptcy protection. It now operates under the name Energy Harbor.

The company set about lobbying the state legislature for the nuclear subsidies it had failed to obtain. That strategy, according to the federal prosecutors, included funneling millions of dollars to an organization, Generation Now, controlled by Householder.

Householder used some of that money to position himself to become the next speaker. After Rosenberger resigned in April amid a scandal of his own, Rep. Ryan Smith, another bailout opponent, assumed the speakers job. But Householder courted a number of Democrats and built a coalition to win the power struggle.

Approving the bailout

The push for House Bill 6 took off in earnest. After the bill was introduced, First Energy stepped up payments to Generation Now, which paid for mailings and media advertisements to pressure lawmakers into supporting the bill.

The utility financed Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance, which included mayors, school officials, labor unions an economic development officials, to promote the idea of saving the nuclear plants and the jobs they provided.

What was missing was any concrete explanation from FirstEnergy of why it needed the bailout. The company never provided specifics about the plants profitability, but it didnt matter.

In July 2019, only six months into Householders term as speaker, HB 6 passed 51-38 and cleared the Ohio Senate. Gov. Mike DeWine did not hesitate to sign it into law.

Tapping customers for cash

The bill was a huge boost to FirstEnergy as it required every residential electricity customer in Ohio to pay a monthly surcharge of 85 cents and for large industrial plants to pay an additional $2,400 a month, starting in 2021 and extending through 2027.

It also called for an additional monthly fee to subsidize coal plants in Ohio and Indiana, while eliminating state-imposed mandates on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Trish Demeter, chief of staff at the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund, believes merging the three  the nuclear bailout, the coal subsidies and the rolled-back mandates -- helped secure the bills passage.

For example, it gave the ideologically minded legislator opposed to mandates a reason to vote for it, Demeter said.

With the three issues aligned and the strong-armed tactics employed by Householder and his crew, its not surprising that it got through with all of this money and interest fueling that pressure to get it done, Demeter said.

A failed referendum

It was a crushing blow to consumer watchdogs and to renewable energy advocates who quickly mounted a drive to overturn the law by referendum only to be met by fierce opposition.

The same forces that conspired to get the bill enacted, moved against the opposition.

TV and radio ads alleged that signing the petition to overturn HB 6 equated with ceding control of Ohio energy to China, according to the criminal complaint against Householder and the others. The criminal enterprise also interfered with workers attempting to gather signatures, even offering bribes to get them to stop doing their job.

The petition drive failed to gain the required number of signatures to be placed on the ballot.

A boost for investors

As a final kick in the teeth to the opposition, critics allege proceeds from the increased rates didnt go to bailout the plants but to bolster the share price of the investors who acquired the nuclear plants.

FirstEnergy Solutions, which owned the two Northern Ohio nuclear plants, emerged from bankruptcy in February as Energy Harbor Corp.

Then in May, the board of Energy Harbor agreed to buyback $300 million in stock  on top of the $500 million it had previously approved - thus driving up its share price and allowing investors to cash out their shares. That action fueled suspicions that enriching shareholders had been the reason for HB 6 all along.

Ned Hill, the Ohio State professor who opposed the bailout, wasnt surprised.

This was an act of socialism, where you socialize the risk and privatize the benefits, Hill said. So its no big surprise theyre now going to make sure their investors get a return from their investment in the political process. They won, so they get their cash.
Sure, it might be warm Wednesday, but what about the rest of the week?
A COVID-19 outbreak involving 22 nursing home residents and staff members has been reported in a Richmond nursing home, according to a city of Richmond alert.

Richmond city officials were notified Wednesday that TDEM will deploy the Texas Rapid Assessment Quick Reaction Force to the Cambridge Health and Rehabilitation Center to conduct a site assessment and administer additional COVID-19 test to all nursing home residents, healthcare workers and staff members. The testing is scheduled for Thursday.

Related: Fort Bend County hospitals battle COVID-19 as ICU units near capacity

Director Shelia Eapen said there had been no positive cases of their 88 residents and 87 staff members at the facility before now. Testing was conducted of all nursing home residents and staff last May. However, a new round of tests revealed 17 residents and five staff members were COVID-19 positive, despite the fact all are currently asymptomatic.

Eapen said notifications were sent to state and county officials, and families were notified.

The family members of our residents have been very supportive throughout this time, Eapen said. They trust us.

Richmond city leaders notified residents via email Wednesday. Due to health privacy laws, positive cases among Fort Bend County area nursing homes, long term care facilities and the Richmond State Supported Living Center are not made public.

However, state reports show 177 nursing homes in the greater Houston and Fort Bend County area currently have at least one positive COVID-19 resident and with an overall total of 3,027 cases, 309 deaths and 899 recoveries, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.

Richmond COVID-19 cases on the rise

The number of COVID-19 cases in Richmond has seen significant increase in recent weeks. Statistics provided by Fort Bend County Health and Human Services Department indicate Richmond currently has a total of 145 cases, an increase of roughly 50 percent over the last two weeks with 51 new cases since the July 7 total of 94 cases. Countywide, there are 6,130 confirmed cases currently, a 38.9 percent increase (1,717 cases) since July 7.

Related: Second COVID-19 related death reported at Richmond State Supported Living Center

The city of Richmond is committed to working with our local community partners, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, and the Texas Department of State Health Services to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in our community and surrounding areas, city officials said in an email.

knix@hcnonline.com
The government has warned all 59 banned Chinese apps that serious action would be taken if they did not comply with its order.

Last month, the Centre banned 59 apps with Chinese links, including TikTok, Shein, UC Bowser, and BeautyPlus, saying they were prejudicial to the sovereignty, integrity, and security of the country.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Tuesday night wrote a letter to all these Chinese firms, warning that continued availability and operation of these banned apps, directly or indirectly, was an offence under the Information Technology Act and other applicable Acts.

If any app is found to be made available by the company through any means for use within India, directly or indirectly, it would be construed as a violation of the government orders and would attract penal action, the IT Ministry added.

The IT Ministry's June 29 statement banning these 59 mobile apps had cited numerous complaints about their misuse for "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India".

"The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures," the ministry statement had said.

The IT ministry had invoked its power under section 69A of the IT Act and rules to block the 59 apps. The list of apps that have been banned also includes Helo, Likee, CamScanner, Vigo Video, Mi Video Call Xiaomi, Clash of Kings as well as e-commerce platforms Club Factory, WeChat and Bigo Live.

Also read: MSMEs stare at huge job losses, soaring NPAs; cash shortage threatens survival

Also read: Only 4.19 lakh net jobs created in April and May 2020: EPFO
Photo: (Photo : unsplash/Jonathan Borba)

Some women do not need epidural or pain killers during childbirth. A study reveals why some women could bear more pain than others. At the University of Cambridge, scientists explained that those women who have higher pain tolerance carry a key genetic variant that others do not. It acts as a natural epidural that limits how nerve cells send pain signals to the brain.

People know that childbirth is painful. Every woman has a unique labor experience. Each has a varying level of discomfort and pain as well.

No pain relief request during childbirth

Scientists and clinicians from different organizations collaborated to study why some people report less pain during labor. The team was made up of people from Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), and the University of Cambridge.

Dr. Michael Lee, from the Anesthesia Division of the University, led the team. They gathered and characterized a group of women who had carried their babies until full term. The women in the group did not request for any pain relief during delivery.

Higher threshold for heat, cold, and pressure

The team did many tests on the women, like applying heat and pressure to their arms. They also let them plunge their hands into icy water. It turned out that the women in this group showed higher heat, cold, and mechanical pressure thresholds than the control group. The control group received pain relief during labor and had the same childbirth experience as the study group.

Joint first author, Dr. Lee, said that it is not usual for women to not ask for gas, air, or epidural pain relief during childbirth. This is especially true for first-timers. After testing, the team found that clearly, the subjects had a higher pain threshold than others.

A rare gene variant

Professor Geoff Woods, senior co-author, and his colleagues at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research studied the genes of both groups. His team found that the test-group has a rare gene variant KCNG4. About one in 100 women have this variant.

KCNG4 produces a protein that controls signals flowing along our nerve cells. Dr. Ewan St. John Smith, from the Department of Pharmacology, led a study that showed the defective ability to switch on the nerve cells. His team found that women who feel less pain during labor had a higher KCNG4, delaying pain signals to reach the brain.

Senior co-author Professor Frank Reimann commented on the identification of a genetic variant involving pain sensitivities. The team is hoping that their findings could open avenues to develop new drugs to control pain.

Another senior co-author, Professor David Menon, said that this study approach might find a wider application in other contexts. It would help them understand how people experience pain so they could develop new drugs to treat such pain.

See also:

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The deal with police supervisors stands to have a limited practical impact, since the contracts would cover only about 1,500 of the citys roughly 13,000 sworn officers. The contracts with the brass are a prelude to the more significant challenge of reaching an agreement with the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, which represents a wide majority of the force, including the patrol cops who have frequently been involved in controversial shootings and other uses of force. The unions leaders have vowed to fight for their disciplinary protections and generally oppose efforts at reform.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: For the first time after India banned 59 Chinese apps over security issues last month, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad will share a platform with China's digital minister Miao Wei at the G20 Digital Ministers virtual meeting on Wednesday.

Prasad is expected to deliver his address at 5:30 pm.

The Digital Economy Ministers meeting will take place as part of the Sherpa Track for the G20 Leaders Summit 2020, which is to be hosted by Saudi Arabia at the end of 2020.

Consultations for the annual G20 meeting are conducted through three tracks -- government discussions take place under the Finance and Sherpa Tracks and civil society organisations participate through engagement groups.

This meeting holds significance at a time when many of the developed countries across the globe are appreciating India's move to ban Chinese apps.

On June 29, the central government had banned 59 Chinese apps, including Tik Tok and UC Browser, saying that they are "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country. The decision comes amid border tensions with China in Eastern Ladakh.

The Saudi Arabian Presidency has selected the theme, "Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century For All".

The three key agenda items to be addressed under this theme are: "Empowering People, by creating the conditions, in which all people - especially women and youth - can live, work and thrive"; "Safeguarding the Planet, by fostering collective efforts to protect our global commons"; and "Shaping New Frontiers, by adopting long-term and bold strategies to share benefits of innovation and technological advancement."
Bangalore based startup  Onsurity, has awarded its PR mandate to Nucleus PR.

Onsurity is a HealthTech organization that provides employee benefits and healthcare. Backed by Nexus Venture Partners, AngelList and Whiteboard Capital, it aims to disrupt the industry with its technology and innovation to improve customer experience. The buy on-demand and easy to understand platform enables SMEs and startups to buy quick employee benefits and services for teams and families.

Nucleus PR handles clients across MNCs, SMEs and start-ups. Their strategic approach towards PR enables clients to leverage it towards meeting their business goals. Their range of services includes reputation management, crisis communication and editorial services among others. The company has prestigious clients like Zolo, MediaCom, Nobel Hygiene and Tonic Worldwide on its roster.

Commenting on the win, Tarunjeet Rattan, Managing Partner, Nucleus PR said, Onsurity is a much-needed service for the SME & Startup sector. Given the current circumstances, it is now essential that companies be able to provide their employees with health benefits irrespective of their size. When I spoke to the founders, I resonated with their vision. Our experience in start-ups, tech and healthcare, equips us to work with them to create a desirable brand image via smart ideas and innovation.

Onsuritys vision is to be the first digital global platform to provide Employee Benefit at much ease to new age Startups / SMEs. All their product offerings have been designed to ensure transparency and easy usability.

Commenting on the association, Yogesh Aggarwal, Founder, Onsurity said, We spoke to Nucleus PR on a peer recommendation as we were on the lookout for a PR partner. We immediately clicked and quickly turned this into an association. Their vast experience and in-depth understanding of the startup industry will be a huge asset in helping us create a strong brand image. We look forward to a successful association.

Onsuritys mission is to define the future of healthcare with a team of brilliant and passionate professionals on a global canvas that benefits billions of consumers.
Iconic SBS newsreader Lee Lin Chin has claimed she resigned after 30 years with the network because of the 'mistreatment of staff'.

Chin resigned from the Australian broadcaster in 2018 and has spoken out after former staff members this month revealed they experienced racism at work.

The journalist, who began presenting the weekend 6.30pm World News in 1988, said there were systemic issues at SBS including the management style and culture.

Chin, who was born in Singapore, wrote a letter to then SBS chairman Hass Dellal requesting a meeting and expressing her reasons for leaving, The Guardian reported.

Legendary SBS newsreader Lee Lin Chin (pictured) has spoken out about her resignation from the network in 2018 and claimed the management at SBS mistreated their staff

Chin (pictured) began presenting the weekend 6.30pm World News in 1988 and had a 30-year career with SBS. She wrote to then network chairman Hass Dellal about her retirement in 2018

'My reasons for arriving at this difficult decision is the general unhappiness at the style of management of the network, the culture resulting from it, the mistreatment of staff in the lack of consideration and common human respect, as well as the direction SBS is moving,' she wrote.

The presenter, who is known for her eye-catching fashion sense, said the problems she raised in her letter had still not been resolved.

'It is deeply dispiriting that the misrule at the network continues to thrive unchecked, unexamined.

'Only the glare of exposure would put an end to this unhappy state of affairs. One hopes,' she explained.

Chin said she was expressing her reasons for leaving in the hopes of giving support to any staff who had come forward about bullying or racism at the broadcaster.

An SBS spokesperson said the former SBS chairman had asked to meet Chin twice after her email but she did not respond and no further action could be taken.

'SBS respected Lee Lin's decision at the time to leave SBS to pursue other commercial opportunities and wished her well in those endeavours.

'SBS Chairman Dr Hass Dellal twice invited Lee Lin to meet with him to discuss her email, including over the phone if preferred.

'Lee Lin did not respond to those invitations,' the spokesperson said.

Chin expressed her reasons for leaving SBS in a letter to former chairman Hass Dellal, which included 'the mistreatment of staff in the lack of consideration and common human respect'

Chin said the issues she raised in her letter had not been resolved and she wished to support any SBS staff who were speaking out against bullying at the network

The current SBS managing director, James Taylor, has promised to review the broadcaster's policies to focus on diversity and inclusion.

'I've been shocked and saddened by accounts of racism experienced at SBS.

'SBS stands opposed to any form of racism or exclusion... Racism is abhorrent and I am committed to ensuring it has no place at SBS,' he said in a statement.

Chin branched out in her last years at the network and took part in covering the Eurovision Song Contest, performing comic segments on The Feed, and was the first SBS representative ever nominated for a Gold Logie in 2016.

She was praised during her retirement as 'one of SBS's most beloved identities' and 'one of Australia's most recognisable and respected newsreaders'.

Chin took to Twitter to deliver a cryptic message about leaving the network.

'I have not announced my retirement. I simply am not reading the news on SBS anymore,' she said.

Chin read her final news broadcast on July 29, 2018 and was replaced by SBS journalist Anton Enus.
KAMPALA  Eight senior officials of the Electoral Commission, including Secretary Sam Rwakoojo have been sacked over a ballot paper printing row.

President Museveni is said to have ordered the sacking of the officials on Tuesday July 21.

Technical Services Director Pontius Namugera, Procurement boss, Godfrey Wanyoto and the head of the commissions Database have all been axed.

Also shown the door, is the ECs publicist Mr. Jotham Taremwa.

Whereas the reason for their sacking remains unclear, source say, officials were axed over a ballot paper printing row connected to Uganda Security Printing Company (USPC), a joint venture between German company Veridos and the state-owned Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation (UPPC).

In 2018, Veridos entered into 15-year-partnership with the government of Uganda to provide the countrys citizens with all relevant security documents.

The partnership covers all production of security documents and the supply of associated systems and services

The partnership covers the establishment of a modern security printing factory capable of producing all security documents, including ePassports and polycarbonate ID cards, and supplying all related services.

Related
This technology from Openpath is a valuable addition to our product offerings, as it is uniquely designed for the upgrades currently taking place in commercial properties across the country as businesses return to work.

Dunbar Security Solutions (DSS), a leading provider of integrated manned and electronic security solutions for commercial properties across the Mid-Atlantic region, is now an official dealer and installer of the Openpath suite of access control hardware and enterprise cloud-based software products.

Ideal for those who are modifying workplaces in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Openpaths mobile first, cloud-based solutions allow for automated and touchless unlocking of doors, gates and elevators. The technology uses an application installed on iOS and Android mobile devices, eliminating the need for keys or badges. Openpath also allows managers to text one-time guest pass keys to visitors, unlock doors remotely without having to be on the property, and instantly lock any door at any time.

Other key benefits include:



Openpaths patented Triple Unlock technology uses Bluetooth, WiFi and cellular simultaneously for faster, more reliable mobile access;

Remote system management to manage property databases from any web browser, on any device in any location;

An open framework that seamlessly integrates with existing systems, allowing customers to implement Openpath without replacing their legacy hardware and software;

Easy installation using standard wiring without requiring servers or a dedicated IP network

When it comes to access control systems, our customers want the highest level of protection with the most minimal disruption to employees, and Openpath offers the smartest and most customer-friendly security technology on the market today, said Sam Aldridge, Director of Sales, Dunbar Security Solutions. We are excited to be able to offer this great new solution to our customers, especially in the time of COVID-19, when so many are concerned with minimizing touch points and person-to-person contact.

At Dunbar, we are proud to specialize in security solutions that are manufactured in the U.S. and provide the most cutting-edge technology available on the market, said Kevin Dunbar, President and CEO, Dunbar Security Solutions. This technology from Openpath is a valuable addition to our product offerings, as it is uniquely designed for the upgrades currently taking place in commercial properties across the country as businesses return to work.

To learn more about Openpath access control systems from Dunbar Security Solutions, please visit dunbarsecuritysolutions.com or contact Sam Aldridge at sam.aldridge@dunbarsecuritysolutions.com.

About Dunbar Security Solutions

Dunbar Security Solutions (DSS) specializes in providing manned and electronic integrated security services to commercial, industrial, corporate and high-end residential properties across the Mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit dunbarsecuritysolutions.com.
Shops could be hit even harder in the key Christmas sales season if there is a second wave of coronavirus infections, the new head of Retail Excellence has warned as he called on the Government to deliver relief to the sector in this week's stimulus package or risk a "wasteland" on the main street.

"As we move towards Christmas - which is obviously the crucial point for retail - if people are in a position where they have to queue outside in the pouring rain and if we get anything like a second wave [of Covid-19] that is going to be extremely difficult for the retail sector," Duncan Graham who was appointed yesterday to lead Retail Excellence told the Irish Independent.

Retail sales have been hit hard by the harsh lockdown regime that was imposed here to try and prevent the spread of coronavirus infections and volumes fell by almost a quarter in the month of April when cars are excluded, with furniture and lighting down more than 80pc and clothing and footwear sales dropping by three quarters, according to the Central Statistics Office.

Although there was a bounce-back in May, sales levels remain substantially below the levels of a year ago.

The Specsavers executive, who takes over from David Fitzsimons at the largest retail trade body in Ireland which has more than 2,200 members with 13,000-plus stores in the State, warned that "the worst may still be yet to come" for the sector which has already been bruised by the closure of a number of high profile high street names and job losses.

"Everybody is very familiar with [the closing of] Debenhams, we have seen Oasis and Warehouse leave and Mothercare [cease trading]. Those are the bigger ones, for every bigger one there are inevitably four or five smaller shops that are deciding to keep the shutters pulled down," Mr Graham said.

The Government is due to announce a new package of spending measures this week that will add to the 15.5bn already planned and Mr Graham said the sector needed grants or other measures.

"If we don't inject these things into retail we are only going to end up with more and more shops pulling down the shutters between now and the end of the year," he warned.

Another key issue will be to work with landlords to renegotiate rents in order to achieve "reasonable and sensible solutions", he said.

Shops also face the cost of online sales infrastructure and new store layouts, he said.
When North Korea completely locked down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, it hit its own economy hard, as 90 per cent of its trade is with China.

Seoul (AsiaNews)  After bilateral trade between China and North Korea plunged by 70 per cent, North Korea lost its main source of foreign currency.

This followed Pyongyangs decision in January to lock down its already closely guarded borders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

For five months until May, all travel to and from the country was halted. This had immediate effects since the communist nation relies on China for 90 per cent of its trade. Over that period, North Korean exports dropped from US$ 81 million to US$ 18 million.

Now North Korea will likely start accepting travellers from China in November, a source told Nikkei last month.

However, this might not happen if COVID-19 makes a comeback in China. Travel between China and North Korea may have to wait. I think it will be impossible to visit North Korea this year, said another source.
Piraeus, Greece, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GasLog Ltd. ("GasLog") (NYSE: GLOG) and GasLog Partners LP ("GasLog Partners" or the "Partnership") (NYSE: GLOP) today announced that their financial results for the second quarter of 2020 will be released before the market opens on Wednesday, August 5, 2020.



GasLog and GasLog Partners will host a joint conference call to discuss their results for the second quarter of 2020 at 8.30 a.m. EDT (3.30 p.m. EEST) on Wednesday, August 5, 2020. Senior management of GasLog and GasLog Partners will review the operational and financial performance of both companies. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

The dial-in numbers for the conference call are as follows:

+1 855 253 8928 (USA)

+44 20 3107 0289 (United Kingdom)

+33 1 70 80 71 53 (France)

+852 5819 4851 (Hong Kong)

+47 2396 4173 (Oslo)

Conference ID: 1796557

A live webcast of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations page of both the GasLog (http://www.gaslogltd.com/investors) and GasLog Partners (http://www.gaslogmlp.com/investors) websites.

For those unable to participate in the conference call, a replay of the webcast will be available on the Investor Relations pages of the companies websites as referenced above.

Contacts:

Joseph Nelson

Head of Investor Relations

Phone: +1 212-223-0643

Email: ir@gaslogltd.com

About GasLog

GasLog is an international owner, operator and manager of LNG carriers providing support to international energy companies as part of their LNG logistics chain. GasLogs consolidated fleet consists of 35 LNG carriers. Of these vessels, 19 (15 on the water and four on order) are owned by GasLog, one has been sold to a subsidiary of Mitsui Co. Ltd. and leased back by GasLog under a long-term bareboat charter and the remaining 15 LNG carriers are owned by the Companys subsidiary, GasLog Partners LP. GasLog's principal executive offices are at 69 Akti Miaouli, 18537 Piraeus, Greece. Visit GasLogs website at http://www.gaslogltd.com.

Story continues

About GasLog Partners

GasLog Partners is a growth-oriented master limited partnership focused on owning, operating and acquiring LNG carriers under multi-year charters. GasLog Partners fleet consists of 15 LNG carriers with an average carrying capacity of approximately 158,000 cbm. GasLog Partners principal executive offices are located at 69 Akti Miaouli, 18537 Piraeus, Greece. Visit GasLog Partners website at http://www.gaslogmlp.com.




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New Delhi, 22 July : A woman resolutely held out against against two motorcycle-borne men who tried to kidnap her four-year-old child in Shakarpur area of east Delhi, forcing them to flee without their bike.

The whole incident, on Tuesday, was captured on CCTV camera in which the two helmet-wearing kidnappers are seen forcibly trying to grab the child. However, the mother pounced on the bike like a lioness, making them panic and lose balance. While the woman snatched back the child, one of the men ran away on foot while the other tried to flee on the bike.

Hearing the shrieks of the woman, area residents gathered at the spot, and an alert man among them blocked the passage of the bikers with a two-wheeler. After a brief scuffle, the criminals managed to flee, leaving their vehicle behind.

Police have unearthed the conspiracy, and arrested two people, including the crime's mastermind.

"The bike was having a fake number plate but we managed to trace its owner, through the chassis number. Bike owner Dheeraj was arrested and on interrogation, revealed that the child's uncle, identified as Upender, was the mastermind of the kidnapping bid," DCP, East, Jasmeet Singh said.

A police team then raided the house of Upender, 27, in Krishna Nagar and arrested him.

"Upender tried to kidnap the child for ransom along with his hired men. He is not into any permanent job and planned to kidnap his brother's child to demand a ransom of Rs 30 to 35 lakh," said the officer.

The hired kidnappers did a recce of the area and on Tuesday, tried to kidnap the child after asking for some water from the mother.

The police said that the two bikers are on the run and teams have been formed to nab them.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. The European Court of Human Rights partially upheld the appeal of former finance minister of Armenia Gagik Khachatryan and obliged the government to provide the necessary medical service for his health, and if necessary to transport him to a civilian hospital, Armenias Representative to the ECHR Yeghishe Kirakosyan told Armenpress.

The talk concerns providing medical services within Armenia, he said, adding that this is an ordinary practice and there is nothing extraordinary here.

Khachatryans attorneys issued a statement that the 64-year-old ex-finance minister needs an immediate surgery for spinal stenosis.

Gagik Khachatryan has been charged for embezzlement and abuse of power. He is currently remanded into custody.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
House Democrats voted to repeal Donald Trump's travel ban on some African and Asian countries. Titled the NO Ban Act, the legislation was passed along mostly party lines in a 233-183 vote on Wednesday.

The Trump administration introduced its original ban in 2017, barring visitors from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. The measure was dubbed a 'Muslim ban' because it targeted predominantly Muslim majority countries. It has since been expanded to several more countries.

The new bill would limit the executive's authority on immigration, including termination of restrictions imposed on people entering the US and prohibiting religious discrimination when issuing visas to foreigners.



It would also require the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to consult with Congress before placing any travel restrictions, while those harmed by restrictions would be given the ability to sue in federal court.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who presided over the vote, said the travel ban was "a federal endorsement of discrimination" that would not stand.

The House bill, introduced by Representative Judy Chu, is unlikely to be considered by the Republican-controlled Senate, with GOP lawmakers describing it as a reckless and irresponsible threat to national security.

During floor debate, Andy Biggs, of Arizona, said Democrats' used a "strawman argument" about religious discrimination to create a bill that restricts presidential authority.

Georgia representative Doug Collins said the Act was about undermining the president, not about policy solutions.

"It has nothing to do with policies that at one point you did or did not believe in, because if this was true we would have had a mass outcry in 2011 when President Obama used this authority to keep out votes from human rights issues and other things," he said.

Joe Biden, meanwhile, said on Monday that he would overturn Mr Trump's travel ban on his first day in office.

The White House officially opposed the NO BAN Act in March, when a vote for the bill was originally scheduled, saying in a statement that the president's authority to restrict entry into the US has been central in efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

"At a minimum, [NO BAN Act] would cause dangerous delays that threaten the safety, security, and health of the American people," the statement said.
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Linkedin Suiyen Pang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 11:42 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406685d054 3 Opinion technology,remote-working,work-from-home,productivity Free

The partial lockdown in Indonesia continues. Several months after the COVID-19 outbreak began, some regions of the countries are still subject to large-scale social restrictions, including business and school closures and limited access to restricted areas.

Although the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases continues to rise, the government and businesses are gearing up to gradually reopen the economy and establish a so-called new normal. Corporate leaders worry that this ongoing situation may seriously impact employee productivity, due to work-from-home issues like poor connectivity, cybersecurity, remote collaboration, and data allocation.

With schools beginning this month, employees with children must also consider the need to share internet connectivity and equipment such as laptops or tablets with their children.

Unexpected situations, such as this pandemic, show the great need to be prepared. Companies around the world are seeing the value of a well-thought-out business continuity plan to keep employees safe, and ensure that their business can run smoothly if another situation like this occurs.

With so many companies now scrambling for viable solutions to help them shift from working on-site to working remotely, what they have to keep in mind is solving the issue of remote working conveniently. The right blend of efficient tools and innovative software can make the remote working experience seamless and productive for companies. Consider how your organization can use these technologies to maintain employee productivity while they work at home.

One of the first steps to bridging the gap is making meetings simpler, especially since remote working typically leads to more meetings in a day. Beyond just getting the virtual meeting platform in place, newer concepts like Bring Your Own Meeting (BYOM) are becoming more prominent as a way to make remote meetings more seamless.

These solutions, such as Barco ClickShare Conference, allow hosts to hold a conference call from their personal device using their preferred conferencing solution (e.g. Microsoft Teams, Webex and Zoom), and connect to the equipment available in the virtual meeting space, just by plugging in  no dial-in or PINs needed. Attendees can simply plug in the button and all video and audio streams will be received on their device, which helps to vastly reduce the overall time it takes to set up an online meeting. It is a natural progression from BYOD and is the next level in workplace meeting productivity.

While working from home, it is easier to stay productive with uninterrupted wireless connectivity. Compared to the setups in many offices, employees at home can utilize WiFi to send documents to wireless printers, or seamlessly connect devices to smart TVs for enhanced virtual meeting experiences. Voice assistant devices (VAD) also help employees organize their schedules and stay on task. VADs form the point of communication between users and all the interconnected devices. Artificial intelligence (AI) powered technologies, developed by MediaTek, are an important part of these devices.

For instance, the Amazon Echo Dot connects to Alexa, a cloud-based voice service, and can be used to streamline work tasks, stay on track, make appointments, set reminders, and make phone calls. Google Nest is another viable option.

Cloud storage solutions, including DropBox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, permit users to store and share files in a secure and centralized location. Employees across the globe can access and update the files stored in these platforms, as the system can be synced across devices, ensuring efficient collaboration and teamwork.

Project management software such as Liquid Planner, Jira and Bridge24 enable employers to visually plan, manage and schedule projects and can provide an accurate view of employee tasks and projects. This software can also help companies effectively facilitate collaboration with team members, making it perfect for remote working.

When working from home, it can be difficult to keep track of the time spent on tasks. In this situation, a time-tracking application for the entire team, such as Time Doctor, Hubstaff and Harvest, allows companies to monitor team, and individual employee output. This encourages employees to be more productive and accountable during their work hours, and alerts for important messages help minimize distractions, boosting productivity during work-from-home.

With no known cure for the pandemic, and the authorities doing everything possible to contain its spread, it remains to be seen how long the remote working situation will last. As we wait for things to return to normal, these tools will help companies tackle difficulties related to remote working to help employees be more productive and efficient.

***

Country manager of MediaTek Indonesia

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Mary Berry said she was shattered to learn her face was being used in unauthorised adverts to sell cannabis oil and face cream.

The former Bake Off judge was appalled to learn that her name and image was being used to promote products without her knowledge.

In an interview with the BBCs Watchdog, shown on The One Show tonight, Miss Berry, 85, said she first became aware of the adverts on Facebook last year.

We began to get emails, Theres a cream and you recommend it. If you say its good, we thought it was worth spending the money, she said.

Mary Berry (pictured on ITV's Lorraine, January 9, 2020) said she was shattered to learn her face was being used in unauthorised adverts to sell cannabis oil and face cream

I was just absolutely shattered people could be conned.

The adverts showed Miss Berry, who presents Best Home Cook, endorsing cannabidiol (CBD) products, which contain parts of the cannabis plant that are legal in the UK.

It showed a photoshopped picture of Miss Berry appearing to hold CBD oil bottles in her right hand.

Its nothing to do with me, Im not interested in that sort of thing, she said.

The adverts claimed the product could relieve chronic pain and Miss Berry had a theory as to why her image was used to sell the products.

The adverts showed Miss Berry, who presents Best Home Cook, endorsing cannabidiol (CBD) products, which contain parts of the cannabis plant that are legal in the UK (stock image)

She said: Ive had Polio when I was a child and because Ive got a bit of a wonky hand, they think its arthritis and perhaps this is the cure for arthritis.

Miss Berry complained to Facebook after finding out about the fake adverts and the social media site pulled them.

The mother-of-three said she was inundated with emails.

I get more emails than I can read because I start to read them and then I begin to get upset and I think I just cant read anymore, she said.

Miss Berry said that despite having no knowledge of the adverts she felt a share of the responsibility for what had happened to so many people.

I would like the social medium platforms that all these claims are on, they should be vetted before they go on and checked out.

According to Watchdog, Bionic Bliss has said it has now stopped trading and insists that it wasnt responsible for adverts featuring Mary or any other celebrity.

It has blamed third party marketing companies and insists all its prices were clearly displayed on its website.

The full interview can be seen on Watchdog on The One Show on BBC One tonight (WED) from 7pm.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  Eight security aides of Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea have tested positive for COVID-19, the Presidential Security Group disclosed on Wednesday.

Medialdea himself tested negative for the virus, PSG Chief Jesus Durante said.

He added the security aides who contracted COVID-19 did not have any close contact with President Rodrigo Duterte, who is in the sector of the population most vulnerable to the disease.

The PSG assured that the personnel assigned to guard Duterte are constantly being tested for COVID-19 and his close-in security aides are separated from their families and other PSG members to lessen their exposure to the virus.

"PSG remains steadfast in being a 360-degree shield for the President and the seat of central power in the country," Durante said in a statement.
The oldest conservation group in the US, The Sierra Club, will take down monuments to its founder due to his racist history.

John Muir, who founded the group in 1892 and whose activism helped preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, also had ties to white supremacists and made derogatory comments about Black and indigenous people that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes.

As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muirs words and actions carry an especially heavy weight, a statement from Michael Brune, executive director of the group, says. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of colour who come into contact with the Sierra Club.

As the US begins to confront its past with the removal of many statues related to the Confederacy, the group has decided to re-examine its own history and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.

Muir was friends with Henry Fairfield Osborn, who was head of the New York Zoological Society and the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History  he also helped found the American Eugenics Society in the years following Muirs death.

Other early Sierra Club members and leaders Mr Brune calls out in his statement include Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan, both vocal advocates for white supremacy and eugenics. Jordan co-founded the Human Betterment Foundation, whose research and model laws were used to create Nazi Germanys eugenics legislation.

The early membership of the club was defined by whiteness and privilege and allowed for wilful ignorance about the spaces the group enjoyed once being the homes of Native peoples, forced off their lands by white settlers. Exclusionary membership practices continued until at least the 1960s.

In the article Pulling Down Our Monuments, Mr Brune writes: The Sierra Club that I want to belong to not only acknowledges that reality, it also works to counter racism and exclusion wherever it occurs.

Offering an apology to Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of colour for the Sierra Clubs past, Mr Brune offers a commitment to change  in organisational structure, resource allocation and investment, and a study to determine which monuments need to be renamed or pulled down.

In June, the Museum of Natural History in New York announced that it would be removing a statue of president Theodore Roosevelt due to its racist overtones.

Roosevelt was friends with Muir and during his presidency signed into existence five national parks, 18 national monuments, and numerous wildlife refuges and national forests.
Police Say Quebec Sisters Were Victims of a Double Murder Committed By Their Father

MONTREALProvincial police say two young sisters found dead after an Amber Alert near Quebec City this month were murdered with a blunt object by their father, who then took his own life.

All three deaths occurred within a 12-hour period following a July 8 car crash, police said Wednesday, updating the public on the case that gripped the province. Police had searched an area around a Quebec City suburb for 10 days before ending ground operations last weekend.

We believe on the morning of the ninth of July, sadly, all those sad events had already been played and all three were already dead, police spokesman Guy Lapointe told reporters.

Norah Carpentier, 11, and Romy, 6, were injured in the car crash but were killed by blunt force trauma by their father.

The girls bodies were found July 11 in a wooded area in St-Apollinaire, southwest of Quebec City, two days after an Amber Alert had been triggered. Their father, Martin Carpentier, who took his own life, died the same day as the girls, but was only discovered 12 days after the three disappeared.

Police said the Amber Alert wasnt sent until the day after the crash because there wasnt immediate concern about the girls safety.

There was worry, but you have to understand they were implicated in a car crash so it was a worry in regards to their status or health following the car crash, Lapointe told reporters in Montreal. It wasnt a worry that the father would do anything to the daughters, and thats exactly what we were getting from the family.

Police said the car crash was not deliberate and there were signs Carpentier tried to regain control of the vehicle. But the crash was the moment where things began to change, Lapointe said.

Every behaviour that was noted  prior to that moment, is behaviour that is normal, that fits what we would expect from that individual, he said. Except that from that point on, following the crash, its everything else that doesnt add up to what we would call normal behaviour.

The three were last seen alive in the minutes following the crash, crossing the highway and heading into the woods. Investigators found Carpentiers DNA inside a trailer within the search perimeter.

The girls bodies were found about 750 metres away from the trailer and Martin Carpentiers body was found Monday night about 5.5 kilometres away from the crash site.

Police said when the Amber Alert was launched, the girls had already been killed earlier that morning. Lapointe said police were working with the information they had and are confident they did everything they could to find the girls.

Lapointe said the criminal investigation is complete, and the provinces coroner will now investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh on Tuesday announced that officials will be reopening two outdoor pools beginning on Wednesday.

The pools are run by the Boston Centers for Youth & Families, and are located in Charlestown and the North End. Once open, the pools will run seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. through Labor Day, Walshs office said.

As we experience hotter days in the city of Boston, its important residents can access cooling options in our neighborhoods, Walsh said, in a statement. Our staff has worked tirelessly to develop plans to reopen our community centers and pools in a way that is safe and prevents the further spread of COVID-19 in our city.

As more cities and towns reopen public spaces, officials are wrestling with new regulations to help keep people safe amid the coronavirus pandemic. Walsh said residents interested in using the pools must register with the city for a swim spot.

Under existing regulations, pools use is currently set at 40% of normal capacity.

Residents must register in advance to use the pool, officials said. When registering for a session, visitors will be asked a series of COVID-19 screening questions.

Sessions will be 90 minutes long, and swimmers only allowed to attend one session per day.
The impostor offers just enough detail about where and how the emergency happened to make it seem plausible and perhaps turns the phone over to another scammer who pretends to be a doctor, police officer or lawyer and backs up the story. The grandchild implores the target to wire money immediately, adding an anxious plea: Dont tell Mom and Dad!

Fraudsters have also been known to ply this trick by email, text message and social media. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the FBI have warned of an uptick in grandparent scams as crooks play on emotional vulnerability and heightened fear about loved ones falling ill.



Grandparent scams and related cons are common  from 2015 through the first quarter of 2020, the FTC logged more than 91,000 reports of crooks posing as a relative or friend of the victim. And they can be lucrative: Eight people charged in a July 2021 federal indictment allegedly ran a nationwide scam network that used this ruse to steal some $2 million from more than 70 older Americans over an 11-month period in 2019 and 2020.

Warning Signs
He is known only as Doe 14.

Raised in a devout Catholic family, he attended St. Francis Xavier in Newark and Essex Catholic in East Orange in the Archdiocese of Newark, participating in church and youth activities.

And by the time he was a teenager, his lawyers say he was being groomed for a role in what they called a sex ring involving then-Bishop Theodore McCarrick, the 90-year-old now defrocked and disgraced former cardinal who was cast out of the ministry last year over decades-old sexual abuse allegations.

In a lawsuit, they charged other priests served as procurers to bring victims to McCarrick at his beach house on the Jersey Shore, where he assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house, and that they were paired with adult clerics.

The lawsuit does not say if McCarrick asked the other priests to bring boys to the beach house.

In a press conference on Wednesday, attorneys for the now 53-year-old victim serving as the plaintiff in the lawsuit detailed a sordid, predatory scheme of sexual abuse involving McCarrick and other members of the clergy involving at least seven children, including Doe 14, that they said played out over dozens of years.

Jeff Anderson, who represents Doe 14, said priests and others under the control of McCarrick engaged in open and obvious criminal sexual conduct that was kept cloaked by the church.

That continued for 50 years until McCarrick, having been publicly exposed, was ultimately defrocked, declared Anderson.

In their court papers filed Tuesday night in New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County, the unnamed victim filed suit against the Diocese of Metuchen, where McCarrick served as bishop, the Archdiocese of Newark, where he was the archbishop, and the schools, high schools and parish schools Doe 14 had attended while growing up in New Jersey.

According to the lawsuit, much of what allegedly transpired occurred at a Sea Girt beach house that has been the focus of other complaints involving charges of abuse by McCarrick of seminarian students, who he allegedly would bring down to the Jersey Shore.

McCarrick would creep into this kids bed and engage in criminal sexual behavior and whisper, Its okay, said Anderson.

Asked about the charges, attorney Barry Coburn, who represents McCarrick, said only, no comment at this time.

The Newark Archdiocese also declined comment.

It would be inappropriate to discuss or comment on matters in litigation, said spokeswoman Maria Margiotta. The Archdiocese of Newark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims.

The Doe 14 complaint charged that boys were also selected and abused not only by McCarrick, but by other priests and clergy at the beach house, who were named in the court papers.

Gerald Ruane, Michael Walters and John Laferrera, allegedly abused Doe 14, the lawsuit claimed. All three were listed last year by the Newark Archdiocese as having credible accusations of sex abuse made against them. Ruane was listed as deceased, and the others had previously removed from ministry.

Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt, the former Essex Catholic principal, was also accused of abusing the boy from 1981 to 1983, and named as well in a list of those accused of sexual abuse. He is now dead as well.

Also accused of unpermitted sexual contact when the plaintiff was 11 years old was a former priest named Anthony Nardino. He had not been publicly accused before, but was said to have left the ministry as well. Church officials did not respond to questions about him.

McCarrick, once the most recognized Catholic leader in New Jersey and a major voice on national issues for the church, has already been repeatedly accused of sexual abuse in earlier court filings.

Last year, James Grein stepped forward with a lawsuit under a new law that gives people more time to sue their alleged abusers and the institutions that protected them. He charged McCarrick sexually abused him for 20 years, even after he told Pope John Paul II during a visit to the Vatican about the abuse.

In a separate lawsuit, John Bellocchio, a former Catholic schoolteacher and principal, alleged in a lawsuit that McCarrick sexually assaulted him when he was the archbishop of Newark.

Even before any of those allegations came to light, church officials in New Jersey later revealed that McCarrick had previously been accused of sexual misconduct with three adults during his time in the state. Two of those cases resulted in secret legal settlements, according to the Archdiocese of Newark.

The settlements included $80,000 paid to a former priest turned lawyer from New Jersey who said McCarrick, known as Uncle Ted, would invite young seminarians and priests to the house in Sea Girt, where they would be expected to share a bed with McCarrick.

All that time, McCarrick continued his ascendancy in the church hierarchy, picked by Pope John Paul II as Washingtons archbishop in late 2000. A year later, he was made a cardinal.

The cardinals downfall began after a former altar server went to the Archdiocese of New York after hearing that a panel was considering settlements for alleged victims, to report how he had been abused as a teenager while being measured by McCarrick for a special cassock for Christmas Mass at St. Patricks Cathedral.

He told them that McCarrick, then a monsignor, unzipped the teenagers pants while measuring him for the garment and was later cornered in a bathroom.

The allegation led to McCarrick being removed from public ministry and later forced to resign from the College of Cardinals. A subsequent Vatican investigation ended with his being laicized, or dismissed from the clerical state  considered one the harshest forms of punishment that can be issued by the church.

McCarrick has never admitted to any wrongdoing.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Staff writer Kelly Heyboer contributed to this report.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com.
What The Study Did: Risk factors associated with COVID-19 death in long-term care facilities in Ontario, Canada, are examined in this observational study.

Authors: David N. Fisman, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Toronto in Canada, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.15957)

Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support and conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

# # #

The full study is linked to this news release.

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.15957?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=072220

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is the new online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

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Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy shelling.

One Ukrainian soldier was killed and one was wounded as Russia-led forces mounted nine attacks in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday, July 21.

"Russia's armed formations violated the ceasefire nine times in the past day," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation Headquarters said on Facebook in an update as of 07:00 Kyiv time on July 22. "Unfortunately, as a result of enemy shelling, one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and one was wounded."

The enemy opened fire, using proscribed 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers of various types, cannons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, heavy machine guns, and small arms.

Read alsoDonbas war: One of two Ukraine soldiers wounded outside Pavlopil dies in hospital

Under attack came Ukrainian positions near the villages of Novotoshkivske, Krymske, Khutir Vilny, Hnutove, Pavlopil, Lebedynske, and Vodiane.

Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy shelling.

"Since Wednesday midnight, Russia-led forces have attacked Ukrainian positions four times near the town of Maryinka, and the villages of Mayorsk and Lebedynske, using 120mm mortars, grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns, and rifles," the update said.

No casualties have been reported since Wednesday midnight.
The UAE has maintained its first place globally in the mobile subscription index, while advancing from second to first in the international mobile broadband Internet subscription index, according to the UN E-Government Survey 2020.



The UAE also ranked first in the Gulf, Arab Region, and Western Asia, second in Asia and the seventh globally in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII), reported Emirates news agency Wam, citing the UN report.



As for the Internet users index, the UAE moved up to fifth from 13th globally, achieving a qualitative leap in the fixed broadband subscription index, as it moved up to 29th from 68th in the world.



These achievements resulted from efforts of the TII Executive Team headed by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and UAE mobile operators (Etisalat and du), where the team worked to raise the countrys ranking in the TII sub-indicators by launching a number of initiatives over the past years, contributing to maintaining the UAE as a world leader in such indicators, the Wam report said.



Tariq Al Awadhi, Executive Director of Spectrum Affairs Department, TII Executive Team Leader, and Head of TRA's National Agenda Team, said: "The TRA has developed plans and strategies that contribute to strengthening the telecommunications sector infrastructure, out of its belief in the central role that this sector plays in achieving the UAE Vision 2021 and National Agenda goals. Telecom operators in the country have allotted a huge budget for infrastructure investment of up to AED 36 billion, making the UAEs infrastructure among the best in the world in terms of fibre services and overall coverage."



Al Awadhi stressed that the significant development in UAEs telecommunications sector infrastructure comes in preparation for the upcoming milestones.



"This achievement reflects the development and quality of the telecom sector infrastructure in the UAE, which was a key enabler that contributed to the business continuity of vital sectors in the country during the Covid-19 crisis, as well as raising UAE's readiness for future changes and technology. Owing to the evolved and quality infrastructure, the UAE was able to easily adapt to variables, adopt smart techniques such as distance learning and remote working, provide services ensuring the natural pace of work, and provide opportunities for growth in light of the ever-changing world.



"This achievement also reflects the efforts of the TRA in implementing the directives and vision of UAEs wise leadership to up the readiness of the telecommunications sector to leverage modern technology in the country, especially 5G, where the UAE ranked 1st in the Arab Region and 4th globally in launching and using 5G networks. All this thanks to the cooperation and coordination with mobile operators to deploy and operate 5G networks, and the continued work and collaboration to develop the telecommunications infrastructure in keeping pace with future requirements, thus contributing to the on-going global leadership of the UAE in this sector," he added.



The UAE has been ranked first in the GCC, Arab region, and Western Asia, and 8th globally in the Online Service Index (OSI) issued by the United Nations within the E-Government Development Index (EGDI). The UAE is also ranked 4th in Asia in this indicator, advanced one rank in the E-participation Index, progressing to 16th from 17th in the 2018 index cycle.
Anxious about another pandemic lockdown in tiny apartments, New Yorkers are driving a real estate boom outside the city.

If the outbreak roars back in New York City, Anil and Joyce Lilly will not be sheltering again in their Bronx apartment. They just bought a house an hour north in the Hudson Valley.

We need more elbow room, said Joyce Lilly, explaining their move to Washingtonville, New York. Because we were locked into the apartment for three months, a solid three months, I feel like Im getting out of prison and I want to run as far away as possible.

New Yorkers, anxious after weathering the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, are creating a boom in home sales and rentals around the picturesque towns and wooded hills to the north. Real estate brokers and agents describe a red-hot market recently, with many house hunters able to work from home.

We're basically reassessing our life every single day. Music and video producer Erik Braund, moving his family of four from the Upper East Side to Saugerties

There has been a big uptick from Manhattan people, no doubt about that, said Steven Domber, president of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hudson Valley Properties. Number one, its cabin fever, which is wanting to get out of an apartment and having some land if, God forbid, theres a lockdown again.

The Catskill Mountains and bucolic stretches of the valley beyond the citys northern suburbs have been longtime getaways for city residents. But agents said sales and rental activity is far above normal. Dombers sales were up almost a third year over year in June. Builder Chuck Petersheim said he took eight orders in a month, compared with his usual one and a half a month.

Anil Lilly, centre, holds his granddaughter Paige alongside his wife, Joyce, at their new home in Washingtonville, NY [File: John Minchillo/AP Photo]

New York City is in no danger of hollowing out any time soon, though. The upstate wave looks more like a trickle in a city of 8.3 million. With new homes in the region running from under $200,000 to more than one million dollars, they are an escape hatch many cannot afford. But the spike in sales and long-term rentals shows how New Yorkers who endured the worst of the pandemic see the city as less hospitable.

We just feel that the city will not be the city that we lived in, said Susan Cohen, who rented a home in Rhinebeck with her husband after sheltering in their Upper East Side apartment.

For six weeks, in our two-bedroom apartment, all we talked about was without a vaccine; we will never go on the subway again; wed be hesitant to go on a bus again; we wont go to the movies; we wont go to the theatre  So what do we have for the next two years in Manhattan? And we said, What are we living here for?'

County-level home sales figures from May still show a dip compared with last year, but that reflects the one- to two-month lag between offers being accepted and closings. Agents describe recent weeks of bidding wars over homes that had been languishing on the market and new listings being snapped up fast by buyers with cash. Realtor John Murphy said some homes are selling $100,000 or more above the asking prices.

I think this was the event that got people off the fence, said broker Gary DiMauro. I think we also got people who were thinking about buying either a first or second home up here to actually pull the trigger.

Home hunters Tony Speciale and Jerry Marsini learned about competition recently when they walked through the front door of a home in Kingston just as their agent got a message from the seller about a cash offer from someone else.

We need more elbow room. Joyce Lilly, explaining their move to Washingtonville, New York

If we find a house that were interested in, sitting on it more than a few days doesnt seem like a good idea, Speciale said.

The Manhattan residents, who had been looking upstate even before the pandemic, are in the process of buying a house in Kingston.

The Hudson Valley is not the only region outside New York City experiencing a bump.

Along the Jersey Shore, there are far more buyers than homes in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Homes are selling above asking price and once a thing comes on the market, everyone is jumping on it, said Wendy Smith, president of Monmouth Ocean Regional Realtors. On the tip of Long Island, a preservation fund financed by a real estate transfer tax in the five East End towns was up 39 percent during the first half of the year, according to state Assemblyman Fred Thiele.

The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday existing home sales jumped 20.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million units last month. Thats the biggest gain since 1968 when the NAR started tracking the series.

I think this was the event that got people off the fence. Gary DiMauro, real estate broker

Junes increase ended three straight months of decreases, though home resales remained below their pre-pandemic level.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is at an average of 2.98 percent, the lowest since 1971, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac.

Indeed extremely low mortgage rates are helping the market, as are more expansive work-from-home policies ushered in with the pandemic.

Joyce Lilly is an acupuncturist, but she said her husbands ability to work remotely as an IT manager was the deciding factor in the move from Riverdale in the Bronx on Tuesday, which included his daughter, a granddaughter and a dog. Cohen just retired in January and her husband is able to work as a financial tech consultant from the house.

For music and video producer Erik Braund, moving his family of four from the Upper East Side to Saugerties has been a learning curve about how to keep his production company running some 100 miles north of his Brooklyn studio. They pounced on a fixer-upper at the start of the lockdown, but are keeping their apartment.

They might head back, but not the way things are now.

Whenever some sort of rapid testing becomes available, were going to reassess. Were basically reassessing our life every single day, he said, So grateful that we were able to pull this off.
SPRINGFIELD  The City Council has voted to support a state Senate bill that calls for sweeping police reforms in Massachusetts in the aftermath of police brutality cases including the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The lead sponsor, Councilor Trayce Whitfield, said the bill, as proposed, gives a voice to the victims of police brutality, including a proposal in the bill that would reduce legal protections for police officers from civil lawsuits, known as qualified immunity.

The reform bill is not for the police, its for the victims, Whitfield said. Many times the victims get lost. Many times, their voices are not heard.

Qualified immunity shields public officials and police from being held accountable to their victims, Whitfield said.

It protects these groups even when they blatantly and seriously violate peoples rights including by use of excessive force resulting in physical harm and even death, Whitfield said.

The council vote was 9-1 in favor of the Senates police reform bill, which was passed last week.

The Senate bill includes a ban on chokeholds, along with limits on the use of tear gas, a licensing requirement for all law enforcement officers and a training requirement on the history of racism.

Floyd, a black man, died in May when a white police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes as three other officers stood by. The incident has triggered international demonstrations calling for police reform and for an end to police brutality and racism.

All four officers were fired and charged with criminal offenses; officer Derek Chauvin, seen on video kneeling on Floyds neck, was charged with murder.

Councilor Sean Curran cast the sole vote against the council resolution, saying he objected to the Senate not holding hearings to consider the views of police officers before passing the bill.

The council resolution is nonbinding, but expresses the view of the council, under the City Charter.

The Senate bill, referred to as the Reform, Shift and Build Act, would ban the use of deadly force except in cases of imminent harm, requires police to use de-escalation tactics, and creates a Police Officer Standards and Accreditation Committee, the council resolution said.

Councilor Orlando Ramos said there have been many opportunities for the police to be heard on the issue of qualified immunity, such as when the mayor and council have approved millions of dollars in taxpayer funds over the years to settle lawsuits with victims of police excessive force and other violations.

The taxpayers are sick and tired in public money being spent for such settlements as the officers evade accountability, Ramos said.

Curran and Councilor Timothy Allen both spoke out for police representatives to be heard.

On Monday, more than 30 law enforcement labor unions met in Springfield to raise concerns about the Senate-passed reform bill, and a separate bill under consideration by the House. While they supported some provisions, law enforcement officials raise concerns that some provisions would make a dangerous job even more difficult as they make judgment calls on the streets.

The reform bills focus on creating police standards deemed needed to better protect the public from police misconduct, particularly minorities that proponents say have historically been unfairly treated by police.

Councilor Adam Gomez, in supporting the police reform bill, cited a U.S. Department of Justice report that said the city police departments narcotics unit engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force.

The investigation found in part that narcotics officers routinely punch suspects in the head or neck as a form of control rather than to stop a threat.

Gomez said that the violation of rights, particularly involving minorities, shows police must be held accountable.

It will increase public trust in police in Springfield, Gomez said, regarding the police reform bill.

Councilor Victor Davila said he was deeply disturbed by the Department of Justice report, and considers the police reform bill a strong response to address the issues.

Davila was among councilors saying that the majority of the police force are good officers, but he believes there are bad cops who violate rights and get away with it. The bill will help protect the victims of police misconduct, he said.

Curran said he believes there are officers who are worried regarding how much they are protected legally and financially when going into calls such as domestic incidents when there could be subsequent accusations of excessive police force.

Councilors voting in favor of the resolution were Jesse Lederman, Melvin Edwards, Kateri Walsh, council President Justin Hurst, Whitfield, Ramos, Gomez, Allen and Davila.

Councilors Michael Fenton, Malo Brown, and Marcus Williams were absent.
Critical Path Institute (C-Path) announced today that the Biomarker Qualification Program (BQP) at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a positive response to the Qualification Plan (QP) for glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) as a safety biomarker for drug-induced liver injury (DILI), developed by C-Path's Predictive Safety Testing Consortium (PSTC) and Duchenne Regulatory Science Consortium (D-RSC).

In this QP, PSTC and D-RSC provided scientific evidence supporting the use of GLDH as an important and accurate measurement of DILI in clinical trials involving patients affected by inherited muscle disorders, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) or idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, and muscle damage caused by strenuous exercise or drug induced muscle injury. In its Determination Letter, the Agency stated, "FDA has completed its review and has agreed to accept your QP."

In clinical trials, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and total bilirubin (TBil) levels in blood are the current gold standard biomarkers for detecting DILI.

Although ALT is a sensitive marker of DILI, this enzyme is also expressed in other tissues, including muscle.

This severely limits the reliability of ALT as a biomarker of liver damage in clinical trial subjects with underlying muscle degenerating conditions, such as DMD and related neuromuscular conditions.

This project was launched to address an unmet need in drug development for increased precision in detection of DILI and serves as a powerful example of advancing translational science from preclinical to clinical use." John-Michael Sauer, PhD., PSTC Executive Director,

"Through PSTC's and D-RSC's efforts, GLDH's sensitivity and specificity for detection of DILI has been demonstrated in nonclinical studies, and this research can now be translated to application in clinical trials."

"We are improving the ability to more accurately detect DILI through collaboration and data sharing across consortia and industry members."

FDA expressed support for the consortia's intent to pursue biomarker qualification for GLDH and invited submission of a Full Qualification Package, the final stage that details how the biomarker demonstrates clinical and analytical validity for its intended Context of Use (COU) as a safety biomarker.

PSTC and D-RSC propose the qualification of GLDH levels in serum for use as a specific biomarker of DILI in clinical trial subjects with underlying muscle injury or degeneration, in conjunction with standard hepatic injury monitoring biomarkers, such as alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and TBil.

"When ALT levels increase during clinical trials, including in people with underlying muscle disease such as those living with DMD, this can lead researchers to incorrectly conclude a drug candidate is causing liver damage and therefore the study may be discontinued unnecessarily," said C-Path D-RSC Executive Director Jane Larkindale, D.Phil.

"Measuring GLDH in addition to traditional biomarkers will provide a new tool for drug developers that generates more accurate and sensitive safety data throughout the clinical trial process."

"GLDH will allow drug developers to properly determine the onset of liver injury in clinical trials for novel therapies to treat patients with muscle disease, where the traditional DILI biomarkers may be confounded by active skeletal muscle injury," said Jiri Aubrecht, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Scientific Director, Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and industry co-director for PSTC.

As part of the 21st Century Cures Act, passed into law in December 2016, public-private partnerships consisting of government entities, including FDA, the biopharmaceutical industry, health care providers, academic researchers, and patient advocacy organizations have been encouraged to work together to foster innovation in development of new therapies by qualifying new drug development tools that can accelerate the process of making new therapies available to patients.
ANN ARBOR, MI  Ann Arbor officials are joining Washtenaw County in declaring racism a public health crisis.

Structural racism has created so much pain and devastation in our community, Mayor Christopher Taylor said, adding its proper to declare it a health crisis and try to counteract it.

City Council voted unanimously Monday night, July 20, to voice support for the county boards recent resolution, which called on all local municipalities to recognize the grave impact that racism has on our residents throughout the county.

The root cause of many deaths and illnesses among Black Michiganders? Centuries of racism and oppression

Council Member Kathy Griswold, D-2nd Ward, brought forward the citys resolution, which was co-sponsored by Anne Bannister, D-1st Ward, and Taylor.

It is important that we support the county commission and the county health department, so Im proud to be bringing this resolution forward, Griswold said.

The county boards July 1 resolution laid out several ways the county can address racism and pointed to health disparities that arise more often in residents of color, including lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates.

It also pointed out the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected Black residents.

As of July 1, 33% of Washtenaw Countys total COVID-19 cases and 41% of hospitalizations were among in Black residents, though they make up 12% of the population.

The county boards declaration, which came after the Washtenaw County Board of Health made a similar one, joined a growing number of Michigan communities making similar declarations, including Ypsilanti and Jackson.

The coronavirus was tailor made to devastate densely populated black Michigan communities

During this pandemic, it is really obvious that there are disparities, Griswold said. Some of that is due to the fact that many of our minorities are essential workers and theyre out there on the front lines right now.

Council Member Jeff Hayner, D-1st Ward, said both racism and poverty are public health crises and theyre intertwined.

In many ways, its clear that racism is used as a tool to keep people apart, to keep people from talking to each other, he said. And I think what happens is, when people do talk to each other, they realize that the real problem is poverty and class, and the real problem is greedy people.

Capitalism relies on racism and poverty to operate to its maximum utility, Hayner said.

I want to keep in mind that we need to do something about poverty, which keeps everybody down, he said.

Council Member Julie Grand, D-3rd Ward, said she was impressed with the countys resolution, which outlined action steps and recognized budgets are moral documents.

The countys resolution called for increasing funding for the health department and racial equity office and examining the countys entire budget through a racial-equity lens. Grand expressed hopes the city will take similar steps.

Racism is an ugly beast, councilman declares as city passes resolution calling it a public health crisis in Jackson

Its clear there are intergenerational impacts of racism with effects on health, said Grand, who has a doctorate degree in public health from the University of Michigan.

If we want to address structural racism and racism as a public health crisis, youve got to put some money behind it, she said.

Overall infant mortality in Washtenaw County is 5.2 deaths per 1,000 live births but increases to 16.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in Black county residents, according to state statistics.

There is a 10-year difference in life expectancy between Black and white residents and a 17-year difference between Latino and white residents.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

48% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Washtenaw County are black, health department says

Racism named a public health crisis by Washtenaw County Board of Health

Council member wants to ensure whats happening in Portland never happens in Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor council urges Gov. Whitmer to reinstate eviction moratorium in Michigan

We felt it was important. Ann Arbor raises Black Lives Matter flag at city hall
"Some sectors the globally-oriented ones will experience a J-shaped recovery, such as mining fishery and agro-exports ," the officer said.

"In April and May , mining saw a sharp drop, but we expect it will gradually return to pre-quarantine levels," he added.
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) has debunked claims suggesting it has plans to review the Junior High School (JHS) and Senior High School (SHS) duration.

Duration

A press statement addressing the issue said there was no intent to increase to four years the JHS period and reduce SHS to two years in the 2020/2021 academic year.



The NaCCA said the duration for both JHS and SHS education remained three years each under the proposed Common Core Programme (CCP) dispelling rumours that under the CCP curriculum, the duration of JHS would be reviewed from the current three to four years, while SHS would be two years.



Common Core

The NaCCA explained that the new curriculum was the second phase of the pre-tertiary curriculum review started in 2017, from which kindergarten (KG) and primary school programmes were currently being implemented by the Ghana Education Service (GES).



NaCCA wishes to state emphatically that with the planned implementation process of the Common Core Programme in the next academic year, the duration for both JHS and SHS will remain three years each, it said.



DEVTRACO THE PELICAN

It asked the general public to disregard, this false reportage and appealed to the media, to take advantage of our open-door policy and engage with us to avoid misinforming the news-consuming public on such critical matters.





Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The minister said 'brownfield' developments were needed to help the UK's housing crisis as he was grilled by MPs over Richard Desmond's (above, with Boris Johnson) controversial Westferry Printworks

Under-pressure Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick insisted today that he was right to approve a 1billion housing development for a Tory donor that saved him tens of millions of pounds.

The minister said 'brownfield' developments were needed to help the UK's housing crisis as he was grilled by MPs over Richard Desmond's controversial Westferry Printworks.

He approved the upmarket development just before it would have been eligible for a local development levy to fund schemes in one of the poorest parts of London Docklands.

But facing the Housing Committee this morning he attacked critics of his decision accusing his critics of being 'extremely unfair and in most cases a willful misreading of events'.

It was revealed in May that the Housing Secretary was been lobbied about the application to build 1,500 flats in London's Docklands by billionaire tycoon Mr Desmond at a Tory Party fundraiser.

The former owner of the Express later made a 12,000 donation to the Conservative Party and was in text message contact with Mr Jenrick on November 18 last year after swapping numbers at the exclusive dinner.

The Cabinet minister later had to quash his own approval, conceding that the decision was 'unlawful' due to 'apparent bias'.

Giving evidence to MPs, Mr Jenrick denied rushing through the application to save Mr Desmond money, but added: 'I think this could have been handled differently and I regret that I was sat next to the applicant at a dinner in November.

Facing the Housing Committee this morning he attacked critics of his decision accusing his critics of being 'extremely unfair and in most cases a willful misreading of events'

He approved the upmarket development just before it would have been eligible for a local development levy to fund schemes in one of the poorest parts of London Docklands

'I have also made clear that I had no idea that I was going to be sat next to him or his associates until I took my seat at the table.

'That is, to some extent, an occupational hazard of being a planning minister because people do approach you to discuss applications - not just developers but local councils, members of the public and indeed MPs.'

But he added: 'I believe it was the right decision to approve the application. I believed there is a great challenge across the country and particularly in London to build more homes. If we are going to do that it is right that we prioritise brownfield sites.'

Whistleblowers claim the Housing Secretary rode roughshod over warnings from inside his own department to refuse an appeal by former Daily Express owner Richard Desmond, who wanted to build 1,500 luxury homes in a deprived part of East London.

In June he was forced to release a cache of documents relating to the Westferry Printworks saga and admitted making mistakes.

Mr Jenrick's decision to give the green light to the Westferry development was challenged in the High Court over the 'appearance of bias' and he did not contest the case.

He told Mps this morning officials in his department 'were aware of events' surrounding the Westferry application and 'at no point did anybody advise me to recuse myself'.

He said: 'There was no meeting with the applicant, I encountered him at a dinner. He mentioned the application, I told him that it was not appropriate to discuss it and I didn't pass any comment.

'The department were aware that I was going to the dinner, the department were aware that there was a suggestion of going on a site visit... I discussed it with my officials, as to whether it was wise to go on a site visit in light of the nature of the application, in light of the fact that I had sat next to the applicant at a dinner, and my officials advised me that on balance they thought it wasn't and so we declined it.'

The Housing Secretary told MPs that he was 'acting entirely within both the actual rules and the spirit of the rules'.
We are so excited about the opportunities that VIAA brings to our agency, and Lances background and expertise complement our agency and clients needs, Nelson said. We look forward to Insurance Plus providing the same commitment and dedication that Accounting Plus has offered to the community for over 30 years.

The ability to partner with such a well-respected company within our community made the decision to merge very attractive, Hall said. I look forward to working with both current and future clients of Accounting Plus for many years to come.

VIAA is a network of more than 130 independent insurance agencies in Missouri and Illinois, and is the regional founding member of the Strategic Insurance Agency Alliance (SIAA). VIAA generates more than $250 million in annual written premium.
The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has denied allegations of brutalities against residents of the Volta Region.

The attention of the Ghana Armed Forces has once again been drawn to allegations of military personnel deployed along the borders in the Volta Region intimidating residents, entering their homes and preventing them from registering in the ongoing voters registration exercise, a statement from GAF read.

According to the security agency, its checks and verifications from sources prove that the accusations are false and unfounded.

Military personnel have been sent to some border towns in the country, one of which is the Volta Region.

Even though the Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul has stated that the deployment is to secure Ghana's borders against the importation of COVID-19 due to the illegal entry of foreigners into the country, the opposition New Democratic Congress (NDC) is of the view that the presence of the military in the regions known to be NDC strongholds is to intimidate residents to prevent them from registering for the new voters' ID card.

There have been several reports from residents and chiefs in the region, accusing these security officers of assaulting residents and causing fear among them.

But the Ghana Armed Forces in an initial statement stressed that this issue has been investigated, and no soldier has been involved in any such act.

In this recent release, the security agency said its troops have conducted themselves with professionalism and maintained a posture of non-violence and intimidation.

---citinewsroom
At least 27 people were killed within a 24-hour period between 19 and 20 July in attacks by armed assailants of Fulani ethnicity on communities in southern Kaduna state.

On 20 July approximately nine people were killed and an unknown number were injured and displaced following an attack on Gora Gan village in Zangon Kataf Local Government Area (LGA) which occurred at around 7.00pm.

On 19 July Fulani assailants armed with guns and machetes attacked a wedding reception at a home in Kukum Daji village in the Kaura LGA at around 10.30pm, killing 15 and injuring around 30 people. Most of the victims were young people. Several survivors received treatment in medical facilities in Kafanchan, while others were transported to Barau Dikko Hospital in Kaduna metropolis, where three later died, raising the death toll to 18.

Victims of the attack on Kukum Daji. Credit: CSW-Nigeria.

According to local reports, the attack on Kukum Daji was one of several on locations in Kaura LGA. Kagoro, Manchok and Malugum were also attacked; however, there is no accurate information on the number of casualties. Prior to these attacks, on 20 June, the Kaura Youth Coalition and National Association of Takad Youths issued a press statement warning of the presence of some 600 heavily armed militia men in the Zangang Hills. Although the Kaduna State Government sent soldiers to search parts of the area, both the commissioner of internal security, Samuel Aruwan, and Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai later dismissed the report as false.

The attacks are a part of a campaign of violence targeting communities in southern Kaduna which has been ongoing since January 2020, and is characterised by murder, looting, rape, abductions for ransom and forced displacement. Last week at least 22 people were killed and over 1000 were displaced in a series of attacks on communities in Zangon Kataf LGA between 10 and 12 July. The attacks continued for three days despite a significant military presence in the area.

In a statement issued on 20 July, the Adara Development Association highlighted an attack by Fulani assailants on Mai-ido and neighbouring villages in Kachia LGA that took place on 16 July, in which 32 people were abducted and 4 people were killed, including John Auta, Danjuma Bala and Christopher Ayuba.

Victims of the attack on Kukum Daji. Credit: CSW-Nigeria.

Subsequently on 17 July, Mr. Ayuba Bulus from Doka Avong Village in Kajuru LGA was murdered on his farm. Later that day, Fulani assailants looted and destroyed property in the nearby Efele settlement, and hacked to death Gloria Shagari, 25, her children Dorcas, 6, and Faith, 3, and Hussaini Daudu, 40. Another victim, Baptist church leader Reverend Thomas M. Gambo, remains in hospital in a critical condition.

The failure of state and federal governments to address the violence in Nigerias central states adequately has contributed to an alarming rise in deadly rural banditry involving armed men of Fulani extraction that is impacting severely on Hausa Muslim communities in north western states. On 19 July, at least 23 Nigerian troops were ambushed and killed in forest area in Jibia LGA, Katsina State as they were on their way to clear a terrorist camp from Shimfida village. The ambush occurred amidst a growing terrorist presence in the area.

In a video released in January, entitled Response to polytheistic Nigerian Army, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau spoke in Kanuri, Arabic and Hausa as usual, but also added messages in the Fulani language, Fulfude. In a video released in early July, an armed group in Niger State in northwest declared its allegiance to Shekau, and a week before the ambush the Nigerian newspaper HumAngle revealed he had also cemented alliances with armed groups in Zamfara state in the north west, and was in the process of formalising relations with groups in Katsina and Sokoto states, also in the northwest, and in Adamawa, Kogi and Taraba states in central Nigeria. Shekau has also secured the allegiance of armed groups in Cameroon, Chad and the Republic of Niger.

Chief Executive of CSW-Nigeria and General Secretary of the Evangelical Church Winning All, Reverend Yunusa Nmadu, visits victims of the attack on Kukum Daji. Credit: CSW-Nigeria

CSWs Chief Operating Officer Scot Bower said: CSW is dismayed by the relentless attacks in southern Kaduna, and we extend our deepest condolences to those who have lost loved ones and livelihoods. It is deeply disturbing that perpetrators continue to operate with impunity. Worse still, the failure or unwillingness of those in authority to address these and other non-state actors and to secure ungoverned spaces, has not only allowed the violence to mutate, but has also created an environment in which Boko Haram can extend its operations. Nigerias increasing security vacuum is a threat to the nation and region. We therefore reiterate our call for international pressure on both the state and federal authorities to fulfil their duty of care towards all citizens regardless of creed or ethnicity, and to fully resource the armed forces, enabling them to secure the nation before it is too late. We also repeat our call for the UN Human Rights Council to convene a special session on the human rights situation in central Nigeria, with particular focus on current violations in the southern Kaduna area and Plateau State.
Citywide, Bayview

Photo: Eric Fischer/Flickr

At an SFMTA board meeting on Tuesday, transportation director Jeffrey Tumlin said his agency has seen "a significant uptick of fatalities" in the last couple of weeks, with multiple pedestrians and cyclists killed on the city's streets.

Most notably, the city has seen two pedestrian deaths over the past month in Bayview/Portola  both along the same Highway 101-adjacent corridor where beloved local grocer Konstantinos Gus Vardakastanis was struck and killed by a driver in 2017.

On Sunday, Michael Kingsley, 50, was killed by a hit-and-run driver at Jerrold Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard  just blocks from where Vardakastanis met the same fate, at Jerrold Avenue and Toland Street.

That follows the June 18 death of Sergio Montes, 60, at Dwight Street and San Bruno Avenue in Portola.

The driver who allegedly killed Kingsley, 21-year-old Nifo Ufau, later turned himself in to Bayview police. He's been arrested on charges of speeding, hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter.

The unidentified driver who killed Montes remained at the scene of the collision, and was not arrested.

Michael Kingsley died at Jerrold Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard on Sunday afternoon. | Image: Google Maps

All three of the deadly intersections have been identified as high-injury corridors under the city's Vision Zero plan, which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities by 2024.

In response to Montes' death, Tumlin said the SFMTA is planning to make changes at Dwight and San Bruno, which he describes as an "odd, offset intersection." They include improving signage, refreshing some of the red zones, extending the daylight areas and retiming the signals.

The agency is also conducting an evaluation of Jerrold Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard, the site of Sunday's hit-and-run.

"A lot can be done quickly to prevent crashes using simple paint and posts," said Jodie Medeiros, executive director of pedestrian advocacy organization Walk San Francisco. "People who live, work, and walk near highways face serious safety and health risks."

Story continues

SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin gives a report about Vision Zero. | Screenshot: sfgovtv.org

Kingsley wasn't the only San Franciscan killed on the city's streets this weekend. As we reported, a skateboarder attempting a "hill bomb" at Dolores and 20th streets collided with a cyclist on Friday afternoon, injuring both.

The cyclist, 23-year-old Andrew Sanders, died of his injuries on Sunday. The skateboarder is expected to survive. The SFMTA has already installed speed bumps at the intersection, to prevent further attempts at the hill bomb.

Tumlin also noted a third Vision Zero death in July  a man in a wheelchair who was struck and killed by a driver at Van Ness Avenue and Grove Street on July 10. (Police originally said the victim was a cyclist, but spokespeople for the SFMTA and SFPD confirmed today that the original statement was in error.) The agency will also be looking into changes at that intersection.

"We dont need anyone else to die to show how urgently the most dangerous streets must be fixed," Medeiros said.

Speed bumps installed on Dolores Street near Dolores Park. | Photo: Teresa Hammerl/Hoodline

In the meantime, the agency is continuing construction on several preventative safety projects.

The Mission/Geneva Safety Project, which has brought new loading zones and pedestrian crossings to the Excelsior, is almost complete. And three new bike lanes are under construction  on the Embarcadero, the Third Street Bridge in Mission Bay and the Panhandle-adjacent section of Fell Street.
Agents from different components of the Department of Homeland Security are deployed to protect a federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 5, 2020. (Doug Brown via AP)

Oregon Senator Wants to Limit Using Federal Law Enforcement Officers for Crowd Control

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would limit the use of federal law enforcement officers for crowd control and require the officers to openly display their ID and not use unmarked vehicles while making arrests.

I will be putting forward legislation on the Defense Authorization Act thats on the floor of the Senate right now to try to force a debate on this and say, listendeployment has to be limited to the federal property, Merkley told NPR on July 18.

You have to label who you are with, what agency you represent. You have to have a unique identifier, so if there is bad actions, you have some way of knowing who that individual was, that you cannot use unmarked vans and that if you are beyond the boundaries of federal property, you have to have the permission of the mayor or the governor, he added.

Merkley and other Oregon lawmakers have criticized the Trump administration for sending in federal law enforcement and using unmarked vans to pick up and detain protesters on the streets of Portland, Oregon.

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, confirmed on Monday that officers have been using unmarked cars to pick up protestors in Portland.

In the one instance Im familiar with, they believed they had identified someone who had assaulted officers or a positiona federal building there, the courthouse. Upon questioning, they determined they werethey did not have the right person, and that person was released, Cuccinelli told NPR.

Im not speaking to the number of times it has happened. Im telling you what theyre doing in terms of a process. And I fully expect that as long as people continue to be violent and to destroy property that we will attempt to identify those folks. We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere, said Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli said it is the responsibility of the federal government to prevent the destruction of federal property.

The legal justification is that they are people suspected of damaging or attacking federal personnel or property. Thats the justification. Thats the basis for jurisdiction, added Cuccinelli.

Oregon lawmakers on July 17 demanded the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offices of Inspector General investigate the presence and what they said was violent actions of federal forces in Portland.

We demand not only that these acts end, but also that they remove their forces immediately from our state. Given the egregious nature of the violations against Oregonians, we are demanding full investigations by the Inspectors General of these departments, Merkley said in a statement.

Another bill related to curbing the power of law enforcement officers was voted down by the Senate 51-49 on Tuesday. The legislation sought to significantly scale back Pentagon transfers of surplus military gear to civilian law enforcement in the wake of nationwide protests and riots that were triggered by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May.

Meanwhile, other Democrats are also introducing legislation that will require federal law enforcement officers to openly wear identification when on duty.

Federal law enforcement officers should have their identifying information displayed while on duty. This is basic. @EleanorNorton and I have introduced legislation to make it law, said freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in a tweet Monday.

The majority of Republicans have not spoken out about federal law enforcement officers using unmarked cars to arrest Portland protestors, except Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

We cannot give up liberty for security. Local law enforcement can and should be handling these situations in our cities but there is no place for federal troops or unidentified federal agents rounding people up at will, said Paul in a tweet Monday.

President Donald Trump promised Monday to send more federal personnel to major cities that are experiencing spikes in violence and are struggling to quell it.

He named New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, and potentially Oakland, California.
Nigeria might have got its first post-lockdown Covid-19 spread in domestic flight less than two weeks after it re-opened its airspace.

Multichoice CEO John Ugbe flew in to Abuja Tuesday to face the House committee investigating non-implementation of the pay-as-you go tariff by the satellite broadcasters and DSTV.

But Ugbe was unable to show up before the panel. He wrote the houe a letter stating he came down with an illness after he arrived Abuja Tuesday night.

Because of the abundance of caution needed to be taken in line with the current pandemic, we believe it is necessary that the meeting be deferred until he has regained his health and is cleared by his medical doctor,  his letter, signed by Gozie Onumonon, head of regulatory affairs, read in part.

The House of Representatives then ordered the NCDC Director-General Ihekweazu Chikwe to fish out the sick CEO, test him for covid-19, and trace out all his contacts since he arrived Abuja.

There were fears before the federal government lifted the ban imposed on domestic flight that the covid-19 virus spreading across communities might be escalated if control protocols are not duly observed.
This year has been a year unlike any other. January 2020 saw a series of disastrous bushfires in NSW and Victoria. Smoke blanketed our city skylines as firefighters tried to keep the raging fires from breaking containment lines across our states.

The sky in Mallacoota turned blood red on January 4, when a south-westerly wind change fanned flames. Mike and his daughter Elsie were still trapped in the tiny coastal town five days after the first fire ripped through. Credit:Justin McManus

With the help of several of our regular contributors, our staff photographers covered the bushfire emergencies from several locations. Joe Armao captured the fire disaster from Wangaratta to Bairnsdale, Eddie Jim was in the Alpine regions and other parts of Gippsland and Justin McManus made it into Mallacoota via boat with a Nine news crew just as the sky turned dark red.

When he arrived he found holidaymakers stranded at the waters edge as the fires bore down on local beaches. McManus caught the tense army and navy operation to evacuate hundreds of people.
On Friday, well see the first official Friday prayers in the Hagia Sophia after 86 years. This follows Turkish President Recep Erdogans decree that the building be reverted back to a mosque, following a Turkish court decision revoking a 1934 order designating it a museum.

Completed in 537 AD, the majestic building was the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church for 900 years with a brief tenure as a Catholic cathedral in the 13th century. It also served as the Byzantine imperial court in the city of Constantinople. It was converted to a mosque in 1453 after Fatih Sultan Mehmed II routed the Byzantines.

The Ottomans added to the grandeur for the next 500 years, but they also plastered over Orthodox symbols and artwork. It served as the main mosque in the newly renamed city of Istanbul until completion of the Blue Mosque in 1616.

With the fall of the Ottomans, the iconic building was transformed into a museum in 1934 by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who closed all religious institutions as part of his secularization drive.

With the Muslim religious revival and the rise of political Islam, calls to reconvert it into a mosque began a few decades ago. Framing it as a national sovereignty matter, Turkish nationalists joined in and large groups began regularly demonstrating at the building every May 29, the anniversary of the conquest.

Active opposition from Greece, a sworn enemy, which has converted hundreds of mosques to churches and restricts Muslim religious practices helped consolidate support across the political spectrum.

The calls reached a fevered pitch at the end of May, when the president hosted a grand show in the building featuring a qari reciting the Quran chapter titled the Conquest.

Erdogan championed the cause in his youth but remained mostly quiet on the issue since coming to power and even once publicly opposed the calls, asking supporters to fill the Blue Mosque next door first.

He changed his tune before the March 2019 Istanbul municipal elections when polls predicted that his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party would lose. He promised the Hagia Sophia will be turned into a mosque in response to President Donald Trumps support of Israels declaration of Jerusalem as its capital.

Some have openly accused the president of caving into majoritarianism and to distract attention from the countrys economic woes and the pandemic.

The decision has also prompted international criticism, from religious and political leaders worldwide.

The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church based in Istanbul condemned the move. The Church in Russia, home to the worlds largest Orthodox Christian community as well Pope Francis, have made their objections known.

Some Muslim leaders have spoken out, but most have remained quiet fearing backlash. Though there is a strong basis to argue that this decision, like the Sultans initial decision to usurp the church, may conflict with Islamic rules. The prophet Muhammed made it clear that places of worship were not to be disturbed in war. Taking over goes well beyond disturbing.

In fact, this also goes against the precedent set by the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. According to historians, including Ibn Khaldun, after the surrender of Jerusalem to Umar in 638, Umar rejected the offer of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Caliph reportedly prayed outside and stated that he did not pray in the Church because he feared that Muslims may later claim it as a mosque.

The fact remains that building was a church at its inception and is now one of Turkeys most visited tourist destinations, attracting 3.7 million visitors a year and contains invaluable medieval mosaics and religious artifacts. The 1,500-year-old iconic, domed building is a UNESCO World Heritage site that Turkey could not do with as it pleases.

A wise decision following the footsteps of the prophet and the Caliph could have demonstrated a much needed example of Islamic pluralism and respect for human rights, cultural rights, and international treaties. Turkish officials can still save face by continuing it as a museum of coexistence and designating prayer places for both Christians and Muslims in the building.

Correction - July 23, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled Turkish President Recep Erdogans given name.
Jimmy Barnes has revealed to fans that he was rushed to hospital and is fighting a mystery illness.

On Monday night, he stayed overnight in Sydney's St. Vincent Hospital after being taken there by his worried wife.

"I spent last night in ER at St Vincent Hospital and I want to thank the amazing staff who took care of me. This song (see next post) is for them and my best friend," he said on social media.
The mother of a 10-year-old girl from Iowa who has been missing for nearly two weeks believes her daughter, who was last seen at the home of a relative who is a registered sex offender, is still alive and is being held captive.

Breasia 'Bree' Terrell, from Davenport, vanished on July 10, after spending the night at the apartment of 47-year-old Henry Dinkins, her younger half-brother's biological father, and the man's girlfriend.

Police have called Dinkins a person of interest in Terrell's disappearance but he has not been charged in that case.

Breasia 'Bree' Terrell, 10, has been missing since July 10. She was last seen at the home of her half-brother's father, who is a sex offender

Aishia Lankford, Breasia's mother, is convinced her daughter is alive and is being held against her will

Dinkins is on the state sex offender registry for a third-degree sexual abuse conviction in 1990, when he was 17.

Dinkins is being jailed on charges that he violated the terms of his parole by failing to give authorities his latest address and having contact with minors.

Terrell's mother, Aishia Lankford, told NBC's Dateline she is convinced her daughter is still 'out there somewhere,' and her focus is on finding her and bringing her home.

Lankford said she believes Dinkins, the father of her eight-year-old son, holds the answers to finding her daughter.

She said when she spoke to him in jail last week, he broke down crying.

'I've known him for 11 years and I've never seen him show that kind of emotion. I know he knows something. I told him, 'You're never going to have a good night's sleep in that cell until she's home,' Lankford told the outlet.

On Monday, Davenport Police Chief Paul Sikorski said at the press conference that investigators continue to chase leads and are still hoping to find Terrell alive.

Henry Dinkins, 47, is on the state sex offender registry for a third-degree sexual abuse conviction in 1990. He is currently jailed on charges that he violated the terms of his parole

Authorities looking for the girl have called off an organized search in Clinton County, which began last week and included hundreds of volunteers.

Sikorski said investigators have determined their time would be better spent now following up on other leads they have developed.

'We all want to find her alive,' Sikorski said. 'That is what our intent is as we continue with the investigation.'

He said the investigation was proceeding 'full steam ahead' and still included the FBI and state and local agencies.

Lankford, Terrell's mother, said it all started when her daughter had decided to join her eight-year-old brother, Detorious, at a sleepover at his father's home in the 2700 block of East 53rd Street.

'She's close with her brother and wanted to hang out with him,' Lankford said. 'We had no reason to worry that anything bad would happen.'

The woman checked in on her children at night, and both told her they were having a good time playing video games.

'Bree texted me and said, "Good night, Mama, I love you,''' Lankford recalled. 'And that's the last time I heard from her.'

The following morning, the mother got a call from Dinkins, saying he woke up to find Breasia gone.

Lankford said at first she thought it was a joke, because it did not make sense that her 10-year-old daughter would leave in the middle of the night.

Police have released photos of Dinkins' 2007 maroon Chevy Impala (left), a Chevy Camaro (center) and a 1980 motorhome (right)

Last week, police issued an Amber Alert for Terrell, identifying Dinkins as her 'abductor.'

Terrell is described as 4-foot-5 and weighing 75lbs, with black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, shorts and flip flops.

Anyone with information on the child's whereabouts is being asked to call (563) 326-6125.

Police have released photos of Dinkins' 2007 maroon Chevy Impala, a Chevy Camaro and a 1980 motorhome. They are asking anyone who might have encountered him between 10pm on July 9 and noon on July 10 to come forward.
Kevin Pratchett, 48, was found dead on March 13, 2003 at home on the 2500 block of Wright St. in Garys Black Oak section. His roommate found him, who left briefly that morning, according to Post-Tribune archives. Pratchetts throat had been slashed, police said.
Chennai, July 22 : In what could the first action of its kind, Tamil Nadu will be sending back a captive elephant long kept at a temple back to its home state Assam soon, said an animal rights activist.

"To a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the District Forest Office in Madurai has said Deivanai of Sri Subramaniya Swamy Temple, Thiruparankundram will be sent back to Assam," activist Anthony Clement Rubin told IANS.

Rubin said Deivanai was first at the temple for years and was later shifted to the Elephant Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in Tiruchirappalli last month.

Citing the reply to his RTI query, Rubin said Deivanai was shifted to the rehabilitation centre on June 1, due to its bad temper which had resulted in the death of its cavady (mahout's assistant) S. Kalidasan in May.

At the Trichy centre, Deivanai injured seriously another cavady Charan and he is in a hospital.

Another animal rights activist Deepak Nambiar of Elephas Maximus Indicus Trust (EMIT) told IANS that there are several unanswered questions in the whole issue.

"The dead Kalidasan's family is yet to get any compensation from the government. He is survived by his wife and a four-year-old child," Nambiar told IANS.

Nambiar also asked which arm of the Tamil Nadu government will pay the compensation to Kalidas' family and also to the seriously injured Charan and how did the state Forest Department miss out on tracking the permission letter and letting Deivanai continue staying at the temple for over three years.

Rubin said the temple had taken the elephant on lease from its owner in Assam.

According to the District Forest Office, Madurai, the ownership certificate was issued by the Assam government and the Tamil Nadu government has issued a certificate of permission to possess the elephant.

However, the certificate of possession had expired on April 29, 2017 and was not renewed.

Nambiar said Deivanai was originally named Prerona and owned by Lila Bora of Assam.

He also demanded that the M.R. Palayam Elephant Rescue Centre should release the CCTV footage of what happened on the evening when Charan was attacked by Deivanai.

Nambiar also wondered about the silence of the Project Elephant that is responsible for all captive elephants on the certificate or ownership details of the animal.

According to him, the dereliction of duties by the officials concerned has resulted in illegal elephants retained by religious institutions and death of human beings.

He alleged that the members of Tamil Nadu Captive Elephants Committee had visited the captive elephants only twice between 2016 and December 2019.

Nambiar also asked why the elephant was still at the temple when the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Chennai in 2014 had written to the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department saying that his Assam counterpart has given permission to sendPrerona/Deivanai to Sri Subramaniya Swamy Temple for a period of three years.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Mota Ventures Corp. (CSE:MOTA)(FSE:1WZ)(OTC PINK:PEMTF) (the "Company" or "Mota Ventures") is pleased to announce it has entered into a binding agreement (the "Transaction Agreement") dated July 21, 2020, with Franchise Cannabis Corp. ("Franchise") to form a joint venture in Europe ("European JV") to sell and market Franchise-manufactured CBD, hemp and cosmetic products in the European Union, Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom (the "JV Territory"). Sales of the custom manufactured products will be sold online utilizing the Company's eCommerce infrastructure.

Franchise is a leading European-focused cannabis and pharmaceutical distribution company based in Germany with two Good Distribution Practices (GDP) certified distribution facilities, exporting to over 18 countries and currently serving a network of over 1,500 pharmacies within Germany for medical cannabis sales.

"We are very excited to expand our eCommerce opportunities in Europe, as this has long been one of our strategic goals. Having a strong partner like Franchise to ensure consumers are provided with quality products is critical to success in the European market. Franchise is well positioned in Europe and has an established operating history in the cannabis industry. We believe this strategic joint venture will accelerate the expansion of our health and wellness platform in Europe." stated Ryan Hoggan, CEO of Mota Ventures.

Pursuant to the Transaction Agreement, Franchise has agreed to make a $500,000 equity investment into the Company through a private placement subscription of $0.28 per unit ("Units"). Each Unit will consist of one (1) common share of Mota Ventures (each, a "Share") and one (1) Share purchase warrant (each, a "Warrant"), with each Warrant entitling the holder to purchase one additional Share (each, a "Warrant Share") at a price of $0.38 per Warrant Share for a period of twenty-four (24) months from their date of issue. Mota Ventures will then make a $360,000 equity investment into the European JV, which will be used to develop the business operations of the European JV, including the initial funds to launch the Franchise products in Europe using the Company's eCommerce expertise. The private placement Shares will be subject to a four-month-and-one-day statutory hold period in accordance with applicable securities laws.

The parties' respective ownership interests in the European JV will be 50/50. Franchise will manage procurement and fulfillment of customer orders from its European manufacturing facilities. Mota Ventures will provide marketing and eCommerce operations infrastructure in the JV Territory. The parties will determine the appropriate products to launch sales and marketing initiatives and will provide further details in the coming weeks. The establishment of the European JV is subject to Franchise making the $500,000 investment in Mota Ventures and Mota purchasing a 50% interest in the European JV for $360,000.

"Ryan and his team are extremely smart and hard-working. They are unbelievable at launching new product lines into the market, and given our European presence and market knowledge, the Franchise and Mota Venture teams complement one another well. I have been a director and strategic shareholder of another eCommerce focused cannabis business that reached a billion-dollar market capitalization and I can attest that the Mota team is at a whole different level. We're very excited to launch into Europe and we expect the joint venture to be a great success." stated Clifford Starke, CEO of Franchise.

As Clifford Starke is a director of the Company, he abstained from voting on the resolutions approving the Transaction Agreement and declared his interests in Franchise to the board.

About Mota Ventures Corp.

Mota Ventures is an established natural health products and eCommerce technology company focusing on the CBD and psychedelic medicine sectors. The Company has a strong presence in both North America and Europe. In the United States, Mota Ventures offers a CBD hemp-oil product line derived from hemp grown and formulated in the US through its Nature's Exclusive brand. Within Europe, the Company's Verrian operations are currently conducting clinical studies utilizing proprietary products for the treatment of opiate addiction. The highly skilled Verrian team also manages Mota Ventures' 110,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Radebeul, Germany. In addition, Mota Ventures' Sativida brand of award winning 100% organic CBD oils and cosmetics are sold throughout Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. The Company is also seeking to acquire additional revenue-producing natural health product brands and operations in both Europe and North America with the goal of establishing an international distribution network utilizing its eCommerce technology platform.

About Franchise Cannabis Corp.

Franchise is a leading cannabis company in Europe, holding the first import and distribution license in Germany, Europe's largest market, and is one of the largest exporters of prescription pharmaceutical products in the European Union delivering to over 18 countries. Franchise has cultivation operations globally and the company's genetics division has won 18 Cannabis Cups and is a pioneer in product development.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MOTA VENTURES CORP.

Ryan Hoggan

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, readers are encouraged to contact Joel Shacker, President at +604.423.4733 or by email at IR@motaventuresco.com or www.motaventuresco.com

For more information on Franchise, please visit the company website at: www.franchisecannabis.com or email the company at info@franchisecannabis.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statement

All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including with respect to successful establishment and operation of the European JV, the completion of the Franchise equity investment of $500,000 into Mota Ventures and the $360,000 equity investment by Mota Ventures into the European JV. The Company provides forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited those identified and reported in the Company's public filings under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law.

SOURCE: Mota Ventures Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598366/Mota-Ventures-Announces-European-Expansion-Through-Joint-Venture-Agreement-with-Franchise-Cannabis
The Platinum Vape Family

- Platinum is a premium cannabis brand with a current annualized revenue run rate in excess of US $70,000,000 with EBITDA between 25%-30% without forward synergies of an additional estimated 7%-10%

- Platinum Vape products, including vapes, packaged flower, edibles and pre-rolls are sold at over 700 retailers in Michigan, California and Oklahoma

TORONTO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Red White & Bloom Brands Inc. (CSE: RWB and OTC: RWBYF) (RWB or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding letter of intent (the LOI) to acquire a group of California-based companies operating under the name Platinum Vape (Platinum Vape or Platinum) with an expected closing in the current quarter.

The acquisition of Platinum Vape is the first acquisition by RWB since going public and also marks RWBs entry into California, furthering the Companys strategic plan of expansion. Platinum Vape are purveyors of a full product line of premium cannabis products sold at over 700 retailers throughout Michigan, California and Oklahoma boasting an 84% rating (4.2/5) on WeedMaps.com.

Platinum was started 9 years ago by father and son duo, George and Cody Sadler. Fresh out of college, Cody convinced his Father to embark on what has become a storied journey ever since. Based on the principles of quality, hard work and customer service, they grew the business with no outside investors into one of the most successful and storied brands in the space today. With the success came numerous media stories and appearances with some of the most notable pieces being:

Story continues

Brad Rogers, Chairman & CEO of RWB, commented: George and Cody, the founders and operators of Platinum Vape, are visionaries in the cannabis market and have done an incredible job in building the pre-eminent vape company in the United States through commitment to quality, education, and the communities they serve. One of the things that struck me is the balance they have achieved in running a profitable successful business, which will add tremendously to RWB's top and bottom lines, while maintaining their commitment to supporting social issues, both financially and through awareness with the REACT program they established. As part of the RWB family, I look forward to supporting the growth of Platinum and the tradition of excellence established by Platinum and the incredible people that have made them a success.

George and Cody Sadler, Founders of Platinum Vape, commented: We at Platinum Vape are excited to have done such an amazing deal to integrate PV into the RWB family. Cody and I have been building the business for nine years so far and feel that RWB is the best place to continue not only the growth of PV for us, but for our family as well. We couldnt be happier with our decision.

The Platinum Vape Family

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/07c21646-2843-4260-ae35-919f7c089c93

Vape Cartridges

Platinum Vape offers a wide range of disposable and reusable vape cartridges as well as pods in a variety of strain-specific flavors and effects.

Chocolates

Platinum Vapes cannabis-infused chocolates are carefully crafted, palate driven creations that check all the right boxes. By combining the skills of a sophisticated chocolatier with seasoned cannabis experts, they were able to create a multi-faceted high that satisfies both your experience and your taste buds.

Gummies

Platinum Vapes Gummy Coins are not your average infused treat. Meticulously crafted on candy traditions of its German origins, each uniquely flavored gummy provides a delightfully chewy experience. Their reusable tins are filled with 20 Gummy Coins that contain 5mg THC, thus promoting convenience and portability.

Packaged Flower and Pre-rolls

Platinum Vapes indoor grown cannabis flower is cultivated to an unprecedented level of perfection. Their farming partners are masters at their craft to ensure cannabis flower that is unprocessed, pesticide-free, and lab tested. The traditions of growing, cutting, drying and curing are never rushed resulting in optimal consistency and high-potency cannabis. Available in both jars and pre-rolls, we categorize our strains under three effects: Indica, Sativa and Hybrid.

In the Community

Platinum uses its products to support a variety of social causes. Its REACT vape line uses the same cartridges and oils as its Platinum Vape products, but a portion of the proceeds goes to different charities. Thus far, the company has worked with organizations that support animal rescue, breast cancer awareness, suicide prevention, veterans, childrens hospitals, world hunger and LGBTQ pride.

Terms of the Transaction

Under the terms of the LOI, RWB and the securityholders of Platinum Vape will enter into a definitive agreement (the Definitive Agreement) pursuant to which RWB will acquire all of the ownership interests in Platinum Vape and Platinum Vape will become a wholly owned subsidiary of RWB in exchange for a total cash payment of US$35 million, consisting of US$7 million in cash payable at closing, a further US$13 million in cash payable within 120 days of closing and a US$15 million convertible note, only convertible after 12 months, payable on the third anniversary of closing. Additionally, the selling securityholders of Platinum Vape will be entitled to receive up to a further US$25 million on the first anniversary of closing, contingent on Platinum Vape achieving certain financial milestones.

Entering into the Definitive Agreement and closing of the transaction are conditional on satisfactory due diligence as well as other conditions customary in transactions of this nature, including receipt of regulatory approvals. The Company expects to sign the Definitive Agreement in August and close the transaction in September of 2020.

About Red White & Bloom Brands Inc.

The Company is positioning itself to be one of the top three multi-state cannabis operators active in the U.S. legal cannabis and hemp sector. RWB is predominately focusing its investments on the major US markets, including Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, and Florida with respect to cannabis, and the US and internationally for hemp-based CBD products.

About Platinum Vape

Platinum Vape is a conglomeration of cannabis companies with a passion to perfect an oil that is powerful, consistent, and desirable. It all begins with selecting the finest plants for extraction. Platinum Vapes farming partners are masters at their craft, ensuring a pesticide-free, high-potency cannabis flower. With its core values of honesty and transparency, Platinum Vape takes pride in bringing their superior range of products to its family of consumers in Michigan, Oklahoma and California.

For more information about Red White & Bloom Brands Inc., please contact:

Tyler Troup, Managing Director

Circadian Group IR

IR@RedWhiteBloom.com

Visit us on the web: www.RedWhiteBloom.com

Follow us on social media

Twitter: @rwbbrands

Facebook: @redwhitebloombrands

Instagram: @redwhitebloombrands

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This press release contains forward-looking statements and information that are based on the beliefs of management and reflect the Companys current expectations. When used in this press release, the words estimate, project, belief, anticipate, intend, expect, plan, predict, may or should and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements and information in this press release includes information relating to the implementation of the Companys business plan. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company with respect to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: risks associated with the implementation of the Companys business plan and matters relating thereto, risks associated with the cannabis industry, competition, regulatory change, the need for additional financing, reliance on key personnel, the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers or directors, and the volatility of the Companys common share price and volume. Forward-looking statements are made based on managements beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

There are a number of important factors that could cause the Companys actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by forward-looking statements and information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the Companys proposed business, such as failure of the business strategy and government regulation; risks related to the Companys operations, such as additional financing requirements and access to capital, reliance on key and qualified personnel, insurance, competition, intellectual property and reliable supply chains; risks related to the Company and its business generally. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of material factors is not exhaustive. When relying on the Companys forward-looking statements and information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. The Company has assumed a certain progression, which may not be realized. It has also assumed that the material factors referred to in the previous paragraph will not cause such forward-looking statements and information to differ materially from actual results or events. However, the list of these factors is not exhaustive and is subject to change and there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors. While the Company may elect to, it does not undertake to update this information at any particular time.

THE FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS PRESS RELEASE REPRESENTS THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE COMPANY AS OF THE DATE OF THIS PRESS RELEASE AND, ACCORDINGLY, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AFTER SUCH DATE. READERS SHOULD NOT PLACE UNDUE IMPORTANCE ON FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT RELY UPON THIS INFORMATION AS OF ANY OTHER DATE. WHILE THE COMPANY MAY ELECT TO, IT DOES NOT UNDERTAKE TO UPDATE THIS INFORMATION AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME EXCEPT AS REQUIRED IN ACCORDANCE WITH APPLICABLE LAWS.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. and VISALIA, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Suncrest Bank (OTCQX: SBKK) today announced that the company will host its second quarter earnings webcast on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. The company's second quarter earnings report will be released after the market closes on Monday, July 27, 2020.

WEBCAST DETAILS

Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Time: 11:00 AM EDT / 8:00 AM PDT

/ Webcast Registration (to view presentation and submit questions): https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/1963/36016

(to view presentation and submit questions): https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/1963/36016 Conference Dial-In (to listen only): Toll-Free: 844-369-8774

(to listen only): Toll-Free: 844-369-8774 Conference Call Name: Suncrest Bank Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Webcast

This will be a live and interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company written questions via the online platform in real-time. If investors are not able to join the event on the day of the conference, an on-demand archive will be available for 90 days.

It is recommended that investors pre-register via the link above and run the online system check to save time and receive event updates.

About Suncrest Bank

Suncrest Bank, member FDIC, offers a full range of commercial, small business and agribusiness loans, cash management services and personal deposit products throughout the Central Valley of California. It is regularly rated Five Stars by Bauer Financial as one of the nation's strongest financial institutions, and in 2017 and 2018 was named to the OTCQX Best 50, a ranking of top performing companies traded on the OTCQX Best Market. It is a Preferred Lender with the Small Business Administration and its stock can be purchased on the open market, trading on the OTCQX under the ticker symbol SBKK. For all other information, visit www.suncrestbank.com

SOURCE Suncrest Bank

Related Links

www.suncrestbank.com


Egypt's military said it killed 18 suspected Islamist militants in aerial and ground operations in the restive North Sinai region on Tuesday, as part of its battle to quell a long-running insurgency.

The army said in a statement that its forces succeeded in foiling "an attack by takfiri terrorist elements on one of the security complexes" in the town of Bir al-Abd.

Egyptian security officials use the term "takfiri" to designate extremist Islamist militants.

"In cooperation with the air force, security forces managed to chase the takfiri elements across a farm and in abandoned houses killing 18, including one wearing an explosive belt," the statement said.

Two military personnel were killed and four others wounded in Tuesday's operations in Bir al-Abd. Troops also destroyed four cars including three that were packed with explosives.

The town, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of North Sinai's capital al-Arish, has been the site of several terror attacks claimed by the Islamic State group including the deadliest attack in modern Egyptian history, in which more than 300 worshippers were gunned down in a mosque in 2017.

The late Tuesday statement came after videos surfaced on social media purportedly showing plumes of smoke, gunfire and residents screaming for their lives.

AFP could not verify the authenticity of the short clips posted online.

Security forces have been battling a hardened Islamist insurgency in Egypt's northeast Sinai Peninsula spearheaded by a local IS affiliate.

In February 2018, authorities launched a nationwide operation against Islamist militants, focused on North Sinai.

Around 990 suspected militants have been killed in the region along with dozens of security personnel, according to official figures.

(AFP)
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The intent of the devil "is to hinder the work of salvation, to ensure that the Kingdom of God is hindered by unjust workers, sowers of scandals". "This is always the devil or our temptation: when we fall into the temptation to gossip and to destroy others".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Pope Francis launched a fresh appeal at the Angelus calling for a "global and immediate ceasefire", which will allow the peace and security necessary to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance "to the populations suffering from the economic and social consequences of the pandemic "whose suffering is aggravated by situations of conflict. In this regard, he said he was still following "with concern the renewed tensions of armed conflict in the Caucasus region between Armenia and Azerbaijan in recent days. While - he continued - I assure you of my prayers for the families of those who lost their lives during the clashes, I hope that with the commitment of the international community and through dialogue and the goodwill of the parties, a lasting peaceful solution can be reached, which has the good of those beloved populations at heart."

Before the recitation of the Marian prayer, a few thousand people present in St. Peter's Square, Francis, commenting on the Gospel passage of the wheat and the chaff, returned to condemn "gossip" which destroys others.

With the parable, he underlined, Jesus helps us understand Gods patience, opening our hearts to hope. Jesus narrates that, in the field in which good seed was sown, weeds sprout as well. This term sums up all the toxic vegetation that infests the soil. . Among us - he added - we can say that even today the soil is infested with many herbicides and herbicides that are bad for the earth and for us too ".

A way of looking at history can be read in this parable. Alongside God  the master of the field  who only and always sows good seed, there is an adversary, who sows weeds to impede the wheats growth. The master acts in the open, in broad daylight, and his goal is a good harvest. The other, instead, takes advantage of the darkness of night to and works out of envy and hostility to ruin everything. The adversary has a name: it is the devil, Gods quintessential opponent. The devils intention is to hinder the work of salvation, to stonewall the Kingdom of God through wicked workers, sowers of scandal. In fact, the good seed and the weeds do not represent good and bad in the abstract, but we human beings, who can follow God or the devil."

"Often - he added - we heard that a family that was at peace, then wars began, envy ... a neighborhood that was at peace, then bad things started ... And we are used to saying: 'Eh, someone came there to sow weeds', or 'this person of the family, with small talk, sows weeds'. It is always to sow evil that destroys. And this always is the work of the devil or our temptation: when we fall into the temptation to gossip to destroy others ".

"The servants intention is to eliminate evil immediately, that is, evil people. But the master is wiser, he sees farther. They must learn to wait because enduring persecution and hostility is part of the Christian vocation. Certainly, evil must be rejected, but those who do evil are people with whom it is necessary to be patient. This does not mean that type of hypocritical tolerance that hides ambiguity; but rather, justice tempered by mercy. If Jesus came to seek sinners more than the righteous, to cure the sick first before the healthy (cf Mt 9:12-13), so must the actions of His disciples be focused not on suppressing the wicked, but on saving them.".

Today's Gospel presents two ways of acting and of living history: the masters vision on the one hand; the vision of the servants on the other. What the servants care about is a field without weeds; the master cares about good wheat. The Lord invites us to adopt His own vision, one that is focused on good wheat, that knows how to protect it even amidst the weeds. Those who are always hunting for the limitations and defects of others do not collaborate well with God, but, rather, those who know how to recognise the good that silently grows in the field of the Church and history, cultivating it until it becomes maturity. And then it will be God, and He alone, who will reward the good and punish the wicked. May the Virgin Mary help us understand and imitate Gods patience, who wants none of His children to be Lost, whom He loves with the love of a Father..
Babri mosque demolition trial: Manohar Joshi likely to depose on Thursday, Advani on Friday

India

pti-PTI

Lucknow, July 22: A special CBI court holding the 1992 Babri mosque demolition trial is likely to record the statement of 86-year-old BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi through video conference on Thursday. Special Judge S K Yadav earlier on Monday, while slating July 24 for recording the statement of former deputy prime minister LK Advani, 92, had also decided to record Joshis statement on July 23.

The Babri mosque demolition trial is presently at the stage of the recording of statements of 32 accused in the case under Section 313 of CrPC during which they also get an opportunity to refute the prosecution evidence against them. The court is conducting a day-to-day hearing in the case to complete its trial by August 31 as directed by the Supreme Court.

Babri case: Advani to depose on July 24; MM Joshi on July 23

BJP leader Uma Bharti had appeared in person earlier this month before the court to make her depositions in the case. In her testimony, she had accused the then Congress-led central government of implicating her in the case due to political vendetta. The mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992 by ''kar sevaks'' who claimed that an ancient Ram temple had stood on the same site.

Galwan martyr Colonel Babu's wife appointed Deputy Collector | Oneindia News

Advani and Joshi were leading the Ram temple movement at that time. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena leader Satish Pradhan, who was slated to depose in the case on Wednesday, failed to appear before the court because he has tested positive for COVID-19 and was advised to take complete rest in isolation.

Considering Pradhans ailment, the court fixed July 28 as the next date for his deposition. The court also issued an order for the attachment of accused Om Prakash Pandeys property. He was declared a proclaimed offender earlier by the court after repeated non-bailable warrants issued to arrest him could not be executed. Pandey is said to have become a seer 15-16 years ago and his whereabouts are not known, the CBI had told the court earlier.
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A line of NYPD officers dressed in riot gear cleared out the last of the Occupy City Hall protesters from their month-long encampment in lower Manhattan early Wednesday.

The officers moved in at 3.40am, pushing around 70 remaining occupants  said to be a mixture of activists and homeless  north on Centre Street to Foley Square, where the crowd began to disperse.

Police said they gave the occupants a 10 minute warning before the Defund the Police activists 'left voluntarily'.

In total, seven people were taken into custody during the operation but charges are still pending.

One officer was injured after being struck by a brick, police said. Whether any protesters suffered injuries could not immediately be confirmed by the department.

A line of NYPD officers dressed in riot gear cleared out the last of the Occupy City Hall protesters from their month-long encampment in lower Manhattan early Wednesday

The officers moved in at 3.40am, pushing around 70 remaining occupants  said to be a mixture of activists and homeless  north on Centre Street to Foley Square, where the crowd began to disperse

Police said they gave the occupants a 10 minute warning before the Defund the Police activists 'left voluntarily'.

ABC 7 observed two people being taken into custody. One man also appeared to have suffered a medical condition and was taken away in an ambulance.

After successfully moving the crowd on, the officers then began to take down the makeshift tents and remnants of the encampment, which first began on June 23 as a protest for police reform in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.

Video footage captured the moment the officers, donning heavy gear, moved in on protesters who were heard chanting as they approached.

ABC 7 observed two people being taken into custody. One man also appeared to have suffered a medical condition and was taken away in an ambulance.

The NYPD temporarily shut down the near-by Brooklyn Bridge while they carried out the operation.

The goal of the Occupy City Hall demonstration  similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011  had been to secure at least a $1 billion cut from the NYPD budget.

After the reform was approved by City Hall earlier this month, and signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio last week, organizers of the protests and many of its members left. Only a few stayed, with the majority of the crowd made up by homeless people.

Video footage captured the moment the officers, donning heavy gear, moved in on protesters who were heard chanting as they approached

After successfully moving the crowd on, the officers then began to take down the makeshift tents and remnants of the encampment

Tents are seen strewn out across the floor out-front City Hall as clean up crews prepare for weeks of work ahead

The encampment first began on June 23 as a protest for police reform in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor

A line of NYPD officers line the street near City Hall to deter protesters from returning

One officer was injured after being struck by a brick, police said. Any injuries to protesters could not immediately be confirmed by the department

De Blasio's administration has long stated homeless encampments are no longer permitted in the city, and had been closely monitoring the encampment to determine if it was still operating as some form of protest.

The mayor stated on Tuesday that he had no immediate plans to shut down the encampment.

'That decision will be made by the NYPD as things emerge. We're looking at the situation every day,' he said at a press conference.

'We're trying to assess regularly,' he continued. 'It's an American value to respect the right to protest. I've also said we don't allow encampments around this city.'

However, hours later de Blasio approved the operation, which has long been planned by the NYPD. The mayor has not yet spoken out about the overnight action.

The park outside City Hall will now be on lockdown for weeks as clean-up crews move in to clear debris and graffiti from nearby buildings and statues.

The goal of the Occupy City Hall demonstration  similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011  had been to secure at least a $1 billion cut from the NYPD budget

The park outside City Hall will now be on lockdown for weeks as clean-up crews move in to clear debris and graffiti from nearby buildings and statues

A sanitation crew is seen jet-washing graffiti off of the side walk on Wednesday morning, with colored scrawl covering much of the street

The mayor stated on Tuesday that he had no immediate plans to shut down the encampment but signed off on the order hours later

Clean up crews are seen scrubbing the outside of a Subway booth on Wednesday
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas each shared strong views on social media Wednesday about the United States government abruptly ordering China to "cease all operations and events" at its consulate in Montrose yesterday.

In a tweet alluding to Sundays social media scuffle between Cruz and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban over players kneeling during the anthem, one Twitter user posted, "Everyone needs to calm down. The Chinese are just moving to their new consulate in Dallas."

"Fair point," Cruz tweeted.

"China's consulate in Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States, Rubio said in the first of two tweets Wednesday. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen.

"Houston consulate is a massive spy center, forcing it to close is long overdue," Rubio said in the second tweet.

Cornyn retweeted Rubio's initial tweet.

Tensions between Beijing and Washington have been growing for months over a trade war, the coronavirus pandemic, and US criticism of China's human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

Last week, China targeted four U.S. officials for sanctions, including Rubio and Cruz, in response to a similar decision made by the Trump administration in July against four officials in China.

The State Department said in a statement that the closure was in response to repeated Chinese violations of American sovereignty, including massive illegal spying and influence operations, according to the New York Times.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has called the order to close the Montrose-area Chinese consulate an "unprecedented escalation" in recent actions taken by Washington, the New York Times reported.

On Tuesday night, Houston police tweeted that they responded to reports of smoke in the courtyard outside the consulate building at 3417 Montrose Blvd., but were not allowed inside.

Local media shared video of what appeared to be consulate employees burning documents.

A spokesperson for the State Department said in a statement that China "has engaged for years in massive illegal spying and influence operations, which have increased markedly in scale and scope over the past few years, according to the New York Times.

Via its official social media platform, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reportedly said the order to close the consulate was a "political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US."
Wunderkinds, even those who deservedly stick around a long time, dont seem to age normally. Zadie Smiths presence will always carry a significant memory of the 24-year-old who published White Teeth to international acclaim. But, being subject to the space-time continuum, Smith is in her mid-40s now, and has the temperament and perspective of someone who could be (a compliment, in this case) 105.

Its never a boom time for wisdom  almost by definition; if it were more common, it wouldnt be valued so highly  but this is an especially arid era for it. Were in the Age of Certainty, at least in the bellowing of its various constituents. And maybe thats fine; maybe some times are just for fighting ideological fire with ideological fire. But polemic is too generous a word for the dominant cultural tone.

All of which makes Smith feel especially out of time. In the very brief foreword to her first book of essays, Changing My Mind, she wrote: Ideological inconsistency is, for me, practically an article of faith. That faith doesnt seem to have wavered in the 10 years since that book was published. Intimations, her slender new collection (less than 100 pages) of ultra-timely essays (several written in the past few momentous months), showcases her trademark levelheadedness.

This cast of mind doesnt mean that Smith avoids moral stances. In Intimations, she speaks clearly and forcefully about the murder of George Floyd and the legacy of slavery and the systemic sins revealed by Covid-19. The virus map of the New York boroughs turns redder along precisely the same lines as it would if the relative shade of crimson counted not infection and death but income brackets and middle-school ratings, she writes. Death comes to all  but in America it has long been considered reasonable to offer the best chance of delay to the highest bidder.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. The Constitution of Armenia provides a two-month period to the Constitutional bodies for nominating candidates for the Constitutional Court judges, Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan told reporters at a briefing.

This two-month period is already going on, which means that the Constitutional bodies will start presenting candidates in the nearest future, he said.

On July 22 Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan signed the law, adopted by the Parliament on June 3, on making changes and amendments to the Law on the Constitutional Court.

Now the Law must be published in the official bulletin and will enter into force from that moment, the Speaker said.

On June 30 the Parliament adopted the bill submitted by the ruling My Step faction which sets a pension for the judges of the Constitutional Court whose powers have been suspended based on the recent changes. After the adoption of the bill President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian announced that he would not sign it.

On June 22 the Parliament adopted the bill on the Constitutional amendments submitted by a group of the ruling My Step faction MPs, which proposes to replace the Constitutional Court President and those judges of the Court which have served no less than 12 years. The Constitutional amendments have entered into force. Hrays Tovmasyan is no longer the President of the Constitutional Court, and the powers of three judges of the Court  Felix Tokhyan, Hrant Nazaryan and Alvina Gyulumyan have been suspended. The three new judges of the Court must be elected within two months.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
AS Limerick's 500 members of the Travelling community celebrated Traveller Pride Week, members of the community here were being encouraged to learn more about traditions and culture of this distinct Irish ethnic minority.

The two-week long event is being streamed online to adhere to government public health guidelines and concludes on this Friday July 24.

The theme of this year's pride week is: Recognising diversity and pride within the Traveller community.

One of the easiest ways to get involved in the celebration is to post a selfie holding a sign that states "Minceir Ally and Proud" with the hashtag #DiversityWithin.

Minceir [pronounced Min-ker] means Traveller in the Shelta language, the indigenous tongue of Travellers.

Limerick County Social Democrats were the first branch of a political party to announce their support for the event.

They tweeted "Happy #TravellerPride 2020 to all our friends in the Traveller community celebrating #PrideWithin!

Ailis Ni Chofaigh, the chairperson of Limerick County Social Democrats believes it's important for political parties to speak up and speak out for Traveller Rights.

"Here in county Limerick we have a number of Traveller communities and we want them to know we stand with them. We need politics to be accessible to all.

You cannot be anti-racist while actively discriminating against our indigenous people." Ailis said.

Ailis outlines how important it is for the settled community to get involved and learn about Minceiri culture.

"Traveller history is missing from our education system and is something we must address. All aspects of our society must be inclusive of Travellers and a great start to that is education.

I'm raising my son Elliot to be a Traveller ally, to be inclusive of the diversity in our society and always be anti-discrimination and anti-racism." Ailis concluded.

Anne Marie Quilligan is an active member of the Limerick County Social Democrats and a proud Minceir woman.

Anne Marie believes that Traveller Pride Week will identify positive role models for young children to look up to, regardless of their ethnicity.

Outside of my family, I did not see positive Traveller role models. Travellers are often portrayed in a false and negative light in the media.

Particularly when they see and learn about Travellers such as activist Nan Joyce, first Traveller Senator Eileen Flynn, Dr. Hannagh McGinley, Dr. Sindy Joyce, comedian and writer Martin Beanz Warde and so many more. Our children cannot be what they cannot see. Anne Marie said.

Anne Marie believes that other political parties should follow Social Democrats' lead and publically support Traveller Pride and Traveller wellbeing in general.

I believe political support is crucial. However, it should be a genuine commitment and not a tokenistic gesture, which effectively costs Travellers lives.

Travellers make up 1% of the general population in Ireland but account for 9% of the homeless population. A recent workplace survey identified that 42% of respondents would be unhappy to work with Travellers, therefore Travellers have to hide their identity in order to secure employment. Is it any wonder 11% of Traveller deaths are due to suicide? Anne Marie added.

Check out Traveller Pride Week 2020 on Facebook to get involved and watch the livestreams and events.

Traveller Pride boasts a diverse array of events celebrating Traveller culture including live music, panel discussions and traditional storytelling, concluding this Friday.
By ANI

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said his administration is willing to work with anybody, including China, if they are the first to produce a successful COVID-19 vaccine.

"We are willing to work with anybody that's going to get us a good result," Trump said on Tuesday when asked whether he would be ready to work with China if it were first to develop a vaccine.

Trump noted that progress is being made in the United States regarding COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccine development.

ALSO READ | US doing maximum COVID-19 tests, says Trump as CDS data suggests virus spread more than 10 times higher in country

"We're doing very well with vaccine development and therapeutic development," he said.

Trump also said a potential vaccine is going to arrive much sooner than expected and become available immediately as the US military will assist in distributing it.

The novel coronavirus pandemic started in China last December in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province. The United States has criticized China for initially hiding the extent of the spread of the virus. Trump has claimed that China's influence in the World Health Organization allowed the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan to morph into a global pandemic when the disease should have been contained within China.
ALBANY, N.Y., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The efficiency of thermal transfer labels, when compared to other labels in diverse aspects, may bring exponential growth for the thermal transfer labels market during the forecast period of 2019-2025. The thermal transfer labels market may garner considerable momentum on the back of technological advancements throughout the printing industry. Digital printing technology used for printing thermal transfer labels may help in enhancing the image quality and invite great growth prospects.

Based on the aforementioned parameters, the global thermal transfer labels market was valued at ~US$ 2 bn in 2019 and is prognosticated to expand at a CAGR of 5.5% across the forecast period of 2019-2025 according to the analysts at Transparency Market Research (TMR).

The increasing adoption of thermal transfer labels across various end-user industries like food and beverages, industrial goods and products, retail labels, tracking, logistics and transportation, healthcare, and others may serve as robust pillars of growth for the thermal transfer labels market between 2019 and 2025.

Download PDF Brochure  https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php

Thermal Transfer Labels Market: Major Insights

The demand for barcodes to streamline the process and tracking of shipments may garner expansive growth for the thermal transfer labels market during the forecast period

Supportive government policies to serve as a prominent growth generator for the thermal transfer labels market

Demand for thermal transfer labels in the healthcare sector is observing impressive growth; these labels are mainly used for patient ID systems, leading to minimal medical errors

Developing economies like India and China have a large base of retail markets, which can help in the growth of the thermal transfer labels market; this aspect underpins a good growth rate for the thermal transfer labels market

Explore 170 pages of in-depth research, incisive insights, and detailed country-level projections. Analyze and discover the latest developments in the Thermal Transfer Labels Market (Material: Paper, Polyester, Polypropylene, Polyethylene, and Others; Printer Type: Desktop, Industrial, and Mobile; Application: Food & Beverages, Healthcare, Tracking, Logistics, and Transportation, Industrial Goods & Products, Semiconductor & Electronics, Retail Labels, and Others) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2019  2025 at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/thermal-transfer-label-market.html

Thermal Transfer Labels Market: Growth Boosters

Thermal transfer labels play a major role in broadcasting branding and business communication. This aspect may bring great growth prospects for the thermal transfer labels market.

Thermal transfer labels aid in protecting the products from counterfeiting and serve as an important growth propeller for the thermal transfer labels market

The encouragement by various countries to adopt eco-friendly labeling and packaging solutions across almost all industries may help the thermal transfer labels market garner extra stars of growth

The immense expansion of the retail sector across the globe may assist in bringing great growth prospects for the thermal transfer labels market during 2019-2025

Sustainable thermal transfer labels may be the next big thing in the thermal transfer labels market; numerous companies have already started manufacturing and distribution of such labels

Request the Covid19 Impact Analysis across Thermal Transfer Labels Industries and Markets

How do Regulatory Legislations Restrain Growth of Thermal Transfer Labels Market?

Governments of various countries are implementing regulations on label and packaging regarding information disclosure. The regulatory legislations urge manufacturers in the packaging and labeling sector to strictly adhere to the guidelines issued by them. This aspect limits the scope of marketing objectives of product manufacturers, businesses, or brands. Therefore, it impacts the growth of the thermal transfer labels market in a negative manner.

In addition, information disclosure regulations also affect the design pattern flexibility greatly. Hence, this factor serves as a major growth obstacle for the thermal transfer labels market and limits its growth potential.

Purchase Premium Research Report on Thermal Transfer Labels Market at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php

The global thermal transfer labels market can be segmented as follows:

By Material

Paper

Polyester

Polypropylene

Polyethylene

Others

By Printer Type

Desktop

Industrial

Mobile

By Application

 Food & Beverages

 Healthcare

 Tracking, Logistics, and Transportation

 Industrial Goods & Products

 Semiconductor & Electronics

 Retail Labels

 Others

By Region

North America

Latin America

Europe

Asia Pacific Excl. Japan

Japan

Middle East & Africa

Explore Transparency Market Research's award-winning coverage of the Global Packaging Industry :

Labels Market  The labels market is at the cusp of some very significant changes and these are taking it on a high growth trajectory over the period of 2019 to 2027. Technology plays a key role in propelling growth in the market and determine market share for players operating the playfield. Some of the factors that are massive contributors to growth is going demand for pressure sensitive labels owing to their cost and versatility and increasing efficacy  an outcome of aggressive and proactive measures from players.

Waterproof and Weatherproof Label Market  The market for waterproof and weatherproof labels is expected to grow at a steady rate over the coming years. Transparency Market Research forecasts that the CAGR for the period between 2017 and 2025 would settle at 5.0%. The market that was valued at US$16.09 billion in 2017 is anticipated to escalate to a value of US$23 billion by 2025. Based on the printing technology, the market is segmented into thermal printed labels digital printed labels, flexographic printed, and lithographic printed labels.

Functional and Barrier Coatings for Paper Market  Functional and barrier coatings are applied on paper with various barrier and functional materials to enhance the performance of paper. Functional and barrier coatings provide barrier to oil, water vapors, grease, and enhance printing capabilities of paper & paperboard products. Paper & paperboard are prominently used for foodservice disposables, printing, and packaging applications. Consumers demand products that are clean, dry, and damage-free.

Droppers Market  Droppers are used for accurately dispensing drops from bottles. In the scope of research, only those droppers are considered that are available with bottles, and we have excluded those droppers that are made from plastic and are attached to bottles. Glass and plastic pipettes are also excluded from the market scope. Shift in the demand for composite materials is expected to benefit the growth of the global droppers market. Among the end uses, the pharmaceuticals segment is anticipated to remain prominent in the global droppers market.

Gain access to Market Ngage , an AI-powered, real-time business intelligence that goes beyond the archaic research solutions to solve the complex strategy challenges that organizations face today. With over 15,000+ global and country-wise reports across 50,000+ application areas, Market Ngage is your tool for research on-the-go. From tracking new investment avenues to keeping a track of your competitor's moves, Market Ngage provides you with all the essential information to up your strategic game. Power your business with Market Ngage's actionable insights and remove the guesswork in making colossal decisions.

About Transparency Market Research

Transparency Market Research is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.

Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

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Albany, N.Y.  Despite the fact that some in Central New York have reported waiting over a week for coronavirus test results, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today that the problem of delayed results is largely a worry for other states.

Its national labs that are backed up on reporting results, not the New York-based facilities that process most of the tests done here, Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters.

RELATED: 9 days for coronavirus test results? Systems failure threatens CNYs handle on virus

We heard this in Savannah and some other mayors Ive been talking to, Cuomo said, referencing his trip to Georgia earlier this week. You can have an eight-day turnaround. You can have a 10-day turnaround from some of these national labs.

So even testing in some states is now a lagging indicator. That is not true here.

New York-based labs process about 70% of the tests done in the state and theyve been returning results in two or three days, Cuomo aide Gareth Rhodes said during the conference call.

Some sites return results in less than two days, said Melissa DeRosa, Cuomos top aide.

We feel comfortable that were looking at the most current data, she said.

But that still leaves 30% of tests in the state that are processed elsewhere, including many done in Central New York. Most of the tests done in Syracuse are sent to a national lab, Quest Diagnostics, for processing.

Recent wait times for results have been up to nine or 10 days.

The delays are the result of Quest and other national labs getting overwhelmed as the virus has been on the rise in numerous other parts of the country.

Quest is increasing its capacity, but the backup has become so severe that the Syracuse Community Health Center, home to Onondaga Countys main testing site, plans to start sending half its samples to smaller, regional labs. The hope is theyll return results faster.

Cuomo noted that a delay in test results means an inaccurate picture of the virus spread. It also means efforts to trace contacts of infected individuals are much harder and less effective at limiting spread of the virus.

That is a valid concern, Cuomo said. Its not a concern here, but it is a concern in other states.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Coronavirus update: 13 new cases in Onondaga County

10 more states added to New York coronavirus quarantine list

No mask, no service: Some restaurant diners get mad when told to cover up

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
The situation on the Tovuz direction remains calm, there was no new attacks from the Azerbaijani side on the Armenian armed forces, head of Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry Vagif Dargahli said.



"The situation in this area is calm, we haven't launched any attacks, nor have any losses," Dargahli said.



"We did hear some shooting on the Armenian side. It seems that there was a shootout between the servicemen of the Armenian armed forces," Trend cited him as saying.



"Once again, I'd like to note that we haven't had any losses, despite what the Armenian side is trying to claim," Dargahli added.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

The June quarter numbers of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) are expected to show the stress of COVID-19 because of subdued execution and demand during the nation-wide lockdown.

The company will announce its June quarter result of FY21 on July 22.

While the revenues will decline due to weak revenues in core E&C, financial services and development projects businesses, PAT will fall on higher depreciation and interest costs.

Brokerage firm Sharekhan by BNP PARIBAS believes that L&Ts commentary on infrastructure order execution and order pipeline scenario across the industry will be in focus.

The company's outlook on domestic and international tendering activities and order outlook for sub-segments within the infrastructure sector, given the current situations, will also be among the key monitorable.

Management commentary on government CAPEX will also be eyed.

Sharekhan expects a 28 percent year-on-year (YoY) and 51.8 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) fall in L&T's Q1 revenue at Rs 21,338 crore.

The company's net profit for the quarter, as per Sharekhan, may come in at Rs 275 crore, down 82.4 percent YoY and 91.4 percent QoQ.

EBITDA margins are likely to shrink 225 bps YoY with contraction across segments, partly offset by favourable sales mix revenues, Sharekhan said.

Brokerage firm Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers expects a 37.5 percent YoY and 58.1 percent QoQ fall in the company's Q1FY21 net revenue at Rs 18,519.40 crore.

Q1 PAT may see a huge 96.4 percent YoY and 98.4 percent QoQ drop to Rs 50.4 crore, Anand Rathi said.

Anand Rathi expects the company's EBIDTA for Q1FY21 to come in at Rs 965.70 crore, down 68.5 percent YoY or 81.1 percent QoQ. EBIDTA margin may shrink 514 bps YoY or 636 bps QoQ.

As per the estimates of ICICI Direct, L&T's Q1 revenue may see a 46.3 percent YoY and 67.5 percent QoQ drop, coming at Rs 8,865.7 crore.

PAT, as per ICICI Direct, may come at Rs 323.6 crore, down 63.6 percent YoY and 85.6 percent QoQ. EBITDA may come at Rs 505.3 crore, down 58.5 percent YoY and 80.7 percent QoQ.

"During Q1FY21, L&T has announced order inflows within the range of Rs 2,500-5,000 crore (as on date, ex-services segment) across transportation infrastructure and water effluent segments. India and global lockdowns amid COVID-19, crude oil price crash, labour migration issue will have an impact on order execution and order inflows," ICICI Direct said.

Brokerage Prabhudas Lilladher expects L&T to report a de-growth of 50 percent YoY due to COVID-19.

However, the brokerage highlighted that the company's order book stands at Rs 3.03 lakh crore as on Q4FY20, thereby providing strong revenue visibility, going ahead.

Prabhudas Lilladher believes sectors like heavy civil, power transmission, water and irrigation would see good traction of ordering activity in the short run.

The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on Moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership in Delhi has created a raid raj and is using federal agencies to arm twist lawmakers to bring down the Ashok Gehlot government, the Congress said on Wednesday after the Enforcement Directorate carried out raids at premises of the Rajasthan chief minister Gehlots brother. The raids are said to be linked to investigations into money laundering charges against Agrasen Gehlot into what has been described as a fertiliser scam.

Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, who has been camping in Jaipur to help the Gehlot government survive a rebellion led by former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot, said the latest round of raids were ordered by the BJP leadership after three previous attempts to arm twist Congress leaders and lawmakers did not succeed.

The emperors in Delhi believe that they can crush any government at any point of time, Surjewala said. When the BJPs attempts did not succeed, the central agencies were called in to help out.

The first round started on July 13 when the BJP started executing its plan to dislodge the Ashok Gehlot government. Income tax officials had carried out raids on three business groups and individuals. Those raids targeted Rajiv Arora of Amrapali Jewels, who is also the Vice President of Rajasthan Congress, Dharmendra Rathore and Ratan Kant Sharma who owns the Fairmont hotel on the outskirts of Jaipur where the Congress has sequestered its lawmakers.

On July 20 and July 21, the CBI questioned MLA Krishna Poonia who brought laurels to the country in the Olympics. Why when BJP is conspiring to topple the government, CBI quizzed Poonia? Yesterday chief ministers OSD Devaram Saini was also quizzed, Surjewala said.

Krishna Poonia and Devaram Saini were questioned in connection to the death of a police officer Vishnudutt Vishno who was found dead at his residence in Churu district on May 23.

Surjewala said the raids and summons for questioning by central agencies may have succeeded in other states but would not succeed in Rajasthan.

On Wednesday, Enforcement Directorate officials accompanied by a team of Central Reserve Police Force officials, started searches at six places in Rajasthan, four in Gujarat, two in West Bengal, and one in New Delhi in connection with the scam.

ED officials have said Agrasen Gehlot is the owner of a company named Anupam Krishi, on which the Customs department has levied a penalty of Rs 7 crore for alleged violations.
Coronavirus survivors are likely to have immunity against the disease for six months, Sweden's top epidemiologist has claimed.

Dr Anders Tegnell, who has guided the nation through the pandemic without calling for a lockdown, says he hasn't seen evidence of people getting infected twice since the start of the pandemic in December 2019.

Even if a survivor doesn't develop antibodies  immune cells that remember how to fight the virus  they will be protected, he believes.

Evidence is starting to show that antibodies aren't the only type of immunity against Covid-19, and that T cells also play an important role.

It's hoped T cells, which target and destroy cells already infected, would offer long-term protection  possibly up to many years later.

But scientists do not have any firm proof as to how long immunity actually lasts once a person has fought off Covid-19, mainly because it is still shrouded in secrecy and has only been known to exist since the start of the year.

Anders Tegnell, Sweden's top epidemiologist, claimed coronavirus survivors are likely to have immunity for six months. He was speaking at a press conference yesterday (pictured)

Dr Tegnell's comments about immunity lasting for half a year were made at a press conference in Stockholm yesterday, The Telegraph reports.

He said: 'The risk of being reinfected and of transmitting the disease to other people is probably very close to zero.

'Therefore, we think you can meet other people, even if they are in a high-risk group. We don't see cases of people falling ill twice from Covid-19.

'Hence, our assessment is if you do get Covid-19 you are immune, even if you don't develop antibodies.'

SARS PATIENTS HAVE T CELLS 17 YEARS LATER Scientists have found SARS patients still have crucial disease-fighting cells 17 years after infection. SARS  another type of coronavirus very similar to the one that causes Covid-19 was behind an epidemic that predominantly struck Asia in 2003. No cases have been identified for 15 years. But some infected during the outbreak still have key white T cells, suggesting they would be protected from ever getting re-infected. The study led by Duke-NUS Medical School, in Singapore, published in the scientific journal Nature last week, involved 23 SARS patients. They collected blood samples and tested whether they still harboured any immune cells that were effective against SARS. Investigations showed all patients 'still possess long-lasting memory T cells' reactive to the virus. The findings 'support the notion that Covid-19 patients will develop long-term T cell immunity,' the researchers wrote. In further experiments, the scientists mixed blood samples with fragments of SARS-CoV-2 to see what happened. The cells showed 'robust' reactivity against SARS-2 in all patients by latching on to them. They believe these T cells may exist due to previous infection with another coronavirus  of which there are seven that can infect humans. Advertisement

There have been cases of people getting infected more than once but they have failed to convinced scientists that humans only get a short-lived immunity against the disease.

Some infectious disease experts say it is just an issue with testing because old viral fragments that are not contagious are picked up by swabs taken weeks or months after a patient first became ill.

Dr Tegnell did not explain what proof he had to back-up his claims that immunity lasts for six months.

Scientists are hopeful any protection will last for longer, perhaps many years. Protection against some viruses, like chickenpox, is life-long.

Until now most of the attention on immunity has focused on antibodies, substances made by the immune system to fight off a virus before it takes hold.

These are the proteins that antibody blood tests screen for, revealing if you have or haven't had the disease.

But focus has largely shifted towards T cells in recent weeks  a type of white blood cell in the immune system that is harder to detect with testing.

Leading immunologists have said T cells are typically more durable and long lasting than antibodies.

A slew of papers in recent weeks have discussed that T cells play a significant role in fighting infection with other coronaviruses  including ones that cause the common cold.

And in one coronavirus closely related to the one that causes Covid-19, called SARS, survivors have shown to have effective T cells 17 years after recovery.

T cells may be produced by everyone that has had the coronavirus, from mild to severe cases, Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London has said.

T cells are considered one of the first line of defenses, and may clear the virus before antibodies are kicked into action.

This may explain why it takes at least four weeks for antibodies to show up in a Covid-19 survivors blood, or never at all if antibodies weren't needed in the first place.

The Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, in Sweden, showed that many people with mild or asymptomatic Covid-19 demonstrate so-called T-cell immunity to the disease, even if they have not tested positive for antibodies to the virus.

But because there is no rapid commercial test to spot them circulating in the body, it is not possible to use them as a marker of infection in the population.

If it were, it may reveal that far more people have some form of immunity against the disease than antibody testing suggests  possibly double, according to experts at Karolinska.

Generally, scientists do not know how long immunity lasts, given that the SARS-CoV-2 has only existed since December 2019.

If they did, it could help speed up vaccine development because scientists would have a benchmark for immunity levels.

WHAT ARE T CELLS? When the body is invaded by bacteria, a virus, such as SARS-CoV-2, or parasites, an immune alarm goes off, setting off a chain reaction of cellular activity in the immune system. T lymphocytes (T cells) are white blood cells that are a major part of the immune system. They are part of the adaptive immune system, which is considered the more specialised response. They use past interactions to remember foreign threats and how to attack them. The adaptive immune system kicks in after the innate immune system, which is the immediate response to a virus, or 'first line of defense'. There are several different types of T cells, some of which their functions are not understood. Killer T cells directly kill cells that have already been infected by a foreign invader, while helper T cells stimulate other parts of the immune response - such as B cells. B cells are also part of the adaptive immune system. They help make antibodies which are specific to each pathogen. Antibodies are able to block the novel coronavirus by attaching to it and marking it for destruction by other immune cells. Advertisement

Dr Tegnell, who previously said the 'world went mad' with coronavirus lockdowns, said last night Sweden's strategy for slowing the epidemic, which has been widely questioned abroad, was working.

Unlike most European nations, Sweden never imposed a lockdown and kept schools for under-16s, cafes, bars, restaurants and most businesses open. Masks have been recommended only for healthcare personnel.

Dr Tegnell said a rapid slowdown in the spread of the virus indicated very strongly that Sweden had reached relatively widespread immunity.

'The epidemic is now being slowed down, in a way that I think few of us would have believed a week or so ago,' he said.

'It really is yet another sign that the Swedish strategy is working.'

Sweden's death toll stands at 5,646. But when compared relative to population size, it has far outstripped those of its Nordic neighbours.

It has one of the highest death tolls per capita in the world, at 558 fatalities per million people compared to Norway's 47.

But it remains lower than in some European countries that locked down, such as Britain (667) and Spain (607).

Grim projections from Sweden's health agency suggests the country could see another 5,800 coronavirus deaths, double its current toll, despite the peak passing in mid-April.

The agency noted that this was a possible scenario where 'infectivity increases quickly due to people for example socialise more frequently,' but would then decrease 'when people become aware of the outbreak and follow recommendations on distancing.'

In the mildest scenario presented, in which the spread of the virus follows current trends, just over 200 additional deaths were expected.
According to Ports of Indiana records, various commercial groups and state leaders came together in the 1930s in an effort to build a deep-water public port where Burns Ditch enters Lake Michigan. But it wasnt until 1961, when the Indiana Port Commission was established and the Burns Ditch area was formally selected as the site for the states first public port, that the vision of those leaders started to take shape. Excitement about the port began to swirl.
Allentown, PA (18103)

Today

Turning out mostly cloudy and not as cold. There might be a rain or snow shower late..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with some rain and snow showers. Any rain will be early in the night.
Texas pastor, father of four killed while helping another driver: He 'faithfully proclaimed' Christ

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Russell Moore and other prominent Christian figures expressed heartbreak after John Powell, a church planter and pastor, was killed in a highway accident as he was helping a driver who had stopped in the traffic lanes.

On Sunday, Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Conventions Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, shared the news of Powells death on social media.

I am shocked and shaken and grieving this morning, beyond what I can say, Moore wrote on Twitter. My former student John Powell was killed last night, hit by an eighteen wheeler while helping stranded motorists off of a highway.

According to a local news report, Powell, senior pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in New Caney, Texas, and another man stopped to help a truck that had been rear-ended by another car and caught fire around 11:30 Saturday night.

While the men were assisting the truck, a semi-truck came toward them on the highway. According to police, Powell saw the semi-truck approaching and pushed the other man out of the way to save him.

Powell was struck and killed. The driver of the car that caught fire was taken to the hospital and is expected to survive.

Moore remembered Powell as sweet-tempered, humble, and absolutely devoted to his wife, Katherine, and their four young children.

He was everything I would want any of my sons to be when they grow up, Moore wrote.

According to his ERLC bio, Powell moved to New Caney, north of Houston, from Hamlin, Texas, in 2016, and had previously been director of admissions at Southern Seminary, and discipleship pastor at Carlisle Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

Several prominent Christian leaders and pastors expressed their sorrow over Powells death on social media.

Under Moores post, Lauren Chandler, wife of Village church pastor Matt Chandler, commented: Heartbreaking. Praying for his precious Katherine and their children.

In response to Moores Twitter post, ministry leader Beth Moore tweeted, Heartbreaking. Praying, Brother.

It is impossible to imagine the heartbreak of this young family in the death of their husband & father & of this church in losing their pastor, wrote Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. But John Powell loved Christ, preached Christ, trusted Christ. Our hearts break for them. This is why we sing that all we have is Christ.

Ray Ortlund, pastor of Immanual Church in Nashville, tweeted: For Russell Moore, a man of greatness, to say to a younger man, Were proud of you, is powerful. What a wonderful man his young friend must have been! What a loss to us all! May God comfort the dear family.

Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, called Powell one of the best men Ive ever known.

Author and pastor Dean Inserra reflected on Powells humility.

"He never cared about being known, wrote Inserra. Faithfully plowed daily as a family man and local church pastor. He did not sweat what many sweat."

On Twitter, Garrett Kell, pastor at Del Ray Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, wrote that Powell faithfully proclaimed the Lord. He noted that Powells final sermon was from Psalm 77, which reads, in part: In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord.

"May the Lord comfort his family and the many who loved him, Kell wrote.

A GoFundMe site to raise funds for Powells family was set up by Andrew Walker, a professor at Southern Seminary, and shared by Moore, among others.

We are asking for friends and family to help care for the Powell family as they deal with unspeakable tragedy and grief, the appeal reads. As they have shown all of their family and friends love in times past, let us now, as the body of Christ, show them love and care.

As of Monday morning, the page has raised $103,367 of its $150,000 goal.
The Air Force's top general said he doesn't dwell on losing out on the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after President Donald Trump picked Army Gen. Mark Milley over him.

"The right thing happened, right? Which is, the president had two individuals he was able to interview, and he got to select the one that he wanted," outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in an interview with Military.com on Wednesday.

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Goldfein was one of the generals Trump considered for the job in 2018. Since then, it has been reported that then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis preferred Goldfein for the role. But as the president became aggravated with Mattis, especially his steadfast commitment to keep troops in Syria, their relationship soured, with the SecDef ultimately resigning later that year. As a result, Goldfein was eclipsed by the "more brash" Milley, according to The New York Times.

Without discussing details surrounding the decision, Goldfein said there are no hard feelings.

"At this level, it's not personal, it's professional, and I take no -- you know, I've never looked back on that."

He continued, "The president has the absolute right and responsibility to pick the principal military adviser that he wants. And he picked the right guy."

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chief of staff of the Army, and Air Force Gen. David Goldfein, chief of staff of the Air Force, at the National Guard Association of the United States 140th General Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, Aug. 25, 2018. (U.S. Army National Guard/Sgt. 1st Class Jim Greenhill)

Reflecting on his own legacy, the general said it is important to look to the people he's leaving behind, those whom he's mentored and raised to think about the future of the Air Force -- and the military -- in a collective way.

Over his tenure, Goldfein has pushed to make the Air Force both more competitive and collaborative. Much like Mattis, he has stressed the importance of partnerships with allies and joint services, as well as the imperative to develop a more streamlined approach to carrying out the military's global operations -- or as Goldfein likes to put it, "to build a network" and look at operations from a networked approach.

"I'm really proud of where we are as an Air Force right now in terms of our joint leader development," he said.

He's even more proud of "having a hand" in selecting the next leader of the Air Force, Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown. With his Senate confirmation vote last month, Brown made history as the first African American officer to serve as the top uniformed officer of any of the military branches.

"Here's a guy who's fought and led in combat in three different combatant commands," Goldfein said of Brown, who is the outgoing chief of the Pacific Air Forces.

Brown will also be the first black officer to sit on the Joint Chiefs of Staff since Army Gen. Colin Powell, now retired, served as chairman between 1989 and 1993.

Brown "has been a deputy combatant commander. He's just coming out of the most important region in the globe ... so when the Air Force and the joint force gets to meet CQ and his wife Sharene, they're going to see very clearly why he was chosen," Goldfein said.

Brown will lead a service in transition. The military has begun charting a course to take on new, future threats, reconfiguring its missions amid the coronavirus pandemic, as well as addressing racial disparities across the force.

"If there was one officer in the entire United States Air Force that I would pick to carry those issues forward [who] understands them, it's CQ Brown," Goldfein said.

The chief is scheduled to retire Aug. 6.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related: From Old Pilots to New Planes, Air Force Chief Talks 'New Ways of Doing Business'
Investigators have exhumed the body of Alonzo Brooks 16 years after his death at a Kansas party following a surge in interest in his case when it appeared on Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries docuseries.

Brooks was 23 when he disappeared after the party in the rural town of La Cygne on the night of April 3, 2004.

His body was found by a creek on May 1, and his family have long insisted he was murdered.

He was one of only three black people at the gathering of 100 revelers, and some partygoers made racist comments, Stephen McAllister, U.S. Attorney, said.

McAllister said there were also numerous reports of multiple fights breaking out.

Alonzo Brooks, 23, died following an April 3, 2004 party in La Cygne, Kansas

Brooks' body was exhumed from a cemetery in Topeka, Kansas on Tuesday

He added that Brooks' ride to the party had left without him. When Brooks failed to make it home by the next day, his family knew something was wrong.

Brooks' body was found on May 1, 2004

A search team of 50 people set out to find Brooks when he disappeared.

His body was so badly decomposed when it was found that his cause of death was deemed inconclusive.

His friends and family believe that he was murdered in a racially motivated attack.

Brooks' case was featured as part of Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries series, and during the filming last year McAllister became aware of the cold case.

The show highlighting Brooks' disappearance aired on July 1, and in the first 24 hours after the episode arrived on the streaming service the FBI reported 'at least three credible tips' in relation to the case.

The FBI have also received 20 other tips in relation to the other cases featured in the first six episodes of the show.

On July 11, just over a week after Unsolved Mysteries premiered on Netflix, the FBI and Department of Justice announced that Brooks' case had been reopened as a result of new leads from the series.

Officials were seen with an excavator at Brook's grave at a cemetery in Topeka, Kansas on Tuesday.

'I can confirm the body was exhumed today as part of the Brooks investigation,' said Jim Cross, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The FBI is now offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to arrest and conviction

FBI Special Agent in Charge Timothy Langan also announced that FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 to anyone who has information about Brooks' disappearance.

'There are many unanswered questions that surround Alonzo's death,' said Langan.

'Someone knows something and we are hopeful that with the passage of time and this significant reward this renewed effort will produce results and provide closure for the Brooks family.'

Maria Ramirez, Brooks' mother, told NBC's Dateline that she and Brooks' family have long believed that there was a racial component to his mysterious death.

'I'm Mexican and his father is black,' she said. 'So he's mixed. They didn't just target one race. Or kill one race. They killed two. He was targeted because of the color of his skin.'

Brooks' father, Billy Brooks, told the show that he hopes the Netflix series' renewed attention on the case  and the FBI's reward  will help the family finally get answers.

'It's a significant amount of money,' he stated. 'I hope it pushes someone to do the right thing and come forward.'

The circumstances surrounding Brooks' death have never been fully explained

Leena Ramana, another FBI agent, agreed that the Netflix show was crucial in reviving interest in Brooks' case.

'It's been 16 years, but we hope that with this passage of time, someone who has information will come forward,' she said.

'Some of these kids, who are adults now, may have been scared to come forward before, or may not have known what they saw was important.

'But any piece of information is significant and could be the missing puzzle piece we need to solve this case.'

Maria Ramirez, pictured with her son Alonzo Brooks, hopes the Netflix series provides answers

McAllister, the U.S. attorney, said that 'the code of silence must be broken'.

'We are investigating whether Alonzo was murdered,' he told KSNT News.

'His death certainly was suspicious, and someone, likely multiple people, know what happened that night in April 2004.

'It is past time for the truth to come out. The code of silence must be broken.

'Alonzo's family deserves to know the truth, and it is time for justice to be served.'

He said he was convinced there were 'people who have been keeping terrible secrets all these years and bearing a horrible burden.'

'We are asking one or more of them to come forward now and to lay down that burden at last, so that we can ease a family's suffering, and serve the cause of justice.'
One of the highlights of the APNA Annual Conference is recognizing these hardworking students on their achievements and sharing our stories with them."

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) is pleased to announce the 32 nursing students selected to receive this years student scholarships. Scholarship recipients receive registration to attend the virtual APNA 34th Annual Conference, September 30 - October 4, 2020, as well as a one-year complimentary APNA membership to enjoy its professional benefits.

Each year, undergraduate and graduate-level nursing students across the nation are invited to apply for the scholarship. The APNA Student Scholarship program connects aspiring nurses to experienced professionals in the field, exposes them to a spectrum of career options, and sets them on a path to becoming leaders who are dedicated to psychiatric-mental health nursing.

One of the highlights of the APNA Annual Conference is recognizing these hardworking students on their achievements and sharing our stories with them, says APNA President Tari (Sattaria) Dilks, RN, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC, FAANP. Both the Board of Directors Scholarship and the Industry Sponsored Scholarship encourage their desire to dedicate their talents to improving mental health for those they serve. We are delighted that so many past participants report that the relationships and connections they make through this experience are helpful in their careers and aids in staying involved professionally.

Funded by the APNA Board of Directors, the 2020 APNA Board of Directors Student Scholarship is being awarded to 30 undergraduate and graduate nursing students. New this year and as a part of the APNA Industry Partnership Program, two students are receiving the APNA Industry Sponsored Scholarship. APNA would like to express thanks to the industry partners, AbbVie and Neurocrine Biosciences, for their sponsorship of these two scholarships.

APNA Board of Directors Student Scholars

30 students funded annually by the APNA Board of Directors

Pre-Licensure/Undergraduate Student Scholars

Reilly Caten  Brigham Young University

Molly Field  University of Wisconsin - Madison

Allison Gelfarb  University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Natalie Gerardi  Thomas Jefferson University

Megan Gottsacker  Kent State University

Hannah Ingle  University of Iowa

Julia Karambelas  Seattle University

Alysse Mastriano  Boston College

Glenn Agape Montero  Northern Illinois University

Josie Niedermeier  University of Alabama

Madison Pope  University of North Carolina - Wilmington

Sherry Prichodko  Aurora University

Abigail Schneider  University of Michigan School of Nursing

Ashley Van Slyke  University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing

Shawna Witt  University of Pittsburgh

Graduate Student Scholars

Amina Aden  Arizona State University

Sheri Biggs  Samford University

Rachel Chenoweth  University of Wisconsin-Madison

Katrina Ferracane  University of Illinois at Chicago

Paula Gentile  Wilkes University

Melissa Hathhorn  Walden University

Chantal Hudak  Ohio State University

Ryan Keenan  Fairfield University

Courtney Marden  University of Utah

Nicole Perez  New York University

Marvin Solberg  Wayne State University

Carlton Spotswood  University of Southern Maine

Vicki Surgenavic  Robert Morris University

Angela Tatis  Duke University

Ramona Timberlake  University of Kansas Medical Center

APNA Industry Sponsored Scholars

Two students funded by industry sponsors as a part of the APNA Industry Partnership Program

APNA Industry Sponsored Scholarship - Neurocrine Biosciences

Grace Anderson, Undergraduate Student, University of Iowa College of Nursing

APNA Industry Sponsored Scholarship - AbbVie

Samantha Ault, Graduate Student, Ohio State University

###

About APNA:

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is a national professional membership organization committed to the practice of psychiatric-mental health nursing and wellness promotion, prevention of mental health problems and the care and treatment of persons with psychiatric disorders. APNAs membership is inclusive of all psychiatric-mental health registered nurses including associate degree, baccalaureate, advanced practice (comprised of clinical nurse specialists and psychiatric nurse practitioners), and nurse scientists and academicians (PhD). APNA serves as a resource for psychiatric-mental health nurses to engage in networking, education, and the dissemination of evidence.

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is accredited with distinction as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.


BRASILIA, July 21 (Reuters) - Brazil's government aims to present further elements of its broad tax reform proposals in 20 to 30 days, federal revenue service chief Jose Barroso Tostes Neto said on Tuesday, noting that plans for payroll tax exemptions are being drawn up.

Tostes Neto was answering reporters' questions in a virtual press conference after the government presented the first part of its long-awaited tax reform program to congressional leaders, which centered on a newly-created federal 12% value-added tax to replace two consumption taxes.

(Reporting by Marcela Ayres and Jamie McGeever Editing by Chris Reese)
ATLANTA--Georgia State University researchers have received a one-year, $200,000 rapid response grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a tool to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Technology being developed by chemistry professor Gangli Wang in collaboration with assistant biology professor Mukesh Kumar is anticipated to provide several benefits, including fast turnaround time and greatly decreased false negative outcomes.

"It's extremely challenging to detect a single virus, which represents the earliest or most sensitive detection possible," said Wang. "When you take a pregnancy test, for example, you collect a urine sample first thing in the morning because that's when the biomarkers are more concentrated. But we don't want to wait till the virus grows in our bodies before we test for it."

Testing methods now require a multi-step process to purify and amplify, or grow, the sample so even trace amounts of the virus can be detected. This treatment process is expensive and time consuming, contributing to the lag time in obtaining test results. It is also error prone, increasing the chance of false negative results.

"The more you have to do to the sample, the more likely you are to end up with errors," Kumar said. "There are so many places where things can go wrong."

Wang's simplified testing method uses electrochemistry to bypass the need for sample treatment or amplification by using a sensor to detect genetic sequences specific to SARS-CoV-2.

"We're essentially using the virus RNA molecule as a switch," said Wang. "If the RNA sequence is present, it interacts with our sensor and switches on the circuit so that electrons flow to create current signal, like water flows after a faucet is switched on. If the RNA isn't present, the switch remains off."

The method allows scientists and clinicians to detect tiny amounts of the virus in a sample. It also provides the quantity of a patient sample's viral load by measuring the intensity of these interactions, or how quickly they occur.

"When small amounts of the virus are present," Wang said. "it may also take longer for the RNA sequence to interact with the sensor, so the amount of time it takes for the switch to turn on will give us some information about the abundance of the virus in a sample."

Wang initially developed the tool to detect microRNAs, molecules whose concentration can fluctuate in the presence of diseases such as cancer. The technology is not specific to a particular RNA sequence, though, and can be adapted to detect SARS-CoV-2 or any mutations of the virus that may emerge, paving the way for future point-of-use applications that go beyond the novel coronavirus.

"Wth the rest methodology already developed, all we would need to do is redesign the recognition sequence," Wang said.

Using the grant, Wang, Kumar and their teams will demonstrate the tool works and establish a calibration profile so scientists and lab technicians can determine the quantity of the virus present. They hope the test could be used on its own or as a cross-check in combination with what's now available to detect SARS-CoV-2. If everything works perfectly, Wang said, it could eventually be used at home, like a glucose monitor.

###
OlegAlbinsky/iStockBy DEE CARDEN and OLIVIA EUBANKS, ABC NEWS



(WASHINGTON) -- Two months ago, there were 88 pairs of shoes placed in front of the White House to represent the number of nurses who had died in the fight against the novel coronavirus, said National Nurses United union's Stephanie Simms. On Tuesday, 164 pairs of nurses' shoes were placed on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol.



"There are no words that can fully express the anger and the sadness I feel this morning," said Simms.



"Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. All gone," she continued.



After laying out the shoes, members of the National Nurses United read the names of the 164 nurses who have died due to coronavirus.



They illustrated the grim statistic on Tuesday as they urged Congress to step up "in the absence of presidential leadership," to enact workplace protections for hospital employees, and provide more PPE for medical workers. Simms said that the House acted by passing the Heroes Act, and she urged the Senate to approve that measure.



"On May 15th we thanked the House for acting and called on the Senate to swiftly pass the Heroes Act into law, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell instead did nothing. He called a recess and went on vacation. So nurses continue to die," said Simms.



The House passed the Heroes Act, a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package on May 15. The proposed legislation includes a second round of direct cash payments to Americans, $1 trillion in aid for local, state and tribal governments drowning under the strain of the novel coronavirus, assistance for essential front-line workers, an extension of unemployment benefits and various other Democratic measures.



MORE: Senate GOP supports another round of stimulus checks to Americans: McConnell

McConnell is poised to introduce his bill this week as he prepares to sit down with Democrats to negotiate the next stimulus package.



"Senator Mitch McConnell can use his immense power to do the right thing and shepherd the passage of the Heroes Act. The question is, will he act to save lives or will he continue to turn a deaf ear to the pain and suffering of the American people. Including the nation's nurses?"



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
(@FahadShabbir)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2020) Russia is satisfied with the ceasefire agreement between Kiev and the people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Russian envoy to the contact group for Donbas settlement, Boris Gryzlov, said on Wednesday.

"Finally, after almost five months of resistance, the Ukrainian side found courage to agree on the ceasefire measures that were repeatedly proposed by Donetsk and Luhansk.

In this regard, nothing can be experienced but satisfaction. The ceasefire regime measures should enter into force on July 27," Gryzlov said.

"Only thanks to direct intervention in the work of the trilateral contact group and the firm position of [deputy head of the Russian presidential administration] Dmitry Kozak, it was possible to overcome Ukraine's attempts to again evade taking specific effective measures that could ensure real observance of the ceasefire regime," he said.
A Canadian influencer has avoided jail time for throwing a chair from a 45th floor balcony onto a busy highway in a desperate bid for 'likes'.

Marcella Zoia, 20, was instead sentenced to two years probation and 150 hours of community service by a Toronto judge on Tuesday.

The social media star was additionally slapped with a USD $1,485 fine over her dangerous stunt, which went viral after it was recorded in February last year.

Prosecutors were seeking to have Zoia locked up for six months, but she avoided jail time after pleading guilty to a charge of mischief endangering life.

Zoia's attorney, Gregory Leslie, told reporters that his client was 'ecstatic' with the outcome and that she 'had a tear or two in her eyes' when she learned she was not headed to prison.

The social media star shared a selfie with Leslie on Instagram following her sentencing, and later held a party to celebrate the conclusion of her court case.

She was filmed popping champagne and twerking with friends, as local reporters noted she did not adhere to social distancing requirements during her celebrations.

Marcella Zoia, 20, was sentenced to two years probation and 150 hours of community service on Tuesday over a chair-throwing stunt that went viral on social media in February 2019. She is seen above leaving her lawyer's office Tuesday

Zoia was filmed popping champagne and twerking with friends, as local reporters noted she did not adhere to social distancing requirements during her celebrations

Zoia had a relatively small social media following before her chair-throwing video sparked widespread outrage last year.

In the clip, the influencer was seen standing on the balcony of a Toronto high-rise before she picked up the chair and hurled it onto the Gardiner Expressway 45 floors below.

The road is one of the city's busiest thoroughfares and the video showed the chair narrowly missing cars that were zooming along the highway.

The video was viewed hundreds of thousands of times and captured the attention of police, who ordered the offender to hand themselves in.

Zoia subsequently surrendered to authorities and was arrested and charged.

Zoia looked thrilled to have avoided jail time as she left her lawyer's office on Tuesday

The influencer was seen clutching her phone as she was escorted away by a pal. She later held a party to celebrate the conclusion of her court case

She hired Greg Leslie as her lawyer, who said shortly afterward that Zoia was 'embarrassed' by her actions.

'She wished it never happened. Of course, she would never wish anyone would be hurt,' he stated.

He later claimed Zoia had been drinking alcohol and that she was 'peer pressured' by her friends to throw the chair off the balcony.

Zoia boasts 60,000 followers on Instagram and regularly thrills her fans by sharing racy photos

The Toronto-based star - who does not appear to have a full-time job - regularly posts racy photos to Instagram which garner thousands of 'likes'

After the stunt, Zoia promptly deleted her Instagram and Facebook pages.

However, it wasn't long before she returned to the social media sites and started to capitalize on her notoriety.

Her followers increased more than ten-fold in the months after the chair-throwing incident. Before the stunt she had just 4,000 Instagram followers. Now, she boasts more than 60,000.

The Toronto-based star - who does not appear to have a full-time job - regularly posts racy photos which garner thousands of 'likes'.

Zoia has kept her followers up-to-date during her 18-month long legal battle. She is pictured in a selfie snapped before a hearing last year
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Details of Ghislaine Maxwell's sex life, that she gave in a 2016 deposition, may soon become public

Ghislaine Maxwell's secret testimony about details of her sex life could soon become public.

The testimony was given by Maxwell in 2016 as part of a lawsuit filed against her by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

It is among a trove of documents that have been sealed for years, as part of the resolution of the lawsuit, but that may now become public in light of dozens of women coming forward in the last 18 months to accuse Maxwell and her late ex-boyfriend and 'partner', Jeffrey Epstein, of prolonged sexual abuse and trafficking.

On Thursday, Judge Loretta Preska will decide whether or not to let the files become public.

Maxwell's attorney has tried to stop them from being released. In a recent filing, he called the questioning she was subjected to 'intrusive'.

She only answered them, the lawyer said, because she had a 'a strong expectation of continued confidentiality.'

Among remarks she previously made include one about Giuffre, who was 17 when she was hired by Epstein as a traveling masseuse.

She said: 'You can be a professional masseuse at 17 in Florida, so as far as I am aware, a professional masseuse showed up for a massage.

'There is nothing inappropriate or incorrect about that.' She has always denied that any sexual abuse occurred.

Maxwell is depicted in a recent court sketch from her criminal case. She faces 35 years behind bars if convicted of child sex trafficking

The sealed deposition is part of a lawsuit filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre (left) who claims Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein trafficked her when she was a teenager and sexually abused her for years

Earlier this month, Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire, almost a year after Epstein killed himself in jail, on charges of child sex trafficking.

Now, she faces 35 years behind bars if convicted. The charges relate to three girls who she allegedly trafficked in the 1990s. She denies the allegations.

Her attorneys argued that releasing the lawsuit documents about her sex life could also prejudice her criminal trial.

They say it would taint a jury pool.

They are also asking the judge in the criminal case to apply a gag order to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, claiming her public remarks about Maxwell are prejudicial.

'Although Ms. Maxwell is presumed innocent, the Government, its agents, witnesses and their lawyers have made, and continue to make, statements prejudicial to a fair trial,' lawyer Jeffrey S. Pagliuca wrote in his letter that was filed on Tuesday.

Maxwell remains in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Long-haul carrier Qatar Airways said on Wednesday that it launched international arbitration seeking at least $5 billion from four boycotting Arab countries for blocking its flights from their airspace and their markets, years into a simmering political dispute between the nations.

The Doha-based carrier did not elaborate where it initiated international arbitration against Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all of whom launched a boycott of Qatar in June 2017 that continues today.

Calls to the carrier's offices rang unanswered on Wednesday and government officials did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press.

In a statement, the airline said the arbitration involved three separate agreements Qatar had with the boycotting nations: the Organisation of the Islamic Conference Investment Agreement, the Arab Investment Agreement and the bilateral investment treaty between the State of Qatar and Egypt.

The decision by the blockading states to prevent Qatar Airways from operating in their countries and flying over their airspace is a clear breach of civil aviation conventions and several binding agreements they are signatories to, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker said in a statement.

The blockading states must be held accountable for their illegal actions in the aviation sector, which includes a failure to comply with their obligations under bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements and international law," he added.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Egyptian state media and officials did not immediately acknowledge Qatar Airways' comments.

The arbitration comes after Qatar earlier this month won a procedural dispute before the United Nations' highest court, which allowed the International Civil Aviation Organization to rule in a case Doha brought before it over the boycott.

The four Arab nations cut ties with Qatar in 2017 in a political dispute fuelled in part over Doha's support for Islamist groups that they view as terrorists. They also launched an economic boycott, stopping Qatar Airways flights from using their airspace, closing off the small country's sole land border with Saudi Arabia and blocking its ships from using their ports.

Efforts to end the crisis, mediated by Kuwait's now-hospitalized 91-year-old emir, have so far failed to resolve it.

The crisis, as well as the coronavirus pandemic, has deeply hurt Qatar Airways, which competes with Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways and Dubai-based Emirates as major East-West carriers.
Australia's largest gas project, the Gorgon development off the West Australian coast, is at risk of being shut down for months after workers raised serious safety concerns.

The liquefied national gas plant on Barrow Island, 60km off the Pilbara coast, is operated by Chevron Australia and supplies gas locally and across Asia.

But the $US54 billion ($A76 billion) venture is under threat of a temporary shutdown after reports of 'massive' cracks in pressurised propane kettles on one of three LNG trains.

The liquefied national gas plant on Barrow Island, 60km off the Pilbara coast, is operated by Chevron Australia and supplies gas locally and across Asia

Cracks up to one metre long and 30mm deep were found on between eight to 11 kettles on Train 2, the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union said on Wednesday.

This 'represents a serious failure in this critical piece of kit', union state secretary Steve McCartney said in a statement.

'These kettles are carrying pressurised propane, and the trains are lined up next to each other on the plate.'

Train 2 has been in a scheduled maintenance period since May which had been due to finish on July 11, according to a Chevron activity notice.

The union is concerned there could be similar cracks in the other two trains, which remain in production.

It wants Chevron to shut down Gorgon for an immediate safety inspection.

'We're hearing from workers that they're fearful for their safety and are reluctant to even go out to the blast-proof wall. We share their fears,' Mr McCartney said.

'Chevron needs to put workers' safety first and shutdown for an independent investigation. If something goes wrong, it would be catastrophic.'

In a statement, Chevron Australia said investigations were ongoing in regards to the propane kettles and regulatory authorities had been informed.

'Maintenance turnarounds are a regular part of safely operating natural gas plants and provide an opportunity to undertake various inspections, repairs and equipment change-outs to ensure safe and reliable operations,' a spokesman said.

'The Chevron-operated Gorgon Train 2 turnaround commenced in May and we are pleased with the strong progress made to date, with scheduled work mechanically complete.

'Learnings from the current maintenance event will inform future turnarounds and afford the same opportunities for improvements.'

Chevron is scheduled to provide a quarterly update to the US market on July 31.

WA's Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS) on Wednesday confirmed it would inspect the LNG plant as soon as possible.

Director of dangerous goods and petroleum safety Steve Emery said while DMIRS did not have immediate concerns for worker safety, it was taking the matter seriously and had powers to ensure safety obligations were being met.

'The department's discussions with Chevron included a review of the actions it has taken to ensure the integrity of the LNG plant's other trains, and the actions taken to ensure worker safety,' he said.

'As part of any maintenance action, DMIRS expects all operators to review their findings and to assess the results in light of their entire operation.'
Qamar Guls mother, Fatima, had married twice before ending up with her father, Shah Gul Rahimi, according to Zabihullah Rahmani, a relative. Fatimas first husband died young of an overdose while working as a laborer in Iran, leaving behind a son who is now a police officer. Her second marriage to a local commander was short-lived: He was killed in clashes with the Taliban in the 1990s. Shah Gul, the local commanders younger brother, stepped in to marry Fatima. They had two children together, Qamar Gul, and her 12-year-old brother Habibullah.

In recent years, Mr. Rahimi, who was just 40, took on his brothers responsibilities as a community elder in Taiwara. He frequently helped with the Local Uprising militia fending off Taliban attacks, joining them in their battles. But it wasnt clear whether he was also on a government payroll  the militias are paid anywhere between $50 to $150 by the Afghan intelligence agency and provided ammunition  or whether he was just helping in his role as a local elder.

Residents described him as a stalwart fighter, despite having had one hand amputated years before.

About four years ago, Mr. Rahimi struck an agreement with a local man from an adjacent village named Mohamed Naeem: Mr. Naeem would marry Mr. Rahimis daughter, Qamar, as his second wife. In exchange, Mr. Rahimi would take Mr. Naeems teenage niece as his second wife.

Since both girls were young, they waited two years before making the marriage official in separate wedding ceremonies. Mr. Naeem and Mr. Rahimi had grown so close that when Mr. Naeem needed a loan of about $3,000, Mr. Rahimi became his guarantor at a business that gave him the loan.

Naeem was his son-in-law, and they got along very well too, said Sebghatullah, Mr. Rahimis nephew. It all turned upside down at once.

Just how Mr. Naeem joined the Taliban is not exactly clear. But relatives and local officials said it happened over the course of the past two years, as his private life started falling apart and he was chased for his debts.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23 2020

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has urged Padjadjaran Universitys (Unpad) School of Medicine research team in Bandung, West Java, to make the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine available for widespread use within three months amid mounting concerns over the ongoing health crisis.

Unpad professor Kusnandi Rusmil said Jokowi had called on the research team to fast-track the potential vaccine during a private meeting held at the State Palace in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

We were instructed by the President [produce] a coronavirus vaccine within three months if possible, he told the press after the meeting.

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Toxic work environment: Jennifer Eckhart (pictured) and Cathy Areu are suing Fox News and several of its most prominent hosts

A former Fox Business Network producer and a frequent Fox News guest are suing the network and several of its most prominent hosts, including recently fired anchor Ed Henry, alleging sexual assault and harassment.

The legal complaint was filed by Jennifer Eckhart, a longtime employee at Fox Business Network, and Cathy Areu, a frequent guest who appeared as a commentator. The most startling and graphic charge in the suit alleges Mr Henry raped Ms Eckhart - an allegation Mr Henry's lawyer denied.

Fox announced on July 1 it had fired Mr Henry, saying there had been a credible accusation by a former colleague of "sexual misconduct in the workplace years ago".

The new lawsuit says the network's statement "intentionally downplayed the severity of the situation" in an attempt "to avoid taking accountability for what actually happened".

Ms Eckhart accuses Mr Henry of sexually assaulting her in a guest office on the 17th floor of the Fox News office building in New York in September 2015, and raping her in a New York hotel room in 2017, after handcuffing her and taking naked photographs of her.

After Ms Eckhart reported details of her "toxic work environment" to a HR executive and her superviser in February 2020, the lawsuit alleges, Fox News fired her as an act of retaliation in June, once it realised Ms Eckhart "engaged in protected activity by hiring counsel and putting Fox News on notice of her intent to bring legal claims".

The lawsuit also says Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Howard Kurtz and Gianno Caldwell of engaging in inappropriate and suggestive behaviour.

Fox News told 'The Washington Post': "Based on the findings of a comprehensive independent investigation conducted by an outside law firm, including interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, we have determined that all of Cathy Areu's claims against Fox News, including its management as well as its hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Howard Kurtz and its contributor Gianno Caldwell, are false, patently frivolous and utterly devoid of any merit."

It continued: "Ms Areu and Jennifer Eckhart can pursue their claims against Ed Henry directly with him."

Mr Henry released a statement through his lawyer: "The MeToo movement has helped to bring to light a number of injustices in our society, and everyone that has suffered deserves to be heard. This is not one of those cases. The evidence in this case will demonstrate Ms Eckhart initiated and completely encouraged a consensual relationship."

Ms Areu, who made hundreds of appearances as a commentator, alleges Fox News "strung [her] along as a candidate for a full-time position, all while she was being sexually harassed and retaliated against".

She says Mr Henry "sent [her] a slew of wildly inappropriate sexual images, messages and videos through the first half of this year, including many texts in which he implied Ms Areu should have sex with him and he would assist Ms Areu's career if she did so".

 Washington Post
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  A Grand Rapids police detective has demanded the ACLU of Michigan retract a press release that accused him of jury tampering.

Attorneys for Detective Robert Zabriskie said the press release contained damaging, false information.

From the title of your press release referencing jury tampering to the insinuation that this was racially motivated  the implication of the press release is false, Grand Rapids attorneys Josh Kuiper and Andrew Rodenhouse said in a letter to the ACLU.

What was written about Detective Zabriskie directly affects the safety of his entire family, as well as the Grand Rapids Police Department, and members of the law enforcement community in general, the attorneys said.

Anthony Greene, an ACLU of Michigan cooperating attorney, co-authored a statement last week that said: A police detective texting a sitting juror is a threat to the criminal legal system as a whole.

The controversy stems from a text conversation in late 2019 between Zabriskie and a friend who was seated on a Kent County Circuit Court jury.

Zabriskie responded to text messages from the friend, who complained about another juror who refused to find a defendant guilty.

Zabriskie texted back: We need good people to show up and say they dont have a preconceived notions about guilt or innocence, and then, find the defendant guilty. Duh. LOL.

He told his friend to tell the judge about the juror she described as obnoxious and disgruntled.

The next morning, Zabriskie called Kent County prosecutors to report improper contact with a juror. He then testified about the contact, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial in the drug-possession case.

Any fair-minded reading of the transcript shows the detective did not know the friend who contacted him was an actual sitting juror impaneled in an actual case, his attorneys said.

In fact, the transcript and evidence show he thought she was joking. The transcript shows he was contacted after hours at 8:27 p.m. on December 4, 2019, while putting his children to sleep.

His attorneys said the transcripts show the detective did not know about the case, did not reach out to the friend and did not try to influence her decision. They acknowledged that Zabriskie asked if the difficult juror mentioned by his friend was Black but said that went nowhere.

It merits emphasis that barring his self-report of the text exchange no one would have known of this. In fact, the Court thanked him very much. Detective Zabriskie did this to ensure the defendant had a fair and impartial trial, Kuiper and Rodenhouse wrote.

The ACLU had alleged that if the communication with the jury had been with anyone other than a detective, there would have been an investigation by the prosecutors office and probably jury tampering charges for the individual that engaged in the communication.

Attorneys for Zabriskie said that the allegations were investigated.

After the incident occurred, Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker asked that the state Attorney Generals Office assign an outside prosecutor to investigate. State police also investigated. An Ottawa County assistant prosecutor appointed to review the case said criminal charges were not warranted.

The incident was also reviewed by Grand Rapids Police Departments Internal Affairs and Office of Professional Responsibility.

For these reasons, Detective Zabriskie demands that you publish a full retraction of your letter immediately, the attorneys wrote.

The ACLU updated the press release but it remains online.

Miriam Aukerman, an ACLU attorney, said no one would have heard about the incident if the ACLU hadnt provided the information. She said the ACLU was pleased to learn investigations had taken place.

We sent the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and the Office of Oversight and Public Accountability a follow-up letter clarifying that fact and reiterated what we are seeking: policy changes, training, and timely public availability of disciplinary and criminal complaints involving police officers to prevent such incidents in the future.

Despite Zabriskie bringing the texts to authorities and a no criminal charges being filed, under no circumstance should a police officer text with a sitting juror during deliberations, Aukerman wrote.

Zabriskie underwent undisclosed discipline after Internal Affairs determined he violated department policy, an official said.

His attorneys say he is considering legal action against the ACLU.

Read more:

ACLU claims Grand Rapids detective tampered with jury, prosecutor calls allegation no investigation occurred completely false

Police searching for man who allegedly hit Michigan restaurant staff over mask request

Use-of-force policies from major Michigan police agencies fail to meet anti-brutality demands
The COVID-19 pandemic has put a plan to direct billions of dollars towards south-east Queensland projects over the next 20 years on hold.

The plan would commit local, state and federal governments to fund specific areas to cater to a population that will grow by 1.9 million people in the next two decades.

South-east Queensland is arguing for a set funding deal from local, state and federal government to cope with population growth. Credit:Louie Douvis

The Property Council of Queensland and the Committee for Brisbane described the delay to 2021 as a cruel blow for south-east Queensland, where citizens deserved better.

Queensland Property Council executive director Chris Mountford questioned the wisdom of delaying the funding plan.
FOLCROFT- Borough council on Tuesday joined a growing number of municipalities in the state that have decriminalized possession of a small amount of marijuana in a bid to relieve both residents and the justice system of the burden of prosecuting simple possession offenses.

This measure was long overdue, said council President Joe Papaleo in a release. The resources which are utilized to arrest and prosecute residents for simple possession can no longer be justified. The lifelong ramifications of being put into the criminal justice system for an inconsequential offense are severe and can also no longer be justified. I am proud to have been a participant and advocate of this unanimously approved justice reform in my town.

Folcroft now joins Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, York, State College, Erie, Lancaster, Bethlehem, Norristown and Steelton in the state, as well as 27 states and Washington, D.C., who have some form of decriminalization on the books for marijuana.

Ordinance 2020-1, which took effect immediately upon passage, defines a small amount as 30 grams or less of marijuana and eight grams or less of hashish. It notes that personnel possession does not include possession with intent to deliver, distribute, transfer or sell.

Any adult caught with a small amount of marijuana or paraphernalia under the terms of the ordinance will be issued a non-traffic summary citation, which can also be mailed to the individuals home address.

The process is somewhat more involved for minors, who will be temporarily detained, but law enforcement will still follow the normal procedures for handling summary offenses committed by a minor.

This includes alerting a parent or guardian that the minor was caught in possession of marijuana or paraphernalia, issuance of a copy of the citation to the parent or guardian, advising them they are responsible for paying a fine, and providing contact information for a local agency where substance abuse education and treatment programs are available.

Fines for possessing or using marijuana or paraphernalia are each set at $100, though the court may suspend the fine at its discretion if the offender agrees to perform up to 25 hours of community service.

The release cites Uniform Crime Reports issued annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which indicate there were 663,367 marijuana law violation arrests nationwide in 2018, the last year on record. Of those, 608,775 were arrested for possession only, according to the FBI.

Giving officers the discretion to issue a citation rather than make an arrest frees up resources to combat crimes that endanger public safety and removes the trauma of going through the criminal court system for marijuana consumers, the release states.

Folcroft Police Chief William Bair said he was fine with enforcing the law prior to the ordinance because marijuana remains illegal federally and for non-medical use in the state, but he was equally fine with having discretion not to charge since most of those cases cost time and money for everyone involved with typically very little benefit.

If its going to get thrown out or go to a disorderly conduct at the end of everything when it goes out to Media from here, were wasting our time, he said. An officer has to take the person, go fingerprint them, photograph them, and then come back and (write) a criminal complaint, so theyre tied up in that way, and now they have to go to court and that person doesnt have an attorney, so then they have to continue it, and then continue it again, they have to get the drugs examined  you know, its a lot of different things to do and basically come out of it and its either thrown out because the court system is saying its just weed or just give them a disorderly conduct.

There are also times when the lab used to identify the marijuana is backlogged for months, said Bair, meaning the state has to continue the case at the magisterial district court level several times just to be able to present the evidence before the case can move on to Media. In the meantime, officers have to make those court dates, which means overtime, which means even more money being thrown into something that will most likely result in a $100 fine for disorderly conduct, which the borough will only see about half of.

Bair said that on one hand it is difficult to reconcile all the costs of bringing these cases  for both the state and the defendants, whose lives are also significantly disrupted  for something that will likely play out in the same way a simple citation would.

But on the other, Bair said he agrees officers need to be given the freedom to charge in certain circumstances. For instance, a known heroin user busted with $10 worth of marijuana might not ultimately benefit from being issued a ticket, he said, but could be steered into treatment if officers have the ability to conduct an arrest and place them into custody.

Bair also warned that the ordinance is not a free pass to smoke marijuana in Folcroft, but is just one tool officers have to police their borough. Someone cited one or two times could still be subject to possible arrest on another offense if they dont seem to be getting the message, he said.

I think it will basically be that youre still going to have some people that will just do it and will be pains in our butts, and theyre going to get charged sooner or later, and then you will have people that are like, Look Ive learned my lesson, Im not going to do it again, Im not going to be out there in public doing that. I can tell you the answer to that probably in a year, if we do use it, or we dont use it and how much we do use it. (Right now,) I dont know.

Morton Police Chief Joseph LaSpina said his department has been creatively treating a 1998 ordinance dealing with drug paraphernalia in much the same manner as Folcrofts new ordinance since he came on as chief in late 2016.

LaSpina said Mortons ordinance  initially passed to block head shops from operating in the borough and selling to minors  makes it unlawful to possess or sell things like smoking devices and baggies.

How it was worded was possession of, and part of the possession of was a baggie, a roach clip, a bong, or whatever it was, he said. Well, every time you have a small amount of marijuana, its in something. Its in a baggie, thats considered paraphernalia, so what I did is I used that as our small amount instead of charging them criminally. I kind of got a little creative with the ordinance and its been very effective since then.

LaSpina said his officers will confiscate the paraphernalia, along with its contents, which is stored as evidence. Offenders are then issued a non-traffic summary citation, either through the mail or sometimes on the spot, but no arrests are made and no criminal charges are filed.

Its been really effective since Ive been doing it, said LaSpina. Ive been doing it for about two and a half, three years since we really got our teeth into it, and its not clogging up the court system, its saving our officers paperwork, time  you know, time is money  were keeping our officers on the street. People dont have to get fingerprinted, we dont have to take the evidence out to the lab to get it weighed and analyzed, and officers are spending less time in court and the people arent getting criminal records that they later have to get expunged. Sometimes people make these choices when theyre younger and they have to pay a lot for them when they get older.

Mortons ordinance caps fines at $1,000 plus costs, as well as attorneys fees, and can result in up to 90 days in prison if the fine is defaulted. But LaSpina said officers will typically work with the court to find a reasonable fine amount which is far below the maximum.

Keep in mind that every case is an individual case, so I dont have any obvious set rules for how I do this because every individual case is different, said Magisterial District Judge Andrea Puppio, who handles cases originating in Morton. Having said that, when I get them, the only information I have is whats contained in the citation, which often times is not a lot of information, but enough to tell me it falls within the statutes and where it is within the realm of the ordinance.

Puppio said she will set a fine amount and then the defendant can enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. If they plead not guilty, they can request a hearing and the case will go from there. Otherwise, they might set some sort of payment plan for the fine and she usually wont see them again after that unless they have a problem with the plan.

If they request a hearing, they will have the hearing or the Morton police may come in and say, I have spoken with this individual, they have agreed to plead guilty if you agree to lower the fine, and since the fine is a range, that can be done, she said. In addition to which, if I have a hearing and, lets say, when the citation came in and I gave it a fine in the beginning  which Im required to, you cannot do anything without the fine in there  I might hear all the evidence but dont think you need to pay that much of a fine, Im going to lower the fine.

Puppio did not recall anecdotally what fine amounts she might have set in the past, noting the coronavirus has temporarily suspended hearing non-traffic citations for months, but LaSpina said using the citation system has worked out well so far, and other departments in the county have begun to follow suit.

LaSpina noted Aston requested a copy of Mortons ordinance after its officials heard what his department was doing, and Aston passed a similar paraphernalia ordinance in July 2019. Aston Police Chief Daniel Ruggieri could not be reached for comment Wednesday, however, so it was unclear if it is being enforced in the same fashion as Morton.

Obviously the district attorney is supportive of Folcrofts decision because this is something he wanted to explore from the day he was sworn in  to try and work to (stop) people from being arrested for using marijuana, and fortunately there is more widespread support for that than there has been historically, said Margie McAboy, a spokeswoman for county District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer. He sees it as part of a smart on crime plan and there is a tentative plan to introduce an ordinance in front of Delaware County Council that would support decriminalization in other municipalities.

A spokesperson for county council did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

I think there is a general acknowledgment that it is not the highest and best use of police officers time, said McAboy. The effect on the communities is just absurd and disproportionate.

She added that any countywide ordinance that may be passed would be narrowly tailored to only address small amounts of marijuana for personal use and would not hamper officers abilities to go after drug dealers.

The idea would be that we would have this council legislation  most likely an ordinance  and then municipalities would be free to define it slightly differently, said McAboy. The default position would be to decriminalize, but then the boroughs could go further. Somehow well thread the needle where we show deference to the municipalities, but at the same time try to accomplish this overarching goal of decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.

McAboy noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has already forced the county prison in Concord to halve its population with expedited plea bargains, release of probation- or parole-only offenders, and suspension of a partial confinement program for low-level offenders, which she said has not caused the fabric of the community to unravel.

I dont think the fact that there are fewer people sitting in George Hill has caused things to fall apart in Delaware County, she said. Capacity is over 1,800, and it was routine to have 1,700 in there, and now its under 1,000. So thats pretty remarkable and I like to think of that as fewer lives ruined.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 06:54:43|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives, led by Democrats, passed legislation on Wednesday aimed at repealing the Trump administration's travel bans.

The National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act was passed with a 233-183 vote, largely along party lines.

However, it is unlikely to be taken up in the Senate, where Republicans have a majority.

Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that the bill would stop "executive overreach by preventing the president from abusing his authority to restrict the entry of non-citizens into the United States."

The bill, according to the statement, would also repeal travel restrictions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, which critics have called discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Trump first issued the travel ban in 2017, barring entry to those coming from several predominantly Muslim countries. Enditem
JOS, Nigeria, July 22, 2020 (Morning Star News)  Muslim Fulani herdsmen on Monday (July 20) killed 11 Christians in an attack in Kaduna state, Nigeria, the latest of more than 50 members of Baptist, ECWA and Catholic churches slain since June 12, sources said.

More than 50 armed herdsmen invaded Gora Gan village, in the north-central states Zangon Kataf County, on Monday at about 7 p.m., setting dozens of houses on fire, according to the Rev. Isaac Ango Makama, vice chairman of the local chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

Seven other Christians were injured in the attack and were receiving treatment at General Hospital in Zonkwa, and many others are missing, he said. Corpses of those killed were taken to the morgue of the same hospital.

The attack brought to more than 500 the number of Christians taking refuge at a camp for the displaced, said Ezekiel James, one of the officials manning the camp.

We currently have 559 displaced Christians at the Zonkwa Town Camp, James told Morning Star News by text message. They are Christians who escaped the attack against Gora Gan village and other villages in the past few days. These internally displaced Christians are in dire need of food items, drugs, and facilities to treat those who are traumatized.

Sunday

The attack brings to more than 50 the number of Christians killed in Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacks in southern Kaduna state since June 12, when the Rev. Bulus Bayi of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) was shot dead.

The herdsmen on Sunday (July 19) attacked predominantly Christian Kukum Daji, in Kaura County, killing 18 Christians and wounding 31 others, according to Christian community leader Yashen Sunday Titus. A wedding reception was taking place at the time, he said.

The herdsmen stormed our village at 10:35 p.m.; they were heavily armed and began shooting at our people, Titus told Morning Star News. Some of our villagers are still missing.

The injured were receiving treatment at a Christian hospital in Kafanchan and at Barrau Dikko Teaching Hospital in the city of Kaduna, he said.

Friday

In Kajuru County, Fulani herdsmen on Friday (July 17) attacked Doka Avong village, killing five Christians, including 3-year-old Faith Shagari and Dorcas Shagari, 6. Also slain were Gloria Shagari, 25; Hussaini Daudu, 40; and Ayuba Bulus, 40, sources said.

On the same day in Katchia County, herdsmen attacked Mai-Ido village, killing four Christians and kidnapping 10 others, resident Chris Maiyaki told Morning Star News by text message.

July 9-12

Attacking the southern Kaduna villages of Chibuak and Kigudu on July 9-10, the herdsmen killed 20 Christians, said the Rev. Aaron Tanko, an area Roman Catholic priest.

Many others are missing, and we presume that they might have been kidnapped, Tanko said.

Nine Christians were killed in Chibuak on July 9, and 11 were killed in a night raid on Kigudu village on July 10, he said.

Some people are still missing, so I cannot conclusively say this is the casualty figure, Tanko said. Some of those killed are my parishioners, and other Christians of other church denominations. Christians here are at the mercy of Fulani herdsman, as these herdsmen are always well-armed, and they invade our communities and kill Christians at will.

On July 12 herdsmen killed two other Christians in Anguwan Audu, sources said. The Rev. Gambo Waziri of the ECWA said recent attacks on 20 predominantly Christian communities have displaced 1,200 people.

July 2-5

Herdsmen attacked the villages of Doka, Afogo, Kallah, Gefe and Libere, all bordering the Ladugga grazing reserve, July 2-5, area Christian leader Awemi Dio Maisamari said in a press statement.

Our communities are still bedeviled with attacks, kidnappings and occupation of displaced communities, Maisamari said. Our farmers are still routinely attacked and sometimes killed when they go to their farms. In the latest incidents on July 2 and 5, two women at Doka were seriously wounded, and one man named Yohanna Mutane was killed at Maraban Kajuru respectively.

Amid numerous kidnapping in May and June, one person was killed and more than 15 held for ransom, he said.

With happenings like these, our community is yet to know peace, Maisamari said.

June 12

Herdsmen shot ECWA pastor Bulus Bayi to death while he worked on his farm in Sabon Gari Gusawa village, Kauru County, on June 12, sources said. Pastors in northern Nigeria frequently augment their modest salaries as farmer in order to sustain their families.

Luka Binniyat, spokesman for the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), said Kaduna Gov. Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai has shown no concern about the killings.

Of the scores of gruesome attacks, the governor has never made any sympathy visit to the communities, let alone take steps to alleviate their suffering by providing relief materials to the displaced, Binniyat said in a press statement. Many of these threatened communities have consequently relocated to surrounding communities, thereby creating a very serious humanitarian situation.

On Jan. 30 Christian Solidarity International (CSI) issued a genocide warning for Nigeria, calling on the Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council to take action. CSI issued the call in response to a rising tide of violence directed against Nigerian Christians and others classified as infidels by Islamist militants in the countrys north and middle belt regions.

Nigeria ranked 12th on Open Doors 2020 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution but second in the number of Christians killed for their faith, behind Pakistan.

If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.

If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at https://morningstarnews.org/donate/?

Article originally published by Morning Star News. Used with permission.

Photo courtesy: McBarth Obeya/Pexels
Christian girl kidnapped in Pakistan now pregnant, confined to 1 room: lawyer

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A Pakistani Christian teenager who was kidnapped and forced into an Islamic marriage last year is now pregnant and confined to one room by her abuser, an attorney representing her family has said.

Tabassum Yousaf, a lawyer representing the parents of 15-year-old Huma Younus, told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need International that the teenager informed her parents by phone that she is pregnant after being repeatedly raped by the man who abducted her.

Asked by her father if she could leave her abductors house and return to her parents' home, she told him that she is not allowed to leave the house and that her life has become still more difficult, Yousaf explained. [S]he is now imprisoned within the walls of one room.

Younus was taken from her home on Oct. 10, 2019, at the age of 14, and later forcibly married to a radical Muslim man named Abdul Jabbar. She was also forced to convert to Islam.

Younus parents have declared the marriage between their daughter and her captor to be invalid because she's not of legal age to consent to the marriage (which is 18) under the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act.

According to Yousaf, Jabbars brother, Mukhtiar, is a member of the Pakistani security forces Rangers branch and has threatened to kill the teenagers parents if they intervene.

This man has contacted Humas parents via video telephone calls and threatened them directly, showing them his weapons and telling them he would kill them if ever they should come looking for their daughter, Yousaf said. This same man, Mukhtiar, has added in audio messages that even if all the Christians should band together to bring Huma back, he would kill both her parents and anyone who tried to help them.

According to the pontifical foundation, the familys case had previously been closed by the Third Judicial Magistrate for Karachi East on the grounds of a lack of proof even though the family submitted a sworn statement from Humas school and a baptism certificate from St. James Church in Karachi showing the childs date of birth was in May 2005.

The family appealed the decision. Upon appeal, the magistrates were said to have contacted Pakistans official public records authority to obtain the girls birth certificate.

The familys appeal was set to be heard before the Sindh High Court last Monday. However, the court is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the charity, the court is unlikely to reopen until August.

Yousaf states that the lawyer representing Jabbar is using legal maneuvers in an attempt to further delay the case. Once Younus turns 18, Yousaf said that it's highly likely that the case will be halted indefinitely.

Since Pakistan is a majority Muslim country, Yousaf stressed that there is a tendency for long delays for court cases involving religious minorities.

Justice delayed is justice denied, hence every delay in reaching judgement on the defense of the rights of religious minorities represents a denial of these rights, Yousaf said. The court has delayed and continues to delay justice on behalf of Huma, solely because she is an underage Christian girl.

Yousaf contends that if Younus was a Muslim girl, authorities would act immediately.

As a lawyer, I am certain that the president of the Pakistani Supreme Court could grant justice to the parents of the girl and to Huma herself, Yousaf added. However, at every other lower level of the judicial system justice for the minorities will not be possible.

Yousaf stressed that while estimates vary, there are likely 2,000 cases per year of underage girls in Pakistan who've been abducted in similar circumstances as Younus. She warned that many of those cases go unreported.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that several independent institutions recognize that an estimated 1,000 young women are forcibly converted to Islam each year, many of whom are kidnapped, forcibly married, and subjected to rape.

Open Doors USA, a leading international Christian persecution watchdog organization, ranks Pakistan as the fifth-worst country in the world for Christian persecution.

The U.S. State Department also lists Pakistan as a country of particular concern that has engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom.

Christians report that their girls are often abducted, raped, forced to marry their abductor, and converted by force, an Open Doors USA dossier on Pakistan reads. The authorities do not take any action; on the contrary, usually they side with the Muslim families abducting the girls. Consequently, parents of such victimized women and girls begin to feel it is pointless to take legal action. Even when a case comes to the courts, the girls are forced to testify that they converted voluntarily.
After giving us a sneek peek in Paris and Chicago, Nike on Monday revealed Virgil Abloh's latest Air Jordan creation for women, as well as where sneaker fans can get their hands on it when it releases later this week.

The new Virgil Abloh Women's Air Jordan IV x Off-White has been designed in a full-grain cream coloured leather, with exposed foam, mesh, and clear textile details adding a contemporary edge to the classic Nike silhouette. "AIR" is printed above the yellow tinted outsole in the familiar bold text graphics of the Off White brand, while a signature Off-White zip tie provides the finishing touch.

Nike has also revealed that the women's Air Jordan IV x Off-White releases July 25 priced at $200 on SNKRS, and at retail stores across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Vijayawada: YSR Congress MP V. Vijayasai Reddy has been infected with Covid-19. Confirming this on Twitter, Reddy, the YSRC Parliamentary Party leader, said that he had decided to quarantine himself for a week to 10 days as a mark of abundant caution.

He said that he would not available on telephone except for emergencies. Several YSR Congress legislators have been infected with the Coronavirus in AP. Meanwhile, AP reported a total of 4,944 new Covid-19 cases and death of 62 Covid-19 patients in the last 24 hours. The state now has 58,668 cases.
New York Department of Environmental Conservation

HUNTER  A New York state police trooper rescued an injured and sick bald eagle in Schoharie County a few months ago - and now the recovered bird is one of the rare lead-poisoned birds in New York to be tracked electronically.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation said the eagle had been shot when it was found, and was also suffering from lead poisoning.
Basra (Iraq) (AFP) - Several dozen foreign workers were evacuated from Iraq following protests at a gas facility in the southern province of Basra, industry sources confirmed to AFP on Thursday.

Five planes carrying around 40 foreign nationals working alongside the Basra Gas Company were flown out of the country on Wednesday, an industry source and an airport source said.

The industry source said it was due to days of protests over late salary payments at one of the fields where BGC, a joint operation between Shell, Mitsubishi and Iraq's state-owned South Gas Company, is extracting gas.

"As a result of a security breach at the accommodation camp of Basra Gas Company, we have temporarily relocated Shell secondees," a spokesman for Shell said.

"All staff and contractors are safe and BGC production is not impacted," the spokesman added, declining to specify how many employees were evacuated and where they were flown to.

Commercial flights in Iraq have been halted since late March as part of a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 130 people and infected more than 3,000 across the country.

Iraq has been hit hard by the collapse of world crude prices in the wake of the coronavirus crisis as as it relies on its oil revenues to fund more than 90 percent of government expenses.

Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhemi said this week that public salaries for the month of May would be paid as usual after fears that last month's record-low oil revenues would force the government to halt public sector wages.

In late March, authorities asked international companies extracting oil and gas in Basra to accept a delay in payments for the first two quarters of this year.

They also requested companies cut their work budgets by 30 percent, prompting fears of lay-offs.

In Basra, Iraqi gas workers have been protesting for several days as a dispute over payments has delayed their salaries.
Another Bailey County resident has died and the first positive COVID-19 case has been reported at Parkview Nursing Care Center.

The announcements were made in the same statement released on the Muleshoe/Bailey County Emergency Mgmt. Facebook page Monday night.

The deceased individual is a 76-year-old woman. No other information was released except that she died the 48 hours prior to Monday nights announcement.

The reported death and the COVID-19 outbreak at the nursing facility are unrelated.

According to the statement, one resident of the Parkview Nursing Care Center has tested positive for COVID-19 and there are two other individuals showing symptoms.

Tests results for the symptomatic individuals are expected within 24 to 48 hours of when their tests were conducted, according to the statement.

As a precaution, all other residents and staff of Parkview were expected to undergo COVID-19 testing on Tuesday. Parkview was also expected to set up a wing dedicated to housing residents who have tested positive.

The statement goes on to say the facility has taken precautions to try to keep the virus out.

Parkview has followed all state and local rules meant to keep the virus out of the facility, the statement reads. Unfortunately, due to the extremely contagious nature of this virus, it still found its way in.

No additional details will be made public to keep the health matter confidential.

A total of 153 confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in Bailey County since early June. The latest available statistics show 131 individuals have recovered and there are 20 active cases.

The Centers for Disease Control continues to encourage people to wash their hands, practice social distancing, avoid crowds and wear a mask when out in public  which is legally required in most counties in Texas.

Earlier this month, Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order setting the mask requirement but providing counties a possibility for exemption  which Bailey County applied for. To qualify, a county must have an active case count of 20 or less.

Bailey continues to be listed as exempt.
During an online news conference held by New Virginia Minority Wednesday, several members of the group said they have tried repeatedly to obtain money from the program to pay their overdue rent, but have not received a response from administrators. The group called on Northam to establish a 24-hour hotline staffed with case managers who are fluent in languages spoken in their regions and to require the processing of payments toward a tenants overdue rent within 48 hours.
Ahmedabad:

Porbander BJP MP Vitthal Radadiya on Tuesday warned of "consequences" if the ban on District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) from accepting or exchanging scrapped notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 is not lifted immediately.

Radadiya, who is also the chairman of Rajkot District Cooperative Bank, condemned the restriction imposed by RBI on Gujarat-based DCCBs on Sunday barring them from accepting and exchanging scrapped notes, claiming that it has increased the hardships of farmers and villager who are dependent on such rural banks.

"This is absolutely an arbitrary decision taken by the RBI overnight. This restriction on DCCBs is like snatching away the rights of villagers and farmers, as most of these banks operates in villages. I condemn this decision," said Radadiya.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has barred DCCBs in Gujarat from accepting or exchanging defunct currency notes from people. The central bank on Sunday emailed a circular to all the 18 Gujarat-based DCCBs, asking them not to accept and exchange the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

According to Radadiya, this has put thousands of farmers and villagers in deep trouble.

"I have made a representation to the Gujarat CM (Vijay Rupani) as well as Amit Shah (BJP chief) in this regard. If no decision is taken immediately, people will have no other option to start a mass agitation against this move and government will have to bear the consequences," said Radadiya.

BJP leader Dilip Sanghani, who is the chairman of National Federation of State Cooperative Banks (NAF-SCOB), on Tuesday was in Delhi to meet Union Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar on this issue.

"Till yesterday, only Gujarat based DCCBs were barred from accepting old notes. But now, such banks all over India are covered. I have met Gangwarji today on this issue and made him aware about the difficulties people are facing. I am hopeful that government takes a positive decision in this regard," Sanghani told PTI from Delhi.

Meanwhile, quota agitation leader Hardik Patel also issued a statement condemning the RBI move.

In his statement, Hardik claimed that a mass agitation would start if the decision is not taken back within three days. He warned the BJP to get ready or face the consequences.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has rolled out a new virtual assistant powered by Google Cloud to help some 6,000 incoming freshmen transition to university life on the NTU Smart Campus.

Named Project Lyon 2.0, the virtual assistant chatbot complements the virtual Freshmen Orientation held online, which replaces the annual Freshman Orientation programme due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project demonstrates the NTU Smart Campus vision to harness digital technology and tech-enabled solutions to support better learning and living experiences, the discovery of new knowledge, and the sustainability of resources.

Aimed at providing the newly matriculated students an easy-to-use mobile experience, the virtual assistant will help to direct them to the right resources that they need and to assist the university in the smooth running of onboarding activities.

Together with cloud consulting partner OniGroup, NTU's Centre for IT Services (CITS) worked with Google Cloud to programme and 'train' the new chatbot to provide a better experience, which was developed with inputs from students.

Powered by Google Cloud's Mega Agent technology, the new chatbot has enhanced conversational flows, allowing it to hold a conversation similar to talking with a real person, which will help to drive a wider usage of the chatbot among the freshmen and other users in NTU.

Ms Tan Aik Na, Senior Vice President (Administration), NTU Singapore, said, "The chatbot is a great example of how the university's staff and students can work together synergistically to develop and deploy a robust technological solution on the NTU Smart Campus, which helps to ensure the safe onboarding of new students amidst the COVID-19 pandemic".

"During this challenging period where all activities are encouraged to go virtual, Project Lyon Chatbot is now a critical feature of the upcoming freshmen orientation, as part of the university's digitalisation efforts. Our students were guided and empowered to create a useful chatbot for their peers, and they also picked up valuable chatbot development skills in the process."

Mr Gary Lim, Public Sector - Education Lead, Google Cloud, Southeast Asia, said "NTU is the first education institution in Southeast Asia to use Google Cloud's Dialogflow Mega Agent, which was launched globally this year in February.

The Dialogflow Mega Agent can process up to 20,000 intents (queries), thereby providing students with a wider variety of relevant information related to freshmen, or any other topics that Lyon 2.0 will be used for in the future.

For instance, the new chatbot can address questions like "How to register for courses?" and "Can you show me the examination timetable?". It can also suggest suitable F&B options or help students navigate their way on campus, for example finding their way to their tutorial rooms or labs."

"Answering the myriad of questions that new students have can be tricky, especially in a time where physical interactions are limited," Mr Lim said. "With the ease of integration and the enhanced number of intents that the new agent is able to handle, we believe that the new chatbot will serve the needs of the NTU students, helping them take their first steps as a university student and to find their sense of belonging to NTU."

One of the key hurdles that the joint task force led by NTU had overcome was the chatbot's interactivity and ability to provide answers to a variety of topics and questions that the new students may have now or in the future.

Conventionally, a chatbot uses a single Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent to perform a query. But to create richer conversations, the Mega Agent can use up to 10 AI agents to handle queries, which was ideal for the digital channel that NTU was looking for to engage the freshmen.

The Project Lyon Chatbot has now been rolled out for the new batch of students who start their term in August 2020.

Training of the chatbot will continue, with an NTU team comprising of students from the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Programme and the Linguistics and Multilingual Studies. They will work to include more localised nuances of queries that may be asked by freshmen and to improve the accuracy of the chatbot in answering questions correctly.

###

Media contact:

Lester Kok

Assistant Director

Corporate Communications Office

Nanyang Technological University

Email: lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg

Hilary Tan

Google Cloud

Email: hilary.tan@tateanzur.com

About Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Engineering, Business, Science, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and Graduate colleges. It also has a medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, established jointly with Imperial College London.

NTU is also home to world-renowned autonomous institutes - the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering - and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) and Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N).

Ranked amongst the world's top universities by QS, NTU has also been named the world's top young university for the past seven years. The University's main campus is frequently listed among the Top 15 most beautiful university campuses in the world and it has 57 Green Mark-certified (equivalent to LEED-certified) building projects, of which 95% are certified Green Mark Platinum. Apart from its main campus, NTU also has a campus in Singapore's healthcare district.

For more information, visit http://www.ntu.edu.sg

About Google Cloud

Google Cloud provides organizations with leading infrastructure, platform capabilities and industry solutions. We deliver enterprise-grade cloud solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology to help companies operate more efficiently and adapt to changing needs, giving customers a foundation for the future. Customers in more than 150 countries turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to solve their most critical business problems.
Former US Assistant Secretary of State for the South Caucasus affairs, Matthew Bryza, commented on the latest amendments adopted by the US Congress in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.

"These amendments in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 calling for report the status of internally displaced persons in illegally occupied territories in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan is quite significant in a context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," he said.

"I think that Azerbaijan has been brought together into the same vehicle because, in Washington, I think, people have generally come to the conclusion, at least in the Congress, that this latest round of attacking and shooting that began on July 12 on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border was started by Armenia. It is a huge accomplishment for Azerbaijans supporters in Washington to have this language include Azerbaijan. In my experience as OSCE Minsk Group co-chair, my counterpart the Armenian foreign minister would be furious if I ever talked or when I talked about Nagorno Karabakh and 7 surrounding regions being occupied by Armenian forces. And the Armenian-American lobbying groups in Washington always push very hard against there ever be a mention of Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh or Azerbaijans territory of Nagorno-Karabakh," he believes.

"This is a significant development. I dont know whether it shows that Washington is becoming more active or activated in pushing for Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. I dont see president Trump taking up this issue, but I think it is still going to be an issue managed largely by OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs," he noted.

"The US governments view on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and its peaceful resolution has not changed, neither for the last four years nor the last 26 years. USs view is that there should be, can be and, in fact, exists a formula that allows for upholding of the international principal of territorial integrity of states as well as the self-determination of peoples. And it is the so-called Madrid Documents that lays up these basic principles which I was very actively involved in negotiating back in between 2006 and 2008. And that set of principles was agreed in principle by then president Sargsyan of Armenia and president Aliyev of Azerbaijan. They never finalized those principles because there were still some important details that needed to be adopted," he stressed.

"So the USs view has remained - the helping two sides come together to reach a mutually agreed framework for a final peace agreement that allows for both the territorial integrity of states to be upheld, allows for the self-determination of peoples to be upheld and also is based on the principle of none first use of force or no threat to use force. Those three principles are key elements of the Helsinki Final Act. The US has long supported all three of them," he conluded.
London: Angela Merkel's time in office may be drawing to a close but the German Chancellor's shrewd manoeuvring over recent months has ensured her influence is at no risk of faltering.

Merkel  who will retire in 2021 after 15 years as the leader of Germany and, arguably, Europe  was the key factor behind a new recovery deal designed to pull the continent out of its deepest economic crisis since the end of World War II.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the crunch summit in Brussels. Credit:AP

Despite some cuts to the amount of money dished out to hard-hit countries, the 750 billion ($1.2 trillion) package is of a scale and design most thought unthinkable just a few months ago. Merkel's pragmatic and prudent politics helped make the impossible suddenly possible.

The so-called "Club Med" grouping of Italy, France, Greece, Portugal and Spain have been begging for a large pool of stimulus raised by massive borrowing on capital markets by the EU. The idea was to use the EU's heft to borrow at a much cheaper cost than individual, debt-laden countries ever could. The money would then be distributed to countries based on severity of need, and with few strings attached on how it would be spent.
As President Trump prepares to send federal law enforcement officers into Americas largest cities to control civil unrest and street crime, local officials have reacted with alarm and threats of legal action.

Congressional Democrats and even some Republicans have denounced the use of officers in military uniform  but without identification  patrolling streets in Portland, Ore. Many have questioned whether their presence, over the objections of the mayor and governor, is even constitutional.

Is it? If Trump carries out his plans and the mayors of New York, Chicago and other cities sue in response, how are the courts likely to view it?

The bottom line, according to Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert and professor at George Washington University, is that local officials have no absolute right to declare federal law enforcement persona non grata in their jurisdiction.

But a lot will depend on what, exactly, the federal officials will be doing.

In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said his administration is considering sending federal officers to Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and other cities run by very liberal Democrats in which crime is increasing and sporadic civil unrest has occurred, prompted by the police killing of George Floyd.

His remarks come as federal law enforcement continues to respond to protests and rioting in Portland, which has seen more than 50 days of demonstrations against police violence, and sporadic vandalism against government buildings, including the federal courthouse. Residents there have accused unidentified officers of picking up residents in unmarked vans and arresting them at random.

Trump has defended the intervention as a necessary action against violent protesters. Now he wants to send federal officers to other cities that he believes are poorly run and out of control.

How about Chicago? Many people killed over the weekend, Trump told reporters. Were looking at Chicago too. Were looking at New York. Look at whats going on. All run by Democrats. All run by very liberal Democrats. All run by radical left. But we cant let this happen to the cities.

Story continues

Local leaders say they wont let it happen.

More than once weve wondered where this president is trying to take us and whether hes trying to take away the basic rights of Americans, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday at a news conference. And what you see in Portland really makes you worry. New Yorkers are not going to take kindly to anything like that. So I do believe its bluster. I do believe we can beat him in court.

Trump has not divulged the details of his plan, so the basis for any legal challenge is unclear. In the short term at least, law experts say, it will be difficult for mayors to actively prevent him from sending federal law enforcement to their cities.

President Trump during a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in the Oval Office on Monday. (Evan Vucci/AP)

This is the flip side of federalism, Turley told Yahoo News. Just as the president was wrong in his claims of [states lack of authority] on local health matters, these mayors are wrong in their suggestion that they can prevent federal law enforcement from entering the city or making an arrest.

It was unclear from Mondays press conference which federal agencies would participate and what their primary responsibilities would be. The Chicago Tribune reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to the city this week. The agency has not responded to a request from Yahoo News for comment.

When asked about DHS agents in other cities at a press conference Tuesday, acting Secretary Chad Wolf said the department has teams in Portland and declined to comment on possible action in other cities.

The department will continue to do our authorized mission in any city across the country, he said. You pick any metropolitan city, we have hundreds of officers there, targeting gangs, targeting illicit narcotics. Of course were going to come to the assistance of other federal agencies. Were going to continue to do that.

Federal law enforcement officers are allowed to protect federal buildings and make arrests in federal crimes, Turley said, and dont need state or local permission to do so.

There is no basis for preventing federal agents from entering or patrolling a city, Turley said. What [local officials] can do is refuse to engage in a cooperative law enforcement agreement. And that will confine federal agents to federal crimes and the protection of federal property.

In other words, it would be tough for cities to challenge an enhanced federal presence if federal authorities are enforcing federal law. But federal authorities would not have jurisdiction over local crime matters except as part of a joint effort with local law enforcement.

Federal police deploy tear gas and crowd munitions during protests in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP)

In a statement to Yahoo News, the Chicago Police Department said it doesnt maintain any authority over the federal governments deployment of law enforcement agents to Chicago.

We regularly work alongside our local and federal law enforcement agency partners toward the common goal of keeping Chicago residents safe, the department said. If federal agents are deployed, it is critical that they coordinate with the Chicago Police Department and work alongside us to fight violent crime in Chicago.

Trump would be hard-pressed, though, to find legal precedent supporting a huge, unidentified presence in Portland and other cities, said Michael Greenberger, a law professor and the director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland.

I think what youre seeing in Portland  its not just Immigration coming in and saying, Oh, weve got to enforce immigration laws, Greenberger said. But these were people who came in to try and tamp down the protesting as a general matter  arguably not within the statutory functions of immigration officials.

In an interview with MSNBCs Joy Reid, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she wont let whats happening in Portland happen in Chicago.

What we have [in Portland] is no advance notice to local authorities. No notice to the local U.S. attorneys office and having these armed camouflage individuals with no insignia on, no nameplates, grabbing people off the street. Thats unconstitutional, she said Monday. So our democracy is at stake. And Ill be darned if Im going to let anybody, even if their name is Mr. President, bring those kinds of troops to our city and try to take our residents. Thats not going to happen in Chicago.

Some Republicans have also expressed alarm over DHS actions in Portland, including Tom Ridge, who was the agencys first administrator. The department was established to protect America from the ever-present threat of global terrorism. It was not established to be the presidents personal militia, Ridge said during an interview with Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish.

Michael Chertoff, who led the agency under George W. Bush, told the Washington Post that Trumps plan is unsettling and damaging to the department.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a strong Trump backer but one who has occasionally broken with the administration over civil liberties issues, tweeted: We cannot give up liberty for security. Local law enforcement can and should be handling these situations in our cities but there is no place for federal troops or unidentified federal agents rounding people up at will.

If agents in other cities engage in the same actions alleged in Portland, local officials could make a valid case that their involvement is unlawful, Greenberger said.

The 10th Amendment of the Constitution puts the health, welfare and safety of American citizens in the hands of the states, not in the hands of the federal government, Greenberger said. [But] there are rare situations where the federal government would intervene.

Greenberger referred to the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to deploy active-duty military to restore order and peace when theres a complete breakdown of law and order, he said. Its an exception to federal law that prevents the military from being involved in civilian law enforcement. Several presidents, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush, have invoked the exception to respond to various crises. (The House recently voted to limit the act, The Hill reported.)

Whats reportedly happening in Portland, Greenberger said, does not qualify.

Officials in Portland, for example, are saying that these were essentially peaceful protests, he said. Law and order hadnt broken down. Yes, it had gone on for many days, but thats a First Amendment right thats being exercised. And so what youre seeing consistently is people saying this smacks of authoritarian conduct, not the conduct of a democratic republic.

Mark Morgan, the acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner, holds up a protective vest worn by CBP agents in Portland during protests. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum sued the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Federal Protective Service (which operates under DHS) to restrain the agencies from unlawfully detaining protesters in Portland, according to the complaint filed on July 17.

On Tuesday, Wolf denied reports of unidentified officers detaining protesters, saying the department is using a targeted approach to apprehend protesters who are trying to destroy federal property. DHS officials cited federal law that allows DHS and the Federal Protective Service to protect buildings and land occupied by the federal government.

Trump seems to be proposing sending federal law enforcement to quell not just violent protests but violent crime, particularly in Chicago. He has repeatedly denounced the violence in New York, Chicago and other cities, blasting mayors for spiking crime rates.

Im going to do something. That I can tell you, Trump told reporters on Monday. Were not going to let this happen in our country.

But Trump will likely have to be careful with how he proceeds.

I know of no case involving the Insurrection Act that was predicated on controlling a surge in crime, Turley said. In my view, that would not be a proper use of the Insurrection Act. I also believe that the military would resist such a role, as they should. So Im not convinced that theyre going to use the [act]. I think that the most likely scenario is that they will substantially increase federal law enforcement.

Turley also said it would be difficult to prosecute federal agents, something Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said hed do if officers unlawfully detain individuals there, according to a statement released Monday.

Its very rare for federal agents to be criminally liable for unlawful arrest, Turley said. It is generally a matter of civil liability. Moreover, federal agents and state officers are protected by immunity. So theres a robust level of immunity that kicks in when you charge officers with unconstitutional conduct.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:

Thumbnail photo: Noah Berger/AP
Update: Man indicted for triple killing in NE Portland

Several days after three people were found fatally shot in a Portland home and two days after a man was arrested in their killings, there are still more questions than answers about what led to the deaths in the Parkrose Heights neighborhood.

Police were called to a home in the 2500 block of Northeast 122nd Avenue around 10 p.m. Friday after someone reported a disturbance. Officers discovered the bodies of 45-year-old Elmer Edwin Hughes, 40-year-old Tashia Cobb and 77-year-old Lawrence Murphy.

On Monday, the Multnomah County District Attorneys office said Brett Pruett had been arrested over the weekend and charged with first-degree murder. He also has been charged with an assault on a woman identified as his fiancee on a social media account that appeared to be Pruetts.

By Tuesday, the house where court records show Pruett lived on Northeast 122nd was boarded up with discarded tires leaning against the garage and a derelict school bus parked in the driveway.

Boards also covered the windows of the house to the north, where online records indicate Murphy lived, and several candles flickered in front of a makeshift memorial on the front stoop of the home. Roses, a motorcycle seat and handlebars were arranged on the grass around pictures of the three victims.

Police did not say in which house they found the bodies.

Several neighbors, none of whom would give their names, said the people who frequented the two houses appeared to be transients coming and going at all hours of the day.

The owners of the property could not be reached for comment and police did not respond to questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive about what led to the deaths of Hughes, Cobb and Murphy.

Brent Weisberg, a spokesman for the District Attorney, said that court documents relating to the case had been sealed and there was no timeline for when they might become public.

-- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
(Photo : Screenshot from Twitter post of @ATSBlueEditor) Fatal COVID-19 Cases can be Predicted Using China's Deep Learning Technology: Here's How it Works (Photo : Screenshot from Twitter post of @Ric987Ric) Fatal COVID-19 Cases can be Predicted Using China's Deep Learning Technology: Here's How it Works

Fatal COVID-19 infections can now be predicted by Chinese scientists using deep learning technology. Could China's innovation help prevent future death cases? According to Techcrunch's latest report, many tech firms across the globe are developing new technologies that could be used to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Also Read: South Korean Self-Isolation App Helps Monitor COVID-19 Patients in Quarantine, Until a Researcher Found Flaws in the App

Research published by the Nature Communications and JAMA Network showed that 6.5% of infected people can suddenly have serious health complications and their mortality rate could rise up to 48%. This lead medical experts and scientists across the globe to conduct experiments that would help them identify patients who might develop fatal or severe syndromes, allowing them to be treated as soon as possible.

Also Read: COVID-19 Death Drops by 15% as Temperature Rises by 1C: Winter Second Wave May Be Worse: Study

According to the official website of Tencent, the research team established by Tencent AI Lab partnered with the group of Chinese public health scientists lead by Zhong Nanshan, to identify future fatal cases using AI's deep learning ability. Tencent explained that the two teams will provide guidance to disease outbreaks such as hand, foot, and mouth diseases, as well as influenza and the viral novel coronavirus. They will develop a screening mechanism connecting online and offline services to make it possible.

Fatal COVID-19 deep learning predictor

The Chinese scientists' team revealed its deep learning-based model this week, claiming that the innovation can tell if an individual will develop severe health illnesses from COVID-19. With the help of 575 medical centers in China, the scientists were able to base their model in a cohort of 1590 infected individuals, with further validation from 1393 patients.





https://t.co/klX0kAbysa

Just Accepted

Open Access Clinical Features of 85 Fatal Cases of COVID-19 from Wuhan: A Retrospective Observational StudyJust AcceptedOpen Access pic.twitter.com/wwDQdIkEfv  ATS Blue Journal (@ATSBlueEditor) April 6, 2020

The COVID-19 predictor was made available online by its developers so that clinical staff and other medical practitioners can calculate patients' probability of developing critical illness within 5, 10, and 30 days using ten clinical variables. You can also visit the website of the "Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health" to use the model.

Although the scientists said they will use it for COVID-19, the company's main goal is to use the gathered data and AI for screening, control, prevention, and warning of future outbreaks caused by respiratory diseases, as well as thoracic diseases. Other tech giants in China are also developing similar projects to contain virus outbreaks.

Also Read: Antibiotics Can Now Efficiently Fight 'Superbugs': IBM Research Enhanced Its Effectiveness Using New 'Macromolecule'

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Embattled acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, has accused the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, of frustrating efforts made by the anti-graft commission to transparently dispose vessels forfeited to the Nigerian government.

Mr Magu, who was responding to an enquiry by the presidential probe panel investigating allegations of corruptions leveled against him by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, accused Mr Malami of working at cross-purposes with the commission in the disposal of vessels involved in illegal activities to the extent of costing the country at least N283 million in recovered assets.

Mr Magus response suggested that the AGFs action was responsible for the loss of one of the vessels, which was carrying 1,459 metric tonnes (1,979,056.45 litres) of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

The suspended EFCC boss made the allegation while responding to a part of the query that alleged that the commission under him mismanaged recovered asset, including vessels involved in economic sabotage.

Explaining what happened with the forfeiture of one of the vessels, MT Good Success, Mr Magu explained that the vessel was seized with 1459 metric tonnes of PMS. He said the company also forfeited the N66,069,505 and $975,694.50 in FCMB Plc account of Hepa Global Energy Limited, the owner of MT Good Success.

He said although the company tried to upturn the judgement by O.E Abang, a high court judge in 2015 the attempt failed at the Court of Appeal.

Mr Magu explained that before the stay of execution filed by the company at the Court of Appeal, he had already commenced actions to ensure that the government benefited from the forfeited funds by lodging it with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

He said the EFCC similarly wrote a letter to Mr Malami with reference number EFCC/SC/JUS/07/101 dated 24/03/16 titled NOTIFICATION TO DISPOSE of MT GOOD SUCCESS, recommending the disposal of the vessel and the processes to be adopted.

He said the EFCC under his leadership did so in demonstrating my total commitment for accountability and transparency in the process of disposition of the forfeited asset.

He claimed that the AGF did not respond to the letter.

He said on November 10 and 23, the commission received a couple of memos from the Nigerian Navy, which was the custodian of the forfeited vessels stating that MT Good Success had sunk.

He said the navy explained that when the vessel was about to sink, efforts were made to relocate it from Lagos Anchorage and attempts were made to inform the commissions Lagos office but were unable to do this before the vessels submerged.

Pursuant to the above recommendation a meeting was held with the Flag Officer Commanding Western Naval Command wherein he explained that the vessel had sunk but same could be salvaged, after incurring heavy costs, as only very few companies, such as Julius Berger, have the equipment and capacity to salvage the vessel.

The report of the meeting was conveyed through a memo dated 19th December 2016 wherein it was recommended that all vessels in the custody of the Navy listed in the memo including MT Good Success should be salvaged, evacuated and disposed of, if possible, he wrote.

He said a letter was subsequently issued to a company, Pinnacle Trading and Investment Nigeria Limited, to dispose the vessel.

He explained that upon the discovery that the letter issued to Pinnacle flouted a statutory procurement procedure in the Public Procurement Act, 2007, the EFCC directed that the letter be revoked and subsequently issued a disclaimer.

Mr Magu explained that the commission had to make the decision when it found out that Pinnacle Limited is owned by the same people behind Omo-Jay Limited, a company which was being prosecuted for illegal oil dealings in the Niger Delta.

Last week it emerged that Mr Malami authorised Omo-Jay to dispose of crude oil and diesel in four sea vessels despite the companies standing trial for stealing 12,000 metric tonnes of crude oil.

Mr Malami had argued that his directive to the company to dispose of the oil was legal. He stated that although the company and its owner, Jerome Itepu, were standing trial, they have not been convicted by any court of law in the country and should not be denied the opportunity to participate in the bidding process.

Malami gifted more forfeited content of seized vessels to Omo-Jay

Mr Magu also explained how the actions of the AGF led to the double disposal of seized vessels and how, Malami directed the same Omo-Jay Limited to dispose the forfeited vessels.

He said on April 7, 2017, the commission got a court order from Justice Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos for the sale of Automated Gas Oil (AGO) onboard the vessel PSV Derby.

The judge ordered the court registrar in collaboration with the prosecutor and defence counsel to dispose the asset while the proceeds of the sale would be in the courts custody pending the determination of the case.

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Mr Magu said while the EFCC was trying to execute the court order, Mr Malami commenced a fresh process for the disposal of the vessels while ignoring a letter from the EFCC informing it of the court order it had obtained.

In so doing, the HAGF did not respond to the letter written to him by the former Secretary to the Commission recommending the disposal of MT Good Success. Rather the HAGF commenced his own process of disposing of not only MT GOOD SUCCESS but other vessels already forfeited by the Commission including MT ASTERI, MT DERBY, MV THAMES and in any others connected to pending court cases, he wrote.

He informed the probe panel that the AGF then contracted a private law firm, Dipo Opeseyi and Co, to obtain forfeitures on his behalf while instructing the commission to work with the firm to reconcile the orders obtained by the firm

Mr Magu also told the probe panel that Mr Malami through a letter with reference number HQ/011/78/98/93/A/VOL.1/21 dated 14th of February, 2020 addressed to him and the Nigerian Navy informed the Commission that by virtue of the Federal Government of Nigeria official Gazette No. 163 Vol 106 of 2019, the navy has been directed to allow Omo Jay Nigeria Limited to evacuate the content of two other forfeited vessels  MT Peace and Mt Asteris.

Mr Magu said the commission later learnt through an auctioneer it engaged that the Ministry of Defence and Mr Malami had commenced the process of engaging other auctioneers to dispose of the vessels thereby taking away the opportunity given to this auctioneer by the Commission to dispose of the vessels through transparent due process.

The aforesaid law firm of SANI & CO wrote a similar petition to the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) against the Commission and the HAGF for undertaking double disposal process of the same assets. The Commission was invited to BPP to respond to the allegation

By a letter ref. No: MOD/PROC/GEN/346/1 dated 21st June 2018 the Honourable Minister of Defence informed the Commission of the approval of Mr President to the Ministry of Defence to dispose the vessels.

The HAGF through the Head of Asset Recovery and Management Unit of the Ministry of Justice, Ladidi B. Mohammed, wrote a letter to the Commission with reference number HAGF/ARMU/RMDOVS/2017/11 dated 27th July 2018 requesting for access to the vessels for valuation by Omo-Jay Nigeria Limited, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and Dipo Okpeseyi & Co.

Mr Magu explained that in demonstration of his commitment towards ensuring Federal Government get the full economic benefit, he informed Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is the chairman, Presidential Committee on Asset Recovery of the steps taken by the Commission to prevent economic loss as a result of the depreciating nature of the forfeited assets, the challenges we are encountering and the need to urgently dispose of the perishable and depreciating forfeited assets.

Mr Malami did not answer or respond to calls made to him on Tuesday morning to comment for this story.
President Donald Trump's relentless efforts to sow doubts about the legitimacy of this year's election are forcing both parties to reckon with the possibility that he may dispute the result in November if he loses - leading to an unprecedented test of American democracy.

With less than four months before the election, Trump's escalating attacks on the security of mail-in ballots and his refusal again this week to reassure the country that he would abide by the voters' will have added urgency to long-simmering concerns among scholars and his critics about the lengths he could go to hold on to power.

"What the president is doing is willfully and wantonly undermining confidence in the most basic democratic process we have," said William Galston, chair of the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies Program. "Words almost fail me - it's so deeply irresponsible. He's arousing his core supporters for a truly damaging crisis in the days and weeks after the November election."

Most legal experts said it is hard to envision that Trump would actually try to remain in office after a clear defeat by former vice president Joe Biden, considering the uproar that would follow such a challenge to U.S. democratic norms. Trump has previously said he offers up inflammatory ideas to provoke the media and his critics.

But his unwillingness to commit to a smooth transition of power has forced academics and political leaders - including, privately, some GOP lawmakers - to contemplate possible scenarios.

The resulting turmoil could surpass the contention over the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, confounding the legal system, Congress and the public's faith in how the country picks its leaders. Such a crisis could also have long-lasting consequences for a nation that has already been rocked this year by the coronavirus pandemic, an economic collapse and a reckoning over racial injustice.

Among the possibilities: Trump could claim victory before the vote in key states is fully counted - a process that could take days or even weeks this year because of the expected avalanche of absentee ballots.

He could also spend weeks refusing to concede amid a legal war over which votes are valid and should be included in the tally, according to legal and constitutional experts who are tracking Trump's statements.

Or he could simply refuse to leave on Jan. 20 - a possibility Biden has discussed publicly.

"This president is going to try to steal this election," the presumptive Democratic nominee told Trevor Noah of "The Daily Show" last month.

Biden said he is convinced that if Trump loses but won't leave, military leaders "will escort him from the White House with great dispatch."

Anxiety about Trump's intentions has grown as he seizes on the shift to absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic as a sign that the election's outcome will be rigged, claiming without evidence that this year's race will be "the most corrupt election in the history of our country," as he put it last month.

This year, the president has attacked the security of voting by mail at least 50 times, according to a tally by The Washington Post, repeatedly making unfounded claims that it will lead to rampant fraud.

There is no evidence that mail voting leads to the kind of massive fraud Trump has described. Election officials throughout the country have challenged the president's assertions, saying that with the right safeguards, mail voting is secure. Data from several states with all-mail elections show they have had a tiny rate of potentially fraudulent ballots in recent years.

But in an interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace that aired Sunday, Trump reiterated that he thinks "mail-in voting is going to rig the election" and refused to commit to accepting the results.

"I have to see," Trump said. "No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no."

His intensifying rhetoric comes in the wake of a chaotic primary season in which many local election officials have struggled to keep up with the deluge of absentee ballots.

Trump's attacks on voting by mail have been amplified by the Republican National Committee and conservative groups, which are spending tens of millions of dollars on a multi-state legal strategy to limit the expansion of absentee voting.

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said the president is acting responsibly when he raises doubts about loosening restrictions on voting by mail.

"We don't know what kind of shenanigans Democrats will try leading up to November," Murtaugh said in a statement. "If someone had asked George W. Bush and Al Gore this same question in 2000, would they have been able to foresee the drawn-out fight over Florida? The central point remains clear: In a free and fair election, President Trump will win."

The president's allies say they can envision this year's election ending in the kind of protracted legal fight that played out 20 years ago.

"What Trump is saying is that much of what happened in 2000 could play out again, in terms of the election ending up as a Supreme Court case," former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, said in an interview. "He's not saying he wouldn't accept the results, but he's saying he could imagine an election so chaotic and with so many contested ballots that you'd be fighting it out all the way to the inauguration."

In 2000, however, even as Gore and Bush waged a fierce legal fight over the vote count in Florida that ultimately went to the Supreme Court, neither threatened to reject the final outcome.

Senior Republicans have often distanced themselves from Trump's claims of a possible "rigged" election, but they have echoed his claims about alleged voter fraud. Speaking last month to CNN, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a member of GOP leadership, did not rebuke Trump and said that there has been "evidence of election fraud in the past and we want to make sure that everything is on the up and up."

Trump's loyalists have gone further. "It's perhaps Joe Biden's failures as a candidate that animate the left's desire to get these vote-by-mail provisions in coronavirus legislation," Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told Fox News in April, warning of "the greatest opportunity for fraud in our election system."

Top Democrats and Biden supporters are now bracing for what former Ohio governor Ted Strickland said could be "dark days going forward."

"I fear this election could lead to civil unrest in this country because Trump would happily be a cheerleader for that kind of response," said Strickland, a Democrat. "We are facing circumstances in this country we have probably never faced in our history, because we have a president who no regard for our constitutional system of government. ... He is fully capable of putting his own ego and perceived self-interest above what's right for the country."

- - -

Since entering political life, Trump has questioned the integrity of the country's voting system and suggested he might not accept an electoral loss.

"I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win," Trump said in October 2016 at a rally in Delaware, Ohio.

He said something similar in a debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton that month.

"What I'm saying now is I will tell you at the time," Trump said. "I will keep you in suspense, OK?"

Winning the presidency did not stop Trump from claiming that millions of votes were fraudulent. He blamed his defeat in California on voting by undocumented immigrants, providing no evidence for the claim. He said he lost in New Hampshire because thousands of Massachusetts voters were bused there to cast ballots illegally, offering no proof.

This year, Trump began issuing salvos against mail ballots in March, just as states announced they were relaxing restrictions on absentee voting for the primaries in response to the pandemic. As his poll numbers began to slide this spring, the attacks became a mainstay of his Twitter presence and a refrain in his interviews and remarks to supporters.

Attorney General William Barr has echoed Trump's allegations about fraud, making unfounded claims that foreign governments could hijack the election with counterfeit mail ballots.

At times, Trump and his allies have said he would not challenge a loss in November.

After Biden's comments last month suggesting Trump might refuse to leave office, the president told Fox News: "Certainly if I don't win, I don't win. I mean, you know, go on and do other things."

His campaign was also definitive, with Murtaugh calling the imagined scenario of Trump refusing to leave the White House "another brainless conspiracy theory from Joe Biden."

"President Trump has been clear that he will accept the results of the 2020 election," Murtaugh said in a statement then.

But Trump appeared to reverse that position during the Fox News interview that aired Sunday.

"Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?" Wallace asked.

Trump responded: "No. I have to see."

In GOP circles, private talk about Trump's assertions veers from alarm to shrugging off his comments as simply incendiary political salvos. One moderate Republican House member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment candidly and avoid Trump's wrath, said he expects Trump to "leave quickly" if it is a blowout defeat. But he said he worries about a narrow election and whether Trump would go to extreme lengths to "protect his personal brand."

"It's something we'd all rather not think about, but it's there," he said.

The president is being backed by a bustling Republican operation in 15 states to monitor voting locations and ensure a heavy GOP presence at polling sites.

Trump's re-election campaign and the RNC are working together to recruit 50,000 volunteers to serve as "poll watchers," according to advisers to both groups, with $20 million set aside for courtroom fights, underscoring the legal arsenal at the party's disposal.

Democrats and voting rights advocates, meanwhile, are mustering their own legal effort to make it easier to cast ballots by mail, filing more than 50 lawsuits in 25 states. They argue changes are needed to make sure that voters are not disenfranchised because of factors outside their control or arbitrary enforcement of the rules.

Though there is no evidence that absentee voting benefits one party over another, the president's rhetoric is persuading some GOP voters that mail ballots are untrustworthy.

Veteran conservative activist Richard Viguerie called this year's shift in voting practices "terrifying to us."

"Every conservative is concerned about these mail-in ballots," he said. "And our issue isn't whether he leaves office but whether Democrats will accept the legitimacy of a Trump re-election. They didn't in 2016 with the resistance and the Russia investigation and all of that, in our view. Will they let him govern if he wins again, or will they be the ones saying it's illegitimate?"

Experts across the political spectrum worry that Trump's latest remarks not only will erode confidence in this year's election but could further weaken the democratic norms that have long held the country together.

"We're headed into an election where it's reasonable to expect logistical challenges due to the pandemic," said Yuval Levin, a conservative policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "Leaders should prepare the public to expect that and help them understand that logistical problems do not mean an election is illegitimate. To see the president doing the opposite is a big problem."

- - -

It would be historically unprecedented for an incumbent president not to accept a loss. Even in presidential elections with close margins - such as John Kennedy's defeat of Richard Nixon in 1960 or Bush's defeat of Gore in 2000 - the losing candidate has always conceded the race.

Yet with the dramatic shift to absentee voting, the division of partisan power in swing states and weaknesses in the law that governs how Congress handles disputed presidential elections, the circumstances of this year's general election could converge in a way that allows Trump to foster public doubt about the outcome, experts said.

Lawrence R. Douglas, a professor at Amherst College and author of the new book "Will He Go?: Trump and the Looming Electoral Meltdown in 2020," said there are a range of scenarios that could leave the country without a clear victor.

One possibility, Douglas said, is that Trump has a lead on Election Day that erodes as mail-in ballots come in over the subsequent days, breaking for Democrats in what experts have called the "blue shift."

Many states have seen record-busting totals of absentee ballots in this year's primaries, prolonging their vote counts. Pennsylvania processed 1.5 million mail ballots, compared with 84,000 in its 2016 primary. In Nevada, this year's number was 483,788, compared with about 25,000 in 2016.

New York election officials have spent weeks tabulating some results for last month's primary after voters requested more than 1.7 million absentee ballots, compared with about 115,000 submitted during the 2016 presidential primary.

In November, if Trump tries to declare victory before all those absentee ballots are counted, he could pressure Republican legislatures to certify slates of electors who would support him. And in turn, if Democratic governors of those states disagree, Congress could receive conflicting electoral certificates - something that has happened a handful of times in U.S. history, Douglas said.

Trump has a history of casting doubt on the validity of absentee ballots that are tallied after the Election Day vote.

In 2018, as ballots in Florida's U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races were being recounted, days after voters had gone to the polls, the president tweeted that Senate candidate Rick Scott and governor hopeful Ron DeSantis should be declared the winners.

He claimed that "large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged."

"An honest vote count is no longer possible - ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!" he tweeted. Both Scott and DeSantis won their races in the end.

If Trump chooses to make similar comments as the vote is being counted in November, he could weaken public confidence in the process and cause his supporters to doubt the ultimate result, Douglas said.

"We have a president who, really for years now, has been running down the trustworthiness of our electoral process," he said. "It certainly has gained traction with his base, but it is also incredibly dangerous."

More-complicated scenarios could involve the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which was passed in response to the contested presidential election of 1876 and attempts to clarify what Congress should do in case of a dispute over a state's electoral-college votes.

The law directs the House and Senate to separately debate and vote, but a scholarly consensus has declared the law defective for several reasons, including its failure to define what makes an electoral vote legitimate for counting purposes.

Douglas warned that the deficiencies in the law could make an electoral crisis worse, not better. Its provisions have been triggered only once, after a faithless Republican elector from North Carolina cast a vote for George Wallace instead of Nixon in the 1968 presidential election.

"In 2000, when the ECA threatened to kick in, jurists and commentators were unable to agree about the meaning of even its most basic provisions," Douglas wrote in his book, referring to the contested Bush-Gore election.

The law was not triggered because Gore, "to his credit," provided closure before that became necessary, Douglas said.

- - -

The way to avoid such a crisis, Democrats say, is for Biden to win in a landslide, by a margin so large that legal challenges contesting ballots in various states would be moot.

The Constitution's 20th Amendment helps provide for the peaceful transition of power, ordering that the president's term "shall end at noon on the 20th day of January ... and the terms of their successors shall then begin."

In a Monday interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said of Trump: "Whether he knows it yet or not, he will be leaving."

"There is a process," Pelosi added. "It has nothing to do with (whether) the certain occupant of the White House doesn't feel like moving and has to be fumigated out of there."

To that end, Biden's campaign is pushing for a decisive victory in key battleground states, aware that the comfortable lead he has in polls now could shrink, according to his advisers.

The former vice president also said this month that his campaign had recruited 600 lawyers to fight possible "chicanery" and protect voter access. The campaign has also received volunteer sign-ups from 10,000 people and plans to train them to "be in a polling place" on Election Day, he said.

"It's going to be hard. And if it's close - watch out," Biden said at a July 1 fundraiser.

Legal and political experts said it is important to wrestle with the possibilities of what could unfold in November - however unlikely.

Dan Baer, senior fellow in the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Democratic Senate candidate in Colorado, compared the thought experiments to insurance.

"It is unlikely that our house is going to burn down this year, but we still buy insurance against that," said Baer, who recently wrote piece titled "How Trump could refuse to go" for the website UnHerd.

"One of the lessons of this presidency is that we should think about the most insidious opportunities, the most egotistical course of action and make sure we've thought through what could follow from that," he said. "If we haven't done that at this point, shame on us."

- - -

The Washington Post's Matt Viser contributed to this report.
- The rising adoption of IT in healthcare, rise in prevalence of target diseases, growing geriatric population, and increasing strategic initiatives such as merger and acquisitions are driving the demand for the market

- Market Size - USD 39.97 Billion in 2019, Market Growth - CAGR of 14.9%, Market Trends - Growing health awareness.

NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new report by Reports and Data, the global Telemedicine market is forecasted to reach USD 121.17 billion by 2027. Telemedicine is experiencing prospective opportunities in the field as rising adoption of IT in healthcare domain, rising geriatric population, increasing prevalence of target diseases and majorly the advantage of maximum reach in case of different medical crisis such as pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 or untapped target of population (rural areas or bedridden patients). Geriatric population is rapidly rising across the globe, and Europe and North America have the highest share of population with age of over sixty-five years and above. Telemedicine is emerging as crucial part of pandemic hit world, to remotely address many common medical conditions that are reflected among the old population such as Parkinson's, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, arthritis and many more. According to the United Nations, in 2050, geriatric population are expected to account for 35% of the population in Europe, 28% in Northern America, 25% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 24% in Asia, 23% in Oceania and 9% in Africa. Traveling to hospitals for visits and unfamiliar environment of hospitals leads to non-compliance of patients to follow ups. Thus, tele-visits and telemedicine help in such situation to provide services remotely at their familiar environment.

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In 2018, Europe in total had approximately 3 million dependent or bedridden patients. In such cases movement of patients is difficult wherein telemedicine or tele-visits need no shifting of critically ill patients leading to rising growth of telemedicine market. Additionally, favorable reimbursement policies for telehealth is one of the major factors driving the market growth. Insurance companies such as Medicare, Medicaid cover telehealth reimbursement. Medicare part B reimburses clinicians for E-visits, communication, or virtual check-ins. Recently, the center for Medicare & Medicaid Services published coverage for COVID-19 telehealth resulting growing adoption of telemedicine. To approach the untapped market players are developing telemedicine solution resulting to enhance in the market demand. For instance, recently Texas A&M Health launched telemedicine station for rural patients.

The COVID-19 impact :

The pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 is estimated to boom the market growth of telemedicine market. The virus has impacted more than 200 economies and has affected around 14 million health globally. Telemedicine is a revolutionary healthcare service that allows health care providers to care for patients using digital technologies for phone and video chat appointments. Considering severity of infection lockdown and restricted movements of individuals eventually affected regular or follow up check ins at the healthcare facilities. To resolve an obstruction telemedicine has been widely adopted. In addition to the shutdown of hospitals, most of the healthcare facilities are engaged in serving the infected patients telemedicine help in monitoring, or diagnosing remotely with least number of healthcare professionals' involvement avoiding an accidental infections resulting in rising growth of telemedicine market in COVID-19 crisis. To boost the healthy practice government are anticipating in development of telemedicine solutions. For instance, Indian Aarogya Setu app NITI Aayog and the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister launched a new initiative - the Aarogya Setu Mitr telemedicine portal - to offer citizens essential healthcare services without stepping out of their homes.

To identify the key trends in the industry, click on the link below:

https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/telemedicine-market

Further key findings from the report suggest

To avoid the obstruction due to lack of usage knowledge of physicians or healthcare providers market players are developing reference guidelines to boost the adoption of technology. For instance, the American Medical Association (AMA) has launched the AMA Telemedicine Quick Reference Guide, aimed at helping clinicians figure out best practices for implementing the tech. The guidelines cover everything from policy and coding to implementation

In April 2020 , DrChrono launched fully integrated telemedicine app & marketplace for patients. Over 10,000 medical providers on the DrChrono platform have access to more telehealth options and receive more inbound requests to provide virtual care visits to patients, especially during COVID-19

, DrChrono launched fully integrated telemedicine app & marketplace for patients. Over 10,000 medical providers on the DrChrono platform have access to more telehealth options and receive more inbound requests to provide virtual care visits to patients, especially during COVID-19 Towards broadening the clientele field players are engaged in developing telemedicine solution for different users with personalized plans. For instance, in January 2020 , Cigna an insurer from the U.S. in partnership with MDLive has launched a telehealth platform that gives its 12 million members in employee-sponsored health plans access to primary care services

, Cigna an insurer from the U.S. in partnership with MDLive has launched a telehealth platform that gives its 12 million members in employee-sponsored health plans access to primary care services North America dominated the ovulation testing at home with a revenue of USD 17.63 billion in 2019. In North America , rising prevalence of target diseases, growing adoption of advanced technologies, high investment on IT in healthcare solutions are major factors driving market growth.

dominated the ovulation testing at home with a revenue of in 2019. In , rising prevalence of target diseases, growing adoption of advanced technologies, high investment on IT in healthcare solutions are major factors driving market growth. The segment of software type has accounted for the highest market share in 2019. Broadly adoption of telemedicine and digital platform in healthcare and several software developments by key players are major factors booming the market growth of telemedicine software

Based on end use diagnostic centers are estimated to grow at the CAGR 15.5%. Imaging being the primary procedure in overall healthcare management and significant growth of teleradiology are the major factors promoting telemedicine market growth in diagnostic centers

Key participants in the Telemedicine market are MDLIVE, Teladoc, SteadyMD, Doctor on Demand, Maven Clinic, AMD Telemedicine, Aerotel Medical Systems Ltd., iCliniq, Polycom, HealthTap, Cardio Net Inc., Amwell, CVS Health, Synapse Medicine, Practo. The companies have focused on various strategies like new product launches, agreements, acquisitions, and merger to strengthen their market position and expand the market share

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For the purpose of this report, Reports and Data have segmented into the global Telemedicine market on the basis of types, components, technologies, applications, end use and region:

Types Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Tele-Home



Tele-Hospital

Components Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Service



Tele-consultation





Tele-monitoring





Tele-education





Tele-care





Tele-training





Tele-surgery



Hardware



Monitors





Medical peripheral devices



Software



RIS (Radiology Information Systems)





DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine)





Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS)





Electronic Medical Record (EMR)





Medical Billing Software





Practice Management Software





HIS (Healthcare Information System)





Others

Technology Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Store and Forward



Real-Time



Remote Patient Monitoring



Others

Applications Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Teleradiology



Telepsychiatry



Telepathology



Teledermatology



Telecardiology



Tele-Surgery



Teleneurology



Others

End Use Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Hospitals



Diagnostic Centers



Ambulatory Surgical Centers



Specialty Clinics



Others

Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

North America



U.S.



Europe



UK





France





Germany





Italy





Spain





Rest of Europe



Asia Pacific



China





India





Japan





Rest of Asia Pacific



MEA



Latin America



Brazil

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https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/artificial-red-blood-cells-market Medical Holography Market: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/medical-holography-market

https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/medical-holography-market Wearable Patient Sensor Market: https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/wearable-patient-sensor-market

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COVID-19 may have canceled Computex this year, but theres no stopping ASUS from delivering its annual upgrade to mobile gamers. Following the accessory-laden ROG Phone II, today the Taiwanese giant finally unveiled its first 5G phone, the ROG Phone 3, which is also one of the first devices to carry Qualcomms faster Snapdragon 865 Plus processor, offering a 10 percent boost in both CPU and GPU speeds. ASUS also made significant upgrades elsewhere, aimed at giving hardcore mobile gamers a competitive advantage.

Gallery: ASUS ROG Phone 3 preview | 15 Photos



























/15 Gallery: ASUS ROG Phone 3 preview | 15 Photos



























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From afar, you could easily mistake the ROG Phone 3 for its predecessor, and thats understandable. During the planning process, ASUS decided that it wanted to use the ROG Phone II as a blueprint for its next gaming phone so that existing users can keep their accessories for their phone upgrade. Both phones have practically identical dimensions and external layout, ensuring that the ROG Phone 3 is compatible with almost all of last years peripherals.

Keeping the same design also means the newest phone inherits pretty much all the physical specs from before, but with some notable improvements. The 6.59-inch 2,340 x 1,080 AMOLED panel now comes with a faster 144Hz refresh rate and 270Hz touch sampling rate  both being the best-in-class at the moment. ASUS claims that over 100 games now support 144Hz gameplay, with popular titles including Forsaken World, Dead Cells, Slam Dunk and Rockman X Dive. Each display is also individually calibrated to maintain high color accuracy, and like before, it comes with an optical fingerprint reader.

The stereo front-facing speakers no longer sport orange accents, because apparently some gamers found them a little distracting. (To be honest, I didnt actually notice their disappearance until I placed both models side by side.) What the speakers have gained, though, is an extra audio performance boost courtesy of Swedish audio company Dirac. More on that later.

Theres also the same 24-megapixel selfie camera at the top right corner, which can be used to stream yourself and your gameplay to YouTube via ASUS Game Genie app.

Richard Lai/Engadget

The ROG Phone 3 comes with three rear cameras instead of two. Joining the old 13-megapixel, 125-degree ultra-wide camera is a new 64-megapixel main camera with apparently much improved low-light performance, along with a new 5-megapixel macro camera. A single sheet of glass now covers the back of the phone, with the old decorative trapezoidal piece replaced by a transparent window, which reveals the heat sink underneath. Its a nice touch. And the ROG logo in the center still lights up with all colors and patterns you could possibly desire.

The ultrasonic shoulder triggers  now dubbed AirTrigger 3  are along the right side, with each marked by a ROG engraving. Since last year, these buttons let you do the usual tapping as well as sliding and resting your fingers on them. On the ROG Phone 3, ASUS added support for swipe input, continuous trigger (hold down to trigger multiple clicks), and dual partition buttons (doubling the number of triggers). I can set these up in ASUS Armoury Crate game launcher, though I had to adjust my grip to get used to the dual partition buttons in actual gameplay.

Internally, ASUS includes a generous 6,000mAh battery  which explains the same bulky 240g weight as last time  with 30W fast charging, which now reaches 4,510mAh in 45 minutes. Youll also find an improved, redesigned cooling system, which can apparently eliminate CPU throttling and maintain a steady frame rate in ASUS own tests. This system features a new heat sink thats six times larger than before to cover both the processor and the 5G modem, and this is further assisted by a redesigned 3D vapor chamber underneath.

Richard Lai/Engadget

The phone comes with a new AeroActive Cooler 3 clip-on fan which not only blows air at the heat sink area but also adds a kickstand for landscape orientation  in case you want to use the new detachable Kunai 3 Gamepad (or its predecessor) via Bluetooth or just to watch videos on the phone.

I played a bit of PUBG and Kingdom: Two Crowns on the ROG Phone 3, and while I noted the visual and touch improvements in the former, it was the loudspeakers that impressed me the most in both games (and any high-quality video I watched). I wont bore you with the nitty-gritty details here, but basically, this is all thanks to Diracs clever correction algorithms for the greater audio clarity, along with artificial overtones to make the bass feel stronger than it is. And with some tuning magic, these relatively tiny speakers can produce what feels like a much wider soundstage.

These are bold claims, but I could certainly notice the difference. I heard very fine details that would otherwise only be available on a pair of good earbuds, and with my eyes closed, I could almost pinpoint where some sounds were coming from. These are the best loudspeakers Ive ever listened to on a smartphone.

Richard Lai/Engadget

Building on that, a dedicated Game Mode automatically kicks in during gameplay to enhance specific types of in-game sounds  namely gunshots and footsteps  to give gamers a better sense of surroundings on the virtual battlefield. The company added that this Game Mode works on both the loudspeakers and headphones and said that it was exploring what it can add in the future.

In reality, many mobile gamers rely on their headphones, especially when they are commuting or when they dont want any distraction. Interestingly, the ROG Phone 3 doesnt come with earbuds, as ASUS assumes that most gamers would rather use their own audio gear. But for those who want to enjoy similar audio enhancements on their ears, they will have to opt for one of the ROG headsets, to leverage the Dirac-tuned sound profiles.

This is perhaps a suitable moment to mention that the headphone jack is gone on the ROG Phone 3, but you can use either the bundled USB-C dongle or the 3.5mm jack on the external cooler. ASUS claims it ran out of space, because of the new 5G modem plus antenna. It apparently didnt want to sacrifice anything else  especially the battery  just to keep the headphone jack in this similar package. For the same reason, theres no wireless charging here.

Richard Lai/Engadget

When it comes to peripherals, the ROG Phone 3 is compatible with all of last years accessories, except for the external fan and the cases  the new third camera gets in the way for the latter. The good news is that a new Lighting Armor Case, lit up by a secondary LED near the rear cameras, looks much better than the previous one. It follows the same design language as the ROG Zephyrus G14, except youre stuck with the ROG logo instead of a customizable LED dot matrix. If you prefer something more lightweight, the phone still comes with a black Aero Case, but you can also buy the more eye-catching orange Neon Aero Case.

Much like how LG continues to offer its Dual Screen case for its recent phones, ASUS offers the same support for its ROG Phone 3. The new TwinView Dock 3 supports 144Hz refresh rate on both screens, whereas its predecessor will cap this at 120Hz. So far, there are four games that support dual-screen gameplay: Asphalt 9 uses the second screen to show the race map, Dungeon Hunter Champions uses it to display your stats, Modern Combat 5 uses it to lay out more weapon options, and Dungeon Hunter 5 uses it to show the inventory. For other games or apps, you can use the second screen to manage your socials, watch videos or run any other app you want.

ASUS

The new Kunai 3 Gamepad has a more rounded, ergonomic design, and a new bumper case that fits onto the ROG Phone 3. And yes, you can still mount both the Kunai 3 and the dual-screen dock (either the 3 or II) onto the new phone together for the whole shebang.

Another new accessory here is the ROG Clip, which lets you clip your handset onto a controller for either Google Stadia, PlayStation or Xbox. This attachment is compatible with any phone, but only the ROG Phone 3 will soon support key mapping on all three aforementioned controllers. The phone comes with a three-month Stadia Pro trial subscription in markets where the service is available.

As for those who are extremely competitive, you can grab the existing ASUS Mobile Desktop Dock (around $200) to share your PCs peripherals  including monitor, mouse, keyboard and LAN connection  with your ROG Phone 3 at a click of a button. Plus theres an internal fan to help cool the phone. But if you want to save a bit of money, theres also the cheaper ASUS Professional Dock, or just about any USB-C hub with an HDMI socket, USB-A ports and, if you want, an RJ-45 port will do.

Richard Lai/Engadget

In short, the ROG Phone 3 is a much-improved ROG Phone II. As a gaming phone, last years model was already a solid foundation with many sensible design choices, including the front-facing speakers, shoulder triggers, massive battery and a silky smooth screen in what I found to be the right size. The trove of accessories was a pleasant bonus, too.

With the performance boost, 5G radio and various multimedia enhancements, the ROG Phone 3 will likely remain one of the top gaming phones for some time, though it would have been nice if ASUS had figured out a way to reduce the weight.

When it comes to future competition, Im interested in seeing how Lenovos Legion Phone Duel  the only other contender to sport a Snapdragon 865 Plus for now  will fare with its own 144Hz display and side-mounted pop-up selfie camera. Im sure more will join soon, as other Chinese smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Vivo and Nubia have also been aggressive in this space, which just goes to show how lucrative the mobile gaming market can be.

Richard Lai/Engadget

While the ROG Phone 3 may not launch in the US until Q3 the earliest, folks in Europe will be able to pre-order one today and receive it starting from the end of July. Theres the 999 base model with 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM with 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage, or you can go for the 1,099 version with 16GB of RAM.

If you dont mind the regular Snapdragon 865 chipset and losing the heat sink window, then you can save a bit of money by picking the 799 ROG Phone 3 Strix Edition, which comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

Update 7/24/20 12:14PM ET: An earlier version of this article stated that the shoulder triggers were of capacitive nature. This has since been corrected to reflect their ultrasonic nature.
Israel has attacked Syria again, this time targeting the southwestern suburbs of Damascus and injuring 11 fighters reports Al-Masdar.

The Syrian Ministry of Defense announced last night that several soldiers were wounded as a result of the Israeli airstrikes on the southwestern suburbs of Damascus.

According to a statement released by the Ministry of Defense, the Israeli airstrikes wounded seven soldiers that were deployed to the Sahnaya suburb of Damascus.

At 09:48 pm this evening, Israeli warplanes over the occupied Syrian Golan directed several explosive rockets towards southern Damascus, and our air defenses responded to them and shot down most of them. The aggression wounded seven soldiers and caused material damage.

The Israeli Forces fired several missiles from their aircraft on Sunday evening, targeting the Damascus region of southern Syria.

A source from the Syrian Army said their forces were able to intercept several of the IDFs missiles, but not all of them.

The source said some of the missiles managed to hit their intended targets, causing a number of explosions that could be heard in the Damascus countryside and city.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement that the missile attack on Monday night hit weapons depots and military positions belonging to Syrian regime forces and Iran-backed militia fighters south of Damascus.

The five killed were all non-Syrian paramilitary fighters, according to the Observatory.

It added that 11 combatants were wounded in total  four non-Syrian fighters and seven Syrian troops, of which two were in critical condition.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
On a summer night in 1992, Ellen Booth saw a bright light as she looked out the window of her home west of La Veta. So bright, she had to turn her head.

She was curious about this light that invaded the extreme darkness of her property, but she was alone and weary. She chose to remain inside and leave the mystery outside. She retired to bed at 9:30 with her miniature schnauzer Cassie. Before dozing off, she asked God to protect her.

Lord, she prayed, I dont know what that is out there, but just protect us.

Ellen, 70, tells her bright light story at her kitchen table on the southwest side of Colorado Springs. She sits beside her husband, Larry, 74. The couple remain unsure what happened on that summer night in Huerfano County, but lean toward believing a spaceship driven by aliens invaded their vacation property.

The Booths are not shy about sharing their story. They have, over the years, told of the bright light on a dark night to friends and family.

The reaction?

Most people just kind of snicker and laugh, Ellen answers.

She understands. Larry and Ellen decline to get defensive about the bright light. They once were skeptics of UFO tales, too.

Not anymore.

Because were Christians, we have the attitude that how can we as Christians or even humans on this planet be so arrogant to believe we are the only ones in the galaxy, Ellen says. Are you kidding me? Theres only one Earth? Were the only ones around?

She pauses.

I dont think so.

The day after the bright light sighting, Larry returned to the familys vacation home on County Road 442. At first, Ellen did not mention the bright light.

He was hiking the property and says he saw a 20-foot circle of burned, black grass in a meadow. When he returned to the house, he told Ellen of the strange circle.

She told him of the bright light.

The Booths walked to the black circle and agreed: Something and someone had landed there.

Over the next few days, the Booths talked with neighbors. A nearby woman, they were told, saw the bright light, too. A lone camper had been found wandering the area. He was disoriented and struggled to remember the night of the bright light. His campsite and truck had been torched.

Another neighbor, now deceased, discovered three mutilated cows that had been bled out. The neighbor blamed the United States government.

Oh, you know how the government is, Ellen, the neighbor announced. They always want to steal your stuff.

The neighbor, Ellen says, discovered three perfect circle of burned, black grass on his property.

The Booths tell their story calmly, even matter-of-factly. They attend church services regularly. They dote on Julie, a miniature schnauzer with big bark and personality. As they sit in their spotless home, they are the picture of normal.

Except for their bright light story.

The Booths say they took photos of the black circle, but the photos were destroyed when their vacation home burned down in 2018. No photos, but their memory remains clear. For years, they say, nothing grew in the circle.

Something landed, Larry says, his voice calm yet firm. Since nothing grew around there, it had to be some kind of strange radiation.

Something landed, and you have to decide. It was either the United States government that did something. It was another country that did something. Or it was a flying saucer from some other planet. It has to be one of the three.

The conversation is briefly interrupted.

Julie is barking.
The daughter of a Dublin doctor who died after contracting Covid-19 has hailed his selfless dedication to his profession.

Dr Syed Waqqar Ali, 59, lived in Tyrrelstown with his wife and five children, three boys and two girls.

The Mater Hospital in the city said he spent three months being cared for diligently and attentively in its intensive care unit.

He was the eighth health care worker to have lost his life to the disease.

Its clear Dr Ali was a kind, passionate, hard working, highly professional man, working on the front line to keep us all safe.



We remember that behind every reported number is a person who loves and is loved, who leaves behind a family and a community who will miss them.(2/3)  Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) July 22, 2020

His daughter Dr Samar Fatima Ali said: He has been incredibly dedicated to his profession and he lost his life to his profession.

She told RTE News her father had been selfless.

There are no words for the battle he fought every day.

Hes been an outstanding doctor and the best dad we could of asked for.

It was very difficult to see our father in so much pain.

The hospital said the doctor provided selfless emergency care to Covid-19 patients at a number of hospitals as a locum during the pandemic.

He had been due to begin a shift at the Mater Hospital in April when he felt unwell. He asked to be seen as a patient and was admitted immediately with Covid-19 illness, its statement added.

His colleagues remember him as a hardworking and diligent doctor with a humble and down-to-earth personality.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said his family and community would miss him sorely.

He was a kind, compassionate, hardworking and highly professional man, working on the front line of Covid-19 to keep us all safe.

Expand Close HSE director general Paul Reid said the doctor worked diligently and selflessly to care for patients at all times and particularly during the pandemic (Niall Carson/PA). / Facebook

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Whatsapp HSE director general Paul Reid said the doctor worked diligently and selflessly to care for patients at all times and particularly during the pandemic (Niall Carson/PA).

A spokesman for the Irish Hospital Consultants Association said his tragic death at a young age reminded people once more of the sacrifices made by healthcare professionals, particularly at this time.

It said he was an exemplary medical professional with an immense dedication to public service.

His expertise, care and warmth made an impression with patients and colleagues alike.

Paul Reid, chief executive of the HSE, said he worked diligently and selflessly to care for patients at all times and particularly during the pandemic.
With the lure of online gambling high during COVID-19 lockdowns - and some gambling venues now reopening - partners and families of problem gamblers may be the first to see a problem emerging.

Many problem gamblers do not acknowledge their addiction and do not seek help - and that's when people close to them need support to cope, and potentially even help turn the situation around by motivating a partner to seek help.

"Most people with gambling problems don't seek formal help, so problems often remain hidden within families," says Flinders University expert Ben Riley, an expert therapist with the Statewide Gambling Therapy Service in South Australia.

"As well as evidence-based strategies to help motivate non-help-seeking problem gamblers to acknowledge their problem and seek help, it's clear we also need effective programs to help partners protect their own wellbeing and perhaps help their partner to seek treatment or targeted interventions."

Gambling and addiction experts at the Flinders University and Deakin University warn partners and families of such problem gamblers can suffer from chronic worry, exhaustion, relationship conflict, and an overwhelming sense of isolation.

They may become hypervigilant as a response to a non-disclosing problem gamblers' activities. In our in-depth interviews with 15 such partners, they said they found it exceedingly difficult to reliably detect their partners' gambling behaviour, resulting in chronic hypervigilance, and many were reluctant to seek help due to stigma." Sharon Lawn, Study Co-author and Professor, Flinders University

"Families are often the first to know something is going on, and they really share the adverse consequences in many ways."

"Involving families sooner to help identify gambling problems earlier is a missed opportunity."

Mr Riley says new programs could focus on helping family members or partners to motivate their loved one to seek help.

"It's a real gap in knowledge because only a very small proportion of problem gamblers seek help - and that may be only when significant harm has been done to finances, relationships, reputation and employment," he says.
An early morning two-alarm fire at a multi-family home in Jersey City has displaced 15 people, including five children, authorities said.

Jersey City firefighters responded to 122 Randolph Ave. at 1 a.m. and found flames coming from the second floor and extending to the third floor, Jersey City spokeswoman Kimbery Wallace-Scalcione said.

A firefighter suffered a minor burn to his right leg, while none of the residents were injured, Wallace-Scalcione said. The blaze was placed under control at approximately 1:45 a.m.

The American Red Cross is assisting the 10 adults and five children who cant go back to their homes for now. One pet is also among the displaced. No injuries to the residents.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Police block off a road near where the body of Roy Den Hollander, believed to be the gunman in two fatal shootings, was found on Monday near Livingston Manor, N.Y. (Jim Sabastian / The Times Herald-Record)

In two killings separated by nearly 3,000 miles, a gunman came dressed as a deliveryman. The individual at the doorstep claimed to be dropping off a package but instead unleashed a hail of bullets.

On Wednesday, the FBI said it had now linked the two slayings to one man.

Roy Den Hollander, 72, a self-described anti-feminist attorney, is suspected in the killing of a well-known men's rights attorney in the mountains of San Bernardino County earlier this month and the shooting on Sunday of a federal judge's son and husband in New Jersey.

Attorney Marc Angelucci was fatally shot July 11 at his Crestline, Calif., home. In Sunday's shooting in North Brunswick, N.J., U.S. District Judge Esther Salas' 20-year-old son was killed and her husband wounded. The body of Den Hollander was found late Sunday in New York's Sullivan County.

"As the FBI continues the investigation into the attack at the home of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas (District of New Jersey), we are now engaged with the San Bernardino California Sheriffs Office and have evidence linking the murder of Marc Angelucci to FBI Newark subject Roy Den Hollander," the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday in a statement.

The investigations of both killings are ongoing, said FBI spokeswoman Doreen Holder. Den Hollander was found dead hours after Sunday's shooting, which took place at the home of Salas and ended in the death of her 20-year-old son, Daniel Anderl. His father, Mark Anderl, was wounded.

Salas survived the attack because she was in another part of the house at the time the gunman, dressed in a FedEx-like outfit, came to the door.

When the body of Den Hollander, who died of apparent suicide, was found, a package also was recovered that was addressed to Salas, along with another for a New York judge.

According to a source not authorized to discuss the probe, materials were recovered following Den Hollander's death connecting him to Angelucci's killing, the shooting at the home of Salas and Anderl, and to the New York judge, who was another potential target but was not harmed.

Story continues

In both deadly attacks, the killer posed as a delivery driver, according to a law enforcement source. In more than 2,000 pages of his online postings, investigators are examining a reference to Den Hollander previously posing as a FedEx delivery driver.

Although authorities have not addressed Den Hollander's motivation, he was known for handling lawsuits challenging what he saw as unfair treatment of men, with some of his work garnering attention that saw him featured on The Colbert Report and MSNBC.

Angelucci, Den Hollander and Salas all shared a role in the legal battle over the military use of selective service and a requirement that only men be required to register for the draft once they turn 18. Salas heard a case beginning in 2015 in which Den Hollander challenged that requirement but was replaced as the plaintiff's attorney in 2018 after becoming ill.

Den Hollander, upset at Salas delaying of the case, derided the judges Latino heritage and complained that she allowed the Department of Justice to file its fourth motion to dismiss the case, suggesting she was trying to keep this case in her court until a weatherman showed her which way the legal winds were blowing.

Angelucci represented a Texas man, with the support of the National Coalition for Men, fighting the constitutionality of the men-only requirement. In February 2019, Angelucci gained the national legal spotlight when a judge declared that exempting women from that registration requirement violated the Constitutions equal protection clause. The judge, however, did not order the government to include women in the registration requirement. Den Hollander, according to those involved in the case, may have felt overshadowed.

Den Hollander had previously expressed hostility to the National Coalition for Men, where Angelucci had been a star legal player for two decades. Harry Crouch, president of the group, told the Associated Press that Angelucci had previously received death threats. He said Den Hollander had been furious that he had not been involved in a federal Selective Service System case that he filed with Angelucci.

Before the attack, in an ominous message posted online, Den Hollander wrote, The only problem with a life lived too long under Feminazi rule is that a man ends up with so many enemies he cant even the score with all of them. But law school and the media taught me how to prioritize, he wrote.

Angelucci, a lawyer educated at UC Berkeley and UCLA who won landmark cases and was honored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was found shortly after 4 p.m. on July 11 at his home in Cedar Pines Park in Crestline. Someone nearby reported hearing shots fired. Deputies found the attorney unresponsive and suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

Angelucci was pronounced dead at the scene. Another person at the home reporting seeing a deliveryman and then hearing shots and seeing a fleeing car.
Hands-only CPR carries low risk of transmitting COVID-19, and bystanders witnessing a cardiac arrest shouldn't be afraid to perform it, doctors say.

The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Early COVID-19 vaccine trails show promise

Results from trials of two potential COVID-19 vaccines yielded initial signs of efficacy with no serious adverse side effects, according to early data released on Monday. One was a UK study of the candidate being developed by Oxford University and British drugmaker AstraZeneca. The other was a Chinese study of a vaccine from CanSino Biologics. Both vaccines use a modified, harmless common cold virus known as an adenovirus to deliver genetic instructions to cells for inducing an immune response against the novel coronavirus.

The genetic components include a copy of a "spike" protein found on the surface of the novel coronavirus so that the immune system will recognize and attack the actual virus. In both trials, according to reports in The Lancet, "showing" just the coronavirus spike protein to the body was enough to trigger the immune system to produce antibodies and germ-fighting T cells to battle the coronavirus. The trials used healthy volunteers who were not directly exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.

The studies just assessed immune responses to the vaccines, along with safety. Much larger trials will be needed to prove these vaccines to be safe and effective in preventing infection by the virus.

Also read: COVID-19 Vaccine: Early results from Oxford trial show promising dual immune response to the coronavirus

Inhaled interferon may help hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Treatment with an inhaled form of interferon significantly reduced the risk of worsening illness in hospitalized COVID-19 patients and improved their odds of recovery, according to preliminary data from a mid-stage trial released by Synairgen Plc on Monday.

In the trial not yet available for peer review, 101 patients received the experimental treatment, called SG001, or a placebo. Patients who got SNG001 had a 79% lower risk of developing severe disease requiring ventilation or death. They were also more than twice as likely to have recovered within 28 days of starting treatment. Breathing difficulty was also markedly reduced in patients who received SNG001, the company said. Interferon is a naturally occurring protein that regulates the body's antiviral responses.

"There are reasons to believe it could well be an effective treatment, but these results, while encouraging, should not be taken to mean that the treatment is so dramatic that everyone should be given it," said Stephen Evans, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine shows promise in early trial

German biotech BioNTech and US drugmaker Pfizer Inc on Monday released data from an early-stage trial of their experimental coronavirus vaccine that showed that it prompted an immune response and was well-tolerated, similar to results seen in prior early test.

In the study conducted in Germany on 60 healthy volunteers, the vaccine-induced virus-neutralizing antibodies in those given two doses, in-line with previous results from an early-stage US trial. The vaccine also generated a high level of T cell responses against the coronavirus. T cells are a key component of the immune system's attack against foreign invaders, such as viruses, believed to be important for mounting a longer-term immune response.

The vaccine candidate uses messenger RNA to instruct cells to build a protein that resembles the spike on the surface of the coronavirus. Once the cells build the spike, the immune system learns to recognize it and is prepared to attack the virus.

Also read: Moderna's COVID-19 mRNA vaccine could revolutionise how pandemics are treated, but experts say to wait for Phase 3 human trials



Bystander CPR can be done safely during pandemic

Hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) carries a low risk of transmitting the coronavirus and bystanders who witness a cardiac arrest during the pandemic should not be afraid to perform it, doctors say.

People are wary about close contact with others, so the pandemic is a real threat to bystander CPR, Dr Sarah Perman of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora told Reuters.

Writing in the journal Circulation, she notes that the American Heart Association recommends hands-only CPR and precautions such as covering faces to reduce the spread of respiratory droplets that may carry the coronavirus. Bystanders who live with the cardiac arrest victim have likely already been exposed at home.

"Many more lives would be saved than harmed by continuing to perform bystander CPR, especially if basic safety measures are taken," Dr. Torben Becker, an emergency medicine doctor at the University of Florida, told Reuters.

Rescuers should wear a mask and cover the victim's mouth and nose with a cloth such as a shirt, he added.
Last week, national carrier Air India said its financial position was grim. The airline has decided to send some employees on long term Leave without Pay (LWP) on a voluntary basis. Long term for Air India is five years! This came a day after aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri noted that equity infusion of Rs 500-600 crore each year is not sustainable. Even if Air India wants financial assistance from the government, it may not be possible as the centre has to meet other demands too such as providing relief to vulnerable sections of the society amid the Coronavirus pandemic he noted.

In times of falling tax revenue and higher spending on social welfare schemes, Air India would probably be the last thing on the governments mind and it is likely that the government could look at expediting the sale at earliest possible opportunity.

These remarks came within days of news reports indicating that Tata could be the sole bidder for Air India. The revised deadline to submit the Express of Interest (EoI) is end of August. At the beginning of 2020, if there was one thing that was being watched closely by everyone  it was the privatisation of Air India. The government put its best foot forward this time and offered the entire airline to the new owner. The potential deal excluded few subsidiaries including Air India Regional / Alliance Air  the all ATR operator. Instead, the five Boeing B747s in Air Indias fleet would be transferred to Alliance Air to make Air India even more attractive.

Every now and then when the topic of Air India privatisation makes a comeback, Tata is the name everyone talks about. The reason? JRD Tata founded Tata Airlines in 1932 which was nationalized and became Air India. The group has been measured in its response and while it explored investing in Jet Airways, there has been little noise or confirmations coming from the top management. Likewise, the response has been measured when it comes to Air India disinvestment.

Despite COVID-19 playing havoc and aviation being one of the most impacted sectors, if the Tatas are serious about their aviation play and want to consolidate their offerings, there may not be another time than the current one.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

The initial argument in favour of the Tatas and especially its full-service arm Vistara to work in tandem with Air India was slots, access to a global alliance and a worldwide network which otherwise would take years to build for Vistara and would be a huge investment to sustain and grow.

While the buyer of Air India will still get the same things  access to slots at major foreign airports, good hold of bilateral rights, membership to Star Alliance, a good mix of narrow body and wide body aircraft and a trained workforce, bilateral rights to some lucrative destinations like the Gulf region and a profitable LCC armit will be challenging for the buyer to maintain all this at current demand levels and thats where the pricing could come into picture.

Does Air India still help the Tatas?

The Tata group is often criticised for not having multiple engines to pull the group, instead relying on one engine (TCS) to pull most of the wagons. If the group does not want its airline ventures  Vistara and AirAsia India to be wagons but instead play a commanding role in the sector, the airline may have to look at a bigger ploy and that could well be Air India! While airlines are worried about new deliveries, not having any aircraft on order could be the biggest positive side to look for in Air India. There is no future liability which needs to be negotiated.

When it comes to slots, global portfolio is not the only attractive thing. Air India holds some prime slots at both Mumbai and Delhi. With the Air India gained little from the redistribution of Jet Airways slots, most slots were grabbed by Spicejet and IndiGo. This means that it would be easier to attract traffic back to Full service with a better slot bank.

Things have since changed due to COVID-19. While the airline did see its slot application being rejected at London Heathrow in the initial filing for winter schedule 2020, the tapering demand could mean that slots could be available across the congested airports for a new airline which is willing to deploy new capacity. However, deployment isnt the only concern. To be in a new market as a new brand is an expensive proposition! Something, the airline may not want to invest in right now but instead invest much more in Air India with which these perks come loaded.

Tail Note

Disinvestment experience in India has been mixed bag. The biggest question in the sale of Air India would be its costing. With a huge saddle of debt on its back, what would any one pay to bag Air India? Even private airlines in India which have been involved in merger or stake sale have had to fight it out in courts. The Jet AirwaysAir Sahara merger has had issues with both parties in court of law; similar fate exists for Spicejet, when Ajay Singh returned at helm after buying out stake from Marans.

Everything else can probably be guaranteed and indemnified but no one knows how long things would take if you have to step in the courts of law and thats where Air India disinvestment could ended up whirring through an unending loop.

Ameya Joshi runs the aviation analysis website Network Thoughts
Scientists have shed light on how immune cells navigate to the lymph nodes, where they help to fight off harmful bacteria and viruses.

Scientists have shed light on how immune cells navigate to the lymph nodes, where they help to fight off harmful bacteria and viruses.

The study, led by scientists at the University of York, reveals how B-cells - crucial agents of the immune response - are faced with a perilous path, swimming through a dense network of other cells, blood and lymphatic vessels, to reach the follicles of the lymph nodes.

The research team discovered that structures inside lymph nodes leave a trail of chemical signals that guide B-cells through these complex tissues - like miniature lighthouses guiding a safe shipping passage.

Once they have reached the lymph nodes (glands which function as filters trapping viruses and bacteria before they can infect other parts of the body) B-cells confront invading pathogens and take molecules from their surfaces known as antigens. They process and present these to T cells, which then manufacture antibodies allowing them to identify and destroy the invaders.

The research is an important step forward in understanding how our immune system works and also why it fails, the authors of the study say.

Co-lead author of the study, Professor Mark Leake, from the Physics of Life group in the Department of Physics at the University of York, said: "Our study suggests that B-cells sniff out a chemical trail which allows them to swim over relatively long distances in a highly complex microenvironment to reach their key destination.

"Relying on a single chemical transmitter to act as a beacon across the whole of the lymph node wouldn't do the trick, since the signal becomes too dilute and swamped by noise. Instead, these multiple signals are like having a trail of breadcrumbs that the cells can follow."

The study may solve the mystery of how cells which are a hundred times smaller than a millimetre are able to travel over distances of around a metre to get to where they are needed in the body.

An international team of researchers from multiple disciplines including immunology, biophysics, cell biology, mathematics and computer science contributed to the research.

The team used fluorescent tags on signalling molecules to track their location in the lymph nodes of mice and human biopsy samples. They employed maths modelling and computer simulations involving machine learning to map out the cell architecture of the follicles of lymph node tissues.

Professor Leake added: "The only way we could gain this incredible new insight is by forming a large research team with a broad range of expertise crossing between multiple traditional science disciplines.

"Research into understanding the workings of the immune system at the scale of single molecules may help us to understand why things go wrong in the case of some diseases of the immune system. It may help pave the way to new drugs that help to improve the immune system's ability to combat emerging threats from harmful viruses and bacteria that the human population have not previously encountered."

###

B cell Zone Reticular Cell Microenvironments Shape CXCL13 Gradient Formation is published in the journal Nature Communications. The study was funded by the Medical Research Council, the Biology and Biotechnology Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Human Frontier Science Programme.

The study involved an international research team from the Universities of York and Oxford (UK), Bern, St. Galen, Bellinzona, Fribourg and Konstanz (Switzerland), the Erasmus University Medical Centre (Netherlands), and the Universite Paris Descartes (France).
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 00:44:01|Editor: huaxia

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HARARE, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The Zimbabwe government on Tuesday ordered suspension of face-to-face lectures on campus and directed all tertiary institutions to close and proceed with e-learning in a bid to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

All students staying on campus should vacate halls of residence by Friday, the government further directed.

A letter from the secretary for higher and tertiary education permanent secretary Fanuel Tagwira addressed to principals of teachers' colleges, polytechnics and industrial training colleges said the move was meant to protect students and members of staff.

"It is now observed that COVID-19 cases are escalating daily and this may put the lives of students and members of staff in our institutions at high risk," he said.

The country recorded its 26th death from COVID-19 on Monday as cases rose to 1,713 since the first case on March 20.

"In view of the foregoing, the ministry is hereby directing that all tertiary institutions, with immediate effect, suspend face-to-face lectures on campus and continue with e-learning," he said.

Tagwira said his ministry was "working flat out to ensure all institutions are adequately resourced with the necessary infrastructure to facilitate access to quality e-learning".

The closure of tertiary institutions follows that of Chinhoyi University of Technology where a lecturer tested positive last week.

Universities were allowed to reopen on July 13 after three-month closure, but only with final year students being allowed on campus. Enditem
July 21, 2020

Release

Memorandum on Reinforcing Operations Security

Today the Secretary for Defense released a memorandum for all Department of Defense personnel reinforcing Operations Security (OPSEC) and the importance of preventing unauthorized disclosures.

This memorandum emphasizes the importance of OPSEC in protecting our forces, ensuring our mission success, and implementing the National Defense Strategy.

The Department of Defense (DOD) remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust. However, it is important to emphasize that unclassified information is not publicly releasable until it is approved for release by an appropriate authorizing official.

Unauthorized disclosures jeopardize our DOD personnel, operations, strategies, and policies to the benefit of our adversaries. Unauthorized disclosures also distract from mission priorities by redirecting the attention and resources of military commanders. Whether poor OPSEC takes the form of careless cyber hygiene, "loose talk" among colleagues, or the willful release of non-public information, the result is the same: unnecessary and increased risk of harm to our fellow Americans and our mission.

Through the memorandum, the Secretary initiated an OPSEC campaign to change the culture across the department through focused OPSEC training required for all DOD personnel, including civilians, service members, and on-site contractors, within the next 60-days. In the coming weeks and months, DOD will also take several actions to assess and improve OPSEC and other security-related postures, policies, requirements, practices, and, importantly, accountability.

The Secretary also reminds DOD personnel to:

Be deliberate and careful with all classified, controlled unclassified, and predecisional policy information and proposals. Just because someone has a clearance, or previously worked for DOD, does not mean they have a need to know. DOD personnel must protect non-public information appropriately when communicating with any party, including ensuring that the person receiving the information is authorized access and has a need-to know or lawful government purpose for such information prior to any disclosure. Comply with DOD policies regarding public disclosures. Ensure that an appropriate DOD Public Affairs office authorizes the release of official DOD information to the news media, or that information is released according to appropriate procedures (e.g., Freedom of Information Act). Comply with all prepublication review policies, with which you are required to comply even after you retire, resign, or are dismissed from your Government service or contract. Comply with security clearance-related obligations to report certain contacts to your security offices. Review current DOD-wide and organization-specific OPSEC and traditional security practices, and ensure compliance with those procedures.

Finally, the provisions in the memorandum are consistent with and do not supersede, conflict with, or otherwise alter DOD employee obligations, rights, or liabilities created by existing statute or Executive order relating to (1) classified information, (2) communications to Congress, (3) the reporting to an Inspector General of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation, or mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety, or (4) any other whistleblower protection. The definitions, requirements, obligations, rights, sanctions, and liabilities created by controlling Executive orders and statutory provisions are incorporated into this memorandum and are controlling.

The Memorandum can be found here.

https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/1926383/

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Following media reports that US Defense Secretary Mark Esper hopes to visit China this year amid escalating US-China tensions, particularly on the South China Sea, several experts on military relations between two countries told the Global Times on Tuesday that China needs time to find out if such a stance represents genuine goodwill or is just a "smoke bomb."

Esper said Tuesday he had spoken to his Chinese counterpart several times and hopes to make the trip by year's end, according to media reports. The goals of the trip would be to "establish the systems necessary for crisis communications and reinforce our intentions to openly compete in the international system in which we all belong," he was quoted as saying.

China and the US have been seen tensions flare up on a series of matters including the island of Taiwan and the South China Sea. Facing continuous military provocations by the US, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) recently conducted maritime target attack drills in the South China Sea and deployed warplanes on an island in the region at a time when the US aggressively sent warplanes for close-up reconnaissance and warships including aircraft carriers for exercises and operations in the name of "freedom of navigation."

His visit conveys three messages, an expert from the military who is familiar with the China-US military ties told the Global Times on Tuesday. "First, it shows that the US is willing to communicate, and unwilling to see the deadlock situation between China and the US get out of control," the expert said.

It also proves that Chinese and American military has been in contact and at this moment, such a message released from Esper also aims to test public opinion.

Since the beginning of this year, the US has been trying hard to contain, repress and suppress China, and if this situation continues the two sides would likely be pushed into a military conflict, the expert said.

"The US does not want military conflict, which would lead to unbearable consequences," the expert said, noting that the US is determined to defend its unshakeable interests in the Asia-Pacific region, but the outbreak of military conflict with China will also undermine its interests.

The US side wants to strike a balance between containment and maximizing its interests without losing control, which will lead to focusing on how to control a crisis. For the moment, the two sides have the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea and Rules of Behavior for the Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters to keep frontline force under control and avoid strategic misjudgment or other emergency situations.

"However, it's more difficult to handle the current situation with the current rules, which are also insufficient to control conflict outbreak at crucial moments. As a result, the two sides need to communicate further," the expert said.

Another observer told the Global Times that China should let the situation evolve for a while, to see what arrows are in the US quiver. Then China would closely observe the US moves, said the analyst. The next moves by the US military will prove if Esper's gesture is a "smoke bomb" or represents new US moves towards China.

The analyst said that under current circumstances, it is not right timing for Esper's China visit and China needs to form its own tactics.

"China does not have to react to every move by the US."

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that Esper's announcement was definitely authorized by the US government. The US public is also reluctant to see Washington being involved into another clash, which would not help Trump's reelection chances.

Trump can manufacture skirmishes, but he won't drag the US into another conflict, which does not meet the US public's common interest.

Li pointed out that Esper's gesture also reflected the Trump administration's tactics towards China, which is using every card in their hand. But it also proved that Trump is very afraid China-US relations get out of control, a scenario that could sabotage this year's US presidential election, and put US long-term interests in jeopardy.

"Thus we can say that Esper's gesture is related, or even serves Trump's reelection."

Li believed that China should stick to two basic points on the bilateral relation: first would be, no conflict, no confrontations, mutual respect and cooperation; the second would be requiring the US to respect China's sovereignty and rights of development. China will be willing to conduct dialogue with US on all-levels based on the two points.

"If the US makes positive gestures, they will get a similar response from China," said Li.
MONTREAL - A father who was the subject of an intense 10-day manhunt had killed his two young daughters with a blunt object and taken his own life before an Amber Alert was ever triggered for them, Quebec provincial police said Wednesday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A body believed to be Martin Carpentier is carried by police investigators, Monday, July 20, 2020 in Saint-Apollinaire Que. Romy and Norah Carpentier were found dead in Saint-Apollinaire Que. A man hunt was launched to find the missing father of the two deceased girls. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

MONTREAL - A father who was the subject of an intense 10-day manhunt had killed his two young daughters with a blunt object and taken his own life before an Amber Alert was ever triggered for them, Quebec provincial police said Wednesday.

Chief Insp. Guy Lapointe said the tragic string of events began on July 8 when Martin Carpentier took his daughters Norah and Romy for ice cream. It ended with all three dead less than 12 hours later.

The "tipping point," the police spokesman said, was a car crash, which is not believed to have been deliberate but seemingly caused Carpentier's behaviour to veer from normal to erratic.

Police did not elaborate on a motive or what could have led to such a radical and swift change in Carpentier's behaviour.

"The reality is that the suspect is deceased, so there are things we'll never really know," Lapointe told a news conference in Montreal.

But investigators are confident, he added, that by the morning of July 9, "all those sad events had already been played, and all three were already dead."

Surete du Quebec Chief Insp. Guy Lapointe resounds to a question during a news conference in Montreal on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Provincial police confirmed that the two young sisters found dead after an Amber Alert near Quebec City this month were murdered with a blunt object by their father. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

He said that since the criminal investigation is complete, it's now up to the provincial coroner to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

The trio's disappearance led to a search that only ended Monday night when Carpentier's body was found.

The intense police search southwest of Quebec City lasted 10 days before being scaled back last weekend. It included two visits to the wooded property where Carpentier's body was eventually discovered.

Carpentier was last seen crossing the highway with his daughters after abandoning the damaged vehicle, leaving behind his cell phone and a melting ice cream.

Norah, 11, and Romy, 6, were injured in the car crash, but they died from blunt force trauma inflicted by their father, investigators concluded.

The girls' bodies were found July 11 in a wooded area in St-Apollinaire, Que., two days after the Amber Alert had been triggered.

Police said the Amber Alert wasn't issued until the day after the crash because there was no immediate indication Carpentier would have abducted his daughters.

"There was worry, but you have to understand they were implicated in a car crash, so it was a worry in regards to their status or health following the car crash," Lapointe told reporters in Montreal. "It wasn't a worry that the father would do anything to the daughters, and that's exactly what we were getting from the family."

Police said the crash was not deliberate, and there were signs Carpentier tried to regain control of the vehicle. But the accident was the moment when things began to change, Lapointe said.

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"Every behaviour that was noted ... prior to that moment, is behaviour that is normal, that fits what we would expect from that individual," he said. "Except that from that point on, following the crash, it's everything else that doesn't add up to what we would call normal behaviour."

Investigators believe Carpentier made his way to a trailer within the search perimeter, where he took items including a shovel and a lighter. While the girls were believed to be alive at that point, only Carpentier's DNA was found inside.

The girls' bodies were found about 750 metres from the trailer, and Carpentier's body was found about 5.5 kilometres from the crash site.

Lapointe said that while the outcome of the investigation is unsatisfactory, police are confident they did everything they could to find the girls based on the information available to them.

He said police had visited the property where Carpentier was found on July 10 and 17, but it was outside the area being searched on foot and with dogs. At the time of the visits, the property owner had not noticed anything missing, although a ladder was later found in the area where the body was found.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:29:01|Editor: huaxia

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TUNIS, July 22 -- Tunisia's National Unit of Investigation for Terrorist Affairs and Organized Crime has dismantled a five-member terrorist cell, active in Sousse, the main coastal province in east-central Tunisia, Tunisian Interior ministry said Wednesday.

The terrorist cell was also active in two other provinces, namely Kasserine, in the central west near the Algerian border, and Gabes, in the southeast near the Libyan border, said a ministry statement.

"The suspects planned terrorist attacks targeting establishments and security units," it added.

An in-depth investigation confirmed that these extremists had been in direct contact with other terrorists via social networks.

They had been trained and well prepared to manufacture explosives, according to the statement.

Tunisia has started to witness terrorist acts since 2011, leaving dozens of security and military agents, civilians and foreign tourists killed. Enditem
NEW YORK - Stone tools found in a Mexican cave suggest that people were living in North America as early as about 26,500 years ago, much earlier than most scientists accept, a new study says.

Its a new step in the difficult and contentious process of establishing when people arrived in North America from Asia. Presently, the most widely accepted dates for the earliest known North American archaeological sites date to before 15,000 years ago and extend maybe to 17,000 years ago, says anthropology professor Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He was not involved in the cave study.

In Wednesdays issue of the journal Nature, scientists reported on artifacts found in a mountain cave in the state of Zacatecas in north-central Mexico. Ciprian Ardelean of the Autonomous University of Zacatecas and others say they found stone tools and debris from tool-making that they dated back as far as 26,500 years ago. Theres some indication that some artifacts go back beyond 30,000 years, but so far the evidence isnt strong enough to make a firm claim, Ardelean said.

Ardelean said he believed people probably used the cave as a winter shelter for short periods of time. His team was unable to recover any human DNA from the cave.

Dillehay said the proposed date for the artifacts may be valid if it stands up to further scrutiny. But he suspects they arent more than 20,000 years old and most likely fall in the range of 15,000 to 18,000 years old. He doesnt question that some of the artifacts are probably man-made, but said hed like to see other evidence of human occupation of the cave, like hearths, butchered bones and burned edible plant remains.

In a Nature commentary, Ruth Gruhn, a professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said the results should bring fresh consideration of six Brazilian sites proposed to be older than 20,000 years. Those age estimates are now commonly disputed or simply ignored by most archaeologists as being much too old to be real, she wrote.

__

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
By Akbar Mammadov

The Azerbaijani Embassy in Serbia has issued a statement on the use of Serbian-made weapons by the Armenian armed forces during the attack on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border in the direction of Tovuz, the embassy said on July 21.

The statement reads that upon the Presidential Administrations and the Foreign Affairs Ministrys relevant instructions on the use of Serbian-made weapons by the Armenian armed forces in the offensive operations on Tovuz, appeals have been made to the Serbian Presidential Administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other relevant government agencies to clarify the issue, and intensive meetings are being held.

In the meantime, on July 21, Serbian Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajic told the Nova.rs portal that the weapons were exported to Armenia by a private company. He noted that the company had permits from four ministries (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defence and his own), as well as the countrys top civilian intelligence and security agency the BIA.

This year, 2020, weapons were supplied to Armenia by a private company, state-owned companies did not participate in this. I cannot say which company we are talking about, but it is known that it supplied mainly rifles and pistols, the amount was less than a million euros and the cargo was delivered in May and June, Ljajic said.

There are no European Union, EU, US or Russian sanctions imposed on Armenia making it hard to refuse requests from that country, added he.

It should be noted that earlier, on July 20, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry summoned Serbia's Charge d'Affaires Danica Veinovic over the delivery of a large amount of military ammunition and mortar from Serbia to Armenia.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The Board of School Education Haryana (BSEH) on Tuesday declared the Class 12 examination results in which 2.12 lakh students had appeared this year. The pass percentage is 80.34%.

A total of 89.43% students in commerce passed the examination followed by 82.55% in Science stream and 78.08% in Arts. The pass percentage has gone up by 5.86% as compared to last years 74.48%. However, 9,451 students have failed the examination and 32,361 have got compartments.

This years results are the best in terms of pass percentage in the last four years. In 2017, the pass percentage stood at 64.5% and in 2018, it was 63.84%.

This year too, girls outsmarted boys with a pass percentage of 86.30 against 75.06% of boys. The urban (82.28%) students performed better than rural(79.14%) counter parts by 3.14%. A total of 79.78% students studying in government schools cleared the exam, while 80.97% students of private schools were successful. The top positions in arts, commerce and science were clinched by girls.

Manisha of government senior secondary school in Mahendergarhs Sihma topped the Arts stream by securing 499 marks out of 500. Manisha, 17, scored 100 in English, History, Sanskrit, Psychology and 99 marks in Hindi. She aspires to become an IAS officer. Her father Manoj Kumar is a farmer and mother Sunita Devi is a housewife.

Manisha said she used to travel on foot for 2km to reach her school. My parents have supported me. I want to thank my teachers, family and friends for the success. I was hoping to top the school but never dreamed of getting first rank in the state. The people should change their mindset that girls can achieve better than boys and this can be done by studying in government schools too, she added.

In non-medical, first position was bagged by Bhawana Yadav of government senior secondary school in Rewaris Bodia Kamalpur. She secured 496 marks out of 500.

In medical, the first position was jointly secured by three studentsAmit of Saraswati Senior Secondary School in Milakpur of Bhiwani district, Kajal of the Heights Senior Secondary School in Jhajjars Khudan and Shrutika of Government Senior Secondary School at Beholi in Kurukshetra by securing 495 marks out of 500.

In commerce first position was secured by Pushpa of KVM Senior secondary school, Pal in Kaithal. She got 498 marks out of 500.

Board secretary Rajiv Prasad said the results were declared on the basis of average marks of already given exams by the students. This year, students have performed much better despite the Covid-19 pandemic. We are very happy with the outstanding performance of government schools whose pass percentage is 1.19 less than the private schools. We have declared the results following the footsteps of the Central board of secondary education (CBSE), Delhi,  he added.
CDCR / CDCR

Condemned inmate John Beames died on Tuesday from a suspected case of COVID-19, marking the latest death in a coronavirus outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, officials said.

Beames, a 67-year-old convicted child killer, died at a hospital outside the prison from what appears to be complications related to COVID-19, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Stephen Warnock has slammed Chelsea's Twitter account for a 'classless' tweet ahead of the Blues' trip to Liverpool on Wednesday.

The west London club put out a tweet of Steven Gerrard's infamous slip in 2014 that allowed Demba Ba to open the scoring in a 2-0 Premier League win for Chelsea, which severely dented Liverpool's title challenge that year.

Warnock, who was born in Liverpool and came through the Reds' academy, felt that Blues manager Frank Lampard would disapprove of the tweet, which was captioned 'Back at Anfield tomorrow'.

Ex-Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock slammed Chelsea' Twitter account on Tuesday night

Chelsea posted a throwback video to Steven Gerrard's 2014 slip which angered Warnock

Warnock (right) claimed that Chelsea's Frank Lampard (left) would disapprove of the tweet

Warnock tweeted himself: 'What a lack of class,' before using a thumbs down emoji.

When a broadcaster replied to the former defender's tweet saying: 'Free team talk there', Warnock responded: 'Just dont get why a club would act in that way. Very strange, cant imagine the manger would be yo [sic] happy about it.'

The tweet has since been deleted by the Chelsea social media team.

The defeat caused by Gerrard's slip allowed Manchester City to win the Premier League title that year following a close race with Liverpool, who were then managed by Brendan Rodgers.

The match also saw the ex-Liverpool and England captain squander his best oppourtunity to become a Premier League champion at Anfield.

Gerrard's slip during the 2-0 defeat to the Blues cost Liverpool the Premier League title in 2014

Warnock (right) who played alongside Gerrard (left) at Liverpools said the tweet was 'strange'

But Liverpool have certainly recovered from that season's disappointment, having lifted the Champions League last season followed by the Premier League this year.

Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson, who took the armband following Gerrard's departure in 2016, will lift the Premier League title in the Kop End following the match on Wednesday.

Chelsea, meanwhile, know that a win will seal a top-four place, thereby earning them a spot in the Champions League next season.
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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday complimented the Indian Air Force for its rapid deployment of assets at forward locations in response to the border row with China in eastern Ladakh, saying its Balakot strike and the current combat readiness have sent a strong message to "adversaries".

In an address to the top commanders of the IAF on the opening day of a three-day conference, the defence minister said the nation's resolve to defend its sovereignty stands firm and that the people of the country have full confidence in the capability of its armed forces.

Singh also talked about the "professional manner" in which the IAF conducted the air strikes deep inside Pakistan's Balakot last year and appreciated the force for its proactive response in bolstering its operational capabilities over the past few months. "He stated that the professional manner in which IAF conducted the air strikes in Balakot as well as rapid deployment of IAF assets at forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in eastern Ladakh has sent a strong message to the adversaries," the defence ministry said in a release.

He said the nation's resolve to defend its sovereignty stands firm on the faith its people have in the capability of its armed forces. Singh also mentioned the ongoing efforts to de-escalate tension along the Line of Actual Control and urged the IAF to stand ready to handle any eventuality.

Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria said that the IAF was well prepared to counter short term as well as strategic threats and the units were "evenly poised" to counter any aggressive action by the adversary. He said the response by all commands in ensuring deployment and readiness of forces was prompt and laudable. He also emphasised on the need to focus on the ability to handle situations at a short notice for ensuring a robust response.

In his address, the defence minister also acknowledged the IAF's role in adapting to changes in technology. He also talked about adopting emerging capabilities like nano technology, artificial intelligence, cyber and space domains.

He assured the commanders that all requirements of the Armed Forces, whether financial or otherwise, would be fulfilled, the ministry said. In the conference, the IAF commanders will carry out an in-depth review of the country's air defence system which will include deployment of the first batch of Rafale fighter jets in the Ladakh sector.

The main focus of the commanders' conference will be to deliberate on the overall situation in eastern Ladakh and enhance the IAF's combat prowess over the country's air space in all sensitive sectors along the de-facto border with China including in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Uttarakhand, the sources said. The commanders are expected to specifically deliberate on deployment of first batch of around six Rafale jets in the Ladakh sector by early next month as the aircraft are set to join the IAF's fighter fleet by July 29, the sources said.

In a demonstration of its aerial prowess, the IAF has been carrying out night time combat air patrols over the eastern Ladakh region in the last few weeks, in an apparent message to China that it was ready to deal with any eventualities in the mountainous region. The IAF has deployed almost all its frontline fighter jets like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 aircraft in key frontier air bases in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China notwithstanding disengagement of troops by Chinese military from a number of friction points.

The IAF has also deployed Apache attack choppers as well as Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to transport troops to various forward locations The IAF has also pressed into service a fleet of C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft as well as C-130J Super Hercules in transporting heavy military equipment and weaponry to several forward bases in the region.
Lebanon's hospitals, long considered among the best in the Middle East, are cracking under the country's financial crisis, struggling to pay staff, keep equipment running or even stay open amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

Private hospitals, the engine of the health system, warn they may have to shut down. Chronically underfunded public hospitals, which have led the fight against the virus, fear they will be overrun.

Across the country, hospitals and doctors are reporting shortages in vital medical supplies such as anesthesia drugs and sutures. With power cuts that run through most of the day, they pour money into fuel for generators, and many are turning away non-critical cases to conserve resources.

``The situation is really catastrophic, and we expect a total collapse if the government doesn't come up with a rescue plan,'' said Selim Abi Saleh, the head of the Physicians Union in northern Lebanon, one of the country's poorest and most populated regions.

One of the country's oldest and most prestigious university hospitals, the American University Medical Center, laid off hundreds of its staff last week citing the ``disastrous'' state of the economy and causing uproar and concern.

Medical facilities have let go of nurses and reduced salaries, their finances running dry in part because they can't collect millions owed to them by the state. Nearly a third of Lebanon's 15,000 physicians aim to migrate or already have, a doctors' union official said, based on the number who have sought union documents they can use abroad to prove their credentials.

So far Lebanon has kept a handle on its pandemic outbreak, through strong lockdowns, aggressive testing and a quick response, largely by public hospitals. The country has reported fewer than 3,000 infections and 41 deaths.

But with cases rising, many in the field fear the health sector can't hold up under a surge and a financial crisis worsening every day.

Lebanon's liquidity crunch has crippled the government's ability to provide fuel, electricity and basic services. The shortage of dollars is gutting imports, including medical supplies and drugs.

Prices have spiraled, unemployment is above 30% and nearly half the population of 5 million now live in poverty.

Private hospitals, which make up around 85% of the country's facilities, emerged dominant after the country's brutal 15-year civil war to become the pride of Lebanon's system, drawing patients from around the region with specialized services and advanced surgeries.

But the entire health sector, like much of the country, has also run on political jockeying and patronage in Lebanon's sectarian system. Medical practitioners say politics determine how much payment from the state private hospitals receive while public facilities remain understaffed.

The insurance system, with multiple health funds, is chaotic, making collection difficult and coverage patchy. For years, state insurance funds failed to reimburse hospitals. Private hospitals say they are owed $1.3 billion, some of it dating back to 2011.

``We can't fight COVID and at the same time keep looking behind our backs to see whether I have enough financial and material resources,'' said Firas Abiad, director general of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the public hospital leading the coronavirus fight.

Abiad, who has won praise for his transparency in handling the pandemic, is getting by with stop-gap measures. When he raised alarm this month that the hospital was running out of fuel, a rush of private donations flowed in. The government pledged to provide fuel for public facilities.

``I doubt anybody has any long-term strategy,'' Abiad said. ``We are doing it one fight at a time, and we are surviving one day at a time.''

Financing must be priority, he said. ``Generators can't run on empty, without fuel. Hospitals can't run without financing.''

Minister of Health Hamad Hassan told The Associated Press Monday he was counting on government support to keep hospitals as a ``red line.'' But he urged hospitals to do their part to push through the crisis.

``Hospitals have invested in this sector for 40 years. Whoever has invested that long should have the courage to invest for six months or a year to help his people and not give up on them,`` he said.

Private hospitals' struggles are compounded by a banking sector crisis that has locked down foreign currency accounts and complicated imports and the issuing of letters of credit.

In the northern village of Majdalaiya, the state-of-the art, 100-bed Family Medical Center hospital stood nearly empty last week. Its owner, oncologist Kayssar Mawad, said he had to shut down one of the five floors to save costs.

Mawad has had to refuse patients with state insurance. The government already owes him millions of dollars, he said.

``It has to be a life or death situation,'' Mawad said. ``This is not sustainable.''

He said in recent weeks, he admitted 20 patients at most, while treating others as outpatients to save costs. His facility is prepared to deal with COVID-19 patients but he said it won't because it is too expensive.

``We don't want to get to a Venezuela-scenario where we diagnose the patient but ask them to bring their own medicine, food, and sheets,'' he said. ``I hope we don't get there.''

There was only one baby in the hospital's 13-bed neonatal unit. On the adults' floor, there were three patients.

One of them, an 83-year-old man recovering from arterial surgery, had to pay out of pocket because his private insurance won't cover the room or the stent. If a brother hadn't come from Germany to cover the costs, ``he would have died,'' said his daughter, Mayada Qaddour.

The 32 public hospitals won't be able to fill the place of private hospitals threatened with closure, said Ahmad Moghrabi, chairman of Orange Nassau, Lebanon's only government-run maternity hospital.

Moghrabi, now in his 70s, rebuilt the hospital in the northern city of Tripoli from scratch since he took it over in 2003, almost totally through foreign donations. Still, it relies on state funds and insurance payments _ both minimal _ so it has never been able to operate at full capacity of 5,000 births a year.

Now desperately short of funds and fuel, the hospital has to juggle priorities. It suspended its neonatal unit to keep life-saving dialysis running.

``In 2020, (a hospital) can't do without a neonatal unit,'' Moghrabi said. ``With the current circumstances in Lebanon, we are going back to the 1960s, even further.''

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A member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee says the blast at Iran's main nuclear establishment in Natanz on July 2 was caused by a "security breach".

The Persian word Javad Karimi Qoddousi has used to describe the cause of the blast can also be translated into infiltration of security, which makes it slightly different.

He strictly rules out "a strike on the complex by an external object," the oblique jargon that means he believes no bombs or missiles have hit the building which is the main venue of uranium enrichment in Iran.

Karimi Qoddousi who spoke to the parliament's website, ICANA, on Wednesday July 22, said: "If it was from the outside, we should have seen shrapnel, but there are absolutely no remnants left on the site."

However, he did not elaborate further on the "security breach" or "infiltration."

Earlier, various analysts, politicians, disinformation operatives and conspiracy theorists had come up with hypothesis including an Israeli drone or missile attack, bombs planted by foreign agents, a cyberattack by Israel or the U.S., technical defect, accidental fire, and sabotage.

The latter was backed by an unverified email by a group named "Persian Cheetahs" or Panthers which was never heard of before or after the incident. The email claimed that a group of dissident security officers were behind the blast. The email was sent to a few staff members of only one media outlet in the United Kingdom. IT experts in the United States, the UK and Europe are said to be examining the email to track down the sender, but the outcome of the investigation is still not known to public.

The statement by the member of Iran's parliament is consistent with a July 5 New York Times report that quoted an IRGC commander without naming him as having said that a powerful bomb detonated inside the building had caused heavy damage.

The Natanz incident being the most notable in recent weeks is not the only mysterious event. More than a dozen important industrial and at least one military site near Tehran experienced suspicious explosions and fires. The government has dismissed them as accidents.

Karimi Qoddousi, is an MP for Mashad and a former IRGC (Basij militia) commander. During the past years, he has made outlandish remarks about the Iran's nuclear program and the nuclear agreement with world powers that has created controversies and at times enraged politicians such as Foreign Minister Javad Zarif or Nuclear Chief Ali Akbar Salehi while they were at the podium of the parliament (Majles).

He has recently visited the site in Natanz along with other MPs and has expressed concern over the building's "vulnerability." He said after the visit: "We are almost certain that no suspicious object has flown in and hit the building." He added: "It was more likely that explosives were planted in the machines in the West." However, Iran builds its own enrichment centrifuges and the West would hardly sell anything to Iran ready to be used in such a sensitive nuclear site.

Earlier, Iranian media had ruled out the possibility of an air strike or a cyber-attack as the cause of the blast in Natanz.

Hamshahri newspaper in Tehran wrote on July 7 that "the site is being constantly protected by machine guns and more powerful air defense systems such as the S-300 are stationed at sensitive places and near the borders, so an air strike on the site in Natanz is almost impossible."

Iran has still not officially declared the cause of the blast. The Supreme Council of National Security said one day after the incident that it knew the cause but would not declare it at the time being for security reasons.

Government Spokesman Ali Rabiei said on July 11 that the cause of the incident will be announced after experts complete their investigations.

According to the New York Times, the blast will delay Iran's nuclear program for up to another two years.
TAMIR KALIFA, STR / NYT

The Noble acquisition is a sign of the times, said Mike Wirth, chairman and chief executive officer of Chevron, at Tuesdays virtual Powering Forward summit held by the Texas Oil and Gas Association.

The industry is feeling pressure of pandemic, yet at same time looking to meet the challenges of future; looking to do it better, he said. We were positioned with a strong balance sheet for opportunities to work with other companies to strengthen our ability to weather these times and set up to be an even stronger supplier of energy in the future. We think its a nice fit; its good for the shareholders of both companies. Noble has some good assets; we can offer strength to support those assets through tough times and opportunity for their people. We see deals like this sometimes as the industry is under pressure. We worked hard on this and will work in coming weeks and months to get through the process and integrate Noble into our company.
TEL AVIV, Israel, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Neuraxpharm, a leading European pharmaceutical company specialized in CNS, and Panaxia Global, the controlling owner of Panaxia Labs Israel (Panaxia Israel) (TASE: PNAX), Israel's largest medical cannabis manufacturer, announced today they have entered a definite agreement to start a business collaboration for marketing Panaxia's medical cannabis products in Germany, Europe's largest and fastest-growing market for cannabis in Europe. The agreement, which anchors a previous MOU entered by the companies, includes exclusivity for Panaxia products, as well as an option for scaling the distribution to additional countries, also including further major European countries.

The agreement is one of a kind in the cannabis industry. It represents the first time a global pharma company of Neuraxpharm caliber marketing medical cannabis products as part of its broad prescription and non-prescription product portfolio. On top of distributing the products to pharmacies through local distributors, the venture will focus on marketing efforts to the relevant target audiences in Germany, namely the prescribing physicians, and the patients. The marketing activity is critical for the success of commercial sales and will be implemented according to the standards used in the pharmaceutical industry.

The prescriptions issued in Germany by authorized physicians are for a specific brand. Hence, marketing the products to prescribing physicians in Germany is a prerequisite for succeeding in that country. Germany is considered as the largest market for medical cannabis outside the USA with 60 thousand patients out of a population of 82.8 million people. The average spending on medical cannabis per patient stands at ~ 500 per month.

The Neuraxpharm Group is one of the largest specialty pharma companies in Europe. It is present in 12 European countries, including Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Slovakia, UK, Hungary, and Portugal. Neuraxpharm's annual turnover is  480 million, having access to more than 80% of the CNS market in Europe and a portfolio of over 130 active medicines for CNS conditions.

Following the signing of the agreement, Neuraxpharm will work to obtain an import permit of Panaxia's products to Germany. Panaxia will concurrently work to obtain an export license from Israel's health authorities. Panaxia started manufacturing the products to have a stock ready as soon as it receives the export permit. The first sales of Panaxia/Neuraxpharm products in Germany are expected to start as soon as the export permit is issued.

Panaxia is the only Israeli company that received an EU-GMP certification, which allows it to export all of its medical cannabis products to most of the European countries.

Under the agreement, Panaxia will be responsible for manufacturing the product in compliance with EU-GMP standards, develop new and advanced products, such as tablets, suppositories, and inhaled products, and their registration according to the German regulation. Neuraxpharm will be responsible for branding, introduction and commercialization of the products to all authorized pharmacies in Germany.

Dr. Dadi Segal, CEO of Panaxia Global, commented: "We are proud to pioneer a collaboration of this scale, which opens a door for us in the EU. The agreement establishes Neuraxpharm and Panaxia as dominant players in the European medical cannabis market. It is the first time a European pharma company, let alone of Neuraxpharm's caliber, markets medical cannabis products. Hence, it is also a landmark announcement for the patients, whose needs will be finally met, and for other companies that have been fighting to achieve recognition of the medical benefits of cannabis. As a pharma company that has been manufacturing medical cannabis according to the strictest scientific and medical standards for years, we are excited with the formal recognition of our uncompromising professionalism. We will work together to solidify our market leadership."

About Panaxia Global

Panaxia Global is the controlling owner of Panaxia Labs Israel, Ltd., a publicly-traded company on TASE (TASE: PNAX). It is the largest Israeli manufacturer and home-delivery distributor of medical cannabis products, and the first to have received the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Health for the manufacturing of medicinal cannabis-based pharmaceuticals (under the IMC-GMP directive) as well as EU-GMP standard certification required for commercial production and export of medical cannabis and its products to Europe. The company manufactures over 30 hemp-based medicinal products and has accumulated a broad foundation of clinical experience based on tens of thousands of patients.

Panaxia is a part of the Segal Pharma Group, owned by the Segal family and founded over forty years ago. The company manufactures over 600 different pharmaceutical products that are distributed in over 40 countries worldwide. Panaxia was co-founded by Dr. Dadi Segal, Dr. Eran Goldberg, and Adv. Assi Rotbart as the cannabis division of the Segal Pharma Group. The sister, Panaxia US, manufactures in North America over 60 hemp-based medicinal products, including sublingual tablets, lozenges, oils, and inhalators designed for treating conditions such as PTSD, cancer, chronic pain, epilepsy, anorexia, burns, and many other ailments. Panaxia Group has over 150 employees, who also conduct all of its clinical trials.

The Segal Pharma Group additionally owns Luminera Derm, manufacturer of injectable dermal fillers, and Tree of Life Pharma, manufacturer of over-the-counter drugs. For more information, visit the Panaxia website at https://panaxia.co.il/

For more information:

Noa Leviel

[email protected]

972-50-869-1843

SOURCE Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries
Engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday said it will be "conscious" of government's directives while getting into future partnerships with Chinese firms for fresh orders, even as it would continue with the existing tie-ups for contracts as most of them are for critical projects. "...it's something that we need to work through because as you know the orders from supply from China are contractual orders and we cannot, based on political stance, immediately turn turtle.

So we have to make sure that all the obligations are understood in whatever ...
A woman who was planning to travel more than 100 kilometres from locked-down suburban Melbourne to the Surf Coast to catch some waves was one of 61 people fined for breaching coronavirus restrictions on Tuesday.

The would-be surfer was caught by police travelling from Strathmore, in the city's north-west, and was fine $1652 fine for flouting the stay-at-home directions.

Police patrols in Werribee on Tuesday. Credit:Joe Armao

More than $100,000 in fines were issued on Tuesday in Victoria. Nineteen of the 61 fines were issued at vehicle checkpoints on arterial roads across the state.

Other infringements were issued to multiple people attending a party in the Monash Council area, 20 kilometres south-east of Melbourne's CBD, and to a group of people sitting on a park bench drinking alcohol in the centre of the city.
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The global vinyl flooring market is predicted to register a momentous growth at a splendid CAGR over the predicted years (2016-2022). Vinyl flooring has gained immense recognition over the years owing to its alluring characteristics. It is designed to seem as realistic as it is possible and when it comes to its design possibilities it is truly endless. These floors are available in both sheet and tile form for both residential and commercial use. Also known as resilient floors they are highly moisture-resistant, easy to maintain and durable compared to many alternative materials. Thus, it is highly preferred for bathrooms, residential kitchens, commercial, retail establishments and healthcare facilities. The best part, it comes in myriad colors and styles and also in shapes which can be custom cut. It is widely utilized in healthcare facilities as it is impervious to water thereby providing notable sanitary benefit over carpeting. Such characteristics are crucial especially for day care centres, nursing homes, extended care facilities and hospital rooms. Besides, it works well with homes that are newly constructed for families on a tight budget and with kids and pets.

There are abundant factors that is propelling the growth of the vinyl flooring market. These factors as stated by the Market Research Future (MRFR) report include increase in consumers purchasing power, increasing disposable income, the environment-friendly nature, growing construction and building activities, growing attention of consumers for aesthetics in construction, versatility and easy installation and maintenance. On the contrary, shortage of labors, inability of taking heavy loads, susceptibility of getting damaged through sharp objects, direct sunlight may fade the color, damage resulting from extreme temperature and the need for greater skills and extensive training needed for vinyl flooring installation are factors that may deter vinyl flooring market growth over the predicted years.

Market Segmentation

MRFR report provides an extensive segmental analysis of the vinyl flooring market on the basis of product and application.

Based on application, it is segmented into non-residential (business applications) and residential application (homes). Of these, residential application will garner the maximum share in the market over the predicted years.

Based on product, the vinyl flooring market is segmented into vinyl sheet, printed vinyl, luxury vinyl tiles, carpets and others. Of these, luxury vinyl tile will dominate the market over the predicted years.

Regional Analysis

By region, the vinyl flooring market covers growth opportunities and latest trends across Rest of the World, Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Of these, Asia Pacific will witness a towering growth over the predicted years owing to development of the construction industry, changing preference and lifestyle of people, and population growth that offers immense potential for new infrastructure development and housing demand. India, China and Japan are the key contributors here. The vinyl flooring market in North America will have a favorable growth over the predicted years owing to government initiatives and regulations that are encouraging eco-friendly housing, demand for eco-friendly houses and established construction industry. Canada and the USA are the country-specific markets that are garnering utmost market revenue. In Europe too, the vinyl flooring market will have a notable growth. The UK, Germany and France are the most vital country-specific markets here that is contributing towards a significant growth. On the other side, the Rest of the World that covers Middle East and African countries will have a small share in the market over the predicted years. This is owing to lack of advancement in technology, lack of education, lack of awareness and poor countries.

Key Players

Leading players profiled in the vinyl flooring market include TOLI Floor Corporation (Japan), Tarkett Group (France), Shaw Industries Group Inc. (USA), Polyflor Ltd. (UK), Mohawk Industries (USA), Mannington Mills Inc. (USA), Interface Inc. (USA), Gerflor Group (France), and Armstrong Flooring Inc. (USA).

May 2019- To commemorate Bauhaus 100th year, Atrafloor has come up with its latest vinyl flooring that is inspired by the iconic geometric design and art of Bauhaus. The flooring has simple geometrics and architectural elements in a range of block, bold color palettes (yellow, green, blue and red) inspired via Bauhaus art schools influential work.
SAN DIEGO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Shareholder Rights Law Firm Johnson Fistel, LLP, is investigating potential claims against FirstEnergy Corp. ("FirstEnergy" or the "Company") (NYSE: FE) for violations of federal securities laws.

On July 21, 2020, the Company issued a press release stating. "This afternoon, FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) received subpoenas in connection with the investigation surrounding Ohio House Bill 6. We are reviewing the details of the investigation and we intend to fully cooperate."

The Motley Fool reported, "The bill in question relaxed renewable energy standards and offered what have been described as 'bailouts' to a number of utilities, including FirstEnergy, which owns two older nuclear power plants in the state. The problem is that there are accusations of bribery involved in the passage of the bill, with some suggesting illicit payments may have gone as high as $60 million. Key Ohio politicians have already been arrested."

Following this news, shares of FirstEnergy fell significantly.

If you have information that could assist in this investigation, or if you are a FirstEnergy shareholder and are interested in learning more about the investigation, please contact Jim Baker ( [email protected] ) at 619-814-4471. If emailing, please include a phone number.

Additionally, you can [Click here to join this action]. There is no cost or obligation to you.

About Johnson Fistel, LLP:

Johnson Fistel, LLP is a nationally recognized shareholder rights law firm with offices in California, New York and Georgia. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in shareholder derivative and securities class action lawsuits. For more information about the firm and its attorneys, please visit http://www.johnsonfistel.com. Attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

Contact:

Johnson Fistel, LLP

Jim Baker, 619-814-4471

[email protected]

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SOURCE Johnson Fistel, LLP

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David Campbell has given an update on his father Jimmy Barnes' health, following the rock star's shock hospitalisation on Monday night.

The Today Extra host, 46, revealed on Wednesday's show that Jimmy, 64, had come down with a nasty stomach bug, but thankfully has since recovered.

'He's absolutely fine, I spoke to him last night,' David explained.

'He's absolutely fine': David Campbell (left) has given an update on his 64-year-old father Jimmy Barnes' (right) health, following the rock star's shock hospitalisation on Monday night

'Although, like everybody else here, I didn't find out until it went up on Instagram! That was a sign that I knew he was okay,' he added.

Describing how Jimmy ended up in the emergency room, David explained: 'He just had a stomach bug that went really really bad.

'They were worried about it, he went to hospital and he was out within a few hours.'

'They were worried about it': The Today Extra host (pictured) revealed on Wednesday's show that Jimmy had come down with a nasty stomach bug, but thankfully has since recovered

Health scare: The Cold Chisel frontman (pictured) was rushed to the emergency room at Sydney's St Vincent Hospital on Monday after being rushed there by his partner Jane Mahoney

The Cold Chisel frontman was rushed to the emergency room at Sydney's St Vincent Hospital on Monday after being rushed there by his partner Jane Mahoney.

On Tuesday, Jimmy detailed his health scare on Twitter, writing: 'I spent last night in ER at St Vincent Hospital and I want to thank the amazing staff who took care of me. This song (see next post) is for them and my best friend.'

Jimmy later uploaded a video of himself telling fans that his hospital stay was not related to coronavirus.

'I want to thank the amazing staff who took care of me': On Tuesday, Jimmy revealed on social media that he'd spent Monday night in an emergency room at St Vincent Hospital

'I had an unexpected visit to St Vincent's Emergency last night... I was a bit crook non COVID-related,' he said in the clip.

The video also saw Jimmy dedicate a song to hospital staff and family who helped him during the ordeal.

Performing alongside his partner Jane and daughter Elly-May Barnes, Jimmy gave a heartwarming rendition of the Beatles Classic, With a Little Help From My Friends.

Tribute: Jimmy dedicated a song to hospital staff and family who helped him during the ordeal. He posted a video of himself performing the tune alongside his partner Jane Mahoney and daughter Elly-May Barnes on Facebook

Phew: Jimmy's son David meanwhile expressed his relief via Twitter on Tuesday, writing: 'Spoke to my dad. He is safe at home. Much better. Which is a relief'

Jimmy's son David meanwhile expressed his relief via Twitter on Tuesday, writing: 'Spoke to my dad. He is safe at home. Much better. Which is a relief'.

St Vincent Hospital director of public affairs David Fakto said hospital staff were delighted to help out, telling Herald Sun: 'It's always great for our hardworking staff to get such heartfelt patient feedback.'

'But it's doubly special coming from an Aussie rock legend.'

Hundreds of fans sent messages of support on social media, including several high profile followers.

'Get well soon Jimmy and sending lots of hugs to Jane too,' Studio 10 Host Angela Bishop wrote, while ABC personality Myf Warhurst penned: 'Get well soon Jimmy!'
The abrupt occurrence of COVID-19 has created a negative impact on the development of the global industrial robotics market. The market is estimated to pull through the incurred losses by the second or third quarter of 2022

PUNE, India, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The latest research report on the Global Industrial Robotics Market by Research Dive deliberates the influence of COVID-19 pandemic on the present and forthcoming growth of the global market. This report is a professional and comprehensive research formulated by specialists by evaluating top driving factors, major regional market situations, opportunities & future scope, and trends & developments in the market during the COVID-19 catastrophe.

Highlights of the Report:

In 2020, the demand is projected to plummet. The high initial costs and usage of restored industrial robots by many end-use sectors are expected to impede the market growth in the forecast period. In fact, by Q2 / Q3 2022, the industry is expected to rebound from the pandemic. It is anticipated that the market will then grow due to rising labor costs and inconveniences for small and local people in different parts of the world. There are also high costs for the employment and training of workers and substitute labor costs for the company. As many end use industries prefer the establishment of the industrial robot over the labor force, which is expected to lead the market in the forecast period. The progress of industrial robots through artificial intelligence and machine learning in the forecast period is predicted to create more investment opportunity.

Request to Download COVID-19 Impact Analysis Summary Report: https://www.researchdive.com/covid-19-insights/309/global-industrial-robotics-marketmyQueryForm

The report includes:

Technological Impact

Social Impact

Investment Opportunity Analysis

Pre- & Post-COVID Market Scenario

Infrastructure Analysis

Supply Side & Demand Side Impact

Factors Hindering the Market Growth amidst Covid-19 Pandemic

The enforcement of lockdown in various parts of the world has created a disruption among economies. A severe downfall of industrial robots has been observed in 2020 due to the high investment and installation costs, which is hampering the growth of the global industrial robotics market. The key driving force on the market is expected to be the cost reduction and increasing quality of the product. The market is predicted to observe a significant rise once the COVID-19 pandemic ends and the functioning of production units resumes.

Current Market Transformation Due to COVID-19:

The industrial robots manufacturers are experiencing a drift in the market growth due to the stoppage of numerous companies. In order to improve the area market in the forecast period, government initiative for the adoption of industrial robot in different end uses are expected.

During this emergency period, market players are using several business tactics to withstand their business. Some of the leading players active in this market are

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. KUKA AG Denso Corporation Yaskawa Electric Corporation. Panasonic Corporation Daihen Corporation Kobelco Paint Robot Kobe Steel Limited

Enquire Before Purchase, Financial performance, Product portfolio, Recent strategic moves & developments and SWOT Analysis - https://www.researchdive.com/purchase-enquiry/309

Post-pandemic Market Insights:

To help businesses survive in the course of the COVID-19 crisis, government bodies are implementing significant schemes for promoting manufacturing industries. Growing demand for industrial robots in different industries to improve the product in the forecast period is predicted to drive the market. Industrial robots have been found to mainly be used in heavy engineering, which in the forecast period is also expected to be the main driving force for the market. Moreover, improved production lines efficiency is also expected to drive the demand over the forecast period.

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About Research Dive

Research Dive is a market research firm based in Pune, India. Maintaining the integrity and authenticity of the services, the firm provides the services that are solely based on its exclusive data model, compelled by the 360-degree research methodology, which guarantees comprehensive and accurate analysis. With an unprecedented access to several paid data resources, team of expert researchers, and strict work ethic, the firm offers insights that are extremely precise and reliable. Scrutinizing relevant news releases, government publications, decades of trade data, and technical & white papers, Research dive deliver the required services to its clients well within the required timeframe. Its expertise is focused on examining niche markets, targeting its major driving factors, and spotting threatening hindrances. Complementarily, it also has a seamless collaboration with the major industry aficionado that further offers its research an edge.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 12:52:51|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China's national observatory Wednesday renewed a yellow alert for rainstorms, as incessant downpours will continue to wreak havoc across vast stretches of the country.

From Wednesday to Thursday morning, heavy rains and rainstorms are expected in parts of Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunan and Tibet, the National Meteorological Center said.

The center warned that some areas of Shandong will experience downpours with up to 180 mm of daily rainfall.

Some of the aforementioned regions will see over 70 mm of hourly precipitation, accompanied by thunderstorms and strong winds, the center said.

The center advised local authorities to remain alert for possible flooding, landslides and mudslides, and recommended halting outdoor operations in hazardous areas.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue. Enditem
Dozens of protesters have staged a demonstration in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar to condemn an assassination attempt on Fazal Khan, an ethnic Pashtun rights activist.



Khan has been a vocal critic of both the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group and Pakistani authorities, which he accuses of turning a blind eye to militants.



Khan, a lawyer, told police that he was on his way home from the Peshawar High Court on July 21 when two motorcyclists opened fire on him. Khan said he got away unharmed.



Protesters on July 22 urged the government to protect citizens from militant groups.



Khan lost his son in a Peshawar school massacre carried out by TTP militants in 2014 and has campaigned for justice for the nearly 150 students and teachers who were killed.



Khan is a member of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), which defends the rights of Pashtuns, Pakistans largest ethnic minority.



The PTM has campaigned for civil rights for ethnic Pashtuns since 2018.



The group has attracted tens of thousands of people to public rallies to denounce the powerful Pakistani Army's heavy-handed operations in tribal regions impacted by militant operations and the military's alleged connection with Islamist militants.



International rights groups say authorities have banned peaceful rallies organized by the PTM and some of its leading members have been arbitrarily detained and prevented from traveling within the country. Some members have also faced charges for alleged sedition and cybercrimes.
An Asian elephant decided to cool off at a Texas zoo by submerging himself underwater like a scuba diver with his trunk as a snorkel.

Adorable video footage shows Colonel, 29, battling the scorching weather by lying on the floor of his splash pool at Fort Worth Zoo's off-site facility in Texas.

The elephant takes an underwater nap in the 5ft-deep water, popping his trunk out of the water to breathe through.

An Asian elephant at Fort Worth Zoo in Texas decided to take an underwater nap in his splash pool, inventively using his trunk as a snorkel

Colonel, 29, battles the scorching weather by fully submerging himself in his five-foot-deep splash pool to cool off

Colonel playfully rolls around in the water to cool off, creating quite the splash, the footage shows.

Weighing almost five tonnes, Colonel is one of seven Asian elephants housed at Fort Worth Zoo.

Christine Del Turco, the zoo's elephant expert, said: 'Asian elephants love water.

'In the wild, there are elephants that swim from island to island in Sri Lanka and places like that, but Colonel is the only one who takes cat naps in the pool.

'Ever since he got used to getting in and out of the pool he's very comfortable and he takes cat naps every day.

'He naps in a small splash pool for the elephants. It's only 5 feet deep.'

The water-loving elephant also enjoys rolling around in his shallow pool at the zoo's offsite facility, creating an enormous splash

Christine Del Turco, the zoo's elephant expert, said that it took Colonel a while to get used to the water, as she used to have to coax him in 'with treats'

But Christine said that Colonel wasn't always an avid swimmer, and it took quite a bit of work to first get him into the pool.

She said: 'It took me some coercion. For four or five days, he'd just splash himself on the edge of the pool. He wasn't sure where the bottom was.

'I coaxed him in there with treats. Now, every time he sees me, he'll go running into the pool.'

Christine admitted that despite her attempts to spread her love evenly between the zoo's elephants, Colonel is definitely one of her favourites, as he is 'really well-mannered'.

She added: 'He's a really wonderful elephant to work with and he's really well-mannered. He's just a very good boy. He's like our thoroughbred.

'He's our trimmest elephant. He likes his exercise. He likes to run around a lot. Seeing him lie down is really nice.'

Weighing a staggering five tonnes, Colonel is one of seven Asian elephants housed at Fort Worth Zoo

Fort Worth Zoo is currently in the middle of a $100million renovation plan, part of which will give Colonel and his herd more room to explore and play

The heart-warming video was taken at an off-site facility, as the Fort Worth Zoo is currently in the middle of a $100million renovation plan.

Avery Elander, Assistant Director of Public Relations at Fort Worth Zoo, said: 'The new pool is going to be over half a million gallons of water. They're going to have the ability to go on swims and there will be shallow banks for Colonel to nap in.'

The scheme, called A Wilder Vision, will roll out in four phases, the second of which is called Elephant Springs.

Elephant Springs is set to triple the size of the current elephant exhibit, giving Colonel and his herd plenty of room to frollick and play.

The renovations - which will turn the Fort Worth Zoo into a veritable Club Med for elephants - are expected to be completed next spring.

Fort Worth Zoo is open to the public but due to quarantine restrictions, visitors must reserve a time slot online before seeing the animals.
Afghan Fighting Rages as Prisoner Swap Dispute Remains Unsolved

By Ayaz Gul July 21, 2020

Fresh clashes between government forces and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have reportedly killed dozens of combatants on both sides.

The deadly Afghan violence rages as disputes over an ongoing prisoner swap between the two foes have remained unresolved, hampering U.S.-led diplomatic efforts aimed at starting intra-Afghan peace negotiations to find a political settlement to the war.

The Afghan Defense Ministry and police said Tuesday that security forces disrupted major overnight Taliban assaults in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Zabul, killing nearly 50 insurgents.

For its part, the Taliban said one of its suicide bombers detonated an explosives-laden mini truck near an Afghan National Army convoy Monday night in central Wardak province. It claimed the powerful blast "killed and injured" about 50 soldiers, though the Taliban often issues inflated claims.

Afghan defense officials confirmed the attack in Sayed Abad district, saying it killed eight soldiers and injured nine others.

Meanwhile, the Taliban announced Tuesday it has freed 16 more Afghan forces as part of the prisoner exchange with the Kabul government. The insurgent group says it has released 861 detainees out of the promised 1,000.

The prisoner exchange was agreed to in a deal between the United States and the Taliban, which was signed in February to help end the decadeslong conflict in Afghanistan.

In return, Afghan authorities are required to release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners. So far, they have freed around 4,400.

The Afghan government, which was not part of the U.S.-Taliban deal, has refused to release a last set of about 600 insurgent inmates, stalling progress toward launching the much-awaited intra-Afghan negotiations that were supposed to start in March.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Afghan presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqqi again insisted the detainees in question could not be released because of their involvement in "serious" crimes, including killing innocent Afghans. He also denounced the escalating Taliban battlefield attacks as a violation of the U.S.-Taliban agreement.

Mohammad Nabi Omari, a senior Taliban leader who was also part of the insurgent team that negotiated the agreement with Washington, has strongly rejected Kabul's "unsubstantiated" charges against the remaining detainees.

In an online video statement released by pro-Taliban social media, Omari accused Kabul of using "lame excuses" to "intentionally" delay the prisoner exchanges and the proposed peace dialogue.

"Had the issue of prisoner releases been resolved, intra-Afghan negotiations would have started months ago, and we would have possibly agreed on a cease-fire by now," Omari asserted.

Acting U.S. Ambassador to Kabul Ross Wilson also urged the Afghan government on Sunday to facilitate the start of negotiations with the Taliban as soon as possible by completing the prisoner exchanges.

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T he US Secretary of State has accused the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) of being bought by China and claimed his failings have led to coronavirus deaths among British people, it is reported.

Mike Pompeo made the claim about Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a closed-door meeting with MPs during his visit to the UK on Tuesday, according to The Times.

Mr Pompeo reportedly described the WHO as a political, not a science-based organisation and said the body was responsible for dead Britons.

He told ministers his allegations were based on a firm intelligence foundation but did not give further details, according to multiple sources present at the event hosted by foreign policy think tank the Henry Jackson Society.

Mike Pompeo urged Boris Johnson to turn up the heat on China / Getty Images

His alleged remarks are the latest in a string of attacks by the Trump administration, which formally withdrew from the WHO earlier this month over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

President Trump has branded the organisation a puppet of China and accused the organisation of letting the crisis spin out of control at the cost of many lives.

However, this is the first time Mr Pompeo is known to have suggested the director-general had been bought by Beijing, The Times reported.

He is understood to have inferred that Dr Ghebreyesuss election to the role in 2017 eventually led to dead Britons.

Those present understood the comment to refer to the WHOs failure to force China to contain the virus, one source told the paper.

The US has called for the UK and countries around the world to form a coalition aimed at persuading China to change course as tensions continued to mount between Beijing and the West.

Mr Pompeo welcomed steps taken by the UK  including a ban on Huaweis involvement in 5G networks and the suspension of an extradition treaty with Hong Kong  but he said countries needed to work together to increase pressure on Beijing.

The US secretary of state, who held talks with Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, said we have seen Hong Kongs freedoms crushed and watched the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) bully its neighbours.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the British Government for its principled response to these challenges, he said.

We support those sovereign choices, we think well done.

Mike Pompeo praises the UK's response to China

But he indicated that more was needed from allies including the UK to respond to the increasingly assertive China under Xi Jinping.

We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country  including China  behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order.

You cant go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You cant threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. You cant engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organisation.

Mike Pompeo and Dominic Raab held a joint press conference during the US Secretary of State's visit to the UK / Getty Images

Mr Pompeo also highlighted the Chinese government directing state-owned firms to steal intellectual property from US firms.

We want every nation to work together to push back against the Chinese Communist Partys efforts in every dimension that I have described, he said.

That certainly includes the United Kingdom, it includes every country.

We hope we can build out a coalition that understands the threat and well work collectively to convince the Chinese Communist Party its not in their best interests to engage in this kind of behaviour.

Mr Pompeo held talks with senior backbench Tories including leading China hawk Sir Iain Duncan Smith before his meetings with ministers.

But Mr Raab insisted that the UK Government would not be pushed into a tougher position by Washington.

I dont think there is any question of strong-arming  Mike and I always have constructive discussions, he said at a press conference alongside his US counterpart.

Pressed on Mr Pompeos meeting with Tory MPs, Mr Raab said: When I go to Washington I meet with folks on the Hill in all parties, on all sides  quite right.

China has warned that Britain will bear the consequences of its actions over Hong Kong.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in London said in a statement Beijing had expressed its concerns over the UK interfering in Hong Kong matters which are internal affairs of China.

Downing Street said Mr Johnson and Mr Pompeo used their talks to consider shared global security and foreign policy issues, including Chinas actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang where there are concerns about the alleged abuse of the Uighur Muslims.

They also discussed the importance of the Five Eyes alliance, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, taking an ambitious approach to working together on the technologies of the future, something apparently aimed at ending the reliance on Chinese technology from firms such as Huawei.
Beijing: The United States has told China to close its consulate in Houston, both countries said on Wednesday, deepening a deterioration in bilateral relations, and a source said Beijing was considering shutting down the US consulate in Wuhan.

Washington had abruptly demanded closure of the Houston consulate on Tuesday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, and the editor of an official media outlet said on Twitter that China had been given 72 hours to do so. Beijing condemned the order and threatened retaliation but did not say what measures it might take.

Late on Tuesday in Houston, local media reported that documents had been burned in a courtyard at the consulate building. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate was operating normally, declining to comment further on those reports.

Ties between the United States and China have worsened sharply this year over a range of issues, from the novel coronavirus and telecoms gear maker Huawei to Chinas territorial claims in the South China Sea and its imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong.

The US Department of State confirmed the Houston closure decision. The move was made in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

The United States will not tolerate the PRCs violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRCs unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior, she added, using an acronym for Chinas official name, the Peoples Republic of China.

RETALIATION THREAT

It was not immediately clear why Chinas Houston consulate had been singled out. The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news briefing.

We urge the US to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures, he said.

The US government had been harassing Chinese diplomats and consular staff for some time, Wang said, and intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices, even detaining them.

He said the United States had interfered with Chinas diplomatic missions, including intercepting diplomatic pouches and confiscating Chinese items for official use. He did not specify whether the actions were related to the Houston consulate.

WUHAN CONSULATE

A source with direct knowledge of the matter said China was considering closing the US consulate in Wuhan, where the State Department withdrew staff and their families early this year amid the coronavirus outbreak that first emerged in the central city.

It was not immediately clear what other measures China may consider. Chinas foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would shut the consulate.

The US embassy in Beijing referred a query to the State Department. Last month, it had said that the United States would soon resume operations at the Wuhan consulate.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: In a bid to control the spread of dengue, chikungunya and malaria during the monsoon, the GHMC will deploy another 11 drones for Anti Larval Operations (ALO) in the Musi river and lakes in the city.

The civic body has initiated ALO along 21 km of the Musi -- from Attapur to Uppal.

Three teams of 50 workers, headed by two assistant entomologists and two senior entomologists, are in charge of the works.

A special drone, six vehicle-mounted foggers and 15 portable fogging machines are being used for operations in and around the Musi.

Further, a list of all identified larval-positive households will be shared with local community leaders and ward committee members to ensure containment. Awareness activities are being taken up in these areas.Additionally, in every division, the GHMC organises a 10-minute awareness programme on Sundays.

Houses are being sprayed with temophos and pyrethrum in areas where malaria and chikungunya cases are reported.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

TORONTO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- African Gold Group, Inc. (TSX-V: AGG) (AGG or the Company) is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement financing of up to 20,000,000 units (a Unit) at a price of $0.25 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $5,000,000.00 (the Offering). Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant a Warrant), with each Warrant entitling the holder to acquire one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.40 for a period of 24 months from issuance.

Following the results of our robust feasibility study at a US$1,530 gold price on July 13, 2020 (a copy of which is posted on AGGs website at www.africangoldgroup.com ), we have received significant investor interest in financing the Kobada Gold Project, states Danny Callow, Chief Executive Officer of the Company.

Given the level of interest, we expect to be able to close the offering relatively quickly and focus on advancing the Kobada Gold Project. This financing will allow us to focus on infill drilling near-surface inferred oxide resources, with the goal of delivering a 1 million ounce gold reserve in the coming months.

Closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about July 27, 2020. In connection with the Offering, a finders fee may be payable in line with the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a statutory hold period of four-months and one day. Completion of the Offering is subject to a number of conditions, including without limitation, receipt of TSXV approval. The Company intends to use the proceeds of the Offering to continue to develop its Kobada Project in Mali and for general corporate purposes.

About African Gold Group

African Gold Group is a Canadian listed gold company on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V: AGG) focused on the development of the Kobada Gold Project in southern Mali. For more information regarding African Gold Group visit our website at www.africangoldgroup.com .

Story continues

For further information please contact:

Danny Callow

President and Chief Executive Officer

+(27) 76 411 3803

Danny.Callow@africangoldgroup.com

Scott Eldridge

Non-Executive Chairman of the Board

(604) 722-5381

Scott.Eldridge@africangoldgroup.com

Daniyal Baizak

VP Corporate Development

(416) 861-2267

Daniyal.Baizak@africangoldgroup.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward looking information includes, but is not limited to, the intended use of proceeds, closing conditions and timing and other matters relating to the Offering, the Companys development and exploration plans for the Kobada project and other statements with respect to the future plans or intentions of the Company. Generally, forward looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", aims, "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; the actual results of exploration activities; regulatory risks; risks inherent in foreign operations; and other risks of the mining industry. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act) or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.




(ANSA) - ROME, 22 LUG - The EU's coronavirus rescue deal is "historic", Premier Giuseppe Conte said Wednesday.

The premier told parliament that, with the deal on the 750 billion package, reached after five days of acrimonious negotiations, the EU had shown that it "is living up to its history".

He said the plan, which allots Italy 28% or 209 billion, "changes the perspective because it is aimed at growth, sustainable development and the ecological transformation, and means a "more cohesive, more social EU, closer to citizens, and certainly more political".

Conte said decisions of "an historic scope" had been made, and he said the deal set out the only path possible for a stable euro.

The deal was reached after sometimes tense clashes between southern European countries like Italy, championed by France and Germany, and 'frugal' northern European countries including the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

Cone said that "despite the rigidity of the various positions we knew that we couldn't fail".

Now, he said, Italy must work on structural reforms such as those spelled out by the deal.

He said this would mean a "collective effort", with parliament.

Conte added: "the political class has proven its great maturity". (ANSA).


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The Trump administration's move to ban the skilled worker programme will increase employment in countries such as India rather than the US, especially in the technology space, according to a research paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

This is exactly what the Indian IT firms and tech giants such as Microsofts Satya Nadella and Googles Sundar Pichai have been pointing out since the proclamation was signed on June 22.

Only now that has been proven with empirical data in the report.

On June 22, US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation that banned temporary worker visa such as H-1B, L-1, H-2 and J-1 till the end of December.

The research paper pointed out that computer-related occupations accounted for 69 percent of H-1B petition filings in 2017, and 85 percent of H-1B petition filings were for workers from India or China.

These results suggest that the firms most impacted by constraints on H-1B visas would be firms dependent on computer-related workers, the research report said. This translates to impact on Indian techies and also tech firms.

Of the 85,000 H-1B visas issued every year, Indians account for more than 60 percent, followed by China. The last three years have seen over 40 percent increase in the US tech giants filing for H-1B visas, with Amazon, Google and Microsoft accounting for around 4,000 visas.

As restrictions continue, the report said, there is a clear narrative of multinationals choosing countries like India, China and Canada over the US over decades.

In addition, these multinationals were more likely to open more centres in newer countries in response to such restrictions, and employment increased at existing centres overseas, the report added.

The largest impact would be on R&D-focused companies in the country since they are the ones most likely to offshore the work. This will be a significant blow to the US, since these firms are responsible for 80 percent of US R&D and employ about 25 percent of US private employees.

This is good for India as more multinationals are likely to set up captive centres here.

In addition, outsourcing and offshoring of more work to IT service providers could increase.

Prateek Agarwal, CFO, HCL Technologies, said the company started offshoring project work from January. When we started very large deals, we re-batched people and over a period of time (we will) start right-shoring, he added. Right-shoring or offshoring refers to locating business manufacturing operations to countries that are cost efficient.

This could increase at the back of COVID-19 and in the face of visa restrictions. In addition, like experts pointed out, US companies are likely to set up more centres in India. Recently, Microsoft opened a 4,000 seater campus in Uttar Pradesh to develop an electronics manufacturing park.

Captive centres are one of the largest employment generators in the country. According to reports, they employ close to 8 lakh people.

The move will have a negative impact rather than address the unemployment issue in the US. If the job that were expected to be created goes to other countries, it will impact innovation in the US and also its economy.

This is also largely in line with the commentary by the tech leaders. V Ramkrishnan, CFO, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), explained during a recent interaction that the US is the most innovative country in the world right now and the largest innovation still comes out of there. That is primarily because they have invested in meritocracy and due to opportunities that have been made available for entrepreneurs, he added.

If we have constraints on that, it is going to affect its technological leadership, our customers and it will also affect people like us, Ramakrishnan added.
EDITORS NOTE: This story has been updated with Gov. Phil Murphys comments.

Delaware Gov. John Carney isnt happy his state is back on the coronavirus quarantine travel advisory issued by New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

Im mad as hell, frankly, and it doesnt make any sense, Carney said during a news conference Tuesday. It makes no sense. Were better today than when we were first put on the list two weeks ago. And were better today than we were last week, when we were taken off the list.

New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut announced last month that theyre calling on travelers arriving from states that qualify as COVID-19 hotspots to self-quarantine for 14 days to help reduce the virus from spreading  including residents returning from a trip.

The number of states increased Tuesday to 31. Delaware, New Jerseys immediate neighbor to the south, returned to the list after being removed a week earlier.

The quarantine applies to anyone arriving from a state with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents or a state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average. People traveling for business are exempted.

Delaware  which has a population of 897,934, according to the U.S. Census  has had 13,746 residents test positive for the virus and 525 deaths since the beginning of the outbreak. Six New Jersey counties have higher case totals than Delaware, but the outbreak continues to decline in New Jersey while Delaware is averaging more than 100 new cases a day.

Delaware coronavirus dashboard.

Delawares rate per 100,000 residents is 14, while the states positivity rate is 4.7%, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Carney argued that Delaware is being penalized for its low population and the states extensive testing. He noted his state is doing better than others, including Pennsylvania, which is not on the list.

He said he believes the state is back on the list because there were two days this month Delaware recorded more than 100 daily confirmed new cases.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

As I said to Gov. Cuomo of New York and Murphy last week, were going to be on and off, unless we stop testing, Carney said, referencing Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey. And were not going to stop testing.

Noting that Delawares new deaths and hospitalizations have declined in recent months, Carney argued there should be a more thoughtful process to determine who is on the quarantine list.

Murphy on Wednesday said Carney, a fellow Democrat, is a great governor.

The problem with this is: Like everything else, not everyone is happy when you make the calls based on the data and the science, Murphy said during his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton. It is what it is.

I wish them nothing but good progress on COVID, he added about Delaware. I hope they come off (the list) again and stay off it.

Quarantining is technically voluntary, and enforcement has been an open question. New York is threatening a $2,000 fine to travelers who arrive at airports and dont fill out a form with information. Gov. Phil Murphy has said New Jersey isnt planning on a fine, but has warned that the state Department of Health has the authority to go after and sanction flagrant violators.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.
Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has castigated the Member of Parliament (MP) for Awutu Senya East, Mavis Hawa Koomson over her shooting conduct at a registration centre in the constituency.



Hawa Koomson has been subjected to public criticism after she fired gunshots at the Step to Christ voters' registration centre in the Awutu Senya East constituency in the Central Region.



On Monday, July 20, 2020, the MP who doubles as Special Development Initiatives Minister went to the registration centre on a tip-off that her political opponent had bused some people not residing in the constituency to partake in the Electoral Commisson's (EC) registration exercise.



But, according to Hawa Koomson, she was met by some attackers and therefore necessitating her shooting incident.



Self-Defence



Hawa Koomson admitted that she fired a gunshot but was aiming at scaring away her attackers.



To her, she was acting in self-defence because her police escort wasn't with her at the registration centre.



My police escort had not started work yet. So that is a mechanism I have adopted in his absence.''



I realised the lives of my people were in danger. So I wanted to scare the people. I fired the warning shots. I didnt direct it at anybody'', she explained what triggered her reaction.



NPP National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye also believes she was defending herself.



"Her life was under threat. She got information in the morning that some people are being bused to the registration centre. At the same time, she also was receiving messages of attack on her. So, she had information that a bus had brought some people to do the registration. While she was on her way to the centre, she was met by some unidentifiable men on motorcycles and was sore afraid when they started approaching her. Looking at how the situation was unfolding, she was compelled to fire warning shots," he narrated.







But, to Kweku Baako, it was needless of the Minister to have gone to the registration centre alone, hence reacting in the manner she did.Speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's Wednesday edition of ''Kokrokoo'', Mr. Baako noted that the specific area where the shooting incident occurred is already known to be a flashpoint.He therefore questioned why Hon. Hawa Koomson didn't wait for her police escort before stepping out to the centre.He strongly held that Hawa Koomson's action is untenable and will have collateral implications for her.''I doubt if there is any basis for her conduct. Member of Parliament and Minister of State, such an exercise and that place is a flashpoint and you're entitled to some personal security but if the personal security is not ready, I don't see why you should go alone. And I'm assuming that she went without a personal security, yes, so I want to give the benefit of the doubt. But why go when your personal security is not immediately available and actually it's not a case where will never show up? And the exercise takes some hours, so why put yourself in potential danger so that you, the Minister the MP, will have to exercise self-defence''''I think it's completely avoidable and ought not to have happened. So, if you take it from that perspective alone, it's difficult to defend her conduct. I'm being honest with you and it has collateral implications for the party as well as the administration of which she's a part. Needlessly, completely needless!'' he rebuked the Minister.

Call to resign



There are incessant calls on Hawa Koomson to resign as Minister over her conduct or otherwise misconduct.



Members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on President Nana Akufo-Addo to sanction her.



The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Reverend Dr Emmanuel Asante has also charged the leadershing of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to institute disciplinary action against her.



He believes Hawa Koomson's shooting incident has tarnished the partys image.



I wish that the NPP will take note of this and take action in respect of what she has done to bring their name into disrepute, he said.



NPP General Secretary, John Boadu has also condemned the action of the Special Development Initiatives and urged the Police to restore calm in the constituency.



''The fact is, we as political parties must be willing to ensure a peaceful environment for both the registration and voting exercise. Acts such as bussing people and illegally registering people at various polling centres will always create some form of violence as both parties will not agree to that and hence may ignite some form of violence."



"We are only urging the police to do the right thing and restore peace in the area, but if things continue this way then people will be forced to protect themselves," he stated.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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Education is a hot topic this Legislative session. Here's what bills we're watching.

Here are some of the hot-button education bills were tracking at the Argus Leader. Check back each day to see where they stand as we update.
Veterans issues and military service is a recurring theme in Michigans U.S. Senate race, as candidates play out a high-stakes political version of the longtime rivalry between the Army and Navy.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters is a retired U.S. Navy Reserve Seabee who stakes a reputation on his work overseeing homeland security, FEMA and the military in Congress. That reputation faces scrutiny from Republican challenger John James, whose background as a U.S. Army pilot is often the first thing told to voters about the Senate hopeful.
South Africa: Productivity SA to receive R104m for job-saving programme

Employment and Labour Deputy Minister Boitumelo Moloi has announced that the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) will provide R104 million to Productivity SA to support some 6 000 SMEs to improve productivity to preserve and create jobs.

Speaking at a media briefing held in Pretoria earlier on Wednesday, Deputy Minister Moloi said this is the time when jobs must be preserved.

The launch of a massive program such as the Turnaround Solutions at a time like this one, where companies are shutting down, people are losing jobs, is an immediate response and true demonstration of a government at work.

This program supports initiatives aimed at preventing job losses and implements turn-around strategies to support companies facing operational difficulties which may result in those companies contemplating the retrenchment of employees based on their operational requirements, Moloi said.

Productivity SA is an entity of the Department of Employment and Labour and the Business Turnaround and Recovery Programme is aimed at preventing job losses and implements turnaround strategies to support companies facing operational difficulties which may result in the companies contemplating retrenchments.

Moloi said as part of fulfilling its mandate, Productivity SA has a duty to implement the Turnaround Solutions Programme which is funded by the UIF.

I am reliably informed that the first tranche to the value of R23 million has already been disbursed to the Entity in response to this mandate. We are indeed proud to be part of unlocking a programme with a proven record, that has provided solutions for government over two decades, Moloi said.

Moloi said interventions will include a review of companys performance (both financially and operationally) and assist in turning the companys performance towards an upward trajectory.

Productivity SA, which is established in terms of the Employment Services Act, No. 4 of 2014 as an entity of the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) has reinstated the Business Turnaround and Recovery Programme (formerly known as the Turnaround Solutions Programme) with effect from the 15 June 2020.

The programme was suspended in 2018 due to the lack of funds.

The allocation of funds for implementing the turnaround strategies will go a long way to enabling Productivity SA to fulfill its mandate as outlined in section 32 of the Act, and objectives of the Presidential Jobs Summit Framework Agreement to save jobs and create conditions conducive for job retention and creation.

The Business Turnaround and Recovery Programme supports initiatives aimed at preventing job losses and implements turnaround strategies to support companies facing operational difficulties which may result in them contemplating the retrenchment of employees based on their operational requirements.

Productivity SA has run the programme for almost two decades and in the process facilitated the prevention of loss of thousands of jobs.

Productivity SA will also assist struggling companies that have applied for the Temporary Employers/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) as well as those companies that have applied for Section s189 of the Labour Relations Act and are contemplating retrenchment of its employees.

By the end of April 2021, a report on the impact of the programme will be availed detailing the number of jobs saved by the Turnaround Solutions Programme.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
After the state Senate moved quickly to pass a bill to legalize personal delivery devices, or PDDs, the House Transportation Committee slowed the process down to hear from a host of stakeholders about the legislation.

PDDs are small devices that can operate autonomously to deliver cargo  like groceries or mechanical parts  to individuals or businesses. They are battery-powered and produce zero emissions and are most effective when making deliveries within a three to five mile radius.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ryan Aument, R-Lancaster County, passed the Senate by a 31-19 vote on June 30. It could head to Gov. Tom Wolfs desk for signature if it clears the House. A spokeswoman for Wolf would not say if the Democratic governor has formed an opinion yet on the bill.

We are poised to be ready, Scott Pauchnik, a representative for FedEx, said at the House hearing. FedEx has unveiled a PDD of its own in recent years, which is currently operating in Texas. It has undergone on-road tests in several locations and is legal in six states.

The bill would allow PDDs to operate on sidewalks at no more than 12 miles per hour and on the shoulders of roadways at no more than 25 miles per hour. The operator of the device must be within 30 feet of it until 2022, at which point the device could potentially then be controlled entirely remotely. And the device could weigh up to 550 pounds before cargo is loaded  a provision that would allow much heavier PDDs in Pennsylvania than in other states with similar laws.

Proponents of the legislation say the bill will move the state forward in terms of technology. And the devices limit human to human contact in a time of a global pandemic.

Pauchnik said as the economy drastically shifted to e-commerce due to COVID-19, our business is busting at the seams. He said FedEx estimates it will be 160,000 drivers short by 2028.

Theres a real crisis within supply chains and logistics, he said.

Pauchnik said FedExs bot employs mapping technology so that it learns the terrain, including everything from cracks in the sidewalk to fire hydrants.

But not everyone is sold on the bill as it stands now.

Mark Kapko, the director of PennDOTs Office of Transformational Technology, said he believes the braking standards in the bill are not stringent enough because they assume the device is operating in ideal conditions. He also said he doesnt believe PDDs should be allowed to carry hazardous material.

Sam Marshall, the president and CEO of the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, said the image of PDDs bombing down busy, crowded sidewalks at rush hour or with residents eating outside is concerning  especially when narrow bike lanes and disabled pedestrians in wheelchairs are considered.

Theres also the question of whether sidewalks can handle the wear and tear of these devices. In times of emergencies or inclement weather, theres also a push to give individual townships jurisdiction over which roadways and sidewalks are safe for the operation of PDDs.

Theres a need for localities to be able to have control, Marshall said.

Pauchnik admitted the technology is more suitable at this point for suburban neighborhoods with less crowded sidewalks and roadways although it is designed to respond to a pedestrian saying stop on voice command.

Further, he said there are clear upsides to the PDDs.

Its a job creator, Pauchnik said. Its a supplement to the industry. Its something thats new. It would create jobs in machine maintenance side of things, tele-operations, as well as many others.

Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.
Exploratory Phase 1b/2 trial targeting a heterogeneous population of patients with HPV16-positive, recurrent and/or metastatic cancer whose disease has progressed after up to three lines of chemotherapy, reports promising clinical activity with the combination regimen.

Patient follow-up and translational analyses are ongoing.

Full results will be presented at an upcoming scientific conference.

Transgene intends to continue the clinical development of TG4001 in a larger, controlled confirmatory study.

Conference call scheduled on July 22 at 6:15 p.m. CET (details at the end of the release)

Regulatory News:

Transgene (Paris:TNG)(Euronext Paris: TNG), a biotech company that designs and develops virus-based immunotherapeutics against cancer, performed a pooled analysis of the data from the Phase 1b/2 trial combining TG4001, a HPV16 targeted therapeutic vaccine, with avelumab (BAVENCIO), a human anti-PD-L1 antibody, in HPV16-positive recurrent and/or metastatic malignancies. This analysis confirms that TG4001 can be safely combined with an immune checkpoint inhibitor and shows clinical activity of this combination regimen. The trial is being conducted in collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Pfizer.

The purpose of this exploratory Phase 1b/2 trial was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the combination of TG4001 and an immune checkpoint inhibitor in a heterogeneous group of patients with aggressive, recurrent and/or metastatic HPV16-positive cancer. Clinical activity was observed in the overall study population (34 evaluable patients with oropharyngeal, anal, cervical, or other HPV16-positive cancers). In addition, Transgene has identified a selection criterion corresponding to patients showing particularly promising clinical activity in this trial. For more than 50% of these patients, the disease had not progressed at 12 weeks, compared to an expected median progression-free survival (PFS) of 8 weeks for this population with current treatment regimens*.

Consistent with data presented at ESMO 2019 [1], durable responses have been observed in most of the responder patients. Transgene is currently completing translational analyses. Patient follow-up is still ongoing. Complete data will be presented at an upcoming scientific conference.

Transgene has stopped the trial in its current design. The Company intends to continue the clinical development of TG4001 in a larger, controlled confirmatory study.

All patients enrolled in the trial had an aggressive, recurrent and/or metastatic HPV16+ cancer that had progressed after one to three lines of chemotherapy. As previously reported [1], no new safety signals were observed.

Commenting on this novel immunotherapy regimen, Prof. Christophe Le Tourneau, MD, Head of the Department of Drug Development and Innovation (D3i) at the Curie Institute, and Principal Investigator of the trial, added: "The first results from this exploratory Phase 1b/2 trial are clearly encouraging. I believe that the response rate and the clinical outcomes of the combination compare favorably with existing standards of care and the historical data reported with immune checkpoint inhibitors alone."

"Patients with HPV16-induced cancers still do not have access to approved treatments designed to address the viral origin of their disease. We believe these data establish the clinical proof-of-concept of combining TG4001 with an immune checkpoint inhibitor. Based on these promising findings, Transgene intends to continue the clinical development of TG4001 in a larger, controlled confirmatory study and provide a better treatment option to this patient population," added Dr. Maud Brandely, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer of Transgene

About the trial

This multi-center, open-label trial is assessing the safety and efficacy of this immunotherapy combination regimen (TG4001 avelumab) in patients with HPV16 positive cancers who have disease progression on at least one line of systemic treatment for recurrent/metastatic disease (NCT03260023). Prof. Christophe Le Tourneau, M.D., PhD, Head of the Department of Drug Development and Innovation (D3i) at the Curie Institute, and a world expert in drug development and head and neck cancers, is the Principal Investigator of the study. The trial is being conducted in collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company which in the US and Canada operates its biopharmaceutical business as EMD Serono, and Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE).

Patients received TG4001 at the dose of 5x107 pfu, SC, weekly for 6 weeks, every 2 weeks up to M6, and every 12 weeks thereafter, in combination with avelumab at 10 mg/kg, IV every two weeks, until disease progression.

The primary endpoint of the Phase 2 part is the overall response rate (ORR, using RECIST 1.1). Secondary endpoints include progression-free survival, overall survival, disease control rate and other immunological parameters.

More information on the trial is available on clinicaltrials.gov.

A conference call in English is scheduled on July 22, 2020, at 6:15 p.m. CET.

Webcast link to conference call: https://channel.royalcast.com/webcast/transgene/20200722_1/

Participant telephone numbers:

France: +33 (0) 1 7037 7166 United Kingdom: +44 (0) 20 3003 2666 United States: +1 212 999 6659 Confirmation code: Transgene

A replay of the call will be available on the Transgene website (www.transgene.fr) following the live event.

About HPV-Positive Cancers

HPV-positive cancers comprise a variety of malignancies, including head and neck cancers and anogenital cancers [7]. Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) is a heterogeneous group of cancers that can affect sites including the oral cavity, pharynx, and larynx [8]. The incidence of HPV16-related SCCHN has significantly increased in recent years [8]. HPV16 infection is associated with more than 85% of oropharynx squamous cell carcinomas [8], i.e. approximately 10,000 patients at metastatic stage and receiving a second line of treatment [9]. Other HPV16-positive cancers include cervical [10], vaginal [11], vulvar [12], anal [13] and penile [14] cancers, i.e. approximately 15,000 cancers at metastatic stage and eligible for a second line of treatment [15]

Current treatments include chemoradiotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors, or surgical resection with radiotherapy. However, better options are needed for advanced and metastatic HPV+ cancers. It is thought that this immunotherapy combined with other immunotherapeutic agents such as immune checkpoint inhibitors could provide a promising potential treatment option that would address this strong medical need [16,17]. With immune checkpoint inhibitors, median overall survival remains inferior to 11 months [2-6] and median progression-free survival is between 2 and 4 months [2-6]. In this heterogenous group of malignancies, overall response rates are around 10-15% [2-6]

About TG4001

TG4001 is an investigational therapeutic vaccine based on a non-propagative, highly attenuated Vaccinia vector (MVA), which is engineered to express HPV16 antigens (E6 E7) and an adjuvant (IL-2). TG4001 is designed to have a two-pronged antiviral approach: to alert the immune system specifically to HPV-16-infected cells that have started to undergo precancerous transformation (cells presenting the HPV16 E6 and E7 antigens) and to further stimulate the infection-clearing activity of the immune system through interleukin 2 (IL-2). TG4001 has been administered to more than 300 individuals, demonstrating good safety, significant HPV clearance rate and promising efficacy results [1; 18]. Its mechanism of action and good safety profile make TG4001 an excellent candidate for combinations with other therapies in HPV-mediated solid tumors.

Avelumab Approved Indications

Avelumab (BAVENCIO) is indicated in the US for the maintenance treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC) that has not progressed with first-line platinum-containing chemotherapy. BAVENCIO is also indicated for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic UC who have disease progression during or following platinum-containing chemotherapy, or have disease progression within 12 months of neoadjuvant or adjuvant treatment with platinum-containing chemotherapy.

Avelumab in combination with axitinib is approved in the US for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

In the US, the FDA granted accelerated approval for BAVENCIO for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on tumor response rate and duration of response. Continued approval may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in confirmatory trials.

Avelumab Important Safety Information from the US FDA-Approved Label

The warnings and precautions for avelumab (BAVENCIO) include immune-mediated adverse reactions (such as pneumonitis and hepatitis [including fatal cases], colitis, endocrinopathies, nephritis, and other immune-mediated adverse reactions as a single agent or in combination with axitinib [which can be severe and have included fatal cases]), infusion-related reactions, hepatotoxicity in combination with axitinib, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in combination with axitinib [which can be severe and have included fatal cases], and embryo-fetal toxicity.

Common adverse reactions (reported in at least 20% of patients) in patients treated with BAVENCIO monotherapy include fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, diarrhea, nausea, infusion-related reaction peripheral edema, decreased appetite, urinary tract infection and rash. Common adverse reactions (reported in at least 20% of patients) in patients receiving BAVENCIO in combination with axitinib include diarrhea, fatigue, hypertension, musculoskeletal pain, nausea, mucositis, palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia, dysphonia, decreased appetite, hypothyroidism, rash, hepatotoxicity, cough, dyspnea, abdominal pain and headache. Grade 3-4 hematology laboratory value abnormalities reported in at least 10% of patients with Merkel cell carcinoma treated with BAVENCIO monotherapy include lymphopenia; in patients receiving BAVENCIO in combination with axitinib, grade 3-4 clinical chemistry abnormalities include blood triglyceride increased and lipase increased.

For full US Prescribing Information and Medication Guide for BAVENCIO, please see http://www.BAVENCIO.com.

References

[1] Le Tourneau et al. "Phase Ib/II trial of TG4001 (Tipapkinogene sovacivec), a therapeutic HPV-vaccine, and Avelumab in patients with recurrent/metastatic HPV16 positive cancers" 2019 ESMO Annual Meeting, 30 September 2019, Poster presentation

[2] Cohen et al. Pembrolizumab versus methotrexate, docetaxel, or cetuximab for recurrent or metastatic head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma (KEYNOTE-040): a randomised, open-label, phase 3 study. Lancet. 2019;393:156-67

[3] Ferris et al. Nivolumab for Recurrent Squamous-Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck. N Engl J Med2016;375:1856-1867

[4] Morris et al. Nivolumab for Previously Treated Unresectable Metastatic Anal Cancer (NCI9673): A Multicentre, Single-Arm, Phase 2 Study. Lancet Oncol 2017;18(4):446-453

[5] Marabelle et al. Pembrolizumab for previously treated advanced anal squamous cell carcinoma: Pooled results from the KEYNOTE-028 and KEYNOTE-158 studies. J Clin Oncol 38: 2020 (suppl; abstr 4020)

[6] Chung et al. Efficacy and Safety of Pembrolizumab in Previously Treated Advanced Cervical Cancer: Results From the Phase II KEYNOTE-158 Study.J Clin Oncol. 2019;10;37(17):1470-1478

[7] ICO/IARC HPV Information Center> Prevention at a glance- accessed July 2020

[8] Kreimer et al., Human Papillomavirus Types in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas Worldwide: A Systematic Review. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2005;14(2):467-75

[9] HPV-positive oropharynx cancer: Company estimates based on: Globocan/IARC 2018 Cancer Fact Sheets: oropharynx (C09-10) accessed July 2020; ICO/IARC HPV Information Center 2018 Statistics accessed July 2020; Kreimer et al., Human Papillomavirus Types in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas Worldwide: A Systematic Review. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2005;14(2):467-75

[10] HPV-positive cervical cancer: Globocan/IARC 2018 Cancer Fact Sheets: cervix uteri (C53) accessed July 2020; ICO/IARC HPV Information Center 2018 Statistics accessed July 2020

[11] HPV-positive vaginal cancer: Globocan/IARC 2018 Cancer Fact Sheets: vagina (C52) accessed July 2020; ICO/IARC HPV Information Center 2018 Statistics accessed July 2020; Kreimer et al., Human Papillomavirus Types in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas Worldwide: A Systematic Review. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2005;14(2):467-75

[12] HPV-positive vulvar cancer: Globocan/IARC 2018 Cancer Fact Sheets: vulva (C51) accessed July 2020; ICO/IARC HPV Information Center 2018 Statistics accessed July 2020; CDC United States Cancer Statistics: Data Visualizations accessed July 2020; SEER Cancer stat facts: vulvar cancer accessed July 2020

[13] HPV-positive anal cancer: Globocan/IARC 2018 Cancer Fact Sheets: anus (C21) accessed July 2020; ICO/IARC HPV Information Center 2018 Statistics accessed July 2020; CDC>Cancer Home>HPV and Cancer>Statistics>Rates by Race and Ethnicity>HPV-Associated Anal Cancer Rates by Race and Ethnicity- accessed July 2020; American Cancer Society: Anal Cancer accessed July 2020

[14] HPV-positive penile cancer: Globocan/IARC 2018 Cancer Fact Sheets: penis (C60) accessed July 2020; ICO/IARC HPV Information Center 2018 Statistics accessed July 2020; CDC>Cancer Home>HPV and Cancer>Statistics>Rates by Race and Ethnicity>HPV-Associated Cancers Rates by Race and Ethnicity accessed July 2020; Kreimer et al., Human Papillomavirus Types in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas Worldwide: A Systematic Review. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2005;14(2):467-75

[15] Company estimates based on notes 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

[16] Melero et al. Evolving synergistic combinations of targeted immunotherapies to combat cancer. Nat Rev Cancer. 2015;15(8): 457-472.

[17] Van der Burg et al. Vaccines for established cancer: overcoming the challenges posed by immune evasion Nat Rev Cancer 2016;16(4):219-233

[18] Harper et al. The Efficacy and Safety of Tipapkinogen Sovacivec Therapeutic HPV Vaccine in Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia Grades 2 and 3: Randomized Controlled Phase II Trial With 2.5 Years of Follow-Up. Gynecologic Oncology 2019; 153(3):521-529

About Transgene

Transgene (Euronext: TNG) is a publicly traded French biotechnology company focused on designing and developing targeted immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. Transgene's programs utilize viral vector technology with the goal of indirectly or directly killing cancer cells.

The Company's clinical-stage programs consist of two therapeutic vaccines (TG4001 for the treatment of HPV-positive cancers, and TG4050, the first individualized therapeutic vaccine based on the myvac platform) as well as two oncolytic viruses (TG6002 for the treatment of solid tumors, and BT-001, the first oncolytic virus based on the Invir.IO platform).

With Transgene's myvac platform, therapeutic vaccination enters the field of precision medicine with a novel immunotherapy that is fully tailored to each individual. The myvac approach allows the generation of a virus-based immunotherapy that encodes patient-specific mutations identified and selected by Artificial Intelligence capabilities provided by its partner NEC.

With its proprietary platform Invir.IO, Transgene is building on its viral vector engineering expertise to design a new generation of multifunctional oncolytic viruses. Transgene has an ongoing Invir.IO collaboration with AstraZeneca.

Additional information about Transgene is available at: www.transgene.fr.

Follow us on Twitter: @TransgeneSA

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. The occurrence of any of these risks could have a significant negative outcome for the Company's activities, perspectives, financial situation, results, regulatory authorities' agreement with development phases, and development. The Company's ability to commercialize its products depends on but is not limited to the following factors: positive pre-clinical data may not be predictive of human clinical results, the success of clinical studies, the ability to obtain financing and/or partnerships for product manufacturing, development and commercialization, and marketing approval by government regulatory authorities. For a discussion of risks and uncertainties which could cause the Company's actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the Risk Factors ("Facteurs de Risque") section of the Universal Registration Document, available on the AMF website (http://www.amf-france.org) or on Transgene's website (www.transgene.fr). Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and Transgene undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

Current treatment regimens, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, for patients with metastatic disease receiving a second (or further) line of treatment for their HPV16 associated indications deliver very limited benefit. With immune checkpoint inhibitors, overall response rates are around 10-15% in this heterogenous group of malignancies, while median overall survival is less than 11 months [2-6] and median progression-free survival is around 2 months [2-6]

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005624/en/

Contacts:

Transgene:

Lucie Larguier

Director Corporate Communications IR

+33 (0)3 88 27 91 04

investorrelations@transgene.fr

Media: Citigate Dewe Rogerson

David Dible/Sylvie Berrebi

+ 44 (0)20 7638 9571

transgene@citigatedewerogerson.com
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to reporters during a news conference on Democrats' demand for an extension of eviction protections in the next coronavirus disease (Covid-19) aid bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 22, 2020.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer chided Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for a lack of urgency Wednesday as Republicans try to craft a coronavirus relief bill with only days until financial lifelines expire.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have discussed a short-term extension of enhanced unemployment benefits.

In Senate floor remarks, the New York Democrat said the GOP's delays in releasing a plan meant to kickstart negotiations with Democrats would inflict financial pain on Americans struggling to cover costs during the outbreak. He contended that earlier McConnell remarks that touched on the National Defense Authorization Act and "cancel culture"  but not coronavirus aid  showed disorganization within the Republican Party.

"When Leader McConnell at this crucial moment can't even mention [Covid-19], it shows what a knot the Republicans are tied in," Schumer said.

On Tuesday, McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said he planned to "introduce a bill in the next few days that is a starting place" for talks on a final plan that could pass the GOP-controlled Senate and Democratic-held House. But congressional leaders indicated that legislation likely would not pass until August  after a federal moratorium on evictions and the $600 per week enhanced federal unemployment benefit expire at the end of next week.

McConnell acknowledged Tuesday that his developing proposal "enjoys fairly significant support among Republican senators," but "probably not everyone." GOP lawmakers have to resolve differences with the White House, which wants a payroll tax holiday that's unpopular on Capitol Hill and to stop additional funding for coronavirus testing. Leaders of both parties in Congress want more federal money for testing.

Congress' failure to come to a relief agreement nearly three months since it last passed a coronavirus aid bill threatens to upend stabilizing measures including the extra jobless benefit and eviction moratorium as the U.S. jobless rate stands above 11%. The talks come as U.S. Covid-19 cases approach 4 million and deaths top 142,000, a crisis so deadly that even President Donald Trump admitted it is getting worse after weeks of denying its severity.

On Wednesday, Schumer stressed the need to act on legislation "as we're on the edge of so many cliffs."

A spokesman for McConnell did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Schumer's remarks.

Republicans and Democrats have to resolve several major issues before they can approve a rescue bill. Democrats want to either extend the unemployment benefit outright or phase it out as state unemployment rates fall, while the GOP aims to reduce the sum.

Senate Republicans are discussing the possibility of passing a separate short-term extension of the benefit, which expires at the end of the month, as lawmakers struggle to reach a consensus on broader legislation, NBC News reported, citing three senators. It is unclear how they would structure the assistance or for how long, and lawmakers have made no final decisions.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he is "open" to a temporary extension of enhanced unemployment insurance, according to NBC. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., added that "discussions come down to both the duration and at what price point."

But Democrats, who have pushed to extend the assistance at least into next year, are unlikely to embrace a temporary fix. In a statement, Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said, "Republicans have had months to propose a plan for extending supercharged unemployment benefits, and they still have nothing to offer." He pushed to tie an ongoing unemployment insurance boost to economic conditions, which a bill he introduced with Schumer earlier this year would do.

Democrats also want to approve new relief for states and municipalities, along with rent and mortgage assistance. GOP leaders have indicated they instead want to give state and local governments more flexibility in how they spend existing federal aid dollars, and have not mentioned the possibility of more housing relief in recent days.

While both parties back another round of direct payments to individuals, it is unclear if Congress will send money as widely as it did when it approved checks of up to $1,200 in March.

The GOP has also insisted on liability protections for businesses, doctors and universities, which McConnell has described as a red line in negotiations.

He also said the Republican proposal would include $105 billion to help reopen schools in the fall.

CORRECTION: A photo caption in this story has been updated to show that Chuck Schumer is Senate Minority Leader.

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STOCKHOLM, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SCA has appointed Anders Edholm as new Senior Vice President Communications and member of SCA's Executive Management Team. Anders is succeeding Bjorn Lyngfelt, who will retire.

Anders Edholm is presently International Director and Head of EU-office in Brussels for the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. He has held leading communication positions in Electrolux and been Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General for the political party Moderaterna.

Anders Edholm will take on his new position as of February 1, 2021.

For further information, please contact:

Bjorn Lyngfelt, SVP Communications, tel +46 70 626 82 23

Stina Danielsson, SVP Human Resources, tel +46 70 222 24 60



The core of SCA's business is the forest, Europe's largest private forest holding. Around this unique resource, we have built a well-developed value chain based on renewable raw material from our own and others' forests.

We offer paper for packaging and print, pulp, wood products, renewable energy, services for forest owners and efficient transport solutions.

2019 the forest products company SCA had approximately 4,000 employees and sales amounted to approximately SEK 19.6 bn. SCA was founded in 1929 and has its headquarters in Sundsvall, Sweden. More information at www.sca.com.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/sca/r/sca-appoints-new-svp-communications,c3158248

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/600/3158248/1282458.pdf Press release (PDF)

SOURCE SCA
Wednesday, July 22, 2020

The Herman Trend Alert

July 22, 2020

Supporting the Economy for Safe Re-Opening

Other than our media in the US being full of news of rising infections and deaths and hundreds of cars lined up waiting for food bank offerings, looking at the stock market indices, one would not expect that the US economy is in dire straits. However, the stock market is not the economy. Getting control of the COVID-19 pandemic is vital to economic recovery. This Herman Trend Alert talks about our way out.

In Some Areas of the US, the Virus is Surging; Other Places are Okay



In my home state of Texas, on Friday, there had been a new record for virus deaths for four days in a row with more than 10,000 confirmed cases each day. And Texas is not alone in the US; Arizona and Florida are in equally serious situations with shortages of hospital and ICU beds, PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), and testing reagents. In only 8 of the United States does the virus appear to be under control, including in New York State where the populace is about to enter Phase 4 of re-opening.

The Virus is Also Surging Elsewhere



Many European countries have brought the virus under control---with the exception of Sweden which chose to mostly ignore the virus and sadly, has experienced the consequences. In Brazil and in Mexico, the novel coronavirus is generating rising numbers of cases and deaths. The Latin American countries are more vulnerable to the pandemic than the wealthier nations. Researchers estimate that due to high levels of poverty and inequality, about 20 percent of populations in Latin America and the Caribbean are particularly susceptible to severe COVID infection, due the fact that most people have at least one of the health conditions that puts them at higher risk. Israel, India, and Russia are also seeing major upticks in their numbers.

Super-Spreader Events Happening by Infection Without Symptoms



As I have discussed in the past, it is a major problem for humanity that people may be infected and have no idea that they are carriers of coronavirus. When these carriers go into crowded environments, especially when they are unmasked. This symptom-less disease is the reason why this infection is so very insidious---and why we have exponentially growing outbreaks in a number of states.

We Must Get this Infection Under Control---Everywhere



Unless and until this pandemic is truly under control, we cannot begin to rebuild the economy. However, controlling this disease will take reducing the number of cases through wearing masks, physically distancing, washing hands, and greater testing (pre-supposing receiving results back in a timely manner) with contact tracing to let people know they have been infected. In the US, many have called for national leadership and appropriate role-modeling. As we go to press, our president has started promoting mask-wearing as being "patriotic" and suggested that we need a national strategy. I hope he follows through on the latter.

Small Businesses are on the Brink



Many small businesses in the US were not able to get the PPP* loans. For others, the amount of money available was simply not enough. Worldwide, small businesses are the jobs' generators of the economy and they are closing in record numbers. Those closings include, but are not limited to, local (non-chain) restaurants, Mom and Pop retail stores, workout gyms, and even some large barber shops and beauty salons. Governments around the world, except in the US, have come the aid of these small employers providing adequate support to the individuals, if not to their businesses. What is needed in the US is another huge infusion of cash into the economy for small companies, their employees, and especially to states and cities that have expended untold millions to respond to this virus with emergency services and healthcare professionals---not to mention the testing and tracing.

More Good News on the Vaccine Front



About a month ago, I wrote a fairly complicated Herman Trend Alert about vaccines. The very good news from Oxford is that its vaccine appears to not only produce antibodies, but also to bolster t-cells which help the body destroy the virus. Now, if that immunity will last for months or years, then we have a viable product.

What's Next?



My best guess is that in the US, it will take a new administration at least 3 months to get control of this rampant infection which may have surged in the winter. Even when we have an available vaccine, sadly, not everybody will choose to take it. We will still need to put in place testing and tracing to handle potential outbreaks. We will also need to support businesses to re-engineer themselves to provide the goods and services demanded in our New Normal. Moreover, the restaurants that do survive will need to be agile enough to flex open and return to pick-up and delivery only. In one form or another, this pandemic will be with us for years. Plus, once it has been conquered, we may have other pandemics with other viruses or bacterial infections to find ways to live with.

Next Week: The Physical and Emotional Sides of Opening-Up



If we are to return to congregate workspaces, what do we need to ensure that employees feel safe and secure?

*The Paycheck Protection Program was a $669-billion business loan program established by the 2020 US Federal government Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) that helped certain businesses, self-employed workers, sole proprietors, certain nonprofit organizations, and tribal businesses continue to operate in the absence of customers.

*********
New Delhi, July 22 : Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the Indian Air Force's operational capabilities and deployments at forward locations on Wednesday amid the tense border situation with China. Singh also urged the IAF to stand ready to handle any eventuality on the border with China.

Singh addressed the inaugural session of the Air Force Commanders' Conference in New Delhi that started on Wednesday. The minister appreciated the proactive response by the IAF in bolstering its operational capabilities over the past few months.

He stated that the professional manner in which the IAF conducted the air strikes in Balakot as well as rapid deployment of IAF assets at forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in eastern Ladakh has sent a strong message to the nation's adversaries.

Singh said that the nation's resolve to defend its sovereignty stands firm on the faith its people have in the capability of its armed forces. He alluded to the ongoing efforts for de-escalation on the Line of Actual Control and urged the IAF to be ready.

He also praised the stellar contribution by IAF in supporting the nation's response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the role played during several humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions.

He highlighted the need to achieve self-reliance in defence production and noted that the theme chosen for this Air Force Commanders' Conference - 'IAF in the Next Decade' - was very apt for enhancing efforts towards indigenisation in the days to come.

The minister lauded the progress made towards enhancing synergy and integration within the three services since the appointment of Chief of Defence Staff and creation of Department of Military Affairs.

Singh acknowledged the air force's role in adapting to changes in technology and adopting emerging capabilities in nano technology, Artificial Intelligence, cyber and space domains.

He assured the commanders that all requirements of the armed forces, whether financial or otherwise, would be fulfilled.

Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria in his address stated that the IAF was well prepared to counter short term as well as strategic threats and the units were evenly poised to counter any aggressive action by the adversaries.

He noted that the response by all commands in ensuring deployment and readiness of forces was prompt and laudable. He emphasised on the need to focus on the ability to handle situations at a short notice for ensuring a robust response.

During the three-day conference, commanders will review the current operational scenario and deployments before deliberating on building the IAF capabilities in the next decade to tackle all emerging threats.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Oman will reimpose a countrywide restrictions from Saturday in an effort to stop the rapid spread of surging covid cases in the country.

The national committee handling the Covid-19 pandemic said the new measures will begin on July 25 and continue for two weeks, lasting over the Eid Al Adha holiday.

"In view of the increase in the number of people infected with Covid-19 and to limit its spread, the supreme committee on Covid-19 has decided to close all governorates between July 25 and August 8," the committee said on Tuesday.

According to the reports, Omanis will not be able to leave their homes for 11 hours a day, and streets will be patrolled by police.
The Key Technology of Effective and Instant Wine Decanting

Wine experts agree that through proper aeration by decanting, the flavor of most red wines can be enhanced to bring forward the true aromas and flavors of the wine.

However, due to different terroir conditions and grape varietals, the proper decanting time is different for each bottle of wine. In order to save time for wine enthusiasts, Vinaera Pro's proprietary patented design of adjustable aeration level provides customers with just a simple turn of the knob to fine-tune the amount of air being infused depending on the varietal and age of the wine. At 0 of turn (with the aeration effect off) through turning clockwise to the maximum 120 position is equivalent to time in a glass decanter of approximately 0-180 minutes. After choosing the optimal aeration level for the wine, just simply press the button to dispense instantly aerated wine directly into the glass to immediately experience the full flavor of the wine.

Testing by several certified sommeliers revealed that optimal flavor of the wine is achieved, while the acids and astringency are reduced, making the wine taste smoother. In short, it's a magical experience. And it will make wine drinkers want to share their experience of finding optimal aeration for each bottle with their friends.

Simple To Use

When customers want to enjoy a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon for example, they can turn the aeration level to about the 60-degree middle position (where the effect is equivalent to 90 minutes in a glass decanter). Just press the button, Vinaera Pro immediately saves about 90 minutes of decanting time. If customers find that the decanting effect is not enough after drinking, they can fine-tune the different aeration levels for each glass to feel the different aroma and taste as if they have decanted a wine for different lengths of time. Cleaning is as simple as using it: use clean water, and just press the button several times to flush out the piping, and finally place in the product base.

The Award-Winning Vinaera Pro Product Director Mr. Chung Said:

"Through this innovative technology, both wine enthusiasts and less experienced drinkers can easily adjust the aeration level to find the best wine flavor while dispensing instantly, without the need for a long wait for proper aeration as needed using a traditional decanter. Vinaera Pro is a simple, fast, effective, time-saving and fun wine tool that will enhance your wine drinking experience."

About VINAERA

VINAERA is a brand of wine tools that focuses on professional quality and leads in wine aeration technology. In 2014, The World's First Electric Wine Aerator was launched and won the Red Dot Award "Best of the Best" in Germany. The World's First "Adjustable" Electric Wine Aerator (Vinaera PRO-MV7) was launched in 2018. This product provides both instant and variable aeration to suit all wines. Vinaera's innovative designs have changed the way the world enjoys wine and together have won more than ten international awards. By the end of 2019, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have experienced the instant aeration of Vinaera / Aervana. Vinaera and Aervana are region specific sister brands distributed worldwide. The brand's ownership is held by Mercuries Asia Ltd. Taiwan. For more information, please visit http://vinaera-global.com/ or email [email protected]

Vinaera Pro Adjustable Electric Wine Aerator by Mercuries Asia Ltd.

Vinaera Pro Adjustable Electric Wine Aerator, award-winning innovative design, adjustable aeration is equivalent to around 0-180 minutes in a glass decanter, just one touch to achieve immediately the selected aeration level, fits most common bottle shapes (from 0.75ml to 1.5l), built-in sediment filter, product base.

Related Links

Vinaera Pro Product Videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A_k2dN3-pc

Related Links

http://vinaera-global.com/

Media contact:

Mandy Lee

[email protected]

SOURCE Mercuries Asia Ltd.

Related Links

http://vinaera-global.com


Visitors wearing face masks feed a giraffe in the Singapore Zoo. (PHOTO: Then Chih Wey/Xinhua via Getty Images)

SINGAPORE Keeping good companies afloat, protecting jobs and boosting key capabilities in the tourism sector are the main goals to be achieved through a new campaign, said the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) on Wednesday (22 July).

STB chief executive Keith Tan outlined these goals to the media at the launch of the largest ever campaign to drive local tourism demand called SingapoRediscovers.

During his speech at the Tourism Recovery Dialogue, Tan forecast more job losses in the coming months. He said that STB is working with Workforce Singapore and SkillsFuture Singapore to create jobs, re-deploy workers and provide traineeships and training opportunities.

We will also work with (the tourism industry) to identify key capabilities in the different tourism sectors that we must maintain  this is necessary in order to ensure that our sectors remain competitive and can emerge strongly when international travel resumes, he added.

$45 million for SingapoRediscovers campaign

Through the SingapoRediscovers campaign, STB will help transform the industry to reimagine new ways for customers to experience tourism offerings and products, Tan added.

The nine-month campaign is aimed at targeting Singapore residents and encouraging them to rediscover Singapore via lifestyle and tourism activities.

The STB will partner Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) and Enterprise Singapore to offer tour experiences, packages and promotions for local residents.

The three agencies have set aside $45 million for the campaign and its supporting marketing initiatives. The campaign is the first since Step Out Singapore after the SARS outbreak in 2003, and BOOST (Building on Opportunities to Strengthen Tourism) in 2009 after the Global Financial Crisis.

With mass travel unlikely to resume soon due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, STB said tapping domestic demand is key to helping its tourism businesses recover.

In 2018, Singaporeans spent more than $34 billion on overseas travel. The challenge for us is whether we can re-direct some of that spending towards our local tourism and lifestyle businesses, said Tan.

Story continues

This will not be an easy task. Many Singaporeans are worried about retaining their jobs, while others are facing pay cuts. Spending on experiences may not be a priority at this point.

Plus, it's not uncommon to hear Singaporeans say that there's nothing to do here, or that they've seen and done all that Singapore has to offer.

Nonetheless, Tan believes Singaporeans are adventurous enough to seek and discover parts of Singapore which they have not explored, and the new campaign intends to leverage on such potential.

Tourism market likely to resume with high-end travellers: Chan

Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said during Wednesdays Tourism Recovery Dialogue that the United Nations World Tourism Organisation has estimated the number of international tourists to decline by 78 per cent in 2020, when compared to 2019.

Meanwhile, a STB survey done in April found that only 33 per cent of travellers across 14 key markets felt confident to visit Singapore in the near future.

While reciprocal green lane arrangements have been made with China and Malaysia to resume business travels, Chan foresees that the tourism market will progressively resume, starting with high-end travellers.

It will be a niche-market game, and not a mass-market game, he said. It is no longer sufficient just to have a product that is just for the tourists who are here with us.

Chances are that we will have to develop an end-to-end suite of service, because for people to resume travel safely, they will need to be engaged prior to their travels... on the standards and precautions required  how would they move around, how would we ensure that they are safe and healthy, how do we provide after-sale services even after they leave Singapore.

Chan added that, although retrenchment amid the tourism industry may be inevitable, the government will be making sure that as many of the existing workers as possible will be re-deployed and re-skilled, and be matched to new jobs available.

Three broad areas of focus for campaign

The SingapoRediscovers campaign stemmed from the Tourism Recovery Action Taskforce, which was set up in February in response to the severe setbacks experienced by the tourism industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It focuses on three broad areas: partnering local communities to help locals discover hidden gems; curating precinct itineraries; and collaborating with hotels, tour operators, attractions as well as precincts to develop value-for-money experiences and promotions.

Tourist precincts in Singapore will be packaged as mini-holiday destinations, where locals can embark on a Singapoliday to enjoy the many experiences and promotions within.

Chan said that, should this local tourism campaign succeed, it will in turn boost international tourism.

One thing Ive learnt from tourism industry practitioners is that nobody goes to another country to visit their tourist attractions; they go to another country to see what their people do, he said.

The challenge for (our attractions) is that if they can attract our people because they offer such enriching experiences, then by word of mouth, the experiences will travel to foreign visitors who will really want to understand more when they come to Singapore the next time.

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(CNN) - COVID-19 will spread to schools if there is widespread transmission of the virus happening within a community, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organizations Health Emergencies Programme, said on Wednesday.

Ryan said that schools are "a microcosm of our society, of our community" and "a subset of people from our community."

"So if we have spread of the virus in our community and that spread is intense and is widespread, then that disease will spread to the school environment," he explained while during a social media Q&A.

"The disease may pass through children. It may find the child then that's less immune or has some compromise and can cause a more severe infection. Or it can also be brought to vulnerable grandparents or others. So, the way I would see it is that when you have intense transmission at community level, then we have to be careful about schools," Ryan added.

He also said school environments are very important to communities, as they act not only as a place where children receive an education, but also as a source of nutrition and safety "in areas that are not necessarily as safe socially for kids."

Schools "are very important centers within our societies and within our communities. So we have to do everything possible to bring our children back to school. And the most effective thing we can do to stop the disease in the community," Ryan added.

The comments come as many US school districts are deciding how  and if  to reopen schools for in-person learning this fall. Many major school districts are refusing to reopen, some even defying state guidelines, until coronavirus cases begin to drop.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "COVID-19 will spread to schools in areas where there is community transmission, WHO official says"
Can Michael Gudinski's new television endeavour The Sound fill the same cultural space that Countdown did? Is making this TV show a big change for you?

When I was young, I did quite a bit of television. I did a famous show which was the alternative to Countdown  Night Moves, which was on three networks, the only show to be on three networks. I had three or four shows back then, and obviously a label  I started it when I was 20. Michael Gudinski. What was the genesis of The Sound?

It started with the show we did, Music from the Home Front. The Home Front show nearly killed me  that's a separate story  but it was one of the most incredibly received shows, and my creative juices started to flow. It was huge rating, and it gave me the determination to get something on television. There were some offers from commercial networks to do a show on one of their digital channels, but I knew the ABC have done so much for music on radio. There's not so much music on TV these days though.

The BBC does so much more for music on television. Australia hasn't got any Graham Nortons: we get all these American and English shows that feature music. If you look at the Top 40 at the moment, there's three Australian singles. It's very frustrating, because there's been no outlet for acts to play new songs  not their old hits  whether they're young, medium-sized acts, or older acts. So two-thirds of The Sound is going to be artists of all ages performing their new tracks.

Has this show been a long time coming?

The show took a long time  it's a Mushroom Vision production, it fits in with the ABC charter. Mushroom Creative housed the people who shot much of the Home Front show. There'll be a triple vinyl album coming in three weeks. I realised that the first album I put out when I was 20 was a triple album of Sunbury, and there's never been an Australian triple album since. Loading How do you see the state of the music industry in 2020?

When I grew up an album cost five times what a concert ticket did. It's completely changed now. Leagueology took over from music. Napster was virtually what Spotify is now. Neil Young said something to me once, I'll never forget it: "Michael, just because it's new technology doesn't mean it's better." The fact that vinyl has now overtaken CD sales and most people have got vinyl players, and if you get good-quality vinyl, particularly for rock music, it sounds way better than it does equalised in other formats. The music industry  like many other industries  is completely under siege. Artists are busting to work  there's been a lot of streaming, but it's very hard for an artist to hold an hour's streaming on their own. COVID is a challenge  in the first episode of The Sound you'll see Eskimo Joe leader Joel Quartermaine in Melbourne playing live and the band in an empty Perth concert hall. How they did it, so technically perfect, is blowing my mind. Tell me about the format of The Sound.

There's three or four segments: we've got From The Vault  the first show has an amazing performance by Midnight Oil, from 1986. Then there's the Tribute segment, which is a very special part of it  artists that have done incredible things and have passed away, with artists doing the tributes that are younger, and also people that were close. Then there's a segment called Introducing, which will be a new artist. It's very important to us that there be a lot of Indigenous and a lot of female presence. The rest of the show will be new songs: it won't be people doing covers.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told a group of British lawmakers that China had bought the head of the World Health Organization, according to people familiar with the matter.

At a private meeting in London on Tuesday, Pompeo said there was firm intelligence to show that a deal had been done to get Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus the job of WHO director-general -- and that this had resulted in the deaths of UK citizens from coronavirus, the people said.

Three of those who were present at the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private, said Pompeo told them he believed China had bought the WHO chief. He didnt give further details of what he meant but said there was intelligence to support this comment.

The Chinese Embassy in London and the State Department did not respond to emailed requests for comment. The WHO rejected unfounded allegations which first surfaced in British newspapers including the Telegraph on Tuesday.

Pompeos allegations mark a significant escalation in the Trump administrations criticism of the WHO and of Chinas response to the pandemic. US officials have said the WHO allowed the coronavirus outbreak to get out of control and President Donald Trump has said it is too close to China.

Speaking a day after Tuesdays meeting, Conservative member of Parliament Iain Duncan Smith, who was present, confirmed that Pompeo had said China swayed the WHO director-general election in May 2017 so Tedros won.

He openly made the point that the arrival of the present chief who had taken the WHO backwards and that it had become quite political, Duncan Smith told Bloomberg TV Wednesday, when asked about Pompeos comments. He therefore said that it was China had managed to get others to ensure that they voted for this particular candidate at the time and that is why the US, he said, has decided to withdraw and use the money, to tackle some of the projects the WHO supports.

According to three of the people present, Pompeo criticized the WHO and the United Nations Human Rights Council during the hour-long meeting.

WHO is not aware of any such statement but we strongly reject any ad hominem attacks and unfounded allegations, an emailed statement from the WHO read. WHO urges countries to remain focused on tackling the pandemic that is causing tragic loss of life and suffering.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons officials were asked about Pompeos comments and confirmed that the Secretary of State had not made similar remarks in his meeting with the premier on Tuesday.

The prime minister believes the WHO and its Director General are playing an important role in leading the global health response to the pandemic, Johnsons spokesman James Slack told reporters. The WHO continues to have an important role to play in leading the global health response to the pandemic, the UK is a major donor to the WHO.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Hyderabad, July 22 : Ahead of Eid-ul-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, the Telangana government, here on Wednesday, said transportation and slaughter of camels was a criminal offence and those indulging in it would be prosecuted and punished.

The Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Department said as per the Rajasthan Camel (Prohibition of slaughter and regulation of temporary migration or export) Act, 2015, no camel could be transported to Telangana for any purpose, including slaughter.

According to the department, the high court in its interim order in a public interest litigation said camels shouldn't be slaughtered as that was inhumane, unconstitutional and would be treated as a criminal offence.

Meanwhile, the Cyberabad Police have also said stringent action will be taken against transport and slaughter of camels. The police had been put on high alert to check that, said Cyberabad Police Commissioner V. C. Sajjanar.

"The general public is hereby informed not to engage in transportation of camels, illegal slaughtering of camels and sale of camel meat in Cyberabad limits," it said.

"Any contravention of the above is publishable as per the provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the GHMC Act, 1955 and under section 429 of the Indian penal code, which attracts imprisonment of up to 5 years or fine or both," he said.

The Commissioner said people could report any violations or Dial 100 or WhatsApp number 9490617444. The complainant's identity will be kept confidential.

Last week, the Telangana High Court had asked the state government to spread the message that it was illegal to eat camel meat and also prosecute those who were found slaughtering the animal.

The court passed the interim orders on a PIL filed by Shashikala Kopanati of Earth Quotient, an NGO, seeking court's directions to ensure strict compliance of the Provisions of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and other laws, including the Rajasthan Camel Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export Act, 2015.

The court also asked the government to file a report on July 29, detailing the action taken to check illegal transport of camels.
Restaurants in the country have stepped up to make quarantine cooking easier by tapping into the concept of DIY meal kits, which come with pre-portioned ingredients to recreate a restaurant quality meal at home.

A popular burger joint in Delhis Defence Colony, AKUS - The Burger Co. has introduced such kits for their items. We thought why not make it easier to cook burgers without having to shop for each ingredient?, says founder Ankit Malhotra, with co-founder Akriti adding that all their products are preservative free.

And its not only the measured ingredients to prepare a delicacy, some eateries are also delivering their signature sauces for foodies to enjoy the flavours of restaurant in the comfort of ones own home. Saurabh Khanijo, director of a pan-Asian chain, Kylin, is trying to cater the demand of ready-to-cook sauces and feels the concept was long overdue in India. The packaging has been kept simple to avoid too many hands touching it, he says.

For some, DIY kits are a form of encouragement for amateur cooks. Not everyones a great chef and can cook from scratch. Its a start as something half-done is provided. Well send spice mix and curry and you have to add chicken, butter, etc., says Amit Bagga, co-founder and CEO of a North Indian cuisine restaurant, Daryaganj, which is preparing kits for dishes such as dal makhni and butter chicken.

Shubham Maheshwari, founder of Being Chef that has been providing meal kits since 2014, says, Now restaurateurs are acknowledging that the DIY kits are future in food industry. He also adds, Our recipe kits provides buyers with all the ingredients (chopped & processed) customised as per ones taste with a simple 8 step recipe card.

Bagga recalls that the DIY segment has existed from a very long time, and adds, We all call this ready to cook segment and it can include even as simple as a spice mix, and has been there already since a long time. Its just that theres a new name for it.

Interact with author/sanchita_kalra.

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C.T. Vivian, the late civil rights activist and close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr., will be remembered in a private funeral service Thursday in Atlanta.

Vivian was a monumental figure in the Civil Rights Movement, with a stretch of advocating for racial equality for more than six decades from his first sit-in demonstrations in the 1940s in Peoria, Illinois. He met King soon after the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

Vivian died of natural causes July 17 at age 95 at his home in Atlanta. It was the same day that fellow civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis died.

Here are five things to know about Vivian.

1. Vivian first led a sit-in in 1947

While working in his first professional job as a recreation director for the Carver Community Center in Peoria, Illinois, Vivian led his first-ever sit-in.

The demonstrations aimed to desegregate Peoria's Bartons Cafeteria and served as a pivotal moment in Vivian's career as an activist, marking the first time he used non-violent, direct-action movement to spur change. It would not be the last time he would do so.

While studying at American Baptist College in Nashville, Vivian teamed with future civil rights leaders Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, James Bevel, James Forman and John Lewis  who would go on to become a congressman  for a non-violent march. On April 19, 1960, Vivian was one of around 4,000 demonstrators who marched on City Hall in Nashville and persuaded then-Mayor Ben West to publicly agree that racial discrimination was morally wrong.

2. Vivian participated in Freedom Rides, marched in Selma

Vivian participated in the Freedom Rides to Mississippi in 1961 as a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Upon arriving in Jackson, Mississippi, Vivian was arrested.

RIP C.T. Vivian, pictured here after being arrested in Jackson, Mississippi during a Freedom Ride in 1961 pic.twitter.com/AaosZQELFu  philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 17, 2020

Two years later, King appointed Vivian the national director of affiliates of the SCLC.

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Then, in an incident Vivian is perhaps best known for, Vivian challenged Sheriff Jim Clark on the steps of the courthouse in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 during a drive to promote Black people to register to vote.

"You can turn your back on me, but you cannot turn your back upon the idea of justice," Vivian said to Clark as reporters recorded the interaction. "You can turn your back now and you can keep the club in your hand, but you cannot beat down justice. And we will register to vote, because as citizens of these United States we have the right to do it."

The footage shows Clark striking Vivian, who falls to the ground. Vivian is seen gathering himself and standing, before continuing his argument.

Shortly after the incident on the courthouse steps, thousands marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to bring awareness to racial inequities. And by the end of the year, Congress would pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

3. King called him 'the greatest preacher to ever live'

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once described Vivian, one of his closest advisers and confidants in the non-violent movement for racial equality, as "the greatest preacher to ever live."

After Vivian left King's organization, he went on to write "Black Power and the American Myth," the first book about the civil rights movement to be published by one of King's aides.

It was Martin Luther King who removed the Black struggle from the economic realm and placed it in a moral and spiritual context, Vivian wrote in his book. It was on this plane that The Movement first confronted the conscience of the nation.

Vivian advised Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on civil rights issues.

4. Vivian was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

In 2013, Obama honored Vivian with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The nation's highest civilian honor, it is given to those who have made "meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

Vivian was honored Nov. 20 of that year alongside 15 others, including former President Bill Clinton, broadcaster Oprah Winfrey, journalist Ben Bradlee and feminist and author Gloria Steinem.

"The Baptist minister C.T. Vivian was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest advisers," Obama said Nov. 20, 2013, during the ceremony. "Martin taught us, he says, that it's in the action that we find out who we really are. And time and again, Rev. Vivian was one of the first to be in the action."

U.S. President Barack Obama awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to C.T. Vivian in the East Room at the White House on November 20, 2013 in Washington, DC. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

5. Vivian created program that later became Upward Bound

The year after his work to promote Black voter registration in Selma, Alabama, Vivian designed, organized and launched VISION in the summer of 1966, an educational program that helped 700 students in the state to attend college on scholarships.

VISION later became Upward Bound, a national program run through the U.S. Department of Education that supports high school students from low-income families and those in which neither parent holds a college degree. Upward Bound offers support to help those students graduate from high school and pursue college educations.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CT Vivian: 5 things to know about activist, Martin Luther King Jr aide
After five years of helping people struggling with mental health and addictions get the help they need rather than get arrested, both Niagara Regional Police and Canadian Mental Health Associations Niagara branch hope to expand their partnership regionwide.

CMHA released statistics Monday showing the results of the work being done by the Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team  a partnership developed in 2015 in response to a growing number of mental health and addictions-related calls received by police.

The program teams specially trained police officers with mental health workers, to respond to mental health-related calls to 911.

CMHA Niagara executive director Tara McKendrick, who is also a member of the Niagara Regional Police board, said the partnership with police, combining the skills and knowledge of each role has resulted in data that proves tremendous successes.

The teams responded to 868 calls involving 612 people last year alone.

In 72 per cent of those calls (623), patients were provided with appropriate community supports such as mental health or addictions services, rather than taken to hospital emergency rooms. And 83 per cent of the calls (717) were de-escalated without need for police apprehension.

Since 2015, teams responded to 3,803 calls serving 2,783 people. They also helped 2,986 people obtain community services, diverted 2,790 calls from hospital, and de-escalated 3,194 calls without the need for police apprehension.

Although the program only operates daily from noon to midnight in St. Catharines and Thorold, a media release about the initiative said both CMHA and police would now like to see it expanded throughout Niagara.

Were grateful for the team we have currently, and our partnership with the NRPS to respond to our community needs, and are hopeful the successes will support an expansion of additional hours and availability in other municipalities in the near future, McKendrick said.

Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team member and CMHA Niagara clinical supervisor Brandy Sand said being part of the program has allowed her to help so many individuals that otherwise would have never walked through the doors of a mental health agency.

There are countless calls that Ive been on where the situation required both the expertise of a mental health worker and the protection and safety provided by a police officer. Everyone can benefit from someone who will listen and help on their worst day, she said. This is why I do what I do.

Police Chief Bryan MacCulloch said the partnership ensures an informed, empathetic response at a time when people are most vulnerable.

Weve seen great success with our MCRRT program, with the vast majority of these mental health calls leading to community support connections and diversions from hospitals and the justice system, he said.

We would welcome the expansion of the program to better serve the needs of our community.
Joel Edmund Nettey, Senior Vice President (Incoming President) IAA (International Advertising Association)

21.07.2020 LISTEN

Anyone who is at odds with their own advertising existence or thinks that advertising is at an end must listen to Joel Edmund Nettey, the Senior Vice President of the International Advertising Association (IAA) that becomes its President and World Chairman in October 2020. His perspective on the world and advertising is refreshing, stimulating and hopeful. A conversation about advertising during Corona and what drives him to contribute to the development of diverse communities.......

Mr Nettey, you studied at the University of Ghana and ended up in advertising. Please tell us how that happened.

Hahahahaha. Thats a long story. In High School I wanted to become a Lawyer. Somehow, studying Economics and Psychology in University, I changed that and started thinking about a career in Banking/Finance. Unfortunately for me just when Id completed the 2nd year of a 3-year honors degree program the lecturers went on strike over disagreements they were having with the government. This strike lasted close to a year and turned a 3year program into a 4year program. So, during that hiatus, I got very involved in student activities which involved organizing all kinds of events and approaching the big brands to sponsor.

I got hooked on that whole process of generating ideas and convincing marketing managers to bring their brands on board. I think my loving Psychology also helped me in the whole understanding consumer behaviour space. So by the time the strike was over and we went in to complete our final year I was convinced Id never be able to survive in the straight jacket 9 to 5 life of banking. I was hooked on marketing communications and marketing generally. I think the bugs still got me. So you see, very much like a lot of other things in my life, my foray into Advertising is really a story of adversity turning into opportunity.

What fascinates you about advertising in general?

What fascinates me the most about advertising in general is the power we have as advertising people to influence change, whether its in changing bad behaviour or positively reinforcing desirable behaviour or even to educate. Brands, people, nations  all depend on advertising to positively impact their fortunes. Advertising is probably one of the greatest influencers of behaviour.

Why should young people go into advertising?

In my opinion, there are very few professions where you get to influence outcomes the way advertising does. Its quite fascinating, the opportunities that are now presented in advertising. Especially with everything technology offers  speed, digital, data etc. Its definitely more unique and inspiring than when I started advertising some 25 years ago. When I started 25 years ago, there was no school in my part of the world (Ghana, West Africa) that offered a course of study in Advertising. Thats totally changed today. Even outside of formal education the internet offers material and examples that would have been unimaginable 2 decades ago. So in my mind, now more than ever, young people who want to change the world, influence behaviour, support causes etc anywhere in the world can consider a career in advertising and marketing communications generally as a means to achieve those ends. Advertising gives you the platform and opportunity to do that. Purpose-driven brands and campaigns are definitely the winners in this space.

Why should companies advertise now, in the middle of this crisis?

Classic marketing communication or advertising will tell you that, the brands that are remembered coming out of a recession because they had a consistence presence right through it, are the ones who typically generate the most loyal customers.

But there are also some practical, common-sense reasons why this is so. First, the most common knee-jerk reaction of most businesses is to cut back on the expenditure in a recession to improve their bottom-line. Although it seems like the commonsensical thing to do, what that does essentially is that it gives those brands that stay the course and greater Share Of Voice in the market  which then means that even for the same amount of spend, they get better impact and thus better returns.

Second?

Also  we all know the AIDA model of advertising which essentially suggests that all things being equal consumers go through 4 stages in their decision-making process, namely Awareness, Interest, Desire and then Action.

So, if you think about it logically even if customers are not up and buying during the throes of a recession they would consciously or unconsciously go through the stages as they interact with the communications/brands they come into contact with during a recession. So, as they come out of the recession they are more likely to have gone through at least the first 2 stages (awareness and interest) for the brands that they have seen and heard during the recession. Coming out of a recession, therefore, such brands are most likely to be in the consumers desire and action stages as opposed to brands who go quiet and would now be creating or re-creating awareness and so on.

And thirdly?

Theres also the softer side of the reasoning that informs the importance of advertising during a recession. For instance, at this moment, in the middle of this pandemic/recession, there is a lot happening. People are at their lowest, and by default, as humans, we remember who was with us at our darkest hours  and naturally gravitate towards them.

So for brands, its important that they not only advertise, but that they support causes that mean a lot to people in these difficult times.

Your love campaign, ever?

There have been lots of campaigns Ive fallen in love with over the years. Currently though I think the campaign thats reigning on my love list is the Nike Colin Kaepernick campaign. Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything is a powerful idea or principle thats timeless. It will last forever, literally. And that Nike had the character to support Colin and what he stood for  at a time when they could have lost significant market share in their biggest market over such a sensitive matter, says a lot for Nike itself as a brand. Of course it says even more about the people behind the brand.

What motivates you to contribute to the development of diverse communities?

One of the things that motivates me and has been my guiding principal for a long time is the poem Desiderata. Among other things, Desiderata says: As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all people. I have to be honest in saying that in this diversity conversation there are groups whose belief systems I cant relate to. But, thats fine. Truth is they probably dont believe in some of the things I believe in either. Which is also fine. Thats the beauty of a diverse world. So, we all need to be on good terms with all people and treat the next person the way you would want to be treated.

How do you explain that to people?

I keep telling people that the fingers of the hand are not equal, and yet we need all of them. So the world is such that you will always meet different people, tall, fat, slim, short, black, white, brown .., and the beauty of it all is that the world is like a canvas - you need all the colors, images and shades to get the perfect picture, and that is why its important for me that we recognize that and give that prominence in everything that we do, whether its in our offices, recruiting practices, equity in salaries across genders, casting for commercials where relevant and all those things.

And what do you see as the advantage of diverse groups?

Its a fact that the more diverse a group is, the more likely you are to find varied skill sets and experiences that when put together made the whole greater than the sum of its parts. So thats my motivation, really.

What do you see as the advantages of explicitly diverse corporate cultures for companies?

It tells people upfront what you believe in, that you are welcoming, that when they come in there, regardless of their own peculiar strengths and weakness, their nature, they are going to be accepted and given the opportunity to flourish. That at the very outset, gives anybody who is looking for a job the essence of hope, because everybody wants to at least aspire to be the best they can be, and the only way you can be the best or aspire to be the best you can be is only when you are in an environment that allows you or encourages you to excel. And of course, once they come in and give their best, its the organization that ultimately benefits.

Do you see any other advantages, perhaps those that affect the collective?

Diversity (and inclusion) enables companies to benefit from different experiences, cultures and knowledge of different people. Like a harmonious choir you get a much better melody when you can harness all these strengths than to have any part sing alone, regardless of how important that part is (or think it is).

What are the characteristics of corporate cultures that are explicitly designed for inclusion?

Generally, an inclusive workplace makes all employees feel like they are part of the team. They feel valued and this makes them bring their A-game to work every day because they feel appreciated and know that their thoughts and opinions, however small, will be heard and at least considered. Theres also equity in access to opportunities for growth, remuneration, promotion and access to roles etc.

Are there any first signs that make you hopeful?

For instance, in our advertising world we are gradually seeing more women advancing to the C-Suite as CEOs and in Creative Leadership etc. But I dont think its happening as fast as it could. Of course there are also real challenges with gender and how much time women are able to dedicate to work in the typical long hours of an agency establishment etc because of the other important roles they play in their families in most cultures. I understand that. But it is important, for me, that they are encouraged and supported to be the absolute best they can be  and must definitely earn equal salaries for equal work done.

Within teams in inclusive organizations also, one generally finds more collaboration between employees and more of a focus on the people by management.

Final thoughts?

It is said that Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance. No one wants to be invited to a party as a spectator. Such a guest would rather stay at home. So I just want to encourage everyone  brands, marketeers, politicians - not to make half-hearted attempts at diversity. Lets go the whole hog and push for proper inclusion. Thats when we can truly harness all the benefits.

Joel Edmund Nettey is the Senior Vice President of the International Advertising Association (IAA) and becomes its President and World Chairman in October 2020.

Joel is a savvy and well-acclaimed Management, Marketing and Marketing Communications expert and the Founder and Chief Executive of The Ninani Group, a group of Marketing Communications Specialist Companies that include Innova DDB Ghana, ReZultz Advertising, Touchpoint Magna Carta (Africa and Ghanas PR Consultancy of the Year 2019), Interactive Digital and Brand Alert in Ghana as well as Innova Liberia.

A thoroughbred marketing communications professional, he has also been Chief Executive of various multinational marketing communications agency affiliates in Ghana including Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis.

In November 2010 the Network Journal USA (www.tnj.com) recognised his sterling qualities when it named Joel as one of the inaugural 20 honorees from across Africa in its "TNJ 40 under Forty Africa" Awards.

He holds a Master in Business Administration (Marketing) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Economics and Psychology degrees from the University of Ghana.

Joel and his wife Rachel, are blessed with 3 children  Nichole, Natasha and Nigel.

This article is originally published in German language in HORIZONT SWISS:

https://www.horizont.net/schweiz/nachrichten/interview-joel-nettey-wer-vielfalt-predigt-laedt-zur-party.-wer-inklusion-meint-fordert-zum-tanz.-184428?utm_source=%2Fmeta%2Fnewsflash%2Fswissvor9&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=nl40553&utm_term=cc
Retail space once belonging to a clothing store now sits boarded up in El Segundo, Calif., on June 25, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

California Has Highest Number of Permanent Business Closures, Yelp Says

LOS ANGELESA large red-and-white sign looms over what was once a Thai restaurant in Santa Ana, California, advertising that the property is for sale. A wooden Buddha statue stands by the counter, in the dark. Elaborate golden motifs adorn the walls above empty tables.

Similar signs advertising property sales and leases are popping up throughout Southern California, as many small businesses collapse.

California is the state with the highest number of business closures amid the pandemic, according to Yelp. About 30,000 businesses closed in the state from March 1 to July 10about half of them temporary closures, and the rest permanent.

Los Angeles is the city with the highest number of closures in the country, at about 11,000, half of them permanent. Nationwide, Yelp reports 133,000 businesses closed, with 55 percent permanently so.

Many small business owners in Southern California who have temporarily closed told The Epoch Times they are barely hanging on; they might soon add to the number of permanent closures. Any loans they receive will be used up quickly and difficult to repay, they say.



Restaurant space in Santa Ana, Calif., is advertised as available on July 10, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

A large warehouse space sits for sale in Westminster, Calif., on June 26, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

We stand to lose everything: our businesses, our homes, our retirements, small-business owner Denise Duncan told The Epoch Times.

Yelps reports show restaurant and retail businesses hard-hit, but Duncan says that effects all kinds of other small businesses.

Duncan is part owner of AT Industrial Products, a manufacturer of metal-dust collectors, based in Pomona, in Los Angeles County. She said she figured out within a few days that the March shutdown would be devastating to the service industry, and then trickle down to the manufacturing sector.

Her products collect combustible metal dust, a necessary safety precaution in many industrial environmentsanywhere there is metal grinding, sawing, buffing. The dust is a fire hazard, but also hazardous for workers to inhale.

Because her equipment is essential to safety, she kept running for some time after the March shutdown. But as her clients operations slowed, and as their economic security came into question, so did hers.

Office space is advertised as available in a building in El Segundo, Calif., on July 10, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

A business space is boarded and locked in El Segundo, Calif., on June 25, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Duncan connected with the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) for guidance on available loan and aid packages.

Band-Aid Loans, New Closure Mandates

She obtained a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan and a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan.

These funds are buying us time. However, buying time is a Band-Aid, and not the solution, Duncan said.

Her opinion was echoed by NFIB research director Holly Wade, who stated in a July 10 release that 22 percent of PPP loan borrowers anticipate having to lay off at least one employee after using up their loans.

Many small businesses are telling us this wont last forever and anticipate having to lay off employees once theyve used their loan, Wade said.

Over half of NFIB members who are PPP borrowers have spent all of their loan funds, with many other businesses not far behind.

A Pier 1 Imports store flies a going out of business banner in Culver City, Calif., on June 25, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Some business owners told The Epoch Times they experienced delays in receiving SBA loans, creating difficulties.

Matt De Vaul, who owns MMD Antiques in the City of Orange, applied for his SBA loan on April 3 and received it more than two months later, in mid-June.

Before the loan arrived, De Vaul became desperate. He said to avoid bankruptcy, he had to reopen at the end of April, violating stay-at-home orders.

Every day Im not open, Im going deeper and deeper in debt, he told The Epoch Times at the time. And the truth is  I dont even think Im going to be able to recover from it.

The SBA loan is keeping him afloat for now.

Christine Maniaci, owner of Salon Touche in Redondo Beach in Los Angeles County, told The Epoch Times that she hasnt received any financial assistance, although she applied in March.

Now, she couldnt afford to pay back an SBA loan, even if she got one, she says.

How can I pay the loans back when business savings have been depleted? The state has been of no help.

She recently closed her salon again after a brief reopening, since salons were among the businesses ordered closed this month in counties on the monitoring list for COVID-19.

Duncan had strong words for legislators in light of the new wave of closures meant to combat rising COVID-19 numbers: A never-ending shutdown by governors and government employeeswho will continue to get paid and receive benefits regardless of the unconstitutional laws they shove down our throatswill put many of us not only out of business, but create unemployment numbers that are unimaginable.

Like Duncan, Kelly Mundell of Dana Point felt the trickle-down effect as other businesses struggled. Mundell, 26, started her own marketing business just before the pandemic hit.

She had gained a few clients when COVID-19 halted everything, she told The Epoch Times. With no security and no one knowing how financially stable they were going to be, I had to put everything to a stop.

Kelly Mundell, who started her own marketing business just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, stands with her laptop on a porch in Dana Point, Calif., on July 9, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Most large agencies still have clients, but of course me, starting my own small business to help other small businesses, I was one of the ones who took the fall, she said. She remains hopeful, however, that small businesses will rebound soon and want marketing to help them ramp back up.

Small businesses are resilient, innovative, and have a huge fan base, Elizabeth Milito, a senior counsel at the NFIB, told the Epoch Times. Im confident in small-business owners ability to make lemonade out of lemons and pull through this crisis. Dont be afraid to ask for help.

It isnt only small businesses that have shut their doors for good in recent weeks. Big chains, such as Pier 1 Imports, Bath & Body Works, and Victorias Secret, also have announced widespread store closures.
Insurance Plus LLC, a newly formed agency based in Columbia, Mo., has joined Valley Insurance Agency Alliance (VIAA), a network more than 130 independent insurance agencies in Missouri and Illinois.

Insurance Plus, which has merged with VIAA member Mulligan Insurance, is the sister company of Accounting Plus Inc., a full-service accounting and payroll firm that has served the mid-Missouri community since 1992.

Insurance Plus was founded by Accounting Plus owners Denise Nelson and Tina Marso. The new agency specializes in commercial insurance, specifically pay as you go workers compensation policies, as well as home, auto and life insurance.

Mulligan Insurance owner Lance Hall joined Insurance Plus as director of Operations. He brings more than 20 years of insurance industry experience to the agency.

Founded in 2006, VIAA generates more than $250 million in written premium and is the regional founding member for the Strategic Insurance Agency Alliance (SIAA), a more than $8 billion national alliance.

Source: VIAA

Topics Missouri
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:20:10|Editor: huaxia

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RIGA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Latvia's national rail company Latvijas Dzelzcels (Latvian Railways) has worked out a three-year business overhaul plan, which is intended to keep the company afloat amid rapidly dropping rail freight volumes, the company's representatives said at a news conference Wednesday.

According to the new business strategy, Latvijas Dzelzcels plans to venture into logistics segments like freight forwarding by sea and road to compensate for the loss of rail freight.

Latvijas Dzelzcels Chairman of the Board Maris Kleinbergs indicated at the presentation of the new business model that the shipping of rail freight has been declining in recent years. In 2019 Latvijas Dzelzcels recorded the lowest freight turnover in 18 years, and this year freight volumes have been dropping further, by 52 percent year-on-year, according to the company's estimates.

As the company looks to adapt to the new market situation, it is also planning to add warehouses to its new range of services.

"Our goal is to become a fully-fledged player on the logistics market, involved not only in rail transport and forwarding, but also in providing a broader range of services to clients, offering them also freight forwarding by sea and road, services of terminals and warehouses," Kleinbergs said.

As Latvijas Dzelzcels has been scaling down its rail transport business, the company has already laid off more than 1,000 of its staff since the beginning of this year, and another 300 employees are expected to be let go by the end of 2020.

Kleinbergs said, however, that the launch of the new business model will likely require hiring new specialists in following years. Enditem
The Strike Team is dedicated to assist with deep cleaning and disinfecting throughout all the Sun Mar Healthcare facilities on a routine basis. We are doing everything we can to limit the spread of COVID-19. We believe these initiatives will be very effective and will strive to make every facility as safe as possible.

Sun Mar Healthcare announces additional investment to reduce the risks of infectious diseases for patients and staff. These measures include partnering with industry infectious disease experts, implementing leading-edge disinfectant technologies, and expanding the infection prevention resources. This timely response is based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and local county public health agencies to reduce the spread and impact of COVID-19.

We want to maintain the confidence of employees, patients, family members and the local communities we serve, said Frank Johnson, CEO of Sun Mar Healthcare. We cant guarantee that we wont have instances of illness, as this is a global problem affecting all communities, but we are working continuously in taking action that will reduce the risk and increase the safety of our environment.

The company created a dedicated Environmental Strike Team to assist with deep cleaning and disinfecting throughout all facilities on a routine basis. They utilize a CDC-approved solution that is an invisible surface coating that prevents pathogens from existing on surfaces for at least 90 days. Places like The Pentagon, the Mayo Clinic, and other leading institutions have also been using this product safely and effectively.

Additionally, each facility will soon deploy a new whole-room disinfection technology, utilizing hydrogen peroxide and silver fog that permeates the space and kills microorganisms. This will provide an additional layer of protection prior to any new admission and following every discharge.

Sun Mar also hired an experienced Special Operations Nurse to assist the Facility Infection Prevention nurses already in place. They maintain close communication with local and state health officials to ensure the company is taking all the appropriate steps to meet the demands of the circumstances. Even before the pandemic, Sun Mar had partnered with Expert Stewardship and Dr. James A. McKinnell, a leading infectious disease expert who has published over 40 papers and is a leader in antimicrobial and antibiotics resistance. Dr. McKinnell advises local and state health officials in providing support, advice, and direction on how to operate most safely during the pandemic.

We are doing everything we can to limit the spread of COVID-19, Johnson said. We believe these initiatives will be very effective and will strive to make every facility as safe as possible.

About Sun Mar Healthcare

Sun Mar Healthcare is a long-term care advisory and services organization providing operational support for skilled nursing facilities and an assisted living facility. For over 35 years, Sun Mar has provided a broad array of services for health care facilities, including clinical system advisory and training, back-office accounting, legal, and other services for owners and/or operators of long-term health care facilities.
ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - A British Columbia police officer is being remembered for his "spark for life" and love of sharing stories and advice.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - A British Columbia police officer is being remembered for his "spark for life" and love of sharing stories and advice.

Const. Allan Young, a 16-year member of the Abbotsford Police Department, died Tuesday, days after intervening in a dispute during an off-duty visit to the southeastern B.C. city of Nelson.

Abbotsford Police Const. Allan Young is shown in an undated handout photo. Young died Tuesday night, six days after intervening in a dispute in Nelson and being critically injured. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Abbotsford Police Mandatory Credit

Abbotsford police spokeswoman Sgt. Judy Bird said the 55-year-old had been on life support since July 16 and died surrounded by his family.

He is survived by his wife and adult daughter.

"He had a spark for life. He had a spark for community. But that doesn't give justice to how he shared positive energy with everybody, it didn't matter who you were," she said.

Bird said Abbotsford residents have relayed how Young told stories about his own difficult times in order to help them cope with their challenges.

"That human element impacted people's lives and that makes a huge difference," she said.

Allan was born in Scotland, served in the British Royal Navy and immigrated to Canada in 1997, where he joined the Toronto Police Service in 2000 and served for four years.

"I don't know what brought him to British Columbia, but we were very lucky to snag Const. Young ... in 2004, and ever since that day he has been a ray of sunshine in our building," said Bird.

She laughed while describing his thick Scottish accent, which she said he never lost.

"He would speak quickly because he was just so happy and energetic, and if you didn't catch exactly what was said at least you got a gist of what the conversation was and it was always, usually, very funny."

Police in Nelson have released few details of what happened when Young stepped into the altercation in that city's downtown core.

They confirmed a 26-year-old man was arrested and remains in custody charged with aggravated assault.

Premier John Horgan called Young's death a tragic loss.

"Our hearts are with the friends, family and colleagues of @AbbyPoliceDept Const. Allan Young," Horgan said in a social media post, Wednesday.

Abbotsford Chief Const. Mike Serr issued a statement Monday, while Young was still on life support, saying that Young treated everyone with kindness and respect.

"He always had time for a laugh and a joke," Serr said. "Allan was never too busy for his friends and family, and there was nothing he wouldn't do to help."

Details about a service for Young were not yet available, Bird said.

 By Beth Leighton in Vancouver.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
Chandigarh, July 22 : To further ramp up Covid-19 testing capacity in the state, the Punjab government will procure seven automatic RNA extraction machines for the viral testing labs at three Government Medical Colleges in Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot.

They are in addition to four more machines for the newly-set up viral testing labs in Mohali, Ludhiana and Jalandhar cities.

The Punjab Cabinet, which met on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, gave the go ahead for the procurement of these machines within the next 3-4 weeks, amid increasing cases of Covid-19 in the state.

The move is aimed at controlling the spread of the pandemic through increased testing by augmenting the state's fight under Mission Fateh.

According to a spokesperson of the Chief Minister's Office, the Cabinet gave the go ahead to procure seven automatic RNA extraction machines of Thermofisher-make model Kingfisher flex and test kits as approved by the Health Sector Response and Procurement Committee.

The expenditure on these machines and test kits would be incurred from the State Disaster Response Fund, and the entire procurement process would be handled by the Vice Chancellor of the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences in Faridkot.

The Department of Medical Education and Research had established two viral testing labs in March 2020 itself -- at Government Medical Colleges in Patiala and Amritsar.

Thereafter, in April 2020, the third viral testing lab was set up at Guru Gobind Singh Medical College in Faridkot.

Initially, testing capacity for Covid-19 was about 40 tests per lab per day. Later, when the department installed new extra machines, the testing capacity increased to 400 tests per lab per day.

Subsequently, testing capacity was further increased with the purchase of three high throughput automatic RNA extraction machines of MGI make by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences at the cost of Rs 1.5 crore per machine.

This had enhanced the testing capacity to 3,000 tests per lab per day at each of the three labs in Government Medical Colleges.

However, the Covid-19 cases are gradually increasing and the average number of new cases over the past seven days is 281 per day, as against 100 per day in June.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Work at Brisbane's Cross River Rail stopped for hours on Wednesday after the Melbourne-based commissioner of Australia's building watchdog flew in under a COVID-19 exemption to interview two workers over their protest action months earlier.

The Queensland arm of the CFMEU has concerns why Stephen McBurney, from the federal government's Australian Building and Construction Commission, needed to fly from the Victorian capital to Brisbane to speak with two men who went to a protest rally in Brisbane in November 2019.

Australian Building and Construction Commissioner Stephen McBurney was granted an exemption to enter Brisbane on a flight from Melbourne. Credit:Fairfax

Questions over his trip to Brisbane come as Victoria on Wednesday reported a record 484 new cases of COVID-19.

The CMFEU's Queensland assistant secretary Jade Ingham said the decision to fly to Brisbane from Melbourne was "as outrageous as it is grossly irresponsible".
VERNON, CT  The town of Vernon and the state of Connecticut are again at odds over "safe" voting procedures and the bone of contention this time around is the drop box the state wants placed in each municipality for absentee ballots.

What appears to to be a heated exchange of messages took shape about 72 hours after Independence Day, when Vernon Town Manager Michael Purcaro sent a message to Connecticut elections director Ted Bromley that the town is refusing delivery of a state-issued drop box designed for absentee ballot curbside drop-offs.

Purcaro, who is also the town's emergency management director and a former high-ranking state Department of Public Health official, said town instead wants to use a drop box connected to a window at the Vernon Town Clerk's office to for a "safe, secure, easily accessible and convenient" method of filing ballots.

In interviews Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, Purcaro stressed the town hall drop box was more secure and can be cleaned "after each exchange." He also said the town hall drop box concept is more secure than an "unmonitored" drop box placed at a curb.

The Vernon Department of Public Works designed and built the box and it was installed Wednesday morning. Purcaro said the box would be open for collection during regular town hall business hours and at "regular voting times" on Election Day.



It is designed to be "100 percent contactless" with a sensor that alerts the clerk staff to a submission.

The drop box issue is the second voting-related disagreement between state and municipal officials since restrictions were announced amid the coronavirus pandemic. During the budget season, Vernon officials staged two historic drive-up votes that inevitably approved both a debt service housekeeping issue and the town budget itself. Voters drove up to one station, showed identification through a closed vehicle window to mask-clad election staffers and then gave a thumbs-up or thumbs-down through a closed window at a second station.



Story continues

The drop box concept evolved after Gov. Ned Lamont ruled the drive-up method unsafe for all towns.





(Chris Dehnel/Patch)





In a response to Purcaro's refusal dated July 20, Connecticut Deputy Secretary of the State Scott Bates told Purcaro that the state could not "comply" with the refusal of the state drop box. He said the letter was serving as an "instruction" to not only accept the box, but to place the "secure" box at a convenient "outside" location.

"Our office has grave concerns about your unwillngness to protect the health and safety of your voters by providing them with a safe and trusted method of contactless delivery of their absentee ballots," Bates wrote. "No Connecticut voter should have to choose between protecting their health and exercising their right to vote, particularly when the means to protect that health has been provided to their town free of charge."

Bates then directed town officials to, "Please immediately take steps to rectify the situation."

The letter then included an eight-paragraph litany outlining most of the coronavirus-related safety mandates issued by the governor's office.

Purcaro called Bates' response "ignominious."

"The letter fails miserably," he said. "It lacks credibility. It doesn't even ask what we're doing."

He continued, "What we're doing is offering a safer and healthier way to collect ballots. I have a concern over an unmonitored drop box being touched by who knows how many people while unsupervised and not necessarily cleaned after each transaction. I also question the security of a drop box at the curb rather than one attached to town hall. A monitored ballot submission is consistent with the constitution. After each time it us used, it will be cleaned and wiped down for health reasons."

Purcaro added, "My letter clearly states we have a way of doing this in a safe and healthy manner. Mr. Bates' letter is dismissive and offensively intolerant. He cites health concerns that I had already outlined to the state."

Purcaro said the town planned to go forward with the drop box at town hall.

This article originally appeared on the Vernon Patch
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Compare-autoinsurance.org (https://compare-autoinsurance.org/) is a top auto insurance brokerage website, providing car insurance quotes online from trustworthy agencies all over the United States. This website has launched an online guide that explains when should drivers consider dropping full car insurance.

Many drivers consider dropping full coverage once the loan on their vehicles is paid. However, drivers should think twice before dropping full coverage. If they can't afford the repairs or the costs to replace their vehicles if something bad happens to them, then they should keep full coverage. The two parts of full coverage insurance, collision and comprehensive, will cover events like animal collisions, falling objects on the vehicle, weather damage, fire, theft, vandalism.

Drivers can consider dropping full coverage in the following situations:

The value of the car is low. To determine the value of a vehicle, drivers should analyze some things like the age of the car, the total mileage, wear and tear on the interior, defects, or rust on the exterior. If the car is significantly less valuable than the day of the purchase, then keeping full coverage is not worth it. Drivers that decide to keep full coverage should do some adjustments to their policies. For example, drivers that own a vehicle that is worth $5,000 and have a deductible that is $1,00 will get $4,000 if their cars got totaled. If their policy covers amounts as high as $10,00 then drivers pay for insurance that they don't need and don't use. In this scenario, drivers are recommended to lower their coverage amounts.

Paid loan . Drivers that paid off their loans are no longer required to carry full coverage. If their budgets had been strained due to paying for full coverage, then they should decrease their coverage and premiums.

Drivers can support the costs of a replacement. Drivers that have enough money to pay for the repairs or for the replacement of their vehicles, should drop full coverage. Drivers that have a high deductible on their insurance, can use the money they save from the premiums to create an emergency repairs fund that can be used when the vehicles need to be repaired.

Rule of thumb. If the actual cash value of the vehicle is smaller than 10 full coverage payments, then drivers should drop full coverage.

Story continues

For additional info, money-saving tips and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/.

Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc.

"Full coverage can protect us in may various situations. However, there are some cases where full coverage is not needed", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company.

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SOURCE: Internet Marketing Company





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/598425/When-Should-Drivers-Consider-Dropping-Full-Car-Insurance-Coverage




NEWSALERT-UAE-ENVOY-ATTACK UAE envoy to US says Yemen's Houthis used missiles as well as drones in deadly attack that targeted Abu Dhabi this week. (AP)UAE envoy to US says Yemen's Houthis used missiles as well as drones in deadly attack that targeted Abu Dhabi this week. (AP)
Amma Johnson started her business with, as she says, just one hand bag and a hundred dollars. Her inspiration for wanting to be a fashion designer began at just four years old.

When she graduated from Penn State University with a bachelors degree in marketing in 1999, Johnson sought out to work for five years through a major retailer in both Pennsylvania and Maryland called the May Company. While there, she never lost touch of her goal to eventually have her own business.

Johnson later began working for Harrisburg Regional Chamber and CREDC for almost 10 years. She held several positions throughout her time with the chamber, working her way up to Vice President of Chamber Operations.

Her time at the chamber gave her the opportunity to work with a lot of entrepreneurs. Johnson, who always dreamed of having her own brand, embraced that new role.

In December 2015, she launched the showroom for AMMA JO shopping, located in Harrisburgs Strawberry Square. Johnsons business primarily designs womens accessory. While focusing primarily on handbags, she has started rolling out other lifestyle collections jewelry.

Johnson generally runs things on her own. A lot of contractors are used because it is small. Johnson said she learned early on that one of the ways that you can really go down as a business really fast is if you hire too many people.

Below, Amma Johnson gives insight on what it takes to own your own business:

Has your business been the success youd hoped?

I think any small business owner would say, its everything I hoped it would be and its everything that I didnt know because theres just so much that you dont know. I definitely would say Im very happy with how it has progressed. Especially in todays time with it being so difficult for small businesses, Im happy that Im still standing.

Im happy that Im still here and I think as an entrepreneur sometimes you have to remember that the road may not always be what you thought it would, but if you have a strong vision and youre committed to your strong vision, you may ebb and flow and do things a different way. But you find a way at the end of the day to stay standing, thats what its about.

What is the most significant factor in your success?

Anyone who knows me knows that Im always going to say sales. You cannot do anything without a sale. Right when the coronavirus happened and we were trying to figure out what to do when our showroom couldnt be open. And guess what? We started selling things that people needed. Essentials, face masks, disposable gloves, things that people actually really needed.

So there are some times where your business may not have something thats part of your core business, you may have to go. Like right now, its a tough time for every small business. Theyre going into survival mode, but you cant have a business if you dont have a customer and if you dont have a sale. So Im the type of person that sometimes I say, Oh my gosh what Im going to do?' I roll up my sleeves and start calling people, and I start selling.

What has been the factor most hindering the growth/success of your business?

I think that as a small business and fashion, its a very noisy world right now. There are so many people that youre competing for credibility because youre competing against brands who are heritage brands who have been out forever. You are trying to figure out who you are and it can be really challenging, but youre just competing in a very busy space.

What was the effect of the pandemic on your business?

We had to close our retail showroom and we had to figure out how to stay relevant, and how to stay alive. This retail showroom is so much a part of our brand, people being able to come in and say hello and be that friendly face. We just really had to convert that and take that experience digitally. We do videos and weve had to really pump that up.

Weve had to really be very clear with our customers about the product online because now people are going to buy online. They want to know what theyre getting. So we had to add more information to our product listings. So we really have been forced to recreate and enhance our digital experience online.

Were you prepared for the demands of running your own business?

No. You know your business is like a child. You just say, I think I know what youre gonna look like,' and then boom, something else happens.

I dont know any small business owner that says, This journey went exactly how I thought it was going to go. In todays world, in fashion, Im sure if I was a heritage brand opening hundreds of years ago, Im able to set my own trends tell people what they want, and basically say, this is what youre getting.' In this world, people have a million choices. They can buy from all these different retail outlets. So our customers response to our collections and where our brand goes has made a real difference.

So there have been some times where we thought Oh my God, one collection is really going to take off. But then the customer likes something else. So you have to be feedback- and customer-driven, which I think takes you to unexpected places sometimes.

What would have better prepared you?

I think if I would have just maybe, submerged myself in more of the fashion circles and had more industry-specific mentors within my field. Advice is always good, mentorship is always good. So maybe like a mentor who was in fashion.

What resources would have helped you in building your business?

I think just more network. Industry-specific networks, because youre always kind of looking to leverage. Also, understand what the trends are. Im in fashion and so fashion is not like a dominant industry in central Pennsylvania. So I think getting into more of those fashion networks, out of the area, to just kind of bounce ideas off of probably would have helped me more.

What resources or information would be most helpful to you now?

The most important thing right now is trends because everyone has to realize and come to terms with the fact that not only did the coronavirus happen, but the world changed in the last few months. People have been forced to make changes because of COVID-19, but then people also are changing their buying habits.

Were going to change the way we shop for groceries, we are going to change the way that we find fashion. Some of us are finding out, Oh, you know what? I dont have to run to the store three times a week. I can just go once a week and then order online and actually have time with my family..'

So I think the fact that the entire world has changed forces everybody to think differently. Youre not just thinking differently about the next six months, youre thinking differently about permanent changes that youre going to make.
Photo credit: Getty Images/Duchess of Cambridge

From Town & Country

Prince George's seventh birthday photostaken by Kate Middleton herself, in what has become something of a tradition for the Cambridge kids' big dayswere a celebration of George reaching another landmark. But they were also an opportunity to telegraph something about the Prince as an heir.

The royal family has long mastered the art of sending subtle messages: take the many nods to the Queen in Princess Beatrice's wedding, and how they shifted the narrative away from Prince Andrew; look at how the Queen can honor her late father with just a brooch. For George, it was his shirt. The simple, camouflage-printed T-shirt he wore in one of the two photos released by Kensington Palace spoke volumes.

As Elizabeth Holmes explained in her popular Instagram series on royal fashion, "So Many Thoughts": "The Queen is the head of the armed forces and served for a brief stint during WWII in the women's branch of the British Army. Wills was a pilot in the Royal Air Force, Harry served in the army for a decade (incl [sic] in Afghanistan), Charles and Philip were in the Royal Navy. Pics of all of them in uniform are important to the visual narrative the family crafts... This is a sign, at age 7, that George's life is devoted to service of his country."

It's something that the royals also did when Princes William and Harry were young. Numerous old photos of the brothers show them dressed in military garb, foreshadowing their future service.

Clearly, the message got across. The official British Army Twitter account shared the photo of George, writing, "We especially love your choice of t-shirt! What do you think @irish_guards, a guardsman in the making?" The British Army in London account then responded to that, posting a video of the Coldstream Guards celebrating George's birthday. "Number 7 Company @ColdstreamGds have got in there first!" they wrote.

Number 7 Company @ColdstreamGds have got in there first! https://t.co/2sLmEx6BSy pic.twitter.com/WrDLB23xrT  The Army in London (@ArmyInLondon) July 22, 2020

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The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Akwasi Agyeman, has attributed the recent boost in the tourism sector to the development of the Visit Ghana website.



According to him, the website has been a valuable source of information to many tourists who have travelled to the country in recent times.



Mr. Agyeman, in an interview on Happy FM, said, The Visit Ghana website has done a lot to improve tourism in Ghana.



According to him, prior to the development of the website, most tourists used agents, tour operators and contacts in their home countries when they decided to make travel considerations, adding that this limited their travel options.



He said, Sometimes information for tour operators is scattered so it will be difficult to know what is in Ghana, but now all that information has been made available on the website and it is aggressively being pushed on the international scene, people regularly visit the website for information and that has really helped us.



With the Visit Ghana website operational, it provides information to over 30,000 to 40,000 people on regular basis.



From statistics available to the GTA, a greater portion of tourists who visit the country are from the United States of America (USA). It was revealed during the interview that this feat was achieved by the conscious efforts put in place by the authority.



Mr. Agyeman explained, Studying the data, we observed that countries like the USA have been very strong markets for us. So we began to engage in exhibitions, fairs and conversations that went on in those areas. So for a program like Year of Return, when it was launched, we saw more patronage from the USA.



With the immense efforts put in place by the GTA to promote tourism in the country, Ghana has now become a Mecca for African Americans who want to see their roots.



Mr. Agyeman advised tourists from parts of the globe to log on to www.visitghana.com to browse through amazing tourist destinations in the country.

Source: Dailyguidenetwork.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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90% fewer Christians who are facing persecution being resettled to US since 2015

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Theres been a nearly 90% reduction in the number of Christian refugees being resettled to the United States from countries where churches face the greatest persecution since 2015, according to two leading evangelical humanitarian organizations.

Open Doors USA, a watchdog group that monitors the persecution of Christians in over 60 countries, teamed up with the refugee resettlement agency World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, to release a new report Friday.

The 16-page report, titled Closed Doors, is critical of policies that have drastically reduced refugee resettlement to the U.S. in recent years and others that have made it increasingly difficult for persecuted individuals and families to seek asylum.

There have been many recent changes regarding refugee resettlement and asylum law that has effectively shut the door on many of the refugees from being able to access protection in the United States of America, World Relief Vice President of Advocacy and Policy Jenny Yang told reporters on a press call Friday.

As organizations that are working to help those that are fleeing religious persecution, particularly Christians, we feel like it is of the utmost importance that the ... U.S. keeps its doors open.

The report includes testimonies from persecuted Christians as well as data comparing the numbers of refugees resettled during the final years of the Obama administration to the drastically decreased numbers resettled under President Donald Trump.

The report finds that 18,462 Christians from countries listed on Open Doors USAs influential annual list of 50 worst countries where Christians face persecution were resettled to the U.S. in 2015 and 17,122 Christians from those countries were resettled in 2016, the final two years under Obama.

By comparison, only 946 Christians from those countries on the Open Doors World Watch List were resettled in the first half of the fiscal year 2020. The report estimates that if projections remain steady, only 1,897 Christians from those 50 countries will be resettled by the end of the fiscal year 2020, which represents a reduction of 89.7% from 2015.

The purpose of the report, organizers said, is to stress how policy changes enacted by the Trump administration since 2017  including the cutting of the U.S. refugee resettlement ceiling  have impacted persecuted Christians abroad. The report was not published to suggest that Christians should be prioritized over refugees of other religious backgrounds.

We do unabashedly believe, however, immigration and asylum policies must be addressed in order to protect those who, because of persecution on account of their faith in Christ, have been forced to flee their countries, the report stresses. Scripture teaches us that the global Church is a single body, and that when one part suffers, we all are to suffer with it (1 Corinthians 12:26).

According to World Relief, the world is facing its worst refugee crisis since World War II and there are believed to be 80 million people throughout the world displaced from their homes. The United Nations estimates that about 1.4 million displaced people in 60 refugee-hosting countries are in need of resettlement.

Open Doors USA CEO David Curry, a respected religious freedom advocate, told reporters that while the Trump administration has championed the presidents promise to promote religious freedom and protect persecuted Christians overseas, its changes to policies on refugee resettlement as asylum law have created a gaping hole in that promise.

Curry said he would like to see the Trump administration prioritize the refugee resettlement program and noted that there are over 250 million Christians worldwide experiencing severe levels of persecution for their faith in Jesus.

Open Doors has reached out to the State Department and the National Security Council about this issue.

This is an opportunity for them to address something that hasnt been addressed, Curry said. We are hopeful and want to encourage them to step up and take significant steps to address this refugee issue.

World Relief is planning to send the new report to the office of Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Yang said she plans to raise the issue on Tuesday during the weekly international religious freedom roundtable meeting in Washington, D.C., and will discuss it with Brownback directly. The report will also be sent to staffers on the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Last year, Christian groups voiced their displeasure after the Trump administration announced another cut to the U.S. refugee resettlement ceiling after resettling 22,874 refugees in 2018.

The administration proposed a record-low ceiling of 18,000 refugees resettled to the U.S. in the fiscal year 2020. But to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis, the administration has further restricted refugee resettlement. The new report states that fewer than 7,600 refugees have been resettled to the U.S. in 2020 with just three months left to go in the fiscal year.

The resettlement program is "still largely halted, the report reads.

Both organizations believe that the refugee ceiling should be raised to an annual 95,000 refugees resettled to the U.S. per year, which is 2,000 refugees under the number resettled to the U.S. in 2016, the final year of Obamas presidency.

The U.S. government needs to have a strategy to help those people who are specifically targeted for their faith expression, Curry said. These people may need to have some sort of refugee status in the U.S. The fact that we sort of blanket block it is not a sufficient answer. Christians need to speak out on this issue.

The new report goes into detail and criticizes a series of policies enacted by the administration in recent years reinterpreting how U.S. asylum law is to be applied for those seeking to claim asylum at the border or upon entry into the U.S.

World Relief CEO Tim Breene said that a new rule proposed last month by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security effectively redefines what qualifies as persecution and reduces eligibility for asylum. The public comment period for the rule proposal ends July 15.

Proposed regulations change the standard for the evidence necessary to request a hearing before an immigration judge, Breene warned. They significantly redefine key terms, including what we mean by persecution. They severely restrict the opportunity to be granted asylum for any individual who transited through other countries. There are many places where people are persecuted who can only get here by transiting through other countries. This is really a further dramatic reduction in accessibility for those fleeing persecution.

Breene argued that it is possible to resettle refugees in the U.S. while also taking the precautions necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Open Doors USA, an influential evangelical organization whose annual World Watch List report is utilized by members of Congress, federal officials as well as churches nationwide, has largely been supportive of the U.S. governments drive under the Trump administration to prioritize issues of religious freedom.

The president even signed an executive order last month related to the topic of international religious freedom, which Curry praised in a later interview with The Christian Post.

This administration has been really exceptional in how it communicates on [international religious freedom]. At the same time, it has fallen down on this issue and those two things (asylum and refugee policies), he commented. It is not contrary for us to call out where the administration needs to step up and where Christians need to speak out on this issue. Frankly, some people can not safely stay in their countries.

Curry stressed that Open Doors is not a political group and is happy to work with both sides.

I have no problem applauding the way this State Department has addressed religious liberty. [But] this is a shortcoming. The secretary of state and others within the State Department need to recognize now, three years into this administration, that they have fallen down on this issue.  This is an opportunity for them and they need to step up. I think that is why this report is so important.
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Linkedin Manas Mishra (Reuters)  Wed, July 22, 2020 11:21 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066859c89 2 World Moderna,merck,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-vaccine,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Moderna Inc and Merck & Co on Tuesday told a US Congressional panel that they expect to profit from their coronavirus vaccines once approved, amid concerns the vaccines may not be accessible to all.

"We will not be selling our vaccine at cost, although it is premature for us as we're a long way from understanding the cost-basis," Julie Gerberding, chief patient officer for Merck, told the House of Representatives subcommittee on oversight and investigations in a virtual, off-site hearing.

Merck's has yet to begin human studies of its experimental vaccine, lagging the leading candidates.

Executives from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc testified that they will price their respective potential vaccines at no profit while the pandemic rages on.

Gerberding and a representative from Moderna did not comment on the price they have in mind for their vaccines at the hearing, which focused on efforts to develop a safe, effective and widely accessible vaccine against COVID-19, which has claimed 600,000 lives globally.

Pfizer Inc has said the company intends to make a profit from its potential coronavirus vaccine if approved. However, Pfizer Chief Business Officer John Young, testified: "We recognize that these are extraordinary times and our price will reflect that."

Unlike rivals Moderna and AstraZeneca, Pfizer has not received funding from the United States for its vaccine development.

Lawmakers questioned whether Pfizer had declined government funding so it could price the vaccine at a profit.

"We didn't access federal funding solely for the reason that we wanted to move the vaccine faster to the clinic," Young said.

AstraZeneca said its vaccine would be provided at no profit under its agreement with the United States for allocation of some 300 million doses.

More than 150 coronavirus vaccines using a variety of technologies are in development globally, with some two dozen already in human trials. The aim is to produce vaccines that can end the pandemic by protecting billions of people from infection or severe illness. Whether any will succeed or be available by the US government's stated goal of having one by late this year remains far from clear.

"Speed is important," Gerberding said of the vaccine development, "but we will not compromise scientific efficacy, quality, and above all, safety, despite the sense of urgency we all feel."
The Ram Temple trust has decided to invite all chief ministers to the foundation laying ceremony on August 5 at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to be present in person for laying the foundation stone on the occasion.

Earlier, a member of the trust had confirmed that invitations will be sent out to prominent figures associated with the Ayodhya Ram Temple movement including former deputy prime minister L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and Vinay Katiyar for the Bhoomi Poojan ceremony.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumars name was also mentioned by a member of the trust as possible invitees but there was no formal confirmation.

Before laying the foundation stone, PM Modi will offer prayers to Lord Ram at the temple and Lord Hanuman at Hanuman Garhi Temple. All chief ministers will be invited to the programme, Swami Govind Dev Giri, treasurer of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra said in Pune.

Shiv Sena has confirmed that Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray will attend the ceremony; however, the timing of the foundation stone laying ritual has invited criticism from opposition party leaders such as NCP chief Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Congress president Balasaheb Thorat.

Also Read: Uddhav will attend Ram Mandir ceremony: Raut

While Pawar suggested that building a Ram Temple was not going to help in mitigating the present crisis engendered by the coronavirus outbreak; Thorat accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of using the ceremony to distract from its alleged failures on Covid management front.

Another NCP leader had urged Thackeray to not attend the religious function alleging it was against propriety for someone holding a constitutional post in a secular democracy. However, the NCP had distanced itself from the comment.

Ram Temple trustee Govind Dev Giri also said that not more than 200 people including 200 invitees will be present for the function and social distancing norms will be followed during the ceremony.

According to an official of the trust quoted by PTI, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat will be among other important invitees apart from Advani, Joshi, Bharti and Katiyar, who are facing a trial in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

The Shiv Sena on Wednesday claimed that the dismissal of the Babri mosque demolition case before the ground-breaking ceremony for the Ram temple construction would be a true homage to martyrs of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

92-year-old LK Advanis statement is to be recorded through video conferencing in the case before a special CBI court on July 24.

Ram Mandir trust spokesperson Nritya Gopal Das said five silver bricks will be placed inside the sanctum sanctorum during the ceremony. The bricks are believed to symbolise five planets as per the Hindu mythology
William Craig Penglase, left, was reprimanded by the state Supreme Court's disciplinary board for leaking recordings of confessions made by Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Kratz in the grisly murders of four teens in Bucks County. Penglase, seen here in 2018, represented Kratz at the time. Read more

A Doylestown criminal defense attorney was publicly reprimanded by the state Supreme Courts disciplinary board on Wednesday, a little more than two years after he leaked key evidence in one of the most notorious crimes in Bucks County history.

In 2018, William Craig Penglase agreed to do an interview with NBC10, and provided the station with a recording of confessions made by his client Sean Kratz and Kratzs cousin Cosmo DiNardo. Penglase spoke to NBC10 just days before Kratz was expected to plead guilty for his role in murdering three men after luring them to a farm DiNardos family owned under the pretext of a drug deal.

DiNardo separately killed a fourth man, and tried to bury the bodies on the property.

Your decision to conduct an interview with the news media  prior to your clients guilty plea violated the ethical rules regarding competency, confidentiality and the administration of justice, board chair James C. Haggerty told Penglase during the proceedings Wednesday.

Haggerty said that Penglases belief that the tapes would not be made public before Kratzs plea was imprudent and irresponsible, and that the leak led to complex pretrial issues after Kratz made the unexpected decision to forgo his negotiated plea and put his fate in the hands of a jury.

The confessions detailed the slayings as told to two county detectives. Two television stations aired them on the same day that Kratz rejected the plea deal. DiNardo had already pleaded guilty to the four murders and was in state prison.

NBC10 aired excerpts of audio recordings of confessions that the cousins made in separate interviews. Fox29 also aired excerpts of the tapes.

Penglase admitted to Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub that he had leaked the footage, and filed a petition to be removed from Kratzs case. He was eventually replaced by Philadelphia lawyer A. Charles Peruto Jr.

In November, a jury found Kratz guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Dean Finocchiaro and voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of Thomas Meo and Mark Sturgis. Kratz is serving a life sentence without parole for Finocchiaros slaying at SCI Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania.

The videos Penglase leaked featured prominently in Kratzs trial, providing an exact retelling of the murders and hasty attempts to remove evidence by the men responsible.

In one recording, DiNardo described in a calm, matter-of-face tone shooting the men and trying to burn their bodies in a pig roaster.

"His head was split the hell open," DiNardo said in describing Finocchiaro's death.

Kratz also admitted to shooting Finocchiaro. He told investigators he had been afraid of DiNardo, and fired the gun when his cousin told him to.

I kinda was hesitant, Kratz said in the recording. I pulled the gun out. I aimed it in the air, closed my eyes and fired a shot.
Ryanair is to close its base at Frankfurt Hahn Airport, and bases at Berlin Tegel and Duesseldorf airports are likely to shut down at the end of the summer after German pilots rejected proposed pay cuts, the Irish airline said on Tuesday.

The moves, which will include an undisclosed number of pilot job cuts, come after a slight majority of German pilots voted against a proposed deal of savings that Ryanair said were required by COVID-19 disruption.

"We must move on with alternative measures to deliver savings, which regrettably will mean base closures and dismissals," Ryanair said in a memo to German pilots seen by Reuters.

The airline, Europe's largest low-cost carrier, said in the memo that 70% of its pilots across Europe had already accepted cuts to pay and conditions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Ireland, management bypassed the union and got pilots to accept the new conditions individually.

In Austria, Ryanair announced the closure of the Vienna base of subsidiary Lauda before doing a deal with some pilots to save it weeks later.

German union Vereinigung Cockpit, in a statement released before Ryanair announced the base closures, said it believed there was still scope to resolve the dispute.

"We are not giving up hope. The employer would be well advised to get back to the negotiating table quickly now," it said.

But it reiterated its opposition to the deal offered by Ryanair, saying the duration of the offered job security would have been until March 2021 whereas pay cuts were demanded until 2024.

Ryanair said it would stop basing planes at Frankfurt Hahn Airport from the start of November, with pilots at the base to receive letters with details of their notice period this week.

Pilots at Berlin Tegel and Duesseldorf "are likely to close" in advance of the winter season, with details to be provided next week, the statement said.

Once the closures have been completed, Ryanair will look to cut pilots based at Frankfurt, Cologne, Berlin Schoenefeld airports through a collective dismissal process.

Other cost-saving measures include changing rosters and freezing promotions and base transfers, it said. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Amid the ongoing border tensions with China, the three-day long Air Force Commanders Conference is scheduled to begin at Air Headquarters (Vayu Bhawan) in New Delhi on Wednesday (July 22).



The theme of the conference is "Indian Air Force in the Next Decade". Defence Minister Rajnath Singh would inaugurate the conference, which will also be attended by

Defence Secretary and Secretary Defence Production. Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, will chair the Air Force Commanders Conference.

According to IAF, furing the three day conference the commanders would take stock of the current operational scenario and deployments. The commanders will also discuss action for operational capability enhancement of the IAF in the next decade.

Sources said that one of the main agenda points during the conference would be about the situation on the borders with China and the forward deployments done by the force in the Eastern Ladakh and northern borders.

It is expected that the IAF top brass would also hold discussions over the rapid deployment and operationalisation of the Rafale aircraft arriving from France by July-end. Sources claimed that the top commanders of the IAF are scheduled to conduct a comprehensive review of the country's air defense system during the conference and will also discuss the possible deployment of the first fleet of Rafael fighter jets in the Ladakh region in view of the border dispute with China.

It is to be noted that ythe IAF has deployed almost all its front-line combat aircraft like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar, Mirage 2000 at key frontier IAF bases in East Ladakh and locations along the LAC. The IAF has also deployed Apache attack helicopters and Chinook helicopters to transport troops to various advance locations.
Dipesh J Shah, former chief executive officer of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, has been appointed chairman of a body that operates, maintains and improves Englands roads, tasked with delivering a 27 billion plan over five years, officials said on Wednesday.

Shah, who has extensive experience in public and private sectors, was born in India and raised in Uganda. He previously chaired several organisations including a power utility and the European industry association for solar. He has been selected head of Highways England following a competitive process.

Due to take up the role on September 1, Shah will be responsible for the delivery of the UK governments second five-year 27 billion road investment strategy that is expected to further improve the safety, reliability and connectivity of Englands strategic road network.

Roads minister Charlotte Vere said: This government is determined to build our way out of Covid-19, providing the infrastructure, jobs and skills needed to support our economy.

I am delighted that Dipesh Shah will be leading the Highways England team at this crucial time, delivering major projects that will really make a difference to communities across the country.

Shah, who was awarded the royal honour of OBE in 2007, has served on boards in the infrastructure, financial services and energy sectors, besides senior positions at BP, officials added.
For weeks, unsubstantiated social media posts have circulated accusing Gov. Phil Murphy of defying or even changing New Jerseys coronavirus restrictions so his daughter could have a big wedding. There was even a photo of an apparently random bachelorette party at a Jersey Shore bar that was offered as corroboration for the impending nuptials.

Murphy, unprompted, aimed to set the record straight Wednesday during his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton.

No, he said, his 20-year-old daughter isnt even engaged.

Theres insanity on social media sometimes, the governor said. Thats my daughter, who did not have a bachelorette party, is not engaged, and is not getting married this weekend. Just for the record, to all of you bozos out there who think otherwise.

The comments came when Murphy was asked at his latest COVID-19 briefing in Trenton about whether someone in his family is quarantining because of the pandemic. He said that is not the case but noted his daughter Emma Murphy, who is an undergrad student at the University of Virginia, would be subject to New Jerseys out-of-state travel quarantine advisory when she returns to school. Murphy said the advisory includes college students.

The governor then voluntarily let loose on the wedding accusations.

Versions of the rumor have percolated since June. But they grew earlier this month after Murphy raised limits on outdoor gatherings in New Jersey as the outbreak here continued to decline. The governor announced July 2 the state was increasing the states limit on outdoor gatherings to 500 people, while indoor gatherings would remain capped at 100 people, or 25% of a venues capacity.

Some on social media said without evidence that Murphy did so to allow for a large outdoor wedding. And a few right-leaning media outlets have amplified the accusations.

The innuendo became so widespread that the venue the wedding was allegedly booked at  the Park Savoy Estate in Florham Park  posted on Facebook earlier this month to say the rumors were false and patently untrue.

Then, when social media users claimed a blurry photo taken at the Beachcomber in Seaside Heights showed Murphys daughter celebrating her bachelorette party, the bars owner told New Jersey 101.5-FM it wasnt true.

And a woman wrote on Facebook that the photo was actually of her.

I was out enjoying my bachelorette weekend with my girls! she wrote. We were harassed by a man claiming I was the governors daughter and when we told him that I wasnt her he still continued to harass myself and my friends.

Wednesday was the first time Murphy publicly addressed the matter.

Emma is Murphys only daughter. He also has three sons.

Dad is the greatest title Ill ever hold. Wishing a happy #FathersDay to all the dads in New Jersey and across the world! pic.twitter.com/0WBRyZypgi  Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) June 21, 2020

The rumors may have sprung from two separate moments at Murphys briefings earlier in the year.

In April, another member of the administration, State Police Superintendent Patrick Callahan, said his daughters summer wedding had to be postponed because of the pandemic.

Later that month, Murphy lauded the Park Savoy Estate for donating meals to health-care workers during the pandemic. He noted at the time that the owners are dear friends and that hes dined there hundreds of times over the years.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

New Jersey on Wednesday reported 24 more deaths attributed to COVID-19 and 390 more positive tests.

The state has now reported 15,707 deaths  13,787 confirmed and 1,920 considered probable  with 177,645 confirmed cases since its first case was announced March 4.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.
Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The UK is trying to restore its long-lost Asian Empire in the aftermath of Brexit, mistakenly believing that its latest series of hostile moves against China is the key to turning this delusion into a reality. The island nation abandoned its former geopolitical identity as a European state upon leaving the EU, but instead of carving out an independent niche for itself as a balancing force in an increasingly multipolar world, it's decided to do the U.S. bidding by jumping on its "big brother's" bandwagon of "containing" China.

London's suspension of its extradition treaty with Hong Kong is the latest provocation against the People's Republic, which was supposedly made in response to the Special Autonomous Region's recent promulgation of new national security legislation but was likely a preplanned escalation in full coordination with Washington. The UK hopes to achieve several objectives in one fell swoop, though any so-called "success" that it reaps will only be illusory and the result of believing its own information warfare narratives.

The first goal that the UK expects to accomplish is to reinforce the U.S. claims that Hong Kong lost its autonomy. This is intended to portray China as "aggressive, expansionist, and untrustworthy" since London wrongly says that Beijing violated a prior agreement. By doing the U.S. bidding, the UK hopes that it'll improve its prospects of reaching a better free trade deal with the U.S. It also wants to attract attention to its new anti-Chinese policies, expecting that the country's prestige among its Western partners will rise after the Brexit embarrassment.

In addition, the UK thinks that this move will send a strong signal to the Asian states whose people have been exposed to never-ending anti-Chinese propaganda. In turn, they might come to think of the country as a reliable partner for "containing" China, which could increase its soft power appeal and make them more likely to support their governments' efforts to partner with the UK in pursuit of this shared US-backed objective. London hopes that it can then leverage these relationships to restore its lost "glory" through neo-imperialist means.

The U.S. is trying to create a network of anti-Chinese states in the region, and it seems to have promised the UK a small "piece of the pie" if it goes along with its efforts. Ever eager to distract its people from their post-Brexit economic uncertainty and the country's disastrous handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, the British leadership appears to have decided that the false veneer of a Trump-like "nationalist" foreign policy is the best possible option for fulfilling their self-interested goals by presenting themselves as a "challenger" to China.

There's no gentle way to say this, but the British government is becoming delusional nowadays. The country's economic standing is still impressive compared to many others, but it's nowhere near the same league as China's is. There's nothing that the UK can do to seriously "challenge/contain" China, but it and its Western Mainstream Media allies can attempt to manufacture the perception that the act of China responding to these aggressive moves somehow makes the UK regionally important. It doesn't, but they want others to think so.

The greatest problem with the UK's decision to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong is that the island nation might soon become a haven for all sorts of criminals from the Special Autonomous Region. In turn, China will be compelled to regularly call for their extradition and condemn the UK for refusing to comply. This will predictably generate headlines from time to time, thus keeping the issue in the news and allowing London to manipulate all of this for the purpose of presenting itself as an Asian power of regional importance.

Coupled with its renewed military interest in Southeast Asia, the UK hopes to signal to regional states under the U.S. influence that they should boost their ties with London in order to "balance" Beijing. All that the UK wants to do is take advantage of them as it's traditionally done while simultaneously distracting its own people from their many domestic problems, not least of which is that the country simply traded its dependence on Brussels for Washington after Brexit. Instead of restoring its Asian Empire, the UK actually became part of the American one.
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Royal Bank of Scotland will drop its 293-year-old name today in what chief executive Alison Rose called a 'symbolic moment'.

The bank will take on the moniker of its more popular brand Natwest as it attempts to draw a line under the rocky period following its 2008 taxpayer bailout.

But the lender's efforts to put its chequered past behind it are already approaching hurdles, amid warnings that the taxpayer is facing even heavier losses from its bailout than expected.

'Symbolic moment': Royal Bank of Scotland will drop its 293-year-old name today and take on the moniker of its more popular brand Natwest. Alison Rose (pictured) is its first female chief

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicted last week that the drawn-out sale of the Government's stake in RBS could be pushed back by at least another five years, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Market turbulence caused by the virus means the Treasury will not be able to re-start privatising RBS this year as planned, the OBR thinks.

And the taxpayer, which was already facing a 32billion loss on the bank's 45.5billion rescue during the financial crisis, will suffer even more due to the delays.

Fired: Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin ran RBS between 2001-2009

Along with setbacks to the sales of other smaller remnants of bust banks, the OBR predicts the postponement to RBS's re-privatisation will add 11.4billion to the national debt over the next five years.

The OBR's warning comes as RBS ditches the name it has held since 1727, in a bid to improve its reputation which was sullied in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

It is the latest step in a shake-up spearheaded by chief executive Rose, who took over last year.

She said: 'This is a historic day for our bank as we intend to change our name to Natwest Group plc.

'Although there will be no changes to our customer brands, it's a symbolic moment for our colleagues and stakeholders.

'The bank has changed fundamentally over the last decade and now is the right time to align our group name with the brand under which the majority of our business is delivered.'

Business was booming for RBS in the years leading up to 2008. Under the leadership of Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin  who earned his nickname for his ruthless cost-cutting  the bank went on an ill-advised acquisition spree.

After buying Churchill insurance, a string of US firms, and a minority stake in Bank of China, RBS's buying binge culminated in the takeover of ABN Amro in 2007.

This proved to be the final straw for the rapidly expanded lender, which by then was heavily exposed to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Just months later, its then-chairman Sir Tom McKillop called Alistair Darling, chancellor at the time, to tell him the bank would run out of money that afternoon.

A huge 45.5billion bailout followed, and even after selling down two chunks of shares in 2015 and 2018  accepting a loss of more than 3billion  the taxpayer still owns 62 per cent of RBS.

Its reputation took a further battering after the City regulator found that RBS's toxic Global Restructuring Group had brutally mistreated thousands of small businesses.

Rose is now attempting to give the bank a friendlier face, promising a renewed focus on small business customers and slimming down its investment bank.

And today RBS will announce the appointment of economist Lord Stern as an independent adviser on the effects of climate change.

Even so, in its 'central' or most-likely scenario, the OBR thinks the Government will have to wait for another two years before it can begin selling its shares in the bank again.

And in its worst-case scenario, this could extend beyond five years. When the Treasury does get round to selling its remaining stake in RBS, it will be at a heavy loss.

Even since March, when the OBR put out its Spring report predicting that the taxpayer would suffer a 32billion loss from the RBS bailout, shares have tumbled by almost 50 per cent.

The bank's stock is now trading at just under 122p, down from 502p at the time of the bailout.

Yesterday they were up 1.6 per cent, or 1.9p, to 121.35p.

Lord Mann, former chairman of Parliament's treasury committee, said: 'This overlapping from one crisis, banking, into another, the current one, is very unhealthy for the economy.

'We are taking quite a gamble on RBS maintaining its value  a beady eye must be kept on their top bankers.'
Dung shared orientations to promoting ASEAN+3 in the near future, highlighting a need to step up regional connectivity, tap achievements in digital technology in regional economic recovery, and improving the regional capacity to response to emerging challenges.

He also made known Vietnams proposal to issue an declaration of leaders at the 23rd ASEAN+3 Summit on improving economic-financial resilience amid emerging challenges.

On regional and global issues of shared concern, ASEAN+3 countries shared the importance of maintaining dialogues and cooperation, building trust, upholding international law, forming and sharing the standards of conduct in relations with nations so as to maintain a regional environment of peace and stability for prosperous development.

Participants committed to promoting regional economic linkage and striving to complete the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as scheduled.

The ASEAN suggested China, Japan and the RoK enhance coordination in the research and production of vaccines against COVID-19, as well as in regional common efforts to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.

On the evening the same day, Dung also chaired a meeting of senior officials of 18 countries attending the East Asia Summit.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. The US citizens have launched a petition urging to stop the US military aid and the USAID funding to Azerbaijan.

The petition has been opened at the White House official website.

Over $1.5 billion in American taxpayer money is being wasted funding an autocratic government which is ruled by an oil rich oligarch, Ilham Aliyev (President) and his wife (Vice-President). The money has been misappropriated and misused to cause regional wars, stated in the statement.

The petition organizers say Azerbaijani values do not align with the democratic values of the United States, nor provide any benefit for the people.

We, the American people, wish to stop full funding and assistance of Azerbaijan and to allocate this money elsewhere, such as funding and expanding Opportunity and Prosperity for Minorities, People of Color, Education and other government programs. Stop US military assistance and USAID funding to Azerbaijan, the statement added.

On June 20 the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed an amendment by Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ) which calls for greater Congressional oversight over a US military aid program under which Azerbaijan has received over $120 million in US defense assistance.
Pieces of limestone from a cave in Mexico may be the oldest human tools ever found in the Americas, and suggest people first entered the continent up to 33,000 years ago  much earlier than previously thought.

The findings, published Wednesday in two papers in the journal Nature, which include the discovery of the stone tools, challenge the idea that people first entered North America on a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and an ice-free corridor to the interior of the continent.

Precise archaeological dating of early human sites throughout North America, including the cave in Mexico, suggests instead that they may have entered along the Pacific coast, according to the research.

Ciprian Ardelean, an archaeologist with the Autonomous University of Zacatecas in Mexico, the lead author of one of the papers, said the finds were the result of years of careful digging at the Chiquihuite Cave in north-central Mexico.

The steeply-inclined cave is high on a mountainside and filled with crumbling layers of gravel: The deeper you go, the higher the risk for the walls to collapse, he said.

Image: Earliest Americans (Ciprian Ardelean)

The excavations paid off with the discovery of three deliberately-shaped pieces of limestone  a pointed stone and two cutting flakes  that may be the oldest human tools yet found in the Americas.

They date from a time when the continent seems to have been occupied by only a few groups of early humans  perhaps lost migrations that left little trace on the landscape and in the genetic record, Ardelean said.

The tools were found in the deepest layer of sediment they excavated, which dates from up to 33,000 years ago  long before the last Ice Age, which occurred between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago.

The commonly accepted time for the arrival of the first people in North America is about 16,000 years ago, and recent studies estimate it happened up to 18,000 years ago. But the latest discoveries push the date back by more than 10,000 years.

Ardelean said even reaching the cave was a challenge for the team.

Story continues

You have to live there and cook there, because it takes you a whole day to go back and forth from the town, and its a five-hour climb, he said. It is a logistical nightmare.

More tools were found in sediments laid down during and after the Ice Age, and indicate the cave was occupied for short periods over thousands of years, maybe by nomadic people who knew of it from ancestral legends.

Image: Earliest Americans (Devlin A. Gandy)

I think it was a refuge used occasionally and periodically, Ardelean said. Even if you never saw the site before, your grandparents had told you about it and there were indications when you got there.

The presence of stone tools from the Ice Age  known to archaeologists as the Last Glacial Maximum, or LGM  suggested people occupied the cave even before that.

Much of North America was then covered with thick ice sheets that would have made migrations impossible, he said: If you have people during the LGM, it is because they entered the continent before the LGM.

Lorena Becerra-Valdivia, an archaeological scientist at the University of Oxford and the University of New South Wales, and Thomas Higham, a radiocarbon dating specialist at the University of Oxford, compared the dates from the cave sediments with other archaeological sites in North America.

Their research indicates very small numbers of humans probably lived in parts of North America before, during and immediately after the last Ice Age, but the human population grew much larger after a period of abrupt global warming that began about 14,700 years ago.

The study also suggested some people had entered the Americas before 29,000 years ago, possibly along the Pacific coast, when the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska was completely or partially submerged, Becerra-Valdivia said.

Ardelean hopes archaeologists will now look for evidence of human occupation from the earliest dates proposed in the new studies.

He thinks stone tools and perhaps ancient human DNA from that time could be hidden beneath traces of the larger human population that lived in North America after the Ice Age.

Image: Earliest Americans (Mads Thomsen)

Instead of stopping digging when you reach a certain layer you need to go as deep as possible, because there are things down there, he said.

Other scientists are cautious about the implications of the new research.

Anthropologist Matthew Des Lauriers of California State University, San Bernardino, who was not involved in the studies, said they pushed the boundaries of knowledge about the earliest human arrival in the Americas.

But he questioned how ancient people who had been in the Americas for more than 25,000 years could have remained archaeologically invisible for over 10,000 years.

He said that archaeologists in Australia and Japan, for example, had no difficulty finding evidence of human occupation from that time.

Archaeologists in the Americas have either been doing things very wrong for the last 90 years, or we have here [an] anomaly that must be accounted for, he said.
Churches, community groups battle scorching heatwave to feed hundreds of Memphis families

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MEMPHIS  A smoldering heat index of 105 degrees did not deter Jordan Griffin and dozens of masked and socially distanced volunteers from serving in Memphis Wednesday to package and provide food and prayer to hundreds of hungry families in need during the pandemic.

Eastside Community Church is hosting a socially-distanced food drive that will continue weekly throughout the summer in partnership with the Mid-South Food Bank, and other churches and community members of various demographics.

The food bank delivers a truck with items depending on the quantity we feed, Griffin, Eastside Community Churchs youth mission leader, told The Christian Post. This is important because the virus has elevated the areas needs, which has surpassed the typical ability to fill the need.

Up to 500 households in the Memphis area receive food from them each week, according to Griffin. Those in need pick up food in a drive-thru where they're also offered prayer. Included with each food package is a paper that includes a Bible verse on one side and a church service information on the other side written in English and Spanish. Those receiving food can inform volunteers of their prayer requests, which are recorded and later prayed over in the volunteers prayer room.

Griffin said that the weekly program started in response to the pandemic. But he believes it might become an annual event.

According to Feeding Americas Map the Meal Gap Project, over 140,000 people in the Memphis area were already food insecure before the pandemic began.

Hunger is a worldwide, year-round pandemic and COVID only elevated that, Griffin told CP. Its easy to focus on the negative because people are dying and the racial injustice, but its encouraging to see the community help counterbalance that negativity on a local level.

Nearly 40 volunteers were present on Wednesday. Masked men, women and children worked together in an assembly line to get organized before the drive-thru opened.

Eastside Community Church member Shan Fite packaged peanut butter alongside high school student Zoey Daniels, who attends Harvest Church in Memphis.

Theres a definite need right now, especially with the virus happening, Daniels told CP. People deserve to have food in their pantry, especially the parents working all day.

According to the citys coronavirus update on Tuesday, active coronavirus cases increased by 410 in a single day after positive results came in following lab delays in processing due to increased testing and demand. Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland has also ordered bars to reclose, adding to the financial insecurity the lockdown has caused residents who continue to be out of work during the pandemic.

Eastside Community Church Senior Pastor Josiah Lawrence acknowledged the accelerated need for food in the area. He also said he's proud of the churches that have taken the opportunity to help and spread the hope of Christ.

It can be easy to tell people about Jesus, but showing and telling are like two wings on the airplane, Lawrence said. I think this has been a pretty cool way to do it.

The packaged food is available for any person with a photo I.D. Food packages are loaded into a persons vehicle by volunteers who are required to wear face masks and gloves and socially-distance.

The Mid-South Food Bank has also provided a mobile pantry at Eastside Community Church and offers food at other locations throughout West Tennessee and North Mississippi. The food bank is active year-round and has established safety precautions during COVID-19.

There is hope in the Gospel, but its hard to think about hope when youre hungry, Lawrence added. Jesus was clear and the pandemic kind of reminds us, we can become the ones in need overnight.
International expert in creativity and innovation, UniSA's Professor David Cropley, is calling for Australian schools and universities to increase their emphasis on teaching creativity, as new research shows it is a core competency across all disciplines and critical for ensuring future job success.

Conducted in partnership with visiting PhD researcher Kim van Broekhoven from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, the research explores the nature of creativity in determining if specific differences exist between creativity in the sciences and creativity in the arts.

The researchers found that creativity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is very similar to creativity in the arts, indicating that a holistic approach to teaching creativity in schools and universities, would benefit all.

UniSA's Professor David Cropley says the study provides a valuable insight into how education systems might assess and foster students' creative capabilities.

"The big change for education systems would be moving away from a rather fragmented and haphazard approach to teaching creativity, to a much more holistic and integrated approach," Prof Cropley says.

"To prepare the next generation for the future, we need to understand the gaps in the market - the human skills that computers, artificial intelligence and automation cannot achieve - and this is where creativity fits.

"Until this research, we didn't know whether creativity in STEM was the same as creativity in anything, or if there was something unique about creativity in STEM. If creativity was different in STEM - that is, it involved special attitudes or abilities - then we'd need to teach STEM students differently to develop their creativity.

"As it turns out, creativity is general in nature - it is essentially a multi-faceted competency that involves similar attitudes, disposition, skills and knowledge, all transferrable from one situation to another.

"So, whether you're in art, maths or engineering, you'll share an openness to new ideas, divergent thinking, and a sense of flexibility.

"This is great news for teachers, who can now confidently embrace and integrate heightened levels of creativity across their curriculum for the benefit of all students - whether STEM or arts based."

The study surveyed 2277 German undergraduate students aged 17 to 37 (2147 enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses; and 130 enrolled in art courses), to explore how creativity differed in terms of self-expression thoughts and perceptions.

In 2020, the World Economic Forum identified creativity to be as important as artificial intelligence in the jobs of the future.

Professor Cropley is currently working with Geelong Grammar School (VIC), Trinity College (SA), and Glenunga International High School (SA) to further embed creativity into their schools.

Coordinator of Creativity and Innovation, Centre for Creative Education at Geelong Grammar School, Dr Tim Patston, says we cannot underestimate the importance of creativity in a digital world.

"Students in the 21st century must be open to the amazing diversity of possibilities available to them in further education and careers when they leave school. And, while every student will create their own unique path, a solid and common grounding that embraces creativity is essential," Dr Patston says.

"Working with the University of South Australia, we've been able to truly embrace creativity as a core competency to ensure that our students not only succeed, but flourish."

###

Notes to Editors

* For a copy of the study, Differences in Creativity Across Art and STEM Students: We Are More Alike than Unalike, please contact Professor David Cropley.

Media contact: Annabel Mansfield office: +61 8 8302 0351 mobile: + 61 417 717 504

email Annabel.Mansfield@unisa.edu.au

Researcher: Professor David Cropley office: +61 8 8302 3301 email: David.Cropley@unisa.edu.au
The latest round of testing this month found less than 1% percent of residents and employees recently tested in New Jerseys long-term care facilities were infected with the coronavirus, evidence that we have learned some painful lessons and the Garden State is as ready as any state is in America should a second wave of disease strike, Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday.

When the state Department of Health told facility operators to begin routine testing in late May, 6% of nursing home residents and 3% of staff were positive for the virus, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said at the states latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton.

The most recent round of screening found less than 1% of 68,000 residents and 111,000 employees tested were infected, according to Department of Health spokesman Dawn Thomas.

But we need to remain vigilant because we still have active outbreaks in more than 360 facilities, Persichilli said.

An outbreak is defined by one or more new cases of the disease, she said. An outbreak is considered active until there are no new cases inside the facility for four weeks  the equivalent of two incubation periods, according to Edward Lifshitz, medical director for the state Department of Healths Communicable Disease Service.

We need to keep the presence of the disease in our community out of our long-term care facilities, Persichilli said.

The death rate from the coronavirus in New Jersey nursing homes is the countrys highest. Some 6,665 nursing home residents and 118 employees have died in the pandemic, and the numbers continue to climb as COVID-19 has run rampant in nursing homes.

An NJ Advance Media report in May outlined numerous ways in which the New Jerseys response to the virus sweeping through nursing homes lagged behind other states. State lawmakers have called for public hearings, although none has been scheduled.

The low positivity rate inside long-term care centers was among a number of factors the Murphy administration touted during its routine briefing Wednesday to highlight its work controlling the outbreak.

Taking recommendations from a report by consultant Manatt Health, the state Health has created a long-term care operations center to manage future emergencies, Persichilli said. The center staff will work directly with facilities to monitor and oversee staffing levels, personal protective equipment supplies, as well as outbreaks, the commissioner said.

One of the requirements for nursing homes to reopen is the ability of facilities to conduct weekly COVID-19 testing of the workforce, Persichilli said. That amounts to 90,000 tests per week, she said.

To date, long-term care facilities have run 230,000 tests on residents, and 367,000 on employees, the commissioner said.

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The Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend employees get tested weekly because they are the ones most likely bringing in the virus from home or the community, Liftshitz said. The only residents who were tested again this month were those who were negative for COVID-19 in May, he said.

Since April, the health department also completed inspections at 449 facilities, focused on infection control violations only, and reduced a backlog of 4,000 complaints to about 400, Persichilli said.

With nearly 50% of all COVID-19 fatalities in the state long-term care residents, Murphy said, We have learned some painful lessons.

When asked whether New Jersey is prepared for a second wave of the virus, he said We are as ready as any state is in America. While we hope for the best, we prepare for the worst.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.



NJ Advance Media staff writer Ted Sherman contributed to this report.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
San Antonio has gotten to know Ming Qians food at the Pearl Farmers Market and through her catering at Mings Thing and at Mings Noodle Bar inside a converted train car in Olmos Park. Later this summer, fans will have another opportunity to experience the shops Asian steamed buns, hot and cold noodle bowls, sliders and more when Qian opens another location near the Pearl.

Called simply Mings, the new spot from Qian and her husband, chef Hinnerk von Bargen, is scheduled to open at 914 E. Elmira St. in mid- to late August, Qian said. Its in the same Midtown Commons shopping center as the second location of the Southtown juice bar Squeezers, also set to open this summer.

The Midtown space is bigger, so Qian plans to expand the menu to include more protein options, with appetizers like chicken wings and the Japanese curries she fell in love with during a trip to Osaka last year. The curries will start with a vegan curry gravy base, with options to add Japanese kabocha squash or fried chicken tonkatsu.

Its been a long, strange trip for the new Mings, conceived last year before the COVID-19 pandemic. But Qian said the space already had been leased and 50 percent built when the pandemic hit, and she relished the chance to operate from a kitchen custom-built to her specifications.

Besides, she said, I dont have the option of holding out. The pandemic has slowed the catering business of Mings Thing to a crawl, Qian said, and they returned only recently to the Pearl Farmers Market on Saturdays. But Qian said her customers have supported Ming;s Noodle Bar, and business has built back slowly to about 70 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

On ExpressNews.com: Southtown juice bar Squeezers will open second S.A. spot near the Pearl this summer

Like Mings Noodle Bar, the new Mings will be limited to takeout until the pandemic subsides, with customers allowed to sit at tables outside after they get their food.

Qian plans to add Sunday brunch later on, including a Singapore specialty called kaya toast, made like a grilled cheese sandwich with coconut custard in place of cheese, served with a coddled egg for dipping. Its a dish Qian discovered when her husband, a chef instructor at the Culinary Institute of America, San Antonio, helped open the CIA campus in Singapore.

I fell in love with the first bite, she said.

Mings, 914 E. Elmira St., 210-600-4083 and 210-600-4133; will be open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Mings Noodle Bar, 5253 McCullough Ave. at The Yard, 210-570-6318. mingsthing.com.

Mike Sutter is a food and drink reporter and restaurant critic in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Mike, become a subscriber. msutter@express-news.net | Twitter: @fedmanwalking | Instagram: @fedmanwalking
TORONTO, CANADA - We have known for decades that mental health plays an important role in one's quality of life, but a study released this week suggests it is also an important factor in one's quantity of life.

A new University of Toronto study that followed 12,424 adult Canadians from the mid-1990s until 2011 found that those who were in suboptimal mental health at the beginning of the study died, on average, 4.7 months earlier than their peers who were in excellent mental health.

The study took into account the 'usual suspects for premature mortality' including the respondents' functional limitations; health behaviors, such as smoking, heavy drinking and physical activity level; physical diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and chronic pain; and social support at baseline.

"Ever after fully adjusting for these risk factors, we still found that those with suboptimal mental health at the beginning of the study had a 14% higher risk of all-cause mortality over the 18 years of the study," says Esme Fuller-Thomson, lead author of the study. Fuller-Thomson is Director of the University of Toronto's Institute for Life Course and Aging and Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

A dichotomous flourishing indicator was created to identify people who were happy and satisfied with life and had good psychological functioning at baseline (in 1994 and 1995), in contrast to those with suboptimal mental health.

"The flourishing scale we developed set a very high bar," reports Yu Lung, a doctoral student at the FIFSW.

In 1994 and 1995, 81% of the sample were flourishing and 19% were in suboptimal mental health.

"The findings of this Canadian study are in keeping with my previous research in the US, where I found that baseline suboptimal mental health was associated with higher 10-year mortality," says co-author Corey L.M. Keyes, Professor of Sociology at Emory University in Atlanta.

Unfortunately, the study's secondary data analysis did not have sufficient information to understand why excellent mental health is associated with longer life.

"We have several hypotheses that we would like to investigate in future research," says co-author Keri J. West, a doctoral candidate at the FIFSW. "Previous research has found that positive affect is associated with lower levels of cortisol, reduced inflammation, and better cardiovascular activity. Furthermore, individuals with high levels of mental well-being are more likely to consume nutritious foods, adhere to treatment regimens, maintain strong social ties, and have better sleep quality, which may contribute to longevity."

In addition to mental health, the researchers looked at other factors at baseline that were associated with premature mortality.

"As expected, modifiable risk factors, including smoking, heavy drinking, and infrequent physical activity, were associated with a higher probability of all-cause mortality," reports co-author Philip Baiden, Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington. "Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and high blood pressure were associated with a higher probability of death over the follow-up period."

The researchers examined data from a nationally representative sample of 12,424 respondents aged 18 years and older in the Canadian National Population Health Survey. Participants were first interviewed in 1994 and 1995 (wave 1) and then were followed until 2010 and 2011 (wave 9). Mortality data was ascertained by the Canadian Vital Statistics-Death Database in wave 9. By the end of the study period, 2,317 of the participants had died. This research was published online ahead of press this week in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research.

"The association between suboptimal mental health and premature death is a robust relationship that is independent of health conditions, pain, functional limitations, and negative health behaviors at baseline," says Fuller-Thomson. "Our findings underline the importance of considering the mind and body as a true continuum."

###

Fuller-Thomson, E., Lung, Y., West, KJ, Keyes, CLM, Baiden, P. (2020). Suboptimal baseline mental health associated with 4-month premature allcause mortality: Findings from 18 years of follow-up of the Canadian National Population Health Survey Journal of Psychosomatic Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110176.

For more information please contact:

Prof. Esme Fuller-Thomson

Professor & Sandra Rotman Endowed Chair

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work &

Institute for Life Course & Aging

University of Toronto

Cell: 416-209-3231

Email: esme.fuller.thomson@utoronto.ca

A copy of the paper is available to credentialed journalist upon request.
A father-of-two who sent money to Turkey on behalf of another person has been jailed for 18 months for money laundering.

Atilla Tasgin (41) was provided with just under 10,000 to be transferred over the course of seven years by a man referred to by gardai as the provider.

Tasgin of Main Street, Leixlip, Co Kildare, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to four counts of removing from the State the proceeds of criminal conduct at various addresses in north Dublin on dates between June 17, 2013 and April 5, 2018.

He also pleaded guilty to two counts of transferring the proceeds of criminal conduct at unknown locations in the State on December 3, 2018 and January 21, 2019. He has no previous convictions.

Detective Garda Deirdre Ryan told Eoghan Cole BL, prosecuting, that in July 2018 an investigation commenced into money laundering and certain related matters. Tasgin was not initially a target of the investigation.

Det Gda Ryan said Tasgin was residing at the address of the person who provided him with money to be transferred when it was searched by gardai in January 2019. The accused told gardai that the provider was the landlord of the apartment and that he was living there rent free.

Following further investigations, it was discovered that Tasgin was engaged in sending money to Turkey on behalf of the provider.

In interview with gardai, Tasgin admitted that he knew the money was the proceeds of criminal conduct as he knew the provider was in receipt of social welfare while also working. He accepted he knew that sending the funds out of the country was money laundering.

Det Gda Ryan agreed with Keith Spencer BL, defending, that his client was not involved in the social welfare fraud. She agreed that Tasgin did not receive money for taking part in the offences, but instead received favours from the provider.

Mr Spencer said his client sent a sum just shy of 10,000 during various transactions on behalf of the provider over the course of seven years. He said his client's wife and two children are currently residing with his mother in Turkey.

Judge Elma Sheahan sentenced Tasgin to two years and three months in prison but suspended the final nine months of the sentence having taken into account the fact that he co-operated with the garda investigation and he had no previous convictions.

She accepted that although Tasgin received favours in term of living rent free and some of his bills being paid, he did not receive any cash for transferring the funds. She noted that he acknowledged that he knew what he was doing.

He was at all times aware they were commissions of a fraud and he was close to the individual who he was acting for, Judge Sheahan said referring to the money transfers Tasgin made, before she accepted that he was not involved in the fraud itself.
Kangana Ranaut has been one of the most vocal celebrities in the aftermath of Sushant Singh Rajput's death. As she rekindled her crusade against nepotism in Bollywood in the wake of his death, it was speculated that the actress would be also among those whose statement would be recorded by the investigating policemen in Mumbai.

The actress has been living out the lockdown at her home in Manali. She hasn't received any summon from Mumbai Police so far. Her team has just put out a tweet that she wants to record her statement, but there hasn't been any formal request from the police so far.

"There is no formal summon sent to Kangana, Rangoli keeps getting casual calls from the cops for past 2 weeks, Kangana wants to record statement but we dont get any response from @mumbaipolice, Heres a screen shot of message Rangoli ji sent to @mumbaipolice," the handle called Team Kangana Ranaut tweeted.

The Mumbai Police has been investigating the case in an attempt to find out what led to the actor's suicide on June 14. His death reignited the nepotism debate, and several people from the film industry have been questioned so far to see if the actor was a victim of lobbying and bias.

The police are investigating allegations that professional rivalry, besides clinical depression, drove the actor to suicide.

Yash Raj Films head honcho Aditya Chopra recorded his statement on Saturday. Before that, the police had recorded statements of 34 persons, including Sushant's family members and close friends like actors Rhea Chakraborty and Sanjana Sanghi, in connection with the case.

Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on Friday dismissed the need for a CBI probe into the death case of Rajput, saying the Mumbai police are capable of handling the matter.
(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. reported slowing growth in its Azure cloud-computing business, failing to match lofty investor predictions for a continued boom in demand for internet-based services during the coronavirus outbreak.

Azure revenue rose 47% in the quarter ended June 30, missing analysts predictions for a 49% gain and notably lower than the 59% jump of the prior quarter. Shares slipped about 2.4% in extended trading. Overall, sales rose 13% to $38 billion, the software maker said Wednesday in a statement. Analysts polled by Bloomberg on average estimated $36.5 billion.

Some of the bulls were hoping for more of a beat, said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

The results showed subscriptions and cloud programs like Office and Azure continuing to grow along with remote work -- but not enough for some investors, who have bid up tech companies stocks on expectations that the pandemic would have benefits for their businesses. Corporate customers have been signing up for Microsofts Office productivity software to get programs like the Teams communications app, and have been accelerating transitions to services like Azure as they rely more on sprawling workforces that are unable to travel or come into offices.

Investors pushed Microsofts stock 29% higher in the June quarter. Ives noted that some were looking for Azure growth of as much as 55%. The shares, which had risen 1.4% to $211.75 Wednesday in New York trading, fell as low as $204.52 in extended trading.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, net income was $11.2 billion, or $1.46 a share, including a 5-cent charge Microsoft took for closing its retail stores, compared with estimates of $1.36 a share.

Commercial cloud revenue rose 30% to $14.3 billion. Margins for the business widened by 1% to 66%. Those numbers also represented a less rosy picture than the previous quarter, when commercial cloud revenue rose 39% and margins improved by 4%.

Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said the Azure numbers met the companys expectations, and commitments to the business -- which lets customers rent computing power from Microsoft servers via the internet -- in the form of bookings and future revenue were better than Microsoft projected.

Story continues

I feel pretty optimistic about where we are, Hood said. Given the future interest, the company will continue to invest significantly in cloud data centers. In the fourth quarter, the company had $5.8 billion in capital expenditures, after constraints on equipment purchases in the March quarter damped spending and caused cloud-capacity issues. Hood told analysts on a conference call to expect a similar level of spending in the current quarter.

As the company contends with faltering economic growth and the pandemic, Microsoft will continue to invest, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said on the call.

Im not trying to match some artificial double-digit growth number, nor are we trying to think about some margin target, Nadella said. The world will come out of this, and we will come out stronger if we invest during this phase.

Economic weakness is hitting other parts of Microsofts business. On Monday, the companys LinkedIn professional-networking unit said it would cut 960 jobs, or about 6% of its workforce, because few companies are hiring. Revenue at LinkedIn gained 10% in the June period, Microsoft said Wednesday.

One-time purchases of software have also been curtailed, which caused the companys Productivity software unit to fall slightly short. Revenue was $11.8 billion, compared with an $11.9 billion average estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg. Consumers bought more subscriptions for cloud-based versions of Office, but that revenue gets recorded over time, instead of the immediate sales bump from individual purchases of a copy of Office.

A lot of that gets recognized in future quarters, Hood said. Thats probably remote work and learn demand showing itself in subscriptions, which is a good thing.

That issue will persist into the current quarter. Hood forecast revenue for the Productivity division will range from $11.65 billion to $11.9 billion, below the $12.16 billion average estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Windows software for personal computers and Surface devices continued to sell well, with demand fueled by workers who need better gear at home. That was especially strong in April because devices were in short supply the previous quarter, Hood said.

Another part of Microsofts business benefiting from homebound customers is gaming. Revenue from Xbox games and services jumped 65% in the quarter. Hood reiterated that the companys newest Xbox console is running on time for a holiday-season release.

(Adds CEOs comments in 10th paragraph.)

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President Muhammadu Buhari will on Thursday depart for Bamako, Republic of Mali, on a one-day visit. This will be the presidents ...





President Muhammadu Buhari will on Thursday depart for Bamako, Republic of Mali, on a one-day visit.





This will be the presidents first trip out of the country after Nigeria recorded its first COVID-19 case on February 27.





The presidents last known trip abroad was on February 7 when he travelled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the 33rd ordinary session of heads of state and government of the African Union.





Wedenesday, Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, said the trip to Mali follows the briefing of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, special envoy of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to Mali. In a statement onWedenesday, Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, said the trip to Mali follows the briefing of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, special envoy of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to Mali.

Jonathan was appointed by the ECOWAS to lead its mediation team to help resolve the socio-political tension Mali.





Jonathan had visited Buhari on Tuesday and had filled in the president on his activities as special envoy to restore amity to Mali.





The Nigerian President and some ECOWAS leaders led by the chairman of the authority of heads of state and government of the sub-regional organisation, President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger Republic, agreed to meet in Mali to engage in further consultations towards finding a political solution to the crisis in the country, the statement said.





Host President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Presidents Machy Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Alassane Ouattara of Cote dIvoire are expected to participate in the Bamako meeting.





Buhari on the unfolding situation in Mali, necessitating the visit of ECOWAS leaders to consolidate on the agreements reached by various parties. Jonathan was at the statehouse in company of Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, president of ECOWAS commission, on Tuesday to briefBuhari on the unfolding situation in Mali, necessitating the visit of ECOWAS leaders to consolidate on the agreements reached by various parties.





There is currently an uprising against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali, who has spent two out of the five years second term in office.





A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the constitutional court must be dissolved, and the president resign, before peace can return to the country.





The crisis had erupted after the court nullified results of 31 parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of Keita.





On July 10, riots led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, hence the intervention of ECOWAS.




The rents are there, the labors there, James Breeze told me recently. Hes the head of industrial and logistics research for the real estate data firm CBRE. The Central Valley is going to be the distribution hub for Northern California, Oregon and inland states for the foreseeable future.

Fresnos mayor, Lee Brand, said in an emailed statement that e-commerce distribution centers were a critical part of efforts to diversify the areas economy as it struggles to achieve the economic success enjoyed by its wealthier neighbors along the California coast.

Warehouses, he said, bring opportunities for residents who dont have college educations.

Their next step could be buying a house or using education benefits offered by Amazon, for instance, to attend college, he said. Maybe it improves the lives of their children, allowing them to become the first in the family to earn a degree.

But for residents and community organizers, the warehouses are harbingers of the same problems they say have followed them in the Inland Empire: Pollution and traffic that disproportionately hurt poor communities of color, promises of economic mobility without follow-through and thousands of physically demanding jobs that are at risk of being automated, even if they come with benefits.

And the pandemic has made it more difficult to push back against plans to allow that kind of development in neighborhoods that are already vulnerable.

Cities across California are fighting for these, said Grecia Elenes, a senior policy advocate with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, an advocacy organization based in Fresno that has opposed city plans to attract industrial development. Its to the point where no ones benefiting except the company itself  all on the backs of low-income communities, and communities of color.
Toby Antony By

Express News Service

KOCHI: The NIA probe into the smuggling of gold through the diplomatic channel has found that the accused were attempting to sneak in maximum quantity during the lockdown. This was stated in a report filed at the NIA court here on Tuesday.As per the report, Sandeep Nair confessed that K T Rameez of Malappuram asked him to make the most of the pandemic situation.Sandeep Nair stated that Rameez insisted on smuggling gold in large quantities during lockdown as the financial position of the country is weak. Rameez commands, always moves with a group of persons and has contacts abroad, the report stated. NIA will arraign Rameez, who masterminded the smuggling of gold through diplomatic baggage, as an accused soon.

Customs, which arrested Rameez last week, received his custody for five days. It was revealed that the gang smuggled 27kg of gold on June 24 and 26 through the same channel.NIA in its report said a Digital Video Record (DVR) was recovered from one of the houses taken on rent by Sandeep. The DVR contains details of meetings of the accused as part of hatching a conspiracy to smuggle gold. The DVR was seized and submitted before the court.

Swapna invested proceeds of crime in banking channels

After the smuggled gold was seized in Thiruvananthapuram on July 5, second accused Swapna Suresh and Sandeep moved to Ernakulam. Swapnas family which accompanied her, stayed at four different locations in Ernakulam before moving to Bengaluru on July 8. They were arrested by the NIA team from a hotel at Bengaluru on July 11.Swapna revealed to NIA that conspiracy to smuggle gold was hatched at different locations, including Thiruvananthapuram. They received the proceeds of crime in cash from Sarith.

Swapna disclosed that the proceeds of the crime have been invested with various banking and non-banking channels, including safe deposit lockers in banks. The details of accounts have been collected and investigation on the disclosure is in progress, stated the report.

NIA in its report stated that six mobile phones and two laptops were seized from Swapna. WhatsApp details of other accused persons and UAE diplomats were retrieved from the phones. Some of the chats were found deleted and were retrieved with the help of experts from C-DAC. Swapna also volunteered to give details of her Gmail, Facebook, Telegram and Instagram accounts. The accounts have been extracted and contain huge data. The extraction of data from Gmail account is still under way as it contains several files.

Swapna invested money in banks, other channels

Swapna disclosed that the proceeds of the crime have been invested with various banking and non-banking channels

NIA officials take Sarith P Sto Thiruvananthapuram for evidence collection

UDF leaders allege Swapna reached the house of industrialist Kiran Marshal near Cherthala while on the run which he refuted
A 41-year-old Connecticut state police trooper is facing benefits fraud charges after authorities allege he earned $47,000 from a T-shirt printing business while out of work on disability.

Trooper First Class Kevin Moore, of Moosup, was charged with fraudulent claim or receipt of benefits and first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community, the Division of Criminal Justice said Wednesday.

Moores arrest warrant claims he sustained a back injury in July 2019 while working as a state trooper, the state agency said in a press release.

A physician placed him on temporary total disability, essentially wage replacement benefits paid by the employer's workers' compensation insurance carrier, which in this case is the state of Connecticut, while the claimant is unable to perform any type of work due to a work-related injury or illness, the agency said.

Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice / Contributed photo

Moore was placed under surveillance from November last year to this February to see if he was exceeding the work limits imposed by his disability.

It was determined that while out on workers' compensation benefits from his job as a state trooper, Moore owned and ran a T-shirt silk screening business, Four82 Designs, for which he received payment for T-shirts he supplied, the press release said.

The surveillance by an insurance claims adjustment firm found Moore had earned around $47,000 that he was not entitled to, the release said.

The Connecticut State Police media relations unit said Moore has been employed by state police since 2004. He has most recently been assigned to Troop K in Colchester.

The Professional Standards Unit will review the facts and circumstances regarding the allegations against TFC Moore, the unit said in an email Wednesday. Based upon the findings of the internal affairs investigation, he will be held accountable for his non-police related actions accordingly.

The unit said the off-duty conduct alleged to have occurred by TFC Moore has severe consequences.

Moore was released on a written promise to appear in court. He is due in state Superior Court in Hartford on July 30.
DALLAS, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BenefitMall , the leading provider of next generation broker services, is proud to announce two of its team members have been elected to serve in compliance leadership roles within the National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU). Notably, BenefitMall's director of compliance and government affairs, Misty Baker, will join NAHU's legislative council. NAHU is a well-respected, nonprofit organization that focuses on the mutual business interests of professionals who sell health insurance services.

Baker will be a part of NAHU's legislative council as a member for 2020-2021. She will transition into the vice-chair role for 2021-2022 and the chair role for 2022-2023. Baker will assist the legislative council by providing strategic guidance to NAHU's board of trustees, in addition to promoting communication about NAHU's legislative policy among its members and chapters.

"BenefitMall has consistently provided key insights and valuable leadership to our organization," said Janet Trautwein, executive vice president and chief executive officer for NAHU. "We appreciate the company's commitment to working on our shared goals. We are excited to welcome two of BenefitMall's team members to these prestigious roles and we look forward to accomplishing great things together."

Dave Mordo, a compliance specialist for BenefitMall, was elected as the regional vice president for region two of NAHU. He previously served as the legislative council's chairman for the last three years. Mordo's vision for NAHU is to further evolve the association to prioritize transparency and provide all-encompassing outreach to those who work in various sectors of the industry.

"Misty and Dave both play a significant role in the compliance division of our company, and we are very pleased to see their value recognized in leadership positions with NAHU," said Bob Love , president of the benefits division for BenefitMall. "With Misty's industry insights she will be able to provide key recommendations as the healthcare industry enters uncharted territory. Simultaneously, Dave's vast employee benefits knowledge will continue to help provide critical guidance to the organization."

About BenefitMall

Headquartered in Dallas, BenefitMall partners with a network of 20,000 brokers to deliver employee benefits to more than 200,000 small and medium-sized businesses. With a dedicated focus on the broker community, BenefitMall leverages innovative technology backed by human expertise to provide the very best in broker services nationwide. Through a network of brokers and carriers, BenefitMall delivers efficient, secure digital benefits solutions.

Owned by Management and The Carlyle Group, BenefitMall also operates HealthCareExchange.com, the leading online community for health care reform and compliance. More information is available at www.benefitmall.com .

About NAHU

The National Association of Health Underwriters represents 100,000 professional health insurance agents and brokers who provide insurance for millions of Americans. NAHU is headquartered in Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.nahu.org .

SOURCE BenefitMall

Related Links

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Attacking China for its aggressive moves against its neighbours, including "instigating" a deadly confrontation with India in eastern Ladakh, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Beijing cannot threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. Speaking at a news conference in London on Tuesday, Pompeo said China was one of the important parts of his discussions with his British counterpart Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

You can't go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You can't threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. You can't engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organisation, Pompeo said.

Pompeo's comment on Chinese bullying of its Himalayan neighbours came in response to a question if the US would like the UK to do more to confront China.

I dont think about it that way; we dont think about it that way. We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order, he said. We talked about how we've seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed. We've watched the CCP bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India, Pompeo said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5. The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead. China recently staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council and opposed funding to the project. China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The discussions between Pompeo and Raab came hours after the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to a controversial security law imposed by China in the former British territory. He praised the UK for its recent decision on China in particular those related to Hong Kong and banning Huawei from the UK's 5G networks.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the British government for its principled responses to these challenges. You made a sovereign decision to ban Huawei from future 5G networks. You've joined other free nations to condemn China's broken promises on the Sino-British treaty, he said.

The US wants to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy and values that and knows that it is important to their own people, their own sovereign country to be successful, to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them and to work both themselves and collectively to restore what is rightfully theirs, he said. Describing his meeting with Raab as productive, Pompeo said that they talked about the challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the COVID-19 virus that originated from Wuhan, China.

"On behalf of the American people, I want to extend my condolences to the British people for your losses from this preventable pandemic. The CCP's exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi (Jinping) has shown the world the partys true face," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, during his interaction with London-based think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, described the Chinese military's aggressive activities "destabilising" and said America was "very closely" monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

Esper also highlighted the "increased" military cooperation with India and called it as "one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century." In his address, Esper said China has a catalogue of bad behaviour which accompanies a pattern of its brazen disregard for international commitments, from its failure to uphold its obligations under the World Trade Organization to regularly disrespecting the rights of other nations under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. Esper called on China's leaders to abide by the international laws and norms that China and the Chinese people have benefited greatly from over the years.
One of the most anticipated films of the year - Gangubai Kathiawadi, has been making a lot of buzz ever since it was announced. We all are aware of Sanjay Leela Bhansalis virtuosity as a filmmaker and when you pair that up with Alia Bhatts acting chops, youre bound to be treated with something special.









Now, we hear that television star Shantanu Maheshwari, who has made his name with hit shows like Dil Dosti Dance, Fear Factor and many more has now bagged the lead role opposite Alia Bhatt in the film. The choreographer-actor has been quite popular on the small screen and is now looking forward to making his entry into Bollywood with a bang. We still are awaiting official confirmation from either of the parties involved, however. So hold your horses, guys.









Gangubai Kathiawadi is based on Hussain Zaidi's book 'Mafia Queens of Mumbai'. The drama will also reportedly feature Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi in pivotal roles.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has renewed the designation of Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U) as a Comprehensive Cancer Center, the highest federal rank possible for a cancer research organization. This grant awards HCI more than $29 million over seven years, an increase of 84% in annual funding from the previous award cycle.

The renewal of its Comprehensive Cancer Center designation is the result of an extensive grant application and review process that culminated with an on-site visit by a team of national cancer research and care experts in fall 2019. HCI earned a near-perfect overall score, placing it within the highest-possible exceptional score category that signifies virtually no weaknesses in the organization's research efforts. HCI's overall score is the best in the history of the cancer center.

This prestigious award is a testament to HCI's longstanding commitment to conduct life-saving research and how our teams, right here in Utah, are having an impact on improving cancer outcomes in the Mountain West and across the world. We are immensely grateful to the NCI for this renewal, which highlights the exceptional performance of our team of scientists, faculty, staff, and administrators. It will allow us to accelerate and advance our work to improve the health of our communities and ease the cancer burden for all." Cornelia Ulrich, PhD, executive director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at HCI, principal investigator of the grant

The Comprehensive Cancer Center recognition provides funding to support HCI's cancer research programs and research resources to enable cutting-edge scientific discovery. In its review, NCI cited that "HCI has demonstrated an exceptional cancer focus, high level of translational science, and exceptional population science impacting the state of Utah and the vast Mountain West region of the United States."

"Huntsman Cancer Institute was established with a vision to eradicate cancer," said Mary Beckerle, PhD, CEO of HCI. "More than twenty years later, our vision remains singular as we work toward delivering a cancer-free frontier through scientific discovery and human touch. As we celebrate this remarkable achievement, we reinforce our pledge to bring science-powered medicine, linked to compassionate human connection through collaboration and partnership at all levels."

The U of U obtained Cancer Center status in 1986. In 2015, HCI was elevated to Comprehensive Cancer Center designation, the highest level possible. This Comprehensive designation recognizes a cancer center's ongoing accomplishments and worldwide impact in improving cancer prevention, screening, and treatment strategies. Renewal of its Comprehensive designation maintains HCI's place among a peer group of national cancer research and treatment centers that include MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, among others.

Since its last NCI review in 2015, HCI has recruited more than 70 new cancer researchers. HCI oversees the work of more than 200 cancer research teams drawn from 34 academic departments and nine colleges at the U of U. HCI's research impact in the last five years includes increasing the annual number of externally funded cancer research projects by 57% and more than doubling the number of patients participating in clinical trials based on HCI science that test news ways to improve the treatment of cancer. "A key asset at HCI is that we partner with our patients to inform our cancer research strategy," said Ulrich. "More than 95% of HCI patients volunteer to participate in research, making a true difference for those affected by cancer in the future."

In addition, HCI invested in training for underrepresented high school students and expanded community outreach and engagement efforts. This cultivates new, mutually beneficial partnerships with community-based organizations to address health equity and engage rural, frontier, and diverse populations.

HCI has also doubled the size of its research facilities, opening the Primary Children's and Families' Cancer Research Center in 2017, which was designed to enhance collaboration among research teams. Today, HCI spans more than one million square feet of contiguous state-of-the-art cancer research and care space.

HCI's research excellence is made possible by the generosity of Huntsman Cancer Foundation, which supports HCI's research through philanthropic contributions. A 10-member External Advisory Board, comprised of NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center directors, administrators, and scientists, provides planning and evaluation; a 21-member Internal Advisory Board of U of U leaders guides strategic collaboration across campus; and a 38-member Community Advisory Board offers input and fosters community engagement in cancer research, services, and prevention efforts.

Other state and federal leaders shared their thoughts on the meaning of this Comprehensive Cancer Center designation:

* "Huntsman Cancer Institute provides stellar cancer research, education, and patient care and is a crown jewel of the University of Utah. Huntsman Cancer Institute continues to achieve new heights in excellence, serving as a model high-impact facility that benefits residents of Utah and surrounding states whose lives have been affected by cancer. We are proud of its continued success."

Ruth V. Watkins

President, University of Utah

* "Huntsman Cancer Institute is a national exemplar, drawing excellence in its cancer-focused missions through institutional collaboration between clinicians, researchers, educators, and staff; working together on a shared and common goal - defeating cancer. University of Utah Health is proud to be a partner in this journey and congratulates Huntsman Cancer Institute on this impressive national recognition and achievement."

Michael L. Good, MD

CEO, University of Utah Health

Senior Vice President for Health Sciences

Dean, University of Utah School of Medicine

* "Huntsman Cancer Institute has experienced phenomenal growth over the past five years, including international recognition and a donor base of one million individual donors who support the creativity and intellect of our researchers, the cutting-edge skills and collaboration of our doctors and providers, and the leadership and devotion of our administrations and staff."

Peter R. Huntsman

Chairman and CEO, Huntsman Cancer Foundation

* "It is an honor to the state that Huntsman Cancer Institute holds the highest federal recognition possible for a cancer center and is the only such center in Utah and the Mountain West. We are proud to have Huntsman Cancer Institute as the official, legislatively designated Cancer Center of Utah."

Gary R. Herbert

Governor, State of Utah

* "The Huntsman Cancer Institute has been a critical resource for many in Utah and the greater Mountain West region. Meeting the requirements for this grant (and outperforming other entities) recognizes that Huntsman Cancer Institute meets the highest standards of excellence as it delivers exceptional research, care, and expertise to so many."

Michael S. Lee

Senator, United States of America

* "Congratulations to Huntsman Cancer Institute, and especially to Dr. Ulrich, for her leadership. The External Advisory Board is unanimous in our conviction that the future of Huntsman Cancer Institute is to be among the top echelon of cancer centers in the nation."

Edward J. Benz, Jr., MD

President and CEO Emeritus, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Chair, HCI External Advisory Board

* "This national designation demonstrates high-quality collaborative research from dozens of disciplines across departments at the University of Utah, including the colleges of law, science, and nursing, and schools of computing and business. This funding will continue to support innovation through collaboration across campus."

Elizabeth K. Warner, JD

Dean, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah

Member, HCI Internal Advisory Board

* "We are proud of this remarkable accomplishment and look forward to our continued partnership with Huntsman Cancer Institute to better serve our underrepresented communities in Utah and beyond."

Alan Pruhs

Executive Director, Association for Utah Community Health

Member, HCI Community Advisory Board

NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health, one of 11 agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services. It was established in 1937 as the federal government's principal agency for cancer research and training. There are 51 NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States.

With this renewal, HCI remains the only cancer center to be designated by the NCI in the Mountain West, an area that includes all of Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Wyoming.
Seoul Summons Iran Envoy Over Tehran's Threat And 'Inappropriate' Remark

Radio Farda July 21, 2020

Iran's ambassador to Seoul was summoned to the South Korean foreign ministry on Tuesday to lodge a protest over the Iranian threat to sue Seoul over frozen assets and calling the Korea-U.S. relationship one of "master and servant".

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi on Sunday warned of legal action in the International Court of Justice if Korea continued to refuse to pay off more than $7 billion in oil money owed to Iran that has been blocked in Korean banks.

Speaking to the local media Mousavi had likened the relationship between Washington and Seoul to a "master-servant relationship" and said this was the reason Seoul was submissive to the U.S. and afraid of violating its sanctions if they released the Iranian blocked funds.

According to Koreatimes, the Korean foreign ministry's director-general for Africa and the Middle East voiced regret to the Iranian ambassador Saeed Badamchi Shabestari about the "inappropriate" remarks of the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman.

"The Iranian side called for understanding and stressed that it was not the official position of the Iranian government," Kim In-chul, the minstry's spokesman told the reporters.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on June 14 ordered Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati to take "firm measures" including legal action against South Korea to get the frozen assets released.

Hossein Tanhaee, the chairman of Iran and South Korea's joint chamber of commerce, in June told Borna news agency that Iran's frozen assets in South Korea were between $6.5 billion to $9 billion.

Tanhaee added that not only Korean banks refuse to release Iran's money, some of them have also demanded commission and maintenance fees for Iran's accounts.

Due to U.S. sanctions, Iran can only use the assets to purchase humanitarian items such as food and medicine from Korea.

The statistics of South Korea's Customs indicate that in the first half of the current year Korea's exports to Iran only amounted to $90 million. Before the reintroduction of U.S. sanctions in 2018, annual Korean exports to Iran amounted to around $4.

South Korea has stopped buying Iranian oil since May 2019, when the United States stopped issuing exemptions to friendly countries.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/seoul- summons-iran-envoy-over-tehran-s-threat-and- inappropriate-remark/30739711.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Photo: The Canadian Press Governor General Julie Payette delivers the Throne Speech in the Senate chamber.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has an obligation to look into allegations that Gov. Gen. Julie Payette mistreated staff members.

Singh says workplaces need to be safe, and employees must feel they are heard when they raise concerns.

Singh was responding to questions today about a CBC News report that quoted anonymous sources as saying Payette has created a toxic environment at Rideau Hall.

The CBC reported Tuesday that Payette had yelled at, belittled and publicly humiliated employees, reducing some to tears or prompting them to quit.

In a statement Tuesday, the Governor General's press secretary said Rideau Hall strongly believes in the importance of a healthy workplace, adding the CBC story stands in stark contrast to the reality of working at the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General.

The Prime Minister's Office declined Tuesday to answer questions about the governor general but said every Canadian has the right to work in a healthy, respectful and safe environment.
The worlds largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, plans to put up for privatization state-held assets in the healthcare, education, and water utility sectors in order to raise money while its oil revenues have shrunk with the low oil prices and the crash in demand.

Saudi Arabia could receive billions of Saudi riyals from such privatizations over the next five years, its finance minister Mohammad Aljadaan said at a video forum hosted by Bloomberg.

The biggest asset sale that Saudi Arabia has made in recent years was the initial public offering (IPO) of 1.5 percent of its oil giant Saudi Aramco in December 2019, with which the Kingdom received US$29.4 billion.

However, privatizations in other sectors have been slow to take off, Bloomberg notes.

Earlier this year, after the price crash it helped create by flooding the market with oil, Saudi Arabia tripled its value-added tax (VAT) and suspended cost-of-living allowances as part of a new round of painful austerity measures to save its finances. As a whole, Saudi Arabia targeted to save US$26.6 billion (100 billion Saudi riyals) from the measures, which also included canceling, extending, or postponing some operational and capital expenditures for some government agencies, as well as reducing provisions for a number of programs and major projects this year.

Earlier in July, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that the price plunge and the production cuts would hit oil exporters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) hard, with the combined oil income for those countries expected to plummet by US$270 billion this year compared to 2019.

The six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)are set to accumulate as much as US$490 billion in combined government deficits between 2020 and 2023, S&P Global Ratings said this week.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
BANGALORE, India, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Heavy-duty trucks are used for cargo transportation, logistics operations, construction, mining, etc. Growth in the manufacturing and construction sector, developments in road infrastructure, and steady growth in the freight and logistics sectors are some of the major factors that are expected to increase the Heavy Duty Trucks Market size.

The global Heavy Duty Trucks market size is projected to reach USD 538.8 Billion by 2026, from USD 446 Billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 3.2% during 2020-2026.

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TRENDS INFLUENCING THE HEAVY DUTY TRUCKS MARKET SIZE

The mining industry is also on the rise. Since the mining industry is a big deployer of heavy-duty trucks, the industry's improving condition is expected to increase the heavy-duty truck market size.

The increase in regional and global trade activities is anticipated to grow the Heavy Duty Trucks Market SIZE. In addition, rapid industrialization leading to large-scale production and distribution of goods and services is projected to generate the need for an increase in the number of Heavy Duty Trucks.

The growth of the e-commerce sector is expected to fuel the growth of Heavy Duty Trucks Market size during the forecast period. People in developed economies are likely to buy a majority of their supplies from the internet. This has resulted in an increase in the number of goods transported by cargo trucks.

Rising customer willingness to use vehicles fitted with advanced driver-assistive technologies and safety features are playing a major role in increasing the heavy-duty trucks market size during the forecast period. Furthermore, the implementation of advanced connectivity solutions such as smart fleet management and telematics platforms stimulates the adoption of heavy-duty trucks.

Supportive government initiatives and policies targeted towards the development of lower-emission heavy-duty trucks are expected to drive the Heavy Duty Trucks Market Size.

Higher vehicle ownership and maintenance costs may hamper the Heavy Duty Trucks Market size. However, manufacturers are deploying lean manufacturing processes and providing vehicle leasing facilities, thereby encouraging product adoption over the projected time frame.

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HEAVY DUTY TRUCKS MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS

North America and Latin American markets have huge growth potential and are predicted to make massive contributions towards the overall heavy-duty trucks market share.

The APAC region witnessed a strong demand for Heavy Duty Trucks due to the higher number of construction projects in the pipeline. Over the years, exports of heavy machinery from Singapore to the rest of the APAC region have grown steadily. This trend is expected to continue during the forecast period as well, thereby increasing the heavy-duty truck market size.

Key Regions Covered

North America

Europe

China

Japan

South Korea

India .

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HEAVY DUTY TRUCKS MARKET SEGMENTATION

Heavy Duty Trucks Market Breakdown Data by Type

Class 5

Class 6

Class 7

Class 8

Heavy Duty Trucks Market Breakdown Data by Application

Agriculture

Logistics

Construction

Mining

Key Companies

Daimler Trucks

MAN

PACCAR

Scania

Volvo Trucks

Ashok Leyland

FAW Group Corporation

ISUZU MOTORS

Iveco

Mack Trucks

Tata Motors.

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SIMILAR REPORTS

?Electric Truck Market Report

The global Electric Truck market size is projected to reach USD 2284.8 Million by 2026, from USD 1445.1 Million in 2020.

The Electric Truck Market is expected to see substantial growth due to factors such as low operating and maintenance costs of Electric Truck, favorable legislation, and incentives from governments, and the declining battery price.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-8T1762/global-electric-truck

?Electric Dump Truck Market Report

Heavy commercial vehicles account for approximately 40% of the total vehicular emission.

The electric dump truck has low carbon emissions. This factor, as well as the ongoing research and development activities to improve advanced battery technologies, is likely to drive the growth of electric dump trucks market size.

The report includes country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by Type and by Application segment in terms of production capacity, price, and revenue for the period 2015-2026.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-4N269/electric-dump-truck

?Commercial Trucks Market Report

The global Commercial Trucks market size is projected to reach USD 971.6 Million by 2026, from USD 940.9 Million in 2020.

The key factor contributing to the growth of commercial trucks market size is the increased demand in construction and infrastructural activities.

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?Heavy Truck and Tractor Market Report

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-16P2835/global-heavy-truck-tractor

?Autonomous Mining Truck Market Report

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-22B1369/global-autonomous-mining-truck

?Electric Drive Mining Truck Market Report

Electric drive mining trucks are mechanized vehicles, which are both on-road and off-road transportation mediums in the regions of heavy mining and construction.

The major players in the Electric Drive Mining Truck Market include BelAZ (Belarus), BEML (India), Bryan Industries (Australia), Caterpillar (US), Hitachi (Japan), Komatsu (Japan), Voltas (India), Kress (US), Terex (US), Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing (China), etc.

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The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has wreaked havoc across the globe, with more than 14.89 million people infected. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, has a string of symptoms that include cough, fever, and difficulty of breathing. As the disease evolved, many patients reported the loss of smell and taste as other accompanying symptoms.

Now, a new study reveals that the novel coronavirus may also trigger the appearance of a rash inside the mouth. A handful of patients in Spain has manifested rash-like lesions inside their mouths, baffling doctors if these could be included in the list of potential symptoms tied to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The study, conducted by the researchers at Ramon y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid, describes a potential addition to the list of signs and symptoms exhibited by patients infected with the novel coronavirus. The study is published in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

COVID-19 symptoms

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) first listed that the signs and symptoms of COVID-19 disease include fever, cough, aches, and difficulty of breathing. Loss of smell, loss of taste, sore throat, and headaches were added to that list later.

In June, the CDC also included other symptoms that were seen in COVID-19 patients, including nausea, diarrhea, and runny nose. However, in April, a separate group of researchers in Spain found lesions on the feet of patients, which were also tied to the novel coronavirus infection.

The study

To arrive at the findings in this new study, the researchers examined 21 consecutive patients that had presented with both a skin rash and COVID-19 at the Ramon y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid between March 30 and April 8.

The team aimed to determine whether the patients developed the enamthem, a term used to describe the lesions on mucous membranes, inside their mouths.

The oral cavities of the patients who had the enamthems were systematically examined and categorized into four groups  petechial, macular, macular with petechiae, or erythematovesicular.

In the studied group, enamthems or skin rash-like lesions inside the mouths were seen in six of 21 patients with COVID-19, who were between the ages of 40 and 69 years old. Of these, four of the six affected patients were females.

The researchers noted in the study that many cases of enamthems were tied to viral infections. These lesions may present with petechia, macules, vesicles, and papules in the mouth. However, the most common ones tied to viral infections are erythemato-vesicular and petechial patterns. Further, these lesions are commonly seen in adults.

The team also reported that these lesions were unlikely to be a drug side effect, but more linked to the infection itself. Also, the team said that due to concerns on the safety of healthcare workers and clinicians, many patients suspected to have the SARS-CoV-2 infection or are known to be infected, do not have their mouths examined. The new symptom is now added to the list of symptoms found in patients today.

This work describes preliminary observations and is limited by the small number of cases and the absence of a control group. Despite the increasing reports of skin rashes in patients with COVID-19, establishing an etiological diagnosis is challenging. However, the presence of enanthem is a strong clue that suggests a viral etiology rather than a drug reaction, especially when a petechial pattern is observed, the team concluded in the study.

Global coronavirus toll

As the disease evolves and spreads across the globe, much information about the virus is being revealed and discovered. The virus is still actively spreading, with the global case toll topping 14.89 million. The death toll has now reached a staggering 615,000.

The United States reports the highest number of infections, with 3.89 million confirmed cases, followed by Brazil, whose case toll has doubled in the past weeks, reaching 2.15 million.

India has reported 1.15 million confirmed cases, while Russia has more than 782,000 cases. One of the major concerns of the World Health Organization (WHO) is the spread of the virus in South Africa due to concerns that the high infection rate may take a toll on the nations health system. The country has more than 381,000 infections.
Despite a global pandemic and business slow-downs, Exadel continues to thrive and grow based on its distributed Agile engineering and development model

WALNUT CREEK, California, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Exadel (www.exadel.com), an enterprise software development company, today announced strong momentum in the second quarter of 2020, including increased sales, the addition of new clients, several new projects and the expansion of its C-level team with two senior level appointments. The company's achievements are particularly noteworthy in the midst of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The distributed Agile development model Exadel employs is central to its ability to withstand economic challenges as it helps clients realize digital transformation across the globe.

Specifically, in the second quarter, Exadel:

Maintained its growth projections for 2020

Increased repeat business from existing clients

Leveraged additional projects via distributed Agile development

Deepened its senior management bench strength with new positions of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Delivery Officer

"Exadel has always had a distributed Agile development approach to help clients achieve success," explained Fima Katz, CEO of Exadel. "We have teams across the globe who have been working in a distributed manner since the formation of the company. While other companies are struggling to adjust quickly to a remote workplace reality, Exadel provides the infrastructure, resources, technology and talent needed to easily adapt and thrive despite great disruptions such as COVID-19.

Exadel has locations across three continents. Its team of highly specialized software engineers has helped numerous high profile brands and enterprise organizations - many Fortune 500 entities - build and deliver everything from custom software projects to complete product platforms from the ground up.

In addition to impressive results for the second quarter, the company also announced the addition of two new positions and members of its senior management team. Elena Krukovskaya has been promoted to Chief Operations Officer (COO), and Alexey Girzhadovich assumes the role of Chief Delivery Officer (CDO).

Krukovskaya began working at Exadel in 2008 as a human resources manager where she established Exadel's policies around people, operations and processes. As COO, Krukovskaya will be responsible for managing Exadel's global operations to meet business goals and objectives.

Girzhadovich is an accomplished leader and previously served in multiple roles at Exadel. He brings a lengthy track record of working with high-growth software companies. As Chief Delivery Officer, Girzhadovich will implement a coherent project delivery strategy with a focus on teams, processes, efficiency and profitability.

"Achieving success during these challenging times is a testament to Exadel's ability to deliver exceptional software engineering services that help our clients realize their business goals," said Katz. "Exadel has a winning formula and we look forward to continued growth in the future."

Tweet this: .@exadel announces continued growth with new clientele and an expanded executive team, despite the challenges of COVID19 digitaltransformation

Exadel is an enterprise software development company supporting organizations at all stages of their digital transformation journey. We help companies redefine the way they do business by developing core digital solutions, software products and platforms, and helping them transition to the cloud. Exadel is a leader in distributed Agile development, leveraging resources globally for continuous delivery, even during times of great disruption. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Exadel has more than 1,000 engineers in 23 offices across the USA, Europe and Asia. We produce a variety of original products, frameworks, platforms and solutions for high profile brands across many industries-from media and publishing, finance, retail and e-commerce, to healthcare, wellness, high tech and transportation. Learn more at exadel.com

Contact:

Terri Douglas

Catapult PR-IR

303-581-7760

tdouglas@catapultpr-ir.com

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(Bloomberg) -- Representative Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, wants to invite Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey to a hearing next week featuring four top tech CEOs.

Jordan, in a letter to Democratic committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, asked that Dorsey also attend the July 27 hearing by the panels antitrust subcommittee along with the heads of Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc.

We believe there is bipartisan interest to hear from Twitter about its power in the marketplace, its role in moderating content on its platform, and the causes for its recent highly publicized security breaches, Jordan wrote in the letter, which he also addressed to Dorsey and described as an invitation.

Republicans have often criticized Twitter for what they say is its systematic silencing of conservatives, which the company denies. Twitter has largely avoided allegations that its practices are anticompetitive.

The hearing, which will be livestreamed, is a part of a series being run by David Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat who heads the antitrust subcommittees inquiry into competition issues in the technology sector.

Jordan has objected to aspects of the format of the upcoming hearing, including the guest list and the fact that it wont occur at the full committee level.

Spokespeople for Nadler, Cicilline and didnt immediately respond to requests for comment. Twitter declined to comment.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
'The majority of transmission will be via people who are within two metres of one another.'

'The closer you are, the more likely that you'll be infected.'

IMAGE: A mural promoting the use of masks in New Delhi, July 17, 2020. Photograph: Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

The novel coronavirus, that causes COVID-19, has been in our midst, in India, for more than four-and-a-half months now.

Remember the first case was confirmed on January 30, 2020, in Thrissur, Kerala.

We have gradually learned to awkwardly and uncomfortably live with this intrusive virus, many of us still successfully keeping it beyond two metres away. Or killing it with soap, spirit, sanitiser and bleach, if it has, on occasion, sneakily breached the prescribed distance.

It helps to know your enemy and to understand more about the intrepid viral intruder of 2020.

Who better than distinguished virologist Dr Ian Lipkin to answer questions on how to live with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that brings on COVID-19 in Part II of this two-part feature?

Has the virus, that causes COVID-19, mutated and is a mutated version running about India?

Can it live in our fridge? Is it in the air?

How exactly must you use soap kill it?

Dr Lipkin acquired an interest and expertise in quickly identifying and classifying the deadliest of viruses, among the 320,000* odd mammalian ones, that live on this planet, after being a bystander, as a post-doctoral research student, in the agonisingly long two-year battle in the 1980s to isolate the HIV virus that caused AIDS.

A physician and professor at Columbia's respective epidemiology, neurology and pathology and cell biology departments, he is also the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and a proponent and promoter of the recently-established Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology Network (GIDEoN).

Dr Lipkin was also the scientific consultant to the film Contagion and feels that controlling the virus is as much about educating the public, in India too.

After the pandemic broke his centre co-opted famous actors into issuing effective public service announcements.

Bollywood too could take on this latest role, more successfully than it has till date.

Dr Lipkin spoke to an Indian audience on Friday, July 10, at an online event organised by Mumbai's Columbia Global Center for the Yusuf Hamied Fellowships Events lecture series about COVID-19, that has caused a global economic damage of $3.8 trillion already**.

He answered questions put to him by the audience, by Dr Yusuf Hamied, chairman of the drug company Cipla, by the media and by Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com:

IMAGE: A health worker arranges samples for a COVID-19 test at an urban Primary Health Centre in Gurugram, July 17, 2020. Photograph: PTI Photo

What are the different strains of the COVID-19 virus?

Are there different strains?

This reporter writes that they hear that India has a stronger strain.

While some others say that India has less strong strain.

Is that true?

Well, the original virus, that came out of Wuhan, China, has been contrasted, dramatically, with the virus that's been circulating (since), and appeared to be more successful, in evolutionary terms, in becoming predominant worldwide.

That second strain is the one that infected me in New York.

There is evidence that it grows more rapidly; it grows to higher concentrations.

As to whether or not it causes more disease or not, I think that's still open.

I'm not aware of all the different phylogenetic (genetic diversification) analyses of Indian strains of the virus.

I can't say whether or not there's a different virus circulating in India, than there is in other parts of the world.

IMAGE: Airport staff sanitise the luggage of arriving passengers at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose airport in Kolkata. July 18, 2020. Photograph: Edgar Su/Reuters

It seems there are now reports of bubonic plague coming out of China.

How should the rest of the world respond and react to those reports and prepare?

We will continue to see viruses and bacteria emerge as a result of the fact that we are impacting our climate, we're impacting our entire ecosystem.

And we have increasing travel and trade in a global network.

This is why I proposed -- and I'm strongly emphasising -- the importance of building a network where people can rapidly identify these agents and respond to them in a rapid timeframe, right?

This is something we desperately need. And this was the point of the GIDEoN network.

So yes, this is not the last infectious agent that we will see.

I don't even know if it's going to be the worst that we will see in our lifetimes.

IMAGE: A health worker collects a swab sample at an urban Primary Health Centre in Gurugram. Photograph: ANI Photo

How important is testing to the overall strategy of containing the outbreak?

And how do you feel about India's performance on the testing front?

If you think it's important, how can it be improved?

Testing is extremely important, because the majority of people who were infected with this virus don't even know that they're infected with this virus.

Many people are asymptomatic and during the period that they have not yet become symptomatic, they may nonetheless, transmit disease.

This is something that is becoming increasingly apparent, as we look at the way this virus is moving, particularly amongst young people.

And, therefore, without testing, you have no chance of catching people before they manifest disease, if they ever will.

It also allows you to get some sense as to whether or not you're being successful in controlling the spread of the virus.

Now India has not done very well in testing.

But frankly, very few places have.

South Korea has done well. Germany did well. Norway. And so on.

But obviously Sweden did not.

Testing has to be ubiquitous. And it will be expensive.

And that's one of the reasons why I showed you this test that we've developed that allows you to look at three different targets at the same time and to use robots so that you can do it much, much more rapidly and reduce the costs (by a team in Redwood, California, that employs to robots to process the COVID-19 test).

IMAGE: An ampule of Remdesivir, which is now being used to treat coronavirus. Photograph: Ulrich Perrey/Pool/Reuters

Dr Yusuf Hamied: I make medicines.

Professor Lipkin hasn't spoken, as yet, about the current regimen of medication that is being used for COVID-19.

He briefly mentioned hydroxychloroquine.

What is your opinion, Professor, on (antivirals) favipiravir and remdesivir?

One of the things that I'm very, very hopeful about is the use of inhaled or nebulised corticosteroids.

What is your opinion on medication?

Will there be a cure?

Remdesivir had a very modest effect.

It's the first one that had any sort of effect, and it had a modest effect.

And the inhaled version gives us the opportunity to give it to people other than through an intravenous method.

We have a large drug repurposing programme where we take a look at drugs that have been approved for work with retroviruses***, other coronaviruses***, filoviruses*** and we test them against bonafide live virus.

If I had something to tell you today, that you could start manufacturing, that is off the shelf, I would tell you immediately (smiles).

We will tell you as soon as we find it, but right now we're still looking.

You asked about steroids: It's a temporal progression sort of situation.

In the early phase of the disease, when the virus is invasive, you cause a number of things that are associated with the replication of the virus itself.

When the virus infects endothelial cells (interior surface of blood and lymph vessels), it can trigger the coagulation (clotting) cascade, which is why you're getting strokes and infarcts (tissue deaths) of different types in the periphery, as well as in the heart, and in other organs, the liver and the kidneys and so forth.

And there's a direct effect, as I say, because endothelial cells have receptors -- they have this ACE2 receptor (main cell surface receptor to which the novel coronavirus attaches itself). In the lung, it's obvious, you get this thickening of the alveoli, right, so that you don't get good air exchange.

Now, as you move into the latter part of the infection, roughly Day 10 to Day 12, there's an immune response when you begin to see antibodies coming up and so forth. And that cytokine storm (over-severe immune reaction) is impacted by the dexamethasone, or probably any steroid you want to use.

But if you give dexamethasone early, you can facilitate the replication of the virus and cause even more damage.

The dexamethasone is very important in preventing the cytokine storm, but it's not so helpful early on.

What we need is really several things:

We need antibodies, that are going to be useful.

We want to get away from (the use in treatment of) plasma towards monoclonal**** antibodies (made by immune cells or various types of WBC or white blood cells) that are going to be specific and which are going to prevent the attachment of the virus.

We're going to need drugs that are going to work on an intracellular basis, and we're going to need drugs that impact the host immune response.

We need all of these things, in concert, to get this under control.

If we had a drug that was 100 per cent effective, then the vaccine would be less important.

But right now, my hopes are really pinned on the vaccine.

IMAGE: A laboratory at the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest maker of vaccines, which is working on vaccines against the coronavirus disease. Photograph: Euan Rocha/Reuters

Dr Yusuf Hamied: Which vaccine?

Yes, yes, I will tell you.

I like the RNA vaccines myself, because they're very cheap to manufacture, and they grow inside the cell.

There are several different types of vaccines people are making.

Some are making it with killed virus (particles of an inactivated virus).

The problem with the killed virus vaccine is it doesn't induce the correct type of immune response.

You want something that's growing inside the cell.

I'm not a fan of adenovirus vaccines (using an adenovirus as a viral vector or tool to make vaccines for other infectious viruses) because they require boosters. And because there are some preexisting immunity adenoviruses may impact in some populations.

But I like the DNA vaccines and the RNA vaccines.

There are I think 10 RNA vaccines right now that look very, very good.

Well, I've had COVID-19 and I'm hoping -- yeah, I got very sick -- so I'm hoping that I'm immune.

I don't know if I am. But I hope that I am immune.

IMAGE: A medic collects a sample for a COVID-19 test in Patna, July 17, 2020. Photograph: PTI Photo

Dr Yusuf Hamied: If you got it -- COVID-19 -- once, can you get it again?

There's only one monkey study -- very small -- suggesting no.

But then there's some human data that suggests yes.

I think that there are people who have been exposed to SARS coronavirus, Type 2 (that causes COVID-19), who had a very mild immune response, who can probably be re-infected.

The good news -- and this is just anecdotal -- is that if you get a second bout, it doesn't appear to be as severe. It is different than dengue in that way.

SEE: Dr Ian Lipkin was the scientific consultant for Steven Soderbergh's 2011 film Contagion. In 2020, nine years later, he is surprised to observe how life imitates cinema and that the many characters of Contagion have now off-screen, real life characters. Video: Kind Courtesy Columbia Global Centers, Mumbai

Dr Yusuf Hamied: Why is it that more diabetics are dying from COVID-19 than non-diabetics?

Well, more diabetics die of infectious diseases than anybody else, because there are a number of problems.

If you have a hyperosmotic intracellular and intercellular fluid (high osmotic pressure), immune molecules don't move as well.

You have problems with your vasculature (vessel system), right?

So, you can't deliver T cells (lymphocytes or WBC) and B cells (another kind of lymphocyte or WBC to fight disease) and other things as well.

But I don't think there is anything specific to COVID-19 in this regard.

This is also true with other infectious diseases.

IMAGE: A medic looks at the x-ray of a patient suffering from the coronavirus disease at the Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan hospital in New Delhi, July 17, 2020. Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

Dr Hamied: Is it purely a lung infection, or are other organs also involved?

Oh no, this is a broad infection.

The ACE2 receptors are distributed throughout the body -- so you have them in the lungs, you have them in the respiratory tract, you have them in the endothelial cells, you have them in a wide range of organs.

This is a systemic infection.

Remdesivir, it seems, is very popular in India and seems to have helped save lives.

Perhaps you feel it's not as successful as it seems, based on your (earlier) comments.

I think remdesivir is a drug that has a role.

But it is not the panacea that we all hope it will be.

If we're thinking in terms of a drug, which is going to have a big impact, it's going to have to be a drug that's going to be orally available, so it can be taken widely, for people who've been exposed.

And it should have a dramatic effect, like Tamiflu has, on influenza.

We don't yet have such a drug.

IMAGE: Kindly note the image has only been posted for representational purposes. Photograph: Kind courtesy Pixabay.com

If you are cleaning or soaping something for disinfection, do you need a fresh application of soap each time, for each object, or once your hands are well-lathered, can the same lather work twice or three times even?

It can.

This is an envelope virus.

So, soap will break it up and will be very good for eliminating it.

If you're talking about solutions, like hand sanitiser and such, as long as they're 60 per cent or better in ethanol, you should be good.

SEE: Virologist Dr Ian Lipkin on how he roped Hollywood in to educate the public. Video: Kind Courtesy: Columbia Global Centers, Mumbai

How does the virus do in high heat, such as 100 degrees Celsius versus in the cold?

Does the virus stay alive, but dormant possibly, in an object or food item in your fridge or freezer?

Well, let's start with temperature, I guess, which was the beginning of the question.

Particles hold humidity as a function to some extent of the temperature. Now, this obviously doesn't pertain in deserts.

But in India, where you have rain and so forth, it does.

The heavier particle, the shorter the distance it will travel with a cough or a sneeze.

So, when you are spending a lot of time outdoors, and if you have a dry heat, the transmissibility of the virus is reduced.

That doesn't mean that it's zero.

It simply means that it's lower than it would be otherwise.

There was a hope that as we moved into summer months in the temperate zones, that the incidence of disease would drop accordingly.

We can't say that it's dropped.

IMAGE: Dr Ian Lipkin. Photograph: Kind courtesy Columbia Global Centers, Mumbai IMAGE: Dr Ian Lipkin.

But that's probably because human behaviour has not supported what would have resulted in a drop.

It might have been worse still, if we were in the winter months.

We are anticipating, that as we move back into fall and into winter, in the northern hemisphere, that there will be an increase in disease.

Furthermore, it'll be more difficult to figure out who has influenza or an adenovirus (a more common, less harmful group/family of viruses that routinely causes coughs, fever, diarrhea, sore throat, conjunctivitis), or other viruses, versus having the (novel) coronavirus infection, that's travelling all over the world.

Now the virus has the ability to live on surfaces, for some period of time. It varies with the surface.

On metal -- with the exception of copper, which it apparently can't tolerate -- on certain metal surfaces and on plastics and leather, it can exist for more than 24 to 48 hours.

On the other hand, on softer, more porous substances, like paper and cloth, it appeared to have a shorter, viable timeframe.

In refrigerators, I don't know that anybody's actually measured it, but it is true that if you freeze this virus, it can be recovered.

This is a problem.

What many people do, to reduce risk, is if they bring something in from the outside, that has the potential to have been contaminated, if they don't have the ability to wipe it down, they will leave it in place for 24 to 48 hours, before they'll bring it into their homes.

Do you have any comment on the latest letter from various scientists around the world commenting on the virus being airborne?

Is there evidence that it's airborne?

There is some evidence that's beginning to emerge that suggests that it may be airborne.

By airborne what we mean -- for those of you who aren't familiar with the term -- is that the virus has the ability to remain suspended in the air for long periods of time.

The majority of transmission, however, be via people, who are within two metres of one another.

In fact, the closer you are, the more likely that you'll be infected and this is one of the reasons why maths are so important.

IMAGE: A health worker checks the temperature of a roadside vegetable vendor in Mumbai, July 17, 2020. Photograph: PTI Photo

The load of virus on a fomite is not necessarily that large.

But in India, where the population density is great, especially in urban areas, and surfaces have huge handling, such as a plastic packet of milk delivered to your doorstep, can the risk from fomites be higher?

It is a risk.

There's no question.

And I think again, the same issue pertains.

If you can wipe it down with something which has soap or has alcohol, you would dramatically reduce risk.

If it is not perishable and you have the ability to leave it alone for 24 to 48 hours, like something which is a boxed good, that's also helpful.

In addition, ultraviolet light has the ability to neutralise the virus -- and there's ultraviolet light in sunlight.

SEE: Dr Ian Lipkin's presentation: A Vision for Ending Pandemics at Mumbai's Columbia Global Center for the Yusuf Hamied Fellowships Events lecture series. Video: Kind Courtesy Columbia Global Centers, Mumbai

*According to Dr Lipkin, there are at least 320,000 mammalian viruses, but the number is probably closer to a million, that would take $6.3 billion to discover, as per a 2013 study.

**According to a University of Sydney study published a few days ago.

*** ~A retrovirus is a kind of RNA virus that, when it invades, introduces a replica of its genome into the host cell's DNA, like HIV-1 and HIV-2.

~Filo viruses belong to the family Filoviridae viruses, like Ebola, originally of west Africa and the Marburg virus, first isolated in Germany in 1967. Filoviruses form virions or infectious filamentous viral particles and their genome is encoded in a single-stranded negative-sense RNA, incapable of coding messenger RNA.

~Coronoviruses are RNA viruses that cause respiratory-track illnesses, like COVID-19, SARS (first identified in Yunnan, China), MERS (or camel flu first identified in Saudi Arabia) and the common cold.

***Monoclonal antibodies are made by identical immune cells that are true copies (genetically identical) or clones of the parent cell.

Feature Production: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
Parents whose children attend the facility received a message alerting them to the fact that a childcare worker had contracted the virus. (stock image)

A creche on Dublins northside has become the first childcare facility to be hit by Covid-19.

Concern has been expressed by some parents that the facility has not closed its doors after the confirmed case of coronavirus last week.

It comes after Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn warned that workplaces were the new frontline in the fight against the virus after new cases were reported on building sites, supermarkets and fast-food outlets.

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Parents whose children attend the facility received a message alerting them to the fact that a childcare worker had contracted the virus.

The memo sent out last weekend stated that the member of staff who attended work for one day on Monday, July 13 had tested positive for Covid-19.

It also said that any parents of those children who had been in contact with the childcare worker had been contacted. Tests have also been arranged for the small number of staff members who were also in contact with them, the memo added.

It said that they wanted to assure parents that all protocols from the HSE and TUSLA had been followed.

Most importantly, all parents whose children have been in contact with the asymptomatic Educarer have been phoned personally and appropriate testing has been arranged, it said.

Likewise, the small number of staff members who were in direct contact with the Educarer in question are being tested and while awaiting results, will not be in attendance at creche.

However, a parent whose child attends the creche said they were surprised to discover that the facility had remained open in the wake of the Covid-19 case.

Its really worrying for parents, she told the Irish Independent.

My daughter was due to go back on Monday but I held off after I heard about this case. Now this makes me doubt sending her at all. At the same time, its increasingly difficult to manage working from home with her and my other child there the whole time. Its a really difficult situation.

A creche manager said they could not comment on the coronavirus case in the branch when contacted by the Irish Independent. When the head office was contacted, a staff member said: "They've received your email and they'll let you know if they're going to say anything."

Both the HSE and TULSA said they do not comment on individual cases.

According to HSE guidelines, if there is a confirmed case of Covid in a childcare setting, the facility will be contacted by a public health official to identify anyone who has been in contact with them during the period they were infectious. They will also advise them on any actions or precautions that should be taken.

An assessment of each childcare setting will also be undertaken by HSE public health staff, who will use that information to advise on the management of children and staff.

The team will also individually speak with anyone who has been in contact with the case and given them appropriate advice. They will also give advice on sanitising communal areas such as classrooms, changing rooms and toilets.

Close contacts of a confirmed case should self-isolate for 14 days and not return to the childcare facility until they are told it is safe to do so - even if the virus is not detected on their tests.
The frantic search for a missing two-year-old boy has led the police to a southern Mexico home where 23 kidnapped children were being kept and forced into hard labor.

The horrifying discovery took place Monday in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, where authorities were looking for the whereabouts of Dylan Esau Gomez Perez, who was last seen on a surveillance video being led away by a young girl from a market.

Chiapas state prosecutors said Tuesday that most of the children were between two and 15 years old, but three babies aged between three and 20 months old were also found during a raid at a house in the Tlaxcala neighborhood.

But the Chiapas state prosecutors office did not immediately confirm whether Dylan, who will turn three in November, was among the children rescued from forced labor this week. His mother said he has not been found.

Some of the 23 abducted children who were rescued by the police in Chiapas, Mexico, on Monday while they were searching for Dylan Esau Gomez Perez. Authorities shared this photo of some of the children having a boxed lunch after their rescue

Dylan Esau Gomez Perez (seen right and left) has not been seen since June 30 when a young girl (pictured left) lured him a way from a market in Chiapas, Mexico, where his mother was working

Juana Perez attempted to meet President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at the National Palace in Mexico City on Wednesday. Her son Dylan Esau Gomez Perez has been missing since June 30

The indigenous colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas is popular among tourists and it is common to see children and adults hawking local crafts like carvings and embroidered cloth on its narrow cobblestone streets.

However, few visitors to the city suspected that some of the kids selling trinkets had been snatched from their families and kept in deplorable conditions.

The Chiapas state prosecutors' office said in a statement that the children 'were forced through physical and psychological violence to sell handicrafts in the center of the city,' adding the kids showed signs of 'malnutrition and precarious conditions'.

'According to the children, many of them were forced to go out on the streets to sell things, and moreover they were forced to return with a certain minimum amount of money for the right to get food and a place to sleep at the house,' said state prosecutor Jorge Llaven.

Chiapas, Mexico, authorities arrested three women who were at the home were the police discovered 23 abducted children

Juana Perez holds a poster of her missing son, Dylan Esau Gomez Perez, outside Mexico's presidential palace on Wednesday. She sought help from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

According to video presented by the prosecutors, many of the children slept on what appeared to be sheets of cardboard and blankets on a cement floor.

Three women - identified as Maribel o Maria, Maria Hortensia and Juana - have been detained in the case and may face human trafficking and forced labor charges.

The children were handed over to child welfare authorities. Authorities showed a photo of some of the children having a boxed lunch after their rescue.

Gomez Perez was kidnapped June 30 after he wandered away from his mother at a public market in San Cristobal de las Casas.

A surveillance camera from a nearby shop showed that a young girl, who appeared to be about 13, had grabbed the little boy by the hand and led him away, raising the possibility that some of the children were used to abduct other kids.

After the disappearance of the boy, who reportedly speaks the Indigenous language Tzotzil, his mother and relatives began a desperate campaign to locate him.

Interviewed Tuesday outside the National Palace in Mexico City, his mother, 23-year-old Juana Perez, said officials told her that her son had not yet been found.

'None of the children (rescued) is my son,' Perez said, sobbing. 'I haven't heard anything about my son.'

Juana Perez holds a banner with her son's photo outside the presidential palace in Mexico. Dylan Esau Gomez Perez has been missing since June 30

Juana Perez displays a missing person's poster with her 2 1/2 year-old son's photo. Dylan Esau Gomez Perez was last seen June 30 being led away by a young girl

Perez, who traveled to Mexico City to ask President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to help find her son, works at the market selling fruit and vegetables. She said her son would sometimes wander off to play, but that no children had ever been snatched from the market before.

'My son is gone. Thank God for the search for him there are already other children who will be in their homes,' she said. 'But I'm still looking for my son.'

The boy's father emigrated to California to find work, and thus Perez has had to raise Dylan and his sister by herself.

She described him as a chubby, happy boy who market vendors nicknamed 'Gordito,' and tearfully appealed for help in finding him.

Government data released by the National Search for Missing Persons Commission on July 13 found that 73,201 people are listed as missing.

Those figures were up dramatically from just January, when data showed 11,500 fewer people reported missing. Overall, 177,863 people have been reported missing between 1964 and July 14, 2020.

The published report indicated that 75 percent of those missing are between the ages of 15 and 30. At least 75 percent of that group consists of males.

The data showed that more than 12,000 children are missing - most of them girls.
Ruth Holland graduating from St Francis Special School Beaufort with her parents John and Kate, Matthew Holland, back, Julie OShea, Josh Holland, Luke Holland and Julie Christie at St Francis Special School, Beaufort on Friday. Photo by Michelle Cooper Galvin

Mohammad Al Saleh graduating from St Francis Special School Beaufort with his parents Omran and Salwa and sister Rowan at St Francis Special School, Beaufort on Friday. Photos by Michelle Cooper Galvin

Danny Merry graduating from St Francis Special School Beaufort with his parents Adam and Tracey, David Jones, Patricia Wolstenholme, Debbie Jones, Sam Merry, Principal Liam Twomey and teacher Shane Riordan at St Francis Special School, Beaufort on Friday. Photo by Michelle Cooper Galvin

Brian Spillane, graduating from St Francis Special School Beaufort, with his parents Christiane and Noel, brothers Evan and Cian and grandmother Elke Kallweit at St Francis Special School, Beaufort on Friday. Photos: Michelle Cooper Galvin

In a ceremony that marked the end of what will surely be one of the toughest years that the staff and pupils at St Francis' Special School will have gone through, the school finished the year with a flourish last Saturday with a special graduation ceremony.

Speaking to The Kerryman about how the day went, Liam Twomey, Principal of the school said that the day was a great success which observed all public health guidelines.

"The day went fantastic. We were exceptionally happy with how it went and even the weather turned out well despite a shaky start!" he said this week.

"We had five students in attendance and they had about six members of their families with them as well; we have our chaplain, Fr Derek O'Connell and after I welcomed all the students and families, Fr Derek performed a reading and a blessing for them," said Liam.

After this, it was only fitting that some of the teachers who had taught the pupils over the years were allowed to share some of their fond memories from over the years; and seeing as how some students are in the school from as young as the age of four right into their mid teenage years, there was lots of memories to unpack and look back on.

After the students received their graduation certificates along with certificates in areas such as yoga and swimming, two of the many activities they had been taking part in over the last year.

It wasn't just the pupils themselves that received a special memento from the school, the hard work of the parents was also honoured.

"The teachers presented a rose to the mothers of each student. It was a small token of the love and support that she and her husband and the rest of the pupil's family have shown to that child over the years and now as they watched them graduating," he said.

"That gesture went down extremely well," he continued.

Finally, in lieu of the big buffet that they would usually have held in the school to mark the ceremony, the school staff instead prepared a huge hamper of food, sweets, drinks and gifts which they presented to the families.
Progressive evangelical leader urges Biden to talk to evangelicals about abortion, religious freedom

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A longtime progressive evangelical leader who's urged white evangelicals to rethink their vote for President Donald Trump is now calling on 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to do more to appeal to evangelical voters and address their concerns about abortion and religious freedom.

Ron Sider, a theologian, professor and social activist who founded the group Evangelicals for Social Action in 1973 and authored the popular 1978 book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, published an op-ed in USA Today on Monday.

In the piece, Sider, 80, explained how and why it's important for Biden to do something that his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, did not do in 2016.

With the Democratic Party sliding further left when it comes to stances on LGBT issues and abortion, Sider argues that white evangelicals  a major voting bloc for Trump  need Biden to show that he understands and respects our concerns.

There are millions of evangelicals (and Catholics) in swing states who want to vote for Biden, Sider argued. We agree much more with Biden than with Trump on numerous issues: racial justice, economic justice, the environment and climate change, tax policy that demands more of the rich, health care for all  and much more. We want to vote for Joe Biden!

But on two issues  abortion and religious freedom  we need to hear that Bidens campaign understands, respects and can talk to us about our concerns, even though they do not fully agree, he continued.

Sider, an emeritus professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy at Palmer Theological Seminary Pennsylvania, is also the editor of the new book, The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump.

The book consists of essays written by 30 evangelical Christians from various backgrounds calling for white evangelicals to rethink their vote for Trump in 2020 after exit polls showed that 8 in 10 white evangelical voters voted for Trump in 2016.

Former President Bill Clinton personally told a very close friend of mine that the reason his wife Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania (and the presidency) in 2016 was because of her stand on abortion, Sider wrote. In 2008, she said abortion should be legal, safe and rare. In 2016, she refused to say it should be rare.

In 2016, Clinton was urged by progressive evangelical leader Jim Wallis to state publicly a call for abortion to be rare. But she never did. Some Trump supporters would also argue that Clintons support for late-term abortion was one of her downfalls.

In 2016, she refused to say it should be rare, Sider explained. That kind of stance ignores basic polling data.

Sider cited a Gallup poll showing that about 29% of Americans say abortion should be legal in every instance, 20% believe abortion should never be legal, and about 50% said abortion should be legal with some restrictions.

I expect that Biden will keep saying he'll guarantee that abortion continues to be legal and safe, Sider said. But Biden could also say that as a Catholic, he understands those who want it to be less frequent.

Sider went on to argue that important Democratic policies actually foster fewer abortions, citing figures suggesting that the number of abortions fell under President Barack Obama. Sider argues that Obamas policies improved economic support for low-income persons, including insurance coverage for contraception.

Millions of evangelicals and Catholics in swing states do not think abortion trumps all other issues, Sider contends. We think universal health care is a pro-life issue. So are capital punishment, climate change, racial justice and effective poverty reduction programs here and abroad.

We want to support Biden for these and other reasons, he added. But it would make it much easier if Biden would show some understanding of the tens of millions of Americans who think abortion should be grieved, not celebrated.

Sider went on in his op-ed to say that the issue of religious freedom is also crucial, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 to make same-sex marriage a national right.

Sider criticized the fact that some prominent Democratic figures have argued that any faith-based organization that believes it must be faithful to its traditional view of marriage in its hiring practices should lose all government funds.

That would mean that many thousands of religious colleges, universities and faith-based social service agencies serving millions of people would lose both government funds (for example Pell grants and work-study funds) and even lose their tax-exempt status, Sider wrote. If that view prevails, it will vastly weaken and probably destroy vast numbers of faith-based organizations and harm millions of poorer Americans.

Sider stated that he supports adding federal discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity but stressed that religious freedom for faith-based organizations should also be protected. Sider voiced his support for the Fairness for All Act, legislation introduced last year that is backed by the National Association of Evangelicals.

Millions of Christians in key swing states want to defeat Trump this year. Some of us will vote for Biden regardless of what he says on these two issues, Sider explained. But others will not. And that loss of votes might cost Biden the presidency  and far more important, mean another four years of Trumps devastating policies. I hope Joe Biden will do what he can to hear our deeply felt concerns on abortion and religious freedom.

The Christian Post reached out to Sider to inquire if he has reached out directly to the Biden campaign. A response is pending.

Siders plea comes after Public Religion Research Institute polling data showed in late April that favorability among white Christians in battleground states had dropped by 27 percentage points since mid-March. The PRRI data at the time suggested that Trumps favorability among white evangelical Protestants declined 11 percentage points since March to 66% in April.

In late May, PRRI found that 62% of white evangelicals hold favorable views of the president.

However, recent data from Pew Research show that about 82% of evangelical registered voters say they plan to vote for or are leaning toward voting for Trump in 2020.

As previously reported, the Biden campaign believes that it can appeal to younger millennial evangelical voters and moderate evangelical voters even if the majority of white evangelical voters still vote for Trump in November.

John McCarthy, the deputy national political director for the Biden Campaign, told Just The News that he thinks evangelicals who voted for Trump will be open to Bidens message.

In 2008, President Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president, won 26% of the white evangelical vote and 21% of the white evangelical vote in 2012. By comparison, Clinton won just 16% of the evangelical vote in 2016.

Broad swaths of the faith community did not feel like the Democratic nominee was interested in their vote, former Obama campaign faith adviser Michael Wear said of Clinton in an interview journalist David Brody.

"I've been very clear that the invitation was not given in 2016, Wear added.
Charles Miller, who serves on the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors, grew up attending a segregated school for Black students in Mount Airy during the late 1950s and through the 1960s.

He still remembers being in the third or fourth grade, attending an old wooden school where a picture of George Washington Carver hung high.

I didnt know quite exactly who he was, not entirely like I did after years of studying, but we as children knew enough to know that  he was a person that we should be respectful of," Miller said.

He remembers seeing the face of Booker T. Washington on the 50-cent piece, one of which he still has and treasures today. The thought of attending the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which Washington founded, crossed his mind, but concerns about his own safety deterred him from venturing that far south.

I didnt actually think about going that far into the south, especially Alabama," he said.

After more than a year of "ruminating" and consideration, Miller is now actively developing the details and seeking support for his plan to erect a monument to those two well-known African Americans, as well as Carter Woodson, a prominent African American historian, on Main Street in downtown Chatham.

Even as national attention has been placed on removing Confederate monuments, Miller, the lone African American on the board of supervisors, has not heard or made any efforts to remove the Confederate war memorial in the downtown, but is instead looking to add another monument that "stimulate people ... to see us as Black Americans in a positive light and that we have contributed well to the fabric of this country, this state."

"Im about making friends and trying to bring about a more cooperative and cohesive atmosphere in this county and region where we live," he said.

This project for new monuments comes amid national unrest surrounding racial injustice, which has led to calls for the removal of Confederate flags and statues. During a Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday night, Kell Stone, the pastor of Gospel Tabernacle Outreach Center in Gretna who led peaceful protests against racial injustice in Chatham and Gretna in June, asked the board of supervisors to seriously consider and explain the history that the Confederate flags that fly on highways in the county and the Confederate war memorial in downtown Chatham.

As we all can agree, signs, symbols and labels speaks to who we are," he said.

Miller has been reaching out to community members about the project, which he estimates will cost roughly $100,000, to get input on the design and find financial support. For now, Miller is imagining that the monument to the three men, which will contain pictures and information about them, be roughly 20 feet long by 12-feet wide.

While none of these three men were from Pittsylvania County, Miller believes that all of them played an important role in the locality's history. Booker T. Washington, who was born in neighboring Franklin County, made a major impact through his contributions to the education of African American students like Miller.

Many schools for African American students in Pittsylvania County were founded through the Rosenwald fund, a philanthropy effort from Booker T. Washington, the Tuskegee Institute and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald to provide high-quality public education for African American children in the rural South during segregation. According to a survey done by Preservation Virginia, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Virginia history, and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, eight of those schools in Pittsylvania County are still standing.

The other two men that Miller hopes to honor with his monument are George Washington Carver and Carter Woodson. Carver, a prominent scientist and professor at the Tuskegee Institute, made a wide range of contributions to agricultural practices and helped the cotton industry. Miller said that his work allowed Dan River Mills, which was one of the largest cotton mills in the country at the height of its power, rise to the prominence that it did.

Thousands of people ... were employed, got paychecks, raised their families, educated their children, with paychecks from Dan River Mills," Miller said.

Carter Woodson is a prominent historian who was one of the first to study African American history.

Ben Davenport, owner of Davenport Energy and prominent businessman in the community, said that a project like this wasn't on his radar, but he has agreed to help Miller with the project, "financially and otherwise."

I like to be inclusive of our population," Davenport said. "We have an excellent racial mix of population in Danville and Pittsylvania County, and it seems appropriate to me."

Miller is not seeking any public funding for the project. He already has a location on Main Street that "hopefully that will become available when we make the formal request," but has a backup spot where the landowner has already agreed to sell if need be.

"What Im trying to do is this: as a native Pittsylvania person, Virginian and American, I want to do what I can to bring about a layer of recognition of some of the contributions that have been made by my people, African Americans," Miller said.

Ayers reports for the Register & Bee. Reach him at (434) 791-7981.

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The chief executive of Volvo Cars described plug-in hybrids as a "very popular concept" on Tuesday, but emphasized the need for government support when it comes to charging infrastructure.



Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, are cars which have an internal combustion engine as well as a battery-powered electric motor. Speaking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," CEO Hakan Samuelsson referred to the vehicles as a "bridge technology."



As a company, Volvo Cars has said it wants "around 50%" of the cars it sells to be "pure electric" by the year 2025, with the other half sold as hybrids. On the topic of new energy vehicles needing government incentives to drive sales, Samuelsson said he thought that "long term, we need to have sustainable concepts that can be sold on (their)  own merits."



"But of course, in the first transition years governmental support for electric cars would be very helpful and even more helpful would be support to develop a charging network."



Indeed, "range anxiety"  an idea that electric vehicles are not able to undertake long journeys without losing power  has long been seen as a potential barrier to electric vehicle uptake. Better charging infrastructure is likely key to combating this perception.



Bit by bit, changes are taking place when it comes to charging. Last month, McDonald's U.K. said it was planning to install rapid charging points for electric vehicles at new drive-thru restaurants in the country.

The fast food giant is partnering with a firm called InstaVolt, which specializes in the technology. Charging infrastructure will also be introduced to existing drive-thru restaurants where feasible, with the technology rolled out to new drive-thrus "as standard."



Around the world, governments are attempting to incentivize the uptake of electric vehicles. In Norway, which is often cited as a model for low emission cars, the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association says that electric vehicles do not have to pay annual road tax, have "access to bus lanes" and are exempt from 25% value added tax on purchases, among other things. According to the association, these incentives are in place "until the end of 2021", when the government will make revisions to them.



Governments are also making efforts to improve charging infrastructure. In January, the U.K. government said it would "double the funding" for "the installation of chargepoints on residential streets" to 10 million ($12.72 million). At the time, the government said the money  which will be for installations in 2021  "could fund up to another 3,600 chargepoints across the country."



Tuesday also saw Volvo Cars report its financial results for the first half of the year. Global sales in the first six months of the year dropped by 20.8% as the firm acknowledged results had been "impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on the global economy."
Oil prices fell on Wednesday as industry data showed a bigger-than-expected inventory build in the United States where coronavirus cases continue to climb, potentially further denting demand in the world's biggest oil consumer.

In his first briefing in months focused on the pandemic, US President Donald Trump said that the outbreak would probably get worse before it gets better, one of his first recent acknowledgements of the spread of the problem.

Industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) reported U.S. crude inventories rose last week by 7.5 million barrels compared with expectations for a draw of 2.1 million.

Brent crude fell 32 cents, or 0.7%, to $44 a barrel by 0156 GMT, and US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude dropped 33 cents, or 0.8%, to $41.59.

Oil prices climbed about $1 the previous day, reaching their highest since March 6.

"Crude's rally hit a brick wall after the API report showed a sharp rise in stockpiles and on President Trump's warning that the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. is likely to worsen," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York.

"The crude demand outlook just got a double whammy with what could be the biggest rise in stockpiles since late May if confirmed by the EIA report tomorrow and on Trump's downbeat virus briefing."

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release official oil inventory data later on Wednesday.

Economic data from Japan, the world's fourth-largest oil consumer, also weighed on prices. Factory activity contracted for a 15th straight month in July, indicating lower economic activity because of the pandemic is extending into the third quarter.

Oil prices rose on Tuesday on optimism for a Covid-19 vaccine and after European Union lenders agreed on a 750 billion-euro ($859 billion) fund to prop up coronavirus-hit economies.

Still, the effect of those funds on prompt oil prices will be mute as it may take months to start flowing and the impact may take years to show, Stephen Innes, chief global markets strategist at AxiCorp said in a note on Wednesday.

There are also signs that Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is still not meeting its target under an OPEC-led supply cut deal.

Southern Iraqi exports in the first 20 days of July averaged 2.70 million bpd, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon and two industry sources, equal to official data for exports in all of June.
Google may have a 'secret blacklist' of conservative news outlets, a former engineer at the company has claimed, which he says was exposed on Tuesday when certain websites briefly vanished from Google search results.

Mike Wacker, a Google engineer who was fired from the company in June 2019 amid a row over his conservative ideology, said the brief incident on Tuesday suggested a 'blacklist'.

'It appears to have revealed the existence of another blacklist that disproportionately targets conservatives,' Wacker told Mediaite.

Google on Tuesday briefly stopped displaying conservative news outlets from its search

'The glitch is that sites on this blacklist disappeared from Google search results, but the existence of the list is very much by design.

'And that raises a major question: Why was this blacklist created in the first place, and what else is it used for?'

NEWS OUTLETS BLOCKED B Y GOOGLE Breitbart The National Pulse The Drudge Report Human Events Occupy Democrats Advertisement

Websites including Breitbart, The National Pulse, The Drudge Report, and Human Events vanished from Google's listings on Tuesday morning for several hours.

At least one left-leaning website, Occupy Democrats, was also affected.

Legacy media outlets  including The New York Times and Washington Post  did not appear to be harmed.

Dr. Robert Epstein, a researcher who has argued Google has the power to sway up to 10 per cent of American voters in the 2020 election, agreed with Wacker.

'It's likely that a person or algorithm at Google added 'breitbart.com' and other URLs to one or more of the company's blacklists,' Epstein told Mediate.

'Then, perhaps after some pushback, someone pulled those URLs off the blacklists.'

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, in December 2018 told a House committee the company did not 'manually intervene on any search result.'

Sundar Pichai, CEO, said the company didn't 'manually intervene on any search result'

Google said in a statement published on Twitter that it was looking into the issue.

'We are aware of an issue with the site: command that may fail to show some or any indexed pages from a website,' the company.

'We are investigating this and any potentially related issues.'

In response to an inquiry from Mediaite, a spokesman for Google added: 'This issue affected a number of sites representing a range of different content and viewpoints.

'This issue was a technical error unrelated to the content or ideology of the sites affected.'

Wacker said the list may have been manually created, or it may have been the product of an algorithm.

That algorithm could have been created by a human, or it could also have been created by an AI that found something about the affected websites so offensive  such as the way users share their content, or the keywords used by those sites  that it blocked them.

Google acknowledged a technical issue but gave no explanation as to the cause

'One possibility is that sites on this blacklist are being penalized, and the glitch was that the penalty was accidentally set so high that these sites were effectively removed from Google search,' Wacker told Mediate.

''I've found that a lot of people tend to conflate algorithms with AI since they're both automated, but AI isn't as objective and mechanical as algorithms are.'

In 2019, the right-leaning Project Veritas released internal Google documents from a former employee suggested the website was seeking to rank websites according to 'quality.'

One example document used by company employees showed Fox News ranking below CNN and MSNBC.

State-backed Russia Today fell slightly lower on the list, but well above Breitbart.
Mumbai: Payal Ghosh is standing up against people who are trying to mock the South Indian industry and it's important to hear her out as she is a huge star down south. Over recent times and also the past few years there has been a huge uproar on the South vs Bollywood film industry.

Zee News spoke to her and here is what she has to say on the matter, "The south film industry has a fixed time for work unlike much of the shoots here. It is hardly ever extended beyond 8 hours a day. In Bollywood, we rarely have that. The south film industry does a lot of pre-production and that is rare here. They respect everyone's time unlike much of it here. Taapsee once pointed out that she was asked to show her naval and she couldn't understand the South Indian director K Raghavendra Rao obsession with the naval. I mean, seriously. What are the actress made to do in Bollywood onscreen? Let's not even get off-screen. It's extremely petty to even talk about the naval thing. It's extremely common and it's visible even generally if you wear a saree, lehenga choli etc. Swara Bhasker comes out and mocks the South Indian industry. She hasn't even worked enough down south to understand it enough. The problem is convenience. When the matters are hot, let me put my story and make some news. There you go. Unlike Bollywood, the south film industry doesn't have a colour obsession. They don't have a template of skin color for both their actress and actors. And look it out here. We even have advertisements promoting fairness."

Adding more, Payal Ghosh said, "Gore nai ho toh zindagi mein kuch nahi ho", seems to be the motto in Bollywood. Lastly, the nepotism and the heavenly Sushant Singh Rajput matter. Kangana Ranaut came out and spoke for all of us outsiders. It's not that there are no star kids down south. But people are not regressive unlike here to stop your releases, take work away, mock you time and again if you aren't a star kid. She truly has been the voice of the conscious for Bollywood. It's an industry which belongs to the country and not a few film families which the movie mafia thought so. There may be bias but it definitely is minimal down South there. Here in Bollywood, it's unlike so. It's sad that we had to see the death of one of the most poignant stars to understand how the movie mafia works."

The South Indian movie industry truly deserves much more respect and come on they are the bravest filmmakers. They have brave projects such as Baahubali and Robot. We at Bollywood don't have such movies in the decades.

Payal has worked in both Bollywood and south films.
New books on Artificial Intelligence ethics revealed

By:An Ranran, Lu Yukun | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-07-20 19:10

At the just concluded World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2020, more than 550 participants including a Nobel Prize winner, 7 Turing Award winners and 62 academicians from home and abroad, discussed the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. AI is developing rapidly, however, many problems are also coming with the fleeting progress.

Recently, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press has published a series of books on AI ethics including On the Future: Prospects for Humanity, Artificial Intelligence Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Taming Seviathan. These new books all discuss the future of AI and human beings from the viewpoint of morality and ethics. The conclusion is that scholars of Humanities and Social Sciences and philosophical thinkers cannot be absent in the process of AIs development.

According to a report, by 2030, the global economic growth produced by AI will reach 15.7 trillion dollars, and China will account for 7 trillion of that. With no doubt, Artificial Intelligence will play a more and more important role in such areas as education, healthcare, and transportation, which is bound to bring people an unprecedented technological revolution. But at the same time, there are myriad worries brought by the development of AI technology.

In the future, will AI machines follow the humans moral principles? Can human beings get along well with AI? Will a super-intelligent AI usurp humans, seeing us as little more than ants? The newly published book, Artificial Intelligence Ethics by Professor Yan Yong from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, considers many questions about the problems AI might bring. The writer proposes a solution to the ethical problems of AI after discussing the robot rights and the safety of AI. The book also gives a comprehensive exposition of the ethical significance of Artificial Intelligence.





Martin Rees

I think we need to ensure responsible innovation in all new technologies, said Lord Martin Rees, an emeritus professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge and the UK's Astronomer Royal. As one of the world's most eminent astronomers, he stresses in his book On the Future: Prospects for Humanity that with the rapid development of the computer and AI, the basic philosophical question of Who am I? will have some new semantics.

Meanwhile, the book Artificial Intelligence: Taming Leviathan discusses our AI future in terms of justice and ethics. Scholars have pointed out that the big data cant be controlled merely by data companies. Similarly, AI cannot be mastered only by scientists and technology giants. The future of AI is not only the future of technology but also of all humanity. Therefore, scholars of Humanities and Social Sciences and should take an active part in discussions and give their views on how to ensure AI helps and not hinders us.
I mmunity for coronavirus is likely to lasts for six months, Sweden's state epidemiologist has said.

Dr Anders Tegnall, who has led the country's controversial "herd immunity" response to the pandemic, said on Tuesday that there has been no reported cases of people falling ill twice with Covid-19 so far, according to the Telegraph.

He said that people who have recovered from the virus are likely to be immune for half a year, regardless of whether they have antibodies.

The epidemiologist said: Our assessment is that if you do get Covid-19 you are immune, even if you dont develop antibodies."

The Swedish Public Health Agency has issued new guidance which says it is safe for people who have previously been infected to come into contact with people in high risk groups, although they must stick to social distancing rules.

Dr Anders Tegnall has led the country's controversial "herd immunity" approach to the pandemic / via REUTERS

Dr Tegnells remarks come as experts across the world say they are still unsure how long immunity lasts.

Studies have show that patients who recovered from the virus lose antibodies quickly.

Sweden PM defends Covid-19 strategy

Swedens response to the virus has been closely watched after it chose not to go into lockdown like its neighbours.

Schools, cafes, bars, restaurants and most businesses have stayed open.

The World on Coronavirus lockdown 1 /60 The World on Coronavirus lockdown Getty Images A UK government public health campaign is displayed in Piccadilly Circus Reuters Chinese paramilitary police and security officers wear face masks to protect against the spread of the new coronavirus as they stand guard outside an entrance to the Forbidden City in Beijing AP A usually busy 42nd Street is seen nearly empty in New York AFP via Getty Images Bondi Beach, Australia Getty Images Military vehicles cross Westminster Bridge after members of the 101 Logistic Brigade delivered a consignment of medical masks to St Thomas' hospital Getty Images View of the illuminated statue of Christ the Redeemer that reads "Thank you" as Archbishop of the city of Rio de Janeiro Dom Orani Tempesta performs a mass in honor of Act of Consecration of Brazil and tribute to medical workers amidst the Coronavirus (COVID - 19) pandemic Getty Images Rome AFP via Getty Images An Indian man paddles his bicycle in front of a mural depicting the globe covered in a mask, as India remains under an unprecedented lockdown over the highly contagious coronavirus Getty Images Aerial view of the empty 9 de Julio avenue in Buenos Aires in Argentina AFP via Getty Images A view of an empty Grand Canal Reuters Las Ramblas, Barcelona, Spain Getty Images Aerial view of the empty Central cemetery in Bogota, Columbia AFP via Getty Images The facade of the Palacio de Lopez (seat of the government palace) AFP via Getty Images Miami, Florida AFP via Getty Images Aerial view of the empty Simon Bolivar park in Bogota AFP via Getty Images An LAPD patrol car drives through Venice Beach Boardwalk AP Venice Beach, California Getty Images Los Angeles, California Getty Images Surfers Paradise is seen empty in Australia Getty Images Many shops stand shuttered on the Venice Beach boardwalk Getty Images Empty escalators are seen at a deserted train station during morning rush hour after New South Wales began shutting down non-essential businesses Reuters A nearly empty Times Square in New York AFP via Getty Images Caracas AFP via Getty Images Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador AFP via Getty Images A general view of an unusually quiet Midland Park in Wellington, New Zealand Getty Images A general view of an unusually quiet Civic Square at lunchtimein Wellington, New Zealand Getty Images A policeman rides his motorcycle wearing a face mask in front of a closed shopping mall in Buenos Aires, Argentina AFP via Getty Images Florida Keys AP The historic Channel 2 Bridge closed to fishermen, bikers and pedestrians in Florida Keys AP The Beach on Scenic Gulf Drive near Seascape Resort in south Walton County, Florida sits empty of tourists AP Surfers Paradise is seen empty in Australia Getty Images A deserted Rajpath leading to India Gate in New Delhi AFP via Getty Images A general view is seen of a closed Luna Park in Sydney, Australia Getty Images A general view is seen of a closed Luna Park in Sydney, Australia Getty Images Empty roads are pictured following the lockdown by the government amid concerns about the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Kathmandu, Nepal Reuters An empty New York Subway car i AFP via Getty Images The empty pedestrian zone is seen in the city of Cologne, western Germany, AFP via Getty Images Place de la Comedie in the city of Montpellier , southern France AFP via Getty Images An empty street in Kuwait city AFP via Getty Images A building is covered by the Portuguese message: "Coronavirus: take precaution" over empty streets in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, AP A general view shows an empty street after a curfew was imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Reuters Parliament of Canada is pictured with empty street during morning rush hour AFP via Getty Images A near empty beach on Southend seafront in England PA Near empty Keswick town centre in Cumbria, England PA

Swedish officials argued that drastic lockdown measures are too ineffective to justify their impact.

But the country of 10 million has also seen one of the highest death rates from the disease in the world.

It has had around 78,000 cases and 5,600 deaths, which is a much higher toll than neighbouring Denmark with a total of 13,000 cases and 600 deaths in a population of five million.

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Dr Tegnell said: "In Sweden, the positive trend with a fairly quick decline in cases continues."

"It really is yet another sign that the Swedish strategy is working," he added.

It is possible to slow contagion fast with the measures we are taking in Sweden."
WALNUT CREEK (BCN)

A Walnut Creek skilled nursing facility is dealing with a COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak that as of Tuesday night has left 12 residents dead and a total of 92 residents and 38 staff testing positive.

Twenty-five residents of ManorCare Health Services-Tice Valley were still being treated for COVID-19-related symptoms as of Tuesday night, according to figures supplied by the California Department of Public Health, the regulatory and oversight body for skilled nursing facilities.

Julie Beckert, a spokeswoman with Toledo, Ohio-based HCR ManorCare, said all residents and staff at the Tice Valley facility have now been tested.

This is the third significant coronavirus outbreak at a Contra Costa County skilled nursing facilities since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March. At least four residents of the Orinda Care Center in Orinda died, and 40 residents and 32 staff members there tested positive.

At the San Miguel Villa skilled nursing facility in Concord, 20 residents died from COVID-19-related causes, and a total of 65 residents and 17 staff members tested positive for the virus.

No residents or staff of either San Miguel Villa or Orinda Care Center are still being treated for COVID-19 symptoms, state figures show.

ManorCare Health Services-Tice Valley, on Tice Valley Boulevard, is outside the Rossmoor gated active-adult community where approximately 11,000 people live. That facility is separate and distinct from ManorCare Health Services-Rossmoor, on Rossmoor Boulevard a few blocks away from the Tice Valley facility. No cases of COVID-19 have been reported at ManorCare Health Services-Rossmoor.

State Department of Public Health personnel make regular site visits to nursing facilities where residents or staff have tested positive, said Will Harper, a spokesman for Contra Costa Health Services.

The county health department or an affiliated health care provider sends "strike teams" to nursing facilities where a positive test is reported, to review infection control practices with facility staff, and consults with state health department personnel about local facilities, Harper said.

He would not discuss details of outbreaks at specific facilities, including ManorCare on Tice Valley Boulevard.

Beckert said HCR ManorCare facilities had, by March, already eliminated group activities and most outside visits except in end-of-life situations, and that by that point all employees were required to wear masks.

More precautions have been taken since then, Beckert said, including restricting new admissions, taking regular symptom and temperature checks of all residents, strengthening sanitizing and cleaning processes and staying connected with residents' families and maintaining personal protective equipment supplies for staff.

"Our employees are working extremely hard, and in a challenging environment," Beckert said. "They are true health care heroes and deserve to be recognized as such."

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A Vietnam Airlines flight carrying 280 Vietnamese from Europe lands at Da Nang Airport in central Vietnam, July 22, 2020. Photo courtesy of Vietnam Airlines.

A special flight brought home 280 Vietnamese nationals stranded in 11 European nations to Da Nang City on Wednesday morning.

The Vietnam Airlines aircraft left the Polish capital Warsaw with passengers who had been stuck in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, countries hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and with stringent travel restrictions.

They underwent medical checks before boarding and were quarantined on arrival. Their samples have been taken for testing.

Europe is a global Covid-19 hotspot with over 2.7 million infections and 199,749 deaths so far.

In the last few months Vietnam has repatriated over 2,000 of its citizens from the continent.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at a press briefing on Thursday that 13,323 Vietnamese have been brought back on 55 flights since April 10.

Dinh Viet Thang, head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, said 50 more flights would bring over 13,000 Vietnamese citizens home by the end of next month.

Authorities have warned that community infection could return to Vietnam with the repatriation of its citizens and the entry of foreign specialists and highly skilled workers.

Vietnam has reported 401 Covid-19 infections, including 36 active cases, all of whom are foreigners and Vietnamese repatriates quarantined upon arrival. The country has not reported community transmission of the disease for more than three months now.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday complimented the Indian Air Force for its rapid deployment of assets at forward locations in response to the border row with China in eastern Ladakh, saying its Balakot strike and the current combat readiness have sent a strong message to "adversaries". In an address to the top commanders of the IAF on the opening day of a three-day conference, the defence minister said the nation's resolve to defend its sovereignty stands firm and that the people of the country have full confidence in the capability of its armed forces.

Singh also talked about the "professional manner" in which the IAF conducted the air strikes deep inside Pakistan's Balakot last year and appreciated the force for its proactive response in bolstering its operational capabilities over the past few months. "He stated that the professional manner in which IAF conducted the air strikes in Balakot as well as rapid deployment of IAF assets at forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in eastern Ladakh has sent a strong message to the adversaries," the defence ministry said in a release.

He said the nation's resolve to defend its sovereignty stands firm on the faith its people have in the capability of its armed forces. Singh also mentioned the ongoing efforts to de-escalate tension along the Line of Actual Control and urged the IAF to stand ready to handle any eventuality.

Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria said that the IAF was well prepared to counter short term as well as strategic threats and the units were "evenly poised" to counter any aggressive action by the adversary. He said the response by all commands in ensuring deployment and readiness of forces was prompt and laudable. He also emphasised on the need to focus on the ability to handle situations at a short notice for ensuring a robust response.

In his address, the defence minister also acknowledged the IAF's role in adapting to changes in technology. He also talked about adopting emerging capabilities like nano technology, artificial intelligence, cyber and space domains. He assured the commanders that all requirements of the Armed Forces, whether financial or otherwise, would be fulfilled, the ministry said.

In the conference, the IAF commanders will carry out an in-depth review of the country's air defence system which will include deployment of the first batch of Rafale fighter jets in the Ladakh sector. The main focus of the commanders' conference will be to deliberate on the overall situation in eastern Ladakh and enhance the IAF's combat prowess over the country's air space in all sensitive sectors along the de-facto border with China including in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Uttarakhand, the sources said.

The commanders are expected to specifically deliberate on deployment of first batch of around six Rafale jets in the Ladakh sector by early next month as the aircraft are set to join the IAF's fighter fleet by July 29, the sources said. In a demonstration of its aerial prowess, the IAF has been carrying out night time combat air patrols over the eastern Ladakh region in the last few weeks, in an apparent message to China that it was ready to deal with any eventualities in the mountainous region.

The IAF has deployed almost all its frontline fighter jets like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 aircraft in key frontier air bases in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China notwithstanding disengagement of troops by Chinese military from a number of friction points.

The IAF has also deployed Apache attack choppers as well as Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to transport troops to various forward locations. The IAF has also pressed into service a fleet of C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft as well as C-130J Super Hercules in transporting heavy military equipment and weaponry to several forward bases in the region.

Also read: Galwan Valley clash: US lawmakers urge China to de-escalate situation with India
A 20-year-old father-of-one has appeared in court on a charge relating to the attempted hijacking of a car earlier this week during which a couple was allegedly threatened with a knife.

Tyler Lewis, with an address in Youghal, Co Cork was charged with possession of a knife at Grand Parade in Cork City on July 20 last.

Garda Mary Enneguess gave evidence of arrest charge and caution at Cork District Court.

She said that gardai were objecting to bail arising out of the seriousness of the charge and the possibility of more serious charges.

Garda Enneguess said that on Monday evening a couple were at their car in a car park off Grand Parade around 7pm when they were approached by a man who asked them for a light for his cigarette.

The couple became nervous and got into their car but the male jumped into the back seat.

Garda Enneguess said the female passenger jumped out and the defendant allegedly produced a 15cm knife which he pointed at the driver.

He (the assailant) told the female to get back into the car or he would stab her boyfriend.

The woman got into the passenger seat and the man said he wanted to be driven to a destination. The woman had a panic attack following which the man fled the scene.

Garda Enneguess said Mr Lewis was later arrested and taken to the Bridewell Garda Station where he was questioned.

The defendant was arrested by members of the new Cork City Centre Policing Unit who were alerted after the alarm was raised.

Solicitor for Mr Lewis, Daithi ODonnabhain, said his client was willing to abide by any bail conditions the court might impose including a condition that he would stay out of Cork city.

Lewis, he said, was the father of a two-year-old child and his partner was also due to give birth soon.

However Judge Olann Kelleher said he was refusing the bail application. He remanded Lewis to appear before him again on July 29 next.
OnePlus Nord is being made in India and OnePlus' India R&D has played a key role in making the OnePlus Nord a reality. The affordable OnePlus phone is now official and it starts at Rs 24,999 in India.

The OnePlus Nord has finally made its debut after successfully becoming one of the most talked-about smartphone launches of 2020. India as always, is the key market for the OnePlus smartphone which is why company's India R&D team has made several important contributions in making the OnePlus Nord.

India has been the biggest market for OnePlus for the past few years, and the Nord fits the country's price-sensitive mindset even better. It has the potential to capture the price-segment that OnePlus lost due to the inflating cost of its premium phones. We've been testing the phone and now it's fair to say that it will make the sub 30K segment slightly more competitive.

The OnePlus Nord is being manufactured in India and starts at Rs 24,999 in India. This is the lowest it costs anywhere in the world, but that's for the 6GB RAM and 64GB storage variant, which is also exclusive to the Indian market as of now. Although, you won't be able to buy it till September as only the 8GB and 12GB variants will go on sale in August. Also, note that the Nord is not coming to the US market and there's no announcement made for China either.

To recall, OnePlus inaugurated their largest R&D centre in Hyderabad last year in August. It was, in fact, company's third R&D facility after Shenzhen and Taipei. The facility is headed by Ramagopala Reddy Palukuri as the companys Vice President for R&D in India. Fast forward to the OnePlus Nord, OnePlus says its India R&D team has led the software development efforts for OnePlus Nord from end to end. We spoke to Mr Ramagopala to know more about their role.

OnePlus India R&D led software development for Nord

Ramagopala Reddy, Vice President, OnePlus R&D, India told Digit that the India R&D team worked towards camera software development, 5G network optimisations, OxygenOS customizations, and much more. They also "worked closely with OnePlus community members and even held one-on-one interactions with several members". He adds, "with over 500+ software builds of OxygenOS, the team conducted a series of software tests to ensure burdenless user experience, before releasing the final software build for the new OnePlus Nord device".

Apart from these initiatives, these are the key areas where the OnePlus India R&D worked on:

Camera

The OnePlus Nord will be the first OnePlus device to offer a front ultra-wide selfie camera and also has the highest resolution selfie camera on any OnePlus device with a 32MP camera. Mr Reddy tells us, "the R&D team worked towards developing software solutions that effectively utilized these camera sensors to their high capacity, thereby helping acquire great quality selfies for larger groups".

"As part of our community co-creation efforts, community members with professional photography skills were also invited to participate in the camera software trials, and their valuable feedback was incorporated by the team, he added."

He stated, his team in India also worked towards creating improved bokeh and nightscape mode quality for the OnePlus Nords camera, through constant upgrades to the SDK (Software Development Kit). They also worked closely with global teams to create software solutions to enhance image quality and other camera app aspects of the OnePlus Nord. On top, they also worked towards "ensuring that the image processing continued to remain fast and smooth, while achieving and maintaining effective stability results".

He also told us that the OnePlus Nord camera is compatible with over a 100 popular third-party camera apps, which is achieved by the R&D team in India.

OxygenOS

One of the better things about the OnePlus Nord is that it doesn't cut down on features that the premium OnePlus phone have. Mr Reddy told us that features likes Work-Life Balance and Shot on OnePlus app (SOOP) may not be new but they were developed in India and are available across all supported OnePlus devices including the Nord.

The R&D team also developed and optimized a series of other features such as screen capture, longshot video recording feature, Setup Wizard feature for the OnePlus Nord.

Display Optimization

Mr Reddy tells that the India team has optimised OnePlus Nord's display performance. They "created a smoother scrolling experience on the device by optimizing rendering lag of GPU". Also, "they developed a better screen-on time experience by implementing ambient display optimizations for an enhanced fingerprint unlocking experience".

This basically means that they've used the same generation in-display fingerprint as on the OnePlus 8 Pro to offer fast unlock speeds and smoother experience.

UI/UX Design

The R&D team in India also led the efforts to develop the UX/UI design for the OnePlus Nord.

"The team led several software design tests for technological feasibility along with the global team in Taipei, as they recreated and ran several tests with each new design format until the most desirable design quality was achieved," says Mr Reddy on UI design.

5G Optimisation

We know that all the new OnePlus phones come with new Qualcomm chipsets with 5G support. Even though it means nothing to India as of now, the India team has worked with Qualcomm to "ensure effective field-testing measures were implemented for the OnePlus Nord devices."

"The team also worked closely with European network operators to test and attain effective 5G network compatibility for OnePlus Nord devices.

The OnePlus R&D team in India directly collaborated with network operators across the globe towards implementing effective VoLTE/VoWiFi/VT service compatibility for the OnePlus Nord devices".

Is there any exclusive software feature for the Indian market?

Mr Ramagopala Reddy says "the OnePlus Nord will breathe the same beloved OxygenOS as OnePlus 8 series. With the same version of OxygenOS running on the 8 series and OnePlus Nord, we look forward to providing users with the premium OnePlus OxygenOS experience".

While there is no new addition specifically for the Nord, what's commendable is that OnePlus has managed to fit all the flagship features to its budget offering, at least on the software front.

OnePlus has emphasised that the OnePlus Nord is being made in India. We asked if India is also manufacturing for other markets, to which the company said, "it will be made only for India as of now".
Chandigarh, July 22 : The Punjab cabinet, here on Wednesday, approved the $285.71 million project for canal-based water supply for Amritsar and Ludhiana.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) will provide $200 million (70 per cent) and the state government $85.71 million (30 per cent) as per the proposal of the Local Government Department for adoption of resettlement policy framework under the Punjab Municipal Services Improvement Project.

The cabinet meeting, held through video link, was chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

The project would have four components. They are: strengthening urban and water supply service management at a cost of $11.61 million, improving water supply infrastructure at $240.38 million, besides land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement at a cost of $15.62 million, Covid crisis response to the tune of $10 million and project management at $7.6 million, in addition to $0.5 million front-end fee.

In June 2018, the state through the Union Department of Economic Affairs had sought the World Bank's support for implementing 24X7 canal-based water supply projects in Amritsar and Ludhiana.

With the World Bank's technical assistance, the pre-feasibility reports were prepared in 2015 and updated in 2019. It proposed the need to migrate from rapidly depleting and contaminated decentralized ground water sources to a centralized treated surface water source.

A spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office said the resettlement policy framework laid procedures and measures to ensure adequate accountability and transparency in the process of assessing land-related impacts.

A fair process will be put in place for acquiring land and for compensating those adversely impacted due to replacement cost.
IDW Publishing president, publisher, and chief creative officer Chris Ryall is stepping down from his current positions to join the World of Syzygy, a new storytelling venture launched in partnership with artist Ashley Wood that is based on content and characters Ryall developed at IDW Publishing. Wood has worked with IDW and Ryall on a variety of projects.

Although very little information about the World of Syzygy has been released, the venture was originally announced by Ryall and Wood in 2018. Wood is an award-winning comics artist that has worked on numerous comics projects for IDW. According to the WoS website, the venture is a partnership between Ryall and Wood and will focus on comics publishing and building an all-new art-&-publishing collective.

In a prepared statement Ryall said: I look forward to bringing exciting new stories into the world through many different storytelling forms. Im thrilled to be back working alongside Ashley Wood, as well as other creators to come, in developing interesting projects for our World of Syzygy venture."

Although Ryall is leaving his current leadership positions at IDW, he will continue to work as an executive producer of Locke & Key, a popular Netflix TV series based on graphic novels written by Joe Hill and drawn by Gabriel Rodriquez. Ryall will also continue as the sole editor of Locke & Key publishing efforts.

A comics writer as well as an editor and TV/film producer, Ryall joined IDW in 2004 as editor-in-chief and rose to publisher before leaving the comics publishing house in early 2018 to join Robert Kirkmans Skybound imprint at Image Comics. Following an executive shakeup at IDW that saw a number of executives leave the company that same year, Ryall returned to IDW in late 2018 after being renamed IDW president, in addition to its publisher and chief creative officer.

Ryall is credited with creating and overseeing a number of acclaimed comics/media and supply chain projects at IDW among them the Zombies vs Robots comics series with artist Wood; switching IDW book distribution to Penguin Random House Publisher Services, and launching an IDW Spanish-language graphic novel publishing program based around George Takeis bestselling graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy.

Change is often hard, and I will miss this extended family I have worked with for more than 15 years, said Ryall. We brought on some amazing hires, expanded the scope of many of the departments, and re-focused the foundation of the business to best support the integrated multi-media company that IDW has become.
The stuff of classic-rock fans dreams is now reality. Scarlet, a previously shelved 70s Rolling Stones song featuring lead guitar from Led Zeppelins Jimmy Page, has been released.

Musically, the song boasts tribal-jagged rhythm guitars, percussive shakers and tight bursts of Pages uniquely emotive leads. Stones frontman Mick Jaggers lyrics and vocal melodies are sticky and direct. The chorus: Scarlet, why you wearing my heart on your sleeve/Where it aint supposed to be/Scarlet, why you tearing my heart all to pieces/ It aint the way its supposed to be.

Scarlet is being included as part of an upcoming expanded reissue of 1973 Stones album Goats Head Soup. It may not make anyone forget Satisfaction or Kashmir, but as far as outtakes go Scarlet is a fine specimen that gets more infection with each spin. And hearing Pages slinky lines curl through The Stones blues-punk groove is bliss. You can listen to the track in the below YouTube clip.

Much of Goats Head Soup was recorded in Jamaica. However, Pages guitars on Scarlet were tracked in the basement studio of Stones guitarist Ron Woods London home, known as The Wick, circa fall 1974.

There was an invite to do a session, Page says in a press release. It was with Keith, so I said I tell you what, Ill bring my guitar along and Ill lay the solo parts on it. Pages daughter is named Scarlet and its generally believed the song is named for her.

Scarlet has been on Zeppelin fans radar for decades. The song was mentioned in infamous 1985 Zep biography Hammer of the Gods, by Stephen Davis. In addition to Page, Scarlet is said to feature Ric Grech, from Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood/Ginger Baker supergroup Blind Faith, on bass.

Jimmy and I had a recent phone call about it, Jagger says of Scarlet in a press release. We were talking about when we did it, and Page remembers it really well.

Page previously played lead guitar for The Stones on underrated 1986 single One Hit to the Body from The Stones Dirty Work album. As many rock fans know, before taking flight with Led Zeppelin, Page was a session musician, playing on tracks by artists ranging from Donovan to Lulu.

Stones guitarist Keith Richards have long expressed admiration for Pages playing. In a press release for Scarlet, the piratical Richards says, My thing has always been to work with the other guitar player. Ive been blessed that way man, with the people Ive played with.

The Rolling Stones Goats Head Soup reissue arrives Sept. 4. Previous to Scarlet, the band released funky-fun outtake Criss Cross. A third outtake, titled All The Rage and described as a wild, post-Brown Sugar strut, is also included in the set. You can order the reissued LP, including versions with an alternate cover and clear vinyl, at therollingstonesshop.com.

Goats Head Soup is known for wintry hit ballad Angie and being a dangerous eclectic follow-up to rootsy Stones masterpiece Exile on Main St. Other Goats Head Soup gems include bawdy boogie Star Star, woozy Richards ballad Coming Down Again and rock hit Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker).

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Azerbaijan's parliamentarian and writer Konul Nurullayeva praised the support of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its member states for her country against the repeated Armenian attacks, especially the recent aggression that erupted on 12 July.

In a press statement, a copy of which was seen by the Union of OIC News Agencies (UNA), Nuralayeva said, "I would like to refer, in particular, to the statement of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemning the Armenian attack in the direction of the borders with my country.

She cited the OIC statement as saying, The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation strongly condemns the attack of the Armenian armed forces in the direction of the Tovuz region of the Republic of Azerbaijan, violation of the ceasefire, and as a consequence the death and injury of Azerbaijani servicemen.

The statement contained an expression of OIC Secretary General Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen's condolences to the families of the victims and his wishes for a speedy recovery of the injured.

In the statement, the OIC reiterated its decisions and resolutions and those of the UN Security Council demanding full and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, and supporting a peaceful settlement to the conflict on the basis of Azerbaijan's sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of its internationally recognized borders.

The Azerbaijani MP said her country appreciates the support of the Islamic world, which contributes to Islamic solidarity, pointing out that the Islamic world is well aware that Armenia occupied the historical lands of Azerbaijan  Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. The policy of ethnic cleansing has been relentlessly pursued in those areas, forcing more than a million of Azerbaijanis to become refugees and internally displaced persons. In 1992, Armenia committed the genocide in Khojaly, where 613 civilians were killed, including 106 women and 63 children, in addition to thousands of missing and injured people.

She indicated that the UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on the conflict demanding immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the Azerbaijani territories.

Meanwhile, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and other organizations have adopted similar decisions and resolutions. However, the occupier Armenia ignores any of these decisions and continues its war crimes against the Azerbaijani civilian population. Despite the ceasefire, civilians and servicemen are killed as a result of Armenian armed attacks.

Trying to present itself as a friend of Muslim countries, Armenia is destroying mosques and religious monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas, and ruining Islamic values. As the President of Azerbaijan said, a country that destroys mosques can never be a friend of Muslim countries. We are confident that the Islamic world will continue to support the fair settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict within the framework of the international law.

Nurullayeva said that the Armenian armed forces once again violating the norms and principles of international law committed provocations in order to seize our positions in the direction of Tovuz region on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border since July 12. Suddenly, our servicemen were killed as a result of artillery fire on the post of Azerbaijani military units. The point is that this military provocation is not the first case.

Over the past few months, Azerbaijani servicemen and civil persons have been killed as a result of these armed provocations. During the ceasefire period, more than 30 children have been killed by Armenian snipers.

Of course, Azerbaijan, using its sovereign right, resolutely prevented another provocation by Armenia, and responded adequately. As a result, all the efforts of the Armenian side failed, and Azerbaijan protected its state border. Armenia, targeting the civilian population, killed our 76-year-old compatriot, a resident of Aghdam village of Tovuz region. By doing so, Armenia has revealed its terrorist and occupier nature by shooting down and killing civilians.

The world once again saw the true face of Armenia. The international community once again witnessed that Armenia is a threat to the security of the region as a whole. Of course, all the responsibility for what happened lies with the military-political leadership of Armenia. However, as paradoxical as it may sound, on the one hand, Armenia appeals to the international community and asks for help in strengthening the ceasefire regime on the line of contact.

The Azerbaijani MP affirmed that the President of Azerbaijan has always stated that we will never accept the fact that our occupied lands remain in this state. This is a message addressed to both the occupier and the international community. Armenia has long sought to involve the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which it is a member, into the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict through similar military adventures, and to evade responsibility for occupation and aggression against Azerbaijan.

Nurullayeva explained that Azerbaijan has established close friendly relations with all CSTO countries except Armenia, although not being a member of this organization.
US President says Operation Legend will send hundreds of troops into Chicago, and other cities will follow.

President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr announced Wednesday that federal agents will surge into Chicago and Albuquerque to help combat rising crime, expanding the administrations intervention in local law enforcement as Trump runs for re-election in the United States.

Frankly, we have no choice but to get involved, Trump said at the White House event where he made the announcement.

Politicians running many of our cities have put interests of criminals above law-abiding citizens, Trump said.

These same politicians have now embraced the far-left movement to break up our police departments, causing violent crime in their cities to spiral  and I mean spiral seriously  out of control, Trump said, citing murder rates in New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Chicago.

Trump said he is deploying hundreds of agents to Chicago from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the US Marshals Service, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The federal officers will work with local law enforcement to identify, arrest and prosecute violent criminals, the president said.

Chicago Police officers investigate the scene of a shooting in the city that left 14 people wounded on July 21 [Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP]

Barr said the Operation Legend programme is modelled on federal anti-gang enforcement efforts begun in the mid-1990s and a new programme begun recently in Kansas City, Missouri, in response to deadly shootings.

Barr said there has been a significant increase in violent crime in many inner cities following the racial justice protests triggered by the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The protests were an extreme reaction that has demonised police and directly resulted in a rise in crime, Barr said.

Hundreds of federal agents already have been sent to Kansas City, Missouri, to help quell a record rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy there. Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon.

Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities that had seen spiking violence.

Usually, the Justice Department sends agents under its own umbrella from the ATF or DEA, but this surge will include at least 100 DHS officers working in the region who generally conduct drug-trafficking and child-exploitation investigations.

Trump has linked the growing violence in the streets with protests over racial injustice, though criminal justice experts say the spike defies easy explanation, pointing to the unprecedented moment the country is living through  a pandemic that has killed more than 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, stay-at-home orders, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather. And compared with other years, crime is down overall.

Local authorities have complained that the surges in federal agents have only exacerbated tensions on the streets.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to US cities is playing out at a hyper-politicised moment when Trump is trying to show he is a law-and-order president and painting Democratic-led cities as out of control. With less than four months to go before Election Day, Trump has been serving up dire warnings that the violence would worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November.

But civil unrest in Portland only escalated after federal agents there were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause.

The spike in crime has hit hard in some cities with resources already stretched thin from the pandemic. But the move to send in federal forces was initially rejected by local leaders.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot later said she and other local officials had spoken with federal authorities and come to an understanding.

Ive been very clear that we welcome actual partnership, the Democratic mayor said on Tuesday after speaking with federal officials. But we do not welcome dictatorship. We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents. That is something I will not tolerate.

President Trump cited rises in violent crime as the reason to send US federal forces into cities, over the objections of local officials [Shannon Stapleton/Reuters]

Operation Legend  named after four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in a Kansas City apartment late last month  was announced on July 8. The first arrest came earlier this week.

The Trump administration is facing growing pushback in Portland. Multiple lawsuits have been filed questioning the federal governments authority to use broad policing powers in cities. One suit filed on Tuesday said federal agents are violating protesters 10th Amendment rights by engaging in police activities designated to local and state governments.

Oregons attorney general sued last week, asking a judge to block federal agents actions. The state argued that masked agents had arrested people on the streets without probable cause and far from the US courthouse that has become a target of vandalism.

Federal authorities, however, said state and local officials had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers and the US courthouse.
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HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NOVA LEAP HEALTH CORP. (TSXV: NLH) (Nova Leap or the Company), a 2019 TSX Venture 50 ranked company focused on the home health care industry, is pleased to announce that Chris Dobbin, President & CEO of Nova Leap, will present at the SNN Network Virtual Investor Conference to be held August 3-6, 2020.



About SNN Network Virtual Investor Conference

SNN Network brings together the most promising companies and the top dealmakers in MicroCap Finance for four days of company presentations, 1:1 meetings and educational panels in The Premier Virtual Event in MicroCap Finance.

Mr. Chris Dobbin, President & CEO of Nova Leap, will be presenting at the event by way of webcast on Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at 9:30 AM Eastern Time / (6:30 AM Pacific Time).

The unique link allowing access to the Companys webcast is:

https://www.webcaster4.com/Webcast/Page/2059/35952

During the Showcase, Mr. Dobbin plans to discuss the following:

How the Company is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and how the in-home care industry is well-positioned as part of the continuum of care;

Historical financial results;

Ongoing M&A activities and expansion plans;

The expanding Home Care market and Nova Leaps focus on dementia care;

How Nova Leap has successfully employed its acquisition and post-acquisition strategies to achieve previously reported record financial results;

How promoting from within the organization has helped the Company scale;

How continued investment in care professional training, including dementia training, leads to better client service;

The advantage of decentralized operations and the impact of positive incremental changes on operational leverage; and

The Companys high insider ownership and Managements desire for the Company to become a long-term compounder through the proper allocation of capital.

Story continues

About Nova Leap

Nova Leap is an acquisitive home health care services company operating in one of the fastest-growing industries in the U.S. & Canada. The Company performs a vital role within the continuum of care with an individual and family centred focus, particularly those requiring dementia care. Nova Leap achieved the #10 Ranking in the 2019 TSX Venture 50 in the Clean Technology & Life Sciences sector. The Company is geographically diversified with operations in 6 different U.S. states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Oklahoma and Ohio as well as Nova Scotia, Canada.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION:

Certain information in this press release may contain forward-looking statements, such as statements regarding future expansions and cost savings and plans regarding future acquisitions and financings. This information is based on current expectations and assumptions, including assumptions concerning the Companys ability to integrate its acquired businesses and maintain previously achieved service hour and revenue levels, that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. Risks that could cause results to differ from those stated in the forward-looking statements in this release include regulatory changes affecting the home care industry, unexpected increases in operating costs and competition from other service providers. All forward-looking statements, including any financial outlook or future-oriented financial information, contained in this press release are made as of the date of this release and included for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements unless and until required by securities laws applicable to the Company. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in the Company's filings with the Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available at www.sedar.com .

For further information:

Christopher Dobbin, CPA, CA, Director, President and CEO Nova Leap Health Corp.,

T: 902 401 9480 F: 902 482 5177

E: cdobbin@novaleaphealth.com

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT:

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.




The Union health ministry on Monday warned against the inappropriate use of N-95 masks, particularly those with valve respirators, by people other than designated health workers.

Dr Rajiv Garg, the director general of health services, wrote to principal secretaries (health) of all states and union territories (UTs), and national health mission directors in this regard. It is to bring to your knowledge that the use of valved respirator N-95 masks is detrimental to the measures adopted for preventing the spread of coronavirus as it does not prevent the virus from escaping out of the mask. In view of the above, I request you to instruct all concerned to follow the guidelines on the use of face mouth cover and prevent inappropriate use of N95 masks, the letter read.

Dr Shobha Broor, former head, microbiology department, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, said, The masks with valves were widely used to prevent air pollution exposure. But it is not suited for Covid-19 because during expiration, droplets can leak out, infecting other people.

Using N-95 masks with valves is recommended when pollution levels are high because they do not allow carbon dioxide to accumulate inside the face cover, experts said. But the same valve  used for exhalation  could act as an easy passage for germs and endanger those in close proximity if the user has an infection.

The government, in April, had issued an advisory on the use of home-made protective cover for face and mouth, asking people to wear it, particularly when they step out of their residences.

The advisory stressed that such face covers must be washed and cleaned daily, and recommended the use of used cotton cloth to make these covers. The colour of the fabric does not matter but one must ensure that the fabric is washed well in boiling water for five minutes and dried well before making the face cover. Adding salt to this water is recommended, it said.

Listing the procedure and condition for home-made masks, the advisory stated that masks must fit the face perfectly and that no gaps are left on the sides.

The advisory urged people to wash hands thoroughly before wearing the face covers, switching to another fresh one if the face cover becomes damp or humid, and never reusing it after single use without cleaning it. Never share the face cover with anyone. Every member in a family should have separate face cover, the advisory stated.

(with inputs from agencies)

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The U.S. ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, shut down because of the persistent problem of Bejings theft of American intellectual property, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.

We are setting out clear expectations as to how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, the top U.S. diplomat said at a news conference in Denmark.



And when they dont, we are going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs, he said.



China was given until Friday afternoon to close the Houston facility, which has about 60 employees. The U.S. order was a sharp escalation of recent fraying relations between the United States, the worlds biggest economy, and No. 2 China.



The directive came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged that the coronavirus pandemic that originated in China is likely to get worse in the United States before it gets better.

The number of coronavirus cases is surging in the U.S. to an average of 66,000 a day over the last week, and the number of deaths, now topping 142,000, is rising again to more than 900 a day after slowing in recent weeks.

Pompeo said Chinas Houston operations had a wide effect.



Its not just American intellectual property that is stolen, he said. Its been European intellectual property, too, costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, good jobs for hard-working people all across Europe and America, stolen by the Chinese Communist Party.



He said that President Trump has said enough. Were not going to allow this to continue to happen.



One key Republican lawmaker, Senator Marco Rubio, said the Chinese consulate in Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States.



This needed to happen Rubio declared.



There are six other Chinese diplomatic missions in the U.S.: its embassy in Washington, an office at the United Nations and consulates in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.

While Trump has often praised Chinese President Xi Jinping, tensions between the two countries have increased in the midst of the pandemic and Chinas security crackdown on protests in Hong Kong, which the U.S. and its Western allies have deplored. The U.S. has issued new travel rules for diplomats and also required some Chinese state news organizations to register as diplomatic entities.



Two Chinese nationals were charged Tuesday with hacking hundreds of entities around the world, including U.S. biotech companies developing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, while working with Chinas security services.



China strenuously objected to the U.S. order to close the Houston consulate and threatened retaliation.



Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the U.S. directive is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China. He accused the United States of harassing Chinese diplomatic and consular staff, as well as intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices and even going so far as to detain them.



Wang warned that if the Trump administration did not have a change of heart, China would retaliate.

Hours after the order was issued, local Houston television station KPRC broadcast footage of smoke billowing from a courtyard inside the consulate, with fire trucks stationed on the street outside. Houston police said consular staffers were burning documents in open containers in preparation of being evicted, but local authorities did not enter the diplomatic facility.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said he's not the United States President Donald Trump and cannot tolerate his people suffering, The Hindustan Times reported.

The CM said this in a promotional video of a pre-recorded interview for Saamna, the mouthpiece of the ruling Shiv Sena.

Thackeray stated that his decisions would be based on the betterment of people without any fear or favour. I am not [Donald] Trump; I cannot see my people suffer before my eyes, Thackeray said in a short clip released by Sanjay Raut, executive editor of Saamna and a Sena MP.

The full interview will be released on July 25 or 26, leading up to the CM's 60th birthday, which is on July 27, according to the report.

According to the report, Thackeray said the last six months have brought on many challenges, which include the COVID-19 pandemic which appears "unending", he added.

Thackeray wanted to set an example of self-discipline for the public where maintaining social distancing norms is the need of the hour, the report said. He also shared his views on whether final examinations must be conducted, and firmly believes that they must be held asnobody should be under the illusion that students wont get [infected with] Covid-19 otherwise," the report added.
Actor Sanjana Sanghi, who is making her debut in a lead role in the most unfortunate of circumstances, has said that even the fans love isnt enough to make things better after the death of her Dil Bechara co-star, Sushant Singh Rajput.

This is not fun. If given a choice, I wouldnt ever have it this way. Im only doing this, I feel, because I want him to look over and be proud and be happy, she told CNN News18 in an interview. If it were up to me, I would probably be cooped up in a corner, not have the courage to like to chat with you right now, because it wasnt supposed to be this way.

Also read: Sanjana Sanghi on whether she noticed signs of depression in Sushant Singh Rajput: You can tell he is not an actor whose mind is elsewhere

Sanjana added, He was supposed to be by my side, we were supposed to tell you these anecdotes together. And I dont know, there is nothing like that makes this better, you know. The love that people are giving helps but it still doesnt fix anything. Sushant died by suicide on June 14, at the age of 34. He was suffering from depression, according to the police.

As the films lead actor, Sanjana has been thrust into the limelight in the weeks leading up to its release, on Disney+Hotstar. Its not possible for a human being to feel such extremes of both happiness and gratitude for the fact that its my debut as a lead coming out. But the grief and shock of losing my partner-in-crime has left me in this weird, numb space. Im too young to deal with such things, and trying to do my best to fulfil my commitments. Its only when the storm will end, will I be able to sit back and really look into what Im feeling, she told Hindustan Times in an interview.

Also read: Sushants death has been turned into a circus, rues his Dil Bechara co-star Sanjana Sanghi

Sanjana said that Sushant never talked to her about what he was going through mentally. I dont know about the illness part of it because thats not how your mind works when you are with a person. If he would have let something off to me or told me, then I would have had that conversation. But he never did, she told Pinkvilla.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- OhmConnect , California's leading clean energy program, has rolled out MEGA Summer , their biggest campaign of the year. During MEGA Summer, California residents have the opportunity to earn more money and win prizes for saving energy while at home. Participants have earned everything from $3k in cash, Peloton bikes, and Home Theater Systems, and one grand prize winner will have their energy bill paid for life.

What Is MEGA Summer?

Save energy when it matters most while earning the biggest rewards.

OhmConnect's third-annual MEGA Summer campaign is only 8 weeks in, and Californians across the state have already won big. OhmConnect users have won Energy Star Washer and Dryer Combos (a $2000 value) and Peloton bikes (a $3000 value). OhmConnect has given out over 50 $100 cash pay-outs and 50 Disney+ subscriptions. This is all in addition to the weekly earnings through OhmConnect and savings that users are seeing on their energy bill.

MEGA Summer runs from June 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020. The grand prize winner will be announced on October 7, 2020.

California residents can go to www.ohmconnect.com to sign up.

How does OhmConnect work?

OhmConnect is a free service that gives Californians cash rewards and other prizes for reducing energy consumption when the grid is stressed. Hundreds of thousands of California households participate in OhmHours, a program that tells users over text message when to reduce their at-home energy consumption. OhmHours typically last for one hour and occur up to four times a week. When residents turn off their appliances, they save on their energy bills and earn money.

OhmConnect has most recently rolled out AutoOhm , a program that automatically manages energy use for users when demand is high and prices surge. With AutoOhms, California residents can earn even more rewards without lifting a finger.

Since 2014, OhmConnect has paid out $12 million to its OhmConnect customers and last summer alone, paid out $3.2M in rewards.

What is OhmConnect?

OhmConnect was founded in 2014 with the vision of becoming the world's largest supplier of clean energy. Today, OhmConnect enables hundreds of thousands of residents to reimagine how they use energy, to choose clean energy over dirty energy when required, and to be rewarded for timely, smarter, home energy use. OhmConnect pays their users to save energy when the grid is stressed and when fossil fuel emitting peaker plants fire up to meet increased demand. The OhmConnect community has collectively saved as much energy as the equivalent to planting 24,209 trees and driving 2.29M miles. Sign up with OhmConnect for free at ohmconnect.com. Follow us on Twitter @OhmConnect , see our OhmConnect Blog , or check us out on Facebook and LinkedIn .

Media Contact

Ali Schwartz

415.254.1355

[email protected]

SOURCE OhmConnect

Related Links

http://www.ohmconnect.com


Northrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/22/2020 -- According to the new market research report "Automotive Turbocharger Market By Technology (VGT, Wastegate, Electric), Material (Cast Iron, Aluminum), Component, Fuel Type, Application (Agriculture, Construction), Vehicle (Passenger Car, LCV, Truck & Bus), Aftermarket, Region-Global Forecast To 2025", Published by MarketsandMarkets, The global Automotive Turbocharger Market size is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.5% over the forecast period, to reach USD 18.4 billion by 2025 from USD 11.1 billion in 2020.



Factors such as decreased emission limits in new emission regulations, fuel shift towards gasoline passenger cars & especially towards GDI engines and focused technological advancements in electric turbocharger technology for mild-hybrid vehicles are projected to create a potential demand for automotive turbochargers in the coming years.



Browse in-depth TOC on "Automotive Turbocharger Market"



249  Tables

62  Figures

242  Pages



Key Market Players:



Automotive Turbocharger Market is dominated by manufacturers such Honeywell (US), BorgWarner (US), MHI (Japan), IHI (Japan), and Continental (Germany), Bosch Mahle (Germany), Cummins (US), ABB (Switzerland), TEL (India), and Delphi Technologies (UK), Rotomaster International (Canada), Precision Turbo & Engine INC(US), Turbonetics(US), Turbo International (US), Kompressorenabu Bannewitz GMBH(Germany), Turbo Dynamic Ltd.(UK), Fuyuan Turbocharger Co. Ltd.(China), Hunan Tyen Machinery Co. Ltd. (China), Ningbo Motor Industrial Co. Ltd. (China), Calsonic Kansei (Japan).



Download PDF Brochure @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=919



The wastegate turbocharger type is estimated to hold the largest share in the market



Wastegate turbochargers are expected to hold the largest share (in terms of volume) in 2020, of the total turbochargers market. Wastegate turbochargers, being more economical than VGT type, Asia Oceania is estimated to showcase the most significant demand for this type of turbocharges, as the region prefers economic passenger cars (especially in countries such as China and India). However, the developed areas of the world are mostly using the advanced & comparatively expensive VGT type. Currently, the installation rate for VGT is lower in Asia. However, owing to its better efficiency (than wastegate turbos) and new emission regulations, which are expected to be introduced in India and China in the coming years, the demand for VGT is likely to increase in Asian countries post-2020.



Passenger car is estimated to be the fastest-growing segment in the Automotive Turbocharger Market



The passenger car segment is expected as the largest market for automotive turbochargers as it contributes to more than 50% of the global vehicle production. COVID-19 will have a major impact on the production of passenger cars in 2020. Passenger car production, which hit 74 million in 2019, will observe a decline of 15% in 2020. Efforts from various automakers to start vehicle production would help in a steady recovery post-2020. For instance, automakers in China, such as Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai, and Honda, have announced the reopening of their plants in the country. In Europe, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Audi have resumed operations.



According to ICCT, the turbocharger technology in the EU has increased the average passenger car engine power by 30% to 97 kW, and the engine displacement decreased by 7%, reducing the overall weight of the vehicles, and hence emissions. With a change in fuel type from diesel to gasoline and advancements in 48V mild-hybrid cars, the demand for gasoline and electric turbochargers is projected to grow in the passenger car segment in the coming years.



Asia Pacific: The region with the largest demand for automotive turbochargers



Asia Pacific countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and India are the largest vehicle producers globally. These countries accounted for 49% of the global vehicle production in 2019. The global production of vehicles in 2020 will observe a 15% decline due to COVID-19. China, India, and Japan, which account for a large share of the global passenger car production, will observe a drop of 15%, 17%, and 14%, respectively, in 2020 as compared to 2019. Similarly, heavy commercial vehicle production in China (the largest production hub for these vehicles) will observe a decline of 21% in 2020 as compared to 2019. COVID-19 has resulted in a decrease in vehicle production. However, Asia Pacific continues to remain the largest vehicle producer globally. Considering the opening of manufacturing plants in China, global vehicle production would grow at a rate of 3.3% from 2020 to 2025.



Request FREE Sample Report @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=919



Factors responsible for the steady growth of Automotive Turbocharger Market the post-2020 recovery of vehicle production are:

- Stringent emission norms - China VI, with its limits lower than Euro VI set to be implemented in 2020, and India's BS-VI standards set to be implemented in 2020 (skipping BS V norms).

- The increasing popularity of TGDI - 50% of passenger cars are equipped with TGDI, and this rate estimated to grow further in the future. As per SIAM, India is also shifting toward gasoline vehicles with diesel vehicles share dropping to 19% from 50%, further fuelling the turbocharger market. Countries like Japan and South Korea have many of their passenger cars running on gasoline engines and are leading countries with an active market for wastegate turbochargers.

- One of the essential drivers to consider is the growing production of mild hybrid vehicles. Other growing economies, such as Thailand and Indonesia, are providing incentives to OEMs to set up their hubs to produce mild-hybrid HEVs for cleaner transportation. Other factors, such as increased fuel prices, will positively affect the turbocharger market.

- The key OEMs in this region include Brilliance Auto, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC), Chery Automobile, Geely Automobile, Hawtai Motor Group, and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. Hence, Asia Pacific is the largest market for automotive turbochargers. The Asia Pacific contributed to 57% of the demand for turbochargers in terms of value in 2020.



Browse Related Report:



Exhaust System Market by After-Treatment Device (DOC, DPF, LNT, SCR, and GPF), Aftermarket (DOC, DPF, and SCR), Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, LCV, HCV, Construction Equipment, and Agriculture Tractor), Component, and Region - Global Forecast to 2025



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Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/turbochargers-market.asp
Kupian.com scored 40 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2/5.0 Stars by Social Team

This CoolSocial report was updated on 3 Sep 2013, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want.

This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the kupian homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if kupian has a Facebook fan page). The total number of people who shared the kupian homepage on StumbleUpon. The total number of people who shared the kupian homepage on Delicious. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the kupian homepage on Twitter + the total number of kupian followers (if kupian has a Twitter account). The total number of people who shared the kupian homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button.

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Protecting yourself from surface and airborne threats is not only good for your health; it also gives you peace of mind, Harrington states in the video. Thats why Id like to introduce you to ViroShield - an effective way to help naturally defend yourself.

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Made in the USA, ViroShield is doing their part to help create a healthier nation, Harrington explains in the testimonial. With an all-natural blend of eight essential oils known for their protective properties, ViroShields Hand and Surface Cleansing Spray and their Hand and Body Wash not only kill germs, they nourish your skin as well, Harrington explains. He adds, And they smell great!

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New Delhi, July 22 : Relentless in its aggression towards its neighbours during the coronavirus pandemic, China has once again staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin in a press briefing said that the boundary between China and Bhutan is yet to be demarcated. "China's position remains consistent and clear. The boundary between China and Bhutan has not been delimited and there are disputes in the middle, eastern and western sections," he said.

To resolve the dispute, China, he said, is offering "a package solution." China is opposed to making an issue of these disputes at multilateral forums, he added.

However, China had made an issue about the sanctuary in eastern Bhutan's Trashigang district bordering India and China, in June this year at a virtual meeting of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) by objecting to a grant for it, claiming that the location was disputed.

The council had refused to record China's reason for objection, saying that the footnote would only record that China objected to the project.

The Bhutan government had issued a formal letter to the GEF council, strongly opposing the references questioning the sovereignty of Bhutan and its territory on the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in the documents of the council's session. Bhutan has urged the GEF council to purge all references of China's baseless claims from the Council's documents.

Bhutan and China have had a border dispute since 1984. Talks between Thimphu and Beijing have been limited to three areas of dispute (two in North Bhutan -- Jakarlung and Pasamlung areas -- and one in West Bhutan). Sakteng is not part of any of the three disputed areas.

Even as the rest of the world is struggling with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in Wuhan city of China's Hubei province, Beijing has been persistently provoking its neighbours in the East China Sea, South China Sea and India in Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh. Though there has been some thaw in tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India, the situation remains precarious.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
ALBANY  Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday said he spoke with President Donald Trump this week and informed him that there is no need for federal intervention to stem a sharp increase in crime in New York City.

Cuomo said he spoke to Trump on Tuesday after the president said he was considering sending federal law enforcement officers into cities plagued by violence and unrest, including New York City and Chicago. Protests, some hijacked by violent individuals, have resulted in clashes with police in both cities recently, including incidents in which officers as well as demonstrators were injured.

"I said that I was also concerned about the increase in crime in New York City and that people in New York City are concerned about the increasing crime," Cuomo said. "I also said that, at this point, I think the situation can be managed by the state to the extent that anything has to be done ... (and) that there was no need for federal involvement."

The governor also urged New York City officials  he did not mention Mayor Bill de Blasio  to "clean it up" when asked about rampant graffiti that is accompanying the violence and spike in crime.

Cuomo stopped short of acknowledging that crime is spiking across the state, including a high number of shootings in Albany, Rochester and Syracuse. The governor and other state leaders have deflected criticism that the rise in crime may be tied to sweeping criminal justice reforms they enacted in the past three years, including changing bail laws and raising the age of criminal responsibility in New York from 16 to 18.

"I am concerned. We are working with the city," Cuomo said. "The state is willing and able to do what it needs to do; it falls within the jurisdiction of the state. The city is a creature of state law and the state understands and respects the Constitution of the United States. We have no need at this time for any assistance from the federal government."

Cuomo said that Trump assured him that he will not send federal resources to New York City without first talking with the governor.

The governor said he reached out to the president after Trump put New York City "into the mix" with Portland, Ore., where for weeks violent protesters have clashed with police and, more recently, with federal officers who have drawn criticism from local officials for detaining protesters allegedly without sufficient cause. The federal presence has been justified as protection for federal property.

"If there is a public safety emergency in New York City that would require assistance, which could happen ... then we can bring in additional resources or do what we need to do to address the emergency," Cuomo said. "If I determine there is a public safety emergency in New York City, I would declare it."

Cuomo added that the president said "we would talk if he thinks circumstances change."

He added that he told Trump: "If the federal government had any concern about a federal asset ... I was more than willing to protect any federal asset. ... That was a good conversation."

Cuomo's acknowledgment of spiraling crime in New York City came as Republicans in the state Senate on Wednesday said legislation they proposed to "protect law enforcement officers" had been unanimously rejected by the chamber's Democratic Majority.

The Republicans pointed to a recent attack on NYPD Chief Terence Monahan and other officers who were assaulted as they protected a pro-police unity rally with clergy members crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.

The defeated GOP amendment would have changed multiple laws, including making resisting arrest a felony and classifying an attack on a police officer because of their employment status a hate crime.

"Democrats have defied common sense by creating an environment where law enforcement is under attack and violence on residents is skyrocketing," said Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt of Niagara County.
A member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra trust on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5.

Talking to reporters in Pune, Swami Govind Devgiri Maharaj also said that all chief ministers must be invited for the ceremony.

"The PM has agreed to come to Ayodhya on August 5 for the 'bhoomi pujan' of Ram temple. He will be there for one- and-a-half hours.

"He will first pay a visit to Hanuman Gadhi, then take darshan of Ram Lalla before taking part in the 'bhoomi poojan' ceremony," Swami Govind Devgiri Maharaj, also known as Kishorji Vyas, said.

"Earlier, they had decided that the PM will do the 'bhoomi pujan' online. But I insisted that he (PM) should come there in person and perform the ceremony. And Modi ji accepted it," he said.

"Modiji had sought two dates. So his office was informed about two dates- July 29 and August 5. Finally he gave consent to August 5," he added.

However, there has been no official confirmation from the Prime Minister's Office so far that Modi would be attending the ceremony.

Swami Devgiri Maharaj said that while the PM performs the ceremony, the people of the country will celebrate the moment by staying indoors.

"You will see there will be a wave of happiness in the country. If our morale goes down, we will get defeated in our fight against coronavirus. So to keep the morale high, we should create a wave of happiness and if that happens, COVID- 19 will start subside," he added.

According to him, in 1951, prime minister Pandit Nehru did not go to the Somnath temple (for inauguration) due to some 'family traditions'.

"But the then President of India, Rajendra Prasad, went there. Nehru opposed Prasad's decision, but the latter firmly said that he will go to Somnath temple even if he has to tender his resignation. This is called nationalism. Modiji has the same nationalism in him and that is why he is going," he said.

"This moment was awaited for the last five centuries and he (Modi) also shares the same feeling. That is why he has given his consent," the teasurer of the trust said.

Asked if Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will be invited to the ground-breaking ceremony, the seer said, "He must be invited."

"There is no question of not inviting CM Thackeray. He must be invited...I think there is no point in not inviting anybody. We must invite all the CMs, notable saints and social leaders," he added.

In view of the coronavirus pandemic, there will be only 200 people at the August 5 ceremony at Ayodhya, he said.

All social distancing norms will be followed at the event, he added.

He termed Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray as a 'great hero' who had emphasised building a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Talking to PTI later, Swami Devgiri said that the responsibility of inviting the saints and sages lies with the trust, but that of inviting the political personalities is with Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.

"So things will take place as per the decisions taken by Yogiji," he said.

He, however, said that if the invitation is sent, it will be sent to all the chief ministers.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut had on Tuesday said that Uddhav Thackeray will definitely go for the ground-breaking ceremony.

Asked whether Thackeray has received an invitation for the ceremony, Raut had said, "It will come."

Asked about Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar's recent statement that some people think building a temple will help eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic, Swami Devgiri Maharaj said, "People love Modiji so much that they always like to talk about him."

"They always try to find a chance to talk about him -- for or against. If someone talks in support, it does not become news, but if someone speaks against, it does and there are people who always like to be in news therefore they speak," he added.

Swami Devgiri, who returned to his ashram in Pune from Ayodhya on Tuesday, said that the construction of the temple will complete in three and half years and the trust is in the process of acquiring more land.
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Pew Research Center recently wrote about the decline of Christianity at a rapid pace.

Pew stated: More than eight-in-10 members of the Silent Generation (those born between 1928 and 1945) describe themselves as Christians (84%), as do three-quarters of Baby Boomers (76%). In stark contrast, only half of millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; four-in-10 are religious nones, and one-in-10 millennials identify with non-Christian faiths.

Some scholars, like Byron Johnson of Baylor, object, noting that some Americans described as nones actually attend nondenominational churches, but are misclassified as if they are unbelievers.

Still, regardless of the statistical details, it does not bode well for society that Christianity is losing its influence.

In 1798, Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, warned, Where there is no religion, there is no morality.  With the loss of religion  the security of life, liberty and property are buried in ruins.

The scary thing about Christianity losing influence in society is what it means to morality in America  and thus to freedom. As William Penn once noted, If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.

Yet our cultural elites do so much to banish any vestiges of religion in the public square.

Even as I write this, the American Center for Law & Justice is dealing with a case involving a retirement center in Florida, where residents display all sorts of lawn ornaments  oh, but there is a 12 inch white cross on one couples lawn. The cross is not allowed. Everything else is.

Because of so many liberal judges and so few Christian ones, the courts have sometimes gone to ludicrous lengths to keep any kind of religious  no, I should say Christian  expression out of the public arena. Perhaps the situation is moderately improving, since there are fewer justices on the high court who are legislating from the bench than in previous eras.

However, even to this day, we are still dealing with the damage caused by these court cases which have driven expressions of Judeo-Christian religion out of the public square.

A shocking and classic example is when the Supreme Court declared that the Ten Commandments were not allowed in the classroom. In the 1980 case of Stone v. Graham, the high court sided with the secularists in a Kentucky case involving privately-funded copies of the Decalogue of Moses that were displayed in some public schools.

Justice William Brennan wrote the decision, striking down public displays of the Ten Commandments with these chilling words: If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments. However desirable this might be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.

Imagine that. Children obeying the Ten Commandments. How awful.

In a recent television interview, Christian attorney David Gibbs III of the National Center for Law and Liberty told me, Now, shockingly, we live in a day where unfortunately school shootings and other things dominate our news at levels that are heartbreaking. And I think many American citizens would disagree with the Supreme Court and say, You know what? We would like to see some principles and some values, where the young people of our nation would be taught that there is a right, there is a wrong, that thou shalt not kill.

Gibbs continued, Why is murder against the law? Well, its against the law, because the Bible teaches that life has value and that God condemns. When you look at many of the things that we put into our legal system that we might consider core, you know, in terms of the safety and protection of people, it was all Bible-based."

In the mid-1800s, the former Speaker of the House, Robert Charles Winthrop (descendant of John Winthrop), wisely warned us, All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.

A professor at Harvard Business School shows in a 90 second video the same idea: the less internal morality, the greater the need for external policing and vice versa.

This is a sober message as so many Americans seem to be entering a brave new world, and leaving God  and therefore morality behind  and thereby our freedom as well.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 19:12:18|Editor: huaxia

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JERUSALEM, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The social workers' strike in Israel has come to an end after 16 days, the state's Ministry of Finance and Israel Union of Social Workers said on Wednesday.

The social workers went on a general strike on the grounds of low wages, heavy workloads and many cases of violence they suffer from.

According to an agreement reached on Tuesday night, 70 million new shekels (about 20.5 million U.S. dollars) will be allocated for the protection of social workers, in order to reduce cases of violence against them.

The ministry will also allocate 200 million shekels (58.4 million dollars) to pay grants of about 10,000 shekels (2,900 dollars), expand part-time jobs, and provide overtime quotas, for increasing manpower, reducing workloads and raise wages.

In addition, the ministry and the union will immediately begin discussions on a comprehensive reform of social workers' wage, to be launched in July 2021.

On Monday morning, Israel's nurses started a nationwide strike, due to the heavy loads created following the recent rise in morbidity.

The strike ended after 24 hours following quick night negotiations with the ministry. Enditem
Kabul, July 22 : At least seven Afghan security forces were killed in a Taliban attack in the southern province of Kandahar, police chief Tadin Khan confirmed on Wednesday.

The clashes started in Takhta Pul district of the province on Tuesday when the Taliban militants attacked security checkpoints, kiling seven security force members, Tolo news reported.

Recently, the Taliban terrorists also attacked security forces in Arghistan and Marouf districts, where 14 Taliban were killed, according to Kandahar police.

The security forces found "Pakistani ID cards on the Taliban terrorists who were killed in Arghistan and Marouf," police added.
MEXICO CITY - The luxurious presidential airplane that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been trying to sell returned to the capital Wednesday after drawing a bid while it was in a hangar in the United States.

Lopez Obrador has been flying commercial airlines or travelling by road since taking office in late 2018, and views the custom Boeing 787 jet as a symbol of wasteful luxury. He bought regular airline tickets for his first trip abroad to Washington in earlier July, with layovers both ways.

Lopez Obrador recently revealed that the government has received a $120 million offer in cash and medical equipment for the plane. But the government has not revealed the identity of the potential buyer, or why the plane was being brought back to Mexico.

Sales of tickets in a symbolic raffle for the plane have also resumed after a months-long pause caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly a quarter of the 6 million $25 tickets have been sold. Each of the 100 winners will collect about $1 million.

The plane was purchased for $200 million and was used by the previous president, Enrique Pena Nieto. It has been difficult to sell because it is configured to carry only 80 people and has a full presidential suite with a private bath. Experts say it would be costly to reconfigure into a typical passenger jet that would carry up to 300 passengers.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  Amid complaints of understaffing, public hospitals will be directed to increase the beds they allocate for COVID-19 patients when there is a surge of infections, a Department of Health official said Wednesday.

I-a-amend natin ang ating policy, Maria Rosario Vergeire told reporters in a media forum, noting that public hospitals will be mandated to increase their bed allocation for COVID-19 patients to 70 percent when the need arises, from the previous 30 percent.

[Translation: We will amend our policy.]

Pag-nag-surge, pwede mag-increase to 50%. Pag kailangan parin, they may increase to 70% of their bed capacity, Vergeire added.

[Translation: If there is a surge, the allocation could increase to 50 percent. If there need to raise it further, they may increase it up to 70 percent.]

Meanwhile, private hospitals will only have to reserve 20 percent of their total beds for COVID-19 patients, but this could be raised to 30% when there is a surge in the number of cases, Vergeire said. At present, private facilities are required to reserve 30 percent of their beds for coronavirus patients.

Vergeire said they are looking to provide incentives for private healthcare providers so they could comply with the required allotment. Private hospitals have said they were having a hard time allocating 30 percent of their total beds for COVID-19 patients.

"There are other things we are working on with other agencies so we can further incentivize our private hospitals para gawin nila ang (they could do the) expansion for COVID-19 patients," she said, without elaborating.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jaime Almora, president of the Philippine Hospital Association said this may still be a difficult request due to lack of nurses, and shortage of personal protective equipment.

But Almora told CNN Philippines that if the government hospitals can no longer handle the influx of patients, then private hospitals will accept more patients.

Di naman kami aatras kung talagang overwhelmed na ang hospital, trabaho namin proteksyunan sila, he said.

[We are not going to back down if a government hospital is already overwhelmed as it is our job to protect the patients.]

DOH has said they are looking into complaints that some hospitals are understaffed. A nurse from state-run San Lazaro Hospital earlier told CNN Philippines that some of them who have been exposed to COVID-19 patients cannot afford to go through quarantine due to shortage of relievers.

After our swab test, we even have to report to duty the next day while waiting for our results, Jaymmee de Guzman said, as she noted the alarming rise of employees getting infected.

In response, the DOH said that they are exerting efforts to hire additional medical personnel who will be deployed in healthcare institutions amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The Philippines COVID-19 cases have breached the 72,000 mark, with Metro Manila having the most number of infections.

CNN Philippines Correspondent Carolyn Bonquin contributed to this report
The statements were made hours after an AU virtual summit was held between the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in which outstanding points of contention over the dam were discussed

Ethiopian officials have made a number of controversial statements on Wednesday hailing the start of the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dams (GERD) reservoir.

The statements were made hours after an African Union (AU) virtual summit was held on Tuesday between the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in which outstanding points of contention over the dam were discussed.

During Tuesday's AU mini-summit, the Egyptian presidency said that the three parties agreed "to continue the negotiations to reach a binding legal agreement on the rules of filling and operating the Renaissance Dam."

The ongoing AU-sponsored talks aim to revive the deadlocked negotiations over the GERD, after the last round of negotiations, which was brokered by Khartoum, failed to produce an accord.

On 26 June, the Egyptian presidency issued a statement saying that it was agreed upon during the AU's first summit on GERD that all parties would "refrain from taking any unilateral measures, including the filling of the dam," before an agreement was reached. Sudan also echoed the same sentiment, saying the three leaders have agreed to postpone the filling of the reservoir until an agreement is signed.

Nevertheless, various Ethiopian officials praised on Wednesday the start of the filling of the $4.8 billion hydropower dam, which Ethiopia has initiated despite failing to reach an agreement with downstream countries Egypt and Sudan.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed congratulated Ethiopians over what he described as the historic day of the first-year filling of the GERD.

I would like to congratulate all the Ethiopian people for the achievement we attained in building the dam through our collective effort, Ahmed said in statements reported by the Ethiopian state-run news agency ENA.

He described the GERD as the turning point for Ethiopians to shine once again and eradicate poverty and backwardness, stressing that we conducted the filling of the dam without causing harm to anyone.

He added that, as promised, the filling of the dams reservoir has started ahead of schedule.

Egypt and Sudan have repeatedly voiced their rejection of any unilateral move by Ethiopia to start filling the dam before the completion of the GERD negotiations, which are still ongoing under the auspices of the AU.

In a phone call with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current chairman of the AU, on Friday President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi stressed the importance of forging a comprehensive legal agreement between all parties concerning the rules for filling and operating the dam, and rejecting unilateral measures that would inflict harm upon Egypt's rights to the water of the Nile.

On Tuesday, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok reasserted in a statement following the African summit that Sudan rejects Ethiopias unilateral actions.

The Ethiopian prime ministers statements come one day after he attended AU-brokered talks with Egyptian President El-Sisi and Sudanese PM Hamdok, which were hosted by South African President Ramaphosa. The meeting saw the participation of five other African heads of state as observers.

During the mini-summit, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan agreed to prioritise reaching a binding deal on the filling and operation of the GERD, a statement from the Egyptian presidency said on Tuesday.

The Egyptian statement also highlighted El-Sisis appreciation for the Ramaphosas efforts, and stressed "the continued sincere desire by Egypt to achieve progress on the contentious issues, which are essential in any fair and balanced agreement reached on the Renaissance Dam."

Cairo, Addis Ababa and Khartoum said that they have agreed to resume technical talks concerning some outstanding issued following the Tuesday summit between the three countries, but without revealing a date.

The AU-sponsored talks come after negotiations faltered last February during US-sponsored meetings in Washington. The US, represented by the Treasury Department, and the World Bank stepped in last year to host tripartite negotiations, which began in November and lasted till February after years-long negotiations between the three countries hit a dead end.

Following the four-month negotiations brokered by Washington, during which the three nations initially agreed on mitigation mechanisms to adjust the filling and operation of the dam during dry periods and drought, the US and the World Bank drafted a deal that was due to be signed in late February. Ethiopia, however, skipped the last round of talks.

On Wednesday, six officials and congressional aides familiar with the matter told the Foreign Policy that Trump administration "is weighing withholding some aid to Ethiopia" over a Nile dam project "if negotiations hit another impasse and the sides cant reach a final deal".

Other Ethiopian officials also praised the start of the filling, including Ethiopias Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew who also congratulated achieving the first-year target.

"Previously the Nile was flowing, now it is in a lake, from which Ethiopia will obtain its desired development," Andargachew said in a tweet, adding the Nile is now ours.

The Ethiopian foreign ministers statements quickly sparked controversy on Twitter, with the Arabic hashtags the Nile and the Renaissance Dam becoming top trends in Egypt.

Users also used the hashtag #nile4all_not_Ethiopian_lake in Arabic and English to express their rejection of the Ethiopian ministers statements.

Ethiopian Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy, Sileshi Bekele said on Twitter that the filling was a major milestone and will allow for operating two turbines next year.

He said the talks on Tuesday between the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan were remarkable and smooth, adding that they have settled to resolve through continuous discussions the technical and legal issues on which no agreement has yet been reached.

Bekele said that the issues regarding the filling process will be agreed upon soon, and a more comprehensive agreement will be reached later.

Ethiopias congratulatory statements come nearly a week after tensions had escalated following reports that Ethiopia had begun filling the dams reservoir, based on an officials claim that was later retracted.

Ethiopian state TV had quoted Minister Bekele as saying that the country had started to fill the GERDs reservoir. Hours later, however, the minister denied that the filling process had started.

Satellite images of the Ethiopian dam showed its swelling reservoir, and Sudan said it had recorded a decline in the water level of the Blue Nile coming from Ethiopia.

Egypt has voiced concern over Ethiopia's refusal to agree on rules regulating the filling and operation of the GERD during drought and dry years.

Cairo is also concerned about future projects on the Blue Nile, a main tributary of the Nile, and demands binding dispute settlement mechanisms, which Addis Ababa has refused to include in a deal.

Egypt, which relies on the Nile for 95 percent of its fresh water, fears the dam will significantly reduce the rivers flow, especially during the filling stages through periods of drought or dry years. Ethiopia, on the other hand, says the project is key to its development.

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The company will reinforce its position as an Experience Optimization leader, significantly expanding its product feature management capabilities to help businesses deliver "Amazon-Like" experiences

NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- "AB Tasty is announcing a Series C round of funding to revolutionize how companies deliver the best brand and product experiences," comments Alix de Sagazan, Co-Founder of AB Tasty. With over 900 international clients and 10 offices throughout North America, EMEA and APAC, 60% of AB Tasty's revenue is now generated outside of France, where it is headquartered.

After moving to New York to oversee AB Tasty's expansion, Alix de Sagazan and her team grew revenue in the United States by 480% in 2 years. "With this funding, we will continue significantly investing in our experience optimization and feature management capabilities. We are reinforcing our sales and marketing activities in the US to increase our total addressable market," explains Alix.

"Today, we're proud to say we offer a powerful, AI-driven experimentation, personalization and feature management platform," comments Remi Aubert Co-Founder of AB Tasty. "Tomorrow, we'll be able to offer even more advanced capabilities based on incorporating more artificial intelligence and automation into our solutions, thanks to our increased investment in R&D."

Delivering exceptional customer experiences across digital devices remains a top priority for all companies. Remi elaborates: "As all companies are becoming digital they need the tools to continuously deploy, personalize and experiment with new features. AB Tasty's solutions respond to the market's omnichannel demands intuitively and efficiently."

"We're confident about taking the next step with AB Tasty, based on our years of working together, the quality of their products and our relationship," comments Benoit Bouffart, Chief Tech & Product Officer at e.Voyageurs SNCF. "We were excited about Flagship (AB Tasty's feature management solution) straight away, since the solution allows for significantly more flexibility (progressive rollout, cross-device testing) to support our mobile-first strategy."

"Flagship lets us deploy A/B tests in a much more agile way and lets us imagine user journey tests that more accurately mimic the reality of our clients' experiences," elaborate Ingrid Peiniau, Head of Customer Experience at Oui.SNCF and David Ruiz, Customer Experience Director at e.Voyageurs SNCF.

"Flagship is a game changer for product and technical teams looking to innovate and safely release code at the fast pace the market demands," concludes Remi.

The fundraising of $40 million is led by Credit Mutuel Innovation with participation by existing investors Korelya Capital, Omnes, Partech and XAnge. The total investment raised by the company has reached $64 million to date. "Even as the COVID-19 pandemic took root, AB Tasty continued to deliver value and remained true to its company values," explains Julien Coulon, CEO of Credit Mutuel Innovation. "This positive experience reaffirms our commitment to support AB Tasty's growth and consolidate its position as a global leader," adds Cyrus Contant, Senior Associate at Credit Mutuel Innovation.

Media Kit

https://www.abtasty.com/pages/media-kit-series-c-fundraise/

Media Contact

Robin Nichols, Content & PR Manager

[email protected]

About AB Tasty

AB Tasty is a global leader in feature management, experimentation and personalization solutions, helping businesses launch better products faster and drive more conversions, engagement and revenue on all their digital assets and channels. We provide marketing, product and technical teams with a comprehensive brand and product experience optimization platform, allowing them to turn website, mobile or application visitors into customers, subscribers or leads, while delivering outstanding customer experiences, aligned with business KPIs. AB Tasty's customer list includes Ashley Furniture, Kiehl's, Sephora, USA Today, YSL Beauty, as well as more than 900 global enterprises. To learn more, please visit www.abtasty.com

About Credit Mutuel Innovation

Credit Mutuel Innovation is the evergreen venture capital entity of Credit Mutuel Equity (3.5 billion in capital). We invest 1-20M in life science, digital and deeptech companies from seed to growth stages. We support bold and ambitious entrepreneurs to develop their growth potential with our worldwide ecosystems (our 350+ portfolio companies, our abroad subsidiaries, 150+ largest global corporates, and the best-in-class experts). Because it takes more than 5 years to turn a startup into a global leader, we invest our own equity and ensure durable partnerships with visionary leaders.

Read more about us: www.creditmutuelequity.com/en

About Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale

Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale comprises the Centre Est Europe (Strasbourg), Sud-Est (Lyon), Ile-de-France (Paris), Savoie-Mont Blanc (Annecy), Midi-Atlantique (Toulouse), Loire-Atlantique et Centre-Ouest (Nantes), Centre (Orleans), Normandie (Caen), Dauphine-Vivarais (Valence), Mediterraneen (Marseille) and Anjou (Angers) federations. Massif Central (Clermont-Ferrand) and Antilles-Guyane (Fort-de-France) federations will join it on January 1, 2020. Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale also encompasses Caisse Federale de Credit Mutuel, Banque Federative de Credit Mutuel (BFCM) and all its subsidiaries, in particular CIC, Euro-Information, Assurances de Credit Mutuel (ACM), Targobank, Cofidis, Banque Europeenne de Credit Mutuel (BECM) and CIC Iberbanco.

Contributors from Credit Mutuel Innovation:

Julien Coulon

CEO

[email protected]

Clement Combal

Investment Director

[email protected]

Cyrus Contant

Senior Associate

[email protected]

Legal Counsel:

Duteil Avocats (Benoit Lespinasse)

Media Contact : Veronique Richez-Lerouge [email protected] - +33 (0) 6 14 63 90 00

About e.Voyageurs SNCF

e.Voyageurs SNCF houses the full range of the SNCF group's client-oriented digital capabilities, driven by the French leading e-commerce player OUI.sncf, the international expertise of Rail Europe, the MaaS & New Mobilities Programme as well as the service offering of the SNCF Assistant since June 2019: the new version of the SNCF app enhanced with new mobilities to allow customers to securely find and pay for their itinerary, travel and get real-time information on their journey. e.Voyageurs SNCF achieved business volumes of 5 billion in 2019 and sold 122 million train tickets.

About Korelya

Founded in 2016 and chaired by Fleur Pellerin, Korelya Capital is a pan-European Growth VC fund that supports tech scale-ups in their development with the ambition to create unicorns in Europe (Devialet, Bolt, Glovo, Showpad, Kayrros). It also offers them an opportunity to develop in Asia through its team and network in Seoul. www.korelyacapital.com

About Omnes

Omnes is a leading Paris-based European investor in private equity and infrastructure. With 4 billion of assets under management, Omnes provides SMEs with the capital needed to finance growth. The firm has dedicated investment teams across three key areas: Venture Capital, Buyout & Growth Capital and Infrastructure. Omnes is owned by its employees. Omnes is committed to ESG issues and has set up the Omnes Foundation in aid of children's charities. It is also a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). www.omnescapital.com

Media Contact: Gaelle de Montousse [email protected] +33 (0) 619946529

About Partech

Partech is a global investment firm with a portfolio of almost 180 companies spread across 30 countries in Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia. The Partech team brings capital, experience, strategic support, and networks to entrepreneurs at every stage of development: seed, venture, and growth.

See Partech's current portfolio: https://partechpartners.com/companies /.

Media Contact: Isabelle Tresson [email protected] +33 (0) 7 86 08 85 85

About XAnge

As a leading European venture capital firm based in Paris and Munich, XAnge invests in innovative technology companies operating in the digital consumer, enterprise data, fintechs & deeptechs. XAnge is part of Siparex, an independent private investment group with 2bn under management. www.xange.fr

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A cow wandering across Highway 3 in Fort Erie caused a chain-reaction crash Monday night.

Alyssa Pollard was driving on Garrison Road at about 10 p.m. when her vehicle collided with one of several cows in the middle of the roadway.

The most Ive seen on the highway is deer, which Ive been able to avoid but, unfortunately, in this situation I couldnt avoid the cows, said the 17-year-old Fort Erie resident.

The collision, near Centralia Avenue, resulted in a chain-reaction crash involving a second vehicle.

Pollard and her two passengers where shaken up but did not sustain any injuries. The cow, which was also struck by an oncoming vehicle, died at the scene.

The teen said a woman stopped near the scene and called 911 and waited until emergency crews arrived.

She was a great help. She really helped calm me down and I appreciate that someone was there when I needed it.

Shes now hoping the Good Samaritan who stopped to assist will come forward so she can thank her personally.

The Niagara detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police investigated the incident, assisted by Niagara Regional Police.

Officials with the OPP could not be reached for comment.
Enhancing state management on climate change is one of the major measures set in the national plan on climate change adaptation for 2021-2030, with a vision towards 2050, recently issued by the Prime Minister.

Drought in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre

The plan emphasised the integration of climate change adaptation into strategies and planning schemes, the investment in adaptive activities, science and technologies, and the improvement of public awareness of this issue.

It also defined tasks and solutions to mitigate disaster risks and losses, and enhance the preparedness for natural disasters and extreme weather caused by climate change.

During its first phase from 2021-2025, the plan will focus on completing mechanisms and policies on climate change adaptation, making legal and technical preparations to promote the integration of climate change into policies, strategies and planning schemes, and implementing prioritised tasks and solutions.

From 2026-2030, greater efforts will be made to improve state management in climate change, and enhancing resilience of economic sectors, the community and the ecosystem.

Between 2030 and 2050, the plan will concentrate on improving adaptive capacity of people and infrastructure, and ensuring food, energy and water security, gender equality, social welfare, publics health, and sustainable national development amidst climate change and natural disasters./. VNA
Toronto marked the second anniversary Wednesday of the Danforth shooting that left two dead and 13 injured.

Reese Fallon, 18, and Julianna Kozis, 10, were killed when a gunman opened fire on the bustling stretch of Danforth Avenue in the citys Greektown on the evening of July 22, 2018.

Families of the shooting victims, accompanied by Mayor John Tory and Coun. Paula Fletcher (Ward 14, Toronto-Danforth) laid flowers at Withrow Park during a ceremony Wednesday morning.

After thanking the families for attending, Tory joined them in placing bouquets at the foot of trees planted at the park last year to honour Fallon and Kozis.

I hope the families will take comfort as many people from the city of Toronto are coming to visit those trees and watch them as they grow into living tributes, Tory said.

The mayor said the event was designed to be modest in size due to COVID-19 public health restrictions, but added that it still sends a strong message that the city stands in solidarity with those affected by the tragedy.

I have had the chance over the last week or so to talk to most of the families of the people weve lost and the people who were injured, and these are good people, these are good families, and theyre still hurting, Tory said.

A lot of the healing has occurred, but we all know that when things heal, there are still scars that are left.

One of the victims, Danielle Kane, was present at the ceremony and laid flowers at the bases of the memorial trees.

Kane was left paralyzed from the waist down when a bullet hit her in the spine.

While two years have passed, I am certain the memories are still vivid not just for those who were most impacted but also for the many first responders who rushed to the scene that day, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders said in a statement.

As chief, I am proud of the Toronto Police Service members who attended the call, comforted victims, located the suspect, and worked diligently to investigate that unspeakable act of violence.

I am also proud of how this city responded and came together in the days and weeks after to show strength and support. May we continue to gather that strength and support as we take this moment to reflect on July 22, 2018.

The gunman, 29-year-old Faisal Hussain, fatally shot himself after a confrontation with police on the night of the attack.

July 22, 2020: Correction  This story has been changed from a previously published version to correct date to Wednesday.

With files from The Canadian Press

Patrick Ho is a rewrite editor working on the Stars digital desk in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @patrick_ho_007
A senior NSW Labor frontbencher has asked the NSW Parliament for assurances its IT systems have not been compromised following raids by federal agents on upper house MP Shaoquett Moselmane's office.

Shadow Treasurer Walt Secord wrote to the clerk of the Parliament, David Blunt, last month to express a "number of serious concerns" after Mr Moselmane became embroiled in an ASIO-led investigation into possible Chinese Communist Party influence.

Upper house MP Shaoquett Moselmane has maintained his innocence after his office and home were raided by federal agents as part of an investigation into Chinese Communist Party influence. Credit:Peter Rae

"[W]hat steps have you and the Parliament taken to ensure their integrity of the NSW Parliamentary computer system and that they have not been "hacked"  and information improperly accessed?," Mr Secord said in an email to Mr Blunt on June 28.

"Furthermore, have you and your office arranged for the "sweeping" of the 11th floor  especially in light of the renovations  as a precaution to ensure that there are not listening devices or cameras installed to record the activity of MLCs and their staff?"
Stone tools move back the arrival of humans in America thousands of years

Findings of stone tools move back the first immigration of humans to America at least 15,000 years. This is revealed in a new international study from the University of Copenhagen, where researchers have analysed ancient material from a Mexican mountain cave.

The first humans arrived in America at least 30,000 years ago, approximately 15,000 before science was hitherto able to render it probable. This is the conclusion in new study published in the scientific journal, Nature.

The team behind the article consists of archaeologists and DNA experts from the University of Copenhagen and universities in Mexico, the UK, the US and Brazil, among others.

"The article in Nature is a scientific hand grenade. The fact that it moves back the time of early immigration to America significantly is guaranteed to ignite a heated debate," says Eske Willerslev, Professor and Head of Lundbeck Foundation Centre for GeoGenetics, Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

Eske Willerslev and his two colleagues, Associate Professor Mikkel Winther Pedersen and Assistant Professor Martin Sikora, made up the Danish contribution to the international team of researchers.

The three scientists from UCPH have conducted the DNA analyses of ancient remains from animal and plant material found during the excavations of the Chiquihuite Cave in Northern Mexico.

1,900 stone tools

As far back as 30,000 years ago, humans had already developed techniques for producing tools. In the Mexican cave, researchers found 1,900 stone tools.

The unique feature of the Chiquihuite Cave is the "floor", which consists of six layers of detritus and dust - all in all, a ten-foot column of ancient remains - which is so compressed and stable that by using various advanced measuring methods, it has been possible to date the layers one by one, from top to bottom.

Each layer has contained deposits of stone tools such as knives, scrapers and arrowheads, which the researchers have also been able to date.

"The cave finds are extremely interesting. These archaeological finds are so far the oldest in America. And the excavated stone tools are of a type unique to America," Professor at Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, Mexico, Ciprian F. Ardelean, states.

Ice Cap Across North America

Until now, science has assumed that the earliest immigration to America took place approx. 15,000 years ago. At the time, a narrow opening in the ice along the northern Pacific coastline was created, which made it possible to walk from Siberia onto the American continent.

At the time, there were no other access routes to the continent, because North America was covered by a thick ice cap, which only later - approx. 13,000 years ago - melted enough to enable passage.

30,000 years ago, when the first stone tools were left in the Chiquihuite Cave, the massive ice cap had not yet covered all of North America, which means that it would have been possible to walk from Siberia and down through the American continent, Eske Willerslev explains.

"And that's how we must understand the presence of these humans in Mexico at this particular time - unfortunately though, we have no idea who they were. Because although we searched very thoroughly for human DNA in the samples we gathered during the ten days we spent at the Chiquihuite Cave, there were no human traces to be found. However, we may still be able to find some in the hundreds of earth samples we gathered, because we've not yet had time to analyse all of them."

According to Mikkel Winther Pedersen who was in charge of the DNA analyses, their finds contain DNA samples from numerous plants as well as animals. He elaborates:

"For example, we found DNA from an American black bear, a wide range of rodents, several types of bats as well as sparrow and falcon. These are all animals we would expect to find in Mexico at the time. Simultaneously, we were able to ascertain

###

Assistant Professor Mikkel Winther Pedersen, +45 29275342, mwpedersen@sund.ku.dk

Professor Eske Willerslev, +45 28751309, ewillerslev@sund.ku.dk
COVID-19 in prisons  Member States and UNODC reiterate their commitment to the Nelson Mandela Rules

 UNODC



22 July 2020  At the occasion of Nelson Mandela International Day, which honors the outstanding contribution of the former South African President to humankind and remembers the 27 years he was deprived of his liberty, Member States and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) joined forces in reiterating their commitment to the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, as the internationally recognized minimum standard for prison management.

Prison settings, where physical distancing is often not an option, have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19 and are at a severe risk of suffering from explosive outbreaks of the disease. This vulnerability is aggravated by the weaker health profile of prison populations, poor prison conditions and prison overcrowding, which continues to affect a solid majority of countries worldwide. Despite efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in prison facilities, at least 100,000 prisoners as well as officers in more than 80 countries have become infected. As a result of the restrictions imposed on the regular prison regime, adding to the anxiety and fear caused by COVID-19, tension has been growing in prisons, as evidenced by demonstrations and prison riots in more than 40 countries.

In light of the above, the Vienna-based Group of Friends of the Nelson Mandela Rules - a group of more than 30 like-minded Member States  convened its first virtual meeting on 17 July to renew its pledge to the Nelson Mandela Rules during these critical times. The meeting was attended by representatives from more than 50 States, UNODCs Executive Director, Ms. Ghada Waly, the Honorable Minister of Justice and Correctional Services of South Africa, Mr. Ronald Lamola, as well as UNODC staff from across the globe.

In her keynote intervention, Ms. Waly emphasized that UNODC is proud to be the custodian of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, and we continue to be inspired by Nelson Mandelas life and legacy in our efforts for the humane treatment of prisoners and their reintegration into our societies. COVID-19 has brought home the hard truth that poor prison conditions, overcrowding and a lack of resources pose serious threats to not only the health of 11 million people in prisons worldwide, but also to communities outside. The two Co-Chairs of the Group, Ambassador Gerhard Kuntzle (Germany) and Ambassador Rapulane Molekane (South Africa), concurred with this notion. Ambassador Gerhard Kuntzle emphasized that overcrowded prisons are potential hotspots for COVID-19 and joined Ambassador Rapulane Molekane in calling upon Member States to join forces in upholding the Nelson Mandela Rules as the core minimum standard for the humane treatment of prisoners.

As custodian of the Nelson Mandela Rules, the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules) and other relevant standards and norms, UNODC has quickly responded to the emergency needs that arose in prisons by boosting hygiene, health and other essential services for prisoners in more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Its Position Paper on COVID-19 Preparedness and Responses in Prisons has been broadly disseminated in all UN languages, and complemented by webinars and in-depth educational material for prisoners, prison officers and health-care professionals. With 25,000 users from more than 90 countries, UNODCs e-learning course on the Nelson Mandela Rules has developed into UNODCs most popular on-line course, and received the 2019 Excellence Award by the International Corrections and Prison Association.

During the meeting, Ms. Miwa Kato, UNODCs Director of the Division for Operations, emphasized that, beyond crucial emergency support to respond to COVID-19 in prisons, the need to address overcrowding and its root causes should come out as one of our main lessons learned and priorities in terms of future reform efforts.

COVID-19 has indeed sparked an unprecedented wave of prisoner releases in more than 100 countries, benefitting more than 600,000 prisoners according to available data, with a focus on individuals with pre-existing health conditions, those whose release would not result in compromising public safety, and those approaching the end of their sentence. Together with UN sister agencies, UNODC has advocated for and assisted in emergency release efforts to reduce populations in prisons and other closed settings, and also promoted efforts to sustain and firmly institutionalize a resort to non-custodial measures in suitable cases.

When presenting South Africas Correctional Services COVID-19 Disaster Management Response Strategy, which complements infection prevention and control measures with the envisaged release of 19,000 prisoners, Minister Lamola equally reminded participants of the need for a paradigm shift in society as regards negative attitudes towards former prisoners, which would go a long way in reducing recidivism. More broadly, he reiterated that South Africa had made it its mission to translate the Mandela Rules into a daily reality for prisoners.

During an inter-active discussion, Ambassadors and other representatives from the Permanent Missions of Afghanistan, Algeria, Costa Rica, Cuba, Fiji, Italy, Namibia, Portugal, Qatar, Sudan, the United Kingdom and Uruguay as well as a representative from the International Committee of the Red Cross took the floor to share their experience and to express their support for UNODCs work in the field of prison reform, including its Global Programme on Addressing Prison Challenges.

Further Information

UNODC Executive Director Statement on Nelson Mandela Day, 18 July 2020

UNODC Position Paper on COVID-19 Preparedness and Response in Prisons

AR | EN | ES | FR | RU | ZH

Joint Statement on COVID-19 in Prisons and Other Closed Settings (UNODC, WHO, UNAIDS and OHCHR)

Infographics on COVID-19 Prevention and Control among People Living in Prisons

Infographics on COVID-19 Prevention and Control among People Working in Prisons

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules)

UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules)

UNODC's e-learning course on the Nelson Mandela Rules (access upon registration)

AR | EN | ES | FR | RU

Assessing compliance with the Nelson Mandela Rules - A UNODC checklist for internal inspection mechanisms

AR | EN | ES | FR | RU

UNODC's instructional placards on the Nelson Mandela Rules

AR | EN | ES | FR | RU
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Soaring coronavirus infections have provoked a lot of second thoughts among U.S. colleges and universities that were hoping to resume at least some in-person instruction in the fall. Thats understandable, but troubling.

Its crucial to engage students in meaningful collaborative experiences that are difficult to achieve on Zoom. The damage to young people and institutions of higher learning will be deep and lasting unless administrators develop creative waysin concert with both students and facultyto revive key aspects of campus life.

Theres no doubt that even partial reopenings will entail risks for colleges, though different ones from those facing K-12 schools. For one thing, over one-third of tenure-track faculty are 55 or older, significantly more than the general working populationputting college professors at greater risk of contracting life-threatening forms of Covid-19. Then too, while online education is far from ideal even for college students, young adults are better equipped than children to handle virtual classes. College students also have the ability to take a gap year if they dont like their colleges educational offerings.

Focusing on freshman, a priority for institutions like Harvard University in Massachusetts and Bowdoin College in Maine, which are allowing some students to return while offering most instruction online, will allow universities to build a campus culture for their newest recruits. Freshman also need help making the transition from high school, where learning often follows mandates, to college where, ideally, they select their own courses and schedules and develop their own intellectual interests.

The pandemic is also a good opportunity for schools such as Princeton University, which are welcoming at least one other grade cohort, to create a buddy culture aimed at supporting younger students and enlisting undergraduates in brainstorming healthy campus interactions and creative solutions to living and learning in a pandemic. Masha Gessen, an author and essayist, suggested in the New Yorker that students could form quarantine study pods that could embrace mutual care and interdependence. Such study pods could embark on team-based independent studies that might learn from, and propose solutions to, problems including pandemic living and the social upheaval sparked by the most recent police shootings  both subjects of interest to young people.

Story continues

At a time when colleges are striving to recruit more students from marginalized communities, they will need to make accommodations for their financial and logistical needs. Even schools that are offering mostly virtual courses in the fall should open school buildings, including lecture halls and libraries, for students who do not have a quiet place to work or adequate internet connections at home.

More universities will need to think unconventionally. One model is Rice University in Houston, which is building outdoor structures. Another is Amherst College, which faces much colder weather in Massachusetts, and is erecting 20 tents for seminar-style classes.

All universities should strive to make accommodations for students studying subjects like laboratory sciences and fine arts, which rely on hands-on work. To be sure, these classes will require students and professors to shoulder a certain degree of risk, and will involve unanticipated expense. Oregon State University in Corvallis, for example, guarantees employers that its forestry graduates will be field ready and capable of doing everything from measuring trees to collecting data on forest sites  learning that cannot be supervised remotely. For classes with over 50 students, the forestry department will deliver lectures online; labs, which typically have fewer than 30 students and involve van rides to forests around the state, will be conducted in person.

To accommodate social distancing and the added costs of the pandemic, everything will shrink, predicted Mindy Crandall, assistant professor of forestry policy at Oregon State, noting that the universitys College of Forestry will need to hire more vans to transport students. At the same time, they will have to forgo longer trips that, in years past, exposed students to more forest ecosystems. Students wont get the breadth of experience and the exposure, she said.

Indeed, public universities especially are facing a host of financial pressures that only extra funding from the federal government can alleviate. With state revenues shrinking due to Covid, universities sorely need an infusion of aid beyond the $14 billion available through the Cares Act, the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package that Congress passed in March. For example, Rutgers University in New Jersey has taken a $183 million hit so far; only $27 million of that will be made up by funds from the Cares Act.

Colleges breathed a sigh of relief when the administration of President Donald Trump backed away from its threat to withhold visas from international students, who are a source of both intellectual diversity and much-needed revenue. At Baruch College in New York City, where I teach and where international students made up 11.6% of enrollment last year and paid close to $19,000 apiece in tuition, its still unclear what toll Trump administration policies and the pandemic will have on international enrollments this fall.

A recent Democratic Senate proposal to add $132 billion for higher education singles out tribal colleges and historically Black institutions, many of which are now fighting for survival. The historically Black schools produce 42% of the nations Black engineers and 80% of its Black judges. Such legislative initiatives need to be given priority.

At the same time, university systems like the City University of New York and the University of California that will go almost entirely online in the fall, need to do more to open campuses. Precisely because public transportation and tall buildings on many of these campuses create unique risks, universities need to include faculty unions in their planning. They will also need to lead by example, cutting administrative staff and salaries before demanding concessions from faculty, many of whom are low-paid adjuncts. CUNY recently laid off 2,800 staff, including many adjuncts who will also lose their health-care benefits.

The pandemic will test the ingenuity of college campuses. But even the most creative need political leaders and the public to put education first.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andrea Gabor, a former editor at Business Week and U.S. News & World Report, is the Bloomberg chair of business journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York and the author of "After the Education Wars: How Smart Schools Upend the Business of Reform."

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Robberies went down from 76 four years ago to just 25 in 2019, before plummeting to four for the first half of this year.

Burglaries increased from 2016 to 2017 from 260 to 290 before dropping to 186 in 2019. There have been 57 burglaries so far this year through July 1.

Danville Mayor Alonzo Jones credited the drop in crime to a number of factors, including the hiring of Scott Booth as police chief in early 2018 and an emphasis on community policing and engaging citizens with the department.

"Scott came in and had the same vision for this city," Jones said.

"The police department is doing a fantastic job with community engagement and they have really taken the time to build trust in the communities," said Danville City Manager Ken Larking. "This has had an impact on our crime rates."

Also, indictments and convictions for gang-related activity have played a role, Jones added.

About three years ago, Danville City Council decided to make tackling violent crime one of its three top priorities following a retreat among council members. The other two were improving education and growing Danville.
The Bexar County deputies union is open to the idea of a citizen advisory board that could weigh in on disciplinary issues as talks resumed on a new contract between the law officers and the county.

Attorney Ron DeLord, chief negotiator for the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Bexar County, asked if the board would be similar to a long-standing advisory panel to the San Antonio Police Department, or more like one in Austin that had functioned with separate oversight of the Austin Police Department.

The one in Austin has floundered, having been panned by a city auditors report two years ago as ineffective.

The review board planned for Bexar County would be more analogous to the SAPD board, said attorney Lowell Denton, the countys lead negotiator.

On ExpressNews.com: Talks on deputies union contract under way

But Pharaoh Clark, an activist in the Black Lives Matter movement, called the SAPD civilian review board a joke, saying it includes at least one member who donated funds in January to the San Antonio Police Officers Association.

We need a real independent civilian review board, one with real power and some investigative authority, Clark said.

DeLord said the association supports a fair system of citizen involvement but needs to see a written proposal with details, including makeup of the board, who makes presentations and whether deputies would be compelled to appear before the new panel.

Conceptually, I dont think that were opposed to it, he said. And I know youre going to put your personal touches to it to make it fit Bexar County. So wed really like to see it, and well operate from a position of how do we make it work and how does it address whatever might be our concerns.

A formal proposal from the county could come later this week, officials said.

Wednesdays talks were the first to touch on creation of a review board, as well as body-worn cameras, delving into deeply emotional issues following the May 25 death of George Floyd in the custody of four police officers in Minneapolis.

Community activists addressed Bexar County commissioners last week on the need for changes in policy and in the multi-year collective bargaining agreement to prevent excessive use of force, particularly against people who are Black or Hispanic.

On ExpressNews.com: Residents address commissioners on need for police reform

Jourdyn Parks, leader of Reliable Revolutionaries SA, said she wants the county to tighten hiring standards and close loopholes on misconduct that occurs without accountability.

It is our communities that are in danger. It is our children that were fearing for, Parks told commissioners.

After hearing those and other impassioned comments, the Commissioners Court approved a resolution supporting creation of a citizens review board. The panel would be reflective of local demographics and tasked with review of disputed use of force complaints and the consideration of non-criminal public complaints related to law enforcement personnel, according to the document.

The proposal was one of seven public safety initiatives in the resolution approved unanimously by commissioners.

Other initiatives include creation of a registry that discloses Bexar County law enforcement terminations for cause to other law enforcement agencies; modifications to the bargaining agreement to allow for termination of officers who intentionally turn off body cameras during confrontations; and any needed changes to the agreement to require psychological and drug evaluation before hiring and during employment, including testing following physically confrontational arrests.

The resolution also advocated removal of protectionist clauses in the agreement that exceed employee safeguards already covered by civil service legislation, or that limit accountability of bad actors.

Other reform initiatives in the resolution include changes to Sheriffs Office policy and procedures to require de-escalation and de-escalation training, as well as unconscious bias training; and to eliminate policy provisions that permit bias or profiling.

Wednesdays negotiation session was the fourth since early June on a four-year collective bargaining agreement set to expire Sept. 30  one year before the city of San Antonios collective bargaining police agreement lapses. Pay structures and employee benefits and working conditions, including concerns about the quality of food for deputies saddled with working unplanned overtime shifts at the staff-strapped jail, were main topics of Wednesdays session.

DeLord said the association supports use of body cameras, but wants to learn more about county policies for putting them in use. The Sheriffs Office has assigned the cameras to nearly 350 deputies on patrol and another 100 at the Bexar County Jail, but is updating its policy, Denton said.

Agendas for the negotiation sessions are posted on the Bexar County website, bexar.org. Sheriff Javier Salazar has asked residents to review the countys existing 99-page agreement with deputies and provide input via email at CommunityFeedback@bexar.org.

Five people who addressed county commissioners last week said they saw the resolution as a step forward. But they were disappointed they didnt get to provide formal input on the document.

Commissioner Justin Rodriguez told the group the resolution gives county staff preliminary guidance on the bargaining talks. But he said the document is a work in progress.

You will all be a part of that process. We are not going to move forward without community input, Rodriguez said.

Scott Huddleston covers Bexar County government and the Alamo for the San Antonio Express-News. To read more from Scott, become a subscriber. shuddleston@express-news.net | Twitter: @shuddlestonSA
Kildare District Court judge Desmond Zaidan said he hopes to resume full hearings soon.

Speaking at a recent court sitting, he added, however that if people decide not to attend what can I do, my hands are tied?

He also pointed out that the advice of the Courts Service of Ireland is that only people with essential business are encouraged to come to court.

Security staff were on duty at court sittings in recent weeks in Naas, as they were when court hearings were temporarily transferred to Naas Racecourse for a different reason  renovation work.

They were tasked with ensuring that social distancing was maintained.

Another change saw that defendants were allocated time slots and there were colour coded on copies of the list of cases which were on display in the courthouse building. Judge Zaidan said he is awaiting a statement that will announce the resumption of full hearings in the District Court.

But he said the authorities would also have to examine the advice which says that only those with essential business have to turn up.

Judge Zaidan said this as he adjourned a significant number of cases from the list for the last two weeks to dates this month, as well as in September and October.

He reiterated that he is available to hear cases where the defendant is admitting the offence and where the defence and prosecution agree that the case can go ahead.

However, he also warned against people running cases for the sake of it.

The judge said he would enforce the law fully against anyone who pleads not guilty in instances where a contested case is without merit. But he added it is a different matter if someone is found not guilty at the end of a contested case.

Otherwise, he said, its a waste of my time.

Judge Zaidan was speaking against the background of an increasing District Court case backlog, made worse by the coronavirus outbreak and the need to observe social distancing.

In August, the courts system generally shuts down for the entire month with the exception of emergency cases, time sensitive matters or specially arranged cases.
(Natural News) Residents of an apartment building in Ventura, California, found themselves prisoners in their own homes as they were locked down in their own apartment building and subjected to mandatory covid-19 testing and quarantine restrictions.

Natural News has acquired a letter that was sent by the property manager to all 78 residents of the 7-story apartment building, which is located at 137 S. Palm Street in the City of Ventura, California. The building caters to seniors and disabled residents and is government-subsidized housing. We have confirmed the authenticity of this letter, which is shown below, with certain redactions to protect the names of the property managers who are being subjected to threats.

The letter warns that all residents of the building are ordered to appear at the Palms Community Room to participate in mandatory testing for covid-19 on July 17, 2020 (last Friday). It states, All residents residing at 137 S. Palm MUST be tested for the Covid-19 virus. After testing has been completed, all residents MUST QUARANTINE in their unit until test results are received.

In other words, the 78 residents of the building were ordered to subject themselves to covid-19 tests against their will, and then were essentially held prisoner in their apartments. The letter continues, Effectively immediately, the Palms building has been placed on lockdown.

The letter further explains, Except for essential workers, no one will be able to enter or exit the building during the lockdown.

In addition, Security personnel will be posted on all entrances of the building 24 hours 7 days a week, the letter says. All resident card keys will be deactivated during the lockout.

In essence, 78 American citizens were imprisoned in their own apartment building in Ventura, California in a China-style medical prisoner crackdown scenario. However, there is more to this story, and it also involves Ventura County, which actually initiated this lockdown (see below).

Heres the full letter, with the names and phone numbers of the property managers blacked out. We are withholding the name of the property manager who signed this letter because she is reportedly being hit with aggressive threats from many angry people. Once you read the letter she sent to building occupants, you might also experience anger and frustration. However, we do not condone any threats or aggressiveness toward the building manager, and we are asking our readers to direct their frustration at county authorities, not the building managers.

One resident called the police and declared he had been kidnapped

According to local sources, the letter was distributed to building residents in parallel with the County of Ventura declaring the building to be under a quarantine lockdown. According to local sources, this notice from the Ventura County Public Health agency was received on Friday, July 17th, at 6pm, and it described an enforced mandatory quarantine for the entire building. (It appears the enforcement order came from the County of Ventura.)

The property manager had been working to alert the residents of the building to the fact that Ventura was about to demand the quarantine lockdown status until all building occupants were forced into mandatory covid-19 testing. One resident reportedly became so frustrated that he called the police and declared that he had been kidnapped and was being held against his will.

Ventura County rescinded the mandatory quarantine order on Tuesday, July 21st, after the mandatory test results were received. Four residents out of 78 tested positive for covid-19, according to the test results. Those four individuals are being ordered to self-quarantine for 14 days and are being monitored by the Public Health department of Ventura County.

Ventura county was initially alerted to the building by one resident testing positive during routine intake testing at the hospital. Ventura County was then notified of that patient and their home address, which the county then linked to all the other residents in the same building. It appears this led the county to ultimately demand the quarantine lockdown.

It is important to note that the building property managers did not initiate this quarantine lockdown. That was done by Ventura County, it appears. The property managers were merely alerting residents to what Ventura County had communicated . It seems likely the property managers could have done a better job of explaining this in their letter, however, possibly avoiding some of the backlash they are now experiencing.

California now resorting to China-style mass house arrest tactics

What this confirmed incident reveals is that at least one major county in California is now resorting to China-style tactics that smack of medical tyranny and violations of fundamental human rights.

It appears that residents at 137 S. Palm Street were, in fact, held as prisoners in their own homes, denied the ability to leave the building and forced into mandatory testing against their will. In effect, the building became a kind of mini-FEMA camp for about four days, during which the residents of the building apparently had few rights.

We are told that building property managers organized call-in checks to make sure every resident was called each morning to see if they had any urgent needs that werent being met (such as food, medical supplies, etc.). Its not clear who, exactly, was involved in making these check-up calls.

All this begs the question, though: Since when did the residents at this building sign any document waiving their constitutional rights as Americans? Under what authority are people now held prisoner in their own homes and ordered to subject themselves to flawed medical tests that may cause them irreparable financial harm and health harm if the results are incorrect?

Merely testing positive for covid-19 can result in people being subjected to lockdowns, job discrimination, social discrimination and long-term medical hassles merely for having a covid-19 positive test result on their record. In the building mentioned here, 74 out of 78 residents tested negative, yet they were subjected to medical tyranny lockdowns and mandatory tests nonetheless.

People who test positive  even if the results are false  may also be subjected to hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs even when they never had covid-19 in the first place, and if they are unlucky enough to be placed on a ventilator, that may even be killed by doctors and hospitals who collect extra funds for each covid-19 death they experience.

That this sort of draconian lockdown is now happening in the United States of America is a stark warning for all Americans: None of us are safe while the covid-19 tyrants are in power.

Medical tyranny is spinning out of control across America

All across America, we are now seeing gross abuses of power, with one couple now subjected to house arrest and prisoner-style ankle bracelets for merely refusing to sign draconian social distancing consent decree documents. (By what law does the government now force private citizens to sign illegal documents that deprive people of their rights?)

It also begs a bigger question about the right to self-defense. If you are kidnapped by the government and made a prisoner in your own home against your will, and forced into medical experiments or testing against your will, do you not have the right to defend your life against such acts of aggression using all legal tools that might be available? Could a resident who is kidnapped and imprisoned against his will rightfully decide to pick up his rifle and literally shoot his way to freedom to escape his captors?

Mass media hysteria is conspiring to deprive Americans of their fundamental freedoms

Must Americans now surrender all their rights to the tyranny of the state merely because the left-wing media wishes to push never-ending hysteria about a pandemic that we now know can be prevented with vitamin D and very successfully treated with hydroxychloroquine and zinc?

Are we now watching the creepy line of medical tyranny shift from mask mandates to at-home prison sentencing even for those who agree to comply with all the demands of the state?

These are questions that desperately need to be answered with courage by people of principle. If we do not have the right to control our own bodies, homes and personal mobility, then we are not free people at all. We are slaves to a fraudulent, deceptive medical regime that respects nothing except the profits to be generated from the vaccines that are already being marketed with covid-19 mass hysteria.

Now in 2020, human beings are simply exploited as pawns to ratchet up the hysteria to unprecedented levels, in complete contradiction to the fact that we now know how to halt the pandemic and cure most of those who are infected. We have the answers, but the answers are being systematically censored by Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, all conforming to the obedience demands of the corrupt CDC and the Fauci-like drug cartel profiteers who stand to pocket hundreds of billions of dollars in vaccine profits if they can just keep the panic aloft a little longer.

The people are nothing but useful idiot pawns in all this, from the point of view of the Big Pharma controllers who now run the media, the science journals, the CDC and the FDA. To them, human rights dont matter. Individual liberty is irrelevant. Even sacrificing human beings as guinea pigs is of no consequence to these Big Pharma monsters. They care about nothing except using fear to generate revenue. And if entire buildings full of innocent people have to be locked down to achieve their profit goals, then so be it.

America has descended into a pharma state

As I have repeatedly warned for literally the last 20 years  during which I have been incessantly censored, smeared and attacked  America has now descended into a pharma state thats almost entirely run by Big Pharma profit interests. All institutions in America  science, medicine, legislation, taxation, regulators, education, media and more  now cater almost entirely to the profit interests of the drug and vaccine manufacturers. Everything you are seeing unfold in this nation is coordinated to achieve a singular goal: Maximum profits for Big Pharma at any cost, including the deliberate sacrificing of potentially millions of lives, if necessary, in order to maintain the death counts, hospitalization rates and never-ending fear that drives the vaccine drug cartels.

This is why entire buildings full of Americans are being locked down. Its not about stopping a virus; its about maintaining the necessary level of medical terror to maximize vaccine profits in the months ahead.

FEAR is the marketing weapon of Big Pharma. Science be damned. Human freedom be damned. Rationality be damned. They will do whatever it takes to keep you living in fear and nutritional ignorance so that no one has access to cures that work, forcing everyone to be corralled into the Big Pharma trap of vaccines and mass medication, even while readily available cures already exist (and cost merely pennies per dose).

We are all now living under a criminal cartel of fake science medicine that recognizes no value whatsoever in human dignity, freedom or individual choice. To the pharma criminals, you are nothing but a walking dollar sign, a biological cash machine that they can convert into money by keeping as many people as possible infected, hospitalized and fearful. All cures are censored. All those who speak of cures are silenced via a conspiracy of censorship. Any legitimate solutions for humanity are attacked with a kind of quack science fanaticism that has already swept across The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and even Nature science journals.

Big Pharma is now the enemy of humankind. And unless this dangerous enemy of defeated and destroyed, humanity will never be free from pandemics, biological weapons, mandatory vaccines and wave after wave of engineered fear. Because they will never stop terrorizing us all, as it works so well to fill their pockets with easy cash.

Perhaps its time we quarantined Big Pharma so they can no longer terrorize the rest of us with fake science and quack medicine.

Maybe its time to flatten the fraud and end the pharma fear campaigns once and for all.
A delegation of Libyan tribal chiefs paid a high-profile visit to Cairo Thursday, 16 July, where they conferred with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi to discuss the present situation in Libya. Many of them took to the floor to speak about the historical bonds between the Libyan and the Egyptian people, and mandated Egypt to intervene in Libya to safeguard its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. They highlighted the dangers of a permanent Turkish presence in their country, and drew parallels between the present and the past when the Libyans suffered under the Ottomans. They vowed to fight the Turks.

The Egyptian president reiterated that the Libyans themselves should be the masters of their own destiny without any interference from outside powers, and that the sole objective of Egypt is a united Libya and a strong national army. He left no doubt that Egypt will not tolerate the permanent presence of armed militias, nor would it accept their presence near its western borders with Libya. In such a case, he added, Cairo would not hesitate to intervene militarily.

The meeting was an occasion for the Egyptian president to elaborate on his previous remarks, during a visit last month to a military base, not far from the joint borders with Libya, in which he drew a line in the sand in the Libyan desert, a red line from the strategic city of Sirte in the north to Al-Jafra Airbase, south of Sirte. At the time, he affirmed that an attack by the forces of Libyas Government of National Accord (GNA) would be deterred by Egypt. Last Thursday, he finetuned these remarks, stressing that the message has been a message of peace, essentially, and with the aim of bringing the Libyan conflict to an end. He added that the reference to a red line was never intended as a call to divide Libya into two parts  one to the west and the other to the east.

Moreover, he explained that this line is meant to be respected by the two warring parties in Libya; namely, the Libyan National Army (LNA) under the command of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and the Tripoli forces under the command of Fayez Al-Sarraj, president of the Presidential Council.

In other words, it is meant to be a ceasefire line.

Thus, Cairo discourages Haftar from crossing this line to the west, if he plans, by any chance, to counter attack. Earlier, the Tripoli government was afraid that Haftar might think of launching a counterattack to recapture the towns and positions he lost earlier this year in the western part of Libya. On the other hand, President Al-Sisi said that Egypt is not an enemy to the western region of Libya  probably a reference to the GNA. These two messages should be reassuring for the Tripoli rulers. In the meantime, it aligns Egypt, to an extent, with the positions of Algeria and Tunisia regarding the Libyan conflict. This alignment is necessary as well as important if the three countries would weigh on future negotiations by the Libyans to carry out UN Security Council Resolution 2510, adopted on 12 February 2020, that supported the Berlin Process.

It was obvious from the extensive remarks by the Egyptian leader that he wanted to make clear the limited objectives of Egypt in Libya, mainly the defence of our borders with Libya against infiltration by armed militias and terrorist groups in the future. It was the first time in a long while that Egypt has shown, at least publicly, such goodwill towards the Tripoli government, but it is a step in the right direction, albeit in a very indirect way and without naming it. However, the message should not be lost on the rulers in Tripoli. Some would argue, maybe, it is too little too late. But still, I find it relevant and important. I have no doubt that sane voices in Tripoli would find it both encouraging and promising.

Needless to say, the present stalemate on the battlefield is fraught with dangers unless the international community, and mainly the United States and Russia, to step in and send a clear message to Turkey and the Tripoli government that time is up for resorting to military force in Libya. Lately, senior Turkish officials have insisted that recapturing Sirte and Al-Jafra is a precondition for a permanent ceasefire in Libya. And they have called on Haftars forces to retreat or else the order to launch an attack on the two strategic objectives will be given. The Tripoli government should think twice before jumping into the unknown by ordering its troops to advance in an attempt to control Sirte and Al-Jafra, thereby putting North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean on the brink.

The writer is former assistant foreign minister.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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The search for Ireland's most talented family is back! TG4 and Adare Productions are looking for families who can sing, dance or play music to take part in the TV talent show Realta & Gaolta.

The TV producers are looking for the countrys best to come and battle it out on TV for the title of Irelands Most Talented Family.

Can you and your siblings sing? Do you and your relatives like to rock out? Are you and your cousins the most musical family in Ireland? Did you and your parents perfect the family bands party piece during lockdown?

Are you Limericks most talented family? Are you the next Clancy Brothers, The Corrs or Jedward even? If so Adare Productions wants to hear from you.

This unique TG4 television show wants to showcase Ireland undiscovered talented families. The competition has previously been won by the sean-nos singing sisters Etain and Maire Ni Churraoin and by the Operatic couple Gavan and Nicola Ring.



The series will be filmed in the RTE studios at the end of September 2020.

For more information and to apply please contact Adare Productions by phoning Brid at (086) 0542486 or emailing us at realta@adareproductions.ie
New York police cleared out an "Occupy City Hall" encampment shortly before dawn on Wednesday as mayors across the country moved to prevent federal law enforcement entering their cities.

It comes as violent clashes continued in Portland between protesters and federal officers overnight and the Trump administration threatened to send agents to more major cities.

About 100 uniformed NYPD police carrying riot shields brought the city's month-long Occupy protest to an end about 4 am, with seven people taken into custody.

Commissioner Dermot Shea said six would be released on minor summons and one would be charged with attempted assault for throwing a brick at an officer, who was not injured in the attack.

The decision to dismantle the encampment was made about 10 pm Tuesday by Mr Shea and Mayor Bill De Blasio.

Police issued warnings for 10 minutes before moving into the area with attorneys and cameras. Videos posted online show the officers moving forward in a wall towards tents and tarps as directions were made over a bull horn to the estimated 40-50 protestors that remained at the camp.

By 8 am, city work crews had moved in to begin the clean-up, bringing an end to the occupation that began on 23 June when 100 people set up camp to demand City Council "defund the police".

The area had attracted a growing homeless population, and Mr De Blasio said during a morning press conference that the city does not allow homeless encampments.

"The reality here is that, again, this has become less and less about protest, more and more homeless individuals who were gathered there," Mr De Blasio said.

He said New York was prepared to go to court if the Trump Administration deployed federal law enforcement to the city. "We've seen the situation happening in Portland Oregon, it is deeply troubling," Mr De Blasio said.

New footage from Portland overnight showed the violent clashes at the federal courthouse.

Donald Trump has said federal law enforcement would be sent to more cities with rising crime as local mayors moved to defund police and activists called on supporters to spread the violence seen in Portland to the rest of the country.

Mr De Blasio said on Wednesday he would join 15 Democrat mayors that wrote to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney General William Barr to pull federal agents out of Portland and not send to more to their cities.

"It is concerning that federal law enforcement is being deployed for political purposes," the letter said.

"The president and his administration continually attack local leadership and amplify false and divisive rhetoric purely for campaign fodder."

Mr Wolf, however, said during a press conference on Tuesday that they would continue to take appropriate action against violent rioters that were not engaged in peaceful protesting.

"We have been forced because of local law enforcement presence to take measures such as arrests to protect our officials," Mr Wolf said.

"They're not military or civilian police officers. These police officers are not stormtroopers. They're not the Gestapo," said Mr Wolf, referring to a remark from House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.

"As it relates to [Customs and Border Protection] officers deployed in Portland, these highly trained officers are in multi-camouflage wear because they work on the southwest border and they work in an environment that demands that."
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is facing growing criticism for sending federal agents to Portland, Oregon to control violent protests.

Mass demonstrations across the country started in May after the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Trump, a Republican, says he plans to send federal agents to control protests in other Democratic-led cities. But the arrival of federal agents has not calmed the protests in Portland. Instead, crowd sizes have increased.

The Trump administration faces legal action from several cities and groups. The lawsuits question the administrations right to use such policing powers in cities.

One case claims federal agents are violating protesters 10th Amendment rights by carrying out police activities that should be the responsibility of local and state governments. That case was brought by the Portland-based Western States Center, which helps organize and support the rights of communities of color and low-income people.

Oregons attorney general has also taken legal action, asking a judge to block federal agents actions. The state argued that agents have arrested people on the street with no probable cause. The arrests, the state says, have taken place far from a federal courthouse building in the city that has been a target of destruction.

There have also been reports of protesters in Portland being arrested and taken away in unmarked cars, without a clear reason.

It is time for the Trump troops to go home and focus their attention on other activities, Oregons Democratic Governor Kate Brown told American broadcaster MSNBC.

Federal officials, however, said state and local officials had not worked with them to stop the damage and violence against federal officers and the courthouse.

The acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, told reporters Tuesday, At the end of the day, we have to protect the federal property and the law enforcement officers.

Federal forces were deployed to Portland in early July. Tensions there have grown since their arrival. A protester was hospitalized this month with critical injuries after a U.S. Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a round of non-deadly ammunition.

Anger increased again over the weekend after video surfaced of a federal agent hitting a U.S. Navy veteran repeatedly with a baton while another agent sprayed him in the face with pepper spray.

Crowds in Portland have recently numbered fewer than 100 people. But they grew to more than 1,000 over the weekend.



Among the protesters was Mardy Widman. For weeks, she has watched demonstrations against racial injustice happen in her hometown. But she stayed away because, at the age of 79, she feared getting the coronavirus.

When Trump sent federal officers to Portland, that changed. Wearing a face covering, Widman took to the street Monday with other locals.

Its like a dictatorship, said Widman, a grandmother of five. She held a sign that read: Grammy says: Please feds, leave Portland.

Wolf defended the federal action, saying the Department of Homeland Security has the right to protect government property and detain people suspected of threatening agents or damaging such property.

Portland police have said some protesters lit fires in the street and tried several times to also set them at the front of the courthouse.

Wolf said protesters have attacked agents with fireworks, bottles and other weapons and yet the city of Portland takes little to no action. He said federal agencies have made 43 arrests since the July 4 holiday. But he disputed reports that unidentified agents are making the arrests. He said they have the word police on their clothes.

The Trump administration is reportedly also planning to send about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago, Illinois, to help local law enforcement deal with a rise in crime. That information came from an official with direct knowledge of the plans, the Associated Press reported. The official did not want to be named because they were not permitted to speak publicly about the plan.

The Democratic leaders of Illinois and Chicago have criticized the planned federal deployment there. On Tuesday, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker called the idea a wrongheaded move.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, Ive been very clear that we welcome actual partnership. But we do not welcome dictatorship.

Im Dorothy Gundy.

The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for VOA Learning English. Bryan Lynn was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

lawsuit - n. a process by which a court of law makes a decision to end a disagreement between people or organizations

low-income - adj. of or relating to earning a smaller amount of money than the average

attorney general - n. the chief lawyer of a country or state who represents the government in legal matters

focus - v. to cause (something, such as attention) to be directed at something specific  + on

baton - n. a heavy stick that is carried by police officers and is used as a weapon

spray - v. to put a stream of small drops of liquid on (someone or something)

grandmother - n. the mother of your father or mother
Odion Ighalo will be looking to score his first goal in 24 English Premier League games when Manchester United play host to West Ham United at the Old Trafford tonight (Wednesday), Completesports.com reports.

The retired Nigeria international is yet to get his name on the score-sheet in nine EPL games for the Red Devils despite scoring five goals and making an assist in 15 matches overall.

In fact, Ighalos last goal in the English top-flight was way back in the 2016/17 season when his former club, Watford beat West Ham 4-2 at the London Stadium when he also had an assist.

After scoring in the win over the Hammers, though, Ighalo embarked on a goal drought that spanned 14 EPL matches with the Hornets before joining Chinese Super League side, Shanghai Shenhua.

Add that to his current goal drought of nine EPL appearances for Man United and that gives a total number of 23 consecutive English top-flight games that the 31-year-old has failed to find target.

Also Read: Siasia Confident Nigerians Will Help Him Raise N36m CAS Appeal Money Before October 6

Remarkably, though, Ighalo has so far struck the back of the net on three occasions in just two matches against West Ham and United could count on his luck when they meet the London-based Hammers.

The Red Devils will be aiming to get back to winning ways when the Hammers arrive at Old Trafford on Wednesday after crashing out of the FA Cup in the hands of Chelsea over the weekend.

Ighalo, meanwhile, has impressed in a backup striker role for United, scoring five goals in four starts while proving himself as a useful target man and extra option in the final third.

By Oluyemi Ogunseyin

Copyright  2020 Completesports.com All rights reserved. The information contained in Completesports.com may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the prior written authority of Completesports.com.


A Beaverton lawyer arrested early Tuesday by federal officers at Portland protests said officers never informed her of her rights or identified where they worked.

Jennifer Kristiansen, 37, said she was standing arm-in-arm other women as part of the Wall of Moms near the front line of protesters converged outside the federal courthouse.

She now faces criminal charges and is not allowed to go back on the federal property to protest.

The mothers group has drawn hundreds of people downtown to join nightly protests against systemic racism.

Federal officers released tear gas on the crowd outside the courthouse just before 12:30 a.m.

As the moms backed away with the rest of the crowd, Kristiansen said she found herself near the edge of the group. She heard a woman nearby say she had been hit by an officers baton. Kristiansen said she put her arm in between the officer and people retreating.

Another officer, wearing a black uniform, arrived and pointed at Kristiansen.

He said to the billy club guy, Thats the one who hit me, Kristiansen told the Oregonian/OregonLive hours after her arrest Tuesday.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Department of Justice immediately responded to requests for comments about Kristiansens arrest.

The officers separated Kristiansen from the line in a series of actions she described as a blur. She said she had seen a video clip of her arrest that showed an officer restraining her with an arm across her chest.

That must be why my sternum hurts today, she said.

One of the arresting officers turned her around and pushed her against the wall of the federal courthouse, she said, then touched her breast and butt. Its unclear if it was intentional or not. She was terrified for a moment.

Officers handcuffed her and took her into the federal courthouse. One handcuff was so loose it slipped off, allowing her to quickly send a text from her Apple Watch to her husband: Angry cursing face emoji. Sorry cant talk right now. Police officer face emoji.

She said she was put in an elevator in the building with four officers. They took her to a holding cell on the fourth floor, where she stayed by herself. No one ever read her rights to her, she said.

She tried to sleep, but barely did since the only place in the cell to sleep was a small metal bench.

When officers tried to ask her questions about what happened, she said she chose not to speak, citing her Fifth Amendment rights.

A few times, people came in and checked on her. She asked for a blanket or if the officer could bring her flannel from her bag  they did not. The person said he was sorry he couldnt bring it to her Kristiansen said.

Dont tell me youre sorry when youre not, she said she thought to herself. People who are sorry do not do what they did.

She said she is not dangerous, but was being treated like she was dangerous.

Around 7:15 a.m., she was driven to the Multnomah County Detention Center, where she waited again in a cell until 1:25 p.m.

County jail records confirm she was booked into jail at 7:20 a.m. at the request of U.S. Marshals.

She said didnt know what agency arrested her until she asked how she could get her phone and other personal items back later. Sheriffs deputies said they didnt have it but that Federal Protective Service did.

No officers identified themselves to her throughout the night, she said.

She also didnt know until later what she had been arrested for, and found out from a member of the sheriffs department, not a federal officer. She was charged with misdemeanor assault of a federal officer and for refusing to leave federal property.

She said she was trying to leave federal property when she was detained and arrested. She said she would never hit an officer because she is a lawyer and would not want to jeopardize her job.

At 1:25 p.m., Kristiansen had her arraignment. When she was preparing to go, she was asked if she had her charging documents. She said she had never been given any. She also never got to call an attorney.

She was released a little after 4 p.m., along with four other protesters arrested Monday. She didnt get her phone, identification or shoe laces back. She did leave with sore muscles from sitting in the cell and bruises from her arrest.

She will not be going back to the protest soon, she said, because part of the terms of her release are a curfew and staying away from that area downtown.

She said she feels an obligation to share her story, following the controversy surrounding federal officers in Portland.

She said her experience being arrested by federal officers was bad, but said immigrants and Black people have faced the same abuses for much longer.

Not enough people paid attention, she said about the Department of Homeland Securitys treatment of immigrants. If it takes a tiny little rainbow-wearing white lady to bring attention to this problem that has been a problem for the immigrant community for a while, so be it.

--Alex Hardgrave | ahardgrave@oregonian.com | @a_hardgrave

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Tensions between China and the United States have reached the most acute levels since the countries normalized diplomatic relations more than four decades ago, with the American governments ordering that China close its Houston consulate being just the latest example.

In defense, trade, technology, human rights and other categories, actions and reprisals by one side or the other have escalated sharply under President Trumps administration, despite his repeated expressions of admiration for President Xi Jinping of China.

The administration is even weighing a blanket ban on travel to the United States by the 92 million members of Chinas ruling Communist Party and the possible expulsion of any members currently in the country, an action that would likely invite retaliation against American travel and residency in China.

I think were in a dangerous and precipitous spiral downward, not without cause, but without the proper diplomatic skills to arrest it, said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. The severity of the confrontation, he said, has jumped the wall from specific and solvable challenges to a clash of systems and values.
A stampede at the Likoni channel left several people injured on Tuesday after one of the ferries stalled during the evening rush hour.

The incident occurred after the newest ferry, MV Safari, which arrived at the Port of Mombasa on April 25, broke down after being hit by another.

Kenya Ferry Services managing director Bakari Goa said at around 3.30 pm Tuesday, MV Kwale hit MV Safari while at the mainland ramp. The impact left a hole on the side of the MV Safari, causing water to flood the engine room.

The new ferry had to be tagged to safety by one of the KPA tug boats.

The incident led to congestion at the waiting bay with users having to queue for hours as only three vessels were operational.

When the next available ferry, MV Jambo, arrived, a stampede broke out on the crowded pedestrian lane as users rushed to board.

Preliminary reports on Tuesday evening indicated that at least 13 people sustained injuries and were attended to by Kenya Red Cross personnel stationed at the Island side of the channel.

Others were rushed to various hospitals.

Kenya Ferry Services was yet to issue an official statement at the time of publishing.
Why do you think Governor DeSantis is so resistant to taking those steps?

What he has told me is that all the urban cities have [measures in place]. Hes also told me that he doesnt want to give a false sense of security because, in his perspective, distancing is more important than wearing a mask. Hes afraid that if people wear masks, they wont distance. Obviously, theres a lot of people who speculate that its political. I dont get into that speculation just because, for me, this is not about politics. And I know that sounds a little bit Pollyanna-ish in an election year. But for me, this is about a public health crisis. And I cant even fathom that it could be political because of whats at stake.

You might be one of the few with that view.

Look, if it is political, and Im not denying that it may be political, because, I mean, I did an interview this week where a moderator gave me a hard time. I was complaining about the C.D.C. and they thought I was somehow not critical of the president. And thats not the way I look at it. Its like  if someones critical of my solid waste department, theyre being critical of me. You know what I mean?

With the president, you never know because he changes his stance. So now he happens to be wearing a mask. Who knows next week what he may do.

What do you want to hear from Mr. Trump?

What I want to hear from him is a masks-in-public rule. What I want to hear from his C.D.C. is guidance on what should cities do that have, like ours, experienced a second wave. What are the metrics for closing? Weve only gotten guidance for opening, never gotten guidance for closing. Instead of fighting with the C.D.C., he should be asking his C.D.C. to provide us that clear guidance. Thats the kind of leadership that we need.

Just like voters, youre watching his response. Youre a Republican; does he have your vote?

As mayor of a big urban city, I am definitely watching how he responds to Covid. That is incredibly important to me. I have issues with his opponent, as well. Some of the stances that hes taken, as well, but I  this is definitely something that I have to analyze, without a doubt.

Are you going to go to the convention in Jacksonville?

Ive never been to a political convention in my life, believe it or not. So its not something that I think too much about, to be honest with you. Ive actually thought about maybe taking some time off, like a vacation with my family, and I dont even feel comfortable taking a vacation right now because of the situation in Miami. So if I cant get away with my family, I dont know. I havent traveled since this all happened, either.

Id say its not likely right now.

Looking toward the fall, the governor is pushing to open schools. The teachers union doesnt agree. Theyre suing. Beyond being a father of young kids, you have a personal connection to this issue because your mom is an elementary-school teacher. Where do you come down on school reopening?
(TNS)  Amid protests, and after hours of discussion, the Aiken County, S.C., School Board has decided to proceed with its intended proposal of a hybrid model of learning for when schools reopen in the fall, a system that incorporates both distance and in-person learning for students in the public school system due to coronavirus concerns.The atmosphere in the district's office on Brookhaven Drive was grim Tuesday night as board members were forced to consider, essentially, two dueling risk factors presented during the meeting's public participation period  the loss of education and essential services provided by schools or the loss of life.Board Chair Keith Liner said the board did not intend to change their proposal, which Aiken County Schools Superintendent King Laurence said was still the recommendation supported by the district's Back to School Task Force."We believe ... that in most cases, we'll be able to follow social distancing and other recommendations from the CDC, DHEC and other groups," Laurence said.The meeting was delayed for about 40 minutes due to wireless issues in the district office, which interrupted the meetings livestreaming process during the first part of the public comment period.Under the current proposal, the hybrid model of learning proposal would have 50% of students attend in-person classes Mondays and Tuesdays, with the remaining 50% being in schools Wednesdays and Thursdays. Fridays will be reserved for sanitation of school facilities, lesson planning, and virtual office hours for teachers.The district will also offer full-time remote learning for students through the district's virtual platform, Aiken Innovate , for students of all grade levels. The school district extended the deadline to enroll in virtual learning to Wednesday at midnight.The first day of school in Aiken County is planned for Aug. 17. The board also took a vote on delaying the start of school until Sept. 8, put forth by board member Cameron Nuessle. The motion failed 4-3, with two board members abstaining.Board members Patrice Rhinehart Jackson, Cameron Nuessle and Dr. John Bradley voted in approval of the motion to delay the start of school, with board members Keith Liner, Brian Silas, Jason Crane and Dwight Smith dissenting.Board members Sandra Shealey and Barry Moulton could not vote on the measure, as they were attending the meeting remotely.The board has until Friday to submit the plans for reopening to S.C. Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman.A deadline extension was requested by the board after S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster and some other state lawmakers called upon districts to offer five-day, in-person learning (essentially reopening schools at maximum capacity in the fall) on July 17  two days before S.C. school districts were required to present their reopening plans to Spearman.The Aiken County School Board previously voted to adopt a hybrid model of learning on July 16, less than a day before McMaster's remarks were made during a press conference. The July 21 meeting was held in response to McMaster's statements so the board could reevaluate their reopening plans.It was a decision many board members said was not easy to make."Weve been put in a very difficult position," said Jason Crane. "Were being asked to make the impossible decision, which was, in my opinion, made more difficult by the changing goal post announced on Wednesday by the governor.Some raised concerns about health risks in schools for both teachers and students if classes were to resume in person full time."I dont want to take the risk of throwing everybody back into school and seeing what happens," Bradley said. "I dont want to the death of a child on my conscience."Parents, teachers speak about reopening concernsBefore the meeting, protesters gathered in the parking lot to speak out against returning to a traditional model of learning  which would involve schools operating at maximum capacity five days a week.Teachers outside the ACPSD building broadly supported virtual instruction and hybrid models for the fall. Many of the protesters called for a hybrid model in which schools would open at 33% capacity instead of 50%, which some of them incorporated into their protest signs and chants.Among the protesters calling for a 33% model was Scott Ayers, a history teacher at New Ellenton Middle School who drove a hearse to the protest.Ayers hung a sign on the hearses windshield that said, Bus transport is not the only issue.We talk about buses being at 50%, Ayers said, standing next to the hearse. If we do not do this at a safe 33% model, which was originally discussed, a lot of teachers and parents and educators are concerned this (the hearse) is whats going to be driving a student instead of a bus one day.Juliane Taylor, an English teacher at Aiken High School, said she would prefer virtual teaching but would be happy to return to school with a 33% hybrid model.We were all really shocked to hear Gov. McMaster say that students should be given the option of five days a week, in person at a time when everything in science tells us that that is a bad idea, Taylor said.Taylor said she finds online teaching much harder but believes it is the right thing to do.Another educator who disagreed with the 50% model is Carina McGee, an English teacher at Aiken High School. McGee said she is concerned it would not be logistically possible to keep students 6 feet apart if they attend school at 50% capacity.Besides the issue of students attending seven different class periods, McGee said students may have difficulty keeping physical distance while they go to their lockers or talk with their friends.At a prior school board meeting, McGee wrote the first draft of her will. McGee, who is in her early 20s, said it was heartbreaking to write, but she might be facing a situation where she is likely to catch the virus.As much as I want things to go back to normal, if it goes back to normal too quickly, were just going to have to shut it all down again, McGee said.McGee said she trusted that the school board would take the protestors perspectives into consideration, and she hopes the community will proceed with caution.For Valerie Walker, an English teacher at A. L. Corbett Middle School, safety was a primary concern. She hoped to make sure her students would be safe and that the work environment would be safe.I have seen the numbers of COVID going up and getting closer for school to open, and so we are very concerned, Walker said. Even though we do want to go back to see our kids again, but were also concerned about our own safety and especially the safety of our kids.Bethany Ross, a second grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary, also expressed concern about safety. She said she teaches young kids who might not wear their masks and maintain social distance.I feel like the board members may not be taking into consideration the science behind the spreading of COVID-19 and how abundant it is in our state right now, versus the want for having schools back open, Ross said.Ross was also concerned about whether the schools would have enough cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment and what might happen if a teacher or student catches the virus and spreads it further at home and in the community.Its a problem for literally everybody, Ross said.Mark Rich, a social studies teacher at Schofield Middle School, said he is concerned for students and teachers who have health problems.I dont know that they are being adequately looked at by our state government, Rich said.Tiffany Benward, a single mother, spoke against schools reopening in-person classes five days a week during the public comment period of the meeting."My daughter graduates this year," Benward said. "If she goes to school and she gets sick, she is going to bring it home to the only parents who is working to put food on the table?"Samantha Cheatham, program director at the Boys and Girls Club of Aiken, was in support of schools resuming traditional learning full time. Cheatham said she has seen the effects of distance learning on students who cannot obtain broadband access at home.Im on the front line of those children who dont necessarily have the means and technology to complete the distance learning packages because they dont have internet at home, they dont have laptops or they dont have the parents who are actually able to help them, Cheatham said.Scott Patterson, a parent of three teenage girls, claimed the loss of in-person schooling had negatively impacted all of his children, especially his youngest daughter."I just think it needs to be an option, Patterson said. "The parents can decide whether theyre comfortable sending their kids to school."
Robert Paule, Tou Thao's lawyer, addresses the media after an omnibus court hearing in the case against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 29, 2020. (Nicholas Pfosi/File Photo/Reuters)

Judge Lifts Gag Order Against Former Officers Charged in Floyds Death

A Minnesota judge on July 21 removed a gag order against the four former police officers charged in the death of George Floyd.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill initially issued the order earlier this month, saying at the time that publicity before trial would make it hard to find an impartial jury and could result in an unfair trial. The gag order prohibited parties from speaking publicly about the case and restricted access to case records.

However, during a hearing on Tuesday, Cahill said his July 9 order didnt work as intended. He said he made the decision to lift the gag order after attorneys for the former officers submitted motions arguing that it is both unfair to their clients, and limits their ability to defend them from negative publicity.

The gag order didnt work, Cahill said, reported the Minneapolis Star Tribune. If anything it may have exacerbated the issue.

Cahill said that he still expects all lawyers in the case to follow the rules on disclosure of information. He also said he would consider a news media coalitions request for recordings from the officers body cameras to be made more widely available.

Currently, the public can only access the body camera footage by appointment.

Floyd died in police custody on May 25 after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, 44, pinned his knee onto his neck. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

Former officer Thomas Lane, one of four officers charged in Floyds death, was charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the case.

J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, the other two officers, are also facing two charges each of aiding and abetting.

Floyds death sparked sometimes violent demonstrations, peaceful protests, arson attacks, and vandalism nationwide.

Earlier this month, Cahill set a March 8 trial date for the former officers if they are tried together, though he said he expects motions to be filed to separate their trials. If theyre tried separately, those still in custody would most likely go first. The next court date is Sept. 11.

The defendants have not entered pleas. Chauvins attorney has not commented publicly on the charges, while Lanes and Kuengs attorneys have sought to minimize their clients roles and deflect blame to the more senior Chauvin in Floyds death.

During the Tuesday hearing, Cahill also ruled that lead prosecutor, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, would not be held in contempt, as two defense attorneys requested, after he released a statement announcing that additional attorneys would help with the prosecution.

Jack Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report.
The administration of United States President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that it plans to adopt aircraft emissions standards modelled on international ones  a move it says will not further reduce climate-damaging emissions from planes.

Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, said the change strikes the right regulatory balance and would ensure that US-made airliners and large business jets meet the demands of the global market.

Environmental groups, which had threatened to sue the EPA over delays in setting greenhouse gas limits for aviation, said the agencys proposal does not go far enough.

The Center for Biological Diversity called it toothless. The rules are too weak to address the severity of the climate crisis, said Clare Lockwood, the groups climate legal director.

Another environmental group, the International Council on Clean Transportation, said the standard is already out of date and wont speed investment in more fuel-efficient engines and planes. The average new plane delivered last year was already six percent more fuel-efficient than EPAs rules would require in 2028, said Sola Zheng, lead author of an upcoming study by the group.

The US needed to adopt a rule at least as tough as the one being put in place by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to sell and operate planes overseas.

Boeing and Airlines for America, a trade group for the biggest US airlines, praised the EPAs decision.

The new standard for planes is a major step forward for protecting the environment and supporting sustainable growth of commercial aviation and the United States economy, said Boeing spokesperson Bryan Watt. Aircraft fuel efficiency has improved 50 percent since 1990, and the EPA proposal will help aircraft manufacturers continue making technological innovations for more fuel efficiency, he said.

Trumps administration has largely resisted calls from scientists and others for swift, large-scale action to cut the burning of oil, natural gas and coal to stave off the worst of climate change. The administration pulled the US out of the Paris climate accord and weakened Obama-era initiatives to reduce emissions from vehicles and power plants.

Wheeler told reporters that the administration is working to curb fossil fuel emissions but is doing it in a thoughtful manner that protects our manufacturing base.

The new US proposal is modelled on a change adopted by the ICAO, a United Nations agency, to limit climate-damaging carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Since airline makers globally are expected to follow the new international standards anyway, the EPA is not projecting emission reductions associated with todays proposed GHG regulations, or greenhouse gas rules, the EPA description of the change notes.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak hit demand for air travel, the international agency predicted emissions from planes will grow at least three percent a year globally because of rising traffic, even with cleaner planes.

The administration of former President Barack Obama concluded that aviation contributes to climate change, endangering public health. That set Wednesdays proposed rule in motion. The EPA says US aviation accounts for three percent of the countrys overall climate-changing emissions.
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Speciality chemical maker Rossari Biotech is set to debut on bourses on July 23 after receiving a stellar response to its Rs 496-crore public issue from investors.

Rossari Biotech will be the first to list during the lockdown and the second to debut after SBI Card IPO in March this year.

Given the appetite during subscription period last week and strong fundamentals, Rossari Biotech is likely to start the first day with 30-40 percent premium over its issue price of Rs 425 per share.

The public issue, which consists a fresh issue of Rs 50 crore and an offer for sale of 1.05 crore equity shares by promoters, closed with a massive 79.37 times subscription on July 15, backed by a strong response from all kind of investors.

"We expect the stock to list at a whopping premium of 30-40 percent on debut day," Astha Jain, Senior Research Analyst at Hem Securities told Moneycontrol.

Manali Bhatia, Senior Research Analyst at Rudra Shares and Stock Brokers also expect the stock to list at a premium of Rs 130-175 which translates to a listing gain of around 30-40 percent over the issue price.

The grey market premium is around Rs 160-175 per share, sources told Moneycontrol.

The upcoming new manufacturing unit at Dahej in Gujarat with a proposed installed capacity of 1,32,500 MTPA would significantly double its capacity and improve the revenue growth even further, she feels.

Rossari Biotech, which provides customised solutions to specific industrial and production requirements of customers primarily in the FMCG, apparel, poultry and animal feed industries, already has an installed capacity of 1,20,000 MTPA at Silvassa which was the only manufacturing facility.

Company has a diversified product portfolio and has a range of 2,030 different products sold across the different product categories as on May 31, 2020.

Company has been able to increase its total revenue from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2020 at a compound annual growth rate of 41.65 percent, EBITDA at a compound annual growth rate of 56.58 percent and profit after tax has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 60.27 percent over the same period.

It has strong financial ratios, ROCE at 24.79 percent and RONW being highest amongst peers at 31.79 percent. In fact, considering the current market scenario this particular sector on a whole is in focus, especially after COVID-19.

The company operates in the home, personal care and performance chemicals; textile speciality chemicals; and animal health and nutrition segments.

The surge in demand for home, personal care and performance chemicals segment given the spike in demand for sanitizers, disinfectants and handwashes augur well for the company, said Akash Jain of Ajcon Global.

"The company is experiencing robust recovery from June 2020 onwards. Revenue during June 2020 is expected to surpass the average monthly revenue of FY20. Due to the renewed focus on the Home, Personal Care & Performance Chemicals segment and the ability of the company to deliver during critical times led to the addition of many new large clients during the last 3 months," he added.

The company generates around 43 percent of revenue from textile speciality segment, which can be a concern as this sector is hit hard by pandemic, but it has reduced dependence from 72 percent in FY19.

"Rossari Biotech IPO was a great success and subscription levels were above market expectations. We are optimistic on the sector as well as the company as rising "Make in India" campaign would add impetus to the emergence of India as a manufacturing hub for the specialty chemicals," Prashanth Tapse, AVP Research at Mehta Equities told Moneycontrol.

"We believe Rossari biotech is well-positioned to tap the shifting global demand by having customised solutions to the apparel, animal & poultry feed and FMCG industries by offering a diversified product portfolio. Considering all the factors and above market demand, we expect a handsome listing gain around 30-35 percent on issue price Rs 425," he said.

Rossari Biotech will utilise its net fresh issue proceeds for repayment/prepayment of certain indebtedness, funding working capital requirements; and general corporate purposes.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
With lawmakers back at work after an extended Fourth of July recess, there's one task on the top of their to-do list -- another coronavirus-related stimulus bill. This legislation is more necessary than ever, as millions of Americans have already spent the stimulus money authorized by the last coronavirus relief bill and COVID-19 cases have continued to spike nationwide.

The next piece of legislation aimed at staving off economic disaster could affect your finances in a number of ways, so it's important to know what will be in it. And while nothing is certain yet, there are four key provisions likely to be included.

1. Stimulus checks

Direct payments to Americans are one of the quickest ways to bolster the economy, and there's bipartisan support for them.

In fact, the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has already passed a bill, the HEROES Act, to provide payments, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) has also indicated he's in favor of them, commenting that the country needs "another shot of adrenaline."

The next payment could be a more targeted one, potentially available to fewer Americans as some Republicans are pushing for lower income limits for eligibility compared with the first check. However, with President Donald Trump throwing his weight behind a second stimulus payment and promising a generous one, there's strong reason for most Americans to hope more money will be coming their way soon.

2. Help for the unemployed

Although there's been some improvement in recent months, the current unemployment rate of 11.1% is still extremely high. And unemployed workers could be faced with financial disaster if the next coronavirus legislation bill doesn't provide them with some help.

The last big COVID-19 relief bill offered expanded unemployment benefits to laid-off workers, providing an extra $600 in weekly benefits. But that extra cash was made available only through the end of July. If Congress doesn't extend it, the average weekly unemployment benefit will fall to $380 per week and the typical worker will get a check equaling just about a third of prior income. That's just not sustainable.

Most Republicans are strongly opposed to continuing to provide the extra $600 each week, viewing it as disincentivizing work since some people are currently getting more money to stay home than they did in their paychecks prior to the pandemic. However, McConnell said the Senate's bill will offer an alternative, which some sources indicate could be a smaller benefits boost.

One member of Republican leadership has also introduced a bill authorizing a back-to-work bonus that would allow those who return to their jobs before the end of the month to keep an extra two weeks of the $600 benefit. This $1,200 "hiring bonus," or some variation of it, could very well make its way into the next relief bill too. This would help those who were unemployed but who are able to head back to work quickly.

3. Aid to states

States have been hit hard with a double whammy -- lost revenue and huge coronavirus-related costs. In the HEROES Act, Democratic lawmakers voted to provide more than $1 trillion worth of aid to state and local governments.

While Republicans aren't on board with such a big payment -- especially as the HEROES Act provides ample flexibility in what the funds could be used for -- lawmakers on the right recognize that states need some help. However, there are some signs that any funds granted could be much more restrictive, with sources indicating the money might be earmarked specifically for schools and tied to reopening plans, as school reopening is a major priority for the Trump administration.

4. Liability protections for companies

Sen. McConnell has repeatedly pushed for liability protections to shield companies from lawsuits related to the transmission of COVID-19, except in cases of gross negligence. In fact, the Kentucky Republican has described this as a "red line" for the next coronavirus relief bill.

Some protections will likely be important to encourage companies to reopen, as they could otherwise be faced with expensive lawsuits if people become sick after visiting their establishments. It's likely this will be a provision Republicans aren't willing to compromise much on.

The next few days will be key to determining if more COVID-19 relief is coming

If lawmakers don't pass a coronavirus relief bill by Aug. 8, the chances of it happening will plummet as the Senate goes on recess again and won't be back until September.

You'll want to keep your eyes on the debate in Washington to see where things stand, while also preparing for the possibility that no compromise will be reached and no aid will come to you during the 2020 recession. Creating a crisis budget and reviewing your investment strategy are two good places to start in shoring up your finances as you wait to see if lawmakers come through for you.
A neo-Nazi has been jailed for possessing indecent images of children and extreme pornography.

Jacek Tchorzewski, who had links to the Sonnenkrieg Division terrorist group, was imprisoned for terror offences last year.

But the 19-year-old has now been sentenced at Harrow Crown Court for downloading videos, photos and animations depicting child rape, incest and sexual interference with a corpse.

The court heard the material was discovered after police stopped Tchorzewski at Luton Airport on 20 February last year.

He had been about to board a flight back to Poland after visiting his mother, who lives in High Wycombe.

Prosecutor Margia Mostafa said officers who seized his phone and two laptops discovered evidence of child pornography as well as far-right terrorist material.

The contents of the images are fairly distressing, she added, saying there were four videos in the most serious category showing the rape of boys and girls as young as five.

Ms Mostafa said the victims shown included boys and girls, adding: They have been clearly groomed and there is suggestion that these children are forced to smile at the camera.

Tchorzewski also admitted possessing more than 500 images of extreme pornography, which mainly related to animations of characters from a popular childrens cartoon having incestuous sex.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing indecent images of children and one of extreme pornography, including material depicting an act which involved sexual interference with a corpse.

Judge Anupama Thompson sentenced Tchorzewski to eight months imprisonment, which will run concurrently to his previous four-year sentence for possessing neo-Nazi terror manuals.

She said the prisoner, who is currently being held at HMP Bullingdon, would be deported to Poland at the end of his time in custody.

The far right in the UK Show all 10 1 /10 The far right in the UK The far right in the UK British Union Jack flags are reflected in the sunglasses of a protester during a protest on April 1, 2017 in London Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK A man holds a St George's Cross flag at a demonstration organised by the far-right group the English Defence League in central London on June 24, 2017 Tolga Akmen/AFP The far right in the UK A man is pictured with police officers at a demonstration organised by the far-right group the English Defence League (EDL) in central London on June 24, 2017 Tolga Akmen/AFP The far right in the UK A Neo-Nazi chats amicably with a police officer at a demonstration organised by the far-right group the English Defence League in central London Tolga Akmen/AFP The far right in the UK Supporters of the far-right group Britain First wave flags as they march and rally in central London on April 1, 2017 following the March 22 terrorist attack on the British parliament Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP The far right in the UK Police walk ahead of supporters of the far-right group Britain First marching in central London on April 1, 2017 Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP The far right in the UK Protesters hold placards and British Union Jack flags during a protest titled 'London march against terrorism' on April 1, 2017 in London Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK A woman wearing a Donald Trump campaign hat hugs another woman during a protest titled 'London march against terrorism' on April 1, 2017 Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK A protester waves a British Union Jack with an 'England' tattoo on his arm during a protest on April 1, 2017 in London Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images The far right in the UK Anti-Semitic demonstrators attend a rally on Whitehall in central London on July 4, 2015 Jack Taylor/AFP

It seems to me that as far as the public interest is concerned, there is nothing to be achieved from extending your sentence further from the one you are currently serving, the judge added.

Considerable time has passed since you were originally arrested and had things should be done as they should have, these would have been dealt with by the Central Criminal Court [during the terror case].

Tchorzewski, wearing a blue-T-shirt and glasses, with a long hair and beard, remained impassive as he was sentenced on Wednesday.

The court heard that probation workers had been trying to engage the defendant generally on his offending behaviour, but have not had a great deal of success.

Robert English, for the defence, said Tchorzewski told him the images were downloaded when he was between 15 and 17.

I asked him why he had those images and he says he was younger then, he had a curiosity, an interest, he told the court.

He has no interest now and its just something that occurred earlier in his life.

Mr English said Tchorzewski was originally from Poland and had a disjointed upbringing moving between his father in that country and mother in the UK.

A pre-sentence report drawn up after his terror conviction said he was self-contained and isolated, had been bullied and struggled to form friendships and communicate.

Mr English said Tchorzewski was suspected to have autism spectrum disorder but there had been no formal diagnosis, adding: These various traits  resulted in a lot of time spent alone on the internet.

Neo-Nazis Michal Szewczuk (left) and Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski (right) were jailed for encouraging terrorism (Counter Terrorism Policing North East)

In September, he was jailed after pleading guilty to 10 counts of possessing documents useful to terrorists.

That court case heard that he also had Satanist literature depicting rape and paedophilia at his home.

The Metropolitan Police said Tchorzewski had amassed a plethora of guides on terrorism, bomb making and gun production.

He was friends with Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, a leading member of the banned neo-Nazi terrorist group Sonnekrieg Division.

Dunn-Koczorowski, who was a previous member of National Action, was jailed for terror offences last year after inciting terror attacks on targets including Prince Harry.

Co-defendant Michal Szewczuk, also a Polish national, ran a blog that encouraged the rape and torture of opponents, including small children, and Dunn-Koczorowski wrote about decapitating babies.

Tchorzewskis phone contained several pictures of him and Dunn-Koczorowski posing with a Nazi flag and performing Hitler salutes.

Police found Tchorzewski had an array of extreme right-wing material praising Hitler, neo-Nazism, Satanism, antisemitism and calling for genocide.

At the time commander Richard Smith, head of the Mets Counter Terrorism Command, said: Tchorzewskis obsession with neo-Nazism, terrorism and weaponry was not harmless curiosity."
A City of Welland employee has tested positive for COVID-19, says human resources manager Andrea Daisley.

Daisley said the city was notified Monday of the positive test result and all staff  inside and outside workers  were informed by memo.

The memo said the situation was being monitored closely and the city is maintaining its cleaning schedule and continuing with physical distancing measures.

Citing privacy reasons, Daisely was unable to tell the Welland Tribune what department the person works in or how many people that person may have been in contact with before testing positive.

(Niagara Region) Public Health is responsible for contact tracing, and that process was complete. Anyone who needed to be notified was.

Daisley said there are procedures in place if and when a city employee tests positive for COVID-19 and those followed.

She said managers would have followed the guidelines in this case. Those guidelines include sending an employee home immediately and who to contact when notified of a positive test result.

City staff are working staggered shifts, and there are rigorous cleaning protocols in place to prevent the viruses spread, she said.

We have physical barriers in place in some areas as well as physical distancing, said Daisley.

Mayor Frank Campion said the city is taking things extremely seriously when it comes to protecting employees from COVID-19.

We have many measures in places and put in new measures as we work through this and open up our facilities and city hall, he said, adding that includes ensuring the public is also safe when entering city facilities.

Campion, who did not know the positive employees identity, said there are ongoing conversations at city hall about the pandemic and staff are highly involved daily.

Greg Brady, president of Unifor Local 199 which represents Wellands outside workers, said some of his members were very concerned when they heard the news.

Brady spoke with the citys human resources department who told him about public healths contact tracing protocols and that anyone in contact with the employee would have been notified.

None of the city workers that I represent have been contacted through public health. Im relieved it wasnt one of our members.

Brady wasnt shocked to hear of the positive test result and said it was only a matter of time.

He believed the city was taking every measure it could to protect its employees.

There are sanitizing stations, all the PPE thats required and the social distancing aspect as well.

Steve Leavitt, Canadian Union of Public Employees national staff representative, said the union was told a city employee tested positive.

We dont know who it is. Members want to know who it is and if they had any contact, said Leavitt.

CUPE Local 1115 represents 150 workers inside Welland city hall.

Like Brady, Leavitt said the union was told of the public health contact tracing protocols.

He said the employee who tested positive could be a non-union staff member or management.

Asked whether he was confident the city was protecting CUPE members, Leavitt said Welland seemed to get off to a slow start but is up to speed now.
TORONTO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cardinal Resources Limited (ASX / TSX: CDV) (Cardinal or the Company) advises that it has received a revised and improved proposal for an off-market takeover offer from Shandong Gold Mining (HongKong) Co., Limited (Shandong Gold), pursuant to which Shandong Gold will offer to acquire all of the shares in Cardinal it does not presently own at a cash price of A$0.70 per share (Improved Shandong Gold Offer).



The Improved Shandong Gold Offer is now being considered in detail by the board, together with the Special Committee and its financial and legal advisers. The Company will also be engaging with Shandong Gold in respect of the revised proposal.

Cardinal notes the Improved Shandong Gold Offer remains subject to a number of conditions, including regulatory approvals in Australia (FIRB) and in China. Shandong Gold has advised that it expects to receive certain of the Chinese regulatory approvals imminently. These conditions are set out in Cardinals announcement of the Bid Implementation Agreement announced on 18 June 2020.

In light of the Improved Shandong Gold Offer, and noting the competing on-market takeover offer for Cardinal at A$0.66 cash per share from Nord Gold SE (Nordgold Takeover Bid) announced on the ASX on 15 July 2020, shareholders are advised to TAKE NO ACTION in relation to their shares at this time.

The Company will provide an update to shareholders as soon as practicable.

Cardinals joint financial advisors are Maxit Capital LP, BMO Capital Markets, Hartleys Limited and Cannacord Genuity Corp. and its legal advisors are HopgoodGanim Lawyers (Australia) and Bennett Jones LLP (Canada).

ABOUT CARDINAL

Cardinal Resources Limited (ASX/TSX: CDV) is a West African goldfocused exploration and development Company that holds interests in tenements within Ghana, West Africa.

The Company is focused on the development of the Namdini Gold Project and released its Feasibility Study on 28 October 2019.

Story continues

Cardinal confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in its announcement of the Ore Reserve of April 3, 2019. All material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning this estimate continue to apply and have not materially changed.

*The Namdini Project has a published gold Ore Reserve of 5.1 Moz (138.6 Mt @ 1.13 g/t Au; 0.5 g/t cut-off), inclusive of 0.4 Moz Proved (7.4 Mt @ 1.31 g/t Au; 0.5 g/t cut-off) and 4.7 Moz Probable (131.2 Mt @ 1.12 g/t Au; 0.5 g/t cut-off).

Authorised for release by the Board of Cardinal Resources Limited.

For further information contact: Archie Koimtsidis Alec Rowlands CEO / MD IR / Corp Dev Cardinal Resources Limited Cardinal Resources Limited P: +61 8 6558 0573 P: +1 647 256 1922

Cannings Purple (Investor Relations, Australia)

Peta Baldwin or Warrick Hazeldine

E: pbaldwin@canningspurple.com.au E: whazeldine@canningspurple.com.au

Competent / Qualified Person Statement

The scientific and technical information in this announcement that relates to Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves at the Namdini Gold Project has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Richard Bray, a Registered Professional Geologist with the Australian Institute of Geoscientists and Mr. Ekow Taylor, a Chartered Professional Geologist with the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Mr. Bray and Mr. Taylor have more than five years experience relevant to the styles of mineralisation and type of deposits under consideration and to the activity which is being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person, as defined in the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves and as a Qualified Person for the purposes of NI43101. Mr. Bray and Mr. Taylor are fulltime employees of Cardinal and hold equity securities in the Company.

For further information on the Namdini project please see the Feasibility Study (FS) for the Namdini Gold Project, titled "Namdini Gold Project Feasibility Study 43-101 Report" by David Gordon, FAusIMM, Daryl Evans, FAusIMM, Nicolas Johnson, MAIG MPRm and Glenn Turnbull, FIMMM, MAusIMM, which was released on October 28, 2019. The technical report on the Feasibility Study, pursuant to NI 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators, was issued on SEDAR at www.sedar.com on November 28, 2019.

Disclaimer



Cardinal confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in its announcement of the Ore Reserve of April 3, 2019. All material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning this estimate continue to apply and have not materially changed.

This ASX / TSX press release has been prepared by Cardinal Resources Limited (ABN: 56 147 325 620) (Cardinal or the Company). Neither the ASX or the TSX, nor their regulation service providers accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

This press release contains summary information about Cardinal, its subsidiaries and their activities, which is current as at the date of this press release. The information in this press release is of a general nature and does not purport to be complete nor does it contain all the information, which a prospective investor may require in evaluating a possible investment in Cardinal.

By its very nature exploration for minerals is a highrisk business and is not suitable for certain investors. Cardinals securities are speculative. Potential investors should consult their stockbroker or financial advisor. There are a number of risks, both specific to Cardinal and of a general nature which may affect the future operating and financial performance of Cardinal and the value of an investment in Cardinal including but not limited to economic conditions, stock market fluctuations, gold price movements, regional infrastructure constraints, timing of approvals from relevant authorities, regulatory risks, operational risks and reliance on key personnel and foreign currency fluctuations.

Except for statutory liability which cannot be excluded and subject to applicable law, each of Cardinals officers, employees and advisors expressly disclaim any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the material contained in this press release and excludes all liability whatsoever (including in negligence) for any loss or damage which may be suffered by any person as a consequence of any information in this Announcement or any error or omission here from. Except as required by applicable law, the Company is under no obligation to update any person regarding any inaccuracy, omission or change in information in this press release or any other information made available to a person nor any obligation to furnish the person with any further information. Recipients of this press release should make their own independent assessment and determination as to the Companys prospects, its business, assets and liabilities as well as the matters covered in this press release.

Forwardlooking statements

Certain statements contained in this press release, including information as to the future financial or operating performance of Cardinal and its projects may also include statements which are forwardlooking statements that may include, amongst other things, statements regarding targets, anticipated timing of the feasibility study (FS) on the Namdini project, estimates and assumptions in respect of mineral resources and anticipated grades and recovery rates, production and prices, recovery costs and results, capital expenditures and are or may be based on assumptions and estimates related to future technical, economic, market, political, social and other conditions. These forward  looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Cardinal, are inherently subject to significant technical, business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results reflected in such forwardlooking statements.

Cardinal disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to any forwardlooking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, circumstances or results or otherwise after todays date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, other than required by the Corporations Act and ASX and TSX Listing Rules. The words believe, expect, anticipate, indicate, contemplate, target, plan, intends, continue, budget, estimate, may, will, schedule and similar expressions identify forwardlooking statements.

All forwardlooking statements made in this press release are qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements. Investors are cautioned that forwardlooking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forwardlooking statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.




"This pandemic may have taken businesses by surprise, but the best economic recovery strategy is to keep a tab on current market conditions and continue to adapt." - Express CEO Bill Stoller

In a stark contrast from a 2019 survey, a majority of hiring decision-makers are concerned about the U.S. economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is according to a newly released survey conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by Express Employment Professionals.

Eighty-three percent of hiring decision-makers are currently worried about the economy, and 62% wish their company was doing more in response to the unstable situation. Just one year ago, 63% of employers felt the economy was stronger than the year before in the 2019 Hiring Outlook conducted by Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, Inc.

Nearly 2 in 5 U.S. hiring decision-makers (38%) believe the U.S. has already entered another recession, with more than half of those at companies with two to nine employees (55%) saying the U.S. is already in a recession. A similar proportion (39%) say the U.S. will enter a recession within the next six months.

There is a mix of feelings depending on the industry. Most of our current clients are trying to make up for lost time and hit new production goals. They are actually struggling to find the talent they need, said David Robb, Director of Operations at the Grand Rapids, Michigan, Express office. I think most companies are looking at the short term and focusing on ramping back up.

Interestingly, 84% of those who believe the U.S. will enter into a recession say their company is planning to make changes when the recession occurs, while only 64% of those who say the U.S. is already in a recession say their company is already making changes as a result of the recession.

Express franchise owner Todd Isaacson in Boulder, Colorado, says companies should already be looking at strategies to maximize profit such as eliminating unnecessary expenses, renegotiating contacts, keeping video conferencing technology up-to-date and retaining key staff.

Stephanie Miller, Express franchise owner in Bend, Oregon, adds she is seeing the cost of employee benefits decrease, so businesses should revisit plans for possible savings. If loss of revenue becomes dire, however, she also warns against another possible consequence.

Oftentimes, companies make the mistake of getting so lean that they require overtime to get the job done, which is ultimately more expensive, Miller said.

As for how long the economic uncertainty will last, all three Express experts agree recovery is directly tied to the virus.

Of course, much depends on COVID-19 and a possible resurgence, as well as vaccines and testing, Isaacson said. The staffing industry has always been a pretty good indicator of coming recessions and it is clearly saying this one will be short-lived.

Robb adds his area has seen a quick resurgence in business as several restrictions have been lifted.

I predict that any recession will only be as long-lived as restrictions are needed to keep people safe and slow the spread of the coronavirus, he said.

With many economists predicting the worst has passed, Express CEO Bill Stoller, says businesses should continue to be flexible to meet current product and service demands.

This pandemic may have taken businesses by surprise, but the best economic recovery strategy is to keep a tab on current market conditions and continue to adapt, he said.

Survey Methodology

The survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals between April 21 and May 6, 2020, among 1,005 U.S. hiring decision-makers (defined as adults ages 18+ in the U.S. who are employed full-time or self-employed or have been laid off, furloughed, or given a zero hour schedule in the past 60 days but worked full-time or were self-employed full-time prior, work at companies with more than 1 employee, and have full/significant involvement in hiring decisions at their company). Data was weighted where necessary by company size to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

***

If you would like to arrange for an interview with Bill Stoller to discuss this topic, please contact Sheena Karami, Director of Corporate Communications and PR, at (405) 717-5966.

About Bill Stoller

William H. "Bill" Stoller is chairman and chief executive officer of Express Employment Professionals. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, the international staffing company has more than 825 franchises in the U.S., Canada and South Africa, and beginning in 2020 will expand to Australia and New Zealand. Since its inception, Express has put more than 8 million people to work worldwide.

About Express Employment Professionals

At Express Employment Professionals, were in the business of people. From job seekers to client companies, Express helps people thrive and businesses grow. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, our international network of franchises offer localized staffing solutions to the communities they serve, employing 552,000 people across North America in 2019. For more information, visit http://www.ExpressPros.com.


Vietnams rice export turnover in the first five months increased by 13 percent compared with the same period last year with the average export price of $485 per ton, a report said.

Vietnam is one of the biggest rice exporters in the world, but it is among the lowest income earners.

According to Pham Thai Binh, general director of Trung An Hi-tech Agriculture JSC, Vietnam mostly exports low-end low-cost rice with lower quality than Thai and Cambodian products.



Even when Vietnam sells high-quality rice, buyers also try to force the prices down, Binh said.



Experts believe that the problem lies in branding. According to Professor Vo Tong Xuan, having the best rice in the world will bring great opportunities to Vietnam.



Under the rice export strategy approved by the government, Vietnam will gradually reduce the export volume and increase the export value.



Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong, at a working session with rice exporters, said Vietnam is restructuring rice production by prioritizing investments in some varieties to heighten the value of the rice.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong, at a working session with rice exporters, said Vietnam is restructuring rice production by prioritizing investments in some varieties to heighten the value of the rice.

Rice is not only a kind of food, but can become medicine and functional food, he said.

Quang Tri province has built a model of 600 hectares of organic rice growing area, which aims to develop the best rice.



With rapid growth of 15 percent of the animal feed industry over many years, Vietnam has to import 90 percent of oil cake brans needed from India to serve domestic production.

In Vietnams rice value chain in the time to come, not only rice grains, but rice bran will also be considered a key product.



CJ Group in Vietnam has suggested establishing a rice research center in Vietnam which would find ways to improve the value of Vietnams rice in the world market.



Chang Bok Sang from CJ said Vietnam has great potential for producing and exporting rice, but still cannot fully exploit the potential and optimize the added value.



In order to fully exploit the potential and minimize risks as exports depends on import countries, it is necessary to increase the added value of rice by making processed products, he said.



Want Want, the group with the largest rice cake market share in Taiwan, has come to Vietnam to set up a rice cake factory in Tien Giang. Once it becomes operational, slated for early 2021, it will use 6,000 tons of rice a year.

Mai Lan

Vietnam's rice exports may slide after one-month high Rice exports were the only bright part in the picture of Vietnams farm exports in the first six months of the year. However, the achievements may not be upheld in the second half.
It was a passionate debate on both sides as Nebraska senators voted Tuesday night to pull an abortion-related bill from the Judiciary Committee to ensure it would be debated in the remaining 15 days of the session.

The bill (LB814), introduced by Lincoln Sen. Suzanne Geist, would prohibit fetal dismemberment abortion. It was pulled from committee on a 30-12 vote; 25 votes were needed to get the bill out of committee.

The bill was at an impasse in the committee, which could not get past a 4-4 split vote  not enough to kill it or to bring it to the floor for debate.

"I believe the citizens of Nebraska deserve to hear the details of my bill," Geist said, "and that the majority of its citizens will agree with its premise."

In the procedure, a medical provider dismembers the body of a living fetus and extracts one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments, according to the bill.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan plans to build 22 seismic stations in the country within the project Expansion of seismic network in the Caucasus and Central Asia, local media reported on July 22.

According to the statement, seismic stations are planned to be build with the support of the Ukrainian Scientific and Technical Center.

The stations are expected to be delivered to Azerbaijan in late January 2021, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the world.

On July 22, a videoconference was held with the representatives of relevant organizations of partner countries in connection with this project.

During the conference, it was decided to select sites for installation of new stations, to carry out preliminary training in accordance with the parameters of purchased equipment and to hold training on other technical issues.

Participants in the meeting were Director General of the Republican Seismological Service Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Corresponding Member of National Academy of Sciences Gurban Etirmishli, Deputy Directors General Ramiz Isgandarov and Rauf Muradov, Head of International Relations Department Telman Jafarov.

Currently, the country has 35 permanent seismic stations of the RSSC. In addition, 17 stations, as well as 10 Basalt stationary seismic stations, which record tremors, are operating during the "Caucasian transect" project. After the installation of new stations, a total of 84 seismic stations will operate in the country.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-21 23:12:21|Editor: huaxia

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Visitors take photos of Hong Kong Island in south China's Hong Kong, July 14, 2020. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

- The new national security legislation is legal and necessary for Hong Kong.

- Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and its role as a free market and trading hub will continue.

- London's recent moves concerning Hong Kong reflect the arrogance of some British politicians who have not waken up from their colonial past.

- Not a single word or paragraph in the Sino-British Joint Declaration gives Britain any responsibility over Hong Kong after the handover.

- London's moves will hurt the political foundation for healthy development of the China-Britain relationship

by Xinhua writer Gao Wencheng

BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- In response to Britain's suspension of its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday urged Britain to give up its fantasies of continuing colonial influence in Hong Kong.

The ministry also called on London to stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs and China's other internal affairs in any way, so as to avoid further damage to bilateral relations.

In recent weeks, London has repeatedly accused Beijing of violating the "one country, two systems" principle and the Sino-British Joint Declaration over the passage and imposition of the national security law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Photo taken on July 13, 2020 shows the Central district of Hong Kong, south China. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

Those continuous ill-founded remarks and actions have not only constituted a flagrant interference in China's internal affairs, but also turned a blind eye to the legitimacy and necessity of the new law.

Hong Kong returned to China on July 1, 1997; Britain's colonial rule in that Chinese city ended once and for all on that day. Today, Hong Kong is part of China, thus it falls under Beijing's sovereign jurisdiction to plug a legal loophole in the Chinese city to promote national security there.

Prior to London's decision, other members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group like Australia and Canada have also suspended their extradition arrangements in an apparent bid to pressure Beijing over the legislation.

Those China-bashers in the Five Eyes countries should respect the non-interference principle rooted in modern international relations. They should well understand that China, a country that once struggled for national liberation and independence during a century of humiliation, will now spare no efforts to safeguard its sovereign rights.

The new national security legislation, on the one hand, is in every way legal and necessary for Hong Kong, whose social stability and security were seriously challenged by radical acts of violence and social chaos last year, and serves as a guarantee of a steady and sustained implementation of "one country, two systems" principle.

People walk in the Hennessy Road in south China's Hong Kong, July 16, 2020. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu)

On the other hand, the law, which only targets an extremely small group of people whose activities seriously endanger national security in Hong Kong, will protect the safety and security of lives, property, basic rights and freedoms of the vast majority of Hong Kong citizens. In the meantime, Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and its role as a free market and trading hub will continue.

Moreover, it has long been a common practice for central authorities worldwide to enact laws to guarantee national security. For example, during the British colonial rule of Hong Kong, the British Treason Act was applied in Hong Kong with special enforcement agencies.

It explains why close to 3 million Hong Kong residents took part in a signature campaign over eight days to show their support for the enactment of the national security legislation.

Meanwhile, London's recent moves concerning Hong Kong have also clearly reflected the arrogance of some British politicians who have yet to wake up to the reality that Hong Kong is no longer under the thumb of Western colonizers.

As a matter of fact, not a single word or paragraph in the Sino-British Joint Declaration gives Britain any responsibility over Hong Kong after the handover. That document is now more of a reminder of the island country's past colonial aggression than a legal justification of its present-day acts of intervention in Hong Kong.

Right at this "twin-crisis" moment when the coronavirus pandemic and global economic recession have been engulfing the wider world, perhaps the top priority of the British government should be finding a way to wade through the turbulent waves and get ready for a strong recovery.

Aerial photo taken on July 16, 2020 shows the Wan Chai of south China's Hong Kong. (Xinhua/Lui Siu Wai)

However, pressuring China over the Hong Kong issue will be of little, if any, help for the decision-makers at 10 Downing Street to promote the interests of their own country during this time of rising global uncertainty and chaos.

Worse, it will surely hurt the political foundation for healthy development of the China-Britain relationship, whose vitality bears special significance for Britain in the post-Brexit and post-pandemic world.

When announcing the decision to pause extradition arrangements with Hong Kong, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also said that "the UK wants a positive relationship with China."

To transform his words into action, London should respect China's core interests and work with its counterparts in Beijing to enhance, rather than undermine, the mutual trust and cooperation between the two countries. 
Rackspace Technology today announced that Aramex, a leading global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions, is in the process of migrating from on-premise data centres to Amazon Web Services (AWS) following a comprehensive professional services consultation.

Aramex, which moved more than 103 million shipments globally last year, started its cloud journey with the creation of one of the largest data lakes in the Middle East and the deployment of machine learning models in areas of customer experience and last mile innovation, said a statement.

Through the managed public cloud environment, the Dubai-based organisation has already achieved cost savings when scaling, which was crucial during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic where it saw around 30-40% growth in e-commerce volumes. Working with Rackspace Technology, Aramex is also provided with expert cloud security, compliance services and the ability to leverage data analytics, ultimately enabling it to become cloud native.

Our journey to becoming cloud native is vital to the future growth and innovation of the business, said Mohammed Sleeq, Chief Digital Officer at Aramex. Modernising our core landscape is more important than ever before given the current industry dynamics which is fueled by the consistent growth of e-commerce. We embarked on a pivotal shift of our IT environment and the collaboration between our internal team and that of AWS and Rackspace Technology is critical to the success of the program.

In the next stage of the project, Rackspace Technology will be working closely with Aramex on the modernisation of the companys extensive 60+ applications.

Working with Aramex is a hugely exciting project for us, said George Pawlyszyn, General Manager, Middle East and Africa, Rackspace Technology. Aramex has already noticed such important benefits from our work together, which is great validation for the efforts of all involved. The ongoing work will further enhance its market leading position allowing for even more innovation and agility.

Rackspace Technology is the multicloud solutions expert. It combines its expertise with the worlds leading technologies  across applications, data and security  to deliver end-to-end solutions.  TradeArabia News Service
Comet NEOWISE provides a spectacular evening show, splashing its tail of thawed dust and gases at an enjoyable 64 million miles away. But what if this dance was intended to be front row?

The comet, which is about 3 miles in diameter, was discovered four months ago. If it had been hurtling straight toward Earth, humans would have been unprepared and armed with largely untested deterrence techniques.

If it had been on an impact trajectory with the Earth, having only found it in March, there is simply very little we could have done to prevent its impact, said Lindley Johnson, NASAs Planetary Defense Officer. In fact, almost nothing.

On HoustonChronicle.com: How to see a comet that won't return to Earth for another 6,800 years

To be clear, Comet NEOWISE is harmless and the chances of a comet hitting the Earth are astronomically remote, Johnson said. But NASA is studying techniques that would deliberately crash spacecraft into comets and asteroids or use gravity to guide these objects to a new trajectory before they collide with the Earth.

Comets are frozen gases, rocks and dust that heat up  creating a tail  as their orbit approaches the sun. Only 110 or so are known to enter Earths inner solar system.

Asteroids are more common. There are more than 23,000 of these rocky objects with orbits that enter the inner solar system. Each day, 80 to 100 tons of dust and small space rock fall onto the Earth.

Larger asteroids are (thankfully) less likely to fall from the skies. Those akin to the 55-foot asteroid that broke apart over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013  creating a shock wave that shattered windows and injured more than 1,600 people  are estimated to hit Earth once or twice a century.

Even larger objects are expected on the scale of centuries to millennia.

There has been increased discussion around asteroid detection and deterrence both in the U.S. and in other countries, said David Alexander, director of the Rice University Space Institute. But theres always the question of priorities.

Is it of immediate enough danger for us to be worrying about? Alexander asked. And what it boils down to is money, as always.

Alexander said its an issue that should be addressed, but he isnt losing sleep over it. The assumption is big asteroids will be detected when theyre far away from Earth, providing enough time to react.

Still, NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office admits there are gaps in the agencys knowledge and unpredicted impacts, like the Chelyabinsk asteroid, could occur.

The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 required the agency to detect, track, catalog and characterize near-Earth objects - asteroids or comets that can pass within 30 million miles of Earths orbit - equal to or greater than 140 meters (459 feet) in size. The goal was to catalog 90 percent of these objects by 2020.

But in 2014, a NASA Office of Inspector General report said that NASA had identified about 10 percent of all asteroids 140 meters and larger. The report prompted the agency to reorganize its Near-Earth Object Observations Program and establish a Planetary Defense Coordination Office in January 2016.

Johnson said NASA has thus far identified roughly 9,200 near-Earth asteroids that are 140 meters or larger, just over a third of what its modeling suggests are 25,000 of these out there.

Most of these have been identified with ground-based optical telescopes. Johnson said a proposed space telescope called the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission, NEOSM, would be able to complete NASAs 90 percent goal within 10 years of operation.

We need a better capability that can survey more of the sky over time, Johnson said, and reach deeper, be able to see dimmer objects.

But NASAs Planetary Defense would need more money to get the telescope launched by 2026. Its current budget is $150 million a year, and Johnson said Planetary Defense would need $200 million a year.

Don A. Nelson, a retired engineer from NASAs Johnson Space Center, is among those advocating that NASA and Congress pay more attention to Planetary Defense. Hes alarmed by the increasing number of near-Earth objects that are being discovered.

My real concern is that we have all of the technology to do this, and were not doing it, Nelson said. My big concern is were ignoring it.

But work is underway. Johnson said roughly half of the planetary defense budget is being spent on the upcoming Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, which would test a kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space.

This mission, expected to launch in July 2021, will deliberately crash the DART spacecraft into a small asteroid thats orbiting a larger asteroid. The collision is expected to change the smaller asteroids orbit.

NASA is also studying a gravity tractor technique, where a spacecraft would meet an asteroid and fly alongside it. The mutual gravity attraction between the satellite and the asteroid would slowly alter the latters course.

A nuclear bomb would be the last resort, though NASA likely wouldnt blast the rock into pieces like in the movie Armageddon. That could create more debris that would head toward Earth. Rather, the bomb would be detonated a few hundred meters above the surface of the asteroid, creating an energy that could nudge the asteroid onto a new trajectory.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Can astronauts be allergic to moon dust? NASA seeks an answer.

But before attempting such deflection techniques, its important to learn the composition of the asteroid or comet. A spacecraft could be sent up to take samples. Nelson emphasized the need for a reusable rocket that could be launched quickly, within a day, should a large asteroid suddenly appear.

For already discovered asteroids, such as Bennu, NASA has more time to plan. The agency launched a spacecraft to this asteroid in 2016 and expects to receive samples in 2023.

Bennu orbits the sun every 1.2 years and makes a relatively close approach to Earth about every six years. Its expected to pass the Earth within the moons orbit in 2135. This will change the asteroids orbit by a small amount and may lead to a potential impact with Earth between 2175 and 2199, though the cumulative risk during this 24-year period is a 1 in 2,700 chance.

Knowing an objects composition could help determine the deterrence technique. With several years of warning time, a dense asteroid, maybe with a metallic core, could respond best to the kinetic impactor technique. Whereas as a fluffier comet, made of dust and ice, might respond best to a gravity tractor technique, Johnson said.

The techniques have not yet been tested, which is why NASA now has a Planetary Defense Program, Johnson said. So we can start the testing of these techniques and capabilities to make sure we are better prepared if we are ever facing something like that.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/a_leinfelder
ARLINGTON, Va., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- American Police Officers Alliance , a national grassroots political organization, launched a campaign this week focused on unveiling and highlighting the facts around the Antifa movement. American Police Officers Alliance is committed to defending strong police leadership and interests in our nation's cities. The prominent rise of the Antifa organization is a top focus for American Police Officers Alliance as it creates a dangerous environment for police officers and other law-abiding citizens. Antifa contributes to the social and political unrest of this country, and one of the known goals of Antifa is to disband the police.

"Most Americans still have a nebulous and unclear understanding of Antifa," said Executive Director of American Police Officers Alliance, Daniel Stuebs. "There are many misconceptions around Antifa, and that makes them all the more dangerous. It is important that citizens understand who they are and what their goals are, especially citizens that support our police officers."

American Police Officers Alliance's Antifa FAQ page is a resource for pro-police citizens with questions, including "What is Antifa?," "Who Funds Antifa?," and "What is Antifa's Goal?" An excerpt from their Facts Page reads: "Antifa is an anarchist movement that is currently demanding that police departments are defunded." According to Holly Rehder, "Make no mistake, their efforts to disband the police are so there will be no one left to stop them."

American Police Officers Alliance also plans to roll out an awareness campaign focused on Antifa to make sure all law-abiding United States citizens understand the issue and potential long-term damage Antifa can create. "Antifa has grown even more bold in recent months," Daniel Stuebs continued. "Our organization is committed to bringing this issue to the forefront and sharing the truth about their grassroots movement to overthrow our government and societal structures as we know them." The organization will continue to provide free resources on this issue for the public.

For more information and to get involved, visit What is Antifa and What Does it Want?

American Police Officers Alliance is a nonprofit political organization, organized under Section 527 with the IRS. Contributions made to American Police Officers Alliance are not tax deductible. Not authorized by any candidate or any candidate's committee.

SOURCE American Police Officers Alliance

Related Links

https://americanpoliceofficersalliance.com/


Around the world, from the United States to Ukraine, there is no shortage of powerful ultra-conservative groups and leaders who want women to bear as many babies as they physically can. They vehemently oppose contraception as well as safe, legal abortion. Motherhood is extolled as the pinnacle of human achievement for women.

Last year in Verona, Italy, many of these groups converged at the World Congress of Families summit of ultra-conservative activists and their far-right political allies. Like other speakers, Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, a member of one of Europes oldest royal families, introduced himself by announcing how many children he has fathered (six).

You would think, given their power and obsession with motherhood, these groups would have successfully campaigned to ensure childbirth is a safe and positive experience for women. Instead, they have paradoxically left campaigns against obstetric violence to the feminists and global health experts that they also vehemently oppose.

Even before COVID-19, too many women endured unacceptable dangers and mistreatment giving birth. The pandemic appears to have made this much worse. Since March, women in at least 45 countries have faced childbirth experiences during the pandemic that defy international guidelines as well as national laws and policies.

In countries around the world, women have been forcibly separated from newborns; required to give birth alone without support from partners or relatives; denied pain medication. They have been shouted at and treated like machines. At some hospitals, all women have been subjected to mandatory caesarean sections.

These incidents have occurred even in places which are hotspots for ultra-conservative movements, and where they have national political power or influence. No woman should be treated how I was treated during childbirth, said one new mother in the US, where these groups have celebrated President Donald Trumps pro-life administration.

My husband and I will handcuff ourselves together if doctors wont allow him in, said a woman in Ukraine, where the president encouraged people to use the lockdown to have more babies. Here, as in Armenia, restrictions on women giving birth have even outlasted lockdowns. You can take your partner to a restaurant but not a maternity ward.

Globally, pro-life and pro-family movements have not slowed down during COVID-19. They have been busy campaigning  but not to protect the rights of pregnant women and new mothers. Their focus has been on limiting womens choices.

In the US, for example, conservative states moved quickly to ban abortions by classifying them as non-essential services. Last week, the Supreme Court upheld Trump administration rules allowing employers to opt out of including birth control in an employees health insurance plan.

The United Nations warned that COVID-19 restrictions and lockdown disruptions could result in seven million unintended pregnancies in just six months. For a heartbreaking number of women, they have had no choice but to continue these pregnancies or seek unsafe abortions.

Those who have arrived at maternity wards to give birth during the pandemic have faced other restrictions that top doctors and lawyers denounced as unnecessary and part of an alarming pattern of womens health and rights being deprioritised.

Motherhood-obsessed ultra-conservatives have the power, and you would think the motivation, to do something about this. But instead, many of these same movements have attacked the World Health Organization (WHO)  the global health body that is standing up for womens rights to timely, quality and respectful care in childbirth.

A week after the pandemic was declared, the WHO even issued specific guidance on childbirth during COVID-19  insisting, among other things, that women giving birth be treated with respect and dignity; be allowed birth companions, and; be supported to breastfeed and have skin-to-skin contact with newborns. (Yes, this is the same WHO that the most pro-life president Donald Trump has sought to savagely defund.)

By not using their power to make a difference for women in childbirth, ultra-conservatives reveal how their interests actually lie elsewhere  in promoting and defending childbirth as womens work, something that we must do in patriarchal societies, and that we should not complain about. This is bad news for womens rights, certainly  but it is also, ultimately, a losing strategy for these groups.

Eventually, ultra-conservatives silence on these issues will undermine their efforts to expand. Many of the people that these movements are trying to reach will share feminists concerns about these issues, and want these conditions for women giving birth to be better. Once again, this pandemic should teach us we have more in common than we do not  and help us protect womens rights and lives.

I honestly hope, said one woman in Italy, that those in power will learn something from our suffering and prevent other women from going through that we had to go through. She gave birth in late March  shortly after one of the co-hosts of last years ultra-conservative summit in Verona called for people to use the COVID-19 lockdown to reproduce, exclaiming: Lets stay at home and have a baby!

Like many women around the world, she had to go through childbirth alone with her partner banned from the hospital she went to. She was also separated from her newborn for more than six hours after birth. Feminists and global health experts are listening to these stories and calling for change. Will ultra-conservatives join them?

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
A Russian court on Wednesday convicted a respected Gulag historian in a controversial sexual abuse case, but handed down a sentence that will see him free in the autumn. Yury Dmitriyev, the local head of prominent rights group Memorial in Karelia in northwestern Russia, was facing up to 15 years in a penal camp under the charges. His supporters insisted he is being punished for his work digging into Soviet-era abuses. After a trial held behind closed doors, a judge in the city of Petrozavodsk found Dmitriyev guilty of sexually abusing his adopted daughter, sentencing him to three-and-a-half years in prison. His lawyer Viktor Anufriyev told reporters that with time served in pre-trial detention Dmitriyev, 64, would be free in three-and-a-half months. Anufriyev said his client was content with the verdict because "he knows he is not guilty". "Such a verdict following such serious charges can mean only one thing: the prosecution has no real proof of Dmitriyev's guilt," Memorial said in a statement after the decision. "Nevertheless, these charges have already robbed Yury Dmitriyev of more than three years of freedom and ruined his adopted daughter's life," it said. - Decades of research on Gulag - Dmitriyev spent decades locating and exhuming mass graves of people killed under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's rule, including in the notorious Gulag network of forced labour camps. The researcher was first arrested in late 2016 on child pornography charges, and then acquitted in 2018. He was then arrested again on the sexual assault case, charges he has always denied. Memorial argues his prosecution is part of a growing crackdown on dissenters in Russia, and that he was targeted for calling attention to one of the darkest chapters in Russia's history. Dozens of his supporters gathered outside the courtroom on Wednesday and some said the verdict was as close as Dmitriyev could get to an acquittal. Yan Rachinsky, a director at Memorial, said the verdict allowed Russian authorities to save face after a robust public campaign in Dmitriyev's defence. "On the other hand, it won't see a man die in prison," he said. Fellow historian Anatoly Razumov said the fact that Dmitriyev "will soon get back to his work is a victory". - 'Always grateful'- Dmitriyev is known for helping open the Sandarmokh memorial in a pine forest in Karelia in memory of thousands of victims -- including many foreigners -- murdered in 1937 and 1938. "Thanks to Yury Dmitriyev, I know where my grandfather was buried," supporter Galina Ivanova said outside the courthouse. "And this is a huge deal, I will always be grateful to him." The historian was initially arrested in late 2016 on child pornography charges and spent more than a year in pre-trial detention, before calls by prominent figures resulted in his release. He was acquitted in April 2018. But in a stunning turnabout, he was detained again on assault charges later that year after a higher court overturned the not guilty verdict. Dmitriyev's previous case centred on naked photographs of his then pre-teen adopted daughter seized during a search of his home. Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that Dmitriyev's cellmates had tried to pressure him into admitting his guilt or face sexual abuse in prison. Speaking in court during his second trial this month, Dmitriyev, who was himself adopted, said he had done everything to raise his daughter to be happy and healthy. In the speech published by the Meduza news portal, he also said it was important for people to remember their past. "The strength of the state is not in its tanks and guns, in its nuclear rockets or an ability to tell everyone to flip off," he said. "No, the strength of the state is in its people."
Some of the nations most conservative Republicans are coming after Rep. Liz Cheney over her differences with President Donald Trump and members of her own party on foreign policy and the countrys handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the first in-person meeting of the House Republican Conference in months Tuesday, Cheney was reportedly attacked by a cadre of the presidents closest allies in Congress over a number of public splits with Trump.

The meeting, which stacked some of Congress most conservative members against the House Republican Conferences third-ranking official, comes weeks after a number of articles in the national press detailed Cheneys repeated differences with Trump on numerous issues. The Wyoming representative took issue with the presidents desire to withdraw troops from the Middle East, his criticism of top public health officials and his endorsement of an unfounded conspiracy theory against a popular daytime talk show host.

The latest transgression appeared to come on the House floor Monday after Cheney, in a debate over funding for the National Defense Authorization Act, doubled down on opposition to Trumps desire to draw down troop levels in the Middle East, arguing that decisions on troop numbers must be based on conditions on the ground.

Wars dont end because the United States retreats, Cheney said Monday. What that means is we have ceded ground to our adversaries. Wars dont end because some number of years have passed. We have to decide whether we want to fight the terrorists  al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban  in Afghanistan or whether we fight them here.

Pretending the Taliban are a partner for peace, especially amid reports that Russia is paying the Taliban to kill United States troops, is indefensible, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, she added.

A particular sticking point for Republicans was Cheneys decision to back the once-vulnerable Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massies primary opponent after he forced Congress to return to Capitol Hill in the early days of the pandemic, prompting a statement from Trump himself calling for Massie to be thrown out of the Republican Party. (Massie won his primary last month despite the setback.)

The group at Tuesdays meeting, which included top figures like Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, expressed disappointment in a number of Cheneys public statements over the last several months. Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs went as far as to say Cheneys support of Dr. Anthony Fauci could potentially impact Republicans ability to win back the House, according to Politicos Melanie Zanona.

Cheney, per a congressional source familiar with the meeting, stood up for herself by defending Fauci and firing back at both Gaetz and Jordan; she told Massie his problems were with the president and not her, a nod to the fact her donation to his opponent came after the president demanded Massies resignation.

That did not satisfy conservatives like Gaetz and the presidents son, Donald Trump Jr., however, who both said in tweets that if Cheney  who votes with the presidents position nearly 97 percent of the time  was not willing to stand with the president or with all of her fellow Republicans, she should step aside.

Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against @realDonaldTrump and his agenda, Gaetz tweeted. House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair. Liz Cheney should step down or be removed. #MAGA

We already have one Mitt Romney, we dont need another, Trump Jr. wrote. We also dont need the endless wars she advocates for.

Criticisms of Cheney  several of which come from some of the least-vulnerable Republican-held seats in the country  come amid low polling numbers both for the president and for the Republican Party as a whole. As Trump faces record-high disapproval ratings and worsening prospects for reelection, House Republicans are expected by most pollsters to see their numbers shrink even further while Senate Democrats  with a cash advantage over the Republicans  are increasingly optimistic about a chance to regain the Senate majority.

In two years as chairwoman of the Republican Conference, Cheney has presided over a growing wave of Republican candidates running for office and has helped craft the GOPs opposition campaign against the Democrats, including a renewed focus on presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and the implications of a Democratic trifecta in 2021.

In a Tuesday news conference, Cheney and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy peppered their statements with numerous attacks on the Democrats, including what Republicans characterized as a lack of action on China and Biden hiding in his basement amid persistent civil unrest in cities around the country stemming from protests against racism and police brutality.

Cheney, who reaffirmed her support for Fauci at the podium, brushed off questions about the closed-door arguments with her colleagues as minor disagreements. McCarthy reaffirmed his confidence in his No. 2 associate as the nation barrels toward the 2020 election.

Were honored to have her as conference chair, he said of Cheney. She does an amazing job.

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Islamabad, July 22 : The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday slammed police for the kidnapping of journalist Matiullah Jan, saying that the entire state was responsible for the incident.

The IHC was conducting the hearing of a petition regarding the journalist's abduction. Jan was kidnapped from outside his wife's school and remained missing for about 12 hours before he returned, geotv reported.

"The way a journalist was picked up in broad daylight, have all institutions been destroyed?" asked IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah. "How did anyone, wearing a police uniform, dare to abduct a person?" The Chief Justice said that chaos would spread throughout the country if the rule of law did not prevail.

"Where was Islamabad Police? How could this happen in the federal capital?" wondered the Chief Justice.

"What perception does this send to the common person, that people here are walking about in police uniforms (without fear)?" he stated angrily.

Minallah said that this case pertained to the freedom of speech and the press. He said that crimes against journalists should end now.

"Whatever happened today, the entire state is responsible for it," he said. "The incumbent government also talks about freedom of press. Well, the CCTV footage is available. This is a test case for the police and the federal government," he added.

The Chief Justice directed police to take steps to ensure that such incidents do not take place again.

Advocate Jahangir Jadoon, who filed the petition for the journalist's recovery, said that the case should not be wrapped up and the court should ask for progress reports regarding the incident.

Minallah said that to take action was the responsibility of the state. He urged police to take action so that such an incident does not occur again.
Goa:

Goa government employees have demanded that their salary for the current month be paid in cash rather than be deposited in bank accounts, considering the difficulties faced to withdraw money.

Goa Government Employees Association (GGEA), in a written communication to Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, said to make the withdrawl of money hassle-free the salary of all the government employees should be paid in cash.

However, GGEA president John Nazareth welcomed the Centres decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

Despite the problems faced by government employees, GGEA welcomes the move and wishes government success in the same, as we feel that the step taken is progressive and constructive in improving the economy of the country in longer run, he said.

Nazareth said since Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has made it clear that it will take some time to streamline the situation, we request government to avoid the payment of salary through banks via ECS system and instead pay the salary in cash for the month of November or until the process of withdrawal of money through ATMs become hassle-free.

The request is made for payment of salary in cash as many government employees have reported that they have to stand in queue in the banks to withdraw their salary in parts which ultimately amounts to spending the time they would use in their offices to serve the public, he said.

The non-presence of government employees to serve the people may result in public outcry and criticism, GGEA added.
ALBANY  Savannah is not much bigger than Albany, but the Georgia city is nevertheless one of the country's great places. The history is rich, the architecture is gorgeous and the beach is close by.

Yet Savannah is not a city that many New Yorkers eagerly visit during the height of summer. This time of year, Savannah is hotter and more humid than dog breath, which explains why moss is its iconic flora. Take a walk around the block and you return looking like you fell in the hotel pool.

Despite the climatic unpleasantness, Savannah this week became the first out-of-state stop on Andrew Cuomo's coronavirus victory tour.

The governor didn't call it that, of course. Ostensibly, he went to Georgia to deliver personal protective equipment and to advise the yokels on how best to combat COVID-19. But since Cuomo's counsel could have been offered more easily (and safely) via phone or Zoom, let's be honest about what the trip really was: a publicity stunt.

It was a chance to once again advance Cuomo's favorite narrative, which posits him as the superhero governor who conquered COVID. It was an opportunity to bathe in praise and raise the national profile  and in a potential 2024 swing state, no less!

"When you want to win, you follow winners," Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said Monday during a press conference with Cuomo that, as I'll discuss in a bit, led to some controversy. "New York state nearly went from worst to first, and they have shown the entire country, the entire world, the way to do this right."

With all due respect to the mayor, he might want to redact the praise. After all, more than 32,000 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19 so far, twice as many as in New Jersey, the state with the next highest total.

Georgia has suffered just 3,200 confirmed deaths. Texas, California and Florida, the nation's three biggest states by population, have lost about 17,000 residents combined to COVID-19.

Look honestly at the statistics and it's clear New York didn't win. We lost, badly.

Oh, I understand about flights from Europe and Manhattan's population density and subways and all the other factors that helped make New York an epicenter. But even taking all that into account, nobody should say New York is a success story in this pandemic. To do so is to slap on blinders and propagate myths.

Yes, New York has flattened the curve and now has one of the nation's lowest infection rates. Cuomo deserves credit for that.

But even if we set aside the mistakes he made along the way  um, nursing homes? and acknowledge the many things the governor did right, it's too early for a victory lap marked by abundant self praise. The governor is standing on an aircraft carrier under a "Mission Accomplished" banner before the enemy is vanquished.

As Cuomo sat in Savannah, his state remained in an unprecedented crisis. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are out of work, and the economy is in shambles. State government is facing a staggering budget deficit and municipalities from Montauk to Buffalo may yet be forced to lay off scores of teachers, cops, firefighters and more.

Many small businesses, restaurants especially, may never recover. Millions of New Yorkers can't pay their rent or mortgages. Parents across the state can't be sure schools will stay open this fall, in part because there's a distinct possibility New York could experience a second wave of the virus.

But sure, go to Georgia. Nothing important to do at home.

Even before the trip, critics were noting that Cuomo's frequent, self-congratulatory national media appearances didn't jibe with the reality of the New York experience. Nor did the tasteless poster Cuomo released last week  yours for just $11.50!  which managed to lionize the governor while failing to acknowledge the searing tragedy of 32,000 dead New Yorkers.

CNN's Jake Tapper called out both the poster and Cuomo's "revisionism," saying the governor's crowing is offending New Yorkers mindful of the state's death toll. To which Sanjay Gupta, the network's medical expert, added that gubernatorial humility might be wise, given how the coronavirus continually upends expectations.

Alas, "humility" and "Cuomo" are not words that often appear in proximity. And criticism from Tapper or anyone else won't dissuade the governor from mythmaking, not when he has a potential 2024 presidential bid to consider.

Georgia, meanwhile, is on New York's quarantine list, which means travelers from the state are supposed to isolate for 14 days. There will be no quarantine for Cuomo, however. The Democrat said he won't isolate because he's an "essential worker" who spent less than 24 hours in Georgia.

Yet eyebrows and hackles were raised when, at the end of Monday's press conference, the governor and the mayor stood near each other WITHOUT WEARING MASKS as Johnson presented Cuomo with a key to his city.

"We messed up," Johnson admitted the next day. "I mean, yeah, we messed up."

cchurchill@timesunion.com  518-454-5442  @chris_churchill
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:24:06|Editor: huaxia

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BANGKOK, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) on Wednesday said that the Thai government has decided to allow four groups of foreigners into Thailand.

"Foreigners participating in trade fairs in Thailand, who will be allowed to only stay until the fair wraps up," said CCSA spokesman Taweesin Visanuyothin. "Foreign film crew who have earlier applied for filming and will follow a specific itinerary; Migrant workers from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar for the food industry and for construction; the fourth group is tourists seeking medical treatment."

Taweesin said the ministries have all agreed that one way to reboot the Thai economy is to allow foreigners in, and at the initial stage, it will only be such groups.

However, like all Thai returnees, these groups are all required to undergo COVID-19 tests before entering the country and must spend 14 days in quarantine under the supervision of a public health officer.

"All foreigners are required to undergo a COVID-19 test three days prior to departure with a 100,000 U.S. dollars health insurance, book for an alternative state quarantine, access to a liaison officer and use of the government sponsored COVID-19 tracking application."

Taweesin also said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working towards granting access to tourists from the Chinese mainland, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and China's Hong Kong. Enditem
says vacuum will take a decade to fill

The Lagos Assembly on Tuesday wore a sombre mood in honour of the late lawmaker, representing Kosofe Constituency 2 in the Assembly, Hon. Tunde Braimoh,describing as a rare legislator, whose death would be greatly missed by all.

The lawmakers held a valedictory session in memory of the late lawmaker on Tuesday July, 21, 2020.

In his speech, the Speaker Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa said that it was believed in Islam that a day is dedicated for everybody to die, while describing the demise of Hon.Tunde Braimoh as what he was yet to come to terms with.

I have lost one of the most resourceful members that I depended on for advice, who was always willing to offer his advice at every given opportunity. He had never disappointed me. He never had no for an answer and he had a ready answer to any question.

He was a man with an uncommon intelligence and political sagacity and a man of honour.

He was a respecter of constituted authority. He has made his impact and contributed to the growth of Kosofe and his vacuum cannot be filled in the next decade.

We have lost a formidable member of rare quality in the late Hon. Tunde Braimoh. We have lost a very valuable member, who was outstanding as a lawmaker.

We will miss his insightful and intelligent contributions to issues on the floor of the chamber. We recall his sharp wits and words. I will miss his cheerfulness and his closeness to everybody, he said.

Obasa added that Hon. Tunde Braimoh was a philanthropist per excellence and that he would be missed by millions of people that had come across him over the years.

The Speaker then urged the lawmakers to use their positions to serve humanity, adding that a day would come when people would talk about them.

He said further that the Assembly had lost a formidable member, but that this could not be compared to the loss of the wife and the children of the deceased and prayed that may the good lord give the family the fortitude to bear the loss.

The Speaker then directed the Clerk of the House, Mr. Azeez Sanni to write the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) about the death of Hon. Tunde Braimoh,having removed his name plate from the position where he sat during plenary before his sudden demise.

In his contributions, Hon. Rotimi Abiru (Shomolu 2) said that nobody knew, when he or she would depart the world.

Braimoh was such a sociable man. His death happened at a period we were enjoying him. It is most unfortunate that he has dropped at his own bus stop. May the Almighty God give the family the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.

I commiserate with his family, his political family, the people of Kosofe Constituency 2 and the members of the state house of assembly, he said.

In his own comments, the Deputy Speaker of the House. Wasiu Eshinlokun-Sanni (Lagos Island 1) said that he stood up with a heavy heart to mourn Hon. Tunde Braimoh. We went to the same university and graduated together.

We started the fourth republic together in 1999. He was sociable, and intelligent. I commiserate with Mr. Speaker, and I pray that may we not witness any loss in the state house of assembly again. May we all finish the journey together. I commiserate with his family members and this is one death too many.

Also speaking, Hon. Mojisola Miranda (Apapa 1) commiserated with the people of Kosofe Constituency 2 and the family members of Hon. Braimoh.

Miranda added that Braimoh was a good man and a good listener.

She added that she worked with him in various committees and that he was a sociable man.

Hon. Bisi Yusuf (Alimosho 1), who was obviously emotional, simply prayed for the repose of the soul of the deceased.

Hon. Setonji David (Badagry 2) said in his comments that Hon. Tunde Braimoh was a very passionate and charming fellow.

There was never a dull moment with him. The few times we had discussions, he was full of ideas. I will miss him personally. I commiserate with the Speaker over this sad occurrence and I pray that we will never witness this kind of incident again, he said.

Hon. Nurein Akinsanya (Mushin 1), while commiserating with the family of the deceased, said that he met Tunde Braimoh in 1999, when he became a councillor in Mushin then and Braimoh became a local government chairman.

Hon. Temitope Adewale (Ifako/Ijaiye 1) said that the House had lost a mouthpiece and a good friend to Mr. Speaker, while Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu (Eti Osa 2) said he imagined if Tunde Braimoh were to be in the chamber to speak.

He had a lot of words to describe us. He had a name for each and everyone of us, especially when our birthdays came up.

We will miss him, he was very sound and he contributed extensively to the success of the House.

His vocabulary was very deep, he was very fluent. He spoke even Yoruba Language extensively. Death is a certainty and we pray that when the time comes, may the Almighty God accept us into paradise.

I pray that the Almighty God would forgive him and grant him Aljana. On behalf of the people of Eti Osa Constituency 2, I condole with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, our party chairman, the Speaker of the House and all my colleagues, Yishawu said.

Also, Hon. Lukman Olumoh (Ajeromi/Ifelodun 1) commiserated with Mr. Speaker on the loss of one of his most trusted aides.

Olumoh said that Braimoh was very religious, courageous and that he was a team player and a democratic person, adding that there was nothing one could use to qualify him.

There is nothing we could do as God giveth and taketh. I pray that God would grant him Aljana and give his family the fortitude to bear the loss, he said.

Hon. Tobun Abiodun (Epe 1) said that he had lost a friend, a brother, a socialite and a team player.

Who else would understand my way of life like Hon. Tunde Braimoh. I wept when his wife said that her helper had gone. That was the first time i would cry since 1970, when my father died.

I commiserate with the Speaker for the loss of the image maker of the House, the MC extraordinary of our party, the wife for losing a dear husband, the children for losing a dear father. May the Almighty Allah grant him Aljana fidaus, he said.

Also mourning the lawmaker, Hon. Jude Idimogu (Oshodi/Isolo 2) said that the deceased was someone that was intelligent.

Idimogu said that once he came around, everyone would definitely laugh.

He was a good friend to the Speaker. He was a good dancer, a fine man, a good dresser. He was bold and he spoke very well.

Once he believes in an issue, he would stand by it. He was a brilliant lawyer and a nice guy.

We have lost a parliamentarian we can boast of. But death is a necessary end that would come when it will come.

No one knows when his or her time will come, but in every situation, we should give thanks to God. On behalf of the people of Oshodi/Isolo Constituency 2, I would say goodbye to Hon. Tunde Braimoh, he said.

The late lawmaker was also mourned by others such as Hon. Ajani Owolabi (Lagos Mainland 1), Hon. Ibrahim Layode (Badagry 1), and Hon. Ganiyu Okanlawon (Kosofe 1), who described the deceased in glowing terms.

The Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade later moved that the name plague of Hon. Tunde Braimoh be removed and his position as Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Publicity, Security and Strategy be relinquished and this was supported by all the lawmakers.

The House later adjourned sitting to Monday July 27th, 2020 at 12 noon.
Exercise may help change exercisers' brains in surprising ways, according to a new study of physical activity and brain health. The study, which included both mice and people, found that exercise prompts the liver to pump out a little-known protein, and that chemically upping the levels of that protein in out-of-shape, elderly animals rejuvenates their brains and memories. The findings raise provocative questions about whether the brain benefits of exercise might someday be available in a capsule or syringe form  essentially "exercise in a pill."

We already have considerable evidence, of course, that physical activity protects brains and minds from some of the declines that otherwise accompany ageing. In past rodent studies, animals that ran on wheels or treadmills produced more new neurons and learned and remembered better than sedentary mice or rats. Similarly, older people who took up walking for the sake of science added tissue volume in portions of their brains associated with memory. Even among younger people, those who were more fit than their peers tended to perform better on cognitive tests.

Older people who took up walking for the sake of science added tissue volume in portions of their brains associated with memory. Credit:iStock

But many questions remain unanswered about how, at a cellular level, exercise remodels the brain and alters its function. Most researchers suspect that the process involves the release of a cascade of substances inside the brain and elsewhere in the body during and after exercise. These substances interact and ignite other biochemical reactions that ultimately change how the brain looks and works. But what the substances are, where they originate and how they meet and mingle has remained unclear.

So, for the new study, which was published this month in Science, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, decided to look inside the minds and blood streams of mice. In past research from the same lab, the scientists had infused blood from young mice into older ones and seen improvements in the ageing animals' thinking. It was like "transferring a memory of youth through blood," says Saul Villeda, a professor at UCSF, who conducted the study with his colleagues Alana Horowitz, Xuelai Fan and others.
Extension of 20-year Iran-Russia cooperation deal on agenda of talks: Zarif in Moscow

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 2:46 PM

In Moscow, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says extending a 20-year cooperation agreement with Russia, which will expire next year, is on the agenda of talks between the two countries.

Zarif made the remarks upon his arrival in Moscow on Tuesday in response to a question by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) about the future of the comprehensive cooperation deal, which will expire in March 2021.

"Definitely, the extension of this agreement is on our agenda," he pointed out.

The top Iranian diplomat emphasized that the two sides can also discuss another long-term deal in case the Russian side is willing to do so.

Zarif also hailed "strategic" relations between Tehran and Moscow and said it is necessary for the two sides to hold regular talks given "the increasing pace of regional and international developments."

"In the current circumstances, when major developments are unfolding at the international level, there is a need for regular talks between the two countries and with other friends," he added.

He noted that he would discuss important issues in talks with Russian officials, including ways to maintain the multilateral nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Abbas Araqchi is accompanying Zarif during the ongoing visit to Moscow.

Earlier on Monday, Iran Ambassador to Moscow Kazam Jalali said in a Twitter post that Zarif would deliver a message from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during his third visit to the country in the past six months.

He added that apart from delivering President Rouhani's message, the Iranian minister would sit down for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the JCPOA, regional developments and bilateral ties.

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At a quarantine area in Ha Nam province (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  The number of COVID-19 cases in Vietnam has risen to 401 as the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control announced five new patients on July 22 morning.

All the five patients are imported cases, four of whom came home from Russia and the other was repatriated from the US. All were immediately quarantined upon arrival.

It has now been 97 days since the country recorded the last infection in the community.

Up to 261 out of the total 401 patients are imported cases who were put under quarantine right after their arrival, posing no risk of community transmission.

As many as 365 patients were given the all-clear of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, while the remaining 36 are being treated at medical establishments across the country.

There are currently 12,484 people who had close contact with COVID-19 patients or entering Vietnam from pandemic-hit regions being quarantined, including 114 at hospitals, 11,239 at other facilities and 1,131 at home.
The Armenian military has accused Azerbaijani forces of again attacking one of its positions at a section of the border where deadly fighting raged last week.

Defense Ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanian said late on July 21 that an Azerbaijani commando unit suffered heavy losses while being repelled by Armenian troops deployed in the Tavush region. Some of the unit's soldiers were "left trapped" as a result of the failed incursion, she said, without elaborating.

"The Armenian side suffered no casualties," Stepanian wrote on Facebook.

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry denied the claim.

"There were no new attacks, let alone casualties, from our side," ministry spokesman Vagif Dargahli said. "The Armenian report is yet another disinformation."

Dargahli said earlier in the day that the situation on the border between Tavush and the Tovuz district in western Azerbaijan remained "tense but stable."

Fighting between the neighboring countries had calmed recently after a flare-up of violence on July 12 that lasted several days.

The Armenian military said on Twitter that the fresh fighting broke out at 10:30 p.m. on July 21, when Azerbaijani special forces attempted an attack on an outpost known as Anvakh but "failed and fled with losses."

After fighting at the volatile border section broke out on July 12, each side accused the other of trying to seize its frontline positions in the mountainous area. At least 12 Azerbaijani soldiers, including a general, and four Armenian servicemen died before the clashes involving artillery fire and drone attacks largely stopped on July 16.

WATCH: Armenia showed off parts of drones on July 21, saying they belonged to Azerbaijan and that Armenian armed forces had shot them down during border fighting last week

According to Stepanian, Azerbaijani special forces targeted late in the evening the same hilltop post of the Armenian Army that they had unsuccessfully stormed early on July 16.

"Although there was no gunfire as of 12:47 a.m., I must nonetheless note that the leadership of the Azerbaijani armed forces is not in control of the situation," the Armenian official wrote in another Facebook post early on July 22.

Russia has expressed concern over the recent escalation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which maintain deep hostilities in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The international community has expressed serious concern over the worst escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in years.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over the region in the late 1980s and early 1990s as they transitioned into independent countries amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union. About 30,000 people were killed.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is controlled by Armenian separatists.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe last week issued a statement urging the sides to resume peace talks. Both Washington and Moscow called on the countries to halt the violence immediately.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Armenian Service and dpa
With 1,038 fresh coronavirus cases, highest single day count since the outbreak began, Kerala on Wednesday decided to tighten vigil and increase more beds, said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. But he said the states situation is better when comparing to other states.

In India there are 864 cases per million people while in Kerala it is 419 only. The states fatality rate is 0.31 % while national average is 2.41%. The state situation is better, still some people cant digest it, he said chiding opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala who had blamed the government saying it was more interested in records. He said he was forced to list out the states records due to criticism from certain quarters.

With 1,038 fresh cases, total went up to 15,032. Among this, 8,818 are actives case and 6,164 have recovered. With two more deaths, toll went up to 47. As cases increased many areas in Kochi and other places were put under triple lockdown, he said adding 267 health workers were infected in the state so far. Among the total, 65 per cent are locally-transmitted cases while in worst-hit Thiruvananthapuram it is 94%, he said.

In view of rising cases, the government has also tweaked its discharge norms. For discharge, antigen tests will be sufficient and the patient wont have to wait for time-consuming RT-PCR tests. Similarly, the government has made 14-day quarantine mandatory for returning migrant workers. The CM said it was duty of the employer to ensure this.
Owners of a Maine brewery said Tuesday theyre going to shut down for a day after feeling misled about an event in support of President Donald Trump. Stars and Stripes Brewing Company in Freeport was listed in an advisory as a planned Wednesday stop for the Women for Trump tour, the Portland Press Herald reported . But the brewerys owners said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the gathering was an unauthorized political event and the company will instead stay closed all day.

The Women for Trump tour has events planned in Maine and New Hampshire this week. The events are scheduled to include high profile Trump supporters including Lara Trump, the presidents daughter in law, and Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida.

The brewery said in its Facebook post that it was initially asked if a group of women who support a political agenda could enjoy a beer at our brewery. It said it later learned that there is a political reasoning to be here and we again do not endorse any political party nor view. A representative for the brewery declined to comment further on the cancellation. Representatives for the Trump campaign declined to comment. Trumps campaign website still listed other campaign events in Maine and New Hampshire this week. The president isnt scheduled to appear at any of them.

(Image Credit: Instagram/@allagashtessa/ Representative Image)
Tony "TJ" Wiggins, 26, who reportedly has 230 felony criminal charges in his arrest history, is allegedly behind the massacre. Mary Whitmore, 27, and his brother Robert Wiggins, 21, were also arrested. (Polk County Sheriff's Office)

3 Arrested in Triple Murder of Fishing Friends as New Details Revealed

Two men and a woman were arrested in connection with the murders of three fishermen in Florida last week, according to the sheriff.

We have locked up the three people responsible for the murders of these guys, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a televised news conference.

Tony TJ Wiggins, 26, who reportedly has 230 felony criminal charges in his arrest history, is allegedly behind the massacre. Mary Whitmore, 27, and his brother Robert Wiggins, 21, were also arrested, Judd said, as reported by Fox News.

Hes a thug, hes a criminal, Judd said of Wiggins, who was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, while Whitmore and his younger brother were charged with three counts of accessory and one count of tampering.

The three victims were identified last week as Damion Tillman, 23, Kevin Springfield, 30, and Brandon Rollins, 27.

Judd said in the news conference that local people called on the sheriffs office to investigate T.J. Wiggins.

Police investigate a triple homicide near Lake Streety, Fla., on July 18, 2020. (Courtesy of Polk County Sheriffs Office)

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd speaks in a news conference about a triple homicide near Lake Streety, Fla., on July 18, 2020. (Courtesy of Polk County Sheriffs Office)

Look at T.J. Wiggins from Frostproof, Judd said, quoting what some callers told his office, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Not because they had any idea he did it, just because hes mean.

Judd said that Wiggins was first arrested at the age of 12 and has 15 convictions.

Hes wild and hes out of control, Judd said.

Citing video footage, the sheriff said that Wiggins and the suspects ran into one another earlier in the day at a Dollar General store. The sheriff said that Wiggins shouted at the three, You stole the engine out of my truck.

This is a guy who can hurt you because its the right thing for him to do in that moment in time with his three brain cells, Judd said.

A motive in the slayings was not immediately provided.

We still dont know why the murder occurred, Judd said Monday, who noted that there were no signs of a dope deal gone bad, theft or domestic violence.

Judd said Damion Rollins, one of the victims, called his father and asked for help. The father, Cyril Rollins, rushed to the area to find his son barely alive and his two friends dead.

He doesnt ever call my phone, at all, Cyril said, reported Fox13. Unless he is having trouble.
A Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge has warned opposition leader Kem Sokha against violating his bail conditions, after a close aide posted pictures on social media of the former CNRP president traveling to the provinces, with a few images showing him talking to individuals.

Muth Chantha, a close aide of Kem Sokha, has posted pictures over the last three weeks of the opposition leader traveling to Kampong Cham, Siem Reap, Pursat and Banteay Meanchey provinces, often accompanied by his lawyer Chan Chen and small group of people.



Presiding judge Kuy Sao, who is overseeing Kem Sokhas treason trial, issued a letter on July 20 asking the opposition leader to not violate his bail conditions. Kuy Sao added that Kem Sokha had done some activities in provinces, such as visiting and meeting the people and rallying with supporters.

The trial chamber noted that all these activities would go beyond the limitation or would violate the obligations of being under the court supervision, which is being imposed on the accused person, read the letter.



Kem Sokha was arrested from his residence in September 2017, for alleged treason and placed in pre-trial detention at a Tbong Khmum prison. He was released on bail and kept under judicial supervision and effective house arrest from September 2018, which was then further relaxed in November 2019.



The political leader is still banned from conducting any political activity or leaving the country. The treason trial against Kem Sokha commenced in February but was suspended on account of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Court spokesperson Y Rin did not comment on when Kem Sokhas trial would resume soon, but said the opposition leader should adhere to the bail restrictions placed by the Phnom Penh court, calling it a red line that shouldnt be crossed.



Chan Chen, one of Kem Sokhas lawyers, said the opposition leader had gone to the provinces in his personal capacity, such as a visit with his wife to the Angkor Wat complex last weekend, and should not be viewed as political activity.

He added that any meetings with people were incidental and that Kem Sokha had not planned meetings with a political intent.



He meets dozens of people who respect and love him, so is this illegal? Chan Chen said.



In my opinion, it could be the restriction of his rights and freedom. I understand that this letter is not just a reminder, but also an immediate warning, he added.
A leading member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Gabby Otchere-Darko is hopeful Ghanaians will honour President Nana Akufo-Addo to emerge victorious in the 2020 elections based on governments developmental track record.



According to him, the elections will afford Ghanaians the opportunity to compare the performance of the current Akufo-Addo led NPP government to that of former President John Dramani Mahama.



All the political parties especially the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have assured their supporters of victory with few months to the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.



Speaking on Citi TVs Face to Face programme, Gabby Otchere-Darko insisted that voters will reject former President Mahama again due to his abysmal performance when he was President of Ghana.



You have a candidate who just lost the last election and his successor. This is the third time they will be meeting. It is not about what they promised the voters, but it is about the candidates. The promise must be measured against what one did when he was given the opportunity to serve.



If Akufo-Addo comes today and he says he will deliver free [SHS], you will have to find out what he promised and whether he delivered. If John Mahama comes today and he says, he will manage the economy better, I will ask him some serious questions because he inherited an oil-rich economy and within a matter of two years, he has sent us to the IMF for rescue, he added



Nana Addos government not for family and friends



Gabby Otchere-Darko also downplayed the perception of him being hugely influential in the Akufo-Addo administration despite having no official portfolio.



He described such claims as propaganda as he defended the President against claims of nepotism and cronyism.



In Gabby Otchere-Darkos view, his critics had to create something for me because they expected that Akufo-Addo was going to appoint me, when the NPP was voted into power.



He, however, acknowledged that he has been influential in the political space with different presidents over the last two decades.



It just happens that this time, the President [Nana Akufo-Addo] is someone that I am known to be very close to.



Gabby Otchere-Darko proceeded to defend President Akufo-Addo, who has been accused of running a family and friends government.



The National Democratic Congress earlier came out with a list of 51 names to support its accusations of nepotism and cronyism.



Gabby Otchere-Darko further said persons who seemingly overestimate his influence in governance do so because they think I merit it.



He also held that any political appointment granted him would have been justified because of his competences despite the expected accusations of nepotism.



If I had been offered an appointment, would it have been fair for any Ghanaian to say it was due to nepotism? [No, I would have merited it].

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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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People gathered at a mall in northwest Hong Kong to commemorate the first anniversary of a mob attack on pro-democracy protesters and others at a nearby train station.

A large gang of men wearing white shirts attacked protestors with metal rods and wooden sticks at the Yuen Long train station on 21 July 2019.

By the time police arrived, they had fled, leaving blood stains on the platform.

Forty-five people were injured, including a man left in critical condition.

Some residents accused police of deliberately failing to intervene during the attack.

"The Hong Kong police did nothing, it (was) collusion between the police and mobs," suggested one protester at the mall.

Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, last year dismissed allegations of collusion between the thugs and the police.

Another protester insisted the demonstrations weren't going to stop because of China's new national security law.

"The spirit of democracy and freedom still exists in Hong Kong and the government can't just stamp it out so easily," he said.

This year, police arrived at the commemorative shopping mall protest minutes after participants shouted "Hong Kong Independence."

They erected cordons to disperse people from the mall, conducted bag searches and issued public gathering penalty tickets.

Gatherings of over four people are currently prohibited in Hong Kong due to coronavirus restrictions.
Appointment

22 July 2020

Rosewood Hotel Group, one of the world's leading hospitality companies, is pleased to welcome Jay Wetzel back to the Group in the role of vice president of food and beverage, Americas. In this position, Jay will be responsible for managing all current food and beverage operations in the region, as well as the development of new and evolving programs with an emphasis on creativity and innovation.

Jay boasts more than 25 years of experience in the food and beverage industry, having served in prestigious positions at some of the most renowned restaurants and hotels across the globe. Jay returns to Rosewood Hotel Group following a three-year tenure with Virgin Hotels, where he served as vice president of food and beverage, creating and operating the food and beverage program. Prior to his time at Virgin Hotels, Jay spent six years with Rosewood Hotel Group, joining in 2011 as director of culinary operations in the Hong Kong office and ultimately growing to senior corporate director of food and beverage, where he led the development of food and beverage concepts, with a focus on expansion of operations in the Americas and Europe.

Jay began his career at the award-winning Michael Mina restaurant, AQUA in San Francisco for nearly eight years. Notably, Jay led two hotels, Kerry Hotel and the Park Hyatt Hotel, both located in Shanghai, through their grand openings as executive chef. Jay has also held positions at several Hyatt Hotels and MGM Resorts International properties across the globe, from New York to Tokyo to Singapore, assuming key leadership positions within the brands' culinary teams.
Hospitals in Panama are on the brink of collapse as coronavirus cases spike in the Central American country worst hit by the pandemic, where doctors are already exhausted. With a population of four million, Panama has gone from 200 cases a day to 1,100 over the last few weeks. "Our daily number of infected patients has been increasing in a sustained way to the point of passing 1,000 cases," David Villalobos, head of the intensive care unit at the Arnulfo Arias Madrid Hospital in Panama City, told AFP. "There are no hospitals that could sustain such a number," he said. The sharp increase has forced authorities to adapt existing hospitals and look for new spaces, like convention centers, to boost a health system with a range of problems including long waiting lists. "The fear of the collapse of the public system in our country is evident if the number of cases remains the same," Domingo Moreno, coordinator of a coalition of healthcare workers' unions, told AFP. "In the next two weeks we probably won't have anywhere to put beds." With 42,000 cases and 839 deaths, Panama has the worst official tally of coronavirus infections in the region. - 'It's exhausting' - According to official figures, close to 20,000 people are in isolation at home or in hotels. Another 1,000 are receiving hospital treatment, 159 of whom are in intensive care. Authorities estimate that of every 100 people infected, 20 end up in hospital -- meaning that at the current rate, 200 people a day are being admitted to hospital, and 50 to intensive care. "It's exhausting, sometimes we have to go back at night for admissions. But here we are," Giselle Sanchez, a doctor caring for the most serious COVID-19 patients, told AFP. Doctors and nurses around the country have protested in recent weeks demanding medical supplies and protective equipment. "There's fear of infection, of being in a situation that puts your life at risk. This is a war of attrition," said Moreno. President Laurentino Cortizo recently pledged to carry out 4,000 tests a day to find and isolate those infected. But some people, like Silda Idalia Rios, are afraid of taking the test because of rumors circulating about the pandemic. The virus "has come to attack us", she told AFP, conceding that "you need to accept that you have to take a test to see if it's positive". Health Minister Francisco Sucre said he was aware of a significant group of people continuing to go out despite knowing they had contracted COVID-19, making it harder to get the outbreak under control. "We are directly dependent on what the people can do or prevent in the street. The people really need to understand that we're going to collapse," said Malena Urrutia, from the COVID-19 coordination team at the Arnulfo Arias Madrid Hospital. Cortizo said: "As president I would like to tell you that it's over, but it isn't. We still don't have a vaccine. The battle goes on." Panamanian health workers are going door to door to try to detect infected people to help prevent the spread of the virus with the country's health system on the verge of collapse Dr Giselle Sanchez attends to a COVID-19 patient in Panama where 20 percent of people that catch the coronavirus end up in hospital, and five percent in intensive care Health care workers face difficulties keeping the coronavirus outbreak under control as many people that know they are infected don't observe containment measures
In manufacturing, its all about keeping the machines running. So when business started to drop early in the pandemic, James Franks, owner of Franks Manufacturing, acted quickly to keep orders coming in.

Started in 1980 by Franks father and uncle, the company produces custom-made plastic products for a wide range of customers.

From automotive parts to movie sets, the company makes nearly any plastic item a client could want. But some of the companys primary clients  oil field services companies  stopped placing orders as the oil market collapsed.

Franks replaced the lost business with a newly in-demand plastic product: plexiglass shields. Franks said the company makes 600 shields per day. It has contracted with local officials to produce the shields for sites such as the Bexar County Courthouse and probation offices.

On ExpressNews.com: More San Antonio courtrooms opening; changes made to help stop spread of novel coronavirus

Franks, 60, recently discussed how hes keeping the 40-year-old company on West Blanco Road busy in a time of historic uncertainty. Below is an edited transcript of the interview.

Q: How did Franks Manufacturing get started?

A: Franks Manufacturing started in 1980, and we were mainly doing agricultural products. We were making lick feeders at the time. Thats what my dad wanted to do. So he brought those in here thinking that was all he was going to do. Well, my uncle didnt like to do custom thermoforming (heating plastic until its pliable and molding it into a product), so he gave it all to my dad, and we ended up being a custom thermoformer. So now we do everything from agricultural to aerospace. Well do just about whatever someone wants us to make.

Q: What was it like taking over your familys business?

A: Ive been working in this since I was 10 years old. Im also retired military  retired from the Texas National Guard. I was in Iraq in (2005). My unit was an artillery unit that was in Tikrit. We were force protection for the Northern Command, so we were running all over the place. I was the intel sergeant for the unit. I was running the business before I was deployed. My dad came back in, and he was really just wanting to shut the business down. And I said, Well, give me a year. I was gone, so when I came home, I went and got a VA loan and bought the business. That was in 2006. I was 46 years old, and it went from there.

It was a little different, but because Id been there off and on since I was 10 years old, whatre you going to do? You jump back in the groove and you go. It was a little different coming in and saying, Yeah, now its mine.

On ExpressNews.com: Flux: FetchMD catches the telemedicine wave after coronavirus led it to shift away from house calls

Q: How did the business change from the time you purchased it in 2006 to earlier this year, prior to the pandemic?

A: We went from four employees to 20. We changed a lot of our markets. We were doing a lot of oil and gas secondary containment. We do a lot of agricultural products, and weve got computer numerical control technology we didnt have.

We had a large fire in 2014 that burned down the back building. I just decided to go ahead and buy production equipment to replace it that would do a lot heavier volume.

Q: How badly did that fire set you back?

A: It set us back for about six months. We rebuilt the building and got production running within six months. It was a devastating fire. We lost about $1.3 million in equipment.

Q: How was the business doing leading up to the pandemic?

A: We were doing well. But oil field (clients) this year and last year started slowing down. Oil field was 30 percent of our business. Will it come back? Yes. Itll come back. Now, the pandemic is not helping, because now people arent driving. So it has lasted longer than it was going to.

On ExpressNews.com: Flux: San Antonio vending machine company keeps owner busy and out of trouble

Q: How do you manage a downturn in your clients industries?

A: Youve got to find other stuff to replace it. And replacing a couple million dollars a year is hard to do. But we have branched out and done various other things, and I dont turn anybody down. Weve got our own engineers, so if somebody comes in with a widget, well design it and produce it for them.

We had a company here in town call us when COVID first started, so we started making these (plexiglass shields) in the latter part of March, the first of April. I built them 55, and I said, Well, you know what, lets put them on our website. So we came up with eight or 10 different sizes, and weve sold thousands of them. Were making them now. These are the ones Bexar County gave away for businesses. We gave away 3,000 of them.

Q: How have you adapted to the pandemic here in the workplace?

A: Masks  thats the hard part. Really, most of these machines are far apart. So until the city came down and said, You have to have mandatory masking, I basically told these guys, if youre running a machine and youre not together, dont worry about it until somebody walks up. Then I want a mask on you. When the city came down with its edict, saying (masks) are mandatory, mainly in manufacturing and retail, then I told those guys, Youve got to wear a mask. Its hot, but you do it. Its not something that I like my guys to do, but we do it for their safety.

Q: Have you had to furlough workers or seek a PPP loan?

A: We got a PPP loan. It helped out. But we were lucky  we didnt have to furlough anybody. We didnt even cut hours.

On ExpressNews.com: For some San Antonio firms, PPP is a lifesaver

Q: What do you think about the calls were hearing from political candidates to create more manufacturing jobs in the U.S.?

A: I think we need to. Weve let our manufacturers go wherever. And its hard for us to compete with somebody where we pay decent wages, and you go somewhere else and theyre paying peanuts. Its hard for American companies to compete with that, so were just going to have to realize things are going to be a little bit more expensive if its made here. But it needs to be made here. There are other benefits to it  well put people to work, and everything will progress a whole lot better if most of our manufacturing, small and large, is brought back to the United States.

Q: What are your expectations for the coming months?

A: Were going to run (plexiglass) until it plays out. I dont know, and I dont think anybody knows. It depends on how the government runs the pandemic, and whether or not they decide they need another shutdown. If they shut down again, were all going to have problems. And not just restaurants and things like that.

Youve got to do whatever you can to keep those machines running. Thats what were doing with the plexiglass. If those machines arent running, theyre not making money.

diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP)  Ethiopias prime minister on Wednesday hailed the first filling of a massive dam that has led to tensions with Egypt, saying two turbines will begin generating power next year.

Abiy Ahmeds statement, read out on state media outlets, came a day after he and the leaders of Egypt and Sudan reported progress on an elusive agreement on the operation of the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the largest in Africa.

The first filling of the dams reservoir, which Ethiopias government attributes to heavy rains, has shown to the rest of the world that our country could stand firm with its two legs from now onwards, Abiys statement said. "We have successfully completed the first dam filling without bothering and hurting anyone else. Now the dam is overflowing downstream.

The dam will reach full power generating capacity in 2023, the statement said: Now we have to finish the remaining construction and diplomatic issues.

Ethiopias prime minister on Tuesday said the countries had reached a major common understanding which paves the way for a breakthrough agreement.

Meanwhile, new satellite images showed the water level in the reservoir at its highest in at least four years, adding fresh urgency to the talks.

Ethiopia has said it would begin filling the reservoir this month even without a deal as the rainy season floods the Blue Nile. But the Tuesday statement said leaders agreed to pursue further technical discussions on the filling ... and proceed to a comprehensive agreement.

The dispute centers on the use of the storied Nile River, a lifeline for all involved.

Ethiopia says the colossal dam offers a critical opportunity to pull millions of its nearly 110 million citizens out of poverty and become a major power exporter. Downstream Egypt, which depends on the Nile to supply its farmers and booming population of 100 million with fresh water, asserts that the dam poses an existential threat. Sudan is in the middle.

Story continues

Negotiators have said key questions remain about how much water Ethiopia will release downstream if a multi-year drought occurs and how the countries will resolve any future disputes. Ethiopia rejects binding arbitration at the final stage.

Sudanese Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas on Tuesday told reporters that once the agreement has been solidified, Ethiopia will retain the right to amend some figures relating to the dams operation during drought periods.

Abbas also said the leaders agreed on Ethiopias right to build additional reservoirs and other projects as long as it notifies the downstream countries, in line with international law.

There are other sticking points, but if we agree on this basic principle, the other points will automatically be solved, he said.

Years of talks with a variety of mediators, including the Trump administration, have failed to produce a solution.
Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, who are the most admired people in America?

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Marguarite Arnold has been the CEO of Access Intelligence Plc (LON:ACC) since 2014, and this article will examine the executive's compensation with respect to the overall performance of the company. This analysis will also assess whether Access Intelligence pays its CEO appropriately, considering recent earnings growth and total shareholder returns.

View our latest analysis for Access Intelligence

How Does Total Compensation For Marguarite Arnold Compare With Other Companies In The Industry?

According to our data, Access Intelligence Plc has a market capitalization of UK42m, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth UK270k over the year to November 2019. We note that's an increase of 28% above last year. Notably, the salary of UK270k is the entirety of the CEO compensation.

In comparison with other companies in the industry with market capitalizations under UK157m, the reported median total CEO compensation was UK252k. This suggests that Access Intelligence remunerates its CEO largely in line with the industry average. What's more, Marguarite Arnold holds UK422k worth of shares in the company in their own name.

Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary UK270k UK212k 100% Other - - - Total Compensation UK270k UK212k 100%

Talking in terms of the industry, salary represented approximately 67% of total compensation out of all the companies we analyzed, while other remuneration made up 33% of the pie. Speaking on a company level, Access Intelligence prefers to tread along a traditional path, disbursing all compensation through a salary. If total compensation veers towards salary, it suggests that the variable portion - which is generally tied to performance, is lower.

Access Intelligence Plc's Growth

Access Intelligence Plc has seen its earnings per share (EPS) increase by 50% a year over the past three years. Its revenue is up 51% over the last year.

Story continues

This demonstrates that the company has been improving recently and is good news for the shareholders. It's great to see that revenue growth is strong, too. These metrics suggest the business is growing strongly. Looking ahead, you might want to check this free visual report on analyst forecasts for the company's future earnings..

Has Access Intelligence Plc Been A Good Investment?

We think that the total shareholder return of 46%, over three years, would leave most Access Intelligence Plc shareholders smiling. As a result, some may believe the CEO should be paid more than is normal for companies of similar size.

To Conclude...

Access Intelligence rewards its CEO solely through a salary, ignoring non-salary benefits completely. As previously discussed, Marguarite is compensated close to the median for companies of its size, and which belong to the same industry. The company is growing earnings per share and total shareholder returns have been pleasing. Indeed, many might consider that Marguarite is compensated rather modestly, given the solid company performance! In fact, shareholders might even think the CEO deserves a raise as a reward due to the fantastic returns generated.

While CEO pay is an important factor to be aware of, there are other areas that investors should be mindful of as well. We did our research and spotted 3 warning signs for Access Intelligence that investors should look into moving forward.

Important note: Access Intelligence is an exciting stock, but we understand investors may be looking for an unencumbered balance sheet and blockbuster returns. You might find something better in this list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Steven Speilberg's 1970 blockbuster Jaws seems even more prophetic now. The dreaded shark was merely warning us of the consequences of environmental damage.

The shark was right. With apologies to the skinny-dipper chomped in half, the shark was only being a shark and its teeth were so very sharp, her flesh so very tender. And given the harm we have inflicted on the planet, did we not deserve some punishment? When the great beast swam out of the unfathomable waters and onto screens in the summer of 1975, it stirred up anxiety that was doubtless tinged with guilt. See it before you go swimming, the trailer warned, tapping into our worries while making the case for movie-going. We had many reasons to hide in the dark.

The wave-making Leviathan of summer blockbusters, Jaws changed the way Hollywood did business and how people went to movies. It also changed some peoples relationship to the ocean. You wouldnt go into the water, my sister recently reminded me, when I asked about a 1970s family trip to Marthas Vineyard, where much of the film was shot. To be fair, I was a New York kid, and could barely dog paddle. My natural habitat was a movie theater. And it remained so until the novel coronavirus closed cinemas and made me wonder if I will ever again sit in the dark with strangers. If the ocean now seems far safer, it is because today the monster is the virus.

Read LIVE updates on the coronavirus outbreak here.

That the mayor in Jaws has become a pandemic meme is a testament to the unnerving topicality of the film and our habit of viewing the world through a screen. Played with a perfect mix of huckster smarm and cluelessness by Murray Hamilton, Mayor Vaughn is the blank, smiling face of Amity, the fictional beach paradise that the great white shark turns into a snack bar. After the remains of a woman wash up, Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) goes into overdrive as the mayor insists that everything is fine. Its a beautiful day, he tells a reporter before the water turns red again. The beaches are open, and people are having a wonderful time.

Like a lot of politicians, Mayor Vaughn survived repeated crises (he is in the risible Jaws 2), and now he has a parody Twitter account, the source of a stream of bleakly funny and queasy commentary: In Amity, he tweeted on 17 May, we have germ spotters strategically placed on the beach. That is more reassuring than much of the advice dispensed by authorities who focus on putting out fires while ignoring the larger crisis of climate change and its relationship to the current pandemic. We drain the worlds biological basins of the diversity that would ordinarily keep contagions in check, Ferris Jabr wrote in The New York Times Magazine. Other animals diseases have not so much leapt onto us as flowed into us through channels we supplied.

Steven Spielberg was 27 when he directed Jaws, and already under contract at Universal. He had some qualms about turning Peter Benchleys novel into a film, having made Duel, a thriller starring a big-rig stalker. He did not want to become a shark-and-truck director, as he memorably put it. What drew him to the project was the final 120 pages of the book, as he explained back then, when the main characters go on a hunt, a sea hunt for the great white shark. So working with Benchley and others, Spielberg pared down the story to focus on the drama of men battling a massive shark.

Subplots were deleted and new scenes added. With a potential actors strike looming, the film was rushed into production. There were lots of bumps and some publicly aired grievances. Spielberg, Benchley said, has no knowledge of reality but movies, a criticism that long clung to the filmmaker. Benchley shared screenwriting credit with Carl Gottlieb, who also plays the toadying publisher of the Amity newspaper. Gottlieb amusingly details the making of the movie in his essential account The Jaws Log.

Spielberg knew what he had. Mid-production, he said, Weve really, I think, made a better movie than Jaws is a book. He was right: the film is as lean and clean as a denuded bone. Like the novel, it opens with the death of the skinny-dipper. Her name, you may recall though maybe not, is Chrissie. Women do not factor much here; one becomes dinner, another fusses in a kitchen. A crucial exception is the mother, Mrs Kintner (Lee Fierro), who confronts Brody the day she buries her child. You knew there was a shark out there, She says, after slapping him. You knew it was dangerous but you let people go swimming anyway. You knew all those things. But still my boy is dead now.

After Fierro died in April from complications of COVID-19, The Los Angeles Times columnist Mary McNamara wrote, We are all Mrs Kintner now. These days, though, we are all more like the confused people of Amity who either recklessly rush into the water or stay away at a safe distance, watching in horror. Jaws is about a lot of things, including fear, death, science, accountability, and the necessity  and fragility  of social solidarity. It is about knowledge, and what people do with it. Brody grasps that there is a danger threatening Amity and its visitors, and sets out to save them with help from a scientist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a fisherman (Robert Shaw). Movies love the romance of the white-hatted hero, but in real life, we also need to save ourselves.

Gottlieb writes that after a triumphant sneak preview of Jaws in March 1975, a few months before it opened, he observed Universal suits convene in a theater bathroom and change industry history. Before Jaws, studios generally opened their better films in limited theaters, slowly rolling them in a so-called platform release. In that bathroom, though, Gottlieb recounts, the studio brass decided to flood cinemas, putting the movie in more than 450 North American theaters. That is modest compared with the event openings of today but then, it was a seismic shift. With its wide mouth and release, its saturation advertising and 20 June opening date, Jaws created the summer-blockbuster template.

(Also read  A summer without the summer blockbuster: How a pop-culture staple is lost amid closed theatres, social distancing)

It was, yes, a monster hit. For some critics, though, Jaws itself has always been monstrous, the first of two widely popular films that together ended the creatively fecund days of 1970s American cinema. The second, bigger blow was delivered two years later by Spielbergs friend, George Lucas, and the release of Star Wars. That is one take, at any rate, though the era and history are considerably more complicated, and the films more diverse than 1970s fetishists sometimes remember. There was plenty of junk before Jaws, and two of the box-office hits were The Towering Inferno and Earthquake, disaster movies bloated with stars and special effects.

These big-ticket spectacles hewed to the usual time-tested Hollywood script. The most haunting films of the catastrophe cinema era, though, were grimmer, and few were as uncompromisingly bleak as Soylent Green (1973), about the Earth at the edge of collapse. In it, the natural world has been decimated, and human overpopulation has made resources terrifyingly scarce. In one scene, an old man (Edward G Robinson) says farewell via state-sanctioned assisted suicide. As he fades away alone in an antiseptic room, he watches a big screen filled with images of the now-lost world: animals, trees, the watery deep.

It is a scene very much calibrated to growing consciousness about the environment. In the introduction to the 30th-anniversary edition of his bestseller, Benchley sounds defensive about his own awareness back then: At the time I was writing Jaws, the environmental movement we know today didnt exist. Yet one did exist. The first Earth Day took place in 1970 (it was celebrated by Sesame Street), and the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act was passed two years later. To his credit, Benchley became a conservationist, and there is even a lanternshark named after him, the Etmopterus benchleyi. I could never write Jaws today, Benchley ceded.

In the decades since the film freaked us out, Hollywood has grown increasingly dependent on blockbusters. Yet even as its movies have grown bigger and shinier, they have become less tethered to real people and our scarily imperiled world. Critics read Jaws different ways: as a take on Moby-Dick or the Vietnam War, or as a tale about the return of the repressed. Of course, it is also about a shark that kills people and is killed in turn, which makes it another story about humankinds domination of nature. If the threats on screen now are often extraterrestrial, it is partly, I think, because we cannot bear to see what is happening, what we are doing, on Earth. Maybe the shark was not simply hunting us  not all of us, anyway  maybe it was warning us.

Manoha Dargis c.2020 The New York Times Company

All images from Twitter.
Some 28 Burkina Faso nationals have been arrested at the Hamile District Assembly Barrier in the Upper West Region for illegally sneaking into Ghana.

The illegal entrants were arrested on Wednesday, July 22 at about 08:10 GMT.

Preliminary investigations by Immigration officials revealed that the 28 had sneaked into Ghana through unapproved routes and were destined for Kumasi for farming activities.

They are made up of 19 males and 9 females with their ages ranging between three and 64. They were on board a passenger bus with registration number GN 2220-10.

They were arrested upon intelligence gathered by the Ghana Immigration Service about their entry.

Meanwhile, the illegal migrants have been screened and okayed by the Port Health Officials.

They have since been handed over to the Burkina Faso authorities on the other side of the border at the Hamile post.

Since the Coronavirus-induced border closure, many foreign nationals have been arrested in different parts of the country using unapproved routes to enter the country.

In May 2020, some four Burkina Faso nationals were arrested by Immigration officials at Babile in the Upper West Region for illegally entering Ghana for economic purposes.

The four were arrested on board a Hyundai Grace H300 mini bus with registration number AS 3289-11, en route to Wa.

----citinewsroom
Alberta Bill That Would Let Union Members Opt Out of Union Political Activity via Dues Likely Headed to Supreme Court

Albertas new bill that offers union members a choice whether to support their unions political activity via union dues will be met with a legal challenge that will most likely go to the Supreme Court, past cases show.

This is a Supreme Court case, said labour and constitutional law expert Gilles LeVasseur, who teaches at the University of Ottawas Telfer School of Management.

This is a fundamental case about the management and control of union funds in making decisions, LeVasseur told The Epoch Times.

Introduced earlier this month, Bill 32 makes it a requirement that union members give consent for their dues to go toward supporting the unions political activity, such as endorsing a certain political party or opposing another. The proposed legislation is the first of its kind in Canada.

In 1987, Ontario college teacher Francis Lavigne sued the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), arguing the union violated his Charter freedom of association because he disagreed with his union dues supporting some political causes and the New Democratic Party. However, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court rejected Lavignes argument.

LeVasseur says another key case is the 2015 Supreme Court ruling giving RCMP members the right to collective bargaining, meaning that the court gave the unions the management authority.

When announcing the legislation, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Bill 32 is part of a promise that his United Conservative Party made before the 2019 election, which his government is now fulfilling.

If unions want to run political activities, they can do so, but they shouldnt use dues paid by workers without their explicit opt-in approval, Kenney said in a tweet.

The bill also introduces a number of other changes. Among them are that strike picket lines cant block or delay someone from crossing, and picketing would be restricted to only outside the place of employment unless permission for other locations is granted.

If passed, Bill 32 will provide employees and employers with clear and more transparent rules, Labour and Immigration Minister Jason Copping said in the Alberta Legislature when introducing the bill. [Examples include] changes to rules concerning temporary layoffs in the Employment Standards Act, and modifications to rules for construction in the Labour Relations Code.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, Copping said if the bill becomes law, employees will still pay union dues that fund core union business like collective bargaining or member representation, but they will no longer have to pay union dues for the portion that goes towards funding political activities and causes unless they opt-in to do so.

Regarding picketing regulations, he said the changes ensure employees will still be able to strike and picket, but with additional rules that make sure these activities do not overly impact the rights of individuals and businesses.

Unifors western regional director Gavin McGarrigle says his organization is united with other unions in opposing the bill.

Were going to be intricately involved in a legal challenge. We just have to see the final version of the legislation because theres regulations to come, McGarrigle told Epoch Times.

Members may not like everything in the collective agreement. They may think that they want to opt out of that, and the law has been decided on that for decades very clearly, McGarrigle said, citing the 1987 Lavigne vs. OPSEU case.

According to McGarrigle, all of Unifors political causes are intricately connected. They include supporting or opposing political parties across the country, opposing the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, and supporting foreign political causes like the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel.

Were a democratic union. Our positions are taken by elected leaders who are continuously re-elected, he said. And they are concerned about harassment, theyre concerned about discrimination, they are concerned about social justice in terms of having a more balanced society.

Bill 32, Restoring Balance in Albertas Workplaces Act, is currently undergoing second reading in the Alberta legislature.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has offered a path to citizenship for around 3 million people in Hong Kong, its former colony, after declaring that China had broken the terms of a 1984 handover treaty by imposing a new security law. Below are details of the offer, which applies to those with British National (Overseas) status and their dependants: WHAT IS A BRITISH NATIONAL OVERSEAS? British National (Overseas), or BN(O), is a special status created under British law in 1987 that specifically relates to Hong Kong

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has offered a path to citizenship for around 3 million people in Hong Kong, its former colony, after declaring that China had broken the terms of a 1984 handover treaty by imposing a new security law.

Below are details of the offer, which applies to those with British National (Overseas) status and their dependants:

WHAT IS A BRITISH NATIONAL OVERSEAS?

British National (Overseas), or BN(O), is a special status created under British law in 1987 that specifically relates to Hong Kong.

It allows adults and children to register and hold a BN(O) passport if:

- they were a British dependent territories citizen by connection with Hong Kong.

- they would not have been a British dependent territories citizen but for a connection with Hong Kong.

A BN(O) passport holder is still subject to immigration controls and does not have the automatic right to live or work in Britain.

As of Feb. 24, 2020, there are 349,881 holders of BN(O) passports and the government estimates there are around 2.9 million BN(O)s currently in Hong Kong.

WHAT IS BRITAIN OFFERING BN(O)s?

Britain is granting BN(O)s five years "limited leave to remain" that allows them to live and work in Britain.

After five years, BN(O)s will be able to apply for "settled status".

After 12 months with settled status, they can apply for citizenship.

The immediate family of those with BN(O) status will also be eligible.

WHAT ARE THE CRITERIA?

Interior minister Priti Patel set out eligibility details on July 22.

- There will be no skills tests or minimum income requirements, economic needs tests or caps on numbers.

- Applicants do not need to have a job before coming to the UK - they can look for work once there. Their immediate dependants may include non-BN(O) citizens.

- BN(O) citizens will need to support themselves independently while living in the UK.

- They must meet strict criminality checks and stay of good character.

- They will need to pay visa fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge.

- If they subsequently apply for citizenship after they become settled, they must meet the criteria and pay the applicable fees.

WHEN WILL THE CHANGES COME INTO FORCE?

- The government is planning to open the Hong Kong BN(O) Visa for applications from January 2021.

- BN(O) citizens do not need to hold a BN(O) passport in order to apply for the visa, so there is no need to apply for or renew a BN(O) passport specifically for this purpose.

- All BN(O) citizens will need a visa to be able to settle in the UK.

(Reporting by William James; Editing by Stephen Addison)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Researchers from HSE University and the University of California San Diego, Igor Utochkin and Timothy Brady, have found new evidence of hierarchical encoding of images in visual working memory. It turns out that the precision of remembering and recalling individual objects in a group is affected by ensemble representations--the mean and standard deviation of all objects in the group. The study has been published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxhp0000727

Visual working memory stores information about a limited number of perceived objects during a short period of time while we are involved in a task exploiting this information. For example, you will be using visual working memory if you are asked to memorize circles on the screen and then recall the size of one of them.

It is known that working memory capacity is limited: we are capable of remembering about three or four objects on average. Many theories assume that each object is memorized, stored and forgotten in working memory independently of the other objects. In contrast, proponents of the hierarchical encoding framework do not agree with this assumption. According to this framework, memory encodes not only the information on each item separately, but also the information on the group of objects together. This generalized representation about the group is coded in ensemble summary statistics. The visual system can calculate the mean and standard deviation of all features of the items present. For example, we can easily assess and memorize the average size of the apples on a tree, as well as how similar all the apples are to this average apple.

The researchers carried out a series of experiments that demonstrate a strong impact of ensemble statistics on individual items' memory. In one of the experiments, the participants were shown a group of four isosceles triangles with different apex orientations. The range of apex orientations varied: they were pointing in about the same direction, or in completely different ones. The higher the variability, the more difficult it is to calculate the mean orientation.

The participants were asked to memorize the triangle orientations and then recall one randomly chosen triangle. If the hierarchical encoding theories are correct, the variety of apex orientations in a group would impact the quality (precision) of the ensemble statistics calculation (mean orientation of all triangles), and accordingly, the precision of an individual triangle.

The researchers found out that the precision of an individual orientation report depended on the variability of all orientations. Furthermore, there was a significant resemblance between how accurately participants could remember the orientations of the items in the display and how clustered the orientations to be remembered were.

'This says for a fact that even as we try to memorize items individually, our working memory also stores the summary of the whole group,' commented Igor Utochkin, https://www.hse.ru/en/staff/utochkin Professor at the HSE School of Psychology. If precise information about a specific item isn't in memory, one uses the ensemble statistics to recall the approximate characteristics of the object. The more precise these statistics are, the more precise the response concerning that object is.

###

The accepted manuscript version of this article will be publicly available on 03/19/2021. The full text is currently available in the preprint database. https://psyarxiv.com/6c7tv/
Han Solos return in Star Wars: The Force Awakens almost looked different from the scene fans have come to know.

Concept designer Christian Alzmann, who worked on the 2015 film, shared an image of what Harrison Fords character might have been up to in his first Star Wars moment since the 1983 Return of the Jedi.

In the alternate scenario, Solo would have made his return to the franchise outdrinking everyone at a cantina, Alzmann wrote.

That scene would have echoed the moment in the 1977 A New Hope during which Solo is seen at the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine  which has led to the infamous Han shot first debate.

In the actual, final version of The Force Awakens, Solo is seen returning to the franchise by stepping onboard the Millenium Falcon along with Chewbacca and proclaiming: Chewie, were home.

Despite Solos death at the hands of his son Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, Ford briefly reprised the role in the 2019 The Rise of Skywalker.

Ford has previously said he was startled when asked to return as Solo for the final film in the Skywalker saga.

When [director JJ Abrams] asked me to do it, I said, Are you kidding? Im dead!  Ford told USA Today in February this year.

He said, Sorta dead. You can do this. He hadnt written anything at that time. But he said, This is going to be great. So I said okay.

If JJ asked you do something, youd probably do it too. Hes a very persuasive guy.
Burma Arakan Army Blamed After Myanmar Village Chief Found Dead

Paletwa Township in southern Chin State. / Aung Kyaw Htet / The Irrawaddy

Yangon  A village head from Chin States Paletwa Township was found dead last Friday after he was abducted more than one month ago by the Arakan Army (AA), said Khumi Affairs Coordination Council (KACC) on Monday.

U Hla Kyaw, the head of Tone Ma Wa Village, was last seen on June 5 by his relatives when he left his village to buy rice. The village is surrounded by forest on the western bank of the Kaladan River and lies close to Kyauktaw Township in Rakhine State.

His body was found in a valley, which is around a days walk from Tone Ma Wa. His body was found on July 17. We identified it on July 19. As the body was disfigured, his elder brother identified it by looking at the clothes, body shape and face, a relative told The Irrawaddy.

The KACC blamed the AA for U Hla Kyaws death. The KACC tried everything to secure the release of U Hla Kyaw, said KACC secretary U Saw Mya.

We can only report the disappearances of civilians. It is difficult for us to intervene. We can only report it to the authorities and security organizations. Lawmakers can also do nothing, said U Saw Mya.

The Irrawaddy was unable to obtain a comment from the AA as Myanmars government and military have declared the ethnic armed group to be a terrorist organization.

Myanmars military and the AA have been engaged in serious fighting since the latter tried to establish its base in Rakhine State. Clashes broke out in late 2018 in Paletwa as the AA tried to enter Rakhine via Paletwa, which borders Rakhines Kyauktaw Township.

Residents reported that both Myanmars military and the AA have detained civilians for interrogation on suspicion of having ties to the other side.

According to Chin human rights organizations, around 20 civilians went missing between January 2019 and June 2020.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

You may also like these stories:

AA Abducts Mytels Rakhine Boss, Driver, Myanmar Military Says

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A Queensland mother says a cloud now hangs above the area where native wildlife was found glued to a welcome sign.

Mackay woman Kiya Durbridge said she took to social media to share her horror after a friend of hers found the two kingfishers stuck to a post at the entrance of Cathu State Forest, in North Queensland, on Friday.

One of the small blue birds had died and the other was in a distressed state when authorities were called to assist.

Using a knife to separate it from the post, the on-duty ranger was able to free the surviving kingfisher and, according to the Department of Environment, send it into care.

While one of the kingfishers survived and was taken into care, the other died. Source: Supplied / Kiya Durbridge

With the birds appearing to be strategically placed and attached with a huge amount of glue, Ms Durbridge worried it was a deliberate act.

The first thing everybody says when they hear about this is, What sort of person would do this? she told Yahoo News Australia.

Who actually thinks this is a good idea or its funny?

Explain it: Call for those responsible to come forward

Cathu State Forest was for a long time a secret spot where locals would go to enjoy nature, but as Mackay has become more urbanised, small acts of vandalism like graffiti on signs have been noticed.

The reserve is still one of the most picturesque in the region, and continues to be popular with families who like to play on a nearby swing rope above a river.

Now as the story about the two little birds makes national headlines, there are reports some concerned residents are thinking twice about letting their children go to the area unsupervised.

A ranger used a knife to help free the surviving bird. Source: Supplied / Kiya Durbridge

Ms Durbridge wants to see the community given the peace of mind it needs and has issued a plea for the person responsible to come forward and explain.

If it was an accident, explain it and help us to understand, she said.

Id love to know how it came about so I can explain it to my kids.

Theyve seen it on Facebook and theyre sickened.

Theyre like, What do you mean theyve glued a bird? Its just hard for them to fathom.

Story continues

The Department of Environment and Science (DES) confirmed in a statement it is looking into the incident and may engage agencies such as the RSPCA.

Anyone with information about the matter is asked to call the DES on 1300 130 372.

The author, Michael Dahlstrom, is a registered native bird carer in NSW.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play.
CHARLES CITY  Relatives of Michael Johns faced his killer in court Wednesday as Armando Adame III was sentenced to life in prison.

Johns mother, Julia Chaplin, began to read from a letter describing how the killing had hurt her family, but after the first sentence she was overcome by grief and opted to have a court official continue.

Michael was sick. He had become addicted to drugs. You took away any hope we had of helping him overcome it, her letter said. You took away the chance for the niece he never got to meet, who is now two years old, to know her uncle.  You took away my only son and the only brother my daughter had.

Maybe someday I will forgive you. But that day is not today, the mothers letter continued.

Adame maintained his innocence when given the opportunity to address the court.

There is nothing proving that I killed him. There is no evidence you guys got saying I was the triggerman, said Adame, clad in jail orange with a simple rosary dangling from his neck.

He said the states only evidence was witness accounts, which he disputed in a profanity laden example.

I did have a lot of remorse and a lot of sympathy. But, like I said, if Im being made out to be a monster or something Im not, then yall can go (expletive deleted) yourselves, Adame said.

Prosecutors said Johns, 28, of Grundy Center; Adame, 29, of Waterloo; and another person were involved in a meth deal that included giving the seller a ride from Marshalltown to Charles City in October 2017. After the trip, the three realized they had been given ibuprofen instead of meth.

Adame allegedly thought Johns was involved in the con and shot him with a sawed-off shotgun, prosecutors said. Johns body remained in a ditch for months until it was discovered in December 2017.

After the slaying Adame was first brought up on federal weapons charges when investigators found the shotgun in a Waterloo home where Adame was staying. He was charged with murder in January 2019, and a jury found him guilty during a February 2020 trial.

Sentencing was delayed several months because of the coronavirus pandemic, which was evident in the courtroom Wednesday with interval seating and a mask mandate. Hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes for public use rested on the railing.

District Court Judge Gregg Rosenbladt sentenced Adame to the only punishment allowed for the charge  life in prison without parole. Adame was sentenced to a concurrent five years for felon in possession of a firearm and ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to Johns estate.

PHOTOS: Armando Adame murder case

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Psoriasis, a chronic skin condition that causes itchy, red, scaly patches, afflicts more than 8 million Americans and 125 million people worldwide. Small molecule-based drugs like steroids can penetrate the skin to treat the condition, but they can cause skin irritation and thinning and their efficacy can decrease over time. Antibodies that target specific inflammation-related molecules associated with psoriasis have been developed, but because they cannot be delivered via the skin, they are injected using needles and syringes, which limits their acceptance and can have negative systemic side effects.

A team of researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has circumvented these limitations by using an ionic liquid (IL) combination to successfully deliver a small interfering RNA (siRNA)-based treatment directly to the skin in a mouse model of psoriasis, significantly reducing levels of inflammatory cytokines and symptoms of psoriasis without systemic side effects. The research is published today in Science Advances.

"Compared to other technologies that have demonstrated delivery of nucleic acids to the skin, our IL platform offers unique opportunities in terms of tunability, an excellent safety profile, and economical scale-up," said first author Abhirup Mandal, Ph.D., a former Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wyss Institute and SEAS who is now a Senior Research Scientist at CAGE Bio. "We think that effective topical delivery of macromolecules will revolutionize the treatment options for debilitating dermatological disorders like psoriasis."

Running simulations to predict real success

Synthetic siRNAs are non-coding double-stranded RNA molecules that are routinely used in biological research to "silence" a target gene by destroying the gene's RNA transcripts. This ability also makes them very attractive candidates for treating diseases and disorders without modifying the DNA in a patient's cells. However, their use in medicine has been hampered because RNAs are large, hydrophilic molecules, and therefore have a hard time crossing cells' hydrophobic membranes.

The team at the Wyss Institute and SEAS tackled that challenge using a recently discovered class of material called ionic liquids (ILs), which are essentially salts that are liquid at room temperature. Based on earlier research investigating the interactions of ILs with lipids, the researchers had a hunch that ILs could stabilize siRNAs and improve their penetration across lipid-based cell membranes, enabling localized gene silencing.

The team first created a library of different ILs, then tested combinations of them to see which had the physical and chemical properties they were looking for. They settled on a mixture of two -- CAGE (choline and geranic acid) and CAPA (choline and phenylpropanoic acid) -- that helped associated siRNA molecules retain their structural integrity and led to increased siRNA penetration into pig skin in vitro. When they applied the CAGE+CAPA mixture as a thick topical liquid to the skin of living mice, they observed no inflammation or irritation, indicating that it was non-toxic.

Because ILs are a fairly new material, predicting their interactions with the cargoes they are meant to deliver is challenging. The researchers collaborated with co-author Charles Reilly, Ph.D., a Senior Staff Scientist in the Bioinspired Therapeutics & Diagnostics platform at the Wyss Institute, to perform molecular dynamics simulations to model and understand how the CAGE+CAPA solution would interact with siRNA and cell membranes at the molecular level. The observations from those simulations predicted that this IL-siRNA complex had superior stability due to its component ions' strong chemical interactions with the RNA base pairs. The model also suggested that it led to higher penetration of cell membranes because the ions in the IL were able to pack closely together, forming aggregates that augmented the complex's ability to disrupt the membrane and allow the siRNA's entry.

Breaking down barriers

Armed with an effective delivery vehicle, the team then coupled it with a specific siRNA designed to silence a gene called NFKBIZ, which has been implicated in the upregulation of a number of inflammatory molecules that are involved in psoriasis. They applied the CAGE+CAPA mixture along with the siRNA to the skin of mice with a psoriasis-like condition for four days, then compared those mice to others that had received CAGE+CAPA with a control siRNA, CAGE+CAPA alone, or no treatment.

The mice that were given the NFKBIZ siRNA treatment had reduced epidermal thickening, skin discoloration, and keratin overgrowth compared to the other experimental groups, as well as less redness and scaling. They also displayed a significant reduction in the expression of NFKBIZ and other psoriasis-related gene products in their skin cells, demonstrating for the first time that IL-siRNA complexes can induce a therapeutic effect at both molecular and macroscopic levels by silencing a target gene in vivo following topical administration.

"Topical creams have been used to treat skin conditions for hundreds of years, but the skin is a very effective barrier against most substances, which limits their effectiveness. Being able to bridge that barrier to deliver nucleic acid therapeutics directly to skin cells is a huge accomplishment in the quest for targeted, effective therapeutics," said corresponding author Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D., who is a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and the Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at SEAS.

This IL-based delivery platform can be easily scaled up and tuned to interface with a variety of therapeutic molecules, including DNA and antibodies. It could also empower transdermal drug delivery for the treatment of other dermatologic skin conditions including eczema, and improve the long-term efficacy of therapies by targeting genes that mediate multiple disease pathways.

Based on the encouraging results from this study, Mitragotri's lab is initiating new collaborations with researchers at various institutions focusing on understanding local and systemic mechanisms associated with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in the skin.

"Many of the innovations that biologists have been using in research for years have significant clinical potential, but most haven't achieved it because of fundamental limiting factors such as, in this case, the barrier posed by the skin. This creative solution to this drug delivery problem holds great promise for enabling a new class of effective treatments that are long overdue," said the Wyss Institute's Founding Director and co-author of the paper Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at SEAS.

###

Additional authors of the paper include Ninad Kumbhojkar and Anvay Ukidve from the Wyss Institute and SEAS, and Vimisha Dharamdasani, formerly of the Wyss Institute and SEAS and currently at the University of Cambridge.

This research was supported by The Leo Foundation and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
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'A 2005 film, Earthlings, everybody should watch it,' President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in the six-second selfie

Ukraine's president won freedom for 13 hijacked bus hostages last night by posting a video on Facebook urging people to watch a vegan documentary after a ten minute chat with the maniac holding them.

'A 2005 film, Earthlings, everybody should watch it,' President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in the six-second clip which was later deleted.

Maxim Krovishey, 44, lobbed a grenade out of the vehicle and fired twice at officers during a terrifying 12-hour standoff with police after he stormed the bus at around 9.25am in Lutsk, a city in the northwest of the country.

The Russian-born convict made calls to relatives of those he had taken hostage during the siege, demanding that senior politicians must admit to being 'terrorists' or he would blow up the bus.

Krovishey also claimed he had explosives planted in another crowded area of the city which he could detonate remotely and a wide police cordon was established.

In a move to secure the hostages' release, President Zelenskiy said he spoke to Krovishey for around ten minutes and agreed to one of his demands, to promote the animal rights documentary 'Earthlings,' narrated by Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix.

The president said he had persuaded Krovishey to first release three of the hostages, including a pregnant woman.

An assailant, who seized a long-distance bus with 13 hostages, after police officers captured him in the city centre of Lutsk, 250 miles west of Kiev, Ukraine late last night

Weapons, including an assault rifle, a revolver, a flick knife and extra magazines, that belonged to an assailant who seized a long-distance bus with 13 hostages yesterday, are pictured on the ground after police officers captured the assailant in the city centre of Lutsk, 250 miles west of Kiev, Ukraine late last night. Ukrainian police say the armed man who seized hostages aboard a long-distance bus in the western city of Lutsk has been detained and all the people he held have been freed unharmed after a standoff that lasted more than 12 hours

Pictured: A grenade held by the attacker, who launched one of them from the bus at one point in the attack yesterday, which fortunately did not detonate

Pictured: The attacker looks back at Ukrainian soldiers after being captured in Kiev, Ukraine late last night

Maxim Krovishey, 44, is detained after a 12 hour stand-off with police and special forces in the city of Lutsk after he took around 10 people hostage on a bus

In the last few hours Krovishey had released an elderly woman, a teenager and a young pregnant woman

Police sealed off the centre of Lutsk, a city 250 miles west of Kiev, earlier today. Pictured, Ukranian law enforcement officers lie on the ground behind a car near the bus

Members of a Ukrainian special forces unit drive an armoured personnel carrier near a seized passenger bus during a hostage rescue operation in the city of Lutsk

Maxim Krovishey, 44, was caught on camera as he boarded the bus in the centre of Lutsk, Ukraine, at 9.25am local time (7.25am GMT)

'We agreed that he would release three people and after that I will record a video,' Zelenskiy said.

Krovishey (pictured) is armed and carrying explosives, officers said in a Facebook statement. Pictured, the assailant released a message ahead of the attack

Zelenskiy had been given the option of launching an assault on the bus, but did not want to risk hostages dying during the attack.

'We have the result - everyone is alive,' he said.

At around 9.45pm local time, police announced that the assailant had been detained and that all remaining hostages had been freed without injury.

The state security service (SBU) published a picture of Krovishey sprawled on the ground with security personnel standing over him after his arrest.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said an accomplice of Krovishey was detained in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

Police had blocked off the city centre with armed officers, cars and an armoured personnel carrier while they tried to persuade Krovishey to free the hostages in a day-long standoff.

Photos and footage showed a small bus parked in the middle of an empty street, with at least two windows smashed and others covered with curtains.

Police said Krovishey threw a grenade out of the bus. Avakov said Krovishey had fired shots out of the bus at police.

'The attacker threw a grenade from the bus, which, fortunately, did not detonate,' a statement said.

In posts on social media, Krovishey had also demanded that senior Ukrainian officials publish statements saying that they were terrorists.

Hostages are seen through a windscreen damaged by gunshots, after the passenger bus was seized

Ukrainian law enforcement officers take cover near a seized passenger bus during a hostage rescue operation in the city of Lutsk, Ukraine July 21

A policeman brings water for hostages contained in a bus after an armed man seized the long-distance bus and took some 10 people hostage in the city centre of Lutsk

policeman, who has brought water for hostages trapped on a bus, walks away from the vehicle in downtown Lutsk today

Police officers take up positions during an operation to rescue passengers of an intercity bus who have been taken hostage by an armed man in the city of Lutsk

The bus with hostages on a road in the downtown of the Western Ukrainian city of Lutsk

Police officers take up positions during an operation to rescue passengers of an intercity bus who have been taken hostage by an armed man in the city of Lutsk

A trio were freed from the bus earlier this evening before police were able to detain the assailant

A police officer escorts three hostages released from a hijacked bus in the downtown area of the city of Lutsk,

The bus remains parked up and hostages can be seen inside after Maxim Krovisheyn, thought to have posted anti-establishment messages online, took it over on Tuesday morning. Shots were fired through the front windscreen

Nicknamed Maxim Bad, the assailant has posted online: 'What is freedom? Heaven. How to get there? Be a criminal.' Pictured, the bus, left, and officers crawling behind a car, right

Policemen look on the bus with hostages in the downtown of the Western Ukrainian city of Lutsk

Krovishey, a former prisoner who has complained about 'Ukraine's system' in a series of posts online and previously published a book titled Philosophy Of A Criminal, was previously thought to have had 20 hostages.

In a Telegram account reportedly belonging to him, Plokhoy apparently admitted taking people on the bus hostage, said 'the state has always been and always is the first terrorist'.

In his book the hostage-taker wrote: 'You can kill me, but it will not correct me. I am not afraid. The face of God is in the mirror.'

In a video message released ahead of the hostage-situation Krovishey recorded himself holding a gun.

He said: 'Happy anti-system day. Don't fool yourself. Celebrate the truth.'

A statement from the attacker claimed: 'There are a lot of people with me - machine guns, grenades, two bombs.' He said he had an accomplice 'in a crowded area of the city'.

'The man put forward his demands to law enforcers,' said police. 'Negotiations with him are underway. He is being talked to over the phone.'

Ukrainian servicemen are seen at the scene where a man has taken around 10 passengers hostage on a bus in western Ukrainian city of Lutsk

Ukrainian servicemen are seen at the scene where a man has taken around 10 passengers hostage

Armed officers stand outside a police van. The bus where the hostages are being held can be seen behind

Police tape surrounds the scene as people gather to watch the intense operation unfold

Authorities have identified the man and said that he expressed frustration with 'Ukraine's system' on his social media pages. Pictured, the police cordon

Bystanders have started to gather as police officers blocked off the road leading to the bus

A tank parked up at the scene to block the road following the seizure of the passenger bus

Police officers gather supplies as they head towards the bus where people have been taken hostage by an armed man

His demands appeared absurd, calling on senior Ukrainian officials to post videos saying they are 'terrorist in laws'.

He also asked Ukrainian president Zelensky to urge people to watch the 2005 movie Earthlings.

Krovishey was born in Russia - then part of the USSR - in 1975. He was convicted of group robbery in 2013 and is believed to have served three jail sentences, the longest for eight years.

Nicknamed Maxim Bad, the assailant has posted online: 'What is freedom? Heaven. How to get there? Be a criminal.'

He previously wrote a book entitled 'Philosophy of a criminal.

'My death is not an obstacle for the explosions,' he said. 'The state has always been and is the first terrorist.'
Despite warning issued by the Union health ministry against the use of N95 masks with valves, their use, sale and manufacturing goes on unabated in Punjab.

While the residents continue to use the masks unaware of the warning, the manufacturers and traders rue that the sales had already gone down as a large number of residents do not change the mask after purchasing it for once. The manufacturers further demanded that the government should allow export of N95 masks with valves, which has a demand in the internal market.

The director general of health services in the Union ministry of health, in a letter to the principal secretaries of health and medical education of states, had said on Tuesday that it has been observed that there is inappropriate use of N-95 masks, particularly those with valved respirators by the public other than designated health workers.

President of Punjab Chemists Association Surinder Duggal said: We have asked our association members to make the people aware about the governments new guidelines that warn the usage of N95 masks. But some people are still adamant on purchasing masks with valves.

VENDING MACHINE AT CHANDIGARH RAILWAY STATION

The Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited (IRSDCL) has installed an automatic vending machine for dispensing 3-ply masks, N95 masks, sanitisers and gloves at the Chandigarh railway station last week.

An official said that the corporation has observed an average sale of Rs 5,000-6,000 in last few days and the highest of nearly Rs 8,000 sale from the vending machine.

On being asked about any plans to discontinue N-95 masks with valves after recent guidelines by the health ministry, Balbir Singh, CGM, IRSDCL, Chandigarh, said: I am aware of the advisory, but were yet to receive any official notification on the same. Once we receive it, we may discontinue the N95 masks.
The 12 Felician Sisters that died of Covid-19 in one month at a convent in Livonia, Michigan.
Journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by miscreants in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad on Monday (July 20) night, died on Wednesday (July 22). Joshi suffered bullet injuries in head and was admitted to Yashoda Hospital in Ghaziabad. The attack on Joshi took place at Mata Colony in Ghaziabad's Pratap Vihar. According to doctor, the veins in Joshi's head had got badly damaged due to the bullet injury.

The Ghaziabad Police on Tuesday (July 21, 2020) arrested 9 people including the main accused Ravi in connection with attack on Joshi. The journalist was attacked when he was travelling with his daughters on his motorcycle on Monday night.

Joshi worked at a local newspaper. According to family members of the victims, some boys have misbehaved with Joshi's niece 4-5 days ago. A complaint in this regard was also filed at Vijay Nagar police station but the police did not take any action against the accused boys. Joshi's family members claimed that it is likely that the same boys would have attacked him.

Ghaziabad police said on Tuesday that they have arrested all the accused with the help of a CCTV in which the incident was caught. Pratap Vihar Police station's in-charge has also been suspended for dereliction of duty.
A person uses a laptop computer with illuminated English and Russian Cyrillic character keys in this arranged photograph in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, March 14, 2019. Russian internet trolls appear to be shifting strategy in their efforts to disrupt the 2020 U.S. elections, promoting politically divisive messages through phony social media accounts instead of creating propaganda themselves, cybersecurity experts say. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The UK lacks a comprehensive and cohesive high level strategy to respond to the cyber threat posed by Russia and other hostile states using online disinformation and influence ops to target democratic institutions and values, a parliamentary committee has warned in a long-delayed report that's finally been published today.

"The UK is clearly a target for Russias disinformation campaigns and political influence operations and must therefore equip itself to counter such efforts," the committee warns, calling for legislation to tackle the multi-pronged threat posed by hostile foreign influence operations in the digital era.

The report also urges the government to do the leg work of attributing state-backed cyber attacks -- recommending a tactic of 'naming and shaming' perpetrators, while recognizing that UK agencies have, since the WannaCry attack, been more willing to publicly attribute a cyber attack to a state actor like Russia than they were in decades past. (Last week the government did just that in relation to COVID-19 vaccine R&D efforts -- attacking Russia for targeting the work with custom malware, as UK ministers sought to get out ahead of the committee's recommendations.)

"Russias cyber capability, when combined with its willingness to deploy it in a malicious capacity, is a matter of grave concern, and poses an immediate and urgent threat to our national security," the committee warns.

On the threat posed to democracy by state-backed online disinformation and influence campaigns, the committee also points a finger of blame at social media giants for "failing to play their part".

"It is the social media companies which hold the key and yet are failing to play their part," the committee writes, urging the government to establish "a protocol" with platform giants to ensure they "take covert hostile state use of their platforms seriously, and have clear timescales within which they commit to removing such material".

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"Government should name and shame those which fail to act," the committee adds, suggesting such a protocol could be "usefully expanded" to other areas where the government is seeking action from platforms giants.

Russia report

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) prepared the dossier for publication last year, after conducting a lengthy enquiry into Russian state influence in the UK -- including examining how money from Russian oligarchs flows into the country, and especially into London, via wealthy ex-pats and their establishment links; as well as looking at Russia's use of hostile cyber operations to attempt to influence UK elections.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson blocked publication ahead of last year's general election -- meaning it's taken a full nine months for the report to make it into the public domain, despite then committee chair urging publication ahead of polling day. The UK's next election, meanwhile, is not likely for some half a decade's time. (Related: Johnson was able to capitalize on unregulated social media ads during his own election campaign last year, so, er... )

The DCMS committee, which was one of the bodies that submitted evidence to the ISC's inquiry, has similarly been warning for years about the threats posed to democracy by online disinformation and political targeting -- as have the national data watchdog and others. Yet successive Conservative-led governments have failed to act on urgent recommendations in this area.

Last year ministers set out a proposal to regulate a broad swathe of 'online harms', although the focus is not specifically on political disinformation -- and draft legislation still hasn't been laid before parliament.

"The clearest requirement for immediate action is for new legislation," the ISC committee writes of the threat posed by Russia. "The Intelligence Community must be given the tools it needs and be put in the best possible position if it is to tackle this very capable adversary, and this means a new statutory framework to tackle espionage, the illicit financial dealings of the Russian elite and the enablers who support this activity."

The report labels foreign disinformation operations and online influence campaigns something of a "hot potato" no UK agency wants to handle. A key gap the report highlights is this lack of ministerial responsibility for combating the democratic threat posed by hostile foreign states, leveraging connectivity to spread propaganda or deploy malware.

"Protecting our democratic discourse and processes from hostile foreign interference is a central responsibility of Government, and should be a ministerial priority," the committee writes, flagging both the lack of central, ministerial responsibility and a reluctance by the UK's intelligence and security agencies to involve themselves in actively defending democratic processes.

"Whilst we understand the nervousness around any suggestion that the intelligence and security Agencies might be involved in democratic processes  certainly a fear that is writ large in other countries  that cannot apply when it comes to the protection of those processes. And without seeking in any way to imply that DCMS [the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] is not capable, or that the Electoral Commission is not a staunch defender of democracy, it is a question of scale and access. DCMS is a small Whitehall policy department and the Electoral Commission is an arms length body; neither is in the central position required to tackle a major hostile state threat to our democracy."

Last July the government did announce what it called its Defending Democracy programme, which -- per the ISC committee report -- is intended to "co-ordinate work on protecting democratic discourse and processes from interference under the leadership of the Cabinet Office, with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Deputy National Security Adviser holding overall responsibility at ministerial and official level respectively".

However the committee points out this structure is "still rather fragmented", noting that at least ten separate teams are involved across government.

It also questions the level of priority being attached to the issue, writing that: "It seems to have been afforded a rather low priority: it was signed off by the National Security Council only in February 2019, almost three years after the EU referendum campaign and the US presidential election which brought these issues to the fore."

"In the Committees view, a foreign power seeking to interfere in our democratic processes  whether it is successful or not  cannot be taken lightly; our democracy is intrinsic to our countrys success and well-being and any threat to it must be treated as a serious national security issue by those tasked with defending us," it adds.

The lack of an overarching ministerial body invested with central responsibility to tackle online threats to democracy goes a long way to explaining the damp squib of a response around breaches of UK election law which relate to the Brexit vote -- when social media platforms were used to funnel in dark money to fund digital ads aimed at influencing the outcome of what should have been a UK-only vote.

(A redacted footnote in the report touches on the 8M donation by Arron Banks to the Leave.EU campaign -- "the biggest donor in British political history"; noting how the Electoral Commission, which had been investigating the source of the donation, referred the case to the National Crime Agency -- "which investigated it ***" [redacting any committee commentary on what was or was not found by the NCA]; before adding: "In September 2019, the National Crime Agency announced that it had concluded the investigation, having found no evidence that any criminal offences had been committed under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 or company law by any of the individuals or organisations referred to it by the Electoral Commission.")

"The regulation of political advertising falls outside this Committees remit," the ISC report adds, under a brief section on 'Political advertising on social media'. "We agree, however, with the DCMS Select Committees conclusion that the regulatory framework needs urgent review if it is to be fit for purpose in the age of widespread social media.

"In particular, we note and affirm the Select Committees recommendation that all online political adverts should include an imprint stating who is paying for it. We would add to that a requirement for social media companies to co-operate with MI5 where it is suspected that a hostile foreign state may be covertly running a campaign."

On Brexit itself, and the heavily polarizing question of how much influence Russia was able to exert over the UK's vote to leave the European Union, the committee suggests this would be "difficult" or even "impossible" to assess. But it emphasizes: "it is important to establish whether a hostile state took deliberate action with the aim of influencing a UK democratic process, irrespective of whether it was successful or not."

The report then goes on to query the lack of evidence of an attempt by the UK government or security agencies to do just that.

In one interesting -- and heavily redacted paragraph -- the committee notes it sought to ascertain whether UK intelligence agencies hold "secret intelligence" that might support or supplement open source studies that have pointed to attempts by Russia to influence the Brexit vote -- but was sent only a very brief response.

Here the committee writes:

In response to our request for written evidence at the outset of the Inquiry, MI5 initially provided just six lines of text. It stated that ***, before referring to academic studies. This was noteworthy in terms of the way it was couched (***) and the reference to open source studies ***. The brevity was also, to us, again, indicative of the extreme caution amongst the intelligence and security Agencies at the thought that they might have any role in relation to the UKs democratic processes, and particularly one as contentious as the EU referendum. We repeat that this attitude is illogical; this is about the protection of the process and mechanism from hostile state interference, which should fall to our intelligence and security Agencies.

The report also records a gap in the government's response on this issue -- with the committee being told of no active attempt by government to understand whether or not UK elections have been targeted by Russia.

"The written evidence provided to us appeared to suggest that HMG had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes or any activity that has had a material impact on an election, for example influencing results," it writes.

A later redacted paragraph indicates an assessment by the committee that the government failed to fully take into account open source material which had indicated attempts to influence Brexit (such as the studies of attempts to influence the referendum using Russia state mouthpieces RT and Sputnik; or via social media campaigns).

"Given that the Committee has previously been informed that open source material is now fully represented in the Governments understanding of the threat picture, it was surprising to us that in this instance it was not," the committee adds.

The committee also raises an eyebrow at the lack of any post-referendum analysis of Russian attempts to influence the vote by UK intelligence agencies -- which it describes as in "stark contrast" to the US agency response following the revelations of Russian disops targeted at the 2016 US presidential election.

"Whilst the issues at stake in the EU referendum campaign are less clear-cut, it is nonetheless the Committees view that the UK Intelligence Community should produce an analogous assessment of potential Russian interference in the EU referendum and that an unclassified summary of it be published," it suggests.

In other recommendations related to Russia's "offensive cyber" capabilities, the committee reiterates that there's a need for "a common international approach" to tackling the threat.

"It is clear there is now a pressing requirement for the introduction of a doctrine, or set of protocols, to ensure that there is a common approach to Offensive Cyber. While the UN has agreed that international law, and in particular the UN Charter, applies in cyberspace, there is still a need for a greater global understanding of how this should work in practice," it writes, noting that it made the same recommendation in its 2016-17 annual

report.

"It is imperative that there are now tangible developments in this area in light of the increasing threat from Russia (and others, including China, Iran and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea). Achieving a consensus on this common approach will be a challenging process, but as a leading proponent of the Rules Based International Order it is essential that the UK helps to promote and shape Rules of Engagement, working

with our allies."

The security-cleared committee notes that the public report is a redacted summary of a more detailed dossier it felt unable to publish on account of classified information and the risk of Russia being able to use it to glean too much intelligence on the level of UK intelligence of its activities. Hence opting for a more truncated (and redacted) document than it would usually publish -- which again raises questions over why Johnson sought repeatedly to delay publication.

Plenty of sections of the report contain a string of asterisk at a crucial point, eliding strategic specifics (e.g. this paragraph on exactly how Russia is targeting critical UK infrastructure: "Russia has also undertaken cyber pre-positioning activity on other nations Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has advised that there is *** Russian cyber intrusion into the UKs CNI  particularly marked in the *** sectors.)")

Most recently Number 10 sought to influence the election of the ISC committee chair by seeking to parachute a preferred candidate into the seat -- which could have further delayed publication of the report. However the attempt at stacking the committee was thwarted when new chair, Conservative MP Julian Lewis, sided with opposition MPs to vote for himself. After which the newly elected committee voted unanimously to release the Russia report before the summer recess of parliament, avoiding another multi-month delay.

Another major chunk of the report, which tackles the topic of Russian expatriate oligarchs and their money; how they've been welcomed into UK society with "open arms", enabling their illicit finance to be recycled through "the London laundromat, and to find its way inexorably into political party coffers, may explain the government's reluctance for the report to be made public.

The committee's commentary here makes particularly awkward reading for a political party with major Russian donors. And a prime minister with Russian oligarch friends...

"It is widely recognised that the key to Londons appeal was the exploitation of the UKs investor visa scheme, introduced in 1994, followed by the promotion of a light and limited touch to regulation, with Londons strong capital and housing markets offering sound investment opportunities," the committee writes, further noting that Russian money was also invested in "extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishment  PR firms, charities, political interests, academia and cultural institutions were all willing beneficiaries of Russian money, contributing to a reputation laundering process".

"In brief, Russian influence in the UK is the new normal, and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth," it adds.

You can read the full report here.

Update: Johnson has responded to the report with a short statement in which he writes: "I welcome the report and thank the former Committee for the work that has gone into this; this has clearly been an extensive effort spanning almost two years."

In a detailed written response, the government also welcomed the report and thanked the committee for its work, before going on to claim: "The Government has made clear to the Kremlin that an improvement in relations is only possible if Russia desists from its attacks on the UK and its allies. Meanwhile we will be resolute in defending our country, our democracy, and our values from such Hostile State Activity.

"We do this through a cross-Government Russia Strategy and structures that combine the UKs diplomatic, intelligence, and military capabilities, its hard and soft power, to maximum effect. We act in concert with our allies, seeking to lead the Wests collective response to hybrid threats to our societies and values. This includes concerted campaigns to counter disinformation, as well as to bear down on illicit finance, combat influence operations, and fend off cyber-attacks."

In remarks addressing the report's critique of the government's approach to combating the threat posed by foreign cyber operations, the government said: "We have made clear that any foreign interference in the UKs Democratic processes is completely unacceptable. It is, and always will be, an absolute priority to protect the UK against foreign interference, whether from Russia or any other state.

"We have worked with industry, civil society and international partners to implement robust systems to secure our Democratic processes and deter attempts to interfere in it. This work is undertaken with the utmost regard for the freedom of the press, political and parliamentary discourse and freedom of speech. We will always balance the need to secure our Democracy with our duty to uphold our values."

On the committee's recommendation to develop a protocol for dealing with social media companies to ensure they promptly address state-backed disinformation, the government pointed to the work of the Counter Disinformation Unit -- claiming to have established "strong relationships" with platforms which it said have given government units access to "accelerated reporting portals".

"This allows the Government to quickly identify content which is in breach of platform terms and conditions, to ensure that platforms can take appropriate action such as removal of content or suspension of accounts," it wrote.

It also pointed to the Met police's Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), which it says has referred more than 310,000 pieces of terrorist content to platforms that have then removed the content since the unit was set up in 2010.

"The Government has pressed companies to increase the use of technology to automate the detection and removal of content where possible. The Government is also working in partnership with UK Data Science companies to develop technical solutions to aid in quicker detection and removal of terrorist content and offer these free of charge, to enable companies to take quicker action on terrorist content," it added.

"The Governments relationship with the social media companies continues to evolve. In the context of the COVID-19 response, we are learning valuable lessons which will be applied to our future approach to countering disinformation and other forms of online manipulation. While the Government welcomes the actions taken by social media companies thus far, including the cooperation they have shown in tackling these issues together, there still issues to be addressed. DCMS will continue pushing platforms to take the actions necessary to improve and safeguard the information environment."

On digital advertising the government said it is "considering how best to take forward our work in this area", following the 2019 election (which it admitted last week had been targeted by Russian disops).

"Government has committed to increasing transparency over who is promoting material online. This will be addressed as part of our proposed digital imprints regime," it added. "Through new imprints on digital election material, we will strengthen trust and ensure people are informed about who is behind online election material. We will continue to strive to uphold transparency in the digital campaigning framework. The Cabinet Office is taking forward work in this area."

On Brexit, it reiterates a claim that: "We have seen no evidence of successful interference in the EU Referendum" -- before going on to reject the idea of opening an investigation by arguing "a retrospective assessment of the EU Referendum is not necessary".

However, given the committee's critique is that the government has avoided investigating whether there was successful interference in the UK's EU referendum, its rejection of a probe on the grounds of 'not having seen any evidence' is of course pure sophistry.

On the problem of illicit finance and the committee's call for new legislation to tackle foreign influence threats, the government also claims to already be hard at work.

"The Government committed in the December 2019 Queens Speech to introduce legislation to provide the security services and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to disrupt this hostile activity," it wrote. "The Home Office leads on this and is considering several measures for introduction via new primary legislation to make the UK a harder environment for adversaries to operate in."

"The Government is also considering legislation which, when implemented, would strengthen the UKs defences against illicit finance in general, and not specifically in relation to Russian elites. This includes reforms to strengthen the powers of Companies House; to the law governing Limited Partnerships, to make them less open to abuse in money laundering; as well as to establish a register of beneficial ownership information of foreign companies owning UK property," it added.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said the UK will call Russia out on cybersecurity breaches in the wake of the release of a highly critical report into Russian electoral interference.

Speaking at Chevening House with German minister of foreign affairs Heiko Maas on Wednesday, Mr Raab said both countries were co-operating to hold Russia accountable.

The address follows the release of a report from Parliaments Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) which found Russia represents an established threat in the UK.

The ISC said the Government was slow to recognise the potential threat posed by Russia to British democratic processes and did not properly consider whether Moscow could interfere in the Brexit referendum until after the event.

The report concluded the UK only belatedly realised the threat to political processes despite alarm bells ringing over the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

When asked about the report and the months of delay ahead of its release, the Foreign Secretary said proper practice had been followed.

He told reporters: We had the election and we needed the ISC to duly form, thats the proper practice and we followed that.

The truth is I think everyone can see that from the ISC and the outcomes  weve responded to all of those points and recommendations and conclusions in full.

No-nonsense discussions in a beautiful English countryside setting: Foreign Minister @HeikoMaas and his British counterpart @DominicRaab met in Chevening House to discuss joint challenges, perceived threats and how to tackle them effectively. pic.twitter.com/INbPh8LtIj  GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) July 22, 2020

He added: Theres clearly an issue with Russian cyberattacks, and I think weve said recently in particular, in relation to the attempt which we have now attributed publicly to the Russian intelligence agencies, that we will call Russia out, and Im talking about the one in relation to vaccine R&D (research and development) in this country but also in America and Canada.

We will call out Russia, we will hold Russia to account whenever that happens.

During the 26-minute appearance, Mr Raab and his German counterpart told reporters they had discussed topics including the joint response to the coronavirus pandemic as well as international relations with China and the Middle East.

Mr Raab said: We have been working together to make sure that China lives up to its obligations and its responsibilities, the most obvious example has been in relation to Hong Kong.

Were taking very similar measures in relation to Hong Kong, weve been working with our French partners.

He added: I think (it) shows you that notwithstanding our departure from the EU, weve committed and were demonstrating through our deeds, not just our words, the importance of co-operating with our European partners.

At one point the address, held outside the historic house in Kent, was interrupted by a gust of wind that blew both ministers papers from their socially distanced lecterns.

The Foreign Secretary later addressed the collaborative response to the coronavirus pandemic, including in the delivery of PPE and the repatriation of European nationals.

He said: It has been British and German researchers that have led in vaccine development, while our Governments have also been working together on the global stage to ensure theres an equitable global distribution.
No one is more important to the history of environmental conservation than John Muir - the "wilderness prophet," "patron saint of the American wilderness" and "father of the national parks" who founded the nation's oldest conservation organization, the Sierra Club. But on Wednesday, citing the current racial reckoning, the group announced it will end its blind reverence to a figure who was also racist.

As Confederate statues fall across the country, the club's leadership said in an early morning post on its website, "it's time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club's early history." Muir, who fought to preserve Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Forest, once referred to African Americans as lazy "Sambos," a racist pejorative that many black people consider to be even more offensive than the n-word.

While recounting a legendary walk from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, Muir described Native Americans he encountered as "dirty."

Muir's friendships in the early 1900s were equally troubling, the Sierra Club said. Henry Fairfield Osborn, a close associate, led the New York Zoological Society and the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History and, following Muir's death, helped establish the American Eugenics Society, which labeled nonwhite people, including Jews at the time, as inferior.

The Sierra Club isn't the only organization that is shaking its foundations. Leaders of predominantly white, liberal and progressive groups throughout the field of conservation say they are taking a hard look within their organizations and don't like what they see.

African American and other minority employees are pointing out the lack of diversity in green groups and the racial bias that persists in top and mid-level management.

The most startling example is a manifesto by Ruth Tyson, an employee at the Union of Concerned Scientists who quit recently after she "woke up feeling resentment and agony" because her job there was unbearable. Tyson flipped open a laptop to write a short email explaining why she was quitting with only a three-day notice but didn't stop until she had written 17 pages of searing criticism.

She sent it to 200 people.

Her open letter ripped the organization's casual indifference to black workers. Their ideas were routinely dismissed and the community outreach jobs they were hired to perform were a low priority. Tyson said the Union of Concerned Scientists, along with other groups, has fallen woefully short in its efforts to make its workplace more diverse and help communities disproportionately impacted by pollution.

Tyson was one of four black women on a 14-member team when she started work three years ago, watching as they quit or were forced out. Now there are none.

"They simply baited us in with the language of equity without making significant infrastructural, cultural, and procedural changes to prioritize and accommodate the [people of color or] the actual work of racial equity," she wrote. "As if anti-racist work were something you could just sprinkle on top."

Remarkably, her bosses agreed.

"I've read the letter many times," said Ken Kimmell, the organization's president. "I thought it was fair, yeah. I think this is part of a larger issue in all of society and there is real meaning to the culture of white supremacy.

"There are ways that a white-dominated workplace doesn't make it welcoming to persons of color," Kimmell said. "I have subsequently learned that many of the things she raised in her letter were not unique to her and things other people of color have experienced."

Now, like other green groups, the Union of Concerned Scientists is vowing to look at the way it's structured; diversify its board, workers and managers; and police casual racial bias.

At the 53-year-old Environmental Defense Fund, Fred Krupp, its president, also promised change. "The pandemic has exposed for the American public inequities that have existed, including access to health care, neighborhoods that are much more polluted than others," Krupp said.

"I don't feel EDF is being pressured. I'm feeling pressure from the facts, the inequities that have been laid bare by covid and the events following George Floyd's murder and that EDF hasn't done nearly enough on environmental justice issues and issues involving racism," Krupp said.

Even a coalition of nontraditional groups, GreenLatinos, issued a statement about racism in its community during the racial reckoning. "In the Latino community, we have had a problem of anti-black racism for a long time. We've finally started to recognize it," said Marce Gutierrez-Graudins, a founder and director of the ocean conservation group, Azul, the Spanish word for blue.

"I grew up in Mexico and very much present as white," Gutierrez-Graudins said, referring to her skin color. "I grew up in this area of anti-black racism, it was benign. We have this way in Latin America to say, 'That's something that the Spanish did.' We have a way of rationalizing that and say, that was not us. Two years ago, Televista still had people doing black face on their comedy shows saying it wasn't a big deal."

But no statement was as forceful as that of the 128-year-old Sierra Club, the nation's oldest and most venerable environmental group. Michael Brune, Sierra Club's executive director, recently addressed 800 staff and 4 million members and volunteers with a note that was unusually frank and acquiescent.

For years, Brune wrote, the Sierra Club's staffers of color "have led the call for transformative change and I and other white leaders have not responded with the urgency nor at the scale that the opportunities and challenges demand." He promised an overhaul of executive leadership, the reallocation of $5 million to reduce pay inequities and to devote greater attention to the communities suffering most from "environmental racism" and "structural injustice."

As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, the group's Wednesday statement said, "John Muir's words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club."

"Such willful ignorance is what allows some people to shut their eyes to the reality that the wild places we love are also the ancestral homelands of Native peoples, forced off their lands in the decades or centuries before they became national parks," the statement said.

Early Sierra Club members and leaders such as Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan "were vocal advocates for white supremacy and its pseudoscientific arm, eugenics." Jordan supported forced-sterilization laws "and programs that deprived tens of thousands of women of their right to bear children."

The roots of American environmentalism are grounded in a reverence for nature and racism. Muir's contemporaries at the turn of the last century included Madison Grant, a co-founder of the Bronx Zoo who wrote "The Passing of the Great Race, or The Racial Basis of European History," an argument for white supremacy in which he decried the decline of Nordic people.

Former president Theodore Roosevelt, who created the first national parks, praised the 1916 book, which helped shape the views the future leader of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler, who would go on to write the anti-Semitic autobiography "Mein Kampf," called Grant's book, "my bible."

Given the troubled history of the groups, black and brown activists who have long complained about unfair funding and lack of attentions to their communities, weren't impressed.

"The big white green groups have all issued racial justice statements - a good first baby step," said Robert Bullard, a Texas Southern University professor and activist who helped restart the National Black Environmental Justice Network this month.

"In my opinion, none of them have taken a strong stand in the way their white privilege sucks up damn near all the green dollars from foundations and donors, away from people of color."

Environmental and climate justice groups work in communities with the greatest need, said Bullard, a founder of the environmental justice movement that started when African American, Latino, Native American and other environmentalists gathered for the first time in Washington D.C. in 1991 and vowed to fill the gaps big green groups missed.

For more than 30 years, environmental justice groups have deployed paltry budgets to fight big battles over power plants, refineries, landfills and other projects that foul the air and land around black and Latino communities. Ludovic Blain, who attended the second environmental summit a decade after the first, said activists often worked without pay.

"If you're very used to not getting funded, people are used to doing it free," Blain said. "The environmental movement has a lot of philanthropic money, there's enough money to go around."

According to its tax filing, the Sierra Club had assets of more than $106 million in 2018 and the Union of Concerned Scientists had nearly $40 million. One group, the Nature Conservancy, had assets and grants that totaled nearly $1 billion that year. Another, the Natural Resources Defense Council, had more than $350 million.

That compares to about $2 million for the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice in New Orleans and $2.5 million for the West Harlem Environmental Action Inc. in New York. Los Jardines Institute, another environmental justice group, had about $300,000 in revenue in 2018.

"If you had told me two decades ago that millions of dollars would be going to Latino environmental justice work, I would never have guessed it would have been through Natural Resources Defense Council," said Blain.

The nation's biggest philanthropies have traditionally given to established environmental groups. The Hewlett Foundation, for example, has given about half a million dollars a year to the Natural Resources Defense Council's lands program for a quarter century, but last year it informed the organization that it would be giving that money to more local groups such as Outdoor Afro, Green Latinos, or Hispanic Access.

Others have also found new outlets. Even before the recent protests, Friends of the Earth executive director Erich Pica steered about $100,000 to a grass roots organizing group called Black Male Voters Project.

Still, many in the environmental justice movement still shrug at the recent shift in support. "We're just getting chump change when it comes to big green" environmental groups, Angela Adrar, director of the Climate Justice Alliance, said. "It's been quite incremental to be honest."

Ruth Tyson entered the world of white environmentalists three years ago. A friend sent her an ad for a Union of Concerned Scientists job that offered $47,000 - "like more money than anyone in my family had made," said Tyson, whose parents emigrated from Jamaica when her mother was seven months pregnant with her.

Tyson was awed by her new workplace, but there were almost no black managers, co-workers or mentors. When things went wrong, she felt she had nowhere to turn.

At a meeting to uplift the voices of marginalized communities, Tyson quickly noticed that "the majority of people participating were white," her letter said. She felt that she was expected to be the voice of the black community. "I was put on every racial equity task force that popped up," she wrote.

Managers seemed dismissive. "I saw how white men scrolled through their phones or laptops as I talked, and got up and left whenever they wanted to be done meeting with me," the letter said. "I understood that these behaviors were not personality traits, but the manifestations of the white dominant culture throughout the organization."

Asked if he disagreed with anything Tyson wrote, Kimmell said, "We are actually grateful for the letter because it shed so much light on so many things. I was sad because our workplace wasn't welcoming and nurturing for her."

Whitney Tome, the outgoing executive director of Green 2.0, also thought the letter rang true. It "enumerated the problems" people of color face in all the groups and "was heartbreaking," she said.

Andres Jimenez, the incoming executive director, said it was indicative of the minority talent drain. "Retention is a problem and upward mobility is not strong" at big green groups, he said. "A person of color comes in as a legislative assistant or staff assistant and there is no way up for them."

Tyson's letter also made its way to Brune. "I found her letter to be heartbreaking and familiar." And that has to change, he said.

"What's clear is that there's no going back to the Sierra Club we have been. What's needed is fundamental transformation, not reform."
COLLINSVILLE  DeeAnn Billings and her family recently collected enough backpacks and school supplies for 500 Zambian students while also raising $2,700 to cover part of the cost of shipping these supplies to Africa.

African Vision of Hope volunteers approached Billings church, Copper Creek Christian Church in Maryville, to ask if members would fill 25 to 50 bags of school supplies for Zambian students. Before the visit, Billings had never heard of the ministry. Now, she has made it her mission to tell others about the things that God is doing for children across the globe.

Me buying the supplies myself makes it about me, Billings said. Me asking the community and inviting people into Gods blessings makes it about Him.

Billings initially made an Amazon wish list and shared it with her Facebook friends and other social media groups. Soon, people she didnt know were ordering and shipping items to her home, and sending checks in the mail to purchase support the cause. In less than a month, Billings had raised enough to fill and ship more than 500 plus bags to Zambia.

Children in Zambia have no possessions, said media and communications manager for African Vision of Hope, Rachel Goodhue. Owning their own backpack will give the children dignity and a sense of purpose. You are equipping the poorest children in the world with the educational tools they need to be successful.

Goodhue said the nonprofit is trying to raise $12,000 to send not only the backpacks but desks to the five schools established in Zambia.

African Vision of Hope is a Christian organization located in Maryville, bringing immediate and lasting solutions to children and families living in extreme poverty in Zambia.

The organization was founded by Bob and Judy Bertels when their church hosted a concert by Zambian boys and the Bertels discovered that the children were victims of human trafficking. After a trip to Zambia, the Bertels decided they had to do something. In 2000, African Vision of Hope was born.

We serve 3,200 children  supplying them with food, clean water and medical supplies besides an education, Goodhue said.
DETROIT - A partnership among Altimetrik, a Southfield-based fast-growing global business transformation company, the 501(c)(3) Vattikuti Foundation, Henry Ford Health System and the City of Detroit has provided more than 20,000 onsite COVID-19 tests to residents in 163 of Detroit's senior and congregate living facilities, as well as the city's first responders and essential workers. The effort was made possible by a $400,000 donation from Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation in April 2020.

"I am deeply appreciative to Altimetrik, the Vattikuti Foundation and Henry Ford Health System for making it possible for us to test residents at all of our senior buildings in the comfort of their own homes," said Mayor Mike Duggan. "Thanks to their critical support, Detroit has been a national leader in protecting its most vulnerable citizens from the spread of COVID-19."

The partnership has been a critical part of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan, specifically in the Detroit area, which has been one of the hardest hit in the state.

"As this pandemic has evolved, we have continued working alongside our partners to meet the vital healthcare needs of the communities we serve," said Bob Riney, president of Healthcare Operations and chief operating officer at Henry Ford Health System. "Onsite testing, education, outreach and prevention efforts have been essential to preventing further spread of the coronavirus throughout our communities, particularly in congregate facilities, such as nursing homes. We remain deeply committed to providing the critical infrastructure necessary to help stop the spread of COVID-19."

According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, as of July 19, the State of Michigan has had approximately 7,524 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among residents of long-term care (LTC) facilities, such as nursing homes and senior apartments. Of those cases, there have been approximately 1,973 deaths due to the virus. The deaths among LTC facility residents represents approximately 31% of Michigan's total number of 6,373 deaths due to COVID-19.

"Long term care and congregate living facilities are home to some of the most vulnerable populations with regard to COVID-19. The philanthropic support of Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation was essential to quickly mobilizing teams to facilitate critical testing and providing adequate personal protective equipment. Ongoing testing was leveraged to provide control recommendations and to help stop the spread," said John Zervos, executive director of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) at Henry Ford, a unique collaboration of regional healthcare and academic institutions that seek to address some of the most pressing healthcare issues facing underserved populations in Michigan and internationally.

This partnership also helped to establish relationships with affordable housing facilities for seniors in Detroit, which will continue to be critical in addressing the spread of COVID-19. Staying ahead of outbreaks in congregate settings, specifically senior apartments, is an important part of preventing massive outbreaks within these facilities, Zervos added.

One facility greatly impacted by the partnership was Pablo Davis Elder Living Center, an affordable apartment community for individuals 55 years old and older in Detroit's Southwest side. According to Phyllis Edwards, LMSW, executive director of Bridging Communities, Inc., which owns the Pablo Davis Elder Living Center, the testing was a critical part of controlling the spread of the virus in the facility.

"It was essential to have all the residents and management team tested to acquire health services swiftly by identifying those who had COVID-19," said Edwards. "The results allowed for isolating known cases, thereby preventing them from coming into contact with others. The tests and results slowed the rate of transmission. Hopefully, this method of effective onsite testing programs will allow the healthcare experts additional data to better understand how prevalent the disease is and how it is evolving."

While COVID-19 testing at senior and congregate living facilities has been a major focus of this partnership, rapid testing for first responders and other essential city employees was also a crucial element. Detroit was the first city in the country to secure the Abbott ID-Now instruments and testing kits, which produce results in 15 minutes. In total, more than 10,000 on-site rapid tests were performed on first responders and essential city workers at a clinic set up inside the Detroit Health Department headquarters.

"Protecting our most vulnerable populations, first responders and essential city employees is not only the right thing to do, but also key to mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on all Detroiters and health institutions," said Raj Vattikuti, CEO of Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation. "The processes and procedures developed and fine-tuned through this partnership will allow our communities to be better prepared should a future wave or surge occur."

The data obtained throughout the partnership shows the rapid testing and outreach program has had a significant impact on reducing morbidity and mortality at nursing homes and other congregate settings and correlates with an overall drop in cases city-wide.

"It is amazing to see the impact of our incredible donors like Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation," said Mary Jane Vogt, senior vice president and chief development officer at Henry Ford Health System. "Their generous gift will continue to help protect the most vulnerable members of our communities as we work together to stop the spread of COVID-19."

###

About Henry Ford Health System: Under the leadership of President and CEO Wright L. Lassiter, III, Henry Ford Health System is a $6.5 billion integrated health system comprised of six hospitals, a health plan, and 250+ sites including medical centers, walk-in and urgent care clinics, pharmacy, eye care facilities and other healthcare retail.

Established in 1915 by auto industry pioneer Henry Ford, the health system now has 32,000 employees and remains home to the 1,900-member Henry Ford Medical Group, one of the nation's oldest physician groups. An additional 2,200 physicians are also affiliated with the health system through the Henry Ford Physician Network.

Henry Ford is also one of the region's major academic medical centers, receiving more than $90 million in annual research funding and remaining Michigan's fourth largest NIH-funded institution. Also an active participant in medical education and training, the health system has trained nearly 40% of physicians currently practicing in the state and also provides education and training for other health professionals including nurses, pharmacists, radiology and respiratory technicians.

About Altimetrik: Altimetrik is a digital transformation and solutions partner to global enterprise customers. Headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, Altimetrik is spread across multiple countries, including the USA, India, Uruguay, Singapore, and UAE with over 2,500 employees. Founded in 2012, Altimetrik delivers advanced technology solutions to banking and financial services, payments, health care and automotive sectors. Through their Playground methodology, Altimetrik helps customers assemble the right talent, build energized teams and instill a development ethos that emphasizes rapid prototyping, reusability and speed to market. They are partners in the creative exercise of designing and engineering innovative digital products that create amazing customer experiences for clients. Visit http://www.altimetrik.com

About Vattikuti Foundation: The Vattikuti Foundation is a non-profit corporation that was founded by Raj and Padma Vattikuti in 1997. The Foundation serves both the local community in Southeast Michigan as well as causes in India and other parts of the world. Through the Vattikuti Foundation Raj and his wife Padma continue to lend their support to a number of worthwhile charitable causes. The foundation has distinguished itself by founding the Vattikuti Urology Institute at Henry Ford Hospitals and the Vattikuti Digital Breast Diagnostic Center at Beaumont Hospitals. The Vattikuti Foundation is committed to making robotic surgery and other technologically advanced medical procedures of the future cost effective and available to underprivileged communities. Vattikuti Foundation also focuses on creating an infrastructure to coordinate and reach out to the people who are in poverty through the Poverty Alleviation Initiative program in India. Its initial pilot program has positively affected villages in the Tumkur District of Karnataka. The goal of this project is to reach over a million people over the next ten years.
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tara June Winch's THE YIELD (HarperVia; June 2, 2020; $27.99) has just won the Australian 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Each year the prestigious prize, first established in 1957, is awarded to a novel of literary merit focusing on Australian life. Previous winners include Kim Scott's Benang, and Melissa Lucashenko's Too Much Lip. Tara June Winch's acceptance speech can be found here.

"The story at the heart of Tara June Winch's novel is as moving as it is important. This is a powerful book about language and its essential connection to culture and place. We're delighted to publish it as part of HarperVia's international list," says Judith Curr, President and Publisher of the HarperOne Group.

THE YIELD presents multiple narratives: a missionary's confession, told through letters, of everything he did and failed to do; Albert "Poppy" Gondiwindi's story, revealed in his dictionary of the Wiradjuri language; and the contemporary story of Poppy's granddaughter, August, who comes to believe the dictionary might be the key to saving her family's landif only she could find it.

After ten years living in the United Kingdom running from her past, Poppy's death calls August back home to Australia, to Prosperous, the house she grew up in with Jedda, her older sister who went missing at nine years old. Seeing her family again and walking the fields of Prosperous brings back every aching memory she has tried for so long to escape. Upon returning, August also discovers that Prosperous is no longer her family'sand, in fact, never was. The government has sold it to a tin mine, leaving her grandmother with no certain place to go.

About the Author: Tara June Winch is the Wiradjuri author of novel Swallow the Air and short story collection After the Carnage. For her first novel, she was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist and received mentorship from Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative. She was born in Australia in 1983 and currently lives in France with her family.

SOURCE HarperVia
The county has been trying to unload this property for a long time. It will have to wait some more.
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander on Wednesday released the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Great American Outdoors Act by an overwhelming 310-107 bipartisan vote. The Senate passed the legislation 73-25 on June 17, and the bill now heads to the presidents desk to be signed into law.

The legislation includes the Restore Our Parks Act that Senator Alexander first introduced in 2018 and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which President Reagans s Commission on Americans Outdoors recommended in 1985 when Senator Alexander was its chairman.

The Great American Outdoors Act is the most important conservation and outdoor recreation legislation in the last half century, and now it is headed to the presidents desk for his signature, said Senator Alexander. Today, too many of our national parks are in bad shape, and American families visiting those parks are often shocked to find that so many of the roads, picnic areas, trails, campgrounds and visitor centers are in such bad condition or even closed. This bipartisan bill will cut in half the $12 billion maintenance backlog in our national parks, including $224 million in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It will also reduce maintenance backlogs at our national forests and refuges.

Here is what this means for Tennessee  places like Look Rock Campground in the Smokies, which has been closed for several years because the sewage system doesnt work, will have the resources needed to reopen so the 5,000 families who camp there each year can continue to enjoy it. And the Cherokee National Forest in East Tennessee, which suffers from a $27 million deferred maintenance backlog and welcomes more visitors each year than most of the western national parks, will have its roads and trails restored. And then in West Tennessee, the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge, which has about $8 million of maintenance work that needs to be done on boat ramps and boat docks, will receive the support it needs as well.

Senator Alexander continued, It will also fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, an unrealized goal of Congress and the conservation community since 1964. Fully funding the LWCF was also a recommendation of President Reagans Commission on Americans Outdoors, which I chaired in 1985.

Senator Alexander concluded, None of this would be possible without the strong support of President Trump and so many Democrat and Republican members of Congress. In the midst of all the bad things that are going on today, this is a good thing. Im glad Congress has been able to work together to pass this important bill, and I look forward to the president signing it into law.

The Great American Outdoors Act fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanently. The LWCF has played a large role in protecting the outdoors. In Tennessee, the LWCF has provided about $221.4 million for conservation and outdoor recreation efforts since the 1960s. This legislation also includes the Restore Our Parks Act, legislation that Senator Alexander says would be the single biggest help to the National Park System in 50 years. It will cut in half the maintenance backlog at the countrys 419 national parks, making $6.5 billion available over the next five years to fix roads, campsites and hiking trails so Americans can enjoy them. The bill also provides funding to reduce maintenance backlogs for four other federal land management agencies: The U.S. Forest Service; The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; The Bureau of Land Management; The Bureau of Indian Education.


President Donald Trump during a "Fox News Sunday" interview with Chris Wallace that aired Sunday.

Fox News

President Donald Trump on Tuesday held his first coronavirus-focused briefing in months.

He was alone at the podium, though he told reporters that Dr. Deborah Birx was right outside the door. Dr. Anthony Fauci was not present.

Fauci told CBS News that he wasn't told anything about attending the press conference.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday held his first coronavirus-focused briefing in months, and he did so without members of the White House coronavirus task force.

Trump was accompanied only by the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, and he told reporters that Dr. Deborah Birx  the task force's coordinator  was right outside the door. He did not answer why he was not accompanied by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious-disease expert in the US.

During his relatively short Tuesday briefing, Trump talked mostly about testing, ventilators, and mask use, though he did answer a reporter's question about the sex-trafficking suspect and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, saying he wished her well.

Public-health officials were not present. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS News he wasn't told anything about attending the press conference.

Never miss out on healthcare news. Subscribe to Dispensed, Business Insider's daily newsletter on pharma, biotech, and healthcare.



Trump's relationship with Fauci is thought to be more distant, and multiple White House officials tried recently to undercut Fauci, an effort on which the White House later backed down.

The president recently called Fauci "a little bit of an alarmist" over his stark warnings about the coronavirus pandemic. Cases and deaths in the US have continued to surge, and the country has repeatedly hit daily records of new cases.

Read more: Here are the most promising coronavirus treatments that could be ready by the fall.

Fauci has advised that states reopen slowly and reconsider imposing restrictions as cases continue to rise. He's also in support of wearing masks. Trump did advise people to wear masks during Tuesday's briefing but has stopped short of calling for mask mandates and has mostly refused to wear a mask himself.

Read the original article on Business Insider
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New Delhi:

Tata Sons Chairman Ratan Tata on Tuesday met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the aftermath of the bitter removal of Cyrus Mistry.

Tata who was brought in back soon after Mistrys ouster in his place wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the changes in USD 100 billion conglomerate.

Tata and Jaitleys meeting went on for over 30 minutes. Though, the 78-year-old chieftain refused to comment on the discussion with Jaitley, who also heads the Corporate Affairs Ministry.

ALSO READ: (Tata-Mistry row: No unanimous support to Mistry from Tata Motors independent directors)

The government has so far maintained distance from commenting on the row, calling it an internal affair of Tata Sons.

On October 24, Mistry was abruptly removed as Chairman of group holding company Tata Sons Ltd after several rounds of allegations and counter allegations.

Earlier Mistry had backfired and called it a wrongful termination of him.

ALSO READ: (Tata-Mistry battle unlikely to hit TCS operations)

Tata Sons on the other hand accused Mistry of being a poor leader who was seeking to wrest control of some of key units. Mistry denied these allegations and termed them as unsubstantiated.
Bengaluru, July 22 : Karnataka's octogenarian farmer Kamegowda, whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently praised for digging 16 ponds around his village to conserve water in Mandya district, has tested Covid positive, his son Krishna said on Wednesday.

"As my 85-year-old father (Kamegowda) is an asthama patient and was having breathing problem, he was admitted to the state-run hospital in Mandya on Tuesday where his swab sample tested positive," Krishna told IANS over phone.

Kamegowda's village Dasanadoddi is 27 km from Mandya and 120 km southwest of Bengaluru.

"The district officials sent an ambulance to our home on Monday night and took my father and admitted him to the district hospital. As Covid test is mandatory for all patients, especially the elderly, his swab sample was taken on Tuesday and its result returned positive," Krishna said.

Kamegowda's family, including his two sons and daughters in-laws, have also given their swab samples for testing.

"We are under home quarantine awaiting our test results. As my father is asymptomatic and responding to the treatment, we hope and pray to god that he recovers soon," said Krishna.

Mandya Deputy Commissioner M.V. Venkatesh also told reporters that Kamegowda was asymptomatic and was responding well to the treatment.

Meanwhile, the district healthcare personnel are doing contact tracing to isolate and quarantine people besides Kamegowda's family members.

In his monthly radio programme "Mann Ki Baat" on June 28, Prime Minister Modi had said that with the onset of southwest monsoon in many parts of the country, people should practice rain-water harvesting to protect the environment, just like Kamegowda was doing in Karnataka even though he was over 80 years old.

"Kamegowda has dug 16 ponds through his hard work. He is a simple farmer, but his personality is extraordinary. The work done by him sets him apart from the others. At his age, Kamegowda takes cattle for grazing and has dug ponds in his village. When asked about his feat, he said as there was water shortage in his area, he was digging more ponds to conserve water for the people," Modi had said.

Though the ponds dug by Kamegowda may not be big, his efforts were huge, Modi said.

"Kamegowda is an inspiration for the people in the country, as he has been forming water bodies for over four decades, which have turned the Kundinibetta hillock green, providing water for drinking and farming," an official had said then.

The state government had honoured Kamegowda with the Rajyotsava award in 2019 in recognition of his yeomen community service.
India: Christians who refused to worship false gods beaten by tribal animists

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Tribal animists in India brutally beat three Christian families before driving them from the village over the believers' refusal to participate in celebrations in honor of the tribal deities.

Morning Star News reports that on May 20, the family of Bhima and Devi Markham were asleep in their beds in Devkupli Para, Chhattisgarh state when a mob of 15 villagers who follow the local tribal religion broke into their home and began beating them with wooden batons.

The family was forced to flee their home while the mob vandalized their belongings and threw away their food, angered by the Christians refusal to participate in celebrations in honor of the tribal deities. Animists worship gods based on ancestors, spirits, and nature.

In May, before the monsoon arrives, the tribal villages feast and drink and worship the tribal deities  Christians do not partake in these rituals, local pastor Ramdhar Kashyap told Morning Star News.

Such an event took place in the village in the day hours of May 20. They were feasting at a tribal villagers house near the Christians homes. Infuriated by the Christians refusal to join them in the celebration, they attacked them that night.

The assailants then beat Christians Chenna Markham and Joga Kunjam and their families, along with an unidentified elderly Christian woman, also driving them from their homes.

The three families including their children and the elderly sister, a total of 14 injured Christians, fled from Devkupli Para in different directions fearing for their lives, the pastor said.

The families traveled two miles on foot before reaching Kashyaps home. When they arrived, they were profusely bleeding, according to the pastor.

The Christians received treatment at a local hospital for a week. The pastor encouraged them to report the assaults to police, but initially, they were reluctant, as the assailants had threatened that they would be killed if the matter was reported.

Eventually, police summoned the assailants but seemed biased in favor of them, Pastor Kashyap said.

They said, Why are you committing only half-murder? If you want to really kill, close their chapter fully  commit full murder, he said.

Though the Christians have since returned to the village, they remain fearful for their future.

According to Morning Star News, the Christians had previously experienced persecution at the hands of the tribal animists. In February, the assailants tore down the Christians mud homes and attempted to expel them from the village

Since you have accepted Christianity, we dont want you people to stay in this village. You have defiled the village by bringing a foreign faith amongst us. We have no place for people like you in our village, a village elder said.



In May, it was reported that animists in Bastar District, Chhattisgarh, told five Christian families they would lose their harvest lands unless they returned to their tribal religion. When the Christians refused, they were beaten.

In April, after demolishing a pastors house and driving his family into the jungle, tribal animists in central India severely beat the Christian leader and threatened to destroy his vocal cords so he could no longer preach.

A recently-released report from the Delhi-based Evangelical Fellowship of India found that amid the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, Christians faced more opposition than ever from their communities because of their faith.

The report found that 135 cases of persecution occurred in the first half of 2020, including a lynching, community ostracization, and the sodomization and murder of two Christian men. However, EFI noted that many cases of persecution go unreported due to fear among the Christian community, a lack of legal literacy and, the reluctance or refusal of police to register cases.

Open Doors USA, a religious freedom monitoring group that operates in 60 countries, ranks India as the 10th worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution.

Incidents of persecution against Christians in India have increased since the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party took power in 2014, says Open Doors. The group warns that those who persecute Christians rarely face consequences from police.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on April 28 urged the U.S. State Department to add India as a Country of Particular Concern to its list of nations with poor records of protecting religious freedom.
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Technavio has been monitoring the data center cooling market size in Southeast Asia and it is poised to grow by USD 926.29 million during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of 15% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005702/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Data Center Cooling Market in Southeast Asia 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire).

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. 3M Co., Cisco Systems Inc., Daikin Industries Ltd., Eaton Corporation Plc, Emerson Electric Co., Fuji Electric Co. Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., Huawei Investment Holding Co. Ltd., NEC Corp., and Schneider Electric SE are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The rising adoption of mini data centers has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the lack of technical expertise might hamper the market growth.

Data Center Cooling Market in Southeast Asia 2020-2024: Segmentation

Data Center Cooling Market is segmented as below:

Technique Liquid-based Cooling Air-based Cooling

Cooling System Air conditioners Economizers Cooling towers Chillers Others



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44225

Data Center Cooling Market in Southeast Asia 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our data center cooling market in Southeast Asia report covers the following areas:

Data Center Cooling Market in Southeast Asia size

Data Center Cooling Market in Southeast Asia trends

Data Center Cooling Market in Southeast Asia industry analysis

This study identifies government support as one of the prime reasons driving the data center cooling market growth in Southeast Asia during the next few years.

Data Center Cooling Market in Southeast Asia 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the data center cooling market in Southeast Asia, including some of the vendors such as 3M Co., Cisco Systems Inc., Daikin Industries Ltd., Eaton Corporation Plc, Emerson Electric Co., Fuji Electric Co. Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., Huawei Investment Holding Co. Ltd., NEC Corp., and Schneider Electric SE. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the data center cooling market in Southeast Asia are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Data Center Cooling Market 2020-2024 in Southeast Asia: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist data center cooling market growth in Southeast Asia during the next five years

Estimation of the data center cooling market size in Southeast Asia and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the data center cooling market in Southeast Asia

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of data center cooling market vendors in Southeast Asia

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five Forces Summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Technique

Market segments

Comparison by Technique

Liquid-based cooling Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Air-based cooling Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Technique

Market Segmentation by Architecture

Market segments

Comparison by architecture

Room cooling Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Rack and row cooling Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by architecture

Market Segmentation by Cooling system

Market segments

Comparison by cooling system

Air conditioners Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Economizers Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Cooling towers Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Chillers Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Others Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by cooling system

Customer landscape

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Singapore Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Malaysia Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Indonesia Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Thailand Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Rest of Southeast Asia Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by geography

Volume drivers demand led growth

Market challenges

Market trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

3M Co.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Daikin Industries Ltd.

Eaton Corporation Plc

Emerson Electric Co.

Fuji Electric Co. Ltd.

Hitachi Ltd.

Huawei Investment Holding Co. Ltd.

NEC Corp.

Schneider Electric SE

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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The Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) and Shree Ram Sharnam have set up a 50-bed Covid Care Centre in the building of Shree Ram Sharnam Sewa Sadan located adjoining the hospital campus in Kitchlu Nagar.

The centre will be run and managed by DMCH doctors and other staff.

Deputy commissioner Varinder Sharma and commissioner of police Rakesh Kumar Agrawal on Wednesday visited the centre and appreciated the contribution in the battle against Covid-19.

Sharma said people from all sections of society should contribute during these testing times. He said Shree Ram Sharnam Sewa Sadan provided boarding and lodging to the attendants of patients at DMCH and had now helped set up the Covid Care Centre.

The centre was equipped with elevators, clean linen, dining area, air-conditioning and a dedicated team of DMCH staff to take care of Covid patients, he said, while urging other social organisations to also set up such centres, while assuring all possible help from the district administration.

The two officials, along with ADC (development) and other senior administration officials, also visited the local Fortis Hospital and urged the hospital management to increase the number of beds for Covid-19 patients.

Sharma said with the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, other private hospitals had also been directed to increase the beds on their respective premises.

Senior DMCH doctors Dr Gurpreet Singh Wander, Dr Sandeep Puri, Dr Bishav Mohan were also present on the occasion.
Jaipur, July 22 : Rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Wednesday served a legal notice to Congress MLA Giriraj Singh Malinga, who accused him of offering a bribe of Rs 35 crore to switch to the BJP camp.

Pilot also sought compensation of Re 1 along with an apology from Malinga within seven days, saying that he will otherwise initiate defamation proceedings against him.

This notice has been served by Pilot via his lawyer S.S. Hariharan.

The notice says, "We on behalf of our clients above named, hereby call upon all of you to pay to our client a sum of Rs. 1/- (Rupee One only) and to tender a written apology before the press for issuing a false and frivolous allegation, within seven days of the receipt of this notice failing which we have further instructions to initiate appropriate proceedings criminal and civil litigation, but not limited to suit for damages and complaint under section 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, as amended up-to-date against the above named addresses, entirely at your risk as to costs and consequences." The notice reads that Pilot was disturbed to know the allegations levelled against him by Malinga with sole intention of tarnishing his image and to obtain political mileage and to accrue undue advantage to his political opponent.

The notice reads, "You have alleged that my client had offered you, the noticee, monies to switch to BJP in the month of December 2018. It is surprising that you have remained silent for a period of over seven months and suddenly raked up the bunch of lies solely with a purpose to malign the impeccable reputation of my client." "At a time when my client has taken up onerous task of upholding self respect of himself and the people who he represents, you had raked up these allegations in order to obtain political mileage." "My client has in fact never spoken to you, the noticee, in regard to switching of political party much less offer any money to do the same. My client vehemently refutes the claims made by you. And once again emphasizes that the allegation made by you is absolutely baseless and frivolous." It further says that there is no truth in the statement as alleged by Malinga in the interview.


LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Computacenter Plc. (CCC.L) Wednesday said its adjusted profit before tax in the first half of 2020 has turned out to be substantially ahead of the same period last year.



In its trading update for the period to June 30, the company noted that most of its industrial clients have been quiet during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the company benefited from a surge in demand for IT equipment to enable home working.



Computacenter said its customers have turned to Services offerings and the skills of its people at the challenging and demanding time for corporate IT function.



The company now said its expected adjusted profitability in the second half of the year should be much improved on the forecast considered at the time of previous trading update in April. This reforecast indicates a reduction in uncertainty in our markets for the second half of 2020.



Looking ahead, the company said, 'Whilst for obvious reasons 2020 is a difficult year to predict, given the performance of the first half, which is behind us, the demand for our Services, the current Managed Services opportunity pipeline and the strength of our customer base, the Board believe that 2020, as a whole, will be a year of material progress for Computacenter, following a record-breaking 2019.'



Computacenter said it will provide more details during its interim results announcement on September 9.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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By PTI

WASHINGTON: Attacking China for its aggressive moves against its neighbours, including "instigating" a deadly confrontation with India in eastern Ladakh, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Beijing cannot threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas.

Speaking at a news conference in London on Tuesday, Pompeo said China was one of the important parts of his discussions with his British counterpart Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

"You can't go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You can't threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas.

"You can't engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organisation," Pompeo said.

Pompeo's comment on Chinese bullying of its Himalayan neighbours came in response to a question if the US would like the UK to do more to confront China.

"I don't think about it that way; we don't think about it that way. We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order," he said.

"We talked about how we've seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed. We've watched the CCP bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India," Pompeo said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5.

The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

China recently staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council and opposed funding to the project.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory.

China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The discussions between Pompeo and Raab came hours after the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to a controversial security law imposed by China in the former British territory.

He praised the UK for its recent decision on China in particular those related to Hong Kong and banning Huawei from the UK's 5G networks.

"I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the British government for its principled responses to these challenges. You made a sovereign decision to ban Huawei from future 5G networks. You've joined other free nations to condemn China's broken promises on the Sino-British treaty," he said.

The US wants to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy and values that and knows that it is important to their own people, their own sovereign country to be successful, to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them and to work both themselves and collectively to restore what is rightfully theirs, he said.

Describing his meeting with Raab as productive, Pompeo said that they talked about the challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the COVID-19 virus that originated from Wuhan, China.

"On behalf of the American people, I want to extend my condolences to the British people for your losses from this preventable pandemic. The CCP's exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi (Jinping) has shown the world the party's true face," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, during his interaction with London-based think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, described the Chinese military's aggressive activities "destabilising" and said America was "very closely" monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

Esper also highlighted the "increased" military cooperation with India and called it as "one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century.

" In his address, Esper said China has a catalogue of bad behaviour which accompanies a pattern of its brazen disregard for international commitments, from its failure to uphold its obligations under the World Trade Organization to regularly disrespecting the rights of other nations under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention.

Esper called on China's leaders to abide by the international laws and norms that China and the Chinese people have benefited greatly from over the years.

"We are committed to a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China and within our defence relationship to open lines of communication and risk reduction," Esper said.
Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, right and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo give a joint press conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Wed., July 22, 2020. (Thibault Savary/Pool Photo via AP)

Pompeo: US, Denmark Will Cooperate to Address Competition in Arctic From Russia, China

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday during his visit in Denmark that the United States will become more active in the Arctic to counter growing Russian influence and thwart attempts by China to insert itself into the region.

After talks with Denmarks Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Pompeo met with Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, Faroese Foreign Minister Jenis Av Rana, and Greenlandic Foreign and Energy Minister Steen Lynge, in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss and coordinate all aspects of Arctic policy including security.

The Arctic is a key interest to both Denmark and the United States, two of only five Arctic coastal states, said Kofod at the press conference after their meeting.

Both Denmark and the United States are aware of the increased global attention and military presence in the Arctic by Russia, Kofod said, they both want to uphold the provisions of the Ilulissat Declaration (pdf), adopted in 2008 by five arctic states bordering on the Arctic Ocean Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States.

The Declaration states that the melting of ice in the Arctic can potentially lead to the increased use of Arctic waters for tourism, shipping, research, and resource development and can impact vulnerable ecosystems, the livelihoods of local inhabitants and indigenous communities, and the potential exploitation of natural resources.

The declaration blocks the development of a new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean. The five signatories have a stewardship role in protecting [the Arctic ecosystem] and will address new possibilities and challenges.

Av Rana told Danish broadcaster TV2 he was concerned the Arctic could become a battleground for the United States and other major global powers, including Russia and China.

Were very worried if the Arctic becomes a playground or a scene of war for the great powers, av Rana said.

Pompeo welcomed Denmarks cooperation on the Arctic issues and said that at the meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland last year he asked free nations to work with the United States to enshrine shared values like freedom, transparency, sovereignty, and sustainability in the Arctic region, adding there are countries competing in the Arctic that dont always play by those rules, if at all.

The United States considers both China and Russia potential threats in the Arctic. I talked about the Chinese Communist Partys threat to freedom everywhere, to the people of Denmark included, Pompeo said at the press conference in Denmark.

At the Arctic Council meeting last year, he expressed concern over Russias aggressive actions in the Arctic like re-opening its Cold War Arctic military base, building new bases north of the Arctic Circle, as well as securing its presence through sophisticated new air defense systems and anti-ship missiles.

China has already invested nearly $90 billion in the development of the Arctic. China is developing shipping lanes in the Arctic Ocean, and plans to invest in building infrastructure between Canada, Northwest Territories, and Russia, Pompeo said.

The Pentagon warned that China could use its civilian research presence in the Arctic to strengthen its military presence, Pompeo said.

These investments can also be used by the Chinese regime as a tool of political influence and coercion, for example, to obtain rights to operate strategically located ports and terminals, Pompeo said.

The Chinese regime uses debt trap diplomacy or joint ventures to obtain the operating rights to strategically critical ports and terminals. It already controls major ports such as the Suez Canal Terminal in Egypt, the Euromax Terminal in the Netherlands, also known as the gate of Europe, and the Panama Canal.

Snow-covered mountains rise above the harbor and town of Tasiilaq, Greenland, June 15, 2018. (Lucas Jackson/File Photo/Reuters)

China has attempted to finance and build airports in Greenland but Denmark prevented it, U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands said when in an interview at the Hudson Institute in June.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, has chosen Swedish Ericsson over Chinese Huawei to supply equipment for its fifth-generation (5G) telecommunication network.

Kofod also welcomed the reopening in June of the U.S. Consulate in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland located only 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle, after its closure in 1953.

Kofod lauded economic cooperation with the United States and its commitment to fund projects.

The U.S. is one of Denmarks biggest trading partners. We aim to expand cooperation even further based on free and fair trade, Kofod said adding that both countries have a lot to offer each other.

The United States has also signed new memorandums of understanding to cooperate with partners in Denmark in areas like growing Greenlands mining and energy sectors through transparent investment, helping manage land and fisheries, increasing tourism, and much, much more, Pompeo said.

Well keep working to ensure that our Greenlandic neighbors benefit fully from the presence of Thule Air Force Base, he added.

Earlier this year, the United States provided $12.1 million in economic aid to Greenland in anticipation of expanding its presence in the Arctic area and also to protect its interests amid growing competition from Russia, and China, according to the State Department.

A view over the port in the Faroe Islandss capital Torshavn on Sept. 4, 2018. (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Pompeo also announced that the United States and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous Danish territory with some 52,000 inhabitants that is located north of Scotland between Iceland and Norway, have agreed to start a formal dialogue to talk about key issues like healthy fisheries and enhanced commercial engagement.

An innovative Faroese company specializing in cultivating seaweed, Ocean Rainforest will participate in a three-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to test seaweed cultivation in California, according to the company website. The goal of the project is to develop the necessary technology and machinery, and enable future production for high volume applications, including for bioenergy, a State Department factsheet says.

Faroe Island declined to sign a 5G contract with Chinese Huawei, which is considered an untrusted vendor by the United States, despite Chinese regime threats to drop a trade agreement with this autonomous territory, the State Department official said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(Alliance News) - British media company Daily Mail & General Trust PLC said the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference will be pushed back to November 2021.

ADIPEC is an oil & gas exhibition previously scheduled to take place in November 2020. The event, founded in 2012, hosts thousands of international exhibitors, presenting over 40,000 products and services.

The Dubai-based organisation said it will host the awards and conference segments of the event online, but key stakeholders have decided that to virtualise the entire exhibition would be unsuccessful. ADIPEC has said it does not anticipate significant earnings from this service.

The firm said it expects that the monetary losses of rescheduling the event will be compensated by its insurance cover.

DMGT said: "There will, however, be accelerated recognition of GBP3 million of costs in the current financial year."

The company said it will provide updates on its' events through its' nine month trading update on Thursday.

Shares of DMGT were down 0.8% at 648.00 pence each on Wednesday morning in London.

By Neetika Kurup; neetikakurup@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
A 25-year-old man has been charged with more than a half dozen felony crimes after two young teen girls were rescued from a Bessemer home in May.

Bessemer police have charged Joseph Clemons Jr. with rape by force, first-degree sex abuse, second-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, electronic solicitation of a child, enticing a child for immoral purposes and facilitating the travel of a child for unlawful sex acts. In all, there are nine warrants against Clemons.

The victims are ages 13 and 15, both runaways out of north Alabama. Jail records indicate Clemons is from Calera.

The investigation began Tuesday, May 12, when a Bessemer police officer conducted a traffic stop in the city. One of the people inside the car  the 15-year-old girl  initially gave police a false name, said Lt. Christian Clemons (no relationship to suspect). Once police determined her real name, they realized she had been reported missing from another county.

The girl was returned to authorities in her home county where investigators later learned she had been staying at a house in Bessemer and had been sexually involved with an adult male there, Lt. Clemons said.

Bessemer police went to the house in the 300 block of 31st Street Wednesday, May 13, to carry out a search warrant. Once there, they found the 13-year-old girl who also had been reported missing out of north Alabama.

That girl was taken to SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) for an examination. Lt. Clemons said there is no indication the girls were being held against their will but, because of their ages, they cannot consent to sexual activity with an adult.

Authorities believe the suspect initially connected with the girls via social and then went to north Alabama to pick them and bring them back to Bessemer.

The suspect was booked into the Jefferson County Jail Monday and remains held on bonds totaling $255,000.
As school districts across the nation announce that their buildings will remain closed in the fall, parents are quickly organizing learning pods or pandemic pods  small groupings of children who gather every day and learn in a shared space, often participating in the online instruction provided by their schools. Pods are supervised either by a hired private teacher or other adult, or with parents taking turns.

At face value, learning pods seem a necessary solution to the current crisis. But in practice, they will exacerbate inequities, racial segregation and the opportunity gap within schools. Children whose parents have the means to participate in learning pods will most likely return to school academically ahead, while many low-income children will struggle at home without computers or reliable internet for online learning.

As a social emotional learning specialist, I know how important connection, community and socialization are for children and adults. I also know that parents are being crushed under the weight of having to simultaneously parent, work, and teach their children. Nowhere is the anxiety, fear and devastation that is gripping our country more evident than in our education system. The appeal of learning pods is immense. For parents who need to work and cant supervise their childrens learning, joining a pod may feel like the only way they can educate their kids and keep their jobs.

Based on what Ive seen online, the learning pod movement appears to be led by families with means, a large portion of whom are white. Paradoxically, at a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has prompted a national reckoning with white supremacy, white parents are again ignoring racial and class inequality when it comes to educating their children. As a result, they are actively replicating the systems that many of them say they want to dismantle.
A pedestrian who was fatally struck in a suspected hit-and-run over the weekend in San Francisco was identified Tuesday as a 53-year-old city resident.

Michael Kingsley was struck around noon on Sunday in the area of Bayshore Boulevard and Jerrold Avenue, according to San Francisco police and the medical examiners office.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 02:37:55|Editor: huaxia

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U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Front) attends a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the United States, on July 21, 2020. McConnell said on Tuesday that the next COVID-19 relief bill will include a second round of stimulus checks to American households and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans for small businesses. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that the next COVID-19 relief bill will include a second round of stimulus checks to American households and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans for small businesses.

"Speaking of building on what worked in the CARES Act, we want another round of direct payments to help American families keep driving our national comeback," McConnell said on the Senate floor, referring to the 2.2 trillion-U.S.-dollar COVID-19 relief package passed in March, which included a one-time check of up to 1,200 dollars for individuals.

"With the majority of businesses expected to exhaust their initial Paycheck Protection Funding this summer, we'll also be proposing a targeted second round of the PPP with a special eye toward hard-hit businesses," he said.

Noting that COVID-19 infections are "climbing again in hot spots across the country," McConnell said the U.S. economy "needs another shot of adrenaline."

"The legislation that I have begun to sketch out is neither another CARES Act to float the entire economy, nor a typical stimulus bill for a nation that's ready to get back to normal. Our country is in a complex middle ground between those two things," he said, adding U.S. economic recovery "remains fragile and far from sufficient" despite of encouraging progress so far.

"We can't go back to April, and we can't snap our fingers and finish the vaccine overnight. We need to carve out a new normal," said the Senate Republican leader.

McConnell's remarks came as U.S. lawmakers are under immense pressure to craft a new fiscal package, including further aid to households and businesses, before a looming deadline for enhanced unemployment benefits.

Some 25 million Americans are set to lose 600 dollars a week each in federal unemployment benefits at the end of the month, according to local media.

U.S. Congress has provided roughly 2.9 trillion dollars in fiscal support for households, businesses, healthcare providers, and state and local governments, to blunt the economic impact resulted from the pandemic.

But the resurgence of COVID-19 cases across the country is threatening to derail the nascent economic recovery as many states have either paused or partially reversed their staged reopening plans.

The House of Representatives in May had passed a new 3-trillion-dollar coronavirus relief package, but it was proposed by Democrats and was not likely to gain approval from the Republican-held Senate. Enditem
"You must reside in Ward 3, and have been a resident in Ward 3 for at least a year," said borough Manager Christine Hart.
STATEN ISLAND N.Y. -- Last Thursday a bleeding dolphin drew sharks to the Jersey Shore coastline.

According to the Star-Ledger around 7 a.m. at Brant Beach on Long Beach Island beachgoers were called from the water just moments before the attack to place.

Kell Lutz a staffer at Fishermans Headquarters, a saltwater bait and tackle shop on Long Beach Island, captured the gruesome attack with his smartphone.

His co-worker Mike Frezza told the Advance/ SILive.com that a dolphin washing up is nothing out of the usual, but its rare to capture the moment of an attack on video.

Frezza explained that the locals in the area have been asking the store workers about the type of shark but there is currently no way of confirming that information.

Robert Schoelkopf, executive director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine told NJ Advance Media that after the attack researchers examined the shoreline in hopes of finding remnants of the dolphin in order to determine the type of sharks involved, unfortunately, they didnt find any.

The attack which coincidentally took place during National Geographics 5-week-long SharkFest, occurred just days after the non-profit group OCEARCH pinged a 12.9-foot, 1,348-pound female great white named Carolina in waters off the coast of New Jersey. However, there is no correlation between Carolina and the dolphin attack at this time.

Watch the video above to see the rarely-captured occurrence.
The most recent HPU Poll was fielded by live interviewers working remotely through the High Point University Survey Research Center, calling June 15  July 2 and July 5 - July 17, 2020. The responses from a sample of all North Carolina counties came from 422 registered voters interviewed on landline or cellular telephones. The Survey Research Center drew this sample from the voter file made public by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (https://www.ncsbe.gov/Public-Records-Data-Info/Election-Results-Data). The survey has an estimated margin of sampling error of approximately 4.8 percentage points for registered voter respondents. Taking into account a design effect as a result of weighting, the adjusted margin of error is 6.2 percentage points. The data is weighted toward population (NC registered voters) estimates for age, gender, and race/ethnicity based on the parameters of the full voter file at the North Carolina State Board of Elections as well as education level based on US Census estimates. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional error into the findings of opinion polls. Details from this survey are available at http://www.highpoint.edu/src/files/2020/07/72memoA.pdf
If you havn't done it yet,to get one of the fastest volcano news online:

Volcanologists in Severo-Kurilsk (Paramushir Island), about 7 km E of Ebeko, observed explosions during 15-16 July that sent ash plumes up to 3.6 km (11,800 ft) a.s.l. Ash plumes drifted SE, causing ashfall in Severo-Kurilsk on 15 July. A thermal anomaly over the volcano was identified in satellite images on those same days. ...

Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) Tokyo recorded continuous ash emissions that reachedaltitude and extending about 3 km to the south-east of the volcano. ...

Volcanologists in Severo-Kurilsk (Paramushir Island), about 7 km E of Ebeko, observed explosions during 17-24 July that sent ash plumes up to 3.5 km (11,500 ft) a.s.l. and drifted in multiple directions. A thermal anomaly over the volcano was identified in satellite images each day; an ash cloud 11x13 km in size drifted 30 km SE on 22 July. ...

Impressions from our tour to Kamchatka's volcanoes : remote Karymsky, Gorely, Mutnovsky, Uzon and Valley of Geysers, Klyuchevskoy volcano and more.

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A summary of the steel segment of South Korean mill Poscos earnings report for the second-quarter ended June 30, released on Tuesday July 21.

In brief



Operating loss of 197 billion won ($165 million) recorded for April-June, compared with an operating profit of 805 billion won in the same period of last year.

Overseas steel businesses incurred an operating loss of 93 billion won, compared with an operating profit of 38 billion won a year earlier.

Sales fell by 11% in second quarter due to lockdowns imposed in major markets to contain the spread of Covid-19 weakening downstream demand and prices.

Restart of No3 blast furnace in Gwangyang delayed to July from June; hot metal ratio to be adjusted.

Posco not expecting domestic automotive industry to recover fully in third quarter, although some car producers expected to increase operating rates in middle of quarter.

Domestic sales increased in response to trade barriers in major countries.

Steel imports from Japan and China totaled 4.3 million tonnes in the first half of 2020, compared with 5.1 million tonnes a year earlier. It is replacing imports from China and Japan with tailored solutions to domestic clients.

Sales of automotive and solar power structural steel amounted to 4 million tonnes in first half; Posco aims to sell 6.3 million tonnes in second half

Automotive steel sales alone totaled 3.1 million tonnes in first half; it expects to sell 3.8 million tonnes in second half.

Carbon steel productionTotal: 7.46 million tonnes, down 11% from 8.39 million tonnes a year earlierSteel salesTotal: 7.76 million tonnes, down 11% from 8.75 million tonnes a year earlierDomestic: 4.23 million tonnes, down 16% from 5.02 million tonnes a year earlierExports: 3.53 million tonnes, down 5% from 3.72 million tonnes a year earlierSteel inventory1.12 million tonnes, down 8% from 1.22 million tonnes a year earlier
In a dramatic escalation of tensions, the State Department has ordered the closure of China's Houston consulate  a move the Chinese on Wednesday called an "outrageous and unjustified" provocation

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the U.S. was acting to "protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced an indictment charging two Chinese nationals both in China  with hacking governments, dissidents, human rights activists and private companies, including those engaged in COVID-19 vaccine research.

Top Justice Department and FBI officials used some of their strongest language to date in condemning China as a rogue cyber thief, putting China in the same category as Russia, Iran and North Korea, the top U.S. adversaries.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson warned it would retaliate if the U.S. did not reverse the decision.

"The U.S. abruptly demanded that Chinas Consulate General in Houston cease all operations and events," the spokesperson said. "China strongly condemns such an outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-U.S. relations."

Emergency services had earlier attended the Chinese consulate after responding to reports of a fire but were denied access, Houston Police Department said. Under the Vienna Convention, which covers diplomatic missions, countries can refuse access requests from the host country.

China currently has its embassy in Washington and  in addition to Houston  consulates in New York, L.A., San Francisco and Chicago. The U.S. has its embassy in Beijing and has consulates in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenyang. It also has a consulate in the territory of Hong Kong.

The move was just the latest incident in a relationship between the two superpowers that has become increasingly strained.

President Donald Trump has regularly clashed with China over trade, accusing the country of taking advantage of the U.S.

Story continues

"President Trump insists on fairness and reciprocity in U.S.-China relations," Ortagus said, while repeating Trump's accusations that China is stealing American jobs and engaging in anti-competitive behaviors.

The president has further angered the Chinese by blaming the coronavirus pandemic on China, and frequently refers to COVID-19 as the "China virus" and "kung flu."

Hong Kong has proved to be another flashpoint with the administration angering China by siding with pro-democracy protesters in the former British colony of Hong Kong. The U.S. has also joined the U.K., Australia and Canada in suspending an extradition treaty with the territory following the imposition of a controversial new security law by the Chinese government.

Image: Flags are flown behind a pair of surveillance cameras outside the Central Government Offices in Hong Kong (Tyrone Siu / Reuters)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited British Prime Minister Johnson in London Tuesday in a meeting where the pair discussed Hong Kong and the need to protect against security threats from the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. Pompeo also met with a group of British lawmakers who are particularly hawkish on China.

Following months of pressure from the U.S., the British government this month reversed an earlier decision to allow telecoms giant Huawei a role in building the country's 5G network, banning the installation of the company's new technology from next year.

"We do not want to see the tit-for-tat between China and the U.S. happen in China-U.K. relations," the Chinese ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, said in a statement on Twitter Monday.

In an interview with the BBC, Liu warned the U.K. not to "dance to the tune of Americans" and instead urged Britain to pursue its "own independent foreign policy."

An article in China's Global Times  an outlet that's close to the ruling Communist Party  suggested that China could order the closure of the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong in response to the State Department's latest decision.
The private school sector is facing some harsh realities as India unlocks in fits and starts. If the economic crisis, which was already brewing before Covid-19 came along, worsens, private schools with little liquidity may be forced to shut down. A study titled 'State of the Sector Report, Private Schools in India' by non-profit Central Square Foundation raises an alarm regarding this impending reality and pegs uncollected fees at crores.

It calls for policy measures to resuscitate the situation for the private schools with ed-tech and providing the institutions an MSME tag.

Nearly, 50% of all students in India are enrolled today in the 4.5 lakh privately managed schools across the country (U-DISE 2019). The report was filed keeping in mind that while the policy ecosystem devises reforms to bring quality education to low income students through the government systems, many low and middle income Indian families are seeking private schools as alternatives.

Explaining further, it said, A state of the sector report on private schools  private schooling has become a widespread phenomenon in India  dominating urban schooling and making significant inroads into the way rural children study. The large and heterogeneous sector is often misunderstood as a niche sector primarily for the elite. Research findings on private schools are not known and regulatory focus is limited to inputs or fee control rather than improving outcomes.

To break from this stereotype and define policies for private schooling in India, the non-profit conducted the survey.

Key findings

Low-fee schools have seen a significant impact on revenue due to school closures, examination postponement, and widespread non-payment of fees for this period. The team found that none of the private schools reported that they collected fees during the lockdown, but around 25% parents report paying fees.

The fee collection cycles in private schools depend on the start and end of the school academic year; parents often wait until March-April till the end-of-the-year examinations, to pay the academics years dues.

More than 50% school owners surveyed have uncollected fees, to the tune of Rs 4 lakh to Rs 4.8 crore due from the previous year, accounting for 13% to 80% of annual revenue, said the report.

Some states including Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra ordered schools to refrain from collecting fees during the lockdown, forcing the institutions to forgo a large share of their annual fees, and not just the monthly fees for March and April. Haryana, Telangana, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh allowed schools to charge only tuition fee and Maharashtra warned schools of strict action if they withheld staff salaries.

Nearly 50% school leaders are considering a shift in pricing models in the upcoming year. They mentioned fee discounts/fee deferrals, pay cuts for staff and increasing class sizes as possible ideas, said the report

As per the findings: Financial distress for schools will continue even after re-opening as they anticipate drop in enrolments. A significant proportion of parents surveyed say they may have to switch schools for the coming academic year.

Another fallout expected is that enrolment in private schools may decrease in the short term. "Thousands of families migrated to their hometowns during the lockdown and might not re-enroll their children in the same schools next year, the report said.

Some parents might enrol their children in government school for this academic year. If the economic crisis worsens, private schools with little liquidity may be forced to shut down, said the report.

The survey captures the voices of the teachers and service providers who depend on schools for their livelihood and they expressed how they have experienced significant financial impact due to loss in school revenue.

Nearly 50% teachers didnt receive their salary for March despite schools closing only in mid-March. Less than 20% teachers from private schools continued to receive their salaries after March, said the reports key findings.

In order to sustain themselves, A few teachers in Telangana have found other means to earn their wages in the interim, including agriculture work, enrolling in MNREGA programs and manual labor, it said.

School services providers rely on the school-fee cycle and the timing of the closure has affected their revenues.

Learning continuity disrupted

While the majority of schools are attempting digital transitions through low-tech, WhatsApp-based tools or video classes, only 33% parents can support their children with digital education, and none of the teachers surveyed find current forms of online instruction effective, the study found.

Research on the effect of natural disasters on learning outcomes suggests that disasters impact lifelong earnings. Schools started using digital learning platforms to ensure learning continues during the lockdown.

More than 66% of the surveyed private schools have adopted WhatsApp as the mode for digital provisions of teaching, as per the report.

Schools are worried about enforcing online learning and setting in place accountability systems since many students dont have access to smartphones and internet. Teachers have adapted to online teaching and monitoring through WhatsApp groups even with reduced or no pay during the lockdown.

Nearly 50% teachers engage in teaching-learning through WhatsApp, said the report.

Teachers felt that slow learners and younger children were most affected by this shift due to the lack of personalised attention and the absence of immediate feedback.

With this the parents also have new roles to support home-based learning through online tools including allocating screen time, managing the learning environment and supporting younger children with learning tasks.

Nearly 33% parents can support their children with online learning at home, the report said.

Parents opine that key barriers to online learning are the lack of one-on-one teacher interaction, and managing learning discipline, especially for younger children.

Service providers quickly adapted to stay engaged with schools and parents by tweaking their existing solutions, adding technology-based products and providing complementary services. Some providers pivoted to support teachers, and school and school leaders with tools for online teaching. Service providers are attempting to provide low-cost products, with some pegging the latter at the schools typical transport fee, said the report.

Organisations working on socio-emotional skills have curricula and resources to support teachers and students with the skills required to navigate the current crisis.

Initial feedback on digital learning products seems promising. Though not seen as effective substitutes, teachers and parents feel they may be useful supplements to in-class learning.

Crisis policy response

The sector report has suggested that private schools require urgent support on both the learning and financial fronts, in the form of active dissemination of edtech products and learning solutions DIKSHA to private schools', relaxation of regulatory restrictions on operations and fees to allow the sector to recover from losses, and easy credit availability to private schools by including them in MSME so they can avail of loan guarantees.
PHILADELPHIA, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Updated COVID-19 projections released today by PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) show communities across the Northeast are struggling to fend off risk for virus resurgence as the south continues to experience significant growth in cases. The researchers are forecasting a rise in COVID-19 cases over the next four weeks along the New Jersey shoreline, up to New Haven, Conn., and as far north as Cape Cod, Mass.

For the past several weeks, PolicyLab's weekly projections have demonstrated growing risk for increased COVID-19 transmission up the I-95 corridor from the epicenter of Florida. These forecasts have been realized in Baltimorenow home to the nation's fastest growing outbreak in a major citywhich has seen significant case growth in the last week, and Philadelphia, which the model projects could see 200 cases daily by August 17. The boroughs of New York City continue to see elevated risk for virus resurgence, but at low enough levels that the researchers believe it could be turned around with an increase in social distancing and vigilance in mask wearing. However, projected case growth across New England, and around Indianapolis, Denver, and Chicago is concerning evidence that without national virus mitigation standards, the surge of this virus in the south will continue to threaten areas that had all but eradicated COVID-19 earlier this spring.

More encouraging, though, the researchers continued to see an increase in social distancing translate to improved case projections in hotspots across Arizona and California. While the sheer number of cases in these communities means these efforts will be slow to fully flatten the curve, this data supports the power of social distancing in reducing widespread transmission of COVID-19. The researchers expect to have a peer-reviewed publication this week that further elaborates on the effectiveness of social distancing as compared to other time-varying factors including weather.

"This has been a week of mixed emotions, as we see many school districts make the difficult decision to begin the new school year without in-school learning," said David Rubin, MD, MSCE, director of PolicyLab at CHOP and a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. "But I am encouraged to see that increased social distancing is improving our forecasts in the Southwest, areas around Austin, Texas, and in some of our largest cities, revealing that we can still reverse this tide. I can only hope that reticent leaders who have not yet regained control of spiking cases in their own communities will realize that universal masking policies need to be combined with smart sensible approaches to social distancing, like reducing gathering sizes and bar closures, to stop the continued surge of this virus. Otherwise, we're threatening our ability to regenerate our economy this fall and protect the health of children and families in advance of what could be a difficult fall and winter season."

For additional comments from lead investigators Dr. Rubin, Dr. Gregory Tasian, and Dr. Jing Huang on their updated forecasts and findings, read this blog post: https://policylab.chop.edu/blog/covid-19-outlook-dominoes-are-falling

Background

Researchers at PolicyLab at CHOP and the University of Pennsylvania developed the model, known as COVID-Lab: Mapping COVID-19 in Your Community, which tracks and projects COVID-19 transmission across 520 U.S. counties with active outbreaks, representing 71% of the U.S. population and 85% of all identified coronavirus cases. The researchers built their model to observe how social distancing, population density, daily temperatures, and humidity affect the number and spread of COVID-19 infections over time across a county, accounting for test positivity rates and population characteristics such as age, insurance status, crowding within homes and diabetes prevalence. COVID-Lab's projections forecast the number of coronavirus cases communities could experience over the next four weeks based on a three-day average of their current social distancing practices, defined by the change in travel to non-essential businesses as compared to pre-epidemic. A scientific review of the team's model and findings is available as a pre-print article ahead of peer review on medRxiv. The data are publicly available in the form of interactive maps and graphs.

About PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is dedicated to achieving optimal child health and well-being by informing program and policy changes through interdisciplinary research. Founded in 2008, PolicyLab is a Center of Emphasis within the CHOP Research Institute, one of the largest pediatric research institutes in the country. With more than 30 highly regarded faculty and 60 passionate staff who bring expertise from myriad of fields covering health, research and health policy, our work focuses on improving public systems, improving health care delivery and improving child health outcomes. For more information, visit http://www.policylab.chop.edu .

MEDIA CONTACT:

Lauren Walens, Strategic Ops & Comms Director

PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

[email protected] or (734) 904-2181

SOURCE PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Critics of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey have often insisted the states top law enforcement officer delves too much into activist legislation based on her own political views, rather than sticking to enforcement of the law.

They cant say that about Healeys ruling that shot down a Brookline bylaw which would have banned natural gas use in new buildings and renovations (with some exceptions). It would have taken effect on Jan. 1.

If we were permitted to base our determination on policy considerations, we would approve the bylaw,' Healey wrote. Her opinion devoted healthy space to more or less apologizing for having to rule against a bylaw she called well-intentioned.

The bylaw, modeled after an ordinance in Berkeley, California, was believed to be the first building gas ban on the East Coast. An estimated 30 California communities have adopted versions.

The immediate impact complicates efforts toward similar natural gas bans in Newton, Cambridge and Arlington. In her ruling, Healey said a municipality cannot use its limited authority to counter state policy designed for uniform utility service. She also said the Brookline bylaw conflicts with the state gas code.

Predictably, this decision does not end the debate over natural gas, fossil fuels and clean, green energy. In fact, it likely inspires climate activists to push more aggressively for state legislation to electrify buildings. That would have a direct effect on Western Massachusetts.

The attorney general signaled a willingness to work on this vital issue, and we stand ready to work in partnership with any and all state leaders who want to move forward aggressively with building electrification, Brookline Town Meeting and bylaw co-petitioner Jesse Gray said. One of those leaders is state Rep. Tommy Vitolo, of Brookline, who encouraged more involvement at the state level, as well as communication with Healeys office over what new proposals would pass legal muster.

In the long term, the tone of Healeys ruling is at least as important as its outcome. She prides herself as a champion of green causes. It sounds very much as if shes rooting for a new proposal that doesnt clash with existing law.

We shouldnt be surprised if proposed regulations similar to Brooklines receive attention on Beacon Hill. Healeys decision is a localized, temporary win for a natural gas industry that may face more sophisticated, widespread challenges as a result.
SEATTLE, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hatchback Cottages has secured a second round of funding and launched a robust new web application this week to provide Seattle homeowners with a turnkey solution for backyard cottages. The venture-backed company aims to help solve the region's housing affordability problem by increasing the supply of long-term rental units within single-family zoning, which makes up two-thirds of Seattle's land area.

Hatchback Cottages

Ron Sher, developer of Crossroads Shopping Center in Bellevue, Washington, and creator of the popular Third Place Books, and Dale Sperling, former CEO of Unico and founder of OneBuild, join former Weyerhaeuser Real Estate CEO Peter Orser on the Board.

Hatchback's end-to-end approach gives homeowners access to commercial real estate analytics to build a tailored financial forecast based on their goals and individual property economics. Homeowners then make informed decisions on which of Hatchback's six custom-designed units to choose from, and what financing to leverage.

"We're helping thousands of homeowners access the hidden value of their existing properties  all while participating in the housing economy," says Hatchback Cottages CEO Shannon Loew. "It's double-bottom-line real estate  increasing rental supply while stabilizing homeowners and communities."

Some 95,000 Seattle homeowners can currently have a cottage on their property under today's code, but the process is difficult  complicated financing, cost overruns, and the complexity of managing construction. Those are barriers to entry for the average homeowner holding a job or raising a family. Hatchback provides a complete solution by helping homeowners understand the economics, aligning financing, and offering an array of tasteful designs to fit Seattle's different neighborhoods. They then handle the entire permitting and construction process.

King County has reported it needs 244,000 units of just affordable units over the next decade to align supply with demand, illustrating the massive supply shortage in the region.

"This is a disruptive solution that will have significant impact on our region's housing supply problem, responding to the new ways we are all thinking about our homes given the current context," states Peter Orser.

"What I love about this business is how easy it makes the process for the homeowner," offers Ron Sher. "In seconds, Hatchback shows them the financial benefits and construction feasibility. And then handles the whole construction process with no aggravation or hassle."

Renting a Hatchback Cottage, the average homeowner can reduce their housing costs by 20% and grow equity 50% faster. And they can choose to put mom or dad in their backyard rather than a senior living facility or host their kids back from college while they navigate an uncertain economy. These are all options that are becoming increasingly important  creating options to keep more families in place by offsetting rising costs.

Hatchback Cottages is an incubation from FIX Impact Development, a 13-year-old real estate design firm that solves place-based challenges with system solutions. For more information, visit hatchbackcottages.com or email [email protected].

Media Contact: Shannon Loew, 617-331-2586, [email protected]

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The ending of every great show is a particular struggle, magnifying flaws and seeking closure as expectant fans hover. It's never easy, as devotees of The Sopranos, Lost and Game of Thrones can attest. But two weeks ago I witnessed the most audacious conclusion I've ever watched: at the end of its fifth and final season the creator of the masterful French espionage drama The Bureau, Eric Rochant, gave filmmaker Jacques Audiard carte blanche to write and direct the last two episodes.

Acclaimed for films such as A Prophet and the Cannes Palme d'Or winner Dheepan, Audiard had no previous involvement in The Bureau, which screens here on SBS on Demand. His two-part finale ignored some characters while delivering bitter vindication for others. The mood was bittersweet, with the show's tightly wound rhythms of deception contrasted by a lengthy subconscious set sequence. It was both an ending, and a distinct commentary on what had transpired over the previous 48 episodes. It was a complete and crushing finale.

Mathieu Kassovitz (centre) in The Bureau. Credit:SBS

Audiences in France, where the show is celebrated as the nation's finest television work, were divided, and rightly so. Rochant's gambit skirted the line where boldness becomes self-destructive. But it also made me look anew at the format of the television series. Even as the medium has moved from the dutiful edge of storytelling to its centre over the past two decades, the scripted television show's traditional structure has barely changed. One uniform season follows another until the title is no more.

As more television is made, increasingly fuelled by competing streaming services looking to build vast global audiences, and the bandwidth of creative voices pitching to a ravenous industry widens, the idea of a show and the form of a season are up for grabs. Television used to reward predictable repetition: until a decade ago a season was often 22 episodes long, ending with a cliffhanger to seed the following year's return. Now we're getting shorter, exclusive runs  the 10-episode limited series is the new norm.
A recent opinion by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals involving a case against the insurer of a Florida hotel could clarify an issue of sublimits and have a significant impact on how policies are written in the future, including policy endorsements.

In the case, StarStone National Insurance Co. v. Polynesian Inn, LLC, et al., the court affirmed summary judgment in favor of insurer StarStone and against insured, Polynesian Inn, LLC d/b/a Days Inn of Kissimmee (Polynesian), and Andrew James Bickford. The Atlanta-based federal court held there is no coverage under StarStones policy for the underlying incident involving a murder and attempted murder on the property of an insured hotel.

In the opinion, the Eleventh Circuit adopted StarStones proposed definition and interpretation of the term sublimit thereby providing clarity to insurers, insureds, and the public at large, on a term frequently found in insurance policies, but that Florida courts had never before defined.

Case Background

The underlying incident involved a murder and attempted murder of two men at a Florida Days Inn hotel, operated by Polynesian, resulting in wrongful death and negligent security claims. Specifically, in April 2017, a woman wielding a knife attacked Bickford and Zackery Ganoe while they were guests at a hotel operated by Polynesian in Kissimmee, Florida. Polynesian was insured under a primary policy with $1 million in limits applicable to each occurrence.

However, for assault and battery offenses, the limits were $25,000 per offense, per an endorsement  the A&B Endorsement. StarStone insured Polynesian under an excess policy and the policy did not provide coverage for any claims that were subject to a sublimit of liability in the primary policy.

StarStone argued the $25,000 limit applicable to assault and battery offenses under the A&B Endorsement was a sublimit in the primary policy and, therefore, its excess policy provided no coverage. Polynesian and Bickford argued the limit in the A&B Endorsement was not a sublimit, but rather, was a separate standalone limit. The Middle District of Florida granted summary judgment in favor of StarStone, which was appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

Circuit Court Decision

The Eleventh Circuit held that the definition of sublimit advanced by StarStone and adopted by the district court, i.e. that a sublimit caps a carriers exposure, or existing coverage, at an amount less than the otherwise applicable policy limit, is consistent with the ordinary meaning of that term, as reflected in legal and non-legal dictionaries.

The Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that Florida courts commonly adopt the plain meaning of words contained in legal and non-legal dictionaries, (Hegel v. First Liberty Ins. Corp.) despite Polynesian and Bickfords arguments to the contrary.The Eleventh Circuit rationalized that the $25,000 limit resulting from assault or battery would typically have been covered under the primary policys general $1 million per occurrence limit for bodily injury. The operation of the A&B Endorsement is to cap the primary carriers liability for that subcategory of loss to $25,000.

As aptly noted by the Eleventh Circuit, [i]n other words, the effect of the A&B Endorsement was to cap existing coverage for a particular subcategory of loss, not to create a new category of coverage that did not exist before the A&B Endorsement.

The appellants argued that if a limit is not subordinate to another limit, it is a standalone or separate limit, even if it is lower than some other limit in the policy. They argued that because A&B Endorsement is not expressly made subject to the $1 million-per-occurrence limit, it cannot be a sublimit of that limit.

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed Polynesian and Bickfords arguments, labeling them as convoluted. The Eleventh Circuit stated it fail[ed] to see why these facts would cause an ordinary person to view the A&B Endorsement as something other than a sublimit. In the courts words, Appellants own convoluted interpretation of the A&B Endorsement transcend[s] the common understanding of the ordinary person.' The court further noted appellants proposed interpretation is inconsistent with the policy as a whole.

The purpose and effect of the A&B Endorsement as a whole is to cap existing coverage for bodily injury for assault and battery offenses (which would otherwise be subject to the each occurrence limit of $1 million), to $25,000, not to provide additional coverage for that loss. The policy as a whole ensures that StarStone does not take on greater risk with respect to certain subcategories of loss unless there is some additional agreement to cover that loss.

Under appellants proposed interpretation, StarStones excess coverage responsibilities would be triggered at $25,000 for losses resulting from assault or battery, but at $1 million for nearly every other type of loss. That result is plainly inconsistent with the intent of the StarStone policy as a whole.

Case Implications

In StarStone v. Polynesian, the Eleventh Circuit has squarely held what constitutes a sublimit and provided a definition therefore that can be applied to differing circumstances and scenarios. The definition can be used by insureds, agents, and brokers as a guide to assess what limit is a sublimit and assure there is proper excess coverage for the same. Insureds, brokers and agents should also take a look at their policies in play, applying the definition set forth by the Polynesian opinion, and make sure they have appropriate coverage. If not, sublimits or specific coverages should be endorsed to assure coverage.

Finally, the opinion provides guidance in what the Eleventh Circuit deems to be a reasonable interpretation of a policy provision. While both StarStone and Polynesian provided proposed interpretations for the policy provisions at issue, the Eleventh Circuit unequivocally held that the proposed interpretation of Polynesian was such that no ordinary person would have interpreted the policy in such a fashion. In an effort to garner coverage, insureds aver various proposed interpretations of policy to create an ambiguity in a policy so that the ambiguity is construed against the insurer as the drafter, and in favor of the insured.

The opinion, however, sends a clear message and signal to policyholders, agents, and brokers that not all proposed interpretations of a policy provision will be sufficient to create an ambiguity in a policy; it is only when there are two or more reasonable interpretations of a policy.

There are various learning points from the StarStone v. Polynesian opinion that can and will be used in various future claims, cases, and coverage disputes. As discussed above, detail to the Eleventh Circuits opinion should be had to determine what coverage was obtained and intended, whether any limits need to be endorsed, and at what point an excess policys limits attach.

Editors Note: Loshak, Jurman, and Wyman represented StarStone in this case.

Topics Lawsuits Carriers Agencies Florida Excess Surplus
Twitter claims to be a modern-day public square wherein those without a forum can discuss, debate and share their opinions and views. However, it has evolved into a primary source of fabricated stories and copy farming for the media, the principal driver of policy for the political parties, particularly the Democrats, and a vehicle to intimidate businesses and major corporations.

On July 14 Bari Weiss, former New York Times opinion writer and editor, penned a scathing letter of resignation addressed to the publisher of the Times wherein she stated: Twitter is not on the masthead of the New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor.

A recent study by the Columbia Journalism Review concluded:

Twitter may not have the same globe-spanning reach such as Facebook, but one group of professional users has adopted it en masse: journalists. The lure of an always-on, news-heavy social network that includes access not just to an audience of consumers but direct input from news makers like Donald Trump is impossible to resist.

In a study to find out if journalists ascribe too much importance to Twitter, an experiment was conducted with 200 journalists. Some of the subjects saw only headlines from the Associated Press website while others were randomly shown tweets that contained the AP headlines but had been manipulated to look like anonymous tweets by any random Twitter user. The researchers then asked the journalists to rate the newsworthiness of the tweets. The result? Journalists who said they spent a lot of time on Twitter and rely on it for their work ranked the anonymous tweets as having equal credibility or more than the actual AP stories. This was particularly true for the younger, considerably less experienced journalists, who are now in the majority.

These researchers concluded that journalists oftentimes get caught up in a pack mentality in which a story is seen as important and must be published because other journalists on Twitter are talking about it, rather than because it is newsworthy and truthful. The examples are legion but among the most egregious was the mad dash by virtually the entire cadre of mainstream journalists to condemn the Covington Catholic boys based solely on a Twitter feed.

Another study revealed that tweets posted by Russian Agents working for a troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency found more than 30 news outlets -- including NPR, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed and The New York Times -- had willingly embedded copious amounts of anonymous tweets from fake accounts in their news stories on a wide range of political issues.

It is not just a reliance on Twitter for stories. Editors and publishers oftentimes react to the volume of tweets directed at their news outlet to determine what stories to publish, whether to rebuke a reporter or commentator or to tint a story with a certain, in virtually all cases left-wing, point of view. Falsely believing that Twitter is representative of not only their readership but the viewpoint of a vast swath of the citizenry, they react accordingly. It is not the accuracy or fairness of their reporting that is paramount but clicks on the internet and the number of positive Twitter comments and likes.

The hierarchy of the Democrat party has also become reliant on Twitter, as they seemingly believe the number of likes or retweets on a particular issue or individual is representative of a plurality of the people. Living in their Washington-New York bubble and estranged from the deplorables in fly-over country, they genuinely believe that Twitter is the townhall its creators claim. Their public pronouncements, their political strategy of destroying Donald Trump regardless of cost to the nation, their tacit approval of the tactics of Black Lives Matter and their self-destructive adoption of the Marxist/socialist policies of Bernie Sanders are driven by this belief.

This same mindset of believing Twitter represents America also permeates the boardrooms of the nations major corporations as well. It has become an unfortunate reality that a large number of tweets directed at the marketing, product development, hiring practices or political leanings of the executives of these companies will almost always succeed in forcing them to change course and if necessary pay restitution in order to be left alone -- whether that be through charitable contributions, direct payments or publicly confessing their supposed transgressions.

Who are the army of Twitter users that are having such a disparate impact on the nations media, politics and business? The Pew Research Center recently conducted a nationally representative and comprehensive survey of nearly 3,000 Twitter users and discovered:

Twitter users are much younger, significantly more likely to identify as liberal or Democrat, more highly educated and have higher incomes than the overall population. While 56 million Americans (17% of the total population) claim to use Twitter, just 10% of the users, or 5.6 million, are responsible for generating 80% of all the tweets in the U.S. Of this group of 5.6 million prolific users (who generate an average of 140 tweets per month) 65% are women. Additionally, 70% of users tweet about politics and 61% identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. The liberal or Democrat frequent users are by far the most active among the 5.6 million.

In other words, 3.4 million Twitter users that identify as Democrats are essentially driving the news coverage, the Democrat party agenda and, to a lesser degree, the Republican Party agenda as well as successfully intimidating much of the private sector.

This 1% of the overall population has convinced a willingly gullible ruling class that they represent a significant plurality of the citizenry. They have done so in conjunction with the Silicon Valley plutocrats and through the strategy of consistently generating directly or through bots (automated accounts) an overwhelming volume of tweets in order to promote the appearance of massive support or opposition about an issue or an individual.

What has the unprecedented elevation of just 1% of Americans achieved for those who have naively succumbed to this faux influence?

The mainstream media is losing its grip on the American people, as per a Gallup poll only 14% of the citizenry has a great deal of confidence in the media. Further, major news outlets are hemorrhaging red ink and laying off thousands of employees, a process that will accelerate during a Biden presidency.

The Democrat party, if Biden wins in November, will be an irretrievably fully-owned subsidiary of the radical left and will have to, under the threat of unending riots and violence, espouse and enact the lefts Marxist/socialist agenda.

By spinelessly trying to placate the Twitter mob, far too many major corporations have placed themselves in the position of succumbing to never ending extortion and will, thus, be helpless in avoiding a cascade of new taxes and onerous regulations were Biden to win the White House.

While these groups would be loath to admit it, the only avenue out of this self-created debacle is to stop paying attention to Twitter and hope for the reelection of Donald Trump in November.
It will be a pity if the nation is made to come to the conclusion that the other leaders have too many skeletons in their cupboards. AFP Photo

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhis statement that Prime Minister Narendra Modis strongman image is costing India dearly on the Indo-China border issue may have only rhetorical value but has pointed questions on what is happening there beg national attention and governmental response.

The citizens of this nation have not been told in clear terms on the nature of the aggression our eastern neighbour has made nor about the status of the Line of Actual Control now.

All that we have is the statement of defence minister Rajnath Singh, perhaps the most candid among those at the helm of the government, that there cannot be a guarantee as to what extent the issue would be resolved through talks.

He followed up the statement with the stated position of India: we have never attacked a nation and have never staked claim to any countrys land.

So what is the border issue all about? Are the Chinese still sitting on our land or is it that nothing has happened as the Prime Minister would swear?

True, the operational details of the defence forces are classified information but conjectures and speculations do not help the nation either.

The Bharatiya Janata Partys response to Mr Gandhis questions borders on the absurd. Instead of attempting an answer, party president J.P. Nadda takes to retorts and says the dynasty wanted to wash the sins of 1962.

The BJP president is well within his right to bring up historical events and put them on public trial as long as it helps bring out more truth and prepare us better.

But using history as a shield to evade uncomfortable questions is a puerile ploy, which cannot sustain itself for long.

Nadda must take credit in the fact that the government is now investigating his allegations about the Congresss Chinese connections and then leave it to the investigating agencies to find out the truth.

To bring up the matter again to deflect questions the principal Opposition party raises does not signal the moral strength of the ruling party.

He must instead advice the government to make a clean breast of the issue and answer the Opposition, and the nation, point by point. History did not end in 1962; it is being written even now.

While the BJP shies away from border questions, the other Opposition parties choose to sit in the gallery and watch the former Congress president ploughing a lonely furrow.

Not many Congress leaders are also coming to the aid of their former president either. This is curious. Gandhi and the trusts his family head started have been facing legal action by government agencies the moment they stepped up the attack on the government. This has not seemed to sober down Gandhi; he is more vociferous now.

It will be a pity if the nation is made to come to the conclusion that the other leaders have too many skeletons in their cupboards that their commenting on issues of national security would set the hounds after them. For the border belongs to the nation, not a single political party
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Bogota, Distrito Capital (Colombia)

Global Credit Research - 21 Jul 2020

New York, July 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Bogota, Distrito Capital (Colombia) and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

The baseline credit assessment of baa2 and issuer rating of Baa2 assigned to Bogota reflect the city's economic strength, which supports its high levels of own source revenues, as well as its solid governance and management practices. As Colombia's capital city, Bogota benefits from a diversified local economy and has historically maintained moderate debt levels and manageable cash financing requirements primarily driven by infrastructure spending. Moody's rating also considers its very strong liquidity levels, above regional rated peers.

Story continues

This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodology used for this review was Regional and Local Governments published in January 2018. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

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Mumbai, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/21/2020 -- Prismane Consulting is pleased to publish its Global Higher Linear Alpha Olefins (LAO) Market Study Report and Techno-Commercial Market Model. This report forms a part of the Refinery & Olefins Strategy studies recently published by Prismane Consulting.



In 2017, the demand for Higher Linear Alpha Olefins in Asia Pacific was estimated to be around 130 kilo tons. The region is likely to witness demand growth at a rate of 3.1% in the long term forecast till 2025. In terms of applications, Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) which is considered under detergent intermediates accounts for the largest share roughly estimated at 27.2%. The second biggest end-use of higher LAOs was for Polyalphaolefins (PAO) application roughly accounting for 20%. This was followed by surfactants & intermediates and lubricants together accounting for more than 24%. Oxo alcohols accounted for around 10% of the total demand while all other applications including plasticizer, oilfield chemicals, paper sizing chemicals together accounted for a share of 18%. The higher LAO market is also expected to be driven by the increase in demand for synthetic lubricants.



The major higher LAOs include:

- Decene-1

- Dodecene-1

- Tetradecene-1

- C16& Other Higher LAOs



In Prismane Consulting' Higher LAOs strategy report, we have analyzed the historic and current market situation ofHigher LAOs for different application and sub-application. The recent development in terms of capacities, expansions and investments have been considered in the report. Specific section on the formation of business alliance and joint ventures in Higher LAOs production value chain has been included. The changing trend in end-use applications like lubricants, fuel additives, adhesive & sealants, rubber manufacturing and other details have been analyzed.



The Higher LAOs Market Study Report 2020 describes the global Higher LAOsmarket, with focus on the country, applications and other end-use scenarios. The study provides:



Market Data, Country Summaries & Product Review

- Demand-Supply Balance& Market Analysis

- Higher LAOs Market data in terms of volume and value for each end-use at regional and country level

- Higher LAOs Market analysis for Production, Capacity, Demand, at Regional and Country level

- Demand Composition, by Type and Applications

- Pricing Analysis

- Latest Trends and market developments

- Key Players

- Process technology

- Strategic Issues and Recommendations

- Market / Product Outlook (Historical, Short, Mid and Long-term forecast)

- Business Opportunities & Challenges

- Strategic Analysis and High-level information on Market Entry, Best Strategies adopted



For more information about this report visit

https://prismaneconsulting.com/report_details/9/Global-Higher-Linear-Alpha-Olefins-(HLAO)-Market-Study-Report-2014-2030



About Prismane Consulting

Prismane Consulting is a unique consulting and market research firm providing management, economic and technical expertise across the global Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Polymers, Materials and Energy value chain. The company has been advising clients on their key strategic issues solving their toughest and most critical business problems. We have helped some of the fortune 500 companies develop their strategic plans by tracking and interpreting market dynamics.

Prismane consulting has completed a number of multi-client studies and projects. It offers Market Studies, World Analysis and Strategy Reports related to Refining, Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Plastic & Polymers and Materials.



Contact Us:

Mr.Rakesh Panigrahi

Chemicals & Energy, Prismane Consulting

Tel: +91-20-67277711/12, +33 6 64397294

Email: sales@prismaneconsulting.com
During a phone call Tuesday, the US president and Abu Dhabis crown prince discussed diffusing the Libyan crisis as a new battle looms in the strategic city of Sirte.

Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who is the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, and US President Donald Trump discussed a range of regional security issues including the importance of de-escalation in Libya through the removal of foreign forces, the White House said in a readout of the call.

The UAE is one of the many foreign powers drawn into Libyas six-year war, offering its support to the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter. The renegade commander, who also counts Egypt and Russia among his sponsors, is fighting the Turkey-backed internationally recognized government.

The UAE views Hifter as a stopgap against the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements in the region, and according to the United Nations has routinely supplied him with military hardware in violation of an international arms embargo.

Why it matters: Trump has pushed for an end to hostilities in the North African country during a series of phone conversations with his counterparts in Turkey, Egypt and France. Of major concern to Washington is the steady flow of weapons and foreign fighters prolonging the war, particularly from Russia.

Last week, the Pentagons internal watchdog reported as many as 2,500 fighters associated with the Russian private security company Wagner Group and as many as 3,800 Syrian fighters paid for by Turkey were in Libya during the first three months of this year. The United Nations has also expressed concern over the paid fighters pouring in from Russia, Syria, Chad and Sudan.

Whats next: The looming battle over the oil-rich city of Sirte could set off a direct confrontation between two major powers in Libyas war, Turkey and Egypt. The Ankara-backed Government of National Accord is mobilizing outside the coastal city, which Hifters LNA has occupied since January.

Egypt, which supports Hifter's effort, is poised to enter the fray. The Egyptian Parliament gave President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has described Sirte as a red line, the green light to deploy troops to Libya on Monday.

Know more: Check out Metin Gurcans take on Ankaras rising profile in Africa and read the latest in the war of words between Turkey and Egypt over Libya.
More than 700 undersize and illegally caught lobsters have been seized by the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA).

A tip-off from a member of the public led the SFPA to find and seize 86 illegally caught lobsters from a recreational fisherman in the south-east.

A vivier lorry, designed to carry live shellfish in water tanks, was also detained in Rosslare with approximately 6,000 lobsters on board destined for Spain.

Almost 700 of these lobsters were caught illegally.

All lobsters were returned alive to the sea and the SFPA is preparing a file for the DPP.

Since 2016, legislation to support fisheries and protect marine ecosystems has been in force.

Under this legislation, recreational or private fishers can catch one lobster daily and are not allowed to sell their catches.

Shellfish must also be a minimum size to be caught legally in Irish waters by both commercial and recreational fishers.

Lobsters that have been v-notched  where a female lobster's tail has been clipped to warn fishers that she is female and recently spawned  must be returned alive to the water so they can continue to breed.

However, more than 630 undersize lobsters and almost 60 v-notched lobsters were seized from the lorry.

Susan Steele: Actions of a few fishermen undermine those operating legitimately.

Investigations are underway as to the origin of these fish, which the SFPA believes were collected from the north-west and west of the country, some of which may have originated from the North.

Dr Susan Steele, chair, SFPA, acknowledged the support of the public in alerting the SFPA and encouraged people who have concerns about suspected illegal fishing or activity that could compromise food safety to contact their local SFPA port office.

The volume of such a find of undersize lobsters is both significant for the future viability of the fishery and concerning given the scale of the find," said Ms Steele.

"The fishery for lobster is one of the most traditional fisheries among coastal communities and the mainstay of many small vessels fishing all around the coast of Ireland.

"The actions of a few fishermen selling undersize and v-notch lobsters undermine the legitimate fishermen trying to maintain a sustainable fishery and livelihood.

Call the SFPA confidentially on 1890 76 76 76 or email sfpa_info@sfpa.ie.
Gov. Wolf,

Your recent decision to withhold federal aid funds from Lebanon County is not just about the past, but most importantly, it's about the future. Our residents and business owners deserve to know if this means that Lebanon County is on its own for the remainder of this pandemic.

In March, when you ordered non-essential businesses to close their doors, you promised that you would help those businesses. Lebanon County was not excluded then and it should not be excluded now. The truth is, our residents and our businesses have complied with your orders and we have been doing our part. The good people and businesses of Lebanon have acted no differently than the other Pennsylvania counties. Of the thousands of businesses in our county, how many can you name that opened prematurely or defied your orders? Will you punish an entire county for the actions and words of a few when the vast majority of those people sacrificed and complied?

Take up your fight with the individuals in which you need to and do it without potentially sacrificing the livelihoods of thousands of innocent people. Making good on a threat that clearly should never had been made in the first place makes you true to your word, but it also makes you another enemy and another obstacle for our people to overcome. You speak to us about consequences, but what about the consequences of your actions now? The people have endured so much this year already and now we have to be pawns in what amounts to a political tit for tat. The hard-working taxpayers of Lebanon have contributed to those government funds proportionally, just as much as anywhere else.

Gov. Wolf, this is the second time you've isolated our county from the rest of the state and the people of Lebanon do not need to feel your scorn for us any longer. Right now, our people need to hear that you love us just as much as you love the rest of Pennsylvania, even if there are some people here that you don't. If you withhold aid funds from us now, going forward, the citizens of Lebanon County will have little confidence in your and your administration's leadership and it will perpetuate resistance to future orders and mandates. Do what's right by the people and do it now!

Kevin Bartal, Lebanon County resident and small business owner
Playing violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty won't make children more aggressive, a new study finds.

Researchers from Massey University, the University of Tasmania and Stetson University reviewed multiple long-term studies into video games and aggression.

They found no evidence of a substantial link between 'aggressive game content' and signs of anger or rage later on in childhood.

'Poor quality studies' in the past likely exaggerated the impact of games on aggression, while better quality studies show the effects of gaming are 'negligible'.

Regulation of violent games also did not appear likely to reduce aggression in real life, suggesting parents shouldn't worry about their kids shooting up virtual enemies.

Real-life displays of violence, such as mass shootings in the US, have famously been blamed on video games by some politicians, rather than lax gun regulation and easy access to firearms.

Following a shooting in the US last year, US President Donald Trump said America needs to 'stop the glorification of violence' by 'gruesome and grisly video games'.

Society and scholars continue to debate whether violent video games have a long-term impact on youth. But playing violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty won't make children more aggressive, a new study finds.

'Studies do not appear to support substantive long-term links between aggressive game content and youth aggression,' the researchers say in their paper, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

'Correlations between aggressive game content and youth aggression appear better explained by methodological weaknesses and researcher expectancy effects than true effects in the real world.'

The study was led by Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University in Florida, who previously dismissed the causal link between video games and violent behaviour.

He told the New York Times last year: 'The data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive. Literally. The numbers work out about the same.'

The meta-analysis considered data from 28 long-term outcome studies with approximately 21,000 participants to examine the long-term impact of violent game play on aggression

Whether aggressive video games contribute to aggressive behaviour in youth has been a matter of contention for decades, since the earliest cabinet and Atari 2600 console games in the early 1980s, Dr Ferguson and his team say.

Despite almost four decades of research on the link between gaming and aggression, 'no consensus has been reached'.

More than 100 experimental studies have been conducted on aggressive game effects.

But analysis suggests publication bias  a tendency to refrain from publishing stories that yield negative findings or don't support a hypothesis  led to 'overstated confidence' in the idea that gaming causes real life aggression in the short term.

'Experimental investigations of the short-term effects of aggressive game content on player aggression produce inconsistent results,' they say.

Overall, evidence suggested that violent video games like Grand Theft Auto (pictured) did not have an appreciable impact on later aggression. In some cases, poorer quality studies may have exaggerated the impact of games on aggression, with better quality studies clarifying that such effects are 'negligible'

However, there is also the possibility of gaming having long-term effects  with displays of aggression arising months or years later, or into adolescence and even early adulthood.

To learn more, researchers performed a meta-analysis of data from 28 long-term outcome studies with approximately 21,000 participants to examine the long-term impact of violent game play on aggression.

Overall, evidence suggested that violent video games did not have an appreciable impact on later aggression  the long-term impacts of violent games on youth aggression was found to be 'near zero'.

The researchers call on scholars and professional guilds such as the American Psychological Association (APA) to be 'more forthcoming' about what is an 'extremely small observed relationship' between violent games and youth aggression.

The psychology division of the APA previously said in a statement: 'Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlational connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities.'

This is unlikely to be the final word on the issue as academics continue to analyse different data sets with different approaches.

Researchers said there is as much of a conclusive link between playing violent video games and being violent in real life as 'on bananas causing suicide'

In 2018, another team of academics reported that young gamers were more inclined to be physically aggressive with their peers and find themselves scolded by authority figures at school.

Data produced a correlation between titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and Manhunt and increased physical aggression with prolonged use.

Conversely, last year a team reported that although people who played video games as a child were more likely to get into fights as an adult, gaming could not be pinpointed as the cause.

Other factors such as gender and environment may have just as important role to play in people becoming violent as adults, the researchers claim.
COLUMBIA  A South Carolina judge has temporarily blocked Gov. Henry McMaster's decision to use $32 million of federal coronavirus aid to fund vouchers that help parents afford private K-12 tuition in the upcoming school year.

Skyler Hutto, an Orangeburg attorney and the son of Democratic state Sen. Brad Hutto, argued in a court filing that McMaster's plan violates a portion of the state constitution preventing the government from funding private or religious education.

Orangeburg County Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson granted Hutto's request for a temporary restraining order Wednesday morning until arguments can be heard in court, expected next week.

In response to the decision, McMaster's spokesman Brian Symmes said, "Working families in South Carolina are struggling to make ends meet during this pandemic and every parent should have the opportunity to choose the educational instruction that best suits their childs needs."

"Federal coronavirus relief cannot, and should not, be denied to any citizen in need," Symmes added.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston's spokeswoman Maria Aselage argued the court order "hurts low- and middle-income parents who want to continue sending their children to the school of their choice."

"Every child deserves the opportunity to learn in the educational environment that best suits his or her needs, whether it is a public, private, or religious school," Aselage said.

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But the decision received support from several Democratic state lawmakers and U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-Charleston, who tweeted that public funds should go to public schools.

Under McMaster's plan, announced earlier this week at Hampton Park Christian School in Greenville, an estimated 5,000 students would be eligible for one-time grants of up to $6,500, which is roughly what the state spends, on average, per student in a public school classroom.

The $32 million program would take up about two-thirds of the money from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act sent directly to the Governors Office for education relief. McMaster had sole authority over how to spend it, unlike the $1.9 billion to reimburse COVID-19-related expenses, which the Legislature insisted on controlling.

Hutto filed the lawsuit on behalf of Thomasena Adams, a public school educator who lives in Orangeburg. He cited a section of the state constitution that reads: "No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution."

The lawsuit also points to a 1971 S.C. Supreme Court ruling that found using public funds to provide tuition grants to students attending religious institutions violates the state constitution.

However, that ruling came two years before the state constitution was amended, replacing a ban on direct or indirect funding for religious institutions with a ban on public funding only for the "direct benefit" of religious or private schools.
"If you're waiting for your test result at Coles or Woolies, or you're waiting for your test result at your place of work, that will drive transmission  that will drive transmission really significantly," Mr Andrews said. "If you feel sick, get tested, and get tested quickly. Then while you're waiting for your result, wait for your result at home. Away from other people. Not at the supermarket. Not at work. Not anywhere else." The Victorian government department overseeing the state's COVID-19 response has recorded two positive cases in its own ranks. The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Wednesday two staff members were isolating and contact tracing was under way. An asymptomatic prisoner who was in ''protective quarantine'' at the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall and three teachers at Malmsbury Youth Justice Centre also tested positive.

Mr Andrews and Health Minister Jenny Mikakos flagged a potential expansion in the criteria for a one-off $1500 hardship payment to people who would lose income if ordered to self-quarantine because they tested positive for coronavirus. To date, 1200 people have applied for the payment, but it is unclear how many people have received the payment and what the average time was between applying for the support and receiving it. However, the Premier said health authorities would "double and triple our efforts" in processing applications. He urged workers without access to paid sick leave to call 1800 675 398 to apply for the support payment. Despite the emerging clusters in high-risk settings, including aged-care facilities and abattoirs, Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said harsher New Zealand-style lockdowns would not work in Victoria, where the vast majority of cases  about 80 per cent  have been as a result of workplace transmission.

Loading Lockdown 2.0 has prevented Victoria recording thousands of new cases each day  as initial modelling predicted  but there are signs the return to restrictions has been less effective in changing people's behaviour than the first. "It's much harder to bring people with you a second time," said Doherty Institute epidemiology director Jodie McVernon. There are 3408 active cases in Victoria, with growing numbers of such cases each day with no known source. An outbreak at St Basil's Homes for the Aged in Fawkner has grown to 69 cases, 18 more than on Tuesday. Estia Health in Heidelberg now has 26 cases, Arcare Aged Care in Craigieburn has 30 and Estia Health in Ardeer has 54.

Another nine cases have been linked to an outbreak at JBS abattoir in Brooklyn, bringing the total number to 47. The Australian Lamb Company in Colac now has 17 cases and Somerville Retail Services in Tottenham has 61. Professor Sutton dismissed the notion that the numbers of cases with no known source meant there were delays in contact tracing. He said there was "no specific need" to bolster the state's contact-tracing team, made up of more than 2000 people. "The bottleneck is not in outbound calls  we could get through 1000 cases if we had 1000 cases today," Professor Sutton said. He revealed that one-third of Victorians who had been contacted by the Health Department had not answered their phones. The department was now aiming to door-knock people identified as close contacts on the same day they received a call if they did not answer their phones, he said. Mr Andrews warned that if numbers continued to rise, the six-week lockdown, imposed two weeks ago, would be extended.

Victoria Police said the first week of the mask wearing regulation would be a significant adjustment and police would use discretion on fines. Loading Those with a valid reason, such as a medical exemption, will not be required to wear a mask. People can also remove their masks while they are running, eating, drinking, smoking, driving alone, in emergencies or when police request it be removed. Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, a GP at Altona North Respiratory Clinic, said he had received many requests from patients for exemptions in recent days but he was being strict. My patients need to have a good reason for it, because we cant spend all our lives writing letters that are nefarious, he said. And my message to those patients is to then take extra precautions. If you jump out of a plane and dont want a parachute, then find a safer way to come down to the ground.
Even at a young age, Vincent Sebastian Ibarria wanted to serve in the military.

At first it was the Air Force. His father, Daniel Ulysses Ibarria, said that happened as his young son flew from San Antonio to Los Angeles to visit. Later, he thought about the Marines.

But he chose the Army.

On Wednesday morning at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, Spc. Ibarria was given a soldiers burial nearly three weeks after his death in Afghanistan.

Tom Reel /Staff photographer

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Ibarria was the first San Antonio serviceman killed in a war zone to have crowds at the cemeterys funeral shelter limited to 10 family members and guests. But the rule wasnt enforced  close to 20 people sat or stood there.

As a final touch, his mother, Blanca, cradled a white homing pigeon in her hands and released it, sobbing heavily. She raised her eyes and arms skyward and cried as seven more pigeons were released a few feet from Ibarrias silver casket.

The first bird symbolized the release of Ibarrias spirit. The pigeons that followed represented family members or comrades who had gone before.

I understand that sometimes our children dont come home, but Im grateful, Daniel Ibarria, 46, of Yuma, Ariz., said after the service. Im really proud of him.

Tom Reel /Staff photographer

Ibarria, 21, was killed July 3 while serving with a 10th Mountain Division combat team in Farah, a town 15 hours west of Kabul. Recently married, Ibarria and his wife, Arleene, had been making plans when he died in a rollover accident.

He was the ninth U.S. soldier and the second from San Antonio to die in Afghanistan this year. Another soldier, 1st Lt. Joseph Trent Allbaugh, 24, of Folsom, Calif., since has joined a list that now stands at 2,451 Americans who have fallen there over the past 181/2 years.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio native killed in Afghanistan

At the shelter, everyone on hand wore masks, including veterans who flanked Shelter No. 4, flags in hand. A pair of soldiers from an Army honor guard removed the U.S. flag from Ibarrias casket and slowly folded it.

The release of homing pigeons is called the escort, said Jeanie Williams, owner of Loft of Love White Bird Releases.

When she let that bird go, my heart just sank, said Williams, who lost a son, Ratheal Anthony Williams, 40, to colon cancer two years ago.

Tom Reel /Staff photographer

Another group of mourners stood in the shade across the street, among them Oscar Rosales and John Bradley. Both served in Ibarrias unit, the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, during the Vietnam War.

The unit had been part of the 4th Infantry Division when it went to Vietnam, and then was merged into the 25th Infantry Division in 1968, one of the most violent years of the war. The 22nd Infantry since has become part of the 10th Mountain Division.

Im just an old soldier who came out to honor him because he was in our unit, which is stationed in Afghanistan right now, Bradley, 74, of San Antonio said, recalling that former San Antonio Spurs chairman and CEO Peter Holt served with him in the same company during the Tet Offensive.

Im here for the same thing, said Rosales, 72, a Corpus Christi native who served in Vietnam in 1968-69 and now lives in San Antonio.

Tom Reel /Staff photographer

Rosales said he and Bradley were Ibarrias brothers  Brothers forever.

Though soldiers in his unit had said Ibarria, an infantryman, talked of leaving the Army so he could become a nurse, his father said his boy wanted to be a career soldier.

Most of all, he was about family.

My son, with his busy schedule, he made it a huge effort to always contact his little sisters when he was out in Afghanistan, and his two younger sisters were always looking forward to reaching and talking to him, Daniel Ibarria said. And before he was deployed, he made sure he visited his grandmother, his grandparents.

Soldiers in his platoon described Ibarria as great at his job and passionate about what he did.

One GI told the 10th Mountain Division public affairs office that Ibarria always volunteered.

He was the type of person who would choose the hard right over the easy wrong, the soldier added, referring to the famous West Point cadet prayer, Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole truth can be won.

The division has said little about the accident that killed Ibarria. His unit, the 1st Brigade Combat Team, deployed from Fort Drum to Afghanistan near the end of February. The division headquarters replaced the 1st Armored Division as a command-and-control element for American forces in the country.

The 10th Mountain deployment was to run nine months.

On ExpressNews.com: Family, friends salute slain GI in his San Antonio hometown

In February, Sgt. 1st Class Javier Jaguar Gutierrez of San Antonio and Sgt. 1st. Class Antonio Rey Rodriguez of Las Cruces, N.M., were cut down during an insider attack in Nangarhar province southeast of Kabul. Both were 28.

Standing with friends after the burial ceremony, Daniel Ibarria said his son had traveled a lot and learned about different cultures, often going to museums. Married in December in upstate New York, Ibarria and his wife talked about having a lot of children.

He always had a plan, a bigger plan. He wasnt looking at four years, he actually had a long-term plan. He wanted to just help people. He was very helpful, always with a smile. He enjoyed making people laugh, said the elder Ibarria, a truck driver.

He loved to be outdoors because when he was a little kid I took him camping a lot. He loved just living life, serving, that was his calling. He wanted to make sure he served our country well, he added. Im really proud. Im very proud of him. I understand that not all the children get to grow old, and hell be young forever.

Sig Christenson covers the military and its impact in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Sig, become a subscriber. sigc@express-news.net | Twitter: @saddamscribe
New Delhi: Vodafone Idea has said that the postpaid plans consolidation is now completed, post which all Idea post-paid subscribers will now come under a single umbrella of Vodafone RED

Vodafone India and Idea Cellular merged their mobile businesses in August 2018 to create Vodafone Idea Ltd and the move to migrate postpaid customers to Vodafone Red is a part of the company's synergy plan.

After the consolidation move, all Vodafone Idea postpaid customers can now avail benefits of the Vodafone RED plan. The Vodafone RED plan provides for uniform customer service and an enhanced digital experience.

Henceforth, Vodafone RED postpaid plans will be available to customers from all stores and digital channels of both Vodafone and Idea brands.

"While all new postpaid customers will be on-boarded directly to Vodafone RED plans as per their usage and preference, all existing customers of Idea Nirvana, the postpaid offering under the Idea brand, will be migrated to similar Vodafone RED plans," the company said in February 2020.

The change is applicable to enterprise Idea postpaid customers as well.

The company had said that prepaid products will continue to be offered under both Vodafone and Idea brands nationally across all circles via respective retail and digital channels enabling customers to enjoy a rich portfolio of services and benefits under their preferred brand.
Despite being one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, Australia also has some of the highest property prices and average rents in the world too, particularly in our biggest cities. Sydney has long had a reputation for being one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, and Melbournes growing population density (and housing market) means theyre not too far off.

For young professionals in Australia, its a huge concern. Do you need to keep living at home until youre in your thirties so you can afford to put a deposit down on a house? Or do you risk exploring the rental market and wind up having to share a tiny flat with seven other housemates?

With the economic crunch brought on by The Pandemic, theres never been a more important time to ensure your dollars are going as far as they can. DMARGE spoke exclusively to Leo Patterson-Ross, CEO of the Tenants Union of NSW, who gave us his analysis of the Australian property market right now.

COVID-19 has probably been the most disruptive influence on renting in many years, Patterson-Ross says.

But whether it is [any] easier or harder to find a new home really depends on how much COVID-19 has effected you. Obviously, if youve got decent income and you are looking in a few of the areas that have been desirable (and extra expensive) with really high vacancies then now is one of the best times weve seen in a decade or more.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Domain (@domain.com.au) on Jul 12, 2020 at 1:01am PDT

We also know people who have lost their work and might be surviving on Jobseeker who are struggling because they dont have current employment, and for people who were already finding it unaffordable it might have even gotten worse because of a huge number of people moving into more affordable areas.

The vacancy rates and falling rents havent appeared in those areas, and in some places have gotten worse. Places like Penrith or Campbelltown are at their lowest vacancy rates since 2017 or 2016.

Even though there are vacancies to be found and people have been able to change their living arrangements, its not necessarily because the markets looking really good or rents are particularly low.

Many people moved out of where they were living, and didnt move to a better deal  they moved back in with family, because that was all they could afford to do, Patterson-Ross relates.

How To Get The Best Deal

So things are still tough. How do you make sure youre not getting ripped off, especially in these difficult times?

The basics havent changed  do your research, try and work out how many other people are interested in the property and how long it has been on the market, Patterson-Ross says.

But there are some tricks to keep an eye on. If a property is being advertised without a big reduction, it might mean that the landlord is feeling confident the local market hasnt been as badly affected and demand will still be high. It might also mean they havent caught up yet and will be open to lower offers. It could also mean that theyre happy with taking the loss and claiming it through negative gearing  they dont need you as much as you need them.

On the other hand, big reductions could be a great deal  it could also mean theres big problems and moving in will be 12 months with wet walls and mould.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by realestate.com.au (@realestateaus) on Jun 15, 2020 at 1:52am PDT

The reality is that negative gearing, as well as other economic factors, has made the Australian property market a particularly unforgiving place  and The Bat Kiss hasnt changed that just yet.

However, many tenants and landlords are hoping that COVID-19 might be a shock to the system, as its revealed the problems with the market. Going forward, maybe well see more progressive policy and market change, thinks Patterson-Ross.

Theres even plenty of landlords right now wondering if letting the market decide the rent is really the best idea  they thought it was great when rents only went up. Long-term stability isnt as fun as eye-watering profits, but maybe its actually what wed all be better off with.

How To Re-Negotiate A Better Deal With Your Current Landlord

Maybe moving out isnt an option, and youd rather try and work with your current landlord to get a better deal on your rent. The upheaval of The Pandemic might be just the opportunity you need to re-order things back in your favour.

There isnt one set outcome everyone should get to, but the only way to get there is just to start, Patterson-Ross explains.

Explain your situation and what you need and then make sure you get anything you agree to in writing. How much is it, how long will it last for  and what happens if the world is still upside down at the end.

If you arent getting a response or cant agree to a renegotiated rent, get advice from your local Tenants Advice service and then in touch with the relevant government department in your state. [For example] in NSW thats NSW Fair Trading.

The Tenants Union of NSW also has a handy guide for renting during COVID-19 with advice on asking for a rent reduction or renegotiation, which is relevant for prospective renters looking for a place anywhere in the Australian property market.

Good luck, and hopefully you find a nice place that doesnt break the bank.

Read Next
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway is pointing the finger at states who blew through voluntary administration guidelines to reopen bars and restaurants, only to see coronavirus infections spike after painful lockdowns.

'Some of these states blew through our gated criteria, blew through our phases and they opened up some of the industries a little too quickly, like bars,' the advisor and former campaign manager to President Donald Trump said at the White House Wednesday.

She said she was a 'loud voice' in coronavirus task force meetings to say 'look are we going to open bars now or schools in two or four or six or eight months?'

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway says some states 'blew through' criteria on when to reopen from coronavirus lockdowns

President Trump has threatened to withhold funding from schools to push them to reopen, even as coronavirus infections have spiked in recent weeks.

The pressure comes as U.S. infections approach the 4-million mark, fueled in part by young people socializing and going to bars and restaurants that governors hastened to reopen to help their economies.

'As a nation we probably want to open both, but as a nation I know there are many people that just need the certainty of are their kids going back to school full time, or are they learning at home,' Conway told reporters.

'Remember, the governors wanted complete latitude over when they would open their states. They pushed back heavily, handsomely, Republicans and Democrats when it was falsely rumored that the president was going to be in charge of opening the states.

When a reporter told her Trump encouraged states to reopen, she responded: 'But not everybody has. And remember he pushed back on the governor of Georgia, a Republican.'

President Trump helped encourage protests to 'liberate' states from lockdowns

Florida governor Ron DeSantis holds a press conference regarding COVID-19 at OneBlood Headquarters Monday, July 20, 2020 in Orlando, Florida. The press conference was disrupted by protesters. Trump mentioned Florida as part of a hot spot of cases in the 'sun belt'

Trump said Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp may have reopened his state too soon

Health care workers take information from Ashley Perez and her daughter Hailey Garcia before they are tested for COVID-19 in a medical tent at a testing site locate at the Miami Lakes Youth Center on July 22, 2020 in Miami Lakes, Florida

'The president was on the record doing that long before these other states decided whether they would reopen or not,' she added.

Trump back in April had used Twitter and public statements to bolster anti-lockdown protests, as he did with his 'LIBERATE MICHIGAN!' tweet amid protests.

He reportedly backed Kemp's plan to quickly reopen Georgia, even though it had not yet met guidelines for reopening established by the coronavirus task force and the Centers for Disease Control.

But then he told Kemp, a Republican Trump loyalist, 'I think it's too soon.'

Earlier this month, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci issued a warning about rapid reopenings.

'There are some times when despite the guidelines and the recommendations to open up carefully and prudently, some states skipped over those and just opened up too quickly,' he said.

He also called out Florida, which the administration held up as a model before a spike in infections there. 'Certainly Florida I know, you know, I think jumped over a couple of checkpoints,' Fauci said.
This time last year, Boris Johnson marched into the summer recess with the lumbering swagger of an all-conquering prizefighter.

In his first appearance in the Commons as Prime Minister, he pummelled Jeremy Corbyn through the ropes. Battered. Banjaxed. Jezza looked so punch drunk its a mercy he didnt require smelling salts.

Boris rarely emerges quite so blemish-free these days. In Sir Keir Starmer, he faces a more adroit performer.

Their final PMQs until September yesterday ended up being a decent end-of-term scrap: a good old back and forth across the despatch box. By the end, both will have waltzed off for the hols reasonably happy.

Sir Keir kicked off the session by announcing that, under his leadership, national security will be the top priority for Labour. One would think this might be the priority for any political party until you consider the fondness Starmers predecessor held for the bearded mullahs of Iran.

He began by asking about the intelligence and security committees report on Russia, which criticised the Governments negligence towards possible electoral interference. Why, Starmer asked, had such a vital report sat gathering dust in Downing Street for nine months?

The final PMQs until September yesterday saw Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured) scrapping with Opposition Leader Kier Starmer over national security and the Russia report

The Prime Minister was not going to be out-manoeuvred on security, least of all by Labour. Reputations, after all, are not easily disposed of. One does not simply shed them the way a boa constrictor wriggles from an old skin.

Boris brought up the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury. Remember when Corbyn refused to condemn Vladimir Putin?

Sir Keir sat on his hands and did nothing while Labour parroted the lines by the Kremlin.

Starmers lips flapped and flubbered with indignation. Not true! Hed condemned the Salisbury attacks. Hed even  gasp!  supported Theresa May on the issue at the time.

Whats more, as Director of Public Prosecutions, hed actually brought proceedings against Russia over Alexander Litvinenkos murder.

Do yer homework, Borrrrris! someone heckled from the opposition benches. Deputy leader Angela Rayner, I think. Someone with Ms Rayners impressive timbre at any rate.

A din developed as each side took turns to flex their security credentials. It was good sport. Starmer kept pressing on the reports delay. Why had the PM been so slow to deliver it?

Boris again ignored the question. He claimed Starmers obsession with the report was all about pressure from Islingtonian Remainers who still couldnt accept the EU referendum result. That old people versus the elite card again.

Starmer gave one of his long, weary sighs. As a lawyer, hes used to having his lines of inquiry treated with respect. Here, his well-structured, sensible questions are met with pre-prepared gags and insulting ya-boos.

As a lawyer, Starmer (pictured top) is used to having his lines of inquiry treated with respect. Here, his well-structured, sensible questions are met with pre-prepared gags and insulting ya-boos, writes Deedes

Labours benches began to show their frustration. Rubbish, Ben Bradshaw (Lab, Exeter) kept yelling. Mr Bradshaw, incidentally, has taken to wearing a fetching leopard skin face mask in the Chamber.

The PM regurgitated his claim that Starmer changes his views from day to day. The leader of the opposition has more flip-flops than Bournemouth beach, he harrumphed.

Starmer, at last, had come prepared for this attack.

This from the former columnist who wrote two versions of every article! he replied  a reference to the two articles Johnson wrote for and against EU membership as he wondered which side to back in the referendum.

This was a half-decent retort, but Starmer delivered it almost reluctantly.

He took no pleasure in being hauled into Boriss circus arena. He looked almost ashamed, the way an ambitious student might after being convinced to partake in some daft drinking game in the union when hed much rather be having intellectual discussions back in halls.

The Labour leaders best moment came when Boris reminded the House how Corbyn had once regularly appeared on Moscows state-controlled channel Russia Today. Labour is under new management, Starmer replied proprietorially.

Indeed it is. Whether enough voters will warm to them any more than they did the previous lot is another matter.
The Australian sharemarket is poised to open higher after Wall Street finished a mixed session strongly. Shortly before 7am AEST, futures are pointing to a gain of 7 points, or 0.1 per cent, at the open.

1. Sentiment continues to improve, but price action mixed: Sentiment continues to improve in global markets, though last nights price action proved more mixed than that of previous days. The VIX dropped to 24, while Wall Street stocks firmed, after what was a pull-back in equities during European trade.

It was an up-and-down day on Wall Street. Credit:AP

European and commodity currencies are outperforming still, and the Dollar is weaker. However bond yields continue to grind lower, and gold surged to a new 9-year high. Overall, there remains a bullish skew to market action. But of course, several key risks have kept market participants on their toes.

2. Tesla and Microsoft deliver generally positive Q2 results: One source of market turbulence overnight was positioning for a ramp-up in US earnings season. The NASDAQ lagged broader US stock indices, seemingly as traders positioned for some key corporate results this morning. Tesla and Microsoft delivered their earnings this morning, and on balance, the numbers were positive.
Tan Yit Liang (middle), deputy general director of VSIP Quang Ngai, receiving the award

The ceremony took place at Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi and broadcasted live on the Hanoi Channel.

The award assessment has leveraged diverse criteria, including how Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) Quang Ngai has developed its infrastructure in accordance with environmental protection requirements, how the integrated township and industrial park model of VSIP Quang Ngai has provided unities as well as applied new technologies for sustainable development, or what effective methods VSIP Quang Ngai has used for environment and resource management.

The award for VSIP Quang Ngai once again confirms the significance of providing an integrated work, live, and play environment through the integrated township and IP model.

The contribution to local community development was another important factor.

The award for VSIP Quang Ngai once again confirms the significance of providing an integrated work, live, and play environment through the integrated township and IP model.

VSIP Quang Ngai was built on 600 hectares of land in Dung Quat Economic Zone and 520ha of adjacent urban land with an investment capital of $337.8 million in 2013.

It has attracted a total of $733 million in foreign direct investment and created jobs for over 35,000 workers.

VSIP Quang Ngai, located 8km north of Quang Ngai town in Son Tinh district, is one of eight VSIP-style parks nationwide, including in the provinces of Bac Ninh, Haiphong, Hai Duong, and Nghe An, in addition to three IPs in Binh Duong province.
Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/22/2020 -- Latest added Global Online Education Software Market research study by AMA Research offers detailed outlook and elaborates market review till 2025. The market Study is segmented by key regions that are accelerating the marketization. At present, the market players are strategizing and overcoming challenges of current scenario. The study explored is a perfect mix of qualitative and quantitative Market data collected and validated majorly through primary data and secondary sources.



Major Players in This Report Include,

IBM (United States), Oracle (United States), Ellucian (United States), Microsoft (United States), SAP (Germany), EIVA (Denmark), Docebo (Canada), Google (United States), Adobe (United States), Articulate (United States), ProProfs (United States), Blackboard, Inc. (United States) and McGraw-Hill Education, Inc. (United States).

Free Sample Report + All Related Graphs & Charts @: https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/sample-report/128917-global-online-education-software-market

The main purpose of online education software is teaching/training or self-learning. The software is developed for generating simulated onboard instrument data. These days, education software constituents of the individuality of a school as they could deliver all the associated tasks. Software at present even delivers the facility and access to parents for a bird's view of the progress of their children in the classroom. Online education software is developed for addressing the needs of a student who has special needs. The system is joined with assistive software that offers students with special needs an effective learning platform.

The latest edition of this report you will be entitled to receive additional chapter / commentary on latest scenario, economic slowdown and COVID-19 impact on overall industry. Further it will also provide qualitative information about when industry could come back on track and what possible measures industry players are taking to deal with current situation. Each of the segment analysis table for forecast period also high % impact on growth.

This research is categorized differently considering the various aspects of this market. It also evaluates the upcoming situation by considering project pipelines of company, long term agreements to derive growth estimates. The forecast is analyzed based on the volume and revenue of this market. The tools used for analyzing the Global Online Education Software Market research report include SWOT analysis.

The Global Online Education Software segments and Market Data Break Down are illuminated below:

Type (Authoring System, Graphic Software, Tutorial Software, Educational Games, Drill and Practice Software, Math Problem Solving Software, Others), Application (State Universities, Community Colleges, Private Colleges), Deployment Mode (On-Premises, Cloud-Based), Function (Learning Management System, Result Tracking, Customizable Learning, Others), Learning Model (Collaborative Learning, Adaptive Learning, Social Learning, Blended Learning)

For Early Buyers | Get Up to 20-50% Discount on Various License type of this Premium Version of the Report: https://www.advancemarketanalytics.com/request-discount/128917-global-online-education-software-market

Market Drivers

- Increasing Internet Penetration across the Globe

- Rising Demand for Digital Education

Market Trend

- Technological Advancement Associated with the Online Education Software

- The Rise in Deployments of Tablets in Educational Institutions

Restraints

- Lack of Digital Clarity and End Users

Opportunities

- Evolving New Opportunities for Traditional Educational Institutions

- Increasing Perspective in Emerging Nations

The regional analysis of Global Online Education Software Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. North America is the leading region across the world. Whereas, owing to rising no. of research activities in countries such as China, India, and Japan, Asia Pacific region is also expected to exhibit higher growth rate the forecast period 2020-2025.



Highlights of the report:

- A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent market

- Important changes in market dynamics

- Market segmentation up to the second or third level

- Historical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volume

- Reporting and evaluation of recent industry developments

- Market shares and strategies of key players

- Emerging niche segments and regional markets

- An objective assessment of the trajectory of the market

- Recommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the market



Limited scope research document specific to Country or Region meeting your business objective.

GET FULL COPY OF Latest Edition of United States Global Online Education Software market study with COVID-19 Impact Analysis @  USD 2000

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Strategic Points Covered in Table of Content of Global Online Education Software Market:

Chapter 1: Introduction, market driving force product Objective of Study and Research Scope the Global Online Education Software market

Chapter 2: Exclusive Summary  the basic information of the Global Online Education Software Market.

Chapter 3: Displaying the Market Dynamics- Drivers, Trends and Challenges of the Global Online Education Software

Chapter 4: Presenting the Global Online Education Software Market Factor Analysis Porters Five Forces, Supply/Value Chain, PESTEL analysis, Market Entropy, Patent/Trademark Analysis.

Chapter 5: Displaying the by Type, End User and Region 2014-2019

Chapter 6: Evaluating the leading manufacturers of the Global Online Education Software market which consists of its Competitive Landscape, Peer Group Analysis, BCG Matrix & Company Profile

Chapter 7: To evaluate the market by segments, by countries and by manufacturers with revenue share and sales by key countries in these various regions.

Chapter 8 & 9: Displaying the Appendix, Methodology and Data Source

finally, Global Online Education Software Market is a valuable source of guidance for individuals and companies.

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Key questions answered

- Who are the Leading key players and what are their Key Business plans in the Global Online Education Software market?

- What are the key concerns of the five forces analysis of the Global Online Education Software market?

- What are different prospects and threats faced by the dealers in the Global Online Education Software market?

- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?

Definitively, this report will give you an unmistakable perspective on every single reality of the market without a need to allude to some other research report or an information source. Our report will give all of you the realities about the past, present, and eventual fate of the concerned Market.

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The cases include 16 staff members and three juveniles at the center, officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health said in a news release. The facility houses approximately 80 youth per day and has 140 employees, according to its website.
South African anti-apartheid icon Andrew Mlangeni, who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela, has died aged 95.

Mlangen was the last remaining survivor of the historic 1963-64 Rivonia Trial, which sentenced activists including Mandela to life imprisonment.

He spent more than a quarter of a century imprisoned on Cape Town's notorious Robben Island before his release in 1989.

Mlangen was admitted to a military hospital in the capital Pretoria on Tuesday with an abdominal complaint before the presidency announced his death earlier today.

South African anti-apartheid icon Andrew Mlangeni (pictured) has died aged 95 after being admitted to a military hospital in Pretoria on Tuesday

In a tweet, he wrote: 'President Cyril Ramaphosa has learnt with deep sadness of the passing away overnight of the last remaining Rivonia Trialist.'

His death 'signifies the end of a generational history and places our future squarely in our hands,' he declared.

Mlangeni was born in the Johannesburg township of Soweto before he joined the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC) in the early 1950s.

By the 1960s, he was among the first groups of liberation fighters to be sent outside of South Africa for military training.

But when he returned two years later, he was arrested.

Mlangeni stood trial alongside Nelson Mandela in the 1963-64 Rivonia Trial (pictured together after their release)

The eight-month Rivonia Trial (1963-64), named after the Johannesburg suburb where the ANC leaders were arrested, brought the struggle against apartheid to world attention.

Expecting to be sentenced to death, Nelson Mandela declared in a three-hour speech from the dock that freedom was 'an ideal for which I am prepared to die'.

Instead, Mandela and Mlangeni, along with fellow leaders Ahmed Kathrada and Dennis Goldberg, were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mlangeni served 26 years behind bars before his release.

Mlangeni spent more than a quarter of a century imprisoned on Cape Town's notorious Robben Island before his release in 1989 (ANC leaders speaking after their liberation, from left to right, Raymond Mhlaba, Oscar Mpetha, Andrew Mlangeni, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed M. Kathrada, Elias Motsoaledi and Wilton Z. Mkwayi)

Mlangeni was the last surviving Rivonia trialist (pictured at the ANC official send-off ceremony for Nelson Mandela in Pretoria on December 14 2013)

With the advent of democracy, Mlangeni served as a member of parliament under the now-ruling ANC from 1994 to 1999.

He was awarded the Isithwalandwe Seaparankwe, the ANC's highest honour, in 1992.

Seven years later, he received the Presidential Order for meritorious service, which was awarded to him directly from Mandela.

Among recognition abroad, Mlangeni was honoured with the freedom of the City of London in 2018.

The ANC described Mlangeni (pictured in 2013) as one of the most outstanding fighters and humble servants in the fight for freedom

The liberation icon lost his wife June, with whom he had four children, in 2001.

The ANC described him as one of the most outstanding fighters and humble servants in the fight for freedom.

'Death has robbed the people of South Africa of one of its finest sons, who valued the freedom of his people more than his own life and personal comfort,' the ANC said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi arrived in Tehran July 21, heading a high-ranking delegation to discuss the bilateral relations in various aspects, including security cooperation and expanding economy relations.

Kadhimi was welcomed officially by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

The relationship between Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran is not just a matter of having 1,485 kilometers [923 miles] of common borders, but it is rooted deeply in a long history of cultural, social and religious interactions, Kadhimi said during a joint press conference with Rouhani.

Rouhani affirmed that the two countries have agreed to expand the trading relations to $20 billion and to move forward with many infrastructure projects, including connecting Iran's railway to the railway system of Iraq through the Shalamcheh-Basra railway, and cleaning and dredging Shat al-Arab river in the southern province of Basra.

The railway link will allow Iran to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea via Iraq and then the Syrian railway system. The Shat al-Arab project is also a strategic project for the two countries as it will allow large ships to enter this water corridor and access internal ports, which would boost the two countries' trading with the world.

Rouhani emphasized that Iran wants Iraq as a strong Arab country.

In the same line, Kadhimi confirmed that Iraq wants to build a constructive relationship with Iran, affirming that the relationship between the two countries must be based on principles of mutual respect and particularity of each country and to not interfere in each other's internal matters.

The two leaders both emphasized Iraq's role in preserving and improving security in the region, highlighting the necessity of working together to deescalate tensions.

We are keen to avoid getting involved in any regional axis and we do not want to be a source of threat to any of our neighbors, Kadhimi noted.

He also met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khameneis approach was also in line with Rouhani's discourse, focussing on respecting Iraq's sovereignty and to not interfere in its neighbors internal matters.

Iran does not interfere in Iraq-US relations, Khamenei said. Iran wants a strong, independent Iraq with full territorial integrity and internal harmony. Iran is certainly against anything that weakens the Iraqi state.

It is clear that Iran is changing its discourse and approach toward Iraq after the assassination of its top commander Qasem Soleimani in January.

The wave of protests in Iraq has shocked the Iranians who believed that Iraq had come under their full influence, at least the Shiite part of the country. However, the protests are taking place in particular in the Shiite areas, with the main theme of the rejection of Iranian interference in Iraq's matters.

The protesters see Iran's role in Iraq through a bunch of notorious militias and Islamic political parties that prioritize Iran's interest over the Iraqi national interests.

The selection of Kadhimi from outside of this camp provides an opportunity for Iran to change and reorient its policy toward Iraq.

The first sign of this change appeared when Iran replaced the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force with various diplomatic apparatuses in dealing with Iraq. From 2003 until the assassination of Soleimani, the Quds Force was in charge of dealing with Iraq completely. However, Iranian diplomats  including the Ambassador to Iraq Iraj Masjedi, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani  have been meeting Kadhimi regularly.

By inviting the Iraqi prime minister, Iran's changing discourse becomes apparent, which has been received positively by the Iraqis.

However, practical steps are needed, too  the first and most important one is curbing the pro-Iran militias' ambition and illegal activities. Armed militias have been firing rockets at foreign diplomatic missions and Iraqi state facilities continuously during the last few months. They are refusing to obey the prime minister's orders, and even sometimes criticize harshly the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces.

Iraq is seeking to recast its ties with Iran based on sovereignty and mutual respect. That means Iran backing off from its support of armed groups outside of Iraqi government control. Kadhimi is also making clear that Iraq should not be a battleground between the US and Iran, and that Iraq can be a hub for good relationships with all its neighbors.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 13:23 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406686820e 1 National Idul-Adha,Day-of-Sacrifice,Holiday,religion Free

The government announced on Tuesday that Idul Adha (Day of Sacrifice) would fall on July 31.

Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi made the announcement after holding a limited isbat (confirmation) meeting at the ministerial office in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

He explained that in declaring the date of Idul Adha, the ministry and several Islamic organizations had taken into account hisab (astronomical calculations) and rukyat (lunar movement observations).

The minister also said that 12 out of 84 observation locations across Indonesia had spotted the hilal (crescent moon), thereby marking the first day of the month of Zulhijah.

Based on the hisab, the position of the hilal is on the horizon. Meanwhile, based on rukyat, the hilal has also been spotted. By consensus, it has been decided that the first day of Zulhijah falls on Wednesday, Fachrul said.

[Thus], Idul Adha will fall on the 10th day of Zulhijah, Friday, July 31, he added.

Observance of the holy day includes congregational prayers in the morning, followed by the slaughtering of sacrificial animals, the meat from which is distributed to the poor.

Nevertheless, based on Circular No.18/2020 issued on June 30, the Religious Affairs Ministry has banned the public celebration of Idul Adha in red zones or areas with high transmission of COVID-19.

People who wish to participate in congregational prayers are required to wear masks and bring their own prayer mats. However, children and the elderly are prohibited from participating, as they are considered at high-risk of contracting the virus.

Meanwhile, the qurban (sacrifice) processions require butchers to refrain from touching their faces and everyone included in the process must adhere to health protocols.

Indonesias second-largest Muslim group, Muhammadiyah, has also called on its followers to not to hold public congregational prayers. Instead, they have been advised to conduct Idul Adha prayers at home with their families or a small congregation in their neighborhood to prevent further transmission of COVID-19. (trn)
Global coronavirus infections surged past 15 million today, according to a Reuters tally, with the pandemic gathering pace even as countries remain divided in their response to the crisis.



In the United States, which has the highest number of cases in the world with 3.91 million infections, President Donald Trump warned: 'It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.'



The top five countries with the most cases is rounded out by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the world's infections and half its deaths.



Read Full Story .... dailymail.co.uk >>> :

















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The Christopher Columbus statue outside Union Station in Worcester will remain in place after the City Council voted Tuesday night to file an order by District 4 City Councilor Sarai Rivera to remove it.

The 8-to-2 vote to file the Riveras order essentially ends the debate on the matter and further action on the order.

Councilors Morris A. Bergman, Donna Colorio, Candy Mero-Carlson, Sean Rose, Gary Rosen, George J. Russell, Kathleen M. Toomey and Matthew E. Wally all voted to file the order.

Councilors Khrystian King and Rivera voted against filing the order while Mayor Joseph Petty recused himself from the vote.

Days after the Columbus statue was vandalized with red paint last month, Rivera called for it to be removed.

Ive held my tongue, for perhaps longer than I should have, but the time is now well passed for the Worcester Redevelopment Authority to remove the statue commemorating Christopher Columbus from their property at Union Station, Rivera wrote in a statement issued at the time.

We should not be deceiving future generations by continuing to pretend hes worthy of any sort of honor and he is certainly not who we want honoring generations of immigrants that came through Union Station decades ago, or welcoming visitors to our city today, the statement continued.

Rivera said that as an Afro Taina, she knows the atrocities and devastation Columbus caused not just to the Taino Island of Borinquen (now Puerto Rico), but throughout the Caribbean, Central America and North America.

Slavery, rape, murder, torture and sexual enslavement only partially capture his sins, crimes and trail of bodies, she said in her statement calling for the removal of the statue. In no way do I view him as any kind of leader deserving of memorialization, but much more as a criminal, whos crimes to this day continue to [wreak] havoc throughout the Americas.

During Tuesday nights council meeting, Rivera noted she has never taken part in the citys annual Christopher Columbus parade.

I would never go to celebrate someone that was completely responsible for the genocide of my ancestors, Rivera said.

Columbus may have been a great navigator, she said, but that doesnt take away the great pain he caused.

Rivera said she does not intend to harm the Italian American heritage but argued that Columbus is not about heritage; Columbus is about hate.

It is our opportunity to be on the right side of history, she said. Im not saying what to put there, but what I am saying is take down what is for hate. Take down what symbolizes hate.

Mero-Carlson said she is of Italian heritage and noted the Italian American community in Worcester has been through a lot with the tearing down of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church and the closing of the cultural center.

The council doesnt have the right to tell the Italian community what they are going to do with the statue, she said. The local Italian groups will make a decision on the statue and work with the councilors, mayor and city manager, Mero-Carlson said.

Colorio, who said in the meeting that she will support my (Italian) heritage, said she was met with insurmountable hatred when she voiced opposition to taking down the statue.

She said a Facebook poll she created asking for peoples opinion on the issue was hijacked and she had to take it down.

During the discussion, Rose said he heard from people on all sides. Some people wanted the statue taken down while others wanted it kept up or moved.

Rose was concerned that people who wanted a voice in the conversation might not get the chance to be heard on the matter.

The discussions on historic moments across American came into the spotlight following the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, while in the custody of a now-former Minneapolis police officer, who is white.

Protests against police brutality have been held across the country and monuments of Columbus, as well as Confederate statues, have been torn down or removed.

The Christopher Columbus statue in Bostons North End was removed last month after it was vandalized.

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FELTON, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global motion sensor market size is projected to touch USD 8.7 billion by 2025. The market is anticipated to grow at 7.8% CAGR, according to a new report by Million Insights. Growing use of motion sensors in gaming devices and consumer electronics is driving the market growth. Rapidly increasing consumer electronics market is positively affecting the market growth. For example, newly introduced wearable devices are gaining traction among consumers.

Technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmentative Reality (AR) are increasingly getting popular in consumer electronics. These technologies are incorporated in smart phones and wearable devices such as VR glass, smart glass, head-up display and VR motion chairs. Motion sensors play crucial role in development of VR and AR applications. The number of VR users has increased from 1 million in 2014 to 150+ million in 2018. Thus, growing VR application is expected to create a lucrative opportunity for the market players.

Please click here to get the sample pdf and find more details on "Motion Sensors Market" Report 2025.

For AR/VR domain, motion sensors are used for gaming applications. Motion gaming system enables players to interact with the help of body movements. The demand for interactive games has increased significantly over the last few years, thereby, supporting the growth of motion sensors.

Europe held the largest share in the motion sensors market and the region is projected to maintain its dominance over the next few years. Presence of leading automobile giant in the region is driving the growth of the market. On the other hand, Asia Pacific is anticipated to register the fastest CAGR over the forecast duration.

Further key findings from the report suggest:

Asia Pacific is a key market for consumer electronics and thereby, projected to occupy the significant share in the market over the forecast duration.

is a key market for consumer electronics and thereby, projected to occupy the significant share in the market over the forecast duration. The microwave category is predicted to exhibit significant growth rate as they can operate in the K-band frequency range.

Healthcare segment is projected to grow considerably owing to increasing demand for wireless body area networks.

Leading players operating in the market are Kionix, Inc., NXP Semiconductors, SENSINOVA, TE Connectivity Ltd. and STMicroelectronics among others.

Browse 124 page research report with TOC on "Global Motion Sensor Market" at: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/global-motion-sensor-market

Million Insights has segmented the global motion sensor market based on technology, application, and region:

Motion Sensor Technology Outlook (Volume, Thousand Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Infrared



Ultrasonic



Microwave



Dual Technology



Tomographic



Others

Motion Sensor Application Outlook (Volume, Thousand Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

Consumer Electronics



Automotive



Aerospace & Defense



Healthcare



Industrial



Others

Motion Sensor Regional Outlook (Volume, Thousand Units; Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025)

North America



U.S.





Canada



Europe



Germany





U.K.



Asia Pacific



China





India





Japan



Central & South America



Brazil





Mexico



Middle East & Africa (MEA)

Browse latest market research reports available with Million Insights:

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Million Insights, is a distributor of market research reports, published by premium publishers only. We have a comprehensive market place that will enable you to compare data points, before you make a purchase. Enabling informed buying, is our motto and we strive hard to ensure that our clients get to browse through multiple samples, prior to an investment. Service flexibility & the fastest response time are two pillars, on which our business model is founded. Our market research report store, includes in-depth reports, from across various industry verticals, such as healthcare, technology, chemicals, food & beverages, consumer goods, material science & automotive.

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A cabinet minister today praised the World Health Organisation as a force for good in a glaring split with America over fighting coronavirus.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that the best way to combat the virus is for an international response.

Hours earlier US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was said to have told MPs during a visit to London that the WHOs head had been bought by China and that its failings had contributed to dead Britons.

Mr Shapps gave firm backing to the WHO despite the heavy criticism from Donald Trumps administration.

The best way to challenge something like the coronavirus is to work across borders because the virus does not respect them, to work internationally including through the World Health Organisation, he told Sky News.

We know the US has issues with the WHO, President Trump has talked about it before, that has not been the UK approach.

We have backed international effort  we may have put more money into the international research to find a cure that any other country.

The WHO is on balance a force for good in the world.

Mr Pompeo allegedly claimed that Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHOs director-general, had struck a deal with China that helped him to get the post. Mr Pompeo is also said to have argued that the WHO was a political rather than science-based body that had made blunders in addressing the Covid crisis.

WHO chiefs have rejected the claims and suggested that the Trump administration is out of step with most Americans in its attitude.

Mr Trump, who himself has been accused of major mistakes in the battle against coronavirus which has swept across America, is withdrawing the US from the WHO.
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan bill that would spend nearly $3 billion on conservation projects, outdoor recreation and maintenance of national parks and other public lands is on its way to the presidents desk after winning final legislative approval.

Supporters say the measure, known as the Great American Outdoors Act, would be the most significant conservation legislation enacted in nearly half a century.

The House approved the bill 310-107 Wednesday, weeks after it won overwhelming approval in the Senate. The bill now goes to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.

Trumps daughter, Ivanka, urged passage of the bill in a tweet. The younger Trump, a senior adviser to her father, is expected to celebrate the bills passage at events in Colorado this week with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Sen. Cory Gardner, one of the bills sponsors.

The bill would spend about $900 million a year  double current spending  on the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund, and another $1.9 billion per year on improvements at national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and rangelands.

Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, called the bill one of the biggest wins for conservation in decades.

We have a generational opportunity to ensure Americas crown jewels are protected, he said, adding that the bill would ensure all tools available are used to help the nation respond to the climate crisis and protect landscapes, clean water and clean air.

At a time of intense partisan disagreements, it is perhaps more necessary that ever to demonstrate we can still bridge the divide ... and work together to find common ground, said Grijalva, a Democrat. This bill goes beyond politics. Its about ensuring that we pass along a legacy of public lands.

Supporters say the bill will create at least 100,000 jobs, while restoring national parks and repairing trails and forest systems.

At a time when our country needs to create jobs and rebuild local economies while also protecting nature and places where everyone can recreate outdoors, the Great American Outdoors Act answers the call on all fronts, said Jennifer Morris, CEO of The Nature Conservancy, an advocacy group.

There couldnt be a more important time than now to improve parks, protect birds and wildlife, and create jobs in every state across the country, added Sarah Greenberger, senior vice-president for conservation policy of the National Audubon Society.

While bipartisan, the bill was led in the Senate by Gardner and fellow GOP Sen. Steve Daines of Montana. Gardner and Daines are among the Senates most vulnerable incumbents, and each represents a state where the outdoor economy and tourism at sites such as Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone national parks play an outsize role.

Daines and Gardner persuaded the president to support the bill at a White House meeting this year, even though Trump has repeatedly tried to slash spending for the Land and Water Conservation Fund in his budget proposals. Trump soon tweeted his support for the bill, saying it will be HISTORIC for our beautiful public lands.?

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said permanently and fully funding the conservation program will be a monumental victory for conservation and the places where we all get outside.? He cited studies showing that each dollar spent by the fund creates an additional four dollars in economic value.

Visitors cannot enjoy national parks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite if the bathrooms dont work, if the trails and campgrounds arent open, or if the roads are in disrepair,? Heinrich said. These places that we all cherish deserve better.?

The bills opponents, mostly Republicans, complained that it would not eliminate an estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog on 640 million acres of federally owned lands. The bill authorizes $9.5 billion for maintenance over five years.

The Great American Outdoors Act is a perfect example of Washington playing political games, said Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, the top Republican on the natural resources panel. He accused the bills supporters of taking a bipartisan and popular idea to fix our parks and spur job creation and combining it with a divisive measure on land and water conservation that will increase our debt and do little for economic recovery.

At a time when America is putting a record amount of debt on the backs of future generations to cope with COVID-19, now is not the time for reckless spending or new mandatory programs that have nothing to do with the pandemic or stimulating growth, Bishop said.

But Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said the bill would strengthen the recreation economy, a key driver of jobs across the country. It also will address environmental justice by creating green spaces near low-income communities and communities of colour across the country, Beyer said.

It is a win for outdoor recreation, for the economy, for wildlife and for the country, he said.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin was forced to deny being "at odds" with Tanaiste Leo Varadkar over the 'green list' of countries where coronavirus travel restrictions have been eased.

It came as he clashed in the Dail with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald.

She criticised what she claimed is the government's "cack-handed" approach to the issue which she said was "reckless" and "on a wing and a prayer".

She said 15 countries were selected to be on the list late last night and this was against public health advice.

Ms McDonald said it amounted to the government saying to the public that they "can travel with reduced risks but please do not do so."

She also claimed that people who had booked holidays but are heeding the public health advice and arent travelling have been "thrown under the bus" and are potentially out of pocket by thousands of euro. She said those that do travel will do so uninsured.

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Ms McDonald also raised concern that there's "no proper form or quarantine" for people coming from countries with high Covid-19 rates and that putting the passenger locator form online is not going to address this.

She asked what measures will be put in place to support out of pocket families and what quarantine measures would be put in place.

Mr Martin said that when he was Opposition leader he made "constructive" contributions on the issue of protecting public health and he rose above "partisan political sniping".

Sinn Fein deputies heckled and questioned if Mr Martin was referring to remarks by Mr Varadkar yesterday.

The Tanaiste had questioned the point of a green list if the travel advice would be the same for countries that weren't on it.

Mr Martin responded saying: "The leaders of the opposition suggested I was at odds with the Tanaste which Im not".

He claimed Ms McDonald seems "at odds with herself".

"Im clear the safest thing to do is not to travel. Thats the clear message. Were saying to people to holiday at home this year."

He said Ms McDonald and Sinn Fein have a view that it was "ok to open up the island to 59 countries".

He said the Northern Ireland Executive - which includes Sinn Fein - signed up for this a fortnight ago.

Mr Martin said the 15 countries on the green list have lower instances of Covid-19 than Ireland and said moving the passenger locator form online is important in the testing and contact tracing process.

He also pointed to a 91pc reduction in passenger numbers in Dublin Airport on the same time last year saying there's a lot of concern about travel but "we need to keep it in perspective".

Expand Close Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald raised her concerns with the green list in the Dail (Brian Lawless/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald raised her concerns with the green list in the Dail (Brian Lawless/PA)

Ms McDonald said: "I do hope the Taniaste desists form the type of sniping that you have described Taosieach."

She said an all-Ireland approach is needed and called on the government to champion this claiming it had been "passive" so far.

She said: "we need every protection for the island as a single unit that means effective quarantining not placing a form online".

Ms McDonald again pressed Mr Martin on what the government will do for out of pocket families saying that they're losing an estimated 800,000 per day.

Mr Martin said the government is work "towards achieving the maximum synergy" with the North.

He said the government hasn't come forward with specific proposals for compensating people who have had to cancel holidays.

Mr Martin pointed to income supports that have been put in place during the pandemic as well as plans for the July Stimulus.

He said the stimulus will contain "significant initiatives to support the hospitality and tourism sector".

He said this will help ordinary citizens to avail of hospitality and tourism facilities in Ireland.
A HABITUAL criminal has been jailed after he pleaded guilty to multiple offences, writes David Hurley.

Robert Benn, 26, of no fixed abode has been warned by a judge that his recidivist behaviour has to stop and cannot continue.

During a sentencing hearing, Detective Garda Ronan OReilly told Limerick Circuit Court the defendant broke into a commercial premises at Denmark Street in the early hours of October 3, last.

Mr Benn, who has 115 previous convictions, kicked in the front door and stole 10 from the premises. He was later identified from CCTV and made some admissions when arrested.

The defendant has also pleaded guilty to several counts of theft and criminal damage relating to the targeting of parked cars at locations across the city later on the same day.

The detective says a number of car windows were smashed and that property including cash, a gearbag and a mobile phone were stolen.

Barrister Aaron Desmond BL said his client was extremely intoxicated when arrested and he told the court he has longstanding addiction issues which he has been addressing while in custody.

Seeking leniency, he asked the court to note his clients cooperation and the fact that there was no violence perpetrated.

Judge Tom ODonnell said it is a concern that Mr Benn continues to relapse when released from prison and that this cannot continue.

The public is entitled to expect to be able to safely park their cars and close their businesses, he said.

He imposed a four year prison sentence, suspending the final 12 months.
A new candy company is making life sweeter for more reasons than one. Jelvins Candy Shoppe, founded by Jeffrey Reich-Hale, donates 60 percent of each sale to local charities.

Reich-Hale worked in a candy store in high school and always had a dream of owning his own candy store. He is also an avid volunteer and advocate for local charities. Through Jelvins, Reich-Hale was able to merge the two.

MORE BY CLAIRE GOODMAN: Judge KP George speaks out against racist attacks

Jelvins Candy Shoppe donates 60 percent of profits to charities. The current beneficiaries of Jelvins donations are Barrio Dogs and the AIDS Foundation Houston.

Its important to Reich-Hale that the charities Jelvins supports are small, local charities. Donating to hyper local charities will always be our mission, he said. We want to focus on our local charities and the work theyre doing in our communities.

Jelvins Candy Shoppe primarily sells candy in a gifting box. Current candy offerings include M&Ms and gourmet gummy bears and jelly beans, but Reich-Hale plans to add more candy options once the shop has gained momentum.

The shop is currently online-only, and Reich-Hale emphasized that his main focus is on gift delivery and corporate gifts. Our primary competitors will be companies like 1-800-FLOWERS or Edible Arrangements, he explained. The difference is, this is gifting with a purpose. We are here to fill a need for people to purchase gifts but also to fill a need for the smaller charities that struggle on a daily basis.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: They got evicted in the middle of the pandemic. They dont know where to go next.

The current recipients of Jelvins donations are Barrio Dogs and the Houston AIDS Foundation.

Barrio Dogs works to raise awareness about proper animal care and the importance of spaying and neutering pets in communities with a high concentration of stray animals. They also teach residents that animal population control and humane treatment and care of pets will create safer, healthier, higher property value communities for themselves and their families.

As an animal lover, I will always support animal charities. Unfortunately, animals are mistreated and abandoned, Reich-Hale said. I have a passion for animals and helping them.

The AIDS Foundation Houston is Texas first organization dedicated to HIV prevention, education and services. The organization offers services including benefits and resources counseling, case management, housing, and food and nutrition assistance to low-income, HIV positive men, women and children.

With Jelvins being a partner, it's going to help bring attention to all the things that we do in the community, said Jon Bumann, director of development for the AIDS Foundation Houston. Were very fortunate to have this opportunity to share what we do and raise funds for what we do through this partnership.

People facing an HIV positive diagnosis need so much, starting with support and compassion, and the AIDS Foundation Houston gives them that, Reich-Hale said.

Jelvins Candy Shoppe benefits charity, but Reich-Hale said he will never cut corners or put out a product with generic candy. Reich-Hale wants to be an esteemed business with excellent quality and service thats founded in a charitable mission.

As we're building our brand awareness and reputation and sales, well be expanding, Reich-Hale said. But we will always use high-quality candy. Were about putting a quality product out there. It's just extremely important.

To learn more about Jelvins Candy Shoppe, visit www.jelvinscandyshoppe.org. For more information on Barrio Dogs and the AIDS Foundation Houston, visit barriodogs.org and aidshelp.org respectively.

claire.goodman@chron.com
The most impressive aspect of Apple TV+ s original content library is the diversity of voices and faces featured in them.

These post-pandemic times may be depressing, but its certainly boom time for streaming platforms of all shapes and sizes. Then again, what better time to discover the stories of people from across the world  people like us and people unlike us; people whove oppressed us and people who we oppress  than this time of collective sequestration?

There is, of course, the problem of too much choice. When billion-dollar studios are pumping in money to create binge TV and tentpole blockbusters  in the theme-park aesthetic, one might add  even a single platform out of, say, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar, has a generations worth of content for an individual to consume.

Personally, I go to Netflix for original content in non-English foreign languages (brains are still scrambled after Dark, Resurrection: Ertugrul is my new bae, and these dont even equate to the visible eighth of the iceberg, so to speak); to Amazon Prime for some of the best Indian originals out there (who would have thought); and to Disney+ for my amusement ride fix (recently finished my Xth re-watch of the Star Wars reboot).

Not to mention all those other options available for individual bits of great content. (Special mention to Mubi for its great selection of classic world movies, and for the interface thats a sheer joy to even merely browse through.)

Surprisingly enough, though, as far as English language original content is concerned, one of the most interesting selections of original titles belongs to the behemoth that has put a billion and a half devices in peoples hands across the globe (or so they say).

Yes, Apple.

One may have wondered why Apple would want to get into the original content space, but the fact is that with that kind of reach and access, why not? After all, more people seem to be making big bucks out of the art of visual storytelling than should be legally allowed, and Apple is known to make the biggest bucks of them all.

Yet, with the launch of Apple TV+ in November 2019, the Silicon Valley tech giant made a statement with some serious implications. With big ticket names attached to their various productions, Apple TV+ started with a modest three-show lineup on day one of launch, to around 20 today, eight months later. And theres the promise of more to follow.

The Morning Show, with that impressive star cast (Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and we dont need anyone else) was a no-brainer when it came to sampling what Apple had to offer, but truth be told, after that first show I havent stopped picking up the others in their ever-expanding lineup, and I havent come across one thats been a waste of my time yet. (The Morning Show itself is frivolous yet relevant and good fun!)

Then theres Defending Jacob, starring Chris Evans as an assistant district attorney in a suburban city, who, along with his wife (played by Michelle Dockery), has to defend their teenaged son who is accused of murder. A gently-paced, dramatic take on trust within families, the show is a must-watch simply to see Evans chip away at that Captain America image that he must find so hard to shake off.

If science fiction and alt-history are your thing, then For All Mankind has to make it to your watch list. A story with a great revisionist setting  Russia puts a man on the moon before America, and the space race is thus, still on  it takes a great idea and makes it engaging. If dystopian dramas set in the distant future are your thing (or youre feeling some Game of Thrones season one nostalgia), then the Jason Momoa-starrer See might do the trick for you  its set in a time when humankind has lost its sense of sight, and then, twins who can see are born.

Truth Be Told, starring Octavia Spencer, Lizzy Kaplan and Aaron Paul, is set in the world of true crime podcasts. Moody, slow-burning, and more about the erosion of personal and private spaces than about podcasts per se, the show is worth a watch mainly for Spencers turn as a podcaster with a grey conscience.

But more than anything else, the most impressive aspect of Apples original content library is the diversity of voices and faces featured in them.

It almost seems like inclusiveness is hardcoded into the DNA of the studio division at Cupertino. (Netflix may well stake its own claim to be the leader in the diversity area, and thats the kind of competition there should be more of.)

Little America, easily one of the best Apple TV+ titles currently, is a triumphant look at immigrant stories in America, an anthology series thats truly worth your time. The immigrants featured in the various segments come from all continents, to the all-too-familiar glittering land of aspiration, and the stories are truly heartfelt.

Apart from the shows, even the original movies keep up the effort at showcasing stories with non-white leads characters. The Banker is a dramatised take on a tiny cool slice of Black history, starring Samuel L Jackson and Anthony Mackie. Hala, starring Geraldine Viswanathan, has a Muslim teenaged girl as the central character. (I havent watched this one yet, but it certainly seems like something Id love to pick up some time.)

And for some true diversity, The Elephant Queen is a documentary feature that follows an actual family of elephants in Africa. (In fact, the selection of non-fiction titles on Apple TV+ deserves a whole other piece.)

Ive watched and liked enough on the platform to be excited by some of the other titles that Im yet to explore  the horror series Servant, executive produced by M Night Shyamalan among others; Dickinson starring the talented Hailee Steinfeld in the title role of poet and rebel Emily Dickinson; Trying, a comedy about a family trying to adopt; and even Amazing Stories, an anthology series exec-produced by some top names, Steven Spielberg being one of them.

Fair warning, I watch it all. Still, Apple TV+ has a collection that intrigues even when Im simply browsing through it. The limited number on display is actually a boon, because the choices are just easier to make. Add that to the high bar for production quality and choice of stories that the platform has set, and you get content that will, for the most, not let you down. (The relatively low subscription cost is a bonus.)
New Delhi, July 22 : In a stringent action against a high-profile chartered accountant of the Big 4 audit firms, the National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) has barred Udayan Sen for seven years from being appointed as auditor and levied a penalty of Rs 25 lakh for his role as engagement partner in the statutory audit of ILFS Financial Services Ltd (IFIN).

The NFRA has said in the order that in terms of the order passed by the Delhi High Court on June 26, the NFRA order shall not be given effect till July 31.

In an 88-page order on Wednesday, the NFRA bench comprising chairperson R. Sridharan and member Prasenjit Mukherjee said, "Professional misconduct becomes very serious when the CA has gone along with the management of the company in agreeing to the mis-statements or omissions so as to commit a fraud on the users of the financial statements.

"In this case, it is seen clearly that the company had actually incurred losses in the year 2017-18. It was only through such unacceptable or impermissible stratagems as the imputation of a value of Rs 184 crore to the put option on the Tata Tele Services Ltd (TTSL) shares that the actual incurred loss was turned into a reported profit." "Besides the fact that the company had ceased to comply with the stipulated net owned fund (NOF) or capital to risk weighted assets ratio (CRAR) norms was deliberately mis-stated. CA Udayan Sen went along with this attempt at fraudulent presentation of a financial statement. Hence this would necessitate the imposition of a severe penalty," the order said.

"As engagement partner, it was the duty of CA Udayan Sen to take necessary preventive action to ensure that his and his firm's independence was not affected. He had been managing partner and CEO of Deloitte for several years.

"His position in the audit firm, his standing in the profession and his long experience required him to be especially conscious of and be sensitive to anything that could detract from his and his firm's independence. This background makes the violation of independence that has been proved even more serious than it would have been in the case of any other partner. This was a serious lapse on the discharge of his duty by CA Udayan Sen," NFRA said.

Commenting on the conduct of CA Sen, the bench stated, "The engagement partner had also violated the Companies Act, Standard on Quality Control (SQC 1), Code of Ethics, and RBI Regulations as well. While there is such a huge gap in audit procedures, the engagement partner signed an unmodified audit report on the general-purpose financial statements of IFIN, thus concluding that the auditor had obtained reasonable assurance that the financial statements as a whole are free from material mis-statements due to fraud or error. Having done all such violations, the engagement partner stated in his modified report that the audit was conducted in accordance with the standards of auditing, which is not true to the facts." On January 17 this year, NFRA had sent a show-cause notice to Sen, who was the engagement partner for Deloitte in the statutory audit of IFIN for the year 2017-18.

The notice had asked Sen why action should not be taken against him for professional misconduct in the statutory audit of IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN).

Sen had stepped down as the CEO of Deloitte India in 2015 and retired as a partner of the firm earlier this year.
RecruitMilitary to Host Inaugural Virtual Hiring Events for Transitioning Army Soldiers and Spouses Our organization is proud to provide an exclusive, virtual career resource platform for Soldiers and their families worldwide with Soldier For Life Transition Assistance Program (SFL-TAP), said Bradley-Morris/RecruitMilitary CEO Tim Best, a former U.S. Army Special Forces attack helicopter pilot.

RecruitMilitary, the countrys leading company connecting organizations with military trained talent, and the U.S. Army Soldier For Life Transition Assistance Program (SFL-TAP) have announced an inaugural series of Transitioning Army Soldiers and Spouses Global Virtual Career Fairs. This worldwide hiring event series, co-sponsored by Disabled American Veterans (DAV), provides organizations with exclusive access to a new talent pool of highly qualified candidates preparing to enter the civilian workplace. The first virtual event in the hiring series will take place on September 16, 2020.

The U.S. Army transitions approximately 100,000 active duty Soldiers from military to civilian life each year and provides support to those transitioning through a variety of measures including civilian career placement. In April, U.S. Army Human Resources Command appointed RecruitMilitary to provide employment services for all Army Soldiers, Spouses, and Veterans.

Transitioning Soldiers bring military-based values and skills to civilian organizations that are seeking job candidates who are adaptable, dependable, committed, and loyal to supporting the mission of the organization. In addition, they also bring attributes that employers desire, like various levels of active security clearance, military-paid relocation costs, and confirmed transition timing and job readiness.

RecruitMilitary operates on a foundation of experience; more than 60 percent of its workforce are military Veterans, with 35 percent of the companys staff specifically identified as Army Veterans or current members of the Army National Guard or Reserve. No other organization is better suited to forward-plan and accordingly adapt career services to a virtual format through the end of 2020, ensuring that job seekers and clients are served without interruption.

Our organization is proud to provide an exclusive, virtual career resource platform for Soldiers and their families worldwide with Soldier For Life Transition Assistance Program (SFL-TAP), said Bradley-Morris/RecruitMilitary CEO Tim Best, a former U.S. Army Special Forces attack helicopter pilot. The skill sets of military trained talent never waiver in demand. Employers are seeking these individuals and it is our mission to connect  in this scenario virtually - those who are ready to transition to civilian employment in the most effective, meaningful and successful way. As always, we are grateful for the confidence that the Army Human Resources Command has placed in our team.

The partnership is designed to directly connect transitioning soldiers to businesses who are interested in hiring them, said Retired Colonel and Army Transition Division Director at Human Resources Command Walter Herd. The increased efficiency and connection take some of the stress out of job hunting, and help transitioning soldiers make the most of their time spent searching by maximizing their potential results.

To learn more and register for the RecruitMilitary and U.S. Army Soldier For Life Transition Assistance Program Transitioning Army Soldiers and Spouses Global Virtual Career Fair visit https://go.recruitmilitary.com/armyvirtual.

About RecruitMilitary and Sister Companies

Bradley-Morris (http://www.bradley-morris.com), the largest military-focused recruiting company in the U.S., offers employers access to more than 1.5 million military job seekers via services that include contingency recruiting, a job board, virtual and in-person military job fairs, and employer branding via its RecruitMilitary (http://www.recruitmilitary.com) subsidiary. Bradley-Morris' MBA Veterans Network (http://www.mbaveterans.com) is the nations leading military and MBA diversity conference, connecting military veteran students from top MBA programs with employers. Their ExecuVets subsidiary program (http://www.execuvets.com) connects employers with executive track veteran talent.

About Army Soldier for Life Transition Assistance Program

The Soldier for Life - Transition Assistance Program (SFL-TAP) is a Commanders Program and a Soldiers responsibility. The program provides transition assistance services to eligible Soldiers with at least 180 or more continuous days of Title 10 active duty service, except for those in a training status. SFL-TAP helps all eligible transitioning Soldiers discover knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to be competitive and successful in the global workforce. SFL-TAP helps Soldiers make informed career decisions through counseling and employment assistance, building upon lessons learned in the Initial and Service phases of the Soldier Life Cycle. Additionally, the program partners with national stakeholders such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Labor, and the Small Business Administration to provide well-rebounded classes and services.

Going early and often to SFL-TAP is statistically proven to increase the chance of post-transition success for Soldiers. A study found that Service members are two times more likely to get a job before leaving active duty if they start their job search at least six months or more before transitioning.

Headquarters Installation Management Command located at Joint Base San Antonio, Ft Sam Houston, Texas implements, guides and resources 59 SFL-TAP Centers Army-wide.

Media Contact

press@bradley-morris.com
As the new coronavirus relief package is in the works in Congress, almost 100 Texas mayors are pressing for more funding to address their budget losses due to the economic impact of COVID-19.

Texas received $11 billion as funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and the funds were distributed among the state, counties, and cities.

Some of the Texas mayors said the coronavirus relief would need to be spent before the end of the year for expenditures related to the pandemic response.

They also said the funding does not address government losses because of the lower activity in the economy. Others said there was conflicting information on where they can spend the money on, reported Texas Tribune.

Without a doubt, there will be little spared from the Texas businesses because of the virus. Since March, Texas cities have had hits in revenues because of slowing the economy.

The state's comptroller stated that local sales tax allocations dropped by 11.7%, with an 11.1% drop in cities compared to last year's data.

Ninety-seven Texas mayors signed a letter for the Congress. It said: "The budget calamity looming over local governments is real and it requires extraordinary measures."

The mayors fear that the state and local income will need time to bounce back. They also fear a drop in tax revenue next year if the economy was not stabilized.

They asked for "direct and flexible" aid for their cities. The letter was signed by leaders from urban, suburban, and rural areas in Texas.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a press conference Monday that they are not looking for the likes of pension measures. "We are the infrastructure that supports the public and private sector, and at this point in time, we are needing direct assistance," Turner said.

At Odds on Local Government Aid

When the U.S. House of Representatives approved its $3 trillion aid on top of the CARES Act, it included nearly $1 trillion funding for local governments.

Unlike the CARES Act, though, the proposal does not receive support from both parties in Congress. Washington Post also reported that it has stalled in the Senate.

Earlier this month, Senator John Cornyn said they would be working with mayors, county judges, and governors to see what they need and where they will need help.

NPR reported that one of the main things Congress can't agree upon is the amount of aid that will be given to local governments. The use of aid in an economic downturn is also not agreed upon.

Texas mayors claim they are not clear about whether they can use the funding for other areas that face financial strain.

School Funding Will Be Fulfilled

Despite the losses, the comptroller Glenn Hegar said the state is loyal to their promise in spending billions more on public schools, reported CBS Dallas.

Hegar said Texas has the money to make it happen. "They're very committed to maintaining the public education commitments that they made last legislative session," he said, talking about the legislative leaders he knows.

With the pandemic's end still far off for many, Hegar is looking forward to the online sales that continue to thrive amid the pandemic.

Want to read more? Give these a read!
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter announced Monday that he has filed first-degree murder charges in a cold case from 1985 involving a murder in Lincoln County.

Paul Aikman was stabbed to death in September 1985 at a rest stop on the Turner Turnpike. A news release states that at the time of the murder, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents collected cigarette butts and latent prints from the crime scene.

A DNA profile was developed from one of the cigarette butts, but the case eventually went cold.

In 2019, OSBI criminalists at the Forensic Science Center alerted agents that during a search of the national DNA database CODIS, a potential DNA hit was obtained and matched Earl Wilson, 55. According to the news release, criminalists then matched the latent print impression taken from the crime scene to Wilson.

Advances in DNA technology are allowing authorities to take another look at these difficult cases, Hunter said in the news release. Just because cases go cold doesnt mean someone shouldnt be held responsible, even after three decades. I appreciate OSBI Director Ricky Adams, who has put a priority on these cases through the development of the Cold Case Unit.

Wilson is currently incarcerated in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections custody for unrelated crimes.

For 35 years, Paul Aikmans family has ached not knowing who was responsible for his murder, OSBI Director Ricky Adams said. Thirty-five years have passed, but we have not forgotten about Paul. Thanks to science and determined police work by OSBI agents and our Cold Case Unit, we are pleased to announce that the suspect in Pauls murder has been identified. I would like to give thanks to Attorney General Hunter and his staff for taking this case, filing a murder charge and giving a voice to Paul and his family.
BEIJING -- China said on Wednesday the United States had abruptly told it to close its consulate in the city of Houston, a move that Beijing said it strongly condemns, threatening retaliation.

The United States gave the Chinese side a deadline of three days to close the mission in the Texas city, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Relations between the United States and China have deteriorated significantly since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the beginning of the year.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news briefing.

We urge the U.S. to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures, he said.

He also said the consulate was operating normally but did not reply to questions about U.S. media reports in Houston on Tuesday night that documents were being burned in a courtyard at the consulate.

"It appears to be open burning in a container within the courtyard of the Chinese consulate facility. It does not appear to be an unconfined fire but we have not been allowed access," Houston fire department chief Samuel Pena was quoted as saying by KTRK, an ABC television affiliate.

We are standing by and monitoring.

Houston police told FOX 26 that staff there were burning documents because they are being evicted from the building on Friday afternoon.

The two countries have clashed recently over trade, technology, a national security law imposed on Hong Kong and Chinas claims in the East Vietnam Sea.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department indicted two Chinese nationals for a decade-long cyber espionage campaign in which they were accused of stealing information on weapons designs, drug information, software source code and personal data.
An incredibly successful program, which brings university and college courses to prisoners across Canada, has been stopped cold during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Walls to Bridges program began at Kitcheners Grand Valley Institution for Women and now has an international presence. It brings inmates together with regular campus-enrolled university or college students, who come into the prison to take classes.

The results have been transformative.

These courses have inspired inmates to continue their studies after release. They have been credited with offering a permanent path out of poverty, as former inmates gain the confidence to earn advanced degrees and train for careers.

They also offer chances for enrichment inside the prisons. Inmates who have taken courses are invited to assist the professor and also help train new professors in the special teaching methods of these classes.

Many former inmates have spoken, written, volunteered, and done research about the benefits of this kind of opportunity.

But in March, university courses stopped happening in classrooms, and started going online.

But prison inmates arent allowed to access the internet. So for them, everything has stopped.

We havent been told when we can come back. Were living in a lot of uncertainty right now, said Shoshana Pollack, the Wilfrid Laurier University social work professor who directs the program and co-founded it in Canada nine years ago.

I am worried that momentum could die out.

Correctional Service Canada said Tuesday that the no-internet policy for inmates is for security reasons.

Group programs and other services are being reintroduced to prisons, but Walls to Bridges has not resumed at Grand Valley, said representative Marie-Pier Lecuyer.

Grand Valley is the epicentre of the program, which now reaches 11 institutions across Canada and also is being used in a prison in Paris, France.

Of 1,148 students (both campus-based and inmates) taught since the program began in 2011, 423  more than one-third  were at Grand Valley.

The program offers a unique approach that emphasizes the wisdom of all. Instead of absorbing information from a lecture given by a professor, courses are designed in a group setting where everyones lived experience is valued.

Its quite a powerful and holistic way of learning, Pollack said.

Professors from universities in Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph and Toronto have taught at Grand Valley. Celebrated author Lawrence Hill taught a course on memoir writing.

Later, he described the Walls to Bridges program as a Canadian gem because of its courageous and innovative ways of expanding empathy, understanding and respect.

RELATED STORIES Waterloo Region https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2019/09/30/author-lawrence-hill-teaching-memoir-writing-course-at-grand-valley-institution-in-kitchener.html

Incarcerated students pay no tuition. Costs of the program are paid by individual donors and local charitable foundations. The universities that employ the professors who teach the classes also support the program. At Grand Valley, 22 courses have been offered.

As far as I was concerned it was a no-brainer for the prison to support the program, said Peter Stuart, chief of education at Grand Valley, in a 2018 TVOntario documentary.

It was something I knew was going to greatly decrease the chances of the women coming back. If theres any access to higher education, youre looking at about a 50-per-cent decrease in recidivism, he said.

In March, a course called Law and Society: International Perspectives was being taught by Wilfrid Laurier University professor Marcia Oliver, when everything abruptly halted.

This pandemic has taught us a lot about ourselves. Weve learned our long-term care homes arent safe for the elderly. Weve learned that social isolation is bad for our mental health. Maybe we are also learning that there are some cases in which giving prison inmates more freedom would help them live a better life.
ROME - Court-appointed psychiatrists testified Wednesday that a 20-year-old California man accused of murdering an Italian police officer has suffered from anxiety and depression and lives with a sense of chronic anger but is competent to stand trial.

An evaluation was requested by defence lawyers for Finnegan Lee Elder, who has been on trial in Rome since February for the slaying of a plainclothes Carabinieri officer.

Also charged with the the murder of Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello is Elders fellow Californian and former schoolmate Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 19. The two were visiting Italy as tourists and staying at a hotel near the site of the killing when Cerciello was fatally stabbed almost a year ago.

Both denied wrongdoing and told investigators they thought they were defending themselves from criminals when they encountered Cerciello and another Carabiniere during a planned rendezvous over a drug deal gone bad in the early hours of July 26, 2019.

Cerciello, who was sent to the street meeting with his patrol partner shortly after returning from his honeymoon, was stabbed 11 times. He was hailed as a national hero at his funeral.

Prosecutors alleged that Elder fatally knifed Cerciello and that Natale-Hjorth hid the weapon.

Psychiatrist Vittorio Fineschi testified that at the moment of the slaying, Elder fully realized what he was doing; he said so himself to us.

But psychiatrist Stefano Ferracuti said Elder also told them he thought he was defending himself from a Mafioso, a way of describing a criminal from an American point of view,.

In the Italian judicial system, defendants can be excused from their trials if they are judged incapable of understanding and wanting to commit the crime of which they stand charged.

Ferracuti told the court that cognitive tests showed Elder is very intelligent. But when pressed by a lawyer for the slain officers relatives, the psychiatrist said that understanding is one thing. Wanting (to do so) is another.

Ferracuti also testified that Elder thought he was defending himself from a criminal, not a police officer, and realizes he ruined his life and hes sorry.

While the psychiatrists described Elders history of anxiety, depression and, as Ferracuti put it, a sense of chronic anger, a defence lawyer told the court that Elder was feeling troubled and unwell and had asked to be taken back to his jail cell.

Prosecutors have accused Natale-Hjorth of hiding the murder weapon, a military-style attack knife that Elder allegedly brought in a suitcase from the United States. Under Italian law, defendants having a role in a murder case can also be charged with homicide.

The defence plans to call its own psychiatric consultant as a witness later in the trial.

The confrontation between the young tourists and Cerciello and his partner followed an alleged attempt by the Americans to buy cocaine in Rome earlier in the night.

After allegedly paying for the drug, the two realized they didnt receive cocaine. Angered over the alleged swindle, they snatched the backpack of the drug dealers go-between, according to the prosecution. When the backpacks owner called his cellphone, which was inside the snatched bag, one of the tourists answered and demanded money and cocaine in return for the bag and phone, prosecutors alleged.

Cerciello and his partner showed up to retrieve the backpack instead of the alleged go-between.

The officers partner, Andrea Varriale, testified last week that he and Cerciello identified themselves as police officers and showed their badges. The defendants have told investigators they saw no badges and thought they were being attacked by criminal thugs.

Psychiatrist Ferracuti testified that Elder admitted he lost control during the confrontation with Cerciello. He added that the young man told him that if he knew they were police, he wouldnt have had the reaction he did.

Ferracuti also told the court that Elder has an anti-social borderline personality.

Borderline personality disorder is a mental health disorder with symptoms that include problems with self-control and intense emotional reactions.

After Wednesdays session, the trial was recessed for a summer break until Sept 9.
(CNN)  Two years after humans last landed a probe on Mars, both the United States and China are launching missions to the red planet this month and setting up a new arena for their growing rivalry.

Weather permitting, China's Tianwen-1 is expected to blast off Thursday from Hainan Island in the country's south, though the government has yet to publicly confirm the date. NASA's Perseverance rover is scheduled to launch on July 30. Both probes are expected to reach Mars in February 2021.

Perseverance aims to answer questions about the potential for life on Mars, including seeking signs of habitable conditions in the planet's ancient past and looking for evidence of microbial life. The rover has a drill which can be used to collect core samples from rocks and set them aside to potentially be collected and examined by a later mission.

If successful, Perseverance will be the seventh probe NASA has landed on Mars, and the fourth rover. Curiosity, which landed on the red planet in 2012, is still sending back data about the Martian surface.

Tianwen-1, whose name means "Quest for Heavenly Truth," is China's first mission to Mars. The probe will orbit the planet before landing a rover on the surface, with the hope that it can gather important information about the Martian soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere, and search for signs of water.

In a paper last week, the scientific team behind Tianwen-1 said the probe is "going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter. No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way."

By contrast, NASA sent multiple orbiters to Mars before ever attempting a landing. Pulling off the landing is a far more difficult task.

"If successful, it would signify a major technical breakthrough," the Chinese team wrote in the journal Nature.

Space race

In their paper, the Tianwen-1 scientists noted the chance for international collaboration to "advance our knowledge of Mars to an unprecedented level." It's not only their own probe and NASA's that are arriving at the planet next year, but also the United Arab Emirates' Hope Probe, which blasted off on Sunday. The Hope Probe is the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.

Scientists working for NASA and China's space agency have enjoyed a collegiate relationship in the past. They've collaborated on the International Space Station, and congratulated each other on successful missions, such as China's landing of a probe on the far side of the Moon, the first country to ever do so.

But for all the insistence of those involved to the contrary, the space race is inescapably political. NASA's early missions, particularly its historic landing of humans on the Moon in 1969, were fueled by the Cold War rivalry between Washington and the Soviet Union.

Beijing, for its part, is well aware of the potential prestige it could gain by outstripping the US in space. If Tianwen-1 is successful, it has plans to eventually send a manned mission to Mars.

Under President Xi Jinping, China has invested billions of dollars in building up its space program, even as it asserted its influence back on Earth more aggressively and pursued the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

Space has been singled out by the Chinese government in its 13th Five Year Plan as a research priority, especially deep space explorations and in-orbit space craft. As well as the Mars mission, Beijing is also planning to launch a permanent space station by 2022, and is looking at sending a manned probe to the Moon possibly in the 2030s.

This program is building on the findings from China's recent missions to the Moon, particularly the Yutu rovers, the first of which had to abandon its mission half way into the three-month timescale due to a breakdown. Yutu-2, which landed on the far-side of the Moon last year, has been a huge success.

"Our overall goal is that, by around 2030, China will be among the major space powers of the world," Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the National Space Administration, said in 2016.

Mission to Mars

China came late to the space race. And while it has made incredible strides in recent decades, outpacing NASA  at least in terms of bragging rights, if not scientifically  would require something spectacular, like landing a human on Mars.

But there is a reason that since 1972, all space exploration has been carried out by robots. Not only are they cheaper, they're also far longer-lasting and more durable: No country wants to be the first to have an astronaut die on another planet.

Landing robotic probes on Mars is hard enough, given the planet's atmospheric conditions. Getting a human there safely might be next to impossible.

But this hasn't stopped politicians speculating about a manned mission to the red planet. Early in his term, US President Donald Trump authorized NASA to "lead an innovative space exploration program to send American astronauts back to the moon, and eventually Mars."

Trump also created Space Force, a new branch of the armed services. At an unveiling of the organization's flag earlier this year, the US leader said that "space is going to be the future. Both in terms of defense and offense and so many other things."

"Already, from what I'm hearing and based on reports, we are now the leader in space," he added.

Nor is Washington about to let China overtake it. Last year, when CNN quoted Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the US Naval War College, saying the "odds of the next voice transmission from the moon being in Mandarin are high," Trump-appointed NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine retorted, "Hmmm, our astronauts speak English."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Mars is the latest arena in the US-China rivalry, with both countries launching probes this month."
There arent enough adjectives to describe the multilayered Paris apartment of antique dealer and designer Philippe Rapin and his partner in crime, former lifestyle editor Sylvie de Chiree. On the fifth floor of a Right Bank building built in 1910, this ever-curious duo have created a space somewhere between a design laboratory and a cabinet of curiosities. Nothing is off limits, and De Chiree describes their refuge as a theater of objects.

De Chiree has lived in the apartment for a very long time, she says. The large spacewith five bedrooms and two bathshoused her family and now, with all of the children grown and out on their own, it has become home to the couple again. A reflection of Philippes eclectic universe, a creative place, and an extension of his gallery, De Chiree adds. The former fashion and lifestyle editor is quick to point out that the original decoration by Maison Jansen is from the 1950s and the delicately painted walls, also original to the flat, from circa 1910. The entire apartment serves as a backdrop to Rapins ever-growing collection of objects and furniture. They like to mix things up, bringing in new discoveries and setting the stage with older collections Rapin has had for years, like his eye-catching ceramics. Here, there are no rules, with everything from Fornasetti to a 17th-century Turkish chest, by way of lamps and other pieces from the 1940s.

There were minor changes made such as changing the original dining room to what they now call the Petite Salon. One of the smaller bedrooms became the archives, another the library, and one the dressing room. Surprisingly, they didnt do any major work aside from updating the systems, preferring instead to simply reassign rooms and make room for an ever-evolving cast of new pieces.

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Rapin is probably most well known as an eclectic art dealer, but he is also a talent scout of sorts, always on the lookout for interesting and exuberant works of art. In his Paris gallery, he carries objects and furniture like Goossens and Gio Ponti. He also showcases the current production of Kam Tim, a firm he acquired and which continues to create eye-popping collections, each more extravagant than the next, using materials like turquoise and amber.

With its stunning view on the Eiffel Tower, the apartment plays host to lots of entertaining for friends, family, and clients. This place is really the universe of Philippe, De Chiree notes. It is like a part of his gallery and we love to receive people here. Were always moving things around and we even sometimes use rooms in different ways, like eating in the Little Salon for a change of scenery. Safe to assume, this Parisian apartment is truly one of a kind and will likely be full of surprises every time one walks through the front door.

Inside a Paris Design Couples Theater of Objects

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
In the moments before his death, police believe Ali Mohummad was chased through an apartment building parking lot.

He collapsed at the bottom of a small, grassy hill at 11 Kendale Crt., where his stabbed body was later found resting against a fence.

The 19-year-old was one of about 10 young men from Peel Region who were ambushed at 310 Limeridge Rd. W., a plaza directly south of the apartment building, around 1 a.m. on Sunday, July 19. They were meeting with another group from Hamilton on the pretence of talking about an ongoing, minor dispute between two young men.

But instead of talking, the Hamilton group  20 to 30 strong  carried out what appears to be a planned attack, assaulting the Peel group with knives, sticks, rocks, a Taser and vehicles, says Det. Sgt. Peter Thom, of the major crime unit. Everyone involved is believed to be between about 17 and 19 years old.

After they were ambushed, assaulted, there was a lot going on, it was quite a wild scene with people running, he said.

Video of the ambush shared widely on social media shows one young man running and two others giving chase. Someone is heard shouting: Get him, get him.

Thom said police believe the man being chased is Mohummad. But the video doesnt show all of what happened.

Was he stabbed in the parking lot and then stumbled down the hill and collapsed? Or did his pursuers chase him further and stab him again?

Thom said he doesnt know yet.

When police first responded to the scene, it wasnt clear they were dealing with a homicide. Three young men from the Peel group were found injured  two with stab wounds  and were taken to hospital.

Friends arrived separately at the hospital and that is when they realized Mohummad was unaccounted for. They didnt know if he was hurt or had simply run.

By this point, police had already cleared the scene, but they went back shortly before 4:30 a.m. It was a large scene, stretched over the two parking lots northeast of Garth Street and the Lincoln Alexander Parkway. In the dark, police did not find the victim, but did find several blood trails, Thom said.

The canine unit was called in and arrived about an hour later. Following one of the blood trails at 11 Kendale Crt., the police service dog led officers to Mohummad. His body, against the fence, was in the northwest corner of the parking lot, down near the start of Montcalm Drive.

If you were standing in the isolated parking lot, it would be hard to find him, Thom said, especially in the dark and with the victim wearing dark clothing.

Detectives believe the blood trail is the 19-year-old victims blood, but are awaiting forensic test results.

Officers on scene attempted CPR until paramedics arrived, but he had likely already been dead for some time. He was stabbed multiple times.

Given the severity of his injuries, Thom said he believes the 19-year-old likely died soon after being stabbed.

Thom will not comment on what the minor dispute was about, other than to say it was not gang related. Mohummad was not directly tied to the dispute, but was with the group targeted.

Mohummad was not known to police, he said.

With him that night was his older brother, Hamza Chaudry. The two were super, super close.

Growing up, they shared the basement of their familys home, had the same friend groups and even worked together.

I would not leave the house to go to meet anyone unless he was with me, said Chaudry, 22. It was always us.

Chaudry, who spoke with The Spectator following his brothers funeral, wasnt comfortable talking about the specifics of the events on Sunday. He also suffered stab wounds, but was treated and released from hospital.

He was a very innocent kid, said Chaudry of his brother. It was a wrong place, wrong time, wrong person type of situation.

Mohummad never wanted conflicts, as he was never born to be that way, he added.

A GoFundMe account called Homicide Victim  Ali Mohammad (19) has been started for the family. By Tuesday afternoon, the fundraiser had already raised more than $23,500 out of a $30,000 goal.

The account spells his last name Mohammad, while police have spelled his name Mohummad.

Remembering his brother, Chaudry said Mohummad, who was known as Ali Moe, was a hard worker that loved his friends and sports, but cars were his favourite.

During his funeral Tuesday, there were approximately 100 cars following his body in the procession, said Chaudry.

No one wanted to leave him, he said. So, we had the cars as a way to see him off.

A 17-year-old boy from Hamilton is charged with second-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. The teen, who cannot be identified because of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, briefly appeared in court Tuesday where he was ordered to have no contact with a long list of people.

He is scheduled to return to court July 24.

Thom encouraged anyone who was there who was not involved to come forward as a witness. Anyone who was involved is encouraged to contact a lawyer and turn themselves in before theyre identified and arrested by police

Thom said its not clear if more than one weapon was involved in Mohummads stabbing, but they havent identified any weapon yet.

Thom said he expects more people will be charged in relation to the murder and the assaults.

We are confident more charges will be laid, Thom said.

Anyone who has not spoken to police is asked to call Det. Daryl Reid at 905-546-3825.

To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or crimestoppershamilton.com.
The Knesset advanced two legislative proposals today to ban gay conversion therapy. Israels parliament passed the preliminary vote on two bills outlawing the controversial practice by a majority of 42 lawmakers against 36 for the first bill and 43 against 35 for the second. Both bills were presented by the opposition  one by Labor Knesset member Merav Michaeli, and one by Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz. The proposals criminalize conversion therapy, to be punishable by incarceration for up to one year. The bills would also cancel the licenses of psychologists engaged in such therapy for a period of five years. The bills still need approval in two more Knesset hearings.

Several Blue of White members voted in favor of the proposals, against the position of their coalition members in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus Likud and by his ultra-Orthodox political partners. Public Security Minister Amir Ohana of the Likud, who is openly gay, was the only member of his party to support the bill, with some Likud lawmakers absent from the Knesset plenum.

Blue and White's leader Defense Minister Benny Gantz, tweeted just before the vote, "Conversion therapy was born in sin and its place is outside of the law and the public norm. That is why we will vote today in favor of the law and against conversion therapy. Thats why we are here. We promised and we intend to follow through. It is the right thing to do."

As in other Western countries, Israeli scientists and opinion-makers have strongly condemned gay conversion therapy. Still, though discouraged by Israels Health Ministry, this practice has remained legal and is accepted in some Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox circles.

In July 2019, then-Education Minister Rafi Peretz of the national-religious Jewish Home Party provoked a public storm over the issue by openly supporting conversion therapy. "I think it is possible. I can tell you I have a very deep familiarity with this kind of education, and I have also done this, the minister said. Shortly after the interview was aired, Netanyahu said he had asked Peretz for clarification," stating, The education ministers remarks regarding the gay community are unacceptable to me and do not reflect the position of the government that I head."

Ultra-Orthodox parties, which object to the bill, were hoping over the past few days that a milder version of the proposal would be presented. The version presented on July 22 for the preliminary hearing and the support of Blue and White coalition members prompted furious reactions on their part. Representatives of Shas and Yahadut HaTorah announced that their lawmakers will no longer cooperate with their Blue and White coalition partners. Ultra-Orthodox Housing Minister Yaakov Litzman lambasted Blue and White's "rotten conduct against coalition discipline," calling it "a challenge to the political partnership."
When the bankruptcy filing of Brooks Brothers was announced this month, I received more condolence emails and texts than I had when my beloved dog Henry died.

The American haberdashery, with a pedigree matched by none, was in serious trouble. James Madisons suits, F. Scott Fitzgeralds wardrobe and the Union Armys uniforms during the Civil War were all designed and made by Brooks Brothers. Theodore Roosevelt insisted the Rough Riders were outfitted by Brooks Brothers. Brooks Brothers made the black wool coat that Abraham Lincoln wore to his second inauguration. Its not just a store. Its a code, a reference, an historical record that is 202 years old. We cant let it go without a fight.

Inextricably woven into the story of the United States is the story of this enterprising, sturdy and innovative company. Started by Henry Sands Brooks in 1818, it was continued after his death in 1833 by his five sons, and that is when H. & D.H. Brooks & Co became Brooks Brothers. The store, which first opened on Catharine and Cherry Street in what is now the Lower East Side, moved increasingly uptown over the years until 1915, when they built the big building that I love on Madison and 44th Street.
Department of the Air Force introduces Arctic Strategy

Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs / Published July 21, 2020

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett unveiled the new, comprehensive Department of the Air Force Arctic Strategy, July 21.



The strategy outlines the Department's unique regional role and efforts to optimize Air and Space Force capabilities throughout the region in support of the National Defense Strategy.



"The Arctic is among the most strategically significant regions of the world today  the keystone from which the U.S. Air and Space Forces exercise vigilance," Barrett said. "This Arctic Strategy recognizes the immense geostrategic consequence of the region and its critical role for protecting the homeland and projecting global power."



The strategy outlines four coordinated lines of effort that Air and Space Forces will use to enhance vigilance, reach and power to the nation's whole-of-government approach in the Arctic region:



 Vigilance in all domains

 Projecting power through a combat-credible force

 Cooperation with allies and partners

 Preparation for Arctic operations



Vigilance in all domains: The number one Department of Defense priority is homeland defense. Air and Space Forces contribute to this priority by monitoring potential threats across all warfighting domains, including air, space and cyberspace.



When it comes to the Arctic, U.S. Air and Space Forces are responsible for the majority of Department of Defense missions in the region, including the regional architecture for detecting, tracking, and engaging air and missile threats. Space Professionals in the region are responsible for critical nodes of the satellite control network that deliver space capabilities to joint and coalition partners, as well as the U.S. national command authority.



"Integrating space capabilities into joint operations fuels the joint force's ability to project power anywhere on the planet, any time," said Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond. "The Arctic is no different. Spacepower is essential to Arctic operations, allowing us to see with clarity, navigate with accuracy, and communicate across vast distances."



Projecting power through a combat-credible force: Protecting America's interests in the homeland and abroad entails more than a vigilant defensive posture. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska present combat capability with fifth-generation fighters as well as mobility and refueling aircraft. The Air Force provides the capability to reach remote northern locations via the New York Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing that operates ski-equipped LC-130s, which can land on ice.



"Our unique positioning in locations like Alaska, Canada and Greenland are integrated with multi-domain combat power," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein. "These locations harness powerful capabilities, and their unwavering vigilance to protecting the homeland represent a strategic benefit that extends well beyond the region itself."



Cooperation with allies and partners: Alliances and partnerships are key in the Arctic, where no one nation has sufficient infrastructure or capacity to operate alone. Interoperability is especially critical in the Arctic due to the terrains, limited access, and low density of domain awareness assets. Many regional allies and partners have dedicated decades of focus to the Arctic, developing concepts, tactics and techniques from which the joint force can greatly benefit. Indigenous communities possess millennia of knowledge about the Arctic domain passed down through generations. Working with indigenous communities helps Air and Space Forces understand the Arctic environment, enriches training and exercises, and ensures recognition of their contributions to Department of the Air Force activities.



"Strong relationships with regional allies and partners, including at the local level, are a key strategic advantage for the U.S. in the Arctic," Barrett said. "U.S. Air and Space Forces are focused on expanding interoperability with peers that value peaceful access in the region, and we appreciate our local hosts that have welcomed Department of the Air Force installations, Airmen and Space Professionals as part of their communities for decades."



Preparation for Arctic operations: The Arctic's austerity requires specialized training and acclimation by both personnel and materiel. The ability to survive and operate in extreme cold weather is imperative for contingency response or combat power generation.



"Spanning the first airplane flights in Alaska in 1913 to today's fifth-generation aircraft and sophisticated space monitoring systems operating in the region, the Arctic has consistently remained a location of strategic importance to the United States," Barrett said. "While the often harsh weather and terrain there call for appropriate preparations and training, Airmen and Space Professionals remain ready to bring the nation's Arctic air and space assets to bear to support the National Defense Strategy and protect the U.S. homeland."

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The family of journalist Vikram Joshi, who died on Wednesday after being shot at near his house in Uttar Pradeshs Ghaziabad, will be given an ex gratia of Rs 10 lakh and a job, chief minister Yogi Adityanath has announced.

The 35-year-old journalist was attacked in Vijay Nagar area of the city in front of his two minor daughters by a group of men late on Monday night at Vijay Nagar of the city.

Vikram Joshi had sustained a gunshot injury in the head.

The chief minister has announced an ex gratia of Rs 10 lakh for the family of the deceased and a job for his wife, Ajay Shankar Pandey, Ghaziabads district magistrate, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Joshi, who worked at a local Hindi newspaper, was riding his motorcycle with his two daughters, aged six and 10 years, when the group attacked after cornering him in Mata Colony area around 10.30pm on Monday.

The shooting was also captured on a nearby CCTV camera, in which one of his daughters was seen shouting for help as the attackers fled the spot soon after.

Hours after Joshis death, Uttar Pradesh Police said they have arrested three more accused in the case along with six others, while one is absconding.

Ravi Kumar, Akash Nath and Chotu were arrested, they said. Others who have been arrested in connection with the case are Mohammad Shakir, Mohit Kumar, Dalvir Singh, Abhishek Saroj, Abhishek Janwal (Balmiki), and Jogendra. Babu is still on the run, the police said.

Earlier in the day, Joshis family said that they want justice and the main accused should be arrested else they would not accept his body.

The incident occurred on Monday, days after Vikram Joshi had filed a complaint with Vijay Nagar Police Station stating that some men were harassing his niece.

According to the police, the group, led by Ravi, fought with Joshi on July 16, as a result of which Ravis eye was injured and his jaw broken.

He was hospitalised and discharged on Monday. While in the hospital, he roped in his accomplices to teach Joshi a lesson. The group cornered Joshi on Monday night and started beating him up in the presence of his daughters. One of the suspects, Chotu, opened fire from close rangeJoshi was shot in the head, said Rakesh Mishra, circle officer (city 1).

Police sources had said that after the fight on July 16, the two parties lodged their complaints at the local police post.

The station in-charge has been suspended and departmental inquiry initiated after the family of the journalist alleged inaction by the police, officials said.

(With agency inputs)
Police in South Africa are investigating the hijacking of a lorry that was carrying Covid-19 samples in the city of Port Elizabeth.



The lorry was hijacked while parked outside a clinic on Monday and abandoned shortly after, public broadcaster SABC reports.



The samples are reported to be missing. They were contained in cooler boxes filled with ice.



Health authorities have warned the hijackers and the public not to touch the samples because they are potentially highly infectious, the News24 website reports quoting an official from the National Health Laboratory Services in Eastern Cape province.



Health officials are investigating the number of samples stolen before determining how many people to retest, the website adds.



Some 2.5 million coronavirus tests have been conducted in South Africa.



The country has the nighest number of confirmed cases on the continent.

Source: BBC









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Ohio House speaker Larry Householder was arrested on Tuesday in connection with a $60m (47.15m) bribery scheme that allegedly involved other top state officials.

Mr Householder was one of five arrested, along with his adviser Jeffrey Longstreth, former Ohio Republican party chairman Matt Borges, and lobbyists Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes, according to NPR.

The five men were arrested for suspected public corruption racketeering conspiracy, according to a federal complaint.

They have all been subsequently charged with conspiracy to participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of an enterprises affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.

The men arrested on Tuesday face a maximum of 20 years in prison if they are convicted of the charges.

The complaint alleged that Mr Householder and the other men were involved in a bribery campaign to help him get elected and to pass a nuclear bailout bill for two local plants.

Mr Householder, who is a Republican, won the speakership in January 2019 and then passed legislation to bail out the plants in June that year.

Generation Now, a social welfare enterprise that is described in the complaint as being secretly run by Mr Householder, has also been charged in relation to the claims.

NPR reported that nuclear power company FirstEnergy Solutions appeared to pay the organisation, that is exempt from paying tax, $60m from March 2017 to March 2020.

US Attorney David DeVillers told reporters on Tuesday that the money that was given to the organisation, was spent towards the bailout of the plants and on Mr Householders campaign, to the detriment of other candidates attempting to become Ohios House speaker.

Prosecutors allege that in return for the money towards his campaign, Mr Householder helped pass the bailout in June and made sure it went into effect in October, amid local pressure and a ballot to stop it.

Mr DeVillers told reporters that the alleged scheme is likely the largest bribery money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.

He said: Make no mistake, these allegations are bribery. Pure and simple, and added: This was pay-to-play. I use the term pay-to-play because thats the term theyve used as alleged in the affidavit.

After the house speaker was charged on Tuesday, governor Mike DeWine said Mr Householder should resign in a post on Twitter.

I am deeply concerned about the allegations of wrongdoing issued today by the US Attorneys Office, Mr DeWine tweeted.

Because of the nature of these charges, it will be impossible for Speaker Householder to effectively lead the Ohio House of Representatives; therefore, I am calling on speaker Householder to resign immediately. This is a sad day for Ohio.
On Monday 20th July, 2020, Nigerias Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai made the following statement as regards insecurity in the country: If we want it to end today, I can ensure you it will end today if everybody joins hands together because these bandits are not from outside Nigeria, they are not from foreign lands.

So its not just a military, security agencys task to end the insecurity in this country. Its only when it goes bad that we are called in, but everyone has the responsibility to handle that. Some of the insecurities are old as history itself and it depends on what you are doing to contain it at a particular time.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that the COAS would make a statement that would make us not only question his intelligence, but also his insensitivity. On June 18, 2019 he made the following statement regarding the soldiers fighting insurgency: It is unfortunate, but the truth is that almost every setback the Nigerian Army has had in our operations in recent times can be traced to insufficient willingness to perform assigned tasks or simply insufficient commitment to a common national and military course by those at the frontlines. He should have been fired as the COAS the moment he made such debilitating and demoralizing statement. But he is still in the Presidents good book like other security chiefs in the country.

It is true that people that are concerned should constantly report cases of suspected insurrection to security agencies, saying expressly that combating insecurity is not the sole duty of security agencies is disappointing. How many COAS in the world make this type of statement soliciting the peoples support to do their job well when they should improve military intelligence? For anyone that is serious about his job, this type of statement coming from a COAS is unwarranted and it is a reckless thing to say at this moment that the current is in dire need of saving from terrorism and insurgency. As a matter of fact, the statement has serious implications apart from it being a personal disgraceful statement from the COAS and it means many things.

One, the greatest implication of that statement is that people die daily in their homes and farms because the entire populace is not ready for those killings to end. Since when has every Nigerian charged with fighting terrorism in Nigeria? Why do we need an army of soldiers and supply them with weapons when ultimately we are not ready for the insurgency to end? This is totally uncalled for.

If truly it is in the hands of the citizens to make insecurity go away, one could ask why we need a government. It is the duty of the people in government to protect the people they are charged to protect. What this type of statement means is that the government is irresponsible and that the security agencies are now looking for a way to whisk away their failures because the people are not as corporative as they expected. It is a hogwash defence, one that insults the intelligence of Nigerians.

Two, the many Nigerians that are not ready for the insurgency to end includes the President. Bearing in mind that the President is the Commander-in-Chief of Nigerias Armed Forces and Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, this is a serious indictment on the President. By now, one would have expected President Buhari to react by firing the COAS for making such a misguided statement. But for some reasons, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai is still in office and would continue to be until the Muses convinced the President that the COAS has overstayed his welcome in that office.

Well, it is obvious this Buhari-led APC government has failed in the area of security. Since the advent of democratic governance in Nigeria, never has the country being besieged with this myriad of security issues. Boko Haram has proven to not be technically defeated or decimated. Banditry attack is on the rise in Northern Nigeria and the home state of the President, Katsina seems to now be the headquarters of bandits in Nigeria. The only state that appears to be free from banditry attacks in north-western Nigeria is Kano. Kaduna and Katsina has been the worst hit. Gunmen that are suspected to be of Fulani extraction are also killing people in farms and villages across the country. All these violence is enough to make President Buhari concede his failure as the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces and not just simply doling out condolences to victims of these attacks. But would President Buhari resign because the Federal Government has failed to deliver in terms of security? Your guess is as good as mine.

Three, the statement is also a personal indictment on the COAS himself. After all, he is also a Nigerian. The question now should be whether Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai as a Nigerian is not also ready to see the killing of innocent citizens in Kaduna, Zamfara, Benue, Borno, Katsina and other places end. Well, obviously, he isnt and thats why the insurgents are overpowering men of the Nigerian Army and insecurity is growing.

Everywhere, soldiers are expected to be disciplined. That discipline include being so chaste in words and in deeds. But this statement doesnt show the COAS as someone who is chaste in words. With the failing security in the country, one could even question his chastity in deeds. It is obvious the Nigerian Army lacks proper intelligence and needs a fresh brain to handle its affairs.

If the COAS is tired of handling security issues in the country, he should just say it because thats what it seems like. Like every Nigerian, he has the right to retire and walk away whenever perceives he doesnt have the type of co-operation he needs to function well in office. After all, he has two mansions in Dubai that he could always go to.

We have enough of this type of statement beseeching us to help people do what they are paid to do. Even though the people are encouraged not to cover up any act that could lead to violence, failure of the security agencies in their duty should not be hinged on the fact that people are not giving them information. We are tired of hearing this type of statement from the COAS.
Migrants: Turkey rescues 110 people in the Aegean On three struggling boats, all headed to Lesbo

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JULY 22 - The Turkish Coast Guard on Wednesday rescued 110 migrants from struggling boats in the Aegean Sea. One rescue took place off the coast of Dikili, in Izmir Province, and involved 36 migrants travelling on a rubber dinghy towards the southern area of the Greek island of Lesbo. According to Ankara security sources cited by Anadolu, the boat was illegally pushed back by the Greek Coast Guard. The Greek government has consistently denied these persistent accusations.



Another 31 migrants headed toward Lesbo were rescued at sea off the town of Ayvacik, further north on the Aegean coast. Off the coast of Ayvalik, 43 other migrants headed to Lesbo were brought back to land as they neared the small Turkish island of Buyuk Maden in the Aegean.(ANSAmed). (ANSA).




ST. LOUIS, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- FleishmanHillard's TRUE Global Intelligence practice today released the results of a new study, COVID-19 Mindset: The Collision of Issues. The report analyzes the inflection points taking place around the world as consumers' thoughts and approaches to their health and finances shift, and expectations for their government, community, employers and each other change.

"Our April 2020 study, COVID-19 Mindset: How Pandemic Times Are Shaping Global Consumers, suggested that it's crucial in the eyes of the consumer for employers to take good care of their employees," said Natasha Kennedy, senior partner and global managing director of FleishmanHillard's TRUE Global Intelligence practice. "The Collision of Issues study goes one step further, examining consumer perceptions not only of COVID-19, but a myriad of issues facing consumers around the world today. We must understand what we expect of institutions and of each other and how these issues are reshaping our perceptions, behaviors and values to move forward. There's a universal expectation right now that institutions will commit themselves to doing the right thing."

The enduring presence of COVID-19 and its economic shocks, along with systemic racism, social injustice and other issues have put the world on edge; the study aims to unwrap the issues of today and examine consumers' current views.

"The collision of issues has increased scrutiny of companies, brands and leaders. Going forward it is absolutely vital for organizations to not only commit to doing the right thing, and do so with compassion and empathy, but to act on that commitment in alignment with clearly defined values," said Peter Verrengia, senior partner and head of FleishmanHillard's Recovery and Resurgence practice. "Consumers and employees are surrounded by uncertainty and want to know that their employer and the brands they love share their values."

With recent data from seven major countries, the study shows:

The pandemic has continued much longer than many anticipated and is leaving a significant impact on almost every area of our lives. Trust is eroding in our sources of critical safety information, and consumers are questioning everything.

71% are afraid that restrictions in their communities are being lifted too quickly for economic reasons and there will be an increase in the infection rate.

People are questioning how we live safely with each other, with 82% saying the world now seems like a riskier place and 56% seeing the people around them as more dangerous than before.

Trust in the organizations responsible for providing critical information on safety and testing has deteriorated over the course of the pandemic. Consumers want to hear from public health officials and scientists the most (51%) for this guidance, while only 39% of consumers want to hear from the government, pharmaceutical/healthcare companies (24%) and their employers (15%).

There is no absolute fix or solution to feeling safe, and 80% say the pandemic has changed their view of the world.

The end of the pandemic is not clear-cut  only 60% say a vaccine against the virus will mark the end of the COVID-19 threat; 42% won't feel safe until there are zero infections in their community.

While mask mandates are debated by national and local governments, compliance varies  41% will wear a mask to protect themselves and others, 16% will only wear a mask if it is legally required, and 3% won't wear a mask even if it's required.

Accessibility to personal protection equipment would help some feel safer, with 49% saying dispensers of free face masks and hand sanitizers in public spaces and high-traffic locations should be developed to safeguard public health in the future.

The pandemic has shifted consumers' outlook and how they live. Half of consumers predict it will take anywhere from five months to more than a year to return to normal.

Consumers report that finances are tight, with 70% saying they don't have enough money or have "just enough" to pay monthly expenses now. Spending is being evaluated carefully; 64% say they've stopped purchasing non-essential items.

Even as we learn to live in our new reality, many are predicting a decline in areas of their life over the next six months  34% believe their financial situation will get worse; 30% believe the overall quality of life will go down; and 28% believe their safety will decrease.

Nearly half of consumers will postpone routine doctor visits or elective procedures.

Consumers will seek the outdoors locally but are split in terms of who will be venturing into indoor public places in the next 12 months. 75% expect to go to public outdoor spaces like parks, playgrounds and pools, while 55% expect to go into the office and only 33% expect to go to school.

While COVID-19 is at the forefront of how people are living their lives, the world is also addressing systemic racism. Corporations need to take action on the issues, as employees and customers expect organizations to be values-led.

The issues most important to consumers are inter-connected by systemic discrimination and inequities. Discrimination and equality/racism is the top issue on consumers' lists, with 72% rating it very important and 59% expecting companies to take a stand on it. Other important issues include access to affordable, quality healthcare (69%), public health risks (65%) and violence against women (63%).

91% of consumers say it's important for companies to show that they're committed to doing the right thing.

Consumers expect CEOs to speak out and act on issues affecting their customers, employees and the communities where they do business. Top areas where they need to take a stand include health and safety measures that the company is taking for their employees and customers (51%); issues related to data privacy and security (44%); and showing how the company's values support the values of their communities, customers and employees (42%).

"Consumers are carefully watching how organizations respond to today's issues," said Verrengia. "They expect organizations to do everything they can to support their workforce, lend their strength to their communities, and do what they can to contribute to a safer world. The organizations that put people first will be recognized by consumers as they seek to regain their own sense of control."

FleishmanHillard's global Recovery and Resurgence practice is using the findings from this latest study to help guide organizations as they reimagine their workplaces and operations.

TRUE Global Intelligence, the in-house research practice of FleishmanHillard, fielded an online survey of adults 18 and older in the following markets June 8 - 19, 2020: China (n=1,280); Canada (n=1,240); Germany (n=1,242); Italy (n=1,275); South Korea (n=1,227); United Kingdom (n=1,277); and United States (n=1,276). Data have been weighted by gender and age in all markets as well as region in the United States, Canada and China. In the United States, an oversample of n=200 African Americans, n= 200 Hispanic and n=100 LGB was added.

About FleishmanHillard

FleishmanHillard specializes in public relations, reputation management, public affairs, brand marketing, digital strategy, social engagement and content strategy. FleishmanHillard was named 2019 PRWeek U.S. Outstanding Large Agency; 2019 Holmes Report North America Large Agency of the Year; ICCO Network of the Year  Americas 2017-2019; Agency of the Year at the 2017 and 2018 North American Excellence Awards; 2018 Large Consultancy of the Year by PRWeek UK; PR News' Best Places to Work in PR 2016-2018; Human Rights Campaign Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality 2018-2020; PR Awards Asia 2017 Greater China Agency of the Year; and NAFE's "Top Companies for Executive Women" 2010-2020. The firm's award-winning work is widely heralded, including at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity. FleishmanHillard is part of Omnicom Public Relations Group, and has 80 offices in more than 30 countries, plus affiliates in 50 countries.

About Omnicom Public Relations Group

Omnicom Public Relations Group is a global collective of three of the top global public relations agencies worldwide and specialist agencies in areas including public affairs, marketing to women, global health strategy and corporate social responsibility. It encompasses more than 6,300 public relations professionals in more than 370 offices worldwide who provide their expertise to companies, government agencies, NGOs and nonprofits across a wide range of industries. Omnicom Public Relations Group delivers for clients through a relentless focus on talent, continuous pursuit of innovation and a culture steeped in collaboration. Omnicom Public Relations Group is part of the DAS Group of Companies, a division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) that includes more than 200 companies in a wide range of marketing disciplines including advertising, public relations, healthcare, customer relationship management, events, promotional marketing, branding and research.

SOURCE FleishmanHillard Inc.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 12:53 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066866275 1 National Jokowi,COVID-19-vaccine,Sinovac,Bio-Farma,Padjajaran-University,COVID-19,pandemic Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has urged Padjajaran Universitys Medical School research team in Bandung, West Java to make the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine available for widespread use within three months amid mounting concerns over the ongoing health crisis.

Padjajaran University professor Kusnandi Rusmil said Jokowi had called on the research team to fast-track the potential vaccine during a private meeting held at the State Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday.

There was a special instruction from the President to expedite [the production] of the coronavirus vaccine within three months, if possible, Kusnandi told the press after the meeting.

However, he said the team could not possibly fulfill Jokowis request, as the clinical trials for the possible vaccine entailed a string of stringent protocols that would otherwise take years to complete under normal circumstances.

We told [the President] that three months is impossible. We need to conduct proper testing, Kusnandi added.

He went on to say that he expected the vaccine  developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech in collaboration with state-owned pharmaceutical holding company PT Bio Farma  to pass phase III clinical trials as early as next January with a total of 1,620 samples tested.

Bio Farma president director Honesti Basyir said the company had planned to distribute 40 million doses of the vaccine per year as soon as the government authorized its widespread usage.

According to the official government count, Indonesia has 89,869 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 4,320 deaths as of Tuesday. (rfa)
Beijing vows to strike back forcefully in response to London's wrong deeds: Chinese FM

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing and Zhang Hui Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/21 23:18:40

London trades harsh stance on Beijing for deals with US: experts

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks with British officials and some Hong Kong secessionists fleeing to the UK on Tuesday during his visit to London amid growing US-China tensions. Abandoning an independent foreign policy and yielding to the pressure of Washington, the Boris government has taken a harsh stance on Hong Kong, Huawei and other China-related matters. The policies will eventually backfire and London's policies won't be followed by the rest of Europe, observers said.

Pompeo met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other officials on Tuesday, and was also scheduled to hold talks with the former governor of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Chris Patten and Hong Kong secessionist leader Nathan Law Kwun Chung. Such arrangements laid bare the purpose of his brief visit: take on China by utilizing all necessary anti-Beijing forces, according to observers.

As Washington now pushes hard to form an anti-China alliance in Europe, the UK has become the first one to "dance to the tune" of the Americans by banning Huawei in its 5G construction, suspending an extradition treaty with the HKSAR and harshly accusing Beijing of "gross" human rights abuses in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Pompeo said he held constructive and candid talks on 5G security, a potential free trade deal, and other matters during his meeting with Johnson in London on Tuesday, according to media reports.

Before meeting with the US Secretary of State, the British government announced on Monday to suspend its extradition treaty with the HKSAR and blocked arms sales to the Chinese city. The announcement is considered as a "welcoming gift" for showing Britain's willingness to "stand with the US," as some Chinese observers said.

Grave consequences

The suspension of the extradition treaty between the UK and Hong Kong will encourage more secessionists like Law who were behind months-long riots in Hong Kong, to flee to the UK and will make the country a heaven for transnational crime, a base for terrorism and seriously affect the UK's public security, Kennedy Wong Ying-ho, a solicitor at the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

It will severely shake the UK's role of a global financial hub and undermine its influence in Europe, Wong said.

Nathan Law is one of the major agitators behind violent anti-government protests in the HKSAR in 2019, which escalated to a citywide riots that dragged the once-prosperous city into chaos. Shortly after the national security law for Hong Kong was implemented, with the strong deterrent effects on secessionists and terrorists, Law fled to London.

Pompeo is also scheduled to meet with other anti-China figures, revealing that the Five Eyes alliance, led by the US, is using them to serve their anti-China interests, Wong said.

Ending the extradition agreement with the HKSAR won't have a significant impact on law enforcement in the city nor on the mainland, but countries like the UK that took such reckless actions may face risks, as those fugitives who violated the law in Hong Kong could flee to the UK, bringing potential security risks to the country, according to observers.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Chinese Embassy in the UK and the HKSAR government all voiced firm opposition on Tuesday to the UK's latest move on Hong Kong - blatant interference in the internal affairs of China. "In the face of wrongdoing on the UK side, China will strike back forcefully," Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the Chinese FM, told a routine press conference.

He also urged the UK to abandon the illusion of continuing its colonial influence in the HKSAR and immediately correct its mistakes to avoid further damage to China-UK ties.

The Chinese embassy also warned the UK not to go further down the wrong path, otherwise it will backfire, a spokesperson from the Chinese embassy said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.

The UK's suspension of the extradition treaty with Hong Kong also drew ire from Chinese netizens. It was listed on Sina Weibo's hot topic list on Tuesday with over 200 million views.

Many Chinese netizens slammed the UK for being "duped" by the US and suggested to the UK that they should receive all of the Hong Kong rioters and let them cause chaos in the country.

China's response

While Chinese Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming warned that the UK would bear the consequences of damaging bilateral relations, some observers are wondering what will the possible Chinese response and countermeasures in order to defend Beijing's legitimate rights. If the British government imposes sanctions on any individual in China, the Chinese side will make a resolute response, Liu said in a tweet on Tuesday.

China will not confront the UK and immediately reciprocate sanctions on it like it did on the US, as there is still much more leeway for improving China-UK relations, according to observers.

"China will fully assess the impact of the UK's Huawei ban in regards to coming up with countermeasures," Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies, China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.

Though China does not want countermeasures that may push the UK too far away from China, in response to its wrong deeds, there are some options to hit 10 Downing Street where it could cause the most pain, observers said.

"London is currently the world's biggest center for trading renminbi outside China, but it is no longer the financial center for Europe after Brexit, thus China could consider moving the renminbi trading center from London to Frankfurt," Wong said, noting that when the city becomes the shelter of fleeing fugitives, it will also become less attractive to investors.

Influence on Europe

Besides the London trip, Pompeo will head to Denmark on Wednesday to hold talks with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and other officials, with topics regarding China also on the agenda.

Pompeo's UK and Denmark visits this week are aimed at ripping a hole in Europe on the position of Huawei and provoking Europe's relations with China, so that all European countries would follow the US and the UK in excluding Huawei from their markets - a symbolic move in taking a hostile stance towards China, but "this is unlikely to happen," Cui said.

"The UK's influence in Europe has dramatically declined after Brexit, and countries like Germany and France are more important countries in affecting Europe's attitudes towards Huawei and China," Cui said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been reluctant to criticize China on its COVID-19 response and refrained from criticizing Beijing on the national security law for Hong Kong, which has been regarded as a "rational view" that incorporates strategic thinking into the future of China and Europe ties.

From the US side, the US has more means at its disposal to put pressure on the UK, the only Five Eyes member in Europe, but it has far less means to press other European countries on their stance on Huawei and China, Cui said.

Pompeo chose Denmark due to its relatively unfriendly attitude towards Huawei. If not, why not visit countries like Hungary which has opened up its 5G market, Cui said, noting that Denmark will at most follow the US verbally.

Even for the UK, it's trying to limit the impact of its Huawei ban on China-UK relations within a certain scale to avoid fully damaging the relationship with China.

All those gestures that the UK has made, no matter whether on Hong Kong or Huawei, was out of the need to exchange for what it needed on the trade deal with the US during Pompeo's visit, and if it did not satisfy the deal, it would lean towards China again, Cui added.

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Those in the Riverside County area looking to get a new Nissan vehicle are encouraged to act quickly. The Palm Springs Nissan 4th of July Sales Event ends July 31, 2020

Palm Springs Nissana Nissan dealer located in Cathedral City, Californiais offering discounts, rebates and special rates on select new Nissan vehicles until the end of its 4th of July Sales Event. Those in the Riverside County area looking to get a new Nissan vehicle are encouraged to act quickly. The Palm Springs Nissan 4th of July Sales Event ends July 31, 2020.

The popular 2020 Nissan Rogue Sport S is one of the models that is eligible for a discount and mail-in rebate offer. Qualified parties can get a $2,699 Palm Springs discount, as well as a $3,000 Nissan rebate. Combined, potential customers can save up to $5,699 on the 2020 Nissan Rogue Sport S. The 2020 Nissan Kicks compact crossover has a similar deal, with a $2,055 Palm Springs discount and a $1,500 Nissan mail-in rebate, making for a combined $3,555 in savings.

Leasing and financing specials are also available. 0%-APR financing for 84 months with an additional $2,500 in Nissan Customer Cash is available to qualified buyers on brand-new Nissan models. Many new 2020 Nissan models can be leased at low rates as well. The 2020 Nissan Sentra SV is available for $129 per month for 36 months. The 2020 Nissan Altima S can be leased at $159 per month for 36 months. The 2020 Rogue SV is available to qualified lessees for $198 per month for 36 months.

To learn more about the Palm Springs Nissan 4th of July Sales Event and its specials, visit https://www.palmspringsnissan.com/. Those with questions can give the dealership a call at 760-328-2800 or visit the dealership at 68177 Kyle Road, Cathedral City.


By PTI

COLOMBO: The wife of one of the suicide bombers belonging to a local extremist group that carried out the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka killing nearly 260 people may have fled to India to avoid arrest, according to a media report.

On April 21, 2019, nine suicide bombers belonging to the local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS carried out a series of blasts that tore through three churches and as many luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, killing 258 people, including 11 Indians, and injuring over 500 on the Easter Sunday.

Sri Lankan police have arrested over 200 suspects in connection with the bombings.

According to the English language daily 'The Island', a probe panel has been told that Pulasthini Rajendran alias Sarah, the wife of Achchi Mohammdu Mohammadu Hasthun, the suicide bomber who blew himself up at St. Sebastian's Church in the western coastal town of Negombo, most likely had fled to India by the sea in September 2019.

Chief Inspector Arjuna Maheenkanda told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that the person who assisted her to flee had been arrested, the report said.

The police officer said that in October 2019, he was assigned to investigate the attacks carried out by the NTJ.

Maheenkanda told the PCoI that on July 6, 2020, he received a tip-off from an informant that Sarah, who was in the NTJ hideout in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, had escaped and was hiding in Mankadu in the eastern town of Batticaloa, the report said on Tuesday.

"When we were in Batticaloa, we met another person who had seen a woman, whom he believed was Sarah.

This informant said he had seen a cab parked along Batticaloa-Kalmunai main road, near Beach Road, Mankadu area around 3 AM in September 2019.

"He felt suspicious and slowed down. Then he saw Sarah and two other men walking towards the main road. There was a street light there and that's how the informant saw them. This informant had lived near Sarah's house for a long time. He also saw that she got into the back seat of the cab parked near the road," the report quoted Maheenkenda as having told the PCoI.

The officer said that there was information that Sarah had fled to India by boat from the Mannar area.

Two persons, Sarah's brother and husband of her aunt, had helped her escape, the report said.

"One of the suspects is currently in custody. The other person has gone abroad. Investigations have also revealed that a person in the Mannar area helped her flee," the officer said.

The blasts targeted St Anthony's Church in Colombo, St Sebastian's Church in the western coastal town of Negombo, and a church in the eastern town of Batticaloa when the Easter Sunday mass was in progress.

Three explosions were reported from three five-star hotels - the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand, and the Kingsbury in Colombo.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 07:28:37|Editor: Lu Hui

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A staff member observes the floodwater discharge at the Liujiaxia reservoir in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Gansu Province, July 21, 2020. The water flow in the upper stream of the Yellow River has been increasing due to rainfall. The Lanzhou hydrological station saw the second flood of the river this year with the water flow of 3,000 cubic meters per second, which occured at 8:42 p.m. on Monday. Authorities raised the emergency response for flood control to Level IV, as the water flow of the river surged to 3,320 cubic meters per second at 8 a.m. on Tuesday and the floodwater rose above alert level. Since strong rain will continue to lash parts of northwestern China from Tuesday to Thursday, reservoirs in the upper stream of the Yellow River have raised their discharge volume to battle the flood. (Xinhua/Chen Bin)
Radisson Hospitality AB (publ) will release its Financial Report Q2-2020 on Thursday 23 July 2020 at 7:30am CEST. Federico J. Gonzalez, President & CEO, and Sergio Amodeo, CFO, will also host an audio webcast on Friday 24 July 2020 at 10:00am CEST.

To access the telephone conference, please dial one of the following numbers:

LOCATION PHONE NUMBER Belgium National free phone 080048471 Belgium +32 (0)27 93 38 47 France National free phone 0805101465 France +33 (0)1 70 70 07 81 Norway National free phone 80056865 Norway +47 21563015 Sweden National free phone 0200125160 Sweden +46 (0)8 56618467 Spain National free phone 900828480 Spain +34 914143675 United Kingdom National free phone 08002796619 United Kingdom +44 (0) 8444819752 USA National free phone 18778709135 USA +1 6467413167 Canada National free phone 18669250818 Standard international dial-in +44 (0) 2071 928338

Confirmation Code: 4874225

To follow the webcast, please visit: https://www.radissonhospitalityab.com/investors

For further information, contact:

Lucie Cardona, Director, Corporate Communications

lucie.cardona@radissonhotels.com



ABOUT RADISSON HOSPITALITY AB

Radisson Hospitality AB (publ) is one of the largest hotel companies in Europe, the Middle East & Africa (EMEA) and a member of the Radisson Hotel Group.

Through a master franchise agreement with Radisson Hospitality, Inc. USA - Radisson Hospitality AB operates and develops hotel brands across EMEA - including Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED and Park Inn by Radisson. It also operates the Radisson Rewards loyalty program for frequent hotel guests.

Radisson Hospitality AB features a portfolio of 387 hotels, with 84,800+ rooms in operation and 125 hotels, with 24,900+ rooms under development in 80 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Radisson Hospitality AB and its brands employ 44,000+ team members. Radisson Hospitality AB has an industry-leading Responsible Business Program and has been named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by the US think-tank Ethisphere nine times.
After having a bizarre meltdown on Twitter and then deleting the posts, American rapper Kanye West indicated towards shifting his vision of becoming the US President to 2024. While sharing the image of his upcoming album Donda: With Child, the 43-year-old musician said that maybe this year all people from the black community are supposed to vote for Democratic nominee and former US Vice President Joe Biden. Kanye West then asks his followers if they want him to run in 2020 presidential elections in November or not. This comes after he announced that Donda: With Child, that is a movie, as well as an album, would come on July 24.

#2020VISION or maybe 24



I guess all black people supposed to vote on Biden? Yall want me to run on nah??? pic.twitter.com/rwXyAy5mng  ye (@kanyewest) July 22, 2020

DONDA: WITH CHILD new album and movie this Friday pic.twitter.com/eHX1vGm5C2  ye (@kanyewest) July 22, 2020

Read - Kim Kardashian Upset With Kanye West For Making Shocking Claims On Twitter?

Read - Kanye West Thanks His 'true Friend' David Chappelle For Flying To Wyoming To Check On Him

Kanye West's meltdown on Twitter

Kanye West publicly announcing himself to reconsider his US president vision came just a day after the musician went on an unprecedented, controversial rant targetting wife Kim Kardashian, mother-in-law Kris Jenner. The American rapper went on a Twitter spree that started with him sharing a single link to Michael Jacksons music video Black or White. After that, Kanye West called out Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner and at one point he claimed that his wife had a doctor ready to go to Wyoming to lock him up in what is presumed to be a mental institution and referred to film Get Out.

I put my life on my God that Norths mom would never photograph her doing playboy and thats on God Im at the ranch ... come and get me.

I love my wife My family must live next to me Its not up to E or NBC anymore

Kim was trying to fly to Wyoming with a doctor to lock me up like on the movie Get Out because I cried about saving my daughters life yesterday

Despite all of this, while fans are raising more questions on Kanye Wests claims and seeking answers online, Kanye again went on a Twitter spree on July 22 and talked about all positivity when the devil attacks even if, he added, that he doesnt get to see his children till they are 18 because you people believe what the White people say. After this, Kanye Wests next post referred to himself as future president. However, he again deleted the second-last post.

The musician has not ceased to exist in the headlines since the most shocking announcement of running in the race for the White House in 2020 for the elections that are dominated by issues including racial injustice and US President Donald Trumps handling of a global health crisis such as COVID-19 pandemic. From confusing Twitter sprees and showcasing confusion with his presidency, Kanye West, on the other hand, declared in an interview that he has decided Jay-Z be his running mate.

Read - Kanye West Wants Jay-Z To Be His Running Mate And Vice President In Upcoming US Elections

Read - When Kanye West Called Sam Burgess 'poor' During A 'weird Night' In London
Senators Demand Answers From Trump Administration on Expired Surveillance Operations

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are asking the Trump administration to provide information on whether and how it has ended surveillance programs authorized under several provisions of a federal intelligence law that have since expired.

Leahy and Lee wrote to Attorney General William Barr and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday raising their concerns that the departments may still be continuing their surveillance activities by relying on Executive Order 12333 after three surveillance tools under the USA Freedom Act, a 2015 intelligence law, expired in March.

Previous administrations have tenuously relied on Executive Order 12333issued in 1981to conduct surveillance without statutory authorization or congressional oversight, the senators said. With the expiry of the three key authoritiescommonly known as the roving wiretap, lone wolf, and business recordsthey were worried that the Trump administration may be relying on the executive orders inherent power to continue its surveillance operations.

This would constitute a system of surveillance with no congressional oversight potentially resulting in programmatic Fourth Amendment violations at a tremendous scale, the senators wrote in their letter (pdf).

They also added they believe relying on the power of Executive Order 12333 to conduct surveillance would be plainly illegal.

The rights of all Americans depend on their government exercising its power responsibly, adhering to the rule of law, and upholding its duty to act transparently. Any surveillance conducted in the absence of statutory authorities and congressional oversight would be extraordinarily concerning and illegal, they wrote.

The senators are asking Barr and Ratcliffe to also provide information on whether they are relying on the executive order or any other inherent surveillance powers.

The lapsed surveillance tools failed to be reauthorized despite negotiation efforts by lawmakers in both chambers earlier this year. The reauthorization bill contains some amendments to address deficiencies in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process. The surveillance tools, which need to be periodically renewed, are designed to help law enforcement officials track suspected terrorists and spies.

A version of the reauthorization bill was first passed in the House in March in a 278-136 vote. The Senate in early May then voted to renew the surveillance tools in a bipartisan vote, while adding one amendment proposed by Leahy and Lee. That amendment would broaden third-party oversight of the FISA process, in particular, it would require FISA court judges to appoint a third-party observer in any case involving a sensitive investigative matter, as long as the court does not deem it inappropriate.

The bill then returned to the House for another vote, but has since been stalled after President Donald Trump, House Republican leadership, and Democrats expressed opposition.

Trump had urged Republican House lawmakers to vote against the FISA reform bill in May over concerns that the Obama administration had allegedly abused the FISA process to improperly surveil Trumps presidential campaign in 2016 and 2017. FISA warrants were approved by the court to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, and officials have called for reforming the process after the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz last year found 17 significant errors and omissions during the process.

Meanwhile, the DOJ also expressed concerns over the Senates version of the bill, saying that it would recommend Trump to veto the law if it reaches his desk. The department said the amendment would unacceptably degrade our ability to conduct surveillance of terrorists, spies, and other national security threats.

The three authorities that have expired after the House did not act on a Senate extension on the bill in March, include allowing the FBI to obtain a court order for business records of individuals in national security investigations, the roving wiretap that permits officials to maintain surveillance on a target who may be using multiple phones to thwart detection, and the lone wolf provision that allows federal officials to obtain surveillance authority without establishing that the subject is acting on behalf of an international terrorist organization.

An official from the Office of Director of National Intelligence said they had received the letter and will respond appropriately. Meanwhile, the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

Mimi Nguyen-Ly contributed to this report.
Bengaluru, July 22 : For the first time in the history of Karnataka, the central crime branch (CCB) of the Bengaluru Police is seeking one-year preventive custody of a 42-year-old woman over repeated pimping, immoral trafficking and prostitution.

"We have prepared a case against Swati under the Goonda Act for her repeat trafficking offences and submitted it to the Karnataka High Court," Deputy Commissioner of Police Kuldeep Jain told IANS, here on Wednesday.

If the CCB's case is accepted by the high court's advisory board, Swati will be behind the bars for one year without bail. "The high court will set a date in seven weeks for hearing at which I will present the case, recommending her detention," said Jain.

Swati is the first immoral trafficker in the history of Karnataka to be booked under the Goonda Act, recommending one-year preventive custody.

According to Jain, the CCB will seek such order because Swati is a habitual offender and all means to prevent her from immoral trafficking have failed. "She has been jumping bail, absconding and misleading investigators. Based on these details, we have booked her under the preventive Act," Jain said.

In a series of raids, the police have rescued several girls from her hold and seized money. In about eight instances of Swati's arrest, the police rescued 7-8 women every time. Thus, more than 50 women have been rescued.

She was running 4-5 massage parlours, owning a few of them and some in partnership in the city, and allegedly used them to pimp directly and indirectly.

Swati was taken into the custody at the end of June and put in jail as she was absconding for a long time with several arrest warrants against her.

The Goonda Act, a preventive law with different provisions for varied crimes, including immoral trafficking, is used against habitual offenders. Section 2 of the Act defines immoral trafficking.
PITTSBURGH, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PNC Bank will host a free educational webcast for business owners and executives from 12  1 pm ET Thursday, July 23, 2020, with Angie Bastian, co-founder of Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP. This webcast supports PNC's ongoing commitment to help entrepreneurs and business leaders gain insight from leaders in their field.

The webcast is free for viewers, who need not be a PNC customer to participate. Registration is available here.

"Grounded in trust, respect and understanding, PNC Women's Business Development represents our mission to be intentional and consistent in how we empower, engage, educate, attract and inspire our clients," said Ehab Hammad, head of PNC's Business Banking. "Angie Bastian is a shining example of a powerful, inspirational female entrepreneur and we are happy to spread her message to help empower women to be the best they can be."

Bastian will be interviewed by PNC Senior Vice President of Retail National Expansion, Shakesi Morris. Subject matter will include:

Evolving from a garage-based startup to a nationally celebrated brand

"Accidental Entrepreneurship" and how others can find and build their own niche

Maintaining personal balance  in Angie's case, continuing a career in the medical field while growing the business

Securing, maintaining and building capital  and the lessons learned through years of successful financial management

Building a business and professional community with your spouse

Scaling and ultimately selling a successful business

Bastian and her husband, Dan, started BOOMCHICKAPOP in 2001 as a one-kettle popcorn manufacturer. They took a kernel of an idea and popped it into one of the fastest growing brands of natural popcorn. The business, born with deep Minnesota roots, emerged as an innovative leader in the snacking category. Sixteen years later, they sold the business for $250 million to one of the world's largest food manufacturers.

PNC Bank, National Association, is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, organized around its customers and communities for strong relationships and local delivery of retail and business banking including a full range of lending products; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management. For information about PNC, visit www.pnc.com.

CONTACT:



Katie Kirby

(312) 282-5916

[email protected]

SOURCE PNC Bank

Related Links

http://www.pnc.com


The Presidency has reacted to the increased killings in Southern Kaduna, saying the regular attacks is fuelled by politics and religion.

Southern Kaduna has witnessed repeated killings in the past couple of days. One of such latest killings occurred on Sunday when armed men stormed communities in Kaura Local Government Area and killed 21 persons, while 31 others were injured.

KanyiDaily had also reported yesterday that some gunmen attacked Gora Gan community in Zangon Kataf local government area on Monday night, which resulted in the death of 10 people, while several others were injured.

Reacting in a statement on Tuesday, the senior special assistant to the President, Garba Shehu said Kaduna has a comprehensive security structure in place, but the complicated nature of the situation has made things difficult.

Noting that the reprisal killings are religiously and politically motivated, Shehu advised those he described as criminal elements perpetrating the killings to sheathe their swords and stop taking laws into their hands.

The Presidency wishes to state that the problem of insecurity in Southern Kaduna State is more complicated than many people are willing to admit, the statement read. From available records, Southern Kaduna enjoys comprehensive security deployments, including the Army, Special Forces of both the Army and the Air Force, surveillance aircraft by the Air Force and mobile police units that are on the ground on a 24-hour basis to forestall criminality and keep the peace. But unlike other parts of the country, the problem of Southern Kaduna is more complicated than many critics are ready to acknowledge and understand. From available security records, the problem in Southern Kaduna is an evil combination of politically-motivated banditry, revenge killings and mutual violence by criminal gangs acting on ethnic and religious grounds.

According to the presidential spokesman, the killings have been fuelled by the decision to seek revenge.

It is a situation in which one criminal group will kill a member of another criminal group out of ethnic and religious motivations, which in turn leads to the eruption of revenge and counter-revenge, thereby making the job of the security personnel deployed to protect lives more difficult, he said. We note that revenge and counter-revenge only creates a circle of violence, thereby making everyone else unsafe, especially innocent people.

He advised the people against taking the law into their hands, and urged them to report threats to law enforcement agencies.

What is required is for the local authorities to radically improve their intelligence capabilities so that security agencies will be alerted in a timely manner to enable them forestall any planned attack, he added.

The presidency also condemned the recent attacks by bandits in Igali, Birnin Gwari and Giwa local government areas of the state and urged security agencies to intensify efforts to address the situation.

KanyiDaily also recalls two days ago, suspected kidnappers abducted a policewoman, her daughter and four others at Janruwa, Patrick Yakowa way area of Kaduna State.
Police in Michigan are desperately searching for the body of a young mother who disappeared in late June and is presumed dead.

Two people have been charged in 27-year-old Amber Griffin's disappearance and apparent death, including her boyfriend, 25-year-old Derek Horton.

Griffin was reported missing in Battle Creek on June 24 by her mother and Horton, who told police that he last saw his girlfriend at around midnight on June 23 at the couple's Bedford Township trailer home.

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Police in Michigan are searching for the body of Amber Griffin, 27 (left), who they suspect was murdered by her boyfriend, Derek Horton, 25 (right), on June 23

Volunteers have been scouring areas around Battle Creek, Michigan, for a month in search of Griffin's body

But as the investigation unfolded, police discovered multiple inconsistencies in Horton's version of events.

Sgt. Joel Case, with the Battle Creek Police Department, told MLive.com that multiple witnesses reported seeing Griffin and Horton together at around 2am on June 23.

At about that time, police received a 911 call from Griffin's phone, on which emergency dispatchers could hear a violent struggle between a woman, whose voice they identified as belonging to Griffin, and a man.

Investigators later obtained surveillance video from a nearby hardware store, which allegedly showed Horton and his suspected accomplice, Julice Haggerty, buying a shovel.

It has been reported by WKZO that Horton and Haggerty also purchased cleaning supplies and new clothes that day, but police have yet to confirm that.

Horton was initially arrested on June 26 on a charge of aggravated domestic violence, which was upgraded to open murder the following day.

In early July, police arrested Haggerty and charged him with tampering with evidence and lying to a peace officer.

Horton's alleged accomplice, Julice Haggerty, has been charged with tampering with evidence. Police suspect he played a role in the disposal of Griffin's body after her death

Investigators believe that Horton killed Griffin during a house party on Oneita Street. Sgt Case told People Magazine that police discovered traces of blood throughout the residence.

Horton then possibly disposed of Griffin's body by burying it, but so far it has not been found, despite the efforts of dozens of volunteers, reported WOOD-TV.

In an interview with WWMT, Case appealed to anyone who knows of specific locations that Horton was known to frequent to come forward.

He said the search for Griffin has been hampered by the coronavirus outbreak, which has taken out of commission five of the 10 detectives assigned to the case.

Carman Griffin, Amber's mother, said she last heard from her daughter at around 10pm on June 22, when the 27-year-old sent her a text message.

Police say Griffin had called 911 during a violent struggle with Horton on the night she died

The single mother is survived by her two children, a son and a daughter (pictured)

'She's like, 'tell [my children] I love them, and things are going to change.' She's like, 'I love you, mom,'' Carman Griffin recounted.

As MLive.com reported, Horton's past criminal history included charges of domestic violence and assault with intent to do great bodily harm stemming from two separate incidents that occurred in February 2019 and January 2020, both involving Griffin.

A prosecutor said during Horton's arraignment last month that both of those charges were later dropped.
Russian Lawmakers Approve Bill On Multiday Voting In Elections

By RFE/RL's Russian Service July 21, 2020

MOSCOW -- The lower chamber of Russia's parliament, the State Duma, has approved the final reading of a bill that would allow voting over as many as three days during elections.

In the vote on July 21, 344 lawmakers supported the legislation while 51 were against.

According to the bill, the decision on whether to hold a multiday voting procedure will be made by electoral officials.

Human rights organizations in Russia have harshly criticized the bill on multiday voting, saying that it would give power holders more control over elections and more opportunities to rig their results.

Multiday voting was used for the first time between June 25 and July 1 in a national vote on constitutional amendments that among other things allowed President Vladimir Putin the possibility to seek further presidential terms after his current term expires in 2024.

After the vote, the chairwoman of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, said in a discussion with Putin that the possibility of a multiday voting system in elections in general was under discussion, stressing that citizens "liked" the new system.

The bill must be approved by parliament's upper chamber, the Federation Council, before Putin could sign it into law.

If the bill is endorsed by the president, upcoming general elections in September may be held under the new format.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian- lawmakers-approve-bill-on-multiday- voting-in-elections/30739695.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Admin of Telegram channel pleads guilty to porno peddling

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

13:27 22/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 22 (RAPSI)  The Police Ombudsman Telegram channels admin Igor Khudyakov has pleaded guilty to public porno peddling, attorney Maxim Pashkov has told RAPSI.

Earlier, Khudyakov was released from detention because an investigator of major crimes took such a decision due to the charges mitigation.

Khudyakov was placed in detention in late May. He was arrested on April 23 in Volgograd and charged with illicit production and distribution of materials with sexual content by a group of people.

According to Pashkov, the case was opened over publication of sex photos of a VKontakte female user in a closed chat. Searches were conducted in his premises, after which Moscow police reported a new criminal case over porno peddling against Vladimir Vorontsov, the creator of the Police Ombudsman Telegram channel.




Sudan's former President Omar al-Bashir appeared in court on Tuesday for the start of his trial over the coup through which he seized power in 1989. The hearing was adjourned until 11 August so the trial can be moved to a larger venue.

Bashir arrived at court in Khartoum wearing a white shirt, face mask and plastic gloves, surrounded by security officials.

He stands trial alongside more than 20 former officials including Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Ali al-Haj, secretary general of the Islamist Popular Congress Party (PCP), Reuters news agency reported, citing judicial officials.

The ousted Sudanese leader already received a two-year sentence in December over corruption charges, and had his money confiscated, according to the Suna state news agency.

He faces further charges over the killing of demonstrators, and is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Darfur. The government has not ruled out sending Bashir to The Hague, or having him tried by the ICC in Sudan.

Hundreds of people turned up at the court hearing on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Lawyers, supporters, family members and journalists all complained that they could not get access to the hearing.

We decided to postpone the trial session to 11 August as we need a bigger hall in order to guarantee social distancing, put different arrangements in place and ensure that the entire defendants have lawyers and other rights, the judge said, reported Anadolu news agency.

1989 coup

Bashir seized power in 1989 when he led fellow officers in overthrowing Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and his democratically elected government, saying the coup was to save the country from rotten political parties.

He made himself chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and then dissolved government, and other institutions, as well as political parties and trade unions. Demonstrations were banned and a state of emergency was imposed.

Later in April 1990, 31 members of the security forces were executed following an alleged coup plot, however, some believed claims of a coup were a cover for removing suspect officers.

Lawyers for Bashir said in December that the trial was a political charade since it was more than 30 years after the event.

It will be hard for most of the defendants to deny their role in the 1989 coup, according to Wasil Ali, former deputy editor of Sudan Tribune. It is not clear whether a statute of limitations applies and if they can be tried using a penal code that was subsequently scrapped.

Bashir was overthrown following mass protests and the intervention of the military. A civilian authority took over from Bashir through a three-year power sharing agreement with the army.
B ritain today stepped up the battle to defeat coronavirus with Oxford University scientists successfully completing the second phase of developing a vaccine.

The team of experts, led by Professor Sarah Gilbert, will now race to get more widespread community trials carried out in the UK and abroad, with the hope of completing them by the autumn.

Ministers have already ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine from AstraZeneca, which is working with Oxford University, to be rushed out in the UK if it gets the all-clear.

Details of the Oxford University vaccine phase 1/2 trial involving 1,077 healthy adults found that it induced strong antibody and T cell immune responses for up to day 56 of the on-going trial.

These responses may be even greater after a second dose, according to a sub-group study of 10 participants, the results concluded.

No serious adverse events from the vaccine were reported.

The results, published in The Lancet, did though highlight that compared to a control group (given a meningitis vaccine), the Covid-19 vaccine caused minor side effects more frequently, but some of these could be reduced by taking paracetamol.

Professor Sarah Gilbert, who is leading the Oxford University research team, said: There is still much work to be done before we can confirm if our vaccine will help manage the COVID-19 pandemic, but these early results hold promise.

As well as continuing to test our vaccine in phase 3 trials, we need to learn more about the virus  for example, we still do not know how strong an immune response we need to provoke to effectively protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Meanwhile other announcements revealed:

- Ministers sealed deals for 90 million doses of two other potential vaccines.

- An army of 500,000 people is to be recruited to take part in vaccine trials.

- Scientists in Southampton University trialling a drug on coronavirus patients said in 79 per cent of cases it lowered the risk of needing ventilator treatment.

Coronavirus is spreading in countries including India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States. The World Health Organisation said yesterday there had been a record 259,848 new 19 cases globally in 24 hours.

The Oxford vaccine is seen as among the five most advanced globally, with some experts saying it is the leading contender.

In this file picture taken on April 29, 2020, an engineer works at the Quality Control Laboratory on an experimental vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus at the Sinovac Biotech facilities in Beijing / AFP via Getty Images

The report said the early-stage trial has found that the vaccine is safe, causes few side effects, and induces strong immune responses in both parts of the immune system.

An ideal vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 should be effective after one or two vaccinations, work in target populations including older adults and those with other health conditions, confer protection for a minimum of six months, and reduce onward transmission of the virus to contacts.

Researchers said it is too soon to confirm whether the new vaccine meets all of these criteria, but phase 2 and phase 3 trials are continuing in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

Professor Gilbert added: "If our vaccine is effective, it is a promising option as these types of vaccine can be manufactured at large scale. A successful vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 could be used to prevent infection, disease and death in the whole population, with high risk populations such as hospital workers and older adults prioritised to receive vaccination.

Professor Andrew Pollard, lead author of the study, said: The new vaccine... uses a common cold virus (adenovirus) that infects chimpanzees, which has been weakened so that it cant cause any disease in humans, and is genetically modified to code for the spike protein of the human SARS-CoV-2 virus.

"This means that when the adenovirus enters vaccinated peoples cells it also delivers the spike protein genetic code. This causes these peoples cells to produce the spike protein, and helps teach the immune system to recognise the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

He continued: The immune system has two ways of finding and attacking pathogens  antibody and T cell responses.

Boris Johnson: 'I wish I could say I was 100% confident we will get a vaccine'

"This vaccine is intended to induce both, so it can attack the virus when its circulating in the body, as well as attacking infected cells. We hope this means the immune system will remember the virus, so that our vaccine will protect people for an extended period.

"However, we need more research before we can confirm the vaccine effectively protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection, and for how long any protection lasts."

Many of the vaccines under development are not expected to deliver the breakthrough sought, with the ultimate goal being one that kills off Covid rather than just limits how ill people become.

The Government is ordering vaccines from several firms, as well as ramping up plans to give jabs to tens of millions of people if they clear all trial hurdles.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma this morning said deals had been struck with US/German partnership BioNTech/Pfizer for 30 million doses of its vaccine, and an agreement in principle with French group Valneva for 60 million of a vaccine under development.

AstraZeneca may also provide one million doses of a treatment containing Covid-19 antibodies to protect those who cannot receive vaccines, such as cancer and immunocompromised patients.

Imperial College London is also developing a vaccine with government backing. It started human clinical trials in June.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: A safe and effective vaccine is our best hope of defeating coronavirus and returning to life as normal.

Coronavirus has claimed more than 55,000 lives in the UK, one of the highest death tolls in the world.

A new NHS Covid-19 vaccine research registry has also been established with the aim of recruiting 500,000 volunteers by October to test new vaccines and treatments.

Professor Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, said: Now that there are several promising vaccines on the horizon, we need to call again on the generosity of the public to help find out which potential vaccines are the most effective.

Drugs company Synairgen, which has links to Southampton University, this morning announced that patients who received interferon beta SNG001 had a 79 per cent lower risk of developing severe disease and were more than twice as likely to fully recover from Covid-19.

Loading....

The trial was led by Tom Wilkinson, professor of respiratory medicine at Southampton University.
Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday that New Jersey could be forced to cut $1 billion in school funding for the upcoming school year if the federal government doesnt pony up more coronavirus stimulus cash.

The dire warning comes as many schools are already struggling to plan for an unprecedented school year and despite New Jersey lawmakers authorizing the state government to borrow as much as $10 billion just last week.

We cannot fully support our districts in their plans for the upcoming school year without help from Washington, Murphy said during his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton.

Any cuts to school funding would be devastating, said state Sen. Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee. She supported the states borrowing plan with the goal that preserving education funding will be a top priority, she said.

Ruiz, also a member of the Senates Budget and Appropriations Committee, said Murphys briefing was the first time she heard the possibility of a $1 billion cut to education funding.

I dont know where that is coming from because we havent been presented a budget, she said. I wouldnt know why we are making that determination quite yet.

State Sen. Declan OScanlon, R-Monmouth, another member of the budget committee, said the warning seemed like a scare tactic considering the states plans to borrow money. He called the $1 billion figure random and questioned why Murphy would wait until so close to the school year to float it.

I am not sure what the end goal is here, OScanlon said. To scare the hell out of school administrators and school boards? It doesnt seem constructive. To scare the federal government into giving us more money?

Asked at his press briefing if the state could borrow money to avoid the $1 billion cut, Murphy said its not as if we have an unlimited ability to borrow.

But he added: We will do everything we can do get the schools money.

The state Treasury Department projected in May the state will collect nearly $10 billion less in taxes through next July as the pandemic and business closures walloped state and local tax collections. Its not yet released updated revenue projections for the coming fiscal year, which runs Oct. 1 through June 30, 2021.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Murphy has been urging President Donald Trump and Congress to include aid for state and local government in the next stimulus package, and at his coronavirus briefing on Wednesday bashed U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells new proposal that excludes any such new aid.

This is a slap in the face of every governor across the country  Republican and Democrat  who have shouldered the responsibility of responding to this pandemic, said Murphy, a Democrat.

Murphy has warned for months of draconian layoffs of public workers and spending cuts if the federal government doesnt supply more aid and if the Legislature didnt provide authorization to borrow billions of dollars. Lawmakers approved and Murphy signed a bill last week allowing up to $9.9 billion in new debt to offset sharp revenue losses. The state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a legal challenge to that borrowing plan in August.

Despite the new bond authorization, Murphy said school districts are at risk of losing $1 billion in aid without more federal support  a potentially massive cut mere weeks before the start of the school year.

We are staring directly at a $1 billion cut in aid to our public schools,Murphy said. And, well have to further cut operating aid to our struggling colleges and universities, which we have already cut by over $200 million.

The governors warning was completely unexpected, said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center. Cuts to state funding would most impact low-income districts that rely on the state for the majority of their funding, he said.

Sciarra stressed the need for federal aid, not just to avoid cuts, but to pay for extra costs that could come with precautionary measures, like PPE for students and staff.

The district are already in a double bind, Sciarra said. No increase in aid, some seeing cuts in aid and facing a substantial need for additional funds.

Schools have been bracing for the possibility of cuts but remain hopeful that more federal aid will come, said Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. If the state makes any major cuts to education funding, district will be forced to consider slashing jobs, he said.

Even with additional aid and any borrowing, I would expect district would have a very difficult time with the budget, Bozza said.

The pandemic crisis has forced Murphy to essentially tear up the $40.9 billion budget he introduced in February. Under that plan, schools would have received about $9 billion in direct aid, an increase of more than $300 million.

Murphy already has warned school districts to expect a $335 million cut in aid, wiping out the increased aid he proposed in February and forcing districts to adjust their own budgets. The state would still spend as much on K-12 schools as it did in the 2019-20 school year.

It was not immediately clear if the $1 billion cut the governor described Wednesday includes that $335 million reduction or is in addition to that cut.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com.
Children's drawings are put up on a wall in a patient's room in an intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on July 2, 2020. (Go Nakamura/Getty Images)

Texas Hospital Impeding Mothers Attempt to Save Babys Life

Commentary

Imagine you are the parent of a baby girl, whos desperately ill with severe breathing difficulties, a heart valve defect, and diagnosed as suffering from severe chronic pulmonary hypertension.

Shes placed in a pediatric intensive care unit where, many months later, she continues to livebut also periodically experiences what her doctors call dying events, from which she is saved, but which, doctors say, causes unacceptable suffering.

The doctors tell you your daughters case is hopeless and try to convince you to remove your baby from life support because such care is futile and its in her best interests to die.

You refuse. But the doctors wont take no for an answer. They call in the hospital bioethics committee, which after a closed-door hearing, issues a decree authorizing doctors to stop all life-saving treatments over your objections. You are given a mere 10 days to find another hospital willing to provide care.

Then, hope! A foremost expert in head and neck surgery (otolaryngology) from out of state reviews your daughters records and disagrees that her case is hopeless. On the contrary, the expert believes that your daughter has an illness not diagnosed by her current physicians. Indeed, he believes he may be able to treat her successfullyas he has other children with similar conditions. He even agrees to perform a tracheostomy, necessary to permit the new care approach.

Stunningly, the very hospital administrators who wanted to force your baby off care, refuse. You are forced to go to court to try to save your daughters life.

This nightmare scenario isnt a fever dream of paranoids worrying about death panels. Its as real as life and death. Trinity Lewis has sued to prevent Cook Childrens Medical Center of Fort Worth, Texas, from forcing her daughter Tinslee, age one and one-half, off life supportwhich is allowed legally by Texass futile care law that permits hospital ethics committees to withdraw wanted life support based on members views of the quality of the patients life.

Indeed, but for an order in the Court of Appeal requiring Tinslees life-sustaining treatment to continue temporarily, she might already be dead.

Whatever one might think Texass futile care lawI consider it profoundly authoritarian, a method of ad hoc health care rationing its particularly unjust in Tinslees case because there are striking differences of opinion among doctors about the nature of her condition.

Trinity has now asked for a court order requiring the hospital to allow Michigan head and throat medical expert Dr. Glenn L. Green to perform the tracheostomy toward the outcome of eventually transferring Tinslee out of Cook Childrens and into a continuing care facility for further curative treatment.

In support of the request, Green filed a declaration under penalty of perjury, which states in part (my emphasis):

 I was provided Baby T.Ls medical records and imaging which included 568 pages of hospital records  I determined that she appears to be a good candidate for a tracheostomy and that it would be medically appropriate, reasonable, and in her best interests to enable her to be transferred for longer-term care 

 The episodes of severe desaturation that Baby T.L. along with CT findings are consistent with prematurity-associated tracheobronchomalacia which is collapse of the distal trachea and bronchi [not diagnosed by Cook Hospital doctors]. This is in particular an area of personal expertise, and I have great experience in successfully treating and discharging to home several patients that had been confined to the intensive care for over a year 

 In my medical judgment, what Cook Childrens Medical Center has referred to as dying events may be, in large part, related to this and potentially remediable 

 Just as importantly, Baby T.Ls condition is not definitely hopeless. More can be potentially done to treat her breathing difficulties and even her underlying condition. It is in her best interest that she be put in a position to be moved from Cook Childrens Medical Center to a palliative care facility. To be clear, when I use the term palliative care it is to mean facilitating life with a serious illness  It is not hospice or a means of facilitating ones death or passing.

Dr. Patrick Roughneen, a Texas cardiovascular surgeon agrees, stating under penalty of perjury, It is my professional judgment that there is no evidence of pulmonary hypertension in Baby T.L.  I further believe that it is medically reasonable and appropriate that Dr. Glenn E. Green, M.D., perform a tracheostomy on her and evaluate for her further for bronchomalacia and treat her for that.

So, whats the holdup? Cook Hospital physicians disagree with Greens medical opinion that Tinslee can be helped or safely weaned off her ventilator, and apparently, with both physicians opinions about the lack of pulmonary hypertension.

The hospitals response brief states in part: A tracheostomy will not change the anticipated trajectory of T.L.s congenital heart disease, severe chronic lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, or significant pulmonary infectious issues. With one possible exception, a tracheostomy would not immediately impact the medications or dosages that T.L. receives.

Accordingly, the hospital argues, it would be unethical surgery to proceed as Trinity desires and Green recommends.

Lets assume that Cook Hospital physicians and Green and Roughneen are all striving to do their best for Tinslee. The bottom line here is who should have the final say in making such an ultimate decision? The mother who has reasonable cause to hope that her daughter might be saved, or doctors and bioethicists who insist that further treatment of Tinslee is futile?

An old saying declares where there is life, there is hope. On July 22, Judge Sandee Marion will decide whether to give that wisdom the benefit of the doubt.

The hearing in the District Court, Tarrant County, Texas, will be streamed on July 22, at 1:30 local time. You can watch the hearing by hitting this link.

Award-winning author Wesley J. Smith is chairman of the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant for the Patients Rights Council.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
TORONTO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Knockri, a leading developer of artificial intelligence video-based soft-skill assessment and talent mobility solutions, today announced it has closed an oversubscribed seed round of $2.15 Million USD led by Differential Ventures with participation from Bertelsmann Investments, Grand Ventures, and others to transform talent acquisition and increase diverse hiring.

Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Knockri has enabled Fortune 500 customers in technology, consulting and pharma to assess thousands of candidates worldwide, reduce hiring bias and eliminate unsuccessful interviews

Knockri's hiring solution assesses skills of candidates by merging industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology and artificial intelligence to better quantify key performing skills for a job role.

Knockri was co-founded by Jahanzaib Ansari in 2016. Ansari couldn't find work because of his long ethnic name. He would often apply to jobs and never hear back from employers. While feeling confused and looking for answers, Maaz Rana, Knockri's COO and co-founder, suggested Ansari anglicize his name. Soon after anglicizing his name, he started receiving interviews and job offers from the same managers that had previously overlooked him.

Ansari and Rana collaborated with childhood friend, Faisal Ahmed, a machine-learning scientist, to create Knockri  a skills assessment tool deeply rooted in I-O psychology and built from the ground up by a diverse and specialized team that is hyper focused on ethical AI and reducing hiring bias.

"Our ability to oversubscribe during this period of global unrest is a testament to our dedicated team and the world's need for a fair and scalable hiring solution that is deeply infused in science and predictive analytics," said Jahanzaib Ansari, Knockri CEO and co-founder. "Knockri's unparalleled ability to reduce bias and predict job role success by assessing key performing skills has created a unique value proposition that reduces time and cost for clients while procuring a better candidate experience that heightens diversity and talent performance."

The current Knockri executive team  including co-founders Faisal Ahmed, CTO, and Maaz Rana, COO  will continue to lead the company with the addition of Differential Ventures co-managing partner Nick Adams to the board of directors. Knockri has raised almost $2.5 Million USD in seed funding to date.

"Knockri has harnessed machine learning in a brilliant and innovative way to simultaneously improve efficiency and reduce bias in hiring. Their technology is ideally suited for dealing with many problems in enterprise hiring today, and Knockri's product introduction is timed well to have a significant impact on improving fairness in hiring practices and speeding the growth of workforces as our economy grows," said David Magerman, who is a co-managing partner and chief technology officer for Differential Ventures as well as an advocate for responsible use of data science.

The company's video, audio and written screening platforms seamlessly integrate into existing Applicant Tracking Systems, and Knockri's API is compatible with the most widely used and best-in-class talent acquisition solutions. The company's services are also offered in multiple languages.

"Shifts in hiring practices are likely to continue long after COVID-19," said Ansari. "Knockri reduces the need for face-to-face interaction by assessing candidates remotely, and our mission to create a strong and safe talent acquisition process is more important now than ever. With our growing global footprint, coupled with customer allies seeing the benefits of our platform, we aim to employ evidence-based artificial intelligence across worldwide organizations as a catalyst for social change, while generating competitive advantages and transforming talent acquisition and identification functions."

About Knockri

Knockri is an AI video based, soft-skill assessment tool, that helps reduce unconscious bias and shortlists the best fit job candidates to interview, during the early screening process of hiring. Knockri helps eliminate unsuccessful interviews, while identifying exceptional candidates and increasing candidate diversity by merging video intelligence, artificial intelligence and science to quantify soft skills like confidence and empathy. Learn more at: www.knockri.com.

Knockri Social Networks

Twitter: www.twitter.com/KnockriCo

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/Knockri

Facebook: www.facebook/Knockri

YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/Knockri

Media Contact:

Tyler Deur

Lambert & Co.

616.446.6180

[email protected]

SOURCE Knockri

Related Links

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H1 2020

The havoc wreaked by COVID-19

H1 revenue: 786.0 million

Organic growth over the half: (13.5%)

Paris, July 22, 2019 - In H1 2020, Ipsos posted revenue of 786 million, down 13% year-on-year; this decrease breaks down into organic growth of -13.5%, scope effects of +0.6% and exchange rate effects of -0.1%.

After a close to flat performance in Q1, Q2 was heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. From April to June 2020, Ipsos posted revenue of 357 million, 25.8% lower than in 2019. At constant scope and exchange rates, this was minus 25.3%; positive scope effects were at +0.6% and negative exchange rate effects at-0.9%.

PERFORMANCE BY REGION

Millions of euros H1 2020 2020 / 2019 contribution 2020 / 2019 organic growth Reminder Q1 2020 Organic growth EMEA 359.1 46% (9.5%) 0.5% Americas 288.6 37% (15.5%) 4.6% Asia Pacific 138.3 18% (19%) (10.5%) Half-year revenue 786.0 100% (13.5%) 0%

Sales were down across the three major regions that Ipsos typically tracks.

Asia Pacific suffered the highest year-on-year fall. It had already been heavily hit at the start of the year, unlike Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and the Americas regions that, despite already seeing difficulties in March, had seen some growth in Q1.

As an exception to the trend in recent years, the weight of emerging markets weakened this half. Revenue there was down 23%, compared with minus 10% in the developed world. Ipsos, which for many years had seen growth in developing countries, only accounted for 27% of its revenue there as against 31% in 2019 and one third in previous fiscal years. Large global companies refocused on their home markets and, at the same time, public authorities in developing countries have fewer resources than their counterparts in more prosperous regions. The gap between developed and less-developed countries narrowed over the past two decades, including in terms of per capita spending on market research and opinion polls. It has once again widened over the past months, potentially complicating the management of the period following the health crisis.

PERFORMANCE BY AUDIENCE



Millions of euros H1 2020 Contribution Organic growth Reminder Q1 2020

Organic growth Consumers1 335.6 43% (19%) (1.5)% Clients and employees2 183.2 23% (21%) (5)% Citizens3 141.6 18% 11.5% 10% Doctors and patients4 125.6 16% (5.5%) 3.5% Half-year revenue 786.0 100% (13.5%) 0%

Breakdown of Service Lines by audience segment: breakdown of revenue by audience segment is non-financial data, likely to change over time in line with changes in the structure of Ipsos teams.

1- Brand Health Tracking, Clinics & Mobility Labs, Creative Excellence, Innovation, Ipsos UU, Ipsos MMA, Market Strategy & Understanding, Observer (excl. public sector), Social Intelligence Analytics

2- Automotive & Mobility Dev, Audience Measurement, Customer Experience, Channel Performance (including Retail Performance and Mystery Shopping), Media development

3- Public Affairs, Corporate Reputation

4- Pharma (quantitative and qualitative)

The performance levels by audience are very mixed. Consumer sectors became very cautious once the lockdown happened in Europe followed by the Americas in March.

Research targeting their own clients, often conducted for companies of the services sector, also fell sharply.

Unsurprisingly, Ipsos continued to see sustained demand and, in some markets, very strong demand in terms of engaging with patients and citizens.

The pandemic was initially managed by the public agencies responsible for establishing and running health policies. Ipsos has a range of ongoing contracts, the purposes of which are varied. Some are designed to create systems to measure the prevalence of the epidemic; other surveys are designed to gain better insights into the opinions, hopes and fears of affected groups or indeed get their views on the measures that have already been put in place or are likely to be in the future. These projects are sometimes done in a specific country. They may also cover larger regions - in Africa or Latin America for example - and be financed by public and private funds through NGOs and foundations.

In some ways, the variability in the performances posted by Ipsos by audience reflects one of its strengths at a time when every company needs to be highly resilient.

Although businesses were quieter in Q2, aside from pharmaceutical companies or those working in the health sector, public bodies and institutions increasingly turned to reliable sources able to quickly produce large volumes of information.



FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE



Summary income statement

Millions of euros H1 2020 H1 2019 Change H1 2020 / H1 2019 Reminder

Dec. 31,2019 Revenue 786.0 903.4 (13.0%) 2,003.3 Gross margin 512.0 583.0 (12.2%) 1,288.5 Gross profit / Revenue 65.1% 64.5 % 64.3% Operating margin 25.0 49.3 (49.2%) 198.7 Operating profit / Revenue 3.2% 5.5 % 9.9% Other non-operating / non-recurring income and expenses (7.1) (4.0) (16.4) Finance costs (11.6) (13.1) (26.6) Income tax 0.2 (6.6) (36.9) Net profit, attributable to the owners of the parent 1.3 18.7 104.8 Adjusted net profit*, attributable to the owners of the parent 12.8 29.4 (56.5%) 129.5

*Adjusted net profit is calculated before (i) non-cash items covered by IFRS 2 (share-based payments), (ii) amortization of intangible assets identified on acquisitions (client relationships), (iii) the impact net of tax of other non-operating income and expenses, (iv) the non-cash effect on changes in puts in other financial income and expenses and (v) deferred tax liabilities from goodwill, which in some countries can be amortized

Income statement items

Overall, the Group's operating margin was down around 230 basis points on the same period the previous year as a result of the sudden collapse in business as from mid-March. The sharpness of this fall meant we weren't able to reduce costs to the same extent in H1 because they are partly fixed and were scaled to meet the growth then expected for 2020.

It should also be noted that the research market is traditionally highly seasonal with more demand in H2 as contracts are performed. Accordingly, the revenue recognized in H1 has typically accounted for around 45% of full-year revenue in recent years (at constant scope and exchange rates). Conversely, operating expenses are accrued on a rather straight-line basis over the year.

For these reasons, the half-year operating margin is in no way predictive of the full-year operating margin.

The gross margin (which is calculated by deducting external direct variable costs of research projects from revenue) stood at 65.1%, compared with 64.5% in H1 2019. The increase in the percentage gross margin is down to a more favorable mix in data collection mechanisms resulting from the suspension of certain face-to-face survey activities during the lockdown, replaced in some instances by online surveys offering a higher gross margin. Over the half, online surveys accounted for 61% of revenue compared with 55% in 2019.

In terms of operating costs, gross payroll costs were down 3.2%, on the back of the twin effect of a reduction in headcount and various salary reduction measures.

There were 17,730 permanent employees at end-June against 18,448 as at end-December 2019, down 3.9%. This reduction occurred in Q2 following the hiring and replacement freeze.

The salary reduction measures (voluntary and temporary salary reductions agreed by a number of employees - between 10% and 20% for executives -; reduction in working time; unpaid leave;...) generated savings of around 10 million between mid-March and end-June.

Ipsos also benefited from the partial unemployment schemes put in place in certain countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Italia, Malaysia, Netherlands, Hong-Kong, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom). Such subsidies were recognized under "Other operating income and expenses" and totaled 17.5 million over the half. Payroll costs net of government subsidies were down 7.3%.

The cost of share-based payments was down slightly to 3.4 million compared with 3.7 million in H1 2019.

Overheads are under control and fell around 15 million in total (i.e. -14.5%), thanks to the tightening of certain discretionary expenditure and above all the lack of travel (8 million) and savings on office use (3.5 million).

The operating profit was 25.0 million, representing 3.2% of revenue versus 5.5% in H1 2019.

Under the operating margin, the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets for the portion of goodwill allocated to client relations over the 12 months from the date of acquisition and which is amortized in the income statement over multiple years in line with IFRS. This line item amounted to 2.7 million, compared with 2.8 million previously.

Other non-operating and non-recurring income and expenses totaled -7.1 million compared with -4.0 million the previous year. This line is composed of exceptional or non-operating items.

In H1 2019, expenses included acquisition costs of 2.0 million as well as 7.9 million in costs associated with the restructuring plans connected with the finalization of the TUP program and the integration of GfK Research.

In H1 2020, the expenses included acquisition costs of 0.6 million associated with the Maritz Mystery Shopping and Askia transactions at end-January and, above all, reorganization and restructuring costs of 11.3 million. This was up on H1 2019 due to the need to bring headcount into line with actual demand in certain countries.

In terms of income, this line item mainly reflected net income of 5.0 million following the decision to capitalize internal development costs as from January 2018 (this net income was 6.4 million in H1 2019).

Financing costs. Net interest costs amounted to 11.6 million compared with 13.1 million, on the back of the reduction in borrowings with strong cash generation.

Income tax. The effective tax rate in the IFRS income statement was

25.4%, compared with 26.0% the previous year. This includes deferred tax liabilities of 0.5 million which offsets the tax savings achieved as a result of the tax deductibility of the amortization of goodwill in some countries, even though this deferred tax expense would only be due in the event of the disposal of the operations in question (and which is thus restated in adjusted net profit).

Net profit (attributable to the owners of the parent), amounted to 1.3 million compared with 18.7 million in H1 2019.

Adjusted net profit (attributable to the owners of the parent), which is the relevant indicator consistently used to measure performance, amounted to 12.8 million, down 56.5% from the 29.4 million in H1 2019.

Financial structure

Cash flow. Gross cash flow from operating activities (before WCR, Taxes and interests) amounted to 58.7 million compared with 86.7 million in H1 2020. This decline reflected the lower operating profit.

In total, Free Cash Flows hit a record of 161 million. It was in line with forecasts in Q1 but was particularly high in Q2 due to the strong sales at end-2019 and early 2020 which drove inflows over the half. This went hand-in-hand with lower demand from mid-March, which resulted in a reduction in trade receivables as at June 30, 2020.

The working capital requirement thus trended positively by 167.3 million in H1 2020. Usually, when a business is growing, trade receivables increase, resulting in an investment in working capital requirement, as happened at June 30, 2019 (negative 14.1 million change in working capital requirement).

Current investments in property, plant and equipment and intangible assets mainly involved IT investments. They totaled 20.4 million in H1 versus 21.2 million over the same period last year.



In terms of non-current investments, Ipsos invested close to 15.4 million, primarily making two acquisitions in Q1: Maritz Mystery Shopping and Askia. These two companies were consolidated as from February 1, 2020.

Equity stood at 1,055 million at June 30, 2020 compared with the 1,122 million reported at December 31, 2019.

Net borrowings stood at 441.0 million, down on December 31, 2019 (574.6 million). Net gearing was down to 41.8% from 51.5% at December 31, 2019 and 59.1% at June 30, 2019.

Cash position. Year-end cash hit record levels of 306.9 million at June 30, 2020 compared with 165.4 million at December 31, 2019, giving Ipsos a strong cash position. The Group also has over 400 million in available credit facilities, allowing it to meet its debt repayments in 2020 and 2021.

Lastly, it should be noted that the General Shareholders' Meeting held on May 28, 2020 approved a dividend of 0.45 per share in respect of the 2019 fiscal year. This was paid out on July 3, 2020 and totaled 19.8 million. This payout was cut in half from the 0.89 per share initially considered in February 2020.

OUTLOOK FOR 2020 AND BEYOND

The epidemic has been relatively static for the past weeks. It is thus difficult to gage how long the crisis will last.

It seems reasonable to assume and this is clearly the most likely outcome, that business will be affected so long as we have no treatment or vaccine.

It is thus hoped that the authorities will not have to impose further total lockdowns like those seen in most countries in recent months. The businesses of Ipsos clients, and hence of Ipsos itself, were heavily hit by the lockdowns. At mid-March, the lockdowns already in place in China, other parts of Asia and Italy became the order of the day elsewhere. There were without doubt differences. For example, in Europe, the rules were stricter in Spain, where the army was deployed, than in Germany. That said, the consequences were identical. Economies came to a standstill. Ipsos saw its order book deflate during March (-40%) and April (-60%). May saw a softening (-28%) although cancellations and the scaling back of existing orders remained higher than anticipated. This thus delayed a more satisfactory upswing in business.

As already noted, Ipsos was adversely affected by a combination of three factors: The business performance of its clients; uncertainties as to what the world will look like going forward - right after the lockdown ends and the time after that - when we (finally!) come out of the health crisis; and, thirdly, the technical and legal obstacles preventing the performance of certain contracts that require repeated close contact between people. Bringing consumers together to get them to collectively experience in a dynamic environment this or that market situation is almost impossible. Going to consumers' homes to observe their behavior or test this or that product is not an option

Nevertheless, despite these constraints, some of which still remain, Ipsos has seen business tick up over the past weeks. The volume of cancellations and postponements is falling and new order flows are growing.

The aforementioned negative factors are still live, but have less impact or can be overcome. Firstly, Ipsos's clients - large or medium size companies or institutions - are required, at the risk of becoming irrelevant, to work, evolve, take initiatives, to adapt to new realities. To this end, even if they have limited resources, they need quality up to date information. Next, these same clients are seeing their consumers and clients come out of the total lockdown they had faced, at least in certain regions. Every company, regardless of its sector and footprint, must be able to adapt, move quickly and, where possible, stay relevant. The uncertainties in play in the Spring mitigating against the services offered by Ipsos and its competitors are becoming reasons to acquire market data.

Lastly, Ipsos's teams have worked really hard since the start of the health crisis: their efforts focused on two key areas: i) developing new scientific and technological approaches to enable ways of working that are compatible with protective measures including the wearing of masks and social distancing; and ii) ramping up the use of webinars and other publications and continuing constructive dialog with their clients. Many companies in the business services sector took similar steps.

We feel that making the most of the resources of a company like Ipsos operating worldwide, managing 70,000 different projects annually and employing 18,000 professionals, has allowed us to add value to those engaging with us and to stand out. Ipsos' recent ranking, in the GRIT report, as the most innovative market research company worldwide for the second year running reflects this.

All of these various strands made it possible to post encouraging results: After three months of sharp declines, Ipsos' order book turned slightly positive in June. This was partly due to the winning of new public contracts associated with the COVID-19 epidemic; overall, at end-June, it stabilized at around minus 10%.

Beyond that, there continues to be significant uncertainty, meaning that it is impossible to accurately predict Ipsos revenue for the remainder of the year.

Thanks to the work done by its teams, the increased digitalization of its information communication, analysis and production systems, and its market and customer insights, Ipsos expects, despite the uncertainties, to see a better performance in H2 2020 than in the first half, both in terms of sales and revenue and its operating margins.

Appendices

Consolidated income statement

Statement of financial position

Consolidated cash flow statement





A summary of the half-yearly results can be found on ipsos.com and a live presentation of our results will be streamed at 8:30 on Thursday, July 23. You can watch it on our website. Should you have any questions, please join the conference call: to attend dial one of the following numbers:

France: +33 (0) 1 70 99 47 40

US: +1212999 6659

UK: +44 (0) 20 3003 2666

Confirmation code: "Ipsos Half-Yearly Results"







ABOUT IPSOS

Ipsos is the third largest market research company in the world, present in 90 markets and employing more than 18,000 people.

Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers or employees. Our 75 business solutions are based on primary data coming from our surveys, social media monitoring, and qualitative or observational techniques.

"Game Changers" - our tagline - summarizes our ambition to help our 5,000 clients navigate with confidence our world of rapid change.

Founded in France in 1975, Ipsos has been listed on the Euronext Paris since July 1, 1999. The company is part of the SBF 120 and the Mid-60 indexes and is eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service



Consolidated income statement

Half-yearly financial statements at June 30, 2020

In thousands of euros 06/30/2020 06/30/2019 12/31/2019 Revenue 785,993 903,359



2,003,255 Direct costs (273,947) (320,380) (714,791) Gross profit 512,045 582,978 1,288,464 Employee benefit expenses - excluding share-based payments (409,917) (423,587) (862,948) Employee benefit expenses - share based payments* (3,397) (3,672) (6,924) General operating expenses (91,324) (106,776) (218,902) Other operating income and expenses 17,642 336 (995) Operating profit 25,049 49,279 198,696 Amortization of intangible assets identified on acquisitions * (2,715) (2,830) (5,160) Other non-operating income and expenses (7,085) (4,003) (16,381) Share of profit/(loss) of associates (378) (356) (615) Operating profit 14,872 42,090 176,539 Finance costs (11,582) (13,116) (26,637) Other financial income and expenses * (3,908) (3,686) (7,328) Net profit before tax (618) 25,288 142,574 Income tax - excluding deferred tax on goodwill amortization 621 (5,411) (34,539) Deferred tax on goodwill amortization * (464) (1,164) (2,339) Income tax 157 (6,575) (36,878) Net profit (461) 18,714 105,695 Attributable to the owners of the parent 1,276 18,744 104,785 Attributable to non-controlling interests (1,737) (30) 910 Basic earnings per share [attributable to the owners of the parent] (in ) 0.03 0.43 2.39 Diluted earnings per share [attributable to the owners of the parent] (in ) 0.03 0.42 2.32

Adjusted earnings* 11,208 29,714 130,719 Attributable to the owners of the parent 12,776 29,370 129,519 Attributable to non-controlling interests (1,568) 345 1,200 Adjusted basic earnings per share, attributable to the owners of the parent 0.29 0.67 2.95 Adjusted diluted earnings per share, attributable to the owners of the parent 0.28 0.66 2.87

* Adjusted for non-cash items related to IFRS 2 (share-based compensation), amortization of intangible assets identified on acquisitions (client relationships), deferred tax liabilities related to goodwill for which amortization is deductible in some countries, the impact net of tax of other non-operating income and expenses and the non-cash impact of changes in puts in other financial income and expenses.

Statement of financial position

Half-yearly financial statements at June 30, 2020

In thousands of euros 06/30/2020 06/30/2019 12/31/2019 ASSETS Goodwill 1,300,932 1,304,470 1,322,906 Right-of-use assets 141,614 158,623 152,646 Other intangible assets 90,256 86,212 89,076 Property, plant and equipment 35,977 37,302 39,753 Investments in associates 1,788 2,712 1,114 Other non-current financial assets 46,200 45,697 44,766 Deferred tax assets 36,630 26,885 25,300 Non-current assets 1,653,398 1,661,903 1,675,561 Trade receivables 292,116 352,168 518,697 Contract assets 169,936 253,007 203,094 Current tax 15,450 22,951 14,833 Other current assets 98,624 92,899 92,846 Financial derivatives 368 - (1,094) Cash and cash equivalents 306,885 145,263 165,436 Current assets 883,380 866,287 993,812 TOTAL ASSETS 2,536,778 2,528,190 2,669,372 In thousands of euros 06/30/2020 06/30/2019 12/31/2019 EQUITY AND LIABILITIES Share capital 11,109 11,109 11,109 Additional paid-in capital 515,873 516,038 516,000 Treasury shares (10,342) (13,340) (12,382) Translation adjustments (136,277) (109,088) (96,352) Other reserves 655,715 580,469 580,314 Net profit, attributable to the owners of the parent 1,276 18,744 104,785 Equity, attributable to the owners of the parent 1,037,354 1,003,932 1,103,475 Non-controlling interests 18,278 18,237 19,247 Equity 1,055,631 1,022,169 1,122,722 Borrowings and other non-current financial liabilities 562,388 731,835 561,490 Non-current lease liabilities 122,311 140,140 133,112 Non-current provisions 783 3,820 762 Provisions for retirement benefit obligations 34,102 30,803 33,058 Deferred tax liabilities 70,384 70,417 72,196 Other non-current liabilities 21,233 15,204 14,980 Non-current liabilities 811,201 992,219 815,599 Trade payables 232,973 254,620 300,681 Borrowings and other current financial liabilities 185,851 17,913 181,229 Current lease liabilities 39,977 41,473 41,971 Current tax 9,456 4,078 16,273 Current provisions 7,553 3,606 9,025 Contract liabilities 36,317 27,990 34,594 Other current liabilities 157,819 164,121 147,278 Current liabilities 669,946 513,802 731,051 TOTAL LIABILITIES 2,536,778 2,528,190 2,669,372





Consolidated cash flow statement

Half-yearly financial statements at June 30, 2020

In thousands of euros 06/30/2020 06/30/2019 12/31/2019 OPERATING ACTIVITIES NET PROFIT (461) 18,714 105,695 Non-cash items Amortization and depreciation of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets 39,930 36,467 75,199 Net profit of equity-accounted companies, net of dividends received 378 356 636 Losses/(gains) on asset disposals 121 (19) 323 Net change in provisions 525 1,833 5,889 Share-based payment expense 3,269 3,424 6,604 Other non-cash income/(expenses) 538 1,666 1,028 Acquisition costs of consolidated companies 615 2,002 2,383 Finance costs 13,892 15,716 31,750 Tax expense (157) 6,575 36,878 CASH FLOW FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES BEFORE FINANCE COSTS AND TAX 58,651 86,734 266,386 Change in working capital requirement 167,318 (14,098) (52,676) Income tax paid (13,823) (21,896) (35,854) CASH FLOW FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES 212,146 50,740 177,855 INVESTING ACTIVITIES Acquisitions of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets (20,401) (21,185) (43,232) Proceeds from disposals of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets 22 58 81 Increase/(decrease) in financial assets (62) 2,960 3,187 Acquisitions of consolidated activities and companies, net of acquired cash (12,462) (3,987) (5,435) CASH FLOW FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES (32,902) (22,154) (45,400) FINANCING ACTIVITIES Share capital increases/(reductions) - - - Net (purchases)/sales of treasury shares 1,781 304 1,324 Increase in long-term borrowings - 27 62 Decrease in long-term borrowings (79) (22) (5,160) Increase in long-term loans to associates (2,904) (12,391) (12,284) Increase/(decrease) in bank overdrafts (851) (555) (1,467) Net repayment of lease liabilities (21,147) (19,359) (40,231) Net interest paid (6,388) (7,594) (25,367) Net interest paid on lease liabilities (2,369) (1,958) (4,508) Buy-out of non-controlling interests (147) (10,836) (10,935) Dividends paid to the owners of the parent - - (38,649) Dividends paid to non-controlling interests of consolidated companies - - - CASH FLOW FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES (32,103) (52,383) (137,215) NET CHANGE IN CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS 147,141 (23,797) (4,760) Impact of foreign exchange rate movements on cash (5,691) 1,225 2,362 CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 165,436 167,834 167,834 CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS AT THE END OF THE YEAR 306,885 145,263 165,436

Attachment
The Indian military continues to have problems with its personnel being recruited as spies by Pakistani agents pretending to be an Indian woman looking for love. This is called a honey-trap and it is a classic espionage technique that has adapted to the Internet Age. This new version involves Pakistani agents operating via the Internet to engage Indian military personnel and then persuade or entraps them to be a regular supplier of information. The latest case was unusual in that the man honey-trapped in 2019 later agreed to provide more information on an ammunition depot and a firing range. Eventually, with the aid of a friend, this new spy offered to collect and email even more information and get paid for it. Both men were civilian employees of the army. The honey-trap victim received about a thousand dollars and passed on $120 to the associate he recruited. Both men were arrested in 2020 and are being prosecuted for espionage.

The honey-trap in this case was in the form of a Facebook page and WhasApp account set up the Pakistani handler to represent an attractive Hindu woman. The Facebook page is used to attract men with a military connection and the Pakistani intel operative running the Facebook account screens Indian men seeking to find likely candidates for development and recruitment. This is classic social engineering and also classic spy craft.

Before the Internet it was more time consuming and dangerous for an agent to go out looking to sources among the enemy. Pakistan and, to a lesser extent India, have developed this method to a high degree of effectiveness even though both Indian and Pakistani troops are warned of the existence of this sort of thing and the risks of getting caught in a honey-trap.

The Pakistanis have been very creative in their use of honey-traps. This was demonstrated in early 2018 when a female Pakistani agent called an Indian army staff officer serving in the headquarters of a unit stationed in northern India. The Pakistan spy said she was from the Army Wives Welfare Association but was informed that the officer she wanted was away from the office. Her call was transferred to a 25-year-old corporal. The Pakistani agent found the corporal suitable for entrapment and during their brief phone call persuaded him to contact her via her Internet accounts on WhatsApp and Instagram to continue their conversation. That was how the Pakistani agent developed the corporal as a provider of information on Indian army troop movements.

Indian military intelligence was, by then, well aware of how these Pakistani honey traps worked and knew what signs to look for. Soon the Indian counterintelligence operatives were monitoring the corporals activities and did so for over five months before making an arrest. None of the information the corporal passed on was of high value so Indian intelligence was apparently hoping to gather more information on this female Pakistani agent and what kinds of tradecraft (techniques) the Pakistanis were currently using. In more and more of these Pakistani honey trap efforts, it turns out to be Indian counterintelligence that is the major player.

Most casual observers, who just see these events described, fail to realize that most of the data obtained from the corporal was low-grade stuff and that the Indians involved detected the honey trap early and simply monitored it to obtain more data on how Pakistan intelligence operated and noting what they were asking for. If something truly important was requested the honey trap op would be shut down.

The Indian military has proved very vulnerable to these honey trap tactics, but in part that was because the Pakistanis tried it a lot and had a hard time getting to and entrapping really good sources of information. Such cases must involve officers with access to important and closely held information. These officers were regularly warned to be careful and were given updates on entrapment techniques. In response the Pakistanis modified their tactics in late 2018 by having agents go after more young enlisted soldiers and seducing low-grade information from them in the hope that this might lead to something more useful than detailed photos of equipment and information about unit locations and operations from a junior soldiers perspective. A lot of what junior troops could provide could be easily found on the Internet, without hacking into well protected databases.

In early 2019 it was revealed that Indian counterintelligence had uncovered a honey trap campaign that had already apparently ensnared dozens of Indian soldiers seduced into providing information. In some cases, cash payments (under a hundred dollars) were involved as well. But the main idea was to develop many low-ranking troops who could be used for extended periods to provide low-level data that Indian counterintelligence operations would not detect. That may have been too optimistic because the Indians were trying to monitor a lot of these low-level honey trap victims to turn the tables on the Pakistanis and gather information on the growing number of Pakistani male and female operatives who carry out these operations from the safety of Pakistan.

All this was another battle in the decades long espionage war between Pakistan and India. Just like the more conventional wars, Pakistan has fought with India since both states were created, Pakistan has never won any clear victories. Intelligence operations tend to be sustained, not episodic like past wars between Pakistan and its larger (by about six times in terms of population and GDP, somewhat less in military terms) neighbor. Pakistan can take credit for accomplishing more than the size discrepancy indicates but this, like many Pakistani military actions, seem directed more at impressing Pakistanis in general than in doing any significant damage to their chosen archenemy.

What the Pakistanis have had a hard time with is using more sophisticated and effective honey traps capable of recruiting officers. There was a case where two officers (one air force, one army) were arrested after getting caught stealing, or attempting to steal, classified documents for a girlfriend they met on the Internet. A common venue for these seductive intel operatives is Facebook, which lends itself to the honey trap technique. The Internet has made it easier for this social engineering technique to work because instances of men and women meeting each other virtually are so common. A skilled intel operative can then seduce secrets out of the victims, who are usually men, but women have been entrapped as well. Since Internet access via cell phones became so common in Asia after 2010 the virtual honey trap has become more popular in many parts of the world. By virtual is meant that military men are seduced by virtual women via social networks where the recruiters use photos and talk of eventual physical contact in exchange for digital photos of documents sent via encrypted apps like WhatsApp.

The use of virtual honey traps first became known when it was used against Indians by Pakistan. But these techniques were also used against other nations (Taiwan, South Korea and Japan) by China. The most details are available about the use of these techniques by Pakistan against India. These details began to emerge after 2012. It all began when India became more effective at catching traditional Pakistani spies. Over the years India learned how to quickly detect, identify and arrest these spies as well as their Pakistani handlers. As a result, Pakistan began switching from using agents inside India to recruiting and managing spies via the Internet. The highly trained Pakistani agents could remain safe in Pakistan and develop techniques to find and manage Indian spies via the Internet. India still catches these traditional spies but has come to discover that there are a lot more of them. Since 2015 over a dozen have been arrested. This included four post office employees who were intercepting mail sent from one Indian base to another and looking for salable information. That was passed on to Pakistan, which paid well for this stuff. Often the information was literally phoned in using hard-to-trace SIM card supplied by the Pakistanis.

Pakistan accepted the risk of these spies getting caught because the payoff was often considerable. For example, in early 2015 Indian police arrested an employee (a cameraman) for the government defense research organization (DRDO) and accused him of spying for Pakistan. The suspect was accused of passing on information about missile research and tests and doing so for up to ten months. The suspect admitted that he had met with ISI (Pakistani intelligence) agents in India several times in 2014. Apparently, this man was caught because Indian intelligence was monitoring ISI agents. Its unclear why the Indian man agreed to be a spy, although money appears to be the most likely motivator.

Honey traps are less frequently encountered in South Asia and the most common method is still simply offering cash. An Indian army clerk was arrested earlier in 2014 for doing that. In early 2013 India police arrested four Indians and accused them of working for ISI and passing on information and documents for at least three years. That spy cell mainly operated near the Nepal border and cash was the main motivator.

Pakistan is constantly seeking Indian military personnel willing to spy for cash or sex. Even most Indian Moslems have no love for Pakistan and thus ISI concentrates on the greed, need or blackmail approach to recruiting Indian agents. India does the same in Pakistan, but India is a far larger target and has more secrets Pakistan wants. The virtual honey pot, however, has turned out to be very effective and apparently cheaper than the traditional methods of offering cash and using physical contact (between foreign handler and local recruited agent). More effective forms of encrypted Internet communication also help as does the fact that so many of the people targeted have smartphones and regularly access the Internet via those devices.
A pastor in Voi is the darling of the town in Taita Taveta County after she donated her house to recovering drug addicts.

Pastor Rose Rugendo of Rehoboth Prayer and Fasting Center gave up her palatial one-storey mansion to be converted into a rehab center, the Kenya News Agency reported on Monday, July 21.

The preacher said she was inspired by the lack of a rehabilitation center for addicts in the county. She said it was disheartening to see parents of drug addicts in Voi who had to travel to Mombasa or Nairobi to seek rehab services that cost an arm and leg.

There is no rehabilitation center in this county. I decided to give out my home to be used as one until such time that the committee managing the center will find land and build a center for people, especially the youth, battling addiction, she said.

Pastor Rose also noted that she moved to a smaller house where she will be living for the time being.

The mansion is located in one of the posh neighborhoods on the outskirts of Voi town. The center has since sought accreditation from the National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA).

Pastor Rose, however, said the center faces challenges due to a lack of psychiatrists.

The challenge we have is a lack of enough teachers and psychiatrists for our clients. We hope more people will come out and give back to the community, she said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (July 22) invited United States investment in defence and space sector while addressing the India Ideas Summit, hosted by the US-India Business Council.

The Prime Minister said that India invites you to invest in defence and space, adding "We are raising the FDI cap for investment in the defence sector to 74 per cent. India has established two defence corridors to encourage the production of defence equipment and platforms." "We offer special incentives for private and foreign investors," PM Modi added.

Talking about opportunities in the civil aviation sector, the Prime Minister said, "Civil aviation is another area of great potential growth. The number of air passengers is expected to more than double within the next 8 years."

PM Modi added, "The top private Indian airlines plan to include over a thousand new aircraft over the coming decade. This is a huge opportunity who chooses to set up a manufacturing unit in India."

Talking about trade opportunities India, the Prime Minister said, "rise of India means, a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale."

According to PM Modi, "every year, we are reaching record highs in FDI. Each year is significantly higher than the earlier one. FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were $74 billion."

This is an increase of 20 per cent from the year before and the US investments have already crossed $40 million this year, he said, adding that India has attracted more than $20 billion in the middle of COVID-19 pandemic.

The Prime Minister said that recent experience has taught us that the global economy has been too focused on efficiency and optimization. "Efficiency is a good thing, but we forgot to focus on something equally important. That is resilience against external shocks."

Global economic resilience can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities, PM Modi said, adding that India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of an 'Atmanirbhar Bharat'.

Notably, the virtual summit is being represented by a high-level presence from Indian and US government policymakers, state-level officials and thought leaders from business and society.

The summit aims to bring together senior officials from the government of India and the United States who are setting the post-pandemic recovery agenda.
DermSurgery Associates (http://www.dermsurgery.org), a full-service source for cosmetic and medical dermatology treatments across the Houston, TX, region, recently welcomed 2 board-certified dermatologists to their practice. Dr. Sonal Parikh and Dr. Nhan (Nick) Nguyen join DermSurgery having recently completed Mohs surgery fellowship training under Dr. Leonard Goldberg, an internationally recognized Mohs expert and a member of the DermSurgery Associates staff.

Dr. Parikh and Dr. Nguyen will see general and cosmetic dermatology patients and perform Mohs surgery at our locations in The Woodlands and Willowbrook. They will also see men and women who need Mohs surgery at our Sugar Land location. Each has an impressive educational and training background, including a yearlong Mohs surgery fellowship under Dr. Goldberg at Houston Methodist Hospital. Here is some additional information about Dr. Parikh and Dr. Nguyen.

Dr. Parikh

Born and raised in Long Island, New York, Dr. Parikh graduated summa cum laude, with University Honors, from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree and minored in psychology, Spanish, and chemistry. While earning her medical degree at VCU's School of Medicine, Dr. Parikh completed a yearlong fellowship in cutaneous oncology (skin cancer) research at Columbia University Medical Center's dermatology department.

She remained at VCU Health to complete an internal medicine internship after medical school before completing a dermatology residency at the University of Connecticut Health in Farmington, CT. Dr. Parikh served as chief resident in her final year and then traveled to Houston, where she completed the micrographic surgery and cutaneous oncology fellowship under Dr. Goldberg.

Dr. Parikh, who speaks English, Spanish, and Gujarati, is the author of multiple book chapters and articles that have been published in peer-reviewed dermatology journals and has presented her work at national meetings.

When she's away from the office, Dr. Parikh enjoys the outdoors, traveling, exploring new cuisine, and arts and crafts. Additionally, she enjoys spending time with her husband, friends, and family.

Dr. Nguyen

Dr. Nguyen's education and training has taken him from the West Coast to the East Coast and back to his native Hawaii. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical/biochemical engineering from the University of Southern California before enrolling at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he completed a master's degree in physiology and biophysics. He completed medical school at the University of Hawaii's John A. Burns School of Medicine.

From there, Dr. Nguyen completed an internal medicine internship at the Fresno, CA, branch of University of California, San Francisco. After his internship, he completed a postdoctoral dermatology clinical research fellowship at Columbia University and his dermatology residency at New York Medical College in New York City.

He then landed the yearlong fellowship training in micrographic surgery and dermatologic oncology under Dr. Goldberg in Houston. Dr. Nguyen has authored multiple articles that have published in peer-reviewed journals, and he is an active member of the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery and the American Academy of Dermatology.

DermSurgery Associates (http://www.dermsurgery.org/) is the Houston area's premier medical and cosmetic dermatology practice with 17 locations in the region. They have a team of nearly 20 dermatologists who offer a range of services using the most advanced techniques available. DermSurgery Associates specializes in state-of-the-art laser surgery procedures, dermatologic surgical procedures, and Mohs micrographic surgeries, as well as an array of skincare and cosmetic services.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, chairs a symposium with entrepreneurs in Beijing, capital of China, July 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Yue Yuewei)

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Tuesday called for efforts to stimulate market vitality to overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Chinese and global economy.

Xi made the remarks while presiding over a symposium with entrepreneurs in Beijing.

Entrepreneurs present at the meeting included Chairman of Hikvision Digital Technology Chen Zongnian, Chairman of Sinochem Group Ning Gaoning, Chairman of Wuhan Gaode Infrared Co., Ltd. Huang Li, Chairman of GoerTek Inc. Jiang Bin, senior Vice President of Microsoft Hong Xiaowen and President of Panasonic China Zhao Bingdi.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy economic blow to China and the rest of the world, with a slew of market players in the country facing unprecedented pressure. Market entities now act as the carriers of economic power, hence ensuring the vitality of market players is equivalent to stimulating social productivity, Xi said.

"We must unleash the dynamics of market players, carry forward an entrepreneurial spirit, and push enterprises to play a greater role in pursuing development, thus accumulating strengths for further economic growth," Xi noted.

Xi said hefty inroads have been made in pandemic prevention and control, and China's economic development has embraced a stable turn for the better. It is now at the forefront of the world in pandemic control and economic recovery, delivering better-than-expected outcomes.

"We must beef up our confidence to overcome the difficulties and strive to make up for the losses caused by COVID-19, so as to notch up impressive full-year economic growth," he added.

China's economy returned to modest growth in the second quarter of 2020 and reverted from the first contraction on record in the first quarter this year, as COVID-19 eases and policymakers proclaimed economic packages. In the first half of 2020, China's economy declined by 1.6 percent year on year.

The world's second-largest economy grew by 3.2 percent between April and June from a year earlier, reversing a 6.8-percent decline in the first quarter  the first contraction since at least 1992 when official quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) records started, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics.

The reading beats the median 1.1 percent forecast by economists surveyed by Nikkei and coincides with an AFP poll which projected the economy would claw its way back into growth territory in the second quarter of this year.

Policy support

Xi expressed his gratitude to state-owned, private and foreign-funded enterprises, Hong Kong-, Macao- and Taiwan-funded companies, and the self-employed businesses for their contributions to socio-economic progress and pandemic control.

He then stressed to inject more dynamism into market entities and enlarge policy support via more proactive fiscal policies and moderate monetary policies, so that the majority of market entities can not only survive, but also obtain greater development.

Meanwhile, he called for creating an international and marketized business environment building on rule of law, including fully applying the negative list for market access and barring trading power for money.

Xi also urged local governments to provide more quality public services for enterprises, listening more to entrepreneurs' opinions and suggestions when formulating policies related to enterprises.

In addition, more weight should be assigned to self-employed businesses, according to Xi, namely, the government should actively help them solve problems in the fields like rent, tax, social insurance, and financing with more direct and effective policy assistance.

Entrepreneurship advancement

"Entrepreneurs should advance patriotism, integrity, as well as innovation and social responsibility to become a driving force for creating a new development pattern, building a modern economic system and promoting high-quality development in the new era," Xi noted.

He said patriotic entrepreneurs should integrate the development of enterprises with national prosperity and people's happiness to share the burdens of the country.

Xi also encouraged entrepreneurs to be bold in innovation and focus on technological research and human capital investment. Entrepreneurs should also bear more social responsibility, step up efforts to stabilize jobs and care about employees' health to go through the tough situation together with employees.

President Xi also urged entrepreneurs to upgrade international vision through improving international market development capability and strengthen ability to withstand international market risks so as to drive enterprises to achieve better development during the higher-level opening-up.

China must make good use of the strength of the country's market and push forward technological innovation in the face of rising protectionism and a volatile global economy, the Chinese president stressed.

Noting that in the long term, economic globalization is still a historical trend and win-win cooperation is the trend of the times, Xi said China would continue to deepen reform and opening-up, strengthen cooperation in the field of science and technology, promote the construction of an open world economy and push for building a community with a shared future for mankind.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 03:44:30|Editor: huaxia

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by Mahmoud Darwesh

TRIPOLI, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed government and the rival eastern-based army are mobilizing forces in preparation for the fight to control the city of Sirte, some 450 km east of the capital Tripoli.

The UN-backed government is trying to take Sirte from the eastern-based army, which withdrew from western Libya recently after more than a year of fighting.

Libya experts believe that the Sirte fight would be crucial for both rivals and could determine the future political scene in Libya.

"The military mobilization that has been going on for nearly two months near Sirte clearly shows that the next fight would be crucial," Khalid Al-Montaser, a Libyan International relations professor, told Xinhua.

"It could last for weeks or even months, given the city's significance for the UN-backed government and the eastern-based army," he said. "The UN-backed government believes that taking over Sirte is the beginning of controlling eastern Libya."

"Without a doubt, each party is supported by foreign countries. Therefore, I believe this fight will be crucial in ending the dispute for either of the rival parties. The loser will accept the terms of the winner without any delay," he said.

Ahmad Al-Hisnawi, a retired Libyan army officer, believes that Sirte is witnessing the largest military mobilization since 2011.

"Sirte has witnessed two wars in 2011 and 2016. If a third war erupted in the city, it means that the city would be completely destroyed and the residents would flee. Therefore, the choice of making it a demilitarized zone is possible if there is a political will, " Al-Hisnawi told Xinhua.

"The UN and the U.S. are leading a multi-party plan to spare Sirte from military conflict and create a truce around it. This could lead to political and military concessions from both parties in the near future," he said.

Earlier in June, the UN-backed government announced launching a military operation to take over Sirte from the eastern-based army, confirming that the attack would take place in time.

Over the past few days, the UN-backed government deployed its forces in areas west of Sirte.

Khaled Al-Tarhuni, a Libyan political analyst, believes that there are equal chances of war and peace in Sirte, all of which linked to related international agreements.

The most important of those agreements is convincing the eastern-based army leadership to reopen the oilfields and ports, he said.

"When the UN-backed government decided to attack Sirte, the main purpose wasn't the city itself. The UN-backed government knows that the key to resume oil exports is to take control of the city of Sirte that is located near the oil crescent region," Al-Tarhuni told Xinhua.

"International efforts continue to convene forces of Haftar (commander of eastern-based army) to reopen oilfields and ports, in exchange for convencing the Tripoli-based government to let go of the military option and advance into the east," he said.

"The negotiations did not stop. We could hear about resumption of oil exports and reducing of the military tension near Sirte, all within an international agreement that guarantees everybody's current positions. It could also delay distribution of the oil revenues, the main demand of eastern tribes as well as the eastern-based army," he explained.

Libya has been suffering escalated violence and political instability ever since the fall of the late leader Gaddafi's regime in 2011. Enditem
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry aren't looking for a 'totally private life' and instead stepped back from the royal family to gain more control over 'what they spend their time on', according to a royal expert.

The Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex, 38, officially quit their senior royal duties in March, and are currently living in LA with their son Archie, aged 14 months.

However, the couple are not seeking a wholly private existence away from the limelight, claims royal author Victoria Murphy.

Speaking to Town and Country, the commentator noted that Harry and Meghan still want a public life but with greater control over their time.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry (pictured in London, in March) aren't looking for a 'totally private life' and instead stepped back from the royal family to gain more control over 'what they spend their time on', according to a royal expert

'[Harry and Meghan] have stepped back not in search of a totally private life but for a different kind of public life,' Victoria said.

'A public life where they can have more control over who gets access to them and what they spend their time on.'

The Duke and Duchess' focus is on using their high-profiles to promote their latest charitable organisation, Archewell.

A source familiar with the couple's plans told the magazine that they are very 'hands on' and are constantly working to develop the foundation.

Meghan and Harry are apparently filled with energy for their project and want to offer a platform to diverse leaders who are encouraging a positive change in the world.

The Duke, 35, and Duchess of Sussex (above, during a recent video call), 38, officially quit their senior royal duties in March after shocking the world with their decision just two months earlier, and are currently living in LA with their son Archie, aged 14 months

It comes after a celebrity brand strategist claimed Harry and Meghan are in the ideal position to switch their Sussex Royal Instagram account to their new Archewell Foundation.

Phil Pallen, at philpallen.co, told FEMAIL that Harry, 35, and Meghan, 38, could be planning a clever PR move by transferring the 11-million strong fan following they have built up on their Instagram account, to their charity endeavours.

Describing a social media fanbase as 'the digital equivalent of waterfront real estate', he predicted that the couple will 'pivot' Sussex Royal to Archewell, once the foundation is 'ready for its reveal'.

Phil told FEMAIL: 'Now that Harry and Meghan have left the Royal family, they have independence to speak boldly about social movements, politics, and other topics of importance to the couple.

'The Sussex Royal Instagram account is a platform and tool that allows Harry and Meghan to communicate with conviction to an adoring audience.

The Duke and Duchess' focus is on using their high-profiles to promote their latest charitable organisation, Archewell. Pictured, the couple in London, in March

It comes after a celebrity brand strategist claimed Harry and Meghan are in the ideal position to switch their Sussex Royal Instagram account (above) to their new Archewell Foundation

'If Harry and Meghan still have authority over the Instagram account, I suspect that Harry and Meghan will pivot the Sussex Royal account to Archewell when the non-profit is ready for its public reveal.'

The couple were forced to drop the Sussex Royal branding as part of their release from The Firm, starting an Archewell Foundation instead, and are thought to be waiting until after the pandemic to announce any further details on their charity or any new social media accounts they may be launching.

The pair are currently residing in actor Tyler Perry's Hollywood mansion with their 1-year-old son Archie, were they are keeping a low profile amid ongoing charity work.

They revealed their new charitable foundation 'Archewell' in April, which will replace Sussex Royal.

Unveiling the project, which will incorporate the causes close to their heart, the couple revealed the Greek word in the project Arche  meaning source of action  was the inspiration behind the name of their son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
A man who admits killing his estranged wife and burning her body has been sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Barry Ragland of Dallas pleaded guilty to murder in a plea agreement.

The body of Sharon Ragland, 49, of Canton was discovered April 24 in a rural area south of Dallas, near Interstate 45. She had been reported missing when she didn't show up for work at Lone Star Harley Davidson in Tyler.

Ragland was arrested a few days later in DeSoto. Authorities say blood was found at his home and in his vehicle.

The victim suffered blunt force trauma and was shot before her body was burned, investigators said.

Ragland was sentenced Jan. 3.
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Some species of stingless bees make stunning honeycomb which resembles the molecular structure of crystals, scientists have discovered.

A series of images published as part of a scientific study into the hive structure of Tetragonula bees reveals they often have a distinct bullseye or spiral 3D appearance.

The same mathematical blueprint is followed by a colony of bees and also by the laws of physics, resulting in strikingly similar layouts.

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A series of images published as part of a scientific study into the hive structure of Tetragonula bees reveals they often have a distinct bullseye or spiral 3D appearance

The same mathematical blueprint is followed by a colony of bees and also by the laws of physics, resulting in strikingly similar layouts

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Granada in Spain combined to map out the unique hives.

Writing in their study, the researchers say: 'In Tetragonula nests, we find a variety of brood comb structures in three dimensions that can be classified into (a) spirals, (b) target (i.e. bullseye shaped) patterns, (c) double spirals and (d) more disordered terraces.

'In a totally different field of science, crystals also grow in three-dimensional patterns with spirals and target patterns.'

In both crystals and beehives a single layer is created in compartments before being developed on top of this to gradually create a layered appearance.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Granada in Spain combined to map out the unique hives. Writing in their study, the researchers say: 'In Tetragonula nests, we find a variety of brood comb structures in three dimensions that can be classified into (a) spirals, (b) target (i.e. bullseye shaped) patterns, (c) double spirals and (d) more disordered terraces'

In both crystals and beehives a single layer is created in compartments before being developed on top of this to gradually create a layered appearance

Worker bees add new cells to the edges of each terrace, each of which is then filled with an egg and closed before repeating the process. These layers, or terraces, are then used by the insects to move around the colony and researchers equate the terraces to different levels in a multi-story car park

Researchers found both stingless bee hives and crystals operate within a so-called excitable medium, a physical phenomenon in which a structure can grow but only after one layer has had enough time to fully set

Bees are facing their own global pandemic Scientists are concerned that bees are dealing with a pandemic of their own. Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder have documented how bees in Europe have been afflicted with a contagious and deadly fungus that can be spread through flower petals during pollination. Called nosema, different varieties of the fungus have been documented all over the world, including in South Africa, Kenya, Russia, Brazil, the United States, and Canada. Nosema is a type of fungus know as a microsporidia - a single-cell parasite that forms spores that grow into a fungus. Advertisement

Worker bees add new cells to the edges of each terrace, each of which is then filled with an egg and closed before repeating the process. These layers, or terraces, are then used by the insects to move around the colony.

The researchers equate the terraces to different levels in a multi-story car park.

In crystals, atoms, molecules, ions or other tiny particle attaches to the edge of crystals at the edge of terraces known as steps and kinks.

The researchers developed a model to understand more about how this process was used in two vastly different systems.

They found both stingless bee hives and crystals operate within a so-called excitable medium, a physical phenomenon in which a structure can grow but only after one layer has had enough time to fully set.

They also rely on a distinct lattice arrangement in which the excitable medium is confined, resulting in the terraced and 3D structures.

'Both crystal growth and this bee comb construction are describable within the mathematical framework of excitable media, the authors write.

'Crystals, slime moulds, the brain, the heart, chemical oscillators, forest fires and many other systems can function as excitable media.

'And in this instance, bees making their combs, too. So what the mathematics tells us is that the processes that drive atoms or molecules to aggregate as a crystal have the same mathematical structure as the processes that drive bees when making their bee comb, so that they both possess the same spiral and target patterns.

'There is a beautiful mathematical equivalence between how molecules build a crystal and how bees build a bee comb.'

The findings were published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
AIR Worldwide Using Precisely Data in Risk Models

Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide announced that it including software produced by Precisely, a startup that focuses on improving the quality of data, in its Touchstone 2020 risk-assessment tool.

Gayartri Natarajan, vice president of product for Boston-based AIR, said Preciselys international address-level geocoding product will improve the quality of loss-exposure data.

Having the right latitude and longitude coordinates for a property can have an enormous bearing upon the accuracy of risk estimation and the impact that extreme events might have on that property, Natarajan said in a statement. Through our collaboration with Precisely, Touchstone 2020 will help support clients ability to access this feature for international properties.

AIR said the integration will allow licensed and configured users to import or re-geocode exposure data with street addresses. That includes the option of including high-resolution address-level international geocoding services for use with Touchstone loss, hazard, and geospatial analyses.

AIR clients can also pass the premium geocodes on to their downstream insurers, brokers, reinsurers, and retrocessionary insurers, the company said. Users will also have the option to control which locations are not sent to the premium geocoder by country or by line of business.

Precisely, which officially launched as a brand in May after purchasing the assets of Pitney Bowes, provides software that improves the quality of warehoused data. The company is headquartered in Pearl River, New York.

GRS Buys Environmental Risk Manager

Global Risk Solutions, a London-based complex claims management firm, announced that it has acquired William Kramer & Associates, an environmental risk-management company headquartered in Avon, Connecticut.

GRS said WKA adjusters have extensive experience in such claims across a range of industries, including oil and gas, energy, mining, manufacturing, and real estate and litigation management.

Bill Kramer and William Kramer & Associates have been successful in the major and complex

loss insurance sector for decades, stated Michael Reeves, GRS complex claims loss executive, in a press release. WKA is a recognized name with a solid reputation in many of the global insurance centres, and this agreement represents a tangible sign of our intention to grow our complex claims solutions business both in the U.S. and internationally.

GRS said the acquisition will complement its Environmental Risk Management Solutions Group and increase the companys level of expertise and presence in global markets.

Crawford & Co. Signs on With Hover

Crawford & Co. has contracted with Hover to provide adjusters and independent claims contractors with complete property measurements.

Hover allows adjusters to obtain the dimensions of structures by using their cell phones to take photographs of each face and corner. The San Francisco-based startup has been steadily signing up new insurance carriers and independent adjusting firms as customers since its launch in 2012.

Crawford, based in Atlanta, calls itself the worlds largest publicly listed independent claims administrator. Hover Executive Vice President Kevin Reilley said the partnership will reduce the companys claim cycle times and provide better data-sets to carrier partners, while improving customer satisfaction.

Crawford said the investment with Hover will support do-it-yourself data collection, enabling more virtual and desk adjusting services.

QBE Contracts with Flyreel

QBE North America has contracted with Flyreel Inc., to allow customers to perform self-service property inspections.

QBE said in a press release that Flyreel can be used by customers to document interior and exterior data while using artificial intelligence to identify hazards and risks.

QBE believes strongly in empowering customers with the most advanced tools available to help them obtain the right coverage for their homes, stated Vice President Fred Dabney. This progressive approach will help our customers even more, given our new virtual world.

Denver-based Flyreel provides a smartphone app that guides insurance customers to conduct home inspections or file first notices of loss.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Chemesis International Inc. (the "Company") (CSE:CSI) (OTCQB:CADMF) (FRA:CWAB) is pleased to announce that its common shares listed for trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") will commence trading in U.S. currency under the new trading symbol of CSI.U as of Thursday, July 23, 2020. The CSE will also be issuing a bulletin to the same effect.

On Behalf of The Board of Directors

Josh Rosenberg

President

Investor Relations:

ir@chemesis.com

1 (604) 398-3378

Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance and developments to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Except as required by law, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation and does not intend to update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information in this news release. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. The statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release.

The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this press release.

SOURCE: Chemesis International Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598523/Chemesis-International-Inc-to-Trade-in-USD-on-the-Canadian-Securities-Exchange
Police have launched an investigation after a driver deliberately ran over a group of sheep then set one on fire in a horrific act of animal cruelty.

Detectives said the suspect mowed down three of the animals in total. One died at the scene in Surfleet Marsh, near Spalding, Lincolnshire.

Two other sheep, including the one that was set alight, had to be put down.

The farmer who owns the field said eight more of his flock have gone missing.

Investigators believe the eight sheep may have been chased into a nearby River Welland or stolen.

Investigating Wildlife Crime officer PC Martin Green said: This is a horrific incident that has caused much upset to the farmer.

Unfortunately, we do believe this was a deliberate act and we are carrying out investigations to bring the offenders to justice.

Officers probing the incident believe the suspect was travelling in a 4X4 and ran the sheep over sometime between Friday and Saturday last week.

Lincolnshire Police is calling on anyone who may have witnessed the attack to come forward.

We would like to hear from anyone who may be able to assist with our investigation, the force said in a statement.

Any information no matter how insignificant it may seem, may help us to investigate this cruel act and identify those responsible.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Icanic Brands Company Inc. (CSE: ICAN, OTCQB: ICNAF) (Icanic Brands or the Company), is pleased to announce a first tranche closing of its non-brokered private placement announced on June 11, 2020 (the Offering).



Pursuant to the first tranche, the company issued 4,290,000 units at a price of $0.25 per unit for gross proceeds of $1,072,500.

Each Unit is comprised of one common share in the capital of the Company (a Share) and one common share purchase warrant (a Warrant). Each Warrant shall be exercisable to acquire one additional Share at a price of $0.31 for a period of two years from the date of issuance. In the event that the Shares trade at a closing price of greater than $0.50 per Share for ten (10) consecutive trading days, the Company may accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants to expire on the 30th day after the date on which such notice is given.

In connection with the closing, the company paid an aggregate of $41,250 in finder fees.

All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance in accordance with applicable securities legislation. In addition to the statutory hold period, the shares issued will be subject to an additional hold period of six months commencing from the date of issuance and the Warrants and share issuable upon exercise of the warrants will be subject to a voluntary hold period of twelve months from the date of issuance. The Offering is not subject to a minimum aggregate amount of subscriptions. The net proceeds from the Offering will be used for general corporate purposes and to execute the Companys annual marketing plan.

About Icanic Brands Company Inc.

Icanic Brands Company, Inc. is a leading cannabis branded products manufacturer based in California & Nevada, the largest and most competitive cannabis markets in the world. The companys mission is to make cannabis safe and approachable - that starts with manufacturing high-quality products delivering consistent experiences.

Story continues

For more information, please visit the companys website at: www.icaninc.com.

About Ganja Gold

Ganja Gold, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Icanic Brands Company, Inc. (CSE: ICAN, OTCQB: ICNAF), is the premier brand of infused pre-rolls in the state. Ganja Gold focuses on using only the best available flower and concentrates with state of the art proprietary technology to create connoisseur level pre-rolls unseen in the marketplace. With our flagship Tarantula, Ganja Gold continues to set the bar in quality and experience.

For more information about Ganja Gold, visit their website at www.ganjagold.com

ICANIC BRANDS COMPANY INC.

Per: Brandon Kou

Chief Executive Officer

For further information about Icanic Brands, please contact the Company at:

Email: investors@icaninc.com

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not in any way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.








The NIA had arrested the prime accused in the case, Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair, from Bengaluru on 11 July

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering complaint in connection with the Kerala gold smuggling case, officials said on Wednesday.

They said the agency has registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), equivalent of a police FIR, after studying the NIA FIR filed earlier.

The ED case has been booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the agency will record the statement of the accused, they said.

The central agency will investigate if the proceeds of crime were generated by the accused by laundering funds that were earned through the alleged gold smuggling racket.

The NIA had arrested the prime accused in the case, Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair, from Bengaluru on 11 July.

The agency had told a special court in Kochi on Tuesday that Suresh, Nair and others had conspired to damage the country's monetary stability by smuggling large quantity of gold from abroad.

In a report submitted to the court, the NIA also said it is suspected that the accused had used the proceeds of smuggling for financing terrorism through various means.

The accused deliberately used the diplomatic baggage of UAE as a cover to transact illegal business and it may have serious repercussions in India's diplomatic relations with the UAE government and it is prejudicial to the monetary and economic security of India as well, the NIA said.

It has also questioned Suresh and Nair, who are in its custody till 24 July.

The gold smuggling racket was unearthed on 5 July after Customs officials at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport seized the diplomatic consignment sent from UAE containing gold nearly worth Rs 15 crore.
Despite some occasional looting, chaos, property damage, trespassing, rioting, graffiti, assaults, arson, and general mayhem, the media consistently assure us that Antifa protesters are largely peaceful. And since the majority of buildings in Portland, Seattle, and Denver havent been looted yet, who am I to argue?

Of course, it takes only a sliver of the population to transform downtowns into a mess and create quality-of-life issues for thousands of law-abiding citizens. And the mayors who surrender parts of their cities to left-wing protesters are tacitly endorsing lawlessness themselves.

Theres little doubt that if alt-Right activists had occupied a few city blocks in Seattle or tried to firebomb a federal courthouse in Portland, wed be in for feverish wall-to-wall media coverage, engulfed in a national conversation about the perils of right-wing radicalism. Every elected Republican would be asked to personally denounce the extremists to make sure they take implicit ownership of the problem.

When a few hundred angry Tiki-Torch Nazis marched in Charlottesville, you would have thought the RNC had deployed the Wehrmacht. Those who led the riot were even asked to opine on CNN. On the other hand, left-wing rioters  the people Chris Cuomo and other journalists compared to GIs landing on Normandy  are immediately transformed into apolitical actors, rogue anarchists, as soon as any violence starts.

Who knows? Perhaps the majority of citizens and businesses in Portland, Seattle, and Denver want their elected officials to let Antifa act with impunity. Or maybe some of those citizens and businesses will begin fleeing those cities. Whatever the case, its a local concern.

To a point. If mayors do nothing to stop anarchists from tearing down federal monuments or from defacing, vandalizing, and attempting to burn down federal buildings, the feds have every right to dispatch teams of agents to restore order.

None of which is to deny that there are legitimate concerns about how law enforcement is conducting itself. Im sympathetic to criticisms of the federal officers who operate in camouflage and in unmarked vans. Cops should display badge numbers and identification  if they truly arent doing so right now  otherwise civilians have no real way to hold those in authority accountable for their actions. But the claim that Pinochet-like secret police have begun snatching Portland protesters off the street and making them disappear amounts to the arrest of one man, who refused to speak without his lawyer and was released a little more than an hour later without any charges.

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If it were up to me, Id leave Portland to the anarchists and their political accomplices. But federal law enforcement  including agencies such as the DEA, FBI, ICE, ATF, Department of Homeland Security, and Marshal Service  regularly operate across the country. Sometimes they make arrests, and sometimes they do so after going undercover. This happens under every administration, every day, and it often happens for far less compelling reasons. As far as we know, cops havent broken any laws in the streets of Portland. The protesters who cover their faces have broken tons.

With this in mind, its been instructive watching many of the same characters who cheer on governors who take undemocratic emergency powers and shut down houses of worship without the consent of the people  and who sometimes arrest Americans for playing Wiffle ball, attending church, or cutting hair  act as if policing portends the end of democracy. The same people who incessantly clamor to empower the federal government when it suits their purposes now act as if protecting a federal courthouse is the Reichstag fire.

MSNBCs John Heilemann says that Trumps sending federal police into Portland is a trial run for using force to steal this election. In a piece titled Trumps Occupation of American Cities Has Begun, Michelle Goldberg, somehow still allowed to freely opine at the New York Times, says that fascism is already here. House speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the police stormtroopers who are kidnapping protesters.

All of these contentions are ugly conspiracy theories, hyperbolic allegations meant to fuel partisan paranoia before an election. Even if we accept the criticisms of law enforcement, the driving problem, and its been happening to various degrees in a number of major cities, is that mayors are allowing protesters to trample on public and private property. They allow it because they share the same left-wing sensibilities. But protesting should never be a license to anarchy.

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ZHEJIANG, CHINA - OCTOBER 18 2019 Two us senators have sent a letter to the us national intelligence agency saying TikTok could pose a threat to us national security and should be investigated. Visitors visit the booth of douyin(Tiktok) at the 2019 smart expo in hangzhou, east China's zhejiang province, Oct. 18, 2019.- PHOTOGRAPH BY Costfoto / Barcroft Media (Photo credit should read Costfoto / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

TikTok has come under fire in yet another country.

Pakistan has blocked the Bigo Live streaming app and issued a final warning to ByteDance's TikTok over immoral, obscene, and vulgar content on the apps.

The nations telecom authority said it had received a number of complaints from various segments of society over the nature of videos that circulate on Bigo and ByteDances app and how it is impacting society in general and youth in particular.

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority said in a statement that it recently relayed those concerns to ByteDance and Bigo Technologies, which operates the Bigo app, and urged it to proactively moderate the socialization and content within legal and moral limits. But the response from these apps hasnt been satisfactory, it said.

Therefore, in exercise of its powers under PECA (nations Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act), PTA has decided to immediately block Bigo and issue final warning to TikTok to put in place a comprehensive mechanism to control obscenity, vulgarity, and immorality through its social media application.

In a statement to TechCrunch, a ByteDance spokesperson said the company deploys a combination of technologies and moderation strategies to detect and review problematic content that violates our terms of use. In the second half of 2019, TikTok removed 3,728,162 user videos from Pakistan.

"We are committed to further strengthening our safeguards to ensure the safety of our users, while increasing our dialogue with the authorities to explain our policies and demonstrate our dedication to user security," the spokesperson said.

The push from Pakistan comes weeks after its neighboring nation India banned TikTok, Bigo and 57 other apps developed by Chinese firms over cybersecurity concerns.

Prior to the ban, TikTok identified India -- where it had amassed over 200 million monthly active users -- as its biggest market outside of China. Like in India, TikTok is also immensely popular in Pakistan, said Danish Khalid, an executive at Bykea, a Karachi-headquartered ride-hailing startup.

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According to mobile insights firm Sensor Tower, TikTok was the most downloaded app in Pakistan, which has about 40 million internet users, last year.

Some activists have decried Pakistan's warning to TikTok and blocking of Bigo Live, calling the move the nation's attempt to "test the ground to what extent they can go in censoring."

Pakistan also placed a temporary ban on popular mobile game PUBG earlier this week over concerns that youth in the nation were "wasting their time" on the "addictive" app.

Earlier this year, Pakistans government unveiled some of the world's most sweeping rules on internet censorship that would have severely impacted American tech firms operating in the nation. But it later retreated the rules after Facebook, Google and Twitter among other firms, threatened to leave the nation.

TikTok, ByteDance's marquee app, is also facing tension in the United States. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month that the U.S. was "certainly looking" at banning TikTok over concerns that it could be used by the Beijing government as a surveillance and propaganda tool.
Discount meals and hotel breaks will be available until the start of the next summer season under plans being considered for the Government's July stimulus package.

Tourism Minister Catherine Martin has insisted any measures she introduces for the sector should be extended until next spring.

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"I would be looking at sustaining the sector and keeping the sector going through to the start of the 2021 tourism season - it could be March or April," she told the Irish Independent.

This includes plans for a tax rebate scheme for hotel and restaurant bills, which is at the centre of the negotiations on the soon to be announced stimulus package.

The staycation subsidy will not be applied to alcohol - but pubs that serve food will be able to take part.

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The Irish Independent has also learned Department of Tourism officials are trying to develop an app or an online system which would allow customers to claim their rebate immediately after they have paid their bill.

A number of proposals are being discussed, including putting bar codes on bills which can be read by mobile phones.

Ms Martin said nothing had been finalised on how the rebate scheme will operate, but insisted it must be customer friendly.

Meanwhile as the Government urges people to holiday at home, it last night published the long-awaited 'green list' of countries with similar or lower levels of Covid-19 to Ireland.

People travelling to Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino will not have to quarantine on their return to Ireland.

Referring to the staycation subsidy, Ms Martin said: "We are exploring everything to make it as easy as possible for the customer and incentivise them to spend in hotels and restaurants," she said.

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"My thinking is that any measure that can incentivise demand during this period really needs to be considered as part of the July stimulus package," she added.

She also insisted that the Temporary Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme be extended into 2021 and be available to seasonal workers who previously couldn't claim the payment.

She has also pushed for the existing waiver on commercial rates to be extended into the new year.

The Tourism Minister is also looking for more State-backed financial supports for businesses

"I think another way we can help the tourism industry is look at the higher costs arising from having to adapt and adhere to public health guidelines on social distancing," she said.

"There is a cost to that and how you adapt your premises."

Meanwhile, the Government is going to spend 15m on laptops, tablets and wi-fi dongles for college students who may be forced to study from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic when the new term starts.

The investment is set to benefit around 10,000 students.

Higher Education Minister Simon Harris will today announce 160m for third-level education institutions and new student supports in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. This includes doubling funding for Student Assistance scheme to 15m. The scheme run by the Higher Education Authority and offers financial supports to students.

"There is an increased demand as a consequence of Covid-19. Students have incurred additional costs as the lockdown commenced and will incur costs when they return in the autumn," a spokesperson said.

Yesterday, the Government also introduced legislation which will give effect to the 2bn Covid-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme.

The State-supported scheme will give businesses six-year loans at discounted rates and the Government will act as the guarantor for 80pc of borrowings.

Overdrafts, term loans and working capital loans will be available under the new scheme.

To apply for a loan a business - including farmers - must show its turnover is below 15pc.

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For the latest news inspiration and travel advice on Staycations in Ireland, visit our online staycation hub.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  The Philippine National Police has launched a special investigating team to look into the reported involvement of police personnel and troops in KAPA's alleged investment scam.

PNP Chief Archie Gamboa on Wednesday revealed the role of the special investigation task group following the arrest of Kapa-Community Ministry International founder Joel Apolinario in Surigao del Sur.

The special task group is also there to investigate kung sino 'yung mga kasali dito, 'yung sinasabi nila na hindi lang members ng kapulisan o members ng AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines). Lahat ng miyembro ng gobyerno, he said in an online media briefing.

[Translation: The special task group is also there to investigate those that are involved here, not just the police or members of the AFP, but all government personnel.]

Apolinario and 23 others were arrested in an isolated resort in Sitio Dahican, Barangay Handamayan in Lingig town on Tuesday. A shootout ensued as authorities tried to serve the arrest and search warrants, leaving two unidentified suspects dead. One of Apolinarios men was wounded, while the police forces were unharmed.

Dozens of high-powered firearms, ammunition, and grenade launchers were recovered from Apolinario's hideout.

Caraga police regional director Joselito Esquivel Jr said it seems Apolinario was building his own "private army," saying this adds to the suspicion that some state security personnel may be involved in the operations.

"It is presumed that some of them have background in military or police. That is part of the investigation," he said.

In a later interview, Esquivel added that police have been searching for Apolinario's whereabouts since last year. They first got a tip about a resort property he purchased back in December but they paused halted search efforts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"When Caraga was declared modified general community quarantine, nakapag-resume na 'yung ating trabaho," Esquivel told CNN Philippines' News.PH.

[Translation: When the government declared Caraga as under modified general community quarantine, we were able to resume work.]

Apolinario's hideout was in a "very secluded place" that took authorities 10 hours from the road to get to, he related.

The PNP is set to file complaints of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, direct assault, and illegal association against the arrested leader and members.

Gamboa said that aside from this, the special task group will also assist complainants.

Apolinario and other incorporators and officers of KAPA were ordered arrested for syndicated estafa, a non-bailable offense. The Bislig City Regional Trial Court Branch 29 issued warrants of arrest against them earlier this year.

Short for Kabus Padatoon [translation: making the poor rich], KAPA claims to be a religious group which has been recruiting members and asking them to donate funds to the organization. In exchange, donors are promised a 30 percent monthly return  called "love gifts" or "monthly blessings"  in perpetuity.

The Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the group for violations of the Securities Regulation Code. State prosecutors said KAPA willfully, unlawfully and criminally engaged in the selling or distribution of securities to the public without securing a registration statement from the SEC.

In June 2019, the SEC filed a complaint against KAPA for employing a Ponzi scheme, an investment plan that offers high returns and pays investors using money contributed by other investors.

The Court of Appeals has since frozen all bank accounts and properties linked to KAPA upon the request of the SEC.

President Rodrigo Duterte also ordered the shutdown of KAPA and similar investment scams.

KAPA has repeatedly denied allegations of an investment scam, and has insisted it remains a religious group.
Reuters

Facebook Inc on Tuesday placed a "voting info" label on a post by US President Donald Trump that said mail-in voting would lead to a "CORRUPT ELECTION."

The label is the most recent of several placed on posts by Republican Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden since the company launched a policy to add information to posts by federal candidates and elected officials.

"Mail-In Voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nation's History! #RIGGEDELECTION," Trump wrote.

Mail-In Voting, unless changed by the courts, will lead to the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nations History! #RIGGEDELECTION Posted by Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, 21 July 2020

Voting by mail is not new in the United States  nearly 1 in 4 voters cast 2016 presidential ballots that way. Routine methods and the decentralized nature of US elections make it very hard to interfere with mailed ballots, experts say.

Facebook has drawn heat from employees and lawmakers over its decision not to act on inflammatory posts by the president, including one about mail-in ballots that Twitter affixed with a fact-checking label.

Facebook started adding links to authoritative information last week to all posts relating to voting by federal candidates and elected officials. The company declined to comment Tuesday.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in June the labels are not "a judgment of whether the posts themselves are accurate, but we want people to have access to authoritative information either way."

Facebook runs a third-party fact-checking program but it exempts politicians' posts and ads from fact-checkers' review.

Twitter, which labels misleading content related to election integrity, said that Trump's Tuesday tweet did not violate its rules and would not be labeled. It said it would not take action on broad, non-specific statements about the integrity of elections or civic processes.

The White House declined to comment.
If people think Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are disheartened with their new lives in LA, they can think again. Negative reports have been written about the two ever since the announcement of Megxit, and more of them emerged after they moved to America.

Reports are adamant that Prince Harry is feeling lost and regretful, while Meghan Markle is supposed to be pissed and desperate because her Hollywood return is not happening. There are even reports that they are still dependent on the palace for their finances.

However, Town and Country Magazine claimed none of these reports are true. According to an insider, regardless of the questions and criticisms thrown at the two, given people are unsettled by their decision to leave their royal status, the two are full of energy today. In short, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are excited about their lives in LA - not sad, not worried, and certainly not regretful!

They are hands on, working nonstop on the development of Archewell-their new nonprofit organization-and it's giving them a lot of energy," a source familiar with the couple's plans revealed to the magazine.

Even if their plans are put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this does not mean they are sitting idly by hoping for projects. They are maximizing Archewell to cement their presence and purpose in the United States. "They want to see positive and substantive change happen in this world, and they want to lift up the voices and platforms of dynamic and diverse leaders of all kinds who are already making that change a reality," the source explained.

The source added that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle desire to put all their efforts and attention on supporting and strengthening community. Moreover, the source added that what people have been seeing from the two is Archewell already in motion. More can be expected from the two.

Reports placing Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in a positive light is quite rare. Even if they left their senior royal roles to pursue a financially independent and quiet lives away from the media, it is as if people cannot stop talking about them. The littlest of their actions and each word of the sentences they have uttered since they left the UK, led to some malicious reports written about them.

Some of the reports may be true and some may not, but given that they have not been addressing the rumors anyway, fans just have to discern for themselves if what they read are true.

One thing is for sure, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have taken the royal family, the media, as well as the general public into an unchartered territory. After all, them deciding to way away from their royal positions while they are still at the peak of their popularity is unprecedented. Some royals in the past could have let their positions go to lead normal lives, but they are not as controversial as the two in the first place.

Moreover, the fact that Meghan Markle- an ordinary actress with big advocacy dreams was able to penetrate the Royal family, regardless of her race and occupation, was already a fairytale to begin with. Choosing to drop it all sees like a novel idea for many, worth gossiping about.

READ MORE: Prince Harry Heartbreak: Royal Rift With Prince William IMPOSSIBLE To Fix For Now
A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced respected Gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev to more than three years in prison in a controversial sexual abuse case, his lawyer said.

Dmitriyev, head of the prominent rights group Memorial in Karelia in northwestern Russia, spent decades locating and exhuming mass graves of people killed under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's rule.

Memorial said the prosecution of the researcher, who was tried behind closed doors, is part of a growing crackdown on dissenters.

Defence lawyer Viktor Anufriyev told reporters outside the courthouse in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk that the judge found his client guilty of sexual assault against his adopted daughter and sentenced him to "three years and six months in a strict-regime penal colony".

The lawyer said he had not yet received the written verdict and it was possible that with time served in pre-trial detention Dmitriyev, 64, could be free in September.

He had been facing up to 15 years under the charges.

Anufriyev said the historian had been cleared of pornography charges that stem from his first criminal case.

The researcher was first arrested in late 2016 on child pornography charges, then acquitted in 2018, and then arrested again in a new sexual assault case.

The prosecution claimed that the historian sexually abused his adopted daughter, charges he denies.

"There are no doubts that Yury Dmitriyev is innocent," Memorial said ahead of the verdict.

"The truth about the past does not fit the state's historical narrative," Memorial added.

Supporters including prominent advocates at home and abroad say the case against Dmitriyev is an attempt to punish the historian who has called attention to one of the darkest chapters in Russia's history.

Dmitriyev is known for helping open the Sandarmokh memorial in a pine forest in Karelia in memory of thousands of victims -- including many foreigners -- murdered in 1937 and 1938.

(AFP)
Healthcare workers move a patient in the Covid-19 Unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas Thursday, July 2, 2020. Mark Felix | Getty Images

Hospitals and states are scrambling to adopt a new national Covid-19 data reporting system hastily implemented by the Trump administration last week that has left some, mostly rural, states in the dark about the severity of their own coronavirus outbreaks. The Department of Health and Human Services abruptly instructed all hospitals last week to stop reporting their coronavirus data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's long-standing National Healthcare Safety Network. Instead, hospitals were instructed to report the data to HHS through a new portal that went live on Monday. HHS gave hospitals two days to comply and tied their cooperation to the distribution of remdesivir, a vital drug used to treat Covid-19.

HHS officials said they made the move to ensure the federal government had more comprehensive and real-time data used to make important decisions, such as remdesivir distribution. But it's left some states without key information on their own Covid-19 outbreaks: coronavirus hospitalizations, available hospital beds and available ICU beds.

Left in the lurch

Some states don't collect the data themselves and rely on the CDC to assemble and share that information, which public officials use to decide how to allocate key resources. The abrupt change left many hospitals, especially smaller and rural ones, as well as local policymakers in the lurch as health systems transition to the new system, officials in Missouri, Idaho and Montana told CNBC. In Missouri, hospitals went "all in" on building out computer systems to quickly report data to the CDC, Missouri Hospital Association spokesman Dave Dillon told CNBC. About 99% of hospitals across the state were successfully reporting their Covid-19 data to the CDC before the change, he said. Over the past four days, just 82% of Missouri's hospitals submitted data to the new system, according to HHS data. "It is taking time to pivot," Dillon said. HHS has requested new, "poorly defined" data they weren't collecting for the CDC before, he said. What's more, the state used the CDC's data to build its own Covid-19 dashboard for the public and now it's unable to access the same information on the new HHS platform, he said.

The hospitalization data presented on Missouri's dashboard has not been updated since July 12 as a result. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services' website now reads: "Please note, due to an abrupt change in data measures and the reporting platform issued by the White House... Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) and the State of Missouri will be unable to access critical hospitalization data during the transition." "This is the worst possible time for a data blackout," Dillon said. "It is quite possible that during the downtime, Missouri exceeded the all-time high for hospitalizations." Hospitals in the state are working "nonstop" to comply with the new guidance, Dillon said, and the state is working to get access to the full data from HHS so it can update its dashboard. He said the state hopes it can update basic information such as available "beds, vents and admissions" as soon as this week. "Until MHA can see everyone's data, we won't be able to report. More critically, we won't be able to understand where resources are needed," he said. "It's hard to manage this crisis when the goalposts keep moving." Even though HHS is getting hospital data from every state, that information remains incomplete. But the agency says it's collecting more information than the CDC was ever able to get.

Incomplete information

Across the country, nine states currently have fewer than 50% of their hospitals reporting data through the new HHS system, according to the agency's site. Roughly 25% of the hospitals in North Dakota and 28% in Louisiana were reporting their Covid-19 hospitalization data through the new system as of Wednesday, HHS data show. To be sure, many states and hospitals were able to transition to the HHS portal without any problems. And some states were already collecting their hospital data themselves and didn't lose much, if any data, when the CDC's system was shut down. John Haupert, CEO of Grady Health System in Atlanta, Georgia, for example, said the new reporting system hasn't placed much of a burden on them. "There is slightly more information being requested, but in our minds it's essential information for [HHS] to be able to make decisions," he said on a conference call organized by the American Hospital Association. "As far as the effort to submit the data and collect the data, that has not been significant." The Covid Tracking Project, which monitors Covid-19 hospitalizations and other coronavirus statistics across the country, said most of their data has remained uninterrupted. "However, some smaller states like Idaho, South Carolina, and Missouri were using the CDC system that HHS replaced to provide data to the public," the Covid Tracking Project said in a statement to CNBC. "Now, those states are scrambling to create new pipelines that can provide that data."

Outdated data

Idaho can finally access the HHS data, but its own Covid-19 dashboard was outdated for several days during the transition. The information, however, is still incomplete. "Not all hospitals are reporting, so that does present some challenges," said Kelly Petroff, spokeswoman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Until that data is restored, some researchers, states and others are missing critical information in tracking and responding to the outbreak, according to the Covid Tracking Project, which is a volunteer organization launched by journalists at The Atlantic. "This is important because current hospitalization data had become the most reliable indicator of the severity of outbreaks in different states," the group said. "Unfortunately, now we're not sure if some of the erratic changes in hospitalizations that we're seeing are due to reporting problems or real changes on the ground."

Nurse manager Cullen Anderson, RN, screens people in a line of cars waiting to be tested for coronavirus COVID-19 at a drive-thru testing station at St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center in Idaho on Tuesday, March 17, 2020. (Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) Darin Oswald | Idaho Statesman | Tribune News Service via Getty Images

HHS Chief Information Officer Jose Arrieta told reporters on a conference call Monday that the new system collects data from roughly 4,500 hospitals on most days, compared with 3,000 hospitals under the CDC's old reporting system. "From our perspective, when we look at the total number of hospitals reporting since the transition has occurred, the number has actually increased pretty significantly," he said. "We realize this is a change and anytime there is a change, it obviously creates a little bit of tension, maybe a little bit of pain to transition." An HHS spokeswoman told CNBC the agency has "held a number of calls" with hospitals and industry representatives to "share details of the program changes and respond to questions." HHS also set up a service desk to help hospitals submit their data, she said. The new TeleTracking system provides more frequent and detailed data, which will help the U.S. response, she said. "This methodology also highlights recent case increases in states/territories and allows us to allocate more amounts of commercially available remdesivir to areas of the country with the most need," she added.

'Drain on resources'

The transition is a tough one for smaller, more rural hospitals that don't have as many resources, Charles Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, told CNBC. "On the other hand, the data is needed for the distribution of remdesivir and other materials ... so I can see their reasoning for collecting much of the data that they're now asking for," he said in an interview. Brian Whitlock, CEO and president of the Idaho Hospital Association, said the burden of the policy change is weighing heavily on some hospitals in his state. Hospitals had roughly 36 hours to transition to the new system, and the federal government threatened to cut off allocation of resources such as remdesivir if they failed to do so, he said. Part of the problem, he said, is that the state's contractor wasn't initially cleared to access the HHS data. So Idaho hospitals now have to report the data to both the federal government and the state instead of one centralized database as they adjust to the new system, he said.

Rural hospitals hit hard
Dave and Lynne Harding havent lacked for music since COVID-19 brought an abrupt halt to live performances. Theyve watched roughly 60 streaming operas in the last four months and the Tanglewood Online Festival has been an essential part of their listening since it launched at the beginning of July. The Boston Symphony Orchestra bills the series that runs through Aug. 23 as A Tradition Transformed. Thats all well and good, but theres still nothing like an evening at Tanglewood.

In the vast universe of music lovers who adore attending concerts on those lush and hallowed grounds in Lenox, Mass., few can compare with the Hardings. Theyve been dedicated Tanglewood ushers for 40 years. At every Boston Symphony Orchestra performance in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, and there are three each weekend, plus most of the concerts in Ozawa Hall, and even some pop events, the Hardings are volunteering.

Youll find Dave, 80, near the boxes on the outer aisle farthest from the main gate. Lynn, 76, is closer to the stage, minding sections 1 and 3. With unflagging courtesy, they direct patrons to their reserved seats and settle the occasional disputes that can arise when two people jockey for the same seat. Dave also makes sure that no one from the lawn strays into the shed.

They also get to enjoy the music and theyve heard a lot over the years.

Theres a feeling of ecstasy if its a really great concert, says Dave. When the conductor drops his baton you get an eruption from the audience. Listening to peoples comments as they walk out, its euphoria.

You can tell by their Yankee accents that the Hardings are from Boston. They met as students at Boston University where they were first introduced to opera and classical music. Both became schoolteachers -- Lynne in French and social studies, Dave in mathematics -- and teaching jobs mean summers off. For their initial culture jaunts, the couple headed to Manhattan, but the Berkshires soon won them over.

Their first visits were in 1979. The following year they bought season passes for the lawn at the grand sum of $40 each. They also attended a talk in which one of the BSO administrators discussed the history and operations of Tanglewood and put in a little plug for volunteer ushers. Anyone who signed up could get a refund for their season passes. The Hardings took him up on the offer and have never had to buy another ticket.

After four summers, Dave got approached to be an assistant house manager. I had no idea what the job was or why they asked me, he recalls. They distribute the program books and move benches, things like that. And they told me youre fairly young and youve got a strong back. He stayed in the summer job for 15 years, then ascended to house manager, a position he held until 2005. Then it was back to ushering, which Lynne had continued doing all along. In 1999, she received the BSOs annual award for outstanding volunteer service.

Over the years, the center of gravity for the couples life shifted westward. Lynne recalls that there used to be a three-night minimum for any hotel reservation in the Berkshires. That could add up rather quickly, even back then. During a drive back to Boston, they discussed economics and logistics.

We got as far as Springfield, turned the car around and signed with a realtor in Great Barrington. We ended up buying a cottage in Egremont, says Lynne, referring to the town in southern Berkshire County. But after the pipes froze a couple times, we realized we needed a permanent place and bought in Spencertown in 1985.

The hamlet in New Yorks Columbia County is 16 miles from Tanglewood. In 1999, upon retirement from their lengthy teaching careers, the Hardings relocated there on a permanent basis.

Besides the great music and the unmatched landscape, another treasured aspect of their Tanglewood experience is the occasional contact with great artists, Leonard Bernstein being at the top of the list.

He was an eminence grise. You never knew where youd find him on campus, hed just appear where youd least expect it. And he was immensely dedicated to the fellows, says Dave, referring to the young musicians who spend their summers studying and performing at the Tanglewood Music Center.

After big concerts of the TMC, the fellows would have a party, says Lynne. Lenny would go home, shower and take a nap. He might show up at one or two in the morning and they would still be going.

The Hardings believe there are still superstars at Tanglewood, citing Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams as prime examples. John Williams is the nicest, kindest man that you could meet. Youd think for all the fame, but hes very unassuming and says thank you, says Lynne.

John Williams Film Night? Forget it. Now he only conducts about half of it, and one year he didnt even show up and it still sold out, says Dave. Im prejudiced but I dont think Ive ever heard a bad concert at Tanglewood.



BLACK COMPOSERS

Music by three African-American composers of the 20th century is included in the Tanglewood Online Festival. On Friday July 24, a mixed chamber music program performed by members of the BSO featured selections by William Grant Still and Florence Price.

Coming up at 8 p.m. on Friday, July 31, is a posthumous world premiere from Ulysses Kay (1917-1995). The Sonatine for Viola and Piano dates from 1939 and was recently discovered by the composers daughter. Violist Mary Ferrillo and pianist Brett Hodgdon will perform the work on a program with other contemporary works with viola by Clarke, Berio and Hindemith.

Kay came to Tanglewood as a fellow in 1941, one year after the Berkshire Music Center opened to students. It was there that he first worked with Paul Hindemith, who he followed to Yale for advance studies. In Kays substantial catalogue of works there are five operas, including Frederick Douglass, which was premiered in Newark by the New Jersey State Opera in 1991.

Give the BSO credit for putting forth a cornucopia of musical selections and top artists. The online festival consists of archived BSO performances, recitals recently recorded in one of the studios of the new Linde Center, and a curated selection of concerts from around the world. Some of them are free, others cost $5-$15, and package deals are available. Most events remain available to stream for a week after they debut.

On the Tanglewood website the array of events is divided into three different pages, which makes planning kind of cumbersome. For an integrated calendar, go to: TWD-Online2020-Full-Schedule.pdf



VISIT TANGLEWOOD

Over the years, Ive taken many friends on their first visit to Tanglewood and the landscape is so stunning that theyre usually sold on the place long before the music gets started. For myself, when I return for my first visit of a season I seem to breathe a little easier.

Well, you can still visit Tanglewood to stroll and enjoy the vistas. But times being what they are, it will take some planning. In order to limit crowd size, advance reservations are required, theres no food or drink allowed, and you must agree to a waiver. Certain amenities, including restrooms, will not be available. And bring a folding chair or blanket to sit on.

Maybe as a bit of consolation for all the trouble, you can stream on your own device an audio tour of the grounds, a highlights program by the BSO, or a walking meditation provided by Kripalu, the nearby retreat center. All of these are available through SoundCloud. Get all the details at: tanglewood.org/groundsvisit.



Joseph Dalton is a freelance writer based in Troy.
A website close to Iran's Supreme National Security Council reported Wednesday that the body of Judge Gholamreza Mansouri who was found dead in Bucharest last month was delivered to Iran on Tuesday.

According to Nour News, the Romanian Police has also submitted a 29-page report to Iranian authorities. However, the website claims that they have so far refused to submit the footage from the cameras of the Bucharest hotel where Mansouri was found dead on June 19 while under observation by the police. He fell from the upper floors of the hotel but its is not clear if there was foul play.

The website said withholding the footage "strengthens suspicions surrounding the case" but did not explain what type of suspicions it was referring to.

The Telegram channel of the Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Fars News Agency on Wednesday quoted the brother of Judge Mansouri as saying that the family had not been informed of the arrival of the body.

Mansouri was wanted in Iran for corruption and was pursued in Germany for human rights violations. Iranian authorities filed a case for his extradition on June 11 for complicity in setting up a criminal group and taking bribes.

Judge Mansouri had allegedly escaped prosecution in Iran for corruption including taking 500,000 euros in bribes and had been visiting Germany before going to Romania.

The news about Mansouri's presence in Europe before his death prompted Iranian human rights activists and Amnesty International to demand his arrest for detaining, torturing and jailing dozens of Iranian journalists.

Romanian Police have not yet clearly stated whether the judge committed suicide or was the victim of a homicide. His brother claims that the judge had told the family that he was worried about his safety and may have been assassinated.

Some lawmakers including Mojtaba Zolnouri, Chairman of the Parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, have claimed that Mansouri may have fallen victim to "a terrifying gang in the Judiciary".

Mansouri himself told the Romanian court questioning him regarding Iran's demand for his extradition that he was innocent of the corruption charges and had only carried out the orders coming from another judge.
The national flags of the U.S. and China waving outside a building.

China said Wednesday that the U.S. has ordered it to close its consulate in Houston in what an official called an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage China-U.S. relations.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the action, which comes as tensions rise between the world's two largest economies. He warned of firm countermeasures if the U.S. does not reverse its decision.

"The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China," Wang said at a daily news briefing.

There was no immediate confirmation or explanation from the U.S. side.

Media reports in Houston said that authorities had responded to reports of a fire at the consulate. Witnesses said that people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, the Houston Chronicle reported, citing police.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) joins fellow Democrats from the House and Senate to announce new legislation to end excessive use of force by police and make it easier to identify, track, and prosecute police misconduct at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on June 8, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

House Votes to Remove Capitols Confederate Statues

The Democrat-led House voted on Wednesday to require the removal of all confederate statues from the halls of the Capitol building.

The bipartisan vote of 305-113 saw 72 Republican and one Libertarian representatives joining Democrats to pass the bill.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyers (D-Md.) legislation H.R. 7573, is co-sponsored by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Texas), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Karen Bass (D-Calif.), G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), and Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee Glenn Thompson (D-Miss.).

Their bill mandates that states remove and replace any statues honoring members of the Confederacy in the Capitol National Statuary Hall Collection by removing, all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America from display in the United States Capitol. And, To direct the Architect of the Capitol to replace the bust of Roger Brooke Taney in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the United States Capitol with a bust of Thurgood Marshall.

Taney wrote the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, which asserted that slaves were not citizens and did not have the right to sue.

The bill will require the Senates approval to take effect. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ala.) told reporters last month that he doesnt agree with the effort.

What I do think is clearly a bridge too far is this nonsense that we need to airbrush the Capitol and scrub out everybody from years ago who had any connection to slavery, McConnell said at the time.

There are 11 statues of Confederate figures displayed in various quarters of the Capitol.

National Statuary Hall includes two statues that each of the 50 states contributes to, of people that reflect their history, ranging from Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen from Vermont to Helen Keller from Alabama. The bill calls for the removal of statues of John C. Calhoun, Charles B. Aycock, and John C. Clarke, whom it identifies as defenders of slavery and white supremacy.

We introduce this bill not only to make a statement but to make a reality of whom we honor in the Congress of the United States, in this temple of liberty, said Hoyer at a press briefing on Wednesday ahead of the vote.

Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation, and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty, he continued.

Those statues that we will remove, those remembrances that we will remove ought to, as I said, be relegated a place of history of the dark stains of America, not the high convictions of America, he later said in concluding remarks.

Rep. Lee, who has been working on the issue since 2017, said on Wednesday that the painful symbols of bigotry and racism have no place in our society and certainly should not be enshrined in the United States Capitol.

Its past time that we ended the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains, he added.

Rep. Bass told reporters, the Capitol can never really be for the people with reminders of a painful history that sought to continue the enslavement and our control of the African American population.

While statues do reflect an aspect of our history, statues are not just historical markers but are tributes, a way to honor an individual, and these individuals do not deserve to be honored, Bass added.
Financing tops 5 billion to support Covid-19 response and recovery

Investments by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) leapt to a record high in the first half of 2020 as the Bank responded rapidly to the needs of emerging economies grappling with the impact of the coronavirus.

Financing rose to just over 5 billion in the first six months of the year, compared with 3.7 billion a year earlier and a previous first half record of 3.9 billion in 2016. The Bank complemented its increased financing with scaled-up policy support.

The EBRD invests to promote sustainable and inclusive private sector development across 38 emerging economies ranging from Estonia to Egypt and Morocco to Mongolia.

The economic impact of Covid-19 on the EBRD regions has been severe and in its latest forecast in May the Bank warned of unprecedented uncertainty.

In March the EBRD unveiled its coronavirus Solidarity Package  a series of measures put in place to meet the regions immediate needs while also preparing for robust recovery once the pandemic is over.

A key pillar of the Solidarity Package is a framework providing emergency liquidity and working capital to existing clients.

Demand for the emergency funding has been strong and the new facility accounted for over 1 billion of total EBRD financing in the month of June alone.

In April the EBRD said it would dedicate the entirety of its activities to tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and that it expected to invest some 21 billion through to the end of 2021.

Since the outbreak of the virus, the pace of disbursements has been consistently faster than in 2019.

Donors have stepped up to support the Banks Solidarity Package with a record volume of contributions for the first half of the year, providing much-needed grant and concessional co-financing.

Covid-19 has severely affected trade flows and access to trade finance, so the EBRD has increased support for commerce under its Trade Facilitation Programme.

In the first half of 2020 the Bank financed over 1,000 trade deals with a record turnover of 1.9 billion. It has raised its total exposure limit under the programme by 50 per cent to 3 billion.

In addition to focusing on the immediate response to the coronavirus, the EBRD is working to ensure that recovery from the pandemic will be resilient and sustainable and in line with global climate goals that preserve commitments to a low carbon economy.

In July the EBRD unveiled ambitious proposals to become a majority green bank by 2025.

The first project rolled out under the Solidarity Package was a 145 million facility for Bank of Africa - BMCE Group in Morocco that delivered trade support as well as finance for firms that had seen a decline in turnover and profitability.

A 25 million EBRD loan to Netlog Logistics, a provider of logistics services in Turkey, helped maintain the flow of essential goods in the country, strengthening supply chains in the face of challenges caused by Covid-19.

In the Kyrgyz Republic, a financing programme from the EBRD, the European Union (EU) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) improved the waste management services available to over 300,000 residents in Osh City and neighbouring municipalities, raising health standards during the coronavirus pandemic.

The EBRD continued its drive to support green transition in Poland, with five loans to expand the countrys renewables portfolio.

The EBRD scaled up financing for key banks in Serbia to support small and medium-sized enterprises affected by the coronavirus, making loans available via the Serbian subsidiaries of Banca Intesa, Erste Bank, Eurobank, ProCredit Bank and UniCredit Bank.

In Ukraine, an EBRD investment in major retailer Fozzy Group will provide consumers in the country with better and safer shopping standards, with funds also supporting the launch of the first green supermarket in Ukraine.

In addition to its financial investments, the EBRD has concentrated on its policy work to help the economies in its regions respond to the impact of the pandemic.

As a result there have been positive developments in the renewables industry in Kazakhstan, while in Egypt amendments to securities legislation, supported by the EBRD, are expected to bring in more international investors.
The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has filed cybersecurity charges against a title insurance provider for exposing millions of documents containing consumers personal information.

The charges are the first to be filed under DFS cybersecurity regulation, Part 500 of Title 23 of the New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations, which went into effect in March 2017 and was implemented under a phased two-year timeline.

The regulation aims to protect New Yorks financial services industry from the threat of a cyber attack and is the first cybersecurity regulation of its kind in the U.S. It has since served as a model for other regulators, including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, multiple states and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

In public comments, Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell has repeatedly said, Cybersecurity is the biggest threat to government and industry bar none,' said a spokeswoman for DFS Superintendent Lacewell in an emailed statement. The Superintendent has emphasized the DFS cybersecurity regulation will be enforced.

In its first enforcement action under the cybersecurity reg, DFS alleges that First American Title Insurance Company exposed hundreds of millions of documents, millions of which contained consumers sensitive personal information including bank account numbers, mortgage and tax records, Social Security numbers, wire transaction receipts and drivers license images.

First American is a Nebraska-based stock insurance company and a licensee authorized to write title insurance in New York. In 2019, it wrote more than 50,000 policies in New York state, according to a DFS press release announcing the charges. As a result, First American is considered a covered entity subject to the requirements of New Yorks cyber regulation.

DFS notice of charges against First American states that from at least October 2014 through May 2019, a known vulnerability on First Americans public-facing website made customers personal data available to anyone with a web browser.

This comes after the vulnerability was first introduced in May 2014 during a software update for EaglePro, the web-based title document delivery system that First American created and maintains on its network. The system allows title agents and other First American employees to share any document in its main document repository, known as FAST, with outside parties.

The vulnerability went undetected for years, the notice of charges alleges, adding that even after it was discovered by a penetration test in December 2018, First American allowed access to the personal and financial data of millions of its customers for six more months until the breach and its ramifications were publicized.

The vulnerability thus led to exposure of a staggering volume of personal and financially sensitive documents, any number of which could be used by fraudsters to engage in identity theft and even outright theft of assets, the notice of charges states. Moreover, such theft could occur without individuals knowing their information had been stolen

In April 2018, FAST contained 753 million documents, 65 million of which had been tagged by First American as containing non-public information, or NPI. As of May 2019, FAST contained more than 850 million documents, according to the notice of charges.

DFS alleges in its notice of charges that there were multiple failures in First Americans handling of the exposure of sensitive customer information, contending that First Americans failure to promptly correct the vulnerability resulted from a cascade of errors.

As one example, the notice of charges points to an April 2018 presentation by senior members of First Americans IT and information security management teams to its board of directors. The presentation demonstrated that within a random sample of 1,000 documents stored in FAST, 30% of those documents contained NPI but were not tagged that way.

At this error rate, potentially hundreds of millions of documents containing NPI were not designated properly, the notice of charges states, adding that to this day, the sole control preventing EaglePro from being used to transmit NPI is merely an instruction to users not to send NPI.

Indeed, the notice of charges alleges that First American relies on training to ensure its employees follow procedures, delegating responsibility for the training to individual business units.

When [DFS] asked [First Americans] CISO (chief information security officer) why additional controls were not adopted to protect NPI, [its] CISO disavowed ownership of the issue, stating, among other reasons, that such controls were not the responsibility of [the] information security department, the notice of charges adds.

First American strongly disagrees with DFS charges, the company said in a prepared media statement.

As we reported in July 2019, our investigation into the incident, conducted with an outside forensics firm, identified a very limited number of consumers whose non-public personal information likely was accessed without authorization and otherwise found no evidence of misuse of any non-public personal information, according to the statement. None of these identified consumers were New York residents.

A source familiar with the matter said First Americans investigation into the cybersecurity incident identified 32 consumers, none of whom were residents of New York, whose NPI likely was accessed without authorization. Otherwise, no evidence of misuse of NPI was found, according to the source.

In March, the Nebraska Department of Insurance (DOI), the primary regulator of First Americans title insurance company, led an examination of First Americans information security program as of June 30, 2019, and its response to the information security incident.

First American alleges in its media statement that the resulting DOI report found that First Americans IT general controls environment was operating effectively and that the company adequately identified and responded to the cybersecurity incident. First American also contends in its media statement that the DOI examination report found the company to be in compliance with New Yorks cybersecurity requirements for financial services companies.

At First American, security, privacy and confidentiality are of the highest priority, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves against the Departments unreasonable charges, First American said in its media statement.

First American was found to be in violation of six provisions of New Yorks cybersecurity regulation, according to DFS notice of charges.

Any violation with respect to a financial product or service, which includes title insurance, carries penalties of up to $1,000 per violation. DFS contends that every instance of NPI included in the charges against First American constitutes a separate violation carrying up to $1,000 in penalties each.

A hearing will be held at DFS offices in New York City on October 26, 2020.

Topics Cyber Legislation Abuse Molestation New York
Jessica-Joan Richards, a 28-year-old marketing manager working in recruitment, logged in to her LinkedIn account in early July to upload something she never thought she would share on the professional networking platform  her profile picture.

In a now-viral post, Richards, who was born in the Philippines before moving to the U.K. with her family when she was 7, explained that following an alleged body-shaming incident at a previous place of employment, she decided to delete her LinkedIn photo, in fear that her weight may ward off other professional opportunities.

I had a previous senior leader say that I was too fat for my job & that I needed to lose weight, Richards wrote. Whether true or not, this statement really affected me, so much so that I stopped allowing my photo to be taken, personally & professionally. Removed my picture from LI for fear that people wouldnt want to work with or employ me because of my weight.

I wanted my experience, energy, loyalty and passion to do the talking rather than my looks, she added. Someone [recently] mentioned how I didnt have a profile picture on LinkedIn which set off those fears again, but instead of allowing them to spiral, I thought to myself, no, I am confident in my abilities and what I can offer to the world, regardless of how I look, my weight or any other shallow opinion people have about me. I am more than what my appearance is, & so are you.

The inspiring post has since racked up more than 570,000 reactions and over 38,000 comments from supportive professionals around the world.

Credit: Jessica-Joan Richards

Richards told In The Know that the alleged incident outlined in her post began following a medical diagnosis that would require her to attend a doctors appointment four times a year.

My senior leader was frustrated that me being recently diagnosed with sleep apnea meant I needed to go to the hospital for monitoring once every three months, she explained. These visits would have to take place during work hours as the clinic was only open for a few short hours a week.

Story continues

The appointments, meant to keep tabs on her potentially-dangerous sleep disorder, were non-negotiable, and Richards said she did her due diligence to ensure she didnt have to miss work for any other reason to make up for them.

I paid more for a private dentist as it meant I could visit outside of work hours, often on weekends, so it meant I didnt have miss work for that, she shared. I knew of senior leaders taking time away from work to do beauty treatments and come back into the office much later than they should. There was so much that other people were allowed to get away with.

Still, after informing management she would have to take time off for her medical appointments, Richards claims she was subjected to a barrage of unwelcome comments about her appearance, in what she considered a hate attack.

It was not right that I was judged based on my weight and having someone insinuate that I was incapable of doing my duties because of my weight, she said. I took it personally, but never said anything because being a mixed-race employee in a predominantly white office, particularly when it came to the senior team, I didnt feel like I had any ground to complain.

Eventually, Richards says she found herself under such mental distress she decided to seek advice from her healthcare provider, who gave her the appropriate paperwork to allow for two weeks of medical leave from her job.

After a series of feeling absolutely broken by what was happening in the workplace and getting to a really dark place, I went to the doctors and updated them on what was happening at work, she explained. They signed me off of work for two weeks, I believe. I handed this sick note in and on day two of my two-week sick leave, I got a phone call from my line manager telling me that the company was sending a courier over to pick up my work equipment  a laptop and an iPad. This behavior hardly made it like I felt welcome to return.

After an allegedly ineffective experience dealing with her former companys occupational health team and human resources department, Richards says she handed in her official notice and began looking for new jobs.

Much of what I had to say felt like it wasnt really being listened to, she recalled. I felt like Id already lost before I even started. Ultimately, I had nothing more I could do.

Even so, the toxic work atmosphere impacted Richards long after she left the particular employer.

It made me so fearful of life, made me believe so much negativity I was receiving was deserved, she revealed. This person took away my confidence and made me feel like I lost the family that I had developed during my time at the workplace. Because despite the horrible experience I had with this person, I had the most amazing clients that I enjoyed working with and made some really amazing friends who didnt abandon me despite their attempt to really ruin my reputation.

Ultimately, Richards hopes that by speaking out about her past trauma, she can prevent others from enduring the same hardships she had to go through.

I would like to make it clear though that Im not interested in getting revenge on this senior leader or anyone involved, she told In The Know. My only hope is that if ever they read my post that they think back on how they behaved and be better next time. I really want people to stop tolerating this kind of behavior and the only way we can do that is to start speaking out.

If you enjoyed this article, read more of our body acceptance coverage here.

More from In The Know:

Unpacking the racist roots of fat phobia and diet culture

This $25 subscription box brings BIPOC-owned beauty brands to your door

These innovative shoelaces were created for style  but also help people with disabilities

Influencer shares side-by-side photos to prove how deluded Instagram has made us about ideal bodies

The post Woman details harrowing workplace body-shaming incident: This person took away my confidence appeared first on In The Know.
Biotechnology company Moderna said a vaccine would be possible by fall. Executives from Pfizer said their firm could deliver up to 100 million doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion in 2021. Janssen Vaccines, part of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, said it would start its large trial in September and hoped to have results by early 2021  and 100 million doses by the end of March. Merck executives said their company did not anticipate a vaccine until sometime in 2021 at the earliest.
The coronavirus is taking its toll in Israel. The past few weeks have seen the country rocked with all sorts of protests over the dire economic situation that the virus has caused. Protesters, who cross sociopolitical lines, are accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of mishandling the crisis. Israelis of all stripes have been participating in Black Flag protests, as well as more particular protests by Israeli artists, social workers, the self-employed, and others.

The one group that is conspicuously absent from this festival of democracy is the Arab public. And its not because they would have to make the trek to far-off Tel Aviv or Jerusalem either. Anyone watching these protests will notice that they even avoid the Black Flag protests on Saturdays, although many of these take place at intersections not far from major Arab towns or villages. In other words, they are literally right across the street.

For years, Israels Arab citizens made a point of protesting only when the matter at hand constituted a direct attack on the community or its interests. That is what happened during the protests against the 2018 Nationality Law , which anchors the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, or last years protests against rising violence in Arab society. Once the protests involve all Israelis, however, there is almost no Arab representation.

The most prominent example of this are the current protests by Israeli artists and the self-employed. Among those attending were Israelis affected by the closure of event halls, clubs, and anything else connected to leisure and entertainment activities. As we have seen in an earlier Al-Monitor article, the coronavirus-induced economic crisis has also had an enormous impact on Arab artists and the self-employed, particularly because weddings and other events have been canceled. Nevertheless, Israeli Arabs have neither participated in existing protests nor organized independently to protest the situation.

That all changed this week, when singer Esam Kadri organized a protest July 20 with several other Arab artists at the Ahihud Junction in the north. Only a small number of artists participated  far fewer than the organizers had hoped to see there. Still, it was a first, baby step among the Arab public in response to the pandemic.

Is this the first sign of a coming Arab Spring? In a conversation with Al-Monitor, Kadri said, As a result of the situation we have reached as artists, I decided together with a few of my colleagues to initiate something and announced a protest on behalf of the artists at the Ahihud Junction. Sadly, only about 25-30 artists actually showed up. I have no doubt that this dearth of participants was the result of internal clashes of ego between the various artists. In the future, we plan to announce the formation of an Association of Arab Artists to represent us, with a chairperson who is not from the arts.

While the burning issue and the most sensitive point that Kadri brought up was the failure of the Arab public to flock to the various protests across the country, the reason for this is somewhat complicated. To get to the crux of the matter, the problem needs to be assessed from several different angles. First of all, there can be no doubt that many of the demonstrations are overtly political. This is inevitable given the fact that the participants are protesting Netanyahu because he is prime minister. In fact, this could have a direct connection with the failure of the Arab public to participate.

For several years, the Jewish center-left in the country  with the possible exception of Meretz  has concluded that the best way to come to power is by disassociating itself from the Arab community  an approach, it should be noted, that hasnt been successful. For that reason, the presence of Arabs was kept low-key  Arab associations were not invited to take part in the organization of demonstrations  so as not to give Netanyahu a chance to brand the protesters as collaborators with the Arabs, and redirect attention away from the protests legitimate economic grievances. Furthermore, the Arab public feels that it is not wanted at these protests or even in the political game at large. It could be a combination of these two elements that led to a situation in which almost no Arab citizens have been seen taking to the streets to protest this government and its prime minister.

In a conversation with Al-Monitor, Jamal Majadle, a social activist from Baqa al-Gharbiyye, said, It is the direct consequence of the exclusion of the Arab public  which happens so often  and the refusal to accept Arab citizens as part of the ultimate sovereign authority in the public space. As a result, Arabs prefer to step back, rather than being part of the struggle."

Given these circumstances, maybe it is time for both sides  Jews and Arabs  to take a whole different approach and finally realize that they have no alternative but cooperation if they are to achieve the protests objective and improve their economic situation. The question that must then be asked is, how do they do that?

Coexistence activist Elad Peleg of Kibbutz Magal, who is involved with the Black Flag protests, told Al-Monitor, I think that anyone for whom this country is important must play an active part in the protests and demonstrations against corruption and for democracy. I would expect the participation of and partnership with the Arab community. When asked why Arabs cant be found at the protests, he said, Unfortunately, it seems as if the Arab population doesnt believe that it can influence and change the situation.
Their daughter Lauren has been forced apart from her five children for nearly seven weeks, after she was admitted to hospital due to pregnancy complications.

And Patti and Bert Newton looked every inch the doting grandparents on Thursday as they gave their son-in-law Matt Welsh a well-deserved break by taking the kids off his hands.

Making the most of their family time during the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, Patti couldn't wipe the smile off her face as she carried the youngest, Perla, 18 months, to the car.

Family time: Patti and Bert Newton looked every inch the doting grandparents as they spent quality time with their adorable brood in Melbourne on Thursday

TV legend Patti, 75, looked stylish in a padded leopard print coat and jeans while keeping the winter sun at bay with a pair of shades.

Bert, 81, also appeared to be in a good mood as he spent time with the little ones.

Earlier this month, the couple's daughter Lauren, 40, revealed her heartbreak after spending five weeks separated from her young children.

She was admitted to the hospital nearly seven weeks ago due to complications with her sixth pregnancy.

Doting display: Making the most of their family time during the COVID-19 lockdown, Patti couldn't wipe the smile off her face as she carried the youngest, Perla, 18 months, to the car

Looking good! The Newtons gave their son-in-law Matt Welsh (right) a break on Thursday by taking the kids off his hands

There he is! Bert, 81, also appeared to be in a good mood as he spent time with the little ones

In a heartfelt post shared to Instagram, Lauren said: 'Missing my gorgeous babies. It's been 5 weeks so far of not seeing them while I'm in hospital due to pregnancy complications.'

Lauren went on to share her relief at knowing her five children were in such good hands, as they are cared for by their father, Matt, and their famous grandparents.

'I miss them so much but Matt and Mum and Dad have done an incredible job,' she said.

Accompanying the touching post was an image of her gorgeous children: Sam, 11, Eva, nine, Lola, six, Monty, two, and Perla, 18 months.

Heartbreak: Earlier this month, the couple's daughter Lauren (right) revealed her heartbreak after spending five weeks separated from her young children

Missing them: Lauren, who is pregnant with her sixth child, was admitted to hospital nearly seven weeks ago and has been unable to see her children: Sam, 11, Eva, nine, Lola, six, Monty, two, and Perla, 18 months

Lauren announced she was pregnant with her sixth child in May.

She shared the news by posting a sweet picture online of her youngest daughter holding a sonogram photo and wrote: 'Perla is thrilled she is going to be a big sister!!!'

She added the hashtag: 'Baby number six!'

Patti also shared the exciting news on her own Instagram, revealing: 'Another beautiful baby to love. So lucky this baby is having number six.'

She added: 'In these sad and difficult times, wonderful to have such joy to look forward to.'

Exciting! In May, Lauren announced she was expecting her sixth child by sharing an adorable picture of daughter Perla, 18 months, holding a sonogram photo

'The best parents and the most fabulous children, we miss you so much, our love Nana and Poppy.'

Despite their large brood, Lauren thought she'd just have one child and see how it went, never having planned for a large family.

'I never wanted to be a mum with a double pram, but after I had Sam I got pregnant again really quickly,' she told 9Honey last year.

'[Being parents] is just the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us both.'

Lauren is Bert and Patti's youngest child. She has one older brother, Matthew Newton.
Amber Heard today shared a supportive message from a fan after her third day giving evidence in her ex-husband Johnny Depp's bombshell libel trial.

The actress, who has accused Depp, 57, of verbal and physical abuse throughout their relationship, posted an image to Instagram holding a handwritten message from a supporter, Rebecca.

The note assured Heard she has 'a lot of REAL people' rooting for her 'health and happiness' amid the ongoing trial at the High Court in London.

It read: 'Amber, I'm here today in the name of all your fans to remind you that we stand with you always!

'You have a lot of REAL people rooting for you, for your health and happiness. Don't you forget that.'

Heard captioned the image, in which she is seen smiling while holding the note, 'thank you Rebecca!!'

Amber Heard today shared a supportive message from a fan after her third day giving evidence in her ex-husband Johnny Depp's bombshell libel trial. Pictured: the Instagram image

The note assured Heard (pictured outside court today) she has 'a lot of REAL people' rooting for her and her 'health and happiness' amid the ongoing trial at the High Court in London

The actress today gave her third day of evidence in Depp's libel trial against The Sun's publisher News Group Newspapers. Depp is suing NGN over an article in April 2018 which labelled him a 'wife beater'.

The publisher is defending the article as true, claiming Depp was 'controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs'.

The actress today denied severing the tip of Depp's finger and stubbing out a cigarette on his face during a violent argument in Australia, claiming the Hollywood star was lobbing up to 30 booze bottles at her 'like grenades' while holding her hostage for three days in a mansion.

Heard, who accuses the Pirates of the Caribbean star of physical abuse on at least 14 occasions, was questioned about an alleged incident Down Under in March 2015.

Eleanor Laws QC, representing Depp, today put it to Heard that during the alleged Australia incident the actress 'worked yourself into a rage, screaming at him' and threw a glass bottle.

Heard said she got angry 'at times' but 'not to the extent where I would throw anything at him offensively'.

In response to a suggestion from Ms Laws that she threw a bottle at Depp's head, smashing a mirror behind him, Heard said she did break a bottle 'very early' on the second evening of the trip, and it was 'before Johnny had started to throw the bottles at me'.

The actress today gave her third day of evidence in Depp's libel trial against The Sun's publisher News Group Newspapers. Pictured: Depp outside court today

She claimed the couple were in an argument about Depp drinking and when she confronted him, he offered her the bottle.

The actress told the court: 'He said, "Oh yeah, you want it? Here, take it", and at that point drinking had already been... he had already given it up for a while and it was on the list of "if this happens, I leave" sort of thing. It was no-fly.

'And he gestured to offer it to me and I reached to take it and he pulled it back.'

She said Depp was 'teasing me to take it' and then pulling it away.

Heard went on to say she 'reached for it a second time and I smashed it on the floor in between Johnny and I'.

She added: 'I regret I did that.'

Heard then told the court: 'He started picking them (bottles) up one by one and throwing them like grenades.

'One after the other after the other, in my direction, and I felt glass breaking behind me, I retreated more into the bar and he didn't stop.

Pictured: Depp being taken to hospital with a severed finger, following an incident in Australia in March 2015

The actress today denied severing the tip of Depp's finger and stubbing out a cigarette on his face during a violent argument in Australia. Pictured: Depp's severed finger

'I was too scared to look behind me. He threw all the bottles that were in reach, all except for one which was a celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine.'

Heard said she remembered that was the only bottle not smashed out of 30 or so.

The court has previously heard that Depp's finger was severed during the alleged incident, with the film star claiming Heard was responsible, which she denies.

Ms Laws put it to Heard that the injury was caused by her 'throwing a bottle in his direction, smashing it down and severing the tip of his finger with glass,' to which Heard replied: 'No.'

She also denied stubbing a cigarette out on Depp's cheek, saying the Pirates of the Caribbean star did it to himself.

Ms Laws said: 'You did it, didn't you?' To which Ms Heard replied: 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me, he often did things like that.'

The lawyer added: 'According to you, Mr Depp sliced his finger off all on his own... and then carried on attacking you.'

During their visits to Australia in 2015, the couple stayed in this mansion owned by former MotoGp champion Mick Doohan

Ms Heard said: 'Yes, he did. I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he did continue the attack.'

The actress, 34, has accused Depp of both verbal and physical abuse throughout their relationship - allegedly punching, slapping, kicking, headbutting and choking her, as well as displaying 'extremely controlling and intimidating behaviour'.

However, Depp says he was not violent towards Heard, claiming it was she who was violent to him.

The actor is suing NGN over the publication of an article in April 2018. His lawyers say the article bore the meaning there was 'overwhelming evidence' Depp assaulted Heard on a number of occasions and left her 'in fear for her life'.

NGN is defending the article as true, and says Mr Depp was 'controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Ms Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs'.

The case continues.
" " The Aegis class Navy cruiser U.S.S. Lake Erie test fires a SM-3 missile off the coast of Hawaii in December 2003. U.S. Navy via Getty Images

One could make the argument that the Cold War arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a good thing, at least in one case. If it weren't for the development of ballistic missiles, there would have been no need to develop anti-ballistic missiles. And without the latter, there was no way to tell where the two-ton (1,800 kg), highly classified spy satellite that the U.S. Navy shot down might land.

The Pentagon modified an existing missile system, and the Navy spent three weeks making modifications to the Block III, a Raytheon SM-3 antiballistic missile. The missile launched from the U.S.S. Lake Erie, a guided missile cruiser in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii, hitting the satellite at 10:26 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) Feb. 20. The Navy had a very short window to make the strike; the missile had to be fired sometime between 9 p.m. EST on Feb. 20 [source: ABC News] and 10:30 p.m. EST on Feb. 21, 2008 [source: Wired]. It was the first time the United States attempted to use a tactical missile to take out a spacecraft [Business Day].

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The Raytheon SM-3 isn't designed to explode upon impact; rather, the missile destroys whatever it hits using brute force, like a bullet. It contains a heat-seeking component, which guided it to the wayward spy satellite. The Navy launched the Block III so that it traveled in the opposite direction of the USA 193, in order to produce a head-on (collinear) collision. The closing velocity of the impact -- which in this case is the sum of the two objects' velocities -- is estimated around 22,000 miles per hour (35,406 km/h) [source: Department of Defense].

The USA 193 spy satellite was about the size of a school bus and weighed 5,000 pounds (2,268 kg) -- a sizeable target -- if it had re-entered Earth's atmosphere intact, its course would have become erratic. The Union of Concerned Scientists said before the launch that the missile had "no better than a 50 percent chance of hitting its target" [source: The Washington Post], although the Block III is a highly accurate missile. As of November 2007, the system had hit 11 of its last 13 targets [source: Wired].

One of the greatest challenges of "the shot" was the brief window of time that the Navy had to take it. When China shot down its weather satellite in January 2007, the altitude (nearly 600 miles (966 km) above sea level) caused the debris created by the impact to hang around in space. While the space junk shouldn't enter our atmosphere -- and pose a threat to life on Earth -- it does present a problem for space travel. The debris can collide with functioning spacecraft, including those that bear human passengers.

To reduce the chance that the debris from the USA 193 will stay in space, the United States chose to shoot it down once it reaches an altitude of about 150 miles (241 km) [source: The Washington Post]. According to the Reuters news agency, the Block III missile hit USA 193 at an altitude of 153 miles (246 km) above the Earth. The window for a perfectly successful shot was narrow. The New York Times put it this way before Wednesday night's successful mission: "If they fire too late, the satellite will enter the atmosphere and start hurtling in unpredictable directions. If they fire too soon, space debris could spread and threaten the International Space Station and other satellites." The Navy had a back-up plan in the event of a missed target: It had two more ships ready to fire. "The worst is that we miss, and then we have a known situation, which is where we are today," said the Joint Chiefs' Gen. Cartwright [source: Department of Defense].

For more information on spacecraft and other related topics, visit the next page.
Companies to Co-host Webinar, "How to Drive Superior Customer Experiences at Massive Scale with In-Memory Computing"

FOSTER CITY, Calif., July 22, 2020, provider of enterprise-grade in-memory computing solutions based on Apache Ignite, today announced a strategic partnership with Tech Mahindra , a leading provider of digital transformation, consulting and business reengineering services and solutions. The two companies are integrating GridGain's technologies into Tech Mahindra's solutions to help customers manage surging application loads caused by increasing customer traffic, the launch of new services, and seasonal traffic spikes. GridGain solutions will also power digital integration hub," taking place on August 13, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. PDT/11:00 a.m. EDT.



"The new normal has brought out the big reset and there will be an exponential adoption of digitalization as industries will go through a new wave of transformation," said Lakshmanan Chidambaram, President - Americas Strategic Verticals, Tech Mahindra. "This will also have a huge impact on application performance to deliver to higher expectations. As part of our TechMNxT charter, we are constantly looking to expand our partner ecosystem by connecting with industry-leading companies. Tech Mahindra has partnered with GridGain to provide in-memory computing solutions for handling high-volume transactions in real-time with speed & scale."

Tech Mahindra brings together a blend of talent, technology, business acumen and domain expertise to collaborate with enterprises on their engineering journey - helping them accelerate positive outcomes from existing engineering initiatives and investments, invent new products, and transform business models. The GridGain in-memory computing platform leverages ongoing advances in memory and storage technologies to power digital transformations, application acceleration , and digital integration hubs . GridGain can be easily integrated with existing applications and datastores, with no rip-and-replace of existing infrastructure, to deliver up to a 1,000x improvement in performance for applications built on disk-based databases.

"We are very excited to collaborate with Tech Mahindra on solving the challenge faced by major corporations worldwide of ensuring great customer experiences when experiencing surges in application activity," said Terry Erisman, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Alliances at GridGain. "We can also jointly offer solutions that enable corporations to create 360-degree customers views to power real-time business processes such as upsell and cross sell. The combination of Tech Mahindra's engineering prowess and GridGain's in-memory computing technology leadership will enable our joint customers to meet the ever increasing demand for speed and scale required by the modern digital enterprise."

On August 13, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. PDT/11:00 a.m. EDT, GridGain's Terry Erisman, EVP of Marketing & Alliances, and Nikita Ivanov, CTO, along with Tech Mahindra's Stalin Rajkumar, Global Practice Head - Digital Process Transformation, and Jayanarayan Mehanathan, Senior Solution Architect, will team up to explain how the GridGain in-memory computing platform can help users overcome performance-related challenges, deliver outstanding customer interactions, enable seamless omnichannel customer engagements, and power new business opportunities. The webinar, " How to Drive Superior Customer Experiences at Massive Scale with In-Memory Computing ," will cover the basics of GridGain's in-memory computing platform, use cases from a variety of industries, and explore the potential of digital integration hubs (DIHs). Attendees will learn how powering customer-facing applications with in-memory computing can scale out and accelerate them, as well as how these systems can be easily integrated with existing applications and datastores, with no rip-and-replace of existing infrastructure. Attendees will also learn how companies have leveraged these capabilities to create great customer experiences for millions of customers.

About GridGain Systems

GridGain Systems is revolutionizing real-time data access and processing by offering an in-memory computing platform built on Apache Ignite. Common use cases for the GridGain platform include application acceleration and as a digital integration hub for real-time data access across data sources and applications. GridGain solutions are used by global enterprises in financial services, software, e-commerce, retail, online business services, healthcare, telecom, transportation and other major sectors, with a client list that includes ING, Raymond James, American Express, Societe Generale, Finastra, UPS, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Microsoft, RingCentral, American Airlines, Agilent, and UnitedHealthcare. GridGain delivers unprecedented speed and massive scalability to both legacy and greenfield applications. Deployed on a distributed cluster of commodity servers, GridGain software can reside between the application and data layers.

CONTACT:

Terry Erisman

GridGain Systems

terisman@gridgain.com

(650) 241-2281

GridGain is a trademark or registered trademark of GridGain Systems, Inc. Apache, Apache Hadoop, Hadoop, Apache Ignite, Ignite, Apache Kafka, Kafka, Apache Spark, and Spark are trademarks of The Apache Software Foundation. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
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By Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Wednesday as U.S. government data showed a surprise rise in U.S. crude inventories, and as tensions escalated between the United States and China.

Brent crude fell 55 cents, or 1.2%, to $43.77 a barrel by 10:56 EST (1456 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude dropped 56 cents, or 1.3%, to $41.36.

U.S. crude and distillate inventories rose unexpectedly and fuel demand slipped in the most recent week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, as the sharp outbreak in coronavirus cases has started to hit U.S. consumption.

Crude inventories rose by 4.9 million barrels in the week to July 17 to 536.6 million barrels, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.1 million-barrel drop. Production rose to 11.1 million bpd, up 100,000 bpd.

Overall this would suggest that the demand recovery weve seen from the bottom seems to be stalling," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures group in Chicago.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the outbreak would probably worsen before it got better, a shift from his previously robust emphasis on reopening the economy.

Bjornar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energys head of oil markets, said Trump's comments might be welcomed by investors because they are among the most measured by him or his administration so far.

"This could be a positive for oil demand prospects. Instead of an uncontrolled, disruptive second wave of lockdowns, maybe chances have now increased that the United States will eventually get the spread under control," Tonhaugen said.

However, a fresh dispute between Washington and Beijing put pressure on prices after the United States told the Chinese consulate in Houston to shut and a source said China was considering closing the U.S. consulate in Wuhan.

Adding to pressure were signs that Iraq, the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was still not meeting its target under an OPEC-led pact to cut supplies.

(Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London, Jessica Jaganathan in Singapore; Editing by David Gregorio, David Goodman and Edmund Blair)
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says he has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone for an hour, Tehran Times reports.

In remarks on Wednesday, Zarif said due to Putins coronavirus protocol, he spoke on a secure line with the Russian president, IRNA reported.

He said he delivered President Hassan Rouhanis message, which was about the Iran nuclear deal and some bilateral issues, to Putin.

It was a constructive conversation, and inshallah it will lead to good outcomes, the chief Iranian diplomat added.

Zarif said he had four hours of compact discussions with the Russians on Tuesday afternoon.

Accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi, Zarif traveled to Moscow on Tuesday for talks with senior Russian officials, including his counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

During his meeting with Lavrov, Zarif said Iran-Russia relations are at their strongest in decades, adding that such sustainable ties will benefit both countries and guarantee global peace and security.
GUWAHATI: The efforts to plug a blowout of a natural gas well, which has been on fire since June 9 in Assams Tinuskia, suffered a setback on Wednesday afternoon when three foreign experts sustained burn injuries while they were working to control the fire.

The gas well, which is owned by Oil India Limited (OIL) and is located at Baghjan, suffered a blowout (a sudden and uncontrolled release of gas or oil) on May 27 and caught fire two weeks later, killing two firefighters and destroying over a dozen houses in the area.

While some reports said there was a blast near the gas well, OIL denied it. There was no blast at the site as is being reported. The foreign experts and another person working at the site sustained minor burn injuries while trying to cap the well. They are all out of danger, said OIL spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika. An official, who spoke to PTI on condition of anonymity, said on-ground reports suggested there was a blast and its scale and nature were being ascertained.

An environmental researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: ...A loud sound was heard.

The experts have been taken to a hospital at Dibrugarh, Oil India Limiteds senior manager, public affairs, Jayanata Bormudoi, said. The three experts injured on Wednesday, Anthony Steven Reynolds, Craig Neil Duncan and Doug Dallas, are from Alert Disaster Control, a Singapore-based firm engaged in plugging the blowout.

A blowout that began in the oilfield on May 27 led to the uncontrollable flow of oil from gas well 5  causing extensive damage to biodiversity and wildlife the region, according to a preliminary report on the environmental damage caused by the incident. The wildlife in the region includes, among several other species, the endangered hoolock gibbons and the Gangetic dolphins.

According to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the incident took place when the foreign experts hired by OIL were removing a spool from the well head  a task performed before installing a blowout preventer (BOP) to cap the fire. Work at the site was called off for the day after the incident.

The experts were provided immediate medical attention by doctor at well site and later on, they were taken to burn unit section of Astha Nursing Home at Dibrugarh. They have been released after dressing of the burn injuries. It is expected that operations will resume at Baghjan on Thursday, OIL said in a statement.

Work on capping the well was at an advanced stage when the incident took place. According to OIL, tasks such as excavation of ramps and cellar have been completed and the equipment to cap the well is ready. Constant water umbrella, dewatering of ramp/cellar works were being carried out to provide a safe working space for personnel (involved in capping the well), the OIL statement said.

The well control operation continues and capping of the well is expected shortly, OIL tweeted.

Union petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan took stock of the situation and wished speedy recovery to the three foreign experts.

There are 17 oil wells and five gas wells in the Baghjan oil field, Baghjan oil field generates 1,200 kilolitres of crude oil per day and 1.5 to 2 million metric standard cubic metres per day of gas. OIL supplies crude oil to several refineries including Digboi refineries in Assam, it also supplies gas to various power companies and fertiliser companies and 400+ tea estates according to OIL.

A preliminary report on the damage, by Wildlife Institute of India (WII) found that oil had leaked into the principal stream of Lohit river, polluting the water and the adjoining Maguri-Motapung wetland. The toxic fumes and oil coating have universally affected flora and fauna. The contaminants and oil are continuing to be released and immediate steps are needed to contain this spill over. The toxins released are known to have long-term persistence in soils and sediments, the report said.

The well had a blowout during a work to extract gas from a new depth. While efforts were underway to control the blowout, the well caught fire and damaged houses located nearby. Nearly 2,000 families were evacuated from the area, with many of them residing in relief camps.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered the formation of an expert committee last month to probe the blowout and subsequent fire and assess the damage caused to human life, wildlife and environment.

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WASHINGTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Two entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations are partnering to provide greater impact to communities across the country. After a competitive RFP process, SEED SPOT has chosen BUILD.org to acquire the High School arm of their work. BUILD will lead the next generation of impact-driven entrepreneurs by expanding on the impact the SEED SPOT's High School program has made over the last 6 years. BUILD.org will now own and manage the SEED SPOT High School Curriculum, deploying it to schools nationally.

BUILD ( www.build.org ) and SEED SPOT ( www.seedspot.org ) anticipate that this partnership will create a robust pipeline of entrepreneurship education to create long term impact and support for High School social entrepreneurs and their communities across the nation. In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, which has paralyzed business everywhere, BUILD and SEED SPOT believe that supporting the future of entrepreneurship is critical to America's recovery.

BUILD was selected to carry on SEED SPOT's High School Program based on strong mission alignment, proving that they have the expertise and ability to double the previous reach of the SEED SPOT High School program. BUILD connects the dots between school and the real world by helping students from under-resourced communities launch real businesses that generate real profits, and by connecting students to a network of caring adult mentors.

By merging SEED SPOT's High School program's focus on social and career & technical focus (CTE) on impact-driven entrepreneurship with BUILD's Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Skills, youth are positioned to gain a portfolio of 21st century skills that will enable them to achieve further career and life success. The goal of this social entrepreneurial experience is for students to see themselves as change-agents, entrepreneurs, and innovators ready to tackle any problem they are passionate about, whether during the program or beyond, thus closing the opportunity gap through education.

"We could not be more proud to pass the impact of the SEED SPOT High School Curriculum to BUILD to activate our nation's educators and the student vision they catalyze," said SEED SPOT CEO C'pher Gresham.

"BUILD is all about making high school education relevant to the real world," said Ayele Shakur, BUILD CEO. "BUILD's project-based learning is not only engaging for students bored with traditional classroom instruction, it has been shown to prepare them for success in the workplace."

To read the full press release, visit www.build.org/build-and-seed-spot

Media Contacts:

BUILD

Ed Wilson

National Director of Philanthropy | BUILD

[email protected]

248-505-1511

SEED SPOT

C'pher Gresham

CEO | SEED SPOT

[email protected]

202-957-8101

SOURCE BUILD

Related Links

https://build.org


Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro adjusts his protective face mask at a press statement during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Brasilia, Brazil, March 20, 2020. Ueslei Marcelino | Reuters

CNBC is looking at how places around the world have tackled Covid-19. By talking to a wide range of experts, as well as everyday citizens, we're taking stock of what's gone well  and what hasn't. Brazil, has confirmed more than 2.1 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 80,000 deaths in a population of about 209 million. Brazil's mortality rate per 100,000 is among the highest in the world. Brazil has struggled with a lack of tests, ventilators and ICU beds in many regions, and its lack of data has made it challenging to understand how quickly the virus is spreading. Dozens of health-care workers have died after getting infected with the virus. The interior of the country is now perceived as particularly vulnerable. By way of comparison, the U.S., with about 330 million people, has had more than 3.9 million cases and 143,000 deaths.

What went well

Grassroots community efforts Locals say that many low-income neighborhoods in Brazil, known as favelas, were left to their own devices when it came to Covid-19. But some took matters into their own hands. In Paraisopolis, Sao Paulo's largest slum, so-called street presidents helped their neighbors get food, health care and other necessities, and residents converted a public school into a space for people to stay who had tested positive for the virus. But elsewhere, the virus has continued to spread unabated. Social distancing, particularly in the poorest areas of Brazil, is a near impossible challenge. "We have a lot of poor families that live in small homes with one bedroom for everyone, making it almost impossible to socially distance," said Dr. Larissa Fogaca Doretto, a researcher with the Federal University of Sao Paulo. In the state, people of color are 62 percent more likely to die from Covid-19 than their white counterparts.

Elzauer | Moment | Getty Images

Coordination between public and private hospitals In Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, public hospitals at the peak of the pandemic almost hit capacity. To prevent widespread chaos, the best private hospitals started to work closely with the hospitals in the poorest parts of the city to share resources, supplies and expertise. The municipal and state health agencies  working with the private sector  also helped open up hospital beds. Dr. Sidney Klajner, president of the Albert Einstein Jewish Hospital in Sao Paulo, noted that there's been a lot more coordination in recent months. His health system donated alcohol, face masks and face shields to more than 100 hospitals in the lower-income areas to help protect health-care workers. It also prepared early for the pandemic. "We were able to transform almost 300 beds to Covid," he said. However, in other regions of Brazil, public hospitals have been further strained by the virus and are struggling to access sufficient ICU beds and ventilators, while the hospitals that treat wealthier patients have beds to spare. Many are calling for a national, or federal policy, to coordinate the response. The rise of telemedicine "Telemedicine was barely happening in Brazil," said Emilio Puschmann, founder of Amparo, a telemedicine and primary care provider based in the country. "There were a few providers running operations, but it was difficult." Now, he says, the Ministry of Health has temporarily green-lighted certain forms of virtual medicine to allow doctors to see patients at home. "With Covid-19, this all changed," Puschmann said. But he said more quality controls are needed to ensure that low-quality players don't rush into the market. "Everyone is building software, and it's difficult for the payers to distinguish between good and bad."

What's just OK

Varied state government responses In Brazil, the states have stepped up to manage the Covid-19 response. The wealthier ones with more resources at their disposal, like Sao Paulo, tended to perform better than others. And throughout Brazil, the death rate tends to be higher in poorer cities than in richer ones. In the poorest areas, like the Amazonian city of Manaus, the situation reached a crisis point. There, at a cemetery, thousands from remote areas were buried in group graves after dying while trying to get treatment. Now, concerns are increasing about the south. Dr. Luisane Vieira, a clinical pathologist based in Brazil, explained: "We feel the pandemic is going south, where winter time is more cold, and to smaller cities, most of them do not have intensive care units, as required."

An aerial view of a nearly empty Saara region, a large shopping area in the center of the city during a lockdown aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic on March 24, 2020 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Buda Mendes | Getty Images

Economic relief In late March, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes announced that Brazil's most vulnerable workers would receive a monthly salary relief of about 600 reais (around $118). That has made a difference, locals say, although it hasn't been perfectly distributed. According to reports from late May, long queues formed to access the relief. It's even more challenging for rural residents, who risk exposure to the coronavirus as they travel to the cities, wait in a busy line, and return home. It's unclear whether this relief will continue, and for how long.

What hasn't gone well so far

Bungled response Brazil had a lot of potential to manage Covid-19 well, experts say, but it faltered. Instead, President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down the virus, even as cases continue to rise. "Brazil lost a good opportunity to control the pandemic," said Dr. Paulo Lotufo, director of the Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. "In the second week of March, Brazil was in a good position to start social isolation, ... and the response of the population was amazing. (But) 10 days later, Bolsonaro went on national television to tell supporters to boycott isolation, saying it was just a little flu." Earlier this month, Bolsonaro was diagnosed with Covid-19 himself. Confusion and misinformation

Employees bury a person who died suspectedly from COVID-19 at the Vila Formosa cemetery, in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil on March 31, 2020. Nelson Almeida | AFP | Getty Images

Health ministers haven't lasted long in the job since the onset of the pandemic. Dr. Nelson Teich, an oncologist, quit in late May after a month. He had replaced Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who was fired by the president in April after a series of disagreements about the pandemic. Brazilians say things haven't changed much since Bolsonaro was diagnosed with the coronavirus, and the messaging is still confusing for many people. "We are definitely not in a good place in Brazil," said Natasha Vianna, a writer from Brazil now based in San Francisco. "It was the health ministers who did a good job encouraging people to stay home and wear masks." With the changing of the guard  and the consistent downplaying of the virus on the federal level  Brazilians say that guidelines aren't as consistent as they could have been. "We don't have clear policies," said Dr. Cristiano Englert, an anesthesiologist and co-founder of a start-up accelerator in Brazil. "And we could have been more prepared." "A lot of it is aligned with politics," added Gary Monk, a British health consultant who has been based in Brazil throughout the pandemic. "Some take it seriously and others are quite relaxed, and there are pro- and anti-mask camps." Lack of protection for health workers Covid-19 has spread quickly among health workers, with data indicating that they have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Dr. Antonio Bandeira, director of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases, estimates that in some regions, as many as 10 percent of people diagnosed with the virus were health workers. One of the major problems in Brazil, researchers have reported, is insufficient protective equipment and training. Nurses, in particular, have caught the disease and died faster than anyone else in the world, according to a report from late May. Lack of testing Brazil is not conducting nearly enough tests, its public health officials and clinicians say. "Brazil is currently testing at around a third of nearby countries like Peru and Chile, which themselves aren't doing enough," said Michael Touchton, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami, who helped built a tracker for Covid-19 in the Americas. Without testing data, it's high challenging for the medical system to reduce exposure and get ahead of potential supply chain shortages. Moreover, locals generally agree that it's far easier for wealthier people to access tests via drive-through centers. "We do not have an adequate program of molecular testing and contact tracing for isolating contacts and COVID-19 patients," said Vieira. "We are among the countries in the world that have tested less." Treatment of Indigenous people

Health professionals administer a COVID-19 test to a Guarani indigenous woman at a Health Care indigenous post at the Sao Mata Verde Bonita tribe camp, in Guarani indigenous land, in Marica, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on July 2, 2020. MAURO PIMENTEL

"The Indigenous population has been in dire straits," said Touchton. As he explained, there hasn't been adequate medical care for sick people. And The New York Times is reporting that the limited support provided to communities from the federal government may have done more harm than good. The report indicates that thousands of people likely originally caught the virus from medical workers who were sent out to these remote areas without adequate protective equipment. At least 500 indigenous people have died since the onset of the pandemic. The response  or lack thereof  to Indigenous people is part of a broader policy of neglect toward the region. "The administration has made it a cornerstone of their environmental policy to mine and log their way through the rainforest," Touchton said. Vulnerable population without access to health care In theory, Brazil could have been set up for success. Its health system, SUS, serves about 80 percent of the population. But that system has been increasingly overwhelmed by the virus. The lack of enforcement around masks and social distancing is particularly troublesome, experts say, when the health system isn't designed to serve a massive influx of sick people. That becomes even more challenging with the high proportion of people with preexisting conditions, which puts them at risk for more severe outcomes. "A lot of people don't have access to primary care," said Klajner. "They aren't on the correct meds for their hypertension and diabetes, and they get seen in the health-care system too late."

A COVID-19 patient undergoes an operation at the Oceanico hospital in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro on June 22, 2020. Carl de Souza | AFP | Getty Images

Boosting hydroxychloroquine Brazil's health authorities have pushed the unproven antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, despite increasing scientific evidence that it's not effective as a treatment for the coronavirus. U.S. President Donald Trump touted the drug, claiming at one point to be using it himself as a preventative measure. Bolsonaro likewise endorsed hydroxychloroquine, even going so far as to post a video of himself washing it down with water after declaring that he had been infected with the virus. Bolsonaro's critics have expressed concerns that this behavior would encourage more people to take the drug, and resist precautions to avoid getting sick.

How Brazil scores overall: 3/10
The Essential Connector  a smartphone application for commuters  that has been jointly developed by Vietnamese and Swiss information technology engineers has been approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)

for public transport users in New York from May 2020.

A smart phone user downloads the Essential Connector  a smartphone application for commuters. The app has been approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for commuters in New York, the US.  Photo courtesy Axon Active Vietnam

Le Khac Tho, a member of the Axon Active Vietnam company said the app, which was developed by IT engineers from the Axon Active Vietnam working in Da Nang, aims to help commuters search for trips, times and routes on their smartphone.

He said Essential Connector also helps passengers find other routes in case of delays.

He said the app had beaten software solutions from other companies to win approval by the MTA.

According to Axon Active Vietnam 4,000 users in New York had downloaded the Essential Connector in one week.

According to the Da Nang Software Association, the citys software export turnover was US$89 million in 2019.

Da Nang has two centralised information technology (CIT) zones approved by the Prime Minister in 2017-19.

The city has been developing the Da Nang IT Park as central Vietnams Silicon Valley.

Da Nang was the first city in Vietnam to launch the e-Government system  a crucial step in building a smart city  and offering free wireless internet (wifi) services for local residents and tourists at major centres and streets in the city. VNS

Two Vietnamese mans creates app listed among the worlds top 20 Meeting on Facebook, the two young men developed an app, listed among the worlds top 20, in since 2015 without any call for capital.
EMMET COUNTY, MI  A Michigan State Police trooper, a sheriffs deputy and EMS personnel are being credited with saving a woman from choking in Northern Michigan.

The incident occurred when Emmet County Sheriffs deputy Mitchell Wallin and MSP Gaylord Post Trooper Kristina Droste responded to Pineview Cottage on M-119 at approximately 11:50 a.m. on July 18.

Upon arrival, they found a woman performing the Heimlich maneuver on an 80-year-old Petoskey woman, who was seated upright on the floor in the dining room. Wallin assisted the woman while Droste retrieved her first aid kit. When EMS arrived, the patient was flat on her back unconscious.

EMS initially performed chest compressions and administered breaths with a bag valve mask, but eventually Wallin took over compressions while Droste and the other woman took over breaths while EMS set up their AED.

EMS then used the AED and advanced breathing aids and monitors to continue rescue efforts. The victim, who was now stable and breathing with medical assistance, was transported to McLaren Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey.

Hospital officials confirmed the victim was breathing on her own and responsive later that afternoon, according to police.

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Patna: Bihar BJP Legislative Councilor Sunil Kumar Singh died at AIIMS Hospital in Patna on Tuesday. He died of a sudden heart attack on Tuesday evening. Singh was found to be coronavirus positive a few days ago and was undergoing treatment at AIIMS.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar mourned the death of the BJP leader. The CM called the family members and express his condolences. He said that Sunil Kumar Singh had a keen interest in the social sector and had received respect from every section of the society due to his work.

While, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said that the BJP family and him personally was heartbroken because of his death. Modi prayed to God for the peace of the departed soul and to provide patience to all well-wishers, supporters and family members.

Neeraj Kumar, a minister and JDU leader in the Nitish government, expressed his grief by tweeting. He said that the death of Sunil Kumar Singh, member of Bihar Legislative Council, is an irreparable loss to the political world. "Pray to God, grant peace to the departed soul and give the bereaved family the power to bear patience in this hour of grief," he said.
Science has validated Indigenous wisdom by identifying a rare, healthy sugar in native stingless bee honey that is not found in any other food.

University of Queensland organic chemist Associate Professor Mary Fletcher said Indigenous peoples had long known that native stingless bee honey had special health properties.

"We tested honey from two Australian native stingless bee species, two in Malaysia and one in Brazil and found that up to 85 per cent of their sugar is trehalulose, not maltose as previously thought," she said.

Dr Fletcher said trehalulose was a rare sugar with a low glycaemic index (GI), and not found as a major component in any other foods.

"Traditionally it has been thought that stingless bee honey was good for diabetes and now we know why - having a lower GI means it takes longer for the sugar to be absorbed into the blood stream, so there is not a spike in glucose that you get from other sugars," Dr Fletcher said.

"Interestingly trehalulose is also acariogenic, which means it doesn't cause tooth decay."

Dr Fletcher said the findings would strengthen the stingless bee honey market and create new opportunities.

"Stingless bee honey sells now for around AUD $200 per kilogram, which is up there with the price of Manuka and Royal Jelly honey," she said.

"The high commercial value also makes it a risk for substitution, where people could sell other honey as stingless bee honey, or dilute the product.

"But due to this research, we can test for this novel sugar, which will help industry to set a food standard for stingless bee honey.

"People have patented ways of making trehalulose synthetically with enzymes and bacteria, but our research shows stingless bee honey can be used as a wholefood on its own or in other food to get the same health benefits."

The work of Dr Fletcher and the research team has led to a new project funded by AgriFutures Australia and supported by the Australian Native Bee Association.

Working with Dr Natasha Hungerford from UQ's Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation and Dr Tobias Smith from the School of Biological Sciences the new project will investigate storage and collection, to optimise the trehalulose content of Australian stingless bee honey.

Stingless bees (Meliponini) occur in most tropical and sub-tropical regions, with more than 500 species across Neotropical, Afrotropical and Indo-Australian regions.

Like the well-known Apis mellifera honeybees, stingless bees live in permanent colonies made up of a single queen and workers, who collect pollen and nectar to feed larvae within the colony.

Dr Fletcher said keeping native stingless bees was gaining in popularity in Australia, for their role as pollinators as well as for their unique honey.

As well as having health benefits, stingless bee honey is valued for its flavour and is in high demand from chefs.

###

The research by Dr Fletcher and her collaborator Dr Norhasnida Zawawi from the Universiti Putra Malaysia, and colleagues from UQ's Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, and School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences and Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, is published in Scientific Reports.

The project Optimising bioactive content of Australian stingless bee honey is supported by funding from AgriFutures Australia as part of the AgriFutures Emerging Industries Program.

DOI 10.1038/s41598-020-68940-0

Media: Associate Professor Mary Fletcher, mary.fletcher@uq.edu.au, +61 417 753 791; Margaret Puls, m.puls@uq.edu.au, +61 419 578 356.
Iran interested in buying new Russian weapons: ambassador to Moscow

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Tue / 21 July 2020 / 14:38

Tehran (ISNA) - Iran is interested in buying new Russian weapons to enhance its defense capacities, Iranian ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali said in an interview with the Kommersant daily.

"Indeed, it is so," he said answering the question if Teheran was interested in Russia's new weapons.

"We will hold consultations with Russia on what we need to enhance our defense capacities. The Russian government and the Russian people have always been by our side in times of trouble. Russia is our priority partner in this sense," he stressed.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Kazem Jalali stressed that the countries that were targeted by Washington's sanctions pressure could unite their efforts for jointly countering US policy.

"I believe it's high time we created a club of countries hit by sanctions. Among its members will be many strong powers with developed economies: Russia, China and Iran," the diplomat said. According to him, such states should help each other in order to offset negative influence of US steps.

The diplomat stressed that Washington does not want to see any rivals, whose positions in any region would be stronger than those of the US. "They want Russia to be weak, China to be economically subordinated to them and Iran to become their colony. That's why we need to cooperate, help each other and complement each other," Jalali said.

"We have got huge opportunities and we just need to show political will and make efforts in order to develop this potential in a right way. Iran has something to offer Russia and China. We are a large country with big and rather young population, we have got many mineral resources and advanced technologies. If we make joint efforts we will overcome US pressure," the ambassador emphasized.

End Item

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Some top government aides in Edo State have dumped the State Governor Godwin Obaseki and declared their support for Pastor Osagie Ize-Iy...

Some top government aides in Edo State have dumped the State Governor Godwin Obaseki and declared their support for Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the forthcoming governorship election.





The aides, including, the Special Assistant to the Assembly Speaker on Security Matters Hon. Joe Okonigene, and Hon. Aimiolemen Noah Idemudia, also known as Paddy Noah, the Special Assistant to Ikoba Okha Local Government, left the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with thousands of youths in the state.





This was contained in a statement on Tuesday by Prince John Mayaki, the Chairman Edo State APC Media Campaign Council.





He said the aides and their supporters announced their resignation from the government on Tuesday at a meeting with Ize-Iyamu.





He said the former government officials led thousands of their supporters, who are mainly youths under the aegis of Edo Collective, to Ize-Iyamus residence where they declared their support.





Hon. Agomini Babatunde Martins and the President. Barr. Hope Iyare were the other leaders of the Edo Collective group who were present at the event, according to him.




The information contained in this release was correct as at 30 June 2020. Information on the Company's up to date net asset values can be found on the London Stock Exchange Website at

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-home.html.

BLACKROCK LATIN AMERICAN INVESTMENT TRUST PLC (LEI: UK9OG5Q0CYUDFGRX4151)

All information is at 30 June 2020 and unaudited.



Performance at month end with net income reinvested

One

month

% Three

months

% One

year

% Three

years

% Five

years

% Sterling: Net asset value^ 7.1 23.4 -34.1 -15.0 8.7 Share price 10.2 20.5 -30.9 -5.2 20.7 MSCI EM Latin America

(Net Return)^^ 5.3 19.5 -30.4 -16.0 8.1 US Dollars: Net asset value^ 7.1 22.9 -36.1 -19.2 -14.6 Share price 10.2 20.0 -32.9 -9.9 -5.2 MSCI EM Latin America

(Net Return)^^ 5.3 19.1 -32.5 -20.1 -15.1

^cum income.

^^The Company's performance benchmark (the MSCI EM Latin America Index) may be calculated on either a Gross or a Net return basis. Net return (NR) indices calculate the reinvestment of dividends net of withholding taxes using the tax rates applicable to non-resident institutional investors, and hence give a lower total return than indices where calculations are on a Gross basis (which assumes that no withholding tax is suffered). As the Company is subject to withholding tax rates for the majority of countries in which it invests, the NR basis is felt to be the most accurate, appropriate, consistent and fair comparison for the Company.

Sources: BlackRock, Standard & Poor's Micropal.

At month end Net asset value - capital only: 360.17p Net asset value - cum income: 360.87p Share price: 339.00p Total Assets#: 153.1m Discount (share price to cum income NAV): 6.1% Average discount* over the month - cum income: 10.5% Net gearing at month end**: 8.3% Gearing range (as a % of net assets): 0-25% Net yield##: 6.3% Ordinary shares in issue (excluding 2,181,662 shares held in treasury): 39,259,620 Ongoing charges***: 1.1%

Total assets include current year revenue.

#The yield of 6.5% is calculated based on total dividends declared in the last 12 months as at the date of this announcement as set out below (totalling 27.34 cents per share) and using a share price of 418.88 US cents per share (equivalent to the sterling price of 339.00 pence per share translated in to US cents at the rate prevailing at 30 June 2020 of $1.2356 dollars to 1.00).

2019 Q3 interim dividend of 8.03 cents per share (paid on 8 November 2019).

2019 Q4 Final dividend of 9.15 cents per share (paid on 06 February 2020).

2020 Q1 interim dividend of 4.59 cents per share (paid on 20 May 2020).

2020 Q2 interim dividend of 5.57 cents per share (payable on 11 August 2020).

*The discount is calculated using the cum income NAV (expressed in sterling terms).

**Net cash/net gearing is calculated using debt at par, less cash and cash equivalents and fixed interest investments as a percentage of net assets.

*** Calculated as a percentage of average net assets and using expenses, excluding interest costs for the year ended 31 December 2019.

Geographic

Exposure % of Total Assets^ % of Equity

Portfolio * MSCI EM

Latin America Index Brazil 68.6 68.5 64.1 Mexico 18.5 18.4 21.6 Argentina 5.4 5.4 1.6 Chile 5.2 5.2 7.3 Peru 1.5 1.5 3.1 Panama 1.0 1.0 Colombia 2.3 Net current liabilities (inc. fixed interest) -0.2 0.0 0.0 ----- ----- ----- Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 ----- ----- -----

^Total assets for the purposes of these calculations exclude bank overdrafts, and the net current assets figure shown in the table above therefore excludes bank overdrafts equivalent to 8.1% of the Company's net asset value.

Sector % of Equity Portfolio * % of Benchmark Financials 21.7 26.8 Materials 19.2 16.0 Consumer Discretionary 17.8 6.8 Energy 10.7 9.6 Consumer Staples 9.4 15.7 Utilities 7.1 6.8 Communication Services 5.8 7.1 Industrials 4.5 6.3 Real Estate 3.6 1.3 Information Technology 0.2 1.4 Health Care 2.2 ----- ----- Total 100.0 100.0 ----- -----

* excluding net current assets & fixed interest



Ten Largest Equity Investments (in percentage order)



Company

Country of Risk % of

Equity Portfolio % of

Benchmark Vale Brazil 9.4 8.1 Petrobras - ADR Brazil 8.8 7.3 America Movil Mexico 5.8 4.6 B3 Brazil 4.7 4.4 Banco Bradesco Brazil 4.0 4.6 Itau Unibanco Brazil 3.9 4.8 Ternium Argentina 3.6 AmBev Brazil 3.6 2.6 Ayfa Brazil 3.2 B2W CIA Digital Brazil 3.1 0.9

Commenting on the markets, Ed Kuczma and Sam Vecht, representing the Investment Manager noted;

For the month of June 2020, the Company's NAV returned +7.1%1 with the share price moving +10.2%1. The Company's benchmark, the MSCI EM Latin America Index, returned +5.3%1 on a net basis (all performance figures are in sterling terms with dividends reinvested).

The positive performance of Latin American equities was led by Argentina, Brazil and Chile and was driven by a global rebound and slight increase in mobility trends after distancing measures continued to be lifted.

Stock selection in Brazil contributed most, while stock selection in Argentina detracted most on relative returns over the period. An off-benchmark holding of GOL Linhas Aereas Inteligentes, a Brazilian low-cost airline, was the top contributor on a relative basis as the stock was up +53% over the month. We've noted some rotation into lagging sectors, while the company has also benefitted from industry consolidation and a more insulated, domestically focused route list. An off-benchmark holding of Brazilian medical education group, Afya, also benefited relative performance as the company reported that it has enough candidates to ensure 100% occupancy for the second half of 2020 of in-take of medical students and already improved collections in 2020. On the other hand, an off-benchmark holding of Ternium, a steel company in Latin America, detracted most on a relative basis as a slower recovery for flat steel demand weighed on shares recently, given the risk that auto production will take longer to rebound to normalized levels. Not holding BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Latin America, within the portfolio weighed on relative performance during the month, as the company is looking to focus on fintech business and start a digital bank, which offers an upside to earnings growth.

Over the month we added to JBS, a Brazilian company that is the largest meat processing company in the world, as we see company's fundamentals improving given high US beef margins and increased protein exports to China. We initiated a position in the retailer, Via Varejo, on attractive valuations and company's ability to become a competitive player in e-commerce in Brazil. We cut our holding in America Movil, a Mexican telecommunication company, as we see signs of increasing competition, which create near-term headwinds. We sold holding of Brazilian healthcare operator, Notre Dame Intermedica, locking in profits after its strong performance. The portfolio ended the month being overweight to Brazil and Argentina, while being underweight to Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Peru. At the sector level, we are overweight to consumer discretionary and real estate, and underweight to consumer staples and financials.

The coronavirus and associated COVID-19 disease has spread throughout the world, prompting "social distancing" and often strict government control measures throughout developed and emerging markets, Latin America included. While China has been gradually easing restrictions since late February, most other emerging economies are still passing through the "peak lockdown" phase. Policy responses have been considerable, but many markets in Latin America, notably those reliant on foreign capital flows, face constraints in the scale of their response, in addition to questions about the robustness of their health systems. We have seen lockdowns easing modestly by June and expect more significant easing in the second half of the year. Most governments plan to do so on this timeframe, though it should be noted that almost everywhere, government control measures have been kept in place longer than originally envisaged. Activity in the industrial sector and in parts of services where "social distancing" is less of a concern should rebound relatively quickly. Still, we do not expect most economies to return to their pre-crisis level of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) until 2021. The extent to which policy action now limits business bankruptcies and a breakdown in the labour market will be an important differentiator of the speed of recovery.

Sources:

1BlackRock as at 30 June 2020

22 July 2020

ENDS

Latest information is available by typing www.blackrock.co.uk/brla on the internet, "BLRKINDEX" on Reuters, "BLRK" on Bloomberg or "8800" on Topic 3 (ICV terminal). Neither the contents of the Manager's website nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the Manager's website (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.
The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, has issued evaluation rules for blockchain-based financial applications.

Caixin reported the news on Wednesday, saying that the rules require financial institutions building blockchain applications to comply with three standards  technical, performance, and security.

These standards would collectively evaluate applications on parameters such as smart contracts, throughput, software, hardware, and privacy protection, among others. This initiative is to help financial institutions build top-level design of their applications, per the report.

The rules apply to banks, brokers, asset management companies, and payment firms, among other financial services domains. There are currently more than 70 Chinese financial services firms, including state-owned banks and tech giants, who are deploying blockchain-based financial applications. The rules will likely apply to all of them.

The Chinese government initially formed a national standards committee for blockchain in November, and later recruited 71 members for the committee, including executives from tech giants Baidu and Tencent. The government aims to promote "high-tech innovation" and lead the "high-quality development" of blockchain applications.



Last week, Beijings municipal government also released a 145-page blueprint outlining a plan to become a hub for blockchain innovation over the next two years.





 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
Going outside to sit by a pool, boating on a lake or just sitting under a shade tree are all good times to enjoy a beverage made in Oklahoma, where there are more than 57 breweries
A road called 'Bank Street' in a town's former financial district is set to lose its last high street bank - after 120 years.

Dozens of banks and building societies have dominated the historic street in Newquay in Cornwall since the late 1800s.

But the decline in counter transactions has seen them disappear one by one.

The raft of closures accelerated from 2015 with HSBC, Natwest and Lloyds all leaving and being replaced by rows of cafes and gift shops.

And the end of the era at Bank Street was confirmed this week when the last one standing - Barclays Bank - announced it would be shutting too.

It blamed a reduction in 'counter transactions' and said it would be gone in three months time.

Bank Street, in Newquay, is set to lose its last bank after 120 years as Barclays is set to close its doors in October. The street was once the town's financial district and packed with banks

 Slide me  The National Provincial and Union Bank of England, in Bank Street, is now a restaurant and bar

 Slide me  The former National Westminster Bank (left) building now sits empty in Newquay's Bank Street

Historians say Bank Street used to be 'jam-packed' and financial firms used to flock there.

But now, for the first time since the late 1800s, it will soon have no banks at all - with one local councillor saying it should be renamed 'Bankless Street.'

Barclays will close the branch on Friday, October 23, claiming only 45 customers use it exclusively and they will all be contacted with alternatives.

These include online banking, using the post office and visiting its remaining branch situated about a mile from the town centre.

But local councillor Geoff Brown said it was a sad day for the town.

He added: 'I am 66 and have lived all my life in Newquay. When I was younger it was always Bank Street for a good reason. It had the big four and lots of smaller banks as well like TSB. A lot of building societies were there as well.

'It was a genuine financial hub. I joke that it should now be called Bankless Street but with Barclays going we have no financial outlet in the town centre at all.

 Slide me  The Costa Coffee (right) now sits where once a Devon and Cornwall bank was located in Bank Street, Newquay. The street is set to lose its last bank in October when Barclays shuts its doors

'If you have one, it brings people in and as we struggle to recover from the coronavirus, it is another nail in the coffin. It is the end of an era as it is the last financial institution in the town centre gone.

'It was called Bank Street for a reason. They were built in the days when banks really valued its architecture and the buildings are superb. Most are now gift shops and cafes, but you only have to look up and see instantly that a bank was formerly housed there.'

Mr Brown said it was a 'hammer blow to the high street looking to rebuild after coronavirus'.

He said he had also written to the bank stressing 'those who are using it are the elderly and vulnerable'.

He added: 'Unfortunately it has followed the trend of all banks and driving people towards online and telephone banking.

'I haven written to Barclays after they said 85 per cent already use alternative means.

'My concerns is not with that, but with the other 15 per cent. I have spoken to people who banked with others on the street but pulled out and moved to Barclays when they left so they could have that face to face security.

Barclays Bank is the last one standing in Bank Street, Newquay but will be closing in October. The raft of closures has seen HSBC, Natwest and Lloyds all disappear in the last few years

 Slide me  This now-empty unit (right) was once an HSBC (left) in Bank Street before closing in 2017

'I am really concerned about our senior citizens in particular, some of whom are not adept at using internet banking and are more susceptible to being scammed.'

Len Sheppard, of Newquay Heritage Archive and Museum, added: 'The whole place was jam packed with banks and building societies when I worked there in the 1970s.

'Banks started appearing here in the late 1800s, so for over 120 years there have been banks on Bank Street.

'Right the way down Bank Street, from the 1880s this was the main financial street in Newquay.

Historian Len Sheppard of the Newquay Heritage Archive and Museum, says the street was once jam packed with banks

'Where the ice cream shop is, from the 1960s that was the Westminster Bank. Later on it became the Yorkshire Building Society, there was lots of merging in those days.

'Barclays was built as a brand new building.

'Costa Coffee was a Lloyd's and then it became a Devon and Cornwall Bank.

'Specsavers was a Portland Building Society in the 80s or 90s.

'The vast majority of people do stuff online now, but it's unfortunate for some of the older people who don't have online facilities. It will be an issue for some people.

'It will leave another empty building, some of the old banks are quite big and don't lend themselves to conversion.

'We've got to the stage where the street is full of coffee shops and restaurants, but we need a balance - we need other kinds of shops here too.

'For small businesses these buildings are too large, the rent will likely be about 40,000 per year and then you have the rates on top - that's a problem.'

Customers also expressed sadness at the news.

One said: 'Our kids won't know about walking into a bank paying bills and shops at this rate. Won't be any high street left, so sad.'

Customer Geoff Wright added: 'They will have to change the name to No Bank Street.'

The Wax Kitchen in Bank Street, Newquay, was once the site of a Lloyds branch before it closed

Barclays, the final bank in Bank Street, Newquay, is going to close its doors for good in October

Denise Evans, 76, retired, from Newquay, Cornwall, said: 'I'm sad to see the banks go - it's one of the few things I can remember from what it used to be like in the town.

'My bank has been closed for a while and it is inconvenient, but you always find a way to cope.

'With the banks gone I wonder what will be next.'

Gerrard Maxwell, 37, IT consultant from Kidderminster, said: 'It's a massive loss for the high street.

'I use online banking but it's still a loss because not everyone does. Some of the older people prefer to do it in person and they should be able to have the choice.'

Becky Evans, 28, a travel writer from London, said: 'It's a shame that the old institutions are dying, but in these times I'm not surprised that things are closing down. It's a struggle for businesses that need a high street presence like cafes or bakeries, so I'm not surprised.'

James Stewart, 25, a shop worker from Newquay added: 'It's a shame for sure, it's sad to see the high street looking empty.

'I can't say I used the bank recently though, so I guess I'm part of the problem.

'The trouble is that everything's online now, if banks are trying to save money then closing branches would be an obvious place to start.'
The coronavirus pandemic has created a supply and demand crisis for oil and gas worldwide as lockdown restrictions continue to mount.

The demand for oil has reduced by 23 million barrels per day since March 2020, consequently creating an imbalance in the commodity supply. According to Boris Ivanov, the industry has recorded the lowest prices in 15 years due to a decline in demand and a global oversupply. The major impacts are seen in the difficulties storing the commodity and in an all-time low in oil prices.

Oil capacity issues

One of the effects of the COVID-19 restrictions has been a severe shortage of pipelines and tanks used to store surplus oil due to the oversupply of oil products on a global scale. According to Boris Ivanov, the worldwide supply issue has seen traditional oil stores nearing breaking capacity. Using tankers as a form of storage has not been tested or proven to be effective and the Saldana bay oil storage terminal in South Africa has historically been used as an outlet for excess crude oil whenever there is reduced demand, but that facility has also reached nearly full capacity. The stock pileup caused by the demand and supply imbalance has the risk of overwhelming the oil industrys logistics as well as saturating the storage capacity

Due to the overwhelming capacity issues, there have been recommendations to reduce the production of oil and gas. Oil producers have been urged to cut daily production to meet low demands and deal with the commodities oversupply. According to the International Energy Agency, the demand for fuel is expected to drop, creating a risk of wiping out the demand growth experienced over the last decade. Boris Ivanov has hailed this decision as a necessary step in dealing with oils oversupply.

Effect on the world economy

The coronavirus pandemic has challenged the cornerstone of the worlds economies by disrupting businesses and operations. The low demand can have a devastating impact on countries relying on crude oil for revenue. Countries that rely on crude oil for revenue are especially impacted by the reduced demand due to the coronavirus pandemic and some oil-producing African countries have reported a reduction in the sale of crude oil, which means the storage tanks and pipelines remain overwhelmed unless the supply is also cut.

Preparing for the new oil world

Boris Ivanov has argued on the need for oil companies to adapt to the new oil world. With these new realities combined with technology and climate change awareness, oil companies have to adjust their operations.

Periods of dramatic change are an opportunity to embrace technology in the oil sector. The application of new technologies has been shown to improve efficiencies and to reduce inventory costs for large firms. Furthermore, the new oil reality is also under the microscope with increased discussion about green energy use. More firms are embracing renewable energy and more efficient use of crude oil. According to Boris Ivanov, the reduced demand in oil and gas presents businesses with an opportunity to implement green energy and to reduce carbon emissions. Many governments are looking at different ways of embracing energy transition as they reduce their dependence on oil and gas. With increased global warming, experts have reported that renewable energies are an opportunity to take over. It is highly likely that the demand for renewable energy will increase after the coronavirus pandemic due to the low demand for oil and increasing awareness of climate change.

Future Implications

Oil supply is predicted to continue outstripping demand as economic activities remain restricted across the world. Oil and gas companies have to prepare for the new reality after the coronavirus pandemic by investing in technology and green energy. They should be ready to modernize their processes and improve operational efficiencies to remain relevant. Furthermore, oil companies need to adapt their operations in line with the changing consumer preferences. As a result, the current inventory overhang requires market participants to reflect on the challenges of storing oil and its effect on the industry. Some oil companies have been turning to tankers to hold and transport the oil as a temporary solution to the problem. However, the extreme demand shock in oil markets means this solution will not last. Other probable solutions have seen oil producers considering paying buyers in taking the commodity instead of shutting down the operations.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 effect on the oil industry has caused plummeting prices and imbalances in demand and supply. While market experts expect the economy to recover and revive the oil industry, there are fears that prices will not return to where they were before the lockdown restrictions. As economies open up by lifting lockdown restrictions, demand for oil and gas will also increase to match the supply. However, it might take time before a turnaround on oil prices is reached. However, this industry has gone through several periods of market volatility without collapsing and one would hope will emerge from this pandemic stronger.
Following the installation of Femi Fani-Kayode as Sadaukin Shinkafi of the Shinkafi Emirate in Zamfara, traditional rulers aggrieved by the decision have been pulling out of the emirate.

Dr. Suleiman Shuaibu and Dr. Tijani Usman Danfodio, two of the leders, said Emir of Shinkafi Alhaji Mohammed Makwashe Isah acted unilaterally.

The action of the Emir has been generating a lot of tension in Shinkafi Local Government Area of the state, they said.

Again, the emir, the duo said, breached the traditional law of the emirate by giving the traditional title to Fani-Kayode in one of the hotels in Gusau, the state capital instead of in his own palace.

We held meeting with other traditional title leaders in Shinkafi emirate council who would also pull out of the council today, they said.

The emir will soon be taken to court of competent jurisdiction, alleging that Fani-Kayode had always been a sworn enemy of the north, as well as anti-Islam.

Fani-Kayode is a self-proclaimed minister of the Christian faith, and critic of what he believes is Fulani over-bearing politics in Nigeria.
Google appears to have ramped their censorship algorithms up to a ten on Monday and Tuesday by outright deleting pretty much all conservative and alt-media sites from their search results.





Just noticed Google has removed several conservative websites from search results (at least on my end, in the UK). RedState, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Human Events, and more - all like this for pages of results pic.twitter.com/v2PHFgZ3zY  Charlie Nash (@CharlieNash) July 21, 2020

Websites providing a left-wing perspective are also affected. MintPress News has a small link in the Wiki info bubble, but no links to the website (or any of its articles) in 8 pages of search results pic.twitter.com/KtMHbYwCbo  Charlie Nash (@CharlieNash) July 21, 2020



I noticed this on Monday night at around 9:00 pm. I tried to search Google for past articles I wrote on Tucker Carlson getting doxed by Antifa using "site:informationliberation.com tucker antifa" as the search term and not one single article showed up even though I've written about Tucker and Antifa multiple times.



Being blacklisted by Google isn't new (I've been algorithmically suppressed since at least 2011 when they unveiled the "duplicate content" excuse to suppress alt media) but being outright blocked from all results when using the "site:" operator was brand new.



The Daily Caller's Chuck Ross noticed the same thing on Tuesday:





An experiment on whether Google is blocking search results for conservative sites. Randomly picked Stefan Halper as a search term. NYT and WaPo have 96 returns combined. No results on @DailyCaller, though we've probably published his name 100 times. pic.twitter.com/5xUZaiZQeH  Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 21, 2020



As Mediaite reported, everything from Breitbart, The National Pulse, The Drudge Report, Newsbusters, The Bongino Report, and Human Events were affected but "[l]egacy media outlets  including The New York Times and Washington Post  did not appear to be harmed."



After getting called out by Senator Josh Hawley, Google said it was the result of a "technical error."





So whats this @Google? Let me guess, another algorithmic error? One that just happens to affect only conservatives pic.twitter.com/wgiKOSWUzN  Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 21, 2020

We are aware of an issue with the site: command that may fail to show some or any indexed pages from a website. We are investigating this and any potentially related issues.  Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) July 21, 2020

Today we became aware of an issue that impacted some navigational and site: operator searches. We investigated & have since fixed the bug. Contrary to some speculation, this did not target particular sites or political ideologies.  Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) July 21, 2020

We apologize for the concerns caused by this issue and appreciate it being brought to our attention.  Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) July 21, 2020



It's amazing how they just outright lie about the political censorship they've been doing for more than decade. It has been blatantly obvious for well over a year now they've compiled blacklists of every alt-media site and they openly announced as much in 2017.





Conservatives need to stop saying Google's results are due to "algorithms." Google enlisted a 10,000 strong "army" to censor content deemed "upsetting" or "offensive" or "fake news" back in 2017 -- and they did exactly that. @LibertarianBlue https://t.co/OZQaQ2svSe  Chris Menahan  (@infolibnews) August 30, 2018



As I reported at the time, Google announced they were enlisting a 10,000 strong army of "quality raters" to flag search results deemed "anti-semitic," "racist," "offensive," "upsetting," "anti-Islam," "fake news" and so on. Infowars was immediately deranked and Google actually came out and blamed a "rouge contractor" and reversed their decision shortly thereafter (they later went on to ban Alex Jones, Infowars' entire crew and fan clip channels from YouTube for "hate speech").



Google also blatantly artificially algorithmically boosts falsehood-filled, low-quality, phony "fact-checks" from propaganda organs like NewsGuard and MediaBiasFactCheck which no one would bother to read otherwise.



The other day, I searched "Information Liberation" and an error-ridden phony fact-check from NewsGuard that was a PDF file was the number one result. The "fact-check" dinged my site for reporting on a doctor claiming he was finding hydroxychloroquine effective (I made no claims about the drug's efficacy) and they cited the now-retracted Lancet study written by a suspected scammer and a porn star as proof I was wrong.



Google-owned YouTube doesn't even try to hide their bias. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has been systematically purging every popular right-wing channel on the entire site for over two years now.



As I reported last week, YouTube banned Roosh, Press For Truth, Martin Sellner and several others. Over the past two years they've banned tons of popular right-wing voices from Alex Jones and Red Ice to Christian channels like TruNews and Pastor Steven Anderson.





All Banned.



Stefan Molyneaux

Jared Taylor

Nick Fuentes

Alex Jones

Atheism is Unstoppable

Steven Anderson

Red Ice TV

E. Michael Jones

Roosh V

Radix NPI

Martin Sellner

James Allsup

Gavin McInnes

Owen Benjamin

The Ralph Retort

Cultured Thug

Xurious

The Great Order  Wolf Nationalist  (@WolfNationalist) July 14, 2020



They've carried out no similar purge of leftists and have in fact given them huge algorithmic boosts even though no one wants to watch their content.



So much content has been banned that BitChute, which hosts much of the content YouTube deleted, broke into the top 1,000 sites in the US just the other day.





According to https://t.co/BObmEBqH7J we have just become one of the top 1000 websites in the USA  Another 979 places to catch themtube pic.twitter.com/bWqp5wVAHv  BitChute (@bitchute) July 19, 2020

In addition to 980 in the US 

878 in the UK 

and a whopping 336 in Germany!  Guten Tag pic.twitter.com/X10AukMZjo  BitChute (@bitchute) July 19, 2020



We're only six weeks out from the first votes being cast in the 2020 election and Google has made it abundantly clear they're going to interfere in this election even more than they did in the 2018 midterms.



It's an absolute disgrace that the Republican Party is allowing this to happen.



Google's actions are blatant anti-trust violations and tortious interference and their interference in our elections is a thousand times more criminal than the actions of any Russians.



Follow InformationLiberation on Twitter, Facebook, Gab and Minds.
Were just two weeks away from the Galaxy Note 20 reveal and it seems like Samsung is planning to launch two variants this year.

Much like the Galaxy S20 Series, the Note 20 Ultra is also going to be part of plans. Even though the two phones have leaked in the past, there is one detail that was discovered recently which may just change the scope of gaming.

 Twitter_Jimmy Is Promo

Samsung and Microsoft have already been working together for various solutions and applications for Galaxy devices. However, this year we will see a new product that will appeal to every gamer out there.



According to WinFuture, the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will have native support for Microsofts Project xCloud service that lets users stream games. Microsoft will be announcing more plans for their game streaming service later this week and the fact that the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will be the first phone to support it, it will be the ultimate gaming phone to own.

Finally, mobile phone users will now be able to play console-level games via streaming without having to worry about the hardware and battery life constraints.

 Twitter_Samsung

The Galaxy Note series is already known for being a productivity beast, thanks to the S Pen and a range of features no other phone currently offers. It is particularly the reason why Galaxy Note users have always stuck with this phone due to the fact it provides the flexibility of a phone and a mini-tablet.



Samsung will likely position the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra as a phone that is meant for both professionals and gamers. If the Project xCloud leak does come true, users will be able to play their favourite games anywhere as long as they are connected to the internet.

 Microsoft Xbox

Will you play Xbox games on the Galaxy Note 20 even if it means you may have to rely on streaming for the time being? Do you already own an Xbox One or are planning to purchase the Xbox Series X when it launches? The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra may just be the perfect phone for you to complete the Xbox ecosystem.



Source: WinFuture
The self-proclaimed anti-feminist lawyer Roy Den Hollander positioned himself as a key figure in mens rights activism, a movement animated by grievances that men are ceding their rights to feminism writ large.

Den Hollander, 72, died this week from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after a shooting at U.S. District Judge Esther Salas home left her son dead and her husband in critical condition. Den Hollander, who once described Salas as a lazy and incompetent Latina judge," is suspected of carrying out the shooting.

Investigators are also looking into whether Den Hollander was behind the fatal shooting of lawyer Marc Angelucci, vice president and board member of the National Coalition for Men and the founder of the National Coalition for Men Los Angeles chapter, at his Crestline, California, home on July 11, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. The shooter dressed as a delivery driver in both attacks.

Den Hollanders beliefs, according to multiple reports, were steeped in outwardly misogynist ideologies: For instance, he published a 152-page screed titled the Cyclopedia filled with anti-feminist thought.

The most notorious lawsuits he was involved in  filed in the span of a decade  involve a litany of grievances, from allegations that womens studies in universities violated Title IX legislation to ladies nights at bars and clubs being discriminatory to men.

What is an 'incel'?: A Canadian teenager has been charged with terrorism inspired by the online movement

He also was involved in a case that made its way to Salas' desk, one in which he challenged the all-male draft. Salas ruled in 2019 that the lawsuit could proceed days after a judge in Texas declared the male-only draft unconstitutional in a case brought by two men. Den Hollander reacted positively to her decision.

An attorney found dead in Rockland, New York, may be involved in the fatal shooting of Judge Esther Salas' 20-year-old son.

Multiple experts have noted that anti-feminism espoused by men often carries the threat of violence, and has been pushed into the mainstream atter tragedy and massacre.

Story continues

In 2014, Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old man motivated by resentment toward women, shot and killed six people  including three women  on the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus. He then fatally shot himself.

In Canada, Marc Lepine, a 25-year-old Montreal man, killed 14 women in 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school, because he said he was motivated by "fighting feminism."

Police found Den Hollander's body hours after the shooting at the Salas home. Officials said it is possible Den Hollander, who claimed he had terminal cancer, had decided to target his enemies, the New York Times reported.

His death has put a spotlight on the worldview he espoused throughout his life and questions as to what the movement actually stands for.

What is men's rights activism?

Men's rights activism is essentially a movement based on the belief that men are losing power and status because of feminism.

In this worldview, wrote B. Ethan Coston, assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women's studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and Michael Kimmel, professor of sociology at Stony Brook University in New York in a paper discussing Hollander in 2013, feminism was "a political strategy to take power and an individual lifestyle that despised and denigrated men."

Coston told USA TODAY that modern men's rights activists (MRAs) "tend to believe fairly strongly that feminism is a movement towards 'women's supremacy'."

Where did the mens rights movement originate?

Juliet Williams, a professor of gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the mens rights movement was borne out of the fight for womens rights in the 1960s and 1970s, encompassing reproductive choice, the civil rights movements and Title XI legislation, the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on gender in school programs.

The men's rights movement is best understood as a reactionary movement that emerged into real visibility in the wake of the accomplishments of feminist legal reformers, she said, who were able to, after not just decades, but centuries of struggle, to ensure that all of the rights that are accorded to people are extended without regard to sex."

Crime scene tape surrounds the home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas on July 20 in North Brunswick, N.J.

Srimati Basu, a gender studies professor at the University of Kentucky, said some male members of the men's movement were involved in the groundbreaking National Organization for Women, which formed auxiliary groups to support men's rights.

A key figure was Warren Farrell, a former NOW board member who wrote 1974's "The Liberated Man" and 1993's "The Myth of Male Power." In both, he argued that male power was overstated  and that men were larger victims in American society than women.

What are their biggest grievances?

Theres a spectrum of attitudes and positions within the men's rights movement.

Coston says that for the most part, the key points that men's rights activists (MRAs) have focused on are child support and custody issues, intimate partner and dating violence in which men are victims, and military service requirements.

But, largely, mens rights activism is centered on the perception that as women and minority groups gain rights, men  primarily white men  begin to lose theirs.

There are all kinds of very important questions to be asking about boys and men about the effects of gender socialization which confer certain advantages, but also lots of disadvantages, Williams said.

For example, Basu says custody battles often revolve "around accusations that women always get preference in custody decisions," among many men right's activists, who claim that women seek custody of their children "both for revenge and to get more money."

And it is at this point, Williams contends, that arguments steeped in legitimate concerns curdle into something based on hate and misogyny.

What you see there is what happens when people take the idea of equality and they willfully depoliticize it, she said.

What do men's rights activists say about race?

In many ways, Williams argues, fundamental to the understanding of the Den Hollander's views is the mix of race and sex-based animus. To her, it's "another very bracing reminder of how accepted hatred is as just another point of view in our society."

Den Hollander's seeming disdain for Salas may have been informed by his views toward Hispanic and Latino judges.

Female judges didnt bother me as long as they were middle age or older black ladies," he wrote in one screed published in 2019. "Latinas, however, were usually a problemdriven by an inferiority complex.

Salas, who was nominated to the United States District Court for New Jersey by President Barack Obama, is the first Hispanic woman to serve as a federal judge in New Jersey.

The Southern Poverty Law Center also notes that xenophobia and racism are not uncommon in parts of the men's rights activist movement, citing examples such as one group calling for the removal of Black people from the country.

Contributing: Diane Pantaleo and Nate Chute, Bridgewater Courier News; Jordan Culver, Hannah Gaber, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Roy Den Hollander: What is men's rights activism? How did it start?
Find fundamental solutions to stop distribution center fires



Less than three months after 38 workers were killed in a fire at a warehouse construction site in Icheon, 80km southeast of Seoul, a similar accident occurred Tuesday. A fire broke out at a distribution center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, leaving five workers dead and eight others injured. The fire started at the SLC Distribution Center in the city Tuesday morning when 69 employees were working mostly on its fourth basement level.



All of the victims were discovered on this basement floor where the fire started after an explosion in a truck that was loading frozen processed foods. It was not immediately known what caused the fire at the nine-story building with five underground floors. But it's certain that this fire is another manmade disaster caused by our deep-seated evil practice of putting profits ahead of human lives, speed above accuracy and a basic ignorance of (or lack of attention to) safety practices. And all this is in parallel to the government's irresponsibly lax supervisory controls.



Given that President Moon Jae-in vowed to do whatever he could to prevent industrial disasters in April at the time of the Icheon warehouse fire, it's sad to see innocent workers fall victim to a conflagration yet again. This is just a reminder that the reality facing them in industrial sites remains the same as ever, despite all sorts of measures being pledged amid calls for self-reflection whenever large-scale safety disasters occur.



The repetition of similar incidents is certainly attributable to half-hearted commitments to safety by both the government and businesses. A distribution center is prone to a deadly fire owing to stacks of flammable material and products and poor ventilation, apart from the fact that it is a closed space. Few seem to believe any longer the government's clamorous preventive measures and promises to stop similar fires. The authorities concerned ought to have a fresh round of soul-searching about why inadvertent disasters have cost so many lives so far and come up with fundamental solutions.


I am probably being melodramatic here, but I cant think of a better way of putting this. My birth was political.

I am the first child of my parents and the legend goes that the celebrations on my arrival were rather muted.



My fathers two sisters, one older and one younger than him, made it clear they were disappointed my mother hadnt produced a son for their brother. The lack of appreciation for biology remains and not being able to produce a male is still blamed on mothers!



A year and ten months later, my sister arrived. My aunts said my mother had set up a girls school in their brothers home.



For reasons that I have never been able to decipher, they did not resent my sister being a girl as much as they resented me not being a boy. Something to do with the status of a firstborn in the part of the country I come from.



If my father was disappointed I was not a boy, he never let on and did nothing to show that I was anything else but his beloved daughter.



In the end, the boys did arrive and my parents had the same number of boys as girls. Maybe not in the order that they would have preferred, but I think my aunts were eventually reconciled to my existence.



My two aunts, by the way, were tough, fiercely independent, articulate and dynamic women who had a reputation for not shirking from any argument ever.



One of my earliest memories remains a scene of a gathering in the village when the younger one of my aunts, in full flow, (a sight to behold), reduced a grown man, seated among the chiefs and elders, to a stuttering silence.



In other words, my aunts did not let their being female keep them down; so why did they not want their brother to have daughters like them?



News



Last week, a news item generated from an article published in the celebrated medical journal, the Lancet, managed to share the headlines with COVID-19.





The story said it was being predicted that the worlds population would shrink in the second half of this century.



It is an interesting story that is worth reading, especially the countries that have been identified, mostly in Europe, to have dramatic falls in their population because the fertility rates there are falling.



We in sub-Saharan Africa, according to this study, are predicted to continue in our merry way with rapidly growing populations. Indeed, Nigeria is projected to reach population figures more associated with China and India.



This story hit the headlines days after World Population Day was celebrated on July 11 and was probably meant to tell us we might no longer need to worry about population explosion.



I am not in the least bit persuaded that there is any comfort to take from the proposition that if we in Africa continue to increase our population, other parts of the world would have to rely on us to make up for their falling workforce numbers through immigration.



I have even heard some say this increase in population will make us more powerful!! In other words, the African, the Black person, will become more powerful because our labour will be required in parts of the world whose population has fallen?



If we havent learnt anything from 400 years of dealing with the rest of the world, we might be lured into falling for such fallacy. Africans were taken in chains to the Americas 400 years ago as migrant labour.



After the Second World War, the British invited the descendants of freed slaves in the West Indies to come to the UK and work as migrant labour. Read up on the Windrush story and find out what happened to those who went and their children and grandchildren.



During this current crisis, our young people who are providing labour in the Gulf States and Lebanon are stranded and need to be brought home. We have always provided labour and it hasnt enhanced our situation in any way.



Manage



I would much rather we manage our population growth to match our economic growth and not dream about the export of labour for income generation.



This is a very roundabout way to lead me to what has been agitating my mind during this years celebration of World Population Day, the phenomenon of male sex preference in our society. Often, couples end up having far more children than they would have because the preferred sex child, often male, hasnt arrived.



Nature often displays a perverse sense of humour and some people end up with four boys, while others end up with six girls.



The East Asians took their preference for boys very seriously, the extreme example, of course being China, where the governments imposition of the One-child policy ended up in everybody wanting a male child as their one-child and they now have a lopsided male-female population.



We in Ghana do not get to the point of drastic interventions to kill female infants, but our answer to the male child preference has no better consequences if in wanting males, we end up having more children than we can look after.



Prioritisation



It is the prioritisation of boys that led to not sending girls to school or letting them drop out any time there was pressure on the family budget.



Gradually, ever so gradually, the girls are now going to and staying in school and are demonstrating that it is in the interest of the country and the economy, especially, that we educate the females, as well as the boys.



We just need to take the next crucial step and accept that we dont need to have more children because we want boys. Lets just admit we need females to make our lives run.



We shall be able to better manage our population if we put the same value on the birth of girls as we do on boys.



Some people will doubtless end up with two girls, but others will have two boys. Nature has a way of making things even out in the end.

Source: Daily Graphic









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The Government has been accused of seeking to muzzle the Opposition by restricting the numbers of TDs sitting on 24 Dail committees, due to be announced tomorrow.

Opposition parties have slammed as outrageous the attempt by the new Government to reduce their say in how the Dail and its committees do their work.

A row broke out at the Dail Reform Committee today when Government chief whip Jack Chambers refused to accept Opposition suggestions to increase the numbers of committee members to ensure greater diversity.

The Fianna Fail parliamentary party heard last night that the committees will be formed with proportional representation, meaning the Government will have a majority on them.

Catherine Murphy, co-leader of the Social Democrats, told the Irish Examiner it was a blatant case of majoritarian-ism by the Government.

Over the past four years, so much work got done by way of consensus which avoided many rows on the floor of the Dail, she said.

"This Government is seeking to undo all of that good work and return it to the bad old days where many voices will be shut out."

Ms Murphy warned that under the Governments plan, many Opposition TDs will not have a place on any committee, which she said was hugely disappointing.

It is particularly galling that the Green Party  who seek to champion diversity of opinion and democracy  have signed up to this.

It is understood that the Government parties will have seven TDs and four senators on each of the committees.

The coalition parties  Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, and the Greens  will nominate four TDs, with Sinn Fein nominating two TDs.

All other groups and independents, totalling 39 TDs, would battle it out for just one spot for Opposition TDs on each committee.

The Opposition groups raised their concerns in writing to the Government chief whip and proposed that increasing the allocation of spaces for TDs from seven to eight would address their concerns.

As a matter of principle, we feel every member should have the opportunity to sit on a committee, the letter stated.

We believe the best solution is to increase the size of committees to 12, with eight TDs and four senators making up the membership.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Village of Wellington Mayor Hans Schneider and Lorain County Commissioners have called for the cancelation of the Lorain County Fair due to COVID-19 concerns, but the fair board says the show will go on.

Schneider posted an open letter on his Facebook page last week stating that it is too risky to hold the fair in August because of the potential for COVID-19 to spread among attendees and residents.

More than 100,000 people attend the fair each year. Schneider said in an interview. Many of them will buy supplies and gas in Wellington, potentially exposing residents who dont attend the fair to the risk of contracting COVID-19. If a person who attends the fair is later diagnosed with COVID-19, contact tracing would be extremely challenging, he said.

The fair will find a way to reach everybody in the village, whether they go to it or not, he said. Its an unnecessary risk this year.

Lorain County commissioners joined Schneider in calling for the cancellation of the Lorain County Fair because of coronavirus concerns. Schneider reached out to the commissioners after posting his open letter on Facebook.

I wholeheartedly agree with the mayor, commission president Lori Kokoski said during the commissioners meeting Wednesday, which was held virtually.

Commissioner Sharon Sweda said it was the fair boards responsibility to support community health. The fair will not help to bring down the COVID-19 case numbers in Lorain County, Sweda said. Commissioner Matt Lundy agreed that the fair should be put on hold.

Lorain County Fair Board President Kim Meyers believes that the fair can be held safely, according to an interview with ideastream. The fair shouldnt become another casualty of the pandemic, which has caused the cancellation of so many events, Meyers said.

We think its important to our community to have it too, to give them back something that they like and they can look forward to and kind of bring them back to a little bit of normalcy, Meyers told ideastream.

Fair employees will be required to wear masks and gloves, and attendees will be encouraged to socially distance and wear masks, Meyers said.

The Lorain County Fair Board is a private entity; Schneider acknowledged that he has no authority to shut down the event. The fairground is located on the border between the village and Wellington Township, Schneider said.

During Wednesdays coronavirus briefing, Gov. Mike DeWine said he had spoken that morning to representatives of all upcoming county fairs to warn them to follow the states protocols for county fairs.

DeWine said he doesnt want to close county fairs, but he has heard reports of fairs that are not following the states guidelines for operating safely. Nearly 20 cases of COVID-19 arose from one fair, and he has seen photos from another where social distancing was not practiced. DeWine did not specify which fairs he was referring to.

Ive seen grandstands full of people, he said. You have to follow the rules.

If there are so many people in attendance that social distancing is impossible, fairs will have to shut the doors and not let more people in, DeWine said. The state granted extra funds to state fairs this year to help them operate safely during the pandemic, he said.

As county fair season approaches, county fairs across Northeast Ohio are deciding how to operate safely amid a global pandemic. Some are cutting days and hours, eliminating some activities or limiting attendance.

Heres a summary of how fairs are adjusting due to the pandemic. Check each fairs website for revised schedules.

Cuyahoga County Fair

The fair, scheduled for Aug. 11-16th in Berea, was canceled in May due to pandemic concerns.

The Great Geauga County Fair

The fair is still scheduled for Thursday-Labor Day, Sept. 3-7 in Burton, but some activities and shows judged to be high-risk have been postponed, according to the fair website. Grandstand seating will be limited to 50% capacity.

Lake County Fair

The event will run for only three days, Tuesday-Thursday, July 28-30, in Painesville. It ran six days in 2019. The fair will be a Junior Fair exhibition for youth projects only, with no public admission. All on-site events will be limited to Junior Fair participants, their immediate family and exhibition officials, the fair board said in a letter posted on the fair website.

As disappointing as this decision is, we hope it demonstrates our dedication to keeping our community safe while honoring the incredible efforts of our Junior Fair youth, the board said.

Junior Fair participants will be able to take part in an online auction to sell their livestock, the fair board said.

There will be no amusement rides, grandstand shows, Senior Fair competitions for adults or commercial vendors.

Lorain County Fair

Some concessions, vendors and sponsors have canceled their appearance at the fair due to the pandemic. The fair will be held Sunday-Sunday, Aug. 23-30, in Wellington. See the website for a full list of cancellations.

Medina County Fair

The fair is back on. The fair board voted June 3 to postpone this years event, but a week later voted to rescind the earlier decision and hold the fair on its original dates, Monday-Sunday, Aug. 3-9.

Some entry categories are canceled, such as flowers, culinary, rabbits, dairy goat and beef. Also canceled are the arm wrestling and donut eating contests, kiddie tractor pull, 4-H milkshake booth and milking parlor. There will be no amusement rides on Aug. 9. See the website for a complete list of cancellations.

Summit County Fair

The fair has been shortened by one day and reduce daily hours, said fair board director Cathy Cunningham. It will run Wednesday-Sunday, July 29-Aug. 2, in Tallmadge.

Gone are the pet parade, roller derby, Baby Day, kiddie tractor pull and other traditional activities, Cunningham said. The Farm Bureau Museum, which displays a vintage pharmacy, soda fountain and classroom, will be closed.

The Junior Fair will allow youth to display their 4-H and Junior Fair projects. Open Class, which invites adults to enter sewing, vegetable, flower, food and animal projects, is canceled, Cunningham said.

Attendance will be limited to 5,000 a day. Last years attendance was 41,729 over the fairs six-day run, she said.

Cunningham isnt sure how much money this years Summit County Fair will lose, but the fair board has already lost $85,000 in revenue over canceled fairground events.

Weve cut a lot of things that bring people, Cunningham said about the fair. Hopefully, people still come out and enjoy what we have.
Deal also includes increased parental leave of 16 weeks for primary carers

Some workers get 15 to 20 per cent boost to night shift allowances

Workers will also receive a 6.75 per cent pay rise as part of the four-year deal

Community and Public Sector Union deal applies to about 42,000 workers

Public servants in COVID-19 ravaged Victoria have won an extraordinary pay deal that will see taxpayers fork out for workers to undergo gender transition.

Under a deal brokered by the Community and Public Sector Union with Labor Premier Daniel Andrews, bureaucrats will be able to take 20 days off while changing their gender.

As Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services comes under fire for bungling the state's COVID-19 response, its staffers have been rewarded with a new four-year deal which includes a two per cent public sector wage rise.

Public servants wishing to undergo gender transition will be paid for a full month while they do so - with the Victorian taxpayer picking up the tab

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas said the agreement recognised the contribution the state's public servants had made during the current pandemic. Pictured: Department of Health and Human Services workers in Melbourne

In reality, with additional perks, the cash value of the deal is worth well over three per cent in the first year.

Included in the deal is up to 10 days of paid leave for members of the First People's Assembly of Victoria.

The organisation was set up last month to 'formally recognise historical wrongs and ongoing injustices' against Aboriginal people.

The Assembly is made up of 'proud Aboriginal leaders' tasked with establishing a treaty with the state and federal governments.

Victoria is the first state or territory to undertake such a commission.

The First Nations Assembly of Victoria voted last month for a truth and justice process.

The Bangerang Wiradjuri co-chair of the assembly, Geraldine Atkinson, told The Guardian the group would consult with the community to determine its scope and form.

'There are things that we havent been able to talk about,' Ms Atkinson said. 'We havent talked about the frontier wars. We havent talked about the massacres. We havent talked about displacement, you know about the policies of protection and assimilation.'

While most public servants will no doubt welcome the new pay deal, some have expressed dismay at the two proposed 'improvements'.

'While Victorians are suffering amid the COVID crisis, public servants are getting a pay rise,' one told Daily Mail Australia.

The worker claimed an email sent to public servants deliberately omitted reference to the gender transition and treaty benefits.

Public servants will be paid to help organise a treaty for Aboriginal people. Pictured: An Aboriginal protester in Brisbane

Part of a new deal with public servants will help members of an Aboriginal group establish a treaty with the government

'They're scared the tabloids will get a hold of it,' the worker said.

Transgender Victoria media representative Sally Goldner welcomed the inclusion of the paid leave for people undergoing gender transition.

'It is certainly a medical and health situation that could require leave so certainly it needs to be covered,' she said.

Ms Goldner said the period of leave provided was sufficient for a person to undergo surgery.

'But it could be for other purposes as well in terms of other medical appointments,' she said.

Ms Goldner said the transgender community would love to see more private enterprises adopt the leave entitlements.

'It needs to happen ... to not give transgender people the support they need, I think would be seen as unfavourable treatment.

'And of course it is an investment in your employee long term because once they're able to complete what they need to do, they will come back and we have found inevitably people are far more productive,' she said.

The new pay deal will benefit about 42,000 public servants across various state departments.



Over the period of the deal, public servants will receive a 6.75 per cent pay rise in the first 18 months out of total funding of 13 - 13.58 per cent over the four-years.

Among the increases are 'mobility payments' that will range from $757 a year for junior public servants to more than $2800 for high earners.

The mobility payments are designed to 'facilitate the ongoing employment of staff who may be displaced through organisational change and/or reprioritisation of budgets', according to the CPSU.

The deal comes just weeks after significant pay rises worth tens of thousands of dollars were gifted to 238 Victorian public service executives.

The deal for rank and file workers includes a boost to night shift allowances from 15 to 20 per cent.

A notice from the CPSU informing members of their new benefits

Premier Daniel Andrews' Victorian government has negotiated the deal with the Community and Public Sector Union

Victorians continue to struggle through the COVID-19 pandemic with many being forced into unemployment and others taking significant pay cuts

Those expected to benefit include DHHS child protection workers, who have come under fire over the past year for failing Victoria's most vulnerable children.

Among those failures was the tragic story of an autistic teenager who was abandoned by his state-controlled carers and spent his days ordering heavy earth-moving vehicles.

Daily Mail Australia exposed the scandal in March, revealing the high-needs youth had lived for extended periods alone in a motel when not housed among drug-using and violent criminals.

The new deal will also see parental leave increased to 16 weeks for primary carers, with superannuation paid in full for their time off work capped at 52 weeks.

Secondary carers will also be entitled to 12 weeks parental leave if they take on the main parenting duties before their child is 18 months old.

Other benefits include pre-adoption leave, guardianship and permanent care leave, foster and kinship care leave and surrogacy leave.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas said the agreement recognised the contribution the state's public servants had made during the current pandemic

In a notice sent to CPSU members on Tuesday, the union crowed about its latest deal.

'The agreement will deliver improved salaries and new conditions over the next four years after extensive and detailed negotiations in the past months, but in realty it's been the sum of twelve months of negotiations,' it stated.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas said the agreement recognised the contribution the state's public servants had made during the current pandemic.

'Our dedicated public servants are working around the clock to protect Victorians from the coronavirus crisis  they have never worked so hard, and never have they been so critical,' he said.

'This agreement complies with the governments wages policy, and ensures a fair deal for workers.'

A workplace ballot will now determine if the agreement is accepted by the workforce.
By Rahmat Bhat, TwoCircles.net

Like a jewel in the crown of a king, sits the beautiful valley of Karnah at Shamsbari range in north-west Kashmir. Located in district Kupwara, this tehsil is nearly 175 kilometres away from summer capital Srinagar. The long stretch of a road ending at Sadhna pass and Chowkibal is prone to multiple disasters. Avalanches, landslides and accidents are everyday events while crossing the hilly tract to Karnah.

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Life without adventure is bland and the complexity of life increases if the routine gets smooth. Risking it for a need is the norm in steep landscapes and gorges. The scattered settlements around the mountains have such tenacity and grit which is required to survive in this terrain. It is amazing to know that king Karan of Mahabharata and Lord Krishna travelled so far to give the town its name Karnah and the name Kishenganga to the river that flows here. There is also a bridge named after the Pandav. Later Buddhism graced the place as the fourth Buddhist council was held in this region. This later led to the establishment of the Sharda University. Then came Islam, which continues to be practised till today. This brief flashback is a reflection that this region absorbed and reflected the transformation occurring in the subcontinent, be it in the ancient, medieval or the modern period.

Unfortunately, in contemporary times due to varied reasons, Karnah has missed the opportunity to prosper like other regions. The sound of shelling and cross-firing on nearby LOC resonates on a regular basis is a constant reminder for people of the political turmoil on either side. The people of Karnah are well aware of their strategic location and the ensuing enmity between the borders. However, they hold no bitterness for either. This ancient site was once a prosperous trading point between the subcontinent and the rest of the world. The fate of border towns elsewhere in India is similar and the inhabitants have suffered the wrath since 1947. The year of Independence for the subcontinent from the yoke of colonial British rule was, in reality, a year of division for the frontier regions.

The journey to Karnah is adventurous and the most striking observation one makes is at the Sadhna pass where the valley of Karnah is cut off from the Kashmir region. It is another independent trough, like a valley that has been geologically carved out. The border is closer to Pakistan from here and is uneven. Karen and Machil are again part of this landlocked landscape. Teetwal is the farthest point from the Indian side. It is at this place where the emotional sentiments rise high just to see your blood relatives standing across the border without any hope of meeting them. The only gesture probably is you can wave at each other. These gestures mean that we are alive, we are fine and we are separated. They are destined to live across the same river, utilise the same water resource, cultivate the same landscape but cannot share or celebrate life together.

The tomb of Sufi saint Sain Mitha Baji that lies at the river bank between Pakistan and Karnah unifies both sides in mystic thought and through yearly Urs held here. One may stand on the bank at either side for hours  gaping and longing for the other side. It is surprising to know that the fields of Sadpora remain isolated or independent from sunset to sunrise when the Indian gates are locked from behind. This village known as forward Sadpora stands aloof and alone till the morning. The farmers of Dhani Sadpora have a unique way of watering their fields. The water is pumped through the Pakistani side towards the Indian fields for a price. The money for use of water resources is pooled from farmers, tied in a bag and thrown on the other side. Lately, an attempt was made by the Indian army to pump out water by installing a motor. This effort could not achieve its motive fully and the traditional method of buying water from the Pakistani border village continues.

Remarkably the topography and the endowments of this valley are hidden treasures of Kashmir. After visiting this place, it appears like the paradise has a beautiful palace with the doors locked and gates shut. The locks seem to be tightened every now. The security measures are beefed up at every step from here. The common folk are unaware of the enmity but understand the broader contours of political differences. The meandering river Kishanganga/Neelam and LoC divided their lands, families and saints. Yet their hearts on either side beat in resonance and they eagerly wait for their kith and kin to return from the other side. This quiet sleeping town was once full of traders and businessmen who have fled the region since 1947. The demand and supply for commodities and the prospects for commerce remain dormant. The political lines of control have silenced the opportunities to connect and grow in tandem. The people of Karnah are inaccessible due to inclement weather and climate. The hilly tracts are closed very often. Life moves with a different pace here.

The huge mountains and their greenery at the backyard of every house leave one mesmerized. In the post disaster-hit world the authorities, the trading lobbies and the political heads must relook at the potential prospects of this border town. This subdivision must be replaced as a trading link, a tourist hub and strategic road link rather than a mere defence cross-fire station. Establishment of military outposts is inevitable but it attracts no harm if the region is opened for Kashmir and Jammu for legible interests. The construction of a tunnel at Chokibal probably could solve a major problem.

In the socio-economic background of the present world, there is no wisdom in keeping one of the strategic locations underdeveloped and out of reach. This reminds one of the Belt and Road Initiative of the neighbour. We can definitely have a Bridge and Tunnel Initiative if not a massive program at present. The upcoming political aspirants, representatives, environmentalists and trade merchants need to have a round table discussion before chalking out a plan for such places. Today you and I are no more strangers. We are interconnected with technology and transport. We gain and lose mutually. If this region develops, possibly it will benefit others too. The spillover or trickle-down of growth is visible in the immediate surrounding. Karnah is no exception but holds the key to greater prospects of connecting to the underbelly of central Asia. We need to look beyond Pakistan and that requires a broader plan to engage with other central Asian countries. It will be possible only if our neighbours agree to collaborate at that level.

The present conditions do not suffice to stretch out hands far and long in friendship towards either side. But till then we can open and unlock the closed doors for the region internally. Airlifting old, sick and pregnant ladies has come as a relief. Infrastructure, education and healthcare have been relegated to the background for the sake of security and defence. The peace of the common folk of this region is often disturbed by fighter jets day in and night. Karnah also lives a 2G life in the 4G world similar to other areas of the Union Territory during crisis times. Consolidation of national territory is the main concern for the political class and is traded off for the development of this subdivision. Nevertheless, the tehsil is moving at a snail pace amidst all odds of life.
Andrew Stuttaford at NROs Corner presents four passages that help explain the current rioting and other manifestations of hysteria that have been disrupting the U.S. this year. The first is the take of the University of Connecticuts Peter Turchin :

Turchin has warned that elite overproduction can be a precursor of turmoil to come. To oversimplify, this occurs when members of the elite (or those with the talents to join it) become too numerous for society to accommodate their aspirations. Thus, Turchin noted, the Arab Spring was preceded by a remarkable expansion of the numbers of university-educated youths without job prospects  in other words, by elite overproduction.

Recall that the two people arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail into a police car in New York City are unemployed law school grads, one of whom had been cut loose by a big law firm.

The second passage is this quotation from Ed West, deputy editor of UnHerd:

[w]hile around half of 18-year-olds are going onto college, only a far smaller number of jobs actually require a degree. Many of those graduates, under the impression they were joining the higher tier in society, will not even reach managerial level and will be left disappointed and hugely indebted. Many will have studied various activist-based subjects collectively referred to as grievance studies, so-called because they rest on a priori assumptions about power and oppression. Whether these disciplines push students towards the Left, or if it is just attending university that has this effect, people are coming out of university far more politically agitated. . . . [I]ts arguable that a tiny number of very intelligent people being taught the theories of Marcuse or Foucault is probably going to have a limited social impact; when these ideas are disseminated among huge numbers of the young, many of them conformists sensitive to the social cues around them, then quite extreme ideas about dismantling society become normalised.

(Emphasis added)

Especially when the groundwork for these ideas has been laid at the K-12 level.

The next passage is from Michael Lind, author most recently of The New Class War: Saving Democracy From The Managerial Elite:

The goal of so-called progressivism in 2020s America is to expand employment opportunities for college-educated, center-left professionals, while adding new wings to the welfare state that are tailored to their personal needs. The slogan Defund the police is interpreted by the bourgeois professional left to mean transferring tax revenues from police officers, who are mostly unionized but not college-educated, to social service and nonprofit professionals, who are mostly college-educated but not unionized. The enactment of proposals for free college education and college debt forgiveness would disproportionately benefit the professional bourgeoisie, not the working class majority whose education ends with high school. . . I am not the first to observe that what were initially legitimate protests against the use of excess force and racism by particular police departments have turned into a campaign for greater funding for social-services jobs and diversity officer jobs for members of the professional bourgeoisie in their twenties and thirties.

(Emphasis added)

Finally, there is this from Ross Douthat of the New York Times:

Imagine yourself as a relatively privileged white person exhausted by meritocracy  an overworked student or a fretful parent or a school administrator constantly besieged by both . . .Wouldnt it come as a relief, in some way, if it turned out that the whole exhausting Alice in Wonderland Red Queen Race of full-time meritocratic achievement, in the words of a pseudonymous critic, was nothing more than a manifestation of the very white supremacy that you, as a good liberal, are obliged to dismantle and oppose? If all the testing, all the delayed gratification and perfectionism, was, after all, just itself a form of racism, and in easing up, chilling out, just relaxing a little bit, you can improve your life and your kids life and, happily, strike an anti-racist blow as well? And wouldnt it be especially appealing if  and here Im afraid Im going to be very cynical  in the course of relaxing the demands of whiteness you could, just coincidentally, make your own familys position a little bit more secure?

(Emphasis added)

The unifying theme here, as Stuttaford points out, is class struggle, albeit of a peculiar kind. But maybe not so peculiar. Revolutions have often by led, and to a considerable degree made, by people who think they have unjustly been denied entry into the elite strata and/or people who believe their class status is under challenge.

The theorizing Stuttaford presents reminds me of the explanation a Dartmouth professor offered in the late 1960s or early 1970s for the disruptive behavior of left-wing students at the time. The professor was Roger Masters, a Straussian as I would later learn.

If I recall correctly, Masters attributed the disruptive behavior of student radicals to impatience with having to wait so long to take their place in society coupled with uncertainty about where in the pecking order that place would be. This was a far more sophisticated explanation than the normal one  that we were scared we would end up fighting in Vietnam.

Whether Masters explanation was correct is another question. As one of the disrupters (though never a violent one), I am not an unbiased judge of the matter.

However, I do think that the sociological explanations Stuttaford presents, or some of them in some combination, go a long way toward explaining the current madness.
A further 17 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in Ireland as over 15 million people have now been infected worldwide.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) were notified of 17 confirmed cases of Covid-19 bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Ireland to 25,819.

The HSPC reported that one person with Covid-19 has died. There have now been a total of 1,754 Covid-19 related deaths in Ireland.

Dr Ronan Glynn, Acting Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said: "I appreciate how difficult it is for people to limit their social activities and to physically distance from friends and loved ones.

"These actions are vital to our collective effort to suppress this highly infectious disease as we work towards reopening our schools and our healthcare services, and to protect our healthcare workers who have been at the frontline of this pandemic over the past six months."

Worldwide, the number of recorded cases of Covid-19 has now reached 15.01 million. The toll of Covid-19 related deaths globally is now over 616,000.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has had another positive result for the coronavirus in the third test he has taken since falling ill on July 7, the Brazilian government said today.

US President Donald Trump, in a shift in rhetoric and tone, encouraged Americans to wear masks if they cannot maintain social distance and warned that the coronavirus pandemic would get worse before it got better.

Trump expressed a willingness to work with China or other countries to bring a successful coronavirus vaccine to the United States, despite rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.

The US government will pay $1.95bn (1.7bn) to buy 100 million doses of Pfizer Inc and German biotech firm BioNTech SE's COVID-19 vaccine candidate if they are able to successfully develop one, the companies said on Wednesday.

The University of Oxford's possible Covid-19 vaccine could be rolled out by the end of the year but there is no certainty, the lead developer of the vaccine said.

Meanwhile, news that the United States had ordered China to close its consulate in Houston fanned a bout of selling in equity markets on Wednesday, while the euro hit a 21-month high after the previous day's EU recovery fund deal.
Delhi High Court on Wednesday (July 22) issued notice to CBI in an appeal filed by Brajesh Thakur challenging his conviction in Muzaffarpur shelter home case.

The notice was issued by a HC bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar. The court will now hear the matter on August 25. It is to be noted that Thakur has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a lower court for the offences of gang rape of several girls at the shelter home.

Besides Thakur, five others were also awarded life imprisonment by Additional Session Judge Saurabh Kulshreshtha of the Saket court. Thakur was also ordered to pay a fine of Rs 32,200,00 by the lower court. Thakur headed a state-funded NGO named Sewa Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti which ran the shelter home at Muzaffarpur.

In his appeal, Thakur has claimed that the trial court conducted hearing in his matter in a "hurried manner" and thus violated his right to a free and fair trial. Thakur told the court that "the hurried manner in which the trial was conducted by the Special Judge, (POCSO), Saket was a flagrant violation of inter alia the right of the appellant to a free and fair trial guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and lawful applications and submissions/ requests made by and on behalf of the Appellant were dismissed in a mechanical manner without due application of judicial mind with a view to somehow conclude the trial."

Thakur also claimed in his appeal that the lower court did not appreciate the fact that a case relating to rape the prosecution must first and foremost establish that an accused is potent.

"The said fact (potent) needs to be established by the prosecution as a foundational fact without which the entire case of the prosecution will collapse. For that the Trial Court has failed to appreciate that there is no presumption under law that a person who is more than 50 years of age and admittedly suffering from high blood sugar has to be potent," the appeal said.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

The value of the Gold Coast Government Infrastructure Portfolio if paid today, will be enough to pay back all the Gold Coast/BlackShield/GCFM Structured Finance customers principal amounts PLUS all GN Bank/Savings deposits.

So lets focus on the SOLUTION and who must act. We must all encourage the government agencies and the present administration to meet their obligations to contractors involved.

This is not and cannot be an NPP/NDC matter. This is beyond politics. Its a life or death matter. No one should use politics as an excuse to freeze payments and projects. Pensioners, traders, soldiers, police officers, public servants, teachers, judges, MPs, students, professionals of all types and others have their principal amounts at stake.

The rule of law respects the sanctity of contracts. So contractors must be paid. That money will go straight to customers. The 2.4 billion Ghana Cedis does NOT belong to Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom or Groupe Nduom. Ghanaians must also ignore the Bank of Ghana propaganda about illegal transfers of funds abroad. Customers funds were invested in Ghana in credible projects, government bonds and enterprises.

That is why we are in court. To ensure that the liability is recognized to be what it is. And paid in order to meet the demands of customers. When this happens, the customers, Groupe Nduom and Government will all have peace of mind.

What is owed by private sector companies and individuals when recovered, will provide a return on BlackShield/GCFM customers investments.

These are the facts. Everyone must help recover funds to pay to customers.

Signed

GN Corporate Affairs
Police checked with a woman who called from a business on Brainerd Road. She said that while driving from her home in Georgia to her work she was being following by a white male in a white truck who appeared to be upset with her. She said she may have cut in front of him, but attempted to allow him to pass. She said he continued to drive aggressively and "flipped her off." She said that she was nervous that his actions would continue so she called Police. On arrival, the white male had left the area.* * *Police responded to an harassment complaint at Dana Lane.Officers spoke to a man who said his wife (he did not know her birthday) was harassing him. He said he went to a friend's house and his wife kept calling him and his friend harassing them and angry that he was not with her. He said they have been separated for a week and that he wanted her to know it is not okay to keep calling him. Officers informed him of disorder prevention and how to arrange one for himself.* * *In an incident report from Taylor Street, a man said his brother was bothering him and calling him names. He said he didn't call him names, he was just angry because he always has to clean up the house.* * *Police responded to E. 5th St. A woman reported an ex-friend sped by her house this morning harassing her. She said he constantly drives by harassing her by sticking out his tongue and middle finger.* * *Police intervened on a problem at a location on Bradt Street. A man said he and his girlfriend for over 20 years were in an argument over another female. The girlfriend said she was going to burn his clothes. The man wanted police to stand by so he could retrieve his belongings without an altercation, and before his property was set on fire. An officer met the man at the location, but both the front and back doors were locked, and no one was home. The man suggested that he could climb through his bedroom window that he leaves unlocked, and open the front door. The officer asked him if he could prove that he lives at this residence, since his driver's license states he lives on Arlington Avenue. He said he has mail inside the residence, proving that he lives here. He then removed the screen to the back bedroom window, and opened the window that he left unlocked. He opened the front door for police right away. He gave the officer a piece of mail that was addressed to him. He said he truly believed that the girlfriend was going to burn his clothes. He collected two bags of men's clothes and a box of Jordan shoes. After leaving through the front door, he went back and put the screen back on the bedroom window. The office gave him a ride to the address on Arlington Ave., where his sister was going to let him stay so he and the girlfriend could cool down.
Absent voter ballot returns already top 2016 total

Absent voter ballot returns already top 2016 total

JULY 22, 2020

Election workers needed to assist with mailed ballot increase, polling places

Absent voter ballot numbers continue to grow steadily ahead of the August 4 state primary, with more than 1.8 million requested and more than 600,000 already returned. The total number of absent voter ballots cast in the August 2016 state primary was just 484,094.

"The volume of absentee ballot requests and returns we're seeing underscores the near universal enthusiasm Michigan voters share for casting their ballot in a way that is safe, secure and convenient," said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. "I am encouraged that this enthusiasm remains unaffected by attempts to spread misinformation about the integrity and security of voting by mail. The numbers make it clear that voters trust our system and are eager to participate in it."

The 2016 primary was held before voters in 2018 amended the state constitution to allow all Michigan voters to cast ballots from home. The first statewide election after that amendment passed was the March 10, 2020, presidential primary, which occurred before there were any known cases of COVID-19 in Michigan. In that primary 1 million absent-voter ballots were issued, barely half of the 1.8 million already issued for August 4.

More election workers are needed to process the increase in absent-voter ballots, staff polling places, and serve in place of older or immunocompromised Michiganders who have done so in the past but cannot this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure safety for election workers and voters, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has provided gloves, disposable masks, spray disinfectant or disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizer and face shields, as well as protocols for hygiene and social distancing to all election jurisdictions. All election workers will wear masks and voters are strongly encouraged to do the same.

Secretary Benson encouraged Michiganders to serve as paid election workers through the Department of State's Democracy MVP initiative, which has already recruited more than 4,500 interested election workers. Anyone who registered to vote in Michigan, as well as all 16- and 17-year-olds, are eligible to be an election worker, and can sign up to do so at Michigan.gov/DemocracyMVP.

"Now more than ever, election workers are our most valuable players in the effort to help our elections run smoothly and ensure every vote is counted," said Secretary Benson.

Voters who already have a ballot at home are encouraged as soon as possible to fill them out, sign the back of the envelope, and then drop them off at their local election clerk's office or ballot dropbox. Clerk information can be found at Michigan.gov/Vote. Voters are encouraged to call before visiting to determine hours and if the office is operating by appointment.

Visiting the clerk's office is the fastest way to be issued an absent voter ballot, which can be voted and returned to the clerk in the same visit. Applications for absent voter ballots and accessible absent voter ballots are also available at Michigan.Gov/Vote.

Registered voters can vote early at their clerk office now through August 3, or at their polling place on Election Day, August 4. Those who haven't registered can register and vote in one trip to their clerk office now through 8 p.m. on Election Day, August 4. Within two weeks of the election, registration can no longer be done online or by mail.

"Voters can choose the way they prefer to vote this year and be absolutely confident it will be safe and secure," said Benson.

A side by side comparison of the absent voter ballot data 14 days before the 2020 and 2016 primary elections is below and a breakdown of the numbers by jurisdiction is available online.



Number of Applications Received

Number of Ballots Issued

Number of Ballots Returned

14 Days Before Election (July 19, 2016)

507,910

510,799*

215,500 14 Days Before Election (July 21, 2020)

1,862,268

1,842,866

607,079

*The 2016 number of ballots issued is greater than the number of applications received as it represents all ballots issued, including replacement ballots for those who requested to spoil their first.

# # #

For media questions, contact

Tracy Wimmer at 517-281-1876.

We welcome questions and comments at the Contact the Secretary of State page.

Customers may call the Department of State Information Center to

speak to a customer-service representative at 888-SOS-MICH (767-6424).
Beach revival underway in So. Calif: 'A return to a gritty, raw Gospel, Jesus people movement'

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A "beach revival" is underway in Southern California in what some say signals the beginning of a new Jesus movement.

Over 200 Christians recently gathered on the shore in Huntington Beach to worship God, hear the Gospel and learn how to share the Good News with others.

It first began as a vision God gave to its organizers, Parker and Jessi Green, four years ago. In the vision, the couple saw thousands of people being baptized along Huntington Beach Pier and large numbers of people receiving Christ, according to the Saturate OC website.

In January, Jessi Green sensed God say to her that He was shaking everything that could be shaken and that it would feel chaotic at first, she said in an interview Monday with The Christian Post.

"It would be like a threshing floor movement where God was going to start to separate the wheat from the tares," she said.

Jessi Green wrote down what she sensed, having no idea of the challenges that 2020 would present.

As part of California's response to COVID-19, on Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered a second lockdown mandating churches in 30 counties to again cancel in-person worship services as the state continues its ban on singing in churches that are allowed to remain open with restrictions in place.

Four years ago, Green and her husband were living in New York City and partaking in a 21-day fast that their church was doing. During a worship session amid this three-week fasting period, she had a vision of thousands of people being baptized at Huntington Beach. So many, in fact, that people were turning around and baptizing each other.

The vision was so overwhelming she wasn't even sure what to make of it  particularly if it was theologically advisable for that manner of baptizing to occur.

"The next revival would come through the equipping of the saints," she sensed the Holy Spirit say to her.

After that, the Greens felt burdened to disciple people. They quit their jobs in New York City and moved across the country to Huntington Beach and began to share the Gospel in the streets of southern California and start micro-churches in homes called SALT churches.

Green said she prayed to God, asking, "'When is this vision going to happen?'"

She told CP that she kept feeling God "pause it" and encourage her to continue to make disciples. But then last spring, during a night of prayer, she heard the Holy Spirit say to her: "Green light. The harvest is summer 2020."

The word was so clear that she felt as though she would be in disobedience to God if she didn't start moving on it.

Although not every Orange County-area pastor received news of their vision favorably at first, the Greens persisted in what they saw as their calling.

Saturate OC was soon born. They had planned to do a conference at a hotel in Huntington Beach earlier this year, but on the day Green was about to sign the contract to reserve the venue, the coronavirus pandemic was just beginning to spike in the U.S. and she called it off.

"I assumed that we were just going to cancel or postpone it and then I did a two-week fast and God said to me: 'Just because it looks different than what you thought doesn't mean that I lied when I told you [to give it] the green light.'"

After praying some more, they decided to host a weekly event on the beach every Friday in July. Momentum has grown with more churches participating in the past few weeks. Repentance and deliverance have characterized the past two gatherings.

"People were coming to the front repenting of sexual sin, and falling to the ground and not knowing why they are falling to the ground, and then feeling the presence of God in a way they've never experienced," Green said.

"And this revival is really moving among the children. We are seeing tons, and I would say within the last two weeks 60 children chose to be baptized  ages 3 years old to 16."

The vision for the Saturate OC initiative was to share the Gospel outside on the streets and not be a "one preacher kind of revival," but rather, a "ripple effect," she told CP.

While they have received some criticism about people not wearing masks and pressure to worship elsewhere, Green recounted a story she shared two Fridays ago where she and a few others were worshiping on the pier earlier in the week. A troubled woman named Connie who was nearby approached the group and ended up receiving Christ. She went to the event on a Friday, was baptized on a Saturday, and has now joined a home church.

"She was homeless, and so now she's being put into family," Green said, adding that she'd spoken with her recently and Connie relayed that her whole life has changed in one week.

"It mattered to Connie," Green wrote on her Instagram account, explaining why they chose to worship God outdoors on the beach, in response to objections they'd received from some.

Worship artist Sean Feucht, who has been leading worship with Saturate OC, believes the church is in a season that resembles the late '60s and '70s, a period in U.S. history marked by political strife, racial tension, government instability, and economic volatility.

"What we're seeing now is a return back to a gritty, raw Gospel, Jesus people movement foundation. A lot of that is in part because we can't be in our churches. We are kind of forced to be outside of our buildings and forced to be innovative and creative and come up with alternate solutions," Feucht said in an interview with CP on Monday.

"And I think what it's doing is stripping off the sheen and the polished nature of what we've built in America and it's allowing us to return to the simplicity to the power of the raw Gospel."

The worship leader recalled the story in Isaiah 6, while the prophet was distressed about the death of King Uzziah, and yet in that same year, Isaiah saw the Lord. Thus, despite the hardship surrounding the death of the noble king, there was a grace for a higher revelation for what was taking place in that time in history.

"I think people are having to choose faith over fear," he added.

"So now, if we unplug from the perpetual fear-mongering narrative of the media and we press into the heart of the Lord, I believe that He's still saying, 'the whole Earth is full of His glory.'"

The focus on God's glory is not escaping the challenges we all face, he said, but being aware of what God is doing.

"The church has been quarantined. We've been separated, isolated and alone. And society is crumbling. And for pastors and leaders to not understand that society is literally crumbling, I think, is a tragedy."

"The church has got to become courageous again and remove this Gospel that is wrapped in caution and self-preservation. I've spent enough time in persecuted nations around the world to know that that's not how those churches function. There's a real dividing line that is happening right now in the church and it's going to be really helpful. Who are the ones that are going to believe the Gospel and take a stand? And that's the side of history I want to be in."

Feucht, who ran for Congress last year but did not win his primary, said that lately it has been easy to lead worship because people have been so hungry to sing to God.

"Whether you're singing something from the '80s or something brand new that they've never heard before, people are engaging and they are not allowing their doctrinal stances or their denominational barriers get in the way. There's a real unity that we can access that is profound."

Organizers announced on Saturday that Saturate OC will be extended to Aug. 7.
(Newser)  More than 500 women at a federal medical prison in Texas have tested positive for the coronavirus, in one of the largest confirmed outbreaks at a federal prison, the Bureau of Prisons said. The number of confirmed cases at the Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth jumped to 510 on Tuesday, just two days after the Bureau of Prisons reported that 200 women there had tested positive for COVID-19, reports the AP. Three weeks ago, the prison had reported only three confirmed cases of the virus among inmates. One prisoner, Andrea Circle Bear, died in April. On July 12, 69-year-old Sandra Kincaid became the second woman to die there from the virus. The third, 51-year-old Teresa Ely, died Monday. One of the inmates who has tested positive is Reality Winner, a former government contractor serving a five-year sentence for mailing a classified report to a news organization.

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FMC-Carswell holds female inmates with medical and mental health issues. It currently has 1,357 prisoners. Since April, many inmates have told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that they were concerned the virus could spread through the prison. Last week, several women at Carswell said the facility did not have enough sanitizing supplies or protective equipment. The women also noted that cells are not immediately cleaned after someone tests positive. Inmate Sandra Shoulders said mattresses used by women who have tested positive are piled up in a TV room. "We feel basically abandoned," she said. "As with any type of emergency situation, we carefully assess how to best ensure the safety of staff, inmates and the public, the Bureau of Prisons said. "All of our facilities are implementing the BOPs guidance on mitigating the spread of COVID-19."

(Read more coronavirus stories.)
ERC-USA, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, today announced that NYU Winthrop Hospital (NYU) has agreed to treat one of its recurrent, refractory glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients with ERC's lead therapy, ERC1671, under federal and state Right-to-Try laws (RTT).

The expansion of ERC's RTT program makes its unique immuno-oncology GBM treatment, ERC1671, available to a wider number of patients who have exhausted all other treatment options. NYU joins the University of California, Irvine Medical Center and John Theurer Cancer Center Hackensack, NJ in treating recurrent, refractory GBM patients with ERC1671 under RTT. GBM is the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer and patients with this recurrent, refractory disease have very few options.

ERC1671 has demonstrated a clinically meaningful survival benefit among treated patients with minimal toxicity in phase 2 clinical trials. In June, ERC announced that it had submitted its Marketing Authorization Application for ERC1671 to the European Medicines Agency for conditional approval.

ERC will shortly publish a summary of its RTT experience that will include the total number of patients and median survival data. The Company previously communicated that oncologists are reporting that certain terminal patients treated with ERC1671 under RTT are experiencing unprecedented regressions of their disease. Normally, regression of recurrent glioblastoma is not experienced. One patient has already demonstrated a remission that is now in its eighteenth month with no sign of recurrence. The durability of these responses is still not known, but to the families of these patients the responses are unexpected and welcome, and they are restoring some normalcy to the lives of these terminal patients and their families.

"We are extremely eager to expand our RTT program to NYU Winthrop Hospital and we are encouraged and excited by the responses we've observed so far in RTT patients to ERC1671. As awareness of ERC1671 grows in the neuro-oncology community, we have been experiencing a major increase in requests for treatment under RTT protocols," commented Apostolos Stathopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of ERC Belgium, parent company to ERC-USA.

About ERC 1671

ERC1671 (Gliovac or Sitoiganap) is an advanced immunotherapy based on freshly extracted tumor cells and lysates that stimulates the patient's immune system to recognize and reject cancer cells. The ERC1671 contains a combination of autologous tumor cells (cells from the patient receiving the treatment), and allogeneic tumor cells, generated from the glioma tumor tissues of three different donor cancer patients, and the lysates of all of these cells. Upon injection, this mixture stimulates the patient's immune system to mount an immune response against the tumor cells, which may lead to their destruction.

Gliovac/ERC1671 is for patients suffering from a grade IV glioma (glioblastoma multiforme and gliosarcoma) when all other traditional treatments have failed. Further studies will target patients with newly diagnosed glioma with predictive marker indicating, unresponsiveness to Temozolomide chemotherapy (MGMT gene promoter unmethylation).

ERC1671 is currently in randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical trials in the United States as part of combination treatment for glioblastoma multiforme and gliosarcoma and its Marketing Authorization Application has been submitted to the European Medicines Agency for conditional approval. The company's therapeutic approach can be potentially applied to many other types of solid cancers.

ERC is based in Belgium with a cGMP manufacturing plant in the Netherlands and subsidiaries in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and an international presence through country specific agreements. To learn more, please visit http://erc-immunotherapy.com.

About ERC-USA

ERC-USA is a subsidiary of Epitopoietic Research Corporation (ERC-Belgium SA), a clinical stage emerging Biopharmaceutical Company developing a safe, highly effective approach for the treatment of cancer, particularly cancers of the brain. ERC has built a network of leading neuro-oncologists in several countries in the world, among others in the US and Europe to propel its immunotherapies through clinical development and to market. ERC's regimen of therapeutic vaccines has shown early promise in patients suffering from recurrent Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the deadliest of brain cancers.

About Right-to-Try Laws

The federal Right to Try Act, or the Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn, and Matthew Bellina Right to Try Act, was signed into law May 30, 2018. This law is a means for patients diagnosed with life-threatening diseases or conditions who have tried all approved treatment options and are unable to participate in a clinical trial to access certain unapproved treatments. In addition to the federal law, several states have passed Right to Try Laws.

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How tone deaf was this?

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ala., the civil rights leader and conscience of Congress dies, and the only front page mention of this in the July 19 Sunday Star-Ledger print edition is a teaser at the bottom of the page to an article inside.

Why wasnt the story of this African American leader and 17-term congressman front-page news? We all need strong role models and moral leadership now more than ever.

My heart goes out to the COVID-19 survivor who spent 55 days on a ventilator and whose feature story was the main front-page spread  complete with a photo of him recuperating near a swimming pool at his sisters home.

But, this choice by the editors sends a strong message about white privilege and demonstrates a blatant disregard for the African American community.

I ask the editors to revisit their choices and urge readers to stop and think critically about why so many people feel the need to take to the streets and proclaim, Black lives matter.

Karen Hammer, Kenilworth

Challenger unjustly tarnishes Rep. Chris Smiths office

Claims by the Democrats 4th Congressional District nominee, Stephanie Schmid, about working for incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, are disappointing and even shocking.

Having been called as dishonest, quite objectionable and not forthright by her former opponents for the Democratic nomination, Schmid used a false narrative about a three-week internship she had in Smiths office 23 years ago.

In her campaign launch video, Schmid said that it was abundantly clear then, as it is now, that we dont share the same values. Yet, in letters to Smith in 1997, she wrote that she shared his interests, values, and concerns and called Smith a worthy public servant. She gushed in another letter, Never has there been a more worthy public servant who makes one believe in the process and forget about the bureaucracy.

On Facebook, she claimed that it was very uncomfortable as a 16-year-old woman to be working in an office full of mostly men.

Yet, the top positions in Smiths office were held mostly by women, including me as chief of staff. She claimed to have analyzed human rights issues as part of the internship, but she was only tasked with administrative duties and taking summary notes during staff meetings.

The issue is not Schmids views as an office intern but that she is misrepresenting them now  and the work of Rep. Smith and his staff  as a 40-year-old candidate.

Schmid has misled many to garner support, and people know it.

Mary McDermott Noonan, chief of staff, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, Hamilton Township

Biden would get boost from team of rivals

As soon as presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would choose a woman as his vice presidential running mate, U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar  all former presidential candidates themselves  appeared on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News morning and evening shows for interviews.

Biden would be wise to name his major cabinet members now, mainly from qualified presidential rivals. Those who agree to accept these roles will be making news on TV talk shows, as well as campaigning with Biden.

How about these? Harris for vice president; Klobuchar, attorney general; Pete Buttigieg, defense secretary; Mike Bloomberg, treasury secretary; Sen. Cory Booker, education secretary; Warren, commerce secretary; Julian Castro, Environmental Protection Agency administrator; and, as secretary of state, Mitt Romney of Utah  the only Republican senator to honor the oath of impartiality by voting for President Donald Trumps impeachment conviction.

Bidens team of rivals would be a first in a presidential campaign. Abraham Lincoln famously chose a team of rivals, but he waited until after winning the 1860 election to do it.

With Biden as leader, this new team would build support and momentum from coast to coast. They would be more than a match for Trump and his bully pulpit. My prediction is that Biden would beat Trump in landslide.

Joyce S. Anderson, Linwood

Note: the writer is former social sciences chair at Atlantic Cape Community College in Mays Landing.

Unprovoked attack on piranhas

To the recent letter writer (Only open schools where its safe to do so) who compared sending kids into school buildings during the COVID-19 pandemic to jumping into a pool with school of piranhas:

Piranhas have no inclination to attack any living human being without provocation. Piranhas that are swimming freely dont have any reason to attack humans.

The writer used an unfortunate simile. Kids shouldnt be sent back to school unless it is safe for them, their teachers, janitors and other staff.

Kathleen Pearlman, Verona

Local news worth every penny

Im writing in response to the recent opinion piece We need to save local news in New Jersey by Jon Schleuss, president of the NewsGuild labor union.

I couldn't agree more with this op-ed. Of course, there are some  even many  Star-Ledger opinion pieces that I don't agree with, but that will not get me to consider canceling my subscription.

While Trenton legislators are getting wined and dined by big-money lobbyists, the only people informing us of these murky dealings are the journalists whose reporting shines a light on them.

Supporting local news is the best deal a taxpayer can get.

Mark Boehme, Summit

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

The Star-Ledger/NJ.com encourages submissions of opinion. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow us on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and on Facebook at NJ.com Opinion. Get the latest news updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters.
Jeffrey Fields, 36, has been charged with multiple counts of rape and sexual assault in connection to four rapes of Penn State students going back a decade

A 36-year-old man has been charged with raping four female Penn State students over several years beginning a decade ago, and police said DNA was used to identify him as a suspect.

Police said genealogical tools also helped lead them to Jeffrey Fields, who worked in State College during the time of the attacks.

Fields was arrested on Tuesday on counts of rape, sexual assault, involuntary deviate intercourse and other offenses, and jailed without bail.

The rapes took place between August 2010 and July 2017 in outdoor locations near campus.

Police wrote in a charging document cited by Centre Daily Times that the attacks followed the same pattern, where the assailant would accost a young woman, either 19 or 20 years old, who was highly intoxicated and walking alone after midnight or before dawn.

Three of the victims reported that their rapist pushed them either into trees or bushes, or dragged them behind a building.

One woman accused the attacker of beating her until she became unconscious, leaving her battered and bruised.

Another asked a nurse and officer 'how someone could have done these things to her, and kept doing them, when she was pleading with him so much to stop,' the affidavit said.

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Police used genetic genealogy screening to match the DNA of a suspect in four rapes that occurred between 2010-2017 to his family members, leading them to Fields

The sexual assaults occurred near the Penn State campus in State College, Pennsylvania

The first rape occurred on August 22, 2010, followed by attacks in January and April 2011. After a six-year lull, the predator struck again on July 16, 2017, raping a 19-year-old student.

According to the State College Police, in each of the cases DNA was collected during rape examinations.

Those DNA samples were submitted to the Pennsylvania State Police Crime Lab, which linked all four rapes to a single unknown suspect.

During the investigation, police used genetic genealogy screening to match the perpetrator's DNA to his family members, eventually leading them to Fields.

Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna said in a statement that Fields DNA match was a 'statistical certainty.'

Fields was arraigned on Tuesday and denied bond. He is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on July 29.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Russia is interested in cooperating with Algeria on a number of projects in various areas, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd July, 2020) Russia is interested in cooperating with Algeria on a number of projects in various areas, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

"We have very kind, mutually respectful, friendly, strategic partnership relations and we are interested, like our Algerian friends, in forging new concrete projects in economic, investment, humanitarian, educational sphere, in military cooperation, as well as cooperation on the international arena," Lavrov said at a meeting in Moscow with his Algerian counterpart, Sabri Boukadoum.

Earlier in July, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had a phone conversation in which they discussed cooperation on the global oil market and fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic.
VP Joe Biden made remarks, with President Barack Obama by his side, before the signing of the 21st Century Cures Act, in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House in Washington, DC. on December 13, 2016.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden teams up with his old boss, former President Barack Obama in a new video that draws a sharp contrast between President Donald Trump's approach to voters and Biden's style.

Biden and Obama met at Obama's Washington office. After sitting down across the room from one another, Biden asks Obama whether he could imagine standing up as president and saying, "It's not my responsibility, I take no responsibility," as Trump has previously done.

"Those words didn't come out of our mouths when we were in office," Obama says in the video clip from the Biden campaign. The full-length video will be released Thursday.

Biden criticizes Trump for "his inability to get a sense of what people are going through."

"He just can't relate in any way," says Biden.

Tweet of video

"One of the things that I have always known about you, Joe, it's the reason why I wanted you to be my vice president and the reason why you were so effective. It all starts with being able to relate," Obama tells Biden.

"If you can sit down with a family and see your own family and the struggles that you've gone through or your parents went through or your kids are going through, if you can connect those struggles to somebody else's struggles, then you're going to work hard for them. And that's always what's motivated you to get into public service," says Obama.

In March, Trump was asked whether he took responsibility for his administration's lagging rate of coronavirus testing in the United States.

"I don't take responsibility at all," he said.

The White House sharply pushed back against Obama and Biden's characterization of Trump's response.

"Any suggestion that President Trump did not take the threat of COVID-19 seriously or prioritize the health and safety of the American people is blatantly false," spokesman Judd Deere said. "During these uncertain times, Americans are receiving comfort, hope and resources from President Trump."
A Hezbollah militant was killed in an Israeli attack in Syria, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite group's first declared casualty there since its leader warned last year that further killings of its members in Syria would face retaliation.

Ali Kamel Mohsen, from south Lebanon, was killed by an Israeli air strike near Damascus airport, according to a death notice declaring him a martyr with the Islamic Resistance, a reference to Hezbollah, and which was confirmed by the group.

It was an apparent reference to a strike on Monday night that Western intelligence sources said hit a major Iranian-backed ammunition depot on the edge of the Syrian capital.

Syrian state media said air defences had intercepted a new Israeli "aggression" above the capital Damascus.

Hezbollah has deployed militants in Syria as part of Iranian-backed efforts to support President Bashar al-Assad in a conflict that spiralled out of protests against his rule in 2011.

Following the killing of two Hezbollah members in Damascus last August, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the group's leader, vowed it would respond if Israel killed any more of its militants in the country.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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Singapore government on July 21 honoured an Indian-origin nurse Kala Narayanasamy with the President's Award for Nurses, the highest accolade in the nursing profession, for her outstanding services during the coronavirus pandemic. According to Singapore's Ministry of Health, the award this year was given to five nurses which include two from acute hospitals, and one each from hospice, national speciality centre and community nursing settings.

Read: Surgeons Led By Indian-origin Doctor Perform Double Lung Transplant On Second COVID-19 Patient

The health ministry in a release on Tuesday said that each awardee received a trophy, a certificate signed by President Halimah Yacob and an SGD$10,000 cash prize that can be used for their professional and personal development. Kala Narayanasamy, who is Deputy Director of Nursing at Woodlands Health Campus tapped on her experience from the 2003 outbreak of SARS-CoV-1 and used it in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic during her deployment at the frontline.

Read: UK: Indian-origin Minister Alok Sharma Tested For COVID-19 After Feeling Unwell

Kala Narayanasamy while talking to the media said that she learned a lot during the 2003 SARS outbreak and deployed her nursing skills amid the current health crisis to quickly convert wards at the hospital for immediate infection care where she was working. The 59-year-old nurse reportedly has 40 years of working experience in nursing and healthcare. Kala is currently planning and developing clinical workflows for the new campus of the Woodlands Health Campus, who congratulated her for the achievement on its Facebook handle.

Read: Oxford University Vaccine Is A Humanitarian Cause: Indian-origin Scientist

President's medal

According to Singapore's Ministry of Health, the nurses who received the award were nominated by their institutions, public or peers, and were interviewed by a panel chaired by Dr. Chia Shi-Lu. The President's award recognises nurses who have shown sustained outstanding performance and contributions to patient care delivery, education, research, and administration. The award is open to all registered nurses from healthcare institutions in the public, private, and community care sectors, as well as the educational institutions.
Electric car maker Tesla Inc. has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its largest auto assembly plant employing at least 5,000 workers.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this Monday, May 11, 2020 file photo, a man wearing a mask walks through the Tesla plant parking lot in Fremont, Calif. On Wednesday, July 22, 2020, the electric car maker announced it has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its largest auto assembly plant employing at least 5,000 workers. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Electric car maker Tesla Inc. has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its largest auto assembly plant employing at least 5,000 workers.

The new factory will build Teslas upcoming Cybertruck pickup and will be a second U.S. manufacturing site for the Model Y small SUV, largely for distribution to the East Coast.

Tesla will build on a 2,100-acre (85-hectacre) site in Travis County near Austin and will get more than $60 million in tax breaks from the county and a local school district over the next decade. Work on the plant, which will be over 4 million square feet, is already underway, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said.

He did not put a number on how many vehicles the facility would produce. Long term, a lot," Musk said.

The company has pledged to invest $1.1 billion and said it will pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour to employees and provide health insurance, paid leave and other benefits.

The area thats home to the University of Texas at Austin and tech companies such as Dell Inc. was a candidate for the plant all along, but Tulsa, Oklahoma, emerged in mid-May as another possibility.

Tesla doesnt have a lot of time to get the factory running if it wants to meet target production dates. The company says on its website that the Cybertruck will be available starting late next year. Tesla has often missed promised production dates in the past.

Musk has reportedly been happy with Texas, where his SpaceX rocket company has operations in Brownsville and in McGregor north of Austin.

The new factory will be Teslas biggest so far, although it may not employ as many workers as the 10,000 at its factory in Fremont, California. The electric car maker has said it wants the new factory to be in the centre of the country and closer to eastern markets.

The Fremont factory currently is Tesla's only U.S. assembly plant. It has a second U.S. factory in Reno, Nevada, where it builds batteries for its vehicles and employs about 6,500 people. Tesla also has a factory in Shanghai and another one under construction in Germany.

Musk has been unhappy with California, where earlier this year he flouted local orders to stay closed to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. Musk has threatened to move the companys headquarters out of Palo Alto and all future vehicles out of the plant in Fremont, a reworked factory that once was run jointly by Toyota and General Motors.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has not allowed cities and counties to impose local orders that would close businesses as the virus began surging to record levels this summer. The state did not give Tesla any additional financial incentives, Abbott spokesman John Wittman said.

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Tesla is one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world, and we are proud to welcome its team to the State of Texas, Abbott said in a statement.

Texas has no corporate or individual income taxes. It also touts the regions young workforce as one of the most educated in the country. Nearly 47% of adults have at least a bachelors degree, pushing Austin into the top 10 among large metro areas, the site says. But at present, Tesla cant legally sell its vehicles in Texas. A state law requires cars to be sold through franchised dealers, not company stores like Tesla operates.

Tulsa put up a good fight, but may have been used to win better terms from Texas. Oklahoma boasts about its low tax rates and cost of living, particularly low utility costs. Musk even visited the Tulsa site earlier this month.

Oklahoma hasnt had an auto manufacturer in the state since General Motors shuttered its Oklahoma City facility in 2005, but Tulsa is home to an American Airlines maintenance facility that employs about 5,200 workers.

____

Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - With coronavirus cases rising, Mayor Muriel Bowser issued an executive order Wednesday making face masks mandatory outside homes  an unprecedented step in the nations capital.

Bowser said the order would include enforcement language detailing possible fines for violations.

After saying they had successfully blunted the infection curve in the city earlier this summer, health officials say the infection numbers have slowly crept upward, reaching triple digits on Wednesday for the first time in weeks.

Limited exceptions to the order, according to material distributed by Bowsers office, include children under age 3, people actively eating or drinking and people vigorously exercising outdoors while not close to anyone else.

The order does not apply to any employees of the federal government while they are on duty. That description would appear to exclude President Donald Trump and members of Congress from the mask requirement while working.

D.C. officials said the mask requirement cant be enforced on federal property. Trump, when asked at a Wednesday afternoon news conference if he would compel federal employees to comply with the mask order, said, Were going to make a decision over the next 24 hours.

Bowser has advised residents for months to wear masks outdoors when social distancing was not possible. But Wednesdays announcement formalizes that advice into an actual executive order for the first time.

In most cases, if youre outside your home. you should have a mask on, Bowser said. Were four months in, people are tired and in some cases are letting down their guards.

Health Department Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt says her office is particularly concerned with data that show most new infections arent coming from people already in quarantine or on the contact trace list of an infected person. That, she said, indicates a high level of wild community spread. Nesbitt also said the percentage of people hospitalized who are under age 40 has nearly doubled in July.

The order also requires indoor mask use in businesses and office buildings open to the public and in communal spaces in apartment buildings and condominiums.

Bowser also extended the District of Columbias state of emergency and public health emergency declarations through Oct. 9.

The rising infections come in the midst of a heat emergency which forced several outdoor testing sites to close this week as daily temperatures reach the upper 90s.

Washington entered phase 1 of its reopening plan on May 29 and entered phase 2 on June 22. Bowser said she doesnt believe that the city entered phase 2 too early and the plan was built with flexibility in mind. She hinted that smaller targeted closures and rollbacks may be coming.

Weve always said this  that we can dial up activity or we can dial back activity she said. We will spend some time looking at all levels of activity and seeing what we need to dial back.

The mayors office has yet to decide whether public schools will be able to allow students into school buildings on a part-time basis. Last week, they announced they were delaying the decision until July 31.

Several major area school districts, including Fairfax and Loudoun counties in northern Virginian and Montgomery County in southern Maryland, have already announced they will not be reopening school buildings and will proceed in the fall with full-time distance learning.

The move to stem the escalating infection numbers come as other aspects of public life in Washington continue to gradually reopen. The National Gallery of Art reopened this week with restrictions and the National Zoo will reopen on a limited basis starting Friday.
Good morning, Bay Area. Its Wednesday, July 22, and Californias budget is partially in the hands of a divided U.S. Congress as they consider further coronavirus relief. Heres what you need to know to start your day.

A new report from UC Berkeley finds that the states halting efforts to reopen have only escalated a financial crisis for child care centers, leaving parents with fewer options.

Some centers have closed their doors permanently. Others opened reluctantly, fearing a long-term closure would drive them out of business. Many are on the edge, unable to pay for rent and lacking money to buy snacks or cleaning supplies. New social distancing rules have limited most programs to a fraction of their normal capacity, adding to the financial strain.

Rachel Swan reports on a regional child care system on the verge of collapse for those who need it the most, and operators with little political power or time to advocate for support.

Missed cases

Only about 1% of Bay Area residents had been infected with the coronavirus by the end of April  the lowest rate of infection among the United States COVID-19 hot spots at the time  but even that low number represents tens of thousands of cases that were missed by testing shortfalls, according to a study released Tuesday.

Erin Allday reports on the implications of the CDCs study and the likely increase in infections since April.

Chronicle Map: Find Bay Area COVID-19 testing sites near you that dont require a doctors referral.

A win for parks

Photos by Brian Feulner / Special to The Chronicle

One of the biggest conservation bills in decades is expected to sail to victory in Congress, overcoming years of funding stalemates and political gridlock, and promising scores of new parks and upgraded recreation facilities across the West. California stands to benefit as much as any state from the stunning windfall and President Trump has said hell sign it if it comes to his desk.

Kurtis Alexander reports on whats in the bill and how it got through a divided Congress.

Meanwhile: Republicans and Democrats in Congress are on a collision course over what is likely to be the last coronavirus relief legislation before the election, Tal Kopan reports, and Californias budget hangs in the balance.

Federal funding? Caltrains future in limbo as San Francisco, South Bay leaders join forces in tax measure dispute.

Remembering Janine

Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

It could have been any one of us.

Janine Paiste-Ponder, 59, worked as a nurse caring for COVID-19 patients at Sutter Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and died on July 17 after contracting the disease.

Shes one of the more than 100 California health care workers who have lost their lives due to the coronavirus. Fellow nurses at her hospital have called upon management to make changes to protect staff, including separating negative and positive COVID-19 patients on different units, testing all employees with known positive contact and providing more personal protective equipment.

Their concerns arent unique to the hospital, Mallory Moench reports.

Were being treated like human pinballs

Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle

How do you cut someones hair when the wind is blowing and theres outdoor dining nearby? Avoid getting pollen on a freshly painted set of nails? What about when you need electricity?

These are questions on the mind of barbershops and salons after a reversal by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday to allow outdoor haircuts and other personal services.

The logistical gymnastics amid ever-changing protocols have owners increasingly frustrated. And thats for the locations that have access to outdoor space. Many barbershops and salons dont have access to sidewalks, patios or parking spaces, and others cant obtain insurance that covers procedures outside. Read more.

More: Businesses not following health rules in Marin County could pay fines of up to $10,000.

Around the Bay

 And he wasnt alone: Giants Jaylin Davis explains why he felt comfortable taking a knee.

 Busy day at City Hall: Coronavirus crisis pushes S.F. Mayor Breed to move more homeless into permanent shelter, Breed and supervisors agree on business tax overhaul and supervisors hold up part of big Van Ness-Market development plan for equity study.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

 Virtual Cal: UC Berkeley to begin semester with fully remote instruction.

 Lupine birth announcement: Californias lone wolf pack adds eight newborn pups. And the father is a bit of a mystery.

 Whole number of persons: Trump wants to keep undocumented immigrants from the census count  citing California  but legal experts say thats likely unconstitutional and practically difficult after Supreme Court rejected a citizenship question.

 WAKE UP LIBBY: Vandals cover Oakland Mayor Libby Schaafs home in graffiti, set off fireworks before dawn.

 Layoffs: Sunnyvales LinkedIn to cut 960 positions, 6% of its workforce.

 Local and federal investigation: Death threats and racist comments disrupt Oakland candidate forum.

 Harassment accusation: A woman who said she has known S.F. congressional candidate Shahid Buttar, Nancy Pelosis opponent, for years claims he sexually harassed her. Buttar says the charge is false.

In the (home) studio

Kate Munsch / Special to The Chronicle

People are drinking more, which is a boon for California wineries, but the industry's also struggling with shutdown orders. In a recent episode of the Fifth & Mission podcast, Chronicle wine critic Esther Mobley talks about the confusion at tasting rooms and the efforts to protect vineyard workers.

More from Chronicle podcasts:

 Extra Spicy: Prairies pandemic pivot  from restaurant to grocery.

 Fifth & Mission: Universal basic income  can it work?

 Its All Political: Jennifer Palmieri, a former Clinton and Obama adviser, on her new book and insights on the Biden campaign.

Bay Briefing is written by Taylor Kate Brown and sent to readers email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here, and contact Brown at taylor.brown@sfchronicle.com.
Jaipur: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday (July 22, 2020) registered a money laundering case Agrasen Gehlot, the elder brother of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, in connection with the fertilizer scam.

The central probe agency also conducted raids at the properties of Agrasen Gehlot in four states  Delhi, Gujarat, West Bengal and Rajasthan  in connection with the case.

According to sources, searches were conducted at six places in Rajasthan, four in Gujarat, two in West Bengal, and one in New Delhi in connection with the scam.

Raids were reportedly conducted at the residence of former MP Badriram Jakhar.

Agrasen Gehlot is the owner of a company named Anupam Krishi, on which the Customs department has levied a penalty of Rs 7 crore for alleged violations of rules in exports.

The BJP had earlier accused Agrasen Gehlot of being involved in a scam during the UPA regime and claimed that his company allegedly exported subsidised fertiliser.

This comes at a time when the Rajasthan Congress is in crisis after simmering differences between Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot came to light.

Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi had sent disqualification notices to Pilot and 18 MLAs under the anti-defection law.

However, the notice was challenged in the Rajasthan High Court and is awaiting order on July 24. In a related development, Assembly Speaker CP Joshi on Wednesday filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court to avert what he called a constitutional crisis in the state.

On Tuesday, the High Court had asked Joshi to defer till Friday action against rebel MLAs led by Pilot, who was sacked as PCC chief and deputy CM on July 14 by the Congress leadership.

Joshi has served disqualification notices on dissident Congress MLAs for remaining absent from two successive Congress Legislative Party meetings after Pilot raised a banner of revolt against the leadership of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

Sachin Pilot was, on July 14, also sacked from the posts of Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister and state PCC president.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has blamed the BJP for attempting to destabilise the state government by poaching MLAs.
Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt has thrown tantrums at the Electoral Commission (EC) for condemning the violent acts at registration centres across the nation.



Self-Defence



Minister for Special Development Initiatives, Hawa Koomson brandished a gun at the Step to Christ voters' registration centre in the Awutu Senya East constituency in the Central Region on Monday, July, 20, 2020.



According to her, she got a tip that her political opponent had bused some unknown persons to participate in the ongoing registration exercise in the constituency.



She said she went to the center herself with her gun to protect herself and her people but fired shots when chaos erupted.



The Minister claimed she acted in self-defence after fearing for her life.



I realised the lives of my people were in danger. So I wanted to scare the people. I fired the warning shots. I didnt direct it at anybody, she told Adom News.



EC Condemns Violence



Following the Minister's action, the Electoral Commission issued a statement to register their displeasure with the chaotic situations at some registration centers.



The EC accused political party supporters and sympathizers of perpetrating the violent acts.



The Commission explained what happened in Kasoa saying some unidentifiable gunmen disrupted the process by firing gun shots and attacked officials at the centre.



"The Commission condemns such acts during a civil exercise like the Registration of Voters and calls on security agencies to investigate the issue as a matter of urgency to bring the perpetrators to book. These acts constitute a breach of the Vigilante and Related Offenses Act, 2019 Act 999. The Act seeks to disband violent activities of Political Parties and makes political vigilantism an offence punishable by a prison term," the Commission said in a statement copied to Peacefmonline.com.



It urged the public, particularly the party agents, to use the appropriate medium to amicably challenge ineligiblity of an applicant to register his or her name.



"The Commission reminds the public, particularly Political Party agents, that any person who wishes to challenge an Applicant on the basis of ineligibility must fill a Challenge Form, which will then be presented to the District Registration Review Committee for a ruling on the matter. Political Party agents are therefore cautioned against the use of violence to challenge a persons eligibility."



Kwesi Pratt Fires Shots At EC



Speaking on 'Kokrokoo' on Peace FM, Kwesi Pratt questioned the morality of the EC to condemn violence in the country.



According to him, the electoral management body itself doesn't respect the country's laws, otherwise they wouldn't have gone to some Secondary Schools to register the students.



He added that the EC Bosses have painted their faces with 'charcoal' and decided to do whatever they want.



"Do they, themselves, abide by the laws? If they comply with the laws, would they use secondary schools as registration centres when they are not gazetted. They don't obey the law but expect others to obey it. The Electoral Commission, itself, doesn't respect the law; so why would someone else not infract the law?



"You've painted your faces with charcoal to disturb Ghanaians. What's happening today? I'm so, so, so embarrassed by this development," he told host Kwami Sefa Kayi.







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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TUNIS - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Libya tweeted on Wednesday that "131 migrants were returned to Libya this morning by the coast guard" and "among them were 13 minors". "IOM teams were at the disembarkation point in Tripoli to provide emergency assistance to the migrants," tweeted IOM.

Concerning the same group of migrants, Alarm Phone tweeted, "During the night, the ~120 (in the end 131) people in distress were found by the so-called Libyan coastguard and returned to Libya". "While we are relieved that they survived, we fear for their lives in Libya, a warzone where torture, rape and imprisonment are systemic conditions".
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Linkedin Neil Jerome Morales and Eloisa Lopez (Reuters) Manila, Philippines  Wed, July 22, 2020 12:19 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406686353f 2 SE Asia Philippines,Maria-Ressa,journalist,duterte,tax-evasion,press-freedom Free

Maria Ressa, a journalist who runs a Philippine news website known for its tough scrutiny of President Rodrigo Duterte, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to tax evasion charges, saying the case was politically motivated to harass and intimidate.

Ressa, a Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2018 for fighting media intimidation, is facing several government lawsuits that have caused international concern about harassment of journalists in the Philippines, a country long seen as a standard bearer for press freedom in Asia.

Ressa, 56, who is chief executive of the news site Rappler, was convicted of libel last month and sentenced to up to six year in prison, a ruling widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms under Duterte's increasingly popular authoritarianism. She was freed on bail.

Ressa's latest court appearance is over accusations Rappler falsified tax returns by omitting the proceeds of a sale of depositary receipts to foreign investors, which later became the securities regulator's basis to revoke its license.

"These charges are politically motivated, it is meant to harass and intimidate, it is meant to be a war of attrition to try to make us afraid to keep reporting," Ressa, a dual US-Filipino citizen, told reporters after she pleaded not guilty to the charges. "The best response to it is to keep reporting."

Rappler has repeatedly challenged the accuracy of Duterte's public statements and his justification for his controversial foreign policy.

It has also reported on alleged atrocities in his war on drugs and probed what it says are massive, state-orchestrated social media hate campaigns against Duterte's critics.

Duterte has publicly lashed out at Rappler, calling it a "fake news outlet" sponsored by American spies.

In the tax evasion case, the securities regulator alleges that Rappler allowed foreigners to illegally own shares in a domestic media firm.

Rappler, a startup, has maintained foreigners never owned shares, but were allowed to invest without voting rights or involvement in operations. Rappler is still operating pending its appeal against its license being revoked.

Media watchdogs and human rights activists say the charges against Ressa are part of a broader strategy to silence or humiliate opponents of Duterte.

Earlier this month, his allies in Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of denying top broadcaster ABS-CBN's bid to renew its 25-year license, an outcome that Duterte had repeatedly promised would happen because of its refusal to air some of his election campaign commercials.

"It is shocking where we are right now," Ressa said.

"It is unthinkable that ABS-CBN shut down. This is the perfect storm where the pandemic and lockdown enabled the government to quickly consolidate power."

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but he has repeatedly said Duterte supports freedom of speech and any media facing legal cases are for breaking the law, not for their reporting.
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My roles as a business owner and Vice Mayor already require me to be a leader for my teams and constituents. However, leading other leaders is a completely different challenge, and one that I am excited to take on.

Jane Bolin, a successful attorney, entrepreneur, and current Vice Mayor of Oakland Park, Florida was recently appointed as Chair of the Global Governance Committee for the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), a global non-profit organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs achieve greater business success. Bolin is the first woman to assume this role in the organizations 33-year history.

Considered one of the worlds most influential entrepreneur communities, EO has more than 14,000 members in its 190 chapters around the globe. Members of EO must be owners, founders, or majority stakeholders of their business earning at least $1 million in annual revenue.

Jane is a powerhouse. We are thrilled to have her leading the Global Governance Committee, said Carrie Santos, CEO of the Entrepreneurs Organization. Her leadership and focus are critical to leading a group of volunteers from around the world handling thorny issues of ethics, transparency and oversight.

Bolin added: I am honored to take on this new role. I see this appointment as a real opportunity to continue to hone my skills as a leader. My roles as a business owner and Vice Mayor already require me to be a leader for my teams and constituents. However, leading other leaders is a completely different challenge, and one that I am excited to take on.

Since joining EO in 2012, Bolin has established a robust track record of leadership at the nonprofit. Prior to becoming Chair of the Global Governance Committee, she served as President of EOs Tampa Chapter, Membership Chair for the South Florida chapter, Area Director for the East region, and the Governance Director of East Region. In her new role, Bolin will work with the Committee and Regional Directors on matters of governance, policy creation and implementation, and membership.

As a successful business owner, Bolin is a strong believer in the power of entrepreneurship to uplift people, transform communities, and renew economies worldwide. As Vice Mayor, she believes that key to the American dream is a governance system that not only inspires entrepreneurship but also empowers people to start their own businesses and create opportunities for success, prosperity, and upward social mobility.

Bolin was also recently appointed as member of the Florida Bar to the Governmental and Public Policy Advocacy Committee, which operates to promote professionalism and provide information, networking, and education opportunities for lawyer-lobbyists in the state.

About Jane F. Bolin

Jane Bolin is the current Vice Mayor of the city of Oakland Park, Florida. A successful entrepreneur, attorney, author, philanthropist, and civic leader, Bolin is known for her action-oriented bipartisan approach to serving South Floridians. Deeply involved with her local community, Bolin serves on the governance committee of the Pride Center at Equality Park of South Florida and is an active member of Oakland Park/Wilton Manors Rotary Club and the Oakland Park Kiwanis Club. She is also the incoming global chair of governance for Entrepreneurs Organization.

About Entrepreneurs Organization

Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) is a global, peer-to-peer network of more than 14,000 influential business owners with 198 chapters in 62 countries. Founded in 1987, EO is the catalyst that enables leading entrepreneurs to learn and grow, leading to greater success in business and beyond.
Researchers have known since early in the coronavirus pandemic that the true number of infected people is higher than what is reflected in daily case totals. Thats because many people infected with the virus develop mild symptoms or none at all, and therefore may not get tested.

A new study suggests that in the Philadelphia area, the actual number of infections was about seven times higher than the official number of confirmed cases as of April 25.

The higher number came from analyzing blood samples for antibodies  proteins that the immune system makes in response to infection. More than 3% of the samples were found to contain antibodies, whereas less than half of 1% of the regions population had tested positive in the usual way, with the nasal swabs that detect an active infection.

But hold off before drawing firm conclusions about what those numbers mean. The study, published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine, has so many limitations that seven times could be way off in either direction, say scientists who were not involved. Even the study authors warned against using the results to determine how close we are to herd immunity, the percentage of the population that must be immune to a virus to keep its spread to a bare minimum.

 READ MORE: How many have really been infected with the coronavirus? I pricked my finger to help find out.

The studys primary drawback is that the blood samples were not taken randomly, but from commercial labs that happened to be testing people for various medical conditions. Those people may have been exposed to the virus at different rates than those who were not getting their blood tested, for whatever reason, but it is hard to say for sure. The authors did not include key demographic details that can affect infection rates, including the race and ethnicity of those sampled.

The authors  among them researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local and state health departments, including Pennsylvanias  were upfront about that issue. These persons may not be representative of the general population, the authors wrote.

Some scientists not involved with the study were more blunt. Among them was A. Marm Kilpatrick, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who wrote on Twitter: Theres only one way to safely use these data: toss them in the circular filing bin. (for clarity: trash).

The Pennsylvania counties in the study included Bucks, Chester, Cumberland, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery, and Philadelphia  collectively home to 4.9 million people. The authors also analyzed data for nine other geographic regions, including greater New York City.

In addition to the lack of a random sample, another limitation was the difficulty of timing the data. This was April, when nasal-swab results in the state typically were delayed for days. Likewise, the amount of time needed to obtain antibody results can vary widely, as does the amount of time the immune system needs to make antibodies. An apples-to-apples comparison is tricky.

For the Pennsylvania results, it is not even clear that the researchers were comparing totals for the same day.

The antibody measurements came from blood samples that had been collected as of April 25. The corresponding number of confirmed cases, as determined by the nasal swabs, came from what was publicized that same day by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

But the states case totals on any given day reflect only those that have been reported as of midnight the night before  apparently meaning the researchers were comparing one set of numbers through April 24 and the other through April 25.

The state Health Department declined to comment.

Being off by a day would make a significant difference. In Philadelphia and the other six Pennsylvania counties in the study, the number of confirmed cases jumped 3.9% from April 24 to 25, from 22,125 to 22,987.

Previous studies suggest that generally, the number of asymptomatic unidentified people represents about one-third of the total who have been infected. In other words, if 6% of people in a given area have been confirmed with nasal swabs, an additional 3% have been infected at some point without realizing it  not seven times as many, as the new study would suggest.

Better data may come soon, as the National Institutes of Health is conducting an antibody study with a more representative sample of the population. It, too, is not random, but the authors are collecting ample demographic data from more than 10,000 participants, including age, geographic region, race or ethnicity, occupation, employment status, and education.

As for when we will reach herd immunity, even that study will not settle the question. Recent evidence suggests that while some people develop immunity to the coronavirus by making antibodies, others may be able to fight it off with a different immune-system weapon called T-cells. Its good news if that turns out to be true, but more study is needed.
When she appeared in court in December, Samantha Keeney was smiling.

Not today.

The attorney for the 25-year-old woman from Northampton said Keeneys immaturity is to blame for her demeanor in court and her decision to burn three barns and a truck.

Keeney and her co-defendant, Justin Emmons, 20, of Northampton, were each sentenced Wednesday to three to six years in state prison plus 15 years of probation for working together to burn down three barns and for each burning a different vehicle.

In December, Northampton County President Judge Michael Koury rejected a plea deal because he felt the agreed-upon sentences were too lenient for Keeney and Emmons. Back in 2019, Keeney told a probation officer during a pre-sentence interview that she and Emmons were like the notorious criminal couple Bonnie and Clyde.

You seemed to admire Bonnie and Clyde and wanted to imitate them, Koury said in December. Keeneys attorney backpedaled from that comparison Wednesday.

I believe the last time (Keeney appeared in court) she laughed at the proceeding, Koury said. I cant tell today because the mask.

Defense attorney Talia Mazza assured the judge Keeney takes what she did seriously.

I dont think her laughing or her demeanor had to do with her level of remorse. I think it had more to do with her immaturity and lack of familiarity with the legal system, Mazza said. Mazza said Keeney has long-undiagnosed mental illness and regrets her actions.

Back in December, Koury accused Emmons of lacking remorse. Defense attorney George Nassif said Emmons indeed regrets his actions and never meant any disrespect to the court.

He never represented he was part of the Bonnie and Clyde duo, Nassif said. He blamed Emmons actions on immaturity and drinking alcohol..

Each of the pair pleaded guilty to three counts of causing a catastrophe for the three fires. They set barns on fire:

March 15, 2019, at 3646 Cedar Drive, Lehigh Township.

March 23, 2019, on 786 Fir Drive, Lehigh Township, a mile away from Cedar Drive.

March 29, 2019, at 4413 Cherryville Road, Allen Township.

Restitution for one barn was $400,000. Assistant District Attorney James Augustine didnt have a restitution amount for the other two barns.

Keeney pleaded guilty to a single count of arson for setting a truck on fire March 29, 2019, at a home in the 400 block of East 10th Street in Northampton. Emmons pleaded guilty to a single count of arson for setting a car on fire at the same home on March 23, 2019.

Emmons was a former junior firefighter for Northampton Borough and was fired from working at a farm shortly before a barn was set on fire there.

He was in a dark period of time in his life hanging out with his co-defendant. Knowing today what he knows, he wishes he never started any of those fires, Nassif said.

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Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email him. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
A San Antonio woman was arrested Tuesday after allegedly stealing an ambulance from a downtown hospital.

According to police, EMS medics left their ambulance running outside the emergency room entrance at Methodist Hospital Metropolitan, located at 1310 McCullough Ave.

While the medics were taking a patient into the hospital, they saw someone drive away in the San Antonio Fire Department ambulance. The driver of the ambulance struck a column and then fled the area.

READ ALSO: Email reveals strife during pandemic in San Antonio. Here's what it said.

Police identified Ashley Moreno, 28, as the person who jumped into the unoccupied ambulance and drove away. Moreno abandoned the vehicle a short distance away at the intersection of West Ashby Place and Lewis St.

Shortly after ditching the ambulance, Moreno approached the nearby Fire Station 6, located at 503 West Russell Place. She was held there until police arrived and took her into custody around noon without incident.

"There were no injuries associated with this event and damage was limited to very minor damage to the ambulance as well as to a pole at the hospital,"said SAFD spokesman Joseph Arrington in a statement.

"The details of how this individual was able to access the ambulance and drive away are currently under investigation."

Court records show Moreno was charged with theft of a vehicle valued at $300,000 or more. Bond was set at $50,000.
One of the emergent strategies on college campuses for destroying the United States is describing it falsely as a racist institution. America is not simply not racist. America is the most important and successful anti-racist political project in human history. We can grasp this important fact with an empirical analysis.

Initially, in the pathological dystopian academic tall tales, America is a uniquely evil nation founded in 1619 upon slavery. The New York Times backs this project proposing that the arrival of slaves in America proves that our nation is essentially dedicated to slaveholding. This mythology works best when one imagines that slavery is peculiar rather than endemic. But slavery is a normative feature of many human societies. Slavery continues to this day and we would do well to ask Ghislaine Maxwell or the human traffickers at the Mexican border more difficult questions about its contemporaneous nature. Today, one out of 200 people globally are estimated to be living in slavery. In fact, slavery continues to be a serious problem in many African nations. What makes the American political experiment specifically anti-racist is that it set in motion a powerful movement against slavery. For Jacobin scholars, the fantasy that 1776 was an effort to preserve slavery is plainly a fantasy. Princeton historian Sean Wilentz explained to the pain of Atlantic readers: the colonists had themselves taken decisive steps to end the Atlantic slave trade from 1769 to 1774. During that time, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island either outlawed the trade or imposed prohibitive duties on it. Measures to abolish the trade also won approval in Massachusetts, Delaware, New York, and Virginia, but were denied by royal officials. Moreover, in 1777 Vermont banned slavery upon early entry to the new colonial system.

Anti-racism took the form of African-American idealists at work in early America. Lemuel Haynes was an African American who led a predominantly white Christian church and fought in the American Revolution. There are certainly other important examples. Among the early Methodists, John Wesley baptized African Americans at least as early as 1758 -- including black women. Black women are recorded as preaching in the Methodist church as early as 1808. This is no small matter, because by 1790 African Americans made up more than 50,000 members of the growing denomination, attracted to the abolitionist message of the church. Wesleys dying words were written in 1791 to William Wilberforce: Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it. Harry Hosier was born around 1750 and became one of the most popular Methodist preachers of all time. He was illiterate and a former slave and yet powerfully compelling to American audiences wherever he went. These were all American embodiments of the political statements such as all men are created equal. The failure to live up to those words are interesting because of a global preponderance and political tradition against these sentiments. American founders authored idealistic statements, setting in motion armies of idealists committed to the abolition of human slavery. That task continues today.

The Civil War was the deadliest war fought in human history to end the practice of slavery within a nation. Up to 800,000 Americans died in the war. Acknowledging that the South was defending slavery -- which it was -- requires acknowledging that the Union North was dedicated to its abolition. The success of Union forces brought with it Reconstruction. These efforts were enforced ends of racist practices in the South that required military occupation, not unlike contemporary military actions around the world today. William Tecumseh Sherman famously burned Atlanta and fought a brutal campaign of attrition believing that the surrender of the South was imperative. If the Civil War were to take place today, more than 7 million Americans would have to die to match the percentage of the population killed in the 1860s. More than 2,000 black officeholders were elected in the imposing structures of Reconstruction. Dozens of black officeholders were elected to state legislatures like Georgia, where blacks were free to vote in large numbers. At this time, the KKK emerges as a major terroristic force and focused upon attacking Republicans and black office holders.

In the Jacobin imagination, this world eventually succumbs to the overwhelmingly racist disposition of the nation. At the forefront of that argument ought to be President Woodrow Wilson, who led the nation from 1913 to 1920. He segregated the federal workforce and did not generally believe that blacks could avail themselves of collegiate work. His progressive academic vision is the current precursor to replacing the Constitution with a utopian vision compliant with the racist intellectual foundations laid out by scientists like Charles Darwin in his famous work: Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Wilson remains among contemporary academics one of the nations top ten Presidents.

After Wilson, Warren G. Harding was opposed by an academic historian who argued that Harding was not white since he had a black ancestor in his family tree. Nonetheless, Harding and Coolidge were overwhelmingly elected in a tremendous loss to Wilsons party. Harding made a point of making these remarks in Birmingham, Alabama in 1921: "When I suggest the possibility of economic equality between the races, I mean it precisely the same way and to the same extent that I would mean it if I spoke of equality of economic opportunity as between members of the same race... Whether you like it or not, unless our democracy is a lie you must stand for that equality." Looking at the black section of the segregated auditorium he continued: "I want to be looking in their direction when I say these things because I am speaking to North and South alike, white and blacks alike. I am never going to say anything that I cant say in every direction and to all people exactly alike. Calvin Coolidge as vice-president made similar remarks in the South commending the patriotism and valor of black veterans.

As President, Coolidge referenced the equality of black Americans in every single State of the Union message he made from 1924 to 1928. In 1924, New Yorkers urged President Coolidge to oppose black men running for public office. Coolidge delivered this summary of his views and bearing on the ugly suggestion:

The suggestion of denying any measure of their full political rights to such a great group of our population as the colored people is one which... could not possibly be permitted by one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution. It is the source of your rights and my rights. I purpose to regard it, and administer it, as the source of the rights of all the people, whatever their belief or race. A colored man is precisely as much entitled to submit his candidacy in a party primary, as is any other citizen. The decision must be made by the constituents to whom he offers himself, and by nobody else. You have suggested that in some fashion I should bring influence to bear to prevent the possibility of a colored man being nominated for Congress.

Coolidges public affirmation of the innate equality of black Americans had a powerful effect. Lynchings -- a noxious political expression of racism in America -- plummeted from 70 cases a year in 1917 to seven a year by 1927. Academics have nicknamed Coolidge: Silent Cal. This misnomer is appropriate coming from an academic community that makes a business of hiding Americas anti-racist history in order to foster the increasingly fallacious reception of America on college campuses.

These are a few prominent historical examples of the structural anti-racism of America. Universities are fostering a false memory of America as institutionally racist. This false representation encourages the entrenchment of racist dogma and diminishes aspirations to further reduce the human harms of racism observable in American history. In so doing, racism thrives and comes to an ominous renaissance observable on all campuses. According to Jacobin academics, Americans should understand themselves as being in racial categories. The time to resist this false narrative has come.

Dr. Ben Voth is an associate professor of Communication and Director of Debate and Speech programs at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of three academic books.
The damaged well has been spewing gas uncontrollably since a blowout was reported at on 28 May.

Three foreign experts engaged in dousing operations at the Baghjan blowout site in Assam's Tinsukia district received minor burn injuries in an explosion near Oil India Limited's (OIL) well number five on Wednesday.

In a statement, OIL said that three experts from M/s Alert  Anthony Steven Reynolds, Doug Dallas and Craig Neil Duncan suffered minor burn injuries in the incident. " The three experts were provided immediate medical attention by a doctor at the well site and later on they were taken to burn unit section of Astha Nursing Home at Dibrugarh. They have been released after dressing of the burn injuries," said the statement.

The statement added that the operations to cap the well and douse the fire, which had been halted after the explosion, are likely to resume on Thursday.

#WATCH: Water being sprayed at well no.5 of Oil India in Baghjan, Tinsukia as part of the operations to douse fire at the location. An explosion occurred near the well today, while the operation was underway. Three foreign experts present at the site injured & taken to hospital pic.twitter.com/u07jFADoW7  ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

Jayant Bormudoi, Senior Manager, Public Affairs of Oil India Ltd. told news agency PTI that the incident occurred during the disaster control process. "The experts were on their way to open the spool of the well which is essential before putting up the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) that finally douses the fire. Its during that process that the blast occurred and three experts were injured, he said, adding that the cause of the blast, its scale and nature are being ascertained.

The damaged well has been spewing gas uncontrollably since a blowout was reported on 28 May. The site is located in close proximity to the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and the Maguri-Motapung Wetland.

A massive fire had broken out at the site on 9 June and two firefighters had perished during operations to control the blaze. The gas and condensate droplets had spread to a large area and the fire had engulfed everything within a one-kilometre radius, official sources had said.

According to a Hindustan Times report, over 9,000 people have been shifted to relief camps since the blowout. Foreign experts brought in to extinguish the blaze were expected to complete the operations by 7 July but were delayed due to the incessant rains and flood situation in Assam, said the report.

According to a report in The Print, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had last month formed an eight-member committee to probe the blowout, the subsequent fire and damage to humans, wildlife and the environment. The panel had imposed an interim penalty of Rs 25 crore on OIL.

Multiple agencies such as ERM India, TERI, CSIR-NEIST and IIT-Guwahati are engaged in carrying out impact assessment studies in nearby areas, OIL has said.

In its statement issued on Wednesday, OIL detailed the progress is each of these studies, saying that first phase of Environmental Impact Assessment by M/s ERM has been completed and the second phase will be carried out after the capping operation. The rest of these studies are in various stages of progress, it said.

A total of 1,864 families in Doomdooma and Tinsukia circle have been surveyed for assessing the damage for paying compensation, it said.

According to OIL, after the 9 June fire, locals had also staged violent protests at the well site. Blockades by locals have forced the closure of 13 oil and gas wells at the oil field, of which was one reopened on Tuesday, said the statement.

There are 17 oil and five gas wells in the Baghjan oil field.

With inputs from agencies
CHICAGO  Amid a surge in gun violence and protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, the nations third-largest city is on edge, awaiting possible greater tension in the form of a plan by President Donald Trump to dispatch dozens of federal agents to Chicago.

The White House plan emerged days after a downtown protest over a statue of Christopher Columbus devolved into a chaotic scene of police swinging batons and demonstrators hurling frozen water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers. Then, on Tuesday in another neighborhood, a spray of bullets from a car passing a gang members funeral wounded 15 people and sent dozens running for their lives.

Tension in the city has climbed to a level that, if not unprecedented, has not been felt in a long time.

Ive never seen things worse in this city than they are right now, said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and longtime activist on the citys South Side.

Much of the strain stems from the fact that it remains unclear exactly what the federal officers will do here. The plan seems to be a repeat of what happened in Kansas City, Missouri, where the administration sent officers to help quell violence after the shooting death of a young boy.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot sought to tamp down fear that the surge will resemble the kind of scene that unfolded in Portland, Oregon, where unidentified agents in camouflage have beaten unarmed protesters and stuffed some of them into unmarked vehicles.

Lightfoot said she has been told the U.S. Attorneys Office will supervise the additional agents supporting the Chicago offices of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

But given the longstanding animosity between city officials and Trump, leaders from the mayor on down worry that those promises will not hold up.

City officials will be on guard for any steps out of line, particularly from agents with the Homeland Security Department, and they will not hesitate to take the president to court, Lightfoot said.

Trump announced the plan Wednesday, saying he would send agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to help combat rising crime. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney General Bill Barr both said the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  differs from the focus in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque.

Barr said the number of agents being deployed to Chicago is comparable to the Kansas City surge of more than 200.

Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left. Criminal justice experts say the increase in violence in some cities defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Trump said, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

Lightfoot has repeatedly said she does not support protesters calls to pull money from police in favor of social services.

If the federal agents do as they have done in Portland, one prominent minister on the citys West Side said the situation will turn the city into a magnet for the same kind of people who infiltrated the statue protest, put on dark clothes and distributed and threw projectiles at police from behind umbrellas.

Its going to be like that, but on steroids, the Rev. Marshall Hatch warned. Chicago is one of those epicenters where you already have an unsettled social situation and racial situation. And youre going to find out that Chicago is a lot more volatile in the middle of a long hot summer than Portland is.

He fears such a chaotic scene is exactly what the president wants as he seeks reelection.

Chicago might offer Trump an opportunity to somehow scare the middle class into thinking hes the only one standing between them and the barbarians, Hatch said.

Pfleger said federal agents could help stem violence if they stick to helping detectives make arrests and increase the citys homicide clearance rate, which the department said this month is under 40%. They could also help stem the flow of illegal guns pouring into the city from Indiana, Mississippi and elsewhere.

A big reason why there are so many murders in the city is that you have a really good chance of getting away with murder here, Pfleger said.

Nor, he said, was it lost on people that nobody had been arrested for the shooting outside the church despite Police Superintendent David Browns contention that two squad cars were on the street and a tactical unit nearby.

Everybodys saying on the street, We have to protect ourselves because the police arent going to protect us' Pfleger said. Thats the mentality.

The shooting went on long enough for the gunmen and people attending the funeral who returned fire to leave at least 60 shell casings at the scene.

At a news conference, Brown implored witnesses to come forward with information about the attack, which police believed was carried out in retaliation for another shooting. Observers suggested that the police departments reputation for brutality, misconduct and racism made Browns plea a tough sell.

You dont share stuff with people you dont trust, Pfleger said.

That mistrust also plays into another activists concern that no matter what federal agents do when they arrive in the city, it will not help and may aggravate the situation.

Anytime you have police in a community that have no relationship to the community  with the business owners, with the youth  it makes the situation worse, said Jahmal Cole, founder and executive director of a community organization on the South Side called My Block, My Hood, My City.
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - The Chinese parent of two companies added to a U.S. economic blacklist over allegations of conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression of China's minority Uighurs has denied wrongdoing.

"BGI Group does not engage in unethical practices and does not provide gene technology for the surveillance of Uighurs. BGI Group does not condone and would never be involved in any human-rights abuses," a company statement said on Tuesday.

The statement came after the U.S. Commerce Department on Monday added 11 Chinese companies to its economic blacklist over China's treatment of its Uighurs in Xinjiang in western China.

The companies included two units of BGI, or the Beijing Genomics Institute.

One subsidiary named, Xinjiang Silk Road BGI, "was established in November 2016 and has not carried out actual business so far," BGI said. The other, "Beijing Liuhe BGI provides commercial gene synthesis for researchers and scientists, the company statement added, saying it is unclear "how its services or products could be used with respect to the allegations made."

The Commerce Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, said the two BGI units were being added for "conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities."

The companies added to the blacklist Monday include Nanchang O-Film Tech, a supplier for Apple's iPhone, which hosted Apple chief executive Tim Cook in December 2017, according to O-Film's website.

Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock said Tuesday the company has "found no evidence of any forced labor on Apple production lines and we plan to continue monitoring."

Apple has "worked with O-Film for several years and have regularly conducted detailed audits of their facilities," Rosenstock said, adding "Apple is dedicated to ensuring everyone in our supply chain is treated with dignity and respect."

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, praised the Commerce Department's designations "to ensure that U.S. technology does not aid the Chinese Communist Partys crimes against humanity and egregious human rights abuses against Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, including the forced collection of DNA." (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Tom Brown)
By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan is blessed with an abundance of outstanding marvels and breathtaking natural landscapes. The country offers a variety of natural and man-made sights that are simply captivating.

Khizi's natural landscapes are some of the most beautiful in Azerbaijan. The climate of this place is mild and the air is dry. A large part of the district territory is covered with forests and mountains.

Whether you're traveling solo or planning a family vacation, here are the best places to enjoy in Khizi region.

Candy Cane Mountains

The dramatic peaks of Khizi region have always amazed and left hikers spellbound with its astonishing beauty.

There's nothing like a spend day in the Candy Cane Mountains full of walking trails and stunning views.

If you're lucky enough to be trekking through Azerbaijan, the view alone of Candy Cane Mountains is simply breathtaking.

These majestic mountains earned their nickname thanks to their striking resemblance to the classic Christmas treat.

The mountains' astonishing colors are produced by groundwater thats altered the oxidation state of iron compounds within the rock.

This natural phenomenon attracts curious tourists. If you are a nature lover, you must visit and enjoy the impressive Khizi Mountains.

Altiagach National Park

Around 10 km west of Khizi town, there are green and heavily forested hills which has been declared Altiagach National Park.

The park is mostly covered by temperate deciduous broadleaved forests. The major types of trees are Persian Ironwood (Parrotia persica), Caucasian Oak (Quercus macranthera), Caucasian Ash (Fraxinus angustifolia subsp. oxycarpa), European Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), Oriental Hornbeam (Carpinus orientalis), Oriental Beech (Fagus orientalis), Silver Birch (Betula pendula), White Birch (Betula pubescens), etc.

Since in 2004, Altiagach National Park is home to the rare East Caucasian tur (Capra cylindricornis), a mountain dwelling goat antelope found only in the eastern half of the Caucasus Mountains. Other large mammals found here are the lynx (Lynx lynx), brown bear (Ursus arctos), wild boar (Sus scrofa), wolf (Canis lupus), golden jackal (Canis aureus), jungle cat (Felis chaus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), badger (Meles meles), and otter (Lutra lutra), etc.

Historical monuments

There is a graveyard 300-500 in the former Shikhlar village cemetery in the village of Tikhti. This tomb is likely to be the Sheikh Heydar's Tomb, the father of Ismayil I, the founder of the Safavid Empire.

The tower of Beshbarmag, the remains of the lost city of the 5th century, the mausoleum of Sheikh Heydar, the remains of the fallen stone fence of the tower of Khizi are another examples of historical monuments.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Dr. Victor Morris has been named Bridgeport Hospitals chief medical officer and senior vice president for medical affairs effective immediately.

According a news release, in 2019, Morris was appointed chief medical officer of Milford Hospital to oversee clinical aspects prior to the Hospitals integration into Bridgeport Hospital and Yale New Haven Health.

Since the integration, he has served as associate chief medical officer of the Milford Campus of Bridgeport Hospital. Morris was tapped to lead the Fairfield County Regional Response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a collaborative effort dedicated to creating operational protocols and managing the critical needs of patients in Fairfield County.

We are thrilled and fortunate that Victor is able to bring his extensive clinical and leadership experience to Bridgeport Hospital, said Anne Diamond, president of Bridgeport Hospital in the news release. His 30 years of health system experience and most recently his exceptional work leading the medical staff through the Milford Hospital integration, he has the depth and breadth of experience to initiate change and elevate the quality of patient care.

A native of California and graduate of Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego Medical School, Morris began with Yale New Haven Health 30 years ago as a resident in internal medicine.

After serving as the chief medical resident at Yale, Morris has served in many leadership positions within Yale New Haven Hospital and the Health System including assistant chief of staff, director of the Hospitalist Services, vice president of Physician and Patient Access and associate chief medical officer at Yale New Haven Hospital.
NEW ORLEANS, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cormeum Lab Services LLC, a high-volume Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certified medical lab based in Marrero, Louisiana, recently received approval of its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a PCR-based SARS-CoV-2 test. Jones Walker partner Nadia de la Houssaye advised Cormeum through the rigorous FDA EUA application process for the lab's COVID-19 PCR+Antigen/Antibody Test. Cormeum is an affiliate of New Orleans-based Sensiva Health LLC.

Cormeum's SARS-CoV-2 assay is designed to detect the N, S, and Ofr1ab regions within the COVID-19 virus' genome in nasopharyngeal swabs, runs on the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio 12K Flex RT-PCR instrument using software version 1.1.2, and may be performed only by the Marrero-based company. In addition, based on the approximately 175 clinical samples submitted to the FDA as part of its EUA approval process, Cormeum's testing solution received a 100% accuracy rating for both specificity and sensitivity.

"Thanks to Jones Walker's extensive experience and knowledgeable healthcare team's counsel to us throughout the entire FDA EUA process and beyond, we are now one of only 37 laboratory-developed tests that has received FDA EUA authorization during the COVID-19 pandemic, with literally hundreds of other laboratories continuing to await approval. It would be difficult to imagine navigating through this process and achieving this critical milestone for Cormeum's SARS-CoV-2 assay without their guidance and support," said Dr. Jim Silliman, president of Sensiva Health.

Nadia, co-leader of the firm's healthcare litigation team and head of the firm's healthcare industry telemedicine team, served as the lead attorney from Jones Walker, advising Cormeum through the FDA EUA process, which included ensuring that Cormeum's applications were compliant with evolving mandates from the FDA and updating the lab's EUA submissions with additional data as necessary. Asher Friend and Allison Bell, corporate partners in the New Orleans office and members of the firm's Healthcare Practice, also collaborated closely with Nadia and the client through the FDA process, and currently lead the Jones Walker team that is supporting Sensiva Health and its affiliates, including Cormeum, in a myriad of transactional matters and commercial opportunities related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, to support patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 in seeking treatment from healthcare providers, Nadia and Allison worked on the integration of a telehealth service line with Sensiva Health's platform.

About Sensiva Health

Sensiva Health LLC is a premier, comprehensive COVID-19 solutions company composed of leading medical doctors, renowned epidemiologists, engineers, software developers, and logistics experts united to return the world to normalcy. Through our own labs, we have developed a proprietary platform of real-time PCR detection of SARS-CoV-2, first-to-market quantitative antibody testing, and decision-support software, and we control our own manufacturing and supply chain. For more information, visit sensivahealth.com.

About Jones Walker

Jones Walker LLP (joneswalker.com) is among the largest 120 law firms in the United States. With offices in Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, and Texas, we serve local, regional, national, and international business interests. The firm is committed to providing a comprehensive range of legal services to major multinational, public and private corporations, Fortune 500 companies, money center banks, worldwide insurers, and emerging companies doing business in the United States and abroad.

Contacts:

Mary Margaret Gorman

504.473.3333

[email protected]

Helen Bone

225.772.5270

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SOURCE Jones Walker LLP

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President Vizcarra recalled that following a past episode with a public official during his tenure as Moquegua Region Governor (2011-2014) he made a promise to always listen to people, a practice he also encourages among State ministers.

#PrimeroMiSalud El presidente @MartinVizcarraC informa sobre las acciones que realiza el Gobierno para combatir el COVID-19 y las medidas implementadas para continuar con la reactivacion economica.

En vivo: https://t.co/c5Z9DY2fjC pic.twitter.com/UDDTvRCcpw
By Kim Ae-ran





St. Peter's Square is usually crowded with travelers from around the world. However, on March 27, it was empty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the emptiness, Pope Francis led the Eucharistic adoration and "Urbi et Orbi" blessings.



The Pope portrayed the pandemic as follows: "For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets, and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void that stops everything as it passes by  We find ourselves afraid and lost."



According to the Pope, this crisis is "a propitious time to find the courage of a new imagination of the possible, with the realism that only the Gospel can offer us."



We try to figure out what is happening to us. The Pope often used such images as the boat, the flame, the subsoil, the war (of the poets), the anointing, the window and the pandemic itself as a metaphor.



In a recent article, "A New Imagination of the Possible: Seven Images From Francis for post-COVID-19" published in "La Civilta Cattolica," an Italian periodical published by the Jesuits in Rome, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, an editor-in-chief points out seven images.



The first image for post-COVID-19 is the boat in the tempest. We are riding on the same boat tossed by crisis and uncertainty. We might fall into the water, but the boat can save us.



According to Pope Francis, the boat means "fraternity." As long as we live in fraternity working for the common good of humanity, we can have hope.



The second image is the new flame in the night. A flame glows brighter in darkness. Even in the disappearing ashes, the hidden seeds of the flames remain.



There are gloomy realities such as anxiety, uncertainty, international sanctions, egoism, competition and armed conflicts. Nevertheless, we can overcome our negativity when we are enlightened by the truth of the Gospels.



The third image is the subsoil. Unless we go down deep, underneath, how can we know and experience the earth? Thus, we shall have to go to the frontiers to meet poverty, suffering and disease.



The fourth image is the war of the poets. Social poets create imaginative stories that can heal the weak. Their mission is to cure the hurt and share with one another beyond races and ideologies.



The fifth image is the anointing for the service. During the pandemic, doctors, nurses, cleaners, volunteers, caregivers, warehousemen, policemen, transporters, priests, religious sisters, educators, etc. do their best to help those who are in need. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, they witness love in the truth.



The sixth image is the window and a paralyzed society. This image of looking through the window can be negative because of being far away from reality without being involved in "the field hospital" (or ambulance).



Pope Francis already encouraged us to be the field hospital to heal the hurts in 2013 in "Evangelii Gaudium." What we have to do is not to stand on the balcony but to be present on the street. Becoming the street church means to immerse into the reality concretely.



The seventh image is the pandemic itself as a metaphor. Only the spirit of solidarity and social relationships can cure COVID-19 and make it become the pandemic of hope and conversion.





The author is a member of the Daughters of St. Paul (Figlie di San Paolo) living and giving the Good News to the world by means of social communication. Learn more about the congregation at fsp.pauline.or.kr.




LONDON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 28th, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, the Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit, will deliver the annual budget address. It will contain the government's plans on sustaining infrastructure development, including hospitals, health centres, and houses; hurricane resilience measures; and post-pandemic education. On July 19th, PM Skerrit disclosed that one of the projects to be announced on Tuesday is a $30-million financing programme for small businesses.

In a live broadcast on Sunday, the Prime Minister also spoke about the digital economy  a new ministerial portfolio led by Senator Honourable Cassanni Laville. The plan seeks to facilitate digital services across public and private sectors, improving the quality of education and creating new opportunities for youths.

Implementing the digital economy reforms are contingent on telecommunications advancement. The Minister of State for telecommunications and broadcasting, Senator Honourable Oscar George, wants to speed up the transition to more affordable and accessible intra-island connectivity. Prime Minister Skerrit explains that his vision is to support young Dominicans through digital advancement, education, training programmes and financing.

Ahead of the budget address, PM Skerrit did make one major announcement: "We are going to be launching a three-year programme of financing [for] small businesses that will also include the passage of legislation to create the legal framework for the operation of small businesses where concessions, fiscal incentives are concerned, and in recognition to the small business sector in our country. So we'll be launching a three-year, $30-million initiative for the small businesses in Dominica. And those funds would be lent to the small business owners at 1%, and [are] to be managed by the AID Bank."

Dominica overcame the COVID-19 health crisis with only 18 fully recovered cases and no deaths. In May, the government rolled out its plans to tackle the economic impact of the pandemic, with major financing from the World Bank, the IMF and the country's own Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme.

Known as the best country for citizenship by investment, Dominica remained atop foreign investors' preferences when seeking second citizenship. The country's economic progress, political stability, good external relationships, a reputation for transparency and efficient CBI Programme processes attract investors. If they pass all the due diligence checks and make a qualifying investment, they earn all the same rights as native citizens, except for the right to vote.

Contact:

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SOURCE CS Global Partners

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[July 22, 2020] UiPath Announces Integrations with Amazon Web Services to Allow Organizations to Modernize Customer Experiences and Scale Enterprise Productivity UiPath, a leading enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software company, today announced it has integrated its end-to-end platform for hyperautomation with enterprise-ready cloud infrastructure, cloud applications, and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions from Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) (AWS). By integrating with Amazon Textract, Amazon Rekognition, and Amazon Connect, the UiPath Platform can boost employee productivity, enhance customer experience, and accelerate digital transformation through dynamically-scaled AI-powered RPA solutions. Today's organizations expect flexible and ready-to-deploy solutions that deliver rapid results. As business environments become more challenging and dynamic, companies want pre-built integrations that solve their challenges. RPA and AI technologies have triggered a paradigm shift in existing ways of managing processes and repetitive tasks - creating the productivity and efficiency gains that these fast-moving organizations demand. The UiPath Platform fuels the 'automation first' era, removing mundane work so users can focus on what matters most. With these integrations, UiPath is enabling customers to: Rapidly implement and scale automations with auto deployment on AWS: With UiPath, customers can automatically scale their digital workforce on AWS through auto deployment, ensuring a faster and completely predictable deployment as workloads change. As needs evolve, customers can easily configure virtual machines and deploy robots - without any manual intervention - and connect them to UiPath Orchestrator for easy management. The UiPath pre-built deployment solution for AWS streamlines the deployment of RPA development, test, and production environments on AWS, with managed cloud database and multi-instance caching support.



James Alabaster, Automation Lead at Contact Energy, one of New Zealand's largest companies, said: "We recently completed our ambitious shift from a fully hosted ICT environment to AWS for most of our business applications. Since deploying UiPath on AWS, we have automated more than 20 legacy processes, including broadband activities, order management, and customer service requests like billing. This is already saving us 400 hours a week in productivity, increasing the accuracy of our processing and giving our people more time to connect with our customers one-on-one." Connect the call center front-end with all backend systems: With an open and extensive platform, UiPath easily connects Amazon Connect to any system that th contact center relies on, including those back office systems or mainframes that were previously not accessible. This enables a full zero-touch customer self-service automation solution, freeing up agents to work on more complex customer issues. By enhancing the customer experience through near real-time responses, improving First Call Resolution, and reducing Average Handling Time, contact centers are able to increase customer satisfaction scores and boost loyalty.





For example, a top 25 bank in the U.S. wanted to transform its customer contact center to better serve its customers' needs. Leveraging Amazon Connect and UiPath, a self-service system reaching across the bank's legacy mainframe systems was quickly implemented to handle the most common customer requests. With the solution, the bank achieved a more than 30 percent reduction in Average Handling Time for Inbound Calls and reduced call volumes per agent by nearly 50 percent. Bring AI to workflows and build more intelligent automations: UiPath ready-to-use intelligent automation solutions help customers modernize the enterprise by adding AI Services from AWS directly into day-to-day operations. Users can simply drag and drop the AWS AI capabilities into their automated workflows using pre-built integrations available on the UiPath Marketplace. With UiPath, customers can use Amazon Textract to automate tasks involving complex document types that traditional OCR software cannot manage.



Healthcare providers and insurers expect a large increase in the number of claims they will need to process due to COVID-19. Staff manually input data into the EMR system, but this is a time-consuming, error-prone task. Documents vary in format, and many have errors or empty fields. By dragging and dropping Amazon Textract capabilities into UiPath RPA workflows, customers can configure robots that process claims automatically - thereby reducing average handling time and improving accuracy. Staff are brought "into the loop" only in scenarios when customers have indicated that the data must be reviewed by a human. Boost IT productivity with enterprise-class automation: With integrations built on AWS, the IT team can harness the power of AWS to deliver efficient and affordable services and end-user process automation. More than 30 powerful, out-of-the-box IT automation activities for cloud infrastructure deliver faster automation and reduce development times. The IT team can easily automate and manage critical Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for object storage and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for virtual machine management operations in their workflows to create highly scalable and seamless automations. "With a myriad of choices, customers have ever-increasing expectations relative to service and support," said Ken Chestnut, Global Segment Lead, Amazon Web Services, Inc. "With today's announcement, organizations can better leverage UiPath and AWS services including Amazon Connect, Amazon Textract, and Amazon Rekognition to deliver exceptional customer experiences." Dhruv Asher, UiPath senior vice president of business development and product alliances, commented: "Customers want to make the most of their AWS investments, and they want a simple, affordable and resilient solution without complex infrastructure and application changes. We're here to help. With a one-click deployment solution to AWS, out-of-the-box IT automations, and readily available activity packs for consuming AI services, we're committed to helping customers integrate with the UiPath partner technologies that they rely on today and in the future." About UiPath UiPath has a vision to deliver A Robot for Every Person,?one?where companies enable every employee to use, create, and benefit from the transformative power of automation to liberate the boundless potential of people.?Only UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for hyperautomation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to scale digital business operations at unprecedented speed. The company has already automated millions of repetitive tasks for over 65% of the Fortune 500 and 8 of the Fortune 10. Named a 2020 CNBC Disruptor 50 company, UiPath was recognized as the fastest growing technology company in the Americas according to FT Americas' Fastest Growing Companies 2020 and named the top company on Deloitte's 2019 Technology Fast 500,?a ranking of the fastest public and private technology companies in North America. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005133/en/

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The number of legal challenges to a Trump administration rule over how public schools must use coronavirus relief to help private school students is growing.

On Wednesday, the NAACP and a number of school districts announced that they had filed a lawsuit against the rule, which was issued nearly a month ago from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. And on Monday, Washington state filed its own lawsuit challenging DeVos rule , which provides districts two choices about how they distribute that aidthe way the two choices are structured essentially incentivizes districts to set aside a share of federal relief to benefit all local private school students.

Both legal challenges to the rule, which covers a part of the CARES Act known as equitable services, come on the heels of a July 7 lawsuit originally filed by five states and the District of Columbia. All three lawsuits are seeking a preliminary injunction to immediately halt DeVos ability to enforce the rule while the case is considered.

The fight over how much virus aid should go to private school students has underscored years-long divisions in the education community, and deepened political ill-will as the K-12 community has tried to address the coronavirus pandemic.

DeVos and private school advocates have said the virus aid from Congress was meant to benefit all students regardless of what school they attend. But many public education officials, teachers unions, and others have argued she is disregarding congressional intent in order to satisfy her long-standing preference for private schools over traditional public schools, and to give private schools a lifeline during the pandemic.

Typically, equitable services requires districts to use a portion of their federal education aid provide services like tutoring and technology licenses to disadvantaged students at local private schools. However, when Congress included a requirement for equitable services in the CARES Actthe coronavirus relief package signed into law by President Donald Trump in late MarchDeVos subsequently issued guidance that districts must use CARES aid to provide equitable services to all local private school students, not just disadvantaged ones.

After an uproar that lasted nearly two months, DeVos issued an interim final rule in late June that provided districts two options. Those options hinge on whether all schools in a district get CARES aid or just those with large shares of low-income students. If districts share virus aid with only the latter group of schools, they need only provide equitable services to low-income students in local private schools. But if they share it with all schools, including relatively affluent ones, they must share it with all local private school students.

However, other conditions around the rule make it harder for districts to have budgetary flexibility if they only share virus aid with less-affluent schools. Educators have also said the rule and what led up to it has created confusion and unnecessary delay for decisions about how to spend the relief money.



The complaint from the NAACP and several school districts says this rule was clearly designed to coerce districts into sharing virus aid with all their schools. In that way, the lawsuit says, the greater the share of federal funds that Congress intended to support public education ends up benefitting private schools.

And the complaint from Washington state says of the rule: It reallocates funds to private schools regardless of need rather than focusing on the intended needs of public schools and low-income students at private schools.

The school districts for Denver, Pasadena, Calif., and Stamford, Conn., joined the NAACP in its Wednesday suit against DeVos and the Education Department. The Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday that the citys school district had joined the multi-state lawsuit filed on July 7, along with other districts and states, including the school boards for Cleveland, New York City, and San Francisco.

Photo: U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos speaks about the coronavirus pandemic and school closures at a White House briefing March 27, 2020. --AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Follow us on Twitter @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .
And even some of Mr. Garrelss defenders are surprised he used it.

Kevin Beasley, a Black artist who views Mr. Garrels as a supporter, and credits him with collecting his work for the museum, said that when he heard Mr. Garrelss comment he was shocked, and wondered, Is this Gary? It didnt make sense.

But supporters of the curator say that his use of the term, which Mr. Garrels has apologized for, did not warrant his abrupt departure from a post in which he had a record of supporting artists of color and others. Just last year, in a move he championed, the museum sold a Mark Rothko painting for $50.1 million and used the money to acquire works by women and people of color including Frank Bowling, Alma Thomas, Sam Gilliam and Mickalene Thomas.

Image Gary Garrels championed the sale of a Rothko to acquire works by women and people of color, but his remark on reverse discrimination" led to his resignation. Credit... J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

I am deeply saddened that Gary is viewed as having any racial prejudice toward artists, said Komal Shah, a museum trustee who said Mr. Garrels had helped establish many young artists of color in the collection. In my experience it simply isnt true.

Support came from outside the museum as well.

Gary Garrels is not a white supremacist, Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, said. He has championed the voices of those who were in the margins.

But others say Mr. Garrels did not just momentarily misspeak. Many staff members say they recalled remarks he made during a panel discussion about female artists in January in which he spoke about parity for women and that it would take time  and added: The other thing I have to say is I reassured artists we will continue to collect white men. There are a lot of great women artists but also still a lot of great men out there as well.
Kulbhushan

Kulbhushan verdict is final, says ICJ to Pak, UP journo who was shot at, dies, Indias tally now at 11.5 lakh cases, and other headlines to follow during the day.

UP Journalist Shot at in Front of Children Near Ghaziabad Dies

A journalist from Uttar Pradesh, who was shot in Ghaziabad near Delhi by five persons on Monday, died on Wednesday morning at a hospital. The journalist, identified as Vikram Joshi, was attacked while he was returning from his sister's place on a motorcycle with his two daughters when a group of men opened fire at him.

Joshi received a bullet injury on his head and was in a critical condition at city's Yashoda Hospital, reported ANI. Read more.

Jadhav Verdict Binding, Without Appeal, Reiterates ICJ as Pakistan Fails to Implement Order Over Past Year

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has once again reiterated that the judgment in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case is binding, final and without appeal. This was the courts response to a query by CNN-News 18 regarding the matter with one year having lapsed without the verdict being implemented by Pakistan. Read more.

BJP observes black day in Kerala, trends #ResignKeralaCM on Twitter

The BJP in Kerala observed a black day on Tuesday and reiterated its demand for the resignation of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. BJP leaders, supporters and others trended the hashtag #ResignKeralaCM on Twitter.

The state leaders of the BJP and Congress have been demanding the Chief Minister's resignation ever since the gold smuggling case surfaced. Swapna Suresh, one of the main accused in the smuggling case, was a contract staff at state Information Technology department. She was also close to IAS officer M Sivasankar, who was the CM's secretary and state's IT secretary. Read more.

COVID-19: Indias Tally at 11.5 L; Deaths Per Mn Low, Says Govt

India on Tuesday, 21 July, reported 37,148 new COVID-19 cases, taking the tally in the country to 11,55,191. The death toll increased by 587 to 28,084. According to the Union Health Ministry data, there are currently 4,02,529 active cases across the country, while 7,24,577 patients have been cured or discharged, and one has migrated.

Story continues

In a briefing on Tuesday, a Health Ministry official said that the number of COVID-19 deaths per million population in India continues to be among the lowest in the world, while pushing for aggressive testing to bring down the positivity rate. Read more.

Over 23% Delhi residents have COVID-19 antibodies, shows survey data; NCDC says 77% still susceptible

Nearly a quarter of people surveyed for sero-prevalence in Delhi have been infected by the coronavirus, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday, while a top official said the study also showed the remaining three-fourth population were still vulnerable and called for continuing strict containment measures.

The sero-survey results came on a day the daily cases again surpassed the 1,000. On Monday, Delhi reported less than 1,000 COVID-19 cases for the first time in seven weeks. Read more.

More Than 400 Bodies Recovered from Bolivian Streets, Homes, 85% of Them Had Coronavirus

Bolivian police said on Tuesday they recovered more than 400 bodies from streets and homes over a five-day period, with 85 percent of the dead believed to have had coronavirus.

A total of 191 bodies were recovered in the Cochabamba metropolitan area alone from July 15-20, with another 141 collected in La Paz, national police director Coronel Ivan Rojas told journalists. Read more.

Sonu Sood Charters First Flight to Evacuate Indian Students Stranded in Kyrgyzstan Due to COVID-19

Sonu Sood has stepped up to help Indian students who have been stuck in Kyrgyzstan due to pandemic-related travel restrictions return home. The actor announced that he's operating the first flight between Bishkek and Varanasi, from July 22. Sood also confirmed that flights from other cities to India would occur in the coming week.

Tweeting the same, he wrote, "This is to inform to all the students of Kyrgyzstan that its time to come home. we are operating the first charter Bishkek -Varanasi on 22nd July.The details of which will be sent to your email id and mobile phones in a while. Charters for other states will also fly this week (sic)." Read more.


The state LNP is demanding the almost-200 people who disappeared from their COVID-19 self-quarantine after lying to Queensland border officers be slapped with the maximum $13,345 fine.

It comes as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says senior police assured her the period of risk posed by the group had passed, with no failures in the mandatory hotel quarantine regime.

Police check cars for permits at the border checkpoint in Coolangatta at the Gold Coast. Credit:Matt Roberts - Getty Images

Since April, authorities had discovered 185 people were missing when police officers conducted compliance checks on those supposed to be in mandatory self-quarantine after coming into Queensland.

LNP health spokeswoman Ros Bates said a strong message must be sent to those 185 people, who police believe gave fake addresses so they could give authorities the slip beyond the border.
'Not Just Trolling, But Humiliation': Putin's Choice To Replace Khabarovsk Governor Unlikely To Calm Unrest

By Yelena Rykovtseva, Robert Coalson July 21, 2020

The moment the popular governor of Russia's Khabarovsk region was arrested and hustled off to Moscow on July 9, locals -- who have taken to the streets in daily protests, with crowds twice numbering in the tens of thousands  began wondering who President Vladimir Putin would name as a replacement.

A member of the ruling United Russia party, shipped in from Moscow?

A local figure with ties to the administration of the arrested governor, Sergei Furgal, and his Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR)?

There was also talk that it could be Mikhail Degtyaryov, an LDPR deputy in the State Duma, the lower house of the national parliament in Moscow, more than 6,000 kilometers away  but that notion was dismissed by some as unlikely, unserious, or both.

"Rumors that it would be Degtyaryov have been circulating for two weeks," said Dmitry Nizovtsev, a Khabarovsk-based activist who works for opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, in an interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service. "I spoke with people who know a lot more than I do, asking them if it would be Degtyaryov. And they told me, 'Seriously? Are you kidding? Of course not.' Although there were such rumors, everyone scoffed at them."

But on July 20, that is exactly what Putin did, naming Degtyaryov -- a 39-year-old native of the Volga River city of Samara and an engineer by training without any significant executive experience or connection to Khabarovsk  as the acting head of the vast region of some 1.35 million people.

Putin's choice seems unlikely to mollify the protesters, who have now taken to the streets in large numbers for 11 straight days, Nizovtsev said. And it could even anger them further.

"The main thing that the people of Khabarovsk wanted, their main demand, was Furgal's release," he said. "That he be tried fairly or not at all. And their second demand was that he be replaced by someone local. They were expecting someone local."

The appointment "is not simply trolling on the part of the bald one," activist Olga Bulgakova wrote on Facebook in a reference to Putin, "it is an act of humiliation."

The message to Khabarovsk residents, she added, was: "If you don't want someone from United Russia, you can have [expletive deleted].'"

Degtyaryov is a colorful up-and-comer in the LDPR  which, despite its name, is a nationalist party -- and has been mentioned by flamboyant longtime LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky as a possible successor. He was the party's unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Moscow in 2013, when he came in fifth after Kremlin favorite Sergei Sobyanin, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, and two others, and again in 2018.

However, his career was launched firmly inside the United Russia establishment. From 2001-03, he headed the Samara branch of the pro-Putin activist youth group Walking Together. In 2003, he joined United Russia and the party's official youth group, Molodaya Gvardiya (Young Guard). In 2004, he was elected to the Samara City Duma from the ruling party, but he left United Russia in 2005.

He joined the LDPR in November 2005 after being recruited for a local leadership post. A few months later, in April 2006, he was named the party's Samara regional coordinator and an aide to party leader Zhirinovsky. He was elected as a regional lawmaker in 2007 and as a State Duma deputy in 2011.

In 2009 and again in 2018, he was included in Putin's elite list of young "reserve cadres" after completing a preparatory course in the presidential management academ (RANXiGS).

During his career in the Duma, he has been known as the author of a number of outlandish initiatives, including one to paint the Kremlin's red-brick walls white, one that would have outlawed the circulation of U.S. dollars in Russia, one that would have given women two paid days off each month during their menstrual periods, and one that would have banned gay men from donating blood.

'How To Pour Kerosene On A Fire'

Once it was announced, Degtyaryov's appointment quickly became a topic of ridicule on Russian social media. Journalist Mikhail Shevelev asserted on Facebook that although Degtyaryov seemed normal early in his career, that is no longer the case.

"He is a subject for a dissertation in psychology," he wrote.

The appointment could be featured in "a textbook called How To Pour Kerosene On A Fire," Muscovite Grigory Kislin wrote on Facebook.

Journalist and Moscow district council member Ilya Azar posted a photograph of Degtyaryov's office in the Duma which featured a huge scowling portrait of a young Zhirinovsky on the wall and a doormat on the floor featuring a photograph of former U.S. President Barack Obama and the American flag.

But the mood on social media in Khabarovsk itself was a bit different, although there were plenty of memes pointing out Degtyaryov's lack of any connection with the region.

Nizovtsev told RFE/RL that he was reading local forums both before and after Degtyaryov's appointment became known late on July 20.

"Before the appointment, people were participating in profound political disputes on topics like should the protests mention Putin, should they collect money for Furgal's legal defense, or should they openly come out against Moscow," he said.

"But as soon as Degtyaryov appeared, everyone simply united," he noted. "The most radical voices became louder and the moderates didn't simply become quieter  they just fell silent. I didn't come across a single person who supported Degtyaryov, so I can't say how other people would have reacted."

Moscow-based political consultant Stanislav Belkovsky told RFE/RL that Degtyaryov's appointment indicates that Putin was more concerned with mending fences with Zhirinovsky and the LDPR than with analyzing the demands of the Khabarovsk demonstrators.

"Putin always thinks that people don't come out into the streets voluntarily and for free," Belkovsky said. "If there is a mass demonstration, that means that someone is financing it and organizing it."

When the appointment was announced, Belkovsky noted, Zhirinovsky backed away from his previous support of Furgal and said his party had nothing to do with the protests in the region.

Belkovsky added that Putin might be misjudging the seriousness of the situation in the Far East because it is being downplayed by his advisers.

"We shouldn't forget that the president's perspective is shaped by his advisers," Belkovsky said. "Every bureaucrat knows that it is important to show that nothing serious is happening because, just like in the days of antiquity, the person who brings bad news is to blame and he's the one to lose his head.

"Putin lives in the ether," he concluded. "His self-isolation began long before the pandemic. He doesn't think anything extraordinary is happening in Khabarovsk that would force him to fundamentally change his standard political logic of not making any serious concessions to those who are pressuring him."

Nizovtsev agrees.

"Locals are upset that he is not from Khabarovsk, not from the Far East, that  as Aleksei Navalny said  he has only seen Khabarovsk on television," Nizovtsev said. "This has really enraged everyone. This was a huge mistake, but I have the impression that Putin has decided to push it all the way."

Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Yelena Rykovtseva. With additional reporting by Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/not-just-trolling -but-humiliation-putin-s-choice-to-replace- arrested-khabarovsk-governor-unlikely -to-calm-unrest/30739710.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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In an effort to keep a newly-arrested member of the Oath Keepers militia group charged in last week's seditious conspiracy indictment behind bars -- the Justice Department in a new court filing Wednesday revealed even more details behind the group's alleged plotting in advance of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Prosecutors argue in the filing that Edward Vallejo, who will appear in federal court in Phoenix for his detention hearing Thursday, would present both a threat to the safety of the general public and a risk of obstruction of justice if released pending further legal proceedings in his case. Vallejo is not alleged to have joined the Oath Keepers at the Capitol on Jan. 6 -- he instead is accused of waiting with a so-called 'Quick Reaction Force' of heavily armed individuals at a hotel in Virginia just outside the city, waiting to be activated once the militia's members in D.C. called for help.
It is no exaggeration to say that there is now no guaranteed safe place in Trinidad and Tobago.

We have moved from the stage of being prisoners in our homes behind metal bars to being afraid to enjoy the beautiful outdoors and even to sleep, for fear that if crime comes knocking we may have no recourse but to cower and beg for our lives. The society is being overpowered by the force of the criminal will with insufficient resources to resist and break that power.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has written to Border Security Force Director General Surjeet Singh Deswal, expressing his appreciation for the seizure of a huge cache of drugs by the personnel of BSFs 10th Battalion in Gurdaspur sector.

The CM also recommended that all members of the BSF team involved in the recent seizure of 60 kg of heroin should be rewarded for their success.

"But for the alertness of jawans and the prompt action thereafter, a huge cache of drugs would have entered the Indian market and severely impacted the lives of many Indians, said Singh in a statement here.

The exemplary action of the 14-member BSF team involved in the operation to save the nation's youth from the clutches of drugs deserves to be commended, the CM said.

He said the BSF personnel not only displayed exceptional alertness but also risked their lives while battling the strong current in river Ravi.

The BSF on July 19 had seized 60 kg of heroin from the Ravi river that flows along the India-Pakistan international border in Gurdaspur.

The contraband was found in 60 packets concealed in long fabric cloth tubes and tied to a bunch of water hyacinth floating in the river. The consignment was pushed into the river from Pakistan to the Indian side.

(Image Credit Pixabay)
How Books and Buckets program in Long Beach aims to keep kids away from gang violence
Cracks are appearing in Madagascar's government after its health minister requested international help to cope with a surge in COVID-19 cases despite an official campaign to promote a touted fix for the virus.

The government has been distributing a herbal drink that President Andry Rajoelina has proclaimed as a cure for coronavirus and protection against it, despite warnings the brew has not been clinically tested.

Hospital officials in the capital Antananarivo have said they are running out of beds as infections have surged in recent days.

"The government would like to express its dismay at the discovery of a letter signed by the minister of public health urgently requesting support in the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic," government spokeswoman Lalatiana Rakotozafy said in a statement dated Tuesday.

In a letter addressed Monday to donors, Health Minister Ahmad Ahmad made an "urgent appeal" to development agencies.

"Over the past weeks, the COVID-19 epidemic has evolved in a very critical way in Madagascar with notable flare-ups in certain regions, particularly in Antananarivo," it said.

The health ministry itemised what it called its "most urgent needs" -- oxygen bottles, 337 ventilators, 2.3 million face masks, 697,000 pairs of gloves and 533,200 medical blouses.

The ministry's appeal "is a personal initiative", taken "without consulting" either the government or Rajoelina, the government statement said.

"It is clear that many crucial points in the management of this health crisis have escaped the vigilance of the minister of public health," it said.

To date Madagascar, a poor Indian Ocean island-nation, has recorded 8,162 coronavirus cases, including 69 deaths.

President Rajoelina has been promoting an infusion derived from artemisia -- a plant with proven anti-malarial properties -- as a homegrown cure for COVID-19.

The drink, which has been called Covid-Organics, has been distributed not only in Madagascar but also in several other countries, mainly in Africa.

The UN's World Health Organization (WHO) has cautioned that there have been no published scientific studies to validate claims for the drink, and mainstream scientists have pointed out the potential risks from untested concoctions.

Poverty

Most of Madagascar's 26 million inhabitants live in grinding poverty with limited access to healthcare, and regularly take herbal teas for a variety of common ailments.

The government has blamed the recent jump in cases on "increased testing capacity".

"Positive COVID-19 cases did not take (Covid-Organics) or only took it sporadically, without following the prescribed dosage," said official documents sent to AFP on Tuesday.

On June 4, Education Minister Rijasoa Andriamanana was sacked after announcing a plan to spend $2.2 million (1.9 million euros) on sweets and lollipops for children to ease the "bitter taste" of the drink.

The expense sparked outrage, fanned by the Malagasy press, and the order was cancelled.
DAVIE, Fla.  A South Florida police chief has announced his retirement months after an investigation into alleged remarks he made about the coronavirus death of an openly gay Broward Sheriffs deputy.

Chief Dale Engle. (Davie Police Dept.)

Davie Police Chief Dale Engle told town officials last week that he plans to retire on Sept. 3, the South Florida SunSentinel reported. He has been on paid leave for three months and will continue to be paid until he retires.

Engle was accused of saying Broward Sheriffs school resource officer Shannon Bennett died because of his lifestyle. On Monday night, Engle told the SunSentinel he didnt make the remark.

I maintain my innocence, he said.

Engle was placed on leave shortly after the states Fraternal Order of Police filed a complaint against him.

He said Davie officials didnt pressure him to retire. Engle said he is leaving on his own with no pressure from the city. His decision to retire was fueled by a toxic backlash his teenage children received on social media after the allegations surfaced, he told the newspaper.

Deputy Shannon Bennett (Broward Sheriff's Office)

Engle had been with the department for more than two decades. Officials asked retired chief Patrick Lynn to return to lead the department after Engle was placed on leave.

Bennett was the first law enforcement in Florida to die from COVID-19. He had been in Chicago with friends to celebrate St. Patricks Day days before falling ill, the newspaper reported. He died April 3.

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A three-year-old girl from Arkansas has died and her baby sister has been left clinging to life after the children were found in the back of their mother's car outside their home while she was napping inside.

The Arkansas State Police said in a press release on Tuesday that police in Booneville got a 911 call at around 2pm the day before from 21-year-old Kaylee Petchenik, saying her two daughters were missing.

Petchenik told police that she discovered the disappearance of her children, three-year-old Laykn and 15-month-old Olivia, after she woke up from an afternoon nap.

Kaylee Petchenik, 21 (left), woke up from a nap on Monday afternoon to find her daughters, Laykn, three, and Olivia, one, missing

Laykn Petchenik, 3, died on Monday in Arkansas after being found unconscious beside her 15-month-old sister in the back of their mother's car

An officer was sent to the family's home in the 480 block of West 5th Street and discovered both girls lying unconscious on the back floorboard of their mother's parked car.

Laykn Petchenik was rushed to a local hospital where she was later pronounced dead. An autopsy will be performed to determine the toddler's cause and manner of death.

Her younger sister was transported to a hospital in Little Rock, where she was listed in stable but critical condition.

'Both are the apparent victims of heat,' State Police has concluded.

A neighbor told 5News how the young mother had approached his house and asked if he had seen her kids when she discovered they were missing Monday.

'I was sitting out of my porch around 11 oclock and my neighbor Kaylee, the mom has came outside and looked concerned and worried and she came up to and asked if I had seen her kids,' said neighbor Matthew Wood.

He said that Petchenik works night shifts and that she claimed she had locked her door before she went to sleep.

'The mother works night shifts. She was asleep, she had laid down for a nap. She said she had locked her doors and when she woke up the door was open and the kids were gone,' Wood added.

The neighbor was also with the officer when the little girls were found about an hour after police arrived and said that he 'froze up at the sight'.

Kaylee Petchenik and her daughter Laykn in a Facebook post from 2019

Laykn, pictured left in her car seat behind her mother, was pronounced dead at the hospital. Her 15-month-old sister (right) was listed in stable but critical condition

An officer responded to Petchenik's home in Booneville, Arkansas, and found both her children lying unconscious in the back of her parked car

Neighbor Matthew Wood said he froze when he and the officer found the little girls

'I was standing next to him when we looked down and saw them in the car, but I kind of froze up at the sight, Im not going to lie,' Wood said.

'He opened the door, screamed for EMS and grabbed both of them and rushed them to the hospital.

'The little girl who has passed, Laykyn, she was just limp when he picked her up and lifeless. I was just sick when I saw her and I had to sit down.

'Knowing that little girl only got 3 years of life and the only thing I can do now is pray that the youngest one makes it out fine,' he said.

According to AccuWeather.com, temperatures in Booneville soared into the high 90s around midday on Monday.

A neighbor said 21-year-old mother Kaylee Petchenik worked night shifts and had locked her door before taking a nap but found it open again when she woke up

Robert Darby, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tulsa, Oklahoma, told NWA the heat index that day would have been 101 degrees.

According to scientific data, on a 95-degree day it would take 30 minutes for the temperature inside a vehicle to reach a scorching 129 degrees.

'A child's body will heat up three to five times faster than an adult,' a doctor told ABC.

'So they don't have the capacity to compensate and deal with that temperature.

'People don't realize how fast a vehicle will heat up as well,' they added.

'Within the first ten minutes of a door being locked, a car can heat up 20 degrees on a hot day when the temperature is 85 degrees outside so a lot of these things are overlooked and also the fact that people think cracking the windows will make a difference, it really doesn't .

'It doesn't make a difference or slow the vehicle down form heating up.'

The press release from ASP did not say how the two young girls ended up in the vehicle or how long they may have been there for.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, a State Police spokesperson declined to disclose any additional details concerning the circumstances of the incident, citing an ongoing investigation.

Special agents of the Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Division will submit a case file to the Logan County prosecuting attorney for consideration.

A GoFundMe page was established to cover the funeral expenses for Laykn which had raised almost $3,000 as of Wednesday night.

Petchenik posted many pictures of her daughters to social media and the information section on her account reads 'love my little family'.

Kaylee Petchenik shared this loving post about her daughter on her birthday

Petchenik posted many pictures of her daughters to social media the information section on her account reads 'love my little family'. She posted a tribute to Laykn, left, on her birthday

Time has definitely flown by fast! Its hard to believe that you are already this big!' she wrote in a post for Laykn's second birthday in March 2019.

'You most definitely have a one of a kind personality and me watching you grow every day is one of the best parts of being your momma!!

Its crazy to think that in 5 more days her little sister will be coming into this world! I know shes just as excited as we are for miss Olivia to be here!' she added.

According to the advocacy group KidsAndCars.org, there have been 11 child hot car deaths so far this year.

On average, 39 children die of vehicular heatstroke each year.

However, according to ABC News, the last two years had the highest amount of child hot car deaths in history with a total of at least 107 children that died nationwide.

Janette Fennell, president and founder of KidsAndCars.org, told Good Morning America Wednesday that the number of fatalities which involved children entering vehicles on their own have jumped to 55 percent.

She placed the blame for the increase on families being at home due to the coronavirus.

'In many cases the kids end up on the floorboards, so when people look inside [the car] they don't see them. It's just heartbreaking that these kids die in their own driveways,' Fennell explained.

She stressed that parents should have additional layers of protection when trying to prevent hot car-related tragedies.

On July 1, the House of Representatives passed the Hot Cars Act a federal bill that would require available, affordable technology to detect the presence of a child inside a vehicle.

It is not yet known when the bill will by voted on by the Senate.
Lord Ricketts, the former national security adviser

A former national security adviser today called for House of Lords' rules on financial declarations to be toughened up to force peers to fully disclose any Russian interests.

Lord Ricketts said there is a need for 'more transparency' in order to 'shine a light' not just on Russian money but also on 'many other countries trying to buy influence' in Britain.

His comments came after the Intelligence and Security Committee published its long-awaited report into Russian meddling in British democracy.

The report savaged the record of successive governments for failing to adequately respond to the threat posed by the Kremlin.

One of its recommendations was for members of the House of Lords to face greater scrutiny over business links to Russia and for rules on outside work to be tightened up.

The ISC report pointed out that while MPs have to declare any income of more than 100 from outside interests, peers face no such accountability.

Lord Ricketts said peers should be subject to the same rules on financial declarations as MPs.

He told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme: Yes, I think to follow my own logic I think transparency has got to be the key here.

I personally would be perfectly prepared to accept the same rules applying to lords as apply to MPs, if lords are sitting in the House of Lords and taking part in legislation.

A report by the Intelligence and Security Committee said the financial interests of members of the House of Lords should be subject to greater scrutiny

'I think that rules have been tightened about having to register if you have foreign clients that you are working for but not the amounts of money that you are receiving.

So, yes, I am in favour of having more transparency, shining a light on not just Russian money but many other countries trying to buy influence in the UK and that is probably more effective than extra legislation.

The ISC report said it was 'notable that a number of members of the House of Lords have business interests linked to Russia, or work directly for major Russian companies linked to the Russian state'.

It said that 'these relationships should be carefully scrutinised, given the potential for the Russian state to exploit them'.

The ISC concluded the UK had taken its 'eye off the ball' in recent years in terms of preparing to counter potential Russian interference.

Lord Ricketts suggested the increased threat of terrorism in the past two decades had caused hostile state activity to slip down the UK security services' list of priorities.

He said: Yes, and the reason for that is because their business in intelligence is about priorities and for the 15 years after 9/11 ministers overriding national security priority was counter terrorism.

I can imagine the number of times ministers came on your programme to say after some awful terrorist attack this is our absolute overriding number one priority, we must do everything to keep the British people safe.

That was the security services top priority. They also had far right terrorism, they had the resurgence of Irish terrorism.

So, yes, I think hostile state activity, espionage in the UK fell down the priorities list.
Aine OConnor and Sean Rice Jackson releasing some of the little toads in the Castlemaine project last week. Photos by Domnick Walsh

National Parks and Wildlife Service officer Ferdias Marnell and Dingle Oceanworld biologist Louise Overy releasing young natterjack toads into the dunes of Castlemaine last week, one of the most important habitats in these islands for a species on the brink of extinction. Photo by Domnick Walsh

They may still measure little more than a centimetre in length, but thanks to the help of Dingle Oceanworld over these past four months, the natterjack toads rescued as tadpoles from drying ponds in Castlemaine have been given the green light to return - and, hopefully, flourish.

In collaboration with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and Fota Wildlife Park, the Dingle aquarium has been participating for the past four years in a project aiming to bolster the population of Ireland's only native toad, the natterjack.

While the toads' population in mainland Europe remains healthy, this is not the case in Ireland, where their future prospects are at a critical point, and they can only be found in the southwest of the country.

Around 80 per cent of the overall population is in the Maharees area, for example, while Castlemaine also provides the kind of sand-dune and coastal marsg habitat in which they thrive.

Dingle Oceanworld takes them from drying ponds and then keeps them at the aquarium until they're able to return to their homes in Castlemaine, Oceanworld's Louise Overy explained to The Kerryman.

"Historical land reclamation and drainage has badly affected the population numbers," Louise said, "and this programme began about four years ago in a bid to bolster the population.

"So we would take them as tadpoles from their drying ponds and raise them in the aquarium. We even breed fruit flies and spring tails so that they always have a fine feed!

"From the ages of about two or three, they begin breeding. We keep them over a period of about four months until we return them to Castlemaine, when they're no longer dependant on us," she added.

She further explained that farmers are participating in a pond-creation scheme, to help provide the sort of habitat in which the natterjacks have a chance of future success.

Wednesday was the first release of the year after this batch, consisting of hundreds of tadpoles, were raised over the COVID months, Louise explained, although more will be raised and then released as the year continues. Fota also carried out a release in the Maharees area of about 600 toads, Louise added.

"I think it's an important project because we're talking about Ireland's only toad," Louise explained. "We need to protect the species for future generations."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 01:50:50|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Ankara and Moscow announced that they agreed to consider establishing a joint working group to solve Libyan crisis, a joint statement said on Wednesday.

The two countries "consider creating a Joint Working Group on Libya and convene for the next round of consultations in Moscow in the near future," said the joint statement.

The announcement came after the Turkish and Russian delegations, chaired by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin and his Turkish counterpart Sedat Onal, held two-day talks in Turkey's capital Ankara, aiming to achieve a ceasefire in Libya.

According to the joint statement, Turkey and Russia have agreed to continue joint efforts, including encouraging the Libyan parties to create conditions for a lasting and sustainable ceasefire.

They also pledged to facilitate the advancement of the intra-Libyan political dialogue in line with the conclusions of the Berlin Conference on Libya in coordination with the UN.

Ankara and Moscow called upon the parties to take steps to ensure safe humanitarian access and delivery of urgent assistance to all those in need.

Turkey and Russia support warring sides in Libya, but have been in dialogue for a ceasefire and political solution in the war-torn country.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin launched an initiative in Istanbul on Jan. 8 to de-escalate the situation on the ground and to pave the way for a political process in Libya.

Turkey backs the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), while Russia supports Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA). Enditem
In a jungle of Quang Nam, miners crawl through deep tunnels searching for luck before a raid by authorities forces them to run for cover.

In Phuoc Duc Commune of central Quang Nam Province's Phuoc Son District, Tuan, 24, mines gold illegally with a friend, having invested in equipment, hired a few associates, and set up shop in the forest.

The tunnels they dig are mostly supported by bare rock alone, the stifling air inside making it hard to breathe and see despite the availability of flashlights.

Those with experience say gold can usually be found on rocky cliffs, where miners patiently dig and haul soil outside using carts.

The narrow and rickety entrance to a mine. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh.

"Tunnels zigzag up and down deep below ground," Tuan said.

After two hours, miners usually surface for fresh air and a drink of water. They utilize a power generator and crusher to pulverize the excavated stone and soil before filtration, hoping to find some gold.

Tuan, short and dark, from central Nghe An Province, has done many jobs since childhood, previously supplying a gold mining company with firewood.

Having grown up among gold miners, Tuan has earned VND4 million ($172.5) per month. After tyingthe knot, he decided to settle down in central Quang Nam Province.

In 2017, the company's license expired, forcing Tuan to quit and work for several other gold bosses, who all ended up empty handed, and out of pocket.

In 2019, he borrowed money to buy his own power generator and crusher and set up his own dig inside the forest. Over the past 12 months, he has fled several official raids, losing his equipment at one stage. Regardless, Tuan has never given up on his dream.

After hiding for several days, he borrowed more money, bought more gear, and started from scratch.

He knows what he is doing is illegal, but "it is too difficult to make money at home, so I have to stick with this job, to hopefully set myself up in some other trade."

Nearby, Ha is also nursing a golden dream. Having set up a small hut in which to sleep at night, he hired two helpers whom he pays VND6 million ($259.4) per month each. During the day, they continuously dig and crush soil.

Over 25 years ago, Ha left his hometown in central Thua Thien Hue Province for Phuoc Son Dictrict in Quang Ngai to become a gold miner. Years later, the family man has mastered the trade.

A flashlight is the only light source inside the dark tunnel. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh.

Like many other illegal gold miners, Ha runs for cover whenever local authorities execute a raid. All of his machines have been destroyed at some point or another, but without affecting his outlook.

After dozens of years in the jungle, Ha always burns incense and prays for luck before entering the tunnels, where many have lost their lives.

In November 2017, a landslide claimed six miners.

Earlier that year, three men from northern Thai Nguyen Province came to Phuoc Son looking for gold. They worked for a boss in Phuoc Hoa Commune and earned VND5 million ($216.16) per month.

Soon after, their boss quit, prompting the trio to invest in their own equipment and set up their own dig.

Gold miners work as deep as 30 m below ground. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh.

In October 2017, the three employed 16 men from central Nghe An Province and northern Lai Chau Province, splitting the work into two shifts, one from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., the other from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m.

In November, a hurricane hit Quang Nam, causing severe floods. At 11 a.m. on November 5, 2017, trying to rescue their gear, the landslide swept away six of the men.

Another accident occurred last year, in Phuoc Kim Province, killing one miner. Two others were jailed for one year on charges of violating the law on natural resource exploitation.

"This job is dangerous and hard, but gold mining has been with us nearly half our lives, so we can't give it up," Ha confessed.

"I hope luck would smile on me at least once, then I would bid farewell to this job and enjoy old age."
BANGKOK  The historic Bui Chu Cathedral in Vietnam, a 135-year-old church considered by many an architectural gem, is being demolished to make room for a bigger cathedral despite last-ditch efforts to save it.

By Wednesday, workers had removed tiles from the floor and dismantled much of the roof of the cathedral, which is in Nam Dinh Province, about two hours south of Hanoi. A high fence has been erected around the building, and demolition will most likely be completed by early next month.

This would amount to an irremediable loss of heritage for Vietnam, for the world, and for the Catholic Church itself, said Martin Rama, a top economist with the World Bank who has worked to save the building. Indeed, the ancient Bui Chu Cathedral embodies an amazing intersection of culture, history, and architecture.

As Vietnams population and economy have grown in recent decades, the country has lost much of its cultural heritage with the destruction  or aggressive renovation  of numerous French colonial buildings, pagodas and temples.
New York Times reporter Julian Barnes implied on Tuesday that some intelligence officials believe that the Kremlin is fanning corruption allegations against Joe Bidens son Hunter in order to obscure Russias ongoing election interference attempts.

During an MSNBC interview, host Nicole Wallace referred to Russian disinformation campaigns that she said appear to have infected the House Intelligence Committee, asking Barnes, What access to any information or briefings do Democrats really have?

Russia uses these disinformation campaigns to deflect from what they did in 2016, Barnes, who reports on national security for the Times, responded. A lot of intelligence officials believe the sort of Burisma accusations that are being revived are once again trying to obscure what Russia is up to.

On Monday, top congressional Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a letter alleging a foreign disinformation campaign aimed at influencing the 2020 presidential election and interfering with Congress. The letter included few specifics, but Democrats demanded an FBI briefing to warn members of Congress about the threat. Officials familiar with an addendum to the letter said it referred to a potential Russian attempt to harm Bidens presidential campaign, Barnes reported for the Times.

Barnes continued that he believes Democrats published the letter because the only remedy that really works is the resilience of a population, and a population can only be resilient if they know whats going on. So much of this stuff is secret, falls into bitter, partisan divisions, but its important for voters not to be affected by the disinformation campaign, and that requires talking about it, putting some of this stuff out in the open, realizing when it is being done to the American public.

Hunter Biden was appointed to Burismas board in 2014 while his father was vice president and resigned from the board in April of last year.

During a July 25 phone call with Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump asked Zelensky to help his administration investigate allegations that Biden used his position as vice president to help Burisma avoid a corruption probe soon after his son was appointed to the board a controversy that became the focal point of the impeachment probe against Trump.

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In spring, 2016, Biden called on Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who had been investigating the energy company paying his son. The vice president threatened to withdraw $1 billion in U.S. military aid to Ukraine if the country did not fire the prosecutor, who was accused by the State Department and U.S. allies in Europe of being soft on corruption.

More from National Review
China strongly condemns the U.S. for asking China to close its Consulate General in Houston, Texas, urging it to recall its wrong decision or there will be countermeasures, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

The U.S. abruptly asked China to close its Consulate General in Houston in 72 hours starting July 21. The decision is a political provocation made by the U.S., which has seriously violated international law, basic norms of international relations as well as relevant provisions of the China-U.S. Consular Treaty, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin.

The unilateral announcement on closing China's Consulate-General in Houston, according to Wang, is an upgraded action that escalates tensions between China and the U.S. to an unprecedented level.
Kingfisher Airlines | 2005-2013 | Founded by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, Kingfisher was based in India, even though 50 percent stake rested with United Breweries Group of the UK. The airline ran consistent losses since it was launched, which caught up with it in 2012. Mallya fled to the UK to dodge creditors. (Image: Wikimedia)

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A loan defaulter is a person or company that fails to repay the loan dues to the bank for a period of 90 days. The reason for non-payment could be financial stress arising out of job loss or business failure. A wilful defaulter is a borrower who has the ability to repay the bank but wouldn't so deliberately. In this case, the intent to pay back the money to the lender is absent. Which is why a wilful default is not comparable with a normal bank loan default.

What happens when borrowers are tagged as wilful defaulter? Banks declare a borrower as a wilful defaulter on the basis of evidence about the borrowers cash situation after a thorough background check. Once the borrower is tagged as a wilful defaulter they cannot avail loans from any other bank. In most cases, this information is shared with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Such wilful defaulters are ostracized from the formal banking system.

Banks do not typically make the data on wilful defaulters public. But recently, All India Bank Employees Association(AIBEA), the largest body of bank employees in India, compiled and released the latest data available on wilful defaulters. The results are interesting.

According to the list compiled by AIBEA, 17 public sector banks, as on 30 September, 2019, have a total of 2426 wilful defaulter loan accounts aggregating to Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Remember, these are accounts where borrowers are not willing to pay despite having the repayment capacity. Hence, an element of criminality cannot be ruled out. After all, banks are dealing with public money.

These are people banks have a tough time to deal with at all levels. These often cash-rich promoters who could drag banks to courts for legal battles that typically last for years, said a senior banker on condition of anonymity.

Who got how much such accounts?

Of all banks, the countrys largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) has the highest chunk of wilful defaulters. SBI has 685 wilful defaulter accounts aggregating to Rs 43,887 crore as on September 30, 2019. This is followed by Punjab National Bank (PNB), which has 325 accounts amounting to Rs22,370 crore. Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and Central Bank of India follow with 355 accounts (Rs 14661 crore), 184 accounts (Rs 11,250 crore), 69 accounts (Rs9663 crore). The least hit of the lot is Punjab and Sindh Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Syndicate Bank, which have less than Rs 1500 crore each in wilful defaulter accounts.

Beginning April 1 this year, Syndicate Bank, Allahabad Bank, Corporation Bank, United Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, and Andhra Bank were merged with bigger banks. According to this plan, Punjab National Bank (PNB) absorbed Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank, creating the second-largest bank after SBI. Similarly, Syndicate Bank merged with Canara Bank, and Union Bank of India absorbed both Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank. Indian Bank took over Allahabad Bank.

Who are the big wilful defaulters?

Some high profile names in the defaulter lists of these banks include Kingfisher Airlines, ABG Shipyard, Rotomac, Gitanjali Gems Ltd, Nakshatra Brands Ltd, Amtek Auto, Winsome Diamonds, Gupta Coal India Pvt Ltd, Diamond Power Infrastructure Ltd, Siddhi Vinayak Logistics Ltd, Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited, Ashapura Garments, Electrotherm India Ltd, Nakoda Ltd, VMC Systems Ltd, Varun Industries, Zoom Developers, among others.

It is pertinent to note that some of these cases might have been resolved since then. Wilful defaulter accounts with loan outstanding Rs 500 crore and above works out to around Rs 32,737 crores from 33 accounts. Of this, the biggest account is that of Gitanjali Gems with PNB at Rs4,644 crore.

Loan write-offs matter

A loan is written off when the bank finds the account non-recoverable through normal operations. Such accounts need to be fully provided for. Provisions refer to the amount lenders need to set aside under RBI norms to cover problematic loans. This impacts banks' balance sheets and hence investors have a reason to worry. Wilful defaults also lead to technical write-offs of loans, which has spiked over the years mainly in public sector banks. Hence, the list of wilful defaults needs to be seen in the context of massive loan write-offs in recent years.

According to AIBEA data, public sector banks wrote off bad loans worth Rs 5,48,734 crore in the six years to 2019  which is six times more than what they did in the six years prior. AIBEA data showed a growing trend of bad loan write-offs by Public Sector Banks (PSBs).

Non Performing Assets (NPAs) worth Rs 1.96 lakh crore and Rs 1.3 lakh crore were written off in 2019 and 2018, respectively. In 2017, PSBs wrote off Rs 81,684 crore loans in 2016, Rs 59,400 crore loans and in 2015, Rs 49,976 crore. In other words, every year, the chunk of loans being written off has been swelling rapidly.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, listens during a hearing in Washington, on June 30, 2020. (Al Drago/AFP via Getty Images)

Sen. Alexander Proposes New Student Loan Bill: No Income, No Monthly Payment

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the top Republican in the Senate education committee, proposed Tuesday to excuse student loan borrowers with no income from making monthly payments.

Alexander, who is retiring from his chairman position at the end of the year, noted on the Senate floor that the six-month pause on federal student loan payments granted by the Congress through the CARES Act is coming to an end on Sept. 30.

In March, Congress and the President said to 43 million student loan borrowers, Because of COVID-19, your student loan payments are deferred until October 1.' said Alexander. Well, October 1 is just around the corner. What do we say to those 43 million student loan borrowers today?

Under Alexanders proposed bill, known as Student Loan Repayment and FAFSA Simplification Act, students loan borrowers will be able to continue deferring monthly payments after Oct. 1 if they have no income. Those who are earning income would have to pay no more than 10 percent of their remaining income after paying for lifes essentials.

No Income, No monthly payment. In other words, if you have a student loan, your monthly payment is ZERO if you do not have any income, for whatever reason, Alexander said. When you do begin earning income, your monthly payment will never be more than 10 percent of your income AFTER you deduct the necessities of life, such as the cost of housingsuch as rent or mortgageand food.

The proposed bill also includes loan forgiveness after 20 years for undergraduate loans or 25 years for graduate student loans on any remaining balance. The months where borrowers made no payments because of the pandemic will count toward the 20 or 25 years for student loan forgiveness.

Alexander also offered the borrowers an option to pay off student loans in 10 years, which he said would lead to paying less in interest. It applies to both existing and new student loan borrowers.

This option would be like a 10-year mortgage: make equal principal and interest monthly payments over 10 years until the loan is paid off, he said, adding that simplifying the loan repayment process could provide a return to the federal government of $10 billion over the next decade because a less complex system makes students more willingly to repay their loans.

Meanwhile, the Senate Republicans are planning to set aside $70 billion for K-12 schools, with half being available only to schools that fully reopen for in-person learning in the fall. The preliminary plan also includes another $30 billion for colleges and universities, regardless of whether they physically reopen.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has impacted people from racial minority groups at a higher rate than it has white people, and two senators now say they have a "much needed" plan to address the virus' disparities.

Sens. Bob Menendez, of New Jersey, and Maryland's Ben Cardin, both Democrats, introduced the COVID-19 Health Disparities Action Act to Congress on Wednesday, saying the bill  if passed into law  would improve contact tracing, testing and provide public awareness campaigns in minority communities around the country.

"COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted communities of color and the Trump administrations response has failed to address the needs of these vulnerable populations, Sen. Cardin, 76, said in a statement. Health disparities for people of color is rooted in systemic racism, racial discrimination, and record-high levels of income inequality."

The act "will ensure that future public health response efforts, including testing, contact tracing, and potential vaccine distributions are tailored for diverse communities," Cardin added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the pandemic has hit hardest Native Americans, Black and Latino communities across the country.

The New York Times reported this month that people in the U.S. from Black and Latino communities are three times as likely to be infected by the coronavirus as white people. The data also showed people from Black and Latino communities have died at a rate two-times higher than whites.

The CDC attributes general health disparities to "inequities in living, working, health, and social conditions that have persisted across generations."

Menendez, 66, said Wednesday that those social and economic imbalances between racial groups in the U.S.  such as higher rates of chronic diseases in Black and brown communities, as well as lower access to health care and language barriers, among other issues  have led to the pandemic's disproportionate impact.

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He argued such problems were compounded by President Donald Trump's choice on testing and contact tracing.

"Add to that the lack of testing, tracing and education efforts by the Trump Administration targeting communities of color during this pandemic and the impact is deadly," he said.

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Calls Out the Trump Virus as Trump Continues to Call COVID-19 the China Virus

CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock People wearing masks wait to enter the Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, on July 8.

The bill has large support from other Democratic lawmakers, including co-sponsors on the bill such as Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar.

Warren said "structural racism continues to plague our country" and argued the pandemic's disparities are providing proof.

Booker added that "it is abundantly clear that this virus has not only exposed, but also exacerbated, the deep, structural racial inequalities that have been taking the lives and livelihoods of people of color and Black Americans in particular for centuries."

The senators' proposal was backed by a number of health groups focused on health disparities among racial groups, including the National Hispanic Medical Association and the National Alliance Against Disparities in Patient Health, among others.

At least 142,500 people in the U.S. have died from the coronavirus, according to a Times tracker, while more than 3.9 million people have been infected nationwide.

As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from CDC, WHO, and local public health departments. PEOPLE has partnered with GoFundMe to raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund, a GoFundMe.org fundraiser to support everything from frontline responders to families in need, as well as organizations helping communities. For more information or to donate, click here.
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, has signed agreements with Boeing Global Services for the provision of maintenance support on its fleet of Boeing 787s.

These agreements are part of the strategic partnership between Etihad and Boeing signed in November 2019, in line with Etihads ongoing commitment to achieve excellence in all aspects of operational reliability, maintenance, and onboard experience.

Key to the agreements is a Component Services Program for more than 300 operational critical parts for Etihads 787 fleet; a landing gear exchange programme including Aircraft on Ground (AOG) coverage; as well as high value airframe components and digital products to optimise Etihads maintenance activities.

Mohammad Al Bulooki, Etihad Airways Chief Operating Officer, said: Ensuring the highest standards in the Etihad Airways fleet is just one way we continue to set the standard for operational excellence globally. By partnering with Boeing as the OEM of Etihads 787s, we ensure that the fleet receives the highest levels of maintenance support to increase reliability and efficiency. These agreements continue to demonstrate the strength of the Etihad Aviation Groups partnership.

This is an important demonstration of Etihads ongoing focus toward the post-Covid world, and its endeavours to set the benchmark for operational excellence in both product and sustainability, as well as technical performance and efficiency.

Ted Colbert, president and CEO, Boeing Global Services, said: We are delighted that Etihad, a market leader, has chosen to optimise its fleet reliability and efficiency by choosing Boeings Component Services Program, further strengthening our long-standing partnership. The Boeing team is ready to support Etihads world-class operations with our global scale, reach and OEM expertise.

As the backbone of its fleet, Etihads fleet of 787s provide guests with an unrivalled experience both in terms of operating reliability and onboard experience. Following Etihads recognition as the most punctual airline in the Middle East in 2019 and one of the most reliable operators of the Boeing 787 fleet globally, todays announcement reinforces Etihads commitment to ensuring the on-time performance and availability of its aircraft. - TradeArabia News Service
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Mayors of two towns wiped out by an iron-ore mining dam that burst in Brazil will tell a Manchester court that mining giant BHP has been using delaying tactics to avoid paying compensation to thousands of people affected by the flood disaster.

The two mayors, Silverio da Luz of Rio Doce city council and Duarte Goncalves Jnr of Mariana, are part of a class action with 200,000 claimants including individuals, charities, businesses, municipal councils, churches and indigenous groups.

The 2015 disaster killed 19 people and spilled about 40 million cubic metres of sludge over Brazilian communities. Credit:AP

Nineteen people were killed and several communities were destroyed when the dam for the Samarco Fundao mine, operated jointly by BHP and Vale, burst releasing 50 million cubic metres of toxic sludge in 2015.

The mayors flew to the UK for the hearings which start on Wednesday, London time, but will miss the first four of eight scheduled days as they wait to complete a two-week coronavirus quarantine period.
Continuano le azioni di Fondo di Garanzia Pmi e prestiti garantiti Sace a sostegno di credito e liquidita per famiglie e imprese
Trump was asked about Bidens comment during a White House news briefing, and did not address it or Biden directly. Instead, the president touted his record and said, as he has many times in the past, that hed done more for black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. Nobody has even been close.
A transgender man is suing the University of Maryland Medical System in federal court, claiming his rights were violated when his gender-affirming surgery was canceled by one of the hospital system's subsidiaries.

Jesse Hammons was scheduled to have a hysterectomy in January at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. The procedure, routinely performed on cisgender women at the same hospital, was deemed medically necessary for Hammons, who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. However, about a week before the scheduled surgery date, the center canceled the procedure because it conflicted with the hospitals Catholic religious beliefs, according to the lawsuit.

Image: Plaintiff Jesse Hammons (Jason Chesnut / ACLU)

Defendants canceled the surgery based on a discriminatory and unconstitutional application of Catholic religious doctrine, the suit states. When they canceled Mr. Hammons medically necessary surgery, Defendants thus treated Mr. Hammons  as a man who is transgender  differently from nontransgender patients who require medically necessary hysterectomies for other medical conditions.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, claims that by canceling the surgery, the hospital violated the Constitutions First and 14th Amendments and the Affordable Care Acts ban on sex discrimination in health care.

Private or taxpayer-owned?

St. Joseph Medical Center, a historically Roman Catholic institution just north of Baltimore, was founded over 100 years ago and was fully acquired in 2012 by the University of Maryland Medical System. UMMS, which maintains that it is a private, nonprofit organization, received over $40 million in state appropriations in 2018, according to its most recent annual report, and Marylands governor appoints members of the UMMS board.

When UMMS acquired St. Joseph Medical Center, the hospital system vowed to retain the hospitals Catholic identity, which today means it still follows the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, or ERDs, faith-based health guidelines that ban procedures like abortion, euthanasia and gender-confirmation procedures.

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Michael Schwartzberg, director of communications for the University of Maryland Medical System, told NBC News in an email that he would not comment on the specifics of pending litigation, but he disputed the claims of the ACLU, which is representing Hammons, that UMMS is taxpayer-owned.

UMMS is a privately-held corporation (since 1984), and SJMC is a privately-held, not-for-profit hospital, and SJMC is mandated to abide by the ERDs, Schwartzberg said, noting that all Catholic hospitals in the U.S. are bound by the ERDs.

All physicians and advanced practitioners seeking privileges at UM SJMC agree to abide by the ERDs prior to the granting of privileges, Schwartzberg said.

Joshua Block, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project and the lead attorney in Hammons' case, disputed Schwartzbergs characterization of UMMS as private, claiming that the medical system is de facto controlled by the state of Maryland. Citing its receipt of taxpayer funds and its largely governor-controlled board, Block argued that the UMMS is bound by the Constitutions church-state separation.

Hammons complaint cites a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that found that Amtrak, being a government-created private corporation, had a responsibility to uphold the First Amendment.

In that ruling, Lebron v. National R.R. Passenger Corp., Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that when the federal government creates a corporation "and retains for itself permanent authority to appoint a majority of the directors of that corporation, the corporation is part of the government for purposes of the First Amendment."

Block said that Hammons' lawsuit raises all the same fact patterns about sex discrimination against transgender patients in the context of transition-related surgery at hospitals, but it also has this added feature where its not just a private religious hospital but part of the University of Maryland hospital system."

So not only does it violate statutes against discrimination, but the Constitution  both the Equal Protection Clause and the Establishment Clause," he said.

Block said the ACLU had the case ready soon after Hammons surgery was canceled in January but paused because of coronavirus court delays. He said Junes landmark Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia  which found that federal job discrimination protections extend to LGBTQ people  has only made the filing stronger.

The landscape after Bostock certainly strengthens our claim under the ACA, Block said, referring to a ban on health care sex discrimination contained within the Affordable Care Act.

The Trump effect

Even after the Bostock decision, the Trump administration is continuing its effort to reverse Obama-era transgender protections in health care.

In June, days before that case was decided, the Department of Health and Human Services issued the final version of a rule that explicitly strips transgender protections from the Affordable Care Acts nondiscrimination language.

That rule is set to go into effect on Aug. 18, though on Tuesday, 23 Democratic state attorneys general filed suit to block its implementation.

Chase Strangio, ACLUs deputy director for transgender justice, said the legal interpretation advanced through years of Trump administration policies  that sex discrimination bans in various laws do not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity  wont go away on its own.

There's nothing self-executing about the decision, Strangio said of the landmark Bostock ruling. Implementation of civil rights laws is a multi-year project always, because we have strong resistance to them.

He said he expects that courts will be called upon to enforce the precedent-setting finding central to the Bostock decision: It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.

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Note: The following Editorial Comment is the expressed opinion of the Hoards Dairyman editorial team.

As cheese prices soared to new records, frustration levels boiled over in the countryside. Thats because negative producer price differentials (PPDs) torpedoed June milk checks with deductions over $7 per hundredweight (cwt.) in four Federal Milk Marketing Orders (FMMOs).

Weve experienced negative PPDs before, but this time around the situation is vastly different. The pandemic economy induced by the novel coronavirus created the most violent dairy market swing in our lifetimes. In late April, cheese blocks crashed to a staggering $1 per pound and then soared to the never-before-seen stratosphere of $3 per pound during mid-July trading at the CME.

In turn, this historic market swing caused the Class III price to trough at $12.14 per cwt. in May and then rocket to $21.04 by June. That jet-propelled ascent caused Class III to leap frog the already-announced advance Class I price by $9.62. That created the recipe for Junes negative PPDs.

A second wave

In addition to that situation, Class III moved far too fast, which created another rub. During June, Class IV prices stood at $12.90 . . . nearly $8 lower than Class III. While the Class IV price is forecast to improve to $14, the spread between Class III and IV could persist for months and give cheese plants an additional incentive to depool. Without higher Class III pooled funds, additional negative PPDs could land in July, August, and September milk checks. Granted, none of the negative PPDs should be as large as those experienced in June.

The near-term remedies are few

A FMMO provision that helped calculate Class I prices from January 2000 to April 2019 might have mellowed the negative PDDs sooner. Thats because the higher of pricing mechanism would have grabbed the Class III price to calculate Class I. Since May 2019, the new Class I driver is the simple average of Class III and Class IV plus 74 cents. Organizations representing both farmers and processors alike advocated for the provision to reduce Class I volatility. It worked well until this years unfathomable market conditions.

Another pricing lifeline to thwart off a portion of the negative PPDs was proposed by the vast majority of the nations co-ops earlier in May. However, some Upper Midwest dairy groups pushed back at the very notion of supporting a federal order hearing to set an emergency Class I price for June, July, and August as discussed in our June 2020 Editorial Comment USDA balked at the Class I proposal. These extremely negative PPDs suggest it would have been wise to at least support a hearing to debate the issue.

As it stands, we will one day assess the post-COVID-19 dairy carnage. The federal order pricing mechanisms that exacerbated milk price turmoil during the pandemic definitely deserve our foremost attention.

To learn more on the topic of negative PPDS, we encourage readers to download Making Sense of Your Milk Price in the Pandemic Economy: Negative PPDs, Depooling, and Reblending.

Also, read Big differences in June milk checks as it will shed additional light on the matter.

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2020

July 16, 2020
Journalists and legal observers should have to follow lawful orders by federal officers to disperse when violence erupts outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, federal lawyers argue in new court papers filed Tuesday.

Any court-ordered exemption for journalists and the observers would be improper and impractical, the lawyers said.

The response follows a motion filed by 10 journalists and observers with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon seeking a temporary restraining order to hold federal officers to the same restrictions that a judge recently placed on Portland police.

A hearing will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday in Portland.

On July 2, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon ruled that journalists with professional or authorized press passes and legal observers are exempt from Portland police orders requiring protesters to leave during declared unlawful assemblies or riots.

The judge also directed police not to arrest, threaten to arrest or use force against a person who they know or reasonably should know is a journalist or legal observer. Officers arent to seize their cameras, audio or videotaping equipment or press passes unless they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the order says.

Such restrictions would be unworkable for federal officers, wrote Andrew I. Warden, a U.S. Department of Justice senior trial counsel.

As federal officers have aggressively fired tear gas and impact munitions since early July to break up crowds of demonstrators outside the federal courthouse downtown, the plaintiffs have filed sworn statements from additional journalists, photojournalists and legal observers who have been hit by less-lethal rounds, with photos of wounds to their backs, arms and legs.

Since May 28, when someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the U.S. Immigration and Enforcement field office in Portland, the federal courthouse and the Edith Green Wendall Wyatt federal building have been targets of violent demonstrators late at night into early morning hours, according to the federal response.

There are 114 officers from the Federal Protective Service, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Enforcement protecting federal buildings and property in Portland, according to Gabriel Russell, regional director of the Federal Protective Services.

Federal officials estimate the cost to repair damage at the courthouse so far exceeds $50,000 -- including cleaning up graffiti scrawled over its exterior, fixing broken security cameras and access devices and replacing shattered glass doors at the main entrance, according to the documents.

Twenty-eight federal officers have been injured from thrown objects, including ball bearings fired from wrist rockets, improvised explosives and fireworks, glass bottles and a sledgehammer used to break through a wooden board blocking the employee entrance, the documents say.

Simply put, the federal government has the legal obligation and right to protect federal property and federal officers, and the public has a compelling interest in the protection of that property and personnel,' Warden wrote. The press is free to observe and report on the destruction of that property, but it is not entitled to special, after-hours access to that property in the face of lawful order to disperse.

Any injuries to journalists or others, he said, resulted from the unintended consequence of an otherwise constitutional use of force under the circumstances. He called the journalists descriptions of injuries sustained on the street threadbare accounts of isolated incidents.

Matthew Borden, an attorney for the journalists, said the federal actions, backed by President Donald Trump, have included attacking media who dared to try to report what his minions are doing to demonstrators.

On July 12, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union said federal agents shot with impact munitions at least two journalists and chased legal observers away from the scene with their batons.

On Sunday night, photojournalist John Rudoff said he was standing in an open, lit area when he was hit while documenting federal agents exiting the courthouse and shooting tear gas and other munitions. Suddenly, and for no reason, a federal agent shot me in my right shoulder, inches from my head, Rudoff said. Based on the contusion, I believe it was a 40mm rubber bullet.

Federal lawyers argue that isolating and identifying each press representative through a press pass or legal observer through a particular colored-hat or vest would be too difficult in the course of a dispersal action.

Having an unspecified number of people who lawfully may remain, however, will not only greatly complicate efforts to clear an area and restore order, it will also present a clear risk to safety, Warden wrote.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
The Speaker of Rajasthan assembly moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday against the order passed by the Rajasthan high court deferring action on notices issued by him to Sachin Pilot and 18 dissident Congress legislators till July 24.

Speaker CP Joshi said that according to the Supreme Courts 1992 judgment in Kihoto Hollohan vs Zachillhu, the court cannot interfere with the speakers powers to decide a disqualification petition till he gives a final decision on such a plea.

Such interference amounts to transgression by the judiciary into his exclusive domain, he contended. In this case, the speaker had only issued show-cause notice to the rebel MLAs and the court couldnt have interfered at this interim stage, he said.

In Kihoto, a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court expressly held that courts cannot interdict the speaker from proceeding ahead. The proceedings under the Tenth Schedule before the Speaker are proceedings of the Legislature and as such cannot be interfered with...In view of the aforesaid, the (high court) order is ex-facie illegal, perverse, and in derogation of the powers of the Speaker under the Constitution and hence

deserve to be set aside, the petition said.

The Rajasthan high court had, on Tuesday, directed the speaker not to take any action based on his July 14 notice to the Pilot camp.

This order was passed after Pilot and the other MLAs had approached the high court on July 15, challenging the speakers notice which had asked them to furnish an explanation by July 17 on why they shouldnt be disqualified from the assembly for their conduct, which the Congress party alleged was detrimental to the interest of the party and showed their intention to quit the party.

Pilot and Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot have been at loggerheads since the Congress government came to power in 2018 and Gehlot was made CM while Pilot had to settle for the post of Deputy CM.

The tussle had come out in open earlier this month after Rajasthan police had sought to question Pilot over allegations against him attempting to pull down the Congress government in Rajasthan in cahoots with the BJP.

Gehlot and Pilot had traded allegations before Pilot was eventually sacked as deputy CM. Without Pilot and 18 MLAs who are supporting him, the Congress government enjoys a wafer this majority in the 200-member strong assembly.

The speakers notice to Pilot was based on the disqualification petition filed by the chief whip of the Congress in Rajsthan, Mahesh Joshi. He had in his plea cited the absence of the MLAs from two Congress legislature party meetings, held on July 13 and 14, despite specific instructions to attend it. This was cited as the main reason which showed the intention of the MLAs to leave the Congress.

Pilot and the other dissident MLAs have maintained they never had the intention to leave the Congress and were exercising their right to criticise the party leadership and the functioning of chief minister Ashok Gehlot. In a democratic set-up, voicing disagreement with policies or decisions made by the party doesnt amount to acting against the interests of the party, so as to lead to disqualification, they said in their petition.

The speaker has maintained throughout that the petition by Pilot is premature since the Kihoto vs Hollohan judgment bars any interference by courts while proceedings are pending before the speaker.

The high court had reserved its judgment on Tuesday after hearing the parties for three days and also said that it will pronounce its verdict on July 24. The speaker, however, approached the top without waiting for the order.

He has sought urgent listing of the case.

In these circumstances, it is respectfully submitted that the impugned order (of Tuesday) which is in direct contravention to the law laid down by this court in Kihoto Hollohan is liable to be immediately stayed so that the dignity of Constitutional authorities envisaged by the Constitution is protected, the plea said.
399 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore on July 21, including 3 imported cases

The Ministry of Health has reported 399 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore as of 12 pm on July 21. This takes the national tally of infections to 48,434.

The vast majority of the new cases are Work Permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories.

The higher number of cases today is mainly due to a batch of test results from the previous day reported to MOH after the 12pm cut-off for yesterdays reporting, the ministry added.

Photo courtesy: Facebook/Lawrence Wong

There are also nine cases in the community, of whom one is a Singaporean and eight are Work Pass holders.

There are also three imported cases, two of which arrived in Singapore from India on July 9. They are Work Pass holders who are currently employed in Singapore. They had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and had been tested while serving their SHN.

The remaining case had arrived in Singapore from the Philippines on July 19, and was conveyed directly to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases as he was symptomatic. He is a seaman currently holding a Special Pass who will join a vessel that called in our Port.
WASHINGTON - In a confrontation overheard by a reporter Monday outside the Capitol, Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., "disgusting" and told her "you are out of your freaking mind" for describing poverty as a root cause of crime, prompting the congresswoman to later condemn what she described as Yoho's "virulent harassment" of her.

Yoho also used a sexist slur to describe Ocasio-Cortez once she was out of earshot, according to the Hill newspaper, which first reported on the exchange.

According to the Hill, Yoho uttered the words, "f---ing b---h." A spokesman for Yoho denied that the congressman used the epithet and said he instead uttered the word "bull----" to himself, describing his view of Ocasio-Cortez's policies.

Asked about Yoho's reported comments, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called them "despicable" and "unacceptable" and told reporters Tuesday that the lawmaker should be sanctioned by the House, although he did not provide any details on what form such a sanction might take.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said he was going to meet with Yoho on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the incident.

On Twitter on Tuesday morning, Ocasio-Cortez denounced Yoho's behavior and criticized another GOP lawmaker, Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, who was present for at least part of the exchange.

"I never spoke to Rep. Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation's Capitol yesterday," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Believe it or not, I usually get along fine w/ my GOP colleagues. We know how to check our legislative sparring at the committee door. But hey, 'b*tches' get stuff done."

She accused Williams of joining Yoho in "yelling" at her and blasted the Texas Republican for later telling a reporter he had not been paying attention to the confrontation between the other two lawmakers.

A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

According to the report by the Hill's Mike Lillis, the confrontation took place Monday when Ocasio-Cortez was ascending the steps outside the east side of the Capitol and Yoho, who was descending after a vote, approached her.

Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez she was "disgusting" for recently suggesting that a crime spike in New York City amid the coronavirus pandemic may have been driven by unemployment and poverty.

"You are out of your freaking mind," Yoho said, and Ocasio-Cortez told Yoho he was being "rude," according to the Hill. After the exchange, Yoho continued descending the steps while joined by Williams. A few moments later, when Ocasio-Cortez was out of earshot, Yoho used the sexist epithet, the Hill reported.

Yoho declined to comment to the Hill on Monday when asked about the exchange.

In an email to The Washington Post on Tuesday morning, Yoho spokesman Brian Kaveney confirmed that Yoho "had a brief member to member conversation on the steps of the Capitol." But he said the congressman "did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in the Hill or any name for that matter."

"Instead, he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her polices to be: bullshit," Kaveney said. He accused Ocasio-Cortez of "using this exchange to gain personal attention," even though the confrontation was reported by the Hill before the congresswoman mentioned it publicly.

Kaveney did not respond when asked to confirm Yoho's other reported comments.

Williams, meanwhile, told the Hill that while he was walking down the steps with Yoho on Monday, he had been "thinking about some issues I've got in my district that need to get done" and had not paid much attention to what Yoho and Ocasio-Cortez were saying.

"I don't know what their topic was," Williams told the Hill. "There's always a topic, isn't there?"

In tweets Tuesday morning, Ocasio-Cortez accused Williams of lying and said he had "joined in" with Yoho.

"Gotta love Republican courage from Rep @RogerWilliamsTX: when he undeniably sees another man engaged in virulent harassment of a young woman, just pretend you never saw it in the most cartoonish manner possible and keep pushing," she said.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Ocasio-Cortez added: "What's wild to me @RogerWilliamsTX is why would you blatantly lie to a reporter who saw this exchange? You were yelling at me too, about 'throwing urine.'"

Several Democratic lawmakers defended Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday. At a briefing with reporters at the Capitol, Hoyer called Yoho's comments "despicable" and "unacceptable" and said he "owes not only the congresswoman an apology" but should also deliver a full apology in a speech on the House floor.

"It was the act of a bully," Hoyer said, adding, "It needs to be sanctioned."

Several male Democratic lawmakers noted on Twitter that they shared Ocasio-Cortez's views on the link between unemployment, poverty and crime but had not been similarly confronted by Yoho, suggesting that the lawmaker chose to target the New York Democrat because of her gender.

"Like @aoc, I believe poverty to be a root cause of crime," Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., tweeted. "Wonder why Rep. Yoho hasn't accosted me on the Capitol steps with the same sentiment?"

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., also defended Ocasio-Cortez.

"I can confirm that AOC gets along w many of her Republican colleagues on a range of things that don't have anything to do w legislation or politics," Gaetz said in a tweet. "She is not a [b---h]."

- - -

The Washington Post's Paul Kane contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.

With the U.S. tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they dont isolate while they wait.

Theres been this obsession with, How many tests are we doing per day? said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.

Frieden and other public health experts have called on states to publicly report testing turnaround times, calling it an essential metric to measure progress against the virus.

The testing lags in the U.S. come as the number of people confirmed to be infected worldwide passed a staggering 15 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world in cases as well as deaths, which have exceeded 142,000.

New York, once by far the U.S. leader in infections, has been surpassed by California, though that is partly due to robust testing in a state with more than twice the population of New York.

Guidelines issued by the CDC recommend that states lifting virus restrictions have a testing turnaround time of under four days. The agency recently issued new recommendations against retesting most COVID-19 patients to confirm they have recovered.

Its clogging up the system, Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant health secretary, told reporters last week.

Zachrey Warner knows it all too well.

The 30-year-old waiter from Columbus, Ohio, was sent home from work on July 5 with a high fever a few days after he began feeling ill. He went for a test five days later at the request of his employer.

Almost two weeks and one missed pay period later, he finally got his answer Wednesday: negative.

Though Warner said most symptoms  including fever, diarrhea, chest tightness and body aches  stopped a few days after he was tested, he wasnt allowed to return to work without the result.

It was frustrating that Ive missed so much work due to testing taking forever, Warner said. It is what it is ... (but) Im glad Im negative and happy to be able to get back to work this week.

Beyond the economic hurt the testing lags can cause, they pose major health risks, too.

In Florida, which reported 9,785 new cases and a rise in the death toll to nearly 5,500, nursing homes have been under an order to test all employees every two weeks. But long delays for results have some questioning the point.

Jay Solomon, CEO of Aviva in Sarasota, a senior community with a nursing home and assisted living facility, said results were taking up to 10 days to come back.

Its almost like, what are we accomplishing in that time? Solomon said. If that person is not quarantined in that 7-10 days, are they spreading without realizing it?

Test results that come back after two or three days are nearly worthless, many health experts say, because by then the window for tracing the persons contacts to prevent additional infections has essentially closed.

The turnaround times, particularly across the South are too long, Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force said on Fox.

Birx said the U.S. had shorter turnaround times in April, May and early June, but that this surge and this degree of cases is so widespread compared to previously, she said.

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University said its reasonable to tell people awaiting test results to isolate for 24 hours, but the delays have been unacceptable.

Imagine you tell a parent with young children to self-isolate for 10 days or more without knowing they actually have COVID? I mean, thats ridiculous. Thats actually absurd, Wen said.

U.S. officials have recently called for ramping up screening to include seemingly healthy Americans who may be unknowingly spreading the disease in their communities. But Quest Diagnostics, one of the nations largest testing chains, said it cant keep up with demand and most patients will face waits of a week or longer for results.

Quest has urged health care providers to cut down on tests from low-priority individuals, such as those without symptoms or any contact with someone who has tested positive.

As testing has expanded, so have mask orders and other measures aimed at keeping infections down. Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota and Oregon became the latest to announce statewide mandatory mask orders Wednesday.

The U.S. is testing over 700,000 people per day, up from less than 100,000 in March. Trump administration officials point out that roughly half of U.S. tests are performed on rapid systems that give results in about 15 minutes or in hospitals, which typically process tests in about 24 hours. But last month, that still left some 9 million tests going through laboratories, which have been plagued by limited chemicals, machines and kits to develop COVID-19 tests.

There is no scientific consensus on the rate of testing needed to control the virus in the U.S., but experts have recommended for months that the U.S. test at least 1 million to 3 million people daily.

Health experts assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation said last week that the U.S. should scale up to testing 30 million Americans per week by the fall, when school reopenings and flu season are expected to further exacerbate the viruss spread. The group acknowledged that will not be possible with the lab-based testing system.

The National Institutes of Health has set up a shark tank competition to quickly identify promising rapid tests and has received more than 600 applications. The goal is to have new testing options in mass production by the fall.

Until then, the backbone of U.S. testing remains at several hundred labs with high-capacity machines capable of processing thousands of samples per day. Many say they could be processing far more tests if not for global shortages of testing chemicals and other materials.

Dr. Bobbi Pritt of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says the hospitals machines are running at just 20% capacity. Lab technicians run seven different COVID-19 testing formats, switching back and forth depending on the availability of supplies.

At Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, lab workers lobby testing manufacturers on a weekly basis to provide more kits, chemicals and other materials.

Theres no planning ahead, we just do as many as we can and cross our fingers that well get more, said Dr. Colleen Kraft, who heads the hospitals testing lab.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the CDC has issued guidelines recommending against repeat testing for patients recovering from coronavirus.

___

Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan, and Sedensky reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writers Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Michelle R. Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, and Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 06:21:25|Editor: huaxia

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The photo currently posted on the website of the Chinese embassy in the United States shows the front exterior of the main building of the embassy. (Xinhua)

"China strongly condemns and firmly opposes such an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," says the embassy.

WASHINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government's request to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston is "a political provocation," and "an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," said the Chinese embassy in the United States on Wednesday.

"The U.S. abruptly demanded that the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston cease all operations and events within a time limit. It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the U.S. side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the U.S.," said the embassy in a statement.

"China strongly condemns and firmly opposes such an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations," the embassy said, noting that China is committed to the principle of non-interference in other countries' domestic affairs.

Over the years, Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States, including the Consulate General in Houston, have been performing duties in strict accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, and are dedicated to promoting China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation and advancing the two peoples' mutual understanding and friendship, it said.

"The U.S. accusations are groundless fabrications, and the excuses it cites are far-fetched and untenable. For the U.S. side, if it is bent on attacking China, it will never be short of excuses," it said.

As for reciprocity, China has been providing facilitation for U.S. diplomatic missions and personnel pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the embassy said.

"In contrast, the U.S. imposed unjustified restrictions on Chinese diplomatic personnel last October and in June, unscrupulously and repeatedly opened China's diplomatic pouches and seized China's official goods," it said.

"Because of the willful and reckless stigmatization and fanning up of hatred by the U.S. side, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has received threats to the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel more than once," it said.

The U.S. side has more diplomatic and consular missions and personnel in China than China has in the United States, another area where the principle of reciprocity is not reflected. "The move of the U.S. side will only backfire on itself," said the embassy.

"We urge the U.S. side to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Otherwise, China will have to respond with legitimate and necessary actions," it said. 
















A homesick camel recently managed to melt the hearts of millions of Chinese people after it was reported that it traveled 100 kilometres through the desert to return to its former owners, eight months after being sold.Chinese media recently featured the heartwarming story of a loyal camel who allegedly spent days crossing the barren desert of North Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to reach its former home after being sold to another farmer eight months prior. The injured animal was spotted walking through the desert earlier this month by another herdsman who took it in and tended to its needs while trying to find its owner. News of the camels discovery reached its owner who rushed to retrieve it, but after hearing about the animals arduous journey, its former masters wanted it back.Temur, the camels former master and his wife had sold it to another farmer back in October 2019. The man took it to his home 100 kilometres away and raised it in their hometown in winter and grazed it in the mountains in spring. The animal seemed to have adjusted fine to its new home, but on June 27, just one day after its summer shearing, it ran away.According to a viral Pear video, the homesick camel walked more than 100 kilometres through the desert, wading through mountains, crossing highways and fences before finally approaching its old home, which was when the herdsman spotted it. It certainly had the scars to show for its adventure, and when its former owners heard about its risky journey, they decided to take it back.When we heard the news, we wanted to bring back the camel, but its current owner had already caught it back to his place, Temurs wife said. So we contacted the buyer and decided to replace the old camel with a 3-year-old female. After we got it back, I was so distressed when I found that it had lot of wounds on its body, as it must have got crossing the fences.We will not sell it to anyone else anymore, as camels are intelligent animals, the woman added. It will be free for the rest of its life.Temur and the aging camels current owner reached an understanding where Temur and his wife would get their camel back and they would offer a younger, 3-year-old camel in return.As of Wednesday, the Pear video documenting the loyal camels journey though the desert had been watched 16 million times, with many viewers declaring themselves impressed by the animals endurance and its ability to find its way home.This has brought me to tears. Animals are so pure. Please take good care of it from now on, one person commented.I cant imagine the hardship it encountered. It must have missed its home so much, another person wrote.
Australia has expressed alarm over Chinese hackers compromising networks across the world for commercial and personal gain, after a US Justice Department indictment alleged a decade-long spree targeting an Australian defence contractor, the personal data of Hong Kong protesters and COVID-19 vaccine researchers.

The joint-statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Signals Directorate on Wednesday follows rising animosity between China and Australia's Five Eyes partners, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand over the coronavirus crisis, Hong Kong and a military build-up in the South China Sea.

"Of particular concern, these individuals also reportedly targeted COVID-19 research as well as political dissidents, religious minorities and human rights advocates," the Australian government said. "Australia reiterates our call to all countries to refrain from behaviour which violates their international commitments."

China is involved in several disputes around the world. Credit:Bloomberg

On Wednesday night tensions further escalated suddenly after China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the US government had demanded that its Houston consulate cease all operations and events in an "unprecedented escalation of its recent actions".
Release the beast

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In 2013, The Purge was released, which was the first in a series of dystopian action horror movies that also spawned a TV series on the cable USA Network. The primary premise of the franchise is that America was in a near-state of collapse economically and morally until a set of politicians established a new annual national holiday where all crimes, including murder, are legal for a 12-hour period.

The thought was, if people were allowed to "purge" themselves once a year of all the evil and hatred that they kept bottled up inside them, society would happily live together and thrive for the remainder of the year. The slogan used that encouraged everyone to participate in the annual event was, Release the beast.

The recent violence and lawlessness that has accompanied the worldwide protests over the George Floyd incident have caused some to comment that society now resembles the movies storyline (minus the legality of murder). With intense criticism coming down on the police, the presence of law enforcement has been restricted by some politicians in numerous locations, leading to widespread crime. What used to be a soft stance toward crime by various political and media groups has changed to be one of literally encouraging it.

Outside the desire for racial equality, from a Christian perspective, I believe there are at least three underlining and driving factors fueling the violent upheavals occurring in America. Ill tackle them in reverse order, from the least concerning to the most, although in my opinion all are contributing to a downward slide for the country.

The misappropriation of language

God reveals Himself to us in multiple ways, with one of those ways being the written word. This implies that language contains within it a way of communicating objective reality.

Opposing that is Conventionalism, which is a philosophy that says our fundamental principles of life are grounded on agreements in society, rather than on external reality. Part of conventionalism is linguistic relativism, something pioneered by Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure that says words have no objective meaning.

In short this means that we all may use the same vocabulary, but a radically different dictionary when it comes to understanding words and things in general.

For example, the terms "graffiti" and "vandalism" are generally understood in their meaning, context and application. However, during the recent turmoil that has gripped the country, those words have been jettisoned and in their place is something referred to as protest art. Seattle mayor Jenny Durkin, in describing the occupation of a section of downtown Seattle by protesters, some of whom are armed and denying entry to people, has called the scene a block party.

Another misappropriation of language is semantic overload where a term or phrase is hijacked to mean more than one thing. For example, everyone agrees that blacks lives matter, but some say that unless you support the Black Lives Matter movement and their agenda[1], then black lives really dont matter to you.

A misunderstanding of human nature

One of the protesters residing within the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ or CHOD) in Seattle told a Wall Street Journal Reporter, If there is no police, there is no problem. Such a view is not only breathtakingly ignorant of humanitys history, it fundamentally misunderstands human nature at its core.

Christianity teaches, and life confirms, that human beings are born sinners and depraved. By nature, we call evil good and good evil and prefer darkness to Gods light (Is. 5:20). The Bible tells us that any attempt on our part to say otherwise is an exercise in self-deception (1 John 1:8).

We naturally recoil at the thought of being "depraved," but Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, reminds us that even the most sophisticated individuals possess the innate ability for evil when he says, The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment, or as the Nazi liked to say "of blood and soil." I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz were ultimately prepared not in some ministry of defense in Berlin, but rather at the desks and lecture halls of Nihilistic scientists and philosophers.

The misinterpretation of Gods constraints

John MacArthur addressed the unrest in America in a recent sermon and reminded his listeners that God has given us four constraints that are put in place for our good and well-being, but all of which are currently under attack.

MacArthur says that each persons conscious is the first and personal constraint that acts to govern our behavior. However, the Bible tells us that our conscience can become seared (1 Tim. 4:2) and disabled by lies, which then allows our depraved nature to take charge.

The family is the second and parental constraint where children are commanded to be brought up in the instruction of the Lord. History has shown that when the laws of a home are allowed to be ignored and broken, those who leave that home are destined to negatively encounter the laws of the state.

Government and law enforcement are the third and societal constraint. Those who say that they can disobey laws today because they only answer to God overlook the fact that the Bible calls those in authority (e.g. the police) a minister of God to you for good (Rom. 13:4). They also fail to recognize that the police arent the ones who created the failed urban policies that have locked people into generations of poverty, failing schools, fatherless homes, bad lifestyle choices, and deep lack of respect for authority.

The last is the Church, which acts as a spiritual constraint. However, few need to be reminded that the Church in America has been aggressively evicted as a source of personal or cultural leadership where behavior is concerned, even though the Bible says, By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil (Prov. 16:6).

Sadly, society has devolved to the point where they see each of Gods constraints in a negative sense and view them as uncomfortably restrictive so they do what is right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6). However, the Bible tells us the opposite is true  that God's laws are intended for our pleasure and safety. While Scripture compares living in sin to being imprisoned, David says, "To all perfection there is a limit, but the laws of the Lord are boundless" (Ps. 119: 96).

Resisting the purge

When you misappropriate speech so you lose the objectivity of language and mislabel reality, misunderstand human nature and believe humanity needs no policing, and misinterpret as bad the constraints God has given humankind to maintain well-being and order, a societal chaos results that manifests in the ultimate but negative kind of freedom: anarchy. The beast has indeed been released.

Ironically, because this process is so emotional it ends up producing restrictions on freedom. Its a fact that when people cant control their own emotions, they start trying to control other peoples freedom.

The nihilistic philosopher Frederick Nietzsche warned that a universal madness was destined to break out because God had bled out under humanitys knives. However, contrary to the German philosophers belief, Im thankful God is not dead and believe His power alone is whats able to transform the beating heart of a society like ours thats currently experiencing deadly and frightening arrhythmias into one that is healthy and good.

[1] The BLM movement agenda includes, among other things, a rejection of the conventional family, a neo-Marxist economic policy, and anti-Christian policies on gender, sex, abortion, etc.
Kim Kardashian addressed husband Kanye West's recent erratic behavior, at public appearances and on social media, calling for "compassion and empathy."

"As many of you know, Kanye has bi-polar disorder," a statement from the 39-year-old reality star begins. "Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand."

MORE: How to get free mental health help during the coronavirus pandemic

"I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I'm very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health," the aspiring lawyer continued. "But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health."

PHOTO: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West attend the Vanity Fair Oscar party in Beverly Hills during the 92nd Academy Awards, in Los Angeles, Feb. 9, 2020. (Danny Moloshok/Reuters, FILE)

West, 43, first openly discussed his bipolar diagnosis on a 2019 episode of "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman." The rapper had previously been open about mental health struggles in his music, notably writing "I hate being Bi-Polar it's awesome" on the cover of his 2018 album, "Ye."

Over the weekend, West, who announced a desire to run for president last month, left fans concerned following an emotional appearance at a rally in South Carolina. His social media activity in the days since has also sparked worry.

Kardashian noted that in cases like these, "family is powerless unless the member is a minor." She added that no matter how hard family and friends try to help, people experiencing mental health struggles must "engage in the process of getting help" themselves.

"I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions," she wrote, calling her husband a "brilliant but complicated person." She said he has the "pressures of being an artist and a black man," on top of the loss of his mother in 2007.

Story continues

MORE: Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West celebrate 6 years of marriage

"Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times [sic] do not align with his intentions," Kardashian continued.

"Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some," she added. "That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true."

Kardashian ended her statement by thanking those who have "expressed concern for Kanye's well being" and with an impassioned plea.

MORE: Kanye West will pay for Gianna Floyd's college education

"We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most," she concluded. "I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this."

Kardashian and West married in 2014 and share four children together: daughter North, 7, son Saint, 4, daughter Chicago, 2, and son Psalm, 1.

What to know about bipolar disorder

West is one of several celebrities who have opened up about their own battles with bipolar disorder in recent years.

Mariah Carey revealed publicly in 2018 that she had been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder years earlier, in 2001. More recently, fellow singers Bebe Rexha and Selena Gomez have spoken publicly about living with bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder is a lifelong illness defined as a "mental disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, concentration, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks," according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

The disorder, formerly called manic-depressive illness or manic depression, includes three different types: bipolar I disorder, bipolar II disorder and cyclothymic disorder.

All three types involve changes in mood and energy levels that can range from feeling "up" with symptoms such as restless thoughts and irritability to feeling very "down" and sad.

Manic episodes are associated with an increased activity level, while depressive episodes are the opposite, characterized by a low energy level, Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News' chief medical correspondent, explained on "GMA" in 2018, at the time Carey revealed her bipolar diagnosis.

Bipolar I disorder is defined by "manic episodes that last at least seven days, or by manic symptoms that are so severe that the person needs immediate hospital care," according to the NIMH.

Bipolar II disorder also includes a pattern of mood episodes, but not "the full-blown manic episodes that are typical of Bipolar I Disorder," according to the NIMH.

People with cyclothymic disorder suffer from periods of hypomanic symptoms and depressive symptoms that last for at least two years but do not "meet the diagnostic requirements for a hypomanic episode and a depressive episode," according to the NIMH.

Treatment options for bipolar disorder include medication -- the mainstay treatment option -- cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoeducation, lectroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and sleep therapies, Ashton noted, adding that treatment is not "one size fits all."

"Long-term, continuous treatment" can help people with bipolar disorder manage their symptoms, according to the NIMH.

"Episodes of mania and depression typically come back over time," the agency writes on its website. "Between episodes, many people with bipolar disorder are free of mood changes, but some people may have lingering symptoms."

"Being the loved one of a person with a mental illness can be extremely challenging. On top of dealing with a complex health condition, they often face judgement, shame and discrimination," NAMI said in a statement to "GMA."

"We commend Kim Kardashian for her openness about the complexity and difficulty of her position and of the many, many more like her," the organization continued. "We at NAMI support her during this trying time and encourage those in her and her familys situation to seek support for themselves and their loved ones. That can include programs like the evidence-based NAMI Family-to-Family course. You are not alone."

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. You can reach Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 (U.S.) or 877-330-6366 (Canada) and The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.

Kim Kardashian asks for 'compassion and empathy' in wake of Kanye West's recent behavior originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
China is sending military planes near Taiwan with increasing frequency in what appears to be a stepping up of its threat to use force to take control of the island, Taiwan's foreign minister said Wednesday. Such flights are more frequent than reported in the media and have become virtually a daily occurrence, Joseph Wu told reporters.

Along with Chinese military exercises simulating an attack on Taiwan, the flights by China are causing major concern for Taiwan's government, Wu said. What it is doing now is unceasingly preparing to use force to resolve the Taiwan problem, Wu said.

China claims the self-ruling island democracy as its own territory and threatens to use the People's Liberation Army to bring it under its control. The sides split in a civil war in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the former Japanese colony as the Communist Party took control in mainland China.

Beijing has cut ties with the island's government since Taiwan elected independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016 and has sought to isolate it diplomatically while raising the military threat. Despite that, Tsai was reelected this year by a wide margin.

Wu said China appeared to have grown in confidence following its crackdown on opposition voices in the former British colony of Hong Kong, facilitated by the national legislature's passage of a sweeping security law. If international society does not give China a sufficiently clear signal, I believe China will take it that international society will not impede it in doing other things," Wu said.

This is what we are extremely worried about." Wu stressed the need for coordination with allies such as Japan and the U.S., neither of which has official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but which maintain close relations. U.S. law mandates that Washington ensure the island can maintain a credible defense and treat all threats against the island as matters of grave concern.

Support among Taiwanese for political unification with China has long been weak and has fallen further following the crackdown in Hong Kong. That comes as Chinese Communist Party leader and President Xi Jinping pursues an increasingly assertive foreign policy, leading to speculation he may attempt a military confrontation in the region.

Also read: US observing situation between India, China 'very closely', says Defence Secretary Mark Esper
The brains of people living with Alzheimer's are riddled with plaques: protein aggregates consisting mainly of amyloid beta. Despite decades of research, the real contribution of these plaques to the disease process is still not clear. A research team led by Bart De Strooper and Mark Fiers at the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research in Leuven, Belgium used pioneering technologies to study in detail what happens in brain cells in the direct vicinity of plaques. Their findings, published in the prestigious journal Cell, show how different cell types in the brain work together to mount a complex response to amyloid plaques which is likely protective at first, but later on damaging to the brain.

The role of amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease has puzzled scientists ever since Alois Alzheimer first described them in the brain of a woman with young onset dementia. Now, over a century later, we have learned a lot about the molecular processes that lead to neurodegeneration and subsequent memory loss, but the relationship between the plaques and the disease process in the brain is still ambiguous.

"Amyloid plaques might act as a trigger or as a driver of disease, and the accumulation of amyloid beta in the brain likely initiates a complex multicellular neurodegenerative process," says professor Bart De Strooper (VIB-KU Leuven). His team set out to map the molecular changes that take place in cells near amyloid plaques.

"We used the latest technologies to analyze genome-wide transcriptomic changes induced by amyloid plaques in hundreds of small tissue domains," explains Mark Fiers, co-lead on the study. "In this way, we could generate a large data set of transcriptional changes that occur in response to increasing amyloid pathology, both in mouse and human brains." Two co-expression networks

"We focused on the transcriptomic changes in the immediate neighborhood of the amyloid plaques, with a 50 micrometer perimeter," explains Wei-Ting Chen, a postdoc in De Strooper's team. In a well-studied genetic mouse model showing amyloid pathology, the scientists identified two novel gene co-expression networks that appeared highly sensitive to amyloid beta deposition.

Chen: "With increasing amyloid beta deposition, a multicellular co-expressed gene response was established encompassing no less than 57 plaque-induced genes." These genes were mainly expressed in astroglia and microglia, two types of supportive brain cells, and were not co-expressed in the absence of amyloid plaques.

"We also found interesting alterations in a second network, expressed mainly by another type of cells, namely oligodendrocytes," adds Ashley Lu, PhD student in the team. "This gene network was activated under mild amyloid stress but depleted in microenvironments with high amyloid accumulation."

"Many of the genes in both networks show similar alterations in human brain samples, strengthening our observations," adds Fiers. Targeting plaques

"Our data demonstrate that amyloid plaques are not innocent bystanders of the disease, as has been sometimes suggested, but in fact induce a strong and coordinated response of all surrounding cell types," says De Strooper.

"Further work is needed to understand whether, and when, removal of amyloid plaques--for instance by antibody therapy currently in development to treat amyloid plaques--is sufficient to reverse these ongoing cellular processes."

Whether antibody binding to amyloid plaques could also modulate these glial responses remains to be determined. "It would in any case complicate the interpretation of the outcome of clinical trials as these cellular effects might be different between different antibodies," adds De Strooper.

###

Publicaion

Spatial transcriptomics and in situ sequencing uncover coordinated cell responses to amyloid- plaques in Alzheimer's disease

Chen, Lu et al. Cell 2020
As many hospitals and health centers face dramatic drops in revenue from ramping down services during the coronavirus pandemic, donations from grateful patients and philanthropists become more important than ever.

A new study looks for the first time at patients' views of hospital fundraising, including legally allowable practices that encourage physicians to work with their hospital's fundraising professionals.

Fundraising is essential. We cannot abandon philanthropy for hospitals and health systems, especially in the current environment. But we need to learn how best to do this both effectively and ethically." Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., Director of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan

Reshma Jagsi is the lead author of a new paper published in JAMA.

The paper is the first to ask groups of patients about their attitudes toward hospital fundraising.

Researchers surveyed 513 members of a U.S. national survey panel, reflective of the general population. Participants were asked how they felt about common strategies hospitals use to identify, solicit and thank donors. These practices are all legally allowed.

Just under half of the responses endorsed doctors giving patient names to hospital fundraising staff after asking a patient's permission, and 9% said it was OK without asking permission. While 80% said doctors could talk to patients about donating if the patient brought it up, 14% said it was acceptable if the patient had not brought it up.

Wealth screening, in which fundraising staff use publicly available data to identify patients who might be capable of large donations, was endorsed by 10% of respondents.

"These policies were made with the best intent to facilitate fundraising for hospitals and health care institutions. We don't want to hamstring this as the money is used to the benefit of society as a whole," Jagsi says. "But I think it's also important to understand public perspectives toward these practices. We found that certain specific practices cause a lot of people concerns, and maybe those should be avoided."

The survey also assessed how hospitals could show thanks to those who make large donations. Half said it was acceptable to provide nicer hospital rooms, a quarter endorsed expedited appointments and 20% said it was OK to provide doctors' cell phone numbers.

"As a practicing physician asked to engage my patients around philanthropy, it's occurred to me that this could be a potential conflict of interest," Jagsi says. "I want guidance to navigate this, to understand what I should do to encourage philanthropy but also to protect my patients and maintain their trust."

The authors suggest additional research is needed to further understand the attitudes and preferences of patients and the general public. Jagsi says she hopes this work helps inform future conversations about policy so that hospital fundraising efforts can continue in ways that are both effective and ethical.

"Especially in the midst of a pandemic, we've discovered how vulnerable health systems are. Now perhaps more than ever it's incredibly important for development and philanthropy to thrive. We want to help development professionals continue doing their important work in ways that the public views as ethically appropriate," Jagsi says.
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Prospect Capital Corporation

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

New York, July 22, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Prospect Capital Corporation (PSEC) and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

PSEC's Baa3 long-term senior unsecured rating is based on the company's long history of operations and profitability compared to most BDC peers and improved capital cushion. PSEC's funding is more diverse, its debt maturities more evenly distributed, and its borrowing agreements have fewer financial covenants compared to most BDC peers, which reduces its refinancing risk. PSEC has strong liquidity, aided by ample availability under its multi-year committed revolving credit facility given its very low unfunded credit extensions to portfolio companies. Credit challenges include Moody's expectation that certain of PSEC's investments, including collateralized loan obligations and multifamily and other real estate, will demonstrate greater asset volatility than other investments.

Story continues

This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodology used for this review was Finance Companies Methodology published in November 2019. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Mark L. Wasden Senior Vice President Financial Institutions Group Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Ana Arsov MD-Financial Institutions Financial Institutions Group JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A. JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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Palm oil stockpiles in Nepal have swelled to 70,000 tonnes, overwhelming local demand needs, said Sarda

India in May suspended 39 oil import licences to slow duty-free shipments from neighbouring nations, disrupting refiners in Nepal. (AFP Photo)

KATHMANDU: Edible oil refiners in Nepal have all but stopped buying crude palm oil amid surging domestic stockpiles after top buyer India suspended most imports of refined oil from the country, industry officials told Reuters.

India in May suspended 39 oil import licences to slow duty-free shipments from neighbouring nations, disrupting refiners in Nepal which had thrived thanks to preferential access to Indias huge market.

Refiners are not importing fresh crude palm oil but we have to take (delivery) of the stock which is in transit, said Amit Sarda, director at Pashupati Oil Industries, a leading refiner and exporter based at Nepals industrial town of Biratnagar.

Palm oil stockpiles in Nepal have swelled to 70,000 tonnes, overwhelming local demand needs, he said.

As a result, Nepals crude palm imports had plunged to less than 7,000 tonnes per month by mid June from around 21,000 tonnes earlier in 2020, according to government data.

India accounts for nearly two-thirds of Nepals trade and is its sole fuel supplier. The ties between Nepal and India have strained lately following a territorial dispute.

DUTY ARBITRAGE

Nepals palm oil refining industry emerged in response to Indias steep refined oil import taxes, which were raised to 54% in 2018 to promote domestic refiners.

The hike spurred oil refiners to set up plants in neighbouring countries and then sell refined oil into India tax-free under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).

Around 30 billion Nepali rupees ($250 million) were invested to set up 19 refining units in Nepal alone, according to trade body Nepal Ghee and Oil Association.

Nepals palm oil exports to India rose from zero to 45,667 tonnes in the 2018/19 fiscal year, and then to 189,078 tonnes in 2019/20, according to Indias commerce ministry.

These refiners may not be able to repay bank loans if the Indian ban remains in place, said Sarda.

We have fulfilled the SAFTA norms and there is no problem in this. Our value addition is about 32-33%, said Vikkas Dugar, managing director of Nepalese refiner Swastik Oil Industries Pvt Ltd.

India, the worlds biggest importer of palm oil, annually imports more than 9 million tonnes of crude palm oil that is then mostly processed by its own refiners.

It is high time, the SAFTA agreements are reviewed and re-negotiated with longer term objectives like Make in India, said Sudhakar Desai, president of the Indian Vegetable Oil Producers Association (IVPA).
ABC NewsBY: BEN GITTLESON, JORDYN PHELPS, and LIBBY CATHEY



(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump held his first press briefing focused on the coronavirus crisis in nearly three months on Tuesday -- by himself -- without any experts from the White House task force.



"Today, I want to provide an update on our response to the China virus, and what my administration is doing to get the outbreak in the Sunbelt under control. Seems largely in Sunbelt but could be spreading," Trump said to open the briefing amid polls showing Americans sharply disapproving of how he's handled the crisis.



Comparing the U.S. to the rest of the world, he downplayed the impact of the pandemic on Americans by emphasizing it's a global problem, but he also made a rare acknowledgment of bad news ahead.



"It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better. Something I don't like saying about things but that's the way it is. It's the way -- it's what we have. You look over the world. It's all over the world. And it tends to do that," he said.



"If you watch American television, you'd think that the United States was the only country involved with and suffering from the China virus. Well, the world is suffering very badly. But the fact is that many countries are suffering very, very, very badly, and they've been suffering from this virus for a long time. We've done much better than most and with the fatality rate at a lower rate than most," Trump continued.



In fact, the U.S. is in the top ten of countries with the highest mortality rates.



Though Trump took a less defensive and sometimes more realistic tone than he has in the past, he repeated that the virus will eventually "disappear" and continued to try to minimize any criticism of his response, touting his handling of the pandemic as a success story.



"My administration will stop at nothing to save lives and shield the vulnerable, which is so important. We have learned so much about this disease, and we know who the vulnerable are, and we are going to indeed shield them," he continued.



In somewhat of a reversal, Trump also sent a clearer message on masks, one day after tweeting a photo of himself donning one for the first time, calling it "patriotic."



"We're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask. Get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. They'll have an effect, and we need everything we can get," Trump said, following months of resistance.



Asked why he doesn't wear a mask more frequently, Trump said he does when he needs it, despite only being photographed once wearing one at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.



"I have the mask right here. I carry it, and I will use it gladly. No problem with it, and I've said that and I say: if you can, use the mask," Trump said, showing the mask in his hand but not putting it on. " I have no problem with the masks. I view it this way. Anything that potentially can help -- and that certainly can potentially help -- is a good thing."



He went on to justify not wearing one in the briefing room, for instance, by saying he and everyone in the room had been tested.



"Oftentimes, I'll be with people that are fully tested. I've been tested. In theory, you don't need the mask. I'm getting used to the mask and the reason is, think about patriotism maybe it is, it helps. It helps," he added.



In another change in his messaging to "Open Up America Again," Trump said his administration is now "imploring young Americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded, indoor gatherings."



"Be safe and be smart," he added.



Questioned by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl about whether the U.S. has a problem with testing, the president defended the state of testing, saying, saying Weve done more testing by far than anybody" but also conceded it would be a "good thing" to reduce wait times for results.



Well be able to get those numbers down. Those numbers are similar in other places. Theyre also doing massive numbers, numbers like nobody thought possible, but those numbers will be coming down. I agree, I think it's a good thing if we could do that, Trump said, seemingly referring to wait times as he referred to numbers."



Even as his administration has sought to zero out any additional funding for testing in the next round of relief funding, the president told Karl hed be okay with more if the experts feel its needed.



Well they're going to make a presentation to me tonight and tomorrow on that, Trump said, when asked if he supports more funding for testing. I think that we are doing a tremendous amount of testing but if the doctors and the professional feel that even though were at a level that nobody ever dreamt possible that they would like to more, I'm okay with it.



Karl also asked Trump about a claim White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany made earlier in the day, that sometimes the president gets tested "multiple times a day," Trump couldn't recall a time that has happened.



"Well, I didn't know about more than one. I do take probably on average a test every two days, three days, and I don't know of any time I've taken two tests in one day. But I could see that happening," he said.



Questioned why his doctors and experts werent with him for the briefing, the president replied that Dr. Birx is just outside, referring to coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, but he made no mention of his other experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, who earlier said he wasn't asked to be there.



Trump took a few questions at what the White House had called a "news conference." It lasted roughly 26 minutes compared to earlier briefings that would last well over an hour.



The president had stopped participating in the once near-daily task force briefings at the end of April, not long after suggesting injecting disinfectants to treat COVID-19.



Aides urged him then to end his appearances at the briefings, citing sinking poll numbers, but with poll numbers falling farther and coronavirus cases surging, the president returned to the podium

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
World Artists Welcoming Iran's First International Online Student Puppet Festival

07/22/20

Source: Honar Online

"We have corresponded with most Iranian students and universities around the world, and fortunately, we have received a great response. So far, more than 30 plays have been submitted to the festival from about 12 countries."



The First International Online Student Puppet Festival

The first 'virtual International puppet theatre festival' started its work on 9th May 2020 by enrolling participants' works on Instagram page of the festival - @_iospf - and sharing works on the same page.



Bahram Behbahani , puppet theater artist and lecturer of the University of Tehran, who is the festival's consultant, said in an interview with HonarOnline about the purpose of holding the a virtual puppet theater festival: With coronavirus infections widespread and the closure of cultural and educational centers, student classrooms changed from face-to-face to online. Since most of the classes in the field of drama are practical and workshop, after starting the online classes, I realized that the appropriate conclusions may not be obtained from these classes. Based on this, we proposed to hold an internal festival of virtual puppet shows at the level of the country's universities and then globally. With the efforts of students and professors in the field of puppetry, the University of Tehran, Sureh, and Art Universities, the festival was established.



Bahram Behbahani

Behbahani said about the feedback of this festival in the world: Since the publication of the call in Persian and English, we have corresponded with most Iranian students and universities around the world, and fortunately we have received a great response. So far more than 30 plays have been submitted to the festival from about 12 countries and it will be more until the 26th of July. Due to the great response of the artists to the online puppet show festival, we will plan for the second period of the festival.



The director stated that according to the works received at the festival, artists have chosen countless techniques to present their works, which can often be followed and continued online. Currently 6 experts in puppetry and drama are selecting the winners of the first stage, and these selected works will be judged in the second stage by other judges.



At the end of his speech, Behbahani said: "The poster of this festival has also been shared on the UNIMA World website and has been very well received." I hope that the country's theater authorities will support this festival more. Although we have had the support of the University of Tehran, the General Directorate of Performing Arts, Keshavarzi Bank, the Theater and Puppet House Performers Association, the Audience and Theater Institute, the festival needs more support.
Highlighting India's contribution in moving towards a resilient world with 'Atmanirbhar Bharat', Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday told the United State that it can trust the country with trade.

The statement could be seen as a subtle attack on China, which is presently one of the dominant countries in the world market. Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had dubbed Chinese Communist Party is a "mutual threat".

"The recent experience has taught us that the global economy has been too focused on efficiency and optimization. Efficiency is a good thing. But, on the way, we forgot to focus on something equally important. That is resilience against external shocks. Global economic resilience can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities. India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of an 'Atmanirbhar Bharat'. And, for that, we await your partnership," PM Modi said at the virtual summit being hosted by the US-India Business Council.

Modi invited US companies to invest in India's healthcare, infrastructure, defence, energy, farm and insurance sectors, saying the country offers openness, opportunities and options for investments.

"Today, there is global optimism towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options. Let me elaborate. India celebrates openness in people and in governance," he said.

Modi said the coronavirus pandemic has showed the importance of economic resilience, which can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities. "This means improved domestic capacity for manufacturing, restoring the health of the financial system and diversification of international trade," he added.

"India is emerging as a land of opportunities. Let me give you one example of the tech sector. Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It said for the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users," he said. Stating that open markets mean more opportunities, Modi said during the last six years the government has made many efforts to make the Indian economy more open and reform oriented.

Reforms have ensured increased competitiveness, transparency, digitisation, innovation and policy stability, the Prime Minister said.

Here's the full transcript of PM Modi's speech

Namaste!

Business leaders,

Distinguished guests,

I thankthe US-India Business Council for inviting me to address the 'India Ideas Summit'.I also congratulatethe USIBCon its forty fifth anniversarythis year.Over the past decades, the USIBC has brought Indian and American business closer.USIBC's choice ofthis year's Ideas Summit -Building a Better Future' is also veryvery relevant.

Friends,

We all agree thatthe world is in needfor a better future.And, it is all of uswho have to collectively give shape to the future.I firmly believe that our approachto the futuremust primarily be a more human- centric one. Our growth agendamust place the poor and vulnerable at the core. Ease of Living is as important asEase of Business.

Friends,

Recent experience hastaught us thatthe global economyhas been too focused on efficiency and optimization.Efficiency isa good thing.But, on the way,we forgot to focus on something equally important.That isresilience against external shocks.It has takena global pandemicto remind us how important resilience is.

Friends,

Global economic resilience can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities.This meansimproved domestic capacityfor manufacturing, restoring the healthof the financial systemanddiversification of international trade.

Friends,

India is contributing towardsa prosperous and resilient worldthrough the clarion call ofan Atmanirbhar Bharat. And, for that, we await your partnership!

Friends,

Today, there is global optimism towards India.This is because India offersa perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options.Let me elaborate.India celebrates opennessin people and in governance.Open mindsmake open markets. Open marketslead to greater prosperity.These are principleson which both Indiaand the USA agree.

Friends,

During the last six years, wehave made many efforts to make our economy more openand reform oriented.Reforms have ensuredincreased Competitiveness, enhanced Transparency,expanded Digitization,greater Innovationandmore Policy stability.

Friends,

India is emerging as a land of opportunities.Let me give youone example of the tech sector.Recently, an interesting report came out in India.It saidfor the first time ever, there are morerural internet users than even urban internet users.Imagine the scale!There are abouthalf a billionactive internet usersin India now.Half a billionconnected people.Does this sound huge to you?Hold your breath.Because,there are overhalf a billionmore peoplewho are being connected.Opportunities in technology also include opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G,Big data analytics, Quantumcomputing,Block-chain andInternet of things.

Friends,

The options toinvest in India are extensive.India invites you toinvest in thehard-work of our farmers.India has donehistoric reforms in theagriculture sector recently.There are investment opportunities in:Agricultural inputs and machinery, Agriculture supply chain management, Ready-to-eat items, Fisheries andOrganic produce.India's food processing sector is expected to be worth over half a trillion dollarsby 2025.To grow more streams of revenue, the best time to tap investment opportunities in Indian agriculture sectoris now!

India invites you toinvest in healthcare.The Healthcare sectorin India is growing faster than 22 percent every year. Our companies are also progressing in production ofmedical-technology, tele-medicine and diagnostics.India and the UShave already built a robust partnership in the Pharma sector.To achieve scale and speed, now is the best timeto expand your investmentin Indian health-care sector!

India invites youto invest in energy. As India evolves intoa gas-based economy, there will bebig investment opportunities for US companies.There are also big opportunities in theclean energy sector.To generate more power for your investment, this is the best timeto enter theIndian power sector!

India invites youto invest in infrastructure.Our nation is witnessing the largestinfrastructure creation drivein our history.Come, be a partner inbuilding housing for millions, or building roads, highwaysand ports in our nation.

Civil Aviation isanother area of great potential growth. The number ofAir passengersare expected to more than doublewithin next 8 years.The topprivate Indian airlinesplan to include overa thousand new aircraftover the coming decade. This is a huge opportunityfor any investorwho chooses to set up manufacturing facilities in India, which can becomea base forsupplying regional markets.A similar case is obvious for setting up Maintenance Repairand Operations facilities.To give flight toyour aviation targets, this is an ideal timeto invest in theIndian aviation sector.

India invites youto invest in defenseand space.We are raising the FDI cap for investmentin defense sectorto 74 percent.India has established two defense corridors to encourage productionof defense equipment and platforms.We offerspecial incentives for private and foreign investors.A few weeks ago, we clearedpath-breaking reforms inthe space sector.Come, be a part ofthese upcoming sectors.

India invites you toinvest in financeand insurance. India has raised FDI cap for investment in insurance to 49 percent.Now 100 percent FDIis permitted for investmentin insurance intermediaries.The insurance marketin India is growing at a rate ofmore than 12 percentand is expectedto grow to250 billion dollars by 2025. With the success ofAyushman Bharat,our health assurance scheme, PM FasalBimaYojna, our crop insurance schemeand Jan Suraksha or social security schemes, the government has laid the ground forquick adoption and acceptanceof insurance products.There are largeuntapped opportunitiesfor increasinginsurance cover in health, agriculture, businessand life insurance.To generate long termand assured revenues, the Indian insurance sectoris one of thebest investment optionsright now!

I have given youa few optionsand that too withoutany consultancy fees.

Friends,

When the markets are open, when the opportunity is high and the options are many, can optimism be far behind!You can seethe optimism when India rises in key business ratings.Particularly the Ease of Doing Business ratings of the World Bank.

Investment is the best show of confidence.Every year,we are reaching record highs in FDI.Each year is significantly higherthan the earlier one.FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were 74 billion dollars.This is an increase of 20 percent from the year before that.Friends in USIBC inform that pledged investment from the US has already crossed 40 billion dollars this year!Also see what has happened even during the ongoing pandemic.In the middle of COVID, India has attracted foreign investmentof more than 20 billion dollars between April and July 2020!

But, India offers many more opportunities.We havewhat is neededto power the global economic recovery.

Friends,

The rise of India means:a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust,a rise in global integration with increasing openness,a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale. Anda rise your returns on investment with the availability of skilled human resources.

Friends,

For this vision, there are few better partners than the United States of America.India and the USA are two vibrant democracies with shared values. We are natural partners.The US-India friendship has scaled many heights in the past.Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back fasterafter the pandemic.American investors often look out for the perfect timing to enter a sector or a country. To them, I would like to say:there has never beena better time to invest in India!

I once again thank the USIBC leadership for their commitment to advancing India-US economic partnership. May the USIBC keep scaling new heights!

May the India-America friendship grow further!

Namaste!

Thank you!
Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday signaled a strong message to the White House that he would oppose any attempt by President Donald Trump to deploy federal officers to any city in Pennsylvania.

It would be unwelcome here as it has been in Portland, Wolf said.

The governor, who was in York holding a press conference on the coronavirus at the WellSpan York, initially said he had not heard of the presidents threat to send federal officers to Philadelphia.

Trump on Monday mentioned Philadelphia among the cities he would consider deploying federal agents to quell racial protests. Other cities include New York, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland and California.

Trump blasted the mayors of the cities as liberal Democrats.

Wolf, a Democrat, seemingly quipped about Trumps outlook on Democrats but made clear his stance on the idea of deployment of federal agents to cities across the state.

Yeah apparently he doesnt listen to me, said Wolf to a round of laughter from the mostly doctors, nurses and health care workers at the press conference, which was held in a parking lot at York Hospital. Certainly I would voice my opposition.

In Philadelphia, demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism, which were sparked in June by the alleged murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, have subsided - as is the case in many parts of the country.

Federal agents use crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Monday, July 20, 2020, in Portland, Ore. Officers used teargas and projectiles to move the crowd after some protesters tore down a fence fronting the courthouse. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)AP

The Trump administration on Tuesday confirmed that federal agents were on their way to Chicago, even as Mayor Lori Lightfoot pushed back against the plan in a letter to the president.

Federal officers began to show up in Portland in early July, even as protests there too had begun to quiet down. Protests, however, have since escalated amid the presence of the federal agents, who are dressed in military gear but have no identification logos on their uniforms and ride around in unmarked cars.

The federal officers have been cracking down on protests with tear gas and random arrests of demonstrators.

Democratic members of Congress, mayors and other elected officials across the country have decried the tactic and have called on the Trump administration to remove Department of Homeland Security from Portland.

A democracy doesnt have secret police & a paramilitary force, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., tweeted on Monday. What we saw in Portland is performative fascism meant to inflame tensions & rally the Presidents base ahead of an election.

Casey warned that Philadelphia or Pittsburgh could be next.

This should not be happening in America and we cannot allow it to continue, Casey tweeted.

Former Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican, said he would have never let an uninvited federal agency come into the Commonwealth while he was governor.

The nations first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said the department was intended to protect the country from global terrorism, and was not established to be the presidents personal militia.

It would be a cold day in hell before I would consent to an uninvited, unilateral intervention into one of my cities, the former two-term Republican governor said.

Trump in the meantime continues to portray protestors as anarchists who hate our country.

This could be Philadelphia next. Or Pittsburgh. Or your city. This should not be happening in America and we cannot allow it to continue. https://t.co/rBSOXkdFax  Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) July 20, 2020

Chicagos mayor told Trump that she takes him at his word that the federal agents are coming to help battle street violence and not to be secret police against protesters, ABC7 News in Chicago reported.

We have got an unhinged leader of a Fraternal Order of Police who is craven and trying to generate attention, she wrote in her letter to the president. He has asked for that, but reasonable police officials including our superintendent know that this is a dangerous road for us to go down. We are not going to have people that dont know our streets, dont know our neighborhoods then are engaging in clearly unconstitutional conduct operating at will in our city. That is chaos, that is lawlessness and we are absolutely not having it.

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it planned to send 150 federal agents to combat violence in Chicago, although officials did not clarify the agency or mission at the center of that deployment.

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METZ have announced their new album Atlas Vending, which arrives October 9 via Sub Pop. Its the Toronto trios fourth LP, following 2017s Strange Peace. The new record is led by A Boat to Drown In and its Tony Wolskidirected music video. In the visual, a woman and a giant bear mascot fall in love. Watch below.

Tony Wolski said of his video in a press release:

The song has a beautiful, crushing numbness to it that we wanted to mirror in the visual. So we chose to romanticize our main characters descent into her delusions of love and togetherness. At a time when everyones simultaneously coping with some sort of isolation, a story about lonelinessand the mania that comes with itseems appropriate to tell.

METZthe trio of guitarist/vocalist Alex Edkins, drummer Hayden Menzies, and bassist Chris Slorachco-produced Atlas Vending with Uniforms Ben Greenberg. The album was mixed and engineered by Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Find physical editions of METZs Atlas Vending at Rough Trade. (Pitchfork earns a commission from purchases made through affiliate links on our site.)

Atlas Vending:

01 Pulse

02 Blind Youth Industrial Park

03 The Mirror

04 No Ceiling

05 Hail Taxi

06 Draw Us In

07 Sugar Pill

08 Framed by the Comets Tail

09 Parasite

10 A Boat to Drown In

METZ: Atlas Vending

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
New York: Kim Kardashian West has asked the public to show compassion and empathy to her husband Kanye West, who caused a stir this week after fulminating in a series of social media posts. She says he is bipolar.

The reality TV star posted a lengthy message on Wednesday on her Instagram Live feed, explaining that life has been complicated for her family and West, who ranted against historical figure Harriet Tubman and discussed abortion on Sunday while he declared himself a US presidential candidate. The Grammy-winning singer's statements have raised concerns about his mental health.

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West, pictured in 2015. Credit:AP

"As many of you know, Kanye has bipolar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand," she wrote.

"I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health. But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health."
Shoppers and vendors will have to wait a week longer than expected, but a farmers market is returning to Bethlehem.

The Community Action Development Corp. of Bethlehem on Tuesday night received approval from Bethlehem City Council for the new Greenway Farmers Market.

Its planned on the South Bethlehem Greenway park created atop an old railroad bed. Itll fan out to the west and east from the entrance on Polk Street between East Third and East Fourth streets, said Yadira Colon-Lopez, director of the Southside-based CADCB.

Opening day had been set for this Friday, but has been pushed back to July 31, Colon-Lopez said.

Market hours will be 2 to 6 p.m. each Friday through Sept. 25, and the citys $50 use permit awarded to CADCB allows the use of the greenway from Webster to Pierce streets.

"We're looking to continue to grow, so we've asked for about four blocks," Colon-Lopez said.

The market replaces the Bethlehem Farmers Market that Lehigh University had hosted on campus at 1 Farrington Square, and which is closed due to the coronavirus.

Within the greenway market, everyone will be required to wear face coverings, as well as use hand sanitizer and observe social distancing, Colon-Lopez said. The market will be marked for a one-way flow, with an established entrance and exit.

Organizers plan to start out with eight vendors, including the Second Harvest Food Banks Seed Farm carrying fresh produce and Bethlehem restaurants offering prepared food, Colon-Lopez said. One goal for the market is to help businesses struggling with COVID-19 restrictions to draw new customers.

Plans also include working with the Bethlehem Parking Authority to bring in a rotation of food trucks, Colon-Lopez said.

SouthSide Arts District plans to have a booth, as well, said Manager Missy Hartney.

"It's an open-air market where you can get produce and learn about the different vendors of the Southside," she said.

Timed for the afternoon, the market should also help bring some feet on the street to local businesses still seeing a downturn due to the virus and limits on gatherings, Hartney noted.

The delayed opening means the greenway market kickoff wont coincide with this weekends Christmas in July promotions, which include contests, sales and freebies starting at 11 a.m. Saturday at participating businesses.

The Greenway Farmers Market is made possible by Southside Vision 20/20, a six-year revitalization program of Community Action Development Corp. of Bethlehem and the City of Bethlehem, with support from PPL Corp., Just Born Quality Confections, Provident Bank, Peoples Security Bank & Trust and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.

The market is separate from the Christmas City Farm Stand hosted by the Bethlehem Health Bureau and scheduled to run 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through October, offering fresh locally grown produce on Payrow Plaza between City Hall and the Bethlehem Area Public Library.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
The hostage taker who was detained in Lutsk had firearms and grenades, Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.

"No one was wounded. No other explosives were placed in other places. The detainee really had a functioning pistol, a functioning machine-gun, a combat grenade. There was a threat. It's over now," the minister was quoted as saying by the Interior ministry press service.

According to earlier reports, the man who held hostages in a bus in Lutsk for more than 12 hours surrendered.

Avakov later said the hostage taker had gotten out of the vehicle after a relevant agreement was reached with him. "He got out, [Ukraine's National Police First Deputy Chief] Gen. [Yevhen] Koval and another two of our officials got out after him. He was detained, SBU officers took security measures, the hostages got out after that," the minister told reporters on Tuesday.

"There was one unpleasant moment when the terrorist fired a shot at Mr Koval [...] It was a stressful moment for us, but we managed to bring him back to the negotiations," Avakov said.

The National Police said the bullet missed the deputy chief of the National Police and he was not wounded.
New Delhi:

Government on Tuesday braced itself for a stormy Winter Session of Parliament beginning Wednesday with the opposition presenting a united face in seeking to corner it over the demonetisation issue calling it a currency scam that needs to be probed.



The opposition also has a string of other issues like the surgical strikes across LoC, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, OROP and the plight of farmers to rake up during the session that will last a month. A demand for constitution of a JPC to go into the demonetisation is also on the opposition agenda.



Ahead of the session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met opposition leaders and sought their cooperation in the fight against black money and corruption for which, he said, the demonetisation exercise was undertaken.



In his concluding remarks at an all-party meeting on the eve of the Winter Session, Modi spoke in support of simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly polls. He pitched for state-funding of elections and asked parties to debate the issue.

ALSO READ | Currency overhaul: Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia meet Mamata Banerjee in Delhi



The government is willing to discuss all issues and answer the questions raised by the opposition, Modi said, hoping for a fruitful session as he recalled the passage of the GST Bill in the last session with the cooperation of all parties.



We have launched a crusade against corruption, black money and fake currency, which is also behind cross-border terrorism. All parties should come together on this issue of national interest, he said.However, an unrelenting opposition decided to step up its fight against the government during the session. Presenting a united face, arch rivals TMC and Left parties and SP and BSP, got together at a meeting convened by the main opposition Congress to formulate a joint strategy.

ALSO READ | Modi govt's demonetisation move resulted in massive inconvenience for people, says Rahul



There were some reservations in the opposition over TMCs proposal for a march to Rashtrapati Bhawan tomorrow to petition the President against demonetisation.



The majority of the parties did not want to exhaust the option of going to the President on the very first day of the session and instead wanted to keep it for a later stage.



An unfazed TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, asserted that she would go ahead with around 40 of her MPs to the President.



Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad alleged the decision to invalidate Rs 1000/500 currency notes was leaked in advance to some people, including BJP leaders, and called it probably the biggest scam.



He, however, added that his party is not for a rollback of the drive.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
The president of Hearst Magazines is under fire for being promoted despite complaints of making sexually offensive remarks, as the company's outlets Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire are plagued with accusations of discrimination, tokenism and a toxic work culture.

Hearst is the latest media company to face a reckoning as current and former employees come forward and accuse leaders of running a harmful work environment.

Troy Young, who joined the company in 2013 and became president in 2018, is at the forefront of complaints for making lewd, sexist remarks at work where he allegedly joked he required a 'bigger' sex toy, asked a pregnant staffer if the baby was his, and emailed pornography to a high-level Hearst editor, according to a New York Times report.

Meanwhile, magazines Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire have been accused of cultural and racial discrimination, amid the political climate fighting against systemic racism and police brutality.

Young, 52, was promoted to Hearst Magazines president after at least four employees complained of his bullying or harassing behavior to the human resources department or to senior executives, according to four former Hearst employees who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.

Hearst Magazines president Troy Young, 52, has been accused of making sexual, lewd remarks to employees and was promoted despite complaints against him

Young revamped the corporate structure at Hearst where he had editors of the magazine websites report to him directly and he allegedly replaced 'high-priced veteran print editors' with digital editors with low salaries.

On one occasion Young reportedly emailed pornography to a high-level Hearst editor Jay Fielden, three people with knowledge of what happened reported.

Fielden complained to David Carey, the then-division president who Young later replaced.

Fielden left Hearst last May where he had been the top editor of Esquire and Town & Country.

In 2013 at a Cosmopolitan holiday party Young joined a group in which a young staff member was describing a bad date with a man who complained of an ex-girlfriends odor.

The woman, who asked to be anonymous, said Young told her she should have inserted her fingers into herself and asked her date if he liked her smell. The woman was so shocked by his comment she walked away.

Two Esquire staff members witnessed the incident and confirmed it.

Current and former staffers said Young, who became president in 2018, asked a pregnant staffer if the baby was his, joked about needing a 'bigger' sex toy, and emailed pornography to an editor. He denies the allegations as 'untrue, greatly exaggerated or taken out of context'. Young pictured attending a Harper's Bazaar event in 2019

'I think he violated the decency of what was otherwise a friendly conversation. It has been something that I wish I had done something about in the moment for a very long time,' Nate Hopper, who was an assistant editor at the time, said.

One another occasion during a visit to Cosmopolitans office while he was head of digital media he picked up one of the sex toys that had been sent to the magazine and asked to keep it. Referring to the openings of two toys he said he would 'definitely need a bigger one,' the people said.

Former senior editor at Cosmopolitan Michelle Ruiz, who is now a contributing editor at Vogue.com, said one time in the Hearst cafeteria Young joked with her 'So, is the baby mine?' while she was heavily pregnant.

'For an executive at the company to suggest that hed impregnated me was clearly inappropriate,' she said. 'Theres a real hypocrisy to elevating this man to lead a company populated with magazines that are preaching womens empowerment on their covers.'

Young in a statement to the Times said that the allegations are 'untrue, greatly exaggerated or taken out of context'.

'The pace of evolving our business and the strength of my commitment is ambitious, and I sincerely regret the toll it has taken on some in our organization,' he said.

Speaking on that holiday party he said: 'Candid conversations about sex defined the Cosmo brand for decades, and those who worked there discussed it openly.'

A top Cosmopolitan magazine editor Jessica Pels, who used to work at Marie Claire, has also come under fire for racial discrimination and tokenizing staff. Pels pictured accepting an award at the Elle Awards in 2019 in New York City

A Hearst Magazines spokeswoman similarly blamed complaints on his 'pursuit of excellence'.

She said his 'relentless pursuit of excellence was at times combined with a brash demeanor that rubbed some the wrong way. Since being named president of the division, he has worked to develop a more inclusive management style.'

Hearst is yet to reply to DailyMail.com's request for comment.

The allegations against Young are only the tip of the iceberg.

Keke Palmer is on the cover of the July/August issue of Cosmopolitan

Within magazines at the company, staffers faced a culture of discrimination and tokenism, employees say.

The bulk of the allegations centered on Jessica Pels, Cosmos youngest top editor in 2018 who formerly was the digital head of Marie Claire.

Last month she was blasted on social media by former staffer Jazmin Jones, who worked with Pels as a video editor at Marie Claire.

Jones, who is black, accused the company of racial discrimination where she was made to feel uncomfortable in threads that touched on race in the interoffice communicating app Slack.

'I was the only black employee at the magazine and, in addition to being a one-woman video department, I had to "sensitivity read" articles on skin bleaching. I still have post-traumatic Slack stress from the daily micro aggressions,' Jones shared in her post on June 6.

In one of those Slack messages Jones shows that an editor she identified as Pels made negative comments on the hair and make-up of a staff member of color during an on-camera appearance for a Marie Claire video.

Pels appeared aware her comments were offensive and joked her remarks were a human resources violation.

Pels said: 'Can I float something I dont want to say out loud and also dont want to put in an email?

'I wonder if we want to like do a little more hair and makeup on the people in our vids[redacted] you always look great, as do you Jazminbut like [redacted] and [redacted] could use a hair brush. #HRViolation.'

Jazmin Jones blasted Marie Claire, where she previously worked as a video editor, for fostering a toxic environment and racial discrimination in a post on social media on June 6

Jones called out Hearst Magazine for not releasing a statement in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement

Jones worked with Pels during her time at Marie Claire. She shared screenshots of Slack messages with Pels she made negative comments on the hair and make-up of a staff member of color in a video for the Marie Claire website

In a video conference held last month for Cosmopolitan staff a woman of color confronted Pels over being pulled into meetings she would not normally be a part of when camera crews were present.

She said that she was being tokenized and her inclusion was to perpetuate a false appearance of staff diversity, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by the Times.

Prachi Gupta, who covered politics for Cosmopolitan during the 2016 presidential campaign before Pels became editor, said she felt black and brown women were made to 'feel less than equal' and she was underpaid at the company.

'Because there were no women of color in leadership positions, I was not able to seek advice or counsel when I was pushed into some of the uncomfortable positions,' she said.

Prachi Gupta, who covered politics for Cosmopolitan during the 2016 presidential campaign before Pels became editor, said she felt black and brown women were made to 'feel less than equal' and she was underpaid at the company. Pictured at 72nd Writers Guild Awards in February 2020 in New York City

Gupta said she tokenized from the get-go and a white PR person said her look was 'very on trend'

She said she was paid less than the white woman who held the job before her

Gupta, who is Indian-American, shared a Twitter post on June 6 calling out how she was tokenized in the news room.

'From the get-go, I was tokenized. A white PR person at Hearst told me that it would be easy to book me for media appearances because my look was "very on trend," and it was clear she meant that I wasnt white,' she said.

She landed big interviews for the outlet, including one with Ivanka Trump that 'broke traffic records for the site', but was denied a big raise and made less than her white predecessor.

Ten other former and current Hearst Magazines staff members echoed Jones and Guptas statements.

In a video conference staff meeting Pels gave a tearful apology.

'I have not done enough to correct imbalances,' she said according to audio recording of the meeting.

She said in a statement to the Times that diversity was a 'career-long priority for me.'

'At this pivotal moment, my team and I have been making real changes and having extensive, honest and passionate discussions about the progress that needs to be made, and the work I can do as a leader to actively facilitate it,' she said.

Pels has done interviews with Democratic presidential candidates and published an essay supporting the Black Lives Matter movement written by Senator Kamala Harris of California.

In a video conference staff meeting Pels gave a tearful apology to her employees saying: 'I have not done enough to correct imbalances'

A view of Hearst Tower in Midtown, New York above

The Hearst reckoning comes on the heels of similar shake-ups at Conde Nast, the New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Wall Street Journal and Refinery29.

Since then theres been some internal change.

Last month Hearst Magazines appointed Samira Nasr, who was previously Vanity Fairs fashion director, as the top editor of the US edition of Harpers Bazaar.

Shes the first woman of color to hold that job.

In Cosmopolitans office, theyve started an initiative called 'Cosmo Can Do Better' which seeks to hire more black staffers and people of color.

The magazine released staff statistics saying its work force was made up of 29 percent black people and people of color and 61 percent white employees with 10 percent undisclosed. The survey said leadership was comprised of 21 percent people of color.

However, some say that Cosmos efforts are counter to Hearsts company leadership by Young.
US Department of Justice accused two Chinese nationals for spying and targeting computers used in biotech firms to research for Covid-19 vaccine; uses claim as another step to seize China on threats to global communication networks.

The US Department of Justice on Tuesday (local time) convicted two Chinese nationals of spying charges for targeting computer networks of biotech firms around the world working on coronavirus vaccines, technology and treatments.

Two Chinese hackers working with the Ministry of State Security charged with global computer intrusion campaign targeting intellectual property and confidential business information, including COVID-19 research, the Department said.

The 11-count indictment alleged that the two former computer engineers, identified as Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, conducted a hacking campaign lasting more than ten years to the present, targeting companies in countries with high technology industries, including the United States, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Also read: China cries foul on UKs suspension of extradition treaty with HKSAR

Also read: US sanctions 11 Chinese companies over Uyghur persecution in Xinjiang

It was also alleged that the two had hacked companies engaged in high-tech manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and gaming software development, and with targeting dissidents, clergy and human rights activists in the United States, China, and Hong Kong.

China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cybercriminals in exchange for those criminals being on call to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist partys insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C Demers.

Todays indictment demonstrates the serious consequences the Chinese MSS and its proxies will face if they continue to deploy malicious cyber tactics to either steal what they cannot create or silence what they do not want to hear, said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich.

Cybercrimes directed by the Chinese governments intelligence services not only threaten the United States but also every other country that supports fair play, international norms, and the rule of law, and it also seriously undermines Chinas desire to become a respected leader in world affairs. The FBI and our international partners will not stand idly by to this threat, and we are committed to holding the Chinese government accountable, he added.

The Department said that the complicated nature of cyber investigations is only exacerbated when the criminal is backed by the resources of a foreign government. The nature and value of the material stolen by these hackers cannot just be measured in dollars and was indicative of being state-driven.

According to the indictment, to gain initial access to victim networks, the defendants primarily exploited publicly known software vulnerabilities in popular web server software, web application development suites, and software collaboration programs.

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to steal trade secrets from at least eight known victims, which consisted of technology designs, manufacturing processes, test mechanisms and results, source code, and pharmaceutical chemical structures, the Department said.

The defendants have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison; one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of unauthorised access of a computer, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; and seven counts of aggravated identity theft, which each carries a mandatory sentence of two non-consecutive years in prison.

Also read: Ugly faces: US, China embassies lash out at each other in Myanmar

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Despite efforts by ridesharing companies to eliminate or reduce discrimination, research from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business finds that racial and LGBT bias persists among drivers.

Platforms such as Uber, Lyft and Via responded to drivers' biased behavior by removing information that could indicate a rider's gender and race from initial ride requests. However, researchers still found that biases against underrepresented groups and those who indicate support for the LGBT community continued to exist after drivers accepted a ride request -- when the rider's picture would then be displayed.

In other words, their efforts shifted some of the biased behavior until after the ride was confirmed, resulting in higher cancellation rates. Understanding whether bias has been removed also is important for ridesharing companies as they not only compete against each other but also with traditional transportation options.

"Our results confirm that bias at the ride request stage has been removed. However, after ride acceptance, racial and LGBT biases are persistent, while we found no evidence of gender biases," said Jorge Mejia, assistant professor of operations and decision technologies. "We show that signaling support for a social cause -- in our case, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community -- can also impact service provision. Riders who show support for the LGBT community, regardless of race or gender, also experience significantly higher cancelation rates."

Mejia and co-author Chris Parker, assistant professor in the information technology and analytics department at American University in Washington, believe they are the first to use support for social causes as a bias-enabling characteristic. Their article, "When Transparency Fails: Bias and Financial Incentives in Ridesharing Platforms," is published in Management Science.

They performed a field experiment on a ridesharing platform in fall 2018 in Washington, D.C. They randomly manipulated rider names, using those traditionally perceived to be white or Black, as well as profile pictures to observe drivers' behavior patterns in accepting and canceling rides. To illustrate support for LGBT rights, the authors overlaid a rainbow filter on the rider's picture profile.

"We found that underrepresented minorities are more than twice as likely to have a ride canceled than Caucasians; that's about 3 percent versus 8 percent," Mejia said. "There was no evidence of gender bias." Mejia and Parker also varied times of ride requests to study whether peak price periods affected bias. They found that higher prices associated with peak times alleviated some of the bias against riders from the underrepresented group, but not against those who signal support for the LGBT community.

They believe that ridesharing companies should use other data-driven solutions to take note of rider characteristics when a driver cancels and penalize the driver for biased behavior. One possible way to punish drivers is to move them down the priority list when they exhibit biased cancelation behavior, so they have fewer ride requests. Alternatively, less-punitive measures may provide "badges" for drivers who exhibit especially low cancelation rates for minority riders.

But, ultimately, policymakers may need to intervene, Mejia said.

"Investments in reducing bias may not occur organically, as ridesharing platforms are trying to maximize the number of participants in the platform -- they want to attract both riders and drivers," he said. "As a result, it may be necessary for policymakers to mandate what information can be provided to a driver to ensure an unbiased experience, while maintaining the safety of everyone involved, or to create policies that require ridesharing platforms to monitor and remove drivers based on biased behavior.

"Careful attention should be paid to these policies both before and after implementation, as unintended consequences are almost sure to follow any simple fix."

IU Research

IU's world-class researchers have driven innovation and creative initiatives that matter for 200 years. From curing testicular cancer to collaborating with NASA to search for life on Mars, IU has earned its reputation as a world-class research institution. Supported by $680 million last year from our partners, IU researchers are building collaborations and uncovering new solutions that improve lives in Indiana and around the globe.

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A Fort Bend County deputy has been charged in connection with the May fatal shooting of Fort Bend County Precinct 4 Deputy Constable Caleb Rule and has been fired, according to a news release issued by the sheriffs office on Wednesday.

Deputy Chadwick McRae was indicted on Monday by the Fort Bend County grand jury for criminal negligent homicide.

According to the indictment, McRae shot without first visually checking the area where he was firing.  It goes on to say that he fired in response to an auditory stimulus without looking to locate the source of the sound.

McRae was fired for violating the sheriffs department Use of Force policy, according to the release from the sheriffs office. The Fort Bend County district attorneys office declined to detail what kind of auditory stimulus caused McRae to fire his weapon, stating they are unable to comment on the facts of a pending prosecution.

This situation is tragic. It is sad when a fellow member of the law enforcement community is criminally charged with breaching his duty of care, said Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton in a statement. And the death of Deputy Rule, who was on duty serving his community at the time of his death, is an unbearable loss for his wife, children, and extended family.

The indictment of an officer in connection to a shooting is rare. For example, Cameron Brewer, a Harris County sheriffs deputy was indicted by a grand jury in October 2018, marking the first time in 15 years that Harris County prosecutors had secured an indictment on a peace officer for an on-duty fatal shooting.

A person charged with criminally negligent homicide can face a punishment of 180 days to two years in state jail and up to a $10,000 fine, according to the district attorneys office. A court date hasnt been set yet for McRae.

In May, Rule and three sheriffs deputies responded to a report of suspicious activity about 1:45 a.m. at a house in the 3900 block of Chestnut Bend in Sienna Plantation, a master-planned community located about 12 miles southeast of Sugar Lands town square.

The deputies and Rule, with Precinct 4, apparently arrived at the residence around the same time.

The law enforcement officers noticed a back door was not secured and entered. As they were clearing the home, a deputy discharged his weapon, believing a suspect was inside, officials said.

The gunfire struck Rule. The 37-year-old officer was flown to Memorial Hermann Hospital, where he later died.

Rule was a married father of four who had served 14 years with the Missouri City Police Department. He joined the Precinct 4 Constables Office in September.

Our thoughts and prayers remain with the family of Deputy Caleb Rule as they continue to deal with this tragedy, said Sheriff Troy Nehls in the release.

Samantha Ketterer contributed to the story.

brooke.lewis@chron.com
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, left, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, right, arrive at the Korea Furniture Museum in Seoul, in this July 4, 2019, file photo, to attend a dinner with the leaders of Korea's conglomerates. / Yonhap





By Baek Byung-yeul







Speculation has arisen that either Samsung Electronics or Apple may consider acquiring British chip-designing firm Arm, but an influential industry analyst expressed his doubts saying neither of the two IT giants will be interested in purchasing the company, which was put up for sale by its mother company SoftBank in Japan.







Jim Handy, a U.S.-based renowned semiconductor analyst guru working for Objective Analysis, said Samsung and Apple won't try to acquire Arm, the world's leading company in mobile chip architecture design, given the merger and acquisition deal is expected to amount to over $40 billion, which is too costly.







"It's hard to tell with Samsung. The company rarely acquires other companies, and the ones that I recall were all very small. Arm would be bigger than usual," the analyst told The Korea Times in a recent email interview.







SoftBank is reportedly considering either selling its chip-designing affiliate Arm or going through with an initial public offering for the unit. This is because the Japanese tech giant is strapped for cash after its $100 billion Vision Fund recorded losses for two consecutive quarters, hit by the pandemic impact on the global economy. In an effort to offset the investment losses, SoftBank has said it plans to sell off up to $41 billion in assets.







Some industry analysts have put up Samsung or Apple as potential suitors for Arm, which licenses its mobile chip architecture design to other companies, but Handy said the two companies won't look at intellectual property (IP) licensing business because they have used their IPs to help mitigate risks and avoid rises in costs.







From that standpoint, the analyst presumed Arm will be acquired by a consortium led by fabless companies or intelligent system design companies such as Rambus, Cadence and Synopsys. The rationale for that is because these firms are generating revenue by licensing their IP to other companies, which is exactly what Arm is doing.







They may try to form an association to join the acquisition race, expecting to create a synergistic effect in their licensing businesses.







"It is also unlike Samsung to license IP to other companies. Samsung's IP strategy is mostly defensive: They get patents so that they can defend themselves against other companies who try to use their patent portfolios against Samsung. Samsung usually tries to develop all of its IP internally," he said.







"Apple is very similar. Usually Apple buys small companies for their IP but does not license that IP to others the way that Arm does. So I find it hard to understand why either Samsung or Apple would want to acquire Arm."







Mobile application processors chips are used in most smartphones, and Apple's A-series, Samsung's Exynos and Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips are based on Arm's architecture. Every chipmaker using the architecture pays a licensing fee upfront, which depends on the complexity of the design, and royalties, which Arm receives for each chip sold.







Some concerns are either Samsung or Apple would experience an increase in their licensing fees if one of their competitors succeeds in acquiring Arm, but the analyst said the two companies can afford it.







"Consider what happened in the cell phone business. Motorola and Nokia were very big brands before smartphones became popular. Microsoft acquired Nokia's mobile business and Google acquired Motorola's mobile business. Neither Samsung nor Apple wanted to acquire these companies, and you know that they could have afforded to," Handy said.







Regarding any potential suitors for Arm, the analyst said IP licensing firms will be strong candidates.







"Companies that have synergies with Arm would include IP licensors. Rambus, Cadence, and Synopsys come to mind. Qualcomm does too, but to a lesser extent. I don't think that a software firm like Microsoft would be a good complement," he said.







Given Samsung's ample cash-equivalent assets, it is seen as one of the potential suitors to purchase Arm independently or indirectly. As of the first quarter of this year, Samsung's internal cash and cash-equivalent assets stood at 97.53 trillion won ($81 billion).







Despite the analyst predicting the possibility of Samsung pursuing the chip designer is slim, chances are still there that Samsung may join with other chipmakers including Qualcomm, MediaTek and Huawei to acquire controlling stakes in it. Given the ongoing trade conflict between Beijing and Washington, if Huawei participates in a possible consortium for Arm, then Washington may sanction it.


India is emerging out of an over two-month long lockdown  a period that has changed our lives, behaviours and the way we conduct business forever. The lessons that we have learnt during the lockdown period and our experiences during the year so far, will help us navigate a world that we had never imagined. It has been a trying time for many of us, with everyone working from home and having to adapt to a new way of working and living. Adgullys latest endeavour  Lockdown Lessons  is an attempt to present the key learnings that Indias business honchos have learnt and imbibed, and which can help the industry navigate the new normal better.

Amit Sethiya, Chief Marketing Officer, SYSKA Group, shares with Adgully the many lessons that he has learnt during the lockdown period - including being agile, acquired leadership, risk mitigation and the importance of having an emergency fund for any eventuality.

Also Read: Lockdown Lessons: A big lesson on differentiating between Need and Want

What are the key lockdown lessons as a professional during the lockdown period?

Lockdown period has only reinforced the fundamentals of being a professional, which needs to be demonstrated irrespective of the situation and location.

It is important to take the cognizance of the fact that we need to be available for the organisation for at least the stipulated time as per the formal protocol. Certain household chores that come by being at home should be planned basis your time commitment towards job deliverables on strict disciplines. Time is still a scarce resource and more so during such demanding times like the one during this pandemic around us.

Agility is the key as communication, co-ordination, decision and execution will fall flat if agility is not infused in every element of our professional advancements.

And additionally, since all our professional accomplishments encompass team work, it is equally imperative to ensure that we maintain team bonding and motivational levels among work members.

Please tell us some of the key takeaways in terms of life lessons from the lockdown period?

Risk mitigation is the first and foremost thing of utmost significance when we refer to this COVID-19 lockdown period. I think this has taught us to take out time for ourselves in our busy lives to at least revisit our health first, because as they say, where there is health, there is harmony. And if we want to extend this harmony to the different aspects of our lives, be it personal or professional, this is mandatory. Speaking professionally, since our offline business transactions were impacted significantly, it was required to pay special attention to our online customers and devise strategies in such a way that even during these ongoing turbulent times, they stay updated and continuously engaged through carefully crafted contents which were relevant for our TG.

Multi-tasking to the T: Second most important aspect which I feel is worth sharing here in this context is multi-tasking, as during these times while working from home, this aspect of ones personality was really put to the test and challenged to reveal the best out of ourselves when it came to still matching up to certain significant deadlines and even attending to things in between on the professional front.

How did you manage and achieve work-life balance while working from home?

Fitness/ news, work, entertainment/ family: The day typically started with a disciplined routine pertaining to the fitness aspect by flexing my muscles to prepare my body and mind for each coming day. I have always ensured that I chart mine and my teams tasks in such a way that even while working apart, we were still able to manage things in time while being in isolation for these many days. Plus, the day ended by spending quality time with my family, which in turn helped me in relaxing and rejuvenating for the day ahead.

Acquired leadership: I would like to share an interesting example of acquired leadership during these challenging times posed in front of everyone due to COVID-19. These are the times when you get an idea spontaneously, which sets an example for everyone around. On these very lines, I took the initiative of planning and creating a common messaging group with my society neighbours not just for our daily essentials such as groceries and other necessary items for our households, but also for everyone who were included in my plan. The idea was to ensure minimalistic movement of each member within the team on turn basis, wherein, all others were supposed to communicate their list of essentially required items on this common platform, and one person was entrusted with the task of going out and getting all those things for everyone from the nearby shops. This resulted in mitigating the risk of everyone going to the same shops to get the said items just for their households, as in this case, only one person was required to get all of them for everyone.

It has been more than two months since the lockdown was enforced. How are you gearing up for back to office mode?

Planning the manpower in terms of office attendance basis the prescribed orders from the local civic authorities, adherence to safety protocols for myself and the entire team, weekly VCs with agencies (media, creative, PR) and ensuring that we minimise human to human contact during our usual business hours.

Any lessons that you picked up in financial management from the lockdown period?

Dont underestimate the importance of an emergency fund as many of us were caught off-guard by the lockdown and have been unable to work or even earn a salary during the lockdown. These circumstances have been unprecedented, but are exactly those in which an emergency fund is most effective. Hence, I recommend setting aside an amount equivalent to three months earnings in case of times exactly like the present, such as a sudden loss of income. These savings can be invested in a low-risk income fund or money market fund so that the risk of capital loss in a market crash is small, and the funds are easily accessible. The importance of having an emergency fund has surely been brought home by the lockdown.
Kirkwood native Nikki Glaser took over Tuesday nights Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and truly made the show her own.

The comedian selected guests Paris Hilton and Phoebe Robinson, talked about her dating during quarantine, quarantining with her parents locally, and she employed her parents as the two-piece house band for Kimmels show for the night.

I cannot believe I am hosting a network late night talk show...alone...inside a weird house...with no laughter. This is both the high and low point of my career, said Glaser, who flew out to Los Angeles from her quarantine perch in Kirkwood to do the show. She flies back to St. Louis today.

Glaser continued her opening monologue shouting out the shows host Kimmel, who is currently on summer hiatus.

I want to thank Jimmy for letting me host his show while hes on pregnancy leave. Seriously Jimmy, Im really happy youre keeping this one.

She said the last time she saw Kimmel was just before quarantine when she taped an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which resulted in her locking in a wrong answer and repeatedly screeching nooo.

She said she temporarily relocated back to St. Louis from New York City the day after that taping, figuring shed be there a week or two until the coronavirus blew over, then cued up the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? clip to show her reaction to learning the virus wasnt blowing over.

Glasers best bit came early when she said Its honestly not been so bad being stuck living in St. Louis with a couple in their 60s. I mean, it could be worse, at least its not these two -- followed by a picture of St. Louis attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who made national news after waving guns at protesters outside their Central West End home (and subsequently landing gun charges for their display).

See, my mom would never wear horizontal stripes, she said, referring to Patricia McCloskeys widely mocked striped shirt in the viral pictures of the incident.

On the topic of dating, a big part of her stand-up routines, Glaser said, And even if dating didnt put my parents lives at risk, every social distance date sounds like its putting my life at risk. They have the same setting as every true crime podcast I listen to: Its like, Lets go for a hike in the woods or, Lets meet up at the southeast corner of the Best Buy parking lot. Its like OK, I guess Im down for a picnic at the abandoned quarry, but why do I need to bring zip ties and garbage bags again?

The SiriusXM host is more interested in speed dating through her Instagram Live these days, and had fun with her Nikkis Quickies bit on the talk show featuring interactions with various suitors. It culminated with actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who said he thought hed signed up to do charity for a sick woman. She informed him that was essentially true.

Former reality star and heiress Hilton promoted her new documentary This is Paris, which Glaser assured would cause people to freak out once they view it. Hiltons subdued personality was no match for Glaser, who easily dominated the interview.

The better conversation came with Phoebe Robinson, one half of the 2 Dope Queens from the podcast and HBO special of the same name. They talked up Robinson's full plate that includes her new podcast Black Frasier, her new book imprint Tiny Reparations Books and her upcoming quarantine book Six Feet Apart. She said shes loose friends with the former First Lady Michelle Obama, and told Glaser the best advice to being friends with a famous person was to not be "thirsty."

Glasers parents E.J. and Julie Glaser brought viewers into and out of commercial breaks with too-brief song snippets including Old Town Road. E.J. Glaser accompanied his wife on acoustic guitar. E.J. Glaser is a St. Louis musician recently profiled by the Post-Dispatch.

Signing off, she said My apologies for Jennifer Aniston, we ran out of time.

Here's to hoping we get more of Glaser hosting "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

Shortly before the pandemic hit, Glaser performed two sold-out shows at the Pageant, her biggest hometown gigs yet. In June, she returned to the stage for several socially distanced shows at Helium Comedy Club.

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China strongly condemns UK's suspension of extradition treaty with HKSAR

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 12:53, July 21, 2020

According to a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in London, "any attempt to pressurize China and obstruct the implementation of this Law (the national security law for the HKSAR) will meet the strong opposition of 1.4 billion Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots, and such attempt is doomed to failure."

China voiced on Monday strong condemnation and firm opposition after the United Kingdom (UK) decided to suspend the extradition treaty with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) immediately and indefinitely and extend the arms embargo to the HKSAR.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in London said that recently the kingdom has repeatedly made wrong remarks on the national security law for the HKSAR to interfere in China's internal affairs.

"The Chinese side has lodged solemn representations to the UK side on many occasions to express our grave concern and strong opposition," the spokesperson said.

"Now the UK side has gone even further down the wrong road in disregard of China's solemn position and repeated representations. It once again contravened international law and the basic norms governing international relations and blatantly interfered in China's internal affairs in an attempt to disrupt the implementation of the National Security Law for the HKSAR and undermine the city's prosperity and stability," the spokesperson said.

According to the spokesperson, the Chinese government remains unwavering in its resolve to implement the law to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, and to oppose external interference.

"China will firmly fight back at any move that interferes in its internal affairs," the spokesperson added.

The national security law is an anchor for the steady and sustained implementation of "one country, two systems" and for the long-term security, prosperity and stability in the HKSAR, the spokesperson said.

"This Law will make Hong Kong a safer, better and more prosperous place," said the spokesperson, adding that "any attempt to pressurize China and obstruct the implementation of this Law will meet the strong opposition of 1.4 billion Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots, and such attempt is doomed to failure."

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has arrived in Denmark, where he is set to discuss the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline when he meets with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen.

The pipeline, which Russia is seeking to complete, would transport gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea. The portion of the pipeline that remains to be built lies in Denmark's economic waters.

Pompeo last week warned companies against helping Russia finish the nearly $11 billion pipeline, which the United States opposes on grounds that it strengthens the Kremlin's grip on the European energy market and punishes Ukraine, which is battling Russian-backed separatists in its eastern provinces.

The pipeline would largely reroute natural gas around Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of billions of dollars in annual fees.

European vessels laying the pipeline halted their work in December 2019 following a round of U.S. sanctions that targeted their activity. Russia is now hoping to complete it using its own ships, prompting the United States to include an amendment to a defense spending bill to widen the sanctions to include not just vessels, but any company helping Russia complete the pipeline.

The amendment passed the U.S. House of Representatives on July 20 but would still need to pass the Senate and be signed by the president before the new sanctions would become law.

Discussions also will include security, trade, and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on international cooperation. Relations with China and recent developments in Hong Kong will also be on the agenda.

Denmark is the second stop on Pompeo's current visit to Europe.

On July 21 he met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in London as tensions between the West and China soar over Beijing's lack of transparency about the outbreak of the pandemic, continued human rights abuses, and charges of cyber-piracy.

Pompeo called on every country that "understands freedom and democracy and values that'' to recognize the threat posed by China. "We hope we can build out a coalition that understands this,'' he said.

U.S. relations with China, already tense over a host of issues, including trade, intellectual property rights, 5G technology, and human rights, have spiraled downward since the outbreak of the coronavirus earlier this year. The United States has accused China of misleading the world about the outbreak and enabling the virus to quickly spread globally.

The United States has lobbied its allies to ban the use of Huaweis 5G technology, saying the Chinese government could use it to spy on Western countries. Huawei denies the allegations and argues that U.S. protectionism was behind the move.

Pompeo also is expected to meet Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, and representatives from Greenland and the Faroe Islands while in Copenhagen, according to the Danish government.

Kofod has said Denmark considers the United States its "absolutely closest ally."

But bilateral relations hit a snag in August 2019, when Trump floated the idea of the United States buying Greenland, the world's largest island.

Frederiksen called the proposal "absurd," leading Trump to cancel a planned visit to Copenhagen over the "nasty" tone of the response.

A few phone calls between the countries have since eased the tensions, and Greenland officials say they want to put the affair behind them.

Last month, the United States reopened a consulate in Greenland, a move that Kofod welcomed.

Pompeo has said that the Arctic region is important for U.S. security because of the "militarization of the Arctic that China and Russia are presenting."

With reporting by AP and CPH Post Online
How much, exactly, will greenhouse gases heat the planet?

For more than 40 years, scientists have expressed the answer as a range of possible temperature increases, between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius, that will result from carbon dioxide levels doubling from preindustrial times. Now, a team of researchers has sharply narrowed the range of temperatures, tightening it to between 2.6 and 4.1 degrees Celsius.

Steven Sherwood, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and an author of the new report said that the groups research suggested that these temperature shifts, which are referred to as climate sensitivity because they reflect how sensitive the planet is to rising carbon dioxide levels, are now unlikely below the low end of the range. The research also suggests that the alarmingly high sensitivities of 5 degrees Celsius or higher are less likely, though they are not impossible, Dr. Sherwood said.

What remains, however, is still an array of effects that mean worldwide disaster if emissions are not sharply reduced in coming years.

Masahiro Watanabe, a professor in the atmosphere and ocean research institute at the University of Tokyo and an author of the report, said that determining an accurate range of temperatures was critically important for international efforts to address global warming, like the Paris climate agreement, and for mitigating the effects of climate change.
More than 100,000 Americans have volunteered for clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine.

About 138,600 people signed up in the two weeks since efforts to recruit volunteers began. The volunteers will participate in tests for four potential vaccines at sites across the country, including locations in Alabama.

Most volunteers will be required to visit a research site at least 10 times over the next two years where they will be injected with either a potential vaccine or a placebo, Forbes reported. Volunteers wont be infected with the virus but instead will be given a vaccine to see if it prevents them from being infected.

There are currently 26 COVID-19 vaccines currently being tested on humans.

See all of AL.coms coronavirus coverage here.

Here are the latest coronavirus headlines

Trump: It will get worse before it gets better

The coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. will likely get worse before it gets better, President Trump told reported Tuesday.

Some areas of our country are doing very well, others are doing less well, the president said. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. Something I dont like saying about things, but thats the way it is.

The president also weighed in on masks, something he has been slow to endorse.

Were asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, Trump said. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. Theyll have an effect, and we need everything we can get.

The latest U.S. numbers

As of Tuesday, the U.S. has 3,899,211 coronavirus cases.

More than 141,000 people in the U.S. have died from the virus. The country recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, a grim milestone it last reached in May.

Georgia Gov. asks everyone to wear masks

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is asking the states residents to commit to wearing a mask for four weeks.

Today, I am encouraging all Georgians - from every corner of our great state - to do four things for four weeks to stop the spread of COVID-19, Kemp said in a statement. If Georgians commit to wearing a mask, socially distancing, washing their hands regularly, and following the guidance in our Executive Order and from public health officials, we can make incredible progress in the fight against COVID-19. Together, we can protect our loved ones, revive our economy, and continue to take measured steps forward.

The comments come after Kemp, a Republican filed a lawsuit against Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, and city council members in an attempt to stop the citys mask ordinance that he said went beyond his executive order.
External Article

22 July 2020

With the EU's ban and the U.K.'s mandatory quarantine on American travelers, many of Europe's hospitality players are bracing for the impact on hotel occupancy levels.

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"The American is typically a great traveler for Europe, especially in July, August and September," said Kike Sarasola, founder and president of Spain-based Room Mate Hotels. "So, for us, this is a big, big problem. We're very worried."

The lion's share of Room Mate's 28-property portfolio is scattered across Europe, including in markets such as Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Florence, Rome, Milan and Amsterdam.

According to Jonathan Raggett, managing director of the Red Carnation Hotel Collection, the U.K. government's decision to require U.S. travelers to self-isolate for 14 days has put a major damper on the company's outlook for its six London hotels. Red Carnation has resumed operations at only one of its London properties, the Rubens at the Palace.

"The U.S. is the most important market for us," Raggett said. "We decided to open just one hotel in London, and we're not even running double-digit occupancy there. Normally, in July, all of our London properties, which total around 600 rooms, would be running in excess of 90%."
A McDonald's staff member has tested positive for coronavirus in Victoria as the number of cases in the state continues to grow.

The fastfood restaurant in Horsham was closed on Tuesday night for deep cleaning after the worker returned the positive test. It has since reopened.

A company spokesman said the employee worked on Saturday, July 11. He said the employee has been isolating at home.

The new case comes as a Woolworths store in the city's south east was shut down after an employee tested positive for the illness.

The fastfood restaurant in Horsham was closed on Tuesday night for deep cleaning after the worker returned the positive test. It has since reopened

The staff member at the Parkmore Shopping Centre, Keysborough, 27km south east of Melbourne tested positive on July 21.

They worked at the supermarket on July 15 between 2.45pm and 8pm and July 18 between 4pm and 7pm, Seven News reported.

The positive test result was reported on Tuesday, and the store was shut down for deep cleaning.

Woolworths' staff member is now in isolation and those who may have been in close contact are being told of the situation.

The shopping centre said they were continuing to monitor the situation.

A Woolworths spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the company is making contact with staff and will provide support to those who are required to isolate.

'As a food retailer, we already have very high standards of cleaning and hygiene in place. As an extra precautionary measure, the store closed at 8pm overnight for an additional deep clean,' the spokesperson said.

'While the risk of transmission to customers and team members is low, the safety and wellbeing of the local community is our priority.

'Customers and team members should be assured they can continue to safely shop and work at our Keysborough supermarket.'

The staff member was diagnosed on July 21 after not working at the Parkmore Shopping Centre, Keysborough (pictured)

The shopping centre said they were continuing to monitor the situation

Anyone who visited the supermarket on July 18 and begin to feel unwell are advised to make contact with the Department of Health and Human Services.

The store reopened at 7am on July 22.

Fifteen cases of coronavirus have been linked to the Woolworths distribution centre in Mulgrave.

Victoria recorded a record-breaking 484 cases on Wednesday.

New figures showed 90 per cent of patients failed to isolate between falling sick and getting tested and 53 per cent had failed to self-isolate while waiting for the result.

The state has suffered outbreaks at abattoirs, aged care homes, logistics businesses and law firms.

A Woolworths spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the company is making contact with staff and will provide support to those who are required to isolate

Chief Health Officer Professor Brendan Sutton said Victoria is considering introducing a draconian stage four lockdown.

In New Zealand, stage four lockdown saw butchers, bakers, fruit shops, hairdressers and even construction shut down. Businesses such as Bunnings and Kmart closed, and even takeaway food was banned.

Asked if such harsh restrictions were on the table for Melbourne, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said: 'Everything is under consideration.'

But he said a New-Zealand style lockdown may cause terrible economic damage and may not even help bring cases down.

'To go to a particular model of lockdown that worked for one country at one point in time is not the solution,' he said.

'We have to understand what the dynamics of transmission are in Victoria at this point in time. It may well be that it's an awful impost on the economy and on people's lives with no material benefit.'
Foreign officials and their families can now come to Canada.

Foreign representatives now exempt from travel restrictions Foreign officials and their families can now come to Canada.

Foreign representatives now exempt from travel restrictions Foreign officials and their families can now come to Canada.

Foreign representatives now exempt from travel restrictions Foreign officials and their families can now come to Canada. Shelby Thevenot Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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Canadas border remains closed but foreign diplomats, consular officers, officials and their immediate family members have been added to the list of exempt travellers.

The new exemption applies to foreign nationals who have diplomatic acceptance on their passports, a consular acceptance, or an official acceptance issued by the Chief of Protocol for Global Affairs Canada. They must be an accredited diplomat, consular officer, representative or official of a foreign country, of the United Nations or any of its agencies or of any international organization of which Canada is a member.

Foreign representatives can now come to Canada to get accredited by Global Affairs Canada and resume their postings. All are required to get a temporary resident visa (TRV) before they travel to Canada under the current restrictions.

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

TRVs must be coded D-1 or O-1 to signal to border officers that the passport holder is entitled to diplomatic, consular, or official privileges.

The news comes after Canada reopened TRVs and electronic travel authorizations (eTAs) on July 1.

Canadas travel restrictions currently do not apply to family members who are staying for more than 15 days, skilled workers, and students who were approved before March 18 and must study in Canada. Travellers must also demonstrate to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) that they are travelling for an essential reason in order to be allowed into Canada.

Canada has broadened the definition of immediate family during the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to spouses, common-law partners, dependent children and grandchildren, immediate family includes:

parents or step-parents

a parents or step-parents spouse or common-law partner

a guardian or tutor

People who enter Canada from abroad must still quarantine themselves unless they fall under one of the following exemptions:

airline crews;

people who come to Canada to assist the coronavirus response;

Canadian Forces;

people providing essential services according to the Chief Public Health Officer;

people coming to Canada in the national interest as determined by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, or the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness;

emergency services workers;

people who provide medical care or deliver medical equipment;

people coming to Canada to receive medical services unrelated to COVID-19;

licenced healthcare professionals and students who are permitted to work in a health field, as long as they are not caring for vulnerable people within a 14-day period;

people entering Canada on a fishing vessel;

people coming to Canada within the boundaries of a trans-border community; or

people who cross the border regularly for work.

Canadas border is still closed to foreign travellers until July 31. The Canada-U.S. border is now closed until August 21.

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

 2020 CIC News All Rights Reserved
South Africa: MEC Khoza condemns killing of KZN mom

KwaZulu-Natal Social Development MEC, Nonhlanhla Khoza, has condemned the brutal murder of a 19-year-old woman allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend.

Akhona Mncube from Sweetwaters in Umsunduzi Local Municipality, Pietermaritzburg, was allegedly assaulted.

She died on Monday evening, after sustaining internal injuries following the assault by her partner with whom she shared a child.

Khoza said the circumstances leading to Akhona's death was cruel, and maintained that there is no justification for the assault and murder of women and children.

"Gender-Based Violence (GBV) has absolutely no place in our society. We have witnessed a number of cases where women die in the hands of those who are supposed to protect them, said the MEC.

She called on the police too leave no stone unturned in their investigation and ensure that the suspect does not get bail.

"The investigation should lead to the conviction and a lengthy jail sentence. All those who continue to violate the rights of women and children have no place in our society and therefore must be kept in prison for longer periods," Khoza said.

The circumstances around Mncubes death is being investigated by the Plessislaer SAPS.

The MEC has conveyed her condolences to the Mncube family.

"No parent should have to bury their child. We will monitor the case closely. It is more painful that Akhona left her one-year-old child who will now grow without a mother and father," she said.

Khoza has since dispatched a team of social workers to provide psycho-social support services to the family.

Meanwhile, the MEC has applauded Umzansi Youth in Business (UYB) for its role which led to the arrest of the suspect before he fled the area.

Khoza recently launched uMzansi Youth Development Centre in Sweetwaters. The centre is the brainchild of UYB, which aims to eradicating poverty, inequality and unemployment.

The area of Sweetwaters is faced by a spike of incidents of crime, substance and drug abuse, which are regarded as contributing factors to all social ills affecting the community.

The launch of the Youth Development Centre coincided with the anti-social ills campaign.

Work is also being done to encourage young men to lead from the front in all campaigns against violence directed at vulnerable groups, especially women, children and old people, during the month of July, which is Men's Month.

The MEC said more young people should take a leaf from UYB in leading campaigns against GBV in their communities.

"We need more young people in our communities to play their part in all programmes to fight GBV. We all have a responsibility and right to equality and dignity. Equally, it's our duty to stand up to fight GBV," Khoza said.

She said the department is establishing a number of programmes to create awareness and address the prevalence of GBV in communities.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
There is a wonderful Call to Arms now circulating on the Internet that addresses todays events and circumstances that we who are older cannot quite seem to understand. It is as though our values and ideals are being threatened in a nation that supports lawful protests yet waffles when protesters become criminals, where elected officials sworn to stop violence stand down and where our police  those who keep our safety and well-being paramount -- are suddenly miscast as the bag guys, their resources cut and their ranks thinned.

Already the defund police movement is a failure, shooting and crime in New York City up three times what the figures showed last month. This week federal law enforcement is being hurried into Chicago, a literal shooting gallery where city leaders have done nothing while 2,127 shooting have occurred since the first of the year. Four hundred and twenty-four are dead and since Sunday morning another 54 have been shot.

The Gray-Haired Brigade doesnt understand this at all and, with primary elections now scheduled across America in coming weeks, they will invade Americas polling place in hopes their votes will speak louder than the insults that have carried in the air every night for 54 straight nights in Portland.



Here is a clever announcement that is now flooding Internet sites:

- - -

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday. Yes, that is 47 times greater.

They like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, blue hairs, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs. Some of us are Baby Boomers" getting ready to retire, others are from the Greatest Generation already retired. We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were. We worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and have grown old together.

In school we studied English, history, math, and science, which enabled us to lead America into the technological age. We still use two spaces after a period when typing. Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience.

We remember the days of telephone party-lines, $.25 gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes.

We are probably considered old fashioned and outdated by many. But there are a few things you need to remember before completely writing us off. We won World War II, fought in Korea and Vietnam. We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance and know where to place our hand while doing so. We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield. We didnt fight for the Socialist States of America; we fought for the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave." We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag.

We know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, America, and America the Beautiful by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing. We have lived what many of you should have read in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America.

Yes, we are older and slower these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us. We love this country, fought, and died for it, and now we are going to save it. It is our country, and nobody is going to take it away from us. We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and thats an oath we plan to keep. There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

It was mostly the young people of this nation who elected Obama and the Democrat Congress. You fell for the Hope and Change" which in reality was nothing but "Hype and Lies from your college professors. You youngsters need to taste socialism and see evil face to face to understand you dont like it after all.

You make a lot of noise; most are all too interested in their careers or Climbing the Social Ladder" to be involved in such mundane things such as patriotism and voting. Many of those who fell for the Great Lie" in 2008 are now having buyer's remorse. With all the education we gave you, you didnt have sense enough to see through the lies and instead drank their 'Kool-Aid.

Well, don't worry youngsters, the Grey-Haired Brigade is here, and in 2016 we took back our nation. We may drive a little slower than you would like, but we get where were going, and in 2020 we're driving to the polls again by the millions.

So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor your country, and thank God for the old geezers of the Gray-Haired Brigade."

* * *

A PERSONAL NOTE ABOUT THE GIFT WAS LEFT FOR ME

When I got back home from my on-going rehab the other day, there was a gorgeous packet that had been left at my front door. It was a heavy folded sheet of beautifully handmade thick paper, tied together with a wide dark-green satin ribbon, and inside, on another piece of artisan paper, was a note that included a story. The note said that there were many of my friends who are rejoicing over the news that I am now taking my first steps on my prosthetic leg (after an amputation in December) and the hope was that I would enjoy a story about a little boy buying his first puppy:

PUPPIES FOR SALE

A shop owner placed a sign above his door that said: Puppies for Sale.

Signs like this always have a way of attracting young children, and to no surprise, a boy saw the sign and approached the owner. How much are you going to sell the puppies for? he asked. The store owner replied, Anywhere from $30 to $50.

The little boy pulled out some change from his pocket. I have $2.37, he said. Can I please look at them?

The shop owner smiled and whistled. Out of the kennel came Lady, who ran down the aisle of his shop followed by five teeny, tiny balls of fur.

One puppy was lagging considerably behind. Immediately the little boy singled out the lagging, limping puppy and said, Whats wrong with that little dog?

The shop owner explained that the veterinarian had examined the little puppy and had discovered it didnt have a hip socket. It would always limp. It would always be lame.

The little boy became excited. That is the puppy that I want to buy.

The shop owner said, No, you dont want to buy that little dog. If you really want him, Ill just give him to you.

The little boy got quite upset. He looked straight into the store owners eyes, pointing his finger, and said, I dont want you to give him to me. That little dog is worth every bit as much as all the other dogs, and Ill pay full price. In fact, Ill give you $2.37 now, and 50 cents a month until I have him paid for.

The shop owner countered, You really dont want to buy this little dog. He is never going to be able to run and jump and play with you like the other puppies.

To his surprise, the little boy reached down and rolled up his pant leg to reveal a badly twisted, crippled left leg supported by a big metal brace. He looked up at the shop owner and softly replied, Well, I dont run so well myself, and the little puppy will need someone who understands.

- - -

I cant remember when a gift that has meant so much to me in a long, long time but the note was unsigned. As I tried to think of who might have left it, the names of so, so many who have lifted me up in the last six months began to multiple in my head and then  the note took on a far greater power. Thank you so very much.

Selah.

royexum@aol.com






Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - Sudans history is filled with coups and counter-coups but this cycle now faces a challenge, as deposed President Omar Bashir stands trial with members of his 1989 coup detat for removing a democratically elected government
" " Speed daters move from table to table in timed increments. See more love images. Chris Hondros/ Getty Images

You've probably heard of speed dating by now. It has so permeated Western popular culture that even those who aren't looking for love know what it is. The concept was introduced to the American dating scene at the turn of the 20th century by Rabbi Yaacov Deyo and his wife, Sue, who founded their own service, SpeedDating. The service is based on an old Jewish tradition: helping young, single Jews meet others in the faith. This tradition of creating a shidduch, or a match, called for Jewish singles to be kept in the dark about each other until the time for matchmaking came.

Today, modern speed dating is still rooted in shidduch, but with formal dating services replacing the role of the Rabbi and his wife as matchmakers. These services compile the data from brief encounters between daters and then inform each attendee of the results, allowing interested parties that scored a "match" to pursue another meeting with each other.

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The original SpeedDating service is still intended to help those of the Jewish faith find a shidduch. However, others have extended their scope to include people of all religions, shapes, sizes, interests and sexual orientations. SpeedDating and its offshoots have captured the imagination of popular culture, fitting nicely into the fast-paced environment of 21st-century America.

In 2000, the dating technique reached craze status, spreading quickly to rest of the Western world, taking strong footholds in both England and Australia. Although its overall popularity in the United States may have waned in recent years, it has become an established and accepted form of dating, with speed-dating events held in cities throughout the U.S.

Some cottage industries have even sprouted from the speed-dating theme, including Web sites dedicated to tips for successful speed dating. One site offers hypnosis downloads -- tailored for men or women -- that boast a calming influence to create the best possible attitude for speed dating.

So what is speed dating, and more specifically, how does speed dating work? Perhaps even more importantly, does speed dating work? Read on to learn more about this old Jewish tradition that has become an international phenomenon.
Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae speaks during a media conference in Seoul, Wednesday, unveiling the ministry's detailed plans to implement the Moon Jae-in administration's Green New Deal scheme. / Courtesy of Ministry of Environment



By Jun Ji-hye



The Ministry of Environment will inject funds of 42.7 trillion won ($36 billion) for the next five years to implement eco-friendly projects under the Moon Jae-in administration's Green New Deal initiative, in a bid to significantly decrease carbon emissions and generate new jobs, Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae said Wednesday.



Cho said the ministry has designated eight projects for the initiative including supply expansion of electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and the establishment of smart water supply and drainage systems.



"Our Green New Deal projects are not just a vision, but detailed five-year action plans for the nation's transition to a green economy," Cho said during a media conference in Seoul. "A massive investment will also revitalize the economy and generate new jobs."



The Green New Deal is one of two pillars of the Korean New Deal stimulus program that President Moon announced July 14. The other pillar is the Digital New Deal.



Moon said the program designed to foster economic growth is in response to the COVID-19 crisis and preparations for the post-coronavirus period.



The environment ministry said it will work to replace aging diesel vehicles with eco-friendly ones by offering subsidies for scrapping old cars, and expanding the supply of EVs and FCEVs.



About 1.13 million EVs and 200,000 FCEVs including taxis, buses and trucks will replace existing vehicles, the ministry said, noting that it will also expand the nation's vehicle battery charging infrastructure.



Other projects include creating "smart green cities."



The ministry said 91.8 percent of the country's population live in cities, while the world's cities are responsible for about 70 percent of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.



The ministry will create about 25 green smart cities, in which various projects to improve the environment and resolve climate crisis will be implemented.



It will also work to establish smart water supply and drainage systems based on the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) in a bid to provide cleaner and safer water.



The smart systems will be used to monitor water quality and detect water leaks in real time, and cleanse water pipes automatically.



Regarding a growing number of insect larvae that have been reported in tap water in Incheon, Seoul and other parts of the nation, Minister Cho said, "As the ministry in charge of water management, we feel a huge responsibility for the inconvenience that people have experienced recently. We have been giving our full efforts to respond to the incident promptly by, for example, carrying out on-sight inspections. We will do our best to find the cause and draw up countermeasures."


HALIFAX - Nova Scotia released its long-awaited back-to-school plan Wednesday, which aims to have all elementary and high school students in classrooms by Sept. 8.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nova Scotia Education Minister Zach Churchill speaks during a press conference in Halifax on Wednesday, January 24, 2018. Nova Scotia's back-to-school plan aims to have all students return to classrooms by Sept. 8. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese

HALIFAX - Nova Scotia released its long-awaited back-to-school plan Wednesday, which aims to have all elementary and high school students in classrooms by Sept. 8.

Education Minister Zach Churchill said while the objective is for schools to return to 100 per cent capacity in the fall, the plan includes measures to address the advent of a second wave of COVID-19.

"We need to be prepared in case COVID does affect our schools," Churchill told reporters Wednesday. "Our plan allows us to deal with one school or many. We will take our direction from Public Health and we will be precise and flexible."

Churchill said a full reopening in September is the right thing to do.

"Health experts, the IWK Health Centre, Public Health, psychologists and health professionals all agree that the best place for children is in the classroom," he said.

The government's plan only permits students and staff to enter school buildings. Lecture rooms will be reorganized to increase spacing between desks and students will be encouraged to limit contact with peers outside their own classroom.

When possible, teachers are asked to move their classes outdoors. Staff and students will be required to wear a mask in common areas where physical distancing is difficult, such as hallways and school buses, but not inside classrooms.

Students are also asked to bring their own computers to school and the provincial government says it acquired an additional 14,000 computers at a cost of $4 million to support those with limited access to technology.

Childrenwithout high-speed internet would receive assignments either via telephone or a portable data storage device.

If a COVID-19 outbreak occurs during the academic year, schools will move to a blended learning model with smaller class sizes and home learning for older students. And if public health authorities issue a stay-at-home order, all learning and teaching will be done remotely.

Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief medical officer of health, told a news conference Wednesday there are no specific health indicators that would prompt authorities to order students home from classes.

"We need to look at the individual circumstances around those cases . . . and apply appropriate measures," Strang told reporters. He said the province's current epidemiological situation supports a full return to schools.

"On the one hand, as we reopen our economy, our society, our community and schools, we do increase the risk of transmission of COVID-19," Strang said. "But on the other hand, keeping everything tightly closed down also has substantive risks and is not something we can do for the long term."

Churchill said the plan was developed from results of an online survey of more than 28,000 parents and students, with input from the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.

In a news release Wednesday, union president Paul Wozney said the government's plan should be considered "a start," adding there are still a number of questions that need to be addressed.

Wozney said he'd like more detail regarding what schools will do to stop COVID-19 outbreaks, and about what criteria will determine when schools move to a blended model of in-class and at-home learning.

Churchill needs to commit to providing regular public updates, he added, so families are kept up-to-date as the situation evolves.

"These families deserve the same courtesy from government that the business community has received in recent months," said Wozney. "People making decisions that could impact the health and welfare of so many families need to be much more transparent and accountable as we approach September."

The Opposition Progressive Conservatives also said Wednesday the government's plan lacks detail.

"With only five weeks left before school," Tory education critic Tim Halman said in a statement, "parents aren't sure which of the scenarios will be implemented, what circumstances will trigger which scenario or when the final decision will be made."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
A senior human rights lawyer died when he was hit by a train after lying down on the railway tracks of a busy Welsh commuter line, an inquest has heard.

Michael Clarke, 61, had recently split from his wife when he was found dead on the tracks near Heath High Level station in Cardiff, earlier this month.

The senior manager at the Equality and Human Rights Commission was described as a 'passionate' lawyer by colleagues, who said his loss would be 'deeply felt'.

Michael Clarke, 61, was killed after he was hit by a train near Heath High Level station in Cardiff on July 13

An inquest heard a train driver saw Mr Clarke on the track ahead on July 13 and raised the alarm - but was unable to stop in time.

The hearing was told Mr Clarke suffered 'significant' injuries and had to be identified by his fingerprints after his body was found.

Police were called to the scene near Heath High Level station in Cardiff after a man was 'seen to lay down on the train track.'

A coroner's officer said: 'The train driver sounded the alarm - however, the train struck the man'.

The hearing at Pontypridd Coroner's Court was told 'this was thought to be a deliberate act'.

A provisional cause of death was given as 'significant head and neck injuries.'

Mr Clarke was seen lying down on railway tracks near the station in Heath, Cardiff on July 13

Mr Clarke worked in Hong Kong for many years before returning to the UK and becoming a partner at Cardiff-based law firm Blake Morgan.

In 2017 he joined the Equality and Human Rights Commission as manager of international and corporate policy at their Wales HQ in Cardiff.

Mr Clarke had been living in Cardiff before he died earlier this month

Rebecca Hilsenrath, Chief Executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: 'We are all profoundly saddened by the passing of Michael.

'He was a highly valued friend and colleague to teams across the Commission.

'He believed passionately in what he did and made a significant contribution at an important time to our work on equality and human rights.

'His loss will be deeply felt.'

Mr Clarke had been living in a plush Cardiff city centre apartment near the EHRC office in Cardiff before his death.

Coroner Graeme Hughes scheduled a full inquest to take place in August next year.

If you have been affected by this story, you can call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org.
The wait is over for Lenovos official entry into the gaming smartphone market as the company just announced the Legion Phone Duel.

Its answer to the competition from brands like ASUS and its ROG Phone 3. The Legion Phone Duel is packed to the brim with top-notch hardware. Ready to boost your mobile gaming prowess to untold heights.

That is, if you live in China, or select markets in the EMEA or Asia Pacific. According to Lenovo it has no plans to release the Legion Phone Duel in the US.

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Does that mean Lenovo will never release a gaming phone in the US? No, not necessarily. But based on official wording from Lenovo, the US is not a targeted market for this device. For those that live in areas where Lenovo will sell it, youre in for a wild ride.

The Legion Phone Duel is a mobile gamers dream

Though some of the specs and features were already leaked prior to Lenovos official announcement, theres something about a confirmation on the device being a powerhouse that just makes it that much more enticing.

The phone is a mobile gamers dream. It comes with the latest mobile platform from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 865 Plus 5G, as well as 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. Theres also a 12GB RAM option that comes with 256GB of storage, probably alongside a lower price point.

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It has speakers tuned by Dirac Audio too, which Lenovo says provide some surprising 3D audio. If the description is accurate then users are likely to have a wonderful mobile gaming experience.

Popularized by ASUS ROG Phone series, youll even find touch sensor shoulder buttons for extra control in your games. And all of that will be visible on the 6.59-inch FHD display with a 144Hz refresh rate.

If youre into livestreaming your gameplay, then the Legion Phone Duel is even more perfect. The popup camera on the side was in fact designed with livestreamers in mind.

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One of the more interesting features of the phone is the dual vibration engines. So youre basically getting haptic feedback in your mobile games. Though, this likely requires developers to actually utilize that hardware.

Double the cooling, double the batteries, double the fun

When it comes to power, its not all about performance. Sometimes its about actual power. Or rather battery power.

Lenovo packed this phone with 5,000mAh of battery life. But its not one giant battery. Its actually two 2,500mAh-capacity batteries split into the top and bottom sections of the phone.

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As for the cooling, Lenovo used dual liquid-cooling and copper tubes to help dissipate heat better and keep the device cool and comfortable during your gaming sessions. Lenovo boasted about its disruptive cooling technology months ago.

So heres hoping it lives up to the hype. One of the main complaints about devices such as the ROG Phone II and other gaming phones is how hot they can get. Lenovo seems to think theyve cracked the code with that.

As for the rest of the specs, the Legion Phone Duel is running on Android 10 and comes with dual front-facing stereo speakers, dual SIM slots, and a 64-megapixel rear camera for the main sensor alongside a secondary camera with a 16-megapixel ultrawide sensor.

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The side-mounted, popup streamer-ready front-facing camera is a 20-megapixel sensor. So youll be pretty clear to anyone watching you. It also uses an on-display fingerprint sensor and has two USB C ports.

One on the bottom for when you charge the device normally, and one on the side for when you need to charge the phone while youre playing games. Just like on the ROG Phone II.

The phone will release in July in China, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and select Asia Pacific countries. It will also release in Latin America at a later date, and will come in two colors  Vengeance Red and Blazing Blue.
The report also found that 20% of companies have lost customers as a result of mistakenly sending an email to the wrong person  an error that 58% of employees admitted to having made. Another 10% said they had lost their job after sending an email to the wrong person.

One in four survey respondents said they had clicked on a link in a phishing email at work, according to the report. Surprisingly, tech-industry workers were the most likely to click on links in phishing emails, with 47% saying they had done so.

Distraction was cited as the number-one reason these mistakes happened, according to Tessian. Forty-seven percent of respondents cited distraction as the top reason for falling for a phishing scam, while 41% said it as why they had sent an email to the wrong person. Fifty-seven percent of workers admitted theyre more distracted when working from home  meaning the recent shift to remote work could open businesses up to more risks caused by human error.

Other reasons given for clicking on phishing emails included the perceived legitimacy of the email (43%) and the fact that the email appeared to come from a senior executive (41%) or a well-known brand (41%). Forty-four percent of respondents cited fatigue as a factor in sending an email to the wrong person.

Employees said they made more mistakes at work when they were stressed (52%), tired (43%) and distracted (41%).

Understanding how stress impacts behavior is critical to improving cybersecurity, said Jeff Hancock, a professor at Stanford University and an expert in social dynamics. This year, people have had to deal with incredibly stressful situations and a lot of change. And when people are stressed, they tend to make mistakes or decisions they later regret. Sadly, hackers prey on this vulnerability. Businesses, therefore, need to educate employees on the ways a hacker might take advantage of their stress during these times, as well as the security incidents that can be caused by human error.

Age and gender also played a role in peoples cybersecurity behavior, according to the report. Employees aged 18-30 were five times more likely than those over 51 to have made a mistake that compromised their companys cybersecurity. Men were twice as likely as women to fall for phishing scams, with 34% of men but only 17% of women saying theyd clicked on a phishing email.

Cybersecurity training needs to reflect the fact that different demographics use technology and respond to threats in different ways and that a one-size-fits-all approach to training wont work, said Tim Sadler, co-founder and CEO of Tessian. It is also unrealistic to expect every employee to spot a scam or make the right cybersecurity decision 100% of the time, especially during these uncertain times. To prevent simple mistakes from turning into serious security incidents, businesses must prioritize cybersecurity at the human layer. This requires understanding individual employees behaviors and using that insight to tailor training and policies to make safe cybersecurity practices truly resonate for each person.
Press Release

July 22, 2020 Banking services should reach remote communities - Poe People living in far-flung communities deserve access to banking services that could help improve their lives, Sen. Grace Poe said as she pushed for her "Bangko sa Baryo" bill. Poe's proposed measure filed as Senate Bill 1682 seeks to expand the reach of banks by tapping "cash agents" such as reputable convenience stores, pharmacies and other highly accessible retail outlets to service unbanked and underserved Filipinos. Through these cash agents, the people can perform secure online, real-time withdrawal or deposit transactions for his/her own bank account, fund transfers, bill payments, and self-service transactions, explained Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies. Cash agents may also accept payments due to government institutions, such as contributions to the Social Security System and premiums payable to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, PAG-IBIG and others. "In many parts of the country, people are unable to borrow and receive financial help because they lack access to banks, which are often located long distances away," Poe said. The bill is geared toward incorporating larger segment of the country's population into the financial mainstream, in line with the government's thrust to promote greater financial inclusion which remains a challenge. "Our ordinary folks should no longer cross rivers or climb mountains just to reach the bank in their locality in order to gain access to much needed resources that can help better their lives," said Poe. "They should not also be made to borrow or shell out the little money that they have just to make the trip to the bank, which must instead be brought closer to them," the senator underscored. Citing Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data, around 60 percent of the country's adult population (aged 15 above) remains unbanked as of 2017. Only 15 percent save money while 10 percent borrow money from formal financial institutions. Accessibility and cost have been the primary obstacles toward financial inclusion, with around 33 percent of cities and municipalities having no banking presence, BSP said. In January 2017, the central bank released guidelines that allowed banks to serve clients through cash agents contracted by banks to accept and withdraw cash without prior BSP authorization. The services include withdrawals and fund transfers, online self-service deposits, bill payments, collection and forwarding of application documents for loan and account opening, among others. The BSP guidelines also state that cash agents may also perform know-your-customer procedures, as well as sell and service insurance as authorized by the Insurance Commission. Poe said her bill seeks to incorporate the BSP guidelines and strengthen the safeguards to secure transactions. It stressed that the contracting bank remains ultimately liable for the actions of their cash agents, thus, they should ensure that agents pass eligibility requirements and BSP evaluation procedures, follow standard bank protocols, and exercise due diligence when dealing with clients. The bill requires a cash agent applying to a contracting bank to be a duly registered business in the country; has engaged in commercial activity for at least three months; has the necessary infrastructure to undertake banking operations; has conducted commercial activities continually in a place and area known to the public; and has sufficient capacity to operate electronic devices. According to the measure, a cash agent that establishes operations in a remote area will be entitled to free training of personnel on various bank processes to be conducted by the BSP. Processing of permits and certificates required for the operation will also be expedited. Local government units are also encouraged to grant incentives to cash agents and to provide financial literacy training to their respective communities "We must not fail to reach out to our most vulnerable countrymen by helping them meet personal and livelihood needs and aspirations through an inclusive banking system," Poe said.
Chittagong Port Authority Secretary Md Omar Faruk told IANS on Tuesday: "The first ship under the trial run of transshipment of Indian goods to its northeastern states through Bangladesh arrived at Chattogram (Chittagong) port on Tuesday morning.

India and Bangladesh had signed an MoU for goods for northeast India transiting via Bangladesh's ports - a small but significant opening up of both Bangladesh's ports under the broader economic relationship between the two countries.

"MV Shejyoti, carrying back to Chattogam 4 TEUs (20-feet equivalent unit) with 221 containers full of transhipment goods from India's Haldia port, reached the NCT-1 Berth, the outer anchorage of Chattogram port at around 1.25 a.m. But as night navigation is restricted in the port, that is why we started the navigation at morning," he said.

MV Shejyoti had left the Syama Prasad Mukherjee port of Kolkata on July 17.

Handling of the containers was completed before midnight and the container trailers started for Akhaura with an escort provided by Bangladesh's customs security.

Shipping agent sources said the four containers under the trial transshipment contain iron rods and pulses. Those will head to Agartala through the Akhaura Land Port. The consignment of rods will be brought to West Tripura's Jirania from Agartala, while the pulses will go to Assam's Karimganj.

Habibur Rahman of Mango Lines, the agent for the merchant vessel, had said that offloading may begin also on Tuesday after completing the formalities.

Indian transshipment goods would enjoy a 28-day free-stay after offloading at the port as per the international transshipment agreement.

Bangladesh will earn 254 takas from the scanning of each container loaded with transshipment goods. Bangladeshi importers also pay the same charge.

Similarly, 30 takas document processing fee for each consignment of Indian goods will be levied, the same amount charged on Bangladeshi importers.

Joint Commissioner of the Customs House S.M. Shamsuzzaman said the transshipped goods will have to pay police 50 takas per tonne as escort charge to reach the Indian border in Tripura from the port by road.

Usually a 20 feet container carries a maximum of 30 tons of goods. According to this estimation, Bangladesh will realise around 1, 500 takas as escort charge for accompanying goods of a container to the border.

Akhaura Customs Officer Harunur Rashid said they have taken necessary preparations for the transportation of the Indian goods, under the trial run.

India is transporting goods to its northeastern states, using Bangladeshi ports, as per the agreement on "The Use of Chattogram and Mongla Ports for Movement of Goods to and from India" signed between Dhaka and Delhi in 2018 and a standard operating procedure (SoP) signed in October 2019.

Earlier, the Indian government used the Ashuganj river port to transport goods for the Palatana Power Plant in Tripura through the Akhaura land port.

On the new chapter in connectivity with Bangladesh via container shipping, India's Shipping Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that the transit route will open new opportunities for both countries.

He said that it will provide an alternative and shorter route to connect the northeast region through Bangladesh, reducing distance and time taken in transportation of goods for India and is a win-win for both the economies. On the other hand, job creation, investment in the logistical sector, enhanced business services and revenue generation are advantages that will accrue to Bangladesh. Bangladeshi vessels and trucks will be utilised to move the Indian cargo, the Indian government said.

India and Bangladesh have enhanced cooperation in shipping and inland water trade in recent years. Under the Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade, in addition to the six existing Ports of Call, five more in each country have been added recently. Dredging of inland waterway routes is ongoing under an MoU, signed by the two countries on development of selected stretches of Bangladesh waterways.

The trial transportation of goods to the northeastern states by road, via Bangladesh, had started earlier.

--IANS

sumi/vd
Police have arrested a 23-year-old man over a fatal stabbing outside a McDonalds restaurant - 28 years after the victim's 14-year-old sister was also knifed to death.

Peter Petrou, 37, is believed to have been involved in a fight outside a McDonald's restaurant on Kilburn High Road in north London on Thursday night.

Officers began a manhunt and arrested a suspect on suspicion of murder late last night.

Peter Petrou, 37, (left) was murdered on Thursday night, 28 years after his sister, Tracey Meade, (right) was also stabbed to death

Police and paramedics were called to the scene at about 10.24pm to reports that a man had been stabbed.

Mr Petrou, who lived in the West Kilburn area, was taken to a central London hospital but was pronounced dead shortly before 11pm.

His sister Emma Petrou said their family are 'devastated' as his death comes 28 years after the unsolved murder of their 14-year-old sister.

She said: 'This is the second murder we as a family have had to suffer.

'Our sister, Tracy Meade, was also murdered in 1992 and still no one has been convicted.

'As a family we are deeply devastated and cannot begin to imagine how we are going to cope with this type of tragedy again especially if the perpetrator is not caught.'

Tracy was 14 years old when her body was found dumped in the Grand Union Canal on February 1, 1992.

She was found by a fisherman with two stab wounds, and a coroner reportedly ruled she died from drowning.

Mr Petrou was believed to have been involved in a fight outside the McDonald's on Kilburn High Road when he was stabbed

Tracy's killer was never found, causing her family tremendous anguish which they are praying is not repeated.

Ms Petrou said her brother was 'much loved' by his large family and many friends.

She said: 'He was the life and soul of everything and the void he has left will be hard to fill.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 13:43:17|Editor: huaxia

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DENVER, the United States, July 21 (Xinhua) -- After a decades-long hiatus, Trench Fever, an infectious disease observed originally in military populations during World War I, has returned, this time to the western U.S. state of Colorado.

Colorado health officials confirmed the fourth suspected case of the disease, local Denver Post newspaper and Kaiser Health News reported on Tuesday.

Trench Fever, called a "moderately serious disease" by healthcare experts, lasts about a week and causes sporadic fevers along with "bone pain, headaches, nausea, vomiting, and general malaise," according to Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit news service covering health issues.

The disease, which can lead to skin lesions and fatal permanent heart damage, persists among the homeless.

Michelle Barron, medical director of infection prevention and control at the University of Colorado Hospital, was quoted by the Denver Post as saying that she received information that the school's microbiology lab had detected three cases of the disease early this year, caused by bacteria transmitted through the lice on the human body.

"Two is always an outbreak, and then when we found a third -- OK, we clearly have something going on," she said.

The resurgence of the disease surprised healthcare experts, especially in light of current COVID-19 concerns.

Barron said that she had "never seen anything like this in her 20 years," and Colorado issued a statewide alert for the infection on July 16.

Colorado's capital city Denver, like many U.S. metropolitan areas, has a large homeless population who are routinely unwashed and living in squalid conditions. These represent perfect breeding grounds for lice that carry Trench Fever.

Denver health officials this week are busy trying to find a link between the four cases to prevent further outbreaks, the Kaiser Health News report said, adding they occurred months apart, and the patients appear to have no connection other than having been homeless in the Denver area. Enditem
Analysis of Ukrainian plane black boxes underway in France

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 21, IRNA -- Iranian Embassy in France announced that analyzing data of the crashed Ukrainian plane black boxes will start in laboratory of the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety on Tuesday.

Iranian expert delegation in a joint cooperation with French team started decoding the black boxes of the Ukrainian plane on Tuesday.

They could restore FRD (Flight Data Recorder).

Decoded data will be given to Iranian delegation led by Arash Khodaie, deputy head of Iran Civil Aviation Organization.

The black boxes were taken to Paris on July 17 observing technical and security protocols under supervision of the expert teams.

After landing in Paris, the Iranian team delivered the black boxes to the French authorities and that the French police took the responsibility for their protection.

A Ukrainian Boeing 737 passenger plane was accidentally shot down by an Iranian rocket near Tehran on January 8, 2020.

It happened after the US terrorist attack against motorcade of General Qasem Soleimani, late Commander of Qods forces and his companions at Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.

Iran reciprocated the US terrorist operation by hitting the US Ain al-Assad airbase in Iraq

The commander of Aerospace Force of the IRGC Brigadier-General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh admitted that human error was responsible for the air tragedy.

9376**1416

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What Trump is saying is that much of what happened in 2000 could play out again, in terms of the election ending up as a Supreme Court case, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R) said in an interview. Hes not saying he wouldnt accept the results, but hes saying he could imagine an election so chaotic and with so many contested ballots that youd be fighting it out all the way to the inauguration.
A series of Senior Officials' Meetings (SOM) on East Asia cooperation, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-China, Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK) SOM, the East Asia Summit (EAS) SOM, and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) SOM, were held on July 20 and 21 via video link.

As countries are still at a key stage in combating COVID-19 and resuming development, the SOMs were of positive significance for regional countries to coordinate epidemic control and development, build political consensus, promote pragmatic cooperation, and push for regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.

China and ASEAN countries are linked by the same mountains and rivers and live alongside each other like members in one big family. China has always taken ASEAN as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy and a key area for the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In recent years, the China-ASEAN (10+1) Cooperation Mechanism and the ASEAN plus China, Japan, ROK (10+3) cooperation mechanism embraced constant achievements and significant progress in regional cooperation. After the COVID-19 epidemic broke out, regional countries successfully held a special meeting of leaders of the ASEAN plus China, Japan and the ROK on responding to COVID-19, the Special ASEAN-China Foreign Ministers' Meeting on Coronavirus Disease, and the Special ASEAN Plus Three Economic Ministers Virtual Conference Meeting on COVID-19 Response. These meetings strengthened the awareness for cooperation, revitalized confidence for cooperation, and chart the course for cooperation. They demonstrated China's firm resolution to offer mutual assistance during the hard time and its profound friendship with regional countries.

True friendship stands out in difficult times, and countries shall join each other to fight the epidemic. During the past days, the voice of China-ASEAN solidarity and cooperation has become even louder.

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha recorded a video clip to promote China-Thailand solidarity amid the COVID-19 epidemic, and Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen's trip to China amid the epidemic explained the sincere friendship and mutual assistance between China and Cambodia. People from ASEAN countries donated money and supplies to China to root for the Chinese people, and Chinese government, enterprises, and non-government organizations also offered anti-epidemic materials to ASEAN countries and sent medical expert teams to Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Myanmar and Malaysia. Besides, China has also held video seminars over COVID-19 response with ASEAN countries, sharing its experience without reservation and actively promoting cooperation on drug and vaccine development.

Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN Kung Phoak noted that China's efforts to combat the COVID-19 epidemic, as well as the valuable support offered by the Chinese government to countries and regions around the world deserve to be praised.

Under regular epidemic prevention and control and orderly work resumption, China and ASEAN countries enjoy even broader prospect for cooperation. China and Singapore established a green channel for personnel exchanges, in an effort to jointly straighten the regional supply and industrial chains. The ASEAN-China Transport Ministers' Special Meeting on COVID-19 was held recently, during which the two sides agreed to enhance cooperation, jointly safeguard the unimpeded logistics and transportation between China and the ASEAN, and protect the stability of global industrial and supply chains.

In the first half of this year, China's trade volume with the ASEAN rose 5.6 percent and accounted for 14.7 percent of China's total foreign trade. The ASEAN is now the largest trading partner of China. The launching of the 2020 China-ASEAN Year of Digital Economy Cooperation will created stronger driving force for the two sides' economic and social development, and inject new energy into the long-term stability and prosperity of the region.

Standing together against challenges again and again, China and ASEAN countries enjoy increasingly closer ties and greater momentum for cooperation. China is committed to pursuing partnership with its neighbors and a neighborhood diplomacy of amity, sincerity, mutual-benefit and inclusiveness and fostering a harmonious, secure and prosperous neighborhood. China champions a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security in Asia, and is always promoting regional cooperation with an open mind and active attitude.

The joint construction of the BRI by China and ASEAN countries will benefit regional employment and livelihood, and build a closer people-to-people bond. The constant upgrading China-ASEAN strategic partnership, as well as the efforts to sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership are expected to further improve open regional cooperation and depict a new future of common development.

"A partnership forged with the right approach defies geographical distance; it is thicker than glue and stronger than metal and stone. The joint efforts made by China and ASEAN countries have started a symphony of peace, development, cooperation and win-win results, and a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future is destined to shine brightly.
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Linkedin Ardila Syakriah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 16:21 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406687acd6 1 National #COVID19,COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,Indonesia,health,#health,laboratory,PCR-test,testing-capacity Free

With the COVID-19 pandemic requiring an unprecedented scale of laboratory testing, Indonesia continues to face disparities in testing between regions in the vast archipelago.

The country is now operating 269 laboratories to run polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for diagnoses, from only 12 labs allowed by the Health Ministry in mid-March, when the country reported its first confirmed cases.

Half of these labs are located in Java, Indonesia's most populous island that is home to some 141 million of the country's 270 million population.

Java is at the advantage of being the home base for many ministry-run laboratories, state universities and private hospitals and labs. In Jakarta, most of the labs are run by ministries or private entities.

All 34 provinces now have their own PCR machines, but provinces like Riau, home to some 7 million people, North Maluku, North Kalimantan and Southeast Sulawesi only operate one lab each, while Jambi, Bengkulu, Central Kalimantan, Gorontalo and Maluku have two labs each.

Read also: COVID-19 leaves lab workers grappling with unprecedented testing scale

The head of Andalas University's infectious disease diagnostic and research laboratory, Andani Eka Putra, acknowledged there was a lab disparity even prior to the outbreak, but what he regretted most was the "centralism" seen from the government at the beginning of the epidemic.

"I remember the South Korean government gathering everyone with lab competency  be it from the health sector, universities or research agencies  in the early days of the pandemic, asking everyone to work together as one, he said.

Here, we went the other way: it was all centralized. As a result, we were paralyzed. Now all suitable labs are allowed to participate in testing, [but] quality control is not clear.

The 12 labs allowed to run the tests in mid-March were mostly Health Ministry labs. The number grew gradually before the ministry eventually allowed a wider network of labs, including private ones, to conduct testing after President Joko "Jokowi" ordered the upscaling of tests in April.

He has since ordered the further upscaling of tests to 30,000 samples per day, but in the past week, the number of new samples tested hovered at around 20,000 a day and the number of new people tested at 14,000 per day.

Indonesia has tested a total of 1.2 million swab samples from 737,844 people, but experts say testing remains concentrated in several areas, with Jakarta accounting for 30 percent of the total samples tested.

Health Ministry data dated July 19 and obtained by The Jakarta Post showed that Jakarta, with 44 labs, had run 377,235 tests, or 35,438 tests per 1 million population.

Hardest-hit province East Java, home to roughly 40 million people, has run 107,074 tests, or 2,685 tests per 1 million people.

Indonesia's most populous province West Java, with a population of almost 50 million, has run 111,716 tests, or 2,237 per 1 million population.

Central Java, which has seen an average of 250 daily new cases in the past week and is home to 35 million people, has run 80,737 tests or 2,311 per 1 million people.

The most populous province outside Java, North Sumatra, which has a population of 15 million, has run 23,669 tests or 1,610 tests per 1 million people.

Some provinces recording confirmed cases below 300, such as Aceh, West Sulawesi, Jambi, Lampung and Central Sulawesi, have each run less than 1,000 tests per 1 million population. Jambi has the lowest rate with 142 tests per 1 million population, West Sulawesi with 413 tests, Lampung 448 and Central Sulawesi 906.

Read also: Govt launches mobile laboratory to increase COVID-19 testing capacity

The World Health Organization has recommended a minimum case detection benchmark of 1 test per 1,000 population per week to be able to define a region's positivity rate.

It suggests a positivity rate of 5 percent and lower for two weeks as part of the criteria in assessing coronavirus transmissions. The Health Ministry's revised guidelines on COVID-19 response have also adopted this criterion.

But the WHO's latest situation report on Indonesia revealed that in Java, only Jakarta had so far met this benchmark.

Nasser, an expert staffer on Indonesia's COVID-19 task force, said five other Java provinces had yet to meet the benchmark given their large populations. The problems, he said, did not only stop at the number of labs.

"There is a problem with human resources, also with the [slow] reporting of results and reagents. There are labs using reagents that turn out to be unsuitable, so they have to change the reagents or the kits," he said. Everything is so sudden and new, so there wasnt really any time to prepare the labs well."

In densely populated areas like in Java and Sumatra, Nasser said the aim was to have a lab within every 100 or 200 kilometers  in other words, in every city and regency. On other islands with a smaller population and lower population density, a small number of labs would suffice as long as authorities ensured the smooth transportation of test samples, he said.

Andani of Andalas University said meeting the minimum testing benchmark and positivity rate was important for all regions, including those with few labs, to prevent regions from tampering with testing numbers to maintain or earn a low-risk status.

He said regions with a small number of labs could meet the benchmark by hiring more lab workers to allow them to run tests at their full capacity, 24 hours a week. A lab needs to employ at least 60 workers to test 4,000 samples per day, he added.

"Labs can run at their fullest capacity as long as they want to be open to recruiting graduate and post-graduate students with experience in molecular [biology], even if they are not working in the health sector.

But local administrations should also provide incentives and living accommodation to protect workers being exposed to the virus and avoid the risk of them contaminating the labs, he said, adding that they must also intensify contact tracing.
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI  Three people are vying in the August primary election to become the Democratic challenger for Washtenaw County clerk. Incumbent Lawrence Kestenbaum is seeking reelection and faces challenges from Pecola Lewis and Doristeen Taylor in the Aug. 4 election. The winner will meet Republican candidate Gary Greiner in the November general election. Kestenbaum has served in office since 2005. Lewis has lived in Washtenaw County for 18 years and has worked in management at General Motors Corp. for about 31 years. Taylor has lived in the county for at least 35 years and is self-employed. MLive Media Group has partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan to provide candidate information and other voting resources to readers ahead of 2020 elections. All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for a necessary cut if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for a necessary cut if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected.

Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

Each candidate was given a list of questions relevant to the office for which they are campaigning. The voter guide can be accessed at vote411.org.

Here is how each candidate responded to the questions.

What in your education and experience make you the best qualified candidate for this position?

Kestenbaum: I have been county clerk/register for more than 15 years, and accomplished a lot.

I have a B.A. in economics, a law degree, and did graduate work in city/regional planning and historic preservation. I have lectured or taught classes at three universities, and I continue to do presentations for service groups and lecture series.

My past election experience included working as a poll worker and as an attorney for candidates in recounts. I have written and lectured on election issues such as voter authentication, tabulation technology, and security.

And, of course, I've been the county's chief election official for 15 years.

I was elected to county boards in two counties, served on university, city, and regional planning commissions, and too many other things to list here.

I was one of the pioneers of the World Wide Web. In 1996, I created the Political Graveyard web site (PoliticalGraveyard.com), which made a tremendous amount of U.S. political history available online.

Lewis: I am a business professional and have a Master's Degree in Business Management and Bachelors Degree in Business Administration. I worked for General Motors Corporation for 31.5 years in Management. My experiences range from Administrative Assistant, Program Management, Project Management, Quality Management and Training and Development. The experience in Program Management and Quality Management make me best qualified for Washtenaw County Clerk. This is an area most government operations lack. Therefore, the citizens suffer the consequences. I have experience in Internal Auditing, Systems Development and Quality Management that has proven to be an asset to any business or government operation. This involves streamlining practices and procedures while eliminating redundancies and promote efficiency and cost-effectiveness throughout an organization.

Taylor: I have excellent documentation, research of data, financial and managerial accounting, analytical, and critical think, sociology courses

What are your goals should you be elected and how will you work to accomplish them with currently limited resources?

Kestenbaum: Every person who comes to our office is treated with courtesy and respect. That is my ongoing commitment.

My team has greatly expanded access to county clerk information online. And we're not done yet.

If given another term, I will also continue advocating to protect voting rights and human rights.

In March 2014, when Michigan's marriage inequality amendment was struck down, I opened the office on a Saturday to process marriage licenses for same-sex couples. Three other county clerks followed my lead.

In November 2016, my testimony in Lansing helped ensure that presidential ballots would be recounted by hand.

In 2012, the legislature added unconstitutional roadblocks to stop voters from recalling elected officials. I'm in the forefront of those opposing that power grab.

Right now, a partisan lawsuit charges that the county has "too many" voters. This will not be the last attempt at voter suppression. A county clerk with deep election experience is the best defense.

Lewis: This is a question I cannot answer with a HOW at this time. It will take working with the system/process, evaluating and developing systems and processes to overcome plans for a smooth and efficient operation. I will always place service to the citizens of Washtenaw County first.

Taylor: My goal is to asses the current status of the office of Washtenaw County Clerk/Register of Deeds to determine what our major short comings may or may not be. To evaluate essential services and consolidate necessary services if at all possible. To serve the citizens of Washtenaw County in a proficient and effective manner.

What changes would you like to see in our current voter registration system?

Kestenbaum: Proposal 3 of 2018 provides that Michigan residents who qualify will be automatically registered to vote, unless they opt out. This new system is only just beginning to be implemented. I look forward to helping make it work.

One issue: many 16-year-olds get a driver's license, and then don't come back to the Secretary of State until it's time to renew. Meanwhile, they turn 18, and are not registered to vote. Laws and rules need to change so they can pre-register at 16, and automatically become voters on their 18th birthday.

Of course, it's now possible to register to vote right up to Election Day. But with the shift away from in-person voting, perhaps even to the Oregon system, we need a voter list that's as accurate and complete as possible.

Lewis: Push Absentee Ballot registration earlier in the year. Starting January 5th for all citizens.

Taylor: I want a secure proficient system that allows our citizens to vote. I want the voters to know that their votes are counted correctly, without the possibility of tampering from outside interferences.

What resources does your county need in order to improve the service the clerks office is expected to provide?

Kestenbaum: My office has become smaller and more efficient during the 15+ years I have been county clerk and register of deeds, with about half the number of employees I started with. The county has been growing in population and jobs and service needs, and we have responded effectively to those needs with a leaner operation.

Michigan county government is a patchwork, not structured for efficiency. Authority is splintered every which way, with many autonomous units. Nonetheless, Washtenaw County is well-managed (with a top-notch AAA bond rating), because I and the other officials make it a point of principle to avoid turf wars, and work together in the interest of the county as a whole.

I don't expect any conflict over resources to affect the functioning of the clerk's office going forward.

Lewis: Cannot answer. I would have to work in that capacity, evaluate and initiate a cost-effective plan that will not jeopardize its functions and responsibility to Washtenaw County Citizens.

Taylor: At this time I do not have factual knowledge of the current financial situation of the clerk's office. As your Washtenaw County Clerk/Register of Deeds I will thoroughly evaluate what resources are currently available, and what needs are not being met. I will strive to develop processes to correct any and all deficiencies.

As a consequence of Covid-19, are there challenges to ensuring a safe and secure voting process, both in-person and through absentee ballots? What are your recommendations to meet these challenges?

Kestenbaum: The state and county are providing personal protection equipment for election workers in all precincts, for the August primary and November general election. There are best practices recommended to city and township clerks for the safe and efficient handling of absentee ballots.

The May 2020 election was held in 33 counties (not including ours) during the height of the pandemic in Michigan. Everyone was apprehensive, but it went very smoothly. About 99% of the votes were cast by absentee ballot. And the voter turnout was significantly higher than usual for that type of election.

All election officials have a responsibility to conduct elections that are safe for voters and poll workers. Michigan is doing well in this effort.

Lewis: The challenge will be long waiting lines. As we adhere to State COVID-19 guidelines of 6ft apart, wearing masks, little or no communications, using hand sanitizer, etc, will create longer waiting time for Voters. We have Voters that not physically able to stand for an extended period of time. My recommendation would be to extend voting for 2 consecutive days and push the absentee ballot process.

Taylor: Covid-19 has most definitely created several challenges. I will strongly encourage voters to utilize the absentee ballots, being sure to return them prior to the deadline. If you choose to vote in person please practice social distancing and alway sanitize your hands.

More election coverage from MLive:

Former small business owner challenges incumbent for Ann Arbors state rep. seat

Ann Arbor council member accused of sending misleading campaign mailer

2 Democrats compete for Scio Township supervisor in Aug. 4 primary

These 8 proposals are on the Aug. 4 primary ballot in Washtenaw County

Three vying to move on in race for Washtenaw County trial judge
Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante is worried about the political tension gathering ahead of the December 7, polls.



This follows the Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson, who is also the Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East (Kasoa) shooting incident in her constituency.



The Minister admitted on Monday that she fired a warning shot that marred the voter registration exercise at Kasoa in self-defence.



But Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante has called for her resignation for acting dishonourably.



Speaking on NEAT FMs morning show, 'Ghana Montie', the Chairman of the National Peace Council recalled his interaction with a Senior Officer that suggests that Presidential Candidates are the main cause of Ghanas political turbulence.



In that seminar, a Senior Police officer said all these problems are from the various presidential candidates. They are the people who will bus people, they are the people who put people around to places to intimidate. Lets not do that and show good leadership, he told host Kwesi Aboagye.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 12:17:23|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 21 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy said Tuesday that China is deeply concerned about reports of the plan to annex part of the occupied Palestinian territory.

"Such a plan, if implemented, will seriously violate international law and relevant UN resolutions, and imperil the 'two-state solution.' We urge the relevant party to refrain from taking any unilateral actions, and do its best to de-escalate conflict and tension. It's also our firm position that no country should support unilateral actions," Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, told the Security Council's virtual meeting on the situation in the Middle East.

"It is equally imperative to stop settlement activities, the demolition of Palestinian structures, and the violence against civilians. The Security Council should discharge its mandate, and play its part to ensure that its decisions, including Resolution 2334, are fully implemented," he added.

Speaking of the Middle East peace process, the ambassador said that it is a critical moment to advance the process and resume equal and meaningful peace talks between Palestine and Israel.

International agreements such as relevant UN resolutions, the "land for peace" principle and the two-state solution are important parameters in the Middle East peace process. They embodied the wisdom and hard work of several generations, and should be observed and implemented, he said.

"China supports President Abbas's call for an international peace conference and an enlarged multilateral mechanism for peace, and will positively consider participating in appropriate ways," Zhang said.

"We call on the international community, especially countries having influence on Palestine and Israel, to stay impartial and just in promoting peace talks," the envoy added.

On the humanitarian situation in occupied Palestinian territory and the hardship Palestinian people are suffering, the ambassador said "we should never lose sight of" them.

"Continued blockade of Gaza Strip has aggravated the humanitarian situation on the ground. The suspension of bilateral agreements and coordination in response to the annexation plan have brought consequences felt by ordinary Palestinians. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic further added up to Palestine's economic and social fragility," he said.

Stressing that the Middle East is now at a crossroads between peace and turbulence, Zhang said that the Security Council should and must stand with peace and justice, with righteousness and conscience, and play its active role in bringing about a comprehensive, just and enduring solution to the Palestine question. Enditem
Sahaya Novinston Lobo By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: A 28-year-old woman, who was relieved of her mobile phone in Ashok Nagar by a bike-borne duo, chased them in an autorickshaw for about a kilometre and managed to nab one of them with the help of others.

The incident happened on Monday morning when Geethapriya of J Jafferkhanpet, an ME graduate, who works in a private firm in Kancheepuram district, was waiting for her office bus at 11th Avenue in Ashok Nagar.

"While a bike-borne duo snatched her phone and fled the spot, she boarded an autorickshaw and chased them. Near the Government primary hospital in KK Nagar, she managed to catch hold of the person driving the bike with the help of passers-by, but the pillion rider managed to escape with her phone," said a police officer.

ALSO READ | Soon, 10% of Chennai residents would have been tested for COVID-19: Corporation commissioner

Kumaran Nagar police, who investigated the case, said the person who was nabbed was a juvenile and two stolen mobile phones were seized from him. Based on his statement, the other offender, also a juvenile, was found and Geethapriya's phone was retrieved.

The Chennai city police commissioner Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal met Geethapriya at his office and commended her for the courage she had shown.

ALSO SEE:
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En espanol |Alex Trebek had long thought about writing a memoir but dismissed the idea for years. My life was not particularly exciting, the beloved Jeopardy! host explains in the memoir he finally did write, the new The Answer Is  Reflections on My Life.

Trebek describes a life with plenty of excitement in his book, its release timed to his 80th birthday this week. But his story reads less like the typical name-dropping, vice-fueled celebrity memoir and more like one of a warmhearted, down-to-earth guy who feels lucky to have touched lots of lives as the host of a wildly popular quiz show for the past 36 years. He notes that he wants to be remembered first of all as a good and loving husband and father, and also as a decent man who did his best to help people perform at their best."

The fact that he's undergoing chemotherapy for his stage 4 pancreatic cancer, a painful experience that has taken a serious emotional and physical toll, adds a bittersweet and poignant note to his tale.

That said, Trebek, who has a great sense of humor, also offers a lighthearted look at many parts of his long life, including how he went from being an anchor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to host of NBC's The Wizard of Odds  that led to his most famous role: as host (not, he insists, the star") of Jeopardy! And fans will eat up his memories of show legends such as Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer. (Chapters are in the form of Jeopardy!-style questions, as in Who IsJames Holzhauer?)

Here's more of what we learned from The Answer Is .

1. George Alexander Trebek was born in the small town of Sudbury, in Ontario, Canada, in a little shack of a house just behind my grandparents home." Trebek reveals that he was delivered by his aunt Eunice, after his mother went through 36 hours of labor . ("She lived to be 95 and reminded me of this many times.")

2. His favorite movie is How Green Was My Valley. Trebek is drawn to stories about father-son relatioships, he writes, and this 1941 drama, about a family of Welsh coal miners, remains close to his heart. He was devoted to his loving dad, George Edward Terebeychuk  a little Ukrainian immigrant who came to Canada in the 1920s and promptly shortened his name. (His mom, Lucille, was French Canadian.)

3. In his teens, he almost got thrown out of a Catholic boarding school. Always a bit of a jokester, he became unruly  a little bit of a s--- stirrer  talking back to and harassing one priest in particular, around the time of his parents separation, which caused me no end of grief. His dad successfully begged the principal to let him stay.

4. In high school he liked subjects that started with the letter g. Geography, geometry girls. But he majored in philosophy at the University of Ottawa  mostly because the classes were in the morning, allowing him to work as a radio host in the afternoon.
With the fate of the industry unknown, agents and brokers focusing on this space have been putting in overtime to help their clients navigate a challenging environment. One broker described shedding tears with some of his clients as he listened to their stories dealing with the fallout of the coronavirus. The future prospects of this industry are likely to make both businesses and hopeful future travellers weep. Not only will travel likely not return to pre-COVID levels for some time as countries plan for future waves of the virus, but securing insurance coverage is already proving to be difficult.

Read more: Broker on the efficiencies brought by the coronavirus pandemic

For hotels, the insurance marketplace was hardening before the pandemic hit, and it has since become even more difficult to secure affordable coverage. With few insurers writing these businesses and the risks associated with hotels at all-time highs right now considering that their future occupancy rates and revenues are uncertain, insurance professionals have sounded off to Insurance Business on the fact that theres not a lot of options for hotels that have remained standing during shutdowns.

In the meantime, some hoteliers have started fighting for coverage on their business interruption claims. Notably, luxury hotel company Ritz-Carlton filed a lawsuit against its insurance company Zurich North America on June 12, demanding the insurer pay for business interruption claims related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is far from the only hotel business that will challenge rejected BI claims  the recent lawsuit was filed by a limited partnership called Crescent Plaza Hotel Owner that looks to represent all the hotels insured by Zurich with similar coverage.

Travelers, too, are running into coverage issues and will find it difficult to find travel insurance covering pandemic risks if they do get a chance to take a trip. A widespread ban on travel issued by Global Affairs Canada has led to Canadian travel insurers not issuing any individual travel health insurance for those who ignore the advisory, while UK travel insurance providers are closing their doors on new clients. In fact, travel insurance in markets around the world will be a challenge to navigate in the new normal even as buying the coverage becomes a necessity due to the uncertainties of traveling in a post-COVID world. Experts cited by Forbes recommend that individuals now buy insurance very carefully and determine exactly what theyre paying for, lest they get stuck with a cancelled trip or become victims of another travel-related issue that grinds their plans to a halt.

Read more: Coronavirus: DUAL Australia issues travel update amid brokers' queries

In this increasingly tough insurance market, brokers and agents will need to be dependable advocates for their clients, whether theyre working with business owners or individuals. Not only will policyholders require more handholding to understand exactly what their policies cover and what they exclude, theyll also need to stay informed on why the marketplace is less than friendly right now to new, and even old, risks. As a result, more time will need to be devoted to each client, as brokers and agents have surely already seen, and to staying up to date on resources provided by governments and industry associations that provide guidance on risk management, best practices for returning to work, and financial assistance.

If theres ever been a time to consider being a specialist broker/agent, this might be it since every industry, and indeed each business, will have unique needs as they operate in this new normal. Staying on top of the developments in each industry let alone each municipality or region will prove to be a challenge for brokers and agents, and will not be for the faint of heart.

As the travel industry attempts to rebuild, those brokers and agents that prove their dedication to clients by approaching their relationships with patience, and who build a deep reserve of knowledge on useful resources and key industry developments, will be by their clients sides for the long-term.
Pakistan Army on Tuesday held the 233rd Corps Commanders Conference headed by Pakistan's Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa where the forum reviewed "operational readiness and evolving threat spectrum" with respect to the external and internal security of Pakistan.

The Pakistani Army took to Twitter to give details of the meeting which they said was held to take "special note" of the situation in POK and the results of the abrogation of Article 370, which completes a year next month. During the conference, Bajwa also lauded the efforts of the civil administration in the fight against COVID-19 and locusts in Pakistan saying that Pakistan was ready to "thwart any internal or external threat to Pakistans security."

Netizens, however, were not impressed with Bajwa's conference or its outcome. Pakistani netizens took to Twitter to demand the release of journalist Matiullah Jan with the hashtag 'BringBackMatiullah' flooding the comments section of the page. As per local media report, journalist Matiullah Jan was kidnapped on Tuesday morning outside of a local school just a day before he was to appear before Pakistans Supreme Court. He was returned 12 hours later under mysterious circumstances.

Others slammed Qamar Bajwa and his army over corruption charges levelled against them recently; retired lieutenant general Asim Saleem Bajwa who has now been appointed as Imran Khan's communication advisor.

233rd Corps Commanders Conference, presided by COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa held today at GHQ. Forum reviewed operational readiness & evolving threat spectrum in context of external & internal security of the country. COAS complimented efforts put in by all formations (1/4) pic.twitter.com/JJvAQ2oqNr  DG ISPR (@OfficialDGISPR) July 21, 2020

Read: Gautam Gambhir Slams Pak 'joker' Trio Imran-Bajwa-Afridi For Peddling Anti-India Nonsense

Read: Pakistan Squirms At IMF's Demand To Cut Salaries Of Govt Employees; Cites Inflation

Netizens react

These jokers are target practice for indian army  ritvik rai (@RitvikRai5) July 21, 2020

I am sorry but with all due respect the internal and external threat 2 Pakistan & the nation is only from u. There will be a day when this nation will take charge of everything & that will be the day when u will become pakistan's army unfortunately right now Pakistan is for army  Nomi Dar (@NomiDar10) July 21, 2020

But the threats for us always produced by this meeting holders.  Mohammad Akram Khan (@AkramKhanESD) July 21, 2020

Did our " beloved" Corps commanders discuss economy??? Did they discuss to court marshal for those Generals who were behind 2014 dharna to topple a civilian Govt.?? Discussion to ask Asim bajwa for his money trail???  hafiz pasha (@hafizpasha8) July 21, 2020

Read: Bajwa Overpowering Waning PM Imran As Pak Army Unofficially Tightens Grip On Naya Pakistan

Read: Islamabad High Court Orders Pakistan Govt To Produce Abducted Journalist Matiullah Jan
Amid the fallout of low commodity prices, surging oil supplies and demand destruction caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic, the energy industry continues to seek ways forward.

Powering Forward was the focus of an online summit presented Tuesday by the Texas Oil and Gas Association.

Amid the pandemic, the energy industry makes the essential possible, said Todd Staples, president of the industry association.

Even with setbacks, the industry is reliably and safely providing the oil and natural gas that fuels our lives. Were doing our part for national and energy security and helping the economy rebound, he said.

Gov. Greg Abbott told the more than 700 watching the summit online that everybody involved in the energy sector in Texas knows the pivotal role it plays in our state. We need stabilization in prices and stabilization in the industry as we get things up and running again.

The Texas governor said he currently spends about 90 percent of his time seven days a week trying to stabilize the surge in COVID-19 cases in the state. The surge has impacted the Permian Basin, with COVID-19 patients occupying almost all of the intensive care beds in Permian Basin hospitals, he said.

That gets peoples attention and makes them realize we have to take this seriously, especially with over 100 Texans dying of the disease every day. Abbott said.

If they follow statewide requirements to wear masks and follow social distancing protocols for the next couple of months, until indications are the virus is under control again, that will ensure the economy remains open, remains robust, and Texans can live their lives in a relatively normal fashion.

With fall school terms approaching, he said it should be up to local school districts to decide what opening strategies  in person, online only or a mixture of the two  work best for them.

The economic impact of the pandemic has prompted state officials to ask most state agencies to cut their budgets 5 percent. Abbott said the exact amount of the budget shortfall the state is facing depends on several factors. If it is the $5 billion that State Comptroller Glenn Hegar just announced, it could be paid for by the states rainy day fund. He said if Congress enacts the HEROES Act -- which will help local and state governments fill budget shortfalls -- that funding would pay down the shortfall.

Mark Menezes, undersecretary of energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, decried industry critics who want to abandon the industry altogether. The naysayers do not realize, or want to admit, the critical role oil and gas plays in ensuring affordable and reliable energy, advancing national and energy security and strengthening communities across Texas with revenues that support essential needs like health care and education.

To power the industry through the downturn, Menezes said, the answer is simple: We need to stick with what works. We must remain committed to the policies that unleased U.S. energy dominance and continue to provide a climate of certainty that supports private sector innovation and investment, pro-growth tax policies and incentives to promote innovation.

He also advocated an all of the above policy of developing all resources that provide choices for consumers while driving down energy costs and promoting energy exports.

What do we need to do to power industry forward? Repeat recent innovation-driven successes, Menezes said. As states reopen, demand will return to more favorable levels, jobs will come back and wages will increase. The industry, I am confident, will make a strong recovery.

Willie Chiang, chairman and chief executive officer of Plains All-American Pipeline, said that all segments of the energy industry reacted quickly to the impact of the pandemic.

I have to compliment the ingenuity of everyone, he said. Were not out of the woods, but we look better than a couple of months ago.

Chiang estimated that Permian Basin production is likely to fall below 4 million barrels a day this year because of demand destruction, and once you lose barrels, you can get back on that trajectory but you cant get back to where you were because of the declining nature of the resource.

With 5.5 million barrels of takeaway capacity and another 2.5 million barrels under construction, he estimated the Permian easily has five years of excess capacity on long-haul pipelines.

He raised concerns about recent court rulings against pipeline projects such as the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access and proposed policies banning oil imports or establishing tariffs on imported oil.

The reason the industry was able to work through this was we have a stable regulatory environment that certainly lets companies make these decisions. Regulatory policies can put the industry at risk, he said. Weve seen concepts introduced like banning imported oil or requiring refineries to use domestic oil, which they cant do.

While technology monitoring pipeline integrity and emissions continues to improve, he cautioned against related regulations that could have unintended consequences.

Its like a heart patient. You dont want a slight thinning of an artery to result in open heart surgery right away, he said.

In the aftermath of the pandemic and its impact of economies around the world, Mike Wirth, chairman and chief executive officer of Chevron, said there may be changes in the worlds energy mix. Gasoline demand, which fell sharply amid stay-at-home orders, is rebounding, as is demand for diesel, he said. Jet fuel, which fell even more sharply as air travel came to a near-standstill, may be slower to rebound. He said regional flights are coming back more quickly than long-haul flights.

There will be some changes, he said. Work will be more flexible; business travel will be less  people are realizing they can be effective without flying halfway across the country or the world.

Still, he said, its undeniable that the demand for energy will continue to grow, and it will be for energy that is all of the above. And we need to support that. And developing economies will drive that demand growth, Wirth said.

Wirth disputed the notion that the price collapse will kill off the shale industry.

What we saw the last time around (in 2014-2016), and I spent time in the Middle East -- where they thought the price collapse would kill off the shale industry -- is the shale industry got better. It got creative, it got efficient. Low prices stimulated advances in efficiency, in the productivity of assets. History says tough times dont last but tough people do. I think companies will get stronger. Its a painful time now but I think the industry will emerge  we may see more consolidations where companies decide to work together, but I think this will stimulate innovation. Im optimistic about the long term, though the short term is choppy through 2020.
(Natural News) The city of Berkeley, California, has announced that it plans to remove police officers from traffic enforcement duties. In place of highly trained and armed officers, the super-liberal city plans to enlist unarmed municipal workers to perform traffic stops.

After nine hours of debate in a virtual meeting, the City Council approved a plan by Mayor Jesse Arreguin that will create a transportation department in charge of planning and enforcing parking and traffic violations. The plan will also form a new Berkeley Police Department for responding to calls that dont involve mentally ill or homeless people.

Berkeley, which is near San Francisco, has an estimated population of 121,000 people.

A steering committee has been put in place to plan and execute the move and identify other elements of policing that can be accomplished by alternative programs instead. Its not surprising that left-leaning Berkeley is the first city to pull its police departments authority over traffic since the death of George Floyd while in police custody.

The police departments budget has already been slashed by 12 percent since then, which equates to $9.2 million. The new motion includes a proposal that will slash it by a further 50 percent.

Critics warn that Berkeley could be making a deadly mistake

Critics are warning that the move is ill-advised and will place those who take over traffic enforcement duties in danger.

Los Angeles Police Protective League Director Mark Cronin said that what the city is doing is nuts. He added: I think its a big social experiment. I think its going to fail and its not going to take long for, unfortunately, traffic collisions, fatalities to increase exponentially.

Meanwhile, former New York City Police Department captain Frank Merenda, who now works as an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Marist College, said that traffic stops are highly unpredictable and one of the most dangerous duties carried out by law enforcement. He added that conducting these stops safely and effectively requires months of police training both in the academy and outside of it.

Perhaps the most damning criticism, however, came from Bowling Green State University Criminal Justice Professor Philip Stinson, who called it an overly simplistic plan that could have deadly consequences for unarmed traffic enforcement officers.

Arreguin has said that the change will not take place overnight and requires complicated logistics to sort out. However, he believes that minorities in his city feel like police are targeting them and thats something hed like to change.

The police unions for San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles have issued statements opposing Berkeleys plan, which was first introduced by Democrat City Councilman Rigel Robinson.

A similar proposal was made by safety advocates in New York City. However, Mayor Bill de Blasio has defended the NYPDs role and stated that the police department is essential to Vision Zero, a plan to reduce the citys traffic deaths to zero by the year 2024.

He told reporters: I dont doubt for a moment the commitment of the NYPD and I just see these things differently than some of the advocates do. Traffic enforcement, I think, does belong in the NYPD.

Its not quite clear how the city expects these unarmed workers to handle traffic stops involving people who are carrying weapons. It will be interesting to see how many individuals are willing to apply for a role that will regularly put them in deadly situations without an effective way to defend themselves. In fact, its a move that could put all those who live in or pass through Berkeley in danger as traffic collisions rise thanks to a lack of effective enforcement.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

NYPost.com
Stephen Belongia Named Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office

Director Christopher Wray has named Stephen Belongia as the special agent in charge of the Buffalo Field Office in New York. Mr. Belongia most recently served as the section chief of Cyber Readiness at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Belongia joined the FBI as a special agent in 1997 and started his career in the Phoenix Field Office, where he investigated criminal and counterterrorism matters. In 2010, he was promoted to supervisor of a Phoenix white-collar crime squad focusing on investment and complex security frauds, and later led a counterterrorism squad.

In 2011, he served a temporary assignment in Iraq, where he investigated international contract corruption. In 2013, Mr. Belongia was named an assistant legal attache in Nairobi, Kenya, where he investigated various matters including piracy and the terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping mall.

After returning from Nairobi, Mr. Belongia transferred to the Human Resources Division at FBI Headquarters, where his policy and administrative roles included conducting a special review of a sensitive national security matter. In 2017, Mr. Belongia was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Tampa Field Office in Florida. At different times, he led the cyber, counterintelligence, human intelligence, technical, surveillance, intelligence, and administrative programs and oversaw all matters in multiple resident agencies.

Mr. Belongia was promoted in 2019 to section chief of Cyber Readiness at Headquarters. He provided expertise and support in multiple areas, including cyber education and training, human capital, strategic management, security, logistics, financial management, and workforce development. He also conceived and led several transformational initiatives, including the FBI Cyber Academy, Cyber Pipeline, and the Cyber 2025 Strategic Review.

Mr. Belongia earned a bachelors degree in business from California State University, Sacramento and a masters in public policy from the University of Oxford. Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Belongia worked as a CPA for KPMG.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Goyal said India and the United States are closing in on a trade deal after two years of negotiations. In the long term, I believe we have a quick trade deal which has some of the pending matters built up over the last couple of years, which we need to get out of the way quickly. We are almost there, Goyal said at the US-India Business Councils India Ideas Summit on Tuesday.
Guilderland

Guns drawn, about 25 officers charged the hill at Crossgates Mall.

Not far away, a teary-eyed woman screamed "get down!" to a nearby group of teenagers as they gawked and cracked jokes  an odd mix at the scene of a possible active shooter.

Reports of early-afternoon gunfire Saturday, Nov. 12, brought with it a panic all-too familiar to Americans in 2016. More than 100 law enforcement officers  including the FBI and SWAT teams  quickly descended upon the shopping center, sweeping the mall store by store for the suspect, who police later discovered had fired his weapon after an argument.

No one was hit and the gunman was long gone, but at the time, no one knew that.

In the hours directly after shots rang out, rumors and fear circulated across the mall parking lot, which was filled with rambunctious teenagers, distraught parents and alert police officers. Once the gunfire was confirmed to be an isolated and spontaneous incident, the mood outside turned from chaos to curiosity.

Meanwhile inside the mall, an intense manhunt went on until late into the evening, until the entire mall was given the all-clear.

A helicopter circled above battle-ready police units and a JCPenney.

Not far away, shoppers swapped stories and breathed relief sighs.

One girl left her phone in her hiding spot inside Forever21, where she and dozens of other shoppers were holed up for 30 minutes before police escorted them, heads ducked and shuffling, to the nearest exit.

She cursed her bad luck. She wanted to go home.

It could have been much worse.

All told, the search took more than seven hours, with some employees and customers trapped in the mall for the duration.

The suspected shooter, Tasheem Maeweather, 20, has a future in prison regardless of whether or not a jury finds him guilty in the shooting. Maeweather was sentenced Dec. 17 to the maximum nine years in prison for violating probation from an earlier crime.

He was wearing a GPS monitor at the time of the incident, and it was later discovered he had violated his probation terms by smoking marijuana.

An off-duty state trooper who watched the Crossgates shooting unfold testified pre-trial that he had seen Maeweather approach another man near the mall's Apple store. Trooper Ian DiGiovine said Maeweather drew a gun and fired two shots after the man punched him.

That was enough for Albany County Judge Peter Lynch, a former defense lawyer with a reputation for leniency, to hand down the strongest possible sentence, citing the "protection of the public."

rdownen@timesunion.com  518-454-5018  @RobertDownenTU
D onald Trump has sent a message of support to Ghislaine Maxwell, who faces charges for allegedly enabling Jeffrey Epsteins sex trafficking minors.

The president said he wished the British socialite well as she awaits trial in a high-profile case in the United States.

At a White House press conference on Tuesday, Mr Trump was asked by a journalist if Maxwell will "turn in powerful people", including the Duke of York.

President Trump said: "I don't know, I haven't really been following it too much.

Epstein with Maxwell in 2005 / Getty Images

"I just wish her well frankly. I have met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach.

"But I wish her well, whatever it is."

He added: "I don't know the situation with Prince Andrew. I just don't know. I am not aware of it."

Maxwell was told by a New York judge last week when she appeared at a court via videolink that she will remain in custody while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors for Epstein.

Maxwell, who pleaded not guilty, will go on trial in July 2021.

Her lawyers have said she vigorously denies the charges and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

Andrew stepped down from public royal life in November last year after a disastrous Newsnight interview in which he failed to show remorse over his friendship with Epstein, who took his own life while in prison.

One of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked by the financier, alleges that Andrew had sex with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17, still a minor under US law.

Andrew, who categorically denies any wrongdoing, has been urged to come forward and be interviewed by US prosecutors.

These calls were renewed after his friend Maxwell appeared in court accused of facilitating Epstein's sexual exploitation of underage girls.

Andrew's legal team has stressed he has made three offers to help with investigations.
Cabinet approves visa amnesty extension, but Immigration removes announcement

PHUKET: The Cabinet has approved the automatic visa extension for all visa types, previously set to expire on July 31, to be extended until Sept 26. However, the public notice published by the Immigration Bureau announcing the extension was taken offline late this afternoon.

immigrationCOVID-19tourism

By The Phuket News

Wednesday 22 July 2020, 05:08PM

The notice announcing the extension of the visa amnesty until Sept 26 was posted on the Immigration Bureau website, but has now been removed. Screenshot: www.immigration.go.th

The Cabinet approved the third automatic visa extension to all types until Sept 26 yesterday (July 21), announced the Royal Thai Government main website. The announcement explained that the requests proposed by the Royal Thai Police, under which the Immigration Bureau operates, has been approved, as follows: Immigration Bureau must announce to foreigners that exemption of all requirements under Section 35 and 37(1) of the Immigration Act 2522 and other relevant laws has been extended to Sept 26, 2020. The extension for visas for staying in the Kingdom has been extended from August 1 to September 26, 2020. The period for foreigners to report their current address has been extended from August 1 to September 26, 2020. This means that foreigners whose visas had expired as from 26 March 2020 will be permitted to stay until 26 September 2020 without having to apply for an extension, the announcement explained. A draft copy of the proposal for the visa extension request, which was approved in full, was posted on the main Immigration Bureau website. However, as of this afternoon the announcement posted has been removed. (See here.) Of note, while the extension of the visa amnesty has been approved by Cabinet, traditionally it takes several days for the Immirgation Bureau to draft and publish its own actual order to bring such amnesties into effect. That is expected in the coming days. Called by The Phuket News earlier today for clarification and confirmation of the visa amnesty extension, Phuket Immigration Deputy Chief Col Nareuwat Putthawiro was unavailable for comment.
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Linkedin Tri Indah Oktavianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 17:22 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406688155b 1 National animals,stray-dog,horse,cats,Animals-Australia,birds,bali-covid-19,West-Nusa-Tenggara,NTB,Gili-islands Free

An animal protection organization, Animals Australia, has reported that the COVID-19 pandemic has put animals in a dire situation, with many of them left starving and abandoned on the streets in Indonesia, especially in Bali and on the Gili Islands of West Nusa Tenggara.

In many instances, animals who brought in an income for their owners are now rendered worthless, as the global tourism industry comes to a standstill. Bali and the Gili Islands have been especially impacted by this, given the huge reliance of their economies on tourism, Animals Australia spokesperson Louise Bonomi said in a statement on Wednesday.

As we saw borders closing rapidly and international travel grind to a halt, it was very clear to us that the situation for animals would deteriorate rapidly, especially for captive and working animals whose care and upkeep is dependent on tourist income, added Bonomi.

Read also: COVID-19 spoils appetite for wild meat

The organization announced that it had provided critical support grants to 35 animal protection groups around the world, including in Bali, Jakarta, Lombok and the Gili Islands, under a program called the Global Emergency Grants.

The organization works together with the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN) to improve the welfare of domestic animals, wildlife and marine life in various parts of Indonesia through the relocation of animals at risk, especially monkeys and dolphins.

As many as 150 stray dogs in Lombok have been fed by a local NGO, Street Dog Support, which provides dog shelters in the region. In Gili, Animals Australia cooperates with local NGO Gili Eco Trust to assist local groups on the islands in providing carriage owners with food and veterinary care for horses, as well as food for local cats and birds that are kept as pets on the islands.

The Australian-led effort has granted free emergency care to vulnerable animals at Udayana University Veterinary Hospital and assisted the Villa Kitty animal rescue foundation with street feeding, rescue, shelter administration and veterinary care for nearly 300 cats and kittens in Bali. It also funds the legal advocacy and anti-cruelty work of the Bali Animal Defenders (BAD).

We have also found dogs that were most likely abandoned by their owners and left in public places such as beaches and vacant land. This has created new problems in Bali, especially as rabies is endemic to the island, said veterinarian Sasa Vernandes, Animals Internationals Indonesian team leader.

Read also: Slaughtering zoo animals to feed other animals last resort in hunger crisis

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bali, home to some 4.2 million people, is believed to be worse than that of past disasters, including the deadly 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings. The islands foreign tourist arrivals fell to nearly zero just weeks after Indonesia reported its first COVID-19 cases.

This affects the stability of the rescuers and stray animal feeders to carry out their activities because most of them have lost their jobs, but the animals are still very dependent on them to survive, said Vernandes.

Therefore, the emergency funding program really brings a good impact at this very difficult time. The funding is giving new hope to the rescuers and animal feeders to continue their beautiful activities in helping the animals in Bali.
When everyone was congratulating Prakash Fulwariya for getting the second rank in the state in Class 12 Arts examinations, he was a little dissatisfied. He expected to score 100 marks in all five subjects.

In the results declared on Tuesday, the young boy got 100 marks in Hindi and History, 99 in Hindi Literature and English, and 98 in Political Science. On Tuesday evening after the results, the boy was busy trying to figure out why he lost four marks. I had worked hard and expected to score full marks in all subjects, he said.

Fulwariya of Loharawa village in Barmer district said he wants to become an IAS officer -- not for myself but for people like me who have to struggle to study. His father, Channa Ram, works on construction sites. He has been bed-ridden for some time after a paralytic attack.

In our village, power cut is a big problem. Often my sister and I had to study using torch. On most days, there was no electricity at night, said Fulwariya, who has four siblings.

His elder sister, also in Class 12, scored 83%. Prakash is second among the siblings.

For lack of resources, I will go to a nearby college for higher education. After graduation, I will prepare for the civil services examination. I want to become an IAS to help poor students like me who live in remote areas like mine, said the student of government senior secondary school in Loharwa, 70km from district headquarters.

He said he didnt know if he will be able to go to Jaipur or Delhi to prepare for the CS examination because his father, the only earning member of the family, was on bed. The boy scored 97% in Class 10.

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Inasmuch as the idea of our God goes, he is everything and nothing as such. He has been construed as the sun or moon or rivers or comets or lions or stones or fire or trees or wind or insects or crocodiles or bats or humans or hyenas or a mound of dung or mountains. And inasmuch as we have foolishly construed the deity, we have also concocted our myths or our superstition or our dreams or our nightmares or conduct or ethics or sacrifices or our hygiene or our means of healing or our sacredness and sanctity and sacrilege or scurrility or heresy or hypocrisy.

And inasmuch as we have construed his worship, we have also spoken gibberish or bowed down and scraped the ground or burned animals or offered human sacrifices or constructed gargoyles or developed caste systems or discriminated against each other or drunk bath water or gravely hated others or gone to war against others or raped others or envied them or robbed from them or enslaved them or killed them or inflicted maximum harm on them or even cannibalized them as a medium of our worship of our God.

In our worship of our God, we have displayed unspeakable neuroses, burning people up or establishing patent prejudices against them or performing holocaust against them or beating them or spitting on them or treating them far worse than dogs.

Therefore, God has been everything to us and nothing to us at the same time. And he has supported our wicked fantasies and bestial imaginations in all the ways in which these were thought and taught to be commanded by him. And he has sanctified our most obnoxious traditions and customs and hierarchies and conduct and cultures no matter whether they have been blood-thirsty, morbid, moral or immoral. And we have worshiped him in all the heinous and despicable ways possible and attributed everything to him whether good or bad.

And for this thing called religion which is inherently a shackle on our thinking or non-thinking, we have given everything and gained nothing. We have allowed the gods to manipulate our thinking through those who, like Agyinasare, speak for him and act for him and eat for him and have acquired property in his name. For these, we have allowed our worship of God to become the pathway to their riches, prosperity, and arrant greed.

We have elevated them to be the lords and the gods over us at whose displeasure, the gods have been conveniently displeased; and in whose pleasure the God has been well pleased. We have become sheep for whom these peoples stick and rod comfort us, and who have led us to the greener pastures in order to fatten us for the slaughter! And on their festival days, we happily walk to the slaughterhouse to be killed for their joy and celebration.

We are therefore a people chasing the wind and whirlwind: the sheep bred to destruction! We have never thought because we have never been taught to think except to think the thoughts of these thoughtless mountebanks who teach as non-thinking in order to profit from us. And if somebody were to poke our eyeballs so that we can wake up, we would rather the person were crucified or castrated than that a trickle of bitter truth should descend upon our consciousness. The joy of our delusion is the opium of our faith and the eternal drug of our ecstasy.

We cannot create nor perceive, nor innovate nor understand nor comprehend. Because we think of what others have thought for us and believe the ideas of the past millennia and accept that God spoke to some people thousands of years ago and thereafter ran out of ideas. And thus must be obeyed through the prism of these arrant ignoramuses: People whose God created a flat world and forbade them to eat of the fruits of the knowledge of good and bad and commanded them to burn their children or their camels and sheep and goats; or to rob others of their lands and property or to take others wives and children and rob them of their inheritance, all in his worship.

If we are not so deprived of every fiber of our mental faculties, it should be of concern to us that our people are subservient to all these pernicious thoughts while still asking themselves why we are so much behind all others. We have chosen to align our fortunes to God who does not exist, and to a worship that is not defined, and to a book that is not ethical and to imposters leading us to the abyss.

But these impostors are the only people profiting from the charade. And after we have enriched them profusely, they want to point out to us their manifold blessings: Their magnificent buildings, their cars, their family, and their plush living as the blessings from their God. They want to point out your poverty, your ill health, your frustrations, and your misfortune as punishment from God. And if you dare question their wealth and opulence, they want to construe all in terms of your envy and jealousy, the sole reason why he has not yet bought a private jet with your money!

The danger is in those purveying for our purchase and their profit the false sense of delusion that we are saved in bondage; and that at the mention of some name, we will be eternally saved; or that through some miracle, or sacrifice, we will be redeemed. The thought that somebody else who was sacrificed thousands of years ago is coming to save our people is repugnant; and so are all the notions of our religion and superstition and all that we do that are contrary to science and logic and that are apposite to reasoning. We must be justly indignant!

If we want to taste the meaning of life, it is with our realities, not our concocted fantasies. We should get rid of these men and women of God. There is not a single true man of any God since the beginning of human history insofar as there is no God, and there has not been any God from the beginning of this earth to the end of all time..

The destiny is in our hands and has nothing to do with any spirit, friendly or hostile. We should unclamp the strong shackles of religion and superstition. We should construct for the school system a science-based education of logic and reasoning and patriotism and philosophy. We should abolish all forms of religion and superstition within the body politic and commit the fertile minds of the youth towards morality and patriotism. We should expiate all prophets and prophecies new or ancient.

The source of our backwardness has nothing to do with our predestination. It has everything to do with the trash we have imbibed of a non-existent God in whose name we have abandoned all thinking and reasoning and performed all evil and stupid deeds to enrich those who ride on us with impunity and confident tricks.

We must free our minds or die trying!

Samuel Adjei Safo, Esq.

Austin, Texas, USA.

Email: [email protected]
Election 2020 Karen Parties Coordinate Campaigns to Maximize Votes in Myanmar Election

Karen National Democratic Party (KNDP) opens offices in Hpa-an Township in Karen State on July 20. / KNDP / Facebook

YANGONKaren political parties say they will coordinate their electoral campaigns to prevent the splitting of votes between parties in a single constituency.

If a candidate from only one party runs in a constituency, he will win more votes. We will do this to win votes, Karen National Democratic Party (KNDP) chairman Mahn Aung Pyi Soe told The Irrawaddy.

There are four Karen parties in the country: the KNDP and the Phalon-Sawaw Democratic Party (PSDP), both based in Karen State, and the Karen National Party (KNP) and Kayin Peoples Party (KPP), which are based in Yangon.

All four parties say they have coordinated to divide electoral constituencies among them to prevent vote splitting. The KNDP will field candidates in every constituency in six out of seven Karen State townshipsall except Thandaunggyi Township, where the KPP will contest.

We dont need to negotiate with KNP. We already have understanding with them, Mahn Aung Pyi Soe told The Irrawaddy.

We will not contest in their area, and they will also not run in our area. In Thandaunggyi, the KPP will contest the election. Well let them run there freely.

According to a letter sent by the PSDP to the KNDP chairman, seen by The Irrawaddy, the PSDP has agreed not to contest any constituencies in Karen State. The Irrawaddy was unable to obtain a comment from the PSDP.

In 2018, three Karen State-based partiesthe Karen Democratic Party, the Karen State Democracy and Development Party and the Karen United Democratic Partyfolded and merged with the KNDP. Some members of the PSDP also resigned from their party and joined the merger.

I heard that PSDP [candidates] will contest on the ticket of the KNDP because of the agreement, KNP General Secretary Mahn Kyaw Nyein told The Irrawaddy. Because it is mandatory for a political party to contest at least three seats in order to remain registered as a party, I heard the PSDP will contest at least three seats in Mon State.

The KNP and the KPP will run candidates in Yangon and Ayeyarwady regions, where the largest populations of Karen people in the country outside Karen State are concentrated.

The KNP plans to run candidates in around six townships in Ayeyarwady and the KPP will contest in more townships, because the KPP, as an older party, enjoys wider support among Karen residents in the region, according to Mahn Kyaw Nyein.

Even if we happen to contest in the same constituency, we will make sure we do not contest for the same seat, he said. For example, if we contest in Constituency 1, they will contest in Constituency 2 for the state parliament. For example, we cant run for Upper House seats. We can at best run for Lower House seats. But the KPP can run for Upper House seats as it has public support in larger number of townships.

The Karen parties have discussed the division of electoral constituencies since 2019 at the Karen Unity and Peace Committee (KUPC), according to Mahn Kyaw Nyein.

The KUPC consists of Karen revolutionary leaders, faith leaders, representatives of Karen political parties and civil society organizations.

In a video that shared widely on social media recently, Padoh Mahn Nyein Maung, member of the Karen National Union (KNU) Central Executive Committee, was seen urging the Karen people to vote for the KNDP in the 2020 election.

Though he made the remarks during a speech last year on Aug. 2Karen Martyrs Daythe KNDP posted the video to its Facebook page on July 7.

In the video, the KNU leader said that just as the ethnic armed group has fought for the rights of Karen people through armed struggle outside the Parliament, Karen parties and politicians will strive for the rights of Karen people inside the Parliament.

What I want to say is we need to vote for Karen national parties and Karen patriotic parties in the coming election. Only then will they be able to perform Karen national duties and work for the Karen national struggle, said Padoh Mahn Nyein Maung in the video.

He said Karen voters are also responsible for the lack of progress on rights for Karen people over the past five years of the current government, because of who they voted for in the 2015 election.

The Karen political parties are now in the process of selecting candidates for their agreed upon constituencies. The general election will be held on Nov. 8.

Six Karen parties fielded candidates in the 2015 election. They lost in every election they contested, except for one seat in the Karen State parliament representing Thandaunggyi Township.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.

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Gemma Collins has reportedly cancelled an event in Spain after learning of her ex-partner James Argent's alleged plans to fly there in an attempt to win her back.

The TOWIE stars hit headlines last week, after Arg, 32, was exposed for branding Gemma, 39, a 'hippo' and 'fat f**k' over text message during an explosive row.

And The Sun is now reporting that Arg informed friends of his plans to jet over to Marbella, where she'd been on the books to appear at Elliot Wright's bar as a part of Diva Night on Thursday, prompting Gemma to call off her plans.

Ex: Gemma Collins has reportedly cancelled an event in Spain after learning of her ex-partner James Argent's alleged plans to fly there in an attempt to win her back. Pictured in 2018

According to the publication, Gemma initially employed the services of a security guard for fear of her off-again boyfriend of causing a scene at the venue, before learning of his plans to ask for another chance.

Gemma, who holidayed in Tenerife just last week, blamed travel restrictions for her cancellation, when she took to Instagram to share the news on Wednesday.

She wrote: 'Guys I am so sorry but due to the latest expected travel advice I am so gutted to not be able to host the evening.

Explosive row: The TOWIE stars hit headlines last week, after Arg, 32, was exposed for branding Gemma, 39, a 'hippo' and 'fat f**k' over text message during an explosive row

'I have imminent filming commitments and have been advised by health and safety that it would be best to stay in the UK for now I have to also think about protecting the filming teams upon my return.

'I was so excited for this night and I was really looking forward to having a good boogie and a drink !! And to see the lovely Elliott and Sadie. Were living in strange times and I have been advised today that I am unable to travel...

'Please do go if you are in Spain and enjoy yourself, Elliott and Sadie are making sure everyones safety is a priority and the Resturant is following the guidelines its a fabulous place to be.

'The food is amazing and the cocktails too. I defo would still head down to the evening as it will still be AMAZING and defo should not be missed !!!! I will be there in true DIVA spirit.' [sic]

Hours before cancelling her trip, Gemma shared footage of herself looking upbeat as she received help while packing her bags for the getaway.

Announcement: Gemma, who holidayed in Tenerife just last week, blamed travel restrictions for her cancellation, when she took to Instagram to share the news on Wednesday

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Gemma Collins and James Argent for comment.

After returning to the UK from her Tenerife getaway, Gemma apologised to her former beau for releasing the messages.

In a screenshot obtained by MailOnline, the Diva On Lockdown star contacts her fellow reality star in the early hours of the morning.

She writes: 'I am sorry about putting the messages up, I was just so hurt you suggested an open relationship, it didn't look like a joke when you typed it.

'I was so upset but I shouldn't have put the messages up, that was anger on my part which was wrong. I am so sorry about that x.' (sic)

'I am sorry about that': In a screenshot obtained by MailOnline, the Diva On Lockdown star contacts her fellow reality star in the early hours of the morning

The GC has originally posted the fierce row that led to her breaking up with her on-off beau on social media.

In the texts, the musician called his partner a 'hippo' and a 'fat f**k', after she suggested that he had bought another woman dinner and not her.

The series of texts began with Gemma saying: 'What man pays for another woman!!!', while Arg responded by saying: 'Insensitive.'

Clearly riled, the blonde said: 'And the woman that saved your life has to pay for herself!!!'

Her next message was masked, but her now-ex responded: 'You are supposed to be treating me you hippo.'

Moments later, Gemma uploaded another series of messages, where he sent her a plane emoji in reply to a picture of flight details.

'I'll take a mate, I'm not booking it. You said you would be a gentleman!', she penned, before he shockingly said: 'YOU FAT F**K. IVE JUST LOST ANOTHER 2000' (sic). He didn't refer to what he had lost 2000 of.

The self-proclaimed diva has decided to take some time off social media, citing that she was 'devastated' and 'heartbroken' by the exchange.

It was reported on Monday that Gemma had decided to split with Arg after he told her he wanted to move to Spain and have an open relationship.

An insider told The Sun: 'Arg went to Spain and he told Gemma that he wants to go back there forever and be in an open relationship.

Revealed: On Tuesday, the GC posted the fierce row that led to her breaking up with on-off beau James, in which he called her a 'fat f***' and a 'hippo'

'Gemma feels like she's done everything she possibly can to help Arg but enough is enough. He said that he wants to stay in Spain for good which is worrying as he is known to have suffered relapses there in the past.

'Gemma was devastated by the conversation and decided to end their relationship entirely - she feels like she had no choice but to walk away.

'It couldn't have ended any worse; she has been in floods of tears and has even blocked Arg on social media.'

The Essex native also uploaded a cryptic post about the 'Top 10 Signs of Emotional Abuse In A Relationship' and 'finding the strength to walk away' earlier in the week.

Hurtful: Moments later, the heartbroken star shared another series of messages

She wrote: 'To all who have suffered in lock down or are suffering in general. please please find your strength to walk away.

'There is a better life for you filled with love and respect and always remember the problem isn't within you it's within them.

'Walk away it's never too late. something will happen one day and you will just say enough is enough. It's in that moment the nightmare is over. this is when you find your strength and this is when you will learn self love.' (sic)

Arg, who has shed five stone following rehab, recently admitted he is a cocaine addict and overdosed twice last year before hitting rock bottom over Christmas and calling his friend and former co-star Mark Wright for help.

He checked himself into a 10-week bootcamp at The River rehab facility in Thailand earlier this year where he kicked his habit, and now attends an outpatient facility near his Essex home regularly.

The Sugar Free Farm star still intends to lose another three stone and is already feeling 'so much better in myself'.

The couple reconciled late last year after jetting off on holiday to Dubai in a final bid to resolve their issues.

Gemma originally dumped Arg after he refused rehab and said their relationship was over until he beat his addiction once and for all.

Making a statement? The Celebs Go Dating star uploaded a cryptic post about the 'Top 10 Signs of Emotional Abuse In A Relationship' and 'finding the strength to walk away' on Monday

But less than three weeks later, MailOnline exclusively revealed the reality TV pair were spotted holding hands and kissing on a romantic trip to the 250-a-night Palazzo Versace Hotel.

The duo briefly dated in 2012, before embarking on a tumultuous love story from December 2017.

It's not the first time Arg has sent hurtful messages to a girlfriend, with the reality star previously confessing during an episode of TOWIE that he had sent cruel emails to his former girlfriend Lydia Bright.

The pair had dated on and off for years until 2012, before they decided to give things another try in April 2015. Arg sent the emails to Lydia in 2016, calling the blonde 'a butters sl*t'.
Devon Abellon Devin Abellon, P.E., Business Development Manager for Engineering Services at Uponor North America, was recently named the recipient of the 2019-2020 George B. Hightower Technical Achievement Award.

Devin Abellon, P.E., Business Development Manager for Engineering Services at Uponor North America, was recently named the recipient of the 2019-2020 George B. Hightower Technical Achievement Award. Presented on May 28th during the 2020 ASHRAE Annual Conference (held virtually this year), the award recognizes excellence in volunteer, leadership and service to the organizations Technical Committees, Technical Groups and Technical Research Groups.

Abellon was cited for his significant contributions to ASHRAE and TC 6.5 over the past four years in his work as TC 6.5 Programs Subcommittee Chair. From 2015 to 2018, Abellon chaired six ASHRAE seminars and a panel discussion with 16. In 2019, he chaired the radiant heating and cooling track at the Annual Conference in Kansas City, which featured 39 presentations in 12 seminars. As TC 6.5 Handbook Chair, Abellon recently developed a comprehensive plan for a consolidated handbook chapter on radiant heating and cooling.

I am honored to be receiving the Hightower award, says Abellon. It is truly a testament to the hard work of all the dedicated members of TC 6.5, as well as to Uponors continued support of ASHRAE and its efforts to improve the built environment through smarter, more sustainable technologies and design.

Before joining Uponor in 2009, Abellon served as the managing principal and vice president of LSW Engineers California, Inc. in San Diego. He now has over 25 years of experience in the HVAC and plumbing industries with a focus on high-performance and sustainable building design and construction. A registered professional engineer in California and Arizona, Abellon has held several leadership positions within ASHRAE at the local-chapter, region and society levels, including regional Nominating Committee Member, society Membership Promotion Committee Chair and as a facilitator for ASHRAEs Leadership Academy. At the Annual Conference on July 1st, he was elected as Director and Regional Chair (DRC) of Region X, which covers California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii.

A much-decorated Air Force officer in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War, George B. Hightower devoted the rest of his 55-year professional life to the engineering and contracting professions. For three and a half decades, he served as co-owner of Conditioned Air Engineers, a commercial air conditioning contracting firm in his native city of Atlanta. During that time, Hightower participated in numerous association boards of directors. Besides ASHRAE, these include the National Society of Professional Engineers, Georgia Society of Professional Engineers, Georgia Engineering Foundation, Society of American Military Engineers, and National Environmental Balancing Bureau. He is recognized as an Eminent Engineer by Tau Beta Pi.

Hightower died on November 8, 2008, at the age of 91. The eponymous award was created in his honor two years earlier in 2006.

About Uponor

We mean progress.

Apple Valley, Minn.-based Uponor North America strives to be the partner plumbing and HVAC professionals rely on for smart water and energy solutions. The company is helping to advance the construction industry through innovation, education and advocacy focusing on the defining issues of our time: water, energy and labor. An award-winning manufacturer of PEX piping and provider of plumbing, fire safety, radiant heating/cooling, hydronic piping, and pre-insulated piping systems, Uponor offers solutions for new construction, retrofits and remodels in the residential, light commercial and commercial markets.

Uponor partnered with Belkin International in 2016 to form Phyn, a new intelligent water company that is revolutionizing the way consumers interact with water and helping solve major challenges facing the global water supply. Recognized for best-in-class manufacturing, sustainability, economic development and as a top workplace, the Uponor group of companies employs more than 33,800 worldwide. Uponors global headquarters are located in Vantaa, Finland. uponor-usa.com
Vandals who torched a park bench deprived kids of their playground, a councillor has said.

Lambeg Play Park in Lisburn was forced to close temporarily on Wednesday after equipment was destroyed within a fortnight of its reopening.

The play area was revamped less than 18 months ago.

Lisburn and Castlereagh Council Alderman Stephen Martin said this week's was a "thoughtless act of vandalism".

He added: "Lambeg Play Park was refurnished after a long campaign for better facilities and has proved really popular.

"Whoever did this deprived kids of their play park.

"Thats shameful at any time but especially at the minute."

Mr Martin said it was the latest in a spate of anti-social behaviour in the area.

He said: "The local community has every right to be cross.

"Local police are doing their best to combat it so if anyone who was in or around Lambeg village around 9pm last night that has any information please pass it on."

PSNI is appealing for information after "reports of criminal damage".

Sergeant McKelvey said: "Shortly after 9:15pm it was reported that a bench was set alight in the area.

"Minor damage was caused to the bench and nearby hedges and railings following the incident.

A council spokeswoman said the cost of the damage was unknown.

She added: "The council is disappointed some individuals believe it is acceptable to destroy equipment in a play park that is for the enjoyment of our younger residents.

"We would ask parents to know where their children are at all times."

Police have urged any witnesses to call n 101, quoting reference 2181 21/07/20 - or to use website http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport.

You can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/.
MIAMI, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- P&O Cruises today announced it was extending its rolling pause in operations across Australia and New Zealand to October 29, 2020 in response to the current impact of the global pandemic on the way we travel and holiday.

P&O Cruises President Sture Myrmell said while everyone hoped sailings would resume soon, it had become increasingly clear that more time was needed for society to reinstate many modes of travel and community gatherings.

"The path to society reopening fully is continuing to evolve  and cruising will return when science and public health align and people again feel comfortable to meet. With this in mind, we have reviewed the current end date of our pause in cruise operations," Mr Myrmell said.

"We will continue to use this time to liaise with authorities, public health experts and others in the industry to develop enhanced public health measures for when the time is right to resume sailing.

"This is by far the most challenging time the travel sector has ever experienced. However, like so many of our loyal guests and partners, we look forward to better times ahead when we can cruise again. We thank everyone for their unswerving loyalty, patience and goodwill."

The latest changes in operations are:

Australia

In Australia, P&O Cruises will extend its pause in operations to October 29, 2020 (inclusive)  an extra 42 days to what had previously been announced.

It will affect the following cruises:

Pacific Explorer: X040, X041, X042, X043, X044N, X045N, X045P and X046

Pacific Dawn: W047, W048, W049, W050, W051, W052 and W053

Pacific Aria: A048, A049, A050, and A051

New Zealand

In New Zealand, P&O Cruises will return for its next season of sailings departing from Auckland in 2021. Additional cruises affected by this new pause are:

Pacific Aria: A042, A043, A044, A045, A046, and A047

Other cruises

As a result of the extended pause in operations and international travel restrictions, P&O will cancel Pacific Adventure's inaugural 18-night cruise (V059) from Singapore to Sydney.

Compensation for cancelled cruises from July 23, 2020

P&O will make direct contact with guests whose cruises have been affected to let them know of this development and to apologise for the disruption. All guests are entitled to a full refund or bonus onboard credit if they choose a future cruise credit. P&O will pay refunds back to travel agents for guests who booked through that channel.

P&O will protect travel agent commissions on all bookings for cancelled cruises that were paid in full and for the total amount of the future cruise credits.

Guests with bookings affected by the pause in operations, can track the progress of their future cruise credit or refund request via a new tracking tool found on P&O's website.

SOURCE P&O Cruises
It turns out that U.S. Customs and Border Protection could now keep an eye on your car without even getting a warrant. This month, we learned that CBP bought access to a commercial license plate database, meaning the agency can look up the historical location of cars across the U.S., no legal red tape necessary.

CBP revealed the purchase in its updated Privacy Impact Assessment, which discloses that agency had been using commercially owned cameras and license plate readers since 2017, when CBP released the original assessment. Accordingly, it reads, CBP is updating this PIA to provide additional notice to the public and assess the unique privacy risks associated with the use of a commercial vendor license plate database. The update, published earlier this month, says the agencys deal with a commercial database provide[s] CBP law enforcement personnel with a broader ability to search license plates of interest nationwide.

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Although the Privacy Impact Assessment didnt name the commercial database in question, Motherboard points to Vigilant Solutions as a likely suspect. A public procurement record between CBP and Vigilant from 2019 is listed as Law Enforcement Archival Reporting. As it happens, Law Enforcement Archival Reporting is the name of a license plate reader product from Vigilant.

License plate readers do exactly what the name sounds like: They collect the plate information of cars that pass by. They can be found all over the country, and each can record thousands of plates per minute. Vigilants sister company, DRN, also has a database of crowdsourced license plates. Drivers whose cars are equipped with license plate reader cameras just tour around and seize data on passing vehicles. The firm says it has more than 9 billion scans. All of those scans are available to Vigilants customers. And its hard to avoid ending up in such a database: Per TechCrunch, people cant opt out of license plate surveillance unless they steer clear of areas where the cameras are presentwhich is basically impossible, particularly since people dont know where those cameras are located. Doing so, to quote CBPs own Privacy Impact Assessment, may pose significant hardships and be generally unrealistic.

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Already, data from license plate readers has resulted in convictions. In April, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court OKd the use of license plate readers to track a heroin dealers comings and goings from a bridge.

But this does not mean that license plate readers should be used in all criminal cases. In the ruling, Justice Frank M. Gaziano warned, Where the [automated license plate readers] are placed matters. He added, ALPRs near constitutionally sensitive locationsthe home, a place of worship, etc.reveal more of an individuals life and associations than does an ALPR trained on an interstate highway. A network of ALPRs that surveils every residential side street paints a much more nuanced and invasive picture of a drivers life and public movements than one limited to major highways that open into innumerable possible destinations.

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Sen. Ron Wdyen also weighed in. Customs and Border Protection owes the public an explanation of what its using this vast database of Americans movements for, whether there are safeguards to prevent sensitive information from being abused and how many Americans have their movements swept up into this dragnet surveillance program, he said in a statement. While more information is needed in this specific case, its now clear that several government agencies are purchasing data as an end-run around the Fourth Amendment, which is why I am preparing legislation to close that yawning gap in Americans Constitutional protections.

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This is another example of law enforcement agencies turning to private companies to bypass limitations on their ability to collect information.

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In February, the Department of Homeland Security got into hot water for tracking peoples whereabouts through commercially available cellphone records. Instead of subpoenaing location records from service providers, it bought the information from the data broker Venntel. As was the case with license plate readers, opting out of that situation is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. In the Supreme Court ruling of Carpenter v. United States, a 2017 case regarding the FBIs decision to subpoena the cellphone location records of Timothy Carpenter, Chief Justice John Roberts warned, Only the few without cell phones could escape this tireless and absolute surveillance.

Now, if you drive a car, surveillance is even more difficult to sidestep.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
David Satcher, M.D. and Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, left, announces the closure of normal operations and furloughing of approximately three fourths of the staff at the government run facility until further notice, November 14, 1995.

The U.S. government's response to the coronavirus has been uncoordinated and its guidance has been unclear as cases surge across the country, according to former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher.

If he were to grade the nation's leadership in the pandemic, Satcher said he would give them a C "at best."

"I think we have not coordinated with each other well enough, we have not been clear about what the guidelines are. In many cases we disagreed among ourselves as opposed to meeting," said Satcher, who ran the Centers for Disease Control of Prevention. Former President Bill Clinton appointed him to both positions.

"I'm not a part of the administration, of course, but I think when it comes to leadership during this pandemic, I think we are lacking," he said.

Satcher was one of four former directors of the CDC who coauthored a recent op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing the administration for dismissing advice from public health officials, specifically about how to reopen schools safely in the fall.

The directors, who served under both Democrat and Republican presidents, wrote that the U.S. faces "two opponents" in its efforts to reopen the country: Covid-19 and politicians and others attempting to undermine the CDC.

"I think we are mixing the politics and the science in a way that can be very dangerous," Satcher said in an interview with CNBC. "In my work, in public health and in government, I have not seen this before. People may disagree for a short period of time, but then they get together and discuss it and then the decision is made."

Over the course of the nation's response to the pandemic, however, there's been conflicting advice from the health community and politicians, such as the decision to mandate face coverings when in pubic to help curb the spread of Covid-19. Epidemiologists, who didn't originally recommend using face masks at the beginning of the pandemic, have since said masks can slow the virus' spread.

Trump, who resisted wearing a mask for months, fully embraced the idea this week and urged all Americans on Tuesday to wear them whenever they can't practice social distancing.

In the absence of consistent federal or state policies, big retailers like Walmart, Target, Kroger, Best Buy and Apple have started requiring customers in every state to wear a face covering before entering their stores policies.

While the science isn't 100% correct all of the time, and much is still unknown about Covid-19, the U.S. should alter its guidelines to incorporate the best information scientists have on hand as it's made available, Satcher said.

"There's a lot of things we don't know about this virus, but we must monitor it and make decisions based on what is the best available information at the time," Satcher said. "We have an opportunity to make real progress in reducing the level of infections and spread of this disease and yet we're not doing that."

Satcher praised the administration's daily press briefings earlier in the pandemic when administration officials were joined by scientists on the White House's task force, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to brief the public.

On Monday, President Donald Trump said he will resume holding coronavirus press briefings at the White House, likely starting Tuesday, for the first time in nearly three months. The announcement comes as the U.S. continues to see Covid-19 cases rise as Trump's popularity with voters declines.

Trump told reporters earlier this week "we have had this big flare-up in Florida, Texas, a couple of other places," but said a lot of the country "is doing well." The president has distanced himself from some of his health experts, including Fauci, who Trump said could be "a little bit of an alarmist" in an interview with "Fox News Sunday."

"The White House and CDC have been working together in partnership since the very beginning of this pandemic to carry out the President's highest priority: the health and safety of the American public," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email when asked about the directors' criticism of the administration.

"The CDC is the nation's trusted health protection agency and its infectious disease and public health experts have helped deliver critical solutions to save lives," he said.

Satcher also said the country must make a committed, long-term effort to eliminate the health disparities in communities of color that have been laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic. He was the first Black director of the CDC and wrote "My Quest for Health Equity: Notes on Learning While Leading," which is scheduled for release in September by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Epidemiologists have found that Black and Hispanic people have been dying at a disproportionately higher rate from Covid-19 than White people.

"The problem is often when one administration leaves and another comes, you forget about the commitments the nation made," he said. "It shouldn't go away when a new administration comes in."
Archaeologists have rewritten the history books over when humans first arrived in the Americas, shifting the date of the initial migration 15,000 years back in time.

Excavations in a cave in Mexico called Chiquihuite revealed archaeological evidence of human occupation dating back up to 27,000 years.

But computer analysis further pushes this date back, with the study claiming people first lived in the cave around 33,000 years ago.

This contradicts the widely accepted belief that humans did not reach North America until around 16,000 years ago.

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Archaeologists have rewritten the history books for when humans first arrived in the Americas, shifting the initial migration 15,000 back in time from current estimates

Nearly 2,000 stone tools were found in the Mexican cave over a ten-year study period and their age was calculated using radiocarbon analysis

Stone tool found below the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) layer in the Mexican cave. It shows that humans lived in the cave around 27,000 years ago

State of the world 33,000 years ago Planet Earth looked very different 33,000 years ago as humans were in the middle of achieving world domination. Homo sapiens had already outcompeted Neanderthals in Eurasia and forced our sister species to extinction following a migration out of Africa via the Levant. We had progressively spread across Europe and Asia, expanding the human range and south-east Asia, Indonesia and Australia had already been colonised around 20,000 years previous. Previous studies have found the harsh wilderness of North-East Asia remained unexplored until around 35,000 years ago, lining up with the latest findings. The previous estimate of when the Americas were first graced by human footsteps is around 16,000 years ago, with the Caribbean islands conquered 8,000 years ago. The date of the Americas had long established due to the acceptance that this was when the land bridge across the Bering Strait was not blocked by glaciers during the ice age. Advertisement

Academics agree that humans most likely migrated from Asia to the Americas via a land bridge across the Bering Strait, which is now underwater and forms the sea between Alaska and Russia.

However, during the Ice Age, which started around 33,000 years ago and lasted until around 16,000 years ago, this route was blocked by glaciers.

It was previously thought that people first crossed over to the Americas after the ice age, when the glaciers had melted, and most of the archaeological evidence discovered before now supports this theory.

However, the Chiquihuite cave indicates humans had already been on the continent for millennia.

The researchers propose two possible explanations for how people first colonised North America more than 30,000 years ago.

Firstly, humans from North-East Asia may have crossed over the land bridge at the Bering Strait before the Ice Age when there was a gap between the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the Cordilleran Ice Sheet.

Alternatively, they could have travelled by boat from Asia, following the Pacific coastline, until they had bypassed the glaciers.

Today, two studies are published in Nature, one detailing the site of Chiquihuite and another statistically analysing 42 archaeological sites in the Americas.

'The First Americans are popularly believed to have arrived in the continent between 16,000 and 13,000 years ago,' says lead author of the statistical modelling study, Dr Lorena Becerra-Valdivia.

'Our findings show evidence of humans around 15,000 years before then.'

Nearly 2,000 stone tools were found in the Mexican cave over a ten-year study period and their age was calculated using radiocarbon analysis.

Homo sapiens were to blame for Neanderthal extinction A supercomputer may have finally ended the debate over what caused the extinction of Neanderthals. Mathematicians used the enormous processing power of the IBS supercomputer Aleph to simulate what happened throughout Eurasia around 40,000 years ago. It revealed that the most likely explanation for Neanderthal extinction is that Homo sapiens, who migrated into Europe around the time of the extinction of Neanderthals, were better hunters and out-competed them for food. Humans and Neanderthals are known to have overlapped, and even mated, but the superior brain power of Homo sapiens eventually wiped out their distant cousins. Experts have long quarrelled over whether it was tumultuous climate patterns, competition for food with Homo sapiens or the interbreeding with this new species that ultimately led to the demise of Neanderthals. Advertisement

'Using the archaeological evidence and Bayesian age modelling  a powerful tool that incorporates dates and archaeological evidence through statistics  we can estimate humans arrived at Chiquihuite Cave as early as 33-31,000 years ago,' says Dr Becerra-Valdivia.

'These findings help us understand the initial human occupation of the Americas in greater detail than ever before.'

With the initial colonisation of the continent moved vastly back in time, the researchers also set out to map out the timeline of the first humans in America.

Because, despite the indubitable evidence found in Mexico, the majority of other prehistoric human sites in the contiguous US are no older than 16,000 years old.

Professor Tom Higham from the University of Oxford, who was involved in the research, advocates the theory that the 'surprisingly early movement' occurred via the seas.

'The people that travelled into these new lands must have used maritime technology, because the northern parts of North America were impenetrable and sealed off from eastern Eurasia by a massive ice sheet until 13,000 years ago,' he says.

This coastal migration theory states that the people made their way down the Pacific coast from the Arctic Circle towards modern-day Mexico.

They may have formed settlements along the sea which are now under water due to rising sea levels following the glacial melt at the end of the last ice age.

This theory would explain why few of the known settlement sites on the mainland match Chiquihuite in age.

However, Ruth Gruhn, professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Alberta, who was not involved in the study, says another possibility is a land-based migration before the Ice Age brought an impenetrable wall of ice between the continents.

While the researchers postulate on how humans reached the Mexican cave, they believe the site itself offers irrefutable evidence of human habitation.

Researchers used archaeological evidence (such as stone tools, pictured) and Bayesian age modelling  a powerful tool that incorporates dates and archaeological evidence through statistics  to estimate humans arrived at Chiquihuite Cave as early as 33-31,000 years ago

Pictured, Stone tool found above the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) layer, within Stratigraphic Component B. This particular piece was made from a greenish crystallized limestone

Pictured, archaeologists entering the Chiquihuite cave. A decade-long dig here has yielded evidence which has uprooted existing theories on human migration to the Americas

Pictured, assistant professor Mikkel Winther Pedersen with team members carefully sampling the different cultural layers in the cave which rewrites the history of human migration into the Americas

15,000-year-old mammoth graveyard in South America Scientists in Mexico have unearthed a graveyard of almost 70 fossilised mammoths during excavations to clear land for a new airport. Stunning images from the site reveal the bright white skulls and tusks of the prehistoric giants. The fossilised remains of the now-extinct cousin of modern elephants were first spotted in 2019 and have now been pictured for the first time. Ongoing work by anthropologists has revealed the mammoths were likely hunted down by Neolithic humans 15,000 years ago. Last year, the same researchers announced the discovery of two human-built pits just 12 miles from the airport site which may have been used to trap mammoths. Advertisement

Dr Ciprian Ardelean, who led the archaeological excavations, says: 'The finds at Chiquihuite Cave are extremely exciting.

'The archaeology is older than anything we have seen before and the stone tools are of a type that is unique in the Americas.

'Human-made flaked stone artefacts are there by the thousands, embedded in layered sedimentary deposits that are now well-dated.

'It is curious that the site was occupied so much earlier than others  it seems likely to us that the people of Chiquihuite represent a "failed colonisation", one which may well have left no genetically detectable heritage in today's First Americans populations.'

While the attempt to colonise the Americas may have failed initially, there was a population boom around 15,000 years ago.

At this point in history, humans crop up regularly in the archaeological record all across the US, Canada and into Central and South America.

This also coincides with the reemergence of the Bering Strait land bridge, as the Ice Age came to an end and the two ice sheets parted, potentially prompting a wave of mass migration from Asia.

At this point in history, humans and their tools began to dominate the continent, with many large animals hunted to extinction between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago, including mammoths and ancient horses and camels.

Dr Jean-Luc Schwenninger, senior co-author of the paper on the excavations, says the publication of the research is very satisfying and will 'challenge long established views'.

He says that to formulate such a bold new theory required 'extra amounts of diligence, scrutiny, patience and perseverance'.

Professor Gruhn agrees that the findings will ruffle feathers and spark a lively debate into when the Americas were first reached by humans.

Writing an accompanying News and Views article also published in Nature, Professor Gruhn says: '[The] suggestion that the initial entry date was as far back as 33,000 years ago, which is more than double the currently popular date of around 16,000 years ago, will be very hard for most archaeologists specialising in early America to accept.

'There will undoubtedly be challenges to this interpretation and close examination of the site data.'
Two women have been arrested after police launched a murder investigation into the death of a man in Londonderry in 2019.

Daniel Guyler (75) was found with serious injuries in the Termon Street area on July 23 2018.

He later died in hospital on May 1 2019.

Police said following extensive investigations they have arrested two women aged 33 and 44 on suspicion of murder.

They have been taken to Musgrave PSNI Serious Crime Suite for questioning.

PSNI Detective Inspector Ray Phelan said he realised the incident "occurred some time ago".

"However I would ask people to cast their minds back to Monday, 23 July 2018. Did you see anyone or anything unusual in the Termon Street area of Derry/Londonderry?

"Mr Guyler was found injured at approximately 8.45pm, were you in the area before or after he was found? If you were I would appeal to you to contact detectives on the non-emergency number 101 quoting reference 1317 23/07/18.

"Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, which is 100% anonymous."
West Chester, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/22/2020 -- The team at West Chester law firm Carosella & Associates understands that insolvency and bankruptcy are complicated issues whether they involve a business or individual. Their bankruptcy lawyers and business attorneys thoroughly evaluate each client's financial situation and provide various options to help them resolve these complex economic matters while ensuring their rights and interests are protected.



Lack of cash flow and an inability to pay debts leads to insolvency. This financial condition can result in bankruptcy, but there are other remedies that may be more appropriate to help you stay afloat. Selling assets, restructuring a company, liquidation, and working directly with creditors are just a few ways that clients can become financially solvent without filing bankruptcy. The business attorneys at Carosella & Associates use their experience and resources to determine which options best fit each client's needs and help them through stressful financial situations every step of the way.



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From reviewing the way a business operates, to helping individuals figure out how to reduce and eliminate debt, the attorneys at Carosella & Associates pursue every possible avenue to help clients explore options available. If bankruptcy turns out to be the best option, they determine whether it is best to file under Chapter 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, or 15, and use an accurate, effective secured electronic system through the bankruptcy court to file cases efficiently.



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Egypt has agreed with Ethiopia and Sudan to prioritise reaching a binding deal on the filling and operating of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a statement from the Egyptian presidency read on Tuesday following an African mini-summit on the issue.

It was agreed to continue the negotiations in the current time to reach a binding legal agreement on the rules of filling and operating the Renaissance Dam, while work will continue later to reach a comprehensive agreement on the types of joint cooperation between the three countries concerning the use of the Nile, the Egyptian statement read.

Over years of negotiations, Ethiopia has always backtracked on signing a binding deal, including during the talks brokered by Washington that faltered in February, and the round of talks in June that led to Egypt's escalating the matter to the United Nations Security Council.

Cairo, Addis Ababa and Khartoum said that they have agreed to resume technical talks concerning some outstanding issued following the Tuesday summit between the three countries, but without giving more details about the date.

The mini-summit was hosted by South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current head of the African Union, and saw the participation of five other African heads of state as observers.

The Egyptian statement also highlighted President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisis appreciation for the efforts of Ramaphosa, and stressed "the continued sincere desire of Egypt to achieve progress on the contentious issues, which are essential in any fair and balanced agreement reached on the Renaissance Dam."

The statement said that doing so requires the political will to agree on the outstanding issues to reach a desired agreement and achieve the common interest between the three countries.

In a separate statement, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok also said that the technical talks on the mega-dam would be resumed.

First-year filling target achieved

In a statement on Tuesday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that its first-year target for filling the GERD has been reached, and that Egypt and Sudan have agreed to further technical discussions on outstanding issues as part of an African-led process.

The statement said that the current rainfall and runoff situation in the region have made it "conducive" to fill the dam, and that it has become evident over the past two weeks in the rainy season that GERD first year filling is achieved and the dam under construction is already overtopping.

I appreciate my brothers [Hamdok and El-Sisi] for common understanding reached on continuing technical discussion on filling, Abiy tweeted on his official account on Tuesday.

Tensions had escalated last week after reports that Ethiopia had begun filling the dams reservoir, based on an officials claim that was later retracted.

Ethiopian state TV had quoted the countrys Water Minister Seleshi Bekele as saying that the country had started to fill the GERDs reservoir. Hours later, however, the minister denied that the filling process had started.

Satellite images of the Ethiopian dam showed its swelling reservoir, while Sudan said it had recorded a decline in the water level of the Blue Nile coming from Ethiopia.

Egypt has voiced its concern over Ethiopia's failure to address rules regulating the filling and operation of the GERD during drought and dry years.

Cairo is also concerned about future projects on the Blue Nile, a main tributary of the Nile, and demands binding dispute settlement mechanisms, which Addis Ababa has refused to include in a deal.

Despite the repeated concerns of both Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopian officials, including Abiy, had stated that the GERD filling operation would start with or without an agreement.

Egypt, which relies on the Nile for 95 percent of its fresh water, fears the dam will significantly reduce the rivers flow, especially during the filling stages through periods of drought or dry years. Ethiopia, on the other hand, says the project is key to its development

Sudanese proposal on future projects

Hamdok also revealed on Tuesday that Sudan had reasserted its rejection of any unilateral actions concerning the filing of the dam.

In addition, in press statements reported by the Sudanese news agency SUNA, Sudans Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas announced that the experts appointed by the African Union in the last round of the talks had supported Sudans suggestion concerning future projects on the Blue Nile.

According to Abbas, Ethiopia's argument is that a binding agreement on the dam would restrict any future development on the Blue Nile, but the Sudanese suggestion gives Ethiopia the right for future development projects, whether reservoirs or other projects, on the condition that those projects are in compliance with international water law and the downstream countries are notified.

The Sudanese irrigation minister said that if the suggestion was approved, it would give Ethiopia the right to amend some numbers concerning the operations of the dam, and would disengage the two demands for first filling and operation and the right to future development projects.

Abbas added that Ethiopia had promised to consider the Sudanese proposal and that solving the main issue would facilitate reaching a compromise on the other issues.

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At the height of the pandemic lockdown, the federal Liberals and the public service had a good thing going.

In April, as COVID-19 was ripping through long-term-care homes and the everyday world of work and socializing had evaporated, politicians and bureaucrats were focused like a laser on doing whatever it takes to float the Canadian economy through the confinement. They collectively and quickly decided that the best recipe for that was to flow tens of billions of dollars through the simplest channels possible, directly into the hands of those most vulnerable.

It worked until the politicians decided to get fancy.

The $900-million student program that was eventually contracted out to WE Charity was anything but simple and direct. It was so laden with boxes to check and layered with multiple policy goals that it rivalled any boutique government program in the best of times.

Even the most benign explanations for the complexity of the Canada Student Service Grant raise questions about the Liberals judgment ordering the public service to stand up the program with such haste.

In House of Commons committee testimony last week, deputy minister of youth Gina Wilson described the task handed to her. They had to move fast so students would receive support in time for their summer break. They had to engage the not-for-profit sector, which was struggling under the weight of the pandemic. They had to design something that was easily accessible for all types of students  under-represented demographics, minorities, rural, urban, from all parts of the country.

Senior official Rachel Wernick went further, spelling out even more policy objectives that had been put on her list. There had to be a volunteer component, with financial rewards to help students pay their tuition and with built-in incentives to attract young people to the program. It had to enhance their workplace skills. It had to be set up to keep students safe from contagion. It needed oversight and support and resources. It had to take other government support funding into account so it wouldnt distort other programs.

The prime minister had a keen interest in the file, as was obvious from testimony on Tuesday from the clerk of the Privy Council who briefed Justin Trudeau a few times on its progress.

And it all had to be ready to roll in three weeks time.

It became quickly evident that there was high ambition, Wernick said, referring to the politicians instructions.

But think about what Wernicks department, Employment and Social Development, was doing at the same time.

On March 16, just as the lockdown took hold, the department processed about 9,000 employment insurance claims  a perfectly normal day, according to the deputy minister, Graham Flack, in a recent public discussion.

On March 17, they processed 71,000 claims  almost double the record from the worst day of the great financial crisis just over a decade ago. By March 24, that had risen to 267,000 claims in a day. Thousands of civil servants were supporting the processing, working from home and using a 46-year-old Cobalt computer system that usually takes nine months to adjust to even minor policy changes.

So at the beginning of April, the government scrapped the old system, started up the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, which used existing Canada Revenue Agency systems to reach millions and millions of suddenly unemployed Canadians.

The effort was astounding, and despite some overpayments that will have to be cleaned up over the next few months, it was largely successful in terms of keeping poverty at bay.

When the dust settled, Flack spoke in June about how they pulled it off. The key, he said, was to keep policy as simple as possible and focus instead on what they were actually capable of delivering from an operations point of view.

He had some words of warning for those policy-makers who dream up interesting solutions to public challenges without taking into account whether they can be effectively implemented with the tools at hand.

Every time we are putting forward policy ideas, I want all of us to say: is this operationally feasible? Have we equipped our operations people with the tools that can actually successfully deliver this? And I think thats something that we as a policy community have abysmally failed over the years to donot to our credit.

Great advice, except just a couple of days later, the prime minister announced that the incredibly complex program that he had ordered up in April was finally ready for launch, and would be administered by the high-profile, well-connected WE Charity  the only organization, his government said, that was capable of delivering.

We all know how that turned out. The prime minister and the finance minister are now the subjects of ethics investigations, the contract for WE Charity was cancelled, Parliament Hill is in a partisan uproar and students dont have their volunteer program yet.

Even if you reject the opposition criticism that Trudeau meant to line the pockets of his friends with the contract and instead believe that the Liberals had the best of intentions when they set up the WE-run volunteer system, they clearly took leave of their senses on this one. They abandoned everything they had just learned about useful policy in a pandemic.
President Donald Trump resumed his coronavirus briefings on Tuesday, after having suspended them for weeks while the pandemic spread out of control across ever-wider swaths of the country. Unlike most of his performances during the first round of coronavirus briefings, this one featured no public health experts, corporate leaders, or other guest stars; it started only slightly late and was over in much less than an hour.

There had been some political-media speculation that the resumption of the briefings could provide yet another chance, in theory, for Trump to break out of his spiral of tantrums and denunciations and to achieve a more leaderly tone. How did he do? Beyond insistently and repeatedly calling the coronavirus the China virus, and saying various completely untrue things about how well the United States was doing at testing its populace for the disease and how no states were experiencing any shortages of necessary equipment, Trump put in a relatively restrained and low-energy performance, relying heavily on the notes on his lectern and avoiding unrelated tangents. He made his fullest commitment yet to urging people to wear masks, though that did not extend to his wearing one himself.

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Then came the question-and-answer period. After some pandemic discussion , one reporter changed the subject to ask about the accused child-sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, the companion and reported accomplice of the late Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire on July 2 and faces multiple charges relating to enticing and transporting minor victims for criminal sex. Did the president expect her to implicate any powerful men, like Britains Prince Andrew, in Epsteins sex crimes?

I dont know, Trump replied. I havent really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever is. I dont know the situation with Prince Andrew, just dont know. Not aware of it.

The president of the United States admitted to a long-standing relationship with an accused sex trafficker, and twice specified that he wished her well as she faces criminal charges. There were reportedly more than 1,000 new deaths nationally due to the coronavirus on Monday, the highest figure since the end of May.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
KHOST, AFGHANISTANMotivated, educated and fresh from finishing police academy in Turkey, 2nd Lt. Zala Zazai had stellar qualifications for the job she took in eastern Afghanistan in June. It all mattered little once she started.

On social media, she was called a prostitute, and men wrote that her very presence on the force would corrupt Khost province, where she was posted. Her colleagues at police headquarters  where she was the only female officer on a staff of nearly 500  tried to intimidate her into wearing a conservative head scarf and traditional clothes instead of her uniform, and to hide in back corners of the office away from the public, she said. Shopkeepers arrived at the stations gates with no other business but to get a look at this novelty.

Zazai, 21, came home from her first day feeling sick and frightened. She felt so unsafe that she asked her mother, Spesalai, who had accompanied her from Kabul, to stay with her at a shelter deep inside police headquarters. At night, the two women locked the door. During the day, Zala Zazai scrambled to expedite the paperwork for a pistol.

I want to have something to defend myself with, she said.

Helping Afghan women, who were banished to their homes by the Taliban during their government in the 1990s, became a rallying cry for western involvement in Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion in 2001. Two decades later, the rise of a generation of educated, professional Afghan women is an undeniable sign of change.

Now, with the possibility of power-sharing talks opening between the Taliban and the Afghan government, many women are worried that the strides they have made are at risk. What adds to their concern is how fragile the gains remain after two decades, where every mundane step is still a daily battle.

Even after more than a billion dollars spent on womens empowerment projects, the daily reality for women trying to break into public roles  particularly with the government and the security forces  remains bleak. Women are still almost completely absent in high-level meetings where decisions of war, peace and politics are made. Work for women at routine jobs is a daily barrage of harassment, insult and abuse.

Among the police forces, which have been the focus of diversification efforts for years, women still make up only 2.8 per cent of employees  and that is the highest level in 18 years. Most of those 3,800 women are in hidden roles with little contact with the public, officials acknowledged. Only five of the total of about 200 military and civilian leadership positions at the Interior Ministry are occupied by women.

For much of the past two decades, the task of including women in the police force often fell on former warlords and commanders whose beliefs about women differed only slightly from the Talibans, if at all.

President Ashraf Ghani has increased the number of female ambassadors, introduced female deputy governors and ministers, and sent female deputies to the ministries of defence and interior. But Afghan society remains deeply patriarchal, and the few women who have risen to such positions face many difficulties.

The strategy to include more women at less senior positions has been mostly to spend money and meet modest quotas. In the past six years, the Afghan government and its western allies have spent more than $100 million (U.S.) on building facilities to support Afghan women in the security forces. In Nangarhar province, they spent $6 million on a training facility for female police officers that remains unused three years after completion.

After repeated failures, recruitment efforts essentially boiled down to bribing women to join the force and stay. A womans incentives to join the police include eight more benefits than her male counterparts, according to Hosna Jalil, the deputy minister of interior. On several occasions, women of retirement age were allowed to fake their IDs and lower their age to stay on the force, she said.

Still, the goal of a five per cent female presence in the police forces has never been met.

Every province I have gone to, the first thing I say is that you are a force that is only working for men  not for women or children, the two most vulnerable categories who are left behind, Jalil said.

It is not because qualified, willing women are lacking. It is because to join the police is to endure abuse and degradation.

Over the years, sexual harassment had been rampant in the security forces, with reports that the wives of officers killed in line of duty were harassed when they came to collect death benefits. The perception that female police officers were frequently harassed meant that women who were victims of domestic violence and other crimes dared not visit police stations.

If only we had guaranteed a father that the dignity of your daughter is more protected in the ranks of the police because she has authority and professionalism here, Jalil said. We havent been able to create that mentality.

Among those who endured years of mistreatment to follow her dream of rising in the security forces is Capt. Rahima Ataee, a 13-year veteran of the Afghan police special forces who now serves as the uniformed secretary to Jalil in the Interior Ministry.

Ataees father, a retired police colonel, admitted her to the police academy, and her physical endurance qualified her for the special forces. She spent weeks at a time on the front lines in provinces under attack by the Taliban.

But at the mere question of how her male colleagues treated her in the field, she broke down. She said the bullying and abuse was such that I developed mental problems.

She would not tell her father at the time, she said, because she thought it would break his heart and lead him to prevent her from working. Every time she complained about the work environment after returning from a mission, she said, she would often get the same answer: Well, you are getting paid.

Before Jalil began her job as the deputy minister for strategy and policy  hired by Ghani to be fresh eyes in an institution long seen as corrupt and dysfunctional  she had to fight for acceptance.

Generals walked out of meetings when they found out she was in charge. Subordinates often fed her wrong information to undermine her.

I often have to say I am not the head of the gender department  I am the policy and strategy deputy to the minister of interior. I work for this large force that is both male and female, Jalil said. I may have a female outlook, but any woman who comes should come for their expertise, not for them being a woman.

These days, despite frequent sexist attacks on social media, Jalil says she has found her footing as part of a leadership team that is working to reform the police. They spend long hours in a quiet basement office poring over charts of a bloated structure that they are trimming, and have removed unnecessary bureaucratic steps that created opportunities for corruption. They are trying to hold the officers to new standards of accountability, and to better care for the families of tens of thousands of police officers killed in decades of war.

Zazai, who serves at the police headquarters in Khost, grew up in Kabul, the capital. Her mother, Speselai Zazai, has been the head of their household for seven years, and although her male relatives were opposed, she, her older sister, and her mother attended after-hours university classes financed with their own day jobs. Another sister is a student of Islamic studies.

She and her older sister are now both police officers. But they were only willing to take the first step when the opportunity to train in Turkey came up because of concerns about harassment and abuse in the local training academies.

The signs of the difficulty ahead were clear when the women arrived at the police headquarters in Khost to obtain signatures needed for their applications and an officer castigated them for wanting to join the force.

What kind of a mother are you, bringing your young, unmarried daughters to become police? Speselai Zazai recalled one of the officers telling her.

After starting her job in June, Zala Zazai found a difficult and lonely environment. At the time, she was the only professional female officer in Khost.

On her first day, she was catcalled by her fellow officers. Those at her office tried to convince her that it was better for her to work in conservative Islamic garb than to wear a uniform. When she insisted, they found a new tack: She should wear a mask, even though her colleagues did not. The pretext was COVID-19, the intention was covering her.

For the first two weeks, Zala Zazai would spend her days at work, and in the evening she would retreat to the government guest house where her mother kept her company. She hadnt faced a direct physical threat, she said, but she was aware of the reality, and her lack of a weapon added to her vulnerability.

She was devastated when her mother had to go back to Kabul, but Zala Zazai is trying to make a go of it in Khost.

May God make it easier, she said.

But I have to find the strength  because it cant go on like this, women should claim their place. I know if I spend a year here, it will make a difference.

Read more about:
Meghan Markle has been toying with the idea of getting out of town for her birthday, telling friends she and Prince Harry are feeling 'cooped up' and are in need of a change of scenery, an insider exclusively told DailyMail.com.

The 38-year-old's birthday is around the corner on August 4, and she'd ideally like to celebrate by getting out of Los Angeles, heading to Montecito, outside of Santa Barbara, where incidentally her friend Oprah lives, the friend said.

Meghan, Harry and their one-year-old son Archie have been staying at Hollywood producer Tyler Perry's $18 million mega-mansion in the exclusive neighborhood of Beverly Ridge since moving to LA in March.

They've only been spotted out a handful of times, most recently leaving an appointment in Beverly Hills, as the friend explained the couple is starting to feel 'cooped up', leaving Meghan ready to get out of town for her birthday.

Meghan would require anyone who attends her soiree to get a fast-tracked Covid-19 test, but stressed the guest list would only be a handful of her closest friends and held outside.

The friend added: 'Whatever she ends up doing for her birthday, Meghan said it will be low-key. She said she doesnt want to come across as being careless and irresponsible.'

Meghan Markle has been toying with the idea of getting out of town for her birthday, telling friends she and Prince Harry are feeling 'cooped up' and are in need of a change of scenery, an insider exclusively told DailyMail.com

Meghan and Harry have only been spotted out a handful of times since their move to LA in March, most recently leaving an appointment in Beverly Hills, as the friend explained the couple is starting to feel 'cooped up', leaving Meghan ready to get out of town for her birthday

Meghan, Harry and their one-year-old son Archie have been staying at Hollywood producer Tyler Perry's $18 million mega-mansion in the exclusive neighborhood of Beverly Ridge

Last year, Meghan rang in her 38th birthday by having a 'family day' at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor in England.

The occasion was low-key and she enjoyed a carrot cake from Stoke Newington-based Luminary Bakery.

Recently, it was revealed Westminster Abbey would not ring its bells for Meghan's birthday, although it would ring the bells for Princess Anne's birthday 11 days later.

A spokesman for the Abbey said: 'The bells are usually rung to mark the birthdays of senior members of the Royal Family, and through the line of succession to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children.

It was also revealed that Meghan's mother Doria Ragland had moved into Tyler Perry's mega-mansion to help take care of Archie.

'Doria Ragland continues to live with Meghan, Harry and Archie,' a source claimed, speaking to Us Weekly.

'This has been the most time she has spent with her grandson since he was born.

Doria, 63, is reportedly enjoying being on grandma duty, spending quality time with the 14-month-old, 'get[ing] up in the morning and read[ing] to him,' and helping Markle make his 'all-organic' baby food.

It was also revealed that Meghan's mother Doria Ragland had moved into Tyler Perry's mega-mansion to help take care of Archie

Last year, Meghan rang in her 38th birthday by having a 'family day' at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor in England. The occasion was low key and she enjoyed a carrot cake from Stoke Newington-based Luminary Bakery

It comes after reports last month that Doria, a former social worker, is acting as an 'unofficial nanny' to Archie and to help the couple out as they find their feet in LA.

A friend previously told DailyMail.com that Meghan wants to keep her mother close because she is 'her rock' and now 'doesn't trust many people' outside of an immediate circle of family and friends.

Meghan had the full support of her mother when she and Prince Harry quit as senior royals back in January.

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex dropped the bombshell news that they were quitting, dividing their time between North America and the UK and would work to become financially independent, the royal family and the rest of the world were caught off guard.

However, Meghan reportedly had the backing of her Los Angeles-based mother, who 'was really worried about Meghan... and is relieved that her daughter is putting her mental health and well being first,' the insider said.

The friend added: 'Doria is very much about being true to oneself and so of course she will continue to encourage Meghan to take the road less traveled.'
This article will be updated throughout the week with coronavirus case counts and other need-to-know information about the pandemic in San Antonio.

COVID-19 updates: Figures released by Metro Health showed 758 new cases and nine new deaths from the virus Saturday. The total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic now stands at 35,690. On the bright side, the trend toward fewer people with the virus in San Antonio hospitals continued with 1,047 hospitalized Saturday, down from 1,059 Friday. That makes six straight days the number has gone down.

July 24

Case count rises: On Friday, 1,059 patients with COVID-19 were being cared for in San Antonio hospitals, down 15 from Thursday. Among them, 430 were in intensive care units, while 294 were on ventilators to help them breathe, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. San Antonio and Bexar County officials reported 299 new coronavirus cases and 15 more deaths.

A total of 34,932 residents have tested positive for the virus since the first cases surfaced here in mid-March. The local death toll now stands at 313.

July 23

Deaths continue to rise: The number of deaths due to the coronavirus increased by 15, as confirmed COVID-19 cases in Bexar County continue to soar, climbing Thursday by more than 1,000.

The total number of people who have tested positive is now 34,633, up from 33,555 reported the day prior, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Thursday during the daily city-county briefing. The death toll rose to 298.

Leaders in areas ravaged by COVID-19 beg for control: Leaders in hard-hit areas, such as Houston and Hildalgo County, again called on Gov. Greg Abbott to allow them to impose targeted, temporary lockdowns to slow their infection rates.

Until we can get that positivity rate down to 5 percent or below, our contact tracing and testing is not going to be nearly as impactful, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, said in an interview with CNN.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez also appeared on the network urging the governor to allow local lockdowns. Cortez ordered many county residents to shelter in place earlier this week, while acknowledging that it is unenforceable under restrictions currently in place by Abbott.

If I can even simply get 10 percent of people to follow it, Im 10 percent better than I was today, because yesterday we had 49 people pass away and that is certainly not acceptable, he said.

July 22

The coronavirus continued its unrelenting pace in Bexar County, with nine more deaths and 1,688 new cases reported Wednesday. Mayor Ron Nirenberg says increasing numbers indicate spike dates back to Fourth of July.

Texas set a record for COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, the same day the San Antonio area reported more than 200 infants have contracted the novel coronavirus since the pandemic broke out. The San Antonio Express-News reported 211 infants have tested positive for COVID-19 in Bexar County. City officials said the huge number of babies with the virus "is something that were keeping a close eye on and is something that were very worried about." None of the infants have died from the virus.

July 21

Bexar County saw 12 more deaths of people with novel coronavirus and 551 new cases, officials said Tuesday, as the disease continued its unrelenting assault on the San Antonio region.

Hundreds poured out along San Antonio streets Tuedsay to honor Bexar County Sheriffs Deputy Timothy De La Fuente, the first local law enforcement officer to die with COVID-19.

De La Fuentes, a 27-year veteran of the sheriffs department, died at home April 30. He worked at the Bexar County jail, where the virus swept through in April, infecting many inmates and staff.

July 20

Bexar County remains at a severe to critical risk level: New cases grew by 481 and five more deaths were reported Monday. The local death toll since the start of the pandemic now stands at 262. More than 31,300 people have tested positive for the virus in Bexar County during that same time.

Metro Health and city leaders: The day before Metro Health Director Dawn Emerick resigned in June, her boss sent a scathing internal memo blasting Emerick as lacking the expertise needed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and creating a hostile work environment for health department employees.

July 19

COVID-19 isnt going away:' Despite insistent appeals to wear masks and practice social distancing, the novel coronavirus maintained its grip on San Antonio as officials reported six more deaths and 2,202 new cases on Sunday.

85 infants test positive in Texas county: Eighty-five infants have tested positive for COVID-19 in Nueces County, according to CNN.

"These babies have not even had their first birthday yet," said Annette Rodriguez, director of public health for Corpus Christi Nueces County. Please help us stop the spread of this disease."

No details on the infants conditions were released.

TRACKING COVID-19: Maps and graphics show the spread of the virus through San Antonio and Texas.
Amid political impasse, ED raids Gehlot's brother in fertiliser scam

India

oi-Deepika S

Jaipur, July 22: A company owned by the brother of Ashok Gehlot, Agrasen Gehlot, is being raided by the Enforcement Directorate, regarding a fertiliser scam.

The raid comes at a time when Rajasthan is witnessing an intense power tussle between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his deputy Sachin Pilot.

The ED officials said searches are being conducted by the central probe agency in at least 13 places in Rajasthan, West Bengal, Gujarat and Delhi.

Ashok Gehlot writes to PM, names Shekhawats involvement in 'bid to topple Rajasthan govt

The searches are also being conducted at the premises of Agrasen Gehlot in Jodhpur, who is facing a Rs 7 crore Customs penalty in this alleged fertiliser case, officials also said.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

Six places in Rajasthan, four in Gujarat, 2 in West Bengal and one location in Delhi are being raided by the agency under the PMLA, they said.

The ED has filed a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on a Customs department complaint and chargesheet in the alleged fertiliser scam case.

According to ED, imported fertiliser (subsidised) was diverted to private companies. Agrasen Gehlot okayed a key role in diverting the product to private companies. Subsidised fertiliser was supposed to be consumed domestically by only farmers at subsidised rates.

Agrasen Gehlot, who runs a business of seeds and fertilisers, is under the scanner in the alleged scam since 2007-08.

The case was initially being investigated by the IT department. After the IT Department filed a prosecution complaint, a case has been registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Did not give permission for phone tapping, Rajasthan govt tells MHA

It may be recalled that the Income Tax Department had last week conducted searches in Jaipur in connection with a tax evasion case against a Rajasthan-based hydropower infrastructure company and some linked business groups.

Mahesh Joshi, the Congress' chief whip had condemned the I-T raids on premises linked to two Congress leaders.

The premises were linked to Congress leaders Rajiv Arora and Dharmendra Rathore.

Ashok Gehlot government plunged into political crisis after a rebellion by Sachin Pilot and MLAs loyal to him.

The BJP has 76 MLAs in the 200-member Rajasthan assembly and to form government, the party will need the support of at least 25 more MLAs.
US Orders Chinese Consulate in Houston to Close

The United States on July 22 said it ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston to close, according to State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.

The United States will not tolerate the PRCs violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRCs unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior. President Trump insists on fairness and reciprocity in U.S.-China relations, Ortagus said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

We have directed the closure of PRC consulate general Houston, in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

Ortagus did not offer further details, but pointed to a pair of statements from the Vienna Convention which mandate diplomats to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving state and have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that state.

China called the closure an unprecedented escalation and said it would retaliate if the United States did not revoke the order.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the United States gave it three days to close the consulate.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

We urge the U.S. to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures.

Wang said the consulate is operating normally. He did not respond to questions about reports of documents being burned in the courtyard of the consulate. A video sent to a local news station and posted on social media showed several open fire pits in the courtyard and what appear to be consulate staff.

It appears to be open burning in a container within the courtyard of the Chinese consulate facility. It does not appear to be an unconfined fire but we have not been allowed access, Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel Pena told KTRK.

We are standing by and monitoring.

Houston police told FOX 26 that staff there were burning documents because they are being evicted from the building.

The closure of the consulate comes on the heels of an indictment of two Chinese nationals for a decade-long cyber espionage campaign in which they were accused of stealing information on weapons designs, drug information, software source code, and personal data. The indictment is the latest in a vast, nationwide law enforcement campaign to counter the theft of U.S. intellectual property and other aspects of infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party.

Reuters contributed to this report.
If, for some hard-to-imagine reason, you actually wanted to contract COVID-19, you couldnt do better than head for a loud, crowded indoor space where people have to lean in close to talk. Oh, and where the longer they stay, the more their inhibitions melt away.

In fact, we have spaces just like that. Theyre called bars and nightclubs. And both common sense as well as experience around the world is showing that they are indeed ideal venues for spreading the coronavirus.

Thats been happening everywhere from California to Quebec, from Texas to South Korea. Young people partying in bars after long weeks in lockdown are getting COVID-19 and spreading it into the community.

This has to stop. In some U.S. states, governors have already reversed course; theyve closed bars and restaurants entirely after seeing what happened when they were allowed to open. In Quebec, the government has imposed stricter controls after outbreaks of COVID at some Montreal bars.

Toronto and the neighbouring region have a chance to get this right first time out. The city and Peel Region, along with the Windsor area, still havent been given the go-ahead by Queens Park to allow restaurants and bars to reopen for indoor service. Theyre being held in Stage 2 of Ontarios plan to restart the economy.

At the very minimum, the province should impose stricter controls on bars and restaurants before it allows Toronto, Peel and Windsor to move into Stage 3, with all that involves.

It should adopt the measures proposed over the weekend by Toronto Mayor John Tory to minimize the risk that will come when bars and restaurants are allowed to open in the city and region, as they already have in most of the province.

Those measures include requiring patrons to stay seated unless theyre paying or using the washroom; to wear masks while theyre not actually eating or drinking; earlier-than-usual closures; and requiring customers to leave their names and numbers for contact tracing in case of infection.

None of this will make visiting a bar or nightclub any more enjoyable. Just the opposite. But theyre the least we should do to reduce the risk of the pandemic breaking out and destroying the progress weve so painfully made over the past four months.

Its also important that the province impose these added restrictions across the board, and not leave it up to individual municipalities to act. The province can act faster, send a consistent message, and invoke tougher penalties for anyone who doesnt follow the rules.

All this is a minimum before we enter Stage 3. At the same time, its worth asking: why open indoor bars and nightclubs at all at this point?

Provinces and states that have gone down this road now have reason to regret it. And the evidence closer to home doesnt give much reason to hope that wed be the exception to this sorry pattern.

On Tuesday, Ontario reported 203 new cases of COVID-19, the highest daily number since the end of June. Thats cause enough for concern, but just as important is whos getting sick: its now mostly younger people, under the age of 39, not the older folks who contracted the disease in the first weeks.

This is consistent with the pattern south of the border, where more and more young people are coming down with the coronavirus after partying in bars and nightclubs. They typically dont get as sick as older people, but they can easily spread it to their more vulnerable parents and grandparents.

The danger here is obvious: if were going to have a chance of resuming something close to normal life in the fall, with schools and offices reopening, we have to get it right over the next six weeks. A second wave of COVID-19 would destroy that possibility.

Reopening bars and nightclubs simply isnt worth the risk. Ontario should think long and hard about taking that chance at this point. And if it does insist on going down that road, it should do everything possible to minimize the danger.
US hawks sanctioned by China keep interfering in various global issues

Global Times

Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/21 19:33:41

Editor note:

As US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's attacks on China escalate, observers noted that some US politicians are joining him to push China-US ties to the brink of a clear r upture. Anti-China US hawks are not only infamous in China, but also despised by many US progressives, according to observers.

China's Foreign Ministry on July 13 announced sanctions against US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback, US Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and US Representative Chris Smith, following US sanctions on Chinese officials over the Xinjiang issue.

The targeted individuals and groups are seen as the clowns of US politics for their far-right views on domestic affairs and meddling in international issues, said US observers.

"Regardless of the fundamental interests of the US people, these representatives and senators are poisoning the relationship of China and the US," Gao Zhikai, Chair Professor of Soochow University and Vice President of Center for China and Globalization, told the Global Times.

Gao noted that China has always adopted a moderate foreign policy, advocating seeking common ground while shelving differences. Sanctions are not China's usual practice. However, these anti-China forces in the US fabricate lies and confuse right and wrong. China has no choice but to take counter-sanctions.

Anti-China veterans

US Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are typical backers of the recent anti-China campaign led by the US.

Rubio has been involved in a wide range of China-bashing activities including the campaign to block the Chinese tech giant Huawei, promoting the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, opposing US companies' investment in China and demanding compensation from China over COVID-19.

Ted Cruz became one of the most prominent disruptive elements for his blatant foreign intervention in Hong Kong affairs. He gained an infamous reputation when he arrived in Hong Kong in October 2019, wearing a black shirt to mark his solidarity with Hong Kong rioters and support for the radical demonstrations that severely disrupted life in the city for months.

Many Chinese tagged Cruz as anti-Chinese and anti-Communist. He pushed for the bill to blacklist enterprises in Southwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region over false allegations of suppression of the Uygur minority.

On April 14, Cruz announced his intention to introduce the "Ending Chinese Medical Censorship and Cover Ups Act of 2020," legislation to sanction Chinese officials involved in the "ongoing suppression of medical experts, journalists, and political dissidents, amid Chinese censorship of its citizens that is helping to fuel the global pandemic of the coronavirus."

"Cruz and Rubio are highly unpopular even in the US. Both of them are despised by most young people, working class people and minorities for their right-wing ideology," Jack Campbell, a US observer focusing on China-US relations, told the Global Times.

"The senators are against universal healthcare, prison reform, public education, women's access to abortion, and LGBTQ rights while they support tax cuts for the rich and foreign wars in the Middle East and Latin America. This is why they are disliked by the left. Even some conservative Americans perceive them as being opportunists who care about their own political careers and uphold failed economic policies," said Campbell.

"Citizens in the US were more bothered by Ted Cruz not wearing a mask on an American Airlines flight last week. He lacks credibility with so many," Dede Nickerson, producer and adviser of Huanxi Media Group Ltd in the US, told the Global Times.

Many of the politicians sanctioned by the Chinese government are those "who happen to be 'blind' Trump supporters and have put American people and democracy at risk with their self-interest; they have no business attacking China, it's in nobody's interest," she said.

Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, another veteran anti-China hawk, proposed a bill in April calling for stripping China of its sovereign immunity and allowing US people to sue the Chinese government, according to his official website. Other Republicans such as Jim Banks joined the blame game in condemning the Chinese government's handling of the novel coronavirus epidemic.

Earlier in March 2019, Smith introduced legislation to tackle China's political influence in the US by saying "Beijing's influence operations are sophisticated and threatening."

Smith campaigns as a "moderate Republican" but in fact he's "similarly very extreme, having supported US hegemony as part of the UN delegation during the Obama administration," noted Campbell.

Sinophobia base camp

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) was established by US Congress in October 2000 with the legislative mandate to "monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China," and to submit an annual report to the US President and Congress.

The Commission consists of nine senators, nine members of the House of Representatives, and five senior administration officials appointed by the US president.

The CECC, staked with many anti-China senators has issued many reports with weak and even fake evidence criticizing China on issues involving Xinjiang and other religious topics. It invited Rebiya Kadeer, a separatist from Xinjiang who now resides in the US, to a hearing in 2018.

CECC's seemingly research-based reports attempt to make anti-China lawmakers' attacks on China appear to be scientific, which is what they lack most, Gao, the professor, told the Global Times.

They have made groundless accusations against China based in extreme ideology without comprehensive understanding of China, Gao said, adding that the US people are also victims of their lies.

CECC's reports are filled with negative anti-China information that influences other members of the Congress, Liu Weidong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of American Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Liu noted that these lawmakers are not scholars and have no rational consideration for China. They are not considering the national interest, but take the occasion to play for their own political interests.

Global meddler

Samuel Dale Brownback, a former US Republican Senator from Kansas, is now the US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom (IRF), which was formed after the adoption of International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998 and allows the US to meddle in the affairs of other countries in the name of religion.

The ambassador is designated by the US president directly and serves as an advisor for him on religious issues.

Brownback and the IRF office have smeared China on issues related to Xinjiang or Tibet since he was appointed by Donald Trump in 2018. Apart from distorting the facts, the IRF has meddled in other countries through tools such as its annual Report on International Religious Freedom.

For instance, the 2020 report listed countries such as Myanmar, China, Iran and Russia as "Countries of Particular Concern," and put countries such as Cuba and Uzbekistan on a "Special Watch List."

"This report has made bogus and baseless claims about our country," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said on April 30, refuting the US annual report on international religious freedom. "The US government has once again repeated the baseless and undocumented allegations" he said.

According to the Christianity Today, under the 2016 IRFA amendment, mandatory IRF training is provided to all Foreign Service officers - which today number 8,000 - before deployment overseas. "Religious freedom for all people worldwide is a foreign policy priority," read the executive order Trump signed on June 2.

Brownback has used religion to legitimize a number of other far-right positions, said Campbell.

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Massachusetts advocates blasted a memo signed by President Donald Trump Tuesday afternoon excluding undocumented immigrants from census counts that determine Congressional representation, calling the move unconstitutional.

This is just another desperate move for him to try to scare our immigrant community, said Patricia Sobalvarro, executive director of the Boston-based immigration organization Agencia ALPHA. I feel its just him trying to weaponize the Census and attack our immigrant community.

Sobalvarro and other immigrant rights advocates in Massachusetts raised concerns about the chilling effect the latest memo has on immigrant communities, who are already hesitant to take part in the decennial count.

The memo instructs U.S. Secretary of Commerce to exclude immigrants without legal status from apportionment after the 2020 Census.

The memo references Trump administrations efforts to put a citizenship question on the Census, which the U.S. Supreme Court blocked in a decision in July 2019. The memo does not explain how the U.S. Census Bureau could determine citizens from non-citizens and immigrants with legal status from those without immigration status.

Secretary of State William Galvin called the memo an almost unprecedented effort to politicize the Census, the State House News Service reported.

As of Tuesday, 64.2% of Massachusetts households have responded to the Census.

The memo has sparked criticism from elected officials, immigration attorneys and advocates who have spent more than a year encouraging foreign-born residents to take part in the count.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it would sue the Trump administration as it did to block the inclusion of a citizenship question.

Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, tweeted that excluding millions of people from being counted is unjust and unconstitutional.

Everyone deserves to be counted, Millona tweeted. Everyone deserves to be represented.

Excluding millions of people from being counted is not only unjust, its unconstitutional. Everyone deserves to be counted. Everyone deserves to be represented. #WeCount  Eva A. Millona (@EvaMillona) July 21, 2020

Roxana Rivera, vice president of 32BJ SEIU, said the contradicts the U.S. Constitutions mandate of a count to elicit fear in immigrant communities.

As one of the largest unions in the country with a majority immigrant membership, we support all efforts to defeat this outrage in court and will redouble our efforts to encourage every single person to get counted in Census 2020, Rivera said.

Its unclear exactly how many immigrants without legal status live in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center estimated last year that 185,000 undocumented immigrants call the Bay State home.

Agencia ALPHA in Boston, certified by the Board of Immigration Appeals to offer certain legal services, serves clients from more than 60 countries with varying forms of status. Most are from Latin America, but others hail from Greece, Morocco, Bangladesh, Nepal and elsewhere, Sobalvarro said.

The organization had planned to open questionnaire assistance centers and coordinate with churches to draw immigrants and other minorities who are considered historically hard to count to take the Census.

Those plans fell apart when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

We still encounter much resistance and mistrust and people are scared, right? she said. Because of their immigration status, it has been an uphill battle and I havent even gotten to the COVID part on how that just messed up our outreach efforts.

When the pandemic hit Massachusetts, Sobalvarro said the organization and others have reached out to residents through phone banks, Facebook Live sessions and communications over WhatsApp and other platforms.

She tells clients the count is key to making sure resources are made available to communities of color, including parts of Boston that were hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic.

While Trumps memo may make her work harder, Sobalvarro said residents cant afford not to be counted and lose out on federal funding.

Were not going to back down. Were going to continue to inform, be there for the community and understand that at the end of the day, if we dont partake in the census, we are hurting our own immigrant communities, she said.

Related Content:
Core's Board of Supervisory Directors ("Board") and the Company's Executive Management continue to focus on strategies that maximize return on invested capital ("ROIC") and free cash flow ("FCF"), a non-GAAP financial measure defined as cash from operations less capital expenditures, factors that have high correlation to total shareholder return. Core's asset-light business model and capital discipline promote capital efficiency and are designed to produce more predictable and superior long-term ROIC.

Cost Reduction Initiatives and Company Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

On 23 June 2020, the Company announced Phase 2 of cost reduction measures in response to market conditions and operational disruptions associated with COVID-19. Combined, the Phase 1 and Phase 2 cost reduction initiatives amount to reduced cash outflows of approximately $61,000,000, on an annualized basis, and in excess of $15,000,000 on a quarterly basis. Although substantially implemented throughout the second quarter of 2020, the now expanded cost reduction plan will be completed in the third quarter of 2020, further aligning Core Lab's operations with client activity levels. As previously announced, annual capital expenditures are expected to be reduced by approximately 50%, as compared to 2019. The Company will continue to monitor the outlook for the industry and evaluate Core's cost structure accordingly.

The following table summarizes the projected impact to cash flow associated with the actions described above. Compared to 2019, the forecast for 2020 shows reduced cash outflows totaling $142,600,000.

(in $ millions)

2019



Forecast

2020



Reduced

Cash

Outflows

vs

2019



Annualized

Reduced

Cash Outflows

Dividend Payout1

$ 97.7



$ 12.4



$ (85.3)



$ (95.9)

Capital Expenditures1



22.3





11.0





(11.3)





(11.3)

Cost Reduction Initiatives1









(46.0)





(46.0)





(61.0)

Reduced Cash Outflows

$ 120.0



$ (22.6)



$ (142.6)



$ (168.2)



































(1) Reduced dividend policy and reduced 2020 capital expenditure plan announced 16 March 2020. Cost reduction initiatives - Phase 1, announced 22 April 2020, Phase 2, announced 23 June 2020.



The Company continues to operate as an essential business with timely delivery of products and services to its clients during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The risks and uncertainties associated with COVID-19 continue to potentially have a material impact to both the Company's and its clients' operations.

Liquidity, Free Cash Flow, Dividends and Share Repurchases

During the second quarter of 2020, Core continued to generate FCF, with cash from operations of $27,000,000 and capital expenditures of $3,100,000, yielding FCF of $23,900,000. The second quarter of 2020 marks the 75th consecutive quarter that the Company generated positive FCF, despite the challenging market and industry conditions. Free cash was almost entirely focused towards reducing the Company's debt, as net debt was reduced by $23,000,000 during the second quarter 2020, and by $29,000,000 during the first half of 2020. Core will continue applying its excess free cash flow towards debt reduction for the foreseeable future.

As previously announced on 23 June 2020, in response to the economic events associated with COVID-19 and the related downturn in oil and gas industry activity, Core Lab successfully negotiated an amendment to the Company's Credit Facility (the "Amendment"). The Amendment provides an increase to the maximum leverage ratio (calculated as total net debt divided by trailing twelve months adjusted EBITDA) permitted under the Credit Facility, among other things.

As of 30 June 2020, the Company has $73,000,000 of excess capacity under its $225,000,000 Credit Facility, and anticipates it will continue to generate positive cash flow and reduce net debt, while maintaining ample liquidity.

On 28 April 2020, the Board announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.01 per share of common stock, which was paid on 19 May 2020 to shareholders of record on 8 May 2020. Dutch withholding tax was deducted from the dividend at a rate of 15%.

On 17 July 2020, the Board announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.01 per share of common stock, payable on 10 August 2020 to shareholders of record on 27 July 2020. Dutch withholding tax will be deducted from the dividend at a rate of 15%.

Reservoir Description

Reservoir Description revenue in the second quarter of 2020 was $88,400,000, down 14% sequentially. Operating income for the second quarter of 2020 on a GAAP basis was $13,500,000, while operating income, ex-items, was $15,100,000, yielding operating margins, ex-items, of 17%, up 200 BPS sequentially. The decline in revenue on a sequential basis was attributable to continued industry disruptions associated with COVID-19. On-going efforts to align the Reservoir Description segment with client activity levels helped to mitigate the impact to operating margins.

Reservoir Description operations are heavily exposed to international and offshore activity, with approximately 80% of its revenue sourced from projects outside the U.S., where core, reservoir fluid and derived product samples originate from international project activity. For example, during the second quarter of 2020, Core's Middle East operations continued to receive new work on highly specialized core and reservoir fluid projects throughout the region. Core's network of laboratories in the Middle East include strategic locations in Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Earlier this year Core completed the commissioning of a comprehensive reservoir fluids laboratory in Doha, Qatar, adding to its existing reservoir rock laboratory capabilities. This new fluids laboratory includes Core's proprietary, full visualization, high-pressure, high-temperature, pressure-volume-temperature ("PVT") cell instrumentation. These highly automated systems are uniquely designed to measure phase behavior of reservoir fluids with high concentrations of H 2 S and CO 2 gases commonly found in the region. Core expects continued demand for its proprietary laboratory services in the Middle East as a result of several factors, including the resumption of production from the Wafra oilfield, located within the Partitioned Neutral Zone in southern Kuwait, as well as the expansion of the North gas field in Qatar. Core continues to evaluate additional opportunities for laboratory expansion in the region to meet client requests.

Also in the second quarter of 2020, industry adoption of Core's proprietary, web-enabled data management system, Reservoir Applied Petrophysical Integrated Data service ("RAPID"), continued to increase, as the RAPID platform was adopted by a national oil company ("NOC") in the Middle East. RAPID provides this NOC with centralized, consistent, and easily accessible data in a secure format. RAPID enables the client to quickly and efficiently organize, archive, retrieve and analyze large quantities of geological, petrophysical, reservoir engineering, and reservoir fluids data, and will serve as the NOC's primary repository for this reservoir data. The RAPID platform also allows sophisticated database queries from a user-friendly interface. Coupled with Core Lab's Worldwide Rock Catalog, Core's Relative Permeability Toolkit, and other proprietary data tools, RAPID can be used to search for reservoir analogs, predict petrophysical and engineering parameters, and to integrate new laboratory data being acquired as part of on-going analytical programs. Core Lab continues its leadership role in the digitization of the oilfield, connecting data analytics tools, data lakes, and data mesh technologies. As the industry's pioneering database for subsurface reservoir data, RAPID has evolved and expanded over decades of commercial application, and has become the primary data platform for a suite of independent, national and international oil companies.

Production Enhancement

Production Enhancement operations, which are largely focused on complex completions in unconventional, tight-oil reservoirs in the U.S., as well as conventional offshore projects across the globe, posted second quarter 2020 revenue of $27,300,000, falling 45% sequentially. By comparison, the second quarter 2020 North American rig count and U.S. land completion activity fell over 60% on a sequential basis. Operating loss on a GAAP basis was $16,300,000, which includes non-cash charges of $11,600,000, associated with inventory write-downs, asset impairments and severance costs. Operating loss, ex-items, was $4,600,000. These results were partially mitigated by cost-control actions during the second quarter of 2020, limiting sequential quarterly decremental margins to 37%.

During the second quarter of 2020, Core's Plug-and-Abandonment ("PAC") energetic technology continued to gain market acceptance in the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico ("GOM") regions. When a well reaches the end of its economic life, an operator will determine a plug-and-abandonment strategy. Core's PAC energetic system technology penetrates a single casing string, or as many as four casing strings, without penetrating the outer casing. This technique enables the operator to establish circulation in the annular space between casing strings, and set functional cement barriers prior to abandoning the well. Compared with conventional section milling, Core Lab's PAC perforating methodology enables significant cost savings by reducing the number of rig days, saving the operator $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 per abandoned well. PAC provides Core's clients with an effective and efficient solution when executing multimillion-dollar plug-and-abandonment programs and demonstrates Core's Production Enhancement ballistic engineers' ability to adapt downhole technological advances to diverse industry needs.

As a result of the client's success with the PAC energetic system technology, Core Lab has been enlisted by additional NOC's to design plug-and-abandonment energetic systems for use in high cost, offshore environments. The Core Lab Engineering Testing Solutions team is receiving upfront funding from its client to design systems specific to each such operator's well design and casing requirements.

During the second quarter of 2020, Core's SpectraStim, SpectraScan, and PackScan downhole imaging technologies were utilized in a client's deepwater GOM well after a screen-out did not occur during the well completion. Prior to Core's client attempting a remediation program, Core's downhole imaging diagnostics were utilized to determine if an effective formation frac and annular pack, with ample proppant reserve above the top of the downhole sand control screen, had been achieved. Sufficient proppant placement in the annulus is required to restrict the migration of formation fines during production, and to keep mobile sand particles from cutting screens, damaging surface facilities, and filling the wellbore. To reduce operator rig time, Core's engineering team processed the diagnostic analysis within two hours of receiving downhole images from the rig site.

Core's conclusion from the diagnostic analysis was that the well did not require a top-off treatment. After discussions between the Production Enhancement engineering team and client, it was unanimously agreed that an effective frac and competent annular pack with ample proppant reserve had been obtained. Thus, a remedial top-off treatment costing more than $1,000,000 was not required, nor would it have been operationally successful if attempted. The client acknowledged the quality of Core's diagnostic analysis and the timeliness of execution.

Return On Invested Capital

The Company and its Board believe that ROIC is a leading long-term performance metric used by shareholders to determine the relative investment value of publicly traded companies. Further, the Company and its Board believe that shareholders will benefit if Core consistently performs at high levels of ROIC relative to its Comp Group. Core Lab's commitment to capital stewardship is driven in part by the Company's continuing philosophy of having a low capital-intensive business.

Events associated with the COVID-19 global pandemic have caused significant disruptions in global markets and economies, with adverse effects throughout the energy sector. These adverse effects have triggered significant asset impairments for goodwill, intangible assets, inventory and other fixed assets, which further distort underlying financial performance and performance metrics, such as ROIC.

The Company's Board has established an internal performance metric of demonstrating superior ROIC performance relative to the oilfield service companies listed as Core's Comp Group by Bloomberg. Core Lab recorded $122 million in non-cash charges associated with the impairment of goodwill and intangible assets. Excluding these non-cash asset impairments, Bloomberg's calculation of Core's ROIC was 8.5%, which continues to be higher than the Company's Weighted Average Cost of Capital ("WACC"). Under the current circumstances and considering the magnitude of the asset and goodwill impairment charges incurred across the energy industry, it is difficult to appropriately determine the underlying relative performance across the Bloomberg Comp Group as compared with Core Lab.

Industry and Core Lab Outlook

Although crude-oil prices improved from the lows seen in May, E&P companies further reduced their 2020 capital expenditure plans, especially in the U.S., as witnessed by a steep decline in the frac spread index and an over 60% decline in completion activity. As the third quarter of 2020 began, U.S. land activity improved slightly from the lows experienced during the middle of the second quarter. In addition, travel restrictions and supply chain disruptions associated with COVID-19 continue to delay international project activity.

Core continues to project international activity to be down approximately 10  15% year-over-year. The pace and breadth of recovery from COVID-19 restrictions remains highly uncertain, making it difficult to forecast the level and timing of client activity. Therefore, Core is unable to provide meaningful quantitative quarterly guidance. From a qualitative perspective, the Company expects project work and international shipment of products to improve somewhat during the second half of 2020 from the lows experienced mid-second quarter 2020.

For Reservoir Description, we expect reservoir fluids analysis, which accounts for more than 65% of this segment's revenue, to be more resilient given this work is not solely tied to drilling and completion of new wells.

Production Enhancement has a wide range of innovative product offerings with on-going projects unrelated to drilling and completion, including a large international plug and abandonment and well remediation program. Production Enhancement should track or outperform future improvements in U.S. land completions.

Earnings Call Scheduled

The Company has scheduled a conference call to discuss Core's second quarter 2020 earnings announcement. The call will begin at 7:30 a.m. CDT / 2:30 p.m. CEST on Thursday, 23 July 2020. To listen to the call, please go to Core's website at www.corelab.com .

Core Laboratories N.V. is a leading provider of proprietary and patented reservoir description and production enhancement services and products used to optimize petroleum reservoir performance. The Company has over 70 offices in more than 50 countries and is located in every major oil-producing province in the world. This release, as well as other statements we make, includes forward-looking statements regarding the future revenue, profitability, business strategies and developments of the Company made in reliance upon the safe harbor provisions of Federal securities law. The Company's outlook is subject to various important cautionary factors, including risks and uncertainties related to the oil and natural gas industry, business conditions, international markets, international political climates, public health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and any related actions taken by businesses and governments, and other factors as more fully described in the Company's most recent Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These important factors could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current expectations of the Company's performance and are subject to a variety of factors, some of which are not under the control of the Company. Because the information herein is based solely on data currently available, and because it is subject to change as a result of changes in conditions over which the Company has no control or influence, such forward-looking statements should not be viewed as assurance regarding the Company's future performance. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this press release, except as required by law.

Visit the Company's website at www.corelab.com. Connect with Core Lab on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

CORE LABORATORIES N.V. & SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (amounts in thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited)



Three Months Ended



% Variance







June 30, 2020



March 31,

2020



June 30, 2019



vs. Q1-20



vs. Q2-19



REVENUE

$ 115,736



$ 152,400



$ 169,038



(24.1)%



(31.5)%















































OPERATING EXPENSES:









































Costs of services and sales



90,680





115,131





124,451



(21.2)%



(27.1)%



General and administrative expense



9,221





19,567





9,801



(52.9)%



(5.9)%



Depreciation and amortization



5,425





5,441





5,786



(0.3)%



(6.2)%



Inventory write-down and impairments



9,932





122,204









(91.9)%



NM



Other (income) expense, net



3,045





(970)





992



NM



207.0%



Total operating expenses



118,303





261,373





141,030



(54.7)%



(16.1)%















































OPERATING INCOME (LOSS)



(2,567)





(108,973)





28,008



NM



NM



Interest expense



3,369





3,411





3,714



(1.2)%



(9.3)%



Income (loss) from continuing operations before income tax expense



(5,936)





(112,384)





24,294



NM



NM



Income tax expense (benefit)



(261)





(4,046)





4,808



NM



NM



Income (loss) from continuing operations



(5,675)





(108,338)





19,486



NM



NM



Income (loss) from discontinued operations, net of income taxes















7,971



NM



NM



Net income (loss)



(5,675)





(108,338)





27,457



NM



NM



Net income (loss) attributable to non- controlling interest



41





83





43



(50.6)%



(4.7)%



Net income (loss) attributable to Core Laboratories N.V.

$ (5,716)



$ (108,421)



$ 27,414



NM



NM















































Diluted EPS (loss per share) from continuing operations

$ (0.13)



$ (2.44)



$ 0.43



NM



NM















































Diluted EPS (loss per share) attributable to Core Laboratories N.V.

$ (0.13)



$ (2.44)



$ 0.61



NM



NM















































Weighted average diluted common shares outstanding



44,470





44,447





44,815



0.1%



(0.8)%















































Effective tax rate



(4) %



(4) %



20 %

NM



NM















































SEGMENT INFORMATION:





















































































Revenue:









































Reservoir Description

$ 88,442



$ 102,702



$ 105,649



(13.9)%



(16.3)%



Production Enhancement



27,294





49,698





63,389



(45.1)%



(56.9)%



Total

$ 115,736



$ 152,400



$ 169,038



(24.1)%



(31.5)%















































Operating income (loss):









































Reservoir Description

$ 13,534



$ 11,062



$ 15,878



22.3%



(14.8)%



Production Enhancement



(16,324)





(121,299)





10,424



NM



NM



Corporate and Other



223





1,264





1,706



NM



NM



Total

$ (2,567)



$ (108,973)



$ 28,008



NM



NM















































"NM" means not meaningful











































CORE LABORATORIES N.V. & SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (amounts in thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited)



Six Months Ended



% Variance







June 30, 2020



June 30, 2019











REVENUE

$ 268,136



$ 338,232



(20.7)%































OPERATING EXPENSES:

























Costs of services and sales



205,811





251,834



(18.3)%



General and administrative expense



28,788





27,238



5.7%



Depreciation and amortization



10,866





11,373



(4.5)%



Inventory write-down and impairments



132,136









NM



Other (income) expense, net



2,075





3,365



(38.3)%



Total operating expenses



379,676





293,810



29.2%































OPERATING INCOME (LOSS)



(111,540)





44,422



NM



Interest expense



6,780





7,440



(8.9)%



Income (loss) from continuing operations before income tax expense



(118,320)





36,982



NM



Income tax expense (benefit)



(4,307)





(22,802)



NM



Income (loss) from continuing operations



(114,013)





59,784



NM



Income (loss) from discontinued operations, net of income taxes









8,230



NM



Net income (loss)



(114,013)





68,014



NM



Net income (loss) attributable to non-controlling interest



124





90



37.8%



Net income (loss) attributable to Core Laboratories N.V.

$ (114,137)



$ 67,924



NM































Diluted EPS (loss per share) from continuing operations

$ (2.57)



$ 1.33



NM































Diluted EPS (loss per share) attributable to Core Laboratories N.V.

$ (2.57)



$ 1.51



NM































Weighted average diluted common shares outstanding



44,459





44,848



(0.9)%































Effective tax rate



(4) %



(62) %

NM































SEGMENT INFORMATION:





















































Revenue:

























Reservoir Description

$ 191,144



$ 208,941



(8.5)%



Production Enhancement



76,992





129,291



(40.5)%



Total

$ 268,136



$ 338,232



(20.7)%































Operating income (loss):

























Reservoir Description

$ 24,596



$ 22,057



11.5%



Production Enhancement



(137,623)





20,336



NM



Corporate and Other



1,487





2,029



NM



Total

$ (111,540)



$ 44,422



NM































"NM" means not meaningful

CORE LABORATORIES N.V. & SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET (amounts in thousands) (Unaudited)



























% Variance



ASSETS:

June 30,

2020



March 31,

2020



June 30,

2019



vs. Q1-20



vs. Q2-19















































Cash and cash equivalents

$ 20,958



$ 13,890



$ 12,546



50.9%



67.0%



Accounts receivable, net



101,464





126,872





134,900



(20.0)%



(24.8)%



Inventory



41,528





52,263





49,311



(20.5)%



(15.8)%



Other current assets



27,443





26,682





28,476



2.9%



(3.6)%



Total Current Assets



191,393





219,707





225,233



(12.9)%



(15.0)%















































Property, plant and equipment, net



119,866





123,112





125,699



(2.6)%



(4.6)%



Right-of-use assets



70,147





74,943





76,290



(6.4)%



(8.1)%



Intangibles, goodwill and other long-term assets, net



233,035





228,847





354,296



1.8%



(34.2)%



Total assets

$ 614,441



$ 646,609



$ 781,518



(5.0)%



(21.4)%















































LIABILITIES AND EQUITY:





















































































Accounts payable

$ 23,693



$ 37,054



$ 41,995



(36.1)%



(43.6)%



Short-term operating lease obligations



12,028





12,583





12,968



(4.4)%



(7.2)%



Other current liabilities



63,563





58,810





69,863



8.1%



(9.0)%



Total current liabilities



99,284





108,447





124,826



(8.4)%



(20.5)%















































Long-term debt, net



286,610





302,420





290,022



(5.2)%



(1.2)%



Long-term operating lease obligations



57,449





60,162





62,737



(4.5)%



(8.4)%



Other long-term liabilities



104,951





105,506





111,441



(0.5)%



(5.8)%















































Total equity



66,147





70,074





192,492



(5.6)%



(65.6)%



Total liabilities and equity

$ 614,441



$ 646,609



$ 781,518



(5.0)%



(21.4)%





"NM" means not meaningful

CORE LABORATORIES N.V. & SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (amounts in thousands) (Unaudited)



Three Months Ended





June 30, 2020



March 31, 2020



June 30, 2019

CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES























Income (loss) from continuing operations

$ (5,675)



$ (108,338)



$ 19,486

Income (loss) from discontinued operations















7,971

Net Income (loss)

$ (5,675)



$ (108,338)



$ 27,457

Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:























Stock-based compensation



2,865





10,530





3,245

Depreciation and amortization



5,425





5,441





5,786

Deferred income tax



(180)





(7,374)





(3,356)

Inventory write-down and impairments



9,932





122,204







Gain on sale of business















(1,154)

Gain on sale of discontinued operations















(8,808)

Accounts receivable



24,288





4,784





(2,385)

Inventory



987





(2,285)





1,492

Accounts payable



(12,343)





132





(399)

Other adjustments to net income (loss)



1,697





(3,069)





(4,798)

Net cash provided by operating activities

$ 26,996



$ 22,025



$ 17,080



























CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES























Capital expenditures

$ (3,066)



$ (3,340)



$ (7,047)

Proceeds from sale of business















2,980

Proceeds from sale of discontinued operations















16,642

Other investing activities



(206)





(544)





(316)

Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities

$ (3,272)



$ (3,884)



$ 12,259



























CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES























Repayment of debt borrowings

$ (26,000)



$ (20,000)



$ (36,000)

Proceeds from debt borrowings



10,000





17,000





31,000

Dividends paid



(445)





(11,111)





(24,395)

Repurchase of treasury shares



(198)





(1,238)





(604)

Other financing activities



(13)





6







Net cash used in financing activities

$ (16,656)



$ (15,343)



$ (29,999)



























NET CHANGE IN CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS



7,068





2,798





(660)

CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, beginning of period



13,890





11,092





13,206

CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, end of period

$ 20,958



$ 13,890



$ 12,546



CORE LABORATORIES N.V. & SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (amounts in thousands) (Unaudited)



Six Months Ended





June 30, 2020



June 30, 2019

CASH FLOWS FROM OPERATING ACTIVITIES















Income (loss) from continuing operations

$ (114,013)



$ 59,784

Income (loss) from discontinued operations









8,230

Net Income (loss)

$ (114,013)



$ 68,014

Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:















Stock-based compensation



13,395





14,341

Depreciation and amortization



10,866





11,373

Deferred income tax



(7,554)





(35,116)

Inventory write-down and impairments



132,136







Gain on sale of business









(1,154)

Gain on sale of discontinued operations









(8,808)

Accounts receivable



29,072





(6,321)

Inventory



(1,298)





(2,915)

Accounts payable



(12,211)





947

Other adjustments to net income



(1,372)





1,875

Net cash provided by operating activities

$ 49,021



$ 42,236



















CASH FLOWS FROM INVESTING ACTIVITIES















Capital expenditures

$ (6,406)



$ (12,230)

Proceeds from sale of business









2,980

Proceeds from sale of discontinued operations









16,642

Other investing activities



(750)





(338)

Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities

$ (7,156)



$ 7,054



















CASH FLOWS FROM FINANCING ACTIVITIES















Repayment of debt borrowings

$ (46,000)



$ (68,000)

Proceeds from debt borrowings



27,000





68,000

Dividends paid



(11,556)





(48,769)

Repurchase of treasury shares



(1,436)





(1,091)

Other financing activities



(7)







Net cash used in financing activities

$ (31,999)



$ (49,860)



















NET CHANGE IN CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS



9,866





(570)

CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, beginning of period



11,092





13,116

CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, end of period

$ 20,958



$ 12,546



Non-GAAP Information

Management believes that the exclusion of certain income and expenses enables it to evaluate more effectively the Company's operations period-over-period and to identify operating trends that could otherwise be masked by the excluded Items. For this reason, we use certain non-GAAP measures that exclude these Items; and we feel that this presentation provides a clearer comparison with the results reported in prior periods. The non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for, the financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP, as more fully discussed in the Company's financial statement and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reconciliation of Operating Income, Income from Continuing Operations and Earnings Per Diluted Share from Continuing Operations (amounts in thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited)



Operating Income (loss) from Continuing Operations



Three Months Ended



June 30, 2020

March 31, 2020

June 30, 2019 GAAP reported

$ (2,567)

$ (108,973)

$ 28,008 Inventory write-down and impairments 1



9,932



122,204



 Cost reduction and other charges



3,415



1,155



2,977 Stock compensation 2







6,750



 Gain on sale of business











(1,154) Foreign exchange losses (gains)



(98)



(576)



(218) Excluding specific items

$ 10,682

$ 20,560

$ 29,613





Income (loss) from Continuing Operations



Three Months Ended



June 30, 2020

March 31, 2020

June 30, 2019 GAAP reported

$ (5,675)

$ (108,338)

$ 19,486 Inventory write-down and impairments 1



9,495



113,181



 Cost reduction and other charges



3,265



924



2,381 Debt issuance cost write-off



328







 Stock compensation 2







6,750



 Gain on sale of business











(1,154) Impact of higher (lower) tax rate 3



(1,208)



1,663



181 Foreign exchange losses (gains)



(79)



(461)



(174) Excluding specific items

$ 6,126

$ 13,719

$ 20,720





Earnings (Loss) Per Diluted Share from Continuing Operations



Three Months Ended



June 30, 2020

March 31, 2020

June 30, 2019 GAAP reported

$ (0.13)

$ (2.44)

$ 0.43 Inventory write-down and impairments 1



0.21



2.53



 Cost reduction and other charges



0.07



0.02



0.06 Debt issuance cost write-off



0.01







 Stock compensation 2







0.15



 Gain on sale of business











(0.03) Impact of higher (lower) tax rate 3



(0.02)



0.04



 Impact on assuming dilution







0.02



 Foreign exchange losses







(0.01)



 Excluding specific items

$ 0.14

$ 0.31

$ 0.46



















(1) Three months ended June 30, 2020 includes inventory write-down charge of $9.9 million; Three months ended March 31, 2020 includes goodwill impairment charge of $114 million. (2) Stock compensation expense recognized pursuant to FASB ASC 718 "Stock Compensation" associated with executives reaching eligible retirement age, which is nondeductible in the U.S. (3) Includes adjustments to reflect tax expense at a normalized rate of 20%. Three months ended June 30, 2020 includes inventory write-down charge; Three months ended March 31, 2020 includes impairment charge and stock compensation expense which are partially deductible and nondeductible.

Segment Information (amounts in thousands) (Unaudited)





Operating Income (Loss) from Continuing Operations



Three Months Ended June 30, 2020



Reservoir

Description

Production

Enhancement

Corporate and

Other GAAP reported

$ 13,534

$ (16,324)

$ 223 Foreign exchange losses



(98)



135



(135) Cost reduction and other charges



1,448



1,967



 Inventory write-down and impairments



265



9,667



 Excluding specific items

$ 15,149

$ (4,555)

$ 88

Return on Invested Capital

Return on Invested Capital ("ROIC") is based on Bloomberg's calculation on the trailing four quarters from the most recently reported quarter and the balance sheet of the most recent reported quarter, and is presented based on our belief that this non-GAAP measure is useful information to investors and management when comparing our profitability and the efficiency with which we have employed capital over time relative to other companies. ROIC is not a measure of financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to net income.

ROIC is defined by Bloomberg as Net Operating Profit (Loss) ("NOP") less Cash Operating Tax ("COT") divided by Total Invested Capital ("TIC"), where NOP is defined as GAAP net income before minority interest plus the sum of income tax expense, interest expense, and pension expense less pension service cost and COT is defined as income tax expense plus the sum of the change in net deferred taxes, and the tax effect on interest expense and TIC is defined as GAAP stockholder's equity plus the sum of net long-term debt, allowance for doubtful accounts, net balance of deferred taxes, income tax payable, and other charges.

Reconciliation of ROIC (amounts in millions, except for ROIC and WACC data) (Unaudited)





Bloomberg



Effect of non-cash charges

Excluding non-cash charges

Net operating profit

$ (28.9)



$ 122.2

$ 93.3

Cash operating taxes



50.1





(1.4)



48.7

Total invested capital



418.7





104.1



522.8

























Return on invested capital



(18.9) %

NM



8.5 % Weighted average cost of capital



6.1 %















Free Cash Flow

Core uses the non-GAAP measure of free cash flow to evaluate its cash flows and results of operations. Free cash flow is an important measurement because it represents the cash from operations, in excess of capital expenditures, available to operate the business and fund non-discretionary obligations. Free cash flow is not a measure of operating performance under GAAP, and should not be considered in isolation nor construed as an alternative consideration to operating income, net income, earnings per share, or cash flows from operating, investing, or financing activities, each as determined in accordance with GAAP. Free cash flow should not be considered a measure of liquidity. Moreover, since free cash flow is not a measure determined in accordance with GAAP and thus is susceptible to varying interpretations and calculations, free cash flow as presented may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies.

Computation of Free Cash Flow (amounts in thousands) (Unaudited)















Three Months Ended

Six Months Ended





June 30, 2020

June 30, 2020

Net cash provided by operating activities

$ 26,996

$ 49,021

Capital expenditures



(3,066)



(6,406)

Free cash flow

$ 23,930

$ 42,615



SOURCE Core Laboratories N.V.

Related Links

http://www.corelab.com


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Linkedin Tri Indah Oktavianti and Ghina Ghaliya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 12:22 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668640b2 1 National house-of-representatives,djoko-tjandra,Commission-III Free

The Indonesian Anticorruption Community (MAKI) reported House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Azis Syamsudin to the House's ethics council on Tuesday for prohibiting lawmakers from holding a hearing during recess to discuss the case of fugitive Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra.

House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, initially planned to hold a hearing with the National Police, the Attorney General's Office (AGO) and the Law and Human Rights Ministry over the issuance of a travel letter for Djoko by police officers, which had also been reported by MAKI to the commission.

The hearing is an urgent matter as it will help the government solve the case. It will also provide a recommendation to further trace those involved in helping Djoko, MAKI coordinator Boyamin Saiman said in a statement on Tuesday.

Azis said on Tuesday that he decided not to grant permission for the hearing because the House was in recess until Aug. 13.

Lets not argue about administrative matters because I dont want to disobey the Houses code of conduct and the Houses Steering Committees [Bamus] decision prohibiting any hearings during recess," the Golkar Party politician said in a statement on Tuesday.

He went on to say that lawmakers were able to make work-related visits during the recess, thus he recommended that Commission III conduct a field inspection with relevant authorities in relation to the issuance of Djoko's travel letter.

The rules are supposed to be adhered to by all House members. I cant think of why anyone would be so persistent to demand a hearing for Djoko Tjandras case, Azis added.

MAKI, however, claimed that House Speaker Puan Maharani had agreed to the hearing proposal.

Read also: Fugitive Djoko Tjandra skips another hearing, reportedly residing in Malaysia

Boyamin argued that hearings during recess were allowed and would not violate Bamus' decision as long as the commission was granted permission.

We have seen many hearings during previous breaks, Boyamin argued, adding that it was also possible for the meeting to be conducted virtually, if necessary.

Azis Syamsudin may have violated the code of ethics by hindering the House in undergoing its supervisory role, he added, suspecting Azis to have other interests in relation to the matter.

Commission III member Hinca Pandjaitan deplored the prohibition of the planned hearing, saying that Article 53 of the Houses code of conduct allowed House commissions to conduct supervisory hearings during recess to handle urgent matters.

It is related to a fundamental subject and it is a part of the Houses function. Thus, it is necessary, the Democratic Party politician said.

Djoko, a convict in the high-profile Bank Bali corruption case, has remained at large for more than a decade ever since he fled to Papua New Guinea after being sentenced to two years' imprisonment and ordered to pay Rp 546 billion (US$37 million) in restitution by the Supreme Court in June 2009.

He reportedly returned to Indonesia without being detected by the immigration office and filed a review of his case in early June. He was able to obtain a new electronic identification card and passport and had his red notice status lifted.

Three high-ranking police officers have been removed from their posts over their alleged involvement in helping the fugitive travel within the country.
MINNEAPOLIS - Why do some people stay sharp into their 90s, even if they have the amyloid plaques in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's disease? And why do others reach their 90s without ever developing any plaques? These questions are explored in a new study published in the July 22, 2020, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study involved 100 people who did not have dementia and were followed for up to 14 years, when they were an average of 92 years old. The people had tests of their thinking and memory skills and imaging scans to see whether they had amyloid-beta plaques in their brains.

"With more and more people living into their 90s and even 100s, it's increasingly important that we be able to understand and predict the factors that help people preserve their thinking skills as they age and determine if there are any changes people can make during their younger years that can improve their chances of cognitive resilience," said study author Beth E. Snitz, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

The researchers found that people who had normal scores on the thinking and memory tests at the start of the study were less likely to develop later problems with their thinking abilities, even if they had amyloid plaques in their brains.

"This finding is consistent with the theory that people with better lifelong thinking and memory skills have a 'cognitive reserve' that provides a buffer of protection against changes in the brain," Snitz said. "They can better compensate for any underlying brain changes."

They also found that people with the gene variant called APOE 2, or apolipoprotein E 2, which has been associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease, were more resistant to developing amyloid plaques than people who did not have that form of the gene.

People with the APOE 2 gene version were six times less likely to develop plaques than people without the gene. Although protective, it is an uncommon version of the gene: only 10 out of 100 people in this study had it. Of those 10, seven people, or 70%, avoided plaques, compared to three people, or 30%, who did develop plaques.

Some modifiable lifestyle factors also played a role in successful brain aging. People who never smoked were more than 10 times more likely to maintain their thinking skills even with plaques than people who were smokers. People who had high scores on a blood pressure measure called pulse pressure were more likely to have a greater increase in plaques over time than people whose scores were lower. Pulse pressure is the systolic pressure, or the top number in a blood pressure reading, minus the diastolic, or the bottom number. Pulse pressure increases with age and is an index of the aging of the vascular system.

A limitation of the study was that participants were not randomly selected; they volunteered to take part over a long period of time and were mostly white people, highly educated and in overall good health. For these reasons, the results may not apply to other groups.

###

The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more about the brain at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology's free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the hashtags #Neurology and #AANscience.

The American Academy of Neurology is the world's largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 36,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Media Contacts:

Renee Tessman, rtessman@aan.com, (612) 928-6137

M.A. Rosko, mrosko@aan.com, (612) 928-6169
Luna Tringale, 6, sister Anaya Tringale, 5, father Rolando Tringale and mother Kamren Curiel are preparing for school to resume next month. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The advertisements started popping up on social media almost immediately after Los Angeles Unified School District said campuses would remain closed for the start of the school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We're looking for a TA/College student to help with LAUSD's virtual learning for the new school year. Parents are WFH. Kids are 5th, 3rd and potentially K. We're starting a learning pod with another family. Any TA's on the westside ... looking for work?"

"ISO: Teacher/Tutor for 2nd grader and a little Kinder if possible. Would be open to hosting a very small pod in our back yard."

"I am looking for a TA or tutor to help facilitate remote learning with my twin 1st graders and my 5th grader. I am thinking 3-4 hours a day, 4-5 days a week... Added perk, I am a really good baker."

With most schools across California closed for the foreseeable future, families with financial resources are rushing to hire tutors and teachers to augment distance learning with children individually or in small groups in their spacious backyards or homes, creating an overnight coronavirus cottage industry: "learning pods."

Such cohorts of families, neighbors or classmates are a consequence of parents who must fully get back to work and can no longer take on schooling and the pressure of supervising online learning alone. Instead, they are reimagining education on their own terms to keep their children on track academically and socially.

Displeased with the quality of her son's distance learning at Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks, Maryam Qudrat, a professor at Cal State Long Beach and co-founder of the group Concerned Parents L.A., said she is considering pooling resources with parents to get kids together and hire teachers.

Fabielle Covington, a stay-at-home mom in Castaic, is looking to hire a tutor for her son, who is entering the second grade. "The whole Zoom thing did not work for us," she said.

Story continues

But these accelerated moves could further exacerbate the equity gap among rich and poor students, some education researchers say. Underserved Latino and Black students, those without full digital access, English learners and those with disabilities will be left even farther behind.

In addition, low-income, Latino and Black families are disproportionately suffering from COVID-19 infection. Students in those communities are less likely to have a household environment conducive to learning pods, and some parents say they are fearful of letting outsiders into their homes.

But students learning in person with a teacher "are getting the social and emotional development of being together physically  and safely, hopefully  that in isolation children are not getting, said UC Berkeley education and African American studies professor Janelle Scott.

Education officials recommend against podding.

"In-person 'pods' do not align with current Public Health directives against gatherings with people who are not part of your household," L.A. County Office of Education spokeswoman Margo Minecki said.





What do pods look like?

Although some families and students have adjusted well to online learning, the learning pod movement is gaining traction.

Since L.A. Unified shut down, retired teacher Julie Kohner, who advertised her services on Nextdoor, has received five to 10 calls a day from parents, she said. Families, many with kindergarten or first-grade children, have asked for individual tutoring or in pods of five to six children, who would meet in one of their backyards or in Kohner's Bel-Air backyard, which she said is set up with 6-foot tables. All would wear masks, she said.

Kohner plans to use schools' existing distance-learning curriculum  students would remain enrolled in their schools  and expand on it with math, spelling, writing, English, storytelling, art and music. Her one-on-one tutoring rate is $60 an hour. But pod teaching is a new concept  she's still working that rate out.

While the tutoring industry is well-established, companies are pivoting to meet the "pod" demand, said Roman Slavinsky, owner and chief executive of A+ Tutoring.

He compares outdoor tutoring to outdoor dining, with kids socially distanced and teachers "hovering." His company's pod services, which will begin Aug. 1, aim to supplement and build on schools' Zoom learning. In one likely scenario, he said, after morning distance learning from the child's current school, the pod would meet at a house with a teacher to work with students to master concepts, ensure homework gets done and provide enrichment activities such as art projects.

Slavinksy said he is offering "early bird" pricing for the pods ranging from $20 to $55 per kid per hour. Based in the San Fernando Valley, he is fielding requests from Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Brentwood and Santa Monica. Nonprofits also pay the company to provide some tutoring for students who cannot afford it, including foster youth.

Rhea Nandi Stewart and her husband, Mike Stewart, redid their Long Beach backyard when quarantine began, knowing that they would use this space for social distancing to let students come over for group projects. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

When the closures began in March, Rhea Nandi Stewart and her family revamped their Long Beach backyard and added a new sofa set to create a space for social-distanced visits and group work for their high school-aged son and daughter. She opened her home to three other teenagers  neighbors and close friends of her children  whose parents have essential jobs during the day.

We made a decision to open it up mainly for the mental health of our kids, and I think ... itll help them be motivated" to actually do schoolwork, she said. We took a calculated risk. But to isolate my children and to have them on TikTok and Snapchat all day long without seeing their friends, it just didnt make sense anymore."

'I haven't been able to do that'

But not everyone has a backyard, nor the money to hire a tutor or teacher.

I havent been able to do that because most of my friends, they dont want that physical contact, said Maria Thalia Carmona, whose two children attend Lillian Street Elementary School in South L.A.

"Were mostly working class, and we go to factories and we take the bus," Carmona said. "[We] encounter more interaction with other people and more surfaces."

Julia Ortiz and her three children  ages 18, 17 and 10  all sleep on inflatable mattresses in her parents' Boyle Heights home. During school days one child works from the living room, one from the kitchen and one from Grandma's room. It's difficult to sustain, and her 10-year-old son is losing interest in school and falling farther behind.

The nonprofit Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, which provides dropout prevention and other services for about 1,000 families in L.A., is working to find and pay for a tutor who would help Ortiz's son remotely, said executive director Elmer Roldan. The organization is surveying its families to gauge the need for tutors, and collecting donations.

But unlike private agreements among families, the organization will comply with social distancing guidelines and can't fund in-person tutoring or pods.

In addition, some families, including the Ortiz's, do not feel comfortable allowing non-household visitors into their home. Were not going to know exactly where theyve been," Ortiz said. "I do not want to expose my kids to any of that.

These disparate circumstances could have a major impact on educational inequities, many advocates say.

Schools are going to have to recognize that the learning gaps are going to get bigger ... because the kids who are getting connected and who are logging on are going to be much more prepared," UCLA education professor Tyrone Howard said. Add to that the benefits of in-person interaction and tutoring, and the advantage is compounded.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that the state is working on closing the digital divide between families, but that there is much work to be done. He applauded parents who are sharing "best practices, not just pain and struggles and suffering," with one another online.

Families who rely on schools to provide aid for their children with disabilities face a double challenge. Bell mother Joana Rico Carbajal's son is supposed to receive speech therapy, but is not getting that treatment remotely. She worries, yet is still most comfortable with remote learning for her children.

In some schools parents are trying to plan for learning that will help all students.

Parents in Highland Park send messages about parent-organized Zoom sessions such as cooking, yoga and Friday dance parties via email and share resources on Facebook, in English and Spanish, said incoming Aldama Elementary Parent Teacher Assn. Vice President Kamren Curiel, who stays home with her daughters, ages 6 and 5, while her husband works as a doctor.

"Its not going to be easy and were not going to be great at it," Curiel said. But for parents who are front-line workers or who do not speak English, "its going to fall on the kids.

Staff writer Howard Blume contributed to this report.
A leading Conservative MP clashed with Newsnight host Emily Maitlis after he blamed the media for rehashing the stale debate about the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has urged the government to investigate potential Russian interference in the 2016 EU referendum  a call immediately rejected by the government.

Bob Seely MP, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, was dismissive of the idea of looking over the past and pointed out that weve left the European Union during his appearance on the BBC programme.

On the debate about Brexit, I can understand why the media is going for this, but I do think this is rehashing a rather stale debate about Brexit, he said.

The Newsnight host fired back: Hang on a second  the media is not having that debate  you heard it raised by the ISC, who called for an inquiry to be opened.

Ms Maitlis added: [The media] are looking at the calls from the committee  and the reason were looking at it because there was absolutely no curiosity on the part of your government and successive governments to actually find out what went on.

The ISC concluded that the government did not want to know if there had been Russian interference in 2016 vote  and had actively avoided looking for evidence.

Mr Seely conceded that the lack of protection in the Scottish referendum and the lack of protection and care in the Brexit referendum were both wrong.

The influential MP added: Weve left the European Union. We can go back and have a look at whether something happened, and Im not opposed to that  I just think there are far more serious things now, actively, that we should be considering.

The committee chair suggested the government could consider introducing legislation to toughen up on espionage and foreign lobbying in the UK, rather than going back and looking over the past.
Twelve days after notorious Uttar Pradesh gangster Vikas Dubey was killed in a police encounter, his wife Richa Dubey has expressed faith in the judicial system and said she is confident of getting justice for her husband, who was "used and destroyed" by the police.

She said that during the pandemic-triggered lockdown, policemen would have lunch and dinner at their Bikru village residence and many of them even stayed overnight. "The police used him and then destroyed him. I have full faith in the Constitution and justice will prevail," she was quoted as having said.

In an interview to a local daily, Richa said that on the night of the Bikru incident in which eight policemen were ambushed and killed by Vikas and his gang, she received a call from her husband around 2am on July 3.

"He asked me to flee our Lucknow home immediately as several people had been killed in Bikru. I kept running till I found shelter at a friend's place. That was the last time I spoke to him and after that I got updates from media reports," she said.

However, she refused to disclose where she had taken refuge.

Richa said that her husband was not as ruthless as he was being made out to be. "He may have been a criminal, but was a caring husband and a father. He loved his two children. Every month, we received Rs 40,000 as expenses. My elder son, Shantanu, is studying medicine in Russia and my younger son, Akash, scored 90 per cent in his Class 12 exams.

"I do not know what happened in Bikru that night. My husband is dead but my hopes are still alive," she said.

Richa said that Vikas Dubey was a good friend of her brother Raju Nigam. "I met him in 1990 and it was my brother who got us married," she said.

She said that Vikas would resolve disputes in his village and people came to him with their problems. "His was the last word in Bikru," she stated.

Richa further said that due to his criminal profile, Dubey had decided to build a house in Lucknow in 2004, where the children would be away from local politics. "He wanted them to study and lead a better life," she said.

Richa also spoke of her uneasy relationship with her mother-in-law, Sarla Devi, but said that Vikas Dubey would always honour his parent's wishes. "If anybody pleaded before my mother-in-law or father-in-law, Vikas would not act against them," she said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

A ceremony of acceptance and delivery of medical masks brought to Azerbaijan by South Korea within a project on assistance in fight against the COVID-19 pandemic was held at the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 22, Trend reports citing the Azerbaijani MFA.

Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Ramiz Hasanov, Deputy Chairman of the State Agency on Mandatory Health Insurance Nigar Bayramova and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Korea to Azerbaijan Kim Tong Op took part at the ceremony.

In his speech, Hasanov said that the transfer of medical masks by the Korean government to Azerbaijan is a symbol of solidarity with the Azerbaijani people and expressed gratitude for this on behalf of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the end of the event, Nigar Bayramova and Kim Tong Op signed an Act of Acceptance and Delivery of disinfectants delivered by the Korean government to Azerbaijan to help fight the pandemic.
Mukesh Chhabra discusses his filmmaking journey with Sushant Singh Rajput, and why his directorial debut does not feel the same anymore.

Dil Bechara director Mukesh Chhabra gave Sushant Singh Rajput his first break in Kai Po Che!, in the capacity of the casting director. To return the favour, Rajput agreed to launch Chhabras career as a director when he agreed to do Dil Bechara.

Sushant was a committed guy. He made sure that he fulfilled his promise, says Chhabra, who is struggling to cope with the loss of his lead actor and close friend. He finds it extremely difficult to celebrate the career milestone, with the lead actor no longer around to celebrate their labour of love.

I dont know what the happiness for your first film is like. I am not even enjoying the moment, says the director. Chhabras debut directorial with Rajput, an adaptation of the bestselling novel and Hollywood star-crossed romance The Fault In Our Stars, also features newcomer Sanjana Sanghi as a young woman battling cancer.

Chhabra builds on the mixed emotion of happiness and a sense of loss, which also reflects in his film. Actually, it is a very weird, bittersweet feeling. I dont know how a director feels for his debut film. I have realised my dream of making a film but I dont understand whether to laugh or cry. Do you jump with joy and excitement? I really dont know how to react to the kind of love the trailer got. In my case, everything is so different. I am not even thinking this is my first film. I am still in disbelief, and cannot come to terms with it (Rajput's death). The last conversation he had with Rajput was on his birthday on 27 May. We had a normal conversation. Everything was fine. I didnt know that he had any issues, says the director.

Rajput and Chhabra met for the first time for the Kai Po Che! audition, and their bond strengthened over the years. I used to love his energy, his charm, his talent, his intelligence, and that is the reason I selected him for the film. But films were a very small part of his life. He had many other goals, ambitions. His thinking was very different. He used to always tell me that films are not everything, life is bigger than films, and there are so many other things to follow. He was into stars, travelling, NASA. He had so many dreams. Next, I auditioned him for PK (2014), and after that, he didnt have to audition for his other films. A few years later, I auditioned him for Kedarnath. He used to always share with me the films he was taking up. He was a huge part of my life, my family. He would spend a lot of time in my office, whether he was shooting or not, says Chhabra.

It was sometime in 2017, Chhabra recalls, Rajput promised him that whenever he made his first film, he would be happy to be part of it. I also promised him that I will cast him. I like emotional stories, and I also wanted to debut with one, also because people easily connect with emotional stories. Many people wanted to make this film but did not succeed. Finally, when the script came to me in 2018, I called Sushant, and told him that finally, I have a good script, and lets start work. He didnt even read the script, and agreed to do it. But even if I had not made Dil Bechara, I would have still cast him in my debut film, says Chhabra.

Besides Rajputs acting skills and craft, the director liked the actors total dedication towards his role. If you watch his Byomkesh Bakshi! or Sonchiriya or Dhoni, he was a very intelligent and hardworking actor. He used to work on the look, the characters mood, and make an emotional graph of each and every character he played. My film is emotionally driven, and he was completely invested in those emotional scenes. He used to write down the emotions required for scenes, and after five scenes or so, he would change the emotion saying, Okay now, I will behave like this. Now I will think and walk like this.. He used to go into a lot of detailing," says Chhabra. While Sushant could not watch the final product, Chhabra says that the actor saw the entire film during dubbing, He watched it very minutely, and was very excited. He told me that he loved the title track, which he had shot in a single take, and Taare Ginn. He was also very happy about his performance."

While the Hollywood hit featured teenagers, Dil Bechara has a bit older couple to tell the story, to which the director says, "Once you see the film, you will get all your answers. You will realise why the older couple works for the film. In this film, they are in college. Sushant and Sanjanas chemistry is looking good. But of course, I have changed the setup. The basic storyline is the same but I have adapted it differently. I had made it very clear to the actors that they have to be as real as they can. Even during the workshop, I told them dont try to act, and just be emotionally connected to these characters."

Chhabra spotted Sanjana in a school play when she was 13, and cast her in Rockstar. When I read the script, her face was correct for the part. I love discovering new talent every time. I wanted a fresh talent, a fresh face to play the part of Kizie Basu. Her face is so innocent and fragile as if you want to protect this girl. Her face really worked for me, said the director, who has set the film in Jamshedpur.

Jamshedpur has an interesting culture. I wanted a non-metro city that was very cosmopolitan. It is the only place where you meet people from all parts of India. You meet South Indians, Punjabis, Bengalis. Here, Sushant plays a South Indian, and Sanjana is a Bengali girl. I had also heard a lot about Jamshedpur from Imtiaz Ali. Then I loved Vikramaditya Motwanes Udaan, and how he had used the landscape of Jamshedpur. I felt it was perfect for my film, says Chhabra.

Dil Bechara is Rajputs last film, which makes the film even more special for Chhabra. Now, it is not my film anymore. It is Sushants last film, and the entire country is looking at it very differently.

All are emotionally attached to it, and I am really thankful to them for the kind of love they are giving to him, says the director.

Rajput's fans and supporters have been vocal for a theatrical release over a digital one. But Chhabra feels releasing the film on an OTT platform is the best decision in the current times. In fact, Sushant was very happy about the digital release. He said it was the right decision, and a good time to release as people were spending time at home, and many of them will watch it, says Chhabra, who does not want to mull over the allegations of nepotism against the film industry, that resurfaced after Rajput's demise.

I just want everyone to celebrate his last film. The kind of love they have given to the trailer, I wish he gets the same kind of love for the film as well. I hope he is watching over me and all of us. I had plans of making more films with him. You always think that if my first film works with this actor then you want to repeat the actor for your next. But all our dreams dont always get fulfilled, Chhabra concludes.

All images from Facebook.
As the pandemic continues and public agencies continue revising regulations around social distancing, Spring ISD held virtual town halls to better inform and hear from parents about their plans to begin the next school year.

Spring ISD Superintendent Rodney Watson used the time to tell parents about the districts respond, reimagine and reopen plan and how the district will be opening in August.

Families discuss return to school: Some Spring ISD parents concerned over returning to school

Student learning must be the cornerstone of all of our decisionsthe best possible place to do that is in a classroom, Watson said. However, based upon our current decisions or current needs within our community, we are looking at different options. The health and safety of staff and students is a priority.

Due to current guidelines from the Texas Education Agency, Watson said Spring ISD would be keeping remote learning for the first four weeks of school. Should they want to extend that time, if cases are still rising, they would need to go to the Board of Education to ask for an extension.

On HoustonChronicle.com: UIL delays start of high school football season for Class 6A, 5A schools

The remote learning will not be the same as it was in the Spring. Watson said remote at-home learning in the fall will offer both synchronous and asynchronous learning, meaning time where students will learn live with their teacher and their peers, and time where they can study and complete work independently.

Funding for Spring ISD will only happen based on average daily attendance, so the offering of synchronous and asynchronous learning is paramount to our district being funded, Watson said.

Remote learning will be teacher-driven, Watson said, and will follow standards-based curriculum with assessments to ensure progress. There will be one project-based learning unit a semester as well to deepen understanding.

Following the first four weeks, should students be able to return to school, remote learning will still be provided with resources from the schoolincluding Chromebooks, internet access for those who need it, and other support tools for parents and students. Families who need a Chromebook can pick them up in August, when they will be handed out by grade.

Students can switch from learning at school to learning at home at any point, while students learning at home can switch to learning at school at the end of every six weeks, Watson said.

Schedules will be different for elementary, middle and high schools as well, with elementary school going from 8:35 a.m. to 3:40 p.m., middle school going from 9:40 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., and high school going from 7:35 a.m. to 2:40 p.m.

The bell schedules are staggered to allow for buses to be cleaned and disinfected between routes every morning, Watson said.

Before arriving to school, Watson said parents and students will be asked to do a self-screening for COVID-19 symptoms, and additional questioning and temperature checks may be required on campus. Masks will also be required as campus, as well as enforcing frequent handwashing and ensuring physical distancing.

For students at school exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, Watson said they would be kept in a separate area of the school until parents can pick them up. Students who test positive for the virus cannot return to campus until at least three days have passed since recovery without using medication, and 10 days have passed since the symptoms first appeared.

Classrooms, restrooms and the cafeteria will be disinfected daily between periods, Watson said, and desks will be distanced where feasible, with the possible use of plexiglass dividers in areas where physical distancing isnt feasible.

Chief of Curriculum and Instruction Khechara Bradford said students with special needs would still be provided the services needed, such as speech or physical therapy, both for those attending school in-person and remotely.

Shelly Copeland, Spring ISD director of child nutrition, said at each campus, students could be eating while socially distanced in the cafeteria, and lining up socially distanced to get food, or possibly have them delivered to the cafeteria.

Bradford said they had plans for elective classes as well for both remote and in-person learning, be it physical education or band class, and said there could be an opportunity, for example, for band students learning remotely to go to band practice after school.

Spring ISD Chief Operating Officer Mark Miranda said the district plans to have registration for returning students open online by July 27.

These are different times were in and were not going into it with a spirit of fear, but were going to make the best decisions we have for our families, Watson said.

More information on reopening can be found at SpringISD.org/reopen.

paul.wedding@hcnonline.com
Home Office staff are set to receive 'comprehensive' training on the history of migration and race in the UK in the wake of the Windrush scandal.

Setting out a plan to make a more 'compassionate' department, Home Secretary Priti Patel yesterday promised a full evaluation of the 'hostile environment' policy introduced by Theresa May.

Changes will include: 'Comprehensive training for everyone working in the Home Office to ensure they understand and appreciate the history of migration and race in this country,' the government announced yesterday.

Home Secretary Priti Patel warned 'nothing like (the Windrush scandal) can happen again,' as she announced changes to shake up training and diversity at the Home Office on Tuesday

A statement on the Home Office's website read: 'Every existing and new member of staff working for the Home Office will be required to undertake this learning.'

Ms Patel was forced to apologise in March after a major report, titled the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, concluded 'elements of institutional racism' were behind the Windrush scandal.

An official inquiry ripped into the Home Office over 'appalling' failures that led to legal British residents being deported and made destitute.

Report author Wendy Williams, an inspector of constabulary, rejected civil servants' claims that the Windrush scandal had been impossible to predict.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said yesterday: 'I am driving change to implement the important findings of the Lessons Learned review to make sure nothing like this can happen again.

Published in March, the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, concluded 'elements of institutional racism' were behind the Windrush scandal

'The action I have taken will ensure cultural change at the department, leading to more diverse leadership.

'I want the Windrush generation to have no doubt that I will reform the culture of the department so it better represents all of the communities we serve.'

Further details of changes within the Home Office are expected to be published in September, but according to the government's website, it is expected to start 'taking a more compassionate approach to individual applications and decision makers will be empowered to use their own discretion and pragmatism.'

The department is also vowing to create diverse shortlists for senior jobs and introduce 'specialist mentoring' to ensure BAME workers can attain senior roles.

Bishop Derek Webley, co-chair of the Windrush Cross-Government Working Group said: 'I and others on this group know the communities who have been affected well.

'We live, work and dwell among them. They have endured a great deal for a long time, and they must not be disappointed again.

'The true story of the Windrush generation is one of courage, faith, and hope.

'One of success and achievement. That is where we need to get to, and this process represents another positive step on the journey there.'
Republican Bill Would Clamp Down on Gangs Like MS-13

Three Republican senators Wednesday unveiled their legislation to increase jail times for gang crimes and create a database for criminal gang activity with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced the Cracking Down on Gangs and Deporting Criminals Act of 2020 (pdf), which intends to make it easier to prosecute gang members by expanding the list of crimes connected to gang activity and allowing for longer jail sentences.

In addition, their bill mandates that any illegal immigrant convicted of gang activity would be referred to the Department of Homeland Security for deportation.

Gang violence ends innocent lives, ruins families, destroys communities, and spreads fear, said Loeffler in a statement.

We must not only work to prevent the formation of gangs, but also to track their members and hold them accountable for their vile actions so we can end the violence and keep the American people safe, she added.

According to the DOJ, gangs are active throughout the United States, varying ethnically and racially. Large national street gangs pose the greatest threat because they smuggle, produce, transport, and distribute large quantities of illicit drugs throughout the country and are extremely violent, the DOJ stated.

President Donald Trump has been cracking down on gangs like MS-13 since taking office, and on July 15 his administration announced the arrest of key MS-13 leadership.

In 2017, the president directed the Department of Justice to go to war against MS-13, and we did just that, said Attorney General William Barr. In coordination with our partners at the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Departments law enforcement components have successfully investigated, charged, and arrested command and control elements of MS-13 responsible for murder.

A member of the MS-13 gang in Chalatenango prison, north of San Salvador, on March 29, 2019. (Marvin RecinosAFP/Getty Images)

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vic Reynolds said there has been a recent escalation of gang violence that is plaguing the nation, saying, America is in a gang crisis.

For years, studies have told us that gang membership in the U.S. exceeds well over 1 million, with gangs responsible for the vast majority of the crimes that spread fear, devastate victims, and decimate our communities the most. Without a doubt, gangs, which honor no jurisdictional boundaries, pose the greatest threat to public safety befalling this nation, Reynolds said in a statement.

MS-13 is one of the most notorious gangs, composed mainly of immigrants or descendants from El Salvador. Branches of MS-13, one of the largest street gangs in the United States, operate throughout the country.

Transnational gangs like MS-13 spread violence across our borders and traffic drugs into our communities and schools, said Blackburn. Only tough prison sentences and the threat of deportation will send a strong message of zero tolerance to these sophisticated and hardened criminals.

The GOP legislation requires the creation of a federal street gang database that would help local, state, and federal officials communicate and track criminal activities by gangs. According to the provision, local officials would have to provide information for the database on gang activity in their jurisdiction to receive certain federal grants.

Criminal gangs prey upon the most vulnerable members of our society, and we should make it easier to take them down, said Cotton. Our bill will help law enforcement agencies track gang activity while also empowering prosecutors to bring individual gang members to justiceincluding the eventual deportation of criminal aliens.

Jimmy Callaway, City of Morrow chief of police and president of the Georgia Gang Investigators Association welcomed the new legislation.

By sponsoring a new law that will confront the gang crisis that has terrorized the United States for years, Senator Loeffler has risen above politics and shown that she is willing to put the public safety of Americansall of themfirst, Callaway said.
Increased participation of the private sector will help push on development of renewable energy

With its strong commitment to reducing CO2 emissions and with a healthy investment outlook, Vietnam has been deemed by industry insiders to be the most exciting renewable energy market in Southeast Asia. The country set a goal for installed solar capacity to 12 gigawatts, and to 6GW of wind capacity, by 2030 in alignment of the national Power Development Plan VII (PDP7) for the period of 2016 -2030 with a vision to 2030, but it will not stop there as targets to deploy total renewable power capacity is expected to increase in brand new power master plan (PDP8) for 2021-2030, with a vision towards 2045 .

Speaking at recent conference on sustainable renewable energy development, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Hoang Quoc Vuong remarked that rapid economic development has seen a surge in demand for energy, posing great challenges at a time when primary sources like coal, oil, and gas are exhausted in the context that many coal-fired projects under PDP7 are behind schedule.

In this context, making use of endless natural resources, especially wind and solar power, to generate electricity for socio-economic development and reduce pressure on the national electricity system and many other benefits is one of the most important trends and solutions today, said Vuong.

Global energy research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie also praised Vietnam as the new leader in Southeast Asias solar photovoltaic (PV) market, noting the nations solar PV installation made up close to half of the region's total capacity last year.

Positive movements

With high growth over recent times, the Vietnamese solar market is hotter than ever thanks to the feed-in tariff (FiT) of 9.35 US cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for solar projects as set by 2017s Decree No.11/2017/QD-TTg on mechanisms for encouraging development of solar power, when both foreign and local investors are registered and large-scale projects are connected to the grid.

According to recent data by state-run Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), solar generation in the first quarter of 2020 surged by 28 times to 2.3 billion kilowatt-hours on year; among that, 91 solar farms with total capacity of 4,550 megawatts connected the grid.

This is an impressive achievement that validates the governments step-by-step approach to market development and the ability of domestic and international developers to mobilise capital for scalable renewable energy portfolios, remarked Michiel Vriens, energy analyst from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. It also highlights the ability of modular renewable projects to deliver much-needed capacity more rapidly than large-scale baseload fossil fuel projects that require large expenditures on associated infrastructure.

Meanwhile, wind industry analysts GWEC Market Intelligence noted that Vietnam had a cumulative installed wind power capacity of over 487MW by the end of 2019, making it the second-largest wind market in Southeast Asia. Due to strong flows of foreign and domestic investors into Vietnams wind sector, the market is predicted to install approximately 4GW of additional capacity by 2025, with at least 1GW offshore.

Currently, UK-based Enterprize Energy is planning to develop the $11 billion Thang Long Offshore Wind Power Project with total capacity of 3,400MW. If approved, the project will be the largest offshore wind power project not only in Vietnam, but also in Southeast Asia, with success providing a large amount of clean electricity for the countrys power mix.

On top of these targets, the government also raised the FiT for both onshore and offshore wind in September 2018, in order to spur market activity and balance out the high risks within emerging markets, specifically power purchase agreement bankability.

Under that, the new FiT is 8.5 US cents per kWh for wind power projects on the mainland and 9.8 US cents per kWh for offshore projects. The rates are applied to wind power plants connecting to the national grid and beginning generation before November 1, 2021.

However, the Ministry of Industry and Trade recently asked the government to extend the period of fixed FiT for wind power project to the end of 2023 instead of November next year in order to avoid delays hit by the global health crisis.

In order to ensure energy transfer and harmonise the interests of parties, the business community and localities need to enhance dialogue, information sharing, and solutions to remove bottlenecks for the development of renewable energy in Vietnam, Vuong emphasised.

Vietnams electricity sector requires new investments of about $10 billion annually frontloaded through 2030, higher than the average of $8 billion for the period 2011-2015, according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, the envisaged expansion of the gas sector calls for an accumulated investment of around $20 billion between 2015 and 2035.

Attracting the private sector

Vietnam has enacted its strategic orientations for energy development for the next decade and beyond, encouraging more in the private sector to make the next step for future development and ensuring energy security to meet new demand.

Under Februarys Resolution No.55 NQ/TW on the Vietnamese energy development strategy for the next 10 years and with a vision to 2045, targets have been set for sufficient and stable supply energy with reasonable prices as well as for accelerating development of a comprehensive, competitive, and transparent energy market with diversified ownership and business models.

Sector experts said that the participation of the private sector will create competition for the market. Deeper private participation in the energy sector not only ensures greater security for the nations energy security, but also creates a transparent environment, and they are willing to invest as long as projects are well-structured and bankable.

Nguyen Tam Tien is general director of locally-invested Trung Nam Group  the first group allowed by the government and the Peoples Committee of the south-central province of Ninh Thuan to invest in a 500 kilovolt transformer and transmission station. Tien said Resolution 55 was helping to remove unreasonable barriers to private investment in transmission, therefore making businesses excited as renewable energy bottlenecks are removed.

Tien explained that benefits have been made available to all side through the private implementation of the transmission station project, especially in the context of poor power transmission infrastructure which has also hampered development of renewable power. The state and the provinces also do not have to spend money to invest in lines. The private sector needs good incentives to incorporate a proper risk-sharing mechanism among all parties, as well as a transparent and stable regulatory environment, he suggested.

Meanwhile, more international enterprises are waiting for Vietnams direct power purchase agreement (DPPA) mechanism. In May the Vietnamese government introduced a mechanism which allows renewable energy producers to sell and deliver electricity directly to corporate customers. For the first time ever, the private sector could see more chances for investment into the national electricity transmission system.

Resolution 55 places high priority on fast and sustainable energy development, aiming to increase the share of renewable energy sources in total primary energy production to 15-20 per cent by 2030, and 25-30 per cent by 2045. More mechanisms and policies will be developed to encourage investment and establish a suitable fossil fuel reduction plan.

Vietnams renewable sector growth is expected to develop to the next level and take shape for the next round of market opportunities as targets are set for PDP8, in which the main issues will be how grid development is designed to support the growth of renewables, and how PPAs and new storage options will be factored into the plan.
Mekedatu padayatra: After Karnataka HC chides Cong, Siddaramaiah says permission not taken for protest

Congress leader Kapil Sibal slams Centre over its recent developments in the country

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

New Delhi, July 22: Congress leader Kapil Sibal once again slammed the central government, using the recent developments in the country. The Congress posted a tweet on Wednesday morning to allege that the rule of law has become the law of "he who rules" in the country.

"In my country, has the "Rule of Law" become the law of "He who Rules". Custodial deaths, Fake encounters, Toppling elected governments (money +), Intemperate language by the powerful, Persecuting the innocent, Highly questionable judicial verdicts. Save my country!" the Congress leader said in a tweet.

Congress will soon become a party of tweets: BJP

With this tweet, Sibal continued the Congress' attack on the government in the recent days. Rahul Gandhi has been targeting the central government over the border row with China and a host of other issues.

On Tuesday, Gandhi slammed the Centre, listing the alleged "attempt to topple" the government in Rajasthan and the "Namaste Trump" event among its "achievements" in the COVID-19 times. He said due to such "achievements" of the government, the country is now "Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant)" in the fight against the pandemic.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

No Amarnath Yatra this year due to coronavirus pandemic; 'Aarti' to be broadcast live

"Achievements of the government in the COVID-era: February - Namaste Trump, March - toppling the Madhya Pradesh government, April - making people light candles, May - government's sixth anniversary, June - Bihar virtual rally, July - attempt to topple the government in Rajasthan," Rahul Gandhi said in a sarcastic tweet in Hindi.

However, the BJP hit back, saying the Congress will become a "party of tweets" as it is doing no work among people and "losing" one leader after another.

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Story first published: Wednesday, July 22, 2020, 9:27 [IST]
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has made its way to 183 countries and regions around the world, contributing to the improvement of public health across the world.

A doctor treats a patient with moxibustion therapy in St. Petersburg TCM Center, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, July 11. (Photo/Courtesy of St. Petersburg TCM Center, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine)

Currently, China has signed TCM cooperation agreements with over 40 foreign governments, regional competent agencies and international organizations.

As TCM has played an effective role in treating COVID-19 patients in China, the country is willing to share its experience using TCM in epidemic prevention and control with the international community.

Established by the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (BUCM), the St. Petersburg TCM Center is the first TCM hospital acknowledged by the local government in Russia. Doctors excellent medical skills in the center have attracted many local patients to come to the center to receive treatments.

Svetlana is a resident who was plagued by dizziness, headache, fatigue, and pain in her shoulders and arms. Though she received some oral medicines and intravenous injections from a local neurologist, the results were not encouraging enough.

When her husband advised her to receive treatment at the TCM center, Svetlana took it with a grain of salt at first. However, the acupuncture and cupping treatment in the center delivered real benefits to her. My condition significantly improved after receiving the treatment three times, and my dizziness disappeared and the pain was greatly relieved after the sixth time, she said.

TCM experts in the center have cured a large number of patients with intractable diseases by prescribing TCM therapies and methods, such as acupuncture, heat-sensitive moxibustion, and tuina (massage), winning high praise and recognition from locals.

Since its inauguration on July 3, 2016, the center has received over 4,000 patients, achieving good results in treating 30 types of diseases, including IGA nephropathy, atopic dermatitis, myasthenia gravis and cerebral palsy, as well as symptoms pertaining to pain in the neck, shoulder, waist and legs.

As the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging in Russia, the BUCM has actively organized online lectures on pandemic prevention, recorded related videos and trained TCM practitioners by relying on the St. Petersburg center. The university also formulated a TCM plan for health management amid the pandemic in both Chinese and Russian, which was issued by the Chinese consulate general in St. Petersburg, providing professional TCM anti-pandemic guidelines for the Russian people and the Chinese community there.

Over the past four years, the center has carried out sound exchanges and cooperation with several medical institutions and relevant research and teaching institutions in Russia. They have also launched training courses on TCM therapies, methods and theory, while establishing clinics to treat patients with intractable diseases through the combined use of TCM and Western medicine.

TCM is also popular in Hungary. The Semmelweis University in Hungary and Heilongjiang University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in northeast China have worked together to train TCM talents since 2010, and the two universities began to set up the China-CEEC (Central and Eastern European Countries) Traditional Chinese Medicine Center (Hungary) in 2017, said Yu Funian, head of the center.

The center has cultivated many local TCM talents, playing a unique role in promoting TCM culture, Yu noted, adding that over 3,000 doctors in the country have received acupuncture training and about 600 doctors have opened TCM clinics.

The TCM community in Hungary has also collected anti-virus supplies and shared Chinas experience in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. A Chinese TCM doctor offered people free herbal tea in Budapest to boost their immunity. Coordinated by the TCM center and TCM associations in Hungary, a batch of anti-virus supplies, mainly comprising Chinese medicinal products, were delivered to the European country.

Former Hungarian Prime Minister Medgyessy Peter said one of the important reasons behind Chinas remarkable anti-epidemic achievements lies in the combined use of TCM and Western medicine.

Meanwhile, a similar TCM center was established in Mauritius. The China-Mauritius Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine opened in 2019, becoming the first platform to promote TCM in Africa.

The Shanghai Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine is behind the centers construction. The hospital and Shanghai Caitongde Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. have staffed two experienced TCM doctors and one TCM pharmacist at the center.

Since its operation, the center has attracted many patients, including some from South Africa. Amid COVID-19 prevention and control in Mauritius, the center has managed to maintain regular operation, while launching lectures on pandemic prevention and answering dozens of questions through a telemedicine platform every day, providing medical support for local people, Chinese-funded institutions and companies, and the Chinese community.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Azerbaijanis living in France held a rally as a sign of protest against Armenias latest provocations, Trend reports on July 22.

During the rally, Azerbaijanis with the Azerbaijani state flags in their hands chanted patriotic slogans.

The purpose of the rally was to draw the attention of the French public to the realities in connection with the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as well as to expose the Armenian lies.

The video footage of this peaceful rally is available.
JAIPUR: A day after the expelled former Congress leader Sachin Pilot got a breather from the Rajasthan High Court, Assembly Speaker CP Joshi on Wednesday said that he will file a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court to avert what he called a constitutional crisis in the state.

"The Speaker (of the Assembly) holds the right to disqualify MLAs. No one can interfere in the Speaker`s decision," Joshi told reporters today.

Speaker's responsibilities are well defined by the Supreme Court and the Constitution. As Speaker, I got an application and to seek info on it, I issued a show-cause notice. If show-cause notice will not be issued by the authority, then what is the work of authority, Joshi added.

Speaker has the complete authority to send a show-cause notice. I have asked my counsel to file SLP in Supreme Court, the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker said.

On Tuesday, the High Court had asked Joshi to defer till Friday action against rebel MLAs led by Pilot, who was sacked as PCC chief and deputy CM on July 14 by the Congress leadership.

Joshi has served disqualification notices on dissident Congress MLAs for remaining absent from two successive Congress Legislative Party meetings after Pilot raised a banner of revolt against the leadership of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

Joshi said that he would challenge the High Court order on the ground that why was it entertaining a petition at a procedural level when the Speaker had not even passed any order and only issued show-cause notices to the MLAs in question.

"I have respected whatever judgment the court has given till now. However, does this respect and acceptance mean that one authority can overlap the role of the other?"

The Sachin Pilot camp had last Thursday filed a petition in the High Court against the notices served on them by the Speaker on a Congress plea for their disqualification from the Assembly membership.

The rebels had argued in the court that "free speech" cannot be labelled as "anti-party activity" and that they can`t be served such notices when the Rajasthan Assembly is not in session.

Questioning the validity of the notices issued by the Speaker, they termed as "motivated" the complaint filed on behalf of Mahesh Joshi, Chief Whip of the Congress in the Assembly.
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Linkedin Anuj Chopra (Agence France-Presse) Riyadh, Saudi Arabia  Wed, July 22, 2020 11:20 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066859bd4 2 World Saudi-Arabia,haj,haj-pilgrimage,haj-pilgrims,haj-quota,coronavirus,COVID-19,pandemic,coronavirus-restrictions,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

A Jordanian couple in Saudi Arabia burst into tears of joy to be among the chosen ones for next week's scaled-down haj pilgrimage, but countless rejected applications have stirred resentment.

For the first time in modern history, millions of pilgrims outside Saudi Arabia have been barred from the haj -- a key pillar of Islam and one of the world's largest mass gatherings -- because of a coronavirus surge.

But even the dramatically curtailed ritual in the holy city of Mecca has drawn a huge rush of applicants.

Saudi officials said residents from 160 countries competed in the government-run lottery that many described as an opaque selection process -- bringing elation to up to 10,000 people while leaving the vast majority disappointed.

"With so many applicants, we hardly had a one percent chance of being selected," said a Riyadh-based Jordanian engineer, 29, selected for the pilgrimage along with his 26-year-old wife, a health worker.

"We were shocked and overjoyed."

Also among the chosen few is Nasser, a Riyadh-based Nigerian expat, euphoric at winning what he called the "golden ticket" to haj.

"This feeling cannot be described," he told AFP.

But the Jordanian engineer, who declined to be named, said he felt compelled to delete his social media post announcing his selection, fearing he and his wife would attract the ire and envy of rejected applicants.

Pilgrims typically wait for years to be chosen through a strict quota system for haj, which last year drew some 2.5 million people.

Saudi authorities initially said only around 1,000 pilgrims residing in the kingdom would be permitted for haj, but local media reports say as many as 10,000 will be allowed.

The haj ministry has fielded a deluge of anguished queries on Twitter.

"Why reject me without giving a reason?" a woman asked the ministry, posting a screenshot of her rejected online application.

"Everyone around me has been declined."

'Highly opaque'

Two widows, a Nigerian and an Egyptian working in the kingdom, furiously speculated whether they had been denied the chance to attend the ritual because they had not registered a male guardian to accompany them.

Others wondered if several slots had been reserved for diplomats and business and royal elites.

The ministry, which did not respond to AFP's request for comment, said Saudi pilgrims were selected from a pool of health practitioners and military personnel who have recovered from COVID-19.

One man, who said he had survived the disease, tweeted: "I am a health practitioner and I had contracted coronavirus... I don't understand why I was not chosen."

The government invited online applications from foreign residents, saying they would make up 70 percent of the pilgrims, but did not explain how many applied or how they were picked.

"Saudi authorities kept the selection process highly opaque since it is a sensitive matter," Umar Karim, a visiting fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told AFP.

"Keeping it hidden from public scrutiny is meant to generate less noise about who got selected and who didn't."

Just a week before the haj, an annual global media event, it remained unclear whether it would be open to the foreign press.

Health hazard

For Saudi Arabia, curtailing the haj was a decision fraught with political and economic peril.

Selecting a few from a vast pool of contenders risks further roiling public sentiment.

To be among the chosen ones adds an aura of religious prestige to this year's pilgrimage, applicants say.

Despite the pandemic, many pilgrims consider it is safer to participate in this year's ritual without the usual colossal crowds cramming into tiny religious sites, which make it a logistical nightmare and a health hazard.

Even in a regular year, the haj leaves pilgrims exposed to a host of viral illnesses.

"A lot of people want to do the haj this year as it will likely be less burdensome and more organized due to a smaller crowd," said Karim.

Authorities said pilgrims will be tested for coronavirus before arriving in Mecca and are required to quarantine before and after the ritual.

Pilgrims will be provided with bottled holy water from Mecca's Zamzam well and sterilized pebbles for a stoning ritual, they added.

"The only consolation," said Farah Abu Shanab, a Riyadh-based Palestinian whose haj application was rejected, "is that the government is pressing ahead with the pilgrimage, even if in a limited way."
Established in 1945, with over 10,000 graves, Margraten's "American Cemetery" is far from normal.

Buried here are men and women who came from all of America, to drive fascism away and restore freedom to the Netherlands.



When you visit, you will first be taken by it's mass, then by the pristine condition of each blade of grass. The gleaming marble: painstakingly washed and treated is not allowed to fade. Additionally,

where possible, there is carefully placed, an individual photo, often renewed, of the soldier (not all male) who is beneath that stone.



Among the 10,000 plus, are also names of 1,722 whose bodies have not yet been recovered, but have a plot reserved to honor them.



This is possible because individual families of the Netherlands have adopted each grave. So important to the Netherlands is the sacrifice of these men, that the waiting list to adopt a grave is now more than three years long. The "Dutch Foundation for Adopting Graves at the American Cemetery, Margraten" has 300 people waiting to join them.



In cases where families of these soldiers are known, the American soldier's family may correspond and family visitors to the Netherlands may expect the family who cares for their solider to accompany them to the grave.



Formed in 1945, Margraten is unlike any other cemetery in the world. Seven Medal of Honor recipients are buried here and the Netherlands has taken it upon themselves to ensure each solider here continues, in perpetuity, to be honored.



The Faces of Margraten project has found photos of only 7,500 "American Liberators" buried in the American War Cemetery in Margraten, the Netherlands. We have been asked to help find photos of these other soldiers, from a searchable database: https://is.gd/Faces_Of_Margraten.



There are five missing photo's from the SE Tennessee/Chattanooga area:



- DE VAULT, Warren G H: A.S.N. 34493012 (Rhea County)

- HUNTER, Fred L: A.S.N. 34762055 (North Georgia)

- SHARP, John E: A.S.N. 34913567 (Hamilton County)

- SMITH, Clyde J: A.S.N 34365363 (Sequatchie County)

- SMITH, Rafe H A.S.N. 34824006 (North Georgia)



If you have a photo of one of these men, please submit it to the board in the Netherlands at

https://www.degezichtenvanmargraten.nl/index.php/en-US/submit-photo.



Additional information about the memorial can be found at https://thefacesofmargraten.com.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said "the COVID situation in NSW is not the same as in Victoria" but said all residents must exercise extreme caution. Health Minister Brad Hazzard said consideration was being given to making masks mandatory on public transport in coming days. Loading "I cannot stress enough that we are currently at a critical point in our fight against COVID-19 in NSW - as we respond to a number of seeding events leading to outbreaks," Dr Chant said. But Mary-Louise McLaws, a professor of epidemiology at UNSW and an adviser to the World Health Organisation on COVID-19 infection prevention and control, said NSW was at a "potential alert phase", having recorded more than 100 cases over the past two weeks. "That's a number that says we could be going into a pattern that is difficult to impact without doing a lockdown or big intervention," Professor McLaws said.

She said Victoria reached that figure on June 18 and by the end of the month, it had nearly 400 additional cases. "After being exposed you can become infectious to other people at day three, which means human contact tracers will be working very hard to contact everybody in a couple of days, they'll be behind the clock each day," Professor McLaws said. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Wednesday revealed that among the reasons for the rise in numbers was that nine in 10 people are still not following rules around self-isolating as soon as they feel symptoms and until they receive test results. Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant on Wednesday. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Mr Andrews said of 3810 cases between July 7-21, about 90 per cent did not isolate between the first onset of symptoms and getting tested.

About 50 per cent did not isolate in the period between getting tested and receiving a result. Adam Kamradt-Scott, an expert in the spread and control of infectious diseases, said it was too early to compare the "precarious situation" in Victoria to the community transmission in NSW. "As Premier [Daniel Andrews] has flagged, people aren't doing the right thing, so there's this genuine risk that community transmission will continue to occur," Associate Professor Kamradt-Scott said He said while the border controls enacted two weeks ago will have reduced the risk of importing more cases from Victoria, that was not a reason for NSW to relax. "It is too early to suggest that we are on the same trajectory, but obviously that is a risk in NSW if we don't see those public health measures, testing, and tracing being implemented," he said.

Ms Berejiklian urged people to avoid crowds at the weekend, and warned that gatherings in homes and hospitality venues were the riskiest. She said her message to police was to enforce all laws around restrictions. "Please throw the book at anyone not doing the right thing," Ms Berejiklian said. A pop-up COVID-19 testing clinic in Sydney's west. Credit:Dean Sewell NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard indicated mandatory masks were being considered on public transport, saying masks were a "good idea" on buses and trains.

Loading "Certainly if I were getting on a bus, in all likelihood you wouldn't be able to socially distance so yes it's a good idea [to wear a mask]," Mr Hazzard told radio station 2GB. Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd said the 502 confirmed cases on Wednesday came less than six weeks after Australia reported only two cases on June 9. "This shows how quickly outbreaks can occur and spread," he said. NSW's 16 new cases saw the Crossroads Hotel outbreak grow to 53.
VICTORIA - The British Columbia government says it is matching $1 billion in federal government money to address the impacts of COVID-19 and help restart the economy.

Premier John Horgan says in a news release the funding will secure some of B.C.s share of the federal governments $19-billion Safe Restart plan for the country.

It says the money will support local governments and transit operators that have revenue shortfalls created by the pandemic.

Finance Minister Carole James says the federal governments restart program also includes funds to support health care, child care, vulnerable populations and a sick leave program.

James introduced the supplementary estimates in the legislature Wednesday for up to $1 billion to fund the provinces portion of municipal and transit services help, depending on the outcome of further federal cost-share discussions.

James announced last week that B.C. forecasted budget had gone from a surplus to an expected deficit of $12.5 billion because of the pandemic.

Horgan has said the province expects at total $2.2 billion in federal transfers to B.C. under the federal agreement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
(RNS)  When asked what she would write about if she could write about anything, Ashlee Eilands answer was immediate.

Kindness.

It was 2018, and the pastor said the divisiveness and contention in public conversations was weighing heavily on her. Eiland, the formation and preaching pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church near Grand Rapids, Michigan, said she felt a holy discontent to offer an alternative.

She wanted to help people talk across their differences and, at the same time, still be able to recognize each other's worth as human beings created in Gods image and likeness.

I wanted to recapture that because I feel like, especially two years ago, some of that was being lost. I was sensing that would take us down a really hard trajectory if things continued in that direction, she said.

But kindness isnt all holding doors and letting people merge in front of you in traffic. The goal of kindness is restoration and transformation, Eiland said.

I think sometimes what kindness means, if we're doing it well, is that we are righteously angry, she said.

We are lamenting, we are grieving and sometimes holding that grief and anger and lament with someone," she explained. "I'm specifically thinking of people of color in this country and Black people, who, for generations, have endured an injustice. That should not be met with a pithy call to just be nice to one another, meet each other in the middle of this and this will all be OK.

Eilands book Human(Kind): How Reclaiming Human Worth and Embracing Radical Kindness Will Bring Us Back Together was published in April of an election year, in the midst of a polarizing pandemic and not long before protests over the death of George Floyd would reveal even more divisions in the United States. Kindness can reach across those divides, she said.

In a series of short essays, the pastor and author shares her experiences as a Black woman in predominantly white Christian spaces. She writes of encountering both racism and belonging, of confronting her fears and offering kindness even in the face of radical opposition.

Eiland talked to Religion News Service about what it means to be kind, why its important to be able to speak to others across divides and how churches can play a role in that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What does kindness look like in the midst of a pandemic, when fear and distrust are running high and people are unable to be in physical proximity to one another?

It is interesting talking about up-close kindness now that we are encouraged to not be so close anymore.

Before we get to this idea of outward kindness, have we truly sat with being receivers of God's kindness toward us? Are we regularly coming back to self-kindness? One quick exercise would be over the next 24 hours just to actively note our own voice and how we speak to ourselves. And if that doesn't reflect a level of transformation and reconciliation with ourselves, as God has offered it to us, then how are we ever going to extend that to the world around us?

I think there is a level of heart work involved before we look outward. I'm thinking of Paul's words to the Ephesians, where he actually cautions the people of God away from hardheartedness. He says, But be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God through Christ has forgiven you. There's something about maintaining a tender heart first, before we can look outward to the work of forgiving, to the work of reconciliation, to the work of truth-telling.

In the book, you share the pain you felt on election night in 2016 and your fear about what this presidency and the rhetoric that accompanied it would mean for the poor, minorities and marginalized. Afterward, you reached out to a Republican friend to understand why she had voted for President Trump. Why do you think it is important to try to understand and have conversations across differences?

I'm thinking of the greatest commandment  to love God and to love our neighbor  and maintaining distance in an unhealthy way. There are so many good reasons to maintain distance for the sake of healthy relationship in the way of boundaries, but I'm talking about choosing to stay distanced from one another just for the sake of maintaining our own narratives. It has great potential to create a hotbed for bitterness, resentment and hate. And if our hearts are hotbeds for bitterness, resentment and hate based on the narratives that we are persistently pursuing, then we can't love God and love our neighbor.

I didn't really have a desire to debate her because I knew where she stood. I really wanted to know why for the sake of seeing her humanity up close. Her being my friend is a key part of this, too. This wasn't a random person I'd just met. This was someone I'd already done relationship with, had history with, who I'd seen lead teenagers out of addiction and into relationship with Christ  I mean, a stunning legacy. I wanted to act against the potential for bitterness, anger, resentment to grow my heart by being close to her and asking God to show me how he saw her.

Because we had a relationship, the beautiful thing was she was able to hear my heart when I was able to hear hers, and our relationship to this day is wonderfully intact, and not just intact, it's thriving. To me, the end goal of my relationship with her isn't to hold her close in order to change her mind or to prove I'm right. I'm pursuing unity, and unity requires truth telling, it requires the pursuit of justice and reconciliation, it requires peacemaking.

You also write about the importance of speaking out and taking action. How do you balance that?

Wisdom and discernment are key here. Spout out an issue, someone's going to have an opinion about it. We all have opinions on everything, but for me personally, that doesn't mean my voice needs to be heard in every single instance for a couple of reasons.

You talk about racism. There are times where I feel strong in my spirit to lead and to point others in the direction of how to be a better reconciler and how to do the work of antiracism in a way that honors Christ, how to speak up and to be strong and courageous, to use one's voice in a way that doesn't allow the people of God to suffer. And there are times when I feel like that's not my work to do for that moment. It doesn't mean I don't care about it. And it doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. But there are some times, for example, when you talk about racism and bigotry, where I feel more wrapped up in the community of God, when my white brothers and sisters speak up.

There's discernment here. I don't want to speak for the sake of just being heard. I want to speak for the sake of transformation. And that means I have to be attentive to the role my voice plays, whether in that moment I need to make room for someone else's voice.

Social media is important, speaking outwardly is important and maybe a yard sign is important. I'm not minimizing those things, but am I doing the hard work within the relationships in the spheres of influence that have already been given to me? For some, the Thanksgiving table and the Christmas dinner table this year are going to be the battlegrounds because you're talking across the table from someone who might hold a different opinion from you, and that might be the place that requires the most courage.

You also share a story about confronting your fear of police by inviting police over for coffee. What does that experience have to say to readers now in a moment of reckoning over systemic racism and police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others?

Again, I am careful not to be prescriptive. In that moment, that felt like a good next step for me. I felt like I had the energy and the desire to really step into an engagement like that with our local police department at the time. If I'm honest, there would have been other days that would have happened and I would not have had the energy or the desire because so much of what is happening is repeated trauma. So I'd say you have to be really discerning on whether that type of proximity is a good next step.

Fear was leading me, and I didn't want fear to lead me. I know what happens when fear leads. When fear leads, the oppressed is in danger of becoming the oppressor. When fear leads, I am paralyzed (from) carrying out the mission that God's called and placed on my life. For so many different reasons, I was sensing fear in that moment was not leading me to the flourishing and wholeness Christ desired for me.

I felt like the next step was to humanize individuals who are part of a larger system. It was also acknowledgement that not every single individual who's operating within the system is interested in brutalizing citizens. There are good law enforcement agents who have protected and served really well. And so I wanted to counterbalance what I was seeing in the media and seeing around my neighborhood with my own eyes. To be open to it, exploring what would it be like to share with our local law enforcement how this feels for us and to be mutually curious, almost going against my natural instinct. It wasn't like this Hallmark moment. I think what it did is it interrupted the fear that was festering in my own heart, and it gave face to a system. I was able to engage with individuals, not with a system.

In the afterword to the book, you mention the burden of being a Black woman in a predominantly culturally white church. Were in a moment when many churches are saying they want to listen, learn and do better. Whats something you would share with churches about what it means to be culturally white and how wearying that can be?

Cultural whiteness says to every other culture represented within one's congregation or staff that ours is the norm, that cultural whiteness is the norm. There might be room made for the existence of difference, but we might be hesitant to let that difference lead us in different spaces.

One is I think for church leaders to say, How can we get a better perspective and move away from our own blind spots by listening to Black, Indigenous, people of color within our church and staff on their perspective of what whiteness is like in our church context?" If there's a white staff or leadership team defining the culture, it's like being a fish swimming in the water and not even knowing you're wet. There has to be a different perspective to help inform what its impact is for others who are entering into that environment.

So a lot of listening and then examining spaces where there's not just representation, but leadership. You can say, Yeah, we're a diverse church. We have 20% Latinx people. We have 10% African American. You can say that and think you're diverse, but unless there is someone who's sitting at the table, not just offering ideas, but youre actively asking to lead you, then cultural whiteness will remain dominant. And so there has to be a real reckoning  are you willing to give up some of your own space or for someone else to lead and shape and form culture?

And it won't be just in one space, like Black History Month or an MLK celebration. Cultural whiteness, because it can be so deeply embedded in so many different church spaces, there has to be commitment to this over time repeatedly. It might seem like you're talking about it too much or it's coming up too much, but if it's not revisited regularly, and if you're not loving people well by inviting them to the conversation to help actively shape spaces, giving them leadership and authority in some senses, then we won't see change over the long haul.

Specifically, this shows up on platforms, in the ways of worship and preaching and teaching, all the way to children's ministry, what Bible characters look like, who's teaching the story. Cultural whiteness impacts not just staff teams and the racial makeup of a congregation, but systems of how ministry is done. How ministry is done is directly tied to how people are formed and their view of God and life with God and each other. There has to be a willingness to be shaped and formed in any other way.

READ THIS STORY AT RELIGIONNEWS.COM.

Article originally published by Religion News Service. Used with permission.

Photo courtesy: RNS/Ashlee Eiland
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A recent online casting call for extras in Season 2 of the hit Netflix show "Outer Banks" that was filmed in Charleston is a scam, according to the show's casting recruiter, Taylor Woodell.

On Tuesday, local media posted about the show "reportedly" seeking extras, with a link to a website that asked for interested parties to submit information about their age, phone number, clothing sizes and more, along with photos.

On Wednesday afternoon, Woodell of TW Cast & Recruit told The Post and Courier that the site castingt.com/auditions/netflixs-series-obx was not official and for people to disregard the link.

"Signing up to be an extra will and should always be free and never cost a 'membership fee,' " Woodell shared of spotting a scam. "In addition, there should always be a casting director's name attached to any type of press release or casting call."

Woodell said Netflix's public relations team has been notified of the scam and will be reaching out to those who have circulated the misinformation and request its removal.

Woodell said that "Outer Banks" had not yet set dates for future filming in Charleston, and a second season has not officially been confirmed by Netflix.

"I don't have any information as of now, just because Netflix is being extremely diligent in their implementation of COVID protocols," Woodell said.
We import from China not because we love China, but because they sell us these things at cheap prices, points out Rathin Roy.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

In the wake of the growing military tension on the India-China border, there have been calls for boycott of Chinese products. These have little impact on strategic reality. Equally, the plea that India cannot afford to do without Chinese imports is not a truism.

If bilateral tensions escalate, then there may be a scenario in which India and China cease to trade.

How would the Indian economy be hit in such a situation? That would depend on the extent to which India is able to do without Chinese imports and investment.

In this extreme circumstance, the situation is not dire.

First, thanks to the Covid pandemic, global trade is declining and India's exports and imports are falling, the latter more than the former.

So, we are importing less of everything, including from China.

Second, organic chemicals are the biggest single import from China; but these can be procured easily, albeit more expensively, from other countries.

Imports of electrical machinery from China, the other major strategic good, have been declining since 2017 and a combination of falling trade activity, alternative sourcing plus increased domestic production, will enable us to weather any shock.

The rest -- plastics, smartphones, automobile parts, fast moving consumer goods and toys, among others -- essentially feed the consumption of India's elites and no great harm will be done in a crisis if we consume much less of these.

Finally, Chinese inward investment is not large, and the optics of investment in start-ups obscures the fact that they are in strategically insignificant areas like financial services and food delivery operations.

It is true that two-thirds of inputs for India's pharma industry are sourced from China, but most of these can easily be made in India, albeit more expensively.

The larger structural question is whether we can permanently reduce the share of Chinese imports. This must be seen in context.

India typically incurs a current account deficit, which means that we typically import more goods and services then we export. There are two reasons for this.

We export when the price and quality of what we sell is attractive to foreigners.

We import because the same is attractive to us.

This, in essence, is the theory of comparative advantage and a current account deficit simply means that our overall comparative advantage is lower than that of our trading partners.

However, as an economy evolves, there is another reason why this may happen, which is that our pattern of consumption becomes more import-intensive.

The story of our Chinese trade imbalance reflects a mix of both the above.

Our net imports from China were just 5.8 per cent of total imports in 1999. They rose sharply to 16.1 per cent in 2008, peaking at 41 per cent in 2015. This is a huge rise in the net trade imbalance. This declined to 33 per cent in 2019.

However, this decline has meant largely that we have been importing from other countries, like the United States, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Our current account imbalance remains.

What we buy from China now is:

1. Stuff that we used to manufacture at home, such as organic chemicals, plastics, and electrical machinery. It is just that Chinese productivity in producing these has outstripped Indian productivity for a long time now.

2. Luxury and cheap mass consumption goods. The latter is driven by a worrying change in our output composition since 1991.

The contribution to our total consumption demand (non-services) of things like automobiles and FMCG is very high. These do provide manufacturing employment but are heavily import-intensive, and the cheapest source of such imports -- from mobile phones, to air conditioners, to auto ancillaries -- is China.

This, in turn, is because India's growth story has been all about tapping the consumption power of the top 150 million of the population and this consumption is disproportionately weighed towards import-intensive goods.

Mass market items like synthetic textiles, toys and plastics are also uncompetitive with Chinese imports.

We import from China not because we love China but because they sell us these things at cheap prices.

Imagine a situation where India's leading indicators of gross domestic product growth were agriculture (including food processing), textiles, affordable housing, health and education.

These would not be as import-intensive, except textiles, where we would have to make an effort to improve the productivity and scale of our cheaper synthetic fibre and apparel industry and locate it in lower wage regions of northern and eastern India to compete with imports from China, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.

For the rest, the demand on infrastructure, logistics and intermediates could be comfortably met by supply response from Indian manufacturers.

A scaling up in healthcare provision would automatically incentivise domestic production of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Education is not import-intensive unless we send our children abroad to study -- which would reduce if India delivered quality, affordable, education.

So the question is not import substitution or export promotion, but, rather, how to raise the productivity of the Indian economy.

This, inter alia, requires a change in the output composition of demand to produce things that a larger segment of Indians wish to consume at affordable prices. This has been the message in all Indian political thought which we ignore at our peril.

Only a focus on what, rather than how much, we consume will counter our strategic vulnerability on the trade front, a threat that has loomed across the course of our development journey since Independence.

Rathin Roy steps down as director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy next week. The views are personal.
As someone whos been performing since the age of nine, muscling her way into the male-dominated classical music industry, Indias first female professional tabla player Anuradha Pal is well acquainted with the musicians who work in the background. And also indigenous folk musicians, to whom we owe the gamut of music available to us today.

These people are family to me. Ive kept in touch with them through the years, working with them. I dont come from a music background, neither did I have a godparent. Ive seen it all  discrimination, groupism and sexism  all together too at times. Tumne is field mein aane ki gustakhi kaise ki? (How did you make the mistake of entering this field?), was a comment that often came my way, she says, as she stumbles down the bitter-sweet memory lane of an industry that is now in dire straits due to the absence of live performances.

So when, a week into the lockdown this March, Anuradha started receiving calls from musicians from Rajasthan, Benaras, Madhya Pradesh and the North East, who told her about their financial woes, she was inspired to work on a free two-day fundraiser concert for them, which will stream for an hour-and-a-half on July 25 and 26.

Voice to the Voiceless

Musicians called, saying they didnt have money to buy food or pay medical bills. These are people who play at weddings and events, not top-of-the-line musicians who can start their own IG live sessions. They need to earn a living! This artist community is not represented in any manner, Anuradha observes.

Folk musicians also reached out, which compelled Anuradha to put together a line-up that includes names such as Taufiq Qureshi, Shubhendra and Saskia Rao, Pt. Satish Vyas and Anup Jalota, besides a sitar and cello duet, and a flute and sarangi jugalbandi, for a concert named Kala Ke Sangh on Facebook and Instagram.

The concert line-up includes names such as Pt .Satish Vyas and Anup Jalota

This is what I can do instead of just criticising others. Also, we need to be more aware of our culture, instead of just making statements about it, she explains.

The concert, she says, is a good way to get through the various corona crises: music has spiritual powers that can certainly ease your mind. And, you can donate money at any time or send money directly to the bank accounts of musicians, or even send food and medical supplies to their homes.

The goal is to raise ~37 lakh, which would help 500 to 700 musicians and instrument makers and their families, says Anuradha, calculating the impact of the social media-anchored music festival.

Trade Secrets

Social media is another thing Anuradha has aced in the last three months. A week into lockdown, she started Instagram live sessions, where she discussed Indian music for 64 consecutive days. Then I got calls from people asking, Ek toh aapko paise nahi mil raha iske liye, uppar se (for one, you are not getting money for this and to top it) you are giving away trade secrets! Fir hum kaise charge karenge ab? (So now, how will we charge?) she laughs.

These musicians, who play at weddings and events, didnt have money to buy food or pay medical bills  They are not top-of-the-line ones who can start their IG lives

But when theres a cause and people see you investing time and energy into it, it could snowball into something impactful. You just need to sustain it for long enough. This is what Anuradha is hoping to do by asking these indigenous musicians to send her decent audio recordings, which she, along with other classical musicians, will promote on their social media feeds. Their phone numbers will also be posted in their videos so that they can get work, maybe even now.

We will have to do some quality control, of course, says Anuradha. Half-an-hour-long recordings will be do-able on borrowed equipment too.

Theres a growing interest in classical music among the youth today, says Anuradha, which could be the bridge that seals the gap between finances and genres. Millennials and old-school folk artists could swap notes and technology via collaborations. This is the best time to introspect and research your roots. People have a chance to reflect and are hence, turning to Indian classical, she says, adding that shes going to release tabla tutorial videos soon.

karishma.kuenzang@hindustantimes.com

From HT Brunch, July 19, 2020

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Vietnam announced seven imported cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday evening, taking the national patient count to 408.

The seven are Russian experts who arrived in Vietnam earlier this month and were quarantined upon landing, the Ministry of Health said.

The ministry had confirmed five other cases, all Vietnamese returning from Russia and the U.S., on Wednesday morning. They were also sent to a quarantine center upon arrival.

The seven new patients are male Russians, aged 42-55, who work in the oil industry, the health ministry said.

They touched down at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on board flight IO4405 on July 11.

They tested negative for the new coronavirus on July 13.

Their samples were taken again for testing on Tuesday and the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City confirmed their positive results on Wednesday.

The seven patients are treated for COVID-19 at a hospital in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, about 100km southeast of the city.

Ten aboard the IO4405 flight, which carried 69 experts in total, had been confirmed as coronavirus patients. They are being isolated for treatment in Ba Ria-Vung Tau as well.

A total of 365 patients have beaten the virus in Vietnam, with zero deaths documented so far.

Vietnam has recorded no locally-transmitted infection for over three months in a row.

The countrys national tally will surely rise in the coming time, as the government has arranged a flight to bring 120 Vietnamese patients back from Equatorial Guinea on August 3.

Vietnam still seals its borders to foreign arrivals but experts and skilled workers are considered exceptions approved case by case by the central government.

Any entrant is subject to mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Little effect on China as UK ends extradition treaty with HKSAR to please US: experts

Global Times

By Chen Qingqing Source: Global Times Published: 2020/7/21 0:32:14

The day US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in London, kicking off his short visit to the UK amid deteriorating China-UK ties, the British government announced that it would suspend its extradition treaty with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), a move which further enflames the row with China.

Such a move could be seen as "a gift" that Boris Johnson offered to the Trump administration in exchange for more bargaining chips for a possible US-UK trade deal, which may further jeopardize ties with China. Experts said it's more of a "symbolic" move rather than one with real impact.

"The government has decided to suspend the extradition treaty immediately and indefinitely," UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Monday, and the UK became the third country to take such move after Canada and Australia, with the aim of opposing the national security law for Hong Kong.

The HKSAR has extradition agreements with some 20 countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and Germany. Half a month after China's national security law for HKSAR came into force, Canada became the first country to announce it was ending the treaty with the HKSAR.

Chinese officials and scholars earlier warned that ending the extradition agreement with the HKSAR is extremely dangerous as it is very likely to further undermine China-UK relations.

The UK is going to pay the price for its moves against China, and the Chinese government will soon take countermeasures in response to the UK's latest move, some observers said.

A declining UK has been facing growing pressure from the US to "pick a side" on the Hong Kong matter. However, such a move has more "symbolic" implications than a real impact on the HKSAR and the Chinese mainland, Li Xiaobing, an expert on Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan studies at Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times on Monday.

"Although those countries ended extradition treaties with the HKSAR, if they continue maintaining a relationship with China, we always have ways of holding fleeing fugitives accountable," Li said.

Ending the extradition agreement with the HKSAR won't have a significant impact on law enforcement in the city, and countries that took such reckless moves may face greater risks, as those fugitives who violate the law in Hong Kong could flee to countries like the UK, which will likely become a crime haven, some analysts said.

However, law enforcement authorities in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland will always be able to hold fugitives accountable through different means, such as international police cooperation, John Lee Ka-chiu, Hong Kong Secretary for Security, told the Global Times in a recent interview.

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By PTI

JAIPUR: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging attempts to topple his government and naming Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

In the letter written Sunday, he accused Shekhawat, other BJP leaders and some 'overambitious leaders' of his own party for being involved in the alleged attempt to bring down his Congress government.

"I am not aware to what extent this is in your knowledge or if you are being misled," Gehlot said in the letter released to the media on Wednesday.

"History will not forgive those who participate in this deed."

Gehlot is caught in a power tussle with Sachin Pilot, now sacked from his post as deputy chief minister.

He said the alleged attempt to bring down the Congress government in the state insulted the people's mandate and was an open violation of constitutional values.

He cited the examples of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, the two states where Congress lost power over the past year while alleging horse-trading of MLAs by the BJP.

Gehlot said for some time there have been attempts to bring down elected governments, ignoring the spirit of the anti-defection law brought in by the Rajiv Gandhi government and the amendment introduced by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

He said protecting lives is the only priority during the COVID-19 pandemic and in such a situation attempts are being made to topple the elected government in Rajasthan.

"In this act, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, other BJP leader and some overambitious leaders of our party are involved," he said.

He also named dissident Congress leader Bhanwarlal Sharma who he said had tried to bring down Bhairon Singh Shekhawat's BJP government in Rajasthan.

Gehlot said he had at that time protested against the move.

The Congress has suspended Bhanwarlal Sharma and another MLA, Vishvendra Singh, from the primary membership of the party for their alleged involvement in the conspiracy.

Gehlot said he is saddened that a ruling party at the Centre could ignore its priority of managing the coronavirus pandemic and is instead play the 'main role' in bringing down a Congress government.

He said similar allegations were levelled in connection with Madhya Pradesh and "your party was defamed across the country".

The chief minister said he firmly believed that healthy democratic and constitutional values will finally win and his government will complete its tenure while delivering good governance.
New Delhi, July 22 : Amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, savage floods have wreaked havoc in Assam, disrupting the lives of nearly 33 lakh people in 28 districts. Due to the floods, lakhs of people have lost their homes and livelihoods.

Since the onset of the floods, 1,200 volunteers of the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS), an auxiliary to the government and armed forces' medical services, have been working tirelessly to provide support to the affected communities in the remote areas.

"Initially, the state branch conducted a needs assessment and established 12 zonal centres to pre-position 13,500 tarpaulins so that we are able to launch a timely emergency response," said Diganta Bujarbaruah, General Secretary of IRCS Assam.

Till date, 9,283 tarpaulins have been distributed among the needy families, helping close to 46,000 people gain immediate shelter.

As many as 2,000 families are being supported in temporary shelters and relief camps set up by the IRCS in the highlands at several locations. All the beneficiaries are being provided with dry ration, utensils, mosquito nets, soaps, masks and clean drinking water.

IRCS Assam has installed 25 family tents in different Covid-19 quarantine centres as well as along the highways, railway lines and embankments where displaced people have taken shelter.

One such camp has been set up at IRCS' raised platform in Chorabori in Kamrup district, where 50 flood affected families are being sheltered along with their cattle.

The society has served more than 40,000 people reeling under the impact of the devastating floods with relief aid such as dry ration kits, mosquito nets, utensils and other essential commodities.

Hygiene items such as soaps, masks and gloves have also been distributed. Besides, volunteers are also encouraging everyone to practice social distancing norms.

The IRCS has also installed hand pumps for the affected families to ensure that people have access to clean drinking water.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Islandsbanki will publish its financial results for the first six months of 2020 on Wednesday afternoon 29 July

Investor call in English at 9.30 GMT on Thursday 30 July

The Bank will host an investor call in English at 9.30 GMT on Thursday, 30 July.

The call will start with a short macro update on the Icelandic economy, followed by a review of the financial results and Q&A.

Please register by sending an email to: ir@islandsbanki.is.

Dial-in details and investor material will be sent prior to the call.

For further information please contact Margret Lilja Hrafnkelsdottir, head of Investor Relations  ir@islandsbanki.is, tel. +354 440 4033

Islandsbanki press releases

If you wish to receive Islandsbanki press releases by e-mail please register at: https://www.islandsbanki.is/english/investor-relations/ir-contacts/e-mail-subscription/

About Islandsbanki

Islandsbanki is a universal bank and a leader in financial services in Iceland with a history of 145 years of servicing key industries. The Bank has a 25-40% market share across all domestic business segments. Islandsbanki's purpose is to move Iceland forward by empowering our customers to succeed. Driven by the vision to be #1 for service, Islandsbanki's relationship banking business model is propelled by three business divisions that manage and build relationships with the Bank's customers. Islandsbanki has developed a wide range of online services such as the Islandsbanki and Kass apps, enabling customers to do their banking anywhere and anytime. At the same time, the Bank continues to operate the most efficient branch network in Iceland through its strategically located 12 branches. Islandsbanki has a BBB/A-2 rating from S&P Global Ratings. www.islandsbanki.is

Disclaimer

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, involving uncertainty and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from results expressed or implied by the statements. Islandsbanki hf. undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after this press release. It is the investor's responsibility to not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which only reflect the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements should not be considered as guarantees or predictions of future events and all forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.




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Linkedin Swati Pandey (Reuters) Sydney, Australia  Wed, July 22, 2020 14:30 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406686e223 2 World Australia,climate-change,lawsuit,pollution,climate-activists,climate-protests Free

A 23-year-old student has filed a lawsuit against Australia's government alleging it has failed to disclose climate change-related risks to investors in the country's sovereign bonds, in the first such action.

According to the litigation filed on Wednesday, Kathleen O'Donnell claims investors who buy Australian government bonds should be made aware of the risks due to climate change that might make it difficult for Australia to pay back its debt.

A spokeswoman for Australia's Treasurer told Reuters the government was aware of the lawsuit.

"Legal representatives are considering the matter. As it concerns current court proceedings the government will not make any comment," the spokeswoman said.

The litigation comes amid a global call for a "green" recovery in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic and as many large investment managers pledge their commitment for net zero carbon emissions by 2050 across their entire portfolio.

Climate change has long been a hot button issue in Australia, becoming even more so since last summer when intense wildfires raged for about four months across large parts of the country, killing 33 people and millions of animals.

"Australia is materially exposed and susceptible" to climate change risks, according to the statement filed with the Federal Court of Australia in Victoria state.

"Accordingly, [a] those risks are material to an investor's decision to trade in exchange-traded Australian government bonds [e-AGBs] and [b] an investor is entitled to be informed of those risks."

O'Donnell is seeking declaration that the government breached its duty of disclosure and an injunction restraining further promotion of e-AGBs until it complies.

Australia has more than A$600 billion ($428 billion) of sovereign bonds on issue, enjoying a coveted 'AAA' rating from all three major ratings agencies.

The country contributes only 1.3% of the world's carbon emissions but is the second-largest emitter per capita behind the United States and is a leading exporter of coal.

Climate change-related disclosures have become more mainstream globally in the past couple of years, with stake holders expecting better disclosures and transparency on climate risks.

Global financial authorities are also pushing banks to improve transparency on their exposure to climate-change risks, arguing that disclosures on climate exposure are a prerequisite for market participants - an issue referenced in O'Donnell's litigation.

"As a promoter, the Commonwealth [government] owes a duty of utmost candor and honesty to investors who acquire or intend to acquire e-AGBs," according to the statement filed in court.

"The Commonwealth breached its duty as a promoter by ... failing to disclose any information about Australia's climate change risks."
Brown Advisory recently released its Q2 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download here. The Large-Cap Growth Fund posted a return of 27.86% for the quarter, outperforming its benchmark, the Russell 1000 Growth Index which returned 27.84% in the same quarter. You should check out Brown Advisorys top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of the stock market crash.

In the said letter, Brown Advisory highlighted a few stocks and Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) is one of them. Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) is a medical technology company. Year-to-date, Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) stock gained 0.5% and on July 21st it had a closing price of $75.94. Here is what Brown Advisory said:

"As COVID-19 numbers worsened late in the quarter so too did investor concern that non-emergency hospital procedures, such as Edwards heart valve replacement system, would incur a setback. This put a damper on the stocks recovery."

smart.art/Shutterstock.com

In Q1 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) stock increased by about 9% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers don't seem to agree with Edwards Lifesciences's downside potential. Our calculations showed that Edwards Lifesciences Corp (NYSE:EW) isn't ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 185% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 109 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds' poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

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Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, legal marijuana is one of the fastest growing industries right now, so we are checking out stock pitches like "the Starbucks of cannabis" to identify the next tenbagger. We go through lists like the 10 most profitable companies in the world to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Hedge fund sentiment towards Tesla reached its all time high at the end of 2019 and Tesla shares more than tripled this year. We are trying to identify other EV revolution winners, so if you have any good ideas send us an email. You can subscribe to our free enewsletter below to receive our stories in your inbox:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
More than 200 people who have been ordered to self-isolate under Queensland's strict quarantine laws have gone missing, it has been revealed.

Police said 210 people who are currently unaccounted for are wanted for questioning and will face fines for breaking stay-at-home laws.

The COVID-19 taskforce has conducted 2,000 compliance checks since mid-April and found 400 people in breach of quarantine rules.

More than 200 people who have been ordered to self-isolate under Queensland's strict quarantine laws have gone missing, it has been revealed (pictured: Police stop motorists crossing the Qld-NSW border)

Of those, 185 people had deliberately given health officials incorrect contact details, such as the address they would stay at during isolation.

Police confirmed 35 people had been fined after they were found in the wrong place, with 125 people leaving Queensland when they were supposed to be isolated at home.

Another 25 people had provided the correct information to health officials but when police arrived to conduct a check, they were nowhere to be found.

The taskforce found 17 people at different addresses than the one they had provided to authorities, but they weren't fined as they had relocated due to family problems or an expired lease.

These people were given new orders and addresses as they are still required to self-isolate.

Police said the number of people found flouting the rules was relatively low but they are putting the rest of the community at risk.

Police said 210 people who are currently unaccounted for are wanted for questioning and will face fines for breaking stay-at-home laws (pictured: Police at the arrival terminal at the Gold Coast Airport)

Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said people who provide authorities with the incorrect information or disappear from self-quarantine should be banned from the state.

'What they've done is put our state at risk and not only the safety of our people but also the economy, it goes hand in hand so my view is, let's look at changing legislation and deport them to New South Wales, they don't deserve to be here,' Mr Leavers told the ABC.

'This is really serious and we've got to get fair dinkum about this and if that means, people want to lie, let's increase those penalties and if we can, let's lock them out of Queensland.

'If you want to enter Queensland, it's a privilege, it's not a right. You will follow the laws of the land.'

Queensland Police have been contacted for comment.

The COVID-19 taskforce conducted 2,000 compliance checks since mid-April and found 400 people in breach of quarantine laws (pictured: Police stop motorists crossing the Queensland-NSW border)

The development comes after a New South Wales man was fined when police caught him trying to sneak across the Queensland border in the boot of a car.

The 41-year-old was found by Queensland Police hiding under bags in the boot of a Mitsubishi hatchback at Wallangarra on Sunday night.

Bodycam footage captured the moment police busted the would-be border hopper before slapping him with a $4,003 fine.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) La Paz, Bolivia  Wed, July 22, 2020 07:55 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668444a4 2 World Bolivia,coronavirus,coronavirus-effect,COVID-19,COVID-19-death-toll,COVID-19-infection,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Bolivian police said on Tuesday they recovered more than 400 bodies from streets and homes over a five-day period, with 85 percent of the dead believed to have had coronavirus.

A total of 191 bodies were recovered in the Cochabamba metropolitan area alone from July 15-20, with another 141 collected in La Paz, national police director Coronel Ivan Rojas told journalists.

In the country's biggest city, Santa Cruz, authorities recovered 68 bodies.

The Santa Cruz metropolitan area is the worst affected by coronavirus in Bolivia and accounts for almost half of the country's more than 60,000 cases.

Some 85 percent of the bodies were "positive cases for COVID-19 and cases with COVID symptoms, so they will be recorded as suspected cases," said Rojas.

The rest died of "other causes, meaning death from an illness or a violent cause," he added.

According to the national epidemiological office, the western regions of Cochabamba and La Paz are experiencing a "very rapid increase" in coronavirus cases.

Andres Flores, director of the Forensic Investigations Institute, said that between April 1 and July 19 more than 3,000 bodies that were recovered outside of hospital settings had been identified as either confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases.

Bolivia has recorded more than 2,200 confirmed coronavirus deaths among its 11 million population.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved an addition to its defense policy bill to expand the Department of Veterans Affairs' list of diseases considered related to exposure to Agent Orange, adding bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinsonism.

The measure's passage sets up a debate between the House and Senate over the issue when the two chambers reconcile the differences in their respective versions of the defense bill. In last-minute discussions this week, a similar provision was omitted from the House bill.

Read Next: SecDef Wants to Stop Federal Law Enforcement Agents Dressing Like US Troops

The Senate passed the amendment 94-6. Members are set to vote on the entire bill later this week.

Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee who sponsored the bill, said Tuesday that justice for these veterans "was long overdue."

"Our sacred duty is to care for those who are wounded. We have refused to cover illnesses such as bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinsonism. [The VA] doesn't seem to think that exposure to these toxic chemicals in Vietnam is a cost of war. Let me tell you, they are wrong," he said in a speech on the Senate floor before the vote.

If signed into law, the provision would expand VA health care eligibility and disability benefits to roughly 22,000 affected veterans.

Former service members with these illnesses have been waiting since 2016 for a decision from the VA on whether the department would expand its list of 14 conditions to include the three new ones.

That year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that there is suggestive or sufficient evidence that the three diseases are associated with exposure to herbicides used during the Vietnam War.

In 2018, the Academies concluded that "sufficient evidence" also exists linking hypertension and related illnesses in veterans to Agent Orange and other defoliants.

The proposal that passed the Senate did not include hypertension, however. The condition is common among the elderly and, if it had been included, may have added more than two million veterans to VA disability rolls in the next 10 years, at an estimated cost of $11.2 billion to $15.2 billion, according to the VA.

The decision not to include hypertension in the legislation this time was a compromise, and lawmakers and advocacy groups have pledged to keep pushing for it to be included.

In 2017, then-VA Secretary David Shulkin expressed support for including bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinsonism on the list of presumptive diseases, but he never formally announced his decision.

According to internal VA documents, Shulkin had been on the verge of including the three conditions when the Office of Management and Budget and other White House officials objected, citing what they called "limited scientific evidence" and cost.

Meanwhile, thousands of veterans have waited.

"The fact of the matter is that this administration -- the Trump administration -- has refused to expand the list of presumptive health conditions associated with Agent Orange," Tester said.

He sponsored the legislation in the Senate. On the House side, the amendment was promoted by Rep. Joshua Harder, D-California. It passed the House Armed Services Committee but was struck from the bill by the House Rules Committee, which decided that it did not include a requisite way to cover its cost, called a "pay-for."

A source close to the process said that the Congressional Budget Office provided an informal assessment of the cost of Harder's amendment that was in the "tens of billions," while the assessment given to Tester's office was "$10 billion."

The source questioned the $10 billion price tag.

"The cost is not going to increase. We are losing these people every day. There may be some spousal benefits, but the sad thing is, they also are of an age where they are going too," said the source, who spoke on background as he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told lawmakers late last year he wants the results of two studies -- the Vietnam Era Health Retrospective Observational Study, or VE-HEROES, and the Vietnam Era Mortality Study -- to be reviewed for publication before announcing a decision on whether to broaden the presumptives list.

The VA began recognizing diseases associated with herbicide exposure in Vietnam in 1991, naming 14 diseases as presumed to be linked to exposure, including Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, early-onset peripheral neuropathy, porphyria cutanea tarda, prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, type-2 diabetes mellitus, light chain amyloidosis, ischemic heart disease, chronic B-cell leukemias, Parkinson's disease.

In addition, spina bifida is recognized as a disease linked to Agent Orange in the offspring of veterans.

The senators who voted against the measure were all Republicans: Mike Braun of Indiana, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Ted Cruz of Texas, MIke Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rick Scott of Florida.

Following the vote, Tester expressed confidence that the measure would make it into the final version of the bill, given the overwhelming support for it in the Senate.

As for those who voted against it, he said he'd love to "talk to those six people to see what's going on in their heads."

"I can't think of one good reason to vote against this.  You can say it cost money, but the fact of the matter is it's a cost of war," Tester said.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Related: Report Claims Vietnam Era Veterans Were Exposed to Agent Orange on Guam
Currency.com Granted DLT Licence by GFSC

The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) has awarded a full Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) licence to Currency.com, a regulated crypto assets platform. The license will allow Currency.com to utilise DLT to store and transfer crypto assets.

Established in 2018, the tokenised securities exchange is already regulated in Belarus and provides a platform for crypto holders to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, as well as trade real-world assets such as tokenised shares and commodities.

With offices in London, Belarus, and now Gibraltar, Currency.com already operates in a number of countries worldwide.

Gibraltars Minister for Digital and Financial Services, the Hon Albert Isola MP, said, I am pleased that even during the Covid 19 pandemic our GFSC and applicant firms have continued their good work in the licensing process. I am delighted to welcome such an esteemed company to our growing list of licensed firms in Gibraltar. Currency.com has proven themselves to be a key industry player and we look forward to seeing their business develop. We believe in and support the adoption of blockchain technology on a global scale, with Gibraltar at the forefront of exciting and innovative developments. We are pleased to welcome Currency.com to the Rock.

Gibraltar introduced its DLT legislation in January 2018. The legislation is a purpose-built regulatory framework for enterprises leveraging DLT or blockchain technology as part of their business model. Currency.com has proved compliant with Gibraltars nine principles for DLT regulation, including risk management processes, effective corporate governance, and security controls to combat financial and cyber crime. These regulatory principles are designed to protect consumers and businesses who use, store, or trade digital assets on distributed ledgers.

Gibraltar has been working on financial regulation in this area for many years and has a strict application process for crypto companies. Our Gibraltar licence is an important endorsement for the platform and further confirms our adherence to the most stringent standards, providing the highest level of safety and security for our traders, said Jonathan Squires, Currency.coms CEO.

Not only has Gibraltars DLT legislation been in place well before the FATF recommendations of last year, but it also continues to evolve to maintain global leading standards as a regulatory framework and infrastructure for serious operators, and it is great to see groups like Currency.com contribute to the ecosystem developing in the jurisdiction " said Joey Garcia of Isolas LLP, the legal advisors to the group.
The 42nd edition of CIFF will be held 19 to 28 November under strict precautionary measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic

The organisers of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) have called on Arab filmmakers to submit to the 42nd edition's co-production market  the Cairo Film Connection  open until 4 August 2020 via the festival's website.

"The festival strives to support and champion new and exciting voices of which there is a huge pool in the Arab world. Working together with our partners and sponsors we are looking to expand our support during the 42nd edition, stated CIFFs president, writer-producer Mohamed Hefzy, Monday.

Only feature-length fiction or non-fiction in development or post-production, directed by filmmakers of Arab nationality or origin who have directed a minimum of one short or long film, are eligible for submission.

Part of Cairo Industry Days, Cairo Film Connection is running for its third year in partnership with Arab Cinema Centre, bringing professionals for a programme of masterclasses, panel discussions, and events "designed to inspire, highlight and support filmmaking talent from the region".

Last year, Cairo Film Connection provided financial support of over $200,000 to filmmakers in addition to exclusive access to leading international and regional professionals to help them develop their projects.

Cairo Industry Days has an even more crucial role to play this year due to the global pandemic. Many international film events, which play an important role in supporting films, have been modified or postponed," head of Cairo Industry Days Aliaa Zaky explained.

CIFF, is the only festival in Africa and the Middle East to be accorded category A status by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) in Paris, has earlier confirmed holding its 42nd edition from 19 to 28 November under strict precautionary measures.

The Covid-19 crisis has had a huge impact on the filmmaking industry, and programmes like the Cairo Film Connection are more important than ever as we face unprecedented new challenges," Hefzy said.

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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Samsung is all set to unveil the Galaxy Note20 series at an online event on August 5th. Now the specifications and press images of Galaxy Note 20 Ultra have surfaced. This reveals an upgraded S Pen 9ms response time, automatic Microsoft OneNote synchronization and support for range of gesture commands. Microsofts upcoming Project xCloud and Xbox Game Pass will allow users to play more than 90 games on the smartphone via cloud.

The Samsung Galaxy Note20 series is said to be the first to use Corning Gorilla Glass 7 protection. Even though US market is said to get Snapdragon 865+ SoC, Europe and Asian market is said to stick to Exynos 990 SoC. It is said feature a 108MP rear camera that was first introduced in the S20 Ultra along with a 12MP ultra-wide sensor, but the 48MP telephoto lens with 100x space zoom will be replaced with a 12MP periscope lens and 50x space zoom.

Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G rumoured specifications

6.9-inch Quad HD+ (3200  1440 pixels) Dynamic AMOLED 19.3:9 aspect ratio Infinity-O Display, HDR10+, 508 PPI, 120Hz refresh rate, Corning Gorilla Glass 7 protection

Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ 7nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 650 GPU / Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 990 7nm EUV processor with ARM Mali-G77MP11 GPU

12GB LPDDR5 RAM with 256GB/512GB storage (UFS 3.1), expandable memory up to 1TB with microSD

Android 10 with OneUI

Single / Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano / microSD)

108MP rear camera with LED Flash, f/1.8 aperture, PDAF, OIS, 12MP Periscope lens with f/3.0 aperture, PDAF, OIS, 5X optical zoom, Space zoom up to 50X, 12MP 120 Ultra Wide sensor with f/2.2 aperture

10MP front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture

Water and dust resistant (IP68)

Stereo speakers tuned by AKG, Dolby Atmos

In-display fingerprint sensor

Dimensions: 164.8 x 77.2 x 8.1mm

5G SA/NSA, Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ax (2.4/5GHz), HE80, MIMO, 1024-QAM, Bluetooth 5, GPS with GLONASS, USB Type-C (Gen 3.2), NFC, MST

4500mAh (typical) battery with 45W fast charging, wireless (WPC and PMA) charging, Wireless PowerShare

The Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra is expected to come in Mystic Black and Mystic Bronze colours. We should know the price when it goes official in a couple of weeks.

Source
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

More than 25 additional federal agents will be coming to Albuquerque in the next couple of days as part of Operation Legend, an initiative that federal officials stress is about fighting violent crime  especially gun violence  not cracking down on protests.

President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf announced the operation during a news conference at the White House on Wednesday afternoon.

They were joined by the widower of a woman who was shot to death in the driveway of her West Side Albuquerque home in November as well as the mother of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, of Kansas City, Missouri, who was shot and killed last month while he slept. Operation Legend is named after the boy and it began in Kansas City.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales also attended the news conference at the White House, but he did not speak.

During a short speech, Trump said there has been a shocking explosion of heinous crimes as a result of efforts to defund, dismantle, and dissolve police departments. He blasted city leaders throughout the country for not doing enough to combat crime and for putting the interests of criminals above law-abiding citizens.

Under Operation Legend, we will also soon send federal law enforcement to other cities that need help, Trump said. Other cities need help. They need it badly. They should call. They should want it. Theyre too proud or theyre too political to do that. One of them is Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In an interview after the White House news conference, U.S. Attorney for New Mexico John Anderson said the goal of the operation is to reduce gun violence in Albuquerque.

Any effort to compare Operation Legend to whats going on in Portland is baseless and misguided, he said. There is no connection between those two. The federal law enforcement resources that are being deployed are directed at reducing gun violence; they are not directed at arresting or controlling protesters; they are not being directed at restricting anyones right to protest.  They are not being directed at immigration enforcement, and they are not being directed at protecting statues. Its limited to the exclusive goal of eliminating the scourge of gun violence.

State and local leaders, however, remained unconvinced and said they wanted more information and assurances about what the operation will entail.

Anderson said agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be trickling into Albuquerque over the next several days and will supplement those who are already stationed here. He did not know whether they will be outfitted with body-worn cameras but did say they will be wearing clearly marked uniforms unless theyre undercover.

Obviously, what we would like to see is the rate of gun violence drop. That is something that has been our goal for some time, and its remained, despite those efforts, its remained stubbornly high, he said. I think despite the efforts of state and local partners as well.

Prime example

Jacqueline Vigil  a 55-year-old mother of two New Mexico State Police officers  was held up as a tragic example of a victim of unsolved violent crime in Albuquerque.

At the news conference, Jacquelines husband, Sam Vigil, recounted the morning his wife was killed while sitting in her car on her way to the gym. He said he still thinks about it every time he is in their driveway and at night before he goes to sleep.

Its been eight months, and there have been no arrests at all, Vigil said. There are other victims in Albuquerque that are in the same boat.

A spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department said the investigation is ongoing.

Weve already been working with state and federal partners on the Vigil case and continue to welcome their help because its just not happening fast enough, spokesman Gilbert Gallegos wrote in a statement.

AG Barr said that police have been demonized since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and that there has been an extreme reaction in many cities. He said Operation Legend is a direct response to calls to defund or weaken police departments.

Asked whether this played a part in agents being sent to Albuquerque, Anderson said he believes the city was chosen because of its high crime rates  including a record 80 homicides in 2019  and the existing partnerships between local and federal agencies.

When you look at the violent crime rates, thats all that went into it, Anderson said. From my perspective, it didnt have anything to do with the rhetoric about defund the police.

Recently released crime statistics from APD show a decrease in property crime from 2018 to 2019 and violent crime holding steady. Although homicides spiked in 2019, this year, has had fewer cases.

Sheriff Gonzales sent his condolences to the Vigil family and stressed his commitment to fighting crime in Albuquerque.

Todays announcement from the federal government speaks for itself, and the local FBI also made it clear what Operation Legend special agents will do: combat Albuquerques out of control crime crisis and solve homicides, he said in a statement.

Plan denounced

As hints about Operation Legend in Albuquerque began to circulate earlier this week, city and state leaders expressed fears that agents would carry out tactics against protesters that they have been using in Portland, Oregon. They referenced Trumps secret police and storm troopers and officers snatching protesters off the street.

Sheriff Gonzales was blasted by several fellow Democrats and others for his decision to attend the White House briefing. Democratic U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and the American Civil Liberties Union both called for him to resign.

In statements Wednesday after the news conference, local leaders cautioned that the operation was going to be a bait-and-switch move and said they didnt trust the administration.

Given President Trump and Attorney General Barrs track record of using Department of Justice resources to carry out the presidents political whims, we cannot stand down on these threats until we have confirmation, in writing, differentiating what is planned for New Mexico from the illegal and unconstitutional actions by federal agents in Portland, Heinrich said in a statement.

Mayor Tim Keller sent a statement saying the president is ready to incite violence in Democratic cities and is forming a reelection strategy built on gaslighting immigrants and people of color. He cautioned that two weeks ago the administration said federal officers were going to Portland to guard the courthouse.

We always welcome partnerships in constitutional crime fighting that are in step with our community, but we wont sell out our city for a bait-and-switch excuse to send secret police to Albuquerque, Keller said. Operation Legend is not real crime fighting; its politics standing in the way of police work and makes us less safe.

Although Steve Pearce, the state GOP chairman, did not watch Trumps briefing, he said he trusts those in power to get crime in control again.

Pearce said it was irresponsible for local leaders to use terms like storm troopers or secret police.

Here youve got a Democrat sheriff going to Washington to talk to President Trump  everybody always talks about bipartisanship, but when it does happen then you get calls for resignation, you get calls to step down, he said. So it makes me wonder if the other side really wants bipartisanship or not.

Meanwhile, the governor and the state attorney general said they will actively monitor the operation for civil rights violations and urge anyone who is affected to contact their offices.

Before the White House briefing, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said that if the Trump administration really wants to assist local law enforcement  with community policing activities and data-driven crime-fighting initiatives  it would welcome the conversation.

If the Trump administration wishes to antagonize New Mexicans and Americans with authoritarian, unnecessary and unaccountable military-style crackdowns, they have no business whatsoever in New Mexico, Lujan Grisham wrote in a statement. An exercise meant only to escalate tension in New Mexico communities would be flatly unacceptable.

New initiative

Before there was Operation Legend, there was Operation Relentless Pursuit, a crime-fighting initiative the DOJ launched in seven cities  including Albuquerque and Kansas City  at the end of last year.

Anderson said arrests and investigations were done under that operation, but ultimately the DOJ decided to end it because of COVID-19 related travel restrictions and concerns.

Operation Relentless Pursuit was really focused on the injection of these funds and making the funds available and permanent pluck up of some of those federal law enforcement agencies in Albuquerque, Anderson said. This really focuses on a deployment of federal resources on a more temporary basis to try to get the gun crime epidemic in check.

He said the grant funding that had been awarded to both APD and the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office under Operation Relentless Pursuit will still be offered. However, he said, no new funding has been announced.

BCSO received $1.4 million in grant funding tied to Operation Relentless Pursuit earlier this year by certifying that it complied with certain conditions tied to the grant agreement.

APD was awarded $9.7 million to hire 40 officers, but it has not received anything. Anderson has previously said that the citys immigrant-friendly policies were contrary to some of the grant conditions.

Police Chief Michael Geier mentioned that funding in a statement sent after the news conference.

While we welcome any assistance and additional resources to address violent crime, the President promised help in the past and has not yet followed through, Geier said. We are still waiting on the $10 million Operation Relentless Pursuit funding that was promised last year to help us with our goal to hire more officers and to bring in additional federal law enforcement agents to assist us in our crime fighting efforts. While I will try to remain optimistic, I wont hold my breath until we see all this actually come to fruition.

Tips sought

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of individuals responsible for the homicide of Jacqueline Vigil.
The government of India has cautioned against the use of N95 masks with valved respirators, claiming that there are higher chances of coronavirus spreading from asymptomatic people to uninfected persons through them.

The Director-General of Health Services (DGHS) has also alluded to the inappropriate use of N95 masks with valved respirators by the public. "It is to bring to your knowledge that the use of valved respirator N95 masks is detrimental to the measures adopted for preventing the spread of coronavirus as they don't prevent the virus from escaping out of ...
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump walked to the lectern in the White House briefing room alone Tuesday, attempting to single-handedly hit the reset button on the public blame he is facing for not controlling the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Three months after he abandoned the daily virus briefings and attempted to turn the country's attention to what he described as the "great American comeback," Trump's low-key reappearance before reporters seemed to be a tacit admission that his previous strategy had not worked.

Six months after the first coronavirus case was confirmed in the United States - and with almost 4 million confirmed infections - Trump's attempt to re-engage with the crisis and embrace public health guidelines marked a notable departure from his recent approach to the pandemic.

"We are in the process of developing a strategy that's going to be very, very powerful," Trump said Tuesday, reading from prepared remarks that did not include details of what the strategy would entail.

While Trump continued to showcase his trademark boosterism with repeated praise of his administration, he also appeared to acknowledge that the virus he once said would soon disappear continues to pose a serious threat to the country, as well as to his reelection chances.

"It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better," he said during the 30-minute briefing in which he spoke in subdued tones. "Something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is."

That somber approach harked back to late March, when Trump warned of a "great national trial unlike any it has ever faced before" and predicted a "very painful two weeks" for the country.

That soberness did not last long; Trump spent much of April and May attacking governors who did not reopen their economies and resisting calls for the federal government to play a more central role in managing the crisis.

Public health experts blame much of the country's current predicament on that lack of leadership in those months - specifically pointing to Trump's unwillingness to push face coverings and social distancing as he traveled the country holding rallies and mocking people who wore masks. Trump's approval among the general public has also plummeted in recent months, with Americans giving him low marks for his leadership in crisis.

On the same day that his Democratic rival Joe Biden slammed him by saying "he's quit on this country," Trump attempted to use the revived daily briefing to prove otherwise.

Trump used part of his time in the briefing room to push a public health message that many lawmakers and medical experts have been requesting for months. He praised health-care workers for saving lives, largely avoided attacks on Democrats, and urged Americans to wear masks and stay away from crowded bars.

While he avoided some of the gaffes from his previous briefings and spent less time airing personal grievances, Trump still used the televised platform to break away from White House talking points and stir controversy. He contradicted press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's claims that he gets tested multiple times a day for the virus, and he sent well wishes to a woman who has been accused of grooming Jeffrey Epstein's underage victims and recruiting them to be sexually abused over several years.

More for you White House, GOP in disarray over spending plan as benefit expiration nears

"I just wish her well," Trump said when asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's longtime companion who prosecutors say was an accomplice in his predation.

Trump's decision to appear at the briefing without members of the coronavirus task force was itself a matter of controversy in the hours before the event. Fearing that the president might become distracted and unfocused without public health officials in the room, several Republicans - and some White House officials - have called for the briefings to feature less Trump and more doctors.

But several top health officials in the administration did not know as of Tuesday morning whether they would be participating in the briefing alongside the president.

Appearing Tuesday on CBS News's "This Morning," U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams did not directly answer a question about whether high-profile members of the coronavirus task force would appear.

Asked by co-host Gayle King whether he, White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx or National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci would be in attendance, Adams said: "They're still figuring that out."

Shortly before the briefing, Fauci told CNN that he had not been invited.

During the briefings Trump headlined in March and April, the president regularly undercut or muddled the messaging from public health officials. Trump, who rarely attended the coronavirus task force meetings, would often show up for the televised briefings with a different set of talking points.

The president regularly pitched the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a "game changer" even as Fauci and others cautioned that it was untested and might not serve as an effective treatment. The Food and Drug Administration has since pulled its emergency use authorization for the drug after some studies showed that it could lead to a higher risk of death.

Trump also used previous briefings to contradict health experts on face coverings, telling reporters in April that he did not plan to use one. Several administration officials, including Fauci, Birx and Adams, have pleaded with Americans to use masks when in public - a message ensnared in partisan politics as Trump has vacillated on whether face coverings are a vital public health measure or a political statement.

The president appeared to reverse course on his mask skepticism on Monday, tweeting a picture of himself wearing a mask and writing that "many people say that it is Patriotic" to use a face covering when social distancing is not possible.

Given Trump's long history of criticizing mask use - he told The Wall Street Journal in June that some Americans wore masks as a protest of him personally - some medical experts said they wished the president would model good public health by walking into the briefing room with his face covered.

"I genuinely hope the President wears a mask to the press briefing as a signal to the several million people watching on TV that wearing a mask is simple and important," tweeted Rob Davidson, an emergency physician and executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare, a national network of doctors that has lobbied against Trump. "At a minimum I hope he encourages all Americans to #maskup. A national mandate would be better."

Trump did not wear a mask to the briefing, but he pulled one out of his pocket and - in a rare departure - did not equivocate as he called on Americans to use them.

"We're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask," Trump said. "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact."

Trump has long viewed the briefings as an opportunity to tout his handling of the pandemic and put a positive spin on the virus's devastating toll. Even as daily deaths were spiking in March and April, Trump told reporters that his actions had actually saved millions of lives. He repeated the claim Tuesday.

Trump favorably compared the United States to other countries during the briefing, saying "we've done much better than most."

In reality, the United States has performed far worse than most of the industrialized world in containing the spread of the virus. Cases in the United States have continued to spike in recent weeks, reaching records even as countries in Europe and elsewhere began to bring their outbreaks under control.

While Americans make up less than 5% of the global population, the United States accounts for almost a quarter of all deaths from the coronavirus.

Before the news conference, several previous White House press secretaries gave Trump public advice about how he should approach the briefing room.

Trump "should come out and present the update on what the government is doing in terms of fighting #COVID19 and getting economy open then walk off and allow other officials to provide additional updates and answer questions," Sean Spicer, the first press secretary in the Trump White House, wrote Tuesday on Twitter.

He quoted a post from Ari Fleischer, press secretary in the George W. Bush White House, which called the briefings a "mistake" before going on to offer guidance.

"Be specific about what the Fed government is doing" and "Get out of the room within 30 minutes," he wrote.

Sarah Sanders, who succeeded Spicer, told Fox News on Monday that Trump should remind people that he is doing everything he can to protect them from the virus.

"Do it in a way that's compassionate - talk about how he cares about the people and remind them of that being the core of who he is," she said.

Trump did take a brief moment during his prepared remarks to acknowledge the more than 139,000 Americans who have died from the virus - though he stopped short of taking any responsibility for their deaths.

"We mourn every precious life that's been lost," Trump said. "I pledge in their honor that we will develop a vaccine."

- - -

The Washington Post's Brittany Shammas contributed to this report.
Underworld figure Mick Gatto has claimed barrister-turned-police informer Nicola Gobbo offered to testify on his behalf in a defamation trial to refute allegations that he once threatened to kill her.

The stunning claim was aired in a defamation proceeding Mr Gatto has brought against the ABC over a 2019 article. The story contained an allegation that Mr Gatto had threatened the former underworld lawyer's life after he learned she was providing information to police.

Mick Gatto last year. Credit:Jason South

Mr Gatto, who took the stand on Wednesday in the Supreme Court via video link because of COVID-19 restrictions, said he wasnt real upset when he found out she was a police informer because there wasnt much evidence she could give them anyway.

When queried by the barrister for the ABC, Dr Matthew Collins, about a sworn statement from a Victoria Police officer alleging he had threatened Ms Gobbo, Dr Collins was interrupted by the surprise claim by Mr Gatto.
Has the coronavirus pandemic achieved for Europe what the global financial crisis couldnt?

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the European Unions 27 member states finally agreed, after nearly five days of acrimonious negotiations, to a 750 billion ($1.2 trillion) stimulus plan in response to the pandemic.

French President Emmanuel Macron rightly hailed it as a historic day for Europe. For the first time in more than 60 years, the European Union will be able to run deficits to respond to economic shocks, fund that spending with debt backed by all the member states, and transfer the collective funds to the states that need it most.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macon. Leaders of the 27 members of the European Union agreed on a stimulus package in response to the coronavirus pandemic after nearly five days of acrimonious negotiations. Credit:Reuters pool

Its not quite a "Hamilton moment" for the eurozone  it doesnt quite produce a "United States of Europe"  but it is an extremely significant, albeit small, step towards a more integrated Europe; one with significant political, economic and financial market implications.
Rating Action: Moody's places CAR Inc.'s ratings on review for upgrade

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

Hong Kong, July 22, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has placed on review for upgrade the Caa1 corporate family rating and senior unsecured rating of CAR Inc.

The outlook on the ratings has changed to ratings under review from negative.

The rating action follows CAR's announcement on 20 July 2020 that:

(1) UCAR Inc. has entered into a sale and purchase agreement with Jiangxi Province Jinggangshan Beiqi Investment Management Co., Ltd. (Jinggangshan BAIC) for the acquisition of UCAR's 443 million CAR shares, or about 20.9% of CAR's total issued share capital, for a total consideration of HKD1.4 billion.

(2) Amber Gem Holdings Limited, a subsidiary of Warburg Pincus & Co., had signed an offer letter with Jinggangshan BAIC for the proposed acquisition of no less than 171 million CAR shares, or about 8.0% of CAR's total issued share capital, by Jinggangshan BAIC for a total consideration of HKD529 million.

The transactions are subject to a number of conditions precedent, including approvals or confirmations from relevant government and regulatory authorities.

If both transactions are completed, Jinggangshan BAIC will hold an approximate 28.9% stake in CAR.

Jinggangshan BAIC is 40%, 30% and 30% owned by BAIC Group Industrial Investment Co., Ltd. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd. (BAIC Group, Baa3 stable)), Jiangxi Provincial Investment Group Co., Ltd. and Jiumu Ruiyuan (Beijing) Investment Co., Ltd., respectively.

"The review for upgrade reflects our expectation that the introduction of Jinggangshan BAIC as a key shareholder could improve CAR's funding access and weak liquidity profile," says Gerwin Ho, a Moody's Senior Credit Officer and also Moody's Lead Analyst for CAR.

"Additionally, the change in shareholder could ease CAR's refinancing and reduce governance concerns associated with UCAR's shareholdership," adds Ho.

Story continues

RATINGS RATIONALE / FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

Although BAIC Group accounted for Jinggangshan BAIC as a long-term equity investment in its 2019 financials, BAIC Group is a key shareholder in Jinggangshan BAIC with a 40% stake. BAIC Group is one of the top five automakers in China by unit sales, and is a state-owned enterprise owned by the Beijing Municipal Government through its parent company Beijing State-owned Capital Operation and Management Center (A1 stable).

Jinggangshan BAIC's shareholding could help improve CAR's access to funding, which is key to CAR's business operations and its ability to refinance its USD300 million notes due February 2021.

From a governance perspective, while independent directors only make up a minority of CAR's board, the company is a listed and regulated entity. The company has a diversified shareholder base that includes major shareholders such as Legend Holdings Corporation. Today's action factors in the potential reduction in governance and refinancing concerns that could result from the change in substantial shareholder from UCAR to Jinggangshan BAIC.

Concerns around UCAR's shareholding arose in April, when Luckin Coffee Inc. issued an announcement[1] regarding an internal investigation into misconduct. At the time of the announcement, Mr. Charles Zhengyao Lu was the chairman of Luckin Coffee's board of directors, the chairman of the board of CAR and chairman of the board of UCAR. Mr. Lu is currently the chairman of the board of UCAR.

UCAR had pledged its CAR shares as collateral for some of its borrowing as of 30 June 2019[2], creating the risk of a change of control that would accelerate CAR's debt repayments and impact its operations.

Moody's review will focus on (1) the progress of the two transactions; (2) the impact of Jinggangshan BAIC's shareholdership on CAR's access to funding and refinancing plan; (3) any changes to the composition of CAR's board of directors, such as Jinggangshan BAIC's participation; and (4) CAR's business plan and financial policy.

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Equipment and Transportation Rental Industry published in April 2017 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1061773. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

CAR Inc., founded in 2007 and headquartered in Beijing, provides car rental services, including car rentals and fleet rentals in China. CAR listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September 2014.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Moody's considers a rated entity or its agent(s) to be participating when it maintains an overall relationship with Moody's. Unless noted in the Regulatory Disclosures as a Non-Participating Entity, the rated entity is participating and the rated entity or its agent(s) generally provides Moody's with information for the purposes of its ratings process. Please refer to www.moodys.com for the Regulatory Disclosures for each credit rating action under the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page and for details of Moody's Policy for Designating Non-Participating Rated Entities.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

At least one ESG consideration was material to the credit rating action(s) announced and described above.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

REFERENCES/CITATIONS

[1] Luckin Coffee press release 02-Apr-2020

[2] Company Interim Report 23-Aug-2019

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

The first name below is the lead rating analyst for this Credit Rating and the last name below is the person primarily responsible for approving this Credit Rating.

Gerwin Ho VP - Senior Credit Officer Corporate Finance Group Moody's Investors Service Hong Kong Ltd. 24/F One Pacific Place 88 Queensway Hong Kong China (Hong Kong S.A.R.) JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350 Client Service: 852 3551 3077 Clement Cheuk Yiu Wong Associate Managing Director Corporate Finance Group JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350 Client Service: 852 3551 3077 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Hong Kong Ltd. 24/F One Pacific Place 88 Queensway Hong Kong China (Hong Kong S.A.R.) JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350 Client Service: 852 3551 3077

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Royal Bank of Scotland has hailed a historic milestone as it formally changes its name to NatWest Group amid a shift away from the brand that was bailed out in the financial crisis (Philip Toscano/PA)

Royal Bank of Scotland has hailed a historic milestone as it formally changes its name to NatWest Group in a shift away from the brand that was bailed out during the financial crisis.

The name change will be official once it is registered at Companies House in Edinburgh, where the group has its headquarters.

New chief executive Alison Rose unveiled the change in February as part of her new strategy soon after taking on the top job last autumn.

It sees the lending giant move away from a brand that was tarnished by its mammoth 45.5 billion state bailout in 2008.

Although there will be no changes to our customer brands, its a symbolic moment for our colleagues and stakeholders Chief executive Alison Rose

Bank branches will continue to trade as RBS and the name will still be heavily associated with the business.

But investors and advisers will now know the listed entity as NatWest Group  changing a name that has been in place since the banks foundation in 1727.

Ms Rose said: This is a historic day for our bank as we intend to change our name to NatWest Group plc.

Although there will be no changes to our customer brands, its a symbolic moment for our colleagues and stakeholders.

The bank has changed fundamentally over the last decade and now is the right time to align our group name with the brand under which the majority of our business is delivered.

Expand Close Chief executive Alison Rose unveiled the name change alongside her new strategy plan in February (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Chief executive Alison Rose unveiled the name change alongside her new strategy plan in February (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The group  which is still majority-owned by the taxpayer more than a decade since the financial crisis  became one of the biggest banks in the world through an aggressive acquisition trail.

But this unravelled during the crash when it was forced to turn to the Government for bailout cash to avoid collapse and it has since shed much of its international operation and once-mighty investment banking arm.

The group has also been embroiled in a scandal over its treatment of small businesses through its controversial global restructuring group.

The lender also announced on Wednesday that climate change expert Lord Nicholas Stern has been appointed as an independent adviser to NatWest Group.

Lord Stern currently chairs the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and is chairman of London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Joint investment projects, cultural and educational programs and exchange of experience in the construction of highways and electronic management between Azerbaijan and Ukraine were discussed during the meeting of Azerbaijani Ambassador to Ukraine Elmira Akhundova with Head and Governor of Dnieper region Boris Filatov and Alexander Bondarenko on July 21.

During the meeting Bondarenko stated that Ukraine is interested in developing economic, cultural and educational ties with Azerbaijan. He said that they are planning to open an office of European integration in the region that will be a center for exchange of cultural traditions and a favorable center for attracting foreign investments.

Ambassador stressed that Azerbaijan is ready to share its experience in various fields, including implementation of projects in Ukraine related to road infrastructure development, implementation of environmental programs, ASAN and DOST social services. She added that Azerbaijan is interested in purchasing Ukrainian industrial products, especially steel and agricultural machinery.

In turn, Filatov emphasized that Azerbaijani investors have projects within Dnipro city, and that they are interested in continuation of their cooperation.

Moreover, during the meeting, Akhundava spoke about the provocations committed by Armenian armed forces on the Azerbaijani- Armenian state border in the direction of Tovuz, noting that the support of the Ukrainian state to Azerbaijans legitimate position proves that friendly relations between the two countries are unshakable.

Filatov added that Ukraine has always supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan and will continue to do so.

It should be noted that, in January-June the volume of import and export operations between Azerbaijan and Ukraine exceeded $443 million.

Azerbaijan exported goods worth $230.4 million for the first six months of this year to Ukraine, and the cost of goods imported by Azerbaijan from Ukraine amounted to $213 million.

Earlier, it was reported that during the reporting period, Azerbaijan exported oil and petroleum products to Ukraine for total of $170.8 million.

Ukraine is Azerbaijans second largest trade partner in the post-Soviet space after Russia.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Back in March, Rita Hamad decided to pull her three-year-old daughter out of a Bay Area preschool just as California started shutting down.

Hamad, 38, a social epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and her husband, another faculty member, juggled work and child care while stuck inside-like so many other American parents. "Thankfully, we can both work from home and our work hours are flexible," Hamad said. "But that meant we were spending a lot of time in the evenings and on weekends working to make up for those lost hours."

More than five million working families with children under the age of five paid for some form of child care before the coronavirus pandemic struck. Now, with many U.S. businesses calling employees back to the office, parents like Hamad with preschool-age kids face a difficult choice.

According to a recent survey, about 60% of families who typically pay for daycare said they were somewhat or very uncomfortable sending their children to child-care centers. But with work-from-home options narrowing for many parents, placing their children-and themselves-at potentially greater risk is fast becoming a real possibility.

While families mull this difficult decision, the U.S. child-care industry is in trouble. Back in April, almost half of the 5,000 child-care providers surveyed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children were closed. By mid-June, more than 80% of child-care centers said they were open, but enrollment was down by an average of 67%.

The $3 trillion bailout passed by Congress in March allocated $3.5 billion to support child-care providers, an industry that before the pandemic employed more than 1.1 million people, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Advocates for child care-providers are pushing for $50 billion in additional aid. About 40% of respondents in June said they would close permanently if they didn't receive more public assistance. Only 18% said that they could survive more than a year with less than 80% of their pre-coronavirus enrollment and no public assistance.

Almost half of America's licensed child-care slots-accounting for more than four million children-could disappear because of the pandemic, according to an April analysis. Many child-care providers operated on razor-thin margins before the pandemic. State requirements that they restrict enrollment to maintain smaller group sizes to avoid virus transmission will leave money on the table they can ill afford to sacrifice.

"One month of not getting the enrollment you expected can have a devastating impact," said Simon Workman, director of Early Childhood Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Bright Horizons, which also works with employers to provide worker child care, typically operates almost 700 centers in the U.S. Right now, there are only 250 open, according to Chief Executive Officer Stephen Kramer. He said the company has implemented safety measures, including reduced class sizes and adults wearing masks, and plans to reopen all its centers by September.

Such safety precautions-physically separating children, personal protective equipment and sanitization-require money that many providers say they don't have. With states limiting enrollment sizes, it means less revenue coming in while paying for new safety measures. Some 70% of providers contend they are spending more every month-ranging from an additional $3,136 at large child-care centers to $500 or more at smaller family centers.

Some states have already distributed grants provided under the first federal bailout, money that was aimed at funding care for the children of essential workers, such as nurses and other health care professionals, while helping providers weather the pandemic. Alabama is offering grants to child-care providers that agree to reopen by Aug. 17, while Nebraska is giving priority to those that say they will reopen within 30 days, among other prerequisites. New York City is offering $65 million in grants to preschools and daycare centers that reopen by the end of this month.

But even if more aid comes from Congress in a second bailout currently being negotiated, it may not be enough-especially since the pandemic is expected to extend into 2021.

"The cost of child care under these conditions is probably going to be two or three times as much as you would expect under normal conditions, simply because you're going to have fewer children in the program and fewer children per adult," said Walter Gilliam, president of the board for Child Care Aware of America, a nonprofit that advocates for high quality, affordable child care and provides resources for families and providers. The group is calling for a $50 billion child-care bailout.

But for parents, safety likely comes before money. Children age four and below make up 1.4% of all confirmed U.S. coronavirus infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, equaling more than 30,000 of known cases. Multiple studies have found that children typically have more mild symptoms from the virus than adults.

"Children might still have fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches and headaches similar to adults, but not as many of them might have symptoms or they might be more mild," said Anna Sick-Samuels, assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in an interview last month.

That does not mean, however, that children are immune or can't pass the virus on to parents or child-care providers. The risk of transmission between children and adults is not yet known in the commercial child-care setting, Sick-Samuels said at the time.

Marcy Whitebook, founding director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, said providers are also weighing the risk of infection of their staff against the needs of families. With no national pandemic strategy, and different rules in different states, the decision on how to provide child care is being left up to individuals, she said.

Gilliam, a professor of child psychiatry and psychology at Yale University's Child Study Center, said the struggle to reopen child care services safely-while critical to the economy so parents can work-is a conundrum, because the employees who provide child care will also be at risk. "When we neglect child-care providers, we neglect children," he said.

The CDC issued guidelines for child-care programs that have remained open, but it is the states that control child-care providers. Texas rolled back its guidelines for child-care providers then re-instituted them in late June. As of July 9, more than 8% of the centers that were open had reported an infection, with more than 1,600 total cases at child-care centers across the state. The number of cases has since risen to 2,300.

In Norwell, Massachusetts, Lisa Commesso must follow a 32-page document issued by the state describing minimum safety requirements for her home child-care business, where she supervised as many as 10 children before shutdowns ensued. She plans to reopen in September, but worries about the social and emotional effects this new style of care will have on children.

Many of the best practices in childhood education conflict with keeping the coronavirus at bay. Sharing toys and meals, for instance, is no longer possible. Commesso said she must forgo "circle time" under state guidelines, part of requirements that she keep children as socially distanced as possible. "There's just so many factors," she said.

Social distancing "doesn't make for a very developmentally stimulating or enhancing environment" for preschool children, said Alice Kuo, a professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Gilliam of Yale agreed: "In many cases, we're asking [child-care workers] to do the exact opposite of what we've been trying to teach them to do for many years."

"Most people really struggle to find child care that is affordable and meets their needs."

And as Gilliam noted, parents willing to return their charges to preschool will face an additional obstacle: paying more money. Increased costs could be passed onto consumers, and more than half of parents are expecting child care costs to be higher than before the pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, access to child care was a financial burden for many Americans. More than half of families who use child care services spend more than $10,000 per year on it, according to a Care.com survey, and almost three-quarters spend at least 10% of their income on the service.

"Most people really struggle to find child care that is affordable and meets their needs, which leaves them kind of scrambling to put together a patchwork of care," said Workman of the Center for American Progress.

Some retailers have announced temporary child care benefits for employees. Amazon in early June said it would subsidize 10 days of child or adult care through Care.com-a provider of on-demand child-care services-for its 650,000 employees. Target is offering free back-up child and elder care for employees through August, giving them access to Bright Horizons at one of its centers or in-home services, according to a Target spokesperson.

For Hamad, the decision to send her child back to preschool when it reopened June 15 was "filled with angst." The facility is keeping the children in small groups, following local guidelines and having the kids wash their hands constantly, she said.

"They're having her wear a mask or a face shield, which I thought at first seemed pretty cruel, but then the kids seemed to love it," Hamad said. "They're just, 'hey, I'm just like mom and dad.'"
Jeff Bezos, already the worlds richest man by a wide margin, added $13bn (10bn) to his personal wealth in a single day.

Amazons share price has continued to surge amid the coronavirus pandemic as people across the world opt to shop online rather than hit the high street.

On Monday, the e-commerce companys shares soared by 8 per cent, taking Bezoss estimated net worth to $189.3 bn (149bn).

The 56-year-old has seen his fortune swell by around $74bn (58bn) in 2020 alone, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.

The publication said Mondays rise was the biggest ever recorded on its Billionaires Index, first launched in 2012.

Bezoss personal wealth is around nine times greater than Britains richest man James Dyson, whose fortune totals 16bn, according to the Sunday Times rich list.

He is also now worth more than the UKs largest company, AstraZeneca, which is valued at 118bn on the London Stock Exchange.

Bezoss wealth continues to grow despite an expensive divorce from his ex-wife MacKenzie last year.

She received 4 per cent of the company as part of the settlement and saw her personal wealth shoot up to around $62bn (48.7bn)  making her the worlds 13th richest person.

In 2018, Bezos launched a $2bn (1.5bn) fund focused on education programmes for homeless people and earlier this year pledged $10bn (8bn) to tackle climate changes.

But critics have accused Bezos of donating far less money than other philanthropists, such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.

Mr Buffet, CEO of US conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, has given around $34.5bn (27bn) to charity since vowing to donate all of his shares in the company.

Meanwhile, estimates suggest that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $46bn (41bn) to charitable causes around the world.
SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / TPT Global Tech, Inc. ("TPTW, the Company or TPT Global Tech") (OTCQB:TPTW) announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary InnovaQor, Inc. ("InnovaQor") has entered into a Merger Agreement with the publicly traded company Southern Plains Oil Corp. (OTCQB:SPLN). Subject to closing conditions which are primarily consents and approvals from SPLN's Board of Directors, the SPLN Merger moves the Company's subsidiary InnovaQor one step closer to completing the recently executed Asset Purchase Agreement with Rennova Health Inc. a Florida based company. The Merger Agreement when closed, also positions InnovaQor to trade on the OTC Market Exchange once the closing conditions are met, merger is completed, and TPT Global Tech and InnovaQor file for a name change, new trading symbol and receive final approval from the FINRA.

TPT Global Tech entered into an agreement with Rennova Health, Inc. ("Rennova Health") to merge Rennova Health's software and genetic testing interpretation divisions, Health Technology Solutions, Inc. ("HTS") and Advanced Molecular Services Group, Inc., ("AMSG") into a public company target, which target is now intended to be the merged companies of InnovaQor and Southern Plains Oil Corp. InnovaQor and SPLN have no current operating activity and prior to a licensing agreement being signed with TPTW, no significant assets or liabilities.

TPT Global Tech recently signed a Software Licensing Agreement with InnovaQor which allows InnovaQor to utilize features from TPTW's TV and Social Media platform "Viewme Live". InnovaQor will incorporate streaming features with the two proprietary Rennova Health technology platforms or Laboratory Information System ("LIS") for a Telemedicine application.

"It is very exciting that one of our subsidiaries is in position to become a publicly traded company which benefits our TPTW Shareholders. It is equally exciting that with the Merger Agreement of InnovaQor with Southern Plains Oil Corp., we can now focus on closing the Rennova Health Asset Purchase Agreement. This will allow us to move closer to the release of both "Viewme Live" and our stand-alone LIS platform to deliver a state-of-the-art Mobile Telemedicine platform, and capitalize on the Rennova assets that we intend to acquire." said Stephen Thomas, CEO.

Story continues

Friday, July 24, 2020, at 1:15 pm EST the Company will hold a teleconference to discuss current events. Stephen Thomas CEO, Gary Cook CFO, Rick Eberhardt Director of Telecom, Mario Scade CEO Aire Fitness and Frank Benedetto Director of IR will host the call. Interested parties can dial into 978-990-5303 access code 2635812 for the 1:15 EST call.

About TPT Global Tech

TPT Global Tech Inc. (OTCQB:TPTW) based in San Diego, California, is a technology-based company with divisions providing telecommunications, medical technology and product distribution, media content for domestic and international syndication as well as technology solutions. TPT Global Tech offers Software as a Service (SaaS), Technology Platform as a Service (PAAS), Cloud-based Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS). It offers carrier-grade performance and support for businesses over its private IP MPLS fiber and wireless network in the United States. TPT's cloud-based UCaaS services allow businesses of any size to enjoy all the latest voice, data, media and collaboration features in today's global technology markets. TPT Global Tech also operates as a Master Distributor for Nationwide Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) and Independent Sales Organization (ISO) as a Master Distributor for Pre-Paid Cellphone services, Mobile phones Cellphone Accessories and Global Roaming Cellphones.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of various provisions of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, commonly identified by such terms as "believes," "looking ahead," "anticipates," "estimates" and other terms with similar meaning. Specifically, statements about the Company's plans for accelerated growth, improved profitability, future business partners, M&A activity, new service offerings, and pursuit of new markets are forward-looking statements. Although the company believes that the assumptions upon which its forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these assumptions will prove to be correct. Such forward-looking statements should not be construed as fact. The information contained in such statements is beyond the ability of the Company to control, and in many cases, the Company cannot predict what factors would cause results to differ materially from those indicated in such statements. All forward-looking statements in the press release are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements and by reference to the underlying assumptions.

Frank Benedetto

619-915-9422

SOURCE: TPT Global Tech, Inc.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/598424/TPT-GLOBAL-TECH-Subsidiary-InnovaQor-Enters-Into-a-Merger-Agreement-with-a-Public-Company--Southern-Plains-Oil-Corp




A former rector of St. Lukes Parish in Darien has been accused of sexual misconduct with a female Newtown parishioner.

The alleged event was reported to have happened the mid-1980s, before the rector began at St. Lukes, and to have involved a woman under the age of 21 who was an undergraduate college student at the time.

The rector, the Very Reverend Jim Kowalski, has entered into an accord with the states episcopal leadership. He said this week that the allegations were deeply upsetting.

A state Episcopal church document titled Church Attorney Statement of Offenses alleges that Kowalski In or about October 1984 engaged in acts of sexual abuse and exploitation with the woman against her will while visiting her at her college.

The behavior the church alleges includes asking her to lie on his hotel room bed with him, embracing her and kissing her in an explicit manner.

St. Lukes leaders notified the parish last week in an email blast and addressed it in the churchs service last weekend.

The Wardens, Clergy, and Vestry were recently informed by Bishop Ian T. Douglas that the Very Reverend Jim Kowalski, who served as Rector of Saint Lukes Parish from 1993 to 2001, engaged in sexual misconduct and conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy prior to his time at Saint Lukes, and is being disciplined under the Canons of the Episcopal Church of the United States, the email read.

The vestry of St. Lukes, including the Rev. Ryan Fleenor, Senior Warden Mark Campbell, and Junior Warden Sally Houlihan, said they had no indication that any misconduct occurred involving members of our parish or while the Very Rev. Kowalski served at Saint Lukes.

Nor do we have any reason to believe that applicable laws were broken. Nevertheless, we understand the profound impact this news will have on our community  particularly on those long-time parishioners who know him, his wife ... and their children, they said.

Bishop Douglas is holding a Zoom call with St. Lukes Parish members on Tuesday, July 28 at 6:30 p.m. to address the issue and answer any questions. For more information on how to register, call the parish office at 203-655-1456.

Kowalski met the woman when she was a parishioner at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, when she was in sixth or seventh grade, according to the Church Attorney Statement of Offenses. At the time, Kowalski was newly ordained.

The alleged incident didnt happen until several years later, when she was in college, according to the document.

The acts, according to the church documents, violate two sections of Title IV, Canon IV of the Episcopal church, sexual misconduct and conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy.

The leadership of the state Episcopal church also released a full outline of the allegations and resulting disciplinary measures on its website at https://www.episcopalct.org/news/title-iv-clergy-disciplinary-matter-the-very-rev-james-a-kowalski/.

According to the page, an accord has been reached with Kowalski. An accord, according to the bylaws of the Episcopal church, means a written resolution, which is negotiated and agreed, among the parties, resulting from an agreement for discipline resulting from either an agreement, conciliation or a conference panel.

Douglas in an interview said the disciplinary process allows for the possibility of a clergy person to be suspended or deposed (withdrawn from the clergy), but he said that will not be the case with Kowaski.

In this case, the agreement as to discipline (the accord) has not exercised these options but rather have put in place other actions to bring healing to those who have been hurt and safety to those who might be at risk, Douglas said

Kowalski in an interview said the claims that have been put forth, about an incident alleged to have happened more than 30 years ago, are deeply upsetting to me and my family.

At this time, however, after much reflection and in consultation with my wife, I have decided to enter into an Accord with the Church. This was an extremely difficult decision, but I believe that going through a contested hearing process would have provided neither healing nor resolution, Kowalski said in an email.

As a result, and although there are aspects of an Accord that I do not agree with, I believe it is in the best interest of me, my family and the Church, he said. Due to the confidentiality aspects of the Accord agreement, Kowalksi declined to comment further.

Response at St. Lukes

The Rev. Ryan Fleenor started at St. Lukes this month as its new rector, replacing long-time rector David Anderson.

On Sunday, Fleenor addressed the charges and resolution in his sermon. Fleenor said that during his first sermon two weeks ago, he told the parish he was so excited to be there, and remains so.

I know this week has been really hard for us as a parish. The letter you received from the vestry on Wednesday must have been a complete shock, he said.

So many of us know, respect, love and value the ministry that Jim Kowalski had here as your rector, and then in New York as the dean of the great cathedral church, St. John the Divine, Fleenor said.

He added that the public acknowledgment of his behavior is important.

It is important not to sweep things under the rug. Telling the truth is an important part of healing for those who have been hurt. And it is an important way we as a parish remain committed to be a place that is safe for all people, Fleenor said.

Fleenor said that it is important to tell the truth, even when it is hard, but said that doesnt mean that we cant also acknowledge and give thanks to God for the many ways Jim sought to serve God and people faithfully. Both things can be true.

Fleenor also urged parishioners to sign up for the Zoom with Bishop Douglas.

He added that he wanted the parish to know that we are here for you.

On Monday, Fleenor said the parish was was very sorry to learn about the clergy disciplinary matter involving Jim Kowalski.

Jim was rector of Saint Lukes from 1993 to 2001 and the information released by Bishop Ian Douglas and the Episcopal Church in Connecticut about sexual misconduct with a woman under his pastoral care early in his career more than thirty years ago is upsetting, especially for those who knew Jim well during his time at Saint Lukes, Fleenor said.

He added theres no indication any misconduct occurred while Kowalksi served in Darien.

We informed the parish about the diocesan findings, in case there was someone impacted in our parish, and parishioners seem to be appreciative of Saint Lukes efforts to be transparent, Fleenor said.

Saint Lukes remains committed to providing a safe and welcoming space for all people, and we are praying for all involved that they would know healing, reconciliation, and peace, he said.

Career

Following his position at St. Lukes in Darien, Kowalski took the prestigious position of dean at New York Citys St. John the Divine, shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

The churchs website announced his decision to step down as of June 2017, after serving for 16 years. In a letter announcing his decision, he wrote When I was first elected as Dean in 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11 and just a month before the terrible fire that struck the Cathedral, there was much to do.

Since then, we have worked together to stabilize the Cathedral financially, embarked on a multi-million dollar restoration of this magnificent structure, and established an important strategic planning process to take the Cathedral community into the future. But, while much has been accomplished, there is more to be done, and this is an ideal time for the Bishop to bring in a Dean who will build on this foundation, he wrote.

Kowalski served as a contributor to HuffPost.com while serving as dean of the New York City Church. His last column, published on HuffPost.com in 2014, was called Struggles.

Rather, it is exactly the capacity to understand  to stand under  the fact that we will make mistakes and people will get hurt. It is ennobling to see one of us give our all to a mission, including the struggle that follows the consequences that come in the aftermath. We are strengthened in our capacity to overcome adversity and to encourage others when we stand up for that, he wrote.

St. Lukes Parish was founded in 1856 and is one of the most active and largest of Dariens congregations.

Spread over seven acres, the campus includes the church, a chapel, an education and meeting hall building, the Anderson Youth and Community Center, an administrative building, the Person-to-Person headquarters, two clergy residences and the rectory. St. Lukes hosts the community worship on Good Friday and during non-COVID times hosts a weekly community supper.
The head of Army operations said Wednesday that the service is resuming large-scale combat training exercises in spite of the recent rise in coronavirus cases across the country.

"We remain in a fight with a pathogen that is changing," Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, the Army's G3/5/7, said during an Association of the United States Army Noon Report webinar.

After a brief reduction in cases, COVID-19 continues to spread across the globe as infections reached 15 million, Bloomberg reported.

Read Next: Top Admiral in Pacific Defends Decision to Send Navy Carrier to Vietnam

COVID-19 hot spots have emerged across the U.S., causing many public school systems to scale back plans to reopen in the fall and to plan for virtual instruction instead.

Cases in the military increased more than 41% in June among service members, dependents and Defense Department civilians.

The Army, however, remains confident in the protocols it has put in place and has resumed large-scale rotations at both the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, Flynn said.

NTC, JRTC and Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) in Hohenfels, Germany, hold brigade-level training exercises for armor, infantry and Stryker brigade combat teams and are a key measurement for the service's combat readiness.

The Army halted rotations to NTC and JRTC in mid-March to limit the spread of the virus.

Now, units go through a "series of checks ... at home station and then we do the same thing on arrival at the combat training centers," Flynn said. "We have layered in extra testing capabilities and capacity."

In May, Army senior leaders announced guidance to units across the service that empowered senior commanders "to calibrate the kind of training that they need to do on each one of their installations," he said.

"When the pathogen first hit ... we had to stop and really put a pause and slow the Army way down," Flynn said. "We went down to about 10 miles per hour.

"And now with the combat training centers opening back up and home station training beginning again ... and then other tactical operations and deployments going on across the globe, I would say we are picking up our speed."

While training slowed during the first half of the year, Flynn said that units in the active-duty force, National Guard and Reserve have conducted large-scale real-world mission in response to the pandemic and supported federal, state and local authorities as civil unrest gripped the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died after being taken into custody by Minneapolis police.

"It's unprecedented and unparalleled -- an enormously complex operation that was conducted only because the Army is ready in crisis to respond to these unplanned events," Flynn said. "We must be ready for any planned and unplanned crisis. We have to be able to do this any time, any place against any threat whether it's a hurricane, whether it's a wildfire, a terror attack, a nation-state armed aggressor or even a global pandemic."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.

Related: NYC Bound: Inside the Army's Emergency Deployment of Doctors to Manhattan
The police in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Friday, paraded three suspects linked to the killing of a pregnant woman and other murders in June.

In June this year, no fewer than five persons were killed in Akinyele Local Government Area.

Akinyele is one of the 11 local government areas in Ibadan, the state capital.

Barakat Bello, Azeezat Shomuyiwa, Grace Oshiagwu, Olusayo Fagbemi and a five-year old boy, Mujeeb, were killed in the same local government

The Commissioner of Police, Nwachukwu Enwonwu, said the three suspects were linked to the crimes.

The three suspects are Sunday Sodipe, Adedokun Yinusa and Shehu Usman.

A hand shovel, one techno mobile phone, one I phone Xmax and one Itel Phone were the exhibits reportedly recovered from the suspects.

How my wife was killed

Meanwhile, Ridwanullah Dhikrullahi, the distraught husband of Azeezat Shomuyiwa, the seven-month old pregnant woman who was among those killed last month in Ibadan has revealed how she was killed a day after she attended antenatal session.

He said she came back from Kano to Ibadan to collect her certificate at the University of Ibadan when she was murdered.

Mrs Shomuyiwa was murdered on June 4 at her residence, in Ibadan.

Mr Dhikrullahi, who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES during the parade of three suspects arrested in connection with the crime on Friday, said he was in Kano when he received the news.

Mr Dhikrullahi, who witnessed the parade of the suspects, narrated how his wife was killed to PREMIUM TIMES.

He said he was relieved when he heard some suspects had been arrested.

Mr Dhikrullahi said, My name is Ridwanullah Dhikrullahi. I am the husband to the deceased, Azeezat Shomuyiwa that was murdered on 4th of June 2020.

The pregnant woman that was murdered happened to be a former post graduate student of University of Ibadan.

She came back from Kano to come and have her certificate in UI when she was murdered.

He said a day to the incident, he spoke with his wife after she came back from antenatal care.

He said he was shocked the following day when he received the news of the death of his wife.

It sounded like something that is unbelievable. It is something that is unbelievable because, a day to the incident, we spoke. A day to this bad event, we spoke after she came back from the antenatal. She went to the hospital.

We spoke and joked. All of a sudden, somebody just called me and said in the following morning that this is what happened. I was not myself. I dont know how I got to Ibadan. I was just coming.

I feel a little bit relieved now that they (suspects) were paraded to the public.

Mr Dhikrullahi said the law should take its course.

There is a constitution in Nigeria. Anyone that is found guilty, confirmed guilty, and he does not deny it, the law should take its course.

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The raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in Chhattisgarh is spreading as 443 security personnel, including jawans of paramilitary forces deployed in the Communist Party of India (CPI)-(Maoist)-hit districts in the state, have been reported to have contracted SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease, the police data showed.

A police official said 114 personnel and officials from Chhattisgarh Police have tested Covid-19 positive, while another 329 jawans of paramilitary forces have also been infected.

In the old Police Headquarters (PHQ) of Chhattisgarh, which is located in Raipur town, 26 police personnel tested Covid-19 positive and another seven attached to the new PHQ in Naya Raipur.

Raipur has reported the highest number of Covid-19 positive cases among the states law and order personnel. So far, 38 and 34 personnel of Chhattisgarh Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), respectively, have tested Covid-19 positive in Raipur alone, said a police official.

Paramilitary forces, including CRPF, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Border Security Force (BSF), are deployed in nine Maoist-hit districts in the state, including seven in the remote Bastar region.

In the Bastar region, 193 officials and jawans of paramilitary forces have tested Covid-19 positive to date, of which Dantewada district accounted for the maximum number of cases at 41, said the official while citing most of the infected personnel had joined work after their leave and belonged to various states across the country.

Sunderaj P, inspector-general (I-G) of police, Bastar division, Chhattisgarh, said the Covid-19 positive cases among paramilitary forces wouldnt impact anti-Maoist operations.

We have around 60,000 jawans of paramilitary forces deployed in the Bastar region. The Covid-19 positive cases reported among the forces wont impact ant-Naxal operations, the I-G said.

However, no police personnel has tested Covid-19 positive in Chhattisgarhs Bemetra, Baloda Bazar, Bilaspur, Janjgir-Champa, Raigarh, Korba, Surguja, and Balrampur districts yet.

DM Awasthi, director-general of police (DGP), Chhattisgarh, said aggressive testing is being conducted among the personnel, who is in the frontline battling the pandemic, in a bid to prevent the spread of the viral outbreak.

Police personnel is the frontline Covid-19 warriors, who are constantly undergoing tests. Swab samples are being collected on a daily basis and they have been instructed to take precautions for their safety, the DGP said.

Earlier, Niharika Barik Singh, health secretary, Chhattisgarh, had written to CRPF, CISF, BSF, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Indian Army and Service Selection Board (SSB) authorities to ensure strict compliance with the quarantine protocols.

An order has been issued that whenever personnel returns to the state, they must be compulsorily quarantined for 14 days and Covid-19 tests conducted, and information about their health condition should be shared regularly with respective district collectors.

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The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has committed $5.6 billion to private sector development in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa in the fiscal year 2020.



The support is to aid businesses across the two regions to launch, grow, provide jobs and fight the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

A statement issued in Accra said in addition, the Corporation has committed nearly $2 billion in short-term trade financing to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).



It said in sub-Saharan Africa, between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020, IFC has committed $4.6 billion in investments to private firms across the region.



Despite the challenges of delivering during a global health pandemic, IFC exceeded its fiscal year 2019 commitment of $4.1 billion.



It said its investments focused on sectors include healthcare, agribusiness, solar energy, housing finance, infrastructure, and financing for SMEs, including in fragile and conflict-affected situations where IFC committed more than $1.2 billion in investments.



In the Middle East and North Africa, where the COVID-19 pandemic had led to declines in oil production, tourism revenues, and remittances, IFC has invested more than $1 billion, including to support the construction of hospitals and clinics in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco.



Mr Sergio Pimenta, IFC Vice President for the Middle East and Africa, said, Countries in the Middle East and Africa are making significant progress before the COVID-19 pandemic struck and at IFC our goal is to unlock private investment and create markets and opportunities to support that progress.



He said in the wake of the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, IFC stepped up the momentum to help its clients stay in business and maintain jobs which were critical to economic growth and livelihoods.



We applaud the perseverance and resilience of the small, medium and large businesses that are the foundation of economies in Africa and the Middle East and we will continue to support them in the next phase of the crisis and through the recovery, it added.



He said in addition to its investments in the Middle East and Africa, IFC has provided Advisory Services totalling a portfolio of more than $590 million to nearly 376 projects aimed at improving the business environment, investment policy and promotion and creating markets in priority sectors.



He said of the advisory projects IFC supported, 45 per cent were focused on improving gender equality.



IFCs investment and advisory work in the Middle East and Africa has supported small businesses to access finance, linked small-holder farmers to markets, facilitated solutions to supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19, and increased access to electricity and renewable power sources.



Since the coronavirus outbreak, IFC has focused its efforts on helping the private sector mitigate the impacts and the economic fallout.



In March, IFC announced $8 billion in global fast-track financing to help companies affected by the outbreak.



Since then, IFC has committed more than $3.5 billion to companies globally and of that, IFC has invested $517 million in Africa and the Middle East, with 66 per cent going to countries eligible for financing from the International Development Association, the World Bank Groups fund for the poorest countries.



The IFC provided 25 million loan to NSIA Banque Cote dIvoire, allowing the bank to extend new loans to companies whose cash flows have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.



The Corporation also provided a combined $200 million to Access, FCMB and Zenith banks for on lending to SMEs across a number of sectors facing working capital or trade finance challenges.



Since March, IFC also deployed $886 million through the Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP) envelope of its COVID-19 Fast Track Facility to support SMEs in the Middle East and Africa involved in global supply chains; almost 92 per cent of the GTFP volume deployed was in low-income and fragile countries in the regions.

Source: GNA









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The suit by Oregons attorney general is one of several filed over law enforcements response to the Portland protests. On Thursday a judge will hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of journalists and legal observers who say they were targeted and attacked by police while documenting demonstrations. A freelance photographer covering the protests for The Associated Press submitted an affidavit that he was beaten with batons, chemical irritants and hit with rubber bullets.
Erdogan Eyes Social Media: The Last Refuge for Turkey's Journalists

By Eric Neugeboren July 21, 2020

For Turkish journalist Emre Kzlkaya, social media is a necessity. He's been using platforms including Twitter since 2008, tweeting during the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul in 2013 and when soldiers raided his newspaper building after the failed coup attempt in 2016.

But if Turkish lawmakers heed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's calls this month for greater control over social media, Kzlkaya and other journalists could lose one of the last platforms that allows them to report freely.

A draft bill  first introduced in April and backed by Erdogan  calls for large platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google to appoint a legal representative in Turkey to handle court requests to remove content or provide the identity of users. Companies that fail to appoint a representative within 30 days of the legislation going into effect would face gradually increasing fines and bandwidth reductions of up to 90 percent, a Turkish legislator told reporters.

Proposals are a concern

Local journalists and digital rights experts say the proposals are a concern in a country that has limited space for independent journalism and where social media plays a key role in reporting on and sharing news.

"I check the pulse of the public [on social media]," said Kzlkaya, who is vice president of the International Press Institute's national committee in Turkey and project editor at Journo, a nonprofit news platform. "Social media is a part of history. Controlling it would mean to rewrite the history."

Erdogan called for further controls on social media on July 1, the day after social media users posted insulting comments when his daughter and son-in-law announced the birth of their child. Police detained individuals alleged to have been behind 11 of the 19 accounts that criticized the family.

"These platforms do not suit this nation," Erdogan told members of his Justice and Development (AKP) party. "We want to shut down, control [them] by bringing [a bill] to parliament as soon as possible."

Erdogan called on lawmakers to fast-track the legislation. Lawmakers said Tuesday they were submitting a nine-article draft bill to parliament. It is due to be debated by the general assembly next week.

Ozlem Zengin, a ruling party legislator told reporters the draft bill would "balance freedoms with rights and laws," adding, "We aim to put an end to insults, swearing, to harassment made through social media."

Opposition parties said they were concerned the measures would further limit access to social media and independent news, the Associated Press reported.

Press freedom has been under assault in Turkey for years. Following a failed military coup in 2016, Erdogan's government closed more than 150 news outlets and jailed more than 100 journalists, often on terrorism-related accusations.

Journalists deemed pro-opposition or who criticize Erdogan can find themselves in court, including on charges of "insulting the president," and authorities have temporarily blocked access to popular websites, including YouTube and Wikipedia.

Reporters Without Borders says Turkey is conducting a "witch-hunt" against government critics and independent journalists. The Paris-based media watchdog ranks the country 154 of 180 countries, with 1 being most free in its World Press Freedom Index.

With traditional networks under attack, social media has become an important resource for journalists and media organizations, Kzlkaya said. Pro-government businessmen began to take over news outlets, which then saw audiences shrink. Now, many independent journalists and smaller outlets rely on social media for their work.

"It may be one of the reasons why the government wants to expand its control on social media," Kzlkaya said. "Simply put, the digital domain is the last refuge of independent journalism in Turkey."

Social media platforms are popular among the country's population of 84 million. As of April, Turkey had 37 million regular Facebook users  those who access their account at least once a month  and 13.6 million on Twitter, according to data from Statista, a German online research group.

The legislation is not the first attempt by Ankara to try to control social media.

In the first six months of 2019  the most recent information available  Twitter received 388 court orders for removal requests and 5,685 requests from government agencies, police or other organizations, the platform's transparency report shows. Twitter said it complied in full or partially with 5 percent of requests.

Last month, Twitter permanently removed over 7,300 accounts that it determined were "fake and compromised." Analysis found fake accounts, as well as some profiles associated with the president's critics that had been hacked, were used to promote support for the AKP and Erdogan, Twitter said.

'Propaganda machine'

In response, the presidential communications director called the platform a "propaganda machine" and dismissed allegations that the accounts were supporting the ruling party.

The proposed bill has worrying implications, Raman Jit Singh Chima, the Asia policy director and senior international counsel for digital rights organization Access Now, told VOA. Such legislation sends a "symbolic statement" to news organizations, he said.

"[Governments] are saying 'Look, comply with the request we're making to you. Otherwise we're going to come at you with a law, change the law to make you more liable or to make it more expensive for you to operate'," he said.

Other rights groups, including the International Press Institute and European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, condemned the proposed law as an attempt to "further restrict freedoms."

"Turkey is obliged to ensure the right to freedom of expression and access to information," a joint statement read.

Kzlkaya said that while the measures are troubling, he has hope for the future of independent journalism.

"Turkey's next-generation journalists are eager and capable to create a better environment for the freedom of the press," Kzlkaya said. "They stick to journalism, and they insist on doing it in Turkey for the public good."

Mehmet Toroglu contributed to this report from Washington.

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Katherine D. Kinzlers How You Say It addresses how people sound when they talk and its effect on how they are perceived. This area overlaps considerably with the subfield called sociolinguistics, whose worldview is well represented by Kinzler. Sociolinguistics has sometimes been subject to the charge of simply describing rather obvious things with elegant vocabulary. The charge is indiscriminate but has some truth in it, and Kinzler admirably steers clear of stressing tenets such as People speak differently with intimates than in formal settings, which hardly seem like hot news to most of us.

What makes sociolinguistics a subject worth engaging with are the surprises, and Kinzlers book is full of them. She reveals the extent to which language imprints our brains and how we are neurologically programmed to be sensitive to it. Even if we lose a language after early childhood and no longer speak it in adulthood, learning it will be easier because of deep-seated neural settings permanently etched by that first language. People are more viscerally aroused by the curses in their first languages than ones learned later. In one of Kinzlers studies, kindergartners were shown a clip of a white girl speaking English and then clips of two adults, one a Francophone white woman and the other an Anglophone Black one. The children actually supposed that the white girl would grow up to be the Black woman, so deep-seated was their sense of language as marking identity. Fourth graders, on the other hand, had internalized race as the deciding factor.

Kinzlers main interest, however, is in linguistic discrimination. Amid our discussions of racism, sexism and even classism, we dont spend much time thinking about the ways we can be biased when it comes to how people speak. It is, however, one of the last prejudices permissible in polite society. As Kinzler notes, Linguistic bias is part of our basic cultural fabric. It is so ubiquitous that we dont even think about it. Its sanctioned by the law, its allowed by culture, and its practiced so frequently that people do not even realize when it is happening. Linguistic discrimination is seen as normal and typical, and because of this, it flies beneath the radar.

The latter point is key: As with so much discrimination, linguistic bias is often subconscious and intertwined with other kinds of prejudice. In Lethal Weapon 2, the Danny Glover character describes a South African as having an accent he puts down with an elaborate pejorative, where the humor is in the sheer arbitrariness of the judgment. That kind of judgment, however, can result in things much less amusing.

Black earnings decrease to the extent that one has a perceptible blaccent. College students were played a recording of native, idiomatic English being spoken  by an Ohioan, in fact. When the accompanying photo was of an Asian man, the students heard the speaker of the recording as having an accent, but not when the photo was of a white man. The Honolulu D.M.V. denied a job to a Filipino man who had spoken English his whole life, claiming that his accent made him difficult to understand, when an examination revealed that he was not only effortlessly comprehensible but well spoken in general. Kinzler advises that we legislate against linguistic discrimination specifically rather than by national origin, as cases like the one with the Filipino man can be justified if an organization has hired other Filipinos who happen not to have accents.
India and China have lately failed to make a breakthrough in reducing border tensions in the sensitive Ladakh sector despite intense negotiations at the military and diplomatic levels, and the disengagement process at some points of the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) has virtually halted, people familiar with recent developments on this front said on Wednesday.

The stalemate comes after top Indian and Chinese military commanders held talks on July 14 to discuss the road map for disengagement between their forces. The ground situation remains unchanged in the sector where both armies have amassed almost 100,000 soldiers in their forward and depth areas, said one of the officials cited above, asking not to be named.

Also Read: Twin naval exercises with US supercarriers signal QUAD has arrived

There has been no forward movement in the disengagement of troops in friction areas along the LAC including Pangong Tso and Depsang. The overall de-escalation of conflict is a long way off, said a second official, who did not wish to be named. He said the conflict was likely to stretch into to the winter months and the Indian armed forces were prepared for a long haul.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh indicated last week that the negotiations to resolve tensions were complex. During a visit to Ladakh, he said progress in negotiations should help resolve the border dispute but added that he couldnt guarantee to what extent the situation will be resolved.

The disengagement process has barely made progress after the last round of meeting between senior Indian and Chinese commanders on July 14.

Also Read: With Xi Jinping Centre On Diplomatic Thought, Chinese President is the new Mao

On Wednesday, Singh asked the air force to stay prepared for any eventuality while addressing top commanders.

Experts said the situation was complicated and there was no quick fix.

The ball is in Indias court. The Chinese would be happy with status quo as they are already sitting in what we consider to be Indian territory. They have only carried out minimal disengagement. The government now needs to start thinking what to do next to break the deadlock, said former Northern Army commander Lieutenant General DS Hooda (retd).

Also Read: How PM Modi called Chinas bluff in Ladakh, writes Shishir Gupta

India has moved three extra army divisions, fighter jets, several squadrons of frontline tanks, additional artillery and fully-ready mechanised infantry squads to the Ladakh sector as part of its efforts to strengthen deployments in response to Chinese military build-up.

The build-up on both sides includes fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, heavy artillery, missiles and air defence systems.

The Indian Air Force could also deploy its new Rafale fighters in the Ladakh sector as part of Indias overarching plan to strengthen its military posture in the region, officials previously indicated to HT.

India and China remain committed to complete disengagement which is an intricate process and requires constant verification, the Indian Army said in a statement last week.

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By Online Desk

WASHINGTON: The United States is leading the world in terms of COVID-19 testing and India is at second position, President Donald Trump said while giving an update on his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

So far more than 140,000 Americans have died due to coronavirus and 3.8 million have tested positive.

While the US economy is slowly coming back to normal, the pandemic is now spreading in the Sun Belt of the country.

"As one family, we mourn every precious life that's been lost. I pledge in their honour that we will develop a vaccine and we will defeat the virus. We're doing very well with vaccine development and therapeutic development," Trump said at a White House news conference on Tuesday, his first on coronavirus after several weeks.

Trump also said his administration will stop at nothing to save lives and shield the vulnerable.

"We've learned so much about this disease. And we know who the vulnerable are, and we are going to indeed shield them," he said.

Trump assured that the vaccines against the novel coronavirus will be coming a lot sooner than expected.

Replying to a question, Trump said the US is "leading the world" in terms of COVID-19 testing.

"We're going to be over 50 million tests," he said, adding that "second country is India with 12 million (tests). Then you have seven million, six million, and four million. I think that we are doing a tremendous amount of testing."

The "China virus", Trump said, is a vicious and dangerous illness.

"It's a nasty, horrible disease that should've never been allowed to escape China, but it did. It infected the world, and the world is suffering. But we're going to get it taken care of, and we're helping lots of other countries," the US president said.

On tackling the virus, Trump said his administration is developing a powerful strategy.

"We've learned a great deal about it (COVID-19) and who it targets. We are in the process of developing a strategy that's going to be very, very powerful," he said.

"Some areas of our country are doing very well; others are doing less well. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better," Trump said.

He said the median age of those who succumb to COVID-19 infection is 78 years, adding that roughly half of all deaths have been individuals in nursing homes or in long-term care.

"Young adults may often have mild or even no symptoms. They won't even know they're sick. They won't have any idea that they have a virus. They won't have any idea at all," he said, adding that youth will act responsibly.

Trump said the data shows children have the lowest fatality risk as 99.96 per cent of all virus fatalities are adults.

"By understanding these risk profiles and learning how to treat the disease, we've been able to greatly reduce mortality in the United States," Trump said.

Several treatments are already available in the US that can significantly reduce the severity and duration of the disease, including remdesivir, he said.

"We've learned best practices for treatment of the virus at every stage and have shared these findings with medical providers, and we've shared them all over the world. The relationship with other countries has been very strong. We're all working together," Trump said.

Meanwhile, reported coronavirus cases vastly underestimate the true number of infections, US government data published Tuesday suggest, echoing results from a smaller study last month.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study says true COVID-19 rates were more than 10 times higher than reported cases in most U.S. regions from late March to early May.

It is based on COVID-19 antibody tests performed on routine blood samples in 16,000 people in 10 US regions.

The study likely detected infections in people who may have had no symptoms or only mild illness, and who never got coronavirus tests.

Infection rates were from six times higher than reported cases in Connecticut to 24 times higher in Missouri.

Still, most people in the 10 regions had not been infected.

The study was published online in JAMA Internal Medicine.

(With Inputs from PTI and Agencies)
Were excited about Andrew Borene joining Cybereason as he has a wealth of experience and while building out a US team, it will be reflective of a diverse and experienced group of executives needed to serve the American government, said Eric Appel, Cybereasons GM, North American Sales.

Cybereason, a leader in endpoint protection, today announced the hiring of Andrew Borene as Managing Director for its U.S. public sector business. Borene brings more than 20 years of senior leadership experience to the company in industry, government, and academia with security and intelligence technology initiatives. He will accelerate Cybereasons partner and customer presence in the U.S. public sector with a team of top sales and engineering talent.

Were excited about Andrew joining Cybereason and the opportunity in the U.S. public sector for Cybereason to make a profound impact on helping the nation's federal civilian, military, state and local government agencies stop material breaches before damage occurs. Andrew has a wealth of experience and while building out a US team, it will be reflective of a diverse and experienced group of executives needed to serve the American government, said Eric Appel, Cybereasons General Manager, North American Sales.

Prior to joining Cybereason, Borene was President and CEO of Cipherloc Corporation, a publicly traded developer of quantum-resistant encryption solutions. He was also a Senior Director of Symantec Corporations National Security Group, where he led a specialized business unit that delivered innovation and cybersecurity solutions to US federal agencies. He also served in senior leadership roles at IBM Corporation, where he led a highly successful investigative software business with worldwide customers.

Borene previously served as a Contractor Senior Advisor to the IARPA Director, within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He was an Associate Deputy General Counsel at the Pentagon and served in the Middle East as a U.S. Marine Officer. He studied peacebuilding in Northern Ireland as a U.S. State Department fellow. Borene holds a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and a B.A. in Economics from Macalester College. He also completed executive education in international development finance at Harvard University. He is a recipient of the FBI Directors Award for Exceptional Public Service and he is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

My goal is to build a strong business for Cybereason within the U.S. public sector and I am planning to recruit a group of direct support executives, veterans and alumni of the elite military units and agencies that have defended our nation in the information age. Ill also work to establish a network of the best channel and delivery partners for federal, state and local governments. Cybereasons steady growth, unmatched technology and its constant rise as a global endpoint technology leader has me excited to help the public sector to be able to more quickly identify and mitigate the most advanced state-sponsored and criminal threats across all endpoints from workstations, servers, cloud and mobile, said Borene.

In 2020, Cybereason has received several third-party validations for the Cybereason Defense Platform, including the two previously conducted MITRE ATT&CK evaluations. In the first eval, while defending against the techniques and tactics used by Chinese-affiliated cybercrime group APT3, Cybereason outperformed every company by demonstrating best-in-class automated threat detection, the most real-time alerts and correlation of malicious activity.

In the second eval, while defending against the techniques and tactics frequently used by Russian-affiliated cybercrime group APT29, Cybereason showcased how its market-leading visibility and actionable threat detection enables security analysts to stop attacks before material damage occurs.

About Cybereason

Cybereason, creators of the leading Cyber Defense Platform, gives the advantage back to the defender through a completely new approach to cybersecurity. Cybereason offers endpoint prevention, detection and response and active monitoring. The solution delivers multi-layered endpoint prevention by leveraging signature and signatureless techniques to prevent known and unknown threats in conjunction with behavioral and deception techniques to prevent ransomware and fileless attacks. Cybereason is a privately held, international company, headquartered in Boston, MA with customers in more than 30 countries.

Learn more: https://www.cybereason.com/

Follow us: Blog | Twitter | Facebook

Media Contacts:

Bill Keeler

Senior Director, Global Public Relations

Cybereason

bill.keeler@cybereason.com

(929) 259-3261


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What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. So on that note, Quickstep Holdings (ASX:QHL) looks quite promising in regards to its trends of return on capital.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for Quickstep Holdings, this is the formula:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.096 = AU$4.2m  (AU$62m - AU$18m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2019).

So, Quickstep Holdings has an ROCE of 9.6%. On its own, that's a low figure but it's around the 9.1% average generated by the Aerospace & Defense industry.

See our latest analysis for Quickstep Holdings

roce

Above you can see how the current ROCE for Quickstep Holdings compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

The Trend Of ROCE

We're delighted to see that Quickstep Holdings is reaping rewards from its investments and is now generating some pre-tax profits. About five years ago the company was generating losses but things have turned around because it's now earning 9.6% on its capital. Not only that, but the company is utilizing 259% more capital than before, but that's to be expected from a company trying to break into profitability. We like this trend, because it tells us the company has profitable reinvestment opportunities available to it, and if it continues going forward that can lead to a multi-bagger performance.

Story continues

On a related note, the company's ratio of current liabilities to total assets has decreased to 29%, which basically reduces it's funding from the likes of short-term creditors or suppliers. This tells us that Quickstep Holdings has grown its returns without a reliance on increasing their current liabilities, which we're very happy with.

Our Take On Quickstep Holdings' ROCE

In summary, it's great to see that Quickstep Holdings has managed to break into profitability and is continuing to reinvest in its business. Given the stock has declined 59% in the last five years, there could be a chance of a good investment here if the valuation makes sense. That being the case, research into the company's current valuation metrics and future prospects seems fitting.

One final note, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Quickstep Holdings (including 2 which is shouldn't be ignored) .

If you want to search for solid companies with great earnings, check out this free list of companies with good balance sheets and impressive returns on equity.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
PHILADELPHIA, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kaskela Law LLC announces that it is investigating Plantronics, Inc. ("Plantronics" or the "Company") (NYSE: PLT) on behalf of the Company's stockholders.

Recently a securities fraud complaint was filed against Plantronics in federal court on behalf of investors who purchased shares of the Company's stock between August 7, 2018 and November 5, 2019. According to the complaint, during that time period Plantronics and certain of the Company's senior executive officers engaged in an "illicit channel stuffing scheme designed to deceive investors into believing Plantronics' costly acquisition of audio video conferencing company, Polycom, Inc., had transformed the stagnant headset company into an overnight growth story."

The complaint further alleges that "[t]he truth about Defendants' fraud was revealed through a series of disclosures between June 18, 2019 and November 5, 2019, when the Company, unable to continue its channel-stuffing scheme, announced sales integration and channel consolidation issues, declining quarterly revenues, poor financial guidance and an outsized reduction of channel inventory. These disclosures caused Plantronics shares to plummet, erasing billions of dollars in market capitalization and causing investors to suffer substantial damages."

The investigation seeks to determine whether the members of Plantronics' board of directors breached their fiduciary duties to the Company and its stockholders in connection with the above.

Current Plantronics stockholders who purchased or acquired shares of the Company's stock prior to August 7, 2018 are encouraged to contact Kaskela Law LLC (D. Seamus Kaskela, Esq.) at (484) 258 - 1585, or via email at [email protected] or online at http://kaskelalaw.com/case/plantronics-inc/, to discuss this investigation and their legal rights and options.

Kaskela Law LLC represents investors in securities fraud, corporate governance, and merger & acquisition litigation. For additional information about Kaskela Law LLC please visit www.kaskelalaw.com. This notice may constitute attorney advertising in certain jurisdictions.

CONTACT:

D. Seamus Kaskela, Esq.

KASKELA LAW LLC

18 Campus Blvd., Suite 100

Newtown Square, PA 19073

(484) 258 - 1585

(888) 715-1740

www.kaskelalaw.com

[email protected]

SOURCE Kaskela Law LLC

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COLUMBUS, Ohio - Your perceptions of someone you just met are influenced in part by what they look like and how they sound.

But can you ignore how someone looks or how they sound if you're told it is not relevant?

Probably not, at least in most cases, a new Ohio State University study found.

For example, some study participants were shown a photo of a face and heard a brief snippet of speech at the same time and were told that the photo and voice belonged to different people.

In some cases, participants were told to rate how strong an accent they thought the person shown in the photo would have.

Participants thought the person in the photo would have a more accented voice if the words they heard also had a stronger accent - despite being told the image and sound represented two different people.

"Even though we told them to ignore the voice, they couldn't do it completely," said study author Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, an associate professor of linguistics at Ohio State.

"Some of the information from the voice seeped into their evaluation of the face."

The same was true when participants were asked to evaluate how "good-looking" the person with a particular voice was - they were influenced by the photo they viewed, even when told it was a different person from the speaker they heard.

Although study participants usually could not ignore the irrelevant information, there was one intriguing exception in which participants feared showing a racial stereotype when it came to gauging accented voices.

The study was published online this week in the Journal of Sociolinguistics.

The study included 1,034 people who visited an exhibit hosted by Ohio State's Department of Linguistics at the Center of Science and Industry, a science museum in Columbus.

Participants were shown photos of 15 men on a television screen. As each photo was shown, they heard a single-word recording repeated three times over the course of five seconds, also by one of 15 men. Depending on what group they were in, participants had to rate how accented or good-looking the face or the voice was.

Some of the speakers these study participants heard had been rated by people in a previous study as sounding relatively unaccented. Other voices were from people who had learned English at older ages and had been rated as having more of an accent.

When participants evaluated the combined face and voice and were not told to ignore anything, they evaluated "good-looking" mostly based on the face, and "accented" on the voice - as expected.

But some people were told to evaluate the face while ignoring the voice, or evaluate the voice while ignoring the face, because they represented two different people.

In those cases, some people evaluated the face on the "good-looking" dimension and some evaluated the face on the "accented" dimension. The same was true for evaluating the voice. In both cases, they had to ignore the other input, voice or face.

"We found that people could exercise some control over what information to favor, the voice or the face, depending on what we told them to do," Campbell-Kibler said.

"But in most cases, they were unable to entirely eliminate the irrelevant information."

There was one exception: People were able to completely ignore the face when rating how accented the voice sounded.

Campbell-Kibler said the reason seems to be that the participants, most of whom were white, were being careful not to show any racial stereotyping.

"Some of the participants explicitly told us they were attempting to avoid responses that could be seen as stereotypical," she said.

They knew that how a person looks has no real connection to how they sound, even though racial stereotypes often prompt people to associate strong accents with people who don't look white.

"They sensed a danger is showing racial bias when it came to evaluating accents. That's why they were careful to exclude what the face looked like when evaluating if the voice sounded accented," Campbell-Kibler said.

"They didn't have that issue when evaluating 'good-looking,' because that is seen as subjective enough that you can't really be wrong," Campbell-Kibler said.

Because this study used photographs rather than video, the audio people heard had a stronger influence on them than it might in real life, she said. Videos would probably have a stronger effect on people's evaluations than these still images.

But the main message is the same: We are influenced by all the information we have available, whether it is applicable or not.

"It is hard to ignore socially relevant information your senses perceive, even if we tell you it is not relevant to the task you have right now," Campbell-Kibler said.

###

Contact: Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, Campbell-kibler.1@osu.edu

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
Fun news today that Planned Parenthood in New York has decided to remove the name of its founder, Margaret Sanger, from its local headquarters building because theyve figured out that she was a deeply racist supporter of eugenics. The New York Times reports:

Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will remove the name of Margaret Sanger, a founder of the national organization, from its Manhattan health clinic because of her harmful connections to the eugenics movement, the group said on Tuesday. . .

But her legacy also includes supporting eugenics, a discredited belief in improving the human race through selective breeding, often targeted at poor people, those with disabilities, immigrants and people of color. The removal of Margaret Sangers name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthoods contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color, Karen Seltzer, the chair of the New York affiliates board, said in a statement.

My favorite sentence of the story is this: Ms. Sanger still has defenders who say the decision to repudiate her lacks historical nuance.

No word on whether Planned Parenthood will stop targeting minorities for abortions, which is in full keeping with Sangers old views.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club is having a complete meltdown as it reckons with its own elitist past. Executive director Michael Brune has posted a long, angst-filled confessional today on the Clubs website, decrying the Clubs legendary founder, John Muir:

The Sierra Club is a 128-year-old organization with a complex history, some of which has caused significant and immeasurable harm. As defenders of Black life pull down Confederate monuments across the country, we must also take this moment to reexamine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy. Its time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Clubs early history. That will be followed by posts on how weve had to evolve on issues of immigration and population control, environmental justice, and Indigenous sovereignty. . . The most monumental figure in the Sierra Clubs past is John Muir. Beloved by many of our members, his writings taught generations of people to see the sacredness of nature. But Muir maintained friendships with people like Henry Fairfield Osborn, who worked for both the conservation of nature and the conservation of the white race. Head of the New York Zoological Society and the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, Osborn also helped found the American Eugenics Society in the years after Muirs death. And Muir was not immune to the racism peddled by many in the early conservation movement. He made derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life. As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muirs words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club.

Theres much more at the link, but what is to be done at the end of this self-flagellation? Pay tribute, of course:

Pending approval from our board, we will shift $5 million from our budget over the next year  and more in the years to come  to make long-overdue investments in our staff of color and our environmental and racial justice work. . . We will also spend the next year studying our history and determining which of our monuments need to be renamed or pulled down entirely.

Take no chances: pull them all down. Replace them with the Great Pumpkin or something.

Hard to believe there isnt an acute popcorn shortage these days.
The United States and Britain put on a show of unity against Chinese telecoms giant Huawei on Tuesday, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered stinging criticism of Beijing's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and urged like-minded nations to push back together against China's threatening behaviour.

Pompeo, who is visiting Britain, praised the U.K.'s response to challenges raised by China as tensions grow between Western powers and Beijing. Britain has in recent weeks decided to ban Huawei from the UK's 5G network, suspended an extradition treaty with Hong Kong and offered refuge for millions of eligible Hong Kongers who feel threatened by Beijing's tightening grip on the semi-autonomous city.

We support those sovereign choices, we think 'well done', Pompeo said. Downing Street said Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Pompeo discussed shared global security and foreign policy issues, including China's actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, where there are concerns about rights abuses targeting the Uighur minority.

Pompeo told reporters: We have seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed and watched the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) bully its neighbours. He also criticized the Chinese Communist Party's exploitation of the pandemic as disgraceful. He said the U.S. hopes like-minded nations can build a coalition with a joint understanding of the threat of China, including its ambitions in the South China Sea.

We want every nation to work together to push back against the Chinese Communist Party's efforts in every dimension that I have described, he said. The talks came just hours after Britain joined the US, Australia and Canada in suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. It also blocked arms sales to the former British territory angering Beijing after China imposed a tough new national security law that critics say delivers a fatal blow to the liberties and rule of law promised to the city when it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

Last week Britain's government drew more ire from Beijing when it U-turned on an earlier decision to allow Huawei a limited role in the country's superfast 5G network. The US has lobbied its allies to shun Huawei because it says the Chinese government could use the company's technology to spy on Western nations. Huawei denies the allegations and argues that US protectionism is behind the move.

A Downing Street spokesman said Johnson, Pompeo and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab discussed the importance of Five Eyes countries taking an ambitious approach to working together on the technologies of the future. He was referring to the intelligence alliance between the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand China's ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, warned on Twitter that the U.K. should bear the consequences of damaging bilateral relations.

Pompeo described his talks in London as being constructive? and ranging "from 5G telecommunication to our negotiations for a U.S.-U.K. free trade agreement.'' Pompeo also met with senior members of Johnson's Conservative Party who led the blockage of Huawei from Britain's infrastructure. The UK has already accused the Beijing government of violating the Sino-British Joint Declaration under which Hong Kong was returned to China, and announced it would open a special route to citizenship for up to 3 million eligible residents of the territory.

Also read: Time for world to push back against threats posed by China, says Mike Pompeo
Most Critical Time for NSW: Premier

NSW is facing the most critical stage of the COVID-19 pandemic since the initial late-March lockdown as authorities attempt to contain the transmission from recent clusters.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian implored residents to avoid crowds and limit non-essential travel over the weekend and next few weeks, and said there is no excuse for businesses to ignore COVID-19 safety rules.

The next few weeks are the most critical in NSW since the lockdown earlier in March and April, she told reporters on Wednesday.

We are not out of the woods yet, quite the opposite  We have some level of anxiety regarding the extent of community transmission.

Berejiklian said businesses are also on notice as a new suite of COVID-19 measures come into place on Friday to ensure compliance with social distancing and other safety guidelines.

The premier noted the guidelines were previously not compulsory, but a lack of compliance made the government change its tune.

Any business which doesnt do the right thing will have the book thrown at them, she said.

There is so much at stake and so much on the line.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said residents needed to be extra cautious as authorities work to mop up the community transmission from recent weeks.

What were attempting to do is put the fences up and contain it, she told reporters.

Chant noted that if someone who tests positive for COVID-19 has avoided crowds, limited their activities and ensures social distancing, the opportunity for them to spread the infection is lowered.

In essence, that chain of transmission effectively gets blocked, she said.

The state recorded 16 new COVID-19 cases in the 24 hours to 8 p.m. on Tuesday including one in hotel quarantine, three linked to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula and 11 associated with the Thai Rock restaurant in Wetherill Park.

The total number of cases linked to the Crossroads Hotel cluster has now reached 53, while 37 cases are associated with the Thai Rock outbreak.

NSW Health began testing staff and residents at Ashfield Baptist Homes in Sydneys inner west on Wednesday after a staff member tested positive to COVID-19.

The staff member dined at Thai Rock and the aged care facility is closed to visitors while test results are pending.

The risk to other staff and residents is considered to be very low as the staff member wore masks, gloves and gowns when working with residents and did not work while symptomatic, a NSW Health spokeswoman said in a statement.

Chant said genomic sequencing has shown the strain circulating in NSW is similar to the one in Victoria, but experts did not believe that one person was the source of all the separate outbreaks.

It comes as tougher border restrictions come into force for people wanting to enter NSW from Victoria, including a border zone established along the Murray River.

The new restrictions began at midnight, with cross-border travel permitted solely for work, education, medical care, supplies or health services.

Transport Workers Union NSW secretary Richard Olsen said the cancellation of previous travel permits and the need to reapply had caused confusion, anxiety and angst in the transport industry on Tuesday.

Drivers are already under pressure, with the squeeze on the transport industry as a critical service during this pandemic, Olsen said in a statement.

The NSW government must do better and allow for drivers to plan ahead so they can continue the provision of an essential critical service.

By Dominica Sanda, Ashlea Witoslawski and Angelo Risso
India on Wednesday condoled the death of four Bhutanese soldiers who lost their lives while saving those impacted by flash floods.

Four soldiers of the Royal Bhutan Army lost their lives during a rescue operation to save the lives of people caught in the flash floods in Gelephu on Tuesday.

"Our deepest condolences to the Royal Government of Bhutan on the loss of lives of the four brave Bhutanese soldiers who sacrificed themselves in saving those impacted by the floods in Gelephu," Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said in a tweet.

Our deepest condolences to the Royal Government of Bhutan on the loss of lives of the four brave Bhutanese soldiers who sacrificed themselves in saving those impacted by the floods in Gelephu. We stand in solidarity with Bhutan at this difficult moment.@PMBhutan@FMBhutan  Anurag Srivastava (@MEAIndia) July 22, 2020

"We stand in solidarity with Bhutan at this difficult moment," he said.
Google has announced that their Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max devices will now natively support Netflix streaming. Users can now connect their Netflix account and stream their favourite shows on their smart displays, with the ability to control the video playback with their voice or hand gestures.

To enable Netflix, users needs to simply link their Netflix subscription by signing in to their account in the Google Home or Assistant app. Google has integrated this service into their voice assistant, which means users can simply ask for the show they want to watch, like for example, Hey Google, play Queer Eye, and the assistant will automatically search the Netflix Catalog and begin streaming.

Google has also integrated Quick Gesture support for Netflix on the Nest Hub Max, which allows users to easily pause or resume playback by just raising your hand to the device.

Having the ability to stream Netflix puts the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max ahead of the Amazons Echo smart displays and Facebooks Portal in terms of features. Along with this, the Nest Hub smart speakers also have Google Cast support, making the other smart displays harder to purchase.

Source
Unless Congress acts soon, the extra $600 a week added to all unemployment benefits since April will expire after the end of this week. Although lawmakers seem willing to extend the added benefit in some way, we dont know how much it might be, how long it will last and how long it will take to reach an agreement.

The Heroes Act, which the Democrat-controlled House passed in mid-May, would extend the $600 a week through Jan. 31. Backers say this is a crucial benefit that helps people pay for food and housing and has helped prevent the economy from collapsing.

Critics say the benefit will discourage people from going back to work  thus keeping unemployment higher than it otherwise would be  because more than half of those on unemployment are making more than they did in their previous job. Never mind that it was intended to do just that.

Various Republicans have suggested cutting back the benefit back to amounts ranging from $100 to $400 a week.

The extra $600, called Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, was part of the Cares Act and comes from the federal government. It was added to all unemployment benefits starting in April through weeks ending on or before July 31. In California this is the last week it will be paid unless Congress intervenes.

The $600 figure was chosen because when you add it to the average weekly state unemployment benefit nationwide (roughly $380 a week) it equals about 100% of the average wage.

The percentage of people who are making more on unemployment, with the $600, is actually more than 50% because the median wage  the point at which half of workers earn more and half earn less  is lower than the average wage.

The income distribution is skewed. The typical or median worker earns a below-average wage, said Joseph Vavra, a University of Chicago economics professor.

Now Playing: We spoke with workers from San Franciscos Mission District who continue to work  and potentially risk their health  amid the coronavirus shelter in place orders. These are their stories. Video: Erika Betty Carlos

Vavra and two colleagues said in a research paper that 68% percent of eligible workers would get more on unemployment, with the $600, than their previous earnings, and one-fifth would get at least twice what they earned before. The median unemployed worker would make 34% more than his or previous wage nationally.

In California, where the unemployment rate was 14.9% in June compared with 11.1% nationwide, the impact would be significant if they reduced it by any amount, said Maurice Emsellem of the National Employment Law Project.

In California, the average weekly unemployment benefit is $338, below the national average. If you add $338 to $600, thats only 69% of the average weekly wage, Emsellem said. He added that $338 works out to $8.45 an hour for a full-time job, and nobody can live on that right now, in the midst of a COVID crisis.

The Cares Act also authorized Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for self-employed and other people ineligible for regular state unemployment, and a 13-week extension of regular state benefits, called Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation. Those two programs expire at the end of this year.

Heidi Shierholz, senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, estimated that at least 25 million Americans are receiving the extra $600 a week, and that in turn is supporting 5 million jobs.

If we cut off the extra $600, for the vast majority, those jobs are just not available, she said.

Shierholz concedes that giving everyone a flat $600  regardless of their prior earnings, occupation, industry or state  is not ideal. But because we have so underinvested in our unemployment insurance system, they were not capable of doing something that was more tailored to individuals.

With vast swaths of the economy still closed and coronavirus surging in many states, some Republicans appear willing to extend that benefit at some reduced level.

In April, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he and fellow South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott would extend the $600 benefit boost over our dead bodies. On Wednesday, he said, I think there needs to be a federal benefit continued, but it needs to be readjusted, because its creating a disincentive to go back to work. Theyre talking about 70%, something like that.

On Thursday, President Trump said he originally opposed the extra $600 but called it a real lifeline. He added, Now were doing it again. Theyre thinking about doing 70% of the amount ... so that people are going to want to go back to work, as opposed to making so much money that they really dont have to. We were very generous with them.

A White House spokesman clarified that Trump was referring to 70% of wage replacement, but did not say what 70% would amount to.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

To what extent the extra $600 is discouraging people from working is unclear. Ernie Tedeschi, head of fiscal analysis with Evercore ISI and a former Treasury economist under President Obama, said that about 70% of unemployment recipients who went back to work in June were making more on unemployment than their prior wage, and yet still returned to work.

People know that we are in for an extended period of high unemployment, Shierholz said. Trading a permanent job offer for temporary benefits ... is an incredibly risky move.

When business owners talk about not being able to hire back workers because theyre making too much on unemployment, I dont know what planet theyre on, said Candace Combs, who co-owns the In-Symmetry Spa in San Franciscos Mission District with her brother. She had to lay off her 15 full- and part-time employees when the shelter-in-place orders were issued in March. The spa, which does massages and facials, has not been allowed to reopen. My employees need that $600, she said.

Combs also relies on the extra $600 to pay her share of the rent on the house she shares with her partner.

Not being able to hire back workers is the least of my concerns, she added. Even if a vaccine were discovered tomorrow, its going to take a while to build this back up as consumer confidence improves. We will come back at 25%, then 50%. So who am I going to hire? At first it will be her and her brother and an esthetician. As business improves, Ill take whoever wants to come back.

Emsellem said his big concern is that Congress wont act before next week and there is going to be a lapse in benefits. If they drag this out more than a week or two, thats the big challenge for California and other states. They will have to stop the benefits, reprogram (their systems), ask everyone to recertify again for all the weeks they missed. Any extra burden on the state agencies can create a big hassle for everybody.

He would also like to see the U.S. Department of Labor issue clearer guidance on the conditions under which a worker could turn down a job and still qualify for unemployment benefits.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender
Mr. Fanelli joins the Theralink team having previously held positions at Metabolon Inc., Core Diagnostics, Nanostring Technologies and Bio-Rad Laboratories

DENVER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / OncBioMune d/b/a Theralink Technologies (OTC:OBMP), a molecular profiling company specializing in biomarker assay services that target multiple areas of oncology, announced today the appointment of Mr. Michael Fanelli as Senior Director of Biopharma Commerial Operations.

Prior to joining Theralink, Mr. Fanelli was Business Development Executive, Strategic Accounts for Metabolon Inc. where he was responsible for establishing mutually beneficial partnership agreements for the Metabolon services and diagnostics development portfolio. Prior to that Mr. Fanelli was Director of Business Development at Core Diagnostics, Inc. where he led the development of new clients and sales of the Core Diagnostics pre-clinical and clinical services in the oncology space. Prior to that from 2012 to 2018, Mr. Fanelli was Director Life Science Sales - US West at Nanostring Technologies and Northwest Regional Manager at Bio-Rad Laboratories. Mr. Fanelli has a Master of Science, Biology (Molecular) from California State University San Marcos and Bachelor of Science in Biology (Cellular and Molecular) from California State University Humboldt.

"Michael is an important addition to our team as we prepare for the commercialization of our patented proteomic technology," said Mick Ruxin, M.D. President and CEO of Theralink Technologies, Inc. "Michael brings to our team extensive experience and deep relationships in our industry that will assist us in accelerating the sales cycle. We want to welcome Michael to our team and look forward to working closely with him on our business development and sales strategy."

"Theralink's technology is solving a significant challenge in translational and clinical oncology by providing access to more predictive proteomics biomarkers. Leveraging my experience in commercial leadership and business development, I look forward to immediately implementing an effective commercialization strategy with the Theralink team," stated Michael Fanelli, newly appointed Senior Director of Biopharma Commercial Operations.

About Theralink Technologies, Inc.

Theralink Technologies is a proteomics based molecular profiling company, located in Golden, Colorado that uniquely specializes in phospohoprotein and protein biomarker assay services that target multiple areas of oncology. Theralink provides precision oncology data through its powerful Theralink Reverse Phase Protein Array (RPPA) assays to assist the biopharmaceutical industry and clinical oncologists in identifying likely responders and non-responders to both FDA-approved and investigational drug treatments. We intend to improve cancer outcomes for patients, reveal therapeutic options for oncologists, and support biopharmaceutical drug development by using a beyond-genomics approach to molecular profiling that directly measures drug target levels and activity. For more information, please visit www.theralink.com.

Contact Information

Theralink Technologies, Inc.

KCSA Strategic Communications

Valter Pinto, Managing Director

212.896.1254

valter@kcsa.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, anything relating or referring to future financial results, patient enrollment and plans for future business development activities, and are thus prospective. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties some of which cannot be predicted or quantified based on current expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risks and uncertainties set forth from time to time in reports filed by OncBioMune Pharmaceuticals with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting the financial condition of our business and although the company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Consequently, future events and actual results could differ materially from those set forth in, contemplated by, or underlying the forward the forward-looking statements contained herein. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release statements made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

SOURCE: OncbioMune/Theralink

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598466/TheralinkR-Technologies-Appoints-Michael-Fanelli-Senior-Director-Biopharma-Commercial-Operations
Calgary, AB, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund (OCIF) will provide Harvest Builders up to $4 million over three years to develop a service infrastructure to build, grow and scale new technology ventures in Calgary and across Western Canada.

Harvest is a Calgary-based Venture Builder that removes the barriers in starting tech businesses in the Prairies, by providing a de-risked co-building approach. Harvest also leverages its proven playbook and growth programming for startups across Canada, further accelerating companies forward.

Our mission is to help fill the gaps within the Prairie tech ecosystem, which make it difficult for new ventures to not only get off the ground, but successfully scale into globally competitive companies. said Harvest CEO Chris Simair, former CEO and cofounder of SkipTheDishes. This investment will enable Harvest to expand our initial pilot, and work with founders to co-build new companies that will continue to fuel the funnel of new innovation and technology here in Calgary."

Harvests Builder portfolio will initially focus on the Fintech and Proptech sectors, with plans to expand to other portfolios in the future.

If successful, Harvests activities will result in no less than 290 funded high skill full-time personnel in Calgary engaged through the Harvest Platform over the four-year project period. Harvest forecasts it will attract $30 million in committed private capital investment; at least half is projected to be deployed over the next four years.

Harvest is the 10th submission to be approved for OCIF funding.

Businesses that are going to solve the worlds biggest problems and disrupt their industries need access to capital, and the proven track record of Harvests founders show that theyre primed to make that happen, said Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who is a member of the OCIF Board of Directors.

Harvest has made a significant investment in Calgary and its important because it empowers local entrepreneurs with game-changing ideas, creates highly-skilled technology jobs for Calgarians and supports a more vibrant tech ecosystem that will create opportunities to drive greater economic growth, said Mary Moran, President and Chief Executive Officer of Calgary Economic Development and Chief Executive Officer of OCIF.

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There are still a number of barriers that make it difficult for start-ups to grow and scale across the prairies, said Andrew Chau, CEO, Neo Financial (a Harvest portfolio company). Partnering and co-building with Harvest has provided us the ability to bridge those gaps within the local tech ecosystem and ensure we have access to the right resources and talent throughout the different growth stages of our business.

Over the past year and a half, Harvest has been steadily growing its footprint in downtown Calgary. Since moving into the East Village (EV) last year, Harvest has nearly tripled its office space and recently partnered with Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) to reimagine the 8,000 square foot East Village Experience Centre into an active river front office space for their growing team.

For the past seven years, the East Village Experience Centre has been the central storytelling space to describe the unfolding EV vision, said Kate Thompson, Presidentand CEO, CMLC. With much of that vision now underway and complete, partnering with Harvest was an opportunity to reimagine the building to support EVs growing commercial life and welcome a growing team of entrepreneurs to the community.

The Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund was launched by The City of Calgary in April 2018 to support investments that spur growth and create jobs in strategic sectors identified in the economic strategy Calgary in the New Economy.

A live stream of the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund announcement will start at 9 a.m. MT on July 22, 2020. Join using this link:https://bit.ly/30xLqFj

About Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund:

Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of The City of Calgary in 2018 to support catalytic investments within the city that will help diversify and transform the economy. The Fund is administered by Calgary Economic Development and has a volunteer Board of Directors. For more information, visit our website.

For more information contact:

Media Cell: 403 880 7040

Email: media@calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com

About Harvest:

Harvest is a Canadian Prairie venture builder that connects founders and tech talent across Canada with world-class services to co-build startups into globally competitive companies. Harvest was founded by Chris Simair, co-founder and former CEO of SkipTheDishes, which sold for $200M in 2016 and is one of the largest tech companiesin Canada, with over 2,500 employees across Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Calgary. The same infrastructure that made SkipTheDishes a success is what powers the Harvest Platform today. Harvests vision is to build the Canadian Prairies to be an epicentre for innovation and technology, where the worlds best talent converges to build a better future.

For more information contact: Arianna Dametto, Head of Communications

Email: arriana.dametto@harvest.builders

CONTACT: Media Calgary Economic Development 403-880-7040 media@calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com




Matiullah Jan, a senior Pakistani journalist who was abducted in broad daylight on July 21 in Islamabad was released late at night on the same day near Fateh Jang, Punjab. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its Pakistan affiliate the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) express serious concern about the mysterious abduction and urge the Pakistan government to launch an investigation to identify the perpetrators.

Matiullah Jan, a journalist well-known for his critical writing about the military and judicial establishment, was abducted from an Islamabad street on July 21. Unidentified persons abducted him for more than 12 hours, releasing him in a deserted area outside the capital. His release followed protests from the media fraternity and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khans rescue order. During the abduction, he was blindfolded and taken to an unknown place.

According to Jans wife, Kaneez Sughra, more than five plain clothes people and others in black uniforms forcibly snatched her husband nearby a school where she teaches, after he had travelled to the school to see his wife.

Jans abduction came a day before he was to present at Pakistan's top court where he is facing contempt of court case over his tweet critical of Pakistan's judges and military.

Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, with frequent incidents of killing, detainment, attacks, threats, censorship and harassment.

The PFUJ said: PFUJ strongly condemns the short-term (11 am to 11 pm) kidnapping of senior Pakistani Journalist Matiullah Jan on Tuesday. PFUJ urges concerned authorities to ensure safety of journalists in Pakistan. PFUJ is following up the case.

The IFJ said: There must be answers to Matiullah Jan mysterious abduction and release. It is the responsibility of the government of the Pakistan to ensure the safety of media workers and end ongoing impunity for crimes against journalists. IFJ urges the Pakistan government to launch independent investigation in to the case, identify the perpetrators and punish the guilty.
Pakistani Journalist Seized in Broad Daylight, Held 12 Hours

By Ayesha Tanzeem July 21, 2020

A prominent Pakistani journalist known for his harsh criticism of the military and the ruling party was seized from the heart of the capital, Islamabad, and held for 12 hours Tuesday, according to his family.

A brother of the journalist, Matiullah Jan, confirmed to VOA shortly after midnight that Jan had been released. Details of his detention were not immediately available.

CCTV footage shows a group of men, some in plain clothes, others in black uniforms used by elite counter terrorism units of the police, forcing Matiullah Jan into a car as he resisted.

During the scuffle, Jan, who was parked outside a school where his wife taught, threw his mobile phone inside the compound. One of the men in uniform walked over to the closed gate and asked people standing inside to hand the phone back.

"The teacher standing with me handed the mobile to him. We thought a thief was running with the phone and the police were following him, so he threw the phone inside. We heard loud noises, but our gate was high and we couldn't see anything," said Kaniz Sughra, Jan's wife, who happened to be standing in the building's garage at the very moment that her husband was being forcibly picked up from the other side of the gate.

The men left in several vehicles, including at least one double cabin white truck with police lights on its roof. An ambulance followed the convoy.

Jan has been attacked twice before. In one incident, he was driving with his son when someone hurled a brick at the windscreen of his car.

"We reported that to the police. It was investigated. In the end police said they knew who was behind it, but they could not tell us," Sughra said.

She said her husband had received threats recently but told her not to worry about them.

Jan's brother, Shahid Akbar Abbasi, also received a call from someone claiming to be a fan of his brother and asking for his phone number.

"My hunch is that they confirmed that I was not with my brother and that the number I gave them was still being used by my brother," Abbasi said.

The reaction to Jan's alleged abduction was swift. Pakistan's opposition parties walked out of a session of parliament in protest, as did the journalists covering the proceedings.

The leader of the opposition in parliament, Shehbaz Sharif, condemned Jan's disappearance on Twitter, adding: "The government's campaign to muzzle the media & critical voices is simply shameful. If something happens to Matiullah, PM will be held responsible."

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and leader of one of the main opposition parties, Pakistan People's Party, tweeted: "Extremely concerned at news that @Matiullahjan919 has been abducted from Islamabad. The selected government must immediately insure his safe return. This is not only an attack on media freedoms & democracy but on all of us. Today it is Matiuallah, tomorrow it could be you or I."

Within hours of the news breaking, #BringBackMatiullah racked up more than 100,000 tweets and started trending on Twitter in Pakistan.

Journalists and human rights bodies issued statements condemning the alleged abduction.

The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists issued a statement threatening countrywide protests if Jan was not "released" within 24 hours.

"This has become a norm in the country to suppress voices of dissent for controlling media, imposing censorship and denying freedom of speech and expression in the country," the statement said.

The press association representing journalists covering the nation's Supreme Court urged the chief justice to take note of the incident.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent body, also demanded Jan's "release."

"We are deeply concerned at increasing attempts to control the media, suppress independent voices, and curb political dissent, thereby creating an environment of constant fear," the HRCP statement read.

Amnesty International for South Asia tweeted: "We are extremely concerned for the fate and wellbeing of @matiullahjan919. He has been the subject of physical attacks and harassment for his journalism. The authorities must establish his whereabouts immediately. #ReleaseMatiullah"

Pakistan's information minister, Shibli Faraz, said the government had taken note of the abduction and was investigating.

"Unacceptable abduction of @Matiullahjan919 from Islamabad today, have spoken with IG @ICT_Police and instructed for immediate action for retrieval and registration of FIR," tweeted Shahzad Akbar, a special assistant to the prime minister, Imran Khan.

Cases of enforced disappearance are widely documented in Pakistan. Journalists and human rights bodies have repeatedly investigated such incidents and often found the country's intelligence agencies involved, especially when it comes to critics of the military or members of nationalist groups.

"The scourge of enforced disappearances continued unchecked across the country in 2018. Political activists, students, human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, members of religious groups, and various ethnic minorities have all fallen victim in recent years," HRCP wrote in its latest annual State of Human Rights report.

The human rights committee of the country's Senate took up the issue several years ago and issued seven recommendations that were endorsed unanimously by the entire chamber in 2016. None of those recommendations was ever implemented.

Farhatullah Babar, who was part of the Senate committee, said they had no doubt institutions of the state were involved in these disappearances.

Babar also said that regardless of which party was in power, political governments were "totally helpless in this issue. They cannot do anything," he added.

The country's official Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances claims to have recovered thousands of victims but has so far not filed cases against any responsible party.

In 2018, the chairman of the commission, Justice Javed Iqbal, told the Senate human rights committee that they have identified more than 150 security officials involved in the forced disappearance of people. No action, however, was ever reported against any individual or institution.

"The abductors know they're so powerful and have impunity that they did not even care for the abduction to be in view of a CCTV camera," tweeted activist Usama Khilji.

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USPLs apparel line Wrogn, in association with Indias leading wildlife channel Animal Planet, is launching a new collection - Animal Planet X WROGN. The apparel range aims to shine light on the cause of endangered species in a never-before-seen-or-done manner. Conceptualised by Black White Orange, Animal Planets licensing arm, each style in the range portrays an endangered animal including the Tiger, Sea Turtle, Gorilla, Sumatran Elephant and Panda, amongst others.

Ive been associated with Wrogn since inception and we take some exciting initiatives season after season. I couldnt be happier that Wrogn is taking a step in the direction of creating awareness around animal endangerment. Said, Virat Kohli, the face of WROGN.

Speaking about the collaboration, Megha Tata Managing Director  South Asia, Discovery, said, Animal Planet has been striving hard to drive attention towards the importance of saving the endangered species in impactful ways. We are confident that this innovative collaboration with WROGN for this inspirational apparel line will help in spreading the message of conservation of endangered species as well as the wildlife.

Also Read: iQOO Announces Virat Kohli as the Brand Ambassador

Speaking about the collaboration, Anjana Reddy - CEO, Universal Sportsbiz Pvt. Ltd said, Animal endangerment is real. Its a pressing issue and Im aware that it really bothers the youth all over the world. We like the essence of this collaboration with Animal Planet as it enables people to wear their cause that they feel so strongly about and spread the word at the same time. The Rorschach art design is very interesting and hard to miss.

Adds Bhavik Vora, Founder & CEO, Black White Orange Brands Pvt. Ltd, In the tough times the world is going through, it is important to build something relevant. What better way to spread awareness on endangered species among the youth of today, than collaborate with leading players in the segment - WROGN and Animal Planet. We worked closely with the Animal Planet team for almost a year, to conceptualize the art that you see on the range and it's fantastic to see it come to life."

The Animal Planet X WROGN apparel will be available in over 250 counters across retail channels like Shoppers Stop, Central, Pantaloons, WROGNs exclusive stores, Myntra.com and on www.Wrogn.in.
Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is set to vacate the government bungalow in Lodhi Estate here before the end of this month and shift to a house in DLF Aralia, Sector 42, Gurugram, Haryana.

Sources close to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have stated that she will stay in Gurugram for the next few months. She is currently scouting two or three places in the national capital for rented accommodation and is expected to finalise it soon, sources added.

One of these houses, likely to be finalised, is located near Sujan Singh Park in New Delhi where repair work is underway. Sources added that the repair work will take about one or two months, till then the Congress leader will stay at the Gurugram house. She will shift to New Delhi once the repair work at the house is through.

Sources further said that most of the household goods have been shifted to the Gurugram house and security inspection process has also been completed. CRPF has already done a security check of the house after she informed about her shift of residence.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has Z+ category security entitlement. It is understood that she will now use the official residence of her mother and Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi for political meetings in Delhi.

In view of SPG security, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was allotted 35 Lodhi Estate in New Delhi area since 1997. However, after the SPG security was removed and her security was categories to Z+ last year she was asked to vacate the house.

On July 1, the Central Governments Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry issued a notice to her to vacate the Lodhi Estate residence by 31 July.

It was then indicated that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would shift to her relatives house Kaul Niwas in Lucknow. However, it was decided to use the residence for her, the Congress in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, while she is on a tour of the state.

It is also being called her political base camp. According to sources, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will spend most of her time in UP in the coming days in view of Assembly elections in the state in 2022. Sources in the UP Congress stated that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra may visit UP in August.

Interestingly, there has been no response from Priyanka Gandhi Vadra after the Central Government notice to vacate the bungalow. However, leaders of the Congress have called the notice a move inspired by the politics of revenge.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also rejected any suggestions that she had sought an extension to retain the house and said that she will vacate the bungalow before July 31.

A source close to the Congress leader stated the decoration-design that has been added to 35 Lodhi Estate in the last 23 years will remain intact.
The woman and her daughter had set themselves on fire on July 17 over alleged police inaction in a land dispute case in Amethi.

Lucknow: A woman, who had set herself on fire in front of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's office here, died at a hospital, officials said on Wednesday.The woman and her daughter had set themselves on fire on July 17 over alleged police inaction in a land dispute case in Amethi district and were subsequently rushed to hospital.

"Safia, about 50, died during treatment in the hospital at about 11.45 pm on Tuesday. Her daughter is undergoing treatment," Medical Superintendent, SPM Civil hospital, told PTI.

Lucknow Police Commissioner Sujeet Pandey had said last week that the incident prima facie appears to be part of a conspiracy.

"It is a criminal conspiracy as part of which some people instigated them (Safia and her daughter). A case has been registered against four people -- Aasma, Sultan, Kadir Khan (Amethi district president of AIMIM) and Anoop Patel (former Congress spokesperson) -- in this regard," he had said.

The women were told to come to Lucknow and try to set themselves on fire so that their grievances can be highlighted and the dispute resolved, Pandey had stated.

The police commissioner had claimed, "We have evidence to show that these women went to the UP Congress office and met Anoop Patel."

The Congress had, however, accused police of trying to implicate one of its party leaders from Amethi in the case.

Under a well-planned conspiracy, police is dragging the name of a former spokesman of the Congress' Amethi unit to hide the "bad shape of law and order", UPCC Vice President Virendra Chaudhary had charged.
32 states have reported record increases in coronavirus cases in July and 16 states an increase in deaths.

The United States has revisited the grim milestone of recording more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single day, while infections and hospitalisations are rising in many states, forcing President Donald Trump to acknowledge the crisis could worsen.

More than 142,000 people in the country have died from the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, a toll that public health experts say will likely rise in several states. Florida, Texas, Georgia and California are among about 40 states recording more cases.

Florida reported 9,785 new cases and 140 new deaths on Wednesday, while COVID-19 patients currently hospitalised hit a record high of 9,530. Alabama reported a record 61 new deaths on Wednesday, a day after hospitalisations hit a record.

Police officers in the street imposing an 8pm curfew, put in place in the Miami due to Floridas climbing numbers of coronavirus disease cases [Liza Feria/Reuters]

Nineteen states have reported a record number of currently hospitalised COVID patients so far in July. Thirty-two states have reported record increases in cases in July and 16 states have reported a record increase in deaths during the month.

The US government moved to secure 100 million doses of vaccine, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Wednesday.

The government will pay $1.95bn to buy the doses of Pfizer Inc and German biotech firm BioNTech SEs COVID-19 vaccine candidate if they can successfully develop one, the companies said.

Pfizer said it would not receive any money from the government unless the vaccine is deemed to be safe and effective and is successfully manufactured.

Trump, who played down the extent of the health crisis and the importance of face coverings, changing his tone on Tuesday, and encouraged Americans to wear a mask if they cannot maintain social distance.

Trump also said that the spread of the virus will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better  something I dont like saying about things, but thats the way it is.

US President Donald Trump speaking at a news conference at the White House in Washington, US [Leah Millis/Reuters]

Mandatory mask-wearing, which health officials say can slow the spread of the virus, is a political issue among Americans, with many conservatives calling such rules a violation of their constitutional rights.

Coronavirus infections are increasing in some politically important states including Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Republican Trump is trailing Democratic candidate Joe Biden in opinion polls ahead of the November 3 election.

A July 15-21 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that only 38 percent of the public supports Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including 20 percent of undecided or third-party registered voters.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will create new opportunities for China-Africa cooperation, an Ethiopian expert said on Tuesday.

Speaking to Xinhua, Gedion Jalata, a senior advisor to the UNDP South- South Cooperation and a former consultant to UNECA-Capacity Development Division, said the AfCFTA requires strong infrastructure linkage across the African continent, an area where Chinese help is much needed.

"AfCFTA will create new opportunities for Africa-China cooperation."

"The hard infrastructure spread in Africa is low, with countries like China that have ample experience in infrastructure building well placed to help build road, rail, port and air infrastructures for African countries. A strong Africa will be a strong ally and good partner for China," Jalata told Xinhua.

Jalata said trade among African countries is currently only about 17 percent of the total trade in the continent.

He said the low infrastructure connectivity among African countries is primarily to blame for low inter-African trade, adding China is supporting African countries through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

"China is also supporting African countries through individual projects like the landmark Chinese built and financed 756 km Ethiopia-Djibouti electrified rail line connecting landlocked Ethiopia to ports in neighboring Djibouti," Jalata told Xinhua.

Jalata further said China's support to African countries both through the BRI framework as well as individual projects will boost inter-African economic integration, with China potentially playing the role of key facilitator for the broader goals of AfCFTA.

However, Jalata said African countries need to proactively fight new challenges that could derail the goals of AfCFTA like the COVID-19 pandemic, a disease that many African countries are fighting with help from China.

"With the rapid spread of COVID-19 pandemic across the continent, many African countries need to boost their health infrastructure to ensure the COVID-19 pandemic doesn't become both a stumbling block to continental economic integration as well as a cross border health crisis," Jalata told Xinhua.
A man between 21 and 40 years old and a woman 61 years or older, both of Hale County, have died of COVID-19-related complications.

The deaths are reflected in counts for Plainview and Hale Center. They mark the 20th and 21st deaths reported in Hale County.

The latest report from the Plainview/Hale County Health Department was released Tuesday morning and reflects the latest activity reported after 5 p.m. Friday to 5 p.m. Monday.

An additional 40 cases moved total counts for the county up to 974 since the first was confirmed on March 24. Thirty-six of those cases were reported in Plainview (which now has a total of 897), three in Hale Center (41 total) and one in Abernathy (17 total).

There were also 87 new recoveries reported by Monday afternoon. Theyre reflected in numbers across the county with 81 in Plainview, three in Abernathy, two in Hale Center and one in Petersburg. The total recovery counts are as follows:

Plainview  725 recoveries

Hale Center  23 recoveries

Petersburg  12 recoveries

Abernathy  10 recoveries

The total recovery count for Hale County is 771, which includes one recovery in Edmonson.

The total number of COVID-19 tests conducted is up to 6,520  which is 212 higher than what was reported by Friday afternoon. Of those tested, 5,693 have returned negative results and 19 results are pending. A total of 249 people are listed as under monitoring.

Of the 974 cases confirmed in the county, 940 of them have been results of local transmissions. Thirty-three are listed as out-of-county transmissions and one is indeterminate. Theyve been diagnosed among 489 females and 485 males.

There are 182 active cases in Hale County as of Monday afternoon and 171 of those individuals were listed as recovering at home. Eleven are in a medical facility.

Citizens continue to be encouraged to wash their hands frequently, practice social distancing, avoid crowds and don masks in public  which is legally required in most Texas counties.
By Trend

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense has issued an official statement in connection with the information spread recently on social networks that allegedly, First Deputy Minister of Defense, Chief of the General Staff of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, Colonel-General Najmeddin Sadikov was dismissed, and that his brother holds a high position in the Armenian army, Trend reports on July 21 referring to the ministry.

These are lies, slander and misinformation spread by Armenia for provocative purposes, the ministry said. Unfortunately, such news has been often spread and discussed on social networks recently. This is clearly done with malicious intent to cause confusion in the society.

We inform that Sadikov is performing his official duties at his post, the ministry said. Sadikovs brother died in early 1980s. We call on the media outlets to be extremely careful and use the official sources when covering the activity of the Ministry of Defense.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Augustus Invictus wants out of a South Carolina jail pending a trial postponed because of the novel coronavirus, again.

Court officials said a bond hearing is set for Thursday.

Invictus has been in York County jail since May after he was arrested in Florida a month earlier for stalking his wife while out on bail.

In December, Invictus was charged with domestic violence and weapons charges, for allegedly choking his wife and putting a gun to her head in Rock Hill, according to court records.

His lawyer, Jeff Zuschke of the 16th Circuit public defenders office, said Thursdays hearing is a chance to explain why Invictus should be given bond pending trial.

Invictus had been denied bail until March, then was freed in April on $10,000 bond after the COVID-19 pandemic forced all jury trails to be postponed. He left South Carolina for Florida and was set to stay there until the case could be tried.

A York County judge revoked his bond because of the arrest in Florida, court documents show.

Augustus Sol Invictus

Invictus is a defense lawyer who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in Florida in 2016. His Twitter social media page has a link to a site that states he is a candidate for president. Zuschke said in court in February Invictus is a public figure because of his political activities.

York County prosecutor Jenny Desch said in court documents that Invictus is a threat to the safety of the victim.

Invictus faces up to 25 years in prison in South Carolina if convicted of the domestic violence and gun charges, state law shows. The Florida charge of stalking after an injunction is a felony that carries up to five years in prison, Florida law shows.
The Trump administration told China to close its diplomatic consulate in Houston "in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information," State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus confirmed to Axios on Wednesday morning.

The latest: Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that President Trump directed the State Department to withdraw its consent for China to operate its consulate in Houston due to a litany of abuses in the bilateral relationship.

"We find the U.S.-China relationship today weighed down by a growing number of disputes, including commercial espionage and intellectual property theft from American companies; unequal treatment of our diplomats, businesses, NGOs, and journalists by Chinese authorities; and abuse of the United States academic freedom and welcoming posture toward international students to steal sensitive technology and research from our universities in order to advance the PRCs military."

 Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun

Why it matters: The move further escalates already heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing, exacerbated by stalled trade talks, China's crackdown on Hong Kong, human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslims, and the subsequent U.S. response with sanctions  among other things.

China's foreign ministry said in a statement it would "react with firm countermeasures" to the eviction, calling it a "political provocation" that's "outrageous and unjustified."

Of note: Confirmation of the closure that's due to occur on Friday came after police and fire crews responded to a call of smoke coming from the Consulate General of China in Houston Tuesday night.

A police official told Axios they received reports that Chinese consulate officials at the building were "burning their own paperwork."

They couldn't enter the building as China has sovereignty over it.

What they're saying: Ortagus said in a statement the Vienna Convention states diplomats must "respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State" and "have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.

"The United States will not tolerate [China's] violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated [China's] unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," Ortagus added. "President Trump insists on fairness and reciprocity in U.S.-China relations."

Flashback: In 2017, black smoke was seen coming from the chimney of the Russian consulate in San Francisco one day after the Trump administration ordered its closure.

Russian officials wouldn't allow firefighters into the building and a firefighter told AP at the time they were "burning something in the fireplace."

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
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As cases of COVID-19 continue to spike across the country, many states, including Colorado, Arkansas and Alabama, have implemented new face mask requirements. Many retailers have also added requirements for face coverings. On Monday, Gap announced a mask policy in its stores, effective Aug. 1, and plenty of fellow big retailers, like Walmart, Best Buy, Target and CVS, have recently put mask requirements in place for shoppers.

But despite all these requirements, refusal to wear a mask has become a political sticking point for some. Now antimaskers have resorted to a new tactic: wearing a mask that doesnt offer any protection.

People are sharing videos and tweets of themselves flouting face covering guidelines by wearing masks made of thin material, like mesh, crochet and lace.

An antimask protester holds up a sign at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday. (Jeff Dean/AFP)

Face mask recommendations and laws vary between cities, states and stores. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) specifically recommends that people wear a cloth face covering that completely covers the nose and mouth and includes multiple layers of fabric.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has taken things a step further, giving specific recommendations for what the masks should be made of. According to the WHO, the most effective face masks have the following components:

An inner layer thats made of absorbent material, like cotton

A middle layer to act as a filter or barrier: This can be made of nonwoven material, like polypropylene

An outer layer made of a nonabsorbent material, like polyester

The WHO also recommends that people avoid masks made of stretchy materials (they dont serve as great filters), silk and gauze.

While some specify what a mask needs to look like  Colorado says a mask should be made of multiple layers of fabric  others, like Walmart, simply require face coverings. This has contributed to the rise of these ineffective protest masks  and some are even selling them online.

One American flag-themed crochet mask available on Etsy bills itself as the mask for people who don't want to wear them. Another mesh one on Amazon, which says its designed for protection from pellets and paintballs, is receiving rave reviews. A third one, a $22 crystal-encrusted mesh face mask is currently a bestseller on Etsy. Reviewers say theyve worn the mesh and crochet masks into stores and have not been questioned, which one said is proof that its not about safety, its about control.

Story continues

Experts disagree  and find the rise in antimasks extremely concerning.

Its ridiculous, says Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo. This isnt about personal liberty. This is about public health and keeping everyone safe, so we can get the pandemic under control to have more freedom and liberty.

Im very disappointed, Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life. Im not a person to anger, but Im angry. These people are putting others at risk and putting themselves at risk. They think theyre being cute, and theyre not.

Video:

Dr. Richard Watkins, an infectious disease physician in Akron, Ohio, and a professor of internal medicine at the Northeast Ohio Medical University, says he has trouble understanding why anyone would do this. I treat patients with it every day, and I am as careful as I can possibly be to not get infected, he tells Yahoo Life. People who have been infected months ago still have symptoms. It is not something to treat lightly or think it is not a big deal.

But Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells Yahoo Life that this is predictable given the current environment where masks have been politicized and framed as a method of control. This is a very silly way to try to make a point thats not worth making, he says. If they have a problem with masks, why cant they wear a face shield? Its a good option.

Overall, Schaffner says, This is just inappropriate. We all have to help protect each other. These people are contributing to the spread of the illness and perhaps the demise of others.

A big sticking point among antimaskers is that theyre complying with local guidelines and laws by wearing these masks, but Adalja says thats not necessarily true. Were already seeing stores talk about what a mask should be, he says. Read the regulations regarding masks for most places: It usually says it has to have some sort of barrier. A mesh, lace or crochet mask that you can see through doesnt fit the bill. If whatever youre wearing on your face isnt a barrier, people may refuse you service based on that, Adalja adds.

Its unclear at this point whether this kind of thing would be legally enforceable, but its unlikely that the compliance argument for wearing an antimask would hold up in court, Schaffner says. I dont think they would stand up, he says.

Overall, public health experts arent happy with this new trend. I get wearing a proper mask is inconvenient, but its a small price to pay, Russo says.

For the latest coronavirus news and updates, follow along at https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus. According to experts, people over 60 and those who are immunocompromised continue to be the most at risk. If you have questions, please reference the CDCs and WHOs resource guides.

Read more from Yahoo Life:

Want daily lifestyle and wellness news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Lifes newsletter.
T housands of British holidaymakers in Spain could be forced to quarantine when they return following a spike in coronavirus cases in the country.

The UK government is closely monitoring the situation and a decision to remove Spain, or parts of it, off the safe list could be made this week, according to reports.

Spain recorded 4,581 new cases on Monday from the weekend, marking a sharp rise in infections after lockdown measures were eased.

Whitehall sources told the Sun that as cases continue to increase there, holidaymakers set to return to the UK could face quarantine if areas of the country become deemed unsafe.

Earlier this month, Number 10 released a list of 76 countries and territories from which people arriving into England would no longer need to self-isolate for 14 days.

The list included popular destinations such as Spain, Germany, France and Italy.

The Government is reportedly set to switch from its three week reviews of travel corridors to a rolling system, giving regular updates on each country.

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A Whitehall source told The Sun: Instead of big reviews every three weeks, we will look for a system where countries come on and off as and when we see spikes or drops in cases.
French authorities have told telecoms operators planning to buy Huawei 5G equipment that they wont be able to renew licences for the gear once they expire, effectively phasing the Chinese firm out of mobile networks, three sources close to the matter said. Like other countries in Europe, France is laying the ground for its next-generation 5G mobile market in the middle of a growing geopolitical storm between two global superpowers. The United States say the companys equipment could be used by the Chinese government for espionage - a charge denied by Huawei and Beijing - ...
A 17-year-old male charged in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a female child appeared before a Naas District Court sitting on July 9 last.

The incident is alleged to have taken place two years ago.

Sgt Brian Jacob said the alleged incident happened during a visit by the defendant and his mother to a friend and her then five-year-old daughter, the alleged victim.

Defending solicitor Conal Boyce said the defendant had made no admissions and would be making no admissions. He also said that the State initially offered to deal with the case by way of a caution.

But evidence was given by Sgt Brian Jacob that, in all cases involving juveniles, the Juvenile Diversion Programme is used and one of the sanctions within this system is a caution.

He said every case of this kind is considered for a caution as a matter of course.

Sgt Jacob told the court that in this instance the defendant was not offered a caution.

Mr Boyce said the boy was 15 at the time and is not known to the gardai.

The court heard that the allegation surfaced when the child allegedly reported to her mother that she had touched his willy and put his willy in my mouth.

Judge Desmons Zaidan refused jurisdiction in the case, which means it will be heard at the Circuit Court.

He adjourned the case until September 19 for a book of evidence.
In Sweden, prosecutors randomly assigned to cases of police assault are sixteen percentage points more likely to investigate rather than dismiss the case if they are female, according to a study published July 22, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Kristine Eck from Uppsala Universitet, Sweden and Charles David Crabtree from Dartmouth College, US.

As current protests around the world make clear, police violence is a global problem--despite systems in place designed to discipline police violations of citizens' rights. In this study, Eck and Crabtree examine whether police assault claims are treated equally, or if biases found in other contexts appear here as well--while focusing on the less-studied prosecutor's role in judicial outcomes (as opposed to the judge's role, for which more data and research are available).

The authors focused their analysis on nineteen prosecutors (eight female, eleven male) of 2,304 police assault cases in the Swedish system during the years of 2013-2016--almost the entire population of non-fast-track complaints filed during this period--for many reasons: Sweden is one of the most gender equal countries in the world, suggesting that effects around gender found here are more likely to be significant and generalizable to other contexts; Sweden's Separate Public Prosecution Office randomly assigns its prosecutors to cases and the prosecutors are all equivalent to one another in terms of age (averaging 58 years old), workload, and career experience; and the complaints system is easily accessible to potential claimants (damages paid are generally very small, making it unlikely for false complaints to be filed). After being assigned a complaint, the prosecutor must determine whether or not the case should be investigated--in this sample, prosecutors pursued investigation 68 percent of the time (1,556 cases). After collecting this case data, Eck and Crabtree used statistical modeling and analyses to investigate whether case outcome varied based on the gender of the assigned prosecutor.

Their results showed that female prosecutors investigated almost 78 percent of filed cases, while male prosecutors only investigated around 60 percent of the cases they were assigned.

Though there's clearly an observable correlation regarding prosecutor gender and case investigation, it's important to note that the data and study design cannot explain the causation behind why female prosecutors are more likely than their male colleagues to investigate claims of police officers assault. However, the authors suggest future research look to rule out the possibility that common characteristics shared by female (and male) prosecutors, like education, personal experiences, or partisanship, may be driving the observed differences.

Crabtree summarizes: " In Sweden, women prosecutors are 16 percentage points more likely to investigate claims of police assault than their male counterparts."

###

Citation: Eck K, Crabtree C (2020) Gender differences in the prosecution of police assault: Evidence from a natural experiment in Sweden. PLoS ONE 15(7): e0235894. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235894

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0235894
Was Jesus silence violence?

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If I really want to make myself ill, I imagine Jesus being alive today and think about how hed be treated during this time of intense personal viciousness and social media insanity.

As it is now, I can barely stand reading the parts in Jesus biographies that chronicle how He was hounded, maligned, used and abused, conspired against, falsely accused, and murdered  and thats just in His small geographic locale in the first century where things spread on foot and by personal word of mouth.

But today? The social media smear machines (especially most cable news networks), Twitter mobs, and the other venomous groups of our cancel culture that literally live to slander and ruin lives would make what we read in the gospels look like kid-gloves treatment.

Given the recent Silence is Violence media push, I wonder what our current crop of social justice warriors would say about Jesus perceived silence in the gospels on the wrongs they passionately decry today?

The violence that silences

Let me first say there certainly is something to be said for making your voice heard when you see wrongs committed. The American essayist Henry David Thoreau once spent a night in jail because he refused to pay six years of a delinquent poll tax at a time when America was involved in the Mexican war and slavery was still practiced. Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have visited Thoreau in jail and asked, Henry, what are you doing in there? Thoreau replied, Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?[1]

However, were seeing a markedly different and hostile cultural spirit at work today that refuses to let you choose when and what to speak out against. Now we have totalitarian mob-driven crusades that forcefully compel anyone and everyone to say and do things exactly as they prescribe them. Failure to comply results in immediate and ugly consequences.

Their tactics include suppression of free speech and violent intolerance to any viewpoint that is contrary to their own. Colleges and universities, seemingly devoid of all adult supervision and authority, were the first to block Christian and conservatives from speaking on their campus because the anxiety-ridden student body mob labeled it hate speech. In those and current cases, "silence is compliance."

But as novelist George R.R. Martin put it, When you tear out a mans tongue, you are not proving him a liar, youre only telling the world that you fear what he might say.[2]

Graduates of those institutions now hold positions in corporate America where they utilize the same tactics to prevent opinions they dont care for from seeing the light of day. Columnist Liz Peek challenges the prevailing notion that these individuals are meek and frail when she says, These are the same students who adore gory video games and profanity-laced music. They are the same students who hurl obscenities and insults at professors who cross them. They are not fragile, they are intolerant.[3]

Not only must you agree with them, but you must use the exact terms they choose for you to express yourself. Just ask talk show host Ellen DeGeneres who didnt word her first black lives matters tweet the way the Twitter mob thought she should, and thus she was publicly excoriated for it.[4]

And now we have the Silence is Violence mindset where failure to add your voice to a particular protest equates to you siding with the enemy and being guilty of whatever charges the protest throws at you. I can only imagine what this spirit would do with Jesus supposed silence on first-century evils:

Jesus silent on Roman oppression of Jewish people; He must agree with it! #freeallnow

Womens inequalities mean nothing to Jesus; wont speak up. #womenarehumanstoo

Jesus endorses slavery with his silence. #endslaverynow

Better to change the law or the lawbreaker?

So why didnt Jesus (and the disciples later on) wage public crusades against the evils of slavery, the discrimination of women, and Romes brutality against the Jewish people? Was His silence violence?

Not at all. His strategy was a far more effective one than publicly speaking out against the injustices of the first century and bringing down the immediate wrath of the strong-arm government.

Jesus was well aware of the evil that exists in all human beings (cf. Matt. 7:9-11, John 2:24) and how it manifests in the moral wrongdoings we see every day. He also knew that simply telling bad people to do good is an exercise in futility because, the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised (Rom. 8:6-8; 1 Cor. 2:14).

Left on our own, Jesus knew we only live out the works of our fallen nature which are listed in Gal. 5:19-21. But once a person is born again, theyre now equipped with the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), able to break free of their personal evil and instead love God and their neighbor as themselves.

Railing publicly against societys evils and demanding governmental and personal change from people who can no more change their nature than a leopard its spots. Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil (Jer. 13:23), wasnt Jesus plan. Not speaking publicly about many of the injustices of His day was certainly not violence.

He knew that when you change people from the inside out, pretty soon the wrongs that exist in that culture are eradicated in de facto fashion as those people live out their faith. That being true, the most important thing we can do to fight injustice and change the world as Christians is to go beyond just speaking out against evils like abortion, human trafficking, etc., and follow the same strategy as Jesus.

Nothing beats the power of the gospel.

[1] https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/tag/ralph-waldo-emerson/

[2] https://tinyurl.com/ybt8lgwb

[3] https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/intolerance-threatens-us-cancel-culture-blame-liz-peek

[4] https://www.insider.com/ellen-degeneres-twitter-backlash-black-lives-matter-2020-6
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 00:02:05|Editor: huaxia

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DAR ES SALAAM, July 21 (Xinhua) -- At least one person was killed and three others seriously injured on Tuesday after a lorry knocked down three vehicles and a three-wheeled motorcycle in Tanzania's southern highland region of Mbeya.

"The lorry knocked down three vehicles and a three-wheeled motorcycle when it was descending from a steep downhill at Mbalizi on the outskirts of Mbeya city," said Sebastian Mbuta, the acting Mbeya regional police commander.

"The victim was in the three-wheeled motorcycle," Mbuta told a news conference, adding that the three injured were passengers in one of the small cars.

He said the accident occurred at 10:30 a.m. (8:30 GMT) when the lorry heading to Tunduma border town from Mbeya city.

On July 3, at least five people were killed and two others seriously injured when two vehicles collided in Tanzania's central district of Kongwa in Dodoma region. Enditem
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. The ministry of emergency situations informs that the roads across Armenia are passable.

The ministry told Armenpress that the Stepantsminda-Lars highway is open only for trucks as the ban on entry of foreign nationals to Georgia is still in force.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
WASHINGTON  GOP challenger David Sullivan came out swinging Wednesday against the support of Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5, for a Democratic proposal for over $300 billion in education funding to help schools reopen or provide distance learning during the pandemic.

Jahana Hayes gives us nothing more than excuses on why schools cant reopen and then demands extreme, binge spending that cant possibly be justified by actual needs, Sullivan said. Her demand of $305 billion dollars represents a nearly 400 percent increase in total federal K-12 spending. This amount cant possibly be spent in just the 30 days remaining before school opens in the fall, and it certainly cant be well-spent.

Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, said Tuesday she wants in-person instruction to resume as soon as it is safe to do so. This week, she lead House Democrats in advocating for more federal funding to help schools cover costs of personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning, new technology, increased busing and other steps accompanying reopening.

Our primary goal right now is the safety of our students, said Hayes on Tuesday. We are not switching to a model where we want students never to return to a school building, but we are not ready to do that at this moment... we all want to go back to school but right now the federal government needs to invest the resources so districts can make decisions as theyre moving forward.

Sullivan framed the political contention as a battle of the teachers: better known for his long career as a former federal prosecutor, Sullivan teaches law courses at the Yale University, University of New Haven and Quinnipiac University School of Law. Hes the parent of two school age children and the only candidate in this race who has taught both in the classroom and via distance learning during this pandemic, he said.

Hayes, who taught at Waterbury Public Schools for over a decade, hasnt been shy about sharing her skepticism of Gov. Ned Lamonts proposal for reopening schools.

As of now, there are so many unanswered questions. Ive asked over and over in my state of Connecticut, what happens if a teacher requests a test because theyre feeling symptoms or they feel like theyve had some occupational exposure? Hayes said. The answer from every single superintendent that Ive talked to, every education employee at the state level is that they would have to find to find community based testing on their own. That just does not seem reasonable.

Sullivan backed Lamonts plan to reopen schools in the fall with precautions in place, he said.

The most effective learning takes place in the classroom under the direction of trained, skilled and experienced educators. Parents and students want schools to reopen, Sullivan said. We should allow our local school boards, who know their communities best, the flexibility to follow guidance, coordinate with state officials and determine the best way to reopen. A very expensive, top-down, one-size-fits-all federal response is wrong.

The candidate clash mirrors the national divisions between Democrats and Republicans over school reopening. A Senate Republicans, Democrats and the administration negotiate new coronavirus legislation, Republicans have proposed $105 billion in education relief, without laying out how the money would be used or whether it would just be for K-12 schools or colleges, too.

This country wants its kids back in the classroom this fall learning, exploring, making friends, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. "Their educations depend on it. In some cases their safety depends on it, and so do the livelihoods of American parents.

Although thats slightly more funding for education than the Democrats Heroes Act contained in May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. are now pushing for a figure closer to $400 billion, noting that months have passed since the House bill was voted on.

On June 1, House Democrats, including Hayes, asked congressional leaders to support at least $305 billion in new education funding for schools because of projections of state tax revenue shortfalls in addition to new expenses faced by schools.

Democrats have said Republicans education funding offer is dead on arrival if it is tied to requirements that schools reopen for in-person instruction, as President Donald Trump has advocated for. Education Secretary Betsy Devos clarified that reopening would not mandated but is the goal.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., who chairs the House education committee, said the GOP offer of $105 billion is insufficient if Republicans dont plan to aid struggling states  which provide education funding to public schools  as well. Democrats, in a separate bill, also want infrastructure investments in old school buildings and ventilation systems, a longheld priority that they believe is more important now because the virus spreads through the air.

emilie.munson@hearstdc.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
A protective vest with identifying markings worn by Border Patrol is seen during a press conference on the actions taken by Border Patrol and Homeland Security agents in Portland during continued protests at the US Customs and Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, on July 21, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Pentagon: US Military Not Being Deployed to Portland

Defense Secretary Mark Esper expressed concern within the administration about military-style uniforms being worn by federal law enforcement officers, according to chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman. Hoffman added, however, that the U.S. military has not been deployed to Portland to handle the recent protests in in any manner.

A reporter asked Hoffman at a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday whether the Pentagon was concerned about a widespread perception that the federal agents recently sent to Portland were from the U.S. military.

Has [the] Pentagon asked [the] DHS to do anything to more clearly mark their agents as something other than soldiers? the reporter asked.

We saw this take place back in June when there were some law enforcement that wear uniforms that make them appear military in appearance, Hoffman responded.

Jonathan Hoffman in a press briefing at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on Oct. 30, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The secretary has expressed a concern of this within the administration that we want a system where people can tell the difference, he added. Im not aware of any direct conversations with DHS on this particular deployment or their particular operations in Portland over the last week or so.

Hoffman also said that unequivocally there are no Department of Defense assets that have been deployed to or pending deployment to or were looking to deploy to Portland at this time.

You can tell the American people that the U.S. military has not been deployed to Portland, Oregon, in any manner at this point, Hoffman said.

Chad Wolf, the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said at a press conference on Tuesday that the Border Patrol and ICE officers deployed in Portland wear camouflage uniforms because they have been called from regular duty on the southwest border.

We have highly trained officers and multi-camouflage wear because they work on the southwest border in an environment that demands that. That is their everyday uniform, and it is completely appropriate, Wolf said.

Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf speaks during a press conference on the actions taken by Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security agents in Portland during continued protests at the US Customs and Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, on July 21, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

They have insignia on their uniforms that read Police,  these officers are not military. Lets not confuse that, he added. I have seen inaccurate press reporting accusing them of being military. They are not military. They are civilian police officers.

Rioters have been targeting federal properties, including the federal courthouse in Portland, amid weeks of violent protests in the city since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Read More Rioters Set Fires, Try to Break Into Federal Courthouse in Portland

A protester kicks an entrance to the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse after federal officers took shelter inside, in Portland, Ore., on July 21, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Deputy Director of the Federal Protective Service (FPS) Richard Cline said at the press conference that a pattern appears evident in Portland where from around 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., peaceful protesters demonstrate, but after midnight, agitators begin to invite violence.

Wolf said that from midnight to 4:30 a.m. or 5 a.m., the scene is the complete opposite to that given by the peaceful protesters.

What is occurring in Portland in the early hours of every morning is not peaceful protesting, Wolf said. These individuals are organized and they have one mission in mind, to burn down or to cause extreme damage to the federal courthouse and the law enforcement officers.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler during an appearance on CNN on July 19 said that federal officers actions have escalated the violence. Wheeler has also called on federal officers to leave the city.

Wolf criticized Wheeler for his comments.

I have heard the mayor of Portland recently state that the federal government is to blame for this violence. Rational people know that that is not true, Wolf said. He would have you believe that enforcing federal law incites violence. He would have you believe that holding criminals accountable incites violence.

Read More 38 Officers Doxxed After Responding to Portland Riots, DHS Says
This is about asset freezes against Russia's GRU military intel and the intelligence services of China and North Korea.

The ambassadors of the European Union member states have agreed to impose new sanctions against Russia and China due to their involvement in cyberattacks, according to Brussels-based RFE/RL journalist Rikard Jozwiak.

"EU ambassadors today decided to adopt asset freezes against Russia's GRU military intel and the intel services of China and North Korea over the cyberattacks WannaCry, NotPetya, and Cloud Hopper, there will also be visa ban and asset freezes of six Russian and Chinese officials," Jozwiak wrote on Twitter on July 22.

EU ambassadors have today decided to adopt asset freezes against #Russia's GRU military intel & the intel services of #China and #NorthKorea over the cyberattacks WannaCry, NotPetya & Cloud Hopper. there will also be visa bans & asset freezes on 6 Russian & Chinese officials  Rikard Jozwiak (@RikardJozwiak) July 22, 2020

As UNIAN reported earlier, EU diplomats intended to slap sanctions on those responsible for the cyberattack on the German Bundestag.
Hopes are fading that the UK and US can strike a trade deal before the presidential election in November amid growing claims talks with the EU on a post-Brexit agreement are set to fail.

Both Downing Street and the White House were aiming to get a trade deal finalised before Donald Trump seeks re-election later this year.

But Number 10 today would not commit to a specific timetable for the talks to conclude, instead saying the aim is to strike a deal 'as soon as we can'.

Meanwhile, the 'working assumption' within the Government is now said to be that Britain and Brussels will not be able to agree the terms of their future relationship before the end of the Brexit transition period.

The Government has said it does not want talks with the EU to drag on into the autumn, leaving just a matter of weeks to get the deal done.

But 'significant differences' still remain between the two sides on key issues like fishing rights and to what extent the UK will agree to abide by EU rules.

The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman said the UK will be 'prepared for all possible scenarios' amid signs that talks with the EU on a trade deal are set to fail

Meanwhile, the hopes of a UK/US trade deal being completed before Donald Trump seeks reelection in November appear to be fading

The chances of a quick trade deal being struck between the UK and US had been initially talked up by both sides.

But the Prime Minister's spokesman said today: 'I think the discussions between Liz Truss and her counterpart have been constructive.

'I think we are heading towards round three and I think they continue to make good progress.'

Asked if the Government had abandoned hopes of getting a deal done before the November election, the spokesman said: 'I think what we have always said is we want to get a deal which works in the best interests of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom's consumers.

'I don't think we have put a specific timeframe on it. We have said that we want to get the right deal for the UK and to do that as soon as we can.'

There are concerns that failing to get a deal done before November could see talks kicked into the long grass - especially if Mr Trump does not win.

The latest round of negotiations between the UK and the EU are due to conclude tomorrow with Michel Barnier leading for Brussels and David Frost for Britain.

Number 10 played down the prospect of an imminent collapse in negotiations, with insiders saying the talks were 'neither at a breakthrough nor a breakdown'.

But the Daily Telegraph reported the Government's 'working assumption' is now that Britain will trade with Europe on World Trade Organisation terms - without a UK-EU deal - after the transition period ends on December 31.

Downing Street insisted that talks so far have been 'constructive' but acknowledged that 'significant differences' still remain.

The Prime Minister's Official spokesman said: 'Round five negotiations are ongoing and we remain committed to working hard to finding the outlines of a balanced agreement.

'We have been clear that discussions throughout this intensified process have continued to be constructive but significant differences still remain on a number of important issues.

'Our preference is to leave with an FTA as long as it guarantees our political and economic independence. But we will make sure that we are prepared for all possible scenarios.'
Suspected Fulani radicals open fire at wedding party in Nigeria, killing at least 21 Gunmen kill at least 30 in 2 attacks in Kaduna on Monday and Sunday

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At least 30 people have been killed in separate attacks carried out by suspected Fulani militants in the Kaduna state of Nigeria in recent days, including over 20 who were killed in an attack on a wedding venue on Sunday.

According to Nigerian media, at least 10 people were killed Monday evening in an attack on the rural Gora Gan village in the Zangon Kataf local government area while seven others were said to have been injured.

Pastor Isaac Ango Makama, the vice chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria chapter in Zango Kataf, confirmed the attack in comments provided to the Daily Post newspaper.

He was quoted as saying that there were as many as 50 attackers who shot their weapons sporadically and burned houses.

Makama said that while most of the bodies of the deceased were sent to a local hospital, some community members are still searching for their loved ones.

The attack came a day after at least 21 others were reported killed and as many as 30 others were injured when suspected gunmen attacked the Kakum Daji Village of Kadunas Kaura local government in Kaduna Sunday night.

Yashen Titus, head of the local communitys development association, told Vanguard newspaper that gunmen believed to be herdsmen opened fire on a wedding party at around 10:35 p.m. He said 19 people died at the wedding venue while two others later died at a hospital. Those who were injured were also taken to the hospital, he said.

As I speak, some of the villagers are still missing and we dont know their whereabouts or their situation, Titus said. We cannot even search deep into the bush because security agents have not been deployed to the community yet.

These attacks follow a spate of other attacks carried out by suspected Fulani militants on predominantly Christian villages in the Kaduna state, which is located in north-central Nigeria.

Across the countrys Middle Belt states, radicals from the predominantly Muslim and nomadic Fulani herding tribes have carried out countless attacks and overrun farming communities in recent years as desertification has made fertile land more scarce over the years.

Estimates suggest that thousands have been killed in recent years by Fulani attacks on farming villages, while thousands of others have been displaced from their homes and farms.

It should be noted that not all Fulanis, one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa, are involved in such attacks. Advocates for Christians in Nigeria believe that some Fulani radicals in recent years have been influenced by extremist groups to carry out attacks with sophisticated weapons.

According to nongovernmental organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide, at least 22 other people were killed and others displaced in attacks carried out between July 10 and July 12 in remote communities in Kadunas Zangon Kataf area by armed assailants of Fulani ethnicity.

Several other attacks attributed to Fulani radicals have occurred in Kaduna this year, including attacks in May that took the lives of the over 23 people in the Gonan Rogo village inhabited by the Adara people.

The ongoing violence and loss of life in southern Kaduna is emblematic of an enduring failure or unwillingness on the part of both levels of government to fulfill the responsibility to protecting all citizens in an effective and unbiased manner, CSW Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said in a statement.

International pressure must be brought to bear on both the state and federal authorities to ensure that vulnerable communities are protected, that both the inciters and perpetrators of these attacks are brought to justice and that survivors receive compensation and humanitarian assistance.

Pressure on the Nigerian government is mounting as an international movement of advocates has demanded that the country's leaders be held accountable for their inability to thwart communal attacks in the Middle Belt and Islamic extremism plaguing the countrys northeast.

Advocates have warned of the genocidal implications that could come from international inaction on this issue.

Last week, the Family Research Council, a leading conservative evangelical advocacy and lobbying group in Washington D.C., issued a policy report calling on the Trump administration to consider sanctions against Nigeria and cuts to foreign assistance.

Religious freedom activists are also calling on the Trump administration to appoint a State Department special envoy to monitor the situation in Nigeria.

As one group estimated earlier in March that as many as 11,500 Nigerian Christians have been killed between 2015 and 2020, Nigeria ranks as the 12th worst country in the world for Christian persecution on Open Doors USAs 2020 World Watch List.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov had a telephone conversation with Secretary General of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council), Baghdad Amreyev on July 21, 2020, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

Amreyev congratulated Bayramov on his appointment as minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan and wished him success in his future endeavors. Bayramov thanked Secretary General for congratulations.

The sides expressed satisfaction with the current level of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkic Council and exchanged views on future prospects of this cooperation.

Amreyev praised the active role of Azerbaijan within Turkic Council and its contribution to the activity of the organization and expressed confidence that cooperation with Azerbaijan will be further developed.

Bayramov informed secretary general about the military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border and the ongoing tense situation in the region.

The Azerbaijani foreign minister thanked secretary general for the fair statement based on the norms and principles of international law, made on behalf of the Turkic Council on the recent military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces.
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The U.S. abruptly ordered the closure of China's consulate in Houston, Texas on Tuesday night  leading to Chinese diplomats burning documents and papers in trash cans in the courtyard of the building.

The State Department claimed the immediate action was needed to 'protect American intellectual property' and other private information of American citizens.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, claimed in a tweet Wednesday morning that 'China's Houston consulate is a massive spy center, forcing it to close is long overdue.'

'The United States will not tolerate (Chinas) violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated (its) unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior,' said the statement, which was attributed to State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration is taking action to halt long-running intellectual property theft, noting indictments announced Tuesday against two Chinese individuals accused of hacking.

'President Trump has said 'Enough, we're not going to allow this to continue to happen,'' he said while on an official visit to Copenhagen.

Although he did not mention it, the move follows the revocation by Donald Trump of Hong Kong's special trading status after China passed a sweeping national security law undermining free speech and protests rights in the former British colony after a year of pro-democracy demonstrations.

Early Wednesday, China strongly condemned the closure of the consulate.

Following the State Department direction, reports and video emerged of documents and papers being burned in the courtyard of the consulate in what appeared to be trashcans

The apparent cellphone video, from above the consulate, showed small fires in the courtyard and smoke wafting up from the area in the center of property

Local responders claim they were not permitted entry into the consulate to respond to the fire

The State Department announced Wednesday that it ordered the immediate closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas on Tuesday 'in order to protect American intellectual property' and other private information of American citizens

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that the Houston consulate 'is a massive spy center' and claimed its closure 'is long overdue'

The move marks a significant escalation in tensions between Beijing and Washington, although Beijing did not immediately retaliate.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the action 'an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.'

'The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China,' Wang said during a daily news briefing in Beijing.

He warned of firm countermeasures if the U.S. does not reverse this move and others taken against China.

Besides its embassy in Beijing, the U.S. has five consulates in mainland China  in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenyang.

Firefighters responded to reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds Tuesday night but were barred entry, local Houston media reported.

In a reflection of Chinas economic importance, a Houston business group expressed regret at the announcement, saying the consulate has been important in building trade, investment and cultural ties. It noted that the Houston consulate was Chinas first in the U.S. when it opened in 1979.

The Greater Houston Partnership expressed hope that China would take immediate steps to address intellectual property and cybersecurity concerns. 'We look forward to the reopening of the consulate in Houston once these concerns are addressed,' it said in a statement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Yorba Linda, California on Thursday to deliver a speech on U.S.-China relations at the Nixon Library.

Pompeo is expected to step up Washington's attacks against China at a venue whose significance will not be lost on Beijing.

It was President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing that ended 25 years of diplomatic isolation for China from the U.S. and led to full diplomatic relations resuming in 1979. It also started an era of growing trade between the two countries, which itself was a key to China's dramatic economic growth, particularly since the 1990s.

Houston media reports said authorities responded to reports of a fire at the Chinese Consulate. Witnesses said people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, the Houston Chronicle reported, citing police.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin (pictured) warned of 'firm countermeasures' if the move is not reversed

Police were told that occupants of the consulate have until 4:00 p.m. Friday to vacate the property.

Houston police said late Tuesday night in a tweet that officers responded to 'a meet the firefighter' call at the Chinese Consulate building.

'About 8:25 pm on Tuesday, our officers responded to a meet the firefighter call to the China Consulate General in Houston building at 3417 Montrose Blvd,' the police department posted on its Twitter.

'Smoke was observed in an outside courtyard area. Officers were not granted access to enter the building,' it continued, adding, 'Since HPD is not a lead agency in the matter, no other information is being released by our department at this time.'

The closure raises questions over whether and how China will retaliate.

Consular closures are traditionally meet with a reciprocal move.

Wang, the foreign ministry spokesperson, claimed that U.S. diplomats in China engaged in infiltration activities.

He also accused the U.S. of opening Chinese diplomatic pouches without permission multiple times, confiscating Chinese items for official use and imposing restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the U.S. in October 2019 and again in June.

The move from the U.S. comes as tensions between the U.S. and China are on the rise as President Donald Trump continues to take action against Beijing in the form of sanctions and verbal attacks  like blaming the country for the coronavirus pandemic

He also said that the Chinese Embassy in Washington has received bomb and death threats, and accused the U.S. government of fanning hatred against China.

Tensions between the U.S. and China have been on the rise as President Donald Trump, his reelection prospects damaged by the coronavirus outbreak, has blamed Beijing repeatedly for the pandemic.

He also has brought fresh action against China, including sanctions and executive orders, almost every day against what Trump has called the rising Asian superpower's exploitation of America.

Already this week, the Commerce Department has sanctioned 11 Chinese companies over alleged human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region and the Justice Department said two Chinese stole intellectual property and targeted companies developing coronavirus vaccines.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, saying U.S.-China relations face their most severe challenge since diplomatic ties were established in 1979, asked recently if the two nations would be able to stay the course after a more than four-decade voyage.
The successful completion of our SOC 2 Type II examination audit provides W Energy Softwares clients with the assurance that the controls and safeguards we employ to protect and secure their data are in line with industry standards and best practices

W Energy Software, the new leader in upstream and midstream oil & gas ERP solutions, today announced that it has successfully completed a System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type II Audit examination for their Financial and Transaction Management Software System. W Energy Software retained international business advisory firm Skoda Minotti for its SOC 2 audit work. W Energy Software selected Skoda Minotti after an intensive search based on their reputation as a leading risk advisory and compliance firm.

Ben Osbrach, CISSP, CISA, QSA, CICP, CCSFP, partner-in-charge of Skoda Minottis risk advisory group says, We were excited to continue our audit relationship with W Energy Software on the completion of their 2019 SOC 2 Type II. Michael and his team strive for improvement in their controls year over year; taking their responsibility for maintaining a well-controlled and secured environment seriously.

SOC 2 engagements are performed in accordance with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) AT-C 205, Reporting on Controls at a Service Organization and based on the trust service principles outlined in the AICPA Guide, Reporting on Controls at a Service Organization Relevant to Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, or Privacy. The SOC 2 Type II report is performed by an independent auditing firm and is intended to provide an understanding of the service organizations suitability of the design and operating effectiveness of its internal controls. A service organization may select any or all of the trust service principles applicable to their business and W Energy Software chose to report on security and availability. The successful completion of this voluntary engagement illustrates W Energy Softwares ongoing commitment to create and maintain a secure operating environment for their clients confidential data.

Skoda Minottis testing of W Energy Softwares controls included examination of their policies and procedures regarding network connectivity, firewall configurations, systems development life cycle, computer operations, logical access, data transmission, backup and disaster recovery, and other critical operational areas of their business. Upon completion of the audit, W Energy Software received a Service Auditors Report with an unqualified opinion demonstrating that their policies, procedures, and infrastructure meet or exceed the stringent SOC 2 criteria.

The successful completion of our SOC 2 Type II examination audit provides W Energy Softwares clients with the assurance that the controls and safeguards we employ to protect and secure their data are in line with industry standards and best practices, said Michael Tetzlaff, Chief Operating Officer at W Energy Software.

About W Energy Software

Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, W Energy Software offers the oil & gas industrys only unified ERP solution built for the cloud that is relied on by more than 100 upstream and midstream companies to accelerate business performance, improve operational efficiency, and drive costs down. W Energy Software combines precision-built software in one extendable cloud-based workspace with an intimate understanding of the oil & gas business to deliver solutions that offer flexibility, affordability, and continuous upgrades. Unlike other ERP software that loosely ties together a mix of legacy solutions and fragmented technologies, W Energy Software designed a unified upstream and midstream ERP platform to seamlessly track oil, gas, and NGL from the wellhead through transportation and marketing, eliminating data silos as well as the burden and costs of maintaining multiple systems. With W Energy Software, oil & gas companies stay lean and agile with the tools they need to adapt to market changes and meet evolving client needs head on, all while gaining the confidence that their business is running on the latest technology. For more information, please visit https://WEnergySoftware.com.

About Skoda Minotti

Skoda Minotti is a Certified Public Accounting Firm based in Cleveland, OH offering a variety of tax, finance, and business advisory services in virtually every area of business. The Risk Advisory practice specializes in SOC Reporting, PCI DSS Compliance, HIPAA Compliance and HITRUST validation, FISMA, NIST, ISO 27001, Vulnerability and Penetration Testing, and other regulatory information security assessments. Staffs in Skoda Minottis Risk Advisory hold several industry certifications including Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Qualified Security Assessor (QSA), GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN), and GIAC Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT). For more information about Skoda Minottis Risk Advisory Services, please visit skodaminotti.com/risk.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva has commented on the issue related to the rally organized by radical Armenian Dashnaks as a sign of protest in front of the Azerbaijani Consulate General in Los Angeles, during which aggressive and provocative slogans were voiced, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend on July 22.

The radical Armenian Dashnaks living in Los Angeles held a rally as a sign of protest in front of the Azerbaijani Consulate General in the US on July 21, during which aggressive and provocative slogans were heard, the message said.

"In response to the rally of the Armenian radical forces, the members of the Azerbaijani community in California approached the Armenian provocateurs greatly exceeding in number and voiced slogans exposing Armenias aggression and policy of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijan, the message said.

Radical Armenian Dashnaks showed violence and aggression against peaceful Azerbaijani demonstrators, the message said. Even the Los Angeles police responsible for ensuring security failed to prevent their vandalism. Armenian radicals attacked Azerbaijani demonstrators. Seven Azerbaijanis, including one woman, were injured.

We regret that at present, in various parts of the world, including the US and a number of European countries, radical Armenian forces make attempts to show violence and vandalism against peaceful Azerbaijani demonstrators, the message said.

Such provocative acts, which contradict fundamental values, including the right to free expression, and generally do not fit civilized behavior, are a clear example of Armenias aggressive policy and its leadership carried out by radical Armenian forces, the message said.

Armenian criminals must be brought to justice for the violence and atrocities demonstrated by the Armenian radicals against peaceful Azerbaijani demonstrators in Los Angeles and in European countries, as well as on July 22 in Brussels.

At the same time, the law enforcement bodies of the corresponding countries must be responsible for ensuring the security of the Azerbaijani communities living there, the message said.

We would like to stress that in connection with the barbaric acts committed by Armenian radicals in Los Angeles city, the US ambassador to Azerbaijan has been summoned to the foreign ministry," the message said.
Malaysia doubles down on Al Jazeera today, this time by way of slapping a fine on a local television network for airing a 2015 documentary about the scandalous Altantuya murder.

The Communications and Multimedia Commission, or MCMC, has fined Astro RM4,000 (US$940) for broadcasting Murder in Malaysia five years ago via the Qatari news channel, describing the documentary depicting the controversial murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu as offensive.

The ministry told reporters today that it had conducted several investigations surrounding the 26-minute documentary and concluded it to be offensive under the Communications and Multimedia Act.

We (MCMC) fined the satellite television provider for airing the offensive documentary, which violates the Communications and Multimedia Act.

It was also revealed that Astro was fined two weeks ago on July 7. Astro was fined RM1,000 each time the documentary was aired, amounting to a total of RM4,000.

A letter to the Measat satellite company that operates Astro said the broadcast was indecent and had intent on offending several parties.

Murder in Malaysia had documented the controversial murder of Altantuya, who allegedly had a role as an interpreter in Malaysias purchase of two military submarines. She was also linked to the man who purportedly hired her, Abdul Razak Baginda, who is also the former aide to ex-prime minister Najib Razak.

The fine on Astro over Al Jazeeras documentary happens on the back of an ongoing probe into the Qatari news channel over a separate documentary about the lives of migrant workers affected by the COVID-19 lockdown.

MCMC said it is looking into whether Al Jazeera had obtained a license to produce the Locked Up in Malaysias Lockdown documentary that it had criticized for being misleading.

Al Jazeera risks having its accreditation revoked.

Other stories to check out:

Probe into Al Jazeera undermines freedom of speech: CIJ

Keyboard warriors in online war with Al Jazeera over COVID-19 documentary

Hannah Yeoh under probe again over seditious child marriage statement she said she didnt write

This article, Astro slapped with RM4,000 fine for offensive 2015 docu on Altantuyas murder, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!
In 2009, Mr Bryers was bankrupted with personal debts of $220 million. The following year his investors were infuriated when Mr Bryers received a fine and just 75 hours of community service after pleading guilty to charges of failing to comply with financial reporting rules over his failed Blue Chip company. By that time Mr Bryers had moved to Australia and was living the high life in a city apartment enjoying panoramic views over Sydney Harbour and the Opera House. The New Zealand press reported that although Mr Bryers was discharged from bankruptcy restrictions in 2015, he was banned from operating a company in New Zealand until 2022. "Associate Judge Jeremy Doogue said at the time that although he considered Bryers a risk to the New Zealand public, he was not able to rule on his activities elsewhere," the New Zealand Herald reported. Meanwhile, in Australia under the name "Mark Ryan", Mr Bryers was the brains behind the aggregation of a number of financial and accounting services companies into a group known as Talos.

Mark Bryers in the dock at the Auckland District Court in 2009. Credit:John Selkirk According to the liquidator, the 2015 collapse of the Talos Group had many hallmarks of Blue Chip, particularly spruiking property investments to financial planning clients. If the properties actually existed they were not part of the Talos Group and therefore not available to creditors who were owed more than $8 million, the liquidator said at the time. Apart from the ATO and banks, many smaller firms that had been "bought" by Talos had never received payment and their owners were out of pocket for hundreds of thousands of dollars. National Party senator John "Wacka" Williams grilled executives from the corporate watchdog about Bryers in October 2015. "I get suspicious when someone comes to Australia, leaves a train wreck in New Zealand, changes their name, then goes and buys up companies and then it falls over. Can you give us an update of what ASIC is doing here please?" he asked. ASIC's Warren Day said the watchdog was "aware of allegations that Mark Bryers  also known by the name of Mark Ryan" had managed a corporation in Australia while automatically disqualified due to bankruptcy in New Zealand. He also said that disqualification from managing companies in New Zealand until 2022 effectively meant Mr Bryers was banned here. "At the moment we do not believe there are further steps we need to take at this time, but we are watching this matter," he told the parliamentary committee.

ASIC's "watching brief" seems to have not noticed that Mr Bryers' corporate records show that, before his arrest on Tuesday, he has been a director of a string of Australian entities. His business partners here have included a developer who has been the subject of an enforceable undertaking to ASIC over his operation of a managed investment scheme, an entrepreneur involved in money transfers to a Hong Kong company run by assorted shysters including a convicted cocaine importer and a mortgage broker currently serving a nine-year ban following an ASIC investigation. In recent years Mr Bryers has been spruiking business ventures in renewable energy and hemp energy, with both schemes featuring prominently on his online blog. He boasts of "seven major projects" in Australia and Thailand. He also offers advice on how to invest in the multibillion-dollar legal cannabis industry. Online Mr Bryers describes himself as "a steadfast philanthropist" who is focused on making "financial investments" to support charitable organisations dealing with youth dislocation. With an almost identical name, his charitable youth organisation could easily be confused with a different well-known organisation which legitimately raises millions of dollars for troubled youth.

In Queensland on Tuesday, Mr Bryers and his co-accused Arthur Alex, Adrian Metly, McAndrew and Mr McHugh were granted bail. They are all scheduled to appear at Sydney's Central Local Court on Friday. However, George Alex was not so lucky. Southport magistrate Garry Finger said he had "significant concerns" that George Alex was a flight risk, refusing bail ahead of Friday's court appearance in Sydney. Mr Alex and son Arthur may have unwittingly spoken to each other for the last time for a while after the court banned contact between them except through lawyers. The ruling was made despite protestations from lawyer for the men Christopher Nyst, who argued "father and son should be allowed to contact each other". However, the crown prosecutor said, given that it was alleged Arthur was used by his father to launder money, "anything could happen now the whistle has been blown".

Meanwhile, Mr McHugh's lawyer described his client as a "dumb bunny" who was "not totally aware" of the operation. His age, heightened risk of coronavirus, and the fact he is carer to his wife, were also raised as mitigating issues to have him bailed. The Crown did not oppose bail on the $500,000 surety. Loading In Sydney, two other co-accused, Lindsay Kirschberg and Lucas Connell, appeared in prison greens at the Downing Centre Local Court, where they were granted bail for amounts ranging between $40,000 and $65,000. In regards to both men, Magistrate Jennifer Price said it appeared to be a "strong prosecution case". In relation to Mr Connell, she said there appeared to be "premeditated planning involved" in the alleged offending. Another accused in the matter, Caitlin Hall, make-up artist and wife of convicted drug boss Michael Ibrahim, was released on bail late Tuesday evening.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 18:16:20|Editor: huaxia

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MANILA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines surged to 72,269 after the country's Department of Health (DOH) reported 1,594 new cases on Wednesday.

The DOH said that the number of recoveries further rose to 23,623 after 342 more patients have survived the disease.

The death toll also increased to 1,843 after six more patients have succumbed to the viral disease, the DOH added.

Metro Manila, home to approximately 15 million people, is still the epicenter of the epidemic in the Philippines with 971 new cases reported on Wednesday.

Philippine Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Metro Manila may return to a "more stringent" community quarantine if the cases continue to spike.

Philippine Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told a virtual media forum on Wednesday that the government may require public hospitals to increase the number of beds allocated for COVID-19 patients to up to 70 percent if the coronavirus cases will continue to rise.

Only 30 percent of the hospital bed capacity are currently allotted for coronavirus patients for both the public and private hospitals, according to the DOH. However, not all hospitals are able to comply with the capacity requirement due to the lack of resources.

"If there is a surge, the allocation could increase to 50 percent. If the need to raise it further, they may increase it up to 70 percent," she said. Enditem
The representatives of Armenian diaspora living in Los Angeles surrounded the building of Azerbaijan's Consulate General and held an action with aggressive and provocative anti-Azerbaijani slogans on July 21, according to the Consulate General.



However, to their surprise, members of the Azerbaijani community living in California opposed the Armenians, preventing their provocation. Members of the Azerbaijani community held posters with "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", "Stop the aggression of Armenia!", "Justice for Khojaly!", "During the COVID-19 pandemic, Armenia started a war against Azerbaijan - Shame!" and other slogans exposing the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan and the ethnic cleansing policy.



All employees of the consulate, guided by the consul general, being in the consulates office, constantly kept in touch with members of the community. Enraged by this courage of Azerbaijanis who came out to the crowd of Armenians, as well as by the fact that they could not achieve the desired results, the Armenians initiated a scuffle with the Azerbaijanis.



The representatives of the Armenian community started to insult Azerbaijanis from cars, even tried to run them over. Los Angeles police had to be involved to ensure the safety of the members of the Azerbaijani community.



Seeing the growing aggression of the Armenians, the Consulate General, having contacted the local bus companies, asked for a bus to take the Azerbaijanis to a safe place. But, the Los Angeles police officers, stating that they must ensure the safety of the members of the Azerbaijani community, began themselves to escort them to the safe place.



As a result of the scuffle, seven of the Azerbaijanis, including a woman, received various injuries. Moreover, the police officer who protected this woman received a head injury. Four of the injured Azerbaijanis had to be admitted to a hospital.
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MI5 are to be granted tough new powers to make the UK a harsher environment for Kremlin spies to operate in after a damning report by MPs said the Government 'took its eye off the ball.'

In a devastating and long-awaited report, intelligence and security committee said the UK 'badly underestimated' the Russian threat as a campaign of hacking, disinformation and political meddling was waged.

London  nicknamed 'Londongrad'  has become a 'laundromat' for dirty Russian money, with Putin-linked elites able to act with 'impunity', the review concluded.

The government is planning new counter-espionage legislation which they say will make the UK a 'harder environment for adversaries to operate in,' The Times reported.

It takes the American Foreign Agents Registration Act as its template, which requires people working for foreign governments, officials or political parties, to notify the US Department of Justice.

The 48-page report on Russian infiltration highlighted how agents were able to carry out their business largely unscathed due to Britain's 'dusty and largely ineffective' security laws dating back to the First World War.

Former head of MI5 Sir Andrew Parker told MPs: 'Today it is not an offence in any sense to be a covert agent of the Russian intelligence services in the UK - just to be that, to be in covert contact, to be pursuing a brief - unless you acquire damaging secrets and give them to your masters.'

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (C-L) speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin (C-R) during the International Libya Conference in Berlin, Germany, 19 January 2020

Chair of the committee Julian Lewis (centre) with members Kevan Jones and Stuart Hosie - Russia sees the UK as one of its 'top targets' in the West, according to the Intelligence and Security Committee

Sir Andrew added: 'We are left with something which makes it very hard to deal with some of the situations we are talking about today in the realm of the economic sphere, cyber, things that could be more to do with influence.'

His scathing critique came as sources said the Home Office was planning an overhaul of security laws to crack down on spies, saboteurs and hackers.

A formal 'register of foreign agents' will make it illegal to secretly work for a foreign power to undermine the UK, an insider said.

The report's publication yesterday  nine months after it was cleared for release by spies  led to calls from all political parties for ministers to get tougher on Moscow.

The MPs and lords on the committee said Russian oligarchs had penetrated to the heart of British democracy by donating to political parties and hiring peers for their business interests.

They warned that ministers needed to 'attach a cost' to President Vladimir Putin's actions and take 'immediate action'.

The report described Russian influence in the UK as 'the new normal' and said any measures now taken by the Government would merely constitute 'damage limitation'.

The report  much of which was redacted for national security reasons  also exposes how:

Peers with business links to Russia are at risk of being exploited by the Kremlin;

Lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR professionals working for wealthy Russians have, wittingly or not, become 'de facto agents of the Russian state';

The UK government failed to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 Brexit referendum;

Russia used its 'sophisticated' cyber capabilities to target the Foreign Office and the top secret Porton Down military laboratory in Wiltshire soon after the 2018 Salisbury poisonings;

Social media companies have not done enough to remove covert material posted by hostile states, and the Government should 'name and shame' them;

The UK is one of Russia's 'top Western intelligence targets' for disinformation and political influence operations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Kerch, in the Crimea, on Monday. he UK is one of Russia's 'top Western intelligence targets' for disinformation and political influence operations, according to the report

In response to the report, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Russia was a top national security priority and the UK was prepared to 'call out' Moscow over issues such as cyber-attacks.

Speaking at a press conference alongside US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, Mr Raab said: 'We are not for a second complacent about the threat Russia poses when it comes to cyber.'

But the ISC said that 'until recently, the Government had badly underestimated the Russian threat and the response it required'. It noted there was an 'inherent tension between the Government's prosperity agenda and the need to protect national security'.

Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said that 'on every level, the Government's response does not appear to be equal to the threat'.

Tobias Ellwood, Tory chairman of the Commons defence committee, said Britain needed to up its game on cyber-warfare.

He added: 'If this is the new battlefield we need to upgrade our 21st century offensive and defensive capabilities so we are better protected and better armed.'

'Londongrad laundromat': Oligarch allies of Vladimir Putin have used London to wash illicit Russian money, report warns

By Larisa Brown and John Stevens

Oligarchs with links to the Kremlin have used London like a 'laundromat' for illicit Russian money, the report warned.

Britain welcomed Putin's cronies 'with open arms' because of the cash they brought with them, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said.

In damning claims, the report said oligarchs had penetrated British democracy by donating to political parties and hiring peers for their businesses.

MPs and peers on the ISC concluded that rich figures from Russia have turned the UK capital into 'Londongrad' by laundering their money, making Russian influence in the UK the 'new normal'.

The committee said 'few questions if any were asked about the provenance of this considerable wealth'.

MPs and peers on the ISC concluded that rich figures from Russia have turned the UK capital into 'Londongrad' by laundering their money, making Russian influence in the UK the 'new normal'

British professionals  including lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR experts  have become 'enablers' for these oligarchs and are 'de facto agents of the Russian state', whether they realise it or not.

The report said: 'A lot of Russians with very close links to Putin, who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, are accepted because of their wealth.'

Britain has become a 'particularly favourable destination for Russian oligarchs and their money'.

Aided by the UK's 1994 investor visa scheme, Russian money poured into charities and cultural and political institutions with 'few questions  if any  asked about the provenance of this considerable wealth'.

The ISC warned that Kremlin-linked figures have given money to British political parties in a move that could see them used to 'assist' Moscow. It did not name any of the Russians living in Britain it suspects of having close links to Mr Putin, or specify which political parties have benefited from Russian donations.

The ISC said: 'Several members of the Russian elite who are closely linked to Putin are identified as being involved with charitable and/or political organisations in the UK, having donated to political parties, with a public profile which positions them to assist Russian influence operations.'

The investor visa scheme, established by Sir John Major's Conservative government, offered 'ideal mechanisms by which illicit finance could be recycled through what has been referred to as the London 'laundromat'.'

The report said: 'The money was also invested in extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishment ... contributing to a 'reputation laundering' process.

'In brief, Russian influence in the UK is 'the new normal', and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth. This level of integration  in 'Londongrad' in particular  means any measures now being taken by the Government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation.'

Responding to the report, the Government said it was determined to tackle 'dirty' money.

A spokesman said: 'The UK has one of the world's largest and most open economies. These factors make the UK attractive for legitimate business, but also expose the UK to money laundering risks.'

The Government added that it agreed with the ISC that 'transparency' about political donations is important.

Will these Lords be forced to list dealings with Russian firms? Peers should have business links with Russia 'carefully scrutinised' to ensure they are not being exploited, Commons committee says

By John Stevens

Peers should have their business links with Russia 'carefully scrutinised' to ensure they are not being exploited by Vladimir Putin, the Intelligence and Security Committee has said.

In its report on Russia's influence in the UK, the committee called for greater transparency about the financial interests of those in the House of Lords.

It said members should have to register any individual payments of more than 100 which they receive for employment outside Parliament.

Defence: Lord Mandelson (left) & Aluminium: Lord Barker

Oil: Lord Skidelsky (left) and Lord Fairfax (right)

The ISC, which did not name any peers, said in its report: 'It is notable that a number of members of the House of Lords have business interests linked to Russia, or work directly for major Russian companies linked to the Russian state.

Oil: Lord Ponsonby

'These relationships should be carefully scrutinised, given the potential for the Russian state to exploit them.' The committee said it was important that the code of conduct for members of the House of Lords and register of interests 'provide the necessary transparency and are enforced'.

According to the members' register of interests, peers with links to Russian companies include crossbencher Lord Skidelsky, a non-executive director of Russian oil refining company Russneft.

Conservative peer Lord Fairfax of Cameron is a director of shipping firm Sovcomflot UK, and Labour peer Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede is a director of Russian oil firm RNG Joint Stock Company.

Former Tory energy minister Lord Barker stepped away from the Lords last year to focus on his role as chairman of aluminium giant EN+. Lord Mandelson served on the board of Russian defence conglomerate Sistema and, according to his register of interests, holds shares in it. In 2018, the House of Lords commissioner for standards launched an investigation into Lord Barker and Lord Fairfax after then-security minister Ben Wallace claimed they had 'requested government assistance for Russian associates'. Both peers were cleared of any wrongdoing.

In its response to the ISC report, the Government said the code of conduct for peers was 'the responsibility of the House [of Lords] itself'.

Scalding rebuke for years of naivety: EDWARD LUCAS, one of the experts who gave evidence for Russia report, presents his damning verdict on Kremlin interference

By Edward Lucas

As I took my seat in the spartan, bug-swept offices of the intelligence and security committee's anonymous Westminster headquarters in the summer of 2018, my excitement was tempered with trepidation.

Since watching the Soviet empire collapse 30 years ago, I had been sounding the alarm about Russia's reluctance to give up its dreams of empire.

Yet now the committee was launching a much-awaited, much-delayed inquiry on exactly the topics that have taken up so much of my life: the shadowy fusion of organised crime, big business and the old KGB.

On that July day, I was the inquiry's first witness. The Kremlin, I explained, had refashioned the traditional Soviet tools of political espionage, adding sophisticated digital tools and all the opportunities presented by globalisation  shell companies, offshore finance, cross-border trade and investment. In short, I said, Britain's response had been pitiful.

A view of the Moscow Kremlin and Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge across the Moskva River

Yet all those months ago, even I couldn't begin to imagine how devastating yesterday's report would be.

Put to one side its dramatic calls for further investigations into the use of money, cyber-attacks and propaganda in the Brexit and Scottish independence referendums, as well as recent general elections.

Even the language of the report  with repeated use of words such as 'surprised' and 'disappointed'  constitutes, in the careful lexicon of government, a scalding rebuke of decades of short-sightedness.

For a start, the ISC explicitly highlights the way in which previous governments  Labour and Conservative alike  have foolishly overlooked the threat from Russia. Such naivety dates all the way back to 1994  when changes to the UK's investor visa scheme allowed holders to smoothly turn them into British passports, with all the rights those precious documents entail, including the ability to make legal donations to political parties.

In no uncertain terms, the report sharply concludes that 'the key to London's appeal was the exploitation' of this scheme.

But that was just the first in a string of blunders. Indeed, the ISC damningly recalls its previous warnings to the Government, pointedly quoting anonymous spymasters who sheepishly claimed their focus on counter-terrorism took priority.

As for the notion that Russia might dare to attack our political system, the report reveals it was barely considered  as demonstrated by the fact that MI5 replied to the committee with only six lines of text on that matter. That was enough for the committee to note there was 'credible' evidence of Russian influence during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. Yet the clueless Clouseaus of MI5 apparently thought this and any other suggestion of Russian mischief was not worth investigating. On cyber-warfare, the ISC notes with shock, nobody appears to be in charge.

With concern dripping from every page, it's hardly surprising the report poses more questions than it answers.

It however makes immediate recommendations that will directly affect the security of all of us. It confirms that the outdated Official Secrets Act of 1989 needs to be replaced with a new system that ensure the registration of those who peddle political influence on behalf of foreign powers. The Computer Misuse Act of 1990 is similarly obsolete, predating the era of mobile phones. Another much-needed recommendation is for a thorough investigation of Russian meddling in our political system. As the report highlights, the authorities have been scandalously incurious about this.

Why does GCHQ, it asks, not look at who lies behind the Twitter accounts that peddle hoaxes and scare stories.

Of course, it does seem that our intelligence services have belatedly turned their attention to online political manipulation  as demonstrated by some tantalising asterisks, reflecting redaction of secret material  scattered throughout the section of the report dedicated to it.

But it is all too little, and shamefully late. As for the report's calls for further investigation into pernicious Russian influence, I fear that there is little prospect of the report's forceful conclusions being matched with real action.

Take the committee's alarm at Kremlin's pinstriped accomplices  the bankers, lawyers and accountants whom it calls unwitting or even witting agents of Russian influence.

Dealing with such rot in our system will need new legislation and a revamped National Crime Agency. Even if that were possible, we cannot ignore the fact that it may be too late already.

To put it bluntly, our country is afloat on a sea of dodgy money. And the bitter truth is that this is our fault.
WorkSafe is investigating a law firm where six lawyers tested positive to coronavirus amid complaints from staff who say they were still working in the office through the pandemic.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said last week that six positive cases had been linked to commercial law firm HWL Ebsworths office at 530 Collins Street in Melbourne.

The Collins Street building is home to several prominent agencies including the Victorian Electoral Commission, the Productivity Commission and law firm Mills Oakley. No other recent cases of coronavirus have been reported from the building's other tenants nor has the number of cases linked with HWL Ebsworth grown.

At least half of the six positive cases from HWL Ebsworth are junior lawyers, with a spokesperson for the firm confirming several were "young professionals" and claiming transmission probably occurred at an after-works drinks at a pub in the city on July 3.

The Department of Health and Human Services have since advised all staff to get tested.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  The death of 476 inmates in a period of over six months in various prison farms nationwide is nothing out of the ordinary, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said, even as he admitted the handling of such cases need to be improved.

On average, two to three persons deprived of liberty die behind bars each day, which is roughly in line with the number of deaths reported by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) from January to July 19, Guevarra said.

"Parang masasabi natin na hindi naman siya [We can say that the number is not] substantially higher than the daily average during the past year. Merong slight increase and I suppose that is precisely because of COVID-19," the Justice chief said during Wednesday's Pre-SONA Forum.

Of these deaths, 21 were due to COVID-19 but many of the victims had pre-existing medical ailments, particularly respiratory issues, he said. Nine were drug convicts, including the high-profile offender Jaybee Sebastian, while three were detainees from the women's correctional. The remaining nine come from various penal facilities nationwide.

This explains why the DOJ is only ordering a probe into the nine drug convicts who allegedly died due to the disease, sparking rumors that the high-profile detainees used the disease to get out of jail.

"Because of these various theories and also for the benefit of the BuCor, to dispel any doubt na meron ngang any anomaly dito sa mga pagkamatay na ito [that there are any anomalies surrounding these deaths] allegedly due to COVID-19, then we thought it proper and prudent to request the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) to step into the picture and make its own inquiry into the matter," Guevarra said.

Although a drug convict, Sebastian was considered a state witness for drug-related charges against Senator Leila De Lima, a critic of President Rodrigo Duterte who also remains detained in Camp Crame. According to Sebastian's previous testimony, drug money funded the senator's 2016 campaign.

RELATED: State witness death wont keep Duterte from fabricating evidence against me  De Lima

A Senate probe is scheduled next week regarding the issue, separate from the ongoing probe.

Offhand, Guevarra noted a major issue about the current prison system.

"When the BuCor people presented to us their protocols kapag merong namamatay in prison, we noted na medyo inadequate so this will be the subject matter for further discussion: how to improve protocols kapag merong namamatay sa mga prisons [when people die inside our prisons]," he added.

The remains of Sebastian and the other Bilibid inmates who died due to coronavirus have been cremated last week. It is unclear if their families have been made aware of their situation leading up to their death.

For its part, BuCor said it has been reporting the coronavirus situation inside the national penitentiary to the Department of Health.

Na-report naman yan, automatic yan. May IATF guideline yan na nagre-report tayo sa DOH, lahat yan nare-report, BuCor Spokesperson Gabby Chaclag told CNN Philippines.

[Translation: They were reported, thats automatic. There is an IATF guideline that requires to report to DOH, so everything is reported.]

He added that BuCor has also been reporting to the local city health office.
Study results documenting parental hesitancy to begin and complete their child's HPV vaccine series were published in The Lancet Public Health by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

Based on survey data from the 2017-2018 National Immunization Study, the research team discovered that of the estimated 4.3 million children who were not vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV), nearly 60% of their parents had no intention to initiate the vaccine series.

In certain states (Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Utah), vaccine hesitancy was even higher at more than 65%.

"The hesitancy of parents to protect their child against HPV is troubling because improving HPV vaccination coverage is our only option to curb the rising burden of cancers caused by this virus," said Kalyani Sonawane, PhD, the study's first and corresponding author and an assistant professor at UTHealth School of Public Health.

"The silver lining here is that these reasons are addressable. Health care providers can play a vital role in combatting misinformation by educating parents about HPV vaccine safety and benefits, and they can also emphasize the importance of series completion."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends a two-dose vaccination regimen for children if the first dose is received before age 15, or a three-dose regimen if the series is started between ages 16 and 26.

The research team completed a cross-sectional study using responses from parents and caregivers of 82,297 U.S. children ages 13 to 17. The study also reported that parents of 1 in 4 adolescents who received their first HPV vaccine dose did not intend to complete the series.

In Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, and West Virginia, more than 30% of parents reported their teen would not receive subsequent vaccine doses to complete the series. For parents of children who received one dose but failed to complete the full series, the most common cause cited was lack of a recommendation from a health care provider.

Data from the CDC has suggested that HPV is responsible for 34,800 new cancer diagnoses yearly. More than 90% of all cervical and anal cancers, more than 60% of all penile cancers, and approximately 70% of all oral cancers are caused by HPV, a common and highly contagious sexually transmitted infection.

However, current vaccination rates reveal that just over half of U.S. teens (51.1%) are fully vaccinated. The current vaccine provides protection against nearly 90% of cancer-causing HPV infections.

Our findings suggest that parental reluctance to complete HPV vaccine series for their teen might be a major impediment to achieving the Healthy People 2020 goal of 80% coverage." Ashish A. Deshmukh, PhD, MPH, Study Senior Author and Assistant Professor, University of Texas Health School of Public Health
We are on the cusp of a critical decision about schooling in the time of COVID-19  whether to resume full classes, revert to online classes, or something in between. It will require wisdom and judgment from all sides  students and parents, teachers and politicians, educators and administrators.

Yet the static over schooling is now so over the top that one can only wonder if all the players will be able to see past their own positions and suspicions. Consider the backlash against a recent announcement by Education Minister Stephen Lecce that school board heads will no longer have to be former teachers.

Peels public school board has been plagued by allegations of racism at all levels  both in-person and incipient, situational and systemic. The Toronto District School Board  by far the biggest in Canada  has historically been riven by outsized infighting and incompetence.

School boards across the province are hardly paragons of good governance, models of diversity or prudent stewards of public finances. Over the years, provincial governments of all stripes have stepped in to investigate and send in outside supervisors for wayward school boards, big and small.

With such a dismal track record, you might think that establishment educators and perennial advocates might show a little humility about past failings, personnel shortcomings, and institutional blind spots. And ask themselves how to broaden the talent pool and bring in fresh eyes.

You would be wrong. When Lecce dared to clear the way for hiring a new interim director of education in Toronto  Black and abundantly qualified  he was second-guessed for removing the requirement of a teaching certificate, which the pedagogical elites have always deemed essential.

The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario is leading the charge, with union president Sam Hammond tweeting out this erroneous rallying cry: The Toronto Fire Chief is a firefighter. The Toronto Chief of Police is a police officer. The President & CEO of Sick Kids is a Doctor and a Director of Education should be a teacher!

When the error-prone Tories get it right, and ETFO gets it wrong, its a teachable moment.

In fact, the most famously successful CEO of the Hospital for Sick Children, Mary Jo Haddad, was never a doctor. It might surprise ETFOs Hammond that she started out as a neonatal nurse who did things differently in a mans world where people insisted on doing things the way they were always done, and that only doctors  like teachers  knew best.

This is how institutional rigidity blocks diversity of thought and diversity of skin colour. It also gets in the way of reality.

The dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education doesnt require an elementary or high school teaching certificate. Most school trustees arent teachers.

Justices of the peace dont have to be lawyers, publishers arent always journalists, and many editors were never reporters. Doctors have rarely headed health ministries, and soldiers were discouraged from running defence departments.

Thats not to say that credentials dont count, just that other qualifications shouldnt be discounted or devalued in the mix. Nor should motivations always be suspect in every instance.

Torontos new interim director of education, Carlene Jackson, is a chartered professional accountant and certified general accountant with a masters degree in business administration. She has worked for years in education and other public sector roles as a chief financial officer which, given the TDSBs traditional budget woes, should be a plus.

Instead, critics suggest her proficiency with budgets is evidence of Lecces hidden agenda to privatize public schools. As if Jackson is a caricature of a Bay Street venture capitalist who slipped into the TDSB as a sleeper agent years ago to destroy it from the inside.

Peels interim director is Jaspal Gill, who is not a teacher  and so the ministry made it happen. Colleen Russell-Rawlins will become interim director next month (and take over permanently after an outside supervisor  imposed by the province to deal with problems of racism  hands back responsibility). She was previously responsible for equity, well-being and school improvement at the TDSB (and was once a teacher, so protestors can stand down here).

There are many things this government can be criticized for, but broadening the hiring pool isnt one of them. Given the lack of diversity among directors today, and the fact that Lecce expects many new positions to open up in the near future, this is a good time to be casting a wider net.

The real risk to our public schools is not that Tories will deviously turn them into private schools. It is that private schools may systematically overtake public schools by responding more rapidly and nimbly to the challenges of online learning in the era of COVID-19.

Thats the real world challenge facing every politician, every director of education, every teacher, every parent, and every student in Ontario today. Many of our school boards have failed to deliver in the past, but they are about to be tested as never before.

They need all the managerial talent they can get. Wherever they can get it.

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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is urging people to stay home over the holiday weekend starting on Thursday.

The capital remains on the highest level of alert for the coronavirus, as newly confirmed cases bring its total virus count above 10,000.

Officials met with experts on Wednesday and decided to maintain the alert. Over the past week, an average of more than 230 new cases have been reported each day. Untraceable cases are on the rise.

Experts said transmission is not limited to bars and nightclubs. Homes, workplaces and restaurants are also vulnerable. And cases among the elderly are increasing.

They also said the health care system is under strain.

Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko said, "If you go out, please take thorough measures to prevent infection. We are also asking residents to refrain from going out as much as possible."

Koike's call comes as the rest of the country begins a new tourism campaign.

Tokyo reported 238 new cases on Wednesday. That's above 100 for the 14th straight day.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo says he will postpone easing restrictions on large-scale events until the end of August.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump is planning to deploy federal agents to Chicago and possibly other Democrat-run cities as he continues to assert federal power and use the Department of Homeland Security in unprecedented, politicized ways.

DHS is slated to send about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasnt authorized to speak publicly.

The agents, which are generally used to conduct investigations into human trafficking, drugs and weapons smuggling, were expected to stay in Chicago at least two months, according to the official. Its not clear exactly how they will back up local law enforcement or when they will arrive, but they will make arrests for federal crimes, not local ones.

Its possible they may be deployed to other locations as well.

A spokesman for Homeland Security said the department does not comment on allegedly leaked operations.

In a tweet Sunday, Trump blamed local leaders for violence in Chicago and other cities.

The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it. Unimaginably bad things would happen to America, Trump tweeted, referring to his likely Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy. We sent in help. Look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. NO!

The move is Trumps latest effort to use an agency  created after the Sept. 11 attacks to protect the country from terrorists threats  to supplement local law enforcement in ways that have alarmed critics. Trump has already deployed agents to Portland under the mantle of protecting federal buildings from protesters, drawing intense criticism from local leaders who say they have only exacerbated tensions.

Homeland Security agents have also been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border along with national guard troops during the crisis there.

But with the border largely shuttered because of the coronavirus and the number of illegal crossings plummeting, Trump has now turned the department onto what he sees as a threat within the U.S. and one that similarly plays to his base: Violence following police reform protests that have rocked the nation since the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

In June, federal authorities in riot gear used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds from Lafayette Square so the president could walk across the plaza and shoot a photo with a Bible outside a church. That land is federal property. But Portland and Chicago are not, though agents are supposed to be guarding federal buildings and other federal property.

In Chicago, the president of the local police officers union wrote Trump a letter asking for help from the federal government to help combat gun violence. The city has seen 414 homicides this year, compared with 275 during the same period last year, and a spate of shootings in recent weeks as cities around the country have seen an uptick in violence.

But Chicagos Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said she does not want want Trump to send agents to Chicago.

In Kansas City about two weeks ago, the Trump administration sent more than 100 federal law enforcement officers to help quell a rise in violence after the shooting death of a young boy there.
A former Conservative MP 'lied' to the attorney general as he 'hid behind' him to protect himself from sex assault claims, a court has heard.

Prosecutors today claimed Charlie Elphicke used his friend, Dominic Grieve, to protect him when summoned to speak to senior party figures about allegations made about him, without telling Mr Grieve he had propositioned a parliamentary worker.

The Tory insisted he 'did not lie to him'.

Elphicke is accused of sexually assaulting the employee, in her early 20s, twice in 2016, and is also charged with groping a woman in his home in 2007 while Natalie Elphicke, his wife and successor as Dover MP, was away on work business for the first time since giving birth to their son.

The trial was told earlier that he chased a woman around his house while screaming 'I'm a naughty Tory, I'm a naughty Tory', a claim he denied.

Charlie Elphicke and wife wife Natalie Earrive this morning at Southwark Crown Court for his continuing trial on three counts of sexual assault on two women

Today, jurors heard that Elphicke decided to change his defence in his sexual assault trial during lockdown after his legally trained wife pored over evidence in the case.

Prosecutor Eloise Marshall QC said it was only during the coronavirus pandemic, when Elphicke said papers relating to the case were strewn around his home, that he 'realised the lies' he had told to police could be disproved.

Elphicke admitted to police in 2018 that he had an affair with a third woman - not a complainant in this trial - but distanced himself from the parliamentary worker. He said he kissed the first complainant under 'misapprehension' but denies sexual assault.

However, entering the witness box at Southwark Crown Court this week, Elphicke told jurors he had lied to police about his true feelings for the parliamentary worker, saying he was 'besotted' with her and 'lost his head'.

He said he did not tell police about propositioning her because he was concerned Mrs Elphicke would - wrongly - think he was having an affair and that it would effectively be the final straw for their marriage.

Elphicke told jurors it was only when his wife, who is not a witness in the case, was going over text messages between her husband and the young woman during lockdown that she accused him of having an affair, partly due to kisses on text messages and a reference to 'cat cuddles', he said.

Ms Marshall described it as 'a pack of lies', citing only three kisses in more than 1,000 texts between them.

She told the 49-year-old father-of-two: 'It was only when you and wife went under lockdown you realised the lies you had told about (the parliamentary worker) could be disproved.

'You're boxed into a corner and you've got no other choice.

'It's not (the first and second complainant) who've lied, it's you who's lied.'

Elphicke was also accused of using his friend, former attorney general Dominic Grieve, to protect him when summoned to speak to senior party figures about the allegations, without telling Mr Grieve he had propositioned the parliamentary worker

Elphicke said: 'No, I didn't - I didn't sexually assault (either woman).'

The prosecutor said: 'You sexually assaulted both of them in the way they have described, didn't you?'

Elphicke replied: 'No.'

The prosecutor also accused Elphicke of using Mr Grieve to protect him when the allegations first arose and that he hadn't told him he had propositioned the parliamentary worker.

Ms Marshall said: 'You hid behind the former attorney general having lied to him about what happened with (the woman).'

Elphicke replied: 'I did not lie to him.'

Elphicke denies three counts of sexual assault. The trial continues.
Citywide

In the chess room of the Mechanics' Institute. | Photo: Ed U./Yelp

The Bay Area's shelter-in-place order has brought countless events usually held as in-person gatherings online. We're aiming to support local businesses in San Francisco and Oakland by highlighting five of these events each day.

Got a suggestion for an online event based in SF or Oakland? Email our events reporter, Teresa Hammerl.

Here's your San Francisco online event calendar for Wednesday, July 22. Join a book club, take a virtual tour of a members-only library or learn about the history of racial and LGBTQ justice.

Virtual Tour of the Mechanics' Institute

Photo: Lee D./Yelp

Join the Mechanics' Institute of San Francisco, a members-only private library founded in 1854, for a virtual tour with librarian and historian Taryn Edwards. You'll get an orientation to the institute's building, including the library and the chess room, along with an overview of its history and mission, an outline of its current services and the benefits of a membership. Tours typically take 45 to 60 minutes.

When: Wednesday, July 22, 12 p.m.

How to join: Via Zoom

Price: Free

The Evolution of Black LGBTQ Leadership

Photo: The GLBT Historical Society/Facebook

Later, join The GLBT Historical Society for a panel on revolutionary leaders, tracing the arc of justice from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, to the burgeoning LGBTQ rights movement of the 1980s, to the modern-day movement for Black lives.

Hear personal experiences, critical historical context and social commentary on racial and LGBTQ justice in America, remembering the Comptons Cafeteria riot of August 1966 in the Tenderloin and the Stonewall riots of June 1969 in New York.

When: Wednesday, July 22, 6 p.m.

How to join: RSVP online

Price: $0  $25 (sliding scale)

We the Resistance: A Conversation About Nonviolent Protest in U.S.

Image: Grace Cathedral/Facebook

Then, tune in for a conversation presented by Grace Cathedral and City Lights, with Michael G. Long, editor of the book "We the Resistance: Documenting a History of Nonviolent Protest," and Miguel Bustos, senior director of the Glide Center for Social Justice. Patrick Thompson, veteran antitrust litigator, will moderate the panel.

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The conversation aims to provide perspective on the ingredients of a nonviolent protest, what happens when protests turn violent, the roots of todays protests and the answers to the questions: Have violent protests worked in the past? How have other presidents responded to nonviolent protests? And, what are the most important lessons we can learn from the past?

When: Wednesday, July 22, 6 p.m.

How to join: Via Eventbrite

Price: $0  $10 (sliding scale)

Alcatraz and Mass Incarceration

Image: San Francisco Public Library/Twitter

Later in the evening, hear from Troy Williams, founder and director of Restorative Media and host of Troy Williams Journal. Williams was released in 2014 after serving 18 years of a life sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Hear his story and a discussion of incarceration during COVID-19, protests and uprisings.

When: Wednesday, July 22, 7 p.m.

How to join: Via Zoom

Price: Free

July Romance Book Club: Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert

Image: VIa Perdita

Join a romance book club hosted by Divisadero-based store Perdita. This time, participants will read and discuss the new book "Take a Hint, Dani Brown: A Novel" by British author Talia Hibbert.

When: Wednesday, July 22, 7:30 p.m.

How to join: Via Zoom

Price: Free
Fugitive arrested for Phuket shooting death of girl, 17

PHUKET: A Thai man in Phang Nga has been arrested for his role in a gun attack that killed a 17-year-old girl and left her boyfriend with serious injuries in Tambon Thepkrasattri, central Phuket, more than two years ago.

murderdeathviolencecrimepolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Wednesday 22 July 2020, 03:12PM

Raomut Tumwong, 17 at the time, survived the shooting attack despite being shot in the neck. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub / file

Suriya Insatorn, 18 at the time, was arrested within days of the shooting in late December 2017. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub / file

Thalang Police Deputy Chief Lt Col Anukul Nuket confirmed that police arrested Adisorn Ya Chansin, 22, at his rented room in Ban Koh Kiem village in Tambon Bang Toei, Mueang Phang Nga District, at 10:30am yesterday (July 20).

The arrest was conducted in a joint operation by Region 8 Police Investigation Division, Thalang Police, and Phang Nga Town Police, Lt Col Anukul said.

Adisorn was wanted under arrest warrant no. 748/2560, issued by Phuket Provincial Court on Dec 24, 2017. Adisorn was brought back to Phuket where he was taken to Thalang Police Station for processing, he added.

Under the warrant, Adisorn was wanted for his role in the shooting attack on Panilada Kongkapan and her boyfriend, Raomut Tumwong, both 17.

The couple were riding a motorbike on Soi Ban Tao Satarana Pai in Baan Pa Krong Cheep, Tambon Thepkrasattri, at about 11:30pm on Dec 22, 2017 when they were fired upon.

Panilada was shot under the chin and died from her injuries, while Raomut suffered serious injuries after he was shot in the neck.

Within days 18-year-old Phuket native Suriya Hack Insatorn was arrested for the shootings, and presented to the press at Phuket Provincial Police Station on Christmas morning (Dec 25, 2017).

Suriya named Adisorn as his accomplice.

During questioning, Adisorn told police that he did not know that Suriya was carrying a rifle, but he admitted that the two waited for the couple in a rubber plantation, Lt Col Anukul said.

Adisorn said that he and Suriya were waiting for Roamut, in order to talk and end their conflict, but Suriya shot them while they were riding out of the soi, he added.

After they saw Panilada and Raomut fall to the ground, the pair fled the scene. Adisorn went to his fathers house and then fled to Phang Nga, Lt Col Anukul reported.

Lt Col Anukul confirmed that Adisorn was presented to Phuket Provincial Court yesterday (July 21), and formally charged with the same charges pressed against Surya: premeditated murder, illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and carrying a weapon in public without necessary reason.
Jason Ruckart, center, a managing partner at Roy's Restaurant in Woodland Hills, serves customers as they dine outdoors. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

When the COVID-19 pandemic first drove the country into lockdown and tens of millions of workers lost their jobs, Congress voted to add $600 a week to whatever individual states paid in unemployment insurance.

That extra money was a desperately needed lifeline for many because state unemployment benefits typically replace less than half a workers paycheck. Adding the federal payment on top gave many low-income workers more than they earned before.

Now with the $600 boost about to end, Congress must decide whether to let it die, continue it or cut back the payment levels. Recent negotiations suggest lawmakers on both sides are open to extending only a reduced or more restrictive version of the payment.

Most Republicans argue that the present system encourages workers to remain on unemployment rather than go back to work. Ending or slashing the federal payments would help employers and investors by pressuring many of those employees to return to work.

But maintaining the extra unemployment payments at or near present levels would help millions of workers keep paying their rent, writing mortgage checks, making car payments and caring for families. Thats especially true right now, when the pandemic is getting worse in many parts of the country and local officials are moving to restore lockdown rules they had begun to relax when the danger seemed to be fading.

In addition to helping the jobless, keeping the extra payments at or relatively near the current level would provide a substantial boost to an economy still reeling from the effects of COVID-19. Conversely, abolishing or slashing the federal payments would undercut the economy.

Basic unemployment insurance payments are determined by each state. During the first quarter of this year, they averaged $373 a week. The additional $600 a week was part of Congresss $2.2-trillion relief package known as the CARES Act and passed in March.

Beyond anecdotal reports of employers struggling to recall workers, one of the few attempts to measure the extent of the problem was a May 18 survey by the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-employer lobbying group. It reported that 18% of 685 respondents said an employee had declined a job offer in order to stay on unemployment benefits.

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Even in the best situation, hiring is often a difficult process. But when theres competition with a government program, its even more challenging, said Holly Wade, director of research and policy analysis at the federation.

In northern Maine near the Canadian border, Michael Collins said he was trying to bring back dine-in service at his Arby's franchise in Presque Isle. Maine has been doing better than most other states in controlling COVID-19, and the unemployment rate has dropped back to 6.6%, compared with 11.1% for the nation.

But Collins has rehired only one of six employees he furloughed months ago. The five others, Collins said, told him, Why would I come back when I can make more sitting at home?

He hopes more will want to return if the $600 benefit is cut back, he said.

One of the things thats clearly changed since mid-May is that the health crisis  and with it the economy  has taken a turn for the worse.

Since early this month, small-business openings and revenues, as well as new-job postings, have turned sharply down, according to Opportunity Insights, a nonpartisan group based at Harvard that is tracking the economic effects of the pandemic.

Before this month, I would have said, Maybe we should back a little off $600. Theres enough evidence of new hiring activity that the $600 might be just too much disincentive for too many people, said Harry Holzer, public policy professor at Georgetown University. Now with the hiring slowdown, I would rather err on the other direction" to offer more help for people.

Many economists worry that if Congress ends or makes a sharp cutback in the special unemployment benefit  Senate Republicans are said to be considering $200 to $400 a week  itll take billions of dollars out of the economy at exactly the wrong time.

We would replace the nightly stories about the spread of the COVID virus with the spread of desperation among households, said Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey. The latest survey found confidence, a leading indicator of future spending, falling back down in July.

Some 30 million people have been claiming unemployment benefits since May, suggesting the $600 supplement may be adding as much as $18 billion a week in payments.

Thats helped many people not only hold on to their homes or apartments but also pay for other crucial expenses, including healthcare. A majority of Americans with medical insurance get it through their jobs, so being laid off has left probably millions of workers and families without their normal coverage.

Because the $600 figure was based on nationwide averages and distributed as a flat payment to everyone qualifying for unemployment assistance, as many as two-thirds may be receiving more than their lost wages, according to researchers at the University of Chicago. That's in large part because lower-paid and part-time workers at restaurants, hotels and retail stores accounted for a very large share of those laid off or furloughed during the outbreak.

Cutting the federal boost will weigh harder on workers in certain parts of the country. States in the South have been among the hardest hit by the coronavirus resurgence, and they also provide some of the lowest unemployment benefits. Floridas regular jobless benefit tops out at $275 a week, compared with $450 for California and more than $800 for Massachusetts.

Bottom line: Without the $600 pandemic supplement, Florida workers would probably have just 38% of their lost wages replaced by unemployment insurance, compared with 45% for the nation, based on first-quarter data from the Labor Department.

In Texas, another state where the outbreak has worsened recently, Austin restaurateur Adam Orman, 44, doesn't blame workers if some of them are reluctant to return to low-paying jobs.

If the minimum wage was an actual livable amount of money, then this wouldnt be an issue, said the general manager of LOca dOro. The wage floor for tipped workers in Texas is $2.13 an hour.

It is a little ludicrous to ask somebody to come off of unemployment in the middle of a pandemic to make" so little, he said.

Analysts said some states might be able to develop ways so workers dont get more than 100% of their lost wages, but that could take some time, given their antiquated programming systems.

Even with a flat $600 add-on, many states have struggled to keep up with an avalanche of jobless claims, which remain at extraordinarily high levels.

If we go for accuracy at the expense of speed, that means a lot of those unemployed workers wont be getting their checks anytime soon, and that could be a real concern, said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at Standard & Poors Ratings Services.

A nationwide cut in the $600 unemployment boost will also hurt those living in high-cost areas more than others.

Alejandro Merchan, 35, said he easily made $1,500 a week when he was working as a waiter at a Michelin-rated restaurant in San Franciscos Fillmore District. The restaurant closed March 13, and since April, he has been collecting the maximum $450 a week from the state, plus the federal boost.

But if the $600 is cut to anything less than $450 a week, based on his calculations, he will have to move out of his shared apartment because he won't be able to afford the $3,800-a-month rent. Even the $600, he said, "doesn't get me as much here."
Higher Education Minister Simon Harris has announced a 168 million euro package for third-level institutions and students to cover costs incurred during the coronavirus pandemic and to support students returning to college in September.

The package will include around 15 million euro to support access to devices for online learning  which could give 10,000 students access to laptops and tablets, while three million euro has been granted for mental health support.

168 million package from Government to support our third level sector, help them safely reopen & crucially extra supports for students -doubling of student assistance fund, extra funding for mental health & students with disabilities & 15m fund to provide access to devices pic.twitter.com/Nb3265dQNN  Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) July 22, 2020

Mr Harris said that the Department of Education would be increasing student supports, access to mental health services and helping more students access the internet as learning moves online.

There is a significant digital divide emerging among our student population, he said. Many students have difficulties accessing devices  laptops or tablets  while some cant access WiFi and others need assistance in using the devices for college work.

This new scheme of 15 million euro will help us address that digital divide and give students the tools to continue their education.

Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns, the partys spokesperson on higher education, said the funding package falls far short of what is required.

Ms Cairns said: While any increase in financial supports for students would be welcome under normal circumstances, we are not living in ordinary times due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

College life will look very different for returning students and first-year entrants this autumn, with many modules likely to be taught online.

The true extent of what financial supports for students and student welfare, including additional grant supports for students, must be agreed with key stakeholders urgently. Students need certainty that they will be able to afford to go back to or start off in their college in September and will be making those kinds of decisions now.

Today's launch in @DeptofFHed will get Third Level Institutions up & running again



Funding for Research

Funding for student laptops

Funding for the Student Assistance Fund

Funding for Mental Health

Funding for Disadvantaged & Travelling Communities pic.twitter.com/uRVpc2yuLy  Niall Collins (@NiallCollinsTD) July 22, 2020

The Irish University Association (IUA) said the fund provides much-needed stability for higher education arising from the Covid-induced financial shocks.

Jim Miley, director general of the IUA, said the fund provides universities with the immediate resources to plan and implement teaching and research programmes for the new academic year.

It will ensure that the quality of those programmes is underpinned to deliver the best student experience possible, he said.
One of the biggest conservation bills in decades is expected to sail to victory in Washington, overcoming years of funding stalemates and political gridlock, and promising scores of new parks and upgraded recreation facilities across the West.

The House is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the Great American Outdoors Act, which would guarantee $900 million annually for the acquisition of public lands and commit $9.5 billion over five years to repairs on federal property, mostly for the National Park Service.

California stands to benefit as much as any state from the stunning windfall, with supporters eyeing everything from new trails in the Sierra Nevada to playgrounds in underserved Central Valley communities. Parks such as Yosemite, Point Reyes and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area are virtually assured money to upgrade aging infrastructure, including roads, ranger stations and campgrounds.

This is long overdue, said Rep. TJ Cox, D-Selma (Fresno County), a first-term member of the House whose district includes parts of the San Joaquin Valley and coastal hills and who has rallied support for the new funding. These outdoor spaces are such national and local treasures, its anything we can do to maintain them and expand them.

The Senate easily passed the legislation last month, and support in the House appears even stronger. President Trump has said hell sign the bill if it gets to his desk, heralding a rare moment of unity at a time of great divide inside the Beltway and across the nation.

Its incredible to finally see priorities reset and parks back in focus, said Neal Desai, senior program director for the National Parks Conservation Association, a group that advocates for the National Park Service. It seems like this country has just been legislating from one crisis to another while other things have fallen aside. ... This is generational.

The Great American Outdoors Act is actually a combination of two long-fought-for initiatives.

The first is securing permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The 55-year-old fund was created as a way to increase the amount of public land available for the nations growing population. It channels federal offshore oil and gas royalties to purchases of both large chunks of wilderness and small plots for city parks.

The money helped create Muir Woods, Mount Diablo State Park and Redwood National Park as well as such American landmarks as the Grand Canyon and Florida Everglades. Recently, the fund supported the purchase of the 4,000-acre Rancho Corral de Tierra on the San Francisco Peninsula, now managed as parkland by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

While the program allows $900 million a year to be spent on land acquisitions, Congress and past presidents have consistently redirected most of the money to other purposes. President Trumps initial budget this year called for allocating less than $15 million to the fund.

Brian Feulner / Special to The Chronicle

Last year, Congress and the president took a first step toward strengthening the program, approving legislation that makes the fund permanent but not the full funding. The Great American Outdoors Act would secure that money.

The second piece of the act is the commitment of $9.5 billion over 5 years for maintenance on federal lands. Like with the first part, the money doesnt come from taxpayers, but similarly from royalties on oil, gas and other energy projects.

The National Park Service, with an estimated $12 billion backlog of repair work, would get 70% of this money while the balance would go to the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Education.

Support for both more park maintenance and land acquisitions has always been strong, and mostly bipartisan, but advocates credit several factors for pushing the new funding to the finish line.

Two Republican senators, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana, have been championing the Great American Outdoors Act as they face tough re-election prospects this fall, winning backing for the bill from within their party, including President Trump.

Brian Feulner/Special to The Chronicle

Earlier this year, Trump tweeted: I am calling on Congress to send me a Bill that permanently funds the LWCF and restores our National Parks. When I sign it into law, it will be HISTORIC for our beautiful public lands. ALL thanks to @SenCoryGardner and @SteveDaines, two GREAT Conservative Leaders.

Advocates of the legislation also say the coronavirus outbreak, and ensuing shelter-in-place orders, have highlighted the importance of parks. Many in Congress have taken note of their constituents interests in having a place to go outside during the lockdown.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

This pandemic has showed just how much people want and need nature, want and need recreation, Desai said.

The Trust for Public Land, based in San Francisco, expects a boost for its work securing new parks and open space in California and elsewhere. The organization has long relied on grants from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Now we have permanence moving forward, said Myke Bybee, legislative director at the Trust for Public Land. We have predictability.

Recently, the group helped close on the purchase of 3,000 acres north of Lake Tahoe, including the picture-perfect Frog Lake, with money from the fund. The acquisition opens the land to the public and expands an existing corridor of protected wilderness through the northern Sierra.

The Trust for Public Land also is using the fund to move ahead with other deals, including purchase of a piece of private land within Death Valley National Park as well as smaller parcels in more urban areas like Los Angeles County.

Its not just huge tracts of land in the Sierra or backcountry, Bybee said. It also includes a lot of close-to-home pieces.

For Mark Kramer, a director at the Nature Conservancys California chapter, one of the highlights of the Great American Outdoors Act is that the reliable funding will help protect Californias ecological diversity, including its wildlife.

It just seems like the stars have aligned, he said of the measure. Its a thoughtful, pragmatic bipartisan collaboration thats leading to a good outcome. This is the kind of the thing were striving for all the time.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
Ms. Bondil, on the other hand, said it was her unwillingness to publicly praise a recruiting process that resulted in the promotion of Mary-Dailey Desmarais to the role of a director of the curatorial division.

The Canadian press has questioned whether the elevation of Ms. Desmarais, a respected curator, was influenced by her familys wealth. Ms. Bondil has not embraced that view, but she has said that her support for another candidate was seen as insubordination and led to her dismissal.

Both sides say the other is constructing a story to distract from what really happened. Both have welcomed the governments investigation as an opportunity to air out the truth.

The president rules the museum and does not respect checks and balances, Ms. Bondil said. The investigation will help us understand the true reason for the firing decision.

According to Mr. de la Chenelieres account, the chain of events that ultimately led to Ms. Bondils termination on July 13 began with the union that represents museum employees approaching the board last year with complaints about the workplace environment. The museum then hired an outside human resources management consultant to assess the situation, according to the news release that accompanied the announcement that Ms. Bondil had been let go. The consultant reported back a significant and multilayered deterioration of the workplace climate, described by some employees as toxic, the release said.

Mr. de la Cheneliere said in an interview that the thrust of the complaints was that there was too much pressure on the employees in the curatorial department, and that pressure came, in good part, from Ms. Bondil. The boards solution, he said, was to introduce a position called director of the curatorial division, which was intended to lighten Ms. Bondils workload. (Ms. Bondils held two titles: both director general and chief curator of the museum.)
A dumplings restaurant in north-eastern China was torn apart by a huge gas explosion today while a dozen customers were enjoying their lunch.

Footage captures the horrifying moment heavy smoke shot out of the eatery while tables and chairs were flown across the street by the blast wave.

Twelve people were injured and being treated at a local hospital amid an ongoing investigation, the authorities said.

Footage captures the horrifying moment heavy smoke shot out of the eatery while tables and chairs were flown across the street by the blast wave during the accident in Heilongjiang

The incident occurred Wednesday around noon in Master Xu Big Stuffing Dumpling Restaurant in Luobei county of Heilongjiang province, according to an official notice.

The explosion was said to have been caused by a liquefied gas tank but the authorities were looking into the matter further.

Security camera footage shows the powerful blast wave ripping through the eatery with huge smoke.

Other clips show the restaurants furniture scattered around the wrecked venue while injured customers were being carried out of the debris.

The explosion, which occurred on Wednesday noon in Heilongjiang, was said to have been caused by a liquefied gas tank but the authorities were looking into the matter further

The local government said in a notice that a total of 12 people had suffered different levels of injuries from the incident.

They are said to all be in stable condition while being treated at a local hospital.

The cause of the incident is still under investigation, according to the authorities.

The news comes as a Boeing 777 plane has burst into flames today in front of shocked passengers while being parked in one of the busiest airports in China.

The cargo plane belonging to Ethiopian Airlines caught fire at around 4pm local time on the tarmac of Shanghai Pudong International Airport, according to authorities.

The fire was put off about an hour later, said the local authorities. No injuries or deaths have been reported as the time of writing.
The gallery plans in December to open the largest exhibition of Boyds work for 30 years. Mr Denys McCullough, contacted the gallery yesterday after reading in The Age about the gallerys plight.

A two-year search by the Art Gallery of New South Wales ended yesterday when the one painting missing from its planned Arthur Boyd retrospective turned up on the wall of a Melbourne flat.

But there is still mystery surrounding the portrait. Mr McCullough, a retired chief executive of a management consulting firm, does not know whom he bought it from when he paid an undisclosed sum in 1982.

Mr McCullough said the pride of his art collection was bought to fill a gap on the wall of his flat, which he had originally converted to accommodate a large Pro Hart painting.

I really have no idea where it (the Boyd) came from. It was one of a number we had to choose from at the time, he said.

Mr McCullough said his former wife dealt in art and had bought a number of paintings for him to choose from. Unfortunately, she cant remember where she got it from, so we have no idea of its history. All I know is that it has been hanging on my wall all these years, he said.

A spokeswoman for the gallery said the portrait, of the artists father, Merric Boyd, was last seen publicly in a Brisbane gallery in 1969, a year after being painted.
SCHODACK  Its nicknamed the Buffalo Bridge because it is the shortcut from Route 9 south along Van Hoesen Road to reach GEM Farms Buffalo across the railroad tracks.

But that route has been blocked since the county shut the bridge after a December 2019 inspection found significant deterioration in the structure. Barriers have been placed on either side of the non-de-script short span that carries Van Hoesen Road, also known as Rensselaer County Route 4, across the tracks.

The county said it has the money to for the bridge project but is waiting for Amtrak approval. The bridge was last replaced in 1997.

"This is an important bridge for residents, businesses and emergency services in the South Schodack. Completing this project is a priority and we want to see this bridge finished in 2020," said County Executive Steve McLaughlin.

McLaughlin said the county has contacted its federal representatives in Washington D.C., the Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak to secure approvals for the bridge work.

The Mesick family has worked the farm since 1793. Theyre best known throughout the Capital Region for their herd of buffalo. In 2015, buffalo left the farm and swam the Hudson River to Bethlehem where they were killed.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The animals have captured the imagination of residents from the surrounding area who refer to the span leading to the farm as the buffalo bridge. Visitors to the Gem Farms from Route 9 have to detour via Maple Hill Road.

"This is an inconvenience for residents and one that will only create more problems in the fall for farmers, school buses, motorists and residents. We need to get this project on track for completion this year," said Rensselaer County Legislator Charles Peter, R-Schodack.

The county said it plans to replace the bridge with a similar structure.
The burden is falling especially hard on parents who cannot work from home, those with young children and families in poor financial situations that depended on schools as a source of food and stability. It is also afflicting children for whom school was a safe haven: Experts have warned that rates of child abuse, and abuse-driven deaths, will only rise the longer campuses stay closed. Even for families that suffer none of that, the key question remains: Can students really learn online?
A push for decoupling between China and Australia could jeopardise not only trade, but knowledge and commercial benefits gleaned from growing research collaboration, a new report said on Tuesday.

China has overtaken the United States as Australia's leading international partner in producing scientific papers, the results of which can often be commercialised, according to the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney.

And while knowledge and research collaboration needed to be managed to ensure national security, this must be balanced with scientific discovery, the report argued.

In 2019, the number of Australian scientific papers involving a researcher affiliated with a Chinese institution grew by 13.1 per cent, while the number involving a US-affiliated researcher declined by 0.3 per cent, the ACRI report said.

Australia-China collaborations now comprise 16.2 per cent of all Australian scientific papers, up from 3.1 per cent in 2005. The US is Australia's second largest partner in scientific papers at 15.5 per cent followed by Britain at 11.7 per cent.

Collaboration was mainly conducted in the fields of materials science, chemical engineering and energy, areas of speciality for Chinese research. China was responsible for 37 per cent of the global research papers on materials science in 2019, whereas Australia only produced 2.1 per cent.

"This makes it plain that if Australia wants to be at the forefront of knowledge creation in material sciences, it is in Australia's interests to engage with China. And that is exactly what happens," co-author and ACRI director James Laurenceson said.

"Risks need to be managed. And they are. But let's not miss the forest for the trees and the reality is that working with China benefits Australia's national interests."

"The fact that Australia-China collaboration is so extensive is testament to the scale of the mutual benefits involved."

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China and Australia have been embroiled in a trade spat since April, when Canberra pushed for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, drawing Beijing's ire and prompting concerns about the potential for a new trade war.

Theft of intellectual property (IP) or proprietary knowledge is one of the main issues at the heart of the US-China trade dispute.

President Donald Trump, in imposing tariffs on Chinese imports, claimed Beijing had repeatedly attempted to steal American intellectual property through its "technology transfer policies", which required foreign businesses to form joint ventures with domestic Chinese companies when operating in the country, thereby exposing them to potential IP theft.

But the circumstances surrounding shared collaboration are different, according to the ACRI, a research centre initially set up with funding from Chinese property developer Huang Xiangmo, who was stripped of his Australian residency early last year over allegations he interfered in Australian domestic policies.

Unlike intellectual property, new joint research cannot be "stolen" and once it is concluded it is openly shared. Controls also exist at national levels to protect sensitive technologies, the ACRI said.

"[Also] unlike the US, and increasingly China, Australia is not a major global source of commercially valuable intellectual property. Australia is a net intellectual property importer and always has been," Laurenceson said.

In recent years, increased research collaboration between the two countries has drawn criticism in Australia, with some groups saying there should be a limit due to national security risks and China's poor human rights record.

Groups like the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney have also said technology decoupling between the US and China could put pressure on Australia to follow suit "owing to its deep enmeshment with America's scientific infrastructure" and "to limit its science and technology interaction with China in critical dual-use fields in order to maintain technological collaboration with the US". Dual-use technologies can be used for both civilian and military purposes.

ACRI also said concerns in Australia that science and technology priorities were being controlled by the Chinese government because funding were largely unfounded. It cited two incidents in the past three years in which the Department of Defence told a parliamentary inquiry there were no university breaches of technology controlled under the Defence Trade Controls Act.

"This means that the tendency of some local commentators to regurgitate a US government talking point about China struggles against facts and evidence in an Australian context," Laurenceson said.

Decoupling in research collaboration would have negative effects on both countries, but protection of research on possible dual use technologies was needed, said the Lowy Institute, an independent think tank based in Sydney.

"The big difficulty is telling good from bad. If actions we take have the effect of reducing fruitful collaboration instead of only stopping the problematic kind, a blunt decoupling would obviously throw the baby out with the bath water," Lowy Institute economist Roland Rajah said.

"That seems unlikely at this point. The more difficult issue is that it can be difficult to tell what should genuinely be seen as dual use and what should not."

Despite the debate, Australia-China collaborations continue and earlier this month a fourth funding round worth up to A$5 million for food and agribusiness research through the Australia-China Science and Research Fund-Joint Research Centres opened for applications.

An evaluation of the programme from 2011 to 2014 by consulting firm ACIL Allen shows that "despite the programme having only been in operation for a relatively short time, it already appears likely to deliver outputs that will lead to the commercialisation of new products or services".

The bilateral programme has led to the creation of companies like Australia-based Renergi, which used outcomes from the energy round of the scheme to develop and commercialise innovative bioenergy and biofuel technologies, according to the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Russias Supreme Court says no to tougher punishments for falsification of evidence

 RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov

12:54 22/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 22 (RAPSI)  The Supreme Court of Russia has refused to back a bill toughening responsibility for falsification of evidence and data resulting from law enforcement intelligence-gathering activities, the press service of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers has informed RAPSI.

The decision is based on the principles of fairness and humanism, as the measures envisaged by the bill need to be substantiated by the results of a scientific analysis of established practices in applying the law, statistics, and other objective data bearing evidence that the current punishments are not tough enough, whereas the explanatory note to the bill fails to cite such evidence, Deputy Chair of the Supreme Court Vladimir Davydov clarifies the position taken by the Chamber.

The lack of respective statistics was also cited by the Russian Government, which agreed with the opinion of the Supreme Court and in its turn negatively accessed the proposed amendments.

According to the statistics gathered by the Supreme Courts Justice Department in 2018, in practice the usual prison terms for falsification make 7 years, that is about less by half than the maximum punishment envisaged for such a crime.

The bill sought to introduce more hefty fines and longer prison terms for falsification of evidence by law enforcement officers, investigators, prosecutors, and lawyers.
Rating Action: Moody's assigns B1 first-time long-term local currency deposit rating to Tenge Bank, outlook stable

Global Credit Research - 21 Jul 2020

London, 21 July 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") has today assigned a B1 first-time long-term local currency deposit rating and B2 first-time long-term foreign currency deposit rating to Uzbekistan-based JSCB Tenge Bank (Tenge Bank). The outlook on the deposit ratings is stable. Concurrently, the rating agency assigned Tenge Bank a Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) of b3 and an Adjusted BCA of b1. Moody's has also assigned the bank a long-term local currency Counterparty Risk Rating (CRR) of Ba3, a long-term foreign currency CRR of B1 and a long-term Counterparty Risk Assessment (CR Assessment) of Ba3(cr). The bank was also assigned Not Prime (NP) short-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings, NP short-term local and foreign currency CRRs and NP(cr) short-term CR Assessment.

A full list of assigned ratings can be found at the end of this press release.

RATINGS RATIONALE

Tenge Bank's first-time ratings reflect the bank's small size and untested business model, as well as its fast business growth and quickly changing standalone financial metrics. These credit challenges are outweighed by Tenge Bank's currently ample capital and liquidity buffers and a very high probability of affiliate support to Tenge Bank from its single shareholder, Halyk Savings Bank of Kazakhstan (Halyk Bank, rated ba3 on BCA and Ba1 on long-term deposit ratings, with positive outlook).

RATIONALE FOR b3 BCA

Tenge Bank was established in May 2019 and since then has been growing fast, with the business expansion fueled by capital and liquidity support from the bank's shareholder, Halyk Bank. Tenge Bank's management contemplates a five-fold growth of the loan portfolio in 2020, from a low level of UZS137 billion (USD14 million) reported as of the end of 2019. Based on this, Moody's expects that Tenge Bank's newly adopted credit underwriting standards will be tested over the next 12 to 18 months under very challenging operating conditions.

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As of 31 December 2019, Tenge Bank's reported asset quality metrics were good, with no loans classified as problematic. However, Moody's expects that the slowdown in the economic activities in Uzbekistan as a result of the coronavirus outbreak will result in financial hardship for some of Tenge Bank's customers. This, in turn, will put pressure on the bank's solvency metrics, in particular asset quality and profitability. Moody's regards the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under its ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety.

In 2019, Tenge Bank operated in an investment phase, with its earnings insufficient to cover the operating costs, thus the bank's return on average assets (ROAA) was negative at 0.77% in that reporting period. Moody's expects Tenge Bank's investment phase to protract into 2020.

Counter-balancing the above challenges are Tenge Bank's ample capital and liquidity buffers accumulated as a result of the support from the bank's shareholder, Halyk Bank. Following a UZS223 billion capital injection contributed to Tenge Bank in April 2020, its regulatory total capital adequacy ratio was at 89% as of 30 April 2020, whereas liquid assets accounted for just over 50% of total assets as of the same reporting date. Moody's expects that these buffers will be gradually utilized as the bank's business continues to expand.

RATIONALE FOR b1 ADJUSTED BCA AND B1 LONG-TERM LOCAL CURRENCY DEPOSIT RATING

Tenge Bank's b1 adjusted BCA and B1 long-term local currency deposit rating incorporate a very high probability of affiliate support from the bank's parent, Halyk Bank, which results in a two-notch uplift of Tenge Bank's adjusted BCA and the long-term local currency deposit rating from its BCA of b3. The parent's BCA of ba3 is used as the anchor for the affiliate support. Our assessment of the very high support probability is based on (1) the parent's 100% ownership and strategic oversight of Tenge Bank, (2) the strategic fit of the Uzbek subsidiary to Halyk Bank, and (3) the support track record and commitment of the parent to further develop and support its Uzbek subsidiary demonstrated to date.

RATIONALE FOR B2 LONG-TERM FOREIGN CURRENCY DEPOSIT RATING

Tenge Bank's long-term foreign currency deposit rating of B2 is capped by Uzbekistan's foreign currency deposit ceiling of B2. The level of the ceiling reflects the foreign currency transfer and convertibility risks in Uzbekistan.

OUTLOOK ON THE LONG-TERM DEPOSIT RATINGS

The stable outlook on Tenge Bank's long-term deposit ratings reflects Moody's view that the elevated risks stemming from the bank's unseasoned business model and its very fast growth will be sufficiently counter-balanced by the liquidity and capital support from Tenge Bank's shareholder. Thus, a likelihood of any rating changes for Tenge Bank in the next 12 to 18 months is limited.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

An upgrade of Tenge Bank's deposit ratings is unlikely in the next 12 to 18 months given that the bank's long-term local currency deposit rating is constrained by Uzbekistan's B1 sovereign rating, whereas the bank's long-term foreign currency deposit rating is constrained by Uzbekistan's B2 foreign currency deposit ceiling. A probability of upgrade of Tenge Bank's b3 BCA is also limited over the next 12 to 18 months, given the risks of the bank's fast business expansion, its untested business model and unseasoned loan book.

Any mismanagement of Tenge Bank's business growth, if it results in a material deterioration of the bank's solvency or liquidity metrics, may lead to a downgrade of the bank's BCA. A failure of Tenge Bank's parent, Halyk Bank, to render support to its subsidiary, in case of need, may result in a downgrade of Tenge Bank's deposit ratings.

Headquartered in Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan, Tenge Bank reported -- as of 31 December 2019 - total assets of UZS367 billion and total equity of UZS115 billion under its audited IFRS financial statements. Net IFRS loss posted in 2019 was UZS2.8 billion.

LIST OF ASSIGNED RATINGS ..Issuer: JSCB Tenge Bank Assignments:

.... Adjusted Baseline Credit Assessment, Assigned b1

.... Baseline Credit Assessment, Assigned b3

.... Short-term Counterparty Risk Assessment, Assigned NP(cr)

.... Long-term Counterparty Risk Assessment, Assigned Ba3(cr)

.... Long-term Counterparty Risk Rating (Foreign Currency), Assigned B1

.... Short-term Counterparty Risk Ratings, Assigned NP

.... Long-term Counterparty Risk Rating (Local Currency), Assigned Ba3

.... Short-term Bank Deposits, Assigned NP

....Long-term Bank Deposits (Foreign Currency), Assigned B2, Outlook Assigned Stable

....Long-term Bank Deposits (Local Currency), Assigned B1, Outlook Assigned Stable Outlook Actions: ....Outlook, Assigned Stable PRINCIPAL METHODOLOGY

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Banks Methodology published in November 2019 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1147865. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

Olga Ulyanova VP - Senior Credit Officer Financial Institutions Group Moody's Investors Service Limited, Russian Branch 7th floor, Four Winds Plaza 21 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya St. Moscow 125047 Russia JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Nicholas Hill MD - Banking Financial Institutions Group JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Ltd. One Canada Square Canary Wharf London E14 5FA United Kingdom JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Nargiz Ismayilova - Trend:

The export of Azerbaijani products to Kazakhstan declined by 3.8 percent from January through June 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, Trend reports citing the statistical bulletin of the State Customs Committee.

According to the bulletin, the export of Azerbaijani products to Kazakhstan in the first half of this year amounted to $14.5 million, while in the first half of last year this indicator was $11.5 million. The share of Kazakhstan in the total export of Azerbaijan increased from 0.12 to 0.19 percent of the total volume of export.

In 1H2020, foreign trade operations between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan amounted to $50.4 million, which is 2.6 times lower compared to 1H2019.

At the same time, the volume of import of Kazakhstans products to Azerbaijan dropped 3.4 times, amounting to $35.8 million. Kazakhstans share in the total import of Azerbaijan decreased from 1.77 to 0.72 percent of the total volume of import.

The foreign trade balance of the two countries for the reporting period was negative and amounted to $21.2 million.

In the first six months of 2020, Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover amounted to $12.6 billion, having decreased by 34.1 percent year-on-year. The balance of foreign trade turnover on an annualized basis declined by 10 percent and remained negative, amounting to $2.6 billion.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @IsmailovaNargis
A group of daredevils have scaled a 178metre-tall skyscraper to dangle off the scaffolding one-handed.

One risk-taking New Zealander uploaded footage of himself and two friends climbing the unfinished The Pacifica building, in Auckland CBD, in May.

The video was shared to Instagram with the cheeky caption: 'On today's episode of increasing risky behaviour.'

One group of daredevil New Zealanders scaled a 178metre-tall skyscraper and uploaded footage of themselves hanging off construction scaffolding with one hand (pictured)

The terrifying video was posted to Instagram in May and showed three men climbing up to the roof (pictured) of The Pacifica apartment complex in Auckland CBD

The man described climbing the 54-floor tower as 'easily one of the best experiences of my life'.

He was pictured smiling and dangling one-handed from construction scaffolding while 178 metres above the city lights of Auckland.

A video also showed his friends dangerously balancing along the top of the building and taking turns hanging off the scaffolding.

'I wish I could describe the complexity and process of becoming fearless.

'Danger might be real but fear is a choice, all of the fears we don't face quickly become our limits,' he wrote.

The Pacifica, set to open later this year, is New Zealand's tallest apartment tower and the second second tallest building in Auckland after the iconic Metropolis tower.

The daredevil shared another video of the beginning of their climb and warned viewers not to watch 'if you have anxiety'.

The men took turns hanging off the railing that was 178metres and 54 floors above Auckland

One man said the climbing the tower was 'easily one of the best experiences of my life'

He could be seen jumping a fence to gain access to the base of the building before running up a long staircase.

The men walked all the way up to floor 53 before climbing over a railing and going up scaffolding in the centre of the building.

They continued up the yellow scaffolding and emerged on the roof to see a vast view of nighttime Auckland.

The men walked 53 flights of stairs and climbed up scaffolding to gain access to the roof

Commenters were quick to voice their dislike for the dangerous height.

'Nope, nope, nope,' one viewer wrote.

'Love you bro so don't you dare let go,' another said.

New Zealand Police told Daily Mail Australia they had not been contacted about the incident.

'We have checked with area staff who are not aware of receiving any reports.

'Police warn that anyone carrying out this activity is not only putting their own lives and others at risk but also risk getting arrested,' a spokesperson said.

Daily Mail Australia have reached out to The Pacifica for comment.
Voters may already have their eyes set on Nov. 3, but Wisconsin has an equally important election coming up: the state partisan primary, to be held on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

While there might not be any presidential-sized decisions on the ballot, there are plenty of impactful contests to be decided. (For a look at what's on your ballot in this partisan primary, plug your address in here.) And, although election day is still weeks away, some deadlines are quickly approaching.

Voter registration

For instance, the deadline for voter registration by mail or online is Wednesday, July 22. Those submitting their voter registration by mail must have their registration form as well as proof of residence  which can include a state ID, driver's license, bank statement, paycheck, paystub or other options listed here  postmarked to your municipal clerk by Wednesday, July 22. The same goes for those wishing to register to vote online, which is open through Wednesday, July 22.

Voters can also register in person at their municipal clerk's office by 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 7, as well as in person at your polling place on the day of the election.

However, if you wish to vote safely with an absentee ballot this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak, you must be registered to vote first before requesting an absentee ballot. So, if you want to avoid crowds or in-person interactions, register to vote now.

Absentee ballots

As for requesting an absentee ballot for the partisan primary election, your request must be received by the municipal clerk by 5 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 6. (For those who are indefinitely confined, the clerk should receive your absentee ballot request by 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 7.) The completed ballot must then be received  whether by mail, delivery to the clerk's office, your polling place or by established local dropbox  by 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

To request an absentee ballot, click here. Your request must include a photo ID.

Remember: The deadlines and dates above are just for the partisan primary election on Tuesday, Aug. 11. As for November ...

November election dates

The voter registration deadline for the presidential election this November is Wednesday, Oct. 14 (for those registering online or via mail), and the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot for that election is not until Friday, Oct. 30 at 5 p.m. For more information and resources on both elections, click here.

Every election matters. Use your voice and vote  even during a pandemic.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday plans in the coming days to launch the next-generation 5G mobile network first in Tehran, then in other cities across the country

TEHRAN (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd July, 2020) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday plans in the coming days to launch the next-generation 5G mobile network first in Tehran, then in other cities across the country.

"I want to tell the people good news, we are entering the fifth generation [of the mobile network].

I hope that over the next few days, 5G will start operating in Tehran and gradually expand [to other areas of the country]," Rouhani said at a government meeting.

Earlier in July, Iranian media reported that the state-run Mobile Communication Company was given a deadline of early September to begin providing 5G coverage in at least five of Tehran's districts.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 06:06:06|Editor: huaxia

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DUBLIN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- People from 15 countries and regions will be allowed to visit Ireland without meeting a 14-day self-quarantine requirement, reported Irish national radio and television broadcaster RTE on Wednesday.

The 15 countries and regions are Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino, according to the report quoting a "green list" announced by the Irish government.

The "green list" countries and regions refer to those whose virus levels are similar to or lower than Ireland, thus posing low risk to the country, said the report, adding that the list will be reviewed by the government every two weeks.

The Irish Department of Health on Wednesday night reported 17 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country and one new death related to the virus.

To date, Ireland has registered 25,819 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,754 people have died from the disease in the country, said the department. Enditem
BANGALORE, India, July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Solar energy is harnessed by using various technologies such as photovoltaics (PV), which directly convert light to electricity; concentrating solar power (CSP), which uses heat from the sun (thermal energy) to drive utility-scale, electric turbines; and solar heating and cooling (SHC) systems

The global solar energy market size was valued at USD 52.5 Billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 223.3 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 20.5% from 2019 to 2026

The global Solar energy market is expected to witness rapid growth due to declining costs of solar energy equipment, coupled with increased competitiveness of battery storage.

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TRENDS INFLUENCING THE SOLAR ENERGY MARKET SIZE

Factors such as clear federal policies such as solar investment tax credit, rapidly dropping prices, and rising demand for renewable energy in both the private and public sectors is expected to drive the solar energy market size. Furthermore, due to the boom in rooftop installations, the demand for solar cells has gained significant momentum.

The need for parabolic troughs and solar power towers for generating electricity is expected to fuel demand for solar energy market size.

In the last decade, the cost of installing solar has plummeted by more than 70%, allowing the industry to grow into new markets and deploy thousands of systems nationwide. This reduction in cost is expected to increase the solar energy market size.

Increasing environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emissions followed by increasing energy consumption are driving industries towards more efficient and cost-effective energy supplies. Such factors would likely push the development of the solar energy market size during the forecast period.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the solar energy market size. While utility-scale solar has not been as heavily impacted, growth projections are now lower than expected, and the virus has created significant uncertainty for projects under development.

With the production of photovoltaic-based power distribution systems, the competition among manufacturers has greatly increased.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Manu-2X28/solar-energy

SOLAR ENERGY MARKET SHARE

The Asia Pacific region is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period. Emerging economies such as China and Japan have significantly increased solar energy development due to government tariffs and mergers & acquisitions by local manufacturers. Furthermore, the rising population, coupled with increasing non-conventional energy prices, is likely to drive the size of solar energy in the Asia Pacific region.

region is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period. Emerging economies such as and have significantly increased solar energy development due to government tariffs and mergers & acquisitions by local manufacturers. Furthermore, the rising population, coupled with increasing non-conventional energy prices, is likely to drive the size of solar energy in the region. North America holds the largest solar energy market share. This dominance of North America is due to the presence of well-developed infrastructure in the region.

holds the largest solar energy market share. This dominance of is due to the presence of well-developed infrastructure in the region. Europe has concentrated primarily on optimizing solar capacity.

has concentrated primarily on optimizing solar capacity. The Middle East and Africa have also gained momentum due to expanded solar energy applications for power generation, agriculture, and architecture.

By Region

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

LAMEA.

Inquire for Regional Data: https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/ALLI-Manu-2X28/Solar_Energy_Market

SOLAR ENERGY MARKET SEGMENTATION

By Application

Residential

Commercial

Industrial.

By End-Use

Electricity Generation

Lighting

Heating

Charging.

Key Companies

Photovoltaic Systems

Concentrated Solar Power Systems

Parabolic Trough

Solar Power Tower

Fresnel Reflectors

Dish Stirling

By Solar Module

Monocrystalline

Polycrystalline

Cadmium Telluride

Amorphous Silicon Cells

Others.

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SIMILAR REPORTS :

 Photovoltaic Market Report

The global photovoltaic market size was valued at USD 53,916.0 Million in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 333,725.1 Million by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 25.1% from 2019 to 2026.

Major factors that are expected to increase the Photovoltaic market size are growing need for renewable energy resources, combined with favorable government regulations. Photovoltaic technology is being used on a commercial scale in solar lamps, parking meters, mobile telephones, garbage compactors, temporary traffic signs, charging stations, and remote guard posts and signals. In the manufacturing sector, photovoltaic energy is used to produce electricity for the smooth functioning of satellites in orbit in the aerospace & defense industry. These factors are further expected to increase the photovoltaic market size.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Manu-0G19/photovoltaic

 Concentrated Solar Power Market Report

The global concentrated solar power market size was valued at USD 3,793.0 Million in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 8,046.7 Million by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 10.3% from 2019 to 2026. The MEA region accounted for nearly 21.0% market share in 2018.

Growing government support for implementing sustainable energies coupled with increasing energy demand & ability to produce power without CO2 emissions drives the market growth. In addition, the increase of carbon-based environmental concerns results in an emphasis on reducing air pollution and creating awareness of global warming. These aspects are expected to fuel the growth of Concentrated Solar Power Market size.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Manu-0W20/concentrated-solar-power

 Solar PV Tracker Market Report

The global solar tracker market demand was pegged at 25.0 GW in 2018, expanding at a CAGR of 32.0% from 2019 to 2025.

Increasing energy conservation issues and the transition from non-renewable energy to renewable energy are expected to increase the growth of Solar PV Tracker Market size during the forecast period. Solar tracker uses different electrical components, including actuators, motors, and sensors to align the cells to focus the sunlight and optimize the captured energy.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-24D1095/global-solar-pv-tracker

 Solar Cells Market Report

Owing to the growing demand for PV systems for industrial, residential, and utility applications, the solar cell market size is expected to see substantial growth over the forecast period.

The top companies in the solar cell market Sanyo Solar, Kyocera Solar, Sharp, Motech, SunPower, SolarWorld, Canadian Solar, Hanhua, Bosch, Isofoton, REC, Neo Solar Power, Gintech Energy, and E-Ton Solar Tech.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-24Y2606/covid-19-impact-on-solar-cells

 Solar PV Market Report

The Solar PV market was valued at USD 44800 Million in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 52200 Million by 2025

China holds the largest Solar PV market share accounting for 50% of the total market in 2015, and is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period as well.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-8126/global-solar-pv

 Solar Inverter Market Report

Solar Inverter is widely accepted owing to its property of instantaneous conversion of DC power input to AC current while connected to an on-grid system.

The report includes a country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by Type and by Application segment in terms of production capacity, price, and revenue for the period 2015-2026.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-34Z1035/global-solar-inverter

 Solar Micro Inverters Market Report

The residential segment accounted for the major share of the solar power inverter market during 2017. The dominance of this segment is due to the increased demand and sales volume. Our analysts predicted that this segment would continue to lead the market and account for the largest share by 2025.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Auto-14E1289/global-solar-micro-inverters

 Thin Film Solar Panels Market Report

Major competitors identified in this market include First Solar, Sharp, Solar Frontier, Hanergy, ZSW, Sentech, Station, CivicSolar, KANEKA Solar Energy, SoloPower, Solar-Facts, Flisom, etc.

This report provides a complete quantitative data and qualitative analysis on the global market for Thin Film Solar Panels. Market size is analyzed by country, product type, application, and competitors.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-2T313/thin-film-solar-panels

 Hybrid Solar Wind Energy Storage Market Report

The global Hybrid Solar Wind Energy Storage market size is projected to reach USD 1108.8 Million by 2026, from USD 1045.9 Million in 2020.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-1Z319/hybrid-solar-wind-energy-storage

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Telecom operators will now have to provide the location grid of the premises of bulk subscribers during physical verification for issuing new connections, according to a DoT order. Telecom companies will have to provide a point of sale code through a portal to law enforcement agencies, the order said. The Department of Telecom (DoT) in an order issued on July 20 asked telecom operators to remove or correct gibberish text in consumer application form of all existing connections that were given to customers using electronic know you customer (e-KYC) and Digital KYC processes.

"In case of issuing new mobile connections to the bulk subscriber, during the physical verification of the premises of bulk subscribers, the latitude/longitude of the premises of the bulk subscriber and data and time of the inspection shall be captured and the same shall be inserted in the CAF and database," the order said. The move will ensure that physical verification of the bulk connections is done by telecom companies.

DoT has mandated telecom companies to conduct inspection of premises of bulk connection users every six month and capture the location grid. DoT has found gibberish entries in the consumer application form (CAF) submitted by telecom operators and they have been asked to remove or correct such anomalies in the existing CAFs collected through e-KYC and D-KYC processes.

The Department had allowed telecom operators to use Aadhaar based e-KYC process from August 2016 but discontinued it following the Supreme Court judgement in Aadhaar related matter in September 2018. Thereafter, DoT started D-KYC whereby telcos were allowed to submit scanned copy of customer's photo ID and address proof and digitally filled basic details of the subscriber in CAF. All the phone connections at present are issued through D-KYC process.

Under the new rules, telecom operators will have to verify details of the company from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs before activating the SIM cards. DoT has ordered the implementation of the new process "within three months from the date of issue of these instructions".
The soon-to-open GAC dealership will rise in Quezon City and will be under the helm of Masa Mart Business Center (MMBC). The contract signing between LMI and Masa Mart Business Center was held at GAC Motor Metrowalk last July 21, 2020. Present during the contract signing were LMI CEO Wilbert Lim, LMI vice president for Sales and Operations Giovanni Frias, and Jessie Royo, Chairman of Masa Mart Business Center.

GAC will soon be opening a new dealership in Metro Manila. This comes after Legado Motors Inc. (LMI), the official distributor of GAC cars in the country, recently signed an agreement with their newest business partner.

Apart from officially inking the partnership, the executives of Masa Mart Business Center were also able to meet with LMI Chairman and president Luis 'Chavit' Singson at his residence.

Once officially opened, GAC Motor Quezon City will serve as the company's latest dealership alongside the upcoming GAC Lucena in Quezon province. As of July 2020, GAC has seven dealerships operating in the country. These include Pasig, Las Pinas, Alabang, Pampanga, Tarlac, Imus, and Cebu.

Like all GAC dealerships, GAC Motor Quezon City will offer a wide array of vehicles. These include the GA4 and GA8 sedans, the GS4 crossover, the GM8 premium minivan, the flagship GS8 seven-seater SUV, as well as the new GS3 subcompact crossover.

As GAC continues to expand its dealer network in the country, expect more GAC vehicles to populate the roads soon.
A scooter-riding tourist has been filmed swerving violently across a road in Bali prompting furious locals to call for the man to be deported.

The incident filmed on Saturday showed the rider wobbling around on his scooter in what appeared to be a comedic skit for social media.

In the footage, the western tourist was seen weaving between traffic as his friend could be heard laughing in the background.

The rider was seen blaring his horn, accelerating suddenly and rapidly changing direction before he narrowly avoided running into a tree and a light pole.

At one point in the video, a local man appeared to be fed up with the behaviour and rode past the reckless rider.

The video prompted outrage among Indonesian locals who have demanded the rider face punishment.

'Deportation plus a $1million fine,' a man wrote online.

A tourist (pictured) has been filmed riding along a road in Bali while rapidly swerving and endangering locals in an apparent comedic skit

Some Balinese people believed it was common behaviour from tourists and said their government should take swift action to keep locals safe.

'It's better to close the motorbike rental so that foreigners can not use it again, use public transport instead,' a local said.

'If you were a native of Bali you would be immediately arrested,' said another.

As the man rides along he comes close to hitting trees and even other traffic who are trying to get past him (pictured)

It is the latest example of dangerous behaviour that has ignited tensions between Indonesian locals and international visitors.

In August, Bali's Governor Wayan Koster warned that tourists could be kicked off the island if they misbehaved after an influencer couple were filming splashing each other with holy water at a temple.

'In the future, if there are tourists behaving like that we should just send them home, they are being disorderly coming to Bali. We will give them this warning,' he told reporters.

Just days later, footage emerged of Australian man Nicholas Carr fly-kicking a motorcyclist off their bike in a drunken rampage in Bali.

The builder was arrested by police after consuming up to 30 shots of vodka and told the court he remembered nothing of his rampage.

Carr signed a peace agreement with his victim and paid him $4,500 to buy new glasses and mend his scooter.

Despite facing up to two years and eight months in jail Carr was released after serving just four months in prison.
Speaking exclusively with Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on Wednesday, BJP national vice president Baijayant Jay Panda urged Bollywood personalities to cut links with individuals having ISI links. Elaborating on his tweet which created a buzz on social media, Panda mentioned that he had received feedback on the connection of people having ISI and Pakistan Army links with Bollywood. He added that there were multiple threads on Twitter containing photographic evidence of persons urging people to commit violence in Jammu and Kashmir. According to him, such individuals were seen partying with Bollywood personalities.

Came across shocking threads documenting personal & business links of some Bollywood personalities with certain Pakistanis & NRIs with undeniable track record encouraging violence in J&K, who have verifiable links to ISI & Pak army. I urge patriotic Bollywoodies to renounce them.  Baijayant Jay Panda (@PandaJay) July 22, 2020

Baijayant Jay Panda remarked, "As somebody in public life for the last two decades, one keeps hearing buzz. I was getting a lot of feedback on the continued connections of people who have links to ISI and Pakistan Army with Bollywood. We know that in the past, Bollywood has had funding from the underworld that has been operating and living out of Pakistan. Some of it has been cleaned up. But not all of it."

Read: Anubhav Sinha Says, 'I Hereby Resign From Bollywood'; Hansal Mehta, Sudhir Mishra React

He added, "There is more than one thread that gives some photographic evidence of some NRIs and some Pakistani people living in Western countries. They have two kinds of track records- one, on social media, they are urging people to commit violence, and secondly, have been shown in Pakistan Army camps. And, they are shown partying and having business links with Bollywood personalities."

Read: BJP's Jay Panda Urges Bollywood To Renounce Celebs With 'verifiable ISI, Pakistan Links'

'Bollywood personalities are patriotic'

Panda refuted the notion that Bollywood stars can be insulated with cultivating such relationships at a juncture when the Pakistani military establishment was sending terrorists to kill Indians. Giving them the benefit of doubt, he asserted that the Bollywood personalities are patriotic. At the same time, he asked them to dump these "ISI handlers" and cut all links with them.

"I don't think any Indian today can avoid thinking about India-Pakistan when the ISI and Pakistani Army continue to send terrorists across every week and continue to kill hundreds of Indians- both soldiers and civilians. So, it is no good to say that we don't know about this. I would like to give them the benefit of doubt...I would like to believe that our Bollywood personalities are patriotic and they should dump these ISI handlers. They should cut their links with them," the BJP national vice president elaborated.

Read: Anurag Kashyap Answers KRK's 'whose Bollywood Camp Are You?' Inquiry With Blistering Reply

Read: Ranvir Shorey Opens Up About Bollywood's 'abuse Of Power'
The Supreme Court on Wednesday endorsed the Uttar Pradesh governments suggestion that a former judge of the top court, justice B S Chauhan will head a Commission to probe the encounter involving gangster Vikas Dubey and other incidental events leading to his death

A former Allahabad high court judge Shashi Kant Aggarwal and UPs former director general of police (DGP) K L Gupta and will also be members of the Commission.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by CJI SA Bobde approved the names and asked the Commission to submit its report in two months. The report shall also be given to the State government as per Commission of Inquiry Act.

On Monday, the apex court had asked the UP government to consider appointing a retired Supreme Court judge and a former Director General of Police in a panel to probe the Dubeys death in an encounter.

The state government has contacted Justice Chauhan and taken his approval. He is willing to devote time despite Covid situation and travel to Kanpur and Allahabad,  Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench as he shared the draft notification.

According to the terms of reference, the Commission will investigate not only the incident involving encounter of Vikas Dubey but also probe the inaction of authorities which led to the gangster being released on bail despite facing over 60 cases.

The bench had earlier held that this was the single most important factor that led to the incident in which Dubey was shot dead after he allegedly tried to escape and fired on policemen on July 10.

The Commission will also probe why no efforts were made to cancel Dubeys bail. The encounter of the intervening night of July 2-3 in which eight policemen were killed, will also be probed.

We do not want to tie the hands of the Commission by specifying the terms of reference. It should be kept as wide as possible, the bench said.

The secretarial assistance for the Commission will be provided by Centre. The Court said that the Commissions proceedings will not affect the trial of other accused in the case.
New Delhi:

An all-party meet over the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency was held in the Parliament on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders arttended the meeting.

Here are the live updates:

#It's not about political ideology today, its about fight for people: Dinesh Trivedi, TMC after WB CM's meeting with Delhi CM



#Delhi: CM Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy CM Manish Sisodia arrive to meet WB CM Mamata Banerjee



#Delhi: Union Cabinet meeting ends



#There is no single person in this country who is not suffering with demonitisation, this is the biggest scam of all time: GN Azad, Congress



#Govt is ready for discussion on all issues: Ananth Kumar, Union Minister on winter session



#Delhi: Union Ministers arrive for cabinet meeting



#PM also said that discussion should be done on possibility of holding Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha elections together: Ananth Kumar

#PM said in all Party meeting that all parties should show support in Winter session in national interest: Ananth Kumar, Union Minister



#All party meeting in the Parliament ends

#Lucknow: UP CM Akhilesh Yadav announces that Rs 500/1000 old notes will be accepted for land registration till Nov 24th

#InsideVisuals All party meet underway in the Parliament, PM Narendra Modi and other senior leaders present pic.twitter.com/J9whzhcGl8  ANI (@ANI_news) November 15, 2016

Delhi: PM Narendra Modi arrives for All Party Meeting pic.twitter.com/xY8oZYe9OX  ANI (@ANI_news) November 15, 2016

#CPI General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy: If the Prime Minister is sincere, he should apologise to thenation and set right things by allowing people to use the old currency till December 31 for all publicutilities like journeys, hospitals, medical shops, tax payments, phone payments, to purchase foodgrains, and essential commodities.

ALSO READ | Putting indelible ink shows Modi govt distrusts common man, says Mamata Banerjee

The demonetisation issue on Monday figured prominently at the all-party meeting convened by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan with all major opposition parties, including the Congress, wanting a debate on it in Parliament.

The cross-LoC surgical strikes, policy towards Pakistan, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, besides OROP and the plight of farmers were also among issues that were raised at the meeting with parties demanding discussion on them.

ALSO READ | Opposition unites to take on PM Narendra Modi in Parliament over demonetisation

Major opposition parties, during the meeting which lasted over three hours, urged Mahajan to allow a debate on demonetisation on a priority so difficulties faced by the common man could be highlighted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also attended a dinner hosted by the Speaker after the all-party meeting.

Leaders of various parties have demanded discussion on demonetisation and the steps taken by the government to exchange the currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. The situation in Jammu and Kashmir, holding of simultaneous elections to state assemblies and Lok Sabha, and state funding of polls also emerged as issues on which parties have demanded discussion, the Speaker said after the meeting.

Meanwhile, hitting out at the Opposition, BJP on Tuesday said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working to curb black money and corruption with his demonetisation exercise, rival parties have ganged up against him.

Terming demonetisation as a surgical strike on black money, BJP National Secretary Shrikant Sharma claimed that the general public is in the support of the move and now it has taken a shape of peoples movement.

He added that despite difficulties, the common man is supporting the decision.



(With PTI inputs)

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Skylar, the 21-year-old college student responsible for writing Black Lives Matter over local artist Scott LoBaidos thin-blue line NYPD tribute outside the departments 122nd Precinct stationhouse in New Dorp, said she stenciled over the line to push back against the divisiveness she says it stands for.

It seemed like a direct response to the Black Lives Matter mural, and it didnt sit right with me, said Skylar, who declined to provide her last name while standing outside the precinct on Tuesday with a small group of protestors.

After seeing LoBaido create the blue line on the Advance/SILive.com, Syklar said she went to her garage and began creating stencils to use  and then I just did it.

Many people drove by, cursing at me, telling me to get out,' get off the Island,' you hate America,' but thats not the case, she said. I did it because I love this country and I see the potential in this country, so thats why I did it.

The small group of protestors who gathered on Tuesday, some of whom held signs that read, Black Lives Matter, received verbal barbs from passing motorists. One driver said, go home. Others hurled profanities.

Skylar, however, said the Black Lives Matter movement doesnt mean that police lives dont matter, doesnt mean that white lives dont matter. It doesnt mean any of that stuff.

Black lives are not treated the same way, she said. If Black lives matter, we all win, because we all matter then. Then all lives matter. Thats the third step  were on the first step.

3 21-year-old who wrote Black Lives Matter over blue line details decision: I did it because I love this country'

LoBaido, who recently held a police rally at the 122nd Precinct, painted the blue line along the divider on Hylan Boulevard that runs from Bancroft Avenue to Lincoln Avenue. He said the tribute, isnt anti-BLM, adding that the subtle and simple piece of art is meant to stand as a sign of support for the NYPD.

He re-painted the line on Tuesday  the same day he unveiled an anti-de Blasio banner on the overpass of the Staten Island expressway, which depicted the mayor wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt while holding up the seemingly-decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty.

The banner hung off the Fingerboard Road overpass of the expressway. LoBaido had to remove the artwork shortly after unfurling it.

While the thin blue line remained untouched on the Hylan Boulevard median as of Tuesday night, Skylar said her future plans are to be determined.

Anti-de Blasio artwork created by Scott LoBaido hangs from the Fingerboard Road exit of the Staten Island Expressway. (Staten Island Advance/Tom Wrobleski)Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Adva
London: Labour leader Keir Starmer and his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn are on course for an ugly public showdown following an unprecedented admission that the party had defamed a prominent BBC journalist and seven staffers who blew the whistle on anti-Semitism.

Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions who took over after the opposition's thumping 2019 election defeat, on Wednesday declared Labour was "under new management" amid the escalating clash with Corbyn and his hard-Left supporters.

Earlier, Labour revealed it would pay damages to seven former staffers who broke non-disclosure agreements to appear on the BBC's Panorama program to raise serious concerns over how the party handled complaints about anti-Semitic conduct.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has blasted his successor for awarding damages to a BBC journalist and seven former staffers. Credit:PA

Labour released a statement before the episode went to air in mid-2019 labelling the whistleblowers "disaffected former staff" with "personal and political axes to grind".
The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday called on Service Chiefs to step aside. On Wednesday, a source close to the federal government cl...





The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday called on Service Chiefs to step aside.





On Wednesday, a source close to the federal government claimed that the Senate resolution was reached at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.





On Friday July 17, President Muhammadu Buhari had a parley with Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and House Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila.





The source asserted that the meeting agreed that the legislature should demand the ouster of the Service Chiefs.





He said: The lawmakers are providing cover for Mr. President to execute his plan to replace the top military hierarchy. Their removal was sealed at the meeting.





You asked why Mr. President has not fired them already? This has been long delayed for reasons best known to him; he now has the rationale.





Also remember, after that meeting, he warned ministers and heads of agencies to respect the National Assembly.





That comment was not just about their attitude, disregard for lawmakers invitation/summons or ongoing investigative hearings.





All of this fits into a bigger political play. NASS is being used to provide cover for Mr. President to do what he wants to.





The military chiefs, appointed by Buhari in 2015, clocked 5 years in office on July 13.





Arguably, their tenure is the longest enjoyed by security heads since Nigeria became an independent country.





They are Gen. Abayomi Olonishakin  Chief of Defence Staff; Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai  Chief of Army Staff; Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas  Chief of Naval Staff, and Air Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar  Chief of Air Staff.





But despite the spate of insecurity, Buhari has refused to fire them.





Nigerians and groups have been protesting even in the face of Police harassment and intimidation.





This has not deterred them from condemning the president for retaining the quartet.





They say Buhari, a retired General, only issues occasional directives that are yet to change the situation.





Security and the economy were the two issues the president and the All Progressives Congress (APC) based their electioneering campaign on.





On a weekly basis, officers and soldiers fighting Boko Haram/ISWAP are killed in action, with some deserting or resigning from the Armed Forces.





Hundreds of marauding terrorists and bandits continue to maim civilians; women and children are not spared.





Nigerias security challenge may be aggravated with the invitation to bandits operating in North-Central and North-West by Boko Haram factional leader, Abubakar Shekau.





A Shekau commander requested brothers in Lake Chad, Cameroon, Sambisa, Niger State, Zamfara State, to join the sect.





Keep doing it (attacks) because Allah instructed us in the Holy Quran to strive harder for His cause. Allah has instructed us to kill everyone that is unbelieving.





We thank God who put us on this path, to promote His words and institute His law. We call you to join us to institute Sharia globally. When you come, we will accept you according to (Shariah) law, and we (will) worship Allah as He commands us.





Meanwhile, going by the latest position, Nigerian lawmakers too have had enough.





On Tuesday, the Senate told the Service Chiefs to go after considering a motion on the rising number of casualties in the Nigerian Army and other security agencies.





The motion for their resignation was contained in a proposed amendment to the resolutions of the Senate.





It was moved by Francis Adenigba Fadahunsi (PDP  Osun East) and seconded by Betty Apiafi (PDP  Rivers West).





The Red Chamber also urged Buhari to urgently provide modern equipment to enhance the operational capabilities of the military.





Ali Ndume (APC  Borno South), sponsor of the original motion, under Order 42 and 52 of the Senate Standing Rules, recalled that 24 soldiers were recently ambushed and killed along Damboa  Maiduguri road in Borno State.





He decried that similarly, 19 were wounded and 9 declared missing.





The Senate is disturbed that in Katsina again, about 20 soldiers were also ambushed and killed while several others were wounded. The Senate appreciates the sacrifices of our armed forces in the fight against insurgency, banditry and protection of the territorial integrity of Nigeria, he said.





Ndume warned that if the trend continues, there will be grievous implications on the fight against insurgency and banditry in Africas biggest nation.





After one minute silence in honour of fallen soldiers, the Senate mandated the joint committee on Army, Air Force, Navy, National Security and Nigeria Police, to receive briefings on the current conditions of affairs.





Lawan charged the committee to look into the desertion of soldiers battling enemies of the state.





The spirit of this motion is that our Armed Forces are trying very hard, but just like the President said, their good is not good enough. We need to continue to encourage and provide for them. They lay their lives on behalf of us.




Hyundai of Moreno Valley details its new Hyundai models included with the Hyundai Summer Sales Event. Pictured is the 2020 Hyundai Elantra.

Drivers searching for a new Hyundai for a great price should consider visiting Hyundai of Moreno Valley during the Hyundai Summer Sales Event. Hyundai of Moreno Valley, a dealership located in southern California, has four select new Hyundai models included with the Hyundai Summer Sales Event. The models being offered are the 2020 Hyundai Tucson Value Edition, 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe SEL, 2020 Hyundai Elantra SE and the 2020 Hyundai Sonata.

Note that while all four models are part of the Hyundai Summer Sales Event, each vehicle comes with unique financing options. Qualified shoppers can select any of the following offers:



Finance the 2020 Hyundai Tucson Value Edition with 0% APR for 72 months or lease for $259 per month for 36 months with $2,699 due at signing

Finance the 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe SEL with 0% APR for 72 months or lease for $259 a month for 36 months with $3,599 due at signing

Finance the 2020 Hyundai Elantra SE with 0% APR for 60 months or lease for $178 per month for 36 months with $2,299 due at signing

Finance the 2020 Hyundai Sonata with 0% APR for 60 months

The Hyundai Summer Sales Event will end on August 31, 2020. Shoppers are encouraged to contact the dealership beforehand to take advantage of these offers. Those with questions can contact Hyundai of Moreno Valley at 951-900-4248 or online at http://www.hyundaiofmorenovalley.com. Anyone in the area that would like to speak with a representative in person can visit its location at 27500 Eucalyptus Ave in Moreno Valley, California.
Cairo prioritises reaching a ceasefire and a Libyan-Libyan political negotiated solution between the warring forces, Shoukry said

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told his French and German counterparts that reaching a political solution in conflict-torn Libya requires firm response to extremists and foreign interference.

Shoukry discussed the crisis in Libya with Frances Jean-Yves Le Drian and Germanys Heiko Maas in two separate phone calls, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

During the discussions, Shoukry said reaching the desired political solution requires firmly countering the spread of extremist organisations and foreign interferences in the Libyan territories, which he said undermine the security of countries on the Mediterranean as well as regional and international stability.

Shoukry said Cairo is giving priority to reaching a ceasefire and a Libyan-Libyan political negotiated solution between the warring forces, the statement said.

He said the Cairo initiative for Libya announced last month, which proposes a ceasefire and an elected leadership council, aims to bring stability to the neighbouring country and eliminate terrorist groups and militias there.

Earlier this week, France, Germany and Italy threatened to impose sanctions on foreign powers violating a United Nations arms embargo in Libya, without naming any.

Egypts parliament on Monday approved the deployment of Armed Forces abroad to defend the national security on the strategic western front against the work of armed criminal militias and foreign terrorist elements.

The decision came days after Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi warned Egypt will not stand idle in the face of any attack on Sirte, which he earlier described as a red line for Egypts national security and warned it could prompt military intervention by Cairo.

The oil-rich country has been split since 2014 between two rival administrations in the east and west with parallel institutions.

The east government is represented by the Tobruk-based House of Representatives allied with the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Commander Khalifa Haftar, while the west is represented by the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

Egypt, the UAE and Russia back Haftar, while the GNA is supported by Turkey and Qatar.

Turkey began earlier this year sending thousands of Syrian Jihadists and mercenaries into Libya to back the GNA, and Turkey-backed forces moved earlier this week close to the central city of Sirte as they vowed to capture it from Haftars forces.

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Too Hot To Handle bombshell Francesca Farago shared a kiss with Australian model Casey Boonstra in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The dynamic duo were spotted locking lips and then walking hand-in-hand while out and about.

The 26-year-old showed off her taut midriff in a barely-there bandeau while Casey was barely contained by a plunging shirt dress.

All that sweet affection: Too Hot To Handle bombshell Francesca Farago shared a kiss with Australian model Casey Boonstra in Los Angeles on Tuesday

This past Sunday Francesca was spotted holding hands with platinum blonde social media star Tana Mongeau while out on a walk.

Tana, who has dated Bella Thorne and Lil Xan, had a Las Vegas wedding to her fellow YouTube star Jake Paul last year.

It later emerged that they were never legally married and that they had an open relationship, and by this January they were broken up.

Meanwhile last Friday Francesca frolicked around the beach with her Too Hot To Handle co-star Haley Cureton, whom she kissed on the show.

Legging it: Francesca, 26, showed off her taut midriff in a barely-there bandeau while Casey was barely contained by a plunging shirt dress

Francesca had been spotted in New York the previous weekend enjoying a date with Jersey Shore dreamboat Vinny Guadagnino.

DailyMail.com exclusively obtained photos of Vinny and Francesca sitting down to a meal together Saturday evening.

Late last month Haley told TMZ that she and Francesca were 'potentially thinking about moving in together. In the future.'

Haley said so amid news that Francesca was dumped by her fiance Harry Jowsey whom she met on Too Hot To Handle.

Cozying up: The dynamic duo were spotted that evening locking lips and then walking hand-in-hand while out and about

Harry insisted: 'Nothing bad happened. I simply fell out of love, I lost that massive spark that I had at the start of the show.'

Both he and Francesca said the long-distance factor was involved in the split as they were self-isolating separately amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In a YouTube video about the breakup Australian hunk took 'full responsibility' for Francesca's 'heartbroken' state and publicly told her: 'If you're watching, I hope you're okay. I'm only a phone call away. I'll always be here for you.'

Smoldering: Francesca was spotted in New York a week and a half ago enjoying a date with Jersey Shore star Vinny Guadagnino (pictured)

Francesca, who shared a kiss with Haley on their Netflix reality show, sobbed during her own YouTube video discussing the breakup.

Haley told TMZ that 'I think Harry was with Francesca for publicity 100 percent' and claimed that he never 'genuinely loved' her.

She said Harry was not 'capable of loving anyone besides himself' and that ''Everything he does in life is to benefit himself. I don't know if I ever saw it working.'
22.07.2020 LISTEN

The Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund has broadened its reach in the training of persons for the Funds anti-stigmatization campaign against COVID-19 by training three hundred (300) persons from the Ghana Employers Association and the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners (IHRMP).

The training programme is part of the COVID-19 Private Sector Funds initiative to curtail incidents of stigmatization against COVID-19 recovered persons, frontline workers, and their family members.

Apart from training persons from the security institutions, health institutions, among others, the Fund saw the need to train Employers as well as Human Resource practitioners as they manage and interact with employees on a daily basis.

In the three-day virtual sessions, about three hundred employers and human resource persons were tutored on the general knowledge on COVID-19 related psycho-social challenges and the most appropriate way of educating Ghanaians across the country, the psychological impact on persons who are stigmatized after recovery and the myths around COVID-19 recoveries. The training highlighted the need for employers and management of organizations to initiate COVID-19 competency protocol.

Senyo Hosi, the Managing Trustee of the COVID-19 Private Sector Fund, mentioned that it was important to include employers and human resource practitioners in these training interventions because quite recently, it was observed that some of the infections were passed on amongst work colleagues and those who recover are likely to face stigmatization at the workplace.

We have heard reports of people contracting the disease at the workplace. Such occurrences are inevitable because while some organizations can work from home, others will need to have a person to person interaction before the work can be done. These organizations definitely have high exposure risks. Nonetheless, we are aware some may recover and they will have to deal with yet another problem; stigmatization.

This is why we have included the employers and human resource practitioners in our training program to ultimately help their organizations.

Dr. Ebenezer Agbetor, Executive Director of the Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners (IHRMP), explained that we started experiencing stigmatization, hence the training has been timely for practitioners, not just for their personal benefit but in managing such incidents at the workplace.

We have been enlightened by the training and it has dispelled myths and misinformation hanging around COVID-19. The fear is reducing and managing cases has become easy because practitioners understand it better.

The Let Love Lead.

The Stigma anti-stigmatization campaign is an initiative of the COVID -19 Private Sector Fund, sponsored by the Ghana National Petroleum Authority (GNPC), with support from the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ghana Psychological Association (GPA), Ghana Medical Association (GMA) and Global Media Alliance.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  Lawmakers physically attending President Rodrigo Dutertes State of the Nation Address on July 27 will have to undergo both RT-PCR and rapid tests to detect COVID-19.

House Deputy Secretary General for Administration Department Dr. Ramon Ricardo Roque told reporters Wednesday that the two tests are prerequisites for guests and technical staff who will be at the Batasang Pambansa for SONA.

Senators and House members will be swabbed for the RT-PCR test, the so called gold standard in COVID-19 testing, on the eve of SONA, July 26. They will undergo rapid test at specified venues in the morning of July 27.

Those who test positive for COVID-19 in either the RT-PCR or rapid tests will be denied entry to the session hall, Roque said.

Pag nag-positive kahit saan, out na. Yung principals, wala silang kapalit. Pero yung technical staff, may kapalit sila. Yung alternates ng technical staff, is-swab din sila," he said in a press briefing on the House of Representatives preparations for SONA.

[Translation: If they test positive in any of the two, they're out. The principals don't have replacement, but the technical staff have. The alternates of the technical staff will undergo swab testing, too.]

Organizers have limited the number of people inside Batasang Pambansa to ensure the safety of Duterte and other government officials amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

House Secretary General Jose Luis Montales said the number of lawmakers and House officials present at the session hall will be limited to 25. Those present at the opening of the session will be the same persons who will listen to Dutertes speech live.

The following have been chosen to physically attend the opening of the second regular session and the joint session for the SONA:

1. Alan Peter Cayetano

2. Luis Raymund Villafuerte

3. Martin Romualdez

4. Jonathan Sy-Alvarado

5. Bambol Tolentino

6. Bienvenido Abante

7. Eric Yap

8. Elpidio Barzaga

9. Janette Garin

10. Michael Defensor

11. Johnny Pimentel

12. Robert Ace Barbers

13. Jose Luis Montales

14. Brian Raymund Yamsuan

15. Ramon Apolinario

16. Divine Yu

17. Lani Cayetano

18. Chicoy Alvarez

19. Dan Fernandez

20. Rannie Abu

21. Dong Gonzales

22. Juan Miguel Arroyo

23. Rodante Marcoleta

24. Wes Gatchalian

25. Boying Remulla

The House will be implementing health protocols as a precautionary measure against COVID-19. These include mandatory wearing of face masks and face shields inside the session hall, filling out of health declaration forms by every person entering buildings inside Batasang Pambansa, and checking of body temperature upon entry inside the complex.

Markings will also be placed in areas with high foot traffic while surfaces frequently touched by visitors will be disinfected regularly.

Montales said even guests who test negative for COVID-19 wont be allowed to go near the President or shake his hand.

We discourage handshakes 'di ba (We discourage handshakes, right)? And more than that, they will be using face masks and face shields. All the safety precautions and health protocols na currently observed by the House of Representatives will be observed, he said.
The recent directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) banning the importation of maize, has been described as ill-timed, with potentially negative consequences for Nigerias poultry sector.

The apex bank had on July 13 restricted access for the importation of maize through the official CBN forex window.

It hinged its decision on the need to increase local production, stimulate a rapid economic recovery, safeguard rural livelihoods and increase jobs which were lost as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the Programme Director of the Lagos Business School Agribusiness Programme, Ikechukwu Kelikume, stated that the policy could further compound the woes of poultry farmers given that maize, which constitutes over 50 per cent of poultry feed content, is currently very scarce, and where available, is very expensive, even as the price keeps rising.

Although admitting that the CBNs earlier policies of Agric, Small and Medium enterprise scheme and the Anchor Borrowers Programme have been largely successful, he said that the current decision to discontinue the processing of Form M for the importation of Maize could reverse the gains of those interventions.

On the consequences of the CBN directive, Mr Kelikume said: The situation spells doom for poultry farmers across the country who are beginning to cut down on production because of the high cost of feed and imported medication for the birds. A negative spillover effect of the high cost of feed is the scarcity of eggs and a consequent rise in its price across the country. The implications of the current challenges in the maize value chain are that the gains of employing more people in the agricultural sector will be rolled back in the coming months.

As it stands, there is no alternative for the poultry farmers, as the poultry sector will face a catastrophic shortage of feeds, a critical input in their business. This situation will render tens of thousands of them unemployed and undo all the gains made by this sector in the past five years. Thousands of poultry businesses will shut down in the face of high operating costs, leaving business owners and their employees without a means of livelihood.

Mr Kelikume stated that the apex banks decision to ban maize importation was too abrupt, urging the CBN to reverse the decision.

As a matter of necessity, the CBNs decision to discontinue the processing of Form M for the importation of Maize/Corn must be revisited. It is expedient at this time for the Central Bank to allow importers of Maize to import it through the CBN Foreign exchange window, to close the gap in maize shortage while preparing for a phased discontinuation of maize importation in the country, he said.

He estimates the current shortfall in the maize value chain to be around 100,000 metric tons, which translates to an import bill of less than $20 million, describing that as a negligible import burden, even in the current tight foreign exchange situation, and a small price to pay to salvage the poultry sector.

The LBS Agribusiness Programme Director further counselled, The time to act is now. The government must put its mechanism in place to import Maize into the country as a temporary measure to plug the pending scarcity that is imminent in the last quarter of the year 2020. Nigeria has a high production potential for maize. Notwithstanding, the current challenge is that the production and supply bottlenecks in the sector have first to be checkmated for any meaningful import restriction measure to be effective.
The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to give directive to the Minister of Labour and Employment,...





The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to give directive to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige to act according to existing laws on the planned Special Public Works (SPW) programme.





The House resolved that the Constitution does not recognize the office of the Minister of State and also directed the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed not to release funds contrary to that resolution.





The resolution followed a motion of urgent public importance moved by the Deputy Minority Leader, Toby Okechuckwu on Tuesday.





It would be recalled that both the National Assembly and the Minister of State (Labour), Festus Keyamo have been at daggers drawn over the implementation of the N56billion special works programme.

Moving the motion, Okechuckwu said that 202 appropriation law recognizes the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Act as the implementation agency.





He added that Minister of State is not a creation of Section 145 (1) of the 1999 Constitution. This may therefore be the reason for the refusal of the Minister of State to be guided on the method adopted by Parliament for its proceedings and his assertion that only Mr. President can stop our work, not our laws nor our institutions.




More snow on the way in Pennsylvania; here's how much to expect
(Natural News) Cisco Systems calls having an opinion inappropriate conduct, and you get fired on the spot should you criticize Black Lives Matter terrorists who are murdering and raping innocent people, including Blacks, while destroying and burning businesses and police precincts all over America. Thats right, Cisco Systems squelches free speech for its 30,000 employees while calling it inappropriate conduct if they have any opinion that doesnt support BLM-led terrorism.

During a recent company-wide virtual meeting to address racism, CEO Chuck Robbins talked with Black people who work for George Soros Equal Justice Initiative about zero tolerance of racism in the workplace, which means nobody is allowed to talk to or about Black people, even if theyre criminals and are committing hate crimes themselves.

Cisco Systems engages in pathetic virtue signaling, along with all the other race-baiting, America-hating, corporate posers of Silicon Valley

Cisco baited their employees to comment in the online forum, telling everyone they should speak freely about racism and the BLM movement (where Americans are encouraged to murder, rape, loot and burn everything they dont own in the name of equality). A handful of employees were then made examples of when they got fired for posting that BLM is actually racist in its own name  by separating one person from another that are supposed to be trying to live in harmony. Youre fired!

Nobody at Cisco is entitled to have an opinion  unless you support BLM and the murder and rape of Black children in the name of Black peoples rights. You must support Planned Parenthoods murdering of Black babies in the womb during the third trimester and on the babys day of birth, as all Democrat leaders do, or youre also a racist pig who must be fired.

One employee at Cisco Racist Systems posted, All lives matter. That person was also fired. Another intelligent and observant employee posted, People who complain about racism probably have been a racist somewhere else to people from another race or part of systematic oppression in their own community! They too were fired on the spot. Somebody else expressed their opinion on the open chat board, and feels like BLM reinforces racism, and theyre right. They were fired.

This is inappropriate conduct at Cisco Systems and they will not and do not tolerate racism on any level, especially people who arent ready to pay slavery reparations and bow down on their knees to all Black people from now on.

Black Lives Matter is a massive gang of thugs who murder and rape innocent people, but you cant dislike them or youll be fired from your Leftist-run job

At Cisco Systems, the CEO is training all employees to think the right way or be fired, even during open discussion forums where everyone is encouraged to voice their opinion about discrimination, just not the discrimination thats happening to them during the forum.

Over 10,000 comments were made during the racist video conference, and each one was read very carefully after, to see who doesnt support domestic terrorism, and those dissenters were subsequently fired.

Ciscos CEO drove the nail into the coffin of hatred when he announced hes donating $5 million to groups that support deadly riots across America, like Antifa. Ciscos executive vice president, Francine Katsoudas, says she feels a ton of empathy for Black employees at the meeting who had to suffer through Republicans pointing out that BLM is a reverse-racist organization.

Thats why Katsoudas is plugging gobs of dark money into the Antifa domestic terrorism campaign.

The comments on the message board at Cisco about BLM not being such a fair organization, as they claim to be, were apparently so abusive, volatile, and offensive to the snowflake cry-bully liberal freaks at Cisco that they were seared into their minds forever. Thats okay, the rest of us can look forward to the gene pool cleansing.

All in all, things dont look too promising at C.R.S., Cisco Racist Systems, as Soros-paid BLM riot squads across America kill and rape Black people, burn down their businesses, and pull them from their cars to beat them nearly to death. Its all on video, too bad thats not projected on the big screen at the next Nazi-style appropriate conduct training at the C.R.S. re-education camp virtual online meetup.

Tune your internet dial to Trump.news for updates on BLM terrorism and how you can be arrested or fired for disliking when Black Lives Matter gang members rape and murder innocent people. Theres a new kind of terrorist in America that burns down businesses instead of demolishing twin towers  and its a bunch of morons who are led by rich white dudes (Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Dorsey and Soros) who got the masses all so confused theyre literally supporting communism.

This is Minneapolis in 2020. Coming to a theatre (crowded city) near you!

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com

Trump.news
The Trump administration's decision to close China's consulate in Houston on Wednesday came after years of FBI intelligence-gathering showed it was a hot spot of Chinese spying in the U.S., and President Donald Trump has been kept informed about its activities since soon after he took office, U.S. officials told NBC News.

Multiple U.S. officials said that the Houston consulate has long been used by the Chinese government to steal valuable medical research and that it was involved in attempts to infiltrate the oil and natural gas industries. The president has been well briefed about the concerns, they said.

Current and former U.S. law enforcement officials said that the consulate is well fortified and hardened to prevent U.S. surveillance and that it was a high-tech communications hub to coordinate and execute spying operations.

The U.S. government ordered China to "cease all operations and events" at the consulate Wednesday.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told NBC News' Katy Tur that he wouldn't discuss the specific intelligence behind Wednesday's closure.

"But I can tell you for the last two years," he said, "I and other members of the intel committee have been holding classified briefings with business leaders and academic leaders about the concerted efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to steal our intellectual property, to steal it from companies, to steal it from universities, to be on better guard."

Warner suggested that Wednesday's action was driven by the FBI and its intelligence. Current and former federal law enforcement officials applauded the move, saying it was a strong message that was overdue to be delivered to the Chinese government.

On Tuesday night, hours before the news of the consulate's closure was announced, neighbors noticed and recorded small fires in bins in the consulate's internal courtyard. The Houston Fire Department, which responded, said in a statement: "Fire crews were denied access by building occupants. ... According to international agreement, access to the property can only be obtained with consent."

Story continues

Almost exactly three years ago, the fire department was allowed in to put out a fire and was praised in a news release by Chinese officials.

As NBC News has previously reported, the Houston consulate  along with China's other consulates and its embassy in Washington  has also been involved in "mask diplomacy" during the COVID-19 pandemic. With China facing criticism over the coronavirus pandemic, its diplomatic missions in the U.S. were on a charm offensive, organizing donations of medical supplies and food to communities large and small.

IMAGE: The MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (Pat Sullivan / AP file)

The displays of generosity were routinely accompanied by ribbon-cutting events with local officials, covered widely by Chinese state-run media outlets in multiple languages and showcased by the consulates and China's government on social media.

Current and former law enforcement officials say the focus by the consulate and the Chinese government on the oil and natural gas businesses  which are entrenched in Houston  was tied to efforts to understand why the companies were so skilled at finding petroleum fields and drilling locations across the globe.

The FBI in Houston has also been investigating Chinese nationals' efforts to funnel advanced research from Houston's University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center back to China.

The FBI was focused in part on Keping Xie, a gastroenterology professor at the medical facility and a member of the Chinese government science recruiting program called Thousand Talents, which has been linked to espionage efforts in the U.S., according to court filings and multiple U.S. officials briefed on the matter.

Xie was arrested on an unrelated charge in 2018. The charge has since been dropped, and his attorney said at the time that Xie had no knowledge of an espionage-related investigation.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chair of the Homeland Security Committee, said he had been briefed on the investigation. "This is a systematic effort by the Chinese government to get into our medical facilities, our research development facilities, academics as well," McCaul said.

In April 2019, three of five scientists whom federal authorities identified as having been involved in efforts to steal U.S. research on behalf of China were also ousted by at MD Anderson. A fourth scientist resigned before the investigation ended, and the fifth was disciplined by the center.

MD Anderson moved to fire the scientists, whose names weren't released, after the National Institutes of Health contacted at least 55 medical research institutions to report the names of researchers suspected of sharing federally funded research with China or other foreign governments, the NIH said.

"When NIH notified MD Anderson of concerns with specific individuals within its institution, the university took immediate steps to remediate the problem," the NIH said in a statement.

An NBC News review of heavily redacted MD Anderson investigation reports shows that they include detailed payment information from Chinese universities and diagrams documenting how the Thousand Talents program participates in a quid-pro-quo scheme that compensates doctors for intellectual property.

One report said the investigator found "compelling evidence" that an MD Anderson doctor also held a compensated position at a Chinese university that paid a monthly subsidy of 30,000 renminbi, or $4,322.

The reports showed that MD Anderson, after gaining access to some of the researchers' email accounts, discovered documents that showed signed consulting agreements with Chinese entities.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

Shortly before Xie was charged in August 2018, the FBI's Houston field office conducted an unprecedented public briefing with leaders of Houston's medical, science and academic institutions.

In announcing the briefing, the bureau said, "The FBI works closely with private partners and government agencies to ensure that federally funded research grants are guarded and protected against unscrupulous overseas enemies." The news release didn't cite a specific case.

At the briefing, Dr. Peter Pisters, MD Anderson's president, said, "We have an obligation to the people of Texas  and to all people facing a cancer diagnosis  to do everything possible to protect our resources and to safely and securely advance our mission to end cancer."

An unclassified 2018 FBI memo obtained by NBC News says, "Chinese Talent Programs pose a serious threat to U.S. businesses and universities through economic espionage and theft of IP," or intellectual property.
Australia has recorded its highest number of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases as the country's peak medical body urged all people in coronavirus outbreak areas to wear masks.

Across the country 502 new cases were confirmed on Wednesday, above the previous single-day record of 469 in March.

NSW Premier Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned the government will "throw the book" at venues that do the wrong thing. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said the state was at a "really challenging" point of the pandemic, as it recorded its highest daily coronavirus total with 484 cases overnight and two further deaths.

On Wednesday morning, NSW recorded 16 cases including 14 linked to known outbreaks, and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was concerned about the growing clusters around the state.
National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines has operated the first charter flight to Chinas Nanjing City after a five-month suspension owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The flight with 270 Chinese passengers onboard departed from London on July 18 and transited in Hanoi before landing in Nanjing.

The passengers were not allowed to leave the flight during the transit time in Hanoi. On the way to return to Vietnam, the flight did not receive any passengers to ensure safety for Covid-19 prevention. Meanwhile, all flight crew were quarantined as regulated upon landing in Vietnam.

The flight marked the first Vietnamese passenger flight to China since the country has ceased flights to China for over the past five months by reason of the pandemic.

From now to August, Vietnam Airlines will provide more passenger flights from London to Nanjing with the transit in Hanoi. The carrier has continued running cargo flights between Vietnam and China.

International air routes account for up to 60% of Vietnam Airlines total revenues. The firm has planned to resume flights to some Asian countries, including South Korea, Japan, Laos and Cambodia since August.

According to the International Air Transport Association, the global aviation market would lose USD419 billion in total this year due to Covid-19 and the figure for Vietnam would be USD4 billion.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc recently allowed the re-opening of flights between Vietnam and China after the Covid-19 pandemic. Flight frequency and related regulations would be decided by the two-side aviation authorities.

Dan Viet/Dtinews
OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau is considering all options to evaluate claims of harassment at Rideau Hall after unprecedented allegations that Governor General Julie Payette has created a toxic workplace there.

CBC News reported Tuesday evening that Payette has reduced some staff members to tears and caused a number of them to quit the Governor Generals service.

Citing a dozen unnamed sources, the CBC reported that Payette  a former astronaut recommended by Trudeau to Queen Elizabeth for the position in 2017  yelled at, belittled and publicly humiliated people who work for her.

It is the latest in a number of controversies that have raised questions about Payettes selection as Governor General, a largely ceremonial position whose office-holders are nonetheless called upon occasionally to advise the prime minister on constitutional questions and to act as a democratic safeguard in times of crisis.

Asked if Trudeau still had confidence in the Governor General, the Prime Ministers Office responded that every Canadian has the right to work in a healthy, respectful and safe environment.

Our government is committed to ensuring that all federally regulated workplaces are free from harassment of any kind, PMO spokesperson Alex Wellstead said in a written statement Tuesday.

A government source said the PMO was looking at all options to evaluate the claims, noting that new federal regulations about workplace harassment that came into effect in June apply to the staff at Rideau Hall.

Contacted Wednesday for comment, a spokesperson for Payette referred the Star to Rideau Halls public statement from Tuesday night.

We take these matters very seriously, and we are proud of our stringent internal processes for our employees to voice concerns, the statement read, noting Rideau Halls employees are unionized and have additional processes for the protection and support of federal public servants.

Since the beginning of the mandate, no formal complaint regarding harassment has been made through any of these channels.

Payettes friend and personal secretary, Assunta Di Lorenza, is also alleged in the CBC report to bully staff at Rideau Hall, calling them lazy and incompetent.

In a letter sent Tuesday night to Rideau Hall employees, Di Lorenza called the CBC report negative but did not dispute its content.

I want you to know that I, along with the Governor General and the entire management team, am deeply committed to fostering a healthy work environment, Di Lorenza wrote in the letter, obtained by the Star and first reported by CBC.

Please rest assured that the well-being of our employees remains our priority.

On Wednesday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Trudeau had an obligation to look into the allegations.

The stories shared by the workers at Rideau Hall are so troubling that the prime minister has a role to play, Singh said, asking if Trudeau will launch an independent investigation into the allegations.

The Conservative party had no comment on the allegations Wednesday. A party spokesperson said it was focused on the governments decision to allow WE Charity to administer a student volunteer grant.

The allegations of bullying and harassment are not the first controversy in which Payette has found herself embroiled.

Shortly after Trudeau announced her appointment in 2017, it was revealed that Payette had been charged with second-degree assault in 2011 after an altercation with her then-husband in Maryland. The charges were dropped weeks later.

The Stars Kevin Donovan also reported in 2017 that months before Payette was charged with assault, she had been the driver in a fatal collision with a pedestrian in Florida. She was not charged in relation to the collision.

I know that Mme. Payette is going to make an extraordinary Governor General. She represents the very best of Canadian values, openness to the world, curiosity, intellectual rigour and inspiration, Trudeau said in 2017.

She will continue to inspire generations of Canadians as she represents us at the very highest level.

In 2018, a Star analysis found that Payette had attended one-third fewer public events than her predecessor, David Johnson, after one year in office.

Charities which had previously enjoyed the support of the Governor General were left to wait for Payettes decision on which ones to back, the Star reported at the time.

As Queen Elizabeths representative in Canada, the Governor Generals role within Canadas constitutional framework includes giving royal assent to legislation passed by the government and determining whether to dissolve Parliament for an election on the advice of the prime minister.

Reached Wednesday afternoon, Queen Elizabeths media relations team deferred questions about her representatives conduct to Rideau Hall.

It would be a matter for the Governor Generals office, said a spokesperson for the Queen.
Harriet Harman says the ban on the so-called 'Fifty Shades defence' to counter murder charges will force men to 'take responsibility' for women's deaths.

An amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill will prevent 'consensual rough sex' from being a defence to harming or killing a victim and MP Harriet, 62, London appeared on Loose Women with campaigner Fiona Mackenzie, 36, to discuss the new law.

The politician and solicitor told how the defence gave men 'the grizzly opportunity to twist women's empowerment of their on sexuality' and insisted that 'if their hands killed someone', it's murder.

MPs have previously raised the death of Natalie Connolly in 2016, who bled to death after 'rough sex' with her boyfriend John Broadhurst after an alcohol and cocaine binge, as an example of where the 'consent defence' has been used.

Multi-millionaire property developer Broadhurst was jailed for three years and eight months after admitting manslaughter by gross negligence.

It also follows criticism by police of the 'rough sex defence' in the trial of the murder of 21-year-old Essex backpacker Grace Millane in New Zealand.

Harriet Harman (pictured) says the ban on the so-called 'Fifty Shades defence' to counter murder charges will force men to 'take responsibility' for women's deaths

The comments come following criticism by police of the 'rough sex defence' in the trial of the murder of 21-year-old Essex backpacker Grace Millane (pictured)

Harriet said: 'What it says, this law, if you're a man who inflicted these injuries which caused her death, you have to take responsibility for that, even if she did want it.

'You have to take responsibility because it's your hands that killed her, it's not about changing sexual behaviour, it's about responsibility.

'If it's his hands doing the strangulation, he is responsible and it's murder.'

Harriet went on to argue that the 'rough sex defence' was a reflection on women's liberation, and women 'defining themselves as sexual beings', which she believes was 'encapsulated' by the 50 Shades of Grey book series.

Harriet told that while in the past women have been perceived as 'submissive', females owning their sexuality gave men the 'opportunity to twist their empowerment' as a means of escaping justice

Natalie Connolly (pictured above) was found with more than 40 injuries when police found her

She told that while in the past women have been perceived as 'submissive' females owning their sexuality gave men the 'opportunity to twist their empowerment' as a means of escaping justice.

Harriet told: 'I think 30-or 40 years ago if a defence barrister said "Yes my client did strangle this woman, but it's part of rough sex gone wrong" a jury wouldn't have believed it.

'Women were submissive, they were not seen as sexual and that defence would not have run.

'But with the women's liberation moment, women wanting to own their sexuality and to define themselves as sexual beings, encapsulated by the 50 Shades books, the idea became normalised that some women want pain inflicted on them in sex .

'This gave the grizzly opportunity for men to twist women's empowerment of their on sexuality and say, "I inflicted those injuries because she wanted rough sex". And it's impossible for the women, or anyone else to challenge him.'

Harriet spoke on the now abolished common law defence of 'provocation', which defence lawyers would refer to as the 'nagging and shagging' defence

Fiona, who started campaign group, We Can't Consent To This, told of the women who have informed her of violent sexual assaults taking place during sex

She spoke on the now abolished common law defence of 'provocation', which defence lawyers would refer to as the 'nagging and shagging' defence.

The controversial defence could occur when a person was considered to have committed a criminal act partly because of a preceding set of events that might cause a reasonable person to lose self control.

Harriet explained: 'I think there has been a horrible tradition of men blaming women for their own death, saying: "Yes I killed her, but it was her fault".

'He would stand in the docks presenting himself as a victim, and that was called provocation and that used to mean murder was dropped to manslaughter.

'This was abolished, but only as recently as 2009 and that was called the "nagging and shagging defence" by defence lawyers, it was literally blaming her for her own death.'

MP Harriet, 62, London appeared on Loose Women with campaigner Fiona Mackenzie, 36, to discuss the new law. Pictured with host Kaye Adams

Harriet, a long-time advocate of women's rights, told how she became interested in the issue following the use of the 'rough sex' defence in the death of Natalie Connolly

Harriet, a long-time advocate of women's rights, told how she became interested in the issue following the use of the 'rough sex' defence in the death of Natalie Connolly.

She went on: 'Then in the Natalie case, he was saying "I was only doing what she wanted. Yes, those injuries were what I inflicted but it's not my fault, it's her fault she died, it's what she wanted".

'She can't speak for herself and her poor relatives need to listen to this, so i's really important we ban this defence.'

Fiona, who started campaign group, We Can't Consent To This, added: 'I set up this campaign after Natalie Connolly's killing and immediately started hearing from women who had been violently assaulted by their sexual partners.

'This is often really serious violence and in particular strangulation, the idea you can go on a date with a guy and be strangled to the point you're unconscious and that not be treated as a serious crime is horrifying. '
Following the detection of its first omicron case Saturday in Haidian district of Beijing, the Chinese capital locked down certain communities and office buildings just weeks before the Winter Olympics and the Lunar New Year holiday. The city opened 30 emergency testing points in Haidian on Monday as it rushes to contain the spread

Jan 19, 2022 05:37 PM
The challenged rating had been posted by the Numbeo portal earlier this month.

The rating where Ukraine is named the country with the highest crime rate in Europe is unfounded, providing no actual confirmation of data published, a journalistic investigation reveals.

"The rating was posted on the Numbeo portal earlier this month. It said Ukraine topped the list of European countries with the highest crime rate. The rating lacks sources and their verification, calculation criteria and quantitative indicators. A single person manages the website and keeps records of data  its creator Mladen Adamovic, a Belgrade-based Serb," Golos.UA reports.

The admin of the website said he had only partially taken official data, mainly using information from a special questionnaire, while the methodology of respondent selection remains unclear.

"For Ukraine data, an opinion was used based on 1,126 surveys. How this circle of respondents was selected remains a mystery. It can be assumed the website works as follows. M. Adamovic receives a request for a certain result in his 'rating.' The required number of questionnaires is filled in (or even not) to achieve the required result," the investigation says.

Read alsoMH17 case: Russia-controlled supervisor of 'DPR' terrorists detained in Kyiv

"It should be noted not a single reputable publication referred to this source in their publications related to crime research," journalists said.

Authors emphasize that users should trust ratings that take into account the main factor affecting the drop in the population safety index in Ukraine, namely the armed conflict in Donbas.

Journalists offer to take note of a survey by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted at the request of the EU Advisory Mission in Ukraine on reforming the civil security sector. It was based on the methodology of the EU sociological service 'Eurobarometer' according to the CATI method, and was carried out on May 19-25, 2020 among 2,003 respondents living throughout Ukraine.

According to the study, despite the ongoing armed aggression and destabilizing influence on the part of the Russian Federation, related illegal arms trafficking, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the economic recession related to it, thanks to the efforts of the Interior Ministry and other law enforcement agencies, 65% of the population considers Ukraine a safe place to live.

Another aspect that casts doubt on a claim that "Ukraine is a criminal country" are indicators of growing public trust and approval of the activities of the Interior Ministry and the law enforcement system as a whole.

"According to various independent sociological studies, the level of public trust in the Interior Ministry's bodies has grown by an average of 20% over the past two years. This is hard to imagine in a country with the lowest security level in Europe! Bottom line: do not forget that the bias in some media which replicate fake ratings from dubious sources is one of the key factors in the rough hybrid war being waged against Ukraine," reads the report.
By Akbar Mammadov

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has denied as fabrication and misinformation Armenian Defense Ministry report on Azerbaijans alleged attack on Armenian positions on the border on July 21.

There was no new attack in this direction. On the contrary, there is calmness in our state border area, we have no losses, Chief of the Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, Colonel Vagif Dargahli told local media.

Dargahli added that however, on the other side of the border, the panic was observed among the Armenian servicemen.

Some time ago, shots were heard from the positions of the Armenian armed forces, he said.

Dargahli noted that apparently, another shootout took place between the Armenian servicemen.

I want to emphasize once again that no new attacks have been carried out, no casualties have been reported by us. The report of the Armenian side is another disinformation, he said.

The cross-border clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia started on July 12 noon after Armenian troops fired artillery at Azerbaijani military post in Tovuz region.

Azerbaijan lost 12 servicemen, including an army general, during cross-border clashes from July 12 till July 16. Armenian forces have also been shelling civilians in villages in Tovuz. An Azerbaijani civilian in Tovuzs Aghdam village was killed as a result of artillery shelling by the Armenian armed forces on July 14.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Since 1994, hostilities between the two countries have persisted despite the temporary cease-fire agreement. Usually, Armenian forces violate the ceasefire regime on the line of contact. But recently Armenia has increased military aggression on the border.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Mumbai:

Indian film producer and actor Prakash Jha has praised PM Modis decision to abolish Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency to curtail black money may be creating problems right now, but the idea deserves a chance.

The 64-year-old Jai Gangaajal director said this may be the way to clean the corrupt system.

Transiting to a cashless system is a gigantic & painful process, but thats the way to clean up the system! The idea deserves a chance! Jha tweeted.

Transiting to a cashless system is a gigantic & painful process, but that's the way to clean up the system! The idea deserves a chance!  Prakash Jha (@prakashjha27) November 14, 2016

The filmmaker is the new addition to the list of celebrities praising PM Modis demonetisation move. Megastar Amitabh Bachchan, south superstar Rajinikanth, Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan among others have previously lauded the decision.

Also Read: ATMs soon to dispense Rs 20 and Rs 50 notes: SBI Chief Arundhati Bhattacharya

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Another 53,000 Victorians face the prospect of unemployment in the next two months, with Victorias COVID-19 pandemic now predicted to blow a $21 billion hole in the states economy this year alone.

The grim outlook will be published by the Labor government on Thursday as it releases Victorias mid-year economic update.

Massive lines of people lining up outside a Melbourne Centrelink office in March. Credit:Jason South

The latest modelling from the Department of Treasury and Finance will show that the coronavirus pandemic will have a significant impact on Victorias economy, Treasurer Tim Pallas said on Wednesday.

Mr Pallas said the outlook would be broadly consistent with forecasts released by other states and territories and the international outlook, despite Victoria being the only state forced into a second round of economically damaging lockdown by a second surge of the killer virus.
Port Elizabeth-based visual and performance artist Luke Rudman has partnered with Greenpeace Africa to highlight the devastating plastic pollution crisis during #PlasticFreeJuly. We got in touch with Rudman to chat inspiration, empowerment and tackling the systemic plastic crisis.

Plastic River

The incredibly talented artist and anti-plastic activist, Luke Rudman, will be taking over our Instagram as of 24 July.



Dont miss out on the fun! Follow us on Instagram >> https://t.co/9ht6kjuPkG#breakfreefromplastic pic.twitter.com/zE4cBwoFAs  Greenpeace Africa (@Greenpeaceafric) July 21, 2020

How did your collaboration with Greenpeace Africa come about?

12 Plastic Monsters

What would be your top tips to the general public when it comes to reducing the amount of plastic they use?

I believe that the change should be in the form of less plastic being produced, not just in less people buying plastics. We need to put pressure on the governments and the big corporations responsible for the crisis.

Plastic Monster 2019 2020 Greenpeace new work promo

What have been some of your career highlights?

How would you describe your aesthetic as an artist?

How do you hope your art will affect viewers?

I hope that the work impacts and stays with people and empowers them to make the positive changes that we so desperately need.

How do you hope humanity can come out of this pandemic better and stronger?

Rudman often uses himself as the canvas for his artworks, which are a form of self-expression and social commentary regarding climate change and the contributing political and cultural factors.This year, Greenpeace Africa has invited Rudman to present a series of new eco-art performance pieces to be released and exhibited on Greenpeace Africas social media pages ( @greenpeaceafrica ) from the 24 to 30 July 2020. The project has been specifically timed to be released to coincide with #PlasticFreeJuly, a month of international focus on the plastic pollution crisis.I first worked with Greenpeace Africa in 2019. My artworks pertaining to ecological issues, especially plastic pollution, began to receive some attention online and Greenpeace Africa reached out to me in support of the work. I spent the first half of 2019 working on my 12 Plastic Monsters art performance piece, a whimsical, surreal representation of the plastic pollution crisis and the various contributing cultural and political issues. When 12 Plastic Monsters was performed for the first time in August 2019 Greenpeace Africa invited me to take-over their social media pages to allow me to publish footage from the performance in an effort to highlight the plastic pollution crisis through the lens of an artist.The 12 Plastic Monsters won a Stomp! Award (initiated by the UK government and the Commonwealth Litter Programme) and was invited to be re-performed in various cities in South Africa. Because of the impact of 12 Plastic Monsters last year, Greenpeace Africa invited me to tackle the issue of plastic pollution once again this year in the creation of many new eco-art performance pieces which will be exhibited on their Instagram page ( @greenpeaceafrica ) beginning on 24 July.The issue of plastic pollution has been growing more severe, particularly this year due to the many misconceptions about everyday-plastic being inherently clean and sterile and safer than reusable items. The use of single use plastics has spiked in 2020 and so we are trying to highlight the issue through this body of work.Of course, it is important to be a critical consumer and to do your best to buy and use less plastics. However, I do not think that the responsibility should be solely on the consumer. Plastic is terribly hard to avoid completely, the issue is with the market and lack of legislation.Make your voice heard, sign petitions, avoid supporting the corporations blindly exploiting the planet. A quote I saw on the @greenpeaceafrica page that resonated deeply with me goes: When your bathtub is overflowing, you dont just reach for the mop, you turn off the tap.Definitely working with Greenpeace so closely over the past few months. I would also say performing at the National Arts Festival last year and being the recipient of a Stomp! Award have been major highlights!My work, especially my performative artworks, exist as self-expression and commentary. I try not to draw too much inspiration from one particular source, rather I try to create quietly and on my own, mindfully and authentically. Visually, I am very drawn to colour and dramatic silhouettes and a graphicness that is often only present in traditional mediums such as drawing or painting. I use myself as a canvas and use performance to bring my work to life.Art has a unique ability when it comes to activism. Art can take something everyday and cliche, such as the fight against plastic pollution, and turn it into something new and fresh and inspire people to involve themselves in the solution.This pandemic has been life changing, not only in my day-to-day life but also in the way that I think. The way in which the world has been impacted by this pandemic has shattered so many peoples idea of stability and normality in the world. Though the situation we are in is grim and extremely difficult, I have hope for the future. The way in which the unexpected happened and impacted all of us might broaden our collective imagination. I find myself thinking: The world changed so quickly and drastically over such a short period. What else could happen that I never thought would be possible?In years to come, this year will definitely be seen as a defining moment in our fight to preserve the natural world.
BAD AXE, MI  Four bars and restaurants in Huron County have been listed as possible COVID-19 exposure sites, and one of the bars is blaming a party bus that recently visited.

The Huron County Health Department on Tuesday, July 21, announced four establishments were visited by a group of patrons between 8 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. on July 11-12, several of whom have tested positive for coronavirus.

Ubly Pub, 2211 E. Main St. in Ubly

Farmers Tavern, 4522 Ruth Road in Ruth

Smalley's Bar & Grill, 130 S. Huron Road in Harbor Beach

The Gathering Place, 898 N. Van Dyke Road in Bad Axe

If you were at these locations during the period of time listed or shortly thereafter, you should self-quarantine, keeping away from family and roommates as much as possible, the Health Department advised. Please monitor yourself for COVID-19 symptoms for 14 days since the date of exposure.

Symptoms include fever or chills, shortness of breath, fatigue, headaches, sore throat, loss of taste or smell, congestion, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea, and muscle or body aches.

Testing is encouraged for any who develop these symptoms after being at the four listed sites on the date in question. Testing can be done without a doctors order through Great Lakes Bay Healthcare Center, 876 N. Van Dyke Road in Bad Axe, from 10 a.m. to noon on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

After receiving word of the incident from the Health Department, The Gathering Place owner Travis Chinoski posted on his business Facebook page that the patrons had arrived to his bar on a party bus. They stayed for less than an hour, he wrote.

I want everyone to understand that The Gathering Place has been COVID-19 compliant with ALL State & Local health procedures provided to us, the Facebook post reads. Anything from staff wearing mask and having daily temperature checks, to sanitizing each table after every use and the entire restaurant nightly. Recently the Governor started a new rule, non-existent at the time of the party bus, that all patrons must wear a mask to enter the premises and we have complied by not allowing people in, or providing a mask at the door. Since the new rule was established The Gathering Place has banned all party buses and large groups until further notice. We thank you for your understanding during these unprecedented times and we will continue to look out for the safety of our customers and staff!

The Farmers Tavern posted a like-minded status on its Facebook page.

Our staff has been continuously disinfecting all surfaces and following guideline for Covid-19, the post states. If you have any questions or concerns please call the local health department. We are still open for business and look forward to seeing you soon!

Huron County, located in Michigans Thumb region, has had 77 confirmed coronavirus cases resulting in three deaths as of Wednesday, July 22. Fifty-one of those who had tested positive have since recovered. Statewide, there have been 74,725 confirmed cases and 6,135 deaths as of Wednesday.

This is a reminder that COVID-19 is still present and circulating in Michigan and in Huron County, the Health Department stated. Individuals need to remain vigilant, wear a mask, practice social distancing and continue good hand hygiene. Anyone could have COVID-19 and be carrying and spreading the virus without symptoms, or not yet showing symptoms. Everyone needs to take precautions so that we can keep infections down and keep our local businesses open.

Related:

Michigan reports 573 new coronavirus cases, 9 new deaths

Wednesday, July 22: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan
As Russia and China expand their commercial and military activities in the Arctic, airmen should prepare for a corresponding uptick of U.S. and partner activity in that region, according to the Air Force's top general.

During a panel hosted by the Atlantic Council, Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told audiences that the anticipated increase will require airmen to be expeditionary and to become accustomed to Arctic warfare exercises.

Read Next: Fort Hood IDs Another Soldier Found Dead Off Post

"I do see an increase in activity relative to building on this strategy to ensure airmen are prepared to go anywhere, globally, as an expeditionary force," he said. The panel, including Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett and Space Force chief of space operations Gen. John Raymond, debuted the Air Force's first-ever Arctic strategy during the event.

"What I tell [airmen]: 'I don't know exactly when I am going to ask you, squadron commander, to pick up, pack up, and deploy forward to either 120 degrees-plus [temperature] or 50 degrees minus. I just know we have from right now until then to get you ready,'" Goldfein said.

With the demand for military activity anticipated to rise, the Air National Guard's LC-130 "Skibird" will likely deploy to the polar region more often, he said. The Air Force has only 10 LC-130 aircraft -- equipped with ski-like landing gear -- which are used for operations in Greenland, as well as Antarctica.

The service is responsible for nearly 80 percent of the Defense Department's Arctic funding, with substantial contribution to two major military bases in Alaska, training ranges, early missile defense warning systems, and satellite command-and-control stations in the region, according to the new strategy. With the service leading these initiatives, airmen have the means through "inherent rapid-response and long-range capabilities" to respond to events, even catastrophic ones, happening in the high north, it adds.

The Air Force is watching its adversaries, Barrett said Tuesday. As Arctic ice continues to melt, Russia has emphasized its push for undersea intelligence gathering -- from submarines to drone operations -- within the Northern Sea route, in addition to its development of air defense and coastal missile systems. Further complicating things, China, which considers itself a "near-Arctic state," plans to create new shipping lanes with its "Polar Silk Road" initiative.

The Air Force's Arctic strategy notes that, while adversaries seek to capitalize on the changing environment, it presents looming hazards for the service. "Reductions in single- and multi-year polar ice are accelerating the rate of coastal erosion, putting Air and Space Forces' already sparse infrastructure at risk," it states..

Amid the growing international interest, Barrett outlined the strategic importance of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to Air Force bases in the region.

"When the full complement of planned F-35s arrive at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska's unparalleled concentration of fifth-generation fighters will project unmistakable influence," she said.

By 2022, Alaska will be home to one of the highest concentrations of stealth aircraft operating in the Pacific theater and near the Arctic Circle. A total of 54 conventional takeoff and landing versions of the Lightning II are scheduled to arrive by December 2021. The base also has KC-135 Stratotankers and F-16 Fighting Falcons, which often serve as aggressor air or "red air" training aircraft to simulate air-to-air battles with jet fighter counterparts.

Adding more U.S. jets to the region also presents an opportunity for allied nations to integrate and learn from American pilots, officials have said. The 354th Fighter Wing at Eielson accepted its first F-35s in April as part of the enhanced build-up.

Despite its progress, the Air Force said it must advocate for future investments to its infrastructure in order to "match future operational needs." Those needs also contribute to homeland defense, according to the new strategy. However, it does not outline how officials have begun planning for these unspecified investments, how much they will cost or how the service will appeal to Congress for additional authorization.

For example, the Pentagon for years has been looking to update its early missile detection systems, many of which are located in the north.

In 2017, Gen. Lori Robinson, then head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, said the U.S. and Canada were working on upgrades to protect against cruise missile threats posed by countries such as Russia and North Korea -- the first substantial buildup in more than two decades.

The binational steering group was tasked with analyzing ways "to manage the eventual replacement of the North Warning System, which is our network of surveillance radars across Alaska and northern Canada" to protect against cruise missile threats posed by countries, Robinson said at the time.

The Air Force continues "to work with Canada to identify materiel and non-materiel solutions to the North Warning System," the strategy states, without disclosing more details.

Missile defense depends on communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance -- all aided by space operations, added Raymond. "Spacepower is essential to Arctic operations, allowing us to see with clarity, navigate with accuracy, and communicate across vast distances," he said.

The missions must all converge under a comprehensive, cross-domain network, Goldfein added.

"There is no better [topic] than the Arctic to talk about, not what airplanes, what ships, what submarines, what satellites, but what network do we need to build?" he said. "And how do we tie together these platforms, sensors or weapons so we can operate seamlessly across the joint team."

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related: Norway Worries Melting Arctic Ice Will Incite Drone Ops and Conflict
Whether white blood cells can be found in the brain has been controversial, and what they might be doing used to be complete mystery. In a seminal study published in Cell, an international team of scientists led by Prof. Adrian Liston (VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium & Babraham Institute, UK) describe a population of specialized brain-resident immune cells discovered in the mouse and human brain, and show that the presence of white blood cells is essential for normal brain development in mice.

Like a highly fortified headquarters, our brain enjoys special protection from what is circulating in the rest of our body through the blood-brain barrier. This highly selective border makes sure that passage from the blood to the brain is tightly regulated.

The blood-brain barrier also separates the brain from our body's immune system, which is why it has its own resident immune cells, called microglia, which trigger inflammation and tissue repair. Microglia arrive in the brain during embryonic development, and later on, the population becomes self-renewing.

Yet, white blood cells--which are part of our immune system--have been found to play a role in different brain diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease or stroke. Whether or not white blood cells can be found in healthy brains as well, and what they might be doing there, has been subject of intense debate. An interdisciplinary team of scientists led by Prof. Adrian Liston (VIB-KU Leuven, Babraham Institute) set out to find the answers.

White blood cells in the brain

"A misconception about white blood cells comes from their name," explains Dr. Oliver Burton (Babraham Institute). "These 'immune cells' are not just present in the blood. They are constantly circulating around our body and enter all of our organs, including--as it turns out--the brain. We are only just starting to discover what white blood cells do when they leave the blood. This research indicates that they act as a go-between, transferring information from the rest of the body to the brain environment"

The team quantified and characterized a small but distinct population of brain-resident T helper cells present in mouse and human brain tissue. T cells are a specific type of white blood cells specialized for scanning cell surfaces for evidence of infection and triggering an appropriate immune response. New technologies allowed the researchers to study the cells in great detail, including the processes by which circulating T cells entered the brain and began to develop the features of brain-resident T cells.

Dr. Carlos Roca (Babraham Institute): "Science is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary. Here, we didn't just bring in expertise from immunology, neuroscience and microbiology, but also from computer science and applied mathematics. New approaches for data analysis allow us to reach a much deeper level of understanding of the biology of the white blood cells we found in the brain."

An evolutionary role

When T helper cells are absent from the brain, the scientists found that the resident immune cells - microglia - in the mouse brain remained suspended between a fetal and adult developmental state. Observationally, mice lacking brain T cells showed multiple changes in their behavior. The analysis points to an important role for brain-resident T cells in brain development. If T cells participate in normal brain development in mice, could the same be true in humans?

"In mice, the wave of entry of immune cells at birth triggers a switch in brain development," says Liston. "Humans have a much longer gestation than mice though, and we don't know about the timing of immune cell entry into the brain. Does this occur before birth? Is it delayed until after birth? Did a change in timing of entry contribute to the evolution of enhanced cognitive capacity in humans?"

The findings open up a whole new range of questions about how the brain and our immune system interact. "It has been really exciting to work on this project. We are learning so much about how our immune system can alter our brain, and how our brain modifies our immune system. The two are far more interconnected than we previously thought," says Dr. Emanuela Pasciuto (VIB-KU Leuven).

The study also brings in a connection with the gut microbiome, says Liston: "There are now multiple links between the bacteria in our gut and different neurological conditions, but without any convincing explanations for what connects them. We show that white blood cells are modified by gut bacteria, and then take that information with them into the brain. This could be the route by which our gut microbiome influences the brain."

Taken together, the results contribute towards the increasing recognition of the role of immune cells in the brain and shed new light on its involvement in a range of neurological diseases.

###

Publication

Microglia require CD4 T cells to complete the fetal to adult transition, Pasciuto, Burton, Roca et al. Cell 2020
Earlier this month, at the instigation of Turkeys autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the countrys top administrative court ruled that the secular museum of Hagia Sophia could become, once again, a mosque. With that, Erdogan advanced the symbolic work of destroying secularism in his nation, and took from the people of Istanbul  and the larger world  one of the great symbols of that citys erstwhile cosmopolitanism. Although the great domed structure that dominates the skyline of Istanbul had been a mosque since the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453, it had been turned into a secular museum by Kemal Ataturk in 1934. It is one of the essential highlights of any tour to Istanbul, an architectural wonder of enormous proportions. When the current building on the site opened as Christian church in 537, it enclosed the largest interior space in the world, a record it held for nearly 1000 years.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised John Lewis as an "American hero." (Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

Republicans in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, effusively eulogized Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia after the civil-rights legend died last week. McConnell (R-Ky.) rightly described Lewis as an American hero who put his life on the line to fight racism, promote equal rights and bring our nation into greater alignment with its founding principles.

Now Senate Democrats are pressing McConnell to match actions to his words by calling up a long-stalled bill to reestablish protections for voting rights that were eviscerated by a 2013 Supreme Court decision. Referring to McConnell, Sen. Kamala Harris said: "If he wants to make clear his honor for the life, the legacy, the sacrifice, the heroism of John Lewis, put that on the floor for a vote, and lets name it the John Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020.

This isnt just partisan point-scoring. Securing the right to vote for African Americans and other victims of discrimination was the cause of Lewis life, the cause for which he was marching in Selma, Ala., in 1965 when he was brutally attacked by police. But its also vital to American democracy.

The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 required, among other things, that states with a history of discrimination pre-clear changes in election procedures with the U.S. attorney general or a federal court in Washington, D.C. But seven years ago, in Shelby County vs. Holder, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court struck down a formula that determined which jurisdictions were subject to pre-clearance. It was a disastrous ruling that made it easier for states to take steps, such as requiring photo IDs and eliminating polling places, that made it harder to vote.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted that things have changed dramatically in the South and other jurisdictions covered by pre-clearance. Yet, he said, the Voting Rights Act continued to rely on decades-old data and eradicated practices in determining which jurisdictions would be subject to pre-clearance.

The court was wrong and reckless in second-guessing the judgment of Congress, which is entrusted by the Constitution with enforcing the 15th Amendment prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. Still, Roberts made it clear that Congress could restore the pre-clearance mandate by establishing a new formula based on more recent data.

That is what would be accomplished at long last by the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would require pre-clearance in states with numerous voting rights violations over the last 25 years. (Attempts by any jurisdiction to require more proof of identity from would-be voters than the federal government requires could also face a pre-clearance requirement.) The bill was passed by the House in December, but a similar proposal has languished in the Senate. If McConnell and his Republican colleagues want to honor Lewis, and cement his legacy, they will stop their stalling.
By Trend

A representative of the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan (NCEOA) will be appointed Chairman of the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TTCI), Spokesperson for the confederation Ilhama Abdullayeva told Trend.

"Last year, the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry was established. In the second half of 2020, a representative of the confederation will be appointed chairman of the chamber, in connection with which we plan to organize numerous business missions and international forums with participation of observer countries such as Hungary and Turkmenistan," she said.

Abdullayeva said that in the framework of cooperation between the NCEOA and the Islamic Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (ICCIA), its planned to create a digital trade platform for members of the TTCI.

She said the NCEOA has been member of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (CCTS-Turkic Council) for many years.

"To eliminate bureaucratic and communication barriers between small and medium-sized businesses in the member states of this organization, an electronic Turkic business portal was created last year," she said. "This platform allows for quick communication between small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) without intermediaries, and is very effective for collecting information about the trading potential of participants, and operations between various business entities, within a single web portal."

Abdullayeva also noted that the simplification of communication between entrepreneurs and the centralized receipt of the proper information will significantly increase the speed and volume of trade between the countries of the Turkic Council.

The National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers') Organizations of Azerbaijan was established on March 5, 1999 in Baku and passed the official state registration.

The NCEOA unites over 1000 business entities, including 35 associations and unions of socio-economic profile.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
CALGARY, Alberta, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pulse Seismic Inc. (TSX:PSD) (OTCQX:PLSDF) (Pulse or the Company) is pleased to report its financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020. The unaudited condensed consolidated interim financial statements, accompanying notes and MD&A are being filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and will be available on Pulses website at www.pulseseismic.com.



HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE THREE AND SIX MONTHS ENDED JUNE 30, 2020

Data library sales revenue was $1.9 million for the three months ended June 30, 2020 compared to $10.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2019. Data library sales revenue was $4.0 million for the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to $15.9 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019;





Net loss for the three months ended June 30, 2020 was $2.3 million ($0.04 per share basic and diluted) compared to net earnings of $2.9 million ($0.05 per share basic and diluted) for the three months ended June 30, 2019. Net loss for the six months ended June 30, 2020 was $5.1 million ($0.10 per share basic and diluted) compared to net earnings of $209,000 ($0.00 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2019;

Cash EBITDA (a) was $1.0 million ($0.02 per share basic and diluted) for the three months ended June 30, 2020, compared to $9.3 million ($0.17 per share basic and diluted) for the three months ended June 30, 2019. Cash EBITDA was $2.1 million ($0.04 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to $12.4 million ($0.23 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2019;



was $1.0 million ($0.02 per share basic and diluted) for the three months ended June 30, 2020, compared to $9.3 million ($0.17 per share basic and diluted) for the three months ended June 30, 2019. Cash EBITDA was $2.1 million ($0.04 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to $12.4 million ($0.23 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2019; Shareholder free cash flow (a) was $771,000 ($0.01 per share basic and diluted) for the second quarter of 2020 compared to $6.9 million ($0.13 per share basic and diluted) for the comparable period in 2019. Shareholder free cash flow was $1.5 million ($0.03 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to $9.6 million ($0.18 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2019; and



was $771,000 ($0.01 per share basic and diluted) for the second quarter of 2020 compared to $6.9 million ($0.13 per share basic and diluted) for the comparable period in 2019. Shareholder free cash flow was $1.5 million ($0.03 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2020 compared to $9.6 million ($0.18 per share basic and diluted) for the six months ended June 30, 2019; and In the second quarter of 2020, a payment of $375,000 was applied to the balance of the term loan. At June 30, 2020 long-term debt excluding deferred financing charges was $29.0 million.

CORPORATE AND COVID-19 UPDATE

At June 30, 2020 the Company was in compliance with all covenants related to its syndicated credit facility. As announced in June, with the ongoing uncertainty as to the length and continued severity of this oil and gas downturn, Pulse negotiated with its lending syndicate for its senior credit facility to amend its financial covenants to ensure additional flexibility in future quarters, beginning July 1, 2020. The details are disclosed in the financial statements as well as in the liquidity, capital resources and capital requirements section of the MD&A, for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020.



Beginning in the first quarter, and continuing through the year, Management and the Board of Directors of the Company implemented cost-cutting measures in reaction to the decline in commodity prices and uncertainty surrounding the continuation of the low oil price environment. Pulse has implemented salary reductions ranging from 7.5 percent to 20 percent for all its employees. Also in the second quarter, Director fees for the chair of the Board was reduced by 50% and all other independent directors fees were reduced by 40%. All administrative and operating expenses and capital spending plans have been evaluated and reduced where appropriate. The Company also received $222,000 from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program for the second quarter. The CEWS program has been extended to December and the Company anticipates receiving the subsidy for some additional months, but is dependent on meeting the criteria which is yet to be determined for the extension period.

Pulse continues to respond to very challenging business conditions brought about by the combined impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the precipitous decline of oil prices brought on by the unprecedented demand fallout from COVID-19. These global events have caused significant declines in the 2020 capital budgets of Pulses customers in the oil and natural gas sector of Western Canada. While the Company continues to see a lack of clarity into future seismic data licensing opportunities, Pulse remains engaged with customers to monitor their seismic data requirements.



Pulse also remains committed to the health and safety of its employees. In response to the public health measures associated with the pandemic, Pulse implemented its disaster recovery plan and staff began working remotely as of March 13, 2020. Beginning in July, a small number of employees have returned to work in the downtown office and strict policies and procedures have been developed and implemented, using the guidance of the health authorities. It is anticipated that the remaining staff will continue to work remotely for the time being. Pulses business is supplying licences to a digitally-based product, seismic data, and as a result, staff are able to respond to customer needs in a timely manner. The Companys primary focus and attention at this time continues to be the safety of its employees, preserving cash and protecting the balance sheet while weathering these uncertain and unprecedented times.

SELECTED FINANCIAL AND OPERATING INFORMATION (thousands of dollars except per share data, Three months ended June 30, Six months ended June 30, Year ended numbers of shares and kilometres of seismic data) 2020 2019 2020 2019 December 31, (unaudited) (unaudited) 2019 Revenue Data library sales 1,850 10,617 4,040 15,894 23,635 Other revenue 91 167 181 310 520 Total revenue 1,941 10,784 4,221 16,204 24,155 Amortization of seismic data library 2,850 3,577 6,366 7,143 14,200 Net earnings (loss) (2,309 ) 2,880 (5,136 ) 209 (3,411 ) Per share basic and diluted (0.04 ) 0.05 (0.10 ) 0.00 (0.06 ) Cash provided by operating activities 137 3,691 2,459 5,149 8,605 Per share basic and diluted 0.00 0.07 0.05 0.10 0.16 Cash EBITDA (a) 1,008 9,256 2,068 12,353 17,557 Per share basic and diluted (a) 0.02 0.17 0.04 0.23 0.33 Shareholder free cash flow (a) 771 6,852 1,534 9,552 13,605 Per share basic and diluted (a) 0.01 0.13 0.03 0.18 0.25 Capital expenditures Seismic data purchases, digitization and related costs 96 - 191 61,029 61,029 Property and equipment 7 63 7 398 439 Total capital expenditures 103 63 198 61,427 61,468 Weighted average shares outstanding Basic and diluted 53,793,317 53,793,317 53,793,317 53,793,317 53,793,317 Shares outstanding at period-end 53,793,317 53,793,317 53,793,317 Seismic library 2D in kilometres 829,207 829,207 829,207 3D in square kilometres 65,310 65,310 65,310



FINANCIAL POSITION AND RATIOS June 30, June 30, December 31, (thousands of dollars except ratios) 2020 2019 2019 Working capital 1,210 (2,282 ) 596 Working capital ratio 1.4:1 0.8:1 1.1:1 Cash and cash equivalents 327 464 1,356 Total assets 59,176 77,673 69,807 Long-term debt 28,738 29,696 31,511 Trailing twelve-month (TTM) cash EBITDA (b) 7,272 16,337 17,557 Shareholders equity 26,805 35,475 31,973 Long-term debt to TTM cash EBITDA ratio 3.95 1.82 1.79 Long-term debt to equity ratio 1.07 0.84 0.99

The Companys continuous disclosure documents provide discussion and analysis of cash EBITDA, cash EBITDA per share, shareholder free cash flow and shareholder free cash flow per share. These financial measures do not have standard definitions prescribed by IFRS and, therefore, may not be comparable to similar measures disclosed by other companies. The Company has included these non-GAAP financial measures because management, investors, analysts and others use them as measures of the Companys financial performance. The Companys definition of cash EBITDA is cash available for interest payments, cash taxes, repayment of debt, purchase of its shares, discretionary capital expenditures and the payment of dividends, and is calculated as earnings (loss) from operations before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization less participation survey revenue, lease payments treated as capital lease and warehouse storage fees, plus any non-cash and non-recurring expenses. Cash EBITDA excludes participation survey revenue as these funds are directly used to fund specific participation surveys and this revenue is not available for discretionary capital expenditures. The Company believes cash EBITDA assists investors in comparing Pulses results on a consistent basis without regard to participation survey revenue and non-cash items, such as depreciation and amortization, which can vary significantly depending on accounting methods or non-operating factors such as historical cost. Cash EBITDA per share is defined as cash EBITDA divided by the weighted average number of shares outstanding for the period. Shareholder free cash flow further refines the calculation of capital available to invest in growing the Companys 2D and 3D seismic data library, to repay debt, to purchase its common shares and to pay dividends by deducting non-discretionary expenditures from cash EBITDA. Non-discretionary expenditures are defined as debt financing costs (net of deferred financing expenses amortized in the current period) and current tax provisions. Shareholder free cash flow per share is defined as shareholder free cash flow divided by the weighted average number of shares outstanding for the period. TTM cash EBITDA is defined as the sum of the trailing 12 months cash EBITDA and is used to provide a comparable annualized measure.

These non-GAAP financial measures are defined, calculated and reconciled to the nearest GAAP financial measures in the Management's Discussion and Analysis.

OUTLOOK

The current extreme economic uncertainty renders it difficult for Pulse to issue a specific outlook concerning industry and market conditions over the next 12 months. The plunge in domestic Canadian crude oil prices and further reductions to oil and natural gas producers' capital expenditures make it very likely that industry activity will be extremely low over the next several quarters. Accordingly, Pulse expects low traditional seismic data library sales. Transaction-based sales however, occur as a result of industry merger and acquisition and asset sales and could happen at any time.

Having spent the past five years reducing controllable costs, maximizing efficiencies, maintaining a strong balance sheet and optimizing its access to credit, Pulse is well-prepared to weather an extended period of weak sales. As demonstrated in the first half of 2020, the Company can generate positive shareholder free cash flow with sales of $4.0 million. Pulse will continue to seek further cost reductions where possible, without impairing the Company's ability to serve its clients, conduct sales and act on attractive opportunities. The seismic library's data does not deteriorate or expire and incurs minimal maintenance costs.

CORPORATE PROFILE

Pulse is a market leader in the acquisition, marketing and licensing of 2D and 3D seismic data to the western Canadian energy sector. Pulse owns the largest licensable seismic data library in Canada, currently consisting of approximately 65,310 square kilometres of 3D seismic and 829,207 kilometres of 2D seismic. The library extensively covers the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin where most of Canadas oil and natural gas exploration and development occur.

For further information, please contact:

Neal Coleman, President and CEO

Or

Pamela Wicks, Vice President Finance and CFO

Tel.: 403-237-5559

Toll-free: 1-877-460-5559

E-mail: info@pulseseismic.com.

Please visit our website at www.pulseseismic.com

This document contains information that constitutes forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively, forward-looking information) within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "plan", "intend", "forecast", "target", "project", "guidance", "may", "will", "should", "could", "estimate", "predict" or similar words suggesting future outcomes or language suggesting an outlook.

The Outlook section herein contain forward-looking information which includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding:

> The outlook of the Company for the year ahead, including future operating costs and expected revenues;

> Recent events on the political, economic, regulatory, public health and legal fronts affecting the industrys medium- to longer-term prospects;

> The Companys capital resources and sufficiency thereof to finance future operations, meet its obligations associated with financial liabilities and carry out the necessary capital expenditures through the balance of 2020;

> Pulses capital allocation strategy;

> Pulses dividend policy;

> Oil and natural gas prices and forecast trends;

> Oil and natural gas drilling activity and land sales activity;

> Oil and natural gas company capital budgets;

> Future demand for seismic data;

> Future seismic data sales;

> Future demand for participation surveys;

> Pulses business and growth strategy; and

> Other expectations, beliefs, plans, goals, objectives, assumptions, information and statements about possible future events, conditions, results and performance, as they relate to the Company or to the oil and natural gas industry as a whole.

By its very nature, forward-looking information involves inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and risks that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. Pulse does not publish specific financial goals or otherwise provide guidance, due to the inherently poor visibility of seismic revenue. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these statements as a number of important factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from the beliefs, plans, objectives, expectations and anticipations, estimates and intentions expressed in such forward-looking information. These factors include, but are not limited to:

> Uncertainty of the timing and volume of data sales from the newly acquired seismic data library, which was partially funded with long-term debt;

> Volatility of oil and natural gas prices;

> Risks associated with the oil and gas industry in general;

> The Companys ability to access external sources of debt and equity capital;

> Credit, liquidity and commodity price risks;

> The demand for seismic data and participation surveys;

> The pricing of data library licence sales;

> Cybersecurity;

> Relicensing (change-of-control) fees and partner copy sales;

> The level of pre-funding of participation surveys, and the Companys ability to make subsequent data library sales from such participation surveys;

> The Companys ability to complete participation surveys on time and within budget;

> Environmental, health and safety risks, including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic;

> Federal and provincial government laws and regulations, including those pertaining to taxation, royalty rates, environmental protection, public health and safety;

> Competition;

> Dependence on qualified seismic field contractors;

> Dependence on key management, operations and marketing personnel;

> The loss of seismic data;

> Protection of intellectual property rights;

> The introduction of new products; and

> Climate change.

Pulse cautions that the foregoing list of factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive. Additional information on these risks and other factors which could affect the Companys operations and financial results is included under Risk Factors in the in the Companys most recent annual information form, and in the Companys most recent audited annual financial statements, most recent MD&A, management information circular, quarterly reports, material change reports and news releases. Copies of the Companys public filings are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

When relying on forward-looking information to make decisions with respect to Pulse, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. Furthermore, the forward-looking information in this document is provided as of the date of this document and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking information, except as required by law. The forward-looking information in this document is provided for the limited purpose of enabling current and potential investors to evaluate an investment in Pulse. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking information may not be appropriate, and should not be used, for other purposes.

PDF available: http://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/f3cc88ba-c531-468c-9cfa-c9a083753b00
A shipment of 28 000 medical gowns and 20 000 N95 medical respirators for healthcare workers have arrived in Armenia. The items will enable those on the frontline to respond effectively and safely to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The supplies were procured by WHO, with the financial assistance of the European Union, as part of continued support to help Armenia respond to the pandemic.

Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin, the UN Resident Coordinator in Armenia Shombi Sharp and Coordinator of WHO health emergencies programme for the South Caucasus Vasily Esenamanov handed over the newly arrived protective equipment to Deputy Minister of Health of the Republic of Armenia Lena Nanushyan for further distribution in the country.

The gowns and respirators that arrived in Armenia were acquired considering the needs of countrys health system and will be provided exclusively to healthcare workers.

Background Information:

Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, the European Union and WHO Regional Office for Europe have been actively supporting Armenia in its battle against the virus. On 20 June, a group of experts co-funded by the European Union and WHO arrived in Armenia to help scale up the response in the country. On 1 July, 10 000 tests were delivered, helping Armenia widen testing for COVID-19 across the country.

This support to Armenia is part of the European Unions response to the outbreak of COVID-19, currently affecting more than 216 countries and territories. On 27 March 2020, the European Union announced an assistance package of 30 million to help prevent, detect and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in six countries of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, including Armenia.

The funds initially will be used to meet immediate emergency needs, such as procuring critical supplies for health-care workers, frontline responders and patients. In the longer term, the assistance will go towards strengthening the countrys capacity to respond to public health emergencies.
It was not clear whether Trumps company was involved in the organization of these events, or if the Trump campaign paid Trumps company for any services related to them. A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign declined to comment. Campaign spending records for this month will not be available until August.
Global coronavirus infections surged past 15 million on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, with the pandemic gathering pace even as countries remain divided in their response to the crisis.

In the United States, which has the highest number of cases in the world with 3.91 million infections, President Donald Trump warned: "It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better."

The top five countries with the most cases is rounded out by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the world's infections and half its deaths.

Globally, the rate of new infections shows no sign of slowing, according to the Reuters tally, based on official reports.

After the first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in early January, it took about 15 weeks to reach 2 million cases. By contrast, it took just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July 13.

Health experts stress that official data almost certainly underreports both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.

The official number of coronavirus cases at 15,009,213 is at least triple the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organization data, while the death toll of more than 616,000 in seven months is close to the upper range of yearly influenza deaths.

Relax or tighten

With the first wave of the virus still to peak in several countries and a resurgence of case numbers in others, some countries are reintroducing strict social distancing measures while others relax restrictions.

Stung by low approval ratings for his handling of the epidemic and downplaying the risks during the early stages, Trump made a significant shift in rhetoric on Tuesday, encouraging Americans to wear a face mask.

While the epidemic worsened in the United States, Trump's focus ahead of a presidential election in November has been on reopening the economy, and governors in the hard-hit states of Texas, Florida and Georgia continue to push back hard against calls for stricter restrictions.

In Brazil, more than 2.15 million people have tested positive including President Jair Bolsonaro, and more than 81,000 people have died. While Bolsonaro has played down the outbreak, its scale has made Brazil a prime testing ground for potential vaccines.

India, the only other country with more than 1 million cases, reported almost 40,000 new cases on Wednesday. Having been keen to reopen its economy, India is now facing the twin challenge of combating the pandemic and massive flooding in the country's northeast.

Two ministers in South Africa's cabinet were admitted to hospital with COVID-19, as Africa's most-industrialised country counted a total 372,628 confirmed cases and 5,173 deaths.

Other countries are reintroducing restrictions in response to fresh outbreaks.

In Spain, the number of people allowed on Barcelona's beaches was limited after crowds flocked to the seaside over the weekend despite advice to stay home.

Expand Close A man holds a placard during a protest of gym staff and users over the closure of gyms as part of the restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the San Jaume square, in Barcelona, Spain. Placard reads: "Bars yes, groups yes, gyms not. Why not?". Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce / Facebook

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Whatsapp A man holds a placard during a protest of gym staff and users over the closure of gyms as part of the restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the San Jaume square, in Barcelona, Spain. Placard reads: "Bars yes, groups yes, gyms not. Why not?". Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce

In Australia, residents of Melbourne, the country's second biggest city, were ordered to wear masks in public from Wednesday after the country reported a record 501 new cases.

Officials in Canada were closely watching a spike in cases as the economy reopens, attributing the rise in part to large numbers of young people gathering in bars.

China, meanwhile, announced that passengers on inbound flights must provide negative COVID-19 test results before boarding, as authorities seek to reduce the risk of imported cases amid increased international travel.
For the second day in a row, L.A.'s Finest actress Gabrielle Union shared her grueling fitness routine at her home gym with her captive 24.3M social media following.

When the Nebraska-born 47-year-old toned her tush and arms while perched on a workout bench on Tuesday, she Insta-storied peach emojis above her head.

Gabrielle proved it takes a whole lot of daily work in her garage to maintain her phenomenal 5ft7in figure.

'Get that ab work in': For the second day in a row, L.A.'s Finest actress Gabrielle Union shared her grueling fitness routine at her home gym with her captive 24.3M social media following

'Aghhh!' Union groaned in a caption while doing planks. 'Damn it my butt is too high but [I'm] working on it.'

The New York & Company collaborator's post came three days after her second husband Dwyane Wade unveiled his 13-year-old daughter Zaya's aqua blue hair makeover.

'Zaya went from pink hair to blonde,' Gabrielle told People on Tuesday.

'If you want to switch it up every day, great. What you do with your hair is your own personal choice. For me, the focus is on healthy hair, not on what you do with it.'

Weight lifting: When the Nebraska-born 47-year-old toned her tush and arms while perched on a workout bench on Tuesday, she Insta-storied peach emojis above her head

Squats: Gabrielle proved it takes a whole lot of daily work in her garage to maintain her phenomenal 5ft7in figure

While doing planks, Union groaned in a caption: 'Aghhh! Damn it my butt is too high but [I'm] working on it'

Union added: 'We are constantly reaffirming our kids, especially now, when there are so many external forces that are anti-Black. It is always pride and live your best life and live your best Black life. And let your curls do what they do.'

The eccentric teen - whose gender affirmation happened February 11 - is the 38-year-old Olympic gold medalist's child from his marriage to high school sweetheart, Siohvaughn Funches.

New Jersey Devils defenseman P.K. Subban commented on Dwayne's post about Zaya (born Zion) with a hand gesture emoji: 'Always!'

Zaya's new look was by hairstylist Larry J. Sims, who teamed up with Gabrielle to launch a 13-piece natural haircare company called Flawless beginning August 3 on Amazon.

'Love wins': The New York & Company collaborator's post came three days after her second husband Dwyane Wade unveiled his 13-year-old daughter Zaya's aqua blue hair makeover

New Jersey Devils defenseman P.K. Subban commented on the 38-year-old Olympic gold medalist's post about Zaya (born Zion) with a hand gesture emoji: 'Always!'

Available August 3 on Amazon! Zaya's new look was by hairstylist Larry J. Sims (2-L), who teamed up with Gabrielle (L) to launch 13-piece natural haircare company, Flawless

Father-of-four: Union and Wade are parents to 20-month-old 'miracle' daughter Kaavia James (L, pictured Saturday), and he also has six-year-old son Xavier (with babymama Aja Metoyer) and 18-year-old son Zaire (with Funches)

'Thank you @DwyaneWade!' The former Miami Heat shooting guard - who retired on April 10 - executive produced Mary Mazzio's documentary A Most Beautiful Thing, which hits select AMC Theatres on July 31

Union and Wade are parents to 20-month-old 'miracle' daughter Kaavia James, and he also has six-year-old son Xavier (with babymama Aja Metoyer) and 18-year-old son Zaire (with Funches).

The former Miami Heat shooting guard - who retired on April 10 - executive produced Mary Mazzio's documentary A Most Beautiful Thing, which hits select AMC Theatres on July 31.

Mazzio's adaptation of Arshay Cooper's 2015 memoir Suga Water was narrated by Common and it centers on the first African-American high school rowing team.

Last month, Spectrum postponed the release of the second season of Bad Boys spin-off L.A.'s Finest, in which the UCLA grad produces and stars as LAPD detective Sydney Burnett.

The first season of the police procedural co-starring Jessica Alba currently holds a 7% critic approval rating and 72% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

TikToking on set! Last month, Spectrum postponed the release of the second season of Bad Boys spin-off L.A.'s Finest, in which the UCLA grad produces and stars as LAPD detective Sydney Burnett (pictured February 5)
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, at podium, speaks at a news conference with L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, left, in Los Angeles in March. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

Exactly who is in charge of the COVID-19 pandemic response in Los Angeles? The mayor of Los Angeles? L.A. County supervisors? County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer? Gov. Gavin Newsom? Someone else?

At this point its hard to know for sure who is calling the shots regarding how to contain an alarming coronavirus surge in the county. The answer is all of them. Or none of them, depending on the day or who's talking. On Sunday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti didn't offer much clarity when he told CNN, Mayors often have no control what opens up and doesnt  thats either at a state or county level.

The comment was more than a little misleading. Garcetti can and has ordered businesses closed and reopened over the last few months within the city borders, and it is to his credit that he took early and decisive action. But his bigger point seems to be that making decisions of this magnitude at a municipal level doesnt make sense, even for a gargantuan city like Los Angeles, and that there was some failure of leadership at the county and state level.

He's not wrong. The very structure of our local governments leaves an accountability vacuum that isn't helped by the confusing overlap of various pandemic restrictions, some of which have been lifted and reimposed in the state, the county and city  and none of which have been adequately enforced. No wonder the public and some businesses have thrown up their hands and done their own thing, which is at least part of the reason for the June resurgence of COVID-19 cases in California and L.A.

And now Garcetti says that if the trend lines for coronavirus cases and hospitalizations dont improve soon, the city may return to stricter restrictions that go beyond even the sweeping orders handed down by the governor last week.

That may be unavoidable if hospitals start filling up here, as they have in other places. But we can't go back to the old pandemic playbook this time.

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First, any new restrictions must be targeted policies that focus on documented areas of spread. Blanket shutdowns are blunt instruments that only make sense in the absence of data. But we've learned more since March about how the virus spreads, such as through family gatherings and in factories. If there's no data showing that, say, bookstores are a significant source of spread, then they ought not to be penalized.

Second, whatever new restrictions are imposed must be done countywide. It's ineffective and confusing to have rules change at city borders. And they must be followed up with a show of enforcement to make it clear that following them isn't optional.

And finally, Los Angeles city and county elected officials (you too, Sheriff Alex Villanueva) need to put aside their territorial instincts and present unified leadership with a clear line of accountability, then communicate a consistent and unequivocal message about how we are going to reflatten the coronavirus curve in greater L.A.
Security forces on Wednesday busted a terror hideout and seized a cache of arms and ammunition in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri district, a senior police official said.

Jammu and Kashmir police and Indian Armys Thanamandi-based 38 Rashtriya Rifles busted the hideout during a cordon and search operation in Manyal area under Thanamandi police station jurisdiction.

Chandan Kohli, Rajouris senior superintendent of police, said the police received information about the suspected presence of an old terrorist hideout in Manyal.

A team of Rajouri Polices special operation group and 38 Rashtriya Rifles launched a cordon and search operation late on Tuesday.

The entire area was kept under cordon and in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, searches were launched during which a terror hideout established under a portion of dense bushes was busted, Kohli.

The official said one Pika machine gun, a Chinese pistol, a country-made pistol, a magazine of an AK-47 assault rifle, two pistol magazines, 168 Pika rounds, 47 AK rounds, four pistol rounds, two Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL) grenades, one binocular, eight ammunition belts, an antenna and a tape recorder have been recovered from the hideout.

The area is still under search and SDPO Thanamandi Sajjad Khan along with SHO Fareed Ahmed and officers of armys Rashtriya Rifles are monitoring the operation, Kohli said.

Pro-active approach of the forces and close synergy with all the sister agencies is playing its role and nefarious designs of anti-social elements are being foiled, he added.

In June, a joint team of the army and Kishtwar Police similarly unearthed a terrorists hideout and recovered a large cache of arms, ammunition and warlike stores.

The recoveries included one AK 56 rifle, one AK magazine with 27 rounds, one UBGL, one 9mm pistol, one pistol magazine with six rounds.
LATAM Airlines cargo airlift

LATAM Airlines Group (Pink: LTMAQ) said this week it has landed its last flight of a three-month "air bridge" between China and Brazil to transport much needed protective face masks to fight the coronavirus pandemic in the South American country.

The Chilean carrier flew 39 flights from China transporting 240 million N95 surgical masks under contract with Brazil's Ministry of Infrastructure. The project marked the first time LATAM Group aircraft have operated in China.

The airline started the air bridge in partnership with Brazil's Ministry of Infrastructure with the first Boeing 777 passenger-to-cargo-only flight on May 6. According to LATAM, these flights were its first ever to China.

The LATAM air bridge consisted of five Boeing 777s used for 39 flights.

LATAM used five Boeing 777-300 Extended Range passenger planes for the mission, taking advantage of the seats, floor space between seats and overhead bins to carry additional boxes and increase carrying capacity.

The flights originated in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen, arriving at Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport for delivery to hospitals across the country.

The airplanes collectively transported 1,200 tons or 146,661 boxes of N95 surgical masks from Chinese suppliers in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen to Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, from which Brazil's Ministry of Health distributed them to hospitals across the country.

"We implemented all our logistics expertise to combat this pandemic and reinvent our operations in a very short time," said Diogo Elias, LATAM Cargo's Brazil director, in a statement.

LATAM assigned more than 300 personnel to the air bridge operation.

The final air bridge flight landed at Sao Paulo-Guarulhos on Sunday, July 19.

The end of Brazil's air bridge follows similar airline-government partnerships to transport COVID-19-fighting medical supplies from China.

The French government ended its air bridge with Russian airline Volga-Dnepr earlier this month, while the U.S. government's Federal Emergency Management Agency finalized a similar operation with various American airlines in June.

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While the Brazil air bridge is a bright spot for LATAM, the Santiago, Chile-based airline has been financially battered by widespread government travel restrictions. In May, LATAM filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. to downsize the airline and restructure its debt.

Qatar Airways and LATAM chairman Ignacio Cueto, two of the company's largest shareholders, will provide $900 million in debtor-in-possession financing. FreightWaves reported the capital injection will help LATAM, which has $1.3 billion in liquid reserves, pay service vendors, and put the two shareholders at the head of the line to claim assets if the airline must liquidate.

In related news, Emirates SkyCargo said it has operated more than 10,000 cargo flights since the start of the COVID pandemic, using a mix of freighters and passenger aircraft as freighters. The airline has modified 10 777-300ER aircraft by removing Economy Class seats to allow for floor cargo in the cabin.

Emirates said it operated 500 flights in May and June with cabin cargo, including in the seats and carry-on compartments.

Related news

LATAM Airlines shuts Argentine subsidiary, international cargo unaffected

LATAM Airlines files for bankruptcy protection

Delta, LATAM lay groundwork to implement joint venture

Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin on Tuesday announced that a sheriff's deputy has been arrested and charged with possession of an assault weapon after the deputy allegedly brought an illegal weapon into City Hall.

Back in November, Deputy Jalen Rosales brought a modified semiautomatic pistol, concealed in a backpack, into City Hall. The weapon was discovered when Rosales left his backpack in a City Hall locker and he asked another deputy to retrieve it, according to prosecutors.

Although the legal Franklin Armory Pistol had been registered to Rosales, it was modified for use as a semiautomatic weapon with features that make it an unlawful assault weapon under California Law.

A warrant was issued for Rosales' arrest and he surrendered on Tuesday and has since been released on bail. He's expected to be arraigned in court on August 20, according to prosecutors.

"This arrest is a reminder that no one is above the law," Boudin said in a statement. "My office will continue to hold accountable our law enforcement officers, whom we trust to know and abide by the laws around gun possession."

According to the Sheriff's Office, it launched an investigation after first learning that Rosales was suspected of possessing the illegal weapon and shared the investigation's findings with Boudin's office.

Rosales, who joined the sheriff's department in April 2017, has been placed on administrative leave by Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, sheriff's officials said.

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Fortnum and Mason are to cut 100 hospitality jobs as the company struggles to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a meeting at the luxury brand's Piccadilly headquarters, bosses told front of house and kitchen staff they were facing redundancy because of 'evolving consumer habits'.

The cuts are expected to hit the company's St Pancras Station bar and The Gallery restaurant in Mayfair which have not yet reopened due to record low footfall.

Britain's high streets have been hammered by the lockdown, with at least 65,000 jobs currently at risk across the country, including 700 at department store Harrods.

A source who works at Fortnum's told MailOnline: 'Essentially, last week we received an email from management, telling the whole of hospitality to go to meeting at Piccadilly. This included front of house and restaurant staff.

Fortnum and Mason announced they are to cut 100 hospitality jobs during a meeting at their flagship store in Piccadilly, MailOnline can reveal

'They did a presentation, saying Fortnum was "doing well" and sales were "picking up again".'

But bosses then revealed The Gallery restaurant would not be reopening, with all staff losing their jobs , and more than 10 roles at the recently refurbished St Pancras store would be cut.

It is believed there are further cuts in reservations and purchasing.

'Everyone was so shocked, we had no indication whatsoever before. My own manager had no idea about the contents of the meeting.'

The company's St Pancras Station bar and restaurant will lose more than 10 staff, despite receiving a costly renovation to convert part of it from retail space

They were then asked to leave through the fire escape, rather than by the store.

The source added they were concerned that several employees at risk of redundancy had large families, and could be deemed 'too old' to start a career at another company.

'I think they are essentially using this as a chance to "rebuild" their team, which means getting rid of staff who have been there a long time.'

Fortnum and Mason has not taken part in the furlough scheme, with CEO Ewan Venters it is intended for companies that 'would otherwise make mass redundancies'.

The majority of jobs cuts are coming from The Gallery restaurant in the Piccadilly store. The eatery was due to reopen on Thursday but is believed to now be closed indefinitely

'People need to reflect on themselves and decide if theyve done the right thing,' he told the Sunday Times.

He also revealed that footfall at the Piccadilly store was as low as 10 per cent of pre-Covid levels after reopening in late May, and does not expect levels to recover properly until November.

Fortnum's branch at the Royal Exchange, which the source said was 'haemorrhaging money' before the lockdown, reopened on July 6.

Mr Venters recently urged ministers to encourage British families to holiday at home rather than go overseas so they could help boost the economy with staycations.

'Why arent we saying to our citizens that its your duty to stay in the UK to spend your money and help prop up the countrys economy?' he said.

Of Fortnum's 138m sales last year, 40 per cent came from overseas visitors, most of whom visit in the summer.

On the choice not to furlough any staff, he added: 'Our balance sheet was strong, our cash position was strong and we paid everyones salaries during the entire pandemic.'

A spokesperson for Fortnum and Mason declined to comment.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)  A year and a half ago, Liqa Esazada for the first time stepped into a martial arts club for women in Kabul, something of a rarity in this still deeply conservative Muslim society.

At the time, she had just accompanied her older sister but was immediately intrigued. The 22-year-old is now one of two dozen Afghan women who find inspiration and empowerment in Japanese jujitsu, a martial arts form that dates back centuries.

They love the sport and dare to dream big, hoping someday to compete on the international level.

In war-torn Afghanistan, where gender discrimination has deep cultural and historical roots and where many women suffer from domestic violence, jujitsu seems an ideal sport for women. It teaches self-defense against a stronger and heavier opponent by using certain holds and principles of leverage.

Esazada said she wants to show a more positive side of Afghanistan  and become famous and win the world jujitsu championship medal."

Sayed Jawad Hussiani, a jujitsu instructor at the Nero club where Esazada trains, said this martial arts form with roots in feudal Japan was first brought to Afghanistan in 2005 but has since become popular among boys and girls alike.

The women in Hussiani's group find strength in their team spirit. They braid each other's hair before training sessions, spar against one another, take turns on the even bars. In winter, they practice their wrestle holds on snow-covered hilltops above Kabul.

Today, about two-thirds of Afghanistans population is 25 or younger and Esazada said she has no memory of the Taliban regime, which hosted al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and ruled Afghanistan before the 2001 U.S. invasion.

But since the United States and the Taliban earlier this year signed a deal on ending Americas longest war  an accord that also envisages peace talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government  women in Afghanistan have become increasingly worried about losing some of the rights and freedoms they have gained over the past two decades.

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Under the Taliban, women were not allowed to go to school, work outside the home or leave their house without a male escort. And though they still face many challenges, Afghan women are increasingly stepping into their own power in this male-dominated society, finding a voice even in sports.

Esazada said she is not afraid of the Taliban, and if they come back, she would simply continue my training to reach my dreams."

She looks to Afghan women athletes who have made their mark on the world stage. Female athletes from Afghanistan have won more than 100 medals at regional and international tournaments.

Tahmina Kohistani, Afghanistans first female Olympic athlete, competed in the 100-meter run at the 2012 London Olympics. In 2010, the Afghan female soccer team defeated Pakistan 4-0 at the South Asian Football Championship. In 2011, Afghan female power lifters won three gold and two bronze medals at pan-Asian games held in Kazakhstan.

Esazada's fellow jujitsu student at the Nero club, Rana Rasuli, 21, said she worries about her future if the Taliban manage to retake all of Afghanistan.

For now, Rasuli said she is happiest when she can come out of her home and exercise with the other girls at the club.

___

Follow Associated Press photographers and photo editors on Twitter at http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo
The lower house of the United States Congress, the House of Representatives is set to vote today (July 22) on a piece of legislation which reverses President Donald Trump's controversial order banning entry to immigrants from mostly Muslim-majority countries.

The bill which is called the No Ban Act has had a broad base of support among Democratic legislators and is likely to pass the Democrat-controlled House despite opposition from Republicans and the White House, Al Jazeera reported.

"There are today millions of Americans who, because of the Muslim ban, are separated from families and loved ones: parents who can't be reunited, families who can't be reunited, grandparents who are missing out on life events," said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a group concurring instance with the bill.

The bill expands 'anti-discriminatory provisions' in US immigration law. It is also set to limit the ability of US presidents in the future to bar entry based on religion. The bill, if passed, will terminate Trump's executive orders which imposes a ban on immigration from some specific countries.

The president's initial ban targeted Libya, Iran, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen. This had triggered criticism that it amounted to 'unlawful religious discrimination'. Trump had then expanded the ban to include Venezuela and North Korea.

He later added Nigeria, Sudan and Myanmar to the list. In the debate scheduled to be held on Wednesday (July 22), Democrats plan to share stories from dozens of their American constituents who have seen family members prevented from entering the US for 'arbitrary reasons' under the ban.

However, the legislation is unlikely to be allowed to be passed in the Republican-led upper house of the Congress, the Senate. This means that the prospects for its passage this year are dim. The US Supreme Court, in 2017, had ruled that the president has the authority to impose the ban under existing US immigration law.

(ANI)

Also Read: US asks China to close its Houston consulate in 72 hours
A brand new clothing house has opened in Tullamore with up to 50 exclusive brands completely new to Ireland.

The MAD Fashion House, located at No 1. William Street, is owned by Con Scally and business partner Darragh O'Toole and is a welcome addition to the town.

The shop caters for men, women and kids, selling mostly street and casual wear but also formal gear.

Con, who hails from the Clara Road in Tullamore is well known for his pop up shops selling the S13 brand and opened his first pop up in Tullamore in the lead up to Christmas 2018. He opened another one in November/December 2019.

Darragh O'Toole hails from Kill in County Kildare and has been involved in the wholesale fashion brands business.

''The MAD Fashion House is the first project we've brought to Tullamore. We have many plans for Tullamore and Ireland in the coming year. The MAD Fashion House will be run from our store on William Street and also online making it easy for everyone to shop from us. We are really looking to the support of locals and we would like to thank everyone involved in the build and helping us make this store a reality.

"At the MAD Fashion House we have created a business structure that allows our brands grow in Ireland. Any clothing brands stocked with us are exclusive to Ireland. Tullamore is the first flagship store of an empire.''

The MAD Fashion House will employ 5 people but Con and Darragh are hoping to expand their business in the future.Opening hours: Monday-Wednesday 9.30am-6.30pm; Thursday- Saturday 9.30am-8pm; Sunday 12pm-6pm
As a frequent visitor to the Kingdom, Alan Kelly is very familiar with the issues facing the county. During his visit to the constituency last Friday, the new Labour Party leader sat down with The Kerryman to discuss the ongoing Coronavirus crisis, how its is being handled and how a county like Kerry can meet the difficult challenges that lie ahead.

Simon Brouder: Obviously one of the major topics of debate this week is the decision to delay the reopening of pubs. What's your take on that?

Alan Kelly: "I think It's a wrong decision and I think also it was communicated terribly. Thousands of people who were preparing for it, people who are employed, stocking up everything to leave it so late, was wrong. I also just think it was the wrong decision."

"In many ways it's wrong for health reasons. You've got to think, what's the quid pro quo? A lot of people are staying away from restaurants and pubs, so the volume going out to them is less. But, if there's fewer outlets, they're going to congregate in larger amounts in a smaller number of places."

"You saw that in Dublin, and you see it in rural towns and villages. If there were more outlets open it would filter people and prevent, in some cases, the likes of the house parties that we're seeing around the place."

"I think, from a health perspective, as long as pubs were to open with appropriate procedures and social distancing and everything being done clinically and the right way, then it should have been allowed [to] happen."

SB: The decision to keep pubs closed has been severely criticised by many in the tourism sector. What can be done to support the industry?

AK: "From a rural area's point of view it (the decision to keep pubs closed) is very discriminatory. From a tourism point of view, for the likes of Kerry, which I have a great affection for and spend an awful lot of time, the tourism season now has been hammered again. It was hammered anyway, but now its being hammered with the domestic market, and I feel very sorry for all the people who had put in such effort."

"I think across the whole tourism sector there's going to have to be a plan in relation to the stimulus that will be announced this week."

"The whole area (tourism) needs a focus. Whether it's restart grants, or other forms of incentives, they need to be rolled out over a period of time to allow people get though the winter and get ready and get into, hopefully, some sort of season next year. Although I do think it's going to be a couple of years before we're going to have a proper tourism season again."

SB: Is enough being done to support and acknowledge the role and contribution of workers like those in retail or public transport who have been at the forefront of the virus response?

AK: "No. Obviously, we've been highly dependent on them for the last number of months. They've been front-line heroes as much as anyone, they've done a phenomenal amount of work."

"They need to be treated with respect, they need to be paid for what they do. I think their jobs have changed because of COVID, and there is a public-facing role there now that has risk attached to it."

"When it comes to people like those who work in retail, we need to look at what more can be done for them now. They have been a big part of the collaborative social and community effort that has helped us get through all this."

"Where I live in Portroe in Tipperary, the staff in the local shop, and there's only one, for months have been starting at five in the morning getting everything together and doing deliveries to the elderly. That sort of thing just doesn't happen without people making sacrifices."

SB: With face-masks to be mandatory, many retail and transport workers fear it will be left up to them to enforce the rules. Many restaurants and bar owners also feel they are the ones who must police quarantine rules for tourists who won't self isolate. What can be done to support them?

AK: "I think that is a real issue. It's not their role in either case. I also don't believe also in the 'Big Brother' approach."

"I don't think you can expect gardai to go around shops and see if people have masks on when they go in for a pint of milk and fine them if they don't. It's just not practical."

"This needs to be a social-conditioning situation, where people buy into it. Obviously if there's blatant disregard on a mass scale we're going to have to do something but this has to be eased in."

"We (Labour) have been advocating for many, many months on face-masks. We were the first out on it. Masks on public transport is a no brainer. Having face-masks in reatil for the coming months is also the right thing to do, but it should never be on the workers or staff to be police it."

"This has to be a social process where, hopefully, quickly it becomes the norm for people."

SB: Would that social conditioning also be a way to deal with the problem of house parties. To make them a social 'no no'?

AK: "I've a lot of friends who are guards, and I've spoke to a lot of guards, and to be honest with you, they find it impossible. They've brought in rules now which are all very good in theory, but how will it work in practice?"

"Young people are always going to behave in a certain way because they're young people. We have to appreciate that, they've gone through a horrid time during this pandemic, and I really feel that, again, we have to socialise and change behaviour rather than expect that the guards are going to go into houses and check numbers."

"Firstly, I'm not sure legally how secure that would be and, secondly, I think the guards have better things to be doing."

SB: You mention young people having a horrid time. Today the delayed date for the Leaving Cert results was announced and it has created a lot of anxiety. What's your opinion on how this has all been handled?

AK: "There's a number of things here. I'll congratulate the local minister (Norma Foley) on her appointment, but I am very concerned."

"When you're a minster in the Dail, under the constitution and under the handbook for Ministers, you are obliged to answer all questions put to you."

"She (Minister Foley) was asked last night (Thursday) about the date for the Leaving Cert. She didn't answer my colleague Aodhan O'Riordain, and a couple of hours later she announced it was September 7. So we will be in touch with the Ceann Comhairle to ask what's going on here? She didn't answer the question.

"It's not a choice. She said she wanted to tell the other partners (teacher and student bodies and other stakeholders in the exam process). Well we've talked to some of the student unions and they didn't know anything about it."

SB: And as to the delayed results specifically?

AK: "A major concern is that tens of thousands of students across the country haven't planned for accommodation or transport, those with special needs have to make additional changes, and the CAO rounds two and three have to come out later."

"Why is it so late in the day? I understand that this year is different, and we have to be respectful of that but, from all information we've gathered, it seems the grading and everything had been done long ago. In fact, if anything, in terms of marking the Leaving Cert [it] was actually ahead because of the fact that it was predictive grading.

"There's something there that needs to be explained."

SB: Away from the issue of the exams, do you think schools will be in a position to reopen?

AK: "At the rate things are going, I'd have a concern about schools reopening in September, particularly primary schools."

"I can't figure out how school transport is going to operate, they haven't made that clear. The volume of teachers and SNAs required is also going to increase dramatically."

"With regard to the capacity of schools to socially distance, I'm not confident at all. I think secondary schools will probably be okay, but I don't know how primary schools are going to be able to open."

SB: How do you think the change in Government has affected the handling of the crisis.

AK: "I'm not saying this for personal reasons, but I think this Government is a dramatic dis-improvement on the previous one. I'd question some of the appointments of Ministers. I'll give them time but I think there will be issues there."

"There's been a lot of change from those who were handling the COVID crisis, and there are a range of things that worry me."

"The cohesiveness of Government isn't there, and it doesn't feel like it's ever going to be there. There's internal strife in Fianna Fail; there's a leadership election in the Green Party, and one or two of the ministers haven't had flying starts."

SB: A frequent complaint heard outside Dublin is that the needs of rural Ireland are often ignored in favour of the capital? Do you think that's true and, if so, what can be done?

AK: "There shouldn't be an either or. We need a strong Dublin but we need a strong rural Ireland, and we need areas like Kerry to get their fair share. When I say 'fair share' I mean in terms of attention as regards public services; education and health services and with regards investment."

"If you're living in Rathgar or Clontarf, no matte what you're working at, the likelihood is you have a better chance of coming through COVID with a some quality of life, access to services and the potential for employment than you do if you're living in Ballinskelligs or anywhere like that."

"Places like south Kerry that are so dependent on tourism, just for example, must be positively discriminated against because they are so reliant on sectors that have been absolutely walloped."
Scientists at the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (which comes under Ministry of Earth Sciences), located in Goa, have noticed the unprecedented algal blooms within sea ice sheet of Antarctica which they say is indicative of the warming climate in the region.

The algal bloom was noticed in the Maud Rise polynya, a large stretch of open water that is surrounded by ice, using satellite data to measure the concentrations of chlorophyll-a from 2017 onwards and are an indicator of warm water which helps algae propagate.

Satellite derived chlorophyll-a concentration showed the new phytoplankton blooms reached up to 4.67 mg m-3. Multi-satellite data indicated that the bloom appeared for the first time since the entire mission records started since 1978, Dr Babula Jena who led the research study said.

The bloom, he said was mainly a result of upwelling of warm water as well as a combination of factors like availability of nutrients and sunlight which only help the bloom grow further.

The appearance of phytoplankton blooms within sea ice cover is of high importance with implications for atmospheric CO2 and global climate and demonstrates how the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean would likely respond in the future under warming climate conditions and continued melting of Antarctic sea ice, Dr Jena said.

A polynya is a hole in the Antarctic sea ice that occurs if ice begins to melt in the middle of the ice sheet, rather than at the edges as is usually the case.

In September 2017, one such polynya - the Maud Rise - reappeared in midSeptember 2017 and grew to as large as 80,000 km2 by the end of October 2017, appearing like a large lake surrounded by sea ice. It is one of the largest known polynya and was last spotted in 1976.

Back then too, the scientists at the NCPOR accurately explained the sudden and abnormal melting of ice at Maud Rise seemingly in the middle of an otherwise thick sea ice sheet, that published in Geophysical Research Letter.

It is within this polynya that the algal bloom has been recorded. Despite being high in nutrients, the seawater that surrounds Antarctica is not favourable for the growth of oceanic algae owing to the lack of sunlight and cold temperatures.

The blooms occurred in October-November of 2017 during the austral summer and spring in the southern hemisphere.

With the frequent reoccurrence, the associated physical processes could possibly modify the region into a productive environment and likely have an impact on the regional ecosystem and carbon cycle. The occurrence of polynya and phytoplankton blooms may turn it into a potential sink of atmospheric CO2 through biological pumping and can be a major source of carbon and energy for the regional food web, he added.
Iran's Hardliner Watchdog Aims To Expand Power Over Parliament

Radio Farda July 21, 2020

The Secretary of The Islamic Republic's hardliner-dominated Guardian Council (GC), ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, has called for expanding the already powerful body's authority.

Jannati says the GC should be involved in drafting laws from the outset and have the authority to remove "wrong-doing" lawmakers from Majles (Iranian parliament).

Speaking to the members of the newly-elected parliament's presidium on Monday, July 20, the ultraconservative cleric repeatedly emphasized the "importance of oversight," insisting, "Although the GC's oversight on the members of Majles is permanent, it should also have the power to dismiss the MPs."

The Guardian Council is a body empowered to vet legislation, voting procedures, and qualify or dismiss candidates running for president or parliament.

The twelve-member Council comprises jurists and acts in many ways as an upper legislative house. Half its members are specialists in Twelver- Shiite Islamic canon law directly appointed by the country's Supreme Leader, and the other half are civil legal experts nominated by the Supreme Judicial Council and endorsed by the Majles.

"Due to legal problems, the GC cannot remove MPs who deviate from their duties or involve in corruption," the 93-year-old mid-ranking cleric regretfully noted.

The ultraconservative ayatollah explicitly called on the fundamentalist-dominated parliament to pave the way for the GC to expand its power beyond what the Islamic Republic Constitution stipulates.

However, since 1991, the GC has consistently gained more power in the clergy-dominated Iran.

In an unprecedented move in 2016 parliamentary elections, the GC voided the election of a female candidate to parliament without a concrete explanation but multiple sources said she was disqualified because of an alleged photo showing her without hijab.

Over the years, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has helped empower institutions dominated by conservatives in a self-perpetuating mechanism by which conservatives help other conservatives to gain more power and gradually eliminate the more pragmatic members of the establishment who are known as reformists.

During the meeting on Monday, Jannati also called for "experts" from the Guardian Council's "research center" to take part in drafting laws.

Lambasting previous parliaments for passing "faulty and ambiguous laws", later rejected by the GC, Jannati called for amending the procedure in a way that the GC's "research center" can participate from the outset, "assisting" lawmakers.

Meanwhile, the elderly cleric implicitly warned the newly-elected MPs, advising them to have "self-discipline."

According to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, the task of "legislating" or codifying laws is parliament's responsibility.

However, in recent years, the country's Khamenei has delegated some responsibility to other bodies, including the High Supervisory Board of the Expediency Council.

International institutions consider the elections in the Islamic Republic to be "unfree", "non-transparent" and "unfair", including the widespread disqualification before the polls and the intervention of extra-legal institutions in the process.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran- hardliner-watchdog-aims-to-expand-power -over-parliament/30738146.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Qatar Airways has launched international arbitration seeking at least $5bn from four Arab countries as compensation for blocking it from their airspace and removing it from their markets.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt have essentially banned the airline since June 2017 when they cut all ties with Qatar and imposed an air, land and sea blockade on it over accusations of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges outright and says the quartet aims to infringe on its sovereignty.

Qatar Airways said in a statement on Wednesday the measures specifically targeted the carrier with the aim of closing its operations in the four countries, destroying the value of its investments and causing widespread damage to its global operations.

The decision by the blockading states to prevent Qatar Airways from operating in their countries and flying over their airspace is a clear breach of civil aviation conventions and several binding agreements they are signatories to, Akbar al-Baker, Qatar Airways CEO, said.





After more than three years of efforts to resolve the crisis amicably through dialogue yielded no results, we have taken the decision to issue Notices of Arbitration and pursue all legal remedies to protect our rights and secure full compensation for the violations, he added.

The blockading states must be held accountable for their illegal actions in the aviation sector, which includes a failure to comply with their obligations under bilateral agreements, multilateral agreements and international law.

The airline said it was seeking damages through four investment arbitrations under three treaties, including the Arab Investment Agreement.

The move comes after Qatar last week won a procedural dispute before the United Nations top court, which allowed the International Civil Aviation Organization to rule in a case Doha brought before it over the blockade.

Qatar welcomed the July 14 ruling by the International Court of Justice, saying it would lead the blockading countries to face justice for violating international aviation rules.

A number of efforts to end the crisis, mediated by Kuwait, have so far failed to resolve it.
MIDDLETOWN  The lieutenant governor, mayor and local legislators took to the streets Wednesday to encourage North End residents to fill out their census forms during a door-knocking campaign.

Receiving critical funding for schools and other institutions and programs greatly depends on full participation, according to Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.

During the 20-minute walk-through beginning at Macdonough Elementary School on Spring Street, she was joined by Mayor Ben Florsheim, state Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, and state Rep. Quentin Phipps, D-Middletown.

Middletown is doing very well, Bysiewicz said, however, were here in a neighborhood that has not fully met that 65 percent participation rate.

By comparison, Connecticuts response rate is 65.7 percent, above the national average of 62.3 percent. The state is leading in the Northeastern region, Bysiewicz said.

This is a very big week in Connecticut, because the Census Bureau, starting today, will be sending out enumerators, she said. Were proud of what weve done so far, but were not finished.

She has been touring communities across the state with local leaders to check in with people, as well as spread the word about how the process takes only about five minutes.

Their visit was meant to target hard-to-count populations and encourage individuals to respond to the census.

This is so, so important, Phipps said. This is going to be calling your grandfather and saying, Did you fill out the form? your mom, nieces, nephews and step-parents.

Every single person needs to be counted, especially today when we see direct attacks from the [Trump] administration making not only a moral but legal argument saying everyone should not be counted, he said, referring to undocumented immigrants. Trump Tuesday signed an executive order excluding undocumented immigrants from being counted, saying that the numbers should not influence how many seats each state gets in Congress.

Not filling it out jeopardizes funding for sports, playgrounds and other activities, Phipps said. This is about dollars going right back to this neighborhood school.

The reason why weve been able to see those really positive numbers is because we can count [Bysiewicz] as a resident, Florsheim said. [Wednesdays canvass] is a way of preparing people for this next phase were going to be entering into, with census workers taking to the streets.

Bysiewicz offered water bottles and string backpacks emblazoned with the census website.

Those who have not gotten their census forms or who cannot access the Internet can answer questions over the phone, on the website or via their smartphones. If they havent done so, they can anticipate poll workers stopping by, the mayor said.

I know this is a neighborhood where that person-to-person contact is very important. Theres nothing like somebody reminding you in person to perform their civic duty, Florsheim said.

Enumerators, equipped with iPads, which allow touch-less technology, began to canvass neighborhoods throughout the state Wednesday while masked and observing social distancing. Residents can also easily fill out their forms on the tablet.

Connecticuts COVID-19 metrics are so good that workers took to the streets two weeks early, Bysiewicz said. In most states, enumerators are waiting until Aug. 11 to head out.

There also has been lower participation among those who live in the Westlake area, near the Cromwell line, where there are an abundance of apartment complexes in a densely populated area, the mayor said.

He attributes those results to a variety of factors, including inadequate access to the Web, and there being a lot of rental properties where residents mau be more transient.

Florsheim is intent on getting 100 percent of the citys various residential tracts to respond. It is as simple as filling out a voter registration card, he said. Information will never be shared with law enforcement, he said.

Proof of U.S. citizenship is not required, and the form does not even ask the question. There is all sorts of political gamesmanship being played in Washington on this topic  but there is no need to be worried about your information being used by anyone who is going to use it against you, Florsheim said.

Babies are often forgotten, Phipps said. We need to make sure our little ones are counted.

The birth-to-5 age group is the most likely to be undercounted, the lieutenant governor said. Thats $2,900 per child over 10 years. Think about how much difference that can make to a Macdonough School when someones toddler is forgotten.

This is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood question, whether our neighborhoods want the resources that are available and due to us, Lesser said. The only way we can make sure that investment comes into our neighborhood is to make sure were all counted.

People can access the census website to view a map detailing the number of individuals in various states and municipalities, as well as drill down to individual areas of the city, Bysiewicz said.

For information, visit 2020census.gov.
BHP labels English lawsuit over Brazil dam failure pointless, wasteful FILE PHOTO: The Bento Rodrigues district is pictured covered with mud after a dam owned by Vale SA and BHP Billiton Ltd burst in Mariana

By Kirstin Ridley and Zandi Shabalala

LONDON (Reuters) - Anglo-Australian miner BHP has dismissed as pointless and wasteful a 5 billion pound ($6.3 billion) English lawsuit by 200,000 Brazilian people and groups over the 2015 collapse of a dam that led to Brazil's worst environmental disaster.

Kicking off an eight-day hearing in Manchester, northern England, BHP on Wednesday called for the record group action to be struck out or suspended, alleging it duplicated Brazilian proceedings and victims were already receiving redress.

"These applications are ... brought because the attempt to export and duplicate the work being done in Brazil, including the litigation, to England, is pointless and wasteful," BHP said in legal documents.

"It has no proper purpose or utility and will, if allowed to continue, inflict an astonishing burden on the court ... and these parties  without any tangible benefit to the claimants."

The hearing will establish whether the case can be tried in England, although the judge is expected to reserve judgment until around September. If successful, further trials are expected to determine liability and quantify damages.

The collapse of the Fundao tailings dam, which stored mining waste and is owned by the Samarco joint venture between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale, killed 19 and poured roughly 40 million cubic metres of mining waste into communities, the Rio Doce river and Atlantic Ocean, 650 km away.

Claimants allege BHP, the world's largest miner by market value, ignored safety warnings as the dam's capacity was repeatedly increased by raising its height - and disregarded cracks that were early signs of rupture.

Many claimants are seeking compensation for physical and psychological injury, property damage, moving costs, loss of earnings, loss of water supply and lost fishing income.

BHP said the Renova Foundation, a redress scheme set up in 2016 by its Brazilian division, Samarco and Vale, has spent more than 1.3 billion pounds on projects, such as monthly financial aid to about 130 indigenous Krenak families, rebuilding three villages and establishing alternative water supply systems.

It also alleged almost 100,000 of the claimants have already received payments from Renova and only 58 of the individuals, businesses, municipalities, churches, utility companies and indigenous people bringing the claim in England are not part of rival class actions in Brazil.

Story continues

Claimants allege it is wrong to suggest victims are entitled to full redress in Brazil because Renova lacks independence and its compensation scheme is slow, bureaucratic, inadequate and has not properly involved victims in decision-making.

They allege BHP is responsible for the dam's collapse, liable for its "catastrophic consequences" under Brazilian law but that victims have no prospect of proper compensation in Brazil within any reasonable timeframe.

Samarco, Vale and BHP Brasil face a raft of lawsuits in Brazil over the disaster, including a 155 billion reais ($29 billion) class action filed by Brazil's federal prosecutors which, it alleges, overlaps "almost entirely" with the English case.

The Brazilian class action has been suspended, although the parties plan to negotiate a settlement by 2022 at the latest.

($1 = 0.7942 pounds)

($1 = 5.3288 reais)

(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; editing by Barbara Lewis)
MARQUETTE, MI  Northern Michigan University students, faculty and staff will mask up for the return to classes on Aug. 17.

University officials announced this week that students and employees will be required to practice social distancing and wear a mask over their mouth and nose when in public indoor and outdoor spaces to prevent the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus on campus, Upper Michigans Source reports. Face coverings will not be required in private areas, such as dorms and offices.

The university will provide all students and employees with two masks, the report said. Medical exemptions will be provided to those who qualify and fill out paperwork with the university.

This policy is now part of the NMU Student Code of Conduct and is a condition of employment, the report said.

READ MORE:

Wednesday, July 22: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Central Michigan University to start and end fall semester early, require face masks on campus

Everyone required to wear mask everywhere on all 3 University of Michigan campuses

Marquette Mountain announces new biking, skiing upgrades to create Rocky Mountains feel

First sections of Michigans Dragon trail open to hikers, bikers
European Union leaders reached an agreement early Tuesday on a $2.1 trillion budget and coronavirus relief package. The agreement includes $857 billion in coronavirus funding that will be issued as loans and grants to the hardest-hit countries.

It came after negotiations stretched on for four days and nights, well beyond what was expected. A main sticking point was a divide between a group of five richer countries in the north, including the Netherlands and Austria, that advocated a cut in the original proposal of $572 billion in grants along with stricter spending controls, while others such as Spain and Italy sought to keep such restrictions to a minimum.

The final agreement included a compromise of $446 billion in grants.
 Flash

China on Tuesday donated a consignment of medical supplies to Zimbabwe to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The donation included 30,000 testing kits donated by the Chinese government, and 220,000 surgical masks and 40,000 medical gloves by the International Department of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Guo Shaochun handed over the donation to Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa at a ceremony held at the State House in Harare that was attended by cabinet ministers and other senior government officials.

The donation came at a time when Zimbabwe is experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases.

As of Tuesday, Zimbabwe recorded 1,820 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 488 recoveries and 26 fatalities.

While receiving the donation, Mnangagwa expressed profound gratitude to China for its continued support to Zimbabwe's fight against the pandemic, adding that the assistance is greatly assisting the country to combat the spread of the virus.

"This timely gift is certainly a huge contribution whose impact will go a long way to mitigate the suffering amongst our people and boost our capacity for disease control," he said.

Mnangagwa said the support that Zimbabwe continues to receive from China is a testimony of the excellent relations that exist between the two countries.

Guo commended Zimbabwe's efforts in combating the pandemic, adding that China will always stand with Zimbabwe in fighting the virus.

Although the pandemic has brought many challenges, solidarity and cooperation between China and Zimbabwe have been advancing, he said.

"It also challenges our traditional friendship to show greater strength, able to withstand the attack of natural and political viruses. This is a test we will pass with flying colors because what is at stake is the life of our people," Guo said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 18:27:59|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- As the world and the United States in particular remain trapped in a raging COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is travelling abroad to coordinate a response -- not against the deadly pathogen, but against China.

During a press conference with his British counterpart Dominic Raab, he weaponized a variety of issues to smear the country and the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) while offering no concrete evidence -- as usual -- to support his claims.

China demonstrated plenty of global leadership at the start of the outbreak and swiftly shared crucial information about the novel coronavirus with the world. Yet Pompeo continues to accuse China of a cover up.

Pompeo and the like should wake up to the fact that their desperate attempts to blame China won't save a single life in America. Worse, their damage to global cooperation to defeat the virus has contributed to the current dire situation.

Pompeo unsurprisingly called the CPC a "threat." Washington, according to Robin Wright, a contributing writer to The New Yorker, "has a long history of provoking, instigating, or launching wars based on dubious, flimsy, or manufactured threats."

Pompeo the demagogue, who has recently been called one of the "worst secretaries of state ever" by The Washington Post, again chose to turn a blind eye to the fact that each country is entitled to choose a path of development suitable to its own national characteristics.

The so-called CPC threat comes from nowhere but the imagination and anxiety of a troubled soul mired in a Cold-War and zero-sum mentality.

Pompeo also called for a coalition against China and professed to ensure that every country "behaves properly."

How well has the U.S. behaved in its history? Throughout the country's 240-plus years of existence, only 16 years saw no warfare. Since 2001 alone, it has waged unjustified wars and military operations in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries, spending over 6.4 trillion U.S. dollars, causing over 800,000 deaths and displacing tens of millions.

Regarding tech company Huawei, the top U.S. diplomat congratulated London for its political decision to ban the Chinese firm from Britain's 5G network. London's unwise decision threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane and increases its 5G infrastructure roll-out costs by up to 29 percent.

For years Pompeo has failed to offer any concrete evidence to support his claim that Huawei poses a security threat. Driven by strong ideological biases, the U.S. administration went so far as to employ national resources, abuse national security, and use democracy and values as a cover to repress the Chinese company.

Once again, Pompeo's performance in London reminds the world that Washington's current China policy is based on ill-informed strategic miscalculations and is fraught with McCarthyist bigotry.

In a rare moment of truth, Pompeo, also the former Central Intelligence Agency chief, once admitted that "we lied, we cheated, we stole," a perfect phrase to sum up how low Washington would go to stem China's rise.
Former police commissioner Richard Ross Jr. announces the firing of 13 officers for Facebook posts highlighted by the Plainview Project in July 2019. Read more

More than a dozen current and former Philadelphia police officers sued the city this month, saying they were fired, suspended, or forced to retire due to reverse racism or viewpoint discrimination aimed at weeding out cops with right-wing views.

All 16 plaintiffs were disciplined or lost their jobs in response to the 2019 publication of Facebook posts from more than 300 city cops who had expressed what the researchers who exposed them described as racist, dehumanizing, or violent views online.

The officers claims, laid out in two lawsuits filed in federal court in Philadelphia, come as the department faces a moment of reckoning over racial bias sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Each of the plaintiffs has been falsely maligned and effectively branded racists, said Larry L. Crain, a Tennessee lawyer representing nine of the current and former officers. Among his clients posts are messages referring to Syrian refugees as savages and Muslims as the evil that wants to kill you. Other posts threatened violence against transgender people and celebrated aggressive  and in some cases illegal  police responses to protests.

The most recent of the suits, filed Sunday on behalf of seven fired officers, was submitted by Larry Klayman, a right-wing activist lawyer who heads the Washington-based organization Freedom Watch.

In a complaint laden with feverish, racially charged, and conspiracy-minded language, he alleged his clients were victims of an intentional effort to discriminate against white male police by city officials, department leaders, and the Plainview Project, the organization behind the exposing of the problematic posts.

The mission of Plainview [was] to maliciously harm police officers and provoke violent attacks against them and their families in order to cause a breakdown of societal order, such that leftist, socialist, communist, radical African Americans, radical Muslims and radicals on the Jewish left, radical atheists, radical anarchists such as Antifa and other radical forces can assume control of the nation, he wrote.

He contends his clients  who include former Officers Michael Melvin, Dan Farrelly, Brion Milligan, Mark Palma, Robert Bannan, Jesus Cruz, and Steven Hartzell  are not racist, homophobic [or] Islamophobic. Posts authored or shared by them and flagged by the Plainview Project include messages referring to Black people as animals, Black Lives Matter protesters as monkeys and filthy scum, and Muslims as Islamo-sbirds.

The nine officers represented by Crain took a more measured tone in their legal action, eschewing allegations of racial discrimination against them. Instead, they contended that city officials violated their First Amendment rights by arbitrarily disciplining or firing them for expressing political views on their private social media accounts when there was no clear departmental social media policy barring them from doing so.

Together, the suits seek more than $108 million in damages.

City officials did not respond to requests for comment on the claims. District Attorney Larry Krasner, who is named along with Mayor Jim Kenney, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, and former Commissioner Richard Ross as a defendant in Klaymans suit, dismissed them out of hand.

The people whose postings were collected by the Plainview Project clicked keys on keyboards with their own fingers so that they could express themselves, and then made sure the whole world knew about it by setting up no security, he said. They were in essence publicizing their opinions for everyone to see. Guys, why run away from them now? Congratulations, the whole world is watching.

The lawsuits come a year after Ross, who lost his own job last year amid allegations of sexual harassment, announced the firing of 13 officers for posts noted in the Plainview Projects archives  the largest mass dismissal of department employees in recent city history. In the months that followed, a few others lost their jobs, some resigned, and dozens who remained on the force faced disciplinary action, including reprimands and unpaid suspensions.

I continue to be very angered and disappointed by these posts, many of which, in my view, violate the basic tenets of human decency, Ross said at the time, adding that the department must move past this ridiculous hate that just consumes this country.

But Crain, in legal filings, argued that Ross move and comments by Kenney and Krasner have made it impossible for his clients  who include former Officers Christian Fenico, Thomas Gack, Edward McCammitt, Tanya Grandizio, Anthony Anzideo, Anthony Acquaviva, Kristine Amato, and Joseph Przepiorka  to obtain other employment in law enforcement.

A defamation lawsuit from Inspector D.F. Pace, a police commander also named in the Plainview Project database, was quickly dismissed by a judge. Another suit  involving a police sergeant in Phoenix whose posts were also exposed  remains pending in federal court in Arizona.

Klayman, a former federal prosecutor, has had dozens of lawsuits filed by his organization thrown out of court, including one 2014 effort seeking the deportation of Barack Obama during his presidency. He has been permanently banned from two courts and last month was suspended from practicing law for 90 days by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, citing ethics violations.

A federal judge has not yet set a hearing date in either of the cases.
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Linkedin Alexandra Vardi (Agence France-Presse) Jerusalem, Undefined  Wed, July 22, 2020 15:35 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066874245 2 Entertainment Tehran,drama,Israel,Apple-TV Free

The plot of Israel's latest spy series to screen internationally, "Tehran" premiering on Apple TV, seems straight from the news headlines and reflects the Jewish state's deep enmity with Iran.

A young Mossad agent is sent on her first mission: to disable Iranian air defenses so Israel can strike a reactor and deny the Islamic Republic the ability to make an atomic bomb.

The conservative press in Iran -- a country which strongly denies that its nuclear program is for anything other than civilian use -- has slammed the show as Zionist propaganda.

Yet, while the notion of Israel and Iran cooperating on anything -- let alone a television series -- is unthinkable now, "Tehran" co-creator Moshe Zonder said he likes to think of it as at least a cultural coproduction.

"We speak more Farsi than Hebrew in 'Tehran'... so to a certain extent, I would like to think that it is an Israeli-Iranian series, although officially it is not," he said.

Zonder told AFP he believes the Iranian and Israeli people "could be friends, without the leaders who frighten their population and stir up hatred in order to stay in power".

Lead actress Niv Sultan studied Farsi for four months, he said, to prepare for the role of an Iranian-born Jewish woman who is sent back on an undercover mission to the country of her childhood.

Two Iranian-born actors are also in the show -- Navid Negahban and Shaun Toub, both of whom have had roles in the US series "Homeland", which is also based on an Israeli-made espionage series.

On a separate note, Zonder said that "placing a woman at the heart of this new action series was a political decision".

"We wanted to see what a young, talented but inexperienced woman chooses and can do in a world ruled by men when her commanders have failed," he said. "It is definitely a feminist series."

Read also: Netflix row in Turkey after series cancelled 'because of a gay character'

Praise and controversy

Its producers hope "Tehran" will have similar global success as previous series featuring Israel's notorious secret agents.

"Fauda", about an undercover Israeli unit fighting Arab militants, marked a breakthrough for attracting international audiences to Israeli productions and runs to three seasons on Netflix.

Praised by some for its nuanced portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it has also been criticized for being one-sided and glorifying Israel and its agents.

"Tehran", an eight-part series, was produced by Israel's public television network Kan and mostly shot in Athens.

Yossi Sivan, a member of an association of Iranian Jews living in Israel, told AFP that the spy thriller series nonetheless "gives the impression" of taking place in Tehran.

Sivan, who is in his 70s, moved to Israel when he was 20, but said images of the Tehran suburbs where he spent his childhood remain engraved in his mind.

An estimated tens of thousands of Iranian Jews have moved to Israel since its establishment in 1948, although official figures are not available.

Sivan, growing audibly emotional, said he had only returned to Tehran once since leaving, "when it was still possible".

Before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had diplomatic relations with Israel.

Since then, Iranian leaders have repeatedly pledged to see the destruction of the Jewish state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Iran and its purported nuclear weapons program pose an existential threat to Israel.

In Iran, the Kayhan newspaper, which is close to ultra-conservatives, in October slammed the new Israeli show.

It charged that "this series tries to portray the Zionist regime's espionage system as so powerful that Israeli spies are roaming around Iran freely".

"While Iran's cinema has given up producing anti-Israeli films and series," it argued, "the Zionist regime has set up a production line for anti-Iran material".
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 19:03:14|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Liang Rongfu, one of China's most wanted graft fugitives, has returned to China and turned himself in, almost six years after fleeing overseas, an official source announced on Wednesday.

Liang, a former legal representative of a real estate company based in Foshan, south China's Guangdong Province, is suspected of offering bribes, according to a statement by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Supervisory Commission.

He fled overseas in August 2014.

An investigation into his case was launched in December 2014 before he was listed on an Interpol Red Notice in July 2015. His case was later transferred to the local supervisory authority in Foshan.

His return is an important achievement for the campaign on international fugitives and asset recovery concerning duty-related crime, said an office in charge of fugitives and asset recovery under the central anti-corruption coordination group, which stressed further action to consolidate the sweeping victory against corruption. Enditem
Robin Pilkey will stay on as a trustee, but is stepping down as chair of the countrys largest school board after five years.

As the longest-serving elected leader of the Toronto District School Board, Pilkey told the Star she felt it was time to hand over the reins as trustees embark on finding a new director of education and implement school reopening plans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pilkey, an accountant who won the support of fellow trustees in 2015 after only having served on the board for eight months, told the Star that because she will remain as the representative for her Parkdale-High Park ward, she will be around to help and mentor whoever takes her place.

The vote for a new chair is expected Aug. 10. No candidates have yet emerged.

The boards current vice-chair is Trixie Doyle, who represents Don Valley East.

Pilkey took over after a rocky period for the board and has been credited, along with just-departed education director John Malloy, with repairing its reputation and allowing it to focus on students and student achievement.

The board has come a long way and overcome a number of significant challenges since I first assumed the role five years ago, Pilkey said.

It has truly been one of the greatest honours of my life to be chair of the TDSB  (but) given the importance of the upcoming search for a permanent director of education, I felt it was necessary to make this decision now to ensure the greatest amount of stability as we move through the recruitment process.

Malloy recently left the board to become director of education in a small, San Francisco-area district.

He was replaced by interim director Carlene Jackson, the first Black woman to lead the board.

The Toronto board, among the largest in North America, has 250,000 students in about 600 schools.
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Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 13:19 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406687d824 1 National Immigration-Directorate-General,mixed-marriage,stay-permits,COVID-19,cross-border-transmission,ITKT Free

Haida, a 53-year-old resident of Jakarta, said that she was stumped when she learned that her daughter must soon return to Malaysia alone because of the recent revocation of the emergency stay permit (ITKT) and corresponding policies, which came into force on July 13.

Haida is Indonesian, but her husband is a Malaysian citizen who is in Indonesia on a permanent stay permit (ITAP). Their 18-year-old daughter Jennet has a Malaysian passport and is enrolled at a university in Germany.

Jennet usually returns to visit her parents in Indonesia under the visa-free facility, an exemption accorded to ASEAN passport holders and other designated states. But she has been staying on an ITKT since March, when her visit was unexpectedly prolonged as a result of the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by many countries in the world, including Indonesia.

The short stay visa free facility allows foreign visitors to stay in Indonesia for up to 30 days.

The Immigration Directorate General of the Law and Human Rights Ministry announced on April 1 that it had issued a new emergency extension facility for all foreign nationals who had entered the country as of Feb. 5, as countries around the world closed their borders to travelers in response to the pandemic.

The automatic ITKT facility was to be in force until the "COVID-19 outbreak is declared over by the authorities".

On July 12, however, the immigration office announced that it was revoking the ITKT facility and offering a grace period of 30 to 60 days effective July 13 for foreign nationals to depart the country, depending on which visa or permit they entered.

Visitors who entered Indonesia on the visa-free facility that had since expired must now leave the territory within 30 days from July 13, or by Aug. 12.

Jennet is ineligible to convert the visa-free facility into a limited stay visa for family reunification (VITAS 317), as the country's consulates and embassies have not resumed services for new visa applications.

My daughter cannot go back to Germany because there are no flights going there. If she goes back to Malaysia, she would not be able to return to Indonesia, Haida told The Jakarta Post, adding that the family had no close relatives or a house in Malaysia.

Where should my daughter go then? she said in distress.

Read also: Children of mixed marriages struggle to return home during pandemic

The circumstances of Haida's transnational family is not unique, and many mixed couples and their families now have an additional uncertainty to deal with. Some couples and families may even be forcibly separated across international borders as a result of the updated policy.

The immigration office announced on its official Twitter account @ditjen_imigrasi on July 13 that it was permitting the extension of ITAP and temporary stay permits (ITAS). It also announced that visitors with a visa on arrival (VOA) who were now on the emergency permit may also extend their VOAs within the 30-day grace period.

The immigration website contains a caveat, however: "unless the Covid-19 pandemic is declared over and available transports are leaving Indonesia". It does not mention travel restrictions that may still be in force in a visitor's home country that may affect their arrival or deny them entry.

Meanwhile, visitors on the visa-free facility must leave the country.

The updated policy also carries "immigration administrative sanctions" that apply to holders of any visa or stay permit, excepting those who have a visa telex for the ITAS or the visitor stay permit (ITK) and have been unable to complete their visa process to date.

Read also: Emergency stay permits to no longer be issued for foreigners as Indonesia enters new normal

Chairwoman Juliani W. Luthan of the Indonesian Mixed-Marriage Society (PerCa) praised the immigration office for providing clarity on the updated policy for ITAS and ITAP holders, saying that many families had rushed to extend their permits upon learning about the new policy.

Many mixed families faced uncertainty regarding their status in Indonesia, as the immigration authority had suspended visa extension services.

But like Jennet, transnational families with children or spouses still overseas without valid entry visas or stay permits remain in limbo.

Juliani said that such families relied on VOAs, which were not exempt from the ban on foreign visitors still in force.

Read also: mixed families struggle to stay together during pandemic

All foreign visitors remain barred from entering Indonesia unless they have dual citizenship, have diplomatic visas or stay permits, or are engaged in medical or humanitarian activities, as well as other specific conditions.

Juliani suggested that the government allow mixed families to apply for the VITAS 317, which would facilitate their reunion and allow the visiting family member to eventually apply for an ITAS or ITAP.

We understand that the government is hesitant to [reopen] the VOA facility. But it would be much clearer if we could simplify the VITAS 317 application [procedure], seeing as the government will only allow mixed families to enter Indonesia, she said.

For instance, the government could allow the Indonesian nationals of a single family to apply for the VITAS 317 on behalf of a foreign family member that remained abroad. Under this scenario, the foreign family member would only need to produce the immigration clearance telex approving their VITAS application at the port of entry.

The Post has contacted the immigration office for comment.

But the new policy has also brought certainty for some mixed families.

Fida Muljono, 63, said she was relieved to learn that her French husband could now extend his ITAP, which was due to expire on July 27.

Fida said she had been in a panic since March about her husbands ITAP extension. Her greatest fear was that her husband would be unable to reenter Indonesia on an expired ITAP in the event that he needed to go to France for medical treatment.

She and her husband promptly visited the South Jakarta immigration office on July 14, the day after the policy came into effect, to start the extension process.

The immigration officers really understood the anxiety foreigners have endured, and they patiently provided guidance to us, she said.
By AFP

KIEV: Ukrainian police freed 13 hostages and arrested an armed man who held them on a bus for more than 12 hours on Tuesday, after the country's president agreed to his demand to post a movie recommendation on social media.

The SBU security service said a joint operation had resulted in all the hostages being released unharmed after a police stand-off in the western city Lutsk with the man, who threatened to detonate an explosive device unless his strange requests were met.

The tense hostage situation seemed to be resolved swiftly after the man spoke on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who then recorded a short video, apparently meeting one of the man's demands.

Three hostages were quickly let go, followed by the rest about an hour later.

Footage published by Ukrainian officials showed police escorting people as armed special forces stood over a man lying face down on the pavement near the bus with his hands behind his back.

The hostage-taker had earlier fired shots and thrown an explosive package into the street in the centre of Lutsk, a city of over 200,000 some 400 kilometres (250 miles) from capital Kiev.

'He convinced him'

The man initially made contact with the police identifying himself as Maksym Plokhoy, a pseudonym which translates to "Bad Maxim", police said.

He was identified as Maksym Kryvosh, 44, who had previously spent around 10 years in prison on various charges.

An account which was later suspended by Twitter had posts under Kryvosh's name claiming he was armed, including with bombs, and demanding top Ukrainian personalities convey anti-establishment messages on social media.

President Zelensky apparently carried out one of the demands posted on the account when he recorded a Facebook video calling on people to watch the 2005 documentary film "Earthlings". Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, the film chronicles the harsh treatment of animals at the hands of humans.

Zelensky spoke with Kryvosh after a phone was handed to him, deputy head of Zelensky's administration Kyrylo Tymoshenko told a briefing in Lutsk.

"He had a telephone conversation, speaking with him for 15 minutes, he convinced him to release three hostages," Tymoshenko said.

The president later deleted the short video from his account.

"Today loved ones can hug everybody who languished all day on the bus with a gun pointed at them," Zelensky wrote after the crisis was over.

"We did not lose a single person," added the president, a former TV comedian before his 2019 election win.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Kryvosh came out of the bus following the negotiations.

"He really had a functioning pistol, an automatic rifle, he really had a grenade. There was a threat. But it's all in the past," Avakov said.

"A lengthy prison sentence awaits him," he said, calling Kryvosh an "unstable man".

Earlier footage showed the blue and white bus with several windows shattered and curtains drawn, surrounded by a heavy police presence.

Police earlier said there were 20 hostages, but it turned out there were only 13.

While a heavy security presence including armoured vehicles were around the immediate area, people walked the streets beyond the perimeter and shops were open, an AFP correspondent said.

The hostages were onboard the bus from around 9 am (0600 GMT) with no access to food or a toilet. They were given access to water many hours later.

The SBU security service pronounced the situation an "act of terror" and launched a probe.

Ukraine, which has been fighting Russia-backed separatists since 2014, has been struggling with a proliferation of illegal weapons.

Police in late 2017 stormed a post office in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where an armed man claiming to be strapped with explosives captured 11 people.
FORT MILL, S.C., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler was presented with an "Excellent Performance Award" by Subaru of Indiana Automotive (SIA) in recognition of its commitment to helping the automaker efficiently manufacture high-quality vehicles for its customers.

The "Excellent Performance Award" distinguishes Schaeffler for achieving SIA's stringent safety, quality, cost and delivery targets. Schaeffler earned the prestigious award for supplying SIA with Schaeffler's innovative "RSTM" roller-pump tappet, which is installed in Subaru engines that feature high-pressure direct injection fuel systems. Schaeffler manufactures the RSTM, amongst other products, at its plant in Cheraw, South Carolina.

"All of us at Schaeffler  and especially the dedicated members our Cheraw team  are extremely proud to receive this award from our partners at Subaru of Indiana Automotive," said Jeff Harris, Schaeffler Engine Systems Americas President. "We are absolutely committed to supplying SIA with the highest-quality technology and system solutions for their vehicles, which enjoy such a passionate and devoted following by their owners."

About Schaeffler

The Schaeffler Group is a leading global supplier to the automotive and industrial sectors. Its portfolio includes high-precision components and systems for engine, transmission and chassis applications as well as rolling and plain bearing solutions for a large number of industrial applications. The Schaeffler Group is already shaping "Mobility for tomorrow" to a significant degree with innovative and sustainable technologies for electric mobility, digitalization and Industry 4.0. The technology company generated sales of approximately 14.4 billion euros in 2019. With around 86,500 employees, Schaeffler is one of the world's largest family companies and, with approximately 170 locations in over 50 countries, has a global network of manufacturing locations, research and development facilities, and sales companies. With just under 2,400 patent applications in 2019, Schaeffler is Germany's second-most innovative company according to the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA).

Schaeffler is a recognized development partner for global automakers and suppliers. To serve the North American automotive market, Schaeffler operates development centers in Troy, Mich.; Fort Mill, S.C.; Wooster, Ohio; and Puebla, Mexico. The company's 600 North American engineers and technicians, who are supported by a team of more than 6,700 global R&D engineers, drive development in the region by utilizing state-of-the-art test and measurement equipment, computational tools and CAD systems. Schaeffler Automotive has headquarters in Fort Mill and manufacturing facilities in South Carolina; Missouri; Ohio; Ontario, Canada; Puebla and Irapuato, Mexico. For more information, please visit www.schaeffler.us.

About Subaru of Indiana Automotive

Subaru of Indiana Automotive (SIA), a subsidiary of Subaru Corp., is the home of North American production for the Ascent, Impreza, Legacy and Outback. SIA employs more than 6,000 associates who are committed to quality, safety and environmental stewardship. For more information, visit www.subaru-sia.com.

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A teenage girl has reportedly shot dead two Taliban militants after they murdered her parents, before fighting off reinforcements alongside her younger brother.

Around 40 Taliban fighters stormed the village of Geriveh in Afghanistans central Ghor province last week, several of whom appeared at the home of Qamar Guls family at 1am on Friday.

The Islamist militants shot dead both Ms Guls mother and father, whom local officials say was a pro-government village chief who had complained about Taliban demands for tax payments.

After witnessing the death of her parents, Ms Gul  who is between the ages of 14 and 16  picked up her fathers AK-47 rifle and killed the two militants responsible, wounding another, the local police chief told Agence France-Presse.

She then entered a battle against other Taliban fighters alongside her 12-year-old brother, Habibullah, which lasted for an hour. More militants are said to have arrived, however other villagers and government troops helped to fight them off.

(Twitter (Twitter)

Afghan security forces have now taken Gul and her younger brother to a safer place, Mohamed Aref Aber, a spokesperson to the provincial governor, told AFP.

The nations government have since praised their bravery during a Cabinet meeting, while president Ashraf Ghani has invited them to meet him.

An image of Ms Gul holding a rifle has since gone viral on social media, with many hailing the teenager as a hero. However, others have described the incident as a sad symbol of a country torn by decades of war.

While the US and Taliban have struck a fragile peace deal, the militants have since stepped up their attacks on government security forces - which according to the Afghan National Security Council (NSC) amounted to an average of 55 attacks per day between March and May.

The Islamist group also frequently target civilians who they suspect of being pro-government or informers.

The NSC calculates that in the month following 16 June, Taliban soldiers killed 129 civilians across 30 provinces, including women and children, and wounded 291 others.
All love stories begin somewhere.

And for Alison Brie and Dave Franco, their romance began in 2011 at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and a wild two days.

Speaking with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Monday, the 37-year-old actress said after agreeing to a 'secret' trist they spent two days together filled with 'drugs and sex.'

Dishing: Alison Brie and Dave Franco, their romance began in 2011 at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and a wild two days, she told Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show, Monday

The couple recently celebrated three years of marriage in March, after tying the knot in 2017.

While speaking with the late night host, Brie recalled meeting the Neighbors actor eight years ago while in the Big Easy with a friend for the annual celebrations.

'Its a very romantic story and very sweet,' The Glow actress said. 'It starts off in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, where all great love stories begin. I was there with some friends. It was some incredible matchmaking done by my friend Jules.'

Her friend, who would go on to play matchmaker for the couple secretly texted Brie, while at dinner with Franco, 35, asking if she wanted to hook up with him.

Full 48 hours: The 37-year-old actress said after agreeing to a 'secret' trist they spent two days together filled with 'drugs and sex' (pictured together in 2019)

Telling all: Speaking with Fallon, 45, 'Its a very romantic story and very sweet,' The Glow actress said. 'It starts off in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, where all great love stories begin. I was there with some friends. It was some incredible matchmaking done by my friend Jules'

'I responded, like, "Yes, please. Thumbs up. Thumbs up. Thumbs up." Very enthusiastic response,' the Los Angeles native said. After seeing her messages Francos said 'Im in.'

Though between them, was their mutual friend, who had the now couple promise at the time to keep the trist secret.

'It was the perfect setup, because we both got to leave the restaurant [and] head out to the evening of drinking and debauchery having, like, a sexy secret that we knew the other person was on board,' she said.

And with that they spent '48 hours of drugs and sex and a lot of making out.'

Not so secret: Though between them, was their mutual friend, who had the now couple promise at the time to keep the trist secret

Keeping the flame: The couple picked things up in New York City, after their Mardi Gras get together, where Franco was shooting a movie

The couple picked things up in New York City, after their Mardi Gras get together, where Franco was shooting a movie.

'Dave was shooting a movie for weeks in New Orleans and the movie took him subsequently to New York and then to Paris,' Brie told Fallon, 45.

Franco greeted her with the 'wining and dining, romantic portion of meeting each other.'

And in romantic and dramatic fashion 'He left a secret note in my sweatshirt on our last day of our trip in New York, saying, "Come with me to Paris," and so in cliche fashion  How could I say no?,' she said.

I had to: And in romantic and dramatic fashion 'He left a secret note in my sweatshirt on our last day of our trip in New York, saying, "Come with me to Paris," and so in cliche fashion  How could I say no?,' she said

Work and love: They went on to get engaged in 2015, two years before getting married. Brie and Franco have been spending a lot of time together as the coronavirus pandemic has shut down Hollywood productions. And together, they penned a romantic comedy, though not based on their romance (pictured in 2018)

They went on to get engaged in 2015, two years before getting married.

Brie and Franco have been spending a lot of time together as the coronavirus pandemic has shut down Hollywood productions.

And together, they penned a romantic comedy, though not based on their romance.

'We thought about it,' she said. 'As we started to write it you realize that movies need conflict and it started to feel really weird and bad to create scenarios where wed be, like, well maybe this person cheats on this person.'

Adding: 'I dont want to put that out in the universe. I dont want to cosplay fanfic about our lives but in a negative way.'
A general view of the Blue Nile River as it passes through the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), near Guba, in Ethiopia, on Dec. 26, 2019. (Eduardo Soteras/AFP via Getty Images)

A Framework for Ending the Egypt-Ethiopia Nile Water War

Commentary

Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting. In less colorful words, securing water is worth going to war.

Ethiopia and Egypt are now engaged in a vicious struggle over Nile River water rights. Their confrontation began well over a decade ago.

If the opening epigram strikes you as cliche Hollywood western dialogue, then good chance youve never suffered thirst with a sandpaper throat; been a farmer watching crops wither; or scratched it out as a pastoralista fancy term for animal herder anywhere in any era, Mesopotamia to Oklahomawatching sheep, cattle or goats die from lack of H2O.

Human survival, individual and societal, requires water. Just ask Egyptians. At least 7,000 years of life on the Nile has proven the adage Egypt is the Nile to be true. From Aswan north to Alexandria, the green band bordering the great river is home to 90 percent of Egypts population.

Twenty-first-century Egypt still confronts pharaoh-era East African geographic and climactic facts. Egypt gets 80 percent to 90 percent of its annual water needs from the Nile. The Blue Nile River originates in Ethiopias watered highlands. Tributary? The Blue Nile provides roughly 85 percent of all Nile water. The Blue Nile meets the White Nile near Sudans capital, Khartoum. Enriched in Sudan, the worlds longest river rolls north, through Egypt and into the Mediterranean.

Regional politics add complexity. Ethiopia objects to the 1929 Nile Waters Agreement, a colonial document engineered by Great Britain, which gives Egypt the right to veto upstream water projects. Ethiopia signed the agreement, but it also affects Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, whose water feeds the White Nile. In 2010, Ethiopia authored the Entebbe Agreement, which would give Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania a diplomatic mechanism for altering the 1929 division of Nile water rights. Rwanda and Burundi also support the Entebbe agreement.

So Ethiopia built the GERD, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The GERD now dams the Blue Nile River near the Sudan border. This month, Ethiopia began filling the dams reservoir, which could ultimately hold 75 billion cubic meters of water.

Ethiopia says GERD provides water for its own growing population and produces hydroelectric power, enough to light Ethiopia with the excess sold throughout Africa. The GERD has the physical potential to become Africas largest hydroelectric power plant. Why, high-tension lines could run to Cairo.

But as far as Cairo is concerned, the GERD is an Ethiopian weapon capable denying Egypt 75 percent or more of its annual water supply. Its an existential threat far greater than the COVID-19/Wuhan pandemic or a border war. It represents systemic societal death from thirst.

Where is the United States? During a 2013 regional trip, then-President Barack Obama deplored sub-Saharan Africas lack of electrical generation capacity. Obama strictly focused on improving African electrical generation capacity and grids. However, that isnt how Ethiopians and Egyptians heard him. In both countries, the presidents comments were heard as supportive of Ethiopia. Egyptians noted Obamas father was a Kenyan, and Kenya and Ethiopia are close allies.

In 2013, the Ethiopian government promised Egypt it would fill the reservoir so slowly it would not affect its water allotment. Ethiopia has also reiterated its offer to sell Egypt part ownership in the dam and guarantee Egypt a share of the electricity generated by the dam. Egypt didnt accept the offer, but 2013 was the year the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship fell.

What is to be done? A war between east Africas two most powerful nations would be a disaster for both but especially Sudan, which lies between them.

In late January 2020, the Trump administration, acting as an external mediator, tried to hammer out a joint responsibility agreement for managing drought crises. The United States has good relations with Egypt and Ethiopia. The deal didnt gelbut the idea of guaranteeing Egypt water during a drought is a rational approach.

Austin Bay is a colonel (ret.) in the U.S. Army Reserve, author, syndicated columnist, and a teacher in strategy and strategic theory at the University of Texas. His latest book is Cocktails from Hell: Five Wars Shaping the 21st Century.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr announced on Wednesday that the Justice Department will "immediately surge" federal law enforcement officers to Chicago and Albuquerque in an effort to combat violent crime.

The big picture: The deployment is an expansion of Operation Legend, which the Justice Department launched on July 8 in Kansas City, Mo., as a coordinated initiative "across all federal law enforcement agencies working in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight the sudden surge of violent crime."

The operation has seen hundreds of federal agents sent to Kansas City to help quell violence that erupted after the shooting death of four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, for whom Operation Legend is named.

Chicago has also seen a surge in violence, including a mass shooting on Tuesday night that left 14 injured.

Details: The administration will send about 200 officers to Chicago and 35 to Albuquerque from the FBI, ATF, Drug Enforcement Agency, U.S. Marshals service and the Department of Homeland Security, which has been stationed in Portland as Black Lives Matter protests have continued for over 50 days.

Between the lines: Operation Legend is distinct from the Department of Homeland Security's presence in Portland, which was established under an executive order seeking to protect monuments and federal property from protesters.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday she had received assurances that the federal agents would be focused on dealing with gun violence, not targeting protesters. "We welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship," Lightfoot said. "We do not welcome authoritarianism."

Reports of unidentified federal agents snatching protesters into unmarked vans in Portland have sparked intense backlash against the Trump administration.

The bottom line: President Trump has staked his re-election hopes on a law-and-order message by promising to send law enforcement to more Democratic-led cities, which now find themselves in the topsy-turvy position of having to resist federal government action, Axios' Shane Savitsky notes.

"If Biden got in, that would be true for the country," Trump told reporters Monday after saying more agents would be deployed. "The whole country would go to hell. And were not going to let it go to hell."

Go deeper: Liberal cities resist as Trump stakes his re-election hopes on "law and order"
According to Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, the disbursement of public investment has seen positive signs.

Specifically, as of July 15, VND18.8 trillion ($817.39 million) of public investment capital has been disbursed in the city, reaching 45.18 per cent of the assigned plan, higher in both value and disbursement rate than in the same period last year, Phong announced at the meeting between Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the leaders of Ho Chi Minh City on July 20.

Ho Chi Minh City proposed the PM to add Central Square Park and a riverside park to the planning of Thu Thiem New Urban Area

Phong emphasised that under the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ho Chi Minh City has determined that the disbursement of public investment is the most significant task of 2020 because it will be key to economic recovery under the new normal conditions.

"The committee will focus on pushing the disbursement of public investment capital, trying to reach 95 per cent of the annual figure by the end of the year, Phong said.

The leader of Ho Chi Minh City has also proposed the prime minister to review and solve many obstacles to push up public investment disbursement and accelerate the city's economic recovery post-COVID-19.

It is also focusing on implementing many solutions to accelerate the progress of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects.

Ho Chi Minh City is now home to 166 PPP projects which are implementing investment procedures with the total estimated investment of VND324.7 trillion ($14.1 billion).

In addition, the city is also calling for investment in more than 290 PPP projects in all fields such as transportation, environment, healthcare, culture, and education with a total estimated investment of VND910.4 trillion ($39.6 billion).

"For key PPP projects, the city has been organising regular meetings to review their progress and solve difficulties in implementation," Phong said.

Key projects mentioned were the construction of Metro Line No.1 from Ben Thanh to Suoi Tien and Metro Line No.2 from Ben Thanh to Tham Luong.

Phong also stressed that PPP projects in Ho Chi Minh City are facing difficulties in mobilising land funds to return to the investors after they build public facilities.

So far, key transport projects in Ho Chi Minh City are coming along slowly. For instance, only 18 per cent of Ring Road No.2 has been completed while Ring Road No.4 has not even been started yet.

In Thu Thiem New Urban Area in District 2, the People's Committee asked for the PM's permission to add four more bridges, new channels and a central lake to the construction plan. The PM was also requested to pave the way for investors to build two key projects of the area  the Central Square Park and the riverside park.

These are important public facilities to host major cultural and political events in the city. The city, therefore, asks for guidance from the PM and related bodies to be able to build them as soon as possible, Phong added.
Businesses air grievances with Covid-19 restrictions

State Sen. Chuck Edwards makes a point during a meeting with business owners hosted by state Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley.

About two dozen local business owners and politicians gathered at Hannah Flanagans Pub on Tuesday morning in a Republican Party-orchestrated event to air grievances about the states business restrictions in the coronavirus pandemic.

Michael Whatley, chairman of the N.C. Republican Party, is hosting the traveling road show across the state to discuss the impacts of Covid-19 and its impact on small businesses in the area.

We are running this series to hear what your story is, Whatley said to the masked business owners seated at a long table at the popular Irish pub on Main Street. Videos of individual participants and their stories will be posted on the NCGOP website.

The business leaders represented real estate, construction, gyms, summer camps, agriculture, restaurants, bars and more. City, county and state officials were also present, including state Sen. Chuck Edwards and Rep. Chuck McGrady.

In a roundtable discussion, each attendee had opportunity to speak about how their businesses had been affected by Covid-19, the shutdown and Gov. Roy Coopers executive orders. Concerns ranged from harms to small business, the loss of tourism and sales tax revenue and confusion over the executive orders.

With Governor Cooper holed up in his mansion, he is not hearing from these small business owners, Whatley said.

Multiple attendees spoke of forming plans to reopen in May only to have a new order extend restrictions.

Moving the goalpost has been a theme here, McGrady said.

Jake Dalton, a Transylvania County commissioner who owns a gym, asked, Who tells who, who is and is not essential? I have bills to pay too.

The politicization of the virus came up often throughout the meeting. Attendees said the upcoming elections were affecting the Coopers actions in regards to COVID-19.

This should not be about politics, Edwards said. This should be about getting people back to work.

Hendersonville City Council member Jennifer Hensley described the executive orders and shutdown as a slow trickle and chipping away, of enforcement of things the government shouldnt be a part of.

Many business owners acknowledged the threat of the virus, but wished to reopen and reduce economic impacts.

The answer, according to every expert across the world, is a comprehensive testing plan, Whatley said. Masks are a great tool, social distancing is a great tool, but its not a plan.

Discussion also touched on how schools are being affected by the Governors orders.

Henderson County School Board member Amy Lynn Holt added: Cooper tied our hands. It was more dangerous to bring them in than to keep them home. She said in order to bring students to class in person, they would have to attend one week and then be out for two. Where are the kids for those two weeks? The School Board on Monday looked at the options for opening school on Aug. 17 and, after hearing multiple problems with returing to the classroom, opted for remote learning only through September.

County Commissioner Rebecca McCall said the situation is teaching children to fear the virus.

Kids are the ones Im most concerned about, she said.
Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will reportedly come with optimisations for Microsoft Xbox cloud gaming, Project xCloud.

There are detailed leaks and reports on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultras specs and design. Galaxy Note 20 Ultra could also come with optimisations for Microsofts cloud gaming service, Project xCloud.

Samsung announced its partnership with Microsoft earlier this year at the Galaxy S20 series launch. Samsung said it will bring support for Xbox cloud gaming on its smartphones. Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will come with support for Project xCloud and over 90 games, according to a report by WinFuture. Microsofts Project xCloud is currently available in testing on Android and iOS, and it will launch in September.

In addition to cloud gaming, the Microsoft-Samsung partnership will also bring automatic OneNote synchronisation on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. This partnership actually goes back to last year with the Galaxy Note 10 which came with Microsoft apps such as OneDrive, Outlook, and Your Phone.

The report also specs of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra like triple rear cameras. The smartphone will sport a 108-megapixel primary sensor, a 12-megapixel ultra wide angle lens and a 12-megapixel periscope lens. The Note 20 Ultra will support 50x zoom and not 100x zoom like the Galaxy S20 Ultra.

ALSO READ: Heres a closer look at Samsung's radical new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra

More details on the new Note include a 6.9-inch QHD+ display with 120Hz refresh rate, Gorilla Glass 7, a 10-megapixel selfie camera, and 5G support. It is also said to pack 12GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB of storage. The smartphone could come with a 4,500mAh battery.

Galaxy Note 20 Ultra also passed through the FCC confirming its chipset. The smartphone was listed with Qualcomm SM8250 which is the Snapdragon 865. Its however expected to run on the new Snapdragon 865+ chipset. This would be on the US variant of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. In other markets, the smartphone will launch with an Exynos chipset.
Wellington, July 22 : New Zealand Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway was removed from office on Wednesday after his improper relationship with a staffer was tipped off by a third party.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference that she dismissed Lees-Galloway as a Minister, Xinhua news agency reported.

Ardern said her office received an email from a third party alleging that Lees-Galloway had an inappropriate relationship with a former staffer who worked in one of his agencies.

Facing these allegations, Lees-Galloway confirmed that a consensual relationship had occurred, that it involved someone who had previously worked in his office and had been based in one of his agencies, according to Ardern.

"It became clear to me that his position as a Minister was untenable," she said, adding the Minister "has shown a lack of judgment over a period of 12 months." Lees-Galloway took full responsibility for his actions and decided not to stand in the next election, she said.

"I have acted completely inappropriately in my position and cannot continue as a Minister," Lees-Galloway said in a statement.

He will also step down as an MP at the election.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mustapha Shehuri, has said the greatest way to improve the productivity of Nigerian farmers is by establishing a strong link between agriculture and housing.

This was disclosed in a statement on Tuesday by the director information for the ministry, Ikemefuna Ezeaja.

The minister stated this during the opening ceremony of the first virtual edition of the Abuja International Housing Show (AIHS) which commenced on Tuesday for the 14th year running.

He explained that a properly developed system will be an added incentive for many farmers to live close to their farms.

He advocated the need for a link between agriculture and housing to help birth this project to increase the productivity of farmers, expand their income and achieve a significant growth in the nations economy.

In his reported words, the commitment of the present administration to agriculture and rural development has birthed a lot of policies and programmes that are already making significant differences in the sector.

It is envisaged that farmers should be entitled to the opportunity of owning a home through their farming activities executed around the proposed Agricultural Industrial Parks, Green Houses and Staple Crops Processing Zones.

He noted that the yield from their farms which are sold to off-takers guarantees them adequate security to demand and to be entitled to a housing loan or mortgage.

He called for a strong partnership between the housing and agricultural sectors.

Other speakers included at the Abuja International Housing Show are Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola; the CEO, Reall United Kingdom, Ian Shapiro; a representative of the Canadian International Housing Finance, Andre Asselin; MD FMBN, Ahmed Dangiwa, among others.
Evergreen Village will be opening this month. We are thrilled to offer affordable assisted living options to seniors who never thought assisted living was financially achievable, and to do it right here in our own hometown.

A VIP Preview Party and Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony will be held for Evergreen Village at Fort Wayne, a new affordable assisted lifestyle community for older adults that is opening in July.

The invitation-only event will be held this month at the community, which is located at 12523 Auburn Road in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The community is conveniently located by the hospital and provides easy access to amenities in the area and connects to the bike trail and Northeast Indiana United Trails.

This multimillion-dollar development is designed for seniors of all incomes who need some help to maintain their independence.

"We will be providing older adults with a wonderful alternative to a nursing home or to struggling alone at home," said Evergreen Village Administrator Amanda Palace.

As an affordable assisted living facility, Evergreen Village will make assisted living a realistic option for seniors who have been unable to afford this type of community in the past. The community will combine residential apartment-home living with the availability of personal assistance, medication administration and a variety of convenience and support services, such as meals, housekeeping, laundry and transportation.

Residents will live in private apartments that they will furnish and decorate to their tastes. Each of the apartments will feature a kitchenette, spacious bathroom with shower and grab bars, individually controlled heating and air conditioning and emergency alert system.

In addition, Evergreen Village offers several areas for residents to enjoy, including a bistro, private dining room, lounges, fitness center, recreation room/theater, library/computer room and other amenities.

Certified nursing assistants, working under the direction of a licensed nurse, will be on-duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"Residents also will benefit from all of the opportunities that will be available to socialize with friends and neighbors and to participate in activities and special programs," says Palace.

When fully occupied, the community will provide 51 full and part-time jobs. Annual payroll with benefits is projected to be nearly $2 million.

Evergreen Village at Fort Wayne will be certified to operate through the Division of Aging and regulated by the Indiana State Department of Health.

Evergreen Partners is excited to bring one of its high-quality, residential-style affordable assisted living communities to Fort Wayne and the surrounding areas.

The Architectural Team, Inc. designed the community, and construction was completed by T&W Corporation.

Another Evergreen Village property is located in Bloomington, Ind.

"Our focus," says Rod Burkett, CEO of Gardant Management Solutions, the company that manages the community "is to provide Evergreen Village residents with the love, compassion and dignity they deserve and the help and assistance they need. Our emphasis is on helping each resident achieve and maintain as much independence as possible for as long as possible."

For more information about Evergreen Village at Fort Wayne, call 260-637-2830 or visit the community website.
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Lori Hamilton is proud to present The Silly & Unnecessary Variety Show as part of theSpaceUK's answer to offering an "online theatre festival," to run through August. Segments will include Opera Product Placement, Lori's Cats Tell Kids' Jokes, Winning at Work During COVID, Tipsy Midwest Mom, Audience Questions, and Silly & Unnecessary Tomfoolery.

The Silly and Unnecessary Variety Show hand-colored logo, with an inset picture of Lori Hamilton and her two Variety Show cat producers and a logo for Worry Insurance with a blue umbrella graphic.

Chris Coleman, Artistic Director, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, said, "Lori Hamilton is nuts! Her work is hilarious, and surprising and wonderfully human in its zaniness," and the Atlanta Press called her work "Brilliant," and said her show was a "slice of life that is diverse enough to entertain us and personal enough to embrace us."

The online shows are offered through the Edinburgh Festival theater, theSpaceUK, that Hamilton is scheduled to perform at in 2021. It was planned in the last month as an alternative for artists to continue creative work during the worlds' quarantine. Hamilton said, "I'm so excited to be doing this online show. It will be extra fun to take audience questions, and it sets the stage for the in-person work next year in Edinburgh!"

Putting together a Variety Show in a mere few weeks has been a "thrilling challenge," Hamilton says. She is also looking forward to using her training and improvisational skills to handle the unforeseen things that could happen while acting, singing, all while filming a show, only by herself in the comfort of her New York apartment.

About Lori

Lori grew up just outside of Northern California and attended UCLA, where she studied Linguistics and Modern British Drama. She studied Opera at The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, and Mannes College of Music. After signing with the Boston Symphony and the Atlanta Opera, she went on to do comedy, writing, and performing. Lori has written and produced over 150 short films, created and performed four one-woman shows, including a much-lauded tour with the National New Play Festival in the United States. Her talents have earned her 37 awards for creative and writing excellence, including five Best of Shows. Her cats did not help at all, although they take credit for providing with her constant, much-needed supervision. To see more of her work, visit TheLoriHamilton.com.

About the Show

[email protected] has responded to the challenges of COVID-19 by creating "one festival, three weeks, eighty shows, all written and produced in lockdown." Performances of 15-25 minutes each will be uploaded to theSpaceUK website during August, or as part of a one-off, live-streamed event, which will also be available to audiences throughout August.

For questions and interviews please contact Julia Roberts at 404-731-8931 or [email protected] .

Related Images

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Lori Hamilton's Variety Show

The Silly and Unnecessary Variety Show hand-colored logo, with an inset picture of Lori Hamilton and her two Variety Show cat producers and a logo for Worry Insurance with a blue umbrella graphic.

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SOURCE Lori Hamilton
After a series of ups and downs through most of June and July, making the stock index charts look like a saw, the S&P 500 is rising again. The index is holding above 3,200, giving investors reason to view that level as a new support. Where the upper resistance may lie, is anyones guess. At the start of the current rally, analysts placed it at 2,750 to 2,850  but the index broke above that back in May.

Whether these movements in S&P are lasting or ephemeral, there will always be means to find profit in the markets. Investing is a long-term game, so finding stocks that are going to continue delivering returns six months or a year from now is a key to success. Every investor has his own investing strategy. While some investors like to read stock market news & analysis, others prefer to do their own stock analysis and research. One way or another, there is always room to improve. TipRanks has put together the Smart Score, to gather together data from 8 commonly used predictive factors, and distill them into a single score for every stock.

Opening up the database, weve picked out three stocks that have the coveted Perfect 10 Smart Score  a strong indicator of overperformance in the near future. Here are the details.

Group 1 Automotive (GPI)

First on our list today is Group 1, a major international auto retailer with a strong online presence. The company deals in new and used cars, luxury and bargain models, and also provides financing, maintenance, and repair services. Group 1 boasts a market cap of $1.3 billion, and operations across the US and in Europe and Latin America.

The first quarter, encompassing the coronavirus crisis, the economic crisis, and the various lockdown policies around the world, was understandably hard on Group 1. Sales were down, ancillary services were down, and potential customers were stuck at home while restrictions were placed on travel. It was hardly a profitable environment for an auto dealer. The company saw earnings drop by nearly half, from $3.01 to $1.66.

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However, GPI has a Smart Score of 10, so clearly something is going right. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta covers this stock, and in his recent note he maintained his Buy rating, laying out the cast for improved sales performance in the near future.

While it is no surprise that sales are recovering across the board the surprise to us was the faster than expected recovery in margins GPI noted significantly improving market conditions and operating trends in May and June MTD vs March/April 2020 in the US. Since early May, revenue for new vehicle sales and service increased at a faster rate than associated costs driving a better than expected improvement in US profitability

To this end, Gupta rates GPI an Overweight (i.e. Buy) along with a $94 price target. This figure shows the extent of his confidence; it implies a 27% upside for the coming year. (To watch Guptas track record, click here)

Overall, the analyst corps is unanimous on GPI. The stock has 5 Buy ratings, making the consensus view a Strong Buy. Shares are selling for $74.14, and the average price target of $92.40 suggests it has room for nearly 25% growth. (See GPI stock analysis on TipRanks)

MTBC, Inc. (MTBC)

MTBC offers tech solutions for medical billing, transcription, and practice management to hospitals and physician practices. Despite having plenty of potential business upside during a major health crisis, MTBC has still felt the effects of the lockdowns and recessionary pressures  after all, much routine medical treatment was allowed to fall by the wayside during March and April.

The companys operating loss gaped wider in the first quarter, with the EPS loss hitting 42 cents. That was only partly bad news, however, as that beat the forecast by 39%. Revenue was up 45% year-over-year, to $21.9 million.

Strong revenues will always boost a stock, as will beating the earnings estimates  but holding an in-demand niche lays a sound foundation. MTBC shares are up 52% since the February market crash, drastically outperforming all the major indexes. Clearly, investors see this company as a growth prospect.

Bill Sutherland, writing for Benchmark, is impressed by MTBCs ability to compete in a crowded marketplace. He points out, MTBCs chief competitive advantage is its offshore operations, mainly based in Pakistan where professional labor costs are about 10% U.S. levels. Turning to the future, Sutherland adds, We see potential upside to our initial price target based on outperformance of our initial 2021 model, particularly if MTBC begins to see a meaningful acceleration in organic growth.

Sutherland covers MTBC with a Buy rating and a $15 price target, implying an upside of 37% for the next 12 months. (To watch Sutherlands track record, click here)

MTBC is another stock with a unanimous Strong Buy consensus. No fewer than 5 analysts have given the stock a thumbs-up recently. The average price target, at $13.46, suggests it has a one-year upside of 23% from the current share price of $10.95. (See MTBC stock analysis on TipRanks)

Franchise Group (FRG)

Our last "perfect 10" stock is a holding company, doing business through a group of subsidiaries. Franchise Groups main subsidiary, and the main source of revenue, is Liberty Tax, the US third largest franchised tax preparation company. Other subsidiaries include Buddys Home Furnishings, Sears Outlet, and The Vitamin Shoppe.

In June, FRG demonstrated its confidence, despite the pandemic. The company declared a regular quarterly dividend of 25 center per share. At $1 annualized, this gives a yield of 4.7%, more than double the average yield found among S&P companies  and clear attraction for the stock.

Covering the stock for B Riley FBR, analyst Scott Buck wrote: "Near term, we expect the underlying business to benefit from secular changes in consumer behavior following the rise of COVID-19 and from new operating efficiencies moving onto the shared services platform. In addition, we believe that the challenging macro environment for much of retail will likely provide opportunities for FRG to obtain new assets to enhance current concepts or add new businesses at attractive prices.

To this end, Buck rates FRG a Buy along with a $30 price target, which implies an impressive 40% upside potential for the stock. (To watch Bucks track record, click here)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.
Kartik Bommakanti

In the wake of the ongoing military stand-off between India and China there is considerable debate about the possibility of deeper engagement between New Delhi and Washington. While a deeper strategic relationship is highly probable as result of Chinese military conduct to unilaterally shift the Line of Actual Control (LAC), it could fall well short of the Americans fighting alongside Indian forces in a Sino-Indian war. Therefore, whatever optimists about the US-India strategic partnership may conclude, the Narendra Modi-led government would be well-advised to temper its expectations about an alliance and prepare itself for the worst.

There are fundamentally two problems associated with a US-India alliance. Here a military alliance is defined as the US military fighting alongside Indian forces in the event of a Sino-Indian boundary war.

First, the United States domestic governing architecture restricts the extent to which it can militarily support New Delhi if there were escalation between China and India, notwithstanding the Trump administrations offers of deeper defence cooperation and to mediate, which was politely declined by New Delhi and Beijing not just rejected, but even rebuked Washingtons offer.

Irrespective of objective realities of American power, both in form of its economic strength and military force projection capabilities, Washington is likely to be fettered in its alignment with India. To be sure, the Modi government might not be wedded to the view that Washington will come to Indias aid militarily in the event of a wider Sino-Indian military conflagration.

Nevertheless, New Delhi must be served a reminder that it should not proceed on the expectation and assumption that American military support is automatic in the event of a wider Sino-Indian war. There are some key reasons to remain cautious about the degree of American military aid for New Delhi, despite a difficult military challenge for India to restore the status quo ante in Ladakh. Indeed, India may be compelled to resort to force to secure the restoration of the status quo ante irrespective of American support. A weakened Republican US President Donald Trump, let alone the US Congress with the House of Representatives under the control of the Democrats in the middle of an election year, will be hard pressed to extend significant assistance in the event India pursues an escalatory response to Chinese territorial seizures in Ladakh.

Second, another key factor that will constrain the US are its social conditions and institutional realities. Its social conditions relate to its ambivalence about the continued exercise of military power, which renders the public support system too weak for sustained and protracted military campaigns. Even if a prospective Sino-Indian military conflict is not prolonged, it could be costly and risky which Americans might be resistant to incurring.

The empirical and historical record through the course of American history over that last 70 years does suggests a lack of sustained resolve and motivation. The US defeat at the hands of Vietnam is the most glaring example of American limitations in the exercise of military power. In case of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 that involved the overthrow of Saddam Husseins regime and the US subsequent eight-year occupation of that country, even if some analysts and experts might declare it a victory, it was a pyrrhic one.

A final factor is the US inability to successfully deliver on its interests. As a former Indian envoy to the US, albeit about a different triangular relationship involving India, US and Pakistan observed not very long ago, The US has not been able to get Pakistan to deliver where its own interests are involved. The US has not been able to get Pakistan to deliver on the Taliban. The US has not been able to get Pakistan to deliver on the Haqqani network.

Hence, the most glaring recent example of American limitations in prosecuting a military campaign successfully is its defeat at the hands of Afghan Taliban with the explicit backing of the Pakistani State. Indeed, the near unconditional withdrawal or rather capitulation of Washington as part of an agreement reached between the Trump administration and the Taliban in February should clearly settle and dash any segment of Indias strategic establishment hopes that Washington can actually come to the aid of India militarily in the event of an outbreak of military hostilities or hot war between China and India.

Thus, whatever the extent of the current US-India engagement, will at most come in the form of continued and increased intelligence assistance, provision of military supplies including during active hostilities with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Here too there are no guarantees and preserving diversity of military supplies must remain a priority for the Government of India.

Yet American support will fall short of actively participating in hostilities. Historically, post-Independence India has never had ironclad guarantees of military support. Take for instance the case of the 1971 Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation concluded between the Soviet Union and India, which never per se provided mutual military guarantees in the event of an attack against one of the two parties by a third party requiring each side to deploy military forces to fight alongside the other.

The closest that the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty came regarding the extension of military assistance was enshrined in Article 9 of the treaty, which stated: Each High Contracting Party undertakes to abstain from providing any assistance to any third party that engages in armed conflict with the other Party. In the event of either Party being subjected to and attach or a threat thereof, the High Contracting Parties shall immediately enter into mutual consultations in order to remove such threat and to take appropriate effective measures to ensure peace and the security of their countries.

The Soviets after all did not deploy their forces for joint action with Indian forces, when the latter invaded East Pakistan in 1971, and nor did New Delhi do the same when the Soviets, eight years later, invaded Afghanistan.

Thus, the Indo-Soviet friendship did not provide any watertight guarantees or automaticity in military assistance as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Article 5 does, under which an military attack against one member state is deemed an attack against all member states. Since India enjoys no automatic or unconditional military guarantees from the US or any other country and if there are individuals within the Modi-led dispensation or outside who subscribe to the view that Washington will jump to Indias assistance, must be instantly disabused of such a possibility for the aforementioned reasons.

If anything, New Delhis approach in the present crisis with China specifically, and against Pakistan and China together, should be one that unflinchingly follows the age old dictum: Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

(This articles first appeared in the ORF)
More than 1,000 people filled the citys core for the second straight night Tuesday to rally against police violence and systemic racism.

Portlanders have amassed every night since late May to demand reforms to the criminal justice system. The crowds had decreased in size. But repeated use of force by federal officers against protesters  which occurred again Tuesday  has fueled larger crowds and attracted nationwide scrutiny to Portland.

Travis Nelson attended Tuesday nights protests to express outrage over the aggressive crackdown on demonstrators. Nelson described the actions of federal officers as a campaign stunt by President Donald Trump.

Portland is a city where all are welcome, where people are free to protest and be themselves, said Nelson, who is Black. Trump is trying to manipulate those values.

Federal officers were first seen at the nightly demonstrations 31 days into the protests and have received repeated support from Trump and his administration. The acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday emphasized the need for federal officers in Portland and rebuked local leaders for failing to curb the nightly lawlessness.

If you did your job from a local perspective, we wouldnt be there, said Chad F. Wolf. What we have in Portland is very different than what we have in any other city.

Hours later, a demonstrator sued Trump, Wolf and unidentified federal officers in federal court, saying the federal agents violated his constitutional rights when they hit him with a baton Saturday night.

By 10 p.m., the crowd gathered in downtown Portland exceeded 1,000 people. People held aloft signs that said, Feds go away! and Black Lives Matter. One person led the crowd in chanting, No justice! No peace!

People nearly filled two blocks of Southwest Third Avenue, where two federal buildings sit beside the downtown jail. The jail has been at the center of protests since they began May 28. In recent weeks, federal officers have often emerged from the federal buildings next to the Justice Center to shoot so-called less-lethal munitions and gas protesters.

Amid the crowd, Nelson held a sign that said, Leave our city now.

This is still America, said Nelson, 41, of Portland. Citizens have the right to protest.

A pair of parent groups, the Wall of Moms and PDXDadPod, organized in recent days to attend the protests. More than 200 women connected to the moms group showed up at Tuesday nights protests to rally against the presence of federal officers. One person held a sign that said, You need a time out.

The more bodies that are down here, the better chance that we can send a message that this isnt an effective tactic, said Laura John, a descendent of the Blackfeet and Seneca nations, who stood among the crowd. John works as the citys tribal liaison.

Debbie Scott, 55, of Beaverton, said she showed up for the first time Tuesday after seeing images of other mothers tear gassed Sunday and Monday.

That really affected me the most, being a mom. I wanted to come down and give my support as a mother and a grandmother to all these people who have been out every night, Scott said. Its incomprehensible as an American citizen that we cant peacefully protest without being kidnapped, beaten like the Navy veteran or tear gassed.

Scott was referring to Chris David, a 53-year-old veteran who was hit multiple times with a baton Sunday by a federal officer. Video of the attack gained international attention.

Jill Jordan, 35, of Hillsboro, said she wanted to show support for other parents who had gathered, the Black Lives Movement and fellow Oregonians. Ill say, the last straw for me was seeing the moms tear gassed, Jordan said.

By 11 p.m., at least several hundred people remained downtown. Large crowds gathered in front of the Justice Center and at the federal courthouse. Some people used their fists, pieces of wood and other objects to bang on the front of the courthouse. People propped pieces of wood next to the courthouse entrance.

At 11:10 p.m., federal officers wearing camouflage emerged to press back the crowd. Officers used gas, stun grenades and less-lethal munitions as they formed a line in front of the federal courthouse.

About a dozen other officers gathered at Third Avenue and Madison Street, next to a federal office building. A crowd of people faced off with officers and shouted, Who do you protect? Who do you serve? Officers also set off gas near that crowd.

Around 11:25 p.m., federal officers outside the courthouse returned back into the building. The officers gathered one block away on Madison remained outside for another 10 minutes. The crowd cheered as officers retreated.

Dozens of people began to collect again outside the federal courthouse. Many chanted and pounded on the building. Another crowd staged farther south on Third Avenue near the federal office building.

Several hundred people remained downtown past midnight. Just before 12:30 a.m., federal officers again used tear gas and stun grenades to push people away from the courthouse. Minutes before officers emerged, a small pile of debris had caught fire near the entrance.

Officers forced people west and north from the courthouse. Lines of officers continued to set off gas and other devices one block or more away from the federal building.

Most federal officers appeared to retreat by 12:50 a.m.

Protesters set up a makeshift barrier on Fourth Avenue and Main Street, one block west of the courthouse. Others returned near the courthouse and constructed another barricade out of fencing and road blocks. Dozens of people danced to the beat of a drum corps on Third Avenue in front of the courthouse.

By 1:30 a.m., about 300 people remained in the area.

After The Oregonian/OregonLive journalists left the area, video footage showed some people tore off plywood paneling attached to the courthouse around 1:45 a.m. Federal officers quickly emerged for a third time to force people to leave and continued to push crowds to the west for several hours. Portland police did not engage with the crowds at any point during the night, officials said early Wednesday morning, and the local officers made no arrests.

Other Black Lives Matter events took place throughout the city. Activist group Snack Bloc PDX hosted a training in Southeast Portland for safe protesting.

Dave Killen, Ted Sickinger, Beth Nakamura and Brooke Herbert of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie

-- Ryan Nguyen; rnguyen@oregonian.com; @ryanjjnguyen

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 06:14:47|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that his administration is sending a "surge" of federal agents to Chicago as part of a plan to drive down what he called "violent crime."

"Today I am announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime," Trump said in remarks from the East Room of the White House.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security will send hundreds of agents to the city, according to the administration.

Federal agents will also be deployed to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, has urged the federal government not to send agents into the city.

"In the end, we very much want to partner with an executive branch that respects our city, inclusive of all our resident," Lightfoot wrote in a letter to Trump earlier this week. "Partnership includes respect that you have not shown our residents as of late in mocking the level of violence that challenges Chicagoans."

Trump has called for "law and order" as demonstrations raged in some cities against police brutality and racism.

His administration has also recently sent Department of Homeland Security personnel to Portland, Oregon in the wake of continued protests there triggered by the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, in Minneapolis police custody late May.

State leaders have called for the removal of federal officers from Portland. Enditem
This story makes me laugh, but the more I think about it, the sadder it gets. Because its really a story about how when youre hearing-impaired, you can find yourself suddenly dropped into an alternate reality. Once, I was a brash and confident person, a fountain of energy, a woman who, by any measure, was absolutely full of beans. Since I lost much of my hearing several years ago, though, Ive become a lot shyer, a little more melancholy, always a little bit afraid that Im missing out or misunderstanding whatever it is thats going on.

Now, in the age of Covid-19, with so many people wearing masks, life has gotten even harder.

I have space-age hearing aids and other assistive devices that enable me to negotiate the world, and I am grateful for them. But I also rely on other visual clues to get by  reading lips and getting cues from peoples facial expressions. These, alas, are the very things that masks obscure.

Let me be clear: Even with the difficulties they present, Id much rather live in a world where people are wearing masks than one in which people go without them. On the internet, you can learn how to make a deaf-friendly face mask with a clear plastic insert over the mouth  although, as the novelist Sara Novic wrote in The Washington Post last week, they arent a perfect solution, and not only because they can fog up.

The real problem is that its hearing people who need to wear them if the goal is to make the lives of people like me easier. And if our collective experience of mask-wearing has taught us anything so far, its that asking people to make a sacrifice to help others has not exactly emerged as Americans strong suit.

Masks do two things  they can prevent us from getting sick, and they can prevent those of us who are sick (and may not even know it) from infecting others. Of the two goals, its the second one that masks are especially good at. When you wear a mask, its not only, or even mostly, to protect yourself. The bigger benefit is to others.
Manila (CNN Philippines Life)  Filipino boy group SB19 is finally releasing their first full-length album, Get in the Zone on July 31. The album will contain nine tracks, including three remixes and two unreleased songs.

The announcement comes at the heels of the group climbing to the top 3 slot of the Billboard Social 50 chart, just behind K-Pop giants BTS and EXO.

SB19 members Justin, Sejun, Josh, Ken, and Stell revealed more details about the forthcoming album through a video press conference.

Ito po kasing album na to is about the journey of SB19, says Sejun.

He adds: Our experiences, lahat ng mga emotions na pinagdaanan namin, dun po namin in-incorporate sa album. May kantang malungkot, mga kantang masaya, mga kantang hopeful, inspirational. Lahat po ng pinagdaanan namin as trainees, gumawa kami ng kanta based sa mga emosyon na naramdaman namin sa journey.

The five-member group became a viral hit with their single Go Up, released in July 2019. Later in the year, they released the infectious pop-rock single Alab.

In May 2020, the group released the song ikako, which they dedicated to the countrys fight against COVID-19.

The members were deeply involved in the process of making the album, writing lyrics, composing, and collaborating with their producers in Korea, through their agency ShowBT. Despite the K-pop group framework that ShowBT employs to groom the group, it is apparent that SB19 is firmly a Filipino act. This is recognizable in the making of the songs and the album itself.

Yung album po namin is more [about] the soul of Filipino kasi kami po yung nagsulat and yung ideas namin regarding sa lyrics; 'yung experiences namin, says Justin.

Pag nagkakareceive din po kami ng mga demos, pinagiisipan namin kung bagay ba sa group namin, adds Josh. Feeling po namin marami kaming kaya i-incorporate sa pinagpipiliian namin pero siguro po tina-try namin kung pano ipapasok 'yung ganitong lyrics, 'yung ganitong steps. Binabagay po namin sa taste ng mga Pilipino.

The album also includes their first single, the sweeping ballad Tilaluha. [We wanted the song] to establish na kaya po namin kumanta. And besides that yun yung naksanayan na ng mga Pilipino, mga ballads, sad songs, says Sejun.

Fans can also expect Love Goes. It was supposed to be our first single, but mas naisipan po namin na i-release sya on a later date," says Sejun.

SB19 follows a process when working on a material and they are given a certain degree of freedom, from writing the lyrics to making the choreography.

Nagca-clash minsan ng ideas, pero yun po yung maganda, na lahat may input and kapag pinagsama-sama namin, mas maganda ang kinalalabasan, Stell said in our February 2020 cover story.

The band is still actively making music, and though they are relatively new, Sejun says they are more confident now with their sound.

Right now, para sa akin, everyday is an experience, he says. Itong album na ilalabas namin, special sa amin. Masasabi namin na confident na po kami gumawa ng mga bagong kanta, lalo na ngayon mas marunong na kami mag compose, maging creative at pagsama-samahin ang views namin kasi nakakapag-adjust na kami sa bawat isa.

The album will be available on all digital platforms via Sony Music. Check the official SB19 pages for the release schedule. You can pre-save the album here.
A curious endangered North Atlantic right whale yearling was spotted by a whale-watching tour Tuesday, something that used to be a common occurrence but now draws spectators to the shore.

The young whale, which was a calf in 2019, was spotted off Campobello Island by the Quoddy Link Marine tour boat. They contacted the Canadian Whale Institute, who followed the whale as it swam along the Deer Island shore, to Eastport, Maine, and back into Canadian waters toward the Bay of Fundy.

Moira Brown, scientist with the Institute, was on the boat that followed the whale. She said everyone was delighted to see a healthy young whale.

"It was a big day. It's exciting," she said. "It's always good to see a whale that was a calf last year. Now we know that whale is still alive and thriving."

Gabrielle Fahmy/CBC

She said ideally, the whale would go back into the middle of the Bay of Fundy, away from the coastal activities.

"Hopefully it will soon," she said.

Eight years ago it would have been more common to spot right whales in the Bay of Fundy region.

But changing water temperature and redistribution of plankton means they've moved toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they are unfortunately less protected from fishing gear entanglements and ship strikes.

Last year, 10 right whales were found dead in Canadian and United States water. There are around 400 North Atlantic right whales remaining in the world.

"We see a few here each year but not near as many as it used to be," Brown said.

"People know about right whales here, they've been in the Bay of Fundy, you know, for four decades ... When we were over along the shore especially in Eastport there were people standing on there, on the shoreline and on their decks of their houses, checking it out."

Danielle Dion with Quoddy Link Marine was not there to see the whale, but said it's "an incredibly special sighting."

"For our passengers, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," she said.

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Brown said when the whale was spotted, the Institute was able to to notify the harbour pilot who was on an incoming ship, so they could slow down the vessel and be careful not to get too close to the yearling.

A well-travelled 'curious' yearling

The New England Aquarium identified the whale as the 2019 calf of right whale #2791.

Brown said it was seen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence earlier with its mother and it was also seen earlier in 2019 in Florida where it was born.

"This is a young animal and many mammal species young animals are curious," she said. "So this little whale's already had some pretty good travels ... That's his backyard, the east coast of Canada and the U.S."

She said this whale would have been born between December 2018 and February 2019. She said it's pretty typical for young whales to leave their mother's sides when they're around a year old.

She said it looked healthy and looked to be a good size.

"It was certainly swimming well and making its way around."

Since 2017, 30 right whales have died in waters off Canada and the United States, with two-thirds of the deaths in Canadian waters. Since then, mandatory slow-down zones for ships have been made, and static and dynamic shipping closures have also been implemented, depending on whale sightings.

However, Dion says it's hard to read into this whale sighting as a sign of anything but a curious whale.

"There's not much that you can read into it about shifting patterns," she said.

She said this young whale was one of seven born in 2019. This year there were 10 births, but two have died because of suspected ship strikes.

"As sad as the right whale story sounds, it's really important to stay hopeful," she said. "If we can prevent these entanglements and prevent ship strikes from happening, then these whales do have a future."
You collapse into your seat, kick your feet up, and nod off to the jolting of the carriages, backpack as a pillow.

There are many things travellers took for granted up until 2020, and the ability to drool all over a dodgy train seat was just one of them.

With The Pandemic in full swing, travellers are suddenly realising many of their favourite activities may never be kosher again.

Around the world, The Bat Kiss has bankrupted hotels, restaurants, bus operators, and car rental agencies, and sucked an estimated 100 million people out of work.

As Traveller reports, experts say the era of risk-free travel will never return, even with the advent of a COVID-19 vaccine, and the stop-and-start nature of domestic travel in Australia foreshadows what the future of international travel will be like.

A vaccine gives us hope. But none have been successfully developed so far, and even if one crops up, because The Virus is so adept at mutating, it may not be a silver bullet for your health at home  let alone while travelling.

This in mind, here are some of the things travellers took for granted in a pre-COVID era, which they may never get again.

Being able to book flights as casually as buying a pair of shoes

View this post on Instagram A post shared by lauren bullen (@gypsea_lust) on Jul 13, 2019 at 8:10am PDT

As Senior Content Editor of The Telegraph (and proud millennial) Lizzie Frainier wrote in March, travel, like avocados, has become an expectation of modern life.

The avocado stands for a lot more. It represents the life expectations of my peer group  from dining out each week and new clothes, to the latest iPhone and, most importantly, travelling the world.

Scan the social media accounts of my generation and youll see theres one thing that binds us together: that as often as we can (when work and budget allows), we get on a plane or train and experience somewhere new.

Even when borders re-open globally, the economic constraints and lingering health concerns of jet-setting means travel will never be quite so laissez-faire as it was last year, or if it ever is again, it wont be until Coronavirus is as far away from 2020 as Polio.

Crowds

Its not all doom and gloom. As The Washington Post reports, Theme parks, museums and iconic landmarks are known for drawing a crowd. But as they reopen and look to the future, those crowds are expected to be much smaller  and more controlled.

You have to pay to play though: picture mandatory temperature checks, masks, rides, lines and seats spaced to allow for social distancing and (in the case of Disney World) characters that interact from afar.

In preparing to reopen during this unusual time, we have to manage our theme parks in a very different way from what weve known before, the Walt Disney Co. said in a statement announcing plans for a phased reopening of its Florida parks starting July 11.

The Louvre, in Paris, which has long struggled with heaving crowds, now requires all visitors (or the much-reduced number that can now get to Paris at all) to book a time slot.

Cheap international airfares

DMARGE recently wrote about the golden era of travel, inspired by a stunning image from the 1960s. We could be set to revert (somewhat) to this kind of business model where airlines are forced to put their prices up, differentiating themselves with a better product, as less people travel.

On the flip side if you dont have the coin, this could make international travel much more difficult for you. As The Washington Post reports, While it can feel like airlines charge passengers for everything from choosing a seat to checking a bag, in reality, deregulation [over the last few decades] lowered the cost per mile for flying, making international travel more accessible than ever before.

The impact of the pandemic on airlines may translate to less travelers flying abroad, and, as a result, will make other parts of international travel more expensive.

If the airlines can only put half as many people on the plane, its going to cost a whole double, says Rick Steves, the Washington-state-based European travel expert told The Washington Post.

Its also worthy to note that as borders open we may see some hot deals to get people flying again and to grab market share, but most experts doubt this will last in the long term.

Embracing your inner Anthony Bourdain

As Group Director of Food and Beverage at Ovolo Hotels, Vincent Lombino told DMARGE in June, a hotel renaissance could be on the cards. Why? Travellers will be more fearful to travel, and  when they do start travelling again  many will be reticent to check out the dodgy looking kebab shop on the corner or the street food stalls we once we so enamoured with.

Mr Lombino told us this could see hotel restaurants, after being sneered at for years, another chance to differentiate themselves: People will find trust and faith in the strong brands, Mr Lombino told us. In fact, instead of running out the door Vincent says theyll stay in their cool little bubble.

A recent Traveller article makes a similar point: Sadly, some of the worlds great gastronomic experiences just wont exist after COVID-19. Consider the pintxos bars of the Basque Country, for example, in Spains north. All of those amazing displays of cold food laid out on the bars, platter after platter, row upon row  they just cant exist anymore. The entire culture of tapas in Spain, in fact, with diners standing up and walking around and jamming in with hundreds of others, will take a long time to recover, if it ever does.

Cultural traditions

View this post on Instagram A post shared by LOCALE (@localepalermo) on Jul 20, 2020 at 11:26am PDT

Slurping Guinness in an Irish pub, drinking wine at an Italian mass and the classic four kiss French greeting will all be off the cards for the immediate future. How long they will take to return is anyones guess.

All you can eat buffets

As DMARGE reported in June, Qantas removal of the self serve buffet and drink areas, in favor of snacking stations, in their airport lounges (instead allowing customers to choose from a selection of bespoke dishes from staff) could be a sign of things to come across the board in the future.

While Qantas hasnt ruled out a return of the buffet, it seems unlikely to come back any time soon: Some initiatives will become the norm while others such as capacity restrictions will ease as time goes on, Qantas said in relation to the change.

We havent ruled out a return of the buffet, toastie and pancake maker in the future or the reintroduction of self-serve beverage stations when restrictions ease, in the meantime, we are hopeful Qantas customers will enjoy the extra personalised offering.

Frequent flyers like Immanuel Debeer have told DMARGE they welcome the change. Quite the contrary: its an opportunity to enjoy better meals  and stops the grots of the world from ruining the butter (we wish we could say this was just a metaphor).

Intrigued? Qantas introduced a shared butter bowl a while back founder of Flight Hacks Immanuel told us, in a bit to be more eco friendly (getting rid of single-serve packets). Unfortunately, it didnt quite work out though: It would look like a crime scene after a few minutes, Immanuel joked.

Jests aside, I see the Qantas Lounges opening up as a huge positive sign for the travel industry, Immanuel told us. The new experience could also be seen as an improvement.

Personally, I hate buffets so I see this as a step up in the service offering.

Dirty airport lounges

It may be wishful thinking to expect this change to remain even if and when The Virus is eliminated, but Immanuel also told us, Cleaning will now be a top priority, for anyone thats travelled through Sydney on a busy day, you might know that the lounge there turns into a pig stall from time to time. I feel like [airlines] will now prioritise cleaning, which can only be seen as a good thing.

Cheap cruising

As Traveller reports, cruising is a sector of the travel industry that has been hit particularly hard and will have to evolve if it doesnt want to sink  particularly larger ocean liners, which will have to work a little harder to adapt than small ship cruising, expedition cruising and river cruising.

Regardless of your choice, expect that there will be no more interior rooms with no windows or fresh air, Traveller reports. Expect temperature checks every time you embark or disembark the vessel. Expect to see and to have to use hand-sanitiser everywhere.

Expect touchless devices for check-in and entry to your room. Expect the dining buffets to look drastically different, or disappear altogether. And expect that if there is a vaccine for COVID-19, you will have to prove youve had it.

Getting to the airport late

As Traveller reports, once flights start to build up the boarding process both inside the terminal and aboard the aircraft itself will be even slower and more tedious than in the past. Airlines will also need more time between flights for cleaning, possibly leading to delays.

Its also not over once you disembark. You will now have to remember to keep your distance around those notoriously crowded luggage carousels, Traveller reminds. Perhaps grab a coffee and wait for the human parting of the seas to occur.

Easy insurance

View this post on Instagram A post shared by lauren bullen (@gypsea_lust) on Sep 20, 2019 at 5:04am PDT

This is another tricky one as the travel insurance business has not yet announced new plans for coverage in the pandemic era. Traveller describes the situation well: Of course, overseas travel is banned by the federal government and many companies have suspended travel insurance with any plans to provide coverage for COVID-19 wholly uncertain. But if were to head off to New Zealand and the Pacific in the near future well all need travel insurance.

Fortunately, the insurance industry will need travel insurance, too, since its a lucrative segment of their market with comparatively fewer and smaller claims than other areas, Traveller reports. Watch this space (and the fine print).

Read Next
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., an opponent of the GOP health care bill, heads to the chamber for a vote, on Capitol Hill.

Democratic leaders are raising concerns that a Senate investigation led by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Oshkosh, has become a tool for "laundering" a foreign interference campaign aimed at damaging Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, Politico reported Monday.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, top Democrats warn of a foreign campaign to use disinformation in an effort to interfere with the 2020 presidential election by targeting members of Congress and are calling for an urgent briefing by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"We are gravely concerned, in particular, that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign, which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election in November," reads the letter, which was released publicly on Monday.

The letter did not mention Johnson, but citing anonymous sources, Politico reported it included a classified attachment that identified Johnson's probe as a source of concern.

The letter, which was sent last week, was signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer; Adam Schiff, chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. All are members of the Gang of Eight, a group of eight lawmakers who get briefings on classified intelligence.

They urged the FBI to provide the briefing before the August recess.

"Given the seriousness and specificity of these threats, as members of congressional leadership and the congressional intelligence committees we believe it is imperative that the FBI provide a classified defensive briefing to all Members of Congress and that the briefing draw on all-source intelligence information and analysis, consistent with due regard for the protection of sensitive intelligence sources and methods," they wrote.

Story continues

Asked about the Democrats' warnings, Johnson told Politico, "They're simply wrong."

Johnson, who serves as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, reportedly added, "And Schiff is the last person to talk."

Austin Altenburg, a spokesman for Johnson, accused Democrats of using "the threat of Russian disinformation as a weapon" to cast doubt on the probe for political reasons.

"Committee staff has already requested and received a staff briefing on this issue, and Senator Johnson has requested an additional briefing at the member level. That briefing has not occurred in part because the agencies requested additional information from the committees minority staff, which has not followed up on these requests since mid-May," he said.

He added that the move does "a disservice to our election security efforts when Democrats use the threat of Russian disinformation as a weapon to cast doubt on investigations they dont like," and accused them of being silent about opposition research against the Trump campaign that contained disinformation.

Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly warned of 2020 election interference campaigns orchestrated by Russia other foreign powers.

The probe led by Johnson focuses on accusations that a Democratic public relations company attempted to influence the State Department under President Barack Obama by trying to use the fact that Biden's son, Hunter, served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

Johnson has asked several former State Department officials to testify and reportedly may issue subpoenas as soon as this week if they refuse to voluntarily appear.

Contact Mary Spicuzza at (414) 224-2324 or mary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS or Facebook at facebook.com/mary.spicuzza.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Democrats cite Ron Johnson probe in demand for FBI briefing
A healthcare worker takes a specimen from a passenger at a drive-thru COVID-19 testing facility at Kyungpook National University Chilgok Hospital compound in Daegu, Feb. 27. /Korea Times file





This is the fourth in a five-part series on Korea's response to COVID-19, produced in collaboration with the Korea Foundation _ ED.







By Kim Se-jeong







Late in the night of Feb. 18, directors of big hospitals in Daegu including the Kyungpook National University, Keimyung University Daegu Dongsan were all active in a Kakao group chat with the city's mayor and other officials.







Earlier in the day, the city's first COVID-19 case had been confirmed, followed by 10 additional cases through the night.







Medical doctors, including Min Pok-kee, a dermatologist and the vice president of Daegu Medical Association, stressed the priority would be getting enough beds and shared ideas.







The next morning, Min called Cho Chi-heum, director of the Keimyung University Daegu Dongsan Hospital, and got his agreement to empty out one of their two medical centers to receive only patients suffering from COVID-19.







At the time, Daegu only had 25 patient beds in an area with negative pressure ventilation installed.







Min also called the Armed Forces Daegu Hospital located just outside the city for help in getting extra beds ready and wrote letters to the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Health and Welfare requesting approval for the plans.







By Feb. 24, six days after the first case had been reported in Daegu, the Armed Forces Daegu Hospital had 303 beds with negative pressure ventilation, and Dongsan Hospital had almost 400 rooms ready for COVID-19 patients.







Those who were in the Kakao group chat were members of Medi-City Daegu, an association founded in 2009 to improve the quality of medical services for residents and promote quality medical services for patients outside Korea, and they had been routinely communicating through offline meetings and online chats.







Min Pok-kee, a dermatologist and the vice president of Daegu Medical Association/ Courtesy of Min Pok-kee

"Without the communication among members of Medi-City Daegu and the fast decision-making process, the COVID-19 outbreak in Daegu would have resulted in a collapse of the city's medical system and a mega-size medical crisis for the country," Min said during an interview with The Korea Times.







Min headed the Daegu Medical Association's response to the COVID-19 pandemic which gave him a rare opportunity to see the city's response to the virus from the first day.







Min also noted Medi-City Daegu's network in China for Daegu's successful response.







"As early as January, we had information from China that many people had been dying from a virus whose infection route and source were unknown. We knew for sure that Korea would come under attack because of its vicinity and Medi-City Daegu members were already discussing how to respond to it."







Daegu experienced the worst of the country's pandemic.







Following its first case on Feb. 18, the number of accumulated infection cases spiked to 1,017 by Feb. 27. On Feb. 29 alone, 741 new cases were reported. Most of the patients were members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus and those who had been in contact with them.







However, on April 10, less than two months after the first case was reported, the number of new cases went down to zero. As of Monday, the total number of infected cases in Daegu was 6,934, with 186 deaths. Nationwide, the total number of cases was 11,704 with 296 deaths on Sunday.







Daegu's success offers essential instruction for Korea's successful COVID-19 response which has been praised by government officials and healthcare service providers from many countries around the world grappling with the new infectious disease. It proves the importance of communication in a crisis.







The core pillars of Korea's anti-COVID-19 efforts are aggressive virus testing and actively tracing the whereabouts of patients' contacts in order to contain the spread of the virus.







Daegu had the aggressive testing too.







The city had a drive-thru testing facility, the nation's first, installed at Kyungpook National University Chilgok Hospital, Feb. 22. By March 13, it had become a national standard for such virus testing facilities.







"This enabled increased testing. With our existing equipment and human resources, we could only take a maximum 640 specimens per day," Min said. By July 5, 288,713 virus tests had been done.







What other cities didn't have was healthcare service providers moving around the city taking specimens from people with disabilities.







"Almost 400 public health doctors  including medical students doing their military service  were dispatched to Daegu from all over Korea and they moved from one city's elderly care facility to the next and a home of one Shincheonji Church of Jesus member to the next to take specimens," Min said. "They really did a lot of work. They're unsung heroes."







And the city authorities were busy tracking phone calls of the patients to find potential virus carriers.







Min also noted the work of officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Infection (KCDC) in the field in facilitating the response effort.







For example, they required the emergency rooms in Daegu to stay closed for two days after receiving each virus patient for quarantine.







"But how can they stay closed for two days when you only have a limited number of ERs in the city? With so many new cases every day that could mean all the ERs closed. Also, keeping ERs closed presented risks to other patients needing urgent care," Min said.







The health ministry and KCDC officers in Daegu took note of changes that were needed urgently and communicated with colleagues at their headquarters so that the rules could be revised.







"We needed rule changes and saw them happening," Min recalled.


















Its total revenue from operations fell to Rs 3,079.24 crore for the April-June period, down 60.29 per cent

Bajaj Auto on Wednesday posted a 60.92 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit at Rs 395.51 crore for the first quarter ended June 30. (ANI Photo)

New Delhi: Bajaj Auto on Wednesday posted a 60.92 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit at Rs 395.51 crore for the first quarter ended June 30.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1,012.17 crore during the same period of the previous fiscal.

Its total revenue from operations fell to Rs 3,079.24 crore for the April-June period, down 60.29 per cent, from Rs 7,755.82 crore in the same period of 2019-20 fiscal, Bajaj Auto said in a regulatory filing.

Bajaj Auto said it sold 4,43,103 units during the first quarter against 12,47,174 units in the year-ago period.

The company said fiscal 2020-21 "has been an extremely challenging quarter due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown and other containment/precautionary measures have resulted in disrupted supply lines and a sharp decline in overall demand".

Shares of the company were trading at Rs 2,961 apiece, down 1.44 per cent from its previous close on the BSE.
Polarcus Limited (Polarcus or the Company) (OSE: PLCS) releases its second quarter and preliminary half year results 2020.

Polarcus CEO, Duncan Eley, commented:

As guided, the Companys Q2 2020 results were negatively impacted by low utilization as E&P companies re-assessed their near-term exploration plans following the global economic slow-down which has also delayed tender processes.

The outlook for the second half of 2020 remains challenging. However, the recent marine seismic industry restructuring alongside current oil price developments provide favourable foundations for activity levels to build during 2021.

The substantial cost reduction initiatives and organizational reshape implemented by Polarcus during H1 2020, have enabled the Company to partly offset the adverse effects of the industry slow-down and preserve liquidity.

Q2 2020 HEADLINES

Segment revenues of USD 22.8 million, compared to USD 64.8 million in Q2 2019

Segment EBITDA of negative USD 2.5 million, compared to positive USD 16.0 million in Q2 2019

Cash from operations of USD 12.7 million, compared to USD 4.9 million in Q2 2019

Total cash balance of USD 44.8 million

Vessel utilization of 50%, compared to 72% in Q2 2019

Backlog of approximately USD 141 million, compared to USD 200 million at the same time last year

Second quarter Segment revenues of USD 22.8 million decreased 65% compared to the same period last year as marine seismic acquisition activity was negatively impacted by the unprecedented global economic crisis triggered by the combined impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and oil price volatility. The revenue decline was driven largely by reduced utilization as a result of the cancelled and terminated contracts announced in Q1 2020 and lower effective day rates on contract. Reduced revenue from V.Tikhonov further contributed to the revenue decline from the same quarter last year.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated contraction in marine seismic acquisition activity, the Company implemented enhanced business continuity measures and a cost reduction plan in March 2020. These initiatives have enabled cost to better align with reduced activity levels. As a result, gross cost of sales in the quarter dropped 60% to USD 23.5 million compared to USD 59.5 million in Q2 2019 and Segment general and administrative costs dropped 29% to USD 2.7 million compared to USD 3.8 million in Q2 2019. The effective cost management measures partly mitigated the significant revenue reduction in Q2 2020 and resulted in a Segment EBITDA of negative USD 2.5 million.

Cash flow from operating activities in the quarter improved to USD 12.7 million compared to USD 4.9 million in Q2 2019 impacted by positive working capital movements. Total cash at quarter-end was USD 44.8 million compared to USD 46.7 million at the end of Q1 2020.

In addition to the cost reduction plan implemented towards the end of the first quarter, the Company announced an organisational reshape in June 2020, decreasing the size of the onshore and offshore organisations while embedding more flexibility to manage anticipated fluctuation in activity levels in the near-term. This is estimated to realize an additional annualised reduction in the Companys operating costs of more than USD 7 million to further improve the financial resilience of the Company. A non-recurring cost of USD 2 million associated with the organization reshape has been adjusted in the Segment numbers.

Backlog at 30 June 2020 together with the value of awards announced after the quarter end is estimated at USD 141 million compared to USD 200 million at the same time last year. The Companys fleet is 40% booked for the remainder of 2020.

OUTLOOK

Tender activity significantly reduced during Q2 2020 due to the combined effects of a sharp decline in oil price and the global slow-down related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussions with many E&P companies confirm that exploration and production investment portfolios are currently being reviewed and revised. As a result, many tender processes and decisions have been deferred. This indicates a challenging market in the second half of 2020.

However, clients also indicate that 2021 activity is expected to rebuild with a number of projects and tenders rescheduled to next year. E&P companies will finalize their budgets for 2021 exploration and production investments during the second half of 2020. Sentiment during this period, related to oil price and COVID-19 restrictions, will be an important factor determining 2021 demand levels.

The Company continues to focus on managing its cost base appropriately with cash preservation being a key priority. Implementation of business continuity initiatives and substantial cost reduction measures is helping the Company navigate the current market uncertainty.

The reshaping of the seismic industry that has occurred, resulting in an increased number of multi-client companies without vessels, has led to an improved industry structure. However, continued supply-side discipline observed during Q2 2020 with three vessels removed from the global vessel count of 22 vessels is critical for the future market balance. Further reductions in active vessels are expected during H2 2020.

Industry-wide focus on the environment continues to sharpen and Polarcus is receiving growing recognition for its Explore Green capabilities, a cornerstone of the Company since inception. Following a successful launch in 2019, Polarcus Cirrus is expected to gain further momentum as more E&P clients realize the opportunity of accelerated decision-making to compress the timeline for hydrocarbon production. With a young, highly efficient and uniform fleet, combined with demonstrated operational excellence, Polarcus is well-positioned to continue securing and delivering premium projects around the globe, despite the near-term uncertainty in marine seismic acquisition demand.

Note: All references in this report to segment and segment reporting are adjusted for IFRS 15 effects and non-recurring items. Non-recurring items adjusted in 2020 include organization reshape costs. See Note 3 in the accompanying interim financial statements.

Contacts

Duncan Eley, CEO

+971 4 43 60 915

duncan.eley@polarcus.com

Hans-Peter Burlid, CFO

+971 50 559 8175

hp.burlid@polarcus.com

About Polarcus

Polarcus (OSE: PLCS) is a focused geophysical service provider of safe and environmentally responsible marine acquisition services globally. Our geophysical offering is driven by innovation and collaboration to provide clients with better seismic data faster. Polarcus operates a fleet of high performance seismic vessels with 3D and 4D imaging capabilities, which incorporate leading-edge technologies for improved environmental performance and operational efficiency. Polarcus offers contract seismic surveys and multi-client projects with advanced priority processing solutions including Cirrus, a suite of cloud-based applications and services designed to bring clients closer to acquired seismic data, enabling faster and better informed exploration decisions. The Company services its clients globally from its head office in Dubai and regional offices located in Houston, London, Singapore and delivers Group asset management services from Oslo. For more information, visit www.polarcus.com





Disclaimer

The information included herein may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts, including but not limited to statements expressing or implying the Companys intent, belief or current expectations with respect to, among other things, forecasts, estimates, and predictions. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve risks and uncertainties and are dependent on assumptions, information, data or methods that may be incorrect or imprecise. Actual results could differ materially from expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements if one or more of the underlying assumptions or expectations proves to be inaccurate or is unrealized. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, developments in the oil and gas industry, the demand for seismic services, the demand for data from the Companys multi-client library, currency risks, political risks, regulatory risks, and unexpected operational setbacks. For a further description of other relevant risk factors we refer to our 2019 Annual Report. The reservation is also made that inaccuracies or mistakes may occur in the information given above concerning the current status of the Company or its business. Any reliance on the information given above is at the risk of the reader, and Polarcus disclaims any and all liability in this respect.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act

Attachments
Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) shareholders should be happy to see the share price up 17% in the last quarter. But that doesn't change the reality of under-performance over the last twelve months. After all, the share price is down 26% in the last year, significantly under-performing the market.

See our latest analysis for Las Vegas Sands

While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price.

During the unfortunate twelve months during which the Las Vegas Sands share price fell, it actually saw its earnings per share (EPS) improve by 39%. It could be that the share price was previously over-hyped.

It's fair to say that the share price does not seem to be reflecting the EPS growth. So it's easy to justify a look at some other metrics.

On the other hand, we're certainly perturbed by the 14% decline in Las Vegas Sands' revenue. If the market sees the weak revenue as jeopardising EPS, that could explain the lower share price.

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Las Vegas Sands is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. You can see what analysts are predicting for Las Vegas Sands in this interactive graph of future profit estimates.

What about the Total Shareholder Return (TSR)?

Investors should note that there's a difference between Las Vegas Sands' total shareholder return (TSR) and its share price change, which we've covered above. Arguably the TSR is a more complete return calculation because it accounts for the value of dividends (as if they were reinvested), along with the hypothetical value of any discounted capital that have been offered to shareholders. Its history of dividend payouts mean that Las Vegas Sands' TSR, which was a 23% drop over the last year, was not as bad as the share price return.

Story continues

A Different Perspective

While the broader market gained around 11% in the last year, Las Vegas Sands shareholders lost 23%. However, keep in mind that even the best stocks will sometimes underperform the market over a twelve month period. Longer term investors wouldn't be so upset, since they would have made 2.5%, each year, over five years. If the fundamental data continues to indicate long term sustainable growth, the current sell-off could be an opportunity worth considering. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for Las Vegas Sands you should know about.

Of course Las Vegas Sands may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on US exchanges.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Wales secures access to ground-breaking Cystic Fibrosis drug Kaftrio

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Jul 22nd, 2020

The Welsh Government has confirmed it has secured access to the three-drug cystic fibrosis therapy Kaftrio.

The medicine will be made available on the NHS in Wales Health Minister Vaughan Gething said today following a deal with Vertex Pharmaceuticals.

The four-year deal will mean the more than 400 people with Cystic Fibrosis in Wales will be able to access the ground-breaking therapy from the point at which it is granted its European marketing authorisation later this summer.

Great news that will be welcome by so many families across Wales. I am proud to have campaigned alongside the @cftrust for further access to life-transforming drugs & will continue to stand up for patients to improve their quality of life. https://t.co/OvoOPJ7Y4t  Jack Sargeant MS (@JackSargeantAM) July 22, 2020

The Minister for Health, Vaughan Gething, said: Im pleased to confirm Kaftrio will be made available to all eligible patients in Wales.

I know many families will welcome the news. I have always made it clear that new and innovative medicines should be made available quickly and consistently for patients in Wales but only where their cost fairly reflects the evidence of their benefits.

The agreement reached with Vertex means that patients can begin to benefit from triple therapy treatment without delay when it becomes available in the UK in the coming weeks.

David Ramsden, Chief Executive of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, said: News of a deal between the Welsh Government and Vertex Pharmaceuticals is fantastic.

Kaftrio will now be available to people across Wales in the coming weeks and will truly save lives.

While this is a great moment, we will not stop until everyone with cystic fibrosis across the UK can truly live a life unlimited.

Wales, Shadow Health and Social Care Minister Andrew RT Davies said: Earlier this month, my Welsh Conservative colleague  Angela Burns MS  urged the Health Minister to follow Englands lead over this treatment.

Im therefore very pleased that the Welsh Labour-led Government has followed in the footsteps of NHS England and agreed a four-year deal with Vertex, which will mean more than 400 people with cystic fibrosis in Wales will be able to access vital treatment such as the potentially ground-breaking Kaftrio, as well as Orkambi.
The month after Donald Trumps inauguration, Yale historian Timothy Snyder published the bestselling book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century. It was part of a small flood of titles meant to help Americans find their bearings as the new president laid siege to liberal democracy.

One of Snyders lessons was, Be wary of paramilitaries. He wrote, When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come. In 2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy. Now its happening.

According to a lawsuit filed Friday by Oregons attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, federal agents have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland, detain protesters, and place them into the officers unmarked vehicles since at least last Tuesday. The protesters are neither arrested nor told why theyre being held.

Theres no way to know the affiliation of all the agents  theyve been wearing military fatigues with patches that just say Police  but the Times reported that some of them are part of a Border Patrol group that normally is tasked with investigating drug smuggling organizations.

The Trump administration has announced that it intends to send a similar force to other cities; on Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported on plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago. I dont need invitations by the state, Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said Monday on Fox News, adding, Were going to do that whether they like us there or not.

In Portland, we see what such an occupation looks like. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on 29-year-old Mark Pettibone, who early last Wednesday was grabbed off the street by unidentified men, hustled into an unmarked minivan and taken to a holding cell in the federal courthouse. He was eventually released without learning who had abducted him.

A federal agent shot 26-year-old Donavan La Bella in the head with an impact munition; he was hospitalized and needed reconstructive surgery. In a widely circulated video, a 53-year-old Navy veteran was pepper-sprayed and beaten after approaching federal agents to ask them about their oaths to the Constitution, leaving him with two broken bones.

Theres something particularly terrifying in the use of Border Patrol agents against American dissidents. After the attack on protesters near the White House last month, the military pushed back on Trumps attempts to turn it against the citizenry. Police officers in many cities are willing to brutalize demonstrators, but theyre under local control. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, however, is under federal authority, has leadership thats fanatically devoted to Trump and is saturated with far-right politics.

It doesnt surprise me that Donald Trump picked CBP to be the ones to go over to Portland and do this, Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, told me. It has been a very problematic agency in terms of respecting human rights and in terms of respecting the law.

It is true that CBP is not an extragovernmental militia, and so might not fit precisely into Snyders On Tyranny schema. But when I spoke to Snyder on Monday, he suggested the distinction isnt that significant. The state is allowed to use force, but the state is allowed to use force according to rules, he said. These agents, operating outside their normal roles, are by all appearances behaving lawlessly.

Snyder pointed out that the history of autocracy offers several examples of border agents being used against regime enemies.

Castro worries that since the agents are unidentified, far-right groups could easily masquerade as them to go after their enemies on the left.

On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted about whats happening in Portland: Trump and his stormtroopers must be stopped. She didnt mention what Congress plans to do to stop them, but the House will soon vote on a homeland security appropriations bill. People outraged about the administrations police-state tactics should demand, at a minimum, that Congress hold up the departments funding until those tactics are halted.

Through the Trump years, theres been a debate about whether the presidents authoritarianism is tempered by his incompetence. Those who think concern about fascism is overblown can cite several instances when the administration has been beaten back after overreaching. But all too often the White House has persevered, deforming American life until what once seemed like worst-case scenarios become the status quo.

Trump has established that his allies, like Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, are above the law. What happens now will tell us how many of us are below it.
GST on textiles will not be increased from 5 to 12 per cent: FM Sitharaman

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Green shoots in economy visible says Nirmala Sitharaman

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: Asserting that green shoots are visible, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday assured the industry that the government is open to taking more actions in future to boost economic recovery.

Speaking at the 2020 India Ideas Summit, the minister said that the Rs 20.97 lakh crore stimulus package announced by the government to fight the economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic was having a positive impact on the ground on various sectors including on MSMEs.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das says Indian economy showing signs of returning to normalcy

Indian industry together with the government will ensure a good speedy and sustainable recovery post unlock, the minister said.

"The green shoots are (visible) based on high frequency indicators...we will watch them as we go along. It's not as if we concluded that the economy has green shoots and therefore we will not take any more steps.

"We have kept all options absolutely open. The government is willing to participate with everybody and see what the best has to be done. Interventions can happen even in the future depending on how the industry responds," Sitharaman said.

Indicators show "green shoots" in the economy with electricity and fuel consumption, inter and intra-state movement of goods, PMI data and retail financial transactions witnessing a pick-up, she said.

She said there was revival of the economy particularly in the rural area with good rabi harvest and expected bumper kharif production.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

"We can see the agriculture sector clearly driving the revival. Activities related to rural economy whether it is tractor sales or logistics are all up and above...we are at stage if we all work together -- government, regulators and financial sector, a very good strong recovery is before us," she said.

Economy in safe hands; worry not, Mr. Ramchandra Guha: Nirmala Sitharaman

She clarified that the Aatmanirbhar Bharat is not an inward looking idea and does not shut doors for exports and imports.

"We want India to be strong. We want India to be speaking from a position of strength particularly from an economic point of view," she said.

With regard to opening of sectors for private players, the finance minister said private players have been allowed in every segment of the economy to promote competition.

Even in the declared strategic sector, she said there will not be more than four public sector enterprises along with private sector companies.

"So there will not be any economic activity in India which will be in the exclusive domain of public sector undertaking," she said.

With regard to reforms, she said, the government has undertaken many long pending structural reforms during the pandemic.

Many big time structural reforms have all been made...Even when the challenge of the pandemic was before us, we ensured that we use this opportunity to come up with some of the major structural reforms, which have waited for decades," she added.
CHRISTIANSBURG  A Fairfax County man accused of pepper-spraying a Christiansburg store owner and stealing his days receipts  and with running from police and jumping from a motel window in a bid to escape  will remain behind bars to await trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Justin Christopher Narcisse, 39, of Burke, faces charges of robbery, assault and battery, illegal use of a gas, and destruction of property after an incident that began late on July 15 and continued into the next morning.

Narcisse appeared via video from the Western Virginia Regional Jail for his bond hearing in Montgomery County General District Court. He is on suicide watch, a jail officer said before the hearing began.

The story of Narcisses arrest, as drawn from Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Jennifer Wolz courtroom summary of the prosecutions case, from search warrants, and from an email from Christiansburg spokeswoman Melissa Demmitt, began when a town police officer pulled over a white U-Haul pickup truck on Christiansburgs Bradley Drive by the Holiday Inn.

It was about 11:15 p.m. on July 15 and the pickup had no tail lights. As the officer got out of his car, a passenger, later identified as Narcisse, jumped out of the pickup and ran behind the Holiday Inn, toward the Huckleberry Trail walking and biking path. He quickly disappeared from the officers view, leaving behind an empty green, zippered bag on the ground, the accounts said.

The driver, Donna Nelson, 44, of Burke, told police that she and Narcisse had stopped at the Holiday Inn while on a trip to Louisiana, where they planned to pick up Narcisses child, Wolz said. Nelson said that they had gone to a store to get drinks but it was closing, so they left and she dropped Narcisse at Red Robin because he wanted to get into some fun, Wolz said.

Nelson told police she drove to a church parking lot and had a prayer meeting with her deceased father, Wolz said.

Then Nelson drove back toward the hotel and on the way was flagged down by Narcisse, who jumped in the pickup and told her to drive, according to the account she gave police. When the Christiansburg officer turned on his lights behind them, Narcisse threatened to pepper spray Nelson if she stopped, but she pulled over, Wolz said.

That was when Narcisse ran, according to the prosecution account.

While this was occurring, emergency dispatchers took a call from the owner of the Little Market store in the 800 block of Peppers Ferry Road. He said that a man had pepper-sprayed him and taken a green, zippered bag with the days receipts  about $5,000, search warrants said. The owner said the robber fled in a white truck.

Town police realized they probably had the truck. With the county sheriffs office, police began setting up a perimeter to find the robbery suspect, Demmitt wrote. A tracking dog from the Blacksburg Police Department tried unsuccessfully to locate Narcisse, according to Demmitt and Wolz.

Then a woman called Christiansburg police and said a man was at her mothers residence in the 100 block of Windsor Drive and wanted a ride to the Super 8 motel, Demmitt wrote. The caller said an Uber had been called for the man.

Police went to the Super 8 and found that at about 3:30 a.m. on July 16, Narcisse had booked a room, according to Wolz and search warrants.

Town police went to the room and made verbal contact with Narcisse, but he would not open the door. An officer watching from outside saw Narcisse cut the screen in the second-floor window and leap out, Wolz said. He was quickly arrested.

Narcisse sustained what seemed to be minor injuries and was treated at the scene by a sheriffs deputy, Demmitt wrote.

Wolz said about $230 was found in a paper bag in the Super 8 room.

At the bond hearing, defense attorney Dennis Nagel of Christiansburg argued that Narcisses apartment in Burke and his work there doing renovations showed a sufficient tie to the area and that he should be released on bond.

Wolz opposed bond after questioning Narcisse and being told that he had lived in Burke for only six months and in Dallas for a month immediately before that. Narcisse also acknowledged a list of prior convictions in Louisiana that included resisting arrest and fleeing from officers.

Judge Randal Duncan declined to grant a bond, noting that Narcisse could appeal his decision to Circuit Court.

Narcisses next general district court appearance is scheduled to be a Sept. 15 preliminary hearing.

Nelson, who was charged with being an accessory to robbery, also has a preliminary hearing scheduled then.

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Liberty Commons Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center and The Wingate at Harwich had starkly different rates of COVID-19 infections among residents and staff.

Nursing homes have been Petri dishes for COVID-19. Across the country, 133,351 cases and 37,213 deaths from the virus happened in nursing homes, among both staff and residents. In Massachusetts, there have been 23,760 probable or confirmed cases in long-term care facilities, with 5,312 deaths as of July 16. There was at least one case of COVID-19 reported in 386 of the state's 413 nursing homes, according to the state department of public health.

There has been a wide disparity in the concentration of cases, however. Nursing homes located just miles apart can have widely different COVID-19 numbers. Two local nursing homes show this sometimes stark contrast. At Wingate at Harwich, 71 residents and staff tested positive for the virus, and there were 21 deaths at the facility, according to DPH data. At Liberty Commons Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center in Chatham, two residents tested positive and no staff infections have been reported.

There's no consensus on what accounts for these differences. Nursing home quality, as measured by the Medicaid Nursing Home Compare system, doesn't appear to be a factor. A recent study concluded that standard quality measures do not distinguish which nursing homes had positive virus cases or deaths associated with COVID-19.

While some nursing homes undoubtedly had better infection control practices than others, the enormity of this pandemic, coupled with the inherent vulnerability of the nursing home setting, left even the highest-quality nursing homes largely unprepared, Dr. R. Tamara Konetzka, a professor of public health science and medicine at the University of Chicago and an author of the study, said during testimony before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging in May.

Konetzka added that patterns of infection and death are not random, however; nursing homes with traditionally underserved populations have the worst outcomes, consistent with historical disparities in long-term care.

Quality, as measured by the Medicaid Nursing Home Compare system, wasn't a good indicator of which local nursing facilities had outbreaks. Wingate has an overall rating of one out of five stars, while both Liberty Commons and the Pleasant Bay of Brewster Nursing and Rehabilitation Center  where there were 90 cases and 19 deaths  has a five-star rating. In April the state issued a 28-point nursing home facility infection control competency checklist. Wingate was found to be in adherence with core competencies in two of three audits, while Liberty Commons and Pleasant Bay were in compliance in all audits.

Liberty Commons, which has 132 beds, has been highlighted by the Centers for Disease Control for its successful infection control response to COVID-19. One of the first steps, said President and CEO Bill Bogdanovich, was to limit access to the Orleans Road building. There was initial concern about infringing on residents' rights to have visitors, but once Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency on March 10 and Department of Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel ordered visitation restrictions, we were on it immediately, he said.

While shutting down the facility to outside visitors was relatively simple, ensuring staff didn't bring the virus inside was more complicated. Bogdanovich met with staff who had second jobs. Sometimes people had to choose whether they wanted a second job, he said. Likewise, visits from outside service providers were limited and those who could worked remotely.

We exponentially reduced exposure just by cutting that traffic out, he said. Staff movement in the building was also limited, and the initial high bar for getting a COVID-19 test was overcome by having the facility's practitioners help get appointments. But just testing everyone in the facility at once, he said, would just be one snapshot in time, so groups were tested together over a period of weeks. A second round of testing of the facility's 300-plus staff is now underway.

The nursing home staff collected samples from residents, which helped make the process less intimidating, he added.

Communication was also a key component to addressing the fears and concerns of both residents and families, said Bogdanovich. Automated voice messages were sent out and posted on the facility's website daily, showing not only COVID-19 test results for residents and staff, but also information about personal protective equipment procurement and updates on visitor restrictions and isolation precautions. The information was also printed out for residents each day.

That was incredibly valuable, Bogdanovich said.

The two residents who tested positive recovered quickly and were never seriously ill, he said. No residents or staff at the company's assisted living facility across the street, The Victorian, tested positive.

The biggest problem the facility encountered was in securing PPE, Bogdanovich said. At the beginning of the pandemic, staff scoured hardware stores throughout the region for eye protection. He tracked every shipment of masks and other equipment like a kid watching Santa's sleigh at Christmas.

We still have an order of disposable gowns that was supposed to be here in late May that's just coming in now, he said.

Bogdanovich met regularly with the state nursing home trade association, the Massachusetts Senior Care Association, to discuss strategies, and the state gave the group a seat at the table in determining nursing home policies, along with experts from MIT.

Liberty Commons is beginning to allow visitors, but only by appointment and if they are asymptomatic. We have two full-time staff members who facilitate that now, Bogdanovich said. That kind of carefulness is important.

He credits well-executed decisions made early in the process with keeping the number of cases at the facility low.

Michele Clark, administrator of the 135-bed Wingate at Harwich, one of eight Wingate-owned nursing homes in the state, declined to comment for this story. Wingate's corporate headquarters and its public relations firm did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

In May, after an outbreak was reported at Wingate, Clark said that the facility aggressively implemented containment strategies, including widespread testing, isolation of infected residents, securing all building entrances, restricting visitors, constant resident wellness checks, staff temperature checks, and disinfecting and cleaning programs, including the introduction of UV-C sterilization equipment. Training for staff, particularly in infection prevention and control, and the procuring the right equipment, particularly PPE to protect both residents and staff from cross-contamination, was a top priority, Clark said.

A DPH epidemiologist worked directly with Wingate on COVID-19 cases and protocols, according to Harwich Health Agent Meggan Eldredge. The VNA also did contact tracing, and the National Guard came in to assist with staffing.

Konetzka, in her Senate testimony, said regulation and oversight of nursing homes is important, but have done little to improve poorly-performing facilities in the past. A likely outcome is more emphasis on infection control, but, she notes, before the pandemic, deficiencies in infection control were found at 40 percent of nursing homes and enforcement did little to prepare for the crisis. New regulations to increase focus on infection control are clearly warranted, she said, but in resource-constrained nursing homes, it may be a zero-sum game; better infection control may come at the cost of focus on other critical aspects of care.
Australia may have to compete with other nations to import supply of the University of Oxford's coronavirus vaccine if it is successful, with major manufacturers not committing to local production despite having operations here.

The Oxford team unveiled promising interim results of a phase 1 trial on Tuesday, showing its vaccine candidate induces an immune response with minimal side effects. The project is considered a frontrunner in the race for the virus vaccine and AstraZeneca, the $US123 billion British-Swedish pharma producer, is a distribution partner.

University of Oxford and AstraZeneca have released phase 1 trial results of its coronavirus vaccine. Credit:John Cairns

AstraZeneca has production facilities in Sydney but so far the company has not publicly committed to producing the vaccine locally and it is not clear if it has the right manufacturing capabilities.

When asked whether there was a chance the vaccine would be made locally, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca declined to comment directly, saying: "AstraZeneca is building a number of parallel supply chains with partners around the world and is seeking to expand manufacturing capacity further in order to meet its commitment to support broad and equitable access to the potential vaccine at no profit during the period of the pandemic."
PHILADELPHIA  Philadelphias top prosecutor has warned that federal law enforcement officers will be charged criminally if they unlawfully assault or kidnap anyone in the city.

District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, issued a statement Monday after President Donald Trump suggested he might deploy federal agents to Philadelphia, as has occurred in Portland, Oregon.

Republican Trump said at the White House on Monday that he was "going to do something," listing Philadelphia and several other cities he said were all run by liberal Democrats.

Krasner's statement noted his father and uncles served in the military during World War II to fight fascism.

He said charging federal officers who commit crimes of assault and kidnapping is "the least we can do" to honor people who opposed fascism during World War II as well as "those who are fighting it even now."

Philadelphia and many other places have experienced large protests over police brutality and racial injustice in recent months, triggered by the May 25 death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, called the targeting of cities led by Democratic mayors "a politicization of federal resources that should outrage all taxpayers."

Krasner said during a legislative hearing on Tuesday that his office will hold people legally accountable if they shoot people in the head with rubber bullets or engage in crimes.

The Department of Homeland Security plans to deploy about 150 of its agents to Chicago, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Gangster Vikas Dubey's mother, Sarla Dubey, has appealed to her younger son, Deep Prakash Dubey, to surrender to the police.

In a message conveyed through media persons, Sarla Dubey said that if Deep Prakash did not surrender, he would probably meet the same fate as his elder brother who was killed in a police encounter on July 10.

Deep Prakash Dubey, who has been absconding after the July 3 incident in which eight policemen were killed in Bikru village during a shootout, now carries a reward of Rs 20,000 on his head.

His slain brother was the main accused in the ambush and five of his accomplices have also been killed in different encounters after July 3.

Sarla Dubey told media persons, "Deep Prakash, please come forward and surrender, or else the police will kill you and your family. You will get the safety of the police. You have done nothing, don't hide because of your relationship with your brother."

A day before was killed in the police encounter, Sarla Dubey had said that she will have no regrets if her son was shot dead for the killing of the eight policemen.

--IANS

amita/rs/

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A screen on a bus stop in Oxford Street, London. (PA)

Nearly 90% of people in the Australian state of Victoria with COVID-19 symptoms did not self-isolate, alarming new analysis has shown.

According to 9 News, 3,400 of the 3,810 cases who made up the analysis carried on as normal, despite suffering symptoms of coronavirus.

Victoria premier Daniel Andrews said he was very unhappy and sad with the figure and criticised those who ignored the advice about staying at home.

He said: "That's an interesting measure in that people have felt sick, they've got symptoms, and they've kept going shopping, they've kept going to work

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews briefs the media on conditions concerning the COVID-19 situation in Melbourne, Australia. (AP)

"You must go and get tested when you feel sick.

"That is the only thing that you can and must do. And if people don't do that, then we will continue to see numbers increase.

Figures also showed that over half (53%) of Victorians did not stay home between when they were tested for coronavirus and when they got their results.

Andrews said the current lockdown in the state would go on for much longer than six weeks if cases did not begin to go down.

Australia placed millions back into lockdown following a spike of coronavirus cases earlier this month.

The country has been among the world's most successful in containing its coronavirus outbreak  with the exception of Melbourne, Victorias capital and the countrys second-largest city.

The south-eastern state had some of the nation's toughest pandemic measures and was among the most reluctant to lift restrictions when the worst of the outbreak seemed to have passed.

But as most of the country emerges from lockdown restrictions, in Melbourne the virus has resumed spreading at an alarming rate.

It comes as weekly coronavirus deaths in England and Wales have fallen by almost a third within seven days and remain at the lowest level since before the lockdown.

A sign in Plashet, east London. (PA)

There were 366 deaths registered in the week ending 10 July involving COVID-19  accounting for 4.2% of all deaths in England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Story continues

This is a 31.2% fall from the previous week, when there were 532 deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate.

It is also the fourth week in a row that deaths have been below the number that would usually be expected at this time of year, based on an average from the previous five years.

There were a total of 8,690 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week to 10 July, according to the ONS, 560 fewer than the five-year average of 9,250.

Coronavirus: what happened today

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BERRIEN COUNTY, MI  A Benton Harbor man was killed early Wednesday, July 22, when his car was struck head-on by a sport-utility vehicle going the wrong way on St. Joseph Valley Parkway in Niles Township, police said.

Darnell D. Johnson, 28, was killed.

The other driver, a 29-year-old woman, was hospitalized. Berrien County sheriffs deputies expect to seek a charge of driving while intoxicated causing death.

Just before 3 a.m., police were responding to a report of a dark vehicle going north in the southbound lanes of St. Joseph Valley Parkway, or U.S. 31. Minutes later, dispatchers reported a head-on crash.

Johnson was thrown from his Ford Fusion. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The other driver, whose name has not been released pending potential charges, was standing outside of her GMC Acadia, police said. She initially refused treatment and was arrested for suspicion of driving while intoxicated causing death.

She was later hospitalized.

The incident remains under investigation.

Read more:

Wrong-way drivers are deadly, ongoing concern on West Michigan freeways

One man crime spree who stole 89 guns gets long prison sentence

Stabbing victim startled attacker vandalizing vehicles, authorities say

Police identify missing teen after finding his body in Lake Michigan
The upcoming school year will be memorable for Texas students, parents, and educators.

Whether they are fond memories remains to be seen.

I was always a proponent that you can learn better in person than you can from a book, said Barbara Roberts, who teaches government and politics in Fort Bend Independent School District. 2020 has had many teachable opportunities.

Its a year that keeps on giving. But right now, many Texans are grappling with immediate challenges, including schooling their children in the face of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 4,000 lives in Texas, and more than 140,000 around the country.

On the one hand, theres widespread agreement that face-to-face instruction is more effective than the virtual classroom, and that in-person learning provides students with the social interactions--and support--that many of them need. Its also the case that until schools reopen, it will be hard for the state, or its economy, to regain some semblance of normalcy.

But is sending millions of children to crowded classrooms in the midst of a pandemic really a good idea?

Roberts is among state teachers who have been volunteering as a moderator for a closed Facebook group, Texas Teachers for Safe Reopening, which has experienced exponential growth over the past few weeks and now has more than 46,000 members.

As teachers, we want people to know that were not expendable, she said.

President Donald Trump in recent weeks has been adamant that schools across the country re-open next month for in-person instruction next month, even if the virus has yet to be contained.

What we want to do is we want to get our schools open, he said July 7, in a White House appearance with First Lady Melania Trump. We want to get them open quickly, beautifully, in the fall. And the  as you know, this is a disease thats a horrible disease, but young people do extraordinarily well.

The following day, he reiterated this goal on Twitter, and took issue with the guidance that had been issued on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control.

I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things, Trump tweeted, adding ominously: I will be meeting with them!!!

His administration has since maintained that re-opening can be accomplished safely.

The science should not stand in the way of this, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said last week.

State leaders initially seemed inclined to follow Trumps lead. The Texas Education Agency earlier this month issued guidelines that would have moved state schools along to a swift re-opening, allowing just three weeks for virtual learning, at the risk of losing state funding.

The agency last week relaxed that stance, after pushback from local officials and public health experts. Under new guidelines issued Friday, public school districts can require students with at-home technology to begin the year in virtual classes for up to eight weeks. But this move didnt allay the confusion, frustration, or fears of many educators, who see such deadlines as arbitrary, if not politically motivated. In a statement, Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina blasted the revised guidelines and the irrelevant deadlines.

Educators, students and their parents need assurance that school buildings will not be reopened until it is safe to do so, she said. Right now, with the pandemic still raging across Texas, we dont know when that will be.

On Monday, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Dr Umair Shah, the executive director of Harris County Public Health, wrote a letter to the superintendents of school districts across Harris County, asking them to stick to virtual learning until mid-October, at least.

In the absence of a widely available treatment or vaccine, our community must bring the virus under control before in-person instruction can safely resume, they stated.

Katharine Garcia, an educator and parent of a Houston ISD sixth grader, explained that she and her husband have decided to go with the online option for the time being. Thats the best way to keep their daughter safe, she said. Plus, they can help ease the pressure on parents who might not have the same access to technology, or ability to work from home.

I think that right now is the time to be the least selfish, Garcia said. Shes confident that Texas students are going to get an education, either way. Theyre learning to be resilient, empathetic, collaborative; theyre learning on the fly to do different things.

The same is true of educators across the state, who are doing their best to prepare for the challenges this school year might bring.

Parents should know that while they love their kids, we love them too, said government and politics teacher Roberts. Ive always taught seniors, but theyre still our babies. If were going to bat, its because were going to bat for them too.

Were going to do everything we can to provide for their children, protect them, and keep them safe, she continued.

Lets hope our state leaders take the same view.

erica.grieder@chron.com
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BISHKEK, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China's proposals at the first China + Central Asia (C+C5) foreign ministers' meeting held via video link are extremely important and promising, a renowned Kyrgyz expert said Tuesday.

Noting that the Central Asian countries will need help because of the economic recession amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Denis Berdakov, director of the Cross-Border Research Network of Central Eurasia Public Foundation, commended in an exclusive interview with Xinhua the proposals for cooperation put forward by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Wang proposed to jointly defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, promote economic recovery, safeguard regional security and strengthen multilateral cooperation.

China's proposal to build a China-Central Asia community of health is a new idea in need amid the coronavirus pandemic, Berdakov said.

"The provision of modern vaccines, medical equipment and high-quality medical services is an extremely important and necessary initiative," he highlighted.

He noted that China also proposed the creation of mutually beneficial transport infrastructure in the Central Asian countries, facilitation of investments and the elimination of administrative barriers in Central Asia.

It means "to 'wash away' interstate tariffs and customs borders between countries -- to create free movement of labor and transport corridors," he said.

In the meeting hosted by Wang, China and five Central Asian countries agreed to launch a foreign ministers' meeting mechanism to meet regularly to jointly address challenges, and pursue development and prosperity, according to a joint statement issued by the ministers on Thursday. Enditem
Partnership brings more than 20,000 COVID-19 tests to vulnerable populations in Detroit

DETROIT - A partnership among Altimetrik, a Southfield-based fast-growing global business transformation company, the 501(c)(3) Vattikuti Foundation, Henry Ford Health System and the City of Detroit has provided more than 20,000 onsite COVID-19 tests to residents in 163 of Detroit's senior and congregate living facilities, as well as the city's first responders and essential workers. The effort was made possible by a $400,000 donation from Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation in April 2020.

"I am deeply appreciative to Altimetrik, the Vattikuti Foundation and Henry Ford Health System for making it possible for us to test residents at all of our senior buildings in the comfort of their own homes," said Mayor Mike Duggan. "Thanks to their critical support, Detroit has been a national leader in protecting its most vulnerable citizens from the spread of COVID-19."

The partnership has been a critical part of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan, specifically in the Detroit area, which has been one of the hardest hit in the state.

"As this pandemic has evolved, we have continued working alongside our partners to meet the vital healthcare needs of the communities we serve," said Bob Riney, president of Healthcare Operations and chief operating officer at Henry Ford Health System. "Onsite testing, education, outreach and prevention efforts have been essential to preventing further spread of the coronavirus throughout our communities, particularly in congregate facilities, such as nursing homes. We remain deeply committed to providing the critical infrastructure necessary to help stop the spread of COVID-19."

According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, as of July 19, the State of Michigan has had approximately 7,524 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among residents of long-term care (LTC) facilities, such as nursing homes and senior apartments. Of those cases, there have been approximately 1,973 deaths due to the virus. The deaths among LTC facility residents represents approximately 31% of Michigan's total number of 6,373 deaths due to COVID-19.

"Long term care and congregate living facilities are home to some of the most vulnerable populations with regard to COVID-19. The philanthropic support of Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation was essential to quickly mobilizing teams to facilitate critical testing and providing adequate personal protective equipment. Ongoing testing was leveraged to provide control recommendations and to help stop the spread," said John Zervos, executive director of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) at Henry Ford, a unique collaboration of regional healthcare and academic institutions that seek to address some of the most pressing healthcare issues facing underserved populations in Michigan and internationally.

This partnership also helped to establish relationships with affordable housing facilities for seniors in Detroit, which will continue to be critical in addressing the spread of COVID-19. Staying ahead of outbreaks in congregate settings, specifically senior apartments, is an important part of preventing massive outbreaks within these facilities, Zervos added.

One facility greatly impacted by the partnership was Pablo Davis Elder Living Center, an affordable apartment community for individuals 55 years old and older in Detroit's Southwest side. According to Phyllis Edwards, LMSW, executive director of Bridging Communities, Inc., which owns the Pablo Davis Elder Living Center, the testing was a critical part of controlling the spread of the virus in the facility.

"It was essential to have all the residents and management team tested to acquire health services swiftly by identifying those who had COVID-19," said Edwards. "The results allowed for isolating known cases, thereby preventing them from coming into contact with others. The tests and results slowed the rate of transmission. Hopefully, this method of effective onsite testing programs will allow the healthcare experts additional data to better understand how prevalent the disease is and how it is evolving."

While COVID-19 testing at senior and congregate living facilities has been a major focus of this partnership, rapid testing for first responders and other essential city employees was also a crucial element. Detroit was the first city in the country to secure the Abbott ID-Now instruments and testing kits, which produce results in 15 minutes. In total, more than 10,000 on-site rapid tests were performed on first responders and essential city workers at a clinic set up inside the Detroit Health Department headquarters.

"Protecting our most vulnerable populations, first responders and essential city employees is not only the right thing to do, but also key to mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on all Detroiters and health institutions," said Raj Vattikuti, CEO of Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation. "The processes and procedures developed and fine-tuned through this partnership will allow our communities to be better prepared should a future wave or surge occur."

The data obtained throughout the partnership shows the rapid testing and outreach program has had a significant impact on reducing morbidity and mortality at nursing homes and other congregate settings and correlates with an overall drop in cases city-wide.

"It is amazing to see the impact of our incredible donors like Altimetrik and the Vattikuti Foundation," said Mary Jane Vogt, senior vice president and chief development officer at Henry Ford Health System. "Their generous gift will continue to help protect the most vulnerable members of our communities as we work together to stop the spread of COVID-19."

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About Henry Ford Health System: Under the leadership of President and CEO Wright L. Lassiter, III, Henry Ford Health System is a $6.5 billion integrated health system comprised of six hospitals, a health plan, and 250+ sites including medical centers, walk-in and urgent care clinics, pharmacy, eye care facilities and other healthcare retail.

Established in 1915 by auto industry pioneer Henry Ford, the health system now has 32,000 employees and remains home to the 1,900-member Henry Ford Medical Group, one of the nation's oldest physician groups. An additional 2,200 physicians are also affiliated with the health system through the Henry Ford Physician Network.

Henry Ford is also one of the region's major academic medical centers, receiving more than $90 million in annual research funding and remaining Michigan's fourth largest NIH-funded institution. Also an active participant in medical education and training, the health system has trained nearly 40% of physicians currently practicing in the state and also provides education and training for other health professionals including nurses, pharmacists, radiology and respiratory technicians.

About Altimetrik: Altimetrik is a digital transformation and solutions partner to global enterprise customers. Headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, Altimetrik is spread across multiple countries, including the USA, India, Uruguay, Singapore, and UAE with over 2,500 employees. Founded in 2012, Altimetrik delivers advanced technology solutions to banking and financial services, payments, health care and automotive sectors. Through their Playground methodology, Altimetrik helps customers assemble the right talent, build energized teams and instill a development ethos that emphasizes rapid prototyping, reusability and speed to market. They are partners in the creative exercise of designing and engineering innovative digital products that create amazing customer experiences for clients. Visit http://www. altimetrik. com

About Vattikuti Foundation: The Vattikuti Foundation is a non-profit corporation that was founded by Raj and Padma Vattikuti in 1997. The Foundation serves both the local community in Southeast Michigan as well as causes in India and other parts of the world. Through the Vattikuti Foundation Raj and his wife Padma continue to lend their support to a number of worthwhile charitable causes. The foundation has distinguished itself by founding the Vattikuti Urology Institute at Henry Ford Hospitals and the Vattikuti Digital Breast Diagnostic Center at Beaumont Hospitals. The Vattikuti Foundation is committed to making robotic surgery and other technologically advanced medical procedures of the future cost effective and available to underprivileged communities. Vattikuti Foundation also focuses on creating an infrastructure to coordinate and reach out to the people who are in poverty through the Poverty Alleviation Initiative program in India. Its initial pilot program has positively affected villages in the Tumkur District of Karnataka. The goal of this project is to reach over a million people over the next ten years.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Prince George of Cambridge turns seven on Wednesday, a significant day for any child but one that gives royal fans around the world another rare glimpse at a future king.

His parents, Prince William and Duchess Kate of Cambridge, released two new pictures of the third-in-line to the throne, taken as usual by his amateur photographer mother.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are delighted to share two new photographs of Prince George ahead of his seventh birthday tomorrow, Kensington Palace said in a statement released late Tuesday.

The pictures show George smiling wide and in two different shirts, one a dark olive green polo shirt and the other a camouflage t-shirt. He is standing against a wall in one picture and beside some grass in the other.

The palace said the pictures were taken by Kate earlier in July. The location was not disclosed, but its likely they were taken at or near Anmer Hall, the familys Norfolk country home where the Cambridges have been isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Will and Kate have released photos of George every year on his birthday, a custom they started for Georges first birthday and have followed for their two younger children, Princess Charlotte, five, and Prince Louis, two, on their birthdays.

Even in a royal family, Prince George Alexander Louis occupies a special place: As one of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philips eight great-grandchildren, he is third in the royal succession, behind his father Prince William, 38, and grandfather Prince Charles the Prince of Wales, 71.

Its the first time since Queen Victoria was on the throne, in the late 19th century, when four generations of direct heirs have been alive  and specially photographed together, as has happened with George and his relatives two times in recent years.

Rare as they are, British royal fans eagerly await new pictures of the little prince, who comes off as especially endearing in the less formal photos of him with his siblings hugging and hanging on to their father.

His parents have been careful in doling out snaps of their children, in part to protect their privacy while growing up. Even these birthday pictures are carefully controlled by the palace, which imposes deadlines, usually Dec. 31, after which the media cant use them without permission.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has locked down Britain for months and sent royals to their various estates and castles to quarantine, has meant even fewer opportunities for anyone to grab by-chance cellphone photos of George out and about or on his way to school, for instance.

Will and Kate have only recently begun to schedule in-person socially distanced public engagements, resorting to Zoom appearances after the country went into lockdown in March. The children have been talked about during these video appearances but not seen.

During the lockdown, they were spotted in April clapping for health care workers outside Anmer Hall, and later in pictures released by the palace in June for Prince Williams 38th birthday.

It is not yet clear when George and Charlotte will return to their private London school, Thomass Battersea. Most British primary schools reopened June 1 by government order. Thomass had a phased reopening, with Charlottes class able to attend but not Georges class, according to the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail, so the two are believed to be still at Anmer Hall.

Will and Kate have been home-schooling them in Norfolk, discovering, as have millions of parents, that teaching kids can be harder than they anticipated.

George, like his father, was born in Londons St. Marys Hospital, and even before he made his appearance he was the worlds most famous baby. A mob of reporters, cameramen and royal fans, some of whom had been there for weeks, jostled in the street in front of the hospital door, shouting questions, cheering and applauding as the couple came out and introduced the new royal heir to a nation giddy with excitement.

He has a good pair of lungs on him, William told onlookers, barely audible above the noise of the crowd. Hes a big boy, hes quite heavy. The baby, at that point unnamed, was 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

It was very emotional, it is such a special time; any parent knows what this feeling is like, Kate added.

Georges birthday falls on a day when his great-granddad, Prince Philip, 99, will be seen in public for the second time in days, as he takes part in a brief, socially distanced ceremony on the Quadrangle at Windsor Castle to turn over the reigns of a military regiment, The Rifles, to Georges step-grandmother, Duchess Camilla of Cornwall.

She will be 85 miles away at Highgrove House, Prince Charles country estate, when she takes part in the ceremony to become colonel-in-chief of The Rifles.

Philip has been retired since 2017 and seen lately mostly at family events, such as Fridays surprise wedding of his granddaughter Princess Beatrice of York (cousin to Prince William) at a royal chapel on the castle estate.
A California city removed a Black Lives Matter mural during the middle of the night last week after receiving a request to paint a Trump 2020 statement on the same street.

Redwood City Council said that although they had given the BLM mural permission earlier this month, they now believed it was a traffic hazard and had to be removed.

Yet the sudden decision was made after resident Maria Rutenburg said she wished to paint a MAGA 2020 message on the street if it was now a public forum.

 Slide me  Redwood resident Dan Pease had asked for the BLM mural to be painted along Broadway in a July 4 celebration and the city had even donated the poster paint to make it happen. Yet city officials had it quickly scrubbed off in the middle of the night last Thursday after another resident asked for a MAGA 2020 slogan to also be painted on the same street

She argued that a BLM mural on the street when she was not able to paint her own political message was an example of city officials promoting private political expression and a limited private agenda.

'Governments cannot and should not get to pick and choose who should be allowed to speak,' the attorney told KRON4.

'Now that the cities open up asphalts as public forums, everyone with any political message is free to write their own. I, for one, would like to paint MAGA 2020.

'At a time like this, its especially important that we allow free and open political discussion for all sides, not just BLM,' she added.

Earlier this month, Redwood resident Dan Pease had asked for the 17-foot long Black Lives Matter mural to be painted along Broadway in a July 4 celebration, and the city had even donated the poster paint to make it happen.

The original plan had been to allow the mural to fade away but city officials took action to have it washed off last Thursday night, angering some residents who have now stated a petition opposing its removal.

'Because we were using the poster board paint that would eventually deteriorate over time, my understanding from them was that the mural would last as long as the paint lasted,' Pease, who said he was inspired to ask for the mural because of his four-year-old mixed-race son, told CBS San Francisco.

Dan Pease, pictured, who originally asked for the BLM mural has said he is concerned that a human rights message has been washed away because of one person's political stance

The 17-foot high mural was scrubbed away last week after just two weeks. The city council said that it could cause accidents and was a traffic hazard despite previously giving approval

Yet local real estate attorney Rutenberg believed that if BLM could be painted along the street, she also had the right to create a mural with her own message.

'I saw Black Lives Matter sign appearing on Broadway Street on the asphalt and I figured thats gonna be a new public space, open for discussion, and I wanted to get my message out, too,' Rutenburg said.

Instead of allowing for further murals, however, the request pushed the council to remove those already in place, although they cited traffic hazards and that the mural could cause accidents as the reason behind the decision.

'I asked Redwood City to allow me to paint MAGA2020 next to BLM on the Broadway. Instead, they are erasing BLM,' Rutenberg wrote on Twitter.

'I stand for the 1st Amendment and everyone 's right to express their political views in a new public forum of street asphalts.'

Attorney Rutenberg has argued she could also voice her opinion on the street

She wished the street to be painted with Trump slogan MAGA 2020

Resident Maria Rutenberg argued city officials were only promoting private political expression and a limited private agenda if they would not also allow the Trump slogan

Pease has said that he does not believe that BLM is a political statement but he understands why the council would have decided to wash it away if they feared a legal response.

'I have no hard feelings to the city council,' Pease said. 'I am disappointed but, at the same time, I am very grateful that they allowed me to put that message on Broadway.'

Yet he is concerned that a human rights message has been washed away because of one person's political stance.

'Black Lives Matter is not a political statement. Black Lives Matter is a human rights issue, its a call, its a message, its a symbol,' Pease added to KRON4.

'I dont agree with MAGA 2020 but if somebody wants to support Trump wants to put MAGA 2020 and the city of Redwood City wants to support that then more power to that individual.'

He added that he would be happy to paint the mural again if he was asked and that he hoped the first one inspired other residents.

The street has now been washed clean of the Black Lives Matter mural

An online petition has been started criticizing the removal of the mural

In response to its removal, an online petition has been started that so far has more than 700 signatures.

'For many of us, the BLM mural is a powerful reminder of one of the greatest social justice movements in our country and one of the largest protests we've had here in Redwood City,' it reads.

'Such negation of the communitys voice is itself an example of white supremacyprivileging one white voice over the communitys.'

Redwood is just one of several cities across the United States that has allowed for Black Lives Matter to be painted along one of its streets.

The first appeared in Washington D.C. in the days of protest and unrest immediately following the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25.

There, Mayor Muriel Bowser allowed the message to be painted on a road leading to the White House before 'Defund The Police' was added by protesters.

In New York City, BLM was painted along Fifth Avenue close to Trump Tower less than two weeks ago.

It has been defaced three times in the past week.

On Saturday, Bevelyn Beatty, 29, an anti-abortion activist from Staten Island, was arrested alongside Edmee Chavannes, 39, after they were seen smearing black paint over the bright yellow lettering of the Fifth Avenue mural, yelling 'Re-fund the police'.

Four people were arrested Friday around 4:15 p.m. and charged with dumping blue paint on the mural.

Shortly after noon on Monday, a man walked up to the mural and also poured red paint over it before running off.
Branch has revolutionized the experience of bundling home and auto insurance, streamlining the process to take only seconds by asking clients for just their name and address. Branch's seamless data integrations eliminate the traditional insurance application and quote estimate, presenting clients with an instant, purchasable price instead of just an estimate.

Over the last 12 months Branch has launched in Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas. The Series A funding will spearhead a strategic nationwide expansion plan through 2021. Branch's innovative technology can easily be integrated into home-financing and car-buying websites. Home and automobile sellers love adding Branch to their site because it equips customers with insurance without a big drop-off in conversion rates. Customers don't need to dig up additional information to apply or wait for a quote, so they're more likely to complete their purchase.

"Branch is on a mission to make home and car insurance less expensive for all, enabling more of us to be financially protected from life's uncertainties," said Cofounder and CEO Steve Lekas. "This investment further equips Branch to bring instant, financially strong, and less expensive insurance to so many more."

"Branch's unique instant-bind capability, allowing people to buy bundled home and auto insurance after only giving their name and address, has never been possible before," shared Ian Sigalow, Cofounder & Partner of Greycroft. "Branch also brings community back to insurance in a way that reduces cost and increases the number of people who can get coverage, which is beneficial to all."

"We have followed the Branch story since 2018 and are thrilled to have the opportunity to co-lead the round," said Vikas Singhal, Partner & CIO of HSCM Bermuda's insurtech efforts. "Branch has innovated across many critical areas of the insurance value chain  distribution, technology, risk management, and capital."

Branch is bringing the insurance industry back to its roots as a force for communal good, which is why it offers its clients a variety of tools to tailor their coverage and lower their own prices with the power of community. The startup has already introduced two groundbreaking community programs, My Community Discount and Community Pledge , which harness the power of community to make insurance more accessible and affordable. Branch also started a 501(c)(3) non-profit called SafetyNest , chartered to insure the financially excluded and lower the cost of insurance for everyone.

Clients save an average of $517 when they switch to Branch. To see your savings head to www.ourbranch.com today.

About Branch

Branch was founded in 2018 by insurance veteran Steve Lekas and tech entrepreneur Joe Emison. Branch taps into the power of community to make insurance accessible and affordable for everyone, utilizing innovative technology makes it easier than ever to save money by bundling Home and Auto Insurance in seconds. Branch Insurance has launched in five states (AZ, IL, MO, OH, and TX) and is underwritten by General Security National Insurance Company (GSNIC), an AM Best A+ Financial Rated insurance company and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

About SafetyNest

SafetyNest is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity, designed and funded exclusively by Branch Financial, Inc. to provide assistance to those who are un- or underinsured and suffered a loss. For more information about SafetyNest, visit safetynest.ourbranch.com or contact us at [email protected] .

About Greycroft

Greycroft is a seed-to-growth venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build the world's most transformative companies. We have deep experience in both consumer and enterprise technology, with a portfolio that spans the globe. We value building enduring relationships with founders and appreciate that they need more than just capital. Greycroft works as a team to support and advise entrepreneurs, empowering them to execute on their vision. We manage more than $1.8 billion in capital and have made over 300 investments, including Acorns, App Annie, Axios, Bird, Braintree, Bright Health, Buddy Media, Huffington Post, Icertis, Plated, Scopely, Shipt, TheRealReal, Thrive Market, Trunk Club, and Venmo. For more on Greycroft visit: https://greycroft.com .

About Hudson Structured Capital Management Limited Ltd. (doing its Re/Insurance business as "HSCM Bermuda")

HSCM Bermuda is an asset manager focused on investments in the Re/Insurance and Transportation sectors. HSCM was launched in 2016 and focuses on core economic sectors that are likely to outgrow global GDP, offer low correlations with broader markets, and are experiencing a shift from balance sheet and to market financing. For more information about HSCM Bermuda, please visit www.hscm.com .

CONTACT:

Ally Majewski

Branch Financial, Inc.

[email protected]

SOURCE Branch Insurance

Related Links

https://www.ourbranch.com


The Egyptian armed forces announced on Tuesday that its forces in North Sinai had foiled a terrorist attack targeting a military position, killing 18 takfiris who had participated in the attack.

According to the statement, the takfiri elements attempted to attack a military position in the Bir El-Abd area using four vehicles.

The Egyptian forces in the position. with the help of the air forces, pursued the takfiri elements into some farms and empty houses, which led to the killing of the 18 takfiris, including an individual wearing an explosive belt.

The statement said that four vehicles were destroyed, including three cars rigged with explosives.

Two military personnel were killed while four others were injured during the operation.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack

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Spain is detecting an increasing number of young people with Covid-19, according to a new report by the Carlos III Health Institute. The study, published Monday night, showed that most new cases fall in the 15-to-29 age bracket. Two out of every 10 infections recorded since May 10, when Spain began to roll back its lockdown rules, were adolescents or young adults. Indeed, of the 25,600 cases analyzed in the report, 40% were under the age of 40. The average age of coronavirus patients has fallen from around 60 in April to 48, according to the epidemiological survey Covid-19 Situation in Spain, which is based on the information provided by regional authorities when a new case is detected.

The coronavirus situation in Spain has changed a lot in the past few months. On April 1, 83.3% of all cases were over the age of 40. At that point, tests were only being carried out on patients with serious symptoms who had been hospitalized. Now PCR tests have become widespread, and are recommended for anyone experiencing symptoms or who have been in contact with a coronavirus case. Thanks to this change, a large number of asymptomatic cases are being detected in Spain. According to the report, 55% of cases never experienced any coronavirus symptoms.

According to the survey, 37% of patients did not know where they contracted the virus

Whats still unclear is the source of contagion. According to the survey, 37% of patients did not know where they contracted the virus. The poll showed that one in four (25%) of infections happened in the home, 12.1% in social service residences, 11.1% in the workplace and 6.1% in medical centers. Also listed were 25 cases (0.2% of the total) that occurred at schools, while another 7.3% were categorized as other.

The report also found that an average of 49.6% of patients had no known prior contact with another Covid-19 case. In other words, half of all respondents were not aware that they had been in contact with someone with the virus or were not able to establish a clear link. This is not a good figure, says Jesus Molina Cabrillana, the spokesperson of the Spanish Association of Preventive Medicine, Public Health and Hygiene, who explains: It should be as low as possible. If it is zero it means that all the cases have a known contact and the traceability [of the contagion] is well defined, he adds.

But this figure varies significantly between Spains 17 regions. In Catalonia, the report found that three in four cases (74.4%) had not had any contact with someone with Covid-19. This indicates that in some areas in the region, there is community transmission of the virus and contact tracing is not being effective. Indeed, Catalonia is one of the regions that did not provide data on how many contacts are identified for each coronavirus case. The current situation in Catalonia is bad. There is community transmission, says Molina Cabrillana.

In the Basque Country, only 11.9% of cases did not have contact with another coronavirus case. This figure was also low in Andalusia, Canary Islands and Aragon, where it was around 20%.

According to the survey, an average of four contacts are being identified for every new contagion. This figure was incorrectly reported as one contact in the previous report, which was published last Friday. The new version also contains data from Asturias, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia and Madrid that had not been included due difficulties in categorizing the variables.

Its easy to report [the figures] and I find it strange that four regions have problems categorizing it, says Molina Cabrillana. Some data from the Balearic Islands and Cantabria is also missing, but without any explanation. The figures that have been provided show that six contacts are being identified for every new case in the Balearic Islands, compared to two in La Rioja.

107 imported cases in two days

According to the survey, imported cases represent 1.9% of total infections in Spain. Since the beginning of the deescalation process, 435 have been recorded. It is not possible to compare the reports from March and May (they stopped being published in June and the first half of July) because they did not include this information. But it is possible to compare the two latest reports, published last Friday and Monday, with data from July 15 and July 17, respectively. The first survey recorded 328 imported cases, and the second, 435. This means that 107 new imported cases were detected in just two days.

Several of the active coronavirus outbreaks in Spain are linked to imported cases. In Murcia, one outbreak began after two passengers arrived on a plane from Bolivia; several cases have been recorded among migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands; and in the Balearic Islands, several tourist families have also tested positive for the virus.

According to the report, 0.8% of the 25,600 cases died from the disease, 8.5% required hospitalization and 0.6% were admitted into intensive care. The survey also showed that health and social services workers made up 11% of cases.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
The chief executive of the HSE Paul Reid has said Ireland should look at moving away from nursing homes as it is difficult to protect older people from Covid-19 in congregated settings.

It comes as a HIQA report found half of Irelands nursing homes inspected over confirmed cases of Covid-19 complied with infection prevention standards.

This afternoon we published our report on the impact of COVID-19 on nursing homes in Ireland. You can find out more here: https://t.co/0KjUQ44ClH pic.twitter.com/6kJUdZdPRa  HIQA (@HIQA) July 21, 2020

The report found nursing homes were challenged in their efforts to maintain proper infection prevention and control standards due to staff shortages, as many workers were affected by Covid-19 themselves.

Mr Reid said: This is not a time for any one sector blaming the other, we all have to put up our hands and take really big learnings around how nursing homes are overseen and what learnings we have seen throughout the pandemic so far.

The first learning is the obvious one, nursing homes and particularly congregated settings are not the environment in which you can protect people in a pandemic, he told Newstalk FM.

Nursing homes have been at the epicentre of a disease outbreak which has proven most deadly for the frail and elderly.

Mr Reid said the health service needs to look at how they care for older people in the future.

It cant be in congregated settings.

If you look at Denmark, they stopped building nursing homes a few years ago and I think that is lesson number one for Ireland, he said.

I do believe there is a gap when it comes to nursing homes and that is an issue we have to address, whether it is clinical oversight or governance.

I am wide open as CEO of the HSE, to any learning that people believe we can make.

Collectively we need to put a different environment in place in the future to protect our most vulnerable and elderly people.
A funeral in Chicago's Gresham neighborhood suddenly resembled a warzone after a shooter opened fire. At least 14 people were wounded following the incident on Tuesday evening.

First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said the shooter was inside a black vehicle. The unidentified suspect opened fire at the funeral-goers. Some who attended the funeral fired back, causing the car to crash midway down the block.

Chicago authorities said at least 14 adults were rushed to five different hospitals following the incident. Their conditions are currently unknown. Police said it was still unclear whether all the victims were attending the funeral, The New York Times reported.

Larry Langford, the spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department, said they rushed 11 victims to nearby hospitals. Three victims were transported to other medical facilities by other funeral attendees. It is believed that several are in severe or critical condition.

According to authorities, the shooting at the 1000 block of West 79th Street occurred just before 6:30 p.m. Shortly after the incident, the police took a person of interest into custody.

The funeral was allegedly being held for a man who died after he was shot last week along a street.

pic.twitter.com/Mg6CfUEfKk At least 11 shot in Auburn Gresham neighborhood says Chicago Fire Dept. Neighbors tell us it sounded and looked like a war zone with victims wounded on the ground after leaving a funeral near 79th & Morgan. @nbcchicago  Patrick Fazio (@PatrickFazio) July 22, 2020

Witnesses' Accounts

Residents in the area said they heard gunshots before victims rushed out of the funeral home. Arnita Geder, one of the witnesses, said she saw bodies laying everywhere. "We thought it was a war out here," as reported by NBC Chicago.

Kenneth Hughes, another witness, said they saw a car that was riddled with bullet holes. The vehicle was turned down on the grass beside a hat that he claimed to belong to the shooter.

Both Hughes and Geder said all the victims were wearing white. They also claimed that the shooting appeared to be planned after the suspect opened fire when the funeral-goers were coming out.

Chicago police said they found over 60 shell casings at the shooting. They have yet to release a motive for the crime.

They are also urging anyone who knows something about the incident to contact the police department.

Chicago Violence

Over the weekend, Chicago has seen at least 63 people shot, with 12 of the victims dying from the wounds.

On Sunday, two people were killed following a shooting in the Morgan Park neighborhood. In a report by ABC Chicago, police said a group gathered at South Carpenter around midnight, when someone opened fire.

The unidentified suspect shot a 26-year-old man and a 41-year-old man in the head. They were pronounced dead at the hospital. Another 26-year-old man was also hit in the head. He was rushed to the Advocate Christ Hospital and is currently in critical condition.

The shooting also wounded three other victims, including a 37-year-old man who was shot in the leg. He received medical attention at Roseland Hospital and was said to be in good condition.

The fifth victim, 48, was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center. He is now in a stable condition.

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Weather Alert

.An arctic cold front will move across the region on Wednesday, causing rain to change to snow Wednesday afternoon and evening. ...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 4 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 6 AM CST THURSDAY... * WHAT...Mixed precipitation expected. Total snow accumulations of one to two inches and ice accumulations of a light glaze. * WHERE...Portions of southwest Indiana, western Kentucky and southern Illinois. * WHEN...From 4 PM Wednesday to 6 AM CST Thursday. * IMPACTS...Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions could impact the evening commute, especially along the Ohio River. The transition from rain to a wintry mix and snow may not occur closer to the Tennessee border areas until after 7 PM CST. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...The combination of gusty winds, falling temperatures and wind chills, and falling snow will cause hazardous travel. Freezing of residual moisture on roads from rain earlier Wednesday could also cause some icing of roadways. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Slow down and use caution while traveling. &&
BEIRUT - The Baath party in Syria overwhelmingly won legislative elections that took place between Sunday and Monday in nearly all of the country, said government media sources, citing official results released by the electoral commission on Wednesday. The Baath party has been the ruling party for more than half a century in Syria, a country battered by nine years of war. Turnout at the polls hit a record low of 33%, compared to 56% turnout in 2016.

The electoral list was dominated by the Baath party and other satellite groups in power for decades in Syria. They won 171 of the 250 seats in the People's Council of Syria, the country's parliament. The result was widely expected given the Syrian electoral system, which guarantees a majority to the ruling party, led by President Bashar al Assad, who has been in power for 20 years.

The opposition in exile denounced the legislative elections as a "farce" and said "in Syria there aren't free elections" and that "even so-called independent candidates are de facto chosen by the regime".
Not a disease but punishment by God: Samajwadi Party MP on COVID-19

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Lucknow, July 22: Two days after a video of Shafiqur Rahman, the Samajwadi Party MP from Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh surfaced on the Internet in which he was seen saying that "coronavirus is not a disease but a punishment by God for our sins", Rahman on Tuesday reiterated that the "best way to come out of the coronavirus crisis is to seek forgiveness from Almighty".

A video has surfaced on July 19 in which Rahman has said that on the occasion of Bakr Eid, markets should be opened so that people can buy animals from there. Mosques and Eidgahs should be opened for people to offer prayers to end coronavirus.

Coronavirus: All eyes on Oxford COVID-19 vaccine as results show 'most transparent' outcome

"No cure of coronavirus has been found so far, which means coronavirus is not a disease but punishment by God for our sins. The best cure of corona is that we all pray to the Almighty," he had said in the video. While speaking to ANI, Rahman reiterated that coronavirus is not a disease but a punishment by God for our sins.

"If the administration allows us to offer prayers in the mosque, we will ensure that everyone follows social distancing norms and wears a mask while praying. If they do not allow, we will offer a prayer from our homes. There is a need for cooperation among people. We have put a proposal to allow us to offer prayer in a mosque. We will follow whatever policy, the government will announce," he said.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

"It is not a disease. The best way to come out from this crisis is to seek forgiveness from God, if God forgives us we will be free from coronavirus," he added.

Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday reported 2,151 new COVID-19 cases and 37 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the active cases to 20,204 and number of deaths to 1,229, said the State Health Department.

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Story first published: Wednesday, July 22, 2020, 13:07 [IST]
Mayor Ted Wheelers office said Wednesday that he would attend the protests later in the evening and there would be some form of dialogue with the demonstrators. Wheeler has been vocal in opposing the federal agents presence in Portland  but he has still come in for harsh criticism from many sides. Some, including fellow council members, have accused him of not reining in local police, who used tear gas before the federal agents arrived. Others, including business leaders, have condemned him for not bringing the situation under control.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday made a forceful pitch for foreign investment telling some of Americas top business and political leaders India has what is needed to power the global economic recovery from the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic and there was a never better time to invest there.

It was time, the prime minister said to them, for India and the United States to work in partnership to play important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic.

We have what is needed to power the global economic recovery, Modi said, addressing the annual summit of the US-India Business Council (USIBC, a trade body)) virtually, pitching India as a nation that you can trust, in contrast, he did not say, with China, Indias rise means, he added, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale.

As countries and businesses around the world seek to reduce their dependence on Chinese supply chains, hit first by President Donald Trumps tariffs and then by the Covid-19 epidemic, India is positioning itself as the alternative destination, seeking to fight off stiff competition from Vietnam, whose saturation points are much lower in every aspect than India.

Also read: India, US need to focus on something bigger as they talk trade, says Jaishankar

The prime minister said the recent crisis  the pandemic,  had showed the world it needed to pay more attention to resilience against external shocks and not just focus on scaling up efficiency and optimization, bywords for the shift of supply chains to China. And with that he segued into aatma nirbhar Bharrat, his governments new motto, stressing increased domestic capability for manufacturing, restoring the health of the financial system and diversification of international trade.

There is global optimism towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options. Let me elaborate. India celebrates openness in people and in governance, the prime minister said, setting up a quick run-through of investment opportunities in India.

Modi spoke of opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G, Big data analytics, Quantum computing, Block-chain and Internet of things; in the agriculture sector; healthcare, which he said was growing at 22% a year; in energy, as India evolved into a gas-based economy; in infrastructure; in civil aviation; defense and space; finance and insurance.

Investments are flowing in already. Every year, we are reaching record highs in FDI. Each year is significantly higher than the earlier one. FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were 74 billion dollars, he said, adding, This is an increase of 20 percent from the year before that.

Even during the ongoing pandemic, Modi said, to illustrate his point. In the middle of Covid, India has attracted foreign investment of more than $20 billion between April and July 2020.

While pitching India as a global powerhouse, the prime minister called for global economic growth to be human-centric, stressing a continuing theme for India. Last week, he had pressed UN member states to move towards a new type of human-centric globalization.

I firmly believe that our approach to the future must primarily be a more a more human centric . Our growth agenda must raise the poor and the vulnerable at the core,the prime minister said, adding, ease of living is as as important s ease of business.

At the same forum earlier, EAM S Jaishankar stressed the need for India and the United States to strive for something bigger even as they seek to resolve their trade differences.

While resolving these pending problems, the minister said, referring to trade issues, is important and central to the relationship, but beyond trade there is a much bigger connect between our two countries  a sort of knowledge innovation.

Working together in their sphere, he added, is what will set our relationship apart.

Commerce minister Piyush Goyal had said, at the same forum Tuesday, that India and the United States were just some phone calls away from wrapping up a limited trade deal. And he had had gone on to propose a preferential trade agreement as the next step, as the two sides got down to working on a larger and more robust and enduring Free Trade Agreement.

The external affairs minister also spoke broadly of India-US relations, framing it in the larger contexts of geo-politics and people to people connections. He said the United States needs to learn to work with a more multipolar world, and go beyond alliances.

Jaishankars session partner on Wednesday was Mark Warner, the Democratic senator who is co-chair of the Senate India caucus, who forcefully proposed India joins the United States to form the core of the Alliance of the Willing, a loose coalition of nations to confront Chinas predatory use of technology to dominate the world.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is in London, also appealed to India to do more against China. India has a chance to take global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas of telecommunications, medial supplies and others

India is in this positions because it has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including, the United States, he added.

The secretary of state, who has spearheaded the Trump administrations sharpening attacks on China, reiterated US backing for Indias ban on 56 Chinese apps, including TikTok, and conveyed his condolences once agains for the death of Indian soldiers in the Galwan clashes, for which the US had held Beijing responsible.

Pompeo reiterated US position on India generally. Were the oldest and most prosperous democracies in the world, and Its important that democracies like ours work together. India is a rising U.S. defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific.
T he US has accused hackers working with China of targeting companies which are developing coronavirus vaccines, according to court documents.

The Justice Department filed criminal charges in federal court in Washington state against two Chinese hackers, though it does not accuse them of obtaining the research.

It does, however, claim Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi managed to steal hundreds of millions of pounds worth of intellectual property and trade secrets from firms worldwide.

The indictment says the hackers in recent months researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of Massachusetts and Maryland companies known for their work in developing vaccines.

It includes charges of trade secret theft and wire fraud conspiracy against the hackers, who prosecutors say stole information of interest to the Chinese government.

The two defendants are not in custody, and federal officials conceded on Tuesday that they were not likely to step foot in an American courtroom.

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But the indictment carries important symbolic and deterrence value for the Justice Department, which decided that publicly calling out the behaviour was more worthwhile than waiting for the unlikely scenario in which the defendants would travel to the US and risk arrest.
Chinese police detain Christians passing out Gospel tracts, threaten to remove social welfare

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Christians in China were detained by officials with China's Communist Party while passing out Gospel tracts and ordered to cease all religious activity or risk losing social welfare benefits.

A Christian in Jiangxi province recently told persecution watchdog China Aid that previously, believers were permitted to openly share their faith. Now, doing so invites severe repercussions from local authorities.

On July 3, the two Christians in Zhejiang provinces Quzhou who were sharing the Gospel on the streets were taken by the police and detained for 10 days. Also in July, more than 10 Christians were placed under administrative detention in Jiangsu for passing out Gospel tracts on the streets, a local pastor said.

Fearing further repercussions, those who were released did not share the details of their detention, the pastor told China Aid.

In the past they would share what happened to them, the pastor said. Now they dare not to share. Before they were released they were threatened by the police that they would be detained again, or that their social welfare would be stopped. [] While the churches used to speak up about the detention, now more than 90% of churches choose to stay silent.

Previous reports have revealed how Communist authorities use low-income Christians' reliance on government assistance to coerce believers to renounce their faith.

It was earlier reported that Communist officials ordered Christians who received social welfare payments from the government to replace crosses, religious symbols, and images in their homes with portraits of China's communist leaders.

If Christians resisted the order, officials annulled their subsidies.

A member of a Three-Self church in one of the villages told religious magazine Bitter Winter that local officials tore down all religious couplets and a calendar with an image of Jesus in his home and posted a portrait of Mao Zedong instead.

The believer quoted the official as saying, "Impoverished religious households can't receive money from the state for nothing  they must obey the Communist Party for the money they receive."

Similarly, in Jiangxis Poyang county, a Christian woman in her 80s was removed from the governments aid list because she said Thank God after receiving her monthly 200 RMB (about $28) subsidy in mid-January.

Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology and the director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, told TIME that there are about 116 million Protestant Christians in mainland China in 2020 compared with an estimated 90 million members in the Communist Party.

It is almost certain that by 2030 there will be more Christians in China than any other country in the world, Yang said.

Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kongs Center for China Studies, told the outlet that as underground churches spread like wildfire in rural areas of China, officials fear that more people, including less educated people, will turn to the church for their spiritual needs and not to official nationalism and patriotism.

On Open Doors USAs World Watch List, China is ranked No. 23 on its list of countries known for persecuting Christians.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, rights groups, and the U.S. State Department have condemned Chinas continued persecution of religious minorities.

In June, President Donald Trump signed legislation condemning the Chinese government for the detainment of members of ethnic groups, including Uighur Muslims.

Estimates suggest that over 1 million to as many as 3 million Uighur Muslims and other minority groups in Western China have been subject to internment camps in Xinjiang.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the legislation was evidence that the U.S. will not sit idly by as the Chinese government and communist party commit egregious human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.
This originally appeared as part of our daily coronavirus newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.

The coronavirus test being administered by the Connecticut State Department of Health  and the CDC  is producing false positives, one researcher wrote recently.
The police have invited the Member for Parliament (MP) for Awutu Senya East, Ms Hawa Koomson, for questioning, following Mondays disturbances and firing of gunshots at the Top Hill Down Polling Centre at Kasoa, in the Central Region.



The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Central Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Irene Oppong, confirmed this to the Ghanaian Times, yesterday.



The Police PRO said that a statement has been taken from Ms Koomson, who is also the Minister for Special Development Initiative, invited to assist the police in investigations into the chaos and firing of gunshots at the polling centre.



Meanwhile, the four persons arrested in connection with disturbances have been granted GH30,000 bail each with two sureties by the Cape Coast Circuit Court.



One of the sureties should be a government worker whose net salary is GH2,000.



The accused, Sulley Razak, Majeed Amadu, Suleman Yusuf and Razak Musa were charged with conspiracy to commit crime, causing unlawful damage to three motorbikes and discharge of firearms in public place without authority by the court presided by Ms Dorinda Smith Arthur.



They all pleaded not guilty to all the three charges and the case was adjourned to August 18,2020, for a case management conference.



The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Central Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Irene Oppong, told the Ghanaian Times yesterday.



She said the accused are to report to the Kasoa police every Tuesday until the case is called.



The Ghanaian Times in its Tuesday, July, 21, 2020 issue reported that there was confusion at the Top Hill Down polling centre at Kasoa in the Awutu Senya East in the Central Region, on Monday when armed men fired gunshots at the centre whilst registration was ongoing.



Razak, Amadu, Yusuf and Musa, were arrested by the police in connection with the shootings and disturbances at the centre.



The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Central Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Irene Oppong, told the Ghanaian Times, that the police had mounted a search for other accomplices, who were on the run.



She said on July 20, at about 10a.m a complainant from Peace Town at Kasoa called at the police station and reported that at about 9:30a.m at Kasoa Peace Town Top Hill Down registration centre, whilst registration was in progress some thugs raided the centre.



DSP Oppong said a person from the group pulled a pistol and fired a gun to scare people who had queued to register and in the ensuing confusion, three motorcycles, parked at the centre were burnt.



She said the police proceeded to the scene, arrested the suspects and retrieved one pistol from one of them.



DSP Oppong said the burnt motorcycles had also been retrieved by the police, adding that investigations into the case were ongoing.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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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A Las Vegas man is facing murder charges after recording video of his thrill killing of a sleeping homeless person last week and then recording himself days later shooting a man who was walking his dog in a park, the police said.

Noah Green, 21, of Las Vegas, is being held at the Clark County Detention Center on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon and another of attempted murder, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He was arrested on Saturday after being identified as a suspect in both attacks.

We believe that we have taken a very dangerous person off of the streets, Lt. Ray Spencer, who oversees the departments homicide unit, said at a news conference on Monday.

Image Noah Green. Credit... Clark County Detention Center, via Associated Press

The police contend that Mr. Green shot and killed a homeless man whose body was found by a jogger in the early hours of July 13. Two days later, they said, he shot a 66-year-old man in the chest at very close range as the man was walking his dog.
Even teleprompter could not take so many lies: Rahul's dig at PM Modis Davos speech

Journalist Vikram Joshi's death: Rahul Gandhi attacks Yogi Adityanath's govt, terms it 'goondaraj'

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New Delhi, July 22: Hours after Ghaziabad journalist Vikram Joshi succumbed to a bullet injury he received from a group of men, who had allegedly harassed his relative, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the Uttar Pradesh government as 'goonda raj' (rule by hooligans).

Taking to Twitter, Rahul Gandhi said, "Journalist Vikram Jashi was killed after he protested against the harassment against his niece. My condolence to the family. They promised Ram Raj, but gave Goondaraj."

Ghaziabad journalist shot in head dies, Police arrest 9 accused

Rahul Gandhi's party colleague Randeep Surjewala also took to Twitter and said, "Is it the same Ram Rajya that BJP promised after it came to power? This is complete 'Goondaraj'. Neither journalist, nor those who protect the law are safe in UP, so how can the common man expect justice."

Meanwhile, party leader and lawyer Abhishek Singhvi also expressed his shock over the incident and said, "Shocking jungle raj in #Ghaziabad area with journalist #Joshi, already known as the complainant in #FIR, being shot on a scooter while with his daughters, struggling in a coma with a bullet in the skull! Thank God daughters not hit. Shocking, scary, disgusting lack of fear of law & order! #UP."

United States is leading the world in terms of COVID-19 testing, India is at second: Donald Trump

Journalist Vikram Joshi was shot in the head in front of his two daughters on Monday night, four days after he filed a complaint against some men for allegedly molesting his relative.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

The police officials have arrested nine people. Joshi was on a scooter with his two daughters in Pratap Vihar when he was attacked by a group of men who assaulted and later shot at him. He was rushed to Yashoda Hospital, where he is in a critical condition in the ICU.

His family members claimed a police team only enquired about the location of the accused but they were not found. The family further alleged that on July 17, a letter had been sent via post to the SSP office demanding action but nothing was done.

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Story first published: Wednesday, July 22, 2020, 12:00 [IST]
The government will lift its ban on small church gatherings other than regular worship services this week as new COVID-19 cases linked to such gatherings have subsided in recent weeks, the prime minister said Wednesday.



The tougher anti-infection rules on Protestant churches will be cleared on Friday, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said during a regular government coronavirus response meeting.



Under the ban imposed on July 10 after a spike in cluster infections traced to small-scale church meetings, churches are barred from organizing small gatherings, including Bible classes, choir practices or prayer services, and offering group meals. They are also mandated to use quick response (QR) code-based entry logs for visitors.



"Thanks to many Christian orders and worshipers who faithfully abided by quarantine guidelines, there have been few infection cases stemming from small gatherings involving churches," the prime minister said during the meeting.



Even after the central government-level removal of the ban, however, regional administrative bodies will remain entitled to issue their own administrative orders to prohibit church gatherings if that is necessary, according to the prime minister.













"I thank the religious communities for leading the quarantine efforts ... and believe they will continue to play a leading role in practicing everyday quarantine guidelines," Chung noted.



The prime minister also said the government will send a military plane to Iraq on Thursday to bring home some 300 more South Korean nationals from the Middle Eastern country where COVID-19 cases are spiking. (Yonhap)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 19:57:43|Editor: huaxia

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-- As China's capability of flood control and disaster relief improves, the loss of property and life has dramatically decreased.

-- Over 2,500 flood-related risks have occurred in the five provinces in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and all of them have been effectively handled.

-- More use of high-tech devices like electronic guards, real-time virtual reality observation and mobile flood-fighting walls in the flood-hit regions across China has raised the efficiency and accuracy of the relief work. The reinforcements for embankments are also of vital significance for flood relief.

NANJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Since the rainy season started in June, 54-year-old Tang Jianjun has been patrolling a nearby embankment around the clock to uncover hidden dangers in the city of Yangzhong, east China's Jiangsu Province.



Although the water level in the Yangtze River, the country's largest, remains high above the alert level, Tang is feeling less worried about the flooding this year than that in 1998.

Yangzhong, the second-largest island on the Yangtze River, is protected by 120 km of embankment. Local residents consider the embankment their lifeline.

Aerial photo taken on July 17, 2020 shows the levee of Yangtze River in Yangzhong City, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

The width and height of the embankment have been raised to 10.05 meters and six meters from less than nine meters and three meters respectively since the disastrous flooding in 1998, recalled Tang, Party chief of Taiping village.

"In addition, we have more flood control materials, large drainage equipment and high-tech devices to mitigate flood damages," Tang said. "More importantly, local authorities, rescue teams and residents are more united, experienced and meticulous in battling floods."

As China's capability of flood control and disaster relief improves, the loss of property and life has dramatically decreased.

Statistics show that the number of people dead or missing due to the floods since July was 82 percent lower than the average for the same period of the past five years, while collapsed houses and direct economic losses dropped 78.3 percent and 5.9 percent respectively, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

HUMAN PATROL, ACCURATE MONITORING

In Walong village in the hard-hit province of Anhui that borders the Yangtze River, villagers have been patrolling a 500-meter-long embankment in three shifts a day since early July, using long bamboo sticks or shovels to remove weeds at the bottom of the levee and carefully monitor if there is any water seepage on the ground.

Flood-control workers patrol the levee along Qingyi River at Yijiang District in Wuhu City, east China's Anhui Province, July 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Duan)

"We will immediately inform the authorities once we find any problems. It is very important because a leakage could result in the crash of the whole embankment," said Hu Mingzhe, a village official.

A total of 35 rivers and lakes in Anhui, including the Yangtze River and Huaihe River, have seen water exceed warning levels. The provincial government has activated the highest-level emergency response for flood control due to the grim situation.

Since July 2, continuous heavy rains have affected more than 3.64 million residents and forced the evacuation of 606,000 people in the province.

In Jiangsu, the local flood control authorities have also given priority to embankment patrol, beefing up flood inspection forces in regions plagued by flooding.

Statistics from China's emergency management authorities show that over 2,500 flood-related risks have occurred in the five provinces in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and all of them have been effectively handled.

Members of the armed police carry sandbags to reinforce a section of the levee in Baimao Town of Wuhu, east China's Anhui Province, July 16, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhou Mu)

To enhance flood prevention, the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu hemmed in by the Taihu Lake, China's third-largest freshwater lake, has turned to smart flood monitoring systems.

"We have adopted some new technologies for the first time this year," said Zhang Xiaowen, an official with Wuxi's flood control and drought relief headquarters. "The decision-making support system at the headquarters integrates data from more than 200 local hydrological stations."

According to Zhang, the flood and rainfall data is updated every five minutes. "We can also check the data and interact with meteorological departments through a smartphone application, which greatly improves our decision-making efficiency in response to flooding."

HIGH-TECH DEVICES, HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING

It is a regular task for patrol teams to check if there are potential risks along the embankment during the flood season. In this year's flood fighting, a series of advanced equipment have greatly relieved the stress of patrollers.

"The unmanned aerial vehicle plays an important role in inspecting the embankment," said Yang Quanfu, head of the hydrological station in Xinba Township of Yangzhong. Photoing and video shooting by a drone help him finish the embankment inspection in 10 minutes.

There are 175 culverts along the embankment in Yangzhong, some of which are too small for the staff to walk through. "The microrobots could replace us to enter the culverts to examine whether there are any leakages or blockings," said Guo Feng, deputy director of the local water resources bureau.

These new attempts in Yangzhong are the epitome of new flood relief efforts in China. More use of high-tech devices like electronic guards, real-time virtual reality observation and mobile flood-fighting walls in the flood-hit regions across China has raised the efficiency and accuracy of the relief work.

On an electronic screen in the command center of the provincial water resources department in Anhui, dams, rivers and reservoirs appear in different colors, representing different water levels.

This electronic map integrates real-time data such as precipitation and water levels from over 8,000 automatic information-collecting stations in Anhui Province, said Hu Weiquan, an official with the provincial water resources department.

Wearing a pair of VR glasses, Liu Yuanyuan of the flood control and emergency command center of Anqing City in Anhui Province can inspect real-time situations of dam gates in 360 degrees. "In the past, we had to send staff to inspect every half an hour, but nowadays we can check it online anytime," said Liu.

The reinforcements for embankments are also of vital significance for flood relief.

Aerial photo taken on July 17, 2020 shows rescue team members reinforcing the embankment of Xinning Village Section of the Yangtze River, Yangzhong City, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

The local government in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, finished a reinforcement project for a 22.5-km-long dike in Jiangxinzhou island in the middle of the Yangtze River before this year's flood season. Now the reinforced river levee, 12 meters high and 8 meters wide, forges a staunch defense against the roaring flood.

Nanjing has invested more than 8 billion yuan (about 1.14 billion U.S. dollars) since 2016 to dredge main waterways and reinforce 200-km-long embankments for the main streams of rivers.

"The solid projects help us shun big disasters despite the severe flood Jiangsu is confronted with," said Zhang Jinsong, deputy director of the Jiangsu provincial water resources department. 

(Reporting by Zhang Zhanpeng, Zhu Xiao, He Leijing, Chen Shengwei, Qin Huajiang, Liu Fangqiang and Li Baojie; Video reporters: Lin Kai, Chen Si, Liu Yuxuan, Tang Yang and Liu Fangqiang; Video editor: Lin Lin)


Dominic Raab said he is deeply concerned by claims two Chinese men targeted a number of global entitles as part of a hacking campaign stretching more than 10 years, which includes a British artificial intelligence firm and those working to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

The US has accused Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi of hacking into hundreds of computer systems of companies, governments and organisations across the world, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade secrets, intellectual property and other valuable business information.



I am deeply concerned by the evidence announced yesterday that China is engaged in malicious cyber attacks against commercial, medical and academic institutions, including those working to respond to the coronavirus pandemic

American prosecutors claim the pair, who met at university, operated from China both for their own gain and with the assistance of and for the benefit of the Chinese governments Ministry of State Security.

The unnamed British company is referred to as an artificial intelligence and cancer research firm which is believed to have had its network compromised in April this year.

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It is listed in court documents among 25 known cases, largely from the US but also including targets in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden.

I am deeply concerned by the evidence announced yesterday that China is engaged in malicious cyber attacks against commercial, medical and academic institutions, including those working to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Raab said.

Our message to governments prepared to enable these activities is clear: the UK will continue to counter those conducting such cyber attacks, and work with our allies to hold perpetrators to account and deter further malicious activity around the world.
As Arizonas statewide positive coronavirus cases near the 150,000 mark, Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65 in partnership with the City of Phoenix and District 7 Councilman Nowakowski are announcing the addition of a second testing site, the Cesar Chavez Park (7858 S. 35th Ave.). The initiatives second location will offer free drive-thru tests Tuesdays through Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. from July 28-August 8.

The Post, along with other partners, launched the free drive-thru coronavirus testing event on Thursday, July 2 at South Mountain Community College (7050 S. 24th St.) Due to the high demand for tests and the states recent spike in cases, the testing sites and dates have both been increased. The SMCC site will continue to be active under updated days and hours, Tuesdays through Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. until Saturday, August 8, with the schedule changes taking effect on July 28.

Our post of committed veterans, veteran spouses and veteran children have all taken the oath to serve their country in one way or another, and now its time for us to serve our communities too, says Post Commander Jarvis Reddick, a retired U.S. Air Force veteran. There has always been a massive need in our neighborhoods, but due to the pandemic, we are dedicating ourselves to keeping our community members healthy during this difficult time with the launch of the second testing site.

Because numbers continue to rise, our mission is to ensure that the underserved South Phoenix neighborhoods receive the help they need to stay safe during this pandemic, says U.S. Army Desert Storm Veteran, Travis L. Williams Post 65 Second Vice Commander, and HeroZona Foundation Founder Alan AP Powell. Because of the massive influx of people who came out to the first round of testing days, we are responding by not only extending the dates by four weeks, but adding a second location to help manage the lines and reduce wait time for all.

As coronavirus continues to gravely impact our state, the need for free, accessible testing remains a priority, says Councilman Nowakowski. Thanks to the Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65, Phoenix residents will have multiple days of free, drive-thru testing at Cesar Chavez Park. No ID is required, and registration is not necessary. This testing site is another great example of the Team Phoenix approach. By working together we can provide needed resources to our community.

This event is incredibly important to the Sons of American Legion because we want to allow our veterans to continue providing and protecting our communities, and they need to be healthy to do so, says Dennis E. Prince Sr., S.A.L. commander. As a group that helps uplift those in need, the drive-thru testing has created a much-needed additional resource for our families.

Being a group that works to support the underserved neighborhoods of South Phoenix every day, we have seen firsthand the negative impact that coronavirus has had in our community, says Toye Stokes, Madame President of the American Legion Auxiliary and Legionnaires. Many families have lost jobs, and in turn, health insurance. Offering this service to them free of cost relieves the burden of not having access of medical aid.

The testing will continue to be conducted by Lab24, a family owned business located in South Florida that operates nationally with a focus in molecular testing. There is no pre-registration or appointment necessary to get tested at the community event and tests will be available until supplies run out. Those who wish to get tested must have a valid ID or insurance card, if applicable. Upon registration, attendees will be asked to verify their address, email, phone number, ethnicity, marital status and blood transfusion history. Attendees do not need to have symptoms to be tested but will be asked to state them if they do.

The test will only check for viral symptoms, not antibodies. If attendees test positive, they will be notified via phone from a Lab24 telemedicine doctor within seven to 10 business days. If attendees test negative, they will receive an email from Lab24 in the same amount of time. The sender will be from contact@copernicusmd.com and the subject will be Covid-19 Real-Time PCR (attendee name). Attendees are advised to check spam mail as results may populate in their spam folder. For additional questions, attendees can call Lab24s customer service line at 800-641-0133.

Strategic supporters helping the Posts effort include Feeney Family Charities, Cox, Arizona District 27 Representative Reginald Bolding, Snell and Wilmer Law Offices, Laveen Elementary School District, Chicanos Por La Causa, Noral Clean Technologies, Prensa Arizona, La Campesina 101.9, Mega 104.3, 101.1 The Beat, and Recover 180 Performance Enhancing Drink and Eternal Spring Water, provided by Crescent Crown Distributing.

For more information about Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65 and all its programs, visit twilliamspost65.org.

About Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65

The Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65 is made up of 900 members, including the Sons of the American Legion, Lady Auxiliaries and Legionnaires. The legion supports and hosts annual community programs for the South Phoenix community in partnership with the HeroZona Foundation. Community programs include Phoenix Tools 4 School, Thanksgiving Basket Giveaway, Holiday Bike Giveaways, Celebrating the Dream, Memorial Day Barbecue, Play It Forward, Veterans Reach to Teach and the Forgotten Heroes Breakfast. For more information about the Travis L. Williams American Legion Post 65, visit twilliamspost65.org.

###
Mumbai, July 22 : Actress Preity Zinta has resumed shooting post Covid-19 lockdown.

Preity shared a couple of boomerang videos on Instagram Stories to share the fact with fans. In the first video, the actress is seen getting her makeup done and in the second, her hair is being styled.

"Back on a show -- post Covid tests, masks and hand sanitizers," she wrote in one video.

However, Preity did not share what she was shooting for.

Recently, Preity shared a picture along with her husband Gene Goodenough. In eh Instagram post, she is leaning on hubby's shoulder.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
TAP contributes to increase in gas flows from Turkey to Greece
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A 26-year-old woman is in critical condition after she was attacked Wednesday in her Northeast Side apartment while her toddler slept nearby, according to San Antonio police.

Police said a neighbor at the Rosillo Creek Apartments located in the 5200 block of Eisenhauer Road said she noticed the woman's front door was wide open and went to investigate. The neighbor called police around 7:45 a.m. when she discovered the woman laying in a pool of blood next to the front door, said SAPD spokeswoman Jennifer Rodriguez.
Ric Flair says he doesn't have the coronavirus, but his wife Wendy 'Fifi' Barlow does.

The 16-time pro wrestling world champ, speaking with the New York Post Monday, said that Barlow have been cohabitating separately in the same 5,000 sq. foot home in Georgia.

'My wife does,' Flair, 71, told the outlet. 'I live in the basement. She lives upstairs on the third floor and she got sick.'

The latest: Ric Flair says he doesn't have the coronavirus, but his wife Wendy 'Fifi' Barlow does. The 16-time pro wrestling world champ, speaking with the New York Post Monday, said that Barlow have been cohabitating separately in the same 5,000 sq. foot home in Georgia

An insider told the Post that Flair had tested positive as recently as last Wednesday, and is generally asymptomatic aside from coughing. Barlow is dealing with more serious complications from the disease, the insider told the outlet.

Flair called reports that he's personally tested positive for the virus 'absolutely incorrect,' adding that he's in 'excellent' condition.

The outlet reported that Flair recently caught flak after not wearing a mask as he went through the drive-thru of a Starbucks in the Peach State.

The former NWA champ has past used his name to promote the American College Of Surgeons' campaign to keep people at home to quell the spread of the pandemic.

An insider told the Post that Flair had tested positive as recently as last Wednesday, and is generally asymptomatic aside from coughing

Concern: Flair would be in a group that's especially vulnerable to the virus, as he had health problems three years ago amid an extended hospitalization over heart and kidney issues

I'm 'telling you, asking you, to stay home and stop the spread, and to thank all the people in the world of medicine today that are working to bring this virus to an end - let's do this together, stay home and stop the spread,' Flair said in a spot.

Flair would be in a group that's especially vulnerable to the virus, as he had health problems three years ago amid an extended hospitalization over heart and kidney issues.

In Flair's home state of Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp has not made masks mandatory, but health officials advise that anyone who's tested positive or exhibited symptoms to remain at home.

Defining moment: Flair took on Shawn Michaels in Orlando in his 2008 retirement match

Georgias Department of Public Health advised people who test positive, 'You must not go outside your home unless you need medical care or in the event of an emergency, such as a fire.

'Do not go to work, school, or public areas, and do not use public transportation, Uber/Lyft, or taxis.'

A number of celebrities have publicly confirmed testing positive for the virus, including Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Idris Elba, Prince Charles and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

As of Tuesday, the death total for COVID-19 was at 141,883 people in the U.S., with 3,891,893 total positive diagnoses, Johns Hopkins University reported. On a global level, 613,879 people have died amid 14,845,978 positive diagnoses worldwide.
The European Union has agreed to a 750 billion euro plan to kick-start the trading bloc's economy. But where is the money going to come from? President Emmanuel Macron has guaranteed that the French taxpayer will not have to shoulder the burden, saying that new taxes will be imposed on "major international businesses". Should global industry be quaking in its well-heeled boots?

There are three levels of taxation proposed to finance Europe's "historic" effort to get back in business.

Emmanuel Macron says the three areas under active consideration are a charge for non-recycled plastic products, a revised carbon tax, and a levy on the profits of the global internet giants.

France has already lost one battle in the war against the techno-industrial group known as GAFA, the acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

Using the mechanisims offered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Paris has already opened negotiation with other interested countries, including the United States, with a view to ensuring that the internet majors pay their fair share of tax on the enormous profits which they make in Europe.

Those talks have stalled.

Uniting against GAFA

The French President remains convinced that a concerted European Union effort is the best way to force the billionaire businesses to accept their financial responsibilities.

Especially since, according to Emmanuel Macron, "the big players in the information sector have seen their profits soar during the Covid crisis . . . they don't even pay VAT, they don't have the same pressures as local companies and small and medium enterprises."

As part of this week's financial re-launch package, the European Commission has been given until early 2023 to formulate and institute a tax on the digital companies.

Non-recycled plastic will be taxed from as early as next year, though the details remain to be established.

The commission has also been told to come up with a reform of the existing carbon market rules intended to limit pollution.
Vietnam has been nominated for multiple categories at the annual 2020 World Travel Awards (WTA), a prestigious international awards program for the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries.

It was nominated for eight awards in the Asian region for Leading Culinary Destination, Leading Cultural Destination, Leading Destination, Leading Heritage Destination, Leading Nature Destination, Leading River Cruise Destination, Leading Sustainable Tourism Destination, and Leading Youth Travel Destination.

The capital city of Hanoi was shortlisted as Asias Leading City Break Destination, while the ancient city of Hoi An in the central province of Quang Nam was nominated for Asias Leading Cultural City Destination.

In addition, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) was in the running for Asias Leading Tourist Board.

The VNAT is calling for votes in the categories of Asias Leading City Break Destination, Leading Culinary Destination, Leading Destination, and Leading Heritage Destination.

To cast votes for Vietnam, audiences can access https://www.worldtravelawards.com. The voting will close on September 24.

Established in 1993, the World Travel Awards, dubbed the 'Oscars of the travel industry' by The Wall Street Journal, have been held annually to honor the best service providers in the fields of travel and tourism.

The awards are decided on by an international jury of hospitality experts, mainly from the World Travel and Tourism Council, and by votes from the public.

Previously, the 2019 World Travel Awards for Asia and Oceania chose Vietnam as 'Asias Leading Culinary Destination' at a regional ceremony held in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang in October.

Vietnam was also named Asias Leading Destination and Asias Leading Cultural Destination while Hoi An won the title of Asias Leading Cultural City Destination.

The country was then honored as a World Leading Heritage Destination in 2019 by the WTA in the grand final in November in Oman.

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Ive learned a lot during this pandemic. About myself, about the world. But perhaps most important of all, Ive learned the value of a good chair. In normal years Im rarely home, between work and travel, and as such its not something I gave much thought to. So naturally, I spent the first month and half cultivating some serious lower back pain.

The truth of the matter is that we have no idea how much longer were going to be dealing with all of this, and as such, I cant recommend investing in a good chair enough. You can get a pretty solid one for a couple of hundred dollars, if you know where to look. Or theres always Herman Miller.

The companys office chairs are pretty universally well-received, and theyve got a price tag to match. Even with that in mind, however, its venture into the world of gaming chair is still well, investment is certainly one way to put it. The companys collaboration with gaming peripheral mainstay Logitech is going to set you back a cool $1,500.

Image Credits: Herman Miller

According to the companies, the Embody Gaming Chair was designed with help from 30 physicians, with a focus on good posture (something many gamers can likely use) and the ability to sit in one spot for an extended period of time, because, lets be real here, gamers are gonna game.

Theres padding with copper-infused particles designed to cool off the body, and pixelated support, which helps more evenly distribute the sitters weight. Herman Miller describes that bit thusly:

Thanks to a dynamic matrix of pixels, Embodys seat and back surfaces automatically conform to your bodys micro-movements, distributing your weight evenly as you sit. This reduces pressure and encourages movement, both of which are key to maintaining healthy circulation and focus.

The chair itself is made up of 42% recycled materials and is up to 95% recyclable  though hopefully you wont be thinking about that for a while, given the pricing. Theres also a 12-year warranty that should let you hold onto it for a little bit longer. Which, again, will hopefully be a while at that price.

The Embody is going to be the first of a number of collaborations going forward, including a $1,300 gaming-focused desk and a $300 monitor arm. At the end of the day, your lower back will be more thankful than your bank account.
On Tuesday, in his first official press briefing since April tackling the topic of the coronavirus pandemic, United States President Donald Trump announced the global crisis would likely get worse.

The statement comes as the country records a staggering surge of positive infections amid the reopening of multiple establishments, and he has urged the public to wear masks for protection against the virus.

Coronavirus worsens

Despite Trump confidently praising his administration for its response to the pandemic and the ongoing research towards a vaccine, he stated what most nations and citizens across the US feared: that the coronavirus pandemic will spread further before the country is able to control it.

According to Fox News, during the briefing, Trump said, "It will get worse before it gets better" and expressed his disappointment and grief of the matter.

The US president's cautioning comments comes weeks after he considered the virus not to be as deadly or threatening as experts claim it was and turned his focus somewhere else.

Citing the worries of his supporters that wearing face masks impede their breathing and could lead to respiratory problems, Trump has pleaded his followers to take up their masks and wear them in public to prevent the virus's spread of infection.

In his speech, Trump shared his government's request that the public wears face masks while doing social activities or when going outside.

Despite Trump's request not being the most mandating, it has been the firmest encouragement from the US president who, until recently, had downplayed the virus and Questioned if masks did help in reducing the spread of the coronavirus. He also told everyone to wear facial coverings, whether they liked to or not.

Trump cited his previous statement that the coronavirus will eventually disappear by itself, a comment that has since been criticized by Democrats, as reported by USA Today.

Also Read: $600 Unemployment Benefits to End in Days: Mitch McConnell, Republicans Encourage People to Work

Sudden change in perspective

Andrew Bates, a spokesman for Trump's official opposition Joe Biden, said that after the United States president read from his script, he simply returned to his previous stance that the coronavirus would disappear by itself, a claim that has caused deadly consequences to many Americans.

The spokesperson and adviser for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Lily Adams, did not consider Trump's briefing on Tuesday to be the president turning over a new leaf on his previous statements.

Adams noted Trump's administration believes the press briefings addressing the threat of the coronavirus pandemic will aid the Republican with his ratings but said that the more Trump talked, the more the people lost faith in him.

Trump is facing an unprecedented amount of pressure with the nation demanding him to show progress his administration has had in dealing with the pandemic as the country suffers from a surge of infection.

According to Bloomberg, polls reveal that Trump's ratings among the people are slowly but surely showing negative responses.

Pointing to advancements in the use of several drugs and ventilators, Trump touted the improvements in how Americans suffering from COVID-19 are being treated that have reduced the number of deaths by 75 percent from the peaks in April.

Related Article: Trump Optimistic That "Good Things" Are Coming With Second Stimulus Package

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
John Boyega who was seen playing the role of former Storm Trooper who joined the rebellion with Rey in Star Wars, recently confirmed that he will not be returning to the franchise. The actor told his fans on social media that he has moved on beyond the series and does not believe in playing the same character for too long.

John shared the news when he replied to a fan on social media. The fan went on to ask if Finn will be a part of the Star Wars movies in future. Boyega responded by saying "Lol, no thank you. I've moved on." He later added in another tweet, "Not into playing one role for too long. I have more to offer than that."

Boyega went on to reveal that he is not against reprising characters as long as there's enough time in between the films. Boyega was seen playing the role of Finn in three Star Wars films between 2015 and 2019. However, the actor revealed he would be keen on returning as Moses in Attack the Block. Boyega told a fan, "I haven't played Moses in over a decade. I'd love to revisit him. Now he is a badass."

Earlier, the actor had also expressed his desire to do more. In an interview, he said, "It feels OK, because as much as it has been long in comparison to other franchise films - I already feel like if there were six more movies, I feel like, with a strong-enough narrative, I could possibly find somewhere to go with Finn. Do you know what I mean? But with just three films, there's still a curiosity and a mystery about Finn that I still have. There's still certain things that I really don't know about him. It doesn't feel as strange leaving him. It feels like, 'OK, cool. It's a balanced, right time.'"

Boyega has several projects lined up and will be seen in Steve McQueen's Small Axe anthology and debutant director Chase Palmer's Naked Singularity.

Star Wars Day: How To Watch The Star Wars Franchise In Order?

Christopher Nolan's Tenet Suffers Another Delay In Release; Warner Bros To Announce New Date Soon
Leon Neal/Getty Images

The British Labour Party has admitted it defamed Jewish whistleblowers who spoke to the BBC Panorama program about anti-Semitism in the party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

The program featured a number of Jewish whistleblowers who condemned the partys practices on anti-Semitic complaints under the direction of Corbyn, claiming that several high ranking officers in the party interfered with investigations into alleged perpetrators who were members of the party.

Labour responded at the time by accusing those who participated in the program of just being disaffected former staff who harbored personal and political axes to grind and made malicious and false claims in order to damage the party.

Seven of the whistleblowers and the Panorama program presenter John Ware then sued Labour for defamation. In Wares suit, he claims that Labour defamed him when they accused him and his team of deliberate and malicious representations designed to mislead the public.

Labours 28-page complaint to the BBC complained that the program contained the tendentious and politically slanted script; the bias in the selection of interviewees; and the failure to identify the political affiliations or records of interviewees in a highly controversial, sensitive and contested subject produced a programme that was a one-sided authored polemic.

Allegations of anti-Jewish racism dogged the Labour Party under Corbyn, although he always denied it. One Jewish lawmaker quit the party over his failings, he was linked to anti-Semitic speakers and Facebook posts, and he was widely condemned for failing to drive anti-Semitic members out of the party.

Jeremy Corbyn, the U.K. Labour Leader, Was In Three Secret Anti-Semitic Facebook Groups

On the day that Keir Starmer was elected to replace him, the new Labour leader announced that convincing the Jewish community that the party had changed was his top priority. He said he would root out anti-Semitism in the party. The latest step in that process was to retract their incendiary complaint made to the BBC, and admit they had defamed and mistreated the whistleblowers.

Story continues

We acknowledge the many years of dedicated and committed service that the Whistleblowers have given to the Labour Party as members and as staff, the statement, issued Wednesday, reads. We unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and lying. We would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress, embarrassment and hurt caused by their publication. We have agreed to pay them damages.

The statement goes on to admit that anti-Semitism within Labour has been a stain on the party in recent years. It has caused unacceptable and unimaginable levels of grief and distress for many in the Jewish community, as well as members of staff.

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Knowledge has long been understood around the world as a tool to exert power.

When vested in the hands of a few, it benefits them and keeps intact the social hierarchies they artificially create. It is why the thinkers, activists and change agents advocate education as key to overcoming barriers. But when knowledge begins to truly take hold among those most in the margins, it also begins to threaten power.

Power is a shape-shifter; it has the resources to cunningly co-opt contemporary language to make itself appear benevolent all the while provoking change to maintain its dominance.

A provision in Ontarios Bill 197 that was passed into law Tuesday is one such example of power working in its own interest.

New Democrat MPP Rima Berns-McGown called it a terrible change with enormous implications for public education.

Its terrifying that its been slipped through in an undemocratic way that doesnt allow for public comment or discussion, she said.

Youd be forgiven for thinking a bill named COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act is about the economic recovery. Yet, the omnibus bill carried a potent motion with far-reaching implications for our children: directors of education, appointed by school boards, no longer need to be teachers. What does it have to do with economic recovery? Does it create more jobs?

It doesnt. It does, however, refer to the need to fill an impending emptying out of the top spot in 20 school boards across the province. That number came Tuesday in the legislature from Education Minister Stephen Lecce, who posited the motion as an opportunity for generational change and to hire racialized people. Just 4 per cent of directors visible minorities, he said.

Look closer and the new laws anti-racist pretensions fall apart. There are at least a few problems with it.

One, this stated preference for racialized candidates is only verbal. The words racialized or visible minority dont make it to the legislation. Even if were to take the ministers avowals at face value, systemic racism means there are not many racialized leaders across sectors (and racialized does not always mean anti-racist).

Two, why not choose from among qualified leaders of colour from within the system instead of poaching the few leaders who make it to leadership positions in other industries despite discrimination?

Some of the names that education experts have suggested include Colleen Russell-Rawlins, Peels interim director; Camille Logan and Cecil Roach from York; Jeewan Chanicka, formerly of TDSB; and Poleen Grewal from Peel.

That is still inadequate to fill the upcoming vacancies but the province could easily lead the battle against racism by removing barriers to discrimination within its own education system, by identifying, training and developing the many talented BIPOC educators in school boards into positions of power.

This brings us to point three, which has so alarmed Ontarians that a one-day-old petition against the bill already has 30,000 signees.

It allows them (the ministry) to bring in a CEO from Bay Street to inject a privatization agenda, said Nigel Barriffe, president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations.

You dont need someone with an educational background when you want to privatize the system, New Democrat MPP Chris Glover said in the legislature.

As the public petition said, prioritizing profit over care could mean larger classrooms, more online learning and reduced course options in high schools.

Weve seen this in the U.S., Barriffe said, where the superintendents (as directors are called) are not necessarily educators. They see education as a cost-cutting exercise as opposed to providing funding required for learning.

Lets not kid ourselves, Ontario already has a multi-tiered education system: private schools for the rich, public schools for the rest, which in turn administer education unevenly.

It reserves its worst side for the same demographics that have been marginalized for generations  namely the poor, those with disabilities, with learning needs, and children who are Black and Indigenous and with other marginalized identities.

Reducing resources doesnt address systemic racism but perpetuates it. Vulnerable children need schools with budgets for more social workers, psychologists, child abuse therapists and other support staff.

The education ministry needs to transform the public school system, not underline and exacerbate the divides by hiring leaders without a teaching background, with little grasp not only of how segregation worked historically but how it manifests today, little appreciation of anti-oppressive policies as they pertain to education, little exposure to the nuances of best practices on the ground, in front of class and worst of all, little understanding of those who should be centred in the system: the students.

The new law based on Bill 197 takes a whack at one of few systems in Canada that has potential to be revolutionary  a high-quality education system, for all.

Its underhanded for a government that has positioned itself as helping fight anti-Black racism in schools  especially with its responsiveness to the Black community concerns in the Peel board  to ram through actions that would hurt Black children, among others, with little public debate and scrutiny.

All in the name of a health emergency.

Correction - July 22, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled the surname of Colleen Russell-Rawlins.
Mayor Jim Kenney is pressuring Siobhan Reardon, the longtime president and director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, to resign following employees complaints about racial discrimination in the workplace and inadequate coronavirus safety planning, according to three people with direct knowledge of the situation.

A group of Free Library trustees, most of whom are Black, is also pushing the board to consider a leadership change, the sources said. Free Library board chair Pamela Dembe, who is supportive of Reardon, confirmed that Reardon is weighing whether to step down after 12 years.

Its certainly on the table, obviously. Theres a lot of people calling for her to resign, Dembe said. She loves the library dearly and is thinking about whats best for the library.

Reardon did not respond to a request for comment.

Kenney spokesperson Mike Dunn said the mayor has heard the concerns of Free Library employees  particularly Black employees  as well as advocates.

He takes those concerns about the library system very seriously and is engaged in substantive conversations about the future of the library system under current leadership, Dunn said in a statement. Because those conversations involve personnel matters, we are not able to be more specific at this time.

Two of the people who confirmed the efforts to oust Reardon are Free Library officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not have permission to speak on behalf of the library system. The third works in the Kenney administration.

Unlike the heads of city agencies, Reardon cannot be fired by Kenney because the Free Library is controlled by an independent board of trustees made up of mayoral appointees and others selected by the library system itself.

Kenney, however, is considering using other powers available to him to force the change. The mayor went as far as to threaten to take control of the Free Librarys assets, which are owned by the city, if Reardon doesnt do the right thing, one of the Free Library sources said. The administration source said the mayor would consider appointing a city-employed manager to oversee library operations, superseding the Free Library leadership, if Reardon doesnt resign.

Accusations of racial discrimination and insensitivity at the Free Library have been simmering for years. But they came to a head in June when members of a group called the Concerned Black Workers of the Free Library of Philadelphia sent an open letter to management saying they face discrimination on a regular basis, are paid less than white colleagues, and are being asked to return to work without a plan to keep them safe from the coronavirus.

We have determined that racial discrimination and disregard for Black safety, success, prosperity, and life at the Free Library will no longer be tolerated, the employees wrote.

At least six authors have canceled virtual events at the library in solidarity with the workers.

The Free Library, which has 54 branches, last year had just over 800 employees, including 391 who were Black and 351 who were white. The Concerned Black Workers say layoffs resulting from the coronavirus pandemic have disproportionately affected Black employees. Black workers, the letter said, make an average of $7,533 less than the library systems median salary, while white employees earn $12,012 above the median.

Reardons handling of the Black employees demands has been a point of contention in recent weeks.

On July 14, Reardon sent the Black employees a letter outlining steps to address their concerns, including hiring a chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer and tapping the consulting firm DiverseForce to conduct a comprehensive review of our workplace culture, past practices and policies.

The employees, however, believe it was actually written by the Washington-based crisis management consultant Rae Robinson Trotman based on the email address on the letter.

We find it disrespectful that the president of the Free Library could not write her own response to her staff and still refuses to present workers with an action plan to address our demands, the employees said in a statement to The Inquirer.

Uneasiness with Reardons leadership among library trustees grew following a letter Sunday to employees from Dembe and Barbara Sutherland, who chairs the board of a foundation that raises money for the Free Library. The letter promised action on the Black workers demands, but also said the chairs remain committed to the leadership of Siobhan Reardon.

That led nine Free Library trustees and four foundation board members to send an email Tuesday calling for Dembe to move up a scheduled board meeting to discuss the disposition of Siobhan Reardon. The board members who signed that email said Dembe and Sutherlands endorsement of Reardon was never approved by the trustees.

We have tried to operate in a unified manner believing that doing so was in the best interest of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the email said. We also thought the organization actually believed the health, safety and well-being of the Black employees mattered.

Dembe said the board of trustees officers gave her authority to make the statement.

The library was pretty slow to respond to the various public outcries, and the board told us  or the executive committee told us  that the two board leaders needed to be able to be agile, Dembe said. By the time we got a letter out, the situation on the ground had changed, so Im not surprised that people were a bit annoyed.

Staff writer Mensah M. Dean contributed to this article.
COVID-19 cases have spiked in Japan in recent weeks, particularly in the densely-populated capital of Tokyo, demonstrating the danger the pandemic continues to pose. Last Saturdays national one-day tally of 659 cases was the fourth highest since the pandemic began, with similarly high totals in April when the government declared a state of emergency.

On July 15, Tokyo raised its city alert system to level four, the highest. The next two days each set new record highs for the city with 286 and 293 cases respectively. As of Monday, that number had fallen to 168. However, the average number of untraceable cases has doubled, potentially leading to an explosion in life-threatening illnesses. Furthermore, given the governments reporting time, the number of cases announced daily is on a three-day delay, meaning the public does not have up-to-date information.

Despite the fact that the pandemic has been intensifying around the world, the government has taken no steps to safeguard against a surge. Yoshihiro Yamaguchi, the head of the Trauma and Critical Care Center at Kyorin University Hospital, drew attention to the danger Tokyo faces during a meeting with local officials on July 15. The pace of increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases has exceeded the pace of securing empty beds to take in patients, he warned. The current strategy needs to be changed. Otherwise the (health care system) will collapse.

There are inadequate facilities for quarantining patients with mild symptoms, forcing hundreds, just within Tokyo, to self-isolate at home. If their symptoms worsen they will have no immediate access to medical care. Yet, the shortfall is not new. In April, as the pandemic developed, hospitals were already at or beyond capacity, forcing sick individuals to travel around the city looking for a medical facility that would admit them.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Prime Minister Shinzo Abes government has attempted to artificially deflate the number of cases in order to prevent the outbreak from negatively impacting the economy. This underscores the criminality of his administrations approach to the deadly virus.

Japan ranks staggeringly low for conducted tests compared to other nations, carrying out only 5,060 tests per million people, or just half of one percent of the population. By contrast, many countries in Europe have carried out tens of thousands tests per million people.

Japans official death rate of just over 1,000 is also artificially low. Numbers released in June for Tokyo found there were more than 1,000 excess deaths in April alone, a 12 percent increase over the annual average. Whether these people died directly from COVID-19 and were not tested or were unable to access medical care for other illnesses in an overwhelmed healthcare system, their deaths are the result of the refusal by the central and local governments to take the required measures to address the needs of the broader population.

Instead, the central government has used the pandemic to force through a new state of emergency law, supported by the opposition Democrats in parliament, that will ultimately be directed at attacking the democratic rights of the working class.

Abes government also approved two record corporate handouts that total 234 trillion yen ($US2.2 trillion) to shield the wealthiest layers from the impact of the economic downturn. Another bailout package is being planned for the fall. However, only paltry amounts were made available for workers, including a one-off 100,000 yen ($931) payment for Japanese residents.

The fact that Abe now refuses to declare a new state of emergency despite similar, if not worse, conditions than in April, shows that the new law has nothing to do with public safety. The main concern for the government, now that the emergency law has been passed and corporate bailouts distributed, is to keep workplaces open, people on the job, and schools open so that big business can continue to extract surplus value from the working class.

Underscoring its big business priorities, the government is promoting a Go to Travel campaign, providing subsidies and financial incentives to people to travel throughout the country. This is an attempt to boost local economies and convince people that conditions have returned to normal. With the surge of cases in Tokyo, the campaign now excludes the capital, but the risk of spreading the virus elsewhere is high.

The pandemic continues to have a serious impact on the working class. Despite the bailouts, 55 percent of companies surveyed last month said they had either slashed wages or laid off workers. Hisashi Yamada, an economist at the Japan Research Institute, stated in June: The jobless rate will remain on the uptrend as more and more firms will become unable to weather the economic pain.

Officially, Japans unemployment remains relatively low, but it has grown to 2.9 percent in May, up from 2.5 percent in March. When taking into account workers who have been furloughed, the actual unemployment rate is more than 11.5 percent. Those most affected are part-time and contract workers who lack job protections and make up 36 percent of the total workforce.

The attack on workers includes those dealing directly with the pandemic. Last month, nurses at the Tokyo Womens Medical University Hospital were told they would receive pay cuts as well as nonpayment of summer bonuses. Nearly 400 nurses, or 20 percent of the staff, are now threatening to quit in response. The Japan Federation of Medical Workers Unions is doing nothing to defend its members aside from asking the hospitals board of directors to reconsider its decision.

The union is part of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), which is allied with the Japanese Communist Party, a degenerated Stalinist party that is part of the political establishment. Around 30 percent of medical institutions around the country are planning on cutting wages to nurses this summer, according to the union.
Its an ad with a singular goal: to terrify you.

Mostly if youre an older, white suburban voter, the kind who has been abandoning President Trump in droves and has contributed to his lagging polling both nationwide and in battleground states.

The new ad from the Trump campaign, which simulates a break-in of an older womans home and ends with her being attacked, comes amid a sustained advertising assault over the past three weeks from Mr. Trump. The campaign has aired multiple ads depicting a lawless country in chaos and empty police stations, the result of the defund the police movement that the ad falsely claims is supported by Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Clearly what theyre looking to do here is scare the living hell out of seniors, said Pia Carusone, a Democratic ad maker. But, she said, the ad falls short in the realm of believability. Youre making the assumption that the voter that youre hoping to convince is going to relate and think that this could happen. And then you have to make the leap to blame Biden or the Democrats or whoever. And I think it fails that first test.
Trump admin. rescinds rule barring international students from taking only online classes

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UPDATE: 4 p.m. ET July 14: The Trump administration has agreed to rescind a new policy announced last week that couldve forced international college students on F1 visas to leave the United States if their schools are not offering in-person classes in the fall.

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs in Massachusetts announced Tuesday that the administration has reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seeking to block the rule.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Burroughs confirmed that the government will rescind the policy and withdraw a related frequently-asked-questions document.

The settlement was praised by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of several faith-based organizations that voiced opposition to the rule.

Their proposal lacked compassion and fell short of American ideals, InterVarsity President Tom Lin said in a statement.

Original:

After announcing that all fall courses at its Pasadena campus will be online, Fuller Theological Seminary in California expressed a willingness Monday to alter plans for the fall semester so that international students wont be required to leave the United States under a federal rule.

In a statement, the evangelical institution voiced its opposition to a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement rule announced last week that impacts the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.

The rule, which has been opposed by several education groups, universities and faith-based organizations, requires international students to either leave the U.S. or transfer schools if they are enrolled at institutions that will have only online classes in the fall.

Fuller, which was founded in 1947 and has over 2,600 students enrolled, vowed in its statement to do everything within its power to develop plans for the fall quarter that will enable our international students to fulfill their visa requirements and remain in the U.S. to continue their studies.

Fuller is waiting on specifics of rules from the Department of Homeland Security to know which legal parameters must be satisfied.

The Department of Homeland Security has added more burdensome requirements to international students amidst a global pandemic that not only compounds uncertainty but puts students at risk  simply because their educational institutions were forced to move classes online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the statement from the institution reads.



Under the new rule, international students already in the U.S. must either depart the country or transfer to a school where there will be in-person instruction to maintain their lawful status. Students who do not obey the order may face removal proceedings.

In late May, Fuller announced that all fall quarter courses on the Pasadena campus would be done fully online.

At the time, Fuller explained that administrators were exploring options for limited in-person classes at its regional campuses in Arizona and Texas but could not guarantee that such classes would be possible. Chances for in-person classes in Houston or Phoenix this fall might be in jeopardy as both Arizona and Texas have seen spikes in infections in recent weeks, but not a rise in deaths.

Fuller stressed in May that it would remain cautious in its approach. The school stressed that it did not want to reopen prematurely, risk public health and then have to deal with a second coronavirus outbreak that would require a shift back to online classes.

Fullers statement Monday reiterated the schools support for its international body, calling it one of the distinguishing factors of the university.

These international students contribute in immeasurable ways to our community and our mission in the world and deepen our understanding of theology, missiology, and psychology, the Fuller statement stresses. When they leave Fuller, they expand our reach around the world as scholars and practitioners whose work we continue to support. Fuller is a far better institution because of our international students.

Fullers announcement on Monday comes as the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, an educational association of which Fuller is a member of, is lobbying officials at the Department of Education for changes to the new policies.

CCCU President Shirley Hoogstra signed onto a letter last week led by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and also signed by leaders of several other Christian organizations sent to Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf.

The letter argued that requiring international students to leave the country just because their education this fall will be done entirely online could cause them financial disruption as they have paid tuition, secured housing, and incurred other costs.

Through no fault of their own, their universities and colleges have moved exclusively to on-line courses this fall to restrain the spread of COVID-19, the July 10 letter reads.

Fuller is monitoring the lawsuits filed by universities and states seeking to block the rule as some critics have accused President Donald Trump of using international students as a political issue to urge universities to reopen on-campus classes.

Whatever the outcome of these efforts by the CCCU and the pending litigation, Fuller will work toward protecting our international students and their ability to remain in the U.S., Fuller declared Monday.
Seguin, TX (78155)

Today

Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. High 74F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Windy with increasing clouds. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 33F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph.
By Kirstin Ridley and Zandi Shabalala

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Anglo-Australian miner BHP dismissed as pointless and wasteful a 5 billion pound ($6.3 billion) English lawsuit by 200,000 Brazilian people and groups over the 2015 collapse of a dam that triggered Brazil's worst environmental disaster.

Kicking off an eight-day hearing in Manchester, northern England, BHP on Wednesday called for the record group action to be struck out or suspended, alleging it duplicated Brazilian proceedings and victims were already receiving redress.

"...the attempt to export and duplicate the work being done in Brazil, including the litigation, to England, is pointless and wasteful," BHP said in legal documents.

The claimants are due to lay out their arguments on Monday in the latest jurisdictional battle to establish whether London-listed multinationals can face trial in England over the actions of their foreign divisions. Charles Gibson, a lawyer for BHP, told the court Brazil had a sophisticated and fair justice system that provided access to timely justice. "One has to be quite cautious before casting stones at other systems of justice," he said.

The judge is expected to reserve judgment until around September. If shown the green light, further trials could determine liability and quantify damages.

The collapse of the Fundao dam, which stored mining waste and is owned by the Samarco joint venture between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale , killed 19 and poured roughly 40 million cubic metres of mining waste into communities, the Rio Doce river and Atlantic Ocean, 650 km away.

Claimants allege BHP, the world's largest miner by market value, ignored safety warnings as the dam's capacity was repeatedly increased by raising its height - and disregarded cracks that were early signs of rupture.

Many claimants are seeking compensation for physical and psychological injury, property damage, moving costs, loss of earnings, loss of water supply and lost fishing income.

BHP says the Renova Foundation, a redress scheme established in 2016 by its Brazilian division, Samarco and Vale, has spent around 1.3 billion pounds on projects such as monthly financial aid to about 130 indigenous Krenak families, rebuilding three villages and establishing alternative water supply systems.

It also alleges almost 100,000 of the claimants have already received payments from Renova and only 58 of the individuals, businesses, municipalities, churches, utility companies and indigenous people bringing the claim in England are not part of Brazilian class actions.

Claimants allege it is wrong to suggest victims are entitled to full redress in Brazil because Renova lacks independence and its compensation scheme is slow, bureaucratic, inadequate and has not properly involved victims in decision-making.

They allege BHP is responsible for the dam's collapse, liable for its "catastrophic consequences" under Brazilian law but that victims have no prospect of proper compensation in Brazil within any reasonable timeframe.

Samarco, Vale and BHP Brasil face a raft of lawsuits in Brazil over the disaster, including a 155 billion reais ($29 billion) class action filed by federal prosecutors which, BHP alleges, overlaps "almost entirely" with the English case.

The Brazilian class action has been suspended, although the parties aim to negotiate a settlement by around August 2022.

($1 = 0.7942 pounds)

($1 = 5.3288 reais)

(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; editing by Barbara Lewis)

Reuters Messaging: kirstin.ridley.reuters.com@reuters.net))
A woman allegedly bashed and stalked her partner and six-year-old son in a six-week campaign of terror.

The 44-year-old was arrested after police were called to their unit in Liverpool, south-west Sydney, about 10.30pm on Tuesday.

Officers were told the little boy and a 40-year-old man were being assaulted in the run-down apartment block on Olive Street.

Officers were told the little boy and a 40-year-old man were being assaulted in the rundown apartment block on Olive Street (pictured) in Liverpool, south-west Sydney

The woman, who can't be named to avoid identifying her son, was taken to Liverpool Police Station and questioned.

She will appear in court on Wednesday facing 11 domestic violence charges.

They include three counts each of bodily harm and stalking and threatening harm, and five counts of common assault.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:41:13|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday called for more efforts to strengthen the development of a new urbanization model, improve weak links, and expand domestic demand to improve people's livelihoods.

Li made the remarks while presiding over an executive meeting of the State Council.

The meeting worked out supportive measures for flexible employment through multiple channels in a bid to boost employment and increase the income of residents.

Promoting a new kind of urbanization that puts people first is where the greatest potential of domestic demand lies, and it will help keep the fundamentals of the economy stable, the meeting said.

The meeting urged more efforts to improve public facilities and services in county seats to meet the growing work and settlement needs of rural residents.

The meeting said efforts should be made to enhance the public health system and strengthen related infrastructure in a bid to improve the comprehensive capacity of cities to prevent and respond to major epidemics.

Efforts should also be made to push forward the renovation of old urban residential communities, intellectualized reconstruction, and the building of environmental protection facilities and public parking lots to improve people's living standards.

Authorities will do more to improve transportation, garbage and sewage treatment facilities in county seats and build housing to meet the rigid demand of rural residents who want to work and settle there.

It is imperative to introduce diversified investment to support the construction of the new urbanization model, and develop labor-intensive industries so that rural residents can seek employment in places close to their homes, said the meeting.

The meeting also urged more support for flexible employment as an important approach to stabilize employment amid the difficult job market this year.

Individually-owned businesses should be encouraged, with more support to key groups, including college graduates, migrant workers and the unemployed regarding loans, taxes, and so on, the meeting noted, while calling for social security subsidies for those holding part-time jobs.

Efforts should be made to spur internet platforms to create more flexible jobs, and implement prudent and tolerant oversight for emerging forms of employment, including online retail, ride services, as well as online education and medical care, it said.

Public services will be improved to suit companies' needs for flexible posts and protect the wages, safety, and other interests of flexible workers, while the public will be updated with information on new jobs, and trained to be more skillful at flexible employment, said the meeting. Enditem
Printable stickers and hair dye that react to ultraviolet light can be used to warn people when they've been out in the sun for too long, developers claim.

Researchers from the University of Washington worked with Microsoft to find an easy way to alert people with different skin tones to the dangers of lengthy UV exposure.

The team created stickers that can be worn like patches and they change colour from purple to light pink throughout the day to show cumulative UV light exposure.

The hair dye was made from pigments that change colour in the presence of UV light - they go from clear to pink and change in brightness with UV intensity levels.

They say the stickers are more effective as the dye change is permanent so can only show UV intensity at a given moment rather than cumulative exposure over the day.

The hair dye was made from pigments that change colour in the presence of UV light - they go from clear to pink and change in brightness with UV intensity levels

In a trial, 35 volunteers used the stickers while in the sun and were able to determine whether they were at risk of sunburn 73 per cent of the time.

The patches are made of a special type of ink that is sensitive to UV-light but can be printed in any normal inkjet printer - you just have to swap out the ink packs.

The ink features a compound that produces acid when it is exposed to ultraviolet light and a pH-sensitive dye that is triggered when it detects the acid.

They have been designed to work for people with different skin tones as the tone of your skin determines how much UV light exposure you are likely be able to handle.

The team say wigs or hair dye could be formulated using single or multiple dies and depending on the level of UV the intensity of the colours would change

People with very pale skin may burn after about two to three hours of exposure but someone with darker skin would be ok for up to six hours without burning.

The team worked around the different tones by designing three versions of the ink.

'As you're more exposed to UV, it generates more acid and the dye changes colour,' Bichlien Nguyen from Microsoft Research told New Scientist.

Year-round ultraviolet exposure silently causes skin damage that goes unnoticed until sunburn, the team explained, saying they wante dto find a simple way to alert people that they may be putting their skin at risk.

'Current personal wearables for monitoring UV exposure have not seen significant uptake, which may be attributed to their one-size-fits-all aesthetic or inapplicability to people with different skin tones,' they explained.

That's why they worked to create a technology that works effectively for people of a variety of skin tones - a system they've called EcoPatches.

They 'mediate a person's relationship with their environment by allowing them to create designs and formulations that resonate with them'.

They have been designed in a way that a user can check the colour of the sticker for a brief overview of their sunburn risk but get more details by scanning the sticker with a mobile phone and looking at exposure data in an app.

The speciality stickers have been designs to be printed in a normal inkjet with special designs that can be scanned by a phone to show the impact of the UV light on the skin

Researchers played with several different designs to show the impact of UV light and how it changes throughout the day - using a mixture of colour and pattern

The hair dye was designed by the Washington team of researchers as a quick and fashionable way to see current exposure risk from UV light.

'Environmental hazards often go unnoticed because they are invisible to the naked eye, posing risks to our health over time,' the team said.

Dubbed EchoHair, it uses photochromatic hair dyes that can be incorporated into any existing product to show current UV intensity.

'The head is often the part of the body that is first exposed to UV radiation, making it a prime location for measuring UV exposure', the team wrote.

So far the hair dye only works on lighter coloured hair and after about ten seconds changes colour depending on the UV impact

'EchoHair conveys UV exposure through hair colour modifications like hair dyeing, mousse application, or hair extensions'.

Unlike the stickers it just shows current intensity - basic the UV number often reported on the TV but in the form of brightness of colour.

So far the hair dye approach has only been shown to work effectively on white or platinum hair - rather than on darker colours - but can be used on a wig.

The patches were the more effective of the two technologies as they can work on any skin type and show exposure over time rather than just current intensity.

Details were revealed during the Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference.
The one seeming constant since mid-March has been confusion as governments, their agencies, business and individuals continue to adapt to the evolving effort in New York to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

After Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week mandated that food is required to be served with all initial alcohol orders, the State Liquor Authority, tasked with promulgating, explaining and enforcing the new rule, scrambled for five days before publishing specifics, which came out Tuesday night.

Posted on the SLAs website, the explanation said that soups, sandwiches, salads, chicken wings, hot dogs and similar foods satisfy the new requirement, but a bag of chips, bowl of nuts or candy alone (do) not.

While that seems clear, the SLAs advice elsewhere is more muddied. In introductory paragraphs published last week, the guidelines refer to "the requirement that food be sold with alcohol" and mention "Purchase of a food item" (emphasis added). An update lower in the same document that was added Tuesday night, however, says, "While a charge is not necessarily required for the food, you must have a record that food was ordered with drinks, so bills/checks need to reflect the food that was ordered and served."

Questions popped like June dandelions Tuesday night and Wednesday morning on social media and in industry members private text messages, with one local owner incorporating SLA language when he asked, So if guests want a drink, I have to make them get a 'substantial item' to comply, but I can give it away for free as long as I ring it in?

Even industry experts were puzzled at least temporarily by the SLAs Tuesday update. Scott Wexler, executive director since 1985 of the Empire State Restaurant & Tavern Association, thought on Tuesday he had a good handle on advising bars and restaurants about the issue, to the point that, even before the SLAs update came out, hed published the associations own frequently asked questions section about the food requirement.

On Wednesday morning, however, Wexler said, There are a number of (more) questions I have. Stay tuned.

The intent of the food mandate, according to the state, is to promote a dining experience. What Cuomo, the Department of Health and SLA say they are trying to stop are busy bars scenes, with groups mingling, drinking and, as disinhibitions mount with the consumption of more alcohol, being less mindful of wearing masks, maintaining social distancing from other parties and limiting groups to 10 people or fewer.

A drinking, bar-type experience  (is) not yet a safe activity during the current health emergency, the SLAs website says, adding, The spikes/resurgence of COVID-19 cases that this has caused in other states is something that New York must avoid at all costs.

Such spikes elsewhere in the U.S., and recent flagrant examples of busy drinking crowds in New York state, mostly in New York City but also elsewhere, prompted Cuomo to threaten on Monday to return all of New Yorks approximately 50,000 bars and restaurants to offering only takeout and delivery. Outdoor dining has been allowed in the Capital Region and elsewhere upstate since June 4; indoor service, with capacity limited to 50 percent, returned June 17.

Earlier this week, the SLA announced that four metro-New York City bars had their liquor licenses suspended after recent pandemic-related violations, bringing to 27 the number of license suspensions since such enforcement started, and 410 SLA citations have been issued, the agency said. Locally, the agency pre-emptively suspended the liquor licenses of Lebanon Valley Speedyway in Columbia County and the Schaghticoke event venue Liberty Ridge Farm prior to Fourth of July weekend events that the agency judged would not be in compliance. In June, Loopies Pub in Tribes Hill, between Amsterdam and Johnstown, paid a $10,000 fine to get back a liquor license suspended in May for pandemic-related violations.

Addressing the matter of crowds in a conference call Tuesday, Cuomo said, We never authorized bar operation, but he acknowledged that, unlike in other states, there is no licensing distinction in New York between a bar and restaurant; with the exception of private clubs, every business that serves alcohol must have a food available.

Prior to last week, food wasnt required with alcohol orders, meaning some establishments that were focused primarily on alcohol consumption got by for years with a microwave oven and frozen snacks or similar fare but in reality sold almost none of it.

Now bars and restaurants, like the SLA last week, are scrambling, too.

We want to do whats asked of us, but its not always clear, said Matthew Bagley, co-owner of Harveys Restaurant & Bar in Saratoga Springs, which gained national notoriety when it late last weekend introduced Cuomo Chips for $1, as an initial effort to comply with the food regulations. After conversations with the SLA, Harveys increased the size of the chips portion, added salsa and introduced a beet-and-cheese flatbread, also priced at $1.

Speaking of his fellow downtown restaurateurs in the Spa City, Bagley said, People up here are trying to follow the rules. The problem isnt inside. Its on the street.

Bagley described large roaming crowds in Saratoga last weekend, especially along the bar-dense Caroline Street. Online photos seem to back up his characterization.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

What to do about such crowds presents another area of confusion. Robin Dalton, Saratogas commissioner of public safety, reiterated online on Sunday that she has asked city attorneys to look into drafting legislation, similar to a law enacted in New Castle, Westchester County, that would allow Saratoga police to take enforcement action against people who violate rules about wearing masks, social distancing and limited group sizes.

Dalton wrote that we can't enforce the state's rules and referred to an opinion from the State Police, issued in an executive memorandum published April 17, that says in part, there is NO specific penalty or enforcement mechanism provided for face covering violations, and the New York State Department of Health emergency regulations do not currently require face coverings to be worn. Therefore, Police Officers have NO clear enforcement authority with respect to this order (emphasis in the original).

That is not correct, according to Rich Azzopardi, senior adviser to Cuomo. Asked about it on Tuesday, he cited an update to state Department of Health regulations, published July 9 and titled Enforcement of Social Distancing Measures. It says explicitly, Individuals who violate this Subpart are subject to a maximum fine of $1,000 for each violation.

When asked to confirm that this means local police can write a citation for noncompliance with mask and social-distancing requirements, Azzopardi said simply, Yes.

Dalton did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment.

Even without strengthening of the states regulations and guidance, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple has believed for months that his department has the legal authority to press charges against violators of pandemic-related health measures. He said in May that people without masks who refuse to leave a business could be charged with obstruction of governmental administration, a misdemeanor, or, to keep it to a lesser violation charge, disorderly conduct.

On Wednesday, Apple said that his department has received, from the beginning of May through this week, 479 complaints about people violating various aspects of the masks/social-distancing requirements, or businesses allowing it. To date, he said, the department has issued six cease-and-desist orders but no fines or citations, to individuals or businesses.

Its really about education, Apple said.

Similarly, the city of Albany has received complaints but issued no citations nor pressed charges for pandemic-related matters, said Albany Police Department spokesman Steve Smith on Wednesday.

From what were seeing, it seems like most people want to do the right thing, Smith said. They just need reminding sometimes.
With controversy growing over the Trump administration's decision to send federal law enforcement agents to Portland to deal with the city's unrest, a spokesman at the Pentagon said that no U.S. military troops have been deployed to the city.

However, Jonathan Hoffman says the Defense Secretary Mark Esper has concerns about federal agents wearing uniforms resembling military combat uniforms while they are carrying out law enforcement duties.

"The secretary has,has expressed a concern of this within the administration that we want a system where people can tell the difference," he said.

Hoffman says the Pentagon's concern dates back to protests that took place in the nation's capital at the start of June.

Federal forces were deployed to Portland in early July, and tensions have grown since then: first, on July 11, when a protester was hospitalized with critical injuries after a U.S. Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a round of whats known as less-lethal ammunition.

Then, anger flared again over the weekend after video surfaced of a federal agent hitting a U.S. Navy veteran repeatedly with a baton while another agent sprays him in the face with pepper spray.

Crowds had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 1,000 over the weekend - and they are once again attracting a broader base in a city that's increasingly unified and outraged.

In a separate matter, Hoffman expressed confidence that the National Defense Authorization bill will soon be signed into law, despite the president being at odds with lawmakers on Capitol Hill over renaming military bases named after Confederate military leaders.

"We're confident that there will be an agreement and that the NDA will be signed and implemented on time so that we can have a budget for our forces," he said.
TOKYO, July 22, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501) announced today that it will donate 100 million yen to The Hitachi Global Foundation to support researches on Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and other infectious diseases, and will also solicit donations from Hitachi executive officers and corporate officers (the executive positions next to Executive Officers) to the Hitachi Global Foundation.The Hitachi Global Foundation will use the funds to launch "The Hitachi Global Foundation Fund for Research Support of Infectious Diseases (tentative)", which will provide support to researchers of universities and research institutions in Japan and ASEAN. The targeted areas are the development of pioneering and applied medical technologies for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and the researches contributing to building a new social system for pandemic preparedness. The Hitachi Global Foundation will decide on the details of the scheme, and after the necessary procedures and approvals, the fund will be established and will begin accepting applications in fiscal 2021.The Hitachi Group is taking steps to prevent the spread of the outbreak, placing top priority on the health and safety of its employees and their families worldwide, as well as its stakeholders, customers, and partners. Subsequently, the Hitachi Group is making maximum efforts to ensure an environment in which business can be conducted through remote working, whilst continuing to support our customers and maintain the functions of critical social infrastructure.Hitachi Group's Supports related to COVID-19- A total of approximately 5 million yuan worth of donations, including a Supria 16 (5M) computed tomography (CT) machine, as well as donations and medical supplies in China.- Provision free of charge on face shields (8,000 to 10,000 units per week) to medical institutions in Japan.- Donation of approximately 110,000 medical masks and approximately 400,000 surgical masks in Japan.- Donations for medical professionals and others who are working to combat COVID-19 through Hitachi's benefit plan in Japan.- Provision of 1 million U.S. dollars in loans through Kiva to businesses in need around the globe, affected by the spread of the COVID-19About Hitachi, Ltd.Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is focused on its Social Innovation Business that combines information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and products. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal year 2019 (ended March 31, 2020) totaled 8,767.2 billion yen ($80.4 billion), and it employed approximately 301,000 people worldwide. Hitachi drives digital innovation across five sectors - Mobility, Smart Life, Industry, Energy and IT - through Lumada, Hitachi's advanced digital solutions, services, and technologies for turning data into insights to drive digital innovation. Its purpose is to deliver solutions that increase social, environmental and economic value for its customers. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at https://www.hitachi.com.Source: Hitachi, Ltd.Copyright 2020 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
DALLAS, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- GI Alliance, the nation's largest independent gastroenterology services organization, today announced further expansion in the Midwest and Illinois through a partnership with Illinois Gastroenterology Institute (IGI). GI Alliance (GIA) established its presence in the Midwest in July 2019 with its initial partnership with Illinois Gastroenterology Group (IGG) in the Greater Chicago Area and now represents over 350 gastroenterologists across six states.

Headquartered in Peoria, IL and founded in 1987, IGI has grown into the second-largest independent gastroenterology practice in Illinois and the largest practice south of the Greater Chicago Area. IGI provides comprehensive digestive and liver care with a team of 9 gastroenterologists and 4 advanced-level providers, as well as infusion and anesthesia services.

Alongside its affiliated physicians, GIA also invested in Central Illinois Endoscopy Center (CIEC), which will remain majority-owned by physicians and GIA. CIEC is the largest endoscopy center in Central/Southern Illinois, providing high-quality, affordable gastrointestinal care to patients over a wide catchment area.

"We are pleased to resume our 2020 expansion strategy, even during these unprecedented times and the continuing COVID-19 health crisis. This new partnership between GI Alliance and IGI is the first of several in Illinois that we expect to close over the coming months, expanding our offering of best-in-class gastroenterology care in the Midwest," said Dr. Jim Weber, CEO of GI Alliance.

"This partnership brings together the formidable capabilities and resources of GI Alliance, IGG, and IGI. Our goal is to continue to improve the overall patient experience while expanding the population of patients in Illinois to whom we provide world-class digestive healthcare," said Dr. Ken Camacho, President of IGI.

Dr. Mitch Bernsen, President of IGG, said, "We are excited to work collaboratively with IGI as an affiliated practice of GIA. We partner with like-minded practices that embrace empowering physicians in advancing the field of gastroenterology to save more lives. High-quality patient care is and will always be our top priority."

About GI Alliance

GI Alliance is a physician-led and majority physician-owned GI services organization supporting the needs of more than 350 independent gastroenterologists operating in Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, and Arkansas. GI practices that are part of the GI Alliance are focused on providing the highest-quality care to their patients. In addition to providing operational support for practices, GI Alliance is working to unite gastroenterologists nationwide to align interests and improve the quality of care for patients.

Contact: Shannon Brush / GI Alliance

[email protected]

(817) 402-7562

www.gialliance.com

SOURCE GI Alliance

Related Links

https://gialliance.com


Dublin, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "CBD Oil Market Research Report: By Product Type - Global Industry Analysis and Growth Forecast to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



In numerous countries, starting with the U.S. and Canada, cannabis is being legalized for medical, recreational, and research uses. Following them, the U.K., Japan, Norway, Thailand, South Korea, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, and Brazil have also given the stamp of approval on the cultivation of marijuana and hemp, extraction of cannabidiol and usage of the chemical in various end products.



As a result, the global CBD oil market revenue is predicted to rise at a 24.3% CAGR between 2020 and 2025, from $1,735.1 million in 2019.



This is being further supported by the promotion of the chemical as having numerous wellness advantages, by companies, which is helping increase the demand for it among the masses, primarily recreational users. Moreover, as cannabidiol has been claimed to treat depression, movement disorders, anxiety, and pain, its usage among people suffering from these issues is also rising.



Demand for Cannabidiol Tinctures to Burgeon in Coming Years



In the years to come, the popularity of tinctures of cannabidiol is predicted to mushroom rapidly, on account of these products being the most widely used for medical purposes. This is because tinctures can be taken sublingually (placed under the tongue), rather than via inhalation, which helps the capillaries absorb the cannabinoid instantly. Moreover, a lower dosage of tinctures is required compared to that of other forms of the chemical, which reduces the risk of the harmful effects related to overdose. Further, tinctures can be easily bought through e-commerce websites, pharmacies, and specialty and retail stores.



North America has dominated the consumption of cannabidiol till now, on account of the early legalization of the chemical in the U.S. and Canada, which has drastically increased the sale. In addition, the availability of cannabidiol-containing drugs, including Epidiolex and Sativex, and successful marketing of the compound as a wellness and lifestyle-enhancing product are other reasons for the high demand for cannabidiol in the continent.



In the region, the U.S. is the larger CBD oil market, because of the increasing efforts of companies to license the cultivation of hemp and marijuana and manufacturing and supply of end-products, increase marketing activities, and make people aware about cannabis' medical benefits. In the coming years, Asia-Pacific (APAC) is predicted to experience the fastest growth in the market, due to the rising requirement for the chemical in South Korea, Japan, and Australia.



Aphria, Isodiol International, CV Sciences, Canopy Growth Corporation, Aurora Cannabis, Endoca, Tilray, CBDfx, Folium Biosciences, and Gaia Botanicals are the key companies in the global CBD oil market.



Companies Engaging in Mergers and Acquisitions to Strengthen their Hold on Industry



Mergers and acquisitions are being initiated by the market players to strengthen their presence in the industry, as such moves allow them the opportunity to:

Story continues

Use the acquired companies' portfolio to expand their geographical reach

Utilize additional revenue streams

Enter new markets with cannabidiol-containing products

Advance their research and development (R&D) activities

Expand their product portfolio for core markets

Key Topics Covered



Chapter 1. Research Background



Chapter 2. Research Methodology



Chapter 3. Executive Summary



Chapter 4. Introduction

4.1 Definition of Market Segments

4.1.1 By Product Type

4.1.1.1 Cartridges

4.1.1.2 Capsules

4.1.1.3 Topicals

4.1.1.4 Tinctures

4.1.1.5 Others

4.2 Market Dynamics

4.2.1 Trends

4.2.1.1 Increasing Investment Across CBD Value Chain

4.2.2 Drivers

4.2.2.1 Legalization of CBD for Research, Medical, and Recreational Usage

4.2.2.2 Brand Positioning of CBD-based Merchandize as Lifestyle and Wellness Products

4.2.2.3 Impact Analysis of Drivers on Market Forecast

4.2.3 Restraints

4.2.3.1 Non-Standardization of Regulations and High Degree of Competition

4.2.3.2 Impact Analysis of Restraints on Market Forecast



Chapter 5. Policy and Regulatory Landscape



Chapter 6. Global Market Size and Forecast

6.1 By Product

6.2 By Region



Chapter 7. North America Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 8. Europe Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 9. APAC Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 10. RoW Market Size and Forecast



Chapter 11. Competitive Landscape

11.1 Global Strategic Developments of Key Players

11.1.1 Mergers and Acquisitions

11.1.2 Product Launches

11.1.3 Partnerships

11.1.4 Geographic Expansions

11.1.5 Facility Expansions

11.1.6 Other Developments



Chapter 12. Company Profiles

12.1 Aphria Inc.

12.1.1 Business Overview

12.1.2 Product and Service Offerings

12.1.3 Key Financial Summary

12.2 CV Sciences Inc.

12.3 Endoca B.V.

12.4 Isodiol International Inc.

12.5 Aurora Cannabis Inc.

12.6 Canopy Growth Corporation

12.7 Tilray Inc.

12.8 Folium Biosciences

12.9 Gaia Botanicals LLC

12.10 CBDfx



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/6dvgo4

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900




The BSF on Wednesday dismissed Constable Sumit Kumar, a resident of Gurdaspur in Punjab, for his involvement in drugs and Hawala racket.

Kumar, deployed in Samba sector of Indo- Pak International Border, was apprehended on information given by Punjab Police on July 11 linking him to smuggling, connivance with anti-national elements and transborder criminals.

BSF moved swiftly to apprehend Sumit Kumar from his place of duty at the Indo- Pak International Border and recover a 9 mm pistol, two magazines, 80 rounds of 9 mm ammunition; two rounds of 12 bore ammunition from his possession.

A case was registered against him at PS Katarpur (Jalandhar Rural) under section 302 (murder), 506 (criminal intimidation), 34 (common intention), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 212 (harbouring offender) and 216 (Harbouring offender who has escaped from custody) of the Indian Penal Code. He was also booked under Section 24/25/59 of the Arms act and Section 29/61/85 of the NDPS act.

On July 13, Punjab Police had also recovered Rs 32.30 lakh from his house at Gurdaspur.

A departmental court of inquiry completed in record time found Sumit Kumar guilty of conniving with anti-national elements and trans- border smugglers and of facilitating trafficking of narcotics and weapons from his place of duty in the month of July, 2020.

He will remain in Punjab Polices custody till the case is finalised. Inspector General of BSF Jammu, N S Jamwal said that Punjab Police is investigating this case in which a total of eight persons including Kumar and one army personnel have been arrested so far.
CALGARY, Alberta, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Access to affordable, abundant energy will promote economic growth and help Canada recover from the COVID recession, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.



There is a clear link between energy use and economic activity, and policies that constrain energy use, such as artificially higher prices, are harmful to economic growth, said Elmira Aliakbari, associate director of the Fraser Institutes natural resource studies and co-author of Stimulating Economic Growth Through Abundant Energy .

The study shows that a ten percent increase in energy use is associated with a 1.16 percent increase in GDP. Indeed, the study found that energy use (which can be defined as energy abundance or energy affordability) is an essential component of Canadian economic growth. That means policies designed to artificially reduce energy use and/or increase energy costs will limit economic growth.

In fact, Canadas economic growth over the past decade was already weaker than several other developed countries including the United States, Germany, Japan, and the whole G7 group of economies, on average.

Yet, despite the evidence that affordable or abundant energy plays an important role in economic growth, federal and provincial governments in Canada have implemented policies that have artificially constrained energy accessibility and increased energy costs. The Ontario Green Energy Act, British Columbias energy conservation programs, and the federal governments renewable energy targets are some examples of these types of policies.

Given Canadas slow economic growth over the past decade and the COVID recession, governments across Canada should pursue policies that support economic growth post-pandemic, said Ashley Stedman, Senior Policy Analyst for the Fraser Institute and co-author of the study.

Policies that foster energy abundance could go a long way to boost economic growth and help Canada recover from one of the worst recessions in history.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Elmira Aliakbari, Associate Director of the Centre for Natural Resource Studies

Fraser Institute

Ashley Stedman, Senior Policy Analyst

Fraser Institute

To arrange media interviews or for more information, please contact:

Bryn Weese, Fraser Institute

604-688-0221 ext. 589

bryn.weese@fraserinstitute.org

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Union information and technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has called for digital platforms to be responsive, accountable and sensitive to the concerns of sovereign nations as far as safety, defence and privacy is concerned. Prasad raised the issue on Wednesday during the G20 Digital Ministers Meet hosted by Saudi Arabia.

Prasads comments come in the backdrop of Indias ban on 59 Chinese web and mobile applications including TikTok and UC browser due to security concerns.

In view of these concerns, the digital platforms having presence in many countries must become trustworthy, safe and secure. It is time to acknowledge that digital platforms anywhere in the world have to be responsive and accountable towards the sovereign concerns of countries including defence, privacy and security of citizens, Prasad was quoted as saying.

Chinas digital minister Miao Wei was also in attendance at the virtual meeting. Indias ban on popular Chinese applications came in the aftermath of deadly border clashes with Chinese Army in the eastern Ladakh sector in June this year, which led to casualties on both sides.

Also Watch: Trumps minister warns world against China, calls India ties all-important

Prasad also raised some other very important issues being debated globally related to data security and said that data, too, must belong to the sovereign nation concerned.

Digital economy must go hand in hand with the Data economy. We need to acknowledge the sovereignty over data. Data must belong to the sovereign nation concerned, to protect also the privacy concern of its people, Prasad added.

While emphasizing on the data related issues and sovereign rights of countries to protect data privacy and security of its citizens, Prasad mentioned that India was working to establish a robust personal data protection regime through legislation aimed not only to address the data privacy related concerns of citizens but also to ensure availability of data for innovation and economic development.

Also Read: US asked China to close Houston consulate: Report

He also highlighted Indias use of digital technology for fighting the global menace of coronavirus with initiatives like Aarogya Setu mobile app, geo-fencing system for monitoring quarantined patients and Coved-19 Savdhan bulk messaging systems during this meeting.

The role played by digital technology in helping the government provide direct relief to the vulnerable sections of the society through direct cash transfers enabled digitally was also brought up by the minister before the global audience as he underlined national response to the challenges presented by the pandemic.
In early March, we learned Villiger Cigars had, for the first time in the companys history, created an exclusive cigar for members of the Tobacconists Association of America (TAA). As you may recall, TAA is made up of approximately 80 retailers and 40 manufacturers, and it aims to maximize professionalism and success through training and sharing best practices.

You can locate a TAA shop near you here. When you arrive, ask about their selection of TAA Exclusive smokes. In addition to Villiger, the lineup in 2020 includes brands like A.J. Fernandez, Crowned Heads, E.P. Carrillo, J.C. Newman, La Flor Dominicana, La Palina, My Father, Tatuaje, and more.

Participating in the TAA Exclusive initiative is only the latest in a series of moves by Villiger in to step up its premium cigar game. For quite some time, the Switzerland-based company had been known almost exclusively as a purveyor of machine-made cigars. In recent years, though, Villiger has introduced several premium handmade cigar lines out of its North American headquarters in Miami, including La Flor de Ynclan, 1888, SanDoro, La Vencedora, and La Meridiana.

For this limited 2020 TAA release, Villiger joined forces with cigar icon Ernesto Perez-Carrillo and his Tabacalera La Alianza S.A. factory in the Dominican Republic. The blend calls for an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, a Nicaraguan binder, and filler tobaccos from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Only 500 boxes of 20 cigars were made (total production of 10,000) in a single, box-pressed Toro (6 x 54) format. The MSRP is $9.

The Villiger TAA Exclusive Toro officially shipped about a week ago. I sampled two for this review, both provided by Villiger. This cigar has a slightly mottled, milk chocolate-colored wrapper with a reddish hue. The single ring (it looks like a double-banded cigar, but its all one ring) of maroon, gold, and white clearly sets it apart from the rest of the Villiger portfolio. The pre-light aroma at the foot is sweet and earthy, and the cap clips cleanly to reveal a moderate cold draw with a bit of meatiness on the palate.

These days, so many cigars start with a blast of pepper. This one does not. It introduces itself with a classic-tasting, medium-bodied profile with flavors of leather and a warm tobacco sweetness. The texture is bready. Background notes help make the overall impression a harmonious, well-rounded one. They include green raisin, oak, and a bit of cayenne.

I had anticipated some changes along the way, but the Toro rides out the introductory profile from start to finish. As it does, the physical properties leave little to be desired. The sturdy, gray ash holds well off the foot, the burn is straight, the smoke production is generous, and the draw is clear.

I dont like to deduct points from a cigar whose only real fault is an unchangingalbeit tastyflavor. That said, I wish I had the ability to try this in a smaller corona format; this thick toro doesnt necessarily overstay its welcome, but Id be lying if I didnt say my interest starts to wane in the final third.

I am still strongly recommending this cigar in the only format we have. The harmonious, classic flavor coupled with outstanding construction is more than enough to justify the $9 cost. Hiring Ernesto Perez-Carrillo to make you a cigar is never a bad idea, and this one scores four stogies out of five in my book.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

Patrick A



photo credit: Stogie Guys
YggTorrent, one of the most-visited and largest torrenting websites in France, has moved to a new Slovenia-based .si domain in the latest switch for the site to avoid fresh ISP blocking in the country.

In February this year, YggTorrent had lost control over its main domain name, YggTorrent.ws, after it was suspended by its domain registrar, Tucows.

The domain name YggTorrent.ws was suddenly disabled by its domain registrar without warning or providing an additional explanation, leaving the ominous serverHold status behind.

Also Read- How To Unblock Torrent Sites

For those unaware, YggTorrent.ws, which receives more than a million visitors per month, was ranked Frances 38th most visited website, according to the statistics by Alexa.

With a reported 3.5 million registered members, YggTorrent is the largest French-language sharing platform and also operates its own torrent tracker.

Following the suspension in February, YggTorrent was forced to opt for a Sweden-based YggTorrent.se domain, which was consequently promoted as the primary alternative domain, alongside a few other backup domains, including yggtorrent.pe, yggtorrent.ch, and yggtorrent.gg.

However, within a few months since the change, the domain is now being targeted by copyright holders.

According to an announcement by YggTorrent, when many French ISPs (internet service providers) recently began blocking the .se domain, the sites operators decided to shift to yet another new domain  the Slovenia-based YggTorrent.si  in the hope to mitigate blocking attempts for some time.

While the complete list of ISPs now blocking the .se domain (which remains in use and acts as a redirect) isnt clear, however, the Iceland-based YggTorrent.is, which is one of YggTorrents other domains, is reportedly on the blacklists of several providers including Free, VOO, Telenet, Brutele, and Proximus. Apparently, ISP blocking has also affected the sites Swiss-based domain.

This is not the first time that YggTorrent has experienced domain issues. In 2018, the site was forced to abandon its .com domain after the French anti-piracy body SACEM lodged a formal complaint.

Then in 2019, a local anti-piracy group, SCPP, filed a complaint following which the Paris court ordered five French ISPs to block access to thirteen websites hosting pirated content. The blocking order also included YggTorrent.ch, a domain that is still being used by the site but only for redirection purposes.

Considering its past, the latest switch to the Slovenia-based YggTorrent.si domain doesnt seem the last one.

Meanwhile, another big French piracy player, previously known simply as Zone-Telechargement and rebranded as Zone-Annuaire earlier this year, has also announced a domain change. The file-sharing giant has consolidated under the ZT-ZA banner this month.

We are aware that the fact of changing domain name every four mornings is starting to weigh heavily BUT Google and the [copyright holders] are not the only ones to put obstacles in our wheels and therefore for the survival of your / our site, it is again with a powerful aversion that we are going to have, once again, to change the domain name: ZT-ZA.COM, reads an announcement from the site.
For weeks now, camouflage-clad officers  including members of the United States Border Patrols elite Tactical Unit and the US Marshal Service Special Operations Group  have roamed the streets of downtown Portland, Oregon. They are part of a White House-backed push to aggressively confront Black Lives Matter protesters  and to damage the fortunes of the political party that runs the cities where most of the protests happen.

These officers, many of whom spend their days patrolling the desert of the US-Mexico border or manning checkpoints at which most constitutional protections and civil liberties do not apply, have been filmed pulling suspected protesters off the street after emerging from unmarked vehicles, wearing no visible badges or identification.

Portlands mayor, Ted Wheeler, has called the unwanted DHS presence an attack on our democracy. Oregon Governor Kate Brown described the officers actions as a blatant abuse of power, while Senator Jeff Merkley said DHS and DOJ are engaged in acts that are horrific and outrageous in our constitutional democratic republic. And Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has filed a lawsuit seeking a restraining order to prevent DHS and DOJ officials from making any more arrests in Portland absent a clear showing of probable cause.

But Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf doesnt care.

Wolf, who has not been confirmed by the Senate to serve in the job he has held since he replaced another Acting Secretary of Homeland Security last November, went to Portland last week to personally oversee the operation. He claims that the officers are targeting violent anarchists who he blames for spray-painting graffiti on some federal buildings (while stretching the definition of violent beyond all logic).

In a tweet posted over the weekend, Wolf pushed back on Oregon officials criticism by calling his officers patriots and vowing that DHS will never surrender to violent extremists on [his] watch. And in a defiant Fox News appearance on Monday, Wolf rejected the idea that the Department of Homeland Security should work with local elected officials when operating in the cities they run.

"I don't need invitations by the state, state mayors, or state governors to do our job. We're going to do that, whether they like us there or not, he said.

The job Wolf speaks of is that of the Federal Protective Service, a little-known arm of DHS charged with protecting federal buildings. Though the officers and agents in question are operating under the authority of the FPS, the Trump administration is now planning to use that authority to deploy federal personnel to cities throughout the country against the wishes of (Democratic) governors and (Democratic, often Black) mayors under the guise of restoring order and creating a culture war wedge that will please his mostly white base.

Paul Rosenzweig, who served as DHSs Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy during the George W Bush administration, said the prospect of a president using DHS personnel to police American streets was one that opponents of the agencys creation raised during debate over the 2002 Homeland Security Act. Rosenzweig recalled that he and other proponents of the bill dismissed such worries at the time.

There were many who thought that DHS should not be created precisely because they were worried that it would be essentially an internal police force, and there were many like me, who said: Oh, that's absurd. Come on. You know we need a coordinated unity of effort against terrorism, and this is a good way to do it, Rosenzweig recalled. But theres a lot of justice to that now.

He added that proponents of the bill, which combined agencies from across the government into one sprawling entity charged with preventing terrorist attacks, never imagined that the US would have as aberrant a chief executive as Donald Trump, or a Senate that is as supine and subservient as the GOP-led upper chamber is today.

But one of the nine Senate Democrats who voted against creating DHS, former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, said the possibility of a lawless administration abusing the broad powers granted to DHS was the reason he cast the lone vote against the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act. That legislation expanded the executive branchs law enforcement and surveillance powers.

When you see in Portland, people that were trained to handle drug smugglers being used to go after Americans protesting racism, it reminds me very much of the stuffing into the PATRIOT Act, provisions that were really not used for terrorism at all, but were being used for drug cases, said Feingold, who is now president of the American Constitution Society.

Feingold said both the Trump administrations actions in Portland and President Trumps threats to send federal agents to patrol cities with Democratic mayors are part of a truly dystopian picture that is worse than anything that was imagined during the George W Bush administration. These actions, he added, are more appropriate for a completely lawless country without any protection of the rule of law than the United States of America.

This is right out there in the open and is a direct affront to American democracy. People should be able to express their political views consistent with the First Amendment and not be afraid of reprisal from the federal government, he said. What I was warning about in 2001 was what would happen if we elected somebody who really didn't have any respect for our system of government, and that's where we are today. He [Trump] and his administration are doubling down on the most frightening series of threats that any of us have ever seen in our democracy.

While Feingold was adamant that what is happening today was clearly foreseeable, those whove served in DHS and its constituent agencies say the departments descent into enabling Trumps authoritarian impulses has only been made possible by the lack of strong leadership and a strong rule of law culture within the department.

Juliette Kayyem  who served as an Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2010 and was on the Homeland Security Council during Jeh Johnsons time leading DHS  said Trump has turned to DHS because Defense Department leadership indicated that they wouldnt follow orders to use National Guard troops against protesters as was done in Washington, DC last month.

DHS is the weak link, she explained. The White House experienced considerable pushback from the Pentagon after Lafayette Square, but you wont get that at DHS because its leadership is totally beholden to Trump.

Yet the idea that DHS has leadership at all is one that strains credulity. For over a year now, the department charged with such diverse tasks as protecting the nations currency from counterfeiting (Secret Service), maintaining navigation aids on the countrys navigable waterways (Coast Guard), and leading the response to natural disasters such as hurricanes (FEMA) has lacked a Senate-confirmed secretary.

Moreover, nearly every single Senate-confirmed leadership position atop the 360,000-person strong department is either filled by someone serving in an acting capacity or by a senior official performing the duties of a position they are not legally permitted to hold in an acting capacity.

Rosenzweig, now a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, said the lack of permanent leadership has made it far more likely that those nominally in charge will either tacitly or explicitly give assent to abuses.

This kind of misuse and abuse is particularly plausible in an agency like DHS, which is weakened by its lack of history, its lack of settled processes, and by the fact that that Trump has systematically denuded it of anybody with any authority to push back at him, Rosenzweig said. Trump has systematically [emasculated] anybody who gave him the least little bit of pushback, you know, even people who were totally on his side in terms of results they wanted to achieve.

He also posited that the situation in Portland is a particular product of the fact that Trump and [White House Senior Policy Adviser] Stephen Miller have converted DHS into this subservient entity that has no leadership that refuses to do their bidding.

But Jenn Budd, a former senior US Border Patrol agent who is now an immigrant rights activist, says the use of the Border Patrol for interior law enforcement purpose is something that has long been desired by those who serve on the so-called green line. This, despite the fact that Border Patrol agents  unlike police  operate in areas in which the usual constitutional protections that Americans enjoy do not apply and receive very little training on how to deal with crowds in a lawful way.

The majority of training that BORTAC does, and even the majority of training the agents do, is more military-style training, so they're going to deal with crowds of people  like you would see soldiers dealing with crowds in Iraq or in Afghanistan, she said.

Budd also pointed to the example of a protester who told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he was seized off the street, taken to a federal building, and searched without a warrant as evidence underscoring the agents lack of familiarity with the Constitution.

That's typical Border Patrol, because down here, they don't have to have a warrant to do anything, she explained.

And despite their lack of familiarity with Americans basic constitutional rights, she said Border Patrol agents are eager to embrace their newfound freedom to inflict themselves on American protesters because doing so as a national police force has long been their goal. Because most Border Patrol agents hold what is known as 1801 authority  which only grants the power to make arrests and enforce federal law but not conduct investigations  rather than the 1811 authority held by Special Agents at other agencies, Budd said the USBP has long had both an agency-wide inferiority complex and designs on a larger role in the nations law enforcement apparatus.

The Border Patrol has always had this elective low self-esteem, that they're not considered to be like, real cops, and they're just always pissin and moanin about how they feel that they should be able to go around and grab anybody up off the streets and do whatever they want, she said. And that's what you're seeing out there.
In a relief for Vodafone Idea, the Supreme Court on July 22 dismissed a plea filed by the Income Tax Department challenging the Bombay High Court order directing it to refund taxes worth Rs 833 crore to the telco, CNBC-TV18 has reported.

Upholding Vodafone's claims for refund of taxes for the year AY 2014-15, the SC said the I-T department had in October 2019 concluded that Rs 833 crore was due and payable to the telecom company. It also observed that the tax department does not have the authority to withhold tax refunds anticipating future demands. The tax department had earlier opposed the refund to Vodafone Idea citing potential demands against the company.

Citing tax authorities rectification order dated May 28, Vodafone Idea had filed a petition seeking a direction to the I-T department to refund Rs 1009.43 crore, including Rs 833 crore on an immediate basis. Upholding the telco's plea, the Bombay high court (HC) had earlier this month directed the tax department to refund Rs 833 crore to Vodafone Idea Limited within two weeks.

This comes at a time when the company is already looking at over Rs 58,000 crore in AGR dues, according to an estimate by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). During the hearing in the matter related to AGR dues earlier this week, the apex court reiterated that there is no scope for re-assessment or re-calculation of dues owed by telecom players, as outlined by the DoT.
When life as we knew it got turned upside down, our homes became the only constant, said Ali Wolf, chief economist at Meyers Research. The shift towards at-home work, school, and hobbies, however, resulted in a rethink of our space that propelled new home sales to the highest level since 2007.

The New Home PSI came in at 132.2 for June, representing an 18.2% increase from June 2019. On a month-over-month basis, new home sales rose by 17.5% from May. June is historically a slower month than May, so the month-over-month gain shows that the traditional spring selling carried on later in the year.

When life as we knew it got turned upside down, our homes became the only constant, said Ali Wolf, chief economist at Meyers Research. The shift towards at-home work, school, and hobbies, however, resulted in a rethink of our space that propelled new home sales to the highest level since 2007.

Pending new home sales continued to show major locational differences, but all of the select 20 markets in the country posted month-over-month gains and nearly all trended above June 2019 as well.

The best new home markets in June were Raleigh, Cincinnati, and Tampa. Raleigh and Tampa had strong housing markets pre-COVID-19 and after a brief pause, buyers are back in full force. Lifestyle and positive net migration are two big contributors to the success for these housing markets today. In Cincinnati, the combination of a relatively low unemployment rate and extremely constrained resale inventory is helping builders attract buyers and gain market share.

There is no doubt that sub-3.0% mortgage rates have played a big role in the rapid rebound of the housing market, said Wolf. There arent many more compelling reasons to buy a home than virtually free money.

Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York all posted substantial month-over-month increases but are still down compared to last year. In these markets, the relative underperformance is partly due to a lack of inventory. For example, the total number of new home projects for sale decreased in each market year-over-year and affordability in some of the remaining communities is constrained even with the lowest mortgage rates on record. Within each of these markets, however, some builders had a record-breaking sales month in June and are seeing homes fly off the shelf quicker than they can replace them.

New home data is susceptible to outsized swings in contract activity based on shifts in the number of actively selling communities. As a result, Meyers Research normalizes the data to ensure consistency across the index. The New Home PSI blends the cumulative sales of active or recently sold-out projects with the average sales rate per community, which adjusts for fluctuations in supply. Furthermore, the New Home PSI is seasonally adjusted based on each markets specific seasonality and removes outliers. The index is baselined to 100 for June 2016. Todays national New Home PSI is 32.2% above the base level.

The next Meyers Research New Home PSI press release, featuring July 2020 data, will be issued on Friday, August 21, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. ET.

Methodology

The Meyers Research New Home Pending Sales Index (PSI) is built on proprietary, industry-leading data that covers 60% of the production new home market across the United States. Reported number of new home pending contracts are gathered and analyzed each month. Released on the 15th business day of each month, the New Home PSI is a leading indicator of housing demand compared to closings because it is based on the number of signed contracts at a new home community. Meyers Research monitors 18,000 active communities in the country and the homes tracked can be in any stage of construction.

The new home market represents roughly 10% of all transactions, allowing little movements in supply to cause outsized swings in market activity. As a result, the New Home PSI blends the cumulative sales of activity recently sold out projects with the average sales rate per community, which adjusts for fluctuations in supply. Furthermore, the New Home PSI is seasonally adjusted based on each markets specific seasonality, removes outliers, and uses June 2016 as the base month. The foundation of the index is a monthly survey conducted by Meyers Research. It is necessary to monitor both new and existing home sales to establish an accurate picture of the relative health of the residential real estate market.

About Meyers Research

Meyers Research represents the housing industrys leading provider of rich data, backed by Zonda and Metrostudy, and the industrys top advisors for residential real estate development and new home construction. With products and services geared for homebuilders, multifamily developers, lenders, and financial institutions, we provide innovative solutions to maximize opportunities in today's real estate development landscape. To learn more, visit meyersresearchllc.com.

Meyers Research, Hanley Wood, Zonda, Metrostudy, and the company logo, are trademarks of Meyers Research, LLC and/or its subsidiaries.
Patna, July 22 : Even as the question of the number of seats each Grand Alliance constituent will contest in the coming Bihar Assembly elections is yet to be settled, disgruntled voices are being heard within the Congress over the alleged sidelining of leaders belonging to the backward classes.

However, a senior leader of the Congress has rubbished the claims and asserted that the party likes to take along all segments of society.

A Congress source said that the issue was raised at the July 15 meeting of the Bihar State Election Committee and the State Working Committee, but the leaders were not allowed to speak up.

Working Committee member and former Congress Bihar unit chief Kailash Pal has consequently resigned from all party posts.

He told IANS that the party should not forget that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has remained in power for 15 years in Bihar in the past due to the Muslim-Yadav alliance.

Kailash Pal said that the Congress had been pushed to the margins in Bihar politics as the party ignored the interests of Backward Class and Extremely Backward Class. "If the Congress wishes to pursue the politics of upper castes and bring them to its camp from the BJP, it will have to leave its alliance with the RJD," he remarked.

Giving example, he said that when the government was formed in 2015 by the Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, the latter had got three slots in the council of ministers, which went to two representatives of the forward castes, one Dalit and one Muslim.

Similarly, the Congress state unit chief was chosen from among the forward castes. Two of the four working heads were chosen from the forward castes, one was a Dalit and one a Muslim, he said.

Another Congress leader, who wished not to be identified, said that many leaders from the backward class were denied party tickets in the 2015 Assembly elections.

He said that only 10 to 12 per cent of the 41 seats contested by the Congress at that time had backward class candidates, as against more than 50 per cent of population of Bihar which belonged to the BCs/OBCs/EBCs.

Senior Congress leader Vijay Shankar Mishra denied the allegations and said that many of the youth leaders in his party at present hailed from these communities.

BJP spokesman Dr Nikhil Anand claimed that the Congress had historically been against the OBCs and EBCs and had opposed the Karpuri and Mandal commission recommendations on reservation. "OBC leader Sitaram Kesri was a duly-elected Congress President, but he was humiliated. He was not spared even in death," Anand remarked.

The BJP leader claimed that the OBCs and EBCs will never support the Congress and advised the latter's allies like the RJD and Vikassheel Insaan Party to mull their conflicting politics in this backdrop.
UofSC and Navatek win $9.2M contract for Navy Power & Energy Systems

Columbia, SC -- The U.S. Office of Naval Research has awarded the partnership of the University of South Carolina and Navatek LLC a $9.2 million contract for the research of power and energy systems and the development of digital twin prototypes. Advanced power control systems will be developed to intelligently manage the power and energy resources on ships that use directed energy weapons (e.g., railguns, lasers, missile defense radars). The end goal of this project is to harness the full power of a ship's electrical system to meet mission-critical needs, with the help of semi- and fully autonomous decision aids for commanders, to be developed by Navatek and the University of South Carolina (UofSC).

The program's goal is to conduct research into power and energy systems modeling and machine learning; and to design and develop a first-of-a-kind digital twin of combat power and energy systems for the U.S. Navy. Navatek and UofSC will deliver tightly coupled hardware and software to demonstrate, test, and validate the performance of the digital twin control systems.

UofSC has extensive expertise in ship-scale power electronics and related systems and will research, design, and test electrical power and device control system prototypes. In anticipation of this award, Navatek has hired 10 full time scientists and engineers and four interns from UofSC and South Carolina State University (SCSU) at the new Navatek office in Columbia, South Carolina. Navatek intends to expand its presence in the state to 60 people over the next 30 months, contingent on new contract awards.

"Navatek is thrilled to lay roots in South Carolina and to formally partner with UofSC, a leader in power systems for the Navy. Navatek's initial capital investments have enabled us to open a permanent 10,000 sq foot office in Columbia. The office location is ideally co-located with our research partners and gives us the ability to recruit, hire, and retain graduates, and provide internships from both UofSC and SCSU. This award will immediately give the employees of our Columbia office the opportunity to work on the latest and leading-edge technologies and challenges with the development of digital twins for the Navy. As our base of employees grows in South Carolina, we look forward to bringing into the state Navatek's diverse and expansive portfolio of work and research. I take great personal ownership and responsibility for the long-term job security and prosperity of Navatek's employees and the jobs we create in South Carolina. We are committed to South Carolina for the long term." said Martin Kao, Chief Executive Officer, Navatek.

"We're excited about this research partnership with Navatek and its potential to assist our nation's military. As a flagship institution with a tremendously talented group of researchers and students, we are uniquely positioned to help drive the kind of technological innovation that benefits our partners and the state's economy" said Bob Caslen, President of the University of South Carolina.

"We are delighted to partner with Navatek on this groundbreaking project. This is a very timely opportunity for UofSC to continue to lead the nation in the emerging field of Navy digital twin research, and to educate and train the next generation of innovators in this, and related fields," commented Dr. Hossein Haj-Hariri, dean of the University of South Carolina's College of Engineering and Computing. "The research and development strengths of Navatek and UofSC are truly complementary, making the joint team uniquely positioned to develop innovative solutions and expert personnel for the Navy for many years to come."

"I am excited about this new opportunity between the University of South Carolina and Navatek as they work to provide new technologies that will enhance the capability of the United States Navy and ensure that our fleet is ready for the fights of the future," said U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham.

"This university-industry partnership will lay a strong foundation for ongoing work with the Navy and will assist in accelerating research aimed at solving problems for the Department of Defense," said U.S. Congressman Jim Clyburn. "I am pleased by Navatek's decision to partner with UofSC and South Carolina State University to provide internship programs and job opportunities for South Carolina students."

Building on this, U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson also commented, "This is a win-win for all parties, especially the state of South Carolina. I am grateful that projects like these will grow our STEM-focused workforce, resulting in more career opportunities and good paying jobs.

###

About Navatek:

Navatek is a leading provider of innovative research and development services for the Department of Defense, NASA, and other government agencies. Historically a provider of naval architecture and modeling and simulation services, its portfolio has diversified to encompass digital twins, power and energy systems, unmanned vehicles, robotics, autonomy, AI/ML, data science, inflatables, composites, and additive manufacturing. Since its founding in Hawaii in 1979, Navatek has grown to open offices in Rhode Island, Maine, Virginia, Michigan, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

About University of South Carolina:

The University of South Carolina is a globally recognized, high-impact research university committed to a superior student experience and dedicated to innovation in learning, research and community engagement. Founded in 1801, the university offers more than 350 degree programs and is the state's only top-tier Carnegie Foundation research institution. More than 50,000 students are enrolled at one of 20 locations throughout the state, including the research campus in Columbia. With 56 nationally ranked academic programs including top-ranked programs in international business, the nation's best honors college and distinguished programs in engineering, law, medicine, public health and the arts, the university is helping to build healthier, more educated communities in South Carolina and around the world.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A case has been registered at the Hinjewadi police station against the 30-year-old woman who travelled to Dubai while allegedly being under home quarantine.

A complaint has been lodged by Dr Amit Abasaheb Mane (33), a resident of Railway Quarters in Pune.

The woman had allegedly tested positive for Covid-19 on July 11 by a test conducted at the Aditya Birla hospital. She was advised to be in home quarantine for 14 days as she was asymptomatic.

The complainant doctor received a text message from her on July 17 saying that she had reached Sharjah International Airport in Dubai and had tested negative after a test conducted at the airport.

A case was registered under Sections 188, 269, 270 of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 2 and 3 of Epidemic Diseases Act has been registered at the Hinjewadi police station.
LIBERTY, Mo. - A massive federal operation underway in Kansas City, Missouri, that targets violent crime has been largely welcomed by law enforcement and state officials, while some civil rights organizations are strongly opposed to having federal agents involved in solving local crimes.

Under the federal effort  dubbed Operation Legend after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in his bed in Kansas City  225 federal agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined 400 agents already working and living in the Kansas City area.

Federal officials have said the operation will not mirror one in Portland, Oregon, where the actions of federal officers outside the U.S. courthouse  hailed by President Donald Trump, but done without local consent  have resulted in clashes between protesters and camouflaged, unidentified agents.

The agents in Kansas City will investigate homicides, shootings and violent crime in co-operation with local law enforcement agencies, officials say.

Operation Legend has no relationship whatsoever to protests, marches and demonstrations, said Don Ledford, spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office for the western district of Missouri. That is not their intent, that is not their function. There will be no Homeland Security agents as part of this operation. These are investigative law enforcement agencies.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said he supports the operation as long as it adheres to those goals and does not expand federal agents responsibilities in the city.

Lucas expressed frustration Wednesday with the language Trump and U.S. Attorney William Barr used while announcing an expansion of the program into other cities. Trump tied the violence in some Democratic-controlled U.S. cities to a recent effort to defund or dismantle police departments.

Lucas said no data supported Trumps arguments, which he said was aimed at heightening racial tension and dividing the country as part of the presidents reelection campaign. Lucas said he wanted to find justice for gunshot victims.

To get that justice, you dont have to actually claim that cities are failures and to get that justice you dont have to make our community part of a political ploy in an election year, Lucas said.

Federal officials will not say when agents started arriving in Kansas City for Operation Legend, but it was announced at a news conference in Washington on July 8.

Kansas City was chosen for the federal operation in part because of an increase in homicides and shootings in recent months, Ledford said. Local police statistics show the city has had 106 homicides as of Sunday, up from 79 at this time a year ago.

Before agents were sent to Kansas City, U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison contacted the governors office. In a July 7, letter to Garrison, Republican Gov. Michael Parson wrote that such assistance with combating violent crime was greatly welcomed.

Lucas noted that Barr said Wednesday that 200 arrests have already been made in Kansas City, although the U.S. attorneys office in Kansas City has announced only one  a gun violation not related to a homicide.

Lucas said he has no information about the 200 arrests. He said city officials and the public should get more information about what the program is actually doing.

The mayor stressed that he wants federal help to solve violent crimes, homicides and long-term criminal problems, but does not want the programs resources diverted to other crimes just to inflate arrest numbers and add more people to jail.

The Kansas City Police Department and the state attorney generals office both said they support the effort.

We are all committed to lowering violent crime and bringing justice to the families of those victims of violent crime, said city police spokesman Jacob Becchina.

Several civil rights organizations in the area have criticized the operation, arguing that minority residents who already dont trust local officers will be even less likely to co-operate with federal agents.

Gwendolyn Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said she doubts the federal officers will be used only to help solve crimes and reduced violence.

Certainly we want these unsolved crimes addressed, we want safe communities, we just disagree on pathway to get there. Who doesnt want safe, livable communities? she said.

We want it stopped, but we dont believe this is the way to get it done. Its just going to create more violence, and our fear is a lot of that will be dealt with by law enforcement that we dont trust.

___

Hegeman reported from Belle Plaine, Kansas.
Aditi Bhaduri

Lately there has been much heartburn in India over the leaked report of an Iran-China deal for the next 25 years to the tune of a whopping $400 billion Chinese investments in Iran in return for assured oil supplies at a discount of 20 percent.

Added to that are new reports of India losing out on the Farzad B gas fields which ONGC Videsh had helped discover and the speculation of India being dropped from the Chabahar Zahedan railway project in which India has invested considerable energy. The Ministry of External Affairs has clarified that the Chabahar Port is functioning while there has been no commitment on the Chabahar-Zahedan railway project.

The surprise is that all this is causing surprise. None of the above is really new, or unexpected.

The development of Chabahar Port by India was mooted in 2003, but failed to make any progress because of the US sanctions imposed on Iran.

While India withdrew, China remained engaged in Iran. One of the first countries Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh visited seeking investments days after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal was announced was China.

Therefore, China is not a recent entrant to Iran. In 2014, India once again renewed interest in Chabahar as the JCPOA was being negotiated. In May 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Tehran, a trilateral agreement was signed between India, Iran, and Afghanistan, on the establishment of a transit and transport corridor among the three countries using the Chabahar Port as the regional hub for sea transportation, facilitating India's trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia bypassing Pakistan.

Fast forward to 2020.

The Iran-China deal was leaked to The New York Times by the Iranian side. The Chinese have not furnished any details, and neither has the deal been inked till the time of writing. $400 billon sounds nice, but it one thing to promise and another to deliver. Its not clear if the $100 billion China promised India in 2014 has materialised. Similarly, in 2016, on his Teheran visit Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to take bilateral trade levels to $600 billion which again remains very much to be seen.

Therefore, the deal is more symbolic than substantial and maybe a signalling to the US as presidential elections draw nearer and a change of guard in the White House may result in the US returning to the JCPOA.

Next, the Chabahar Port project was particularly important for facilitating Afghan trade, which is why it had been exempted from US sanctions. However, the US-Taliban peace accord signed in February forced India to step back from Afghanistan and there is no clarity how things will proceed once the US completes its troops withdrawal from there.

The Afghans have made no secret their willingness to join China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), or to Chinese investments in general. In fact on July 19, Afghanistans first transit goods to China via Chabahar Port was shipped.

Moreover, the Iranians have in the past talked about linking China-developed Gwadar Port (in Pakistan) with the India-developed Chabahar Port (in Iran), as a leverage over India. In a 2019 meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad, Zarif did just that, after India stopped purchasing Iranian oil because of US sanctions on Iran.

Iran, in 2017, announced that it had roped in Russias Gazprom to develop the Farzad B gas fields. Now it will be going on its own.

However, in the midst of all this doom and gloom in India, two things are worth noting. First, the Iranians have refuted dropping India from the railway project, saying that sanctions have nothing to do with Chabahar.

Second, a Russian news agency report highlighted the potential of the multimodal International North South Transport Corridor, quoting the Chabahar Free Trade Zone Organisation's director general Abdul Rahim Kordi. The corridor is to run from Mumbai to St Petersburg via Iran, holding out immense potential. Such reports are not coincidental and highlights the other major stakeholder in the region's connectivity plans  Russia.

What this means is that in spite of the posturing Iran will not let go entirely of India, putting all its eggs in the Chinese basket.

Therefore, there is nothing new in all these speculations and India, now as before, will know it has to contend with the dragon's role in the region, which may be a more reduced one after COVID-19. As always, India's best partner in anything Eurasian remains Russia.
Government has completed the expansion of the Kumasi South District Hospital to enhance quality healthcare delivery, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has announced.



Dr Kuma-Aboagye said the Komfo Anokye Hospital had expanded the Golden Department with Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to take more COVID-19 patients.



The Director-General said this in Accra when he provided an update on the state of health infrastructure, especially the bed capacity for the treatment of COVID-19 patients at the Ministry of Information's news conference.



Health authorities have secured a facility for setting up the biggest COVID-19 treatment centre so far in the Ashanti Region, he said.



He said the 90-bed capacity facility at Toase in Atwima-Nwabiagya Municipality in the Ashanti Region donated by Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation would be in operation from Wednesday July 22.



The facility, which would be used as one of the biggest COVID-19 treatment centre, comes with an ICU and staff accommodation.



On the state of the 40-bed Dodowa facility with an ICU, which is to house the Centre for Disease Control, Dr Kuma-Aboagye said it was near completion and expressed the hope that it would be handed over soon.



He said the country's first infectious disease isolation and treatment centre would soon be commissioned to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients.



Government said the centre would be used as a Centre of Excellence for Treatment and Research into some of the most infectious diseases prevalent in Ghana after the pandemic.



He said government was making every effort to expand both testing, isolation and treatment facilities across the country.



The GHS Director-General urged the public to strictly observe the social distancing, hand washing and mandatory wearing of nose masks regulations, as the only proven way to slow down COVID-19 infections and prevent the needless deaths.



He called on religious and traditional leaders to intensify educational campaign on COVID-19, for all to remain alert and exhibit responsible behaviour.

Source: GNA









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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading U.S. banking regulator said on Wednesday that national banks may provide custody services for cryptocurrencies. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a new letter that providing custody and safekeeping services for cryptocurrencies, including holding 'keys' needed to access cryptocurrency holdings, is a modern version of traditional banking activities and should be allowed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading U.S. banking regulator said on Wednesday that national banks may provide custody services for cryptocurrencies.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a new letter that providing custody and safekeeping services for cryptocurrencies, including holding "keys" needed to access cryptocurrency holdings, is a modern version of traditional banking activities and should be allowed.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Taiwan's parliament passed a proposal Wednesday to rebrand the island's largest airline to avoid confusion with carriers on the Chinese mainland. China Airlines (CAL) is frequently mistaken for Air China -- the mainland's national carrier -- and there have long been calls to rename it or make it more clearly Taiwanese. But the movement received fresh impetus during the coronavirus pandemic, which Taiwan has successfully tackled. The self-ruled island has sent medical aid overseas as a diplomatic gesture of goodwill, often on China Airlines aircraft, sparking some public confusion abroad over where the shipments had come from. On Wednesday, lawmakers approved a proposal asking the transport ministry to come up with both short- and long-term rebranding plans for the carrier, which is partly government-owned. "The ministry should make CAL more identifiable internationally with Taiwanese images to protect Taiwan's national interests as overseas it is mistaken for a Chinese airline," parliament speaker Yu Shyi-kun said while reading out the proposal. The motion did not set a timeline for when the airline should be eventually renamed, saying it would require further discussion. Some critics warn renaming the airline might provoke China -- especially if specific references to Taiwan are added. Beijing views Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary. It baulks at any suggestion the island is not part of "one China". - Increased military threats - The name China Airlines is a throwback to the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War, when the defeated Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists fled to Taiwan. Their Republic of China -- Taiwan's official name -- set itself up as a rival to the People's Republic of China. During the authoritarian KMT era many Taiwanese companies often had the words "China" or "Chinese" placed in their names. Taiwan has since morphed into one of Asia's most progressive democracies and a distinct Taiwanese identity has emerged. Another proposal passed Wednesday called for the island "to further enhance the visibility of 'Taiwan' on our passports". Taiwan's passports currently say "Republic of China. Taiwan." A proposal from a minority party calling for the removal of the phrase "Republic of China" did not pass. Since 2016 Beijing has ramped up diplomatic, economic and military pressure because current president Tsai Ing-wen refuses to recognise the concept that Taiwan is part of "one China". Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu said China had increased its sabre rattling, with jets entering the island's air defence zone on an "almost daily" basis last month. He warned that China might use "outside conflicts to resolve its internal issues" such as recent flooding, the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and a slowing economy. "We are very concerned Taiwan can be a very convenient scapegoat for China," he said. "Taiwan's government is handling these issues very carefully ... to avoid Taiwan becoming China's excuse to declare a war or start a military conflict." Taiwan's China Airlines is frequently mistaken for the mainland's Air China, and Taipei has passed a proposal to rebrand the carrier
Williamstown Board of Health Talks Students' Return With College Officials

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Board of Health on Monday morning reviewed Williams College's plan for the return of students for in-person instruction in the fall.

The members of the board were familiar with the presentation given by the college's president to the community last Wednesday , but they had some follow-up questions for a panel that included Williams Vice President for Finance and Administration Fred Puddester, Associate Vice President for Finance and Administration Matt Sheehy and Director of Medical Services Deborah Flynn.

Most of those questions involved the college's testing protocol for students and staff.

Dr. Erwin Stuebner kicked things off by asking why the college decided not to do as some colleges have and require students coming from "hot spots" for COVID-19 not be tested within three to five days of traveling to Williamstown.

Sheehy said it was a question of logistics and pointed out that students traveling from out of the area might not receive the results of their pre-departure test for five to seven days.

On the other hand, all students arriving on campus will have to be tested and ordered to remain in their dorm room until the college gets the result of their tests  within 48 hours thanks to an arrangement between the college and Cambridge's Broad Institute.

"Our plan is, when they get here, to test them immediately and test them twice a week," Sheehy said. "We're going to ask all students, if practical, to self-quarantine at home for 14 days before coming. If they are quarantined [by local health officials] after having close contact with someone, we will ask them not to come unless they are cleared by medical professionals."

The college plans to report its testing numbers to the public on a "dashboard" on its website, similar to the reporting conducted by Berkshire Medical Center.

Williamstown Health Inspector Jeff Kennedy asked that the college provide information about positive tests to himself and Leslie Drager, the town's public health nurse, as soon as possible so she can get started with contact tracing.

"Leslie will take the lead on all positives," Flynn told the board. "Whether they are students or not. We will have people trained to help."

Stuebner expressed confidence in Drager's ability but asked what happened if the town saw a cluster of positive cases that overwhelmed its capacity to do the tracing.

"The plan we have in place is Leslie tells me she has people she can draw on as well," Flynn said. "We will have  right now, two people who are trained and we're having another two training as well. We have the capability to help her."

Flynn said the college will be looking to hire local emergency medical technicians to help supervise the students and staff, who will collect their own nasal swabs to hand off to the Broad Institute for rapid testing. And college officials told the BOH that all students will be required to comply with the weekly testing protocol in order to have access to the campus  whether they are taking in-person classes or doing all of their academic work remotely from their dorms or apartments.

Puddester acknowledged that the college has heard that there may be some students who decide to live in Williamstown in non-college housing and take their classes remotely, but the college has no control over that  any more than it would a group of students who rent an apartment in New York City and live together taking classes remotely there.

"We're going to offer all those students testing, but we can't require it [unless they come on campus]," Puddester said. "[Without regular testing], they won't be able to go to the library, Paresky [student union], etc."

Board of Health member Dr. James Parkinson asked what the college's policy would be on student travel out of town once they are on campus.

"Students are being told that travel is not allowed," Puddester said.

But he indicated that a trip to the Stop & Shop just over the town line in North Adams likely would not be prohibited, and college officials indicated that there will be some case-by-case decisions on the travel issue.

"There are students who reached to me whose parents are ill," Flynn said when asked if students will be allowed to leave campus to deal with a family emergency. "We are working with them individually. If someone is going to California, we wouldn't be excited about having them travel back, but if someone is within driving distance  I think there's going to be a lot that goes into that [decision]."

Puddester noted that there is a student who was scheduled to return to campus before Labor Day but who said their family has a major event planned that weekend.

"We told them to delay your travel until after," Puddester said.

Sheehy noted the college needs to consider the fact that Massachusetts has lifted self-quarantine restrictions for people entering the commonwealth from the New England states, New York and New Jersey, where COVID-19 levels are currently low. If that lifting remains in effect in September, it changes the college's thinking about travel to those sites, Sheehy implied.

"[Flynn's] point that these are individual conversations is important," Sheehy said. "We're saying no travel and encouraging those conversations to occur through appropriate student-facing channels."

Parkinson asked the college representatives to nail down what specific threshold the college would use for again closing the campus to in-person instruction, as it did in March.

Puddester declined to speculate about specific metrics but reiterated what President Maud Mandel said in last week's community town hall: that the college will be in constant touch with officials at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield and Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington to make sure the local hospitals have capacity in case of a spike in COVID-19 cases.

But there are other factors that will weigh on the college's decision if that day comes.

"To most people, the first thing is whether Deb [Flynn] and her staff could handle the health needs," Puddester said. "To us, eating is important  whether we can get [students] food. There are lots of things involved. We'll be in very close touch with the local medical staff in the county. We'll continue to monitor that as we go through."

Sheehy used Monday morning's meeting to emphasize another point that came up in the forum: Town residents can help foster compliance to social distancing by the college community by modeling good behavior.

"Obviously, we're taking those commitments very seriously and believe the way to deal with this is  to wear a mask, socially distance and practice good hygiene," Sheehy said. "Those are the tenets we'll be espousing throughout all this.

"Not only on campus but in the community. The number of places I've been in up and down Spring Street or in public buildings where people aren't doing that  we need to demonstrate that for these students who are coming back to our community. I think we have a long way to go."
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Defiant British tourists have brushed off coronavirus fears in Spain as the country sees a sharp spike in cases.

Spain reported 1,358 cases on Tuesday and 4,581 over the weekend - bringing its total to 266,194. More than 28,000 people have died.

Cases have tripled - from eight cases per 100,000 to 27 per 100,000 - in the last month sparking fears that British tourists already on holiday in Spain might have to quarantine when they land back home.

But Britons soaking up the Spanish sunshine say Spain potentially being kicked off the UK government's list of quarantine-exempt countries is not a big concern and anyone looking for a break should come regardless.

Two people have tested positive for coronavirus in Marbella as Spain sees a sharp spike in cases in recent weeks

Two women wearing face masks walk along La Misericordia Beach in Malaga on July 22. Spain reported 1,358 cases on Tuesday and 4,581 over the weekend - bringing its total to 266,194

Spanish police have been confiscating sunbeds and evicting tourists to abide by social distancing rules on the Costa del Sol

The Spanish royal family (left to right: Crown Princess Leonor, King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and Princess Sofia) pose for photographers during their visit to Merida, Spain, on Wednesday

Women wearing face masks walk along La Misericordia Beach in Malaga. More than 28,000 people have died with coronavirus in Spain

People sunbathe at the La Misericordia Beach in Malaga. Spain is on the list of 59 quarantine-exempt countries that Britons can travel to without needing to isolate for 14 days when they get back home

In Magaluf, Wigan holidaymaker Charmaine Bell, 37, told The Mirror: 'I'm not too worried really, because we work in ASDA we are used to Covid and it really doesn't scare us anymore, we know how to deal with it and be sensible.'

Sunseeker Mark Nolan, 36, added: 'It is a little worrying they could be put on the unsafe list because that was one of the things that put us off coming but to be honest my advice to people at the moment would be to just come.

'It really hasn't been that bad to deal with and we are having great fun, if they did bring in quarantine there is very little we can do about it is there?'

It was yesterday revealed that two people have tested positive for coronavirus in Marbella - the first in the city in 11 days.

The last time Marbella saw coronavirus cases were two diagnoses on July 10, The Sun reports. There were two other cases on July 3.

Whitehall sources said Spain's recent outbreaks are being monitored and the country - or specific regions within it - could be thrown off the quarantine-free travel list all together if a decision is made this week. Pictured: Some British tourists on holiday in Magaluf have shared their snaps to social media

Two British tourists on holiday in Magaluf shared an image of them hugging to social media. Sunseekers can travel to Spain and don't need to quarantine when they get home

Only 25 of the 59 countries on the government's list allow travel without any restrictions when travellers arrive there. Spain (British holidaymakers in Magaluf, pictured) is one of them

CEO of travel consultancy The PC Agency Paul Charles said: 'It makes sense that if cases continue to rise in Spain, it should fall off the list.' Pictured: Some British tourists on holiday in Magaluf have shared their snaps to social media

Also sparking concern, Malaga - which is just a short journey down the coast from Marbella - has seen 23 cases in the last day.

Spain is on the list of 59 quarantine-exempt countries that Britons can travel to without needing to isolate for 14 days when they get back home.

But Whitehall sources have told The Sun that Spain's recent outbreaks are being monitored and the country - or specific regions within it - could be thrown off the list all together if a decision is made this week.

CEO of travel consultancy The PC Agency Paul Charles said: 'It makes sense that if cases continue to rise in Spain, it should fall off the list.

'This is the equivalent of implementing a local lockdown, internationally, but the problem is we are heading into peak holiday season.'

A 'rolling system' for determining the safety of 25 of the 59 countries on the list is set to be introduced whereby information on each destination will be updated frequently - as opposed to reviewed every three weeks.

Only 25 of the 59 allow travel without any restrictions when travellers arrive there.

Tourists walk along the beach without wearing face masks amid coronavirus crisis this week

Barcelona City Council information staff is seen informing some tourists that the access to the beach is closed due to excess capacity

A Spanish Guardia Civil officer watches over revellers in Magaluf as the country tries to balance reopening beachfront bars with protecting against a deadly second wave of cases

Tourists on a night out in Magaluf, Spain, last week. The country faces being taken off the safe list of nations with low coronavirus infection rates after a new spike in cases

To add to the confusion for holidaymakers, the Foreign Office has published its own list of 67 countries where advice against 'all but essential travel' no longer applies. This list already has a rolling system.

This week, a British tourist caused a coronavirus scare in Lanzarote after she tested positive for COVID-19 and is now in quarantine after arriving from the UK for a holiday on the popular Canary island.

Nine other people with whom she had contact with also had to undergo a coronavirus test but all proved negative.

Health authorities on Lanzarote have been testing tourists showing symptoms for Covid-19 and their close contacts. A British woman has tested positive after her husband became symptomatic - although he tested negative for coronavirus

Passengers arriving in Lanzarote have to wear face masks while making their way through the airport. Anyone showing Covid symptoms is tested and risk being placed into quarantine

The Briton is the first holidaymaker from the UK to test positive in Lanzarote since Spain opened its borders on June 21st.

It was actually the woman's husband who felt unwell on arrival at their hotel and had a fever. However, two tests for coronavirus proved negative.

The woman was routinely tested and despite having no symptoms of ill-health whatsoever was the one who was confirmed to have COVID-19.

The island's health department said the coronavirus protocols had been activated at reception on the couple's arrival so they had minimum contact with other people. A specialist team immediately went into action to trace all contacts, including staff.

The health department hasn't specified where the woman is in quarantine or if her husband is with her or if the nine others also have to self-isolate.

Lanzarote currently has eleven active cases of coronavirus: the British tourist, a resident who came from Mexico and went to the Jose Molina Orosa Hospital Emergency Department with symptoms and nine illegal immigrants who tried to smuggle themselves into the island in a tiny boat.

Leaders of the Canaries say other illegal migrants have tested positive and this is giving a wrong impression of the level of coronavirus on the islands which have had a relatively low incidence of infections and deaths.

Last Friday, a boat containing 61 immigrants arrived on the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura and 47 proved positive.

Health chiefs say there is no threat to people's health and the situation is properly under control.

UK announces 79 more coronavirus deaths as daily number of victims continues to drop  but official figures show outbreak may be growing with average new cases 10% higher than last week

By Sam Blanchard Senior Health Reporter For Mailonline

Another 79 people have died of Covid-19 in Britain as official figures released yesterday reveal the daily number of victims is still dropping but cases are still rising in a sign the outbreak is growing.

Department of Health statistics show 64 Britons are succumbing to the illness each day, on average. By contrast, the rate last Wednesday was 75.

Yesterday marked the seventh day in a row that no deaths have been recorded in Scotland and only one death has been counted in the past fortnight, showing the country is on the way to being free of coronavirus.

The number of cases, however, seems to be rising. A further 560 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus, up from 440 the day before, and the seven-day average has been risen 9.2 per cent in the last week.

There are now an average 638 people diagnosed each day, up from 584 seven days ago and from 546 a week before that on July 8.

The increasing average may be a sign the infection has started spreading again, confirming fears of top scientists that 'Super Saturday' would trigger a surge in cases  or it could be a result of more targeted testing.

As Britain's Covid-19 outbreak continues to fade away, ministers this week announced care homes in England will be allowed to reopen for visits for the first time.

Homes now have the green light to work with local authorities and set up visiting systems that allow residents to have one 'constant visitor' each who will be able to pop in regularly provided they book in advance and wear face coverings.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: 'I know how painful it has been for those in care homes not being able to receive visits from their loved ones throughout this period.'

Yesterday's data came as:

Care homes in England are now allowed to reopen to visitors for their residents, as long as they keep social distancing and PPE rules in place';

An outbreak in Spain is worsening so much that officials may be forced to rethink the rules allowing Brits to holiday there without quarantining on return;

Public health experts say hand-shakes could be a thing of the past because of long-term social distancing rules;

A Government SAGE adviser has claimed that there is no proof of children passing Covid-19 to their teachers anywhere in the world;

A top epidemiologist in Sweden said it is likely that anyone who catches coronavirus will not get it again within six months;

The UK Government is considering 'air bridges' to specific regions which have low levels of coronavirus even when a country as a whole has not been deemed safe;

Swiss health officials say the face shields worn by hairdressers and salon staff do not prevent Covid-19 and are no replacement for masks.

Department of Health figures released yesterday showed 140,000 tests were carried out or posted the day before. The number includes antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.

But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery for a month  since May 22.

Health chiefs also reported 560 more people had tested positive for Covid-19. Government data shows the official size of the UK's outbreak now stands at 296,377 cases.

But the actual size of the outbreak, which began to spiral out of control in March, is estimated to be in the millions, based on antibody testing data.

It means the rolling average of daily cases has risen to 638  9 per cent higher than the mean of 584 recorded last Wednesday.

The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.

The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync.

And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon  which only takes into account deaths in hospitals  does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.

For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities 'as soon as they are available'.

The Department of Health has temporarily paused the count on its website after discovering that Public Health England was counting the deaths of everyone who has ever had coronavirus, regardless of their real cause.

Matt Hancock last week ordered a review of how the data is collected because scientists pointed out the daily death tolls were too high because people who were dying of other causes were being included.

Dr Yoon Loke, a pharmacologist at the University of East Anglia, discovered the error and told MailOnline: 'Because of this major flaw in the statistics, and the fact that tens of thousands of older people are being monitored, there is going to be a very very long tail of daily deaths.

'The death toll will go down exceedingly slowly. Its certainly not going to get to zero for months to come yet, because older people who have recovered from Covid-19 will unfortunately still succumb to other illnesses.'

The Government this week announced that people living in care homes in England will be allowed family visits again for the first time since lockdown started in March - but residents will be limited to just one visitor each.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has given care homes the green light to start arranging visits as long as social distancing and protective equipment rules are followed.

But each resident will only be allowed a single nominated visitor who can visit regularly as long as they book in advance and wear a mask and extra PPE if required.

The much-anticipated move brings England in line with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have been allowing visits in care homes for weeks.

Local councils and public health officials in England will decide on a case-by-case basis which homes will be able to reopen, depending on levels of coronavirus in the area.

Mr Hancock said: 'I know how painful it has been for those in care homes not being able to receive visits from their loved ones throughout this period.

'We are now able to carefully and safely allow visits to care homes, which will be based on local knowledge and circumstances for each care home.='It is really important that we don't undo all of the hard work of care homes over the last few months while ensuring families and friends can be safely reunited so we have put in place guidance that protects everyone.'
Rome, N.Y.  A second suspect in a near-fatal stabbing June 19 in Rome has turned himself in.

Earl J. Wright, 32, was arrested about 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Oneida County Jail after turning himself in there on a charge of first-degree gang assault, police said.

Another suspect, Roy C. Wright, 30, is charged with second-degree attempted murder and gang assault in connection with the June 19 stabbing of Lowelle E. Ferguson-Clark on West Liberty Street.

Police did not say if the two suspects are related, but both were free on bond from Orange County on weapons possessions charges.

Nolan Weidner is a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. Got a comment or idea for a story? He can be reached via email at nweidner@syracuse.com.
When you buy shares in a company, it's worth keeping in mind the possibility that it could fail, and you could lose your money. But on a lighter note, a good company can see its share price rise well over 100%. For instance, the price of Hutchison China MediTech Limited (LON:HCM) stock is up an impressive 162% over the last five years. On top of that, the share price is up 28% in about a quarter.

See our latest analysis for Hutchison China MediTech

Because Hutchison China MediTech made a loss in the last twelve months, we think the market is probably more focussed on revenue and revenue growth, at least for now. Generally speaking, companies without profits are expected to grow revenue every year, and at a good clip. That's because fast revenue growth can be easily extrapolated to forecast profits, often of considerable size.

For the last half decade, Hutchison China MediTech can boast revenue growth at a rate of 9.2% per year. That's a fairly respectable growth rate. Broadly speaking, this solid progress may well be reflected by the healthy share price gain of 21% per year over five years. It's well worth monitoring the growth trend in revenue, because if growth accelerates, that might signal an opportunity. Accelerating growth can be a sign of an inflection point - and could indicate profits lie ahead. Worth watching 100%

The company's revenue and earnings (over time) are depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

Hutchison China MediTech is well known by investors, and plenty of clever analysts have tried to predict the future profit levels. Given we have quite a good number of analyst forecasts, it might be well worth checking out this free chart depicting consensus estimates.

A Different Perspective

We're pleased to report that Hutchison China MediTech shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 32% over one year. Since the one-year TSR is better than the five-year TSR (the latter coming in at 21% per year), it would seem that the stock's performance has improved in recent times. In the best case scenario, this may hint at some real business momentum, implying that now could be a great time to delve deeper. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Hutchison China MediTech you should know about.

Story continues

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies we expect will grow earnings.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on GB exchanges.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Wednesday the federal government has signed a contract with Pfizer Inc. for 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, once it is approved.

"We just signed a contract with global pharmaceutical leader Pfizer to produce 100 million doses of vaccine starting in December of this year with an option to buy a half a billion doses," Azar said on Fox News. "Now those would of course have to be safe and effective."

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>>> NA Chairwoman visits policy beneficiary families in Quang Nam, Da Nang

>>> Activities held to pay tribute to national contributors

The handover took place at a ceremony held in Tam Ky City, the capital of Quang Nam Province, on July 21. Organised by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in coordination with local authorities, the event is part of various activities being held nationwide to mark the 73rd anniversary of Vietnam Wounded and Fallen Soldiers Day (July 27).

On behalf of the Party and State leaders, NA Chairwoman Ngan joined other senior officials to grant the national remembrance certificates to 73 relatives of martyrs' families from various provinces and cities throughout the country, one part of 580 certificates to be awarded during this years event.

The top legislator paid tribute to the martyrs who scarified their lives for the Fatherlands independence, as well as giving her deep gratitude to other national contributors. She emphasised that, during the most recent resistance wars for the nations independence and reunification, millions of soldiers and compatriots fell, while many others returned home no longer healthy or suffering from severe post-war consequences.

She said that to honour the great sacrifices and contributions by martyrs, heroic Vietnamese mothers, war invalids and people with meritorious services to the nation, during the past 73 years, the Party, State and Vietnamese people always pay attention to the work of paying tribute to war invalids, martyrs and people with meritorious services to the country, reflected in the promulgation of various guidelines, policies and laws on preferential treatment for such groups, while also regularly reviewing to make timely amendments and supplements to ensuring the proper implementation of such preferential policies.

NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan speaks at the ceremony. (Photo: NDO/Tan Nguyen)



NA Chairwoman Ngan proposed that the MOLISA should continue perfecting policies and laws on incentives for people with meritorious services to the revolution, as well as boosting the review and confirmation of unresolved documents on this target group to offset their suffering and losses.

She also called on the relevant sectors, localities, socio-political organisations and compatriots both at home and abroad to work together to take better care of people with meritorious service to the nation, considering it as an affection, honour and responsibility to those who have made a great contribution to the cause of national liberation, reunification, construction and defence.

The NA leader expressed her hope that the wounded soldiers, veterans and families of the meritorious people would continue to promote their revolutionary tradition to gain more achievements and become good examples in the patriotic emulation movements, thereby contributing to firmly building and defending the Fatherland.

On the occasion, the organisers presented 20 gratitude houses, each worth VND50 million, to the families of Quang Nams social policy beneficiaries, in addition to 200 scholarships, each including a gift and VND1 million in cash, to local disadvantaged students.

Earlier, on the morning of the same day, NA Chairwoman Ngan and other senior leaders joined local officials in offering flowers and burning incense for fallen soldiers and heroic Vietnamese mothers at the Quang Nam Martyrs Cemetery and the Heroic Vietnamese Mother Monument in Tam Phu Commune, Tam Ky City.
My kids are asking about that. They are saying, papa, why are you treated in a different way than the Japanese? he said. I dont know what to say to them. We are living here, we are working here, we are paying taxes. We are enjoying life in Japan.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has brought uncertainty to our community, its also highlighted areas of food insecurity in vulnerable populations of the county.

To help, the Deerwood Community Center Coalition, the Texas Familias Council and Creative Outreach have partnered to host a food drive each Saturday at the Deerwood Community Center east of Conroe.

The next one is set for this Saturday at 11 a.m. at 3859 West Forest Road in the Deerwood community near Cut and Shoot.

Food items and milk will be distributed. While some basic information will be collected, the food drive is open to anyone.

Food items will be placed in the participants vehicle. The service will continue until the food runs out.

According to Maria Banos Jordan with the Texas Familias Council, DiMare Fresh distribution donates approximately 1,500 boxes of produce each Saturday and Borden Dairy came on in mid June to donate 1,500 gallons of milk each Saturday.

The first drive on June 6 helped 349 families. Jordan said this past Saturdays line was so long that it wrapped around the Deerwood community.

Volunteers also took time this past Saturday to honor Deerwood community leader Diana Salinas. Salinas, 54, passed away due to COVID-19 on Friday.

She said the need continues to grow and on Saturday they ran out of food earlier than previous Saturdays. The organizer are also considering grants to continue the food drive.

Anyone who would like to volunteer to help distribute the food may reach out to Gabriela Gonzalez at 832-459-4570 or Maria Banos Jordan at 832-527-7251.

shernandez@hcnonline.com
A prominent Pakistani journalist known for his criticism of the military has returned home after being kidnapped in Islamabad one day before he was scheduled to appear in court over a tweet critical of Pakistan's judges and military.



Matiullah Jan, who was found safe 12 hours after being abducted on July 21, told Pakistan's private TV channel Geo News he was blindfolded and taken to an unknown location after being shoved into the assailants' car.



He said he was then driven around the city before being released in Fateh Jang, about 45 kilometers outside the capital. A close friend and fellow journalist, Azaz Syed, published a photo of Jan after his release.



Jan, a freelancer who has worked for local and international news outlets, was due to appear in the Supreme Court this week after the court took notice of the alleged contemptuous tweet, the newspaper Dawn reported.



Khawaja Asif, a former foreign minister and senior leader in the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), held a news conference to condemn Jan's disappearance.



Jan "has talked about media and journalism," Asif said, noting the court hearing on July 22. "To take him into custody now is an attempt to silence him and his journalism," Asif said, according to Dawn.



He said the PML-N would support people who are targeted after speaking against the government, adding that the manner in which journalists have been silenced in Pakistan "does not happen in civilized societies."



Jan was abducted by several unidentified men after they intercepted his car, his colleague Asad Toor said. Footage from surveillance cameras showed men dragging a driver out of a vehicle and pushing him into another car before driving away.



"There were more than five people -- some in civilian clothes, others in black uniforms -- who forcibly picked up my husband," Jan's wife, Kaneez Sughra, told AFP. She said her husband had been followed by unknown men in recent weeks.



Information Minister Shibli Faraz also confirmed the journalist's abduction, according to Dawn.



Leading politicians, activists, and journalists had called for the journalist's release on Twitter, with the hashtag #BringBackMatiullah trending in the country.



Jan, who has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for the past three decades, has been intimidated, harassed, and attacked in the past, his friend Azaz Syed said.



He was fired by Pakistan's Waqt TV station, allegedly under pressure from the military, which has been a frequent target of his criticism.



A spokesperson for the military declined to comment on Jans case.



Pakistans military plays an outsized role in the domestic and foreign affairs of the South Asian country of around 220 million and critical reporting of the institution is not tolerated.



Journalists and bloggers inside Pakistan have complained of intimidation tactics including kidnappings, beatings, and even killings if they cross a red line in their reporting on the military.



Several Pakistani journalists were briefly detained in recent months, allegedly by the military's spy agency, in what is thought to be an attempt to silence criticism of the powerful military.



The military has denied the accusations.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, Dawn, and AP
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

Uzbekistan exported more than 2068.3 tons of watermelons as of July 1 2020 , Trend reports with reference to Uzbekistan National News Agency.

Uzbekistan exported $886,400 worth of watermelons in the first half of 2020.

The largest batch of watermelons was shipped to Russia (1,179 tons), but this is 228 tons less than the same period of 2019.

In the first five month of 2020, total revenue from fruits and vegetables supplied to Russia exceeded $100 million for the first time in this period.

In addition, Uzbek watermelons have been sent to Belarus, Estonia, Mongolia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and the UAE.

The largest volume of watermelons was grown in the Surkhandarya region (54,900 tons) and the Kashkadarya region (36,800 tons). Moreover, these two regions account for almost 45 percent of Uzbekistan's melon production.

Earlier, Uzbekistans Kashkadarya region started exporting yellow watermelons of Chillaki S1 variety to Russia, at the price of 55 cents per kilogram.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
Sindhuja Jane By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu on Wednesday reported 5,849 new Covid-19 cases, the highest single-day figure yet, while the toll reached 3,144 as the State Health Department recorded 444 deaths in Chennai based on the report of a reconciliation committee.

The state also reported 74 deaths on the day. With this Chennai's mortality rises to 2.1 per cent while the States mortality rate stands at 1.6 per cent. Tamil Nadus COVID tally is now 1,86,492. Elaborating on the reconciliation process, health secretary J Radhakrishnan said that deaths at close to 102 government hospitals and at burial grounds in Chennai were studied as per ICMR guidelines and accounted for in the states official death toll.

Two suicide deaths and also deaths that occurred before COVID tests were taken have also been categorised as COVID deaths, he said. As per ICMR guidelines, all deaths of COVID patients are counted irrespective of underlying or antecedent causes.

It is not just Tamil Nadu which has seen such a problem, mismatch in death records have also been reported from Maharastra and Delhi," he pointed out. The states media bulletin explained that details of the deaths of COVID positive persons under the Greater Chennai Corporation were collected from March 1. The data was compiled by Directorate of Medical Education for Medical College Institutions and Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services for their own institutions and private hospitals.

"The Committee has recommended that an additional 444 deaths would also fall under the category of virus casualties... though such cases were medically considered as deaths due to co-morbidity or other terminal illness," the bulletin said.

The state had formed a committee to reconcile a mismatch in COVID death figures by comparing details of deaths from institutions and data obtained from Corporation burial grounds.

20 lakh people tested

The new single-day spike in cases came as the State tested a whopping 58,475 people and 60,112 samples. As many as 20,15,147 people have now been tested in TN. On the day, 4,910 people were discharged from hospitals after the treatment.

The number of cases reported from Chennai remains stable with 1,171 cases being added to the tally. However, the number of cases in other districts continues to rise. Chennai's neighbouring districts of Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur reported 223, 325 and 430 cases respectively.

Plasma bank inaugurated

Health Minister C Vijayabaskar inaugurated a plasma bank set up at a cost of Rs 2.34 crore at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on Wednesday. Later speaking to reporters, the minister said that plasma therapy had been successful in Tamil Nadu. The plasma trial approved by the ICMR has been completed successfully, he said.

People who complete 14 days after testing negative for the virus and who dont have comorbidities can donate plasma, the minister said.


STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- Artist Alley, a safe-space for artwork located directly next to Richmond Hood Co. in West Brighton, received a makeover this week.

In a continued effort to bring awareness to the message the ongoing civil rights movement, Projectivity has commissioned a memorial mural of Congressman John Lewis by artist Damien Mitchell. This is one of many Black Lives Matter murals to appear throughout the borough.

Its an honor to take part in this project, Mitchell told the Advance/SILive.com. If we can use art to start some conversations and spread a message, Im happy to help any way I can.

The mural took the artist 15 hours and was modeled after a photo taken by photographer Anthony Geathers. This is Mitchells first piece on Staten Island and was connected with Richmond Hood Co. owner Tariq Zaid and Projectivity founder Christian Penn through industry friends familiar with their efforts. He is originally from Australia and paints wall murals across the country.

In a continued effort to bring awareness to the message the ongoing civil rights movement, Projectivity has commissioned a memorial mural of Congressman John Lewis by artist Damien Mitchell. This is the mural, located on the side of Richmond Hood Co., on July 21, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/ Victoria Priola)

The mural is located in the same Artist Alley area as the Wu-Tang-inspired wall painting for climate change titled Climate Change Aint Nothin to Mess With. Artist Alley has been a venue for community events like Coolin on Castleton and music video shoots.

I was speaking with [Tariq] and [Christian] about my ideas on their proposed Black Lives Matter wall and exactly that day, John Lewis passed, Mitchell said. It seemed very timely to do a portrait of someone who stood up for rights and freedom the way he did.

This isnt the only art piece inspired by a civil rights activist completed through Projectivity. Vincent Ballentine, a mural artist based in Brooklyn, completed a massive mural of Erica Garner on Wave Street in Tompkinsville. Projectivity announced via social media shortly after the first mural that it would sponsor a series of artwork throughout Staten Island to bring attention to the Black Lives Matter movement.

It was important to reach out to different artists of color to contribute to the block, to amplify their voices, Penn said. I took a step back from painting this year and am giving my two spots to other artists so they can share their messages. Projectivity recognizes the separation and division taking place in our country and in our local communities, and we want to send a message of love, awareness, hope and change through the arts.

Richmond Hood Co. is located at 827 Castleton Ave. For more information on Projectivity, follow the collective on Instagram.
As a federal judge, Esther Salas has presided over thousands of cases. Several of them have been high-profile, including the convictions of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" stars Teresa and Joe Giudice and the sentencing of members of the Grape Street Crips. But now a 2015 lawsuit over the military draft is receiving national attention after an attorney in the case is the suspect in her son's death.

A female teenager sued the Selective Service System five years ago because she could not register for the male-only draft. In her most recent opinion on the case, filed in spring 2019, Salas sided with part of the plaintiff's argument, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.

The plaintiff's attorney at the time was Roy Den Hollander, a self-proclaimed anti-feminist lawyer, is also the primary suspect in the fatal shooting that took place at Salas' New Jersey home Sunday evening, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.

MORE: 'Anti-feminist' lawyer identified as shooter who killed Judge Esther Salas' son then self

Hollander allegedly posed as a FedEx employee when he approached Salas' home and shot her husband, Mark Anderl, and her son, Daniel Anderl, 20, before escaping in a car, according to sources. Daniel Anderl died from his injuries, and Mark Anderl was critically injured and rushed to the hospital. Salas was unharmed. On Monday, Hollander was found dead by police in an apparent suicide, according to investigators.

PHOTO: NORTH BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY - JULY 20: A view of the home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas. on July 20, 2020 in North Brunswick, New Jersey. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

That civil rights suit appears to be the only time Hollander argued before Salas in court. More insights into the case, and Hollander's feelings toward Salas, may be gleaned from an autobiography published on his personal website.

In it, the now late attorney accused Salas of delaying the years-long case because she was "apparently scared of making a decision one way or the other."

"If she ruled draft registration unconstitutional, the Feminists who believed females deserved preferential treatment would criticize her. If she ruled that it did not violate the Constitution, then those Feminists who advocate for equal treatment would criticize her. Either way it was lose-lose for Salas unless someone took the risk of leading the way," Hollander wrote.

Story continues

MORE: Murder of Judge Esther Salas' son highlights surge in threats to federal judges and their families

He also disparaged the ethnicity of Salas, who became the first Latina woman to serve on the federal bench in New Jersey after former President Barack Obama nominated her for the position. "Female judges didn't bother me as long as they were middle age or older black ladies," he wrote. "Latinas, however, were usually a problem -- driven by an inferiority complex." In another passage, he wrote that Salas was a "lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama." In discussing the court proceedings, he praised "older white-male judges."

Hollander further criticized Salas' accomplished resume, writing that "affirmative action got her into and through college and law school," and dismissed her private practice and public defender work. Her one accomplishment, he wrote, was "high school cheerleader."

PHOTO: This undated photo provided by the Rutgers Law School shows U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, right, during a conference at the Rutgers Law School in Newark, N.J. with appellate Judge Thomas Sumners. (Rutgers Law School via AP)

Hollander was replaced last June as the female plaintiff's lawyer in the lawsuit. The court docket did not indicate a reason for his replacement, though a managing partner for Boies Schiller Flexner told CNN that Hollander asked the law firm to take over the case because he was terminally ill. In Hollander's autobiography, he wrote that he was diagnosed with melanoma in 2018.

MORE: Salas shooter linked to California murder of men's rights attorney: Sources

Hollander is also the leading suspect in the murder of an attorney in California earlier this month, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News. According to sources, officials are investigating whether the attacks were grudge killings committed by Hollander after he knew he was dying.

ABC News' Jack Date, Aaron Katersky and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.

Gunman who killed Judge Esther Salas' son disparaged her as a Latina originally appeared on abcnews.go.com


The United States has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, Texas. The order is the latest step taken by the U.S. to increase pressure on China over trade, technology, human rights and security issues.

The U.S. State Department released a statement early Wednesday saying the diplomatic office was closed in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that China received the order Tuesday night. He said the order represented an escalation of recent actions against China. He accused the U.S. of targeting Chinese diplomats and threatening Chinese students. Wang warned that China would answer if United States policy did not change.

At the consulate in Houston on Tuesday night, reports of papers being burned caused firefighters to arrive but they were barred from entering. A local Houston television station showed video of smoke coming from an area inside the consulate. Houston police said workers there were burning documents in open containers in preparation for being ordered out. China has until Friday to close down the consulate.

The business group Greater Houston Partnership expressed regret at the announcement. It says the consulate, first opened in 1979, has been important in building trade, investment and cultural ties between the two countries.

The U.S. also has decided not to reopen its consulate in the city of Wuhan, which has been closed since late January. Wuhan was the center of the start of the new coronavirus outbreak in China. A U.S. official who did not have permission to discuss the issue told reporters that the move might ease Chinas answer to the closure of the Houston consulate.

More pressures from the U.S.

Relations between the worlds two largest economies have steadily worsened in recent months.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has denounced China for its treatment of ethnic minorities. As a result, the U.S. Commerce Department placed restrictions on 11 Chinese companies over human rights abuses in the Xinjiang area.

As China established a new security law over Hong Kong, the U.S. said it would no longer treat Hong Kong as an autonomous territory from the mainland government. It said Hong Kong could face visa limits and economic measures similar to China.

Last week, the U.S. State Department rejected Chinas claims to most of the South China Sea. In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the claims are completely unlawful. Pompeo added the U.S. would consider protecting other countries in the area against China through legal means. And a State Department official suggested that economic measures could be placed on Chinese officials over the issue.

President Trump also blames China for mistakes in controlling the spread of the new coronavirus, which led to more than 600,000 deaths around the world.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department charged two Chinese citizens with stealing intellectual property and targeting companies developing a coronavirus vaccine. The Justice Department says the two researched computer networks of biotechnology companies that were developing vaccines, testing devices and antiviral drugs.

Federal officials said that the two were not being held by law enforcement officials and that it was unlikely they would be brought to an American court. The U.S. and its allies have also accused Russia of trying to steal Western research into coronavirus vaccines and treatments.

Im Jonathan Evans.

Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English from VOA News and Associated Press reports. Hai Do was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

intellectual property n. property such as ideas, inventions and processes that come from intellectual work

escalation n. to increase or to become more tense or severe

autonomous adj. having the power to govern itself
Yes, rich people are getting private instructors because, one, they can afford it and, two, because they arent allowed to just bribe colleges anymore, he quipped. And here we have yet another way the education gap in America is going to become even wider. ... If this generation comes out of school not being able to read, what jobs are going to be available to them? I mean, president for sure, but what else? So thats where America is right now.
Summary:

- 2020-21 Medical Tourism Index released during COVID-19 global pandemic

- Dubai maintains its authority as top Arab destination for the second edition in a row

- Dubai and Abu Dhabi significantly rise in rankings in the Global Medical Tourism Index

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Healthcare Research Center (IHRC) is publishing a special edition of its Medical Tourism Index (MTI) that specifically focuses on destinations from the Arab World. This updated Arab compilation is one segment of the larger Medical Tourism Index, which covers 46 unique destinations across five continents. Twelve of the overall 46 destination are counted in the Arab Medical Tourism Index, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Tunisia, Qatar, Lebanon, and Kuwait.

Dubai, which was also recognized as the top Arab destination in 2016, has retained its position as the top destination in the Arab world, and this year in the Middle East, according to the index. "We are not surprised to see both Dubai and Abu Dhabi rise in the 2020-2021 Global Medical Tourism Index and to be at the top of the Arab Index, ranked #1 and #2, respectively. Both Emirates have strong, committed leadership through Dubai Health Authority and the Department of Health Abu Dhabi, and are supported by the government of the United Arab Emirates in its medical tourism initiatives. Both Emirates are driven to become global leaders in healthcare with sustainable growth strategies in the medical tourism and wellness travel industries," says Renee-Marie Stephano, one of the developers of the Index, and CEO of Global Healthcare Resources.

Dubai also rose 10 slots to #6 in the global ranking and Abu Dhabi rose 16 points to #9 of 46 destinations ranked in the 2020-2021 Global Medical Tourism Index. "The return on investment is obvious in the rankings when the government and private sector come together with a singular focus to transform the perception of a destination for medical tourism through accountability, commitment to quality and accreditation, and dedicated marketing and business development initiatives," added Stephano. The Arab Medical Tourism Index also includes information and analysis on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. Destinations are judged on comprehensive criteria that spans multiple dimensions and over 40 criteria for industry success, including Patient Experience, Medical Tourism Industry, Cost, Safety, and more.

MENA is a critically important area to study for a variety of reasons. Historically, many of the economies in the region have relied on petroleum development and the energy sector, but modern conservation movements have made clear the need for economic diversity in many of these countries. Arab destinations - particularly those in the GCC - have diverted revenue streams and sought to build up healthcare and tourism infrastructure, in a bid to capitalize on the USD 100 billion medical tourism industry. Medical Tourism has resulted in significant investment in and the development of healthcare cities and centers of excellence as destinations compete to global leaders in healthcare delivery.

The Arab Index highlights the many strengths of the region, including easy-access medical visas, integrated hospitality offerings, unique sightseeing opportunities, state-of-the-art facilities, and exploding private capital sectors.

"The COVID-19 novel coronavirus has put both inbound and outbound Arab medical tourism on hold temporarily. Each nation has developed its own approach containing the virus and reopening. The future rankings and index in the Arab nations may look significantly different in the future depending on how well each nation addresses COVID-19 and recovers economically, inevitably, medical travel will rely upon public private partnerships and solid collaboration now more than ever before," adds Stephano.

Currently, billions of dollars are spent every year on medical travel into and out of the GCC and MENA. As patient mobility returns, new patterns of referral will create new opportunities and challenges related to trust and safety, requiring the entire medical tourism sector to come together. Some organizations, like Global Healthcare Accreditation are already taking the lead to frame consumer confidence in healthcare destinations through its COVID-19 Guidelines and Certification of Conformance for Medical Travel. Accreditation programs for medical travel likely will have a positive result on destination rankings which delineate safety and trust among the most important criteria in selecting a medical tourism destination.

The Medical Tourism Index is available for purchase at a temporarily discounted price at MedicalTourismIndex.com and the Arab Index is available as an add-on at checkout.

International Healthcare Research Center

The International Healthcare Research Center is a 501c (3) non-profit research organization, dedicated to conducting research and delivering reliable information and actionable strategic insight in the following areas:

International patient experiences & outcomes

Trends & analysis of international patient care

Global health insurance

Employer-based healthcare trends

Population health management

Patient demographics

Hospital quality

Government healthcare policy

Corporate wellness

Wellness trends

Medical tourism research

The primary goal of the International Healthcare Research Center (IHRC) is to promote transparency and improve global healthcare quality, population health management, expanded access to care, and the consumer healthcare experience.

Global Healthcare Resources

Global Healthcare Resources is an international solutions firm providing strategic execution within the industries of employer healthcare, medical tourism, wellness tourism, self-insurance, and corporate wellness. Global Healthcare Resources meets hundreds of thousands of professionals with thought leadership through more than a decade of its associations, trade events, certifications, publications, cited research, and collaborated content.

Reaching over 2.6 million professionals, GHR is a custom-tailored consulting firm with the ability to augment the strategy and growth of any business in the field. Global Healthcare Resources is an industry research partner of IHRC.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1218163/Arab_MTI_Chart_V4_Infographic.jpg
Priti Patel has launched a review into the role of Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales in a bid to help improve 'accountability, scrutiny and transparency'.

The Home Secretary said the review, which comes eight years after the position was introduced in 2012, will give the public a greater say over policing and allow them to hold PCCs to account.

The review, which will take place in two parts, will also also look at ways to strengthen the accountability of fire and rescue services.

Priti Patel has launched a review into the role of Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales eight years after the position was introduced in 2012

Announcing the new review, Ms Patel said: 'The British people want to know the police will uphold the law and then be held to account on that basis.

'This review will help to improve accountability, scrutiny and transparency, ensuring Police and Crime Commissioners always put the law-abiding silent majority who voted for them at the centre of their decision-making.'

Meanwhile Minister for Crime and Policing Kit Malthouse said: 'We are committed to giving the police the powers and resources they need  its why were recruiting an additional 20,000 officers and are giving the biggest funding increase to policing in a decade.

Last year Cambridgeshire PCC Jason Ablewhite, 47, was forced to resign after he sent pictures of his private parts to a woman he met on a tour of his constabulary

'This review will help PCCs to deliver effective police forces who can cut crime and protect their communities. It will also ensure voters can hold PCCs accountable for performance  giving the public a stronger voice in matters of crime and justice.'

Measures will include raising the profile of PCCs, giving the public better access to information about their performance in the role, and looking at how they scrutinise chief constables.

It comes after the Conservative Party's general election manifesto pledged to give more powers to PCCs and expand their role.

Kent's former police commissioner Ann Barnes was widely criticised in 2014 when she was filmed saying she had 'no idea' what her taxpayer-funded job during a Channel 4 documentary

The first phase of the review will begin in late July, with a report in October looking at the changes needed ahead of the PCC elections next year.

The second phase, taking place after the elections, will look at how the role can be expanded to include working to tackle reoffending and other ways of helping to reduce crime.

The review will not look at replacing PCCs with a different model or review the country's 43 police force structure.

In recent years a number of PCC's have come under scrutiny for their performance.

Former Police Commissioner Ann Barnes was widely criticised in 2014 when she was filmed saying she had 'no idea' what her taxpayer-funded job entailed in an hour-long show on Channel 4's Meet The Police Commissioner.

In 2017 Matthew Scott, who was elected PCC for Kent after Ann Barnes, forgot to put his handbrake on while parking at Kent Police's headquarters in Maidstone

She later apologised to rank-and-file officers about the documentary at a meeting held by Kent and Medway police and admitted that 'with hindsight' it was the wrong decision to feature in it.

In 2017, Kent's Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott was given 'words of advice' on how to park his car after he forgot to put his handbrake on, causing the vehicle to roll out of the car park.

Mr Scott had parked his silver Renault at the HQ in Maidstone before stepping out of the vehicle and locking the doors.

The car then rolled backwards out of the entrance, turned and crossed a foot path on to a grass verge, narrowly missing a lamppost.

A spokesman for Kent Police later said that Mr Scott had been given 'words of advice' by officials.

Last year Cambridgeshire PCC Jason Ablewhite, 47, was forced to resign after he sent pictures of his private parts to a woman he met on a tour of his constabulary.

Cambridgeshire PCC Jason Ablewhite, 47, handed in his notice last month after sending the explicit images to a 50-year-old woman.

The woman later told The Sun she 'cried her eyes out' after receiving the pictures from the father-of-two and felt so 'violated' she was sick.
China's proposals at the first China + Central Asia (C+C5) foreign ministers' meeting held via video link are extremely important and promising, a renowned Kyrgyz expert said Tuesday.

Noting that the Central Asian countries will need help because of the economic recession amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Denis Berdakov, director of the Cross-Border Research Network of Central Eurasia Public Foundation, commended in an exclusive interview with Xinhua the proposals for cooperation put forward by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Wang proposed to jointly defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, promote economic recovery, safeguard regional security and strengthen multilateral cooperation.

China's proposal to build a China-Central Asia community of health is a new idea in need amid the coronavirus pandemic, Berdakov said.

"The provision of modern vaccines, medical equipment and high-quality medical services is an extremely important and necessary initiative," he highlighted.

He noted that China also proposed the creation of mutually beneficial transport infrastructure in the Central Asian countries, facilitation of investments and the elimination of administrative barriers in Central Asia.

It means "to 'wash away' interstate tariffs and customs borders between countries -- to create free movement of labor and transport corridors," he said.

In the meeting hosted by Wang, China and five Central Asian countries agreed to launch a foreign ministers' meeting mechanism to meet regularly to jointly address challenges, and pursue development and prosperity, according to a joint statement issued by the ministers on Thursday.
Tonopah West Optioned to Blackrock for US$3,000,000, Retained 3% NSR

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Ely Gold Royalties Inc. (TSXV: ELY) (OTCQX: ELYGF) ("Ely Gold") is very pleased to acknowledge the recent significant drill results disclosed by Blackrock Gold Corp. ("Blackrock") on its Tonopah West Project ("Tonopah West") located on the Walker Lane trend of Western Nevada (see press releases dated July 20, 2020). Ely Gold optioned the consolidated Tonopah West Project to Black Rock Gold in April of this year (the "Blackrock Agreement") (see news release dated April 3, 2020) under an option to purchase agreement, for a total of US$3,000,000 over four years while retaining a 3% NSR.

The Tonopah West Project includes 98 patented claims and 17 unpatented claims located in Esmeralda and Nye Counties, Nevada. Ely Gold consolidated the western portion of the Tonopah District in a series of transactions over the past four years, having most recently purchased the 73 patented mining claims where current drill targets are located (see news release dated February 3, 2020 and April 3, 2020). Ely Gold acquired 100% of the 73 Tonopah Extension Claims for a cash consideration of US$650,000 and issuing 600,000 Ely Gold share purchase warrants to a private company.

Trey Wasser, President & CEO of Ely Gold stated, "The high-grade silver and gold results from Blackrock's drill campaign released this week are extremely encouraging. We would like to congratulate entire Blackrock Team on their successful exploration program at Tonopah West. This is an exciting Nevada discovery and we look forward to more positive news from subsequent drill campaigns. The consolidation and sale of Tonopah West is an excellent example of our successful and profitable Royalty Generation Program."

The Tonopah District

The entire Tonopah District is an epithermal precious metal deposit of the quartz-adularia type, which may be divided into gold-rich and silver-rich subtypes. The Tonopah West Property is a prominent example of the silver-rich subtype. Some silver-rich quartz-adularia type deposits have significant base metal content, but Tonopah is relatively base metal poor. The only larger deposit of this type known in the United States is the Comstock Lode, a relatively gold-rich deposit, which has greater total production of both gold and silver than Tonopah. The Tonopah District has a historical production of 174 million ounces of silver and 1.86 million ounces of gold.

Story continues

Qualified Person

Stephen Kenwood, P. Geo, is director of the Company and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Kenwood has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release.

About Ely Gold Royalties Inc.

Ely Gold Royalties Inc. is a Nevada focused gold royalty company. Its current portfolio includes royalties on the Jerritt Canyon, Goldstrike and Marigold, three of Nevada's largest gold mines, as well as the Fenelon mine in Quebec, operated by Wallbridge Mining. The Company continues to actively seek opportunities to purchase producing or near-term producing royalties. Ely Gold also generates development royalties through property sales on projects that are located at or near producing mines. Management believes that due to the Company's ability to locate and purchase third-party royalties, its strategy of organically creating royalties and its gold focus, Ely Gold offers shareholders a favourable leverage to gold prices and low-cost access to long-term gold royalties in safe mining jurisdictions.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Signed "Trey Wasser"

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

trey@elygoldinc.com

972-803-3087

Joanne Jobin, Investor Relations Officer

jjobin@elygoldinc.com

647 964 0292

FORWARD-LOOKING CAUTIONS: This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including, but not limited to, statements regarding completion of the Transaction. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include the Company's inability to control whether the buy-down right will ever be exercised, and whether the right of first refusal will ever be triggered, uncertainty as to whether any mining will occur on the property covered by the Probe Royalty such that the Company will receive any payment therefrom, and the general risks and uncertainties relating to the mineral exploration, development and production business. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effect.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60238
An eruption of gunfire outside a funeral home that left 15 injured on Chicago's South Side Tuesday was part of an ongoing conflict between rival gang members, police say.

Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said the man whose funeral was being held at the time of the incident had been killed in a drive-by shooting last week, in retaliation for a previous shooting.

Police said a group of people had gathered outside a funeral home in the Gresham neighborhood Tuesday when three men pulled up in a stolen car and two opened fire.

Mourners at the funeral returned fire, the stolen car crashed a short distance away and the three occupants fled on foot, police said.

Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said Wednesday the rival gang factions were repeating a troubling cycle of violence and revenge.

'We can't keep meting out violence with violence,' Brown said. 'An eye for an eye makes us both blind. It's destroying our families and perpetuates this endless cycle of gunshot victims night after night.'

CCTV footage believed to be from the incident shows the horrifying moment mourners are shot at while standing outside the funeral home. A dark car is seen pulling up by the pavement where attendees of the funeral are gathered. Gunshots can then be heard and the people run for cover from the bullets

The car pulls forward and more shots can be heard amid the screams, before it reverses out of view

Police investigate the scene of the shooting Tuesday - in what marked yet another day of shocking violence in the city

Brown revealed that at least 60 shell casings were recovered from the scene. The violence unfolded despite police having two squad cars outside the funeral home as well as a tactical team deployed to the neighborhood.

The extensive measures are regularly employed by the department as a precaution for funerals involving a gang member or those linked to gangs.

'We had intelligence that the deceased was killed in a drive-by shooting ... and there was a gang connection and we deployed our resources accordingly,' he told reporters at a news conference.

All those who were shot in the crossfire were adults. Police said Wednesday that two were in critical condition and the other 13 who were injured are expected to recover.

The two men in their 30s in critical condition are 'known to police,' CPD said.

They said one person of interest was taken in for questioning Tuesday night and on Wednesday police declined to provide further details.

The shooting comes as the Department of Homeland Security is planning to deploy dozens of federal agents to Chicago to deal with a significant uptick in violent crime in the city. Neither Brown nor Mayor Lori Lightfoot commented at the news conference on the planned increased federal presence in the city.

Lightfoot, after threatening to sue if President Donald Trump acted without her permission, had noted on Tuesday that the city would be working with federal agents to fight crime.

The Mayor has been skeptical of federal agents being sent to Chicago by Trump due to the controversy seen in Portland, Oregon, where the president deployed federal officers after weeks of protests there over police brutality and racial injustice.

Lightfoot, after threatening to sue if President Donald Trump acted without her permission, had noted on Tuesday that the city would be working with federal agents to fight crime

This came just hours after she vowed 'under no circumstance' to let Trump send his troops to Chicago

A mass shooting has left 14 people injured after an ambush at a funeral home on Chicago's South Side. Pictured police are on the scene outside the funeral home after a shooting in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood of Chicago

Police photograph the crime scene. Authorities said at least 60 bullets were fired in the shootout Tuesday evening when people inside a car opened fire on the funeral party, who then returned fire on the vehicle

Chicago police investigate the scene of the shooting as night falls. One person has been taken into custody

Lightfoot said she expects Chicago will receive resources that will plug into existing federal agencies that already work with the city, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Oregons governor and Portlands mayor have expressed anger with the presence of the federal agents, saying that the citys protests had started to ease just as the federal agents started taking action.

Trump has framed such protests in the nation's large cities as a failure by 'liberal Democrats' who run them, praised the officers actions and said he was looking to send agents to other cities.

He pointed to rising gun violence in Chicago, the nations third-largest city, where more than 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend.

On Tuesday, those shot outside the funeral home included 10 women from the ages of 21 and 65, including one of whom was shot in the chest, police said.

The 65-year-old was treated at the scene and is now said to be in a stable condition.

Other victims include a man who was shot in the chest, arm and forearm, and two men, 32 and 22, who were shot in a hand, police said.

'This can't happen,' Deenihan said Wednesday as he urged witnesses to come forward. 'You can't drive down the street and indiscriminately shoot in to a crowd of people and then flee the scene.'

'This is an ongoing gang conflict where individuals are shooting at each other, and obviously those individuals then have no interest in cooperating with police,' he continued.

The number of shooters is currently unknown but one 'person of interest' is being interviewed by detectives

Carter (pictured) said the mass shooting began when a black vehicle sped along the road outside the funeral home traveling west on 79th Street and people inside began firing shots at funeral attendees

Carter said they could not confirm how many shooters there were on both sides but a total of 60 shell casings had been recovered from the scene (the scene above)

The total number of shooters on both sides of the firefight is currently unknown.

Fire officials said nine of the victims were taken to hospitals by emergency services, while at least two others drove themselves to hospital.

One witness told NBC Chicago described the city's streets like 'a war', saying they heard gunfire before seeing 'bodies laying everywhere' in the street.

'All we saw was just bodies laying everywhere,' Arnita Gerder said.

'Shot up everywhere, all over. Legs, stomach, back, all over the place. We thought it was a war out here.'

'We saw a car with about six bullet holes in it and it was turned facing the grass like he lost control. We saw a hat down on the ground and evidently it was his,' another witness Kenneth Hughes told NBC Chicago.

More gun violence struck early Wednesday. A few miles away in the citys South Shore neighborhood, a 3-year-old girl was hospitalized in serious condition after being shot in the head while riding in a vehicle with her parents, police said. Her parents told police two people fired at them from a corner. No one was immediately arrested.

Footage from the scene shows the area cordoned off by police tape and several emergency services vehicles in the area

Family members were pictured later in the night waiting outside one of the nearby hospitals where the conditions of victims are unknown

More than 2,000 people have been shot in Chicago so far this year, with 25 shot, including four fatally, on Monday alone.

This followed an equally bloody weekend, where 63 were shot including 12 dead.

Tuesday's shooting highlighted what Brown said are hundreds of gang conflicts that occur everywhere in the city involving 117,000 gang members, dozens of gangs, hundreds of gang factions and well over 2,000 what he called sub factions.

As police and city officials in the past have done repeatedly, Brown and Lightfoot implored people with information about the shooting to report what they know to police before what authorities fully expect will be another attack in retaliation for Tuesdays shooting.

'Someone listening has information that will help prevent the retaliation that unfortunately is probably being planned at this very moment,' Lightfoot said.

Added Brown: 'This same cycle repeats itself over and over and over again.'
Charles Evers, who gave up life as a petty racketeer to succeed his assassinated brother Medgar Evers as a Mississippi civil rights leader in 1963, becoming the states first Black mayor since Reconstruction and a candidate for governor and United States senator, died on Wednesday at his daughters home in Brandon, Miss. He was 97.

His granddaughter Courtney E. Cockrell confirmed the death. Mr. Evers was the third prominent civil rights leader to die within a week; the Rev. C.T. Vivian and Representative John Lewis, both of whom had marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., both died on Friday.

For all their similarities  college graduates, implacable foes of segregation and violent racism  the brothers were quite unalike. Medgar (gentle, diplomatic, altruistic) became a brilliant civil rights organizer. Charles (blunt, aggressive, ambitious) became a businessman and small-time criminal, running numbers, prostitution and bootleg whiskey rackets in Mississippi and Chicago.

But nearly a decade after he had been run out of Mississippi, Charles Evers, galvanized by the assassination that had made his brother a national civil rights martyr, quit the rackets, returned from Chicago and replaced Medgar as the Mississippi field director of the N.A.A.C.P. He organized registration drives for Black voters, economic boycotts against white businesses and challenges to the states white Democratic Party structure.
By Park Yoon-bae





Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon's death was shocking not only because it was an apparent suicide, but also because it occurred soon after sexual harassment allegations were made against him.







It is all the more so considering that Park was a prominent human rights lawyer, advocate for women's rights and reform-minded mayor of the country's capital.







It appeared that Park took his own life because he could not come to terms with his conflicting identities which seem to contradict the moral high ground he stood upon and his notable lifelong achievements.







His death reminds me of that of former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun. About one year after his retirement in 2008, Roh killed himself amid an intensifying investigation into suspicions that he and his family took illegal funds from a businessman.







The late president certainly never wanted to live in shame. He had no courage to betray himself and admit his alleged bribe-taking. He could not afford to bridge the yawning gulf between what he used to be  a Mr. Clean  and what he would become  a corrupt former politician.







Another similar politician was Rep. Roh Hoi-chan, former floor leader of the progressive minor opposition Justice Party, who killed himself over bribery allegations in July 2018. He had spearheaded a campaign for clean politics, but brought his life to a tragic end in the face of graft charges.







What those politicians had in common was a double standard. They had long called for justice, fairness and equality. Regrettably, however, they compromised what they held dear. They must have struggled between their lofty ideals and earthly desires. But they finally yielded to the latter, much to the disappointment of the public.







The three politicians were certainly unable to deceive themselves over their alleged wrongdoing and misconduct in the end. The wider the gap between what they advocated for and what they actually did, the more difficult it became to reconcile themselves over their self-contradictory behavior. In such a case, hardly anyone could avoid a catastrophic end.







Now I am wondering why liberal or progressive politicians were more prone to suicide than conservative ones. Liberals and progressives have usually claimed to be on higher moral ground; more than others have. They have played a crucial role of fighting dictatorship, leading pro-democracy movements and bringing about tremendous socioeconomic transformation in the past decades.







They, of course, deserve praise for what they have done for our society and nation. But some of them have proven that their actions belied their words. They have also become too self-righteous and arrogant to accept other people's criticism for their blunders.







A case in point is a corruption scandal involving Cho Kuk, a former presidential secretary for civil affairs and justice minister. Cho, a confidant of President Moon Jae-in, was appointed to lead the Ministry of Justice in September 2019. But he had to resign within 35 days over allegations brought against his family concerning school admissions fraud related to his daughter and illegal investment by his wife.







Cho, a law professor at Seoul National University, is part of Korean society's elite and once belonged to the inner circle of the Moon Jae-in administration. But this scandal has revealed his hypocrisy. Cho had often been described as a "Gangnam leftist," a term for a liberal living in the affluent southern part of Seoul. Now he is cynically called a self-serving champagne socialist or latte liberal.







Were Mayor Park still alive, he could not have avoided being labeled similarly. The late mayor, a member of the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and a presidential hopeful, had been widely recognized as a civic activist championing rights of women, the socially weak and the poor.







But now he is suspected of having acted quite differently because he was found dead two days after one of his former secretaries filed a complaint with the police alleging she had been sexually harassed by him.







The complainant accused Park of having sexually harassed her for four years. She tried reporting her case to the municipal authorities, but they ignored her pleas for help. They even reportedly tried to cover up Park's alleged sexual misconduct. City officials even told her that female secretaries should "entertain" the mayor.







Shamefully, Park has become the third head of a local government to face sexual harassment allegations, following former South Chungcheong Province Gov. An Hee-jung and former Busan Mayor Oh Keo-don. An is now serving a prison term for sexually assaulting his secretary. Oh stepped down as mayor of the country's second-largest city in April after admitting that he sexually exploited a female employee.







Now the question is why such shocking sexual harassment scandals have continued to take place since An prompted one of the biggest #MeToo cases in Korea in 2018. The answer could be that mayors and governors wield unchecked power. In this sense, sexual abuse is one form of power abuse. The country can never win a war on sexual harassment without checking such power.









The writer (









byb@koreatimes.co.kr ) is the chief editorial writer of The Korea Times.
South Korea, US fail to decide on joint military drills amid pandemic concerns

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 8:54 AM

A South Korean official says the coronavirus pandemic threatens the joint military exercises with the United States, as the two sides struggle to agree on the scale, scope and timing of their annual war games.

South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and US Defense Secretary Mark Esper failed to decide on the details of the drills during a telephone conversation on Tuesday, officials said.

"We'll watch developments to determine the scale, date, and methods of the exercises," Reuters cited a South Korean official as saying anonymously.

"We have to do what is necessary, but safety is also key to maintaining defense readiness posture," the official said.

The war games, which usually begin in early August, would likely be delayed this year until September. They are meant to be a show of force against what Seoul and Washington label a North Korean threat.

The US has reported almost 50 cases of coronavirus infection  including 10 on Monday  among its troops, employees, and their families in South Korea in the past three weeks. All were confirmed on arrival or while in two-week mandatory quarantines.

The surge in cases of the disease among US forces has raised concern in South Korea, which hosts some 28,000 US troops.

The unnamed South Korean official further said that Esper and Jeonge did not discuss any withdrawal of US troops.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal had reported that the Pentagon had in March offered the White House options to reduce the US military presence in South Korea.

President Donald Trump has formerly questioned the value of the joint military exercises with South Korea and promised to end the drills during his first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

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In most of California, residents cant go to gyms, bars, wineries, movie theaters, nail salons or barbershops. But people can still go shopping, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Though the state ordered malls shut for counties on its monitoring list on July 13, other indoor retail is allowed to operate with safety standards. Excluding malls, all nine counties in the Bay Area allow indoor retail as of Wednesday. In contrast, a confusing mix of directives have led to other types of businesses, like gyms and barbershops, to reopen and close again.

The latest health order shut down malls because of assumed high risk for coronavirus transmission due to people congregating in larger numbers. But experts say shopping in a smaller store isnt necessarily safer than in a large mall.

Smaller, closed spaces are more likely to facilitate transmission, said Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeleys School of Public Health. But, at the same time, smaller places have fewer people, so even if transmission occurs, the number of people getting infected is also going to be small.

Public health studies have shown that the risk of transmission is higher in indoor spaces, especially when theres a lack of proper ventilation. San Francisco on Wednesday ruled that the Ferry Building was a mall and shut down 26 shops, citing the stores lack of direct outside access.

Robert Siegel, an infectious disease expert at Stanford University, said there are three main things to consider: how close people are to each other inside a store, for how long, and what the virus concentration is in a place.

Theres nothing inherently better about a small space. A big space with fewer people would be less dangerous than a small space with more people, he said.

But its also about behavior, he added. Are people more likely to hang out with friends at the mall or do they make plans to meet up at a small store? This may be why some small retailers are still allowed to operate from a policy point, he said.

For small-business owners stuck in the middle of a staggered economic recovery and widespread pandemic, the option to stay open means making rent and surviving, but with new restrictions.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

For Nongnooch Noot Suwannajan, owner of the Love of Ganesha store in San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury, it means figuring out how to stay open while making sure customers comply with social distancing rules. In May she created an Instagram account to sell items from her store, which include crystals, rocks, incense, long flowy patchwork tops and skirts, and Hindu and Buddhist deity statues.

The 21-year-old store has largely depended on customers walking in and on mass orders for outdoor events like Burning Man, which are canceled this year. Revenue has been cut in half compared with before the pandemic, and expenses are piling up.

Its hard but I try my best to let customers know Im open. It might help them coming into my store, Suwannajan said with a laugh, referring to the tranquil mood inside her store, which includes a corner meditation space.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

But customers arent coming like they used to, she said. Its a widespread decline. Retail sales plunged in the U.S. in April and May before making a slight recovery in June with the clothing sector suffering the most.

Suwannajan has masks for her two employees and requires customers to wear them and has limits on the number of customers allowed inside at one time.

Generally speaking, the people at risk in indoor retail are probably not the customers but rather the employees, said Sally Picciotto, an associate researcher in environmental health at UC Berkeleys School of Public Health.

They are spending many consecutive hours in an enclosed space and thus have time to receive a high enough dose of the virus if another employee is infected, Picciotto said.

Shwanika Narayan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: shwanika.narayan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @shwanika Instagram: @shwanika
Marni is one of the famous Italian fashion houses. It was founded in Milan. The founder of this fashion house is Consuelo Castiglioni. She was a Swiss designer. It was founded in 1994 for ready-to-wear of women's, men's, and kids. It also has a large collection of accessories. The creative director of this company is Francesco Risso. The CEO of this company is Stefano Biondo. This brand was introduced for the design of fur that was not so popular at that time. But Castiglioni grew this brand according to the need of the consumers to wear something under or with their fur. This brand was named after her sister Marni.

Growth of the Company

Before 2006, there were sixteen countries worldwide, working with this brand including New York City, Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing, and Moscow. For more expansion of the brand, the company introduced online sales in 2006, so that more companies can reach out to them. In 2007, there was its first men's collection including leggings and bottoms for men. Annual sales of Marni are around $100 million. After that, Renzo Rosso's OTB group obtained this brand in 2012. OTB group includes some brands like Diesel, Maison Margiela, Cademartori, Brave Kid, and many more.

Marni Collection- Men's, Women's, and Kids

This brand is very unique and known for its contemporary and chic language. All of these collections have an outstanding experiment with prints, quality, material, and details to produce something different and interesting. This brand is popular due to its experimental ability to transform the outfits from low fashion to high fashion edge. Men's collection of Marni includes Check cotton twill trousers, gooey sneaker, Shopping bag, Bucket hat, Cotton-Jersey T-Shirt, etc. Women's collection includes Shirts in aerial colors and shapes, Wallets and Leather Goods, The Fussbett sandals, Trunk bag, etc. Kids wear includes Dresses, Knitwear, trousers, shoes, Backpacks, Sandals, and Sneakers, etc.

Featured Designers

Featured Designers of Marni brand are Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Chloe, Fendi, Gucci, Khaite, Maison Margiela, Off-White, Prada, Saint Laurent, Valentino, Versace, and many more. All the designers are uniquely known for their best product designs and quality.

Famous shows - 2020

Pre-Fall 2020: It has a collection from the combination of excess and classicism, rigor and sensuality, deconstruction, and maximalism.

Fall 2020 Ready-to-Wear: It has a collection of coats, miniskirts, maxi skirts from scraps, and putting together remnants.

Fall 2020 Menswear: This has a unique collection for men's wear like bisected coats, dilated jackets, and others with fabulous patchwork.

Resort 2020: This has a collection like Martial coats with a feminine twist and many more. This collection is very classic with camouflage patterns including floral motifs in the different shades of green.

Apart from these, Bridal Spring 2021, Spring 2021 Menswear, Resort 2021, Resort 2021 Menswear, and Spring 2021 Ready-to-wear are some upcoming famous shows of Marni.

Marni is one of the luxurious brands of Italy with highly recommended divine designs.

Marni has an eye-catching trendy fashion collection. This brand has an iconic collection worldwide.
Antonio Sabato Jr. launching new movie studio: 'No more blacklisting' Christians, conservatives

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Conservative Christian actor Antonio Sabato Jr. said he's starting his own production company to create jobs for those who've been blacklisted in Hollywood for being outspoken about their faith and political views.

Sabato, who's best known for starring in General Hospital in the 1990s, announced on Twitter Thursday that he's putting together a plan to create a conservative movie studio for all patriots to do projects that Hollywood would never do. No more blacklisting and no more injustice from the socialist elites.

In a subsequent tweet, Sabato invited all conservative producers who want to make a change to get in touch with me, and be part of our team.

To all conservative producers who want to make a change this is the time, get in touch with me, and be part of our team. Right now we are In pre-production with Trail Blazers our first in line for many more & first to start our studio. ?????????? https://t.co/HuxYaL3A4g  Antonio Sabato Jr ???????? (@AntonioSabatoJr) July 16, 2020

Right now we are in pre-production with Trail Blazers our first in line for many more & first to start our studio, he added.

The Trail Blazers project was co-written and directed by Sabato and features many other well-known and outspoken conservative entertainers, including Kevin Sorbo, Stacey Dash, Scott Baio, Kaya Jones, Kristy Swanson, and Dean Cain. According to the film's IMDb page, the movie will chronicle the ultimate battle between good and evil, between darkness and light, between God and Satan himself and will feature a battle between 8 heroes and 8 villains.

In an interview with Fox Business Maria Bartiromo on Mornings With Maria on Friday, Sabato elaborated on the content his movie studio would be producing.

Were going to make movies  that are uplifting and where God is the center of attention, he proclaimed.

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

Sabato explained that he knows firsthand what its like to be blacklisted, noting that he faced enormous professional consequences after speaking out in support of then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in 2016.

He also discussed his experiences in an interview with Variety magazine in March.

All my representatives left me, from agents to managers to commercial agents. I literally had to move, find a new job to survive and take care of my kids, he told Variety.

Following his defeat as a Republican candidate for Congress in California's 26th District in 2018, Sabato moved to Florida and took a job in the construction industry. He told Fox Business that after several other people shared their stories of being blacklisted in the film industry, they decided to try to raise money to open a studio. They're now looking at several different states that have offered incentives for the studio.

In a previous interview with The Christian Post, the actor spoke about his faith and how it's played a role in his life.

"You find God or He finds you. There were times in my life, crucial times, that God has stepped up and helped me," he declared.

In his interview with Fox Business, Sabato acknowledged that he lost everything because of his support for the president. But he added, God has put me through this for a reason and its only building me up to be stronger for what I have to do next.
Using Spear-Phishing to Install MgBot Malware

A RAT With Several Capabilities

An emerging threat actor out of China has been traced to a new hacking campaign aimed at government agencies in India and residents of Hong Kong intending to steal sensitive information, cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes revealed in the latest report shared with The Hacker News.The attacks were observed during the first week of July, coinciding the passage of controversial security law in Hong Kong and India's ban of 59 China-made apps over privacy concerns, weeks after a violent skirmish along the Indo-China border.Attributing the attack with "moderate confidence" to a new Chinese APT group, Malwarebytes said they were able to track their activities based on the "unique phishing attempts" designed to compromise targets in India and Hong Kong.The operators of the APT group have leveraged at least three different Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs), using spear-phishing emails to drop variants of Cobalt Strike and MgBot malware, and bogus Android applications to gather call records, contacts, and SMS messages."The lures used in this campaign indicate that the threat actor may be targeting the Indian government and individuals in Hong Kong, or at least those who are against the new security law issued by China," the firm said.The first variant, observed on July 2, alerted recipients with the "gov.in" domain stating some of their email addresses had been leaked and that they are to complete a security check before July 5.The emails come attached with a "Mail security check.docx" purportedly from the Indian Government Information Security Center. Upon opening, it employs template injection to download a remote template and execute a heavily obfuscated variant of Cobalt Strike But a day after the aforementioned attack, the operators swapped out the malicious Cobalt Strike payload for an updated version of MgBot malware.And in the third version seen in the wild on July 5, the researchers observed the APT using an entirely different embedded document with a statement about Hong Kong from the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson allegedly promising to admit three million Hong Kongers to the country.The malicious commands to download and drop the loader  which are encoded within the documents  are executed using the dynamic data exchange ( DDE ) protocol, an interprocess communication system that allows data to be communicated or shared between Windows applications.The dropped loader ("ff.exe") masquerades as a Realtek Audio Manager tool and contains four embedded resources, two of which are written in Simplified Chinese.This, along with the use of DDE and template injection, suggests the campaign could be the handiwork of a China-based threat actor, given the prior history of attacks that took advantage of the same TTPs.Subsequently, the loader escalates its privileges through a CMSTP bypass before installing the final payload, while also taking steps to avoid detection by debuggers and security software.To thwart static analysis, "the code is self modifying which means it alters its code sections during runtime," the researchers said."It uses 'GetTickCount' and 'QueryPerformanceCounter' API calls to detect the debugger environment. To detect if it is running in a virtual environment, it uses anti-vm detection instructions such as 'sldt' and 'cpid' that can provide information about the processor and also checks Vmware IO ports (VMXH)."Ultimately, it's this final malware executable ("pMsrvd.dll") that's used to conduct the malicious activities, which it does by posing as a "Video Team Desktop App."Not only is the bundled remote administration Trojan (RAT) capable of establishing a connection to a remote command-and-control (C2) server located in Hong Kong, it has the ability to capture keystrokes, screenshots, and manage files and processes.What's more, the researchers also found several malicious Android applications as part of the group's toolset that comes equipped with RAT features, such as audio and screen recording and functions to triangulate a phone's location and exfiltrate contacts, call logs, SMS, and web history.Interestingly, it appears this new China APT group has been active at least since 2014, with its TTPs linked to at least three different attacks in 2014 2018 , and March 2020 . In all their campaigns, the actor used a variant of MgBot to meet its objectives.
ZUG, Switzerland, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bitcoin Association, the Switzerland-based global industry organization that works to advance business on the Bitcoin SV blockchain, today announces the formation and launch of a Bitcoin SV Developer Zone in partnership with Chinese Software Developer Network (CSDN). The Zone will provide their 31 million users a dedicated open learning platform to learn about working on the Bitcoin SV blockchain.

CSDN is the largest IT and software developer community in China, with a top 30 Alexa Global ranking. To educate developers about different technology platforms and programming languages, it works with more than 1,000 business partners - including world-leading enterprises including Amazon Web Services, Baidu, Google, Huawei, IBM, Microsoft, and Tencent. CSDN's large user base and industry network will help Bitcoin Association quickly distribute Bitcoin SV information across China.

The Bitcoin SV Developer Zone on CSDN will host a range of Chinese language educational resources for developers interested in developing for or working with the blockchain. Catering to all experience levels, the Zone will publish content suitable for novices taking their first steps into learning about blockchain technology, right through to expert developers looking to diversify their skillset and even learn to become a "Bitcoin script engineer"  an anticipated new job category made possible in the Bitcoin SV ecosystem.

An ongoing stream of new video content and written materials will be produced exclusively by Bitcoin Association and CSDN for the Bitcoin SV Developer Zone, with twice-weekly online lectures and presentations set to commence from July 28.

The Bitcoin SV Developer Zone is live on CSDN at: https://bsv.csdn.net

As part of the partnership, Bitcoin Association and CSDN will work together to produce Bitcoin SV DevCon 2020: China in late August 2020. The first Chinese-language Bitcoin SV Developer Conference help developers learn to build applications on Bitcoin SV; it will feature two-days of sessions led by blockchain pioneers and leaders in the digital currency space. The event is offered free through the CSDN platform and registrations are open now at bsvdevcon.net

Through this cooperation, Bitcoin Association and CSDN will further improve accessibility to world-class blockchain education in China. By focusing the curriculum and materials on the Bitcoin SV blockchain, developers will gain experience working with the only blockchain suitable for the development of enterprise-grade applications. Adhering to the original design of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin SV offers a platform with unbounded scaling, greater data capacity, and true micropayment capabilities, unlocking a host of new functionalities and economic opportunities.

Jimmy Nguyen, Founding President of Bitcoin Association, spoke on today's announcement, saying:

"Developer education is a key pillar in Bitcoin Association's strategy to advance global business using the Bitcoin SV blockchain. Bitcoin SV can provide the scaling solutions and data capabilities required for enterprise-grade applications, and businesses increasingly ask us where they can find knowledgeable Bitcoin developers. By working with CSDN, we hope to educate and inspire a new generation of Bitcoin script engineers in China, equipping them with the skillset required to use the power of Bitcoin's original protocol and unlock the world of technical advantages it presents on the Bitcoin SV blockchain."

Bitcoin Association's China Manager, Lise Li, also spoke on the partnership, commenting:

"Developers in China want to work with CSDN, a very popular platform, and work with a powerful blockchain, Bitcoin SV. By bringing the two together, not only are we satisfying the demand from our local userbase for new self-development and education opportunities, but we are providing a platform for developers across China to learn about this emerging technology and how it can be used to power new ideas and innovations."

Jiang Tao, Founder & Chairman of CSDN, commented on his organization's partnership with Bitcoin Association, saying:

"As a professional IT technology community platform, CSDN has 31 million developer users, with a mission of empowering developers. I look forward to working with Bitcoin Association and seeing more high-quality technical content on the CSDN Bitcoin SV Blockchain Zone that can benefit more developers."

About Bitcoin Association

Bitcoin Association is the Switzerland-based global industry organization that advances business with Bitcoin SV. It brings together enterprises, start-up ventures, developers, merchants, exchanges, service providers, blockchain transaction processors (miners), and others in the Bitcoin SV ecosystem to advance the growth of Bitcoin commerce. The Association seeks to build a regulation-friendly ecosystem that fosters lawful conduct while encouraging technology innovation.

About CSDN

CSDN is an IT and community service platform focused on providing Chinese software developers and IT workers with life-long services such as knowledge diffusion, career development, software development, and more. It is able to satisfy people's rigid needs of learning and sharing knowledge and information during their career development, establish a social circle of career development, and achieve commercialization of technology by software development.

SOURCE Bitcoin Association
Parliamentarians in Nigeria have called for the military bosses to resign following persistent killings by armed gangs and Islamist militants in the north of the country.



A resolution adopted by Nigeria's senate has called for the chief of defence staff, as well as air force, army and naval chiefs to resign.



Responding to the resolution, President Muhammadu Buhari insisted that the appointment of military chiefs is a presidential prerogative and added that, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, he will do what is in the best interest of the country.



In the past, similar calls for the sacking of the country's security chief have not been heeded by the president.



Reports say more than 350 Nigerian soldiers will formally leave the army due to a loss of confidence in leadership and low morale.



In the past the Nigerian military has suspended approvals for voluntary retirement requests from soldiers, with some accused of cowardice and sabotage when criticising military leadership.



Nigeria has been engaged in an ongoing conflict against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram for more than a decade.



The campaign of terror has left more than 30,000 people dead and displaced more than two million people.

Source: BBC









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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New York, July 22 : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that he was confident that concerted efforts by India and the US can protect their interests in the face of China's "unacceptable behaviour." Speaking remotely at the US-India Business Council Ideas Summit, he called India "a key pillar in Trump's foreign policy" and said, "The United States has never been more supportive of India's security." He said, "The recent clashes initiated by the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) are just the latest examples of the CPC's (Communist Party of China) unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the death of 20 Indian soldiers." "I am confident because of our concerted efforts we can protect our interests," he said.

He added, "I'm happy to report that India is a rising US defence and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally." Pompeo also commended India for banning 59 Chinese apps including TikTok citing a serious security risk even as he launched a scathing attack on China, saying that Beijing cannot threaten countries and "bully them in the Himalayas".

He said, "India has a chance to divert global supply chains away from China and reduce reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecom, medical supplies and others. India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations including the US." In a reference to the India-China border standoff, Pompeo accused Beijing of bullying its neighbours and blamed it for instigating the deadly confrontation with India in eastern Ladakh.

"We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order.

"You cannot go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You cannot threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. You cannot engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organization," the top US diplomat said earlier on Wednesday.

"The CPC's exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi Jinping has shown the world the party's true face. We talked about how we have seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed. We have watched the CPC bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India," Pompeo said.

He urged the international community to "work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order".

He stressed on the need of international cooperation in the face of Chinese overreach. "Important that democracies like ours work together at a time when we see the true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party," he said.

Addressing the event, US Ambassador to India Ken Juster said, "No one wants to have conflict in the region (Indo-Pacific region). We want it to be an inclusive vision but we're going to need to work with trusted and likeminded partners to develop guidelines, redlines and other ways to fulfill the vision we share for the Indo-Pacific region." Indian envoy to the US T.S. Sandhu said that President Donald Trump's visit to India in February this year has helped elevate the relationship to a comprehensive global strategic partnership. "The world has changed a lot since then. There has been expanded collaboration between our countries in health and vaccine development," he said.
Health Minister Hala Zayed cited studies indicating that infection rates can reach 75 percent in indoor places, as opposed to 12.5 percent in outdoor spaces

Egypt's health ministry has delivered medications to 24,629 non-hospitalised coronavirus patients and provided preventive supplies to 171,378 others who had come in contact with the confirmed cases, Health Minister Hala Zayed said on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, Egypt has recorded a total of 89,078 coronavirus cases, including 4,399 fatalities and 29,473 recoveries since the outbreak began in February.

Under the country's currently adopted treatment protocol, mild and moderate COVID-19 patients are treated at home or at university hostels to free up beds for critical cases at over 300 state-run isolation hospitals.

Speaking on enhancing Egypts scientific research efforts, Zayed said that isolation hospitals countrywide have been prepared to serve as facilities to conduct clinical trials on COVID-19 cases.

An electronic network containing the details of all patients has been developed to allow clinical data analysis and evaluate treatment protocols.

The minister's remarks were made during a meeting with the country's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.

Zayed pointed out that Egypt is pushing ahead with its reopening measures based on the reassessment of the virus situation nationwide, the most recent international scientific papers, and similar reopening measures elsewhere in the world.

In a bid to keep the economy running, Egypt began on 27 June to ease lockdown measures more than three months after they were imposed, lifting a nighttime curfew and allowing more businesses to reopen, including restaurants, coffee shops and cinemas.

Zayed cited studies indicating that infection rates can reach 75 percent in indoor places, as opposed to 12.5 percent in outdoor spaces.

The studies show that close proximity to others, long exposure to infected cases, and inadequate ventilation in closed places are high risk factors, she said.

During the meeting, Zayed also discussed the COVAX Facility, a financing mechanism designed to guarantee rapid and fair access to COVID-19 vaccines worldwide.

COVAX is co-led by the GAVI vaccine alliance, the World Health Organisation and the CEPI Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. It aims to deliver 2 billion doses of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2021.

According to the World Health Organisation, 75 countries have joined the COVAX Facility. These countries are to finance the vaccines from their own public finance budgets, and up to 90 lower-income countries could be supported through voluntary donations to GAVIs COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC).

Low-income countries are offered the opportunity to purchase the vaccines through long-term loans from the World Bank, the minister said.

The vaccines will initially be prioritised for healthcare workers in participating countries, then expanded to cover 20 percent of the populations of these countries.

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On Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson made a surprising accusation: the New York Times, he said, was trying to endanger him and his family by revealing where they live in an upcoming story. As he lambasted the newspaper on-air, Carlson suggested that his prime-time show could expose the home addresses of the reporter and Times editors.

Within hours, an army of conservative Twitter accounts started publicly posting the address and personal information of the reporter Carlson identified as the story's writer. Many encouraged people to harass the reporter.

In a statement to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the Times denied Carlson's claims.

"While we do not confirm what may or may not publish in future editions, the Times has not and does not plan to expose any residence of Tucker Carlson's, which Carlson was aware of before tonight's broadcast," the spokesperson said. The spokesperson declined to comment further when asked about the reporter's doxing.

Carlson made the allegation against the Times as he found himself in the middle of a fresh controversy Monday - stemming from a lawsuit filed earlier in the day accusing him, Sean Hannity and other prominent Fox News personalities of sexual misconduct. (The network has denied the allegations.)

Instead of addressing the lawsuit or the recent resignation of his chief writer, who was linked to anonymous blog posts containing racist, homophobic and misogynistic language, Carlson used the final minutes of his first broadcast back from a "long-planned" vacation to take aim at the Times. The newspaper, Carlson alleged, has been "working on a story about where my family and I live" in an effort to intimidate him.

"They hate my politics. They want this show off the air," Carlson told his millions of viewers Monday. "If one of my children gets hurt because of a story they wrote, they won't consider it collateral damage. They know it's the whole point of the exercise: to inflict pain on our family, to terrorize us, to control what we say. That's the kind of people they are."

During Monday's show, Carlson claimed that he had called the Times and expressed concern that the planned story would put him and his family in danger.

The host noted that his home address in Washington was made public in 2018, prompting a group of activists to show up outside one night to protest. Referring to the group as "screaming Antifa lunatics," Carlson, a father of four, said the protesters vandalized his residence and threatened his wife, who had been home alone that night. Police, who responded to the scene after Carlson's wife called 911, said about 20 demonstrators participated and that an anarchy symbol had been spray-painted in his driveway.

Carlson said Monday that he and his family continued to be targeted after his address was released, receiving threatening letters that ultimately led to them selling their home and moving.

"But the New York Times followed us," he said. "Their story about where we live is slated to run in the paper this week. Editors there know exactly what will happen to my family when it does run."

He identified the reporter behind the story as Murray Carpenter, airing his photo and calling the freelance writer a "political activist." Carpenter's website states that he focuses on science and environmental stories, and has written for the Times, The Washington Post and National Geographic, among other outlets.

Carlson also mentioned photographer Tristan Spinski and the Times's media editor Jim Windolf by name.

"How would Murray Carpenter and his photographer, Tristan Spinski, feel if we told you where they live, if we put pictures of their homes on the air?" Carlson asked. "What if we published the home address of every one of the soulless, robot editors at the New York Times, who assigned and managed this incitement of violence against my family?"

He added: "We could do that. We know who they are."

Despite the Times's denial that an upcoming story would publish Carlson's residence, his accusation sparked fierce backlash from a number of prominent conservatives, including at least one GOP lawmaker.

"There is absolutely no reason for the NY Times to do this, unless of course it is to intimidate Tucker Carlson - or anyone who has views like him," tweeted Rep. Eric A. "Rick" Crawford, R-Ark., sharing a video of the host talking. "This isn't 'reporting' and should be condemned by any news entity who has any credibility left."

Acting deputy secretary of homeland security Ken Cuccinelli retweeted criticism that the Times is promoting violence against Carlson, adding "That is clearly their intent," while Meghan McCain, co-host of ABC's "The View," condemned doxing as "the most violating thing in the entire world."

Meanwhile, Carlson's supporters quickly got to work. Several accounts shared addresses, phone numbers and other contact information for the reporter. One account tweeted, "Give him a taste of his own meds."

"Maybe Tucker can't do anything about it but somebody else can," another user wrote.

Carpenter did not respond to a request for comment from The Post late Monday.

By early Tuesday, at least one tweet that publicized Carpenter's personal information had been hidden by Twitter and flagged for violating the platform's rules.

- - -

The Washington Post's Jeremy Barr contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 15:36:43|Editor: huaxia

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ISLAMABAD, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved a loan of 250 million U.S. dollars to help Pakistan strengthen its response to the social and economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a statement released by the AIIB on Wednesday.

Co-financed with the World Bank, the loan will help bolster Pakistan's Resilient Institutions for Sustainable Economy (RISE) program which aims to stimulate investment in human capital, expand social safety nets, improve the country's emergency health infrastructure and foster economic growth, said the AIIB statement.

The RISE program is part of a set of measures Pakistan has undertaken toward recovery from the impact of the pandemic.

"The health crisis is expected to have far ranging and long-term repercussions on growth, which may undermine the hard-fought progress the country has made in restoring macroeconomic stability," the statement said, adding that employment in the formal and informal sectors has already seen a downturn.

The latest loan brings the AIIB total support to Pakistan's COVID-19 response to 750 million U.S. dollars, the statement said.

Economic experts in Pakistan believe that the loan will help the government to deal with COVID-19-triggered economic difficulties and protect the most vulnerable segment of the society, including women. Enditem
OTTAWA - A federal judge has struck down a key agreement on refugees between Canada and the United States, but gave Ottawa six months of breathing room to respond to the landmark decision.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Migrants from Somalia cross into Canada illegally from the United States by walking down a train track into the town of Emerson, Man., on Feb.26, 2017. A federal judge has struck down a key agreement on refugees between Canada and the United States. In a ruling today, Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald says elements of the law underpinning the Safe Third Country Agreement violate constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and security.THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

OTTAWA - A federal judge has struck down a key agreement on refugees between Canada and the United States, but gave Ottawa six months of breathing room to respond to the landmark decision.

In a keenly awaited ruling, Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald said Wednesday that elements of the law underpinning the Safe Third Country Agreement violate the constitutional guarantee of life, liberty and security.

Under the agreement, which took effect in 2004, Canada and the U.S. recognize each other as safe places to seek protection.

It means Canada can turn back potential refugees who arrive at land ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border on the basis they must pursue their claims in the U.S., the country where they first arrived.

Potential refugees arriving from the U.S. by air, by sea or between land ports are eligible to have their claims referred to Canadian officials. The exception has spurred the arrival of thousands of people in Canada through unofficial border crossings in recent years.

Canadian refugee advocates have vigorously fought the bilateral deal, arguing the U.S. is not always a safe country for people fleeing persecution.

The judge's declaration of invalidity is suspended for six months, leaving the law in place until mid-January and giving the Trudeau government time to respond to the court ruling.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said he was pleased to have the time to consider the ruling and "determine next steps."

Blair said he had not yet read the decision. But he denied Canada had violated the rights of refugee claimants, saying the government has always been mindful of its international obligations.

Several refugee claimants took the case to court along with the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Council of Churches and Amnesty International, who participated in the proceedings as public interest parties.

In each case the applicants, who are citizens of El Salvador, Ethiopia and Syria, arrived at a Canadian land entry port from the U.S. and sought refugee protection.

They argued in court that by returning ineligible refugee claimants to the U.S., Canada exposes them to risks in the form of detention and other rights violations.

In her decision, McDonald concluded that the Safe Third Country Agreement results in ineligible claimants being imprisoned by U.S. authorities.

Detention and the consequences flowing from it are "inconsistent with the spirit and objective" of the refugee agreement and amount to a violation of the rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the charter, she wrote.

"The evidence clearly demonstrates that those returned to the U.S. by Canadian officials are detained as a penalty."

The public interest parties who took part in the case welcomed the ruling, calling on the federal government to stop sending people back to the U.S. under the agreement, and to refrain from appealing the court decision.

"While the Federal Court has provided the government with six months leeway, it is imperative that Canada immediately end the return of claimants to the U.S.," said Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.

"The Safe Third Country Agreement has been the source of grave human rights violations for many years, unequivocally confirmed in this ruling. That cannot be allowed to continue one more day."

The Federal Court "could hardly fail to be moved by the testimonies of the appalling experiences of people in the U.S. immigration detention system, after Canada closed the doors on them," said Dorota Blumczynska, president of the council for refugees.

"Their experiences show us  and convinced the court  that the U.S. cannot be considered a safe country for refugees."

Blair rejected the notion the court ruling presents a fresh opportunity to persuade the U.S. to remedy problems with the bilateral agreement.

The minister said he and Canada's ambassador to Washington had long been in discussions with the U.S. about refugees. "Obviously, the court's decision has placed some timelines on it, but the work has been ongoing for some period of time and will continue."

Conservative MP Peter Kent, the party's immigration critic, called on the government to appeal the court decision, noting the Tories had been pushing the Liberals to "close the long-standing loopholes" in the agreement.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the court ruling would undoubtedly save lives. She urged the government to accept the decision and give notice to the U.S. of Canada's immediate withdrawal from the agreement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
NEW HAVEN  A group of 2020 Connecticut law school graduates are petitioning the state to grant them diploma privilege, arguing they should be allowed to skip the bar exam and become lawyers immediately because of health risk concerns over an in-person exam.

The petition from the Diploma Privilege for Connecticut group notes that Oregon, Utah and Washington have established emergency diploma privilege options for law graduates during the pandemic.

The petition also notes the logistical challenges of either an online exam or temporary licensure.

The bar exam is scheduled to be held in-person in Connecticut on Sept. 30 at the Convention Center in Hartford, with 500 would-be lawyers in attendance, according to the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee

In the petition, the graduates argue this would inappropriately raise the risk of coronavirus transmission, both for those in the exam room and more generally, as some come from out of state to sit for the examination.

We believe this is wrong, and we are pushing for a more sane solution: diploma privilege, Wyatt Bosworth, a 2020 graduate of University of Connecticut Law School and organizer with the statewide organization, said in an email.

A request for comment was made to the state judicial branch.

Anne Dranginis, retired judge and chairman of the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee, said the committee is meeting virtually Thursday to discuss the idea. It was raised earlier in the spring, she said, and at the time the committee was disinclined to go forward with it.

However, Dranginis said, the committee been watching closely during the national rise in COVID-19 cases. She noted that New Hampshire on Wednesday shifted to an online bar exam.

The committee is receptive to the concerns and fears of the class, she said, and recognizes theyve gone through an unexpected, difficult experience.

It has not been lost on us the extreme conditions this graduating class ... is facing, said Dranginis.

New York state, the graduates said, recently canceled its plan to hold an in-person bar examination, citing coronavirus-related concerns. A decision on whether the test will be held in October will be made by the end of August, according to the New York Post. Some law school deans from New York have urged officials to adopt diploma privilege in their state.

Postponing the test in Connecticut, the law graduates argue, would inappropriately burden them and their colleagues. They have spent weeks or months preparing for the exam; that knowledge cannot be set aside and recalled immediately months later. They need to become licensed to be able to find a job in their field; providing a temporary license, they maintain, would just postpone that problem.

The group also argues against the idea of holding the test online, pointing to inequities in technological access; the difficulty of preventing cheating, especially on short notice; and the struggles students had when they attempted to take Advanced Placement examinations online.

The graduates still would be bound by Connecticuts rules for professional conduct and the need to keep up with continuing education standards, guarding against incompetence, they note in the petition.

Diploma privilege is the best available solution to the health and safety problems posed by an in-person September 2020 bar exam and the logistical challenges associated with an online exam or provisional licensure, the law graduates said in the document.

The Connecticut Bar Examining Committee and the Judicial Branch have thus far resisted calls for diploma privilege. We believe now is the time for the legislature or executive, as co- equal branches of government, to act and provide diploma privilege to September 2020 bar exam applicants as the healthiest and safest solution available.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
"In the midst of this unprecedented moment in our state's history, Switch and its partners are investing $1.3 billion, creating over a thousand new jobs and accelerating Nevada's leadership in the world's renewable energy economy," said Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak. "Projects like this are exactly what the Legislature had in mind when it passed and I signed SB547 to expand investment and jobs in Nevada."

The massive scale of these phases of Gigawatt 1 will use thousands of solar panels made by First Solar, an American company and battery storage utilizing Tesla Megapack which is manufactured in Storey County, Nevada, at the Tesla Gigafactory .

"With today's announcement Rob Roy's Gigawatt Nevada now has four solar with battery storage projects in the state creating nearly 1 gigawatt of energy solutions," said Adam Kramer, Switch EVP of Strategy. "This project also ensures Switch's power costs will remain in the 5 cent a KWh range and Switch clients will continue to enjoy low-cost, 100% renewable power for decades to come."

With these new groundbreakings in Clark and Storey counties, plus the original Townsite development , Gigawatt 1 will soon generate a total of 555 MW of solar power and create 800 MW hours of battery storage. Additionally, the Storey County location will be the largest behind-the-meter solar project in the world producing 127MW and will include a 240 MW hour battery storage system. Behind-the-meter projects generate power off the public grid, placing no burden on legacy public utility production.

"The Capital Dynamics Clean Energy Infrastructure team is delighted to work closely with Switch who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership as a technology company in sustainability both in Nevada and nationwide," said Benoit Allehaut, Managing Director on Capital Dynamics' Clean Energy Infrastructure team. "We are also pleased to have collaborated with Tesla to install Megapack energy storage systems on four hybrid solar and storage projects in California and Nevada. This selection was the result of a comprehensive due diligence process. We believe that industry leadership is achieved through scale and innovation and are pleased with the tremendous progress we have made in combined solar and storage plants thanks to Switch and Tesla."

The integrator of Gigawatt 1 is Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses who will use the Tesla Megapack .

"We are pleased to play a significant role in this groundbreaking initiative," said Mark Noyes President and CEO of Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses. "The innovative partnership between all parties involved will continue to drive the sustainability agenda for Switch and the State of Nevada."

The announcement drew praise from leading national renewable energy advocates as well. "Nevada can enjoy the benefit of needed economic growth and strike a critical balance for the environment and precious natural resources," said long-time clean energy proponent Rose McKinney-James, managing partner of Rose McKinney-James and Associates and Energy Works LLC. "This project represents a major advancement for Nevada and we applaud Switch and their partners for continuing to push the envelope of sustainable business operations and renewable energy."

Energy shaping, development, construction, asset management & operations of all projects will be led by Capital Dynamics' affiliate Arevon, who performs these services for more than 5GW of wind and solar assets on behalf of Capital Dynamics.

About Switch

Switch (NYSE: SWCH), the technology infrastructure corporation headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada is built on the intelligent and sustainable growth of the Internet. Switch Founder and CEO Rob Roy has developed more than 500 issued and pending patent claims covering data center designs that have manifested into the company's world-renowned data centers and technology solutions.

The Switch PRIMES, located in Las Vegas and Tahoe Reno, Nevada; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Atlanta, Georgia are the world's most powerful hyperscale data center campus ecosystems with low latency to major U.S. markets. Visit switch.com for more information.

About Gigawatt 1

Gigawatt 1, one of the largest solar project portfolios in the world, is the implementation of an initiative called Rob Roy's Gigawatt Nevada, first proposed by Switch Founder & CEO Rob Roy in early 2015. The foundation of Gigawatt Nevada is harnessing the unique solar energy resources in Nevada to create new jobs, generate tax revenue, achieve greater economic diversification, and increase energy independence.

About Capital Dynamics

Capital Dynamics is an independent global asset management firm focusing on private assets including private equity, private credit and clean energy infrastructure.

Capital Dynamics' Clean Energy Infrastructure is one of the largest renewable energy investment managers in the world with USD 6.4 billion AUM,1 and has one of the longest track records in the industry. The CEI strategy was established to capture attractive investment opportunities in the largest and fastest growing sector of global infrastructure  proven renewable energy technologies, with a focus on utility-scale and distributed generation, solar, wind, and storage. The CEI platform's dedicated asset management business provides highly-specialized services to ensure optimal performance and value from projects. The CEI strategy currently manages 7.3 GW of gross power generation across more than 100 projects in the United States and Europe,2 and is one of the top 3 global solar PV owners.3

Since the CEI platform's inception in 2010, over 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided as a result of the firm's renewable investments.4 This is equivalent to the power needed to supply more than 2 million homes or passenger vehicles for one year. In 2019, the CEI strategy received top rankings from GRESB (the ESG benchmark for real assets) for commitment to sustainability, and was awarded Global PE Energy Firm of the Year by Private Equity International. For more information, please visit: www.capdyn.com .

About Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses

Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses, Inc. (Con Edison CEB), through its three principal subsidiaries Con Edison Development, Con Edison Energy, and Con Edison Solutions  develops, owns and operates renewable energy and energy infrastructure assets and provides energy-related products and services to wholesale and retail energy customers. Con Edison CEB is headquartered in Valhalla, New York, and has regional offices across the United States.

Committed to sustainability and environmental stewardship, Con Edison CEB offers a comprehensive portfolio of solutions including utility-scale and behind the meter renewable development and construction, energy efficiency services, battery storage, and power marketer and asset management services. Con Edison CEB is one of the largest owner/operators of solar assets in North America.

Con Edison CEB is part of the Consolidated Edison, Inc. family of companies, which has a corporate history dating back to 1823. Consolidated Edison, Inc. is one of America's largest and longest-operating investor-owned energy companies with assets valued at more than $55 billion and annual operating revenues in excess of $12 billion.

For Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses enquiries, contact:

Lorena Tavlarios

Vice President, Central Services

[email protected]

(914) 993-2167

For Capital Dynamics enquiries, contact:

Nicholas Rust

Prosek Partners

[email protected]

(646) 818-9252

For Switch enquiries, contact:

Alise Porto

[email protected]

1 Capital Dynamics, as of March 31, 2020. Includes assets in renewable energy projects managed by Capital Dynamics, including USD 4.0 billion assets under discretionary management and USD 2.4 billion tax equity assets. Tax equity is a financing solution for renewable energy projects.

2 Capital Dynamics, as of March 31, 2020. Includes operational assets, partially commissioned assets and contracted assets with PPAs secured.

3 Renewable Assets (Owners) League Tables. Bloomberg New Energy Finance as of June 30, 2020. Includes (i) assets with financing secured / under construction, (ii) partially commissioned assets, and (iii) commissioned assets projects globally, excluding China.

4 Environmental benefits are based on US Environmental Protection Agency Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.

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Linkedin Daniel Leussink (Reuters) Tokyo, Japan  Wed, July 22, 2020 08:46 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406684975f 2 Business PMI,manufacturing-industry,factory-activity,COVID-19,Japan Free

Japans factory activity contracted for a 15th straight month in July, indicating the economic pain from the coronavirus crisis extended into the third quarter of the year as hopes for a quick global recovery fade.

The au Jibun Bank Flash Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to a seasonally adjusted 42.6 from a final 40.1 in June, as broader conditions remained fragile though the pace of decline was the slowest in four months.

The Japanese economy continued to struggle at the start of the third quarter, said Joe Hayes, economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey.

While the easing of emergency measures provided some relief, especially to the domestic sector, Japans growth continued to be adversely affected by subdued global trade flows and restrictions on travel.

The PMI survey showed that the manufacturing index stayed below the 50.0 threshold that separates contraction from expansion for a 15th month, with overall output, new orders and employment all in decline again.

Japans economy is forecast to shrink 5.3 percent this fiscal year, the largest contraction since comparable data became available in 1994, followed by a 3.3 percent bounce next year, a Reuters poll of over 30 economists showed.

Exports in June plunged at a double-digit pace for the fourth straight month, data showed on Monday, backing signs that a slump in global demand for durable goods since March due to the pandemic has thrown the economy into a deep recession.

The PMI survey also showed weakness in service-sector activity, which saw outstanding business, business expectations and employment conditions contract.

The au Jibun Bank Flash Services PMI index remained largely flat at 45.2 on a seasonally adjusted basis compared to Junes final of 45.0.

The au Jibun Bank Flash Japan Composite PMI, which includes both manufacturing and services, stood at a five-month high of 43.9 in July, up from Junes final of 40.8.
Prince George at a children's party in Canada in 2016. (Getty Images)

Prince George is celebrating his seventh birthday with his family in Norfolk, where they have been living since lockdown began.

Its safe to say the young prince, and future king, has a few advantages over most seven-year-olds, but his parents do their best to make life as normal as possible for him and his siblings.

The family has marked several birthdays in lockdown - first Louiss second, then Charlottes fifth, as well as Williams 38th.

Here are just some of the ways life is pretty sweet for this seven-year-old.

Hes already collected a lot of stamps in his passport

Though he doesnt travel with his parents as often now that he is in school, George certainly collected a lot of stamps in his passport as a toddler.

He joined his parents on a royal tour in Australia and New Zealand before his first birthday, and also went to Canada, where he had company in the form of his little sister, Princess Charlotte.

The young siblings also went to Poland and Germany with their parents.

Read more: Chocolate cake and gun salutes: How the Royal Family celebrates birthdays

Prince George on royal tour at nine months old in Australia. (Getty Images)

Hes met some impressive people

If we were to meet a president, we would be star-struck.

But when Barack Obama met George, it was the world leader who was in awe of the young Prince.

Obama called George adorable after meeting him at Kensington Palace in 2016.

He went onto joke: Last week Prince George showed up to our meeting in his bath robe. That was a slap in the face. A clear breach of protocol.

Barack Obama meets a young Prince George. (Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images)

Hes an influencer

Following in his mothers footsteps, George has the power to sellout clothes when he wears them.

The dressing gown he wore when he stayed up late to meet Barack and Michelle Obama sold out, with the company remarking people went crazy for it.

Its also reported his shoes have sold out.

With his parents making sure he and Louis wear affordable pieces, such as the Mango T-shirt he sported in his seventh birthday portrait, this is a trend that could continue.

But George hasnt just had an impact on clothes. In 2017, lentil sales spiked after it was revealed that George might have been served them at school.

Story continues

Antoine Wassner, the chairman of Sabarot, a local lentil merchant in Le Puy-en-Velay in France, told The Times it was the star effect you get as soon as a VIP is seen with a product.

Hes already been named on best dressed lists

Kudos to his parents here, but George gets all the glory as he has already appeared on best dressed lists.

In 2018, he became the youngest person to be named on Tatlers best dressed list, joining his mother and his aunt, Meghan Markle.

In 2015 he made GQs list, too.

While Tatler has praised him for his Christopher Robin chic.

He's been praised for his Christopher Robin chic. (Getty Images)

He gets the best of both worlds at Christmas

His great-grandmother, the Queen, is a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas, with most of the celebrations taking place on Christmas Eve.

The family gathers for a tea, present-giving (nothing over the top) and then a meal together in the evening.

But according to The Daily Beast, Kate also likes to make sure the kids get something of the type of Christmas she enjoyed as a child, with stockings and presents on Christmas Day too.

It means George and the other royal kids get the best of both worlds.

He has devoted (and high-profile) godparents, who spoil him

Author Julia Samuel was a close friend of Georges late grandmother, Princess Diana, and she has continued a tradition that makes life hard for dad Prince William.

Asked if she was a good godmother on a podcast, she said: I am pretty good. She [Princess Diana] was godmother to my son, so I do to George what she did to us, which is give impossible toys that are really noisy, take a lot of making.

So I come in, slightly tipped by the size of the present that William has to spend days putting together and then put all the machinery together and it makes awful tooting noises, and lights flashing, and that makes me laugh and it makes George laugh.

And another of his godparents is the Duke of Westminster, who is one of Britains wealthiest men.

William tries to treat George like a normal child. (Getty Images)

He stands to inherit a lot - but hes just a normal kid for now

When Prince George becomes king, some time in the distant future, he will inherit the Duchy of Lancaster, the portfolio of land and financial investment which is held for the monarch.

The Queen made 23m in the financial year ending 2020 from the duchy, so it should have George sorted.

But his parents have tried to make his life normal for now, despite whats coming. In 2016, speaking about his sons future, William said: As far as we are concerned within our family unit, we are a normal family.

I love my children in the same way any father does, and I hope George loves me the same way any son does to his father.

Therell be a time and a place to bring George up and understand how he fits in, in the world.

The couple certainly dont seem in a rush to add any pressure to those young shoulders.
GLENVILLE  Schalmont High School officials have canceled a senior formal that had been scheduled for this Thursday due to what they described as a lack of interest.

Asked Tuesday afternoon why an owner of the Glenville banquet hall that was supposed to have hosted the event had just hours before spoken to the Times Union about the elaborate protocols he was putting in place to assure student safety amid the coronavirus pandemic, a district spokesman said they had forgotten to inform the venue of the cancellation.

Schalmont's graduating class includes roughly 150 students. A Facebook event, which was deleted Tuesday afternoon, suggested that more than 100 students could have attended the dinner at River Stone Manor, but just 30 seniors had RSVP'ed through the social media platform.

"This event was started to gauge interest when there was no guidance and the governor had given an initial date for when things might change," district spokesperson Marc DeNofio said.

Weddings and other celebratory events in New York are currently capped at 50 guests to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to state Department of Health guidelines.

The Facebook page had noted that only Schalmont seniors could attend the event, and urged students to confirm their attendance directly through the venue.

3 1 of 3 Will Waldron/Times Union Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Cindy Schultz Show More Show Less 3 of 3





River Stone Manor owner Angelo "Skip" Sgarlata, speaking to the Times Union earlier Tuesday, said he and his staff were prepared to keep an eye on the teens to ensure all are complied with COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.

Sgarlata said he didn't know how many students would be in attendance  he estimated 60  but during the dinner portion, a wall would have divided the graduates in half, creating two indoor dining rooms without an adjoining doorway. He was unsure how many chaperones and dining room staff would be at the event.

Students would have been able to socialize at an outdoor portion of the event on the 15-acre property, he said. They would have been be required to wear masks and stand six feet apart at all times. Students caught dancing or mingling during the sit-down dinner would be asked to leave, Sgarlata said.

Business has slowed at what is usually a busy wedding venue, with some couples pairing down their guest list to 50 in accordance with the regulations, Sgarlata said. Others have decided to postpone their nuptials that they can invite more guests.

Sgarlata noted that his banquet hall can hold up to 350 people, and while COVID-19 restrictions are in effect, walls can be used to create four separate 50-guest events at one time.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"I was at the park the other day and all the kids were tailgating anyway," Sgarlata said. " ... We can follow the rules and do what we are told to do, but we don't have to stop living."

A spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office disputed that four events of 50 guests could be held simultaneously at the same venue.

The graduating class of 2020 has missed out on senior rituals like senior yearbook signings and prom due to the pandemic, which shuttered school buildings throughout the state in mid-March.

Local school districts have cited often inconsistent social distancing rules from the state that apply to bars and restaurants as well as banquet halls and school events as they've attempted to navigate  or even skirt  social distancing guidelines in order to hold traditional senior events.

The state has allowed graduation events of up to 150 people that take place outdoors. No allowances have been made for other school-sanctioned events.

Last month, Mechanicville High School held a low-key senior formal on school grounds, warning students not to take photos. In early July, the district was forced to cancel its planned commencement event for as many as 444 guests.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump announced plans Wednesday to send a surge of federal law enforcement to the city to address ongoing violence. Though agents also will be sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Trump singled out Chicago as the place in the most critical need of additional resources.

Perhaps no citizens have suffered more from the menace of violent crime than the wonderful people of Chicago, a city I know very well, Trump said.

Attorney General William Barr said more than 200 federal agents will engaged in classic crime fighting such as investigating murders, gangs, gun crime and drug trafficking organizations. The new agents will include members of the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, the DEA and the Department of Homeland Security, among others.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. Jay B. Pritzker have both said they oppose the expanded federal presence and have threatened to go to court to try to block it.

If those agents are here to actually work in partnership and support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure of federal agents, not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different and that may add value but the proof is going to be in the pudding, Lightfoot said. Its too soon to be able to say if this is a value add or not.

Officials were quick to point out the difference between the Chicago surge and the situation in Portland, Oregon, where unidentified agents are arresting protesters for allegedly vandalizing federal building and taking them away in unmarked cars. The Chicago effort will focus more on helping local police deal with the increase in neighborhood violence, they said.

In Chicago, we see an unprecedented rise in crime against fellow citizens, said Chad Wolf, acting Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS mission in Portland is to protect federal property and our law enforcement officers. In Chicago, the mission to protect the public from violent crime on the streets.

The city has experienced one of its most violent summers in recent memory, with 414 homicides this year compared to 275 at the same time last year, official CPD statistics show. It represents a 51% increase.

Among the homicide victims discussed by Trump at the news conference was 14-year-old Vernado Jones Jr., who was one of four people killed in a shooting in Chicagos Englewood neighborhood on July 4. The FBI has offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of the people involved in his killing.

Jones mother attended Trumps announcement in the East Room of the White House, but she did not speak alongside the other victims families.

Please know that all Americans mourn by your side. we will carry your sons memory. he will not be forgotten, Trump told her.

Known as Operation Legend in honor of a slain 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro of Kansas City, the Chicago mission will be overseen by John Lausch Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

The federal government also will earmark $3.5 million to reimburse the Chicago Police Department and City of Chicago for the work of local law enforcement on the effort.

For decades, politicians running many of our major cities have put the interests of criminals above the rights of abiding citizens, Trump said. These same politicians have embraced the far-left movement to break up our police departments, causing violent crime to spiral -- and I mean, sprial -- seriously out of control.

Lightfoot shrugged off Trumps criticism, calling his announcement along side victims families a political stunt.

Trumps plans to send additional federal agents to Chicago this week set off alarm bells at City Hall and in activist circles, as the scope of their duties was not made public. Trump had said he would be sending the additional agents to combat violence here and in other cities, but also referenced extra agents in Portland as doing a fantastic job.

Last month, Trump said Pritzker and Lightfoot had put their own political interests ahead of the lives of residents and insisting that law and order was needed.

The White House plan emerged days after a downtown Chicago protest over a statute of Christopher Columbus devolved into a chaotic scene of police swinging batons and demonstrators hurling frozen water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers. Then, on Tuesday in another neighborhood, a spray of bullets from a car passing a gang member's funeral wounded 15 people and sent dozens running for their lives.

Hundreds have poured into the street in demonstrations about police reform, sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Tension in the city has climbed to a level that, if not unprecedented, has not been felt in a long time.

Ive never seen things worse in this city than they are right now, said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and longtime activist on the citys South Side.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Trump deploys more federal agents under 'law-and-order' push

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In the name of economic recovery, Albertas right-wing populist United Conservative Party (UCP) government has launched a sweeping assault on the rights and conditions of working people. The deeply unpopular measures, which are contained in multiple pieces of legislation, include accelerated corporate tax cuts, cuts to overtime and holiday pay, further health care privatization, and sweeping restrictions on strikers right to picket. They have been brought forward as the government enacts a draconian anti-protest law aimed at criminalizing social opposition.

The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (the former Bill 1) empowers the state to heavily fine and potentially imprison anyone unlawfully interfering with government and privately owned infrastructure, including pipelines, public highways, utilities, and oil and gas production facilities. The legislations stated aim is to protect essential infrastructure from damage or interference caused by blockades, protests or similar activities. Exactly what constitutes essential infrastructure is left entirely to the governments discretion.

The wording in the legislation is so wide-ranging that it could be employed to criminalize virtually any protest. In Alberta, public highways are defined as any thoroughfare, street, road, trail, avenue, parkway, driveway, viaduct, lane, alley, square, bridge, causeway, trestleway or other place or any part of any of them, whether publicly or privately owned, that the public is ordinarily entitled or permitted to use for the passage or parking of vehicles. According to University of Calgary law professors Jennifer Koshan, Lisa Silver, and Jonnette Watson Hamilton, this would allow protesters to be prosecuted for gathering in a street near a square, demonstrating in a factory parking lot, or protesting on a sidewalk near a bridge.

The legislation, which came into force late last month, also makes it easier for police to intervene to break up protests. Government authorities or a private company will no longer have to obtain a court injunction designating a specific protest illegal before police action can be taken to end it. Instead, protests would be ipso facto illegal and participants subject to arrest and punitive sanctions the moment access to critical infrastructure is impeded or authorities deem it to have been impeded.

The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act stipulates fines of C$1,000 to C$10,000 and/or a six-month jail term for a first offence. Each subsequent offence will be subject to fines of up to C$25,000 and six months imprisonment.

The immediate trigger for the UCP government introducing Bill 1 was last Februarys weeks-long railway blockades by supporters of the Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs, who were protesting against the construction of a pipeline through unceded native territory in British Columbia. However, this was merely the pretext. Already last year, a Kenney government task force, headed by former Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP) Finance Minister Janice MacKinnon, explicitly advised the government to use authoritarian measures to ram through unpopular policies of budgetary and wage cuts (see: Albertas MacKinnon report provides blueprint for austerity and repression).

Anyone who takes action against the Kenney governments right-wing agenda of austerity, tax cuts for big business, and cuts to wages and public services is to be criminalized. Workers and young people in Alberta who joined the global protests against police brutality following the May 26 murder of George Floyd in the United States warned that if the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act had then been in force, it could have been used to outlaw their demonstrations.

The passage of Bill 1 is part of a broader shift toward authoritarian forms of rule. In April, the Kenney government adopted legislation (Bill 10) that grants government ministers extraordinary powers to rewrite laws and impose penalties without consulting parliament. Presented as a necessary change to the Public Health Act to respond to the unprecedented conditions of the pandemic, Bill 10 was described even by the neoconservative National Post, otherwise a strong supporter of the UCP government, as an affront to the rule of law.

The arrogation of such sweeping powers is aimed above all at imposing the governments reactionary pro-corporate agenda in the face of mounting working-class opposition.

The UCP government has already announced that it is accelerating implementation of its plan to cut corporate tax rates, action that will drive up the provincial deficit and will in turn be cited by Kenney as justification for further social spending cuts. Having originally intended to reduce corporate taxes by one quarter, from 12 to 8 percent, in stages over the next three years, the reductionwhich will give Alberta far and away the countrys lowest corporate tax rateis now being carried out in one fell swoop retroactive to this July 1.

Earlier this year, the UCP also unveiled legislation aimed at gutting many of the limited protections for workers contained in the Employment Standards Code and provincial Labour Code. Bill 32 would make it illegal for striking workers to block entry into a facility during a work stoppage, making picketing all but meaningless. It would require workers to obtain the approval of the pro-employer Alberta Labour Relations Board before picketing secondary sites, make it more difficult to win union certification, and limit union expenditures on social and political campaigns or causes. Additionally, the bill would allow 13- and 14-year-olds to work without their parents permission.

Bill 32 would also make various pro-employer changes to the calculation of holiday pay, overtime pay, and the settling of payroll errors that will result in upwards of C$100 million being cut annually from workers wages, according to Rachel Notley, the leader of the Alberta NDP and former provincial premier. Once Bill 32 is enacted, employers will, for example, be able to press for hours of work averaging arrangements based on time periods as long as a year. This means workers could be forced to routinely work 12-hour days for weeks or even months without receiving any overtime pay.

The legislation also loosens the regulation around group terminations by removing the need for employers to issue four weeks of notice to unions and workers when they wish to lay off more than 50 workers.

Under the Alberta Investment Attraction Act, which was tabled in parliament the same day as Bill 32, the Kenney government will invest C$18 million annually to set up and run an agency, Invest Alberta Corporation, tasked with convincing global investors to exploit the provinces ultra-low corporate tax rates and deregulated labour market.

One area in which the government appears intent on wooing private investment is the health sector. In draft legislation presented to the Alberta legislature on July 6, Health Minister Tyler Shandro proposed a vast increase in the number of private health clinics performing surgical operations. While private clinics currently perform approximately 15 percent of the 300,000 surgeries performed in Alberta each year, Shandro intends to increase the number of surgeries by 80,000. This would bring the share of surgeries conducted by private hospitals above 40 percent. The UCP government will pay for these surgeries, but their contracting out will further undermine Medicare, as the private, for-profit operators will cherry-pick the easiest medical procedures. Another provision in the legislation allows the government to reduce doctors fees by paying them salaries instead.

The UCPs ruthless anti-worker, austerity agenda, dressed up as an economic recovery program, is endorsed by the entire ruling elite. It is worth noting in this regard that Kenney is being advised by an economic advisory council whose representation embodies the new corporatist alliance established between big business, government, and the trade union bureaucracy at the federal and provincial levels. The panel is chaired by right-wing economist Jack Mintz and includes former hard-right Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Bob Blakely, the ex-head of the Canadian Building Trades Union (CBTU).

As for the NDP and the rest of the trade unions, they have refused to organize any serious opposition to the Kenney governments onslaught. A few short months ago, Alberta Federation of Labour President Gill McGowan was thundering about the prospect of a general strike in the wake of widespread public outrage over the UCPs first budget, which enshrined a plan to cut public spending by more than 10 percent in real terms by 2023. Now, even such rhetorical flourishes have been abandoned in favour of a legal challenge by the unions to the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act in the capitalist courts, which, even were it to be successful years hence, will do nothing to stop the assault on workers.

For its part, the NDP is attempting to position itself as a more reliable enforcer of Canadian capitalist interests than Kenney and his UCP. Citing the rise of the Wexit Party, which advocates that Alberta secede from Canada, the NDP has emphasized its loyalty to the Canadian federal state, while accusing the UCP of encouraging Alberta separatism, including with its Fair Deal for Alberta commission. In a parliamentary motion earlier this month, the NDPs Heather Sweet urged all MLAs to declare their support for a strong, united Canada that is indivisible.

While workers must emphatically oppose the reactionary calls of the right and far-right for more powers for the Alberta government and the provinces oil barons, they must do so without lending any support to the nationalist and pro-imperialist appeals for a strong, united Canada. Such a policy only strengthens the hand of the Canadian bourgeoisie, which ruthlessly exploits the working class across the country and pursues its predatory interests around the world in alliance with US imperialism. In the fight against capitalist austerity and in defence of their interests, workers in Alberta must oppose both reactionary bourgeois camps and unify their struggles with those being waged by their class brothers and sisters across Canada, in the United States, and internationally on the basis of a socialist internationalist program.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-21 23:51:14|Editor: huaxia

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Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (R) speaks during a press conference in Vienna, Austria, on July 21, 2020. Masks will be mandatory again from Friday in banks, supermarkets and post offices in Austria, the government announced Tuesday. (Andy Wenzel/BKA/Handout via Xinhua)

VIENNA, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Masks will be mandatory again from Friday in banks, supermarkets and post offices in Austria, the government announced Tuesday.

This tightening of COVID-19 measures is primarily about protecting vulnerable people or high-risk groups, according to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

"Everyone has to go there, you don't have choices. We therefore decided to reintroduce the obligation to wear masks in supermarkets as well as in banks and post offices," said Kurz at a press conference held here on Tuesday afternoon.

The mask also has a symbolic effect, said the chancellor, noting that the more it disappears from everyday life, "the greater the carelessness becomes; the more carefree everything becomes again."

"As long as there is no vaccination or medication, we have to be aware that the disease continues and that it is important to keep social distance and disinfect hands," he added.

The reason for the "discretionary decisions," as Kurz called the tightening, is that the self-imposed "magic threshold of a three-digit number of new infections every day" had been exceeded in the past few weeks, he said.

Up to now masks have been mandatory on public transport, in the health sector including pharmacies, and in services where the minimum distance of one meter cannot be maintained.

The chancellor also appealed to the Austrians to refrain from traveling to the Balkans, to which "a large part of the newly infected in Austria is directly related."

Eighty-four more people have tested positive as of Tuesday afternoon, taking the total number of the novel coronavirus cases in the Alpine country to 19,805, while the number of active cases is 1,386, according to health authorities. Enditem
Photo credit: James Devaney - Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

Just days after his first presidential rally in North Carolina, Kanye West has taken to Twitter for a second time to take aim at wife Kim Kardashian's mum, Kris Jenner.

ICYMI, the rapper shared a series of tweets yesterday [21 July], which appeared to be directed at his wife and mother in law. In the now deleted messages, he wrote, "Kim tried to bring a doctor to lock me up with a doctor. If I get locked up like Mandela Yall will know why."

"Kriss [sic] don't play with me you and that calmye are not allowed around my children," he also wrote. "Ya'll tried to lock me up."

A few hours later, he said he was going to "focus on the music now" before revealing he would be releasing a new album called 'Donda', after his mum, this Friday.

Now, 43-year-old Kanye has taken to Twitter yet again, this time to call Kris out for screening his calls. The rapper shared a screenshot of his text messages to Kris, two of which seemingly hadn't been replied to. The first one read, "This Ye / You ready to talk now / Or still avoiding my calls."

The second one added, "This Ye / You wanna talk / Or go to war?"

Photo credit: James Devaney - Getty Images

A later tweet read, "Kriss and Kim put out a statement without my approval ... thats not what a wife should do."

So far, the Kardashian-Jenners haven't publicly spoken out about Kanye's tweets. In an earlier emotional speech at his first presidential campaign rally in South Carolina, Kanye said he and Kim had considered having an abortion while she was pregnant with first child North.

He later said it may cause problems between him and Kim, but that he would be 'at peace' with it. "Even if my wife wants to divorce me after this speech, she brought North into the world even when I didnt want to," Kanye shared.

Cosmopolitan UK has reached out to representatives for Kris and Kanye for comment.

Photo credit: John Shearer - Getty Images

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Even before the recent flare-up, tensions were running high on the Azeri-Armenian border. Reports of mutual harassment or skirmishes, mainly over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, often made the headlines in the past several years. But were last weeks surprise clashes in the Tavush area just another episode in ongoing hostilities?

The Tavush area lies on major energy, railway and trade routes that link Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and connect Europe to Central Asia and China without Russian and Iranian involvement. Given the regions significance as well as the timing and nature of the clashes, one could hardly dismiss the flare-up as customary. Its causes and potential consequences go beyond the long-running territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

To better understand the significance of the flare-up, its timing is a good point to start. Both governments needed an escalation to divert public attention from their deepening economic woes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Azerbaijan was already badly hit by plunging oil prices. Both governments struggled to manage the economic and social aspects of the pandemic, grappling with rising unemployment. In the lead-up to the clashes, leaders on both sides struck intransigent postures and used inflammatory rhetoric in an apparent bid to create a smokescreen around the economic and social impacts of the pandemic.

A more profound reason, however, appears hidden in the July 15 warning by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Washington was moving toward sanctions against energy companies involved in Russian pipelines to Europe and Turkey.

Washingtons intention to go beyond the defense and security realm to penalize energy cooperation with Russia bears directly on the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey trio and Europe, putting them under pressure to ponder energy supply chains excluding Russia.

In fact, Turkey has already moved to reduce its energy reliance on Russia and Iran. Azerbaijan is the primary country to which Turkey has turned as an alternative in the past several years. In March and April, Azerbaijan, for the first time, surpassed Russia in terms of gas supplies to Turkey.

The Tavush area is Azerbaijans gateway to Turkey in terms of energy, rail and transit routes. Azerbaijans South Caucasus Pipeline runs nearby, carrying gas to the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline in Turkey, which is a major component of Turkish and European efforts to reduce energy reliance on Russia. The area is central also to the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tblisi-Kars railroad, two major joint projects that Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have realized since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In other words, the area is crucial for Azeri energy exports to Europe and the only land route linking Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia. In this context, it is also a crucial corridor for Turkey and Europe to access Central Asia and China by sidestepping Russian and Iranian domains.

Turkey, whose energy imports account for three-quarters of its current account deficit, has been heavily reliant on Russian gas and, moreover, on price that is double of what Europeans pay. In 2019, however, Russian gas accounted for 33% of Turkeys gas imports, down from 52% in 2017, as Ankara stepped up purchases of liquefied natural gas from the United States, Algeria and Nigeria.

The giant Trans-Anatolian pipeline, completed last year, has an annual capacity to carry 16 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas to Turkey and from there to southern Europe via the soon-to-be completed Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. Add to this 7.7 billion cubic meters of Iranian gas and the South Caucasus Pipelines comparable capacity, the three non-Russian pipelines passing from the vicinity of Tavush could cover about half of Turkeys demand and 15% of that of Europe.

The Trans-Anatolian pipeline is a strategic achievement for Azerbaijan and Turkey. The arrival of non-Russian gas to the Balkans and Europe via Turkey brings to fruition the vision of a non-Russian supply chain for Turkey and Europe. Azerbaijan, for its part, has sought to diversify its export destinations to be fully independent from the Soviet Union-inherited and Russia-dependent energy infrastructure in the region. The inauguration of the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline in 2006 enabled Azerbaijan to export oil to international markets via the strategic port of Ceyhan on Turkeys Mediterranean coast. The Baku-Tblisi-Erzurum gas pipeline, launched the same year, allowed the supply of Azeri gas to Georgia and Turkey. Now thanks to the Trans-Anatolian pipeline, Azerbaijan can also sell gas to the European Union and grab some of Gazproms market share, raising eyebrows in Moscow.

Azerbaijan and Qatar have gained prominence as alternative gas suppliers for Turkey in the past two years as a result of US-goaded efforts to reduce purchases from Russia and Iran. Yet, Azerbaijan could further expand its role down the road. Turkeys gas deal with Russia expires next year, and little progress has been made on a renewal, which raises the prospect of deepening Azeri-Turkish partnership after 2021.

And, as Pompeos statement shows, Washington is averse to Russia gaining more influence via gas exports to Europe, hence dangling the threat of sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that Russia is building to Germany.

So two key factors are standing out as to what determines the scale of the Azeri-Armenian conflict  Washingtons drive to curb the clout that Russia has gained over Europe via gas supplies and the growing energy cooperation between Turkey and Azerbaijan, which might challenge Russias energy hegemony in the region.

US policies seeking collaboration with Azerbaijan in the Caucasus via NATO and Russias response to such efforts might further aggravate the conflict.

Likewise, the conflict might abate or intensify depending on how Turkey and Russia seal the fate of their expiring deal. Hostilities might escalate if Turkey continues to opt for Azerbaijan to reduce imports from Russia. And with Turkey and Russia already on opposing sides in Libya and Syria, the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict could set the stage for a new Turkish-Russian rivalry and raise the specter of serious crises in the long run.

Nevertheless, Gazprom is likely to remain Turkeys primary gas supplier in the near future. Still, Turkey is now in a stronger negotiating position thanks to its enhanced cooperation with Azerbaijan and the US threat of energy sanctions, coupled with its recent achievements in Libya and growing ties with Africa, especially Maghreb countries. Ankara is poised to capitalize on all those bargaining chips as it prepares to renegotiate the terms of its contract with Gazprom.

In other differences from previous skirmishes, the Tavush clashes have seen both sides use drones for the first time for surveillance-reconnaissance and command-control purposes and precision strikes alike, in addition to using special forces for direct raids and indirect fire support and targeting civilian settlements for the first time. The speed with which the flare-up escalated to the verge of conventional warfare is an alarming sign for any future confrontations.

In sum, geopolitical pressures on the Azeri-Armenian border are likely to grow in the coming months as Azerbaijans role as Turkeys and Europes primary non-Russian energy supplier grows. And the economic blows of the COVID-19 pandemic and falling oil prices would nourish the pro-escalation mood among decision-makers, boding continued fervor in the South Caucasus.
In a bid to delay the ageing process, a team of scientists at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) studied ageing in yeast to try to understand if different cells age at the same rate, and for the same reason, according to CNN. They chose yeast because the cells are easily manipulated.

The scientists, who published their study in the journal Science, discovered that even cells made of the same genetic materials and within the same environment aged in distinct ways.

According to CNN, about half of the yeast cells aged because of a gradual decline in the nucleolus, a round body located in the nucleus of a cell, while the other half aged because of a dysfunction of mitochondria, which produce a cell's energy. The scientists used techniques including microfluidics and computer modelling and discovered this, added CNN.

Scientists said that the cells go down one of two paths early in life, and then continue with the ageing route until they ultimately decline and die, said CNN.

"To understand how cells make these decisions, we identified the molecular processes underlying each ageing route and the connections among them, revealing a molecular circuit that controls cell ageing, analogous to electric circuits that control home appliances," CNN reported quoting Nan Hao, senior author of the study.

The scientists also found they could manipulate and optimise the process of ageing, using computer simulations to reprogram the master circuit and modify its DNA, said CNN. They were then able to create a new ageing route with a dramatically extended lifespan, added CNN. The researchers believed that this could ultimately lead to the possibility of delay in human ageing, further reported CNN.

"This is an ageing path that never existed, but because we understand how it is regulated, we can basically design or regulate a new ageing path. Our study raises the possibility of rationally designing gene or chemical-based therapies to reprogram how human cells age, with a goal of effectively delaying human ageing and extending human healthspan," Hao told CNN.

Scientists said that they plan to test their model in complex cells, organisms, and then humans.
SPRINGFIELD  There are some new fireworks in Springfield over proposals to crack down on illegal fireworks.

On Wednesday, City Council President Justin Hurst accused Mayor Domenic J. Sarno of unfairly throwing the council under the bus after the mayor criticized a delayed vote on a bill that would expand efforts to stop the use of illegal fireworks.

Sarno said Tuesday he was disappointed the council failed to vote on his proposed home rule bill at its Monday meeting. In a prepared statement, Sarno urged a vote ASAP, not for me, but more importantly out of respect to our residents, especially our senior citizens, veterans with PTSD, families with babies and young children, pet owners, and our business community.

Hurst said the council justifiably delayed its vote because it received an advance legal report from Associate City Solicitor Thomas Moore only minutes before the meeting.

Did your office actually look at the recording or watch the meeting before you wrote a press release that throws the City Council under the bus as though we were responsible for holding up this special act? Hurst said in an email to Sarno and other city officials. Did you not see in the video that Attorney Moore apologized profusely for not getting the Council the information necessary in accordance with rule 16A?

The home rule bill, if approved by the council and state Legislature, would automatically affix any fine for setting off fireworks onto the renewal fee for a drivers license or vehicle registration, a city excise tax bill or even a business license, city officials said. It was recently filed by Sarno for council approval, saying it provided teeth to combat illegal fireworks.

The council was not the hold up to your special act moving forward so presenting this as such in a media release is disingenuous, Hurst said in his email.

If the City Council had the requisite information in advance of our meeting, then Im sure we would have approved the special act, Hurst said.

At Mondays meeting, the council did give final approval to a city ordinance that establishes a minimum non-criminal fine of $300 for illegal fireworks, as proposed by Councilor Victor Davila.

State law currently sets a fine of between $100 and $1,000.

City Solicitor Edward Pikula, in response to Hursts email, said the report sought by the council was provided within the 10-day time frame of the bills submission, but Hurst responded: Check the video solicitor in reference to the council not having the report until the meeting.

Pikula also said Moore was present at the councils digital meeting and was available to answer any questions.

Sarno said Springfield is among many communities in Massachusetts that are being harmed by the use of illegal fireworks.

Now you have teeth in it and a deterrence model too, Sarno said in his Tuesday statement.

The home rule bill, once passed by the council, would need the approval of the Legislature and the Governor to take effect, and is specifically for Springfield.

The council voted to continue the issue until its next regular meeting, and did not refer the matter to committee, Hurst said. The councils next regular meeting is in September.

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Indian Professor Harsh Pant: Understand what China and the CCP are all about

Author talks about India-China relations and what steps should be taken

The Epoch Times recently sat down with Indian author, scholar, and researcher Professor Harsh V. Pant, who is head of the Strategic Studies Program at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He also holds a joint appointment with the Department of Defense Studies and Kings India Institute as professor of international relations at Kings College, London. He has also been fellow, visiting scholar, and visiting professor at several major institutions in Asia, Australia, and North America. Professor Pants current research is focused on Asian security issues. Among his most recent books is New Directions in Indias Foreign Policy: Theory and Praxis.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bharath Valecha (for The Epoch Times): The Epoch Times chose to call the virus CCP Virus because we understand the CCP unleashed the virus, creating a global pandemic. The CCP virus pandemic actually hit us when the economy around the world was going down; there was also the U.S.-China trade war. Do you think the CCP is responsible for the damage caused both financially and in terms of lives lost around the world due to the pandemic?

Prof. Harsh Pant: See, I agree with this logic of examining the goal of the CCP in a very focused manner; not only in terms of what it is doing to China but also how it is exporting its worldview, its operational apparatus around the world. And I think that most senior observers of world affairs will concur with the fact that there is no personal animosity on a large part of the international community with the ordinary Chinese people. Its the way the Communist Party of China has operated, the way it manipulates information, and its whole modus operandi that creates a number of problems for the world and the people of China. For example, when you talk of this pandemic, certainly I think there needs to be a proper and thorough investigation into the origins of the virus.

And what we have seen, interestingly, especially in the context of what is happening at the Indo-China border, India has taken a very very explicit side on having an independent investigation on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a necessity because only when we understand this can we prevent another such pandemic from happening. And the role of the CCP is clearly under a scanner, as most countries today, most of the people around the world today would agree with the contention that CCP is in some way responsible, whether through censorship of information, or for the way the problem has become what it is today. Clearly, better handling this in the initial stages, more transparency in the initial stages, would have led the international community to handle this in a much better way and the situation would not have deteriorated to this extent. So, I agree with this formulation that the CCP has to be held responsible for the spread of the pandemic.

ET: You mentioned about India wanting to investigate the origins of the virus. In fact, a lot of countries are coming together to hold the CCP responsible and get answers through independent investigations. It was during this time that the CCP actually took the conflict with India at the line of actual control (LAC) and with other countries also. Why do you think the CCP picked this point in time to have a conflict with India at the LAC?

HP: Well, for the CCP, this is an inflection point; this is a very important point for them in terms of how the party is being viewed within China. I mean, they dont care about the world. To a limited extent, they care about how they are going to be perceived within the domestic political contestation, whatever limited there is, in China. And there are questions brewing about the CCP about their ability to administer. Look at the West, its imploding, look at America, its imploding, and here we are cleaning up the mess, here we are leading the world on a global stage, we will redirect the Chinese ambitions to be at the center of the world soon. That was their whole vision, what they had projected, which is now crumbling in front of their own eyes. It is crumbling because the economy is not doing well, it is crumbling because there are domestic crises, it is crumbling because there are questions being raised about his economic sense in the way he has invested in BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) and the lack of response it is getting, the negative externalities it is generating, and now with this pandemic, with the sense that it was not managed well; while outsiders are criticizing the CCPs handling of it, one can clearly imagine the anger that must be there among the ordinary Chinese; the number of lives that have been lost, we dont know about; clearly the loss of lives has not gone down well with the ordinary Chinese. So clearly there is pressure building on the CCP. Theres pressure building on it throughout the world. Even before this crisis hit, you can see people rallying around the world against China, from America to Australia to Japan to Vietnam, and to a great extent in India. We were already seeing a sense of China has to be dealt with. And how you deal with China more robustly is going to be a marker for the foreseeable world order.

What the crisis has done, what the coronavirus has done is to basically underscore that the challenge for these countries to stand up to China even more robustly. So I think for the CCP, it is imperative that they externalize this internal crisis, that they create a sense of this nationalism, a false sense of nationalism, and the military becomes an instrumentality. So they are targeting external threats and making a crisis perhaps where none existed. Even if you think of the Sino-Indian crisis, its not that the border problems had not existed before, but if you look at the claims, the extent of the claims that the Chinese are making, they know that India will have no option but to stand up to. The Galwan Valley had never been in contention. But today it is in contention, and the Chinese are bringing this up into contention. So they know that India will stand up to it and there will be a possibility of a conflict, but they want conflict in some way, they want this sense of crisis to be there from the South China Sea to the Himalayan borders because thats how they can showcase their abilities as the supreme guarantors of Chinese national interest. And I think that is the challenge for the rest of the world in terms of how do they take this entity on without giving it greater legitimacy because if the perception gathers in China that the ordinary Chinese need to rally around the flag, then the CCP, at least in the short term becomes stronger, and I think thats the objective of the CCP: lets indulge in these multiple territorial crises, give a sense of rallying cry to the ordinary Chinese around nationalism and lets strengthen the increasingly weakening position within the power hierarchy.

ET: While this is happening, therere so many countries coming together to get answers from the CCP, and there is a clear stance various countries are taking. The free world is standing against communism. The United States is leading the free world against the CCP, forming alliances against CCP, with Australia, European countries, countries in Asia like Taiwan, Philippines, etc. The U.S. wants India to be an ally against the CCP. The EU is talking about theyre being forced to choose between the U.S. or China. But the U.S. has said that its not about country vs country, its choice between freedom and the communist tyranny. Do you think India is clear in its choice? Indias decision will have a significant impact in the Asia region, do you think India will sit on the fence, or make a clear stand?

HP: My own sense is that the time for sitting on the fence for India is over. I say this because, in a sort of earlier environment, it would have been possible for India to say, Look To a lot of European countries and even for America, the Communist Party is a problem, but its a quite distant problem. For India, China is sitting right on top. China is a neighbor, China is a country which India has to live with. It cant change its geography. So, clearly, Indias response has generally been cautious. But I think that phase is coming to an end with the kind of policies that the Communist Party have charted out for India. I think perhaps they themselves dont realize the extent of damage that they have done, with the kind of border issues they have taken up, especially the Galwan Valley incident. I dont think theres today any space in India for those who might want to argue for a more cozy relationship with China. Because that is something that the Chinese Communist Party itself is responsible for. There is always in India a very vibrant debate about China, there were always those who have pushed for stable ties with China, that India should not rock the boat, India should be cautious, India should not align itself completely with the West, because India has to after all deal with China, etc., etc. But that constituency has disappeared in fact, has become very marginal if not completely disappeared, because of the policies that one after another the Communist Party decided to target India. So this is the story that has reached its final climax with this Galwan Valley episode, with the killing of Indian soldiers, and the kind of impact it has had on the Indian side. Let us also be clear that it is not over, the crisis continues. So, in that sense, even if India was not clear before, this episode has given India more clarity on which direction it wants to go, and theres only one direction, which is anti-CCP.

ET: What is at stake if India doesnt take a stand now?

HP: Oh, I think whats at stake is not only Indias territorial integrity, but Indias credibility as a responsible member of the international community, because it is simply not about India wants to become a major power, therefore it has to go against China; it is about India wanting to shape a global order in which certain norms and values are respected, but China wants to shape a global order, the CCP wants to shape a global order in which Chinese power is the only value is to be respected. So theres no contest there. I dont think India and Indians can agree to live in an environment that is shaped by the aggression of Chinese power, and therefore it is very important for India to stand up. See, India will bear a lot of costs for it, its not that it is going to be cost-free. After all, even if you decide to sectorally ward off China from certain sectors with India in trade, that is going to cost India, that is going to impact the Indian consumers, the Indian producers, the Indian manufacturing, theres going to be a cost. So I think going into this with a clear idea of the cost, I think it is important India recognizes that with all these challenges the costs are going to be equally high. While the costs are going to be high, there is no alternative but to stand up, otherwise, you have to become subservient to a country that has no respect for any kind of rules and values.

ET: The U.S. and other western countries are moving their supply chains out of China. India also banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok recently. How would this affect the India-U.S. and the India-China relationship, amidst the current conflict?

HP: You know, even before this border episode started and flared up, the Indian prime minister made a statement which is quite interesting, wherein he said that one of the most important lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is the need to be self-reliant (atma nirbhar Bharat). So clearly, the recognition has been growing in India irrespective of the recent border crisis that over-dependence on China has to be curtailed. The dependence on China is not good, it creates vulnerabilities for India. And when you saw the whole logic of India being the pharmacy of the world and yet the Indian pharmaceutical industry has to rely on imports from China. So this is something unsustainable. You need critical sectors which are not dependent on China, and that debate had reached a particular point where certainly the need of us to develop our own manufacturing base and shift the supply line and become a part of the global supply chain. Now as the supply chain gets transformed, one can potentially look at what kind of opportunities it creates for India and one can also look at how the next phase of globalization would be fragmented, where you will have different supplya group of countries that are more comfortable with each other would be together and shape the supply chain along that belt. And China would be walled off. But I think India will have to become part of that supply chain network.

ET: Do you think India is taking enough efforts to become a part of that supply chain management because just talking about self-reliant India is not enough. There are also a lot of policies that have to come into place that can help India grab the opportunity. There are a lot of individuals, businessmen, and entrepreneurs who may want to be there or grow from domestic markets to international markets, too, and be a part of the global supply chain. India should also be quick at policy-making and helping these people. Do you think India is gearing up for that or is it rather slow, as there are other countries who are also fighting to be there?

HP: You know, there is already some evidence suggesting that India is not a big beneficiary of the shifting of manufacturing from China. I think Vietnam is also very much benefited. So clearly I think India has a lot of work to do in terms of projecting itself as a favorable investment destination. My only point here is that while in the past this was something only discussed in India, today it is accepted as a matter of fact, it is a reality. Perhaps that may spur better decision making at the moment we are still dealing with the COVID-19. I think once things settle down, hopefully, there will be a new momentum in making sure that the domestic manufacturing capability can match up to the ambition India has in becoming a part of the supply chain. And, theres a lot of work that needs to be done.

ET: For years, The Epoch Times has been exposing communism, socialism, and especially the CCP for its tyranny. Now, after the pandemic, The Epoch Times launched a global signature campaign to condemn and reject the CCP. Do you think Indians should also start signing this global petition? Should Indians also start rejecting the CCP?

HP: Of course! I think they should be doing much more. They should be much more aggressive in targeting the CCP because clearly, the entire framework of Sino-Indian ties today can dismantle under the present leadership of CCP, and they have been working. I dont think there is any hope for normalization in this relationship. So unless we as Indians take a greater interest in the kind of government that should emerge in China, I am afraid this will lead us from one crisis to another and we will have these moments of instability. By and large, the relationship between China and India has been very, very complicated and so it is important for the ordinary Indians, for the Indian elites to look at and target the CCP much more closely and to examine its behavior and to focus on challenging some of the narratives that have emerged about how efficient the CCP is or how good they have been, etc. I mean, theres a simple thing like Chinese propaganda in Indian media is so pervasive. At times its very difficult to figure out, here in a country thats a democracy. Here the Indian media houses take their shots, rightfully so, at their democratically elected governments, but they produce and are keen to produce their propaganda from China, which they mark as their reports. No, its propaganda. And ordinary Indians have to read it, digest it, and understand what China and the CCP are all about. So I think at every level we have to take responsibility.
If the Trump family had never existed, someone would have invented them.

Indeed, theyd have been right at home in some over-the-top TV soap produced by Aaron Spelling. As depicted in Too Much and Never Enough, Mary L. Trumps lacerating new portrait of her uncle Donald and the loveless clan that produced him, they are nearly operatic in their villainy.

Many stories from the book might suffice to paint the picture. There is, for instance, the Thanksgiving meal where grandma was choking and the Trumps glanced up, then kept eating. Theres the part where they canceled health insurance on a great-grandson who suffered from seizures and required 24-hour nursing care. Theres the time grandma justified Marys exclusion from her grandfathers will by telling her that her late father was worth a whole lot of nothing.

And then theres the day her father died. Frederick Freddy Trump Jr. was the oldest son, the heir apparent to the Trump real-estate empire until his failure to prove himself a killer in business, his love for deep-sea fishing, his work as an airline pilot  a bus driver in the sky, sneered his old man  and his descent into alcohol and despair caused the father to move on to his second son, Donald.

Freddys downward spiral ended on Sept. 26, 1981, when an ambulance took him to the hospital. The doctors think Freddy probably wont make it, Donald is said to have told Freddys ex-wife. She rushed to the family home to wait by the phone. Mary says Donald and his sister Elizabeth werent there. They had gone to the movies.

Who does that? Who goes to the movies when their brother is on his deathbed?

Marys book arrives as controversy swirls over reports that Russia paid a bounty for American deaths while the White House did nothing, Ivanka Trump is under fire for posing with a can of beans and ICE is training civilians to arrest undocumented immigrants. In other words, a typical week in the chaos that is the Trump presidency.

Meantime, the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic Trump once assured us would magically disappear is approaching 140,000. In response, the White House launches an attack on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease expert and its most credible pandemic spokesperson, while Trump retweets a theory that everyone is lying about the virus to hurt him politically. Its from Chuck Woolery, whose claim to fame is that he used to host Love Connection.

And again, seriously: Who does that?

The answer, of course, is no mystery to anyone whos been paying attention. Still, Mary Trump performs a service by bringing to that answer both the authority of a psychologist  she holds a Ph.D.  and the insight of an insider.

Donald Trump is what you get when childhood is a zero-sum competition for the approval of a high-functioning sociopath whose values are expressible in dollars and cents. He is what happens when a boy is allowed to bluff, brag and bully his way through life, no one ever tells him No and everyone acts as if his waste products are without odor. He is whats left when you subtract compassion, accountability, humility and the ability to laugh at yourself.

Donald is not simply weak, writes his niece, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be. He knows he has never been loved.

That ruined young Donald Trump.

It may yet ruin us all.

Pitts is a columnist for the Tribune Content Agency.
Two weeks ago, Oakley high schooler Briones Bedell, 17, started a petition on Change.org asking popular national grocery chain Trader Joes to change packaging on products that Briones characterized as racist and harmful. Items such as Trader Mings Wonton Soup and Trader Joses Mexican Lager, Briones argued, played on racial stereotypes about Chinese and Mexican cultures, respectively.

On Monday, a spokesperson for Trader Joes told SFGate and other media that the company was already in the process of gradually phasing out those items, prompting headlines in national outlets like the New York Times and NPR. Though encouraged by a political climate wherein Americans are openly criticizing systemic racism, Briones has nonetheless been surprised by the reaction her petition has garnered online  even prompting a response from the company itself, albeit one that she considers tepid. The store, she pointed out, had said the same thing more than a year ago, and has yet to set a date to make changes.

Briones, 17, an East Bay native and rising high school senior, spoke with Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho about the petition and what led her to create it, as well as the backlash shes received for her activism. That includes gripes from the right  but also objections from liberal Democrats who say they dont want to appear oversensitive, or complaining that the issue dilutes other messages. But she said shes encouraged by all the dialogue it has provoked.

The interview has been edited for clarity.

RJ Mickelson / The Chronicle

Q: How are you holding up? I mean reading through the comments, which is something you never should do and I hope youre not, all the hate just  sigh  seems very familiar to me personally.

A: Im doing all right. Its been very overwhelming, especially today. Ive been getting a few death threats that were pretty concerning. And then just a lot of hate. Im like, OK, its not completely unexpected, but I never thought it would reach this national  apparently international  level. A friend called me today from Denmark, telling me that it was on the news out there.

I had no clue. I never expected this. And so its been kind of bizarre because I had zero social media presence. I didnt have a personal account on Instagram or Twitter before that. So its been a first dive into it.

Is this the first time youve done something like this, or has there been other work before that hasnt quite gotten to an international scope?

Ive done some other advocacy work in the past  nothing that was like this. I have an interest in protecting intangible cultural content like oral traditions and rituals: how places like museums, archives and libraries can curate and display traditional cultural content in a respectful manner while employing Free, Prior and Informed Consent standards. (Editors note: Free, Prior and Informed Consent is a right granted to indigenous people by the United Nations to give or refuse consent to projects that may affect them or their property.)

Previously, I presented all these issues at the World Intellectual Property Organization and some other venues. It was initially through a Human Rights Club at my school, and then I continued my interest independently after the club disbanded. But I think my prior interest and involvement in these kinds of topics, though unrelated, made me more sensitive to what I perceived as the, I would say, trivializing impact of Trader Joes branding, which then compelled me to speak up about it. If youre paying attention to these issues of protecting cultural content in general, youll see that theres this growing movement and this heightened sense of awareness to the value of repatriating cultural content back to source communities, of allowing communities access to their content institutions in protecting intellectual property rights.

While the Trader Joes thing is a little different, I think that the central issue at the heart of all this is that when any community isnt allowed control over their representation, harmful stereotypes and caricatures are allowed to be perpetuated. I think we can derive and apply some of the lessons learned within the protecting intangible cultural contents sphere to other instances of cultural insensitivity, as in the case of Trader Joes branding of ethnic foods with these names like Trader Mings, Trader Jose, Thai Joes, etc.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

This sounds like it all part of the same spectrum, right? Youve taken on what we consider to be the high culture of museums and art in your previous work. But youre arguing that the grocery store is another sphere where the same dynamics of appropriation seem to play out, though on the level of popular culture.

Its just a general lack of control over a narrative thats experienced by a lot of people. My previous work has been more focused on things that we can point to as being cultural spaces or cultural work. In the case of Trader Joes, theres no source community for this stuff because these are just stereotypes and shells, where the cultures are represented as this marketing tool.

All the products could just be named Trader Joes!

Its very much like a simulacrum, like a copy of this idea of another copy. So in your petition, you talk about the companys stated inspiration in Polynesian-ish Disneyland rides and literature like White Shadows in the South Seas (a 1919 travelogue by Frederick OBrien) and ask the company to address whats so ... inspiring about them. I would love to hear more about those connections.

My family and I, honestly, we shopped at Trader Joes a fair amount prior to all this. I mean, its a fun grocery store. But Ive noticed for a while that the branding is kind of weird. Trader Ming, in particular. It was like, its not even a derivative of Joe at that point.

Like, OK, guys! (Laughs)

So Ive been thinking about this. I wrote the petition on the same day I really thought about the branding. I thought the branding itself was offensive because it didnt seem to serve any real purpose, and it just seemed like a marketing tool that was insensitive and in poor taste. But when I went and looked on their website ... it really solidified for me that this was an issue. Under their About page, they mentioned that the founder was inspired by these two sources.

One was the White Shadows in the South Seas book. And then the other one was the Disney Jungle Cruise ride. So I watched the (White Shadows) movie, because the book got adapted into a (1928) movie. And I read a synopsis of the book. The book really plays heavily on the white god and noble savage tropes, and then how those intersect with one another. Its set in the South Pacific in Tahiti. It was actually a really interesting social commentary of the time: It depicted the trading companies as the villain of the story who were exploiting native people, but it presented this entire other racist view of native peoples as innocent and childlike. And then it presented the other white man who stumbles upon them as trying to protect them from the evils of the Western world and the Western man.

They call him a god. And, you know, I found that to be odd that that was an inspiration for a grocery store.

But then I read the Disney Jungle Cruise part. I went there as a child and I remember something off about it. I went and watched videos of the ride, and it has these animatronic people that are this non-specific ethnic tribe. They just call them headhunters. It really depicts native peoples as uncivilized and violent and as the punch line of jokes.

I felt that the branding was insensitive, and when you put it in this larger context of the Trader Joes corporate brand philosophy, it becomes more apparent that theres an actual issue of systemic or institutional racism rather than just tone deafness.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

Youve gotten a lot of pushback from people who are just like, why does this matter? Why are you kicking up a fuss about groceries? What is your response to that kind of stuff?

Its weird for me. I havent wanted to respond very much either to positive or negative feedback. I obviously have my cause and I have my opinion, but I did want to remain essentially, not impartial, but a facilitator of a discussion, rather than pushing for a narrative or agenda that people might find insensitive itself.

Im just glad that theres a conversation going. Some would argue there are clearly more serious issues going on right now, things like police brutality, that affect people in a very measurable and tangible way because actual lives are lost. But Ive noticed this particularly among my peers that theres this growing awareness of identifying and weeding out systemic racism on all scales.

For example, police brutality affects someone very, again, tangibly; and the fact that statues, university buildings, military bases and even cities are named after Confederate soldiers makes many people feel unwelcome in their own country.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

But I think the central issue there is that it allows us to see that there is this deeply racist sentiment on many levels, both in the case of actual violence and in the case of more symbolic acts of racism. Theyre both worth our time in addressing and resolving. I think that theres room for discussions on all magnitudes of how we can continue this conversation of what is racist, what is not, whats worth our time? Why?

What is the ideal outcome from all of this for you?

I am appreciative that Trader Joes made a statement to the SFGate initiallyI dont think theyve issued any more  basically just saying theyve been working on this for a couple years now and it should be completed soon. But I did some digging on it.

When I actually started the petition, I found this Nylon article called Who is Trader Ming?, and the company issued almost an identical statement over a year ago to this reporter. It just seems like a continual deflection. Meanwhile, the company wont commit to a date by which the products will be phased out. But they also have not made any statement regarding the broader corporate brand philosophy as pertains to White Shadows in South Seas and the Disney Jungle Cruise ride.

Again, I appreciate the response, but Im disappointed by the lack of urgency that I think is needed to resolve issues such as this in the current climate. They owe their customers more accountability and transparency on this issue.

Nina Riggio / Special to The Chronicle

You mentioned that youve gotten death threats, which Im super sorry about. I can see why youre so passionate about this on your end. Do you have any interpretation of why people would be so passionate in coming out against this work?

Ive gotten a lot of backlash from self-identified conservatives and Trump supporters. I dont think thats surprising. But Ive also gotten a lot of backlash from people who self-identify as liberal Democrats saying this is the type of rhetoric that convinces the other side that liberalism is just about being offended by everything. And in concentrating on issues that dont matter, youre diluting the message of movements that are more pressing and have more real-world consequences.

And the other response has been, essentially, This is an example of cancel culture and Im like, OK... (laughs)

Youre not asking for Trader Joes be canceled.

I dont hate Trader Joes! I would love to shop there.

But thats how I know the petition has made an impact. I dont think anybody whos been made aware of this issue will look at Trader Joes the same way regardless of whether they support or dont support it. I mean, half of people are saying, boycott Trader Joes because its bad and the other half are saying, boycott Trader Joes because they bowed down unlike Goya, so it just seems like theyre getting boycotted across the board.

Oh, God. Well, at the very least, getting people to think to look at something so mundane in a new way is already a victory. Youve already won.

Yeah, thats how I feel about it.

Soleil Ho is The San Francisco Chronicles restaurant critic. Email: soleil@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hooleil
Dr. Kwesi Asabir

22.07.2020 LISTEN

A group calling itself the Patriotic Advocates for Truth, Peace, and Development, Ghana is demanding the resignation of Director of Human Resource at the Health Ministry Dr. Kwesi Asabir over corruption and nepotism.

A press release signed by the Founder and Convener, Mr. Isaac Kobina Ochem has noted that a petition to the government has become necessary because the Health Ministry has failed to take appropriate action on the said matter over since the Punch Newspaper published the story.

The Punch newspaper, on Monday 22nd June 2020, reported on a story on its 3rd page with a headline: Rot at Health ministry, Director of Human Resource cited for extortions and recommending unqualified persons.

This particular publication was referring to Dr. Kwesi Asabir who is alleged to have involved himself in such highly corrupt practices by extorting monies ranging from fifty thousand Ghana Cedis and above from newly appointed principals of health training institutions before endorsing for their appointment to be able to take office.

The Patriotic Advocates for Truth, Peace and Development, Ghana, is, therefore, asking the government to let Dr. Kwesi Asabir tender in his resignation letter to the sector minister in order to pave way for an independent investigation body to probe the allegations against leveled against him.

Another allegation the punch newspaper per its credible investigation conducted revealed, Dr. Kwesi Asabir is adopting what is called nepotism, in that he has recommended for the appointment of one lady by name, Rebecca Akweley a closest friend of he, Dr. Kwesi Asabirs wife to a position of HR manager who does not deserve because she has not passed through the ranks per the laydown procedure at the health ministry, the statement reads.

It adds, All these calls for probe since we as an advocacy group that believe in the truth is drawing the attention of the government to take action with immediate effect by compelling Dr. Kwesi Asabir to step aside by resigning to pave way for an independent investigation body to delve into the issue and come out with its findings for the whole world to know.

Read full statement from the NGO below:
Syracuse, N.Y.  The internal affairs unit at the Syracuse Police Department likely lost or destroyed the documents in 24 misconduct cases against officers, said the chairman of an independent board that reviews complaints.

Peter McCarthy, chairman of the Citizen Review Board, said the police internal affairs unit recently asked that the board resend the documents in 24 cases that the unit was supposed to be investigating.

The internal affairs office did not say what happened to the files, McCarthy said, but he sees only two explanations.

They either lost them or shredded them, McCarthy said. They apparently didnt have cases that we had sent them. Thats pretty clear.

Police officials would not explain what happened to the files in the hands of the unit charged with enforcing accountability in the department.

The lost files are the latest revelation regarding a mysterious backlog of at least 48 citizen complaints that syracuse.com first reported last week. Internal affairs failed to investigate the cases within 18 months, which meant the accused officers escaped any risk of discipline.

A question remains about whether the unit slow-walked the cases to prevent officers from being disciplined or if the short-staffed unit was overwhelmed by the workload.

Chief Kenton Buckner, who took over the department in December 2018, has said he is trying to revamp the Office of Professional Standards, which investigates misconduct complaints against officers.

McCarthy didnt know when the department asked for the 24 cases again, but it probably happened this year and definitely under Buckners tenure.

The board has resent the cases to the police department.

Buckner and Deputy Chief Joe Cecile, who oversees the internal affairs unit, declined to directly address why the department needed the 24 cases to be sent over again. Instead, Buckner reiterated that he is overhauling the office.

Internal Affairs is a work in progress. We will continue our assessment of the unit, Buckner said in an email. We have stated publicly many times the unit is in need of an overhaul.' We have made significant progress, but we continue to evaluate both past and present challenges.

The cases originated as complaints to the CRB, which then sends them to internal affairs, known in Syracuse as the Office of Professional Standards. Internal affairs then is charged with conducting its own review and sending a case back to the CRB for a hearing and potential disciplinary recommendations, if the board sees the need.

Of the 24 cases that the department needed resent, 11 are from 2017 and 13 are from 2018, according to the CRB.

Ranette Releford, the CRBs administrator, has said some of the most egregious cases shes seen as the administrator are in that 48-case backlog. Asked recently if the unit was deliberately slow-walking cases to prevent officers from discipline, she said that was an accurate assumption.

The CRB intends to refer at least two of the 48 cases to the Onondaga County District Attorneys Office for consideration of criminal prosecution of officers, Releford has said.

Cecile has previously said there was nothing nefarious about the cases taking longer than 18 months to investigate. He said cases are investigated based on when they are filed, except for when urgent or high-profile allegations demand the units immediate attention.

However, the department has declined to provide basic details about the cases in the backlog that would back up Ceciles defense. The department is declining to say:

How many of the 48 cases were eventually investigated,

How many would have resulted in discipline, and what kinds of discipline, if investigators had completed them in time, and

Details on the misconduct alleged in each case. (Police have said nine cases alleged excessive use of force.)

We are going to stand by our previous comments regarding the challenges we had in (internal affairs) with workflow and the improvements we have made and continue to make to remedy these challenges, Cecile said in an email last week.

Buckner has touted changes to the internal affairs unit since he took over, including adding additional staff and moving the department out of police headquarters, a move aimed at making those alleging misconduct more comfortable doing so. Before Buckner, the unit had just one investigator and one supervisor to investigate more than 100 cases a year.

McCarthy said its unclear whether the mishandling of the 24 cases caused them to miss the 18-month deadline, but the departments refusal to explain more makes it hard to know.

It probably would have contributed to the delay in the discipline process, but were drawing conclusions from sketchy information, he said.

Releford, the administrator, has also declined to comment further on the timeline of events on the 24 cases. She did say, however, that the CRB sent the cases over in a timely fashion when they were filed, and the CRB has since received some of the 24 cases back from internal affairs to complete its review and hold hearings, if warranted.

Contact reporter Patrick Lohmann at 315-766-6670 or PLohmann@Syracuse.com.
KS Senate candidate Bob Hamilton says he supports President Trump's policies The race for the Kansas Senate Republican nomination could come down to Roger Marshall, Kris Kobach and Bob Hamilton. Hamilton told KMBC's Micheal Mahoney that there isn't a single major issue where he disagrees with President Donald Trump.On Monday night in Fort Scott, Hamilton was wearing a red "Keep America Great" hat."Major policy disagreement?

This local biz dude doesn't have much of a chance but he's full of great quotes and seems to be one of the very few people having fun amid hyper-serious pandemic campaign 2020.Checkit:
Critics are calling on the government not to change the qualifications for directors of education, saying the person at the helm of a school board should have teaching experience.

Under legislative changes tabled by the Ford government, the Education Act will no longer require directors to be certified teachers, which advocacy group People for Education says will make Ontario an anomaly across the country. Most Canadian jurisdictions require at least five years of school-based experience, a teaching certificate and, in many cases, at least a masters degree in education.

The group criticizes the government for bringing in a substantial change during a pandemic, with no consultation with experts, no input from the Council of Ontario Directors of Education and little time to respond  It could have far-reaching impacts on the education system.

An online petition had almost 30,000 signatures by late Friday afternoon.

The Ontario government plans to remove the requirement that a director of education must be a teacher with supervisory officer qualifications.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the change is necessary to diversify the hiring pool and so that boards can seek candidates with wider skills.

Of the provinces 72 directors, less than half are women and less than four per cent are people of colour. We can do better than that, Lecce has said.

Currently, three Black women are leading large boards: Toronto, Peel and Ottawa-Carleton. One of them, Torontos interim director, Carlene Jackson, is a chartered professional accountant and certified general accountant with a masters degree in business administration. She has worked for years in education and other public sectors as a CFO.

Peel, too, initially brought in an interim director who is not a teacher, with provincial approval given for both.

This year, about 14 directors have left or are retiring from Ontario boards, which Lecce last week called a generational opportunity to get this right.

This approach aligns with many other broader public-sector organizations, such as hospitals and community-based social service providers, Lecce has said, adding that boards would still be able to hire a teacher if they choose.

Howard Goodman, a former Toronto District School Board trustee, has long argued that deputy education ministers, university or college presidents, or deans of faculties of education could ably serve as directors.

But the head of the Council of Ontario Directors of Education previously told the Star he believes teachers are best suited for the job, because ultimately the culture of education is based on trust. And it is based on respect for that leader. And its hard for that leader to have that trust and confidence of staff if they have not experienced what its like in a classroom.

Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, tweeted that the Toronto Fire Chief is a firefighter. The Toronto Chief of Police is a police officer. The President & CEO of SickKids is a Doctor and a Director of Education should be a teacher!

The change.org petition says losing the teaching requirement is the beginning of an approach to privatize education & further enhance a two-tiered education system in Ontario. This should raise significant concerns for all communities, especially those who are most marginalized.

Lack of education experience means that directors will not understand the anti-racist and anti-oppressive considerations necessary to align resources and supports across the organization to support marginalized student populations.

New Democrat MPPs Laura Mae Lindo and Marit Stiles said that thousands of Ontarians are now calling on Ford to scrap that bill, for fear that education professionals will be replaced by fiscal managers at the head of school boards.

The petition was created by Toronto principal Alison Gaymes San Vicente and Vidya Shah, a York University education professor.
A study by University of Johannesburg (UJ) researchers and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has found that 60% of South African adults do not want schools to reopen this year.

The researchers said this data is representative at a national level and is based on a sample size of 2,569.

The study found that only about 13% of South Africans believe schools should reopen for all grades, while approximately 21% said that schools should only reopen for Grade 7 and 12 learners.

The remaining 5.4% said that they did not know what the best choice is.

South African research chair in Social Change at UJ Professor Kate Alexander said that the findings of this survey will come as a blow to the governments current strategy for schools.

It may want to reconsider its present policy, said Alexander.

Alexander told MyBroadband that her personal beliefs are in alignment with the results of this study.

In my personal opinion, all schools should be closed for now. Keeping them open right now is bad for South Africa and a mistake for government, Alexander said.

The results of this survey are tabulated below.

Support for re-opening schools Statement Percentage Schools should re-open for all grades 13.1% Schools should only re-open for Grade 7 and Grade 12 learners 21.1% Schools should not reopen this year 60.4% Dont know 5.4% Total 100%

Support by demographic

The researchers also segmented the data by a variety of demographics, including individual monthly income and gender.

The data discovered that high-income respondents  who earn an income in excess of R20,000  were more likely than other respondents to believe schools should be open for all grades.

Additionally, women were significantly more supportive than men when it came to a partial opening of schools, with 26% of female respondents believing schools should reopen exclusively for Grade 7 and Grade 12 learners. 17% of men held the same belief.

Demographic data from this survey is tabulated below.

By individual monthly income

Support for re-opening schools by individual monthly income Statement Less than R1,001 R1,001- R2,500 R2,501  R5,000 R5,001  R20,000 R20,000+ Unknown Total Schools should re-open for all grades 13% 9% 11% 17% 37% 13% 14% Schools should only re-open for Grade 7 and Grade 12 learners 18% 26% 27% 16% 14% 18% 21% Schools should not reopen this year 67% 61% 55% 58% 41% 65% 60% Dont know 3% 4% 7% 9% 8% 5% 5% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% By gender
Japan on Wednesday kicked off a national travel campaign aimed at reviving its battered tourism industry, but the effort has drawn heavy criticism amid a jump in new coronavirus cases.

Go To Travel - dubbed Go To Trouble by some local media - offers subsidies of up to 50% on trips to and from prefectures excluding Tokyo, which was removed from the programme last week after infections surged to new highs.

But many of Japans governors wanted the campaign delayed or amended out of fear it would spread the virus to rural areas with low infection numbers, while a Mainichi newspaper poll this week showed 69% of the public wanted the programme cancelled entirely.

The criticism underlines the publics growing exasperation with what critics say are mixed messages as the government tries to boost the economy while containing the virus.

There is no change to our stance to cautiously restart economic activity, while asking the public to cooperate in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters on Wednesday when asked about the campaign.

Governor Yuriko Koike, however, urged Tokyo residents to stay home during a four-day weekend beginning Thursday.

Its essential for the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions to refrain from making unnecessary outings, Koike said on Tuesday evening.

Many in the travel industry were frustrated with what they said was a lack of clarity.

Its clear the government is scrambling and was totally unprepared. Its also so hard to get information about this scheme because things change a lot, said a general manager of a mid-sized business hotel in Osaka, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Hiroaki Gofuku, the president and general manager of Hotel Nikko Osaka, said he hoped that the campaign would be a boost for the ailing tourism industry, but that he was also cautious not to be overly optimistic.

Tokyo is our big market, he said. With this mess, were actually seeing more cancellations.

Economic Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura is also widely expected to announce a delay to the phased reopening of stadiums and events at a meeting on Wednesday.

The government was planning to ease restrictions for stadiums and concert venues starting in August, allowing them to operate at half of maximum capacity. But they are widely expected to reverse their plans with daily infections rising.

Tokyo announced on Wednesday morning that daily infections were expected to reach over 230.

Japan has not seen the kind of rapid spread of the coronavirus that has killed tens of thousands in other countries. But new cases in Tokyo and other cities have sounded alarm bells for a country that had thought it had the virus under control.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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Vodacom has applied for leave to appeal against the 30 June Pretoria High Court ruling which requires it to submit extensive information to Kenneth Makate.

The court said Vodacom must do this within 21 days of its ruling so that Makate can determine how much he should be paid for the Please Call Me idea he claims to have generated.

Makate is fighting back against the R49 million offered by Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub for the Please Call Me idea.

Makate believes he deserves much more than this amount and has previously suggested a payout of R20 billion as a more realistic proposition.

Vodacom confirms that it has applied for leave to appeal Justice Kollapens judgment relating to the supplementary record and further and better discovery of documentation in the Please Call Me matter, Vodacom told MyBroadband.

Mr Makates case before Justice Kollapen is not about the reasonableness of the quantum of the compensation payable to him.

Our position on the matter is consistent in that we have repeatedly stated our willingness to pay Mr Makate a substantial amount, the network said.

Vodacom said it still holds the view that it negotiated with Mr Makate and his team in good faith.

Vodacoms argument

Kollapen ruled that while Vodacom may no longer have the original raw data relating to calls, it is still possible to determine the revenue earned over the period.

He also determined that several documents sought by Makate had not featured in Joosubs original determination when calculating the R47-million payout to Makate.

Vodacom is contesting that the only data on Please Call Me revenue that it still has is accessible within its financial statements for the period spanning 2001 to 2018.

The learned judge should have found that the applicants [Vodacoms] assertions under oath that the figures supplied to the second respondent [Makate]  constituted aggregated, audited figures and were therefore not open to challenge and could not be gainsaid, Vodacom said in its appeal.

The learned judge should have found that the applicant [Vodacom] was no longer possessed of the raw data underlying the voice revenue figures appearing in an aggregated manner in their annual financial statements for the years 2001 to 2018 and could therefore not produce same.

No clear model for this case

It warrants mention that there is no recognised model for the determination of compensation in instances such as these, said Kollapen in his original ruling.

The second respondent took the position that the order of the Constitutional Court makes allowance for a variety of models including specifically an employee remuneration model by reference to best international practice.

The applicant, on the other hand, was of the view that the order of the Court required that the compensation made to him should be assessed by calculating a share of the actual revenue generated by the Please Call Me idea, Kollapen said.

Kollapen said that the contest over the appropriate modelling structure of the payout is set to continue until the parties meet in the review court.

There accordingly can be little argument that in general documents and information that go to the proper determination of the various components of the calculation of compensation would be relevant to what has been described as a reasonably anticipated issue, said Kollapen.
Both active infections and hospitalizations have more than doubled in the past month, and Tennessee recently set records for new infections and new hospitalizations.



Citizens in Hamilton County who fail to cover their faces can now be charged with a Class C misdemeanor offense, with penalties ranging from a $50 fine up to 30 days in jail.



With few exceptions, the executive order requires masks or facial coverings be worn over the mouth and nose at all times when indoors in all public and private buildings and when outdoors, through Sept.

8.Generally, people indoors must wear coverings unless at home, in a house of worship that does not require coverings or seated at a restaurant for dining.While outdoors, masks are not required unless people are unable to substantially maintain appropriate social distancing from others outside of the person's household.This is not unreasonable.COVID 19 transmission is significantly decreased indoors if all parties wear some form of covering over the nose and mouth.The mandatory use of facial coverings is associated with a significant decline in the percentage of COVID 19 tests performed that are found to be positive for the virus. This association strongly suggests that such coverings dampen the rate of transmission.I am unable to understand why there is opposition to the use of masks in certain circumstances, when the public health benefit is clear.Public health matters interface with public and private behavior. The government has the power to impose a quarantine upon an individual if the quarantine is reasonably necessary to protect the public health and safety.When seat belts were introduced, they were seldom worn. Somehow, the public has come to accept the law requiring seat belt/shoulder harness use. Although the law largely protects the person who is required to use the safety device, there is little resistance to this law.Smoking in public places increases the health risk to others due to second hand smoke. The public now largely accepts that smoking on airplanes and in other confined public spaces is not okay.How is the use of facial coverings different?Americas COVID 19 test positivity rate has never fallen below 4.6 percent since the start of the pandemic. However, experience in other countries has found that once the percentage of tests that are found to be positive drops below 1.5 percent, they can "open for business as usual" and not risk a spike in infections.The use of facial coverings in circumstances that otherwise place others at risk is appropriate until the percentage of persons in the community who test positive is under 1.5 percent.Matthew Hine, M.D., M.P.H.

* * *

Dr. Hine,

Im not anti mask. Im anti government overreach. If you or a business wants to wear or require customers to wear a mask Im all for it. Be an adult and make your own choices. If you dont want to be at the company of those not wearing masks, dont be. I dont want to hear people have to get groceries or prescriptions because anything can be ordered online and delivered to your door. Just stay inside until you feel safe to enter into public.

Now, you said, COVID-19 transmission is significantly decreased indoors if all parties wear some form of covering over the nose and mouth. Please cite your source for making this claim. You are an M.D. so I hope you are not just parroting something you heard somewhere and have some solid scientific studies that hold up to your sensible approach.



There is an article from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy that doesnt really support your opinion.

John Bates

* * *

Having been in law enforcement for several years, I realize that taking one's freedom (putting someone in jail) is not something done lightly.



I don't have a problem with a requirement to wear masks, even though I hate doing so. I don't even have a problem with a civil penalty of $50. What I have a problem with is the "up to 30 days in jail." While I doubt that a judge would send someone to jail over not wearing a mask, it could happen.



And then there is the fact that a defendant can demand the case be sent to the grand jury and/or demand a jury trial. I see a lot of unnecessary expense and time wasted.



The civil penalty is reasonable. The possibility of a jail term is not.



Ed Bradley
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Many in the U.K. were hoping that a key parliamentary report into Russian influence and disinformation would finally settle the question of whether Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum or not. After all, given Russias desire to weaken the EU, it had every motive to do so.

Sadly, the reportbelatedly published Tuesday by Parliaments intelligence and security committeedoes not do that. It could not, because nobody in the government and intelligence services gave the lawmakers on the committee any assessment of Russian attempts at interfering in the referendum.

The committee reported that nobody in the government or British intelligence was watching out for Russian interference when the 2016 referendum took place, and nobody bothered to try spotting it after the fact.

And the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnsonone of the leading advocates of Brexit, and the U.K.s former foreign secretaryis still refusing to conduct an inquiry.

The U.K. is clearly a target for Russias disinformation campaigns and political influence operations, the committees report read. HoweverIt has been surprisingly difficult to establish who has responsibility for what. Overall, the issue of defending the U.K.s democratic processes and discourse has appeared to be something of a hot potato, with no one organization recognizing itself as having an overall lead.

The committee also said MI5the U.K.s domestic intelligence servicehad given it just six lines of text when asked if there was any secret intelligence to back up widespread public reports about the use of Russian disinformation channels and bots and trolls to influence the referendum in favor of Britains exit from the EU.

The report has been ready for publication since last October, but Johnson blocked its release until well after the November general election, which saw him elected with a thumping majority.

Story continues

Reading the report, it is not hard to see why he delayed its release. It notes that credible reports of Russian interference in British politics date back to at least 2014, when a Scottish independence referendum took place, but it was only after Russias 2016 hack on the U.S. Democratic National Committee that the U.K. government belatedly realized the level of threat which Russia could pose in this area, the report said.

It appears that the [British] Intelligence Community did learn lessons from the U.S. experience, and [the government] recognized the Russian threat to the U.K.s democratic processes and political discourse, the report read. Had the relevant parts of the Intelligence Community conducted a similar threat assessment prior to the referendum, it is inconceivable that they would not have reached the same conclusion as to Russian intent, which might then have led them to take action to protect the process.

We have not been provided with any post-referendum assessment of Russian attempts at interference, the committee complained in the report. This situation is in stark contrast to the U.S. handling of allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, where an intelligence community assessment was produced within two months of the vote, with an unclassified summary being made public.

Whilst the issues at stake in the EU referendum campaign are less clear-cut, it is nonetheless the Committees view that the U.K. Intelligence Community should produce an analogous assessment of potential Russian interference in the EU referendum and that an unclassified summary of it be published.

So, is that going to happen? No.

According to the governments response to the report, a retrospective assessment of the EU referendum is not necessary.

The government did react a little more warmly (if vaguely) to the committees recommendation of a new protocol with social media companies such as Facebook, which would ensure that they take covert hostile state use of their platforms seriously, and have clear timescales within which they commit to removing such material.

The Governments relationship with the social media companies continues to evolve. In the context of the COVID-19 response, we are learning valuable lessons which will be applied to our future approach to countering disinformation and other forms of online manipulation, the government said in its response.

While the Government welcomes the actions taken by social media companies thus far, including the cooperation they have shown in tackling these issues together, there still issues to be addressed.

More must-read international coverage from Fortune :

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
A police officer stands watch as a looted pawn shop burns behind them, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 28, 2020. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

66 Percent of Americans Oppose Defunding the Police, up From Last Month: Survey

In a sign that public animus is beginning to grow against anti-police protests, a new poll revealed that 66 percent of Americans are opposed to defunding or abolishing the police.

The defund the police cry has been commonplace at Black Lives Matter protests that were sparked in the wake of George Floyds death in Minneapolis in May. Several city councils in various cities have proposed measures to either divert funding away from police departments or dismantle the law enforcement agencies entirely.

But a poll from Rasmussen Reports, released on Tuesday, found that there is a strong support base for law enforcement and police, even among African-Americans.

About 66 percent of adults said they oppose cutting funding for their police department and divert that money to social services, which has been proposed by leftist activists and Black Lives Matter supporters. Last month, the same survey found that 59 percent of those who were interviewed supported the measure.

The survey found that only about 23 percent favor defunding the cops where they live, which is down about four points from last month.

According to Rasmussen, some 57 percent of black Americans oppose defunding the police in their home communities, and for white people, its 69 percent. For other minority groups, 62 percent oppose the measure.

A burned-out building after a night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Police take back the streets at around midnight after firing copious amounts of tear gas to disperse protesters and rioters outside the Minneapolis Police 5th Precinct during the fourth night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

The shift in support comes as violent crime and shootings have surged across numerous metropolitan areas in recent weeks as well as persisting unrest, riots, and vandalism. Cities like Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and St. Louis have all seen spikes in shootings and murders this summer.

Only 12 percent of those who were interviewed believe that defunding the police will lower crime rates, while 61 percent believe that crime is increasing.

In the meantime, President Donald Trump has attempted to portray himself as a law and order candidate just months away from the 2020 election in November.

We will never, ever defund our police. OK? That I can tell you. We are not defunding police, Trump said in mid-July. So, just a terrible thing, but I assume this is going to be a fad. Well call it a fad, the president said.

But some city officials have taken the defund calls seriously.

Most of the Minneapolis City Council vowed to disband the local police department and replace it with a new model of public safety, although details about the new agency are not clear.

The City Council voted today to advance a proposed ballot measure that would ask Minneapolis voters to amend the City Charter to create a new Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention and remove the Police Department as a charter department, the City of Minneapolis wrote in a statement in late June.

It is time to make structural change, Minneapolis Council Member Steve Fletcher told The Associated Press at the time in explaining the City Councils logic behind the move. It is time to start from scratch and reinvent what public safety looks like. Both the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, and the citys police chief oppose the move.
The Egyptian armed forces said an Islamic militant attack in northern Sinai killed two of its troops and wounded four others on Tuesday.The statement said the military thwarted the assault on a security checkpoint in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, near the small town of Bir al-Abd.

Egyptian armed forces, backed by airpower, killed 18 suspected Islamic militants, including one wearing an explosive belt, it said, and destroyed four vehicles, three which were loaded with explosives, apparently before they could detonate.Authorities heavily restrict access to the northern Sinai, making it difficult to verify claims related to the fighting.

The official statement provided scant detail on the scale of the militant attack. The military also released graphic images of the airstrikes aftermath, showing burned and bloodied bodies of suspected militants.Videos posted on social media showed live explosions, billowing smoke and the pounding of mortar shells in what appeared to be populated neighborhoods.

The private Sinai University posted a message on Facebook saying that students stranded because of various roadblocks would be able to sleep in a designated dorm building at the university's expense.For over a decade, the Egyptian military has been battling an insurgency in northern Sinai now led by an Islamic State affiliate. The fighting intensified after the military's 2013 overthrow of elected Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi, amid mass protests against his rule.

The duty town of Bir al-Abd, some 40 km (25 miles) from the North Sinai provincial capital of el-Arish, has long been racked by violent conflict. The deadliest attack by Islamic extremists in Egypt's modern history took place at mosque in the area in 2017, killing over 300 people.Most extremist attacks in Egypt have occurred in marginalized north Sinai, but militants have also struck at police officers, troops and other high-profile targets in the mainland.

(Image Credit: Instagram/egypt.army)
A colonized African man with hope in his heart and a degree in accounting relocates to his European motherland and experiences a brutal disillusionment. His story provides the focus of Med Hondos first feature, Soleil O (1970), an exemplary militant film that is coolly confrontational and at times bleakly humorous.

The movie, long out of distribution, has been restored and is now streaming on the Criterion Channel. Its title referring to a West Indian song about the horrors of slavery, Soleil O is a work with power to both inform and judge its viewers.

Hondo opens the film with a compressed history of European imperialism, involving forced conversion to Catholicism and induced tribal warfare, before following his unnamed protagonist (Robert Liensol) to Paris, where in the first of many misapprehensions, he begins searching for an address that is actually in Marseilles.

Dapper and reserved, the man has a difficult time finding any sort of work, let alone a job in accounting. (In one bit of business, an established migrant takes his suitcase and offers him a broom.) Graffiti warns of the black invasion or the Negro-Arab menace. Hostile whites run the gamut from hysterical to sullen. Some are indifferent, others offer ineffectual solidarity  debating each other rather than engaging the protagonist.
Democrat Senators Demand Answers From Trump Administration on Deployment of Federal Law Enforcement

In the wake of President Donald Trump saying that he is ready to send more federal law enforcement to cities where federal property is being attacked, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is leading a group of 27 senators to demand answers from Department of Justice and Homeland Security on the legal basis of the intervention.

Booker, along with Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and 23 other senators sent a letter Wednesday, demanding that Attorney General Bill Barr and Acting Secretary Chad Wolf give them answers on what they called alarming actions taken against protesters by federal law enforcement agents.

Federal officials should not be dispatched into the streets of our cities without proper authority, training, and accountability. Nor should they be violating the civil rights of Americans who are exercising their First Amendment rights and seeking reforms of their own governments policies, the letter (pdf) stated.

Bookers letter criticized the Trump Administration for their decisions to send federal law enforcement to Portland, Oregon, following more than 50 days of violent protests.

Portland has seen more than 50 consecutive days of protests in the wake of Mr. Floyds murder. Reports have emerged of a disturbing militarized response by federal agents dispatched to the city, the senators wrote.

President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter on July 19 that he is seeking to help Portland after months of protests and riots by sending in federal law enforcement to handle the anarchists.

We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it, the president wrote. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!

The acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli told NPR, that the justification for sending in federal law enforcement officers to Portland was the destruction of federal property and personnel.

I fully expect that as long as people continue to be violent and to destroy property that we will attempt to identify those folks. We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere, said Cuccinelli.

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday a surge of federal law enforcement into Chicago, Illinois, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He said his administration will send more federal law enforcement personnel to major cities facing a surge in violence.

Were not going to let this happen in our country, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. We will have more federal law enforcement. That I can tell you. He also said Oakland, California, could see federal agents.

The senators went to say that federal officers are using excessive measures to deal with protestors. They wrote that the arrest happens without properly reading protestors their Miranda rights, wearing military-style woodland camouflage to intimidate, and with officers not being properly trained. They went on to criticize the Trump Administrations use of the word anarchists in a recent press statement.

Secretary Wolf issued an official statement last week that Portland has been under siege . . . by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city. Each night, lawless anarchists destroy and desecrate property, including the federal courthouse, and attack the brave law enforcement officers protecting it, the letter referenced the quote from Wolf.

This press release references violent anarchists 72 times, including in documenting 20 instances of graffiti, the letter continued.

The senators have a list of questions they want Barr and Wolf to answer by Aug. 4, such as: Who authorized the operations in Portland? What is their legal basis? Why are the officers not identifying themselves? What was the basis for the arrests made outside the limits of federal property? What training have the federal officers had to enable to handle civil unrest? Which cities will the administration be sending federal agents next? And what notification will the public be given about these actions in the future?

The senators went on to say they decry any form of violence.

We decry violence in all its forms. But Americans should be able to exercise their rights under the First Amendment without inappropriate interference or legally questionable activities by federal officers, the letter stated.
(Natural News) As COVID-19 continues to rip through India, the latest government data reveals that infection rates in New Delhi are now higher than any major city. Public health experts are increasingly concerned, as coronavirus infection rates in the capital city are now higher than that of New York City during the height of its outbreak.

In particular, the initial results of a serological survey in New Delhi revealed that around 23 percent of individuals  or nearly one in four people  showed signs of an immune response that indicated past exposure to the virus.

According to the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), the countrys lead agency for outbreak research, the figures do not only indicate the presence of widespread infection, but it also highlights the risk that residents face in one of the most densely populated cities in India.

One in five people may have had COVID-19

Based on the results of the serosurvey, a total of 23.48 percent of those sampled had IgG antibodies present in their system. Many of those sampled had not displayed obvious symptoms. To note, having IgG antibodies  or immunoglobulin G  means that a persons immune system has responded to that particular infection, in this case, COVID-19.

This positivity rate  that is, the percentage of people who test positive of those overall who have been tested  is higher than that of New York City. In comparison, New York City had a positivity rate of 22.7 percent at the height of its outbreak, according to a study by the New York State Department of Health and the University at Albany.

Experts warn that the results could mean that actual infection rates for the coronavirus are higher. The data also suggests that coronavirus caseloads in Indias big cities may be significantly higher than official numbers  a fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modis government has yet to acknowledge. (Related: Coronavirus update: India now third country to have more than 1 million confirmed cases.)

This figure from New Delhi is at the higher end, suggesting there may have been wider exposure and less effective distancing, said Danny Altmann, a professor at Imperial College London who specializes in the immune system.

The serosurvey, which ran from June 27 to July 10, tested a total of 21,387 residents of New Delhi. In a statement, the NCDC said that while the tests were done to provide information about past COVID-19 infections, having it done constantly would generate important evidence that will help researchers assess the spread of the pandemic.

Despite the high rate of infection, Altmann adds that its still far below the 60 percent required to achieve natural herd immunity. This is also complicated by the fact that herd immunity requires durable natural antibodies, which he says now looks less likely.

Containment measures taking effect

Theres still a silver lining to the situation. Experts predict that local social distancing measures are starting to take effect, making it more difficult for the virus to spread.

By comparison, positivity rates for antibodies in other cities are much smaller. London has only 15 percent, and Madrid only has 10 percent despite being among the regions hit hardest by the virus. Tokyos rate is much smaller than the two cities, with just 4 percent developing antibodies.

Meanwhile, over 70 percent of residents in Iquitos, an Amazonian city in Peru with a population of 500,000, has developed antibodies for COVID-19, suggests a preliminary study.

Still, experts are still unsure if the antibodies developed in response to COVID-19 will even last. In addition, theyre still exploring whether recovered patients are still prone to reinfection, or even complications. Initial studies have shown that antibodies may disappear in just a few months.

Antibodies are only one component of immunity and recent studies??suggest that the prevalence of cellular immune responses to the virus are about twice the prevalence of antibodies, explained Eleanor Riley, an infectious disease expert at the University of Edinburgh. The only way we will know for sure if people are immune is when we see whether people who were infected in the first wave are reinfected if there is a second wave.

Pandemic.news has more on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreaks.

Sources include:

FT.com

IndianExpress.com

COVID19.gov.im

PIB.gov.in
BENTON HARBOR, Mich., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) today reported financial results for the second-quarter of 2020.



"Delivering a solid Q2 performance despite the far reaching impact of COVID-19 on our business is the result of the decisive actions we took throughout the quarter and ultimately demonstrates the resilience of our business model," said Marc Bitzer, chairman and chief executive officer of Whirlpool Corporation. "While we recognize the uncertainty and volatility which lies ahead of us, we are proud of the way in which we managed through the most difficult quarter of this global crisis."

- Marc Bitzer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer



KEY RESULTS

Second-Quarter Results 2020 2019 Change Net sales ($M) $4,042 $5,186 $(1,144) (22.1)% Organic net sales(5) ($M) $4,191 $4,863 $(672) (13.8)% GAAP net earnings available to Whirlpool ($M) $35 $67 $(32) (48.2)% Ongoing EBIT(2) ($M) $210 $363 $(153) (42.1)% GAAP earnings per diluted share $0.55 $1.04 $(0.49) (46.9)% Ongoing earnings per diluted share(1) $2.15 $4.01 $(1.86) (46.4)%

CASH FLOW

Year-to-Date Cash Flow 2020 YTD 2019 YTD Change Cash provided by (used in) operating activities ($M) $(745) $(821) 9.3% Free Cash Flow(4) ($M) $(873) $(997) 12.4%

QUARTERLY HIGHLIGHTS

Q2 GAAP net earnings margin was 0.9 percent, compared to 1.3 percent in the same prior-year period. Prior-year results were unfavorably impacted by a $79 million loss primarily related to the sale of our South Africa business, partially offset by a $53 million gain related to a Brazil indirect tax credit and certain favorable tax items.

loss primarily related to the sale of our business, partially offset by a gain related to a indirect tax credit and certain favorable tax items. Ongoing EBIT margin (2) was 5.2 percent, compared to 7.0 percent in the same prior-year period as COVID-19 related disruptions of nearly 300 basis points were mitigated by significant and decisive cost actions.

was 5.2 percent, compared to 7.0 percent in the same prior-year period as COVID-19 related disruptions of nearly 300 basis points were mitigated by significant and decisive cost actions. Strong liquidity position with a cash balance of $2.5 billion as of June 30, 2020 and approximately $2.5 billion available under committed credit facilities.



"Our strong second-quarter results are a testament to our operational strength and the perseverance of our global team," said Jim Peters, chief financial officer of Whirlpool Corporation. "In the quarter, we delivered solid cost takeout globally and strong cash flow improvement through disciplined working capital management. The actions we took earlier this year to sustain our margins and protect our liquidity strengthened our ability to succeed through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and have prepared us to withstand current economic uncertainty."

- Jim Peters, Chief Financial Officer



REGIONAL REVIEW

North America Q2 2020 Q2 2019 Change Change

excluding

currency

impact Net sales ($M) $2,501 $2,858 (12.5)% (12.3)% EBIT(3) ($M) $316 $353 (10.6)% -

COVID-19 related sales impact less than other regions, with early signs of demand recovery in June.

Second-quarter EBIT margin(3) was 12.6 percent, compared to 12.4 percent in the same prior-year period, as strong cost discipline and reduced marketing investments offset negative demand.

Europe, Middle East and Africa Q2 2020 Q2 2019 Change Change

excluding

currency

impact Net sales ($M) $836 $1,032 (19.0)% (17.0)% EBIT(3) ($M) $(66) $(16) (313.1)% -

Demand recovery in June resulted in net sales growth and positive EBIT for the month.

Second-quarter EBIT margin(3) was (7.9) percent, compared to (1.6) percent in the same prior-year period, driven by the unfavorable impact of lower volumes.

Latin America Q2 2020 Q2 2019 Change Change

excluding

currency

impact Net sales ($M) $434 $888 (51.1)% (39.0)% EBIT(3) ($M) $11 $56 (80.5)% -

Organic net sales (5) decreased 4.1 percent as share gains were offset by negative Mexico demand.

decreased 4.1 percent as share gains were offset by negative demand. Second-quarter EBIT margin(3) was 2.5 percent, compared to 6.3 percent in the same prior-year period, as strong cost actions were offset by lower volumes and unfavorable currency. The Latin America region's second-quarter 2019 results include $23 million of EBIT(3) related to the Embraco compressor business.

Asia Q2 2020 Q2 2019 Change Change

excluding

currency

impact Net sales ($M) $271 $430 (37.1)% (33.7)% EBIT(3) ($M) $(18) $15 nm -

Net sales significantly impacted by India shutdown in April/May with recovery across the region in June.

shutdown in April/May with recovery across the region in June. EBIT(3) declined as cost takeout actions were offset by significant demand weakness across the region.

2020 PERSPECTIVE

While the full impact of COVID-19 on future business results remains uncertain, the Company is updating its perspective on 2020:

Expects full-year 2020 net sales decline of approximately 10 percent to 15 percent (previously 13 percent to 18 percent) and organic net sales (5) decline of 7 percent to 12 percent (previously 10 percent to 15 percent)

decline of 7 percent to 12 percent (previously 10 percent to 15 percent) Our COVID-19 response plan is on track to deliver over $500 million in cost takeout (including raw materials savings) in 2020 through the following actions:

in cost takeout (including raw materials savings) in 2020 through the following actions: Capturing raw material deflation opportunities



Significantly reducing structural and discretionary costs



Continue to effectively and efficiently manage working capital



Adjust supply chain and labor levels to match demand environment

(1) A reconciliation of ongoing earnings per diluted share, a non-GAAP financial measure, to reported net earnings per diluted share available to Whirlpool and other important information, appears below. (2) A reconciliation of earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) and ongoing EBIT, non-GAAP financial measures, to reported net earnings available to Whirlpool, and a reconciliation of EBIT margin and ongoing EBIT margin, non-GAAP financial measures, to net earnings margin and other important information, appears below. (3) Segment EBIT and Ongoing Segment EBIT represents our consolidated EBIT broken down by the Company's reportable segments and are metrics used by the chief operating decision maker in accordance with ASC 280. Consolidated EBIT also includes corporate "Other/Eliminations" of $(151) million and $(154) million for the second quarters of 2020 and 2019, respectively. Ongoing segment EBIT includes certain adjustments to segment EBIT, and a reconciliation and other important information, appears below. EMEA Q2 2019 EBIT and EBIT margin reflects ongoing results, which excludes $12 million in legacy product warranty expense. (4) A reconciliation of free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, to cash provided by (used in) operating activities and other important information, appears below. (5) Organic net sales reflects net sales excluding the impact of foreign currency and the Embraco divestiture.

About Whirlpool Corporation

Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) is the leading kitchen and laundry appliance company in the world, with approximately $20 billion in annual sales, 77,000 employees and 59 manufacturing and technology research centers in 2019. The company markets Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, JennAir, Indesit and other major brand names in nearly every country throughout the world. Additional information about the company can be found at whirlpoolcorp.com.

Website Disclosure

We routinely post important information for investors on our website, whirlpoolcorp.com, in the "Investors" section. We also intend to update the Hot Topics Q&A portion of this webpage as a means of disclosing material, non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Accordingly, investors should monitor the Investors section of our website, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings, public conference calls, presentations and webcasts. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, our webpage is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this document.

Whirlpool Additional Information:

This document contains forward-looking statements about Whirlpool Corporation and its consolidated subsidiaries ("Whirlpool") that speak only as of this date. Whirlpool disclaims any obligation to update these statements. Forward-looking statements in this document may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expected net sales and organic net sales, earnings, regional profitability, restructuring charges, cash flow, order pipeline, and raw material prices, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations and financial condition, our ability to weather COVID-19 related economic uncertainty, sustain margins and protect liquidity, achieve net cost and raw material savings, manage working capital, capture raw material deflation opportunities, mitigate volume deleveraging, maintain credit ratings, the adequacy of our liquidity resources and financial covenant buffers during the crisis, and our recovery timing expectations, belief that Q2 2020 represents the trough of the crisis, rebound actions and growth opportunities and ability to win in the economic recovery following the crisis. Many risks, contingencies and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from Whirlpool's forward-looking statements. Among these factors are: (1) COVID-19 pandemic-related business disruption and economic uncertainty; (2) intense competition in the home appliance industry reflecting the impact of both new and established global competitors, including Asian and European manufacturers, and the impact of the changing retail environment, including direct-to-consumer sales; (3) Whirlpool's ability to maintain or increase sales to significant trade customers and the ability of these trade customers to maintain or increase market share; (4) Whirlpool's ability to maintain its reputation and brand image; (5) the ability of Whirlpool to achieve its business plans, productivity improvements, and cost control objectives, and to leverage its global operating platform, and accelerate the rate of innovation; (6) Whirlpool's ability to obtain and protect intellectual property rights; (7) acquisition and investment-related risks, including risks associated with our past acquisitions, and risks associated with our increased presence in emerging markets; (8) risks related to our international operations, including changes in foreign regulations, regulatory compliance and disruptions arising from political, legal and economic instability; (9) information technology system failures, data security breaches, data privacy compliance, network disruptions, and cybersecurity attacks; (10) product liability and product recall costs; (11) the ability of suppliers of critical parts, components and manufacturing equipment to deliver sufficient quantities to Whirlpool in a timely and cost-effective manner; (12) our ability to attract, develop and retain executives and other qualified employees; (13) the impact of labor relations; (14) fluctuations in the cost of key materials (including steel, resins, copper and aluminum) and components and the ability of Whirlpool to offset cost increases; (15) Whirlpool's ability to manage foreign currency fluctuations; (16) impacts from goodwill impairment and related charges; (17) triggering events or circumstances impacting the carrying value of our long-lived assets; (18) inventory and other asset risk; (19) the uncertain global economy and changes in economic conditions which affect demand for our products; (20) health care cost trends, regulatory changes and variations between results and estimates that could increase future funding obligations for pension and postretirement benefit plans; (21) changes in LIBOR, or replacement of LIBOR with an alternative reference rate; (22) litigation, tax, and legal compliance risk and costs, especially if materially different from the amount we expect to incur or have accrued for, and any disruptions caused by the same; (23) the effects and costs of governmental investigations or related actions by third parties; and (24) changes in the legal and regulatory environment including environmental, health and safety regulations, and taxes and tariffs. Additional information concerning these and other factors can be found in Whirlpool's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K.

Additional information concerning these and other factors can be found in Whirlpool's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K. The number one major appliance manufacturer in the world claim is based on most recently available publicly reported annual revenues among leading appliance manufacturers.

WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED CONDENSED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (UNAUDITED) FOR THE PERIODS ENDED JUNE 30 (Millions of dollars, except per share data)





Three Months Ended

Six Months Ended

2020

2019

2020

2019 Net sales $ 4,042



$ 5,186



$ 8,367



$ 9,946

Expenses













Cost of products sold 3,411



4,254



7,036



8,202

Gross margin 631



932



1,331



1,744

Selling, general and administrative 421



584



841



1,089

Intangible amortization 15



18



30



36

Restructuring costs 118



60



123



86

(Gain) loss on sale and disposal of businesses 



79







79

Operating profit 77



191



337



454

Other (income) expense













Interest and sundry (income) expense (15)



(63)



(16)



(193)

Interest expense 49



52



92



103

Earnings before income taxes 43



202



261



544

Income tax expense (benefit) 18



130



89



(2)

Net earnings 25



72



172



546

Less: Net earnings (loss) available to noncontrolling interests (10)



5



(15)



8

Net earnings available to Whirlpool $ 35



$ 67



$ 187



$ 538

Per share of common stock













Basic net earnings available to Whirlpool $ 0.55



$ 1.04



$ 2.98



$ 8.42

Diluted net earnings available to Whirlpool $ 0.55



$ 1.04



$ 2.97



$ 8.35

Dividends declared $ 1.20



$ 1.20



$ 2.40



$ 2.35

Weighted-average shares outstanding (in millions)













Basic 62.4



63.8



62.6



63.9

Diluted 62.7



64.3



63.0



64.4

















Comprehensive income $ 9



$ 16



$ 61



$ 583



WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED CONDENSED BALANCE SHEETS (Millions of dollars, except share data)



(Unaudited)





June 30, 2020

December 31, 2019 Assets





Current assets





Cash and cash equivalents $ 2,546



$ 1,952

Accounts receivable, net of allowance of $135 and $132, respectively 1,998



2,198

Inventories 2,129



2,438

Prepaid and other current assets 906



810

Total current assets 7,579



7,398

Property, net of accumulated depreciation of $6,497 and $6,444, respectively 3,132



3,301

Right of use assets 905



921

Goodwill 2,433



2,440

Other intangibles, net of accumulated amortization of $618 and $593, respectively 2,178



2,225

Deferred income taxes 2,172



2,238

Other noncurrent assets 277



358

Total assets $ 18,676



$ 18,881

Liabilities and stockholders' equity





Current liabilities





Accounts payable $ 3,328



4,547

Accrued expenses 633



652

Accrued advertising and promotions 510



949

Employee compensation 343



450

Notes payable 1,712



294

Current maturities of long-term debt 298



559

Other current liabilities 901



918

Total current liabilities 7,725



8,369

Noncurrent liabilities





Long-term debt 4,886



4,140

Pension benefits 485



542

Postretirement benefits 279



322

Lease liabilities 741



778

Other noncurrent liabilities 635



612

Total noncurrent liabilities 7,026



6,394

Stockholders' equity





Common stock, $1 par value, 250 million shares authorized, 112 million shares issued, and 62 million and 63 million shares outstanding, respectively 112



112

Additional paid-in capital 2,822



2,806

Retained earnings 7,902



7,870

Accumulated other comprehensive loss (2,731)



(2,618)

Treasury stock, 50 million and 49 million shares, respectively (5,087)



(4,975)

Total Whirlpool stockholders' equity 3,018



3,195

Noncontrolling interests 907



923

Total stockholders' equity 3,925



4,118

Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 18,676



$ 18,881



WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED CONDENSED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (UNAUDITED) FOR THE PERIODS ENDED JUNE 30 (Millions of dollars)



Six Months Ended

2020

2019 Operating activities





Net earnings $ 172



$ 546

Adjustments to reconcile net earnings to cash provided by (used in) operating activities:





Depreciation and amortization 268



302

(Gain) loss on sale and disposal of businesses 



79

Changes in assets and liabilities:





Accounts receivable 56



(251)

Inventories 223



(574)

Accounts payable (982)



(182)

Accrued advertising and promotions (414)



(180)

Accrued expenses and current liabilities (135)



(41)

Taxes deferred and payable, net 33



(179)

Accrued pension and postretirement benefits (27)



(39)

Employee compensation (70)



7

Other 131



(309)

Cash provided by (used in) operating activities (745)



(821)

Investing activities





Capital expenditures (155)



(197)

Proceeds from sale of assets and business 27



5

Other 



(3)

Cash provided by (used in) investing activities (128)



(195)

Financing activities





Net proceeds from borrowings of long-term debt 1,029



697

Repayments of long-term debt (568)



(943)

Net proceeds (repayments) from short-term borrowings 1,417



1,119

Dividends paid (155)



(149)

Repurchase of common stock (121)



(50)

Common stock issued 3



4

Cash provided by (used in) financing activities 1,605



678

Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash (138)



9

Increase (decrease) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash 594



(329)

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of year 1,952



1,538

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of year $ 2,546



$ 1,209



SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION - CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

(Millions of dollars except per share data)

(Unaudited)

We supplement the reporting of our financial information determined under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) with certain non-GAAP financial measures, some of which we refer to as "ongoing" measures, including earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), EBIT margin, ongoing EBIT, ongoing EBIT margin, ongoing earnings per diluted share, organic net sales, adjusted effective tax rate, sales excluding currency and free cash flow. Ongoing measures exclude items that may not be indicative of, or are unrelated to, results from our ongoing operations and provide a better baseline for analyzing trends in our underlying businesses. Sales excluding foreign currency is calculated by translating the current period net sales, in functional currency, to U.S. dollars using the prior-year period's exchange rate compared to the prior-year period net sales. Management believes that sales excluding foreign currency provides stockholders with a clearer basis to assess our results over time, excluding the impact of exchange rate fluctuations. Management believes that organic net sales provides stockholders with a clearer basis to assess our results over time, excluding the impact of exchange rate fluctuations and the Embraco divestiture. Management believes that adjusted tax rate provides investors with a meaningful, consistent comparison of the Company's effective tax rate, excluding the pre-tax income and tax effect of certain unique items. Management believes that free cash flow provides investors and stockholders with a relevant measure of liquidity and a useful basis for assessing the company's ability to fund its activities and obligations.The Company provides free cash flow related metrics, such as free cash flow as a percentage of net sales, as long-term management goals, not an element of its annual financial guidance, and as such does not provide a reconciliation of free cash flow to cash provided by (used in) operating activities, the most directly comparable GAAP measure, for these long-term goal metrics. Whirlpool does not provide a Non-GAAP reconciliation for its other forward-looking long-term value creation and other goals, such as organic net sales, EBIT, and gross debt/EBITDA, as such reconciliation would rely on market factors and certain other conditions and assumptions that are outside of the company's control. We believe that these non-GAAP measures provide meaningful information to assist investors and stockholders in understanding our financial results and assessing our prospects for future performance, and reflect an additional way of viewing aspects of our operations that, when viewed with our GAAP financial measures, provide a more complete understanding of our business. Because non-GAAP financial measures are not standardized, it may not be possible to compare these financial measures with other companies' non-GAAP financial measures having the same or similar names. These ongoing financial measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for reported net earnings available to Whirlpool per diluted share, net earnings, net earnings available to Whirlpool, net earnings margin, net sales, effective tax rate and cash provided by (used in) operating activities, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. We also disclose segment EBIT and ongoing segment EBIT as important financial metrics used by the Company's Chief Operating Decision Maker to evaluate performance and allocate resources in accordance with ASC 280 - Segment Reporting. GAAP net earnings available to Whirlpool per diluted share and ongoing earnings per diluted share are presented net of tax, while individual adjustments in each reconciliation are presented on a pre-tax basis; the income tax impact line item aggregates the tax impact for these adjustments. The tax impact of individual line item adjustments may not foot precisely to the aggregate income tax impact amount, as each line item adjustment may include non-taxable components. Historical quarterly earnings per share amounts are presented based on a normalized tax rate adjustment to reconcile quarterly tax rates to full-year tax rate expectations. We strongly encourage investors and stockholders to review our financial statements and publicly-filed reports in their entirety and not to rely on any single financial measure.

Second-Quarter 2020 Ongoing Earnings Before Interest and Taxes and Ongoing Earnings per Diluted Share

The reconciliation provided below reconciles the non-GAAP financial measures ongoing earnings before interest and taxes and ongoing earnings per diluted share, with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, net earnings available to Whirlpool and net earnings per diluted share available to Whirlpool, for the three months ended June 30, 2020. Net earnings margin is calculated by dividing net earnings available to Whirlpool by net sales. Ongoing EBIT margin is calculated by dividing ongoing EBIT by net sales. EBIT margin is calculated by dividing EBIT by net sales. The earnings per diluted share GAAP measure and ongoing measure are presented net of tax, while each adjustment is presented on a pre-tax basis. Our second-quarter GAAP tax rate was 41.9%. The aggregate income tax impact of the taxable components of each adjustment is presented in the income tax impact line item at our second-quarter adjusted tax rate (non-GAAP) of 22.5%.



Three Months Ended Earnings Before Interest & Taxes Reconciliation: June 30, 2020 Net earnings (loss) available to Whirlpool $ 35

Net earnings (loss) available to noncontrolling interests (10)

Income tax expense (benefit) 18

Interest expense 49

Earnings before interest & taxes $ 92

Net sales $ 4,042

Net earnings margin 0.9 %



Results classification

Earnings before interest

& taxes

Earnings per

diluted share Reported measure



$ 92



$ 0.55

Restructuring costs(a) Restructuring costs

118



1.89

Income tax impact







(0.42)

Normalized tax rate adjustment(b)







0.13

Ongoing measure



$ 210



$ 2.15

Net sales



$ 4,042





Ongoing EBIT margin



5.2 %







Note: Numbers may not reconcile due to rounding

Second-Quarter 2019 Ongoing Earnings Before Interest and Taxes and Ongoing Earnings per Diluted Share

The reconciliation provided below reconciles the non-GAAP financial measures ongoing earnings before interest and taxes and ongoing earnings per diluted share, with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, net earnings available to Whirlpool and net earnings per diluted share available to Whirlpool, for the three months ended June 30, 2019. Net earnings margin is calculated by dividing net earnings available to Whirlpool by net sales. Ongoing EBIT margin is calculated by dividing ongoing EBIT by net sales. EBIT margin is calculated by dividing EBIT by net sales. The earnings per diluted share GAAP measure and ongoing measure are presented net of tax, while each adjustment is presented on a pre-tax basis. Our second-quarter GAAP tax rate was 64.5%. The aggregate income tax impact of the taxable components of each adjustment is presented in the income tax impact line item at our second-quarter adjusted tax rate (non-GAAP) of 17.5%.



Three Months Ended Earnings Before Interest & Taxes Reconciliation: June 30, 2019 Net earnings (loss) available to Whirlpool $ 67

Net earnings (loss) available to noncontrolling interests 5

Income tax expense (benefit) 130

Interest expense 52

Earnings (loss) before interest & taxes $ 254

Net sales $ 5,186

Net earnings margin 1.3 %



Results classification

Earnings before

interest & taxes

Earnings per

diluted share Reported measure



$ 254



$ 1.04

Restructuring costs(a) Restructuring costs

60



0.93

Brazil indirect tax credit(c) Interest and sundry (income) expense

(53)



(0.82)

Divestiture related transition costs(d) Selling, general and administrative

11



0.18

Loss on disposal of businesses(e) Gain (loss) on sale and disposal of businesses

79



1.24

Product warranty and liability expense(f) Cost of goods sold

12



0.19

Income tax impact







(0.30)

Normalized tax rate adjustment(b)







1.56

Ongoing measure



$ 363



$ 4.01

Net sales



$ 5,186





Ongoing EBIT margin



7.0 %







Note: Numbers may not reconcile due to rounding

Ongoing Segment Earnings Before Interest and Taxes

The reconciliation provided below reconciles ongoing segment EBIT with segment EBIT, for the three months ended June 30, 2020. Ongoing segment EBIT margin is calculated by dividing ongoing segment EBIT by segment net sales. Segment EBIT margin is calculated by dividing segment EBIT by segment net sales.



Three Months Ended

June 30, 2020

Segment earnings (loss)

before interest and taxes Restructuring costs(a) Ongoing segment

earnings (loss) before

interest and taxes North America $ 316

$ 

$ 316

EMEA (66)



(66)

Latin America 11



11

Asia (18)



(18)

Other/Eliminations (151)

118

(33)

Total Whirlpool Corporation $ 92

$ 118

$ 210



The reconciliation provided below reconciles ongoing segment EBIT with segment EBIT, for the three months ended June 30, 2019. Ongoing segment EBIT margin is calculated by dividing ongoing segment EBIT by segment net sales. Segment EBIT margin is calculated by dividing segment EBIT by segment net sales.



Three Months Ended

June 30, 2019

Segment

earnings

(loss)

before

interest and

taxes Restructuring

costs(a) Brazil

indirect

tax

credit(c) Divestiture

related

transition

costs(d) Loss on

disposal of

businesses(e) Product

warranty

and

liability

expense(f) Ongoing

segment

earnings

(loss)

before

interest and

taxes North America $ 353

$ 

$ 

$ 

$ 

$ 

$ 353

EMEA (28)









12

(16)

Latin America 56











56

Asia 15











15

Other/Eliminations (142)

60

(53)

11

79



(45)

Total Whirlpool Corporation $ 254

$ 60

$ (53)

$ 11

$ 79

$ 12

$ 363





Note: Numbers may not reconcile due to rounding

Organic Net Sales

The reconciliation provided below reconciles the non-GAAP financial measure organic net sales with reported net sales, for the twelve months ending December 31, 2020 for the Company.



Twelve Months Ending

December 31, 2020 GAAP net sales (% decline) 10% - 15% Less: Embraco net sales ~(3)% Organic net sales (% decline) 7% - 12%



Note: the impact of currency on net sales for future periods is not included.

The reconciliation provided below reconciles the non-GAAP financial measure organic net sales with reported net sales, for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and June 30, 2019 for the Company.



Three Months Ended



June 30,



2020

2019 Change Net sales $ 4,042



$ 5,186

(22.1) % Less: Embraco net sales 



(323)



Add-Back: currency 149







Organic net sales $ 4,191



$ 4,863

(13.8) %

The reconciliation provided below reconciles the non-GAAP financial measure organic net sales with reported net sales, for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and June 30, 2019 for Whirlpool Latin America.



Three Months Ended



June 30,



2020

2019 Change Net sales $ 434



$ 888

(51.1) % Less: Embraco net sales 



(323)



Add-Back: currency 108







Organic net sales $ 542



$ 565

(4.1) %



Note: Numbers may not reconcile due to rounding

Footnotes:



a. RESTRUCTURING COSTS - In 2019, these costs are primarily related to actions that right-size our EMEA business and certain other unique restructuring events, including restructuring of the Naples, Italy manufacturing plant. In 2020, these costs are primarily related to actions that right-size and reduce the fixed cost structure of our North America business and other centralized functions, attributable primarily to the current macroeconomic uncertainties caused by COVID-19. b. NORMALIZED TAX RATE ADJUSTMENT - During the second quarter of 2020, the Company calculated ongoing earnings per share using an adjusted tax rate of 22.5%, to reconcile to our anticipated full-year effective tax rate between 20% and 25%. During the second quarter of 2019, the Company calculated ongoing earnings per share using an adjusted tax rate of 17.5%, to reconcile to our anticipated full-year 2019 effective tax rate between 15% and 20%, which excludes the gain on sales of the Embraco compressor business, the Brazil indirect tax credit, and the sale and disposal of businesses. c. BRAZIL INDIRECT TAX CREDIT - During the first half of 2019, the Company received favorable, non-appealable decisions related to the recovery of certain taxes previously paid over gross sales. As a result, the Company recorded a gain in interest and sundry (income) expense during the first and second quarter of 2019 in the amount of $127 million and $53 million, respectively, in connection with these decisions. d. DIVESTITURE RELATED TRANSITION COSTS - During the first and second quarter of 2019, the Company recognized transition costs of approximately $6 million and $11 million, respectively, associated with the sale of its Embraco compressor business. e. LOSS ON DISPOSAL OF BUSINESSES - During the second quarter of 2019, the Company entered into an agreement to sell its South Africa operations. As a result, the Company recorded a charge of $35 million for the write-down of the assets of the disposal group to fair value and $33 million of cumulative foreign currency translation adjustments included in the carrying amount of the disposal group to calculate the impairment. The Company also incurred charges of approximately $11 million, primarily inventory liquidation costs, related to the exit of our domestic sales operations in Turkey. Total charges recorded in the second quarter of 2019 were approximately $79 million. f. PRODUCT WARRANTY AND LIABILITY EXPENSE - In September 2015, the Company recorded a liability related to a corrective action affecting certain legacy Indesit products. During the second quarter of 2019, the Company incurred approximately $12 million of additional product warranty expense related to our previously disclosed legacy Indesit dryer corrective action campaign in the UK.

Free Cash Flow

As defined by the Company, free cash flow is cash provided by (used in) operating activities after capital expenditures, proceeds from the sale of assets and businesses and changes in restricted cash. The reconciliation provided below reconciles six months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 free cash flow with cash provided by (used in) operating activities, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure. Free cash flow as a percentage of net sales is calculated by dividing free cash flow by net sales.



Six Months Ended

June 30, (millions of dollars) 2020

2019 Cash provided by (used in) operating activities $(745)

$(821) Capital expenditures, proceeds from sale of

assets/businesses and change in restricted cash* (128)

(176) Free cash flow $(873)

$(997)







Cash provided by (used in) investing activities (128)

(195) Cash provided by (used in) financing activities 1,605

678



*The change in restricted cash relates to the private placement funds paid by Whirlpool to acquire majority control of Whirlpool China (formerly Hefei Sanyo) and which are used to fund capital and technical resources to enhance Whirlpool China's research and development and working capital, as required by the terms of the Hefei Sanyo acquisition completed in October 2014.

SOURCE Whirlpool Corporation

Related Links

http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com


Aziz, sitting on a chair in the village of Chirikot with a bandage on his right arm, said most of the people who live along the Line of Control that separates the region between Pakistan and India have either lost family members or close relatives because of Indian firing in recent decades.
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Many of us are stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.

The Bleach Boy

President Trump resumed his coronavirus briefings on Tuesday, with a senior member of his administration saying the plan was to keep them short, tight and centered on the president.

Now, I dont know how theyre going to do that unless they fit the president with one of those doggy shock collars, Stephen Colbert said on The Late Show.
A Case Western Reserve University scientist, who has for more than a decade pioneered research into synthetic platelet substitutes, has been awarded a $3.8 million grant by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to develop freeze-dried artificial platelets that can treat bleeding in wounded soldiers in the battlefield before they can be taken to a hospital.

Anirban Sen Gupta, professor in Biomedical Engineering at the Case School of Engineering, will work with collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh for in vivo testing and manufacturing partners at Haima Therapeutics, a biotechnology company he co-founded in 2016.

Since 2007, Sen Gupta and his lab have worked on a variety of platelet-inspired technologies along with other projects in drug delivery and nanomedicine. This new work builds on some of that research.

Blood supply on the battlefield

Sen Gupta's idea is to get life-saving synthetic platelet technology closer to soldiers on the battlefield when they need it most.

Reducing the time gap between when severe injury happens and its treatment becomes possible is critical for survival, and platelets--because they help clotting and stop bleeding--can improve that time." Anirban Sen Gupta, Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Case School of Engineering

Right now, military access to platelets and other blood products are very limited in the field and those products are transported as liquid in specialized bags which further limit portability and access.

"A soldier already carries 60 to 100 pounds of gear, so the goal is to make a synthetic platelet product that is easily portable as low weight and volume, so that it fits into the soldier's carrying load."

One way to do that: Freeze-dry the artificial platelets into a powder that can be stable at various temperatures and mixed on demand with saline already carried by the soldier.

"So, if we can optimize and scale up the technology of freeze-drying artificial platelets while preserving bioactivity, we'll have succeeded," he said.

Sen Gupta and his team are looking to nature for examples in preserving bioactivity at extreme dehydration and temperatures.

"We know there are certain species, such as brine shrimp, which utilize natural sugars to exist in extreme weather and dehydration conditions while maintaining full functionality" he said. "We are drawing our cues from such phenomena as we develop methods for freeze-drying artificial platelets that will remain bioactive."

The DOD award will enable Sen Gupta to recruit new students and researchers to focus on this specific technology development. His lab now has about 15 members--10 undergraduates and five graduate students.

Progress toward fully synthetic blood

Blood has four main components: plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Platelets help the blood-clotting process by gathering at the site of an injury, sticking to the lining of the injured blood vessel and clustering with each other, forming a plug that stops bleeding by facilitating blood coagulation. That function makes platelets invaluable to anyone who is bleeding profusely.

Some of Sen Gupta's previous research has focused on developing synthetic nanoparticles that can mimic platelets' abilities to clot at the site of a bleeding injury. Other researchers he works with have focused on developing fully synthetic red blood cells or freeze-dried plasma.

Meanwhile, Haima announced on its website in April that it has been awarded new funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to scale up the manufacture of SynthoPlate, a synthetic platelet surrogate to treat hemorrhage.

"That's the Holy Grail we're trying to get to--a completely bio-artificial whole blood," Sen Gupta said. "Such products would address the shorter shelf-life of natural blood products and would also address blood shortages everywhere, especially in pandemic and mass-casualty scenarios when resources are either limited or medical professionals are overwhelmed.
Chinese Nationals Li Xiaoyu (above), 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 31, allegedly stole information from an Australian defence contractor

A hacking duo accused of being 'on call' for the Chinese government accessed top secret Australian defence files, US officials claim.

The men have been indicted in the US for allegedly targeting an Australian defence contractor and solar energy engineering company.

Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, are accused of stealing 320 gigabytes of documents, source code, engineering schematics and technical manuals from the contractor.

The pair are reportedly linked to China's top secret Ministry of State Security have been indicted

Li and Dong also conducted surveillance on US biotech firms working on COVID-19 vaccines and businesses in the UK, Japan, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain and South Korea, according to US prosecutors.

The FBI released wanted posters (pictured)m for the two men on Tuesday after the hacking campaign was revealed

The hacking allegations against the Australian defence contractor, solar engineering company and other firms, governments and individuals are contained in a 27-page federal grand jury indictment.

The 11-count indictment alleges their hacking campaign lasted more than ten years and involved terabytes of data.

They stole 'hundreds of millions of dollars' in trade secrets and intellectual property from companies and targeted individual dissidents, clergy, and democratic and human rights activists in Hong Kong, China and other parts of the world.

The identities of the Australian defence contractor and solar business were not disclosed in the indictment.

They are referred to as 'Victim 21' and 'Victim 23' respectively.

The hacking allegations come amid growing tensions with China (pictured, Prime Minister Scott Morrison pictured with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019)

The defence contractor was allegedly hacked on April 18 last year and the solar business earlier in January this year.

Li and Dong allegedly placed malicious China Chopper web shell programs and credential-stealing software on victim networks, allowing a remote operator to execute commands on victim computers.

'On or about January 28, 2020, Li accessed Victim 23's network via a China Chopper web shell,' the indictment reads.

'Li then executed commands on Victim 23's network that enabled him to view reconnaissance information such as directory contents and user privileges.'

The hackers allegedly gained access to victim networks by exploiting publicly known software vulnerabilities in popular web server software, web application development suites, and software collaboration programs.

They are understood to have broken in before the vulnerabilities were found and fixed.

'(They) stole approximately 320 gigabytes of documents including, among other things, source code for (the company's) products, engineering schematics and technical manuals,' the DOJ's indictment revealed.

It is not clear what defence information was stolen from Australia.

But it did include topics on military satellite programs, military communications systems, microwave and laser systems, counter-chemical weapons systems and ship-to-helicopter integration systems.

'The hackers stole terabytes of data which comprised a sophisticated and prolific threat to U.S. networks,' Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers (pictured) said during a press conference

'These intrusions are yet another example of China's brazen willingness to engage in theft through computer intrusions contrary to their international commitments,' US Assistant Attorney General John Demers told reporters in Washington DC on Tuesday.

Li and Dong, both nationals and residents of China, were classmates at an electrical engineering college in Chengdu, China.

The FBI released wanted posters for the two men on Tuesday.

The defendants acted for personal financial gain in some circumstances, and in other attacks for the benefit of the MSS and other Chinese government agencies, prosecutors said.

Li and Dong face charges including conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets and aggravated identity theft.

The news comes as Mr Morrison confirmed he and China's President Xi Jinping have not spoken in more than a year.

Mr Morrison told the ABC he last spoke to the leader of Australia's biggest trade partner at the G20 summit in Japan in June last year.

People's Liberation Army soldiers march next to the entrance to the Forbidden City during a ceremony on May 22 (pictured)

He insisted the relationship was important, despite the lack of communication at a tense time between the two countries, but he suggested Australia would not compromise.

'The relationship is important and we have no intention of injuring it, but nor do we intend to do things that are contrary to our interests,' Mr Morrison told the ABC's 7.30 program on Tuesday.

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has spent months unsuccessfully trying to get a response from his Chinese counterpart after Beijing imposed hefty tariffs on Australian exports.

Relations with China have become fraught since Australia pushed for a World Health Organisation investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.

An Australian government probe is being led into TikTok - echoing calls from US President Donald Trump to ban the social media platform after claims it shares data with China

China has placed an 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley, blocked beef imports, and warned tourists and students not to travel to Australia because they claim it's unsafe and racist.

This month, China accused Australia of interfering in its affairs after Canberra offered safe haven to Hong Kong residents and strengthened travel warnings.

In the most recent development China accused the Australian government of becoming a 'US puppet' and warned Mr Morrison he would be 'shooting himself in the foot' if he bans TikTok.

Mr Morrison said on Friday the government would be monitoring the popular video platform amid fears the company is sharing Australian users' personal information with Beijing.
Former FBI Director James Comey arrives at the Rayburn House Office Building to testify to the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 17, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Higher Disloyalty: How Comey Tricked the Country Into a Corrupted Investigation

Commentary

FBI documents recently released confirm what many had suspected: As Trump was coming into office, a years Russia counterintelligence investigation had come up empty. In them, even agent Peter Strzok, Trump-hating but candid, admitted that this dog wouldnt hunt.

But crimeless cases have long been a James Comey specialty, and a big one was desperately needed in early 2017. Why? Both to cover up his dishonest FISA spying on the Trump campaign and, hopefully, to get rid of the disliked Trump through seemingly inevitable process crimes.

Comey, who had done the same thing in the crimeless Valerie Plame-Scooter Libby investigation, knew that he had to first work a recusal of the honest Attorney General Jeff Sessions, just as he had, wrongly, with the honorable John Ashcroft in Plame. In order to recuse Sessions, the Department of Justice (DOJ) required a criminal investigation to recuse an official, per 28 CFR Section 45.2:

(a) Unless authorized under paragraph (b) of this section, no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with 

At the time Sessions recused himself on advice from the DOJ, there was no crime or even a criminal investigation open, only a counterintelligence probe.

But only a few in the unusually tightly held FBI headquarters circle knew that. Justice Department conflicts counsel, accustomed to the criminal cases that are its standard fare, had to consult with the investigators to learn the nature of the case and the potential conflict. We dont know what was said, but do know that counsel came away thinking that Section 45.2 applied, and so advised Sessions, inexperienced in federal law. Dishonest? Tricky? Disloyal? Take your pick. But Sessions was gone, with only milquetoast Rod Rosenstein to bully into a special counselagain a Comey specialty for which he had been laying groundwork already.

Posing as he always does, as a rectitudinous public servant who, according to his book, is never sneaky, Comey began his sneak attack on a president to whose position he was supposed to be loyal. You know, the Constitution and all that.

Comeys band of subverters deviously made book on Trump, meticulously documenting every presidential syllable, plotting immediately after every ComeyTrump talk.

Unfortunately for Comey, in spite of this weaving spiders webs of memos designed to impeach his president, Trump did nothing wrong. The worst was Trumps saying he would hope that Comey would go easy on Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, far less commanding than President Barack Obamas declaration of Hillary Clintons innocence before her investigation had concluded.

Comey then got his special counsel, but in an unexpected way. He, along with his bedfellows Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Strzok, and others, convinced Rosenstein that Comeys firing constituted obstruction of  well, nothing, because there wasnt yet a criminal investigation or proceeding to obstruct.

But to appoint a special counsel under 28 CFR Section 600.1, a criminal investigation or case was needed:

The  Acting Attorney General will appoint a special counsel when he or she determines that a criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted 

The firing of Comey, of course, could be made into a potential crime, albeit an extremely tenuous one. So why not use this firing as a basis on which to open a case and bully Rosenstein? Small problem. If firing Comey was the claimed basis for a special counsel, then all of the plotters in the room, including at least McCabe and Rosenstein, perhaps even Robert Mueller, who had interviewed to succeed Comey, were clearly in conflict under the very statute used, wrongly, to recuse Sessions. They were, after all, material witnesses, as well as close allies of Comey. So some other person, an actual unconflicted, honest one, would need to make the special counsel decision, on a highly vaporous claim of criminality. That wouldnt work for the conspirators.

But Comey had already, we infer, fooled conflicts counsel into conflating the Russia counterintelligence investigation with a criminal one to recuse Sessions. Rosenstein, as a former U.S. attorney, dealt with criminal cases almost exclusively, likely didnt appreciate this distinction, and who, media reports claim, was stampeded into volunteering to wear a wire to nail Trump (Rosenstein denies this).

Rosenstein based his initial appointment of Mueller solely on the counterintelligence investigation, that is, an investigation of links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.

Only after the counterintelligence investigation was opened did the special counsel, almost immediately, open Comeys firing as a criminal matter. Did Rosenstein, McCabe, or others then recuse themselves, knowing they were material witnesses in the only criminal matter that was thus far part of this investigation? They didnt.

But at least McCabe, now heading the FBI, and Rosenstein, supervising Mueller, werent in conflict on the Russia investigation, correct? They would be if the Mueller investigation explored the most important part of the Russian investigation, the abusive FISA warrants, based partially on specious Russian disinformation. After all, McCabe was deeply involved, as were Strzok, Page, and Rosenstein.

If there was to be found a real, palpable crime, that is, dishonest, abusive, electoral interference, then using Christopher Steeles phony Russian sources, while concealing material information from the FISA court, would qualify as the only real crimes potentially involved in the Russian investigation.

Why didnt Mueller investigate these obvious potential crimes? Because it was outside my purview, Mueller would testify later. Who supervised and advised Mueller as to the purview of his appointment? It appears that that would be Rosenstein, McCabe, and, likely, Comey. It appears that the criminals got away with their crimes because they were concealing them by not investigating. Obstruction, maybe?

So, yes, Comey got his wish, a crimeless case seeking process crimes on Trump, which even Andrew Weissmann (also involved earlier with the Steele dossier) couldnt find.

Now we know how James Comeys loyalty is higher: He acts as though hes above the law.

John D. OConnor is a former federal prosecutor and the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. OConnor is the author of Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate, and Began Todays Partisan Advocacy Journalism.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
ROCHESTER, N.Y., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognivue, Inc. has named Fred Ma, MD, PhD, as its chief medical officer and senior vice president, effective immediately. His nearly four-decade career spans global medical device and pharmaceutical development and commercialization, as well as advancing neurological disorder treatments, therapies and prevention as a neurosurgeon.

"Dr. Ma's leadership has earned the highest respect among his clinical, industry and research peers worldwide. He has the rare ability to translate extensive medical and scientific knowledge into accessible insights and market-leading products," said Tom O'Neill, president and CEO of Cognivue. "We believe he will help take us to the next level with even better products and deeper relationships to come. His contributions in supporting existing customers and extending clinical validation through studies, manuscripts and more will be invaluable."

Cognivue's technologies objectively, quantitatively, and reliably identify changes in cognitive function that could indicate an impairment, which can then be treated or managed. Its proprietary algorithms are integrated into a portfolio of products that generate rapid self-administered, FDA-cleared computerized assessments designed for simple implementation into busy practices.

Dr. Ma was most recently president and chief operating officer of Innovative Health Sciences, the immunology drug and subcutaneous drug infusion device company. He has served as chief medical officer for KORU Medical Systems, Innovacyn, and GE Healthcare, as well as leadership roles within Johnson & Johnson, Merck and elsewhere. Dr. Ma managed more than 100 new product developments with over 600 successful clinical trials and regulatory filings in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific.

Before accepting his first industry position in 1990, Dr. Ma was a practicing neurosurgeon at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing and the University of Tokyo Hospital, including tenures as attending physician and resident general chief. He received a BS/MD degree from Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing; a DMS (Doctor of Medical Sciences, MD/PhD) from the University of Tokyo, and a PhD in Neuroscience from Rutgers University. He is Board certified in Japan and China in neurosurgery, functional neurosurgery and oncology.

"The passion shown by Dr. Ma for cognitive assessment and evaluation was evident from our first conversation. Among his many accomplishments, he has been involved in drug research and clinical investigation for cognitive modulation on ADHD, Alzheimer's, and dementia, plus near infrared light therapy device development for TBI and PTSD. It's hard to overstate his potential contributions as he becomes part of our fast-growing organization," remarked O'Neill.

Earlier this year, the company introduced its two newest products, Cognivue Clarity and Cognivue Thrive, which provide early testing for proactive intervention via portable, battery-powered formats for use in practice and non-clinical settings. Its platforms are used across the healthcare spectrum, including in audiology, optometry, neurology, retail pharmacy, employee wellness, law enforcement and general practice.

Dr. Ma resides in Solon, Ohio.

About Cognivue

Cognivue is a reimbursable risk assessment test that was designed to identify changes in cognitive function that could indicate early dementia or Alzheimer's disease. It also establishes baselines and can track cognitive performance over time. Unlike cognitive testing done using paper and pencil tests, Cognivue is based on neurophysiology and psychophysical research that dynamically analyzes cortical function. The CogniSystem proprietary algorithm assesses a patient's ability in key domains of the brainmotor function, visual function, perceptual processing and memory testingdynamically changes and adapts to the test to the visual and motor ability of the user. For more information, call 585-203-1969 or visit cognivue.com.

PHOTO DOWNLOAD: To download a high-resolution JPEG photo of Dr. Ma, please click here.

Media Contact

Mike McDougall, APR, Fellow PRSA

McDougall Communications for Cognivue, Inc.

[email protected] or +1-585-545-1815

SOURCE Cognivue, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.cognivue.com/


Vietnam and New Zealand on Wednesday announced they would elevate the bilateral relationship to a strategic partnership, a stronger tie to boost the cooperation on all fronts between the two countries.

Both countries said they had a solid base to accelerate trade and investment cooperation, which is a key component of a strategic partnership.

Vietnam and New Zealand's trade has doubled in the last five years.

Last year, bilateral trade in goods and services reached $1.3 billion (US dollars).

The trade turnover in the first half of 2020 has slightly dropped compared to last year due to the impacts of the new coronavirus, but it is picking up as the countries are resuming business.

Both Vietnam and New Zealand are members of the trans-pacific trade pact Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is expected to be signed later this year, and it is also an important factor for the increasing prospect of trade cooperation.

The two nations are among the countries less affected by the pandemic with relatively few cases.

"New Zealand and Vietnam can be proud of our fight against COVID-19, successfully curbing the spread of the virus to reopen the countries and resume our exchanges for cooperation and development," Phuc said.

During the online summit, the ministers also highlighted the countries' strong ties in other fields including defense, security, agriculture and education cooperation.
The San Antonio Symphony has scrapped the first half of its 2020-21 season, going dark until at least February because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The symphony also has furloughed five staff people from its operations and artistic departments through Aug. 31, leaving a staff of eight. It is in negotiations with musicians regarding pay and safety issues for next season.

The decision means that the symphony wont perform live for almost a full year. It was made because of the persistence of the spread of the novel coronavirus in the community. Other factors included safety guidelines from public health officials and a survey of patrons that included questions about how comfortable they would be returning to live performances this fall. Between 70 percent and 75 percent of the roughly 1,200 people who responded said they would not be comfortable doing that.

Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News

The symphony is not alone in canceling a swath of live performances planned for the fall. As COVID-19 cases spike in Texas and elsewhere, arts organizations across the country are doing the same. In San Antonio, the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, where the symphony is a resident company, is hoping to book chamber ensembles this fall to make sure audiences have access to live classical music. The smaller size means they can better spread out on stage.

In looking at both what health professionals are saying and at realistic timelines, we think that being able to return in February seems to be the most plausible scenario as of right now, said symphony Executive Director Corey Cowart.

The classical season lineup for 2020-21 was announced in May in hopes that live performances would be possible by this fall.

Instead, the nine concerts scheduled between Sept. 25 and Jan. 31 have been canceled, including a Nov. 4 performance for season subscribers featuring Broadway superstar Audra McDonald. The symphony is looking into the possibility of rescheduling some of those performances between February and June of 2021.

On ExpressNews.com: SA Symphony musicians eager to return to live performances

In an email sent to patrons Tuesday morning, Cowart thanked them for keeping the symphony afloat in this difficult time. It will be your support which will make it possible for us to weather this storm, he wrote.

In the months ahead, the symphony will be more reliant on donations, Cowart said, with as much as 80 percent of its revenue coming from donors, up from about 60 percent. Thats why he and his staff have made it a point to reach out personally to patrons to keep them in the loop.

Personal contact with patrons is going to be one key to survival in the months ahead, Cowart said.

I think for so many nonprofits, especially in the arts and culture sector, its really going to be about preserving the relationships and being clear and transparent on how were trying to navigate through this, he said.

Thats why symphony staffers will be reaching out to subscribers on Aug. 17 to discuss options for the tickets they purchased for next season. They will be able to request refunds, donate the value of any unused tickets back to the symphony or put the ticket amounts on account for use for future performances.

Symphony musicians were paid through the contractual end of the 2019-20 season. That season was cut short, with 10 programs starting in mid-March canceled because of stay-at-home measures intended to stem the spread of COVID-19. Musicians are not paid in the summer, when the symphony typically goes dark.

The musicians have agreed to reopen their collective bargaining agreement to hammer out health and safety matters related to the pandemic for next season, as well as salary. Because of reduced revenue, it is likely the musicians will be paid less, Cowart said.

From what Ive seen, I think most orchestras, including us, are looking at a one-third or greater reduction in revenue. So, really our survival as an organization depends on making sure we are able to balance our budget next year, he said. We arent as fortunate as some to have a very large endowment to be able to help us navigate a little bit easier through this.

As Mary Ellen Goree, chairwoman of the orchestra committee, sees it, symphony management had no choice but to cancel the performances.

As a musician, its very painful to think about not being back on stage until next February. This is what we do, said Goree, who plays second principal violin with the orchestra. As a member of the San Antonio community, I want us to be doing the things that are going to keep our audiences healthy and keep our musicians healthy and enable us to be back onstage for our full audiences when we can do that.

The symphony has gone dark in the past because of financial difficulties. Most recently, the 2017-18 season was suspended when the symphonys board announced it didn't have the money required to fulfill it, then was revived in a slightly abbreviated form thanks to an outpouring of community support.

This situation is not comparable to what has happened in the past, Goree said.

On ExpressNews.com: Public Theater of San Antonio plans season of solo shows for 2020-21

This is different, said Goree, who has been with the symphony since 1988. In this rough patch, the management and the board and the musicians of the San Antonio Symphony are united with a common opponent, and we have a common goal. The opponent is the virus, and the common goal is for us to return to the stage in a safe and healthy way. We all want to be making music, and we are all in the same boat.

You cannot compare it to any of the previous stressful times in the history of the San Antonio Symphony.

Sebastian Lang-Lessing, who is wrapping up a decade as the symphonys music director, was to have conducted one of the canceled concerts. He said he was disappointed by the decision.

I see the danger coming from the virus, but it definitely wont be in a concert hall, Lang-Lessing said. People are holding political rallies, we see beaches open and bars were open and people throwing parties  that is far more dangerous.

I think we should be able to make concerts accessible in a safe way to our audiences. Mask wearing is a very effective way of protecting yourself and others  thats doable in a concert hall. A concert hall is a very big space with great air flow  much better than an aircraft.

The San Antonio Symphony is not an outlier in deciding not to gamble on returning to the concert stage this fall. Other orchestras across the United States  including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic have canceled live performances through the end of the year because of COVID-19. Other fine performing arts groups have made that call, as well. The Metropolitan Opera has canceled performances through Dec. 31, as have the American Ballet Theatre and the Joffrey Ballet.

Two other resident companies of the Tobin Center are making plans to perform this fall, assuming no additional safety measures are mandated that will make that impossible. Ballet San Antonio plans to launch its 2020-21 season with Don Quixote Oct. 16-18 followed by The Nutcracker Dec. 4-13.

Opera San Antonio canceled plans to stage Mozarts Don Giovanni this fall. Instead, E. Loren Meeker, the companys general and artistic director, is hoping to be able to present a small outdoor concert before the end of the year and a single full production, Donizettis Lucia di Lammermoor, in May.

The ballet and the opera are in a slightly different boat than the symphony, said Michael Fresher, president and CEO of the Tobin Center.

Ballet can be done with social distancing, opera to a point can be, Fresher said. The symphony is in a unique situation in a social distancing world because they have to put somewhere upwards of 72 musicians on a stage. And their patron base skews toward those who are in that at-risk age group. So we completely understand their need to take all of that into account.

The Tobin Center reopened in June at 50 percent capacity. It currently has a few fitness events scheduled on the plaza in the weeks ahead. Ticketed events are slated to resume in September, with smaller crowds to accommodate social distancing, including the play An Evening with C.S. Lewis, set for Sept. 18-20, and Hermans Hermits starring Peter Noone on Sept. 19.

Between rehearsals and performances, the symphony uses the Tobin Center on more dates than the other resident companies, Fresher said. As Aaron Zummerman, vice president of programming, looks for performances to fill the dates the symphony vacated, he will be seeking out chamber ensembles and other programming for some to make sure classical music stays in the mix.

He will be reaching out to San Antonio ensembles, Fresher said, partly because there arent many artists touring right now and partly because Texas status as a coronavirus hot spot makes it a tougher sell for groups coming from beyond the state line.

There are a number of very, very good (local) chamber ensembles, including Agarita, SOLI and Olmos, that we will be looking to see if theyre available, Fresher said. I would like to craft some mini classical series of performances during the fall, because its important to us that the community continue to have symphonic music to consume.

We understand that the symphony is not going to be in a position to be able to do that. This is a place where the Tobin can step in and fill that void.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio Symphony Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing shares how orchestra can survive the coronavirus

While the symphony is unable to perform live, the musicians have been featured in educational videos shot in their homes. The symphony also has posted videos of works by Elgar, Sibelius and Mahler for which individual performances are painstakingly edited together, as well as videos of solo performances by musicians at the Briscoe Western Art Museum.

Plans are being made to do more of that, Cowart said. The idea is to make sure that people dont forget that the city has an orchestra.

Out of sight is out of mind, he said. And we dont want to be out of mind.

Deborah Martin is an arts writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Deborah, become a subscriber. dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN
(Natural News) The Trump administration is planning to send federal law enforcement officers to Chicago, and other cities, as part of an ongoing effort to crack down on crime and civil unrest.

This proposal comes after the highly criticized deployment of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to Portland, Oregon, following intensifying riots perpetrated by Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement. These same violent groups have also threatened the lives of federal officers as well as federal properties.

In Chicagos case, President Donald Trump plans to send around 175 federal officers who will help the Chicago Police Department (CPD) deal with illegal gun sales, arrest fugitives suspected of participating in gun-related activities and bring down federal charges on them.

This move is part of a broader initiative by the Department of Justice to provide federal troops and other resources to areas around the country  most notably, cities controlled by officials from the Democratic Party  that are experiencing crime waves as a result of the massive civil unrest that followed the death of George Floyd in late May and has overwhelmed cities like Portland. (Related: Black man with American flag tries to stop rioters from damaging Federal Courthouse in Portland, says None of you guys represent Black lives.)

Trump has previously threatened to send in federal agents to Chicago and other Democrat-controlled cities to deal a decisive blow against the rioters fomenting civil unrest in these areas. However, local and state officials have criticized the plan as an attempt to shore up Trumps electoral base.

Current national polling figures have the president trailing behind the Democratic Partys presumptive presidential nominee, former vice president Joe Biden. Both candidates have taken opposing sides over the national debate about law enforcement. While Trump has styled himself as the candidate who can bring about law and order in a divided nation, Biden has spent his time decrying the actions of law enforcement officers in Portland and other parts of the country.

Chicago mayor says city needs safety nets not federal agents

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, has come out strongly against sending federal agents into her city. She has stated that what Chicagoans need right now are safety nets and public support programs and not games.

After the report came out that the DHS was planning to send federal officers to Chicago, Lightfoot positioned herself in opposition to the proposal. She sent a letter to the president detailing her criticisms.

Militarized assistance within our borders that would not be within our control or within the direct command of the Chicago Police Department would spell disaster, Lightfoot wrote in her open letter to Trump. Secret federal agents who do not know Chicago, are unfamiliar with the unique circumstances of our neighborhoods and who would operate outside the established infrastructure  will foment a massive wave of opposition.

Lightfoot suggested that, instead of sending in federal agents, Trump might be better positioned to help Chicago deal with its gun violence by promoting the passage of sweeping gun control legislation and supporting community programs that address violence, poverty and racial inequity.

Chicago has confiscated more firearms than New York and Los Angeles combined.

The mayor made similar remarks at a press conference held on Monday, July 20. We dont need federal agents without insignia taking people off the street and holding them, I think, unlawfully, she said.

Lightfoot has also weighed in on the situation in Portland, by saying that she believes the arrest and detention of rioters in Portland have undermined the confidence residents may have had in the federal, state and local governments that preside over their lives.

Chicagoans protest against federal intervention in the city

Many residents of Chicago have already made known their sentiments about the Trump administrations proposal. On Monday evening, several groups of people marched in downtown Chicago to protest against it. The demonstration also served as a protest against the president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, John Catanzara, Jr., who sent a letter to Trump extending an invitation to federal agents to come aid the citys beleaguered police department.

The marchers, numbering around 100 people, gathered at Federal Plaza in the citys Loop neighborhood. From there, they made their way north to Trump Tower, where they engaged in a brief skirmish with CPD officers for violating the law (several protesters continued to occupy the sidewalks). They could not come close to Trump Tower, however, as raised bridges and police officers on horseback prevented them from getting too close.

The demonstration against the Trump administration coincided with an ongoing battle that the CPD and the city of Chicago have been having with rioters over a statue of Christopher Columbus in Grant Park. Several CPD officers have been injured protecting the statue from rioters, who have been recorded throwing projectiles such as rocks, bottles and soda cans.

Find out more about what President Donald Trump is trying to do to put an end to the rampant waves of rioting, civil unrest and general criminality that have swept the nation for over the past eight weeks at Trump.news.

Sources include:

WSJ.com

FT.com

Chicago.CBSLocal.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 03:11:03|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The National Center for Disease Control of Libya on Tuesday reported 108 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 2,088.

The center said in a statement that it received a total of 1,117 suspected samples, of which 108 were tested positive.

Among the total confirmed COVID-19 cases in Libya, there are 479 recoveries and 50 deaths, the center said.

In order to prevent the pandemic's spread, the Libyan authorities have closed the country's borders, shut down schools and mosques, banned public gatherings, and imposed a curfew.

The first COVID-19 case in Libya was reported in March, while the first death from the coronavirus was recorded in April.

China has donated batches of medical aid to Libya to help combat the pandemic.

On July 18, the Chinese Embassy in Libya handed over a batch of medical supplies to the Libyan Embassy in Tunisia.

Earlier in June, China donated a batch of medical aid to Libya, including 834 test kits, 5,000 medical protective suits, 15,000 N95 masks, 100,000 surgical masks, 5,000 goggles and 5,000 pairs of medical gloves. Enditem
Everyone is keen to find out where to find the best Philly cheesesteak, both in terms of what goes into it and where it is made. There is no definitive answer to these questions, however, because there is no secret or perfect recipe  in the same way that no two drug development programs will progress in the same way. The debate around the what, how, where and when will never be truly settled because these things are very much down to individual preference.

Image Credit: DS InPharmatics LLC

Much like achieving the ideal Philly cheesesteak, when developing a pharmaceutical or biologic specific process and related finished product, product specifications and characteristics must be clearly defined in order to ensure product safety, effectiveness and consistency. These activities are commonly referred to as CMC, or Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control.

No two drug development programs develop in the same fashion, but every stage of the drug development life cycle will involve CMC. Throughout pre-clinical drug development, proper analytical methods must be qualified and validated to ensure that the product is consistent with expectations.

Stability testing will be conducted, with the products physicochemical properties being determined, and raw materials chosen then tested. As development progresses into the clinical stage, further characterization of the drug product is required.

As clinical trials continue, any scaled-up process must make sure that larger batches are identical, meeting exactly the same specifications as the drug tested in previous trials. Once the manufacturing process has been qualified, lot release and in process testing must continue.

A good drug development program (and indeed a good Philly cheesesteak) provides sufficient assurance that any compound involved will meet the required quality and technical elements at each stage of development, ultimately facilitating effective commercialization of the drug.

Like drug development programs, Philly cheesesteaks are best when made based on the customers requirements. Some people prefer the rolls toasted and crispy while others like them soft and chewy. Some prefer their cheesesteak dripping with grease, while others will say that too much grease results in a soggy roll. While some customers prefer the meat diced thinly, others enjoy larger slices or even small chunks.

Like the management of CMC Regulatory Affairs activities throughout development of the requirements to achieve a drug products preparation, there is no secret or perfect recipe.

It is important to learn the facts around a great cheesesteaks key ingredients. Once these are understood, there is a wide range of great cheesesteak manufacturers that can be explored in order to properly decide on a personal favorite. Likewise, with CMC Regulatory Affairs activities during development, there are a number of approaches which can be taken to help improve the chances of success.

The roll, much like the general properties of a drug substance, and the composition and excipients of its dosage form

Every great cheesesteak begins with the right roll. It should be chewy, but not too tough or too airy. Above all though, the roll should have some chew. Potato rolls may be right for lobster salad or hot dogs, but they are not a good choice for a cheesesteak.

Like a good cheesesteak roll, the physical and chemical properties of a drug substance, including the active ingredient within the drug product, must be fully explored and understood in order to develop an appropriate formulation.

Image Credit: DS InPharmatics LLC

For example, the rationalization of the choice between salt or free acid/base should be properly investigated in order to ensure the drug substances quality and that the drug product can be properly formulated.

The purity profile for various lots should be analyzed, with reversed phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) generally being employed for this analysis. The purity profile should be reproducible, with any impurities at International Conference of Harmonization (ICH) thresholds being appropriately identified, qualified and reported.

Examining the drug substances solution stability in different solvents at an early stage can offer an indication of the tendency for the drug substance to degrade during wet processing steps or when used in liquid formulations. Physical properties like hygroscopicity, solid-state stability, hydrate/solvate formation, polymorphism, and powder characteristics must also be analyzed.

A formulations drug product components will be categorized according to their function, as well as by the products route of administration. An outline of the drug products qualitative/quantitative composition will provide a full list of ingredients, including any solvents used in its manufacture.

The functional qualities of each individual component (excipients) of the drug product are vital to the development rationalization of the formulation. These components serve as important reference points in the analysis of supportive development data.

The functional aspects of excipients can be effectively split into four core categories, based on the way in which they may impact the drug substances stability, in vivo absorption, physical characteristics, and manufacturability.

While it is possible to apply these general classifications in most cases, excipients can also perform multifunctional roles. This means that the degree of the excipients physical characterization reliant on the manufacturer completely understanding its function.

A dosage form needs justification, and likewise, the ideal roll on a Philly cheesesteak should be uniform, long and slender, while not being skinny. The ends must be rounded - not pointy  shaped like the wider side of an egg, allowing the steak to fill the roll evenly and ensuring that every bite yields an equal meat to bread ratio.

The meat, much like the manufacturing process and process controls during clinical development

The meat found within a Philly cheesesteak should comfortably fill the roll, similar to the allowable excess volume and labeled vial fill size in an injectable drug, or like content uniformity for an oral form.

Having an inch of roll with no meat present is considered to be a definite no. Beef is the standard meat component, but chicken cheesesteak (which is only slightly healthier than its beef counterpart) is also popular. While both are delicious, first-timers are recommended to try the beef initially.

Meanwhile, a detailed narrative description of each step in the manufacturing process of both the drug substance and drug product can usually be found within early phase regulatory documents. This narrative will be compared against batch records from the manufacturing facility itself.

A comprehensive analysis of the process will incorporate a review of the required quantities of solvents, catalysts, raw materials and reagents. It will also include an identification of essential steps and process controls, the size and type of processing equipment, as well as key operating conditions such as pressure, temperature, pH, and the final drug products mixing time.

Image Credit: DS InPharmatics LLC

In cases where the process has been scaled-up from previous batches which had been used in toxicological studies, the impurity profile will be investigated and compared with the previous toxicology batches.

Investigation of raw materials will include the availability of reagents and important safety concerns, such as any specialized processing equipment required, handling concerns or protective equipment needed by the operator.

Following characterization of the drug substance, excipients, their interaction potential and the manufacturing process development for the drug product may begin. Process development commences at a small scale, transitioning to a minimum of 10 % before full scale production is made and the process is validated.

Process development should emphasize reproducibility of critical quality attributes (CQAs). Alterations to the manufacturing method must be detailed as the process progresses from initial Phase 1 studies to the final commercial process.

Here, the focus will be on process changes which were made after the initial clinical study. A review will be compiled of all clinical studies, with the manufacturing process utilized for clinical supplies thoroughly documented.

Development studies must thoroughly document the impact of process changes on CQAs associated with both intermediates and the final drug product.

When working with sterile products, a review of the pre-sterilization bioburden data must be conducted, as this is vital in demonstrating that the process is sufficiently robust.

When working with nonsterile liquid products, however, a review of the microbial limits testing data must be conducted. For any components in contact with liquid products during the manufacturing process, compatibility data must confirm that there are no deleterious effects to the product quality (for example drug adsorption onto processing tubing or filters) or unacceptable extractable components.

Whether the drug product is a lyo product manufactured through a complicated, multistep process or a tablet manufactured via a basic direct compression process, knowledge and effective control of critical process parameters are cornerstones of a well-controlled and robust process.

With direct compression tablets, flow behavior of the formulation before tableting is a crucial characteristic that will affect the selection and control of ranges of process parameters.

A number of parameters are important in the direct compression process. These could include order of addition of excipients, mixing or blending time, and flow rates of the blend into the tableting press. Water absorption by powder during manufacturing may require the use of specialist humidity controls within the manufacturing facility.

With a lyo product, parameters that control the lyophilization must be well-defined. These include the impact of any deviation from set points for critical operations. Overall, the design process should only be considered to be successful with predefined quality requirements and a thoroughly developed testing plan.

Like the Philly cheesesteak, there are numerous options for each dosage form. Cheesesteak options include various cuts, naturally flavored, unseasoned products, single cut, hand-packed. seasoned, fully cooked, blended seasoned and, of course, chicken. Like with dosage forms, specifications are important.

The cheese, much like the specs, analytical procedures and validation

Some people enjoy the bright yellow (artificial) Cheez Whiz, but the majority of locals will opt for provolone or American cheese. While Cheez Whiz may provide taste satisfaction after a late night, American cheese is always a better option, because, when properly thought about, most people realize that Cheez Whiz is unpleasant and not a good food choice.

Image Credit: DS InPharmatics LLC

Other types of cheese - like Swiss, for example - are not only inappropriate for a Philly cheesesteak, but will likely cause anyone ordering them to be mocked if overheard doing so in public. Provolone and American are the two traditional cheeses, and these are the only options that should be considered. However, the type of cheese used should complement the steaks flavor.

Similarly, specifications for drug substance or drug product will be comprised of test methods and their acceptance criteria. These should be chosen based on the nature of the product itself, for example, solid oral, biologic, small molecule or liquid parenteral. Each product specification should be provided along with a rationale for its specified limits.

A range of tests and acceptance criteria exist which are applicable to all drug substances.

A description or qualitative statement is normally made regarding the drug substances appearance. Identification testing will normally distinguish between the drug substance and any closely related compounds.

Normally, two identification tests will be performed, with one of these tests being the HPLC retention time match with a reference standard material. The second test will generally be a spectroscopic technique such as IR, however, UV-Vis absorbance spectra are not usually specific enough to differentiate between related compounds.

HPLC methods are generally employed in the control of impurities, and all methods should be specific while indicating stability.

Further specifications may be applicable, based on the drug substance and drug products natures. These additional specifications may include polymorphic form, particle size, melting point, loss on drying and Karl Fischer.

When working with drug substances which are used in solutions and suspensions, additional physico-chemical characteristics could affect the formulation of the drug product. These characteristics may include microbial limits or the pH of the solution, and these specifications must be consistent with drug safety study results and existing process capability.

Specifications of impurities during early development will be primarily controlled via the qualification limits established by toxicology studies. In the early stages of development, full justification of specifications will not be available, but this is unnecessary at this stage as final specifications are defined through the complete development experience.

By the time Phase III is reached, the drug substance process should be well-defined with no significant changes anticipated. This is because Phase III pivotal clinical studies and stability batches will utilize material from the current process.

Once again, two identification tests will be performed, with one of the tests being the HPLC retention time match, using a reference standard material. Again, the second test will usually be a spectroscopic technique such as IR.

The most commonly used assay procedures are HPLC and titration methods. If a titration method is employed for assay, a further, specific, stability indicating method must be applied in order to manage impurities in the drug product.

Much like the drug substance, additional specifications may be applicable, dependent upon the nature of the specific drug product. These specifications may include dissolution, disintegration, residual solvents, moisture (water) and microbial limits.

When working with drug product solutions and suspensions, further physico-chemical characteristics of the drug product may affect its performance. These characteristics can include the particle size of the suspended drug, the pH of the solution, the clarity of the solution (turbidity), the color of the solution, or its viscosity, preservative testing or volume of fill.

There is a common misconception from people who do not live in the Philly area is that a genuine Philly cheesesteak should be heavily covered with Cheez Whiz, but this is simply not true. Sliced white American followed by sliced provolone are the most requested types of cheese on cheesesteaks, and this is the case throughout Philly and even the rest of the country.

It is important that the cheese is not overwhelming in terms of salt or sharpness. When selecting a white American, would-be cheesesteak consumers should look for specifications which impart a creamy taste. For provolone, however, they should opt for a mild or medium profile, along with a light smoky flavor.

The onions, much like the reference standards, container closure and product stability

Unless someone is seriously averse to fried onions, then these should be added to a cheesesteak to improve it. Sweet or hot peppers are also popular additions, but other than these, anything else is considered somewhat fancy.

Image Credit: DS InPharmatics LLC

Some people like to add pizza sauce, creating a pizza steak, while some add lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayo, resulting in a cheesesteak hoagie. While every one of these variations is delicious, anyone new to the world of cheesesteaks is advised to keep it simple and opt for the classic - a beef cheesesteak complete with American cheese and fried onions - at least for their first time.

Throughout drug development, the validity of analytical results is partially reliant on the use of appropriate reference standards. Reference standards utilized in the drug substance analysis, or the analysis of starting materials, intermediates and drug product must employ further testing in order to confirm both the identity and purity of the reference standard itself.

Normally, the reference standard is fully characterized, and this will include full structural data alongside comprehensive testing for impurities. Once the reference standard has been fully characterized, a secondary reference standard can be tested against the primary standard to facilitate routine testing.

A primary package from storage should be available, and the potential for incompatibilities between the package and compound should be explored and understood. Physical and chemical reactivity will generally dictate the type of packaging required.

For example, hygroscopic drug substances may necessitate the inclusion of desiccants in the primary package. If drug substances are sensitive to environmental conditions such as light, oxygen, heat and moisture, data on the packaging components qualification should be provided.

Following identification of critical packaging parameters, these parameters will be routinely tested upon receipt of the container, before it is used to hold the drug substance.

Additionally, an appropriate package should be selected based on knowledge of the chemical and physical behavior of the drug product in pre-formulation, along with subsequent stability studies of model formulations.

For stable products which are not sensitive to environmental conditions, the justification of the package will still require enough data to illustrate the acceptability of the drug products physico-chemical attributes when stored.

For products that are sensitive to moisture or oxygen, a package must be shown to provide an effective barrier. It may also be necessary to use headspace analysis to show that packaging conditions offer an appropriate internal atmosphere, or that this can be achieved via the addition of a suitable inert gas.

The choice of packaging components for liquid formulations is ascertained during pre-formulation development.

A secondary package for the drug product may also be required, such as a cardboard box. If this secondary packaging material is designed to provide protection to the product, then stability studies both with and without this secondary package should demonstrate the secondary packages suitability for this role.

Development of a robust stability protocol early on in development is advisable. A review of every stability batch should be conducted once the product is considered stable, with special attention paid to any increases in impurities or the appearance of a new degradation product. Variability observed between batches in the level of degradation products is often indicative of the overall process robustness.

New impurities or alterations in impurity levels are often observed in poorly controlled processes. As such, the degradation pathway and any critical intermediates should be thoroughly explored.

Like stability, many would say that onions are essential in a good cheesesteak. Overall though, onions are an add-on - but not just any  add-on  it is the most significant addition for those who prefer the extra flavor of with or wit. Nothing is ever straightforward, though, and even when considering onions for a cheesesteak there are three key decisions to be made: Type, cutting method and preparation.

The location, much like the supply chain

With a firm grasp of the complexities of the development and ordering process for a Philadelphia cheesesteak, now is a good time to go and order one. Luckily, it is easy to source quality Philly cheesesteaks around the city  there are shops all over. Regardless of whether it is an individuals first cheesesteak or their 100th, each bite should be savored.

Much like a cheesesteak shop, a contract manufacturing organization (CMO), sometimes referred to as a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), is a company which can be contracted by other companies in the industry to deliver comprehensive services ranging from drug development through to drug manufacturing.

Hiring an external organization allows large pharmaceutical companies to outsource these roles, assisting with scalability or allowing the large company to fully focus on drug discovery and drug marketing.

Image Credit: DS InPharmatics LLC

CMOs can offer a wide range of services. These can include pre-formulation, formulation development, method development, stability studies, pre-clinical and Phase I clinical trial materials, formal stability, late-stage clinical trial materials, registration batches, scale-up and commercial production.

CMOs are commonly contract manufacturers, but they can provide many other services because of their development aspect.

Customers not only expect competitive pricing, but also flexible production capability, regulatory compliance and on time delivery. The CMO must comply with its clients existing manufacturing practices, as well as best practice from an official organization such as Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The location, name, and current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) status of the CMO of core starting materials and drug substances should, ideally, be available. Furthermore, an overview of the manufacturers quality assurance aspects can provide insight additional insight into the viability of the process.

A manufacturer can request a report of the most recent cGMP manufacturing inspection from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or related European Union (EU) authority, facilitating a general overview of the facilities cGMP compliance aspects.

Specific indications of issues around testing practices or cGMP compliance can assist in ascertaining the reliability of data supplied by the manufacturer. Should testing be performed at a different facility, an investigation into that testing facilitys cGMP status should be undertaken.

While somewhat more complicated, once someone learns about the key ingredients required for a quality Philly cheesesteak, there is a wide selection of great cheesesteak locations to explore while deciding on a personal favorite. First though, reading up on Finding a Great Philly Cheesesteak! is worthwhile, in order to make the ordering process as smooth as possible.

Design Space Inpharmatics want to help their customers find some of the best cheesesteaks in Philadelphia. In the City of Brotherly Love, cheesesteaks remain a civic icon, a cultural obsession and a strong draw for visitors. They are often imitated across the globe, but the Philly cheesesteak is rarely successfully replicated outside of Philadelphia.

Acknowledgments

Produced from content originally authored by Edward A. Narke from Design Space Inpharmatics.

About DS InPharmatics LLC

DS InPharmatics (DSI) provides regulatory, technical, and project management consulting services to healthcare product companies that manufacture and/or market pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, and cellular and gene therapy products.

Since 2007 we have provided our clients with innovative strategies and exceptional quality work products intended to enhance product development, approval, and marketing presence. Whether advocating CMC strategy, directing CMC operations or developing CMC submission content that represent the best interests of emerging biotech, we focus on the critical CMC issues and build programs that enhance development.

Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.
The usual post-merger giddiness that abounds after a multibillion-dollar oil deal is noticeably absent in the wake of Chevron Corp.s $5 billion takeover bid for Noble Energy Inc.

With Chevron agreeing to pay just a 7.5% premium over Nobles July 17 closing price, the all-stock deal isnt eliciting much speculation that a new spree of acquisitions is in the offing. That means little prospect of relief for investors in hundreds of struggling drillers in places like West Texas and Oklahoma.

Theres really not going to be a big wave of M&A, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Vincent G. Piazza. Its going to be a function of survival.

The shale sector that singlehandedly resurrected withering U.S. oil production during the past decade has been fading from favor among investors since long before the Covid-19 pandemic crushed global economic activity. The industry pumped too much crude too quickly just as worldwide demand weakened, wiping out cash flows and any prospect of near-term returns.

ACQUISITION: Chevron to acquire Noble Energy in $13 billion deal

In fact, deal premiums in U.S. shale have been hard to come by for much of the past year. Callon Petroleum Co. angered major investors such as Paulson & Co. last year when it offered to buy Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. at a 25% premium. Under pressure from holders who threatened to vote against the merger, Callon slashed the premium to 6.7%.

Just weeks after the Callon-Carizzo tie-up was announced, PDC Energy Inc. agreed to buy SRC Energy Inc. at a 3.8% discount to its most-recent closing price. At the time, analysts said the small or non-existent premiums signaled target companies were eager to take what they could get, given the darkening outlook for the sector.

Theres very, very little enthusiasm for any type of splashy deal, Piazza said Monday. Deals in the E&P space come from a position of weakness, especially for the seller, he said, using the acronym for explorers and producers. This is the reality that we see before us.

Frustrated Investors

Vitol Group, the worlds largest independent oil trader, created an acquisition vehicle to buy up U.S. oil and natural gas assets. But the days of shale operators banking on Big Oil rivals to come and bail them out with high purchase prices appear to be over.

FUEL FIX: Now more than ever, you need our energy news in your inbox

If theres a consolidation I think its important that its done in a way that is responsible, disciplined, that breaks from this pattern that I think investors are so frustrated with, Chevron Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said in a phone interview. Chevron has a high bar for deals and wont be in the market again for some time, at least until Noble is integrated and an internal restructuring is completed, he said.

Nobles peers saw their shares rise following Chevrons announcement, but the reaction was muted. Apache Corp., which like Noble has both U.S. shale and international assets, climbed as much as 6.4%. Hess Corp., another shale name with a global footprint, rose 3.1%. Permian drillers including Pioneer Natural Resources Co. gained 2.7%. All three had pared their gains by early afternoon.

Thats in stark contrast to what happened last time Chevron announced a deal. When the oil major announced its ill-fated bid for Anadarko in April 2019, Pioneer shares rose 12% and Parsley Energy Inc. also posted a double-digit gain.

On The Prowl

It feels to me that theres still a view that the assets are going to get cheaper, said Dan Pickering, founder of Pickering Energy Partners. Theres just not a lot of urgency here.

Chevron has also been on the hunt for a takeout target for months. Noble CEO Dave Stover indicated during a conference call that the company had fielded multiple inquiries, though analysts expressed skepticism that there are many other major explorers in the market.

The low premium gives us the impression that this deal was more about opportunity than appetite, Johnson Rice & Company analysts said in a note. Second, for all those hoping to ride off to glory in the M&A sunset, there is now one less horse to ride.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Latin America has a long and turbulent history that included wars, assassinations, rebellions, and massacres.

The first recording of the region's history began during the pre-Columbian period. It included the Spanish and Portuguese colonization and Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of the Americas.

We selected three of the most important events in Latin America based on the effect they had on the population and the developments they brought to the region.

Christopher Columbus "Discovers" the Americas (1942)

In schools, we were told Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. However, when Columbus landed in the Americas, the Portuguese had already captured the lands.

Additionally, the Viking explorer Leif Erikson has sailed what is now Newfoundland in Canada. The Vikings did not for longer than 10 years after their relations with North Americans were described as hostile.

Columbus is celebrated because he opened up America to Europe. He made it possible for the Americans to conquer much of the Western Hemisphere. Their movement also brought diseases to the countries they took over, wiping out nearly 90 percent of the population.

Spain Colonized Mexico

After word of the New World's existence had spread out, Spain decided it wanted to pacify and colonize the region's valuable resources. They sent Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes to Mexico.

Cortes and his crew dropped their anchor on Mexico in February 1519. The locals shared vital information about the lands he wanted to conquer. He and his team also received 20 women as gifts. One of them was Marina, the woman, who would later give birth to Cortes' son and become the most hated woman in Mexican history.

Cortes' forces defeated the Aztec warriors in a battle on July 7, 1520. He also conquered and controlled Tenochtitlan, the capital, by August 13, 1521.His conquest led to the fall of the Aztec Empire.

(Also read: Meet Dona 'La Malinche' Marina, the Most Important Woman in Mexican History)





Establishing Lima, Peru (1533)

In Peru, Francisco Pizarro, along with fellow soldier Diego de Almagro and priest Hernando de Luque went on a voyage to discover and conquer South America.

In 1526, Pizzaro and his crew arrived in Peru. Locals told them stories of a great ruler and the great fortune hidden in the mountain.

King Charles of Spain allowed Pizzaro to claim the land for Spain, promising he would become the governor of the lands he conquered.

In November 1532, Pizzaro entered the Inca city of Cajamarca. Inca leader Atahuapla was holding a feast to celebrate the victory in the Inca Civil War.

Pizzaro took Atahuapla hostage and killed him despite receiving a hefty ransom to spare his life. He conquered the Inca empire and founded Peru's capital, Lima.

Pizzaro and Almagro fought against each other after the latter took over Cuzco, a critical Inca city. Pizzaro did not want the former soldier to have the city. But by then, he was already too old to fight. He sent his brothers to fight for the city where they defeated and killed Almagro.

On June 26, 1541, armed supporters of Almagro broke into Pizzaro's palace in the capital and assassinated him.

Want to read more?
Students and faculty are calling for renaming of buildings and colleges on the University of Georgias campus as protests against racial inequality continue across the nation and in Athens.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

On July 22, 2020, the successive session of World Trade Organization (WTO) General Council was held in WTO headquarters located in Geneva of the Swiss Confederation, during which the application of Turkmenistan on accession to WTO as an observer was considered, Trend reports with reference to Turkmen embassy in Azerbaijan.

The Turkmen side was represented at the session by the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations at Geneva, as well as the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations, Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan who took part via videoconference.

In honor of assessing the request of Turkmenistan for accession to WTO in the status of an observer, a special ceremony was organized during which the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan delivered a speech on behalf of the Government of Turkmenistan. During the address, he informed the participants of the General Council about the background of the accession process to the Organization, in particular about the pioneering policy of implementing the external economic activity of Turkmenistan. It was stated that the Programme on Foreign Economic Activity of Turkmenistan for 2020-2025 is a vital document in this regard.

The gaining of this status by the country is intended to contribute to the dynamic development of the national economy of Turkmenistan, strengthen its standing in regard to foreign trade, carry multilateral cooperation, attract foreign investments and improve international trade ties. This also concerns the development of commercial and trade strategies including their successful implementation.

Following the address of the Turkmen side, a number of representatives of the Organizations member-states, including Afghanistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Republic of Panama, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkey and Ukraine expressed support to the initiative of Turkmenistan on the accession to the Organization as an observer.

After the discussions, the member-states of WTO General Council unanimously adopted the resolution on granting Turkmenistan the status of an observer in WTO.

Currently there are 164 WTO member-states. Twenty four countries possess the status of an observer. Turkmenistan became the 25th country with a status of an observer.
On my way to a recent community event, I found myself in the middle of a homicide scene not long after the investigation ended. As I looked around at the young people grieving in the street and down at the blood of the young man who was killed, I wondered: Who is listening to the cries of our community? When does the government take responsibility for ignoring its role in building and maintaining the structures that perpetuate racism  especially when for a century their own commissions have identified the racist impacts of their policies?
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Nuinsco Resources Limited ("Nuinsco" or the "Company") (CSE:NWI) today announced that recent diamond drilling at the Sunbeam Gold Property (the "Property") near Atikokan in northwestern Ontario successfully intersected the down-dip extension of the structure hosting gold mineralization at the past-producing Sunbeam Mine, returning anomalous gold mineralization.

"The presence of gold mineralized rock at depth below the historic Sunbeam mine is very encouraging," said Paul Jones, CEO. "In addition to the 15km strike length of gold mineralized structures at surface and known gold occurrences, the gold mineralization and host-structure is now known to continue to depth below the historic work at the Sunbeam Mine. Technical issues resulted in only two holes being completed, however the results from those holes add to our knowledge of this extensive domain of little-explored, favourable gold mineralized host rock that Nuinsco can explore going forward."

Diamond drill holes NS-20-01 and 02 were collared to test for an extension of the northeast striking and approximately 50 northwest dipping host structure to gold mineralization of the historic Sunbeam mine. Both drill holes were collared at 625N on line 6770E, oriented at 135 and inclined at -70 and -80 respectively. The completed drill holes intersected the down-dip extension of the mineralized structure hosting the Sunbeam Mine up to 30m below the maximum depth attained in the old mine workings. Due to technical issues it was not possible to test the interpreted trend of the mineralization occurring in the mine. DDH NS-20-01 intersected 3.75m (between 73.25m and 77.0m core-length, estimated at 3.5m true-width) of consistently anomalous gold mineralization, peaking at 1.1 g/t Au (between 74,65-75.07m core-length, estimated at 0.39m true width) in sulphide bearing quartz veins in altered chlorite schist and tronjhemite host rock. DDH NS-20-02 intersected 6.08m (between 80.12m and 86.2m core-length, estimated at 5.1m true-width) of deformed and altered rock hosting quartz-veining and returned anomalous gold mineralization, peaking at 218 ppb Au (see tabulated analytical results below).

Previous work conducted by Nuinsco identified gold mineralization in mine waste dumps and vein material that suggests high-grade gold mineralization is present at the Sunbeam mine site. Grab samples collected by Nuinsco from waste-rock at the mine have returned assays as high as 122 g/t gold (refer to the Nuinsco news release dated 21 March 2019, grab samples are selected samples and are not representative of the mineralization hosted on the property); these findings concur with grades reported historic records and sampling results by previous workers.

The Sunbeam Mine is located on a northeast-trending, mineralized lineament that traverses the property for 5.4km. Host mineralization at the Sunbeam Mine is a northeast striking, chloritized sheared zone of altered, schistose rock within which sulphide and gold bearing quartz veins occur. Historically at the Sunbeam Mine, pits and shafts were excavated to trace the quartz veining and schist along strike in excess of 300m.

As well as the Sunbeam mine, the 101 mining claims of the Property optioned by Nuinsco in 2017 encompass numerous other sites of gold mineralization including the historic Roy and Pettigrew deposits and a number of other gold showings located on the northeast-striking, gold-mineralized trends that traverse the Property.

The Sunbeam Gold Property is located in northwestern Ontario 27km northeast of the town of Atikokan and 12km southeast of Agnico Eagle's Hammond Reef gold deposit. It is accessible via well-maintained logging roads from Hwy 11.

QP

P.L. Jones, P. Geo., is a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this press release regarding the Property.

QA/QC

Sample Analyses: all drill core was sawn and half or the core was submitted as samples for analysis to Activation Laboratories Ltd. through their Thunder Bay facility using the 1A-2 analytical method of fire assay - atomic absorption with detection limits of between 5ppb and 5000ppb. Given the number of samples the laboratory QC methods were relied upon - this comprised insertion of four analytical standards, two analytical blanks and two sample duplicates.

chl = chlorite, hem = hematite. py = pyrite, po = pyrrhotite, cp = chalcopyrite, QV = quartz vein,

bx = breccia, fz = fault zone, alt'd = altered, trondhj = trondhjemite, diss = disseminated

About Nuinsco Resources Limited

Nuinsco Resources has over 45 years of exploration success and is a growth-oriented, multi-commodity mineral exploration and development company focused on prospective opportunities in Canada and internationally. Currently the Company has two properties in Ontario - the high-grade Sunbeam gold prospect near Atikokan and the large, multi-commodity (rare-earths, niobium, tantalum, phosphorus) Prairie Lake project near Terrace Bay. In addition, Nuinsco has completed an agreement to exploit the El Sid project in southeastern Egypt - this project requires little capital and can provide near-term revenue to the Company; the Company is in the process of sourcing funding to commence the process of building a plant on-site.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements." All statements, other than statements of historic fact, that address activities, events or developments that Nuinsco believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek," "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "estimate, "expect," and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may," "will," "can," "should," "could," or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations or beliefs of Nuinsco based on information currently available to Nuinsco. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results of Nuinsco to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on Nuinsco. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, failure to successfully complete financings, capital and other costs varying significantly from estimates, production rates varying from estimates, changes in world copper and/or gold markets, changes in equity markets, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions, imprecision in resource estimates, success of future development initiatives, competition, operating performance of facilities, environmental and safety risks, delays in obtaining or failure to obtain tenure to properties and/or necessary permits and approvals, and other development and operating risks. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Nuinsco disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although Nuinsco believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

To learn more, please contact:

Paul Jones, CEO

paul.jones@nuinsco.ca

Sean Stokes, Executive VP

sean.stokes@nuinsco.ca

Cathy Hume, Consultant

cathy@chfir.com

416 868-1079 x 231

Website: www.nuinsco.ca

Twitter: @NWIResources

SOURCE: Nuinsco Resources Limited

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598395/Nuinsco-Intersects-Down-Dip-Extension-to-Historic-Sunbeam-Gold-Mine
This is aimed to confront Russian threat in the Black and Azov seas.

The U.S. is working to bolster Ukraine's navy, a force that was decimated by Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014, an effort that comes as Moscow strengthens its own forces in the region in a buildup that some officials see as a threat to NATO's southeastern flank.

The ramped-up effort to help Ukraine includes a military exercise that begun Monday called "Sea Breeze," which is taking place days after Russia launched major military drills in the region involving nearly 150,000 troops, dueling shows of force that underscore the tensions between NATO and Moscow, CNN reports.

That tension has been further fueled in recent days as the U.S. has accused Moscow of a wide range of activities, including cyber-attacks on organizations involved in coronavirus vaccine development and using Russian mercenaries to destabilize Libya. Reports that Russian operatives offered cash incentives to Taliban-linked militants to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan have further highlighted the tense relationship.

Some 80% of Ukraine's Navy was captured by Russia when its forces seized the Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 with Moscow later annexing the territory, leaving Kyiv with only a single frigate.

As a result, Ukraine had to basically rebuild its Navy from scratch and the U.S. has sought to help that process. The focus of that effort has been on smaller ships that operate closer to shore, giving Ukraine the ability to control its littoral waters, the near shore.

Read alsoPatrol boats purchased from U.S. to help contain Russian aggression in Black, Azov Seas  FM Kuleba

The U.S. has provided two retired Island-class U.S. Coast Guard cutters and new Mark VI patrol boats which are seen as ideal when it comes to operating in the shallow waters of the Sea of Azov.

A U.S. defense official told CNN that Kyiv is in the process of acquiring three more Island Class Coast Guard cutters with Ukraine's government paying for the retrofitting of the mothballed ships which are being transferred as part of the excess defense articles program.

The Pentagon recently announced plans to provide Kyiv with several Mark VI patrol boats and the State department also recently approved the sale of 16 additional patrol boats to Ukraine, six of which will be paid for through a U.S. assistance program with the remainder being purchased using Ukraine's own defense funds.

While the patrol boats come armed with remote-controlled cannons, U.S. defense officials tell CNN that the U.S. is actively considering arming the vessels with even more firepower, shipborne missiles capable of targeting enemy warships.

"We are interested in arming their patrol boats with missiles," a U.S. defense official told CNN.

The enhanced armaments are seen as particularly important given Ukraine's tensions with Russia in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In 2018, Russian forces seized three Ukrainian vessels and captured 24 Ukrainian sailors following a clash in the Kerch Strait connecting the two said seas and being the sole access route for ships traveling to Ukraine's eastern port cities.

Read alsoUkraine's MFA issues strong protest over Putin's illegal visit to occupied Crimea

The Sea of Azov has a maximum depth of only 14 meters and is therefore much too shallow for most warships to operate in, making it the ideal environment for the Mark VI-type patrol boats to operate.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is also pursuing the development of an anti-ship missile of its own, the indigenous developed Neptune cruise missile, a larger weapon which can be fired from shore but would likely be too large for the U.S.-supplied ships.

U.S. officials have long-accused Russia of building up its military forces in Crimea, stationing additional aircraft, warships, and missiles that can threaten countries in the region, making U.S. efforts to strengthen allies in the region more imperative.

American military advisers are also advising Ukrainian naval officials on how to retain and recruit navy personnel. "They are moving from what essentially was an old Soviet mandatory service model to an entirely volunteer-based western model and that's taken some time, they've had to work through that," the U.S. defense official told CNN.

Training and exercises are also seen as critical to helping bolster Ukraine's navy and exercise Sea Breeze which takes place in the Black Sea is seen as a critical component.
The image is a photo from a pro-democracy protest in Ukraine in 2014.

A post by Donald Trump's official Facebook account purports to show violence in the U.S. but is in fact of an event in another country.

The advert shows one image of Mr Trump in a calm setting talking to police officers beside another of a security official being surrounded by protesters, saying: "Public safety vs chaos and violence," the BBC reported.

However, the image is a photo from a pro-democracy protest in Ukraine in 2014.

Facebook have told the BBC they won't be taking any action against the post but gave no further comment.

What does the ad show?

The post reads "Evangelicals For Trump are ready to help re-elect President Donald J Trump."

On the image on the right, the officer is wearing a badge on his shoulder.

However, it is an insignia not recognisable as one U.S. police wear  it's a Coptic cross seen in countries which practice Orthodox Christianity.

Using a reverse image search shows that the image is actually from Ukraine and was first posted in 2014, during the revolution that overthrew the government.

The security official pictured is in fact not a U.S. police officer. That badge was worn by members of the "Internal Troops of Ukraine," a now disbanded section of the national military that also assisted with policing.

Read alsoYanukovych's interior minister wanted to use 50,000 policemen to disperse Maidan in Feb 2014  general

The image is also on the Wikipedia page about the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, and says it shows events in February 2014 when security officials clashed with anti-government protesters.

The old photo in the advert was picked up by a former Hillary Clinton staffer Jesse Lehrich in tweet that has been widely shared.

Who's seen it?

President Trump's Facebook page has more than 30 million followers.

The imagery appears to have been made by campaign group "Evangelicals for Trump" and has mostly reached users in Florida and Texas who are older than 55, according to Facebook's estimates.

Social media companies Facebook and Twitter have taken steps in recent months to label posts by public officials.
Pune has received 3mm less rain than normal rainfall until Tuesday. The actual rainfall occurred during this season in Pune is 263.2mm while normal rainfall is 266.2 mm.

The 3mm deficit in the rain has occurred because the city has not received heavy rain since the past one month.

The Pune district ghat areas rainfall, which actually contribute to dams are at frequent intervals getting heavy to very heavy spell of rain. In the coming days too, Pune district, its ghat and city will get a good amount of rain, said Anupam Kashyapi, head of India Meteorological Department, Pune.

On Tuesday, until 5:30pm, the city and Lohegaon did not receive any rain. The maximum temperature was reported to be 32.6 degree Celsius and minimum temperature were 23.0 degree Celsius.

Our prediction is light rain will continue in the city, until Wednesday while moderate rain is expected from July 23-25. Ghat areas will be receiving heavy rain from July 23-25, added Kashyapi.

However, Maharashtra has received 18 per cent more rainfall than normal.

Till date, the state has received 18 per cent more rainfall than normal, said Kashyapi.

Except for Nandurbar, Gondia and Akola districts, all other districts have received more than normal rainfall.

Weather forecast by IMD

July 22: Light to moderate rain, thundery activity

July 23: Moderate rain very likely

July 24: Moderate rain very likely

July 25: Moderate rain very likely

July 26: Light to moderate rain very likely
GLENCOE, IL  The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Booth Cottage was successfully relocated for the first time in a century thanks to efforts by preservationists and public bodies to save it from potential demolition.

The Glencoe Historical Society organized Tuesday's move of the 105-year-old structure a few blocks down Franklin Road to the southwestern corner of Park 7N. The land at the intersection of Maple Hill, Franklin and Meadows roads is owned by the Glencoe Park District, but the local nonprofit historical society covered the cost of the house's relocation and restoration with the help of tens of thousands of dollars in donations.

A crew from Pennsylvania-based Wolfe House & Building Movers lifted the structure onto three multi-wheel power dollies before a truck slowly brought the one-story home down the driveway and about 750 feet to the south.

(Jake Fields/NorthShore Updates)

"This is one of the days we'll look back and just sort of smile at," said project manager Ed Goodale, a former president of the Glencoe Historical Society. He said the past year had been tortuous at times, but seeing the cottage roll into the park was extremely fulfilling.

"Over the last year it's been sort of an emotional rollercoaster trying to save this house and today it was definitely a high point," Goodale said. "It was really wonderful to see this house come off of its old site and onto its new location. We are absolutely thrilled and very thankful to all of the stakeholders that are involved in this."



(Jake Fields/NorthShore Updates)

The Booth Cottage was originally erected on Sylvan Road in 1913 as a temporary home for Elizabeth and Sherman Booth while Wright built the Prairie-style Booth House at 265 Sylvan Road, which sold in December for $750,000. The smaller cottage was moved a few hundred feet south to 239 Franklin Road in 1917.



Wright's utilitarian design for the cottage offered a preview the subsequent development of his "Usonian" style, which aimed to become an affordable and distinctly American architectural style  its name is derived from the "United States of North America," according to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Story continues

Elizabeth Booth, a leading advocate for expanding voting rights to women, was present at the signing of the Suffrage Bill in Illinois the same year the house was completed. Her husband, Sherman, was Wright's attorney and a founding member of the Glencoe Park District.

At first, they planned to build a 15-acre estate and combine it with a nature preserve designed by influential landscape architect Jens Jensen. Due to financial considerations, the owners decided to build a subdivision with over two dozen homes to be designed by Wright. Only six were completed in Ravine Bluffs subdivision.

(Glencoe Historical Society)

Earlier:

Threatened Frank Lloyd Wright House In Glencoe Could Be Preserved

Glencoe Accepts Application To Demolish Frank Lloyd Wright House

'Endangered' Frank Lloyd Wright Home In Glencoe Sold For $550,000

2 Historic Glencoe Homes Among 'Most Endangered' Places In State

Glencoe contains the world's third-largest concentration of structures designed by Wright, according to the historical society. The park where the cottage was moved was originally part of the Booth's property and also contains a bridge and other architectural markers dating back to the original subdivision.

The Booth Cottage was purchased in 1956 by the late architect Meyer Rudoff and art teacher Doris Rudoff. In 1996, the Glencoe Historic Preservation Commission granted it honorary landmark status, which did not preclude its potential demolition but instead mandated a nearly six-month waiting period before demolition.

In October 2017, the Rudoffs' daughter listed the house for $1 million. Despite some inquiries, the landmark status was never upgraded to "certified." In May 2019, the property was purchased by Jean Yang and Justin Lu for $550,000, shortly after the preservation nonprofit Landmark Illinois listed it among the "most endangered historic places in Illinois."

Just over 10 days after closing on the historic home, the new owners filed paperwork seeking a demolition permit and declined to attend any meetings about the property until the 180-day countdown had begun.

In response, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy issued a request for proposals to relocate the home. The historical society's proposal was the clear choice, Goodale said.

"One of the huge benefits we have is that we're in town, we're in Glencoe," he said. "We don't do this very often  but preserving, documenting, disseminating the history of Glencoe are our multiple missions"



(Glencoe Park District)

In January, the Glencoe Park District approved a 99-year lease with the historical society set to pay $1 a year for rent and the village covering the cost of about $15,000 worth of infrastructure. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the move itself for several months.



Before the house was relocated, some portions of the cottage that were not part of the original design were removed. An overhang over the entrance, a pair of bedrooms added to the rear and an attached garage were all cleared out.

Following up to four months of exterior work, historical society representatives hope to have the building open to the public as a small museum space and research center by summer 2020.

(Jake Fields/NorthShore Updates)

This article originally appeared on the Winnetka-Glencoe Patch
A federal judge in Maryland is allowing dozens of Muslim plaintiffs to move ahead with a lawsuit against Attorney General William Barr and other federal officials challenging the constitutionality of the government's watchlist of people identified as known or suspected terrorists.

Government lawyers had asked U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt to toss out the lawsuit. But in a 65-page ruling issued Monday, she allowed it to proceed.

It was not a total victory for the plaintiffs, though: The judge did toss out some parts of the case, including claims that the watchlist interfered with First Amendment rights to free assembly, as well as a claim that the watchlist is used to unfairly pressure Muslims into becoming FBI informants.

Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing the plaintiffs, said Monday's ruling is the broadest legal challenge to the watchlist that has made it this far in the legal process and is the latest sign that the era of the federal governments extrajudicial targeting of innocent Muslims will not go on forever.

A judge in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled in favor of Muslim plaintiffs last year in a similar challenge that was focused a little more narrowly, but that case has been held up on the question of what kind of remedy should be crafted.

The watchlist, also known as the Terrorist Screening Database, is maintained by the FBI and shared with a variety of federal agencies. Customs officers have access to the list to check people coming into the country at border crossings, and aviation officials use the database to help form the no-fly list, which is a much smaller subset of the broader watchlist.

The watchlist has grown significantly over the years. As of 2017, approximately 1.16 million people were included on the watchlist, according to government documents. The vast majority are foreigners, but according to the government, there are roughly 4,600 U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents on the watchlist as of 2017.

The lawsuit alleges that Muslims are placed on the list without good reason and without a reasonable opportunity to clear their names. Placement on the watchlist has resulted in travel and business difficulties for those who say they were placed on the list improperly.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. In court papers. government lawyers argued for dismissal on numerous grounds and defended administration of the watchlist.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

An Accra high court has ordered the arrest of a 56-year-old man who allegedly posed as a lawyer and was defending a client in court.

Nana Adjei Ntow was in court to defend a complainant who had filed a stealing case against his former girlfriend when the court presided by Gifty Adjei Addo, realized that suspect was impersonating , ordered for his immediate arrest.

A police source who was at court told the paper that On December 22, 2019, one Edward Debrah of East Legon who is the complainant in the case of which suspect had presented him in court , reported to the Airport district police command that his ex-girlfriend had stolen his 2016 unregistered Toyota corolla.

The complainant told the police that the lady after stealing the vehicle, also forged documents to the car and registered it.

According to the report, during police investigations, it came to light that the vehicle was not stolen from the complainant as he had reported and that he handed over the vehicle to the lady together with documents to register it in her name.

Police investigations indicated that , the complainant apparently left the lady and secretly got married another woman but upon hearing it, the lady also decided to got married to another man.

The information indicated that the compalainat then gave the lady an option to either leave the man and take the vehicle and return the vehicle but the lady disagreed and that was the reason why the complainant reported the matter to the police.

The information indicated that the police after their findings decided not to prosecute the matter but Nana Adjei Ntow, (now suspect) reported at the police station and identified himself as a Lawyer practicing in the Brong Ahafo region, and was representing the complainant.

Suspect Nana Adjei Ntow went ahead to filed a counter case at the Accra high court against the victim (lady in the case) and during the proceedings, the court realized that he was impersonating as a lawyer and caused his arrest.

The trial judge immediately called for his arrest and prosecution.

When the airport district crime officer, DSP Alex Kwesi Kwarteng was contacted, he told the paper that the police had granted Nana Ntow bail to be reporting but the matter was still under investigation.

---Daily Guide
Armenian MP of the Turkish Parliament Garo Paylan has proposed a question to Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu in regard to Turkeys threatening statements following the recent tension on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

As reported Istanbuls Armenian Agos Weekly, Garo Paylan reminded Cavusoglu about his statement in which the latter stated that the Armenian authorities need to pull themselves together since Turkey, as a nation, stands with Azerbaijan.

As a member state of the OSCE, which is considered an institution in charge of settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, was biased during this tension and made statements that further deepened the tension.

1. In this context, are you supporting nationalism during the Azerbaijan-Armenia tension?

2. Havent you realized that pouring oil on fire in foreign politics will cause more problems?

3. The military-industrial sector of Turkey wants to sell weapons to Azerbaijan. Is this why you are adding to the tension?

4. Are you thinking about sending troops to Azerbaijan?

5. If Turkey is not a tribal stat, why are you leading the policy of tribal discrimination?

6. Do you remember that Turkey is a member of the OSCE, which is dealing with the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict?

7. Havent you realized that instability in the Caucasus favors Russia?

8. How would you assess Azerbaijans threat to strike the nuclear power plant of Armenia? Garo Paylan concluded.
Afghan authorities have relocated 15-year-old Qamar Gul and her siblings to a safe house after she used an AK-47 to shoot dead two Taliban militants early on July 16. Gul killed the two Taliban members moments after they had executed both of her parents. Gul said her family was targeted by the Taliban because her father was a pro-government tribal elder. The teenager recounted the harrowing incident to police in Firoz Koh, the capital of Afghanistan's Ghor Province.
I f you ever use the Tube, catch a bus, cycle, drive or breathe the air in London there are things going on now that you need to know about. They will decide how much you pay to travel. They will decide how you travel too. They will shape the look of our streets, they could make as much difference to London as the end of horses or the mass use of cars.

The curious thing is all this is happening now and it is happening in secret, as if the people of London are too immature to be part of their city. Its not democratic and nor is it a good way to get results.

The starting point is the catastrophe of coronavirus. Its left public transport a wasteland for much of the day  especially trains and the Tube  and turned what was a system that could pay its way into a basket case. The previous boss of Transport for London came within minutes of switching off the Tube because he had run out of cash.

The Government stepped in with a bailout  but it was only enough to last a few months, and it came loaded with conditions, like a parent handing out pocket money and telling their children not to waste it on sweets.

Julian Glover / Daniel Hambury

Now it is tightening the screws. This week the Government appointed a couple of people to watch over TfLs independent board, one of them the Prime Ministers smart, hyperactive and controlling transport adviser Andrew Gilligan.

Really, he doesnt need to be there because the other thing that happened this week was the publication of the terms of the review the Government is demanding TfL undergo before it gets any more cash. This review is the thing that hands central government power.

Most of the questions are the right ones (though the language used disguises them). How can TfL make more cash? Where should investment go? Are staff paid too much? Theres a big hint that there should be a city-wide road charging system to fund transport  a great idea although Tory voters in outer London will hate it. And the Prime Ministers pet favourite, driverless trains, is there too.

But it is strange that these questions are being asked with zero reference to the way London is meant to be run  the transport system answers to the Mayor, who in this case will only provide views and options into the review. Hes been stitched up like a kipper. Relations between him and Number 10 are terrible, there is a mayoral election next year and its fun for his predecessor Boris Johnson to put him on the rack.

When the Mayor is made to put up fares this autumn or take free fares away from kids, he can blame No 10

The Mayor is a vacuum looking for something to fill it. He should use the review as a chance to be radical. But I bet he wont  instead hes attempting to launch a separate review of his own.

All this is not a durable way to make decisions about our city: in a secret review which, its terms say, will be published only if ministers feel like it. The Government may find this backfires. When the Mayor is made to put fares up this autumn, or send kids back to school without free transport if their journeys are short, he can blame Number 10. Hes helped by the fact that the candidate the Tories are planning to put up against him is even more useless. They should have backed Rory Stewart, the independent who withdrew from the race in May.

Still, none of this is the fault of Londoners, who just need a good transport service. Luckily, the new boss of the system is the impressive Andy Byford. Rather than moan about the review hes going to grab it to his advantage. In return he wants the authority to get the Tube welcoming back passengers in full  hes rightly said the current indecision is unsustainable but no one in government seems able to admit it. He also wants a long-term funding deal so that he can do his job and London can get back to recovery.

Theres one other thing he needs too. This week the rail minister set out an opaque written statement which hid a horrid truth. Crossrail is late again. It will cost more and it wont open next year as had been promised and God knows when after that, if at all. That is a disaster. Coronavirus is the excuse but the crisis is much wider than that.

Byford isnt in control of the project which reports to a separate board, partly under government control. He needs to be the boss. Hes the only man who can force the pace so that it does open in 2021  even if it is at one minute to midnight on New Years Eve. The Mayor is avoiding the issue again. The Government should use its new clout to hand him the cash he needs, and his orders: get Crossrail open, fast.
But those arguments have yet to result in a wave of factories returning to the United States. Foreign direct investment into the United States  which measures spending from internationally owned companies to start, expand or acquire American businesses  sank drastically last year, to its lowest recorded level since 2006.

Foreign-owned companies invested about half as much in the United States in 2019 as they did in 2016, the year before Mr. Trump took office. After increasing in the first two years of Mr. Trumps presidency, the number of manufacturing jobs flatlined last year and fell sharply with the pandemic. As of June, there were nearly 300,000 fewer factory jobs in the United States than there were when Mr. Trump was inaugurated.

For all the presidents criticisms of global supply chains, the economic incentive to outsource still prevails. While his trade policy has made doing business abroad, particularly in China, more uncertain and costly, higher wages in the United States and the lure of foreign markets mean that most global businesses are choosing to remain global. Most firms that shifted out of China to avoid the crossfire of the trade war moved to other low-cost countries, like Vietnam and Mexico. Other companies say China is a growth market they cannot afford to lose.

And while the pandemic has prompted a broader reassessment of the risks of global supply chains, it has also brought about the deepest economic contraction in generations, battering companies finances and forcing them to cut back on workers. Executives are deeply uncertain what demand for their products will look like in the coming months and years  hardly the environment to encourage big investments in new American factories.

The furniture maker La-Z-Boy is one example. The company shifted its production out of China to Vietnam last year to bypass Mr. Trumps tariffs on $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, according to tracking by Panjiva, a research firm. But on a June 24 earnings call, Kurt L. Darrow, La-Z-Boys chief executive, announced that the economic effects of the pandemic would force the firm to make steep cuts to its work force, including in the United States.
Rachael Ray's Yum-o! Cooking Camp delivered by Shipt powered by NYCWFF & SOBEWFF includes personalities such as Rachael Ray, Bobby Flay, Buddy Valastro, Molly Yeh, Jocelyn Delk Adams, Giada De Laurentiis, Carla Hall, Jessica Woo, Alex Guarnaschelli, Andrew Zimmern, Jernard Wells, Valerie Bertinelli, Jet Tila, Kardea Brown, Anne Burrell, Duff Goldman, Melba Wilson, Eitan Bernath, and more.

"The first discipline I learned that helped improve my self-esteem, excite all of my senses and fuel my creativity was and still remains cooking," said Rachael Ray, Television personality and bestselling author. "So, I am excited to light some fires in the next few weeks of summer with our virtual cooking camp while staying in and being safe!"

Hosts and moderators will broadcast live from their homes while families can connect with them during the interactive cooking demonstrations by asking questions via the Zoom Chat Function. Proceeds from sponsorships and optional online donations will go towards two beneficiaries: Boys & Girls Clubs of America and a newly founded Rachael Ray's Yum-o! Scholarship Fund at the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Florida International University, offering students the opportunity to further their ambitions in the kitchen and beyond.

For further details please visit www.RRCookingCamp.com and follow along with the hashtag #RRCookingCamp as well as @rachaelray, @NYCWFF and @SOBEWFFEST.

About Rachael Ray's Yum-o!

Launched in 2006 by Rachael Ray, Yum-o! is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking by teaching families to cook, feeding hungry kids and funding cooking education and scholarships.

About Shipt

Shipt launched in the summer of 2014 in the heart of the Magic City, Birmingham, AL. Founded on the mission of simplifying lives, Shipt serves members, shoppers, and communities by offering convenience and freedom.

Through a user-friendly app and a local network of reliable shoppers, Shipt connects members to fresh groceries and everyday essentials. Saving time, fuel and headspace, next-hour, same day grocery delivery is quickly becoming an everyday necessity for people looking for an extra few hours and intentional food choices.

Now in over 260 cities and counting, Shipt works with vetted shoppers who are able to set their own schedules and are constantly aiming to improve member experiences through a newly developed rating system. By partnering with retailers in each city, shoppers are able to move efficiently through stores. Befriending store employees and fellow shoppers has been an organic product of the process!

The Shipt family is growing, and that means features like get well kits and meal-planning options are being developed everyday. Try Shipt today, and join the #ShiptLife.

About the Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival presented by Capital One

The Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival presented by Capital One is hosted by and benefits the No Kid Hungry campaign and Food Bank For New York City, with 100% of the Festival's net proceeds helping fight hunger. The Festival has raised more than $13.5 million to date for these hunger-relief organizations. Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits is the exclusive provider of wine and spirits at the Festival. In September 2018, BizBash named the Festival the #3 Food & Restaurant Industry event in the United States for the sixth year in a row. More information on the Festival can be found at nycwff.org .

About the Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by Capital One

EAT. DRINK. EDUCATE. All proceeds from the Festival benefit the students of the Florida International University Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management who also assist Festival organizers with sponsorship fulfillment, restaurant and exhibitor recruitment, logistics, and inventory as well as working alongside some of the world's greatest celebrity chefs and winemakers. To date, SOBEWFF has raised more than $31 million for the School. In September 2018, BizBash named the Festival the #1 Food & Restaurant Industry event in the United States for the sixth year in a row.

The Food Network & Cooking Channel South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by Capital One is produced by Florida International University and Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, with the support of the Miami Beach Visitors & Convention Authority and the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information about the Festival, visit sobewff.org or call 877-762-3933. For more information about Florida International University visit fiu.edu, for the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management visit hospitality.fiu.edu and for more information about Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits visit southernglazers.com.

SOURCE Food Network & Cooking Channel New York City Wine & Food Festival

Related Links

https://nycwff.org


Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, right, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo give a joint press conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Wednesday. Read more

COPENHAGEN, Denmark  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday the United States will become more active in the Arctic to counter growing Russian influence and thwart attempts by China to insert itself into the region.

During a brief visit to Denmark, Pompeo hailed the reopening of the U.S. Consulate in the semi-autonomous Danish territory of Greenland and announced a new sustainable fisheries and commercial engagement agreement with the Faroe Islands, another Danish territory in the North Atlantic.

"Its a new day for the United States in Greenland, Pompeo told reporters at a joint news conference with Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod.

The U.S. Consulate in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, reopened in June after a decades-long hiatus. The move attracted attention because of U.S. President Donald Trump's stated interest last year in purchasing Greenland from Denmark.

Kofod said the idea of the U.S. buying Greenland, which was roundly rejected and ridiculed by both Greenlandic and Danish officials, was not raised during his talks with Pompeo on Wednesday.

That discussion was dealt with last year. It was not on the table, he said.

Jenis av Rana, the Faroe Islands' minister for culture and foreign affairs, told Danish media ahead of Kofod's meeting with Pompeo that he was keen to discuss what role Washington sees the North Atlantic archipelago playing in the Arctic.

He also wondered about the possibility of a free trade agreement between the United States and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous Danish territory with some 52,000 inhabitants that is located north of Scotland between Iceland and Norway.

Av Rana told Danish broadcaster TV2 he was concerned the Arctic could become a battleground for the U.S. and other major global powers, including Russia and China.

Were very worried if the Arctic becomes a playground or a scene of war for the great powers, av Rana said.

In his talks with Kofod, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and representatives of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Pompeo said he stressed the importance of energy independence, particularly from Russia.

The Trump administration is vehemently opposed to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Last week, the administration warned companies involved in the project they would be subject to U.S. penalties unless they halted their work.

Denmark's environmental agency, which had been holding up construction of the last portion of the pipeline, dropped its opposition in October, prompting the U.S. to step up its efforts to stop the project.

The 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) pipeline also is opposed by eastern European countries that say it will increase Europes dependence on Russia for energy.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  The Anti-Terrorism Act will not be enforced without its implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for as long as there is no terrorist threat to the country, Cabinet officials said on Wednesday.

Secretary Eduardo Ano, head of the Department of Interior and Local Government which supervises the police, admitted that the newly signed law will be open to questions once implemented without an IRR.

But theres no restriction in implementing the law because the law is already effective and what we will do is to fast track the crafting of the IRR as soon as possible, Ano said in an online media briefing ahead of President Rodrigo Dutertes fifth State of the Nation Address.

Ano agreed with Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra that it is prudent to wait for the IRR, but stressed that nothing can stop law enforcers from using it once public safety requires it.

Kung meron kasi talagang (If there's really a) terrorist threat, we have to apply the law, Ano said. Ngayon, kung wala namang malakihang (Now, if there's no major) terrorist threat, we can wait for the IRR.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana agreed with this pronouncement.

We can wait for the IRR but if there is a terrorist action now, we are going to use it, he said.

The crucial IRR

President Rodrigo Duterte signed the controversial anti-terrorism measure on July 3, and the Justice Department said it already took effect on July 18. Even the date of its effectivity was questioned, with law experts arguing that it should be July 22 instead, or 15 days after the measure was published in a newspaper and not just the online Official Gazette.

National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. told CNN Philippines last week that the IRR will come in 90 days.

In the same briefing, Esperon said many factors have to be taken into consideration in the crafting of the IRR. Foremost, he said, is the designation of law enforcement agents and military personnel who will be authorized to conduct the apprehensions and surveillance on persons suspected of terrorism.

Under the law, these authorized law enforcers can arrest suspects and detain them without warrant for up to 24 days. This provision under Section 29 is highly contested, since the previous law, the Human Security Act, allows the warrantless detention for only three days.

Critics said the law relaxes safeguards on human rights and is open to abuse, but administration officials, as well as the lawmakers who sponsored and authored the measure, denied it.

The IRR will actually be a manual that will straighten out all the doubts that you have now," Esperon said. "Were assuring you that we have all safeguards, but the IRR is important because it will be our operating manual."

The IRR will be submitted to a joint congressional oversight committee and the Commission on Human Rights, Esperon added, citing this as among the safeguards.

Numerous petitions have been filed at the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act and seeking a temporary restraining order against its implementation. The government's top lawyer, Solicitor General Jose Calida, urged the high court to junk the petitions.

READ: Retired SC justice, ex-Ombudsman ask high court to stop implementation of 'unconstitutional' Anti-Terrorism Act
SPRINGFIELD  Though cleared by his superiors and a civilian review board, Springfield Police Officer Jefferson Petrie admitted to an assault charge after forcing an angry civilian out of the lobby by his throat in 2017.

Petrie admitted to the single count in Springfield District Court in March, records show, agreeing to attend anger management classes and stay 100 yards away from the victim, Jerry Bellamy. In exchange for complying with conditions set by a judge, the charges will be dismissed after one year.

Bellamy, meanwhile, is suing Petrie, three other officers and the city in U.S. District Court. While the lawsuit does not specify a dollar figure, it alleges assault and battery, false arrest, malicious prosecution and civil rights violations. The complaint also alleges the city consistently fails to properly train its police force, thus emboldening officers to quickly resort to excessive force.

The lawsuit focuses on an incident that played out in the police department lobby at 130 Pearl St., and was recorded by surveillance cameras. Video shows Bellamy, 48, walking into the station clutching a parking ticket in his hand on June 29, 2017. He intended to dispute the ticket and demanded to see a police supervisor, the complaint says.

Petrie greeted him with Whats your Fin problem and Bellamy responded with similar language, according to the lawsuit.

Footage from multiple angles shows Petrie quickly come out from behind his post at the public window protected by glass, clutch Bellamy by his throat and force him outside. Bellamy appears to flail when the officer shoves him then grabs him by the throat and forces him out the front door.

Less than twelve seconds after Mr. Bellamy arrived at the window, Officer Petrie left the secure part of the station and approached Mr. Bellamy in the public lobby, the complaint reads.

Bellamy said three officers joined Petrie, pushing him to the ground and continuing to punch him.

Officers Colin Cochrane, Ruben Borrero and Thomas Sheehan also are named in the complaint.

The City is continuing the process of gathering documents and evidence needed to conduct and respond appropriately to discovery in this case, City Solicitor Ed Pikula said. As with other cases alleging police misconduct, we will continue to evaluate the options for litigation compared to alternative forms of disposition as discovery goes forward.

Petries attorney, Charles Dolan, had no comment.

Bellamy was arrested and charged with assault and battery and resisting arrest. Those charges were dropped by the Hampden district attorneys office a year later. Petrie was cleared of misconduct by a civilian review board. Both current police Commissioner Cheryl C. Clapprood and her predecessor, John R. Barbieri, have defended his reaction to Bellamy in the lobby.

I dont have a problem with the lobby video at all, Clapprood said in a 2019 interview. I watched it close enough to see the subject who was outside the lobby throw a punch at the officer. I thought at the time we wouldnt have an issue with it and I still am behind the officer in the lobby video. That man came in and he was the aggressor in the disturbance.

Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gullunis office nonetheless sought a criminal complaint against Petrie. He was arraigned on the assault charge last year.

The complaints says Bellamy lost his job after his arrest, and was unable to pay his rent or his car payments.

Without a job his family was unable to afford their rent; as a result, Mr. Bellamy, his wife, and their two young children became homeless, reads the complaint, filed by Northampton attorney Luke Ryan and Boston attorney Howard Friedman.

Ryan said Bellamy was working as an independent contractor for a realty company at the time of his arrest in 2017.

Police records show the clash in the police station lobby was not Bellamys first encounter with law enforcement. Between 2017 and 2020  excluding the June 2017 arrest  Bellamy has been arrested several times for charges including home invasion, assault and battery on a family member, drug possession, assaulting a child, threatening to commit and crime and motor vehicle infractions, the records show.

For his part, Petrie works in the garage at Pearl Street maintaining the departments entire fleet of cars, police said.

Friedman, who specializes in civil rights and police misconduct litigation, had this to offer:

Only in Springfield would an officer plead to criminal conduct and not miss a day of work, he said, when called for comment.
Rating Action: Moody's affirms PEFCO's Aaa/Prime-1 ratings; maintains stable outlook

Global Credit Research - 21 Jul 2020

New York, July 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") has affirmed all of the ratings of Private Export Funding Corporation (PEFCO). The outlook remains at stable. This rating action follows the affirmation of the Aaa rating for the Government of United States of America that Moody's announced in a separate press release on 19 June 2020.

As part of the same rating action, Moody's has withdrawn the rating outlooks on PEFCO's senior secured regular bond/debenture, senior unsecured regular bond/debenture and senior secured collateralized notes for its own business reasons. Please refer to the Moody's Investors Service Policy for Withdrawal of Credit Ratings, available on its website, www.moodys.com.

..Issuer: Private Export Funding Corporation

.... Senior Secured Collateralized Note, Affirmed Aaa

.... Commercial Paper, Affirmed P-1

.... Backed Senior Secured Regular Bond/Debenture, Affirmed Aaa

.... Senior Unsecured Medium-Term Note Program, Affirmed (P)Aaa

.... Senior Secured Medium-Term Note Program, Affirmed (P)Aaa

.... Senior Unsecured Regular Bond/Debenture, Affirmed Aaa

Outlook Actions:

..Issuer: Private Export Funding Corporation

....Outlook, Remains Stable

RATINGS RATIONALE

PEFCO's Aaa long-term ratings reflect the company's close relationship with Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), its very strong asset quality and solid liquidity, as well as the notes' senior priority and the strength of the notes' asset coverage. PEFCO's secured debt programs are over-collateralized by loans guaranteed by Export-Import Bank of the US (Ex-Im Bank) and other US Agencies, Full Faith and Credit investment securities, and cash.

PEFCO makes US dollar loans to foreign companies for the purpose of financing purchases of US goods and services from Ex-Im Bank. PEFCO was established as a Delaware corporation with the support of the US Department of Treasury, Ex-Im Bank, and The Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT), among others, to supplement to the financing available through Ex-Im Bank, commercial banks and other financial institutions. Furthermore, pursuant to the Guarantee and Credit Agreement between Ex-Im Bank and PEFCO, Ex-Im Bank guarantees the timely payment of interest on PEFCO's Senior Secured Notes. Nearly all of PEFCO's loans and securities are guaranteed by or are obligations of the US Government.

Story continues

Moody's utilizes a top-down approach in assigning ratings to PEFCO focusing the ratings' assessment primarily upon the strength of the US government, since the level of integration between the issuer and the US government is so strong that a standalone credit analysis would provide little additional value. Moody's rating approach for PEFCO is supported by PEFCO's close and enduring alignment of interest and objectives with Ex-Im, with a clear mandate to carry out a set of public interest objectives.

Additionally, the Guarantee and Credit Agreement between Ex-Im and PEFCO contains covenants, which require Ex-Im approval for PEFCO to engage in certain activities including the issuance of senior debt and for PEFCO to report its financial results in a timely manner to Ex-Im. Ex-Im is also entitled to have two non-voting representatives at PEFCO's Board of Directors meetings.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

At Aaa/Prime-1, PEFCO's ratings cannot be upgraded.

PEFCO's ratings could be downgraded if Moody's were to assess a weaker support for PEFCO from Ex-Im Bank, if PEFCO invests in any loans or securities that are not guaranteed by the US government, expands its currently strictly limited set of public interest functions, or its liquidity profile deteriorates. The Aaa long-terms ratings could also be downgraded following a downgrade of the rating for the US government.

PEFCO is a private corporation based in New York City, NY and is closely held by major, mostly US financial and industrial institutions. It is engaged in financing export loans guaranteed by Ex-Im Bank by raising funds in the capital markets. As of 31 March 2020, PEFCO had assets of approximately $5.1 billion and equity of approximately $126.8 million.

The principal methodology used in these ratings was Government-Related Issuers Methodology published in February 2020 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1186207. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

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Sachin Pilot on Wednesday has filed a caveat plea in response to Speaker CP Joshi's plea in Supreme Court against Rajasthan HC. CP Joshi has argued that the speaker has the right to disqualify MLAs and no one can interfere in that decision.

The Rajasthan political crisis, which is currently witnessing a terse fight between Team Ashok Gehlot and Team Sachin Pilot, has now knocked Supreme Courts door. In response to Speakers plea, which was filed earlier this morning, Sachin Pilot has filed a caveat petition to ensure that no orders are passed on the matter without hearing him and his supporting MLAs.

Speaker CP Joshi, in his media address on Wednesday, said that he plans to approach SC to avert a constitutional crisis. Justifying his next move, CP Joshi said that the speaker has the right to disqualify MLAs and no one can interfere in that decision. He added, I have respected the courts decision until now. However, does this respect and acceptance mean that one authority overlaps the role of the other?

However, SC refused to hear speakers plea on an urgent basis. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who was present in the court for another case, requested CJI to hear speakers plea on an urgent basis. To which, the top court responded that they would contact the concerned registrar, who would then bring up the matter to courts notice.

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Former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and 18 rebel MLAs have challenged the disqualification notices served to them by Speaker CP Joshi in High Court. Advocate Prateek Kasliwal is representing Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi and Advocate Mukul Rohatgi is representing Team Sachin Pilot. The speakers notice to Team Sachin Pilot came after the latter failed to attend 2 legislative meetings, despite multiple requests.

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COVID-19 making orphan crisis worse, Christians urged to help: 'The need is great'

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Christian adoption, foster and orphan care ministry Lifeline Childrens Services launched its annual fundraiser Stand for Orphans this month, but COVID-19 is making the orphan crisis more than a crisis, says Executive Director Herbie Newell.

Newell and his family kicked off Stand for Orphans on July 9, inviting children of all ages to raise funds for the 153 million orphans in need worldwide. The Birmingham-based adoption, foster and orphan care ministry, however, has been forced to offer alternative ways for families to raise money because of the global pandemic. Lifeline Childrens Services is encouraging people to be creative on how they go about garnering support.

Stand for Orphans, which began in 2015, raised over $500,000 in the past five years and has amassed national support. Their work has helped them gain matching donations and partnerships with organizations such as Chris Tomlins Angel Armies.

The following is an edited transcript of The Christian Posts interview with Lifeline Newell, who launched Stand for Orphans with his family. He shares more about the initiative and how the 2020 pandemic has made the vulnerable only more vulnerable.

Christian Post: Can you share a little of your background and about Lifeline Childrens Services?

Newell: While working as a bivocational junior high youth pastor, I practiced accounting with a local Birmingham, Alabama, CPA firm Warren, Averett, Kimbrough, and Marino. At the same time, my wife, Ashley, was working as the assistant director of Sav-A-Life, a local crisis pregnancy center. At night around the dinner table, we would discuss the issues facing clients who had come through the center, pray for them, and strategize ways that our church and our family could stand in the gap for them.

In 2003, through a long series of events bathed in much prayer, I was offered the position of executive director of Lifeline Childrens Services, Inc. which was and still is a sister ministry of Sav-A-Life. Ashley and I saw this as an opportunity from the Lord to partner in ministry together professionally, and I we knew that one day once our family grew, we would want to involve our kids in the ministry as well.

When I started at Lifeline, we had about 10 full-time staff members working predominantly in Alabama but targeted in Central Alabama. Over the last 17 years, I have seen the Lord expand this ministry across 12 states and 25 countries with over 170 staff and team members spread across the United States and the globe.

Since its founding in 1981, Lifeline has placed over 3,500 precious children into loving Christian homes and ministered to over 5,000 women in crisis. Through all of the God-given resources and facets of our ministry, Lifeline seeks to make an investment in the lives of children, mothers in the wake of crisis, families wanting the blessing of a child, and orphans around the globe needing a home in which they can see and hear the Gospel.

CP: How is COVID-19 affecting all of this?

Newell: COVID-19 had been a complete game changer in so many ways. It has even affected the way we can do Stand for Orphans this summer. While some families will continue to try and pull off a traditional stand in their neighborhood, the fear for most is just too great. Knowing that the landscape has changed this summer, we are offering virtual stands where kids can do bake sales, use their talents to earn money, or sell jewelry and crafts online.

Also, we are encouraging kids to challenge their friends with Lifelines Got Talent. Kids take a video performing their talent, post it to social media, tag @StandforOrphans, and use #LifelinesGotTalent. Then they challenge three friends to join the fun by posting their own talent on social media and by donating through Standfororphans.org.

We are even getting adults involved through the Lifeline Lemon Challenge. A willing participant takes a video eating a lemon, posts it to social media, tags @standfororphans, and use #TheLemonChallenge. Then they challenge three friends to do the same and donate through standforoprhans.org.

And then lastly and most importantly, COVID-19 has made the orphan crisis that much more of a crisis. In many of the countries where we work, we are seeing the effects of both the illness as well as economic collapse. As always, the most vulnerable only become more vulnerable in these scenarios. Children are being separated from parents, losing parents, and left in truly chaotic situations. Just since March, Lifeline and (un)adopted has been able to feed, clothe, and get medical attention for over 5,000 vulnerable families and children in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

CP: Stand for Orphans, launched by your wife and kids, has raised a lot of money since its inception. Can you share a testimony that really impacted you concerning the initiative?

Newell: I remember hearing the testimony from a mom whose children put together a lemonade stand in the hot sun for four hours. She told us that her children were so excited about raising money and awareness for children who were without families from around the world. The children came in drenched in sweat and counted their money. Their earnings for the day were $8, and they were understandably disappointed. We had a pretty lucrative match going that summer and so the mom, in an effort to encourage her kids, told them that because of the match, they hadnt just raised $8 but $16. Her children started jumping with joy because of the impact they were able to make around the world. What a simple reminder that there is more joy in giving than receiving.

There are so many direct impact stories that could be told. For example, I was in Uganda one summer with my son who was 12 years old at the time. While sitting with our partner, Raphael Kajjubi, in his home in Busega, Uganda, he shared with me a need for one of the children who was being served by King Jesus Church  the church where Raphael serves as pastor. The need for this young deaf girl included school fees, money for food, and clothes to attend school. In partnership with King Jesus Church, a school for the deaf and blind had been established in the community. He told me they would need to add exactly $850 in order for this young girl to start school. Because of Stand for Orphans and the money kids were raising, I was able to tell Raphael that we could secure a place for this young lady at school. Two summers later, I was back in Uganda with my daughter, and this young girl came up to me and told me in sign language, Thank you for helping me get into this school. My life is forever changed.

CP: Why would you encourage families to raise money together for the global orphan crisis?

Newell: The need is great. There are 153 million orphaned and vulnerable children around the world and 450,000 kids in U.S. foster care. We are told in the Bible that pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God our Father is to look after orphans and widows in distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world (James 1:27).

As Christian parents, the home is the greatest place of discipleship. Its not up to the church, pastors, or student ministers to disciple our kids. Its our job to model, teach, and train our children in godliness. Stand for Orphans is not only a way to care for the vulnerable; it can truly be a tool of discipleship as we lead our children to get engaged in Gospel-driven justice.

CP: How can you encourage others to pursue adoption, foster, and orphan care despite the expenses or red tape?

Newell: The good news is that there are many ways to fund adoption including grant agencies, ministries that provide non-interest adoption loans, tax credits, etc. Adoption is expensive because it is filled with legalities, travel, medical expenses, paperwork, potential foreign government fees, potential immigration fees, and time. Lifeline has three pages worth of resources to help families fund their adoption at www.lifelinechild.org/fundyouradoption/.

I could tell story after story of families who had their adoptions fully funded. The Lord will equip those He calls. Not everyone is called to adopt or foster, but we are all called to do something. And we are never promised that when we are called that it will be easy or carefree. The disciples were called to leave their nets, tax booths, and ways of living to follow Jesus. Paul was called to leave his comfort to proclaim Jesus as Messiah. The goal is not comfort, but Christlikeness and following Him.

Families need to pray, seek the Lord, and make sure they know He is calling them to adoption or foster care because it is only one of many ways we are all called to care for the fatherless.

All are called to care for orphans, but a specific few are called to adopt or foster.

CP: Can you talk about how social media can help Stand for Orphans in this season?

Newell: In this socially distant environment, it provides ways for kids to communicate their plans to take a stand for orphans, helps people to challenge others to take a stand, and enables us to communicate all that Lifeline continues to do.

This summer, Stand for Orphans will be able to reach the goal of raising at least $100,000 because of social media. Just this week we launched The Lemon Challenge and in just a short 24 hours more than 50 people have participated. Stand for Orphans will be mostly virtual this summer and social media gives a free and easily accessible way for kids and families to get the message out.

CP: In addition to raising funds, what could the body of Christ practically do to help the 153 million orphans who are in need around the globe?

Newell:

We can support families before, during, and after adoption and help with securing funding for the adoption. We can participate in foster care ministry, including recruiting and training foster and respite families, offering prayer and acts of service to them, and ministering to government workers, the government, and non-believing foster families. We can also participate in strategic orphan care by ministering to caregivers in institutions; minimizing developmental deficits by utilizing tutoring programs, education programs, and therapy; teaching and mentoring older orphans with job and life skills; helping with transitional assistance for older orphans who are aging out; and developing programs for reunification of orphans into their biological families through Gospel intervention. We can also get engaged with birthparent and reunification ministry by helping families who are struggling and at risk of losing their kids by teaching them about biblical family and parenting.

We also see six practical things we can do as illustrated in Ruth 2 by what Boaz does for Ruth.

Take notice of orphans Provide for orphans' needs including food, shelter, clothing and essentials Affirm and bless orphans Protect orphans and advocate for their safety by making them a priority, not a burden Honor orphans and serve them with your time, talent and abilities Invite orphans into your family

For more information, you can reference a post written by my wife on the inspiration and creation of Stand for Orphans.
A Swansea University project exploring how to use algae to create the next generation of sunscreens has now teamed up with an award-winning skincare firm to help develop the idea

A Swansea University project exploring how to use algae to create the next generation of sunscreens has now teamed up with an award-winning skincare firm to help develop the idea.

ALG-SUN, led by the Biosciences Department, has been awarded funding from the Algae-UK (Proof of Concept) Scheme to undertake research with both academic and industrial partners.

The Swansea team will now be working on the project with the Natural Products Factory which owns award-winning organic and vegan skincare brand Nourish London along with health scientists from Swansea University Medical School and University spin-off company Membranology.

Carole Llewellyn, Professor in Applied Aquatic Bioscience, said: "It is great that Algae-UK is funding this proof of concept research to enable us to work together with Natural Products Factory to better understand how we can take these promising natural products to market."

Professor Llewellyn said evidence is emerging that products that contain sunscreen can damage the ecosystem when they are washed off skin. As a result, synthetic organic sunscreens are now banned in some areas of the world.

Also some sunscreen compounds can be harmful to health by disrupting hormone signalling linked to an increase cancer risk.

The team is seeking to develop new sunscreen products that do not damage the natural environment and are proven to be safe to use on the skin.

Professor Llewellyn believes microalgae could hold the key. Microalgae protect themselves from damaging solar ultraviolet radiation with a group of sunscreen compounds called mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs). However, there is a major challenge in obtaining MAAs in sufficient quantity and purity to confirm their effectiveness on the skin and to make algal sunscreens commercially viable.

This project will see the partners working together to try to overcome these commercial barriers.

Dr Pauline Hili, founder of Natural Products Factory and renowned expert in organic skincare, said she first became interested after reading about Professor Llewellyn's work with algae.

She said: "For a long time I had been wanting to explore more natural sunscreens and what possibilities might exist in the natural world. It struck me that surely we could find some way to make an improvement in this area.

"After speaking to Professor Llewellyn it became clear to me that an industry and academic collaboration would be a great way forward."

She said sunscreens were among her customers' most requested items.

"Through this work we could provide a real game changer for the consumer who is concerned about the environmental impact of their products. It is at a very early stage but it is very exciting to be generating research that has so many possibilities."

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The disengagement planned between India and China has reached an impasse as troops of both sides continue to remain in close proximity at the disputed area of Ladakh.

The Pangong Lake and Hot Spring-Gogra have continued to remain volatile despite numerous rounds of diplomatic-level talks.

At the Pangong lake, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) did move back from Finger 4 to Finger 5 on the bank, "but still remained on the mountain spurs or the ridgeline", India Today reported.

Additionally, the Indian forces are positioned between Finger 3 and Finger 2 on the bank of Pangong.

"The distance between troops from both sides is 4-5 km on the bank of the river but on the mountain ridges of the lake the troops are separated by less than 1 km," sources said.

Besides, the Chinese army has not even dismantled its structures that they had set up between Finger 8 and Finger 4.

The mountain spurs jutting into the lake are referred to as Fingers in military parlance.

The Hot Springs area (Patrol Point PP17A) has also remained under tension. Around 40-50 soldiers are in close proximity, separated only by 600-800 metres.

In PP14 of the Galwan Valley, China's PLA has moved back 1.5 km from Line of Actual Control (LAC). The distance between troops on each side is approximately 3 km. Galwan is the region where clashes took place between India and China on June 15 in which 20 Indian soldiers got killed. Chinese soldiers were also killed, but China did not reveal the number of casualties.

At PP15, the fourth friction point, the disengagement seemed successful as troops of both sides were separated by 8-10 km.

The Indian Army described the process of disengagement between troops of India and China along LAC as "intricate" that required "constant verification".

Meanwhile, the Indian Navy's Poseidon 8I anti-submarine warfare aircraft have been deployed in eastern Ladakh to carry out surveillance along LAC. Also, some of its MiG-29K jets are likely to be stationed in key Indian Air Force (IAF) bases in the northern sector amid the border row.

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Evangelical pastor tackles 45 lies Christians have been told in new book

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You are saved by Jesus' death on the cross. You must die to self on a daily basis. A real Christian does not commit sins anymore. It is healthy to be afraid of God. You must donate 10 percent of your income to the Church. According to one author and evangelical pastor, these are all lies.

Andrew Farley, lead pastor of the non-denominational Church Without Religion in Lubbock, Texas, will have a book released on Tuesday titled Twisted Scripture: Untangling 45 Lies Christians Have Been Told.

In the book, Farley seeks to critique common misconceptions about Christian teaching and practice that are believed by Christians themselves.

Topics include views on salvation, charitable giving, divine judgment, forgiveness, how the Old Testament relates to Christianity, and other issues.

For each lie, Farley offers up arguments and biblical references that seek to undermine the claim. Following each rebuttal, the book includes reflection questions and a short prayer.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Farley explained that he compiled the list of 45 lies based off of what he had seen and heard over the years.

Over the last 20 years I have seen grave misunderstandings among evangelical Christians about the love of God, the grace of God, God's forgiveness, our identity in Christ. Just seen so many misunderstandings where Scriptures have been taken out of context, explained Farley.

So, it just ended up being 45, but because of the reality of what I grew up believing and so many other people believe and so the book is designed to kind of untwist or unclutter and get back to the core message of the Gospel.

The Christian Post interviewed Farley on Friday regarding his book and topics related to it, including his views on the "prosperity gospel" and the opinion of some that Christians should unhitch themselves from the Old Testament. Below are excerpts from the interview.

CP: You mentioned being raised with some of the lies critiqued in the book. What were some of the lies you included in the book that you once believed?

Farley: I was raised to believe, for example, that you have to ask God for forgiveness every time you sinned so that would relate to Part G in the book, "God forgives you little by little each time you sin." So I was petrified that if I forgot to confess one, if I left a sin out, if I didn't realize that I committed a sin that hadn't been confessed that I would, you know, one day meet the final judgment, meet God there and then have to pay for that sin somehow because I had not confessed it or asked for forgiveness. So that would be a good example and then really just the general idea that at the final judgment I would have to answer for my sins. I think many Christians think they have to answer for their sins at the final judgment, when the whole point of the cross is that Jesus Christ took away our sins and He remembers them no more.

I kind of engaged in a double talk. I would say "my sins are forgiven" and then five minutes later I would say that I had to answer for my sins or would be judged for my sins.

CP: A few of the lies focused on the Christian's relationship to the Old Testament. Author and pastor Andy Stanley has garnered much controversy over his argument that Christians should "unhitch" themselves from the Old Testament. What is your opinion of this view?

Farley: I've been teaching that for 25 years, that the entire Bible is the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation, but we have to put the Old Testament in context. The New Testament tells us that we are dead to the law and not under the law and Christ is the end of the law for all those who believe. And I've noticed that in modern day theology, people are sort of hedging on that and watering it down and saying that "we're dead to some of the law, we're dead to the ceremonial law, we're dead to the sacrificial system, but we're not dead to the moral law." And I see that as totally unbiblical.

Flirting with Moses is cheating on Jesus. And I think people are running to the Ten Commandments and looking to those as our source of morality and I see Scripture telling us a different story.

So my take is, we don't just take Jesus for His blood, we don't just take Jesus for His sacrifice, but we also take Jesus living inside of us for His morality and ethics and we trust Him, not tablets of stone.

CP: The final lie you discussed was "God promises wealth and health to every believer." Why do you believe the prosperity gospel continues to have a following despite widespread denunciations by leaders within the Church?

Farley: Because those leaders who denounce the prosperity gospel do not have the ear of those who are following the prosperity gospel. Its plain and simple that health and wealth have been pursued by humanity at large for thousands of years and if you simply put a Jesus stamp on those aspirations and tell people that if they come to Jesus they can have guaranteed health and guaranteed wealth, well you're always going to have a line out the door as people are looking at God as a divine slot machine where you pour in your quarters and pull down the handle of faith and out comes the blessings.

According to the New testament, that's a pipe dream. The Apostle Paul had something called a "thorn in the flesh" that he asked God to take from him three times and God said His grace is sufficient for Paul. Timothy had frequent stomach ailments and Paul recommended some red wine for that. He didn't tell Timothy to have more faith, he told him to take some red wine. So clearly, Christians are not guaranteed healing every single time just because they're in Christ and likewise, Paul said that for those who look at the Gospel as a means to financial gain are of a depraved mind and that's pretty strong language.

CP: What are some of the big things you hope that readers take away from your book?

Farley: I want readers to see the goodness of God. I want people to recognize how great the work of Jesus Christ really is in terms of making us totally forgiven and making us right with God forever, no matter what. I want people to see how big God's heart is toward us and how amazing the love and grace found in Jesus Christ really is.
Economists from the ideological left to the center-right have described the federal supplement as a critical support for the more than 25 million people receiving the funds and for the economy at large. According to one estimate, about two-thirds of the laid-off workers receiving the supplement are now bringing in more money from unemployment insurance than they did in weekly earnings from their last job.

That $600 supplement is set to expire on July 26. House Democrats generally want to extend the program for several months, while most Senate Republicans have publicly supported eliminating or substantially decreasing the benefit, with the assumption that doing so will encourage people to return to work.

But even if a full extension is agreed upon by the end of the July session, Americans who rely upon the supplement are likely to experience a two- to three-week gap in new payments, according to Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.

Delayed payments are already a reality for some out-of-work Americans because of overwhelmed state unemployment systems. Ms. Proffitt hasnt received her federal supplement for nine weeks. She says the delay has forced her to eke out a living on her dwindling retirement savings  which plummeted during the market crash of 2008 and never rebounded  and make do with the $131 weekly state unemployment benefit.
T he Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have thanked well-wishers for sending messages for Prince George's seventh birthday.

Will and Kate shared a picture of Prince George looking every inch the happy royal on Wednesday.

Kensington Royals official Twitter account posted: Thank you everyone for your very kind wishes on Prince Georges birthday today!

Buckingham Palace and Clarence House have also both wished the third in line to the throne a happy birthday, sharing one of the two photographs taken by Kate to mark the occasion.

In pictures taken by his mother during the lockdown earlier this month - likely to have be taken at their Norfolk home - the future king looks to be growing up fast.

In one picture, he smiles directly at his mothers camera as he wears a polo shirt.

In the other picture, he is more casually dressed in a T-shirt with a camouflage design and stands side-on in the image.

In the other picture, he is more casually dressed in a T-shirt with a camouflage design and stands side-on in the image / The Duchess of Cambridge/PA

Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge was born in the private Lindo Wing of St Marys Hospital, Paddington, at 4.24pm on July 22 2013, weighing 8lb 6oz.

He made his public debut in front of the worlds media on the hospital steps one day later, wrapped in a white merino wool shawl, cradled in his proud parents arms.

A great-grandchild to the Queen, he will be the 43rd monarch since William the Conqueror obtained the crown of England if, as expected, he follows the reigns of his grandfather, the Prince of Wales, and then his father, William.

During the lockdown, George was pictured a number of times with his younger siblings, five-year-old Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, aged two, applauding health and care workers during the weekly show of support.

William and Kate have both joked about home-schooling George and his brother and sister during the past months.

When the duchess was asked about teaching her children in a recent interview, she mentioned the popular book Spider Sandwiches by Claire Freedman.

She said: George gets very upset because he just wants to do all of Charlottes projects. Spider sandwiches are far cooler than literacy work.
At the time, only 60% of collections, including residential water and sewer bills, were being paid, Ferrell-Benavides said. Now, 85% of all collections are paid.

After hiring The Robert Bobb Group in 2016 to put out the citys financial fire, the $7.7 million deficit shrunk below $150,000.

The city had begun that fiscal year nearly $19 million in arrears and with $12 million to cut from its current operating budget.

The firm recommended restructuring the citys workforce after discovering myriad inefficiencies and questionable practices, including city employees who collected undue overtime or used city dollars to fill up their gas tanks.

In the following fiscal year, the citys fund balance was $2.8 million, marking the first positive balance since 2015.

By eliminating the deficit and supplementing the fund balance to its current $8.06 million, in three short years the city has seen an overall increase of $15.7 million in its unassigned fund balance, Ferrell-Benavides said.
Delhi Universitys St Stephens College on Wednesday issued a public warning against fake emails being sent on behalf of the institution seeking donations. The college said that it always made requests for donations only through its official website.

In a notice issued on Wednesday, college principal John Varghese said, It is brought to the notice of all concerned that the college does not send out emails soliciting donations for causes. Official requests for donations are only made by the principal through the college website and through the official alumni association of St Stephens College, when authorised by him. There is no other person or body authorised to collect or solicit funds on behalf of college.

Varghese warned that the use of the colleges name without permission can lead to legal action.

The college name, college crest, college facade and alumni association of St Stephens College are all registered and under copyright. Use of any of these without proper permission will lead to appropriate legal action.

All are hereby warned not to encourage false demands and requests made by unauthorised persons or organisations. College will not be responsible for any losses incurred or for responses to such unofficial and unauthorised requests, the principal said in the notice.

Varghese said that the notice has been issued upon receiving complaints of fake emails being sent to some people on the colleges behalf.

We have issued a warning since are so many cases of hacking of email accounts of education institutions have surfaced these days. We wanted to make it clear that the college publishes all authorised information on its website and doesnt send emails like that, he said.

The college has not filed any police compliant in the matter as of now, he added
An employment tribunal ruled in 2016 that Uber drivers were workers, and were entitled to workers' rights

Supreme Court justices are analysing the latest round of a legal fight over whether Uber drivers should be classed as workers.

The taxi app's operating companies appealed to the Supreme Court after losing three earlier rounds of the battle.

An employment tribunal ruled in 2016 that Uber drivers were workers, and were entitled to workers' rights.

That ruling was upheld by an employment appeal tribunal, and by Court of Appeal judges.

Lawyers representing Uber operating companies on Tuesday told Supreme Court justices that the employment tribunal ruling was wrong. They said drivers did not 'undertake to work' for Uber.

But lawyers representing drivers said the tribunal was entitled to conclude that drivers were working. They said the finding was based on a 'wealth of evidence'.

Seven justices began overseeing a virtual Supreme Court hearing yesterday.

The hearing is due to end today.
The private lender's net profit dropped 18.82% to Rs 1,112.17 crore while total income remained almost flat at Rs 19,125.57 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

Profit before tax (PBT) fell 31.28% to Rs 1,427.98 crore in Q1FY21 as against Rs 2,078.18 crore in Q1FY20. Tax expense slumped 55.40% to Rs 315.81 crore in Q1FY21 compared with Rs 708.10 crore in Q1FY20. The result was declared after market hours yesterday, 21 July 2020.

Net interest income (NII) grew 20% Y-o-Y (year-on-year) to Rs 6,985 crore during Q1FY21 from Rs 5,844 crore in Q1FY20. Net interest margin (NIM) for Q1FY21 was 3.40%.

Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at Rs 29,560.15 crore as on 30 June 2020 as against Rs 30,233.82 crore as on 31 March 2020 and Rs 29,404.90 crore as on 30 June 2019. The ratio of gross NPAs to gross advances stood at 4.72% as on 30 June 2020 as against 4.86% as on 31 March 2020 and 5.25% as on 30 June 2019. The ratio of net NPAs to net advances stood at 1.23% as on 30 June 2020 as against 1.56% as on 31 March 2020 and 2.04% as on 30 June 2019.

The bank's provisions and contingencies jumped 15.77% to Rs 4,416.42 crore in Q1FY21 over Rs 3,814.58 crore in Q1FY20. The bank held additional provisions of around Rs 5,983 crore towards various contingencies at the end of Q4 FY20. Axis Bank has made incremental provisions aggregating Rs 733 crore in Q1 FY21 towards COVID-19. At 30 June 2020, the bank held an aggregate additional provisions amounting to Rs 6,898 crore. The bank has recognized slippages of Rs 2,218 crore during Q1FY21, compared to Rs 3,920 crore in Q4FY20 and Rs 4,798 crore in Q1FY20.

The total deposits grew by 19% on quarterly average balance (QAB) basis and by 16% YOY on period end basis. CASA and retail term deposits on QAB basis put together recorded a growth of 20% YOY. The share of CASA and retail term deposits in the total deposits on QAB basis was 81% as of 30 June 2020.

Advances including TLTRO investments grew 17% YOY to Rs 5,79,444 crore as on 30 June 2020. Retail loans grew 16% YOY to Rs 2,98,636 crore and accounted for 53% of the net advances of the bank.

Commenting on the Q1 earnings, Amitabh Chaudhry, the managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Axis Bank, has stated that: "The disruption caused by the pandemic has led to immense economic and social impediments, however, it has also brought about innovations across the industry. Axis Bank has been in the forefront, working with all its stakeholders to constantly come up with new solutions that strengthen the institution and support customers, employees and partners through this challenging phase. This has led to many 'firsts' and we are in the process of coming up with more. Our journey has been rendered even more special with our 'Dil Se Open' spirit that reverberates across all our branches and customer service touch-points."

Axis Bank and Max Financial Life Services (MFSL) has announced the signing of the definitive agreements to become joint venture partners in Max Life Insurance Company on 28 April 2020. Since then, the parties have approached the regulators for approval of the transaction and believe that the deal continues to be on track.

Axis Bank is the third largest private sector bank in India. As on 30 June 2020, it had a network of 4,528 domestic branches and extension counters situated in 2,559 centres compared to 4,094 domestic branches and extension counters situated in 2,380 centres last year. As on 30 June 2020, Axis Bank possessed 11,971 ATMs and 5,485 cash recyclers spread across India.

Shares of Axis Bank advanced 3.93% to Rs 463.75. The stock hovered in the range of Rs 460.25 to Rs 482.85 so far.

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More than 150 migrants have been brought ashore in six hours after crossing the English Channel to the UK in small boats  taking the total to 3,123 for this year.

Border Force intercepted 13 boats between 5.50am and 12.30pm yesterday, carrying a total of 159 people  and at least three young children were among the group.

Those on board claimed to Kuwaiti, Iranian, Syrian, Yemeni, Chad, Ethiopian, Libyan, Palestinian, Eritrean, Afghan, Sudanese, Moroccan, Turkish and Egyptian nationals.

A heavily pregnant woman is understood have been rescued from one vessel along with two toddlers, another woman and around five men.

Sea conditions were perfect for making the 20-mile journey across the busy Dover Strait shipping lane off the Kent coast, with clear skies and a gentle breeze.

A young child is carried by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought onto the shore at Dover in Kent yesterday

A huge search and rescue operation saw the Border Force vessels Hunter, Searcher and Speedwell involved with the Coastguard's fixed-wing aircraft and helicopter.

In yesterday's incidents:

The first vessel carrying 20 people was intercepted at 5.50am;

In the second crossing at 6.22am, Border Force detained 16 people;

Two boats were detected at 6.47am - one carrying 16 migrants and the other with ten on board;

At 8am a lifeboat rescued 18 migrants and a Border Force vessel picked up ten who crossed the Channel illegally;

A lifeboat also rescued a further 12 people in another incident;

A further 57 migrants were picked up in six different boats between 8.10am and 12.25pm.

Last week more than 350 people made the crossing, with 137 on Friday alone. Some 180 reached the UK on July 12 - the current single day record for the year.

More than 150 migrants were brought ashore in six hours yesterday, including those above

The Dover Lifeboat and Border Force officers tow small boats into the Kent port town today

Over the past month, 912 migrants have reached the UK - including 691 in July. A total of 1,850 refugees crossed the Channel throughout the whole of last year.

More attempted crossings were thought to be under way this morning, with the latest wave of incidents coming amid a bout of warm weather and calm waters.

On Monday, it emerged that hundreds of boats believed to have been used in past attempts are being stored at a high-security government compound in Dover.

The discarded dinghies and rowing boats, found piled on top of one another, were pictured at a warehouse storage facility on an industrial estate.

The Home Office said the boats in the Whitfield area of the Kent port town are being stored to use as evidence in people-smuggler prosecutions.

A young boy is carried by his father among a group of people on a boat at Dover yesterday

An RNLI officer helps unload the Dover Lifeboat in the Kent port town yesterday

Despite agreeing to launch a Franco-British intelligence cell, it emerged that the countries are embroiled in a row on tactics used to tackle the crossings crisis - particular whether maritime law permits French authorities to intercept boats at sea and take them back to the Continent.

Earlier this month, Home Secretary Priti Patel said that no new target date has been set for when the crossings would become an 'infrequent phenomenon'.

Less than a year ago she vowed 'urgent action' on the dangerous journeys, aiming for them to be virtually eradicated by spring this year.

Charities have repeatedly insisted that the only way to tackle the crossings is by committing to providing migrants with safe, legal routes of passage for those seeking sanctuary in the UK.

On Monday, it emerged that hundreds of boats believed to have been used in past attempts are being stored at a high-security government compound in Dover

The Home Office has said migrants should be claiming asylum in the first safe European country they arrive in.

Officials could not give the genders of those who reached the UK in recent days. They were all taken into Dover for questioning by immigration officials.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'They will be interviewed and their cases will be dealt with in line with the immigration rules, transferring to detention where appropriate.

'The migrants have left a safe country - generally France - and where appropriate we will be seeking to return them.

'In line with Public Health England guidance, Border Force and all operational staff have the relevant Personal Protective Equipment available to them.'
The Director of Operations for the 2020 campaign of the NPP, Mr. John Boadu, on Monday, July 20, 2020 took his nationwide tour of registration centres to the Volta Region to monitor the ongoing voter registration exercise in the region.



He visited the Nyive LA JHS registration centre in the Ho central constituency; Honugu registration centre at Agotime Ziope Constituency; Sanyi registration centre at Akatsi North; Deme registration centre at Ketu North; LA primary, Amedzikope and JHS registration centres at the Ketu South constituency.



John Boadu also went to the Keta constituency and visited the Kedzi registration centre before proceeding to the Lashebi community registration centre in the Anlo constituency, and then the Social welfare registration centre at Sogakope in the South Tongu constituency where he rounded up his regional tour.



Just as he did in the other regions, John Boadu donated personal protective equipment including face masks and hand sanitizers to the EC registration officials and registrants to help achieve compliance with Covid-19 health protocols.



The NPP General Secretary used the opportunity to visit some of the approved and unapproved routes bordering the country and Togo in the wake of allegations of importation of non-Ghanaians by the NDC to participate in the voter registration exercise. Indeed, this allegation has, time without number, been confirmed following the consistent busting of some foreigners particularly Togolese who were being imported by persons linked to the NDC in the past weeks.



John Boadu interacted with the men and women manning these borders and encouraged them to maintain vigilance and remain resolute in their commitment to the national cause by enforcing the border closure protocols. He also implored them to ensure that non-Ghanaians do not cross the borders to enter the country at the behest of some political parties with the view to assisting them to register as voters.



In his interaction with the media on his observation, Mr John Boadu, while expressing general satisfaction about the conduct of the exercise, observed the worrying phenomenon of attacks and intimidation of NPP agents by NDC hoodlums for daring to challenge any foreigner they [the NDC] have brought in from registering.



According to him, even in the rare cases where the NPP agents successfully filled the voter challenge form, these NDC thugs still found a way of forcing the EC officials to give out the ID cards to the very registrants whose eligibility they have challenged in fragrant disregard of the rules of engagements. To this end, he identified with the calls being made by some independent observers as well as his party agents for security to be intensified at the various registration centres in region.



The NPP chief scribe was accompanied by Mame Yaa Aboagye, Deputy Communication Director and Volta regional executives of the party led by the regional chairman, Mr. Makafui Woanya and the regional secretary, Mr Joseph Homenya.





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Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) [India], July 21 (ANI): Tribal artists at Jamshedpur-based Kalamandir are making rakhis using traditional items for the upcoming Rakshabandhan festival on August 3.



Speaking to ANI, Kalamandir Convener Amitabh Ghosh said that the rakhis needed to be of good quality, with a dash of tradition, and should be available at a cheap price to make the people choose them over the Chinese alternative.

"People are calling it Swadeshi rakhi, Jharkhandi rakhi, but I call them traditional rakhis. But it remains to be seen whether the shopkeepers will sell these over the Chinese ones. If we are able to provide a good product at cheap rates, the market will not look towards Chinese made rakhis," Ghosh said.

Artists who are preparing rakhi at the Kalamandir said that they had started using the traditional patterns and materials on masks, etc during the COVID-19 induced lockdown.

"We are trying to use as less plastic as we can and especially during this lockdown phase we are using the local patterns to add a traditional twist to the rakhis. We are promoting this on social media platforms, and the response so far has been great. Till now, we have made over 11,000 rakhis," an artist at the centre said.

Meanwhile, in positive news for the artisans in the country shopkeepers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat have claimed that demand for Chinese made rakhis has fallen this Rakshabandhan festival.

"All of us are hurt by China's actions. Customers who come here are willing to pay a little bit more for Indian products instead of Chinese," a shopkeeper told ANI here.

Customers at the shop said that they would rather opt for the indigenous rakhis rather than those imported from China as they are better in quality and are traditional. (ANI)
JAIPUR: The Rajasthan Board Secondary Education (RBSE) Board is expected to announce RBSE Class 10 results 2020 this week. Once officially declared, the results will be available on board's official websites - rajresults.nic.in. As an alternative, students can also check their results online by logging in at rajeduboard.rajasthan.gov.in as well.

Around 11 lakh students had appeared in Rajasthan board Class 10 exam in 2020. The passing marks for RBSE 10th Exam students is 33 per cent for in each subject. This means, a candidate will have to score 33 per cent in all six subjects  Science, Social Science, English, Hindi, Mathematics and either of Sanskrit/ Urdu/ Rajasthani/ Music/ others.

Here's how to check Rajasthan Board Class 10th results online:

Step 1: Go to one of these official websites of the RBSE  rajresults.nic.in; rajeduboard.rajasthan.gov.in

Step 2: Click on the 10th class results option.

Step 3: Enter your roll number and other required details.

Step 4: Your result will be displayed on the screen.

It may be recalled that the Rajasthan Board RBSE Class 12th Arts results 2020 were declared on Tuesday (July 21) in which 90.70% of students cleared the exam. With 93.10 per cent, girls outperformed boys at 88.45 per cent. The Rajasthan Board RBSE Class 12th Arts result 2020 was declared by RBSE president DP Jaroli.

RBSE Class 12th Science results 2020 was declared on July 8 and the overall passing percentage was recorded at 91.96.

On July 13, the Rajasthan board had announced class 12 Commerce results.

The exams scheduled from March 20 to 24, 2020 were postponed due to COVID-19 and the subsequent nationwide lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to curb the spread of coronavirus COVID-19 in the country. The exams were later held on June 29 and 30.
(Alliance News) - UK Mortgages Ltd on Wednesday said an offer from M&G Investment Management Ltd undervalues the company.

The investment also announced plans for a share buyback and aims to restore its dividend to the 4.5 pence level annually.

M&G Investment Management Ltd said Monday it has made several approaches to buy UK Mortgages all of which have been rejected.

"The board considered the proposal together with its financial adviser, Numis Securities Ltd, and unanimously rejected it on 19 July 2020, having concluded that the terms materially undervalue the company and its prospects. The board of UKML has received no further proposal since the unanimous rejection and is not in discussions with MAGIM at this time," UK Mortgages said.

UK Mortgages added that it plans to buyback 15% of its issued shares from the end of August.

Also, in "light of the portfolio performance observed as the UK lockdown begins to ease", it plans to restore its dividend 4.5p per share annually.

It will pay an additional interim dividend of 1.5p per share for the year ended June 30. For financial 2021, it will pay four quarterly payouts of 1.125p each.

UK Mortgage shares closed 1.1% higher at 64.98p each in London on Wednesday.

By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. A shipment of 28 000 medical gowns and 20 000 N95 medical respirators for healthcare workers have arrived in Armenia. The items will enable those on the frontline to respond effectively and safely to the COVID-19 pandemic, ARMENPRESS was informed from the EU Delegation to Armenia.

The supplies were procured by WHO, with the financial assistance of the European Union, as part of continued support to help Armenia respond to the pandemic.

Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin, the UN Resident Coordinator in Armenia Shombi Sharp and Coordinator of WHO health emergencies programme for the South Caucasus Vasily Esenamanov handed over the newly arrived protective equipment to Deputy Minister of Health of the Republic of Armenia Lena Nanushyan for further distribution in the country.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  President Rodrigo Dutertes fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27 will be aired live and without edits, the Radio Television Malacanang (RTVM) said Wednesday.

Presidential Broadcast Staff-RTVM made the assurance after the Palace drew flak for editing out certain parts of Dutertes speech to soldiers in Jolo, Sulu earlier this month. Cut out from the aired version of the speech were the Presidents rants against ABS-CBN and Rappler.

The event will be broadcasted live, streamed live on Facebook and Youtube," RTVM executive director Demic Pabalan said during a virtual briefing on the House of Representatives preparations for the SONA. "Hindi po edited. Verbatim po. Kung ano yung event na nangyayari, ilalabas po ng RTVM."

[Translation: The event will be broadcasted live, streamed live on Facebook and Youtube. It will be aired verbatim and unedited. Whatever is happening, that's what you will see.]

Other media outfits will be barred from entering Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City to cover SONA, in accordance with the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases amid the COVID-19 threat. RTVM will provide the video footage of the Presidents speech to other media.

House Secretary General Jose Luis Montales said all lawmakers and technical staff attending the opening of the second regular session and SONA will be required to undergo both swab test and rapid test ahead of the Presidents speech.

Those who test positive for COVID-19 in either the RT-PCR or rapid test will not be allowed to enter the session hall.

Ang intention kasi is as much as possible, lahat ng pupunta doon will be tested. So kung magdadala tayo ng masyadong maraming tao, that will be difficult, Montales said.

[Translation: The plan is to test all guests. If we invite a lot of people, testing will be difficult.]

Duterte is expected to be physically present at the Batasan for his penultimate SONA, where he is expected to unveil his administration's COVID-19 recovery plan for the Philippines "in detail."

Unlike the traditional SONAs, where the venue is jampacked with high-profile guests, only a limited number of Cabinet members and lawmakers will join him in Batasan this year in line with strict health protocols to avoid mass gatherings. It remains unknown if the first family will attend the event.

RTVM said it has also made arrangements in case Duterte decides to deliver his SONA from Malacanang. Pabalan said they have set up equipment at the Palace to broadcast the speech in case a problem arises and he couldnt travel all the way to the House of Representatives.

Filmmaker Joyce Bernal will be directing the SONA for the third time. However, there will be no live singing of the Philippine national anthem. Instead, there will be a recorded version of the national anthem before the delivery of the speech.
She puts on a sensational display daily.

And Ashley Roberts was working it once again as she headed to work at Global Studios in London on Wednesday while rocking an incredible look.

The Pussycat Dolls star, 38, looked phenomenal in a tight white tee with a lingerie-inspired slip skirt with a lace trim and sky-high heels.

Stunner: Ashley Roberts was working it once again as she headed to work at Global Studios in London on Wednesday while rocking an incredible look

Ashley looked stunning in her latest fashion triumph as she walked into work in the sizzling look which made the most of her lithe figure.

While the white tee was simple, she upped both the glamour and sex appeal with the slinky skirt which came in a mustard hue with a cream lace trim.

Ashley became something of an Anglophile when she relocated from Los Angeles to London seven years ago after the Pussycat Dolls went on hiatus in 2010.

She said in an interview with the Mail on Sunday's YOU magazine: 'If someone had told me 10 years ago that this would be my home and I'd be drinking builder's tea and saying Brit things like loo and rubbish, I'd have been, like, "No way!"'

Radiant: The Pussycat Dolls star, 38, looked phenomenal in a tight white tee with a lingerie-inspired slip skirt with a lace trim and sky-high heels

WOW! Her toned legs were looking incredible in the thigh-skimming mini

The TV and radio personality has been focusing her professional efforts on her Heart FM gig after the Pussycat Dolls were forced to postpone their reunion tour until October due to coronavirus.

Confirming the news in March, she said: 'I know it's a bummer to postpone. We have all waited so long for this to happen. But it's everyone's health and safety that matters the most. That being said... I can't wait to see y'all in October!'

Aside from her work, in her love life, Ashley's most recent relationship was with Strictly Come Dancing professional Giovanni Pernice, 29.

The couple called time on their year-long romance in January after meeting during Ashley's stint on the BBC One dance competition in late 2018.

Stunning: Ashley looked stunning in her latest fashion triumph as she walked into work in the sizzling look which made the most of her lithe figure

Radiant: While the white tee was simple, she upped both the glamour and sex appeal with the slinky skirt which came in a mustard hue with a cream lace trim

She reportedly been playing the field of late, as reports have alleged that David Walliams has set his sights on a romance with the star.

According to The Sun, the Britain's Got Talent star, 48, is believed to have split from celebrity make-up artist, Lou Teasdale, earlier this year following a brief romance.

A source has claimed the comedian has since reached out to the presenter and hopes to date her once the coronavirus lockdown is lifted.

An insider told the publication: 'David was really knocked after his painful split from Lara [Stone], but is very much looking for love now.'
Lenovos Legion gaming line is well known for its laptop and PC gaming rigs. Now, the company is ready to introduce its first gaming smartphone and you can tune in here for the announcement keynote. It starts at 11:30 AM UTC but keep in mind the whole event will be in Chinese.

Weve seen plenty of leaks for the Legion phone in the past months which have led us to compile a preliminary list of specs. Were expecting a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, Snapdragon 865+ with up to 16GB RAM and 512GB UFS 3.1 storage. One of the Legion phones signature features is its 20MP side-mounted pop-up selfie camera which allows gamers to stream while recording their face.

The back will house dual cameras with a 64MP primary shooter and 16MP ultrawide snapper both placed in the middle. The phone will also come with two USB-C ports and a dual battery architecture with a combined 5,000 mAh capacity and 90W fast wired charging support. As usual, well have all the key takeaways ready right after the announcement ends.
- Kanye West caused a buzz on social media after his Twitter rant talking about his family

- The rapper/businessman made some shocking claims about his wife trying to lock him up

- The father of four did not leave out Kardashian momager, Kris Jenner and warned her to stay away from his kids

American rapper Kanye West has been trending on Twitter and his recent rant on the app has everything to do with it.

The God Is King rapper in one tweet claimed his wife and reality star, Kim Kardashian, was trying to use a doctor to lock him up.

READ ALSO: Johnson Sakaja: Court sentences senator to 3 months in prison with option of KSh 15K fine

Kanye West speaking at a recent rally Photo: Evening Standard

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Jalang'o gets tested for COVID-19 day after attending Papa Shirandula's burial

Kanye started talking about how his family was against him and his fans were confused wondering what exactly he was on about.

Kim tried to bring a doctor to lock me up with a doctor, the rapper tweeted. If I get locked up like Mandela, you'll know why," he wrote in now deleted tweets.

He also had a few words for his mother-in-law and Kardashian's manager, Kris Jenner, who he claimed was part of those trying to "lock him up."

In another tweet, he warned her not to play with him saying she and that 'calmye' (her boyfriend) were not allowed near his children.

READ ALSO: Angry man storms boss's office with machete, demands 5-months salary in viral video

READ ALSO: Kenyans console actor Njoro after he appeared teary, heartbroken at Papa Shirandula's graveside

West also added that: Everybody knows the movie get out is about me.

The 2017 horror movie, Get Out, portrays a black man who becomes trapped in a suburban nightmare as his white girlfriend and her family try to exploit him.

The rapper also spoke about his wife being in playboy.

I put my life on my God that North's mom would never photograph her doing playboy and thats on God Im at the ranch, come and get me, Kanye wrote.

READ ALSO: Caroline Mutoko: Former radio host under fire for suggesting men's behaviour to blame for COVID-19

The rapper has since deleted the tweets but not before some tweeps took screenshots.

Kanye also lamented on saving his child North saying Kim was trying to get him locked up for crying about it.

READ ALSO: 11 challenges Kenyans turned to beat online boredom during lockdown by using viral apps

This comes a day after the rapper revealed at a rally that his dad wanted him aborted and there would have never been a Kanye.

Only a while ago, Kim Kardashian went all out to wish her husband and father of her children a happy birthday.

This is despite various news outlets claiming the couple was on the verge of a nasty and loud breakup that was bound to happen anytime.

The mother of four went on Instagram to detail the things she loved about her king during his 43rd birthday.

Also, West a while ago took to social media to congratulate Kim Kardashian, who he said was officially a billionaire.

The proud husband said Kim weathered the "craziest storms" on her way to becoming a billionaire.

Kanye said God is shining on the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star and their beautiful family.

The rapper and Kim have four children together named Chicago, North, Saint and Psalm.

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Kamotho, Virginia and Tabitha meet in court over custody battle | Tuko TV

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Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said that the initiative, which costs EGP 12.25 billion, aims to encourage citizens to increase consumption, regardless of their socio-economic status

Egypt is set to launch on Sunday a presidential initiative to boost local consumption and demand on domestic products, a statement by the cabinet said on Wednesday.

In the statement, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly highlighted the importance of the presidential initiative in encouraging local production and ensuring that a number of vital commodities are available for citizens at low prices.

Madbouly's remarks came during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday in New Alamein City.

Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said that the initiative, which costs EGP 12.25 billion, aims to encourage citizens to increase consumption, regardless of their socio-economic status.

The state treasury will make EGP 200 available to everyone who holds a ration card at a maximum cap of EGP 1,000 per card, Maait said.

Madbouly explained that the EGP 12.25 billion that the government will inject into the initiative is part of its plan to address the impact of the coronavirus.

The initiative involves manufacturers, retail chains and distribution points lowering the price of products at an average of 20 percent on purchases made while the initiative is in effect.

The finance ministry will provide a further 10 percent discount on the same product to those who hold ration cards, allowing holders to benefit from both discounts provided by the manufacturers and the government.

The products sold include electronics, home appliances, ready-made garments, leather goods, furniture, home finishing materials, and others.

The initiatives portal is available for online purchases, the statement noted.

Madbouly said that the initiative aims to provide commodities at lower prices to encourage local products and boost consumption as an essential component of GDP growth.

The initiative should contribute to encouraging factories to increase production to maximum capacity, Maait said.

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New Delhi, July 22 : A Delhi court on Wednesday sentenced sex racketeer Geeta Arora alias Sonu Punjaban to 24 years rigorous imprisonment and her associate Sandeep Bedwal to 20 years, in a case of kidnapping and prostitution of a minor girl.

Additional Session Judge Pritam Singh of Dwarka court had convicted them in the case on July 17, holding that the prosecution has succeeded in proving the charges against the two "beyond reasonable doubt".

The 12-year-old victim was kidnapped by Bedwal on September 11, 2009 and was sold and re-sold to a score of people, including Sonu Punjaban, for the purpose of prostitution.

According to the prosecution, Sonu Punjaban used to administer drugs into the body of the victim to make it "more suitable for prostitution" and used to charge Rs 1,500 from customers.

Five years after the case was registered, the victim came to the police station to record her statement, in which she claimed that she was kidnapped by Bedwal after he confessed his love to her.

The victim divulged that he took her to the house of 'Seema Aunty' on the pretext of marriage and raped her. From there, the chain of selling and re-selling her for flesh trade began.

The minor girl was then sold four times by different people and eventually end up with Sonu Punjaban, who after using her for prostitution, sold her to three men. Following this, one of the men named Satpal married her.

"On February 7, 2014, the victim left the house of Satpal and on February 9, came to Police Station Najafgarh and on her statement, an FIR was registered," the court said. Sonu Punjaban was then arrested in December 2017 and the charge sheet was filed in March 2018.

Sonu Punjaban was convicted for commission of offences such as procuration of minor, slavery, selling and buying minor for prostitution, poisoning, wrongful confinement and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.

Bedwal was convicted for kidnapping, procuration of minor, slavery, selling minor for prostitution, rape and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code.
Turkish drilling in Mediterranean can affect relations with EU, Germany warns

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 2:49 PM

Germany says Turkey's failure to halt drilling activities in contested waters in the eastern Mediterranean Sea would affect relations between Ankara and the European Union (EU).

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas raised the alarm on Tuesday, after his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said last week that Ankara would start seismic research and gas drilling operations in waters that are covered by an agreement between Turkey and the Libyan government.

Greece has rejected the accord as geographically absurd since it ignores the presence of the Greek island of Crete between the coasts of Turkey and Libya.

Maas said the activities constituted acts of "provocation."

"Regarding Turkey's drilling in the eastern Mediterranean, we have a very clear position; international law must be upheld and that is why progress in EU-Turkey relations will only be possible if Ankara stops provocations in the eastern Mediterranean," the German foreign minister said during a visit to the Greek capital of Athens on Tuesday.

"At the same time, we see the need within the European Union for dialog with Turkey given that Turkey is an important strategic partner when it comes to NATO and migration policies. That is why there can't be any honest dialog with Turkey if we can't tell Turkey they have to deliver when it comes [to] all the unanswered questions especially concerning the eastern Mediterranean," he said.

Turkey's claims to drilling rights have also upset other countries around the corner of the sea, namely Egypt and Cyprus.

The drilling has also led to a stalemate in negotiations over Turkey's accession to the EU. Earlier this year, the EU announced plans to slap sanctions on Ankara over its "illegal" drilling in the eastern Mediterranean off Cyprus.

The Cypriot government has previously called Turkey a "pirate state" because of Ankara's resumption of drilling operations in waters that Cyprus claims to be part of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Turkey rejects the agreements that the internationally-recognized Cypriot government has reached with other Mediterranean states on maritime economic zones.

Cyprus was divided in 1974 after a Turkish invasion triggered by a brief, Greek-inspired coup. Several peacemaking efforts have failed, and the discovery of offshore resources in the eastern Mediterranean has complicated the negotiations.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  A group of progressive lawmakers sought plenary action on the franchise bid of media giant ABS-CBN even after it was junked at the House committee level.

In a letter dated July 20, Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Carlos Zarate wrote in behalf of the Makabayan bloc to the House Committee on Legislative Franchises to submit the technical working group report and the adopted committee resolution on ABS-CBN's franchise to the plenary for the ratification of its decision.

The letter, shown to the media on Wednesday, appealed for all members of the lower chamber to have a say on the issue before implementing the report and the committee resolution.

"Undeniably, majority of the 305 members of the House of Representatives are being deprived of the opportunity to deliberate and even vote on the said issue, in representation of their constituents who were badly affected by the committee decision," Zarate said in the letter, addressed to committee chair Rep. Franz Alvarez.

Zarate added that the plenary has the right to ask for the actions taken by the committee, citing Section 44 of the House Rules.

He also argued that the House panel's denial of the franchise bid did not formally end the process of the deliberation, but rather made "a temporary suspension of consideration."

"The Committee on Legislative Franchises may no longer tackle the franchise bills because they have been laid on the table, precisely because it is now up to the Plenary to decide on the issue," the letter read. It noted that laying a bill on the table does not mean that the measure is automatically "killed."

Zarate added that even if the TWG report contained "the most unsure" and "insecure" document ever approved by a committee, these doubts must be resolved through a plenary debate and approval.

The letter also raised the issue of "public antagonism" to the committee decision, after Social Weather Stations released results of a national survey which showed that 75 percent of Filipinos want to renew ABS-CBN's franchise.

"We reiterate that it is the duty, and in fact, the right of every member of the House to voice the opinion of their constituents through a plenary vote," Zarate added.

On July 10, the panel voted 70-11 to kill ABS-CBN's franchise application, claiming that the network committed violations related to tax obligations, ownership, labor practices, and supposedly biased reporting, among others. Majority of lawmakers who were eligible to vote are allies of the Duterte administration.

Anakalusugan Partylist Rep. Mike Defensor, one of the congressmen who voted to kill the franchise, said the panel spent over a hundred hours deliberating issues surrounding the media network. Critics noted, however, that most of the panel members only used the time to accuse the network of "cyberbullying" and "unfair reporting" against them.

Defensor said the Makabayan bloc's appeal can be deemed valid, but hinted that another round of debates will unlikely change the status of ABS-CBN's application.

"I will not teach them on what to do because I voted on the other side. Pwede naman gawin yun [debates], I will not discourage them...but they have to be more creative," Defensor said in a forum on Wednesday.

Aside from Zarate, other members of the Makabayan bloc are Bayan Muna Reps. Ferdinand Gaite and Eufemia Cullamat, ACT-Teachers Partylist France Castro, Gabriela Women's Partylist Rep. Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan Partylist Rep. Sarah Elago.

Malacanang has insisted that it had no hand in the decision of the committee, despite Duterte publicly threatening the network of a shutdown the past years for refusing to carry his 2016 campaign ads.

CNN Philippines' Correspondent Xianne Arcangel contributed to this report.
By Online Desk

Journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by unknown miscreants near his residence in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad on June 20, passed away on Wednesday.

The doctor of a private hospital monitoring Joshi said that the veins in the journalist's head had got badly damaged due to the bullet injury.

"Yes, he (Vikram Joshi) is no more. He passed away at around 4 am during treatment at the hospital," a family member told PTI.

The scribe, who was associated with Jan Sagar Today, had suffered a bullet injury on his head after assailants opened fire at him near his residence in Vijay Nagar.

The attack is believed to be the fallout of a complaint that Joshi had lodged at Vijay Nagar police station on July 16 stating that some people were harassing his niece.

Some boys including Kamal-ud-Dins son used to eve-tease my sister. It was her b'day when incident occured. My uncle was coming home with her when Kamal-ud-Dins son attacked him&shot him. We'll not accept my uncle's body till main accused is caught: Journalist Vikram's nephew pic.twitter.com/IdDhXC9qnt  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) July 22, 2020

Locals claimed that Vikram Joshi was riding a motorcycle with his two daughters when a group of men assaulted him and opened fire at him.

In the CCTV footage, the bike can be seen swerving suddenly and in no time, a group of men surround the bike and start pulling and hitting the rider.

The two children can be seen running away the moment the bike falls.

Eight people were arrested in connection with the shooting incident

Meanwhile, local beat in-charge Raghvendra was put on suspension with immediate effect for not taking swift action and ignoring the complaint filed by the family of the victim.

Moreover, a departmental inquiry was also set up against the errant cop and circle officer -I was handed over the probe, sources said.

(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
PHOENIX Petroleum Philippines Inc. was assigned an insurer credit rating of PRS Aa minus (corp.), with a stable outlook by the Philippine Rating Services Corp.

The rating was obtained in relation to the companys outstanding three-year commercial papers program of up to P10 billion.

With this, Phoenix may issue CPs until 2021. The proceeds will be used to finance the companys working capital requirements.

Phoenix was able to increase its number of retail stations from 530 in 2017 to 655 in 2019. For the past three years, the bulk of the growth was in Luzon. (PR)
They divorced when he was just two years old, but Prince Joachim of Denmark and his ex-wife, Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg, put on a united front to celebrate son Prince Felix's 18th birthday today.

The parents marked the milestone occasion alongside their eldest son Prince Nikolai, 20, and Joachim's current wife Princess Marie and their two children Prince Henrik, 11, and Princess Athena, eight.

Sharing intimate family photographs to Instagram this afternoon, the group are seen hugging one another in a group snap while at the Danish royals' summer residence, Chateau de Cayx, in France.

Felix, who is eighth in the line to the Danish throne, and the grandson of Queen Margrethe, 80, celebrated his birthday 'privately with his friends and family', according to a statement made by the palace.

They divorced when their youngest son was just two-years-old, but Prince Joachim of Denmark and his ex-wife, Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg put on a united front when celebrating Prince Felix's 18th today. Seen left to right: Princess Marie, Prince Joachim, Prince Felix, Princess Athena, Prince Henrik, Prince Nikolai and Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg

Felix (above), who is eighth in the line to the Danish throne, and the grandson of Queen Margrethe, 80, celebrated his birthday 'privately with his friends and family'

In another snap, Felix is joined by his three siblings, surrounded by danish flags and a birthday cake.

A third shows the teenager, dressed in a smart light blue shirt, standing next to his eldest brother Prince Nikolai, who has worked as a model for Dior and Burberry before attending business school.

He's walked alongside Cara Delevingne on the catwalk and strutted his stuff before a front row that included Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Michelle Dockery, Naomi Watts, Zendaya, and Idris Elba.

The collection of four birthday images was shared to Instagram with a caption, which, roughly translated into English, read: 'Today it is 18 years since His Highness Prince Felix was born at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.

Felix (pictured centre left) is joined by his three siblings, surrounded by danish flags and a birthday cake

'From this morning, the day has been celebrated at the Chateau de Cayx in France,' which is located in Cahors.

The town is a favourite destination for the Danish royals, who love to retreat to the family's beautiful manor house.

Queen Margrethe and her husband French-born Prince Henrik, who died in 2018, bought the estate in 1974 and export wine from the vineyards throughout the world.

Felix's parents Prince Joachim of Denmark and his ex-wife, Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg divorced when he was just two years old in 2004 after 10 years together - they were Denmark's first royal split in nearly 160 years.

The teenager, dressed in a smart light blue shirt, stands next to his eldest brother Prince Nikolai, who has worked as a model for Dior and Burberry before joining business school

Prince Joachim, the second son of Margrethe and Prince Consort Henrik, is himself sixth in line to the throne after his elder brother Crown Prince Frederik and his four children with Australian-born Crown Princess Mary.

He has since remarried Paris-born Marie Cavallier, now Princess Marie and the couple have two children together Prince Henrik, 11, and Princess Athena, eight.

Hong Kong-born Alexandra, who lost her title of Princess after the divorce also remarried Martin Jrgensen, but that union ended in 2015.

Felix is studying social sciences at the secondary school Gammel Hellerup Gymnasium in Copenhagen.
Markets have been on a wild ride this year. The S&P 500 hit a high of nearly 3,400 in February before bottoming out below 2,200 in March. It remains 4% from record highs. CNBC's "Fast Money" traders Tim Seymour and Guy Adami stopped by "Trading Nation" on Friday to share their top market do's and major market don'ts.

Do #1: Remember bad news can be good news

"Do remember that bad news has been good news for equities and remember that the Fed is really the reason why markets are higher," said Seymour. "So do remember that the Fed controls liquidity and be careful for when the Fed may start to pull back."

Do #2: Do your homework

"You're the one that ultimately is making the decision as to what you're going to buy or what you're going to sell. You can listen to a lot of people, but the decision is yours," Adami said.

Do #3: Have a plan

"Do have a plan before you put on a trade. The most important thing you can do is know where to get out when you're wrong. You also need to know when to scale out if you're right. If you have that plan in place, you're doing it right," said Adami.

Don't #1: Execute short-term trades on long-term views

"You have a market here where volatility has been an enormous part of how the emotions have taken a part of this. But if you have a company like Disney, and you have a long-term view on recovery, don't necessarily be concerned about the headlines on reopening," said Seymour.

Don't #2: Allow emotions to take over

"You've got to take emotion out of the equation, and going back to one of my do's, if you do have a plan, almost by definition having a plan helps you take emotion out. So don't be emotional when it comes to trading," said Adami.

Don't #3: Forget about the balance sheet
HILLSBORO  As Missouri again broke its single-day record for new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, about 50 protesters gathered in Jefferson County to oppose a proposal to require masks in public places, designed to slow the spread of the virus.

The crowd gathered outside the Jefferson County Department of Health board meeting, holding signs with messages like: My right to say no mask. The group was then rallied by new health department board member and mask skeptic Suzy Davis.

Are we worried? Davis yelled to the crowd about the virus. The group responded with a resounding: No!

Davis refused to wear a mask inside at the meeting, where face coverings were required, pulling her bandana around her neck. Davis operates the Rocking J Ranch wedding venue in High Ridge and was elected to the board June 2. She helped promote the protest Tuesday as it gained attendees through several local anti-mask Facebook groups, including Mask Free Missouri and No Mask Jeffco.

The more than 2-hour meeting was marked with some contentious moments between Davis and the rest of the board. Members ultimately voted to call a special meeting at 3 p.m. July 28 for further discussion.

A Facebook live video of the meeting had more than 3,100 comments, both in favor and opposing the mask requirement by Tuesday afternoon.

The Hillsboro gathering followed a similar protest Monday night in neighboring Franklin County that drew several hundred demonstrators who opposed a mask requirement. The meeting of the Union Board of Aldermen ended with the board opting not to discuss a mask proposal.

The protests come as Missouri is seeing a sharp rise in new cases of COVID-19. The states daily count topped 1,000 for the first time Tuesday, and has set single-day records three times in the past two weeks. The Department of Health and Senior Services attributed Tuesdays 1,138 new reported cases to a backlog of test results just now being reported from earlier weeks.

But the states positivity rate  the percentage of COVID-19 tests that are positive  has increased to 6.4% in mid-July up from 4.4% in mid-June, according to department spokeswoman Lisa Cox.

Missouri has reported 34,762 total virus cases and 1,143 total deaths since the start of the pandemic.

St. Louis County recorded its second-highest increase on Tuesday, with 247 new cases. St. Charles County marked its third-highest increase, with 146. St. Charles Countys five highest single-day counts have all come in the past 10 days.

St. Louis area hospitalizations increased Tuesday, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force. For the first time since May 2, more than 40 COVID-19 positive people were admitted to St. Louis area hospitals. The seven-day average for new COVID-19 admissions topped 35 Tuesday.

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson has previously said if that average reached 35, or if 40 or more people were admitted to a hospital for three out of four days, city officials will consider pulling back some reopening measures. The mayor announced Friday that a plan to allow events to return to 100% capacity would be put on hold because of the rising numbers, Jacob Long, a spokesman for Krewson said when asked if more restrictions would be added Tuesday.

COVID-19 in Missouri and Illinois: By the numbers These maps and charts show the spread of COVID-19 in Missouri and Illinois.

Jefferson County debates masks

Most of the Jefferson County protesters Tuesday focused their arguments against masks on skepticism about the epidemic and arguments that a requirement would violate individual freedoms.

Signs included lines from the Constitution, Bible quotes, a mask with the word fear written on it and a picture of sheep in masks, indicating mask wearers are following the herd.

Most people are not wearing masks here in Jefferson County already, Davis told the Post-Dispatch before the meeting. And look around. Were fine. I dont think masks work and I actually think they hurt us because we dont build up herd immunity.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending people wear face coverings in public settings.

St. Louis County and city have mask requirements in place, but neighboring counties including Jefferson and St. Charles do not.

Davis views were also challenged during the meeting by Keith Starke, chief clinical officer for the Mercy hospital system, who said masks are a key way to block the droplets that spread COVID-19. Starke offered Sweden as an example of a nation that relied on herd immunity but suffered high death rates from the virus.

Jefferson County Department of Health Director Kelley Vollmar spoke in favor of more requirements to prevent the spread of the virus. There have been 100 new cases reported every three days for the past several weeks in the county, adding up to a total of 1,007 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, Vollmar said.

I understand what is sitting outside of this room, Vollmar said referencing the protesters, But I do not think it is right as the public health agency for this county not to take action when we are seeing the number of cases we are seeing. It is irresponsible.

Davis said she was not convinced by the data that the virus warranted any restrictions, and believed herd immunity was the answer.

Our only hope is that it does spread so that it can end, she said at the meeting.

Vollmar asked Davis not to promote a similar demonstration before next weeks meeting, explaining that it caused the department to halt back-to-school vaccinations for the day. While I appreciate the fact that you have been outspoken, Vollmar said, I would appreciate not having this circus which you have created outside of our front doors.

Protesters outside the meeting like Anjie Wittu, of Imperial, said they support Davis and are skeptical of masks and also of receiving a vaccine when it is available.

Theyre both government overreach, Wittu said. Its all just trying to make people scared.

Among the dozens of mask opponents Tuesday, one counter-protester, Jessie Shepherd, sat in a lawn chair with her sign reading: Mask up JeffCo.

Shepherd spoke to the board in favor of a mask requirement, saying she worried about the safety of relatives at Hillsboro schools if masks are not required. Shepherd cited other public health measures already in place.

We dont allow smoking in buildings, Shepherd said. I dont think its unreasonable to request that people wear masks indoors.

Updated at 8:50 p.m. Tuesday with information from Jefferson County Department of Health board meeting.

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NIFROP Starts 21-Days Intercessory Prayer To Defeat Gang Up Against Nigeria

The National Inter-Faith and Religious Organization for Peace (NIFROP), has began a 21-day intercessory prayers for Nigeria

The prayers, which began on Tuesday, had its opening ceremony at the Unity Fountain in Abuja.

The group, made up of prominent Christian and Islamic clerics, said the spiritual exercise was to strengthen the countrys unity amidst security challenges as well as for sustained progress under President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to seperate statements issued by co-chairmen, Sheik Ahmad Ibrahim and Bishop Sunday Garuba, NIFROP acknowledged the efforts of the President to deliver dividends of democracy to Nigerians despite the evil forces against the nation.

The clergymen also singled out the Armed Forces for praises, who they say have sacrificed and endured long days and nights just to ensure that Nigerians are safe and free from terrorists, bandits and other criminal elements.

Hence, Sheikh Ibrahim urged Nigerians to support the military, its leaders as well as President Buhari who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

My brothers and sisters, we shall all be praying especially for our troops stationed in the trenches in North-East Nigeria and other parts of North-West Nigeria day and night and engaging the Boko Haram terrorist group in battle.

Bishop Garuba on his part, advised Nigerians to pray against evil forces hovering around the president, his family and cabinet members.

Buttressing Ibrahims statement, the Bishop added that the troops on the frontlines need all the support they can get amidst conspirations from some highly placed personalities.

We shall be praying for good health for President Muhammadu Buhari and Gods divine protection as he pilots the affairs of the country. We shall call on God to send his angels to take charge over everything that concerns President Muhammadu Buhari, he said.

We shall also pray for unity and peace of Nigeria and for God to guard the country against all her adversaries wherever they are. We shall be calling on God to inflict his wrath on all of those that are against the unit.
By Amanda Fries | Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  The state Senate on Tuesday voted to stop the selling of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores, ending what some state lawmakers and animal advocates say was a puppy-mill-to-pet-store pipeline.

The bill, touted earlier this year before the coronavirus pandemic derailed the work of lawmakers, was approved Tuesday evening amid a flurry of legislation being acted on this week tackling outstanding bills and expanding protections and provisions dealing with Covid-19 and the upcoming general election.

It was unclear Tuesday when the Assembly may take up the bill. It was not on the chamber's Tuesday agenda, and spokespersons for Speaker Carl E. Heastie did not respond to requests for comment.

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, D-Queens, applauded the bills passage.

With so many good animals in need of rescue, there is no need for pet stores to sell animals that predominantly come from abusive puppy and kitten mills, he said. Our four-legged companions should be treated with respect, not like commodities.

Gianaris, who sponsored the bill, said the public typically is exposed to the classic puppy in the window  drawing young children and families in to buy an animal.

"What they don't know is what goes on behind the scenes to get that puppy there," he said on the Senate floor.

There are about 80 retail stores licensed to sell animals that the legislation would impact, but proponents of the bill say the bulk of revenue for those stores is from merchandise, not animal sales, and thus they will not be negatively impacted by the ban.

Some Downstate pet store owners, however, argued the measure would decimate their businesses and the majority of their sales are animals.

The People United to Protect Pet Integrity, a group in opposition of the bill, has argued that people should have the ability to shop or adopt, and suggests adopting from a rescue can come with more uncertainty than what proponents have suggested results from purchasing pets at stores. The group also points to more people resorting to purchasing animals online, which is unregulated.

The bill, sponsored by Gianaris, does not prevent individuals from purchasing animals from breeders and would allow people to see what type of environment a puppy or young dog is living in.

New York has a few puppy mills in the Finger Lakes Region, but animal advocates say they do not sell to retailers in the state. Although New York might not have many puppy mills, pet stores can purchase animals from breeders across the country, which often come with unknown ailments discovered after a family purchases a pet.

Last year, lawmakers increased health and safety standards for animals being sold in pet stores and by other dealers, passing a law that sets guidelines for sanitary living enclosures and food receptacles. It also mandates annual veterinary exams and grooming, and ensures animals are not locked in darkness during the day and that pregnant dogs have separate spaces as well as room to nurse their litters.
(Natural News) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has successfully unearthed new evidence proving that Christopher Steeles infamous Clinton-funded dossier was actually written by a non-Russian employee of Christopher Steeles firm.

In the declassified FBI document, it was revealed that the primary source of Steeles election reporting was not, in fact, some current or former official from Russia, but rather a non-Russian contract employee hired on by Steeles own company.

This document also lays bare the fact that Steeles so-called primary source provided him with second- and third-hand information and rumor at best, according to Zero Hedge, which also reported that this same source actually disagreed with how the information he procured to Steele was handled by Steele in the dossier.

In a second document also released by Graham, it was further shown that a New York Times article authored by Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo, which contained comments made by former FBI agent Peter Strzok, was nothing but fabricated propaganda.

As uncovered by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, the alleged comments made by Strzok that were included in the article, entitled Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contact With Russian Intelligence, are inaccurate, as per Strzok himself.

This statement is misleading and inaccurate as written, Strzok said about claims made by the Times  as well as CNN and others  that phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trumps presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

Strzok also took issue with a claim made by the Times that one of the advisers picked up on the intercepted calls was Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign chairman. According to Strzok, he and his team were unaware of any calls with any Russian government official in which Manafort was a party.

Will the New York Times issue a retraction and apology?

Virtually everything claimed by the Times in its article, from the alleged retrieval of damning banking and travel records to alleged evidence of Trump advisers engaging in conversations with Russian intel officials appears to have been completely made up by the fake news outlet  and this is according to Strzok himself.

Strzok and his team at the FBI did not ask the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls, nor did they closely examine Roger Stone, as claimed by the Times.

Furthermore, Strzok never claimed that Steele had a solid track record of being a reliable source of subsource network, nor did the FBI have enough solid evidence to obtain a warrant for wiretapping Manaforts communications.

This is inaccurate was a common statement made by Strzok in response to the various claims made by the Times about the Russiagate hoax, indicating that the narrative put forth by the Left based on the information contained in the phony dossier is complete fiction.

Im very pleased the investigation in the Senate Judiciary Committee has been able to secure the declassification of these important documents, Sen. Graham stated to the committee about the bombshell findings.

These documents, which I have long sought, tell a damning story for anyone whos interested in trying to find the truth behind the corrupt nature of the FBIs investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016 and beyond, he added.

A full breakdown of the two documents, the first of which is 57 pages longs, is available at this link.

More news stories about Russiagate and the Democrat hoax agenda to unseat President Trump are available at Hoax.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com
Its bad enough that we keep reporting about asteroids that are potentially hazardous for life on Earth. However, about 800 million years ago, the universe, our solar system and our planet were hardly the way they all are today. It is some time around then, scientists have stated in a new study, that Earth may have been hit by a massive asteroid shower  one that sent Earth into its deepest ice age, covering the entire world with ice during the Cryogenian period 720 million years ago.

Scientists believe that the asteroid shower may have come from the same cosmic event that led to the creation of the Eulalia family of asteroids, which in turn is believed to have given birth to Bennu  one of Earths closest asteroids, where NASAs probe OSIRIS-REx is presently busy at. The study, undertaken by a group of Japanese scientists headed by cosmochemist Kentaro Terada of Osaka University, has been published online in the Nature Communications journal.

To conduct this study, the scientists studied 59 lunar craters from instruments onboard Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya, and undertook radioisotope dating of ejected rocks from the moons crater impact sites to gauge the possible age of a major asteroid impact event in Earth (and the moon)s history. Taking into assumption the apparent asteroid showers trajectory, the scientists reported that a staggering 50 TRILLION metric tonnes of meteoroids may have rained down to Earth, thereby creating reaction debris so dense that it trapped the Earths entire atmosphere, and hence caused a drastic cooling effect on the planet  dragging the planet into the deepest ice age ever to have happened on Earth.

Alongside the sheer volume of this projected impact, Terada mentioned in his study that the asteroid shower may also have caused a pivotal point in the evolution of life forms as we know today. According to him, the shower released 100 billion tonnes of phosphorus across Earth. This may have had a long-lasting effect on the evolution of life forms, since phosphorus is particularly abundant naturally on Earth, and also makes for a key element of human cell membranes and DNA.

Terada has stated that he now looks forward to asteroid samples collected from Bennu or nearby fellow asteroid Ryugu, and believes that it is this sample that will hold a key answer to his asteroid impact theory. Until then, his potentially impactful theory will hope to uncover more proofs of such a massive asteroid impact on Earth, although natural geological activity is believed to have erased any possible evidence of such activities that may have occurred more than 600 million years ago.
The presidential panel probing Ibrahim Magu, suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has rejected h...





The presidential panel probing Ibrahim Magu, suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has rejected his defence.





Magu, who was arrested on July 6 and whisked before the panel sitting at the presidential villa in Abuja, was detained for 10 days.





The panel headed by Ayo Salami, former president of the court of panel, has not formally served Magu with the allegations levelled against him.





A source revealed that Wahab Shittu, Magus lawyer, had filed a defence based on the allegations in circulation.





Magus counsel sent in a defence to the presidential panel but it was rejected, the source said.





The panel wondered why the lawyer came up with the defence when Magu had not even been presented with the allegations. Panel members were taken aback on the reaction of the lawyer.





Shittu neither answered calls nor responded to a text message seeking his comment on the development.





While in detention, Magu had requested to see a copy of the allegations to enable him prepare for defence.





Magus lawyer had also asked that a copy of the report of the presidential audit committee which probed the EFCC between May 2015 and May 2020; a copy of the memo of Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), individual petitions submitted to the panel be made available to his client.





saying he was shocked when he read them in newspapers. After regaining freedom, the former acting chairman of the EFCC had described the allegations against him as nonsense,saying he was shocked when he read them in newspapers.





They are nonsense. They are mere trump up allegations to tarnish my image and that of the EFCC. I did not steal or divert or convert funds to private use. I read the allegations and I was shocked, he had said.





He, however, promised to cooperate with the panel.





Magus travails followed a memo by Malami who accused him of grave malfeasance.





He was alleged to have mishandled the recovered loot and sold seized assets to associates.




As people move to live more or of their life online due to the coronavirus pandemic, cybercriminals have launched hundreds of attacks against them every minute.

A new report by cybersecurity firm McAfee found that around the world there had been 375 new threats per minute on average during the pandemic and lockdown.

Many of the threats have worked to exploit people's fears about the virus through malicious apps, phishing campaigns, malware and harmful websites.

The Covid-19 Threat Report said that as the world moved online during lockdown, criminals tried to exploit the public's desire for information on the virus.

A new report by cybersecurity firm McAfee says it has seen an average of 375 new threats per minute during the pandemic. Stock image

McAffee said hackers and scammers were also targeting those shopping, banking and carrying out other day-to-day activities online.

Consumer watchdogs and online safety groups have also highlighted scams where criminals pose as contact tracers to try and gain personal information from people.

Both the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Crime Agency (NCA) warned of a surge in cybercrime during lockdown.

The NCSC launched a suspicious email reporting service which allowed the public to forward bogus emails to the centre for investigation.

McAfee fellow and chief scientist Raj Samani said: 'What began as a trickle of phishing campaigns and the occasional malicious app quickly turned into a deluge of malicious URLs and capable threat actors.'

He said they were 'leveraging the world's thirst for more information on Covid-19 as an entry mechanism into systems across the globe.'

Jesus Sanchez-Aguilera Garcia, head of EMEA consumer at McAfee, said it was vital that the public 'stay alert' while online in the face of the increased threats.

'The pandemic changed the way we live our lives, both online and offline,' he said.

'For many, daily activities such as shopping, banking and socialising have shifted to online and this behavioural shift is likely to continue over the coming months.'

As consumers looked to stay entertained online, the researchers saw the number of bogus websites increase from 1,600 to 39,000 in the first weeks of lockdown.

Hackers and scammers were also targeting those shopping, banking and carrying out other day-to-day activities online. Stock image

'This tricked consumers into visiting malicious websites that can be used to install malware or steal personal or financial information and passwords,' said Garcia.

He said this is why it's so important for consumers to stay alert while online and avoid malicious websites that have the potential to cause harm.

He added that the cybersecurity firm had seen scammers use 'Covid-19 themed emails to play into the fears of British consumers and prompt them into unsuspectingly downloading malware onto their personal devices'.

McAfee's report also said it had seen substantial increases in the targeting of public sector bodies, as well as education organisations.

The NCSC has previously confirmed that the NHS has been the target of an increased number of attempted cyberattacks during the pandemic, with the centre supporting the health sector in its defences.

The cybersecurity agency has urged the public to improve their own personal security by using features such as two-factor authentication to secure accounts, as well as use three random words to improve password strength and keeping all software up-to-date.
President Donald Trump, in a shift in rhetoric and tone, encouraged Americans on Tuesday to wear masks if they cannot maintain social distance and warned that the coronavirus pandemic would get worse before it got better.

In his first press briefing in months focused on the outbreak, Trump urged young people to avoid going to crowded bars and maintained that the virus would disappear at some point.

Trump's remarks were a change in strategy from his robust emphasis on reopening the U.S. economy after its long, virus-induced shutdown and represented his first recent acknowledgement of how bad the problem has become.

"It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better - something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is," Trump told reporters.

Nearly 142,000 people have died in the United States from the highly contagious respiratory illness COVID-19, the most of any country.

The Republican president, who downplayed the virus in its early stages and once referred to mask-wearing as politically correct, has been reluctant to wear a face covering himself.

He wore one for the first time in public during a recent visit to a military hospital but has otherwise eschewed putting one on in front of the press.

Mask-wearing has become a partisan issue, with some supporters of the president arguing that requirements to wear one infringe on their civil liberties. Few people wore masks at Trump's first rally since the pandemic in Tulsa, Oklahoma, earlier this summer.

As coronavirus cases skyrocket across the country, including in politically important states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona, Trump, who is trailing Democrat Joe Biden in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, on Tuesday showcased a new position on the importance of covering mouths and noses.

"We're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. They'll have an effect. And we need everything we can get," he said.

Trump said he was getting used to masks and would wear one himself in groups or when on an elevator.

"I will use it, gladly," he said. "Anything that potentially can help ... is a good thing."

A Biden campaign spokeswoman said Trump's assertion that his administration has had a "relentless focus" on COVID-19 was preposterous.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said in an interview with CNN that Trump's new embrace of mask-wearing was a recognition of his mistakes in dealing with the coronavirus.

"This is not a hoax - it is a pandemic that has gotten worse before it will get better because of his inaction, and in fact clearly it is the Trump virus," Pelosi said.

Trump referred to the virus as the "China virus." The novel coronavirus outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

STRATEGY CHANGE

Trump conducted the briefing on his own, without doctors or other members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. His subdued tone contrasted with his previous calls to reopen the economy along with praise for Republican governors who did so and criticism of Democratic governors who implemented tough restrictions in their states.

The strategy shifts come amid tension within his senior staff about the best way to discuss the virus with the American public and frustration among doctors on the task force that their advice is not being heeded.

The reopening has gone too quickly in some states, leading to spikes in cases and an ever-increasing number of deaths. Following Trump's initial lead, some Republican governors have also resisted rules requiring that their populations wear masks.

We're asking Americans to use masks, socially distance and employ vigorous hygiene - wash your hands every chance you get while sheltering high-risk populations. We are imploring young Americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings. Be safe, and be smart, Trump said.

Trump sought to leave some optimism about treatments even as he acknowledged the grim numbers at present.

"I think you're going to see something over the next fairly short period of time - maybe very short period of time - having to do with therapeutics and vaccines that are very good," he said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:

The World Health Organisation's (WHO) Regional Office for Europe has sent a humanitarian cargo worth more than $4 million to Uzbekistan, weighing about 85 tons, Trend reports with reference to UzReport News Agency.

The cargo was purchased by WHO Headquarters through the global COVID-19 Solidarity and Response Fund.

The humanitarian cargo was shipped in two stages. The first consignment included: 619,400 face shields and 2.1 million surgical masks.

The second batch consisted of personal protective equipment, including: goggles (95,200 pieces), protective coats (178,000 pieces), surgical masks (12,000 pieces), KN95 respiratory masks (1.1 million pieces).

The cargo is intended for transfer to the Agency for Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare under the Ministry of Health of Uzbekistan.

The first case of coronavirus infection in Uzbekistan was detected on March 15 in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Virology; it was an Uzbek woman who returned from France. The Ministry of Health later announced that her son, daughter, husband and grandson also tested coronavirus-positive.

The outbreak of the coronavirus began in the Chinese city of Wuhan (an international transport hub), at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

---

Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
(Photo : Brady Bellini / Unsplash) A researcher found flaws as he was using the app.

South Korea is launching a self-isolation app designed to monitor patients in quarantine. However, just like how every app creation is not perfect, researchers found a major flaw, Daily Mail Online reported.

Developed countries like South Korea are placed in more pressure when it comes to mitigating COVID-19. The country uses comprehensive tests, tracing, and isolation measures to lessen the individuals getting infected with the virus.

Security researchers spotted a flaw in the app, particularly on its proximity to hackers who can access information easily, the New York Times said. Furthermore, hackers can be able to pretend but in fact are making unauthorized access and trips outside the quarantine facilities.

App investigation

For instance, Seoul, South Korea-based security researcher Frederic Rechtenstein utilized this self-isolation app to monitor his very own quarantine for 14 days after traveling. However, he instead scrutinized the app and how it works, surprised by what he found.

He found out that the user IDs were not generated randomly, and may be guessable, which enabled him to "encroach" on private data, as part of the research. Furthermore, the app's code in the encryption key, "1234567890123456" within the code is making it way easier for the hacker to decrypt the data anytime they want to gain access.

Also Read: 8 Quarantine Apps You Need to Ease That Boredom

Apologizing

The Korean officials have already apologized for the breach, stating that the issue might be due to the app implementation timeline. Winitech, the developers of the app, stated that staffers may have insufficient expertise and training to ensure that the app is at its most secure.

Hong Seong-bok from Winitech went on to explain that the government's request on features such as adding more surveillance elements may have slowed down the team to complete the app creation, including finding bugs and having to fix them.

However, now, an update in iOS and in Android has already fixed these flaws. More than these, officials are claiming that despite this discovery, there has been no evidence showing that the system has actually been breached, the report added.

COVID-19 pandemic

The plot thickens on finding a cure out of the pandemic. As of press time, there are now over 14 million infected worldwide. This self-isolation app is part of the efforts to curb the spread of the disease, among with several others in the globe.

The race to find the vaccine or cure is even another story. For instance, U.S. officials recently charged Chinese nationals for allegedly stealing and hacking through the vaccination system for COVID-19, CNBC reported.

Correspondent Amada Macias wrote, "According to the 11-count indictment, Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, conducted a global hacking campaign for more than a decade. The indictment alleges that the defendants were able to successfully steal terabytes of data from the United States as well as Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom."

Also Read: COVID-19 Mass Quarantine: Bored Out of Your Mind? Here are Games You Can Play While At Home

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
OTTAWA, ON, July 21, 2020 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada reached another tentative agreement with Canada's largest federal public service union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), on July 21, 2020.

The three-year tentative agreement applies to close to 10,000 represented and unrepresented federal employees in the Technical Services (TC) group. The tentative agreement would provide general economic and group-specific increases totaling 6.64 percent over three years, ending in July 2021, with the lowest increase in the final year, in line with the current economic context. New provisions for caregiver leave, extended parental leave, and up to 10 days of domestic violence leave are also included in the tentative agreement.

The government remains committed to reaching collective agreements with all outstanding bargaining units for this round of bargaining, including those represented by the PSAC.

"We are pleased to have reached another agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada and are encouraged by the progress that we are making in our negotiations. Once again, this tentative agreement demonstrates that our government remains committed to reaching agreements that are mindful of today's economic and fiscal context, fair to employees, and reasonable for Canadians."

- The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, President of the Treasury Board of Canada

Quick Facts

Subject to ratification, the Government of Canada has reached agreements that cover 60 percent of public servants for this round of bargaining.

has reached agreements that cover 60 percent of public servants for this round of bargaining. The Technical Services group includes a diverse range of employees working in federal departments across Canada , including engineering and scientific support personnel, inspectors, general technicians, draftspeople, illustrators, and photographers.

Stay connected

Twitter: @TBS_Canada

Facebook: www.facebook.com/YourGovernmentatWork/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tbs-sct/

SOURCE Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

For further information: Contacts (media): Karl W. Sasseville, Director of Communications and Issues Management, Office of the President of the Treasury Board, 613-369-3170; Media Relations, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Telephone: 613-369-9400, Toll-free: 1-855-TBS-9-SCT (1-855-827-9728), TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired): 613-369-9371, Email: [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca


McSally Introduces Bills to Bar US Deals With Companies Linked to Chinese Military

Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) has introduced two measures that would ban the use of federal money to purchase equipment from companies that are affiliated with Chinas military.

China will do anything to supplant the United States as the dominant world power and theyve been quietly working to gain a foothold in key American sectors, including our technology and transportation sectors, McSally said in a July 21 press release from her office.

The first of the two bills, named No Funds to Chinas Military Acts, would ban the use of federal dollars to purchase goods or services from the 20 Chinese companies the Pentagon recently named as having links to the Chinese military.

The ban would take effect immediately in the fiscal year that the bill is enacted, according to the bill text.

In June, the Pentagon compiled the list after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) requested that the department identify such companies in compliance with section 1237(b) of 1999s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense spending bill. The section called on the Pentagon to determine and publish Communist Chinese military companies operating in the United States, as well as any entity that is owned or controlled by the Peoples Liberation Army, which is the official name of the Chinese military.

The 20 companies include telecom giant Huawei, mobile operators China Mobile and China Telecom, rail car manufacturer CRRC, video surveillance manufacturer Hikvision, shipbuilding companies CSIC and CSSC, aerospace firm AVIC, defense company Norinco, and cloud computing and data-center company Inspur.

CRRC, which is short for China Railway Rolling Stock Corp, is the target of another of McSallys bills, as she raised concerns about the Chinese rail car manufacturers major inroads into the U.S. market in recent years, winning contracts in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

Her other bill, called Secure Our Transit Systems from Chinese Interference Act, would amend a section of Title 49 in the United States Code, to immediately ban the use of federal public transit dollars for the purchase of bus and rail rolling stock from Chinese state-owned or state-supported enterprises, according to the press release. Additionally, it would repeal a two-year exemption, adopted in the code after the 2020 NDAA was passed last year.

The 2020 NDAA contains provisions that ban federal money from being used to procure rail cars and buses from owned or controlled enterprises, such as those from Chinabut includes a two-year delay on implementation for transit companies.

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) would be the only exception. Then, in January, WMATA announced that it was no longer considering CCRC as its supplier for the metros future projects.

Its unbelievable that cities like Chicago are considering transportation bids from companies directly tied to Communist China simply due to the price tag. We cannot allow our public transportation and technology to become a backdoor for the Chinese Communist Party, McSally said.

Politico reported in early July that Chicago transit authority Metra had not ruled out a bid from CRRC to supply new rail cars.

In May, Washington-based trade group Rail Security Alliance (RSA) warned Metra not to use money from the CARES Act, the COVID-19 stimulus package, to buy new passenger rail cars from CRRC.

The Illinois railway supply industry supports more than 41,000 genuine manufacturing jobs. Those jobs will be threatened if CRRC secures the Metra contract. CRRC is notorious for manufacturing railcars and components in China and shipping them to the U.S. for final assembly, RSA said in a statement.

RSA stated that CRRC could outbid its competitors because it receives funding directly from the Communist Chinese government.
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission cleared its Flight Readiness Review Wednesday, an important milestone on its way to the launch pad. The meeting was an opportunity for the Mars 2020 team and launch vehicle provider United Launch Alliance to report on the readiness of the spacecraft, along with the Atlas V rocket, flight and ground hardware, software, personnel, and procedures. The daily launch window on Thursday, July 30, opens at 7:50 a.m. EDT.

"Our deepest thanks go to the many teams who have worked so hard to get Perseverance ready to fly during these challenging times," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "This mission is emblematic of our nation's spirit of meeting problems head-on and finding solutions together. The incredible science Perseverance will enable and the bold human missions it will help make possible are going to be inspirations for us all."

"We're pleased to be passing another milestone with the completion of the Flight Readiness Review," said Matt Wallace, deputy project manager for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. "But we'll keep our heads down through the final prelaunch activities and the opening of the launch window next week, until we're certain this spacecraft is safely on its way. Mars is a tough customer, and we don't take anything for granted."

With all the connections between the spacecraft and Atlas V launch vehicle complete, the majority of business remaining for Mars 2020's Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations (ATLO) team involves checking out every one of the multitude of systems and subsystems onboard the rover, aeroshell, cruise stage, and descent stage.

"NASA can't wait to take the next steps on the surface of Mars with Perseverance," said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The science and technology of this mission are going to help us address major questions about the geologic and astrobiologic history of Mars that we've been working on for decades, and we're excited to take the whole word with us on this journey."

"At this point, the spacecraft has been powered on and will remain so around the clock," said Dave Gruel, ATLO manager for Mars 2020. "The launch operations team will continue to monitor the health of the spacecraft to ensure it's 'Go' for launch  nothing glamorous, but an important part of the job."

The spacecraft and launch teams have one more major review to complete. Scheduled Monday, July 27, the Launch Readiness Review is the last significant checkup before the mission receives final approval to proceed with launch.

"At present, everything is green across the board," said Wallace. "Everyone involved with this endeavor, from the spacecraft team to the launch vehicle team to those working the range, are looking forward to seeing Perseverance begin its long-awaited flight to Mars."

Around 1 p.m. EDT on July 27, or approximately one hour after the Launch Readiness Review ends, the agency will hold a preflight news conference that will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Other prelaunch briefings also will take place July 27, and Tuesday, July 28. A full list of media briefings for the Mars 2020 mission launch is available here:

https://go.nasa.gov/39inOsn

The Perseverance rover's astrobiology mission will search for signs of ancient microbial life. It will also characterize the planet's climate and geology, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first planetary mission to collect and cache selected samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, is building and will manage operations of Perseverance for NASA. The agency's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management. The Mars 2020 mission with its Perseverance rover are part of America's larger Moon to Mars exploration approach that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with sending the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis program.

For more information about the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission, go to:

http://www.nasa.gov/perseverance

For more about NASA's Moon to Mars plans, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


Jaipur, July 22 : The Congress on Wednesday termed the raids conducted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at the residence of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother Agrasain Gehlot and other places as 'a weapon for intimidation'.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said that the ED raids are being conducted as a weapon for intimidation and threatening the MLAs.

"The BJP is challenging the stable government which has been elected by the people. On July 20-21, CBI questioned our MLA Krishna Poonia. The ruling government from Delhi is trying to exert pressure on the state government with these acts," he added.

The ED on Wednesday conducted raids at various locations across the country including the residence of Agrasain Gehlot in connection with the fertilizer scam. The ED team reached wearing PPE kits for the raids.

Surjewala said that on July 21, the Chief Minister's OSD was called by the CBI. Now Agrasain Gehlot has been targeted. These are people who are being raided despite the fact that they are neither in politics nor do they have anything to do with it.

"You might have got the people of other states afraid by such threats, however, the people of Rajasthan and the MLAs of Gehlot will not be afraid with these means," he added.

The ED team started search operations at Agrasain Gehlot's residence in Mandore as well as at his office and shop in Pivot. Armed personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force were deployed during the operation.

Agrasain Gehlot owns an office and a shop in Pavta, named Anupam Agricultural Fertilizer. This office and shop date back to 1980. The Chief Minister has been running his election office from this place since the beginning. An office is built above this two-storey shop and all election related work is done from here. Apart from this, the Chief Minister has been addressing public meetings in front of this shop from the beginning before he goes to file his nomination papers.

The ED team also reached the residence of Congress former MP Badriram Jakhad who is known to be a strong supporter of Ashok Gehlot.
PEDRO (not his real name), a former seaman, is hopeful that he will recover his investment of almost P1 million following the arrest of Kapa-Community Ministry International Inc. founder Joel Apolinario.

Like many others, he had hoped of earning three times as much as his investment. He lost his money when authorities raided Kapas office in Compostela town last year.

I am hoping that with his arrest, my investment will be returned to me. What I invested were my savings when I was still working overseas, Pedro said.

He was among the Kapa investors who filed a case against Apolinario before the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG 7) last year.

Other investors who want to get their money back should also file complaints to strengthen the criminal case against Kapa and its officers, said Oliver Leonardo, assistant director of the Enforcement and Investor Protection Department of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Separate yung filing for the recovery of your investment. You can file this pursuant to a particular section of the Securities Regulation Code. If you have suffered from any violation committed by these people representing Kapa, you can do so, Leonardo told SunStar Cebu on Wednesday, July 22, 2020.

Kapa investors may also file a case for estafa and breach of contract, he added.

Leonardo said court hearings on the cases filed against Kapa and its officers are now expected to push through although there might be some delays because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis.

Police Maj. Ronald Alan Tolosa, CIDG 7 deputy chief, said they expect the courts to issue more warrants of arrest against Apolinario and other Kapa officers.

Special task group

The Philippine National Police has created a special task group (STG) to address concerns of the victims and track down other individuals, particularly government officials and police and military personnel, who were involved in the scam.

PNP Chief Archie Gamboa ordered Caraga Police Regional Office Director Joselito Esquivel Jr. to form the STG on Wednesday, a day after Apolinario and 23 others were arrested in Surigao del Sur.

Story continues

Police served an arrest warrant and search warrant against Apolinario early Tuesday morning, July 21, at a resort in Sitio Dahican in Barangay Handamayan in Lingig town.

A shootout ensued between the police and Apolinarios followers, killing two men and wounding another.

Apolinario and 23 others were arrested while 49 firearms of various caliber and assorted rounds of ammunition were seized.

Kapa started operations in 2017 in Bislig, Surigao del Sur, enticing its members to invest a minimum of P10,000 in exchange for a 30 percent monthly return for life. It expanded across Mindanao before reaching the Visayas and Luzon.

Charges

Charges against Apolinario stemmed from the complaint filed by SEC against Kapa in 2019 for the alleged unauthorized sale or offering for sale or distribution of securities to the general public.

The SEC revoked Kapas certificate of registration and secured over P100 million of its assets based on the asset freeze order issued by the Court of Appeals.

Following the order of President Rodrigo Duterte to close all Kapa offices, the National Bureau of Investigation raided at least 13 Kapa offices from various parts of the country in 2019.

All Kapa offices have remained closed while Apolinario and other officers went into hiding after charges were filed against them.

Leonardo said Apolinario, trustee Margie Danao and corporate secretary Reyna Apolinario were charged with violating Sections 8(8.1), 26.1 and 28 of Republic Act No. 8799, or the Securities Regulations Code, before the Bislig City Regional Trial Court Branch 29.

The same charges were filed against Marisol Diaz, Adelfa Fernandico, Moises Mopia and Reniones Catubig.

The DOJ also charged Diaz before the Rizal Regional Trial Court for violation of Section 28 and filed a similar information against Mopia and Fernandico before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 93. (WBS, AYB, JKV, SunStar Philippines)
CHICAGO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Power Tools Market with COVID-19 impact Analysis by Mode (Electric (Corded & Cordless), Pneumatic), Tool Type (Drilling & Fastening, Sawing, Demolition, Material Removal), Application (Industrial (Construction, Automotive, Aerospace, Energy), DIY) - Global Forecast to 2025", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Power Tools Market is projected to grow from USD 29.5 billion in 2020 to USD 36.9 billion by 2025; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.6% from 2020 to 2025. The key factors fueling the growth of the market growing adoption of cordless power tools, rising demand for fastening tools in industrial environments, and growing construction industry in emerging economies are the key factors driving the growth of the power tools market. The power tools market offers several opportunities for manufacturers to focus smart connectivity for power tools.

Ask for PDF Brochure:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=50744034

"Drilling and fastening tools to lead power tools market during forecasted period"

Currently, drilling and fastening tools hold the largest market share among all other tool types in the power tools market, and a similar trend is likely to continue during the forecast period. Drills or impact drills are used for drilling and screw driving applications. Electric drilling and fastening tools are used by professionals and DIY consumers, while most pneumatic drilling and fastening tools are used in industrial environments such as automotive and aerospace manufacturing plants. However, several industrial units across the world have suspended their operations owing to the outbreak of the COVID-19. This is expected to create a temporary slag in the growth of the power tools market in 2020.

"Market for electric power tools to grow at fastest CAGR from 2020 to 2025"

Electric power tools are operated either through battery, based on application, or through corded power supply. Corded electric tools are plug-n-play tools, whereas cordless tools are easy to operate, efficient, and handy in nature. Due to their ergonomic advantages, end users prefer cordless tools over conventional tools. The European Union has already banned the use of nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) for power tool batteries due to the toxic properties of cadmium. Majority of manufacturers are focusing more on launching cordless tools powered by lithium-ion batteries. As a result, the demand for cordless electric power tools with lithium-ion batteries is likely to increase during the forecast period.

"Industrial application to hold larger market share for power tools in 2020"

Power tools are used in several industries, such as construction, automotive, aerospace, energy, and shipbuilding. The construction industry is at the leading position in the power tools market as these tools are used in a majority of construction projects. Energy sector is likely to have high growth opportunities in the near future owing to increasing installation of renewable power plants across the world. Fastening power tools have major applications in automotive, aerospace, and energy industries. However, during the period of economic depression due to COVID-19 pandemic, the difficulties that power tool manufacturers and their customers face in accessing credits strongly affect the sector as credits are critical for investments.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Power Tools Market"

130 - Tables

43 - Figures

190 - Pages

Inquiry Before Buying:

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_BuyingNew.asp?id=50744034

"North America to be largest market for power tools during forecast period"

North America is expected to dominate the global power tools market during the forecast period. In North America, power tools are extensively used for both industrial and residential/DIY applications. The DIY trend is already prevalent among consumers in this region and is likely to continue to drive the demand for power tools, especially for cordless tools. The US is expected to hold the largest share of the North American power tools market. Manufacturing companies based in the US are expected to drive the demand for power tools. The construction industry is expected to witness significant demand in the near future, which will drive the demand for power tools.

Major players in the power tools market are Stanley Black & Decker (US), Techtronic Industries (Hong Kong), Robert Bosch (Germany), Makita Corporation (Japan), Hilti Corporation (Liechtenstein), Atlas Copco (Sweden), Apex Tool Group (US), Ingersoll-Rand (Ireland), KOKI Holdings (Japan), and Snap-on Incorporated (US).

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Outdoor Power Equipment Market by Equipment Type (Lawn Mower (Lawn Tractor, Zero-turn, Walk-behind, Robotic), Chain Saw, Trimmer & edger), Application (Commercial, Residential), Power Source (Fuel, Electric), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2024

DC Torque Tool Market by Type (Handheld and Fixtured Tools), Power Source (Corded and Cordless), Control System (Transducer and Current), Industry (Automotive, Aerospace, and Energy), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023

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Fifteen people were shot near a funeral home on the South Side of Chicago and one person was taken into custody Tuesday night, authorities said as President Donald Trump prepares to deploy federal agents to the city in an effort to curb gun violence.

Officials described a scene of shocking, sudden violence, with a shootout unfolding on city streets outside a funeral home.

People were leaving a funeral at Rhodes Funeral Services at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday when a car approached them and the people inside opened fire, Chicago Police Department spokesman Tom Ahern told The Washington Post. People outside the funeral home then fired back. The car crashed and three or four occupants fled in separate directions, authorities said.

In a briefing Wednesday morning, Brendan Deenihan, chief of detectives for the Chicago police, said one of the 15 people injured in the shooting was in "extremely" critical condition, another was in critical condition and doctors believed the rest would recover.

One person has been taken in for questioning, but no arrests have been made in the case, First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said at a news conference Tuesday.

Authorities have not described a motive behind the shooting, but on Wednesday they denounced a cycle of violence and retaliation.

"These victims were all wounded when shots were fired as family members and friends gathered to grieve the loss of a loved one who was killed in a drive-by shooting," David Brown, the Chicago police superintendent, said at the briefing Wednesday.

The shooting came amid an increase in Chicago gun violence and homicides over the past year, one of several major American cities facing an uptick in bloodshed.

"This can't happen," Deenihan said. "You can't drive down the street and indiscriminately shoot into a crowd of people and then flee the scene."

Hours after the funeral home shooting, Deenihan said, there was another horrific shooting elsewhere in the city. A 3-year-old child was in a car with her parents when someone shot into it, hitting her in the head. The child was stable and talking, he said.

At the funeral home, police said they recovered nearly 60 shell casings. Witnesses described a scene more like a combat zone than a city street.

"We went out in the street and all we saw was bodies just laying everywhere. They were shot up everywhere," resident Arnita Geder told the Chicago Sun-Times. "We thought it was a war out here. It's ridiculous all the shooting that's going on out here, it really has to stop."

Brown, the police superintendent, said that the city is confronting an epidemic of gang violence and that at any given time, there are "several hundred gang conflicts" simmering.

He also said the only way for the violence to end is for people to stop turning to guns in retaliation.

"The cycle of violence in Chicago: Someone gets shot, which prompts someone else to pick up a gun," he said. "This same cycle repeats itself, over and over and over again. . . . Put your guns down."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, said the shooting would have been shocking no matter the circumstances.

"But what makes this incident especially heinous is that the shooters took advantage of family and friends who were gathered to mourn the death of a young man who himself had lost his life just the week before," she said at the briefing Wednesday.

The shooting came as federal agents are preparing to deploy to the city, which Trump has repeatedly criticized for its gun violence over the years, even as the number of shootings and homicides had been declining until this year.

During a Tuesday news conference before the shooting, Lightfoot, who threatened to sue Trump this week if he acted without her permission, appeared cautiously ready to accept federal agents.

The mayor said she had received clarification that the efforts in Chicago would be related to gun violence and not resemble the heavy-handed tactics seen recently in Portland, Ore., where agents have clashed with protesters.

"We welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship," Lightfoot said Tuesday. "We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome the unconstitutional arrests and detainments of our residents, and that is something I will not tolerate."

As The Post has reported, some of the city's leaders remain skeptical of assurances from the Trump administration about the federal agents' role in Chicago.

Asked about how the Chicago Police Department would work with the federal agents, Ahern noted the department's existing relationships with several agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"We've had a long-running, great relationship with all of the agencies in Chicago, and we hope to continue those partnerships," he told The Post.

Chicago is going through one of its most violent years in recent memory. There have been 1,637 shootings in the city this year, up 47% from 1,110 this time in 2019, according to Chicago Police Department data. Homicides have increased by 51%, spiking to 414 as of Sunday from 275 at this time in 2019.

Two shootings - one at Cornell Square Park in 2013 and another at a memorial gathering in 2019 - each left 13 people wounded.

Carter, the deputy superintendent, told reporters that a squad car was assigned to monitor the funeral because of the large number of mourners. It's unclear whether there were any warnings from community anti-violence activists that trouble was imminent, he said. The funeral was for a 31-year-old man who was shot and killed in the past week on the South Side, the Sun-Times reported.

Kenneth Hughes was watching TV when he heard gunfire outside the funeral home. He told WMAQ that he saw a car with "six bullet holes in it" and that it appeared the people who were shot coming out of the service were wearing white.

"Unfortunately, it appears like it was planned because as the people were coming out of the funeral home, then the shots rang out like they were literally waiting on them to come out," Hughes said.

The investigation continues, Ahern said Tuesday.
- The donations were part of Chinese government medical supplies sent to African countries through First Ladies

- The consignment also contained 120 infrared forehead thermometers to be used in fight against coronavirus

- Ministry of Health confirmed additional 637 coronavirus cases in Kenya pushing the national tally to 14,805 as on July 22

China has donated 18,000 surgical masks and 120 infrared forehead thermometers to Beyond Zero Organisation to bolster the country's fight against coronavirus.

The donations were part of medical supplies the Chinese government sent out to African countries towards courtesy of Organisation of African First Ladies for Development.

READ ALSO: 53-year-old patient goes missing at Kenyatta National Hospital

The donations were part of Chinese medical supplies given to African countries through First Ladies. Photo: State House Kenya.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Boni Khalwale scoffs at Oparanya over reports he allocated land for COVID-19 victims' burial

Beyond Zeros coordinator Angella Langat who received Kenya's consignment on behalf of First Lady Margaret Kenyatta said the equipment would go along way in slowing COVID-19 spread.

Kindly convey our warmest and sincere gratitude from Excellency Margaret Kenyatta to Excellency Peng Liyuan for this kind gesture, Langat told Zhao Xiyuan, an official from the Chinese embassy on Wednesday, July 22.

READ ALSO: Cristiano Ronaldo's partner Georgina signs new 5-figure Instagram

READ ALSO: Murang'a: School deputy principal, 2 sons drown in river on way to farm

On his part, Zhao noted the gesture was a reflection of the bilateral relationship between Kenya and China and each country's willingness to hold together in times of adversity.

In the face of COVID-19, China and Kenya have offered mutual support and fought shoulder to shoulder with each other. China shall always remember the invaluable support Kenya gave us at the height of our battle with the coronavirus," he said.

Earlier on the day, Ministry of Health confirmed additional 637 coronavirus cases in Kenya pushing the national tally to 14,805 from 14,168 recorded on Tuesday, July 21.

Speaking on Wednesday, July 22, Health CAS Rashid Aman disclosed there were 93 people discharged from hospitals while 406 others had recovered under home-based care.

This increased the number of recoveries from 6,258 reported on Tuesday to 6,757.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Kamotho, Virginia and Tabitha meet in Court, media barred from covering the custody case | Tuko TV.

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The results of the Karnataka Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) board exams for Class 10 is expected to be released in a few days. Once declared, Karnataka SSLC results 2020 will be available on board's official website - karresults.nic.in.

Talking to ANI, state Primary and Secondary Education Minister S Suresh Kumar had said on Monday that Karnataka SSLC results 2020 will be announced in the first week of August. Kumar added that the process of evaluation will be completed in 10 days.

Here's how to check Karnataka SSLC Results 2020 online:

Step 1: Visit official website i.e. karresults.nic.in or log onto karnataka10.jagranjosh.com

Step 2: Find Direct Link for SSLC Results 2020 Karnataka Board

Step 3: Input your exam roll number and other details asked on the page

Step 4: Verify the details against your hall ticket and submit them on the website

Step 5: Your SSLC Result 2020 Scorecard will be displayed on the screen

Step 6: Download PDF Softcopy or take printout for future reference

Over 8.40 lakh students appeared in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) exam which was organised by the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) from June 25.

The state government had decided to conduct the SSLC or the Class X board exams amid COVID-19 fears, ignoring the opposition's appeal to put them on hold till the coronavirus is brought under total control. Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa had said that there was no connection between the lockdown and the SSLC exams, adding they would go on as per schedule.

Earlier, the KSEEB has said that as many as 8,48,203 students would take up the examination at 2,879 exam centres. The Karnataka Board has also deployed over 1 lakh officials to conduct the exams. According to reports, students came to the examination centres as early as 7 am, and they were allowed inside after undergoing thermal screening and sanitising their hands. The KSEEB has stated that each classroom will have around 18 to 20 students.
CHICAGO  When public swimming pools and beaches closed, the key to surviving a sweltering Chicago summer during the pandemic was simple for those who could afford it: Buy a pool.

For the rest of us, the options are scarce and mostly illegal, like sneaking a swim in sometimes-dangerous waters where there are no lifeguards.

And thats increasingly worrying safety experts, who say the risk of drownings has rarely been higher as Chicago suffers through one of its hottest summers.

There are a lot of factors coming together here that cause us to be concerned about the potential rise in drowning numbers, said Connie Harvey, national director of Aquatics Centennial Initiatives for the American Red Cross.

There are fewer places to swim that are protected by lifeguards, but people are still going to go to the water, she said. Its a hot summer, theyre going to find places to swim.

B.J. Fisher, director of health and safety for the American Lifeguard Association, fears drownings could set a record this year, not just because beaches have been closed, but because of a buying binge for backyard pools.

When you close a beach down and the temps hit triple digits, people are going to seek relief, Fisher said. There are 10 million backyard pools in the United States. There are 309,000 public pools that people expected to be open this year. Theyre filled and treated and then they didnt open.

Regretfully, these kids are out trying to seek some relief from the heat and this is among the easiest ways to do it, he added.

He expects the number of drowning victims worldwide to spike to nearly half a million this year, up from the 350,000 to 380,000 people who typically drown each year. And for every person who drowns, there are 10 more who nearly drown and suffer brain damage from loss of oxygen.



The waves were crashing against Promontory Point on the South Side as a man in his 20s decided to go for a swim this past week. Within minutes, he was pulled underneath the water, according to witnesses who described the man as a good swimmer.

Story continues

As rescue boats bobbed on the rough waters, divers found the man after about 40 minutes and he was pronounced dead at the University of Chicago Medical Center on Thursday afternoon. One of the divers compared the lake there to a washing machine.

Three other people, including two children, have drowned in the Chicago area in just the last two weeks.

 On July 12, a 10-year-old girl visiting Lakeshore Camp Resort in Porter County drowned in about 15 feet of water as she swam from a platform, officials said.

 On July 9, a 12-year-old boy died in Marquette Park Beach in Gary as he was wading in chest-deep water and unexpectedly stepped into deeper water.

 On July 6, a 31-year-old man died at Clark Street Beach in Evanston. The beach was closed and swimmers were being told to get out of the water when someone noticed the man struggling in the water.

In the cases of the children, lifeguards were on duty and still could not prevent the drownings, illustrating how dangerous swimming in lakes can be even when monitored.

While the Illinois Department of Public Health says beaches and pools may now open, Chicago officials have not given their OK in the city.

The Chicago Park District has deployed security and social distance ambassadors to keep people out of the water. Some of the ambassadors are lifeguards, but they arent working in that capacity this summer. Instead, red signs and flags are posted where lifeguards would normally be stationed.

North Side Alderman Maria Hadden, 49th, has been calling for lifeguards to be considered essential personnel and return to work, whether beaches are open or closed. In a June 29 social media post, Hadden complained she had been asking about lifeguards for a month.

Ive been asking for plans from the Park District about providing lifeguards to monitor our shoreline and to prevent drownings. Ive pushed this up the chain to the mayors office as well, she wrote.

Officially the beaches are closed, but people are still going there in droves, she noted. This is not surprising as we saw the same behavior for weeks when the lake shore parks were closed; people still went there.

But Mayor Lori Lightfoot said this past week that its too soon to reopen beaches because of a recent spike in coronavirus cases, especially among younger people.

We open up the beaches, people are going to flock to the beaches, she said this past week, adding its much harder to impose social distancing in those kinds of spaces. So, until we feel like we are in a good place, and right now, as I mentioned, were starting to see a slight uptick in cases.

The mayor added that, even with lifeguards, the beaches would remain a public risk.

We do have some people on the beach, but even if theres lifeguards there, the lake is dangerous, she said. The lake is not safe.

Thats been true historically, its particularly true, I think, now that we have historically high lake levels, and were seeing the waves crashing and really having a fierceness that makes the lake dangerous, Lightfoot added.

Lake levels this month have been averaging a few inches above the previous maximum July monthly average, meaning theres a good chance 2020 will hit a record at months end.

Very high water levels on Lake Michigan are causing piers, jetties, break walls and docks to sit lower in the water than they have in the past, said Brett Borchardt, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. This increases the chances that waves may sweep over them and cause people to be pulled into the lake. Submerged structures could also be a danger to boats on the lake.



Jim Eiler is the vice president of Aqua Pools, with locations in Worth and Homer Glen. He couldnt even remember how many months ago he sold out of self-setup pools, which sell for about $200 to $800.

They went superfast and getting them is impossible, he said.

This year more than any other hes also sold more aboveground pools  the kind that stay up all year long, cost about $5,000 and can last more than 15 years.

Sales are also up for in-ground pools, but hes got clients waiting two and three times as long as usual, up to 12 weeks in some cases, because of material and manufacturing delays.

So many orders are coming in that they cant keep up, he said. Weve never been this busy before.

Eilers father founded the company, so hes spent much of his life around pools. The only time he can remember business being close to this level was after Sept. 11, 2001, when families were afraid to fly and decided to spend their vacation savings on their backyards.

Back then, sales remained high until about 2006. This time, the boom should easily extend to next year, but hes concerned what will happen after that.

I heard one story where a person posted online that they bought too many of those flip-and-fill kiddie pools, the kind that sells for $90. He listed them for $400, Eiler said. What happens when people go back to their normal lives and realize no one is using the pool? Theres going to be a surplus of never or rarely used pools on those kinds of online marketplaces.

Safety experts point to the lack of regulation around these kinds of pools that people often leave full all season long, sometimes without a cover. They dont require a permit and arent subject to laws that require fencing.

A lot of people do not understand the dangers that go along with that pool purchase, said Harvey, with the American Red Cross. Theyre not really thinking through what their safety plan should be.

Now you add on the fact that everybodys locked down at their home, parents have more distractions than ever before, the kids are at home more because schools are shut down, summer camps arent operating and parents are still trying to work from home, she said. And so the distraction that goes along with having a body of water in your area, its just a tremendous risk and its harder because youre juggling more things as parents and caregivers.



Harvey said the Red Cross has adapted to the times by offering safety instructional classes and videos online. The organization is also working with the Chicago Park District and the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago to offer free in-person instruction when available, though classes are limited.

A lot of times spring is when theyll do water safety in schools and when families are getting prepped for summer, and thats when everybody started being shut down, she said. We asked, What can we do virtually to help support schools and our partners? So we took some of our materials traditionally done in an instructor-led way and transitioned those to online.

The Red Cross Water Safety for Parents and Caregivers online course focuses on developing an awareness of the risks of drowning and how to minimize those risks, especially for young children. Kids also can do independent exercises on its Water Safety for Kids site, which offers videos, activities and quizzes. Parents and caregivers can learn CPR, how to treat heat emergencies, control bleeding and other skills in the free American Red Cross First Aid app.

Harvey referred people to the Red Cross site for other safety ideas, such as always having a designated water watcher for backyard pools. It can be particularly dangerous when you have many adults around a pool because theres a tendency for everyone to think someone else is watching, meaning no one ends up watching closely, she said.

The Red Cross also teaches the phrase, Reach or throw, dont go because so often when a person is struggling to swim, an untrained rescuer will put themselves into rough water trying to help.

You want something that the victim can grab ahold of and you dont want that to be another rescuer, especially someone who is untrained, she said. Weve seen too often someone tries to help and they go in the water themselves and the original swimmer makes it out but the rescuer becomes a fatality.

She also recommended emptying small pools of water after each use, or at least covering them and removing any ladder access. If a fence is cost-prohibitive, she said new pool owners should at least consider door and window alarms for every exit point nearest the water.

A backyard swimming pool is great fun, she said. But it can also be a grave danger.



(Chicago Tribunes John Byrne contributed to this report.)



2020 Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
US's Pompeo repeats widely-disregarded appeal for arms embargo on Iran

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 6:56 PM

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeated a widely-disregarded call for the extension of an arms embargo on Iran that is due to expire in a matter of months under an international deal with Tehran, even though a US attempt at the United Nations (UN) to have that embargo extended is most likely to fail.

At a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in London on Tuesday, Pompeo said the two had discussed the "importance" of extending the arms embargo, which is due to expire in October.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has been attempting what it has called a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran since 2018, when Washington pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal.

The embargo, a remnant of the Western dispute with Iran over its nuclear program, is due to be lifted in October under the deal, which brought the dispute in its original form to an end in 2015. The United States, whose unilateral withdrawal from the Iran deal faced strong backlash from much of the international community, has been attempting to have the embargo extended. It has submitted a draft resolution to that effect to the UN Security Council, but has faced strong opposition from Russia and China and ambivalence from its own European allies.

To circumvent possible vetoes by Russia and China, the US plans to make the bizarre case that it legally remains a "participant state" to the nuclear deal and can thus invoke a mechanism in it to snap UN sanctions on Iran back into place.

In late June, Pompeo faced a sharp reprimand from world powers, including its allies, over that argument.

Iran has made it clear that the US is no more a party to the deal. So have Russia, China, and the EU.

The nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached between Iran and what was then called the P5+1 group of countries  namely the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany.

Trump had long attacked the deal  which he saw as a legacy of former US President Barack Obama  before he withdrew America from it in 2018.

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In an apparent effort to boost Make in India initiative of the Government, the Acquisition Wing of Union Ministry of Defence has signed a contract with Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) for procurement of 1,512 Mine Plough (MP) for Tank T-90 S/SK at an approximate cost of Rs 557 crore.

The contract, signed after the approval of Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, has Buy and Make (Indian) categorisation with a minimum of 50 per cent indigenous content in make portion of the contract.

These mine ploughs manufactured by BEML will be fitted on T-90 Tanks of Indian Armoured Corps which will facilitate individual mobility to T-90 tanks while negotiating mine field. The mine ploughs will also enhance the mobility of tank fleet and it would ultimately extend the reach of Armoured Formation deep into enemy territory without becoming mine causality.

With the induction of these 1,512 mine ploughs, planned to be completed by 2027, the combat capability of the Indian Army will be further enhanced.

It is to be noted that the Russian-origin T-90 main battle tanks were recently deployed by Indian Army in the Galwan Valley sector of Ladakh amid the border dispute with China.

BEML is an Indian Public Sector Undertaking with headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The company manufactures a variety of heavy equipment, such as that used for earth moving, transport and mining. BEML has manufacturing plants in Kolar Gold Fields, Bengaluru, Mysore and Palakkad.
In this article MS

Sandbags surround the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Oct. 30, 2012, after Hurricane Sandy. The storm was a stark reminder of the rising risks of climate change. Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

As the Federal Reserve Bank works to shore up the U.S. economy amid an unprecedented global crisis, top institutional investors and climate advocacy groups sent Fed Chair Jerome Powell a warning this week about another global risk that has no short-term fix: the climate crisis. "There will never be a vaccine for climate," said Steven Rothstein, managing director at investor climate advocacy group Ceres. Ceres, along with 72 other signatories, including investors managing close to $1 trillion in assets, nonprofits and public officials, wrote a letter to Powell urging the Fed chair and other regulators to enact regulatory requirements to address the systemic market risks posed by climate change. The letter followed a report released on June 1 that outlined 51FFca recommendations for the Federal Reserve and other financial regulators to address climate change. "The pandemic has exposed that the U.S. is particularly vulnerable to shocks that hit our collective well-being like those related to health and climate; that financial markets cannot perform the work of assuring collective well-being; and that the magnitude of a crisis is determined not just by the impact of precipitating events, but by the fragility of the system it attacks," wrote Sarah Bloom Raskin, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and former member of the Federal Reserve board of governors, in the report. The top recommendations include uniform regulations for financial institutions to measure and disclose the impact their loans and investments have on emissions, and integrating climate into risk assessments to prevent economic downturns and manage financial stability. Late last year the Bank of England became the first central banker to create a stress test for climate. At the time, Mark Carney, the Bank of England's governor, said climate change "will affect the value of virtually every financial asset." Currently, there is minimal to no regulation in place for U.S. banks to measure or even acknowledge their impact on climate change and extreme weather events. The coronavirus pandemic has expanded the concept of extreme risk from just five months ago, when most individuals and companies would not have been able to imagine the shutdowns that results from Covid-19. "A scenario no one would bother putting into a stress test and now we're living in it, and there's a parallel to be drawn with the climate," said Dan Saccardi, senior director and banking expert at Ceres. "It may not be that extreme that quickly, but it's not far-fetched to imagine the typical risk, and there should be some real meaningful policy with the economic transition. ... We can plan for it [climate change], be proactive and be prepared."

What the Fed has said about climate change

Earlier this year, Powell said that while the U.S. response to climate change is ultimately in the hands of elected officials, the Fed has a role to play to stabilize U.S. banks and financial markets. "The public has every right to expect and will expect that we will ensure that the financial system is resilient and robust against the risks of climate change," Powell said at a news conference following the Fed's January meeting. Powell also indicated the Fed may join the Network for Greening the Financial System, an international consortium devoted to climate risks. "We've been looking at joining in one form or another. ... We probably will do that at some point," Powell said. More than 30 central banks from around the world, including the European Central Bank and the People's Bank of China, are part of the network, which launched in 2017.

In a May 2019 response to a letter from U.S. senators, including Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, concerned about climate and markets, Powell wrote, "As I have commented previously, although addressing climate change is a responsibility that Congress has entrusted to other agencies, the Federal Reserve does use its authorities and tools to prepare financial institutions for severe weather events." Powell continued: "Some potential risks are difficult to quantify, and especially if they materialize over such a long horizon that methods beyond near-term analysis and monitoring are appropriate. Accordingly, we rely on ongoing research by academics, our staff and other experts to improve our understanding and measurement of such longer-run or difficult-to-quantify risks." A Federal Reserve research paper from last March indicated that "in coming decades, climate change  and efforts to limit that change and adapt to it  will have increasingly important effects on the U.S. economy. These effects and their associated risks are relevant considerations for the Federal Reserve in fulfilling its mandate for macroeconomic and financial stability."

What Wall Street is doing about carbon

With mitigating risks and stabilizing the economy on the forefront of concerns, major Wall Street banks already have taken steps to improve their policies on climate and allocate funds toward clean energy, infrastructure development and supporting climate action. This week, Morgan Stanley became the first investment bank to say it would measure and disclose how its loans and investments impact climate change, joining the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, or PCAF, which is developing a standard of measuring impact across other financial firms. "They are at a place where they are feeling, both from their clients, shareholders and regulators, the need to disclose what that risk is," said Brian O'Hanlon, principal for global climate finance at the Rocky Mountain Institute, one of the 72 signatories on the letter addressed to Powell. Joining PCAF, which is the largest organization dedicated to carbon accounting, will help Morgan Stanley to disclose the links between financing made to clients and carbon emissions, as well as the emissions its operations generate. Although Morgan Stanley is the first major U.S. bank to join PCAF, other Wall Street banks are taking steps in the right direction. According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, which teams with JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Wells Fargo to launch the Center for Climate-Aligned Finance. Each of the banks has committed large sums to spur the transition to a low-carbon economy, with Goldman Sachs putting forth $750 billion by 2030 to address climate change in their operations, investments and financing. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said earlier this year at the Davos World Economic Forum, "There is a huge opportunity, whether it is green bonds or different types of financing for solar installations or wind installations." And as more companies seek carbon neutrality, that will drive demand for new technology, he said. Bank of America has committed $300 billion to sustainable investments over the next decade.
Georgia has reported 24 new COVID-19 cases today which is the highest figure since June.



The source of infection in 22 cases of the 24 new cases has been identified.



Head of Georgias National Centre for Disease Control Amiran Gamkrelidze said that 10 new cases are from Gardabani municipality of eastern Georgia, five new patients had contact with infected individuals, while seven new cases are imported (five are truck drivers).



The state agencies are trying to identify the source of infection in the remaining two patients. The figure gives no reason to panic. However, we should act very cautiously, Gamkrelidze said.



More than 700 residents of Gardabani municipality, which is inhabited mostly by ethnic minorities, were tested for the coronavirus yesterday as more than 10 inhabitants of the municipality have tested positive for the coronavirus over the past several days.



Director of Tbilisi Hospital of Infectious Diseases Marina Ezugbaia says that the increase in the figure is absolutely normal as hundreds of people were tested for the virus yesterday, Agenda.ge reported.



Ezugbaia stated that the figure will decrease again in the following days. She said that many of the new patients tested positive for the virus while in quarantine.



Since February 26, 2020, when the country reported its first case of the coronavirus, Georgia has had 1,073 cases, 907 of the 1,073 patients have recovered, while 16 others have died. As of today 150 people remain infected with COVID-19 in the country.
He recently revealed that wife Wendy 'Fifi' Barlow has tested positive for COVID-19.

But Ric Flair was still willing to ignore CDC recommendations and venture out in public without a mask last Friday, as seen in photos obtained by DailyMail.com.

The 71-year-old wrestling legend even hit up a Starbucks drive through in Duluth, Georgia without any sort of facial covering.

Taking a chance: Despite his wife testing positive for COVID-19, Ric Flair was still willing to ignore CDC recommendations and venture out in public without a mask last Friday, as seen in photos obtained by DailyMail.com

The athlete, whose real name is Richard Morgan Fliehr, also paid for his coffee with a twenty dollar bill.

The CDC has also advised Americans to pay without using cash where possible, as the coronavirus can be transferred via the bill.

Later, the retiree returned to the home he shares with Barlow, while carrying his caffeinated beverage and sporting a T-shirt bearing his own name.

Coffee run: Later, the retiree returned to the home he shares with Barlow, while carrying his caffeinated beverage and sporting a T-shirt bearing his own name

Denial: Flair has previously denied reports he also has the coronavirus

Flair has previously denied reports he also has the coronavirus.

The 16-time pro wrestling world champ, speaking with the New York Post Monday, said that Barlow have been cohabitating separately in the same 5,000 sq. foot home in Georgia.

'My wife does,' Flair told the outlet. 'I live in the basement. She lives upstairs on the third floor and she got sick.'

The latest: Flair says while he doesn't have the coronavirus, but his wife Wendy 'Fifi' Barlow does. The 16-time pro wrestling world champ, speaking with the New York Post Monday, said that Barlow have been cohabitating separately in the same 5,000 sq. foot home in Georgia

An insider told the Post that Flair had tested positive as recently as last Wednesday, and is generally asymptomatic aside from coughing. Barlow is dealing with more serious complications from the disease, the insider told the outlet.

Flair called reports that he's personally tested positive for the virus 'absolutely incorrect,' adding that he's in 'excellent' condition.

The former NWA champ has past used his name to promote the American College Of Surgeons' campaign to keep people at home to quell the spread of the pandemic.

An insider told the Post that Flair had tested positive as recently as last Wednesday, and is generally asymptomatic aside from coughing

Concern: Flair would be in a group that's especially vulnerable to the virus, as he had health problems three years ago amid an extended hospitalization over heart and kidney issues

I'm 'telling you, asking you, to stay home and stop the spread, and to thank all the people in the world of medicine today that are working to bring this virus to an end - let's do this together, stay home and stop the spread,' Flair said in a spot.

Flair would be in a group that's especially vulnerable to the virus, as he had health problems three years ago amid an extended hospitalization over heart and kidney issues.

In Flair's home state of Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp has not made masks mandatory, but health officials advise that anyone who's tested positive or exhibited symptoms to remain at home.

Defining moment: Flair took on Shawn Michaels in Orlando in his 2008 retirement match

Georgias Department of Public Health advised people who test positive, 'You must not go outside your home unless you need medical care or in the event of an emergency, such as a fire.

'Do not go to work, school, or public areas, and do not use public transportation, Uber/Lyft, or taxis.'

A number of celebrities have publicly confirmed testing positive for the virus, including Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Idris Elba, Prince Charles and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

As of Tuesday, the death total for COVID-19 was at 141,883 people in the U.S., with 3,891,893 total positive diagnoses, Johns Hopkins University reported. On a global level, 613,879 people have died amid 14,845,978 positive diagnoses worldwide.
Homeland Security Chief Says Federal Actions in Portland, Chicago Are Different

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Chad Wolf announced Wednesday that federal law enforcement agents will be sent to Chicago and Albuquerque, but he stressed that their mission will differ from the recent action in Portland.

Wolf said that in Chicago, citizens are shooting and killing each other on the streets, and in Portland, anarchists are attacking a federal courthouse. The agents that were deployed in Portland were there to protect a federal courthouse after it was attacked.

Every reasonable American agrees with the basic premise that every 4-year-old should be able to sleep safely in their beds  we will work with our federal law enforcement partners to keep that promise, he said in a White House news conference.

President Donald Trump first announced there will be an increase in federal officers to fight crime in Chicago in the wake of numerous violent weekends that have left dozens of people dead and injured, including small children.

Today Im taking action to fulfill the sacred obligation, Trump said in a White House speech. In recent weeks, theres been a radical movement to defund, dismantle, and dissolve our police departments. Extreme politicians have joined this anti-police crusade and relentlessly, vilified our law enforcement heroes.

Chicago police investigate the scene of a mass shooting where more then a dozen people were shot in the Gresham neighborhood of Chicago, Ill., on July 21, 2020. (Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times/AP)

He added, To look at it from any standpoint, the effort to shut policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes, violence. This bloodshed must end.

The administrations intervention in law enforcement across various cities comes as the president runs on a law-and-order platform in the wake of demonstrations, riots, and calls to defund the police.

The FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals service, and homeland security will together be sending hundreds of skilled law enforcement officers to Chicago to help drive down violent crime, Trump remarked.

A man stands next to a fire at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 21, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Wolf and the Trump administration faced criticism from Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, both Democrats, for sending DHS officers to the city to make arrests.

A day before, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot confirmed the deployment.

What I understand at this point, and I caveat that, is that the Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago, Lightfoot, a Democrat, told reporters on Tuesday. We have information that allows us to say, at least at this point, that we dont see a Portland-style deployment coming to Chicago.

Unlike what happened in Portland, what we will receive is resources that are going to plug in to the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime, the Chicago mayor said. Ive been very clear that we welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship, according to USA Today.
A month after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo issued her order mandating that businesses require customers wear masks, indications are emerging that the novel coronavirus surge in the Houston area may be starting to taper off.

The improvement is reflected in a number of recent trends  a plateau, then decline, in Texas Medical Center hospitalizations; a drop in the positive diagnostic test rate in the metro area; and a downward trajectory in the amount of viral spread in the community. The improvement follows a post-Fourth of July spike that halted earlier momentum.

It appears we are making the turn, that distancing and wearing masks is taking effect and slowing transmission, said William McKeon, CEO of the medical center. Weve still got a long way to go, but at least were not headed in the cataclysmic direction we were a few weeks ago.

Dr. Marc Boom, president of Houston Methodist, added that its been a good solid week of encouraging data, but the $64,000 dollar question is, can we sustain it? We had the numbers going in the right direction before Memorial Day only to see things worsen.

Things worsened to the point that people began calling Houston the next New York City. The areas medical emergency response agency reported difficulty transferring patients in need of care to Houston-area hospitals. And some medical center facilities were boarding patients in their emergency departments for 24 hours or more because of the lack of available staffed beds. In addition, the medical center implemented the first phase of its surge plan and warned that it was nearing crisis levels.

Houston Chronicle

On June 19, Hidalgo issued her mask requirement and two weeks later Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a similar one for most counties.

But the two officials remain at loggerheads about the need for another stay-at-home order. The first was highly disruptive to the Texas economy, but was widely credited with keeping the virus spread under control.

Case counts grew steadily after Abbott began reopening the economy May 1. Cases particularly spiked following the Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends. The governors current order prevents local leaders from issuing a new stay-at-home order.

The Houston areas signs of improvement contrasted with another tough day for the state, which recorded more than 10,000 new cases and 157 deaths Tuesday. The death total is the states second most since the pandemic began.

Dr. James McDeavitt, dean of clinical affairs at Baylor, said Tuesday he thinks the recent Houston-area trends are encouraging enough that we dont need additional measures that will slow the economy down. I dont think we need to do anything differently right now.

The mask order, the closure of bars and restrictions on restaurants, the work already done, and the fact that the public has finally recognized this is a serious issue and started to take masking and social distancing more seriously and broadly is having the desired effect, said McDeavitt. I think we should start to see things really improve over the next couple weeks.

One reason for the optimism of local medical leaders: McDeavitt and others cited a 2.2 percent decrease in medical center hospitalizations in the last seven days. And after seven consecutive weeks of increasing numbers of hospitalizations for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, such numbers have now decreased both of the last two weeks.

For instance, admissions are down at Houston Methodist and the Memorial Hermann Health System, the Houston-area hospital chains that have treated the most COVID-19 patients. Memorial Hermanns census was 923 Tuesday, down from 980 a week ago. Methodists was 733 Tuesday, down from 766 on July 13.

The improvement in the positive COVID-19 test rate in the medical center has been less pronounced but at least is on the downward slope. The percent of people testing positive rose from five in mid-May to 23 on July 9. Since then, it has dropped to 19 percent.

Viral spread

The greatest enthusiasm for the idea that COVID-19 has peaked in the Houston area are estimates of the current amount of viral spread in the region.

Such estimates track the number of people to whom each person infected with the virus transmits it  more than one and the virus spreads exponentially, less than one and spread declines. If each person spreads the virus to one person, numbers remain essentially the same.

Under new estimates produced at Baylor, the number rose for seven straight days  from .94 on July 6 to 1.47 on July 13. Since then, it has decreased for seven straight  to .81 Monday.

Chris Amos, a Baylor professor of quantitative science who conducted the work, said if Houston is able to maintain that rate for three months, there would be just 7 percent as many cases in the area then as there are now. At four months, there would be just 3 percent as many. He said he is not optimistic the area would be able to drop the rate below .80 without a stay-at-home order.

The improvement in the number reflects better behavior by our populace, which we must continue to make sure that our kids are able to safely return to school in the fall, said Amos. Wearing masks when out, which is contributing to lower transmission, is a really easy thing to do.

Darrell Pile, CEO of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, noted, however, that the virus remains fiercely among us and at once unthinkable levels. Any relaxation can cause a new spike, Pile said.

McKeon said its important for people to develop the mindset that the virus is going to be around for a long while.

We can only continue to get the numbers down  tenfold from where they are now  if people adopt the proper behavior as a long-term strategy, McKeon said.

This is war. People need to sacrifice for the greater good of the community by wearing a mask and practicing social distancing  not just weekly or monthly but until the virus is eliminated.

todd.ackerman@chron.com
TEHRAN, Iran, July 22

Trend:

Iran has good political relations with Russia and China, and these relations have become stronger in recent weeks, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said, Trend reports via IRNA.

"I've sent a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding strengthening of ties between Iran and Russia on both regional and international levels," Rouhani said.

Rouhani expressed hope that Iran's cooperation with the neighboring countries, including Russia, Iraq, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and Afghanistan, along with neighbors in the Caspian basin and the Persian Gulf, would improve.

The president pointed out that Iran has made diplomatic efforts in recent weeks, and the country held important meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazemi.

"The two countries had important agreements regarding customs, transportation, economy, banking relations, and hopefully, they will be implemented," said the president.

Rouhani noted that Iran has settled for proper policies in the past 7 years in economic, political matters, regional security, trilateral relations, with various countries, and this policy will continue.
From being an outsider just a few years ago to becoming one of the biggest phone makers in the country, OnePlus has seen a meteoric rise in its journey. Through the years, it has written many new chapters with its products, and now the company has started an all-new one with its mid-range offering, the OnePlus Nord.

In a way, it is a second take by the company on creating a more affordable phone. The first was OnePlus X, which OnePlus later said was a mistake. But it seems lessons have been learned well because the OnePlus Nord, the second take, is right up there with the company's more expensive phones in terms of what it brings to users. It brings a lot.

The OnePlus Nord has been launched in India at a starting price of Rs 24,999 for the 6GB+64GB RAM and variant and goes up to Rs 29,999 for the top-end 12GB RAM and 256GB storage one. At the price, it is not only the most affordable OnePlus smartphone in the country right now, but more importantly, is an attempt by the company to reclaim a segment of the market that it had slowly vacated over the last few years because of the gradual rise in prices of its smartphones.

As a new product line, Nord uses the same formula that has made past OnePlus smartphones such a big hit with buyers in the country. In essence, the OnePlus Nord promises all the same things that the more expensive OnePlus flagships offer. We have the same flagship-like performance, and refined software experience paired to an attractive design -- albeit now being provided at a much more affordable price than we have seen in the recent past.

But while the price of the OnePlus Nord is definitely the biggest talking point here, there is much else to talk about here. Here are our initial impressions of the OnePlus Nord.

OnePlus Nord: Design and display

Despite being an "affordable" mid-range phone, the OnePlus Nord looks and feels very much like it belongs to the premium category of devices. And, much of it is to do with the fact that it builds on the core burden-less design philosophy that OnePlus introduced with the uber-premium OnePlus 8 series of phones.

As such, from the moment you first lay eyes on the OnePlus Nord, to the moment you hold it, the phone successfully manages to establish itself as a far more premium device than it actually is. While there is no curved display, or a fancy frosted glass back panel to give the phone an edge over the competition, the OnePlus Nord still manages to maintain a rather premium profile with the use of glass both at the front and back of the phone.

The basic design elements, including the finish of the back panel, the vertically placed camera set-up, the placement of the OnePlus logos, and the general attention to detail -- for example with the quality of the material used on the alert slider -- all help to make the Nord feel like an extension of the premium OnePlus phone line-up of phones, and not just a new line-up under the OnePlus brand name. Another thing to note about the OnePlus Nord's design is just how lightweight it is. At 184g, it feels easy in the palm, and with its curves at the back, is also quite comfortable to grip in the hand.

The display on the phone is a 6.44-inch AMOLED panel running at a refresh rate of 90Hz. It is rated to provide 408ppi pixel density and 20:9 aspect ratio. For protection, the display is covered by a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. In our limited interactions with the device till now, we found this panel to be quite a delight to use. It gets plenty bright and generally outputs vibrant and punchy colours. Text looks crisp on it, and overall, the phone's panel feels quite good for a mid-range phone.

The panel also houses a dual punch-hole, which actually feels like a nice design element at the front, and also hides beneath the surface an in-display fingerprint scanner. The latter is quite responsive and fast.

OnePlus Nord: What's under the hood?

Beneath the surface, there's a rather powerful mid-range chipset in the Snapdragon 756G which has been paired with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.1 storage. This hardware is tasked to run a clean copy of the OxygenOS 10 operating system based on Android 10.

On the spec sheet, this is the most noticeable of differences between the flagship OnePlus 8 series devices and the Nord, however, once you get to start using the phone, you realise the Snapdragon 765G chipset does quite a good job at bringing flagship-grade performance to users. On paper, there may seem a lot of difference between the Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 765G, while using the device I found the Nord to be snappy and responsive.

Keeping the lights on the device is a 4115 mAh rechargeable battery with support for fast 30-watt recharge via the USB Type-C port. This pack generally lasts a day on a single charge and can be topped up just as fast using the Warp charger that the company is bundling with the device.

OnePlus Nord: Cameras

For cameras, the OnePlus Nord gets a quad-lens set-up that houses a 48-megapixel Sony IMX 586 sensor with an f/1.75 lens and Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) + Electronic Image Stabilisation (EIS) support. This sits next to an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens with 119 field-of-view (FOV), a 5-megapixel macro lens with an f/2.4 aperture, and 2-megapixel depth sensor unit.

The Nord also comes with a dual selfie camera setup. In addition to a 32-megapixel Sony IMX616 sensor main shooter, the OnePlus Nord has an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle lens for a wider field of view while clicking selfies.

Both the front and rear camera set-ups bring access to a number of features with them, including the Nightscape mode that we have seen in the OnePlus 8 series phones. While it's too early to give a definitive verdict on the cameras, our initial impressions of the cameras have been quite positive.

This also holds true for the phone, which at a starting price of Rs 24,999 appears to be quite an impressive deal because of the sum of its premium design, and powerful internals. Although to get the most affordable version of the OnePlus Nord that has 6GB RAM and 64GB storage, you will have to wait until September. There is a lot more we need to say about the Nord, but before we say it with conviction and in all assurance we need to spend some more time with the device. For the full review, complete with OnePlus Nord camera image samples, stay tuned.
Chicago police investigate the scene of a mass shooting where more then a dozen people were shot in the Gresham neighborhood, on July 21, 2020. (Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times/AP)

Shooting Outside Chicago Funeral Home, 15 Injured

Fifteen people were wounded late Tuesday in a shooting on Chicagos South Side outside a funeral home, police said.

The shooting occurred around 6:30 p.m. in Chicagos Auburn Gresham neighborhood, specifically the 1000 block of W. 79th St, where Rhodes Funeral Home is located.

First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter, who spoke at the scene Tuesday night, said that multiple people who attended a funeral at the venue were shot at from a passing SUV. He added that some people among the mourners returned fire.

The SUV later crashed and the occupants fled in several directions. A person of interest was being questioned Tuesday night but no arrests had been made, said police spokesman Hector Alfaro.

The Chicago Fire Department transported multiple victims to nearby hospitals in serious condition, spokesman Larry Langford told reporters.

Nearby hospitals, the Advocate Christ Medical Center and the University of Chicago Medical Center, received most of the wounded victims, according to CBS Chicago. The exact number of victims is unclear because people fled the scene.

Two victims were found several blocks from the shooting site and were self-transporting to seek medical care, the Chicago Fire Department said, according to the station. Among the patients they transported to hospitals, one woman was shot multiple times, the department added.

Chicago police investigate the scene of a mass shooting where more then a dozen people were shot in the Gresham neighborhood, on July 21, 2020. (Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times/AP)

The shooting late Tuesday comes after 70 people were shot, 10 fatally, in separate incidents across Chicago over the weekend, from Friday afternoon to early Monday.

President Donald Trump on Monday said that the administration will deploy more federal law enforcement personnel to Chicago and other major cities facing a surge in violence.

New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore  were not going to let this happen in our country, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. We will have more federal law enforcement. That I can tell you. He also said Oakland, California, could see federal agents.

All run by Democrats  very liberal Democrats, he added.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had threatened to sue if Trump acted without her permission.

On Tuesday, she said that the White House will send agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Unlike what happened in Portland, what we will receive is resources that are going to plug in to the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime, she said. Ive been very clear that we welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship, according to USA Today.

Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents, she wrote on Twitter late Tuesday.

Trump has decried the demonstrators in Portland as anarchists and said on Sunday that he is trying to help Portland, not hurt it.

We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal! Trump added.

Jack Phillips and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane caught fire at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, The Paper, a Chinese news website backed by the Shanghai government, reported.

Shanghai's fire department said, in a posting on its Weibo account, that it has dispatched 18 fire trucks to put out the fire and no casualties have been reported by so far.

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Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law speaks to the media outside the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong on Oct. 24, 2017. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images)

Hong Kong Activist Law Meets With Pompeo in London

Hong Kong activist Nathan Law met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on July 21 in London to discuss Beijings newly implemented national security law for the Chinese-ruled city.

Pompeo, who was in London for a two-day visit, also held talks with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

Law announced on July 2 that he had fled Hong Kong out of concern for his own safety after Beijing formally adopted the national security law on June 30. He had kept his whereabouts secret before revealing on July 13 that he had arrived in London.

The law criminalizes individuals for any acts of subversion, secession, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with maximum penalties of life imprisonment.

Immediately after the law was adopted, several opposition groups in Hong Kong disbanded, including the pro-democracy party Demosisto; Law was a former chairman of the party.

On July 22, he revealed on his Twitter and Facebook accounts about what was discussed during the one-on-one meeting with Pompeo, which Law said lasted for over 20 minutes.

1. THREAD: Amid a series of strong UK responses  the Huawei ban and the suspension of its extradition treaty with #HongKong among them  to growing signs of Chinese imperialism, @SecPompeo paid an important visit to London, where he and I had a great conversation yesterday. pic.twitter.com/LN00Q0b4XC  Nathan Law   (@nathanlawkc) July 22, 2020

Calling his talks with Pompeo very constructive and in-depth, Law wrote that he shared his thoughts on why he chose to flee Hong Kong, as well as the difficult situations that frontline protesters in Hong Kong face, by either choosing to stay in the city or flee.

The continuing protest movement in Hong Kong erupted in June last year, when millions gathered in protest against the since-scrapped extradition bill. Since then, the movement has evolved to advocate for greater democracy, such as universal suffrage in city elections.

Law also said he shared his thoughts about the more than 600,000 voters who took part in recent primary votingthe large turnout showed Hongkongers determination in their fight for freedom and democracy, he said. Hong Kongs government is dominated by pro-Beijing politicians, with the opposition comprising pro-protest figures.

The primary elections, organized by local political association Power for Democracy, were held for two days beginning on July 11, with the aim of selecting the most promising candidates to run for legislative office. In the election scheduled for Sept. 6, the opposition camp hopes to win a majority, or more than 35 seats, in the citys legislature.

He also voiced concern that Beijing might meddle in the September elections, in ways that may include disqualifying certain candidates so that they wont appear on the ballot.

After winning a seat on Hong Kongs Legislative Council in 2016, Law and several other pro-democracy lawmakers were disqualified because they altered their oath of office, which includes a sentence stating allegiance to the Chinese regimes rule over the city. A court ruled that Law and the others had failed to take their oaths properly.

He asked for a strong reaction from the international community if candidates are disqualified.

Pompeo and Law also discussed Chinas human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet.

We exchanged our views on some of Beijings policies, and how the international community should remodel their policies toward China, in order to highlight the values of democracy, Law wrote on Facebook.

The meeting was requested by Pompeo, Law said. He thanked the U.S. Embassy in London and Hong Kong Watch, a British NGO, for arranging the meeting.

Hong Kong-based newspaper South China Morning Post reported on meetings between Law and Pompeo, citing an unidentified person with direct knowledge of the meeting.

Law did most of the talking. He gave Pompeo a human element to the movementwhat life is like in Hong Kong at the moment, the person said, before adding that Pompeo was very interested in hearing the perspective of what its like to be on the ground in Hong Kong and the nature of the movement.

Hongkongers confidence in the citys political and judicial systems has slumped amid the imposition of the security law, according to a recent poll released by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (HKPORI) on July 21, that surveyed 1,001 Hong Kong residents by phone between July 6 and July 9.

Indicators for degree of freedom, democracy, rule of law, and stability slipped to 4.84, 4.37, 4.14, and 4.12, from 5.58, 4.61, 4.45, and 4.44, respectively, in the previous poll conducted in April.

Freedom, democracy, and rule of law indicators all registered all-time lows since records began in 1997, when the territory was transferred from British to Chinese rule, according to the poll.

Other indicators, such as freedoms of publication, speech, association, press, strike, and demonstrations, also dropped lower compared to those in the April poll. For example, freedom of speech dropped from 5.24 in April to 4.39 in July.
The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked the UGC to clarify that can final year examinations by the universities be conducted based on Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ), open choices, assignments and presentations, instead of long form exams.

Justice Prathiba M Singh asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to explain the import of its guidelines issued in April, which mentioned the type of examinations that can be held by a college, for conducting final year exams.

The high court listed the matter for further hearing on July 24.

During the hearing, the UGC submitted that the guidelines do not permit internal assessment for evaluating final year students as it puts credibility of the system at stake.

The high court was hearing a plea challenging Delhi Universitys decision to hold Open Book Examination (OBE) for final year undergraduate courses which will be in long form exams.

The Delhi University contended that they were holding online exams as the UGC guidelines make it mandatory to hold final year examinations.
Iraqi Prime Minister Arrives In Iran For First Official Visit

Radio Farda July 21, 2020

Iraq's new prime minister who arrived in Tehran on Tuesday for his first official visit abroad is scheduled to meet with the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

According to Iranian media, the visit will be the first meeting of the Iranian Supreme Leader with any foreign dignitary or Iranian official in person since the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic in Iran in February.

Mostafa al-Kadhimi who arrived in Tehran on Tuesday afternoon was welcomed by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the Islamic Heads of State Conference Hall after an official reception at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport by the Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian.

Talks between the Iranian President and Al-Kadhimi who is accompanied by the ministers of foreign affairs, oil, energy, financial affairs, planning, defense and health as well as his security adviser Qasim al-Araji started immediately after the welcoming ceremony, the government news agency IRNA reported.

The Iraqi delegation and Iranian officials will confer on the consolidation of bilateral relations in political, economic and cultural areas as well as regional and international matters during the two-day visit, Iranian media reported.

The visit came after the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's to Iraq on Sunday. The visit was the first since the killing of the Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. targeted attack in Baghdad in January. Zarif met with top Iraqi officials including the Prime Minister Mostafa Al-Kadhimi, President Barham Salih and his counterpart Fuad Hussein during his visit. He also paid a visit to the site where Soleimani was killed.

Al-Kadhimi was scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia before going to Iran but his visit has been postponed after the hospitalization of King Salman, the Saudi foreign minister said on Monday.

Visiting both Saudi Arabia and Iran during one trip by Iraqi prime ministers has turned into a diplomatic practice to keep the balance between its two powerful neighbors.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iraqi-prime-minister- to-meet-iran-s-supreme-leader-during-first -official-visit-abroad/30739359.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Donald Trump is not the only modern president to have been accused of bombing foreign countries to divert attention from his troubles at home. His innovation is to turn the artillery on his fellow Americans.

The president continued a clockwork escalation of his gratuitous crackdown on U.S. cities this week by menacing Oakland and other urban centers. Its an obvious attempt to distract from his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, but its implications are too dangerous and grotesque to ignore.

The administration debuted the strategy last month, when military and federal law enforcement personnel violently cleared protesters from Lafayette Square, near the White House, with irritant gas, rubber bullets and batons. The show of force came amid threats to use active-duty military troops to dominate the battlefield of U.S. cities.

Thanks partly to a backlash from the armed forces, that didnt happen. But unidentified federal agents in camouflage and unmarked vehicles did begin prowling streets and rounding up protesters without explanation this month in Portland, Ore., where they injured one demonstrator with a shot of nonlethal ammunition to the head and beat a Navy veteran severely enough to break his hand.

The administration reportedly has plans in the coming days to deploy 150 Homeland Security agents to Chicago, one of the cities Trump threatened to do something to, along with New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland. He added that all are run by very liberal Democrats. Thats not all they have in common: Trump also happens to have named the four largest African American population centers in the country.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf urged the president to stop slandering diverse, progressive cities like Oakland in his racist dog whistles, adding, We are not experiencing any civil unrest right now, but I can think of nothing more likely to incite it than the presence of Trump-ordered military troops.

Indeed, like Schaaf and Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregons elected officials have objected to federal involvement on the grounds that its unnecessary and only inflaming the unrest in Portland.

Some of the federal agencies involved in the crackdowns, including the Bureau of Prisons and Customs and Border Protection, clearly have no business with them. Barring evidence that the proper jurisdictions are refusing to enforce the law, no federal agents should be assuming police functions, which are generally reserved to the states, against the will of state and local elected officials. Even if federal authorities are acting under an expansive interpretation of their authority to protect federal property and enforce federal laws, they are abusing that authority.

The federal incursions are already being challenged in Congress and the courts, and rightly so. While this desperate show of force against Americans seems unlikely to rescue Trumps presidency, it sets a corrosive precedent that cant be allowed to stand.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
The top judicial body in China is pushing for the expansion of legal rights around the possession of digital things, including currencies.

The guidance published Wednesday calls for the Chinese judiciary to expand such protections. As noted by CoinDesk's Wolfie Zhao, the document in question doesn't directly tie into cryptocurrencies or define what, precisely, constitutes a digital currency. But it comes as China moves toward the creation of its own digital currency and, as noted by Zhao, a growing body of legal decision-making on the topic of how bitcoin may be treated as a kind of digitized property.

An English-language press statement from the Supreme Court highlights that He Xiaorong, a member of the judicial committee with China's top court, "noted some new types of properties, such as virtual properties and digital currencies, would be safeguarded" under the envisioned protections.





 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Linkedin Eisya A. Eloksari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 09:15 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406684b705 1 Business WhatsApp-catalog-feature,WhatsApp-Business,training,SMEs,small-and-medium-enterprises,digitalization Free

Instant messaging platform WhatsApp has released a new feature to allow business accounts to display their product catalogs through a hyperlink as the company embarks on a training program for small and medium enterprises.

Facebook Indonesia public policy manager Karissa Sjawaldy said that business owners usually showcased their products on other platforms such as Instagram, and buyers would then send a screen capture of the product from Instagram to WhatsApp.

Customers do not have to switch between platforms anymore, she said in a press briefing on Tuesday. And because the catalog is through a link, business owners can easily share them with their promotional platforms, friends and other customers.

The catalog feature is available for WhatsApp for Business, which was launched in 2018. It has other features such as automatic responses to allow business administrators to reply to frequently asked questions efficiently and QR codes to make adding a business contact easier, Karissa said.

WhatsApp is also planning to train 3,600 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to go digital.

The online training program will run from October to November and is available for SMEs in 12 cities, including the Greater Jakarta area, Semarang, Manado and Makassar.

We want SMEs in rural areas to go digital as well and scale up their businesses, Karissa said.

Read also: Digital tools give SMEs opportunity to evolve

WhatsApp is partnering with UKM Indonesia to roll out the program. Its cofounder, Dewi Meisari, said that participants would learn about using WhatsApp for Business, digital safety such as fraud prevention, content creation and financial planning.

Small and medium business owners need to be open-minded. They should not think that going digital is troublesome or difficult, she said during the same briefing. However, they must also realize that digitalization does not mean an instant business boost. They still need to work hard.

WhatsApp previously partnered with youth organization Prestasi Junior Indonesia (PJI) to provide six months of digital business training to 1,000 young people.

The Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Ministry is aiming to have 10 million SMEs go digital by the end of the year, as currently only about 8 million of the nations approximately 60 million SMEs had an online selling platform.

The ministrys recent survey of 3.6 million SMEs showed that 2.1 million were already using social media while another 1.9 million had used online marketplaces. The data also revealed that only 875 businesses had registered with e-payment platforms.

While SMEs have started to sell and promote their products online, they also need to have e-payment solutions because a lot of consumers have already shifted to cashless payment, said Indonesia National Council for Financial Inclusion project management head Djauhari Sitorus.

He said that even though 70 percent of the countrys adults had mobile phones, less than one-fourth had used their phones for cashless transactions.

A survey by YouGov found that 75 percent of Indonesian respondents had primarily used digital payments in the last three months, followed by debit or credit cards.
Information shared on the U.S Federal Bureau of Prisons website, indicates that Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi has been released. According to the information posted on the website, Hushpuppi was released on Monday, July 20.



Last week, a US judge, Jeffrey Gilbert, denied Hushpuppi bail on grounds of him being a flight risk. He was arrested in June over allegations of fraud. The Dubai police who effected his arrest before extraditing him to the US, accused Hushpuppi and his cybercrime squad of defrauding over 1, 926,400 victims of $435.6 million.





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July 22, 2020 Gatchalian to telcos: provide free connectivity to all learners to assist learning continuity Senator Win Gatchalian is appealing to telecommunication giants Globe Telecom and Smart Communications to provide all learners with free connectivity to help in the roll-out of distance learning for the reopening of classes. While modular distance learning or the use of printed and digital self-learning modules is the most preferred learning modality among enrolled learners, Gatchalian emphasized that accelerating the provision of connectivity to all learners is a step to ensure equity in access to learning opportunities in the 'new normal'. He added that bridging the digital divide should be part of the country's recovery efforts to 'build back better' from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve internet coverage in all of the country's 42,046 barangays, Gatchalian earlier urged telecommunication companies to install cell sites in public schools. He noted that since there is a public school in every barangay, they serve as viable spots for cell sites that would ensure nationwide internet access. The lawmaker also said that providing connectivity to learners in 'Last Mile Schools' is crucial to ensuring that no learner is left behind amid the pandemic. Last Mile Schools are those located in geographically isolated, disadvantaged, and conflict-affected areas. These schools tend to have less than five teachers and 100 learners, 75 percent of whom are indigenous peoples. Based on the readiness report of the DepEd, more than 3 million learners prefer online learning compared to 7.3 million who prefer modular distance learning as an alternative learning modality for the opening of classes. More than 1.2 million prefer television-based instruction while 638,213 prefer to use radio. The same report revealed that almost 2.9 million learners have available internet connection at home, while more than 1.8 million have no available gadgets such as laptop, desktop, and even radio or television. "Bagama't hindi natin itinuturing na hadlang ang kawalan ng internet upang patuloy na makapag-aral ang mga estudyante sa gitna ng pandemya, kailangang pagsikapan nating maabot ang bawat bata at bigyan sila ng pagkakataong matuto gamit ang makabagong mga pamamaraan," said Gatchalian, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture. "Kung bawat mag-aaral ay makakagamit ng internet, isang mahalagang hakbang ito upang makabangon ang ating sistema ng edukasyon mula sa epekto ng COVID-19, gawin itong mas matatag sa panahon ng kalamidad, at masigurong walang batang maiiwan," he added. Through Senate Bill No. 1565 or the 'Education in the New Normal Act,' Gatchalian is also seeking to accelerate the roll-out of Republic Act No.10929 or the Free Internet Access in Public Places Act, which aims to install free wi-fi in public places, including elementary and secondary public schools.
The dead believed to have succumbed to coronavirus recovered from streets and homes in Bolivias biggest cities.

Police in Bolivia have recovered more than 400 bodies found in streets, vehicles and homes of some of the countrys biggest cities over a five-day period, with 85 percent of the victims believed to have died from coronavirus.

A total of 191 bodies were collected in the Cochabamba metropolitan area from July 15 to 20, with another 141 recovered in the administrative capital, La Paz, national police director Coronel Ivan Rojas told reporters on Tuesday. In the countrys biggest city, Santa Cruz, authorities recovered 68 bodies.

Some 85 percent of the bodies were positive cases for COVID-19 and cases with COVID-19 symptoms, said Rojas, referring to the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

The rest died of other causes, meaning death from an illness or a violent cause, he added.

According to the national epidemiological office, the western regions of Cochabamba and La Paz are experiencing a very rapid increase in coronavirus cases.

As of Tuesday, officials said Bolivia had recorded 60,991 confirmed coronavirus infections and 2,218 deaths from COVID-19.

Bolivias Forensic Investigations Institute said in a statement that between April 1 and July 19, more than 3,000 bodies that were recovered outside of hospital settings had been identified as either confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases.





Meanwhile, in Cochabamba, people have been lining up to buy a bleach-like substance  chlorine dioxide  after the senate approved its use last week to treat coronavirus, despite warnings from the countrys health ministry.

We have already drawn up a resolution that says this substance is not approved, that it is not suitable for human consumption and that it can have serious consequences, Rene Sahonero, health ministry adviser, said, adding that cases of chlorine dioxide poisoning had been reported.

Health authorities, including the US Food and Drug Administration, say the bleaching agent is dangerous, can jeopardise the health and should not be purchased or drunk as a medical treatment.

Separately, on Tuesday, a scientific committee advising the Bolivian government proposed that the presidential election scheduled for September 6 be postponed because of the pandemic.

Bolivia is trying to resolve the political crisis that erupted last November when street protests over allegations of election fraud led President Evo Morales to resign after nearly 14 years in power.
By ANI

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government on Wednesday moved the Islamabad High Court seeking to appoint a counsel for Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav in order to "implement the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) decision to meet the requirements of a fair trial."

The petition, filed by Ministry of Law and Justice under a federal ordinance, stated that the "IHC should appoint a counsel to review and reconsider the verdict of the military court in accordance with the decision of the ICJ," reported The Express Tribune.

This comes days after it was reported Pakistan has offered third consular access to India for Kulbhushan Jadhav.

Earlier, India had said that Jadhav was "visibly under stress" as Pakistan did not permit a free conversation between him and the consular officers and they were not given "unimpeded, unhindered and unconditional" access.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson had said that the conversation between Jadhav and consular officers was being recorded as evident from a camera and the consular access offered by Pakistan was neither "meaningful nor credible".

The spokesperson had said that Pakistani officials with an intimidating demeanour were present in close proximity of Jadhav and consular officers despite the protests of the Indian side.

He said Jadhav himself was visibly under stress and indicated that clearly to the consular officers.

India had recently requested the Pakistani side for an unimpeded, unhindered and unconditional consular access to be provided on July 13. Pakistan was asked to ensure that the meeting is held in an atmosphere free from fear of retribution and without the presence of any Pakistani official in the vicinity of Jadhav and the Indian consular officials.

Pakistan was also requested to not record (video and audio) the meeting.

The spokesperson had said that any conversation between Jadhav and High Commission officials must necessarily take place in privacy and without the presence of any Pakistani official or recording by Pakistan.

Pakistan claims that Jadhav was arrested from Balochistan in 2016 on charges of espionage. India has rejected Pakistan's allegations and said he was kidnapped from the Iranian port of Chabahar.

In early 2017, a Pakistani military court sentenced him to death. In May 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stayed his execution.

In July last year, the ICJ, by a vote of 15-1, had upheld India's claim that Pakistan has committed an egregious violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations on several counts.
Coronavirus spread so quickly through a convent in Michigan that it claimed the lives of 12 nuns in one month, beginning on Good Friday.

They were all members of the Felician Sisters convent in Livonia, outside of Detroit, ranging in ages from 69 to 99, the executive director for mission advancement, Suzanne English, confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. A 13th sister initially survived the virus but passed away from its effects in June.

The women were long-time members of the convent and leave behind a legacy of service, according to their obituaries supplied by English. They all served others through different roles, from teaching to helping at-risk children to playing music to publishing a 586-page book about the history of the convent.

One sister won a commercial script-writing contest for Campbell's Soup with her second-grade class. Another was assigned to the Felician Generalate in Rome twice and worked as secretary in the English section of the Vatican Secretariat of State.
Sarah Iype And Sanjana Rajamohan By

As the Covid-19-induced migration threatens to multiply the enrolment-attendance mismatch and increase the number of out-of-school children, India needs to steer effective policy from the files to the field. With the enactment of the Right to Education Act in 2009, authorities are obliged to guarantee the schooling of children from migrant families.

Yet, estimates from Census 2011 throw light on the massive challenge at handto ensure children from around 10.7 million households in rural India that practice seasonal migration complete elementary education. The three states of Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh account for half of the 12.82 million children who have never enrolled in schools; and eight statesAndhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal account for two-thirds of the 35.62 million children who have dropped out.

Interestingly, these states also account for 80% of the children who are enrolled but not attending school. One factor common to these states is migration. Migrant children are disadvantaged in terms of enrolling and attending school, and are at a lower grade for their age with the disparity deepening with age progression. These children are also more prone to abuse and health risks, and are likely to be out of school, dropping out to supplement household incomes. Research corroborates the lower educational attainment in high out-migration districts.

The unintended consequence of the current pandemic is that due to the lockdown, the public eye finally shifted its gaze to those who have been living on the margins. Over 40 million internal migrants have been impacted. A survey across 18 states reveals 46.2% of migrant children have discontinued their education. Exacerbated by the digital divide and loss in regular incomes, Covid-19 could cause a massive spike in child labour, undoing decades of progress.

Delving into policy documents dating back to early Five-Year Plans provides an array of possible solutions for migrant children, ranging from flexible schooling days/instructional hours, open schools, seasonal schools in destination areas, residential schools in source areas, to even providing teaching volunteers who move with migrating families! Policies envisioned the creation of Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) centres at arrival points (bus or train stations) to facilitate health check-ups and educational tracking. The recent Samagra Shiksha guidelines highlight the major role of local governance and community engagement in universalising education.

Extrapolating from global evidence on migration in Germany, Sweden, etc., the two key takeaways for Indian policy is the need to eliminate language barriers and ensure education begins at the earliest stages. While multiple models for metamorphosis exist, the biggest test is to successfully operationalise these interventions. Being cognisant of the risks of over-simplification, the following measures could serve as a roadmap towards a rejuvenated education landscape.

First, there is a dire need for better data. The pandemic is proof of Indias capacity for speedy implementation as over 27 states expeditiously launched migrant portals. These portals can be leveraged to identify and map high in- and out-migration districts, and provide an accurate estimate of the number of migrant children. This is pertinent to drive evidence-based contextualised policy. For example, if many children are travelling from source A to destination B, the latter state/district must have teachers who are able to communicate to the students in the language spoken in A while being able to integrate them to the language in B.

The curriculum should be child-friendly and multilingual. Further, rich, regular and credible data can help evaluate causality and policy effectiveness. Second, like the One India One Ration Card or the inter-operable Transport Card, there is tremendous potential to launch a One India One Student Carda single transferable identity that serves as a storehouse of critical information throughout a childs life cycle in education, from preschool till work. The Economic Survey 2016-17 recognised the major hindrance to effective migrant policy as the lack of portability of benefits, legal and other entitlements upon relocation.

A digital repository of a childs schooling/learning information may be consistently captured and maintained. This will prove especially useful for the ICDS centres at arrival points as well as schools and local governments in destination areas, serving as a gateway for requisite inter-state and inter-departmental (education, health, welfare, police, labour, etc.) collaboration. Further, it can facilitate effective profiling to understand the nature of migration (permanent vs. seasonal migration, etc.) and tailor suitable solutions. In fact, this measure will help augment efforts such as Karnatakas Migrated children and Children of migrated daily wagers Right for Free and Compulsory Education Policy 2019, which focuses on movement registers and a student-achievement tracking system.

Third, dedicated action must be taken to converge multiple stakeholders. Students must be oriented to the destination education system and provided requisite support including counselling; parents must be informed of the returns to education through large-scale awareness programs and targeted home visits; teachers should be trained for diverse classes; schools must be designed for inclusivity; School Management Committees should enable the integration of migrant families; Panchayati Raj Institutions and local governments must drive the overall planning processes; and at higher levels of governance, systems of regular monitoring, review, coordination and accountability should be in place.

Given limited resources and budget constraints, the focus in initial phases can be on the youngest children and those most likely to reap maximum benefits from public education. Profiling and planning could aid such targeting. The issue of education for migrant children must be addressed in a long-term and structural manner. While their efforts have so far been invisible, it is estimated that Indias 100 million migrants contribute to 10% of the GDP. Imagine, just how much this can be enhanced via education! Lets begin by collectively acting to move our migrant children from the margins to the marrow.

Sarah Iype

Specialises in education policy at NITI Aayog

Sanjana Rajamohan

Education researcher

(Views are personal) (sarah.iype@nic.in, sanjanarajamohan1@gmail.com)
MARSHALL, Texas, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- An East Texas woman has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the company that serves as the VRBO travel website's exclusive travel insurance provider. The lawsuit alleges that CSA Travel Protection, the American affiliate of Italy-based Assicurazioni Generali Group, has refused to honor its policy and refund more than $3,500 for a cancelled booking of oceanfront property in Florida.

Tralisa Sheridan, a resident of White Oak, Texas, made a reservation through VRBO in March 2019 for accommodations in Navarre, Florida, to host multiple family members for her daughter's destination beach wedding, planned for March of 2020. At the time of the booking, Ms. Sheridan paid $180 for a travel insurance coverage plan from CSA.

Ms. Sheridan and the wedding party planned to drive to and from the destination, beginning on March 21, the same day Santa Rosa County officials suspended all access to Navarre's beaches. Because of this action and the prior rollout of other COVID-19 travel restrictions, including the imposition of 14-day quarantine requirements for interstate travel between Texas and Florida, Ms. Sheridan promptly notified VRBO and CSA of the need to cancel the booking and provide a refund.

CSA responded by email 38 days later that the claim was being denied, and despite multiple subsequent requests by Ms. Sheridan, the insurer has provided no further details or rationale for the denial.

"Unfortunately, we're seeing too many examples of insurers in the travel and hospitality sector attempting to shirk their responsibilities and failing to honor rightful claims," said Derek Potts, the attorney for Ms. Sheridan. "Through a class action against these defendants, we will seek the compensation that thousands of individuals who booked through VRBO and purchased this insurance are due."

The case is Tralisa Sheridan et. al. v. Assicurazioni Generali et.al., No.220-CV-244, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall.

Media Contact:

Barry Pound

800-559-4534

[email protected]

SOURCE Potts Law Firm
TOKYO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Seiko Watch Corporation opens a new chapter in the 60-year history of the Grand Seiko brand with the inauguration of an entirely new studio dedicated to the production of Grand Seiko's mechanical watches.

The studio was declared open on July 20, 2020, in a ceremony that took place simultaneously at the Wako building, a retail establishment of Seiko Holdings Corporation, in Tokyo and at the studio in Shizukuishi, Iwate Prefecture, northeastern Japan. In Tokyo, Shinji Hattori, the Chairman and CEO of Seiko Watch Corporation, was joined by the studio's distinguished architect, Kengo Kuma, while, in Shizukuishi, the Governor of Iwate Prefecture, Takuya Tasso, participated alongside the studio's directors.

Image1: The Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M102037/202007202222/_prw_PI4fl_3YSON86r.jpg

As he announced the opening of the studio, Shinji Hattori said, "The studio provides the ideal environment for our craftsmen and women to bring Grand Seiko's mechanical watches to life and for the next generation of watchmakers to be trained and their skills developed. It embodies Grand Seiko's philosophy, The Nature of Time, and is clear evidence to the world of our dedication to the art of mechanical watchmaking."

Explaining his design for the studio, Kengo Kuma said, "Grand Seiko's view of the importance of nature is reflected in every corner of its design and construction. I greatly enjoyed the challenge of making the clean room, where watches of the highest precision are assembled, from wood. To balance natural materials with the room's high-technology technical requirements was a new and intriguing task."

Image2: The clean room where watches are assembled

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M102037/202007202222/_prw_PI1fl_n0ksRHpF.jpg

Image3: The Hi-beat 36000 80 Hours is the first new creation made at the new studio.

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M102037/202007202222/_prw_PI18fl_W0bV5SOS.jpg

Image4: Shinji Hattori (right) and Kengo Kuma (left) mark the occasion together in Tokyo.

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M102037/202007202222/_prw_PI19fl_uYqj3rS4.jpg

The studio also incorporates an exhibition space where visitors can immerse themselves in Grand Seiko's history and explore the manufacturing characteristics of Grand Seiko's mechanical watches. Events will be held at which visitors can try their hand at assembling a mechanical watch in a dedicated space known as the Studio Seminar Room.

A lounge on the second floor contains an exhibition that explains the world of Grand Seiko and will also showcase the brand's first "concept creation."

In addition, a Grand Seiko watch made exclusively for, and at the studio, will be presented and available for purchase. It is a limited-edition Hi-beat 36000.

Image5: The watch's dial inspired by the rich green landscape that surrounds the studio

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M102037/202007202222/_prw_PI20fl_97SQek3p.jpg

For information, please visit the site below.

URL: https://www.grand-seiko.com/global-en/special/studio-shizukuishi/

To view a video of the Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi, please click here:

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/attach/202007202222-O1-6P5xjQ53.mp4

To view other images of the studio and Shizukuishi, please click here:

https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/release/202007202222?p=images

About Grand Seiko

Grand Seiko was born in 1960 with an aim to create the very best watch of which the company was capable. Ever since the first Grand Seiko, every watch has achieved the highest level of precision, legibility, durability and ease of use. Grand Seiko is deeply rooted in its Japanese heritage, and its brand philosophy, "The Nature of Time," celebrates the Japanese spirituality of time that is deeply inspired by nature and brought to life by "takumi" (craftsmen), the dedicated seekers of mastery.
Wednesday night's episode of Big Brother is set to see the evicted housemates return for a special live finale.

But host Sonia Kruger admits that she is worried about what might go down between the contestants when they see each other again.

Appearing on Nova's Fitzy and Wippa the 54-year-old presenter revealed what we can expect from the finale and why she is 'nervous' about it being aired live.

Grand final: Appearing on Nova's Fitzy and Wippa, Big Brother host Sonia Kruger (pictured) revealed what we can expect from the finale and we she is 'nervous' about it being aired live

'What makes me nervous is when I try to project and I think what could happen tonight,' she said.

'It could be all the housemates back, its a lovely reunion it's all kumbaya and it's all a big love fest - boring - Or, it could be Jerry Springer!'

She continued: 'What I'm hoping for is something in the middle.'

Nervous: Sonia (pictured) admits that she is worried about what might go down between the contestants when they see each other again

Sonia also revealed that due to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and restrictions it has been difficult trying to get the contestants to Sydney for the reunion.

'In Victoria we could see there were issues occurring in terms of lockdown so we got Sarah [McDougal] and Daniel [Gorringe] out and they have been here for two weeks quarantine and doing all that,' she said.

But, sadly there are two housemates who won't be attending the finale.

'We couldn't get Zoe [George] and Laura [Coriakula] out, but everyone else is going to be there,' Sonia added.

Reunion: Sonia added that due to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and restrictions it has been difficult trying to get the contestants to Sydney for the reunion

Remaining housemates, Sophie Budack, Chad Hurst and Daniel are now competing for a reduced prize of $234,656, after Kieran Davidson stole more than $15,000 from the winner's kitty last week.

The contestant with the most public votes will be crowned the winner on Wednesday when the live finale begins at 7:30pm.

Head to bigbrother.com.au to cast your vote
Students are the future of our country and we at NewsX spoke to some bright youngsters who are leading the path at a very young age, they are the change makers who are inspiring many youngsters who want to make a change in our society.

Starting with Vivhan Rekhi, a student of The British School, New Delhi, where he serves as the Community Service Representative, and works directly with the School Director and Board to plan, initiate, and lead school-wide outreach initiatives. At the age of 16, he founded Rescuing Wisdom, a social service initiative that advocates for elderly responsibility through philanthropy. In this role, he has facilitated multiple partnerships to benefit local old age homes, raised over Rs. 13 lakh to support their operations, and continues to fund the organisations work through the sale of his book, The Knifes Edge. For his work with Rescuing Wisdom, Vivhan has received multiple national and international awards.

Another bright youngster is Rajveer Singh. 16 years old is currently studying at Oberoi International School. He says that he haa a keen interest in Economics and Business Studies. Singh, who used to study in Doon School says that Being a student at a boarding school in Dehradun, I have been able to derive the best of opportunities provided to me and of these, community service has been closest to my heart. I look forward to volunteering my time towards causes benefitting the less privileged in the future as well as being sensitive towards the needs of my peers and family. I would like to commit my time to wider community initiatives whilst in school, as well as the langar sewa service which I have enjoyed doing in the gurudwara since my childhood years. One of my biggest accomplishments in the field of community service whilst at the Doon School are, working with The Angelique Foundation to raise funds for, and complete a library for a school where unprivileged students can study free of cost. We were successful in creating a library in September 2018 through the funds and resources they provided. The Library is complete with carpeting, furniture, book racks wall posters and a tailor made booklist of over 600 books for each, to meet the reading abilities of the children.

Another youngest we spoke to is Aviraj Singh Machre, who is 19 years old and is currently studying at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, from where he is pursuing a masters in arts that focus on business management and economics. Reminiscing his days as a Doon school student and the social work he did, Machre says As a member of the schools economics society I set up a model on smart cities that focused on innovative and efficient methods to produce electricity and supply of water. I found this particularly useful when I volunteered with the Adarsh Buniyadi Primary Municipal School in Sanjan, Gujarat to set up a water filtration system for the students. I presented a business plan to the minister of state, forest and tribal welfare in Gujarat, so as to successfully implement my idea. This greatly reduced costs incurred to transport clean drinking water daily from the neighbouring villages. The money saved was used to fund the education of students whose families could not afford to send them to school. One of the primary reasons my grandfather set up a factory there was to generate employment for the villagers and help the people of the village. Since my childhood, my grandfather has always taught me that social service is very important and that it is very important to give back of the society

Last but not the least Ms Sasha Singh, a student of class 12 at the Shri ram school Moulsari Gurgaon says that her compassion towards the underprivileged started from her regular visits to her ancestral village Tohana. Her empathy towards the people of Tohana steered her to hold a coronavirus awareness and screening camp at the local civil hospital in the memory of her grandfather. During Sashas previous visit to Tohana she noticed that the Civil hospital was lacking basic Covid related consumables, medical and personal protection equipment.Sasha has raised funds from her community to supply critical healthcare equipment like multi Parameters and other equipment which the hospital required during this pandemic. The camp was held at the civil hospital in Tohana on the 3 rd of July 2020 . Not only that, she also gives free riding lessons to the underprivileged children so they can get employment at race-courses as jockeys and riding boys and also during lockdown she helped raising funds in an initiative called feed the needy where they distributed over one lakh, thirty thousand meals.

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Boeing P-8I Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft. Photo: Indian Navy.

NEW DELHI (PTI): The Indian Navy's Poseidon 8I anti-submarine warfare aircraft have been deployed in eastern Ladakh to carry out surveillance along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and some of its MiG-29K jets are likely to be stationed in key IAF bases in the northern sector amid the border row with China, sources said on Tuesday.



The sources said the military brass is considering deploying Indian Navy's MiG-29K fighter jets in a couple of air bases in the northern sector as part of efforts to bring in tri-services synergy in dealing with national security challenges.



The maritime fighter jets will complement the Indian Air Force's (IAF) efforts to significantly boost deep strikes and air dominance capabilities, they said



At present, the Navy has a fleet of around 40 MiG-29K jets and at least 18 of them are deployed on board the country's aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.



The IAF has already positioned almost all its frontline fighter jets like Sukhoi-30 MKI, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 aircraft in the key frontier air bases in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere along the LAC, a move that came against the backdrop of the border row with China. Diplomatic and military talks between China and India are continuing for complete disengagement of troops from a number of friction points in eastern Ladakh.



The IAF has been carrying out night time combat air patrols over the eastern Ladakh region in the last few weeks as part of its preparedness to deal with any eventualities in the mountainous region.



By the second half of August, the IAF is planning to deploy five Rafale fighter jets in the Ladakh sector which are expected to significantly enhance its combat capabilities. India is scheduled to receive the first batch of five Rafale jets on July 27.



As part of its high-level of alertness, the IAF has also deployed Apache attack choppers as well as Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to transport troops to various forward locations in eastern Ladakh.



The sources said Poseidon 8I aircraft of the Navy has been deployed for monitoring the movement of Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh. The long-range anti-submarine and reconnaissance aircraft was deployed in Doklam along the Sikkim border too during the 73-day standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in 2017.



The P-8Is were also deployed to keep an eye on movement of Pakistani troops after the Pulwama terror attack last year.



In the midst of the border row with China, the Indian Navy on Monday and Tuesday carried out a military drill with a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.



Four frontline warships of the Indian Navy participated in the "PASSEX" exercise when the US carrier strike group was transiting through the Indian Ocean Region(IOR) on its way from the South China Sea, officials said.



The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of China's renewed military assertiveness in eastern Ladakh as well as in South China Sea.



The US Navy carrier strike Group comprises USS Nimitz, Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton and Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers USS Sterett and USS Ralph Johnson, the officials said.



India carried out similar exercises with the Japanese navy last month.



The Indian Navy has increased its surveillance missions and beefed up operational deployment in the IOR in the wake of the bitter border standoff with China in eastern Ladakh.



The Indian Navy is also ramping up its operational cooperation with various friendly naval forces like the US Navy and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force in view of the fast evolving regional security landscape, the officials said.



Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the IOR in view of China's growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource rich region.



Following escalation in tension between India and China in eastern Ladakh, the government put all the three forces on high alert. The Indian Navy was asked to raise its alert-level in the IOR where Chinese Navy has been making regular forays.


Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has revealed she ordered officers not to 'take the knee' and says she would not do it herself.

Dame Cressida, 59, defended the two policemen who adopted the pose at Black Lives Matter protests in June.

But she said she had instructed officers at every briefing since to avoid doing the kneel, a protest against social injustice that has risen to prominence by the Black Lives Matter movement.

She said 'every briefing after that for the protests included we will not be taking the knee' in a crackdown on the gesture.

Dame Cressida also said of the heavily criticised stop and search of Team GB athlete Bianca Williams "any officer worth their salt" would have done the same thing.

She said: 'Taking the knee, I think some of my officers took the knee.

'I havent spoken to them personally but I believe they did that because the crowd that was in front of them, theyd endured all of them a long hard day, hours of protest, they were being abused, being shouted at by all kinds of people, not least I have to say my black and ethnic minority officers suffering racial abuse.

'They are police officers so they get on with their job but that section of the crowd were saying again and again and again take the knee, take the knee, take knee and I imagine that they thought in order to keep that bit of the crowd a bit quieter and to show some respect and some humility and some respect to what happened to George Floyd they took the knee.

'That evening I said we are not going to do that in a public order or operational situation and every briefing after that for the protests included we will not be taking the knee.'

Metropolitan Police officers take a knee at June 3's Black Lives Matter protest in London

Several officers adopted the iconic pose in support of the anti-racism protests in London

The senior police chief made the comments on LBC talking to radio host Nick Ferrari.

She refused to comment on the chief constable of Kent Police Alan Pughsley taking the knee at a protest in Gravesent last month.

Dame Cressida added: 'People are taking the knee for all sort of reasons.

'I wouldnt, Im a professional police officer and I dont think we should in operational procedures.'

It came after the Metropolitan Police gave the green light to its officers taking a knee during the Black Lives Matter protest at the start of June.

Several officers adopted the iconic pose in support of the anti-racism protests in London which were sparked by the death of George Floyd in the US and are now sweeping the world.

It was the first time police in the UK have used the bold stance and those that did outside Downing Street were applauded with whoops and cheers from the crowd.

But older officers condemned the move and said police should not kneel to protesters.

One former officer tweeted: 'I served in the Met Police many years ago. Take a knee, never never ever, I'm ashamed of what they have to do today.

Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said she had told officers not to take the knee

In my day it would have been very very different. The Mayor of London and Cressida Dick should resign in total shame.'

In a statement at the time Scotland Yard said: 'We know passions are running high and like everyone we were appalled by the images of George Floyd losing his life.

'Our officers are part of the communities of London and care deeply about justice and equality.

'Taking the knee is a personal decision and should individual officers at their own discretion, where it was safe to do so, and is doesn't interfere with their operational duties, decide to kneel on one knee with Londoners they are free to do so.'

Kent Police's chief constable Alan Pughsley pictured 'taking the knee' in Gravesent, Kent

Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said his colleagues kneeling down was a show of empathy and respect over the death of Mr Floyd.

He said: 'I think that by those officers taking a knee during the protests yesterday shows that we are human beings.

'I think it shows that we try to understand what is put in front of us in a very difficult situation.

'Bear in mind we are in the middle of a pandemic which is still killing hundreds of people every day, you shouldn't have a crowd of thousands of people in the way that there was yesterday so a lot of empathy was shown in terms of the policing.'

It came after a police force angered officers by warning that they may face consequences if they decline to take the knee at anti-racism protests.

Hertfordshire Constabulary said those who chose not to make the solidarity gesture may become the focus of the protesters attention.

The advice was issued during a recent operational briefing and points out that, when officers kneel down  joining in the symbolic stance  it has a very positive reaction on the protest groups.
An image from video footage appearing to show documents being burned in the courtyard of China's Houston consulate.

Twitter/ KPRC2Tulsi/Breaking 911

People were seen burning documents at the Chinese Consulate in Houston, and fire services were called to the scene.

The police told multiple outlets that people were burning documents in what appeared to be open trash cans. It is not clear what those documents were.

It came as China said the US ordered the consulate to be closed in an "unprecedented escalation." Chinese state media reported that the US had given China 72 hours to close it.

The State Department said the closing was ordered to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information.

China painted the decision in light of strained US-China relations, claiming the US "has repeatedly stigmatized China," and vowed to retaliate if the US did not reverse its order.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Video: Why China loves Tesla

People are burning documents at the Chinese Consulate in Houston after China said the US gave it 72 hours to close, with the State Department accusing China of threatening US sovereignty and intimidating US citizens.

The local outlet ABC 13 reported early Wednesday morning that trash cans full of documents were being burned in the consulate's courtyard.

A police official told the Houston Chronicle that witnesses saw paper being burned in what appeared to be open trash cans outside the building.

The police also told the local outlet Fox26 Houston that a fire reported at the consulate on Tuesday evening was the result of people burning documents. KPRC 2 reported that the police were told documents were being burned just after 8 p.m. local time on Tuesday.

One witness told KPRC 2: "You could just smell the paper burning."

Fox26 reported that police officers and the fire department were not allowed onto the premises as it's considered Chinese territory. The police official told the Houston Chronicle that the police were not allowed to access the building.

Video footage appears to show documents being burned outside the building:

Story continues

The Houston police department also tweeted about the apparent document burning.

"About 8:25 pm on Tuesday, our officers responded to a meet the firefighter call to the China Consulate General in Houston building ... Smoke was observed in an outside courtyard area," the department said. "Officers were not granted access to enter the building."

Business Insider was unable to contact the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Houston outside its working hours.

The State Department confirmed to Insider that the US ordered China to close its Houston consulate immediately.

"On July 21, the US suddenly requested China to close the Consulate General in Houston. This was a political provocation unilaterally initiated by the US against China," a Chinese Foreign Ministry representative, Wang Wenbin, said on Wednesday, calling it an "unprecedented escalation" in US-China relations.

In a statement sent to Business Insider, the US State Department representative Morgan Ortagus said: "We have directed the closure of PRC Consulate General Houston, in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information," using an abbreviation for the People's Republic of China.

"The United States will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," she added.

Wang said the move "seriously violated international law and basic norms of international relation" and damaged relations between the US and China.

"China strongly condemns this. China urges the US to immediately revoke the wrong decision," he said. "Otherwise, China will definitely make a proper and necessary response."

Hu Xijin, the editor of China's state-backed Global Times newspaper, said the US gave China just 72 hours to close the consulate.

Hu Xijin  (@HuXijin_GT) July 22, 2020

On Tuesday, the Justice Department charged two Chinese state-backed hackers with hacking into the computer systems of hundreds of companies, governments, and individual activists and stealing their data. It is not clear whether these charges are related to the ordered closing.

China has four other consulates in the US  in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco  as well as an embassy in Washington, DC.

The Foreign Ministry statement said the Houston consulate was being closed "unilaterally" by the US "for a limited time." It did not specify a deadline given by the US.

The ministry also criticized the US's treatment of China.

"For a period of time, the US government has repeatedly stigmatized China, conducted unprovoked attacks on China's development, unreasonably made things difficult for Chinese diplomatic and consular staff in the US, and intimidated, interrogated, and confiscated personal electronic equipment from Chinese students studying in the US," it said, without giving evidence to back up its charges.

Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, said: "President Trump insists on fairness and reciprocity in US-China relations."

Sen. Marco Rubio, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, celebrated the move to close the consulate in a tweet. The Florida Republican referred to the Chinese consulate in Houston as a "massive spy center."

"#China's consulate in #Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen," Rubio said.

The New York Times noted that while ordering a consulate closed was a strong step, it was one that had been taken before in disputes between countries.

For example, the US ordered Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco in 2017 after Russia restricted the number of diplomats the US could have in Moscow.

An unidentified source told Reuters that Beijing was considering closing the US consulate in the Chinese city of Wuhan in retaliation, but China's next moves remain unclear.

Tensions between the US and China have reached historic heights in the Trump era, with top experts warning that the two major powers are on the brink of a new Cold War. Though he praised China's handling of COVID-19 early on, President Donald Trump shifted to blaming Beijing for the pandemic as the US coronavirus outbreak worsened, which has exacerbated the situation. The virus was originally detected in Wuhan.

"We're essentially in the beginnings of a Cold War," Orville Schell, the director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society, told Insider in May. "We are on a downward slide into something increasingly adversarial with China."

Read the original article on Business Insider
The Canadian mortgage market will likely become a significantly different space  especially in terms of defaults  once the COVID-19 pandemic passes, according to the Bank of Canada.

Mikael Khan, director of financial stability at the BoC, said that the magnitude of the coronavirus financial crisis can be likened to that seen during the previous decades financial downturn.

The prolonged recession after the 2008-09 crisis was brought about by an underlying fragility in the global financial system, Khan told The Canadian Press. One thing thats always very important when youre facing a large negative shock is the initial conditions.
Scientists have known for several months the new coronavirus can become suspended in microdroplets expelled by patients when they speak and breathe, but until now there was no proof that these tiny particles are infectious. A new study by scientists at the University of Nebraska that was uploaded to a medical preprint site this week has shown for the first time that SARS-CoV-2 taken from microdroplets, defined as under five microns, can replicate in lab conditions. This boosts the hypothesis that normal speaking and breathing, not just coughing and sneezing, are responsible for spreading COVID-19 -- and that infectious doses of the virus can travel distances far greater than the six feet (two meters) urged by social distancing guidelines. The results are still considered preliminary and have not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, which would lend more credibility to the methods devised by the scientists. The paper was posted to the medrxiv.org website, where most cutting-edge research during the pandemic has first been made public. The same team wrote a paper in March showing that the virus remains airborne in the rooms of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and this study will soon be published in a journal, according to the lead author. "It is actually fairly difficult" to collect the samples, Joshua Santarpia, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center told AFP. The team used a device the size of a cell phone for the purpose, but "the concentrations are typically very low, your chances of recovering material are small." The scientists took air samples from five rooms of bedridden patients, at a height of about a foot (30 centimeters) over the foot of their beds. The patients were talking, which produces microdroplets that become suspended in the air for several hours in what is referred to as an "aerosol," and some were coughing. The team managed to collect microdroplets as small as one micron in diameter. They then placed these samples into a culture to make them grow, finding that three of the 18 samples tested were able to replicate. For Santarpia, this represents proof that microdroplets, which also travel much greater distances than big droplets, are capable of infecting people. "It is replicated in cell culture and therefore infectious," he said. - Why we wear masks - The potential for microdroplet transmission of the coronavirus was at one stage thought to be improbable by health authorities across the world. Later, scientists began to change their mind and acknowledge it may be a possibility, which is the rationale for universal masking. The World Health Organization was among the last to shift its position, doing so on July 7. "I feel like the debate has become more political than scientific," said Santarpia. "I think most scientists that work on infectious diseases agree that there's likely an airborne component, though we may quibble over how large." Linsey Marr, a professor at Virginia Tech who is a leading expert on aerial transmission of viruses and wasn't involved in the study, said it was rare to obtain measurements of the amount of virus present in air. "Based on what we know about other diseases and what we know so far about SARS-CoV-2, I think we can assume that if the virus is 'infectious in aerosols,' then we can become infected by breathing them in," she told AFP. Hospital employees in Wuhan, China seal an airvent to prevent possible airborne transmission of the new coronavirus
One of the most compelling narratives of the 2008 U.S. presidential election was then-candidate Barack Obama's single-parented upbringing. His parents stayed together for a little more than two years, and young Barack was raised almost exclusively by his Kansas-born mom, Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro [source: Scott]. As the American electorate learned during stump speeches and endless media profiles, Obama didn't flounder for want of a paternal figure or a second-helping of parental involvement. His stellar grades and attendant academic scholarships paved his way toward Columbia University and, afterward, Harvard Law School, where he was elected the first black president of the prestigious Law Review.

On the one hand, Obama's story stands as a testament to the potential of single parents to provide their children with the resources more commonly afforded to kids raised by two parents under the same roof -- and then some. On the other hand, interpreted through a sociological lens, the 44th American President's biography is but an exception to a widely accepted rule of thumb that, when it comes to offering children the best chances for success and healthy development, two committed parents are better than one [source: Musick and Meier]. And indeed, the federal government under the Obama administration has funded pro-dual-parenting programs, such as the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse.

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Handwringing over single parenting has been supported statistically over the years. Family structure and child development research have established correlations between one-parent households and adolescents' lower socioeconomic status, lower educational attainment, higher risks of experimenting with drugs and alcohol, as well as a greater likelihood of their romantic relationships souring like their parents' [source: Musick and Meier]. That dismal data set grew only gloomier, too, when California therapist Judith Wallerstein's best-selling book "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce" came on the scene in 2000 [source: Kirn et al].

Wallerstein's book chronicled her 25-year study of 131 children of divorcees. In it, she claimed that the emotional impact on kids of parents splitting up doesn't manifest in grade school, but rather lies dormant until they're growing up and encountering their own long-term relationships [source: Farnsworth]. At that point, Wallerstein argues, divorce and subsequent single parenting serve as a disastrous blueprint for failure, inciting another generational cycle of romantic disillusionment and dissolution. Considering that the book's sample population was plucked from affluent families, theoretically representing the best-case scenarios for single parenting and resource-rich upbringing, Wallerstein's work seemed to provide an especially compelling argument for staying together for the kids.

But a widely publicized 2010 study on marital conflict and its effect on children suggests there's plenty of room for nuance when it comes to debates over single parenting.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 02:19:31|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua and French Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Tuesday co-chaired the seventh China-France High-Level Economic and Financial Dialogue held via video link, pledging to strengthen pragmatic cooperation in various fields, and boost ties.

China hopes that the two sides will successfully implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state and push forward the China-France comprehensive strategic partnership, said Hu.

He said that China is willing to work with France to further strengthen anti-pandemic cooperation, consolidate cooperation in nuclear energy, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, and other major projects. He also mentioned expanding cooperation in fields including agriculture, science and technology, and finance, as well as deepening trade and investment cooperation with France to create a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory environment for enterprises on both sides.

The two sides should enhance communication and coordination in international institutions and multilateral platforms, jointly safeguard the rules-based multilateral trading system, push for the improvement of global economic governance, actively deal with global challenges, and promote a stable recovery of the world economy, Hu said.

For his part, Le Maire said France attaches great importance to developing high-quality French-Chinese relations and that the two countries should join hands to strengthen pragmatic cooperation in various fields.

France is ready to work with China to deepen cooperation in traditional fields, tap cooperation potential in emerging fields, and promote bilateral cooperation to achieve more results, he said. Enditem
MIAMI, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Arteza, the leading arts and crafts supplies e-commerce company, announced today that its Board of Directors has appointed an independent director Julie Rice, a highly experienced brand mogul in direct-to-consumer brands. The board consists of members with diverse backgrounds and significant expertise across retail, e-commerce and consumer marketing sectors.

As an innovative and instrumental entrepreneur, Rice brings to Arteza proven success in leading powerful brands and a passion for building creative experiences and inspirational communities. Rice has an impressive background as she co-founded the renowned spin club, SoulCycle, and also served as Partner for WeWork. Most recently, Rice co-founded LifeShop, a company that invests in and advises entrepreneurs and develops wellness business concepts. In addition to her monumental business ventures, Rice serves as a board member for Weight Watchers and The Public Theater.

"Now more than ever people need connection and creativity," said Julie Rice. "I am excited to work with the amazing team at Arteza to help continue to create community and experience around both."

"We are delighted to welcome Julie to our board of directors and dynamic leadership team," said CEO Brenda Freeman. "Julie will be an excellent addition to Arteza as she has a wealth of knowledge and expertise, especially in the areas of making retail experiential and building integrated communities. We look forward to having her alongside us throughout our creative revolution of the art industry and future successes."

Since its founding in 2015, Arteza has brought creative innovation to an industry ripe for disruption. The company's impressive growth trajectory is powered by forward-thinking leaders and solid teams behind them executing on a bold vision.

"We understand that people are at the core of our business," continued Freeman. "Our ability to attract and retain talented executives like Julie are a testament to the power of the Arteza brand."

About Arteza

Founded in 2015, Arteza's mission is to inspire a more creative tomorrow by providing high-quality yet affordable arts & crafts supplies. With more than 2 million customers across 100 countries, Arteza has redefined the art supply industry with its direct-to-consumer model, new product innovation, and a robust online and social media presence focused on providing superior customer experiences. The company is headquartered in Miami, Florida and sells online at https://arteza.com/. Follow on Instagram @artezaofficial.

SOURCE Arteza

Related Links

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The government on



Wednesday cautioned its employees, particularly nurses, police officers and bus conductors, against falling prey to a "malicious" campaign seeking a higher pay grade.

Talking to reporters in Gandhinagar, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel alleged that even as the administration was busy tackling coronavirus, "some elements" were trying to mislead and incite the government employees by running a campaign for higher pay grade.

He was referring to a campaign on Twitter and Facebook that seeks higher pay grade for nurses, police officers and conductors employed by the State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC).

The campaign started a week back after the state government suspended its Government Resolution (GR), which had proposed a reduction in the pay grade of a section of primary teachers. The GR had proposed to reduce the pay grade from Rs 4,200 to Rs 2,800. However, it had suspended the GR following a campaign by teachers.

Citing this decision, other employees have started seeking a higher pay grade to end the "injustice" against them.

"By suspending the GR, we had only restored the old pay grade of Rs 4,200. However, an impression was created that the government has increased the pay grade from Rs 2,800 to Rs 4,200. Now, some elements have started inciting other employees for demanding a rise in the pay grade," Patel said.

"When the administration is busy fighting coronavirus, some people are running a malicious campaign to misguide our employees. First, an attempt was made to incite policemen. Now, health workers are being targeted," he said.

People should be wary of such campaigns...Don' fall prey to such malicious campaign," he added.

Patel, who handles Finance and Health portfolios, cautioned the employees not to get carried away by this kind of campaign from outsiders.

He assured the employees that no injustice has been done to them in terms of the pay grade.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The company will reinforce its position as an Experience Optimization leader, significantly expanding its product feature management capabilities to help businesses deliver "Amazon-Like" experiences

NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- "AB Tasty is announcing a Series C round of funding to revolutionize how companies deliver the best brand and product experiences," comments Alix de Sagazan, Co-Founder of AB Tasty. With over 900 international clients and 10 offices throughout North America, EMEA and APAC, 60% of AB Tasty's revenue is now generated outside of France, where it is headquartered.

After moving to New York to oversee AB Tasty's expansion, Alix de Sagazan and her team grew revenue in the United States by 480% in 2 years. "With this funding, we will continue significantly investing in our experience optimization and feature management capabilities. We are reinforcing our sales and marketing activities in the US to increase our total addressable market," explains Alix.

"Today, we're proud to say we offer a powerful, AI-driven experimentation, personalization and feature management platform," comments Remi Aubert Co-Founder of AB Tasty. "Tomorrow, we'll be able to offer even more advanced capabilities based on incorporating more artificial intelligence and automation into our solutions, thanks to our increased investment in R&D."

Delivering exceptional customer experiences across digital devices remains a top priority for all companies. Remi elaborates: "As all companies are becoming digital they need the tools to continuously deploy, personalize and experiment with new features. AB Tasty's solutions respond to the market's omnichannel demands intuitively and efficiently."

"We're confident about taking the next step with AB Tasty, based on our years of working together, the quality of their products and our relationship," comments Benoit Bouffart, Chief Tech & Product Officer at e.Voyageurs SNCF. "We were excited about Flagship (AB Tasty's feature management solution) straight away, since the solution allows for significantly more flexibility (progressive rollout, cross-device testing) to support our mobile-first strategy."

"Flagship lets us deploy A/B tests in a much more agile way and lets us imagine user journey tests that more accurately mimic the reality of our clients' experiences," elaborate Ingrid Peiniau, Head of Customer Experience at Oui.SNCF and David Ruiz, Customer Experience Director at e.Voyageurs SNCF.

"Flagship is a game changer for product and technical teams looking to innovate and safely release code at the fast pace the market demands," concludes Remi.

The fundraising of $40 million is led by Credit Mutuel Innovation with participation by existing investors Korelya Capital, Omnes, Partech and XAnge. The total investment raised by the company has reached $64 million to date. "Even as the COVID-19 pandemic took root, AB Tasty continued to deliver value and remained true to its company values," explains Julien Coulon, CEO of Credit Mutuel Innovation. "This positive experience reaffirms our commitment to support AB Tasty's growth and consolidate its position as a global leader," adds Cyrus Contant, Senior Associate at Credit Mutuel Innovation.

Media Kit

https://www.abtasty.com/pages/media-kit-series-c-fundraise/

Media Contact

Robin Nichols, Content & PR Manager

robin@abtasty.com

About AB Tasty

AB Tasty is a global leader in feature management, experimentation and personalization solutions, helping businesses launch better products faster and drive more conversions, engagement and revenue on all their digital assets and channels. We provide marketing, product and technical teams with a comprehensive brand and product experience optimization platform, allowing them to turn website, mobile or application visitors into customers, subscribers or leads, while delivering outstanding customer experiences, aligned with business KPIs. AB Tasty's customer list includes Ashley Furniture, Kiehl's, Sephora, USA Today, YSL Beauty, as well as more than 900 global enterprises. To learn more, please visit www.abtasty.com

About Credit Mutuel Innovation

Credit Mutuel Innovation is the evergreen venture capital entity of Credit Mutuel Equity (3.5 billion in capital). We invest 1-20M in life science, digital and deeptech companies from seed to growth stages. We support bold and ambitious entrepreneurs to develop their growth potential with our worldwide ecosystems (our 350+ portfolio companies, our abroad subsidiaries, 150+ largest global corporates, and the best-in-class experts). Because it takes more than 5 years to turn a startup into a global leader, we invest our own equity and ensure durable partnerships with visionary leaders.

Read more about us: www.creditmutuelequity.com/en

About Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale

Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale comprises the Centre Est Europe (Strasbourg), Sud-Est (Lyon), Ile-de-France (Paris), Savoie-Mont Blanc (Annecy), Midi-Atlantique (Toulouse), Loire-Atlantique et Centre-Ouest (Nantes), Centre (Orleans), Normandie (Caen), Dauphine-Vivarais (Valence), Mediterraneen (Marseille) and Anjou (Angers) federations. Massif Central (Clermont-Ferrand) and Antilles-Guyane (Fort-de-France) federations will join it on January 1, 2020. Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale also encompasses Caisse Federale de Credit Mutuel, Banque Federative de Credit Mutuel (BFCM) and all its subsidiaries, in particular CIC, Euro-Information, Assurances de Credit Mutuel (ACM), Targobank, Cofidis, Banque Europeenne de Credit Mutuel (BECM) and CIC Iberbanco.

Contributors from Credit Mutuel Innovation:

Julien Coulon

CEO

julien.coulon@creditmutuel.fr

Clement Combal

Investment Director

clement.combal@creditmutuel.fr

Cyrus Contant

Senior Associate

cyrus.contant@creditmutuel.fr

Legal Counsel:

Duteil Avocats (Benoit Lespinasse)

Media Contact: Veronique Richez-Lerouge v.richez-lerouge@reso-media.com - +33 (0) 6 14 63 90 00

About e.Voyageurs SNCF

e.Voyageurs SNCF houses the full range of the SNCF group's client-oriented digital capabilities, driven by the French leading e-commerce player OUI.sncf, the international expertise of Rail Europe, the MaaS & New Mobilities Programme as well as the service offering of the SNCF Assistant since June 2019: the new version of the SNCF app enhanced with new mobilities to allow customers to securely find and pay for their itinerary, travel and get real-time information on their journey. e.Voyageurs SNCF achieved business volumes of 5 billion in 2019 and sold 122 million train tickets.

About Korelya

Founded in 2016 and chaired by Fleur Pellerin, Korelya Capital is a pan-European Growth VC fund that supports tech scale-ups in their development with the ambition to create unicorns in Europe (Devialet, Bolt, Glovo, Showpad, Kayrros). It also offers them an opportunity to develop in Asia through its team and network in Seoul. www.korelyacapital.com

About Omnes

Omnes is a leading Paris-based European investor in private equity and infrastructure. With 4 billion of assets under management, Omnes provides SMEs with the capital needed to finance growth. The firm has dedicated investment teams across three key areas: Venture Capital, Buyout & Growth Capital and Infrastructure. Omnes is owned by its employees. Omnes is committed to ESG issues and has set up the Omnes Foundation in aid of children's charities. It is also a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). www.omnescapital.com

Media Contact: Gaelle de Montousse gaelle.demontousse@omnescapital.com +33 (0) 619946529

About Partech

Partech is a global investment firm with a portfolio of almost 180 companies spread across 30 countries in Europe, the US, Africa, and Asia. The Partech team brings capital, experience, strategic support, and networks to entrepreneurs at every stage of development: seed, venture, and growth.

See Partech's current portfolio: https://partechpartners.com/companies /.

Media Contact: Isabelle Tresson itresson@partechpartners.com +33 (0) 7 86 08 85 85

About XAnge

As a leading European venture capital firm based in Paris and Munich, XAnge invests in innovative technology companies operating in the digital consumer, enterprise data, fintechs & deeptechs. XAnge is part of Siparex, an independent private investment group with 2bn under management. www.xange.fr

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1006683/AB_Tasty_Logo.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1217534/Flagship.jpg
VANCOUVER, BC, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - B2Gold Corp. (TSX: BTO) (NYSE: BTG) (NSX: B2G) ("B2Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a contribution of $2 million to assist the Namibian government's COVID-19 relief program. This represents one of the largest private sector contributions to the government's relief fund. All dollar figures are in United States dollars unless otherwise indicated.

These funds will assist in the purchase of personal protection equipment, food relief packages and hospital equipment (including ventilators) to assist healthcare and frontline workers dealing with the virus and its impact on local populations. B2Gold's support will be channelled through Namibia's Disaster Relief Fund which was established under the Emergency Management Unit of the Office of the Prime Minister. The Unit is responsible for mobilizing resources locally and internationally during a national emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

In making this announcement, Mr. Clive Johnson, President and CEO of B2Gold, said: "B2Gold is proud to assist the Namibian government in dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our contribution demonstrates B2Gold's sincere commitment to improve the livelihoods of all Namibians."

B2Gold has made other important contributions this year towards improving livelihoods in Namibia, in line with B2Gold's overall corporate social responsibility strategy. This includes:

$ 1.7 million as part of B2Gold's annual contribution that supports projects in the education, livelihoods, health, environment and conservation, and arts and cultural sectors.





education, livelihoods, health, environment and conservation, and arts and cultural sectors. An initial COVID-19 response contribution of $240,000 in April 2020 that supported both targeted government interventions and the Development Workshop of Namibia , a non-governmental organization which operates through the Namibian Chamber of Environment. This contribution helps fund hygiene, sanitation and food security projects in the informal residential areas of urban townships throughout the country.

B2Gold operates the Otjikoto mine in Namibia and is the largest Canadian investor and the largest gold producer in the country.

About B2Gold Corp.

B2Gold is a low-cost international senior gold producer headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Founded in 2007, today, B2Gold has operating gold mines in Mali, Namibia and the Philippines, and numerous exploration and development projects in various countries including Mali and Colombia. In 2020, B2Gold forecasts consolidated gold production of between 1,000,000 and 1,055,000 ounces.

ON BEHALF OF B2GOLD CORP.

"Clive T. Johnson"

President and Chief Executive Officer

For more information on B2Gold, please visit the Company website at www.b2gold.com or contact:

Ian MacLean Katie Bromley Vice President, Investor Relations Manager, Investor Relations & Public Relations +1 604-681-8371 +1 604-681-8371 [email protected] [email protected]

The Toronto Stock Exchange and NYSE American LLC neither approve nor disapprove the information contained in this news release.

This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation, including: projections; outlook; guidance; forecasts; estimates; and other statements regarding future or estimated financial and operational performance, gold production and sales; and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on B2Gold's operations; statements regarding activities or achievements of B2Gold including, without limitation: the potential payment of future dividends, including the timing and amount of any such dividends, and the expectation that quarterly dividends will be maintained at the same level; consolidated gold production of between 1,000,000 and 1,055,000 ounces in 2020. All statements in this news release that address events or developments that we expect to occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, although not always, identified by words such as "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "project", "target", "potential", "schedule", "forecast", "budget", "estimate", "intend" or "believe" and similar expressions or their negative connotations, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could", "should" or "might" occur. All such forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made.

Forward-looking statements necessarily involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond B2Gold's control, including risks associated with or related to: the duration and extent of the COVID-19 pandemic; the volatility of metal prices and B2Gold's common shares; changes in tax laws; the dangers inherent in exploration, development and mining activities; the uncertainty of reserve and resource estimates; not achieving production, cost or other estimates; actual production, development plans and costs differing materially from the estimates in B2Gold's feasibility and other studies; the ability to obtain and maintain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for mining activities; environmental regulations or hazards and compliance with complex regulations associated with mining activities; climate change and climate change regulations; the ability to replace mineral reserves and identify acquisition opportunities; the unknown liabilities of companies acquired by B2Gold; the ability to successfully integrate new acquisitions; fluctuations in exchange rates; the availability of financing; financing and debt activities, including potential restrictions imposed on B2Gold's operations as a result thereof and the ability to generate sufficient cash flows; operations in foreign and developing countries and the compliance with foreign laws, including those associated with operations in Colombia and including risks related to changes in foreign laws and changing policies related to mining and local ownership requirements or resource nationalization generally; remote operations and the availability of adequate infrastructure; fluctuations in price and availability of energy and other inputs necessary for mining operations; shortages or cost increases in necessary equipment, supplies and labour; regulatory, political and country risks, including local instability or acts of terrorism and the effects thereof; the reliance upon contractors, third parties and joint venture partners; challenges to title or surface rights; the dependence on key personnel and the ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; the risk of an uninsurable or uninsured loss; adverse climate and weather conditions; litigation risk; competition with other mining companies; community support for B2Gold's operations, including risks related to strikes and the halting of such operations from time to time; conflicts with small scale miners; failures of information systems or information security threats; the outcome of the ongoing tax assessment by the Colombian Tax Office (DIAN) in respect of the Gramalote property; the ability to maintain adequate internal controls over financial reporting as required by law, including Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; compliance with anti-corruption laws, and sanctions or other similar measures; social media and B2Gold's reputation; as well as other factors identified and as described in more detail under the heading "Risk Factors" in B2Gold's most recent Annual Information Form, B2Gold's current Form 40-F Annual Report and B2Gold's other filings with Canadian securities regulators and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which may be viewed at www.sedar.com and www.sec.gov, respectively (the "Websites"). The list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect B2Gold's forward-looking statements.

B2Gold's forward-looking statements are based on the applicable assumptions and factors management considers reasonable as of the date hereof, based on the information available to management at such time. These assumptions and factors include, but are not limited to, assumptions and factors relating to B2Gold's ability to carry on current and future operations, including: the duration and effects of COVID-19 on our operations and workforce; development and exploration activities; the timing, extent, duration and economic viability of such operations, including any mineral resources or reserves identified thereby; the accuracy and reliability of estimates, projections, forecasts, studies and assessments; B2Gold's ability to meet or achieve estimates, projections and forecasts; the availability and cost of inputs; the price and market for outputs, including gold; the timely receipt of necessary approvals or permits; the ability to meet current and future obligations; the ability to obtain timely financing on reasonable terms when required; the current and future social, economic and political conditions; and other assumptions and factors generally associated with the mining industry. B2Gold's forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management and reflect their current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date hereof. B2Gold does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations or opinions should change other than as required by applicable law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Accordingly, no assurance can be given that any events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do, what benefits or liabilities B2Gold will derive therefrom. For the reasons set forth above, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements.

SOURCE B2Gold Corp.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 01:15:54|Editor: huaxia

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DOHA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Qatar's health ministry on Wednesday announced 441 new infections of COVID-19, increasing the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 107,871.

"Some 450 people recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 104,641, while three others died, raising the fatalities to 163," the official Qatar News Agency reported, quoting a statement by the ministry.

A total of 455,798 people in Qatar have undergone lab tests for COVID-19 so far, it added.

China and Qatar have offered mutual help during the fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

On Feb. 21, five Qatar Airways cargo freighters flew to China carrying approximately 300 tonnes of medical supplies donated by the airline.

On July 8, Chinese health officials and medical experts held a video conference with their Qatari counterparts to share experience and expertise in fighting COVID-19. Enditem
Legal committee reviews local control ordinance The Special Committee for Legal Review considered Ordinance 200496 at its Tuesday, July 21, meeting. The ordinance calls for an election on Nov. 3, 2020 to obtain public authorization as a City legislative priority to establish the pursuit of a state legislative or referendum action that would restore local control of the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD).

A community news roundup of arguments from both sides of the aisle reminds us that every political discussion is mostly related to Prez Trump campaign 2020.Checkit:
They first went official with their romance back in 2017.

And Diane Kruger and boyfriend Norman Reedus appeared in good spirits as they arrived to visit a friend's home in Los Angeles, with a bottle of wine in tow.

The German actress, 44, cut a casual figure in a double denim ensemble as they pair climbed out of her luxurious Porsche 992 Carrera.

Happy couple: Diane Kruger and boyfriend Norman Reedus appeared in good spirits as they arrived to visit a friend's home in Los Angeles, with a bottle of wine in tow

Diane sported a pale blue denim jacket which she wore over a plain white T-shirt.

The National Treasure star teamed her jacket with a pair of cropped blue jeans, accessorising her look with white trainers and a tan leather handbag.

Diane kept her cropped blonde tresses loose, while she protected herself with a grey face mask.

Meanwhile, Norman, 51, echoed her low-key look with a black T-shirt, distressed black jeans and black boots.

Looking good: The German actress, 44, cut a casual figure in a double denim ensemble as they pair climbed out of her luxurious Porsche 992 Carrera

Like Diane, the actor wore a grey face mask , as he carried a bottle of wine into the abode.

Diane and Florida-born Norman - who officially went public in March 2017 - originally met back in December 2015 while portraying lovers on the set of their film Sky.

At the time, Diane was still in a decade-long relationship with Dawson's Creek alum Joshua Jackson.

Meanwhile, Norman and nineties supermodel Helena Christensen - who split in 2003 - amicably co-parent their 20-year-old son Mingus Lucien.

Norman next resumes his role as crossbow-wielding tracker Daryl Dixon in the 10th season finale - titled 'A Certain Doom' - of AMC's post-apocalyptic zombie drama.

Lovebirds:Diane and Florida-born Norman - who officially went public in March 2017 - originally met back in December 2015 while portraying lovers on the set of their film Sky (pictured in December 2018)

Showrunner Angela Kang just revealed the postponed air date will finally be unveiled during the virtual Comic-Con panel streaming this Friday at 4pm EST via YouTube.

The Death Stranding actor has used his valuable time in quarantine lockdown to pen his literary debut - a collection of four short fiction stories.

'I'm writing a book with help,' Norman said on AMC's Friday Night in With the Morgans on July 3.

'It's a book of fiction. There are four stories that kind of interact, and they learn through each other on a journey from the East Coast to the West Coast, in a nutshell.

'It's a story of hope and growing up, but it has really nothing to do with my life, although there is a couple of stories that happen to them that are similar to things that happened to me.'

Meanwhile, Diane will also act in Simon Kinberg's all-female spy thriller 355 - hitting US/UK theaters January 15 - alongside Penelope Cruz, Jessica Chastain, and Lupita Nyong'o.
Christian Dior hosted a live but audience-free fashion show on Wednesday in the Italian city of Lecce, in a dazzling celebration of local crafts and traditions that included a dance spectacle in the middle of the baroque main square.

Luxury labels are tentatively returning to the catwalk after the coronavirus pandemic, and Dior streamed the show live without the usual array of celebrities in the front row.

The show, which was postponed from May 27, took place in the the Piazza del Duomo in Lecce, Puglia, with a small audience of 1,000, consisting of artisans, press and fashion executives, watching from the venue.

According to Vogue Business, the brand hopes the show tonight will attract more than 20 million social media users, far more than it has ever done whilst also showing a physical show.

Dior hosted it's Cruise 2020 show tonight after it was postponed from May 27, with the fashion runway taking place in the the Piazza del Duomo in Lecce, Puglia

Dior, like Chanel, has chosen to stick fast to the fashion calendar despite the pandemic - continuing to show the 90 looks via live stream to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

But the French brand upped the ante by staging an extravanga with a live orchestra and dancers performing a modern take on a traditional tune, while models wound their way through a gallery of lights called Luminarie in Lecce's Piazza del Duomo.

Outfits in the so-called 'Cruise' collection included embroidered dresses with firework patterns, in a nod to Italian folklore, while artist Pietro Ruffo's wildflower drawings were translated onto colourful dresses.

Dior's Italian creative chief Maria Grazia Chiuri said she had sought to showcase the craftmanship of the Puglia region - her father's homeland - and help it endure by casting it in a fresh light.

Dior tonight presented its Cruise 2021 collection, made up of 90 holiday-ready looks, to an empty venue in Italy with hopes that up to 20 million may watch the show from home

'I understood in this process where my passion and my origins are from and why I am so attracted to this type of work, this embroidery, this tradition,' Chiuri told Reuters in an interview.

'I saw my grandmother, my aunts, women used to sit outside their homes and create this beautiful work.'

LVMH-owned Dior called on the Costantine Foundation, a center involved in self-assertion of women, to manufacture cloth like macramA and lace in natural color, handcrafted with old looms in the Italian countryside.

One ivory dress, bejeweled with dozens of butterflies and roses in bobbin lace, was handmade by one of the few woman still able to master the old lacemaking technique.

Models Ana Barbosa wears a creation during the unveiling of the Dior 2021 cruise collection in Lecce, southern Italy

Dior's Italian creative chief Maria Grazia Chiuri said she had sought to showcase the craftmanship of the Puglia region - her father's homeland

Dior hosted just 1,000 spectators at the venue, with the models and performers maintaining social distancing throughout the show

Other looks featured shearling jackets, tie-dye prints or a black tulle dress sewn with ears of wheat in raffia.

Many fashion houses including Gucci, Marc Jacobs and Saint Laurent have chosen to forgo their 2021 cruise collection, breaking away from the fashion calendar as we know it to show when they are ready.

Dior is one of the only fashion houses to have held such a large scale catwalk, others to have returned to showing on physical catwalks in Paris and Milan this week include Jacquemus and Dolce & Gabbana.

Models strutted their stuff through a brightly lit Piazza del Duomo, and could be seen maintaining a social distance from one another as they posed within the square.

Models strutted their stuff past bright and colourful lights as they took part in the socially-distanced show

Dior's show tonight was aiming to attract 20 million social media views, far more than it has ever done whilst also showing a physical show

The brand said it hoped to attract 20 million viewers at home for their virtual fashion show amid the on-going coronavirus pandemic

Musicians performed from the centre of the square, while models walked at socially distance from one another

A white corset tied dress is worn with leather wrist cuffs (left); A fuzz of geometric squares are seen in a three piece co-ord (right)

The brand live streamed the show on its own site, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Bilibili, Tencent, as well as on leading fashion magazine websites.

Meanwhile there will also be further clips shared across social media platforms like TikTok, plus Weibo and WeChat in China.

Speaking to Vogue Pietro Beccari, Chairman and CEO of Christian Dior Couture said the show had been designed with '20 million people at home' in mind.

He explained: 'If you ask yourself why you invest so much money and time in your show it is for those watching at home and not really for the 1,000 lucky ones there.'

The fashion house reported a 15 per cent drop in revenue for the first quarter of 2020, dropping to 10.6billion

Models strutted their stuff through a brightly lit Piazza del Duomo, and could be seen maintaining a social distance from one another as they posed within the square

Models walking the runway were joined during the show by performers including musicians and dancers

The show was broadcast across the world on social media platforms including, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Bilibili, Tencent, TikTok, plus Weibo and WeChat in China

He added that there was no need for Dior to change its scheduling, he said: 'We have hundreds of thousands of fashionistas waiting for the latest product in the store. That's our business model and I cannot change it.'

The fashion house reported a 15 per cent drop in revenue for the first quarter of 2020, dropping to 10.6billion, the publication reports.

And while there may be concerns over the fashion calendar across the world regarding the future of digital versus physical shows, as well as diversity in models, he said the show was a 'proactive step' from the brand.

He explained it would show 'signs' of a comeback from Dior.

Models wound their way through a gallery of lights called Luminarie in Lecce's Piazza del Duomo
Collins' amendment aims to protect military service members' right to worship

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A new amendment has been introduced to the National Defense Authorization Act for the fiscal year 2021 that seeks to protect the religious freedom rights of service members amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The amendment proposed by Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the only military chaplain serving in the 116th Congress, would prevent the Department of Defense from issuing any guidance, order, or regulation restricting service members attendance at religious services or gatherings if similar guidance does not exist for other gatherings.

This amendment will guarantee that our men and women in uniform are able to freely exercise the very freedoms they fight to protect each and every day, Collins, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve who is also a candidate for U.S. Senate, said in a statement

The amendment comes after the U.S. Navy issued an order that critics said banned troops from attending indoor religious services during the pandemic but allowed them to gather at house parties.

The Navy ultimately clarified its guidance last week, stressing that in-person worship is now permissible as long as measures are taken to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Collins applauded the decision.

While we can all agree that the health and safety of our troops is critical during the ongoing public health crisis, singling out religious gatherings while allowing other activities and unrestricted social gatherings to take place is unlawful, Collins said.

Collins, along with Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., sent a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper on July 1, demanding a meeting with him and other military officials by the end of the month. The lawmakers want to discuss the steps that need to be taken to protect the religious freedom of our service members.

The lawmakers voiced concerns about the mixed messages they have received from Pentagon officials over the past month.

They also expressed concerns over the actions taken by military officials in response to complaints from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a secular legal organization that often pressures the military branches to enforce a strict separation of church and state.

Given the years-long record of the DoDs actions in contradiction with federal law protecting religious liberty, it is clear to us that the DoD has either willfully ignored or is unaware of its obligations to protect the religious freedom of its service members, the lawmakers said in the letter.

Despite the several letters members of Congress, legal organizations, and faith groups have sent the DoD explaining its obligations, we continue to witness failures to correctly apply Federal law protecting the religious freedom of our brave men and women in the military.

The lawmakers demanded explanations of the comprehensive policies and training concerning religious freedom the Army mentioned in a June letter to the members of Congress, the decision-making process regarding the militarys response to MRFF complaints, and the Navys recent order on worship services.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also wrote a letter to Esper on June 9 asking him to protect religious freedom within the Defense Department. Cruzs letter came amid reports that the Army has censored military chaplains and hampered their ability to provide religious services during the coronavirus pandemic.

Unfortunately, DOD and the Army have been hindering chaplains' efforts to send messages of hope and faith through a series of extremely concerning infringements on military chaplains' free exercise rights, Cruz wrote in his letter. We write to urge you to ensure that DOD complies with the religious freedom mandates of the Constitution and to ask you to issue clear guidance that strongly protects religious freedom within the DOD.

This week, Cruz introduced language into the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act that would require that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act be taught to all commanders, chaplains and judge advocates, according to The Military Times.

Efforts among House Republicans to secure religious freedom for service members began two months ago, when a group of 20 lawmakers, including Collins and Lamborn, wrote a May 14 letter to Esper urging the Pentagon to stand up for the religious liberty of Christian service members in the wake of criticism from MRFF.

MRFF issued a series of complaints about the public expressions of religion by military chaplains.

One of the incidents the lawmakers letter touched on included that of Col. Moon H. Kim, who serves as the senior chaplain at U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys in South Korea. Kim sent an email to nearly three dozen of his chaplain colleagues that included the PDF of a John Piper book called Coronavirus and Christ.

That did not sit well with the MRFF, which demanded action in response to Kims email suggested he should be court-martialed.

After mentioning that Kim was being subject to a review that could harm his career and reputation, the members of Congress maintained that Kim should not and cannot be disciplined for his email.

The lawmakers also opposed the removal of Facebook videos featuring military chaplains either encouraging service members to engage in prayer or offering a simple message of encouragement. The videos were subsequently removed in response to MRFF's complaints.

Im always very surprised when we see military commanders immediately jumping through hoops whenever the MRFF contacts them. And for whatever reason, when we raise issues of religious liberty, they have a tendency to want to fight us for a while, Hiram Sasser, an attorney at the First Liberty Institute, a legal group that defends the First Amendment rights of service members, told The Christian Post.

I dont know if thats just happenstance or if for some reason, the leadership of the Pentagon is more sympathetic to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. But for whatever reason, the Department of Defense seems to respond very, very favorably to that organization. We usually have to fight really hard in order to get our victories.

Throughout the May 14 letter, the concerned lawmakers referred to guidance released by the Army Chaplain Corps on the publicization of religious or spiritual content via social media. This guidance gives the Army Chaplain Corps broad latitude to use diverse means of social media to broadcast religious services, messages, and educational materials.

The guidance also prohibits the Army from instituting content-based restrictions on religious speech absent a compelling government interest.

Army policy does not prohibit evangelizing or proselytizing so long as they are communicated in a manner avoiding appearance of official Army/DoD endorsement or promotion of the particular religious viewpoint or group, the guidance states.

The MRFF also sent a complaint demanding that Lt. Col. David McGraw face punishment for hosting Sunday Christian Porch Preaching from the balcony of his apartment building at U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart, Germany for several weeks.

After the MRFF complaint, McGraw apologized to residents of Kelley Barracks for holding Sunday worship services from his military housing balcony.

The members of Congress argued that Lt. Col. McGraw should be allowed to continue his Sunday morning preaching and hymn-singing immediately.

Reacting to the Navys move to allow service members to attend indoor services, Sasser said it's important to give the Navy credit.

Sasser said that when First Liberty raised the issue, the Navy took it seriously and they had some good people at the top.
The proposed Hollywood Center project includes 46- and 35-story buildings flanking the Capitol Records Tower and two 11-story residential buildings for low-income senior residents. (Hollywood Center Project Environmental Impact Report)

State geologists have concluded there is strong evidence that multiple earthquake faults run through the site of a controversial skyscraper development proposed for Hollywood, records obtained by The Times show.

A letter from the California Geological Survey to Los Angeles city planners, obtained through a public records act request, raises new questions about the Hollywood Center development. The project calls for 46- and 35-story skyscrapers that flank the famed Capitol Records Tower, along with two buildings for low-income senior residents that would each stand 11 stories tall.

"These studies strongly support the presence of an active ... fault strand entering the eastern Hollywood Center property," the letter said. "Importantly, the combined data indicate that more than one ... fault trace of the Hollywood Fault crosses the proposed project site."

The state also noted a recent U.S. Geological Survey report that found four parallel sections of the Hollywood fault identified just east of the property which are believed to extend under the development.

For years, state scientists have said there's evidence an earthquake fault slices through a strip of Hollywood. In 2014, state officials mapped out the Hollywood fault  capable of a magnitude 7 earthquake  shown running through the area.

But that hasn't stopped a New York-based developer and Los Angeles city officials from championing a $1-billion plan that would create Hollywood's tallest and largest development.

(Lorena Elebee / Los Angeles Times)

Philip Aarons, a founder of Millennium Partners, this week disputed the state's conclusions, as he has in the past.

"It is clear that the data relied upon by the state is significantly inferior in quality to the data acquired from the extensive trenching done on our site," Aarons said in a statement. "We will continue to work diligently with the city to review any and all data with the goal of assuring the construction of the most seismically safe structure in the history of Los Angeles."

Story continues

Aarons said a new geology report was prepared for the draft environmental impact report, which was published earlier this year. It again concludes there have been no earthquake faults on the property that have moved since the last Ice Age, "and therefore, the site is safe to build on, according to state and city requirements."

A parking lot on Vine Street next to the Capitol Records Tower is the proposed site for the Hollywood Center project. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Aarons said the Hollywood Center project site "has been the subject of the most extensive geotechnical testing of any property in Hollywood. From 2012 to 2019, seven fault investigations were performed. In each and every case, those studies have come to the conclusion that there is no active fault on the project site."

The California Geological Survey said there were limitations in the previous studies cited by the developer as evidence of the absence of a fault. For instance, the state agency said a fault trench excavated in 2014 was not dug long enough for the developer to disprove the state's previous conclusion that an active earthquake fault ran underneath the property.

Seismologist Lucy Jones said the California Geological Survey is the gold-standard scientific authority for recognizing the locations of faults in California.

"That's their job," said Jones, a former chair of the California Seismic Safety Commission and former science advisor for seismic safety for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. "And they say the studies they have strongly support the presence of an active fault strand in the property."

The mayor's office did not comment publicly on the state's letter.

Formerly known as Millennium Hollywood, the Hollywood Center project would place nearly 1.3 million square feet of developed space on about 4 acres of land, adding more than 1,000 residential housing units and more than 30,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. An alternate plan would involve creating more than 880 housing units and a 220-room hotel.

California law generally prohibits the construction of buildings directly atop earthquake faults. A building risks catastrophic collapse if it sits on land that splits apart during an earthquake, in which one side of the fault lurches past the other.

In the magnitude 6.6 Sylmar earthquake of 1971, 80% of buildings on land where the fault ruptured the surface suffered moderate to severe damage, while only 30% of buildings constructed a little farther away suffered such damage.

Attorney Robert P. Silverstein, representing homeowner groups and activists opposed to the Hollywood Center project, displays a map showing two seismic studies by separate government agencies that warn that the proposed high-rise project would sit atop a site crossed by active earthquake fault lines. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

The existing map of the Hollywood fault drawn by state officials in 2014 already places the path of the Hollywood fault under the proposed 46-story East Building and under or very near the 11-story east senior residence building.

In 2015, however, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, then led by Raymond Chan, rejected the state's conclusion and sided with the developer's geologist. City officials agreed that an earthquake fault was probably located deep beneath the property but that it was too old to be considered active.

Still, the development was halted by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in 2015, who ruled that the project's description listed in its environmental impact report was too vague to permit a reasonable and meaningful review. The ruling tossed out the city's previous approval for the project. The judge's ruling was upheld by a state appeals court last year.

Since 2014, there have been a number of scientific advances made by federal and state scientists in mapping earthquake faults.

In May, the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey released a 48-page report detailing the latest science of where the Hollywood fault sits, based on a new fault-finding technique called guided wave. It's a technique in which scientists can shoot a sound wave down a suspected surface of the fault, and instruments can verify whether it is indeed a fault.

The technique has proved to be very accurate in identifying the location of faults where they meet the surface, said former state geologist John Parrish.

In the case of the Hollywood Center, test results not only verified the earthquake fault the state mapped as going through the property in 2014, but identified three new, additional and parallel fault strands  all just east of the proposed development, said Parrish, who was chief of the California Geological Survey at the time the study was done.

"Those will go all the way through" and continue west into the Hollywood Center project parcel, Parrish said. "They just didn't run up to the curb and stop. Unfortunately, they're going to go through that piece of property."

The proposed 35-story west building also has a nearby fault. Because of the way it is angled into the ground at the surface, it's possible the tower's foundation could be built astride two sides of the fault, Parrish said. In such a scenario, the foundation could suddenly snap as one side of the fault moves past the other in a major quake, setting the stage for a catastrophic collapse.

The new data also suggest a fault line runs beneath a luxury apartment complex built at the site of the former KFWB-AM radio studios, at 6230 Yucca St., which is also known as 1755 Argyle Ave., Parrish said.

The site, just east of the Capitol Records Tower, is home to an 18-story complex called the Argyle House, developed by the Related Cos. and opened in 2018.

Attorney Robert P. Silverstein represents homeowner groups and activists opposed to the Hollywood Center project. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

In 2014, state officials removed from a map a fault line that was suggested to run under the former KFWB studios after tests showed the fault was inactive. But Parrish said evidence uncovered recently identifies how a fault near the Hollywood courthouse  about two-fifths of a mile to the east of the Argyle House  is active.

"If it's active in one area on a fault, the whole fault is considered active," said Parrish, who led the California Geological Survey from 2005 to 2018. "It is unlikely that this string of faults  the Raymond, Hollywood and Santa Monica, which have all been shown to be active for a 110-mile-long stretch  that the ... acres that they want to build a Millennium property on is not active."

In a statement, the Related Cos. disputed the recent government studies as "not as accurate at finding if a fault is active, and therefore, are not the recommended method for determining the activity of faults."

Parrish said the California Geological Survey has traditionally contacted local governments to alert them if a large development may be sitting on geologically unstable land.

"It's for the public health, public health and safety. The public's already paid for it, so they might as well have access to it," Parrish said. "We don't have a stake in whether it's built or not, but we certainly want the decision to be made [by leaders] fully aware of what geologic hazards might be for the area."

The California Geological Survey declined interview requests.

One California project that didn't receive the attention of the state agency before it was built was also developed by Millennium Partners: the 58-story Millennium Tower in San Francisco, a $350-million luxury residential project that opened in 2009 but has since started to lean and sink. It will require a costly retrofit to upgrade the foundation  which originally stretched only to a layer of sand, just above a layer of clay  and extend it to bedrock.

"They built it on liquefiable lands ... but they never called us," Parrish said. "So we didn't comment."

The residents of Millennium Tower have blamed Millennium Partners for the design problems; the developer, in turn, blamed a neighboring construction project for sucking water out of the soil beneath the tower, causing the noticeable sinking.

Millennium Partners' experience with the leaning skyscraper is more reason to be skeptical of the developer's claims, said Robert P. Silverstein, a Pasadena lawyer who represents neighborhood groups opposed to the development who successfully sued to halt the previous version of the Hollywood project.

Silverstein also expressed a lack of confidence in how the city has handled the project in the past, noting that key officials who championed the development have since been embroiled in corruption investigations.

"These independent governmental studies are bombshells that prove the Millennium skyscrapers cannot be allowed," Silverstein said.

The city is currently working on a final version of the Hollywood Center's environmental impact report. Following its completion, the project will face public hearings before the City Council, the planning commission and the council's planning and land use management committee.
There have been more questions than answers surrounding this weeks report that state health officials inaccurately classified dozens of nursing home residents as COVID-19-positive  which led many to be housed near patients actually infected with the disease.

And while legislative leaders pressed Gov. Ned Lamont for more details, including whether any of these false positives became sick or died, one health official said answers could be forthcoming next week.

The state has an obligation to let everyone understand how these 90 people are, said Rep. Toni E. Walker, D-New Haven, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. What is their health? Are there other cases in existence we havent found out about?

If anyone has been put at greater risk because of this recently discovered problem, then we all should be somewhat concerned, said Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, co-chairman of the legislatures Public Health Committee. Now we have reason to suspect whether we have good data.

Acting Department of Public Health Commissioner Deirdre Gifford announced Monday that 144 individuals were initially found to be infected during tests conducted between June 15 and July 17 at the states public health laboratory in Rocky Hill. After inconsistencies led health officials to review those results late last week, the second run showed only 54 positive results.

According to the public health department, these 90 false positives include: 63 nursing home residents and 21 staff members, five tenants of assisted living facilities, and one hospital patient.

Health officials blame the tests manufacturer, saying Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo Fisher Scientific failed to notify Connecticut that it had altered certain test procedures. A company spokesman countered that the process has been amended several times to assist overwhelmed health labs, but all changes were readily available on the companys website.

In a written statement Monday, Gifford emphasized the states swift response once the error had been discovered.

We have notified the healthcare facilities for everyone who received a false positive test result from our state laboratory, she wrote.   Thanks to the quick action of our team at the state lab, adjustments have already been made to ensure the accuracy of future test results from this platform.

But legislators noted that nursing homes  following federal and state health guidelines  normally assign COVID-19 positive residents to an isolated area.

And during the pandemic, staff in many Connecticut homes were re-using scarce masks, smocks and other protective gear multiple times in these COVID-19 wings, since the already infected patients couldnt be placed at greater risk of contracting the coronavirus.

What happened to the false positive nursing home residents assigned to these areas, legislators asked.

State health officials also havent said whether the lab in Rocky Hill was the only one to encounter false positives.

The states coronavirus testing program also is working with four private labs: Yale University, The Jackson Laboratory in Farmington, Genesys Diagnostics in Montville and Sema4 based in Stamford.

Dr. Vivian Leung, who heads the health departments Healthcare-Associated Infections and Anti-microbal Resistance Program, said the state notified affected facilities on Sunday and Monday to collect information on the the misdiagnosed patients.

The impact of the false positives is still being investigated, Leung said. The full impact will not be known until all patients affected have been retested. Information about prior and subsequent testing for each individual, as well as potential exposures and outcomes are being collected.

But Leung also cautioned given the prolonged, 14-day incubation period for the coronavirus, it is difficult to say precisely when anyone might have been exposed.

Still, neither Leung nor any other Lamont administration official has said whether any of the false positives have died since the testing mishap began on June 15.

Steinberg would not rule out a possible legislative committee probe into the false positives matter.

Its an emerging story and Im not equipped with all of the facts or the necessary understanding right now, he said, adding that legislators would be watching closely for more details from the Lamont administration. All I can say is [an investigation] is something we would consider.

Representatives of the states two nursing home associations declined to comment.

More than 48,000 Connecticut residents have contracted the coronavirus since the pandemic began in March, and more than 4,400 residents have died from the disease, according to state health officials. Those totals include 8,870 infections and 2,831 deaths among nursing home residents alone.
Three teen girls are behind bars and charged in the death of 17-year-old Lesley Luna Pantaleon in Montgomery, Alabama.

Montgomery police on Tuesday announced capital murder charges against TaNiya Merriweather, Erin Taylor and Tyeshia Whisenant. All three are 16 years old and being charged as adults.

Pantaleons body was found July 4 in Catoma Creek.

Montgomery police and firefighters responded to the lake on Old Selma Road after receiving a report of a possible body in the water. The teens body was taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science for an autopsy and later confirmed to be Pantaleon.

Pantaleon had last been seen June 24, and state authorities had requested the publics help find her.

Montgomery Capt. Saba Coleman said evidence led them to investigate Pantaleons death as a homicide. The investigation shows that the victim and the three suspects were involved in a physical altercation during which Pantaleon suffered injuries that ultimately led to her death.

Court records state Pantaleons death happened during a robbery. All three teen suspects were taken into custody Monday. They are being held in the Montgomery County Detention Facility. Their mugshots are not yet being made public because of their ages.

More:

Parents were aware 13-year-old boy pointed guns at siblings prior to fatal shooting: police

76-year-old IDd as man found stabbed to death in Berks County woods
NEW DELHI : Politics is increasingly guiding Indias economic ties with the US and the European Union amid growing unease among global investors with a belligerent and unpredictable China, said analysts.

The burgeoning investor penchant for India is reflected in the US recently listing Indias Reliance Jio as a clean telco" for rejecting business with Chinas Huawei, India drawing in $20 billion in investments and pledges between April and July when covid-19 was roiling economies around the world, and key business groups such as the US-India Business Council hosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other ministers.

Not so long ago, China was a top destination for global investors. There were, however, issues of violations of intellectual property rights or even China being seen as an unpredictable investor destination.

But in the post covid-19 world, things have changed a great deal", said Srikanth Kondapalli, professor of Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi. China was seen as exploring profitability," Kondapalli said, pointing to China selling masks, ventilators and testing kits to countries struggling to combat the pandemic.

Added to this is Beijings muscle-flexing in the South China Sea and adoption of the controversial Kong Hong security law giving China new powers over the region, which has further alienated many countries, he said. Against that backdrop, countries such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico are seen as serious investment options, Kondapalli said.

What India has as an advantage are its 400 million consumers and political stability, said a government official who did not want to be named. The official agreed that though Modi made it a point to meet the heads of key companies on his visits to the US, what makes it (Modis current outreach) different now is the timing". There is a tide of opinion against China because of covid-19 and other issues. So, many European countries and the US are looking at India as an alternative. This is an example of politics playing a role in determining economics, where investment should go," the official said.

What we now need to focus on is improving our competitiveness," said Sachin Chaturvedi, director-general, Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a Delhi think tank. Industry and the government have to work in tandem" to raise Indias production profile, he said.

India could use the increased global attention to seek better trade deals, said Biswajit Dhar, a professor of trade issues at JNU. We should bargain for better terms with the EU and the US, focusing more, for example, on technology inflow into India" that will help the country gain the competitive edge it is looking for, he said.

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Turmoil is brewing within the State Bar of Texas, the organization that licenses and regulates the 105,000 attorneys practicing law in Texas.

The Texas bars board of directors has scheduled an emergency meeting next week to discuss what to do about Facebook comments made by the organizations new president that critics say are racially insensitive, demean women and minimize police brutality.

A handful of board members are demanding the resignation of Larry McDougal, a Fort Bend County criminal defense attorney who has been the bars president for less than a month, over a 2015 Facebook post that called the Black Lives Matter movement a terrorist group.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Panel talks Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ ties

The state bars African American Law Section, which met privately with McDougal last week, has called on him to publicly denounce his comments and take other steps to show his views have changed or resign.

Eight other sections of the state bar  including the Asian Pacific Interest Section, Diversity in the Profession Committee, Hispanic Issues Section, LGBT Law Section, Native American Law Section, Texas Minority Counsel Programming Steering Committee, Women & the Law Section and Women in the Profession Committee  voted to endorse the African American Law Sections demands.

McDougal has apologized for his comments but said he will not resign.

This is a hot-button issue that the bar and the board need to address, said Houston trial lawyer Randy Sorrels, a former president of the State Bar of Texas. We need to hear Larry out. We need to hear what he has to say before we make any decisions.

The controversy began July 10 when five-year-old comments by McDougal on Facebook surfaced.

The news media has waged war on law enforcement officers in the aftermath of several highly publicized killings, McDougal wrote in September 2015. Groups like Black Lives Matter has publicly called for the death of not just police officers but also White Americans. This is a terrorist group.

In another Facebook post about a woman lawyer who had been suspended from practicing law, McDougal wrote, She is hot in her Texas Bar picture but she has meth head written all over her today.

McDougal did not respond to interview requests.

Texas Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

In a three-minute video on YouTube posted July 11, McDougal apologized and promised to do better.

I understand that my comments, although not how I intended them, have been hurtful to many members of our bar, McDougal said on the video. For that, I am truly sorry. I sincerely regret that my words reflected negatively in anyway on our state bar leadership, its volunteers and staff and to any of you.

Let me be clear: As a Texas attorney who is sworn to uphold the constitution of this state and the United States, I denounce racism in any and all forms. I want to assure you that those comments do not reflect my beliefs today. They changed quite a while back.

McDougal promised to establish a task force to eradicate social injustice.

During a two-hour meeting via Zoom with the leaders of the African American Law Section, McDougal apologized and promised that he could be a change agent for more diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, according to the section chair, Rudy Metayer, an Austin lawyer and member of the Pflugerville City Council.

Following the meeting, section leaders issued a series of demands for McDougal, including a formal written apology, a public acknowledgment of the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement and an explanation of his change in viewpoint about why the Black Lives Matter is an important movement.

If McDougal declined to take these steps, AALS leaders said they would call on his immediate resignation.

More than 3,000 Texas lawyers have posted comments on the controversy on the Facebook pages of the state bar and its leaders. Nearly all of them denounce McDougals comments. Most of the lawyers say McDougal should step down. But hundreds of Texas attorneys are defending McDougal.

If I thought Larry was a racist, I wouldnt be his friend, said Steve Fischer, an El Paso lawyer and member of the state bars board of directors. I think Larry was completely wrong about Black Lives Matter, but he should not resign, and I dont think the board can make him resign.

For a longer version of this article, please visit TexasLawbook.net.
Thiruvananthapuram, July 22 : Congress Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor and the BJP on Wednesday protested after the Kerala Police registered a case against 600 people including students who came to write the Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) entrance examination which was held on July 16.

The Kerala Police in the capital city registered the case against mostly parents who accompanied their wards who wrote the KEAM exam.

On Tuesday, two students who wrote the exam tested Covid positive, while on Wednesday two more students turned positive.

Tharoor said he was shocked to learn that Police have registered a case against students for crowding at the entrance of St Mary's School here, alleging violation of protocols.

"They (Police) have demanded names and addresses. I'm outraged," said Tharoor.

"The student community and political leaders, including myself, had requested the Govt of Kerala to postpone this exam in the wake of the pandemic gripping the state. They unwisely went ahead and several students who appeared for the exam have tested positive in the last 48 hours. I condemn Govt's move to file police cases against those who were forced by Govt to appear for an avoidable exam, without allocating enough centres to prevent overcrowding. Govt is acting against the citizenry to cover up its own incompetence. I demand the cases be withdrawn," wrote Tharoor in his Facebook post.

Despite numerous requests from various quarters, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was adamant to hold the KEAM exam as scheduled. After the examination, he had congratulated all those who had worked to see it went off well.

State BJP president K. Surendran also slammed the Vijayan government for registering cases against the parents and their wards.

"While the Centre postponed the NEET, the Kerala government went ahead with it. A case should be registered against those responsible for holding the exam here. The Vijayan government which is now caught in the gold smuggling case is trying to sweep it under the carpet and divert attention. It has now turned against the parents and their wards. This is not acceptable at all," said Surendran.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
SHERMAN OAKS, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- LendingUSA, a leading point-of-sale financing solution, has partnered with Funeralocity.com, a platform dedicated to connecting families with funeral providers who best match their needs. In addition to providing up-to-date pricing information, families will now have more transparency around their payment options.

LendingUSA Partners with Funeralocity.com

Funeralocity.com provides families with all the resources they need to find funeral service providers that best meet their needs. This includes detailed pricing information as well as the payment options available. With this partnership, families will have a better understanding of their payment options before they begin planning services. "We are very excited to add financing through LendingUSA to our site, enabling families to access credit at this critically important moment of their lives," says Ed Michael Reggie, CEO of Funeralocity.com.

"During what can be a difficult planning process, families can focus on what really matters when they have full access to detailed service and financial information," says Johannes Haze, Chief Marketing Officer of LendingUSA. "We're proud to not only provide low monthly payment options but, through this partnership, we can help guide families early in the process to find the service providers that will work best for them." Additionally, when families understand their financing options up front, they can plan the services they really want for their loved one.

LendingUSA's program is now available for Funeralocity members, and it's free to enroll. In addition, for new funeral homes, the companies are working together to offer special incentives to enroll in both programs. For funeral directors, this is a unique opportunity to not only become more visible to families looking for a reputable funeral home, but also to stay competitive by offering families flexible payment options and giving them greater buying power.

To learn more about offering funeral financing, visit LendingUSA.com to schedule a demo or call 1-800-994-6177.

About LendingUSA

LendingUSA is an award-winning point-of-sale (POS) fintech company that offers merchants a seamless financing solution with access to loan decisions in seconds, promotional financing terms, and low monthly payment options for its customers across various specialty niche markets.

Founded in 2015, LendingUSA has grown to include over 3,000 funeral homes nationwide and has processed over $2 billion in borrower loan requests. LendingUSA works closely with its merchant partners, providing the tools and training they need to maximize customer financing approvals and grow their business. Funeral loans offered range from $1,000 up to $8,000. The company also boasts a consumer rating of 4.8 out of five stars on BirdEye. All loans are made by Cross River Bank, a New Jersey State Chartered Bank. Member FDIC.

About Funeralocity.com

Funeralocity.com is the comparison website for funeral homes and cremation providers. Its mission is to connect families who search online with funeral providers that best match their needs.

Media Contact:

Amanda Krebs, Marketing Manager, LendingUSA

[email protected]

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In Portland last week, federal swat teams roamed the city confronting protesters, grabbing one man off the street without a warrant, dragging him in the back of an unmarked van to an undisclosed location. They questioned him, then released him without saying why they had grabbed him in the first place, or even identifying themselves beyond the generic police insignia on their uniforms.

If this were Berlin in 1933, that might make sense. But in America today, it must be stopped.

Another federal agent shot a 26-year-old man in the head with an impact munition, despite no violence on his part, as a video clearly shows, fracturing his skull and forcing him to undergo reconstructive surgery. A 53-year-old Navy vet was pepper-sprayed and beaten with clubs when he asked federal agents about their oath to protect the Constitution after they had charged a line of what he called peaceful protesters.

There were a whole group of pregnant moms standing out there linking arms and they got gassed, said the vet, Christopher David. You hear people like Trump say its just a bunch of wacko fringe people in liberal cities who are out there, but no way. Were all just normal people who think whats happening is wrong.

Now, President Trump is promising more of the same, saying hell send squads to Chicago next, and any other city that he damn well pleases, even when the governors and mayors object. His list includes New York, Philadelphia and Detroit.

I dont need invitations by the state, said Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Were going to do that whether they like us there or not.

See this for what it is: A despicable attempt to provoke violence on Americas streets, to scare voters into thinking the nation is spinning out of control, to fortify his claim as the law-and-order leader, and to smear Joe Biden as a radical who wants to defund the police. None of that is true. These protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful. And Biden has explicitly stated that he opposes moves to defund the police.

Portland does have a serious problem, unlike most cities. Its peaceful protests have often been followed at night by vandalism, and it has gone on for eight weeks. Four blocks of the citys core are scarred by this after-hours destruction, which plays directly into Trumps hands. Local and state authorities have to rally to stop the violence and bring calm to the streets.

But clubbing veterans, gassing pregnant moms, and kidnapping protesters is not the answer. These federal teams are not trained in crowd control, as the federal government has conceded.

In the first round of protests after George Floyds murder, Newark and Camden distinguished themselves by handling the protests with skill and care. Neither city saw looting and violence, even on nights when it raged across the rivers in Philadelphia and New York. In both New Jersey cities, the police used their deep local connections to great effect. In Newark, violence prevention teams marched with the protesters, steering the anger into peaceful channels. In Camden, some police marched with the protesters. And in both cities, officers showed restraint.

Trump is taking precisely the opposite approach, escalating the violence, and doing all he can to show disrespect for the movement. When hes not defending Confederate statues, hes retweeting white supremacists or calling Black Lives Matter a symbol of hate.

This move will be challenged in Congress and the courts, but Trump is president, and is likely to get his way for now. The violence that results is on him, and those who support his hateful and divisive brand of leadership.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday (July 22, 2020) congratulated the Indian nuclear scientists after the Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3 achieved criticality.

Taking to Twitter, the Prime Minister said that the indigenously designed reactor is an example of "Make in India". "Congratulations to our nuclear scientists for achieving criticality of Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3! This indigenously designed 700 MWe KAPP-3 reactor is a shining example of Make in India. And a trailblazer for many such future achievements!" he tweeted.

Congratulations to our nuclear scientists for achieving criticality of Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3! This indigenously designed 700 MWe KAPP-3 reactor is a shining example of Make in India. And a trailblazer for many such future achievements!  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 22, 2020

BJP leader and Minister of State, Jitendra Singh also took to Twitter to inform that Indias first indigenously built 700MWe PHWR Atomic Power project KAPP-3, Kakrapar, Gujarat has achieved criticality at 9:36 AM on Wednesday.

Indeed a big achievement for #NPCIL and #MakeInIndia program under the leadership of PM @narendramodi, Singh tweeted.

Indias first indigenously built 700MWe PHWR Atomic Power project KAPP-3, Kakrapar, Gujarat achieved its criticality today at 09:36 AM. Indeed a big achievement for #NPCIL and #MakeInIndia program under the leadership of PM Sh @narendramodi. pic.twitter.com/G8ZgWXHUN7  Dr Jitendra Singh (@DrJitendraSingh) July 22, 2020

The Kakrapar power station is situated on the banks of River Tapti and is roughly 80 kilometers from Surat.

The KAPP-3 and 4 are of the Mark V category of Indian Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor design. The reactors are equipped with improved safety features and steam generators.

The commissioning of power supply, various service systems, various pumps, etc., are completed and further erection and commissioning activities are in progress towards commencement of hydro test of Primary Heat Transport System.

Union Power Minister RK Singh had on Tuesday said that India will generate close to 60 per cent of the countrys installed electricity capacity from renewable sources by 2030, adding that Indias clean energy capacity would touch 510 GW by that period, which includes 60 GW of hydropower.
When kids finally do return to classes this coming school year, they will need to catch up on academic progress stalled by COVID-19 disruptions. They will need a learning environment that puts their emotional and physical well-being first. They will need teachers who can adjust curriculum to best serve students beset by upheaval and trauma.

What they do not need is STAAR testing.

High-stakes, state-mandated standardized exams should be the last thing on the minds of students and teachers who are already filled with worry and uncertainty about the year ahead. Under normal circumstances, the tests can provoke anxiety and stress so severe that some students become physically ill.

We are certainly not living in normal circumstances  something state education officials must take into account.

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath told the State Board of Education on June 30 that the test is needed to measure gaps in learning caused when schools had to switch abruptly to online-only instruction in the spring.

School boards are blind to that information, policymakers around the state are blind to that information, he said during the virtual meeting. Educators, unless they have some other robust assessment  cant adjust our educational support of kids accordingly.

We certainly agree that educators need a way to assess student performance and pinpoint deficiencies caused by stop-and-start learning. But a standardized test that could have a major impact on a schools funding and accountability ratings is not the way to do that. Administering the tests  including the practice and prep  would consume time, energy and money that would be better spent helping students, teachers and families adjust to the demands of an anything-but-normal school year.

Such tests have also long been criticized as invalid indicators of student progress and ineffective in closing the so-called educational achievement gap, better dubbed the opportunity gap. Tests can be culturally biased against students of color and favor students whose families can afford tutoring and expensive test prep.

Now consider the great unknowns about the 2020-21 school year. Many districts are still formulating reopening plans. Students will be scrambling to catch up from last year and adjusting once again to remote learning. Teachers will be tasked with both online and in-person instruction. Everyone will be worrying about how to stay safe.

Yes, as Morath argues, we need measures of student progress. But only if theyre in the realm of accuracy. A STAAR test taken during pandemic distress would not accurately measure learning. It would only add to stress and trauma. Thats not even addressing the logistics of whether the test could be securely administered.

It doesn't make sense to me right now that the state of Texas would increase stress on kids and families at a time when there are an unprecedented stresses on kids and families, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, who is among a number of Texas lawmakers from both parties urging Gov. Greg Abbott to waive this years STAAR, told the editorial board. What we need to do is do everything we can to help teachers and districts facilitate engagement of students in this novel world in which they have to learn.

In announcing that STAAR testing would take place in the new academic year, Morath said the state accountability rating system, which uses test scores to grade schools from A-F, would be adjusted.

It needs more than adjusting. If the state insists on going ahead with STAAR, it should only be used as a benchmark for student learning, not as the deciding factor in school accountability.

Even better, Abbott could do what he did last spring: suspend STAAR testing and ask the U.S. Department of Education to waive federal testing requirements.

We are thankful for Gov. Abbotts willingness to waive the STAAR testing requirement, TEA said then, as it allows schools the maximum flexibility to remain focused on public health while also investing in the capacity to support student learning remotely.

That was the right call then, when the pandemic was raging, and it is the right call now, when the pandemic rages still.
MILFORD  A virtual sand sculpture?

Sort of.

And while one of New Englands favorite sand sculpture competitions will not be held in person at its well-known Walnut Beach site this year (i.e., it is virtual), it is also looking to expand.

This year we have no borders and time is in our favor, Lorie Lewis, marketing director for the Milford Arts Council, reported to competitors about this years 43rd competition.

Come on Cape Cod, come on California, come on Clearwater. Anyone from anywhere can enter, Lewis said. All ages and skill levels are welcome, but keep in mind this is all about fun and safe connection.

To cast a wide net for participants, organizers decided that, instead of a steadfast date, entrants this summer can build their most creative sand sculpture on the beach of their choice and send a picture of their sand sculpture to info@milfordarts.org by Aug. 28.

So, yes, there will be sand, but where that sand will be is up the sculptors.

Lewis advised that each entry should contain the contestants name, team name and category, team members names with ages, name of sand sculpture, social media information and the city and beach name.

Lewis said donations are requested, and the amount does not affect standing but allows contestants to be considered for awards.

In addition to sending a photo to Milford Arts by Aug. 28, pictures should be posted on social media (Facebook, Instagram) with #macsandsculpt2020 on Aug. 30. Beach location and any other details should be specified.

The sand sculpture contest, long a rite of summer, is held by the Milford Arts Council and sponsored by Milford Bank; the event has drawn people from up and down the East Coast.

Last year, turtles, a car, several castles and even a Game of Thrones chair were among the more than 60 creations that emerged from the sand at Walnut Beach. At the end of the day, it was a tribute to the University of Connecticuts return to the Big East Conference that took the Peoples Choice award and the Jose familys Dragon Sea Serpent that took Best in Show.

Sand sculptures must be created specifically for the contest and be made of sand only, except for wood, rocks, shells, etc., found on the beach and used as decorations only. No superstructures or permanent forms in structures of any kind can be used. Sand forms smaller than 2 feet by 2 feet, such as flowerpots, milk cartons and buckets, may be used, but only as forms, organizers said. The use of shovels, hoes, spatulas, and other tools (except power tools) is permitted.

The Milford Arts Council was founded in 1971. It partners with and supports other non-profit and service organizations to provide space and support through the arts.

MAC also oversees the Firehouse Gallery in Walnut Beach. The gallery is in an arts and business district and is two blocks from the Long Island Sound.

william.bloxsom@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @blox3
She recently expressed her frustrations at Melbourne's second lockdown, blaming 'a very small minority' for the recent spike in COVID-19 cases.

And footy WAG Rebecca Judd has unleashed upon coronavirus rule breakers yet again amid Victoria's new rules mandating mask-wearing in public.

Posting to Instagram on Wednesday, the mother-of-four, 37, uploaded a photo of herself modelling a designer mask, along with an impassioned caption about slowing the spread of coronavirus.

Stern message: Rebecca Judd, told fans to 'stay the f**k at home' if they feel unwell while showing off her new designer mask - after the Victorian government reported the state's surge in COVID-19 cases was driven by sick people refusing to isolate

'Wear a mask and stay at home if you're feeling unwell or you're awaiting a COVID test result,' she raged.

The socialite continued: 'Very clear messaging to day that the data is saying community transmission in Victoria is being driven by sick people going to work, shopping, out and about etc. FFS!!!!'

'Stay at home. Your community, your state and your country needs you to. STAY THE F**K AT HOME,' she concluded.

Lockdown: Rebecca's post comes after the Melbourne metropolitan area and Mitchell Shire were forced into lockdown l for six weeks, as the state battles a major coronavirus outbreak

Rebecca's post comes after the Melbourne metropolitan area and Mitchell Shire were forced into lockdown for six weeks, as the state battles a major coronavirus outbreak.

On Wednesday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews berated Victorians for not self-isolating after the state recorded two more deaths and 484 cases of coronavirus - its worst total ever.

New figures showed 90 per cent of patients failed to isolate between falling sick and getting tested and 53 per cent had failed to self-isolate while waiting for the result.

Annoyed: Earlier this month Rebecca publicly lashed out at people whose behaviour resulted in Victoria's second lockdown

'Unless we have people who get tested, staying at home and isolating until they get their results, then we will not see these numbers go down,' Mr Andrews said.

Earlier this month, Rebecca publicly lashed out at people whose behaviour resulted in Victoria's second lockdown.

Posting to Instagram, the social media activist shared a map of Australia with each state labelled as 'doing the right thing' - with the exception of Victoria.

'This gave me the laugh I needed tonight but seriously, thinking of all Melburnians, especially the millions of us who have been doing the right thing since March,' she captioned the post.

'It's so disappointing we find ourselves in this position because of a very small minority,' she added.
On official U.S. Army and Navy esports Twitch channels, members of the military livestream themselves playing video games such as Call of Duty, Fortnite and League of Legends for an audience of thousands. Its an outreach and recruitment effort  and the military service members also chat with viewers about life in the armed forces.

Not everyone is looking to sign up. whats your favorite u.s. w4r cr1me? Jordan Uhl asked in a chat on the Army Twitch channel on July 8, substituting numbers for letters to get around the channels moderation settings.

Mr. Uhl, a 32-year-old activist, then posted a Wikipedia link to a list of war crimes committed by the U.S. military. A video showed him being banned from the chat, and one of the streamers said, have a nice time getting banned, my dude.

Now, facing criticism from First Amendment advocacy groups who say the ban is unconstitutional, the Army said Wednesday it would pause streaming on Twitch to review internal policies and procedures, as well as all platform-specific policies.
The US littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (top) patrols in the South China Sea in the vicinity of the Chinese survey ship Hai Yang Di Zhi 4, July 1, 2020.

Multiple Chinese survey ships have intruded into the exclusive economic zones of other South China Sea claimant states since the United States last week resolved to help safeguard the resource rights of Southeast Asian nations facing pressure from China.

Vessel tracking data and satellite imagery analyzed by RFA shows six survey vessels owned directly or indirectly by the Chinese government are currently in the South China Sea: the Hai Yang Di Zhi 12, the Hai Yang Di Zhi 4, the Tan Suo 1, the Tan Suo 2, Shiyan-1, and the Shen Kuo.

Some of the deployments began several weeks ago, but several of the ships have entered into the waters of neighboring countries in the days since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a strongly worded statement July 13, where he declared most of Chinas maritime claims in the disputed South China Sea to be illegal. That marked an escalation of the war of words between the two world powers as their relations deteriorate.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Tuesday accused Beijing of engaging in systematic rule-breaking, coercion and other malign activities. He was speaking at an online forum hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

The Hai Yang Di Zhi 12 and 4 are in service with Chinas geological survey agency, under the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. The Hai Yang 12 commenced a survey close to the disputed Scarborough Shoal on July 15, two days after Pompeo stated that China cannot lawfully assert a maritime claim to the waters around the feature since it sits within the Philippines 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf. As of Tuesday morning, the ship was about 50 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal, accompanied by China Coast Guard (CCG) ship 3102.

The Hai Yang 4 appears to have been in or near Vietnams EEZ for the past month. It entered on June 16, and has come and gone since then, but was back in place around July 16 and was inside the EEZ on July 17, vessel tracking data shows.

Meanwhile, another survey ship, the Shen Kuo was roughly 100 nautical miles off the coast of Sabah, Malaysia, on Tuesday morning, data shows, and about 80 nautical miles from the coast of the Philippines. That ship is a deep-sea scientific research vessel owned and operated by Shanghai-based Rainbow Fish Ocean Technology Co., Ltd.

The Shiyan-1 has been conducting a survey over a broad swathe of the Paracel Islands, an archipelago of rocks and reefs in the northern half of the South China Sea, according to ship-tracking data. After leaving Guangzhou on June 25, the survey ships came within 141 nautical miles of the Philippine coastline on July 6, and came within 100 nautical miles of Vietnams coast on July 16. Since that time, its appeared to have started a survey straddling nearly 330 nautical miles across the Paracels.

The Shiyan-1 is operated by the institute for underwater acoustics, within the Chinese Academy of Sciences, according to the International Maritime Organization database. Notably, it was expelled from the Eastern Indian Ocean by Indias navy back in December 2019 under suspicion of mapping the topography of the ocean floor for military purposes.

Other Chinese survey vessels are currently in disputed waters in the South China Sea but have not yet entered any countrys EEZ. The Tan Suo 1 and Tan Suo 2, both operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, are currently just south of the Paracels. The Tan Suo 1 arrived there on July 9, with the Tan Suo 2 joining it on July 17.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper speaking at a congressional hearing in Washington, July 9, 2020. Credit: Reuters The United States has struck a more strident tone on the South China Sea issue in the past week, shifting from its previous established position and calling Chinas expansive maritime claims unlawful under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and under a landmark 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration award in a case brought by the Philippines against China.

The U.S. has also said Chinas claims violate the rights of Southeast Asian nations to explore for resources within their borders.

On Tuesday, Esper said that the Chinese Communist Party has bullied ASEAN nations out of an estimated 2.6 trillion dollars in potential offshore oil and gas revenue, and not to mention fishing grounds that millions of people depend on for their livelihoods. ASEAN refers to the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes South China Sea claimants Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

He also noted Chinas recent military exercises in the South China Sea, saying Chinas armed forces were simulating an island seizure campaign. Last week, the Peoples Liberation Army drills involved JH-7 anti-ship fighter-bombers deployed to Woody Island, one of Chinas largest artificial islands and its main military base in the Paracels area.

Chinese state media has intimated that those exercises were in response to recent drills in the South China Sea by two U.S. aircraft carriers, the first such drill in at least four years.

The Chinese government has responded sternly to recent U.S. diplomatic statements and its military maneuvers with allies, accusing Washington of being a destroyer of regional peace and stability. At the same time, China has played up its recent efforts to negotiate with other South China Sea claimants.

Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with his Philippine counterpart last Wednesday. Both sides reaffirmed that contentious maritime issues are not the sum total of the Philippines-China bilateral relationship, a statement from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said.

And on Tuesday, Vietnam and China held talks where they discussed the South China Sea and agreed to step up negotiations over a Code of Conduct, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The code under negotiation between ASEAN and China that would govern behavior in the South China Sea. It is set to be finished in 2021, although progress has been delayed and set-back multiple times.

One obstacle to meeting that deadline is that China frequently sends coastguard and survey vessels into the waters of its neighbors, in areas where it insists on having sovereignty over. This is widely seen as a ploy to assert Beijings sweeping maritime claims and prevent other nations from exploring for oil and gas unless in partnership with China.

Japan protested a Chinese survey near Okinotorishima on Monday according to the Associated Press, stating it did not give permission to the vessel to operate in the area.

China owns and operates the largest fleet of survey ships in the world, and launched a new addition to the Shiyan-series of deep sea research vessels this past weekend, called the Shiyan-6.
For most of the world, 2020s shaping up to be a flop: bushfires in Australia, protests in Hong Kong, flooding in India, riots in the US, and of course, The Bat Kiss. The global economys in the toilet, you cant go out, and your life, travel and dating expectations are going through, to put it mildly, a major period of adjustment.

Ask the 1%, however, and they might be more concerned about their Aspen trip being disrupted than supermarket shelves being emptied, or how were slowly descending into a worldwide version of Lord Of The Flies. For the rich and famous, life goes on as normal  well, if you can call their extravagant lifestyles normal.

Case in point: this Spanish chica, who appears to have some very rich parents. Whether its cruising on a private yacht with more designer bags than Selfridges has in their inventory, or wearing a full Philipp Plein outfit next to a Philipp Plein-branded G-Wagen, the subject of The Rich Kids Of The Internets latest Instagram post is still living the life.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sheila Lu (@sheilalna) on Feb 23, 2020 at 4:28am PST

Instagram accounts like Rich Kids Of The Internet and Richkidsofficial catalog the absurd antics of these provocative entities for the world to gawk at. The generous-minded might call looking at these rich people flaunt their wealth inspirational. Wed say its more evidence that money cant buy taste.

But hey: at least it lets you live vicariously  something were all going to have to get used to for the next few months at least.

Read Next
Connecticut schools are devising plans for in-person learning at the request of Gov. Ned Lamont, who has asked for them to be prepared by Friday, July 24.

The state Board of Education voted to waive the 180-day requirement for classes. Districts are now required to fulfill 177 days with three extra days for additional COVID-related training.

Ned Lamont said early state-wide district surveys to parents suggest about 15 to 20 percent of parents statewide are planning stay-at-home options for their kids. "Obviously that would open up more social distancing within the classrooms," Lamont said during one of his daily COVID-19 updates. "If any state can open safely, I think it is Connecticut."

Masks have been a point of contention as some parents and teachers have expressed concerns about kids being asked to wear masks all day. The idea of "mask breaks" has been brought up.

"The guidance certainly talks about being outside as an opportunity for mask breaks as long as you are being socially distant. Obviously when you are eating you have to take off your masks, so that would be considered a break," Bethel Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Christine Carver said in an online meeting. "We are waiting for more guidance from the Department of Public Health that would define what that is."

Ahead of the deadline, take a look at what some Connecticut school districts are planning:
(Newser)  A photo of an Afghan girl in a headscarf, holding an AK-47 across her lap, has gone viral owing to its incredible backstory. The girl, Qamar Gul, said to be between 14 and 16, was at her home in the village of Geriveh, in Ghor province, around 1am Friday when 40 Taliban militants showed up looking for her father, per the Guardian. Qamar Gul's mother was shot dead after refusing to open the door, says a spokesman for the provincial governor. Mohamed Aref Aber says the militants then entered the home, killing the girl's father, described as the village chief and an apparent government supporter, per AFP. The teen, who observed the killings, proceeded to grab her father's rifle andtogether with her 12-year-old brother, Habibullahwaged an hourlong battle with the killers. In the end, she killed three militants, Aber says.

story continues below

Other reports suggest she killed two militants and injured several others. More militants later tried to attack the house but "were beaten back by villagers and pro-government militia," reports the BBC. The teen and her brother are now at a safe house in the provincial capital, per the Guardian. "They were in shock in the first two days and could not talk too much, but are in a good condition now," Aber says. "They are saying: 'This was our right, because we did not need to live without our parents.'" The government has applauded the pair, who've received an invitation to meet President Ashraf Ghani. Social media users are full of praise, too. "Hats off to her courage!" a Facebook user commented on the viral photo of Qamar Gul, per AFP. "She is a symbol of bravery and resistance," wrote another, per the Guardian. (Read more Afghanistan stories.)
Local authorities in Colac are struggling to find alternative accommodation for dozens of people forced to isolate amid attempts to contain the worst outbreak in regional Victoria.

Of the 26 active cases in the Colac Otway region on Wednesday, 17 were linked to the outbreak at the Australian Lamb Company abattoir. The business has now been closed, with hundreds of workers required to quarantine themselves.

An old photo of what used to be the CRF Abattoirs in Colac. The Australian Lamb Company purchased the site in 2013. Credit:Rob Gunstone

A number of clusters have broken out at abattoirs during the pandemic, including Cedar Meats and JBS in Brooklyn, with close working conditions and refrigeration proving particularly challenging in preventing infections.

Despite the spike in cases in Colac, in the state's south-west, the state government said it had no plans to extend stage three restrictions beyond Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire.
The Bay Areas notoriously clogged highways and bridges suddenly cleared out when coronavirus shelter-in-place orders began in mid-March. But as the region has started to reopen, many drivers are noticing more traffic  and sometimes even the dreaded backups so common during pre-pandemic days.

But how much has highway traffic actually increased in the Bay Area since reopening began in May?

The short answer: Were nearly three-quarters back to normal, depending on how you look at the data.

Daily vehicle trips taken in the Bay Area during the week of July 6 ranged from a low of 64% of normal to a high of 73%, according to data provided by Inrix, a location-based data collection company. Thats up from a low of 42% the week of April 6, compared to the baseline pre-pandemic period of Jan. 20-March 1.

Weekly vehicle miles traveled in the Bay Area were 76% of normal the week starting July 6, up from a low of 40% the weeks of March 30 and April 6.

Vehicle miles traveled have rebounded in many parts of the U.S., according to Inrix, with 31 of 50 states meeting or exceeding their pre-pandemic levels. But the picture is different for large metropolitan areas: Only about one-fourth of those analyzed in the U.S. have returned to normal.

And among those metro areas, San Francisco was in the bottom 10 for vehicle miles traveled the week of July 4, at only 72% of the pre-pandemic level. Only Miami, Honolulu, Mission, Texas, and Orlando were behind it. Los Angeles was also in the bottom 10, at 78%.

That compared with places like Mobile, Ala., at the top with 135%, and Spokane, Wash., at 113%.

Inrix attributed the metro trends to density, COVID testing, and a lack of activity around downtown cores.

The traffic rebound in the Bay Area has been slow and steady, especially in June, according to Inrix data for the five Bay Area counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo.

Average daily trips for Bay Area motorists were about half the normal total for most of May, rose to 66% over Memorial Day weekend, and increased further in June.

Average daily trips declined on July 4 but went up the next weekend, hitting 73% on July 12.

The average vehicle miles traveled in the Bay Area started dropping off at the beginning of March - from near baseline normal the week of March 2 to 86% the week of March 9, according to Inrix data. By the week of March 16, when shelter-in-place began in San Francisco, the average plunged to half of normal.

The decline continued through the rest of the month and April, but miles traveled started to go up again in May. They hit 76% the week of July 6.

Todd Trumbull

Shelter-in-place brought much higher average driving speeds to the morning and evening rush hour commutes on Bay Area highways. The normal rush hour pattern in January and February was for speeds to slow dramatically from the average 56-58 mph range. In February, the morning rush-hour low was 37 mph at 8 a.m., and the evening low was 34 mph at 5 p.m.

In March, average rush hour speeds began to increase. By April and May, rush hour traffic saw hardly any slowdowns at all except a small decline in the afternoon during May.

In June, the morning flow was still pretty steady, but evening commuters started seeing slowdowns. At 4 p.m. the average speed was 48 mph, ticking back up to about 55 mph at 6 p.m.

Todd Trumbull

The Bay Areas toll bridges are another major indicator of traffic trends, and the pandemic brought big changes there as well.

Bay Bridge: In March, the first month of shelter-in-place, the average commute travel time on the Bay Bridge dropped by 22% in the morning and 39% in the evening from the prior month. April saw further big drops.

All of the bridges kind of bottomed out in the early part of April with a steep decline at the beginning of the shelter-in-place mandates, said John Goodwin, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Since then, its been a slow but steady rebound.

As reopening as begun, commute travel times have started to edge up. Goodwin said traffic has also rebounded on the Bay Bridge, with about 81% back last week compared to mid-July last year. He said that bridge makes the biggest difference because it carries so many more cars than any other in the region.

Paul Kuroda/Special to The Chronicle

San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges: Commute travel times on these two bridges also dropped sharply in March and April. Dumbarton commute times have held steady since, while San Mateo Bridge commuters saw a spike in morning commute times in June.

Goodwin said far fewer cars are going through the toll plaza on both bridges. Dumbarton Bridge traffic is about 55% of where it was last year, and San Mateo Bridge traffic is at about 60%, he said.

My thought is big employers in Silicon Valley and along the Peninsula were pretty well-equipped to have their staffs working remotely, and still have their staffs working remotely, Goodwin said. Certainly were going to see exceptions to this.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Golden Gate Bridge: The Golden Gate Bridge also hasnt seen a significant return to pre-pandemic traffic after plunging 70% in mid-March through late April, said Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, spokesperson for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. The Inrix data show a decrease in commute travel time beginning in February and through April.

Before the pandemic, most of our traffic came during the weekday commute, with lighter traffic during off-peak periods and weekends, Cosulich-Schwartz said. With most offices and businesses in the Bay Area still closed under shelter-in-place orders, much of our regular commute traffic from the North Bay into San Francisco has disappeared.

In May and June, commute travel times on the Golden Gate Bridge showed slight increases. Cosulich-Schwartz said bridge traffic is returning slowly, but last week he said it was still 40% lower compared to this time last year.

Were seeing traffic return more quickly on weekends, perhaps as people look to get out of the city after spending the work week at home, he said. Still, traffic across the bridge remains down at all hours and has dipped again in July as COVID-19 infections are on the rise and reopening plans delayed or rolled back.

Requests for driving, walking and transit directions also indicate that Bay Area residents have started venturing out more  especially in their vehicles.

According to Apples Mobility Trends Reports, based on Apple Maps data, transit requests have decreased the most, dropping nearly 90% in late March and April and remaining consistently low, most recently at 71%.

Walking direction requests dipped just over 80% at their lowest point in April, but have increased to 45% below the baseline.

Driving direction requests went down around 70% in April, but have seen the biggest increase, especially in the past couple of months, even meeting the pre-pandemic baseline on several occasions.

Googles COVID-19 Mobility Report shows where residents have been going in the past month and a half, broken down by county. Those numbers, too, show a sustained overall drop in most categories.

San Francisco Countys transit use is down 69% from the pre-pandemic baseline, retail and recreational businesses are down 59%, and trips to workplaces have plummeted 63%. Grocery store visits are down 27% from Jan. 1, and park use has decreased 24%. Residential visits, though, are up 26%.

Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff write. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com.
Mychaela Francis was home with her brother, Byron, when she saw he was struggling to breathe.

Paramedics rushed him to Florida Medical Center on June 27. He died that day of the coronavirus. He was 20.

Three days later, Ms. Francis, 22, began complaining of headaches and a fever, according to her family. Terrified, she insisted that her mother take her to the hospital. She died on July 8, according to the Broward County Medical Examiners Office, which confirmed that the cause of death for both siblings was Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

The deaths of two young siblings, within 11 days of each other, have devastated their large family in Lauderhill, Fla. They have also underscored two disturbing developments in the coronavirus outbreak: the surge of cases in states like Florida that reopened swiftly, and the rising number of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are testing positive for the virus. In Florida, the median age of residents testing positive has dropped to 40, down from 65 in March.

There have been at least 369,826 cases of the coronavirus in Florida, according to a New York Times database. As of Wednesday morning, at least 5,205 people had died. Four children between the ages of 10 and 17 have died of the virus, according to the Florida Department of Health.
The COVID-19 pandemic places a particular focus on older persons. Therefore, it comes as a surprise that the high-risk group of around 2.6 million care-dependent older persons in Germany who receive care at home, predominantly from their relatives, has been largely ignored by scientists, politicians, and society in general during this crisis. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on old age care at home is a pressing issue since the considerable problems associated with old age care at home and the burdens of caring for relatives have been known for many years, long before the outbreak of the pandemic.

A survey undertaken under the leadership of Dr. Vincent Horn and Professor Cornelia Schweppe of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany shows that the care situation of older people who receive care at home has deteriorated significantly during the pandemic. This is the case for both the persons in need of care and the family caregivers.

Our results show that the already precarious situation of old age care at home is aggravating in the current circumstances. Persons in need of care have been identified as a particularly vulnerable group to be especially protected, but in fact they and their family caregivers prove to be a highly neglected group." Professor Cornelia Schweppe, JGU Institute of Education

For the survey, 330 family caregivers were interviewed online. In addition, qualitative interviews were conducted. Nearly half of the respondents stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has a negative impact on the health of the person in need of care. In many cases, important medical appointments and necessary hospital stays had to be renounced. In addition, nearly 75 percent of the respondents consider an increased occurrence of loneliness and/or depressive moods of the person in need of care. This shows the negative impact of the contact restrictions that have been put in place; indeed, 85 percent of respondents indicated that visits from relatives, acquaintances, or friends to the person in need of care were reduced due to COVID-19. In addition, almost half of the family caregivers also limited their contact with the person in need of care.

Family caregivers are increasingly strained and overburdened

The survey also reveals alarming results concerning the family caregivers. More than half of the respondents stated that providing care was more burdensome than before the outbreak of the pandemic. 38 percent even indicated that they feel overstrained by the current care situation.

The stressful care situation is also reflected in the worsening of the relationship between the person in need of care and the family caregiver. This was reported by 75 percent of the respondents. Furthermore, one third of the respondents also indicated that they were coming into conflict with the person in need of care more often.

Due to the increase of burdens and overload of family caregivers as well as the strained relationship between the family caregivers and the persons in need of care, the researchers are also concerned about its possible impact on violence in old age care at home. "For a long time high burdens of family caregivers have been identified as an important factor for violence in old age care," said Dr. Vincent Horn of the Institute of Education at JGU. "The increase in stress caused by the current situation is thus troubling. In contrast to the discussion of the possible effects of the COVID-19 crisis on violence against children and women, this topic has so far not been addressed with regard to the older population."

The survey also shows that 68 percent of the family caregivers feel abandoned by politicians during the COVID-19 crisis. "The implications are serious since family caregivers often do not have viable relief and support structures", emphasized Professor Cornelia Schweppe. Almost every third respondent has no person with whom they can talk about their needs and concerns and who they can ask for support.
Arts & Culture

By Ls Cohen Published: July 22 2020

LIRR publication touted the splendor of travel to Long Island.

Photo: Public domain. Image from page 104 of "Long Island and real life, Long Island railroad" (1915). Publisher: [New York, Issued by the Passenger department, Long Island railroad]

Obviously, the Long Island Rail Road would have a vested interest in touting the many splendors of Long Island. Around the turn of the 20th Century The Long Island Rail Road did just that with a series of periodicals that promoted rail travel east from New York City to the rural beauty of the region it served. In one such book titled, Long Island and real life, Long Island railroad published in 1915, the author called Long Island a region that holds nearly everything reasonable people can want in this earthly life.

Also read our story: Crazy Facts About the LIRR.

Among the prose were hundreds of ads displaying all the real estate for rent on Long Island was this one that advertised a Swan River Bungalow Colony on the Great South Bay in Patchogue.

Fourteen Rustic Bungalows, furnished, to rent, beautifully situated among a pine grove, on the Swan River, Patchogue, ten ininutes walk or sail to the Great South Bay and fifteen minutes from Railroad Station and town, the ad copy described. Pine Neck Inn located on the premises offers to the guests and colonists a well managed ho

use with board and dining room service.

Board was only $10 per week.



Image from page 104 of "Long Island and real life, Long Island railroad" (1915). Publisher: [New York, Issued by the Passenger department, Long Island railroad]
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices fell on Wednesday after industry data showed a bigger- than-expected inventory build in the United States. Surging coronavirus cases and rising U.S.-China tensions also fueled fresh concerns over demand recovery. Benchmark Brent crude fell 37 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $43.95 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 45 cents, or 1.1 percent, at $41.47. Industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that U.S. crude inventories rose last week by 7.5 million barrels, compared with expectations for a draw of 2.1 million barrels. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release official inventory data later in the day. Brexit-related uncertainty, rising tensions between the United States and China and surging coronavirus cases around the world also clouded the short-term demand outlook. The British pound weakened after reports suggested that the U.K. government is abandoning hope for a trade deal with the EU. The government's central working assumption is that Britain will trade with Europe on World Trade Organization terms when the transition period ends on December 31, the Telegraph reported, citing senior sources. The United States has asked Beijing to close its diplomatic consulate in Houston within the next 72 hours, the Chinese foreign ministry said, dealing another blow to the rapidly deteriorating relations between the two countries. As the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 142,000, President Donald Trump said the pandemic 'will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better'. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Scientists have genetically modified a "mild virus" which generates antibodies in humans just like the novel coronavirus, but without causing severe disease, an advance which they say will enable more labs across the world to safely test drugs and vaccine candidates against Covid-19.

The researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis in the US engineered the mildly infecting vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) which virologists widely use in experiments by swapping one of its genes for one from the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

According to the study, published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the resulting hybrid virus infects cells, and is recognised by antibodies in humans just like SARS-CoV-2, but can be handled under ordinary laboratory safety conditions.

Coronavirus Worldometer | 15 countries with the highest number of cases, deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic

Since the novel coronavirus spreads easily via aerosols, and is potentially deadly, the scientists said it is studied only under high-level biosafety conditions.

They said scientists handling the infectious virus must wear full-body biohazard suits with pressurised respirators, and work inside laboratories with multiple containment levels and specialised ventilation systems.

While necessary to protect laboratory workers, the study note that these safety precautions slow down efforts to find drugs and vaccines for Covid-19 since many scientists lack access to the required biosafety facilities.

Track live updates on coronavirus here

"I've never had this many requests for a scientific material in such a short period of time," said study co-senior author Sean Whelan from the Washington University School of Medicine.

"We've distributed the virus to researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and, of course, all over the US," Whelan said.

In order to create a model of SARS-CoV-2 that would be safer to handle, the scientists said they started with VSV, which they added is "fairly innocuous and easy to manipulate genetically."

VSV, according to the researchers, is a workhorse of virology labs, and primarily a virus of cattle, horses and pigs.

They said it occasionally infects people, causing a mild flu-like illness that lasts three to five days.

Also Read: Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases

The researchers removed the VSV's gene for its surface-protein, which it uses to latch onto and infect cells, and replaced it with the one from SARS-CoV-2, known as the spike (S) protein.

They said this switch created a new virus, dubbed VSV-SARS-CoV-2, that targets cells like the novel coronavirus, but lacks the other genes needed to cause severe disease.

The scientists then used serum from Covid-19 survivors and purified their antibodies, and showed that the hybrid virus was recognised by these antibodies very much like a real SARS-CoV-2 virus that came from a Covid-19 patient.

The study found that antibodies which prevented the hybrid virus from infecting cells also blocked the real SARS-CoV-2 virus from doing so.

It said the patient serum proteins that failed to stop the hybrid virus also failed to deter the real SARS-CoV-2.

The scientists also found that a decoy molecule was equally effective at misdirecting both viruses and in preventing them from infecting cells.

"Humans certainly develop antibodies against other SARS-CoV-2 proteins, but it's the antibodies against spike that seem to be most important for protection," Whelan said.

"So as long as a virus has the spike protein, it looks to the human immune system like SARS-CoV-2, for all intents and purposes," he added.

According to the researchers, the hybrid virus can help scientists across the world evaluate a range of antibody-based preventives and treatments for Covid-19.

They said the new virus could be used to assess whether an experimental vaccine elicits neutralising antibodies, and to measure whether a Covid-19 survivor carries enough neutralising antibodies to donate plasma to Covid-19 patients.

According to the study, the hybrid virus may also help identify antibodies with the potential to be developed into antiviral drugs.

"One of the problems in evaluating neutralizing antibodies is that a lot of these tests require a BSL-3 facility, and most clinical labs and companies don't have BSL-3 facilities," said Michael Diamond, who is also a professor of pathology and immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine.

"With this surrogate virus, you can take serum, plasma or antibodies and do high-throughput analyses at BSL-2 levels, which every lab has, without a risk of getting infected. And we know that it correlates almost perfectly with the data we get from bona fide infectious SARS-CoV-2," Diamond said.

Since the hybrid virus looks like SARS-CoV-2 to the immune system but does not cause severe disease, it is a potential vaccine candidate, he said, adding that the scientists are currently conducting animal studies to evaluate this possibility.
Three officials of Shinkafi Emirate Council in Zamfara State have tendered their resignation letters to the emir, Muhammad Makwashe, in protest against the conferment of a traditional title on a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode.

The officials are Bilyaminu Yusuf (Sardaunan Shinkafi); Umar Ajiya (Dan-Majen Shinkafi) and Hadiza Abdulaziz-Yari (Iyar Shinkafi).

On Monday, Mr Makwashe announced the conferment of the traditional title of Sadaukin Shinkafi on Mr Fani-Kayode.

The emir said the decision was in recognition of Mr Fani-Kayodes support for and contributions to the development of Shinkafi Emirate.

However, the emirate officials who resigned said the development is not in conformity with the core values of the traditional institution.

We view this conferment against the function and ideals of traditional councils such as contribution to development, administration, economic, policy, security, culture, customs, religious disputes and general well-being of the citizens, they wrote.

They added that the conferment of traditional titles should be based on important principles, not politics to divide the people of Zamfara and Northern Nigeria.

We hereby tender our resignation until the Sadaukin Shinkafi title is relinquished and we implore other title holders to do the same, the officials said.

When contacted, Salisu Nabaiwa, the Secretary of the Shinkafi Emirate council, did not respond to multiple phone calls seeking the emirates reaction to the development
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

The 2nd Judicial District Attorneys Office says it will immediately end its review of the death of Elisha Lucero, who was killed last summer by Bernalillo County deputies, after the state Attorney Generals Office asked to take it over.

Lucero was experiencing a mental health crisis and had hit her uncle when her family called 911 for help on July 21, 2019. The 28-year-old initially refused to come out of her mobile home, which was parked on her uncles property, and then exited and ran toward the deputies. Lt. Alfonso Rodriguez and deputies Jonathan Aguilar and Ryan Schmidt said she was screaming and armed with a knife.

The three deputies shot Lucero 21 times. She died at the scene.

Luceros family sued the county and the Sheriffs Office in January and settled the case for $4 million less than two months later. They contend that because deputies are not outfitted with body-worn cameras, there is no way to know what really happened.

In a letter to District Attorney Raul Torrez about the case, Attorney General Hector Balderas said he was contacted by Luceros family and asked to take over the review of the case to determine whether charges should be filed.

It has been over a year since Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office (BCSO) deputies responded to a 911 call from Elishas family members who were concerned about Elishas well being, Balderas wrote in a letter. A short time later, responding deputies killed Elisha, shooting the four-foot-11-inch woman 21 times from relatively close range. Because BCSO refused to utilize body-worn cameras at this time, the incident was not captured visually; Elisha, however, can be heard wailing in agony on the deputies belt tapes as she died.

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, DAs Office spokeswoman Brandale Mills-Cox said the case had been assigned to a contract special prosecutor for several months. The office plans to instruct the prosecutor to cease work on the case, issue a declination of prosecution and forward the case to the AGs Office.

With nearly a dozen other cases currently pending review and no permanent funding appropriated for full-time, independent prosecutors, we are encouraged by the fact that the Attorney Generals Office is starting to take more of an interest in use-of-force cases, Mills-Cox said.

Last month, Torrez asked the attorney general to take over another case involving deadly use of force  one in which several correctional officers at the county jail restrained an inmate in a prone position, killing him.

Balderas letter also refers to this case.

In your June 9, 2020 letter, requesting that I take over the prosecution of MDC guards alleged to have utilized deadly force against Vicente Villela, you expressed concerns that you maintained too close of a working relationship with law enforcement to allow for independent charging decisions to be made, Balderas wrote. Because of this, and because of our shared obligation to ensure justice for victims of violent crime, I ask that you provide your formal declination on this matter so that my office may also assume the prosecution of this case.
Mr Nuhu Shadalafiya

A member of Kaduna State House of Assembly Mr Nuhu Shadalafiya has tested positive for Coronavirus.

The lawmaker who represents Kagarko Constituency made the announcement on Tuesday July 21.

Shadalafiya said in a statement;

My respected constituents, on July 17, I invited the NCDC to come and take my sample for COVID-19 test.

I requested them to take my sample, my wife, aide and that of my brother. The result came out on July 19. Others came out negative except mine which tested positive.

I was immediately moved to the COVID-19 isolation center, where I am presently receiving treatment. Im stable and on medication.

I have responsibilities as your elected representative to inform you.

I urge you all to please obey the protocol on COVID-19 protection measures by observing social distancing, wear face masks and wash hands regularly with soap and water.

You can also use hand sanitizer or stay home if you have no reason to go out, and stay safe.

Please pray for me and others at the centre for speedy recovery.
The Government is "actively monitoring" ways to obtain the Covid-19 vaccine when it becomes available, according to an official from the Taoiseachs department.

The departments assistant secretary general, Elizabeth Canavan, said there has been much talk of a vaccine and speculation around when one will become available.

We are actively monitoring all potential mechanisms available to procure vaccine stocks as soon as it becomes available, she said.

Ms Canavan said Ireland has signed "expression of interest" letters with two separate mechanisms.

One is a joint EU approach to Covid-19 procurement to ensure coordinated action at European level to protect public health and achieve optimal management of Covid-19 through vaccination.

The other is the Covax initiative  Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator, a new global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to Covid-19 diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

Ms Canavan said GPs are reporting more cases of Covid-19 this week, but that this was expected.

The fact that we have access to testing; that we can spot clusters and track symptoms; that we are learning about the virus, all of this shows that the system is working and we are making progress.

However, the system does not work where people do not report or delay in reporting their symptoms. When this happens, it puts not only the person but everyone around them at risk," Ms Canavan said.

Your GP is not there to judge you; theyre there to help. Getting a test is how you keep your family, friends, and colleagues safe, she added.

Ms Canavan also urged people to wear a face-covering on public transport, in shops, and in places where social distancing is difficult.

Youre doing it for yourself, your friends, your family, and all of the people on the frontline who are delivering services for every one of us.

Ms Canavan said the HSE's Covid Tracker App is now available in global app and play stores so anyone in Ireland with a Google or Apple account in another country could download it and play their part in helping to suppress the virus.

We are also encouraging anyone travelling to Ireland from other locations to download and install the app while they are here so they can become part of the Irish contracting tracing community, she said.

Ms Canavan also said that a "considerable" financial support package being planned by the Government to help schools reopen will be announced in the coming days.
New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh appreciated the proactive response by Indian Air Force (IAF) in bolstering its operational capabilities over the past few months while addressing the inaugural session of Air Force Commanders Conference at Air Headquarters (Vayu Bhawan) here on Wednesday (July 22).

The Defence Minister said, "IAFs role in some of the most challenging circumstances is well regarded by the nation. Their contribution during nations response to COVID19 pandemic has been highly praiseworthy."

Rajnath Singh said that the professional manner in which IAF conducted the airstrikes in Balakot as well as rapid deployment of IAF assets at forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in Eastern Ladakh has sent a strong message to the adversaries.

"The nations resolve to defend its sovereignty stands firm on the faith its people have in the capability of its Armed Forces, he said, and alluded to the ongoing efforts for de-escalation on LAC and urged the IAF to stand ready to handle any eventuality.

The Defence Minister also praised the IAF contribution in supporting the nations response to COVID-19 pandemic and the role played during several HADR missions. He highlighted the need to achieve self-reliance in defence production and noted that the theme is chosen for this AFCC  IAF in the Next Decade - was very apt for enhancing efforts towards indigenisation in the days to come.

Rajnath Singh lauded the progress made towards enhancing synergy and integration within the three services since the appointment of CDS and creation of DMA.

He concluded by acknowledging IAFs role in adapting to changes in technology and adopting emerging capabilities in Nano Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber and Space domains, assuring the commanders that all requirements of the Armed Forces, whether financial or otherwise, would be fulfilled.

Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, who welcomed the Defence Minister and other senior officials from the MoD, said the IAF was well prepared to counter short term, as well as strategic threats and the units, were evenly poised to counter any aggressive action by the adversary.

He noted that the response by all Commands in ensuring deployment and readiness of forces was prompt and laudable. He emphasized on the need to focus on the ability to handle situations at a short notice for ensuring a robust response.
Benn, Haro, & Isaacs, PLLC - The Workers Compensation Firm adds a new office in Ft. Myers We are excited to bring our legal expertise to the Ft. Myers community. We believe our experience in the workers compensation realm will be of great assistance to those with workers compensation claims, said David Benn, partner at Benn, Haro, & Isaacs.

Benn, Haro, & Isaacs, PLLC offers unparalleled representation for all accident, injury, and other workers' compensation legal needs throughout the state of Florida. With eight locations to serve client needs, they now offer their legal services to residents of the Ft. Myers community as well.

According to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, Florida has an unemployment rate of 10.4% as of June 2020. With unemployment numbers soaring, there is a heightened risk of misconduct among employers. With layoffs hitting an unprecedented number of hard-working individuals, it can be difficult to gauge if an injury claim was unlawfully denied or if a termination was justified. While many companies are fighting to keep their heads above water, some employers may use the pandemic to take advantage of workers in an unjust fashion.

Injured parties must deal with their workplace accidents the samepandemic or not. In Florida, Benn, Haro, & Isaacs has reported seeing an uptick in workers' compensation cases involving workplace injuries not being appropriately handled. Injuries in the workplace can take months, years, even decades from which to fully recover. It is unwise to let the current COVID-19 situation be the deciding factor in obtaining justice. The attorneys at Benn, Haro, & Isaacs are looking forward to assisting any workers compensation claimants in need of representation in the Ft. Myers area.

With justice in mind, it is always prudent to contact legal representation in any workers compensation case. Benn, Haro, & Isaacs offer a free 30-minute consultation to determine the validity of all workers' compensation claims. If the case proves lawful, representation is provided at no upfront cost to those represented.

David Benn, partner at Benn, Haro, & Isaacs stated, We are excited to bring our legal expertise to the Ft. Myers community. We believe our experience in the workers compensation realm will be of great assistance to those with workers compensation claims.

Injured workers in Ft. Myers seeking representation for a workers' compensation case should visit the Benn, Haro, & Isaacs website for additional information regarding workers' compensation claims and their process.

About Benn, Haro, & Isaacs, PLLC  The Workers' Compensation Firm

Benn, Haro & Isaacs PLLC is a Florida-based law firm specializing in workers compensation cases. With locations throughout Florida, our firm can be retained to represent any employee who is injured in a work-related incident.

The attorneys at Benn, Haro & Isaacs PLLC have over 45 years of combined legal experience. They offer free consultations for those injured on the job and always represent their client, not the employer or insurance company, with professionalism, helping them attain the best possible outcome.

For more information, please visit the Benn, Haro, and Isaacs, PLLC website or call (954) 716-8287.
London mayor Sadiq Khan has been accused of mishandling London's transport financing after demanding more taxpayer cash to fund public transport in the capital just weeks after receiving a 1.6billion coronavirus bail-out.

He told MPs today London was the only major Western capital which did not receive regular funding for transport and asked for cash to provide 'long-term sustainability'.

Transportation around the country has been badly hit by the coronavirus lockdown, with commuters urged until recently to avoid buses and tubes wherever possible.

In May ministers have agreed to hand over a 1.6billion bail-out package with 'strings attached' to get London's transport system back up and running.

Government sources said the mayor had demanded 2billion but was turned down 'several times'. The sides have settled for a 1.1billion package plus 505m in loans which 'will need to be paid back'.

Appearing in front of the Transport Committee today, Mr Khan said: 'The deal we want is a deal that gives us a long term sustainable plan going forward.

'The deal I'm looking for is how to help us through a period where fares will not be what they were.'

But Tory MP Greg Smith said: 'The actual TfL debt has gone up from 9billion to 11billion, costs have gone up by 82 per cent, 518 employers are on over 100,000.

'When that's the case, how can it be that TfL gets the big bailout and other parts of the country don't?'

He told MPs today London was the only major Western capital which did not receive regular funding for transport and asked for cash to provide 'long-term sustainability'

Transportation around the country has been badly hit by the coronavirus lockdown, with commuters urged until recently to avoid buses and tubes wherever possible

Since 2018, TfL has been operating without any additional Government grants.

The decision to scrap TfL's operating grant was made in 2015 when Boris Johnson was London's mayor.

Its loss was the equivalent to a cut of 700 million per year between 2018 and 2023, according to City Hall.

Despite the loss, TfL had previously boasted of its progress in reducing its operating deficit while still continuing its programme of upgrades to the network.

At the beginning of March 2020, it estimated it would reduce its like-for-like operating deficit by 86 per cent by the end of the 2019/20 financial year compared to 2015/16.

But, as 70 per cent of its income is generated by fares, the coronavirus shutdown had a devastating effect on TfL's finances.

Mr Khan told MPs: 'We are the only city in the Western world who doesn't receive a subsidy for the day-to-day running of pubic transport from the central Government.

'What I say (to the Government) is not to attach conditions and strings that are not just unreasonable but unfair.'

The Mayor of London has announced an independent review into the long-term funding of the capital's transport network after the Covid-19 shutdown almost crippled the service.

Transport for London (TfL) was previously forced to accept fare increases and cuts to free travel as part of the conditions of the rescue package after passenger numbers fell by 90 per cent.

At the time, Sadiq Khan and TfL bosses were also forced to agree to a Government review of TfL's future financial position and financial structure led by international accountancy firm KPMG.

The review is intended to identify short and medium-term savings and reforms, and establish the terms of further short-term grant funding.

But now Mr Khan has launched a separate review led by a panel of independent, unpaid experts in public policy and the reform of public bodies.

He said the purpose of the new panel was to look beyond the scope of the Government's review to identify strategies for 'long-term sustained funding' for the transport network.

The independent panel is due to conclude its work in September.
The Awutu Senya East Member of Parliament Hon. Hawa Koomson firing gunshots at a registration centre on Monday, July 20, 2020 has received total condemnation her colleagues on both sides.



Both Majority and Minority in a disagreement with the warning shots given by the Special Development Initiatives Minister at the voters registration centre at Kasoa described the act as unacceptable and an embarrassment to the House.



When I heard her herself, I was shocked. My worry is that what level of provocation will get a Member of Parliament to fire a warning shot at a registration centre where there are police officers which I believe are there to ensure law and order and when it becomes necessary they may even call for reinforcement.



So what really happened that really called for that, NDC MP for Asawase Muntaka Mubarak wondered in an interview with JoyNews.



Mavis Hawa Koomson on Monday admitted to firing gunshots at a voters registration center, an act that has received massive condemnation from the public domain.



Although the Special Development Initiatives Minister says she fired the shots because she felt her safety was threatened, there have been many calls for her to be prosecuted.



Notwithstanding the explanation given, NDC Member of Parliament for Kumbungu Hon. Ras Mubarak has called on the Privileges Committee of Parliament to summon and investigate her on the matter, but Member of Parliament for Kpandai Constituency, Matthew Nyindam believes that should not be so.



Mr. Nyindam condemns the act and agrees that she needs to be sanctioned, he believes calling her before the house is unnecessary.



I think I disagree with Ras Mubarak because the fact that shes a member of parliaments doesnt mean that any action that one takes must necessarily be called to the privileges committee.



Yes it has to do with her, and she has admitted to that but I think it also has to deal with the police and the police must do their own investigation and get the button of this.



But for somebody to say she should be called to the privileges committee, I think I disagree with the person, he added.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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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CLEVELAND, Ohio  Prosecutors charged a fourth inmate Tuesday in a drug and smuggling ring that involved Cuyahoga County Jail officers working in tandem with inmates to sell drugs and other items inside the jail, according to court records.

Alexander Foster, 31, is charged with bribery and obstructing justice. Special prosecutors with the Ohio Attorney Generals Office filed the charge via information instead of an indictment, which typically signifies the person accused in the case is expected to enter a guilty plea.

Foster is the fourth person to be charged in connection with the smuggling ring. His name was in the initial Aug. 28, 2019 indictment that charged two corrections officers and a suspected Heartless Felons gang member, Lamar Speights. He faced no formal charges until Tuesday.

Investigators said Speights and Foster worked with corrections officers Stephen Thomas and Marvella Sullivan, both of whom face charges in the case. Both resigned from the county after their criminal indictments.

All four defendants are scheduled for arraignment on Thursday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

The indictment also says the group worked to smuggle the items into the jail with five other corrections officers not named in the indictment, six other inmates who not charged as of Tuesday and two of the inmates girlfriends.

Tuesdays charges offered no new information on the smuggling ring, other than the formal charges against Foster.

Authorities booked Foster into the jail on Feb. 22, 2019, on charges of drug trafficking, drug possession and tampering with evidence. Three days later, he overdosed on drugs in jail. He spent a brief period on life support before he recovered and returned to jail.

Between April 2 and April 10, 2019, he bribed Thomas with $1,097 in exchange for Thomas smuggling in a cellphone battery, charger and vape pen, according to the indictment. Foster arranged for the payment through the money transferring app Cash App.

On April 12, Thomas warned Foster that investigators were coming to search his cell. Foster flushed the items down a toilet, according to court records.

Foster pleaded guilty Feb. 18 in the drug trafficking case and a judge sentenced him to two years on probation.

The drug-smuggling case is part of a broader investigation by the attorney general into the jail. The cases include officers who beat inmates, an officer who ignored a dying inmate and charges against the former warden and former jail director accused of negligently making decisions that made the jail unsafe.

Read more from cleveland.com:

Cuyahoga County Jails private food service company responds to investigation into drug smuggling

Cuyahoga County Jail officer accused of trying to rob man with fake gun in Brooklyn

Cuyahoga County to pay $140,000 to jail inmate attacked by officer while praying days after interview with U.S. Marshals over jail conditions
Heartbroken friends and neighbours say the brother of supermodel Megan Gale never got over witnessing the horrific workplace incident that killed his mate.

The week long search for Jason Gale, 49, ended on Tuesday afternoon after his body was found near his silver Honda CR-V in bushland south-east of Perth.

Police aren't treating his death as suspicious.

Friends said Mr Gale had been struggling with the death of his beloved dog Badge and remained haunted by a tragic industrial incident that killed a colleague.

Robert Cunico, 60, was struck and killed by a burst pipe at Perth's Woodman Point waste water treatment plant on April 20 2018 while working as a supervisor for contractor Civmec Construction and Engineering.

Megan Gale's brother Jason (left) was found dead in bushland in Western Australia on Tuesday

'He was taken too soon, in a way in which nobody should ever suffer,' Mr Cunico's son Scott wrote on an online fundraising page at the time.

'Nobody should ever go to work and not return home safely.'

Mr Gale was also working at the site that day as an industrial mechanic and witnessed his mate's horrific death.

Mr Cunico's devastated widow thanked those who tried to save her husband's life, including Mr Gale.

'A huge thanks to Peter, Chris, Andrew, Jason, Dave who I have since found out were there with Rob in his time of need,' Debby Cunico wrote on Facebook at the time.

'They all stayed with him the entire time holding him and comforting him.

'At least we can take comfort in knowing that Rob did not pass alone you are all legends for this we will be for ever grateful to you.

'There are no words that will ever be enough to express our love for you and for what you did.'

Jason Gale was haunted by the tragic death of mate and colleague Robert Cunico (pictured)

Debra and her daughter Ashlea have since become outspoken advocates calling for industrial manslaughter laws to be introduced in Western Australia.

The pair recently addressed a parliamentary inquiry examining proposed laws which would see individuals could face up to $5 million in fines and 20 years jail if found responsible for causing a death in a workplace.

'He was tragically killed in a workplace incident that should never, ever have occurred,' Ashlea told a WorkSafe inquiry in March 2019.

'It is extremely difficult to put into words how much our lives have changed. We are now lifelong members of a club you never want to join. '

'We have suffered an unimaginable loss. Noone should ever endure the pain and suffering we have been subjected to because of the lack of safety and sense of a workplace.

Her mother added: 'I just think there needs to be more awareness. People just do not seem to be aware of the scope of these incidents that are occurring.

'People just seem to accept that you go to work, and if you die, they do not seem to bat an eyelid. There are just way too many deaths in Australia every year.'

A neighbour of Mr Gale said Jason would regularly visit Mr Cunico's grave.

Robert Cunico's widow Debby (pictured with her late husband) was among the worried friends who publicly appealed for everyone to keep an eye for Jason Gale last week

'He didn't go into any details about how he lost his friend and what he witnessed ... he kept it all inside of him,' the neighbour told The West Australian.

'I only found out about that after he disappeared. I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back.'

Mr Gale was remembered as a 'really nice guy' and 'very genuine bloke'.

'He once told me,'I think I've hit the jackpot moving near you people.' He was very happy living here,' the neighbour said.

Ms Cunico was among the many concerned friends who urged everyone to keep an eye for Mr Gale during the week long search following his disappearance.

'Jason is still missing! Please keep a look out for him especially in areas he often visits,' she posted on Facebook four days ago.

Mr Gale, 49, was last seen on July 14 buying petrol and water at the Popanyinning General Store 160km south-east from his Perth home.

'A search of the area was commenced and the body of a deceased person, believed to be Mr Gale, was located,' a police statement said.

The death is not being treated as suspicious and a report will be prepared for the coroner.

A security camera still showing Mr Gale and his car in Pingelly, where he picked up water and petrol about 9.40am last Tuesday, in Pingelly, south-east of Fremantle

Shattered friends have posted heartbreaking tributes following the tragic news about Mr Gale.

'Jason was a great man and will never be forgotten,' Jarrod Tate wrote.

Lea Wynter added: 'Sleep easy Galey ... Thoughts to Megan and family and friends.'

Family, friends and police had been desperately searching for the 'very private' sibling of one of Australia's most famous women.

Mr Gale lived on his own and was known for 'going bush' but friend Belinda Murray said he had never disappeared before.

'He hasn't been the same since witnessing the death of a co-worker a few years ago, then the death of his beloved Dobermann (dog), Badge on top of that,' she said.

Ms Murray posted on Facebook: 'Our lovely friend has gone missing. A gentle, kind and very private man who wouldn't hurt anyone or anything has just disappeared, if anyone see's him could you please contact the police or us...keep him talking, he loves all nature and animals.'

Mr Gale's famous sister lives in Melbourne with her family and thanked everyone who had assisted during the search.

'They (the Gale family) thank everyone for their support especially Jason's neighbours, close friends and work colleagues who have been assisting,' manager Lara Messenger said.

Family, friends and police had been desperately searching for the 'very private' sibling of one of Australia's most famous women, Megan Gale (pictured)

A still of Jason Gale's 1999 silver-coloured Honda CR-V station sedan, with plates 1BOI107 when he was last seen a week ago

Mr Gale was last seen about 9.40am on July 14 in Pingelly.

Owner of Popanyinning General Store, Stan Maughan told The West Australian Mr Gale filled up his vehicle and entered the store about ten minutes before 10am.

'He got one bottle of water. It was $50 worth of fuel and $3 for the water. He was doing a bit of fidgeting there while he was waiting for me,' the store owner said.

'He was stretching and walking around but a lot of people do that. He was quite cool.'

Mr Maughan described Mr Gale's clothing as 'ordinary civvies' and said he wasn't wearing anything too 'flash'.

Mr Gale did not talk to any of the other customers in the store during his two-to-three minute stop.

'Then he just casually went out, hopped in his car and drove north,' he said.

Jason Gale, 49, was last seen at about 9.40am on Tuesday July 14 buying water and petrol during a stop in Pingelly, some 160km south-east from his Perth home

Ms Gale, 44, who is engaged to former AFL star Shaun Hampson, grew up in Perth with her two older brothers and parents.

Her older brother's death comes almost six years after they lost their father Alan to lung cancer.

Ms Gale has modelled in a string of high profile fashion magazines including Marie Claire, Vogue Italia, Cosmopolitan and GQ.

Her career started at the ripe age of 18 after winning a modelling competition in her hometown.

In 1999, she featured in a series of ads for Italian telecommunications company Omnitel - leading to her European success.

She has starred as a judge on Australia's Next Top Model along with hosting Project Runway Australia.

Ms Gale has also played roles in Australian movies such as I Love You Too, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Water Diviner featuring Russell Crowe. She is a mother to son River, five, and daughter Rosie, two.

For confidential crisis support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.
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Pharm Envee is also socially and environmentally conscious. The company has donated $50,000 worth of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to help Americans. The contributions includes supporting incarcerated women and staff at the Homestead Correctional Facility (Miami), senior citizens in Grand Prairie, Texas, children in Gary, Indiana , and being the PPE sponsor to protestors in Atlanta Georgia through the Take2Foundation and Martin Luther King Center.

Pharm Envee who is a strategic partner to international laboratories, manufacturers, pharmaceutical and trading companies worldwide has in total donated 1.2 Million PPE across the country as part of its support to Governments.

Matt Bowman, Managing Partner, Pharm Envee, a former Navy jet pilot, while donating the PPE to protesters during the just concluded Juneteenth Festival at Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, Atlanta stated;

We are all in this together and have to help in as many different ways as possible and donating materials was a great first start to keep all Atlanta citizens safe,

As a strategic partner of international laboratories, manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, and trading companies. We are committed and would ensure that in all our work, BIPOC voices are represented, amplified, and heard by our clients and partners. We are developing and enforcing guidelines for vendors and experts that help shape our perspective Matt Bowman said in the statement

Pharm Envee is still working to provide PPE to other parts of the country. As the need for PPE sourcing settles down, Ms. Sonia Kumar, President & CEO Pharm Envee plans to focus on helping global markets with supplies of biotechnological products and devices reach their high demands.

We are in the business of helping people for the long haul, there is no more important task in the world.
Mayank Singh By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The status of Chinese force disengagement along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh remain unchanged since the last Corps Commanders meeting for second phase of disengagement. But, the Indian side is hopeful that Chinese troops will move back.

A senior Army officer told, The Chinese positions have not changed since the last meeting between the Corps Commanders.

The Chinese troops had moved back from the standoff positions from Patrolling Points (PP) 14 and 15. But they did not move back from Hot Spring. Also, the Chinese moved out of the Finger 4 height but remain positioned one the ridges. Further, the standoff at Y-Junction, Depsang remains as it is.

But, the Army is hopeful that the Chinese will move back. During the first phase of disengagement, after the meeting on June 30 the Chinese troops had moved out only during the last two days of the time set for retreat from the standoff points. added the officer, asking not to be named.

The troops of India and China are in standoff position since the intervening night of May 5 and 6 when the Chinese soldiers clashed with the Indian Army troops at Finger 4. After the Clash the Chinese moved in their troops at PP 14, 15 and 17A in addition to the Finger 4 on the Northern flank of the Pangong Lake. Later, Chinese also deployed their large body of troops at Y Junction, Depsang.

Indian Army has deployed its troops commensurate with the Chinese deployment along with the armoured and the artillery. Also, the Air Forces of both countries have positioned their assets to react in case of need. Indian Air Force has moved forward its frontline Combat aircrafts like the Sukhoi 30, Mirage 2000, MiG 29 and Apache.


Click here to read the full article.

Chopard, the family-owned Swiss jeweler and watchmaker, will open a flagship store inside the Crown Building on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan, WWD has learned.

The two-level space, with 1,279 square feet on the main floor and 1,143 square feet on a lower level, will replace Chopards Madison Avenue flagship on 63rd Street, where the international jeweler has operated a flagship for 13 years.

Chopards move to Fifth Avenue brings yet another dimension of luxury to the historic Crown Building, at 730 Fifth Avenue. Its already occupied by Bulgari, Ermenegildo Zegna and Mikimoto, and much of the building is being converted into a luxury Aman Hotel and Residences.

Chopard is expected to start construction on its Fifth Avenue site in March when it first moves in. Precise timing of the opening of the flagship is to be determined. It will be situated adjacent to Mikimoto. The Geneva-based Chopard has five stores in the U.S.

On Wednesday, the Scheufele family, which owns and runs Chopard worldwide, underscored the significance of, and its support for, New York City, stating, New York is the city where anything is possible; it embodies the American Dream and a certain vision of freedom, which is why it has consistently inspired creative individuals and art lovers. Chopard has made creativity and craftmanship the core of its identity. We are artisans of emotions since 1860, so we did not hesitate when the opportunity arose to open our flagship in the legendary and historical Crown Building. Even in these uncertain times, our family maison is looking to the future. The opening of this boutique in 2021 is also a message of hope and optimism addressed to New York and New Yorkers whom we so greatly admire.

Karl-Friedrich Scheufele serves as Chopards copresident. His sister, Caroline Scheufele, serves as copresident and artistic director.

Fifth Avenue attracts larger and more diverse international crowds than Madison Avenue, which is neighborhood-oriented, though New York City retail overall has been deeply impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

Story continues

The historic Crown Building, owned by Brookfield Properties, was constructed in 1921 by August Heckscher and designed by Warren and Wetmore, architects of the Helmsley Building and Grand Central Terminal.

Commenting on the addition of Chopard to the Crown Building, Kirsten Lee, senior vice president and director of luxury leasing at Brookfield, said, As a coveted luxury brand, this is a natural partnership and we look forward to wonderful work together.

Chopard was founded in 1860 by Louis-Ulysse Chopard. The company is known for its partnerships with the Cannes Film Festival and the Mille Miglia classic car rally, and for its commitment to sustainable luxury. Chopard has been using 100 percent ethical gold in the production of all its gold creations since 2018.

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China vows 'forceful counterattack' to UK's withdrawal from Hong Kong treaty

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 10:22 AM

China has called on Britain to "correct its mistakes" and promised a "forceful counterattack" to London's unilateral withdrawal from an extradition treaty with Hong Kong.

"China will make a forceful counter-attack to the UK's wrong actions," Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday. "China urges the UK to give up its fantasies of continuing colonial influence in Hong Kong and immediately correct its mistakes."

Hong Kong was a British colony before it was returned to China in 1997. The city has been governed under the "one-country, two-system" model since then.

Britain suspended its extradition treaty with the semi-autonomous Hong Kong on Monday in reaction to the enactment of a uniform national security law in the city.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin reacted to the announcement on Tuesday, calling on the UK to "stop going further down the wrong path."

He said Beijing firmly opposed the suspension of the treaty and reserved the right to react.

A spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in London also said on Tuesday that Britain "will bear the consequences if it insists on going down the wrong road."

The spokesman, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that "any attempt" to put pressure on China regarding the new national security law "will meet the strong opposition" of its people.

"Such an attempt is doomed to failure," he added.

The new security law for Hong Kong was enacted at the end of last month. It punishes crimes of secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces with sentences of up to life in prison in Hong Kong. Mainland security agencies are also officially based in Hong Kong for the first time under the law.

The introduction of the law has been criticized by Western governments. The US, Australia, and Canada have already suspended their own extradition arrangements with Hong Kong.

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Malaysia is now on an uphill battle to help save endangered sea turtles who make their way to its beaches from the South China Sea to lay their eggs. According to reports, Malaysia forms the nesting ground for several species of sea turtles, such as Green turtles, Hawksbills and Leatherbacks.

Read: Goa CM Hails Fishermen Who Saved Olive Ridley Turtles, Video Wins Internet

Mission to save sea turtles

As per reports, in recent years the number of sea turtles has dwindled substantially due to multiple factors like maritime pollution, coastal development, and human interference such as snatching up their eggs, either for sale or consumption. Conservationists are slowly making progress by raising awareness about these creatures and getting people who were earlier involved in the illegal trade of sea turtle eggs to change their ways.

According to reports, in another major win for conservationists and sea turtles, Terengganu state which is a major nesting site has announced that it will ban the trading of sea turtle eggs. Unfortunately, humans are far from the only threat that sea turtles and their offsprings face. Monitor lizards from the nearby forests or surrounding areas eat the eggs before they have a chance to hatch. Sharks and predatory fish also pose a considerable threat to sea turtle hatchlings as they start their journey into the ocean.

Read: Federal Government Decide Upon 2 Mississippi Turtles Protection

According to reports, eggs that were stolen and eaten from the beaches in Malaysia use to be a key source of protein for many people, especially the poor, but those habits are liable to change as incomes started to increase and people started to have more options.

The locals have also been made to realise that it is more beneficial to them to protect and nurture the sea turtles and their eggs rather than eat them since the turtles attract large groups of tourists who thereby make the livelihood of many people possible.

While authorities have banned the sale of certain species of sea turtles, the sale of the more common ones is still legal in Malaysia. However, due to pressure from conservation groups, the government has vowed to ban the sale of all sea turtle eggs by the end of 2020.

(Image Credit Pixabay)

Read: Nearly 2 Crore Olive Ridley Turtles Made Their Way To Sea From Odisha Beach: DFO

Read: Cambodia: At Least 23 Endangered 'royal Turtles' Hatched In Koh Kong Province
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Bangkok, Thailand  Wed, July 22, 2020 16:45 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406687e7f2 2 SE Asia Thailand,state-of-emergency,coronavirus,coronavirus-effect,COVID-19,pandemic,coronavirus-restrictions,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus,COVID-19-travel-restriction,COVID-19-travel-ban Free

Thailand will extend a state of emergency until the end of August, a senior official said on Wednesday, maintaining the security measure put in place to contain its coronavirus outbreak.

The announcement comes after nearly two months without local transmission and with many people in Thailand questioning the need for an emergency decree.

The decree, first introduced in late March, will be subject to cabinet approval next week.

"It is still necessary to have the decree because we are opening up the country for more business meetings and tourism to stimulate the economy," said Somsak Roongsita, secretary-general of the National Security Council, adding that doctors had requested it be maintained.

The extension comes after political protests took place last week against the government, in defiance of a ban on gatherings. Somsak, however, said the emergency decree would be used only to contain virus outbreaks and not rallies.

"Political gatherings will be subject to the law, but not the decree," he added.

Thailand will begin allowing the entry of business executives for trade shows, migrant laborers, film makers and medical tourists, spokesman for the governments Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), Taweesin Wisanuyothin said.

Up to 110,000 migrant laborers from Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia will gradually be allowed entry and be tested for the coronavirus upon arrival.

Foreign film makers and business executives will need a virus-free certificate from within three days before travel and have medical insurance.

Medical tourists will have to stay in their hospitals for two weeks before taking additional trips in the country, Taweesin said.

All foreign entries will be subject to a 14-day quarantine.

Thailand has reported a total of 3,261 infections and 58 deaths.
In both cases, the allegations were first sent to the leaders of the opposing political parties, suggesting there may have been an element of politics at play. But the developments also suggested that behavior which may have previously been accepted or kept quiet in the New Zealand parliament would no longer be tolerated.
The Madison City Council on Tuesday rejected putting $250,000 toward helping local businesses repair damage caused by looting and break-ins in the Downtown area at the end of May and start of June.

In a marathon nearly eight-hour meeting, the council also unanimously adopted a sweeping plan that will guide potentially $300 million in investment in the Oscar Mayer site and surrounding areas  with amendments that address some of residents' concerns by adding green space and decreasing traffic.

The council voted 14-6 to nix the $250,000 recovery program for businesses, as well as an associated $500,000 equity program aimed at supporting entrepreneurs of color in the city.

Council members said they wanted to wait to reconsider the program to help entrepreneurs of color. That program and the recovery program were tied together after some criticized an initial version of the recovery program for focusing too much on State Street and not enough on Madison's Black community.

Last-minute changes Tuesday expanded the availability of recovery funds to businesses located anywhere in the city. But that modification did not substantially change the program since most of the businesses damaged during the looting are Downtown.

Ald. Rebecca Kemble, 18th District, said the equity program was not enough to get her on board with putting money toward Downtown, which she called "the whitest neighborhood in the city." She said the area already receives the most resources from the city, and the city should instead be focusing on investing in its Black community.

"This is quite literally institutional racism," Kemble said of the focus on Downtown businesses.

While there are business owners of color on State Street, none of them are Black, Jason Ilstrup, president of Downtown Madison, Inc., acknowledged. Ilstrup said the equity program paired with the recovery funds would allow the city to rebuild Downtown and "correct the errors of the past."

"We can create a city center where everyone feels welcome," Ilstrup said.

But Ald. Max Prestigiacomo, 8th District, said a vote for the recovery program would be valuing "property over human lives."

State Street business owners, however, said they needed the city's help after barely making it through temporary closings because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then costly damages because of the looting. Many said they might not reopen.

The recovery program would have allowed local small businesses and property owners to apply for reimbursement grants of up to $25,000 for window replacement or other repairs, or to pay for insurance deductibles.

Miar Maktabi, owner of the Dubai Mediterranean Restaurant and Bar on State Street and a Syrian immigrant, said his business sustained $39,000 in damage in one week. He pleaded with the city for help.

"You guys are burying us," Maktabi said.

Ald. Tag Evers, 13th District, said the city should call on the business community to raise money to help the struggling businesses on State Street.

Alds. Paul Skidmore, Michael Tierney, Mike Verveer, Samba Baldeh, Sheri Carter and Barbara Harrington-McKinney voted against rejecting the recovery and equity programs.

Oscar Mayer

The Oscar Mayer Special Area Plan envisions housing, commercial and industrial spaces, a preserved wetland and park, new roads and more pedestrian-friendly trails.

Individual projects will still go through a city approval process, but the plan provides a framework for revitalizing the 72-acre site that connects the North and East Sides of Madison.

Several residents spoke against the Oscar Mayer plan at Tuesdays meeting, citing their desire for the city to preserve the entire 31 acres of the wetlands on the Hartmeyer property, keep traffic from the site off of Coolidge Street and remove a planned Metro Transit bus garage from the site.

Catie Shannon said the city should delay the plan to take a deep dive into those areas. We hope you take our concerns to heart, she said.

Ald. Syed Abbas, 12th District, proposed a series of amendments to address many of the concerns. He tried expanding the acreage of the park to the full 31 acres, but that amendment failed because it would have required a loss of too many housing units.

Resident Adam Pagenkopf and others said given the housing crisis in Madison, the wetland space is needed for more housing developments.

"We should really prioritize people over green space," Pagenkopf said.

On a 11-7 vote, council members voted in support of increasing the park space from 14 to 16 acres, which did not require reducing the number of potential housing units.

Other adopted amendments included restricting Coolidge Street to bikes and pedestrians only, prioritizing environmentally sustainable development practices, and adding language to have the city focus on racial equity and preventing resident exposure to potentially toxic chemicals at the industrial site. Relocating the bus garage was not included.

School resource officers

Also Tuesday, the council voted 19-1 to terminate the citys contract with the Madison School District to provide police officers for Madisons four main high schools. The four former school resource officers, or SROs, have been reassigned to patrol.

The district voted June 29 to end the SRO contract, amid pressure from residents opposed to having police in schools.

In contrast, the Middleton City Council voted Tuesday to reconsider its earlier decision to cancel its own SRO contract with the Middleton-Cross Plains School District. The council delayed a final decision to give the district the opportunity to amend the contract.

Opponents of SROs have noted that Black students are disproportionately cited and arrested in school, while supporters say having police in schools provides protection from active shooters and builds relationships between students and law enforcement.

Skidmore was the only Madison council member to vote against terminating the contract.

The termination of the citys SRO program results in a budget shortfall of more than $200,000 for the police department.

In other business, the council unanimously approved the Commercial Ownership Assistance Program, which creates a forgivable loan fund focused on providing support for business owners who are people of color. The $500,000 pilot program will lend business owners up to $250,000 for a down payment on a commercial property.

State Journal reporter Shanzeh Ahmad contributed to this report.

Photos: How Madison answered the police killing of George Floyd

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:37:27|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said he is ready to work with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to lead bilateral relations to new achievements in the new era for the benefit of both countries and their peoples.

In a recent exchange of congratulatory messages on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of China-Saudi Arabia diplomatic ties, Xi noted that over the past 30 years bilateral relations have seen steady development, with cooperation bearing rich fruits in various fields.

Particularly, the relationship has been advancing on the fast track in recent years since the two countries forged a comprehensive strategic partnership, he added.

At the moment, Xi said, China and Saudi Arabia are working together against COVID-19 to protect the health and well-being of both peoples, safeguard regional and global public health security, and have left behind touching stories of mutual assistance.

Stressing that he attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations, Xi said he stands ready to make concerted efforts with King Salman to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to better synergize the Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and to further enrich the strategic significance of their countries' relationship.

In his message, King Salman said that since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties 30 years ago, great progress has been made in various fields in bilateral relations, demonstrating the profound friendship between the two countries and the high level of their strategic relationship.

The Saudi king said he is willing to push for continuous development of the special relationship so as to serve the common interests of both countries and their peoples.

Noting that the Saudi side holds the same or similar ideas with the Chinese side in dealing with the novel coronavirus pandemic, he said his country is ready to work with China to fight the epidemic.

He added that Saudi Arabia looks forward to carrying out more cooperation with China to promote regional and global security and stability. Enditem
A 15-year-old girl nearly died over the weekend after a hole she dug on a Cape Cod beach collapsed and trapped her in the sand from the neck down.

Heidi Filmer-Gallagher was visiting North Beach Island in Chatham with her three children and a friend on Sunday afternoon when the incident occurred.

She was collecting shells with her friend when one of her kids called her cellphone around 5pm.

Her children told her that her daughter, Tessa, had been buried under the sand, according to the Boston Globe.

'It was a near-death situation for her and Ive had a really hard time the last two days,' Filmer-Gallagher said as she recalled the incident.

Heidi Filmer-Gallagher's 15-year-old daughter, Tessa, nearly died after a hole she dug on a Cape Cod beach collapsed and trapped her from the neck down in sand. Photos from WBZ shows Tessa trapped in the sand

Photos of the rescue showed crews placing a large black tube around Tessa to keep more sand from pressing against her as they shoveled the sand away

Filmer-Gallagher (left, in yellow) told the news outlet that she immediately thought her daughter had been completely buried. First responders are seen working to rescue her daughter

Tessa had been digging a large hole when the walls of the hole collapsed on top of her.

Filmer-Gallagher told the news outlet that she immediately thought her daughter had been completely buried. As she ran to help her daughter, her friend called 911.

'Thats the one thing that keeps going through my head over and over, is the way it felt thinking she was totally under,' Filmer-Gallagher said.

'When I got to the other side, she was up to her neck and her head was poking out. It was a giant relief but the worry on the way there was so intense it keeps haunting me.'

Though Tessa wasn't completely buried, the sand was pressing against her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe.

'It was like cement,' Filmer-Gallagher said, adding that she and her other daughter only made it worse when they tried to dig her out.

Tessa (pictured), who walked away uninjured, was evaluated by first responders shortly after she was pulled from the sand

It took about 30 minutes for rescuers to shove away enough sand (pictured, area where Tessa was buried in sand) to help Tessa out

Rescue crews from Chatham Fire Department arrived a short time later and were able to dig Tessa out of the sand.

Photos of the rescue from WBZ showed crews placing a large black tube around Tessa to keep more sand from pressing against her as they shoveled the sand away.

Chatham Fire Deputy Chief Justin Tavano said that more sand continued to collapse, 'so it was really labor intensive and challenging'.

'We had to dig a little, reposition the tube to keep out more sand, and then dig a little and reposition the tube again,' he added.

It took about 30 minutes for rescuers to shove away enough sand to help Tessa out.

Tessa, who walked away uninjured, was evaluated by first responders shortly after she was pulled from the sand.
Nearly 280 Vietnamese citizens return from 11 European countries

Nearly 280 Vietnamese citizens from 11 European countries have just been brought home on a repatriation flight which landed at the Danang International Airport on Wednesday.





Nearly 280 Vietnamese citizens from 11 European countries returned home on a repatriation flight which landed at the Danang International Airport on July 22.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Vietnamese government has cooperated with the governments of 11 countries including Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary over the past two days to arrange the flight.

The passengers included children aged below 18, the elderly, people with illness, workers with expired labor contracts, and tourists stranded due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

All the passengers had been instructed to travel to airports in Bucharest and Warsaw with support from the embassies in Romania and Poland to complete boarding procedures.

Right after landing at the Danang International Airport, all the passengers and the Vietnam Airlines flight crew members were given health check-ups and sent to quarantine in accordance with current regulations.

This is the 60th rescue flight organised by the government since April 10, bringing home 14,723 citizens from foreign countries and territories, the ministry said. And more such flights will be conducted in the coming time.

According to the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control, Vietnam has reported a total of 401 Covid-19 patients as of July 22 morning.





Of the patient tally, 365 have recovered and no deaths have been reported.

The country has gone 96 consecutive days without reporting any community transmission case since April 16.
TAIPEI, Taiwan - The prospect of a military clash in the Taiwan Strait is rising precariously, the Taiwanese foreign minister warned Wednesday, urging "extreme caution" in the island's dealings with a Chinese leadership in Beijing that he described as both increasingly emboldened and insecure.

The Chinese military has held a growing number of exercises that simulate an invasion of Taiwan, a self-ruled island about 80 miles off China's east coast that considers the United States its main military and diplomatic backer. The pace and scale of China's drills, as well as those of U.S. naval and air forces deployed to the region, have risen in recent months as relations between Beijing and Washington plummet on numerous fronts.

Relations took another sharp turn Wednesday after the State Department said it ordered China to close its consulate in Houston.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said this week the United States would sell more arms to Taiwan as part of a $10 billion deal approved by Congress. He also said the U.S. military would reposition forces across Asia to prepare for a confrontation with China in flash points including self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and has vowed for decades to take by force, if necessary. Inside China, the government has faced growing calls from hawkish military pundits and nationalist commentators to grasp the current strategic window to seize Taiwan, an accomplishment that could rally the Chinese population and burnish leader Xi Jinping's political legacy.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Wednesday he was worried China has conducted an "unprecedented" number of sea and air drills around Taiwan in 2020, with the pace rising to nearly once every day since June. "The threat is on the rise," he said.

Wu speculated that tensions in the Taiwan Strait - one of the most heavily militarized regions in the world - could continue to deteriorate as China grapples with a steep economic slowdown, the lingering fallout from covid-19 and devastating flooding across the Chinese heartland.

In recent months, Wu said, China has tangled in quick succession with neighbors in the South China Sea, with India over border territory and with Western countries over Hong Kong, where the Chinese government passed a national security law that effectively cemented Communist Party control over the city's police and courts.

"A country will often use an exterior crisis to change the domestic focus," Wu told reporters Wednesday. "If we look at the contested issues around China's periphery, we see that for China, Taiwan would be an extremely convenient sacrificial lamb."

At the same time, Wu said, Taiwan should not provoke China through moves such as overly publicizing its support for Hong Kong protesters. "We need to be extremely cautious," he said. "Other than having full military preparedness, we need to also be very careful to avoid letting Taiwan become an excuse for China to declare war or engage militarily."

Although most analysts see a full-blown war between China and the United States as unlikely, Wu's comments added to the sense of unease in Asia, where a number of countries, most recently India, have complained about China's regional assertiveness and warned about the possibility of serious military clashes. A group of former senior Taiwanese officials said in a report this week that while they did not believe Beijing was edging toward an all-out invasion, Chinese forces could launch an operation to seize one of Taiwan's outlying islands.

China, for its part, has accused the United States of stoking tensions by ramping up military activity in China's strategic backyard and building a coalition of countries in a Cold War-style effort to contain its rise. The U.S. Navy this month deployed two aircraft carriers to the South China Sea, days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared China's claims in the sea - which cover about 90 percent of the strategic waterway - to be "unlawful."

Beijing has also lashed out angrily at Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, whom it accused of refusing to acknowledge a 1992 diplomatic formulation that accepted Taiwan and the Chinese mainland as part of "one China"

In a major speech in January 2019, Xi offered an ultimatum to Taiwan to come to the table for unification talks or face annexation by force. But as a precondition for talks, China demanded that Tsai acknowledge the "one China" principle.

Wu on Wednesday dismissed the likelihood of the Taiwanese administration entering a negotiation, saying it was "absolutely not going to go anywhere."

"If China demands that Taiwan accept the precondition that Taiwan is part of China, then what's the point of negotiation if the conclusion is already reached?" he said. "To talk about the prospects of dialogue I think is just hypothetical."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 20:37:17|Editor: huaxia

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SANAA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Four Houthi rebels and two soldiers were killed Wednesday in violent clashes in Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, a local government security source told Xinhua.

Dozens from both warring forces were injured in the clashes in At-Tuhayta district in the southern port city, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Hodeidah has seen a shaky cease-fire between the government forces of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Houthi rebels since both sides reached a UN-sponsored truce agreement in Stockholm in December 2018.

Part of the port city is under control of the Houthi rebels, while the government forces have advanced to the southern and eastern outskirts.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi group seized control of much of the country's north and forced the Saudi-backed government of President Hadi out of the capital Sanaa. Enditem
SUSANVILLE, Calif.  Firefighters and aircraft worked Tuesday to halt the spread of two forest fires in rural northeastern California.

The Gold Fire in northern Lassen County nearly doubled in size to 7 square miles (18.2 square kilometers) south of the tiny Modoc County community of Adin and there was zero containment.

Two firefighters were injured at that blaze Monday and were flown to a hospital in Redding but there were no details early Tuesday on their conditions or what happened, said Alisha Herring, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Herring said damage to a fiber optic cable was interfering with communication.

In southern Lassen County, the Hog Fire covered 12.5 square miles (32.4 square kilometers) about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the town of Susanville and was just 5% contained. The size of the fire was reduced from earlier reports after improved mapping, Cal Fire said.

The fire was a threat to about 170 buildings and some evacuation orders were in effect.

In central California, the week-old Mineral Fire was 68% contained after scorching 44.5 square miles (115 square kilometers) and destroying seven structures in the Diablo Range west of Coalinga.

Several smaller wildfires burned elsewhere in the state.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, crews from eight fire departments were called in to battle a blaze at a dairy cooperative that is one of Burnett Countys largest employers and is a popular stop for tourists.

Sheriffs officials said the fire at Burnett Dairy Cooperative was reported about 10:30 p.m. Monday. Employees working in the cooperative located near Grantsburg, were able to make it out safely. Officials say it appears the fire was the result of a mechanical malfunction, officials said.

The fire was still burning, but under control by Tuesday morning. No injuries were reported.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation temporarily closed Highway 70 near Grantsburg.

Firefighters from Grantsburg, Siren, Webster, Frederic, Cushing, St. Croix Hertel, Pine City and Rush City all helped in the battle to save the cooperative.

About the photo: Smoke from the Hog Fire is seen from Highway 36 west of Susanville, California, on Sunday, July 19, 2020. Mandatory evacuations are in effect for the Hog Fire which has grown to 9 square miles (23 square kilometers) in Lassen County. Cal Fire says about 170 structures are threatened.(Anjeanette Damon/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP)

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura are likely to receive heavy rainfall on Wednesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Thunderstorm accompanied with lightning ia very likely at isolated places over Bihar, Jharkhand, Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, the IMDs weather bulletin on Wednesday morning stated.

Assam is already reeling under flood due to incessant rain and 24.19 lakh people in 24 districts are affected, a government report said. A total of 87 people have died in flood-related incidents.

The Central Water Commission (CWC), which has been regularly releasing updates on the river level, said on Wednesday morning that the Brahmaputra is expected to rise 30 cm by Thursday evening. Other rivers like Dhansiri, Jia Bharali, Kopili, Beki, Gaurang, Kushiyara and Sankosh are also flowing above the danger mark.

A report by Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said that the mighty Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger marks in Dibrugarh, Dhubri and Goalpara cities, besides at Nimatighat in Jorhat and Tezpur in Sonitpur districts.

The ASDMA report further said that at present 2,323 villages across Assam are under water and 1.10 lakh hectares of crop area has been damaged.

The flood-affected districts are: Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Biswanath, Darrang, Baksa, Nalbari, Barpeta, Chirang, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Dhubri, South Salmara, Goalpara, Kamrup, Kamrup Metropolitan, Morigaon, Nagaon, Golaghat, Jorhat, Majuli, Sivasagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Cachar.

Massive erosion has been witnessed at different places of Majuli, Baksa, Sonitpur and Udalguri districts, it added.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal visited the erosion hit areas of Tulsijhara village near Hagrama bridge in Chirang district on Tuesday and assessed the devastations caused by Aie river.

Rescue personnel evacuated 869 stranded people by boats in nine of the affected districts on Tuesday and shifted them to safer locations.

A total of 66 roads in six affected districts remain submerged or were damaged on Tuesday, according to ASDMA. Five bridges were damaged in Darrang and one in Barpeta on Tuesday.

A total 397 relief camps and distribution centres have been opened in 18 districts where 44,498 people have taken shelter currently, the ASDMA report said.
Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrapped up a visit to Moscow, where he delivered a special message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Upon return to Tehran, Zarif told reporters that the message from President Hassan Rouhani revolved around some bilateral issues as well as the Iran nuclear deal.

Zarif did not release further details on his one-hour conversation with Putin that was held over the phone due to the Russian presidents special coronavirus-related protocols. In recent weeks, the Islamic Republic has been in close dialogue with its key nuclear deal partners Russia and China, urging them to resist US pressure on extending an Iran arms embargo that will expire under the nuclear accord and UN Resolution 2231 in October. It was not immediately clear if Rouhanis important message had to do with the embargo issue, but the expiry is expected to turn Iran into a lucrative weapons market for the Russian Federation.

The top Iranian diplomat also said he had discussed with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov plans for a 20-year partnership agreement. A similar but shorter-term deal is already in place between Tehran and Moscow but will expire in March. Zarif noted that the two sides have agreed on signing a more comprehensive treaty.

The announcement comes as the US government is pressing ahead with its maximum pressure policy, which aims to bring the Iranian economy to its knees. To dodge the impacts, Tehran has gone out of its way in boosting business with neighbors as well as US rivals China and Russia.

Talks on a new agreement with Moscow also coincided with harsh criticism in Iran against the draft of a 25-year partnership pact the Rouhani government is planning to clinch with Beijing. Irans Foreign Ministry has linked the opponents to an enemy campaign that aims to sabotage the agreement. But those critics argue against the governments secrecy in handling the treaty, which they allege will force upon Iran humiliating concessions.

A large community of the critics is also highlighting speculation that under the deal Iran will cede to China control of several of its southern touristic and energy-rich islands, an assertion flatly denied by government officials. Last week, Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash, a senior Iranian lawmaker and a member of the parliaments National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said in a taped interview that the island control issue had been stated in the draft, but the Iranian Parliament and people will not allow this to happen. The bombshell revelation drew a backlash from government officials and prompted the parliamentarian to withdraw his statement, claiming that his words had been taken out of context.

The governments explanations do not appear to have allayed the concerns, however, as political circles continue to debate different dimensions of the contentious agreement on a daily basis.

In the latest news, senior Iranian economist Hossein Raghfar reminded the Rouhani government of how China has already exploited anti-Iran economic sanctions and how countries in similar deals with Beijing have turned into Chinese colonies, ending up in accumulated debt. The truth of the matter is that China treats Iran as a customer rather than a strategic partner, Raghfar concluded in an interview with Reformist daily newspaper Arman-e-Melli.
Glory holes are being encouraged as a safer way to have sex by health chiefs in Canada amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control advises the public to 'use barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact '.

Glory holes are small holes cut into walls or barriers that allow people to have sex with as little skin contact as possible.

The health chiefs also encourage people to wear face masks during sex and to use condoms, lubricant, and dental dams to 'further reduce the risk by minimising contact with saliva, semen and faeces during sex'.

New York offered its citizens similar advice in a guide which says: 'Make it a little kinky. Be creative with sexual positions and physical barriers, like walls, that allow sexual contact while preventing close face to face contact.'

Although Covid-19 is not known to spread through sex, it could be transmitted in the breath and saliva of people who are close together if one of them is infected.

Glory holes are being encouraged as a safer way to have sex by health chiefs in Canada amid the coronavirus pandemic (stock image)

Other states have encouraged sexting and video-call sex alongside masturbation and claim 'you are your safest sex partner'.

While having sex with someone in your household that isn't displaying any symptoms is permitted in the UK, it is advised that precautions should be taken if you are having sex with people you don't live with.

It comes after doctors at Harvard University published a study in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine and ranked sexual scenarios in the following order of risk, from lowest to highest:

Abstinence - No sexual contact of any kind. Behaviour adds no risk of infection, 'though unfeasible for many'. Masturbation - 'Low risk for infection'. Sexual activity on digital platforms - Low risk for infection but potential for online abuse, legal complications arising from screenshots, not suitable for minors because of the potential for abuse or illegality. Sex with people within household - High risk of infection if partner catches the virus outside of the home. Sex with people from other households - High risk of infection, especially if there are multiple partners.

A study done at the beginning of June found that out of 900 adults in Britain, only four out of 10 have had sex since the start of lockdown, with young married couples most likely to have done so.

WHAT ADVICE DID THE CANADIAN HEALTH CHIEFS ISSUE? Ask your partner(s) if theyre feeling unwell or have any symptoms of Covid-19.

Before and after sex: Wash your body with soap and water. Wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Wash sex toys thoroughly with soap and water before and after use. Do not share them with multiple partners.

Wear a face covering or mask.

Heavy breathing during sex can create more droplets that may transmit Covid-19.

Avoid or limit kissing and saliva exchange.

Choose sexual positions that limit face-to-face contact.

Use barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact.

Using condoms, lubricant, and dental dams may help to further reduce the risk by minimizing contact with saliva, semen and faeces during sex. Advertisement

Boris Johnson last month announced that you are allowed to stay the night at someone's house without following social distancing rules.

People are also urged to check in with sexual partners about whether theyre experiencing symptoms. Showers before and after sex are also recommended, according to the BCCDC.

The advice, believed to have been issued last month, went viral on Twitter overnight.

Harvard experts, led by Dr Jack Turban, said in a paper aimed at doctors: 'Patient[s] should be counseled on the risk for infection from partners.'

Admitting that telling people not to have any sex was unlikely to work, the team suggested risk-reducing measures.

These measures included avoiding a partner if they had coronavirus symptoms, no kissing, or activities that involved contact with faeces, urine or semen.

Researchers in China found traces of the virus in Covid-19 patients and those who have recovered.

While it is unclear whether the virus has been found in urine, other coronaviruses have been detected in blood, faeces and urine.

They suggested couples could consider wearing masks, showering before and after sex, and disinfecting the area where they had sex afterwards.



Dr Jack Turban and colleagues said: 'Data are lacking regarding routes of sexual transmission.

'Two small studies of SARS-CoV-2infected people did not detect virus in semen or vaginal secretions...

'Moreover, these data are moot, given that any in-person contact results in substantial risk for disease transmission owing to the virus' stability on common surfaces and propensity to propagate in the [throat] and respiratory tract.'

They said studies had suggested urine and faeces could be contaminated by the coronavirus but it wasn't clear if they were infectious.

Dr Turban and his colleagues said the public was almost certain not to follow a rule that tried to stop them from having sex.

They said: 'For the population at large, a recommendation of long-term sexual abstinence is unlikely to be effective, given the well-documented failures of abstinence-based public health interventions and their likelihood to promote shame.'

A survey by scientists at the universities of Anglia Ruskin, in Cambridge, and Ulster in Northern Ireland, found that only 39.9 per cent of Brits say they have been sexually active during lockdown.

The research, published at the end of May, showed six out of 10 people in the UK have not had sex for more than two months, since the strict social distancing rules were imposed.

Younger married couples were the group most likely to still be sexually active, the study found.

The scientists said it was a concern because regular sex can improve people's heart and brain health, as well as their mental wellbeing.

Dr Lee Smith said: 'When starting this research we expected there to be a high level of sexual activity while social isolating at home, but interestingly we found a very low level.

'This low level of sexual activity could be explained by people currently feeling anxious and stressed owing to the pandemic and not being in the mood to engage in the act.

'Moreover, those who are not married or cohabiting may not currently be able to meet up with their sexual partners and similarly those who use online apps to facilitate casual sex will currently not be able to do this.

'A lot of my previous research has shown that a frequent and trouble-free sex life is important for higher levels of enjoyment of life and general mental health, and this is particularly true for older adults.

'However, this study showed that older adults were less likely than younger adults to engage in sexual activity.'

Dr Lee's study was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Police seized 240 kilogram of poppy from two Punjab-bound trucks on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway on Tuesday night, officials said. The drivers of these trucks were arrested following the seizure, they said. A police team on routine checking intercepted two trucks coming from Kashmir at the Jhajjar Kotli area, the officials said.

During their checking, the team found two bags carrying poppy and concealed in special containers in the trucks, they said. In this connection, two FIRs were registered at Police Station Jhajjar Kotli and further investigation is in progress, the officials said. The drivers, identified as Pappu Massih and Virender Singh of Bilaspur in Uttar Pradesh, were arrested and trucks seized, they said.
Switzerland has officially declared Luxembourg a risk region this Wednesday. Travelers coming from Luxembourg will have to self-isolate for 10 days upon arrival in Switzerland.

Luxembourg's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean Asselborn already warned of the imminent move on Tuesday evening. Earlier this Wednesday, Switzerland confirmed that Luxembourg has been added to the list of countries representing a high risk.

For travelers hailing from Luxembourg, this means that they will have to be quarantined for 10 days and inform local health authorities when arriving in Switzerland. Transiting through Switzerland is still allowed.

Entering Switzerland without self-isolating is only possible if you can prove that you have an essential reason for crossing the border on a daily basis or if you're required to enter the country for work or health-related reasons for a maximum of five days. A negative virus test is not considered a reason to skip the mandatory quarantine period.

Rules and regulations may differ depending on the canton. It is recommended that travelers who planned an upcoming trip to Switzerland consult the official website of the canton in question.

You can find the complete list of risk countries here.
A youth (27), who had tried to self-immolate in front of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghels official residence in Raipur on June 29, succumbed to his burn injuries at a private hospital on Tuesday.

The youth, who belonged to Dhamtari district, died on Tuesday night at a private hospital in Raipur. The post-mortem examination was carried out on Wednesday morning and later the body was sent to his native place in Dhamtari district, said Ajay Yadav, superintendent of police (SP), Raipur.

The SP said initially, the youth was admitted to Raipurs Dr. BR Ambedkar Memorial hospital, but was later shifted to a private hospital.

Police said that he had sustained over 50% burn injuries.

Raman Singh, three-term Chhattisgarh CM and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national vice-president, tore into Baghel-led state governments misrule and mismanagement.

Misrule, mismanagement and the poor policy of the Congress have murdered the youth of the state  Bhupesh Baghel government continued to sprinkle salt on the wounds by calling the youth a mentally-ill patient, ex-CM Singh tweeted.

On July 29, the day the incident occurred, the state public relations department personnel had spoken to the members of the youths family and had claimed that he was mentally unstable for the past two years.

The department had stated on the same day that the youth possessed two acres of land in his native village and also held a job card under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005, scheme.

He had worked for 11 days in May under the MGNREGA scheme and had submitted an application to his village panchayat for making a YouTube film, the department had said in a statement.

However, his wife denied that he was mentally unstable.

We are suffering from an acute financial crisis due to which my husband was very worried. He is not mentally unstable, she had told local media persons in Dhamtari on June 29.

The state government had ordered a magisterial probe into the case the following day.

The state government had said the key aspects of the probe would be the circumstances that led to his self-immolation bid, whether he was instigated by any person, the reason and the mode of conveyance by which he travelled to Raipur, and if he was indeed mentally unstable, then why no treatment was done by his family members.

RP Singh, Congress leader, and state spokesperson, said any unemployed youths death is an unfortunate incident and the state government stands by the deceaseds family in their hour of grief.

He, however, launched a scathing attack on ex-CM Singh and reminded him of precedence.

If the former CM is so sensitive about the death of this youth, then he shouldnt forget about two similar incidents that had occurred during his regime. Records suggest that eight self-immolation bids were carried out during his 15-year reign.

He should be apologetic and ashamed about his rule. Besides, his government didnt give a single rupee for the treatment of those, who had died, under similar circumstances, Singh alleged.

The BJP is yet to respond to the ruling Congresss allegations.

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Riot police were dispatched to a city in China's northern region of Inner Mongolia after hundreds of herders gathered in protest over the loss of their grazing lands, a New York-based rights group reported on Wednesday.



More than 300 people from Bayan-uul Sum in the region's Bairin Left Banner, a county-level administrative region, on July 21, gathered outside banner headquarters in Lindong city, the Southern Mongolian Human Rights and Information (SMHRIC) reported on its website.



Holding up banners which read: "We want justice! Give us our legal rights!" the herders demanded an immediate response from the banner authorities.



The herders are accusing government officials of using armed gangs to keep them from accessing their traditional grazing lands, a complaint that has become increasingly common amid ongoing exploitation of the region's grasslands by forestry and mining corporations backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



Local police and special police were deployed to prevent the herders from getting inside the government building, according to video of the clashes published by SMHRIC.



Physical tussles ensued as herders were pushed back by the special police as they tried to push through the doors of the building in a bid to see the banner governor, SMHRIC said.



"We are herders from Bayan-uul Sum, gathering here today to urge the government to answer our demand," one of the protesters told the information center.



"The government is abusing its power to bully the herders and destroying our land and livelihoods," SMHRIC quoted a text message from the herder as saying.



Herders say the banner government illegally appropriated their grazing lands in the guise of a grasslands conservation project without consulting them.



"We will defend our ancestral land at any cost," another herder says in a video clip sent to SMHRIC.



Traditional way of life under threat



The herders of Bayan-uul Sum have been struggling to maintain their traditional way of life in the area, which until now has been relatively untouched by major development projects.



They began organizing daily protests in May. A protest on June 1 saw them pepper-sprayed and beaten by riot police wielding batons as they marched towards government headquarters.



Nearly 200 people were detained or arrested following the clashes.



The conflict escalated after the banner government sent a notice in February to tell them that dozens of villages would be prevented from using the land to graze their herds.



The villages responded by sending representatives to protest the order to the sum and banner governments, SMHRIC said.



Herders are accusing the banner government of encroaching on their land so as to win more funding from higher levels of government and to meet national conservation targets, it said.



"The banner government is robbing [us of] our land in order to benefit from the so-called national nature conversation project, and is disregarding our legal rights," a third protester said in an audio message sent to SMHRIC.



"We will fight to the end until justice is done," the message said.



Ethnic Mongolians, who make up almost 20 percent of Inner Mongolia's population of 23 million, increasingly complain of widespread environmental destruction and unfair development policies in the region.



Clashes between Chinese state-backed mining or forestry companies and herding communities are common in the region, which borders the independent country of Mongolia.



Ethnic Mongolians who complain about the loss of their grazing lands are frequently targeted for harassment, beatings, and detention by the authorities.



Reported by He Ping for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Qamar Gul and her brother Habibullah hailed as heroes after gun attack

A teenage girl hailed a hero for killing two Taliban extremists in Afghanistan has said she is 'ready to fight again' after she grabbed an AK47 and opened fire after seeing her parents shot dead 'in front of my eyes'.

Qamar Gul, thought to be aged 16, grabbed the family gun after extremists stormed her home in Ghor province and murdered her parents.

'I no longer fear them and I'm ready to fight them again,' Gul told AFP news agency via telephone, adding 'I am proud I killed my parents' murderers.'

'I killed them because they killed my parents, and also because I knew they would come for me and my little brother.'

She said 'anger took over' as she opened fire, killing two Taliban fighters and wounding several more - and kept firing until villagers arrived, at which point the insurgents fled.

Today she is being hailed a hero and, together with her younger brother Habibullah, 12, is being brought to the capital Kabul to meet President Ashraf Ghani.

Why Gul's parents were targeted remains unclear, although media reports suggest it was due to their support of the government.

Qamar Gul and her younger brother are being hailed as heroes after fighting off Taliban militants who killed their parents. Above, Qamar Gul, 16, right, and her brother Habibullah, 12, pictured in the governor's office in Feroz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor province, on Tuesday

The incident happened last week when insurgents stormed the home of Qamar Gul, a teenager from a village in the central province of Ghor. Gul is pictured above brandishing an AK-47

Arif Aber, spokesman for the governor of Ghor province where the incident took place, said 16-year-old Qamar Gul and her younger brother, 12-year-old Habibullah, are modern-day champions in the fight against the Taliban.

Insurgents in the central province of Ghor stormed the home of teenager Qamar Gul last week looking for her father, the village chief, before shooting her parents.

It was not clear what the reason for the raid was; some reports said the Taliban came to extort 'taxes' from the villagers.

Gul then emerged from the house with her family's AK-47 and opened fire, killing the two Taliban fighters who gunned down her mother and father and injuring several others.

The Taliban 'took both my father and mother out and shot them in front of my eyes', Gul told reporters at the governor's office in Feroz Koh, the provincial capital.

The teenager recounted how she and her brother, who had been asleep when the attack started, each grabbed a gun their father had kept in the house and started shooting.

'I had no choice but to take my father's gun and fire on them,' she said.

'Two were killed and another of them was wounded.'

She said she kept shooting until the other villagers came, at which point the Taliban fled.

Why Gul's parents were targeted remains unclear, said Mr Aber, who described the children's father as a government supporter who had in the past stood up to Taliban tax collectors who plundered the villages.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, denied the report.

He said the Taliban last week attacked a checkpoint belonging to the pro-government militias in Taywara.

Two of their fighters were wounded in the gun battle with local forces, he said.

No-one was killed.

Gul is aged between 14 and 16, according to different officials. It is common for many Afghans to not know their precise age. Above, Gul is pictured with her brother Habibullah

Taywara is under government control but has not been immune to Taliban incursions in the past, Mr Aber said.

Gul is aged between 14 and 16, according to different officials. It is common for many Afghans to not know their precise age.

Several other Taliban fighters later came to attack her house, but some villagers and pro-government militiamen expelled them after a gunfight, according to reports.

Afghan security forces have now taken Gul and her younger brother to a safer place, said Mohamed Aref Aber, spokesman to the provincial governor.

Since the incident, social media networks have been flooded with praise for Gul's 'heroic' act.

A photograph of Gul, wearing a headscarf and holding a machine gun across her lap has gone viral in the past few days.

'Hats off to her courage! Well done,' wrote Najiba Rahmi on Facebook. 'Power of an Afghan girl,' wrote another Facebook user Fazila Alizada.

'We know parents are irreplaceable, but your revenge will give you relative peace,' said Mohamed Saleh in his post on Facebook.

The Taliban regularly kill villagers who they suspect of being informers for the government or security forces.

In recent months, the militants have also stepped up their attacks against security forces despite agreeing to peace talks with Kabul.




Haiti - News : Zapping...





The opposition is back in action

The National Union of Haitian Normaliens, "Esklav Revolte" and the "Mouvement de Liberte, d'Egalite des Haitiens pour la Fraternite" announce a march Thursday July 23 which will end in front of the Ministry of Justice to denounce the insecurity and the "massacres" against the citizens.



Secretary of State for Youth Action Plan

Charlot Jacquelin Junior, Secretary of State for Youth, intends to promote the massive and inclusive participation of young people in political affairs through his 2020-2022 action plan. The Secretary of State wants to strengthen, structure and create multi-purpose youth centers across the country.



Sunrise Airways changes its schedules

"Following the new sanitary measures in the Dominican Republic, we have adapted our flight schedules from July 21 to August 9, 2020. Please contact our Call Center and check your new schedule if you are traveling from 21" announces Sunrise Airways.



Computerized monitoring of judicial cases

Thanks to the support of the Special Legal Assistance Program "Justice Sector Strengthening Program" (JSSP) project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID-Haiti), the Ministry of Justice and the Superior Council of the Judiciary, endow jurisdictions of the "GIVAJ" of a new computer system which makes it possible to check without delay the state of progress of the judicial cases.



200,000 barrels of diesel have arrived

On Tuesday, the Office for Monetization of Development Assistance Programs confirmed the arrival in Haiti of a shipment of 200,000 barrels of diesel to supply the market.



Jacmel : installation of the Municipal Commission

Tuesday, July 20, the Departmental Delegate Jude Pierre-Michel Lafontant proceeded to the installation of a Municipal Commission at the Town Hall of Jacmel This Commission is made up of Rev. Pastor Marky Kessa (President) and his assistants Loudie Cesar and Benissoit Petit frere.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Gangster Vikas Dubey's mother, Sarla Devi, on Wednesday appealed to her younger son Deep Prakash Dubey to surrender to the police, saying he and his family would otherwise be killed.

"Deep Prakash, please come forward and surrender or else the police will kill you and your family. The police will protect you. They will just ask a few questions. Why are you hiding if you haven't done anything wrong? Don't hide because of your brother, at least reach out to me by phone," Devi said.

Deep Prakash has been on the run since the Kanpur encounter on July 3, according to Prashant Kumar, Uttar Pradesh Additional Director General, Law and Order.

The Lucknow Police announced a reward of Rs 20,000 for providing information related to the whereabouts of history-sheeter Deep Prakash.

WATCH: Sarla Devi appeals her younger son to surrender

Vikas Dubey was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police on July 9 from the premises of the Mahakal Temple in Ujjain after he was on the run for some days following the encounter in Kanpur, where eight policemen were killed.

The Uttar Pradesh Police killed Vikas Dubey in an encounter on July 10 after he 'attempted to flee' while being taken to Kanpur from Ujjain.
TCN News

San Francisco has become the sixth US city to denounce Indias Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in its city council meet on Tuesday.

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The Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA), along with local San Francisco organizations such as the American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, San Francisco Interfaith Council, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the San Francisco Muslim Community Center worked on this resolution that declares CAA-NRC as an act to render millions of people among minorities and caste oppressed stateless.

We are proud of the City and County of San Francisco for standing on the right side of history today. San Francisco is leading the moral consensus in the global outcry against the CAA, said Hala Hijazi, Commissioner on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and a board member of the San Francisco Muslim Community Center as well as the San Francisco Interfaith Council. When genocidal campaigns begin, one important intervention is the international condemnation, and the Bay Area community feels a deep sense of solidarity with their electeds, as the time to stand against the Indian governments Islamophobic policies is now, Hijazi added.

AJA also said that the use of religion as a criterion for granting citizenship is a flagrant violation of all norms of secular democracies besides being inconsistent with Indias Constitution that guarantees equality before the law for people of all faiths. Thenmozhi Soundarajan of Equality Labs stated that These genocidal projects happen in the shadows and this resolution highlights the significance of standing up for South Asian minorities, Muslims, and caste oppressed communities. She highlighted that thousands of organizers across the country have called, e-mailed, and organized to amplify this Resolution, and it sets an example to cities across the United States  that they do not stand on the side of genocide.

The council has also noted that the Acts are discriminatory to Muslims, caste oppressed, women, indigenous peoples and the LGBTQ community and are in fact a larger part of Indias Hindu nationalist government to persecute minorities and marginalize entire sections of Indias population. South Asians from San Francisco welcomed the move calling it a welcoming city.

Other cities to denounce CAA-NRC are Seattle, Albany, St. Paul, Hamtramck and Cambridge, who passed similar resolutions against the CAA and NRC opposing the laws as exclusionary and bigoted worldview they represent. In addition, international human rights bodies as well as the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) had recently outlined that CAA-NRC were poised to put citizenships of millions into question, but Muslims alone would bear the indignities and consequences of potential statelessness.
Piramal Critical Care has a marketing and sales team with a strong footprint across the United States, serving nearly all hospitals and surgical facilities nationwide. Through this partnership, PCC and Medivant Healthcare will work together to distribute single-dose injectable drugs in approved states for COVID-19 patients that have fallen dangerously short in supply.

Peter DeYoung, Chief Executive Officer, Piramal Critical Care, said, "In the last few months with the disruption caused by the pandemic, we have observed that there has been an acute shortage of certain key injectable drugs in the US. Our partnership with Medivant Healthcare will leverage our robust nationwide US marketing and distribution capabilities that will enable supply of single-dose injectable products to critical and sensitive markets for immediate use."

"We are happy to enter an important partnership with Piramal Critical Care amidst a global healthcare crisis," said Founder and Director of Medivant Healthcare, Viraj Gandhi. "Coupling our focus on producing critical shortage medications with PCC's extensive market reach, I am confident that together we will play an integral role in helping hospitals across the country alleviate these acute drug shortages."

About Piramal Critical Care:

Piramal Critical Care, a business unit of Piramal Enterprises Limited, is a global leader in anesthesia, pain management, and intrathecal therapy. Piramal Critical Care maintains a wide presence across more than 100 countries including the US and the European markets. Our product portfolio includes inhalation anesthetics, injectable pain and anesthesia drugs, injectable drugs for myxedema coma, intrathecal therapy for spasticity management, and plasma volume expanders. Piramal Critical Care has strong manufacturing and process development capabilities with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Bethlehem, PA, United States and Telangana, India, which are inspected by US FDA, UK MHRA and other regulators, and partners with leading pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organizations around the world.

About Piramal Enterprises Limited:

Piramal Enterprises Limited (PEL) is one of India's large diversified companies, with presence in Financial Services and Pharmaceuticals. PEL's consolidated revenues were ~US$1.7 billion in FY2020, with ~34% of revenues generated from outside India.

Piramal Critical Care is a part of PEL's Pharma business that sells a portfolio of niche differentiated pharma products and provides an entire pool of pharma services (including in the areas of injectable, HPAPI etc.) leveraging its end-to-end manufacturing capabilities across 14 global facilities and a large global distribution network to over 100 countries. PEL is also active in the Consumer Product segment in India.

PEL also has a strong presence in Indian financial services sector. PEL is listed on the BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited in India.

About Medivant Healthcare:

Medivant Healthcare is one of USA's newest outsourcing facilities focused on providing hospitals & doctors' offices with single dose sterile injectable drugs on the US FDA's Drug Shortage List.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1217915/Piramal_Critical_Care_Logo.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1217914/Medivant_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Piramal Critical Care
New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications relaxations in Other Service Providers norms, for work from home till December 31, 2020.

The time period for work from home was expiring on July 31.

"DoT has further extended the relaxations in the terms and conditions for other service providers up to 31st December 2020 to facilitate work from home in view of the ongoing concern due to COVID-19," the DoT tweeted.

DoT has further extended the relaxations in the Terms and Conditions for Other Service Providers (OSPs) upto 31st December 2020 to facilitate work from home in view of the on going concern due to #COVID19.  DoT India (@DoT_India) July 21, 2020

Industry body Nasscom has hailed the decision to extend the timelines on relaxed norms for other service providers (OSPs) to facilitate 'work from home'.

.@DoT_India extends the relaxations in the T&Cs for OSPs (Other Service Providers) in the wake of #COVID19 concerns to facilitate WFH till Dec-end 2020! We thank Sh. @rsprasad for his constant support for the Indian IT industry.

@OfficeOfRSP @NasscomPolicy https://t.co/rYsPFqHVws  NASSCOM (@nasscom) July 21, 2020

In March, the DoT relaxed certain norms for OSPs till April 30 to facilitate work from home (WFH) amid the coronavirus pandemic. This included exemptions in requirement of security deposit and agreement for WFH facility for OSPs (primarily IT and IT-enabled services companies). Earlier, companies were not allowed to connect office Virtual Private Network to home infrastructure, a rule that was subsequently relaxed in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

This was later which further extended till July 31.
The Nigerian Senate has suspended plenary for eight weeks to enable lawmakers embark on their annual recess.

The lawmakers will resume on September 15.

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, announced this at the end of Wednesdays plenary which lasted for over six hours.

Prior to the adjournment, he mandated all committees to continue their work with ministries, departments and agencies.

The Senate will go on recess from tomorrow and will resume on 15th September 2020, Mr Lawan said. Even though well be on recess, our committees will continue to work, oversight with MDAs particularly with respect to the work that has been given to the committee on Finance and National Planning on MTEF and also on the proposed budget proposal sent by the president so he can present it to this chamber by the end of September this year and so we can pass it before the end of the year.

He added: other special and ad hoc committees should continue to engage with MDAs that we oversight. In the preparation of their budgets, they can still engage with us so as to minimise possible areas of disagreement.

He also urged the Senate committees on oil and gas to work with relevant petroleum agencies in preparation for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill.

We expected that the Petroleum Industry Bill would have been presented to us this week. We would have taken the first and second reading of the bill to enable our oil and gas committees to work on the bill.

Notwithstanding, committees should still engage with the MDAs like the NNPC, DPR and other relevant agencies to work as though the bill has been passed. We have everything to lose if we dont pass it this year, he said.

He thanked his colleagues for their commitment and zeal to work for Nigeria. He also thanked the minority parties for supporting majority parties.

Addressing the recent misunderstanding between the National Assembly and some MDAs, Mr Lawan noted that it takes both arms of government to work together in harmony and a cordial fashion.

Members of the parliament have had confrontations with some appointees of the executive over the running of their respective agencies and ministries in recent weeks.

Mr Lawan warned public office holders against disrespecting the legislative body.

Nobody should feel that he is above the scrutiny of the National Assembly. The scrutiny of the assembly is enshrined in the constitution. Whoever takes pubic office has to understand that there will be this engagement with the national assembly, he said.

He then announced the adjournment.
Canton, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/22/2020 -- Oneiro Company has proudly announced that it is producing an inspiring new documentary film to honor the Holocaust victims of the Nazi occupation. This new docudrama film has been named "The Students of Umberto Primo," and it brings to life the stories of nine Jewish students studying at the Italian school called Umberto Primo in Thessaloniki, Greece during the time of Nazi occupation. To introduce this film to the world, the Greek production company has recently launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, and it is welcoming generous support.



"The Students of Umberto Primo is a docudrama in memory of Holocaust victims, and this project is the result of a historic discovery by Antonio Crescenzi," said co-producer Diane Carvisiglia Boulanger, while introducing this project to the Kickstarter community. "Antonio discovered students' essays, graduation diplomas, and other documents of historical importance that had been long forgotten in the basement of the Italian Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece, the site of the former Italian school, Umberto Primo," she added.



"It is important, now more than ever, to remember what can happen when fanatic ideology, nationalism and racism overtake common humanity and compassion," Boulanger adds. "We must continue to learn the lessons from history, so we do not repeat the atrocities of the past."



The Kickstarter Campaign is located on the web at: www.kickstarter.com/projects/umbertoprimo/the-students-of-umberto-primo and all funds raised through this Kickstarter campaign will play a major role in the production of this film. Moreover, the goal of this Kickstarter campaign is to raise a sum of US $20,000. The production company is offering a wide range of rewards for backers, with worldwide shipping. More details are available on the Kickstarter campaign page of the project.



About This Project

The Students of Umberto Primo is an inspiring new documentary film made in the honor of Holocaust victims. The film depicts previously untold stories of nine Greek/Italian/Jewish students, who were persecuted by the Nazis. The project is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter, and the production company is welcoming generous pledges and donations.



Contact:

Contact Person: Diane Boulanger

Company: Oneiro Company

City: Canton

State: Massachusetts

Country: United States

Phone: 781-589-3188

Email: diane@kickstartercomm.com

Website: www.thestudentsofumbertoprimo.com
Nikhil Rathi, is the new chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority. He was previously London Stock Exchange CEO. Photo: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

The new chief executive of Britains top financial regulator has said he is not afraid to rub people up the wrong way in pursuit of justice for consumers and has promised to maintain high standards post-Brexit.

I havent applied to this job to be liked, incoming Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) chief executive Nikhil Rathi told MPs on Wednesday.

I wouldnt want to define myself as feared either. Id like the FCA to be defined as tough, as assertive, as thoughtful, as decisive and working with pace, agility and proactivity.

Rathi made the comments during a confirmation appearance in front of the Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday afternoon. The Treasury named him the next FCA boss last month and Rathi is set to take up the post in autumn.

Read more: London Stock Exchange boss tapped to lead finance watchdog

Rathi came across as mild-mannered during Wednesdays select committee hearing and at times seemed stumped by some of the questions. At just 40, he is the youngest leader of the watchdog and his assent came as a surprise to many. He was previously chief executive of the London Stock Exchange but had a relatively low public profile.

Rathi said his priorities at the FCA will be to modernise its use of data and to improve diversity, promising unconscious bias training and no-name CVs.

He said there were deep issues with diversity in the City and said recent Black Lives Matter protests had touched a nerve in many organisations. Rathi said the FCA should lead by example when it comes to diversity.

Beyond improved representation, Rathi said he would put consumer protection at the heart of how I think about my role at the FCA.

We are dealing with an extraordinary situation where we have millions of consumers around the country facing very difficult circumstances and many vulnerable consumers in particular facing challenges, Rathi said.

In the short-term, a core focus is going to be on how to manage the smooth return hopefully to normalcy as we come out of the pandemic.

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He signalled that the FCA complaints process could be overhauled as a result.

To build consumer confidence, consumers need to feel that justice is done when they raise an issue, he said. Therefore a complaints process is not just a bureaucratic process, it is part of the delivery of objectives and building consumer confidence in our work.

The FCA enjoys a broad remit over UK finance and is charged with protecting consumers, promoting competition, and ensuring market integrity. The three mandates do not always balance neatly and the job has a reputation as a poison chalice.

Rathis predecessor, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, also promised to put consumer protection at the heart of his agenda when he took up the role.

However, he drew anger from many investors who lost their money in scams like London Capital & Finance or in through the collapse of Neil Woodfords investment company. The incidents led to accusations that Bailey was asleep at the wheel.

READ MORE: Mini-bond ad ban too little, too late: 'I just want my money back'

Its not a job I think you can take if you want to be liked, Rathi said.

Aside from consumer protection, Rathi must also navigate Brexit.

There are fears that the UK could loosen standards and launch regulatory race to the bottom after exiting the EU. But Rathi promised high quality standards that would stand up to scrutiny anywhere in the world.

He said most finance firms were prepared for Brexit but said a failure to reach a trade deal by the end of the year would still prove a completely disruptive change.

Rathi spent the bulk of his career at the Treasury advising senior government ministers. Asked if he felt comfortable challenging the government, Rathi said he would not hesitate to stand up to Downing Street if he disagreed with policy.

If there are times when I need to call something out, then I will, he told MPs.

However, he struggled to answer convincingly when asked how we would avoid being swayed by private sector businesses that may offer him a job when he leaves the FCA in five years time, a possible conflict of interest that could prove challenging. Rathi said he had not thought about his long-term career prospects and described getting the FCA job as a whirlwind.

Rathi disclosed he will be paid 455,000 ($578,836), plus pension contributions with no bonus.
Recent graduate Asuka Law, 23, poses with her British National (Overseas), or BN(O), passport near a shopping mall in Kwai Chung, Hong Kong, on June 3, 2020. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

UK to Open Hong Kong Overseas Visa Applications From 2021

Hong Kong citizens entitled to hold a Hong Kong British National (Overseas) passport will be able to settle in the UK as long as they can support themselves, and they can bring dependents, including possibly children over 18 years old, the Home Office said Wednesday.

The 22-page policy statement (pdf) set out the eligibility criteria for applicants, other conditions they need to meet, their entitlements, and the application process.

In a written statement to the UK Parliament, Home Secretary Priti Patel gave highlights of the policy, which she described as very generous.

There will be no skills tests or minimum income requirements, economic needs tests, or caps on numbers, she wrote.

They do not need to have a job before coming to the UKthey can look for work once here. They may bring their immediate dependants, including non-BN(O) citizens.

At the same time, applicants will need to support themselves independently while living in the UK, meet strict criminality checks, and stay of good character, and pay visa fees and a naturalization fee if applicable.

Priti Patel, Secretary of State for the Home Department leaves Downing Street, in London on Feb. 13, 2020. (Peter Summers/Getty Images)

Given the uniquely dire situation in Hong Kong, the British government also made an exception for some adult children of BN(O) citizens, who would not normally be eligible as dependents.

In compelling and compassionate circumstances, and where applications are made as a family unit, we will use discretion to grant a visa to the children of BN(O) citizens who fall into this category and who are still dependent on the BN(O) citizen, Patel wrote.

BN(O) citizens can expect to apply from January 2021 to start the application process, and they do not have to hold a BN(O) passport to apply for the visa. They will be able to apply for two periods of 30 months leave or 5 years leave, with a path to citizenship also available.

We look forward to welcoming BN(O) citizens to the UK, the home secretary said.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab warmly welcomed the statement.

Todays announcement shows the UK is keeping its word: We will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people, he said in a statement.

Patels statement also mentioned the suspension of the extradition treaty between Britain and China.

The imposition of new National Security Legislation has significantly changed the assumptions underpinning the 1998 Agreement for the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders, our extradition treaty with Hong Kong, the home secretary wrote.

If China applies that legislation extraterritorially, it will pose a risk not only to Hong Kong residents who travel abroad, but potentially to British and other nationals travelling into Hong Kong.

The suspension will protect those resident in the UK, including those who may soon be here by virtue of the new immigration route, from unwarranted pursuit through the provisions of the Extradition Treaty.
The first day of the masked Dail created a chamber that looked akin to Highwaymen versus Robbers. Blue, white and black face coverings were everywhere, while Sean Haughey stood out by wearing red and white polka dot in the manner of Amber Heard.

Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail, who mandated this particular parliamentary cover-up, went for a welder's shield as if he might have had an oxy-acetylene torch under his desk to lightly toast time-limit transgressors.

The only one not obliged to cover his face was Micheal Martin, the mighty Loan Arranger, back from his midnight ride with Brussels posse. It's a case of hey-ho silver for the Shinners, for whom no amount of money is enough, not even 1.8tn. But it was the taxpayers here who coughed up (responsibly) to provide every TD with two masks in their pigeonholes yesterday.

The only one not to get the memo was TD for Laois-Offaly Brian Stanley, apparently still stuck in Bobby Storey funeral mode, when the party caught hell for daring to bare.

One TD had earlier dangled his skimpy covering in the canteen and said it reminded him of the time former Dublin West TD Ruth Coppinger produced a thong in the chamber (that had a deadly serious issue underlying it, too, being whether 'provocative' clothing could be argued in sex assault cases).

The new rule offers "Heckle and Hide" opportunities since no one can see your lips move behind a mask, but no one tried to take advantage lest it come out a muffled mutter.

Richard Boyd Barrett seemed the man most likely, seeing as he was wearing a spaghetti- western neckerchief, possibly in tribute to the late Ennio Morricone. But he behaved himself.

There's a long-standing rule against wearing emblems or symbols in the chamber, but James Browne TD has been sporting a Wexford GAA covering around campus, while a Liverpool FC mask made it onto the press gallery. The start of a game was thwarted by an usher when Sinn Fein TD Mark Ward was stopped from entering with a Dubs disguise.

The stereotypical TD is male, stale and fond of the ale, if not a bit of a whale. This is the very cohort most at risk of being cut down by Covid-19. If the seriousness of the issue behind the edict ever needed to be laid bare, it was done in horrifying fashion by staff nurse Siobhan Murphy in evidence before the Oireachtas committee on coronavirus.

After weeks of working in full PPE on a Covid ward, the 27-year-old contracted it herself, becoming "crippled with fatigue, headaches, and extreme shortness of breath", until "I thought I was suffocating".

She lost her sense of taste and smell and fell prey to "vivid hallucinations," while her heart rate shot up to 170 beats per minutes from the usual 60-80bpm.

"I was completely debilitated. I presented to the emergency ward of my own hospital one week later, which was a huge shock to me," she told the committee. Siobhan had a full MRI and chest X-ray and was hooked up to a heart monitor throughout.

Twelve weeks on, she still has periodic exhaustion, panic attacks and insomnia. A mask thus seems a small price to pay to reduce the chances of anyone suffering similarly.
General Dostum is like a bank, where you put money in as an investment and you wait to use it. For 40 years, he has had that value, said Bashir Ahmad Tayanj, a spokesman for Dostum. He dismissed the abuse charges as just allegations and declared that his boss had long deserved the prestigious title. He has the ability to resolve trouble with a single call. In areas where his forces are strong, the Taliban cannot enter. His existence is important for Afghanistan.
Women hit the streets and take to social media after ex-partner reportedly confesses to killing Pinar Gultekin, 27.

The brutal murder of yet another Turkish woman has triggered widespread outrage in the country, with many taking to the streets and social media to express their anger.

University student Pinar Gultekin, 27, was killed in the Aegean province of Mugla. She was reported missing last week and was found dead in the woods on Tuesday.

According to autopsy results, Gultekin was strangled and her body placed in a barrel, which was then burned and had concrete poured on it.

Her former partner Cemal Metin Avci, a bar manager in the resort town of Akyaka, has been arrested for the murder. Police said he confessed to the killing during questioning, according to local media.

On Tuesday, several groups protested across Turkish cities, including the largest city of Istanbul, against the rising violence inflicted upon women in the country.

More protests are expected as anger over the killing continues on social media, with users calling for further action by the authorities.

Femicides have doubled since 2012

According to We Will Stop Femicides Platform, a rights group that monitors violence against women, at least 474 women were murdered in 2019, most of them by current or former partners, family members, or unrelated males who wanted a relationship with them.

Turkey was the first country to ratify a 2011 Council of Europe accord, named the Istanbul Convention, on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Turkey also adopted a law in 2012 to prevent violence against women.

However, the number of murdered women has more than doubled since then, with rights groups blaming the trend on the governments failure to implement the convention and laws.

A conservative section within Turkish media and social groups has been lobbying for Ankara to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, arguing it has a negative influence on Turkish family values.

Demonstrators protest for a better implementation of the Istanbul Convention in Istanbul on July 19 [AFP]

Speaking at an Istanbul rally calling for an end to violence against women, Fidan Ataselim, general secretary of We Will Stop Femicides Platform, said their protests will continue until the authorities hear their voices.

We are carrying banners for a woman we do not know. It is enough now. We want to live, she said on Tuesday, demanding that the government implement the Istanbul Convention better.

The solution is clear. Open and read the Istanbul Convention, added Ataselim.

The sadness of our daughter Pinar Gultekin, who was murdered in Mugla, has pierced through our hearts. Another life has been lost, Zehra Zumrut Selcuk, Turkeys minister of family, labour and social services, said in a tweet.

She added the government would intervene in the case to follow the judicial process so that the murderer will get the hardest possible sentence.

Anger on social media

Meanwhile, social media users continued to voice their anger over the murder, using the hashtag #pinargultekin.

Gozde Aydin tweeted: We want justice for all the girls, daughters, sisters, mothers that are being brutally murdered every single day in Turkey!!

Another user Rengul Selma said the number of women murdered in Turkey was far more than reported.

The latest femicide once again proves how hard it is to live in Turkey as a woman. How many more femicides do we need to hear of? she tweeted.

We want justice for all the girls, daughters, sisters, mothers that are being brutally murdered every single day in Turkey!! #pinargultekin #StopKillingWomen #istanbulsozlesmesiyasatir pic.twitter.com/d8auNkeQ6Q  gozdeaydin46 (@gozdeaydin46) July 21, 2020

Twitter user Emi Kayserilioglu called on the Turkish men to introspect over the rising murders.

Whats with men in Turkey and their drive for murdering woman? Are they rendered so powerless, inept and unnecessary that killing is the only way of restoring that minuscule sense of manhood? she asked.
Diplomatic and military talks between India and China are continuing for complete disengagement of troops from a number of friction points in eastern Ladakh.

New Delhi: The Indian Navy's Poseidon 8I anti-submarine warfare aircraft have been deployed in eastern Ladakh to carry out surveillance along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and some of its MiG-29K jets are likely to be stationed in key IAF bases in the northern sector amid the border row with China, sources said on Tuesday.

The sources said the military brass is considering deploying Indian Navy's MiG-29K fighter jets in a couple of air bases in the northern sector as part of efforts to bring tri-services synergy in dealing with national security challenges.

The maritime fighter jets will complement the Indian Air Force's (IAF) efforts to significantly boost deep strikes and air dominance capabilities, they said

At present, the Navy has a fleet of around 40 MiG-29K jets and at least 18 of them are deployed onboard the countrys aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.

The IAF has already positioned almost all its frontline fighter jets like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar and Mirage 2000 aircraft in the key frontier air bases in eastern Ladakh and elsewhere along the LAC, a move that came against the backdrop of the border row with China.

Diplomatic and military talks between China and India are continuing for complete disengagement of troops from a number of friction points in eastern Ladakh.

The IAF has been carrying out night time combat air patrols over the eastern Ladakh region in the last few weeks as part of its preparedness to deal with any eventualities in the mountainous region.

By the second half of August, the IAF is planning to deploy five Rafale fighter jets in the Ladakh sector which are expected to significantly enhance its combat capabilities. India is scheduled to receive the first batch of five Rafale jets on July 27.

As part of its high-level of alertness, the IAF has also deployed Apache attack choppers as well as Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to transport troops to various forward locations in eastern Ladakh.

The sources said Poseidon 8I aircraft of the Navy has been deployed for monitoring the movement of Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh. The long-range anti-submarine and reconnaissance aircraft were deployed in Doklam along the Sikkim border too during the 73-day standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in 2017.

The P-8Is were also deployed to keep an eye on the movement of Pakistani troops after the Pulwama terror attack last year.

In the midst of the border row with China, the Indian Navy on Monday and Tuesday carried out a military drill with a US Navy carrier strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Four frontline warships of the Indian Navy participated in the "PASSEX" exercise when the US carrier strike group was transiting through the Indian Ocean Region(IOR) on its way from the South China Sea, officials said.

The USS Nimitz is the world''s largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of China''s renewed military assertiveness in eastern Ladakh as well as in the South China Sea.

The US Navy carrier strike Group comprises USS Nimitz, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Sterett and USS Ralph Johnson, the officials said.

India carried out similar exercises with the Japanese navy last month.

The Indian Navy has increased its surveillance missions and beefed up operational deployment in the IOR in the wake of the bitter border standoff with China in eastern Ladakh.

The Indian Navy is also ramping up its operational cooperation with various friendly naval forces like the US Navy and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force in view of the fast-evolving regional security landscape, the officials said.

Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan, and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the IOR in view of China's growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource-rich region.

Following the escalation in tension between India and China in eastern Ladakh, the government put all the three forces on high alert. The Indian Navy was asked to raise its alert-level in the IOR where the Chinese Navy has been making regular forays.
Varavara Rao taking undue advantage of pandemic to seek bail: NIA

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: Elgar Parishad case accused Varavara Rao is taking undue advantage of the pandemic and his age in a bid to seek bail, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has told the Bombay High Court.

The affidavit was filed in the High Court through Vikram Khalate, Superintendent of Police, NIA head office, Mumbai branch, opposing Rao's bail plea. Rao had undergone a swab test on July 14 and was confirmed positive on July 16.

Family seeks clarity on Varavara Rao s health condition; wants to be with him

Under the garb of the current situation on account of the global pandemic COVID-19 and his old age, he is trying to take undue benefit of the aforesaid situation in seeking bail on grounds mentioned in his application.

The prison authorities have responded timely and provided necessary medical held to the accused Rao. He was admitted to J J Hospital for the complaint of giddiness on May 28 and after medical treatment, he was discharged on June 1 and was found asymptomatic and haemodynamically stable, the NIA also said.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

The report submitted by the hospital did not suggest he is suffering from any such ailment which necessitates that he immediately obtain treatment in a multi speciality hospital, the affidavit filed by the NIA on July 16 also stated.

"Thus, it is clear that the pleading with regard to medical conditions of petitioner is merely a ruse to obtain an order of interim relief which is not available to petitioner otherwise on the merits of the case," the NIA also said. The court said it would not pass orders on the merits of the bail plea at this stage and would hear Rao on Thursday.
The Spanish government is hopeful that the 140 billion allocated to Spain by the European Unions coronavirus recovery fund will also help push its own national budget plan through parliament.

Securing congressional approval for its spending blueprint has been an ongoing challenge for the coalition of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the leftist Unidas Podemos that took over the reins of government in January. Spain is still working with the 2018 budget, which was drafted by the previous conservative administration of Mariano Rajoy, of the Popular Party (PP).

(l-r) Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez, Portuguese PM Antonio Costa and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. STEPHANIE LECOCQ (AFP)

The executive is planning to go to Congress with its plan in September, by which time it hopes to have negotiated enough support in a chamber where it holds a minority.

But the EU aid comes with conditions that affect the Spanish governments pledge to repeal labor legislation from 2012 that made firing cheaper. Brussels does not approve of softening labor market rules, and even the coalition partners have differing views on the matter: Unidas Podemos wants to revoke the 2012 law altogether, while the PSOE talks about revising some of its most harmful aspects.

The matter has been repeatedly postponed since January, and now, the executive says that it will have to find the right moment to address it.

Budget of recovery

Over half of the EU money will take the form of direct grants, allowing the government to draft an expansive budget to help repair the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Spain has been one of the worst-hit countries, with a death toll of over 28,400 and an economy that is expected to contract around 10% this year following a strict three-month lockdown that brought tourism, a major engine of growth, to a standstill.

In turn, getting the budget passed would dispel the threat of a new snap election in a country that has held four general elections between 2015 and 2019.

It would be hard to understand if [the deal in Europe] did not have a follow-up in the form of a budget to channel those resources to the citizens, said Finance Minister and government spokeswoman Maria Jesus Montero following the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Montero also asked all other Spanish parties to get behind what she called the budget of recovery. She said that the main opposition PP should put partisan interests aside and play a leading role in these accounts. Securing support from the PP is unlikely, but Sanchez is hoping to convince the parties that backed his bid to get back into the prime ministers office last year, and possibly also Ciudadanos (Citizens), a party with ties to European liberals that has alternately sided with the PSOE and the PP in the past.

Modernization

As the second recipient of aid after Italy, Spain will receive an extraordinary amount to foment the modernization of the country, said Montero.

Until now, the government had been facing the conundrum of how to increase public spending on the coronavirus recovery and other issues such as the ecological and digital transitions, at a time when public revenues are down and the deficit could balloon well beyond 10% of gross domestic product (GDP).

The European deal makes everything easier. All parties in parliament, including the PP and Ciudadanos, applauded the EU agreement on Tuesday, although PP leader Pablo Casado (PP) described it as an amendment to the Spanish governments policy with regard to its investiture pact with Podemos and its more recent deals with EH-Bildu, alluding to a short-lived deal with the Basque hard-left party to revise the 2012 labor law.

Indeed, while the terms of the EU agreement will allow the Spanish executive to draft keynesian policies to fight the recession, Madrids hands will be tied when it comes to softening existing labor legislation.

Popular Party leader Pablo Casado. Brais Lorenzo (EFE)

Government and PSOE sources said the executive will seek to push this matter further down on the agenda. But coalition partner Unidas Podemos and the unions want to address labor reform no later than this coming fall. There could be a source of tension there, admitted a PSOE source. But its mostly a matter of opportunity: we need to find the right moment, the ideal date, as with other measures that have been delayed by the pandemic.

Podemos lawmaker Gerardo Pisarello defended pushing forward with the coalitions pledge. In the scenario that we find ourselves in, repealing the labor reform, which was a campaign promise and part of the agreement with the PSOE, takes on more urgency than ever.

But sources in Brussels said that it makes no sense to go back on reforms that are working. The European Commission could put the brakes on such initiatives when Spains plans come up for periodic review.

Even Deputy PM Pablo Iglesias, who is the head of Unidas Podemos, on Tuesday avoided mentioning the matter. Instead, he said that a key takeaway from the EU agreement is that not only will it not prevent the coalition government from continuing to implement its program, but it will provide a tremendous stimulus to carry on with transformations aimed at restoring rights.

Sources from both parties admitted that labor reform may cause some friction between the coalition partners. But an advisor to Sanchez noted that a summit without a deal would have created a lot more problems.

English version by Susana Urra.
Global coronavirus infections surged past 15 million today, according to a Reuters tally, with the pandemic gathering pace even as countries remain divided in their response to the crisis.

In the United States, which has the highest number of cases in the world with 3.91 million infections, President Donald Trump warned: 'It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.'

The top five countries with the most cases is rounded out by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. But, the Reuters tally shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in the Americas, which account for more than half the world's infections and half its deaths.

Globally, the rate of new infections shows no sign of slowing, according to the Reuters tally, based on official reports.

Indian health workers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) check the temperature, blood oxygen and heart rate of the residents at a residential building in Mumbai, India yesterday

This photo from last week shows the US President Donald Trump wearing a mask - a rare sight -as he visits Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland

A woman shapes a Stetson hat in front of clients while wearing a mask at the manufacture store on Saturday, in Garland, Texas, amid the coronavirus pandemic

After the first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan, China, in early January, it took about 15 weeks to reach two million cases. By contrast, it took just eight days to climb above 15 million from the 13 million reached on July 13.

Health experts stress that official data almost certainly underreports both infections and deaths, particularly in countries with limited testing capacity.

The official number of coronavirus cases at 15,009,213 is at least triple the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organization data, while the death toll of more than 616,000 in seven months is close to the upper range of yearly influenza deaths.

With the first wave of the virus still to peak in several countries and a resurgence of case numbers in others, some countries are reintroducing strict social distancing measures while others relax restrictions.

Stung by low approval ratings for his handling of the epidemic and downplaying the risks during the early stages, Trump made a significant shift in rhetoric on Tuesday, encouraging Americans to wear a face mask.

A staff worker wears a mask in the main control room at a Fortum wind power station in Krasny Yar, Ulyanovsk Region, central Russia

A health worker treats a patient at a temporary field hospital set up by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Khayelitsha township near Cape Town, South Africa yesterday

A funeral home worker in a protective suit disinfects a coffin carrying a woman who died from COVID-19, as they prepare for a funeral in Katlehong, near Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday

While the epidemic worsened in the United States, Trump's focus ahead of a presidential election in November has been on reopening the economy, and governors in the hard-hit states of Texas, Florida and Georgia continue to push back hard against calls for stricter restrictions.

In Brazil, more than 2.15 million people have tested positive including President Jair Bolsonaro, and more than 81,000 people have died. While Bolsonaro has played down the outbreak, its scale has made Brazil a prime testing ground for potential vaccines.

India, the only other country with more than 1 million cases, reported almost 40,000 new cases on Wednesday. Having been keen to reopen its economy, India is now facing the twin challenge of combating the pandemic and massive flooding in the country's northeast.

Two ministers in South Africa's cabinet were admitted to hospital with COVID-19, as Africa's most-industrialised country counted a total 372,628 confirmed cases and 5,173 deaths.

Other countries are reintroducing restrictions in response to fresh outbreaks.

A seller of sunglasses is seen at Copacabana beach, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last week

In Spain, the number of people allowed on Barcelona's beaches was limited after crowds flocked to the seaside over the weekend despite advice to stay home.

In Australia, residents of Melbourne, the country's second biggest city, were ordered to wear masks in public from Wednesday after the country reported a record 501 new cases.

Officials in Canada were closely watching a spike in cases as the economy reopens, attributing the rise in part to large numbers of young people gathering in bars.

China, meanwhile, announced that passengers on inbound flights must provide negative COVID-19 test results before boarding, as authorities seek to reduce the risk of imported cases amid increased international travel.
The Bexar County Sheriff's Office is searching for a man it believes is responsible for a shooting near a Northeast Side strip mall Wednesday afternoon.

Sheriff Javier Salazar said a male in his late teens had planned to meet a second male in the area of Walzem Road and FM 78 around 1 p.m. for a physical altercation over a disagreement about a woman.

When the teen arrived, he realized the other male had additional friends with him and a handgun, the sheriff said.

Salazar said the teenager then returned to his car and attempted to flee the area but was chased after by the shooter, who opened fire. Investigators found at least five shell casings outside a business in the area. No one was injured.

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The shooter fled the scene.

Deputies detained individuals who had weapons on them, but don't believe any were the shooter. Salazar said they know the identity of the shooter, but is still asking the public to call in with any information.

"What is concerning is that this all happened in broad daylight," Salazar said. "This is one of the hot spots we have been targeting with directed patrol. The activity causing us to be out here has been daylight shootings and we have been working hard to get it in check, but obviously we still have some work to do."

Anyone with information should call BCSO at 210-335-6000.

Taylor Pettaway is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for MySA.com | taylor.pettaway@express-news.net | @TaylorPettaway
U.S. Air Force Airman Victoria M. Zelias graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas. Zelias is the daughter of Amy Miller, of Greenville and Stanley and Donna Zelias, of Memphis. She is a 2018 graduate of Jordan-Elbridge High School.

U.S. Air Force Airman Nathan T. Rindfleisch graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas. Rindfleisch is the son of Kristen R. Reilly, of Auburn and Brian W. Rindfleisch, of Union Springs. He is a 2017 graduate of Auburn High School.

U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Vincent Morgillo graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas. He is the son of Vince and Christine Morgillo, of Manlius. Morgillo earned an associate degree from Onondaga Community College, and is a 2013 graduate of Fayetteville-Manlius High School.

U.S. Air Force Airman Brennan W. Furber graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas. Furber is the son of Jana E. House and Brandon L. Furber, of Fair Haven. He is a 2012 graduate of Red Creek High School.

U.S. Air Force Air National Guard Airman 1st Class Nathan R. Kling graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas. Kling is the son of Natalie W. Brown, of Oneida, and Mark J. Kling, of Canastota. He is a 2019 graduate of Oneida Senior High School.

Victoria K. Schaefer has been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve. Schaefer is currently serving as a military intelligence officer and aide-de-camp with the 352nd Civil Affairs Command, Fort Meade, Md. She has served in the military for four years. She is the daughter of Pat A. Schaefer, of East Syracuse. Schaefer earned a bachelor's degree from Cazenovia College, and is a 2013 graduate of East Syracuse Minoa High School.

Lt. Col. Jeffrey W. Kerneklian, of Liverpool, took command of the New York Air National Guard's 224th Support Squadron. Most recently, he served as the director of operations at the 224th Support Squadron. Kerneklian earned a degree from Kent State University. He was commissioned through the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Kent State, and joined the active-duty Air Force in 1996 as a communications officer.

Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Nowak, of Baldwinsville, retired from to the 222nd Military Police Company in the New York Army National Guard after twenty years of military service. He first entered the military in February 1999.

New York Army National Guard Lt. Colonel John Sandefur, tool command of the 2nd Weapons of Mass Destruction-- Civil Support Team, a unit which specializes in identifying chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, during a ceremony at Stratton Air National Guard Base. Sandefur a veteran of two Iraq deployments, and resides in Warners.

Colonel William McCrink III, a 24-year Air Force veteran from Cazenovia, will take command of the New York Air National Guard's 174th Attack Wing. McCrink joined the New York Air National Guard in 2011 as the 174th Operations Support Squadron Chief of Operations.

2nd Lieutenant Elizabeth Bova, was promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, in Texas. Bova is the daughter of Paul and Maureen Bova, of Camillus.

New York Air National Guard Major General Kevin W. Bradley, a former commander of the 174th Attack Wing, retired after 36 years of service. He resides in Manlius.

1st Sgt. Michael Ellis, of Chittenango, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion retired from the New York Army National Guard after twenty-five years of military service. He entered the military in 1994.

Col. Joseph F. Roos, of Manlius, took command of the New York Air National Guard's 224th Air Defense Group.

Sgt. 1st Class James Bucci, of Volney, assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion retired from the New York Army National Guard after thirty-five years of military service. Bucci first entered the military in April 1984.

Michael Geer, of Oneida, has been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel with the New York Air National Guard's 224th Air Defense Group (ADG). Geer served as the Senior Intelligence Officer.

Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Brad Brechler, of Syracuse, retired from the New York Army National Guard after twenty-years of military service with the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Brechler first entered the military in July 1999.

Maj. Gen. Ray Shields, the adjunct general, announced the promotions of members of the New York Army National Guard: Promoted are:

Dylan Whittico, of Memphis, to the 827th Engineer Company, to the rank of Sgt; Tyrell Owen, of Brookfield, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Aiden Russell, of Elbridge, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private; Marshall Simmons, of Pulaski, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private; Kaylee Taylor, of Marietta, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Tyler Hunt, of Liverpool, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Jakob Cunningham, of Cicero, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Spc; Justin Grennell, of Aurora, to the Troop A, 2-101st Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Sgt; Joshua Butera, of Cleveland, to the 204th Engineer Detachment, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Courtney Mangan, of Kirkville, to the 466th Medical Company Area Support, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Zachary Grevelding, of East Syracuse, to the Company D, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Karl Mensch, of Cicero, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Nathan Siriano, of Kirkville, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Spc; Zachary Shear, of Oswego, to the Company B, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Spc; Lopez Henson, of North Syracuse, to the Forward Support Company, 204th Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Eric Shaffer, of Phoenix, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Staff Sgt; Patrick Cassidy, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Captain; Andrew Shear, of Baldwinsville, to the 105th Military Police Company, to the rank of Spc; Alyssa Hills, of Syracuse, to the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post - Operational Detachment), to the rank of Private; Sawyer Mitchell, of Central Square, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Private; Zahara Dunn, of Liverpool, to the 222nd Military Police Company, to the rank of Private; Clark Sponable, of Phoenix, to the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, to the rank of Staff Sgt; Judson Fletcher, of Syracuse, to the Company B (Maintenance), 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Private; Cristian Anoceto, of Cicero, to the Company D, 3-142nd, Aviation, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Jayson Isabelle, of Oneida, to the Company D, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private; Hunter Van Noy, of Oswego, to the Company D, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private; Dyerin Gareau, of Altmar, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Samantha Goucher, of Cato, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; David Valencia, of Pulaski, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private; Brenon Weed, from Aurora, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Zachary Curinga, of Brewerton, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Combat Aviation Brigade, 42nd Infantry Division, to the rank of Sgt; Douglas Whaley, of Union Springs, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 501st Ordnance Battalion (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), to the rank of Staff Sgt; David Collins, of Bridgeport, to the Headquarters and Service Company, 642nd Support Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Conner McKean, of Oswego, to the Intelligence and Sustainment Company, 42nd infantry Division, to the rank of Spc; Justin Farber, of Hubbardsville, to the Military Intelligence Company D, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Thomas Markert, of Manlius, to the Military Intelligence Company D, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Brenden Hall, of Baldwinsville, to the Troop A, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Spc; Mark Mrowinski, of Syracuse, to the Troop A, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Spc; Kolby Williams, of Auburn, to the Troop A, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Spc; Daniel Smith, of Mexico, to the United States Army Cyber Team 173, to the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 3rd; Matthew Geers, of Georgetown, to the 207 Military Police Company, to the rank of Sgt; Samuel Guthrie, of Phoenix, to the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post-Operations Detachment), to the rank of Private; Richard Richardson, of Baldwinsville, to the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, to the rank of Sgt. Major; Grace Collins, of Parish, to the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, to the rank of Spc; Nathaniel Shugars, of Cleveland, to the Company B (Maintenance), 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Richard Hyde, of Auburn, to the Company B (Maintenance), 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Kelsey Campbell, of Syracuse, to the 1427th Transportation Company, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Spencer Koester, of Sandy Creek, to the Company D, 3-126th Aviation, to the rank of Private; Austin Davis, of Parish, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Mark Marvin, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Support Company, 42nd Infantry Division, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Zaire Robinson, of Syracuse, to the Military Intelligence Company D, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Private; Samuel Guthrie, of Phoenix, to the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post Operations Detachment), to the rank of Private; Richard Richardson, of Baldwinsville, to the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, to the rank of Sgt. Major; Holden Wheeler, of Syracuse, to the Company A (Distribution), 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Judson Fletcher, of Syracuse, to the Company B (Maintenance), 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Michael Ackerman, of Chittenango, to the Company C (Medical), 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Private; Shiquez Harrell, of Syracuse, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Jake Blumer, of Weedsport, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1-258th Field Artillery, to the rank of Sgt; William Harrington, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1-258th Field Artillery, to the rank of Staff Sgt; Ryan Bilello, of Liverpool, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Aiden Russell, of Elbridge, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; David Valencia, of Pulaski, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Nicholas Garrigan, of Auburn, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private; Alexander Decaro, of Auburn, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Adam Denney, of Scipio Center, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private; Sean Mulcahy, of Manlius, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private; Justin Pought, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private; Omar Donzo, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Private; Patrick Baker, of Auburn, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Sgt. 1st Class; Kaitlin House, of Cato, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Private; Mark Marvin, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Support Company, 42nd Infantry Division, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Lauana Dupigny, of Cicero, to the Intelligence and Sustainment Company, 42nd Infantry Division, to the rank of Major; Zaire Robinson, of Syracuse, to the Military Intelligence Company D, 152 Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Claire Roberts, of North Syracuse, to the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, to the rank of Specialist; Matthew Lyness, of Onieda, to the 827th Engineer Company, to the rank of Staff Sgt; Amos Mckinnon, of Liverpool, to the Brigade Signal Company C, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Captain; Kristopher Garcia, of Weedsport, to the Company A (Distribution), 427th Brigade Support Battalion, to the rank of Staff Sgt; Christopher Denman, of Camillus, to the Company C, Recruiting and Retention, to the rank of Sgt. 1st Class; Joshua Stmartin, of Genoa, to the Company C, Recruiting and Retention, to the rank of Sgt. 1st Class; Skyler Moyer, of Solvay, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Spc; Erik Harris, of Oswego, to the Forward Support Company, 204th Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Durga Khanal, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Spc; Riggley Vandyke, of Oneida, to the Military Intelligence Company D, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Nicholas Weber, of Cicero, to the A Troop, 2-101st Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Spc; Lynn Cullens, of Hubbardsville, to the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post-Operations Detachment), to the rank of Spc; Garren Kuney, of Syracuse, to the 222nd Military Police Company, to the rank of Spc; Vishma Bhattarai, of Syracuse, to the 827th Engineer Company, to the rank of Private; Michael ONeill, of Syracuse, to the Company D, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Zachary Rowland, of Fulton, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1-258th Field Artillery, to the rank of Captain; Spencer Koester, of Sandy Creek, to the Company D, 3-126th Aviation, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Marshall Simmonds, of Pulaski, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; John Schreyer, of Pennellville, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion, to the rank of Staff Sgt; Dylan Delamarter, of Baldwinsville, to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry, to the rank of Staff Sgt; Alyssa Hills, of Syracuse, to the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post Operations Detachment), to the rank of Private 1st Class; Katerina Harte, of Baldwinsville, to the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post Operations Detachment), to the rank of Private; Ryan Metzler, of Liverpool, to the 1427th Transportation Company, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Nasdja Wilson, of Syracuse, to the Military Intelligence Company D, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Alex Rotondi, of Syracuse, to the Troop C, 2-101st Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition), to the rank of Sgt. 1st Class; Francis Salvadore, of Liverpool, to the Medical Command, to the rank of Major; Isaac Crandall, of Fulton, to the Headquarters and Service Company, 642nd Support Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Amirah Downing, of Syracuse, to the Company D, 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Zachary Laquay, of Oneida, to the Company D, 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Sawyer Mitchell, of Central Square, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Jacob Snide, of Baldwinsville, to the Headquarters & Headquarters Company, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Private 1st Class; Zachary Dennis, of Auburn, to the Headquarters and Service Company, 642nd Support Battalion, to the rank of Private; Nicholas Johnson, of Marietta, to the 272nd Military Police Detachment, to the rank of Private; Linda Nguyen, of East Syracuse, to the Company D (Military Intelligence), 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion, to the rank of Private; Jake Seguin, of Baldwinsville, to the 222nd Military Police Company, to the rank of Private; Brandon Bamba, of Syracuse, to the Headquarters and Service Company, 642nd Support Battalion, to the rank of Sgt; Jill Davidson, of Minoa, to the 10th Mountain Division Mobile Command Post Operational Detachment, to the rank of Sgt; Heather Hiltbrand, of Syracuse, to the Company D, 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, to the rank of Sgt; Joseph Whiffen, of Port Byron, to the Headquarters & Headquarters Company 102nd Military Police Company, to the rank of Sgt 1st Class; Savasia Ruffin, of Syracuse, to the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, to the rank of Spc; Stephen Mulholland, of Auburn, to the Company A, 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, to the rank of Staff Sgt; and Matthew Stamp, of Oneida Castle, to the 206th Military Police Company, to the rank of Staff Sgt.

Maj. Gen. Ray Shields, the adjunct general, announced the reenlistments of members of the New York Army National Guard: Reenlisted are:

Sgt. Ronald Gonzalez, of Auburn, with the 1156th Engineer Company; Sgt. Michael Stone, of North Syracuse, with the 204th Engineer Detachment; Sgt. Erica Loucks, of Pulaski, with the Company C, Recruiting and Retention; Spc. Jaquawn Holloway, of Liverpool, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Sgt. Justin Grennell, of Aurora, with the Troop A, 2-101st Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition); Sgt. Major Nathan Hawker, of Clay, with the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post - Operational Detachment); Spc. Jared Snyder, of Syracuse, with the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post - Operational Detachment); Spc. Jill Davidson, of Minoa, with the 10th Mountain Division (Mobile Command Post - Operational Detachment); Spc. Amanda Bixby, of Georgetown, with the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team; Spc. Luke Zuercher, of Cicero, with the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team; Staff Sgt. Christopher Denman, of Camillus, with the Company C, Recruiting and Retention; Sgt. Alex Forsyth, of Syracuse, with the Company D, 1-171st Aviation Regiment; Spc. Matthew Zorovic, of Manlius, with the 206th Military Police Company; Sgt. Ian Wilson, of West Monroe, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Sgt. Richard Walters, of Liverpool, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Staff Sgt. Jonathan Crego, of Oswego, with the Headquarters, 106th Regiment (Regional Training Institute); Sgt. James Rude, of Parish, with the Medical Command; Staff Sgt. Joshua Sherman, of Central Square, with the Troop A, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition); Sgt. Alexander Sanchez, of Baldwinsville, with the 222nd Military Police Company; Sgt. Major Richard Richardson, of Baldwinsville, with the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team; Sgt. Amanda Gallow, of Locke, with the 827th Engineer Company; Sgt. Deborah Pollock, of Jordan, with the Company C, Recruiting and Retention; Spc. Matthew McDaniels, of Syracuse, with the Division Signal Company, 42nd Infantry Division; Sgt. Justin Alvey, of Baldwinsville, with the Military Intelligence Company D, 152nd Brigade Engineer Battalion; 1st Sgt. Edward Briggs, of Weedsport, with the Forward Support Company, 204th Engineer Battalion; Spc. Carlos Rivera, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion; Sgt. Major Debora Mallet, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 427th Brigade Support Battalion; Staff Sgt. Patrick Baker, of Auburn, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 427th Brigade Support Battalion; Staff Sgt. Alexander Forst, of Breweton, with the Heaqdquarters and Support Company, 42nd Infantry Division; Spc. Joshua Banick, of Baldwinsville, with the Troop A, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition); Spc. Francis Lackey, of Hannibal, with the 222nd Military Police Company; Spc. Joseph Clement, of Jordan, with the Company B (Maintenance), 427th Brigade Support Battalion; Staff Sgt. Joshua Stmartin, of Genoa, with the Company C, Recruiting and Retention; Spc. Andrew Shear, of Baldwinsville, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion; Sgt. Ian Wilson, of West Monroe, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Spc. Nicco Catalfino, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Private 1st Class Mark Marvin, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Support Company, 42nd Infantry Division; Spc. Conner McKean, of Oswego, with the Intelligence and Sustainment Company, 42nd Infantry Division; Staff Sgt. Alex Rotondi, of Syracuse, with the Troop C, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition; Corporal Ronald Sanganetti, of DeWitt, with the 105th Military Police Company; Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Stmartin, of Genoa, with the Company C, Recruiting and Retention; Private Scott White, of Port Byron, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion; Sgt. 1st Class Darin Burroughs, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 427th Brigade Support Battalion; Staff Sgt. Alex Rotondi, of Syracuse, with the C Troop, 2-101st Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition); Private 1st Class Courtney Mangan, of Syracuse, with the 466th Medical Company; Staff Sgt. Jake Pollock, of Jordan, with the Camp Smith Training Site; Spc. Richard Hyde, of Auburn, with the Company B (Maintenance), 427th Brigade Support Battalion; Staff Sgt. Brett Janes, of Cato, with the Company D, 1-171stAviation Regiment; Private 1st Class Corey Babcock, of Syracuse, with the 1427th Transportation Company; Sgt. Justin Pizio, of East Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1-258th Field Artillery; Spc. Sean Coyne, of North Syracuse, with the Operations Company, 42nd Infantry Division; Spc. Dominick Kingsbury, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Spc. Joshua Banick, of Baldwinsville, with the Troop A, 2-101st Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition); Spc. Francis Lackey, of Hannibal, with the 222nd Military Police Company; Spc. Joseph Clement, of Jordan, with the Company B (Maintenance), 427th Brigade Support Battalion; Staff Sgt. Joshua Stmartin, of Genoa, with the Company C, Recruiting and Retention; Spc. Andrew Shear, of Baldwinsville, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 102nd Military Police Battalion; Sgt. Ian Wilson, of West Monroe, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Spc. Nicco Catalfino, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2-108th Infantry; Private 1st Class Mark Marvin, of Syracuse, with the Headquarters and Support Company, 42nd Infantry Division; Spc. Conner Mckean, of Oswego, with the Intelligence and Sustainment Company, 42nd Infantry Division; Staff Sgt. Alex Rotondi, of Syracuse, with the Troop C, 2-101 Cavalry (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition; Pfc. Aidan McGreevy, of Oswego, with the Headquarters & Headquarters Company, 427th Brigade Support Battalion; Sgt. Lindsay Adomaitis, of Baldwinsville, with the 1427th Transportation Company; Spc. Shawn Boni, of Oswego, with the 1427th Transportation Company; Spc. Andrew Melnik, of Camillus, with the 222nd Military Police Company; and Staff Sgt. Dana Dries, of Skaneateles, with the 105th Military Police Company.
Islamabad:

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday said Pakistan cannot be bullied by Indian tactics and its restraint should not be misunderstood as weakness, warning that his country was fully capable of defending against any belligerence.



His remarks came a day after the Pakistan Army admitted that seven of its soldiers were killed in firing by Indian troops across the Line of Control (LoC) in Bhimber sector.



Pakistan cannot be bullied by such tactics as we are fully capable of defending our soil against any belligerence, Sharif said while chairing a high-level meeting to review the situation along the LoC.



He said Pakistan was exercising maximum restraint in the face of Indian firing, which should not be misunderstood as our weakness.



Expressing grief over the death of the seven soldiers, Sharif said deliberate escalation of tension along LoC by Indian forces is a threat to regional peace and security.



It is also a futile attempt of the Indian authorities to divert the worlds attention from the worst kind of atrocities they are committing in Kashmir, he said in a statement.



He called on the United Nations to take notice of the ceasefire violations along the LoC. Our armed forces do not initiate fire but will always respond in a befitting manner to any aggression, Sharif said.



On Monday, Army chief General Raheel Sharif ordered troops to effectively respond to firing by India across the LoC.



Earlier, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz briefed Nawaz Sharif on the increased firing and shelling by India.



He said the recent incidents of firing have led to 26 deaths and 107 injuries in complete violation of the 2003 ceasefire understanding and international law.



The premier was also briefed on Pak-US relations in the backdrop of recently held presidential elections in the US. Reaffirming to strengthen bilateral relations, Sharif said Pakistan and the US enjoy strong and strategic partnership spanning over a period of seven decades.



Pakistan looks forward to closely work with the newly elected government for realisation of peace, security and prosperity in the region and beyond, he said.



Pakistans National Security Adviser General Nasir Khan Janjua and other government officials were present during the meeting.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
FIA president Jean Todt says the practice of "copying other teams" has been in Formula 1 "for decades".

His statement comes amid the saga surrounding Racing Point's so-called 'pink Mercedes', with Renault's protest unofficially supported by several other teams.

F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn said earlier this week that "there isn't a team in the paddock that hasn't copied something from" a rival.

Racing Point, arguing that it designed its 2020 car from detailed photographs, has pushed the regulations to the limit with its car that strongly resembles last year's Mercedes.

"Copying other teams is something that has been around for decades," FIA president Todt told L'Equipe.

"All the teams take that into account when it comes to their designs. I remember Adrian Newey always coming to see the Ferrari on the grid," said the former Ferrari boss.

Renault has now protested the design of Racing Point's brake inlets after both the second race in Austria as well as Sunday's Hungarian GP.

"For a team to make a protest is quite normal," said Todt. "Red Bull did the same in Melbourne to verify the legality of the DAS system.

"Of course, it is always better to make a protest at the beginning of the weekend instead of afterwards.

"But in case of doubt, you always have to protest. Then, it is about the interpretation of the regulations.

"The teams that have interpreted it the best have benefitted the most, but it is very important to know where the limit is," Todt added.

Former Mercedes boss Norbert Haug told Sky Deutchland that he hopes Sebastian Vettel moves to Racing Point next year, which is set to become Aston Martin.

"They are really the second force behind Mercedes now," he said.

"It's a clever project, using certainly a fraction of the money that Ferrari uses. They have done it very, very cleverly," the German added.

(GMM)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:52:41|Editor: huaxia

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JOHANNESBURG, July 22 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle stalwart Andrew Mlangeni has died at the age of 95. President Cyril Ramaphosa described the death as "the end of a generational history."

Mlangeni was admitted to hospital on Tuesday following an abdominal complaint.

"The passing of Andrew Mekete Mlangeni signifies the end of a generational history and places our future squarely in our hands," Ramaphosa said on Wednesday.

"Until recently, we were able to sit at Bab' Mlangeni's feet and draw on his wealth of wisdom and his unfailing commitment -- even at his very advanced age -- to a better life for all South Africans," he said.

The president described Mlangeni as someone who was passionate about life.

"He was a champion and exemplar of the values we need to build a South Africa that provides dignity and opportunity for all and which takes its rightful place in the global community of nations," Ramaphosa said.

Mlangeni was born on June 6, 1925. He spent 27 years in prison on Robben Island along with former president Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and several other struggle icons.

After his release from prison, Mlangeni served as a member of parliament.

He received a Presidential Order for Meritorious Service from Mandela in 1999. Enditem
KuK, Live aus der Stuff, #literaturliwwereronline During the lockdown, artists all across Luxembourg have found new ways to distribute their art to the public. It is high time for them to reclaim the Grand-Duchy's cultural scene for themselves and dismantle the elitist structures that ruled it until now.

The cultural scene in Luxembourg has always been a bit "special". People involved in the arts, whether they would be artists themselves, curators, or fans, always seemed like they were part of some kooky private club. Newcomers to the scene had it difficult and the scene lacked approachability.

The author of this piece experienced this himself when he first started out as a writer. The scene in the Grand-Duchy is very "dispersed", and often you get the impression that those who are involved are more like a pack of lone wolves, mumbling and grunting their favourite poems in dark alleyways in quartier de la gare.

The little virus that triggered big changes

When the lockdown happened in March, every cultural activity, like any other in the country, was put on hold. For a moment everything stood still. Especially those used to performing on stage had to cancel events and were trapped at home. An uneasy and frightening time for many, especially those whose income depended on their art. However, such extraordinary times have always been great opportunities for extraordinary projects.

One of the best-known Luxembourgish songwriters of our time, Serge Tonnar, was one of the first to step forward with his project "Live aus der Stuff" ("Live from the living room"). Others followed his example, which resulted in an amazing cultural offer online: Public readings both from established authors (via the YouTube Channel of the National Centre for Literature) and young talents (on literary critic Jerome Jaminet's channel and social media pages), as well as live music, e.g. here on RTL Today, just to name a few.

Were most of these projects improvised and often raw in their delivery? Sure. After all, you could not really send a whole camera team to an artist's house and record everything in 4K resolution. I would even argue that precisely because everything had this "homemade" feel to it, it felt very genuine and close to the viewer. My generation grew up with the internet and YouTube videos, and I have always felt that a major appeal of this new form of content is that anyone can share their talents in a very immediate way.

However, it would soon become very clear that not everyone saw it that way. On 17 April, an article was published in the newspaper "DLetzebuerger Land" by a well-known Luxembourgish theatre critic. I have to admit that at the time, I did not know who this person was. After reading the article, I did however realise that she seemed surprisingly upset by artists bringing joy to their audiences via the internet.

Using very unflattering terms, she complained mainly about the audio and video quality of the clips, even going as far as posing the infamous "Is this even art?" question. The whole article dripped of privilege and it was very apparent that the author was used to experiencing art in fancy art galleries and glamorous theatres.

Artists of the court and culture as an upper class accessory

The attack was very revealing in several ways. Before corona, the culture scene that did exist in Luxembourg was very elitist. The people at the top, like the author of that infamous article and others like her, were used to picking the art and the artists that would get all the promotion and marketing to rise to the surface of the vast lake that is the Luxembourgish art scene. Art was very much understood as being "aristocratic", with only certain people being "knighted" as official artists of the court, rather than democratic.

In many ways, corona did to the arts what it did to other aspects of our lives as well. By shutting down the "traditional" institutions and systems, it allowed room for the general public to take initiatives themselves. People like Serge Tonnar and Jerome Jaminet used this opportunity to not only give many brilliant artists a platform, but also to show us and especially the artists that we do not need the old institutions.

In the case of Tonnar, he decided to take his project to the next level with the launch of "KuK  KulturKanal fir Letzebuerg". With social restrictions being lifted, the production budget has now increased, and professional camera crews are involved again  so maybe the author of the "Land" article can now finally also enjoy the art in peace. However, the main idea remains the same: Bringing artistic visions, sometimes unusual or risky ones, to life and broadcasting them via social media so that a large part of the population can enjoy them.

However, it did not take long for yet another column to criticise this new form of artistic distribution. This time the article in question was published in the newspaper "Tageblatt" and mainly attacked Tonnar as a person by using a performance by the Grand Duchess Maria Teresa on KuK as an excuse to accuse Tonnar of aggrandizing himself and imposing himself on the Luxembourgish cultural scene.

All of these discussions boil down to one fundamental issue for me: How art is distributed. How can artists reach those interested in experiencing their works? I mentioned before how the Luxembourgish scene, and many others, were organised in a sort of "aristocratic" way and I want to get back to that notion now.

An artificial sense of democracy

In pre corona times, artists were often dependent on institutions or third persons. While art has this aura of free expression and going beyond worldly restrictions, the reality was very different to its ideals. While creating the artworks was never the problem, the process of sharing and distributing them was on the other hand tricky and sometimes overwhelming.

Some artists may perceive themselves as "outsiders" or "not part of the system" but the truth is that the cultural scene works by the same capitalistic principles as the rest of our economy. Publishing houses, labels, event organisers: All of the institutions and people that are supposed to promote art and help artists reach their particular audience are subjected to the curse of profit. Money makes the world go 'round and sadly it also dictates what sort of artworks will be pushed and which will be left in the dust.

As the sector is tied to money, it naturally creates a power concentration where the cash already is. We see the effects everywhere: Giant corporations like Amazon crush the small book shop around the corner, cookbooks and "celebrity" biographies rule the best-seller lists, and young people studying any discipline of the humanities are seen as "wasting their education". Certain artforms have almost become impossible to publish. If you are trying to start out as a poet from scratch today, I wish you the best of luck.

All of this has the consequence that the artist is forced to pathetically market himself. If I read some of the letters I wrote to publishing houses back in 2016 when I tried to get my first poetry collection published today, I really have to make an effort to suppress my gag reflex. Why do I have to convince some complete stranger that my art is definitely going to make him/her some money? Quincy Jones once said in an interview with Rolling Stone that "God leaves the room once you talk about money". It really is an absurd and sad bargaining game.

This is however exactly why the recent changes are so important. Suddenly, we are witnessing a sort of "democratisation" of the cultural scene. Artists are using the possibilities of our digitalised world to distribute their art themselves. They have become their own publishers, agents, marketers, and production companies.

Collectives are starting to form again as artists are beginning to realise that by combining their voices and talents, they can create their own stage to express themselves on. It may be a "rustic" stage with some loose nails here and there that we will have to fix while moving along. It may also not look quite as nice as the old one the institutions and elites built did. But it is something of our own.

Art is free as long as it tells us what we want to hear

Maybe you are still not convinced of how elitist our conception of culture was up until now. Fortunately, there is another indicator of the warped perception of art that has built up, and it is sadly very present here in the Grand-Duchy: We have a very depressing tradition of suing artist for the art they produce. More precisely, it seems that when art is being used by individuals or groups not considered "knighted artists of the Grand-Ducal court" to point out serious social issues and flaws, it is not seen as art but as hostile action against the system in place  circumstances which fellow writer Maxime Weber has been pointing out in his brilliant blog posts for years by the way. Rapper Turnup Tun and the collective Richtung22 are just some of the more recent examples of this attempted suppression of the artistic voice.

While Turnup Tun was taken to court by an unfortunately well-known figure of the right for having been called out for his comments in one of the artist's rap songs  a trial which I am still shocked to admit has actually taken place  the artists of Richtung22 stepped on the toes of sensitive officials.

Just recently they took part in the worldwide protests against police brutality and erected a pop-up monument in Bonnevoie commemorating the unsolved shooting of an individual by police officers in 2018. A short time later they received a letter by the police, informing them that they were being investigated for "insulting police officers and the police as an institution". The monument as well as the letter by the police can be seen on the collective's Instagram and Facebook pages.

These are not isolated cases. These are direct consequences of a rigid system that does us absolutely no good. Sure, our Ministry of Culture may be very proud to participate in a high-class exhibition in Dubai. But while we cater to the super rich, we lose so many diverse and talented voices in the morass of a system whose only interest is to keep itself in place.

The word "democracy" comes from the Ancient Greek demos meaning "common people" and kratos meaning "rule" or "strength". While we use this word a lot, it often seems that we have forgotten its true meaning.

Knowing this, I say it is high time that we truly democratise our society. In the case of artists, this means taking back real control over our art. If corona has brought the old world to a halt, then this also means that the time is ripe for a new world to take form. And maybe this time, it will be a world in which the growth of the human spirit is finally more important than that of the economy.
TDT | Manama

Seventy per cent of development work in lands designated for fish farming investment in the Ras Hayyan area has been completed, Minister of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Eng Essam bin Abdullah Khalaf revealed yesterday.

He said that this was being done to prepare to invite investors interested in launching projects to breed fingerlings, with the aim of achieving a volume that would be commercially viable in order to supply the local market.

The Works Minister conducted an inspection visit of the land, accompanied by the ministrys Agriculture and Marine Resources Affairs Dr Nabil Abu Al Fath and Roads Projects and Maintenance Directorate director Bader Al Alawi. The Works Minister was briefed on the plans of the project, which is being held in partnership with the private sector to raise the production levels from local fingerlings.

The importance of taking advantage of marine areas for fish cultivation in the southeast of Bahrain was stressed, most especially in the period following the summer season, in order to provide an opportunity to support fish farming in a natural marine environment.
SEATTLE  Tim Bray, an internet pioneer and a former vice president at Amazon, sent shock waves through the tech giant in early May when he resigned for what he called a vein of toxicity running through its culture.

Within a few hours, his blog post about the resignation drew hundreds of thousands of views, and his inbox filled up with requests from journalists, recruiters and techies. Soon, lawmakers on Capitol Hill cited the post. It all made Mr. Bray, 65, Amazons highest-profile defector.

But there was more he wanted to say.

In the weeks since, he has aimed his brain power not at fixing a coding problem but at framing a broader critique of the company. In talks and blog posts that have drawn attention inside the company, he has called for unionization and antitrust regulation. Amid the beating of the antitrust drums, Mr. Bray wrote in one post, he would like to see Amazon separate its retail business from its lucrative cloud computing unit.

And Im pretty sure Im not alone, he said.

Facing growing antitrust scrutiny at the same time that the coronavirus crisis has strained the companys operations, Amazon is increasingly forced to defend its record as an employer and its relationship with consumers. On Monday, Jeff Bezos, the companys chief executive, will testify for the first time before Congress, which is investigating the power of Amazon and other tech titans.
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LONDON  Prince Philip, the 99-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain who officially retired from public life in 2017, briefly stepped back into his life of royal duty on Wednesday for a military ceremony at Windsor Castle, where he handed over a role he has held for nearly seven decades.

Philip handed the keys of Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles, a merger of four infantry regiments that was formed in 2007 and is now the largest infantry regiment in the British army, to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, amid the sounds of bugles.

But like so many things during the time of coronavirus, the ceremony was reimagined to allow for social distancing, with Prince Philip officially handing over the position at Windsor Castle, some 85 miles from where the Duchess later took up the duty in a ceremony at Highgrove House.

Prince Philip, officially known as the Duke of Edinburgh, was saluted and thanked for his 67 years of service to The Rifles and their forming regiments by Major General Tom Copinger-Symes, the assistant colonel commandant. The prince was first appointed Colonel-in-Chief of The Wiltshire Regiment, one of the groups that now make up the The Rifles, in 1953.
The fifth series of The Crown reportedly won't be released until 2022.

The premiere has been delayed because producers are said to want a filming break, meaning filming won't start until June 2021.

Series 5 will see Imelda Staunton, 64, take over the role as Queen Elizabeth II from Olivia Colman, while Leslie Manville, 64, will portray Princess Margaret.

Delay: The fifth series of The Crown reportedly won't be released until 2022 (pictured Imelda Staunton ,who will take on the role of Queen Elizabeth II, in October 2019)

Deadline reports the postponement of filming is not due to the coronavirus pandemic but because of the complexity of studio and set-piece location shoots for the era of the series.

A similar break was taken between series two and three of The Crown, which saw Claire Foy, 36, hand over the reins to Olivia, 46.

The fifth instalment is thought to begin in the early nineties and end in the early noughties, with writer Peter Morgan saying Staunton would be 'taking The Crown into the 21st century'.

Congrats! Lesley Manville has been cast as Princess Margaret (right in 1966) for the fifth and sixth seasons of The Crown

There are several poignant moments during the decade, which include the Queen making a speech on her 40th anniversary of her accession in 1992, in which she called the year an 'annus horriblis'.

She was referring to the breakdown of three of her children's marriages; Prince Andrew, Princess Anne's and Prince Charles' divorce from Princess Diana.

Other noteable events during the time period included a fire at Windsor Castle, her golden wedding anniversary in 1997, and the deaths of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother and the Princess of Wales.

Exciting: Earlier this month, it was announced The Crown will run for six series instead of five

Royally good: Imelda is to play the Queen in The Crown's final two series. The 64-year-old will take over the role of Elizabeth II for seasons five and six of the Netflix drama

Portrayal: The star, who is believed to have been producers first choice for the role, is set to play the Queen's younger sister during one of the 'darkest periods of her life' (pictured 1995)

MailOnline has contacted Sony Pictures Television for Netflix for comment.

Earlier this month, it was announced The Crown will run for six series instead of five.

Creator Peter revealed he decided to 'return to the original plan,' meaning Imelda Staunton will now appear for two series as an older Queen Elizabeth II.

Producers decided to a U-turn after their January announcement The Crown would end after its fifth series, with series four, starring Olivia as The Queen, expected to air later this year.

Award-winning: Oscar-winner Olivia (L) is playing Queen Elizabeth II (pictured right in 1964) in series three and four of The Crown

Coronation: Claire Foy (L) played a young Queen Elizabeth II (pictured right in 1955) as she ascended the throne following her late father's death during seasons one and two

Peter said: 'As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons.'

The news was announced by Netflix on their Twitter account, as they wrote: 'News from the palace: we can confirm there will be a sixth (and final) season of @TheCrownNetflix, in addition to the previously announced five!'

The streaming service then clarified fans will still have one more series featuring the current cast, with an older range of stars taking over in series five.

New guard: The fourth season, which will air in 2020, sees the addition of Emma Corrin as Princess Diana (L) and Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher (R)

It came just days after it was announced Lesley Manville would take over the role of Princess Margaret from Helena Bonham Carter.

She was believed to have been producers first choice for the role, is set to play the Queen's younger sister during one of the 'darkest periods of her life.'

The role was also taken on by Vanessa Kirby in season one and two, documenting the early years of Princess Margaret's marriage to Anthony Armstrong Jones.

Netflix previously revealed more than 73 million households have streamed at least part of show since it first launched in November 2016.

Not to be: It's thought the sixth series will end before portraying Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's sensational break from the Royal Family (pictured October 2019)

Series three of The Crown hit Netflix in November 2019, with Oscar-winner Olivia taking the throne from Claire Foy, who portrayed the monarch in the first two seasons.

The third series followed events including the Aberfan mining disaster, the moon landing, the romance between Prince Charles and Camilla Shand and the investiture of Charles as the Prince of Wales.

Also appearing in the series are Tobias Menzies as Prince Phillip, Helena as Princess Margaret, Josh O'Connor as Prince Charles, and Ben Daniels as Anthony Armstrong Jones, the Earl of Snowdon.

The fourth series was in the final stages of production before the COVID-19 pandemic, and will see the introduction of Diana, Princess of Wales, played by Emma Corrin, and Margaret Thatcher, played by Gillian Anderson.
Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska and Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) Tuesday announced 24 new badges designed to help girls practice ambitious leadership in the crucial areas of automotive engineering, STEM career exploration, entrepreneurship, and civics, many of which remain male-dominated.

Through new and existing programming, Girl Scouts equips the next generation of female change-makers with the breadth of knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to take charge and do good for the world, both now and in the future.

The new Girl Scout badges include:

Entrepreneurship (grades K12). Girls develop an entrepreneurial mindset as they engage in age-appropriate exercises that help them create and pitch a product or service that solves a problem. They build their own business plan and think about topics like production, cost, profit, marketing, and competition. Three in four of today's girls are interested in becoming an entrepreneur, but more than half also say they need more support in this area; these badges are designed to fill the gap. Funded by Susan Bulkeley Butler and designed in collaboration with VentureLab.

STEM Career Exploration (grades 28). Girls explore their career interests and connect them to STEM fields  particularly computer science, nature/environmental science, engineering, design, health, and agriculture  that can help them address the pressing issues of our time and change the world. The IF/THEN Collection, a free, downloadable digital asset library of real-life women in STEM, is an integral component of the badges. The dearth of women in STEM fields is well documented, but data shows that girls are more interested in a STEM career when they learn how they can use it to help people, demonstrating the value of Girl Scouts unique approach. Funded by IF/THEN, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

Automotive Engineering (grades K5). Girls learn about designing, engineering, and manufacturing vehicles, as well as the future of mobility. They design their own vehicles, test prototypes, learn about design thinking, create their own assembly line manufacturing process, and more. Only 13% of engineers are women, underscoring the need for these badges which will introduce more girls to the field. Funded by General Motors.

Civics (grades K12). Girls gain an in-depth understanding of how local, state, and federal government works, preparing them to be voters, activists, and even political leaders. They research laws and how theyre created, voting, and the electoral college, the representation of women in government, and more. They also research their own government officials and are encouraged to meet them. Just 24 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in civics, and only two in five American adults can name the three branches of U.S. government, highlighting the need for these badges. Funded by the Citi Foundation.

Girl Scouts has made free self-guided activities from select new and existing programming available digitally to the public through Girl Scouts at Home, keeping families engaged and connected to their communities. Girls can further engage with the badges and topics through online videos, activities, or special live virtual events. Members can access a suite of Girl Scouts programming digitally through the Volunteer Toolkit, including troop meeting plans and other resources to help girls earn badges and awards.

In Nebraska, Girl Scouts can participate in V.I.P. (Virtual Interactive POWER) Programs. These in-depth, hands-on programs include online camps, badge and award workshops, book clubs, and more for girls of all ages.

Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska also is hosting virtual events for girls and families interested in learning more about Girl Scouts. Details about online open houses for parents and virtual troop meetings for girls in kindergarten through fifth grade can be found at GirlScoutsNebraska.org.

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On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump signed a memo that excludes unauthorized immigrants from being counted when government officials distribute congressional seats. Several civil-rights groups have immediately replied by promising to challenge the move in court.

Exclusion of undocumented immigrants

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Constitution requires the census to be conducted every ten years nationwide. It counts every individual living within the United States, regardless if they are citizens or not.

Data from the census is used in how federal resources are distributed to states and localities across the country as well as how government officials draw congressional districts.

Even non-citizens are counted in planning how to determine to allocate the 435 House seats among the US states. In Trump's new memo, however, is written that the policy of the US excludes unauthorized immigrants from the distribution process.

Several Democratic politicians and other groups have immediately shared their criticisms of Trump's move as being against the Constitution.

The president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, Elizabeth Wydra, called the stance a blatant unconstitutional move and noted the text in the Constitution was very clear.

Wydra continued to cite that the federal government was required by the Constitution to count every single person living in the US, regardless if they were a citizen or not or if they were born inside the country or internationally.

While Trump has continuously been reaffirming his stance on illegal immigrants, his most recent move directly conflicts with the Constitution. It will most likely be challenged in court, delaying its effect or blocking its passing altogether, as reported by The New York Times.

Also Read: Blacks, Latinos, Poor People Less Likely to Receive $1,200 Stimulus Checks

Stoking the flames

The director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Joshua A. Geltzer, said in an interview that Trump's view is that if he stirs anti-immigrant fervor and loses in court, then he could just as well stoke anti-court fervor as well.

The House Oversight Committee has announced it would be conducting an emergency hearing on the census by next week.

Carolyn Maloney, the chairman of the committee, said that Trump's proposal to exclude unauthorized immigrants in the apportioning process goes against the more than two-centuries-old traditional constitutional understanding.

According to CBS News, In Trump's memo, it was written that current estimates suggest that there are more than 2.2 million illegal immigrants in every state, accounting for more than six percent of each state's entire population.

The data in the memo Trump used seems to refer to California, the state that house the largest community of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Trump also noted that including the illegal aliens in the count of the state's population could result in more congressional seats being appointed than would otherwise be distributed.

Previously, Trump's administration proposed to include a question on US citizenship in the 2020 census in March 2018. The move, however, which aimed to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was met with widespread criticism and challenges that led to the Supreme Court, eventually causing it to be blocked from being passed.

Related Article: Trump to Deploy Federal Agents to Chicado and Other Democrat-led Cities to Quell Violent Protests

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By Caroline Humer

NEW YORK, July 22 (Reuters) - More than half of U.S. companies surveyed by benefits company Mercer are starting COVID-19 contact tracing programs in their workplace with employees venturing back to offices even as new cases soar nationally.

Countries such as South Korea have managed to contain the disease in part by tracking down and isolating everyone who has been in contact with an infected person.

But the premature reopening of many states' economies that led to huge spikes in COVID-19 cases, testing delays, and a shortage of trained contact tracers have stymied tracking efforts in the United States.

The lack of a coordinated federal effort that has left U.S. states to manage all aspects of contact tracing has also contributed to the need for large companies to take matters into their own hands.

Of the more than 300 companies that took part in the survey, 54% are planning to implement a contact tracing program or had already started one, Mercer said.

Among those who responded, the survey found that 42% of companies said they are using existing employees to do contact tracing and 9% are training employees now. In addition, about 4% said they will be hiring more staff and/or a vendor for their contact-tracing efforts, and about 3% plan to use a smart phone app or wearable device to track employee contacts.

"Time is really, really important here given how this virus spreads exponentially," Mercer health practice co-leader David Zieg said.

Employers are stepping up as U.S. public health agencies struggle to keep up with new cases.

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TRACERS NEEDED

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 142,000 Americans, and infections rates, hospitalizations and deaths are all on the rise again in many U.S. states, forcing President Donald Trump on Tuesday to finally acknowledge the crisis could get worse before it improves.

It has been estimated that hundreds of thousands of contact tracers would be needed in the United States to track down those exposed to the virus and garner the kind of results seen in South Korea and elsewhere. NPR surveyed all 50 states in June and found that about 37,000 contact tracers had been hired.

Story continues

Many states reopened without reaching benchmarks for doing so safely, such as two weeks of declining COVID-19 cases and having adequate contact tracing in place. Long delays in getting back test results has added to the problems.

California, the most populous U.S. state, is averaging more than 9,000 new cases per day and has had to reclose some businesses. It has trained about 3,600 state workers to do contact tracing, about one-third of whom have been deployed with another 300 to be added this week, a California Department of Health spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

In workplace tracing programs, Zieg said, employers should move quickly to interview the potentially infected employee by phone to determine close contacts in the office, notify the other employees about their exposure, and ask them to self-quarantine, even if the employee does not yet have test results.

The employer should also reach out to local public health authorities for more guidance as needed, he said.

U.S. companies closed their workplaces to all but essential staff in March due to the global pandemic.

While most states have since begun reopening businesses, many workers have not yet returned to their offices. For those who have, workplace safety measures include a combination of temperature checks, face covering and social distancing.

Contact tracing combined with other safe workplace practices can reduce workplace transmission by 85%, according to Neal Mills, chief medical officer at healthcare benefits group Aon .

Having contact tracers in place can help bring workers back into the office by reassuring them that all possible safety precautions have been put in place, Mills said.

"They have to have these contact tracing pieces ready to go right now since the public health agencies might not be ready," Mills said. (Reporting by Caroline Humer; editing by Lewis Krauskopf and Bill Berkrot)
The US government has indicted two Chinese nationals for long-running cyber espionage operations that aimed to net information on Covid-19 vaccines, military weapons and human rights activists, in what is the second Justice Department indictment against individuals from China in recent days.

Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, were charged with 11 counts of conspiracy, identity theft and fraud related to operations carried out from China since 2009, some in conjunction with China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), according to an indictment filed on July 7 with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Washington and unsealed on Tuesday.

Li and Dong's alleged victims include the US Department of Energy and more than a dozen US defence contractors, pharmaceutical companies and software firms, according to the document, which did not identify any of the companies. Non-US companies named as the defendants' victims include a South Korean shipbuilding and engineering firm, an Australian defence contractor, and two German software ventures.

Responsible for intelligence gathering and conducting investigations on issues related to interaction between Chinese and foreign entities, the MSS is roughly equivalent to America's National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

"China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being 'on call' to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist Party's insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies' hard-earned intellectual property, including Covid-19 research," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a Justice Department announcement.

The most recent hacking activity by Li and Dong involved finding "vulnerabilities in the networks of biotech and other firms publicly known for work on Covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing technology," the indictment said.

Story continues

On the military front, they are charged with stealing data on satellite programmes, wireless networks and communications systems, high powered microwave and laser systems, a counter-chemical weapons system, and ship-to-helicopter integration systems.

Asked to comment on Tuesday's announcement, the Chinese embassy in Washington sent a response by foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on July 17 to accusations by US Attorney General William Barr a day earlier that "PRC-linked hackers have targeted American universities and firms in a bid to steal IP related to coronavirus treatments and vaccines".

"Some US politicians seem to be alleging that China is waging cyber attacks to steal US research on Covid-19 vaccines," Hua told reporters in Beijing.

"It's just absurd," she said. "We are already leading the world in vaccine R&D with top researchers. We don't need to secure an edge by theft. As we speak, Chinese research teams are moving ahead with multiple vaccine tasks through five technical routes."

Hua also pointed to a recent report by Yahoo News, citing former US officials, which claimed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted offensive cyber operations against China, Iran, Russia and other targets after President Donald Trump issued a secret order in 2018 that authorised such actions.

The Justice Department's announcement comes a day after news that a US federal court charged a Stanford University visiting researcher alleged to be an active duty member of China's military with visa fraud, at least the third such indictment this year amid stepped up government investigations aimed at countering Chinese espionage.

Song Chen was charged "in connection with a scheme to lie about her status as an active member of the People's Republic of China's military forces" while conducting medical research at Stanford, US Attorney David Anderson and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent John Bennett said in a Justice Department announcement on Monday.

According to the July 17 indictment, Song said on her US visa application, submitted in 2018, that her military service ended in 2011, which conflicted with FBI evidence pointing to the defendant's status as an active duty member of civilian cadres of the People's Liberation Army.

While the US Justice Department and the FBI have been tracking espionage cases tied to China for years, they have been more public about the effort since 2018, when then attorney general Jeff Sessions announced a "China Initiative" aimed at countering such activity.

"In addition to identifying and prosecuting those engaged in trade secret theft, hacking and economic espionage, the initiative will increase efforts to protect our critical infrastructure against external threats including foreign direct investment, supply chain threats and the foreign agents seeking to influence the American public and policymakers without proper registration," according to a fact sheet on the effort.

The announcement followed a rare sting operation in which US agents arrested an MSS official for allegedly attempting to steal trade secrets from GE Aviation and other US aerospace companies after luring the suspect to Belgium.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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KABUL, Afghanistan - Abdurrashid Dostum has been called a rapacious warlord and a born killer. He has been accused of ordering the rape of an elderly political rival and orchestrating the suffocation of hundreds of Taliban prisoners. The former Afghan army general and ethnic Uzbek strongman defied efforts to arrest him and flew into exile in Turkey in 2017 while facing prosecution in Afghan courts.

But Dostum, 66, has always managed to remain politically indispensable in Afghanistan. President Ashraf Ghani made him a vice president in 2014 after he delivered the Uzbek vote. And after a close election returned Ghani to power in March, his government last week awarded Dostum the country's highest military honor, the title of marshal.

Many Afghans were appalled, saying the gesture rewarded a notorious criminal of dubious loyalty. But Ghani's aides privately acknowledge it was a pragmatic necessity after the election left the president short of powerful allies. The honor for Dostum was aimed at projecting unity and strength to Taliban adversaries, ambitious neighbors and regional powers, including Russia and Iran, as U.S. forces recede and a power vacuum emerges.

"General Dostum is like a bank, where you put money in as an investment and you wait to use it. For 40 years, he has had that value," said Bashir Ahmad Tayanj, a spokesman for Dostum. He dismissed the abuse charges as "just allegations" and declared that his boss had long deserved the prestigious title. "He has the ability to resolve trouble with a single call. In areas where his forces are strong, the Taliban cannot enter. His existence is important for Afghanistan."

Already, though, the public rehabilitation of Dostum has been overshadowed by a new bout of private infighting that plagues Ghani's government, as the reformist technocrat has relied increasingly on traditional, patronage-based relationships. The turmoil threatens to undercut government efforts to bring Taliban leaders to the negotiating table and present a solid front to the region and the world.

The core problem is an ongoing dispute between the president and his longtime rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who shared power for five unhappy years in a U.S.-brokered deal. Abdullah challenged Ghani's bid for a second term last year, with Dostum as his most important backer. In March, Abdullah refused to accept Ghani's narrow victory, held a rival inauguration and threatened to form a parallel government with help from Dostum.

After a month-long standoff, Abdullah agreed to head a new High Council for National Reconciliation but demanded other concessions from Ghani. This week, despite Dostum's new status, their agreement nearly fell apart after a heated argument over dividing up cabinet and diplomatic appointments, sending several prominent Afghans rushing to patch things up.

"The root of all problems is the lack of mutual trust among political forces inside the government," said Jafar Mahdavi, a political sociologist and former legislator. "The political environment is very sensitive now."

With the peace process stalled and Taliban insurgents on the warpath, Mahdavi said, unless the dispute is resolved, "we won't witness the start of intra-Afghan talks any time soon. If the disagreement continues, the war also continues, and instability will pave the way for the meddling of foreign countries."

Critics say things started to unravel when U.S. officials signed an accord with Taliban officials in February that was too conciliatory, agreeing to begin withdrawing U.S. troops without demanding tough conditions such as a cease-fire. The sharks, they said, soon began to circle.

Iran, which borders western Afghanistan, has received millions of Afghan refugees and sustained a large cross-border trade, but official relations remain wary. Afghan officials have accused the Shiite theocracy of supporting the Sunni Taliban movement, in part to establish a sphere of control in the border region.

Russia, which invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s but withdrew in defeat, stayed aloof from Afghan affairs for years. Recently, though, Moscow has established ties with the Taliban and hosted its leaders at conferences. In late June, U.S. intelligence assessments found that Russia had paid bounties to Taliban-linked insurgents to kill U.S. troops, prompting calls to slow down the American withdrawal.

Pakistan, which shares a long border with Afghanistan, has been accused of secretly backing an especially violent Taliban faction, despite professing to support the peace process. Afghan officials worry that if the Kabul government is seen as divided and weak, Pakistan may press for a dominant pro-Taliban role in future negotiations.

One senior aide in the Ghani administration, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, said that rising concerns about foreign interference had eclipsed fears of a forcible takeover by the Taliban, a domestic movement with religious and ethnic ties to fellow Afghans.

At the moment, he said, the regional influence of a figure like Dostum, who has close ties to Turkey and Central Asia, outweighs his violent reputation and the rebuff of Afghan efforts to prosecute him in the 2016 assault of politician Ahmad Khan Ishchi, an incident that drew international outrage. Dostum was accused of ordering his bodyguards to sexually assault Ishchi.

Another official, who works on national security issues and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said Dostum was far from qualified for an honor that has been given to only two military leaders in Afghan history. But he described it as "necessary" to strengthen domestic tribal and ethnic support for Ghani after the contested election and drawn-out battle with Abdullah.

"We needed Dostum," he said, noting that Abdullah had attempted to name his own provincial governors, provoking armed protests among local security forces loyal to Dostum. After he was promised the title of marshal, the Uzbek leader intervened and the unrest subsided. "This was damage control," he said.

Former president Hamid Karzai, who dealt with Dostum for years, noted that "Afghans have strong values of right and wrong," but he said that "peace has to come first. If giving someone a title can help bring harmony and peace, then by all means," he said in an interview Wednesday. "Justice can be relative."

Other Afghans called Dostum's military honor a badge of shame for the Western-backed government. Aryan Yoon, a liberal member of parliament, said that instead "the government should have sent him to prison. The people of Afghanistan know who is a hero and who is a traitor."

Supporters of the government said Dostum was only one of dozens of senior figures, from various groups, who have been given official roles to unify the country and reduce internecine struggles. But critics said that reverting to patronage politics could backfire on Ghani, encouraging corruption to flourish and strongman clout to make a dangerous comeback.

"This government is like a big tree full of termites. Any wind can knock it over," said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former national intelligence director who ran for president last year. "We don't need more warlords in the cabinet and peace negotiations. Otherwise, we will repeat the mistakes of the past, and when the Americans leave, the same powers will be fighting over who should control which parts of Afghanistan."

- - -

The Washington Post's Sharif Hassan and Aziz Tassal contributed to this report.
By late June, it appeared Quebec was finally past the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak that had brought the health care system to the brink and left thousands dead in long-term care homes.

Now, less than a month later, the province is again seeing its case count rise, prompting a debate among experts, pundits and politicians about what has caused the sudden reversal of fortune.

On the eve of summer, the province was registering, on average, fewer than 90 new cases of coronavirus per day, a figure that just weeks earlier regularly surpassed 800.

With other public health indicators  hospitalizations, deaths  all pointing downward, Premier Francois Legault allowed Quebecers to gather again in small groups, and restaurants and bars were allowed to reopen.

Around this time, Benoit Masse, a professor of public health at the Universite de Montreal, struck a discordant note.

In a June 10 interview with CBC's French-language service Radio-Canada, Masse predicted that by mid-July cases would be on the rise again.

"Sadly, I'm right on," he said Tuesday, when Quebec posted 180 new cases, its highest daily increase since June 11.

Since the start of the month, the five-day rolling average of new cases has climbed from 70 to 159.

"Although it was predictable, it is concerning," Masse said in an email exchange.

"The origin is simple: the deconfinement. Once you allow more contact, you provide oxygen to the fire."

People  'the big unknown'

Many in the province have been quick to blame the uptick on the reopening of bars on June 25.

But while public health officials in Montreal have traced dozens of cases to a few bars in particular, there is not yet enough publicly available evidence to pin the blame solely on them.

Information compiled by Quebec's Health Ministry suggests that between June 28 and July 4 fewer than five per cent of new cases in the province could be traced to a bar.

Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press

On the other hand, around 35 per cent were due to family contacts; 15 per cent were health care workers; 10 per cent were residents of long-term care home or inmates; another 10 per cent were traced to workplaces and various other sources. The source of the remaining 25 per cent was undetermined.

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Rather than heed demands to close the bars again, Legault has opted instead to urge Quebecers to respect the 10-person limit on private gatherings.

But even within the public health guidelines on private gatherings, there is a lot of room for interpretation.

Masse pointed out that the rules would allow someone to have repeated 10-person parties throughout the week, though the goal is reducing everyone's exposure to risky contacts as much as possible.

"People's behaviour is the big unknown," he said. "Will they respond to this [slight] increase by reducing their contacts? Or will they wait until the government imposes new restrictions?"

Other experts worry the decision to reopen bars sent the wrong message to the public by signalling that gatherings in enclosed spaces with alcohol was a risk-free activity.

"The same kind of behaviour is repeating itself in private parties," said Nima Machouf, an epidemiologist affiliated with the Universite de Montreal.

Time to panic?

While the increase has been cause for concern for Quebec's elected officials, they are not panicking.

Legault has noted the rise in cases hasn't been accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations, nor are elderly and long-term care homes  whose residents are particularly vulnerable to the disease  being hard hit.

For epidemiologists, though, it's worrisome that the province is seeing a rise in the summer.

Quebec's annual two-week construction holiday began on the weekend. And as Quebecers travel around the province for vacation, Machouf said, there is a risk they spread the disease unknowingly, especially given roughly half of those infected don't present symptoms.

"We really have to be careful," she said. "It is increasing too much  to feel like we're in control of the epidemic."

Summer was also supposed to be when controlling the disease was easiest, with schools closed and weather that is favourable for outdoor activities.

Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press

"My worry is that if we cannot control the spread of the virus in an ideal condition like the summer  it will be a lot harder to control in the fall, and a [substantial] second wave is likely," said Masse.

Quebec isn't alone in seeing a downward trend reverse. British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario have also seen increases in recent days.

Some of that was to be expected. Keeping case counts low was always going to be difficult once provinces began lifting lockdown measures.

But as long as public officials can trace the source of the outbreaks, these mini spikes are manageable, said Erin Strumpf, a professor in McGill University's Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health.

"If we can understand the interactions that are leading to the increases in cases, then we can change our behaviour, we can change the rules," Strumpf said.

Quebec, for instance, introduced a provincewide rule on Saturday requiring masks be worn in indoor public spaces, including for clients in bars and restaurants who are not seated.

"The thing we need to worry about  the reason to 'freak out'  is if there are unexplained, uncontrolled outbreaks going on, because there's no way to control that," said Strumpf.
Why it matters: While Apples Face ID is, on the whole, pretty secure, its still not perfect and is especially easy to fool if you have a twin or doppelganger. But a newly discovered patent suggests that a future implementation could improve the system by scanning a persons veins instead of using only their facial features.

PatentlyApple uncovered the patent, titled vein matching for difficult biometric authentication cases. It highlights the difficulty facial recognition systems have when two faces look very similarthe so-called evil twin scenario. We even saw how Face ID could be tricked by masks when the system first debuted on the iPhone X.

Using subepidermal imaging, or vein scanning, could lower Face ID's false positive rate by using the veins in a persons face to confirm their identity. The patent also covers machine learning, which will be used in the system to help distinguish between faces.

This wouldnt be the first phone to use veins as a way of identifying users. LGs G8 ThinQ from last year uses a Hand ID feature. It fires an infrared signal at your palm and creates a map of the veins based on how the hemoglobin in your blood absorbs the IR signal. Sadly, it doesnt work too well, so heres hoping Apples version is better.

Apple has long been an advocate for dropping the password in favor of biometric security, and the company recently joined the FIDO alliance. But exactly when we might see subepidermal imaging become part of Face ID is unclearlike all patents, theres no guarantee itll ever become a reality. Dont expect it in the upcoming iPhone 12, but perhaps vein scanning will be part of the iPhone 13.
Azerbaijan records 2% decline in cement production

22 July 2020

Cement production in Azerbaijan declined 2.4 per cent YoY to 1.57Mt in the first half of 2020, according to the State Statistics Committee. However, ready-mix concrete production rose 3.6 per cent to 821,500t.



Overall, the value of building materials produced in the country reached AZN327.6m (US$192.82m) in the 1H20, down 10.4 per cent compared to the corresponding period of last year.

Published under
Andrew Mlangeni, the last surviving anti-apartheid activist convicted with Nelson Mandela at South Africa's infamous Rivonia Trial, has died at 95.

This was the trial considered to have brought Mandela to global attention.



Mr. Mlangeni died after being admitted to a military hospital in Pretoria because of an abdominal complaint.



His death "signifies the end of generational history and places our future squarely in our hands," President Cyril Ramaphosa said.



Who was Andrew Mlangeni?



According to Mr. Mlangeni's 2017 biography, The Backroom Boy, Mandela selected him to join five other men in the first group of South African anti-apartheid activists to be sent to China for training.



Their training included classes in bomb-making, booby traps, and secret communication techniques.



He returned to South Africa in 1963 and became a member of the high command of the ANC's armed movement, Umkhonto we Sizwe.



He disguised himself as a priest and travelled around South Africa recruiting young people to go abroad for training as fighters until he was arrested and put on trial in the Rivonia treason trial.



Mr. Mlangeni served 26 years in prison, incarcerated for most of the time on Robben Island, alongside Mandela.



After his release in 1989, he served as a member of parliament and lived in Soweto until his death.



Mr. Mlangeni was a man of principle - a quiet authority, whose humility won over the hearts of many South Africans.



He described himself as "a backroom boy", never one to want political fame but instead working behind the scenes in helping to carve a new South Africa at the end of white minority rule.



He buried every last one of his fellow Rivonia trialists and friends.



His passing marks the end of an era, the last of a generation of indomitable struggle stalwarts.



Mr. Mlangeni believed in the rights of black people, that their lives matter - but believed in unity too.



He did not want his jailers to suffer the same fate he did. Like Mandela, he believed that, in order for the majority of South Africans to be free, people like him would need to advocate peace instead of revenge.







Source: Daily Graphic









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Southern Yemenis took to the streets of the Hadhramaut province this week in protest against moves to court the Muslim Brotherhood in South Yemen

Thousands of southern Yemenis took to the streets of Al-Mukalla, the capital of the Hadhramaut province of South Yemen, earlier this week in support of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and calling for the autonomy of the southern regions of Yemen.

With the lull in the fighting in Yemen, the countrys political factions are trying to maximise their bargaining chips in any anticipated settlement of the conflict in the war-torn country.

Over the past few months, the situation in South Yemen has been getting worse as the legitimate government of Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi has focused on its southern allies rather than facing up to the rebel Iran-backed Houthi militia. However, since the internationally recognised government of Hadi began to court the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood, the southerners have become wary of the future.

When the Hadi government called in the Saudi-led Arab Coalition forces in 2015, it was mainly to fight the Houthi rebels who then dominated the country. Most of the military achievements of the coalition in liberating provinces from Houthi control saw the active participation of southern fighters more than that of the army loyal to the Hadi government.

In successive cabinet reshuffles, Hadi brought the Al-Islah Party, representing the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, into his government, letting party members control the military and incorporate their own militias into it. The southerners felt betrayed and formed the STC in 2017 in a bid to take control of the liberated areas of South Yemen.

Late last year, the Saudis brought the two sides together to sign a power-sharing agreement in a bid to direct all efforts towards the Houthi rebels. But Al-Islah elements in the government saw this as allowing them to take control of areas where terrorists used to cluster in the southern and middle parts of the country.

Some of these areas came under Houthi control some years ago when Al-Islah conspired to let them in.

Even during the heat of the conflict in recent years, elements of the Al-Islah Party in government forces were allegedly responsible for deadly attacks by Houthi rebels on coalition forces, especially Emiratis. Last summer, the UAE withdrew its forces from Yemen and kept only a small contingent there to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Yemenis in areas liberated from the Houthis.

Signed in November by the Hadi government and the STC, the Riyadh Agreement was supposed to lead to the formation of a new government, but Al-Islah elements have been putting up obstacles since then. In April, the STC announced the self-rule of the South and itself started standing up to the Al-Islah militias, including those contributing to the army.

When the Houthis recaptured parts of Maarib, the STC denounced this as the result of treachery on the part of Al-Islah and the Yemeni government. Al-Islah figures based in Turkey started a campaign to call for Turkish intervention in Yemen, raising the ire of both the Saudis and the STC as many Turkish activities in Yemen have already been hidden under the cover of charitable organisations.

The city of Shabwa governor met Turkish officials two months ago, and the Socotra Provincial Governor Ramzi Mahrous is said to have secretly met Turkish and Qatari intelligence officials in Istanbul.

The STC then moved into Socotra and drove the Al-Islah elements in the local government out, angering Al-Islah elements in Hadis government and Brotherhood elements in Turkey.

Last month, Saudi Arabia called the parties to Riyadh to negotiate the implementation of the November Agreement. The southerners feared pressure to form a government with elements of Al-Islah in it would dilute their quest for self-rule.

For this reason, protesters in Al-Mukalla this week carried the flags of the former Republic of South Yemen that united with the north in 1990. They shouted slogans calling on STC leader Ahmed Saeed bin Buraik, to implement self-rule in the province, while negotiating power-sharing with Hadis government.

The Hadhramaut province is rich in oil, and it used to be a base for terrorists from many groups that were offshoots of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood. Many southerners now consider that Al-Islah militias are disguised as the national army.

Yemeni journalist Nassim Al-Deeni told Al-Ahram Weekly that Al-Islah is again dealing with the Houthis and asking tribes close to them to give aid. She also stressed the fear of the South that Turkish involvement called in by Al-Islah was a real threat to the achievements against the Houthi militia and terrorist groups in the South.

Though Turkey has denied any involvement in Yemen, Al-Deeni said that the Turkish defence minister, who visited Doha last week after a visit to Libya, had discussed involvement in Yemen with Qatari officials.

Despite its military campaigns in Syria, Iraq and Libya that might stretch the cost of another foreign adventure, Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan might find supporting the Brotherhood in Yemen another means of moving against Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries opposed to his aggressive policies in the region.

According to New York-based lawyer Irina Tsukerman in a paper written for the Israeli think tank the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, while Ankara has been asking for financial support from various countries, it is too early to rule out the possibility that it will invest financing it does not have in another conflict. Turkey can likely rely on its funder Qatars willingness to fuel the fires wherever possible and embroil its regional adversaries in endless asymmetrical and media wars.

Al-Deeni said that the Yemenis know from experience that the Brotherhood will never honour any agreement with the Saudis, especially when it comes to South Yemen.

Though some have argued against the possibility of Turkish military involvement in Yemen, Al-Deeni referred to an announcement by Ankara that it was sending naval vessels to the Bab Al-Mandab Strait off Yemen in September.

The announcement came as part of Turkeys assuming the lead of the Combined Task Force 151 (CTF-151) to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean, with Al-Deeni pointing out that Turkey has the support of the terrorist group Al-Shabab in Somalia, allies of terrorists in South Yemen.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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Rating Action: Moody's assigns Aaa to Williamson County, TN's $46.7M GO bonds; outlook stable

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

New York, July 22, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Aaa rating to Williamson County, TN's $14.7 million General Obligation School Bonds, Series 2020A and $32 million County District School Bonds, Series 2020A. Moody's maintains the Aaa rating on the county's outstanding parity debt. The outlook remains stable.

RATINGS RATIONALE

The Aaa general obligation unlimited tax (GOULT) rating reflects the county's sizeable and regionally important tax base that continues to grow rapidly, a strong financial position which is expected to remain stable in fiscal 2020 and manageable debt profile.

We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. The coronavirus crisis is not a key driver for this rating action. We do not see any material immediate credit risks for Williamson County. However, the situation surrounding coronavirus is rapidly evolving and the longer term impact will depend on both the severity and duration of the crisis. If our view of the credit quality of the county changes, we will update the rating and/or outlook at that time.

RATING OUTLOOK

The stable outlook reflects the county's strong cash and reserve position, which will remain healthy given prudent fiscal management. The outlook also incorporates the expectation that the county's tax base will continue to grow as a result of its role as a major regional economic center.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

- Increases in debt burden

- Sizeable declines in available reserves or reduced liquidity levels

- Deterioration of tax base size or quality

LEGAL SECURITY

The General Obligation School Bonds, Series 2020A are payable from unlimited ad valorem taxes levied on all taxable property within the county. For the prompt payment of principal of and interest on the Bonds, the full faith and credit of the county are pledged.

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The County District School Bonds, Series 2020A are payable from unlimited ad valorem taxes levied on all taxable property within the county lying outside the territorial limits of the Franklin Special School District. Subject to the limitation set forth above, for the prompt payment of principal of and interest on the County District School Bonds, the full faith and credit of the county are irrevocably pledged.

USE OF PROCEEDS

The GO School Bonds, Series 2020A are being issued to fund capital improvements to County high schools.

The County District School Bonds, Series 2020A are being issued to fund capital improvements to County K-8 facilities.

PROFILE

Williamson County is located in middle Tennessee (Aaa stable), adjacent to the southern boundary of Metropolitan Government of Nashville & Davidson County (Aa2 stable). The county's current population is approximately 231,279.

METHODOLOGY

The principal methodology used in these ratings was US Local Government General Obligation Debt published in September 2019 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBM_1191097. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

The ratings have been disclosed to the rated entity or its designated agent(s) and issued with no amendment resulting from that disclosure.

These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

The Global Scale Credit Rating on this Credit Rating Announcement was issued by one of Moody's affiliates outside the EU and is endorsed by Moody's Deutschland GmbH, An der Welle 5, Frankfurt am Main 60322, Germany, in accordance with Art.4 paragraph 3 of the Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 on Credit Rating Agencies. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the Moody's office that issued the credit rating is available on www.moodys.com.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

Christopher Coviello Lead Analyst Regional PFG Northeast Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 7 World Trade Center 250 Greenwich Street New York 10007 US JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Douglas Goldmacher Additional Contact Regional PFG Northeast JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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T he "sheer might" of the UK has been shown during the coronavirus pandemic, Boris Johnson has said ahead of a visit north of the border.

The Prime Minister will arrive in Scotland on Thursday, ahead of the one year anniversary of his first day in Downing Street on Friday. It will also mark his first visit there since the general election in December.

Downing Street said that during his visit, Mr Johnson will meet with businesses hit by the pandemic, those working in green energy, and military personnel to thank them for their efforts in the response to coronavirus.

There are no plans to meet with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who said at her regular coronavirus briefing on Wednesday that she would be willing to meet with the Prime Minister.

Coronavirus in numbers: UK death toll reaches 45,501

Mr Johnson has pledged 50 million for Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles to develop the economy of the islands as part of a growth deal.

The Scottish Government said it will invest the same amount in the islands, meaning every area in Scotland will now receive funding from the joint UK and Scottish government initiatives.

Ahead of the visit, the Prime Minister said: "When I stood on the steps of Downing Street one year ago, I pledged to be a Prime Minister for every corner of the United Kingdom. Whether you are from East Kilbride or Dumfries, Motherwell or Paisley, I promised to level up across Britain and close the opportunity gap.

"The last six months have shown exactly why the historic and heartfelt bond that ties the four nations of our country together is so important and the sheer might of our union has been proven once again."

UK hospital coronavirus death toll increases by 11

The Prime Minister's visit comes after a surge in support for Scottish independence in recent months, according to polls, with two Panelbase surveys reporting 54% of respondents would like to see Scotland split from the UK.

The same polls predicted the SNP will win a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament at next year's election.

Then prime minister David Cameron agreed to stage the independence vote in 2014 after the SNP won a majority at Holyrood in the 2011 election, however Mr Johnson has repeatedly ruled out another referendum.

Ahead of Thursday's visit, the Prime Minister praised the work of the armed forces in running mobile coronavirus testing centres in Scotland and providing air transfers support.

He added: "The UK Treasury stepped in to save the jobs of a third of Scotland's entire workforce and kept the wolves at bay for tens of thousands of Scottish businesses.

"More than ever, this shows what we can achieve when we stand together, as one United Kingdom."
TROY  City detectives are looking back to Flag Day 1987 as they reinvestigate a 33-year-old homicide case in which the victim was found dead under a Halloween cape near a South Troy railroad line.

Detectives hope that modern forensic techniques will aid in solving the killing of Deborah Koenig, 25, who had spent most of June 14, 1987 at a Troy Flagfest celebration.

Troy police arrested two suspects in the case. One was acquitted at trial in 1990 when he took the stand in his own defense and charges against the second were dismissed.

The case was considered mysterious.

Although she had been drinking at the Adam's Rib bar and much of that day at a Troy Flagfest celebration, Koenig's body contained no alcohol. Koenig's body had been moved and the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet were covered with an oily substance not found at the South Troy railroad site where she was discovered, the Times Union reported in 1990.

Koenigs body was discovered on June 15 along the tracks between Jackson and Monroe streets. At the time, police said she was beaten to death with a hammer. She also was stabbed twice after she died. It was speculated that she may have been killed somewhere else and then her body dumped at the tracks. Court testimony said she had been dead for 30 hours when her body was found.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Despite the passing of 33 years since the homicide of Deborah, the Troy Police Department and the family of Deborah Koenig continue to seek answers and justice. With the advancements in forensic technology and a reexamination of the evidence and the case, Troy Detectives are hopeful that those responsible will be identified and brought to justice, Deputy Chief Dan DeWolf said.

Koenig was last seen by a bartender leaving the Adams Rib bar at the 4 a.m. closing time. The bar was located at Jackson and First streets. Her body was discovered by two boys near the railroad tracks at about noon the next day.

Koenig, who was born in New York City, had lived in Troy for 15 years. She lived at 378 Second St. with her boyfriend and their daughter. She had worked at the Eden Park Nursing Home.

Anyone with information regarding Koenig homicide is asked to call Detective Sgt. Anthony Conyers at 518-270-4684.
TWIN FALLS  Scott Truax was all smiles last week as he approached a large monument near the Visitor Center.

We hit our goal! Truax exclaimed as he reached the granite slab dedicated to motorcycle daredevil Robert Evel Knievels 1974 attempt to rocket across the Snake River Canyon in a skycycle.

Truaxs Gofundme account to raise money to replace a piece of the monument climbed over the $900 mark on July 14. Raised in only three days, the money is enough to pay for a small bronze plate depicting the likeness of the most famous daredevil of all time.

The monument, installed at the stairs to the west walkway of the I.B. Perrine Bridge, was donated by Sunset Memorial in 1985 to the community that Knievel made famous.

More than 20 years ago, the plaque  showing a map indicating where Knievels dirt ramp can still be seen today  disappeared without a trace, except for the chisel marks left by the thief who pried the piece from the monument.

Although Knievel famously failed to fly over the 500-foot-deep canyon, he remains one of Truaxs true heroes, second only to Truaxs father, Bob Truax.

Bob Truax engineered Knievels steam-powered skycycle  and inherited much of the blame for the jumps failure. But Scott Truax and Hollywood stuntman Eddie Braun in 2016 redeemed Bob Truaxs reputation, as well as Knievels, by successfully launching a replica of the skycycle  Evel Spirit  over the Snake River Canyon north of Hansen.

At 52, Scott Truax still remembers standing at the canyon rim  nearly 46 years ago, 2 miles upstream from the Perrine Bridge  watching his fathers creation drop from the launch pad and spiral into the canyon below.

He remembers being disappointed that it didnt make it across and concerned that it would end up in the river, he said Tuesday.

At the monuments dedication in 1985, Twin Falls Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Mike Dolton said the legend of Evel Knievel lives on into another generation.

He has a talent for showmanship unequaled in the realm of American folk art since the days of P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill Cody, Dolton said with Knievel at his side.

The Montana native generated hundreds of thousands of free advertising for Idaho, he said. Evel Knievel has done Twin Falls and Idaho a huge, multi-million dollar favor.

Scott Truax was ready to pay for the new plaque out of his own pocket, but he realized Knievels other fans might want in on the tribute.

Evels fans are very devoted, he said. He meant a lot to many people.

He plans to clean up the writing on the monument, which describes Knievel as an explorer, motorcyclist and daredevil, and to polish the stone so it looks better than new, Truax said.

He expects the plaque to be ready to install on the monument in a month or so.

I think (Knievels) legacy is he taught a whole generation that if we can dream it, we can do it, he said. Im not sure if kids are getting that these days.

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Church leader raises concerns for Christian businesses in Northern Ireland that refuse services to gay weddings

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A leader of Northern Irelands largest Christian denomination has raised concerns that a new marriage law passed this week, which doesnt allow businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples on grounds of conscience, is a violation of religious freedom.

We have a concern that in a tolerant society, peoples conscience and freedoms should be protected in the law  people who are involved in what may be termed the marriage business: photographers, florists, car hire firms, civil registrars, the Rev. Daniel Kane, convener of the Presbyterian Church in Irelands council for public affairs, told Premier.

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020 removes the prohibition on the religious marriage of same-sex couples starting on Sept. 1, but will not compel churches or individual clerics to conduct ceremonies for same-sex couples. However, the law doesnt give the same protection to those in the marriage industry.

Kane said the Northern Irish Assembly should find creative ways to give these people the freedom to express their sincerely held points of view, both within the Christian community and others who are not within the Christian community as well.

In 2018, the U.K.'s Supreme Court decided that an evangelical couple, Daniel McArthur and his wife, Amy, of Ashers Bakery in Belfast, did not discriminate against a gay man by refusing to make him a same-sex wedding cake.

The couple had previously lost a lower court case and a subsequent appeal that found them guilty of discrimination in 2014. They had been accused of refusing to make gay rights activist Gareth Lee a cake in support of same-sex marriage, which they said goes against their religious beliefs.

The Rev. Chris Hudson from All Souls Church in Belfast, a member of the Non-Subscribing Church of Ireland, views the passing of the law allowing clergy to official same-sex weddings as a positive development. This is great news for couples who wish to celebrate their marriage in church, embraced by family, friends and the love of God, he said, according to Belfast Telegraph.

However, the Church of Ireland, Methodist, and Presbyterian Church in Ireland, along with the Catholic Church are all opposed to same-sex marriage.

Same-sex civil marriages were legalized in Northern Ireland in January under regulations laid in line with the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Act 2019, which required the Northern Ireland Secretary to introduce secondary legislation providing for same-sex marriage and greater access to abortion if devolution was not restored by Oct. 21 that year, according to Irish Legal News.

The Christian Institute had expressed concern that the new law could get in the way of free speech and debate about gay marriage.

It had warned the Northern Ireland Office that it would seek legal action unless citizens received clear protections for free speech, written into public order law, just like they were in England and Wales before gay marriage was introduced there.

Colin Hart, director of The Christian Institute, had said at the time that when same-sex marriage registration starts on 13 January another set of robust protections will be needed to protect those in Northern Irish society who disagree with same-sex marriage.

Several churches in Northern Ireland had also previously insisted they would only conduct marriages between a man and a woman despite the legal change.

The Church of Ireland affirms, according to our Lords teaching, that marriage is in its purpose a union permanent and lifelong, for better or worse, till death do them part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, a spokesperson for the Church of Ireland told the Belfast Telegraph.
The Pentagon's No. 2 John Hyten called President Donald Trump 'an idiot' and Melania Trump 'smarter than the president,' according to testimony that was part of a sexual assault case involving the military leader.

The Washington Post published a profile Wednesday of Retired Col. Kathy Spletstoser, who's accused Hyten of assault and claims the military is trying to hide records because the testimony could be damaging to the Joint Chiefs vice chairman's career.

She revealed part of her testimony to The Post that included Hyten's take on the president and first lady after dining with them in October 2017, nine months after Trump took office.

The Pentagon's No. 2 John Hyten (pictured) called President Donald Trump 'an idiot' and Melania Trump 'smarter than the president,' according to testimony that was part of a sexual assault case involving the military leader

Retired Col. Kathy Spletstoser, who is accusing John Hyten of sexual assault, said that the Joint Chief's vice chairman made the comments about President Trump (left) and first lady Melania Trump (right) to her and other colleagues after an October 2017 dinner with the first couple

Kathy Spletstoser has accused John Hyten of sexual assault. She revealed a conversation she says he had about President Trump and first lady Melania Trump to The Washington Post in an effort to prove the military was trying to hide testimony that could be damaging to Hyten's career

'The president is an idiot,' Spletstoser said Hyten said to her and other staffers.

'He is just a businessman without the basic understanding of national security. Everything is a business transaction for him and making money is winning to him and the only thing that matters,' Hyten continued.

Hyten then said that 'the president wanted to sell nuclear-powered submarines to the South Koreans, and I had to talk him out of it, explaining why this was a bad idea,' he said, according to Spletstosers notes.

'Everything is about a business deal- that is how the president views things, through that lens,' Hyten said.

Hyten also gave Spletstoser and her colleagues his assessment of the first lady.

'I also spent a lot of time talking to Melania Trump about the locations of all our intercontinental ballistic missile fields,' he said, according to Spletstoser. 'She was more inquisitive and smarter than the president.'

This dialogue, Spletstoser said, is part of testimony she gave to Air Force investigators, which the military is now refusing to release.

The Department of Defense has argued that the records Spletstoser wants don't fall under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The conversation was recorded by Spletstoser in notes.

The Post sent the full text of those notes to Hyten who declined to comment.

A White House official told the paper, 'We are unfamiliar with any conversation like this.'

'Discussions like this would not be had casually around a dinner table,' the official also said.
City of Laredo and Webb County officials have confirmed 196 positives and six deaths due to the novel coronavirus in Laredo.

The added positives bring the city's total number of COVID-19 cases to 4,472 with 77 deaths.

The near-200 cases rank as the fifth-most so far locally while giving the city 14 straight days of at least triple-digits. Laredo has had 14 of its 17 highest totals over the past 14 days and 15 of its 17 highest over the last 16 days.

There are a total of 3,270 active infections in the city, compared to only 382 on the same day last month. Its also more than 13 times the 250 necessary to declare the area in the highest warning level of Red for the citys color-coded advisory system.

So far this week, Laredo has had a total of 795 new positives, or 159 per day. With two days remaining, its slightly behind the pace to break the record for the sixth straight week after there was a total of 1,130 last week, or a little more than 161.4 per day. The city must be judged for weekly numbers on a Saturday through Friday format to accurately account for the time period Laredo stopped providing updates on weekends.

Meanwhile, the six deaths reported are tied for the second-most in a day so far in the city. After Tuesdays five deaths, ranking fourth, the city has had more deaths reported in consecutive days (11) than any other time, besting the previous high of nine.

Laredo has also reported multiple deaths in 12 of the past 16 days after doing so only three times before that in the preceding 112 days of the pandemic.

Two of the deaths reported Wednesday occurred at Laredo nursing home Regent Care Center, which continues to be under quarantine.

A female in her early 90s died last Tuesday, July 16, and a male in his early 100s died on Monday at the nursing home. The latter was the first death the city has had to a person above 100 years of age.

The remaining deaths happened at Laredo hospitals.

On Tuesday, two people  a male in his early 80s and a female in her early 90s  died at Laredo Medical Center. On Wednesday, a male in his late 70s also died.

At Doctors Hospital, a female in her late 40 died.

All deaths reported Wednesday had underlying conditions.

A total of 160 people remain hospitalized in Laredo, down from 168 on Tuesday. There are also 64 patients in the intensive care unit, up one from Tuesday.

Laredos test positivity rate continued to climb to a new high as it reached 32.4%, up from Tuesdays 31.6%. The test positivity rate was just 19.4% on July 1 and 12.6% on June 1.

As of noon Wednesday, 14,818 people have been tested for the novel coronavirus in Laredo with 9,341 returning negative.

There are 1,005 tests still pending results, though 606 are presumed negative due to being over 30 days old.
Jonathan Berger

Through Oct. 11. Participant Inc.; participantinc.org.

An introduction to Nameless Love, Jonathan Bergers large, text-based installation at Participant Inc., is one of the sleeping beauties of the New York gallery lockdown. Luckily, it will reawaken Sept. 9 for a month.

I saw it during its initial opening five months ago, and was dazzled by its silvery texts, seeming to hang in midair and surrounded by darkness. They have stayed in my mind, aided by the wise and generous love-knows-no-bounds title; the crucial phrase is Allen Ginsbergs, from a 1974 interview. The pieces make us privy to six unconventional relationships detailed in carefully culled words, and reiterated more abstractly in two tenderly handled complementary materials.

The show is an extensive collaboration, most of all between Mr. Berger and the people writing or talking about their own relationships or those they have witnessed. He knows most of them well, and participated in the creation of their texts, as did other friends, acting as facilitators or editors.
Israel is believed to be behind several recent acts of sabotage against Iranian civilian and military infrastructure, including a hospital, that have taken the lives of at least 19 people and has further disrupted an economy already in the throes of a devastating downturn brought on by a global pandemic and crippling economic sanctions.

Leaks emerging out of Israel have identified the apartheid state as the rouge actor wreaking havoc on Iran. Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, was outed by a political rival as the source of anonymous leaks linking Israel to the conflagration at a Iranian nuclear facility. A different story had made the rounds earlier when an unknown Iranian dissident group calling itself the Homeland Cheetahs reportedly contacted the BBC to take credit for the blast and claimed that it was part of an ongoing campaign of sabotage against Iranian strategic sites. But, neither the story nor the groups existence were ever confirmed.

The first in a string of recent fires and explosions took place on June 25 when a huge blast took down a power plant in Shiraz, east of Tehran, and caused an extensive blackout in several parts of the nations capital. Two more military sites believed to house nuclear and missile production facilities on the eastern edge of Tehran were also attacked over the course of these last few weeks and just two days ago, on July 19, a new explosion rocked a power station in Irans Isfahan Province in what is also believed to be the work of Israeli cyberattacks, bringing the total of military and civilian sites targeted to eight.

The most high profile incident occurred on July 2, when the Iranian nuclear site in Natanz was targeted in a cyberattack which caused an explosion at the underground facility, reportedly set[ting] back the Iranian nuclear program by two months. The attack was egregious enough to elicit an unusual statement from the Iranian state news agency, blaming Israel and the U.S. directly for the incident.

With these attacks, Israel intends to provoke a belligerent response by Rouhanis government, while also seeding a narrative of cyber warfare as the next theater of global combat, which perfectly dovetails with Israels burgeoning partnership with the U.S. National Security state to build a juggernaut of mass surveillance.

Exhibit A, B and C

The precedent for Israeli cyberattacks on Iran is strong. Perhaps the most salient example is U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet project, a computer virus developed in tandem with the U.S. and an elite Unit 8200 team, led by Lior Div  an Israeli software engineer who went on to found a company called Cybereason, which has been running doomsday cyberattack scenarios for the upcoming 2020 U.S. elections.

The project was first authorized by the Bush administration and involved the recreation of Irans nuclear centrifuges, according to experts at Israels Dimona complex. It was carried out a decade ago at the same facility targeted in early July. The comparable complexity of the covert operation has led many familiar with the matter to the conclusion that Israel was also behind the latest round of sabotage on Irans underground nuclear facility.

Only six years later, a cyberwarfare program code named Nitro Zeus was developed in the early days of the Obama administration as a backup in case the diplomatic effort to limit its nuclear program failed and led to a military conflict. The operation was intended to take down Irans air defenses, power grid, and communications systems, but was shelved after the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) was signed. In tandem with Nitro Zeus, American intelligence agencies were busy making separate plans to disable the Fordo nuclear enrichment site through a cyberattack. The project was intended as a follow-up to the program code named Olympic Games, which included the Stuxnet virus, as well as the Flame malware, that attacked computers running Windows operating systems.

Given this robust history of cyber warfare against Iran by the U.S. and Israel, consensus has been quick to build around the idea that these same actors have, in fact, been behind all of the recent attacks in Iran. Furthermore, according to NSC member, Eric Brewer, its enough that the Iranian leadership believes that it is the case. Given that these [attacks] are hitting all across Iran at military and civilian locations, he stated, that is going to cause Irans threat perceptions to spike.

Israels trump card

Barely two days into 2020, the Trump administration assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and set the stage for a relentless campaign of provocation against the Middle Eastern nation that has persisted until today. The patently illegal hit job on one of Irans top military leaders was a textbook application of Israels so-called Octopus Doctrine; brainchild of Israeli Defense Minister, formerly Education Minister, Naftali Bennet, who once stated that the world could be living with conflict in the Middle East for 100 years.

The doctrine entails murdering Iranian advisers and officials who direct and support proxy forces in other countries. Trumps willingness to do the bidding of Israels policy of aggression should come as no surprise and is the reason Netanyahu and company are trying to take advantage of the most Israel-friendly administration in American political history, putting as much pressure as possible on Iran, which is presently reeling with unemployment rates hovering around 35 percent and a large informal service sector that is languishing under coronavirus-imposed lockdowns. The conditions for catastrophic civil unrest in Iran havent been this ripe since the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh seventy years ago.

The seeding of a cyber warfare narrative has been coming from virtually every corner of the Israeli state. Tamir Pardo, former head of Mossad, recently claimed that the COVID-19 outbreak would unleash a global scale crisis on three fronts: medical, social, and financial and that cyberwars would be the method of choice for cash-strapped nations looking for cheaper solutions at state level, between companies, and between criminal organizations.

As is the case with many former Mossad and IDF personnel, Pardo is currently part of a cybersecurity company called XM Cyber, which offers the very services the cyber warriors he envisions will need to plan out their offensive or defensive operations. Whoever finds a remedy or vaccine for Covid-19 will become a major target for attackers, Pardo asserts, predicting the emergence of cyber conflicts between political and commercial adversaries in a kind of cybernetic dog-eat-dog future.

A matter of cyber convenience

In May, a purported Iranian cyberattack on six Israeli water treatment plants that was ostensibly foiled by Israeli cyber authorities took place. Stories were circulated in the aftermath about how the attack could have sickened hundreds, despite the fact that no evidence of an attack of any kind was ever produced. Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennet pushed for a strong response, which eventually manifested as a cyberattack targeting Irans Shahid Rajaee Port terminal in Bandar Abbas on the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Another supposed cyberattack on Israels water system took place on July 17. Israeli officials claim that two attacks were aimed at agricultural water pumps in the Upper Galilee and infrastructure in the centre of the country, and while no culprit was named, it is implied that Iran carried out these attacks, as well. Israeli media has been propagating this narrative since the first ostensible cyberattack on the water processing plants, which  like the last one  resulted in no damage deeming it a significant escalation by Iran and a crossing of a red line.

The head of Israels National Cyber Directorate warned on that occasion that we were just seeing the beginning and that a cyber winter is coming. Other, more moderate Israeli voices, like Amos Yadlin, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies, and a former head of IDF military intelligence, have looked approvingly upon this shift in focus for Israeli policy. According to foreign sources, it appears that the prime minister focused this week on Iran rather than [his plan for West Bank] annexation, he tweeted last Friday, adding that this was the very policy the veteran of the Yom Kippur war has been recommending.

If Israel is accused by official sources, he continued, then we need to be operationally prepared for the possibility of an Iranian reaction (through cyber, firing missiles from Syria or a terror attack overseas).

The drumbeat for war with Iran seems to be intensifying as 2020 reaches its halfway point and the narrative that cyberattacks are to play an inciting role in the coming conflict is being drilled into the collective mind. The U.S. and Israel are committed to exploiting invisible and unverifiable attacks on systems, which they themselves have built and sold to the world with backdoors to the very technology they claim are the target of malicious actors, who also happen to be in the way of their global interests.

Iran, for its part, is comfortable stating that the Iranian government does not engage in cyberwarfare, as Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Irans mission to the UN, told the Washington Post. We can take his word for it, or trust the claims of Israeli cybersecurity firm ClearSky, which closely tracks Iranian hacking activity and has put forward unsubstantiated accounts of Iranian hacking of U.S. pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc. The choice may be one between war and peace.

Feature photo | The scene of a mysterious explosion at the Sina Athar health centre in the north of Irans capital Tehran. Photo | Amir Kholousi ISNA

Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.
A block of flats where an Irish woman was raped for five hours has been pictured as Portuguese police reopen the investigation into her ordeal after it was linked to the Madeleine McCann kidnap suspect.

Hazel Behan, 37, who was raped in an apartment in Praia da Rocha in 2004, believes her attacker may have been German drifter Christian Brueckner.

Brueckner, who is the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, was convicted of a similar rape a year after Ms Behan was attacked.

Portuguese detectives retrieved their archived case files earlier this week as they attempt to build a case against Brueckner - and pictures of the apartment where Ms Behan was attacked have since been released.

Irish woman Hazel Behan, 37, (pictured), who was raped during a five-hour ordeal, believes her attacker may have been German drifter Christian Brueckner

Ms Behan was raped in apartment in Praia da Rocha, Portugal, in 2004 (building exterior pictured)

'Detectives are looking again for new evidence and the investigation is reopened,' a source told Sky News.

Ms Behan, who waived her right to anonymity last month, was working as a holiday rep, aged 20, in Praia da Rocha on the Algarve coast in April 2004.

She recently revealed details of the attack which saw a masked man climb over the balcony to her apartment in the early hours of the morning.

He is said to have held a knife to her throat, tied and gagged her before raping her repeatedly.

The assailant then threatened to kill her before fleeing over the balcony and leaving her bleeding.

Ms Behan contacted Scotland Yard after Brueckner was named as the main suspect in the Madeleine case with details emerging about his conviction for raping an American woman in similar circumstances.

Ms Behan, who waived her right to anonymity last month, revealed details of the attack which saw a masked man climb over the balcony to her apartment in the early hours of the morning (exterior view of apartment balconies pictured)

Christian Brueckner (pictured left) left Portugal after Madeline McCann (pictured right) disappeared on May 3 2007

She told the Guardian at the time: 'My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out.

'I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience.'

Mother-of-two Ms Behan said at the time that the Met Police had told her they were taking her case very seriously and would be contacting Portuguese counterparts after taking a statement.

And it appears the case in Portugal has now been re-opened.

Ms Behan had been working as a holiday rep, aged 20, when the attack at the apartment block happened (signposted entrance to the block pictured)

The assailant entered Ms Behan's room as she slept and held a knife to her throat before carrying out the attack (interior view of the apartment block pictured)

Ms Behan detailed how the assailant then threatened to kill her before fleeing over the balcony after the attack (exterior view of apartment windows from the road pictured)

Ms Behan has previously said that she was treated badly by the Portuguese detectives as they abandoned their investigation after eight months without identifying a suspect.

But it is thought that even if police find enough evidence against Brueckner for Ms Behan's attack he is unlikely to be charged due to the 15-year statute of limitations on rape investigations.

The re-opening of the case comes after DNA from the attack was destroyed on the orders of Portuguese prosecutors.

Ms Behan was attacked in the resort town of Praia da Rocha, which is around 20 miles away from Praia da Luz - where Madeleine was abducted in 2007

Ms Behan originally went public with the details of her horrific ordeal after discovering Bruecker had been convicted late last year of the September 2005 rape of an American in Praia da Luz where Madeleine vanished in May 2007.

But last month it emerged that the DNA evidence collected from the crime scene was destroyed around two months before Madeleine's disappearance.

It means the chance of making any solid link between the two cases if the same offender was responsible could prove impossible.

The extraordinary decision was laid bare in court papers relating to Ms Behan's rape in Praia da Rocha a half-hour drive east of Praia da Luz.

Christian Brueckner (pictured with a friend in 2011) was convicted of a similar rape of an American woman a year after Ms Behan was attacked

It followed the March 2007 mothballing of the court probe to try to catch the beast who raped the former holiday rep in a sustained five-hour attack after threatening her with a machete.

The decision to shelve the investigation was linked to the fact identifying possible suspects was complicated by the fact the rape occurred during Euro 2004 when more people were in the area and it appeared to be a 'one-off' attack.

The case files state the victim described her rapist as an English speaker who could be 'German, Belgian or Dutch.'

Ms Behan's underwear was among clothes passed on to a lab for expert analysis along with a broken nail.

The documents make it clear DNA was obtained but no match. They do not specify the exact nature of the material recovered.

Confirming the destruction of the DNA evidence, they say: 'On March 15 2007 when the judge decides to archive the investigation, the Public Ministry decide any biological material should be destroyed.'

They add: 'As they are in a bad condition it is improbable that if this re-investigation was reopened the material could be subjected to counterproof analysis.'

The astonishing DNA decision emerged just days after the former head of Portugal's National Forensic Medicine Institute said the evidence collected from the McCanns' holiday apartment could still prove valuable in unlocking the 13-year mystery.

Duarte Nuno Vieira, President President of Portugal's National Forensic Medicine Institute when the youngster vanished, said all the samples taken were kept under lock and key at a lab in the northern city of Coimbra and could be used for re-testing with today's modern technology whenever needed.

He told Portuguese broadcaster CMTV: 'The samples are still being kept in optimum conditions and despite the fact 13 years have gone by, it's still possible today to repeat tests.'

Recent unconfirmed Portuguese reports claimed convicted rapist Brueckner had been ruled out as a suspect in the Hazel Behan case but gave no indication why.

Dubliner Ms Behan, who has now returned to Ireland, also told the Guardian in an interview last week she recalled a distinctive mark on the top of Bruecker's right thigh which could have been a birthmark or a tattoo.

The German is said to have birthmarks on his upper right thigh.

The new gaffe by Portuguese authorities comes on the back of revelations yesterday that Brueckner admitted to an Algarve judge after he was caught for stealing diesel in April 2006 that he had a teenage sex conviction.

The 43-year-old German admitted his sordid past in his initial court quiz following his detention, court papers from the time show.

The revelation put Portuguese police under the spotlight over their initial failure to link Brueckner to the Maddie inquiry.

The information that showed he was a sex offender and not just a petty thief was a matter of public record in Portugal.

The German molested a six-year-old girl in a playground in his home town of Wurzburg, Bavaria, in 1994 when he was just 17.

Brueckner left his homeland for the Algarve after serving part of a two-year youth sentence for the crime.

Portuguese police chief Carlos Farinha had recently tried to pass the blame for Brueckner slipping through the net 13 years ago by revealing his name was among hundreds passed on to Scotland Yard Grange detectives investigating Maddie's disappearance in 2011.

He insisted Scotland Yard detectives had never asked the PJ to take a closer look at him.

Brueckner only came back on the police radar in 2017, after confessing to a bar room pal in Germany on the 10th anniversary of Maddie's disappearance that he knew what had happened to her.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 00:01:08|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China welcomed the European Union's (EU's) decision to authorize the signature on a China-EU agreement on geographical indications (GI), Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

It was reported that the European Council on Monday adopted a decision on the signature of the GI agreement, the first major bilateral trade agreement that will protect each side's 100 geographical indications.

Since the two sides concluded their negotiations on the agreement in October 2019, China and the EU have been respectively going through internal procedures for ratification, and China has completed the procedures, Wang said.

This is China's first comprehensive, high-level bilateral agreement on GIs, and the first major trade agreement between China and the EU in recent years, which is "monumental," he said.

Wang said it will deepen trade cooperation, deliver greater benefits to Chinese and European people, and demonstrate the Chinese government's resolve in advancing high-level opening-up and the protection of IPRs.

China is ready to work with the EU to expand two-way openness, deepen practical cooperation, achieve win-win outcomes and contribute to economic recovery in China, the EU and beyond, he said. Enditem
The City of Winnipeg is facing more than two dozen disputes over school division property taxes.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg is facing more than two dozen disputes over school division property taxes.

The city believes property taxes should be charged on about 25 division-owned non-school buildings, and divisions believe they shouldnt, said Coun. Brian Mayes (St. Vital).

Mayes, who serves as councils school board liaison, said the confusion stems from provincial legislation, which exempts schools from paying property taxes to the City of Winnipeg. But school divisions have argued some of their other buildings, such as those that house clinician offices and storage, should also be exempt, he said.

The councillor said the issue has been a point of contention since at least 2014. Three of the current 25 cases are set to go to court, though no hearing date has been set.

"My frustration is all of this time and effort and legal expense for two different levels of government, fighting over really how to interpret legislation from another level of government. I would prefer if the appeal were simpler and could just go to the Municipal Board," said Mayes.

The councillor stressed hes not critical of the current provincial government on this file, since its officials have been open to discussing it. A Manitoba government spokesperson declined to comment since the issue is before the courts.

A former Brandon School Division trustee, Mayes said hes not sure whether the divisions should be made to pay property tax on all of the affected buildings.

"The city councillor (in me) likes to see the revenue, the former school trustee thinks those people (in school division offices) are vital to the educational process. Im conflicted, is a good way of putting it," said Mayes.

The councillor said the matter is complicated because the French and English versions of the tax exemption dont share the exact same meaning. In French, the exemption applies to property that is "used for the needs of a public school," while the English version exempts property that is "used for a public school."

One of the court "test cases" involves the former William Russell Elementary School in Windsor Park, which is the Louis Riel School Division Resource Centre. That site offers office and storage space and is used every day, said Mayes. The other two test cases will affect other school division-owned buildings at 1075 Wellington Ave., and 1395-97 Spruce St.

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The lawyer for school divisions said the disputes reflect an expansion of school services over recent decades, some of which were centralized in non-school buildings to save money.

Lawyer Mark Newman said those resource buildings could support psychologists, audiologists, library resources, teaching aids, audiovisual equipment and computer equipment.

"What frequently was done in small spaces in schools now has been taken out of a lot of those schools and is done in bigger spaces off-site but in buildings owned by the school divisions, whose sole purpose is to support the broad education objectives that our school systems have these days," said Newman.

"The nub of this is that school divisions dont have buildings, generally speaking, that arent used for the benefit of students," he added.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga
Mine warfare forces from the U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) started Mine Warfare Exercise (MIWEX) 2JA 2020 off the coast of northern Japan, July 20.

Mine warfare forces from the U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) started Mine Warfare Exercise (MIWEX) 2JA 2020 off the coast of northern Japan, July 20.

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Sailors lower the mine neutralization vehicle (MNV) into the water for mine hunting practice aboard mine countermeasures ship USS Pioneer (MCM 9). (Picture source: US Navy)

MIWEX 2JA is part of an annual series of exercises between the allied navies designed to increase proficiency in mine countermeasure operations.

During the exercise, participating units will practice unit-level mine warfare tactics to include sweeping, hunting, and mine detection.

JMSDF Mine Division 3 and U.S. Navy Commander, Mine Countermeasures Squadron 7 will work together throughout the exercise to direct mine hunting tasks for U.S. and JMSDF ships. This training will allow all the units to practice communicating and operating in a combined environment and learn to maximize their cumulative mine hunting capability.

Participating JMSDF units will include Uraga class mine sweeper tenders JS Uraga (MST-463) and JS Bungo (MST-464), mine sweepers JS Awaji (MSC-304), JS Hirado (MSC-305), JS Miyajima (MSC-690), JS Enoshima (MSC-604), JS Chichijima (MSC-605), JS Naoshima (MSC-684), JS Ukushima (MSC-686), JS Sugashima (MSC-681) JS Aoshima (MSC-689), JS Takashima (MSC-603), JS Yakushima (MSC-602), JS Shishijima (MSC-691) and JS Kuroshima (MSC-692) and P1 and P-3C aircraft.

U.S. units participating include USS Patriot (MCM 7), USS Pioneer (MCM 9) and the staff from Mine Countermeasures Squadron 7.

COMCMRON 7 is forward-deployed to Sasebo, Japan, and consists of Patriot, Pioneer, USS Warrior (MCM 10), and USS Chief (MCM 14) in Sasebo and Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 14, Detachment 2A based in Pohang, Korea.
Technavio has been monitoring the snus market and it is poised to grow by 780 million during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of 11% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005645/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Snus Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is concentrated, and the degree of concentration will accelerate during the forecast period. Altria Group Inc., Arnold Andre GmbH Co. KG, British American Tobacco Plc, Dholakia Tobacco Pvt. Ltd., GN Tobacco Sweden AB, Gotlandssnus AB, Imperial Brands Plc, Japan Tobacco Inc., Swedish Match AB, and Turning Point Brands Inc. are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The availability of flavored snus has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the negative health effects of snus consumption might hamper market growth.

Snus Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Snus Market is segmented as below:

Product Portion Snus Loose Snus

Geography Europe North America APAC South America MEA



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR43222

Snus Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our snus market report covers the following areas:

Snus Market size

Snus Market trends

Snus Market industry analysis

This study identifies the imposition of ban on smoking across various parts the world as one of the prime reasons driving the snus market growth during the next few years.

Snus Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the snus market, including some of the vendors such as Altria Group Inc., Arnold Andre GmbH Co. KG, British American Tobacco Plc, Dholakia Tobacco Pvt. Ltd., GN Tobacco Sweden AB, Gotlandssnus AB, Imperial Brands Plc, Japan Tobacco Inc., Swedish Match AB, and Turning Point Brands Inc. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the Snus Market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Snus Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist snus market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the snus market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the snus market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of snus market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Overview

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Product

Market segments

Comparison by Product

Portion snus Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Loose snus Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Product

Customer landscape

Overview

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

Market drivers

Market challenges

Market trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Altria Group Inc.

Arnold Andre GmbH Co. KG

British American Tobacco Plc

Dholakia Tobacco Pvt. Ltd.

GN Tobacco Sweden AB

Gotlandssnus AB

Imperial Brands Plc

Japan Tobacco Inc.

Swedish Match AB

Turning Point Brands Inc.

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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July 22 (Reuters) - Brazilian retailer GPA has sold 16 real estate assets to a pair of local funds for 446 million reais ($87.1 million), it said on Wednesday, a step forward in the company's plan to free up resources via real estate sales.

In a securities filing, GPA, which is controlled by France's Casino Guichard Perrachon SA, said it had sold 16 buildings to TRX Real Estate Fundo de Investimento Imobiliario and TRX Real Estate II Fundo de Investimento Imobiliario, both of which are run by asset manager TRX Gestora de Recursos. Both are FIIs, which are the Brazilian equivalent of a real estate investment trust, or REIT.

This is the third sale of assets by GPA to the TRX funds, bringing the total value of transactions between the parties to roughly 950 million reais, GPA said.

It said it expected to complete a fourth sale under the terms of a pre-existing contract with TRX, bringing the total value of the combined deals to roughly 1.21 billion reais.

GPA has so far received 1.58 billion reais from real estate deals as part of a wider divestment strategy, it said.

($1 = 5.12 reais) (Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Tom Brown)
Happy birthday in Heaven: Kay Warren posts message to son who died by suicide

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Kay Warren recently took to social media to send a happy birthday message to her youngest son Matthew, who committed suicide back in 2013 following a lifelong battle with mental illness.

Warren posted the message to her Facebook page on July 18, which would have been his 35th birthday, wishing him a Happy Birthday in Heaven and adding that Ill see you in a little while.

Not all of those days were good; many were filled with pain and suffering - yours and ours. Yet your birthday reminds me of the goodness of God in this life, she wrote.

It was good that I was chosen to conceive you, carry you, birth you, nourish you, and nurture you. It was good that you had a daddy, sister and brother who embraced you and were willing to be fierce and loving bulwarks against the darkness of mental illness.

Warren stressed that it was so very good that Matthew had a Father in heaven who received you into a place where single days blend seamlessly into the next billion days.

Where mental illness and sorrow of every kind are banished. Where scars are merely records of suffering finally overcome by the Victorious One.

Where the trials and crushing weight of this broken worlds woes are now viewed through the lens of a sovereign Gods eternal plan. Where all your anguished questions and searchings have their answers.

On April 5, 2013, 27-year-old Matthew Warren, son of California megachurch Pastor and bestselling author Rick Warren, committed suicide via a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In a message written after learning about his sons death, Pastor Warren explained that while Matthew had had a lifelong battle with mental illness, he also had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room.

He'd then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them, stated Pastor Warren at the time. But only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts.

In spite of America's best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided. Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.

This is not the first year that Kay Warren has taken to remembering her late son on his birthday. Last year, her birthday message to Matthew focused on the theme of the rose.

Your rose is blooming today. With all the faith I have, I believe that the roses that surround you are brighter, smell sweeter and are tended by their Creator, she wrote in 2019.

Whatever youre doing, Jesus words reassure me its good. So I will linger over your rose, absorbing the colors, textures and scent, and let it be a 'seen' reminder of the unseen Reality where you live. I miss you so much; just a little while longer! Love you forever, Buddy.
One year ago on July 21, a mafia gang attacked a group of anti-extradition demonstrators and unsuspecting passengers at the local metro station. A district councilor arrested yesterday for breaking the new security law. 79 people fined for violation of anti-coronavirus measures.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - Riot police dispersed dozens of anti-government demonstrators yesterday in the Yuen Long shopping center, near the border with China, one year after the attack on anti- extradition demonstrators and unsuspecting passengers in the local subway station (MTR) by Chinese triads.

On July 21 last year, the gang had dressed in white T-shirts (to distinguish themselves from the black ones of the protesters), armed with iron bars, sticks and other weapons, violently attacked people, causing 50 injuries. According to activists, the police were in league with the "triads" (local mafias) to spark violence and break the resistance of the democratic movement.

During yesterday's sit-in, black-clad participants chanted slogans against the police, demanding their dissolution, and called for independence for Hong Kong. Ted Hui, a member of the Democratic Party, was arrested for obstructing the law. With a megaphone, he urged the police not to abuse their power by making unnecessary arrests.

Kwai Tsing, a district councilor, was taken away by law enforcement officers on charges of violating Beijing's new - and disputed - security law. He was waving a billboard with the slogan "Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times".

The security legislation, which entered into force on 30 June, introduces the crimes of separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. The Chinese leadership has imposed it to stifle the democratic movement, which for over a year has revealed Hong Kong's struggle for autonomy from the motherland and battle to safeguard its liberal system.
Clashes between protesters and the police were familiar sights in the days after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer. But a new kind of unrest has emerged in recent days: confrontations between New Yorkers who support law enforcement and those who are pressing for an overhaul of the Police Department.

There have been raw encounters in Brooklyn, Queens and in Manhattan, as civilian groups identifying themselves as pro-police have led marches in support of the men and women in blue.

The pro-police rallies also attract counterprotesters. Violent clashes and arrests have played out this month as unsettling images of civilian-versus-civilian rage echo back to past periods of racial violence in the city. New Yorkers are shouting, not at police officers, but over their shoulders, at one another.

Diane Atkins, a Bay Ridge resident, attended pro-police events in Brooklyn on a Saturday and a Sunday earlier this month. We wanted to stand up for our police officers, Ms. Atkins said. These are everyday New Yorkers who could be your friends, family and neighbors.
An Australian woman has banished stubborn marks from her staircase in minutes, despite being told by the professional cleaners that they were 'permanently stained'.

The lady, who posted transformation pictures in the Mums Who Clean Facebook group, had paid for cleaners to remove discolouration from her grey carpet stairs - but they weren't able to complete the job.

So she purchased a carpet cleaning vacuum to take on the challenge herself.

The lady had paid for cleaners to remove discolouration from her grey carpet stairs (pictured left) - but they weren't able to complete the job (she used the Bissell on the right)

'The dirty side of our stairs was done professionally. We were told the stains would never come out because the carpet is so old,' she said.

'But the clean side is going once over with the Bissell ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet carpet vacuum. What a difference! And the water that was sucked up... disgusting.'

The woman claimed the professionals also used a carpet vacuum but was not powerful enough.

The Bissell device is made to clean up 'tough pet messes' but has been known to also treat human-made stains in the house.

The woman claimed the 'professionals' also used a carpet vacuum that was not powerful enough (professionals on the right and DIY Bissell use on the left)

The system includes CleanShot pre-treater to remove spots and stains

'The system includes CleanShot pre-treater to remove spots and stains; the 2-in-1 Pet Upholstery Tool to remove pet hair, stains, and odours from upholstery; and an EZ Clean Brush Roll Cover to make maintenance of the machine easy,' the website read.

She spent $520 on the Bissell cleaner and the carpet dried within 30 minutes.

Many of the other Facebook group members were stunned by the transformation and called on her to get a refund from the professionals.

'Wow this is incredible. I'd be sending a photo to the "professionals" to show the difference,' said one woman.

A third added: 'The exact same thing happened to me. I moved into a rental property and they told me the carpets were stained. But I've removed 90 per cent of the stains with my mother's Bissell' (pictured)

'You should tell those cleaners to invest in a Bissell. They might get more jobs with one,' said another.

A third added: 'The exact same thing happened to me. I moved into a rental property and they told me the carpets were stained. But I've removed 90 per cent of the stains with my mother's Bissell'.

The Bissell has been said to remove mud and food stains, rust, blood and wine from carpets, with others saying it worked better than anything 'the professional cleaners have brought over'.
The Centers for Disease Control's director Robert Redfield says he is 'absolutely' comfortable with his grandchildren returning to school when they reopen this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Redfield said he only had reservations about one of his grandsons returning to the classroom because he has cystic fibrosis.

'My other 10 grandchildren, eight of those are school-aged, 100 percent they can get back to school,' Redfield told ABC's Good Morning America on Wednesday.

When asked if he was comfortable with them returning to school, Redfield said: 'Absolutely'.

'The only one there might be some reservations with is my grandson with cystic fibrosis, depending on how he can be accommodated in the school that he's in,' he said.

The Centers for Disease Control's director Robert Redfield said on Wednesday he is 'absolutely' comfortable with his grandchildren returning to school when they reopen this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic

.@ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: @CDCDirector Dr. Robert Redfield on how bad the COVID-19 crisis could get. It is very hard to predict.https://t.co/aQQ6s3kY6z pic.twitter.com/PbiMPVNNHQ  Good Morning America (@GMA) July 22, 2020

Redfield's comments come as schools around the US face the same dilemma.

With the number of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths still rising, school districts are grappling with whether to bring students back to classrooms and how to keep pupils and teachers safe if they do.

'I think it's really important to get our schools open. As I've said, it's not public health vs opening the schools or the economy. It's public health vs public health,' Redfield said.

'I think there really are a number of negative public health consequences that have happened to our K through 12s by having these schools close.

'It's so important now to work together with school districts to figure out how they can take our guidelines and operationalize them in a practical way - and to do it in a way that's safe for those that are vulnerable, particularly the teachers and those children.

'I do think it's critical. One of the most important things is the role of face masks and social distancing in those classrooms.'

Pressure is mounting in many areas to reopen classrooms.

President Donald Trump has urged schools to bring children back to class in the fall and has threatened to cut off federal funding if they do not.

Amid concerns of the spread of COVID-19, science teachers Ann Darby and Rosa Herrera check-in students before a summer STEM camp at Wylie High School in Texas last week

Students wear masks and face covering during a summer STEM camp at Wylie High School in Wylie, Texas last week

School principal Frank Loya Jr. sets up social distancing dividers for students in a classroom at St. Benedict School in Montebello near Los Angeles ahead of reopening

'Young people have to go to school, and there's problems when you don't go to school, too,' Trump told Fox News on Sunday.

'And there's going to be a funding problem because we're not going to fund when they don't open their schools.'

He blamed Democrats for the push to keep some states and schools closed.

'We got hit with the virus - shouldn't have happened - and we had to close up. We saved millions of lives,' Trump said. 'Now we've opened it up, got to go back to school.'

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest public school system behind New York City, announced last week that all classes will be conducted virtually when they resume next month.

In an interview with CBS Evening News, Trump slammed the district's move as a 'terrible decision' and claimed that students and their parents were dying of trauma.

'Because children and parents are dying from that trauma, too. They're dying because they can't do what they're doing. Mothers can't go to work because all of a sudden they have to stay home and watch their child, and fathers,' he said.

Trump added that schools being closed put a 'tremendous strain' on parents but also said the issue was a 'balancing act'.
Hollywood star Charlize Theron says though Netflix is yet to greenlight the sequel to her latest film "The Old Guard", the team will pick up the conversation when it is the "right time".

Written and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, "The Old Guard" was released on July 10 and is among the most popular movies to ever hit the streaming platform.

The action drama, which has been praised for its stunning female-led action sequences and background score, is on track to reach 72 million households in its first four weeks, Netflix recently said.

Reacting to the movie's response, Theron told Variety, "It's pretty nutty, right? It's pretty crazy."

In the film, the 44-year-old actor starred as Andromache the Scythian heading a group of immortals warriors fighting for justice.

Based on the comic book series by Greg Rucka and illustrator Leandro Fernandez, the film also featured KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Harry Melling, and Van Veronica Ngo.

The climax of "The Old Guard" props the film for a second part, but Theron said they will begin work on the sequel after a "little resting period".

"We're still pushing this one out. Let's have a little resting period, but just given the fact that all of us really want to do it, I'm sure when it's the right time, we'll start the conversation," she added.

Theron also produced the action drama through her company Denver and Delilah, alongside Skydance's David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger.

The actor recently said she is taking a break to spend some time with her children.
Banjul, Gambia (PANA) - Despite appreciable progress in birth registration, an overwhelming number of children in The Gambia are without birth certificates, making them uncounted and invisible
Victorians could be cut off from the rest of Australia for two years as the state battles a second outbreak of coronavirus.

From midnight, wearing a face mask will be mandatory throughout metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire and failure to do so punishable with a $200 fine.

The latest health directive was implemented in an attempt to stem the spread of COVID-19 as cases in the state continue to soar.

A further 484 cases were diagnosed in Victoria in the 24 hours to Wednesday - the largest single day spike in Australia since the pandemic began.

Professor Tony Blakely on Wednesday told ABC the nation faces a 'real dilemma' as six of the eight states and territories have almost entirely succeeded in eliminating the virus.

Victoria is the only state grappling with widespread community transmission at this point, while New South Wales is seeing some cases from unknown sources but on nowhere near the same scale as in Melbourne.

Newly diagnosed cases in other states have been largely linked to returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

'Why would they let anybody in if there's enough of a risk that they are going to bring the virus?' Prof Blakely said.

Victorians could be cut off from the rest of Australia for two years as the state battles a second outbreak of coronavirus

From midnight, wearing a face mask will be mandatory throughout metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire and failure to do so punishable with a $200 fine

Blocking Victorians from travelling interstate will have further detrimental impacts on the Australian economy, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg (pictured) expected to announce an annual shortfall of $200billion on Thursday

'Let's assume that Victoria doesn't get rid of the virus It essentially means Victoria is going to have to function in isolation from the rest of Australia until such time as we get a vaccine, assuming the other states don't want the virus back in. If I was in the other states I wouldn't want the virus back in.'

If the other states opt against blocking Victorians from visiting, it could force them to let the virus back in and 'move to the yoyo common denominator'.

Blocking Victorians from travelling interstate will have further detrimental impacts on the Australian economy, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg expected to announce an annual shortfall of around $200billion on Thursday.

Mr Frydenberg will reveal the 'eye-watering' budget deficit is the worst since World War Two due to the coronavirus crisis, which has crippled businesses and required extraordinary government spending to keep firms and families afloat.

The figure is so high because the government has spent $164billion on propping up businesses and individuals with new policies including subsidising wages and boosting welfare with schemes like JobKeeper and JobSeeker.

Some economists fear the debt could take at least 30 years to repay.

While it is clear lockdowns and border closures make it more difficult for businesses to claw their way out of financial ruin, the states which have successfully eliminated the virus are more concerned about the health of citizens than rushing to reopen.

As cases from Victoria slip across the border to New South Wales, Queensland Police are bracing for the possibility they may have to block people from Sydney from visiting the Sunshine State, a source told the Courier Mail.

The latest health directive was implemented in an attempt to stem the spread of COVID-19 as cases in the state continue to soar

Victoria accounted for 484 of the new cases overnight as authorities struggle to bring the outbreak under control despite a nearly two-week lockdown in Melbourne

Alarming figures show Australia is headed for the biggest budget blowout since World War Two - as Victoria's second lockdown and plummeting tax revenue leave us with a $200BILLION deficit By Charlie Moore, Political Reporter Australia will suffer its largest budget deficit since World War Two due to the coronavirus crisis which has crippled businesses and required extraordinary government spending. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will reveal the 'eye-watering' figure - expected to be about $200billion for this financial year - in an economic update on Thursday. The budget deficit is the shortfall in the government's income compared to how much it spends. The figure is so high because the government has spent $164billion on propping up businesses and individuals with new policies including subsidising wages and boosting welfare. At the same time, tax receipts are down because companies are making less money during the economic downturn brought on by restrictions and lockdowns. Company tax receipts, which were $93billion in 2019, are expected to fall by more than $25billion over last financial year and this year combined. The treasurer will also reveal that Melbourne's fresh lockdown - imposed for six weeks on July 8 - is estimated to cost the economy $3.3billion. A budget deficit of $200billion would represent around 10 per cent of GDP, the highest since World War Two spending took the deficit to about 25 per cent of GDP in 1945. The figure is four times as big as the Rudd government's budget deficit of $55billion in 2009 after the global financial crisis. Government debt is already at $720billion and ongoing deficits will see this figure grow significantly. However, the treasurer will say that the drastic support measures the government has taken have been 'necessary' to prevent more people losing their jobs. In June almost one million people were officially unemployed - but this figure could have been almost twice as high at 1.7million without JobKeeper and other government support, he will say. Mr Frydenberg said: 'The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-century shock that is placing immense pressure on health systems and economies all around the world. 'Our announced measures, together with large declines in taxation receipts, has seen a hit to the bottom line, but this has been necessary in order to cushions the blow for millions of Australians, and to keep businesses in business and keep Australians in jobs.' Advertisement

New South Wales Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant on Tuesday urged the state's residents to avoid any non-essential travel.

'That sort of language is normally a precedent to restrictions being tightened,' a Queensland police source said.

Currently, any residents from Campbelltown and Liverpool government areas are forbidden from entering Queensland, along with Victorians, but the source said those hot spots would likely be extended.

'There is no way that more hot spots are not going to be declared, and all of Sydney would definitely be a consideration given what's happening down there,' the source said.

'If the situation continues to deteriorate over the next week, I honestly don't see how we wouldn't look at closing the border entirely.'

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk addressed New South Wales authorities' concerns over the spread of the virus on Wednesday.

'I do have concerns when the NSW Premier says they are on a heightened alert. That means I am on a heightened alert,' she said.

From midnight, police in Victoria will issue on-the-spot $200 fines to anybody in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire who do not wear face masks while out in public.

Residents within the locked down suburbs can only leave home for four reasons - daily exercise, shopping for essential goods, to give or receive care or to travel to work.

Barricades have been installed along some of Coolangatta's streets to help stop people crossing the Queensland-NSW border without going through the appropriate checks

Pictured: A map shows Sydney's coronavirus hotspot sites as the virus spreads throughout NSW

Officers have vowed to 'exercise discretion' for the first seven days of the new health directive, but will not hesitate to dish out fines to people who are purposefully breaking the rules.

The example offered by Victoria Police was that if a person who had a mask in their possession refused to put it on after they were instructed to do so, they could expect a fine.

Similarly, if a person disrespected orders to avoid entering a supermarket due to not having a mask, they could also expect a fine.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is reportedly desperate to reopen his state to avoid economic ruin, but is resolved to only do so when cases dramatically drop.

Senior government figures told The Australian Mr Andrews wanted daily case numbers 'in the single digits' before reopening the economy.

'It all comes down to the data. Every option is open,' a senior government source said.

Almost nine in 10 Victorians who tested positive to COVID-19 between July 7 and July 21 were still leaving their houses after they developed symptoms.

Even after being tested, 54 per cent still left their homes while waiting for their results, Mr Andrews said.

Royal Melbourne Hospital this week received an order of an additional 22 ventilators to add to bolster its intensive care units, which already have 42 beds

Registered nurses wear their personal protective equipment as they test people for COVID-19 in Bondi

Royal Melbourne Hospital this week received an order of an additional 22 ventilators to add to bolster its intensive care units, which already have 42 beds.

Hospitals in the state are preparing for an influx of new cases given hospital admissions appear to be about 10 days behind the diagnoses of new cases.

RMH ICU nurse unit manager Michelle Spence said the new ventilators could be ready for use within 48 hours, and will protect nurses as well as save lives.

'We are ready and within 24 to 48 hours we could have those next 22 beds set up. It gives us the opportunity to start expanding our service and that has been the plan since March,' she said.

'The staff are definitely fatigued a little bit in life,' she said. 'But we are ready for this. We have been training and practising and getting staffing models since March.

Most of the people brought into hospital with severe cases of COVID-19 are the elderly, but an increased amount of young people are catching the disease.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data released on Thursday showed men were more likely to die from the virus than women, and the median age of death is 80.

The institute analysed data from late January to late May, before the large scale outbreak in Victoria.

Australia has reported a record 501 new coronavirus cases today. Above, frontline medical testing staff are seen at a pop-up site at Colac Area Health in Victoria

NSW ACTIVE COVID-19 CASES SYDNEY'S SOUTH WEST Carnes Hill, Cecil Hills: 11 Casula, Chipping Norton: 8 Airds: 5 Balmoral: 5 Fairfield: 4 Cabramatta: 4 Belmore: 4 Bardia: 2 Bossley Park, Prairiewood, Abbotsbury: 3 Revesby: 1 Catherine Fields: 1 Currans Hill, Mount Annan: 1 Smithfield: 1 Glenfield: 1 SYDNEY'S SOUTH Lugarno, Peakhurst, Riverwood: 2 Engadine, Heathcote, Waterfall: 1 Beverley Park: 1 Allawah, Carlton: 1 Caringbah: 2 Grays Point: 1 SYDNEY'S WEST and BLUE MOUNTAINS Katoomba, Leura: 4 Winmalee, Springwood: 1 Constitution Hill: 3 Schofields: 2 Blacktown, Arndell Park: 2 Oatlands, Dundas: 1 Erskine Park: 1 Glenmore Park: 1 Emu Plains, Emu Heights, Jamison: 1 Caddens: 1 SYDNEY'S NORTH Baulkham Hills: 3 Carlingford: 1 NORTHERN NSW Charlestown: 2 SOUTHERN NSW Avondale: 1 Lake Illawarra: 1 Batemans Bay: 4 Lavington: 2 Advertisement

Australians aged 20 to 29 had the highest number of infections, while people aged over 70 had the lowest.

Women aged between 20 to 29 and 60 to 69 were the most likely of females to be infected, while men aged 60 to 79 were the most likely of males.

And while the bulk of the infections were acquired overseas during the period studied, 98.8 per cent of cases diagnosed in the last week have been acquired locally.

Authorities in New South Wales have not yet mandated the use of face masks, but have encouraged people to use them where possible.

Dr Stephen Parnis earlier told A Current Affair the state could be heading in a similar direction to Victoria.

He said the virus could easily spiral out of control in Australia.

'It's always the case that these things could spread,' he said.

'The concern is that NSW could now be where Melbourne was four, five, six weeks ago.'

On Tuesday, 16 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the state.

Pictured: Two women and a child wear a face mask in Burwood, Sydney's inner west on Monday

Pictured: A map showing coronavirus cases recorded since July 1. South-west Sydney has been hit the hardest, with 11 cases in the Liverpool local government area. The postcodes seen in the lightest shade of red have recorded one case in the past three weeks.

One of the cases was linked to hotel quarantine, three to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula and 11 associated with the Thai Rock restaurant in Wetherill Park, taking the total amount of cases related to that cluster to 37.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her state was facing the most 'critical time' since the initial March lockdown in the fight against the virus.

She said it was reassuring there were no new outbreaks of coronavirus popping up across the state but was still concerned about community transmission.

'The next few weeks are the most critical in NSW since the lockdown earlier in March and April,' she said.

'We are not out of the woods yet, quite the opposite... We have some level of anxiety regarding the extent of community transmission.'

The latest opinions from medics come as a terrifying new map shows how the virus has rapidly spread through Sydney after jumping the Victorian border.

Sydney's woes began at the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, in the city's south-west, with 'patient zero' later identified as a Melbourne-based freight company employee who visited on July 3.

New South Wales Health said there are now 50 cases associated with the Crossroads Hotel cluster and 37 linked to the Thai Rock restaurant at Wetherill Park.

A queue of cars is seen at a coronavirus testing clinic in Sydney's Bondi on Wednesday (pictured) as non-residents are urged to stay away from the city

A woman is tested at the pop-up testing clinic at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Harris Park in western Sydney (pictured on Tuesday)

The map shows the Sydney hot spots battling coronavirus infections since July 1.

In the Liverpool local government area, there are 11 active cases in Carnes Hill and Cecil Hills and eight in Casula and Chipping Norton following one positive test result in each area over night.

Another coronavirus case was recorded in Bossley Park, in the Fairfield LGA, bringing the number of active cases in the suburb to three.

The Lower Blue Mountains saw an additional person test positive and the area now has five active coronavirus infections.

Sydney's south recorded another positive case in Caringbah, taking the suburb's active number of cases to two, while another infection was recorded in Grays Point.

There are five active cases in Airds, Ambarvale and Appin in the Campbelltown LGA and five in Bardia, the Liverpool LGA.

Belmore, in Sydney's inner south-west, has four active coronavirus cases.

But there are fears of a potential new COVID-19 cluster in Sydney after a staff member at a Sydney care home tested positive for coronavirus.

NSW recorded 13 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, following an outbreak of COVID-19 cases at the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, the city's south-west

The employee at Ashfield Baptist Homes aged care in Sydney's inner-west dined at the Thai Rock Restaurant in Wetherill Park, which has since been linked to 37 cases.

Other staff and residents at the facility are now in isolation and being tested for the deadly respiratory infection, New South Wales Health said in a statement.

'The risk to other staff and residents is considered to be very low as the staff member wore masks, gloves and gowns when working with residents and did not work while symptomatic,' the statement said.

Ashfield Baptist Homes has since been closed to the public pending test results.

A toddler who is linked to a previously identified case has also tested positive for the deadly respiratory virus.

A text message was sent to parents of little ones enrolled at Good Start in Anna Bay in the Hunter Region on Wednesday informing them that a toddler at the centre had tested positive.

MELBOURNE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAKS 173 cases have been linked to Al-Taqwa College 57 cases have been linked to Somerville Retail Services in Tottenham 36 cases have been linked to JBS in Brooklyn 4 cases have been linked to Nestle Campbellfield 12 cases have been linked to Australian Lamb Company in Colac 5 cases have been linked to Australian Pharmaceutical Industries in Dandenong South 13 cases have been linked to Goodman Fielder Pampas in West Footscray 13 cases have been linked to St Basil's Homes for the Aged in Fawkner 40 cases have been linked to Estia Health in Ardeer 28 cases have been linked to Glendale Aged Care facility in Werribee 18 cases have been linked to the Royal Melbourne Hospital Royal Park campus 20 cases have been linked to LaManna Supermarket in Essendon Fields 14 cases have been linked to Embracia Aged Care Moonee Valley in Avondale Heights 5 cases have been linked to Japara Central Park Aged Care Home in Windsor Advertisement

The facility was then closed for a deep clean.

A Sydney man also infected a friend in his 20s after travelling to visit him in Port Stephens, further accelerating the spread of the virus.

The case prompted authorities to urge Sydneysiders not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

Residents in northern New South Wales and Newcastle were also asked not to travel to Sydney in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.

Public Health Physician Professor David Durrheim said the Sydney outbreaks were 'concerning' and that non-residents should stay away.

There is usually a lot of travel between the two east coast cities, sitting just 170km apart.

'We would strongly advise anybody from the Hunter New England region to rather stay at home than visiting Sydney at this stage unless absolutely necessary.

'This virus, if you give it half a chance, can spread very very rapidly and even from the a-symptomatic,' he said.

Newcastle residents were told by health authorities to rethink their travel plans after NSW recorded 16 new cases on Wednesday (pictured, the health alert)

There are 26 cases linked to the Thai Rock restaurant at Wetherill Park (pictured)
Number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity expected to rise to 3.2 million in Yemens south.

Food shortages will rise sharply in parts of war-torn Yemen in the next six months mainly because of the overall economic decline and the coronavirus pandemic that has ripped through the Arab worlds poorest country, United Nations agencies have warned.

A report by the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Childrens Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organization said the number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity is expected to increase from two million to 3.2 million in the countrys south.

Yemen has been the site of the largest food crisis in the world, mostly because of the war that pits the countrys Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition fighting on the side of the internationally recognised government.

Coronavirus restrictions, economic shocks, conflict, reduced remittances, desert locusts, floods and significant underfunding of this years aid response have compounded an already dire hunger situation after five years of war.

Resurgent violence in recent weeks between warring parties, despite UN peace efforts, is also killing and injuring civilians.





Famine has never been officially declared in Yemen.

Yemen is facing a crisis on multiple fronts, said Laurent Bukera, the WFP director for Yemen. We must act now.

Yemens conflict has killed more than 100,000 people and created the worlds worst humanitarian disaster, with more than three million people internally displaced and two-thirds of the population reliant on food assistance for survival.

Donor countries recently cut back on aid to Yemen amid the coronavirus pandemic and also due to concerns that the aid might not be reaching intended recipients in territories controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

Yemen is again on the brink of a major food security crisis, said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

Some 24 million Yemeni people  80 percent of the countrys population  require some form of assistance or protection, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

And 75 percent of UN programmes for the country, covering essentially every sector, from food to healthcare and nutrition, have already shut their doors or reduced operations.








OTTAWAAs Ottawa considered awarding WE Charity a contract to administer a $912-million student volunteer grant program, no one in the public service or cabinet raised any red flags about potential conflicts of interests or the charitys finances, said Canadas top public servant.

But Liberal cabinet ministers did air concerns about the deal.

Ian Shugart, the clerk of the Privy Council, told MPs on the House of Commons finance committee that multiple cabinet ministers raised questions about WEs capacity to administer the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG).

Ministers themselves at cabinet discussion raised issues about the capacity of WE Charity, about how it would reach out to under-represented students to ensure reach right around the country and various other matters, all of which would be reflected in the contribution agreement (between the government and WE), Shugart said.

Shugarts was a rare  if limited  pulling back of the curtain on cabinet deliberations, which are confidential by long-standing convention. And the clerks testimony showed there were internal questions about the deal well before it turned into a political headache for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the government.

These concerns appear to have extended beyond cabinet to Trudeaus senior staff, including chief of staff Katie Telford.

Shugart said that when briefed on the CSSG program in mid-May, Telford impressed upon public servants that care and due diligence were required in partnering with WE Charity.

The prime ministers chief of staff, given the scale of the program, did make the point  which was accepted by everyone  that due diligence and care needed to be exercised with regard to WE Charity, Shugart told MPs.

The Prime Ministers Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

WE has been under intense public scrutiny since the Star revealed the charity had been selected to run the CSSG on June 25. That scrutiny has extended beyond their relationship with Trudeau and the Liberal government to broader questions about how the international charity  co-founded by brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger  runs its operations, including the Kielburgerss for-profit corporation ME to WE and their significant downtown Toronto real estate holdings.

On Tuesday, WE pushed back against critics who have raised concerns about the relationship between its not-for-profit and for-profit ventures. WE asserted there are clear internal controls that have been approved by auditors to keep the two organizations distinct.

Shugart told MPs that while the public service did its due diligence in engaging WE to run the CSSG, that due diligence would have been limited to WEs capacity to run the program  not the organizations overall financial situation.

In the cabinet discussion, ministers did raise questions of due diligence. So that part of the process was followed, as it would be in any other case, Shugart said.

Shugart committed to provide the finance committee with extensive documentation about how the WE deal came together, including internal communications between the Prime Ministers Office and Privy Council Office, the Department of Finance, and Employment and Social Development Canada  the department that was ultimately responsible for the program.

That documentation will likely be fodder for the ethics commissioners probe into whether Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau were in a conflict of interest when they participated in the cabinet discussion to award WE a service agreement to run the student grant program. Trudeaus mother and brother received $282,000 in speaking fees from WE between 2016 and 2020, while Morneaus daughter is currently employed by the charity.

The committee is scheduled to resume its probe into the WE deal on Wednesday, with testimony from Morneau. Craig and Marc Kielburger are scheduled to appear next Tuesday.
Ensuring a leading position in the exploration and development of the Arctics huge gas deposits has long been a key part of President Vladimir Putins overall vision to project the power of his new Russia. Not only has it allowed Russia to dramatically increase its liquefied natural gas (LNG) output  finally in line with Russias status as an oil and gas superpower, as Putin sees it  but it has also allowed Russia to become the key gas supplier to China in the future. With Russias presence in the Arctic gas sector now extremely substantial, it was only natural to expect a corollary roll-out of development of the oil sector, and this is precisely what is now underway.

Last week saw Russias Gazprom Neft, the countrys third biggest oil company by output and the oil arm of state gas giant Gazprom, ship its first cargo of oil produced in the Arctic to China via the Northern Sea Route (NSR). This shipment East adds to its existing Western exports via the NSR to Europe. According to Gazprom Neft, it took 47 days to deliver a full cargo of 144,000 tonnes of sweet, light Novy Port oil from the Yamal peninsula developments to the Chinese port of Yantai on the Bohai Sea, from Russia's north-western city of Murmansk. Successful experience in the sale of Arctic oil in the European market and an in-depth insight of Asia-Pacific markets allow Gazprom Neft to offer Novy Port oil with a unique year-round logistics scheme to Asian partners, said Gazprom Nefts deputy director general for logistics, processing and sales, Anatoly Cherner, last week.

The NSR saw its first trial voyage (from the Far-Eastern Russian port of Vladivostok via the East Siberian and Laptev Seas, to St Petersburg) by a large-sized and strengthened container ship only as recently as August 2018. Since then, its development as a key transport route for Russian hydrocarbons to the East has run alongside the earlier developments of Russias number two gas producer (after Gazprom), Novatek, in its Yamal-centred LNG projects, that now uses it to deliver cargoes both East and West. After the very slick management at Novatek had delivered each stage of its Yamal Peninsular (Yamal LNG) project on budget and on time - despite the full weight of U.S. sanctions being imposed on Russia in 2014 as a result of its annexation of Crimea  until the delay to the fourth train announced last year, Gazprom and Gazprom Neft were bound to follow. Related: Mexico's Pemex Scrambles To Save Itself From Oil Price Crash

Much more is to come from Gazprom Neft, which started exporting oil produced in Russias Arctic exploration and development region in 2013, and which has delivered at least 40 million tons of oil  including both the ARCO (Prirazlomnoye field) and Novy Port (Novoportovskoye field) blends  to various European countries since then. In broad terms, the Novy Port oil field is one of the largest oil and gas condensate fields in the Russian Arctic, with at least 250 million tons (around 1.8 billion barrels) of reserves. Using a now proven system developed alongside Novatek  including the Prirazlomnaya oil production platform, the Arctic Gates oil terminal in the Gulf of Ob, a reinforced ice-class tanker fleet, including LNG vessels, escort icebreakers and an offshore oil shipment terminal in Murmansk - Gazprom Neft says that it can transport oil year-round (at minimal cost) to Europe.

To the East, there are more natural constraints, as very thick ice makes deliveries outside the summer period extremely difficult for much of the time, and the costs higher than those to Europe. Previously, the Novy Port oil grade shipped last week via the NSR to China - understood by OilPrice.com to have gone to state refiner, the China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina)  had not been exported East by Russia, but rather directed towards Europe, However, the enormous hit to the European refining sector caused demand to drop away, whilst demand in China dipped by a much degree and recovered fully much more quickly. Although Gazprom Neft has historically sent ESPO crude to China via the pipeline, this new capability will be useful to other Russian companies for oil as well, not just Novatek for LNG, a senior oil and gas analyst in Moscow told OilPrice.com last week. Russias number two oil company, Lukoil, also conducted a test crude oil delivery last September, featuring its Varandey blend. This has very similar specifications to the Novy Port blend, with the latter having an API gravity of 35 degrees and a 0.1 per cent sulphur content, whilst Varandey has an API gravity of 35-37 degrees and a sulphur content of around 0.5 per cent.

At the same time as opening up new export routes for its oil, Gazprom Neft is working towards dramatically increasing the oil volumes from the Arctic that it can offer to the East. In 2017, it acquired the development rights to the Tazovskoye and Severo-Samburgskoye fields in the Yamalo-Nenets region, with the subsoil usage rights to the Tazovskoye block running until 2025, and those to the Severo-Samburgskoye block until 2027. The Tazovskoye field is estimated to have recoverable oil reserves of at least 72 million tonnes, condensate reserves of 4.6 million tonnes, and non-associated gas reserves of at elast 183.3 billion cubic metres. The Severo-Samburgksoye blocks estimated oil reserves are even higher, at 90.5 million tonnes. This followed the commissioning only a year before of the huge Novoportskoye oil and gas field (estimated recoverable reserves of more than 250 million tonnes of crude and condensate, as well as more than 320 billion cubic metres of gas) and the Vostochno-Messoyakhskoye oil and gas field (recoverable reserves of more than 470 million tonnes of oil and gas condensate, and 188 billion cubic metres of gas).

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
What inspired you to make this work? Anxiety and uncertainty while being in quarantine as the maelstrom of the coronavirus was taking over. Also, having to contend with a world once known and the expectations attached to it coming to an end. This feeling of being in the midst of history-making all around us and not knowing where everything is heading, like yearning for a place youve never been to  needing to see that in some form, somehow.

Whats the work of art in any medium that changed your life? It depends on the project Im working on. Influences are diverse, they come and go. If Im being honest, anything challenging staid perceptions of the world  or my own ideas  through a visual language that is engaging and questioning you as a viewer always draws me in. Im constantly learning and unlearning ways of application and seeing, encountering new forms, fumbling in my attempts to understand. Regardless of medium, its exciting to come across works of art that can help you expand what is possible.
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Authorities are also pretty sure he killed a fellow activist on the other side of the country earlier this month, but they can't exactly interrogate him because he shot himself not long after he left Judge Esther Salas's house. It's not clear why he did it, other than a terminal cancer diagnosis and a commitment to taking his "enemies" down with him. Judge Salas, who presided over the case of a young woman represented by Den Hollander who wanted to register for selective service, actually allowed the case to go forward and agreed with some of Den Hollander's points, but according to him, she wasn't, "moving the case along fast enough." Let this be a lesson, ladies: You can never please these guys. He mostly attacked her race and gender in his writings, though, so that probably had more to do with it.

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While he was building up all this homicidal rage, the media treated him like a Valentine-delivering clown: definitely not trying to make anyone comfortable but ultimately harmless. After filing a series of lawsuits against various New York City nightclubs arguing that "ladies' night" specials constituted discrimination, he was granted cheeky profiles in The New York Times and The New Yorker and even interviewed by Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central, who has been quick to take down YouTube videos of the segment since the news of the murder broke. These screencaps are pretty much all that's left:

Comedy Central
Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush actor Himanshu Soni has shared the ordeal about how his wife Sheetal was diagnosed with Covid-19 and later declared critical by the doctors in Rishikesh. The actor said he was crying the whole night on hearing about the condition of his wife, who is now recuperating in Delhi.

He told Times of India in an interview, The age I am at it was very difficult to hear from the doctor that she is very critical. Please see what you want to do next. I was not in my senses after hearing that I was unable to think what I should do. But I would like to say, I had started meditating during the lockdown and that helped me a lot. I would say otherwise I wouldnt have been that strong.

He added, I was crying the whole night, but I had to be strong also because I had to make the decision. I think prayers and meditation helped her.

Himanshu said his wife had travelled to Rishikesh for work and got infected but thought it was viral fever. He said, When she first fell ill she got tested and her reports were negative, but after two-three days she tested positive. When she developed symptoms she thought abhi toh test karaya tha... so viral hai... It was COVID. I would like to urge people who are reading this whenever you get symptoms of cold, cough, fever please do not take it lightly and go for a test as COVID-19 rapidly increases in your body every hour.

Also read: Taapsee Pannu shares happy memory from teenage years, says she ended up achieving her only goal in life

Meanwhile, Kasautii Zindagii Kay actor Parth Samthaan is recuperating at his home after testing positive for the novel coronavirus. The actor had started shooting for the show just before the diagnosis. The entire cast and crew of the show got themselves tested but were in the clear.

Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and other three members of the family including Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan and daughter Aaradhya are also undergoing treatment for the virus.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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The audacity they had to take the law into their own hands and tear this down . . . and doing it in the middle of the night is just cowardice, Hollaway said Tuesday. It undermines the First Amendment. It undermines what this country is about. It highlights that theres a minority subset of people who are uncomfortable with whats going on in this country.


T hirteen hostages were freed from a hijacked bus in Ukraine after the president complied with the gunman's bizarre request to promote a vegan documentary.

As directed, Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted a brief video message on his Facebook page to urge Ukrainians to watch Earthlings, a 2005 film narrated by Joker star Joaquin Phoenix.

The act brought an end to a stand-off in the western city of Lutsk, which had gone on for more than 12 hours. Minutes later, the assailant, who was armed and carrying explosives, surrendered to police and authorities said all of the hostages were freed.

The deputy chief of national police, Yevhen Koval, had previously secured the release of three of the hostages, including a pregnant woman.

A suspected hostage-taker lies on the ground after being detained by law enforcement officers in the city of Lutsk / AFP via Getty Images

The officer also narrowly avoided getting shot when delivering water to the bus after the assailant fired towards him.

The stand-off lasted more than 12 hours / Reuters

Speaking to reporters after the drama ended, Ukraines Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the assailant was an unstable man who invented his own world.

Police sealed off the centre of Lutsk, 250 miles west of the capital Kyiv after te bus was hijacked.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted the video on Tuesday / REUTERS

At one point, the assailant threw explosives out of the bus window, but no-one was hurt. He also fired several shots at a police drone.

The man called the police himself at 9.25am local time after taking control of the vehicle and introduced himself as Maksim Plokhoy, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said on Facebook.

Police sealed off the centre of Lutsk / Reuters

According to Mr Gerashchenko, police have identified the man as Maksim Krivosh, a 44-year-old Ukrainian born in Russia.

According to other reports, Krivosh tried to reach out to journalists through hostages and their phones, demanding that they spread the word about his demands and get more reporters to arrive at the scene.
(Bloomberg) -- In the initial list of four sponsors for Ant Groups mega initial public offering in Hong Kong, one banks name was conspicuously missing: Alibabas go-to bank Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse Group AG has been fighting for a major role in the offering and Ant is leaning toward naming them as a joint global coordinator for its Hong Kong listing, which could raise about $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Global coordinators help manage the marketing of a deal and collection of investor orders. Theyre one step down from sponsors, who get top billing in the prospectus and are responsible for liaising with the exchange.

Billionaire Jack Mas Ant, the crown jewel of his Alibaba empire, is pursuing a simultaneous dual-listing in Hong Kong and on the Shanghai stock exchanges STAR board, seeking a valuation north of $200 billion. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. owns a third of Ant.

Ant has picked four sponsors for its Hong Kong share sale, Bloomberg News has reported. The banks include China International Capital Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, people familiar have said.

Credit Suisse advised the Alibaba independent committee when the company bought a 33% stake in Ant, and did not advise on Ants latest fundraising round, while the other four banks did, the people said. That gave them priority in getting a role as an IPO sponsor, they said.

Ant is still finalizing its roster of banks and details of the line-up could change, the people said. More banks could be added at a later stage as banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. aggressively pitch for a role, they said. Representatives for Ant, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the matter.

Credit Suisse rose 1.1% in Zurich on Tuesday, the highest in a week. The benchmark Swiss performance index fell 0.3%.

Credit Suisses absence from the list of sponsors marks a break with history, given that it has been awarded plenty of top-shelf work in the past by Mas empire. The Swiss lender was one of the top underwriters on Alibabas record-breaking $25 billion U.S. IPO in 2014. It and Morgan Stanley were the banks that received the most fees on the offering, Bloomberg News reported at the time. Credit Suisse has also advised Alibaba on at least $14 billion of acquisitions, more than any other bank, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Story continues

The bank is smarting after a tumultuous year. Its work as lead underwriter on the IPO by Luckin Coffee saw it named in a lawsuit after the beverage chain was engulfed in scandal. Credit Suisse later lost its role in Chinese online health-care firm WeDoctors IPO.

Wall Street banks fight aggressively for big name IPOs due to the money and the boost in league table rankings. A deal like Ant could generate tens of millions of dollars in fees, as well as prestige that can influence prospective clients choice of bankers on future transactions.

(Updates with Credit Suisse share price in seventh paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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New Delhi: Union Minister of Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad will address the G20 Digital Minister`s meeting on Wednesday (June 22), where he will be sharing the platform with Chinas Digital minister.

This virtual meeting will bring the digital ministers of both India and China on the same platform first time after India banned 59 mobile apps in June.

Prasad is expected to deliver his address at 5:30 pm. The Digital Economy Ministers meeting will take place as part of the Sherpa Track for the G20 Leaders Summit 2020, which is to be hosted by Saudi Arabia at the end of 2020.

The Ministry of Electronics & IT has tweeted:

This meeting holds special significance at a time when many of the developed countries across the globe are appreciating India's stand to impose ban on these Chinese apps apps and are trying to emulate the same in their countries.

India had on June 29 banned 59 Chinese mobile apps including TikTok, UC Browser and Cam Scanner among others, in a major retaliation against China amid the rising border tension at the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

A statement from the government said that the apps are 'engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state and public order'.

Consultations for the annual G20 meeting are conducted through three tracks -- government discussions take place under the Finance and Sherpa Tracks and civil society organisations participate through engagement groups.

The Saudi Arabian Presidency has selected the theme, "Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century For All". The three key agenda items to be addressed under this theme are: "Empowering People, by creating the conditions in which all people - especially women and youth - can live, work and thrive"; "Safeguarding the Planet, by fostering collective efforts to protect our global commons"; and "Shaping New Frontiers, by adopting long-term and bold strategies to share benefits of innovation and technological advancement."


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Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers speaks at the creation of a new initiative to crack down on Chinese intelligence officials pilfering intellectual property from US corporations through hacking and espionage during a press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Nov. 1, 2018.

A U.S. grand jury has indicted two hackers affiliated with Chinas Ministry of State Security for a 10-year global campaign in which they broke into computer systems of hundreds of companies, and recently targeted firms researching a coronavirus vaccine, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

The 11-count indictment alleges Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, stole terabytes of data over a decade from high technology companies in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

The charges are the latest in a series of Trump administration actions targeting China, ranging from sanctions over Chinas imposition of harsh security laws in Hong Kong and over human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang to public denunciations of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The pair from Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the Guangdong State Security Department (GSSD), also allegedly targeted non-governmental organizations, dissidents, clergy, and democratic and human rights activists in the United States, Hong Kong and China, said the grand jury in Spokane, Washington.

China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being on call to work for the benefit of the state, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers.

Hackers like Li and Dong work to feed the Chinese Communist partys insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research, Demers added as he announced the charges.

Todays indictment demonstrates the serious consequences the Chinese MSS and its proxies will face if they continue to deploy malicious cyber tactics to either steal what they cannot create or silence what they do not want to hear, said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich.

The FBI and our international partners will not stand idly by to this threat, and we are committed to holding the Chinese government accountable, he added.

Li and Dong cast their net widely to allegedly steal data from high-tech manufacturing, industrial engineering, solar energy, pharmaceuticals and defense. Recently, they probed computer networks of companies developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments, the indictment said.

U.S. Attorney William D. Hyslop for the Eastern District of Washington, said the hacking was first detected at the Department of Energys Hanford Site in eastern Washington.

The hackers operated from China both for their own gain and with the assistance and for the benefit of the Chinese governments Ministry of State Security, he said.

Michael McCaul, lead Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, hailed the indictments as a powerful message to those who are intent on exploiting this pandemic: We will identify you and we will prosecute you.

The CCP has been hacking U.S. companies and the U.S. government for years in what FBI Director Wray has called one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history. Today, we made it clear these actions will not be tolerated, said McCaul.

The two hackers, who are not in U.S. custody, were charged with computer fraud, conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, unauthorized access of a computer, and aggravated identity theft. The offenses carry penalties from two years to 20 years in prison.
RCMP officers maintain a roadblock as they search for a suspect after a Bridgewater Police Service officer was stabbed as he responded to a domestic violence complaint at The Bridgewater Hotel in Bridgewater, N.S. on Tuesday, July 21, 2020. The search continues today around the Bridgewater, N.S., area for the man suspected of domestic assault, stabbing a police officer in the neck and later injuring a police dog.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
A white musician in the UK who performs as "DJ Joey Negro" has decided to drop the name, reports the BBC.

In truth I've not felt comfortable with the name Joey Negro for a while, especially as I've got older. I've stopped using it a few times but establishing a new name as an artist isn't easy and I've ended up going back to it. I understand now though that it's not appropriate for me to carry on using the name. I've recently received emails, tweets etc saying that it is unacceptable and people find it out of place in 2020  and I agree. From now on I'm dropping Joey Negro as a pseudonym, and all those future releases that weren't already in production will carry the name Dave Lee.

I'm sorry to have caused any offence. My whole life has been about music but particularly black music, I love soul, funk, disco, jazz in a way that's impossible for me to articulate in words and I have tried to champion it with the best intentions. Please be aware the changes are not instant everywhere, Best Dave Lee

Game over for blackface and the like, as put out there by clued-in but boneheaded white entertainers who thought they were being ironic, respectful or clever.

Photo: YouTube
Graduates are being offered a place on a 'skills academy' in Derry.

Economy Minister Diane Dodds has launched the FinTrU North West Assured Skills Academy which offers 20 training places for people with degrees.

The Assured Skills Academy will offer a four-week online training course to develop core skills for the business services sector.

Participants who complete the training are guaranteed an interview for a role at FinTrUs NW Centre of Excellence.

Minister Dodds said FinTrU is a successful business services provider and a major employer in the north west.

This Assured Skills Academy offers people with degrees the opportunity to position themselves strongly for a career in what is an exciting and fast-paced sector.

I encourage anyone who meets the eligibility criteria, and who is interested, to apply.

Skills development has a key role to play in the economic recovery. I am keen to bring forward as many initiatives in this sector as possible to offer training opportunities to people to help boost their career chances.

Assured Skills Academies have a track record of success in securing employment for those who complete them and my officials are continuing to work hard to bring through more Academies in the near future.

Greg McCann, Executive Director and Head of FinTrU North West, said: Whether you have recently graduated or wish to change career to an exciting industry, the FinTrU North West Financial Services Academy is a brilliant opportunity.

FinTrU has experienced significant growth in recent months and has no plans to slow down.

Since March we have delivered multiple virtual Financial Services Academies to train employees to join FinTrU.

Successful applicants will work alongside some of the worlds largest investment banks from right here in the north west.

We are looking for those who are ambitious and want to perform on the global investment banking stage to apply for this opportunity with FinTrU.

The online training course will be delivered by North West Regional College and Ulster University.

Sinead Hawkins, Business Skills Manager at North West Regional College, said: We are delighted to continue working with FinTrU to deliver the new online academy model.

These academies are supporting the financial services industry and are providing quality job opportunities. At this time of economic downturn these academies provide hope and career direction for many individuals.

Michael Pogue, Senior Lecturer in Financial Services at Ulster University Business School, said: Ulster University, alongside partners FinTrU, the Department for the Economy and North West Regional College, have worked together to combine further education and industry expertise to create more opportunities for graduates in the north west and a vital skills pipeline to support the growing fintech industry in Northern Ireland.

There is an extremely high level of talent in the area and the Assured Skills Academy has been formulated to ensure by the end of the course, participants will be newly equipped with industry-relevant skills and the knowledge to help them secure employment amid the current economic climate.

Applications for the FinTrU North West Assured Skills Academy are open until August 21.

No experience is required but applicants must hold a 2:2 degree or better in any discipline.

For more information, go to the NI Direct website.
Our elders become our ancestors to remind us to be free. When Toni Morrison passed, it was this thought that brought me comfort. When the Rev. C.T. Vivian and Congressman John Lewis passed on the same day, it was this thought that fired me up.

I am blessed to be one of the thousands of activists who decide daily to get in Mr. Lewis favorite form of trouble: the good kind. We are strong in number. We fight the varied manifestations of oppression every day across the globe. We press for Green New Deals and for America to make good on its original ideals. We radically reimagine public safety and public health to prioritize care over punishment and fund wellness instead of violence. We protect the waters at Standing Rock and in Flint. We fight detention at Rikers and at the border. We take on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. We say Black Lives Matter because we mean itand we are unashamed to remind you that we mean all Black lives, the cis and trans ones, the disabled and abled ones, the women, the men, the gender-nonconforming and everyone who doesnt belong to a binary.

No matter the work we do, all of us are clear: we stand on the precipice of transformation now because people like John Lewis tilled the soil. Though this transformation may seem sudden to those who are not ardent students of Black history, the seedlings of freedom have been planted over generations. Any change is the direct result of persistent freedom work and hands that never left the plow.

Among the greatest to farm the lands of liberation, John Lewis sits high in the American canon of heroes because his blood and tears watered the ground on which we now stand. There is no greater love than this: to risk laying down your life for your friends. Biblically, there is no act more moral. Politically, some activists may not have agreed with every vote or choice Mr. Lewis, the Congressman, made. But ultimately, the sum of his life is greater and grander than most humans could even imagine. Not a single solitary soul with any semblance of historical or moral understanding could ever deny how indebted our country is for his sacrifice. It is a debt that can never be fully paid.

Story continues

And yet, as heroic as John Lewis proportions in life, which have only increased in death, he was our family. Despite his long and consequential life, a point of celebration which inspires deep gratitude, our grief is magnified because we lost someone who felt both immortal and intimate; someone far and someone so close.

Rep. John Lewis leads a march through the streets of Atlanta on March 24, 2018, amid nationwide rallies against gun violence. | Steve SchaeferAtlanta Journal-Constitution/AP

It occurred to me, on the day of his passing, that at least half of my social-media acquaintances had met and taken a photo with John Lewis. At a book signing. A congressional event. A march or a meeting. Our heroes are rarely this accessible, but John Lewis was. Perhaps it was his deep rootedness in a Christian faith that champions humility in service of Gods will.

Mr. Lewis and I spoke several timesmany of us organizers and activists considered his presence a gift of mentorship, whether we shared space one time or a hundred. The particular connective tissue, for me, was his faith. He often said that he once thought hed be a preacher, and would preach to the chickens on farmland in Alabama in his formative years. At one time, I, too, thought this would be my path, but in him I saw someone who instead chose the ministry of social change.

Spreading the gospel of justice is an often demoralizing feat, and yet his hope remained consistent and his determination fierce into his elder years. I once asked him about this, and his response was candid but clear-eyed. You will have setbacks, he told me just a month before the 2016 presidential electionperhaps this was a warningbut be consistent. You will get there.

Any observation of John Lewis life, from his early years to his many terms in Congress, communicates a simple truth: courage is a discipline. In order for courage to change the course of history, as Mr. Lewis did, it cannot be episodicit must be unwavering. We should count ourselves blessed to have witnessed a case study in the continual practice of the discipline of courage from a master teacher in our lifetimes.

Our elders become our ancestors to remind us to be free. So what kind of ancestors will we be? Daily, the sum of our future ancestry is being totaled. Will we choose mere words? Or, as Lewis compatriot and fellow hero the Rev. C.T. Vivian reminds us, will it be in the action that we find out who we are?

At bottom, those who herald John Lewis life but insult his sacrifice must be compelled to transform their practices. Political forces like the GOP, including its leaders in Lewis home state of Georgia, must be forced to part with their persistent practices of voter suppressionracist tactics John Lewis was clear to call out in life. He bled for the franchise: it is impossible to honor him and dishonor the vote. Its past time we get in good trouble and get in the way enough to stand between the arm of suppression and Black bodies at the ballot box.

What kind of ancestors will we be? Prayerfully, ones that ancestors like John Lewis will welcome through the gates with open arms and beaming smiles of pride. Thats precisely how I imagine Martin Luther King Jr. welcomed John Lewis home.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. See you on the other side. We hope to make you proud.

Buy a print of TIMEs commemorative John Lewis cover.
100 Years of Service at Indiana Wesleyan University

Humble beginnings.

Thats where we started 100 years ago, when we were known as Marion College.

For an entire century, Indiana Wesleyan University has been committed to serving all kinds of people through education. Originally, our founders needed an institution that would train and develop great ministry leaders, but they quickly realized ministry could happen in any context, even careers in the marketplace. So they resolved to keep Christ at the centereven in training teachers and social workers and musiciansand strive to create the best academic institution possible.

The university was challenged from the start. After opening its doors in 1920, the Great Depression began a few years later, followed by war. Finances and resources were limited. Faculty, staff, and students stayed afloat with creative solutions and held tightly to prayer. Many Christian institutions at the time were in danger of being lost in the struggle of the conflict.

But we would rise out of hard times.

In the years that followed, the university survived and even thrived, resulting in a generous family of supporters fiercely loyal to the institution. The local community also rallied around the school it was so proud to call its own.

The impact of IWU, even in early days, was evident. In fact, nearly half of the teachers in the local school system were graduates of Marion College in 1949. Our academic programs have certainly diversified, with more than 150 degree programs available today. Teacher education has been offered since 1920, alongside theological training, both of which are now part of a long list of programs that include business, health sciences, social work, criminal justice and more.

We also changed the way we offer education when we realized there were working adults who needed higher education but couldnt complete their degrees in the traditional, residential format.

In 1985, this led to brave new things. We changed our name to Indiana Wesleyan University and launched an adult education program that today serves over 8,000 students around the world through online and distance education programs. That kind of innovation in education has been part of our DNA since IWUNational & Global launched over 30 years ago.

What does 100 years mean to us?

In 100 years, Indiana Wesleyan University has reached some major milestones:

Regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission since 1966

Largest member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU)

14 regional education centers across Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio

Largest private university in Indiana

250 students in 1920 trusted us with their education. We are now a growing family of over 90,000 graduates who represent more than 300 countries.

See why so many people have trusted us with their education, their careers, and their future plans. Visit iwueducation.com to explore academic programs and start planning your future with us at IWU.
Mary Trump, the niece of Donald Trump, said it was "impossible" for her to fear compassion for her uncle at this stage of his presidency.

Ms Trump is the author of "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," a book about the Trump family and Mr Trump's upbringing.

In an interview with The Guardian, Ms Trump is asked whether she loves her uncle, the president.

"No I don't," she said. "I used to feel compassion for him. I really did. But that became impossible when I started learning about things that he had done and seeing what he's been doing since 20 January, 2017."

Ms Trump's book is largely about how the president, from his childhood, was encouraged to be a cheater and a liar. Mr Trump's father, Fred Trump, is portrayed as the patriarchal villain of the family, arranging his children at dinner by order of personal importance and treating laughter as a sign of weakness.

Though she paints Mr Trump as something of a victim of his father, she said the president deserves no sympathy for his upbringing.

"I completely understand having sympathy and empathy for the child who did suffer mightily but it's not an excuse for his behaviour," she said. "He's an adult human being who knows the difference between right and wrong, even though he doesn't think the rules apply to him. He knows what he's doing and one of the reasons we're in this position is because he's never been held accountable for anything. So his transgressions become more egregious over time and he needs to be held to account."

Ms Trump has actively worked against Mr Trump and other members of her family. She helped the New York Times in a 2017 investigation that dug into the methods Mr Trump and his siblings used to dodge millions of dollars in taxes.

In 2016, Ms Trump voted for Hillary Clinton for president and she said she will support former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 US election.

"I will do whatever I can to help him get elected," Ms Trump said.

She said that Mr Trump's re-election would be "the end of the American experiment" and that people continuing to support her uncle for another four years is "unthinkable."
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Therma Bright Inc. (TSXV: THRM) ("Therma" or the "Company"), a progressive medical device technology company, is pleased to announce that further to its news release of July 20, 2020, it has received interest above the previously announced private placement of up to 13,333,334 units at a price of $0.075 per Unit for gross proceeds of up to $1,000,000. Accordingly, the Company intends to increase the amount to be raised under its non-brokered private placement offering to $1,250,000 (up to 16,666,667 Units), subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. Each Unit will be comprised of one common share of the Company and one-half (0.5) of one common share purchase warrant, and each whole warrant will be exercisable for one additional common share of the Company at a price of $0.15 for a period of 6 months from the closing date of the private placement. All other terms of the offering remain as set out in the Company's July 20, 2020 news release.

Further to the Company's news release of July 20, 2020, the Company has also negotiated an additional $90,000 in debt settlements with arm's length creditors. Consequently, the Company has now settled aggregate debt of $370,000 outstanding as at June 30, 2020, in consideration for which it will issue an aggregate of 4,625,000 common shares at a deemed price of $0.08 per share, subject to approval from the TSX Venture Exchange. All other terms of the Company's debt settlement transactions remain as set out in the Company's July 20, 2020 news release.

About Therma Bright Inc.

Therma Bright is a progressive medical device technology company focused on providing consumers and medical professionals with quality medical devices that address their medical and healthcare needs. The Company's initial breakthrough proprietary technology delivers effective, non-invasive and pain-free skincare. Therma Bright received a Class II medical device status from the FDA for its platform technology that is indicated for the relief of the pain, itch, and inflammation of a variety of insect bites or stings. The Company received clearance for the above claims from the US FDA in 1997.

Therma Bright Inc. trades on the TSXV (TSXV: THRM). For more information visit:

www.thermabright.com and www.coldsores.com.

For further information, please contact:

Therma Bright

Rob Fia, CEO

rfia@thermabright.com

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking" statements. These statements relate to future events such as a private placement financing, as described in the news release. All such statements involve substantial known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results to vary from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, they should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and they will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions on the date of this news release, the Company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities regulations.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons (as defined in the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration is available.

Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60256
LORAIN, Ohio  Police are searching for an autistic boy who was last seen earlier today riding his bicycle.

Aiden Jenkins Brown, 11, has brown hair, blue eyes, and is about 5-foot-2 and 100 pounds, according to police. He reportedly left his home at about 6:15 p.m., riding an all-chrome mountain bike and wearing black Champion sweat pants. No description was provided for his shirt.

Anyone with information can contact police at 440-204-2100.

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One person has been arrested and another accused is on the run from the Pune rural police after cannabis worth Rs 86 lakh was found at a residence in Kamshet.

Dhanaji Vitthal Jite (48), a resident of Taje, Maval, Pune, has been arrested, while Santosh Ramchandra Walunj, a resident of Pawana nagar road, Kamshet, Maval, is absconding.

This is one of the biggest seizures by Pune rural police in the past three years. The arrested man is a wholesaler and a kingpin. His arrest will help track down various others smugglers in the district. The dog squad was instrumental in sniffing out the drugs. I congratulate the dog squad and I declare Rs 10,000 reward for the squad, said Sandeep Patil, superintendent of Pune rural police, while addressing the local media about the raid.

The police received information that a large quantity of cannabis was being stored at a house in Pavana chowk, Kamshet.

The information was received by assistant superintendent of police Navneet Kanwat, sub-divisional police officer at the Lonavala division of Pune rural police.

The drugs were found stashed under the floor surface in the living room of the house. The seized drugs weighed 578.500kg, according to police.

The raid was conducted jointly by the local crime branch as well as officials of Kamshet police station.

A case in the matter was registered at Kamshet police station under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
U.S. Democrats Demand FBI Briefing On Foreign Election Interference

By RFE/RL July 21, 2020

Top Democrats in the U.S. Congress have demanded an urgent intelligence briefing over what they say is a concerted foreign campaign to spread disinformation to interfere in the November 3 election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York), and two other Democrats made the demand in a letter to the FBI released on July 20.

"We are gravely concerned...that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign-interference campaign, which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election," they said.

The letter cited serious and specific threats to the upcoming presidential and congressional elections and said due to the nature of the threats, the FBI should conduct a classified briefing to all members of Congress by the end of July.

The FBI acknowledged that it had received the letter but had no other comment.

The nature of the disinformation campaign was not made clear and the letter did not attribute the alleged interference campaign to a country.

Intelligence officials already have warned about disinformation campaigns over social media operated by Iran, China, and Russia.

Following the 2016 election U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials determined that Russia interfered by mounting a computer-hacking and social-media-manipulation campaign with the goal of boosting Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

U.S. officials have also said there were multiple foreign hacker efforts to penetrate voting systems in the 2018 congressional elections in what appeared to be a test run for 2020.

In February, an FBI official said Russia was again interfering, seeking to exacerbate divisions and sow distrust in the U.S. election system.

Earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that China was pushing its preferences in the 2020 race in a constant effort to influence the American public.

"It's not an election-specific threat; it's really more of an all-year, all-the-time threat," Wray said. "But certainly that has implications for elections and they certainly have preferences that go along with that."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, vowed in a statement that if any foreign power interfered in the election, he would as president "not hesitate to respond as president to impose substantial and lasting costs."

With reporting by AP and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us- democrats-demand-fbi-briefing-on-foreign- election-interference/30738774.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Harness horseman Scott Robbins sure figured out a way to surprise Standardbred industry followers last month.

Racetrack officials, horsepeople, handicappers -- heck, virtually everybody -- had to do a double take when the name 'Scott Robbins' appeared on the list of reinsmen set to drive during Hawthorne Race Course's June 1 qualifying session.

After having not raced since September of 1999, Robbins was in the bike for three drives during the June 1 session. He was back in the sulky for another three qualifying dashes a few days later (June 3) at the Illinois track.

On June 7 at the Chicagoland raceway, the 55-year-old pilot tasted victory in his pari-mutuel return. Robbins had four drives that night at Hawthorne, the first of which came aboard Louis Paisano. The duo was sent off as the public's second choice in the tilt, made the lead early, and then engineered a pocket ride through the middle half of the race. Robbins called on his charge in the final quarter, and the pair shot out to a three-length lead before cruising under the wire first in two minutes flat.

A handful of days later, a mention of Robbins' return was noted in a press release from the track -- an excerpt of which appears below.

The third driving story of the night came in Race 5. Race 5 was won by the talented trotter Lous Paisano in 2:00. Guiding Lous Paisano to the win was driver Scott Robbins. With over 1,000 lifetime victories and nearly $4 million in earnings, the name Scott Robbins was only familiar to those who followed Illinois harness racing in the '80s and '90s. Prior to Sundays win, Robbins' last pari-mutuel victory had come on September 18, 1998 at Maywood Park. Robbins will be seen much more in the coming weeks as he continues to pick up drives.

To this point in the COVID-19-affected season, Robbins has been in the stirrups for 30 pari-mutuel drives. He has notched a pair of victories and three third-place efforts -- not bad for a guy whose colours had been relegated to storage in a basement container for two full decades.

As Robbins recently explained to Kevin Hieronymus of Illinois' Bureau County Republican, he checked out some state fair racing last year, which renewed his interest in being at the controls of a thousand-pound athlete. Robbins threw some gas on that spark when he then attended the Night of Champions at Hawthorne later in 2019.

Fast forward a few months, and Robbins was unearthing his driving suit from its dormant state. Maybe the Good Lord knew more than I did, is why I kept them," Robbins explained to Hieronymus. "Its sort of neat, because I never even thought about going back until last year.

Robbins added, I said by next year when they open up in March, if I get back in shape and get a little more fit and I could fit back in my driving colours that I wore 20 years ago, I would give it a whirl.

And whirling he is.

Robbins explained how he had to get back in shape in order to make his return. Trimming down and cutting weight is no type of fun -- just ask, well, every single person that has ever attempted it. I had to lose some weight, eat healthier and stay more active," said Robbins, who added, "Anybody whos lost weight knows its not easy."

No matter how adept someone is at a craft, when a 21-year break is taken, there will anxiousness upon a return. Just ask Robbins.

First drive back, I was not crazy nervous, but nervous," Robbins stated, understandably. "It was my first drive in 21 years and the horse (Lous Paisano) won. It was pretty neat."

Robbins has stated that his return is no joke. He wants to steer horses, tally wins, and make it all worthwhile for his connections. I want to have success like I did the first time around, he said.

To read the Bureau County Republican article in its entirety, click here.

(With files from the Bureau County Republican)
Cameron Whitten knows firsthand about the lack of resources and structural support for Black Portlanders. Whitten, now 29, was homeless in Portland as a young adult and had to rely on community and hard work to get out of it.

With a May 31 Facebook post amid a global outcry in response to the police killing of George Floyd, Whitten started a local movement to address systemic racism and disenfranchisement.

The Black Resilience Fund has now raised more than $1.15 million and distributed more than $374,000 to more than 1,000 Black Portlanders, typically in $300 increments. Because of the money, people have been able to pay bills, feed their families and pay their rent.

At this point, requests for assistance have outpaced the donations and growth of volunteers in the fund. The hashtag, #WeDoHeal, has become the rallying cry often accompanying posts on social media.

Whitten, a graduate student at Willamette University in business administration, saw a hole in the support for Black Portlanders as they healed from seeing yet another Black person killed by police in the United States. Whitten is no stranger to activism or the terrors of police violence, having traveled in a caravan with other Black Portlanders to Ferguson, Missouri, after the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014.

Whitten was also an activist with Occupy Portland, a former executive director of the Q Center in Portland and the founder of Brown Hope, a nonprofit that focuses on racial justice. Whitten uses all gender pronouns.

Whitten said they were flooded with messages from white friends and neighbors checking in on them after the news  and footage  of Floyds death began to circulate widely across the internet.

I was not in need of immediate support, but I knew a lot of Black people that did, Whitten said. I saw this as an opportunity to take care of some of my Black friends and I went on Facebook and wrote a very quick post.

The emotional post focused on a need for healing and action. Whitten offered to assist Black people with groceries and bills and asked non-Black followers to donate. Whitten said they would donate $5 to the Portland NAACP for every person they were able to help meet a need.

What ensued was Whitten sitting at their kitchen table for 11 hours fielding requests for assistance, taking in donations and helping Black Portlanders pay their bills. Whitten raised $11,000 that day, and was able to disburse $8,500 to people who asked for help. It became clear to Whitten that there was an opportunity to make a lasting impact  and they needed some help to make it happen.

The next day, June 1, Whitten teamed up with Salome Chimuku, to formally launch the Black Resilience Fund in the form of a crowdfunding campaign. Chimuku had worked in the past with state legislators, the Urban League of Portland and Unite Oregon, among other organizations. The Black Resilience Fund is in the process of becoming a recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit under Brown Hope.

Salome Chimuku and Cameron Whitten founded Black Resilience Fund, a local movement to address systemic racism and disenfranchisement. The fund has now raised more than $1.15 million and distributed more than $374,000 to more than 1,000 Black Portlanders. Because of the money, people have been able to pay bills, feed their families and pay their rent. "We're not just providing financial relief," Whitten said. "We are actually saying that Black lives matter, and their needs better, too." Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian

The fund had raised $55,000 by the end of the day June 1, beating the initial goal by $40,000.

Within one week, the fund brought in $316,000 and connected Black Portlanders with community members who could help with anything from lawn work, to picking up prescriptions, to making house repairs. People who identify as Black, African American or African and live in the Portland area can all apply online for funding.

As the fund grew past $1 million, so did the public profile.

Within five weeks, leaders of the group, including Whitten and Chimuku, were meeting with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden to discuss success stories of the fund and express much work still needs to be done.

To receive a grant, people apply online before doing a 15-minute interview with a volunteer. The review process can now take four weeks or more because of the backlog that volunteers face. After applicants are approved, they receive money in two to three days.

The organization has made transparency a priority by providing regular updates on its website, as well as various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The funds website is updated regularly with a list of the types of requests that are fulfilled and how much money goes toward those requests.

Were not just providing financial relief, Whitten said. We are actually saying that Black lives matter, and their needs matter, too.

What the Black Resilience Fund represents to those involved is more than an emergency source for funds or an outlet for mutual aid, Whitten said. It serves as a mechanism to build community in a city where Black Portlanders have been repeatedly displaced for decades by gentrification.

Whitten was quick to say the achievements of the fund couldnt have been accomplished by just one person, nor can the future goals of the organization. Whitten has been working with Chimuku to ensure the organization becomes sustainable and eventually can cover some pay to people who have donated so much of their time.

More than 12,000 donors have given to the fund, and hundreds of volunteers have flocked to the organization.

Bonnie Johnson in the backyard of her home in Northeast Portland on July 16, 2020. Johnson is a volunteer with Black Resilience Fund and her connection to it began in mid-June when she applied for money to repair a broken shower in her house. Johnson spent nearly three decades working in social services. "I've been here my whole life," Johnson said. "I'm now 62, and I think this is one of the biggest projects that I've seen that has helped the Black community." Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian

Bonnie Johnson of Portland is one of those volunteers. Johnsons connection to the fund began in mid-June when she applied for money to repair a broken shower in her house. Within a few days, a check was being dropped off at her house. The following day, she contacted the fund about volunteering.

Johnson has long been involved in community causes in Portland, having gained the nickname The Pancake Lady, for her frequent appearances at the senior pancake breakfast sponsored by former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith.

Johnson spent nearly three decades working in social services. In all her years, Johnson has never seen anything like the Black Resilience Fund.

Ive been here my whole life, Johnson said. Im now 62, and I think this is one of the biggest projects that Ive seen that has helped the Black community.

Johnson and Whitten said an important element of the fund is that it is operated by Black Portlanders, for Black Portlanders. All too often, Whitten said, the needs of Black people are left to be addressed by the decisions of white people. There is a fundamental difference when everyone an applicant interacts with is Black.

The group places an emphasis on challenging the stigma of needing help, combating shame and challenging the isolation created by systemic racism.

Johnson, a certified drug and alcohol counselor, said the lack of red tape, paperwork and bureaucratic labyrinths has allowed people who want to give help, and people who need to receive help, to quickly act.

As volunteers work through a backlog of applications numbering in the thousands, Johnson said what the fund has already accomplished is remarkable.

This is more than just helping, Johnson said. This is like a movement to me.

Johnson delivers checks to recipients because she enjoys interacting with the public so much, but she said there is room for everyone to get involved and put their skills to work.

Ezell Watson at his home in Northeast Portland on July 16, 2020. Watson, a community engagement specialist for Portland Public Schools, and now a volunteer with Black Resilience Fund, needed help when his father had a stroke in June and applied for money from the fund to cover his car insurance to get home to Alabama. "A weight had been lifted," Watson said. "I felt content and like I had found my inner strength."Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian

Ezell Watson, a community engagement specialist for Portland Public Schools, needed help when his family was stricken by tragedy in June. Watsons father, who lives in Atlanta, had a stroke.

Watson couldnt fly to Atlanta because of the risk of contracting the coronavirus and the concerns for his fathers health, so he decided to drive. But covering the cost of the trip was difficult. Watson had experienced a loss of wages because of a furlough at Portland Public Schools and needed some assistance. He applied for money to cover his car insurance.

Whitten reached out to Watson personally to check on him and let him know Watsons request would be granted. The generosity and timeliness of the assistance had a profound impact on Watson.

A weight had been lifted, Watson said. I felt content and like I had found my inner strength.

Watson, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, began volunteering with the Black Resilience Fund after he returned to Portland. Watson does intake and interviews for applicants. His past experience as a school social worker has helped him to assist applicants with things such as unemployment applications, an example of the flexibility the fund has offered both volunteers and applicants.

He described his experience with the fund as transformative.

Every experience Ive had with the Black Resilience Fund has enhanced my life, Watson said.

Note: This story has been updated to clarify a quote from Cameron Whitten due to a transcription error. Whitten said their needs matter, too.

 K. Rambo

krambo@oregonian.com

@k_rambo_

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By Amanda Fries | Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  Void of the chants from advocates and the buzz of an active Capitol, state lawmakers  many meeting through online platforms  this week began voting on a flurry of legislation ranging from sustaining school aid during the coronavirus pandemic to streamlining the voter registration process and removing provisions that have long led to absentee ballots being cast aside.

There is even a bill under consideration that would ban pet stores from selling animals bred in so-called puppy mills. Another would ban toy guns that look like real weapons.

The Legislature, operating in a Capitol that remains off-limits to the public, including to lobbyists and protesters, has met sparsely since the passage of the state budget in April. But they have missed the equivalent of roughly 12 days of their session, including passing bills addressing pressing concerns brought by the coronavirus pandemic and more criminal justice reforms  the latest round in response to nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism.

The rare mid-summer session has policymakers back in Albany  many virtually  to finish their work after a statewide pause order called for New Yorkers to limit contact and work from home.

One of the measures that is under consideration would end longstanding technical provisions of state Election Law that frequently result in absentee ballots being voided because they were improperly postmarked or because someone left an errant pen mark.

"We've also seen instances where many absentee ballots have been discarded for technicalities," Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the Senate's Committee on Elections, said during a committee meeting discussing voter access bills. "It is our hope with this bill it cures any deficiencies ... and makes sure the fundamental right to vote is not taken away."

Legislators also are expected to vote on bills that would create an automatic voter registration system and expand absentee ballot access; invalidate agreements exempting employers from liability for negligence related to Covid-19; protect contact-tracing information of people tracked for exposure to the virus; punish real estate brokers and salespeople for discriminatory housing practices, and study broadband access throughout New York, particularly upstate.

More nuanced legislation also is being debated that legislators may seek to block, Assemblyman John McDonald, D-Cohoes, said. For the Capital Region, that includes a bill that would expand Secretary of State services in New York City, allowing people to file lawsuits against a corporation Downstate. The service, also known as the service of process, is currently only done in Albany.

If you want to file, you have to come to Albany to file, McDonald said. It would have a negative impact on small businesses here in the Capital Region. The reality is its part of our economy.

Legislators may also seek to undo extraordinary liability and negligence protections for nursing homes and other health care facilities that were tucked quietly in the state budget three months ago as the coronavirus pandemic began to explode in New York. An amendment proposed would limit that immunity only to health care professionals who are providing diagnosis and treatment to people afflicted with Covid-19.

Another bill would void agreements exempting employers from liability for negligence related to Covid-19, aiming to ensure employers will still take the necessary steps to protect employees from the virus.

Most of the legislation passed by the houses on Tuesday addressed outstanding bills not tackled earlier in the year, including a ban on the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores and prohibiting evictions of tenants who use medical marijuana for a certified use.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The press has rarely been under attack as it is today. Hong Kongs new national security legislation has chilled reporting in a territory that was long a beacon of free speech. Russias harassment of current and former journalists has this month alone included detentions, searches and a conviction. Meanwhile, in the U.S., where press freedoms are guaranteed by the constitution, President Donald Trump regularly refers to critical media as enemies of the people.

This is bad news for investors as well as journalists. Fund managers need cheap, unfettered access to information to thrive in the long term. Yet big money rarely wades in to defend free media.

Consider how dark the picture has become over the past decade. At the end of 2019, there were 248 journalists in jail, not far off double the number a decade earlier.

Far more pervasive are everyday pressures: the squeeze on media owners, the rise of state-owned, government-friendly outlets and efforts to silence opposition voices with laws intended to protect official secrets, or to prevent the spread of fake news. Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary used the coronavirus emergency to tighten already extensive controls. I have written before on the Philippines, where the countrys largest media company, often accused by President Rodrigo Duterte of bias, was denied an extension of its broadcast franchise earlier this month. In Malaysia, an election win for the opposition in 2018 was supposed to herald a new era of freedoms, yet the editor of the countrys best-known online outlet faces a potential jail term in a contempt case related to reader comments.

Financial troubles arent helping. Research published by the Pew Research Center in April showed newsroom employment at U.S. newspapers halved between 2008 and 2019. Overall journalist numbers dropped by nearly a quarter. And thats hardly improved during the pandemic, when the BBC, Britains Guardian, Australias ABC and many others have shed employees.

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As with climate, or broader environmental, social and governance concerns, there's a clear moral case for investors to take an interest, and avoid the sovereign bonds of countries with poor records on free speech, or shares in state-owned entities. After all, many already shun weapon manufacturers, tobacco or gambling stocks.

Self-interest speaks even louder. At a basic level, press freedom is positively correlated with good levels of development. Research carried out by Sciences Po in Paris and published by Unesco in 2008 established that link. It did find outliers with high gross domestic product per capita and limited media liberties  Singapore, for one  but no country had a free press and low wealth.

Theres more. Unrestrained reporting dramatically reduces the price of information, leveling the playing field for investors. More questions are asked and more corruption is uncovered. In repressive systems, its not only about those who are hounded, but about others who become silent. U.S. energy giant Enron couldnt stop the 2001 Fortune article that began its unraveling, any more than German payments processor Wirecard AG was able to silence questions on its accounts.

Without that persistent interrogation, risks rise and so does the cost of borrowing. A study by the University of Notre Dame and the University of Illinois at Chicago, tracking counties where the number of newspapers dropped to two or less between 1996 and 2015, found bond yields rose as much as 11 basis points.

Finally, there is practical evidence that media coverage makes it more likely bad corporate decisions will be reversed. Not only do board members have more cover to question decisions, but regulators are pressed to act. A 2008 study on media and corporate governance in Russia observed that a single additional article in the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal increased the probability of reversing a corporate governance violation by five percentage points. And the effect is present both in countries with bad courts, and in countries with good ones, where the press amplifies existing mechanisms to effect change.

Divesting from problematic spots isnt always realistic, given how widespread limitations are: For almost 90% of the world's population, the media is partially or fully restricted. It's also harder to build a global consensus than, say, over environmental causes. Engagement can be difficult. That doesnt mean it is impossible, or that it isnt worth trying, given the outsize benefits for investors, companies and wider society.

In some democracies, like the U.S., there is room to speak out more forcefully. In countries with significant refinancing needs, buyers of stocks and sovereign bonds have clout, as seen over the issue of Amazon deforestation.

In others, like China, it will be harder. Dictating to sovereign governments is unpalatable for either funds or companies investing directly, but both can argue that certain policies, like restricting the press, impede their ability to work and to continue to invest. That is certainly true in Hong Kong, as in the Philippines, Malaysia and Russia. Investors can even press behind closed doors. But they can ill-afford to remain silent, while also eagerly flying the flag for diversity and ESG.

For years, fund managers, investment banks and large corporates have defended their work in some of the worlds least liberal countries, say Saudi Arabia, by arguing that the direction of travel indicates progress. That wont work with press freedom, where the only movement in recent years appears to be in reverse.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Clara Ferreira Marques is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities and environmental, social and governance issues. Previously, she was an associate editor for Reuters Breakingviews, and editor and correspondent for Reuters in Singapore, India, the U.K., Italy and Russia.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

On 22 July, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a phone call to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres first expressed his concern over the military stand-off at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and expressed his regret over human casualties. The UN Secretary-General also noted that the status quo in the negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could not last forever and called for an end to hostilities and a continuation of negotiations.

President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude to the UN Secretary-General for his phone call and personal attention to the events at the border. The head of state said that the Armenian side had fired not only on Azerbaijani military but also targeted Azerbaijani villages, killing a 76-year-old civilian along with the Azerbaijani servicemen. As a result of an adequate response of the Azerbaijani army, the Armenian attack was stopped and the situation is now relatively stable. President Ilham Aliyev stressed that the clashes took place far from the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts, adding that Azerbaijan has no military goals in the territory of Armenia. We simply have to protect and are protecting our territories and people.

The head of state agreed with the UN Secretary-General that the status quo could not last forever and noted that Azerbaijan had always demonstrated a constructive position at the negotiating table. However, the Armenian prime ministers statements that "Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia" and that "Azerbaijan should negotiate with Nagorno-Karabakh, not Armenia" seriously jeopardize the negotiations.

The head of state reiterated that Armenia has been flouting UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan for nearly 30 years. President Ilham Aliyev once again thanked the UN Secretary-General for the phone call and attention to the events at the border.
Sending a strong message against social ostracism of front-line Covid-19 workers, the West Bengal government arrested 12 persons in separate incidents since Sunday.

On Sunday, eight persons, including a government official and his school teacher wife, were held for allegedly harassing a block development officer at Arambagh in Hooghly district.

Seven of the them were sent to judicial custody for a week by the court on Monday, while a woman, suffering from a heart ailment, was granted bail.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, the police arrested five persons from southwest Kolkata, for allegedly heckling a government doctor, Saikat Basu, and his brother, Sudipta Basu, on Tuesday. A section of the neighbours had asked Saikat to stay indoors or stay away from the locality. When he was going for duty on Tuesday, a few neighbours heckled him and his brother, when he intervened.

This is probably the first time that so many people have been arrested for ostracization, said a senior police officer, who did not wish to be named.

This comes after the Global Advisory Body, headed by Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, had urged the West Bengal government to act against persons for ostracizing workers and family members of Covid-19 patients.
A monument to the victims of abortion inscribed with a verse from Isias knocked over in a village in Sullivan County, New York. A crucifix smashed with a hammer in Rockford. A statue of the Virgin Mary beheaded in Gary. Another statue of her, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, desecrated with garbage; yet one more in the same city burned after plastic flowers in the hands of the Blessed Mother were set aflame. Satanic symbols and obscene messages scrawled on the doors of a parish in New Haven. More statues of Christ and Our Mother toppled, decapitated, or otherwise besmirched in Florida, Tennessee, New York, and Colorado. Representations of St. Junipero Serra tumbling down across the state that would not have existed without his glorious apostolate. The cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Nantes burning, with arson suspected. Priests attacked as far afield as Fargo and Washington, D.C. A vehicle driven into a church in Florida by a masked lunatic who filled the narthex with gasoline, igniting a blaze with parishioners inside.

Most of these are headlines from the past week; all date from no later than a month ago. They do not represent an exhaustive list, nor are they meant to do so. I am ashamed to say that it was not until very recently that I saw any of this for what it so obviously was. When words that cannot even be printed in this space were scrawled on the exterior of St. Patrick's in Manhattan, I thought the incident, while regrettable in itself, at least harkened back to an earlier age when cathedrals were the natural repositories for inchoate social energy  the Florence of Savonarola, say.

It was always wishful thinking, but the more realistic assertion that such vandalism was evidence not of hatred but of indifference, of churches being (reasonably or otherwise) indistinguishable from post offices or courthouses as generic symbols of authority was briefly a source of comfort. This, alas, was also untenable. Catholic buildings are being burned and our sacred images destroyed for the not very complicated reason that we are increasingly the objects of suspicion and loathing in the United States and Western Europe, just as we have long been in the Middle East and parts of East and Southeast Asia.

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This has nothing to do with any protest movement, worthy or otherwise. It is about one thing: hatred of the Church, Her sacraments, Her immutable teachings, Her glorious saints, Her bishops and priests and religious brothers and sisters, and the faithful themselves. Why such a painfully obvious conclusion has not been more widely drawn, much less broadcast and made the object of public regret, seems to me not especially mysterious. The unmistakable corollary is that it is because such hatred is considered eminently reasonable in polite society, a piece of received wisdom comparable to finding cigarettes distasteful.

In this country it is now considered unremarkable for a senator to declare belief in Catholic "dogma" an immovable obstacle to participation in our civic and political life, for membership in anodyne charitable organizations such as the Knights of Columbus to be considered tantamount to belonging to the Ku Klux Klan (which had its own problems with us). Revealing among other things risible ignorance of the almost impossibly rich diversity of images of Christ and His Mother, activists who call for the destruction of millions of pieces of religious art find their views presented as a meaningful contribution to discussions about race relations. Worse still, there is even a kind of self-loathing Catholic who has more contempt for the pious sensibilities of his brethren than for the iconoclastic rage of those who despise the faith, and heaps scorn on anyone who expresses outrage about any of this.

How should Catholics respond to the unmistakable realities of the present? By quietly acknowledging that there is nothing especially new about our current situation, that the era in which Catholics hold a majority of seats on the Supreme Court may well prove a brief interval between the old Know-Nothing era persecution of Catholics of the 19th century and something perhaps even more terrifying that is to come. The United States is not a Catholic country, nor has she ever been one; the very watchwords of her founding were understood by the men who uttered them as talismans against the Romish menace of priestcraft. This is why I do not even remotely hope for deliverance from anti-Catholic violence at the hands of the public authority, why it seems to me likely that when crimes even more hideous than those enumerated above become commonplace they will be reported (if at all) as mere "local crime stories."

Should this be the occasion for despair? Hardly. Nor should it lead us to retreat from political life. If anything, in an age in which the norms of liberal discourse no longer obtain, we should take heart in our ability to speak truth unburdened by the fetters of compromise with an establishment that rejected us long ago, does so now, and will do so in the future.

Here my mind turns to the words of the late Cardinal George, who told a group of reporters in 2010 that while he expected to die comfortably in his bed, "my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square." It may well be that another generation or two will pass before this grim prophecy is fulfilled, if indeed it ever is.

What is often omitted from this popular quotation is what the cardinal said next, about the successor of the martyred bishop: "His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history."

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NEW DELHI and BENGALURU, India, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Intellicus Technologies, a leading provider of business intelligence and analytics solutions, and Modus Information Systems, a pioneer in IT services to banks, have come together to launch a powerful banking analytics solution.

The solution branded as ModusBI, is built on Intellicus business intelligence platform. A ready fit for banks, the solution plugs into the core banking system to deliver interactive dashboards with relevant KRAs, self-serve reports, statutory reports and enables banks to take informed decisions.

"ModusBI comes with preloaded dashboards, KRAs, and reports that are extremely relevant to banks. We have designed the solution in such a way that different user profiles in a bank can get access to insights as per their roles. Report templates have been created in sync with the hierarchy followed in the banks and can be made available on multiple devices," said, Chandar Raman, Director, Business Development at Modus.

"With Modus' deep expertise in implementing mission critical core banking solutions in India and globally, ModusBI will deliver great business value to banks by leveraging their core banking investments," he added.

"Intellicus is partnering with Modus to deliver an unparalleled BI solution for the BFSI sector. Bankers will be able to analyze their data from multiple systems, at any size with high speed and precision. Compliance reports will be fully automated, freeing up precious time of the staff. Premium BI features like self-service, trending and predictions, what-if analytics will be democratized to a wider range of users who need them round the clock," said Rajesh Murthy, Vice President, at Intellicus.

ModusBI is in final stages of discussions and implementation plans with some of the leading banks in multiple countries.

About Modus

Modus Information Systems Pvt. Ltd. (Modus) is a software development and services company based out of Bangalore, India. Modus is a Value Partner for a leading Core Banking Solution offering end-to-end Implementation, customization, support, maintenance and testing services. Modus is engaged with multiple marquee banking clients as their technology partner for core banking services and niche solutions, globally.

https://modussystems.com/

About Intellicus

Intellicus is one of the world's leading Business Intelligence and Analytics platforms. More than 60% of Fortune companies are using Intellicus to build powerful reports and dashboards with ease. With over 17,000 installations worldwide, we are assisting organizations to make better informed decisions.

www.intellicus.com

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have had "candid" talks as tensions mounted between China and the Western allies.

The meeting followed a British government U-turn on Chinese tech giant Huawei's involvement in 5G networks, a move welcomed by Washington, and after Monday's suspension of the extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to Beijing's national security law. China has warned Britain will "bear the consequences" of its actions.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in London said in a statement that Beijing had expressed its concerns over the UK interfering in Hong Kong matters "which are internal affairs of China".

Downing Street said that Mr Johnson and Mr Pompeo, along with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, discussed "shared global security and foreign policy issues, including China's actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang" where there are concerns about the abuse of the Uighur Muslims.

They also discussed the importance of the Five Eyes alliance, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, taking an "ambitious approach to working together on the technologies of the future", something apparently aimed at ending the reliance on Chinese technology from firms such as Huawei. Downing Street said they also discussed a possible US-UK trade deal.

Mr Pompeo said that it was a "constructive" visit and "our two countries' long-standing, strong bilateral relationship has laid the foundation for the candid discussion on issues ranging from 5G telecommunication to our negotiations for a US-UK free trade agreement".

Downing Street rejected China's condemnation of the UK's actions over the extradition treaty and the extension of an arms embargo to cover Hong Kong.

It was a "reasonable and proportionate response to China's failure to live up to its international obligations with respect to Hong Kong", the prime minister's official spokesman said.

The UK has accused China of breaking the terms of an international treaty by imposing the national security law, which the government believes undermines some of the autonomy Hong Kong has previously enjoyed.

But Beijing has reacted furiously to the UK's actions over both Hong Kong and Huawei.

"The UK will bear the consequences if it insists on going down the wrong road," said a spokesman for the Chinese embassy.
2020-07-21 19:03:00

Russia's First Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov was led to say the first domestic inoculation of the country's COVID-19 vaccine developed with the Defense Ministry is ready for use after completing the Phase 2 trials. In an interview to the newspaper, Argumenty i Fakty, published on Tuesday, Tsalikov said a second group of volunteers, who had finished their Phase 2 trials on Monday, developed immunity from the novel coronavirus and felt fine. In regard to when the Phase 3 large-scale trial would begin or its production, he did not comment.

In a request for a comment, there was no immediate response from the Defense Ministry. The Interfax news service cited the Health Ministry's response to the statement saying tests are still ongoing for the vaccine. Sergei Netesova, former executive at the state-run virology center in Novosibirsk, Vector, said, "The third phase has not started yet, or even been announced. The reason theyre in such a rush is completely incomprehensible." It is to be noted that the virology center is also working with the team on an inoculation.

It has been reported that the state-run Gamaleya Institute in Moscow and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) are collaborating with the army in developing a COVID-19 vaccine. The Phase 3 trials, which are scheduled to start on August 3, will involve thousands of people in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. RDIF's head Kirill Dmitriev, in a statement last week said, the distribution for the coronavirus vaccine could happen around September.

According to reports, around 30 million COVID-19 vaccine doses could be made by Russia domestically in 2020, while 170 million can be produced abroad. Dmitriev has said five countries have shown interest in the vaccine's production while a few others have also come forward to show their willingness to produce it.

Currently, the fourth-worst affected nation in the world due to coronavirus, Russia has sped up its testing process including funding for the production of the vaccine even before it is known to give satisfactory results. The decision has been taken in view of the pandemic, which has left thousands dead worldwide including creating havoc economically. It is to be noted that the process of Phase 3 trials usually takes months in developed economies so as to better understand the efficacy of a drug.
A German man accused of killing two people in one of the worst acts of anti-Semitic violence in post-war Germany sought to lay out his racist world view at the opening of his trial on Tuesday, prompting stern warnings from the judge. Stephan Balliet, 28, stands accused of shooting dead two people last October after he tried and failed to storm a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle last year. He has been charged with two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder in a case that has deeply rattled the country and fuelled alarm about rising right-wing extremism and anti-Jewish violence, 75 years after the end of the Nazi era. Addressing the court, Balliet claimed he had "decided in 2015 not to do anything more for this society which has replaced me with Muslims and negroes", in reference to the year when hundreds of thousands asylum seekers, many fleeing war in Syria and Iraq, were given refuge in Germany. Judge Ursula Mertens repeatedly called him to order, warning that he could be thrown out of the hearing. "I have the possibility to exclude you from the proceedings. I will not tolerate you committing crimes and insulting people in this courtroom." Undeterred, Balliet sought to put forward his racist ideas, claiming he had "no problems with religions but with Semitism". In response to calls for the trial not to become a platform for the accused to spout his hatred, a spokesman for the Magdeburg district court said "at no time can one think that the court shared the view of the accused". Dressed in black, Balliet was brought handcuffed into the courtroom by three armed guards. He looked directly at the waiting cameras as he removed the face mask he was wearing because of the coronavirus pandemic. Prosecutors say Balliet used explosives and firearms to try to gain access to the synagogue, where 52 worshippers were celebrating Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. After failing to break through the synagogue's locked wooden door, he shot dead a female passer-by and a man in a nearby kebab shop. Balliet apologised for killing both German nationals, saying he had only shot dead the man because he thought he was Muslim. He filmed the assault and livestreamed it on the internet. Balliet told the court he had been inspired by a gunman's 2019 attack on Christchurch mosques in New Zealand, which killed 51 Muslim worshippers. - 'Comprehensive confession' - Ahead of the trial, prosecutors said Balliet had made a "very comprehensive" confession, confirming "far-right and anti-Semitic motives". Balliet also published documents online that called for the killing of all Jews. His video of the attack will be shown in court. Balliet faces an additional charge of incitement to hatred for denying the Holocaust in the footage. Mark Lupschitz, the lawyer representing nine worshippers at the synagogue at the time of the attack, said his clients "want answers and want to look him in the eyes to let him know that they have no understanding for what he did." According to a report in the Spiegel magazine, a psychologist assessment deemed him to be aware of his actions and not exempt from criminal responsibility. If convicted, Balliet could face life in prison. - Life-saving door - The synagogue's heavy wooden door still bears the bullet holes from the assault and will soon be removed and used for a communal art project. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in his Christmas speech last December that it was "a miracle" the door had resisted the attack, saving dozens of lives. "It also symbolises what we stand for. Are we strong and resistant? Do we stand by each other enough?" he asked. The Halle attack came three months after the murder of local pro-migrant politician Walter Luebcke in the western city of Kassel, allegedly by a known neo-Nazi. In February this year, a gunman with apparent far-right beliefs killed nine people at a shisha bar and a cafe in the city of Hanau, near Frankfurt. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has since declared far-right extremism the "biggest security threat facing Germany", promising a beefed-up security response. Balliet was brought handcuffed into the courtroom by armed guards Balliet has been charged with two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder The synagogue in Halle which Stephan Balliet is accused of trying to storm with firearms and explosives during a Yom Kippur ceremony.
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An elderly Australian dubbed the 'Miracle Man' after surviving coronavirus despite coming close to dying has made a desperate plea to Australians.

Brisbane grandfather Graham Brasch, 77, was on multiple occasions told by doctors he was on death's door as he battled COVID-19 for four months.

Since recovering, Mr Brasch has issued a serious message to people flouting social distancing advice and lockdown restrictions.

Brisbane grandfather Graham Brasch, 77, (pictured) has a message for those not taking COVID-19 guidelines seriously after he survived five near death moments while battling the virus

'They have no idea of eventual pain thats inflicted on these families. I ask you to be a little more respectful of humanity and goodwill towards, particularly, those nurses and doctors,' he said.

The Queensland man fell ill after returning from New York in March, having taken his wife Glenda overseas for their 50th wedding anniversary.

He was rushed to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in an ambulance and told Seven News the last thing he remembered was seeing the emergency sign.

The grandfather had contracted coronavirus and fell into unconsciousness in the intensive care unit.

Mr Brasch (pictured leaving the hospital) battled coronavirus for four months and said people needed to be aware of the pain the virus is causing among the wider community

'It attacked every organ in my body, I was on dialysis for three weeks, my kidneys are a bit sick, my heart is still not good,' he said.

His lungs presented the biggest problem and he needed help breathing for five weeks.

On five separate occasions, Mr Brasch almost died in the hospital.

His wife Glenda said it was touch and go for a while and she feared she was going to lose her husband.

She praised the doctors and nurses at the hospital for helping nurse her husband back from the brink of death.

After making an amazing recovery, hospital staff gave Mr Brasch a nickname.

'They call me the "miracle man" and all this bullsh*t,' he joked.
Earliest humans stayed at the Americas 'oldest hotel' in Mexican cave

A cave in a remote part of Mexico was visited by humans around 30,000 years ago - 15,000 years earlier than people were previously thought to have reached the Americas.

Painstaking excavations of Chiquihuite Cave, located in a mountainous area in northern Mexico controlled by drugs cartels, uncovered nearly 2000 stone tools from a small section of the high-altitude cave.

Archaeological analysis of the tools and DNA analysis of the sediment in the cave uncovered a new story of the colonisation of the Americas which now traces evidence of the first Americans back to 25,000-30,000 years ago.

The results, which have been published in Nature today (July 22 2020), challenge the commonly held theory that the Clovis people were the first human inhabitants of the Americas 15,000 years ago.

DNA scientist Professor Eske Willerslev, of St John's College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen, led the study with archaeologist Dr Ciprian Ardelean, of the University of Zacatecas in Mexico.

Professor Willerslev said: "For decades people have passionately debated when the first humans entered the Americas. Chiquihuite Cave will create a lot more debate as it is the first site that dates the arrival of people to the continent to around 30,000 years ago - 15,000 years earlier than previously thought. These early visitors didn't occupy the cave continuously, we think people spent part of the year there using it as a winter or summer shelter, or as a base to hunt during migration. This could be the Americas oldest ever hotel."

The 10-year long research project raises more questions about the early humans who lived in the Americas than it solves.

Dr Ardelean said: "We don't know who they were, where they came from or where they went. They are a complete enigma. We falsely assume that the indigenous populations in the Americas today are direct descendants from the earliest Americans, but now we do not think that is the case.

"By the time the famous Clovis population entered America, the very early Americans had disappeared thousands of years before. There could have been many failed colonisations that were lost in time and did not leave genetic traces in the population today."

Chiquihuite Cave is a high-altitude site, 2750 metres above sea level. Nearly 2000 stone tools and small tool fragments, known as flakes, were discovered. DNA analysis of the plant and animal remains from the sediment packed around the tools in the cave dates the tools and the human occupation of the site to 25,000-30,000 years ago. Human DNA was not found which adds weight to the theory that the early people didn't stay for long in the cave.

Dr Mikkel Winther Pedersen, a geneticist from the University of Copenhagen and one of the first authors of the paper, said: "We identified DNA from a wide range of animals including black bears, rodents, bats, voles and even kangaroo rats. We think these early people would probably have come back for a few months a year to exploit reoccurring natural resources available to them and then move on. Probably when herds of large mammals would have been in the area and who had little experience with humans so they would have been easy prey. The location of Chiquihuite Cave definitely rewrites what has conventionally been taught in history and archaeology and shows that we need to rethink where we look for sites of the earliest people in Americas."

The Chiquihuite Cave site is very difficult to reach and would have been a good vantage point for the early people to defend themselves from as they could look out for miles over the valley without being seen. It is in an area of Mexico that is now controlled by drugs cartels. The academics were escorted by armed police to the base of the mountain before they made their way up to the cave on foot.

Dr Pedersen said: "It was an unforgettable experience. It is a very unsafe place to travel so we were accompanied by Mexican police officers in armoured cars to the foot of the mountain. We left before sunrise to climb up to the cave so that we weren't spotted."

The visiting DNA scientists slept in the cave during their research visit and over the past 10 years Dr Ardelean has spent a number of months living in the cave to carry out the painstaking excavations.

Dr Ardelean added: "The peopling of the Americas is the last holy grail in modern archaeology. Unconventional sites need to be taken seriously and we need to go out and intentionally look for them. This site doesn't solve anything, it just shows that these early sites exist. We are dealing with a handful of humans from thousands of years ago so we cannot expect the signals to be very clear. We have literally dug deeper than anyone has done in the past."

The earliest human DNA from the Americas currently remains at 12,400 years ago, Dr Ardelean explained: "We have shown the previously long held date of human presence is not the oldest date for populating the Americas, it is the explosion date of populating the Americas."

Professor Willerslev concluded: "I will never forget being part of this research, it was an unbelievable experience. The implications of these findings are as important, if not more important, than the finding itself. This is only the start of the next chapter in the hotly debated early peopling of the Americas."

###

Images available: https:/ / drive. google. com/ drive/ folders/ 1GHq0W_1Rsl1Vb_uotXjkwWwTjYBxoz7a?usp= sharing

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
IRVINE, Calif., July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vemanti Group, Inc. (OTC PINK:VMNT) a multi-asset technology-driven company, today announced that its portfolio company, Fvndit, Inc. (Fvndit), has disbursed a record of over $15M USD in loans to SMEs in Vietnam through its P2P lending marketplace, eLoan JSC (eLoan).



eLoans total revenues for FY2019 increased by 338% compared to FY2018. Despite the global uncertainties around COVID-19, it is still projected to exceed last years performance. Most of the loans are short-term loans, averaging a two-month term. The average ticket size of the loans facilitated stands at $50,000 USD. Small to Medium-Size Enterprises (SMEs) play a major role in Vietnam's economy, accounting for 98% of all enterprises, more than 41% of GDP ($261.64 billion - nominal, 2019 est.), and over 50% of employment. Access to credit is the biggest challenge for these businesses. It is estimated that 70% of the SMEs in Vietnam dont have access to proper financing. Banks regard loans to SMEs as risky relative to high transaction costs and approval process could take 1-2 months. Most banks dont find enough value in underwriting loans for SMEs, often because their typical loan size is not very large, and banks cannot justify the money or the manpower they spend on underwriting smaller business loans. Banks providing commercial loans prefer to allocate their resources to larger firms rather than SMEs.

We measure our success not just on numbers but also the impact were creating. Helping SMEs grow is important for Vietnams continued rise as a regional economic driver. Our retention rate is over 70%. There is a huge unmet credit demand that we want to fill. Were currently working on closing a sizable financing transaction with institutional investors to increase our loan portfolio and diversification of products to strengthen eLoans position as the market-leading P2P SME financing platform in Vietnam. Were also confident in expanded future growth with strategic partnerships currently in the works as well as the ones we already have in place like Nam A Bank and Investree. stated Tan Tran, CEO of Vemanti Group, who is also Fvndits CEO.

Story continues

Fintech today is a much sought-after space in Vietnams emerging economy and with a $23B-financing gap for SMEs in the country, a joint report released by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and SME Finance Forum estimated. eLoans P2P lending platform addresses the long-standing issue of lack of SME financing by using technology to streamline the loan underwriting procedures, making it relatively cost-effective and efficient with end to end processing completed in as little as 24 hours. With a population of close to 100M and a consistent growth in the annual gross domestic product (GDP), Vietnam has emerged as one of the next big lands of opportunity in Southeast Asia.

The current macro environment has brought economic challenges globally. However, it has also created a myriad of opportunities for P2P platforms like eLoan. P2P lending has started to come to fruition during the crisis, not just by surviving but by playing a role in the economic recovery. P2P has outpaced traditional bank savings, making alternative lending one of the more attractive products on the market for yield-seeking investors. As part of an effort to further enhance user experience, eLoan is looking to deploy a mobile app in the near future, available for both iOS and Android, to match their website capabilities in terms of account management for individual investors. With it, users will be able to set their own investment rules and have a customized portfolio by manually participating in individual loans or setting up an automated fixed-income strategy.

For more news and updates, current shareholders and prospective investors of VMNT can follow @Vemanti on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/Vemanti ).

About Vemanti Group, Inc.

Vemanti Group, Inc. (OTC PINK:VMNT) is a technology-driven multi-asset company that seeks to be active in high-growth and emerging markets. Our core strengths are in technology development and investment. We drive growth through acquisition and investment in disruptive and foundational technologies by targeting early-stage companies that have market viable products or by starting a new subsidiary of our own. Strategically, we focus mainly on fintech applications combined with other emerging technologies, including blockchain and machine learning/AI.

About Fvndit, Inc.

Fvndit, Inc. ("Fvndit), pronounced like "Fund it, is a California- and Vietnam-based fintech company, focused on solving the working capital problem for SMEs using technology. The team is comprised of engineers, designers, data scientists, trade finance and banking veterans across 2 locations: Irvine, CA and HCMC, Vietnam. Its using technology to re-build core parts of the business funding infrastructure and make the underwriting and financing seamless for small businesses. Its wholly-owned subsidiary, eLoan, JSC ("eLoan), operates an online P2P funding and investing marketplace in Vietnam, its current local market.

About eLoan, JSC.

eLoan, JSC ("eLoan) ( https://eloan.vn ) is a peer-to-peer (P2P) lendingmarketplace that allows investors to lend money directly to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. eLoan is the first peer-to-peer lending company and one of the few fintech firms in Vietnam focusing purely on serving SME clients with short-term loans. Its platform is run on a proprietary AI-driven decision-making and credit-rating system. The company is a legal entity registered under the laws of Vietnam and is not affiliated with E-LOAN, Inc. and http://eloan.com, a Division of Banco Popular de Puerto Rico.



Legal Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27a of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and section 21e of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those statements include the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management team. Forward-looking statements are projections of events, revenues, income, future economics, research, development, reformulation, product performance or management's plans and objectives for future operations. Some or all of the events or results anticipated by these forward-looking statements may not occur. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Accomplishing the strategy described herein is significantly dependent upon numerous factors, many that are not in management's control.

Contact Information

Vemanti Group, Inc.

Investor Relations

(800) 768-1288

ir@vemanti.com




(Natural News) A shocking video making the rounds in Mexican traditional and social media appears to show a column of very well-armed cartel troops driving what appears to be up-armored vehicles.

The video, which surfaced last week, showed scores of gunmen dressed in military garb pledging support for Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (El Menccho), the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, according to Mexican outlet El Universal.

According to the newspaper, however, ranking government officials are downplaying the very impressive display of firepower (according to Google Translate):

Given this, the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection of the Government of Mexico, Alfonso Durazo, expressed via Twitter that the material is being analyzed, although he anticipates that it is an evident assembly.

The propaganda video attributed to a criminal gang is being analyzed in order to confirm its eventual authenticity and temporality, he wrote on Twitter, according to the translation.

Regardless of this, we state that there is no criminal group with the capacity to successfully challenge the federal security forces, much less from that evident assembly, he added.

The report adds that the date and time of the video, as well as the location of the convoy  which appears to be driving mostly American-made trucks and SUVs  inside Mexico. (Related: FBI probing armed far-Left Antifa plot to disrupt U.S.-Mexico border in attempt to spark anti-government rebellion.)

One of El Universals reporters, Gabriel Guerra, commented that the video is truly worrying. Though the authenticity of the group and its true identity remains a mystery at present, he wrote on Twitter, according to a translation, that it speaks of an armed capacity comparable to or greater than that of many guerrilla groups.

Everyone will read different things, what I see is an enemy of the Mexican State and of all of us, Guerra added.

Este video es verdaderamente preocupante. Si bien hay que establecer su autenticidad, habla de una capacidad armada comparable o superior a la de muchos grupos guerrilleros.

Cada quien leera distintas cosas, yo lo que veo es a un enemigo del Estado mexicano y de todos nosotros. https://t.co/UZ2ukgeyVj  Gabriel Guerra C (@gabrielguerrac) July 18, 2020

Security experts that the paper spoke to also downplayed the column, noting that it consists of around 25 vehicles with roughly 100 accompanying men, which is fairly common for cartel forces.

Remember that there has been a record of convoys of up to 60 vehicles and groups of 100 or 150 hitmen. And some places where these phenomena have been replicated, such as in Villa Union, in Coahuila, said Alejandro Hope, according to a translation.

Hope also said that some of the heavier weapons, such as Barrett .50 caliber turret guns, have also been seen in the possession of the cartels.

That may be, but in the video, some of the weapons in the turrets appear to be belt-fed, indicating automatic fire and that they are military-grade.

Nevertheless, Hope called for caution and to not let the video be successfully utilized propaganda.

Who knows where the convoy was moved from, perhaps it was only for propaganda purposes, he said.

It is not the largest criminal group we have seen. The Zetas were more intimidating, he added, in reference to a separate cartel.

Without question though, the cartels have proven to be more than a handful for the Mexican military in the past. In fact, when Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office as Mexicos president in December 2018, he promised to end the use of the military against the cartels because doing so over the previous decade had proven to be fruitless.

If Mexican cartel firepower wasnt so heavy or so sophisticated, it seems like the Mexican military would have been able to handle them. But that wasnt the case.

In any event, the Trump administration is taking the threat seriously.

In April, the president announced enhanced counter-narcotics operations throughout the Western Hemisphere that included the use of additional military assets.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper noted that Trump directed enhanced counter-narcotics operations in the eastern pacific ocean and the Caribbean Sea as part of the administrations all-of-government approach to combatting the flow of illicit drugs into the United States and protecting the American people from their scourge.

Sources include:

Townhall.com

ElUniversal.com

NaturalNews.com
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi visited the town of Tarmiyah, near the Iraqi capital, on July 20 after a sniper killed the commanding general in the area three days before.

Sunni-majority Tarmiyah has long been seen as an insurgent-prone area and lies roughly 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Baghdad, between two main arteries: The road to Kirkuk lies just east of it and the road to Tikrit to the west.

Kadhimis visit seems to have been intended to dispel rumors of sectarian plans by Shiite armed groups to take over or retaliate against the Sunni town, as well as to foster a greater sense of security in a country struggling under the weight of security, public health and economic issues.

Tarmiyah is surrounded by groves of trees, dense vegetation and farmland. It has in previous years been used by insurgent groups as a recruitment center and a foothold close to the capital in which to hide both men and weapons.

Kadhimi, who has been commander-in-chief of the armed forces since he was sworn in as prime minister on May 7 and head of national intelligence since 2016, walked through the crowded streets and called the people of Tarmiyah our people. He noted while meeting with security chiefs in the town that efforts were underway to revive the sectarianism that had plagued the country in previous years and that his government would address the issue.

Just over two weeks before he was killed on July 17, Gen. Ali Hamid Ghaidan al-Khazraji had taken part in a military operation in Tarmiyah to clear it of Islamic State remnants.

Khazraji, commander of the 6th Infantry Divisions 59th Brigade, was in a large convoy of armored vehicles when he was targeted by a sniper, a local resident told Al-Monitor in a July 19 WhatsApp exchange.

IS claimed responsibility for his killing.

The Tarmiyah resident  who this journalist had previously met with in Baghdad  said, There are concerns some of the men protecting the general had been compromised, and asked, How else could the sniper have known exactly which vehicle he was in?

The source went on to say that he would be killed if you use my name because there are IS sleeper cells in my area, close to where the general was killed, but also noted that Khazraji had prevented an unnamed armed group from firing rockets at the Taji base about two months ago.

He noted that Khazraji had been very popular but that after that incident he had heard that militias operating in the area wanted to get rid of him.

The source claimed that these armed groups wanted to enter Tarmiyah and cut down the orchards, destruction he said would lead to the displacement of inhabitants. He noted that there is a large contingent of various forces surrounding the city now, frightening residents.

A different security source from Tarmiyah had told this reporter in early 2019 that a previous commanding officer had been under investigation for being in indirect contact with IS through local Tarmiyah residents from the Mashhadani tribe and that the security situation had improved significantly after the commander was replaced.

Sheikh Saeed Jassim al-Mashhadani, who this journalist interviewed in December 2018 at his Tarmiyah home, told Al-Monitor in a WhatsApp message on July 19 that everyone in the area loved Gen. Khazraji and that despite this attack, security in the area is good.

The sheikh is the former head of the Arab Awakening in northern Baghdad. Three of his sons were killed in attacks by or fighting against al-Qaeda and IS. He was in one of the photos with Kadhimi during the prime minister's visit and is generally seen as one of the more powerful dignitaries in the town.

Several security incidents in and near the capital have raised concern in recent weeks.

The July 6 assassination of Iraqi counterterrorism and security expert Hisham al-Hashimi in Baghdad by as yet unknown perpetrators  though many believe the Iran-linked armed group Kataib Hezbollah may have been behind it  and continued rocket attacks on the Green Zone by anti-US armed groups mean there are several sources of potential unrest and violence.

Hashimi had spoken out against Iran-linked armed groups in the country in the months prior to being killed but had long been known mostly as the go-to expert on jihadists in Iraq.

In a 2018 interview, Hashimi told Al-Monitor that Tarmiyah was the center of Salafi recruiting in the Baghdad area.

Hashimi also said that IS had continued to profit from fish ponds in the Tarmiyah area, among other sources of funding for the group, after Iraq officially declared victory against the transnational terrorist organization in December 2017.

Several top-level al-Qaeda and IS leaders are originally from Tarmiyah or the surrounding area and many are from its largest tribe, the Mashhadani. Khalid al-Mashhadani, for example, was the highest-ranking member of al-Qaeda in Iraq when he was arrested in 2007. He is from the Hurriya area in northern Baghdad along the road toward Tarmiyah.

Camp Taji, which in recent months has come under repeated attack from armed groups unhappy with the presence of the US-led international coalition in the country, is also between Baghdad and Tarmiyah.

A May 26 Danish unclassified situational and threat assessment cited Shiite militias as a political and military threat and noted that the Taji base in northern Baghdad is particularly vulnerable to attacks.

The United Kingdom announced July 16 that British troops had pulled out of the base. The NATO-led training mission, which will be led by Denmark starting in December, is for the moment set to continue at the base. The plan may change if the attacks continue, however.

The area north of Baghdad is key to security in the capital. Iraq will be ever less able to depend on coalition assistance and intelligence if the presence of the international coalition continues to be reduced in the country, as is expected.

With his visit to the town, Kadhimi seems to be trying to reassure residents that the state will not allow armed groups to act with impunity nor let sectarianism flourish. For him to do so effectively, however, the perpetrators of these attacks in and around the capital will have to be found and prosecuted.
Press Release

July 22, 2020 Drilon: PHL should brace for recession

Opposition ready to cooperate, he assures As recession is about to hit the Philippines, once dubbed as 'Asia's rising tiger', Senate Minority Leader Franklin M, Drilon said the next six months would be crucial in setting up the stage for economic recovery. Drilon said this as he minced no words to call a failure the strategies implemented by the Inter-Agency Task Force, which leads the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Drilon said that the Inter-Agency Task Force has failed to address the worsening health crisis and its impact including surging unemployment and involuntary hunger that hit 5.2 million Filipino families amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "The IATF has failed. Let's call a spade a spade. Look at where we are today: 70,764 Filipinos were affected as of yesterday, deaths running to 1,837, 5 million of our people unemployed, 40 percent of our MSMEs closed, and, the worst, 5.2 million Filipino families suffered hunger in the past three months," Drilon said during an interview with ANC's Headstart with Karen Davila on Wednesday. According to the latest Social Weather Station survey, about 20.9 percent or an estimated 5.2 million of Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the highest hunger rate since September 2014, he noted. He stressed that it does not help that Secretary Francisco Duque III lacks the credibility to be able to command people to do things. "He cannot influence decisions," he added. Drilon said the Philippine economy is facing a recession due to the expected contractions of the economy for the first two quarters. The Philippine economy contracted by 0.2% during the first quarter and the forecast for the second quarter is even worse, he noted. The economists define recession as involving economic contractions for two succeeding quarters. "This means that the next six months will be a question of how to survive. They say that to survive in today's situation is already a success. We must be able to survive so that we can set the stage for economic recovery," Drilon emphasized. For the minority leader, the fifth State of the Nation Address next week would be an opportunity for the President to lay down his plans towards economic recovery, which, he added, the IATF has failed to do. "This coming SONA next week is one of the most important state of the nation addresses that people would be witness to. I would like to hear the President lay out a comprehensive plan that the people would be looking for and would be guided by, including us in the legislature," Drilon said. "There is no solution to this but we have to take the bull by the horn and have proposals that will guide us. Today we have none, unfortunately," he added. "The people would like some guidance from the President and they would like to see where we stand and where the government wants us to go," he added. As the country grapples with the effects of the pandemic, Drilon said that the Filipino people need food, not constitutional reforms. "There are five million Filipino families experiencing hunger for the past three months, is Cha-cha the solution?" said Drilon. The minority leader also reiterated that the opposition is willing to cooperate in providing solutions by way of policies to address the pandemic. "I would emphasize that today we live in a crucial period. Being in the opposition is not easy, especially with the troll farms all over the place. But we are willing to cooperate and provide to the best of our abilities policies that we believe can help our country get out of this difficulty. But we hope that we are listened to also," Drilon said.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are currently in the middle of a libel trial, but the actress' ugly past makes the battle even more interesting.

Aside from the domestic abuse allegations the former couple has been throwing at each other, Depp also revealed Heard's alleged cheating scandals. Per the actor, the "Aquaman" actress involved herself in multiple affairs, and Depp has revealed five of them.

Let's take a look!

Elon Musk

Depp initially included in his defamation suit against Heard that she had an affair with tech mogul Elon Musk soon after their wedding in February 2015.

The actor stated in the legal documents that Heard and Musk were first spotted together in March 2015.

Depp and his team released a footage wherein Heard and Musk can be seen hugging each other before stepping out of the private elevator at the actor's penthouse. In another shot, the Tesla boss wrapped his arms around Heard, who was only wearing a swimsuit and a towel at the time.

Cara Delevingne

After Elon's name got dropped, Depp made another shocking claim by saying that Cara Delevingne was involved in a three-way affair with Musk and Heard.

The DailyMail obtained documents citing that Josh Drew -- the ex-husband of Heard's close friend Raquel "Rocky" Pennington -- appeared in a deposition recorded back on November 19, 2019.

According to Rocky, the actress had a threesome with Delevingne and Musk.

To be more specific, Depp's attorney asked Josh again if he was saying that Amber spent the night with the model and SpaceX CEO while still married to the actor. Josh, again, confirmed that it happened.

James Franco

Last month, The Blast revealed that Depp's lawyers dragged James Franco's name and claimed that Heard had an affair with him.

The news outlet added that Depp plans to send a subpoena to Franco since his legal team sees him as a "witness." This came after the actor's team obtained a clip where Franco can be seen talking to Heard a day after her blowout fight with Depp.

In the said surveillance video from Depp's apartment, the time stamp shows May 22, 2016 -- close to 11:00 p.m. Franco and Heard seemed to be aware of the camera as they obviously tried to keep their faces away from it. The two also continuously talked while keeping their heads down.

"We are interested in James Franco and Elon Musk as fact witnesses because we have evidence they are men who saw Amber Heard's face in the days and nights between when she claimed Mr. Depp smashed her in the face on May 21 and when she went to court with painted on 'bruises' to obtain a Temporary Restraining Order on May 27," Adam Waldman said.

However, Heard's lawyer, Eric George, quashed the claims and called it "pathetic" and a "bogus story."

Leonardo DiCaprio

Recently, Leonardo DiCaprio's name has also been included on Heard's affairs list.

Per Us Weekly, Heard said that Depp accused her of having relationships with all her co-stars.

"He accused me of having affairs with each of my co-stars, movie after movie: Eddie Redmayne, James Franco, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Costner, Liam Hemsworth, Billy Bob Thornton, Channing Tatum; even women co-stars like Kelli Garner," the actress said.

She added that Depp nicknamed Leonardo a "pumpkin-head."

Despite the claims, DiCaprio is now enjoying a romantic relationship with his girlfriend, Camila Morrone.

Channing Tatum

Like DiCaprio, Channing Tatum reportedly also received a nickname from the actor. According to Heard, Depp referred to him as "potato-head."

Currently, Tatum and his former love interest, Jessie J, are back together again. The two even attended their first Red Carpet event together at the MusiCares Person of the Year gala on January 25.

READ MORE: Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial: 'Aquaman' Star Calls Depp A 'Monster'
Sheriff Rick DiBasilio View Photo

San Andreas, CA  There was a back and forth discussion regarding face mask requirements at Tuesdays Calaveras Supervisors meeting.

Sheriff Rick DiBasilio stated that he believes Governor Gavin Newsoms mandate requiring face coverings in public is un-constitutional and he will not go out and actively enforce the matter. DiBasilio said it comes down to personal freedom and liberty.

He stated, The 14th amendment prohibits the government from depriving its citizens of property, life and liberty.

Supervisor Benjamin Stopper praised the sheriff and stated it was a heavy subject and there are points of view from every direction.

Supervisor Dennis Mills also added support, We give the government certain rights and privileges, but in exchange for that we maintain certain rights and privileges as well, and that goes back to the very founding of the Constitution.

Supervisor Jack Gararmendi made a counter point, Great freedoms come with great responsibilities, and we have to work together as a common good to come together. I wear my mask because I respect you and you wear your mask because you respect me.

Garamendi said he agrees with the sheriff that he does not want to make criminals out of people not wearing masks, but also argued that it should not be a political issue.

Dibasilio noted that he is requiring his deputies to wear masks when possible, and Supervisor Merita Callaway praised that point. However, she argued, The Governor has mandated masks, and what Im hearing you say is that doesnt apply to me as law enforcement, and I know there are other police chiefs and sheriffs that feel the same way that you do.I think it would help if our sheriff said, you shall wear a mask. It doesnt mean that you are going to arrest them.

Public Health Officer, Dr. Dean Kelaita added, They (masks) work, they are effective, they are encouraged, and I would put it to everyone in this community that wearing a mask does your part in protecting us, letting us open our businesses, letting us open our schools, and letting us all do the things we all agree are important and we want to get back to normalcy on.

Dibasillio noted that he can agree to encourage everyone to wear a mask, but indicated he is not willing to actively enforce the issue, because of an individuals personal liberty and rights.

During his speech, the Sheriff also criticized an additional directive of Governor Newsom to release 8,000 inmates from California prisons. DiBasilio stated that some of those inmates will have COVID-19, and argued that they will now be let out into communities, instead of being in a controlled environment like a state institution.
Prominent counterfeit drug detection device manufacturers are investing in boosting the market presence in previously untapped markets, with new technologies, aided by favorable government initiatives.

DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / The counterfeit drug detection device market will expand moderately at 4% CAGR, between 2019 and 2029. The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a substantial increase in the sales and distribution of fake drugs, particularly in developing economies such as those in Asia and Africa. Drug stockpiling behavior by consumers is building on this issue, increasing the demand for counterfeit drug detection devices for the short term.

"In recent years, many governments have been cracking down on the trade of counterfeit drugs with stringent laws. In addition, pharmaceutical companies are investing in better surveillance, which will contribute substantially to the counterfeit drug detection device market. These factors are key to growth during and after the covid-19 crisis," says the FMI analyst.

Request report sample to gain in-depth market insights at https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7838

Counterfeit Drug Detection Device Market - Key Takeaways

Infrared and near-infrared spectroscopy technologies are highly sought after in counterfeit drug detection devices owing to higher efficacy and faster results.

Handheld devices are rapidly gaining traction aided by easier use, access to components, and operational flexibility.

North America is a prominent market for counterfeit drug detection devices, driven by investments into investigation procedures.

Counterfeit Drug Detection Device Market - Key Driving Factors

Transition from security features in drug packaging to on-dosage security is driving adoption of counterfeit drug detection devices.

Increasingly strict regulations for the detection of counterfeit medication is a key factor that will support market growth.

Investments to improve healthcare infrastructure and rising awareness about illegal drugs will aid market growth.

Counterfeit Drug Detection Device Market - Key Constraints

High capital requirements for counterfeit drug detection device market players will hinder market growth.

Low awareness about counterfeit drug detection devices in developing countries is a barrier to adoption.

The Anticipated Impact of Coronavirus

Around the world the panic over the coronavirus pandemic is resulting in people stockpiling medication. Consequently, a number of countries with are going through lockdown measures are witnessing a major gap between supply and demand. This has resulted in a massive rise in the sales of counterfeit drugs. The rise in fake coronavirus cures will boost the demand for counterfeit drug detection devices around the world in the short term through 2020 and likely into 2021 as well.

Explore the global counterfeit drug detection device market report with 67 illustrative figures, 41 data tables and the table of contents. You can also find a comprehensive market segmentation on https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-7838

Competition Landscape

Leading players in the counterfeit drug detection device market include but are not limited to Metroham AG, Spectris, Cellular Bioengineering Inc., Spectral Engines Oy, GAO RFID, Olympus Corporation, and Thermofisher Scientific Inc. Manufacturers are investing in tech innovation to enable higher speed and accuracy of testing. For instance, Genentech is reportedly considering blockchain technology driven devices to track counterfeit drugs.

More About the Report

The FMI's market research report offers detailed insights on counterfeit drug detection device market. The market is scrutinized on the basis of product (counterfeit chemical composition detection devices and counterfeit packaging & labeling detection devices), and modality (portable devices, handheld devices, and benchtop devices), and end user (pharmaceutical companies, drug testing companies, and research organizations) across seven key regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Oceania, and Middle East & Africa).

We offer tailor-made solutions to fit your requirements, request customization@ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-7838

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My husband is gone, and my friends and my family arent. What does it look like to create memories in this house? McFadden said. What do dinner parties look like? What might it look like to have another relationship one day? And what might it look like for me to be alone? I went from thinking fearful to thinking hopeful. When I could physically imagine the people in that space, it made me excited to build it.
A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on July 21.

The new edition includes articles: Azerbaijanis urge UN investigation into Armenia's border provocation, State Oil Fund's transfers to state budget surpass 99.7 bn, Inside Baku's Old City, Armenian forces deliberately hide their firing points near civilian objects, etc.

AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
GHAZIABAD, India, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ambica Steels Limited, an Indian Steel manufacturer, distributed food to needy people amidst lockdown. During a lockdown, many people are not able to get food. Due to the loss of livelihood of people engaged in various jobs, these people are suffering from starvation and are not able to feed their families. To feed their belly, such people have relied upon the mercy of the Government and some voluntary organizations. Ambica Steels Limited has at this time of need, fed needy people by distributing food to them.

The company is Stainless Steel manufacturer, supplier and exporter, which is headquartered in New Delhi. The company was established in 1970 and is one of the most reliable steel manufacturing companies. The material of Ambica is exported to 56 countries all over the world. The company is also famous for producing special grades of stainless steel. Recently, the company has also launched some post lockdown guidelines for its employees by keeping in mind the issues related to hygiene, social distancing and to spread awareness. The company has also released an action framework for its employees in different conditions like while commuting to work, canteen guidelines etc.

Ambica Steels Limited has provided a good example of Corporate Social Responsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility is a company's commitment to manage the economic, environmental and social effects of its operations in a responsible manner and in accordance with expectations of the public. It contributes to voluntary ethical, philanthropist and charitable goals of private business as in the case of Ambica Steels Limited.

The distribution of food to the needy is a big step towards the needy and poor. Reportedly, there were a very large number of cases of emigration of migration labours from corners of New Delhi to their home states. These labours form the backbone of urban life and the main cause of their emigration was the fear of dying of starvation. There are many other sections of societies who do not even have the option of migrating to their home towns. Such sections of society require the support of society. Ambica Steels Limited has set the right example for other firms and even individuals by helping needy in the time of need.

About Ambica Steels Limited

Ambica is a fully integrated Stainless Steel manufacturer headquartered in New Delhi, India and was established in the year 1970. Ambica produces some special grades in stainless steel industry.

Ambica's standard grades of production includes Austenitics (303, 304/L, 316/L, 321, 316Ti etc), Martensitics & Ferritics (410,416,420A/B/C,430/F,431 etc). Also, Ambica specializes in grades like Duplex steels (F51 /2205 / 1.4462) and Precipitation Hardened (17-4PH, 1.4542, 15/5PH also as per AMS specifications for the Aerospace Industry). Ambica is presently exporting these materials to around 56 countries worldwide.

SOURCE Ambica Steels Limited
How would Murray Carpenter and his photographer, Tristan Spinski, feel if we told you where they live, if we put pictures of their homes on the air? Carlson said. What if we published the home addresses of the soulless robot editors at the New York Times who assigned and managed this incitement to violence against my family?
In the wake of Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householders arrest, both Republican and Democratic state lawmakers seeking to repeal the nuclear bailout bill at the heart of the alleged bribery scandal.

Householder and four others were arrested July 21 for allegedly violating the racketeering statute through honest services wire fraud, receipt of millions of dollars in bribes and money laundering. The $60 million case was called likely the largest bribery scheme ever perpetrated against the state of Ohio, by U.S. Attorney David DeVillers.

House Bill 6 was signed into law in July 2019, a little more than three months after it was first introduced. The bill, among other things, gives North Perrys Perry Nuclear Power Plant and Ottawa Countys Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant $150 million annually between 2021 and 2027. The funds are raised through charges paid by residential, commercial and industrial electric customers.

A legislative aide for Representative Laura Lanese confirmed July 22 that the Grove City Republican and Rep. Mark Romanchuk, R-Ontario, are seeking co-sponsors on a bill to fully repeal House Bill 6. An aide for Romanchuk said a news conference regarding the legislation is scheduled for July 23.

Both have also called on Householder to resign.

Ohioans deserve leaders they can trust, Lanese said in a July 22 tweet. With the announcement of the FBIs allegations against Speaker Householder yesterday and the detailed charges in the complaint, it is clear that he must resign as Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives.

Two Democratic House members, Michael J. Skindell, D-Lakewood, and Michael OBrien, D-Warren, also announced July 22 they have plans to introduce a bill that would repeal HB6. OBrien along with Rep. Gil Blair, D- Niles, and Sen. Sean OBrien, D-Bazetta, held a news conference to discuss efforts to repeal House Bill 6.

Those in both parties who are seeking the repeal voted against House Bill 6 last year.

HB6 was a bad bill and all of us in this room did not support that, it had many problems with it, Sean OBrien said at the news conference. The senator has plans to introduce a repeal bill in that chamber.

Sean OBrien said that campaign finance reform is also needed.

Federal investigators allege that Generation Now was incorporated in February 2017 as a social welfare entity purporting to promote energy independence and economic development, but was secretly controlled by Householder. Millions of dollars from the electric company known in the complaint as Company A were allegedly used to support Householders bid to become speaker, to support House candidates believed to back Householder for the position and for personal benefit. Pursuant to federal law, the names and addresses of contributors to 501(c)(4)s are not made available for public inspection.

Until we have some real finance campaign reform, things like (the alleged bribery) could pop up again, Sean OBrien said. The tip of the iceberg is House Bill 6. That is the end result of what happened. The fundamental problem, underneath that tip, is campaign finance. Money has to be transparent, we have to know where it goes to, who is giving it to us and how is it being spent. Until you have that were going to continue to see problems like were seeing.

He said theyre first going to repeal House Bill 6 and then look at campaign finance reform.

Michael OBrien said hes seeking a repeal of House Bill 6 to the point where it never existed.

Regarding the Perry and Davis-Besse plants, Michael OBrien said, whatever happens to their corporations happens with their corporations.

Dont rely on the consumers of the state of Ohio to bail you out because its not going to happen, he said.

FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of Ohios two nuclear plants, filed for bankruptcy in March 2018 and had plans to shut down both plants by 2021 if it did not receive subsidies. FirstEnergy Solutions officials emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy Feb. 27 of this year as Energy Harbor.

The Perry Nuclear Plant employs about 700 people, 500 of whom live in Lake County, according to Lake County Commissioner Jerry Cirinos testimony during a House Bill 6 hearing last year. Cirino said in a July 21 phone interview that he is angry about Householders alleged criminal conduct, but supports House Bill 6, which he said saved jobs in Lake and Ottawa counties.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said at his July 22 press conference that he does not support a repeal of House Bill 6. He said the allegations against Householder does not change where he stands on policy. He said nuclear plants play a role in creating a balanced energy portfolio. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said he also does not support a repeal.

Outside of the state legislature, groups that opposed House Bill 6 also began calling for the legislation to be repealed following Householders arrest.

Among them was the Sierra Club. The group called House Bill 6 the nations most regressive energy legislation.

The whole process around HB 6  from its passage through the legislature, to the attempted referendum campaign  was riddled with red flags, said Neil Waggoner, senior campaign representative for Sierra Clubs Beyond Coal Campaign in Ohio. Its therefore shocking, but not surprising, that after a campaign around a bill based on lies, greed, and a complete disregard of facts now involves criminal corruption at the highest levels of Ohios state government.

American Wind Energy Associations Eastern State Affairs Director Andrew Gohn in a statement called for a full examination of the circumstances surrounding this attack on clean energy and for Gov. DeWine and the legislature to pause implementation of HB 6 and ultimately repeal this harmful and regressive legislation.

The legislative push to bail out legacy generation and roll back Ohios renewable energy commitments was always against the will of Ohioans, who overwhelmingly support renewable energy, Gohn said. It now appears that the passage of this bill was not just against the will of the people, but also may have involved serious and possibly criminal impropriety.

In addition to subsidizing the two nuclear plants, House Bill 6 also allows utilities to charge ratepayers up to $1.50 per month to subsidize two coal-powered electric plants run by Ohio Valley Energy Corp. One of those plants is in southern Ohio and the other is based in Indiana.

By the end of 2020, House Bill 6 eliminates state electric mandates for energy efficiency, peak demand and the solar renewable portfolio standard carve-out. A solar carve-out is the part of a states renewable portfolio standard that sets a specific level of electricity to be generated from solar panels.

Additionally, the renewable portfolio standard will be reduced and eventually eliminated by the end of 2026. The renewable portfolio standard is a requirement that a specified percentage of the electricity that utilities sell comes from renewable resources.
The Department of Higher Secondary Education (DHSE), Kerala will declare the Kerala DHSE +1 results 2020 any time this week. Those students who appeared in the Kerala DHSE +1 Exams 2020 are advised to keep checking at the boards official websites-- keralaresults.nic.in and dhsekerala.gov.in to know their result. Once declared, Kerala DHSE will put the official DHSE plus one results 2020 on these websites.

Kerala Education Minister C Raveendranath had earlier made an announcement regarding the Kerala DHSE +1 results 2020 and said that the results will be announced soon. The minister made this announcement while announcing the Kerala Plus Two results 2020 on Wednesday.

The Kerala DHSE class 12 result is now available on the official website of the Kerala board - keralaresults.nic.in, dhsekerala.gov.in.



In the Kerala DHSE class 12 results, the pass percentage has registered an improvement of 0.77 per cent as it is 85.13 per cent in 2020 as compared to 84.33 per cent in 2019. A total of 3.75 lakh students appeared for Kerala Board +2 exams out of which 3.19 lakh passed the exams successfully.

How to check Kerala DHSE Kerala Plus one result 2020 online: Students who appeared in the Kerala DHSE plus one exam can check their results online once it's announced. Here is the step by step guide:

Step 1: Log in at the official website of Kerala DHSE--keralaresults.nic.in;

Step 2: On the home page, click at HSE Results";

Step 3: Click at Plus one results;

Step 4: Fill in your roll number and other credentials;

Step 5: Your result will be displayed on the computer monitor;

Step 6: Download and take a printout of it for future references.
As we work to rebound from the economic toll of the coronavirus, it is necessary to elect conservative leaders who understand the importance of working towards a balanced budget, creating jobs, protecting small businesses and incentivizing companies to do business in the United States rather than taking their investments and jobs overseas.

With the primary election less than a month away, it is clear that Tennesseans must send a conservative ally to the U.S. Senate who has the expertise to revive our local and national economies. Only one candidate has that expertise and experience. In addition to his successful record as a businessman providing jobs in the private sector, Bill Hagerty has proven he can positively impact economic growth in the public sector.

Bill served as Tennessees Commissioner of Economic and Community Development, playing a key role in putting our states economy on the national map. I had the privilege of working closely with then Commissioner Hagerty as the regional director of economic development for southeastern Tennessee. Under his leadership and with the more regionally-focused structural organization he put in place, southeastern Tennessee and the state as a whole prospered.

For years, Tennessee has led the country in economic growth. Our economic prowess is perceived as a given now, but that wasnt always the case. During the last challenging economic time for Tennessee, Bill stepped up to serve our state by recruiting companies to come here and to expand here. That created direct measurable results, with unprecedented growth in family-wage jobs for Tennesseans and in investment in our state. His leadership not only produced short term gains, but also built the foundation for growth in our state for years to come. He has the vision and the experience to do the same on a national level. We must make sure he has the opportunity to do so.

In Bills most recent role as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, he worked alongside allied leaders of the third-largest economy in the world, to develop deals that would promote economic prosperity for both of our countries. He was instrumental in helping to pass the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement, in which we made great strides in our relationship and furthered economic development in the global market.

Currently, Bill is serving on President Trumps Economic Revival Task Force, where he is working closely with the President to get our economy going again and bring our critical supply chains home from China. We need Bills leadership in the Senate because he will continue this work to make sure China is held accountable for the economic havoc their regime has caused, and he will incentivize American companies to do business in and provide jobs in America.

In the Senate, Bill will work to cut taxes and regulations that burden them and will continue to promote competition in the global market. Additionally, Bill will fight to pass a balanced budget amendment that will put us in a well-positioned place to recover and thrive.

From the private sector, to the state level, to the international market, Bill has always worked to create jobs and grow our economy. He is the Senator we need now to grow our economy and help our fellow conservatives lead the Great American Comeback.

The choice in August is clear: We need a fiscal conservative businessman who has the know-how and experience to recover our economy and create jobs. Bill Hagerty, President Trumps choice for the U.S. Senate, fits the job description. That is why I am joining the President in supporting him.

Patsy Hazlewood

Representative for District 27 which includes part of Hamilton County. This editorial endorsement is Representative Hazlewoods personal opinion.






One of the best Laois rock bands is offering a generous gift to all frontline workers, whether they be prison officers, nurses or shop assistants.

Portlaoise band Transmitter has announced that it will give five nights of free concerts, carefully observing social distancing, at Kavanagh's Pub when it is able to reopen.

They made their announcement on Tuesday July 21.

"Gavin James has been forced to cancel his drive in shows today, and the stalling of Phase 4 last week has left more wedding couples, and the pubs that were adhering to the guidelines, high and dry.

"We need a light at the end of the tunnel and as weve been working away behind the scenes on a new show, heres what we propose: When the time is right, (soon) we will perform in Kavanaghs Pub-Portlaoise for the first 5 nights it opens FOR FREE to say a massive Thank You to all of our frontline workers who have been at the coal face since March.

"Whether you work in Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise, An Garda Siochana, Irish Prison Service, or in retail, there will be tickets available on a first come, first served basis," Transmitter say.

The gig will be fully contact traceable via an app in operation in the venue. Face coverings and hand sanitizing stations will be available to all attendees. Social distancing will be observed There will be full table service and contactless payment facilities via the app. Each gig will last 90 minutes to ensure safe entry and exit of all ticket holders.

The free invite extends to engaged couples planning their weddings too.

"We will also invite all wedding couples who have expressed an interest in viewing the band to soundcheck each day. Ticket details will be available as soon as we get the go-ahead.

"So, in the meantime, do the right thing. Wear the mask and wash you hands, ya dirty fecker. We will get there. We will," the Portlaoise lads promise.

https://www.facebook.com/transmitterband/posts/10158405740606203
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf pushed back on Tuesday against criticism of federal agents' conduct during massive protests in Portland, Oregon, following calls for an investigation into their conduct.

What he's saying: Wolf said at a news conference in Washington, D.C., that what's occurring in the city "is not peaceful protesting." "We have been forced because of local law enforcement presence to take measures such as arrests to protect our officials," he added.

"We will not retreat. We will continue to take the appropriate action to protect our facilities and our law enforcement officers."

 Wolf

Driving the news: Reports that federal law enforcement officers in unmarked vehicles detained Portland protesters without explanation has attracted widespread criticism from leading Democrats, who've demanded a probe. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday added his voice to those denouncing the use of federal agents against protesters.

The U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon has called for an inspector general investigation into the reports.

But Wolf dismissed the criticism, saying: "The smear attacks leveled against our officers is disgusting."

What to watch: The Oregon's attorney general's office has opened a criminal investigation into an incident resulting in the injury of a protester.

The state attorney general filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court seeking a restraining order, accusing federal agents of unlawful tactics.

The big picture: Black Lives Matter protests swelled in Portland this week despite the presence of federal law enforcement officers. Demonstrations against police violence have continued in the city for more than 50 days, Axios' Orion Rummler notes.

Go deeper: In photos: Unrest at Portland protests amid federal force presence
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. Armenia will host science and art STARMUS 6th festival on September 6-11, 2021, ARMEPRESS reports President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian announced.

''When last year during STARMUS 5th festival I proposed to hold the next festival in Armenia, some of the participants accepted it with great enthusiasm, but some probably did not know about Armenia. Armenia will host STARMUS 6th festival will great sense of responsibility, enthusiasm and expectations'', the President said.

The 6th STARMUS Festival will bring world-famous scientists, astronauts, Nobel laureates and artists to Armenia. STARMUS is a festival where art, science and technology come together. It is one of the ways to inspire the younger generation, to make science popular and attractive.

The President thanked the Council of the festival for the decision to hold it in Armenia.

Member of the Council of STARMUS festival, American astronomer Jill Tarter noted that nearly 50 years ago, in 1971, the USA and USSR for the first time held a joint conference and it took place in Byurakan, Armenia.

''I could not come back then, since I was a student and missed the chance to participate. Now I hope that next year I will be able to come and participate in STARMUS 6th festival', Tarter said.

Reporting by Lilit Demuryan, Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
YEREVAN, Armenia, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- STARMUS, one of the world-scale science and art festivals will take place in September 2021 in Yerevan, Armenia, to celebrate science communication with world-class scientists, artists and astronauts.

STARMUS VI will be dedicated to Mars, from the very first Soviet MARS 3 and American MARINER 9 to the spectacular NASA missions and ambitious manned landing plans of Space X. It has been 50 years since MARS 3 performed the first soft landing on the Red Planet and sent back to the Earth the first data from its surface. The same year, in 1971, NASAs MARINER 9 became the first Orbiter around Mars. These milestones were followed by dozens of successful missions by NASA providing us with more accurate images and information from our neighbor in the Solar System. In the summer of 2020, three space agencies around the world plan to launch pioneering missions to arrive at Mars in 2021.

Following the established tradition, the Festival will address pressing issues and screen films about the exploration of Mars. Previous film screenings included the documentary Apollo 11 and The Spacewalker, a film about the legendary Russian astronaut and Starmus Board Member Alexei Leonov.

The festival will be held under the high patronage of the President of Armenia, Dr. Armen Sarkissian. The President has invited Starmus to Armenia during his invited speech in 2019 at the opening ceremony of Starmus V "A Giant Leap" in Zurich.

The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the Republic of Armenia (MoESCS) on behalf of the RA Government will support, and working in close partnership with the Ministry of High-Tech Industry of the Republic of Armenia make the festival an outstanding event thus playing an important role in different educational, scientific and artistic activities of the festival.

As in the previous years, the sixth Starmus Festival will welcome to the stage world-class scientists, artists and astronauts to share breakthrough discoveries, reflect upon pressing questions and inspire new generations of scientists and explorers.

The Starmus Advisory board will announce a further line-up of speakers from art and music later this year. Nobel Laureate scientists Edvard Moser and Michel Mayor, Apollo 16 Moonwalker Charlie Duke, co-inventor of CRISPR gene-editing technology Emmanuelle Charpentier and "the father of ipod" and NEST founder Tony Fadell are among confirmed speakers. For more information visit www.starmus.com.

Photos available to download from: here

About Starmus

Since the very first Homo Sapiens looked up at a star-filled sky we have been awestruck by the vastness of the cosmos. Even today we remain humbled by the sheer immensity of space, especially as through our progress in physics and astronomy, we are now aware of the tremendous distances involved  even to our closest neighbouring stars.

Created by Dr. Garik Israelian, astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) and Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist and the lead guitarist of the iconic rock band Queen, the Starmus Festival is a combination of science, art and music that has featured presentations from Astronauts, Cosmonauts, Nobel Prize Winners and prominent figures from science, culture, the arts and music.

Stephen Hawking and Alexei Leonov, together with the rock star and astrophysicist Dr. Brian May, worked to create the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, awarded to individuals and teams who have made significant contributions to science communication. Previous Stephen Hawking Medal winners include Elon Musk, Jean-Michel Jarre, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Eno, Hans Zimmer and The Particle Fever documentary.

The Starmus Festivals join Nobel laureates, eminent researchers, astronauts, thinkers, men and women of science, culture, arts and music to share their knowledge and experiences in the common search for answers to the great questions of today.

SOURCE STARMUS

Related Links

http://www.starmus.com/


Online fashion retailer ASOS has announced it will voluntarily repay the 1.8 million it claimed through the Conservative governments Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS). The JRS covers 80 percent of furloughed workers wages.

The company was spurred to act after reporting recent profit hikes. It has made so much money during the COVID-19 crisis that, to save face, it feels it must give back some of the funds it claimed from the public purse.

The JRS was part of unprecedented handouts to big business worth hundreds of billions, introduced by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak in March following the delayed introduction of lockdown measures to combat the spread of the pandemic. Despite many workers being neglected by such schemes, the wage furlough prevented immediate mass redundancies on a scale not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Another factor in ASOS repaying the money may be the calculation that a public relations exercise is required following media exposures of inadequate health and safety measures risking the lives of its workforce.

Financial analyst William Ryderat, of Hargreaves Landsdown, commented, ASOS intends to return the taxpayers cash it received under the furlough scheme as trading has been stronger than anticipated, which shows confidence.

Sales jumped 10 percent between March and Juneat the height of the pandemic in Britaindue to a rapid rise in overseas sales. Domestic sales only fell slightly. The international market was boosted by the early lifting of restrictions in many European countries.

ASOS engaged in profiteering during the public health emergency, continuing its operations in defiance of lockdown restrictions that only essential workplaces should remain open. It quickly moved to increase its warehouse operational capacity following the governments recent easing of lockdown restrictions.

ASOS CEO, Nick Beighton, stated, While we remain cautious about the consumer impact of Covid-19 looking forward, we are on track to deliver strong year-on-year profit growth and to return to positive free cash flow for the full-year.

The ASOS distribution centre in Barnsley

The company operated its warehouses and online store throughout the lockdown. It furloughed 1,000 of its 3,500 workforce in April but steadily increased production since then at its Barnsley distribution centre, denying the option to furlough to many, who were forced to either work or subsist on Statutory Sick Pay at just 95 a week.

Commenting on the refund in a staggering display of hypocrisy, CEO Beighton told the Evening Standard, Its important given the fact that as an organisation we were allowed to continue to operate. Sometimes you have to do the right thing for society.

A company press release accompanying its latest financial result brazenly claimed: Our main priority through the period was protecting the health and wellbeing of our people and our customers through the global pandemic and this was reflected in the strict social distancing protocols implemented and adhered to across our business.

This flatly contradicts the real conditions exposed by journalists and workers that provoked a mass walk-out in March following fears of a COVID-19 breakout at their Barnsley warehouse. The company refused to perform a deep-clean of the facility following a breakout in May.

One anonymous ASOS warehouse worker told the World Socialist Web Site, they took advantage and risked workers safety and that every day is a huge risk. Regarding the reopening of the economy he insisted, they need to make sure its safe for employees that do these day-to-day jobs and stop putting profits before health.

The firms main priority is their business strategy to utilise the conditions created by the pandemic to dominate the British and international fashion markets by out-performing competitors more closely tied to closed high-street shops. Its clear that the online retailer is a pandemic winner, noted industry analyst Julie Palmer, from the Begbies Traynor consultancy.

While warehouse operatives risk their lives to keep production running, the super-rich beneficiaries of their exploitation enrich themselves and keep safe from the pandemic.

The companys biggest shareholder is Anders Povlsen, who inherited large slices of major clothing companies in several countries. In addition to being the richest man in Denmark, he placed first in the Scottish Rich List as a new entry this year with his 4.7 billion in declared wealth. He is Scotlands biggest private landowner, owning a castle on the banks of Loch Ness and several other estates.

The retail industry has long been notorious for dangerous factories and warehouses where exploitation is rampant. While the bourgeoisie line their pockets, recent revelations of sweatshop conditions in Leicesters textiles industryaffecting the supply chains of ASOS competitors Boohoo and Quizhave further exposed the real class relations of capitalist society. ASOS no longer produces in Leicester, after withdrawing citing human rights concerns. However it has now been forced to withdraw its line of products made by Boohoo, which operates from Leicester and is mired in scandal. Investigators have exposed unsanitary, overcrowded working conditions and wages as low as 3.50 per hour, far below the minimum wage.

Many confirmed COVID-19 cases have occurred in the fashion and retail industries caused by the unsafe working conditions. Last week, it was revealed that at least 28 workers were affected at a distribution centre for online fashion store Pretty Little Thing in Sheffield, Yorkshire. The company is part of the Boohoo Group.

Retail Week opined that ASOSs unexpectedly high profits are a sparkling exception to a generally dismal market situation. The British Fashion Council warned last week that 27 percent of jobs in the industry (about 240,000) are likely to be destroyed over the next 18 months. Businesses have wound up almost 650,000 jobs during the crisis as the UK economy tanks and entire industries are restructured to protect profits. The mythical V-shaped recession some had predicted, characterised by a sharp economic collapse at the onset of lockdown followed by a predicted rapid recovery, is a chimera.

Every aspect of the official response to the coronavirus pandemic has been determined by the class interests of the corporate and financial aristocracy that runs society. The working class are the only social force that can advance a progressive response to the crisis, fighting for its independent class interests by means of rank-and-file committees to demand safe working conditions and decent wages and benefits in opposition to big business and the capitalist state.
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A harbinger of more tempered romance to come? my colleague Bridget Foley questioned in her review of Brock Collections fall 2020 show, referring to an all-black suit.

With that look as an indicator, its likely that when Laura Vassar and Kristopher Brock started designing resort back in February, they did so intending to develop a more minimalistic elan than has typically marked their collections. Once the pandemic hit, simplifying the collection felt necessary. Vassar and Brock then took time, like many designers this season, to rethink what the Brock woman would want when the collection hits stores. (Brock noted that while they are planning on a traditional resort November/December/January delivery, it might be pushed back a little to December.)

Theres an element of at-home  pajama-y slip skirt thats a sexier look for being at home, Vassar said. And then there is that element of dreamy, romantic  cant wait to wear that  floral, taffeta dress. They kept the collection tight. Aside from some major signature flourish  a singular evening gown and decorative taffeta frocks  the collection was made up of buy-now-wear-now, natural-toned, easy numbers.

Brock explained that fabric direction overall was a day-to-night but grounded feeling. A favorite fabric, linen, was offered in considerable variety  a denim-like full-skirted dress atop matching trousers, a white pajama shirt over silky pants, lightweight little tops and jackets and even linen-based flats. The collection wasnt all breezy. A black, soft linen coat-dress with nipped in waist (a reiteration from the brands beginning) and heavier fabrics  suede skirts, a corduroy suit  grounded the lineup with utilitarian style while softer, body-hugging looks played to Brock Collections quintessential romance. For instance, a simple silk cami with slip skirt, delicate little sweaters (adorable with a cotton lace midi skirt), and even an unexpected, playful viscose gingham cardigan-and-legging set.

Story continues

The collection was shot guerrilla-style, sunup to sundown, between Malibu and Calabasas Canyons; a very California shoot, Brock and Vassar agreed. The images are surely stunning  the natural, moody light accentuating the collections more low-key, relaxed vibe.

Launch Gallery: Brock Collection Resort 2021

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You might wonder why were so special. We have never done anything to Trump except provide a platform for his archenemys rise to power. Now that it looks like he might be on his way out the door, hes determined to take Chicago down before he goes.
Security services are set to be given extra powers to try to prevent foreign interference in British democracy following a damning report from MPs on the potential threat posed by Russia.

It is understood Prime Minister Boris Johnson will strengthen counter-espionage laws in the wake of the bombshell study by the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC).

The move comes with Labour poised to go on the offensive on the issue on Wednesday, Parliaments final sitting day before the summer recess.

Labour has accused the Government of failing in its response to the security threat posed to UK democracy by Russia, after the long-delayed ISC report insisted London was too slow to recognise Moscows menace to British democratic processes.

Speaking ahead of an urgent question in Parliament on Wednesday, Labours shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said that on every level, the Governments response does not appear to be equal to the threat.

Mr Johnson is likely to face a grilling on the situation in the last Prime Ministers Questions of the parliamentary session.

Mr Thomas-Symonds said: The Intelligence and Security Committees report on Russia exposes deep systemic failings in Government approach to security.

This report outlines the scale of the shortcomings of the Governments response to maintaining our national security in the face of what is clearly a growing and significant threat from Russia.

The report outlines a litany of hostile state activity, from cyber warfare, interfering in democratic processes, acts of violence on UK soil and illicit finance.

On every level the Governments response does not appear to be equal to the threat.

While on key issues it is clear that there is no overall strategic response to this challenge  little wonder the Government have been so keen to delay the publication.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (right) welcomes US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Downing Street on Tuesday (Hannah McKay/PA)

The UK has world leading security services, yet this report makes clear they have not received the strategic support, the legislative tools or the resources necessary to defend our interests.

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The Government need to urgently outline how they will address these systemic failings.

It has been suggested the UK could introduce a register of foreign agents like the ones in place in the US and Australia as part of a stronger move against foreign interference in internal affairs.

Under the American system, people who work for foreign governments and officials have to register with US Justice Department and file reports about their activities.

In an explosive commentary, the ISC said the Government was slow to recognise the potential threat posed by Russia to British democratic processes and did not properly consider whether Moscow could interfere in the Brexit referendum until after the event.

The ISC report concluded the UK only belatedly realised the threat to political processes despite alarm bells ringing over the 2014 Scottish referendum.

The intelligence agencies and Government departments treated the issue as a hot potato, with nobody effectively tackling the problem, the committee said.

The Government said there was no evidence of successful Russian interference in the Brexit vote but the committee  which oversees the work of Britains spies  suggested there was no proper investigation.

MI5 provided just six lines of text when asked whether there was secret intelligence on the issue of potential Russian meddling in the referendum.

But the Government  led by a prominent Brexiteer in Mr Johnson  has rejected the committees call for a full analysis of whether Vladimir Putins government did attempt to influence the result of the 2016 vote.

The report was drafted by the ISCs members in the last parliament. Its publication was delayed by Mr Johnsons decision to call a general election and by the slow process of appointing a successor committee.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 20:15:01|Editor: huaxia

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BEIRUT, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Asma Kurdahi, head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Lebanon, said Wednesday that the fund will finance activities in cooperation with the Lebanese Health Ministry until the end of this year, the National News Agency reported.

"The Fund's programs focus on women's health in general, and the health of pregnant women in particular," Kurdahi said during her meeting with Health Minister Hamad Hassan.

Kurdahi noted that the fund will contact the health ministry team by next week to agree on a work plan and start with its implementation. Enditem
Look Local First was created to support small business owners by actively spreading the messaging to shop local and build a community of people who believe in the same mission

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- COVID-19 has placed an immense burden on small business owners who are fighting to keep their doors open. VizyPay , an award-winning payment processing company and creators of the popular Cash Discount Program , is supporting these small businesses nationwide through its Look Local First movement which provides free digital marketing efforts like sponsored social media ads and promotional giveaways to drive customer engagement. VizyPay launched Look Local First in 2019 and since its inception has supported hundreds of local businesses across the United States.



We firmly believe in supporting small businesses across Americawhether theyre a VizyPay client or not, said Amy Hayes, VizyPays Marketing Director. We know that when customers spend their money at locally-owned businesses, 68 percent of that revenue stays circulating in the local community compared to 43 percent when shopping at a large corporate chain and virtually zero percent when customers shop online. We hope to help encourage that spending with Look Local First, especially as small businesses have been hit hard by COVID-19.

The partnership between Look Local First and small businesses is great, said Dina Bechman, owner of Five Monkeys Inc. and a Look Local First member. To have someone else out in the world promoting our small businesses is amazing. When Five Monkeys Inc. was featured on the Look Local First social channels, I saw an uptick in social media traffic!

Look Local First recognizes that social media has become a vital way small businesses connect with their customers, but often times do not have the resources to implement a full digital strategy. The team regularly posts facts and statistics about shopping locally to educate followers on the benefits of supporting small businesses. The initiative also comes in and helps local businesses increase awareness and social following through various social posts and giveaways.

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"Our local businesses need support now, more than ever," said Tiffany Menke, President of The Urbandale Chamber of Commerce . "Reminders such as Look Local First help to promote local businesses and reminds the community to make an effort to support those businesses who make a significant impact on our local communities through their donations, employment opportunities and support."

In addition to social media marketing, VizyPay also sells a variety of Look Local First branded merchandise, including stickers, shirts and more, of which all proceeds get put back into the cause. Most recently, the team created social distancing floor stickers businesses can use to mark the 6-foot recommended distance for checkout lines and waiting areas. Shop the selection here .

Look Local First can be found on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram , or via the website https://looklocalfirstvp.com/ . For more information about VizyPay and its services, visit https://www.vizypay.com/ .

About VizyPay

VizyPay was founded in West Des Moines, Iowa, by three entrepreneurs who each had either significant credit card processing experience or were previously small business owners. Their combined understanding of these different industries created the perfect cocktail for a credit card processing company that could truly look out for the business owner. VizyPay is growing rapidly by being honest and simple in an industry that is known for being complicated and deceitful. Their business model is unique and making a huge splash nationwide.

Media Contact

Brittany Johnson

Uproar PR for VizyPay

bjohnson@uproarpr.com

312-878-4575 x246




Graduate unemployment threatening new workforce, illustration photo: Duc Thanh

Graduation means unemployment has often been a popular joke among college and university students when graduation arrives. However, this year it is not merely a joke, instead reflecting a predictable future for many as the global health crisis continues to affect the planet.

Tourism management graduate Hoang Lan, who is living in Hanoi, has been sending out job applications to dozens of companies. But the uninvited pandemic came to town, pushing many businesses  especially those specialising in tourism and hospitality  into a significant downturn and forcing them to cancel all job interviews, or offer applicants a much lower salary than planned.

I was bewildered and disappointed, said Lan. Many of my newly-graduated friends are in the same situation. Some of them have been interns for two years and received promises of becoming full-time employees. But when the pandemic came, their companies went bankrupt.

University seniors are also trying hard to look for internship positions.

As a final-year student majoring in international business, Duy Khanh said that senior students like him are struggling as businesses are not very welcoming towards new interns.

Major enterprises are gradually recovering production and focusing on recruiting full-time staff or trainees for probation, but there are very few chances for interns like us. I have sent my CV to at least five to six companies but received no positive responses, said Khanh.

According to a recent report from the General Statistics Office, the recruitment demand from foreign-invested enterprises and domestic companies in the second quarter had been slashed by 20 per cent compared to the first quarter.

Meanwhile, in the first half of the year, the demand for human resources in Ho Chi Minh City decreased by 28 per cent on-year. This dramatic decrease was felt across several industries such as food and beverages, tourism, transport, textiles and garments, and construction.

In Binh Duong  a locality in the southern key economic region  the labour demand in the first six months also dropped by 63 per cent over the same period of 2019, while the number of job seekers increased by 16 per cent.

This situation has caused the number of employed workers aged 15 and above in Vietnam to decline by 2.4 million in the second quarter compared to the previous one, and by nearly 2.6 million compared to the same period in 2019.

As businesses try to revive themselves, the opportunities for many newly-graduated workers remain limited because most of the companies prioritise experienced personnel. According to a survey by Vietnamese recruitment platform Topcv.vn, only 29.6 per cent of businesses are willing to hire inexperienced candidates and fresh graduates.

Such requirement is not only a tough challenge for the higher-educated workforce who graduated from universities and colleges, but also becomes a barrier blocking the career path of nearly 255,000 high school graduates with no plan to attend universities or colleges, according to the Ministry of Education and Training.

Viet Hoang, an 18-year-old in Hanois Ba Vi district, shared that due to his familys difficult circumstances, he planned to get a job straight away after finishing high school. However, the job as a warehouse clerk for him no longer exists because the company closed in June.

There are some places that recruit security guards, but the salary is as low as only VND4 million ($175) per month, Hoang said.

Reluctantly, I went to the Youth Employment Services Centre in Hanoi, and they comforted me that 90 per cent of people who came to the centre for help had found a job. However, the opportunities for unskilled labourers like me are very small, Hoang added.
UK Deeply Concerned by Evidence of Chinese Hacking: Foreign Secretary

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has expressed deep concerns on Wednesday over evidence of Chinese cyberattacks against medical and academic institutions in 11 countries, including the UK.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Tuesday that two Chinese hackers had been indicted for stealing millions of dollars worth of trade secrets and other sensitive information, and attempting to steal research on COVID-19, which is caused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus.

The hackers targeted businesses and government agencies in several countries including the UK, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Australia, and Japan, the DOJ said in the indictment.

A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a Vaccine COVID-19 sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken on April 10, 2020. (Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters)

I am deeply concerned by the evidence announced yesterday that China is engaged in malicious cyber attacks against commercial, medical and academic institutions, including those working to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, said Raab in a statement.

Our message to governments prepared to enable these activities is clear: the UK will continue to counter those conducting such cyber attacks, and work with our allies to hold perpetrators to account and deter further malicious activity around the world.

According to the DOJ indictment, Chinese nationals Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, hacked into computer systems of hundreds of victims, including companies, government, and non-governmental organizations, individual dissidents, and human rights activists in the United States and around the world in a decade-long campaign.

Chinese soldiers work at computers. The Chinese regimes cyberattacks against the United States have continued despite cyber agreements. (mil.huanqiu.com)

Li and Dong, both trained in computer applications technologies, did not hack solely for personal benefit, U.S. prosecutors alleged. They were also working with and assisted by the Chinese Communist Partys Ministry of State Security (MSS)the regimes chief intelligence agency.

The companies Li and Dong targeted were engaged in high-tech manufacturing and other industries such as defense, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and civil and industrial engineering.

More recently, the pair had been looking for vulnerabilities in the networks of biotech companies that were known for their COVID-19 related research, prosecutors alleged.

The indictment came after repeated warnings from U.S. authorities about Chinese attempts to obtain U.S. research findings through hacking.

U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in April that U.S. hospitals and research labs were being targeted by Chinese cyber activity.

The FBI warned in May that groups linked to China were attempting to illegally obtain information from organizations conducting research related to COVID-19.

The UKs National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agency (CISA) issued a joint advisory on May 5, exposing malicious cyber campaigns targeting international health-care and medical research organizations involved in the coronavirus response.

At the time, Raab called for an end to cyberattacks by hostile actors who are using the pandemic as an opportunity to carry out malicious cyber activity.

Janita Kan contributed to this report.
The "Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) Market Insights, Epidemiology and Market Forecast- 2030" drug pipelines has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The report delivers an in-depth understanding of the Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), historical and forecasted epidemiology as well as the Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market trends in the United States, EU5 (Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and United Kingdom) and Japan.

The report provides current treatment practices, emerging drugs, and market share of the individual therapies, current and forecasted 7MM Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market size from 2017 to 2030. The report also covers current Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) treatment practice/algorithm, market drivers, market barriers and unmet medical needs to curate the best of the opportunities and assesses the underlying potential of the market.

Epidemiology

The disease epidemiology covered in the report provides historical as well as forecasted epidemiology segmented by Total Diagnosed Incident Population of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), Gender-specific Diagnosed Incidence of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), Type-specific Diagnosed Incidence of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), Age-specific Diagnosed Incidence of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), Diagnosed Incident Population based on Primary Site of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) Tumour and Diagnosed Incident Population based on Histologic Classification of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) Tumor in the 7MM market covering the United States, EU5 countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom) and Japan from 2017 to 2030.

Key Findings

The total diagnosed incident population of Glioblastoma Multiforme in the 7 major markets was estimated to be 28,259 in 2017. In case of Glioblastoma Multiforme patients in the United States, the diagnosed cases were 14,666 in 2017.

The total diagnosed incident cases of Glioblastoma Multiforme patients were found to be maximum in males as compared to females in the 7 MM during the study period of 2017-2030.

In the EU5 countries, the diagnosed incident population of Glioblastoma Multiforme was found to be maximum in Germany with 2,876 cases followed by France with 2,683 cases in 2017. While, Spain accounted for the lowest diagnosed incident population of 1,403 in 2017.

As per the analysis, Japan had 1,899 diagnosed incident cases of Glioblastoma Multiforme in 2017.

Drug Chapters

The drug chapter segment of the Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) report encloses the detailed analysis of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) marketed drugs and mid and late stage pipeline drugs. It also helps to understand the Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) clinical trial details, expressive pharmacological action, agreements and collaborations, approval and patent details of each included drug and the latest news and press releases.

Marketed Drugs

Avastin: Genentech

Temodar/Temodal: Merck

Emerging Drugs

Ofranergene obadenovec (VB-111): VBL Therapeutics

Trans Sodium Crocetinate: Diffusion Pharmaceuticals

Regorafenib: Bayer

Durvalumab (MEDI4736): MedImmune

Tasadenoturev (DNX-2401): DNAtrix

ONC201: Oncoceutics

Selinexor (KPT-330): Karyopharm Therapeutics

Paxalisib (GDC-0084): Kazia Therapeutics

AV-GBM-1: Aivita Biomedical

MDNA55: Medicenna Therapeutics

Market Outlook

In April 2005, the FDA approved a new indication for Temodar capsules (temozolomide) for concurrent use with radiotherapy for the treatment of adults with newly diagnosed GBM and as maintenance therapy after radiotherapy. In addition, in December 2017, the FDA granted full approval of bevacizumab (Avastin) for the treatment of adults with recurrent glioblastoma that has progressed following prior therapy. In case of European and Japanese market, only Temodar has been approved by the EMA and MHLW respectively, for the treatment of patients with GBM.

Glioblastoma Multiforme pipeline is robust and possesses multiple potential drugs in late and mid-stage developments, which is yet to be launched. The pipeline involves drugs with a varied mechanism of action along with different routes of administration, ranging from oral, intravenous, intratumoral, subcutaneous, etc. It is interesting to note that the emerging market of GBM includes budding gene therapy, i.e., Ofranergene obadenovec (VB-111) by VBL Therapeutics, followed by four vaccine/immunotherapy candidates such as VBI-1901, AV-GBM-1 and ITI-1000 (pp65 DC Vaccine), Tasadenoturev (DNX-2401) by VBI Vaccines, Aivita Biomedical, Immunomic Therapeutics, and DNAtrix, respectively.

The potential candidates with promising results in late- or phase III stage of clinical development include Ofranergene obadenovec (VB-111; VBL Therapeutics), Trans Sodium Crocetinate (Diffusion Pharmaceuticals), and Regorafenib (Bayer).

Key Findings

The market size of GBM in the seven major markets was estimated to be USD 1,005 Million in 2017.

The United States accounts for the largest market size of GBM throughout the study period of 2017-2030, in comparison to EU5 (the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain) and Japan, which was estimated to be USD 629 Million in 2017.

Among the EU5 countries, Germany had the highest market size with USD 73 Million in 2017, while Spain had the lowest market size with USD 35 Million.

Japan accounted for the second highest market size in the 7 MM during the forecast period of 2020-2030, which was estimated to be USD 82 Million in 2017.

Drugs Uptake

This section focusses on the rate of uptake of the potential drugs recently launched in the Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market or expected to get launched in the market during the study period 2017-2030. The analysis covers Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market uptake by drugs; patient uptake by therapies; and sales of each drug.

This helps in understanding the drugs with the most rapid uptake, reasons behind the maximal use of new drugs and allow the comparison of the drugs on the basis of market share and size which again will be useful in investigating factors important in market uptake and in making financial and regulatory decisions.

Development Activities

The report provides insights into different therapeutic candidates in phase II, and phase III stage. It also analyzes key players involved in developing targeted therapeutics.

Pipeline Activities

The report covers the detailed information of collaborations, acquisition and merger, licensing and patent details for Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) emerging therapies.

Competitive Intelligence Analysis

The publisher performs competitive and market Intelligence analysis of the Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market by using various competitive intelligence tools that include-SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter's five forces, BCG Matrix, Market entry strategies, etc. The inclusion of the analysis entirely depends upon the data availability.

Scope of the Report

The report covers the descriptive overview of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), explaining its causes, signs and symptoms, pathogenesis and currently available therapies.

Comprehensive insight has been provided into the Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) epidemiology and treatment.

Additionally, an all-inclusive account of both the current and emerging therapies for Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) are provided, along with the assessment of new therapies, which will have an impact on the current treatment landscape.

A detailed review of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market; historical and forecasted is included in the report, covering the 7MM drug outreach.

The report provides an edge while developing business strategies, by understanding trends shaping and driving the 7MM Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market.

Report Highlights

In the coming years, Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) market is set to change due to the rising awareness of the disease, and incremental healthcare spending across the world; which would expand the size of the market to enable the drug manufacturers to penetrate more into the market.

The companies and academics are working to assess challenges and seek opportunities that could influence Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) R&D. The therapies under development are focused on novel approaches to treat/improve the disease condition.

The publisher has analysed type-specific data of GBM according to which there are two main types of Glioblastoma: Primary (de novo) and Secondary Glioblastoma, where the majority of cases (>90%) are primary glioblastomas that develop rapidly de novo, without clinical or histological evidence of a less malignant precursor lesion.

Diagnosed incidence according to histological classification of Glioblastoma Multiforme tumor was also assessed, which suggests that the conventional GBM type is more prevalent than giant cell GBM (GC-GBM), and gliosarcoma (GS).

In addition, gender-specific incidence of Glioblastoma Multiforme was also assessed. As per the analysis, GBm is more prevalent in males than in females.

The epidemiology segmentation also encompasses diagnosed incident population according to primary site of glioblastoma. As per the estimates, it has been found that the primary site of GBM included maximum cases at parietal site, while minimum number of cases were found in unknown and other sites. This trend is clearly evident across all the 7MM countries for the study period 2017-2030.

The report also encompasses another major segment, i.e., Age-specific Diagnosed Incident Population of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), wherein various age groups have been considered, such as 18, 18-34, 35-64, 65-74 and 75+. It has been found that GBM incidence increases with age peaking at 75-84 years and drops after 85 years.

Expected Launch of potential therapies may increase the market size in the coming years, assisted by an increase in the incident population of GBM. The market is expected to witness a significant positive shift owing to the positive outcomes of the several products during the developmental stage by key players such as Bayer, Diffusion Pharmaceuticals, VBL Therapeutics, AstraZeneca, DNAtrix, DelMar Pharmaceuticals, Oncoceutics, KaryoPharma, VBI Vaccines, Kazia Therapeutics, Aivita Biomedical, Medicenna Therapeutics, Immunomic Therapeutics and Inovio Pharmaceuticals.

Companies Mentioned

Genentech

Merck

VBL Therapeutics

Diffusion Pharmaceuticals

Bayer

MedImmune

DNAtrix

Oncoceutics

Karyopharm Therapeutics

Kazia Therapeutics

Aivita Biomedical

Medicenna Therapeutics

For more information about this drug pipelines report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/jkkzps

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005547/en/

Contacts:

ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

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London: Britain has closed a secret immunity loophole that allowed the wife of an American diplomat to flee the country with the knowledge of top officials despite being involved in a car crash that killed a teenager.

Officials from London and Washington on Wednesday agreed to end diplomatic immunity for family members of staff at a US intelligence base in England following a national uproar over the case of Anne Sacoolas.

Harry Dunn died in the crash near RAF Croughton in the UK. Credit:Facebook

Sacoolas - the wife of an American official who was working at the base in Northamptonshire - is alleged to have been driving on the wrong side of the road in August 2019 when she hit the motorbike of Harry Dunn. The 19-year-old later died in hospital.

British prosecutors in December charged Sacoolas with causing death by dangerous driving. There has also been speculation that the 42-year-old may have been a CIA agent.
(Newser)  A New Jersey Starbucks worker was fired and arrested after allegedly spitting in drinks served to police officers. "We got a tip that he had done this," a Park Ridge police captain tells NBC News. Upon investigating, "We believe it happened more than once but we can prove it happened at least once on May 25," he says. Kevin Trejo, 21, was charged this week with subjecting a law enforcement officer to contact with bodily fluid, tampering with a cup of coffee knowing it was purchased by a law enforcement officer, and creating a hazardous environment.

story continues below

Police were particularly concerned given the coronavirus pandemic, but no officers are known to have become ill. NBC New York reports that some officers will be tested for COVID-19 as a precaution. The police captain says the Starbucks location and the police department have traditionally enjoyed a good relationship, and he doesn't want this incident to change that. "This individual's behavior was reprehensible and not at all a reflection of how our employees treat our customers on a daily basis," a Starbucks rep adds. "We have apologized to the Park Ridge Police department." (Read more Starbucks stories.)
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020 (8:49 am) - Score 3,151

Yesterdays debate on the forthcoming Agriculture Bill 2019-21 saw the House of Lords being told, by non-affiliated life peer Lord Holmes of Richmond, that some of the farmers he knows have such poor access to internet connectivity that they have to go to McDonalds to get broadband coverage.

The new bill isnt actually supposed to cover broadband, although a number of Lords did support an attempt by Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat) and Lord Holmes of Richmond to introduce Amendment 157, which would have required broadband provision and digital literacy to be added as part of the section that deals with financial support for rural development.

NOTE: Roughly 1.5% of UK premises can only access sub-10Mbps speeds ( Roughly 1.5% of UK premises can only access sub-10Mbps speeds ( here ).

Rural broadband connectivity, via both fixed line ISPs and mobile (4G, 5G etc.) services, has improved a lot over the past decade but there are still some areas where even getting a slow ADSL line can be a struggle. Similarly, Ofcoms own 10Mbps broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO) recognised that tens of thousands of homes and businesses may simply be too expensive to serve.

Naturally farmers, which often manage large swathes of deeply rural countryside, tend to be among those who are often the last on the list to benefit from improvements to digital connectivity. The situation is rarely ideal, particularly given the Governments Digital by Default strategy, which requires farmers to do a lot more via an online-only mould than before.

Lord Holmes of Richmond said: I am grateful to the NFU for its support of this amendment, and I draw noble Lords attention to the rural connectivity survey that the NFU has conducted since 2015. What this shows is quite alarming: over that time period, on almost any measure, there has been a minimal increase in connectivity. Perhaps more worryingly, in the latest figures from 2019, there has been a 2% increase in those who say they have no broadband connectivity whatever. Farmers have told me that they have to go to McDonalds to get broadband coverage, and while its advertising proudly states that all of its produce comes from British and Irish farmerswhich is a thoroughly good thing that gives some circularity to this positionthis should be a choice rather than a must for farmers. Similarly, when one considers tax being digital by default, when farmers have approached HMRC with the issue of not being able to get online, it has been suggested to them that they go to their local library to transact their tax calculations and submissions. While all noble Lords would agree that libraries are quiet and calm places, are they really the venue where one should be forced to set out ones finances?

Otherwise the debate touched on a number of all too familiar areas, such as the delays and costs caused to rural 4G and 5G mobile deployments by the Governments decision to rip-out high-risk vendors like Huawei (roll-out delays of c.2 years are already expected). The questionable 2025 deployment target for the 5bn commitment to make gigabit capable broadband available to every UK home also cropped-up.

In response Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Conservative) listed some of the things that the Government were doing to tackle rural broadband connectivity, such as the 5bn project mentioned above and the 200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity (RGC) programme that is handing out broadband connectivity vouchers to remote homes and businesses. The 5G focused Rural Connected Communities (RCC) programme also got a mention.

However, the Lord added that broadband and mobile connectivity was beyond the scope of the Bill and more a matter for DCMS than DEFRA.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble said: Returning to digital, although the current rural development programme allows for support for broadband and digital skills, wider government initiatives are the main funding mechanisms for broadband connectivity and digital skills. These are delivered through DCMS, rather than Defra. The role played by me, as Minister for Rural Affairs, and the rural team at Defra, is to work closely with DCMS and, at ministerial level, make sure that there is a complete understanding of the fact that rural communities need to play their part in a modern economy, and of the need to improve that.

In the end Amendment 157 was not adopted. Meanwhile the most remote and poorly connected farmers could perhaps consider a Satellite broadband service as a temporary fix, although admittedly such platforms tend not to be ideal due to high latency times, meagre data allowances and variable service speeds (especially at peak times when congestion can be a problem).

In the future some of those issues may be fixed by the new generation of LEO Satellites from companies like SpaceX (Starlink), OneWeb, Amazon and so forth. At present most of those have yet to launch any commercial broadband packages for consumers and thus we dont yet know for sure how well theyll hold up in a real-world deployment.

One small addition to the McDonalds and Libraries point(s) made earlier. Most of these were inaccessible during the COVID-19 lockdown, which merely made life for the remotest farmers even harder. Of course if doing your taxes online in a Library is undesirable then doing them in McDonalds must be close to the modern definition of hell, albeit with the addition of a soggy burger.. yay.
Wirecard went swiftly bust last month in an accounting scandal that is drawing comparisons with the collapse of Enron.

Two more former executives from bankrupt German payment company Wirecard were arrested on Wednesday and its former CEO was returned to custody after the case against him was expanded, prosecutors said.

Once a German fintech darling, Wirecard went swiftly and spectacularly bust last month in an accounting scandal that is drawing comparisons with the collapse of Enron two decades ago.

The former Wirecard managers are suspected of defrauding investors of some 3.2 billion euros ($3.7bn) by inflating the companys balance sheet.

The two newly arrested ex-managers include the companys chief financial officer who served in the position until the end of 2017 and its former head of accounting, Munich prosecutor Anne Leiding said. She identified them only as L and von E respectively, in keeping with German privacy rules.

The case against ex-CEO Markus Braun was expanded and a judge ordered him kept in custody, Leiding said. Braun was first arrested last month on suspicion of market manipulation and falsifying financial results, and then released on bail. A fourth former executive, the head of a subsidiary in Dubai, was arrested in early July.

Wirecard filed for protection from creditors through an insolvency proceeding on June 25 after executives admitted that 1.9 billion euros ($2.2bn) that had been represented as being held in trust accounts in the Philippines probably did not exist. The company said it is investigating the scope of its business handling payments through regional third parties, a major source of profits, and how that business was being conducted.

Leiding said prosecutors believe that the four suspects arrested, along with others, agreed in 2015 to inflate Wirecards balance sheet by faking income from business with so-called third-party acquirers, making it more attractive to potential investors.

The case against former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun was expanded and a judge ordered him kept in custody, German prosecutors said [File: Michael Dalder/Reuters]

In reality, it was clear to the suspects by the end of 2015 at the latest that Wirecard was losing money overall with its actual business, she told reporters. The suspects initiated talks that resulted in banks in Germany and Japan  along with other investors hoodwinked by the over-rosy annual accounts  providing some 3.2 billion euros in total, Leiding said. The money is probably lost now that the company is insolvent, she added.

Leiding would not break down the potential charges against the individual suspects, but said they include fraud, breach of trust, misrepresentation and market manipulation.

The Wirecard debacle has raised questions about the effectiveness of German financial regulation, and about who in the government knew what, when. The German parliaments finance committee plans a special meeting next Wednesday, which the finance and economy ministers are expected to attend. Officials also have acknowledged that the chancellery was in contact with Wirecard advisers.

The scandal has been viewed as a setback for the investment climate and attempts to promote the country as a base for financial services companies.

The whereabouts of one key figure at Wirecard  former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek, who was fired last month  remain unclear. Recent media reports have suggested that he may have fled to Belarus or Russia.

Asked where Marsalek is, Leiding replied: You tell me.

It is obvious that we are trying to get in contact with everyone who may have been involved, but I cant say anything about that, she added.
The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education on Tuesday said that mark sheets of the Madhyamik Pariksha, the class 10 examination, would be distributed to students on Wednesday and Friday.

The Board had earlier announced that mark sheets will be distributed on July 22 and 23. But it changed one date after the state government decided to impose total lockdown in the entire state on July 23 and 25.

In view of distribution of Madhyamik Pariksha results on July 22 and 24 instead of July 23 due to lockdown and also with regard to upcoming admission to class eleven, it is hereby ordered that all teachers and non-teaching staff shall attend school on the above days, Board President Kalyanmoy Ganguly said in a notification.

The notification said that 50 per cent of teaching and non-teaching staff of institutes will have to be present on each day.

Employees living in containment zones would be exempted from duty on the two days, it said.

An estimated 86.34 per cent students passed the class 10 board examination in West Bengal this year, the results of which were published on Wednesday.
The top military leader who approved the decision to send an aircraft carrier to Vietnam, resulting in a coronavirus outbreak on the ship, said the move met travel and health recommendations at the time.

Adm. Phil Davidson, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, on Tuesday defended his call to allow the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and a second ship to make a four-day port stop in Vietnam in March. Within weeks, sailors on the Roosevelt began testing positive for COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

The cases spread rampantly, resulting in more than 1,200 infected crew members. One of them, a 41-year-old chief petty officer, died. The crisis also led the ship's captain to be relieved of command, the former acting Navy secretary to abruptly resign from his post, and a flag officer's promotion to face new scrutiny.

Read Next: SecDef Wants to Stop Federal Law Enforcement Agents Dressing Like US Troops

"The decision to go to Vietnam ... was done with the complete collaboration of U.S. Pacific Fleet, Seventh Fleet, the carrier strike group, the carrier, and certainly our embassy in Vietnam," Davidson said during a Defense Writers Group event.

They followed the advice of medical experts, he added, and the port call met State Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations at the time.

The Navy's second investigation into the circumstances surrounding an email that the Roosevelt's former commanding officer, Capt. Brett Crozier, wrote warning Navy leaders about the growing health crisis on the ship found Davidson was not at fault for approving the stop in Vietnam.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told reporters last month that Davidson's decision to go into port was "sound."

President Donald Trump in April blamed Crozier for the decision to allow the Roosevelt to make the March port call in Vietnam, despite Davidson, the combatant commander, having given final approval.

"Perhaps you don't do that in the middle of a pandemic or something that looked like it was going to be," Trump said. "History says you don't necessarily stop and let your sailors get off."

Some Navy officials said around that time that they believed delivery flights brought COVID-19 onto the ship. Gilday said last month, after the investigation into the crisis was released, that the cases originated in Vietnam.

Davidson on Tuesday declined to address questions about the investigation faulting poor communication at lower commands playing a role in the Roosevelt's coronavirus outbreak or whether higher-level leaders should be held accountable.

"I'm not going to comment further on the CNOs investigation," the admiral said. "He's passed that investigation on now to [Commander of Pacific Fleet Adm. John Aquilino]. He's got a set of accountability actions that the CNO asked him to look at, and Adm. Aquilino's got that in hand.

"In my position, I can't offer anything else on this without undue influencing the process."

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: Navy Now Says Vietnam Port Stop Likely to Blame for Carrier's COVID Outbreak
The Lead: Russias role in Mideast comes at the expense of US interests, says Slotkin

Although Elissa Slotkin is only in her first term representing Michigans 8th district in Congress, she is already a go-to member on national security, sitting on the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.

Slotkin came to the Hill after a decade and a half in the executive branch, including stints at the CIA, where she did three tours in Iraq, and in senior positions with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the White House and the Pentagon, where she was acting assistant secretary of state for international security affairs.

Slotkin was the guest on Al-Monitors On the Middle East podcast today discussing US foreign policy, Congress, Russia and the Middle East.

Here are six takeaways from our conversation:

Clear-eyed about Russia. We should be clear-eyed about the Russian attempt to thwart, target and engage the US military, says Slotkin, either directly or more likely through proxies. Russias being back in the game in the Middle East, she added, comes at the expense of our interests and certainly the access of the US military.

Slotkin and US Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) have introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to require the Pentagon to produce a report to Congress on the threat to US forces from Russia and its proxies. If the report is included in the NDAA, it would be the first such assessment of the Russian threat.

Differences on annexation. Although Slotkin considers Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s intention to annex some Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be a security risk for Israel, she does not support conditioning US assistance if it happens. I havent signed a letter to condition aid or threaten peoples physical security because I happen to have major disagreements with the prime minister, she said. Its that distinction I make in a lot of my engagements...Im glad to see annexation on the back burner.

s intention to annex some Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be a security risk for Israel, she does not support conditioning US assistance if it happens. I havent signed a letter to condition aid or threaten peoples physical security because I happen to have major disagreements with the prime minister, she said. Its that distinction I make in a lot of my engagements...Im glad to see annexation on the back burner. Trump peace plan a non-starter. It puts the thumb so heavily on the side of the Israelis that it provides no incentives for the Palestinians to come to the table, she said.

Conditioning aid to Saudi Arabia. We always have to be able to coordinate and work together with our partners on those threats that specifically threaten us and our allies, Slotkin said. That does not mean we should be in a position to provide intelligence to help the Saudis to prosecute careless targeting of civilians.

Sanctioning Turkey. Slotkin says Turkeys decision to go ahead with the purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system, after buying the US F-35 combat aircraft, could have an outsized impact on US arms sales to allies and partners. If Turkey can get away with this unscathed, then whats to keep lots of other partners and allies from doing the same thing?

Iran and escalation. While Slotkin said she may support the intent of recent semi-covert operations targeting Irans missile and nuclear facilities (I am not a fan of the Iran nuclear program, she said) and the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani, What Im concerned about is this administrations ability to manage escalation.

Listen here: These are a just few highlights of my interview with Rep. Slotkin; you can listen to the On the Middle East Al-Monitor podcast here.

Turkey: Three reasons Erdogan has Azerbaijans back in conflict with Armenia

Friend till the end. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear Turkey is 100% behind Azerbaijan after border clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenian forces took place July 12.

Erdogan said that Turkey will never leave Azerbaijan alone and will support it till the end.

He went on to claim that Armenia undertook military action this month to block settlement over Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed enclave between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and create new conflict zones in the region.

But heres the catch. The recent fighting is not over Nagorno-Karabakh, raising questions about the where and why of the flare-up and what might be Erdogans objectives in talking tough in support of Azerbaijan.

Background: Armenia and Azerbaijan are both former Soviet republics in the South Caucuses. They have been in conflict over the Azeri region of Nagorno-Karabakh since a war between the two countries ended in 1994. Nagorno-Karabakh is administered by ethnic Armenians backed by the Government of Armenia. Internationally mediated negotiations have failed. Turkey has bitter relations with Armenia and close ties with Azerbaijan. A 2009 US-mediated peace agreement between Turkey and Armenia collapsed soon after it was agreed.

Erdogans three objectives in the conflict:

Stoking nationalism. Turkeys hawkish messages could be attributed to the self-confidence it has gained in its recent military ventures in Syria and Libya, writes Fehim Tastekin. Both interventions have served Erdogans interests in domestic politics, but neither of them could compare to the nationalist fervor that Turkish posturing in the Caucasus could stoke, given Turkeys ethnic kinship with Azerbaijan and historical enmity with Armenia.

Getting tough with Armenia also plays to Erdogans nationalist base as he seeks to revive his sagging poll numbers amid the countrys worst economic downturn since his Justice and Development Party came to power 18 years ago, adds Amberin Zaman.

Leverage with Russia. Erdogan may also be looking for some leverage in his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in both Syria and Libya. Erdogan has fallen behind his declared objectives in both conflicts, writes Tastekin. But Russia has its own levers of influence in the region, including strong ties with Armenia and decent relations with Azerbaijan. Conflict dynamics in the South Caucasus  no matter what set them into motion  might pave the way for Russia to reassert its control in the region, writes Tastekin.

Energy advantage. Metin Gurcan offers a slightly different, if complementary, take. The conflicts over the past week are not over Nagorno-Karabakh  they occurred in the Tavush region.

The Tavush area is Azerbaijans gateway to Turkey in terms of energy, rail and transit routes, explains Gurcan. Azerbaijans South Caucasus Pipeline runs nearby, carrying gas to the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline in Turkey, which is a major component of Turkish and European efforts to reduce energy reliance on Russia. The area is central also to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad, two major joint projects that Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have realized since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In other words, the area is crucial for Azeri energy exports to Europe and the only land route linking Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia. In this context, it is also a crucial corridor for Turkey and Europe to access Central Asia and China by sidestepping Russian and Iranian domains, writes Gurcan.

Our take: This one bears watching especially because, as Gurcan points out, a catalyst may be US sanctions targeting companies involved in Russian pipelines to Europe. Erdogan values his relationship with Putin, and while they have found a way to keep the dialogue on Syria, they are on opposite sides in Libya. Erdogan sees another opportunity to seek an advantage on Putin while not adding to his woes with the United States over sanctions. Escalation may be unlikely but cant be ruled out. Tough talk comes easily to Erdogan, but he is also known to back it up.

Israel: Knesset moves to criminalize gay conversion therapy

Israels Knesset advanced two legislation proposals banning gay conversion therapy, which would be punishable up to one year in jail. The licenses of psychologists engaged in such therapies will be canceled for five years. The legislation adds a few more hurdles and is opposed by Netanyahus Likud and their ultra-Orthodox Knesset partners. Public Security Minister and Knesset member Amir Ohana, who is openly gay, was the only member of his party to vote for the bill. Rina Bassist has the story here.
A 58-year-old Bucks County man pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to pretending to be a Navy SEAL and wounded prisoner of war to steal $300,000 in veterans benefits, prosecutors said.

Richard Meleski of Chalfont pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Savage to health-care fraud, mail fraud, stolen valor, and abetting straw purchases of firearms.

Savage scheduled Meleskis sentencing for Nov. 3.

Meleski was indicted late last year for scheming to obtain health-care benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs and disability benefits from the Social Security Administration.

Meleski claimed to have served as a Navy SEAL in Beirut, Lebanon, during the 1980s. He said that during that time, he was beaten, shot, and tortured while held as a prisoner of war, then heroically jumped out a window while carrying a dead SEAL on his back, and was awarded the Silver Star for his actions.

In reality, Meleski never served in the United States military and was in the state of New Jersey, not Beirut, at the time of his claimed incidents, according to the indictment.

Meleski also was charged with illegally obtaining firearms after his fiancee admitted to illegally purchasing two guns for him. He also pleaded guilty to that on Wednesday.

U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain said in a statement: Everything about this case is profoundly offensive. Our veterans fought for the freedoms we hold dear, and we owe them a debt that we can never fully repay. But holding individuals like Meleski accountable for their crimes is one small way that we can honor our veterans service.
HARRISBURG -- No more masks. No more restrictions.

And, they said, no more tyranny.

That was the rally cry of several hundred people who gathered on the Capitol steps Wednesday, calling for Gov. Tom Wolf to lift all coronavirus-related restrictions.

Organizers called the Pennsylvania Assemble for Freedom event a gathering to call out the governor, and to demand to be set free from any and all restrictions and to return freedom of choice to We the People.

And they filled the steps on the Capitol under the hot, summer sun to cheer on and rally around a host of speakers, who included lawmakers and small-business owners. Many wore red, white and blue and carried American flags. A few were armed. None wore masks.

And that was part of the message of the organizers.

I havent worn a mask on my face a single time, organizer Ernie Ney said, getting a huge round of applause. If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask. If you dont, dont. Our biggest and most important freedom is choice.

He added, This isnt about wearing masks or not wearing masks. This isnt about social distancing or not. This is about choice. I challenge each of you to take it and run with it and live to be free.

They were protesting many of the restrictions from Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine during the pandemic, from the earlier closure of non-life-sustaining businesses to some of the ongoing restrictions, all of which todays speakers called an overreach of the governors authority.

Some called it tyrannical, including one state representative who addressed the crowd.

We have many people here that are with you, with me and with us in taking back our government from tyrant Tom Wolf, said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe.

Metcalfe added, while there was a big crowd, these streets should be packed based on the harm Gov. Tom Wolf inflicted, he said about the coronavirus restrictions, which Metcalfe noted caused more harm than the virus from China.

He called for the impeachment of Wolf, an effort that is still in the state House, he told the crowd, and encouraged them to reach out to their representatives in order to advance the measure.

State Sen. Mario Scavello took aim at Wolfs withholding of federal relief funds from Lebanon County.

Could you imagine our president denying dollars to Pennsylvania because we didnt listen to him, like the governor has done to Lebanon County? he asked. They would have him up for impeachment, wouldnt they? Thats exactly whats happening in Pennsylvania right now.

He added that he was a businessman, and he knows businesses cannot operate with these restrictions. The most recent restrictions further dialed back seating capacity at bars and restaurants to 25 percent in an effort to curb the coronavirus.

Scavello said restaurants couldnt make it at 50 percent, let alone 25 percent.

The owner of one of those restaurants addressed the crowd.

John Heisy of Heisys Diner in Lebanon said the Friday after Lebanon County voted to move to the yellow phase ahead of the governors go-ahead was one of their busiest days ever, and he said its thanks to all of the people who support small businesses, which have been hurting.

My family decided it was time to stand up, he said. It was time to do what we thought was right, so we opened our doors.

He said the withholding of federal funds for Lebanon County is playing politics. But he said we can all work together on a few simple responsibilities.

We need to wash our hands, we need to be clean and we need to be kind, he said. Be kind to one another. Be a light and change the world.

Jeremiah Snyder, the owner of Alpha Fitness in Chambersburg, said he reopened in May, and two days later he was served a fine, which he paid and said he will go to court over. It was only a $270 fine, he said, but the cost was not the point.

I dont care if its $270 or $7. It shouldnt be happening, he said.

He added that he is a father of two little girls, and he just wants to work to make money to survive, and he wants to walk outside without a mask.

I have a 4-year-old and an 11-year-old, and I will not teach them to live in fear, he said.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano energized the crowd, telling them Pennsylvania, the birthplace of freedom, is in a fight for its freedoms today.

When they choose to go into a store without a mask and someone confronts them, tell them to mind your own business and say youre exempt, Mastriano told the crowd. Walk as a free person. Its a choice.

It was a boisterous, but peaceful, rally with attendees coming in from all around the state.

Brian Wingate traveled to the event from Lansdale to protest what he said is government overreach.

The governor believes he has the ability to tell businesses what to do, how to run their businesses and shutting them down, depriving people of their property, he said.

Though his business wasnt closed at the height of the pandemic, he said he values freedom and if somebody else does not have liberty, then no one has liberty.

Robert Shafer from Hughesville came to protest the wearing of masks.

I think its crazy, he said. If youre going to get it, youre going to get it, regardless. The mask isnt going to save you.

But its not just the masks for Shafer. He opposes all of the restrictions from the governors office, which he said have gone too far.

And he hopes the large crowd that gathered Wednesday will send that message.

Its taking your rights away. Theyre trying to control you, and were not going to go for that, he said. Im hoping Wolf will wake up.

Public health officials in the federal government, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and Surgeon General Jerome Adams, have urged the public to wear masks to limit the spread of the virus.

After the rally, Office of the Governor press secretary Lyndsay Kensinger released this statement:

Pennsylvania Republicans continue to follow lock step with the Trump Administrations policies of ignoring the danger of COVID-19, putting peoples lives in danger, and refusing to take simple and non-controversial steps like mask wearing to stop the spread of the disease. Pennsylvania will continue to take a science-based approach to its mitigation efforts instead of playing dangerous political games that jeopardize lives.

This post has been updated to include a statement from the governors office.

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KYODO NEWS - Jul 21, 2020 - 19:48 | World, All

China on Tuesday blasted Britain's decision to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong over Beijing's recent imposition of a sweeping national security law on the territory.

Britain "blatantly interfered in China's internal affairs in an attempt to disrupt the implementation" of the new law, a spokesperson at the Chinese Embassy in London said in remarks posted on the embassy's website. "The Chinese side strongly condemns and firmly opposes this."

Britain "will bear the consequences if it insists on going down the wrong road," the spokesperson added.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters later Tuesday that China is likely to "take strong countermeasures" against Britain, lambasting the country's action for breaching international law.

"China urges Britain to give up its fantasies of continuing colonial influence in Hong Kong," Wang said, calling on London not to further damage bilateral relations.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told Parliament on Monday that given its deep concerns about the national security law imposed on its former colony, the government is suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong "immediately and indefinitely."

The secretary also said that given the role Beijing has now assumed for the "internal security" of Hong Kong under the new law, the government is also extending to Hong Kong an arms embargo that has applied to China since 1989.

Raab said that while Britain wants to work with China, the two measures are a "reasonable and proportionate response" to China's failure to live up to international obligations.

He added that the extradition treaty is suspended because the law's imposition has "significantly changed key assumptions underpinning our extradition treaty arrangements with Hong Kong."

Echoing Beijing's stance on the matter, the Hong Kong government said Tuesday that it strongly objects to Britain's "gross interference" in China's internal affairs and its move to allow criminals to evade justice.

"The U.K.'s unilateral suspension of the agreement on (the) surrender of fugitive offenders with Hong Kong is for political purposes," a government spokesman said in a statement. "It smacks of political manipulation and double standards."

"The decision shines a spotlight on the real possibility that the U.K. will become a haven for fugitives wanted by Hong Kong who are trying to escape legal responsibility," the spokesman also said.

Britain followed Australia and Canada in suspending extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to the national security legislation.

The national security law, enacted by Beijing and imposed on Hong Kong at the end of last month, outlaws what it defines as acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. It also allows suspects to be transferred to mainland China for prosecution.

Western governments have criticized the legislation as undermining the high degree of autonomy China promised for the former British colony for 50 years upon its return to its rule in 1997.

Related coverage:

Prominent democracy activist Nathan Law flees Hong Kong

Australia suspends extradition deal with Hong Kong, extends visas

Japan, Australia air "grave concern" over China's H.K. security law
Portland may just be the beginning.

Federal law enforcement agencies are gearing up to expand their footprint nationwide in the coming weeks, despite concerns about the recent scenes of violence and chaos in Oregon.

Department of Homeland Security officials have considered deploying mobile field forces to protect federal property in cities around the country that experience unrest, two people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO. And the Department of Justice is planning to expand Operation Legend, a law enforcement initiative launched by Attorney General Bill Barr earlier this month to fight the sudden surge of violent crime in Kansas City, Mo.

DOJ plans to announce this week that the operation, which involves agents from the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, will expand into more cities, a DOJ official told POLITICO. We are seeing success in our Kansas City operation and have already arrested some wanted fugitives, the DOJ official said.

The discussions have followed weeks of clashes between federal agents and protesters in Portland, which Trump on Monday called worse than Afghanistan. The president has vowed to use the power of the federal government to crush what his officials deem violent anarchists, wielding his authority to bolster the law-and-order theme hes woven increasingly into his campaign messages.

The threat of force against cities whose residents overwhelmingly oppose the president has outraged Democratic lawmakers and mayors, several of whom told POLITICO they have yet to receive a formal heads-up about any forthcoming deployments.

Democrats say the federal units are unwelcome and unnecessary  if not unlawful. But the Trump administration insists they are needed to protect American cities from the more unruly elements of a movement protesting police brutality and systemic racism.

Portland was totally out of control, the president said on Monday, blaming liberal Democrats for incidents of vandalism and clashes between protesters and law enforcement. They were ripping down  for 51 days, ripping down that city, destroying the city, looting it.

Story continues

Senior DHS officials said they expect the unrest to escalate at least through the November election, and noted that the protection of federal buildings falls squarely within their remit. DHS can temporarily authorize officers and agents from its other components  including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)  to protect federal buildings.

The Federal Protective Service (FPS), the DHS component thats specifically responsible for securing federal buildings around the country, has been training officers and agents from other DHS components on its legal powers. And an FPS document reviewed by POLITICO shows more trainings are scheduled for this month. Those trainings are not routine, one person familiar with the situation told POLITICO, and the plans indicate the department is preparing to deploy more officers around the country.

As DHS cross-designated components to Portland, they received additional training from FPS specifically so they can fulfil their mission, a DHS spokesperson told POLITICO in response to a request for comment on this story. The spokesperson declined to discuss any other details of this reporting.

In an FPS training session held earlier this month, lawyers for the agency briefed DHS officers from other components on what they could do when temporarily teaming up with FPS, according to an audio recording of the session reviewed by POLITICO. The focus was a legal process called cross-designation; it lets officers from one federal agency temporarily use the legal authorities of a different agency, thanks to a federal law referred to as Section 1315. Officers clad in military fatigues who descended on Portland over the weekend were cross-designated under 1315 in partnership with FPS.

One lawyer doing the training told listeners that FPS was trying to stay away from citations that relate to First Amendment protected activity. The lawyers also cautioned trainees that they couldnt arrest protesters just for making video recordings of them on their cell phones, even if those recordings made them uncomfortableand that they couldnt retaliate against those protesters by recording them with their own phones.

They also discussed a federal regulation that lets FPS officers arrest people for taking photos or videos of federal facilities under certain circumstancescautioning that while the regulation exists, officers should be cautious about using it because of the First Amendment. And they discussed a tactic called cite and release to quickly remove people from protests without going so far as making a custodial arrest. One lawyer called it an invaluable tool to de-escalate protests.

In practice, however, DHS has struggled to lower the temperatures of protests. Oregon officials, including the mayor of Portland, have said the influx of cross-designated DHS officers has heightened tensions. Despite that, Trump said on Monday that the feds plan to send officers to a number of cities run by liberal Democrats, including Baltimore, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

But spokespersons for those cities mayors told POLITICO that nobody from DHS had formally contacted them about the potential deployment of federal officers.

And the mayor of Philadelphia said in a statement that he would resist any imposition of federal agents on the city.

The presidents threat is wrong on many levels, said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, warning that any such move would represent a politicization of federal resources that would impede the work of local governments and exacerbate tensions further. Philadelphia would use all available means to resist such a wrong-headed effort and abuse of power, Kenney said.

A spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot similarly said that while the city had not received any definitive information about additional federal resources coming to Chicago to augment existing federal resources.  Mayor Lightfoot has made clear to all that we will not tolerate any secret, federal agents being deployed in Chicago's neighborhoods.

Should the Trump administration foolishly try to usurp our local authority, will not hesitate to take decisive action to stop this unwanted and dangerous intrusion, the spokesperson, Megan Vidis, added. Lightfoot told reporters on Tuesday that as of right now, she expects additional federal resources to help suppress violent crime in the city but not a "Portland-style" federal deployment.

The Oakland Police Department said in a statement that neither it nor the city of Oakland, which Trump also named as a potential target for a surge in federal forces, has asked for federal assistance.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Portland set a hearing for Wednesday on Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblums request for a judge to temporarily block unidentified federal law enforcement agents from detaining individuals in the state. Rosenblum has asked the court to order that federal agents only detain people based on warrants or probable cause, identify themselves to people being detained, and explain why the suspect is being held.

In a separate suit, the ACLU is seeking similar relief on behalf of a group of journalists and legal observers who contend federal agents are intimidating them. A hearing in that case is set for Thursday before a second judge.

David Lapan, the top DHS spokesperson in the early days of the Trump administration, told POLITICO that he worries the presidents threatened deployments could seriously harm the departments reputation.

Its overly militaristic, its being seen in partisan political terms, and its usurping the authorities of the local law enforcement and elected officials, he said.

Josh Gerstein contributed reporting.
The Blue Jays have placed utility player Breyvic Valera on the restricted list, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet was among those to report. Valera has had difficulty getting out of his native Venezuela, Nicholson-Smith adds.

The 28-year-old Valera just joined the Blue Jays on July 2 as a waiver pickup from San Diego, though he did see a bit of action with Toronto last season in a previous stint. Valera has been quite popular around the league, in fact, having played for four other MLB teams besides the Blue Jays. The switch-hitter has only totaled 138 plate appearances in the majors, though, and has mustered a mere .223/.294/.298 line with one home run. Valera has been much better at the Triple-A level, where he owns a .302/.374/.442 mark with 31 homers in 1,550 PA.

Between his success in the minors and his ability to line up all over the field, its not hard to see why so many teams have taken a chance on Valera. The hope for the Blue Jays is that Valera will turn into a valuable major leaguer in their uniform, but its up in the air whether hell play for the club again.
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Johnny Depp demanded that Amber Heard stop doing nudity in films and cut down on intimate movie scenes, a friend of the actress has claimed.

Joshua Drew alleged he had heard the Hollywood star had a 'particular issue' with fellow actor James Franco and his name would 'cause fights' between the couple.

Mr Drew, the former husband of Ms Heard's friend Raquel 'Rocky' Pennington, is giving evidence in Mr Depp's libel action against the Sun over a 2018 article which labelled him a 'wife beater'.

In a written witness statement, Mr Drew said he first met Ms Heard, 34, in June 2014, and Mr Depp, 57, shortly after. He and Ms Pennington were engaged in the summer of 2015 and they moved into the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles later that year.

The High Court has heard that Mr Depp owned a suite of penthouses in the building. Mr Drew claimed: 'I understood from our interactions that Johnny was jealous.'

Joshua Drew alleged he had heard the Hollywood star had a 'particular issue' with fellow actor James Franco (pictured with Heard in The Adderall Diaries) and his name would 'cause fights' between the couple

Mr Drew (left), the former husband of Ms Heard's friend Raquel 'Rocky' Pennington, is giving evidence in Mr Depp's (right, today) libel action against the Sun over a 2018 article which labelled him a 'wife beater'

Amber Heard leaves the High Court in central London today with her girlfriend Bianca Butti as the Depp libel case continues

He continued: 'Rocky told me, based on her conversations with Amber, that Johnny had a particular issue with James Franco because he and Amber had some intimate scenes in a project they were filming, which Johnny did not want her doing.

'His name came up often and it would cause fights between them. They were arguing about it very regularly.'

Mr Drew also said he had overheard the couple fighting, saying: 'For example, during a trip to France I heard Johnny shouting at Amber about a role she had done.

'Johnny was shouting about a nudity rider in the film that she claimed was fraudulent and he accused her of knowing about and going against his wishes to include it.

'I knew from what had been discussed with Rocky and Amber that Johnny had demanded that Amber stop doing nudity in her films and that she cut down on intimate scenes with co-stars.

'Rocky told me about various fights they had had over the years and said that Johnny was jealous of Amber's co-stars.'

In his statement, Mr Drew gave his account of an alleged incident at the Eastern Columbia Building, on May 21 2016, in which Ms Heard claims Mr Depp threw a mobile phone at her, which he denies.

Mr Drew claims that after the alleged episode, he and Ms Pennington ushered Ms Heard into their apartment and 'deadbolted the door to keep him out and keep her safe until Johnny had left the building'.

He said Ms Pennington told him Mr Depp had 'shoved her' and he 'got angry' and went and 'banged on the door' of another apartment before going back to his own.

He claimed that around five minutes later, Mr Depp's then security guard, Jerry Judge, called him and asked him if he knew where Mr Depp's mobile phone was.

Mr Drew claimed he told Mr Judge he had it and they could come and get it but said 'words to the effect of they could not set foot in the building'.

Mr Drew alleged: 'I met Jerry downstairs and gave him the phone. He took a few steps to walk away and then turned and asked me 'Is she okay?'

'I said something like, 'Are you f***ing kidding me? He beat the shit out of her again and you guys stood by and watched it'.

'He started to demur and then said something along the lines of it's not his business, they are husband and wife, he barely touched her. I said something to him like, 'get the f*** out of here, be real proud of yourself; get the f*** out'.'

Mr Drew also said he greeted police officers who arrived around 15 minutes later and showed them around the apartments.

'You are making up this up as you go along': Amber Heard is accused of lying about Johnny Depp's Thanksgiving attack as court is shown video of them celebrating and laughing about 'the monster' with actor's son and Marilyn Manson

Amber Heard was today accused of 'making up' claims Johnny Depp was violent after being shown a video of the couple partying happily with friends including Marilyn Manson on the night the actress claims her ex-husband threw her across the room and 'busted' her lip.

Ms Heard alleges that Mr Depp also ripped her shirt and left her with a 'lump' on the back of her head on Thanksgiving in November 2015.

Today two videos were played in court from the holiday weekend where people can be heard talking excitedly and laughing with Heard and Depp, who filmed the group enjoying themselves.

When asked by Eleanor Laws, Mr Depp's QC, to explain the footage, which showed no violence taking place, Heard replied: 'Our fights never happened in front of the family. They typically happened after everyone had gone to bed.'

Ms Laws alleged that Heard was lying about the entire incident and said: 'You are making up this up as you go along'.

Not all the faces of those in the darkened video are visible, but Heard can be seen picking up a drink and revealed that she could tell that Marilyn Manson was present after recognising his fingernails. She also told the court that others present were her friend Rocky Pennington, Depp and his son Jack, Heard's father David and Erin Boerum, Heard's nurse and friend.

Amber has claimed that her megastar ex-husband would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs. In the film Depp can be heard joking with Jack Depp about a monster being in the room while Amber exclaims to a guest: 'What are you doing? Get away get away'.

Amber Heard picks up her drink while partying with Johnny Depp and friends including Marilyn Manson on the night she claims her ex-husband hurled her across a room and 'busted' her lip

Ms Heard was accused of 'making up this up as you go along' by Mr Depp's QC on her third day of evidence

Eleanor Laws QC then turned to an alleged incident of domestic violence in Los Angeles in December 2015, which Amber Heard has described in her first witness statement as 'one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship'.

Ms Heard alleges that Johnny Depp slapped her, dragged her by the hair through their apartment - pulling clumps of her hair out - and then repeatedly punched her in the head.

The actress became visibly upset as Ms Laws read through passages of her witness statement detailing the alleged abuse.

Ms Laws said: 'That's just a complete set of lies, isn't it?'

Ms Heard replied quietly: 'No.'

Ms Laws then referred to medical notes made by a nurse, Erin Boerum, who saw Ms Heard shortly after the alleged incident in Los Angeles, who recorded that Ms Heard was 'actively bleeding on her lip'.

The nurse also said she 'briefly looked at the client's scalp but was unable to visualise haematomas the client described'.

Ms Laws said: 'You didn't have any bruises at all when you saw Erin Boerum, did you?'

Ms Heard replied: 'I had two black eyes, a broken nose, a broken rib... I had bruises all over my body.'

She added: 'I had bruised ribs, bruises all over my body, bruises on my forearms from trying to defend the blows. I had two black eyes, I had a broken nose, I had a broken lip... the really bad ones (bruises) were in my hairline, on my scalp.'

Ms Heard continued: 'There was chunks of hair missing, there was pus in those wounds in my hair line, dark red bruises... purple-red on my temples and on my chin. The inside of my upper lip was cut.'

Ms Laws suggested: 'This is just nonsense, isn't it? She (Ms Boerum) didn't see any bruising... you had just bitten your lip because there was fresh blood on it. Had you just done that for her benefit?'

Ms Heard replied: 'Of course not.'

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard that a photograph of her with bruises on her face taken after the alleged December 2015 incident was 'completely set up', which Ms Heard denied.

Ms Laws then said: 'If someone is grabbing you by the hair and pulling your hair out, it would come out at the root.'

Ms Heard said: 'No of course not, of course not. It comes out wherever it breaks.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress why she took a photograph of her scalp, and Ms Heard said her scalp was 'in pain' and her friend Raquel Pennington took a photograph because she had red spots on her head and it was 'pussy' from where it had been pulled out.

A short clip of Ms Heard's appearance on The Late Late Show was then played to the court, following which Ms Laws said: 'That is what you looked like on the show, there is no injury, is there?'

Ms Heard replied: 'I had tonnes of injuries.' She then said she had makeup on covering the injuries and added: 'You can tell by the size of my lip alone.'

Ms Laws then asked Ms Heard about an alleged incident in the Bahamas in August 2014, when the couple were staying on Mr Depp's private island while he was detoxing.

She read out part of Ms Heard's witness statement where the actress referred to a door being splintered during the violent episode.

The barrister then read from notes of Mr Depp's doctor, Dr Kipper, which stated that Ms Heard went to get him and nurse Debbie Lloyd and described Mr Depp as 'erratic and paranoid'.

The notes said the pair found Mr Depp 'sitting quietly on his porch' and that he was calm and said he was frustrated with the detox process.

Ms Laws said: 'I suggest to you that he didn't assault you in any way on that day.'

Clarifying the question, Mr Justice Nicol said: 'Did Mr Depp assault you on that day?' To which Ms Heard replied: 'Absolutely.'

Ms Laws then asked about photographs of the broken door, saying: 'That is not a photograph from the Bahamas, is it?'

Ms Heard said: 'No. It was a mistake in the divorce.

Ms Laws said: 'You just include any photographs, anything you can, in a very cavalier way, don't you?'

Ms Heard explained there was a large bundle of evidence in the divorce proceedings, adding: 'This is a different door he kicked.'

Ms Heard was asked about an alleged incident in Tokyo in January 2015, during which the actress claims Mr Depp slapped her, grabbed her hair and knelt on her back.

Ms Laws asked if she attended a film premiere while there and when it was, and Ms Heard said she did and it was two days after the alleged attack, adding that she was concerned about bruises on her back.

Ms Laws said: 'Do you remember wearing a backless dress to that premiere?' Ms Heard replied: 'Very well.'

The barrister asked: 'You didn't have any injury on your back, did you?' Ms Heard replied: 'Not visible ... I remember checking obsessively.'

Johnny Depp's nose showed visible signs of injury after Amber Heard 'lost her temper' on their Orient Express honeymoon, star's QC claims

The High Court was shown this picture of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp on their honeymoon on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in 2015 with his QC claiming his reddened nose is a sign of injury inflicted by his then wife

Johnny Depp's QC Eleanor Laws had earlier discussed the 'train incident', when Johnny Depp is said to have been violent to Ms Heard on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in August 2015 on their honeymoon.

Miss Heard alleges Depp picked a fight with her, hit her and pushed her against a wall by the throat, causing her to fear for her life. This is denied by Depp.

The barrister said: 'This is yet another occasion when you had a row and it was you who lost your temper.'

Ms Heard said: 'No, I disagree.'

Ms Laws showed Ms Heard a photo of Mr Depp, taken on the train, which she said showed 'an injury on his face'.

Ms Heard said she could not see any injury to Mr Depp.

Ms Laws continued: 'This is yet another occasion where you have completely turned an incident around and blamed Mr Depp.'

Ms Heard said: 'No, I have tons of pictures from this vacation and these days and he's uninjured. He strangled me.'

Johnny Depp 'threw 30 bottles at me like grenades'

Proceeding began today when Amber Heard denied severing the tip of Johnny Depp's finger or stubbing out a cigarette on his face during a violent argument in Australia claiming the Hollywood star was lobbing up to 30 booze bottles at her 'like grenades' while holding her hostage for three days in a mansion.

The actress, who accuses the 57-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star of physical abuse on at least 14 occasions, was questioned about an incident Down Under in March 2015 on her third day in the witness box at the High Court in London.

Depp says the tip of his finger was severed during an argument when Heard, 34, threw a large vodka bottle which struck his hand, but Ms Heard hit back today saying: 'I only threw things to escape Johnny when he was beating me up'.

Describing the row she said she had taken a bottle from Depp from which he was drinking and smashed it on the floor, prompting a furious response from him. Ms Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs, before giving a long answer in which she said Mr Depp had thrown '30 or so bottles' towards her 'like grenades'.

She said he threw all the bottles within reach bar one, saying: 'He picked them up ad started using them like grenades or bombs...throwing one after another in my direction.'

Depp's lawyer Eleanor Laws said Heard's account that the actor had severed his finger by smashing a phone against a wall and then continued to assault her was a lie. 'No it's not,' she replied. 'I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he carried on attacking me.'

Laws also accused Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on Depp's cheek. 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me. He often did things like that,' she said. It came after Ms Heard claimed Johnny Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' Amber Heard as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Amber Heard strides into the High Court with her girlfriend Bianca Butti as she prepares to give evidence for the final time in the bombshell libel trial. Mr Depp (pictured today) is accused of going into rages while on drink and drugs and since splitting with Ms Heard she alleges he has run a campaign of harassment

The carnage in a property in Australia after Depp and Heard allegedly had a fight in 2015, which was released as part of Ben King's evidence a week ago

Depp is on the stand at the High Court for a third day today and was questioned about the incident after he previously claimed the injury was sustained when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him during the fight in Australia. Mr Depp also has a cigaretted burn on his right cheek, but is ex-wife denies it was her

Depp insisted that the only attack on the trip had been launched by Heard when she hurled a vodka bottle at him and caused the infamous injury which cut off the top of his finger

Amber Heard's third day of cross-examination by Johnny Depp's lawyers began on Wednesday with Eleanor Laws QC asking about the alleged incident in Australia in March 2015, which Ms Heard has described as a 'three-day hostage situation'.

Ms Laws put it to the actress that she 'worked yourself into a rage, screaming at him' and threw a glass bottle, adding: 'Because you would get yourself into rages on occasions.'

Ms Heard said: 'No, I got angry at times but not into a rage that would cause me to throw anything at him.'

Mr Justice Nicol clarified her answer by repeating that she would sometimes get angry, and Ms Heard continued: 'But not to the extent where I would throw anything at him offensively.'

Ms Laws said: 'I'm going to suggest you threw a bottle at his head and it smashed the mirror behind him.'

Ms Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs. She told the court: 'I would like to be clear, I did break a bottle but it was very early on in that evening, it was the second evening, if I recall correctly, and it was before Johnny had started to throw the bottles at me.

'We were in an argument about whether he was going to drink ... the liquor. When I confronted him about it he offered me the bottle ... he said, 'here, take it'.

'He said, 'Oh yeah, you want it? Here, take it', and at that point drinking had already been ... he had already given it up for a while and it was on the list of 'if this happens, I leave' sort of thing. It was no fly.

'And he gestured to offer it to me and I reached to take it and he pulled it back.

'He was teasing me to take it and would revoke it when I reached (for it).

'Then he did it again and I have in my head all the times that he said that I saved his life, and I thought honestly I could short circuit (a row about drinking).

'So I reached for it a second time and I smashed it on the floor in between Johnny and I.

'I regret I did that.'

Describing the alleged bottle attack, Ms Heard said: 'He started picking them up one by one and throwing them like grenades.

'One after the other after the other, in my direction, and I felt glass breaking behind me, I retreated more into the bar and he didn't stop.

'I was too scared to look behind me. He threw all the bottles that were in reach, all except for one which was a celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine.'

Ms Heard said she remembered that was the only bottle not smashed out of 30 or so.

The actress then said: 'He (Mr Depp) told me over and over again that my work in trying to get him clean and sober ... when he was clean and sober he would tell me I saved his life.'

In response to Ms Laws disputing her version of events, she said: 'Absolutely not, Ms Laws, I was there, I watched it.

'I would be shocked if Johnny remembers any of this himself, but I was there.'

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard that Mr Depp's finger was not severed as a result of his hand smashing against the wall, which the actress disagreed with.

The barrister then said: 'This injury was you throwing a bottle in his direction, smashing it down and severing the tip of his finger with glass, wasn't it?' Ms Heard replied: 'No.'

Ms Laws referred to a photograph showing a mark on Mr Depp's face and accused Ms Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on his cheek, which the actress denied, adding: 'Johnny did that.'

Ms Laws said: 'You did it, didn't you?' To which Ms Heard replied: 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me, he often did things like that.'

Ms Laws said: 'According to you, Mr Depp sliced his finger off all on his own ... and then carried on attacking you.'

Ms Heard said: 'Yes, he did. I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he did continue the attack.'

Ms Laws said: 'This was a nasty incident in which you were extremely violent.' Ms Heard replied: 'Absolutely not.'

Eleanor Laws QC then said: 'And afterwards, we have got those tapes... when security arrived, you were screaming at Mr Depp not to leave and then in another moment calling him a f****** coward for going.'

Ms Heard said: 'I didn't hear it on the audio files.'

Pressed further she added: 'No on both of those accusations, absolutely not. I was just in another room crying.'

There was an exchange between Ms Laws and Ms Heard about whether she had listened to the audio file and she confirmed she had only listened to part of it, but said it was the relevant part.

She told the court: 'At the beginning of the tape, you can hear how it ended. It ended with Johnny (shouting) incoherently and I was in the bathroom crying.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress about her using the phrase 'have you been so angry you've lost it?'

Amber Heard said: 'I have referred to losing your cool as 'losing it'. I specifically denied referencing it to Ben King.'

She added: 'I said if I did use that phrase or anything like it, I would've been asking about Johnny's behaviour, not my own.'

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard that it was a phrase she had used about herself, and played part of an audio recording to the court, which was mostly inaudible in the overspill courtroom where the media are listening to proceedings.

The barrister then asked: 'Is it true that sometimes you get so angry you lose it?'

Ms Heard replied: 'Sometimes I get angry enough that I lose my cool.'

Depp also admitted to doing graffiti on a bathroom mirror after the fight with Heard, which resulted in his finger being severed. He admitted that some of it was done with his blood and some with paint

During their visits to Australia in 2015, the couple stayed in this mansion owned by former MotoGp champion Mick Doohan

Ms Heard, who started her third day of evidence this morning, claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published today, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Today Ms Heard is expected to give her final evidence with her ex-husband Johnny Depp feet away as the biggest English libel trial of the 21st century comes to a head.

Ms Heard, who smiled and waved as she walked into the Royal Courts of Justice with Bianca Butti, has been in the witness box for the past three days where she claimed she feared Mr Depp, 57, was 'going to kill' her on several occasions.

Amber has said that the megastar would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs.

On another extraordinary day at the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday, Ms Heard claimed that Mr Depp once pushed supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs during their relationship in the 1990s. The actress said that was why she had punched the actor  over fears he was about to do the same to her younger sister Whitney.

Amber also denied that she had an affair with Elon Musk, James Franco or 'anybody else' while she was with Johnny Depp, who she claimed was 'jealous' and accused her of sleeping with at least eight co-stars and also Leonardo DiCaprio after an audition, giving DiCaprio the nickname 'pumpkin-head'.

But the actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Ms Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

Amber Heard and her girlfriend Bianca Butti went sightseeing through Central London yesterday after her court appearance

The couple were having a 'nasty row' at the top of stairs in March 2015 when Whitney, then 26, tried to intervene, the court heard.

Accused of punching the Pirates Of The Caribbean star with her closed fist, Miss Heard, 34, replied: 'I did strike Johnny that day in defence of my sister.

'He was about to push her down the stairs and, the moment before that happened, I remembered information I had heard that he pushed a former girlfriend  I believe it was Kate Moss  down the stairs. I had heard this rumour from two people and it was fresh in my mind. And in a flash I reacted in defence of her.

'I have been for years Johnny's punching bag  it was the first time I actually struck him back.'

Eleanor Laws QC, for Depp, accused Miss Heard of 'just making this up as you go along', saying she had 'added' Miss Moss  whom Depp dated in the 1990s  to her evidence. Miss Heard admitted she had never mentioned it before, in any statements or previous explanations of the incident.

Miss Heard said: 'He was about to push my sister down the stairs. My baby sister. She has never hurt anyone in her life.

'I would have done anything to prevent her being pushed down a flight of stairs.'

Miss Laws said: 'You are making this up as you go along, throwing in details, new details, which you have thought of literally on your feet to make your account more credible.'

Miss Heard replied: 'Of course not.'

Miss Laws said: 'You don't want to admit the truth, which is that you are violent, do you?'

Miss Heard said: 'Only in self-defence.'

There was no response from Miss Moss's spokesperson yesterday for requests to comment.

Ms Heard sketched giving evidence during the bombshell libel proceedings brought by Mr Depp against The Sun after being branded a 'wife-beater'

Amber Heard made the sensational claim that Johnny Depp pushed British supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs while they dated in the 1990s (pictured together in New York in 1994)

'Johnny's the boss': Amber Heard claims it was Depp's decision to bring their terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally

Amber Heard today denied it was her decision to take their dogs Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally in 2015 and said: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened'

The actress said she took the blame to avoid disrupting her then-husband's filming schedule for Pirates of the Caribbean.

The barrister read a series of emails sent between Ms Heard and Mr Depp's then-estate manager Kevin Murphy, in which Mr Murphy told her that 'the dogs will not be allowed to fly commercial in the passenger compartment to Australia'.

Ms Heard told Mr Murphy that she did not want to put the dogs in 'cargo', and said: 'Unless there's another way to get them there or get them on the plane with J.'

A photograph of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp's pet Yorkshire Terriers Pistol and Boo, who were taken into Australia illegally

Heard and Depp at Southport Magistrates' Court in Australia in April 2016. Heard received a $1,000 fine and a one-month good behaviour bond after pleading guilty to one count of falsifying border protection documents when entering the country with the dogs

Eleanor Laws, QC for Mr Depp, said: 'You were told by Kevin Murphy, who had been doing quite a lot of work on this, that he wasn't able to get the documentation ready in time.'

Ms Heard said: 'No ... this is a process that had been going on for about six months and I was out of the country filming a movie, I wasn't there with Johnny so it was quite confusing to me.'

She added: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened. He always found a way to make it work.'

Ms Heard continued: 'He told me when I landed. I was only in LA for a matter of hours before we got on his plane for his movie on his flight with his staff.'

She said Mr Depp told her 'everything had been taken care of', adding: 'I had no reason to get any clarity.'

Eleanor Laws QC put it to Amber Heard: 'You took a decision to take them (the dogs) anyway.'

Ms Heard replied: 'It wasn't my decision.'

She added: 'Johnny's the boss.'

Ms Laws said: 'You are the boss, aren't you?'

Ms Heard said: 'I didn't call any of the shots. This is Johnny's plane, Johnny's crew, Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'We both filled out the same entry cards... we both filled out the same thing, yet I took the charges because if Johnny got charges it would have further compromised Pirates (Of The Caribbean), which was already compromised.'

Ms Laws suggested that every time Ms Heard was asked a question 'you used it as an opportunity to say something negative about Mr Depp'.

She added: 'You knew full well that you shouldn't have taken those dogs.'

Ms Heard replied: 'Johnny told me that we would bring the dogs in.'

Ms Laws asked: 'What about Kevin Murphy?'

Ms Heard said: 'That's Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'I was the only one to get charged so I plead guilty... I took the blame.'

Ms Laws then suggested that Ms Heard tried to 'shunt the blame' on to Kate James, her former assistant.

Ms Heard replied: 'I plead guilty, why would I need to do that?'

Amber Heard claims she had 'plenty of injuries' despite her mark-free face when she appeared on The Late, Late Show with James Corden, High Court told

Amber Heard claimed that just 24 hours before she appeared on the Late Late Show with James Cordon show on December 16 2015.

She claims that Depp launched a vicious attack which left her with 'tons of injuries' including: bruised ribs and arms, bruises all over her body, two black eyes, a broken nose and a broken lip.

Heard poses with guests Luke Bracey and Wanda Skyes on the Late, Late Show with James Corden on December 16, 2015

Amber Heard claimed that Johnny Depp physically abused her one day before she was on The Late, Late Show with James Corden on on December 16, 2015 (above) - and said after her appearance that she 'just did that show with two black eyes'

The court was then played footage of Heard's appearance on the show, with her face immaculately made up and no visible marks on it.

Ms Laws said: 'That's what you looked like on the show, no injury is there?'

Heard replied: 'I have tonnes of injuries.'

Ms Laws alleged that the night before her appearance on the James Cordon show, it was Heard who was violent towards Depp and that she attacked him.

Heard claims that during the fight, Depp dragged her around their Los Angeles penthouse by her hair, knocked her to the floor, pushed her onto a bed and then jumped on top of her so hard that it broke and also headbutted her.

Describing the headbutt, which Depp claims was accidental and not forceful in the way Heard claims, she told the court: 'His head came into contact with mine very deliberately. He clenched his fists, leant back and slammed his head into my nose.'

Ms Laws claimed that prior to appearing on the James Cordon show she was seen without any makeup by her stylist Samantha McMillan and that she did not notice any injuries to her face.

Photographs were issued by Heard's legal team of her with injuries to her face around the time of the alleged attack on December 15, 2015, showing bruising across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes after Depp allegedly headbutted her. Depp is believed to have been shown these pictures in court last week while he was giving evidence

Ms Heard told the court there were two bedrooms in penthouse five of the Eastern Columbia Building in LA, which were used for clothing, jewellery, hair and makeup.

Ms Laws asked the actress about an alleged incident in December 2015, the night before Ms Heard appeared on James Corden's The Late Late Show, when she says Mr Depp headbutted her.

The barrister said stylist Samantha McMillen saw Ms Heard shortly before her appearance on the chat show and said in her evidence that the actress was not wearing makeup, with which Ms Heard disagreed.

Ms Heard said Ms McMillen saw her while she was already having her makeup done.

She said Ms McMillen was her stylist for a short time while she was married to Mr Depp, adding: 'She is Johnny's stylist.'

Ms Laws said: 'You had a row which turned violent and you were attacking him and he was restraining you, do you agree or not?'

Ms Heard said: 'No he only came up with that story after hearing the audio.'

Ms Laws said: 'Do you agree or disagree?' To which Ms Heard replied: 'I disagree.'

Ms Laws said: 'And his head came into contact with yours, not deliberately at all.'

Ms Heard said: 'Very deliberately.' She added: 'He clenched his fists, leaned back and slammed his head directly into mine.'

Ms Laws said: 'Do you agree that you caused injury to Mr Depp's face on that night?' Ms Heard replied: 'I don't see how I could have, I'm sorry.'

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard that a photograph of her with bruises on her face taken after the alleged December 2015 incident was 'completely set up', which Ms Heard denied.

Ms Laws then said: 'If someone is grabbing you by the hair and pulling your hair out, it would come out at the root.'

Ms Heard said: 'No of course not, of course not. It comes out wherever it breaks.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress why she took a photograph of her scalp, and Ms Heard said her scalp was 'in pain' and her friend Raquel Pennington took a photograph because she had red spots on her head and it was 'pussy' from where it had been pulled out.

A short clip of Ms Heard's appearance on The Late Late Show was then played to the court, following which Ms Laws said: 'That is what you looked like on the show, there is no injury, is there?'

Ms Heard replied: 'I had tonnes of injuries.' She then said she had makeup on covering the injuries and added: 'You can tell by the size of my lip alone.'

Ms Laws asked Ms Heard about her first allegation of violence against Mr Depp, which she says happened after she remarked on his 'Wino Forever' tattoo.

Ms Heard said it was the 'first time I had been hit like that since I was a child', adding: 'It didn't feel painful necessarily, it just felt like a pop.

'The first time he hit me, I didn't even know he was serious, I was laughing, I thought he was joking ... I just didn't know.'

She said she was left with 'just redness' on her face, adding: 'My eye didn't pop out.'

The actress then said she had told her therapist about it at the time.

Amber Heard accuses Johnny Depp of a four-year harassment campaign after split

Amber Heard today claimed Johnny Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' their as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Ms Heard, who started her third day of evidence this morning, claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published today, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Self-harm

Johnny Depp's lawyer Eleanor Laws QC challenged Amber Heard's testimony of the incident, suggesting that scars she claims were inflicted by Depp depicted in photos shown in court were 'far more akin' to self-harm scars

Scars on Amber Heard's arm were the result of self-harm rather than a brutal attack by Johnny Depp, his QC suggested.

Miss Heard said they were inflicted during a terrifying ordeal in Australia in March 2015  which she has termed the 'three-day hostage situation'  at a house they rented while Depp filmed one of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies.

She said yesterday: 'I had been strangled, assaulted, punched, sexually assaulted, strangled, among other things.'

She claimed that Depp had guzzled whisky and ecstasy tablets before hitting and choking her, smashing bottles and throwing her around on a kitchen top strewn with broken glass in the incident in which he drunkenly severed his own finger before daubing 'I love u' with his blood on a mirror.

She told the court, her voice cracking with emotion: 'I was trying to push him off me. I was saying, 'Johnny, it's me, you're really hurting me, stop please'  it's like he couldn't hear me.'

She added: 'He pulled me around by my neck and pushed me down against the bar, I was against the bar, naked, bent over backwards, my back against the marble.

'He was pressing so hard on my neck I couldn't breathe. I was trying to tell him that I couldn't breathe. I remember thinking he was going to kill me in that moment. The floor was wet and I was slipping.'

She said she could not get any purchase on the floor or the countertop 'from all the broken bottles'.

Miss Heard said she still bore scars on her arm. A photo taken on April 18, a month later, at the Tribeca Music Festival in New York, was shared on Twitter, and the court also saw other photos.

Eleanor Laws QC, for Depp, asked her: 'These are not scars sustained while you are writhing around, trying to get away from Mr Depp  jagged, uneven  they are straight in line, aren't they?'

Mr Justice Nicol intervened to ask: 'It is suggested these are not scars sustained in the Australia attack  do you agree?' Miss Heard did not.

Miss Laws said: 'These are far more akin to self-harm scars, straight and inflicted by you, and certainly not in a struggle with Mr Depp.'

But Miss Heard replied: 'I have had these scars on my arm since that evening and I have never self-harmed.'

And she added: 'Johnny's a self-harmer, I'm not a self-harmer.'

KEITH RICHARDS PHOTO

The actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Miss Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

The photo was taken on March 23, 2013. Miss Heard had initially claimed Depp smacked her on March 21 but she later changed this to March 8.

She said Depp had become jealous of a painting her ex-partner Tasya van Ree put up in their bedroom, and that in a drug-fuelled rampage he had tried to set fire to it and had hit her so hard that the wall was 'spattered' with blood from her lip.

Miss Laws suggested Miss Heard had altered her account after seeing the photo of her, her sister Whitney and Depp with Richards, saying: 'You have changed the date in order to explain away the clear face in the photo.

'You have woven a web of lies that you have had to shift and change according to when evidence has emerged.'

Miss Heard replied: 'I disagree.'

PLASTER CAST

The actress was also accused of 'a complete lie' over her claims that Depp grabbed her hair with one hand and punched her with the other in March 2015.

It was impossible, said Miss Laws, since the actor's right hand was swathed in bandages  Depp had chosen a children's dinosaur design for fun  following the severing of his finger in Australia during a previous row. Miss Heard told the court she wasn't lying, saying: 'He grabbed my hair with this hand, and hit me with the hard plastic cast. It was especially unpleasant.'

Miss Laws said the actress had not mentioned the plaster cast before, and suggested that if it had been true it would have been 'a primary feature of the assault' that Miss Heard would have wanted to record.

'BLACKMAIL'

Miss Heard was accused of trying to extort and blackmail the star as they divorced. Her list of demands included three LA penthouses and a black Range Rover.

A letter from her lawyers demanded Depp's 'immediate co-operation' to complete the divorce quickly and without publicity. She also peppered the star with text messages saying 'Please call me, it's important', 'please!' and 'emergency!', the court heard.

Miss Laws said: 'It's blackmail, isn't it?' The actress said: 'No.' Miss Heard filed her divorce declaration on May 26, 2016  five days after the alleged phone-throwing incident  and obtained a court restraining order the following day, saying she was 'petrified' that her husband would return to the apartment.

Miss Laws suggested this was 'not true'. The actress replied: 'I was petrified of the monster that Johnny could become.'

OUT WITH FRIENDS

Miss Heard was also pictured apparently enjoying herself with friends in the days after the May 21 phone-hurling incident, during which she claimed her husband had been 'drunk and high' and smashed 'everything he could' in the apartment with a magnum bottle of champagne.

Three days later, CCTV footage from the lift of her apartment building showed her going out with her sister Whitney and friend Rocky Pennington, coming back at 11pm with wine.

Miss Heard has been accused of faking her injuries with help from her friends, in what Depp's legal team claims was part of a 'hoax'.

FAECES ON THE BED

Amber Heard has rubbished accusations that she defecated in Johnny Depp's bed, as bombshell photographs of faeces at the centre of their bitter court row were made public for the first time

In the latest twist to what was dubbed 'Poogate' by Miss Heard and her friends, the actress vehemently denied she was responsible for leaving 'disgusting' human excrement on the bed she shared with Depp in their Los Angeles penthouse on her 30th birthday. She blamed it on their dog Boo, who was unwell after it ate some of the star's drug stash, the court heard.

Depp says he made up his mind to divorce his wife after being informed about the faeces.

Miss Laws asked Miss Heard: 'You left human excrement on the bed?' Miss Heard responded: 'That's absolutely disgusting.'

Asked if any of her friends had left it, she replied: 'No, of course not. That's unimaginable to me.'

She claimed Boo, Depp's Yorkshire terrier, had had a problem with her bowels since eating cannabis that belonged to Depp when she was a puppy.

The case continues.
Episcopal diocese raising funds to renovate 2 predominantly black churches

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An Episcopal Church diocese is helping to raise funds for two predominantly African-American mission churches in Kentucky so they can renovate their properties.

The Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky is seeking to raise $200,000 for St. Georges Episcopal Church and the Church of Our Merciful Saviour, both located in the West End of Louisville.

Bishop Terry White told Episcopal News Service that the two mission churches have always been in the forefront of providing community services.

We played a role in these congregations buildings being in the shape that they are.  We are all one, and therefore we all have a responsibility to get these buildings in good shape, he told ENS.

The fundraising campaign, known as West Louisville Now, was spurred on in part by the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor by police officers and the subsequent large-scale protests.

In a letter sent out in June announcing the fundraiser, Bishop White highlighted the work of both mission churches among the community of Louisville.

In addition to opening their doors for worship, they are engaged in a wide range of ministries with their neighbors. They provide food, clothing, youth enrichment opportunities, and more, he wrote last month.

Their ability to live out their calling in their communities is hampered, however, by significant issues with their buildings. If crucial repairs are not made soon, our Diocese runs the risk of losing these vital ministries at a time when they are so sorely needed.

For St. Georges, listed needs included $42,000 for a new gymnasium roof, $5,000 to replace rotted wood in the gymnasium, and $25,000 to resolve moisture issues in the church building.

For Our Merciful Saviour, listed needs included $7,000 for a furnace for the sanctuary, $5,000 for floor repairs for the sanctuary, and $6,000 for window and door repairs and replacements.

The Christian Post reached out to the diocese on Friday for more details but they were unable to respond by press time.

Last September, the Episcopal Church-affiliated Virginia Theological Seminary created a slavery reparations endowment fund of about $1.7 million aimed at helping African-American clergy and the work of historically African-American congregations.

The Rev. Joseph Thompson, director of the seminarys Office of Multicultural Ministries, which will oversee the fund, said the fund has the potential to be transformative.

Though no amount of money could ever truly compensate for slavery, the commitment of these financial resources means that the institutions attitude of repentance is being supported by actions of repentance that can have a significant impact both on the recipients of the funds, as well as on those at VTS, stated Thompson at the time.

It opens up a moment for us to reflect long and hard on what it will take for our society and institutions to redress slavery and its consequences with integrity and credibility.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Wednesday that the U.S. may have around 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus by year-end if current trends were to persist. That would be more than double the current total.

"Right now we have close to 1,000 casualties a day; so if we don't change that trajectory, you could do the math and see where we are towards the end of the year," Gottlieb said on "Squawk Box."

The U.S. has at least 142,000 deaths related to Covid-19, the most of any country, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. America's 43.40 deaths per 100,000 people is 10th highest in the world. The U.S. has a total of 3.9 million infections.

Daily deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus are still well below levels seen early in the pandemic, when more than 2,000 new fatalities were recorded on some days in April. But after rising cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks, deaths picked up in certain parts of the country. On Tuesday, the death toll topped 1,000 for the first time since May 29, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner under President Donald Trump, said mortality rates in the U.S. have likely fallen as medical workers learn to better treat the novel virus. He said he has talked to physicians who are treating Covid-19 patients who say "it may have been cut in half."

The death rate from total confirmed cases was around 3.6% as of Wednesday. However, as The Wall Street Journal reports, the actual death rate may be just a fraction of that, considering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes Covid-19 cases may be six to 24 times higher than the confirmed count.

While saying for months that the real count case is probably much higher, Gottlieb told CNBC on Wednesday that "The problem is we're hospitalizing a lot of patients." He added, "Even if we end up preserving more life in the hospital, which we're doing, if we end up hospitalizing a whole lot more patients, you're ultimately going to have a lot of casualties, unfortunately, from this virus."

Gottlieb's comments Wednesday came one day after Trump warned that the nation's outbreak of Covid-19 will probably "get worse before it gets better." The president, who has with a few exceptions avoided wearing masks in public during the pandemic, also urged Americans to wear face coverings to help limit spread of the virus.

A virus model, once cited by the White House, currently projects more than 220,000 people in the U.S. could die of Covid-19 by Nov. 1. However, the model projects a lower death count by that date  slightly over 183,000  if the U.S. had universal masking.

Gottlieb also said he believes the U.S. mortality rate from the coronavirus could decline into the fall if more therapeutics to treat the virus come onto the market, such as the drug from Ridgeback Biotherapeutics which is being developed in collaboration with Merck. It is being studied for both in-patient and outpatient use.

"That's likely to be an in-hospital use drug because of its side effect profile, but it does in early studies look like it might have activity against coronavirus," he said. "So there are promising therapeutics on the horizon, and it just underscores the fact that we're going to improve in-hospital mortality with this virus as we progress into the fall and winter."

Many companies, including Merck, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna, are working on possible coronavirus vaccines, with hopes for one that works and can be approved early next year.

Gottlieb emphasized that the U.S., in the meantime, must ultimately control the transmission of the coronavirus, saying "there are ways to keep this under control." He added, "some states have chosen not to do that, and that's why you're seeing this continue to spread."

"We have the specter right now of parts of this country where the local school boards are making a decision to close schools, but the bars and restaurants are still open," Gottlieb said. "We need to make a decision what's important to us and what we're willing to sacrifice right now until we get to the other side of this."

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic-testing start-up Tempus and biotech company Illumina.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the relationship between Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck. The two companies are collaborating to develop the potential Covid-19 antiviral.
Delhi University releases new notification on the dates of Entrance Test; NTA likely to conduct tests from September 6 to September 11. Students are advised to visit DU's bulletin of information, while detailed schedule follows.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) is likely to conduct Delhi University Entrance Test (DUET) 2020 from September 6 to September 11, 2020.

All aspirant desirous of seeking admission to UG, PG, M.Phil and Ph.D programmes of the University of Delhi through entrance test are hereby informed that NTA is likely to conduct the Delhi University Entrance Test (DUET) 2020 from September 6, 2020, to Sept 11, 2020. The detailed schedule will follow, the Delhi University said in a statement.

Applicants have been advised to carefully go through the respective bulletin of information uploaded on the website of the universitys site to check the eligibility and the courses for which the entrance test shall be conducted. Students are also advised to carefully go through the information of the entrance test that has also been posted on the website, the varsity said.

Also read: HTET Revised Result 2020 DECLARED @bsed.org.in: Heres how to check

Also read: UPSC to conduct PTs/ Interviews of remaining candidates from July 20

The applicants can choose the relevant courses while filling up their registration form and once submitted, following information related to entrance tests  courses selected for entrance test and entrance test centre preferences  cannot be changed, it added.

Also read: UGC Guidelines 2020: Over 700 universities ready to conduct exams

For all the latest Education and Jobs News, download NewsX App
Mumbai, July 22 : Bombay High Court has questioned the Maharashtra state government regarding its directive that bars actors below 10 and above 65 years from shooting amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

A petition was been filed by senior Bollywood actor Pramod Pandey on Tuesday against the government directive.

The High Court has asked the state government to explain how senior actors will sustain themselves if they are not allowed to shoot, according to a report in indiatoday.in. The court also asked the state whether the age limit has been decided on the basis of any report or data.

The court has reportedly asked the government to submit a reply by Friday.

Earlier speaking to India Today, Pandey had said: "It is our constitutional right to work and earn a dignified living. But the state government order doesn't allow us to work. We may survive corona but will die of unemployment and starvation if we don't work. I struggled all my life and earn around 40 thousand per month but now there is no work. In fact there are no audition calls as well. The clause for small kids is understandable, and they have parents to take care of them but what will actors and crew members who are 65 years-plus do? They will die." Ever since the lockdown started, shooting across film, TV and OTT industries was stalled. As unlock has been initiated, shooting has resumed but senior actors have been prohibited from working, as per the state's new regulation.

A lot of them find it difficult financially as they are out of work over the last four months. Hence they are eagerly looking forward to getting back to the sets, but the state's age-related guideline prevents them from doing so.
No further deaths and nine new cases of coronavirus have been reported in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has confirmed.

The death toll remains at 556.

The total number of infections has risen to 5,868 after nine new cases were reported.

There are seven patients with Covid-19 in hospital, with two of these patients in intensive care.

The Department of Health said there are six active outbreaks at care homes in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, the Public Health Agency has identified 16 clusters of coronavirus cases since May 22.

Alliance health spokesperson Paula Bradshaw called on the PHA to disclose "the nature" of the clusters to the public.

The South Belfast MLA stated: I myself had asked Assembly Questions about the nature of apparent outbreaks in particular locations, and about what we were learning from contact tracing, and was assured these were just matters of increased transmission.

Now it turns out that the recently publicised case near Limavady is one of sixteen since 22 May. The issue is we have not been informed about the nature of these clusters and, particularly, how they originated.

A public health emergency needs public support and therefore good public information. That means the public must be fully informed about the types of behaviour which have proven particularly dangerous in terms of leading to super-spreading events.

I would therefore urge the Minister to ensure the Public Health Agency publishes information about the nature of each cluster and what we can learn from it.

Read More

Here's how Wednesday unfolded:
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
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 22, 2020 | 02:16 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY

On July 14, deputies with the McCracken County Sheriff's Office were notified of a possible assault in a vehicle traveling along I-24. Deputies say they were able to locate the vehicle and performed a traffic stop.





During the investigation, deputies say the driver of the vehicle, 33-year-old Michael Netherton, was unable to provide a current driver's license and had a vehicle registration that didn't belong to that vehicle. Deputies performed a search of the vehicle and reportedly found methamphetamine residue.





Netherton was cited and released to EMS for health reasons. He is charged with possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), improper registration plate, and no operator's license.

An Alabama man is facing drug and other charges after a traffic stop in McCracken County.
A 30-year-old Norwalk man could face up to 10 years in prison after he was charged with posessing a loaded rifle with an obliterated serial number, federal authorities said Tuesday.

Tyrome Sawyer was indicted by a grand jury on one count unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Sawyer pleaded not guilty to the charge Tuesday in a video-conferenced court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Spector, the United States Attorneys office for the District of Connecticut said in a press release.

The indictment claims Sawyer was found with a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic rifle with obliterated markings in Norwalk last year.

Sawyer is also facing charges in state court of criminal possession of a firearm, illegal possession of an assault weapon and illegal alteration of firearm identification from the April 19 raid on his residence.

That day, Norwalk police with the citys tactical unit searched Sawyers Lincoln Avenue residence on a warrant, and they found a pistol and an assault rifle, The Hour reported last year.

The Hi-Point carbine found at Sawyers residence is classified as an assault weapon under state law.

Sawyer had previously been convicted of felony firearm, drug and escape charges, the press release said. In 2009, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for a carjacking in the Stop and Shop parking lot, The Hour reported at the time.

It is a violation of federal law for a person previously convicted of a felony offense to possess a firearm or ammunition that has moved in interstate or foreign commerce, the U.S. attorneys office said in the release.

Norwalk Police are being assisted in their investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the investigation, the release said.

The report said Sawyer has been held in custody since his arrest on April 19 last year.

Sawyer is due back in superior court in Norwalk on Oct. 7 for the Connecticut charges.
At least 14 people were shot outside a funeral home in Chicago on Tuesday night, in one of the most violent incidents the city has seen this summer.

Police told reporters that gunmen began firing from inside a car at people exiting a funeral at Rhodes Funeral Services in Chicagos Gresham neighborhood. Some attendees were armed and fired back at the assailants, who ran out of the car after it crashed near the funeral home.

The victims are currently being treated for various injuries at five different hospitals. The funeral was held for a 31-year-old man shot to death roughly a mile and a half away from the home last week, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

We currently have a person of interest being interviewed by our detective in the area, First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said at a press conference. Detectives will be conducting a canvass for the rest of this evening and early tomorrow.

Police said they did not yet know if the shooting was gang-related.

When a person picks up a gun, we suffer as a city. This cannot be who we are, Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote on Twitter following the shooting. Lightfoot called on residents to aid police in their investigation, writing We cannot give shelter to killers. People know who are responsible.

Chicago has seen an abnormally high number of shootings over the past month and a half, with 25 people shot on Monday alone and 63 people shot over the weekend. At least 1,901 people have been shot in Chicago since the beginning of 2020, up from 1,351 over the same period in 2019.

While shootings typically increase in the city every year during the summer months, the pace of shootings has spiked amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and protests against police following the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by Minneapolis officers.

More from National Review
ILOILO CITY, Philippines  The local government of Iloilo City has temporarily closed its borders due to the increasing number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the area.

Mayor Jerry Trenas said the city government banned the entry of residents coming from Bacolod City, Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental.

Meanwhile, movement of essential goods and cargoes remains open to maintain normal supply of food and basic needs.

Due to the rising number cases of COVID-19, Iloilo City will CLOSE ITS BORDERS for people coming in from BACOLOD CITY, Posted by Jerry Trenas on Tuesday, 21 July 2020

The post Iloilo City closes borders as COVID-19 cases spike appeared first on UNTV News.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has asserted that his country would not allow any threats or aggression towards Iran. al- Kadhimi is currently on a trip to Tehran, which also marks his first tour abroad since the pandemic began. Speaking at a news conference alongside Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, al-Khamini alluded at Iraq not becoming the battleground between Iran and the US and said that it wanted good relations with the Islamic republic.

Read: Iran Executes Man Convicted Of Spying On US-slain General

"The people of Iraq want good relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran based on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of both countries. Iraq is a country that won't allow any aggression or challenge to Iran from its territory," he said at a live new broadcast which was telecasted by Iranian state television.

Read: Iran FM Visits Baghdad Ahead Of Iraq PM Trip To Saudi Arabia

Iran-Iraq relations have been stable over years with broth closely supporting each other. However, with surging enmity between Tehran and Washington, Baghdad has found itself it a tough position. Back home, the Iraqi PM faces increasing pressure from Iran aligned groups that perceive him as siding with the US after he announced his desire to curb the power of Iran back political parties and militias.

al-Kadhimi's visit

On July 21, the official website of the office of the Iranian presidency released a photo of Rouhani and al-Kadhimi at a welcome ceremony in Tehran, showing both wearing protective face masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The visit came after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif travelled to Baghdad over the weekend.

It was Zarif's first visit to Iraq since a US airstrike in January killed a top Iranian general, Qassim Soleimani, outside Baghdad's international airport. The strike catapulted Iraq to the brink of a US-Iran proxy war that could have destabilised the Middle East.

Read: Iraq's PM & Iran President Strengthen Cooperation

Read: Iran Invites India To Review Chabahar-Zahedan Rail Project; Quells 'India Ousted' Claims
Pipeline

22 July 2020

Cycas Hospitality has signed a lease agreement with ECHO Partners to operate its first Radisson-branded property; the Radisson Hotel & Suites Amsterdam South.

When it opens in early 2021, the 227-suite Amsterdam aparthotel - which was recently acquired for the ECHO Fund - will become the first all-suite property to operate under the upscale Radisson brand in Western Europe.

To appeal to both transient and longer-staying travellers visiting the Dutch capital, each of the studio, one-bed and two-bed apartments has its own fully-equipped kitchen. Other facilities at the canal-front hotel include a gym, on-site bar and restaurant with outdoor terrace seating, plus underground parking for 70 cars.

Located in Amstelveen to the south of the city, the 10-storey hotel is within walking distance of the international companies who have their headquarters in Amsterdam's booming district, such as KPMG, KLM and Canon. With great transport links to the Zuidas central business district (3km), city centre (6km) and Schiphol Airport (8km), the property is well placed to cater for the growing demand for extended-stay accommodation options in this part of the city amongst project workers and relocating employees.

About ECHO Partners AG
PRINCETON, N.J.--A research team led by Princeton University has developed a technique for tracking online foreign misinformation campaigns in real time, which could help mitigate outside interference in the 2020 American election.

The researchers developed a method for using machine learning to identify malicious internet accounts, or trolls, based on their past behavior. Featured in Science Advances, the model investigated past misinformation campaigns from China, Russia, and Venezuela that were waged against the United States before and after the 2016 election.

The team identified the patterns these campaigns followed by analyzing posts to Twitter and Reddit and the hyperlinks or URLs they included. After running a series of tests, they found their model was effective in identifying posts and accounts that were part of a foreign influence campaign, including those by accounts that had never been used before.

They hope that software engineers will be able to build on their work to create a real-time monitoring system for exposing foreign influence in American politics.

"What our research means is that you could estimate in real time how much of it is out there, and what they're talking about," said Jacob N. Shapiro, professor of politics and international affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. "It's not perfect, but it would force these actors to get more creative and possibly stop their efforts. You can only imagine how much better this could be if someone puts in the engineering efforts to optimize it."

Shapiro and associate research scholar Meysam Alizadeh conducted the study with Joshua Tucker, professor of politics at New York University, and Cody Buntain, assistant professor in informatics at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

The team began with a simple question: Using only content-based features and examples of known influence campaign activity, could you look at other content and tell whether a given post was part of an influence campaign?

They chose to investigate a unit known as a "postURL pair," which is simply a post with a hyperlink. To have real influence, coordinated operations require intense human and bot-driven information sharing. The team theorized that similar posts may appear frequently across platforms over time.

They combined data on troll campaigns from Twitter and Reddit with a rich dataset on posts by politically engaged users and average users collected over many years by NYU's Center for Social Media and Politics (CSMaP). The troll data included publicly available Twitter and Reddit data from Chinese, Russian, and Venezuelan trolls totaling 8,000 accounts and 7.2 million posts from late 2015 through 2019.

"We couldn't have conducted the analysis without that baseline comparison dataset of regular, ordinary tweets," said Tucker, co-director of CSMaP. "We used it to train the model to distinguish between tweets from coordinated influence campaigns and those from ordinary users."

The team considered the characteristics of the post itself, like the timing, word count, or if the mentioned URL domain is a news website. They also looked at what they called "metacontent," or how the messaging in a post related to other information shared at that time (for example, whether a URL was in the top 25 political domains shared by trolls.)

"Meysam's insight on metacontent was key," Shapiro said. "He saw that we could use the machine to replicate the human intuition that 'something about this post just looks out of place.' Both trolls and normal people often include local news URLs in their posts, but the trolls tended to mention different users in such posts, probably because they are trying to draw their audience's attention in a new direction. Metacontent lets the algorithm find such anomalies."

The team tested their method extensively, examining performance month to month on five different prediction tasks across four influence campaigns. Across almost all of the 463 different tests, it was clear which posts were and were not part of an influence operation, meaning that content-based features can indeed help find coordinated influence campaigns on social media.

In some countries, the patterns were easier to spot than others. Venezuelan trolls only retweeted certain people and topics, making them easy to detect. Russian and Chinese trolls were better at making their content look organic, but they, too, could be found. In early 2016, for example, Russian trolls quite often linked to far-right URLs, which was unusual given the other aspects of their posts, and, in early 2017, they linked to political websites in odd ways.

Overall, Russian troll activity became harder to find as time went on. It is possible that investigative groups or others caught on to the false information, flagging the posts and forcing trolls to change their tactics or approach, though Russians also appear to have produced less in 2018 than in previous years.

While the research shows there is no stable set of characteristics that will find influence efforts, it also shows that troll content will almost always be different in detectable ways. In one set of tests, the authors show the method can find never-before-used accounts that are part of an ongoing campaign. And while social media platforms regularly delete accounts associated with foreign disinformation campaigns, the team's findings could lead to a more effective solution.

"When the platforms ban these accounts, it not only makes it hard to collect data to find similar accounts in the future, but it signals to the disinformation actor that they should avoid the behavior that led to deletion," said Buntain. "This mechanism allows [the platform] to identify these accounts, silo them away from the rest of Twitter, and make it appear to these actors as though they are continuing to share their disinformation material."

The work highlights the importance of interdisciplinary research between social and computational science, as well as the criticality of funding research data archives.

"The American people deserve to understand how much is being done by foreign countries to influence our politics," said Shapiro. "These results suggest that providing that knowledge is technically feasible. What we currently lack is the political will and funding, and that is a travesty."

The method is no panacea, the researchers cautioned. It requires that someone has already identified recent influence campaign activity to learn from. And how the different features combine to indicate questionable content changes over time and between campaigns.

###

The paper, "Content-Based Features Predict Social Media Influence Operations," will appear in Science Advances.
It takes an incredible amount of hard work and dedication to keep a brokerage moving in the right direction, especially at a time of economic uncertainty when the market faces unprecedented challenges. Thats why this years edition of Top Brokerages should be a special one.

Canadian Mortgage Professionals Top Brokerages report recognizes the mortgage brokerages that are outperforming the competition. Brokerages will be compared based on key factors such as year-on-year growth, volume and transaction numbers. Nominations can be made via this brief online form.

The winners will be named in the October issue of CMP magazine and online.
LONDON - Britains government faced heated questions on national security Wednesday after a damning intelligence committee report on Russian meddling in the nations politics concluded the U.K. should examine allegations of interference in the European Union referendum.

The fallout from the report from Parliaments Intelligence and Security Committee dominated the agenda on the final day in the House of Commons before the summer break, with lawmakers demanding to know whether the UK had done enough to face the threat posed by Moscow.

The report concluded that Russia sees Britain as one of its top intelligence targets, adding that Moscows attempts to influence the U.K. are the new normal and successive governments have welcomed Russian oligarchs with open arms.

Russians with very close links to President Vladimir Putin are well integrated into the U.K. business, political and social scene  in Londongrad in particular, the report said.

Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer challenged Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the Commons, suggesting he sat on the report despite its dire warnings of the threat to national security.

The report was very clear, that until recently the government badly underestimated the Russian threat and the response it required, Starmer said. Its still playing catch-up. The governments taken its eye off the ball  arguably it wasnt even on the pitch. After this government has been in power for 10 years, how does the government explain that?

Though Johnson insisted new laws are coming in connection with espionage, theft of intellectual property and sanctions, he sidestepped on the notion put forward by the reports authors that nothing was done to investigate whether Russia had interfered in the referendum.

The real problem, Johnson insisted, is that some lawmakers still object to the outcome of the referendum  namely, voters decision to leave the EU.

That group of remainers are now interested in trying to suggest Moscow was responsible for Brexit, he said.

Thats what this is all about, Johnson said. The people of this country didnt vote to leave the EU because of pressure from Russia or Russian interference, they voted because they wanted to take back control of our money, our trade policy and our laws.

Johnson helped lead the campaign for Britain to leave the EU. He has made delivering Brexit his primary goal since he became prime minister last July.
Parents who wanted to call their son Lucifer, another name for the devil, were told he 'wouldn't succeed in life,' if they gave him that name.

Dan and Mandy Sheldon visited their local register office in Chesterfield, Derbyshire last week to name their four-month-old son.

But a registrar tried to bar them from using the name, which is banned in New Zealand.

Dan and Mandy Sheldon were almost denied the chance to name their son Lucifer at Chesterfield Town Hall last week

Dan, 37, a plant hire company boss told The Sun: 'She told us he would never be able to get a job, and that teachers wouldn't want to teach him.

'I tried to explain that we are not religious people, and Lucifer in Greek means 'light-bringer' and 'morning' but she wouldn't listen.'

Dan and his wife Mandy said they surprised to get any grief over the name, which first appeared as the name for the devil in the King James Bible in 1611.'

Despite objecting at first, the registrar allowed the Sheldons to name their son Lucifer

After complaining he said the woman begrudgingly approved little Lucifer's name.

Derbyshire County Council said: 'We apologise if they were offended but it is the job of our registrars to advise in these matters as sometimes people are not aware of certain meanings or associations around certain names.'

In 2013 New Zealand released a list of banned names that included Lucifer, Christ and Messiah.

According to CNN, six coupled had tried register their baby under the name Lucifer between 2001 and 2013.

However, in 2018, Scottish officials allowed a baby to have the name, while another was allowed to be called Messiah.

There were babies also called Awesome, Nun, Royalty and Pepper.

Speaking last year, Edinburgh Council's Karen Watson told the Sun: 'There aren't really any rules around names. It's a case of people can call their babies whatever they like.'

She added: 'To be perfectly honest, names now are actually pretty normal and there are only one or two that go a wee bit different.

'As long, as it's not offensive we don't get involved in what they are calling their baby.'
Five repatriates from US, Russia infected with Covid-19

Samples for Covid-19 tests are collected by a medical worker in Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

One Vietnamese returning from the U.S. and four others from Russia have tested positive for Covid-19, raising the nations infection tally by Wednesday morning to 401.

The U.S. returnee is a 58-year-old woman residing in Ho Chi Minh City. Her repatriation flight landed at Van Don airport in the northern province of Quang Ninh on July 16 and she was quarantined in the nearby Hai Duong Province. Tests confirmed she was infected on Tuesday.

She is being treated at Hai Duong Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

The Russia returnees are men between 24 and 45 years of age.

They returned from Russia via Belarus transit on July 17 and landed at Van Don Airport. They were quarantined in northern Hoa Binh Province and also confirmed infected on Tuesday.

The four are being treated at Hoa Binh General Hospital.

Twelve other passengers on the same Russia flight were confirmed infected with Covid-19 on Tuesday.

With Wednesday additions, Vietnam now has 36 active patients, with 365 others having recovered.

The country has not reported any case of community transmission of the Covid-19 for more than three months now.

All of its new patients are foreigners or Vietnamese repatriates who were quarantined upon arrival. Vietnam has brought home nearly 14,000 people since the pandemic broke out.

Worldwide, 618,398 people have died of he disease.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 04:01:43|Editor: huaxia

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OTTAWA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Canada's Federal Court ruled on Wednesday that the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) which allows Canada to send some refugee claimants back to the United States is unconstitutional.

Justice Ann Marie McDonald said the STCA, which stops people seeking asylum from entering either Canada or the United States at official Canada-U.S. border crossings, violates the section of the Charter guaranteeing "the right to life, liberty and security of the person."

"The applicants have provided significant evidence of the risks and challenges faced by STCA ineligible claimants when they are returned to the U.S.," McDonald said.

"The evidence establishes that the conduct of Canadian officials in applying the provisions of the STCA will provoke certain, and known, reactions by U.S. officials. In my view, the risk of detention for the sake of 'administrative' compliance with the provisions of the STCA cannot be justified," she added.

However, McDonald gave the Canadian government six months to respond to her landmark decision in the country's history.

Under the STCA, which took effect in 2004, Canada and the United States recognize each other as safe places to seek protection.

It means Canada can turn back potential refugees who arrive at land ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border on the basis they must pursue their claims in the United States, the country where they first arrived.

Canadian refugee advocates have vigorously fought the deal, arguing the United States is not always a safe country for people fleeing persecution.

Several refugee claimants took the case to court along with the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Council of Churches and others, which participated in the proceedings as public interest parties.

In her ruling, McDonald concluded that the agreement results in ineligible claimants being imprisoned by the U.S. authorities.

The Canadian government argued that while failed claimants are subject to detention in the United States, there is a fair detention review process available. But McDonald rejected that argument.

The government also argued that striking down the agreement would lead to an increase in claims and put the overall refugee system at risk. Enditem
Agrasen Gehlot is the owner of a company named Anupam Krishi. The customs department has levied a penalty of Rs 7 crore for alleged violations of rules in exports.

Jaipur: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday conducted raids at the properties of Agrasen Gehlot, the elder brother of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, in connection with the fertilizer scam.

Agrasen Gehlot is the owner of a company named Anupam Krishi, on which the Customs department has levied a penalty of Rs 7 crore for alleged violations of rules in exports.

The ED also conducted searches at six places in Rajasthan, four in Gujarat, two in West Bengal, and one in New Delhi in connection with the scam, sources said.

According to sources, raids also being conducted at the residence of former MP Badriram Jakhar.

The BJP had earlier accused Agrasen Gehlot of being involved in a scam during the UPA regime and claimed that his company allegedly exported subsidised fertiliser.

This comes at a time when the Rajasthan Congress is in crisis after simmering differences between Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot came to light. Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi had sent disqualification notices to Pilot and 18 MLAs under the anti-defection law.

However, the notice was challenged in the Rajasthan High Court and is pending order on 24 July.

Pilot was, on 14 July, also sacked from the posts of Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister and state PCC president. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has blamed the BJP for attempting to destabilise the state government by poaching MLAs.
Madhya Pradesh Congress chief



on Wednesday wrote to the Election Commission (ECI) demanding holding of upcoming assembly bypolls in the state through ballot papers instead of EVMs in view of the crisis.

Byelections are due in 26 constituencies which have fallen vacant following resignations of 24 MLAs of the Congress, and death of two legislators earlier.

The EC is yet to announce the polling schedule.

" on Wednesday wrote a letter to chief election commissioner suggesting that upcoming bypolls be held using ballots, as possibility of spread of infection through EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines) cannot be ruled out," said Congress leader J P Dhanopia, who is in-charge of the party's poll-related affairs.

Earlier, the EC had invited suggestions from political parties about electioneering amidst the crisis.

On an average, 1,000 voters cast their votes at every booth. Voters will have to repeatedly press buttons on EVMs. Citizens and voters can be protected from the infection if the bypolls will be held through ballots, Nath stated.

This is the second time that the state Congress has raised this demand in recent past.

The opposition party had submitted a memorandum to the election commission demanding conduct of bypolls using ballot papers last month.

The number of cases and fatalities in Madhya Pradesh stood at 24,095 and 756, respectively, as on July 21.

In March, 22 Congress MLAs, mostly loyalists of former Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had resigned, reducing the Kamal Nath-led government to a minority. Following Nath's resignation on March 20, the BJP returned to power with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as the chief minister for the fourth term.

Two more MLAs of the Congress resigned in recent past.

With the exodus of 24 MLAs, the Congress is left with 90 MLAs in the MP assembly, whose existing strength is 204.

The BJP currently has 107 MLAs. Among others, four are Independents while two belonged to the BSP and another to the SP.

(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.)
In 2014 a photographer noticed that one of his photos had been posted to Twitter without his permission. The photo was retweeted by three other people, and Twitter's algorithm cropped out the name of the photographer. The photographer went to court to get the name of the original poster, as well as the 3 people who retweeted the photo. The case ended up in the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the photographer.

From The Next Web:
New Delhi:

Aam Aadmi Party MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj on Tuesday demanded that a lie detector test be conducted on the Vice Chancellor and those accused of assaulting JNU student Najeeb Ahmed who has been missing from the campus for a month.

"The government is claiming that we will become a superpower but when students are going missing from campuses how can we progress? Why Najeeb hasn't been traced yet? Only because the students accused of assaulting him are from ABVP? I demand that a lie detector test be conducted on them,"

Bhardwaj said while addressing a protest gathering at JNU. "Vice Chancellor should also undergo brain mapping and lie detector test about why an action was not taken against the said students," he added.

Najeeb (27), a student of School of Biotechnology and a native of Badaun in Uttar Pradesh, went missing on October 15 following an on-campus scuffle allegedly with the members of ABVP the night before.

JNU students and teachers have been leading a movement alleging inaction on administration and Delhi Police's part in tracing the missing student.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
VANCOUVER, BC, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - KORE Mining Ltd. (TSXV: KORE) (OTCQB: KOREF) ("KORE" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the closing of the first tranche of the previously announced $7,500,000 non-brokered private placement consisting of 6,000,000 units at a price of $1.00 per unit ("Non-FT Units") and 1,000,000 units of flow through units at $1.50 ("FT Units") (collectively, the "Private Placement"). The first tranche, which closed today, consists of the 6,000,000 Non-FT Units for gross proceeds of $6,000,000, with the second tranche of the financing expected to close on or before July 29, 2020.

Scott Trebilcock, President and CEO stated, "We are already putting Eric's funding to work. At FG Gold in BC we have mobilized soil sampling on 10 kilometres of un-explored strike and have extended drilling with a planned 5,000 additional meters. At Imperial regional exploration soils and geophysics targeting work is underway in parallel with permitting the follow-on drill programs at Imperial and Long Valley. KORE's objective is to be continuously drilling across our portfolio for the foreseeable future."

Eric Sprott commented, "KORE owns 100% of three district scale gold projects, all with shallow high-quality drill targets. With this financing, the Imperial PEA and the resources in the ground to back-stop value, KORE is set up to deliver out-sized returns and I have positioned myself as their largest shareholder."

Eric Sprott, through 2176423 Ontario Ltd., a corporation beneficially owned by him, purchased 6,000,000 Non-FT Units for total consideration of $6,000,000. Prior to the close of this first tranche of the Private Placement, Mr. Sprott beneficially owned and controlled 20,318,444 Shares, representing approximately 20.7% of the outstanding shares. Mr. Sprott now beneficially owns and controls 26,318,444 shares and 3,000,000 warrants, representing approximately 25.3% of the outstanding shares and 27.4% on a partially diluted basis assuming exercise of the warrants.

The Non-FT Units were acquired by Mr. Sprott, through 2176423 Ontario for investment purposes. Mr. Sprott has a long-term view of the investment and may acquire additional securities of KORE including on the open market or through private acquisitions or sell securities of KORE, including on the open market or through private dispositions in the future depending on market conditions, reformulation of plans and/or other relevant factors.

A copy of 2176423 Ontario's early warning report will appear on KORE's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and may also be obtained by calling Mr. Sprott's office (416) 945-3294 (200 Bay Street, Suite 2600, Royal Bank Plaza, South Tower, Toronto, Ontario M5J 2J1). All securities to be issued pursuant to the Private Placement are subject to a four month hold period and for the securities issued under the first tranche, will expire on November 23, 2020.

The participation of Mr. Sprott as a subscriber in the Private Placement is considered to be a "related party transaction" for the purposes of TSXV Policy 5.9 and Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Securityholders ("MI 61-101"). Mr. Sprott is a "related party" of the Company under MI 61-101 by virtue of his existing level of indirect share ownership. The Company is relying on the exemptions from the formal valuation requirement set out in section 5.5(c) of MI 61-101 on the basis that the Private Placement is a distribution of the Company's securities for cash consideration, and neither the Company, nor to the knowledge of the Company after reasonable inquiry, Mr. Sprott had knowledge of any material information concerning the Company or the securities of the Company that was not generally disclosed at the time at which the Private Placement was agreed between the parties. The Company has met the minority shareholder approval requirements in section 5.6 of MI 61-101 in receiving signed consents from more than 50% of its minority shareholders in approving the Private Placement. The Company did not file the material change report more than 21 days before the expected closing date of the Private Placement as the details of the Private Placement and the participation therein by the related party was not settled until prior to closing and the Company wishes to close the Private Placement on an expedited basis as it is reasonable and necessary in light of the need to obtain financing on a timely basis.

KORE has paid a finder's fee to PI Financial in the amount of $375,000 in connection with the Private Placement. The net proceeds of the first tranche of the Private Placement are expected to advance KORE's 100% owned gold portfolio including Imperial (California), FG Gold (BC) and Long Valley (California) as well as for general corporate and working capital purpose.

Details of the Private Placement were previously announced on June 29, 2020.

Warrant Acceleration Update

Over two thirds of the accelerated warrants expiry announced on July 13, 2020 have been exercised and less than 700,000 remain outstanding. Holders are reminded that they may exercise the warrants before 4:00 p.m. EST on August 12, 2020.

About KORE

KORE is 100% owner of a portfolio of advanced gold exploration and development assets in California and British Columbia. KORE, supported by strategic investors Eric Sprott and Macquarie Bank; and insiders, including management and Board, own 64% of the basic shares outstanding.

On behalf of KORE Mining Ltd

"Scott Trebilcock"

Chief Executive Officer

(888) 407-5450

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Adjacent Properties and Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the future operations of the Company and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business. Management believes that these assumptions are reasonable. Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. For further information on the Company's Imperial Project, please see the Company's NI 43-101 Technical Report titled "Preliminary Economic Assessment - Technical Report Imperial Gold Project" effective as of April 6, 2020 and issued on May 19, 2020, filed on the Company's website and also available under the Company's issuer profile on www.sedar.com.

Such factors include, among others: risks related to exploration and development activities at the Company's projects, and factors relating to whether or not mineralization extraction will be commercially viable; risks related to mining operations and the hazards and risks normally encountered in the exploration, development and production of minerals, uncertainties regarding estimating mineral resources, which estimates may require revision (either up or down) based on actual production experience; risks relating to fluctuating metals prices and the ability to operate the Company's projects at a profit in the event of declining metals prices and the need to reassess feasibility of a particular project that estimated resources will be recovered or that they will be recovered at the rates estimated; risks related to title to the Company's properties, the ability of the Company to access necessary resources, access to suitable infrastructure, such as roads, energy and water supplies in the vicinity of the Company's properties; and risks related to the stage of the Company's development, risks regarding the ability of the Company and its management to manage growth; and potential conflicts of interest.

In addition to the above summary, additional risks and uncertainties are described in the "Risks" section of the Company's management discussion and analysis for the year ended December 31, 2019 prepared as of April 27, 2020 available under the Company's issuer profile on www.sedar.com.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this news release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

There is no certainty that all or any part of the mineral resource will be converted into mineral reserve. It is uncertain if further exploration will allow improving the classification of the Indicated or Inferred mineral resource. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

SOURCE Kore Mining

Related Links

http://www.koremining.com


ISIS remains the 'most significant' threat to the UK, the Defence Secretary has warned today.

Ben Wallace said an estimated 360 people from the UK who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the terror group, also referred to as Daesh, remain in the region either at large or in detention.

RAF aircraft have struck 40 terrorist targets as part of operations against ISIS in the last 12 months.

But he said the 'hard fight' is 'by no means done' despite the group having lost control of territory it once held in Syria and Iraq.

Ben Wallace (left, walking with Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, right) said an estimated 360 people from the UK who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the terror group, also referred to as Daesh, remain in the region either at large or in detention

Making a statement to the Commons, Mr Wallace explained: 'These targets range from caves occupied by Daesh terrorists in remote areas of northern Iraq, to weapons caches, bunkers and training camps - and included the destruction of two Daesh strong points engaged in close combat with Iraqi security forces.'

But he added: 'The threat from Daesh, I'm afraid, remains.

'Their poisonous ideology continues to endure, their pernicious influence continues to spread.

'Conflict, economic collapse and inequality is creating new opportunities that they will continue to exploit, to grow and recruit.'

A satellite image showing a Reaper conducting two attacks on a group of Daesh terrorists in northern Iraq

He continued: 'The prospect of their resurgence should concern us all. As long as they are able to operate over there, they can hit our citizens over here.

'Daesh retains its intent to carry out and inspire attacks against us, and remains the most significant terrorist threat to the United Kingdom and our interests.'

Mr Wallace said the Iraqi security forces still require assistance, with the UK providing training and mentoring plus air support.

He added: 'The terrorists have nowhere to hide, we've destroyed bunkers and hidden bases, but this is a long-running effort. Indeed, since the beginning of this year I have authorised 10 strikes alone on Daesh.'

Mr Wallace also said the UK remains 'determined' to ensure those who have fought for or supported IS should 'pay for their crimes', adding it should occur under the 'most appropriate jurisdiction, often in the region where the crimes were committed'.

The deadly remote control MQ-9 Reaper plays a vital role in modern warfare

Around 900 of the foreign fighters who travelled to the region during the conflict came from the UK, MPs were told.

Mr Wallace added: 'Of these, approximately 20% have been killed, 40% have returned to the United Kingdom where they have been investigated and the majority assessed now to pose no risk or a low security risk, and some 40% remain in the region - either at large or in facilities managed by the Syrian Democratic Forces or others.'

His comments come against the backdrop of Court of Appeal judges ruling that Shamima Begum - one of three east London schoolgirls who travelled to Syria to join IS - should be allowed to return to the UK to challenge the deprivation of her British citizenship.

Ms Begum, now 20, travelled to Syria in February 2015 and lived under IS rule for more than three years before she was found, nine months pregnant, in a Syrian refugee camp in February last year.

An image from MOD footage showing an attack on an ISIS position in northern Iraq conducted by a Reaper

Then-home secretary Sajid Javid revoked her British citizenship on national security grounds later that month, with Ms Begum taking legal action against the Home Office.

Shadow defence secretary John Healey reaffirmed Labour's commitment to the UN-sanctioned global coalition against IS and welcomed its success.

But he noted: 'It is also clear that Daesh is stepping up its insurgent attacks and must be at risk of it gaining a foothold south of the Euphrates in the area controlled by the Syrian regime, backed by its Iranian and Russian allies.'
Life sciences companies and doctors can leverage Veeva CRM Engage Meeting across the online meeting platforms they're already using

Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV) today announced it is bringing Veeva CRM Engage Meeting functionality to Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Now customers will have greater flexibility and choice in how they conduct remote meetings and connect with healthcare professionals (HCPs).

"Our open approach gives the life sciences industry the freedom to use Veeva software the way that works best for them and meets their needs," said Arno Sosna, general manager of Veeva CRM. "Customers will have more options in how they leverage Veeva CRM Engage Meeting and collaborate with doctors that may already be using Zoom and Microsoft Teams."

Seamless integration with Zoom and Microsoft Teams enables customers to benefit from the same innovative functionality in Veeva CRM Engage Meeting across any platform. Companies can use remote sampling to capture HCP product sample requests; remote medical inquiry management to compliantly respond to HCP medical inquiries; and remote consent for HCPs to approve their communication preferences remotely.

Veeva CRM Engage Meeting makes online meetings with healthcare providers easy and compliant. The application is free for life sciences companies through December 2020 so they can stay connected with HCPs as in-person access remains limited during COVID-19. Integration with Zoom and Microsoft Teams is planned for availability in January 2021.

In other news today, Veeva announced that Syneos Health is offering biopharmaceutical customers Veeva Commercial Cloud solutions to speed commercial launches. Read today's press release for more information.

To learn more about Veeva CRM Engage Meeting, visit: veeva.com/EngageMeeting.

Additional Information

Connect with Veeva on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/veeva-systems

Follow @veeva_eu on Twitter: twitter.com/veeva_eu

Like Veeva on Facebook: facebook.com/veevasystems

About Veeva Systems

Veeva Systems Inc. is the leader in cloud-based software for the global life sciences industry. Committed to innovation, product excellence, and customer success, Veeva serves more than 875 customers, ranging from the world's largest pharmaceutical companies to emerging biotechs. Veeva is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. For more information, visit veeva.com/eu.

Forward-looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements, including the market demand for and acceptance of Veeva's products and services, the results from use of Veeva's products and services, and general business conditions (including the on-going impact of COVID-19), particularly within the life sciences industry. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon Veeva's historical performance and its current plans, estimates, and expectations, and are not a representation that such plans, estimates, or expectations will be achieved. These forward-looking statements represent Veeva's expectations as of the date of this press announcement. Subsequent events may cause these expectations to change, and Veeva disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Additional risks and uncertainties that could affect Veeva's financial results are included under the captions, "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations," in the company's filing on Form 10-Q for the period ended April 30, 2020. This is available on the company's website at veeva.com under the Investors section and on the SEC's website at sec.gov. Further information on potential risks that could affect actual results will be included in other filings Veeva makes with the SEC from time to time.

2020 Veeva Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Veeva and the Veeva logo are trademarks of Veeva Systems Inc.

Veeva Systems Inc. owns other registered and unregistered trademarks.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005411/en/

Contacts:

Roger Villareal

Veeva Systems

925-264-8885

roger.villareal@veeva.com

Kiran May

Veeva Systems

+44-796-643-2912

kiran.may@veeva.com
Coronavirus cases surge among factory workers in post-lockdown India



A long, but vital, read from Reuters:

When Bajirao Thengde voiced his fears about going to work after dozens of colleagues fell sick with coronavirus, his boss at a motorbike factory in western India said he should "learn to live with the virus".

As India's coronavirus cases exceeded one million last week, unions say similar spikes in infections in reopened factories are putting workers at risk - accusing companies of skimping on health and safety as they rush to get business back on track.

It was only after several workers died and district authorities ordered a seven-day lockdown that Thengde's plant in Maharashtra state finally closed on July 10, weeks after calls for it to shut when the first cases appeared.

"We were demanding that the factory be temporarily closed but work carried on," said Thengde, a union leader who has worked for more than 30 years for Bajaj Auto Ltd - India's biggest motorbike exporter.

"The cases kept increasing despite us wearing masks, maintaining distance using foot pedals to access water taps and eating lunch by ourselves. And then there were the deaths."

Of the plant's roughly 8,000 staff, 250 have tested positive for the virus, but with their pay dependent on showing up for shifts, Thengde said workers had little choice but to go to the factory.

Bajaj Auto could not be reached to comment, but Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj said in a recent TV interview that the "factory was the safest place to be", saying employees were catching the virus in the community and bringing it to work.

Masks and social distancing

India has issued health and safety guidelines for manufacturing facilities as part of a gradual exit from a weeks-long lockdown that has left millions jobless and short of food.

According to most estimates, the Indian economy will register a record contraction of over 4.5% in the current fiscal year that started on April 1 due to the pandemic. [Note, we quoted Nomura below saying 6.1%]

Manufacturers are implementing measures such as temperature checks, mandatory wearing of masks, smaller shift groups and social distancing, industrial associations said.

State officials have also stepped up contact-tracing programmes around industrial hubs where cases have been reported, setting up special teams to work with factories on compliance and training workers on the new mandatory safeguards.

"We are very concerned about workers falling ill," said Pankaj Kumar, president of the Indian Industries Association, which represents small and medium-sized businesses.

Labour advocates, however, say the measures put in place do not go far enough, calling for more routine inspections, guaranteed living wages, as well as housing and transportation for workers during the pandemic.

"Workers are still not central to the unlocking of industries," said Hemalata, who goes by one name and is the president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).

"While some industries may follow protocols, who will ensure that smaller and medium-sized factories have safety measures in place? What is the point of opening up if workers returning to work are falling ill?"

'Cat and mouse game'

Sharanjit Singh was among tens of thousands of migrant workers who wanted to return home when India imposed its first lockdown in March to contain the pandemic.

Singh, who comes from Punjab state in northern India, was talked out of walking home by his family and has since returned to his job at a reopened steel plant in Ballari in southern Karnataka state.

"Then I heard of workers falling sick and was worried," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

"I really wanted to go back (home) then, but the company had not cleared my dues. I cannot leave without my final payment and now because of worker shortage, that is unlikely soon."

More than 100 workers at the Jindal steel plant where Singh works have tested positive for coronavirus since June, with at least 10,000 quarantined after contact tracing, according to local media reports.

Frederick Castro, a spokesman for JSW Group, said prompt action had been taken to control the spread of infection among employees once their patient zero - a worker whose mother had tested positive - was identified.

"We're taking care of every employee who is testing positive and have also extended outreach to the community," he said.

But workers remain anxious as many states reimpose lockdown measures to stem the upswing in cases.

"I don't want to fall sick," Singh said, expressing a fear shared by many workers who are also desperate to start earning again.

"It's like a cat and mouse game for workers," said Gopinath Parakuni of charity Cividep, which campaigns on workers' rights.

"Workers need the wages but we have great concerns about what is happening on shop floors in factories. There is not much optimism that the industry will look at the workers well-being. They have not demonstrated that through the pandemic."

Authorities, meanwhile, say regulatory requirements to protect workers must be balanced with the need to allow industry to recover lost ground following the strict nationwide lockdown.

"A fine balance has to be maintained because economic activities cannot be stopped," said Maheshwar Rao, principal secretary of the Karnataka state labour department.

"Safety guidelines have been issued and we are asking industry associations to ensure they are followed. We don't want to have a heavy hand on regulation."

While Thengde and Singh are back in their jobs, both are keeping track of their sick co-workers' condition.

"I worry for them as much as I worry for myself," Thengde said. "At the end of the day, we all face the same risks and so do our families."
Bret: The silver lining here is that the pandemic has been Trumps nemesis, the way by which hes been exposed as the con artist hes always been. I upset some readers a few weeks ago when I said that I didnt think the course of the pandemic would have been much different if Hillary Clinton had been in charge, and I stand by that: Too many of the worst early decisions  like the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, urging people to go about their daily lives or Gov. Andrew Cuomo sending infected patients back to nursing homes  would have been outside of any presidents hands.
The Delhi Airport Authority has issued fresh guidelines for international passengers, making seven-day paid institutional quarantine followed by a week of home quarantine mandatory for them. Notably, India has established individual "bilateral bubbles" with some countries, including the US, France and Germany, to operate flights even as there's a ban on all international flights till July 31.

The Airport Authority of India (AAI) has asked all the international passengers to sign an undertaking before the overseas mission or an embassy before booking a flight to India.

Those staying in Delhi-NCR areas will need to undergo mandatory health screening twice -- first at the airport and then at the Delhi government post -- once their flight lands in India.

The authority has also exempted four categories of people from the mandatory quarantine, including pregnant women, those with a death in the family, serious illness and parents with children below the age of 10.

So far, only repatriation or rescue flights have been allowed on the international routes under the government's Vande Bharat Mission since the nation-wide lockdown was imposed on March 25.

"Passengers arriving on an international Vande Bharat Mission flight may only take a connecting domestic flight if it also comes under the Vande Bharat Mission. However, passengers who are planning to board onward domestic flights will have to obtain an authorised exemption certificate, if they are coming through non-Vande Bharat international flights," the guideline added.

Government has extended the ban on all international flights till July 31, even as it continues to relax other restrictions. The Director-General of Civil Aviation recently said that restrictions would not apply for cargo flights as well as flights specifically approved by the DGCA.

The DGCA order said that international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes on a case-to-case basis.

Considering this, international flights between India and the US on select routes have already started. This comes after both countries signed an international arrangement called an 'air bubble'. India has inked similar agreements with France and Germany.

Air France will operate 28 flights between Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Paris from July 18 to August 1. us carrier United Airlines will be flying 18 flights between India and the US from July 17 to 31.

Also read: International flights to US resume today: What exactly is an 'air bubble'?

Also read: Coronavirus crisis: Ban on international flights extended till July 31
The University of Oxfords possible COVID-19 vaccine could be rolled out by the end of the year but there is no certainty, the lead developer of the vaccine said.

The experimental vaccine, which has been licensed to AstraZeneca, produced an immune response in early-stage clinical trials, data showed on Monday, preserving hopes it could be in use by the end of 2020.

The end of the year target for getting vaccine roll-out, its a possibility but theres absolutely no certainty about that because we need three things to happen, Sarah Gilbert told BBC Radio.

She said it needed to be shown to work in late-stage trials, there needed to be large quantities manufactured, and regulators had to agree quickly to license it for emergency use before large numbers of people could be vaccinated.

Englands Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and his deputy Jonathan Van-Tam took differing views on the potential timeline.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

The chance of us getting a vaccine before Christmas that actually is highly effective are, in my view, very low, Whitty told lawmakers.

Van-Tam, however, said he was cautiously optimistic that we will have some vaccine this side of Christmas.

Sitting somewhere in the middle, health minister Matt Hancock told a parliamentary committee that despite being an optimist in life for what he called the best case scenario in getting a vaccine for Christmas, he could not promise to play Santa.

The Oxford scientists had eyed a million doses of the potential vaccine to be produced by September.

Although the deal with AstraZeneca has provided manufacturing capacity to do that, the lower prevalence of the novel coronavirus in Britain has complicated the process of proving its efficacy.

Late-stage trials crucial for providing data are under way in Brazil and South Africa and are due to start in the United States also.

There are no approved vaccines yet for COVID-19, but the World Health Organization has said AstraZenecas shot is one of the leading candidates.
DALLAS, July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Borden, one of America's favorite dairy companies founded in 1857, today announced that it and certain affiliates (collectively, " Borden " or the " Company ") finalized the approximately $340 million sale of substantially all Borden assets to Capitol Peak Partners and KKR. This transaction allows Borden to be appropriately capitalized with the business intact, including all plants, branches, routes and the Borden brand. The new Borden entity will continue employment for approximately 3,300 Borden employees and service for Borden customers.

Capitol Peak assumed majority ownership of the new company, and KKR became a lender and minority equity investor. They established a new Board of Directors and leadership team, tapping dairy industry veterans to lead the Company:

Gregg Engles is the Chairman and CEO of the new Borden entity and also serves as Capitol Peak's Founder and Executive Managing Partner. He brings extensive dairy industry experience as the former Chairman and CEO of both Dean Foods and The WhiteWave Foods Company.

is the Chairman and CEO of the new Borden entity and also serves as Capitol Peak's Founder and Executive Managing Partner. He brings extensive dairy industry experience as the former Chairman and CEO of both Dean Foods and The WhiteWave Foods Company. Pat Boyle is the President. He has worked in the dairy industry since the 1970s, most recently serving as Owner and CEO of Hill Country Dairies.

is the President. He has worked in the dairy industry since the 1970s, most recently serving as Owner and CEO of Hill Country Dairies. Pat Ford is the Chief Financial Officer. He previously served as CFO of Dairy Group (Dean Foods) and Southern Foods and most recently was Owner and President of Flexcel Company, Inc., an east Texas manufacturer of oil and gas tools.

is the Chief Financial Officer. He previously served as CFO of Dairy Group (Dean Foods) and Southern Foods and most recently was Owner and President of Flexcel Company, Inc., an east manufacturer of oil and gas tools. Pete Schenkel is a Board Member who previously served as President and owner of Southern Foods, which later sold to Suiza Foods and became Dean Foods. He is also the former President and a Board Member of Dean Foods.

"Over the past 163 years, Borden defined its well-recognized and reputable brand by partnering with America's dairy farmers and leading retailers to provide American families with delicious and nutritious products," said Engles. "I am very optimistic about Borden's future and excited about the opportunity to lead this iconic dairy Company into a bright new chapter focused on serving customers and growing the business profitably."

Borden initiated voluntary reorganization proceedings on Jan. 5, 2020. Upon finalizing the sale, Borden's former controlling and majority equity holders, ACON Investments and Grupo Lala, respectively, no longer have ownership interest in the business. KKR's investment is held by business development companies co-managed by KKR Credit.

For additional information about the sale, visit www.bordenfinancialreorg.com.

About Borden

Founded in 1857 by Gail Borden, Jr., Borden is a heritage American brand that produces more than 35 wholesome and delicious products enjoyed by millions of people every day. Borden was the first company to develop a patent for the process of condensing milk, as well as the first company to use glass milk bottles. In 1936, Elsie became America's favorite spokes-cow, and was recognized in 2000 by AdAge as one of the top 10 advertising icons of the 20th century. Today, Borden is headquartered in Dallas and operates 12 milk processing plants and nearly 100 branches across the U.S. that produce and distribute nearly 500 million gallons of milk annually for customers in the grocery, mass market, club, food service, hospitality, school and convenience store channels. The company's People First culture has inspired decades of loyal tenure among hundreds of the 3,300 people Borden employs. In 2019, Borden landed the No. 16 spot on Forbes' list of America's Most Reputable Companies, highlighting the company's well-earned trust amongst consumers. For more information, visit bordendairy.com.

About Capitol Peak Partners

Capitol Peak Partners is a middle market private equity firm focused on consumer businesses in North America. Capitol Peak is composed of seasoned operators and business builders with a 30-year track record of extraordinary value creation at companies like Dean Foods and WhiteWave Foods, where they partnered with talented managers to generate exceptional risk-adjusted returns for investors. As a partnership of operators, Capitol Peak contributes more than just capital to help companies grow, including leveraging an extensive network of operators when appropriate. For more information, visit capitolpeakpartners.com.

About KKR

KKR is a leading global investment firm that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, credit and real assets, with strategic partners that manage hedge funds. KKR aims to generate attractive investment returns for its fund investors by following a patient and disciplined investment approach, employing world-class people, and driving growth and value creation with KKR portfolio companies. KKR invests its own capital alongside the capital it manages for fund investors and provides financing solutions and investment opportunities through its capital markets business. References to KKR's investments may include the activities of its sponsored funds. For additional information about KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE: KKR), please visit KKR's website at www.kkr.com and on Twitter @KKR_Co.

SOURCE Borden Dairy Company

Related Links

https://www.bordendairy.com/


Rise in application in the automotive industry across the Thailand and Indonesia drives the growth of the ASEAN ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) resins market. Vietnam contributed the highest share in 2019, and will maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. The demand for EVA resins is likely to decrease during the COVID-19 pandemic as automotive industry and footwear & photovoltaic panel manufacturers have halted their operations amid lockdown.

Portland, OR, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the ASEAN ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) resins market generated $769.00 million in 2019, and is estimated to reach $1.27 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 6.5% from 2020 to 2027. The report offers an extensive analysis of changing market dynamics, key winning strategies, business performance, major segments, and competitive scenarios.

Rapid industrialization, rise in application in the automotive industry across the Thailand and Indonesia, and increase in demand for EVA resins from the foam and footwear markets drive the growth of the ASEAN ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) resins market. However, presence of substitutes in the market hinder the market growth. On the other hand, growing technological advancements in the development of bio-based ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) resins is expected to create new growth opportunities for market players during the forecast period.

Request Report Sample at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/6861

Covid-19 scenario:

The demand for EVA resin is expected to experience a downfall during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the negatively-affected supply chain amid the lockdown. Moreover, various end-users such as automotive, building & construction, and photovoltaic panel industries across the ASEAN countries have halted their operations.

The demand for EVA resins from footwear manufacturers is expected decline during Covid-19 pandemic due to decrease in sale of footwear products across the ASEAN countries during the pandemic.

The lockdown restrictions in countries such as China and India have been eased off, and the industrial activities have been started up to certain extent. This is likely to present a huge opportunity for several EVA resin producers having presence in these countries to grow and generate maximum revenue.

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Get Detailed COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the ASEAN Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) Resins Market @: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/6861?reqfor=covid

The report offers a detailed segmentation of the ASEAN ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) resins market based on type, end-user, application, and country.

Based on type, the thermoplastic ethylene VA segment contributed to the largest share in 2019, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total share, and is estimated to maintain its dominant position during the forecast period. However, the ethylene VA rubber segment is estimated to portray the highest CAGR of 6.8% during the forecast period.

Based on end-user, the footwear segment accounted for the largest share in 2019, holding more than one-third of the total share, and is expected to maintain the largest share throughout the forecast period. However, photovoltaic panels segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 10.3% from 2020 to 2027.

Based on country, Vietnam contributed the highest share, accounting for more than one-third of the total market share in 2019, and will maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. However, Malaysia is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 8.0% from 2020 to 2027.

Leading market players analyzed in the research include Braskem S.A., Arkema S.A., DOW Inc., Celanese Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Innospec Inc., Hanwha Chemical Co, Ltd., Plastics Corporation, Lyondell Basell Industries N.V, and Total SA.

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Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Zagreb, City of

Global Credit Research - 21 Jul 2020

Frankfurt am Main, July 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Zagreb, City of and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

The credit profile of the City of Zagreb (Ba2) reflects its consistently prudent budgetary management, low direct debt levels and strategic importance as the most developed city in the country. The rating also takes into account the city's healthy capital spending, thus limiting debt accumulation. Conversely, the rating incorporates the potential pressure stemming from the city's transportation company, Zagrebacki Elektricni Tramvaj (ZET), and the public services provider, Zagrebacki Holding D.O.O. (Zagrebacki Holding, Ba2). Besides the fundamental factors reflected in the city's baseline credit assessment of ba2, its credit profile also benefits from Moody's assessment of a moderate likelihood of extraordinary support from the Government of Croatia (Ba2) in the event that the issuer were to face acute liquidity stress.

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The credit profile of Zagrebacki Holding (Ba2) reflects its strong financial and institutional linkages with its sole founder and owner the City of Zagreb (Ba2), given its strategic role in executing the city's statutory services and strict control over the company's operations exercised by the city. Holding's rating also reflects the favourable regulatory framework, which ensures the stability and predictability of future revenue streams in the company's core businesses, and its stable financial performance associated with boosted liquidity. Holding's credit profile remains constrained by its sizeable debt burden, although half of it is guaranteed by the City of Zagreb, and the projected increase in investments in the cleaning and waste management segment. Moody's also considers Zagrebacki Holding to have a very high likelihood of extraordinary support from the City of Zagreb in the event that the issuer were to face acute liquidity stress.

This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodologies used for this review were Regional and Local Governments published in January 2018 and Government-Related Issuers Methodology published in February 2020. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of these methodologies.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Gjorgji Josifov Asst Vice President - Analyst Sub-Sovereign Group Moody's Deutschland GmbH, Czech branch Washingtonova 17 110 00 Praha 1 (Prague 1) Prague Czech Republic JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Mauro Crisafulli Associate Managing Director Sub-Sovereign Group JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454 Releasing Office: Moody's Deutschland GmbH An der Welle 5 Frankfurt am Main 60322 Germany JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456 Client Service: 44 20 7772 5454

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 30)  The Philippines' total debt load has grown to 8.89 trillion in May as authorities borrowed aggressively to fund programs aimed at easing the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Bureau of the Treasury reported Tuesday that total loans moved closer to 9 trillion, growing by 12.3 percent or 975.2 billion compared to May 2019. The figure also rose from April's 8.6 trillion level.

The Treasury said the spike is due to "increased reliance" on raising money through bond issuances as well as foreign loans as the state had to secure additional funds to support COVID-19 response measures, given a sharp drop in tax collections during the weeks under lockdown.

RELATED: Government collections by end-May plunge amid COVID-19 pandemic

Two-thirds of the debt burden was borrowed locally, amounting to 6.03 trillion which is 14.8 percent higher than a year ago. The bureau was forced to issue more Treasury bonds and bills as it sought to pad the government's cash for emergency purchases and benefits as the country saw coronavirus infections climb.

Treasury note issuances have climbed to 5.73 trillion, up by a tenth from last year and by 3.1 percent compared to April.

Foreign sources accounted for 32 percent of the total loans at 2.86 trillion as of end-May. The figure rose by 7.4 percent from the year before, representing the series of loans secured from four development finance agencies abroad to bolster local funding.

Peso-dollar exchange rate movements also added to the debt burden, the bureau added.

RELATED: DOF says nearly half of $4.8B foreign loans released for COVID-19 response

As a developing economy, the Philippines spends more than what it can collect in funding so that it can begin new and high-impact projects  in this case, the coronavirus response, with cases surging to more than 37,000 as of end-June.

The Department of Finance earlier said that public debt will not go beyond 50 percent of the size of the Philippine economy to make these loans manageable to settle. The agency is looking to borrow 436.9 billion from foreign sources to support government spending for coronavirus response measures.

The government has set aside 465.88 billion to settle maturing loans for the month.


Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said Wednesday that the U.S. economy will be hampered by high unemployment and a plodding recovery because of the coronavirus pandemic.

"The economic reality is that we are still facing a very, very uncertain economic environment," Solomon said during a conference held by the Economic Club of New York.

While there has been an uptick in economic activity since the early weeks of the pandemic, a continuing surge in cases has forced several states to halt or reverse their reopening plans. That is happening as millions of unemployed face the end of enhanced benefits while lawmakers debate the contours of the next relief package.

"I think in the next couple of months you'll see a tamping down of that acceleration, I think you'll see poorer economic numbers," Solomon said. "I think we're in for a very, very bumpy ride."

He added that the U.S. will "run with very, very high unemployment for an extended period of time" as the services industry in particular will struggle to return to previous levels, even after a vaccine is created.

Solomon said he approved of the financial response to the crisis, as it has staved off widespread suffering by injecting billions of dollars into the bank accounts of workers and businesses. That, along with the Federal Reserve's unprecedented actions to prop up markets, has helped keep stock indices near all-time highs.

"Markets are disconnected with that at the moment," Solomon said, referring to his downbeat outlook. "They're responding to the fact that rates are zero and there's a conviction for more monetary and fiscal stimulus and that's obviously bolstered asset prices."

Over the long term, the U.S. will probably face slower growth, a weaker dollar and a huge debt related to paying for the crisis response. He noted that policymakers were just starting to pull back from the approach necessitated by the previous crisis 10 years ago when the pandemic struck.

"I think it will take an awful long time to navigate our way out," he said
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum excluding the countrys undocumented community from being counted for the apportionment of congressional representatives following the 2020 census. At this point, it should come as no surprise. The effort to strip undocumented immigrants of their right to be counted in the census is a natural progression of Trumps inherent nativism. The measure, which will likely be challenged in court, is part of a pattern, the latest in a long list of aggravations aimed at making life in the United States not only inhospitable but almost impossible for the countrys 11 million undocumented immigrants.

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The administration has separated families at the border, allowed inhumane conditions inside privately run immigration detention centers, gone after sanctuary cities that protect the undocumented, and relentlessly pursued hundreds of thousands of young men and women protected from deportation by the DACA program. Trump had previously tried to include a question on citizenship in the current census. He failed. Emboldened, the president now seeks to discourage participation in the process and, if all else fails, erase the consequences of its results.

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In addition to being morally abhorrent, this is also terrible politics.

Think of the economy. As the pandemic has laid bare in striking ways, the undocumented are an essential part of American life. Without the very immigrants that Trump now wants to wipe out from the countrys political restructuring, the American economy as we know it would cease to exist. Contrary to the presidents rhetoric on immigration, the immense majority of the undocumented are hardworking, honest, tax-paying, de facto Americans. They contribute more than $11 billion in taxes every year to the economy.

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Then think of the political sphere. Trumps assault on the undocumented has obvious political underpinnings. It aims to reduce the communitys heft by erasing its effect on the countrys congressional map. This might seem like shrewd short-term politics, but it could backfire in the long term, both for Trump and for the Republican Party, which is already defending conservative bastions where immigrants, legal and undocumented, carry considerable weight. In California, a state Trump has targeted at every turn through his anti-immigrant invective, Republicans are still paying the price for Gov. Pete Wilsons attack on immigrants a quarter-century ago.

Finally, Trumps memo should put to rest the presidents cynical attempt at a rapprochement with the Hispanic immigrant community. Just a couple of weeks ago, Trump set out to fool Hispanics into believing he had changed his ways. To do so, the president scheduled a whole week of blatant pandering. It included a laudatory visit from Mexicos president, a meeting with some of the countrys Latino business leaders (scene of the now-infamous Goya affair), and the signing of an executive order supposedly in support of Hispanic prosperity.

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The Hispanic American community is a treasure, Trump said. It is now clear that the presidents newfound appreciation for the countrys Hispanic immigrants does not extend to the undocumented.

It never has and it never will. Trump has had three years to prove he could approach the countrys immigration dilemma in a humane and thoughtful way. He has done the opposite. Now, the undocumented community deserves to be counted not only because it is constitutionally mandated (as the courts will hopefully prove), but because members of that community are, in every way but a piece of paper, American. And they make the country great.

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NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 - The Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences announced today a molecular biophysicist, an organic chemist and an astrophysicist as the Laureates of the 2020 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Each will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific prize offered to America's most-promising, young faculty-level scientific researchers.

The Laureates are:

Clifford Brangwynne, chemical and biological engineering professor, Princeton University, for a discovery that upends previous understandings of the internal organization of cells.

William R. Dichtel, chemistry professor, Northwestern University, for pioneering methods to create novel, porous materials from simple, carbon-based building blocks.

Brian Metzger, physics professor, Columbia University, for settling a long-standing question about the origin of gold and other heavy elements in the universe.

"Science demands creativity, knowledge and persistence to solve the world's most challenging problems," said Len Blavatnik, founder and chairman of Access Industries, head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation and member of the President's Council of the New York Academy of Sciences. "Through dedication to their research, these outstanding young scientists have harnessed their diverse interdisciplinary backgrounds to make discoveries that will change our society for the better."

Nicholas B. Dirks, the New York Academy of Sciences' new president and CEO said, "This year marks the first time the Blavatnik National Awards has Laureates from Princeton University, Columbia University or Northwestern University, and we congratulate these institutions for their strong support of cutting-edge research in the sciences. We look forward to inviting these three winning scientists to participate as Laureates in the Academy, sharing their future innovations and discoveries with our members and the world at large."

The 2020 Blavatnik National Awards competition received 305 nominees from 161 research institutions. Nominees, eligible if age 42 younger, were evaluated by three independent juries - one for each of the awards' categories of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering and Chemistry. The judging panels, composed of some of America's most distinguished scientists, selected these Laureates from a group of 31 finalists:

Laureate in life sciences: Clifford Brangwynne, PhD, professor, chemical and biological engineering, Princeton University.

Brangwynne has transformed the field of cell biology through a discovery that upends our understanding of the internal organization of cells. He discovered that inside cells, biomolecules can merge to form liquid-like droplets that allow for the localization and compartmentalization of molecular interactions. The ability of these droplets to smoothly fuse and separate is critical for cell division and the development of embryos. Errors in this physical property may result in the formation of solid structures, such as the tangles and fibers found in Alzheimer's disease, which can cause cell damage and death.

Laureate in chemistry: William R. Dichtel, PhD, professor of chemistry, Northwestern University.

Dichtel has pioneered methods to create novel, porous materials from simple, carbon-based building blocks. These materials can be easily designed and tailored to address specific needs and possess extremely high surface areas because they contain tiny holes--pores that can store, detect and separate small molecules and ions. For example, he invented porous materials derived from corn that are now being used commercially to remove toxic substances such as industrial pollutants and pharmaceuticals from drinking water. He has also developed materials that show promise for new energy storage systems.

Laureate in physical sciences & engineering: Brian Metzger, PhD, professor of physics, Columbia University.

Metzger has settled a long-standing question about the origin of gold and other heavy elements in the universe. He predicted that gold, along with all the stable elements on the lower part of the periodic table, was created in a collision of two merging neutron stars called a "kilonova." In 2017, the LIGO gravitational wave observatory recorded the first observed kilonova explosion, and measurements taken after this discovery confirmed Metzger's predictions. Indeed, the heaviest elements present in the universe, like gold, were created by such cataclysmic events. Metzger's work has ushered in an exciting new era in astronomy that will revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos.

###

About the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists

The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, established by the Blavatnik Family Foundation in the United States in 2007 and independently administered by the New York Academy of Sciences, began by identifying outstanding regional scientific talent in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The Blavatnik National Awards were first awarded in 2014 and, in 2017, were expanded to honor faculty-rank scientists in the United Kingdom and in Israel. By the close of 2020, the Blavatnik Awards will have conferred prizes totaling over $10.2 million to 321 outstanding young scientists and engineers from more than 46 countries, representing 36 scientific and engineering disciplines. For updates about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit http://www.blavatnikawards.org or Facebook and Twitter (@BlavatnikAwards).

About the Blavatnik Family Foundation

The Blavatnik Family Foundation is an active supporter of world-renowned educational, scientific, cultural and charitable institutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Russia and throughout the world. The Foundation is headed by Len Blavatnik, a global industrialist and philanthropist and the founder and chairman of Access Industries, a privately held industrial group based in the US with global strategic interests. Visit http://www.accessindustries.com or http://www.blavatnikfoundation.org.

About the New York Academy of Sciences

The New York of Academy of Sciences is an independent, not-for-profit organization that since 1817 has been committed to advancing science for the benefit of society. With more than 20,000 Members in 100 countries, the Academy advances scientific and technical knowledge, addresses global challenges with science-based solutions, and sponsors a wide variety of educational initiatives at all levels for STEM and STEM related fields. The Academy hosts programs and publishes content in the life and physical sciences, the social sciences, nutrition, artificial intelligence, computer science, and sustainability. The Academy also provides professional and educational resources for researchers across all phases of their careers. Please visit us online at?http://www.nyas.org.

Media contact:

Kamala Murthy

Kmurthy@nyas.org

212-298-3740
Vietnam has great potential, which will help digital transformation proceed quickly and with fewer risks than many other countries.

A report from We Are Social and Hootsuite showed a high proportion of internet and mobile phone users. Vietnam has 96.9 million people, but has 145.8 million mobile phone subscribers (150 percent of population), 68.17 million internet users and 65 million social network users.





Around 94 percent of Vietnamese own mobile devices, 65 percent use laptops and desktop computers, and 22 percent use tablets.



Demand for mobile services and internet has been increasing rapidly.



Meanwhile, because of the stiff competition, businesses have to carry out digital transformation in order to grow and compete with rivals.



A survey conducted in Asia Pacific by Microsoft found that the impact of the digital transformation on GDP would be 60 percent in 2021.



Meanwhile, a study by Google and Temasek predicted that Vietnams digital economy may have value of $30 billion by 2025.

Another report of Data 61 from Australia showed that Vietnam would obtain $162 million more in GDP in the next 20 years if it successfully carries out digital transformation.

Vietnam also has advantages in the labor force. According to the 2019 Ministry of Information and Communications (MOC) report, Vietnam had more than 30,000 businesses in ICT, 955,000 workers, and 80,000 university graduates majoring in information and communications technology (ICT).

Vietnam also has advantages in the labor force. According to the 2019 Ministry of Information and Communications (MOC) report, Vietnam had more than 30,000 businesses in ICT, 955,000 workers, and 80,000 university graduates majoring in information and communications technology (ICT).

Vietnam also has the low risks. The information systems of Europe and the US are all large-scale, so high risks exist when adjustments are made to digitize business stages, especially the core system.



The systems in Vietnam are less prone to problems related to systematic risks. That is why experts believe that digital transformation in Vietnam could be carried out in a faster and safer way.



There are many well known names in the digital transformation market, such as IBM and Google. Vietnamese technology firms are also good choices for technological solutions.

These include FPT, the largest Vietnamese IT group, with many technological products that provide solutions to digital transformation, specifically suitable to Vietnams businesses.



FPT has launched a set of optimization solutions that help businesses increase productivity, save costs, and make the most of resources to overcome a crisis.



The set of solutions includes akaBot, which automates some repeated activities, which helps save 90 percent of time and 60 percent of operations, and increase ms productivity by 80 percent; and FPT AI, a chatbot with natural conversational ability.

Le Ha

COVID-19 pandemic advances Vietnams digital transformation The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated Vietnams digital transformation as the government, ministries, localities, and businesses have effectively applied IT in both epidemic prevention and production.
Abba will release five, rather than two, new tracks as their reunion is pushed back to 2021.

The Swedish four-piece were originally going to put out new music later this year, but have been forced to delay these plans due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Geoff Lloyd, co-host of the Reasons To Be Cheerful podcast, said: I got to spend an hour [] with Bjorn Ulvaeus from Abba via Zoom. Hes quarantining  hes got an island in the Stockholm archipelago.

Theyve recorded five new songs. They should have been out at the end of last year Because of technical difficulties and the pandemic, its delayed things. But he promised me that the new Abba music will be out in 2021.

Abbas last studio album was released in 1982, while three unreleased songs were made public a decade later in 1993 and 1994.

The Swedish four-piece, consisting of Ulvaes, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog, shot to international fame in 1974 after winning the Eurovision Song Contest with the track Waterloo.

At the peak of their fame, the band consisted of two married couples, but both relationships broke down during their time as a group.

Speaking about getting the four of them back together in May, Ulvaes said: It took half a minute and somehow we were back in time like we had been there yesterday as well. It was so strange. That feeling between us was extraordinary.
After seeing a slight decline in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Texas Medical Center, Houston Health Department's leading authority Dr. David Persse said that we're not out of the woods with the novel coronavirus outbreak in Houston.

"We need to slow this virus down. This virus has way too much momentum at this point, " Persse said. "If we have any hope of getting schools open this fall, we need get this viral spread under control."

EXHAUSTED DOCTORS: Houston ICU doc says caregivers are exhausted, describes long-lasting effects of COVID-19

For over a seven-day period, hospital admissions decreased by 2.2 percent -- a relative leveling out. Persse's theory about the decline in hospitalizations is that healthcare workers are actually doing a better job of caring for patients, which is in turn shortening hospital stays.

"The average length of the stay is getting shorter," Persse said. "Doctors and nurses are getting better at what they're doing. The number of new admissions is down as well."

Persse said he was heartened to see this trend, but concerned about tthe possibility of returning back to square one.

"Of course, I'm happy to to see the numbers change direction like this," Persse said. "But now is not the time to take our foot off the brake. It's changed direction because we put the foot on the brake, but the virus still wants to go faster."

Texas Medical Center data shows that COVID-19 testing actually started to climb after July 4, and the Greater Houston area reported its highest single-day total for new COVID-19 cases following the holiday weekend.

STAY HOME: Texas county warns COVID-19 positive residents must stay home or face prosecution

Persse added that although it was critical for Texas schools to reopen for the fall, he's concerned about the health risk for children.

"Reopening schools for fall is shaping up to be the single most complicated question that we face with this virus," Persse said. "Kids need to be in schools for the emotional and psychological growth. But some kids may get sick and have serious complications."

The overriding concern for Persse is what he sees as a worst-case scenario.

"My biggest fear that we'll see the virus trend in a see-saw direction, where it gets good, and then it gets bad again," Persse said. "That's the worst-case scenario."
India, which has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including that of the United States, can attract global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday.

In his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council (USIBC), Pompeo said it was important that democracies like the US and India work together, especially as they see more clear than ever the true scope of the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party. We work closely ...
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 07:06:37|Editor: huaxia

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LAGOS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Boko Haram terrorists on Wednesday released a video showing the killing of five humanitarian workers who were recently abducted in Nigeria's restive Borno state.

The workers, who represented the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, were all executed, the video showed.

The insurgents had earlier demanded about 500,000 U.S. dollars ransom before the abducted workers could be released.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday condemned the murder, assuring the government would continue to do all it could to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram would be wiped out.

The Boko Haram insurgents, who seek an Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria, have been carrying out attacks on civilian and military facilities in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe despite the efforts of security agencies.

The Boko Haram insurgency has killed more than 30,000 people since 2009 and displaced millions of others, mainly in northeast Nigeria. Enditem
The retired solicitor nominated to become Stormont's new Standards Commissioner has withdrawn from the process.

Earlier, a debate in the Stormont chamber approving the nomination of Paul Kennedy was cancelled and the Assembly said that the process had "now been paused".

But in a second statement last night, an Assembly spokeswoman said: "This afternoon, Mr Paul Kennedy informed the Assembly Commission that he wished to withdraw from the recruitment competition for Commissioner for Standards.

"The Assembly Commission will now seek to identify another candidate as soon as possible."

Stormont sources said they understood that the commission would now turn to other candidates who had applied for the job, rather than re-advertising the position.

MLAs were due to debate a motion approving the appointment of the retired Co Down solicitor on Tuesday morning.

The Standards Commissioner has responsibility for investigating MLAs over alleged breaches of their code of conduct.

The new commissioner will likely investigate complaints concerning the attendance of some Sinn Fein MLAs at Bobby Storey's funeral.

When asked to formally table the motion approving Mr Kennedy's appointment yesterday, UUP MLA Robbie Butler, speaking on behalf of the Assembly Commission, said it would not be moved at that time.

No reason was provided, and MLAs moved on to the next item of business on the day's agenda.

Stormont has been without an Assembly Commissioner for Standards since September 2017, when Douglas Bain's term in office ended.

He had been in post for five years.

A replacement was not appointed during the suspension of devolution.

Mr Kennedy, a qualified solicitor for 37 years, is an expert on commercial law.

Since retiring from his job, the married father of three has taken on a range of other roles, including membership of the Veterans' Advisory and Pensions Committee for Northern Ireland and voluntary work with a local homeless charity.

In the Assembly's first statement on the matter, a spokeswoman said yesterday: "While it was the Assembly Commission's intention to debate the motion to appoint a Commissioner for Standards today the process has now been paused."

The second statement, announcing Mr Kennedy's withdrawal from the process, means that the other applicants will now likely be considered.

The absence of an Assembly Standards Commissioner has been highlighted in recent weeks. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has called on Deputy First Minister, Michelle O'Neill, to report herself to the Assembly standards authorities.

Earlier this month, Mr Bain told the BBC that it was "frankly ridiculous" that the public could make a complaint about Ms O'Neill or any other MLA, but nothing could happen as the post remained unfilled.

A new commissioner will likely be able to retrospectively investigate complaints lodged against MLAs before his or her term begins, so long as those complaints were made within six months of the alleged breach of the code.

It is understood that there is an extensive backlog of complaints which have come in over the past three years.
KAMPALA  Africas political instability is conventionally attributed to the manner in which leaders sustain themselves in power. Leaders across the region hold onto office by purchasing support through the distribution of state resources.

When NRM came into power in 1986, Ugandans breathed a sigh of relief that at last a regime that promised clean and rational leadership had taken over. That bureaucracy was to be based on meritocracy. That political patronage was going to be a thing of the past. But alas, the curse of political patronage and, therefore, underdevelopment has continued.

The effects of economic and political reforms on patronage in Africa remains unclear. In particular, there is much disagreement about whether structural adjustment programs and democratization have helped to make patronage less pervasive in African politics.

Democracy, which is characterised by regular free and fair elections and active free participation of citizens in public affairs and the government, is assumed to lead to political accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. Ironically political competition in Uganda has created incentives for the regime in power to resort to using its vantage position to use public resources to reward or punish political support or dissent respectively. Such regime political behaviour leads to inefficiency in economic development and service delivery.

As we approach the 2021 general elections it is important for us to recognize how far Uganda has come in 58 years. Uganda is no longer the pariah state that it used to be in the 1970s and 1980s, whether Magendo or economic. In addition there are many negative practices that persist, chief among them is the phenomenon of presidentialism. Key among the features of this phenomenon remains the informalization of politics whereby governments operate in an informal, personal and non-institutional manner.

State institutions in Uganda have long been the source of patronage and clientelism. This has meant that more resources are spent on maintenace of the regime than on service delivery, infrastructural development or progressive change.

In his book Andrew Rugasira notes that weak political institutions in many African countries frustrate and undermine the innovations and creativity of their entrepreneurs. Poor institutional capacity leads to poor delivery of services, poor infrastructure, poor governance and poor law and order, which means that governments are not creating the enabling environment for private sector growth.

For a very long time the President has been seen giving out cash to a section of Ugandans, many times this money is seen being transported in sacks and distributed to the people. Many Ugandans have questioned whether this money is the presidents money or public money? When, where, why and how this money is given is very significant. Usually, it is at a public function, after a mass or service, or at a mauledi, or following the handing over of cycles or other physical gifts. It is also important to note that the number of envelope-giving events multiplied in the run-up to the election; Instead, Musevenis sacks of cash have become an increasingly standard way of tying constituencies into the regime. Many members of parliament especially the NRM incumbent have continued to use physical gifts such as bars of soap, salt and cash in order to convince their voters to vote for them in order to retain their seats in parliament.

Government programmes such as NAADS noe Operation wealth Creation, youth livelihood fund, capital venture fund and the new one of emyoga are highly politicised and therein lay their poor performance. Local and central government tenders and contracts are awarded based on the criteria of political support and therein lies corruption and poor service delivery. This is because some people in government are untouchables. Some of these people who get tenders are the gatekeepers of votes and political support for NRM in their districts and if you touch them you lose votes. As a result political patronage has permeated our body politic from top to bottom and hence underdevelopment.

The above political attitude, system, and behaviour as depicted in President Musevenis political doctrine of vote opposition and commit political suicide and dont give contracts to the opposition, leads to underdevelopment. As a result the local masses are always worried that if they dont vote for Museveni the war and misery of the 1970s and 1980s shall come back. The young people who always given mere handouts have also meant to believe that President Museveni and the NRM are solutions to their problems which is very far from reality.

Ahead of the 2021 general elections 78% being young people, it is high time the majority population takes a stand on which direction they want their future to be. If young people can ditch their mentalities of waiting for handouts from political leaders and focus on issues and encourage masses to actively and meaningfully participate in the elections new and bright future will be on the way.

The writer is a Lawyer and Advocacy and Communications personnel at Youth Line Forum

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Wisely Greco & Associates To be recognized for our work is very special, and we look forward to supporting our clients and our community for many years to come.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty, one of the countrys fastest-growing real estate brokerages, is proud to announce that for the third consecutive year, Wisley Greco & Associates received the 2020 Best of Annandale award in the real estate agency category from the Annandale Award Program.

Were so proud of Wisley Greco & Associates for receiving this recognitionalthough were certainly not surprised, said Judy Rudat, PenFed Realtys senior vice president for the Virginia and DC metro area. Their many years of success is a direct result of their unmatched level of expertise in the homebuying and selling process and their complete dedication to serving their clients.

Led by veteran real estate professional Brad Wisley, Wisley Greco & Associates has consistently placed among the top performers within Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty since joining the company in 2015. According to Annandale Award Program, the team was selected as Best of in real estate for enchanc[ing] the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community, and for help[ing] make the Annandale area a great place to live, work and play.

Were incredibly honored to receive this award, said Brad Wisley, team leader of Wisley Greco & Associates. To be recognized for our work is very special, and we look forward to supporting our clients and our community for many years to come.

More information on Wisley Greco & Associates can be found at WGASellsHomes.com. Their office is located at 7010 Little River Turnpike, Suite 130, Annandale, VA 22003 and can be reached at 703-658-1600.

About Annandale Award Program

The Annandale Award Program honors the accomplishments of local businesses in the Annandale area every year. Recognition is given to companies that use best practices and implement programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty is a full-service real estate company with an annual sales volume of over $5 billion. The company has over 1,800 agents and more than 55 offices, providing complete real estate services nationwide. PenFed Realty is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PenFed Credit Union and is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brokerage network, operated by HSF Affiliates LLC. Membership with PenFed Credit Union is not required to conduct business with BHHS PenFed Realty. We are proud to be an equal employment opportunity employer. Equal Housing Opportunity.


This is the first time that the Balmer Assemblage has been identified in drill core and clearly defines a new prospective gold exploration corridor that extends west from Pure Gold's Wedge Zone on to the West Madsen Property

VICTORIA, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / GoldON Resources Ltd. (TSXV:GLD) ("GoldON" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a summary of analytical results from the initial, wide-spaced reconnaissance diamond drilling program recently completed on the West Madsen gold property (the "Property").

GoldON has the right to earn a 100% interest in the Property through an option agreement with Great Bear Resources (see news release of May 28, 2019 and regional claim map Figure 1). The Property is comprised of two contiguous claim blocks (Block "A" and "B"), each roughly six kilometres (km) by three km in size for a total area of 3,860 hectares (see Figure 2). Block A adjoins the Pure Gold Red Lake Mine property, which is the highest-grade underground development project in Canada with first gold production expected in Q4 2020.

The drilling program tested targets trending east-west that run sub-parallel to magnetic lineaments on Block A of the Property within a larger structural corridor interpreted to be the major structural break between the Balmer and Confederation assemblages. This break is a significant geological and structural contact associated with known gold deposits on the adjacent Pure Gold property and the producing mines in the Red Lake Camp. Mineralization hosted on adjacent and/or nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization hosted on the West Madsen property.

A total of seven drill holes (2,237.25 metres) were completed during this initial program. Drill hole WM-20-05 intersected 14.4 g/t gold over 0.5 metres hosted by strongly altered mafic volcanic rocks of Balmer Stratigraphy, with observed visible gold. The mineralization is characterized by a blue-grey quartz amphibole calcite vein, within an interval of highly strained mafic volcanic rocks, that are in contact with a package of ultramafic rocks. The observed mineralization is analogous to some of the mineralized intervals observed at the Pure Gold property.

This is the first time that the Balmer Assemblage has been identified in drill core on the Property and clearly defines a new prospective exploration corridor extending west from Pure Gold's Wedge Zone. Two holes (WM-20-05 and WM-20-06) tested this corridor with a nominal spacing of 500 metres between the collars and the Balmer stratigraphy was observed in both holes. Several other holes intersected elevated gold values, variably hosted within felsic volcanic rocks, and will be considered for future exploration targets. A summary of the holes is presented below, as well as assay results:

Table 1: Drill hole summary table.

Hole Easting Northing Length (m) Dip Azimuth WM-20-01 429796 5643472 264.00 -50 165 WM-20-02 429705 5643236 282.00 -50 165 WM-20-03 429235 5643492 267.00 -50 145 WM-20-04 427980 5643602 263.25 -50 180 WM-20-05 427492 5643645 402.00 -50 340 WM-20-06 427998 5643718 318.00 -50 340 WM-20-07 428421 5643713 441.00 -50 340

Table 2: Assay table summary.

Hole From (m) To (m) Gold (g/t) Width* (m) WM-20-05 246.80 247.30 14.40 0.50 WM-20-05 334.00 335.00 0.69 1.00 WM-20-01 202.60 203.60 1.43 1.00 WM-20-03 220.00 221.00 0.57 1.00 WM-20-03 111.00 111.50 0.52 0.50

*Widths are drill indicated core lengths. True widths are interpreted to be 80-95% of core length.

Chris Taylor, President and CEO of Great Bear said, "GoldON has just crossed a discovery threshold that many junior companies struggle to reach. These results validate our exploration models, which predicted the Balmer Assemblage would be present on the West Madsen property, projecting west from the Madsen mine. The discovery of gold mineralization in multiple drill holes, including high-grade gold, clearly shows the potential of the project. As GoldON shareholders and future royalty holders of the West Madsen project, we are very pleased to see these positive developments and are looking forward to seeing further drill results from West Madsen, and to testing Great Bear's other regional exploration targets at the Sobel, Dedee and Pakwash properties."

"The discovery of gold-bearing Balmer Stratigraphy in our Phase I drilling program demonstrates the untapped potential of the West Madsen property," said Mike Romanik president of GoldON. "Through a systematic, scientific approach utilizing ground mapping, sampling, geochemistry and regional geophysics, we have successfully discovered a package of highly prospective rocks that were not observed in bedrock prior to this drill program. We are currently updating our exploration model in order to select and prioritize targets for Phase II drilling."

Ian Russell, P.Geo, an independent qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this news release on behalf of the Company.

QA/QC and Core Sampling Protocols

Drill core was logged and sampled in a secure core storage facility located in Red Lake Ontario. Core samples were cut in half, using a diamond cutting saw, and were analyzed at Activation Laboratories Ltd. (Actlabs) in Thunder Bay, ON. All samples are analyzed for gold using a standard 50g Fire Assay-AA technique. Samples returning over 10.0 g/t gold are analyzed utilizing standard 50g Fire Assay-Gravimetric methods. Certified gold reference standards and blanks were routinely inserted into the sample stream, as part of GoldON's quality control/quality assurance program (QAQC). No QAQC issues were noted during this program.

About GoldON Resources Ltd.

GoldON is an exploration company focused on discovery-stage properties located in the prolific gold mining belts of northwestern Ontario, Canada. Active projects include the West Madsen property in the Red Lake Gold Camp, an option/JV with Great Bear Resources; the Bruce Lake property that adjoins BTU Metals' Dixie Halo property and their TNT Target; and the 100% owned Slate Falls project in the Patricia Mining Division, where numerous Au-Ag mineralized zones have been identified over the 13-km breadth of the property. GoldON has 17,208,432 shares issued, all our properties are in good standing and we are fully funded for our 2020 exploration programs.

For additional information: please visit our website at https://goldonresources.com, you can download our latest presentation by clicking here and you can follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GoldONResources.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Signed "Michael Romanik"

Michael Romanik, President

Direct line: (204) 724-0613

Email: romanikm@mymts.net

###

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: GoldON Resources Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598347/GoldON-Makes-New-Gold-Discovery-at-West-Madsen-within-the-Key-Balmer-Stratigraphy-that-Hosts-All-Major-Deposits-in-the-Red-Lake-Greenstone-Belt
A sero-survey will be conducted again in the capital between August 1 and 5 and the government plans to make it a monthly exercise, Delhi home minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday.

Samples for the upcoming sero-survey will be collected from across Delhi and a strategy is being drafted for this. The sample size will be not less than the previous sero-survey, Jain told a press briefing, the first one addressed by him after he recovered from Covid-19 and returned to work.

The previous sero-survey was conducted in Delhi during June 27-July 10, usung more than 21,000 samples. The results of the survey, shared by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), suggested around 23% of the citys population or about one in four persons may have been exposed to the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

Sero-survey identifies people who have recovered from the disease. The 23% result of the previous survey is most likely to be people who got infected around mid-June, because antibodies take around 15 days to develop. It is almost a month now. To monitor trends, the government plans to make it a monthly exercise. We shall be doing the next sero-survey between August 1 and 5, said Jain.

A sero-survey is a study of how many people have antibodies against Sars-CoV-2 in their blood. This indicates people may have been infected and recovered, giving a better picture of the disease spread.

Asked if this could be called community spread, Jain said: The disease has definitely spread in the community and the results reflect that. Whether one can call it, community spread is a very technical thing as per the guidelines and protocols that are followed.

Citing the results of the previous sero-survey, which was done in line with recommendations from Union home minister Amit Shah on June 21, Jain said: Around 77% of people are still vulnerable and we cannot be complacent. We should be serious about maintaining social distance, wearing masks and washing our hands regularly.

He added, For the upcoming survey, we are chalking out a strategy. It will be spread across the city, cover both containment zones and normal areas, include individuals of different age groups and the sample size will be not less than the previous survey.

Asked about herd immunity, Jain said even experts differ on this concept. Usually, it is perceived as a stage when around 40% to 70% people have recovered from the disease. We cannot comment on herd immunity at this stage. We will get a better picture of that after the number of fresh cases stop emerging, he said.
By UNI

MOSCOW: At least 11 people were injured in a shooting in Chicago on Tuesday evening, media reported, citing a local fire department.

According to ABC 7 broadcaster, all of them were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds in serious or critical condition.

The shooting took place around 23:30 GMT in the 1000-block of West 79th Street, where a funeral service is located.

Further details are awaited
Children displaced by armed conflict play in a makeshift bomb shelter made of sandbags at the Woi Chyai IDP camp near Laiza, northern Myanmar's Kachin state, March 19, 2018.

With scores of children killed and maimed each year in Myanmars long-running ethnic wars, and hundreds conscripted as laborers, the government is setting up a national complaint mechanism for reporting violence and sexual crimes against minors in regions under conflict, officials said.

Myanmar, whose military has been at war with ethnic armies fighting for autonomy since the country gained independence from Britain in 1948, has struggled to shed a reputation for the use of child soldiers. It signed an action plan with the U.N. in 2012 to prevent the recruitment and use of children as soldiers.

In 2019, Myanmars Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement set up a Committee on the Prevention of Grave Violations against Children in Armed Conflict and enacted a Child Rights Law to align its national policies and regulations with those of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The committee submitted a national action plan for protecting children in armed conflicts from injury, death, and sexual violence to President Win Myint's office on June 3, said Win Naing Tun, director general of the ministrys Rehabilitation Department.

We are waiting for approval, he told RFAs Myanmar Service. If it is approved, we will start accepting complaints. Then, we will make assessments along with relevant organizations.

Win Myat Aye, Myanmars minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, will oversee the process, which will include officials from the Home Affairs and Defense ministries, who will take action against the perpetrators of violence against children, Win Naing Tun said.

They also will work with U.N. groups or the Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR), co-chaired by UNICEF and the highest U.N. representative in-country, on the implementation phase and awareness-raising campaigns, he added.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Myanmar ratified in 1991, prohibits all forms of violence against children under the age of 18. It also criminalizes six grave violations against children and grants them legal protections.

CSOs weigh in

Civil society groups from ethnic regions of Myanmar welcomed the creation of a national complaint mechanism, noting the growing numbers of children killed or wounded by shelling, artillery fire, and aerial attacks, and of young adults arrested and detained by soldiers on suspicion of aiding the enemy.

Rights groups, meanwhile, have urged authorities to ensure the process will be effective and will not serve only to whitewash governments image in order to save its reputation on the international stage.

We have a lot of sex-based violence cases around here, said Lway Ku Ku, a spokesperson for the Taang Womens Organization. There are many rapes or sexual assaults.

In rural areas, there are more statutory rape cases in which adults have sex with minors, she added.

Khaing Kaung San, director of the Wun Lark Foundation, a civil society group based in Rakhine states capital Sittwe, said the complaint mechanism should ensure that hotline numbers and an address for filing complaints are posted in Buddhist monasteries and internally displaced persons camps where many potential victims of child abuse reside.

Complaints may be against the military or ethnic armed groups, so the mechanism should be able to guarantee the safety of the families of those making the complaints, he said.

A woman and children affected by clashes between the Myanmar military and ethnic rebel groups seek temporary shelter at Kho Lone Buddhist monastery in Kutkai, Myanmar's northern Shan State, Aug. 25, 2019. Credit: AFP Several cases in UN report

The U.N. secretary-generals June 2020 report on children and armed conflict, covering the 2019 calendar year, said investigators had verified that Myanmar had 432 grave violations against 420 children and 67 cases of the military recruitment and use of children aged 12-17, mainly in Kachin and Shan states. Of these, 50 were attributed to armed ethnic groups and 17 to the Myanmar military.

It also noted the use of nearly 200 children by Myanmar forces for camp maintenance, brick carrying, and rice paddy harvesting in Rakhine state, mostly at the end of 2019.

The report said that 18 boys, between the ages of 15 and 17, were detained by the Myanmar Police Force for alleged association with the Arakan Army (AA) in Rakhine state and with the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in Shan state.

In addition, 41 children were killed, and 120 were maimed, primarily in Rakhine and Shan states, resulting mainly from crossfire, anti-personnel mines and explosive remnants of war, shootings, and artillery shellings. The Myanmar military was deemed responsible for 25 of the incidents, the report said.

The report also said that the Myanmar military would continue to be listed in the reports annex for the violations of sexual violence and killing and maiming, but would be delisted for the violation of child recruitment and use following a continued significant decrease in recruitment, ongoing prosecutions, and an agreement to continue to trace and release cases identified in previous years.

After the Myanmar military was removed from the list of armed groups that recruit child soldiers, Win Myat Aye said that the government would work to make sure it does not reappear on the list.

Children in Myanmar have suffered tremendously from the impact of hostilities, especially in Rakhine, Shan, and Kachin states, said Virginia Gamba, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for children and armed conflict.

It is crucial for all parties, including the Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] and other government security forces, to continue their engagement with the United Nations to end and prevent violations against children, she said following a five-day mission to Myanmar in January.

Reported by Wai Mar Tun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Egypt has been facing off against Turkey not only in Libya, but also in Iraq, where the Turkish army has launched attacks in the north targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party, according to a June 15 Turkish Ministry of Defense statement. Meanwhile, Iraq has been accusing Turkey of violating Iraqi sovereignty and disrespecting the principles of good neighborly relations.

The Iraqi Parliament called on the UN Security Council July 6 to step in to stop the Turkish military incursions.

Egypt took advantage of the Iraqi-Turkish dispute to step up its efforts to cement ties with Iraq. Cairo offered diplomatic and political support to Baghdad against Turkey and the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the Turkish military intervention June 19.

In an earlier statement on July 3, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned ongoing Turkish violations of Iraqi sovereignty under what it called unfounded national security allegations and asserted that its actions are unacceptable and undermine regional peace and security.

In response July 4, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Egypt's condemnation black comedy and said, Egypts accusations that Turkey is a source of instability in the region are unacceptable.

Egypt is also seeking economic rapprochement with Iraq at a time when Baghdad is threatening to undermine Turkeys trade interests in response to the Turkish military intervention in northern Iraq. In a July 3 press statement, spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ahmed al-Safah alluded to the possibility of Baghdad employing economic pressure against Ankara, saying that his country is reviewing indicators on the ground before taking action. He said, There are dozens of Turkish companies based in Iraq and ongoing trade relations with Ankara that generate more than $16 billion for Baghdad. We are currently looking into these elements.

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli met with Iraqi Ambassador to Egypt Ahmed Nayef al-Dulaimi June 30. Dulaimi expressed Baghdads interest in fostering economic relations and in Egyptian companies contributing to reconstruction activities.

On July 8, Minister of International Cooperation Rania al-Mashat discussed with Nayef ways for the Egyptian private sector to participate in reconstruction in Iraq and other means of economic cooperation between the two countries.

In March 2019, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu said, Turkey will play a key role in restoring Iraq.

Egypt also seeks to help Iraq with its medical needs in another effort to boost relations. After meeting with Nayef in Cairo July 5, Egyptian Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced that the ministry will send medical aid to Iraq to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Egypt is also heightening security cooperation and the fight against terrorism in Iraq. Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Fouad Hussein announced June 24 that his country is looking to hold tripartite talks with Egypt and Jordan to discuss anti-terrorism cooperation.

In 2016, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense announced that it would train thousands of Iraqi soldiers in Egypt.

Professor of political science at the University of Cairo Tarek Fahmy said, Egypt is vexing Turkish greed in Iraq by cementing ties with Iraq. He told Al-Monitor, Baghdad wants to return to Arab alignment to fend off Iranian and Turkish influence. For that reason, Iraq is drawing closer to Egypt, and both countries share underlying interests to keep Turkish greed at bay.

He added, Under the rule of late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Iraq accommodated millions of Egyptian workers, which showed acceptance of Egyptians among the Iraqi people. This ensures public support for Iraqi-Egyptian relations on both the political and the investment fronts.

Fahmy noted, Turkey is aware of Egypts [stance against] it and its ability to be strongly present in Iraq. For that reason, the Turkish Foreign Ministrys response to Egypts condemnation of its military action in north Iraq had a strong tone.

Fahmy called for establishing tight relations with Kurds in northern Iraq and Syria.

Secretary General of the Arab Investors Union and former assistant to the minister of foreign affairs Jamal Bayoumi said, Egypt is adopting a policy of a strong diplomatic and trade presence in the Arab region, especially in Iraq.

He told Al-Monitor, Turkey is targeting Iraq for two reasons: military presence through military bases in north Iraq to expand its military influence in the Arab region. Second, targeting Kurds and residents of north Iraq and Syria who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tells his people are a threat to Turkey.

Reuters quoted a Turkish official as saying July 18 that Turkeys recent military moves in northern Iraq are designed to multiply Turkeys military bases in the area.

The official explained, Egypt is trying to foil the Turkish plan in Iraq by capitalizing on the public closeness and acceptance of the Egyptian role. For that reason, Egypt has beefed up its diplomatic actions through the Arab League and the Foreign Ministry to support Iraq.

The Arab League said in a June 15 statement, The Turkish military intervention constitutes an attack on Iraqi sovereignty and is happening in the absence of coordination with the government in Baghdad. This shows Ankaras undermining of international law and of its ties with its Arab neighbors.

Bayoumi said, The worst crises facing Egyptian investors in Iraq are bureaucracy, instability and the wide presence of armed groups." He added, "The Egyptian government is trying to cooperate with Iraq to remove these obstacles and encourage the Egyptian private sector to contribute to reconstruction projects and compete with Turkish investors."
A ten-year-old boy has been banned from busking at a Dutch shopping centre after playing Frere Jacques '120 times an hour' on his recorder.

One local business owner said that Regilio Karthaus was 'driving her round the bend' by constantly playing the song, and complained to Enkhuizen authorities and the police about the noise.

The boy's father - Marciano Karthaus - told told NH Nieuws that his son came home crying after being sent home by town wardens from the Westerstraat shopping centre where he had been playing to earn pocket money.

'People living in the area complained and the local council sent round the wardens,' Marciano said. 'He was told to leave immediately.'

Ten-year-old Regilio Karthaus, pictured, was sent home from a Dutch shopping centre after local businesses complained about him playing Frere Jacques '120 times an hour'

Enkhuizen's by-laws permit buskers, but Marciano said that his son was told he can only play if he moves every 15 minutes. 'What's the world coming to?' he said.

The owner of the store outside which Regilio had been playing said he did not mind the boy busking outside, saying that it does not bother him.

'I know that some retailers are bothered by it, but I only see a little boy who wants to earn some money. You should encourage that,' said Asad Radmanesh.

'He always comes in for a chat and tells him that he has bought a present for his brother or sister. I see no harm in it.'

However, the owner of a woman's clothing shop on Westerstraat feels differently.

'I really am not a child hater, I have nine grandchildren myself, but it drives me crazy,' she said, but chose to remain anonymous.

The entrepreneur filed a complaint with local authorities last week and hopes for a solution.

'He plays the same song all day and does it for the money. If you have a passion for music then you are going to practice several songs?'

Local authorities said that they received a number of complaints from local business owners about the boy's repetitive music. Pictured above: Regilio Karthaus plays the recorder in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands, as shown in a NH Nieuws report

'I hear 'Father Jacob' one hundred and twenty times in an hour,' the shopkeeper said to NH Nieuws. 'At some point you can no longer shut yourself off and then you really won't hear anything else. I often sit in the back of my office, otherwise I will go crazy.'

She added that she hopes the boy can continue to play in different locations on the Westerstraat.

Dorothea Teunissen, a local council spokesperson, said that they had recieved several complaints from local residents, but acknowledged that Regilio could not be banned from playing.

'Our basic rule is that people can make music, but they should be mindful of others,' she said, adding that while playing music is allowed, others should be taken into account.

Marciano Karthaus now wants his son to be given written permission from the council to give him permission to play without fear of being turned away.

'Shopkeepers have sent him away more often, but this is allowed,' he said. 'I always say to him: just say that you can stand here. Now I want to have that first on paper from the municipality, then he can show that when people complain.'
Turkey rejected Greece's argument that its energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean encroaches on Greek territory, suggesting tensions in the region will remain high.

The seismic survey ship Oruc Reis will evaluate an area that was previously covered by another Turkish ship and lies within what Turkey declared to the United Nations as its own continental shelf, the country's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Turkey will carry out the surveys until Aug. 2, while Greece's armed forces are on standby monitoring for Turkish movements.

Greek shares fell as much as 1.3% on Wednesday, extending declines after dropping the most in more than a month on Tuesday with sentiment burdened by the dispute. The Athens Stock Exchange General Index was down 0.9% at 1:45 p.m. in Athens.

Tensions between Turkey and Greece have flared over issues such as oil and gas exploration in the shared waters of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas as well as flow of refugees through Turkey to European countries. The latest conflict came as a result of Turkey's declaration that it will conduct seismic work from July 21 in the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece's Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke with Angela Merkel on Tuesday evening when he informed the German chancellor about developments with Turkey.

Merkel also addressed the issue in a phone conversation Tuesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, deputy government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said. Without offering details of the conversation, Demmer said Germany's position is "well known."

During a visit to Athens Tuesday, Merkel's foreign minister, Heiko Maas, demanded that Turkey end its drilling off the coast of Cyprus. The EU must deliver a "clear" response to any such activities in the eastern Mediterranean, he said.

"This is the condition for there to be any future-oriented dialog between the European Union and Turkey," Maas said alongside Greek Foreign Minister Nikolaos Dendias. "There is a great deal of unity on this."

The Greek foreign ministry asked Turkey to "immediately stop its illegal actions that violate Greece's sovereignty and undermine the region's peace and security."

Ankara rejects the argument that the area is part of Greece's continental shelf. The foreign ministry said the Greek island of Meis in the area -- covering 10 square kilometers -- is two kilometers away from the Turkish mainland and 580 kilometers off the Greek coast, making "Greece's maximalist continental shelf claims incompatible with international law and court decisions."

Erdogan will chair an ordinary meeting of the national security council later Wednesday, when the Turkish president is expected to discuss the Mediterranean tensions with his top lieutenants. The Greek Prime Minister will hold separate meetings Thursday with leaders from parliamentary political parties to inform them on recent developments.

Ankara argues that a country's continental shelf should be measured from its mainland, and that the area south of the Greek island of Kastellorizo -- just a few kilometers off Turkey's southern coast -- therefore falls within its exclusive zone.

Greece claims that islands must also be taken into account in delineating a country's continental shelf, in line with the UN Law of the Sea, giving it the sole right to the area regardless of the island's proximity to Turkey.

The two countries came to the brink of a war in 1996 in a sovereignty dispute over uninhabited islets known as Kardak in Turkish and Imia in Greek.
Morocco cracking down on Christian faith, arresting believers

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Authorities in the Sunni Muslim-majority country of Morocco appear to be targeting Christian converts as have been arrested up to three times a week and subjected to harassment, according to a Catholic charity.

Converts to Christianity have been repeatedly arrested by police as part of a campaign clamping down on the faith, Aid to the Church in Need reported, quoting Jawad Elhamidy, president of the Moroccan Association of Rights and Religious Liberties.

The penal code holds that all Moroccans are Muslims, so those who convert to Christianity face legal problems, besides threats to their security, Elhamidy said.

Of the 34.6 million people in Morocco, between 8,000 and 25,000 are estimated to be indigenous Moroccan Christians, according to the charity.

It is also estimated that about 30,000 foreign residents are Catholic and 10,000 are Protestant, but they are generally allowed to worship freely if they do not evangelize.

Evangelism or converting to another religion is a criminal offense punishable by between six months and three years in prison. Moroccan law criminalizes shaking the faith of a Muslim, which means that Christians who talk to others about their faith risk criminal charges and arrest, according to the Christian ministry Open Doors.

If a Moroccan enters a church, one of two things can happen  either a policeman sitting in front of the church arrests him or her, or the cleric in charge of the church asks the person to leave, unless the purpose is tourism, Elhamidy said. Moroccan Christians worship in secret house churches to avoid state sanctions or harassment from society.

To ensure Moroccans are not attending services, expatriate churches are monitored intensely, Open Doors says, adding that foreigners accused of sharing the Gospel in Morocco have been deported.

Apart from law, Christians from Muslim backgrounds face pressure also from their families and communities, especially in rural areas, so they may be forced to keep their faith a secret. Converts to Christianity can lose inheritance rights and custody of children.

Other restrictions imposed by Islamic authorities include the confiscation of Christian literature in Arabic (including Bibles) and serious challenges in securing places of worship for Christians with a Muslim background.

Open Doors adds that Islamic extremists are also a threat, as advocates for the rights of Christians have been targeted for violent attacks in this parliamentary constitutional monarchy.

In 2018, a newly married Christian couple, Loubna and her husband Kamal, faced threats from the local community in their hometown. Their marriage could be considered invalid, while fornication is punishable under the countrys penal code.

We want to be treated on an equal footing with Moroccan Jews, Chouaib El Fatihi, coordinator of the Christian committee at the Moroccan association for religious rights and freedoms, said at the time. We want to be recognized as Moroccan Christian citizens and to enjoy the right to legal marriages and burial ceremonies according to our religion.
Emmy winner Lisa Kudrow couldn't charm her way out of getting a speeding ticket for driving her silver Porsche 55mph in a 30mph zone in Beverly Hills on Wednesday morning.

The Space Force actress - turning 57 next week - made sure to wear a surgical mask, which California Governor Gavin Newsom made mandatory for all public outings on June 18.

As of Wednesday, there have been over 162K confirmed COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles County, which has lead to 4,155 deaths - according to Johns Hopkins University.

Busted: Emmy winner Lisa Kudrow couldn't charm her way out of getting a speeding ticket for driving her silver Porsche 55mph in a 30mph zone in Beverly Hills on Wednesday morning

Hours earlier, Lisa was discussing ideas for a potential season three of her HBO satire The Comeback during a reunion with co-creator Michael Patrick King and castmates.

'We thought she'd try and have a table-read of an I'm It! script,' King said on the hour-long Stars in the House's special benefitting The Actors Fund.

Kudrow interjected: 'Without reading it and realizing how dated and racist and homophobic it would be, because it would be!'

The Sex and the City producer added: 'And why it would be perfect for The Comeback would be because she was discovering it in front of a camera!'

Happy birthday! The Space Force actress - turning 57 next week - made sure to wear a surgical mask, which California Governor Gavin Newsom made mandatory

Pulled over in a pandemic: As of Wednesday, there have been over 162K confirmed COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles County, which has lead to 4,155 deaths

The Black Lives Matter activist - whose middle name happens to be Valerie - also confessed she 'always' wanted her ex-sitcom character to try Broadway in New York for one season.

'She'd be eaten alive, I think. It's never left my head. If theatres are ever safe to attend [in the future],' Lisa noted.

The cast and crew also paid tribute to Robert Michael Morris, who played her larger-than-life gay hairdresser Mickey Deane before his death, aged 77, in 2017.

'He was thing. He was the real thing,' King lamented.

Table read of I'm It? Hours earlier, Lisa was discussing ideas for a potential season three of her HBO satire The Comeback during a reunion with co-creator Michael Patrick King and castmates for The Actors Fund

'She'd be eaten alive': The Black Lives Matter activist - whose middle name happens to be Valerie - confessed she 'always' wanted her ex-sitcom character to try Broadway in New York for one season

'He was the real thing': The cast and crew also paid tribute to Robert Michael Morris (2-L), who played her larger-than-life gay hairdresser Mickey Deane before his death, aged 77, in 2017

'He had to come to Hollywood and audition at HBO - with some other heavy-hitters, I might add - and he walked in and he gave Lisa a diamond chip necklace that he had bought for her on QVC. And she said "I'll never take it off!"'

Kudrow will next attend HBO Max's Friends reunion - which was postponed from May 27 to 'mid-August' - at Stage 24 of Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.

'There are going to be very strict guidelines and that includes no live audiences,' a source told the UK's Mirror this month.

'All of the cast will be tested for COVID-19, and asked to quarantine in isolation after they've had the tests.'

'The One Where They Got Back Together': Lisa will next attend HBO Max's Friends reunion - which was postponed from May 27 to 'mid-August' - at Stage 24 of Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank

'There are going to be very strict guidelines': The Vassar College grad portrayed massage therapist and musician Phoebe Buffay for 10 seasons on the entirely-Caucasian NBC ensemble sitcom, which concluded in 2004

The Vassar College grad portrayed massage therapist and musician Phoebe Buffay for 10 seasons on the entirely-Caucasian NBC ensemble sitcom, which concluded in 2004.

On the personal front, Lisa and her husband Michel Stern impressively celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary on May 27.

Kudrow and the 62-year-old French advertising executive are parents to 22-year-old son Julian Murray.
Many are looking forward to voting in November elections. However, many U.S. immigrants may not be able to exercise this right due to the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 300,000 U.S. immigrants are at risk of not getting U.S. citizenship to cast their votes after suspending the naturalization application process due to the current health crisis.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has suspended in-person interviews and oath ceremonies this spring. Many were affected by this action.

Reports said that about 252,000 immigrants have already faced delays when it comes to processing their citizenship. The number will reach 315,000 by the end of August if delays due to the current pandemic continue.

Pew Research Center's study said that around 10 percent of voters in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was expected to be immigrants.

U.S. Immigrants' Story

U.S. immigrant 44-year old Alex Beric applied for naturalization in May 2019 as he was hoping to become a U.S. citizen to vote in November presidential election.

But he has become part of the number of immigrants who might not be able to vote because of processing delays due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Beric came to the U.S. in 2004. He said it would be disappointing if he would not be able to vote because of the delays.

"My wife and I have made our life here. We have no intention to return to England, so it would be nice to take part in local and federal elections," Beric was quoted in a report.

Beric was notified of his naturalization interview in early March, but it was moved to April 21.

Beric received another notification about his naturalization interview, saying that it would be rescheduled due to the pandemic.

Beric is still waiting for his naturalization interview to be rescheduled.

Beric lives in Gilbert, Arizona where the deadline for registration to vote in November elections is Oct. 8.

In Chicago, there were 21, 977 pending naturalization applications.

Fortunately for Rissi Pacheco, she was able to attain her U.S. citizenship in the past week.

Pacheco said she was living in fear because of her immigration status but it changed because of a ceremony that took less than 10 minutes.

Erendira Rendon said that it will be almost unlikely for those who applied in January to have their applications processed in time for the elections.

Rendon is a member of Resurrection Project, which is a community organization that focuses on immigration.

Naturalization Application Process

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services resumed the oath ceremonies in June. But in-person naturalization interviews are still suspended.

USCIS operates on the application fees it collects from immigrants applying for naturalization and immigration benefits. The agency faces a huge budget shortfall.

Director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute Randy Capps said the budget problem started last year, which was worsened by the pandemic.

With this, more than two-thirds of the USCIS staff are facing furloughs starting in August, unless the agency receives the $1.2 billion financial cover it requested from Congress.

Reports said USCIS officials did not respond for comment.



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There is no proof Covid-19 has been transmitted from a pupil to a teacher in school anywhere in the world, a scientist advising the Government has claimed.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist from the University of Edinburgh, said closing all schools completely during Britain's lockdown might have been a mistake.

Evidence now suggests children are 'minimally involved' in the spread of Covid-19, which politicians should bear in mind in the future, he added.

Statistics show 15 children and teenagers have died of coronavirus in England and Wales since March, 0.03 per cent of the total deaths.

And scientists say children appear to only rarely be seriously affected by the condition, which preys on existing ill health and is most dangerous for the elderly. Getting fewer symptoms and milder illness may make them less likely to spread it.

Professor Woolhouse, who sits on a sub-group of SAGE, told The Times it is 'extremely difficult' to find any instances of children spreading the virus to adults in schools, with no certain cases.

He suggests closing schools was 'never essential' and said it was unlikely that governments would repeat the drastic step.

It is not clear, however, how much children contribute to the spread of the virus in the home, which is where most transmission takes place. Elderly relatives could be at risk from children catching the virus from other families, for example, suggesting keeping youngsters apart at school could still be beneficial.

Returning to school has been a controversial issue in Britain as teachers and school staff said they felt unable to do it safely in the way the Government was asking. Nearly half of teachers say they are unprepared and only one in five feel safe.

Schools currently have social distancing rules in place to try and keep children apart as much as possible and prevent them sharing things like pens and pencils (Pictured: Pupils at Watlington Primary School in Oxfordshire)

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pictured during a visit to a school in Kent this week, has said all schools in England will reopen normally from September

Primary schools in Britain have been allowed to reopen to certain year groups and are run in 'bubbles' of teachers assigned to certain classes.

Secondary schools, however, have had to remain closed since lockdown was imposed in March and will not reopen until September.

From the start of the school year, all schools in England are set to reopen as normal and attendance will be mandatory again as it is in normal times.

Evidence has grown during the course of the pandemic that children are very rarely affected by Covid-19 and it is even more rare that they die from the illness.

WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE ON CHILDREN AND THEIR COVID-19 RISK? Data shows children have an almost non-existent chance of dying of Covid-19 and scientific evidence, although still in early stages, suggests youngsters are also less likely to get sick at all or to spread it. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine published a study in June that found only two in 10 children with coronavirus have any symptoms of it. They saw that under-20s are half as likely to become sick with Covid-19 as over-70s, and only 21 per cent of infected 10 to 19-year-olds had symptoms. In comparison, the rate of symptoms among over-70s  the group most vulnerable to the disease  was three times higher at 69 per cent.

The LSHTM experts said understanding that children are less affected by the disease could influence how strict school closures have to be in the future. In a meeting in May with members of the House of Lords, LHSTM infectious disease experts Dr Rosalind Eggo and Professor John Edmunds explained that children appear to be less likely to spread the disease as well. Dr Eggo said: 'We think that children are less likely to get it so far but it is not certain. 'We are very certain that children are less likely to have severe outcomes and there are hints that children are less infectious but it is not certain.' Scientists cannot say why children seem to have some level of natural protection from COVID-19. There have been suggestions that it because they don't have as much age-related lung damage or ill health, or because they have considerably lower rates of illnesses which increase the risk of complications, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Professor Edmunds, who is a member of SAGE, the group of scientists advising the government, today told members of the Lords: 'It is unusual that children don't seem to play much of a role in transmission because for most respiratory viruses and bacteria they play a central role, but in this they don't seem to.' Office for National Statistics data shows that, in England and Wales, 15 people under the age of 20 have died of Covid-19 during the entire outbreak up to July 10. This was just 0.03 per cent of the total 51,096 counted by that date. Advertisement

Professor Woolhouse told The Times that children of school age up to 15 are 'minimally involved in the epidemiology of this virus'.

He said: 'There is increasing evidence that they rarely transmit.

'For example, it is extremely difficult to find any instance anywhere in the world as a single example of a child transmitting to a teacher in school. There may have been one in Australia but it is incredibly rare.

'There are certain environments where this virus transmits very well and children are not present in these environments.'

The idea that children don't transmit the virus as much as adults has gained traction in recent months as scientists have been able to study where Covid-19 spreads the most.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine published a study in June that found only two in 10 children with coronavirus have any symptoms of it.

They saw that under-20s are half as likely to become sick with Covid-19 as over-70s, and only 21 per cent of infected 10 to 19-year-olds had symptoms.

In comparison, the rate of symptoms among over-70s  the group most vulnerable to the disease  was three times higher at 69 per cent.



The LSHTM experts said understanding that children are less affected by the disease could influence how strict school closures have to be in the future.

Schools are set to reopen fully without social distancing in September but teachers are uneasy about the plans.

The union NASUWT found that only 22 per cent of school staff in Scotland said they feel safe returning under the current proposed plan.

General secretary of the union, Dr Patrick Roach, said: 'The NASUWT recognises the importance of schools reopening to all children as soon as it is safe to do so.

'The Education Secretary needs to develop a coordinated national plan to deliver the full and safe reopening of all schools in September.

'He needs to address as a matter of urgency the many practical and logistical issues that have been raised by teachers and headteachers across the country.

'Schools have only a few weeks before they close for the summer break. Teachers and headteachers need urgent clarification from the DfE [Department for Education] if they are to be able to meet the guidance on September re-opening consistently and safely.'

Reasons for children's apparent resilience to the disease are still unclear, despite a wave of trials devoted to unraveling the truth on the contentious topic.

Top researchers say their immune system may be faster to react or their bodies better able to cope with viral infections because they are younger.

Other studies have also suggested that children may have stronger immunity to coronaviruses in general because they catch so many colds, some of which are caused by viruses that look very similar to the one that causes Covid-19.

Speaking to the House of Lords's Science and Technology Committee in June, LSHTM infectious disease experts Dr Rosalind Eggo and Professor John Edmunds said children don't seem to spread the virus as much as adults when they have it.

This is unusual because children are usually 'super-spreaders' of coughs and colds because they have bad hygiene.

Professor Edmunds, who was a member of SAGE alongside Professor Woolhouse, told peers: 'It is unusual that children don't seem to play much of a role in transmission because for most respiratory viruses and bacteria they play a central role, but in this they don't seem to.'

Dr Eggo added: 'We think that children are less likely to get it so far but it is not certain.

'We are very certain that children are less likely to have severe outcomes and there are hints that children are less infectious but it is not certain.'
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

Its now harder for people to get tested for the coronavirus in Albuquerque. And thats not likely to change anytime soon.

The University of New Mexico, Presbyterian and Lovelace health systems had been offering drive-up or walk-in coronavirus testing for people with or without symptoms. But they halted testing of asymptomatic people for COVID-19 on Wednesday because of an unexpected supply shortage.

This is not a short-lived problem, a spokeswoman for TriCore Reference Laboratories, which processes COVID-19 tests for the three hospitals, said in a statement.

At issue is the recent increase in demand for reagents, which are needed to process COVID-19 tests, said Beth Bailey, the TriCore spokeswoman.

In discussions with our reagent vendors, this national shortage will likely continue into the next several months due to increased testing demand across the country, she said.

UNM, Presbyterian and Lovelace announced the change in testing in a joint statement. For now, the change will primarily affect people seeking tests in Albuquerque, although Presbyterian also takes samples from patients outside the city, said Melanie Mozes, a spokeswoman for Presbyterian.

The hospitals said the change in practice wont affect testing for patients who have COVID-19 symptoms, inpatient testing or testing required before a medical procedure. Symptoms of the virus include fever and chills, coughing, loss of smell or taste, difficulty breathing, fatigue and headaches.

Presbyterian operates the massive drive-up site at Balloon Fiesta Park, and Lovelace operates a large one east of Downtown.

Presbyterian will continue to test people without symptoms who have had a known exposure to a COVID-19 infection.

David Morgan, a spokesman for the Department of Health, acknowledged that the state is changing its message to the public  now emphasizing that people with symptoms, those with a known exposure to the virus and those who live or work in high-risk places get tested. It previously encouraged everyone to be tested.

Everything said locally, nationally and beyond about how people can be asymptomatic and can unknowingly pass the virus to others hasnt changed, he said, adding that people should follow public health orders. The current order mandates masks in public places, limits gatherings and encourages staying at home as much as possible.

Labs throughout the country are reporting trouble processing test results amid a surge of COVID-19 cases. TriCore, like all other labs processing COVID tests, gets an allotment of reagents each week, which limit how many tests it can perform, Bailey said.

When positive tests increase, as they have in New Mexico in recent weeks, the demand for testing due to contract tracing can grow dramatically, she said.

Stewardship of our limited testing resources is critical in order to best serve the health of our community, she said. TriCore is working with the health systems throughout New Mexico to strategically prioritize current testing, ensuring clinically actionable turnaround times for the highest-risk patients.

It wasnt clear what the announcement could mean for the states overall testing capacity. Since the start of the pandemic, New Mexico has processed nearly 490,000 tests  more than Colorado, Utah or Nevada, which have larger populations, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

Presbyterian, Lovelace and UNM have collected a large share of the samples that have been tested for coronavirus in New Mexico, especially in the Albuquerque area. Mozes estimated that the Presbyterian health system alone has collected about 25% to 30% of the specimens statewide that have been tested for the virus.

The three hospitals referred asymptomatic people seeking a test, including those needing clearance for their employer, to the Department of Health to find an alternative testing site.

Morgan said state public health offices havent been affected by the supply shortage.

We at the Department of Health will do our best to adjust our availability at our public health offices, he said in an email. Our Scientific Lab Division is not currently experiencing the shortage of testing reagent the facilities report, but we are limited in our capacity to process specimens. We will do all we can to serve the public and manage the labs already 24-hour processing schedule.

Morgan said the DOH uses a different instrument for COVID-19 tests, so it is not directly affected by the same supply shortage.

Testing for the virus can help slow its spread, according to health officials. One reason is that people can carry coronavirus while showing mild or no symptoms, studies have suggested.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams administration had expanded its criteria for who can be tested for COVID-19 in recent months, describing testing as key to the states ability to gradually reopen its economy. As of this week, the states seven-day rolling average of coronavirus tests administered statewide had increased to more than 7,300  well above the goal of 5,000 tests per day established by the Lujan Grisham administration as one of its criteria for reopening businesses.

Even with the expanded capacity, the state has struggled to keep up with the demand for testing amid a recent uptick in coronavirus cases. Some New Mexicans have reported waiting for up to six hours at drive-up testing sites or being turned away due to limited testing supplies.

Mozes said Presbyterians testing sites, including its drive-up site at Balloon Fiesta Park, will screen people for symptoms of the virus. But she encouraged patients to go to Presbyterians website to see if they will qualify for a test before arriving.
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The Duke of Edinburgh may rarely be seen in public nowadays, but showed he has lost none of his mischievous sense of humour when he joked with a soldier about his fitness levels at a brief military engagement today.

Philip, 99, shared a chuckle with Lance Corporal Colin Streetin, 33, when he attended a Windsor Castle ceremony to formally hand over his role as Colonel-in-Chief of the infantry regiment The Rifles to the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Duke has been closely associated with The Rifles and its earlier regiments for almost 70 years, but he has now handed over his role to Camilla. Amid extreme social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic, she took part in the second half of the ceremony 100 miles away, at her Highgrove home in Gloucestershire, in a similar event.

The sprightly Duke carefully walked down the steps of Windsor Castle's Equerries' Entrance to meet four buglers from the Band and Bugles of The Rifles during the three-minute ceremony. Lance Corporal Streetin, of Yeovil, said after that Philip had asked him long he had been playing the bugle for and he told him that it has been ten years.

He said: 'He asked me if that was all I did, the bugling, and I told him that we were assault pioneers as well. He said 'obviously keeping up your fitness then?' and then kind of looked me up and down and I was thinking 'Are you trying to say I am fat?!' That's what we were laughing about. He's a very fit man himself for 99. Just incredible. '

He said the event had meant a great deal to himself and his colleagues, adding: 'In my lifetime I don't think I will ever do anything like this again. I don't think the Colonel-in-Chief will change again in the time I'll be doing it. So it's been a great honour to step in. Someone of his character, his charisma, you can't go wrong. That's what we like, we are all banter. And that's what he is. '

Lance Corporal Streetin said he played once for the Duke before at the Royal Albert Hall in 2014, adding: 'And we almost gave him a heart attack then, as were so loud, so he's doing well to be fair!'

Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace confirmed this afternoon that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will travel to Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire for their annual summer break in early August.

In his role Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles, Philip appeared at Windsor this afternoon to take part in the official hand-over of the position after an involvement of 67 years to his successor, the Duchess of Cornwall.

Prince Philip smiles during the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles at Windsor Castle this afternoon

The Duke of Edinburgh waves day as he arrives for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles at Windsor Castle

Some 100 miles away at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire this afternoon, Camilla was officially welcomed to the regiment

The Duke today takes part in a rare official public engagement in Windsor as he transfers his Colonel-in-Chief role

Philip, pictured today, has served as Colonel-in-Chief of successive Regiments which now make up The Rifles since 1953

The Duke has been Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles since its formation in 2007 but his connection stretches back further, as he has served as Colonel-in-Chief of successive Regiments which now make up The Rifles since 1953.

Camilla was appointed Royal Colonel of 4th Battalion The Rifles in 2007. Today, Philip stepped out of the castle's Equerries Entrance, smart in his blazer, regimental tie and highly polished brogues, cheerily waving his hand.

The Assistant Colonel Commandant, Major General Tom Copinger-Symes, offered the salute and thanked him for his support and service to The Rifles, and their forming and antecedent Regiments.

He told him: 'Your Royal Highness, Colonel-in-Chief, good morning. And happy Salamanca Day [the annual regimental Day]. All Rifleman, whether serving or retired would like to thank you for 67 years of continuous service, support and leadership to the Rifles and to our forming and antecedent regiments.

'And on this occasion, as you hand over your duties, as Colonel-in-Chief to her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall, we would like to wish you fair wind and following seas. And with that, Sir, may I have your leave for the Bugle Major to sound the Rifle Call and No More Parades.'

He later explained that the 'fair wind and following seas' was in reference to the duke's distinguished naval service.

Four Buglers, of The Band and Bugles of The Rifles, then sounded The Rifles Assembly call, followed by the 'No More Parades' call, to mark The Duke of Edinburgh's final ceremony as Colonel-in-Chief.

Philip - who is a patron, president or a member of more than 780 organisations - has been officially retired since 2017, although he appeared on the balcony at the Cenotaph remembrance event in November that year.

But a palace spokesman said he had been asked by The Rifles if they could pay tribute to his service with a ceremonial event and, as he was at Windsor Castle, he was happy to facilitate it.

Philip smiled and looked the buglers with interest as they began to play and waved his hand in farewell as they had finished. But Major General Copinger-Symes returned to ask him if he would like to speak to the buglers personally.

The Duke - who had a hip replacement in 2018 - appeared to hesitate for a second as there were four stone steps to navigate, but was clearly determined to pay his respects and carefully walked down each step, one at a time, sideways, before walking across the gravel of the castle's famous quadrangle to speak to them.

The Duke at Windsor Castle today, flanked by Assistant Colonel Commandant, Major General Tom Copinger-Symeas

The Duke of Edinburgh smiles at Windsor Castle today during a ceremony for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifles

The Duke of Edinburgh is pictured at Windsor Castle during the ceremony which took place this afternoon

The Duke of Edinburgh speaks to a bugler at Windsor Castle during a ceremony for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief today

The Duke of Edinburgh stands ram-rod straight at Windsor Castle during a ceremony for the Colonel-in-Chief transfer today

After moving with impressive speed, with one arm behind his back, he spoke to each of the four buglers, before making his way back inside, negotiating the stairs upwards with ease.

Speaking after the ceremony, Major General Copinger-Symes said: 'Clearly this is a mark of our respect for him and his fondness for soldiers and servicemen and women of all kinds. He is a military man through and through. One is always slightly worried one is going to do something wrong and he will spot it before I spot it.

'You see that energy from him interacting with the service people which is incredibly inspiring for all of us.

'We couldn't have been more lucky in having His Royal Highness as our Colonel-in-Chief, his ability to make an instant connection with Riflemen, whether junior or senior, to be able to put them at their ease and get the best from them and feel like they are the only person in the room - or the Quadrangle at Windsor Castle....so we couldn't have been better served by him, and for 67 years. We have been very lucky. '

He said the duke had been clearly determined to make his way down the steps 'come what may' and wanted to afford the Riflemen the respect they had afforded him.

'We have been bless with all our Royal Colonels,' he continued, 'The real magic of this is the self-respect for the Rifleman and that sense that someone very senior, very important, very busy, spends time and focuses on them and you can see people swell with pride. '

He added: 'I made a reference to fair winds and following seas as I thought it was a rather lovely way of saying goodbye to somebody from the senior service [the Royal Navy], which blends his own service with the navy with the Rifles saying thank you.'

He said they would have a 'wonderful' replacement in the Duchess of Cornwall. 'I know how much it means to her, too, to step up,' he said.

'We couldn't be more fortunate, she has exactly the same qualities as the Duke to make people feel like they are the only one in the room.'

The Duke of Edinburgh smiles as he speaks to a bugler at Windsor Castle during the ceremony this afternoon

The ceremony at Windsor began today when four Buglers, of The Band and Bugles of The Rifles, stood to attention

Prince Philip smiles during the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles at Windsor Castle in Berkshire this afternoon

The Buglers sounded The Rifles Regimental Call, followed by the 'No More Parades' call, during today's ceremony at Windsor

The Duke of Edinburgh waves as he takes part in the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles at Windsor Castle today

WO2 (Senior Bugler Major) Simon Topp, 41, from Winchester, added: 'In 2007 I was among the frontline buglers who took part in Mass Sounding Retreat to signify the duke's taking up of the post, so it feels very special to be here today as he steps down. It's a wonderful place to perform, very special.'

He said the calls chosen were ones that were used regularly during the Rifles working day.

The Rifles were formed in February 2007, following the merger of four celebrated infantry Regiments - The Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry; The Light Infantry; The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry; and The Royal Green Jackets.

When Prince Philip said what he shouldn't: Some of the Duke's most famous quotes Prince Philip has become known over the years for his unashamedly non-PC comments. The Duke has realised his own capacity for making gaffes, and even has a word for it, 'Dontopedalogy'. Here are some of his most legendary gaffes: 'If you stay here much longer you will all be be slitty-eyed'  speaking to youngsters in China during a state visit in 1986

'Do you still throw spears at each other?'  speaking to an Aboriginal cultural park owner in Australia in 2002

'I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress!'  speaking to a policeman next to a woman in a red dress in Bromley, South London, in 2012

'Who do you sponge off?'  speaking to a group of women at Chadwell Heath Community Centre in East London in 2015

'Just take the f****** picture'  during a photocall for the Battle of Britain anniversary in 2015

'The Philippines must be half-empty  you're all here running the NHS'  speaking to a Filipino nurse at the opening of the Luton and Dunstable Hospital in 2013 Advertisement

Forged during the campaigns of Iraq and Afghanistan, they are now the largest infantry regiment in the British Army. Their motto is: 'Swift and Bold.'

The Rifles celebrate their Regimental Day on July 22 each year, which commemorates the Battle of Salamanca during the Peninsula War, in 1812, at which all four forming Regiments of The Rifles fought together and were victorious against the army of Napoleon.

Currently The Rifles has battalions (including Reserve units) deployed on operations in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Estonia, Cyprus and in support of the UK's Covid-19 response, with other battalions preparing to deploy on operations in the coming months.

The Duke of Edinburgh's most recent engagement as Colonel-in Chief of the Regiment was in June 2019, when His Royal Highness received the outgoing and incoming Colonel Commandant of The Rifles, General Sir Nicholas Carter and General Sir Patrick Sanders.

The Duke - who was also pictured after attending Princess Beatrice's wedding last Friday - looked in good health and smiled for photographers before standing ram-rod straight and listening to what was said.

Royal expert Phil Dampier, who wrote a 2012 book on Philip, tweeted today: 'After health problems last winter, Prince Philip seems back on top form. Onward to 100!' He added: 'Great to see the Iron Duke in rude health.'

Immediately afterwards at Highgrove, the arrival of Camilla was marked by four Buglers of The Band and Bugles of The Rifles sounding The Rifles Assembly.

The Duchess was addressed by The Rifles' Colonel Commandant, General Sir Patrick Sanders, who welcomed her as the new Colonel-in-Chief.

The Buglers then sounded The Rifles Regimental Call and The Advance, following which Camilla met the Buglers and a small party from 4th Battalion The Rifles, before retiring for an audience with General Sanders.

Camilla, who was wearing a Rifles brooch to mark the occasion, wore a bespoke bottle-green dress with black trim, modelled on the Rifles' uniform.

The buttons of the dress have bugles on them and are the same buttons as worn on the soldiers' tunics.

July 22 is celebrated each year by The Rifles as their Regimental Day, which commemorates the Battle of Salamanca during the Peninsula War in 1812, at which all four forming regiments of The Rifles fought together and were victorious against the army of Napoleon.

The duchess has been Royal Colonel of 4th Battalion The Rifles since 2007 and will continue to hold the position.

She supported the battalion during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, writing to next of kin, sending letters to the injured, and meeting families - as well as the traditional medals parades.

The Duchess of Cornwall smiles as she becomes Colonel-in-Chief for the Rifles at Highgrove House this afternoon

Camilla smiles as she becomes Colonel-in-Chief for the Rifles at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire this afternoon

The Duchess of Cornwall at Highgrove House, during a ceremony for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief this afternoon

The Duchess of Cornwall at Highgrove House, during a ceremony for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifles today

The Duchess of Cornwall at Highgrove House today, in the second ceremony of the day for the Colonel-in-Chief transfer

Most recently, Camilla visited New Normandy Barracks in Aldershot in May last year to present service medals and meet members of the battalion and their families.

The duchess also has personal links to military organisations connected to her father, Major Bruce Shand, who was awarded two Military Crosses.

Two battalions of The Rifles today form part of the celebrated 7th Infantry Brigade, otherwise known as the Desert Rats, with whom Major Shand served, and the duchess is patron of The Desert Rats Association.

Speaking before the ceremony, General Sanders said: 'We feel it's a bittersweet day because we're enormously proud of our association with the Duke of Edinburgh who has been the most amazing Colonel-in-Chief and we've really flourished under his tenure.

'But it's also really special to have the Duchess of Cornwall coming in because she has a long association with The Rifles.

'She has been absolutely inspiring and the support that she's given and the way that she sustained that through some quite difficult and bloody tours.'

Philip was recently pictured with the Queen at Windsor to mark his 99th birthday on June 10, and at Princess Beatrice's wedding last Friday.

JULY 17, 2020: The Duke of Edinburgh with the Queen after Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi's wedding, standing socially distanced outside The Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge in Windsor last Friday

JUNE 6, 2020: The Queen and Prince Philip pose in the quadrangle of Windsor Castle to mark Philip's 99th birthday on June 10

MAY 18, 2019: The Duke of Edinburgh shares a joke with the Duke of Sussex as they leave following the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle last year

DECEMBER 24, 2019: Prince Philip leaves King Edward VII's Hospital in London on Christmas Eve last year after having treatment relating to a 'pre-existing condition'. His stay was described as a 'precautionary measure' by Buckingham Palace. Philip left hospital after four nights and travelled to Sandringham to spend Christmas with the Queen

MAY 11, 2019: Philip takes his seat in the royal box with the Queen for the Royal Windsor Horse Show's pageant event last year

MAY 9, 2019: The Duke of Edinburgh is seen driving a carriage at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in Berkshire last year

MAY 7, 2019: The duke makes a rare appearance at a royal engagement, joining the Queen and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough at a luncheon for Order of Merit members at Windsor Castle

He was last seen at a big event when he was a guest at Lady Gabriella Windsor's wedding in May 2019. The ceremony this afternoon is Philip's first engagement in more than a year.

In June 2019, he held an audience when he received General Sir Nicholas Carter who was relinquishing his appointment as Colonel Commandant of The Rifles.

On August 2, 2017, Philip carried out his final official engagement as he retired from public duties. Camilla was appointed Royal Colonel of 4th Battalion The Rifles in 2007 and will continue to hold this position.

Philip's links to The Rifles stretches back to 1953 when he was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of The Wiltshire Regiment (Duke of Edinburgh's).

He has served in the position for successive regiments which now make up The Rifles since, and has been Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles since its formation in 2007.

Camilla was appointed Royal Colonel of 4th Battalion The Rifles in 2007.
Chula Vista faced a $400,000 deficit this fiscal year, but a $1.6 million Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement from the January 2017 storm helped them balance the budget.

Some of that FEMA money can help balance next years $2.2 million deficit, but it wont change the fact that Chula Vistas deficits are expected to grow because of rising pension costs.

Chula Vistas budget director, Edward Prendell, told the City Council this week that the citys long-term outlook continues to be bleak and despite both cost-saving measure and modest increases to revenues we anticipate a year-over-year growth in the deficit.

The citys estimates show that, at the current pace, the deficit will grow to $26.6 million by 2023 and $43.4 million by 2028.

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To balance future budgets, Chula Vista is looking for new revenue streams and cost-cutting measures, said the citys finance director, David Bilby.

New revenue streams could come from marijuana sales taxes and, if approved, a sales tax increase that will go to the general fund but elected officials have promised will be spent on hiring new police officers and firefighters.

The cannabis sales tax measure, were looking at that being a key revenue source going into 2020, Bilby told the City Council.

Other revenue additions could come in the form of transient occupancy taxes from new hotels, and increased municipal fees.

The city has already invested in technology to make certain agencies more efficient. That includes a new dispatch and radio system for the police department, software for the accounting department, and paperless workflow options in City Hall.

Chula Vista also hopes to increase public-private partnerships and rely more on interns from local universities.

Bilby said if the city can get ahead of the growing deficit early, they will be in a good position moving forward.

Im not overly worried about what year eight looks like if we can structure and resolve years two and three; well be in a much better spot, he said.

Chula Vista isnt alone in facing pension-related budget problems.

Municipalities across the state are financially strained because of pension costs. Cities like Chula Vista, those with large populations and relatively low sales tax and property tax production, face more challenges than affluent coastal towns, Bilby said.

Apart from finding new revenue sources and streamlining the bureaucratic process, Chula Vista is hopeful that changes to the states sales tax distribution system, possible pension reform, or lawsuits that could impact how pension benefits are awarded ease the citys financial burden.

Chula Vista could gain as much as $2 million if California changes how it distributes sales taxes from online purchases, Bilby said.

In traditional transactions, the city where the sale happens gets 1 cent for every dollar of taxable sales. But in online purchases, state officials send the county a share of the revenue and the county doles out that money based on their most recent share of sales tax revenue.

Gov. Jerry Browns attempt at pension reform resulted in several legal challenges from the states unions. Several of those lawsuits are expected to make their way to the state Supreme Court this year.

Before any significant changes to the states pension, Chula Vista will continue to see rising pension costs.

Newer employees are in a new system called PEPRA, which will make a difference in the long term. But for now, Chula Vista has to find ways to keep up with rising pension costs.

Theres this gap and its a big gap right now, but were hopeful that there will be a variety of solutions to bridge it, Bilby said.

Chula Vista will host two public workshops on the budget in May. Anyone with questions about how their tax dollars are being spent are welcome to attend, Bilby added.

Contact Gustavo Solis via Email or Twitter
Veteran fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood posed in a giant bird cage in London Tuesday to show her support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and call for his extradition to the U.S. to be stopped.

Dressed in a canary yellow outfit, the 79-year-old designer led protesters who chanted Free Julian Assange outside Londons Central Criminal Court.

SEE PHOTOS: Veteran fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood shows support for Julian Assange

Assange is due to appear for an extradition hearing on Sept. 7. If extradited to the U.S., he will face charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Prosecutors say he damaged national security by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents, including diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that harmed the U.S. and its allies and aided its adversaries.

The 49-year-old is currently being held in a high-security prison in London.

Westwood told The Associated Press after her protest that freeing Assange would mean that journalists can continue to tell the truth, rather than repeating the spin thats dealt to them by the government.

The designer has turned to activism in recent years, leading campaigns in support of Assange and drawing attention to climate change at her fashion shows.

Assange was arrested last year after being evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been holed up for years.

He maintains he was acting as a journalist entitled to First Amendment protection. His lawyers have argued the U.S. charges of espionage and computer misuse were politically motivated and an abuse of power.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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TDT | Manama

The First Supreme Criminal Court of Appeal upheld the punishment of a man who attacked policemen and others in Manama last year while under the influence of alcohol. The man had mentioned in his defence before the court that he wasnt responsible for his actions as he was drunk.

However, the court rejected his pretext as he intentionally consumed alcoholic beverages, and therefore bears the legal consequences of his actions. Details of the case showed that the appellant was dining at a restaurant inside one of the hotels in the capital in December of last year.

Due to his excessive consumption of alcohol, the man caused chaos in the facility and verbally and physically assaulted some of the customers and employees there. Security guards escorted him outside the hotel while awaiting the arrival of police, who were notified about the incident.

Upon the arrival of a police force, the man showed strong resistance and assaulted an officer by shoving and punching him in the face, injuring the cop. Additionally, the man climbed on top of the police patrol vehicle and was forcibly brought down by the officers, who cuffed him and put him inside the car after a long struggle.

The force took the man to the police station and he was later referred to the Public Prosecution. On December 11 last year, the prosecution interrogated the man and heard witnesses testimonies. He was charged with assaulting an on-duty public servant, who was the policeman, while carrying out his duties. A first degree court sentenced him to one year of imprisonment after finding him guilty of the crime.
CCSA asked to extend emergency by a month

THAILAND: The authority responsible for the countrys handling of the coronavirus will today (July 22) be asked to extend the emergency decree by another month.

CoronavirusCOVID-19healthSafety

By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 22 July 2020, 10:22AM

Members of the Democracy Restoration Group rally against the emergency decree outside Government House on June 18. Photo: Bangkok Post file

General Natthaphol Nakpanich, the deputy chairman of the ad hoc committee on the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, said it would recommend that todays meeting of the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) extend the decree, which is due to expire on July 31.

The recommendation is expected to be proposed to the CCSA by Gen Somsak Roongsita, secretary-general of the National Security Council and chair of the ad hoc committee.

However, Gen Natthaphol, the deputy army chief, added that the committee would also suggest that Section 9 (2) of the decree on quelling civil unrest be deleted so that it no longer relates to public gatherings and protests, which can be dealt with by the law on public assembly.

His comments follow an anti-government protest in Bangkok on Sunday led by the Free Youth group and the Student Union of Thailand, which called for the decree to be scrapped. The protesters were worried it might be used by the government to suppress dissenters.

Gen Natthaphol, however, warned that if the street protests, where social distancing was not always practised, triggered a new round of virus infections, their leaders would be held to account under the communicable disease control law.

He said the decree needed to be extended in light of the two controversial COVID-19 cases involving a military airman from Egypt and a nine-year-old girl from Sudan.

The emergency powers should remain in place, he said, to enable tight disease surveillance to be conducted with the new school term having only begun at the start of this month.

Gen Natthaphol said if the decree is approved for renewal as recommended, it would be watered down and tantamount to a soldier being stripped of his firearms.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha insisted the government would not abuse the emergency decree against protesters.

Asked how the government would treat protesters who had verbally offended those in high office, Gen Prayut said he had ordered the authorities to handle them with extra care as many were young university students.

Please be careful and avoid breaking the [lese majeste] law. I think the people [loyal to the monarchy] wont let them [protesters] keep breaking the law again and again, he said.

The CCSA, he said, would also today discuss further easing restrictions.
By Orhan Coskun, Daren Butler and John Davison

ANKARA/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Turkey is taking its decades-old conflict with Kurdish militants deep into northern Iraq, establishing military bases and deploying armed military drones against the fighters in their mountain strongholds.

The cross-border campaign has attracted less attention than Turkey's incursions into neighbouring Syria - partly because Turkish troops have long been in Iraq - but it is part of a strategy to push the fight beyond its borders after years of bloodshed at home.

Turkey has been battling an insurgency in its mainly Kurdish southeast by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants that has killed 40,000 people since the 1980s and which has largely been directed from within Iraq.

After the breakdown of peace efforts in 2015, heavy fighting erupted again in Turkey. Since then President Tayyip Erdogan's government has sought to address what it says is the root of the crisis.

"The new approach aims to destroy the threat from where it begins," a Turkish official told Reuters.

A ground assault launched on June 17 and dubbed Operation Claw Tiger has seen Turkish troops advance up to 40 km (25 miles) inside Iraq and establish over 30 "temporary bases", the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It aims to deny PKK fighters any sanctuary near the border, cut their supply lines between Iraq and Syria, and prepare the ground for a possible offensive on the main PKK stronghold around the Qandil mountains, inside Iraq on the Iranian border.

Turkey's frequent claims of military gains in a conflict far from the spotlight are difficult to verify, but analysts and an Iraqi Kurdish official say the scope of the air and ground offensives extends beyond Ankara's usual operations.

Baghdad summoned Turkey's ambassador last month to formally complain, but the central government has limited authority in the autonomous region, while the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq is wary of antagonising Turkey, which has NATO's second largest standing army.

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"Baghdad has been very quiet and we are forced to be very quiet, otherwise we run the risk of escalation with Turkey," an official in the KRG said.

DRONE POWER

The Iraq operation comes after Turkey launched three incursions into northern Syria in three years to drive PKK and Islamic State fighters from its borders, and then deployed forces in Idlib province to halt a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive against Syrian rebels.

Turkey has also projected power in the east Mediterranean, turning the tide of Libya's conflict by helping to repulse an attack on Tripoli, and has established military bases in the Gulf and the Horn of Africa.

Turkey's interventions under Erdogan have alarmed regional rivals Egypt and the United Arab Emirates and led to accusations from domestic opponents that he is seeking diversions from an economic crisis and political setbacks after 17 years in power.

Much of the new military muscle comes from domestically produced armed drones. In Iraq, that means Turkey can attack militants in areas once beyond its reach.

PKK casualties in Iraq had risen in the last year, with increasing numbers of veteran fighters killed in targeted strikes, the International Crisis Group (ICG) says.

"The use of drone technology appears to have significantly shifted the balance of power on the ground, allowing Turkish forces to go after militants in areas previously difficult to penetrate," ICG Turkey analyst Berkay Mandiraci said.

The ICG says 5,000 people have been killed in Turkey's wider conflict with the PKK since the 2015 ceasefire collapse, one tenth of them in northern Iraq. So far this year, that proportion of fatalities in Iraq has leapt to 70%.

Turkish officials say the latest fighting targets several border districts including Haftanin and Metina near Syria to the west, and regions nearer Iran including Avasin and Hakurk, a possible staging post to Qandil further south.

"The operation in Iraq aims to secure Turkey's border, prevent the passage (of PKK fighters) to Syria, and from there infiltration to Turkey," a second Turkish official said. "When the time comes, (targeting) Qandil will be evaluated."

Turkey ultimately may be guided more by progress on the ground than any response from Baghdad.

The Iraqi government is hamstrung by political infighting, an economic crisis and the prospect of more mass unrest, and its own relations with the Kurds have often been fraught - especially when its forces halted a Kurdish bid for independence in 2017.

"From the Baghdad point of view ... the (Turkish) incursion is headed for the KRG, so there's little harm in this," said Bilal Wahab of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"Ultimately these things require some level of respect for Iraq's sovereignty and some sort of power," Wahab said. "On both counts, Iraq has become so weak that it's hard to demand that kind of respect from anyone."

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Giles Elgood)
At least two residents of Rosslyn Retirement Residence remain in hospital  their home for more than two months.

More than 60 of the King Street East homes 66 residents were admitted to hospital when the home was evacuated mid-May because of a COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 64 residents and 22 staff tested positive for the virus. Sixteen residents died.

On Monday, St. Josephs Healthcare Hamilton said it is still caring for one Rosslyn resident. Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) said it is caring for less than five residents, noting they dont disclose the exact number when the number is less than five for privacy reasons.

It long remained unclear what would happen to the surviving residents  if they would return to the home, if they would move to a new home or if they would remain in hospital for the foreseeable future.

On June 15, the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority revoked the Rosslyns licence, citing a slew of deficiencies in implementing proper infection prevention and control measures.

The home then appealed the revocation.

A statement released by the homes lawyer, Robert Brown, on June 29 said the Rosslyn looks forward to regaining the publics trust so it can readmit its residents in the near future.

Brown did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

In an email, Tribunals Ontario, the body overseeing the appeal, said a case conference relating to the Rosslyn appeal is set for Aug. 6 and additional details regarding next steps may be available following that proceeding.

Patrice Cloutier, spokesperson for HHS, said in an email: HHS, along with St. Josephs Healthcare Hamilton, supported patients who came from the Rosslyn facility and their families, and collaborated with other community partners to find settings appropriate for their care needs.

Cloutier said no additional information would be released due to privacy.

Hamilton saw a drop in its total COVID-19 case count Tuesday. As of 9 a.m., there were 883 confirmed and probable cases, compared to 884 the day before. Of those, 817 cases are now resolved and 44 people have died.

Explaining the change in case count, public health says its data is never static.

There is no specific reason for the change in numbers, just a result from the usual process, public health spokesperson Jacqueline Durlov said.
BISMARCK, N.D. - The federal government is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the state of North Dakota that seeks to recoup $38 million for policing the monthslong Dakota Access Pipeline protests almost four years ago.

The state filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last July, and a hearing on the governments request to dismiss it was held Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Bismarck, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

Much of the hearing focused on the fact that protesters did not have a permit to camp on land managed by the Corps and on the Corps effort to create a designated protest area, called a free speech zone, in 2016.

Judge Daniel Traynor, who is presiding over the case, said he would rule on the motion to dismiss the case in the coming weeks.

Thousands of protesters gathered in 2016 and 2017 during construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The $3.8 billion pipeline runs beneath the Missouri River near the reservation. The tribe draws its water from the river and fears pollution. Texas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer maintains the pipeline is safe.

During the protests, some demonstrators camped on land managed by the Corps, which also manages the river. Some were on land belonging to tribe members.

The Corps was faced with an unprecedented event, said Grant Treaster, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, which is representing the Corps.

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem noted that the state was wracked by over seven months of catastrophe as a result of the protests that occurred.

The state argued in court documents that the Corps encouraged demonstrators to protest when it tried to set up a free speech zone on nearby Corps land and by processing protesters applications for a permit to use the land, in violation of policies restricting the use of such land to recreational purposes.

In 2017, North Dakota received $25 million to help offset some costs of policing the protests, which included a $10 million grant from a Justice Department assistance program and a $15 million donation from Energy Transfer.

A judge recently ordered the Dakota Access pipeline shut down for additional environmental review more than three years after it began pumping oil.
(Newser)  President Trump held his first coronavirus briefing since April on Tuesdayminus the COVID-19 task force members that appeared at briefings earlier in the pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci said he hadn't been invited to the White House briefing, Politico reports. He said he last spoke to the president late last week. The Guardian reports that Trump's Tuesday briefing was relatively short and he stayed "uncharacteristically on-message," telling reporters that the government is "asking Americans to use masks, socially distance and employ vigorous hygiene." Trump said he is "getting used to the mask" and he has "no problem" wearing one when it is appropriate, the AP reports.

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"Get a mask," Trump said. "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. The president also said young people should "avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings." The New York Times reports that while Trump repeated his prediction that "the virus will disappear" at some point, he did not downplay the recent surge in cases. "Some areas of country doing very well, others doing less well," he said. "It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better. I don't like saying that, but that's the way it is." In one of his few digressions, Trump responded to a reporter's question about jailed Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. "I wish her well," he said. (Read more President Trump stories.)
Military Police face off with protesters across from the White House on May 30, 2020 in Washington DC.

The Senate on Tuesday rejected a bipartisan proposal to impose strict conditions on the transfer of Defense Department military gear to civilian police departments, despite an outcry over the program amid a wave of protests against racism and police brutality.

The Senate voted 51-49 for an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have scaled back the Pentagon's surplus military equipment program, nine short of the 60 votes needed to pass. Instead, the Senate adopted an alternative amendment backed by Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, which adds restrictions to the program, but is less stringent and requires less oversight than the failed amendment.

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The failed amendment, sponsored by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and three other senators including two Republicans, would have barred the transfer of tear gas, stun grenades, grenade launchers, tracked vehicles, firearms of .50 caliber or higher and ammunition of .50 caliber or higher, required more transparency on all transfers and obliged the Pentagon to take back the gear if it was used against protesters lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Schatz said that it was "time to demilitarize the police," and added, "Weapons of war have no place in police departments."

Along with Schatz, the amendment was backed by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Republicans Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky.

The Pentagon program has come under renewed scrutiny during recent nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, with scenes of civilian police wielding military gear in clashes with demonstrators.

Oxfam America, one of a number of progressive groups that pressed for a change to the Pentagon's Section 1033 program, expressed disappointment, saying the bill that was adopted would offer only "superficial" changes to the program.

The Senate is "effectively handing the Pentagon a blank check to continue to spread its deadly hand-me-down weapons around the country and into our communities," said Noah Gottschalk of Oxfam America.

"Today's proposed restrictions will do little to ease the concerns that are resounding from the streets to the halls of Congress that this free-for-all must end."

Some libertarian and conservative groups also supported the Schatz amendment, including FreedomWorks and R Street.

Sen. Inhofe's alternative amendment, which passed 90 to 10, would require police forces that receive surplus military gear to train their officers on "respect for the rights of citizens under the Constitution of the United States and de-escalation of force."

"We want to make sure the wrong kinds of equipment doesn't get into the hands of people who cannot properly use it," Inhofe said on the Senate floor.

Inhofe's amendment would bar transfers of grenades other than stun and flash-bang grenades, bayonets and "weaponized" tracked combat vehicles and armed drones.

Inhofe said the rejected amendment sponsored by Schatz would have gone too far and would have made the Pentagon program "virtually impossible to use."

The House version of the defense spending bill currently has no proposed restrictions on the Pentagon program.

Yasmine Taeb, senior policy counsel with Demand Progress, a group that pushed for changing the Pentagon program, accused the Democratic leadership in the House of bowing to lobbying pressure from police unions. She said the House Democrats failed to propose their own amendment on the issue, which she said might have put more pressure on the Republican-majority Senate to act.

"Needless to say, seeing House Democratic leadership and several Democratic members cave to police pressure in this way was incredibly disappointing and completely out of step with the demands of the protests sweeping the nation," she said.

House Democratic leaders did not respond to requests for comment.

The issue will be up for discussion when Senate and House leaders hammer out the final version of the defense spending bill.


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The pound depreciated against its major opponents in the European session on Wednesday, as coronavirus concerns re-emerged after U.S. President Donald Trump warned that the outbreak will probably 'get worse before it gets better.'



The death toll from coronavirus in the U.S. exceeded 1,000 on Tuesday, according to a data from Johns Hopkins University.



More than 65,000 new covid-19 cases has been recorded, adding to a nationwide tally of more than 3,874,000 since the pandemic began.



U.S.-China tensions intensified after the Trump administration ordered China to close its Consulate General in Houston.



China said that the move was unilaterally initiated by the U.S. and it would 'react with firm countermeasures' if Washington didn't 'revoke this erroneous decision.'



The pound weakened to a 2-day low of 1.2644 against the greenback, compared to yesterday's closing value of 1.2731. On the downside, 1.25 is possibly seen as the next support level for the pound.



The pound reached as low as 135.28 against the yen, marking a 2-day low. The pair ended Tuesday's trading at 135.96. The pound is seen finding support around the 132.00 level.



The latest survey from Jibun Bank showed that the manufacturing sector in Japan continued to contract in July, albeit at a slightly slower pace, with a manufacturing PMI score of 42.6.



That's up from 40.1 in June, although it remains well beneath the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.



The pound fell to a 2-day low of 1.1807 against the franc, down from Tuesday's closing value of 1.1878. The pound may test support around the 1.16 level, if it drops again.



Reversing from an early high of 0.9047, the pound declined to a 2-day low of 0.9118 against the euro. The currency is likely to target support around the 0.92 level.



Looking ahead, Canada CPI for June, U.S. existing home sales for the same month and FHFA's home price index for May are scheduled for release in the New York session.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
New analysis shows that while the survivability of wounds on the battlefield has steadily improved for United States service members since World War II, there were several increases that bucked that trend during subsequent conflicts.

By understanding these bumps and making steps to improve readiness between conflicts, troops' lives could be saved in the future. These insights were published in a special supplement of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery focusing on the military.

This shows us the big picture of combat casualty outcomes from the beginning of World War II through the modern era, and, at the same time, it also provides significant details on the month-to-month outcomes in each individual war. In all, this is good news because our outcomes have improved significantly over time. However, we see that there is still work to be done--specifically in identifying specific areas for improvement and in keeping our medical corps ready for the next conflict." Jeremy Cannon, MD, Trauma Medical Director, Section Chief of Trauma, and Associate Professor of Surgery, Penn Medicine

Dr Cannon is also the supplement's editor and the study's first author.

The researchers examined several different metrics for this study: the case fatality rate (CFR)--a measure of the total lethality of the battlefield, which is determined by dividing the total number of combat deaths by the number of combat deaths and combat wounded; the killed in action (KIA) rate-- the percentage of combatants who died before hospitalization; and the died of wounds (DOW) rate--the percentage of those wounded who died after receiving hospital-level care.

Four different conflicts were studied, each required to be at least three years long to properly assess the data: World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam War, with Operations Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan conflict) and Iraqi Freedom assessed separately as well as together.

Since the start of World War II, the researchers found significant gains across two of their measures. The combat fatality rate fell from 55 to 12 percent between the start of World War II and the most recent conflicts, as did the KIA rate (52 to 5 percent). These were all numbers that confirmed historic studies looking at the big picture.

However, as the research team dove into the month-to-month outcomes of each conflict, they found instances of major spikes in mortality amid conflicts. In the case of Vietnam, for example, extremely low rates of fatality in the middle of the conflict, approximately 19 percent, rose to 63 percent during the last stages of the war.

Cannon and his co-authors have speculated that factors like poor compliance with body armor use and withdrawal of medical assets despite continued combat may have contributed, but this finding also represents an important area for further analysis.

Additionally, the start of each conflict they studied exhibited higher than expected fatality rates, given what was achieved in the previous war.

This was determined by examining something called the "observed to expected mortality ratio," which takes the lowest sustained case fatality rate from the previous conflict and makes it the benchmark for the next. The reasoning for this number is the belief that progress made in a previous war should carry over to the next. In practice, this study showed that is not universally the case.

In every conflict studied, at some point during the first and even into the second year, fatality rates exceeded the previous conflict's best numbers.

Rates for U.S. troops in the first year of World War II and Vietnam were more than triple the expected rate through significant parts of the first year, and Operation Enduring Freedom was twice that of the previous conflict at one point.

Although the Korean War stayed close to the expected fatality rate through most of its first two years, it did begin above the benchmark and actually closed its second year above it as well.

The authors called these unexpected increases "the peacetime effect."

"Most major conflicts are separated by a number of years and, in many ways, you're starting from scratch at the beginning of each conflict," Cannon explained. "In the time between wars, those with deployment experience move off into civilian practice, and the lessons learned fade from the military's collective memory.

Then, when the next conflict does occur, many medical personnel have never deployed before and many also aren't as versed in military history and the experiences of others."

Something else the researchers discovered that was not expected was that the DOW rate stayed roughly the same across all earlier conflicts, until the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when it increased.

"Why specifically did the rate of death increase after casualties reached the hospital?" Cannon questioned. "Although this may be an artifact of being able to more rapidly transport those with worse wounds in the modern era, this finding needs to be examined more closely."

Cannon believes that these phenomena could use further studying to better uncover their triggers. But he has an idea that involves using civilian hospitals as training grounds for military personnel to help solve the lapses in fatality after interwar periods.

"Busy trauma centers across the U.S. and even internationally can provide a robust surrogate experience for military teams in clinical care," Cannon explained. "At the same time, research advances that benefit both civilian and military trauma victims can also continue during peacetime in these busy civilian centers."
Mumbai and Pune have received 'smart thermal scanner helmets' to combat COVID-19 spread. These helmets will help medical officials scan and identify cases of COVID-19 much faster than regular methods. As of now, each city only has two helmets each

As the country reels from the daily rise of COVID-19 cases, health officials and authorities are looking at technological solutions to the problem. Mumbai, one of the worst hit cities in terms of rising cases, is deploying smart helmets to combat the spread of the disease. These 'smart helmets' are essentially portable thermal scanners that help health workers and officials record temperatures of a large group of people much faster and easier. These scanners were previously used to combat the pandemic in places like China, Italy and Dubai.

Medical volunteers have talked about how it takes about three hours to screen around 300 people and with around 20,000 people living in densely populated slums, the task becomes almost impossible. But, with the rise of these portable thermal scanners, medical volunteers can now just ask people to walk out of their homes and the rise in cases that can be screened rises to about 6000 people in just two and a half hours.

Mumbai and Pune receive high-tech 'smart helmets' to combat COVID-19 spread

These helmets have been donated to the designated authorities in Mumbai and Pune and will go a long way in helping the two pandemic ravaged cities to combat the virus. The only drawback to the good news is that there are only two helmets in use in each city. This could delay identification of the virus by some time. And, its not like these helmets come cheap either, as each helmet comes at a cost of Rs 6,00,000.

In other news regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, PUBG Mobile has teamed up with Direct Relief for COVID-19 Global Emergency Response. You can read more about that story here. Also, Aarogya Setu will now let you perform COVID-19 contact tracing on your own and weve got an easy to follow guide on how it works, right here. Finally, in a smart move, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will remind people to wear a mask during COVID-19 pandemic. You can read more about that here.
BRIDGEWATER, N.S. - Police continued their search Wednesday on Nova Scotia's South Shore for a fugitive accused of stabbing a police sergeant, assaulting a woman and injuring a police dog.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RCMP officers maintain a roadblock as they search for a suspect after a Bridgewater Police Service officer was stabbed as he responded to a domestic violence complaint at The Bridgewater Hotel in Bridgewater, N.S. on Tuesday, July 21, 2020. The search continues today around the Bridgewater, N.S., area for the man suspected of domestic assault, stabbing a police officer in the neck and later injuring a police dog.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

BRIDGEWATER, N.S. - Police continued their search Wednesday on Nova Scotia's South Shore for a fugitive accused of stabbing a police sergeant, assaulting a woman and injuring a police dog.

Tobias Charles Doucette, who is in his 30s, was charged with attempted murder after he allegedly struck an officer in the neck with an edged weapon when police responded to a domestic violence call Monday night at the Bridgewater Hotel. The suspect allegedly fled on foot.

An RCMP dog and handler located Doucette briefly Tuesday, but the suspect escaped, fleeing into the woods on foot off Highway 331 in Conquerall Bank, N.S. The dog was stabbed with a stick during the encounter, police say.

"We are trying to get the word out any way we can that if people have information about where Tobias Doucette is, we need them to contact us," RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Jennifer Clarke said in an interview Wednesday. "It's really important that we bring this to a peaceful resolution."

Clarke said police had received a number of tips on Doucette's whereabouts, but none had been substantiated as of Wednesday afternoon.

She said police had set up several checkpoints but only one remained in operation Wednesday afternoon on Highway 103 near Hubbards, N.S. Clarke said the RCMP was being assisted in the search by federal agencies. A military aircraft was also being used.

She wouldn't say whether Doucette was known to police but cautioned that members of the public should avoid contact if they encounter him. Doucette is described as six-foot-two, weighing 220 pounds and has brown hair and green eyes.

"What's taken place so far would lead a person to believe that they definitely should not approach him if they see him, and they should just call us right away," Clarke said.

Bridgewater police said the officer injured in Monday's incident  Sgt. Matthew Bennett  is a 13-year member with the police service. He underwent successful surgery Tuesday and is recovering in hospital.

The female victim, who is described as the suspect's common-law partner, was treated for minor injuries.

Meanwhile, the condition of the injured police dog, Fergus, was described as stable.

On Twitter, the RCMP said the dog "bravely protected his handler while in the line of duty." They said he is being closely monitored by a veterinarian and they are "very hopeful" he will recover.

The RCMP's critical incident command has taken over the search for Doucette.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
As sticking points along LAC remain, India readies for a long haul with China

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: The stalemate continues and India is now prepared for a long haul with the Chinese along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Sources tell OneIndia that there is no date which has been fixed for the next military commander level talks. There is complete disengagement only in two of the four friction points. The troops from both sides have stepped back at PP 14 and PP15. However, at the PP17A there are still 50 troops on each side, less than a kilometre away from each other.

The understanding reached by the military commanders states that no side is allowed to patrol the four friction points. In the Depsang Plains China has blocked Indian access to the traditional patrolling limit in the area. At Pangong Tso although the Chinese have stepped back at Finger 5, they continue to occupy the Finger 4 Ridgeline.

Also Read:

The next military commander level talks between India and China will take place only after some movement on the ground is visible.

India wants China to create a buffer and has noted that at PP-17 (Gogra), the gap between the two armies is incomplete. It has been reported that the gap is narrower than the ideal 1.5 kilometres on each side.

Further there has not been much change at Finger 4 on the north bank of Pangong Tso and the PLA continues to sit on the Ridgeline of a mountain spur. Now a fresh physical verification of the buffer zone will be made as the previous one showed a partial pull back by China. This was unlike what was agreed at the meetings of the top military commanders. It had been decided that both sides had to move back 1.5 kilometres on each side of the approximate Line of Actual Control. However the same has not happened.

The source cited above said that if the talks were to progress then China would need to completely adhere to the agreement on creating a buffer zone.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

India wants the PLA to move back till Finger 8. India was patrolling till Finger 8, but the Chinese are not allowing patrols to pass now. These have been sticking points and unless resolved, the talks would not move further at least for the time being.
Scientists claim they have discovered the most potent antibodies yet in the blood of Covid-19 patients, raising hopes that people will develop immunity to the virus.

The antibodies were taken from the blood of several Covid-19 survivors and can neutralise the coronavirus, stopping it from entering cells.

These antibodies are cloned and scaled up in large quantities in the laboratory before being injected as a treatment.

Experts discovered a cocktail of the extremely strong antibodies protected hamsters from Covid-19 when exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

It's only early findings, but the scientists say the antibodies -substances used by the immune system to destroy viruses - are 'ready to be developed into treatments'.

Administered in doses like a vaccine, scientists say antibodies could give humans the ability to avoid being struck down by the disease.

Antibodies made in the laboratory to mimic natural antibodies have been used in the treatment of a huge range of conditions, including arthritis, Crohn's and Ebola.

Scientists claim they have discovered the most potent antibodies against Covid-19 ever found which can protect against infection (stock image)

Antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance, like the coronavirus.

The role of antibodies is to latch on to foreign substances like the coronavirus and mark it for other immune cells, such as T-cells, to kill.

Neutralising antibodies are able to kill the virus themselves, rather than just tagging it for other immune cells to attack.

David Ho, scientific director of the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Centre and professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, directed the study.

He said: 'We now have a collection of antibodies that's more potent and diverse compared to other antibodies that have been found so far, and they are ready to be developed into treatments.'

WHAT IS MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY THERAPY? Monoclonal antibody therapy is a form of immunotherapy that uses monoclonal antibodies (mAb). It's given as an injection under the skin or through a drip into a vein. The treatment works in many different ways. It can work in a vaccine-like way, protecting a patient from severe disease, or can help to stimulate the patient's immune system to attack antigens. Hybridoma technology is one method for producing large numbers of monoclonal antibodies - identical antibodies that are clones of a unique parent cell. The process starts by injecting an animal, such as a mouse, with an antigen that provokes an immune response. B cells produces antibodies that bind to the antigen. These antibody producing B-cells are then harvested and used to culture more antibodies. The monoclonal antibodies are screened against their ability to work, with initial experiments in animals. Major technological advances have made the discovery and development of mAb therapies quicker and more efficient, deriving the antibodies from humans and not animals. Scientists can create a mAb that is specific to almost any antigen, and are working on one for the coronavirus. The spike protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus is the primary target being explored for potential Covid-19 monoclonal antibodies. The aim is that by targeting the spike protein, the antibody will be able to neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus, therefore stopping it from infecting healthy cells. A particularly interesting avenue is giving them to people who arent infected yet as a preventative tool. If the antibodies are potent and long-lasting enough, they could provide sufficient protection for a period of time before a vaccine is found. Research and development is underway to create antibodies for diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and different types of cancers. But many are already in use both in the US and UK. Since 2008, 48 new mAbs have been approved, contributing to a total global market of 61 mAbs in clinical use at the end of 2017, according to the US FDA. Advertisement

Forty Covid-19 patients who were treated at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, but had since recovered were enrolled for the research.

Blood samples from all were first tested for neutralising activity against the virus. Scientists put their blood in a petri dish to see if antibodies attack or bind to the virus.

The team saw a wide range of neutralising antibodies, but focused on five patients whose plasma showed the highest levels of neutralising antibodies.

The five patients were all hospitalised for Covid-19, suggesting those with severe disease requiring mechanical ventilation produce the best neutralising antibodies.

Among them, 19 neutralising antibodies which 'exhibited exquisite potency' were discovered, according to the findings published in the journal Nature.

Professor Ho said: 'We think that the sicker patients saw more virus and for a longer period of time, which allowed their immune system to mount a more robust response.

'This is similar to what we have learned from the HIV experience.'

The research team found a more diverse variety of antibodies than previous efforts, including new, unique antibodies that were not reported earlier.

The findings also revealed which sites on the viruses outer 'spike' are most vulnerable.

Professor Ho said: 'Using a cocktail of different antibodies that are directed to different sites in spike will help prevent the virus becoming resistant to the treatment.'

The researchers took the neutralising antibodies and engineered them in the laboratory to create monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) - clones that work in the same way as the natural antibodies.

To assess if they worked, the researchers exposed hamsters to the coronavirus after an injection of the mAbs.

The hamster's lung tissues were harvested to quantify the viral load four days later.

Hamsters given a higher dose of mAbs had considerably less viral particles than those given a low dose as a control group.

The researchers said there was 'complete elimination of infectious SARS-CoV-2 at a relatively modest antibody dose'.

Professor Ho is hopeful the findings will lead to treatment in people, which would first require clinical trials to ensure safety.

It's not clear how long this would take, but it may be quicker than a number of drugs and vaccines in development for Covid-19.

The development and approval of antibodies for use as a treatment usually takes less time than conventional drugs.

Scientists all over the world are looking at monoclonal antibody therapy for the new coronavirus but there are few currently in clinical trials.

Last month, researchers at Scripps Research, in San Diego, also claimed to have discovered super-potent antibodies which protected animals from severe illness.

Drug giant AstraZeneca also revealed it was working on an injection with cloned antibodies that could be ready next year.

Chief executive Pascal Soriot told The Sunday Telegraph the therapy being made is 'a combination of two antibodies' in an injected dose.

The discovery of super potent antibodies also bodes well for vaccine development, too, scientists say.

If the immune system can generate such strong antibodies, vaccines that do the same 'should provide robust protection against the virus,' Professor Ho said.

However, questions remain over whether Covid-19 survivors develop any immunity once they recover from the disease.

Therefore, it will not be clear how long antibodies produced triggered by a vaccine would protect a person.
Prince Harry has no thoughts of his own ever since he and Meghan Markle moved to LA, some critics said. All he does is mimic his wife and it is quite unsettling to see, considering he was (or still is, blood is blood) a royal!

According to the National Enquirer, July 27 edition, several insiders have come forward to give their opinions on what they are observing about Prince Harry. For them, Meghan Markle was still strong force that not only stripped her husband's identity, but his voice and his family. Now he's trapped in a "dog-eat-dog Hollywood," with no recourse but to just follow everything Markle says.

According to one royal insider, before Markle, Prince Harry was this very happy-go-lucky frat boy. He was enigmatic in his own right even if he is the second son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles and more responsibilities fall onto the lap of the firstborn, Prince William.

Even though he follows everything his brother and family deemed right, he had his own identity and security blanket. His wife stripped from him all of these.

Essentially, it should be okay if it means Prince Harry, through Meghan Markle, became independent and more responsible, in their new lives in LA. That would be undeniably an improvement from being just happy-go-lucky and a follower of Palace decisions.

However, some would say that he got out of the frying pan (and) into the fire. Now that he is with Meghan Markle in an uncharted territory, Prince Harry is increasingly losing himself. Not only is he trapped in a kind of environment that he is not accustomed to, he is also under Meghan Markle's control.

Critics claimed that Prince Harry is no longer the self-assured royal that he was in the past. Instead, his self-esteem has taken a hit and he is not acting "pathetically." This was reportedly obvious in the recent video he made with Meghan Markle.

On this video, Prince Harry was able to make a statement attacking the racially-colored history of Britain's Commonwealth of Nations. Many said he actually DARED to insult Queen Elizabeth, but a body language expert is sure that he was not confident in making that statement.

In the video, critics claimed that even though both of them have made their corresponding statements, Meghan Markle was the one truly in command. There were instances wherein Prince Harry did not even say anything but yes to Meghan Markle's statements.

Meghan Markle has "solid eye gaze" but Harry was seemingly awkward, even gazing out of shot when his wife was talking and then looking down at the floor. For some, this is quite unbecoming of the former senior royal.

With her now undeniable royal connections even if most British allegedly do not like her and the palace does not accept her fully, Meghan Markle just upped her popularity in Hollywood. However, COVID-19 is so close to changing that. After months of lockdown because of the crisis, Meghan Markle all but lost her chance to penetrate the industry she's yearning to return to. Some claimed the two are big losers of the pandemic, which is likely to be frustrating to Meghan Markle.

But because it is Prince Harry who is constantly around her these days, he's the one who is feeling trapped and miserable. There are also allegations that he's putting up with his dire conditions because he has fears of losing his son Baby Archie if he decides to separate with Meghan Markle. Divorce will be all kinds of messy.

READ MORE: Royal Embarrassment: 3 Times Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Were A Burden To The Monarchy
Fort Worth, Texas-based Higginbotham and Borden Insurance, an independent insurance agency located in Corpus Christi, Texas, have joined forces.

Led by President and CEO David Erwin Borden, Borden Insurance was previously held by American Financial Insurance Services Inc., a subsidiary of American Bank Holding Company.

Both Higginbotham and Borden broker commercial and personal property/casualty insurance and employee benefits. The merger adds 34 professionals to Higginbothams existing practice in Corpus Christi for a combined 120 locally.

Higginbotham entered Corpus Christi in 2010 and is growing its coastal presence through strategic partnerships like that with Borden Insurance.

Higginbotham Coastal Region Managing Partner Rob Fraiche will oversee the office, operating as Borden Insurance, A Higginbotham Company.

Borden Insurance was founded in 1947 to provide commercial insurance in Corpus Christi. In its 73 years, Borden Insurance has grown to more than 40 professionals with nearly 1,000 years of combined industry experience.

Higginbotham was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, with more than 40 additional offices statewide and in Oklahoma, Georgia, New Mexico and California serving domestic and international customers.

Source: Higginbotham

Topics Agencies Texas
The burgeoning bromance between Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai chief Chung Eui-sun continued Tuesday at Hyundai's research center in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, where the two former archrivals met to discuss cooperation in future mobility.

They met for the first time in May, when Chung visited Samsung's factory in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province to discuss the development of electric-car batteries.

The two tycoons looked into cooperative projects in next-generation mobility, ranging from electric cars to self-driving vehicles and urban aerial mobility.

Automaker Hyundai's envisioned future business areas coincide with Samsung's new growth engines of automotive parts, artificial intelligence and 5G communications technology.

Lee announced plans in August of 2018 to invest W180 trillion into AI, 5G, biotech and car parts over the next three years and hire 40,000 workers (US$1=W1,197).

Industry watchers say a synergy between the two conglomerates could yield major effects. One senior industry insider said, "Domestic competition has become meaningless in an era of unlimited global competition across borders and industries."

The insider added that increased cooperation between corporate chiefs, which also includes SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won and LG chairman Koo Kwang-mo, raises the possibility of unprecedented synergy between Korean conglomerates, which have traditionally been at war as they vied for a finger in every pie.
A woman in Assam was recently denied a job on an online government-run portal due to her surname. Priyanka Chutia had been trying to apply for a job with National Seed Corporation Limited (NSCL) via its online application portal. after repeated attempts, however, Chutia was unable to do so as the software kept rejecting her surname.

Chutia, who is a resident of Gogamukh town and holds a Masters degree in Agricultural Economics and Farm Management, said that her application kept getting denied as the software asked her to use a proper word and not use slang in place of the surname. The student took to Facebook to express her exasperation.

"The reason (for rejection of application) is nothing but my surname and the portal keeps on saying to use proper naming words. I feel really sad and frustrated at times explaining people that I am not using slang but its a community where I belong, she wrote.

It was only after she personally wrote to NSCL about her problem that the organization took cognizance of her name and her application was accepted.

The woman, however, said that she wanted to share the incident on Facebook to raise awareness about the issue.

Chutia is a community of people in Assam and is one of the oldest indigenous communities of the state. It is pronounced "Sutiya". The fact that it wasn't accepted by the online application portal of a national agency itself points to the lack of awareness regarding the North-East od India among the rest of the country.

Responding to a query by local news portal The News Mill, however, NSCL said that the glitch had been due to a flaw in coding and that they were working on getting the problem fixed.

This is not the first time that the Chutia community has raised an issue with digital platforms not recognising their name and deleting accounts of peolpe with the surname "Chutia", thinking its the Hindi expletive by the same name.
The partnership with CPAsNET is another example of how Aprio is providing innovative ways to serve our fellow CPA firms and their clients.

Aprio, LLP, a nationally-recognized top 50 CPA-led business advisory firm and CPAsNET, a community of accounting and business consulting firms, announced today a strategic partnership. As part of a five-year agreement, Aprio will provide CPAsNET member firms technical guidance, support and access to a range of more than 20 specialty services including R&D tax credits, state and local tax, cybersecurity and international tax.

The partnership with CPAsNET will extend Aprio expertise and services to the 20 U.S. firms and 120+ international firms within the CPAsNET member group. The alliance enables collaborative growth in a non-competitive environment, ensuring CPAsNET member firms and their clients have trusted advisors readily accessible on all accounting matters.

As our profession becomes more competitive and client needs become more sophisticated, providing a comprehensive range of services and technical acumen is key to growing and retaining a loyal client base, said Richard Kopelman, Aprio CEO and Managing Partner. Todays announcement builds on Aprios commitment to helping CPA firms grow through the partnership program the firm launched in 2018, which currently serves over 60 CPA firms across the United States. The partnership with CPAsNET is another example of how Aprio is providing innovative ways to serve our fellow CPA firms and their clients.

Led by accounting thought leader Sarah Dobek, CPAsNET strategically selects member firms based on the expertise and business acumen they provide business owners in the geographically exclusive marketplaces they serve. Through its partnership with Aprio, CPAsNET is ensuring their member firms and their clients receive unrivaled industry expertise provided by an internationally respected accounting leader.

It is evident that Aprio shares the same values and entrepreneurial spirit of our member firms, said CPAsNET President Sarah Dobek. Like our community, Aprio is willing to share openly and freely with peer firms. We feel this relationship is a great fit and will help all our member firms deliver critical specialty services clients need today with a high degree of expertise and client satisfaction.

For more information on Aprio, visit https://www.aprio.com. For more information on CPAsNET, visit https://www.cpasnet.com/.

About Aprio

Aprio is a premier full-service, CPA-led business advisory firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, that advises clients and associates on how to achieve whats next. Aprios associates work as integrated teams across advisory, assurance, tax, outsourced accounting solutions and private client services, bringing the best thinking and personal commitment to each client. Across practices, Aprio brings together proven expertise, deep understanding and strategic foresight for industries including Manufacturing and Distribution; Non-Profit and Education; Professional Services; Real Estate and Construction; Retail, Franchise and Hospitality; and Technology and Biosciences. In 65 years, Aprio has grown to over 550 team members. To serve clients wherever life or business may take them, Aprios teams speak more than 30 languages and work with clients in over 40 countries. In addition to its Atlanta headquarters, Aprio also operates in Birmingham, Ala. and Charlotte, Greensboro, Mt. Airy and Asheboro N.C. For more, visit https://www.aprio.com.

About CPAsNET

CPAsNET is a leading community of independent accounting and business consulting firms that represents more than 100 partners, 300 professional associates and 500 employees. Based on its strategic partnership with Audittrust International, CPAsNETs global reach represents more than 120 firms in 110 countries all over the world. Member firms are selected based on a number of criteria, including the expertise and business acumen they provide business owners in the geographically exclusive marketplaces they serve. Together, CPAsNET member firms pool their resources to provide their clients with the local, national and international perspective needed to prosper in challenging markets and times. By sharing a collective wealth of resources, member firms are able to compete more effectively and retain more clients. For more, visit https://www.cpasnet.com/.
Coronavirus Updates: The Assam government will release 376 prisoners in the next few days to decongest jails across the state after 535 inmates tested positive for COVID-19, an official said on Thursday.

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WHO is working to ensure fair vaccine distribution, but in the meantime it is key to suppress the virus's spread, said Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, as daily new cases around the globe are at near-record levels.

Researchers are making "good progress" in developing vaccines against COVID-19, with a handful in late-stage trials, but their first use cannot be expected until early 2021, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert said on Wednesday, reports Reuters.

Thirty-one personnel of the state police and two personnel of the Assam Rifles have also tested positive, he added. Besides, 53 personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have also been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Among them are 54 of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITPB), 32 personnel each of the Army and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and 16 of the Border Road Task Force (BRTF), said state Health Secretary P Parthiban.

The Arunachal Pradesh government on Wednesday said that 167 personnel of different security forces and the police have tested positive for COVID-19, reports PTI.

"We had previously implemented a complete lockdown in the state. We are aware of such viewpoints (complete lockdown).Although it has not been decided yet, I think we will have to consider it," he said.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday said a complete lockdown could be imposed in the state again as over 1,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported for the first time on Wednesday.

Two persons died due to COVID-19 infection in Assam on Wednesday, taking the death toll to 66, while 972 fresh cases were reported in the state, Minister for Health and Family Welfare Himanta Biswa Sarma said. The state's infection tally stands at 27,744, he said.

Brazil registered 67,860 additional cases of the virus on Wednesday, along with 1,284 related deaths. That brought the total number of cases in Latin Americas largest nation to 2,227,514, while deaths rose to 82,771.

Brazil and Argentina registered daily records for confirmed coronavirus cases on Wednesday, pushing the total number of cases in Latin America past 4 million and underlining the difficulty the region faces in controlling the pandemic.

With over 39.6 lakh reported cases till date, the United States is the worst-affected country in the world. The US is followed by Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa.

The total confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the world stand at 1.5 crore, according to the Reuters tracker. This figure includes COVID-19 patients who have recovered and the overall global toll which stands at 6.1 lakh.

United States registers 63,967 new cases in last 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University. The toll in the US rises to 1,42,942 with 1,059 deaths reported in last 24 hours.

A total of 3,50,823 samples were tested on Wednesday, says the Indian Council of Medical Research.

The total confirmed COVID-19 cases in India have risen to 12,38,635, according to the latest update from the Union Health Ministry. India registers a record 45,720 new cases and 1,129 deaths. With this, the countrys toll now at 29,861.

With 3,37,607 confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu (1,86,492) and Delhi (1,26,323).

According to ANI, a Madhya Pradesh Cabinet minister has been admitted to the Chirayu Medical College and Hospital in Bhopal after he tested positive. The minister had attended a Cabinet meeting the day before and also the funeral of Madhya Pradesh Governor Lalji Tandon on Tuesday.

Rajasthan on Thursday reports 339 new coronavirus cases and five deaths, taking the state total to 32,673 including 588 deaths, 23,498 recoveries and 8,587 active cases, reports ANI.

According to reports , Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday, said that college students will be promoted to the next year without having to take up even semester examinations for the year 2019-20. The announcement however does not include final year students. Details are expected on when the final semester exams will be conducted.

While laying the foundation stone of the Manipur water supply project via videoconference on Thursday Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: "Till the time vaccine is developed, we have to vigorously fight against coronavirus."

All shops were shut and all modes of transport went off the road as part of the state government's plan to clamp restrictions two days a week. A similar lockdown will be in place on July 25 and 29.

Life came to a near standstill across West Bengal on Thursday as the state was put under a complete lockdown to break the chain of rapidly rising COVID-19 cases.

Odisha registered 21,099 confirmed coronavirus cases on Thursday after 1,264 more individuals tested positive. Of the total, there are 7,205 active cases and 13,749 recoveries, said the state health department.

A "best case scenario" would be approval before year end and a vaccine by year end, according to Pfizer.

Pfizer, which has struck a nearly $2 billion deal with the US government to deliver 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine developed in collaboration with its German partner BioNTech, is hoping to seek regulatory approval for a vaccine "as early as October" this year and have a vaccine on the market by year end.

The top court further said that a general order could not be passed applicable all over India and asked the petitioner to approach High Court.

The Supreme Court expressed reservations on Thursday in passing order to direct schools and educational institutions to demand only tuition fee from students during the lockdown period, Live Law reported.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday attacked Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the state of health facilities in Uttar Pradesh where COVID-19 patients are being treated, alleging that he is more interested in hiding their conditions than improving them.

The state on Wednesday yet again recorded a single-day spike in the COVID-19 fatalities with 39 deaths.

West Bengal will observe a complete lockdown on Thursday. Civic bodies like Barrackpore, Baranagar and Bongaon, all located in the North 24 Parganas district, and Bardhaman town announced a lockdown for almost a week.

The COVID-19 toll in West Bengal mounted to 1,221 as it reported the highest number of 39 fatalities on Wednesday, the health department said. It also recorded 2,291 fresh infections, pushing the tally to 49,321, it said in a bulletin.

In the Covid-era, health facilities should be up and running, she tweets. But, Mahoba womens hospital is in this condition. You have seen the bad state of hospitals in Bareilly and Gorakhpur. In Lucknow, the chief minister, who makes statements about health facilities, is interested in hiding these conditions, not improving them.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attacks Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister over the condition of health facilities in the state.

The addition of 123 fresh cases took the overall tally in the union territory to 2,421 which includes 987 active cases and 1,400 recoveries.

Puducherry on Thursday reported three COVID-19 deaths, pushing the toll to 34 while 123 new cases were detected in the union territory. Among the three fatalities were a 59-year old man, a 50-year old man and a 48-year old male patient.

In a notification issued last week, the Gujarat government directed self-financed schools in the state not to collect tuition fees from students as long as they remain shut in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also asked these schools not to hike fees for the academic year 2020-21.

Private schools in Gujarat have suspended online classes for an indefinite period from Thursday, after a state government order said they should not collect fees from students until the schools reopen.

"I just had sore throat. I went for the test. My report came at 12.30 am. I rushed to the hospital and got admitted," he said, and asked those who came in contact with him to get themselves tested.

Madhya Pradesh Co-operatives Minister Arvind Singh Bhadoriya on Thursday said he has tested positive for coronavirus, reports PTI. In a video message, Bhadoriya said he did not experience any symptoms of the viral infection.

A video had surfaced on social media in which patients at the facility were seen raising the complaints, following which Subdivisional Magistrate Mani Arora was conducting an inspection on Wednesday. As soon as the official reached the centre, the patients started protesting which caused a ruckus.

Patients at a COVID hospital in Jhinjhana town of Shamli district staged a protest when a senior official was inspecting the facility over complaints of power outage and unhyegenic living conditions.

Australias response to the coronavirus pandemic tipped the governments budget 85.8 billion Australian dollars ($61 billion) into the red in the last fiscal year and will create AU$184 billion ($131 billion) more debt in the current year which would be the nations biggest deficit since World War II, treasury figures showed on Thursday, reports AP.

Officials added that it is monitoring the situation closely and as a precautionary measure, the whole area, including the offices, has been disinfected and sanitized by corporation workers.

Three persons were further investigated and now have been quarantined by the Health Department. All three persons were working outside the Raj Bhavan building. None of these persons had come in contact with the Honble Governor or Senior officials of Raj Bhavan, the statement read.

As many as 84 personnel have been tested positive at the Raj Bhavan in Chennai. As per a statement, a few persons showed symptoms following which tests were carried out 147 persons working at the premises, reports ANI.

The Jharkhand Cabinet had approved the Jharkhand Contagious Disease Ordinance on Wednesday, under which penalty up to Rs 1 lakh and a jail term up to two years can be imposed against those not wearing masks and spitting in public places.

According to the official, overall 282 BSF personnel have tested positive for coronavirus in the state.

Nineteen people, including 13 BSF personnel, tested positive for COVID-19 in Meghalaya on Thursday, taking the state's tally to 534, reports PTI. The state now has 452 active coronavirus cases, Health Services Director, Aman War, said.

Pune-based Mylab Discovery Solutions said it has received commercial approval from the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) for its antigen testing kit for COVID-19. The kit will be available for orders immediately and will be priced around Rs 450, the company said.

Jharkhand Assembly Secretariat has been sealed till 27 July for disinfection after reports of some of the staff and members of the Assembly testing positive for COVID-19, reports ANI. All meetings of the Assembly committees will remain suspended till 31 July with immediate effect.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday said the state government "will impose a Rs 5,000 fine for home isolation violation and flouting of social distancing by restaurants/commercial eateries, and a fine of Rs 10,000 for non-adherence to restrictions at social gatherings," News18 reported.

Thoothukudi DMK MLA Geetha Jeevan, her daughter, and son-in-law on Thursday tested positive for coronavirus, ANI reported. They are now under home quarantine.

Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav said a total of 4,615 Shramik Special trains have been run since May 1, taking over 63 lakh people home during the coronavirus lockdown. The Railways started Shramik Specials on May 1 to transport stranded migrant workers to their native states after thousands tried to reach home on foot due to the lockdown.

The Railways Thursday said it has met all the existing demand of states for Shramik Special trains to ferry stranded migrant workers home, with the last service being operated on 9 July.

"He was admitted to a hospital in Kolkata, where he is undergoing treatment. SP president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav inquired about Nanda's health on call," the report said.

The Delhi Police said that a 14-yr-old COVID-19 positive girl was sexually assaulted by another patient at a care centre in the National Capital on Thursday. The accused have been arrested.

Two officers of the CBI team probing the alleged extrajudicial killings of a man and his son in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday, PTI reported.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday said the state government "will impose a Rs 5,000 fine for home isolation violation and flouting of social distancing by restaurants/commercial eateries, and a fine of Rs 10,000 for non-adherence to restrictions at social gatherings," News18 reported.

"The first time he was tested for coronavirus, he had no symptoms. There was a camp in the hospital and since his friend got tested, he also got tested and came positive, he told PTI.

The policeman, who has no other underlying ailment, complained of chest pain on July 16 and was admitted to the hospital, the senior doctor said, adding that he is stable and his vitals are being monitored.

The report came positive through the rapid antigen test as well as the RT-PCR test, said Dr Rajesh Chawla, Senior Consultant, Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Apollo Hospitals.

The policeman, 50, had tested positive for the virus in May and was treated at the Indraprastha Apollo hospitals between 15 and 22 May. Thereafter, he had tested negative and resumed duty. However, on 10 July, he again felt unwell with a fever and dry cough and got himself tested on 13 July.

The case of a Delhi policeman having a relapse of the coronavirus has baffled experts and the doctors treating him and has raised the question whether a recovered patient can contract the infection again.

Thoothukudi DMK MLA Geetha Jeevan, her daughter, and son-in-law on Thursday tested positive for coronavirus, ANI reported. They are now under home quarantine.

Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav said a total of 4,615 Shramik Special trains have been run since May 1, taking over 63 lakh people home during the coronavirus lockdown. The Railways started Shramik Specials on May 1 to transport stranded migrant workers to their native states after thousands tried to reach home on foot due to the lockdown.

The Railways Thursday said it has met all the existing demand of states for Shramik Special trains to ferry stranded migrant workers home, with the last service being operated on 9 July.

Assam Inspector General of Prisons Dasarath Das told PTI that 535 prisoners in 10 jails across the state have been affected by the pandemic. The highest number of 435 are from Guwahati.

The rest of the prisoners are now lodged in the district jails of Nalbari, Dhubri, Karimganj, North Lakhimpur, Golaghat, Diphu and Udalguri, he added.

The Assam government will release 376 prisoners in the next few days to decongest jails across the state after 535 inmates tested positive for COVID-19, an official said on Thursday. Of the 376 prisoners to be released, 111 are presently lodged in Guwahati Central Jail, he said.

1,078 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Kerala. The number of active cases stands at 9,468, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said.

Karnataka's coronavirus tally rose to 80,863 with 5,030 new cases on Thursday. The toll rose to 1,616 with 96 more casualties.

Gujarat reported 1,078 fresh cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking tally to 52,563. The toll rose to 2,257 with 28 more deaths.

"He was admitted to a hospital in Kolkata, where he is undergoing treatment. SP president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav inquired about Nanda's health on call," the report said.

The Delhi Police said that a 14-yr-old COVID-19 positive girl was sexually assaulted by another patient at a care centre in the National Capital on Thursday. The accused have been arrested.

Two officers of the CBI team probing the alleged extrajudicial killings of a man and his son in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday, PTI reported.

"In the coming weeks, Israel's ministries of foreign affairs, defence and health will lead an unprecedented anti-COVID-19 cooperation operation between India and Israel, an Israel Embassy statement said. A special planned flight from Tel Aviv to New Delhi is set to carry a high ranking Israeli defence ministry research and development team which has been working with India's chief scientist K VijayRaghavan and Defence Research and Development Organisation to develop rapid testing for COVID-19 in under 30 seconds, it said," the report said.

Israel said that a team will arrive in India to develop a rapid testing COVID-19 kit "which can give a result within 20 seconds", The Indian Express reported.

Coronavirus LATEST Updates: The Assam government will release 376 prisoners in the next few days to decongest jails across the state after 535 inmates tested positive for COVID-19, an official said on Thursday.

Thoothukudi DMK MLA Geetha Jeevan, her daughter, and son-in-law on Thursday tested positive for coronavirus, ANI reported. They are now under home quarantine.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday said the state government "will impose a Rs 5,000 fine for home isolation violation and flouting of social distancing by restaurants/commercial eateries, and a fine of Rs 10,000 for non-adherence to restrictions at social gatherings," News18 reported.

Government approved an ordinance through which a penalty up to Rs 1 lakh and a jail term up to two years can be imposed against those not wearing masks and violating lockdown.

As many as 84 personnel have been tested positive at the Raj Bhavan in Chennai. As per a statement, a few persons showed symptoms following which tests were carried out 147 persons working at the premises.

The West Bengal has to impose total lockdown in the entire state on two days every week till August. The shutdown would be clamped on Thursday and Saturday this week.

While laying the foundation stone of the Manipur water supply project via videoconference Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, 'Till the time vaccine is developed, we have to vigorously fight against coronavirus.'

India registers a record 45,720 new cases and 1,129 deaths. With this, the countrys tally is now 12,38,635 and toll stood at 29,861.

Researchers are making 'good progress' in developing vaccines against COVID-19, with a handful in late-stage trials, but their first use cannot be expected until early 2021, said a WHO expert.

As many states in India reported record jumps in daily coronavirus cases on Wednesday, lockdown restrictions of different durations were clamped in Bhopal, Kashmir Valley and in Manipur.

In Maharshtra, the country's worst-affected state by COVID-19, the daily rise in cases surpassed 10,000 for the first time. Tamil Nadu, which is placed second nationally, reported an all-time single-day high of 5,849 fresh infections, whereas cases neared 5,000 in Karnataka, a day after the state's chief minister said that there will be no extension of lockdown in the state.

According to the Union health ministry, India's total COVID-19 cases rose to 11,92,915 while the toll reached 28,732. However, amid the rising cases, on Wednesday, India's recovery rate improved to 63.13 percent as a record number of over 28,000 people were discharged in a day.

Meanwhile, in norhteastern state Manipur, where cases with no travel history were found to be COVID-19 positive, the govt announced 14-day curfew-like restrictions from Thursday afternoon in order to control the spread of the virus.

Similar restrictions will be in place in Bhopal for 10 days, the Madhya Pradesh govt said, while the Kashmir Valley has been placed under complete lockdown for six days starting from today evening.

In Delhi, health minister Satyender Jain announced that a fresh sero-survey will be conducted next month after the results of the previous round showed that 23 percent of Delhi's population had been infected with the virus.

Down south, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the government will "seriously consider" suggestions coming from experts to re-impose a lockdown as the state recorded over 1,000 cases in a single day for the first time since the outbreak.

Six-day lockdown in Kashmir

The Jammu and Kashmir administration imposed a six-day complete lockdown in all of Kashmir Valley, except for Bandipora district, following a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in the last three weeks.

"Complete lockdown in all Red districts (excluding Bandipora) of Kmr (Kashmir)Div (Division) from today evening till 6 am on 27-7-2020," the Jammu and Kashmir administration's Department of Information and Public Relations said on Twitter.

The lockdown came into effect on Wednesday evening as the Valley recorded 502 new cases.

During this period, agriculture, horticulture and construction activities will continue in accordance with disaster management guidelines, and the movement of goods carriers, LPG and oil tankers will also be allowed.

The decision to impose restrictions will be reviewed after six days, officials told news agency PTI.

The Valley has faced the brunt of COVID-19 in the newly formed Union Territory, accounting for 243 of its 263 deaths and 5,263 of the 6,540 active cases. The highest single-day spike was on Monday when 751 COVID-19 cases were recorded.

In Madhya Pradesh, Home Minister Narottam Mishra announced that a lockdown will be imposed in Bhopal for ten days from 8 pm on 24 July. The announcement came as Bhopal reported the highest number of cases at 157 in the state, taking its total case count to 4,669 and toll to 144.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan assured that the supply of essentials will continue through the lockdown and asked people to follow rules and take adequate precautions.

  #COVID19            24   8   10   #Lockdown        -, ,                  ,    Shivraj Singh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) July 22, 2020

Like in earlier lockdowns, e-passes will be required to travel to and from Bhopal, said Mishra. The next cabinet meeting will be held through video conferencing, he added.

Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh, in a press conference, announced that curfew-like restrictions will be imposed for 14 days across the state beginning 2 pm on Thursday. He said the decision was taken at an emergency cabinet meeting held in the evening.

Singh said that it is a matter of concern that people with no travel history were found to be COVID-19 positive in Thoubal district while asserting that it is too early to state that local transmission is taking place. A seven-day curfew was imposed in Thoubal on Tuesday to deal with the situation in the district.

He also that noted 63 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) tested positive for the disease after coming to the northeastern state from other parts of the country. People's reluctance to follow the COVID-related protocols further compounded the need to impose restrictions, he said.

Essential services will be exempted from the purview of the restrictions and "time-to-time" arrangements will be made by involving the home and health departments to make sure that people get their daily needs, said Singh while warning of strict action if the rules were not followed.

The state Cabinet also resolved to engage 100 doctors, 90 nurses and 60 multi-tasking staff for six months to work at different COVID-19 care centres. "Our priority is to save lives," Singh said.

Chhatisgarh's capital Raipur wore a deserted look on Wednesday as a week-long lockdown began in the municipal limits of Raipur and Birgaon.

"Raipur district recorded 1,314 COVID-19 cases till Tuesday. Of these, around 1,100 cases were detected in the last one month. Therefore, areas under the Raipur Municipal Corporation and Birgaon Municipal Corporation of the state capital have been declared as containment zones where restrictions will remain in force for seven days to break the chain of virus transmission," a public relations department official told PTI.

Lockdown is also being enforced in 20 other urban bodies in four districts of the state, including Mungeli and Durg, for different time periods, the

official said.

Kerala govt mulls lockdown

As Kerala reported 1,038 fresh COVID-19 cases, the highest- single day addition of patients, Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the government will look into imposing a total lockdown, as has been suggested by some experts. "Such demands have come from various quarters. We have not taken any decision yet. We will seriously consider it," he said.

Kerala's infection count rose to 15,032 on Wednesday while the toll climbed to 45 with a 75-year-old man from Idukki succumbing to the viral infection.

While the situation remained grim in the state capital, which has the highest number of 2,421 cases, the virus was spreading rapidly in Aluva at Kochi, prompting authorities to impose curfew there and nearby panchayats, the chief minister said, stressing that there was a need to be more cautious.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu report record increase in daily cases

Maharashtra reported the highest single-day jump of 10,576 COVID-19, which pushed its overall tally to 3,37,607, the state health

department said. The state's toll due to the virus went up by 280 and reached 12,556, it said. A total of 5,552 patients were discharged from

hospitals during the day, taking the number of recoveries in the state to 1,87,769, the department said in its statement.

Tamil Nadu reported an all-time single-day high of 5,849 fresh infections, taking the case count to 1,86,492, while the toll rose to 3,144 with 74 more succumbing to the disease. The daily bulletin stated that of the total fatalities, 444 were notified on Wednesday after a report was submitted by the death reconciliation committee constituted by the state government

On a positive note, recoveries also rose to 1,31,583 with 4,910 people getting cured, the state health department said.

The COVID-19 toll in West Bengal mounted to 1,221 after the highest single-day spike of 39 fatalities, the health department said. The state also witnessed a record 2,291 fresh infections, pushing the tally to 49,321, it said in a bulletin. The number of active cases in the state stands at 18,450.

Karnataka also reported the biggest single-day spike of 4,764 new COVID-19 cases and 55 fatalities, taking the total number of infections to 75,833 and the toll 1,519, the state's health department said. The day also saw a record 1,780 patients getting discharged after recovery. Out of the 4,764 fresh cases, a whopping 2,050 were reported from Bengaluru urban alone.

India reports 37,724 new cases, 648 fatalities since Tuesday

In its morning update, the Union health ministry said that the country registered 37,724 COVID-19 cases since 8 am on Tuesday, pushing the overall case count to 11,92,915 while the toll rose to 28,732 with 648 fatalities. A record 28,472 patients recuperated from the disease in 24 hours, taking the recovery rate rose to 63.13 percent, the ministry said.

According to the ministry data updated at 8 am, recoveries have surged to 7,53,049 exceeding active cases of coronavirus infection by 3,41,916.

"While the national recovery rate has improved, 19 states and Union Territories are posting a recovery rate higher than the national average," the ministry said.

The case fatality rate has dropped to 2.41 percent from Tuesday's 2.43 percent. It was 3.36 percent on 17 June, the ministry said in a statement.

Fresh sero-survey in Delhi in August

In Delhi, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said a fresh sero-survey will be conducted from 1-5 August and such exercises will be conducted every month to formulate better policies to tackle COVID-19.

The decision comes after the city government analysed the results of the latest sero-survey which showed that nearly 23 percent of the people in the National Capital had been exposed to the novel coronavirus.

The national capital recorded 1,227 fresh coronavirus cases, a bulletin issued by the Health Department said, taking the tally to over 1.26 lakh. Twenty-nine fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 3,719, the bulletin said. The number of active cases was 14,954, down from 1 5,288 on Tuesday.

On the sero-survey, the minister said a strategy is being made for the next survey, and more samples will be taken than in the previous exercise.

"The results of the sero-survey conducted from 27 June to 10 July came out on Tuesday, and it shows that nearly one-fourth of people had developed antibodies, meaning they had got infected and recovered. Most of these people who were sampled did not know that they were infected earlier," Jain told reporters.

Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Dr Sujeet Kumar Singh ahd said on Tuesday said that what the sero survey also shows is that the remaining 77 percent are still vulnerable to the viral disease and containment measures need to continue with the same rigour.

A sero-survey involves testing of blood serum of individuals to check for the prevalence of antibodies against infection.

With inputs from PTI
China has debuted its first-ever Mars rover Tianwen-1 as the country prepares to launch its historic exploration mission to the red planet any day from now.

The rover measures just over six feet in height (1.85m) and weighs 530 pounds (240kg), according to the country's state media. It will be tasked to search for water and signs of life on the alien soil.

Beijing's landmark space probe is scheduled to take off any time between July and August - depending on the weather conditions - and expected to reach Mars in February next year.

The Chinese space exploration authority introduced the nation's first Mars rover Tianwen-1 (pictured) at a grand ceremony on Wednesday. The rover measures just over six feet in height

According to state broadcaster CCTV, the rover is equipped with four solar panels which can help it survey the surface of the red planet for three Martian months, about 92 Earth days

WHY IS THE ROVER CALLED TIANWEN-1? A poem pondering on the stars and planets written over 2000 years ago was the inspiration for the name of China's first exploration mission to Mars. Tianwen-1 is a robotic exploration mission to the Red Planet and is due to launch in the summer of this year - around the same time as the NASA Perseverance rover. Called, Tianwen (), the poem was written by ancient Chinese literati and politician Qu Yuan (339-278BC), who lived in the Chu State (770-223BC). The phrase means 'Quest for Heavenly Truth' and raises questions about the stars and other heavenly bodies. Advertisement

The Chinese Martian explorer comprises three parts: an orbiter, a lander and a rover.

The orbiter is set to travel around the planet, the lander could help the rover land on Mars, and the rover is due to examine the planet's surface.

The Tianwen-1 rover, named after a 2,000-year-old Chinese poem that ponders on stars and planets, was introduced to the public at a grand ceremony today.

The solar-powered machine is designed to work on Mars for three Martian months, about 92 Earth days, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Engineers expected it to survey the composition, types of substance, geological structure and meteorological environment of the Martian surface before transmitting the findings back to Earth, said the station in a social media post.

It is equipped with at least six advanced instruments, including a geological camera, a multispectral camera, a subsurface detection radar, a surface composition detector, a surface magnetic field detector and a weather detector.

It is also said to be capable of identifying and avoiding obstacles, planning routes as well as adjusting its movements.

China's space authority also presented its Mars lander at today's event.

Officials also unveiled the Mars lander (above), which is due to help the rover touch down on Mars. The lander and rover would enter the Martian atmosphere as a whole with a parachute

This is an illustration of what the Tianwen-1 rover could look like when it lands on Mars. The space probe is set to take off any time between July and August and reach Mars in February

The lander and the rover, weighing 2,866 pounds (1,300kg) together, are due to be dropped from the orbiter as a whole. They would enter the Martian atmosphere with a parachute.

The two spacecraft would need to significantly reduce their speed - from around 12,427 miles (20,000km) per hour to stationary - in the space of seven minutes for the landing, according to Liu Tongjie, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center at China's National Space Administration.

Mr Liu explained that the machines would scan the Martian surface before choosing a safe place to land without human intervention.

China's first mission to Mars is slated to launch in July or August as the country sprints to become a major space power in the global race.

China's Mars mission will use the Long March-5 Y4 carrier rocket (pictured above), which the contractor of the space programme described as the countrys most powerful rocket. The picture shows the rocket being transported to the launching site for a test flight in December

Animation footage of the project, previously released by CCTV, illustrates a lander releasing a ground rover to explore the Martian surface after landing.

The mission will use the Long March-5 Y4 carrier rocket, which the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has described as the country's most powerful rocket.

Last November, China successfully conducted a test landing of the rover.

The experiment simulated the robot's process of hovering, avoiding obstacles and landing on Mars.

The Mars exploration is among several new space projects China is pursuing, including putting Chinese astronauts on the moon and having a space station by 2022. This graphic illustrates different types of rovers and satellites are currently orbiting the red planet

A month later, China conducted a successful test flight of an early version of the Long March-5 rocket.

In 2003, it became the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

Since then, China has been racing to catch up with Russia and the United States and become a major space power by 2030.

In January last year, a Chinese lunar explorer became the first-ever spacecraft to touch down on the dark side of the moon.

Its lunar rover, Yutu-2, transmitted never-before-seen 'close range' images back to its engineers after making the historic landing.
This article is the fifth in a series exploring the long-term social impacts of COVID-19, written by members of the Trudeau Foundation COVID-19 Impact Committee

WARNING!!! reads the first page in the popular childrens Choose Your Own Adventure book series. You and you alone are responsible for what happens in this story.

Much like Choose Your Own Adventure books, our lives during COVID-19 are stories that are written along the way and our decisions  both individually and collectively  could lead to a variety of unknown outcomes. While we all face difficult decisions, nobody is more attuned to the consequences of these decisions than our public health leaders who grapple with an unfamiliar threat under constantly evolving circumstances.

Ideally, all the necessary information to make the correct choice would be readily available, but often public health leaders must act within narrow timelines. For example, even now, questions remain about the role children play in transmitting COVID-19, yet most provinces closed schools ahead of March break. In the absence of perfect information, public health leaders advised caution. Schools closed, lessening the spread of COVID-19, but also disrupting millions of students education as well as their parents work schedules.

As our understanding of COVID-19 advances, so must our policies and actions. For instance, our understanding of the value of masks has changed. Before we knew about presymptomatic or asymptomatic transmission, mask-wearing was not encouraged. The concern was that mask wearers would potentially feel protected from the virus, detracting from important physical distancing efforts. While a non-medical grade mask may not protect wearers from COVID-19, we now know that mask-wearing can limit transmission. This makes it necessary to rethink the best practice around mask-wearing in public places.

Revising advice is not a sign of weakness or indecisiveness. Rather, it means our public health leaders are responding to and relying on the most up-to-date information.

Scientific evidence is only one factor that influences policies. Our public health leaders must also consider stakeholder insights, citizen values, affordability, and feasibility of implementation. While no evidence exists to anticipate the effectiveness of total border closures in containing COVID-19, demand from the public, pressure from the provinces, and border closures around the world all led Canada to bar entry to most foreign nationals. Border closures demonstrates the tremendous pressure governments face and their desire to act on citizens needs and expectations.

Finally, our data systems determine how effectively we can respond to public health emergencies. Data collection in Canada is limited by existing infrastructure and delayed interjurisdictional sharing. Data-driven decisions are further complicated because health data in Canada are rarely available in real-time, making even the most seemingly obvious decisions tricky.

Initial COVID-19 diagnostic testing in many parts of Canada was limited to a small group of people, those who had recently travelled or had come into contact with a confirmed case. Data on race, socio-economic status and other important factors were not systematically collected. Limited testing likely delayed the confirmation of community transmission. Only with increased testing capacity we are now gaining better information on the extent of infections, how to mitigate and contain their spread, and the impact of race and socio-economic status on level of risk.

In other words, decision-making during a pandemic is fraught with complexities, and we cannot start over if we do not like the ending.

Ultimately, well-resourced public health systems and research are the best tools for informing decisions and ensuring effective pandemic responses. This includes having public health professionals, laboratory capacity, upstream prevention efforts, data infrastructure, and research on what works, for whom, and how.

Yet while we scaled-up our public health systems after the 2003 SARS outbreak, more recently several provinces have divested, making all of us more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic than we were before or than we needed to be.

If the COVID-19 pandemic teaches us anything, it is that societies around the world have chronically underinvested in their public health systems. The good news is that we get to decide each year how powerful public health will be, through our governments annual budgeting processes. That means there is still time to reverse course and write a new story before the next pandemic comes our way.
Low-intensity armed conflict possible across Taiwan Strait: analysts

ROC Central News Agency

07/21/2020 06:46 PM

Taipei, July 21 (CNA) Security analysts in Taipei said Tuesday that while conventional war between Taiwan and China is unlikely anytime soon, low-intensity conflict is a possibility.

In light of the recent increase in military activities conducted near Taiwan by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China, it will be advisable for Taiwan to be on the alert for low-intensity conflict, which can start with very little warning, retired Air Force Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Chang Yen-ting () said at a security forum.

The hotspots for potential low-intensity armed conflict include the Dongsha Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea, and Wuqiu Island near Kinmen, which are all under Taiwan's jurisdiction, Chang said.

One common characteristic of those islands is that they are "easy to attack but difficult to defend," he said.

Meanwhile, Chen Ching-pu (), a Social and Policy Sciences professor at Yuan Ze University, warned that a military conflict between Taiwan and China is not a remote possibility, as they have been testing each other's red line on various issues.

The two sides should reduce hostilities and avoid such a crisis, as there will be no winners in a war, Chen said at the forum in Taipei.

According to former Taiwan National Security Bureau chief, Tsai De-sheng (), nationalistic sentiment is high in China due to the political developments in Hong Kong, the pressure resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and worry that Taiwan might move toward independence.

Beijing might take a tougher stance in the region to divert domestic attention from those issues, which may lead to a more complicated regional situation, Tsai said at the forum.

On the possibility of military conflict between China and the United States, Shu Hsiao-huang (), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said accidental encounters are possible, despite the preventive mechanisms that are in place.

The two countries differ on many regional issues and have recently been conducting military maneuvers near the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, he said.

Although their restrained actions indicate that neither side wants a conflict, they are obviously both preparing for such an eventuality, Shu said.

In June, there were 18 instances of U.S. military ships or planes passing near Taiwan, while China military assets were spotted 13 times, according to the July 3 edition of the Defense Security, a bi-weekly magazine published by the government-funded INDSR.

Furthermore, Japanese media has reported that China is planning a large-scale beach landing exercise in the South China Sea in August, which will simulate a takeover of the Dongsha Islands.

(By Miao Zong-han and Emerson Lim)

Enditem/pc

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Washington: Disciplined, succinct and fact-based are not words you would usually associate with a Donald Trump press conference.

But when the US President appeared at the White House on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) for his first coronavirus briefing in three months, that's how he largely came across.

President Donald Trump holds a mask as he speaks during a news conference at the White House. Credit:AP

Trump suspended his near-daily coronavirus briefings in late April after a disastrous performance in which he mused about the possibility of treating COVID-19 with disinfectant.

Rather than a way to deliver important public health messages to the American public, the briefings had become unstructured open mic sessions. Often lasting for up to two hours, Trump would regularly clash with journalists and bad-mouth his political rivals.
As school districts prepare for the fall and the coronavirus continues surging across the United States, a new rallying cry is emerging, led (of course) by President Donald Trump and his appointees: All schools must open for business as usual, no matter what. Trump surrogates like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have backed him up in a bid to force people back to school and work in the hopes that the superficial appearance of pre-pandemic normalcy will help the president's reelection campaign. The apparent playbook dictates that the Trumpists pretend there is no meaningful risk, or to suggest, as Missouri Gov. Mike Parson did Friday, that even if children get the virus - which "they will when they go to school" - that any illnesses or deaths would be acceptable losses.

But no losses should be acceptable when they are entirely avoidable. By now, we know enough about the risks of the coronavirus to realize that simply declaring that schools are safe is an exercise in fantasy. There are some things public health experts agree present extraordinarily high levels of risk, and schools combine several of them. The administration is taking advantage of parents' understandable eagerness to get kids back to school to push ahead with its program to pretend everything with the pandemic is fine. The result is a new movement to ignore reality, pretend schools present no risk and imagine that the virus will magically conform to our needs by Labor Day - while utterly disregarding the moral implications of putting teachers, administrators and other school employees in danger.

The arguments for reopening are obvious, and as the mother of a 5-year-old, I understand them viscerally: Children need to learn, and isolation is not good for their mental health. People also need to return to work, and many can only do that if their children are in school or they have some other safe place for them to be during the day.

At the same time, there is no conceivable way to reopen all schools safely. Discussion about school safety has been largely centered around the ostensibly low transmission rates of covid-19 for children, as if children attend school in an adult-free vacuum. Where the lives of school workers, teachers and administrators are taken into consideration at all, people argue that they're acceptable losses - because we overwhelmingly conflate schooling with child care, and without school, how will anyone go back to work and make a living?

A failure to confront these contradictions, on the part of policymakers and a public that understandably wants normalcy and education for their children, has led to a callousness about stakes for the people putting themselves at risk. No, we cannot prevent every covid-19 death. (That's obvious enough by now.) But under the circumstances, and given how little we've prepared, the casualties are going to be higher than the government is suggesting, and they were, in many cases, entirely avoidable.

- - -

Public health experts agree that the highest risk venue for transmission is an indoor setting with poor ventilation, where people are interacting for an extended period of time. The risk of transmission indoors is an estimated 19 times higher than it is outdoors. This is a well-understood consensus, and it's why many states still aren't allowing indoor dining or reopening movie theaters.

"Indoor setting with poor ventilation" describes many, many school environments. The American Lung Association notes that schools often have four times as many people in a given space as in a standard office building. A recent Government Accountability Office report indicates that 41% of schools need to update their HVAC systems. Many classrooms are already crowded. And education professionals do not interact with each other or children for brief periods of time - say the time it takes to check out of a grocery store line. The average school day in America is 6 1/2 hours long.

A major claim among the "all schools must open" crowd is that transmission among children under 10 is low - but we know it's not zero. A study in South Korea this week found that children ages 10 to 19 are just as likely to spread the virus as adults. In any case, schools are not run by students. They are run by adults, who are vulnerable to coronavirus and may transmit it to their own family members. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, as many as 1 in 4 teachers is at higher risk of serious illness if they get covid-19. In 2018, 29% of public school teachers were over 50, and 8% were over 60. In private schools, the percentage of teachers over 60 was even higher: 15%.

Teachers and school employees who have underlying risks may choose not to go back to school at all, if they can afford it, which could leave us with a national shortage of educational professionals even before people start to get sick (or die) and leave their classrooms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out guidelines for reopening schools in May, which prompted the White House to attack the agency this month. The CDC defines the lowest-risk scenario as "virtual-only" education. The highest risk: "Full sized, in-person classes, activities, and events. Students are not spaced apart, share classroom materials or supplies, and mix between classes and activities."

That is exactly what many schools will face in the fall. Few schools have the facilities to ensure adequate spacing. (The Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends a density of 113 square feet per person under covid conditions; by comparison, pre-pandemic state requirements in New York are between 17 and 40 square feet per person, depending on the type of classroom.) In school districts where teachers are buying their own school supplies because they're underfunded, it strains credulity that extra materials for public health, not to mention personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer, will magically materialize. And good luck keeping small children from mixing in between classes and activities, particularly when a large part of the rationale for sending them back in the first place is so that they can interact socially with each other.

And we are not just talking about deaths from the virus. We increasingly know that the consequences of nonfatal covid-19 infections can be long-term, permanent and not limited to patients' respiratory systems. And yet, even people who think the virus is extraordinarily dangerous and not "just like the flu" will frame the school debate in terms of deaths, the way Parson did in Missouri, with the assumption that adults and children who get it will mostly be fine. As if it's a temporary inconvenience. The president did this Sunday, arguing that schools should open in New Jersey because only "one person below the age of 18 died in the state of New Jersey during all of this." (The state health department reports that two died - both under age 5.)

- - -

The reality is that none of us would be in this situation if we had a competent federal response and a coordinated state and local response. "We know that other countries around the world have been able to reopen their schools, and have done so successfully and safely," DeVos told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace earlier this month. But every single country she's talking about has done so via protocols that, collectively, constitute a litany of America's failures in responding to covid-19. Other countries controlled the virus before they opened their schools back up. Here, Trump only appeared in public in a mask this month; we still have shortages of protective equipment; tests take more than a week to yield results; and we are nowhere near developing a national tracking and tracing program.

We could have done what other developed democracies have, and things could, indeed, have been relatively normal by now, the way they are in New Zealand and much of Europe. The government could have paid people to stay home long enough to set up centralized testing and tracing programs, educated the public about the importance of social distancing measures and mask usage, and used the time to ramp up manufacturing of PPE and testing supplies and redesign schools, office buildings and commercial spaces with an eye toward safety. Instead, we got means-tested one-time $1,200 checks and a limited loan program that was difficult to navigate for truly small businesses, and insufficient all the way around. Nothing has been done to backstop mortgage holders and renters, except to ban evictions temporarily, and enforcement has been uneven. No wonder opening schools again looks like something we can't do without: No one's done anything to ease the pandemic's economic pressure.

I am sympathetic, in particular, to the plight of working-class school employees because my own mother was the janitor at the school I attended, and later, a "lunch lady" in the cafeteria. My 5-year-old will probably go back to in-person classes at his kindergarten in the fall. Also in the fall, I am expected to teach graduate students in person at New York University as an adjunct professor, which I'd normally do in a small, stuffy conference room with poor circulation, with roughly 15 students. I don't believe these scenarios are safe for me or my child, but I also don't believe we're going to have much choice about it.

This did not have to happen. In other countries, schools have been able to reopen safely because the government was willing to economically backstop workers and businesses long enough to get the virus under control, and people were not forced to put their own lives and the lives of their children at risk from a place of sheer desperation. Here, our federal response has been led largely by amateurs marked by incompetence, failure and corruption. And while the administration has flailed, Congress has mostly left American families to fend for themselves.

Miserly Republicans obsessed over the idea that an economic backstop would enable a lazy populace to avoid work and, exhibiting total ambivalence about the suffering and death that result, refused to lead. They shot down more reasonable relief packages, framing them as excessive, even though similar policies in economically comparable liberal democracies have proven effective. Democratic deficit hawks in the House enabled this further by failing to be aggressive enough with early proposals, and agreeing to pass legislation with Republicans that didn't prioritize access to direct relief payments, which excluded many Americans who are essential workers and families with mixed immigration status, capped paycheck protection programs and didn't provide state and local aid for revenue shortfalls caused by the coronavirus, which probably precipitated premature reopenings.

In a private situation between individuals, this kind of blatant disregard for consequences and willful refusal to use available resources might be cast as negligent homicide. It's not inconceivable that if things get much worse, that is how history will view it: state-sponsored destruction via willful, callous indifference. Without some urgent and quick interventions, our schools are another wave of covid-19 tragedies waiting to happen, and our response cannot be powered by the same delusions that landed us here in the first place - that the toll will not be that high; that the truly vulnerable are few; that we can have safety without economic security.

The highest risks are known, obvious and reasonably well-understood, and the government has tools at its disposal to mitigate them, and to solve the problem of poverty and economic desperation that its failures so far have exacerbated, and in some cases, created. Families and school employees should not be asked to pay for its negligence, and losses that can be avoided should not be acceptable.

- - -

This article was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
dr.aviansh BHPian



Join Date: Apr 2020 Location: delhi Posts: 108 Thanked: 888 Times

New Delhi road infrastructure: Not a single flyover built in the recent past by the PWD





This is from under the Minto Bridge, the very famous Minto Road that connects Connaught Place to ITO. After the rainfall, water got clogged and only the roof of a DTC bus could be seen. Smaller Autos, Rickshaws have submerged. The localites were able to rescue everyone who was stuck, except for an unlucky tempo driver. His dead body was recovered and has been identified as Kundan Singh . This clearly shows the lethargic work being carried over by PWD for the cleaning of the drainage system.



Getting curious, I searched the internet a bit and found out a year old news, NOT A SINGLE new Flyover has been constructed in these 6 years.





To my utter shock, that a city which heavily depends upon the construction of flyovers to negate the ever increasing traffic has been managing without the construction of new ones for more than 6 years now and the situation would only get worse if this doesnt change.



I see no progress in the road infrastructure in the previous decade. The Signature Bridge, RTR flyover, Barrapulla Flyover all were approved around 2010.



Delhiites were once proud of the citys road infrastructure and I used to boast about it when I briefly moved out to Bhopal for my MBBS.



From when I was a kid in the 90s to my 20s in the last decade, the average time taken to reach West Delhi from South Delhi had been persistent to about 40-45 minutes owing to regular construction of new flyovers and widening of roads in that 20 km route that could keep up with the increasing traffic. But since the last couple of years, the average time taken has gone upto 60 to 75 mins .



If newer flyovers are not constructed and older roads are not resurfaced and widened, we too will start having huge traffic jams like Bangalore and Mumbai. Today, on 18th July 2020, New Delhi experienced a heavy rainfall since early morning. The outcome was water clogged roads and traffic jams. What is more surprising is this pic :This is from under the, the very famous Minto Road that connects Connaught Place to ITO. After the rainfall, water got clogged and only the roof of a DTC bus could be seen. Smaller Autos, Rickshaws have submerged. The localites were able to rescue everyone who was stuck, except for an unlucky tempo driver. His dead body was recovered and has been identified as. This clearly shows the lethargic work being carried over by PWD for the cleaning of the drainage system.Getting curious, I searched the internet a bit and found out a year old news,new Flyover has been constructed in these 6 years.To my utter shock, that a city which heavily depends upon the construction of flyovers to negate the ever increasing traffic has been managing without the construction of new ones for more than 6 years now and the situation would only get worse if this doesnt change.I see no progress in the road infrastructure in the previous decade. The Signature Bridge, RTR flyover, Barrapulla Flyover all were approved around 2010.Delhiites were once proud of the citys road infrastructure and I used to boast about it when I briefly moved out to Bhopal for my MBBS.From when I was a kid in the 90s to my 20s in the last decade, the average time taken to reach West Delhi from South Delhi had been persistent to aboutowing to regular construction of new flyovers and widening of roads in that 20 km route that could keep up with the increasing traffic. But since the last couple of years, the average time taken has gone uptoIf newer flyovers are not constructed and older roads are not resurfaced and widened, we too will start having huge traffic jams like Bangalore and Mumbai. Last edited by GTO : 21st July 2020 at 07:59 . Reason: Absolutely no discussion on politics
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Pakistan's prime minister, Imran Khan, said in April that the country was using a system intended to surveil terrorists to monitor the coronavirus.

EuropaNewswire/Gado/Getty Images

UK companies are marketing and selling spy tech to countries accused of using such technology to abuse human rights.

Official 2020 data analysed by Business Insider showed firms were licensed to sell surveillance kit to Pakistan, Oman, and the UAE, among other nations.

Activists criticized the sale of such technologies to countries with questionable records on democracy and human rights.

"These tools are used to indiscriminately monitor mobile phones, for example during protests, and seriously endanger activists and others around the world," said Edin Omanovic, the advocacy director of Privacy International.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

UK companies are selling and marketing spy tech to countries accused of using these kinds of technology to violate human rights, according to export license data analysed by Business Insider.

Such interception equipment can monitor and intercept mobile phones in a given area.

The most common type is an IMSI catcher, essentially a fake mobile phone tower that logs the IMSI number, or international mobile subscriber identity, of every phone that connects to it.

This can reveal the owner of the device and allows for more advanced snooping on communications.

During the first three months of 2020, undisclosed British firms were granted licenses to export such tools to Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Oman, the UAE, and South Africa.

Many of the licenses issued were temporary, allowing British companies to promote their products at international trade fairs, although these often become permanent once a formal deal with a client has been agreed.

Since interception technology is a "dual-use" technology, or one that can be used for both military and civilian purposes, UK businesses must acquire a license from the Department for International Trade to sell these tools abroad.

Like other dual-use products, exports of interception equipment are controlled due to "concerns about internal repression, regional instability or other human rights violations," according to UK government guidance.

Story continues

However, the government's own disclosures cast doubt over the extent to which authorities have prevented exports on these grounds.

Export license data covering the first three months of 2020 reveals that an unnamed British company was granted the right to export interception equipment to Pakistan during a time in which authorities have dramatically increased their surveillance capabilities on citizens in response to COVID-19. This has included using advanced technology normally reserved for counter-terrorism operations.

Hija Kamran, program manager at the Pakistan-based nonprofit Media Matters for Democracy, said the use of this technology is particularly concerning in Pakistan, "where even acceptance of digital rights as basic human rights is still challenged."

"Supporting the use of invasive technology in Pakistan puts citizens at risk of being disproportionately targeted with no recourse in sight, mostly for exercising or demanding their rights," Kamran said.

A UK company was also authorized to export interception technology to the United Arab Emirates, a country with a long history of clamping down on dissent online.

"By continuing to license the sale of interception equipment to the UAE, the UK government makes it painfully clear that it puts lucrative trade deals and its vision of a 'global Britain' ahead of human rights and fundamental freedoms," said Sofia Kaltenbrunner, campaign manager of the International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE.

"The Emirati authorities have sought to utilize such technology to systematically crush freedom of speech and suppress peaceful dissenting voices," Sofia added.

South Africa, a country whose judiciary only recently declared its bulk surveillance capabilities to be unlawful, also imported interception technology from the UK in the first quarter of 2020.

The decision is indicative of the ways in which "a blind eye is turned to the digital rights implications of these services at the altar of lucrative markets associated with surveillance technologies," said Juliet Nanfuka of the digital rights advocacy organization, CIPESA.

The secretive world of commercial spyware

In 2016, Privacy International found 104 companies in the UK that manufacture surveillance technology designed for evidence and intelligence gathering, including many that made and sold IMSI catchers and other interception devices. The UK was second only to the US, which has 122 companies.

"These tools are used to indiscriminately monitor mobile phones, for example during protests, and seriously endanger activists and others around the world," said Edin Omanovic, the advocacy director of Privacy International.

Aside from BAE Systems, one of the world's largest arms manufacturers, few of the British surveillance companies are household names.

Despite that, international sales of the equipment is a lucrative business. A Guardian report published in 2019 found that the UK had licensed $95 million worth of interception equipment since 2015.

In 2019, the UK approved the sale of interception tools to authorities in Hong Kong while protesters were increasingly surveilled as protests swept across the city.

In 2017, a British company exported IMSI catchers to Macedonia while a bulk communications surveillance campaign was underway. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Oman, all of which are deemed 'Not Free' by the US non-profit Freedom House, have also benefited from UK-made surveillance technology.

As the UK government's most recent data shows, the trend has continued.

Kian Vesteinsson, research analyst for technology and democracy at Freedom House, said: "Such surveillance chills free expression whether successful or not, causing known targets and potential targets alike to restrict their speech to protect themselves."

Samuel Woodhams is a freelance journalist focused on the intersection of technology and politics. He also works at Top10VPN, a London-based VPN review website, where he researches global digital rights issues.



Read the original article on Business Insider
An army mans father was hacked to death and his pregnant wife physically assaulted in Sangrampur area here over a land dispute, police said on Wednesday.

Rajendra Mishra (55) was killed with a sharp edged weapon and his pregnant daughter-in-law beaten by Ashok Shukla and his accomplices on Tuesday evening, they said.

The victims son Surya Prakash is in the Army and posted in Jammu and Kashmir.

The incident took place in Thengaha Shukulpur village, police said.

Superintendent of police, Khyati Garg said that the body of the victim has been sent for postmortem and a manhunt has been launched to nab Shukla and others involved in the incident.
Bhavana Acharya

If there is one trend thats sparking investor interest, it is passive investments. With returns of many equity mutual funds slipping behind key benchmarks, the draw of passive funds has increased. AMCs (asset management companies), too, are now rolling out index funds and ETFs.

While the passive space is evolving, what are the available options today? Is it possible for you to build a passive-only portfolio? Here is a brief on what index funds and ETFs are available today and how you can use them.

#1: Main market indices

These primarily are the Nifty 50 and the Sensex. Now, 21 of the 36 index funds, and 26 of the 80 ETFs (not including gold) are based on these two indices. These aside, the indices that are most featured are the Nifty 100 and the Nifty Next 50. ETFs additionally offer the little-known Sensex Next 50  this index is another large-cap gauge, housing the 50 largest stocks that rank after the top Sensex 50 in the BSE LargeMidCap index.

Given that these indices contain highly liquid stocks, and that they are large-cap, tracking error for most index funds and ETFs are on the lower side. On an average, the index funds and ETFs built on the Nifty 50, for example, have a tracking error of -0.53 based on one-year returns. Sensex-based funds/ETFs have a tracking error of 0.58 on an average.

More, indices such as the Nifty 100 or the Nifty 50/Sensex can comfortably take up the role of large-caps. These indices are a great representation of large-caps. Most active funds in this category lag the Nifty 100, and therefore going passive here can both save costs and improve portfolio return. The Nifty Next 50, though large-cap in nature, is a high-return delivering index that can add some zing to your portfolio. The indexs three-year returns, for example, beat the Nifty 50, 70 per cent of the time since 2008.

#2 Other market-cap indices

Outside the Nifty 50 and the Sensex, indices tracking the mid-cap and small-cap segments find place. These are the Nifty MidCap 100, the Nifty Midcap 150, the Nifty SmallCap 250, the BSE Select MidCap, and the BSE 500/Nifty 500. These indices represent either small-caps, mid-caps, or the broad market.

Together with the main market indices, they offer access to the entire market capitalisation range. As a result, you dont miss opportunities in different segments of the market  and therefore, you will be better able to build a portfolio that is balanced and diversified across market capitalisations.

On the flip side, though, active funds are still delivering higher returns. Unlike in large-caps, most mid-cap and small-cap funds are able to comfortably beat their indices. Large-and-mid cap funds and multi-cap schemes are able to beat the Nifty 500. There is some opportunity loss to be had in going for the mid-cap/small-cap indices.

These index funds and ETFs are also new  most have been launched in the past two years. This gives limited understanding of their tracking error. And unlike the larger indices, fund/ETF choices in these segments are fewer.

#3 Strategy indices

To hold a diversified portfolio, it isnt just enough to have allocations to different market caps. You need different strategies. Besides, the risks in holding only market indices is that they dont protect you from downsides and you miss the opportunity of earning market-plus returns. Though you may be willing to forgo gains for more stable portfolios, you dont necessarily have to.

This leg-up to returns can come from strategic smart-beta indices. These indices use defined metrics to select and weight stocks, unlike market-cap based indices, which use free-float market cap as the deciding factor. Metrics could be designed to capture value stocks, growth firms, and so on.

On this front, the ETF space is seeing some development; index funds are yet to catch up. There are two quality-based ETFs; for example  one on the Nifty 100 Quality 30 and the second on the Nifty 200 Quality 30. Value-based indices include the Nifty 50 Value 20.

Among index funds, the most differentiated they get is when they offer equal-weight indices. These indices give equal weights to the stocks in the Nifty 50 or the Nifty 100; stocks with smaller weights in the Nifty 100 or the Nifty 50 get a bigger role to play. In the event of a broad-market uptrend, these higher weights to many stocks can potentially improve returns compared to just the Nifty 50 or the Nifty 100.

These indices could  depending on the factors that go into construction  beat the main market-cap indices. Consider the Nifty 50 Value 20, which is built with value metrics using the Nifty 50 as the base. This index beat the Nifty 50 a good 81 per cent of the time when rolling three-year returns since 2012.

It is not a given that all smart-beta indices beat the parent index (the index that it draws from) or the closest comparable index. For example, while the Nifty 100 Quality 30 uses metrics to pick stocks with low leverage and high return ratios, the index has beaten the Nifty 100 just 56 per cent of the time when rolling three-year returns since 2013. Similarly, with the recent market trend where the Nifty 50 and Nifty 100s returns are coming from their top stock weights, equal weight indices are lagging.

This means, in strategy indices, you necessarily need to check how the index is constructed, whether holding that index could help returns, whether the same strategy could be had better in an active funds, and whether you could instead make tactical investments in these indices.

#4 Sector indices

Sector options are centred mostly on banking and financial services. They are either pure bank ETFs or a subset such as PSU banks or private banks. But other than these, sector choices are limited. More, sector-based indices are found in ETFs and not in index funds; there are sector/thematic funds aplenty, just not built on indices. Therefore, ETFs and index funds do not offer much by way of sector-specific exposure  which you could otherwise have used tactically to boost returns if you are able to call trends correctly.

#5 Debt indices

By and large, outside of the Bharat Bond ETFs/ funds, passive debt options are limited and can largely be ignored. The most you have liquid ETFs, which are primarily used by, and more suited to traders and other short-term investors park money temporarily.

This apart, you have gilt indices, but volumes in these debt ETFs are poor. The average daily traded value for SBI MFs 10-year g-sec ETF, for example, was just Rs 81,000 in the year to date while that of LIC MFs daily traded value was Rs 2.83 lakh.

What to look for and how to use

While there are pros to investing in ETFs and index funds as explained above, there are aspects you need to look out for.

-One, the tracking error. A high tracking error should be avoided, even if the index fund has lower expense ratios. In ETFs, there is a difference between NAV and market price. Tracking error on the NAV may be low but the picture can look very different when comparing market price deviations.

-Two, volumes in ETFs. While indices may look promising, most ETFs lack steady trading or reasonable turnover. While highly traded ETFs can have turnover of over Rs 30 crore a day, for others it can dip to Rs 50,000. There may even be days when the ETF is not even traded.

-Three, the potential of the index. This is especially true in sector and strategy ETFs. If the index is unable to beat the main market indices across market cycles, then plain-vanilla indices or active funds are the better bets.

-Four, your convenience. If youre using passive investments as part of your main portfolio, it could be cumbersome to maintain if it is split between funds and ETFs. In index funds, you can also bypass the troubles of identifying liquid and consistently trading ETFs.

So how should you use ETFs or index funds?

-On the debt side, active funds are still the better option. Quite apart from liquidity and tracking error issues in ETFs (barring the Bharat Bond), there is just not enough variety in debt indices to offer a good alternative to quality bond funds.

-You can use only ETFs and index funds to build a market-cap allocated portfolio if you want to avoid active funds, as you do have enough basic options to do so. But you need to know enough to choose the right fund or ETF, using different evaluation criteria such as size, liquidity, and costs. In addition, layer these market-cap based indices with smart-beta ETFs/index funds and keep an eye out for more such options. You need this to round out your portfolio and improve returns.

-Else, blend index funds/ETFs with your active portfolio to achieve a better-built and lower-cost portfolio. In this, dont duplicate your portfolio or invest in indices just because they are popular. Use those funds/ETFs where they challenge active funds, such as in large-caps. Use where they can provide a differentiation to your portfolio, such as in strategy indices or international indices. Use them where they address a gap in active funds.

(The writer is Co-founder, PrimeInvestor
The active cases of COVID-19 in Lagos communities yet to be admitted into the states care centres for treatment have reduced to 2,036, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Akin Abayomi, has said.

Mr Abayomi disclosed this through his Twitter account on Wednesday while giving the states COVID-19 update for July 20.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Abayomi had, on June 27, said that 2,683 active cases in the communities were yet to turn up for admission at the various care centres.

He attributed the absence of the active cases at the care centres to ignorance, fear of stigmatisation or preference for home care.

The commissioner said that at present, 647 out of the 2,683 active cases in the communities on June 27 had turned up at the various care centres.

He said that it had reduced the number of active COVID-19 cases in Lagos communities to 2,036.

Mr Abayomi added that out of the 672 COVID-19 tests conducted in the state on July 20, 100 had been confirmed positive.

READ ALSO:

Total number of confirmed #COVID19Lagos positive cases stands at 13, 543, he said.

According to him, 56,276 COVID-19 tests have been conducted so far in the state since the outbreak of the epidemic.

Also, 2,075 of the confirmed cases had since been discharged from #COVID19 Care Centres following full recovery.

Similarly, 9,066 of the confirmed cases monitored in communities by #COVID19Lagos response team have either fully recovered or are positively responding to treatments.

Also, 174 of the cases are currently under isolation in #COVID19Lagos Care Centres, he said.

Mr Abayomi, however, disclosed that the state recorded one COVID-19 related death, thus increasing the states COVID-19 mortality to 192. (NAN)
GOLDEN, Colo., July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Golden Minerals Company (NYSE American and TSX: AUMN) (Golden Minerals, Golden or the Company) announced today that, due to demand, the underwriter has agreed to increase the size of the previously announced offering and purchase on a firm commitment basis 17,857,143 shares of common stock of the Company, at a price to the public of $0.42 per share, less customary underwriting discounts and commissions. The closing of the offering is expected to occur on or about July 23, 2020, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.



H.C. Wainwright & Co. is acting as the sole book-running manager for the offering.

The Company also has granted to the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,678,571 shares of common stock at the public offering price, less customary underwriting discounts and commission. The gross proceeds to Golden, before deducting customary underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses and assuming no exercise of the option to purchase additional shares of common stock, are expected to be approximately $7,500,000. Golden intends to use the net proceeds of the offering for working capital requirements and general corporate purposes.

The shares of common stock described above are being offered by the Company pursuant to a "shelf" registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-220461) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and declared effective on September 28, 2017 and the accompanying prospectus contained therein. The offering of the shares of common stock is being made only by means of a prospectus, including a prospectus supplement, forming a part of the effective registration statement. A preliminary prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to and describing the terms of the offering were filed with the SEC. A final prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to this offering will be filed with the SEC and, upon filing, may be obtained on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov or by contacting H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC at 430 Park Avenue, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10022, by e-mail at placements@hcwco.com or by calling 646-975-6996.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor the NYSE American have approved or disapproved the contents of this press release.

About Golden Minerals

Golden Minerals is a Delaware corporation based in Golden, Colorado. The Company is primarily focused on advancing its Rodeo and Velardena properties in Mexico and, through partner-funded exploration, its El Quevar silver property in Argentina, as well as acquiring and advancing selected mining properties in Mexico, Argentina and Nevada.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and applicable Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the scheduled closing date of the offering and the anticipated use of proceeds. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including the receipt of listing approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange and NYSE American and general market conditions. Additional risks relating to Golden may be found in the periodic and current reports filed with the Securities Exchange Commission by Golden, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019.

For additional information please visit http://www.goldenminerals.com/ or contact:

Golden Minerals Company

Karen Winkler, Director of Investor Relations

(303) 8395060

SOURCE: Golden Minerals Company
Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Wednesday asserted that there has been about 82 per cent decline in triple talaq cases since the law against the "social evil" was put in place, terming August 1, when the legislation came into being as, "Muslim women's rights day". He also asserted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, has taken its course whenever such a matter has been reported.

In an article 'Triple Talaq -- Big Reform, Better Result', Naqvi said, "One year has passed since the law against Triple Talaq was passed and there is a decline of about 82 per cent in Triple Talaq cases thereafter. If any such case was reported, the law has taken action. 1st August is a day which made Muslim women free from social evil of Triple Talaq; 1st August has been recorded in the countrys history as Muslim Women Rights Day."

He also wrote, "Triple Talaq or Talaq-a-Biddat was neither Islamic nor legal. Despite the fact, the social evil of Triple Talaq was given political patronage by Merchants of Votes."

"1st August 2019 is a historic day in Indian Parliamentary history when The Bill against Triple Talaq was made a Law despite obstacle put by so-called Champions of Secularism including Congress, Communist Party, SP, BSP and Trinamool Congress. 1st August became the day which ensured gender equality and strengthened constitutional, fundamental and democratic rights of the Muslim women and it also gave confidence to the women, which constitute almost half of the population in India. 1st August will remain as a golden moment of Indian democracy and Parliamentary history," he said.

The minister said that India runs on a Constitution, not on Shariat or any other religious textbook. "Earlier, various legislations had been brought in the country to abolish social evils such as Sati Pratha and Child Marriage. Triple Talaq law has nothing to do with religion, the law has been made purely to ensure gender equality by ending a social evil, inhuman, cruel and unconstitutional practice. Instant divorce by verbally saying Talaq thrice is illegal. There were several incidents coming where women had been given Talaq through a letter, phone or even through message and WhatsApp. Such incidents are unacceptable to a sensitive country and to a government committed to inclusive development," he said.

"Several Muslim-majority nations of the world had declared Triple Talaq as illegal and un-Islamic much earlier. Egypt was the first Muslim nation which abolished this social evil in 1929. Sudan in 1929, Pakistan in 1956, Bangladesh in 1972, Iraq in 1959, Syria in 1953, Malaysia in 1969 had abolished the practice of Triple Talaq. Besides, countries such as Cyprus, Jordan, Algeria, Iran, Brunei, Morocco, Qatar, UAE also ended this social evil many years ago. But it took 70 years for India to get rid of this inhuman and cruel practice," he added.

"The Government led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi made the law against Triple Talaq to make effective the Supreme Courts judgement. The Supreme Court, on 18th May 2017, had declared Triple Talaq as unconstitutional. By abolishing the Triple Talaq, the Modi Government has strengthened socio-economic, fundamental and constitutional rights of the Muslim women," he further added.

"Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modis Government is committed to the empowerment of all sections and social reforms. Some political parties give illogic that why the Modi Government is worried about Talaq in Muslim women? Why the Government dont do anything for their socio-economic-educational empowerment? I want to make it clear to those people who ask such questions that during the last about 6 years, the Modi Government has worked with inclusive empowerment for every section including Muslim women," he stated.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With the US needing to continuously increase its access to diagnostics for routine testing for safer re-opening, Bettermeant Health is stepping into working with authorized and audited healthcare suppliers.

Bettermeant Health

Amidst the pandemic, the challenge has not only been to access necessary materials but also identifying reliable partners. American healthcare is facing a major revolution in the past few months, and it is only highlighted by our role on a global scale. Bettermeant Health's online healthcare marketplace focused on government health, is joining forces with major suppliers to provide a reliable pipeline in the face of a crisis. The Bettermeant Health team has in the past focused on providing digital health resources but has re-tooled its healthcare marketplace to respond to the world's changing needs.

Ahmed 'Eddie' Qureshi, Founder at Bettermeant Health said, "A timely response right now requires not only the ability to get the diagnostic kits and materials but also building out a network of reliable partnerships that can adapt over time." In some places around the country, the response has been disparate and with individual providers needing to put in their own administrative resources to verify the authenticity of the sellers. This is a heavily manual process and one that Bettermeant Health is rectifying and make available to everyone for greater peace of mind through automation and verified partnerships.

Genophyll is proud to partner with 3B Blackbio Biotech, the manufacturer of FDA EUA authorized TRUPCR SARS-CoV-2 Kit, to broaden its ability to serve the Western hemisphere. The TRUPCR SARS-CoV-2 Kit is a highly-sensitive, comprehensive three gene detection assay (includes the E, RdRp, and N gene). In addition to its FDA Emergency Use Authorization, the kit has also been validated by the National Institute of Virology in Pune, a World Health Organization site.

This validation involved third party testing of the sensitivity and specificity of the kit before it was authorized for use. The CEO, Aditi Luthra said, "Our manufacturing partner in India, which currently holds the only Indian-made FDA EUA authorization for an RT-PCR kit for the novel coronavirus, has a capacity of 100,000 reactions a day. That, coupled with on-the-ground technical customer service support in the US and lower supply costs in India, uniquely positions Genophyll to offer a high-quality, easy to use, cost-effective solution."

With cases spiking in the US and states reopening, we need to be prepared for any eventualities and decisive response. Bettermeant Health continues to serve all healthcare stakeholders for a healthier America.

Contact:

Ahmed "Eddie" Qureshi, Chief Executive Officer, Bettermeant Health

[email protected]

Aditi Luthra, Chief Executive Officer. Genophyll Enterprises

Mobile: 832-248-1629

Related Images

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SOURCE Bettermeant Health
More than four weeks after he vanished, a missing Baytown man has been identified as the victim in a gruesome slaying and dismemberment allegedly carried out by his machete-wielding girlfriend, according to court documents.

Cierra Sutton was arrested Thursday after police accused her of shooting a sleeping Steven Coleman and cutting him up with a machete before ditching his body in different dumpsters.

But as of Sunday evening, authorities said the one recovered body part had not yet been positively identified through DNA as Coleman.

Another Baytown incident:

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Baytown man surrenders after shooting wife in front of kids

"Based off what we learned they appear to be one and the same," Baytown police spokesman Steve Dorris said.

Sutton kicked off the case with a missing persons report on Aug. 18, two days after the slaying police say occurred at Briarwood Village Apartments. When she came into the station to file a report, Sutton told police she'd last seen her boyfriend that Wednesday, when he'd left home around 10:30 p.m.

But Coleman's car was still sitting in the lot outside the couple's shared apartment, and the 32-year-old's mother told investigators she hadn't seen him in at least a week. A friend said she'd spoken to him that Wednesday around 10:20 p.m., when he'd promised to come help look for her daughter - but then he never showed up.

The friend also cautioned investigators that the missing man had allegedly warned her before: If he ever disappeared, police should investigate his girlfriend.

Coleman's neighbors and apartment manager said they'd last seen him the Monday before his disappearance. Afterward, one witness said she'd spotted Sutton moving furniture out of Coleman's apartment, court records show. Another witness told police she'd seen two men help Sutton move stuff into a truck.

That Thursday - the day before Sutton reported her boyfriend missing - a woman matching her description used Coleman's card to buy a foam bed topper and duct tape at a Baytown Walmart, according to a sworn statement filed in Harris County court.

Five days later, a man's torso was found in the Baytown landfill in Chambers County, which takes trash from dumpsters across Baytown and Pasadena. The decomposing pelvis included certain details matching the description Sutton gave police when her boyfriend disappeared.

The week after Coleman's last sighting, police searched the couple's apartment and found it "mostly vacant" with blood traces scattered across the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.

But as the case dragged on, Sutton had disappeared as well. Before the hurricane, she told Baytown police she'd come talk with them further about the investigation - but then she never showed, according to court documents.

Instead, authorities used an anonymous tipster to help track her down in September, tracing her to Louisiana, where she'd stopped by a Covington home shared by her brother and his girlfriend. Under questioning, the brother's girlfriend told investigators that Sutton had admitted to shooting Coleman in his sleep, then cutting him up with a machete and wrapping the remains in sheets and duct tape, according to court records.

Then, Sutton allegedly loaded the evidence in her Jeep and disposed the pieces at different dumpsters.

When police finally interviewed Sutton's best friend, she and her boyfriend both offered a similar story, claiming Sutton had confessed to killing her boyfriend after an argument  allegedly while her 10-year-old daughter Trinity was in the living room. She'd chopped up his body because he was too heavy to carry, police say she told her best friend's boyfriend.

Sutton was charged with murder and arrested late Thursday in Louisiana. She did not appear to be in the Harris County jail as of Sunday afternoon, and court records do not show any assigned attorney.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Bengali journalist Suman Chattopadhyay who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in December 2018 for his alleged involvement in a ponzi scam.

A three-judge bench headed by justice Rohinton Nariman noted that Chattopadhyay is admitted to the Apollo Hospital in Bhubaneswar for serious heart trouble and lung infection and may, therefore, be more prone to Covid-19 infection than other prisoners.

We think this (is) one good reason for releasing the petitioner on bail. The petitioner be released on bail to the satisfaction of the trial Court immediately, the bench comprising justices Navin Sinha and Indira Banerjee ruled.

After being in incarceration for over a year and a half, justice has finally been meted out to Chattopadhyay. The Supreme Court has long been a guardian of personal liberties of citizens, and todays order is a reflection of that. This may be an important step in his otherwise longer drawn battle, Chattopadhyays lawyer, Sahil Tagotra told HT.

Chattopadhyay has served as the editor of Ananda Bazaar Patrika and Ei Shomoy, a Bengali daily. He had then started his own newspaper, Ek Din, and raised money from I-Core services which had come up using chit funds.

I-Core group came under scanner after one Ajay Kumar Sahoo filed a complaint with the Bhubaneswar police that after maturity of his deposit with I-Core, the amount was not returned to him. Chattopadhyay and two promoters of I-Core were later arrested by CBI in the matter.

While the promoters of I-Core were subsequently released on bail, Chattopadhyays bail plea was rejected earlier on several occasions both by the sessions court and the high court.

The latest was on June 4 when the high court rejected the plea though Chattopadhyay had highlighted his deteriorating health coupled with the fact that he has been in jail for 18 months.

Chattopadhyay submitted before the Supreme Court that the trial has not yet commenced in the case and not even a single question was put to him by CBI in the last 18 months.

Only three accused were arrested in the present case of which two main accused have already been granted bail by the high court. There has not been a single allegation against the petitioner that he may have attempted to influence the course of investigation, tamper with evidence or intimidate any witness, the petition stated.
At Istanbul meeting, Russia and Turkey agree to push for a ceasefire but Ankara says eastern commander must retreat.

Turkey and Russia agreed on Wednesday to press for a ceasefire in war-ravaged Libya, but Ankara said the leader of the eastern forces was illegitimate and must withdraw from key positions for a credible truce to take hold.

Moscow and Ankara are among the main power brokers in Libyas conflict while supporting opposing sides. Russia backs the eastern-based forces of renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar, while Turkey has helped the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) repel Haftars attempt to storm the capital.

Weve just reached an agreement with Russia to work on a credible and sustainable ceasefire in Libya, President Recep Tayyip Erdogans top security adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, told Reuters news agency.

Kalin said any deal must be based on a return to what he said were the Libyan front lines in 2015, requiring Haftars forces to pull back from the strategic city of Sirte  gateway to Libyas eastern oilfields  and al-Jufra, an airbase near the centre of the country.

For the ceasefire to be sustainable, Jufra and Sirte should be evacuated by Haftars forces, Kalin said.

Battle for Sirte

Turkish-backed forces allied with the UN-recognised government in the capital are mobilising on the edges of Sirte and have vowed to retake the Mediterranean city along with the inland al-Jufra airbase.





The United States has said Moscow sent warplanes to al-Jufra via Syria to support Russian mercenaries fighting alongside Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA). Russia and the LNA both deny this.

Egypt, which also backs the LNA, has threatened to send troops into neighbouring Libya if the GNA and Turkish forces try to seize Sirte. The Egyptian parliament on Sunday gave a green light for possible military intervention.

Kalin said any Egyptian deployment in Libya would hamper efforts to end the fighting and would be risky for Cairo. I believe it will be a dangerous military adventure for Egypt.

Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry said on Wednesday achieving a political solution in Libya requires a firm response to extremists and foreign interference, which not only threaten Egypts interests but also the security of Mediterranean countries.

He noted a peace proposal announced in Cairo last month aimed at stabilising Libya and eliminating armed fighters and militias in the oil-rich country.

The proposal announced by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi included a ceasefire and a new elected presidential body representing the three Libyan regions. The east Libya camp accepted the proposal, dubbed the Cairo Declaration, while the Tripoli-based administration rejected it.





Wednesdays joint agreement by Turkey and Russia on their ceasefire efforts included a call for measures to allow humanitarian access to those in need and efforts to promote political dialogue between the rival Libya sides.

But Kalin said Haftar had violated previous truce deals and was not a reliable partner, suggesting other figures in the east should play a role.

We dont take [Haftar] as a legitimate actor anyway, he said. But there is another parliament in Tobruk. There are other players in Benghazi. The negotiations will have to take place between them.

The LNA has itself sent fighters and weapons to bolster its defence of Sirte, already badly battered from earlier phases of warfare and chaos since the 2011 revolution against longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi.

Russias foreign ministry said it backs a ceasefire and political talks that would culminate in united governing authorities. Russia has received senior delegations from both sides of the Libyan conflict in Moscow and tried and failed to get Haftar to sign up to a ceasefire agreement.

All kinds of bullying

Shukrys comments came in separate phone calls with Frances Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, according to a statement from Egypts foreign ministry.





Erdogan, meanwhile, chaired a high-level security meeting that focused on Libya on Wednesday.

A statement released at the end of the National Security Council meeting said Turkey would not hesitate to take all steps necessary against all kinds of bullying taking place in Libya.

The council promised to stand by the people of Libya against any tyranny.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and other foreign powers have provided Haftars forces with critical military assistance.

Russia also sent hundreds of mercenaries through the Wagner Group, a private military company.

Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled Gaddafi who was later killed.
Thousands of local residents in Ho Chi Minh City are participating in the 8th national blood-donation campaign Hanh Trinh Do (Red Journey) that started in Ho Chi Minh City on July 21.

Local residents in HCM City donate blood as part of the Hanh Trinh Do (Red Journey) campaign.

Tran Truong Son, Chairman of the Red Cross Society of HCM City, said the voluntary blood donation movement in the city would help ensure a stable blood supply for medical treatment and emergencies.

The campaign aims to educate the public about the importance of blood donation and encourage them to donate to ease the blood shortage during the summer break, Son said.

It is expected to collect 1,000 blood units this year. In 2019, the Red Journey attracted 2,000 people and collected 1,584 units of blood in the city.

The Red Journey campaign is taking place from June 6 to August 2 in 42 provinces and cities. It was launched by the national steering committee for blood donations and the Ministry of Health.

It targets collecting at least 50,000 units of blood during the two-month campaign./. VNA
Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the action and warned of firm counter measures if US did not reverse its decision.

Beijing: China said Wednesday that the US has ordered it to close its consulate in Houston in what an official called an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage China-US relations.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the action, which comes as tensions rise between the world's two largest economies. He warned of firm countermeasures if the US does not reverse its decision.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Wang said at a daily news briefing.

There was no immediate confirmation or explanation from the US side. Besides its embassy in Beijing, the US has five consulates in mainland China, according to its website. They are in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and Shenyang.

Media reports in Houston said that authorities had responded to reports of a fire at the Chinese Consulate. Witnesses said that people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, the Houston Chronicle reported, citing police.

Police were told that occupants were given until 4 pm Friday to leave the property, the Chronicle said.

Houston police said in a tweet that officers responded to a meet the firefighter call at the Chinese Consulate building at 3417 Montrose Blvd. The tweet said that smoke was observed in an outdoor courtyard area and that officers were not allowed to enter the building.
Sydney could reportedly be cut off from Queensland within a matter of days.

Police on the Queensland border are said to be preparing for harsher restrictions on people entering the state if more coronavirus hotspots emerge in Sydney.

One scenario cops are bracing for is that the entirety of Sydney is declared a COVID-19 danger zone.

A senior police source told the Courier-Mail that officers are prepared to enforce any changes as soon as today.

Queensland Police could tighten border controls to lock out the entire city of Sydney within a matter of days (Pictured: Police screen incoming passengers at the Brisbane domestic airport)

Sydney could be declared a coronavirus 'hotspot' and all five million residents banned from entering without an exemption (Pictured: residents enjoy the sunshine at Bondi Beach as coronavirus case numbers rise in the harbour city)

'There is no way that more hot spots are not going to be declared, and all of Sydney would definitely be a consideration given what's happening down there,' the source said.

'If the situation continues to deteriorate over the next week, I honestly don't see how we wouldn't look at closing the border entirely.'

Authorities could declare more hotspots in Sydney in the coming days as more clusters emerge.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Queensland Health and Queensland Police for comment.

The Sunshine state has already declared the whole state of Victoria a hotspot, as well as the Liverpool and Campbelltown local government areas in southwestern Sydney (Pictured: Cars wait in line to cross the NSW/Qld border at Coolangatta on Wednesday July 22)

Queensland has already declared the whole state of Victoria a hotspot, as well as the Liverpool and Campbelltown local government areas in southwestern Sydney.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the government is looking at blacklisting even more areas in New South Wales.

'I had a preliminary discussion yesterday with the deputy premier and also the chief health officer,' she told reporters on Tuesday.

'We're going to look at what happens in New South Wales today, but we are considering adding further hotspots at this stage,' she said.

The placement of checkpoints along the Queensland-NSW border remains a sore point for both premiers, with neither prepared to concede ground.

Ms Palaszczuk wants the border moved south to the Tweed River to resolve traffic congestion in Tweed Heads and Coolangatta, where locals have been blocked into their driveways.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says, if anything, checkpoints should move further into Queensland.

Tight border controls have resulted in hundreds of people being sent packing for trying to enter Queensland in breach of lockdown laws, including a man who hid in a car boot.

Two women were caught trying to smuggle the man into Queensland in a scene reminiscent of an East German making a break for freedom beyond the Berlin Wall.

The vehicle was stopped just after dark on Sunday at Wallangarra, in the Southern Downs, and police found the 41-year-old man hiding in the rear.

He was fined $4003 for attempting to enter Queensland without a Border Declaration Pass and denied entry while the women, aged 28 and 29, were also refused entry.

Growing concern over an emerging second wave of COVID-19 in NSW could result in Queensland declaring more hotspots and denying entry to more people from the state (pictured: traffic banks up near the NSW-Queensland border)

Pictured: A map showing coronavirus cases recorded in Sydney since July 1. The city's south-west has been hit the hardest. The areas seen in the lightest shade of red have record one case in the past three weeks. The city's inner west, eastern suburbs and northern beaches have so far remained unscathed

Pictured: A map shows Sydney's coronavirus hotspot sites

Queensland has just two active COVID-19 cases while 96 people are being treated for the virus across NSW. Pictured: A shopper is seen wearing a face mask while walking through Pitt Street Mall in Sydney
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper plans to visit China for talks on how to improve two-way communications in a crisis as geopolitical tensions between the superpowers rise and concerns mount over a potential South China Sea flashpoint.

Esper said Tuesday that he hopes to make the trip before year-end to "establish the systems necessary for crisis communications and reinforce our intentions to openly compete in the international system in which we all belong."

Last week, the United States formally declared Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in South China Sea as illegal, explicitly backing the territorial claims of Southeast Asian countries against China's.

It has also downgraded relations with Hong Kong after China implemented a new security law in violation of its promises of autonomy for the territory.

"We are not in search of conflict," Esper said in an address to the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

But China "has no right to turn international waters into a zone of exclusion for its own maritime empire," he said.

Not China's 'Maritime Empire'

Beijing has sought to make its claims to much of the South China Sea a de facto reality by building up small shoals and reefs into sizable military bases with long airstrips and deep port facilities.

On July 2, the US Defense Department criticized Chinese military exercises around the Paracel Islands, saying they "further destabilize the situation" in an area also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

Two days later, the Pentagon said two of its own aircraft carriers had carried out drills in the South China Sea to "support a free and open Indo-Pacific," a spokesman said.

On July 13, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo voiced a challenge to China's claims stronger than had previously come out of Washington.

"The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire," Pompeo declared in a statement.

"We are making clear: Beijing's claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them," Pompeo said.

Threats to Taiwan, Japan

Esper cited China's militarization of contested South China Sea islands, its sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat and harassment of Malaysian oil and gas activities, and its protecting fishing fleets that Indonesia says are illegally poaching in its waters.

He also pointed to the People's Liberation Army's recent exercises simulating an attack on Taiwan, increasing incursions into the waters around the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, the new security law in Hong Kong, and its tolerance of North Korean trade in violation of a UN embargo.

"Make no mistake, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has been engaged in this sort of behavior for many years. But today it's true intentions are on full display for all to see," said Esper.

"While we hope the CCP will change its ways, we must be prepared for the alternative."

"We are committed to a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China and, within our defense relationship, to open lines of communication and risk reduction," he said.

China unsurprisingly accuses the United States of being the destabilizing influence in the region.

"The US military deployment in the Asia-Pacific region is unprecedented," Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, a government think tank, said in late June.

"The possibility of a military incident or an accidental shot fired is rising," Wu said.

"If a crisis were to erupt, the repercussions on bilateral relations would be catastrophic."

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Esper's trip to China is still in the planning stage.

"Part of it's going to be, we seek to maintain military-to-military relationships with China and Russia alike. We believe that's incredibly important to avoid misunderstandings in the future."

"What we're going to do is talk to the Chinese... about how there is an international world rules-based order," he said.

"We believe that China and the Chinese people are best served by embracing that order instead of attempting to replace it with a different set of rules."

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Remittances represent the money sent by migrant workers back to their home countries. A remittance corridor is essentially the sum of remittances sent between two specific countries. Hundreds of billions of dollars are sent in remittances globally each year. A disproportionately large amount of this vast flow is captured in just a handful of bilateral channels. Here is a look at the top remittance corridors of the world.

US-Mexico

The single largest bilateral transfer of remittances in the world currently flows from the US to Mexico. From $24 billion in 2015 this massive corridor grew by 42.7% to cross $34.70 billion in 2017. Mexico remains the largest recipient of remittances from the US. More than 7.5 million Mexican migrants in the US send remittances to their families. The average cost of sending remittances from the US to Mexico is 4.22%, or $8.44 for every $200 sent. This is a bit lower than the world average. Mexicans love to send money online via mobile money applications. In 2018 remittances to Mexico contributed 2.8% to the countrys GDP. Government policies in both countries, geographic proximity, shared culture, and a long shared border are some favorable factors for US-Mexico remittances to continue to grow.

UAE-India

The Indian Diaspora in the UAE is truly vast. At 3.3 million strong, Indians are the largest migrant group in the UAE. This makes India the largest recipient of remittances from the UAE. Indian migrants in the UAE send $18.53 billion to India annually in remittances. This corridor saw a staggering 34% growth from 2017 to 2018. The average cost of sending remittances to India from the UAE is 3.45%, or $6.9 for every $200 sent. This is cheaper than most other remittance corridors. Indian migrants in the UAE also prefer mobile applications as their favorite method of sending remittances. The fast processing speed and greater ease of mobile apps has made them very popular for migrant workers as well as their families back home. According to the World Bank remittances from UAE contributed 0.68% to Indias GDP in 2018.

Hong Kong-China

This is the third largest remittance corridor in the world as per the World Banks 2018 data. Remittances sent from Hong Kong to China in 2018 amounted to $16.34 billion. The corridor grew by 5.09% from 2017 to 2018. There are 2.4 million Chinese migrants in Hong Kong. They pay an average of 5% in transfer fees every time they send remittances back home. Remittances from Hong Kong represent a small fraction of Chinas GDP, merely 0.12%. However these remittances are vital lifelines for many Chinese families. Banks are the preferred remittance medium in this corridor.

US-China

Being the largest origin country of remittances by a wide margin, the US is the starting point of many global remittance corridors. After Mexico, China is the second largest recipient of remittances from the US. In 2017, $16.14 billion were sent to China from the US. In 2018 the corridor shrank by 10%, to $14.52 billion. 1.7 million Chinese remittance senders reside in the US. The average cost of sending remittances from the US to China is 5.39%, or $10.78 for every $200 sent. Remittances from the US contributed 0.11% to Chinas 2018 GDP. Unlike their Hong Kong compatriots Chinese migrants in the US favor mobile applications over banks as their remittance method.

US-India

Remittance sent from the US to India grew from $11.7 billion in 2017 to $12.7 billion in 2018. There are over 2.4 million Indians living in the US. 80% of them send remittances to India. The average cost of sending remittances from the US to India is just 3.27%. The dominant players in this remittance corridor are still banks. Nonetheless, mobile applications are fast becoming the preferred medium because of their ease and speed. Better employment opportunities and education are the major factors driving the migration of Indians to the US.

US-Philippines

In 2018 the US-Philippines remittance corridor was ranked seventh largest in the world. 1.94 million remittance senders transferred more than $11.4 billion to the Philippines from the US in 2018. The average cost of sending remittances in this corridor is 3.51%, or about $7.01 for every $200 sent. As elsewhere in the world, OFWs in the US also prefer to send money online. Remittances from the US contributed 3.3% to the Philippines GDP in 2018.

About the author:

Hemant G is a contributing writer at Sparkwebs LLC, a Digital and Content Marketing Agency. When hes not writing, he loves to travel, scuba dive, and watch documentaries.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- As New York City enters Phase 4 of the states reopening plan this week, the Staten Island Zoo, West Brighton, is preparing to open its doors to visitors after shuttering in March due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Zoo will open the outdoor exhibits this weekend for members, and the general public will be able to visit beginning Monday, July 27.
The Indian Navy is in the process of deploying its MiG-29K fighter jets to key air force bases in northern India amid the ongoing border tension with China in the sensitive Ladakh sector, people familiar with the developments said, asking not to be named.

The navy has a fleet of at least 40 MiG-29K fighters, of which 18 are deployed on Indias sole aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, and the rest are based in Goa.

Some of the jets are being moved from Goa to IAF bases in the north keeping in mind the current security scenario, said one of the officials cited above. IAF has moved several of its fighters from bases in North India to the Ladakh sector as part of Indias plan to strengthen is military posture there, said a second official. It was not immediately clear in what role the naval fighters will be used.

If assets and operational pilots are available, why not utilise them? said naval affairs expert Captain DK Sharma (retd).

The Indian Navy has been a part of the militarys ongoing efforts in the Ladakh sector.

The navys P-8I maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft have been used for surveillance in the region, while their primary role encompasses carrying out anti-submarine warfare, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance of the oceans. The P-8Is, imported from the United States, carried out similar surveillance missions during the 2017 Doklam standoff.

The navy has also been active in the Indian Ocean region, where it is keeping a close watch on possible Chinese naval activities. On Monday, a US Navy carrier strike group, led by USS Nimitz, conducted maritime drills with Indian warships in the Indian Ocean, against the backdrop of the India-China border standoff. The passage exercise involved a total of eight Indian and US warships.

The drills also came at a time when tensions have mounted over Chinas activities in South China Sea, where the US Navy just conducted a major exercise that involved two carrier strike groups.

The navy has been on an operational alert in the Indian Ocean, where scores of warships are ready for any task in the aftermath of the border row.

It has positioned warships along critical sea lanes of communications and choke points under its mission-based deployment model and the vessels could be diverted for any mission.

Indian warships are deployed from the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Strait, and northern Bay of Bengal to the south-east coast of Africa.
One student who took the MCAT exam last month said she thought it was horribly hypocritical that the gatekeepers of the medical profession expect us to go to these tests in these tiny rooms with people we dont know for six hours and just breathe that in. She noted the COVID-19 situation is worse in many parts of the country than when the AAMC initially canceled exams in March.
Nearly all of Oregons public school students will be required to wear face coverings during in-person instruction if they return to the classroom in the fall, the state Department of Education said Wednesday.

The announcement came in conjunction with Gov. Kate Brown mandating children ages 5 and older wear masks in public starting Friday.

The announcement reversed an earlier mandate by the Oregon Department of Education requiring school employees, but not children, to wear masks inside buildings. Now, only pre-kindergarteners and students with medical exemptions will be allowed to enter classrooms without a face covering.

We have stepped out onto the ice and the ice has cracked. Before we fall through the ice, we need to take additional steps to protect ourselves and our communities, Brown said. Its time for further actions to stop the spread of this disease.

The rationale for the states original stance was that all students are entitled to a free public education and their refusal to wear a mask should not make them subject to disciplinary measures or be used to deny them an equal education.

Brown said her administration will set clear metrics such as rates of community spread of the virus to guide local decisions about school reopenings. She said officials will determine those statistics and announce them soon.

I dont make these decisions lightly and there are no easy choices, Brown said.

State officials determined they can in fact make mask-wearing a condition of in-person instruction for student ages 5 and older, given the seriousness of coronavirus and its widespread presence among Oregons population.

To help school districts meet the new requirement, the Oregon Department of Education will distribute 5 million face coverings to school districts for students and employees to wear, the agency said Wednesday.

Read the states full guidance for fall instruction here

Studies have shown that young children contract COVID-19 at a lower rate than other demographics, but Brown and Oregon health officials say theyve kept an eye on studies out of South Korea that indicate students 10 and older are capable of spreading the coronavirus as well as adults.

State guidelines say students, teachers and other school employees must quarantine themselves for 10 days after showing COVID-19 symptoms such as fevers of 100.4 degrees or higher, shortness of breath or a dry cough.

(Elementary age) children can be infected by COVID-19. These younger children live with families, Oregon State Health Authority Epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said.

Brown issued her original school closure order in part under pressure from superintendents in the states largest districts who said their teacher and substitute corps expressed concerns over exposure to children who may have contracted COVID-19 but did not show symptoms.

State guidelines released in June called for districts to offer some form of education to all students beginning in the fall and to submit their tentative fall plans to the Department of Education by mid-August. Districts can opt to have students return to classrooms in-person, go fully online or a combination of the two.

Most of the states largest districts have tentatively adopted the hybrid model.

One thing is very clear: School in the fall will not look like a normal year. Many, if not most, Oregon students will be in districts that will focus on online distance learning or a hybrid model limiting in-person instruction time, Brown said.

In Eugene, families will start the school year Sept. 14 online. After that, children will either attend class in-person on alternating weeks or go fully online.

The Beaverton district similarly announced it will launch an online program for families who opt to keep their children out of the classroom. The district will also split classes into smaller groups of students who will physically attend class together.

And in the states largest district, Portland Public Schools will also split in half all its classes from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade into cohorts and have each group attend class physically two days per week.

Meanwhile, officials in Jefferson County earlier this month announced all of their students will return to in-person instruction full-time this fall.

Portland district officials said they will only open school buildings to in-person instruction if they get the go-ahead from public health officials.

The Department of Education on Wednesday said schools must ensure students only come into prolonged contact of 15 minutes or more with 100 or fewer students and adults per week at school and on school transportation.

Class sizes were already limited by the requirement that each person in a classroom be provided at least 35 square feet. For children in middle and high school grades, that also means the sum of students and adults in all a students classes and on their bus rides cant exceed 100.

State education officials also said they are considering dropping the requirement that schools drops students from their roster, and thus their funding stream, after 10 absences.

The governors announcement comes as many states are reconsidering their back-to-school options, with teacher unions all over the nation pushing back as health risks continue for students and school employees and their household members.

As Portland Public Schools begins negotiating safe working conditions for the fall with the union representing its teachers, 43% of that unions members say they either belong to a high-risk demographic or live with somebody who does, according to a union survey. Four-fifths of union members said they had low confidence in the districts ability to properly sanitize school buildings.

And 15% said it was unlikely theyd return to work if the district required in-person instruction.

A group of Oregon educators has pressed for the governor to require there be no new COVID-19 cases in the surrounding county for 14 consecutive days before allowing students to return to in-person instruction.

Brown has not addressed such concerns directly but said she is pushing districts to ensure their plans for fall prioritize Black, Native and other students of color, saying any reopening plans should not exacerbate longstanding educational inequalities.

Brown spokesman Charles Boyle previously told The Oregonian/OregonLive such supports might include districts ensuring those students have access to broadband internet, mental health and social-emotional supports and school meals.

In response to their districts limited in-person instruction plans, families in Oregon and across the country have opted to share childcare providers or private tutors who guide their childrens learning when theyre not physically in school, a tactic widely called learning pods.

Educators have warned that such pods may widen academic achievement gaps, particularly if white, affluent families cluster their children together and exclude children of color.

--Eder Campuzano | 503-221-4344 | @edercampuzano

Are you a student, parent or teacher? How do you feel about your districts fall plans? Wed love to hear from you. Email Eder at ecampuzano@oregonian.com.

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
"Let's see," ponders George Manojlovic of Mangerton. "If I test negative, that's a positive, and if I test positive, that's a negative. When it's a lockdown I'm locked up. I'm encouraged to sneeze into my elbow and then use it as a form of greeting (the elbow, not the sneeze). Nevertheless, one positive of lockdown is the opportunity to clean out the kitchen pantry (COOK-VID-19). Mine resembled a men's grooming department: full of old spice."

Fran Kirby of Castle Hill was intrigued by the 1969 Timelines description of the Australian entrant in The Miss Universe contest: For her native costume she wore a yellow wraparound dress with a large hole in the middle. I'd love to have read the design brief.

Talk about food bravery (C8), says Jack Dikian of Mosman. In 1963, Masterfoods decided to divide its spreads by gender. Liverwurst paste was the pride of housewives due to its mild flavour reminiscent of 'provincial France' and, in contrast, Smoky kipper spread, a real mans paste. Those were the days.

The tales of the road (C8) continue. Kerry Close of Point Clare writes: During World War II, before the road bridge was built across the Hawkesbury River, my mother, now 94, and her family along with the pet dog were travelling by car from Sydney to the Central Coast on Christmas Eve. The big car ferry which would normally have taken 40 cars across at a time had been taken to New Guinea by the army, leaving a smaller 10-car ferry in its place. It took the family 11 and a half hours just to cross the Hawkesbury. No mobile phones or devices then to while away the time, just talk and beautiful scenery.

In 1967, I recall being on a Dion's Bus (C8) which had to reverse up Foothills Road, Mount Ousley, due to it being unable to make it up frontwards, says Robin Staniforth of Mayfield. Carole Baxter of Woodgate (Qld) recalls that: "Any 1960s trip in a Dion's bus from Bulli to Wollongong central always seemed to take forever when the owner-driver was at the wheel, he was sooo slow! That's why Dion's is still going 90 years later."
A criminal complaint alleged that the supposedly nonprofit Generation Now received about $60 million in bribe money from FirstEnergy Solutions in exchange for Householder and other legislators help in passing House Bill 6, as well as to ensure that efforts to overturn the bill are blocked. House Bill 6 served as a billion-dollar bailout for FirstEnergy, saving two of the companys nuclear power plants.

Generation Now was incorporated by Longstreth in early 2017, but federal investigators said that they have obtained a recording which revealed that it was secretly controlled by Householder. Prosecutors added that Generation Now had received quarterly payments of $250,000 from related energy companies via deposits into its bank account.

Federal investigators also alleged that the defendants spent considerable amounts of money on Householder's bid to become speaker, as well as for their own personal gain. It is also alleged that Generation Now used the bribe money to back the campaigns of 21 different state candidates in the 2018 primary and general elections. More than $1 million was also spent by Generation Now on smear campaigns about the candidates who ran against the ones supported by the shell company, investigators said.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that no one from FirstEnergy has yet been charged. But in a statement with CNN, FirstEnergy confirmed that it had "received subpoenas in connection" with the investigation.

"We are reviewing the details of the investigation and we intend to fully cooperate," the company added in its statement.

The Department of Justice said in a news release that for his part in the conspiracy, Householder received over $400,000 in personal benefits. He used those funds to pay for costs related to his residence in Florida, settle a personal lawsuit, and pay off credit card debt.

Well before his days as a House speaker, Householder was an insurance agent for State Farm from 1982 to 2001. He later became the president of the Perry County Commission in Ohio, then ran for State Representative in 1996. In 2001, he was elected to serve as Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives.

Householder and several other advisers had already been placed under investigation as far back as 2004 for alleged money laundering and irregular campaign practices, but the case was closed.
He railed against feminazis online, and in his work as a lawyer targeted several programs that he said benefited women. In 2008, he sued Columbia University, arguing that its womens studies program was discriminatory toward men.

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Mr. Den Hollander also sued nightclubs that offered ladies night discounts.

In New Jersey in 2015, before Judge Salas, he challenged the male-only military draft. He left the case last summer, telling the lawyer who replaced him that he had terminal cancer.

The shooting

The authorities believe that Mr. Den Hollander went to the judges home in North Brunswick, N.J., on Sunday afternoon. The judges husband, Mark Anderl, a criminal defense lawyer, thought he saw a FedEx deliveryman through a window.

Carlos Salas, Judge Salass older brother, recounted what he said the federal authorities had told him: The doorbell was rung, and when the couples only son, Daniel Anderl, answered the door, he was shot and killed. His father was shot multiple times when he ran over to see what had happened.

Judge Salas was in the basement during the shooting and was unharmed.

The son, 20, was going into his junior year at Catholic University of America in Washington. He wished to pursue a legal career, like his parents had.

Mr. Salas said on Monday that Mark Anderl was in the hospital in stable condition.

The investigation

The federal and local authorities are working with the F.B.I. on the case. Investigators were exploring whether Mr. Den Hollander wanted to take out his enemies before he died of cancer.
(Photo : REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann) People enjoy hot summer weather on the banks of the Limmat river, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Zurich, Switzerland July 20, 2020. (Photo : REUTERS/Jose Cabezas) Recently dug graves are seen at an area for victims of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at La Bermeja cemetery, as the coronavirus disease outbreak continues in San Salvador, El Salvador July 21, 2020.

Scientists worldwide found that a 1C temperature rise is related to a 15% decline in coronavirus-related deaths.

King's College London Epidemiologist Tim Spector who runs the COVID Symptom Tracker app noted that summer is a 'window of opportunity' to eliminate the virus in Europe. According to Daily Mail, the risk of severe COVID-19 cases is lower with warmer and more humid weather, but higher when it is cold.

Prof. Spector said BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday, July 21, that seven hospitals in Europe have recorded data, and temperatures and records show that every rise in temperature has reduced mortality by about 15%. "So generally, as the weather got warmer the severity of the disease reduced and mortality reduced over time," he added.

Professor Spector also reviewed the data from his COVID Symptom Tracker app's 37,000 users in the U.K. He found people appear to have a shorter, less severe illness as the weather becomes warmer.

The professor also worked with other scientists worldwide in studying nearly 7,000 hospitalized COVD-19 patients in the UK Italy, Croatia, Finland, Spain, Germany, Poland, and China.

Overall, intensive care demand in European hospitals fell by 2.2% per day while patients requiring ventilators dropped by 2.1% between February and May.

While deaths and severity of cases fell as summer entered Europe, the same trend was not seen in China where most of the cases happened during winter between December and February.

However, researchers did not provide the exact numbers for people who were hospitalized and died. However, they claimed that the difference in the disease's strength was too huge to be caused by enhanced remedies.

Meanwhile, Professor Spector said that aside from the actual temperature, it is similarly important to also consider the humidity.

Researchers also noted that humid East Asian countries did not have high COVID-19 deaths like those in European nations. For instance, Japan and Singapore only had 4% and .06% of deaths, respectively, which is much lower than Britain's 15.4% and Italy's 14%, according to the World Health Organization.

Winter may come with COVID-19 second wave

While the death rates are lower during summer, thousands of people continue to get infected in the United Kingdom. Professor Spector is worried that the end of the hot season is fast approaching and winter may trigger the second wave.

A BBC report said that scientists have been giving warnings about the higher risks during winter for months, not only with coronavirus but also with other viruses like colds and flu.

While the U.K. only recorded 1,100 deaths for July, scientists claimed it could reach 120,000 as the second wave of infections happens during winter.

According to a "reasonable" worst-case scenario model they created, scientists suggest that hospitals may record COVID-19 deaths ranging from 24,500 to 251,000, particularly in January and February.

"This is not a prediction - but it is a possibility," said University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust Prof Stephen Holgate, a respiratory specialist who led the study.

The research also stated that the coronavirus can longer survive at a lower temperature, but scientists noted that reducing the risk is possible "if we take action immediately."

Read also: Trump's 'Heat vs COVID-19' Theory May Work, Based on Studies

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After concluding a "quick" trade deal, India and the US need to sit down on the negotiating table for working towards a more sustainable, robust and enduring partnership in the form of a free trade agreement (FTA), Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.

For the FTA, the minister said, India is willing to work with an open mind, with a willingness to open markets with a corresponding opportunity for Indian businesses in the US.

"I believe we have a quick trade deal which has some of the pending matters built up over the last couple of years which we need to get out of the way quickly. We are almost there. I think another couple of calls and we should be able to solve that out.

"Post that, as was already intimated to the US Congress, the US and India need to sit down on the negotiating table, I do not know if that can be done before the (US) elections or post the elections, but we need to work towards a much more sustainable, a much more robust, a much more enduring partnership in the form of a FTA," he said in a webinar of US-India Business Council.

Goyal said that both the countries should also look for a preferential trade agreement (PTA) which can include 50-100 products and services. While in a PTA two trading partners eliminate or significantly reduce import duties on a limited number of goods traded between them, in a FTA the countries remove duties on maximum number of products.

"We believe we should also look at an early harvest in the form of a PTA, so that we can rather than waiting for the gains of a FTA, which may take several years to conclude, we could look at an early harvest of maybe 50 or 100 products and services, where we can engage with mutual trust and open spirit. So that the partnership between the US and India can kick start much faster," he added.

India and the US are negotiating a limited trade deal with a view to ironing out differences on trade issues to boost economic ties. India is demanding exemption from high duties imposed by the US on some steel and aluminium products, resumption of export benefits to certain domestic products under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), and greater market access for its products from sectors such as agriculture, automobile, automobile components and engineering.

On the other hand, the US wants greater market access for its farm and manufacturing products, dairy items and medical devices, apart from cut in import duties on some information and communication technology products. The US has also raised concerns over trade deficit with India.

Further the minister stated that the government is taking several steps to further improve the business climate to attract investors. He said businesses are looking for a stable and predictable policy environment, fair play, ease of doing business, better infrastructure in terms of logistics, utilities, and common facilities required for manufacturing firms.

"By enlarge industry and business wants to be left alone, wants freedom to operate and is willing to commit itself to work within the framework of a country's laws. And I think India is working towards making all of these enablers...whether it is ease of doing business, whether it is improving our competitive edge, bringing down logistics cost, making it easier to get approvals. All of this typical needs of business which we in government are trying to address," he said.

He added that there is an opportunity and a trust deficit available globally and India is willing to fill that gap in the international supply chain as a trusted partner. Talking about formulation of the single window clearance process, he said a team is working on this by understanding the needs of businesses, their pain points and requirements.

"We are understanding industry pain points and their requirements. We are trying to create such a genuine single window, and not a window behind which it opens to 10 doors. It is a herculean task, will take some time but I assure you that we are committed to make it happen," the minister said.

To begin with one of the first things that on a pilot basis, the government is going to release "very soon" is a GIS based land bank availability across the country, he said adding "we have identified in six states a few hundred thousand hectares of land and we are actually going to offer you a Google earth view of particular lands available for industry to buy.

Taking it forward from there so much so that my intention is that a person sitting in Iceland should be able to not only locate the land he wants but also pay for it and buy it".

"I will give you a simple example of how I am explaining it (single window process) to my own officers. I said look at the common application form that a student who applies to US university has to fill up. It's eight universities, one form, small supplement to each...," he added.

The minister also said that India has become self-sufficient in ventilators and "I shortly be starting export of ventilators". In March, the government banned export of ventilators in wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The US remained India's top trading partner for the second consecutive fiscal in 2019-20.

According to the data of the commerce ministry, in 2019-20, the bilateral trade between the US and India stood at USD 88.75 billion, as against USD 87.96 billion in 2018-19. The US is one of the few countries with which India have a trade surplus.

The trade gap between the countries has increased to USD 17.42 billion in 2019-20 from USD 16.86 billion in 2018-19. In 2018-19, the US had surpassed China to become India's top trading partner.
VICTORIA - The British Columbia government says it is matching $1 billion in federal government money to address the impacts of COVID-19 and help restart the economy.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VICTORIA - The British Columbia government says it is matching $1 billion in federal government money to address the impacts of COVID-19 and help restart the economy.

Premier John Horgan says in a news release the funding will secure some of B.C.'s share of the federal government's $19-billion "Safe Restart" plan for the country.

Jen Zoratti | Next A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

It says the money will support local governments and transit operators that have revenue shortfalls created by the pandemic.

Finance Minister Carole James says the federal government's restart program also includes funds to support health care, child care, vulnerable populations and a sick leave program.

James introduced the supplementary estimates in the legislature Wednesday for up to $1 billion to fund the province's portion of municipal and transit services help, depending on the outcome of further federal cost-share discussions.

James announced last week that B.C. forecasted budget had gone from a surplus to an expected deficit of $12.5 billion because of the pandemic.

Horgan has said the province expects at total $2.2 billion in federal transfers to B.C. under the federal agreement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
Im a lawyer, so they could not get their way with me. But what about a normal person, who gets beaten up for free? asks Deepak Bundele, a resident of Betul, Madhya Pradesh, who says he is currently in a fight against an entire system.

Suffering from diabetes and hypertension, Bundele decided to go to his local hospital on March 23, and get himself checked to refill his stock of medicines; the situation due to Covid-19 had begun to worsen across the nation at the time. But in the midst of his journey, he says he was stopped by police personnel at Laali Chowk. They wanted me to turn back, but I refused, after which I had an argument with them in which one of them slapped me, he recalls.

Adamant to complete his essential task, Bundele says that he then vehemently reminded the police of their constitutional limits. That angered them, and they beat me black and blue."

Fast-forward to May 17. Police officials arrive at Bundeles home to record his statement about what had happened on March 23. In the conversation that took place, Bundele says he was repeatedly asked to take his complaint back.

The reason? According to a police official, BS Patel, Bundele had not deserved the beating. He was instead reportedly mistaken for a Muslim because of the long beard he sported, Patel says in a purported audio recording of the conversation. "What bothered me is that they were completely unashamed and nonchalant about the admission," Bundele says.

Now, Bundele has approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court in a bid to get a state-level Police Complaints Authority set up, and get an FIR registered against the brutality he said he was subjected to. Three months after the incident, however, MP police has also registered a case against him, filed by sub-inspector Mohit Kumar Dubey at the Betul Kotwali police station. Dubey alleges that Bundele was asked to wear a mask and turn back home, only to have him "manhandle and abuse police officials" on March 23. Despite this, the lawyer says he is continuing his "good fight".

Coupled with other recent incidents of purported excessive use of force by policesuch as the deaths of Jayaraj and Bennix after being allegedly tortured in Tamil Nadu police custody, or a Dalit farmer allegedly being beaten up by MP police a wider conversation has begun in the country around police reforms and accountability. This, even as the United States continues to grapple with its own movement against police brutality and racism after the death of George Floyd.

Combating Bias

According to a 2019 report  Status of Policing in India, carried out by Common Cause and CSDS the treatment of minorities inside and outside the police force is fraught with issues. "Less than half of the police personnel feel that SCs and STs within the police are given completely equal treatment when compared to other caste groups."

The report also outlines how 14% personnel feel that Muslims are "very much" naturally prone to committing crimes, while 36 per cent feel that Muslims are "somewhat" naturally prone to committing crimes. One in five personnel also feel that the complaints under the Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act are "very much false and motivated", and that upper caste personnel are more likely to be of this opinion, it states.

Devyani Srivastava, a senior programme officer in the police reforms programme of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, says that during her work in Madhya Pradesh's 'Ajak Thanas'  special police stations meant to address grievances of SC/ST people  a deep-rooted prejudice could be witnessed at work.

"We were looking at other functioning aspects of the thanas so we don't have conclusive research on the particular issue, but from what we found, it could be seen that the majority of views of thana officials were discriminatory and dismissive of caste atrocities," she says, adding that this is so despite it being 30 years since the SC/ST Act came into force.

She adds, however, that at the leadership level, there was effort to address the problem. "The term anti-bias training is normally used for gender-sensitisation programmes, and for minorities, such training is centered around the SC/ST Atrocities Act, its provisions and implementation," Srivastava says.

At a two-day training in Bhopal, she saw novel methods being employed to increase awareness among personnel. A documentary on caste discrimination was shown and lecturers came to shed light on the issue. However, there was still resistance to bringing in Dalit activist voices. "I thought this was very interesting because it has been 25 years of the unit (Ajak Thanas) functioning, and you still have resistance to a Dalit activist speaking? That is the state of affairs. So I think institutionalising bias training is going to be a long road ahead. For now, even the Atrocities Act training is not extensive in every state," she says.

An Overburdened Force, Police Rights & Political Pressure

When asked about the issue of police brutality, Vikram Singh, an educationist and former IPS officer who served as DGP in Uttar Pradesh Police, talks about a "deeper malice in terms of the training of police personnel" which he believes is the cause behind what is currently happening.

"With 18 plus hours of work, any person could become a demon," he says, adding that in such a scenario, the six months to 1 year of induction training goes to the background and you see a personnel behaving the way he is now. According to him, while sensitisation training is provided to police personnel it cannot make a difference until the person is working normal, humane hours.

"He works for 18 hours a day without rest, hes under stress, is not able to go back home, he has no stress buster. These things are the ground realities," Singh says.

A 2017 report by the Parliamentary Research Services points out that state police forces had 24% (about 5.5 lakh) vacancies in January 2016. Thus, even though the sanctioned police strength was 181 police per lakh persons in 2016, the real strength was just 137. The United Nations recommends a standard of 222 police per lakh persons.

The report states that 86% of the state police is composed of the constabulary force. They are usually promoted just once during their service and usually retire as head constables, further weakening their incentive to perform.

The 2019 Common Cause report states that police personnel work for 14 hours a day on an average, with about 80 per cent of them working for more than 8 hours a day. "Nearly one in two personnel work overtime regularly, while eight out of ten personnel do not get paid for overtime work."

It also talks about how nearly three out of five respondents from the families of personnel are dissatisfied with the government-provided housing quarters and that one out of two personnel do not get any weekly off days. Thirty-seven per cent personnel are willing to give up their jobs for another profession, if the perks and salaries remain the same, the report points out.

Singh says that after recruitment, a police personnel is supposed to be trained for about 11 to 12 months. However, according to him, the entirety of the training is not often completed, as the personnel is placed on duty beforehand. They are also supposed to receive training for 1 month each year. The former IPS officer says even that mostly remains on paper.

"Because of poor manpower, 30% vacancies, that training of one month a year is only on paper and does not happen in classrooms where it is so essential. Real-life examples, simulated examples, problem-solving, exposure to the latest amendments of the National Human Rights Commission, and various commissions, also the Supreme Court, is a part of that training," he says.

Talking about police brutality, he believes that "third degree" happens because of the "demands on police and corruption". Calling for an increase in the budget for scientific aid to investigation, he says that a professional investigator never even needs to touch the accused and can successfully solve the crime through forensic science, ballistics, lie-detection, among other special techniques.

Anuja Trehan Kapur, a renowned criminal psychologist and victimologist, who has been hired as an Honorary Special Police Officer in Delhi Police, also echoes this perspective. Kapur wishes that more robust practical training of special scientific methods is given to constables and other personnel.

"I am an HSPO, but how many times have I been called? I have been given a designation, but in reality am I working for you? Dont you think that these people (constables) too need education? Or is physical training the only aspect? Mental training is also important," she says.

She points out that many people join the force with notions of serving the nation; making the ultimate sacrifice. But most, she says, join after witnessing the fear that the police hold over the public since childhood. "One person gets inducted, and the entire village feels powerful."

Therein comes the inherent hierarchical bullying in the system which breaks their spirit, she says. Coupled with the political influence over the job, bad working hours and personal history and challenges, the actions of police personnel become dependent on a myriad of issues, she says.

According to her, no reforms can take place unless there is political will to carry them out. "Unless a policeman does not salute a politician, how can there be reforms?" she says, adding that the minute the police is reformed, the common man would not need to stand above or below the politicians.

"Is the victim of police, a victim of police or the politician, then tell me? Are their rights not human rights?" Kapur asks.

To insulate the police at all levels from political pressure, is a job easier said than done, according to Singh. Like Kapur, he also feels that there is extreme political reluctance to introduce police reforms.

It is conducive and convenient for the corrupt and the inefficient to quote favours and dance to the tune of political masters. And who suffers? It is the people and the upright police officers who want to perform only by the rule book and by the constitution of India, he says.

According to him, for every illegal act that a politician wants to carry out, there are many police personnel lined up who are more than eager to curry favours with him. So this is a vicious circle and it needs to be broken; and broken how? By introducing professionalism and police reforms, he says.

Singh outlines solutions: "Fill up the 30 per cent vacancies, give a two-shift system. Give them the weekly offs, even if there is acute shortage of employees, give them the compulsory Sunday or a Saturday." He adds that some states had already started giving police personnel mandatory offs "because that is a biological and mental necessity".

He feels the police should be an instrument of intellectual pursuit rather than just brawn. "It has to be more of brains, more of EQ (emotional quotient), more of SQ (social quotient) than just robust IQ and brawn," he says.

Police Complaints Authority & Accountability

Post-independent India was governed by the archaic and colonial Police Act of 1861. The Act was legislated by the British after the 1857 Mutiny, also known as the 'First War of Independence'. A Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) report states how the purpose of such an act at the time, was to crush dissent and any movement for self-government.

However, even after over 70 years of Independence, a few states continue to be governed by the 1861 Act, while some others function on legislation that closely resemble it. Even as previous government reports of police reforms continued to gather dust, in 1996, two former DGPs filed a PIL with the Supreme Court, stating various instances of abuse by police's power and the political influence over their duties.

In the judgement of the case, Prakash Singh vs Union of India, the apex court in 2006 issued binding directives to states and the central government to initiate and implement police reforms. Among the seven directives, one also mandated the setting up of a 'Police Complaints Authority (PCA)'  a body meant to register and carry out inquiries on complaints against incidents of police excesses, brutality and negligence. A month after the judgement, the Model Police Bill (meant to serve as a legislative framework for police reforms) was also produced by a government committee headed by eminent jurist Soli Sorabjee. In the 2006 judgement, the apex court had also referred to the Draft Model Police Bill, advising state governments to frame new Police Acts based on it.

However, according to the CHRI, which monitors the functioning and progress of PCAs in many states, they either remain just on paper or the court directive is ignored. "At any given time, there are about 8-10 functioning PCAs in the country," says Srivastava.

Taking the example of MP, she says the state is one of the worst in terms of implementation of the SC directives (of 2006), being one of the few which still function on the 1861 Police Act.

"About 18 states have brought in either new police Acts or legislative amendments to their old Acts to incorporate the directives in a sense. Thats a comment about the commitment to actually transform policing in the state," she says.

Srivastava outlines that while Madhya Pradesh has district PCAs, they have not been set up as per the court's directives. Essentially meant to be external bodies, and despite adequate guidance on how these bodies can be set up, MP actually has elected the sub-inspector, collector and minister-in charge of the district (she is unclear as to who serves this role) as members of the body, Srivastava says. "This is completely in violation of the objective and spirit of the directive," she adds.

Moving onto the debate of whether a PCA can actually make an on-ground difference, Srivastava is of the opinion that it all boils down to how the body has been designed, whether there are actually independent members in it, and if the person appointed to be in charge has a particular orientation or is proactive. To explain, she gives Kerala's example; having had 3 to 4 tenures of the body, she says the PCAs functioned according to the nature of the person heading it (whether they are proactive or afraid to "ruffle feathers").

She says that while a debate about the benefits of the PCA are ongoing, a pool of people do feel respite at having an external body to approach for reporting such incidents. Meanwhile, the topic of accountability of police should be brought up more frequently, even in police training sessions, Srivastava adds.

The ecosystem of healthy policing is punishment-oriented, Singh says, adding that prompt punishment is more important than rewards for training and morale of the police force.

The former IPS officer says that he and others are now gearing up to approach the Supreme Court with a writ petition on police reforms. "A clean and efficient police force is our birthright. It is mandated by law and the choice of whether or not to implement reforms does not lie with politicians," he says.
Netizens on Wednesday were shocked to see a hashtag about Chris Evans trend on Twitter that said his reign is over. Chris Evans aka Marvel's Captain American's fans assumed that something went wrong with the actor over night. However, few quickly made it clear that Captain America and his reputation is well shielded.

One of the Twitter users went on to explain that the hashtag "#ChrisEvansisoverparty" is actually referring to UK DJ and radio show host who also has the same name, Chris Evans. Another tweet said, "#ChrisEvansisoverparty is NOT about the amazing captain america, it's referring to UK DJ and radio show host chris evans (below). leave america's ass alone."

#ChrisEvansisoverparty is NOT about the amazing captain america, it's referring to UK DJ and radio show host chris evans (below). leave america's ass alone pic.twitter.com/r9hU2KCuBX   (@colourfullqueer) July 21, 2020

While many netizens were relieved to find out the truth, many fans of the American actor joined the hashtag and had some fun of their own by sharing hilarious memes. One user tweeted, "When #chrisevansisoverparty is trending and so many people are tweeting about how they don't know why it's trending that no matter how far I scroll I can't figure out why it is trending." Another user wrote, "#chrisevansisoverparty I'll go to any party if Chris Evans is there."

Here are some more tweets from Chris Evans fans.

When #chrisevansisoverparty is trending but so many people are tweeting about how they don't know why it's trending that no matter how far I scroll I can't figure out why #chrisevansisoverparty is trending. pic.twitter.com/SQXjDwSP5J  Lilly Gelman (@LillyHopeG) July 21, 2020

#chrisevansisoverparty I'll go to any party if Chris Evans is there. pic.twitter.com/w4Pau5l3Bi  Sarah Cooley (@SassyPriscilla) July 21, 2020

#ChrisEvansisoverparty BRUH WHY, LIKE U DID THIS FOR WHY, he will never be cancelled  pic.twitter.com/oyHLV4Rtw8  molly  (@mollywertenbe) July 22, 2020

No hes not but Ill take this opportunity to show off my signed shield #chrisevansisoverparty pic.twitter.com/Jv0a6OHweh  Michael Buro (@winter_soulja_) July 21, 2020

since yall are decided to trend #ChrisEvansisoverparty on false claims Heres a checkpoint with beautiful pictures of our baby pic.twitter.com/MjkjlElAaY  HARRY SHES FIVE | claim 2:12 |  (@heartmeetsbreak) July 21, 2020

Meanwhile, in other news, Chris recently made the headlines after he was spotted on an ice cream date with Lily James. The new Hollywood couple was spotted spending an afternoon together at a park. They were last seen together at a party in London. After playing Captain America for almost a decade, he was last seen in Mark Bomback's mini TV series titled Defending Jacob. Chris will next be seen joining Ryan Gosling in Anthony Russo and Joe Russo's The Gray Man.

Chris Evans's Mom Convinced Him To Play Captain America

PAY CHEQUES Of Avengers: Endgame Actors Revealed: Robert Downey Tops The List & It's HUMONGOUS!
A methane leak has been identified coming out of the Antarctic seabed, causing alarm among climate scientists and conservationists.

Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas which traps almost 30 times more heat as the same amount of carbon dioxide.

The stream of methane coming from 30ft below the surface and into the ocean is 'incredibly concerning', scientists say, as it will speed up ocean warming.

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A methane leak has been identified coming out of the Antarctic seabed, causing alarm among climate scientists and conservationists. Methane-eating microbes which took five years to adapt to consume the gas can be seen at the 10ft-long site as white mats (pictured)

Antarctica's seabeds are known to be a source of an enormous amount of methane, but it has never before been spotted seeping into the ocean.

It is thought ancient algae deposits are the original source of the methane which are trapped under sediments.

Researchers who had previously speculated about this event had hoped methane-devouring microbes in the water would feast on the gas and limit emissions.

However, the latest research, which documents the leak, also found these microorganisms avoided the gas for more than five years.

This is another dark omen for climate change as the speed at which these microbes adapt to absorb the gas could be critical in limiting warming.

Due to the delay in microbial colonisation, it is almost inevitable the methane has been released into the atmosphere, scientists believe.

Divers have frequented the site of the leak at Cinder Cones in McMurdo Sound (pictured) since the 60s and a visit in 2011 first spotted the leak which had appeared spontaneously

In 2017 Earth's atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of methane, the colourless, odourless gas that is one of the most potent pollutants (pictured). Natural sources soaked up around most of this, but there was a net positive output of methane of around 16million tons

Methane traps almost 30 times more heat than the same amount of carbon dioxide and more than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities. Carbon emissions dropped drastically during the coronavirus lockdown but experts say there is 'n chance' such a significant decrease also occurred for methane

'The delay [in methane consumption] is the most important finding,' lead author Andrew Thurber, from Oregon State University in the US told The Guardian.

'It is not good news. It took more than five years for the microbes to begin to show up and even then there was still methane rapidly escaping from the sea floor.'

Now the microbes can be seen at the 10ft-long site and appear as white mats on the seafloor.

What caused the gas to breach the seabed remains unknown but it is thought it is not due to the warming water in the ocean above it, because the Ross Sea, where the leak was found, has not yet warmed significantly.

The seep is also located on the side of a marine volcano, but this seems to be coincidence and not the cause of the leak.

Divers have frequented the site of the leak at Cinder Cones in McMurdo Sound since the 60s and a visit in 2011 first spotted the leak which had appeared spontaneously.

But due to the inaccessibility of the region it took until 2016 for scientists to study the leak and a further four years to research and publish this scientific paper.

During this 2016 expedition, a second leak was also found.

Methane emissions reach highest level on record Levels of methane have surged in recent years and the atmospheric concentration of the greenhouse gas has now reached a record high, a study shows. Scientists say several human activities are to blame for the soaring levels, including coal mining; oil and gas production; cattle and sheep farming; and landfills. Stanford University researchers and the Global Carbon Project assessed emissions from 2010 up until 2017, the last year complete data was available. It found that in 2017 Earth's atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colourless, odourless gas that is one of the most potent pollutants. Methane traps almost 30 times more heat than the same amount of carbon dioxide and more than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities. Advertisement

Research is starting to focus more on methane and its impact on global warming, due to its high potency.

Carbon remains the most alarming anthropogenic greenhouse gas, because of the sheer quantity in the atmosphere, but methane is becoming of increasing concern because it is far more impactful on a like-for-like basis.

However, while much is known about the carbon cycle, little is understood about the global lifecycle of methane, making it hard to control and limit.

Recent research tried to produce the first truly comprehensive estimate of man-made methane emissions.

Stanford University researchers and the Global Carbon Project assessed emissions from 2010 up until 2017, the last year complete data was available.

This revealed methane levels have surged in recent years and the atmospheric concentration of the gas has now reached a record high.

Scientists say several human activities are to blame for the soaring levels, including coal mining; oil and gas production; cattle and sheep farming; and landfills.

It found that in 2017 Earth's atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colourless, odourless gas that is one of the most potent pollutants.

Annual methane emissions are up by around nine per cent, equivalent to 50 million tons per year, from the early 2000s, the new data shows.

This, scientists say, is roughly the same as putting 350 million more cars on the world's roads or doubling the total emissions of Germany or France.

Professor Rob Jackson, who led the study, said: 'We still haven't turned the corner on methane.'

On a global scale, there are two major drivers of methane emissions in the world, fossil fuels and farming, the latest figures show.

The research found that there was a net positive output of around 16million tonnes but most climate models, including this one, do not take into account for for a delay in the microbial consumption of escaping methane.

The findings of the latest study are available in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
After days of spiking coronavirus case numbers in B.C., hospitality and tourism businesses are worrying about what damage those spikes could do to the future of their industries.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has expressed concern that people in their 20s and 30s are increasingly testing positive for the virus. While they may not suffer as severe symptoms as older people, they can unknowingly spread it.

Many of the cases have been linked to hotels, restaurants and bars. Nancy Small, the CEO of Tourism Richmond, said the industry is doing all it can to promote safety but it can't control the behaviour of all patrons.

"These instances are very unfortunate," Small said, calling them isolated.

"We're going to do whatever we can as an industry to make sure these things don't happen but we can only control people so much."

Mike McArthur/CBC

Small said what's needed is more reinforcement of public health messaging from officials and a shared sense of responsibility between businesses and customers to keep to health officials' guidance.

The tourism industry has already been the hardest hit in B.C. by the pandemic as it is, she said, and if things get worse and restrictions return it would be a disaster.

"We've been living in a state of fear since [the pandemic] started," she said. "To go back to what was Phase 2 would obviously be truly detrimental."

Ian Tostenson, CEO of the British Columbia Restaurant and Food Services Association, said it's concerning that some of the businesses in his sector are the scene of some coronavirus hot spots.

He said those are outliers and any noncompliance with health guidelines are usually due to misinterpretations of rules, not malice, on the part of restaurateurs.

"We are having some adjustment problems, no question about it, but we're going to correct that," Tostenson said.

"Believe me, the messages are going to get stronger from us. We're going to lay the hammer down."

Story continues

On Tuesday, the Tourism Industry Association of B.C. said tourism and hospitality businesses should get $680 million of a $1.5-billion COVID-19 recovery package pledged to the province by the federal government.

Tostenson said if restrictions from earlier phases return, he believes many restaurants won't be able to survive. That's why businesses and their customers need to get it right.

"We don't want to go down that road," he said. "I'm really worried our industry doesn't have the staying power."
She portrayed the role of Grizabella in the original production of Andrew Lloyd Webbers Cats in the early 1980s.

But Elaine Paige didn't have great things to say about last year's movie adaptation of popular stage musical as she stated the film 'didn't work for me'.

Speaking to Christine Lampard who was filling in for Lorraine Kelly on Wednesday's Good Morning Britain, the actress, 72, didn't hold back when it came to giving her version on the film.

Claw off: Elaine Paige didn't have great things to say about last year's movie adaptation of popular stage musical Cats as she stated the film 'didn't work for me'

As they discussed how she's been coping during the coronavirus lockdown, Elaine opened up on watching herself in Cats for the very first time after the production was shown on television.

Giving her opinion on the original production, in which she starred between 1981 and 1982, Elaine said: 'Its really stood up well. And excuse the pun, it brought back a lot of memories!'

However, the star wasn't so complimentary when it came to the 2019 all-star remake featuring the likes of Taylor Swift, James Cordon, Dame Judi Dench and Idris Elba.

Verdict: Speaking to Christine Lampard who was filling in for Lorraine Kelly on Wednesday's Good Morning Britain, the actress, 72, didn't hold back when it came to giving her version on the film

Discussing the film, Elaine told Christine: 'Its interesting, despite its formidable cast, I think somehow it lost for me, whats interesting was what made the show unusual was that wonderful choreography from Gillian Lynne. I think that was passed over a bit. I mean there was dancing in it obviously.

But in the show, in the theatre version, it very much is a dance show. All that wonderful mix of ballet and modern, all the different styles coming together and I missed that in the film.

The movie was widely panned by critics on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably for the dodgy use of CGI throughout,

And Elaine was quick to mention awkward use of CGI in the film, adding that things 'didn't work for me'.

Her role: Giving her opinion on the original production, in which she starred between 1981 and 1982, Elaine said: 'Its really stood up well. And excuse the pun, it brought back a lot of memories!'

Awkward: However, the star wasn't so complimentary when it came to the 2019 all-star remake featuring the likes of Taylor Swift, James Cordon, Dame Judi Dench and Idris Elba

She said: 'I did think there was some great performances but there was a lot of talk of it being digital technology and all of this kind of thing and then you see somewhere through the movie human hairless fingers pop up into the screen, it kind of threw it for me.

'To see these people with lots of hair and fur flying about the place, all the proportions were slightly off. It didnt quite work for me in the same way as the theatre version, but obviously Im biased!'

Elaine's words come just a month after Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer of the original Cats musical, has thrown major shade at James Corden's performance in the 2019 film.

The musical theatre impresario, 72, hinted the chat show host's turn as Bustopher Jones wasn't to his liking and alluded he wasn't a fan of James' off-the-cuff improvisation in the film.

Not impressed: Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer of the original Cats musical, threw major shade at James Corden's performance in the 2019 film (pictured 2014)

Andrew recently recently held an online viewing party for the filmed 1998 stage version of Cats in honour of his late cat Mika, where he delivered live commentary throughout.

And while there, he appeared to take a swipe at the Tom Hooper directed flick, which also starred the likes of Judi Dench and Taylor Swift.

When the stage version of Bustopher Jones appeared on screen, Andrew appeared to make a dig at James' interpretation, as he said: 'Bustopher without interruption, as I wrote it.

Shade: The musical theatre impresario, 72, hinted the chat show host's turn as Bustopher Jones wasn't to his liking and alluded he wasn't a fan of James' off-the-cuff improvisation

Commentary: Andrew recently recently held an online viewing party for the filmed 1998 stage version of Cats in honour of his late cat Mika, where he delivered live commentary throughout

'Do not be beguiled by other versions. Other versions with unfunny interpolations which I begged to be cut out.'

He continued: 'I did manage to get the worst of them removed. I cannot tell you how absolutely un-Eliot it all was in this song.'

While Andrew didn't mention James by name, the musical genius heavily hinted he was referring to the Late Show host's portrayal of the character.
FILE PHOTO: A woman wearing a mask looks at her mobile phone amid social distancing measures to avoid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Myeongdong shopping district in Seoul

By Cynthia Kim and Joori Roh

SEOUL (Reuters) - The South Korean economy plunged into recession in the second quarter in its worst decline in more than two decades as the coronavirus pandemic battered exports and social distancing curbs paralysed factory output.

Asia's fourth-largest economy shrank by a seasonally adjusted 3.3% in the June quarter from three months earlier, the Bank of Korea said on Thursday. That is the sharpest contraction since the first quarter of 1998 and steeper than a 2.3% contraction seen in a Reuters poll.

"While consumer spending should gradually recover, the threat from the virus is unlikely to fade entirely and some social distancing will probably have to remain in place," Capital Economics Asia Economist Alex Holmes said.

"Meanwhile, global demand is only likely to recover slowly which will weigh on the export recovery."

Gross domestic product fell 2.9% in year-on-year terms, the biggest fall since the fourth quarter of 1998 and also worse than a 2.0% decline seen in the poll.

Exports, which account for nearly 40% of the economy, were the biggest drag on growth, dropping by 16.6% on-quarter to mark the worst reading since 1963.

Construction investment fell 1.3% quarter-on-quarter, while capital investment declined 2.9%.

Output from manufacturing and service sector fell by 9.0%, and 1.1%, respectively.

One saving grace has been a 1.4% gain in private consumption from three months earlier, thanks to government cash handouts that boosted spending on restaurants, clothes and leisure activities.

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said the economy is likely to rebound from the third quarter.

"It's possible for us to see China-style rebound in the third quarter as the pandemic slows and activity in overseas production, schools and hospitals resume," Hong said at a policy meeting on Thursday.

The government has rolled out about 277 trillion won ($231 billion) worth of stimulus to fight the economic fallout from the pandemic so far. However, policymakers have little control over the global demand for the country's exports, which includes everything from memory chips to cars to petrochemical products.

"The worst seems to be over. The base effect and (fiscal injection) from supplementary budget will improve investment," said Park Sang-hyun, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities.

Story continues

For the whole of 2020, analysts see the economy declining by a median 0.4%, which would be the first and largest contraction since 1998. But the International Monetary Fund estimates an even bigger 2.1% contraction.

Last week, the BOK's governor said a downward revision from its previous projection of a 0.2% decline for 2020 was inevitable.

(Reporting by Joori Roh; Editing by Sam Holmes)
She first became a mother in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The childbirth of Ukrainian tourist Alina Stremoukhova began in her sixth month of pregnancy in the Netherlands. A 28-year-old pregnant Ukrainian woman decided to visit her mother, who has been living in the Netherlands for almost ten years. A week later, she learned at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport that her flight to Ukraine had been canceled due to coronavirus. According to Alina Stremoukhova, panic, stress and fear of the unknown led to preterm birth. Dutch doctors managed to prolong the pregnancy as much as possible and her son was born in the eighth month.

Alina Stremoukhova told in an exclusive interview with Ukrinform about how much it costs to give birth in the Netherlands, for what you can be fined 40 euros, and why almost two dozen rescuers took a pregnant Ukrainian woman out of the window into an ambulance.

RESCUERS, SPECIAL OPERATION, AND PRESERVATION OF PREGNANCY

Question: Alina, first of all, I congratulate you on the birth of your son. How did your story begin? How did coronavirus turn the visit to your mother in the Netherlands into a whole special operation with rescuers and childbirth? Why couldn't you return to Ukraine?

Answer: My story began with the fact that at that time I was in the 25th week of pregnancy. I decided to visit my mother before childbirth. Then she had to come to me and helped me give birth. I didn't know when I would be able to visit her in the Netherlands next time, because I would already have a child, so I wouldn't be able to travel soon. I consulted with my doctor, and she told me that everything was fine, that I could fly, and I did so. I had to fly for a week. I bought a round-trip ticket right away, it was in March.

I arrived in the Netherlands on March 9 and had to fly back on March 14. The airline apologized a day or two later saying that the flight had been cancelled (it was Turkish Airlines). They offered me two other dates - the next day or the day after - when I could fly to Ukraine. When I arrived at the airport in Amsterdam, I learned that I could not fly. This time the flight was not canceled, but I could not return to Ukraine. I was asked at registration if I had a Turkish passport. I said no. At first, I did not understand why they asked me about the Turkish passport. When I started to understand the situation, it turned out that I could not fly. I had to change planes in Turkey, but the flight from Turkey to Kharkiv had already been canceled. That is why only people with a Turkish passport could fly on board this plane, which was heading to Turkey.

A few days later I learned that there was a special flight from the Netherlands to Ukraine, but there were no longer available seats. So I decided to book a ticket from Dortmund to Kharkiv. The flight was scheduled for April 5. As the situation was constantly changing due to coronavirus, the flight was canceled too. Wizz Air returned the money.

Question: After Wizz Air canceled the flight, you started writing on social media and gathering people around you who also wanted to return to Ukraine. You were ready to go to Kharkiv by bus, by car, and to fly through Minsk. When did you start to panic? Why didn't you consider taking the opportunity to return to Ukraine on a special flight, for example, on March 21 or 24?

Answer: I didn't know that there were several special flights. I didn't have time to buy a ticket for the first one. I also had a ticket from Dortmund to Kharkiv, so I didn't think about looking for options until this flight was canceled. Then, together with other Ukrainians, we began to actively unite to return to Ukraine via Minsk. My panic and stress started when I realized that I could not fly out for the first time at the airport. My first thought was: 'How long will this lockdown last?' After all, I needed a medical examination. I was registered in a Ukrainian hospital. I had to do an ultrasound, there was a lot of everything, and naturally, I started to worry because I did not understand how long it would last

There was different information everywhere. My relatives and friends shared one piece of information that was voiced in Ukraine, there was another piece of information here, and the third piece of information was on the Internet. My mother and I then started contacting [Ukraine's] consular office in the Netherlands. Then they told me that there were special pages on Facebook, for example, one of them within the program called "Protection." There were also other pages used by all those who did not fly out and looked for options to return to Ukraine. That's how I learned that I could return through Belarus. I began to worry about how I would fly alone through a foreign country, especially Belarus, and how I would then get to Kharkiv from there.

I am generally an alarmist  I was one even before pregnancy. And then I panicked even more. All that uncertainty was very scary for me. It was not clear how long it would last, and let doctors in the Netherlands forgive me, but I was even afraid to assume that I would have to give birth here, in a foreign country, without insurance, during the pandemic. This is my first childbirth. I started to panic and gather groups of people so that we could somehow look for options together and could leave. We considered flying to Minsk. Then they started looking for a way for everyone from Belarus to get to their city in Ukraine. It was a flight from Amsterdam to Minsk, and from Minsk we already needed to find transport to Ukraine. And at some point, my waters broke. Doctors said (I passed the tests later) that it happened because I was nervous and stressed out. When my waters broke at night, we called an ambulance. Doctors did not let me fly or go anywhere, because there was already a threat.

Question: What was the month of pregnancy?

Answer: It was already the 28th, 29th week. This is the end of the sixth month.

Question: When you realized that you were giving birth, you called an ambulance, but rescuers also arrived. What is the story with a special operation "a pregnant woman through the window?"

Answer: Oh yes, not only me but also doctors from Amsterdam and Zaandam will remember my first childbirth - doctors who preserved my pregnancy, those with whom I gave birth. I think they will remember me and [my son] Tykhon for the rest of their lives. He and I are incredibly grateful to them for everything they have done. You asked about the ambulance. It arrived very quickly, just incredibly quickly. We told them by phone what had happened. The ambulance arrived. There were three people. They came in masks and overalls due to coronavirus. Then another doctor arrived, because I was pregnant. She examined me and said that I needed to go to a special medical center in Zaandam so that they examine me there and decide what to do next because my waters did not break completely, but I could start giving birth at any time.

I was forbidden to get up at all, even to sit. I just had to lie down and not get up. The doctor called someone for consultation, and then they called rescuers. The rescuers arrived. I think there were about 15-20 people. They carried me from the second floor across the balcony on special stretchers so that I would not move or get up. It was a whole special operation. I did not walk for a second. When I was taken to the hospital, I also could not move there on my own. I was taken to the center in Zaandam, where they examined me, checked everything, consulted and decided to send me to Amsterdam. There is a center there where premature babies are born before the 32nd week. There is special equipment for such kids, qualified staff, and I had to stay there. They decided to preserve my pregnancy so that I could carry the baby as long as possible. I had to lie down and not get up until the 32nd week.

Question: What were the conditions in the ward? You couldn't get up at all?

Answer: Yes, I had a special button near the bed. There's light, and bed adjustment, and an emergency call to the medical staff. I could only move around the ward, go to the toilet, or take a shower. And there were buttons everywhere if I suddenly feel unwell.

Question: Were you alone in the ward or were there neighbors? How did the medical staff treat you?

Answer: First of all, the Dutch care about children. They were first interested in the condition of the child. The ward was just wonderful, the staff was incredible. They came to me several times a day. I can't even count how many times. They constantly asked about my condition. The most amazing thing was that everyone paid attention to me. Even the cleaners were not indifferent. Everyone asked me if I felt comfortable because I'm in a foreign country, I don't know their language. Doctors hired an interpreter to make everything clear. Before doing any procedure for me, I was asked for permission. They explained to me what they were going to do, and why. They all were very caring, very warm people. All who came to my ward had a smile on their faces despite their mood.

There were two beds in the ward. Most of the time I was alone in the ward, I generally stayed there for a month, but from time to time I had neighbors. They transported one woman who had a caesarean section. Later there was another woman who stayed for a few days and was then allowed to return home. Interestingly, only one person could visit me due to coronavirus. It was my mother, and no one but her could come to me.

Question: How did the medical staff treat pregnant women because of coronavirus? Were they dressed in coveralls?

Answer: No, everyone was dressed in usual medical uniforms and wore masks. There were sanitizers everywhere. I had sanitizers all over the ward. Doctors constantly treated their hands with antiseptic. There were also about three packs of gloves in the ward.

Question: You said that you communicated through an interpreter. Was it a specially hired person?

Answer: No. They called an organization. It was in telephone mode, not from a mobile phone, but there was a special phone that was used for communication and translation.

FEAR OF EATING AND 10,000 EUROS FOR CHILDBIRTH

Question: Your mother said that at first you were very worried about your child and then about the cost of such conditions. Is it true that you were even afraid to eat local food because you thought there might be a separate bill for it? What amounts were mentioned?

Answer: Yes, I thought that food could cost extra money, and I was afraid to eat. As they said, a day of stay per person, including all the procedures, costs on average 500-800 euros, if there is no insurance. Of course, when I heard this, I thought, 'Oh my God, my salary in Ukraine was 300-400 euros before maternity leave.' I understand that I'm lying here, and it's more than my salary. Naturally, I was worried, nervous. When I found out how much childbirth costs for a person who does not have insurance - it's about 10,000 euros - I did not even want to translate how much it is in hryvnias. I understood that neither I nor my family could get this money anywhere. Of course, I was afraid and worried, and all the staff calmed me down. I even cried there.

Everyone kept asking me to think about my child. I thought about the baby, but how can I not think where to get such money for it all. The transfer of the ambulance from my mother's house, where I was, to the hospital cost 450 euros and there was also transfer to another hospital. In total, we were charged 1,200 euros for travel from home to the hospital in Zaandam and then from Zaandam to the hospital in Amsterdam. I was very worried. I was also worried about my son. I constantly googled on the Internet about the 30th week of pregnancy: what changes in the baby, how it develops.

Question: For how long did the doctors manage to prolong your pregnancy?

Answer: They helped me preserve my pregnancy in Amsterdam for another month. I was transferred to Zaandam in the 32nd week. That is, I spent a month in Amsterdam. I was told that my labor could begin in 10 minutes, as well as in the 9th month. They constantly watched the baby develop and told me to preserve the pregnancy as long as possible, but, of course, the main thing was not to harm the baby. I was treated very carefully. They kept asking me if they could give me some water, both the doctor and the cleaner. Everyone showed an interest, everyone was very kind. I spent a month in Amsterdam. When the 32nd week came and I did not give birth, I was transferred to Zaandam, because they could have delivered a baby in that period of pregnancy, but they had the task of continuing the pregnancy. So I stayed in Zaandam for another week.

Question: And then the childbirth began?

Answer: On April 28, I began to feel pain in the lower abdomen, the contractions were already beginning. I was patient all night, and at 5 am I pressed the red button, and then I started giving birth. The pain was terrible. I was injected with an epidural. Doctors sat next to me, stroked my arm, calmed me down, called my mother, then calmed my mother, and organized telephone interpreting service. Everyone in the Netherlands helped me give birth. Just imagine how everyone worried and how incredible everything was. The whole hospital gave birth. My mother was with me. She was offered to cut the umbilical cord, but she refused due to fear. My mother said she had the feeling that she had given birth to her fourth child and that it was easier for her to give birth than to be present during my childbirth. My son was born on April 29, 2020 at 4:12 p.m.

BORN UNDER A LUCKY STAR

Question: What was your son's height and weight at birth? How did he feel? What name did you give him?

Answer: When my son was born, he was already breathing by himself, without any devices, but he was lying in a special box after the birth. Here only weight is measured. I was asked if I had chosen a name for my baby. I answered yes. I talked to my baby all the time until I gave birth to him. I said every day, "My son, we need to hold on a little longer. Don't be in a hurry to be born: the longer you stay, the sooner we will be together. You will stay less time without your mother in a special box." And we succeeded. I chose the name a long time ago. We named him Tykhon. After birth, he was placed in a special box. Then we were with him. He was born weighing 2.21 kg. The doctors were shocked, because according to their calculations, it turned out that the child would be born weighing up to two kilograms. He was born in the first week of the eighth month. As I said, he was born and breathed on his own. Even when I was taken to the hospital, special drugs were injected into my leg to help open my lungs. I don't know, maybe it also helped. The doctors said that my son was a good boy, that he was born under a lucky star. Interestingly, premature babies are usually left here, and the mother can come to them after discharge, but they made an exception for me. The doctors realized my situation, took into account the fact that I was an alarmist and in what situation I found myself. You know, I'm incredibly grateful to each of them. They allowed me to stay with my child in the hospital.

Question: How did you feel after delivery? How was the financial issue resolved?

Answer: It was much easier for me after delivery. I talked to social workers, foundations, various services. Although I was told that everything would be fine, I could not help but worry at a subconscious level. I was constantly worried that I was a foreigner, where I could get such money, and how I could be discharged from hospital. I felt physically well, but my milk disappeared about a month later because of my nerves. I understand everything, but I just couldn't control my emotions. You are worried, even though everyone tells you that everything will be fine.

Question: So you could only calm down when you learnt that you would not receive a bill?

Answer: Yes, everything ended well. Many thanks to the Netherlands for everything. When I first got to the hospital, a social worker came to me. She talked to me through an interpreter and asked me to explain my situation: why I was in their country, why I was in the hospital now. She asked me a lot of different questions. I was checked. I explained everything. She listened to me carefully. A few days passed and the social worker returned again. When she came to my ward, they connected a special telephone interpreter and she explained to me that I should not worry, that there is an organization that is ready to pay for my childbirth and help me in this emergency situation in which I found myself due to coronavirus, that I will not even see those bills. They told me so. I couldn't believe it. But I was also told to send them all my tickets. Many thanks to the Embassy of Ukraine in the Netherlands for help. We really did not see the bills, but I was worried until the last moment and did not believe that such a miracle is possible.

Then another social worker came to me and said that they were ready to help me, even to buy a stroller, children's clothes, mixtures, to provide any help, but, of course, I refused. We bought everything we needed. I was constantly asked what I needed, how they could help me, because I, as a tourist, may not have the money for it. I couldn't even imagine that. I will be grateful to them all my life for their help, to this country in general, to our embassy and consulate. The consul was constantly in touch with me. They helped me with documents, in particular, the migration service, everything was explained, and my stay was extended. After all, I could not stay in another country for more than 90 days. The migration service responded and treated my emergency situation with understanding. I now have a large package of documents, including for my doctors in Ukraine. Dutch doctors described everything in detail as to what they did with the child.

Question: What is written in Tykhon's birth certificate?

Answer: I am a citizen of Ukraine and his father is a citizen of Ukraine who gave him up. My child has nothing to do with the Netherlands, except that he was born here. My child is a citizen of Ukraine. If someone thinks that if you give birth here, your child will be Dutch, it is not so. I have a Dutch document stating that I gave birth to him here, that I did not steal him.

Question: How often did the doctor examine your baby?

Answer: I had to stay in this country until the 40th week of pregnancy and visit the doctor constantly. The child was seen by doctors every two weeks. After the 40th week, with the doctor's permission, I was able to return home to Ukraine, to Kharkiv. I had a bunch of documents so I could leave. Interestingly, my mother received a letter, not in her name, but in Tykhon's name, not an e-mail, but an ordinary letter by mail, with information about when we need to appear for a medical examination. And if you do not come on time, the fine is 40 euros, because another patient could come at this time.

Question: You mentioned earlier that the father abandoned the child

Answer: As a polite person, I do not want to say anything. You need to forgive him and let him go. The man was frightened. What else can I say? I believe that no money can be more important than a child. I was not afraid to give birth. The world is not without good people and everything ended well. The baby was born prematurely, so it was in his favor to give up the baby and not be responsible for anything. It was very convenient for him to say that this was simply not his child. I also had to experience this stress. He gave up his child, but I thank him. So it had to be like that. He decided that it was all very expensive for him and easier to give up. No one is interested in the fact that there are documents confirming that it was a premature birth.

I believe everyone makes his or her choice in life. In my opinion, it is a great sin to give up a child. Yes, it was incredibly painful to me, but then it had to be like that. My son was born, and he is a copy of his father. However, I hope that although he looks like him visually, he will grow up to be a different person who will never give up his child. I gave the child my last name. The father is not mentioned in the birth certificate. I will not go anywhere to demand alimony, because I do not want my son, when he grows up, to owe something to his father and take care of him. My family and I will raise my son ourselves.

Question: Tell us about the scissors that were given to you as a gift. What kind of tradition is this?

Answer: Yes, we were given the scissors used to cut my baby's umbilical cord. When my child was in the box, they also printed a photo of Tykhon and hang it in my ward. Just imagine how nice it was. They also prepared a surprise for me on Mother's Day. It was an image of a slice of watermelon with a photo of Tykhon and the inscription "I am my mother's slice. Kisses, Tykhon." It was so cute and touching. I am incredibly grateful to the Netherlands for everything. My adventures in the Netherlands ended on July 16 when I returned home to Kharkiv.

Iryna Drabok, The Hague

Photo credit by the author
BANGKOK, July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Thailand Board of Investment (BOI) has unveiled a new 2020 campaign, titled "Think Resilience, Think Thailand", to showcase the country's tested strengths and reinforce its status as the region's prime investment destination.

The campaign comes as Thailand receives international praise for its efficient control of the coronavirus outbreak, showing the country's ability to cope with crisis and emerge even stronger as it did during the Asian and global financial shocks of 1997 and 2008.

"The new campaign captures four core competencies that are engrained in Thailand's strategic positioning as ASEAN's investment hub and gateway to Asia -- Diversity, Ecosystem, Location and Supply Chain," said BOI Secretary General Ms. Duangjai Asawachintachit.

The country's economic development over the past 40 years, its position as the second largest economy in Southeast Asia and a leading manufacturer of food, electronics and cars, testify to its strong fundamentals and diverse industries. Now the country is taking a step further by implementing the Thailand 4.0 development model which focuses on developing high-tech, sustainable industries of the future and making Thailand the digital innovation hub of Asia.

Thailand's investment ecosystem offers advanced infrastructure, supportive investment policies, and comprehensive tax and non-tax incentives. Moreover, investors with facilities in Thailand enjoy cost effective operations and ease of doing business. In 2019, Thailand ranked 21st for ease of doing business, out of 190 countries surveyed by the World Bank.

The country's strategic location at the heart of ASEAN enables investors to conveniently access a combined market of more than 630 million people, the world's third largest after China and India.

Thailand's diverse manufacturing and service industries has also placed Thailand into a significant position in global supply chains. Moreover, the past experiences in dealing with various forms of disruptions ranging from financial crises to natural disasters have helped Thailand build resilience and efficiency to prepare for new norms of global and regional supply chains.

"While COVID-19 brings the world to unprecedented social and economic challenges, it could also open the way for opportunities awaiting to emerge," Ms Duangjai said. "Our message is meant to show investors that Thailand's resilient environment is the perfect place to seize those opportunities."

SOURCE Thailand Board of Investment (BOI)
22 July 2020

Type Media Article



Animal agriculture is particularly vulnerable to more extreme weather, which was seen during the recent droughts in the south and east of the Island. Farming practices focusing on adaptation may not be the same as measures designed to mitigate emissions. Researcher Donal O'Brien gives some information.



Animal Change: Adapting to climate change on livestock farms

In Ireland, climate change policy has primarily focused on developing strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and enhance carbon sequestration. Adaptation strategies, on the other hand, target the already occurring natural and unnatural changes in our climate. Animal agriculture is particularly vulnerable to more extreme weather, which was seen during the recent droughts in the south and east of the Island. Farming practices focusing on adaptation may not be the same as measures designed to mitigate emissions. For example, rainwater harvesting systems do not have a significant effect on greenhouse gas emissions, but are a potentially useful climate change adaptation measure.

The selection of adaptation measures for a livestock farm is influenced by multiple factors including land type, sward production and persistency, animal productivity and durability, infrastructure and economics. One of the main goals of Animal Change, a European research project on sustainable livestock production, was to identify measures that could assist livestock farms adapt to a more variable climate. For the project, researchers in Ireland and Europe first analysed the potential impact of climate change on the productivity of grassland and livestock, and then used technical data to devise adaptation strategies.

Potential impacts of climate change on livestock farming

Impacts on grassland:

Shorter gorwing season

Drought

Temperature stress

Flooding

Impacts on livestock:

New diseases

Heat stress

Land trafficability

The outcomes of the technical analysis were used to set-up a database on the multiple factors that affect the selection of adaptation options on-farm. The factors that influence measure selection were carefully evaluated by the projects researchers before the team compiled climate change adaptation plans for livestock producers.

Adaptation measures selected for the Irish livestock farms within Animal Change

Measure:

Fodder reserves Land drainage Water reservoir Diversity swards Supplementary feeds Sprinkler irrigation Breed robust livestock

The adaptation measures chosen were projected to maintain or enhance grass and livestock productivity under the expected impacts of climate change. The measures; fodder reserves, multi-species swards, water reservoirs and land drainage were considered the best adaptation measures. However, there is no one-size fits all approach for managing climate change adaptation. In other words, adaptation to climate change is site specific. It is therefore important to tailor any climate change adaptation plan to the production circumstances. In relation to the options targeting water, it has to be taken into account that management of water is not only necessary in prolonged periods of excessive precipitation, but also in periods of soil moisture deficits. The latter is predicted by climatologists to become more common in southern half of the country.

Apart from supplementary feeding, many of the measures listed for adapting to climate change complement measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the adaptation options proposed in Animal Change need to be tested under Irish conditions, before the measures could be used on-farm. This would provide an insight into the level of support livestock producers will require to adapt to climate change.
ARLINGTON, Va., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bloomberg Law today announced it has added four new news channels focused on social justice, private equity, cannabis, and insurance law. They have been added to Bloomberg Law's existing lineup of 35-plus channels and are accessible at http://onb-law.com/BEyc50AFafz.

Social Justice News covers legal issuesincluding legislation, regulation, trends, case law, and analysissurrounding fair access, opportunity, and treatment, zeroing in on the justice system, employment law, health care access, the environment, and corporate and law firm business practices.

"As our law firm and in-house clients look to develop, expand, and nurture their own organization's efforts at promoting a socially just culture, our new channel will educate them on the ways in which the legal field is continuing its long tradition of being champions for justice," said Cesca Antonelli, editor-in-chief, Bloomberg Industry Group.

The other new channels include:

Private Equity, which focuses on significant legal and business developments involving private equity (PE) companies and the firms they own. Featured topics will include big new funds being raised, M&A deals involving PE, antitrust actions that put PE deals at risk, bankruptcies at PE-owned firms, and credit markets.

Cannabis , which covers legal and business issues faced by the cannabis industry, across all practice areas, including banking, tax, M&A, health & pharmaceutical, employment, criminal, and IP.

which covers legal and business issues faced by the cannabis industry, across all practice areas, including banking, tax, M&A, health & pharmaceutical, employment, criminal, and IP. Insurance Law, which covers legal and business issues for the insurance industry, with a focus currently on business interruption issues due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"These new channels focus on important issues that are top of mind for our readers," added Antonelli. "They represent what we've been doing best for decades: In times of turmoil and change, we cover legal developments and trends with a deeply sourced, expert staff with decades of experience."

About Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law helps legal professionals provide world-class counsel with access to actionable legal intelligence in a business context. Bloomberg Law delivers a unique combination of comprehensive primary and secondary source material, real-time news, expert analysis, time-saving practice tools including Practical Guidance, market data, and business intelligence. For more information, visit pro.bloomberglaw.com.

SOURCE Bloomberg Law

Related Links

https://pro.bloomberglaw.com


Giant screens, engineers from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) on call, provisions for possible latency  these are among the issues Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and their teams are wrestling with as they finalise plans to hold sittings of the Lok Sabha across both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers to meet the requirement of social distancing made necessary by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The plan is to stagger timings of the two Houses so that they never sit simultaneously, and hold sittings of each across both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The exact timings of each House have not been finalised yet. HT learns that the government is likely to call the session after August 15.

Also part of the plan are fibreglass or plexiglass sheets between seats, reduced workforce across the Parliament complex, working over weekends to ensure the Houses can sit for enough time, inputs from multiple ministries, teething technical troubles and countless queriesall part of an ongoing, mammoth exercise to hold Indian Parliaments monsoon session in these uncertain times.

With 770 seats across the two Houses, India has the worlds fourth-largest Parliament by number of lawmakers after the UK, Italy and France. Holding a session is such a big affair that Naidu and Birla have already met six times to strategise.

Both are familiar with every small detail of Parliament complex, but they undertook field visits to physically check how MPs could sit across different areas.

The ministries of home affairs, health, urban development, and civil aviation and CPWD were consulted in the last few weeks, a top functionary added, as aspects related to logistics, security, and health were worked out.

Seating arrangement

The Lok Sabha MPs will sit in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers, the galleries of both houses, and the Central hall. Similarly, the Upper House MPs will be divided between the two Houses and the galleries.

The Lok Sabha has 529 members. The Rajya Sabha has 242.

The Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha chambers can accommodate 60 and 158 lawmakers respectively if strict social distancing norms are followed. The galleries of the Upper House (barring the press gallery) can seat another 67 MPs. The Lok Sabha galleries can seat 132.

That works out to a total of 417 spots, enough to seat the Rajya Sabha members. The remaining Lok Sabha members will be seated in the Central Hall  typically, these will be members with no business in the House. Central Hall can seat another 190.

A second functionary said that Central Hall will largely be treated as a buffer area, which means it will be filled last, and only with people who do not need to be in the House to conduct some business. A third functionary added that the expectation is that attendance will not exceed 420, which means that the hall will not be needed.

Vigyan Bhawan, another prospective venue that can hold at last 200 MPs, was ruled out as it has facility for telecasting live proceedings, and it will be difficult for MPs and ministers to shuttle between Parliament and Vigyan Bhavan through the day.

An idea for the Houses to sit on alternate days was shot down as it would have meant a longer stay for MPs from other states in Delhi.

A Rajya Sabha official said that Naidu has even received suggestions to hold proceedings on Saturdays and Sundays. MPs told him since there will not be much to do (outside the House), it is better that the House sits on weekends too, so that the session can be wrapped up early.

Health concerns

On a typical day, around 3500 people visit Parliament complex. That will come down.

We decided only those who are absolutely essential for the daily proceedings would be allowed to enter. It means reduced staff for ministers, select visitors and limited parliament officials, said the top functionary.

In addition to fibreglass or plexiglass dividers in the House chambers, the health plan also includes jet-sprays with disinfectants that will be used in public spaces and on vehicles, hand sanitizers that are placed across Parliament complex, more medical staff and additional ambulances to attend to emergencies. Birla and Naidu are aware that if any lawmaker tests positive after attending Parliament, they will come in for criticism and are ensuring that every precaution is taken, the second functionary said.

Technical issues

As the plan to sit across two Houses was being crystallised, officials pointed out to Naidu that there would be latency and that if a Rajya Sabha member seated in the Lok Sabha chamber said something, it would reach Naidu and the Upper Houses system with a fractional lag.

So, the proceedings might get slower this time as both the chair and the members will need to provide for these lags.

NIC, the governments IT arm, will send engineers who will sit in both Houses and supervise the live proceedings that will be shown in giant screens in both Houses. The NIC officials will also help presiding officers mute members in the other chamber. And the interpreters of each House will sit in their respective Houses and interpret for members looking at live proceedings in one House and at the screen in the other.

Naidu is also in touch with senior Opposition leaders such as Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, The main subject of discussion is the pandemics trajectory, especially in Delhi. The possible peak of infections may eventually settle the fate of the monsoon session of Parliament.

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With the Bihar assembly polls approaching, the rumblings within the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have become more audible with senior party leader and former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh firing a fresh salvo at the partys top leadership by asserting he would leave the party in case his rival and Vaishali strongman Rama Singh is inducted into the party.

I have tendered my resignation from the post of vice president as a protest against the proposed induction of Singh. I have not withdrawn it and will not compromise on it. They have put his induction on hold but not taken any final decision. But, if the party ever inducts him, I will go a different way and quit the party, Singh told Hindustan Times, over phone from his house in Vaishali.

The veteran RJD leader, 75, recovering after battling Covid-19 also took potshots at the partys adamant attitude to pressurize allies on accepting Tejashwi Prasad Yadavs name as the Chief Ministerial face in the Grand Alliance by negating demands of smaller allies for discussion on the issue. He, however, underlined that it is a well established democratic norm that a CM candidate is always from the party with the biggest vote share and MLAs.

Hasnt the RJD passed resolutions five times to reinforce that Tejashwi is the partys CMs face? This is utter sycophancy. Does it help in terms of the party gaining more vote share? No, the party would continue to enjoy the vote share it has. But, the allies should be taken into confidence on the CM candidate because the top post usually goes to the biggest party in any bloc. It will help in more unanimity, he said.

A prominent Rajput face in the party, Singh has been miffed over being sidelined in the partys organizational set up and being denied a Rajya Sabha seat for some time, but had created a flutter on June 23, by resigning from the top party post on the partys decision to induct his political rival Rama Singh. The induction was postponed then.

Incidentally, the RJD veterans resignation from the party post had coincided with five RJD MLCs defecting to the JD(U) in a coup ahead of the MLC polls for nine seats in June last week. Asked whether he was planning to switch over to the NDA, the 75-year old veteran maintained that things would evolve at the opportune time. But, he dropped hints about looking for new political options by quoting an anecdote from the life of Dr BR Ambedkar.

Ambedkar ji had said it was not in my hands to be born into the Hindu religion. But when he decided to change his religion, he was urged by many to reconsider. The social reformer had put two conditions before priests but they never got fulfilled. I am somewhat in that same situation, he said, referring to statements made by JD(U) and BJP leaders giving him an offer to join their fold.

Significantly, the long associate of jailed RJD chief was also critical of the choice of partys nominees for the recent MLC seats especially the selection of one businessman turned politician Mohammed Farooq, calling it yet another example of picking up outsiders for plump posts. He said the same had happened when party had given a ticket to Amarendra Dhari Singh in RS polls a few months back. People are paratrooping in the party to become MLCs and RS MPs at the cost of loyal party workers. It does not make a party strong, he said.

There are also indications that the RJD brass is trying hard to mollify the temperamental leader knowing it could well have wider political ramifications in terms of votes and the partys image ahead of assembly polls. State president of the RJD Jagdanand Singh said, the party had respected Raghuvanshs stand and not inducted Rama Singh. Isnt the party going with what Raghuvansh Prasad Singh wishes? he asked.




I am a politician but I am not writing this letter to you in that capacity.





I am writing to you as a young woman, as a citizen and as part of a generation to whom a debt is due. When we were little, we were told we were "born free" but for reasons caused by this government we go everywhere in chains. We are demanding our freedom because this great nation feels like prison.





We were told that a war of liberation was fought on our behalf and that a world of opportunity had been opened. However, with each passing day, it is becoming evident that the oppressor only changed name, face and colour but his methods, laws and operations have remained exactly the same.





The social contract between the state and the people has been broken and replaced by threats of arrest, persecution and underhand punishment for those who dare challenge the torn fabric of a once promising dream. Why must a nation with all the ingredients for success be a graveyard for aspiration? Why must the rich fly in private jets while the poor get stuffed like sardines in rickety buses? Why must the many toil and sweat but starve so that the few can live like royalty?





Why is it a crime to want a better society?





Why is a crime to want funding for public health and schools? Why is it a crime to demand jobs or modern infrastructure? Why is it a crime to seek accountability for the money that we pay in taxes? Why is it a crime to protest against hunger?





Why are the police who are meant to protect and secure the lives of citizens mimicking the behaviour of the Special Branch by breaking into the homes of journalists who speak out against corruption? Why do those who are innocent get treated like criminals yet criminals go Scot free?





Imagine if all the young people who are arrested on spurious charges of subversion were included in the economy and spending all those wasted court hours contributing towards the economy through innovation and productivity? Imagine if all the lawyers who waste time arguing bail applications for the pro-democracy activists that are continuously arrested on bogus charges spent their time working on mergers and acquisitions that would grow and develop the economy?





Imagine if the property rights framework of the nation enabled more of that to happen? Imagine if people were so inspired by the national vision that they were not planning endless strikes and protests but they were knuckling down to work and they were rewarded in a meaningful currency for their hard work?





The people deserve better and more. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired. There is a generation that is ready to pick up the broken pieces and re-write the contract that you repeatedly breach through violations of the Constitution and fundamental freedoms. People deserve hope. People deserve an ecosystem that allows them to work hard and reap the rewards of their hard work. People deserve to be free and secure in their homes. People deserve a government that they can trust. We will never stop believing in the beauty of this nation regardless of the madness. But the madness must stop.





When people unite and find their collective voice to fight injustice, a nation is reborn.





Sincerely




Gal Pissetzky, a Chicago-based lawyer, has denied rumours insinuating the release of Ramoni Abbas, an alleged multi-million dollar fraudster facing charges in the U.S.

On Wednesday, screenshots of the Bureau of Prisons website, showing his release, went viral.

According to the details on the website, which were verified by this paper, Mr Abbas (popularly known as Huspuppi) was released on July 20.

Responding to PREMIUM TIMESs enquiry, his legal representative, Mr Pissetzky, said the bureaus records showed released because of his transfer to California.

These reports are not true. He has not been released. The Bureau of prisons website shows that he was released simply because he is being transferred now to California, he said on Wednesday evening.

Mr Abbass case was transferred from Illinois to the Central District of California for prosecution, last Monday.

Mr Abbas, 37, who was resident in Dubai and known for flaunting extravagant lifestyle on social media, was arrested last month over wire fraud allegations. He was extradited to the U.S on July 3.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had earlier alleged that Mr Abbas was part of a network that made hundreds of millions of dollars from business email compromise frauds and other scams.

Also, the American government said Mr Abbas funded his extravagant lifestyle with stolen money.

If convicted, he could spend the next 20 years in U.S. federal prison.
The Duchess of Cambridge dressed Prince George in a 7.99 Mango polo shirt, for the portraits released last night to mark the youngster's seventh birthday.

The adorable pictures were taken by Kate Middleton, 38, at the familys Norfolk home, Anmer Hall, where George and his siblings, Princess Charlotte, five, and two-year-old Prince Louis, have spent lockdown.

And in a nod to the royal family's military association, George wore a khaki polo shirt and a camouflage t-shirt, highlighting his close resemblance to father Prince William, 37, who served in the army and will one day be head of the Armed Forces.

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The Duchess of Cambridge dressed Prince George in a 7.99 Mango polo shirt for the portraits released last night to mark the youngster's seventh birthday

The shirts are currently on sale on Mango's website, and show Kate Middleton's eye for mixing designer with high street steals

A picture taken in 1986 at Highgrove House shows a young Prince William and a two-year-old Harry dressed in camouflage jackets and trousers, with the resemblance between George and his father notable.

Prince William started as an officer cadet at Sandhurst military academy in 2006, and began search and rescue helicopter training three years later, rising to the RAF rank of Flight Lieutenant, similar to a captain in the U.S. Air Force.

William left in 2013, to spend more time with Kate and their then-newborn son George.

Meanwhile George's uncle Prince Harry also boasts an impressive army career, having served in Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter pilot with the army rank of captain.

After training at Sandhurst, Harry was commissioned as an officer in the Household Cavalry's Blues and Royals in April 2006.

In a nod to the royal family's military association, George wore a khaki polo shirt and a camouflage t-shirt, highlighting his close resemblance to father Prince William, 37, who served in the army and will one day be head of the Armed Forces

A picture taken in 1986 at Highgrove House shows a young Prince William and a two-year-old Harry dressed in camouflage jackets and trousers, with the resemblance between George and his father notable

During his ten years in the Army, he undertook two operational tours of Afghanistan and qualified as an Apache helicopter commander.

Harry's military career ended in June 2015 but he has remained a passionate supporter of the Armed Forces and was handed a number of ceremonial military titles.

Kate and Prince William are planning a party for George at home today.

The lockdown period has been bliss for George and his younger siblings, Princess Charlotte, five, and two-year-old Prince Louis, as they have been able to spent so much time outside in the fresh air at the family's Norfolk home, Anmer Hall.

The pictures were taken earlier this month by his doting mother, Kate, a keen amateur photographer who always seems to get the best out of her children.

She and her husband, Prince William, have been doing their best to home school the three youngsters, although they admit its been tough at times.

A Kensington Palace spokesman said: 'The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are delighted to share two new photographs of Prince George ahead of his seventh birthday tomorrow.

'The photographs were taken earlier this month by The Duchess.'

Seen: Prince Harry graduating from his military helicopter pilots course on the 7th of May 2010

Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge was born in the private Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, at 4.24pm on July 22 2013, weighing 8lb 6oz.

He made his public debut in front of the world's media on the hospital steps one day later, wrapped in a white merino wool shawl, cradled in his proud parents' arms.

A great-grandchild to the Queen, he will be the 43rd monarch since William the Conqueror obtained the crown of England if, as expected, he follows the reigns of his grandfather, the Prince of Wales, and then his father, William.

In public George can sometimes come across as a serious little boy, who has already developed a clear wariness of the cameras that are part and parcel of his royal life.

But friends say that while he is definitely more cautious and sensitive in nature than his younger sister, Princess Charlotte, five, the little prince is actually a bundle of fun.
Noemie in France submitted this drawing of a superhero inspired by a Sudanese refugee girl walking under the rain on one of UNHCR's Instagram posts.  UNHCR

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today announced the winners of its first-ever Youth with Refugees Art Contest.

More than 2,000 participants from 100 countries submitted drawings and comic strips. One in four participants were themselves refugees or asylum-seekers.

Launched in April 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the contest encouraged young people aged 12-25 to reflect creatively on the theme: everyone counts in the fight against the virus, including refugees.

The seven winning drawings have been turned into animations by Japanese studio SPEED INC. UNHCR is also awarding five regional prizes, five prizes for cartoons and 20 special mentions. The list of winners, alongside their testimonies and artwork can be found here.

As countries went into COVID-19 lockdown, young people asked us how to help UNHCR while staying at home, said Pauline Eluere, who leads the initiative for UNHCR. We launched the contest to inspire them to use their creativity for a good cause. And we figured that a great way to bring their messages to life would be to animate some of their artwork.

All winners are receiving a box of pencils offered by Caran dAche, the world renowned Swiss manufacturer of pens, pencils and writing accessories, a partner of UNHCR for the art contest. Caran dAche is proud to be supporting UNHCRs art contest, said Catherine Bagnoud, the companys Head of communication & digital. When art is dedicated to serving a cause that is close to our heart, we make our mission to support it.

Alongside their drawings, the participants shared powerful reflections and messages of solidarity.

This quarantine has taught me to be more grateful for everything I have, said Ivanna, 16, from Peru, a regional winner of the contest. I think many of us complain because we are locked up or we miss our friends but we dont think about others. Let us remember that we are not the only ones in the world and must support each other.

Nesime, a 16-year-old Aghan refugee girl who was one of the global winners of the contest said, It is true that the coronavirus is now a part of our lives, but we should not be worried. We should fight together to defeat the coronavirus. I now live in Greece. People have an image of me in their minds, but I am who I am.

The winners were selected by a jury of influencers, artists, animation experts, refugees and partners. This included several UNHCR Goodwill Ambassadors and high-profile supporters such as Japanese musician MIYAVI, Syrian refugee pilot Maya Ghazal, British actor Douglas Booth, American actress Kat Graham and British actress Gugu Mbatha Raw.

Also serving on the jury were Geoffrey Wexler, Chief, International, at Studio Ponoc; Roland Kelts, journalist and author of Japanamerica; Nina Cosford, artist and Caran dAche ambassador; and OPlerou, Ivorian emoji designer. Several members of UNHCRs Global Youth Advisory Council also served on the jury, namely: refugees Foni Joyce Vuni, from South Sudan; Arash Bordbar, from Iran; and Faridah Luanda, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as Ismael Gamboa-Ocampo, an internally displaced person in Colombia.

The drawings conveyed a message of resilience, said Foni Joyce Vuni. : I loved that it showed that we (refugees) have something to give. Skills, love, time, care. Sometimes, its not about the major things but about the effort we make in caring for each other.

Kat Graham added: I was inspired by the drawings. When unity, strength and compassion are shown in the most creative ways, it confirms that we are all in this together.

UNHCR seeks to inspire younger generations to be more inclusive of people forced to flee violence and persecution. We do so through a range of initiatives that encourage young people to learn, be creative, debate, volunteer and shape solutions.

Links:

Media Contact In Geneva, Pauline Eluere, [email protected], +41 78 964 52 30
CARMEL, Ind., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Transworld Business Advisors of Indiana (www.tworld.com/indiana) is excited to welcome Mr. Carmean to the Team! He has assumed the position of Business Advisor and will focus on serving clients in the State of Indiana with his strong financial and business background.

Mr. Carmean has nearly 3 decades of experience as a business advisor, franchise development specialist, talent acquisition expert, and operations/sales professional in the service, hospitality, and manufacturing industries. He has been a part of the growth of one of the largest franchisors in the executive search industry and in his most recent role with a prominent franchisor, set a company record for the greatest number of managed transactions in a 2 year period.

Mr. Carmean has authored numerous articles, created training programs, and conducted countless sales & management training seminars. He has also trained over 5000 sales/management professionals in a variety of group formats, including video conferences and webinars.

Mr. Carmean joins a strong team in Transworld Business Advisor of Indiana which represents the largest business brokerage platform in the world with 40+ years' experience serving owners. All advisors have completed extensive training and are supported by a team with years of experience.

For more information about Transworld Business Advisors of Indiana, please visit www.tworld.com/indiana or contact Jeff directly at [email protected].

SOURCE Transworld Business Advisors of Indiana

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The head of Britain's biggest police force has today said her officers will not respond to calls about shoppers refusing to wear face coverings unless it is a 'last resort'.

Metropolitan Police chief Dame Cressida Dick said she hoped shoppers will instead be 'shamed' into wearing face masks in stores.

Her comments come as the government's new rule making the wearing of face masks mandatory in shops comes into play on Friday. The wearing of face masks on public transport in England is already mandatory.

Speaking to LBC today, Dame Cressida urged shoppers to take the initiative and wear a mask, but said if shop keepers are concerned and 'have tried everything else', her officers will try to assist.

Dame Cressida said she hoped shoppers will instead be 'shamed' into wearing face masks in stores. Pictured: A shopper wears a face mask in Glasgow, Scotland, where masks have already been made mandatory in stores

The head of the Metropolitan Police, Dame Cressida Dick, has today said her officers will not respond to calls about shoppers refusing to wear face masks unless it is a 'last resort'

'Calling the police should be a last resort for dealing with a mask issue. But of course the law is the law,' she said.

Police should NOT take the knee, says Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick who reveals she's banned force performing BLM gesture during operations Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has revealed she ordered officers not to 'take the knee' and says she would not do it herself. Dame Cressida, 59, defended the two policemen who adopted the pose at Black Lives Matter protests in June. But she said she had instructed officers at every briefing since to avoid doing the kneel, which is a protest against social justice. She said 'every briefing after that for the protests included we will not be taking the knee' in a crackdown on the gesture. She said: 'Taking the knee, I think some of my officers took the knee. 'I havent spoken to them personally but I believe they did that because the crowd that was in front of them, theyd endured all of them a long hard day, hours of protest, they were being abused, being shouted at by all kinds of people, not least I have to say my black and ethnic minority officers suffering racial abuse. 'They are police officers so they get on with their job but that section of the crowd were saying again and again and again take the knee, take the knee, take knee and I imagine that they thought in order to keep that bit of the crowd a bit quieter and to show some respect and some humility and some respect to what happened to George Floyd they took the knee. 'That evening I said we are not going to do that in a public order or operational situation and every briefing after that for the protests included we will not be taking the knee.' Advertisement

'My hope is that the vast majority of people will comply, and that people who are not complying will be shamed into complying or shamed to leave the store by the store keepers or by other members of the public.

'If somebody is concerned about what is going on in their store, yes, of course they should call the police and we will try to assist.'

Dame Cressida said that supermarkets have managed to maintain social distancing and queuing themselves, only rarely needing to call the police.

She added: 'During the beginning of lockdown the larger stores that were opening, the supermarkets and things were open, some of them brought in security guards, but they have been able to maintain the social distancing and the sensible queuing.

'We patrol around and speak to shops, but they've only called us rarely to assist, and that is what I hope would happen on this occasion.'

Dame Cressida's comments come as Health Secretary Matt Hancock last week urged shops to call the police if people refuse to wear face masks from July 24 - despite top officers warning the rules are 'impossible' to enforce.

Speaking about the rules, which have already been introduced in Scotland, he told MPs: 'Should an individual without an exemption refuse to wear a face covering, a shop can refuse them entry and can call the police if people refuse to comply.

'The police have formal enforcement powers and can issue a fine.'

After the plans were announced, businesses called the plan 'utterly ludicrous' and police said it was ridiculous to expect them to hand out 100 fines to everyone who broke the law in England.

Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said compulsory masks and the levying of 100 fines was 'impossible to enforce', adding: 'We can't have police outside every shop'.

He said: 'Shopkeepers need to step up to the plate and take some responsibility.

'They can quite easily put signs up on their doors 'No mask on, no entry, this is private property'.

'That's the first point we need to get across because this cannot all be laid on the shoulders of the police yet again.

'The second point is it will be nigh-on impossible for enforcement because you won't have a police officer on every shop door because there isn't enough of us.

'If a shopkeeper calls the police because someone hasn't got a mask on, they haven't got the power to detain them so that person can just walk away.

'We'll be driving around and around London looking for people who aren't wearing masks, it's absolutely absurd.'

George Eustice (pictured left), Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, previously told the BBC that ministers want to 'give people time to plan and prepare' by delaying the enforcement of the measure until July 24. Ken Marsh (pictured right), chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said compulsory masks and the levying of 100 fines was 'impossible to enforce'

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan - a strong supporter of face masks - revealed that since lockdown began to be eased more than a month ago just 59 people have been fined for not wearing masks on the Tube and admitted that the delay in making them compulsory has only caused more confusion in the UK.

Under the rules, which were announced earlier this month, face masks will not be compulsory for shop staff, or in pubs and restaurants, and he defended the delays to introducing the measure.

George Eustice, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, previously told the BBC that ministers want to 'give people time to plan and prepare' by delaying the enforcement of the measure until July 24.

The Cabinet minister said the measure, which had been in place in Scotland since July 10, was now backed by the Westminster Government because the evidence 'has been evolving'.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:18:34|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Egypt has agreed with Ethiopia and Sudan to prioritize reaching a binding deal on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

During an African mini-summit on the GERD controversial issues on Tuesday, "the three countries agreed to resume the negotiations to reach a binding legal framework that guarantees a mechanism to settle any future disputes," said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez in a statement.

The mini-summit was hosted by South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current head of the African Union, with the participation of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, with five other African heads of state as observers.

"During the meeting, the three countries agreed to concentrate the negotiations on the GERD as a body for generating electricity, not for consuming the water," Hafez added.

Hafez noted that the three sides will crystalize later a comprehensive deal that covers all faces of cooperation for enhancing their partnership relations.

Ethiopia, which started building the 4-billion-dollar GERD in 2011, expects to produce over 6,000 megawatts of electricity to push the development in the country forward.

Meanwhile, Egypt, a downstream Nile Basin country that relies on the river for its fresh water, is concerned that the dam might affect its 55.5-billion-cubic-meter annual share of the water resources. Enditem
Colleges and universities have a lot to think about as they sprint toward a fall semester that, for many, begins just a few short weeks from now. Revenue is expected to be down, its unclear how many students will be coming back to campus (and pay for room and board), and many colleges were struggling financially long before the economic headwinds of the coronavirus pandemic.

Experts have predicted the closing of 10% to 20% of colleges, but a new analysis of higher education institutions goes a step further: It names names  and 24 Massachusetts colleges are on the list of those schools expected to "perish, struggle, survive or thrive."

Scott Galloway, a New York University marketing professor, is an outspoken critic of how higher education collectively has handled back-to-campus plans. In a blog post, he built a quadrant-style breakdown of 437 U.S. colleges and universities, detailing schools' value compared with their tuition and which ones are more or less vulnerable to Covid-19.

Galloway used multiple data sources, including the U.S. Department of Education, US News & World Report and Niche.coms Student Life Scores. The dataset is not peer-reviewed, and Galloway calls it a working document. Some of the local universities on his ranking, as you might expect, took issue with his snappy graphics, saying theyre already adjusting to the new normal, and suggested his methodology doesnt include the details that have helped their campuses stand the test of time and tribulation.

Trouble ahead

Galloway did not respond to an interview request for this story. He has been a vocal critic of universities plans to bring students back to campus this fall as the country continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic and has written that institutions should rethink in-person classes. The coronavirus pandemic is a catalyst schools need in order to reinvent themselves and how they have done business for decades, he writes.

If they don't, they will likely perish. Or struggle. If they're lucky, they'll survive.

Hes not alone in his pessimism. Industry watchers predict 10% to 20% of small private colleges and lesser-known regional publics could close in the next 12 months, said Elmore Alexander, dean emeritus of Bridgewater State Universitys Ricciardi College of Business in an email to the Business Journal.

It is important to note that these issues are not being caused by coronavirus, Alexander wrote after reviewing Galloways quadrant analysis. The cracks in the business models of the schools in the struggle and perish cells were already there and had been for the past several years. Coronavirus has just turned the cracks into chasms.

Boston startup Edmit, an educational consultant for families, recently said that more than one-third of private four-year institutions in the U.S. are at risk financially.

But Galloways data set goes further, by naming names. Larry Ladd, senior consultant with the Association of Governing Boards Universities & Colleges, said the professors research backs up the idea that many colleges will struggle.

Its more data confirming that many colleges are in financial trouble and that is true, Ladd said.

But, he said the analysis may misrepresent individual institutions, Ladd said, because it relies on just a few datapoints per school and therefore offers just a snapshot in time rather than a full, real-time picture of any one institution.

Close to home

Galloways dataset includes six Massachusetts colleges labeled as likely to perish, in the current operating environment:

Clark University

Mount Holyoke College

Simmons University

University of Massachusetts, Boston

University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Brandeis University

The Business Journal reached out to all six of those schools. UMass Dartmouth declined to comment; UMass Boston, Clark University and Brandeis did not respond to requests for comment. Mount Holyoke spokeswoman Christian Feuerstein said in a comment to the Business Journal that Mount Holyoke College will not perish.

Our distinctive and rigorous academic offerings, successful enrollment trends, strong endowment and fiscal discipline, continued generosity from our donors, responsible and detailed health and safety planning, as well as our commitment to safeguard the colleges future through prudent decisions, certainly indicate otherwise, Feuerstein said. As with any rankings that seek to measure institutional strength and value, interrogating the methodology used and accuracy of the data is important.

Lynn Perry Wooten, president of Simmons University, which recently said its operating almost completely online this fall, said that the university has used the pandemic as an opportunity to become more innovative: It has created a new online undergraduate program, which it hopes could attract new female students from around the world.

While no company or organization, including ours, is completely immune from the financial impacts of this pandemic, Simmons is well positioned for the future, Wooten said. Our institution benefits from tremendous leadership, fiscal prudence and a proactiveness that enables us to meet changing demographics and a host of other challenges currently facing higher education institutions across the nation.

The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts also took issue with Galloways analysis, which only includes nationally ranked institutions.

We know from extensive experience that selected data sets do not accurately reflect a comprehensive assessment of a colleges potential, said AICUM President Richard Doherty said. In Massachusetts, the financial health of colleges and universities is monitored by the regional accreditation agency working with the state to provide families, students and institutions additional safeguards. And, while the pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge for institutions, businesses and communities alike, we know that higher education will continue to adapt and thrive as a major socio-economic contributor in Massachusetts.

Ladd added that Galloways dataset does not measure the quality of a colleges strategy, governance or leadership.

There are some colleges with exceptionally good leadership and strategies, even if the numbers at the moment dont look good, their prospects are good, Ladd said. On the other hand, some schools look good in one moment, but may not have strong long-term strategies or leadership, Ladd said.

Time to reinvent

Galloways dataset labels six Bay State institutions as likely to struggle, and those include Wellesley College, Western New England University, Lesley University, UMass Lowell, Stonehill College and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

Galloway gave each university two scores: a value-to-cost ratio, which aims to quantify each schools value relative to its tuition, and a vulnerability score, to quantify a schools likelihood to be negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The value-to-cost ratio is based on the schools reputation and ability to serve as a career accelerant; the experience the school offers; and the caliber of its instruction, divided by its tuition, said Galloway.

John Sullivan, spokesman for Lesley University, said that universitys leadership is confident in Lesleys position now and over the long term, citing its well-managed and substantial endowment, strong real estate portfolio and its commitment to educating students for professions that will remain critical.

I question Professor Galloways knowledge of Lesley University and object to our inclusion in his snappy graphic, Sullivan said. Lesley University has decades of experience in educating undergraduate and graduate students off-campus in a variety of delivery models, from global, in-person cohorts, to online instruction, to hybrid, low-residency programs. From our founding in 1909, Lesley University has been adroit in navigating national and global economic hardships and calamity. We arent easily frightened and will not be deterred from our mission of educating people who make a tangible difference in the world.

For the vulnerability score, Galloway writes that schools with smaller endowments and dependence on international students to pay full tuition are more vulnerable to the coronavirus shock. The document recognizes that the dataset is not perfect and should be taken as directional and relative, and invites feedback.

Galloways dataset also includes six institutions with high value and low vulnerability scores in the state, which he says are likely to thrive, including:

Amherst College

Boston College

College of the Holy Cross

Harvard University

Williams College

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Meanwhile, Massachusetts schools with high value scores and high vulnerability to the coronavirus that are likely to survive, include Smith College, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Boston University, UMass Amherst and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Richard Garrett, chief research officer at Eduventures, said that while the data is not perfect, Galloways analysis and writing underlines potential downsides to many universities instincts to reopen campuses amid a pandemic under financial and social pressures. Garrett said institutions need to think hard and creatively about how they could reinvent themselves, rather than mitigating through the crisis.

Each school has to wrestle with it and come out on the other side with something that feels right to them  you cant just follow a template, Garrett said. It takes time, and you need to involve students and faculty. Could this be turned from a weary crisis where no one feels in control to a community solidarity of lets bring all this energy to bear and lets save our institution and our experience, which becomes the ultimate learning experience. This is the chance to grapple with a once-in-a-century crisis and come out stronger for it.

This article originally appeared on the Boston Business Journals website.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Wednesday alleged there was a jungle raj in Uttar Pradesh and incidents of crime were rising in the state, soon after a 35-year-old journalist succumbed to a bullet injury in Ghaziabad after he was shot at by a group of men.

Mayawatis criticism of the Yogi Adityanaths government in the state came soon after Congress Rahul Gandhi said the state was promised Ram Raj but got goonda raj after Vikram Joshi died early in the morning.

The BSP president, however, did not mention Vikram Joshis death in her tweet in Hindi. She later tweeted her condolence to the family.

The way in which serious crimes, including murder and womens insecurity, are increasing in Uttar Pradesh it is clear there is a jungle raj in the state rather than the law, the former chief minister said in her first tweet.

In Uttar Pradesh, more than coronavirus, crime virus dominates the region. The public is affected by this. The government must pay attention to the issue, she said.

Vikram Joshi, who was on way on his motorcycle along with his two young daughters, was cornered by the group of men in Mata Colony and beaten up after he had lodged a complaint against one of them for harassing his niece.

One of the attackers shot him on his head from close range and the bullet hit his head.

Police said Joshis family did not allow them to take his body for the post mortem examination and demanded that they wish to speak to the district magistrate and the senior superintendent of police who later arrived at the hospital.

The UP government later announced financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh to his family and also a job to his wife.

An economic assistance of Rs 10 lakh is assured with immediate effect for the family of the deceased by the chief minister. According to his wifes ability, an appropriate job will be provided to her. As far as the education of their children is considered, they will be sent to a good school, Ajay Shankar Pandey, Ghaziabads district magistrate, said.

The help assured by the government, Mayawati later said, must reach the family as soon as possible.

The BSP is also demanding that whatever help has been assured by the UP government to the victims family today should be given on time. The victims family should not have to run from pillar to post, she said in her third tweet.

Kalanidhi Naithani, Ghaziabads senior superintendent of police (SSP) Ghaziabad, has said a case has been registered based on the CCTV footage and that nine accused have been arrested.

The main accused Ravi and Chotu have been arrested. Ravi had planned and Chotu shot at the journalist. Their illegal pistol was also seized. If anyone elses name comes up that person will be arrested, he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Police have taken the statements of the accused. Security arrangements have been made for the family, Naithani said.
Peppercomm has been appointed agency of record in the U.S. for global small business platform Xero. Peppercomm will work with Xero to drive its brand awareness in the US through thought leadership, earned media and influencer engagement. The agency will also develop a corporate narrative for Xero's SaaS-based solution, as well as support the company at key events and conferences and its own roadshows and Xerocon events. Founded in New Zealand in 2006, Xero says it established cloud-based accounting software worldwide and now serves more than two million subscribers globally. Xero general manager of global communications Karen Davis said that Peppercomms experience in introducing multinational challenger brands in the U.S. was a key factor in its selection.

Colangelo & Partners has been named U.S. agency of record for the Duca de Salaparuta Group, a portfolio of wines from Sicily that are part of Disaronno International, which also imports such brands as Disaronno liqueur and Tia Maria coffee liqueur. Colangelo & Partners will develop and execute a comprehensive communications strategy targeted to key media, trade and influencers. The partnership will focus on engaging new and current consumers through strategic media and trade relations, events and partnerships and influencer marketing. The Duca di Salaparuta Group consists of three historic wine brands: Corvo and Duca di Salaparuta, founded in 1824, and Florio Marsala, founded in 1833. We feel confident that with Colangelo & Partners and their expertise in integrated communications for fine wine brands, we have the best ally to introduce our wine brands to a wider audience," said Disaronno International executive vice president Ray Stoughton.

Bob Gold & Associates has been selected as public relations agency of record for VideoCoin Network, a decentralized video infrastructure which provides developers with simple-to-use, inexpensive video processing services. The agency will support VideoCoins partnership, marketing and advertising initiatives. Led by Live Planet CEO Halsey Minor, VideoCoin Network competes with centralized providers like Amazon Web Services but takes advantage of unused computing capacity available around the world. Bob Gold and his team are highly experienced and well known in the video tech industry, and we are counting on them to help tell a great story about the VideoCoin Network and its technology, said Minor.
Candlewood Valley Health & Rehabilitation Center in New Milford has announced the winner of its Declutter Your Space contests.

The contest was created at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown to give seniors something productive to do while they were isolated at home - to provide them with a goal to work towards, said Melissa Marici, community outreach director at Candlewood.

Newtown Senior Center member Susan Schneider was the winner.

I liked the idea, but I knew we needed a partner to make it work, and thats why we teamed-up with Home Depot to provide the contest prize of $150, said David Segal, administrator of Candlewood Valley Health and Rehabilitation said.

Judy Thomas, senior center assistant at Newtown Human Resources was the first to sign up for the senior-target program.

Then others senior centers followed from other nearby Connecticut towns such as Sherman, New Milford, Woodbury, Bridgewater and Brookfield.

To enter to win, contestants had to send-in before photos of their cluttered space by May 15 and after photos of the same space, decluttered, by June 15.

We received dozens of entrees from many senior center members, said Marici. The spaces varied from pantries and garages, to attics and basements, to offices and spare bedrooms. But the final winners space was much more compelling. It was in essence - an entire floor.

The space was truly transformed from a place of chaos to a showcase in organization, she said. It was exactly what I had in mind when I came up with the idea for the contest.

When asked what inspired the contest winner to enter the contest, she said, When I saw the flyer in a health pack Candlewood Valley Health & Rehabilitation distributed at our senior center, I knew I should tackle the project.

I told my daughter Id do it and then, I just knew I had to do it, and I did it, Schneider said.

The$150 Home Depot gift card, along with a customized frame, a plant and a bag of goodies were presented to Schneider by Thomas and Natalie Jackson, LCSW, director of human services at the Newtown Senior Center June 30.

"Working with Melissa and Candlewood to think outside of the box during this pandemic has been so rewarding. I think it is helping us make a huge difference for our seniors. Providing these programs is helping us stay connected to them during this difficult time" Judy Thomas, Senior Center Assistant, Newtown Human Resources.
FILE PHOTO: Huawei's new flagship store is seen ahead of tomorrow's official opening in Shanghai

By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) - China's Huawei reported a sharp slowdown in revenue growth on Monday, ahead of Britain's expected decision to ban the company from its 5G telecom networks - a move likely to add momentum to a U.S. campaign against it and threatening its global prospects.

The world's biggest telecoms equipment vendor and No.2 smartphone maker said revenue rose a relatively modest 13.1% in the first half of the year, after more than a year of pressure from the U.S. and months of disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic.

Privately held Huawei Technologies released the numbers earlier than it has in the past ahead of the anticipated U.K. ban, a landmark move expected to anger Beijing and win plaudits from U.S. President Trump.

U.S. officials in May announced new rules aimed at constricting Huawei's ability to procure crucial chips that it designs for 5G networking gear and smartphones. Those restrictions, coupled with pressure from the Trump administration and a domestic political backlash over China's actions in Hong Kong and elsewhere, have pushed U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson to change course on Huawei.

The U.K. decision comes as Germany and other European countries finalize their policies on Huawei and 5G.

"Whatever the U.K. does is going to have quite a symbolic impact on Huawei's position in Europe," said Nicole Peng, an analyst at research firm Canalys. "I believe what Huawei is hoping for right now is to delay these countries' decisions as long as possible, at least as long as up to the U.S. elections."

The German government is expected to made a decision in September. Deutsche Telekom, Huawei's largest customer in Europe, has argued strongly against any blanket bans on individual foreign vendors.

In Italy, Telecom Italia has excluded Huawei from a tender for 5G equipment for the core network it is preparing to build in Italy and Brazil, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last week.

Story continues

The head of French cybersecurity agency ANSSI ruled out a total ban on Huawei equipment for 5G networks in a newspaper interview on Sunday, but said French telcos were being encouraged to avoid switching to the Chinese company.

Last month, the Asian city-state of Singapore selected Nokia and Ericsson over Huawei to build its main 5G networks.

The campaign against Huawei began in 2018 in Australia when the government effectively banned it after finding it could be exploited for spying https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/huawei-usa-campaign. Since then U.S. allies including Canada, Japan and New Zealand have excluded Huawei from 5G projects, but most European governments declined until recently to follow suit.

SLOWING REVENUE

Huawei, which prior to the coronavirus pandemic had already forecast a "difficult" 2020, said revenue rose 13.1% to 454 billion yuan ($64.90 billion) in the first half of the year. The growth rate was down from 23.2% in the first half 2019. Net profit margins were 9.2%, up from 8.7% in the first half 2019.

Huawei did not publish data on how many smartphones it had shipped during the period, as it has in the past. Research firm IDC reported Huawei was the second-largest phone maker in the first quarter of 2020, with a 17.8% market share, behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and ahead of Apple Inc.

American officials placed Huawei on a blacklist in May of last year, restricting sales of U.S.-made goods such as semiconductors and blocking Huawei from using Google's smartphone services. The U.S. says Huawei is an agent of the Chinese Communist State and cannot be trusted, allegations that Huawei denies.

The daughter of Huawei's chairman is under house arrest in Canada as the U.S. attempts to extradite her for alleged sanctions violations by the company.

($1 = 6.9958 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis from San Fransisco; Additional reporting by David Kirton in Shenzhen, China; Editing by Chris Reese and Christopher Cushing)
An "internet troll" who waged a campaign of harassment against six women writers and journalists by sending them hundreds of abusive emails has had his three-year jail term upheld by the Court of Appeal.

The court said that the women had "rightly feared they were being monitored by an unknown individual".

Brendan Doolin (37) had left his home only twice in the 17 years before being reported to gardai and had spent six of those years sending the women hundreds of abusive messages online.

His lawyers described him as "an internet troll" who had led a sheltered life. Doolin, of Crumlin, Dublin, had pleaded guilty to harassing Sarah Griffin, Kate McEvoy, Sinead O'Carroll, Christine Bohan, Roe McDermott and Aoife Barry on dates between May 2012 and February 2018.

Judge Martin Nolan, the sentencing judge, noted the women were "literally stalked" on the internet and the defendant "felt like he was untouchable". He sentenced him to five years in prison, but suspended the final two years on strict condition that he not contact any of the complainants for the rest of his life.

Doolin yesterday appealed the severity of this sentence to the Court of Appeal.

His barrister, Dominic McGinn SC, submitted that the sentencing judge had failed to fix the headline sentence at an appropriate level and had given insignificant credit for his mitigation. He said that, in setting this case at the upper end of seriousness, the judge had failed to look at the nature of the messages.

"Although they were nasty, insidious and persistent, they were not, of themselves, particularly damaging, when compared with the nature of the messages in the comparator cases," he said, referring to other harassment cases that had come before the courts.

Dismissing the appeal, the three-judge court said the judge had carefully considered the case and had properly identified the aggravating and mitigating factors. The fact that there were six victims was an aggravating factor, and the judge could have imposed consecutive sentences, they said.
Public hospitals in Hong Kong are currently using more than three-quarters of the available beds in so-called negative pressure units designed to curb room-to-room transmission, officials said.

Pressure is mounting on Hong Kongs health care system as medical workers battle hundreds of new coronavirus infections and authorities mull dramatic measures to check the pathogens spread.

Public hospitals are currently using more than three-quarters of the available beds in so-called negative pressure units designed to curb room-to-room transmission, the Hospital Authority said at a press conference Tuesday.

The semiautonomous territory is experiencing a surge in Covid-19 infections, most of which were locally transmitted and are of unclear origin. Dozens of new cases have been reported on most days during the past two weeks, bringing the total caseload to more than 2,000 since the territory saw its initial outbreak in January.

The territory logged 61 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, 58 of which were locally transmitted. Health officials also announced two more deaths from the disease, bringing the total to 14. More than 600 people remain hospitalized with the illness.

Authorities have struggled to tame a spike in infections that has cut across diverse neighborhoods and social groups. The sick include taxi drivers, schoolteachers, shop assistants, housewives and waiting staff in the citys famous cha chaan teng cafes.

The virus has not spared the elderly, with many nursing home residents falling ill in recent days. Covid-19 tends to manifest more severe symptoms in people over 60.

Hong Kongs Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Sunday the epidemic was really critical and there was no sign the situation was coming under control.

She announced new disease control measures last week that shut bars, gyms, nightclubs and restaurants, required everyone to don masks while using public transportation, and ordered nonessential civil servants to work from home.

On Wednesday, Health Secretary Sophia Chan extended mandatory mask-wearing to all indoor public places including malls, stores and supermarkets.

Officials have said they are mulling additional measures, including lockdowns, if the situation continues to deteriorate.

Unverified reports surfaced earlier this week that medical personnel from the Chinese mainland may be sent to relieve pressure on Hong Kongs hospitals.

However, a representative for the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission told Caixin they were unaware of the reports. Two Beijing-based ICU doctors who previously traveled to central Chinas Hubei province to assist with the countrys initial epidemic also said they had not received orders to head to the former British colony.

Contact reporter Matthew Walsh (matthewwalsh@caixin.com) and editor Gavin Cross (gavincross@caixin.com)
The U.S. lacks a well-formulated policy of cyber deterrence, one that ensures adversarial states will anticipate the consequences of their own cyber operations and online influence campaigns against the U.S., according to a U.S. senator who is a prominent voice in the cybersecurity field.

Why it matters: With elections looming in November, hacks afflicting Twitter and other services, and misinformation rampant on social media platforms, the U.S. remains a vulnerable target for state-backed cyber operations.

A clear, enunciated policy of cyber deterrence could help mitigate future attempts at covert electoral interference in U.S. politics as well as serious disruptive cyberattacks.

What he's saying: Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and co-chair of the bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission  a high-level expert group focused on U.S. cybersecurity and defense  spoke to Codebook in a recent telephone interview about this need.

"I probably have sat through ... 25 hearings over the last 7 years on both Intelligence and Armed Services where its been made crystal clear that we dont have a policy that causes our adversaries to calculate the risk of their actions," says King. "We are a cheap date."

The big picture: King points to Russias 2016 "active measures" campaign during the U.S. presidential election as the moment that crystallized the need for a better cyber-deterrence strategy.

Russia was deeply involved "in our election in 2016, which is a major part of what our democratic process is all about, and essentially paid no price," notes King. "Some sanctions by Obama, but they essentially paid no price. So why shouldnt they do it again?"

Some "rules for the road" are necessary, says King, in making clear how the U.S. will respond to certain sorts of cyber activities, so foreign states will understand the consequences of their activities. Otherwise, covert actions in cyberspace could lead to escalating retaliatory conflict  or even a hot war.

"I understand the dangers," says King. "We spent a lot of time on this [at the Solarium Commission], the dangers of escalation. I want them in the Politburo when theyre discussing coming after our, I dont know, water system in New York, saying, if we do this, something bad might happen to us, and we better think twice."

How it works: Its a balance, says King, between crafting policies that deter foreign cyber operations while also making clear to those adversaries exactly what the U.S. will do in response to such activities, which will preclude misunderstanding that could spiral out to conflict.

"The other side has to know what your intentions are  you have to have both the capacity and the will," says King. "So its a big part of this, and thats a part we can't really legislate. This is really a presidential responsibility to articulate a doctrine on cyber deterrence."

Congress has a role to play as well, says King  publicly, with reports like those put out by the Solarium Commission, but also via closed-door meetings with top intelligence officials.

Roughly once a month, Senate Intelligence Committee members meet with the heads of the CIA, NSA, DNI and other senior intelligence community officials for informal roundtables, says King.

What's next: Fundamentally, according to King, deterring electoral interference by Russia or anyone else will require wider actions outside the cyber domain: primarily, public disclosure of Russian activities as part of a larger educational campaign.

"What if the intelligence community learns in September that Russians are penetrating the electoral system in 14 states, or even harder, they are penetrating the servers of the campaign apparatus of one of the major candidates?" asks King. "What is the responsibility of the intelligence community to disclose that information to the public?"

The bottom line: Under such a scenario, says King, the greatest deterrent to Russian "active measures" will be a more informed citizenry  which will require more transparency from Americas own intelligence agencies about just what they know Russia is doing.
Health experts question COVID-19 data discrepancies in Florida

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The integrity of COVID-19 data is being questioned in Florida after a motorcycle crash was recorded as a COVID-related death, 100% positivity rates have been reported and a scientist claimed to have been fired for not manipulating data for the state.

Orange County Health Officer Raul Pino told FOX35 Orlando that a man in his 20s died in a motorcycle accident and that his death was recorded as a COVID-19 death. Pino said he argued with the state about the cause of death not being related to COVID-19 to no avail.

The individual didnt die from COVID-19.  [He] died in the crash, Pino said. But you could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash. I dont know the conclusion of that one.

In a statement earlier this week, the Florida Department of Health said that a COVID-19 death is recorded when the virus is an immediate or underlying cause, or if the death does not meet exclusion criteria, which includes motor-vehicle accidents.

Questions about the authenticity of the states reporting were raised Wednesday after the largest health system in southwest Florida, Lee Health, said that a recent daily report from the state suggesting that there were 100% positive results from multiple labs were wrong.

The Fort Myers News-Press reports that Lee Health has recorded an 18% overall positivity rate in their tested patients.

"We are aware of a report by the Florida Department of Health that shows 100% of Lee Memorial Hospital Lab COVID-19 tests were reported as positive," Lee Health spokesman Jonathon Little said in a statement. We are working with the department to resolve this discrepancy."

The Department of Health blamed incomplete reporting from labs for any discrepancy in a statement released to media.

In recent days, the Florida Department of Health noticed that some smaller, private labs werent reporting negative test result data to the state, the statement read. The Department immediately began working with those labs to ensure that all results were being reported in order to provide comprehensive and transparent data.

The Department of Health has released daily COVID-19 statistics since March 16, according to a report by The Palm Beach Post.

The first report on March 16 included 42 testing labs, 29 of which showed 100% positive or 100% negative tests. Lee Health results first appeared in the data on March 27, which included five tests all recorded as positive.

According to Little, Lee Health facilities have sent accurate information to the Department of Health and always report COVID-related deaths.

NHC Healthcare, another prominent hospital system in Florida, noted a 100% positivity rate posted by the state at one of its labs.

NCH spokesman Shawn McConnell told The Fort Myers News-Press that NCH's overall positive rate is 14%.

The Florida Department of Health appeared to have fixed the discrepancies in the latest state report released Friday morning.



The report shows Lee Healths positivity rate at 18%, with no locations showing 100%.

This is not the first instance of faulty data reporting claims in the state.

In late June, scientist Rebekah Jones told NPR that she was fired from The Florida Department of Health for not manipulating data.

I was asked by The Department of Health leadership to manually change numbers, Jones said. This was a week before the reopening plan officially kicked off into phase one.

While the latest concerns in Florida surrounded inaccurately-high positive test rates, Jones claimed that she was asked to lower and manipulate numbers to support the states reopening plan.

She said that the numbers she would submit were often the opposite of what was anticipated. She initially complied with the guidelines on compiling data at first. But she was then asked not to include counties with fewer than 75,000 residents and to lower the number of positive tests. She said she refused.

It was very clear at that point that the science behind the supposedly science-driven plan didn't matter because the plan was already made, Jones told NPR. ... they had already made the plan, and I hadn't even shown them the results yet.

Jones said she was dismissed because she refused to manipulate data to fit the reopening plans expectations. Shortly after she was dismissed, a new vendor produced statistics that magically fit the reopening plan, she noted.

According to The Florida Health Department, there are more than 327,000 cases of COVID-19 in the state as of Friday evening. Meanwhile, Disney World parks are reopening and hosting the NBAs bubble-season plan this month.

Getting through this pandemic requires unity of purpose, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted on Thursday. Im 100% confident we are going to get through this.
Serviced apartments are looking at good prospects after COVID-19

"The serviced apartment segment is closely correlated with the flows of foreign investments and expats arriving to work for major international companies. The asset class has held up well and the long-term potential for Hanoi remains good, with many MNCs contemplating relocation to Vietnam," said Hoang Nguyet Minh, associate director of investment at Savills Vietnam.

According to the Hanoi market report of Savills, in the first half, total supply from 51 projects was down 2 per cent on-quarter to approximately 4,621 units. One Grade B and one Grade C project closed. Occupancy decreased by 4 percentage points on-quarter and 13 pptson-year, reached its lowest level of 70 per cent.

Grade A performance in the first half remained steady with 69 per cent of total units occupied. Long-term leases steadied the segment's performance with average rent easing slightly -1 per cent on-quarter to stay at $26 per square metre monthly.

Overall resilience showed with 50 out of 52 sites still in operation after lockdown eased with 22 per cent retaining around 90 per cent occupancy.

Multinationals shifting supply chains to Vietnam to escape US-China trade war-related tariffs are starting to accelerate. The northern industrial market, alongside accommodation providers, is anticipating a post-pandemic expat-driven wave of demand.

Hanoi gained $1,217 million of registered foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first half, equivalent to 25 per cent of the same period last year. Investor trust in Vietnam has been further amplified by effective pandemic containment alongside the recent EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) ratification.

By June 2020, three industrial projects financed by investors from Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong accounted for 53 per cent of total newly-registered FDI. Asian expats are expected to be a key tenant target for serviced apartments.

Business leverage

The government has reacted to the pandemic by issuing timely support for affected enterprises and employees. Resolution No.84/NQ-CP permitted expats to receive new or extend existing work permits. Additionally, organisations, households, and individuals received 15 per cent discounts on renting land directly from the government.

Law No.51/2019/QH14 allows expatriates to change the purpose of their visa without the need to leave and re-enter the country. Resolution No.79/NQ-CP regulating e-visa issuance for 80 countries for stays of up to 30 days regardless of purpose. Foreigners finding work in Vietnam or entering under an e-visa may change their visa status after securing a work permit. These changes are intended to reduce immigration procedures and costs while facilitating investment and tourism development.

Seven projects with approximately 770 units are expected to come online in 2020. With 73 per cent of this new supply, the secondary area will remain the most competitive in 2020. This area is also scheduled for 71 per cent of the total future supply. However, the other regions/districts Gia Lam, Dong Anh have started introducing large-scale projects. Post-pandemic, serviced apartments may see increased competition from hotels or rental platforms.
WASHINGTON  The nations conservation community achieved a longstanding goal Wednesday when the House passed and sent to President Trump a measure that for the first time guarantees maximum annual funding for the premiere federal program to acquire and preserve land for public use.

Fueled by election-year politics, the legislation was easily approved on a bipartisan 310-to-107 vote. It would allocate $900 million each year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund while also providing up to $9.5 billion over five years to begin clearing up a mounting maintenance backlog at national parks.

Conservation leaders hailed the measure as a landmark achievement. They said it would protect and expand access to public lands at a time when Americans are gaining in appreciation for outdoor activities because of the pandemic, while providing tens of thousands of jobs in tourism-dependent communities that have seen their economies suffer because of reduced travel.

Passing the Great American Outdoors Act is quite simply the most significant investment in conservation in decades, said Collin OMara, the president of the National Wildlife Federation. Its a huge win for wildlife, our national treasures, our economy and all Americans who enjoy our public lands for solace, recreation and exercise, especially amid this pandemic.
Geojit's report on Agri Picks

The National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange will seek the Securities and Exchange Board of India's approval to launch options in goods contracts for chana, guar seed, guar gum and soybean, after it discontinued options trade in futures contracts, an exchange official said.  The National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange has received Securities and Exchange Board of India's approval to launch options in goods contracts on mustard seed, wheat and maize, it said in a circular.  Soybean Processors Association of India is expecting import of crude degummed soyoil to hit a record high of 500,000 tn in July due to a recovery in demand with the easing of lockdown norms, the association's President Davish Jain said.  India received 12.5 mm of rain yesterday, 29% above the normal of 9.7 mm for the day, the India Meteorological Department said. Since Jun 1, the country has received 380.2 mm of rain, 7% above the normal of 356.7 mm for the period.  The Rajasthan government has urged the Centre to increase their procurement of pulses and oilseeds from farmers to at least 50%, from 25%, under the price support scheme.  Uttar Pradesh has issued 131 new licences to khandsari units in the state, which is set to lead to an additional crushing capacity of 34,550 tn cane per day, said Sanjay R. Bhoosreddy, additional chief secretary of Sugar Industries & Cane Development for the state.  The Punjab government urged the Centre to restore minimum support pricebased commission of agents or 'arthiyas' who procure crop from farmers.  Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has maintained its estimate for production of dry peas in Canada at 4.3 mln tn in 2020-21 (Aug-Jul). India is one of Canada's biggest overseas markets for pulses.  The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India on Thursday started procurement of milling copra in Tamil Nadu at minimum support price, an agency official said.

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American Utopia will premiere on 10 September at TIFF 2020, even if it remains unclear if it will be a physical screening.

The 45th Toronto International Film Festival will be a much diminished event this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it has an opening-night film. Spike Lees filmed version of David Byrnes Broadway theatrical concert American Utopia will kick off the largely virtual fall festival.

Festival organizers said on Tuesday that American Utopia will premiere on 10 September in Toronto, even if it remains unclear if it will be a physical screening. That, the festival noted, will be contingent on the dictates of Ontario health officials. TIFFs Toronto headquarters currently remains closed.

Much of the film industry wont be able to attend, regardless. The festival said on Monday that all screenings for press and industry members will be held on a digital platform. Non-essential travel between the US and Canada is restricted through at least late August.

In late June, TIFF announced plans for a festival both virtual and in-person, with just a fraction of the usual 250-400 feature films that annually debut at North Americas largest film festival. Toronto organizers have announced about 50 movies for this years edition, though the line-up has little similarity to the usual barrage of starry awards contenders and major Hollywood fall films that typically launch in Toronto.

The former Talking Heads frontmans American Utopia played at New Yorks Hudson Theatre from October 2019 through February 2020. A fall return was planned before the pandemic shuttered Broadway through the end of the year. The show features Byrne and 11 musical artists from around the world performing songs from the 2018 album of the same title, as well as Talking Heads hits.

HBO will premiere American Utopia this fall.

Spike Lee has somehow always been exactly of his moment and ahead of his time, said Cameron Bailey, TIFFs artistic director and co-head. With David Brynes American Utopia, he brings Byrnes classic songs and joyous stagecraft to the screen just when we need it. Spikes latest joint is a call to connect with one another, to protest injustice, and, above all, to celebrate life.

The 45th Toronto International Film Festival is set to run 1019 September.
Candice Swanepoel was seen in a daring hot pink zebra print bikini for her line Tropic Of C on Wednesday.

The former Victoria's Secret model looked slender in the best-selling suit, called the Hibiscus, as she sat on a sandy beach with her hair blown back by the wind.

The 31-year-old star from South Africa also was seen in profile in the same suit proving she looks good at any angle. The caption 'feeling rosy' was added.

Wild look: Candice Swanepoel was seen in a daring hot pink zebra print bikini for her line Tropic Of C on Wednesday

The mom-of-two styled her blonde down and accessorized with a dainty necklace, and thin rings .

The fft10in wonder appeared to be wearing very little to no makeup .

The South African native also shared a sultry shot of her bikini body in a green two piece that had a halter top.

Lounging around in one of her designs from Tropic of C, she sported a green bikini top with red piping.

Beach day: The former Victoria's Secret model looked slender in the best-selling suit, called the Hibiscus, as she was on a sandy beach with her hair blown back by the wind

The South African bombshell let her blonde hair flutter free in the breeze as she shot her best smoldering stare at the camera.

She stared pensively off into the distance and held a small white flower in her hands in one picture, styled by Inge Fonteyne.

Inge has styled a slew of celebs for photo-shoots including Heidi Klum, Tina Fey, Claire Danes, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Nicole Kidman.

Sunny day: Lounging around in one of her designs from Tropic of C, she sported a green bikini top with red piping.

'Aesthete: someone with deep sensitivity for the beauty of art or nature,' wrote Candice in her Instagram caption.

The leggy Afrikaner started her swimwear line Tropic Of C back in 2018 and has been busily plugging it on social media ever since.

Candice and Brazilian model Hermann Nicoli share two sons - Anacan, three, and Ariel, two - but she said she was single on an Instagram Q&A last year.

The couple were reportedly together for 12 years before their purported split last year, and she picked up Portuguese during their relationship.

She told British Vogue in 2017 that in the wake of new motherhood 'I cant watch movies, or even commercials, where kids are in any kind of danger now.'
Detection and analysis of airborne coronavirus droplets using a bioengineered membrane is the focus of exploratory research at the University of Maine and University of Massachusetts Amherst, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Their inspiration comes from nature -- the pitcher plant, with its liquid membrane that traps insects.

The project, led by UMaine biomedical engineer Caitlin Howell and UMass Amherst chemical engineer Jessica Schiffman, received a more than $225,000 NSF EAGER award -- early-concept grants for exploratory research. Collaborating on the project is UMaine virologist Melissa Maginnis.

According to NSF, EAGER funding supports "untested, but potentially transformative research ideas or approaches." The research typically involves "radically different approaches, applies new expertise or engages novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives."

The spread of COVID-19 via aerosolized droplets by talking, coughing and sneezing is a major concern during the coronavirus pandemic. The interdisciplinary research team at UMaine and UMass Amherst hopes to develop novel technology to facilitate the efficient collection of viruses from bioaerosols.

Their model for the membrane technology is the carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plant, which has a slippery rim and inner walls that cause insects to fall and become trapped within its digestive fluid. The team will engineer a composite material with a liquid layer on the surface of a membrane to capture pathogenic particles for analysis.

The goal is to develop a membrane that can be used as an insert in any air filtration system to capture virus-containing droplets and make them easier to collect from the insert for analysis. The technology would be inexpensive and widely deployable in high-risk locations, such as hospitals, schools, elder-care facilities and travel hubs.

"Disease-causing agents such as the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that take form as bioaerosols present unique challenges for disease surveillance, containment, and treatment," noted the researchers in their NSF proposal. "This work will fill a critical gap in current methods of monitoring the spread of disease."

Previous attempts to design aerosol collection systems for viruses have had limited success due to either the difficulty of retrieving intact virus particles from a solid filter surface or inadequate or low air filtration rates.
In a ruling that lambastes the American governments detention of asylum-seekers and chastises Canadian officials as complicit, this countrys Federal Court has ruled the so-called Safe Third Country Agreement is unconstitutional.

The ruling is being hailed as a major victory for refugee rights  and drawing calls from advocates for Ottawa to immediately and unilaterally suspend the agreement with the United States.

Security of the person encompasses freedom from the threat of physical punishment or suffering, Justice Ann Marie McDonald wrote in her 62-page decision, which was released Wednesday.

The accounts of the detainees (in the U.S.) demonstrate both physical and psychological suffering because of detention, and a real risk that they will not be able to assert asylum claims.

Under the bilateral pact, Canada and the U.S. each recognize the other country as a safe place to seek protection.

That means Canada can turn back potential refugees who arrive at land ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border on the basis they should pursue their claims in the States, the country where they first arrived.

The agreement, which took effect in 2004, was originally touted by officials in both countries as a way to curb asylum shopping. However, critics have long argued that the U.S. asylum system is cruel and inhumane  critiques that have grown louder and more pronounced during the Trump administration.

In its judgment, the court found it unconstitutional to ban would-be claimants from attempting to enter either country at official border crossings. The court gave Ottawa six months to respond and fix the policy to make sure it complies with the Canadian charter before declaring the accord invalid.

The evidence demonstrates that the immediate consequence to ineligible STCA claimants is that they will be imprisoned solely for having attempted to make a refugee claim in Canada, McDonald said. The sharing of responsibility objective of the STCA should entail some guarantee of access to a fair refugee process.

Refugee advocates urged the Liberal government to move quickly to suspend the agreement, which the terms allow.

Refugee claimants turned away at the Canada-U.S. border face grave human rights violations in the United States, notably atrocious conditions in immigration detention, said Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, one of the parties.

Under no circumstances should the government consider appealing this ruling. It is time to stop pretending that all is right when it comes to protecting the rights of refugees in the U.S. Not one more refugee claimant should be turned away at the Canada-U.S. border.

Mary-Liz Power, spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, would not say whether the government planned to appeal the court decision.

We are aware of the Federal Courts decision and are currently reviewing it. Although the Federal Court has made its ruling, that decision does not come in effect until January 22, 2021. The Safe Third Country Agreement remains in effect, Power said in an email.

U.S. President Donald Trumps anti-migrant policies have spurred an influx of so-called irregular migrants skirting asylum restrictions by crossing outside of Canadas official ports of entry, where restrictions have applied.

More than 50,000 asylum seekers have come here that way via the U.S. over the past two years. Once here, after passing initial medical and security screenings, refugees can work and access health-care pending a decision on their asylum claims.

When the Trump administration attempted to impose their travel ban in January 2017, it was obvious that the Liberal government could no longer count on the United States to live up to its international and humanitarian obligations, said NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan.

Contrary to what Minister Blair has said in the past, this (ruling) proves that refugees are not simply asylum shopping.

After Trumps election in November 2016 with an anti-immigration agenda, Canadian and U.S. non-governmental organizations and refugee lawyers started their effort to challenge the legality of the asylum restrictions.

In 2017, they connected with a Salvadoran woman in the U.S. who sought asylum after she was raped and threatened by the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang in El Salvador, and agreed to be the lead litigant. The other litigants included a Syrian family of four and a young Ethiopian woman, all of whom were denied access to asylum in Canada. The three Canadian rights groups, including the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Canadian Council of Churches, also enlisted nine other witnesses

During the hearing in November, the court reviewed evidence that showed detainees in the U.S. had no access to phone calls and legal counsel or translators; have been lost due to transfers between detention centres; and sometimes were held in solitary confinement.

The court could hardly fail to be moved by the testimonies of the appalling experiences of people in the U.S. immigration detention system, after Canada closed the doors on them, said Dorota Blumczynska, president of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Their experiences show us and convinced the court that the U.S. cannot be considered a safe country for refugees.

The court decision also called out Canadian officials responsibility.

Canada cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences  in its efforts to adhere to the STCA. The evidence clearly demonstrates that those returned to the U.S. by Canadian officials are detained as a penalty, Justice McDonald wrote.

Queens University immigration law professor Sharry Aiken said its reasonable to expect an influx of refugee claimants at official ports of entry from south of border in light of the ruling, though it may not happen immediately due to the COVID-19 border restrictions.

The court ruling itself does not address the current (pandemic) context but the implications of the ruling signal that Canada should step up immediately to protect the rights of claimants approaching Canada for asylum, Aiken said.

Canada has proven itself more than capable of adequately addressing spikes in the numbers of asylum seekers. Constitutional rights are not about the numbers, in any event.
Not all central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are created equal, a Georgetown Law Professor said during a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) tech advisory meeting last Thursday.

A digital currency backed by the Federal Reserve was one of the main topics discussed during the four hour-long remote meeting, organized by the commissions technology advisory committee (TAC).

Chris Brummer, Georgetown Law Professor and Faculty Director of the Institute of International Economic Law, presented an overview of CBDCs, explaining how one might be designed and issued, on behalf of TACs Virtual Currencies Subcommittee.

Related: Boston Fed Wants to Hire a Digital Currency Engineer

CBDCs have graduated from a niche idea to a topic that the U.S. Congress has discussed repeatedly this year. Advocates have called for a digital dollar as a response to the COVID-19 crisis, and also as a way to confront economic threats posed by other nations tokenized national currencies. Barely a week after the CFTC meeting, the idea of a digital dollar as an economic weapon to fight Chinas digital yuan was raised during a Senate Banking subcommittee hearing.

A central bank can issue a CBDC in a myriad of ways, Brummer said in the CFTC meeting last week.

Other industry experts also weighed in on possible applications and legal ramifications of distributed ledger technology (DLT), and compared the volatility of bitcoin and ethereum to other securities. CFTC Chairman Heath P. Tarbert and Commissioner Brian Quintez made opening statements while four TAC subcommittees made presentations.

Decisions, decisions

In his presentation, Brummer discussed six key design considerations for a CBDC that included the need to decide between an account or token-based model, meaning customers would either access currency though something like a commercial bank account, which would require identification, or through a tokenized system that wouldnt.

Story continues

Related: Accenture, HSBC, Seba Bank Among Bank of Frances Eight CBDC Finalists

Another key consideration is whether the CBDC would be a currency with a retail or wholesale based system. A retail CBDC is reserved for the public to purchase goods or send and receive money, for example, while a wholesale currency will be limited for use by commercial banks and markets, Brummer said.

Brummer said the nature of a CBDC depends not only on how it is designed, but also on how the federal reserve would choose to issue it. A federal reserve could either issue the currency itself, or ask commercial banks to issue one on its behalf and ensure that its backed by the reserve.

Better than stablecoins?

A particularly important application of a potential CBDC is how successful it would be in enabling efficient cross-border transactions, Brummer said. Stablecoins, or privately issued instruments that are used as a stored value or medium of exchange, are rising in popularity as a potential solution to that problem, he added.

But a CBDC can have competitive advantages over stablecoins, Brummer said. In his view, stablecoins, like central bank currencies, are underpinned by varying degrees of trust in the issuer. Central bank currencies can be seen as trying to provide more certainty and safety, if one will, behind the utility that a traditional stablecoin aspires to achieve.

He also noted that CBDCs and stablecoins are trying to solve some of the same problems, like facilitating the continuous movement of fiat currencies and contactless payments in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Destabilization

When the commission asked about the impact of a CBDC on financial stability and economic growth, Brummer said it was perhaps a $1 trillion question.

If you have a retail CBDC, where ultimately the money creation that has been reserved to the central banks is somehow now being reasserted by the Federal Reserve, and where people and individuals are taking their money out of commercial bank deposits and putting that money in central bank deposits, that is naturally going to have a destabilizing impact on some of the intermediaries in the financial system, Brummer said.

But no central bank that he knows of, Brummer said, is looking to disintermediate local financial systems to that degree. Central banks dont have experience onboarding customers, or implementing know-your-customer (KYC) measures, he said. He also raised a larger question: If financial institutions capacity to lend money is undermined, could it lead to a knock-on-effect on GDP growth and monetary instability?

The Cotton Token

The Distributed Ledger Technology and Market Infrastructure Subcommittee presentation discussed the resiliency and scalability of DLT systems through various applications of tokenization.

A potential reason for decentralization and the use of DLT is improved resilience to faults in the traditional system, said Shawnna Hoffman, Global Cognitive Leader at IBM, adding that the bitcoin distributed ledger has proven relatively resilient to cyber attacks when compared to traditional systems.

Mark Pryor, CEO of trading platform provider The Seam LLC, said that tokens can represent physical assets like a bale of cotton (weighing 500 pounds), but they can also represent a range of non-physical assets, for example carbon credits that represent one ton of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.

In cotton in the United States, 15 to 20 million records or tokens of ownership are managed in proprietary systems today, Pryor said.

Pryor aligned the various tokens in these systems to the standards found in the ethereum token ecosystem. Ethereum tokens can be fungible (interchangeable) or non-fungible (unique). For instance, the non-fungible ERC 721, Pryor said, could be used to represent one-of-a-kind-products or identity preserved commodities like a bale of cotton.

But ethereums relatively new multi-standard token, that allows one token to reference a basket of one-of-a-kind products, each with its own non-fungible token, can also improve batch transactions, Pryor said.

Volatility: Stocks vs. Crypto

Tom Chippas, CEO at crypto derivatives platform ErisX, discussed the volatility of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum against other well-known traded commodities and securities.

Bitcoin is on average more volatile than the other securities and commodities noted. But theres certainly some that have similar and sometimes greater volatility and though we didnt do an entire comparison of all stocks say versus bitcoin, there [are] small cap U.S. stocks that had even greater volatility than bitcoin, Chippas said.

Related Stories
SAO PAULO, July 22 (Reuters) - The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro may create a new state-run company as part of its plan to privatize power firm Eletrobras, according to documents disclosed late on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy has required an extra 4 billion reais ($776.02 million) in the 2021 budget in case a new state-run company "is necessary," a document signed by secretary Marisete Pereira showed.

The bill on Eletrobras' privatization includes the creation of a state-run company that would hold assets such as the Itaipu hydroelectric plant and a nuclear complex in Angra dos Reis, as well as government programs for the electric sector.

"If the National Congress approves the (privatization) bill 5,877 of 2019 by 2021, the provision of such resources in the referred Budget law is indispensable," the document said, adding the creation of a new state-run company would only happen if the proposal for Eletrobras is approved.

Brazil's constitution determines that nuclear plants cannot be operated by private agents and Itaipu hydroelectric plant, created through a bilateral agreement with Paraguay, cannot be privatized either.

The government aims to raise around 16 billion reais ($3.10 billion) with Eletrobras's privatization. The operation may be carried out in the first half of 2021 if the bill is approved by Congress this year.

($1 = 5.1545 reais) (Reporting by Luciano Costa; Writing by Gabriela Mello; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
IRVINE, Calif. and EDISON, N.J., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Hackensack Meridian Health (HMH) in Edison, New Jersey, and Genomic Testing Cooperative (GTC), Irvine, California, announced today an agreement to establish a next generation sequencing reference laboratory for molecular profiling. The state-of-the-art laboratory, located at JFK Medical Center in Edison, New Jersey, will use artificial intelligence software and algorithms developed by GTC.

The new genomic laboratory will be initially focused on cancer and will expand to immune diseases and various chronic diseases. It will bring genomics to the currently active screening and prevention program at HMH. Recent innovation in diagnostic testing, called molecular testing, provides a deeper insight into tumors' genomic signature. Molecular tests are looking for alterations in the cancer's DNA and RNA that drive the disease's growth and spread. Testing could reveal one cause or several causes that may offer insights into how the tumor will behave. The goal of the tests is to offer diagnostic, prognostic and predictive information about targeted options.

This new facility will not only serve the physicians in the HMH network, but will provide outreach service to physicians and hospitals on the East Coast.

"Investing in genomics and establishing a reference laboratory in genomics represents a new phase for Hackensack Meridian Health and demonstrates our commitment to be a leader in improving patient care," noted Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, chief executive officer, Hackensack Meridian Health. "We believe that precision medicine based on genomics not only delivers better medicine but is more efficient and cost effective."

Maher Albitar, MD, chief executive officer and chief medical officer at GTC, stated, "Collaborating with HMH to open a reference laboratory on the east coast is a part of our plan in democratizing next generation sequencing and building a network of genomic laboratories that offer sophisticated high-quality molecular testing. These laboratories will use the same algorithms and artificial intelligence approach in analyzing data with cross validation, so the data can be grouped and used for developing new applications and new indications. This collaboration will allow GTC to co-develop new tests with HMH utilizing real world clinical and outcomes data provided by HMH."

"Paired DNA and RNA profiling is increasingly recognized as the new standard in precision medicine and GTC is leading in developing clinical utilizations for this approach. Although we are currently using genomic information for diagnostic and therapeutic decision-making, we are only touching the surface of how this technology can be applied," said Dr. Andre Goy, physician-in-chief for Oncology at Hackensack Meridian Health and chair of John Theurer Cancer Center. He added, "The collaboration between HMH and GTC will facilitate bringing this technology faster to everyday patient care."

"HMH is highly patient focused and GTC is a leader in genomic diagnosis and this partnering will not only represent a unique opportunity for advancing medicine and health outcome, but could have implications on health policies as well," explained Mark Stauder, chief operating officer, Hackensack Meridian Health.

The new reference laboratory will complement the previously announced next generation sequencing laboratory operated by Regional Cancer Care Associates in their practice located at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center, which provides services for RCCA physicians.

Hackensack Meridian Health is New Jersey's largest and most comprehensive health network.

ABOUT HACKENSACK MERIDIAN HEALTH

Hackensack Meridian Health is a leading not-for-profit health care organization that is the largest, most comprehensive and truly integrated health care network in New Jersey, offering a complete range of medical services, innovative research and life-enhancing care.

Hackensack Meridian Health comprises 17 hospitals from Bergen to Ocean counties, which includes three academic medical centers  Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, JFK Medical Center in Edison; two children's hospitals - Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital in Hackensack, K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital in Neptune; nine community hospitals  Bayshore Medical Center in Holmdel, Mountainside Medical Center in Montclair, Ocean Medical Center in Brick, Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, Pascack Valley Medical Center in Westwood, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Old Bridge, Raritan Bay Medical Center in Perth Amboy, Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, and Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin; a behavioral health hospital  Carrier Clinic in Belle Mead; and two rehabilitation hospitals - JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison and Shore Rehabilitation Institute in Brick.

Additionally, the network has more than 500 patient care locations throughout the state which include ambulatory care centers, surgery centers, home health services, long-term care and assisted living communities, ambulance services, lifesaving air medical transportation, fitness and wellness centers, rehabilitation centers, urgent care centers and physician practice locations. Hackensack Meridian Health has more than 34,100 team members, and 6,500 physicians and is a distinguished leader in health care philanthropy, committed to the health and well-being of the communities it serves.

The network's notable distinctions include having four hospitals among the top 10 in New Jersey by U.S. News and World Report. Other honors include consistently achieving Magnet recognition for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center and being named to Becker's Healthcare's "150 Top Places to Work in Healthcare/2019" list.

The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University, the first private medical school in New Jersey in more than 50 years, welcomed its first class of students in 2018 to its campus in Nutley and Clifton. Additionally, the network partnered with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to find more cures for cancer faster while ensuring that patients have access to the highest quality, most individualized cancer care when and where they need it.

Hackensack Meridian Health is a member of AllSpire Health Partners, an interstate consortium of leading health systems, to focus on the sharing of best practices in clinical care and achieving efficiencies.

For additional information, please visit www.HackensackMeridianHealth.org.

About Genomic Testing Cooperative, LCA

Genomic Testing Cooperative (GTC) is a privately-owned molecular testing company located in Irvine, CA. The company operates based on a cooperative (co-op) business model. Members of the co-op hold type A shares with voting rights. The company offers its patron members a full suite of comprehensive genomic profiling based mainly on next generation sequencing. The co-op model allows GTC to make the testing and information platform available to members at a lower cost because of a lower overhead. For more information, please visit https://genomictestingcooperative.com/.

Forward Looking Statements

All of the statements, expectations and assumptions contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on the GTC and HMH management's current expectations and includes statements regarding the value of Molecular profiling, testing, therapy, and the ability of testing to provide clinically useful information. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and HMH or GTC undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.

Hackensack Meridian Health Contact:

Katherine Emmanouilidis

T: 551-996-3764

[email protected]

Genomic Testing Cooperative contact:

Jennifer Varca

(949) 540-9421

[email protected]

SOURCE Genomic Testing Cooperative; Hackensack Meridian Health

Related Links

http://genomictestingcooperative.com


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See the press statement release following the brutal and sustained murder of Southern Kaduna Christians in the dozens. The presidency called the fulani militia attacks a revenge attack  suggesting it was a provoked attack. It shows the presidency is not an impartial arbiter in the matter.

READ THE RELEASE AND WEEP



STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE

REVENGE KILLINGS WORSENING SECURITY PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN KADUNA  PRESIDENCY

The Presidency wishes to state that the problem of insecurity in Southern Kaduna State is more complicated than many people are willing to admit.

From available records, Southern Kaduna enjoys comprehensive security deployments, including the Army, Special Forces of both the Army and the Air Force, surveillance aircraft by the Air Force and mobile police units that are on the ground on a 24-hour basis to forestall criminality and keep the peace.

But unlike other parts of the country, the problem of Southern Kaduna is more complicated than many critics are ready to acknowledge and understand.

From available security records, the problem in Southern Kaduna is an evil combination of politically-motivated banditry, revenge killings and mutual violence by criminal gangs acting on ethnic and religious grounds.

It is a situation in which one criminal group will kill a member of another criminal group out of ethnic and religious motivations which in turn leads to the eruption of revenge and counter-revenge, thereby making the job of the security personnel deployed to protect lives more difficult.

We note that revenge and counter-revenge only creates a circle of violence, thereby making everyone else unsafe, especially innocent people.

The Presidency advises the people against taking the law into their own hands which makes the job of security personnel more difficult. Instead, they should report any security breach or threat to peace to the law enforcement agencies.

What is required is for the local authorities to radically improve their intelligence capabilities so that security agencies will be alerted in a timely manner to enable them forestall any planned attacks.

The Presidency in the same manner condemns the recent attacks by bandits in Igali, Birnin Gwari and Giwa local government areas of the State while urging security agencies to intensify their response.

Garba Shehu

Senior Special Assistant to the President

(Media & Publicity)

July 21, 2020
(Natural News) It was recently announced that the British government has ordered nearly 200 million doses of experimental vaccines for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), at least one of which is set to contain a genetically engineered (GMO) variety of the novel virus.

U.K. officials say that 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the University of Oxford will soon be arriving to England, replete with GMO viral fragments that will be injected directly into patients.

Two other varieties of the experimental vaccine will contain other components of the virus, including one with part of its genetic code and another with an inactive version of the virus. The Oxford one, however, will be full-on GMO.

The fact that we have so many promising candidates already shows the unprecedented pace at which we are moving, stated Kate Bingham, chair of the U.K. governments so-called Vaccine Taskforce.

But I urge against being complacent or over-optimistic, she added. The fact remains we may never get a vaccine and if we do get one, we have to be prepared that it may not be a vaccine which prevents getting the virus, but rather one that reduces symptoms.

Did you catch that? Chances are that none of these vaccines will even work, but rather there is a slim possibility that they could potentially decrease symptoms in the small handful of people who actually develop symptoms.

This means that even when a vaccine, or series of vaccines, is eventually released, they will provide little or no protection against viral infection. So remind us again why we even need a vaccine?

Hilariously, Boris Johnson piped in about the prospect of new GMO vaccines for the coronavirus by stating that he is hopeful and has his fingers crossed about the slim chance that they might do something beneficial.

Government officials are begging people to line up to get jabbed with experimental coronavirus vaccines to see which ones work best

It is nothing but a big guessing game, in other words, and yet one that some Brits are eagerly lining right up for, including during the early testing phases that are starting to commence.

Reports indicate that human guinea pigs are already getting jabbed with the experimental vaccines in order to do their part to help stop the plandemic and keep people safe.

Volunteers were seen in a recent BBC video  you can watch it at this link if you are interested  gleefully getting injected with GMO poisons, all the while believing it to help the cause of overcoming the plandemic.

Many of them are simply responding to calls from government officials asking them to line right up to get these random shots as part of an investigation to see which ones, if any, actually work.

Now that there are several promising vaccines on the horizon, we need to call again on the generosity of the public to help find out which potential vaccines are the most effective, stated Professor Chris Witty, Englands Chief Medical Officer.

The goal in the U.K. is to convince at least 500,000 people to sign up for these vaccine trials through the National Health Services (NHS) COVID-19 vaccine research registry website. Once this many are collected, the U.K. plans to launch at least eight different large-scale vaccine trials to determine which COVID-19 vaccine works best.

Are we mad? A genetically modified virus started this pandemic, wrote one BBC commenter in response to the news. I for one will not be having that vaccine.

I am not risking my ability to have children over a bad flu, wrote another, suggesting that these experimental vaccines might cause sterility.

More related news about the plandemic is available at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

BBC.com

NaturalNews.com
Former White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci has accused Donald Trump of covertly imploring the arrested socialite Ghislaine Maxwell not to reveal what she knows about him.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Mr Scaramucci wrote: She has the goods on him. He is signaling please dont talk.

Mr Trump acknowledged Ms Maxwell during a press briefing on Tuesday, his first since April. Asked by a reporter whether he thought she would turn in other powerful men who were potentially involved with Jeffrey Epstein, the president said he hasnt been following the case closely.

I just wish her well, he said. Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.

Mr Trump was photographed alongside Epstein and Ms Maxwell many times over more than a decade, and once called Epstein a terrific guy, saying he [liked] beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.

Since before Epsteins death, however, any association between them has been downplayed. Fox News recently had to apologise for mistakenly cropping Mr Trump out of a picture featuring the two.

Mr Scaramucci has several times tweeted in support of Epstein-related conspiracy theories, and specifically the idea that the billionaire paedophile was murdered in prison. Among the sources he has retweeted on this subject is far-right male supremacist agitator Mike Cernovich.

Mr Cernovich previously helped propagate the Pizzagate theory, which held that Hillary Clinton and her associates were running a child sex ring out of the basement of a Washington pizza restaurant, Comet Ping Pong. (The restaurant does not in fact have a basement.)

Mr Scaramucci was hired as White House communications director in August 2017, upon which he immediately became obsessed with leakers and acquired a reputation for turning on both the press and his fellow aides.
President Muhammadu Buhari will consult with key leaders of ECOWAS countries in order to find a solution to the crisis rocking Republic of Mali.

Mr Femi Adesina, the president's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, in a statement, said Buhari made the pledge on Tuesday in Abuja while receiving reports from ECOWAS Special Envoy to Mali, former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The former President was at State House, Abuja, in company of President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Kassi Brou.

We will ask the President of Niger, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS to brief us as a group, and we will then know the way forward,'' Buhari said.

He thanked Jonathan for his comprehensive brief on the situation in Mali, which you had been abreast with since when you were the sitting Nigerian President.

The former President had updated the president on his activities as Special Envoy to restore amity to Mali, rocked by protests against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Keita has so far spent two out of the five years second term in office.

A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the Constitutional Court must be dissolved, and the President resign, before peace can return to the country.

Crisis had erupted after the court nullified results of 31 parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of President Keita.

Riots on July 10 had led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, causing the crisis to spiral out of control, hence the intervention by ECOWAS.

Jonathan, however, said: ECOWAS can't preside over the removal of an elected President. Not even the African Union (AU), or the United Nations (UN) can do it.

Leaders must be elected and leave under constitutional processes, otherwise we would have Banana republics all over the place.''

The former president thanked Buhari for providing a Presidential jet for the mission, thus making our trips convenient and comfortable,.

He equally expressed appreciation for the Itakpe-Warri railway complex named after him last weekend.

It was a big present for me. Thank you very much, he said.(NAN)
She has previously accused a group of women of bullying her in the mansion on Matt Agnew's season of The Bachelor last year.

And on Wednesday, an emotional Abbie Chatfield publicly called out her co-stars Cassandra Mamone and Mary Viturino for their mean girl behaviour.

Taking to Instagram, the 25-year-old shared hidden camera footage from Bachelor in Paradise which showed the pair discussing her while they were alone in their room.

Calling out the mean girls! Bachelor in Paradise's Abbie Chatfield has hit back at co-stars Mary Viturino (right) and Cassandra Mamone (left) for 'bullying and slut shaming' her on the show

'Abbie is trying her hardest to get all the camera time,' Mary said in the footage.

Cassandra added: 'She's getting into the pool in her bikini. She's not the most important person here.'

Abbie, who was the first person to leave Paradise after failing to get a rose, then called out the two women for how they'd treated her for the past year.

'Here we have the bullying and the slut-shaming regarding me wearing a bikini in Paradise,' she said.

Behind her back! Taking to Instagram, Abbie shared hidden camera footage from Bachelor in Paradise which showed Mary and Cass discussing her while they were alone in their room

Double standards: 'Here we have the bullying and the slut-shaming regarding me wearing a bikini in Paradise. Despite the fact that everyone else is wearing a bikini but it's an issue because it's me,' Abbie told her Instagram followers

'Despite the fact that everyone else is wearing a bikini, but it's an issue because it's me,' she added.

Abbie pointed out that no one was saying she did anything 'mean or rude', and that it was simply wearing a swimsuit that had annoyed her co-stars so much.

Next, Abbie shared another behind-the-scenes clip of Cass and Mary discussing how happy they were after she was the first person to be sent home.

Jealous much? Abbie accused her co-stars of being jealous that she received more screen time than them on The Bachelor last year

'It was meant to be Abbie season two!' laughed Mary.

In response to this, Abbie accused her co-stars of being jealous that she received more screen time than them on The Bachelor last year.

But she was quick to clarify that this wasn't always a good thing.

'I got death threats, I got my heart broken and I had to deal with [bullying] in the mansion for three months,' she said tearfully.

The truth is out: Finally, Abbie admitted she felt 'validated' that viewers could finally see what really happened behind the scenes when she was dating Matt Agnew (right) on The Bachelor

Abbie said there was a reason why Channel 10 hadn't released hidden camera footage of her talking badly about her co-stars.

'If they had a video of that, they'd show it,' she said.

Finally, Abbie admitted she felt 'validated' that viewers could finally see what really happened behind the scenes of The Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise.

What's the problem? On Bachelor In Paradise, Abbie had her sights set solely on Ciarran Stott (pictured), and her tunnel vision made several of the other women uncomfortable - including Cassandra, who was also interested in the hunky Brit

'I feel so validated you guys get to see what I said happened in the mansion,' she said.

Abbie and Cass quickly butted heads after they arrived in Fiji, after failing to become friends last year while both dating astrophysicist Matt.

Abbie had her sights set solely on Ciarran Stott, and her tunnel vision made several of the other women uncomfortable - including Cass, who was also interested in the tattooed Brit.

Talking behind her back: During the premiere, both Cassandra and Mary said Abbie 'gets what she wants', and even suggested she would 'put her boobs out' in her pursuit of Ciarran

During the premiere, both Cass and Mary said that Abbie 'gets what she wants', and even suggested she would 'put her boobs out' in her pursuit of Ciarran.

But some fans noticed an undercurrent of 'slut-shaming' in the way the two women spoke about Abbie upon learning she had spent the night with Ciarran after the dinner party.

'Hey guys, so we agree no slut-shaming Abbie this series because shes a gorgeous, funny woman whos confident and thats not a bad thing?' one supporter tweeted.

Another added: 'The way the other girls STILL go so hard on slut-shaming Abbie as if it doesn't require two people to make out?'

A third fan wrote: 'Somebody tell Mary that hating on Abbie is so last year.'
GILMORE TWP. -- On Aug. 4, voters in Gilmore Township will choose between Norma Corwin and Robin Rommell to advance from the primary as the Democratic candidate on the November ballot for Gilmore Township treasurer.

The Benzie County Record Patriot reached out to both candidates, and asked them a series of questions concerning their bid for township treasurer.

Responses are only edited if they exceed the word limit.

BENZIE COUNTY RECORD PATRIOT: Please introduce yourself and describe your background, professionally, politically or personally.

CORWIN: Hello I am Norma Corwin. I am running as a Democrat for the position of Gilmore Township Treasurer. I have lived in Elberta for almost 5 years with 2 of my 5 children and one grandson. I have been working in the financial and real estate industry for 15+ years. I also have a Masters Degree in Human Resource Management.

ROMMELL: I am a 4th generation resident of Elberta, a graduate of Frankfort High School and Central Michigan University. I am retired from a career as a supervisor/manager for Pet, Inc. in both Frankfort and Oklahoma. My career required me to live elsewhere, but my heart was always in Elberta and I knew that, upon retirement, I would come back home.

My parents, while raising six kids, found time to be active in our community. Whenever they saw a need, they stepped in to fill the voidfrom organizing and chaperoning dances at the old gym to building picnic tables for Tot Park to serving on the Village Council to being a member of the Lions Club to driving the school bus for class trips to organizing the school carnival. They instilled in me the understanding that we need to give back to our community. I have done that throughout my lifetime, first serving on the Elberta Parks and Recreation Commission as a teenager and on the National Soaring and Hang Gliding Festival Board in the '70s.

When my career took me to Oklahoma, I served on the United Way Board and volunteered with the Women's Resource Center. In 1985, the American Business Women's Association named me national "Woman of the Year", in large part because of my involvement in civic activities. Since my return to Elberta, I have been active in Village government. Seeking the office of Gilmore Township Treasurer is another opportunity to serve my community

BCRP: Why are you running for office? What qualities would you bring this office?

CORWIN: I am running for office because I feel that the township needs a treasurer that is there for them. One who will return phone calls and answer emails in a timely manner. I am a firm believer in being there for the people. I am a great communicator both written and orally as well as being organized and computer literate.

ROMMELL: I am running for the office of Gilmore Township Treasurer, because I am confident I possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do the job well. And, having recently retired, I can meet the time demands of the position.

I have experience with the BS & A software that is used to bill, collect and account for property taxes. I have experience with the Quickbooks accounting software which is used by the township. I understand the uniform chart of accounts and generally accepted accounting practices. During the course of my career, I had responsibility for the budget of my department and an understanding of how my budget impacted the company. I chaired the Elberta budget committee for several years. This budgeting experience will be beneficial should I be elected township treasurer.

As a member of the Elberta Planning Commission, I was involved in updating the Master Plan for the Village as well as making decisions on planning and zoning issues. This knowledge would be useful in making planning and zoning decisions for the township.

I chaired the Elberta Grant Committee, which was successful in securing more than $300,000 in grants from four agencies for improvements at Waterfront Park and Penfold Park. My experience in searching out available grants, writing grant applications and completing the required financial reports, would be an asset as the Gilmore Township board pursues improvements to the community such as, perhaps, a Gilmore Township office or repairs to the Lake Michigan stairs at Greenwood Landing.

BCRP: Explain how you plan to address the issues and/or improve your township if elected.

CORWIN: I will be available two evenings during the week for phone calls and to meet with members of the community by appointment. I would like to contribute to the betterment of the community. We need to make this a better place for our children and our future voters. If I am elected as your township treasurer I promise to be there for you!!!!

ROMMELL: I believe that to be successful, it will be important to communicate effectively with other board members and with residents of the township. My degree in English and my experience as a corporate trainer have honed my oral and written communication skills. But, I recognize that first and foremost, good communication is about listening. Should I be elected, I pledge to listen to the ideas and concerns of community members and the ideas and opinions of other board members.

The 5-member township board is a small team with big responsibilities. I am aware of the role of the supervisor, trustees and clerk and treasurer in conducting the day-to-day business and planning for the future of the township. If elected, I will work diligently with board members and township residents to help develop a shared vision of the township's needs and potential, work to build a consensus around the vision and motivate the community to achieve the desired outcome.

I understand the tremendous responsibility of public office. I understand that Gilmore Township board members are just five people who are charged with making decisions that will impact the lives of the 800+ citizens of the Township. I am committed to being accessible, listening to township residents, and making decisions that are in the best interest of, and supported by, the community. You may contact me by email robinrommell@gmail.com or through my Facebook page "Robin Rommell for Gilmore Township Treasurer".
Bay of Plenty

You will be driving the Roller and also required to help out the team hands on. You will be working around Tauranga, for...



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FIROZ KOH, Afghanistan -- It was about 1 a.m. when a group of men banged on the front door of a mud-brick house in a village in central Afghanistan.

Startled, 15-year-old Qamar Gul jolted out of bed and grabbed her younger brother. Awakened in an adjacent room, her parents carefully approached the door.

It was the Taliban.

The militants ordered Gul's mother and father to open the door. They refused.

A few minutes later, the group of armed fighters crashed through the door.

They dragged my mother outside and shot her dead, said Gul, speaking to RFE/RL by telephone. Then they dragged my father outside and killed him, too.

As her parents were being executed, Gul went and grabbed an AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle. When the Taliban fighters tried to reenter the house, Gul and her 12-year-old brother opened fire on them, killing two militants and wounding another.

"I managed to kill two of them," said Gul, adding that pro-government militiamen who had rushed to the area fought off the remaining Taliban fighters.

Gul said her family was targeted by the Taliban because her father was a pro-government tribal elder.



But provincial officials said the gruesome incident -- which occurred on July 16 in the Taywara district of Ghor Province -- was triggered by a family feud.



Saif Rahman Malekzada, the deputy governor of Ghor, said one of the Taliban attackers was a local man named Mohammad Naeem who he alleged was Guls husband.



The Taliban came to abduct this girl because of a dispute, Malekzada told RFE/RL, adding that Gul had run away from her husband and returned to her parents home.



This has been disputed by Mohammad Rafiq Alam, the district governor of Taywara, who said a Taliban fighter by the name of Naeem was killed but was not married to Gul.



Speaking to RFE/RL after arriving with her brother in the capital, Kabul, Gul also said she had no relations with any of the attackers.



The governor's office in Ghor also claimed that Guls slain father was a member of a pro-government militia in the area, which was denied by officials in Taywara.



The Taliban routinely kills Afghans they suspect of being members, sympathizers, or informers for the government or security forces.



'Heroes'



Im proud to have killed Taliban fighters, said Gul, who, along with her siblings, has been relocated by the provincial government to a safe house. I killed my parents murderers. I will fight the Taliban until my last drop of blood.

The incident occurred on July 16 in the Taywara district of Ghor Province, a mountainous and remote area in Afghanistans central highlands. It was only reported by the government on July 20.

The province is one of the most impoverished and unstable areas in the country. The provincial government's power extends little beyond the capital, Firoz Koh.

Gul called on the government to better protect civilians from such wanton attacks by the Taliban.

We call on the president to ensure our security so that we can have a good life and future, she said.

Mohammad Rafiq Alam, the district governor of Taywara, told RFE/RL that Gul and her brother were moved to the district center and would be transferred to Firoz Koh.

We are proud of these two heroes, said Alam. They taught the attackers a lesson.

Alam urged the government to award Gul the Malalai Medal, one of the countrys highest civilian honors.

During a cabinet meeting on July 21, President Ashraf Ghani hailed Guls bravery.

Qamar Gul is a female hero, said Tariq Arian, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, in a tweet on July 20. The cabinet has praised the courage of Qamar Gul.

Afghans have saluted Gul as a hero on social media. A photo of Gul, donning a head scarf and holding an AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle, has gone viral.

Taliban Violence

Taywara has been the scene of fierce clashes between Afghan security forces and the Taliban, which has overrun the district on several occasions.

The Taliban and dozens of illegal, armed groups run by former warlords and militia leaders are active in Ghor -- a key transit route for shipments through Afghanistan of weapons and opium.

The Taliban continues to stage regular attacks across the country, despite signing an initial peace deal with the United States in February.

That agreement was intended to pave the way for direct talks between the militants and the Afghan government over a permanent cease-fire and a future power-sharing deal.

But those talks have stalled over the implementation of a major prisoner release.

Civilians -- as is usually the case -- are bearing the brunt of the escalating violence.

Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission said last week that in the past six months, 16 people have been killed or wounded every day in the country, on average.

According to the commission, 1,213 civilians have been killed and 1,744 others wounded in 880 security incidents during the first half of 2020.
<! Nicole Chikwe and hubby Naeto C >

Nigerian rapper, recording artist and record producer Naetochukwu Chikwe, professionally known as Naeto C marks 8th wedding anniversary with his adorable wife Nicole.

Naeto and Nicole got married in 2012 and they have 3 kids, two lovely girls and a boy. The mum of 3 wrote this romantic message to her lover and it reads:

8 years in and I still look at you like the last plate of Jollof Rice at a wedding. 



Normally wouldnt do anything fancy for our anniversary because its not a milestone one, but 2020 has taught me that life is short and can actually be really rubbish- so celebrate at ANY opportunity you can!



Thank you for 8 wonderful years of marriage. Im blessed to be married to my best friend and partner in every sense of the word. Love you @naetosuperc forever and ever.

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Federal law enforcement officers on the streets of Portland: REUTERS

Acting homeland security chief Chad Wolf said yesterday that federal law enforcement officers in Portland will not retreat, even as criticism of their deployment rose to a new pitch and protesters flooded the streets in increasing numbers.

Mr Wolf spoke just as a leaked homeland security memo revealed that officials have been instructed to gather intelligence on protesters who may be involved in the destruction of monuments and statues.

Defending the officers actions and calling smear attacks against them disgusting, Mr Wolf told the media that they will see their task through to the end.

While I look forward to the day our officers are redeployed back to their regular day-to-day mission, he said, we will not shrink from our duty because of this violence.

My message is simple: If youre looking to peacefully protest in Portland, the department respects your right to do so. Please do so away from the violent activity thats taking place near the courthouse on a nightly basis, for your own safety.

If you are a violent rioter looking to inflict damage on federal property or law enforcement officers, you need to find another line of work. We will not retreat. We will continue to take the appropriate action to protect our facilities and our law enforcement officers.

If youre a local leader, now is the time to step up and protect your community. Work with the department and other federal authorities in Portland to responsibly bring this nightly violence to a close.

And if youre in the media, report the facts, all the facts. Do not glamourise the anarchist and the criminals, and do not perpetuate the false narrative many of us have seen recently.

Anger at the troops presence and conduct has increased sharply in recent days, with critics of the administration condemning its actions in the strongest terms.

Jeffery A. Engel, director of the Centre for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, called the deployment precisely the type of tyrannical deployment of power that the Founding Fathers were specifically worried about.

Story continues

And Republican senator Rand Paul, a longtime libertarian, tweeted that we cannot give up liberty for security and that there is no place for federal troops or unidentified federal agents rounding people up at will.

For his part, Mr Wolf rejected some of the fascist descriptors levelled at the governments forces. These police officers are not stormtroopers, he said. They are not the Gestapo, as some have described them. That description is offensive, its hyperbolic, and its dishonest.

Meanwhile, the troops efforts to quell the protests increasingly appear to be backfiring.

A video of a man being taken by two officers into an unmarked van and another of troops hitting a navy veteran with batons have only brought more protesters to the streets. Among them is a growing contingent of local mothers organising under the banner #WallOfMoms.

Nonetheless, Donald Trump is now apparently planning to make similar deployments into other Democratic-run cities that have seen major protests over police brutality and racism.

Among them is Chicago, which Mr Trump has railed against for years because of its high crime rate. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has confirmed that federal forces will soon be arriving in the city  but that she has confirmed they will be there to help fight violence, not to engage with protesters.

However, she has also drawn a line at the kind of actions seen in Portland. We welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship, she said on Tuesday. We do not welcome authoritarianism.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London  Wed, July 22, 2020 18:08 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066883213 2 News Beefeaters,Tower-of-London,tourism,travel,destination Free

The guardians of the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London are facing job losses because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on tourism, the charity running the venue said Monday.

Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) said it had "no choice" but to cut costs, as the crisis had slashed visitor numbers and revenues.

The red-coated "Beefeaters" at the Tower and other employees at six sites managed by HRP could opt for voluntary redundancy as of last month.

But as the full extent of COVID-19's impact on the UK economy becomes clear, they will likely now face compulsory layoffs.

It would be a first for the corps that has been guarding the Tower since the early 16th century, with roots in the mid-15th century.

"Beefeaters" -- formally known as the Queen's Body Guard of the Yeoman of the Guard -- live and work at the Tower, which dates to the 11th century.

Their nickname is thought to stem from the days when the yeoman warders were given a daily ration of meat.

HRP, which manages venues formally owned by the British monarchy, said closing the sites for nearly four months because of COVID-19 had been a "devastating blow to our finances".

Read also: More gin Ma'am? British royals offer palace tipple for sale

"We have taken every possible measure to secure our financial position, but we need to do more to survive in the long term," said its chief executive John Barnes.

"We simply have no choice but to reduce our payroll costs."

Barnes called the staff at the sites, which also include parts of Kensington Palace and Hampton Court Palace, "the spirit of our charity" and said HRP was "heartbroken" about the layoffs.

HRP would not say how many of the Tower's 37 "Beefeaters" could lose their jobs, and vowed a smooth transition and necessary notice periods for any made redundant.

"The Yeoman Warders are a valued part of the Tower of London and popular with our visitors," Barnes said, adding that their work would continue "in the years to come".

HRP is entirely self-funded, with 80 percent of its income in the last financial year coming from visitors.

It has seen an 87 percent fall in income, leaving it with a 98 million (US$124 million) shortfall this year.

With the tourism sector increasingly expected to make only a slow recovery, HRP is preparing to operate with half its usual income in the next few years.

The Tower was the eighth most-visited tourist attraction in Britain last year, according to the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, an industry body.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:51:32|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday refuted the claim by some U.S. politicians that the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan.

Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a daily press briefing when asked for comments about the so-called latest evidence of the origin of the virus as recently revealed by an internal cable of the U.S. State Department.

With respect to the management and research of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Yuan Zhiming, director of the National Biosafety Laboratory at the institute, had given a comprehensive introduction during an inclusive interview, Wang said.

"The laboratory has high-standard bio-safety facilities and a strict management system. All the researchers must undergo systematic theoretical and operation training, and obtain the qualification and approval before entering the laboratory," Wang quoted Yuan as saying.

The spokesperson said that a few politicians in the United States spread rumors and even claimed to have "a large amount of evidence" to support their so-called "truth," showing they have no morals at all.

"The contents disclosed by the relevant reports have enabled the world to see once again how little truth is in the so-called evidence and truth of the United States," Wang said, noting even U.S. experts agree that there is no evidence in the diplomatic cables to support the claim that the novel coronavirus came from the laboratory.

"Speaking of the truth, we do hope that the U.S. government will tell the truth about issues such as the Fort Detrick biolab and give an explanation to the American people and the international community," he said.

When asked for comments about reports that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Britain's recent move on China, saying that the two countries should build a coalition against Beijing, Wang said Pompeo had recently spared no effort to attack and slander China, wantonly carrying out ideological attacks on China and playing up the threat of China.

"His remarks were full of lies, exposing the serious strategic misjudgment of the United States in its China policy, and full of McCarthyist bigotry," Wang said.

The spokesperson said the United States is forming cliques and provoking ideological confrontations in international relations, running counter to the trend of the times embodying peace, development and cooperation as well as to the wishes of the majority of countries.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China has always shared information with the international community in an open, transparent and responsible manner, actively carried out global cooperation in the fight against COVID-19, and provided assistance and support to other countries within its capacity, he said.

"China's efforts and achievements in the international fight against the epidemic are recognized by the world," Wang said, adding that as a responsible major country, China will firmly safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests, reject bullying and injustice, insist on strengthening dialogue and cooperation with other countries, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Enditem
The cost of Metro borne by the county is also going up; that and local road and pedestrian improvements are bundled in a $29.9 million bond request. There are questions about whether to issue $7.5 million in bonds for improvements to fire stations, the courthouse complex and other buildings, and a $3.6 million bond request for parks maintenance.
A consortium - comprising Imperial Capital, Flight Simulation Technique Centre, and Big Charter - have placed a bid for Jet, while the other consortium is led by Kalorck Capital.

Jet Airways has received resolution plans from at least two of the four shortlisted entities that made the cut in the fourth round, thereby raising hopes for a revival of the beleaguered airline.

According to sources, a consortium - comprising Imperial Capital, Flight Simulation Technique Centre, and Big Charter - have placed a bid for Jet, while the other consortium is led by Kalorck Capital.

We feel our proposal is a win-win situation for all stakeholders, as it takes care of interests of both financial creditors and employees.

"We will make equity investment and have received support from Xponentia Capital Partners.

"We want to make Jet operational to serve the domestic and medium-haul markets.

"We want to have single type of fleet and we will take a decision based on market dynamics," said Capt. Sanjay Mandavia, chief executive officer of Flight Simulation Technique Centre.

Jet, which has been under insolvency since June last year, had received 12 expression of interests in the fourth round, after the first three rounds failed to garner any financial bids from the investors.

However, only four had made the cut. UK-based Kalrock Capital, Canadian entrepreneur Sivakumar Rasiah, Abu Dhabi-based Imperial Capital Investments, and Alpha Aviation had been shortlisted.

The resolution plans submitted by the two bidders will be evaluated by a sub-committee of lenders that will examine the viability of the plan, experience of the bidder, proposal related to payment of liabilities and equity infusion, if any.

The committees recommendations will be shared with all lenders and then proposals will be taken up for vote by the committee of creditors.

Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters
We lost a real light today. Gratitude for what he gave to all of us and blessings on his journey forward.  https://t.co/teEWTRAJZs  Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) July 20, 2020

This year I met this young American, a journalist, who turned out to be a friend, who I thought that we would meet again. How is it possible? My heart and prayers go to his family and friends. May his passion for social justice be remembered and inspire people around the world. https://t.co/OgGmzh5kMl  Lula (@LulaOficial) July 20, 2020

We lost one of the absolute best among us. Rest in Power Michael Brooks. We will never forget all that you taught us, how you made us laugh, how you truly believed in our shared humanity. https://t.co/Ihg72ekdJu pic.twitter.com/BOC7R1WUP5  Krystal Ball (@krystalball) July 21, 2020

I met Michael Brooks years ago when a friend of a friend put us in touch. He wanted to get a drink and pick my brain about media and he was so obviously brilliant and thoughtful and funny and wise in that one convo I remember saying, Youre gonna be fine. RIP.  Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 21, 2020

Rest In Peace @_michaelbrooks. One of the best people out there hands down. 2020 u suck  Justin Jackson (@J_ManPrime21) July 21, 2020

Im devastated by the death of Michael Brooks. pic.twitter.com/i8AwVziI4g  Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) July 22, 2020

Im still in shock from the sudden death of my dear brother and comrade Michael Brooks!! https://t.co/lLLRCgXwck  Cornel West (@CornelWest) July 21, 2020

This news about Michael Brooks is really throwing me for a loop. This was a man who believed in the power that he had to literally shift our thoughts and in turn shift the way the world receives one another. We really lost one way too soon. This is devastating. #ripmichaelbrooks  "SIN-AID" (@synead) July 21, 2020

Michael Brooks was a leftist political commentator who appeared on The Majority Report with Sam Seder. His untimely death has had a huge impact across the leftist media landscape.Source: 1
Union Minister of Information Technology is scheduled to address the Digital Minister's meeting on Wednesday.

Prasad is expected to deliver his address at 5:30 pm.

The Digital Economy Ministers meeting will take place as part of the Sherpa Track for the Leaders Summit 2020, which is to be hosted by Saudi Arabia at the end of 2020.

Consultations for the annual meeting are conducted through three tracks -- government discussions take place under the Finance and Sherpa Tracks and civil society organisations participate through engagement groups.

The Saudi Arabian Presidency has selected the theme, "Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century For All". The three key agenda items to be addressed under this theme are: "Empowering People, by creating the conditions in which all people - especially women and youth - can live, work and thrive"; "Safeguarding the Planet, by fostering collective efforts to protect our global commons"; and "Shaping New Frontiers, by adopting long-term and bold strategies to share benefits of innovation and technological advancement.

(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.)
Netflix India is reportedly testing a new tier of subscription plan, called Mobile Plus. The new plan is squarely targeted at those who do not stream Netflix content on TVs, and do most of their viewing on phones, tablets or laptops. In terms of the offering, the plan sits between the SD-quality Basic subscription plan, and the newer Mobile plan that Netflix introduced for select markets including India, in a bid to boost their subscriber count in the country. The new plan is still being tested, which means that it may not show up for all subscribers in India.

In terms of the plans offering, the Rs 349 Mobile Plus subscription plan gives subscribers a way to enjoy HD streaming on Netflix without needing to subscribe to at least the Standard tier plan. For Rs 349, subscribers will get single screen access only, meaning that only one device can stream using this account at a particular point of time. Furthermore, subscribers will be able to stream Netflix content on their phones, tablets and laptops using this plan. However, a report by Gadgets 360 states that the Mobile Plus plan will not offer streaming on Netflixs TV apps, therefore restricting the scope of the plan only to those who mostly watch Netflix on the move. That said, one big benefit of the plan is its support for HD streaming, which so far could be availed with at least the Standard plan (priced at Rs 649 per month).

The plan is hence ideally suited for users who want to stream Netflix content in HD on their phones and laptops, and do not require the added TV app support. Calculated on an annual basis, the new plan will help users save up to Rs 3,600, hence bringing down the minimum cost of accessing Netflix in HD by a fair margin. So far, Netflixs single-account Mobile plan only allows single screen access for streaming on phones and tablets (no laptop support) in SD quality for Rs 199, while the the Basic plan allows single screen streaming (laptops and TV included) in SD for Rs 499.

Netflix is likely targeting Indias massive internet user base with this more affordable plan, in a video streaming market that now has numerous popular players including Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar as Netflixs major rivals, and the likes of Zee5, Sony Liv, Alt Balaji, Eros Now, Voot, Viu and many other streaming services playing a bit-part role. However, comparatively taken, Netflixs plans are still more expensive in comparison with its competition. For instance, Amazon offers all-inclusive Prime subscriptions to users for Rs 999 per year (including access to Prime Music, Prime delivery service on Amazons e-commerce platform and more), while Disney+ Hotstar offers two tiers of subscriptions  an all-inclusive Hotstar Premium plan for Rs 299 per month (or Rs 1,499 per year), and a partial Hotstar VIP plan for Rs 399 per month. Both the competing services offer their content at a significantly lesser rate.

That said, Netflix has long been hailed for offering one of the best original content programming around the world, and of late, has also produced a number of India originals to rope in more viewers in the country. With the new Mobile Plus plan presently in testing, it remains to be seen if Netflix significantly benefits by offering this limited-access subscription plan to viewers who mostly stream on mobile devices.
Valmet Receives Eighth Tissue Production Line Order from Hayat Kimya The new Valmet Advantage DCT 200 TS tissue machine will add 70,000 tons of tissue to Hayat Kimya's current production of facial, toilet and towel tissues. July 22, 2020 - Valmet will supply the eighth tissue line delivery including an extensive automation package to Turkish tissue producer Hayat Kimya. The company has decided to invest in a third machine in Russia in order to meet the increasing demand for their high-quality tissue products. The value of the order will not be disclosed. According to Valmet, this is the first machine at their new mill outside Moscow. The new line will add 70,000 tons of tissue to company's current production of facial, toilet and towel tissues. Hayat Kimya, the current world speed record holder with their TM2 tissue machine in Turkey supplied by Valmet, is constantly targeting latest technology to reach the highest efficiency and the lowest possible energy consumption. Previously the company has installed six Valmet Advantage DCT 200TS tissue production lines to its mills in Turkey, Russia and Egypt with one more starting-up in 2021. "Our ambition is to run at high efficiency and Valmet's technology is certainly supporting that target. We are regularly updating our machine fleet to make sure we always operate at optimum production level. We find both Valmet's technology and people easy to deal with," says Lutfi Aydin, Director, Paper Group, Hayat Kimya. Bjorn Magnus, Sales Director, Tissue Mills business unit, Paper business line, Valmet, added, "We are excited to be part of Hayat Kimya's successful journey. The company started only fourteen years ago and is already a world player, who will soon have nine tissue lines in operation." Technical Information The new tissue machine TM9 will have a width of 5.6 m and a design speed of 2,200 m/min. The raw material to be used in the tissue production will be virgin fiber. The new production line is optimized to save energy and to enhance the quality of the final product. Valmets scope of delivery will comprise a complete tissue production line featuring stock preparation systems and a Valmet Advantage DCT 200 TS tissue machine. The machine will be equipped with an OptiFlo headbox and a cast alloy Yankee cylinder. It will also be featured with the Advantage tissue technology including ViscoNip press, an AirCap Heli hood and air system prepared for co-generation, WetDust dust system, sheet transfer system and a SoftReel L reel. The line also includes a Valmet F(O)CUS Rewinder. The stock preparation line will consist of OptiSlush pulpers, OptiFiner conical refiners and OptiScreen machine screens. Furthermore, the delivery will include an extensive Valmet automation package with Valmet DNA machine controls, process controls and Valmet IQ quality controls. Complete engineering, installation supervision, training, start-up and commissioning are also included in the delivery. About Hayat Kimya Hayat Kimya A.S. is part of the Hayat Group. The Hayat Group primarily operates in the home care, hygiene and tissue categories for the consumer goods industry. Hayat has continued to invest significantly since their entrance into the tissue category 14 years ago and today the Group carries "The Largest Tissue Manufacturer of Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe" title with 490,000 tonnes production capacity/year. Valmet is the leading global developer and supplier of process technologies, automation and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries. The company's technology offering includes pulp mills, tissue, board and paper production lines, as well as power plants for bioenergy production. For further information, visit: www.valmet.com SOURCE: Valmet
- Versatile use of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has spurred the application of cryogenic tanks; Segment accounted for more than 35% share in 2018

- Rise in transportation of industrial gases in numerous economies to spur activities related to retrofitting and leasing of cryogenic tanks; Asia Pacific to hold the sway till 2027

ALBANY, N.Y., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cryogenic tanks are suitable for storing oxygen, liquid nitrogen, liquid argon, liquefied natural gas (LNG) at different pressure. They are prominently used in transporting a wide range of industrial gases produced in developing and developed regions in large volumes.

The valuation of cryogenic tanks market will clock a CAGR of more than 7% during 2019 - 2027. In 2018, its worth equaled to US$ 900.0 Mn.

Asia Pacific was the leading regional market in 2018, and a large chunk of revenues has come from sales of cryogenic tanks for liquid industrial gases in its economies, notes analyst at TMR.

Request for Covid-19 Impact Analysis on Cryogenic Tanks Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/covid19.php

Key Findings of Cryogenic Tanks Market Report

Of all products where cryogenic tanks are used, LNG accounted for the top market share of more than 35.0% in 2018

The LNG segment is followed by nitrogen, which is trailed by oxygen and argon

Among the various applications, storage was by far the dominant one, accounting for more than 80% share in cryogenic tanks market

Of the various regions, Asia Pacific was leading market in 2018 and it is likely to retain its lead throughout assessment period; in 2018, its share was more than 30%

was leading market in 2018 and it is likely to retain its lead throughout assessment period; in 2018, its share was more than 30% Opportunities in North America to expand at moderate pace during 2019 - 2027; production of natural gas in U.S. key to the regional market growth

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Cryogenic Tanks Market: Key Driving Factors and Promising Avenues

Strides made by LNG trade worldwide are stirring revenue generation for stakeholders in the cryogenic tanks market. A large part of the recent rise in demand has come from the use of LNG for transportation.

Over the past several years, cryogenic tanks have been used extensively in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and oil and gas businesses for the storage of gases.

Proliferating demand for the transportation of industrial gases has spurred the sales in the cryogenic tanks market.

Advances in design parameters have led to product performance, thereby paving ay for innovations in the market.

LNG are also being utilized in cleaner option such as natural gas energy, especially for businesses serving off-grid consumers. This has bolstered the commercial scope of cryogenic tanks in transporting of LNG.

Strides in manufacturing industries, most notably in Asia Pacific , has helped spur opportunities in the cryogenic tanks market. Rapidly growing production of industrial gases in the region has boosted the growth.

, has helped spur opportunities in the cryogenic tanks market. Rapidly growing production of industrial gases in the region has boosted the growth. However, emerging markets are seeing substantial revenue prospects on the back of extensive research and development on raw materials. Incorporation of composites such as carbon fiber will pave way for innovations in the cryogenic tanks market.

Notable Impediments to Cryogenic Tanks Market Stakeholders

The fact that cryogenics is a high-end technology for various regions. As a result of this, their manufacturing need highly skilled labors, which may not widely present in still- developing economies. This has restrained the prospects of the cryogenic tanks market. In many markets, the trend has spurred the demand for retrofitting and leasing of cryogenic tanks. The lack of availability of specific components is another constraint.

View Detailed Table of Contents at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/2142

Cryogenic Tanks Market: Competitive Landscape

The cryogenic tanks market has prominent presence of regional players. Top players are focusing on achieving substantial cost synergies by engaging in collaborations and partnerships.

Some of the well-entrenched players in the cryogenic tanks market are The Linde Group, Gardner Cryogenics, FNF Gas Technology Products Private Ltd., Eden Cryogenics LLC, Cryoquip Australia, VRV S.p.A, and Cryogas Equipment Private Ltd.

Purchase Premium Research Report on Cryogenic Tanks Market @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php

The Cryogenic Tanks Market can be segmented as follows:

Product Type

LNG

Nitrogen

Oxygen

Argon

Application

Storage

Transportation

Regional Analysis

North America

U.S.



Canada

Europe

U.K.



Germany



France



Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China



Japan



India



Australia



Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

Brazil



Mexico



Rest of Latin America

Middle East

Qatar



Oman



UAE



Egypt



Rest of Middle East & Africa

Explore Transparency Market Research's award-winning coverage of the global Chemicals and Materials Industry,

Chemical Tankers Market - Growth of the chemical industry has fueled the demand for water transportation for transferring chemicals from one place to another across the globe. End-use industries such as the food industry are opting for chemical tankers for products such as vegetable oil and fats. Increasing production of vegetable oil and fats to meet the rising demand across the globe is boosting the chemical tankers market.

Elevated Water Storage Tanks Market - Rise in the demand for elevated water storage tanks in municipal applications and extensive use of these tanks in industrial applications are factors augmenting the elevated water storage tanks market. This is prompting companies to increase production of these tanks. Additionally, increasing rate of urbanization in developing countries is anticipated to drive the global market for elevated water storage tanks during the forecast period.

High-performance Anti-corrosion Coatings Market - The global high-performance anti-corrosion coatings market is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 5.0% between 2019 and 2027. The market is driven by growth of the global oil & gas industry. Asia Pacific accounts for a major share of the global market, due to growth of construction, marine, and oil & gas industries in the region.

PVC Foam Sheet Market - The global PVC foam sheet market for structural composites was valued at ~US$ 900 Mn in 2019 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of ~4% from 2020 to 2030. PVC foam sheet for structural composites is a closed-hole cross-linked structure, which possesses high rigidity, excellent strength-to-weight ratio, and toughness. PVC foam sheets are used in a wide range of applications, such as transportation, wind energy, marine, and building & construction, due to these properties.

Fiberglass Market - Fiberglass is a material with high strength, fatigue resistance, and stiffness. Therefore, it is utilized to manufacture blades for offshore and onshore wind turbines. The consumption of fiberglass in wind blade manufacturing has increased significantly due to technological advancements. Rising demand for wind energy is anticipated to drive the fiberglass market. Companies are signing long-term agreements in order to tap the market.

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CHICAGO - State and city officials on Tuesday pushed back hard against Trump administration plans to deploy federal agents to Chicago, saying they are determined to avoid a repeat of the escalation that has brought swelling crowds and chaotic scenes to the streets of Portland, Ore.

The presence of Department of Homeland Security forces in Oregon's largest city - dubbed "Trump's troops" by the governor - has inspired protesters to turn out in large numbers, drawing new faces opposed to what they call an assault on local rights.

But with Trump threatening to send in federal agents to combat crime in cities run by "very liberal Democrats" - and with Homeland Security officials drawing up plans to deploy in Chicago - the standoff appeared poised to expand from the Pacific Northwest to America's Midwestern hub.

"We're going to do everything we can to prevent them from coming," Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said Tuesday. "And if they do come, we're going to do everything we can from a legal perspective to get them out."

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, was more measured, saying the city would cooperate if federal reinforcements work with federal agencies that are already working in Chicago. If not, she said, she will fight the deployment in court.

"We welcome actual partnership," she said in a Wednesday news conference. "But we do not welcome dictatorship, we do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents."

Governors and mayors across the country have reacted with alarm to Trump's threats. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, called on him to "stop slandering diverse, progressive cities like Oakland in his racist dog whistles and divisive campaign tactics."

In Portland, Trump administration officials have defended the deployment of agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection as necessary to help defend federal buildings and officers.

"The well-organized mob in Portland has become increasingly aggressive, especially against law enforcement," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday.

But the agents' presence has been met with condemnation from local officials for tactics they say have included detaining protesters and whisking them away in unmarked vans.

Rather than dampen protests that have been a staple of downtown Portland since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on May 25, the presence of federal agents appears to have energized them. The crowd on Monday night was the biggest that many longtime activists had seen since June, with a city park and streets around the police force's boarded-up Justice Center overflowing.

"A lot of new people out here tonight," observed one activist at the front of the crowd as hundreds cheered. "Next time you come out here, bring a gas mask, goggles. . . . Remember, [the federal agents] bring weapons."

The crowd included mothers in yellow shirts, bike helmets and masks, fathers wearing orange and holding signs with messages such as, "defend black lives, defend human rights, defend our city!"

Seasoned protesters dressed in black - helmets and gas masks hanging from their backpacks or bodies - mingled among newcomers who had arrived with little more gear than cloth masks over their faces and signs held aloft.

The Department of Homeland Security has not said exactly how many agents have been dispatched to Portland, a city where Trump has said the unrest is "worse than Afghanistan" - a view that matches an overriding theme of his struggling reelection effort.

Federal officers armed with tear gas, stun grenades, pepper spray, rubber bullets and more have fired on crowds of people and made more than two dozen arrests in the area around the federal courthouse since July 4.

Many at the protests this week said they had never attended one before. But watching the images of federal agents in their city persuaded them to act.

"There's been a call for those of us who are white and able-bodied and can be out here putting our bodies on the line to come protect our community," said a 39-year-old named Abby, a pair of pink children's swim goggles pulled up around her bike helmet. "Our community is under threat right now."

Abby, who like many others declined to give her last name out of fear of being targeted in the federal crackdown, held a sign above her head that she had originally made for a small protest at her 9-year-old daughter's elementary school

"All mamas were summoned when George Floyd called out for his mama," it read.

The escalation in Portland is what Chicago officials hope to avoid.

Lightfoot said Tuesday that her understanding of federal plans is that additional agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be "plugged into existing agencies that will help manage and suppress" street violence.

In a letter to Trump on Monday, she warned that agents operating outside of locally managed commands would not be welcome, a point she repeated at her Tuesday news conference.

"I don't put anything past this administration, which is why we will be diligent and why we will be ready. If we have to use the courts to stop them, we will," she said.

Other Chicago leaders said they were deeply suspicious of Trump's intentions.

"This is pure political gamesmanship," said Matt Martin, a member of the Chicago City Council. "Whether he sends in troops or not, you can't lose sight of the fact that whatever he does will be driven primarily by what he thinks the political benefits will be and not what is best for the city of Chicago."

Police union leader John Catanzara, Trump's primary ally in the city, sent the president a letter over the weekend, asking him to intervene to address rising crime.

"Mayor Lightfoot has proved to be a complete failure who is either unwilling or unable to maintain law and order here," he wrote. He told Trump that he "proudly and repeatedly" wears Trump gear when he speaks before the council.

But for many residents, the prospect of federal agents on the streets was deeply unnerving.

"My neighbors are scared," said state Rep. Will Guzzardi, a Democrat who represents a suburban Chicago district. "It feels like something from a dictatorship on the other side of the globe. Not something we'd expect to be happening in our backyard."

Meanwhile, activists are preparing, with the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter mapping out a protest plan and giving members details about how to deal with clashes on the street.

Aislinn Pulley, founder of the Chicago BLM chapter, said she considers what happened in Portland over the weekend "a test case for what [the administration] is planning across the country, and Chicago is the next phase."

For some in Chicago's activist community, the confusion over what role federal agents will perform is overshadowed by what they say is a clear attempt to scapegoat protesters for gun violence and civil unrest.

"[Authorities] think us not backing down is us being violent," said Alycia Kamil, a 19-year-old organizer with the anti-violence group Good Kids Mad City, who used her middle name for safety reasons. "No, us not backing down is us being powerful and showing we have courage."

In recent days, organizers have protested police funding near Lightfoot's home and marched through downtown to denounce the plan to deploy federal agents. But in Grant Park on Friday, a group police described as "vigilantes" attempted to topple a statue of Christopher Columbus. Videos from the scene showed protesters pelting police with cans and water bottles, while officers were seen striking people with batons and accosting journalists.

Kamil cited a video in which an officer punched a young woman while she backed away and knocked out a tooth as evidence of the need to keep demonstrating.

"When you go to these protests and see police smacking teeth out of young girls, how can I stay at home and not work toward what we need changed?" Kamil said.

- - -

Lang reported from Portland, Ore.; Bellware from Chicago; and Witte from Washington. The Washington Post's Scott Wilson in Santa Barbara, Calif., contributed to this report.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. The Serbian weapons were exported to Armenia by a private company which had permits from four ministries and the countrys top civilian intelligence and security agency the BIA, Serbias outgoing Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said, N1 reports.

Arms were exported to Armenia in 2020 by a private company, state-owned companies had no part in that. I cant name the company but we know that it exported mainly rifles and pistols worth less than a million Euro in two shipments in May and June, Ljajic told the Nova.rs portal. He explained that the final export permit comes from the Trade Ministry but the Foreign, Internal Affairs and Defense Ministries have to give their approval first as well as the BIA.

He said there are no EU, US or Russian sanctions imposed on Armenia making it hard to refuse requests from that country.

On July 19 the Azerbaijani Haqqin.az reported that the Azerbaijani government has received an information according to which in the past months Serbia has exported large amounts of weapons, including mortars, to Armenia. After this report the Azerbaijani foreign ministry immediately summoned the Serbian Ambassador. Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister Khalaf Khalafov told the Serbian Ambassador that these media reports question the cooperation and friendly relations between the two countries.
Protesters are calling for an end to repression. The military is also targeted, accused of interfering in political affairs and of supporting the former coup. Six ministers resigned. The pandemic pushes the country into recession.

Bangkok (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Protests continue in Thailand against Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha's government. About 200 people demonstrated yesterday outside the headquarters of the Armed Forces, calling for the premiers resignation.

On July 18, at least 2,500 people demonstrated in the capital one of the largest public demonstrations since the 2014 military coup, when Prayuth (at the time commander-in-chief of the army) came to power. Other small demonstrations were held the following day in Chiang Mai and Ubon Ratchathani. Public gatherings in Thailand are banned to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, but police have made no arrests.

Protesters want the dissolution of Parliament, the resignation of the executive and an end to the persecution of the opposition. They also accuse the military of squandering taxpayers' money and interfering in the country's political affairs by supporting Prayuth.

The former general has led a civilian government since last year, but his critics consider the elections that decreed the formal end of the military junta rigged. Moreover recently, due to the effects of the pandemic crisis, the pressure on the premier has grown significantly. On July 16, six ministers resigned.

The coronavirus has dealt a severe blow to the local economy. According to the central bank, the national GDP will have an 8% drop this year. The United Nations estimates that the Thai economy will lose 41 billion euros, especially in the tourism sector, the flagship of the country.
Speaking at the USIBC India Ideas Summit, the US Secretary of State said India has a chance to attract global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said the recent clashes "initiated" by the Chinese military against India in eastern Ladakh are the latest examples of the "unacceptable behaviour" of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

He also praised India's decision to ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, which he said are "security risks" to the Indian people.

"It's important that democracies like ours work together, especially as we see more clearly than ever the true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese communist party," he said.

"Our infrastructure projects, our supply chains, our sovereignty, and our people's health and safety are all at risk. If we get it wrong..."Pompeo said in his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council.

"The recent clashes initiated by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) are just the latest examples of the Chinese Communist Party's unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the deaths of 20 Indian service members. I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests," he said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since 5 May. The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

Pompeo commended India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok that present serious security risks for the Indian people.

He said he was happy to report that India is a "rising US defense and security partner, in the Indo-Pacific and globally," he said. Asserting that the United States has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

"We work closely together to make sure that the world intellectual property organisation election was won by someone who respects property rights. It seems pretty basic," he said.

Pompeo noted that the so-called quad compile comprised by the US, India, Japan and Australia has been revived. "India is also part of a group of like-minded nations that I've convened regularly to advance shared interests," he said.

He also noted that the US has also invited Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi to the next G-7 (summit), where the leaders will advance the economic prosperity network.

The G-7 is a group of countries and organisations that the US considers natural partners because they share values like democracy and transparency and the rule of law.

India, Pompeo said, has a chance to attract global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in like telecommunications, medical supplies and others.

India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States, he said.

We also had to work with India to advance the Blue Dot Network, an initiative to promote high quality, transparent infrastructure development, he said, adding that this effort is crucial to adopt because free markets are the best way to lift people out of poverty. India has seen that in its own recent past, he noted.

He said that is an especially vital truth to remember today because the private sector will be indispensable and overcoming the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic that began in Wuhan, China.

"But as I said last year to achieve these worthy goals, India will need to encourage an environment that is more open to increased trade and investment," Pompeo said.

"I know that's possible because Indians and Americans share a spirit of hard work and entrepreneurship, and I'm confident our partnership is only getting stronger," Pompeo said.

The United States, he said, desires a new age of ambition in its relationship with India.

"We don't just interact on a bilateral basis. We see each other for what we are great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India is one of a few trusted like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration on issues that span continents," Pompeo added.
Washington: US President Donald Trump, in a shift in rhetoric on facial coverings, encouraged Americans on Tuesday to wear a mask if they cannot maintain social distance from people around them in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

In his first briefing focused on the pandemic in months, Trump told reporters at the White House that the virus will probably get worse before it gets better.

Trump has been reluctant to wear a mask himself in public.

He also conceded the pandemic is likely to get worse for a time.
TRUMBULL, Conn., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CoLab @ 55 Merritt, Trumbull's only dedicated coworking location, began enrolling members at an impressive rate since Phase 2 of CT's reopening guidelines went into effect at the end of June. Coworking facilities, like CoLab, that offer private offices and team spaces, have become a popular option for professionals who want to move out of their homes and back into a professional environment. CoLab provides a localized, flexible and lower cost collaborative working environment for entrepreneurs, independent contractors, small businesses, as well as corporate employees working remotely. Located near Route 8 and the Merritt Parkway in a corporate park setting, the facility offers over 30,000 square feet of coworking space.

"Coworking spaces will not only provide an immediate stepping-stone towards the return to business as usual, but experts also predict these types of spaces could be the face of the work environment in the long term," said CoLab President, Jeff Levene.

With the number of COVID-19 cases currently declining in Connecticut, local and state officials are looking for ways to create jobs and fill office space. However, social distancing is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. Therefore, most organizations will need to rethink the workplace environment and consider ways to lessen the number of workers in their offices.

"Many companies have implemented staggered shifts and flexible work policies which will help keep offices less dense. Again, experts predict that the decentralized office will become even more the norm than it was becoming before. Large corporations will most likely look to 'de-densify' their offices to help employees manage the current situation and to aid in the recovery," said Levene.

Though workers are looking to get out of their homes and back into more of a business environment, most aren't comfortable commuting via public transportation to major business centers just yet.

"[email protected] Merritt's coworking facilities are unique to the town of Trumbull, a vibrant business community, in close proximity to several large Connecticut cities including New Haven and Bridgeport. The CoLab is an excellent opportunity for all types of businesses, including construction, trades, small companies and independent workers. They offer flexible space with flexible terms and abundant parking for both cars and trucks," stated Rina Bakalar, Director of Economic and Community Development for Trumbull.

One of the biggest benefits of coworking is the ability to collaborate with other like-minded workers, industry resources and mentors that can help increase worker productivity and growth opportunities. According to a GCUC survey, 84% of coworkers say working in a coworking hub makes them more motivated. And 67% of people who cowork say they have experienced improved professional success. CoLab provides members with a member only portal that provides a way to communicate with CoLab staff and enables them to network with other companies and workers in the building. A recent survey by Smallbiz shows that 82% of respondents have expanded their professional network since joining a coworking office space.

"Even before the COVID-19 crisis, people's working habits were evolving and larger companies continued to decentralize at a staggering rate," said Levene. "The last several months have shown companies that many businesses can survive and even thrive with employees working remotely and, if there is one thing quarantine has shown us, it's that many businesses can now be run from virtual offices. Technology advances that were happening at a rapid pace before the global pandemic, have now practically jumped into warp speed, allowing people to remain connected regardless of their location."

But even though people enjoy flexible schedules and the increased flexibility that comes from working remotely, many are finding that it's important to establish some limits between home and work. As society continues to figure out how to move towards the future of work, more and more workers will seek ways to keep their work lives and their personal lives separate, and co-working spaces offer an excellent solution. Last year, statistics showed that about 3.1 million people were using coworking spaces around the world. This number is estimated to nearly double by 2022.

CoLab membership is offered on a monthly basis depending on the type of space needed, starting at $65 a month for membership, which includes an open or hot desk. Dedicated desks, private offices for teams of all sizes, as well as meeting rooms and flexible spaces are also available. Once enrolled, members can use the space occasionally or on a daily basis as membership pricing provides unlimited days of use per month.

"CoLab is not only the right space to work for individuals," said Levene, "it's the right space to grow young businesses or downsize existing ones as needs change, without the worry of long term leases, furniture and utilities."

CoLab's current amenities include high speed internet, mail and secure storage, conference rooms, phone and meeting rooms, printing, security access control, abundant parking, a convenient location, janitorial services, and onsite management staff. Future amenities may include onsite food services, mentoring services and member hosted networking events. www.colab55merritt.com

Media Contact:

Jane Levene

203-253-7953

[email protected]

SOURCE CoLab
While U.S. President Donald Trump could realistically attack the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the greenback, the cost would be "very high," said Becky Liu, head of China macro strategy at Standard Chartered Bank.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that Trump aides had dropped the idea due to inadequate support and concerns about implementation as well as whether the move would backfire. Bloomberg had previously reported that top advisors had considered undermining the peg in weighing potential retaliation for China imposing a national security law in Hong Kong.

Two methods the White House could use to damage the peg would likely backfire, Liu told CNBC's "Street Signs" on Wednesday.

One approach would involve the U.S. undermining Hong Kong exchange funds' ability to hold U.S. dollar-denominated assets, said Liu. "But impacting one of the world's largest reserve managers' ability to hold U.S. dollar reserve assets would seriously undermine U.S. dollar's role as the international reserve currency," she added.

The Trump administration could also undercut Hong Kong banks' ability to obtain the greenback or strip them of their ability to conduct dollar clearing activities. But that would hurt the international financial markets "too severely" and could bring about an international financial crisis, she added.

The market however should not rule out the possibility that the Trump administration could restrict some banks particularly Hong Kong branches of Chinese banks  from accessing U.S. dollar liquidity or from conducting dollar payments, she said.
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  July 22, 2020  Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. BJ, The Kroger Co. KR, Lakeland Industries, Inc. LAKE, Fortinet, Inc. FTNT and Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. SWBI.

Here are highlights from Tuesdays Analyst Blog:

Solid Coronavirus Vaccine Prospects Drive Market: 5 Growth Picks

Stocks rallied on Jul 20 after positive developments with respect to coronavirus vaccine candidates cheered investors. The U.S. stock market had been through a roller coaster ride since the virus broke out and investors are now closely watching progress in vaccine development.

The life-threatening disease has wreaked havoc and infected nearly 14.9 million worldwide. So far in the United States, 3.96 million have been infected and the country is currently registering more than 60,000 new cases per day. The rise in new cases has been constantly hindering economic reopen plans and only a vaccine discovery can rekindle hopes in the market.

Potential Coronavirus Vaccine in Focus

A series of positive results in the coronavirus vaccine front seem to have eased worries arising from the spike in new cases. On Jul 20, drugmaker AstraZeneca along with the University of Oxford developed a coronavirus vaccine, called AZD1222, that showed promising results in early human testing (Phase 1 clinical trial), per reports released on Jul 20. The joint venture plans to move into larger trials. The vaccine increased levels of both protective neutralizing antibodies and immune T-cells that target coronavirus. According to researchers, the vaccine was found to be well-tolerated and did not show any serious side effects.

Additionally, BioNTech and Pfizer said that the COVID-19 vaccine candidate produced a T-cell response in people participating in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in Germany, and can trigger an antibody response. The response bore similar results to the test conducted in the United States. In fact, the United Kingdoms government has signed agreements to buy 90 million doses of vaccines in development by drugmakers including Pfizer, BioNTech and Valneva. Pfizer and BioNTech plan to supply 30 million doses of their vaccine candidate through 2020 and 2021.

Story continues

Earlier, on Jul 15, Moderna scientists also reported that all 45 patients tested in the trial are building immunity against the virus. In fact, the antibodies produced were higher than those seen in people who have recovered from COVID-19.The new data of Modernas experimental vaccine contains genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, which makes the vaccine safe and effective. And the company plans to prevent the spread of coronavirus by the end of this year or early 2021. Moderna plans to begin its late-stage trial for its vaccine on Jul 27 and will enroll 30,000 participants from 87 locations.

More than 150 vaccines candidates are now being developed and tested worldwide, and 23 of them are in human clinical trials. As vaccine developments keep providing positive outcomes, markets are expected to rally higher.

5 Growth Stocks to Buy

Hence, we have shortlisted five growth stocks, as investing in growth stocks seems prudent in the current scenario as they are poised to grow at a faster pace than the broader market. Whats more? These stocks flaunt a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and possess a Growth Score of A.You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. offers perishable, edible grocery, general merchandise, and non-edible grocery products. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 51.4% against the Zacks Consumer Services - Miscellaneous industrys estimated earnings decline of 2.3%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has climbed 27.8% over the past 60 days.

The Kroger Co. operates supermarkets, multi-department stores, marketplace stores, and price impact warehouse stores. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 29.1% compared with the Zacks Retail - Supermarkets industrys estimated earnings growth of 8.2%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has climbed nearly 15% over the past 60 days.

Lakeland Industries, Inc. manufactures and sells industrial protective clothing and accessories. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is more than 100% against the Zacks Security and Safety Services industrys estimated earnings decline of 6.7%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has climbed more than 100% over the past 60 days.

Fortinet, Inc. provides security solutions to all parts of IT infrastructure. The company has an expected earnings growth rate of 13.8% for the current year against the Zacks Security industrys estimated decline of 15.1%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has moved 2.2% up over the past 60 days.

Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells firearms. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is more than 100% against the Zacks Leisure and Recreation Products industrys estimated earnings decline of 26.8%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has climbed more than 100% over the past 60 days.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.

Zacks has just released a Special Report that spotlights this fast-emerging phenomenon and 6 tickers for taking advantage of it. If you don't buy now, you may kick yourself in 2021.

Click here for the 6 trades >>

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In the five months since COVID-19 began to put nearly all businesses at risk, a major focus of economic rescues has been company owners. That includes a little-recognized change in bankruptcy rules that offers a helpful tool for small businesses strapped by debts.

In all the excitement around the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, and the Small Business Administrations expanded Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, weve largely overlooked the change, known as Subchapter V (because it is a subsection of Chapter 11 bankruptcy rules) or simply Chapter 5.

Before this reform, large-business owners hoping to stay in control after a rough financial patch could hire an attorney to organize a Chapter 11 filing. This filing would include a plan to pay business debts over an extended period of time, sealed with an agreement with all creditors.

Traditionally, Chapter 11 filings have been useful for large businesses only. First, retaining an experienced bankruptcy attorney for a Chapter 11 filing is expensive, making it potentially out of reach for small businesses already struggling to stay afloat. Paying filing fees, administrative fees and a six-figure retainer to a Chapter 11 attorney to begin the bankruptcy process makes plenty of economic sense for a giant enterprise. In contrast, anything above $20,000 for a small business could be cost-prohibitive.

Second, a Chapter 11 filing has to make sense to creditors, all of whom have to agree to a plan. Big companies are more likely to be able to liquidate assets or secure new funding in a bankruptcy, making the probability of success clearer to creditors.

More from Taylor: Property taxes a problem without a solution for business owners

Now theres a better option for small businesses.

The Chapter 5 plan created by the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 went into effect this past February for businesses with less than $2,726,625 in debts.

The federal CARES Act, passed in late March and known for the PPP, raised the small-business debt limit for one year to $7.5 million, opening the door to Chapter 5 as a tool for a larger group of small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is all brand-new.

The Department of Justice has assigned an initial cohort of about 200 trustees nationwide to administer this new type of bankruptcy.

Jerry Lara /Staff file photo

San Antonio-based Michael Colvard, a bankruptcy specialist and partner at Martin and Drought PC, is one of two trustees in the city eligible to administer Chapter 5 cases as a trustee.

By mid-July, Colvard was assigned as trustee to his first seven cases. One of my earliest cases has filed a plan, is moving forward, and I expect they are going to be able to pull themselves out (of their financial hole), he said.

It offers a unique advantage, he said of the beefed-up Chapter 5, and I see it as a potential upside opportunity to those types of businesses.

On ExpressNews.com: Liberty Bar owner in the age of coronavirus: I feel like the tail struggling to wag the dog

Colvard explained why a small business would consider this new bankruptcy tool.

Chapter 5 allows a business owner a chance to pay on business debts for up to 60 months, based on realistic cash flow generated by the business, as agreed to by creditors. Business owners have to pledge their future, projected disposable income to paying debts.

Creditors generally dont like bankruptcies. But Chapter 5, in theory, gets them paid somewhat  and gets them paid more than they would receive in Chapter 7, which usually means total liquidation, with nothing left over for creditors. Not all creditors are required to sign off on a Chapter 5 plan. The debtor just has to show that payments will be better for creditors when compared with liquidation under Chapter 7.

Assuming the business is fully compliant with the plans terms, unpaid debts at the end of the process could then be discharged. In other words, forgiven. With the kicker being that the original owner gets to retain ownership.

This is the crucial difference between Chapter 5 and traditional Chapter 11.

Normally in bankruptcy, if you dont pay your lenders in full, they get ownership of all your stuff and the business. As a general rule, Chapter 11 creditors dont agree to any plan unless equity holders get wiped out first, before creditors take any losses. Under Chapter 5, however, businesses pay some or most of their debts over five years, with the remainder of their debts written down to zero  and they get to keep the business equity.

Colvard said this new kind of filing is certainly no cure-all.

If you have a failing business that doesnt make any money, its not going to work, he said.

Like so many other programs launched in the spring of 2020 for business owners large and small, the effectiveness and usefulness of the new Chapter 5 arent exactly clear.

More from Taylor: In a coronavirus-induced recession, should highway spending keep its protected status?

San Antonio attorney Randy Osherow serves as a Chapter 7 trustee, the type of bankruptcy filed by debtors who have limited, or zero, ability to pay their debts. Osherow expressed a combination of optimism, skepticism and concern about the new Chapter 5.

The theory is good to help small businesses, he said. Everybodys hoping that it will work, but its unclear what kind of businesses are going to be able to use it.

What he means is that a small business such as a restaurant or retail shop  even if it gets temporary relief from creditors with this filing  may struggle much more than a larger business to find sufficient new capital to make this step worthwhile.

Osherow was concerned that many will fail to comply with the terms of their Chapter 5 plan and end up having to liquidate, or file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, after all.

Osherow said he expects a huge number of (Chapter 7) filings in the fall, when we have this many unemployed, and starting (in late July and August) unemployment benefits and mortgage forbearances expire.

Like so much of the business-support legislation introduced this year, we dont know yet whether it will work. But, unfortunately, well probably see enough cases to test the usefulness of this new small business bankruptcy known as Chapter 5.

Michael Taylor is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and author of The Financial Rules for New College Graduates.

michael@michaelthesmartmoney.com | twitter.com/michael_taylor
Soaring coronavirus infections have provoked a lot of second thoughts among U.S. colleges and universities that were hoping to resume at least some in-person instruction in the fall. Thats understandable, but troubling.

Its crucial to engage students in meaningful collaborative experiences that are difficult to achieve on Zoom. The damage to young people and institutions of higher learning will be deep and lasting unless administrators develop creative ways  in concert with both students and faculty  to revive key aspects of campus life.

Theres no doubt that even partial reopenings will entail risks for colleges, though different ones from those facing K-12 schools. For one thing, over one-third of tenure-track faculty are 55 or older, significantly more than the general working population  putting college professors at greater risk of contracting life-threatening forms of COVID-19. Then too, while online education is far from ideal even for college students, young adults are better equipped than children to handle virtual classes. College students also have the ability to take a gap year if they dont like their colleges educational offerings.

Focusing on freshman will allow universities to build a campus culture for their newest recruits. Freshman also need help making the transition from high school, where learning often follows mandates, to college where, ideally, they select their own courses and schedules and develop their own intellectual interests.

The pandemic is also a good opportunity for schools to create a buddy culture aimed at supporting younger students and enlisting undergraduates in brainstorming healthy campus interactions and creative solutions to living and learning in a pandemic.

At a time when colleges are striving to recruit more students from marginalized communities, they will need to make accommodations for their financial and logistical needs. Even schools that are offering mostly virtual courses in the fall should open school buildings, including lecture halls and libraries, for students who do not have a quiet place to work or adequate internet connections at home.

All universities should strive to make accommodations for students studying subjects like laboratory sciences and fine arts, which rely on hands-on work. To be sure, these classes will require students and professors to shoulder a certain degree of risk, and will involve unanticipated expense.

Indeed, public universities especially are facing a host of financial pressures that only extra funding from the federal government can alleviate. With state revenues shrinking due to COVID, universities sorely need an infusion of aid beyond the $14 billion available through the Cares Act, the $2 trillion coronavirus relief package that Congress passed in March. For example, Rutgers University in New Jersey has taken a $183 million hit so far; only $27 million of that will be made up by funds from the Cares Act.

Colleges breathed a sigh of relief when the administration of President Donald Trump backed away from its threat to withhold visas from international students, who are a source of both intellectual diversity and much-needed revenue. At Baruch College in New York City, where I teach and where international students made up 11.6% of enrollment last year and paid close to $19,000 apiece in tuition, its still unclear what toll Trump administration policies and the pandemic will have on international enrollments this fall.

A recent Democratic Senate proposal to add $132 billion for higher education singles out tribal colleges and historically Black institutions, many of which are now fighting for survival. The historically Black schools produce 42% of the nations Black engineers and 80% of its Black judges. Such legislative initiatives need to be given priority.

At the same time, university systems like the City University of New York and the University of California that will go almost entirely online in the fall, need to do more to open campuses. Precisely because public transportation and tall buildings on many of these campuses create unique risks, universities need to include faculty unions in their planning. They will also need to lead by example, cutting administrative staff and salaries before demanding concessions from faculty, many of whom are low-paid adjuncts. CUNY recently laid off 2,800 staff, including many adjuncts who will also lose their health-care benefits.

The pandemic will test the ingenuity of college campuses. But even the most creative need political leaders and the public to put education first.

Andrea Gabor is the Bloomberg chair of business journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York.

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A group of UN human rights experts has called on Iran to immediately release imprisoned human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who has reportedly been suffering from symptoms of COVID-19 -- the illness caused by the new coronavirus -- "before it is too late."



"The group of 16 experts expressed grave concerns that Ms. Mohammadi appears to have contracted COVID-19 in Zanjan Prison," the UN Human Rights Council said in a statement on July 22.



Mohammadi, who is serving a prison sentence for anti-government propaganda and membership of a banned group opposed to the death penalty, has been in detention since 2015.



She received a combined 16-year prison sentence in May 2016, of which she will need to serve 10 years under Iranian law.



The UN experts called on authorities to give Mohammadi, who showed the first symptoms of COVID-19 on June 29, the results of the test she took on 8 July, and to move her to a hospital for proper care.



Mohammadi, who served as the spokesperson for the Center for Human Rights Defenders in Iran founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, said in a letter from prison published online on July 13, that she and 11 of her cellmates were suspected of having been infected with the coronavirus. One of her cellmates subsequently tested positive.

'Life-Or-Death Consequences'



In her letter, the activist said signs of an outbreak of coronavirus emerged in the Zanjan prison, some 330 kilometers west of the capital Tehran, at the beginning of this month, and called on Irans Health Ministry to send a representative to the prison to investigate the situation.



We are extremely concerned for Ms. Mohammadis well-being. We previously raised concerns that she and other individuals in Iranian prisons are at great risk if they contract COVID-19 and we called for their immediate release, the UN experts said.



For those with underlying health conditions, such as Ms. Mohammadi, it may have life-or-death consequences. The Iranian authorities must act now before it is too late.



The experts also voiced concern that there may be more cases in prison, as prisoners previously released on furlough are being returned to the detention facility, and the number of virus infections is spiking again in Iran.



Iran has been struggling to contain the deadly coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 14,600 Iranians and infected nearly 280,000, according to official figures.



Real numbers are believed to be significantly higher.



Ms. Mohammadi should not be in prison in the first place, the experts said, adding that her detention is arbitrary.



We yet again call on Iran to immediately release Ms. Mohammadi, as well as all others who are currently denied their right to liberty in contravention of Irans obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN experts said.
SHELTON  Police Chief Shawn Sequeira fired three police officers: two for allegedly failing to properly investigate a domestic violence complaint against another police officer and the third for allegedly covering it up.

Sequeira said an internal affairs investigation led to the termination of officers John Napoleone and Michael McClain and Lt. Dave Moore for dereliction of duty. Napoleone and Moore are the police union president and vice president, respectively.

Domestic violence should not be ignored  and I sincerely apologize to the reported victim, Sequeira said. The actions of these officers are not a reflection of the Shelton Police Department. We stand for professionalism, respect and integrity. No misconduct such as this will be tolerated.

The three Shelton officers were called to headquarters Monday afternoon and were asked to hand in their guns and clear out their lockers.

Union attorney Barbara Resnick called the dismissals completely baseless and without just cause.

Resnick said the officers will file grievances over the terminations.

This is a pretextual resurrection of an investigation done by the chief and command staff over a year ago that found no misconduct whatsoever on the officers part, Resnick said.

Sequeira said the initial internal affairs investigation began in August 2019 and was completed in November by Moore. The chief said the report, in which Moore cleared Napoleone and McClain, was found to be incomplete, leading to the additional internal affairs investigation.

More disciplinary actions are expected before the investigation is closed, Sequeira said.

The chief said Napoleone and McClain were fired for not properly investigating a complaint at the apartment of since-fired Bridgeport police officer Steven Figueroa and another Bridgeport police officer. Moore was fired, according to Sequeira, for attempting to cover up Napoleone and McClains mishandling of the incident.

According to the Figueroas arrest affidavit, a neighbor at his apartment complex called in a disturbance around 4:45 a.m. June 29, 2019, that woke up her and her daughter. She told police it was a loud fight and that she could hear someone was being thrown to the ground several times and a woman crying and screaming.

The witness told police, the sounds were not that of just normal arguing, they were horrific and it sounded like extreme violence was taking place. I was in fear for the screaming woman and did not go back to sleep that night, the affidavit said.

Napoleone and McClain were sent to check out the call but, Sequeira said, failed to perform a complete investigation. The two officers knocked on the door but did not identify themselves as Shelton police officers, he said.

The alleged victim later told police she heard knocks but could not respond because Figueroa had allegedly covered her mouth and threatened her if she made a sound, according to Sequeira. After Napoleone and McClain left, the victim was sexually assaulted, Sequeira said.

You neglected to properly investigate the reported domestic violence incident and your dereliction to duty caused further harm and serious injury to the victim, Sequeira wrote in the termination letters to Napoleone and McClain. The fact that you did not perform a complete and thorough investigation resulted in you failing to speak with the known complainant, identify the involved parties and examine their criminal history amongst other critical investigatory steps.

Figueroa had previously been arrested on breach of peace, harassment charges and for violation of a protective order.

A proper interview would have revealed the identity of the Bridgeport Officer involved who was actually on administrative leave and previously arrested four times for domestic violence for which his firearms were seized by Bridgeport Police Department, Sequeira wrote. Domestic violence is a very serious matter and its extraordinarily important the victims be able to trust law enforcement to do their job properly. Your actions/inactions allowed for a further assault to take place.

In the letters, Sequeira said had it not been a Bridgeport Police Officer, the investigation would have been handled differently.

Figueroa was ultimately charged with first-degree sexual assault, third-degree assault, unlawful restraint, threatening, risk of injury to a child and violating conditions of release for the June 29, 2019, Shelton case. Those charges are pending in court.

After Figueroas arrest, Shelton Police conducted an internal investigation, led by Moore, into the actions by Napoleone and McClain.

Napoleone and McClain stated during that investigation that the noise the neighbor heard was probably coming from a loud television. Sequeira said a second internal affairs investigation  including a text message provided by the dispatcher  proved that the officers had details that the apartment was home to the Bridgeport officers and cast doubt that the noise the neighbor heard was from a TV.

Moores investigation knowingly and intentionally omitted vital information in order to paint Napoleone and McClain in a better light, Sequeira said.

There is clear and convincing information that your investigation report contained untruthful statements, omitted statements, contained false & misleading information, and showed a lack of integrity, which appeared to be compromised by your close relationships with the subjects, Sequeira wrote in Moores termination letter.

Both Moore and McClain had been subject of numerous disciplinary measures, according to Sequeira, which also led to the decision to terminate.

In one instance Moore allegedly failed to properly supervise an investigation of a school bus driver who was driving under the influence, his termination letter stated.

Just like with the Figueroa incident, it appears that the protection of fellow police officers is more important to you than the protection of the citizens of the City of Shelton, Sequeira wrote.

Mayor Mark Lauretti said Monday that he expected the investigation would result in more disciplinary actions against other police department staff. He also said There has been this parochial protectionism inherent in the union mindset when it comes to policing known law enforcement officers who live in a community.

Lauretti said, at the end of the day, a woman was sexually assaulted.

You will see more heads roll, the mayor said. This is a sad commentary, especially knowing something could have been done to prevent that.

brian.gioiele@hearstmediact.com
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) announces eight winners chosen in its special COVID-19 edition of the "Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!" competition. Focused on innovations in COVID-19-related pediatric medical devices that will improve children's health care, 16 finalists competed on Monday, July 20 in a virtual pitch event for a share of $250,000 in total grant awards.

A panel of 75 expert judges from health care, business, investor and regulatory sectors selected award winners based on the clinical significance and commercial feasibility of their COVID-19-related medical devices for children. The competition focused on medical devices that support home health monitoring and telehealth, and improve sustainability, resiliency and readiness in diagnosing and treating children during a pandemic.

For safety and efficiency, the competition utilized a video conference format. The event was presented by NCC-PDI co-founders Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National Hospital and the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland , and powered by nonprofit accelerator and NCC-PDI member, MedTech Innovator.

"Because of the high quality of submissions and the critical need for pandemic-related pediatric medical devices, we are excited to recognize and award eight innovations from this event's highly competitive field," says Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., MBA, PMP, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children's National Hospital and principal investigator of NCC-PDI. "COVID-19 is presenting unprecedented challenges and my NCC-PDI colleagues and I know that supporting pediatric innovations will improve care for the patients and families we serve."

Here are the 2020 "Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!" special COVID-19 edition competition winners and their grant awards:

Bloom Standard (Kaaria), Hong Kong , China - $20,000 awarded - wearable, AI-driven ultrasound for infant cardiac and pulmonary screening and diagnostics

, China - awarded - wearable, AI-driven ultrasound for infant cardiac and pulmonary screening and diagnostics Children's Hospital of Philadelphia , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  $20,000 awarded - transparent reusable DIY origami facemask that reveals facial expressions & improves communication

awarded - transparent reusable DIY origami facemask that reveals facial expressions & improves communication Hopscotch, Ithaca, New York - $20,000 awarded - gamified cognitive behavioral therapy-based computer exercises to encourage kids to stay engaged and complete treatment programs

Ithaca, New York - awarded - gamified cognitive behavioral therapy-based computer exercises to encourage kids to stay engaged and complete treatment programs Medipines, Yorba Linda , California - $50,000 awarded - monitor device that displays critical respiratory parameters analyzed from a patient's breathing sample

, California - awarded - monitor device that displays critical respiratory parameters analyzed from a patient's breathing sample OtoPhoto, Baltimore , Maryland - $20,000 awarded - a smart otoscope that quickly and accurately aids diagnosis of ear infections for home telehealth use

, Maryland - awarded - a smart otoscope that quickly and accurately aids diagnosis of ear infections for home telehealth use TGV-Dx, New York, New York - $50,000 awarded - a novel, phenotype-based test system for rapid selection of effective antibiotic regimen

- awarded - a novel, phenotype-based test system for rapid selection of effective antibiotic regimen Vitls, Houston, Texas - $50,000 awarded - wearable platform for remote patient monitoring of the vitals clinicians require to assess a patient

- awarded - wearable platform for remote patient monitoring of the vitals clinicians require to assess a patient X-Biomedical, Philadelphia , Pennsylvania - $20,000 awarded - rugged, portable smart ICU ventilator for pediatric and adult patients

The competition format included a pitch presentation by the innovators to the judging panel followed by a question-and-answer session. Judges' questions delved further into the development process, feasibility of the technology, current resources, the potential market and commercialization strategy.

"These winners represent some of the most promising emerging medical device innovations in the diagnosis, treatment, and care of children affected by COVID-19," said Paul Grand, CEO of MedTech Innovator. "I'm thrilled that we were able to work together with NCC-PDI and seventy-five expert industry stakeholders and clinicians to provide support for these innovators on their critical missions to improve and protect the lives of pediatric patients, our most vulnerable population."

Along with grant funding, one company from the competition will be selected by Johnson & Johnson Innovation  JLABS at a later date to receive a one-year residency at JLABS @ Washington, DC, which will be located on the new Children's National Research and Innovation Campus currently under construction. In addition to the 2021 JLABS residency, the awardee will have access to the JLABS community and expert mentoring by the Johnson & Johnson family of companies. NCC-PDI and JLABS will announce the recipient once the selection process is completed.

Funding for the competition is made possible by a grant from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a philanthropic gift from Mei Xu, founder of e-commerce platform Yes She May, a site dedicated to women-owned brands. A mother and a creator of successful global lifestyle businesses, Mei Xu welcomed the innovators and observed pitch presentations. During the general sessions, participants also had an opportunity to hear from representatives of organizations supporting innovation such as MedTech Innovator, Children's National Hospital, University of Maryland's Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, JLABS, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Center for Advancing Innovation, and Maryland Tech Council.

NCC-PDI is one of five members in the FDA's Pediatric Device Consortia Grant Program created to support the development and commercialization of medical devices for children, which lags significantly behind the progress of adult medical devices. To date, NCC-PDI has mentored over 100 medical device sponsors to help advance their pediatric innovations, with twelve devices having received either their FDA market clearance or CE marking.

To learn more about NCC-PDI and the COVID-19 special edition competition, visit https://innovate4kids.org

About Children's National Hospital

Children's National Hospital, based in Washington, D.C., celebrates 150 years of pediatric care, research and commitment to community. Volunteers opened the hospital in 1870 with 12 beds for children displaced after the Civil War. Today, 150 years stronger, it is among the nation's top 10 children's hospitals. It is ranked No. 1 for newborn care for the fourth straight year and ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. Children's National is transforming pediatric medicine for all children. In 2020, construction will be complete on the Children's National Research and Innovation Campus, the first in the nation dedicated to pediatric research. Children's National has been designated twice as a Magnet hospital, demonstrating the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a convenient, community-based primary care network and specialty outpatient centers in the D.C., metropolitan area, including the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs. Children's National is home to the Children's National Research Institute and Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation and is the nation's seventh-highest NIH-funded children's hospital. It is recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care and as a strong voice for children through advocacy at the local, regional and national levels.

For more information, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

SOURCE Childrens National Hospital
Middletown Area School Board members approved a health and safety plan Tuesday night that will allow students to attend school in-person, online or using a hybrid of both brick-and-mortar and remote learning.

Students will attend the full 180-day school year using a combination of in-person and online learning options that families will be able to choose from throughout the year. The plan also outlines several new safety procedures  including the mandatory wearing of masks and daily temperature checks  meant to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 amid a rising number of positive cases nationally.

The options allow for students at all grade levels to partially or fully return to school in the fall. It also lets students and teachers build relationships at the beginning of the year, which might prove to be important if schools will need to return to full remote-learning later in the year, MASD Superintendent Lori Suski said during the school board meeting that took around four hours to complete.

The school year will begin a week later than usual, on Aug. 31, to give staff extra professional development time to learn new safety protocols and plan for both in-person and online instruction. Despite departures from the norm during the initial shutdown of in-person learning last school year, state legislature about school attendance is not expected to change for the 2020-21 school year, Suski said.

Attendance will be taken daily and students can still be charged with truancy if they do not attend school, even if it is online.

The plan calls for elementary students to attend a full five-day week of school, partially due to the more involved nature of elementary education, Suski said. Students will stay in a single classroom for the majority of the day, reducing the chances of transmission to other students. Lunches will be delivered to students and usually eaten in the classroom or outside, where students will be able to maintain six feet of social distancing.

Students will be able to go outside during recess but high-touch playground equipment will be cordoned off.

Other alternatives

Families who do not want their students to go to school for the full week can do a scaffolded schedule, meaning students attend in-person for fewer days and instead tune into their class through Zoom recorded lessons and digital content.

Alternatively, families can choose for their children to attend full-time cyber school through asynchronous online programs, which lets students learn at their own pace.

Middle and high school students will partially return to school under a blended model of in-person and online instruction. Students will be separated into A and B cohorts and can attend in-person two days a week. Cohort A will attend school in-person on Mondays and Thursdays while cohort B attends classes online in real-time, and cohort B will attend on Tuesdays and Fridays while cohort A attends online.

Both cohorts will remotely attend shortened classes online on Wednesday from 7:45 to 11 a.m. Students will be able to complete work on their own time Wednesday afternoons and have the opportunity to meet with teachers individually or in small groups.

This separation limits the transmission between students who are going from classroom to classroom all day and prepares students for higher education, as many colleges are adopting a hybrid in-person and online curriculum, Suski said.

Students with IEPs and English learners will be able to attend school all four days, as well as students with other exceptions.

Students will be dismissed from classes in shifts and prevented from using lockers in order to limit the number of people near one another in hallways, which will usually be one-way.

Students in grades six through 12 will also be able to attend cyber school entirely online through Raider Academy.

Emphasis on cleaning

Cleaning in all buildings will be done to CDC guidelines and cleaning supplies will be FDA and EPA approved. High-touch areas like doorknobs and light switches will be sanitized at least twice a day and bottled-spray disinfectants will be given to each teacher. MASD also has electrostatic sprayers and foggers that will be able to disinfect a hot room in a matter of hours, Suski said.

Single-student desks in classrooms will be aligned facing the same direction in rows 6 feet apart. Large multi-purpose areas, like gyms and auditoriums, can be repurposed as classrooms if needed, especially if there are more students in a class than usual.

School buses will be sanitized every day, as well. Ideally, there would only be one student in each seat, but because of personnel limitations, students might have to sit two-to-a-seat. Students in the same family will be sat together.

Parents with multiple students might want to keep them on the same schedule to make transportation easier. For example, a family might send an elementary-aged student to school only on the same days that a sibling in high school attends in-person, Suski said.

Survey to be sent

MASD parents will be sent a survey Thursday asking whether they plan on transporting their children to school, which will help to determine how many students need busing and what new routes to take.

Students and staff will be required to pre-screen for any symptoms of COVID-19 at home before arriving at school. If they have any symptoms, like fevers, coughing and shortness of breath, they are to stay home.

Temperature checks will be performed on students and staff daily upon arrival, and if they have a fever of 100.4 degrees or above, they will be isolated for immediate pick-up. If a parent cannot pick up an isolated student, MASD will provide transportation. Parents are asked to update their emergency contact information in case their students need to be picked up.

People showing signs of symptoms are not allowed to return to school without physician clearance and have to be fever-free for at least 24 hours. If they show any signs of being sick, MASD asks that they stay home.

This is not the time to worry about perfect attendance, Suski said.

All students and staff will be required to wear masks at all times while inside buildings, with a few exceptions for lunch and short mask breaks throughout the day when students are at least six feet apart. Those with documented disabilities preventing them from wearing masks may be exempted, and people with medical conditions, like asthma, must have a physicians note to be exempted.

Those who cant wear face masks will be able to wear plexiglass face-shields, like teachers doing speech therapy who need students to see their faces.

Substitute shortage

To mitigate the risk of transmission, MASD is limiting the number of outside rentals of facilities and visitors in school buildings. The district is also recommending that teachers build time for hand-washing into their lessons each hour, have hand-sanitizer available at their doors and limit shared materials in the classroom.

Staff will also receive professional development for proper hand-washing, cleaning and sanitizing, correct social-distancing, correct mask and face-shield wearing and storing, how to do daily pre-screening and temperature checks, how to report cases of COVID-19 and how to prepare for the possible transition to full remote-learning once again.

MASD will also provide training videos for new COVID-19 protocols for students, parents and staff.

The district is still facing many challenges for the upcoming year, Suski said.

There is a severe lack of substitute teachers at the moment, partially because subs do not want further risk catching COVID-19 by traveling from school to school. Students cannot be placed into other classes if a teacher is out since they are separated in specific cohorts, as well.

Suski asked any parents interested in substitute teaching to get certified.

Im begging people to get on the list, she said.

As COVID-19 guidelines passed down from the state and federal governments evolve, staff will need further professional development time. Contact tracing for people in contact with someone with COVID-19 is difficult, as well. Only some staff have training in contact tracing, though the district is planning on training more employees.

MASD will need to figure out a solution for getting meals to students learning from home. Food drop-offs at a central location might be part of the solution, though that is not certain, Suski said.

The threshold for a potential return to full remote-learning across the district is also uncertain. MASD officials have heard different recommendations from different departments, but there is no concrete guideline for when brick-and-mortar education would need to be shut down again, she said.

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The US ordered China to shut its consulate general in Houston city, Beijing said on Wednesday, adding that it was an unprecedented escalation in Washingtons recent actions against China and warned of legitimate and necessary response against the decision. This dramatic development is sure to further sour the rapidly deteriorating bilateral ties with the two countries already at loggerheads over South China Sea disputes, the Hong Kong security bill, US arms sales to Taiwan, the condition of minorities in Xinjiang, and the origin of the coronavirus besides an ongoing trade war.

Earlier on Wednesday, Hu Xijin, the editor of the Communist Partys Global Times newspaper said Washington had given 72 hours to Beijing  that is by July 24  to close down the Houston consulate.

Also read: Relationship with India important, monitoring LAC very closely - US defense secretary

Hus tweet came hours after Houston police and firefighters descended on the consulate following witness reports that papers were being burned outside in open containers, the Houston Chronicle and two local TV stations reported, citing local police.

In Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry lashed out at the Donald Trump administration for passing the order.

ALSO WATCH | US leading the world in Covid-19 testing, India second: Donald Trump

It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US.

Speaking at the regular ministry briefing, Wang said, China strongly condemns such an outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations. We urge the US to immediately withdraw its erroneous decision, otherwise, China will make legitimate and necessary reactions.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Wang said and listed allegations of Washington harassing its diplomats and students in the US.

For some time, the US government has been shifting the blame to China with stigmatisation and unwarranted attacks against Chinas social system, harassing Chinese diplomatic and consular staff in the US, intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices, even detaining them without cause, Wang said.

The spokesperson said China had shown goodwill to US diplomats in China and had promoted Sino-US ties through its envoys in the US.

On the contrary, the US put restrictions on Chinese diplomats in June and last October respectively with no valid reason. [The US] has seized and opened mail and official supplies, Wang said.

Due to the deliberate smearing and hatred-inciting moves from the US, Chinese delegations in the US have recently received bomb threats and death threats. Responding to a separate question at the press conference, spokesperson Wang asked the US to immediately stop making accusations against it about cybercrimes, in response to Washingtons indictment of two Chinese nationals for hacking Covid-19 vaccine-related data and defence secrets.

Wang said the consulate was operating normally but sidestepped questions about US media reports in Houston on Tuesday night that documents were being burned in a courtyard at the consulate.

Earlier on Wednesday, US media reported that Houston police and fire officials responded to reports that documents were being burned in the courtyard of the Consulate General of China in Houston on Tuesday night, citing the Houston Police Department (PD).

Houston PD said they began receiving reports just after 8 pm that documents were being burned at 3417 Montrose Boulevard where the consulate is located, click2houston.com reported.

The Chinese Consulate in Houston was opened in 1979 - the first in the year the US and China established diplomatic relations.

The consulate website says the office covers eight southern US states - including Texas and Florida - and has nearly one million people in the area registered at the consulate.

There are five Chinese consulates in the US while the embassy is in Washington.

The US has its embassy in Beijing and consulates in Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Hong Kong.
Embracing ASEAN has internationalised Vietnam, while Vietnam has also contributed to ASEANs miracle, said a Malaysian scholar on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Vietnams admission to the ASEAN (July 28, 1995).

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Dr Hoo Chiew Ping, Senior Lecturer in Strategic Studies and International Relations under the National University of Malaysia (R) during the interview (Photo: VNA)

In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agencys reporters in Malaysia, Dr Hoo Chiew Ping, Senior Lecturer in Strategic Studies and International Relations under the National University of Malaysia (UKM), said that since joining ASEAN, Vietnam has been able to maximise the benefits of the ASEAN platforms.

They include regional integration, regional identification and the political reconciliation which resulted in Vietnams eventual successful market and economic development, both at the intra-ASEAN and ASEAN dialogue partner levels.

Dr Hoo Chiew Ping

She emphasised that over the decades, Vietnam has been a staunch supporter of ASEAN institutional mechanisms and contributed to strengthening strategic partnership with ASEAN dialogue partners including the US, China, Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, and the European Union.

The scholar added that the pandemic reveals Vietnams strength in health security governance and this has successfully cemented the countrys position not only within ASEAN but also a model for other regional governments around the world.

She went on to say that as ASEAN Chair, Vietnam is expected to encourage other members to invest more trust into the intra-ASEAN cooperation, as the region will be a leading pandemic response model that is to recover swiftly compared to others.

For his part, Dr Ngeow Chow Bing, Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya said that Vietnam joining ASEAN signified a very significant change, as it began the process in which ASEAN was bringing Southeast Asian countries within a single order.

In 2020, Vietnam has been assuming the ASEAN Chairmanship in the face of COVID-19 pandemic posing detrimental impacts on the region and the world.

Vietnam has done remarkably well in controlling the pandemic and should be congratulated so, he said.

Dr Ngeow Chow Bing, Director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya (Photo: VNA)

As the ASEAN Chair this year, the country has to suddenly prepare for the rescheduling and many other unexpected developments, and has been coping with the uncertainties. All ASEAN countries appreciate the enormous responsibilities that Vietnam has to undertake at this moment, Dr Ngeow Chow Bing noted./.VNA
Since its creation in 2010, the MLA Partner Compensation Survey has become the most comprehensive source of law firm partner compensation in the marketplace, said Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader, Law Firm Practice and Managing Partner of MLAs Washington, D.C office.

As the legal industry continues to feel the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, global legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa (MLA) will launch its biennial survey on law firm partner compensation. Fielded in conjunction with legal market intelligence and research specialists Acritas Research, the survey covers 2019 compensation levels, establishing a baseline to evaluate the ongoing impacts of the pandemic on compensation in the legal industry.

In addition to the surveys standard questions about hourly billing rates, total billable hours, and discounts, this years survey will also address the impacts the pandemic has had on partners 2019 compensation and their expectations as to whether their compensation might be affected in 2020. The data will be broken down by base compensation, draw, and anticipated bonus, as well as respondents location, practice area, gender, ethnicity, and other characteristics.

Since its creation in 2010, the MLA Partner Compensation Survey has become the most comprehensive source of law firm partner compensation in the marketplace, said Jeffrey Lowe, Global Practice Leader, Law Firm Practice and Managing Partner of MLAs Washington, D.C. office. Given the changes weve seen in the legal industry as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, these results will be particularly informative as we take stock of the pandemics long-term impact. We believe the 2020 survey results will likely serve as the high-water mark for the legal industry for years to come.

The Partner Compensation Survey will be available to partners in the U.S. from July 28  September 11, 2020. MLA will make a $1 donation to the Legal Aid Society for each person who completes the survey. Results of the Survey will be released in November 2020.

About Major, Lindsey & Africa

Major, Lindsey & Africa is the worlds leading legal search firm. The firm, founded in 1982, offers a range of specialized legal recruiting and advisory services to meet the ever-changing needs of law firms and legal departments and to support the career aspirations of talented lawyers and legal and compliance professionals. With more than 25 offices and 200-plus search consultants around the world, Major, Lindsey & Africa uses its market knowledge and experience to partner with organizations to fulfill their legal talent needs and provide solutions to increase team efficiency and effectiveness. Major, Lindsey & Africa is an Allegis Group company, the global leader in talent solutions.

To learn more about Major, Lindsey & Africa, visit http://www.mlaglobal.com.
MENLO PARK, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- LeoLabs, Inc., the leading commercial provider of low Earth orbit (LEO) mapping and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) services, today announced Costa Rica as the site for its next space radar.

"We are delighted to be working with an incredible team in Costa Rica, and proud to bring the first commercial phased-array radar to the equatorial region," said Mike Nicolls, LeoLabs Chief Technology Officer and co-founder. "This improves our coverage of equatorial and low inclination orbits, filling a critical gap for tracking satellites and space debris." LeoLabs' Costa Rica radar will be capable of tracking small debris down to 2cm and work in concert with LeoLabs' other radars.

This announcement also reflects the priorities of the Costa Rican government. "We welcome LeoLabs to Costa Rica," stated Costa Rican President, Carlos Alvarado Quesada. "The vision of a LeoLabs space radar in Costa Rica takes our national tradition of environmental responsibility and extends it to space, offering our nation a way to contribute to preserving the LEO ecosystem for generations to come. In addition, this investment builds on an existing set of space achievements by Costa Rica, in human space flight as well as in satellites, and opens up opportunities for our nation in the growing new space sector," continued President Alvarado.

The story of LeoLabs' decision to locate its next radar in Costa Rica is also the result of a longstanding relationship between two former NASA astronauts, LeoLabs executive and co-founder, Dr. Edward Lu, and Ad Astra CEO and co-founder, Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz, both of whom went on to found innovative technology businesses. In the Spring of 2019, Dr. Lu reached out to his longtime colleague, Dr. Chang Diaz, to discuss the advantages of building a radar in Costa Rica. "From our mutual experience in space, Dr. Lu and I were both excited about the opportunity to address the threat to human spaceflight posed by space debris," said Dr. Chang Diaz. "The project in Costa Rica offered us the chance to increase safety of flight in space and enable responsible stewardship to drive our mission of preserving critical ecosystems."

"We are very appreciative of the partnership with Ad Astra in making this happen," said Dr. Lu. "One of the priorities for LeoLabs is to locate its next radar in an environment where there is a national and strategic commitment to the space industry. We were especially encouraged by the knowledge and support from the government of Costa Rica through its Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Energy and Environment."

"Today's announcement is a significant step for LeoLabs, as this initiative in Costa Rica will integrate into a growing network of radars and nations around the globe committed to space sustainability" said Dan Ceperley, CEO and co-founder of LeoLabs. "We are grateful for the opportunity and look forward to implementing this vision."

Background:

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is the focus of commercial and public sector activity in space, and 2020 is emerging as the tipping point for new constellations and increasingly international engagement in space. As both a new economy and an emerging ecosystem shared globally across governments, space agencies, regulators, commercial satellite operators and insurance, LEO presents unprecedented opportunity for the new space sector. It also highlights the threat to satellites and astronauts posed by space debris, especially from the estimated 250,000 dangerous objects currently untracked today.

About LeoLabs

Founded in 2016 as a venture-funded spinout of Silicon Valley research pioneer, SRI International, LeoLabs provides access to critical mapping and SSA data for low Earth orbit. LeoLabs' services include collision prevention, risk assessment, constellation monitoring, and commercial SSA. LeoLabs today serves space agencies, commercial satellite operators, defense, and scientific/academic organizations that are driving generational change in LEO. LeoLabs' core technology includes a patent-pending global phased-array radar network which tracks debris and satellites in LEO. Observations generated from this network are the foundation of the LeoLabs mapping and SSA software platform, providing timely and accurate orbital and situational data.

SOURCE LeoLabs, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.leolabs.space


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The flight of young leaders from the Congress has become a defining theme following the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia, and now Sachin Pilot well on his way out. The Indian National Congress, the movement that won the country freedom, is now held hostage to a family and its darbaris that call the shots.

True, this had been the case for nearly half a century beginning with Indira Gandhis grooming of her younger son Sanjay Gandhi as her political successor. However, not only have times changed, India has also moved on from the idea of dynastic succession to a meritocratic worldview in the last 50 years.

The question is: Has the Congress kept up with the changing times? Does it echo the voices and reflect the aspirations of a young India? If not, what future does the party have  and, more importantly, what is the future of young leaders in the Congress?

Matters have come to such a pass due to the inability of the present Gandhis leading the grand old party to learn from multiple crises and failings. Rahul Gandhis flop show and the partys long investment in him on account of his lineage have exposed the system of patronage politics practised by the party since Indira Gandhis days.

Sonia Gandhis motherly affection and undying love for her son seems to have blindsided her to the fact that the party she dutifully presided for more than two decades is now undergoing a slow and painful death even as it is confronted by a marauding Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

With the exits of high-profile dynasts likely to be followed by the low-profile ones and other youth leaders of substance, the Congress will, in all probably, turn into a gerontocracy of sycophants, who will also desert the sinking ship at a later stage.

Come to think of it, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), which can be described as a New Delhi-based group of sycophants, operate very much like the bureaucracy of a State, second-guessing the wishes of the leader and acting on its behalf.

The likes of Jitin Prasada in Uttar Pradesh and Milind Deora in Maharashtra are supposedly next in line, although the jury is still out on the ability and winnability of these dynasts. That Deora, who at one point was among Rahul Gandhis closest aides, is now considered a probable deserter says a lot.

The exits of Ashok Tanwar, originally handpicked by Rahul Gandhi, on the eve of Haryana polls, and long-time spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi were ridiculed by the darbaris as good riddance of people without electoral bases. After Rahul Gandhis defeat from the family pocket borough of Amethi, apart from the electoral insignificance of many in the CWC, such observations are hilarious, to say the least.

Much before the Scindias and Pilots, the exit of Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam had dealt the party a debilitating blow to the Congress in the entire North-East. The loyalists of the party had then gone on to claim how it was akin to a cleansing process, ridding people of doubtful ideological moorings. Perhaps they forgot how ambition and opportunities to wield power override other factors.

More importantly, what the party stands for and, the lack of conditioning or tutoring of its leaders and rank and file on the Congress core ideology is a bigger reason for the ideological ambivalence of its leaders. Beyond its policy documents, why should someone join the Congress today? What is the Congress USP?

The answers to these questions have to be found out and disseminated through the rank and file, apart from reaching out to the masses with the right messaging. It is often argued that the BJPs USP is awakening the baser instincts of its cadre with its Hindutva rhetoric, conditioned by the RSS worldview  nevertheless, does the Congress stand for the opposite?

Can the Congress espouse a liberal approach and a syncretic order and make it the partys guiding principle to forge a future for the party among the nations youth? If so, who will articulate that cause and personify it? Could that be left to lineage alone?

The sooner answers to these questions are arrived at, the easier for the Congress to connect themselves with Indias youth and middle class. Else, the party is at the risk of getting obliterated, as wished and predicted by many commentators so that a new political alternative can emerge to fill the vacuum.
President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 15, 2020, after stepping off Marine One. Trump is returning from Atlanta. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Associated Press

The Republican National Committee is planning to hold a presidential convention in Jacksonville, Florida, between August 25 and 27.

However, Duval County Sheriff Mike Williams told POLITICO that details of the event have yet to be nailed down, including whether it will be outdoors and, if so, where.

Without clear directions and insufficient manpower and funding, it'll be impossible to provide security at the convention, he added.

Florida is grappling with an uptick in coronavirus cases, prompting Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood to say, "common sense is being thrown out the window."

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Republican National Committee's upcoming convention in Jacksonville, Florida, may not get the security it needs.

In years past, Republicans and Democrats have held conventions to solidify and celebrate each party's platform for the next four years and to tout their presidential candidates. But the coronavirus has made these mass gatherings unsafe.

Republicans plan to host their convention on August 25, 26, and 27. The New York Times reported that officials are now mulling an outdoor event, but added a caveat: "[President Donald] Trump often shifts positions, and officials emphasized that the plan could change."

With the plans still in flux  as well as inadequate funds and officers  Duval County Sheriff Mike Williams told Politico he can't come up with a law enforcement plan for the event.

"As we're talking today, we are still not close to having some kind of plan that we can work with that makes me comfortable that we're going to keep that event and the community safe," Williams told Politico.

The event was announced in June, which Williams said isn't enough time for him or his agency to prepare. The RNC has yet to confirm the lineup of events and where they will be held. Further complicating matters, a $50 million grant for security has since reduced to $33 million, Williams said.

Story continues

"At virtually 75 days it was an incredible lift, and everything would have to be perfect. And needless to say it has not," Williams told Politico. "So you know with that, we can't pull it off in any kind of current configuration."

Meanwhile, the Sunshine State is combatting an alarming surge in coronavirus cases overwhelming its healthcare system. Nearly 360,400 people have been infected, around 9,450 patients have been hospitalized, and more than 50 hospitals statewide have run out of ICU beds, according to Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration.

The Florida Sheriffs Association sent out an email in early July asking for 2,000 officers from departments across 67 counties, according to an email obtained by Politico. But only 500 can make it, Bob Gualtieri, the association's president and Pinellas County Sheriff told Politico. Williams has now turned to the Florida Police Chiefs Association for aid.

"We do need law enforcement officers and we've gotten commitments, but not to the level that we thought we needed. And a lot of that is people having virus concerns from their communities, and I understand that," he told Politico.

In addition to more officers, Williams told Politico that there were other logistical hurdles that needed to be resolved in little over a month.

"But there's a lot of things that need to happen: an event schedule nailed down, and being able to sign contracts and spend money so that we can prepare for this event," he said. "And none of that has happened yet."

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who's sending two-dozen officers to help with security, said the convention is a bad idea. Conventions typically require advance notice and monthslong planning and, Chitwood said, "that's without COVID-19."

"There's a fear of telling him no because anyone who tells the president no, it's like, off with their heads," he said.

"Common sense is being thrown out the window," he added.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Poland's Prosecutor General and Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro has said that cooperation with the Ukrainian side in investigating the case of former Polish transport minister and former Ukravtodor head Slawomir Nowak is exemplary, according to Polskie Radio.

"Poland's Prosecutor General, Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro acknowledged that cooperation with the Ukrainian side in the case of the former Ukravtodor head is exemplary," the statement reads.

It notes that on July 21, the District Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw filed a petition for the three-month arrest of Nowak, as well as Dariusz Z., a former commander of Poland's elite GROM special forces unit, and Jacek P., a businessman from Gdansk.

Earlier reports said that Poland's Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CAB) had detained Slawomir Nowak, the former Polish transport minister who later headed Ukraine's State Road Agency (Ukravtodor), for corruption and activities in a criminal organization.

Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) reported later that they, together with Ukraine's Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, CAB and the District Prosecutor's Office, were conducting searches in Kyiv, Lviv, and Poland as part of a joint investigation into the activities of a criminal organization in the road industry.

NABU Director Artem Sytnyk said on July 20 that one suspicion notice, in this case, would be approved in Ukraine and other suspicion notices would be approved by Polish law enforcement officers. He added that the issue of handing out suspicion notices, detention and choosing measures of restraint in Ukraine, in this case, was being coordinated with their Polish colleagues.

Sytnyk also said that he did not see the need to extradite Nowak to Ukraine. According to him, it does not matter where the trial will take place, because criminal acts are jointly assessed by Ukrainian and Polish law enforcement officers.

Nowak headed the Polish Transport Ministry from 2011 to 2013. Between October 19, 2016 and October 1, 2019, he served as the acting Ukravtodor head. He received Ukrainian citizenship in October 2016.

Photo: PAP/Mateusz Marek
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to grant urgent hearing to a plea urging initiation of contempt proceedings against Punjab Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister regarding their alleged statements against the verdict in the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement.

A five-judge constitution bench had recently termed as "unconstitutional" the 2004 Punjab law which terminated the SYL water pact, saying the state cannot "unilaterally" terminate it or legislate to "nullify" the verdict of the highest court.

A bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice D Y Chandrachud on Tuesday told lawyer Rakesh Dahiya, who sought urgent listing of a criminal contempt petition, that the plea would come up in due course.

The plea, which was filed by one Satbir Hooda, a resident of Rohtak in Haryana who runs an NGO, alleged that Prakash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal, Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab respectively, have made statements that the apex court verdict in the case will not be allowed to be implemented.

Also Read: SC verdict on Satluj Yamuna Link canal water sharing: Amarinder Singh's resignation is just a drama, says Parkash Singh Badal

"This constitutes the offence of criminal contempt," the lawyer said.

In its verdict, the apex court recently responded in the"negative" to all the four questions referred to it for the opinion by then President APJ Abdul Kalam on the validity of the law passed by then Punjab government, led by Captain Amarinder Singh to nullify the court verdicts and unilaterally terminating the almost three decade old SYL water sharing agreement.

The controversial 1981 water sharing agreement came into being after Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966.

Also Read: Punjab won't spare a drop of water for other states, says Sukhbir Singh Badal

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
It is impossible to know whether the UK's coronavirus outbreak will get worse this winter, according to researchers.

Concerns are growing that Britain will be hit by a second wave of Covid-19 when the weather turns colder and that the current drop in infections and deaths is merely a reprieve.

Matt Hancock, along with the Government's top scientific advisers, have warned a second national lockdown could be necessary to control the coronavirus. The Health Secretary yesterday said his current priority is 'preparing for winter'.

Many scientists predict the coronavirus will act in a similar fashion to colds and the flu and become problematic when the weather is cold and people spend more time indoors, because people are closer together and more likely to spread it.

But the data we have so far is not enough to prove this will be the case, according to Oxford University scientists. The virus  scientifically called SARS-CoV-2  is still shrouded in mystery and has only been known to science for six months.

They argue that hot countries have been badly hit by Covid-19, suggesting it is not significantly weakened by heat, and also that worse weather outdoors could make more people get tested because they're more likely to get coughs and colds.

And this could, therefore, lead to more false positive results and mean more people test positive  even though the virus is not actually more prevalent in society, the scientists claimed.

The study comes just a day after other research, involving King's College London, linked a 1C increase in temperature to a 15 per cent decline in deaths caused by the coronavirus, adding to concerns that a second wave will emerge in the winter.

Dr Francois Cohen and colleagues said the change in weather could affect how accurate testing data is and therefore how bad the outbreak appears. In the top graph, they show that true positive tests (green) may be lower in colder weather but surrounded by more false positives (red) because more people get tested because of routine coughs and colds

Dr Francois Cohen, from Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, said: 'Our study found several problems with trying to understand the influence of weather using existing data on confirmed Covid-19 cases...

'The existing data can't reliably tell us whether warmer weather slows down the spread of Covid-19, as some earlier studies have tried to suggest.

'So we urge both policy makers and the public to act with caution.'

STUDY FINDS HOTTER WEATHER REDUCES COVID-19 DEATHS Scientists around the world have analysed the link between weather and Covid-19 deaths using data from nearly 7,000 patients admitted to hospital in Croatia, Spain, Italy, Finland, Poland, Germany, the UK and China. They found a 1C increase in temperature is linked to an approximately 15 per cent decline in deaths caused by the coronavirus. While death rates and severe disease  measured by intensive care admissions  fell as Europe warmed up, they did not change in China where most cases happened in winter. The study found that the strongest association was found in Barcelona, Spain, where the odds of dying fell by 4.1 per cent per day between March 2 and May 19. Overall, the hospitals in Europe saw that the need for intensive care fell by 2.2 per cent per day between late February and late May. And the need for patients to be moved onto ventilators fell by 2.1 per cent per day. Meanwhile, no change had been observed over a similar time frame in Zhenjiang in China - between January 17 and 21 March. The researchers did not give a breakdown of exact numbers for how many people were being hospitalised and dying over time. They said the weakening of the disease appeared too big to be explained purely by better treatments. They also noted that hot, humid countries in East Asia which had seen outbreaks of Covid-19 had not had death tolls as devastating as those seen in cooler Europe. In Indonesia, for example, there have been 86,521 cases and 4,143 deaths  a rate of 4.8 per cent, compared to a death rate of 15.4 per cent in the UK. In Singapore there have been 47,913 cases and 27 deaths (0.06 per cent), according to the World Health Organization, and in Japan 25,096 cases and 985 deaths (4 per cent). Spain's death rate has been 11 per cent, according to WHO data, and Italy's 14 per cent. The paper was published on the website medRxiv without review from independent scientists. Advertisement

Dr Cohen and his colleagues said any analysis that has been done of how seasons affect the virus so far have been affected by the quality of testing.

At the start of the pandemic, tests were not widely available in many countries, meaning many cases were missed and there was no real understanding of the true scale of the crisis.

And many tests were not high quality, they said, meaning results were more likely to be wrong.

This means it is difficult to tell with any certainty how the transmission of the virus has changed over the past six months, they said, and current data is not good enough to tell whether seasons have had an effect on transmission yet.

In addition to this, the virus has spread all over the world and not been contained only to cooler countries.

Many hot countries have suffered devastating outbreaks and continue to do so.

Cases in Brazil have spiked from 1.6million to 2.1million in just two weeks, while India has seen its outbreak grow by 900,000 cases, from 720,000 to 1.6m in the same time, World Health Organization data shows.

Dr Anant Jani, an author of the study, said: 'Although we still dont know the influence of weather on the spread of Covid-19, we are sure of one thing: the virus has been able to spread everywhere, including in very warm areas of the globe, such as Ecuador, Brazil and India.

'It continues to spread even in warmer states in the US like Florida, California and Texas.

'Good weather is no excuse to take risks with a disease that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people.'

Considering how the virus would be tracked in the coming months, Dr Jani and colleagues were concerned that swab testing - which is currently the only measure of the disease's spread - will be affected by the weather outdoors.

In colder weather, more people would get symptoms of illnesses similar to Covid-19 - such as colds and flu - but not actually the coronavirus, they said.

As a result, more people would get tested for coronavirus, which would lead to more false positive results.

Swab tests do not have perfect accuracy - although it is unclear how many false positive results they produce - meaning some people get told they have Covid-19 when they don't, while others are told they don't have it when they do.

Dr Cohen's paper said: 'There have been numerous concerns regarding the accuracy of the Covid-19 tests performed so far...

'False-negative results would imply that the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases is underestimated. False-positive results would imply that people who do not have Covid-19 are included in the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases.

'Concerns regarding test accuracy create an additional problem of measurement that might affect statistical analyses.'

The study was published in the journal Environmental and Resource Economics.

As tests have become more widely available there are greater numbers of false positives, the scientists say, which may inflate how bad an outbreak will look in the winter when more people will get tested because they have symptoms caused by cold and flu viruses

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said yesterday that he couldn't rule out another national lockdown if the virus surges out of control and that his current priority is 'preparing for winter'

HOW OUTBREAKS IN FOOD FACTORIES WARN OF RISK OF WINTER COVID-19 OUTBREAKS As news has emerged of food factories around the world experiencing outbreaks of Covid-19, experts have suggested conditions inside the plants may be conducive to the spread of the virus. And the environments inside food factories are much like they are outdoors in the British winter - cold, without much sunlight, and with people packed closely together indoors out of the miserable weather. Dr Simon Clarke, a cellular microbiologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline that it was notable that food factories seemed to have been the centre of outbreaks more than other factories where people might be close together. He said: 'There are problems in this country, in Germany, in the United States. There is something common between them - it's not happening in engineering or clothing factories where you also might expect people to be in close proximity to one another. 'One assumes - but it's just an idea - that the cold environment makes people more susceptible to the virus. 'Cold weather irritates the airways and the cells become more susceptible to viral infection.' Dr Chris Smith, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, said on LBC 'temperature is going to play a part'. He explained: 'When I'm breathing I'm blowing out droplets of moisture from my respiratory tract and the virus which is growing in there would be packaged up in the droplets. 'Now the droplets will hover for a period of time in the air and then sink to the ground... and if it's very dry, cold air - and cold air carries less moisture, remember - the droplets will stay smaller and stay airborne for longer. 'If it's very humid, moisture joins them, makes them bigger and heavier, and they fall and they drop out of circulation faster - so temperature could be a factor.' Sunlight is also known to degrade viruses and make them less able to survive on surfaces that are exposed to UV light. Rays of sunlight are thought to damage the genetic material inside the virus, making it less able to reproduce and killing it faster. Professor Calum Semple, a disease outbreak expert at the University of Liverpool, told The Telegraph that cold, sunless food factories are ideal conditions. He said: 'If I wanted to preserve a virus I would put it in a cold, dark environment or a cool environment that doesn't have any ultraviolet light - essentially a fridge or a meat processing facility... 'The perfect place to keep a virus alive for a long time is a cold place without sunlight.' But the temperature alone does not appear to be a controlling factor in coronavirus outbreaks. Dr Michael Head, a global health researcher at the University of Southampton, said he thought close proximity was most likely to be behind the factory outbreaks. He said: 'Whilst refrigeration may be a contributory factor to the spread of the virus, the key factors are likely to be the number of people close together in indoor conditions. 'Some of these factories have onsite or nearby accommodation where there are several people in each dormitory, they may be transported on a bus to the site of work, and they will be indoors together all day. 'Levels of adherence to measures such as washing hands is uncertain and there is unlikely to be widespread use of PPE.' Advertisement

The study comes after scientists from around the world yesterday published a study claiming that the death rates and likelihood of severe Covid-19 increase in colder weather.

Researchers tracked the pandemic in seven countries and found a 1C increase in temperature was linked to a 15 per cent decline in deaths caused by the coronavirus.

Professor Tim Spector, a King's College London epidemiologist who runs the Covid Symptom Tracker app and led the study, said the results suggested summer was a 'window of opportunity' to run the virus out of Europe.

People appear to be less susceptible to severe disease when weather is warmer and more humid, he said, and more in danger when it's cold outside.

This was a 'particular worry' for Britain because thousands of people are still getting infected every day and the end of summer is already approaching, Professor Spector said.

Scientists have repeatedly warned about the dangers of cold weather returning with coronavirus still circulating, because many other viruses - such as colds and flu - are much worse in the winter months.

Cells lining the airways are less resilient in the cold, experts say, and people spend more time indoors which increases the risk of the virus spreading because they are closer together and touch more of the same surfaces.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday morning, Professor Spector said: 'In Europe, where we had seven hospitals recording data and temperatures and time, we saw that for every degree of centigrade increase we saw a reduction in mortality of about 15 per cent.

'So generally, as the weather got warmer the severity of the disease reduced and mortality reduced over time.

'And the same was not true in the Chinese data that we've got which was running from December to February when the temperature wasn't heating up.'

Professor Spector also looked at data from 37,000 people using the app he is running in the UK, and found people appear to be having shorter, less severe illness now that the weather is warm.

He worked with scientists around the world looking at data from nearly 7,000 patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in Croatia, Spain, Italy, Finland, Poland, Germany, the UK and China.

While death rates and severe disease  measured by intensive care admissions  fell as Europe warmed up, they did not change in China where most cases happened in winter.

The study found that the strongest association was found in Barcelona, Spain, where the odds of dying fell by 4.1 per cent per day between March 2 and May 19.

Overall, the hospitals in Europe saw that the need for intensive care fell by 2.2 per cent per day between late February and late May.

And the need for patients to be moved onto ventilators fell by 2.1 per cent per day.

Meanwhile, no change had been observed over a similar time frame in Zhenjiang in China - between January 17 and 21 March.

The researchers did not give a breakdown of exact numbers for how many people were being hospitalised and dying over time.

They said the weakening of the disease appeared too big to be explained purely by better treatments.

They also noted that hot, humid countries in East Asia which had seen outbreaks of Covid-19 had not had death tolls as devastating as those seen in cooler Europe.

In Indonesia, for example, there have been 86,521 cases and 4,143 deaths  a rate of 4.8 per cent, compared to a death rate of 15.4 per cent in the UK.

In Singapore there have been 47,913 cases and 27 deaths (0.06 per cent), according to the World Health Organization, and in Japan 25,096 cases and 985 deaths (4 per cent).

Spain's death rate has been 11 per cent, according to WHO data, and Italy's 14 per cent.

This may have been because Asian countries were better prepared - they generally had faster testing and a better understanding of the disease because of the SARS outbreak 18 years ago - but researchers suspect the weather played a part, too.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-21 22:43:16|Editor: huaxia

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As India reopens after a long lockdown, some green shoots, especially in the job market, have begun to appear. The overall hiring activity increased sequentially by 33 per cent in June. Hiring activity picked pace across six key industries amidst a tough job market as per the Naukri JobSpeak Report, a monthly Index that calculates and records hiring activity based on the job listings on Naukri.com website month on month.

The pharma sector, which has been at the forefront of fighting the global pandemic, has been least impacted in hiring activity. The sector saw a substantial improvement of 27 per cent in creating jobs in June as compared to May. "The city of Hyderabad, a hub for medication supplies to the country, along with Kolkata were the two cities that saw the least decline in hiring activity for the sector," the report added.

The IT-software sector continues to contribute to the growth of overall hiring activities as the leading job creator in the country. The sector, which had been growing strongly in terms of hiring since last year, remains one of the least impacted sectors when it comes to the current global crisis. The last month of the quarter saw sequential uptick of 19 per cent in hiring. Delhi-NCR and Ahmedabad are the two cities leading the revival of the sector recording positive sequential growth, said the report.

The BPO/ITES industry has seen a 48 per cent growth in job listings on Naurki.com in June versus the previous month, with Bangalore and Pune showing the fastest signs of recovery. Being one of the most adversely affected industries, hiring was at its lowest in hospitality and travel in April and May. However, the relaxations through Unlock 1.0 have indicated an improvement of 107 per cent in June versus last month.

According to Naukri.com JobSpeak report, another industry that was most impacted amid the pandemic was the retail industry. The sector picked up momentum in hiring during the month by 77 per cent and improvements are expect in upcoming quarters.

Series of events has put the auto and ancillary industry under the spotlight in the second quarter. Inspite of fighting multiple battles from production to export/import of raw materials, the industry saw 77 per cent month-on-month growth in hiring activity in June. "The cities that contributed to the growth were Pune and Bengaluru", said the report.
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Compare-autoinsurance.org (https://compare-autoinsurance.org/) announces a new blog post, "The Most Important Safety Features That Can Help You Save Money on Car Insurance" that presents several important safety features that can help drivers pay cheaper car insurance premiums.

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Safety features that are installed in the vehicles can help drivers save money on insurance. Safety features can protect the driver and the passengers in the event of a collision and some features can even prevent accidents. From these reasons, insurance companies will pay medical bills for fewer accident injuries. To encourage drivers to purchase safer vehicles, insurance companies are offering discounts for the safety features installed in the vehicles. However, not all insurance companies are offering discounts for safety features/

The most important safety features are the following:

Airbags . Drivers can get a greater discount if they have a vehicle that has a side curtain and front airbags. Drivers are less likely to experience severe injuries if they have airbags in their cars. As a result, insurance companies will have to pay less out on PIP claims and medical payments claims.

Anti-lock brake systems. In the states of New York, New Jersey, and Florida car insurance providers are obliged by the law to give discounts to policyholders who own vehicles with ABS systems. ABS systems can help drivers save money on collision coverage, medical payments, PIP insurance, and liability insurance.

Electronic stability control. Some carriers are offering discounts to policyholders who own vehicles equipped with ESC. Electronic stability control will help drivers control their vehicles on icy or wet roads.

Seat belt s. Discounts for seatbelts are quite new in the insurance industry. Some insurers will offer a 15% discount off medical payment coverage and PIP insurance premiums just for having seatbelts installed in a vehicle.

Daytime running lights. This safety feature is present on most modern vehicles and will help drivers have better visibility during the day. In most cases, drivers will get a 5% discount off their liability coverage, medical payment coverage, collision coverage, and PIP premiums.

Crash resistant door . Drivers who own vehicles that have doors that feature the latest crash resistance technology, that has safer crumpling on impact, are eligible for a 5% discount.

Anti-theft devices. While these systems don't protect a driver while driving, they will protect a parked vehicle. Insurers will offer discounts that can be as large as 30% for drivers who have advanced anti-theft devices in their vehicles, like ignition kill switches.

Lane departure systems. Modern vehicles are equipped with lane departure warning systems or advanced systems that can push a vehicle back to its lane. These systems can prevent drowsy driving and distracted driving. The discount can vary a lot depending on the insurance company and on what type of system is installed in the vehicle.

Story continues

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I think I chose the wrong week to head to Skibbereen.

While last week dry cows shone at the west Cork mart, this week it was the turn of the weanling.

And while I have nothing against the dry cow, I'd much prefer to be looking at a weanling.

It's hard to beat a bit of class, and there must have been some classy weanlings on show in Skibbereen on as the prices paid will attest.

A Belgian Blue bull weanling weighing 295kg made 940 (3.18/kg).

Two Charolais heifer weanlings weighing 225kg made 720 a head (3.20/kg), while four Charolais weanling bulls 270kg made 720 a head (3.16/kg).

At Skibbereen mart on dry cows sold from 100 to 580 with the kilo.

Bullocks made from 280 to 6705 with the kilo. Heifers made up to 630 with the kilo.

While weanling bulls made from 270 to 700 with the kilo or over 3/kg, heifer weanlings made from 250 to 595 over the weight, again here many heifer weanlings went over the 3/kg mark.

Skibbereen

No Breed Sex Weight 

2 Ch steers 505kg 1210

2 Sim steers 375kg 910

2 Ch steers 458kg 1120

2 Lm heifers 510kg 1140

2 AA heifers 497kg 1020

1 Lm cow 615kg 1170

1 Sim cow 650kg 930

Kanturk mart next, and mart manager Seamus O'Keeffe reports on 's mart sale.

"We had a big sale for the time of year with 490 animals including 90 calves. A full clearance was recorded with dealers and farmer buyers competing for all types of stock."

Read More Reduced seven-year EU budget poses problems for farmers

Calves at Kanturk mart were also a good trade with 4 Aberdeen Angus bulls (2 months old) making 420 a head.

3 Aberdeen Angus bulls (1 month old) sold for 350 a head.

Hereford bull calves at Kanturk mart made from 290 to 370 a head.

Hereford heifers made from 170 to 290 a head.

Kanturk

No Breed Sex Weight 

1 AA steer 755kg 1280

5 Fr steers 618kg 980

3 Hr steers 471kg 940

6 AA steers 350kg 770

4 Lim heifers 632kg 1310

1 Lm cow 580kg 1140

1 Fr cow 685kg 1010

As we take a big bite out of the month of July, the mart trade is clearly peaking.

With Northern Ireland buyers driving on dry cows like you wouldn't believe and grass buyers driving on store cattle like you would believe, it's win-win for the seller.

Word has it that this strong trade will remain for the next few weeks, before we see a return to more favourable conditions for the buyer, or a drop in demand. For now it's a sellers' market.

Next to Kilmallock mart, where the headline grabber is an upcoming Pedigree Angus Breeding Sale on this coming .

But before that we will look back over the past week at Kilmallock mart where 650 cattle were sold.

At Nenagh Mart Tuesday, three Limousin cross bullocks, born May 2019, weighed 346kg and sold for 960 each. Picture: James Treacy

Denis Kirby of GVM reported "Prices are flying at the moment with demand exceeding supply. We had 133 buyers doing business at the ring and online."

On bullocks in Kilmallock sold for up to 1,360 each or 2.64 per kg.

saw dry cows hit 1,130 a head or 1.70 per kg. Heifers sold for up to 2.41 per kg.

"A small selection of weanling heifers made up to 2.43 per kg. Dairy stock sold for up to 1,380 a head (paid for a 6-year-old in calf cow springing to Aberdeen Angus).

Factory bulls made up to 1,660 each and sucklers made up to 1,280 (paid for a 3 year old Limousin and her Limousin bull calf).

On runners sold for up to 600 and young calves sold for up to 400.

On , a dispersal sale of 20 Breeding Stock of the Curraghtarsna Angus Herd will take place, beginning at 1pm.

Kilmallock

/

No Breed Sex Weight 

6 Hr steers 345kg 890

7 AA steers 391kg 840

5 Fr steers 378kg 650

1 Lim steer 635kg 1300

2 Lm heifers 318kg 730

1 AA heifer 335kg 700

1 AA cow 385kg 650

Kilkenny mart manager George Candler reported "A bigger yard of cattle" on last, "with quality lots meeting a solid trade."

In Kilkenny on bullocks sold from 1.50/kg to 2.85/kg.

Heifers sold from 1.80/kg to 2.30/kg. Friesian cull cows sold from 1.08/kg to 1.60/kg.

Continental cull cows sold from 1.35/kg to 2.33/kg. 's cattle sale in Kilkenny had 920 cattle on offer.

And looking at 's calf sale, George added "We had a steady trade for calves with a top call of 335 was paid for a Limousin bull calf. Younger calves on offer when compared to the last few weeks.

"Due to this fact, numbers were scarce with many buyers unable to fill their orders. The sale resulted in a 100% clearance."

Kilkenny

No Breed Sex Weight 

1 AA steer 780kg 1380

5 Fr steers 510kg 970

2 Ch steers 415kg 1060

4 Hr steers 390kg 880

6 AA heifers 470kg 850

2 Hr heifers 460kg 880

2 Lim heifers 355kg 1080

Dungarvan mart provides a calf collection service to bring calves to the mart on Mondays. Contact Dungarvan Mart on 058 41611 for further details. And to view the mart online, log into www.livestock-live.com.

Dungarvan

No Breed Sex Weight 

7 AA steers 652kg 1310

4 Lm steers 510kg 1100

4 Hr steers 400kg 850

2 Lm heifers 450kg 950

9 Lm heifers 446kg 910

1 Lim cow 655kg 1000

1 Hr cow 680kg 1100
"One would expect that an honourable person like her would have done the honourable thing. Even if your bodyguard is not there what stops you from calling the police to provide protection? Look at the situation she has created. There is no justification to what she did as a lawmaker; breaking the law..." says Most Reverend Dr. Emmanuel Asante, Chairman of the National Peace Council (NPC)



The Awutu Senya East MP courted controversy when she fired gunshots at a voters' registration centre in the Constituency.



The Special Development Initiatives Minister told Accra-based Adom News that she did it to protect herself at an instance when she felt her safety was threatened.



"Im a Member of Parliament, I need to protect myself. It was at dawn, my police escort had not started work yet. So that is a mechanism I have adopted in his absence," she said.



Despite this justification, the act has received massive condemnation from the public domain, with many calling for her arrest and prosecution.



But Most Reverend Dr. Emmanuel Asante says as a Member of Parliament and a member of a political party that agreed to the terms in the Vigilante Act, she should have known better than to fire a gunshot.



"She is an honourable woman and I think she must resign. If she doesnt do that I think the President must terminate her appointment. She has brought the name of parliament into disrepute. She belongs to a political party that has committed itself to ensure that violent action in relation to elections will not be entertained, and therefore I would like to believe that the political party she belongs to; the NPP will also take action," he said in an interview on Citi Eyewitness news.



"There's no reason why the exercise should be characterised with pockets of violence; it is condemnable. This is all part of the culture of impunity . . . why would she even think of using a gun at a polling station, I cannot understand," he added.







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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President Donald Trump raised eyebrows on Tuesday as he sent his best regards to Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned associate of Jeffrey Epstein whos alleged to have procured dozens of underage girls for the late pedophiles sick sexual schemes.

Trump offered the peculiar token of support for Maxwell after a reporter asked during an unrelated White House briefing if he was concerned that the alleged Epstein madam has dirt on powerful men, such as himself.

I havent really been following it too much, Trump began. I wish her well, frankly. I met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. I wish her well, whatever it is.

Maxwell is currently imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on charges that she supplied Epstein with a steady stream of young girls for him to abuse at his palatial estates in Florida, New York, France and the Caribbean. The 58-year-old Epstein pal, whos likely to spend decades in prison if convicted, is also accused of participating in some of the abuse.

Over the years, Trump has appeared in a number of pictures with Maxwell and Epstein, including at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Maxwell was one of Epsteins closest associates, and rumors have swirled that she could provide federal prosecutors in New York with dirt on various other powerful men now that shes been charged.

Trump critics speculated that the presidents well wishes for Maxwell could be a coded message for her to keep quiet.

Sir, you just sent a signal to Ghislaine Maxwell. And we ALL know why, E. Jean Carroll, an author who has accused Trump of rape, tweeted along with a photo of the president and first lady Melania Trump together with Epstein and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago.



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Many thought that the reason for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's departure from the royal family was because they want to live a normal life.

However, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not seeking a "totally private life," Instead, they would rather have a public life with more privacy than before.

According to royal expert Victoria Murphy, she claims that the couple wants a different kind of public life.

Writing in Town and Country magazine, "Meghan and Harry have taken the royal family, the media and the public into uncharted territory with their decision to walk away from royal life."

She added that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry quit the royal family for a public life where they can have more control over who can come near them, how they earn, and what they will spend their time and money on.

The 38-year-old mom and her husband are said to be focusing on their high-profile status as they promote their new organization, Archewell.

An insider told Town and Country that Meghan and Prince Harry are very hands-on and have been working tirelessly on the development and strategy of Archewell.

Even with Archewell, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are lucky enough to keep some of their royal patronages, including Smart Works, Mayhew, Invictus Games, and OnSide Youth Zones.

They have also branched out other causes such as the Black Lives Matter movement, social injustice, and many more.

"It's giving them a lot of energy," they said. "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex want to see positive and substantive change happen in this world, and they want to lift the voices and platforms of dynamic and diverse leaders of all kinds."

The insider added that the parents of Archie Harrison are focusing more on supporting and strengthening the community.

Archewell is already in motion, despite the fact that people do not see much of it yet, according to the source, and "there's a lot to come."

If the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were still royals, they would be forced to open those aspects of their lives as they receive money from the British taxpayers, and they work to serve the public.

However, with Megxit, their decision's aim was supposed to live a more private life.

But it's getting confusing between them because though Prince Harry and Meghan Markle publicized their wedding in 2018, they chose to keep their son's birth and christening secretive by not inviting the media.

Since they have given up their royal titles and moved to Los Angeles, the Sussexes have kept much of their personal life to a hush.

But the royal expert believes that though the pair won't be branding themselves as royals in their new endeavors, the couple's royal ties will not be erased, especially in Prince Harry's case.

And despite Megxit, Murphy revealed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would never be able to cut ties entirely with the British monarchy.

Among the reasons is the blood tie between the 35-year-old Prince and his royal relatives.

READ MORE: Prince Charles Shame: Not Fit for Monarchy Because of One Trait
SC notice to Bhushan, Twitter in suo motu contempt case

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: The Supreme Court has issued notice Prashant Bhushan on the alleged contemptuous remarks made by him on Twitter.

The court also asked the Attorney General to assist in the case. During the hearing, senior advocate, Sajjan Poovayya appearing for Twitter Inc, California, US told the SC that he will advise his client to delete the offensive tweet. The court then asked Bhushan and Twitter to reply by August 5, when the matter would be heard again.

Twitter told the SC to direct disabling of Bhushan's tweets, alleged to be derogatory against five Chief Justices of India and the Supreme Court. Poovayya also told the court that Twitter cannot delete the tweets without the court's directions.

SC initiates contempt proceedings against advocate Prashant Bhushan & Twitter India

Bhushan has been raising issues pertaining to judiciary and recently he was very critical and vocal of the way in which the top court handled the matters related to migrant workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

He also made statements relating to the treatment meted out to jailed activists like Varavara Rao and Sudha Bharadwaj who are accused in Bhima-Koregaon case.

As of now, it is not clear as to which tweets of Bhushan have been prime facie construed as contemptuous by the Supreme Court.
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  A lawmaker who voted to kill ABS-CBN's franchise has denied allegations of "taking over" its assets and infrastructure, days after a live stream of his meeting with other lawmakers went viral online.

Anakalusugan Partylist Rep. Mike Defensor, who chairs the House Committee on Public Accounts, claimed Wednesday that his Zoom meeting with Deputy Speakers Rodante Marcoleta and Jesus Crispin Remulla only tackled the next steps and sanctions that must be imposed following the denial of the broadcast giant's franchise bid.

"Ang gusto lang naman ng magkakasama doon, organized dapat. Hindi pwedeng pag nag-hearing ka ibang issues ang nire-raise mo. Dapat step by step," Defensor said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.

[Translation: The group only wanted everything to be organized. It cannot be that when you hold another hearing, you're raising other issues. It must be step by step.]

"Sa Zoom pinapalabas pa nila, sinasabing nagpaplano pa kami, na gustong i-take over ang ABS-CBN. Hindi po ganun," he added.

[Translation: In the Zoom meeting, people are claiming that we are plotting to take over ABS-CBN. It's not like that.]

Good Government and Public Accountability chair Rep. Jose Sy-Alvarado, Tingog Sinirangan Partylist Rep. Yedda Romualdez, and Deputy Speaker Dan Fernandez were also seen attending the hour-long online meeting which was posted on Defensor's Facebook page last Friday.

However, a portion of the video which featured Defensor, Marcoleta, and Remulla, the three staunchest critics of the network, gained huge traction after they were heard openly discussing how ABS-CBN should be fined for as high as 1.9 trillion for supposed violations on the rollout of its digital boxes and how the network can even be ejected from its headquarters in Quezon City.

Marcoleta, the one who suggested the hefty penalty, can be heard saying: "Iyong titulo, unahin natin. In principle 'yung lupa, wala silang mabubuhat doon. Lahat ng improvements, pag-aari na ng gobyerno kasi ang lupa pag-aari na ng gobyerno."

[Translation: We can focus on the title first. In principle, they can't do anything about the land anymore. The improvements that can be done, it can be up to the government because the land is already owned by the government.]

Remulla and Defensor said that ABS-CBN's possession of the Joint US Military Assistance Group within the network's compound should also be reviewed.

Remulla can then be heard telling his colleagues to meet the following week for a "follow-through" of their actions.

"Marami pang nakabitin na dapat gawin para we can do justice to our jobs (A lot of things that are still hanging must be done so we can do justice to our jobs)," he said.

It can be remembered that Remulla previously accused some people from ABS-CBN of "cyberbullying" after he received backlash online for taking notes while the Philippine National Anthem was being played before the committee resumed deliberations on the issue.

Last week, Deputy Speaker Luis Ray Villafuerte, another administration-allied lawmaker who voted to kill the franchise, has filed a House resolution seeking to let the government gain temporary authority and use of frequencies vacated by the network to assist the blended mode of learning among students due to the pandemic.

Around 11,000 employees of the network are rendered jobless after the House Committee on Legislative Franchises voted to junk its franchise on July 10. The panel noted that ABS-CBN does not deserve a fresh franchise owing to alleged violations on tax obligations, ownership, and supposedly unfair reporting, among others.

READ: TIMELINE: ABS-CBN franchise

The Makabayan bloc of the lower chamber is seeking plenary action on the matter, claiming that all 305 representatives need to vote and decide on ABS-CBN's fate, due to "unsure" and "insecure" issues contained in the committee report.
My question a couple of weeks back about the location 'Kearney's Embankment' where local people used to swim in good weather seems to have aroused considerable interest in at least two different parts of the Town. The original question was inspired by a letter I received from a person who believed that it was part of the Navvy Bank where there once was a springboard but a more recent email I received from Charlie McCarthy has called that idea into question!

Charlie, whom I consider the foremost authority on anything to do with the Quay area, writes  'I never heard any mention of that area, or any part of the Navvy Bank named as such'. He goes on to mention that, while there was a Kearney who owned a pub in Quay Street, he does not think he had any interests there (the Harbour front).

Charlie was further good enough to send me an old advertisement published in the local newspapers by the Dundalk Urban District Council in June 1906 about 'bathing'. Regarding this warning notice from the Council, Charlie points out --- 'The attached notice mentions a 'Kearney's Rampart' (which) was a well-known area above the Big Bridge, along the River, more or less behind what became St. Nicholas Avenue. It was regarded as one of the safe areas for swimming in the 1800s and early 1900s. It was along the river's edge of a field belonging to a man named Joseph Kearney from North Marsh who sold it to Patrick Rice, Bridge Street in 1904. There was a dispute between Rice and the locals over access to it and he put up a fence, cutting it off to the public. This dispute was settled and a waylay established so that the locals and townspeople could use it for swimming.'

The warning from the Urban Council published in 1906 is, in itself, very interesting for a number of reasons. It reads ---

'Notice as to Bathing.

The above-named Council hereby caution all persons against Bathing along the Fair Green, Slobland at St. Helena, or approaches to the Greenore Railway Bridge, owing to the danger existing at these places.

The Bathing Place recommended by the Council (for males only) is along the embankment known as Kearney's Rampart, on the south side of the Castletown River, between the Big Bridge and the Castletown Railway Bridge, which is considered safe and clean and has been used for Bathing by the public for over fifty years.

By Order, Mathew Comerford, Town Clerk. 1906

Town Hall, Dundalk, 12th June, 1906'

Apart from the archaic wording of the notice, it is interesting that the fairly newly established Dundalk Urban District Council (formed 1899) took an interest in the bathing habits of its citizens. Readers will note that there is no mention of pollution in the river, other than to suggest that the water is 'safe and clean' at this place, although there must have been considerable contamination of the water because of open sewers running into the Castletown at this period. I supposed the idea that there might have bacterial or virus infection in the river does not seem to have occurred to the Councillors who discussed the matter, even though there had been many reports of outbreaks serious epidemics in Dundalk for centuries, from things like typhoid, cholera and other diseases, probably due to contaminated water supplies.

Another interesting thing about the notice is that there is no mention of 'swimming' which, to me, would seem to indicate that not many people of the time were capable of swimming in deep water and would not venture into areas that were 'out of their depth'. On the other hand, it probably reflected the situation that few houses in Dundalk would have had baths and many might have washed themselves and their clothes, from time to time, in open streams and rivers.

Yet another unusual thing about the notice is that it states that the Bathing Place recommendation was 'for males only'. This would seem to indicate that women or girls were not welcome, although I seem to recall being told that there was a place, further up the river to Toberona, where women could bath in privacy. There also was a beach at Blackrock called 'The Ladies' Beach' where males were not allowed to intrude and this sort of exclusive female bathing place was common enough at Irish seaside towns up until about the Second World War.

In my own youth, the favourite summertime swimming place was off the pier at Gyles Quay where 'mixed bathing' was acceptable but social conventions had changed greatly by that time. Many of my readers will, no doubt, have pleasant recollections of bathing around Dundalk when the weather was fine. It is easy to understand, however, why the open air Swimming Pool at Blackrock became so popular for time after it opened in 1962. And why there was such enthusiasm for the building of an indoor pool in Dundalk towards the end of the last century!
New Delhi: Geeta Arora, alias Sonu Punjaban has been sentenced to jail for 24 years by the Dwarka court in Delhi for her involvement in the kidnapping, human trafficking and prostitution. She has also be fined Rs 64,000.

Sonu has been sentenced under IPC Acts 328, 342, 366A, 372, 373, 120B, along with 4, 5 and 6 Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act.

The Dwarka court also sentenced Sonu's associate Sandeep Bedwal to 20 years imprisonment and Rs 64,000 fine. He has been sentenced under IPC Acts 363, 366, 366A, 372, 376, and 120B.

Sonu has been convicted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Also read | Sex racketeer Sonu Punjaban attempts suicide in Delhi's Tihar Jail, admitted to hospital

The incident goes back to 2009 when Sandeep tricked a 12-year girl to fall in love with him and then took her to a woman named Seema on the pretext of marriage.

According to the girl, she was raped by Sandeep and was sold to Seema. Seema had then forced her into prostitution and had also sold her to Sonu Punjaban.

Sonu reportedly used her for prostitution and before sending her to customers, she used to administer drugs such as proxyvon and alprex tablets.

Sonu Punjaban was arrested by Delhi Police after a six-month-long chase in December 2017.

Punjaban's network extended to many places across Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

The Police investigation is still on as the officials are looking for the other people involved in the case.
Ghanaian entertainer and broadcaster, Kwaku Sintim-Misa has scolded Christian leaders for failing to heal Coronavirus patients in the country.



In an interview with Nkonkonsa.com on YouTube, KSM urged Christians to wise up because the Coronavirus pandemic has exposed the Pastors as having no healing or supernatural powers.



''Every week, they have miracle crusades and they're going to heal this person or do this or that. Corona is here with us; as we talk people have been quarantined, go to where they have been quarantined and heal them'', he ridiculed the Pastors.



According to him, if they (Pastors) indeed can work miracles, they should seek clearance from President Nana Akufo-Addo to go to the various hospitals and prove their healing powers.



''If there is anything we have to learn from this coronavirus, it's how much Pastors have been lying, especially those who claim to have all these healing powers. Where are they?...Where is the power of the God that you talk about and claim to have this miraculous healing powers? Where is it? Where are they?'' .



Watch the full interview below:





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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After nearly five days of acrimonious negotiations inside the 27-member European Union (EU), the EU Summit announced that a deal had been reached early Tuesday morning for a financial stimulus programme funneling 750 billion to the banks and corporations.

The stimulus, along with a new, seven-year 1 trillion EU budget, were near-universally hailed as historic and a sign of solidarity amid a pandemic that has already killed nearly 200,000 people in Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: A common loan to respond to the crisis in solidarity and to invest in our future. Spanish Socialist Party Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called it an authentic Marshall Plan.

In reality, the summit resembled nothing more than a group of criminals finalising a new mechanism for robbery of the population.

The bailout will not be used for investments in health care, jobs or social programmes to fight the pandemic or ward off threats of mass sackings and a global economic crisis. It aims to provide a new revenue stream for EU states to give handouts to corporations, boost the stock market, and shore up the wealth of the super-rich, while enforcing austerity across the continent.

Global share markets rose on the announcement of the deal. Germanys DAX rose 1.7 percent, putting it in positive territory for 2020, and Frances CAC-40 1.2 percent. Fortune magazine summarised the celebratory response in the financial elite: With more than 100,000 Europeans dead from the virus and an economy to rebuild, investors were looking for a display of unity to sustain the rally in stocks.

Under the agreement, the EU Commission is empowered for the first time to borrow directly from the financial markets on behalf of all EU member states. Of the 750 billion total, 390 billion will be allocated to individual EU states as grants that need not be repaid, with each country receiving funds proportionate to the impact of the pandemic on their economy. The remaining 360 billion will be loans whose repayment conditions are still unspecified.

What is clear is that the money will be paid by the working class in the form of cuts to essential social programmes and infrastructure. Like after the 2008 crash, access to funds is tied to structural reforms. Member states must first submit national reform plans to the EU. If any member state considers that austerity policies are not proceeding quickly enough in another state, it can enforce an emergency brake on the funds. The brake is limited to a maximum of three months, while the EU Commission decides whether the reforms go far enough.

The structural reforms overseen in Greece over the past decade by the Troikathe International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the EUare to be extended across Europe to repay the trillions handed out to the rich.

This EU Summit was almost the longest in history. Initially scheduled only for the weekend, it was unclear whether any agreement could be reached at all. Opposition to a deal initially mooted by Berlin and Paris came from wealthier northern European countries, particularly the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Austria, which initially rejected any issuance of common debt that would go in greater proportion to poorer southern European countries, chiefly Italy and Spain. Italy is set to receive approximately 82 billion in grants and 127 billion in loans.

A deal was only brokered after the proportion of the 750 billion to be handed out as grants was cut from 500 billion to 390 billion. In addition, all four countries obtained additional rebates reducing their annual net contributions to the EU budget. With Germany, they will collectively receive over 50 billion in rebates over the next seven years.

The politically criminal, anti-working-class character of the agreement is shown by one element that was largely overlooked by the media. The deal slashes extra EU-wide funding for scientific research and health care that had been part of the initial proposal only two months ago by the EU Commission.

The seven-year budget includes 81 billion on Horizon Europe, the main European research programme, 13.5 billion less than two months earlier. Much of this funding goes towards venture capital investments in European technology companies, not towards actual scientific research. Additionally, the European-wide health care programme EU4Health was slashed from 9.4 billion to 1.67 billion proposed in Mayamid the greatest pandemic in a century.

Marta Agostinho, the coordinator of EU-Life, an alliance of 14 life-science research institutes, commented over the weekend: In a time when politicians and citizens look to science to find the miraculous solution to the COVID-19 crisis, the top leaders decide to cut the research budgethow insane is this?

This decision is all the more criminal in that the EU Summit took place amid growing signs of a renewed upsurge of the virus in Europe. More than 4 million inhabitants of Barcelona have been asked to confine at home, while France today made masks compulsory in all public buildings, as Health Minister Olivier Veran announced this weekend that there are more than 80 active clusters across the country. The response of the European ruling class is to hand themselves hundreds of billions of euros, accelerate austerity, and intensify their militarist foreign policy.

The main proponents of the deal and the creation of a common borrowing mechanism that underpins it had been Berlin and Paris. France and Germany view this as essential for the development of an aggressive military and economic policy independently of and in opposition to China and the United States.

During his press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday, French President Macron stated: We have succeeded in changing something fundamental on this occasion, together, on the basis of an initiative that is to borrow in common and to have a true mechanism of budgetary transfers and solidarity, which never existed before.

The aggressive imperialist strategy behind this policy was stated by Humboldt University professor and economist Marcel Fratzscher, for German news magazine Der Spiegel. Germany is the big winner of the agreed programme, even if many in this country dont want to see it that way at the moment, he wrote.

He explained, Towards China and the USA, Germany will only be able to protect its interests as part of a strong Europe. The two largest economies in the world are becoming more and more nationalistic and are less and less afraid of conflicts with Europe and especially with Germany. We have to be aware that Germany is a small economy globally and cannot stand up to either China or the United States alone. The EU reconstruction fund therefore forms the basis for the long-term transformation of a bipolar to a tripolar world order in which Europe has a firm place.
1978

The Gang of 19 and ADAPT

On July 5, 1978, a group of 19 people gathered at one of the busiest intersections in Denver, at Colfax Avenue and Broadway, got out of their wheelchairs and lay down to stop traffic. Their goal was to protest the inaccessibility of the citys public transit system.

The group had been pushing the city to install wheelchair lifts, and when a new fleet of buses was released without them, they were angry. The protest ultimately led to the creation of the Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (now the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), in 1983, which quickly expanded with chapters all around the country. The group then pushed for transportation provisions to be added to the A.D.A.

1982

Baby Doe and Baby Jane Doe

In 1982, the parents of a baby with Down syndrome in Bloomington, Ind., were advised by doctors to decline surgery to treat the babys blocked esophagus. Disability rights activists tried to intervene, but Baby Doe, as he came to be known, starved to death before legal action could be taken.

Dr. C. Everett Koop, the surgeon general of the United States at the time, said the boy was denied food and water not because the treatment was unreasonably risky, but because the baby was intellectually disabled, a decision he did not agree with.

In 1983, another case surfaced on Long Island that came to be known as Baby Jane Doe. The baby was born with an open spinal column; her parents opted against surgery, even though it could have prolonged her life.
Friends and family gather for a memorial and rally for peace in memory of Horace Lorenzo Anderson in Seattle, Wash., on July 2, 2020. Anderson, who was 19, was shot and killed at the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone in Seattle on June 20. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

Block Jurisdictions Allowing Anarchy From Taxpayer Money, Lawmakers Tell Trump Administration

President Donald Trumps administration should block taxpayer funding from going to states and cities that are allowing anarchists to run rampant, members of Congress said.

The lawmakers wrote to Russell Vought, the White House Office of Management and Budget director, urging him to exercise his authority to ensure the money isnt used to promote anarchy.

Taking aim at Seattle, the bicameral group noted that some city officials supported the continuation of a so-called autonomous zone even as violence, including shootings, unfolded.

The zone, known alternatively as CHAZ and CHOP, was finally cleared on July 1, some three weeks after it sprang up, after two people died.

Activists have tried erecting similar spaces in other cities, including Washington and Portland, without success.

These anarchist zones are incompatible with the American commitment to its citizens that it is a nation based on laws. Most concerning, various city officials have used their platforms and taxpayer dollars to promote their existence, facilitate their expansion, and clean up the destruction, the lawmakers wrote.

In Seattle, the abysmal judgement of the local officials has contributed to a $300 million shortfall, the federal lawmakers alleged.

Law abiding citizens should not have to pay for their abdication of responsibility. We ask that you scrutinize any future federal funding that flows to such lawless jurisdictions, they added.

The federal government provided over $88 billion in taxpayer dollars to the top 20 most populous cities in fiscal year 2019.

An entrance to the Seattle Police Departments vacated East Precinct is seen in the area known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) in Seattle, Wash., on June 23, 2020 in Seattle. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

A man walks by the Conversation Cafe while carrying a firearm in the police-free zone known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle, Wash., on June 15, 2020. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

A number of those cities are now facing spikes in crime that some attribute to cuts in police funding and the rise in anti-police sentiment.

The White House Office of Management and Budget didnt respond to a request for comment, nor did the office of Democratic Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.

Lawmakers signing the letter included Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.).

Ernst recently unveiled a bill that would restrict federal funding for so-called anarchist jurisdictions, or jurisdictions that fail to provide police, fire, or emergency medical services due to non-governmental actors.

Anarchy cannot continue on our streets. If city officials or state leaders fail to do their job and protect their citizens, the federal governmentAmerican taxpayersarent going to pay for it, Ernst said in a statement announcing the legislation.

A separate bill introduced by two representatives would enable individuals victimized by violent crime in a so-called autonomous zone to sue state and local authorities for compensatory damages.
AMBLER  A districtwide plan for reopening schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic was met with more questions before being narrowly rejected by the Wissahickon School District school board during a meeting Monday night.

I feel like I need to see the revised document before Im gonna vote on it. Im not comfortable voting on this today, said Zeffy Karagiannakis, a member of Wissahickon School District school board.

More than 3,000 people tuned into Mondays roughly three-hour-long virtual meeting where elected education officials tried to piece together a plan of what the upcoming school would look like once classes begin on Aug. 31. Another virtual meeting was scheduled for Wednesday.

According to the districts Communications Coordinator Kristen Rawlings, 500 people joined the Zoom meeting and another 2,942 watched on the districts Youtube page.

Several parents and area residents submitted comments prior to the scheduled meeting, voicing their concerns with the current ideas involving hybrid and virtual options.

Some called for educational officials to take a step back and have a more conservative outlook on the situation at hand as schools were closed for several months earlier this year as COVID-19 cases continued to climb locally.

I implore you to as  board members and administrators to keep our students, teachers and staff members safe, and meet the needs of all of the secondary students by planning for synchronous virtual learning for the first semester, said Christine DeLaurentis, a Wissahickon School District Parent.

Others, including parent Anne Gittes, were simply uncomfortable with the choices provided.

You are asking me to choose between giving my child a great Wissahickon education, and putting her physical health at risk. Or giving her, in my opinion, a lesser education and keeping her physically safe, Gittes said. That is not a comfortable choice.

Wissahickon Superintendent James Crisfield introduced a series of options to the school board and members of the public during a special meeting on July 13. The followup session on Monday was designed to vote on a health and safety plan to be sent to the Pennsylvania Department of Education as well as a summary of student program options for 2020-21.

Crisfield said he plans to take direction from the Montgomery County Department of Health when it comes to local initiatives such as contact tracing and other policies.

Crisfield noted several new standards for lunch, busing and cleaning. However, Wissahickon School District Board member Marshall Bleefeld took issue with the frequent and feasible language involving sanitation practices.

I dont think we have any ability, nor do I think pretty much anyone would have the ability, to clean every single desk between every single period any time there is a change, said Business Administrator Wade Coleman.

When referencing the options, Crisfield laid out separate scenarios for parents to consider:

In-person return to school or fully virtual for elementary school students.

A hybrid approach for middle school students or virtual options depending on a certain grade level. Sixth graders could opt for a virtual environment with Wissahickon School District teachers, while seventh and eighth graders would learn from MVP teachers using an asynchronous learning format.

High school students could choose between a hybrid option, where students alternate attending in-person classes on different days, or a virtual choice via the Wissahickon Virtual Academy.

Anyone interested in electing to have their child take virtual classes needs to inform school officials by July 31.

I dont envy the district, said Solicitor Jeff Sultanik. I dont envy the administration, and I dont envy the community in terms of dealing with these multiple options, because depending upon your own ages of your children, depending upon your own particular work needs, your own ability to address some of these issues, whatever option you choose is going to carry with it some substantive negatives.

During last weeks meeting, several board members inquired about the potential of having cameras in the classroom as a tool for remote instruction during a hybrid learning scenario at the high school level.

District officials investigated the matter to determine its feasibility, and conducted a simulation using Microsoft Teams, however there were reservations to the practicality.

I believe that for this particular tool to be used it should be used as the teacher sees it would be valuable for a given lesson, said Assistant Superintendent Gary Abbamont.

School Board Vice President Tracie Walsh agreed.

I dont think that it should be every day it would have to be synchronous, she said. I think we can lead what would best fit their plan.

She also suggested another option involving potentially mounting a camera or positioning it in an interactive and efficient way for the teacher, the students in the classroom and those at home.

School Board President Joseph Antonio disagreed. While he acknowledged that its technically feasible, he said those days will be [a] poor substitute for what you would get if you were actually in class and worse option than a curriculum program thats designed to have asynchronous components at home.

However, eleventh grade student representatives Morgan Wilson and Alex Gindea appeared to be on board.

From a student perspective, I believe that synchronous classes would be much better because it helps prioritize schooling, and  it forces you to actually do the work as oppose[d] to asynchronous classes, Wilson said.

Bleefeld urged his colleagues to embrace the idea of innovation when it comes to finding ways for teachers to teach in a safe environment.

We are an institution of learning, Bleefeld said. We teach math, we teach science, we teach technology, and I dont think were leaving it at the door because of a pandemic.

Eventually, when it came down to a vote, the state mandated plan was narrowly approved in a 5-4 vote with members Bleefeld, Amy Ginsburg, Ronnie Hayman, and Karagiannakis dissenting. Antonio was in favor of submitting the document, along with Walsh, and School Board members Paul Badger, David Frank and Ron Stoloff.

When moving onto the districtwide plan, Anotnio added it included a motion for an addition amending the statement of the hybrid learning for [grades] seven [through] 12 to eliminate the asynchronous learning days and replace it with some language that references synchronous participation in classes on days when theyre not in school.

It was then rejected in a 4-5 decision with Bleefeld, Ginsburg, Hayman, Antonio, and Karagiannakis voting against the plan, while Badger, Frank, Stoloff, and Walsh endorsed it.

Its no secret I voted no because of the way its written, Bleefeld said. I wasnt certain we were gonna get it the way we wanted to be necessarily to try and put it to a positive vote.

With the virtual selection deadline fast approaching, local leaders agreed there needed to be updated protocols approved as soon as possible. The districts school board unanimously moved to recess the meeting and continue it at 7 p.m. on Wednesday July 22 so they could vote on the new changes, which current concerns were set to be sent to Crisfield so he could make the necessary revisions.

I think weve debated on it, Bleefeld said. We just need to put it on paper so everybodys comfortable, we vote on it so parents  grandparents, caregivers are able to vote on how they want kids to show up.
China has been spreading "disinformation" about the coronavirus and its naval activities are a matter of "grave" concern, Japan said in its annual defence review published Tuesday.

After a period of warming relations between the two Asian powers last year, ties have cooled in recent months amid international souring of sentiment on China over the virus and Beijing's imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong.

The closely watched paper on Japan's defence policy accused China of "propaganda efforts... including the spread of disinformation" over the virus, which first broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

Follow live updates on the coronavirus here

A Japanese defence official presenting the report cited as examples comments made on Twitter by China's foreign ministry that US forces may have brought the virus to Wuhan, as well as claims that Chinese herbal medicines can treat the disease.

China has "relentlessly continued its unilateral attempts to change the status quo by coercion in the sea around the Senkaku islands", the review says, referring to disputed islets the Chinese call the Diaoyu.

This is a "grave matter of concern", Japan said, adding that Beijing "has sustained a high-level defence budget without transparency over more than 30 years".





The United States has ramped up pressure on Chinese activities in the South China Sea, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo branding Beijing's pursuit of resources there illegal.

China hit back on Tuesday, attacking Pompeo's claims as "unjustified".

In general the coronavirus pandemic would divert military resources to domestic crises, but could also lead to greater "strategic competition among countries", the 596-page report suggested.

On North Korea, the report repeated its assessment that the rogue state "has already miniaturised nuclear weapons to fit ballistic missile warheads".
The Nobel prize banquet has been cancelled for the first time in over half a century as fears over the coronavirus spread continue around the world.

The event traditionally marks the closing of the Nobel Week, when the winners of the coveted prize are invited to the Swedish capital Stockholm for talks and the award ceremony.

While the Nobel Prize winners for 2020 will be announced, the banquet however, that draws around 1,300 guests and always held on December 10, will not go ahead.

The last time the banquet was cancelled was in 1956, in protest at the Soviet Unions invasion of Hungary. It was also cancelled during World War One and Two.

The prizes for achievements in fields such as science, literature and peace were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.

There are two problems. You cannot gather that many people next to each other. And it is uncertain whether people can travel to Sweden to the extent they want, Nobel Foundation Chairman Lars Heikensten told Dagens Nyheter, the Swedish newspaper.

All the announcements will be streamed live at nobelprize.org this year.

Traditionally, the prize-winners join the Swedish royal family along with approximately 1,300 guests for the banquet at Stockholms City Hall after the award ceremony -- held on December 10, the anniversary of the death of the prizes founder Alfred Nobel. The announcement of the prizes (Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace and Economics) will still be held as scheduled between October 5 and October 12, the Foundation was quoted saying in an AFP report.

The Nobel Prize Museum on Stortorget, the main square in Stockholms Old Town, also reopened to public earlier this month under controlled conditions.

The official Nobel Prize site shared details about new additions to the museum upon its reopening. The exhibition, titled Contagious, explores the work of Nobel Prize-awarded scientists who have increased our knowledge of viruses, mapped our immune system and developed vaccines.

The site has also shared a word of advise so people can stay safe amid the coronavirus pandemic. Visitors who cannot travel to the museum during the summer can also view the exhibition digitally, the statement on the site adds.

-- with inputs from Reuters and AFP

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Charlottesville City Council is set to signal its support for expanded civilian oversight of police.

The council will consider a resolution at its meeting Monday supporting proposed General Assembly legislation related to police review boards and take up other measures in the wake of protests around police brutality.

The council has been at odds with the citys Police Civilian Review Board, which is still in its infancy.

At its first meeting, the CRB voted to revert its bylaws and ordinance to the structure presented by an initial panel but not adopted by a previous council.

However, the council has indicated that it will take no action on the CRB's wishes before the General Assembly holds a special session, to include matters of policing, in August.

The legislature is set to consider proposals by the Legislative Black Caucus focused on police accountability during the special session that begins Aug. 12 and could last for weeks.

The proposals would require all police departments in Virginia to have a corresponding civilian review board with subpoena power. Subpoena power was not included in the original or current iteration of the Charlottesville CRBs bylaws.

The legislation also would limit the use of sovereign immunity, a state law that shields individual police officers and their governing bodies from civil liability for violations of constitutional rights.

Another resolution on Monday's agenda would support a call for the state to declare racism a public health crisis, which has been proposed by several legislators.

The council also will consider establishing Juneteenth as a city holiday. Juneteenth commemorates when slaves last learned of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

The last slaves were informed of the proclamation following the end of the war on June 19, 1865, by Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas. The former slaves immediately took to the streets to celebrate, starting the tradition.

Last year, Charlottesville officials made Liberation and Freedom Day a city holiday. The celebration hearkens back to March 3, 1865, when Union troops under Gen. Philip Sheridan arrived in the area under orders to destroy the Virginia Central railroad line, cutting off Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lees supply line to the Shenandoah Valley.

Sheridan occupied the city until March 6 and, during that time, many slaves used the occupation to free themselves.

The council also will consider an ordinance that prohibits carrying firearms in city buildings, parks, recreational or community centers or on public streets.

The city has been seeking the authority to implement such measures, but localities did not have that power until it was approved by the General Assembly in its most recent session.

Violation of the ordinance would be a Class 1 misdemeanor, which carries a sentence of up to a year in jail and a fine as high as $2,500.

The council also will consider an ordinance that would prohibit the Charlottesville Police Department from acquiring weapons from the military and taking military or warrior training.

Calls to defund police departments and cut down on the use of military weapons have been widespread in the two months since George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis.

According to a staff report, the department doesnt acquire weapons from the military or take such training.

The City Council meets at 6:30 p.m. Monday. To register to participate, visit charlottesville.gov/zoom.

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Local dog Loki has been selected as Kilkenny's entry to this years' Nose of Tralee competition.

His entry form reads: "Meet Loki, he is our baby and our best friend. He is the kindest, sweetest and most fun little boy. He loves to go on adventurous walks in the woods, he thinks he is Indiana Jones on his adventures. He likes to take lots of naps , he especially likes to nap in mammy and daddies bed!

"Loki really enjoys family time and likes to cuddle up to mammy and daddy on the sofa when they are watching movies. We recently got married and during our photoshoot Loki was the star of the day! We are so lucky to have our little boy in our lives, we think he would be a Pawfect Nose of Tralee."

The Pet Sitters Ireland Nose of Tralee competition, sponsored by Tesco Ireland, is in its seventh year. Over 1500 pets entered the competition - all hoping to become this years Nose of Tralee.

Thirty-two Noses have been selected to represent their county and a public vote will now decide between 26 dogs, 5 cats and a pig as to who will take the title of 2020 Nose of Tralee.

The public vote will open on August 5 and the winner will be announced live on Facebook and Instagram on August 25. The winner will receive prizes from Pet Sitters Ireland, Tesco Ireland and David MCauley Photography. To register your vote and support your county Nose visit www.NoseOfTralee.com from August 5.

For more information visit www.petsittersireland. com/noseoftralee
Xenia Chens brand, Threads, a direct-to-consumer line of tights, was hit hard by the pandemic. Our core product is a wardrobe staple for women when they go to work. When everyone started isolating in March, we saw a drastic drop in sales, says Chen, a former investment banker who launched her own brand of nylons after growing frustrated with the costly, poor-quality options she was constantly buying at drugstores. Threads is an early-stage business, and we were seeing momentum in the months leading up to the start of the pandemic, she says, so it was really disappointing for our team when the world pretty much turned upside down.

Threads tights are made in Castel Goffredo in Northern Italy, a region that was hard-hit by COVID-19 earlier this year. Prior to the pandemic, the country, like Canada, did not have a mass culture of mask-wearing  that quickly changed, and with it, Chens factory, converting some of its production facilities to make masks. Our factory asked us in March if we wanted to use some of our production capacity [to make masks]. We agreed, predicting that Canada would soon follow suit with mask recommendations, explains Chen. Threads launched masks on April 4, the very same day Canadas chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, announced that wearing a mask can help limit transmission of the virus.

Chen says that April mask sales were insane and that demand has since remained steady. Though the company has kept profit margins on the masks low  just enough to stay in operation  the volume of sales has helped with the companys cash flow. I know many other small businesses were not so lucky during this pandemic, says Chen.

Making a profit from selling masks is something designer Kate Pierre grappled with. Its almost like an argument I had with myself, says the Vancouver-based founder of clothing line Kate & Frances. But there was a demand, and my business is quiet, and a business is not a business if youre not making money, she says. Pierre started by making masks for friends and family and has since expanded, offering her brightly coloured coverings on her website. Its a way to build a community as well, so many designers are making masks now and helping each other source materials, says Pierre.

Nina Kharey, the Calgary-based designer of luxe womenswear line Nonie made news around the world when Meghan Markle wore a trench-coat style dress by the designer in 2018. With the coronavirus, there has definitely been a drop in sales, says Kharey. But I dont think its just fashion, I think its everywhere. People have started realizing how little they actually need and it seems like consumerism is becoming a deeply discussed topic. Kharey started making masks out of spare rolls of cotton after some encouragement from her mother. I figured that if I had the means to help in this fight were all in, then I need to be doing it. Though Kharey still gets regular sales here and there she shares that if it wasnt for her mask sales, I probably would be in a really difficult place.

All the designers I spoke with said that mask sales were at their highest in March, April and May. Cloth masks are, after all, reusable, so its natural to expect sales to taper off once everyone has one or two masks on hand. Toronto designer Ellie Mae saw a second uptick in mask sales once she released a line made from Liberty of London print fabric. As they become more and more commonplace (and as options abound) well likely continue to seek out masks that blend style with protection. Vancouver brand Bronze Age sells masks with scrunchies to match, and designers are increasingly offering ones that match a blouse or a dress. Kharey, meanwhile, has been listening to customer feedback and tinkering with the fit.

For designers, selling masks comes with another unexpected benefit: increased brand awareness. For Pierre, Its been a way to interact and connect with people. Ive had really great feedback. This is the start of people realizing who is making their products and the story behind a brand, she says. When they know your story, they are more inclined to support you. Kharey has had so many people emailing to say they didnt know we existed. Threads customers have even told Chen that they plan to try her tights when this is all over. A world where women are wearing tights again  I cant think of a better marker of normalcy. Until then, how about a nylon face mask instead?

Shop the story

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Kate & Frances mask, $15, kateandfrances.com

Nonie mask, $33, houseofnonie.com

Ellie Mae Studios mask, $25, elliemaestudios.com

This article contains affiliate links, which means The Kit may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by advertising. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set. More information.
Sturgeon County will be offering a beaver bounty to address flooding issues affecting the area north of Edmonton.

The Beaver Control Incentive Policy, a first for the county, was approved by council last week and will start in August.

The program will pay $20 to property owners in the area in exchange for a beaver tail, along with the signing of an affidavit stating the beaver was found on private property within the county.

"The intent is to help manage the beaver population and to work with local residents and, of course, follow all of the Alberta Environment and Parks regulations," said Scott MacDougall, Sturgeon County chief operating officer.

Heavy rainfall over the last few years has led to flooding in Sturgeon County, and McDougall says the beaver population moving into flooded out areas has made things worse.

"Beavers are an important part of the ecosystem," he said.

"When the population is balanced they can absolutely assist in some of the areas, but right now what we do find is that they end up plugging up culverts, they create dams that redirect water flow to areas that then end up flooding out roads, create washouts, damage infrastructure and flood agriculture lands so they end up being a pest in that area."

Ronnie Howard / Shutterstock

Bill Abercrombie is the president of Animal Damage Control, a wildlife management and consulting company based out of Fort Saskatchewan. Counties hire him to help deal with issues linked to animals like beavers.

He predicts there's close to 100,000 beavers within 60 kilometres of the Edmonton area.

"They actually do well with some proper management, but fur prices on beavers are low and so the incentive to trap beavers is not what it used to be," Abercrombie said.

"So municipalities, I think they're looking for some sort of cost effective measure that's going to maybe get some results, but also maybe try to engage people  farmers in particular  to do some of their own beaver management rather than relying solely on county and contractors like me."

Story continues

Abercrombie says the incentive for trappers to team up with Sturgeon County property owners may be enticing in the fall, as the $20 bounty adds to the value they get from the fur and the carcass of multiple beavers. He adds that this way all of the animals are being used.

"We conduct ourselves in a professional manner, and most trappers do that as well. So it's an incentive for trappers. I think there'll be some benefit for it," he said.

Supplied by Sturgeon County

Lee Foote, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta's Faculty of ALEs, calls wildlife bounties a mixed blessing. He says it could be effective in decreasing the beaver program without putting it at risk, but suspects it could take years before the policy impacts flooding issues.

He is concerned that the bounty program could face abuse.

"They bring out the worst in a lot of people and it will let a few people anyway. It might bring in tails from other areas like Athabasca despite the sworn affidavits," Foote said.

"They also seem to cultivate a culture of vindictiveness of disappointment that beavers or some wildlife is infringing on human rights, when in truth we've infringed on their rights."

Travis McEwan/CBC

The bounty program may be a first for Sturgeon County, but it's not the first county near Edmonton to use this type of program for beaver control.

Lac St Anne County has been running a beaver bounty program, offering $40 per beaver tail. County council approved a bounty limit increase from $10,000 to $20,000 on June 11, according to its website.

Research project receives funding

The role beavers play in flooding events will be researched in a nationally funded project by a local researcher.

Glynnis Hood, a professor with the U of A's Augustana campus in Camrose, Alta. was recently awarded a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada to build a model to test the claim that beaver habitats lead to flooding

She's studied the animals for the past 20 years.

"Beavers often get blamed for flood events, especially the major ones," Hood wrote in an article on the U of A's website.

"Some believe that beaver dams store so much water that big rains add to the volume and cause flooding. Others say that beaver dams actually help hold back water that would have otherwise flooded property. You end up with this two-sided view of whether or not dams upstream are good, or if they're creating even worse floods that you would have expected."

The research project is expected to continue over the next five years.
As the pandemic rages, Americans are being crushed by another force that seems just as harsh and unforgiving: unemployment.

There are no ventilators for the economy, no face masks or anti-bacterial cleansers. People must rely on the government to help keep their heads above the tidal wave of stress and uncertainty slamming the nation.

Supplemental unemployment benefits, which provide the jobless with an additional $600 a week, are set to expire in two weeks  an ominous proposition for households already pummeled by rent, bills and the daily cost of living. Some have argued supplemental unemployment will keep people from working because they would make more in unemployment. Yes, that has happened in some cases, but this misses the point. There are few jobs to be had in many sectors, and this is money that goes right back into the economy.

Without an extension, the horrors of the pandemic will multiply, further threatening our economic health along with our physical health.

Lawmakers must act, and act now. Congress returns to session this week, and extending the benefits must be its first order of business.

If not, evictions and foreclosures will multiply, and savings accounts, already dwindling, if they exist at all, will become a distant memory.

However you slice the numbers, were talking about very large amounts that mean quite a bit to the macroeconomy, Ryan Nunn, who leads applied research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, recently told National Public Radio.

More than 50 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last four months  and roughly 160,000 San Antonians are unemployed through no fault of their own. The additional $600 a week on top of traditional unemployment benefits has been a lifeline for millions of unemployed, staving off disasters such as evictions and foreclosures, and keeping families fed.

It also represents $19 billion per week in collective spending; the benefits, like the hardships they seek to address, ripple throughout the economy, and cutting the benefits now could prove calamitous.

If we get a big pullback in income in August, that will directly affect peoples ability to spend, which creates a risk for the economic rebound, Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist of Oxford Economics, told USA Today.

In addition to extending unemployment benefits, Congress must also provide relief that helps cities, states and schools  legislation pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The House passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act almost three months ago. President Donald Trump has threatened to veto it.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has ignored the bill, preferring, he said, to craft his own legislation. He has said he wants to reduce the amount to $1 trillion. The partisan lines have been drawn, and a major sticking point is a payroll tax cut favored by some, but not all, Republicans. Texas Sen. John Cornyn has said a payroll tax cut is problematic because it would threaten the solvency of Social Security.

The primary objective should be helping the unemployed. But a cut in the payroll tax helps those who already have jobs.

Those out of work are not the only ones needing help. School districts are grappling with the costs of reopening classrooms in the fall  and this funding should not be tied to returning students to campus when its unsafe to do so. Meanwhile, cities and states, facing steep declines in revenues, warn they may have to cut services. These cuts could affect health care workers, including first responders and hospital staff in need of more personal protective equipment.

This is no time for partisanship  or cutting corners. The Trump administration had, until Tuesday, sought to block funds to conduct testing and contact tracing. The almost certain result? A spike in the novel coronavirus, necessitating more funding, not less.

The stimulus package is shaping up as a bruising fight. But there is only one winner or loser in this battle  the American people, who need help in these trying times. Withholding that help would be cruel and stupid.
A school bus passes a McDonald's at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a file photograph. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Schools on Military Bases Set for In-Person, Full-Time Classes This Fall

Military officials are working on a plan that will see children attending schools on bases around the world resume in-person instruction this fall amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

To the maximum extent possible, officials will operate brick and mortar schools on a regular, full-time schedule, according to guidelines and protocols issued by the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).

Students will not attend school on alternating days or any other atypical schedules.

Schools on military bases will open when the installations theyre inside are Health Protection Condition Alpha or Bravo conditions, or when there is limited community transmission or moderate transmission of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, the illness that causes the COVID-19 disease.

If the facility is open for business as usual, then the schools will be, as well, Jonathan Rath Hoffman, assistant to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.

But the goal of DoDEA is to have in-person classes or make it available for having in-person classes and, if not, to conduct virtual schooling, he added.

The education part of the Pentagon said in the guidelines that students and families who arent comfortable with the children returning to in-person classes can partake in virtual classes for the fall semester.

We understand that some families may have circumstances where they do not wish to or are unable to send their child(ren) to the brick-and-mortar setting, Dr. Judith Minor, the DoDEA Americas director of Student Excellence, said in a statement.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper testifies to the Senate Armed Services Committee about the budget, on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 4, 2020. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

While we have confidence in our communities to enact mitigating measures in conjunction with local health and CDC guidance, we will also provide a virtual platform for higher-risk students to continue to learn virtually, she added.

Teachers who object to returning to returning to brick and mortar schools were encouraged to send intent forms to teach at the virtual school for a semester or the entire school year.

DoDEA operates 160 schools across 11 countries and seven states. It employs approximately 8,700 educators.

Even as plans move forward at numerous bases to resume in-person instruction, the slated start dates were delayed for some schools.

Schools inside bases in the southeast U.S. that were scheduled to reopen on dates ranging from Aug. 3 to Aug. 18 will now reopen on dates from Aug. 17 to Aug. 24.

The bases include Fort Campbell in Kentucky and Fort Benning in Georgia.

Minor said the change will help officials fully prepare to welcome students back.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday gave Islamabad police chief two weeks deadline to submit a report on the abduction of prominent journalist Matiullah Jan, who was later freed following massive outrage across the country.

Jan, who is highly critical of the government and the security institutions of the country, was freed on Tuesday, hours after he was abducted by plainclothes and uniformed personnel in the national capital.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, hearing a suo motu case of alleged contemptuous tweets by Jan took notice of his abduction.

Justice Gulzar summoned the Islamabad police chief in the next hearing and questioned why the police had not recorded the journalist's statement hours after he was released by his abductors.

"What are the institutions doing?" he asked the attorney general.

Representatives of Pakistan Bar Council and journalists attended the hearing.

Earlier, Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the habeas corpus petition against Jan's abduction filed by his family on Tuesday.

The court took prompt action and ordered Secretary Interior, Commissioner, Islamabad and Inspector General, Islamabad to produce the journalist on Wednesday or personally appear before the court.

Chief Justice Minallah noted that CCTV footage showed that some kidnappers were in police uniforms.

"Someone has the nerve to do such a thing in police uniforms What impression will the public get that people are roaming around freely in police uniforms," he said.

He said the vehicle used in the incident had police headlights and the kidnappers also wanted to scare other people.

When Islamabad Police Deputy Inspector General for Operations Waqar ud Din told the court that an FIR was registered, the Chief Justice said it was a test case for police.

If there is no rule of law, there will be nothing here except chaos, Justice Minallah said and wrapped up the case.

Earlier, he refused to monitor the follow up by police by saying that the police should do its duty to investigate the incident and take action.

Jan's brother Shahid Abbasi said the journalist was preparing to appear in the Supreme Court on Wednesday where he was facing contempt of court proceedings for an allegedly controversial tweet.

Abbasi told the media that he received a call from an unknown number to pick him up from a place in Fateh Jang area of Attock district Punjab province, which is not very far from Islamabad.

"I am back home safe & sound. God has been kind to me & my family. I am grateful to friends, national & int. journalist community, political parties, social media & rights activists, lawyers bodies, the judiciary for their quick response which made it possible," Jan tweeted on Wednesday.

Abbasi said the captors blindfolded Jan after abducting him on Tuesday and kept him in the car for most of the time.

No one has claimed responsibility for Jan's abduction but a video shows about half a dozen men in plain clothes and uniform forcing him to come out of his car and putting him in a vehicle in the G-6 area of the capital.

The abduction created outrage in the country as the media, right groups, politicians and diplomatic community demanded his safe release.

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari demanded that the government ensure his safe return soon.

The matter was also taken up in the Pakistan National Assembly where the opposition parties and the journalists covering the proceedings staged a walkout from the house.

Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists for press freedom, expressed outrage over Jan's abduction, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Canada's High Commissioner to Pakistan Wendy Gilmour tweeted, very worrying development: the role of the media in a democracy is crucial, and must be protected. I trust that @Matiullahjan919 will be soon safely reunited with his family".
Jaipur

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and some other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were part of a conspiracy to topple his government in Rajasthan at a time the Centre and state should be working together to fight Covid-19.

Chief minister Gehlots letter comes in the backdrop of his former deputy Sachin Pilots revolt against his government along with 18 Congress lawmakers. He wrote that a very ambitious leader of our party was also involved in the alleged attempt to topple the government.

Gehlot added that the leaders involved in the attempts to bring down his government included Congress lawmaker Bhanwar Lal Sharma, who also allegedly tried to dislodge Bhairon Singh Shekhawats Bharatiya Janata Party government by trying to bribe MLAs in 1996.

The Congress has suspended Bhanwarlal Sharma and another MLA, Vishvendra Singh, both from the Pilot camp, from the primary membership of the party for their alleged involvement in the conspiracy.

Then, I as state Congress chief, personally met then [Rajasthan] governor Baliram Bhagat and then prime minister Narsimha Rao and protested that by the horse trading elected government was being toppled [and that it] is against the democratic values, he said.

BJPs Rajasthan president Satish Poonia said the language used by the Rajasthan chief minister in his letter showed that the state government was in minority. In response to Gehlots letter, Poonia wrote an open letter, saying the Rajasthan CM and his party were responsible for anarchism and instability prevailing in the state and they were instead blaming the BJP without any reason.

Gehlot said he was saddened that when the Centre and the state should be saving livelihoods of people, the ruling party at the Centre was regularly trying to topple Congress governments, ignoring its Covid-19 management priorities.

The same accusation was levelled when the Madhya Pradesh government fell during Covid and it gave a bad name to your party, he said.

Gehlot said the spirit of the anti-defection law passed in 1985, when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister, and amended under Atal Bihari Vajpayees leadership at the Centre was being violated. He added that attempts were being made to destabilise democratically elected states governments.

He expressed confidence that truth will prevail and his government will complete its full term. I am not aware till what extent you are aware of this information or else you are being misled, Gehlot said, citing examples of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, where he said democratically elected governments were toppled through horse trading.

The Congress has alleged Shekhawats voice can be heard in audio tapes purportedly recording conversations detailing a plot to topple the state government. Shekhawat has denied the charge and said he is ready for a probe.

Sharma, too, has denied allegations against him, calling them fake.

BJP spokesperson Mukesh Pareek accused Gehlot of trying to misguide the people through the letter and sought evidence of the allegations in it. This letter is politically motivated and to misguide the public.
This is a most dangerous situation, a war of words escalating between Turkey and Egypt; Egypt has now moved military hardware to its border with Libya.





by Vijay Prashad





Ahmed, who lives in Tripoli, Libya, texts me that the city is quieter than before. The army of General Khalifa Haftarwho controls large parts of eastern Libyahas withdrawn from the southern part of the capital and is now holding fast in the city of Sirte and at the airbase of Jufra. Most of Libyas population lives along the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, which is where the cities of Tripoli, Sirte, Benghazi, and Tobruk are located.









Haftar, who was once an intimate of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is now prosecuting a seemingly endless and brutal war against the United Nations recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli and led by President Fayez al-Sarraj. To make matters more confusing, Haftar takes his legitimacy from another government, which is based in Tobruk, and is formed out of the House of Representatives (HOR).





Ahmed says that the quiet is deceitful. Militias continue to patrol the streets along the Salah al-Din Road near where he lives; the rattle of gunfire is anticipated.





On July 8, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a statement that could have been delivered at any point over the last decade. Time is not on our side in Libya, he announced. He laid out a range of problems facing the country, including the military conflict, the political stalemate between the GNA and the HOR, the numbers of internally-displaced people (400,000 out of 7 million), the continued attempts of migrants to cross the Mediterranean Sea, the threat from COVID-19, and the unprecedented levels of foreign interference.





The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution to send a Fact-Finding Mission to Libya to investigate human rights violations in this war, including the mass graves found in Tarhouna. The credibility of the Council is in doubt. An earlier Commission of Inquiry on Libya set up in 2012 to study war crimes in 2011-2012 was shut down largely because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) refused to cooperate with the investigation. A second inquiry, set up in March 2015, closed its work in January 2016 with the political deal that created the Government of National Accord.





Guterres did not mention the NATO war in 2011. I am told that he wants to appoint a joint Special Representative with the African Union and he would like a full review of the UN mission. All that is well and good; but it is short of what is necessary: an honest look at the NATO war that broke the country, fomenting a conflict that seems without end.





Foreign Interference





Statements about Libya drip with evasion. These termsforeign interference and foreign-backed effortsare dropped into conversations and official statements without any clarification. But everyone knows what is going on.





I ask Rida, who lives in Benghazi (now under the control of General Haftar), what she makes of these phrases. We all know what is going on, she tells me via text. The government in Tripoli is backed by Turkey and others; while Haftar is backed by Egypt and others, she writes.





At the core, she says, this is a dispute between two regional powers (Turkey and Egypt) as well as a contest between the Muslim Brotherhood (Turkey) and its adversaries (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates). Wrapped up in all this are contracts for offshore drilling in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, which additionally involved Cyprus and Greece.





It is not enough that this is a regional conflict. There is accumulating evidence that General Haftar is being supported by armed mercenaries (from Russia and Sudan) and by arms shipments from France, while the United States seems to have hedged its bets with support to both sides in the conflict.





Last year, General Haftars forces moved swiftly toward Tripoli, but were eventually rebuffed by the intervention of Turkey (which provided the Tripoli government with military aid as well as Syrian and Turkish mercenaries).





In late December, Turkey formally signed a military and security agreement with the Tripoli-based GNA, which enabled Turkey to transfer military hardware. This agreement broke the terms of the UN resolution 2292 (2016), recently reaffirmed in UN resolution 2526 (2020). Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have openly been supplying Haftar.





Now, the forces of the Tripoli government have moved to the central coastline city of Sirte, which has emerged as the key hotspot in this contest.





The Tobruk government, which backs General Haftar, and a pro-Haftar tribes council urged Egypts General Abdul Fatah El Sisi to intervene with the full force of the Egyptian armed forces if Sirte falls to the Turkish-backed government. Egypts military drillcalled Hasm 2020came alongside the Turkish navys announcement of maneuvers off the Libyan coastcalled Navtex.





This is a most dangerous situation, a war of words escalating between Turkey and Egypt; Egypt has now moved military hardware to its border with Libya.





Oil





Of course, oil is a major part of the equation. Libya has at least 46 billion barrels of sweet crude oil; this oil is highly valued for Europe because of the low costs to extract and transport it. Countries like the UAE, which are pushing the embargo of Libyan oil, benefit from the withdrawal of Libya, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil from already suppressed world oil markets. Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC) has stopped oil exports since January; from about 1.10 million barrels per day, Libyan oil production fell to nearly 70,000 barrels per day.





Neither Haftar nor the Government of National Accord in Tripoli can agree on the export of oil from the country. Oil has not left the country for the better part of the past six months, with a lossaccording to the NOCof about US$6.74 billion. General Haftar controls major oil ports in the east, including Es Sider, and several key oil fields, including Sharara.





Neither side wants the other to profit from oil sales. The United Nations has intervened to try and resolve the differences, but so far there has been limited progress. The entire conflict rests on the belief that either side has that it could win a military victory and therefore take the entire spoils; no one is willing to compromise, since any such agreement would mean a de jure partition of the country into its eastern and western halves with the oil crescent divided between the two.





Demilitarized Zone





UN Secretary-General Guterres has surrendered to reality. In his recent statement on Libya, he listed a series of de-escalation efforts, including the creation of a possible demilitarized zone; this demilitarization zone would likely be drawn somewhere near Sirte. It would effectively divide Libya into two parts.





Neither Ahmed nor Rida would like their country to be partitioned, its oil then siphoned off to Europe, and its wealth stolen by oligarchs on either side. They had misgivings about Muammar Qaddafis government in early 2011; but now both regret the war that has ripped their country to shreds.





This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.





Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.
Pakistans Ministry of Law and Justice on Wednesday filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court for a lawyer to be appointed for former Indian Navy commander Kulbhushan Jadhav who is facing a death penalty for alleged espionage.

The petition seeks the appointment of a lawyer for Jadhav so that he can file a review petition against his death sentence.

The ministrys petition submitted that though Jadhav has refused to engage a lawyer and file a petition, it is in the national interest that a legal representative is appointed for and on behalf of Commander Jadhav, so that the review and reconsideration proceedings of the accuseds conviction and sentence may be initiated and Pakistan can comply with the International Court of Justices order.

In July 2019, the International Court of Justice ordered Pakistan to provide consular access to Jadhav and review his death sentence.

Pakistan says Jadhav was arrested on charges of espionage in Balochistan in March 2016 and sentenced to death by a military court a year later. Under Pakistans International Court of Justice (Review and Reconsideration) Ordinance, 2020, he only has a short period of time left to file a reconsideration appeal. So far, neither Jadhav nor the Indian government through its high commission in Islamabad have filed a petition, says the Pakistan government. .

India has rubbished the spying charges against Jadhav and maintains that he was abducted from Chabahar in Iran.

The two countries have wrangled over consular access to Jadhav. A meeting between Indian officials and Jadhav on Thursday ended inconclusively, with New Delhi accusing Islamabad of breaching its assurance of providing unimpeded access to the former naval officer.
 Flash

China on Wednesday strongly condemned the U.S. request to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston, saying the move was a political provocation unilaterally initiated against China by the U.S. side.

On July 21, the U.S. side abruptly requested the Chinese side to close its Consulate General in Houston. Such a move "seriously violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, seriously violates the bilateral consular agreement between China and the United States, and deliberately undermines Sino-U.S. relations. It is outrageous and unjustified," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular press conference.

"China urges the U.S. side to immediately revoke the wrong decision, or China will definitely make legitimate and necessary reactions," said Wang.

For a period of time, the U.S. government has repeatedly shifted blame to the Chinese side, stigmatized and attacked China, made unprovoked attacks on China's social system, and deliberately put obstacles in the way of Chinese diplomatic and consular staff in the United States. In the meantime, the U.S. side has also intimidated, interrogated Chinese students studying in the United States, confiscated their personal electronic devices, and even detained them for no reason, noted Wang.

"The unilateral closure of China's Consulate General in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China," said Wang.

"The Chinese diplomatic missions in the United States have always been committed to promoting mutual understanding and friendship between the Chinese and American peoples," said Wang, noting that China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Infiltration and interference in other countries' internal affairs have never been the genes or traditions of China's diplomacy.

In accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, China has facilitated the performance of duties of U.S. diplomatic agencies and personnel in China, he said.

In contrast, the United States has imposed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the United States twice -- in October last year and June this year, and even opened Chinese diplomatic bags privately on many occasions, and seized Chinese official supplies, Wang noted.

Due to U.S. recent wanton stigmatization and incitement to hatred toward the Chinese side, the Chinese Embassy in the United States has recently received bomb and death threats against Chinese diplomatic agencies and personnel in the United States. Moreover, the website of the U.S. Embassy in China has often publicly published articles attacking China, Wang noted.

Wang said the facts are clear who are interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and who are engaging in infiltration and confrontation.

Wang said the U.S. side claims that there is no reciprocity in the U.S.-China relations, but this is just an old and meaningless excuse of the United States. He stressed that "in fact, in terms of the number of diplomatic and consular missions in each other's country and the number of diplomatic and consular personnel, the U.S. side far exceeds China."

"We urge the U.S. side to immediately withdraw this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures," Wang said.
NCERT has decided to review the Class 12 Political Science textbook's chapter 'Politics in India since Independence'. It changed the topic 'Separatism and Beyond' (That described Jammu and Kashmir's status as an self-governing status) to 'Regional Aspirations' as the former is no longer the case ever since the abolishment of Article 370 and Article 35A.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has gone over the Class 12 Political Science textbook to edit the portion about Jammu and Kashmir. The chapter revised is titled Politics in India since Independence for session 2020-21.

The topic Separatism and Beyond, that included Article 370 which gave Jammu and Kashmir its exceptionally autonomous state, has been deleted, replacing it with the topic Regional Aspirations. This was done as the state no longer has the same status, with Article 370, alongside Article 34, being abolished.

The deleted part in the book read that one strand of separatists who want a separate Kashmiri nation, independent of India and Pakistan. Then there are groups that want Kashmir to merge with Pakistan. Besides these, there is a third strand, which wants greater autonomy for the people of the state within the Indian union. After this, the book says that Presidents Rule imposed in June 2018 after the BJP withdrew its support to the Mehbooba Mufti government and concludes with the mentions the withdrawal of Article 370.

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The new edition says that the Jammu and Kashmir had a special status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. However, in spite of it, the region witnessed violence, cross-border terrorism and political instability with internal and external ramifications. The revised portion further reads that the Article resulted in the loss of many lives, including that of innocent civilians, security personnel and militants. Besides, there was also a large scale displacement of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley.

On August 5, 2019, Parliament had approved a resolution abrogating special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution. The state was also bifurcated into two Union territories  Ladakh with no Legislative Assembly and Jammu and Kashmir with one. The book has also been updated with the developments that took place in Jammu and Kashmir after 2002.

Also, this month opposition blamed CBSE of promoting a particular ideology as CBSE dropped several topics from its curriculum. The opposition opposed this move of CBSE and said that Indias democracy and plurality are being scrapped. However, CBSE claims that this is being done only for this year due to the pandemic. Also, CBSE told that this reduction of the syllabus is not restricted to one subject as some people are trying to show.

Also read: UGC Guidelines 2020: Over 700 universities ready to conduct exams

For all the latest Education and Jobs News, download NewsX App
(Nikkei Asian Review)  Trade between North Korea and China plunged nearly 70% on the year between January and May after Pyongyang closed the border to prevent the transmission of the novel coronavirus, depriving it of a key source of foreign currency.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns isolated regime suspended entry of all foreign nationals traveling for business or leisure in late January. Trains coming in from China and Russia have been halted, and international flights have been grounded. Shipments of goods have also been restricted.

The impact was immediate. North Korea depends on China for 90% of its trade. During the first five months of the year, imports from China fell 68% on the year to $295 million, Chinese customs data show. Exports to China plunged 81% to $18 million.

And Chinese visitors are unlikely to return until the late fall.

North Korea will likely start accepting travelers from China in November, the owner of a Chinese travel agency told Nikkei last month. The company, located in the border province of Liaoning, received the notice from a travel agency in Pyongyang.

The business owner was originally told in May that the travel ban would be lifted in either July or August, but the schedule has been pushed back.

New infections have persisted in Beijing and other cities, so at this point the reopening of travel between China and North Korea will likely be difficult, said an executive at another travel agency in Liaoning. I think it will be impossible to visit North Korea this year.

Chinese are said to make up 90% of the tourists that visit North Korea. There are no official statistics, but a source in Liaonings travel industry estimates the annual traffic falls between 100,000 and 200,000 people.

The number of tourists has grown remarkably since 2018, and it has especially jumped in 2019, said the source.

The Chinese government, which looks to support North Korea, has apparently ordered domestic travel agencies to boost the number of travelers. The policy has boosted the numbers, but North Koreas travel ban has dealt a serious blow.

North Korean authorities set the price of tour packages for Chinese customers. A train ride from Liaoning to Pyongyang, and a three-night stay, costs between 3,500 yuan ($500) and 4,000 yuan per person.

In normal years, travelers to North Korea would be obligated to watch the Arirang mass games, typically held between July and October. For this event, tens of thousands of North Koreans would spend half a year rehearsing the worlds biggest choreographed event, part rhythmic gymnastics and part circus event.

Chinese would be charged an extra 800 yuan to watch the spectacle from the upper decks.

But if North Korea were to reopen its borders in November, the cold winter weather would make holding the mass games in an outdoor stadium prohibitive. The regime will stand to lose a major source of foreign currency.

The United Nations sanctions levied in 2017 banned the export of minerals, textiles and other goods from North Korea. The countrys gross domestic product shrank 4.1% in 2018, according to an estimate by the Bank of Korea, South Koreas central bank.

Up until last year, North Korea has increased exports to China of goods allowed under sanctions. These include wigs and timepieces made with raw materials sent from China. But Januarys border closing halted travel by businesspeople, placing limits on transport of goods.

Bilateral trade has started to stage a gradual recovery in May, according to an executive at a Liaoning trading company. The cap on shipments have apparently been loosened partially.

But people cant travel to have business meetings, so its difficult to foresee a complete recovery in trade, said the executive.

Last month, North Korea destroyed a joint liaison office shared with South Korea, the regime signaling its hardened recalcitrance toward the international community. Because of the dimmer prospects of loosened sanctions, smugglings have surged.

Illegal dealings in textiles have recently restarted, according to a trading company. Fabric and threads are shipped from China to be made into apparel in Pyongyang, and shipped back. Ship-to-ship transfers of illicit goods on are ongoing.

This story was originally published by Nikkei Asian Review

Contact editor Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)
ALBANY  Liability shields tucked into this year's state budget for nursing homes and health care providers could be clawed back as New York legislators look to amend the legal immunity given to the medical facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.

The protections, buttressed in an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on March 23, have brought intense criticism after nursing home deaths in New York soared to more than 6,500, the highest of any state in the nation. Those deaths also occurred as nursing homes were instructed by the state to accept COVID-positive residents, and families of people who died have raised questions about the safety of the facilities.

Legislators in the Assembly are scheduled Thursday to weigh an amended bill that would extend legal protections only to medical professionals who have diagnosed or treated COVID-19 patients. The bill's sponsor Assemblyman Ronald Kim, D-Queens, said the proposal would roll back the current law that protects facilities from negligence lawsuits arising from the pandemic. The bill is among hundreds of pieces of legislation policymakers are tackling this week to catch up on unfinished business, including expanding coronavirus-related protections.

"This is a critical step in admitting that handing out broad legal immunities to health care facilities, especially nursing homes, was a mistake," said Kim, who lost a family member from the virus at a nursing home. "Now that we can admit that the legal immunity was a mistake, we need to provide retroactive justice for over 6,500 families who lost loved ones in nursing homes as they suffered and died alone without any legal recourse."

The controversial law enacted three months ago  which mirrors similar measures taken in other states and was drafted by health care industry leaders  does not cover immunity for willful, criminal misconduct or gross negligence, but is focused on harm arising from staffing shortages or a lack of protective equipment. Republicans in Congress also are considering protections for the industry in the next federal stimulus package.

Roughly one-fourth of the state's more than 24,000 deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, were residents in nursing homes. Cuomo has faced criticism for his administration's handling of the infectious disease in those facilities, where many of the most physically vulnerable reside.

Earlier this month, the state Department of Health issued a report that officials said absolved the state and health care facilities of blame for the deaths, pointing to infections that were presumed to be from asymptomatic staff members who were in the facilities weeks before New York was aware the pandemic was here. But critics and other have said there needs to be an independent investigation of the state's coronavirus nursing home policies.

The New York State Nurses Association, which called for a full accounting of what happened during the pandemic in health care facilities following the release of the state report, defended the frontline workers who, the group says, early on expressed concern about personal protective equipment supplies and staffing.

"COVID-19 highlighted longstanding inequities we've seen in the health care system. Addressing equity in funding, access to health care and safe staffing is what will keep all of our patients safe," association Executive Director Pat Kane said in an emailed statement Wednesday. "The nurse's responsibility and accountability to practice according to the standards of our profession never go away - regardless of exemptions from civil liability. Our commitment to our code of ethics and advocacy that puts patients first is why we are consistently cited as the most trusted profession."

Industry leaders and representatives have blasted calls to roll back the legal immunity, citing the unprecedented circumstances health care providers have faced responding to COVID-19 cases, including what they said was a lack of adequate personal protective equipment.

The Healthcare Association of New York State issued a memo Tuesday in opposition to the latest legislation, which would amend the protections afforded to the industry and specifically cover medical professionals who provided diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 directly to patients with confirmed or suspected infections.

This legislation would take a significant step backwards by repealing almost all of the liability protections passed by the Legislature only a few months ago, the memo states. First, the bill would eliminate the protections in place for healthcare professionals and facilities providing services that are not specifically related to COVID-19.

The association also alleged the legislation would limit liability protections for those providing services related to preventing coronavirus or arranging services for COVID-19 patients.

Assemblyman John McDonald, a pharmacist and Cohoes Democrat, said he understands the frustration some feel with the immunity granted to health care professionals, but expressed concern about limiting the legal protections for providers.

During the height of the virus in New York, as staffing shortages emerged and nurses and other professionals were working long hours, the state garnered help from retired medical professionals and medical students nearing the end of their educational training. Without the legal protection, McDonald said, some professionals may opt out of assisting should another outbreak occur.

Health professionals have been practicing under very dire and extreme circumstances, and we need to be very mindful of this, he said. I think we need to be very mindful if this legislation dissuades providers from participating.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Kim, along with state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, D-Bronx, in June introduced legislation that would completely repeal the protection; however, its more likely an amendment would garner enough support to pass.

Cuomo said during a press conference call Wednesday that he would have to review the amendment.

The New York chapter of AARP on Wednesday called on lawmakers to support a full repeal of the protections for nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

"Not only would that restore the right of residents and their families to seek justice, but it would incentivize facilities to provide proper care going forward," the organization wrote in a statement. "Residents and their families should have the ability to hold facilities accountable for abuse, neglect and substandard care. This is especially true now, with most nursing home inspections suspended and in-person visits by family members and long-term care ombudsmen restricted due to the pandemic."

Limiting the legal protections will allow families to pursue legal action that could uncover evidence of poor care, allegations that have plagued some facilities in the state for years.

While nursing home leaders have disputed any suggestion that those issues were factors in the scale of their outbreaks, a Times Union review of 10 nursing homes in the Capital Region with the largest or deadliest coronavirus outbreaks found many have struggled to maintain adequate staffing or have been cited for infection-control issues over the years.

Richard J. Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, said every New Yorker should be concerned about any legal immunity given to the facilities during the pandemic.

The ability to seek accountability for grossly substandard care or neglect of a vulnerable resident should not be impinged upon, no matter taken away in the dark of night as happened here, he said. This speaks to the need for much greater accountability for the development of the state budget. Most importantly, and sadly, it speaks to the priorities of some of our state leaders, who evidence a greater interest in protecting the profits of nursing homes than the safety and dignity of our elderly."

The nonprofit coalition is dedicated to improving quality of care and living conditions for elderly and disabled people in nursing homes, assisted living and other residential settings.

Mollot said families do not want to sue nursing homes, but in the absence of effective quality assurance and surveillance for abuse and neglect, it is the only option to provide some level of accountability when a nursing home fails to provide care that meets minimum safety standards.
The United States and Britain put on a show of unity against Chinese telecoms giant Huawei on Tuesday, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered stinging criticism of Beijing's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and urged like-minded nations to push back together against China's threatening behaviour.

Pompeo, who is visiting Britain, praised the U.K.'s response to challenges raised by China as tensions grow between Western powers and Beijing. Britain has in recent weeks decided to ban Huawei from the UK's 5G network, suspended an extradition treaty with Hong Kong and offered refuge for millions of eligible Hong Kongers who feel threatened by Beijing's tightening grip on the semi-autonomous city.

We support those sovereign choices, we think 'well done', Pompeo said.

CPompeo told reporters: We have seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed and watched the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) bully its neighbours.

He also criticized the Chinese Communist Party's exploitation of the pandemic as disgraceful. He said the U.S. hopes like-minded nations can build a coalition with a joint understanding of the threat of China, including its ambitions in the South China Sea.

We want every nation to work together to push back against the Chinese Communist Party's efforts in every dimension that I have described, he said.

The talks came just hours after Britain joined the US, Australia and Canada in suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. It also blocked arms sales to the former British territory  angering Beijing  after China imposed a tough new national security law that critics say delivers a fatal blow to the liberties and rule of law promised to the city when it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

Last week Britain's government drew more ire from Beijing when it U-turned on an earlier decision to allow Huawei a limited role in the country's superfast 5G network.

The US has lobbied its allies to shun Huawei because it says the Chinese government could use the company's technology to spy on Western nations. Huawei denies the allegations and argues that US protectionism is behind the move.

A Downing Street spokesman said Johnson, Pompeo and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab discussed the importance of Five Eyes countries taking an ambitious approach to working together on the technologies of the future.

He was referring to the intelligence alliance between the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand China's ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, warned on Twitter that the U.K. should bear the consequences of damaging bilateral relations.

Pompeo described his talks in London as being constructive? and ranging "from 5G telecommunication to our negotiations for a U.S.-U.K. free trade agreement.'' Pompeo also met with senior members of Johnson's Conservative Party who led the blockage of Huawei from Britain's infrastructure.

The UK has already accused the Beijing government of violating the Sino-British Joint Declaration under which Hong Kong was returned to China, and announced it would open a special route to citizenship for up to 3 million eligible residents of the territory.
As the pandemic has shut down in-person meetings, and pushed us online, products like Zoom, Cisco WebEx, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams have become part of our daily lives. Into the fray jumps huddl.ai, a 3.5-year-old startup from a serial entrepreneur who wants to bring a dose of artificial intelligence to meeting technology.

Company co-founder and CEO Krishna Yarlagadda says while these companies have introduced the video meeting concept, his startup has a vision of taking it further. "As we move forward. I think the next [era] is going to be about intelligence," Yarlagadda told TechCrunch.

That involves using AI tools to transcribe the meeting, pull out the salient points and help users understand what happened without poring over notes to find the key information in a long session. "Primarily there's a purpose for every meeting, or essentially we're meeting for outcomes, and that's where Huddl comes in," he said.

Yarlagadda said that current solutions simply give you a link to a cloud room and everyone involved clicks and enters. Huddl wants to bring some more structure to that whole process. "We've developed a very user-centric architecture and also added a layer called meeting memory, which essentially captures the core aspects of the meeting -- the agenda, action items and moments and then added search," he explained.

They call these meeting elements moments, and they involve capturing three key aspects of the meeting: the agenda and collaborative notes participants take during the meeting, screen captures the user takes using a built-in tool and, finally, audio, which captures a recording of the meeting. Users can search across these elements to find the parts of the meeting that are most relevant to them.

Image Credits: huddl.ai

Further, it integrates with other enterprise applications like Slack or Salesforce to move to applicable tools items discussed during these meetings when it makes sense. "Essentially what we're trying to do is create a five-minute version of your 60-minute meeting that is stored in your memory and that becomes part of your search. Post-meeting this content has a life, and through APIs and integrations, we can [share it with the right programs]," he said.

For instance, if it's an action item in a sales meeting, it would go to Salesforce, and if it is a software bug in an engineering meeting, it could be shared with Jira.

The company was started in 2017, and has raised $8.7 million in seed money to date. It has 50 employees, with 10 in the U.S. and the others in India, and has plans to hire 15-20 additional people this year between the U.S. and India offices.
Cairo Ojougboh, executive director of projects at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), says in the past, getting a contract ...





Cairo Ojougboh, executive director of projects at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), says in the past, getting a contract at the agency is like winning a lottery.





The agency is currently in the eye of the storm over a series of corruption allegations being investigated by the national assembly.





In an interview with Arise Television, Ojougboh accused the past management of the commission of being responsible for deep-seated corruption in NDDC.





He said the agency could award a project of N700 million to a contractor and it would be executed with just N10 million.





Between 2016 and 2019, emergency contracts of over N2 trillion were awarded under the supervision of the chairmen of both committees, Ojugboh said in the interview he granted in May.





The chairman of senate committee collected one thousand of those jobs and said he was going to give it to the senate. The records are there. The 1,000 contracts were collected by a man called Nelson Agbamuche on behalf of the senate.





The immediate crisis that came was as a result of the budget. How did the budget run into a problem? It was in 2016. The bureaucracy told us when we came in that there was no budget from 2016 to 2018. The budget for 2019 was just passed some few days ago. What led to it?





A chairman of senate in 2015 called the bureaucracy that they need to include for him a N15 billion project in the budget. The bureaucracy said it was fair enough, went behind and worked it out. When they came back, the chairman said I didnt say N15 billion. I said N150 billion.





The bureaucracy went back and they couldnt comply because there was no way they could do that. The chairman went back to the bureaucracy asking them to award emergency contracts without due process. That was how the emergency procedures were breached and the commission now has a commitment of over N3 trillion. How can this continue?





We were no paying as they used to. So, the contractors are very angry. Normally, once you have a contract in NDDC, it is like you have won a lottery. A contract that they will award for you in NDDC for N700 million, you can use N10 or N20 million to do it.





Speaking before the House of Representatives committee probing the commission on Monday, Godswill Akpabio, minister of Niger Delta affairs, said most of the contracts awarded by the NDDC are given to national assembly members.






Fig. 1 Diagram of efficient parallel computation assignment focusing on branching structure of radio wave simulation



Fig. 2 Faster search for beamforming patterns using radio wave simulation results

KAWASAKI, Japan, July 22, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. today announced the development of new, high-speed computing technology to significantly streamline the deployment of wireless base stations compatible with 28 GHz millimeter-wave private 5G systems.Private 5G demonstrates great promise as a key infrastructure technology to support digital transformation (DX) for a variety of companies across different industries and business areas, delivering low-latency communications for applications as varied as AI video analysis on worksites to seamless remote operations for robots in manufacturing and medical facilities. In order to realize this technology's true potential, however, it is essential to optimize the deployment of wireless base stations. This often proves challenging, and despite its wide bandwidth the millimeter wave band remains difficult to handle because of its susceptibility to interference, including obstruction by surrounding obstacles. To avoid this, radio experts are often needed to determine the correct location of wireless base stations, which remains costly and requires extensive field adjustments.With its new technology, Fujitsu has successfully developed a high-speed algorithm that can automatically calculate the best placement for private 5G millimeter wave base stations 5 to 10 times faster than conventional approaches. The technology also accounts for the adjustment of parameters including transmission power, radio channel, antenna direction and position, which makes it easier for non-radio experts to determine layouts for wireless base stations for private 5G systems.Going forward, Fujitsu will continue to advance its automated design technology and aims to leverage it in the area design of its private 5G system integration service within fiscal 2020.Challenges, About the Newly Developed TechnologyFujitsu has previously developed an automatic wireless base station design technology(1) that enables non-specialists to design and install wireless LAN networks in a day or so, instead of the previous seven-day work required by wireless experts, by using radio wave simulation technology that makes use of the knowledge of network technology we have accumulated over the years. However, the millimeter-wave band is more direct than microwaves of 6 GHz or less, which to date have been used mainly in cellular and wireless LANs. Therefore, the millimeter-wave band is easily affected by surrounding obstacles, and furthermore, the signal attenuation is large when the distance between the base station and the terminal increases. Therefore, by controlling the antenna with many antenna elements to perform beamforming(2), it is important to increase signal power and compensate for attenuation by directing radio waves to each terminal.In designing a private 5G system in the millimeter-wave band, the number of base stations required increases due to the attenuation characteristics of the millimeter-wave. Additionally, many combinations need to be explored to estimate the effect of beamforming, which greatly increases the amount of computation required for automatic wireless base station deployment. As a result, it may take more than one day for each high-precision simulation on a typical desktop PC in an office, etc., and shortening the calculation time remains a important challenge to overcome.To resolve these issues, Fujitsu Laboratories developed the technology described below:Optimal parallelization technology for radio wave simulation calculationRadio wave simulation has a branching structure that performs simulation calculations of propagation for each route in each combination of base stations and terminals for calculation scenarios that consist of movement or change of surrounding objects, base station candidate positions, and terminal candidate positions. When the CPU is allocated in parallel by dividing the calculation at the path level of the smallest unit of calculation as in the conventional method, the simulation time varies because the distance and the presence of obstacles differ depending on the path, and the overhead due to the synchronous processing of parallelization is large. On the other hand, dividing the calculation at the scenario level of the largest unit of calculation may make it hard to fully utilize the computing resources of the processor when the number of scenarios is small.Taking advantage of the fact that parallelization is possible without any dependency between nodes in each hierarchy of the calculation tree of the radio wave simulation, Fujitsu has developed a parallel acceleration technology for the radio wave simulation calculation that minimizes the overhead caused by parallelization and maximizes the use of computing resources by automatically selecting the optimal hierarchy from the calculation tree at all times, taking into account the number of CPUs in the calculation environment(3). This is achieved by first dividing the processing in a hierarchy where the number of nodes in the hierarchy is equal to or larger than the number of CPUs when the tree is moved down one layer from the top of the tree structure to the number of CPUs in the calculation environment, and allocating the processing to the CPUs. This technology enables efficient and fast computation at all times in a variety of processor and core configurations, from laptops to workstations.In addition, in the simulation of beamforming, which takes into account the directionality of antennas for millimeter-wave band private 5G systems, instead of the conventional method of searching for a combination of base station and terminal beam patterns, 1/10 the range of search can be narrowed down based on information such as the direction of radio waves and signal intensity obtained from the results of radio wave simulation, and the characteristic amounts of the base station and terminal beam patterns.OutcomesThe newly developed technology enables the calculation of radio wave simulation and beamforming performance estimation to be accelerated by 5 to 10 times at maximum. For example, when high-precision radio wave simulation is conducted with 24 wireless base station position candidates and 40,000 terminal position candidates in a place simulating a factory with an area of 10,000 square meters, the calculation can be completed in about two hours with a desktop computer. This represents a considerable improvement over existing approaches and promises to accelerate planning for the placement of terminals and wireless base stations for private 5G systems in the field, delivering customers the chance to accelerate the digital transformation of their operations.(1) automatic wireless base station design technology "Fujitsu Develops Field Engineering Technology to Rapidly Provide IoT Services" https://bit.ly/2CVOjHX(2) Beamforming technique for concentrating radio waves in a specific direction by controlling the phase (Angle) of a signal emitted by an antenna element on an antenna panel.(3) number of CPUs in the calculation environment Strictly speaking, the number of concurrent threads.About FujitsuFujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 130,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 3.9 trillion yen (US$35 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.About Fujitsu LaboratoriesFounded in 1968 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. is one of the premier research centers in the world. With a global network of laboratories in Japan, China, the United States and Europe, the organization conducts a wide range of basic and applied research in the areas of Next-generation Services, Computer Servers, Networks, Electronic Devices and Advanced Materials. For more information, please see: http://www.fujitsu.com/jp/group/labs/en/.Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.Digital Innovation Core UnitE-mail: labs-wd-contact@dl.jp.fujitsu.comSource: Fujitsu LtdCopyright 2020 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
At least five humanitarian workers abducted in Borno state have been executed by suspected Boko Haram insurgents. The humanitarian...





At least five humanitarian workers abducted in Borno state have been executed by suspected Boko Haram insurgents.





The humanitarian workers were traveling from Maiduguri to Monguno, a town in the northern part of Borno, when they were ambushed by Boko Haram on June 29, 2020.





In a 34 seconds video, one of the insurgents who spoke in Hausa, said the humanitarian workers were executed for working with the infidels.





This is a strong message to those who are being used by unbelievers to convert people to infidels those who are working for the organisations of disbelievers, one of the Boko Haram fighters said.

You work for them to achieve their goals but they do not care about you that is the reason when we abducted you, they showed no care. We are calling on you to repent and turn to God.





For those of you remaining, we will surely get you we know the routes you follow. If you do not desist, youll end just like these people too.





After speaking, five of the insurgents opened fire on the captives from a close range.





It is unclear when the victims were killed but the video was released on Wednesday.





Boko Haram has continued to wreak havoc in the north-east despite the claim of the government that the sect has been defeated.




Many employers encourage their staff to perform risk assessments to identify hazards and estimate consequence versus likelihood of occurrence. I note the existence of a Victorian Government Risk Management Framework. Perhaps the Coate inquiry could save a lot of time and expense by requesting a copy of the hotel quarantine assessment from the DHHS Risk Register.

Frans Brouwer, Ringwood North THE FORUM Independence daze

The key interim finding of Graeme Samuels review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was the need for a well-funded truly independent cop on the beat. Instead we see watering down of protections and rhetoric about assurance monitoring. It feels reminiscent of the proposed federal body against corruption  weasel words and having no teeth. The ALP, the Greens and the cross benchers need to make sure the federal government is held to account.

Margaret Beavis, Brighton Environmental leadership

The proposed weakening of environmental safeguards is not only environmentally irresponsible but confirms Australias economic short-sightedness. Not only are we knocking down forests at an alarming rate, with mega-fossil fuel projects that threaten our wildlife and climate but, just as foolishly, we are ignoring an opportunity for a green recharge of our economy. We know what the strategy should be: strong laws with clear standards that are fairly and independently enforced, together with incentives for businesses to get onto the environmental bandwagon. Come on, national leaders: lead!

Nick Jans, Marysville

Tired of the attire

Why would two highly respected journalists, Kate McClymont and Lucy Cormack, in their From Hermes to Handcuffs article (22/7), feel the need to include the description of a womans attire: Ms Hall, a make-up artist, was wearing a white puffer jacket and grey tracksuit when she was taken away from her suburb of Greystanes in the early hours of yesterday morning? There was no description of the man/men, in their grey suits and blue shirts.

Jan Courtin, Albert Park Not fashionable

I read with interest those who are complaining about the inconvenience of wearing a mask. Have these people thought of how the healthcare workers might feel having to wear not only a mask but face shield and full PPE equipment, not for just an hour or so but for perhaps 10-12 hours. They do this to save lives, not because its a fashion statement. We only have to wear them for the amount of time it takes us to shop, do our daily exercise or are unable to social distance.

Jane Taylor, Newport Why the rush?

One must ask just what is Sussan Ley on about in her hurry to rid the Commonwealth of environmental responsibility and devolve decision-making to the states. She must believe the states will more readily allow development of endangered species habitat areas, thus giving short-term economic benefit to a few land-grabbers and miners. Instead of knowledgeably protecting our biological heritage, the federal Environment Minister must see it as a burden. Ms Ley is squandering the biological heritage of our grandchildren, and setting us up for hard times ahead, and we are letting her do it.

Jill Dumsday, Ashburton Free masks for poor

Masks are now compulsory in Melbourne and may well be so in other areas over time. The government has announced a coming reduction in support for people unable to find paid employment. Has anyone given any thought to providing masks free for the unemployed? The French government is doing so for its population in financial need. What about Australia?

Dr Juliet Flesch, Kew US Weimar moment

Farrah Tomazins article (Trumps war on liberal cities, 22/7), is an admirably balanced account of the intense, even anarchic, street fighting occurring across the US. It isnt surprising that some US commentators are asking if their nation is having a Weimar moment in reference to Germanys short-lived Republic in the 1920s which was characterised by brutal civil strife. As in the US now, far-right and far-left militias back then exploited the impotence of a democratic government against the backdrop of an economically stressed middle-class; and an aspiring autocrat, namely Adolf Hitler, eager to take advantage of the chaos. Fast forward to 2020 and Donald Trumps brinksmanship has many Americans feeling the fabric of the US Republic is imperilled.

Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza

Best fabric choices

Its clear that when the DHHS compiled advice about homemade masks they didnt research the issue. Simply googling best fabric for masks quickly reveals the work by Supratik Guha, professor of molecular engineering at the University of Chicago. Specifically to establish the effectiveness of commonly available fabrics, he and his team laboratory tested a range of fabrics and combinations. They concluded that closely woven cotton lined with closely woven silk provided near medical grade protection. Cotton is a barrier to larger droplets and silk  or other fabrics with electrostatic properties  trap the remaining aerosol particles.

Lou Wilksch, Brunswick East Blind support of Dan

The Age has shown its colours with its undying support for Dan Andrews. No stone is left unturned in its blind support of his handling of the pandemic. Little mention of the inconsistent messaging about masks, lockdowns; mishandling the quarantine procedures; claiming no responsibility for flagrant corruption in a party he leads and refusing to lead by example and offer a salary sacrifice.

Graham Haupt, Ivanhoe Time for a break Dan

There has been a lot in the media about Dan Andrews handling of the pandemic. I have no complaints as to what he has done but I am worried about one thing. By my recollection he hasnt had a day off for months. That might be good for his image as someone who is putting everything in to show leadership. But it is not OK from a health perspective. For your own sake Dan, take a few days off, Im sure even Michael OBrien will understand.

Glenn Murphy, Hampton Park Time to disband SAS?

Is it time to disband the SAS? After the murder of two Somali men by members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1993, the Canadian federal government disbanded the unit. The evidence is accumulating that the Australian SAS may have reached the same level of irresponsibility.

Adrian Tabor, Point Lonsdale

Minister stands by figures

Your article (Emails reveal warning over arts stimulus figures, 21/7) uncritically reports on the continuing attacks from the arts union, the MEAA against the Morrison governments JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs. Did I ask my department to provide quantitative estimates of the extent of support provided to the cultural and creative sector by JobKeeper and JobSeeker, before I publicly stated that the estimate of total support would be between $4 billion and $10 billion over six months? I certainly did. You write that the government has since stopped using these figures. Dead wrong. The government stands by them. The MEAA is excited that its FOI request turned up an email in which an official stated that appropriate data was not available. As is clear from other documents the MEAA obtained there are later emails from the Bureau of Communications and Arts Research (BCAR) within my department stating that based on its modelling JobKeeper, JobSeeker and related support could be worth up to $13 billion. (In other words, the estimate of $4 billion to $10 billion I have consistently used is conservative.) The number of workers whose main industry of employment is in cultural and creative sectors is about 645,000. The economic contribution of this sector breakdown is valued at about $111.7 billion. The MEAA has consistently made factually inaccurate claims, including that most arts workers were not eligible for JobKeeper support  when in fact more than 90 per cent are eligible; JobKeeper has been vital in providing support across the cultural and creative sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The estimate I have consistently used of total support to the cultural and creative sector is based on advice from BCAR and the government stands by it.

Paul Fletcher, Federal Minister for the Arts Less costly than hospital

Im sure that Stuart Campbell (Letters, 22/7) would not mind paying the full cost of his hospital visit if he unfortunately catches COVID-19. After all, why should the government contribute to something that he brought on by not paying the price to protect himself and others?

Mark Schwerdt, Ormond

Distancing a priority

According to the government, both the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments have to be changed because they are creating wage and salary distortions that are disincentives for the unemployed to seek a job. But the only effective tools that can eliminate the coronavirus are social distancing and safe hygiene. Therefore, shouldnt the government be offering more financial incentives for people to work from home and for the unemployed to be able to live above the poverty line, instead of being under pressure to search for work when social distancing should be our priority?

John Glazebrook, Terang Tackle the decline

The quality of AFL games is declining at such a rate that it will soon be indistinguishable from rugby. A simple rule change will fix the interminable scrums. If a player has possession of the ball they can only be tackled by one opposition player. If the player in possession doesnt immediately get rid of the ball legally its holding the ball. If more than one opposition player tackles, its a free to the player with the ball.

Jeff Langdon, Smythesdale Virus blame game

Yet again the COVID-19 figures have come out and yet again it is the publics fault for, in this case, not staying at home after being tested. Perhaps if Daniel Andrews requirements had been well considered, firm, fair and unequivocal we wouldnt be in this situation.

Simon Greenwood, Brighton AND ANOTHER THING ... Credit:

Coronavirus

Thanks to obligatory mask-wearing, lipstick sales will plummet and eye make-up soar.

Wendy Weight, Sorrento What a marketing coup  a new season of The Masked Singer kicks off at the same time as the introduction of the compulsory wearing of masks.

Peter Venn, East Bentleigh Stuart Campbell (Letters, 22/7) argues that the government should provide him with free masks. I assume he receives his compulsory seatbelts for free too.

Peter ODonoghue, Kensington Sadly, the trio of Andrews, Sutton and Mikakos appear to be losing audience appeal. Maybe, Moe, Larry and Curly can be sought as replacements. They could not perform any worse.

Dennis Walker, North Melbourne Who would have thought that my ears would do the heavy lifting during this crisis. Reading glasses, hearing aids and now masks!

Liz Buick, Ventnor

Some months away, there will be a Senate seat up for grabs. I see a job opportunity for those applying four times a month for work.

Bruce Dudon, Woodend So jails are in lockdown because a prison officer tested positive. Why were their doors unlocked?

Ray Pilbeam, Canterbury Our elected representatives should be transferred to a JobShirker program to pay them a living wage to cover the period when parliament is not sitting  $40 a day should do the trick.

Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale Owning a pub in the 1990s, we never encountered hostility when our patrons were told they would not be served or allowed in the hotel if they were smoking. The pseudo libertarians among us need to follow the mask-wearing rule or stay home.

Mary Mandanici, West Preston Finally

Melbourne City Council identifying 100 exceptional trees is the very model of public policy humbug. If the trees in Yarra Park were exceptional, their root zones would not be being used as car parking.

Christopher Deakin, Northcote
Hamilton residents will be able to make a virtual presentation at all of the citys standing committees beginning in August.

Councillors agreed to a motion July 17 introduced by Mountain Coun. John-Paul Danko to allow virtual delegations by the public. The city is only holding virtual meetings, with officials stating in-person meetings in council chambers continues to remain a safety concern.

Dankos motion was prompted by councils insistence to have representatives of Hamilton 2026 Commonwealth Games, as well as Canada and international representatives from the Commonwealth Games to make a pitch to councillors about the city hosting the event in 2026 at the Aug. 10 general issues committee meeting. Danko wanted to allow residents an opportunity to contribute to the discussion as well.

Its been trying, I know, for everybody trying to continue our municipal government functions, said Danko. I think (allowing virtual public delegations) is an important step.

City clerk Andrea Holland said virtual delegations will be allowed for the general issues, public works, audit, finance and administrative, board of health and emergency and community services committee meetings starting in August.

The city also allows virtual delegations by the public for its planning and heritage committees, as well as the committee of adjustment.

Meanwhile, councils standing committees will be allowed to hold virtual meetings, if there is enough staff to help organize them.

Legislative co-ordinator Loren Kolar said that despite citizen committees scheduled to meet in August, as revealed in the citys meeting calendar on its website, no committee is holding in-person meetings.

I am working to confirm that advisory committee meetings that appear on the citys web calendar will be marked as cancelled, she said.

Since the shutdown of city hall in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, the clerks office has been cancelling meetings on a month-to-month basis.

Staff are working to organize virtual meetings for these groups, she said.

City halls first two floors were reopened June 20 under strict safety protocols, but Emergency Operations Centre director Paul Johnson said that councils standing committee meetings would continue to be held virtually.

The city has been criticized for not allowing citizen advisory committees to hold virtual meetings, similar to councils standing committees.

Holland has said the city didnt have enough staff to oversee the committees and there was a lack of proper technology for virtual meetings.

There is a need to pull those staff resources back that were redeployed and that will take some time, she said.

Mountain Coun. Tom Jackson, who sits on the seniors advisory committee, said members of the committee have been patiently waiting to meet.

There were about 20 seniors at the peak of the pandemic wanting to meet, to participate, to get involved because of the sad and tragic situations that were being exposed at retirement homes and LTC facilities, said Jackson.

They are itching to go (and) they will be able to at least meet virtually and help us solve some problems with seniors in our community.

Stoney Creek Coun. Brad Clark said the city should have allowed the advisory committees to meet earlier to help councillors with vital information during the pandemic.

These are some of the most active, involved and engaged committees in the city, said Clark. We should have (allowed them to meet) earlier.
Law Offices of Blumenthal Nordrehuag Bhowmik De Blouw LLP If you would like to know more about the Asendia USA, Inc. lawsuit, please contact Attorney Nicholas J. De Blouw today by calling (800) 568-8020.

The Los Angeles employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP, filed a class action complaint alleging that Asendia USA, Inc., failed to provide their employees with wages when due or accurate itemized wage statements, as required by California law. The Asendia USA, Inc., class action lawsuit, Case No. 20STCV22863, is currently pending in the Los Angeles Superior Court of the State of California. A copy of the Complaint can be read here.

According to the lawsuit filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, Asendia USA, Inc. allegedly failed to provide PLAINTIFF accurate itemized wage statements. DEFENDANT allegedly from time to time violated Cal. Lab. Code  226 by failing to provide wage statements that identified the correct gross wages earned. Cal. Lab. Code  226 provides that "every employer shall furnish each of his or her employees with an accurate itemized wage statement in writing showing, among other things, gross wages earned and all applicable hourly rates in effect during the pay period and the corresponding amount of time worked at each hourly rate."

Additionally, the complaint further alleges Asendia USA, Inc., committed acts of unfair competition in violation of the California Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code  17200, et seq. (the UCL), by engaging in a company-wide policy and procedure which failed to accurately calculate and record the correct overtime rate for the overtime worked by PLAINTIFFS and other CALIFORNIA CLASS Members. As a result of DEFENDANTs intentional disregard of the obligation to meet this burden, DEFENDANT allegedly failed to properly calculate and/or pay all required overtime compensation for work performed by the members of the CALIFORNIA CLASS and violated the California Labor Code.

If you would like to know more about the Asendia USA, Inc. lawsuit, please contact Attorney Nicholas J. De Blouw today by calling (800) 568-8020.

Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP is an employment law firm with offices located in San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Riverside and Chicago that dedicates its practice to helping employees, investors and consumers fight back against unfair business practices, including violations of the California Labor Code and Fair Labor Standards Act. If you need help in collecting unpaid overtime wages, unpaid commissions, being wrongfully terminated from work, and other employment law claims, contact one of their attorneys today.

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Chinese spies who hacked COVID-19 research also behind pastor's imprisonment

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Two Chinese cyber thieves accused of targeting U.S. firms involved in coronavirus research also hacked the private emails of a Christian house pastor and shared them with communist officials, leading to his arrest.

Department of Justice spokesperson Kerri Kupec told Martha MacCallum on Fox News' The Story Tuesday night that Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, who worked in tandem with Chinas state intelligence bureau to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in sensitive information from companies around the world, also wreaked havoc within their own country.

For instance, the Chinese government shut down a Christian house church, and within a week, these two individuals were hacking into this Chinese Christian pastors email account, gathered those emails, and submitted it to the Chinese government, Kupec said. The Chinese government then arrested that pastor.

So these two individuals are doing quite the damage, she added.

On Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors charged the two Chinese nationals for their alleged involvement in the massive global hacking operation that spanned over a decade. Officials described the suspects as a "blended threat" who sometimes worked on behalf of Chinas spy services and sometimes to enrich themselves.

According to the 11-count indictment, unsealed on Tuesday, the hackers gave China's Ministry of State Security the personal data of dissidents, pastors, and human rights activists in the United States, China and Hong Kong.

For example, they provided the MSS with email accounts and passwords belonging to a Hong Kong community organizer, the pastor of a Christian church in Xian, and a dissident and former Tiananmen Square protestor, the indictment reads. The Defendants also stole email account contents of obvious interest to the PRC Government, such as ... emails belonging to a Chinese Christian house  pastor in Chengdu, who was later arrested by the PRC government; and emails from a U.S. professor and organizer, and two Canadian residents, who advocated for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong.

Li and Dong reacted quickly to Chinas perceived desires, the indictment notes, targeting the Chengdu house pastor just days after the provincial government banned his church.

The indictment also alleges the former engineering students stole hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of trade secrets, intellectual property, and other valuable business information. Specifically, they stole terabytes of data from high-technology companies around the world, including the U.S.

Recently, the pair targeted the networks of over a dozen U.S. biomedical research firms in Maryland, Massachusetts, and California that are developing vaccines and treatments for COVID-19.

The indictment says the two men recently researched vulnerabilities in the networks of biotech and other firms publicly known for work on covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing technology.

China has been stealing this kind of research for years and years and years, but the Department of Justice really drew a line in the sand today and saying look, this has got to stop. This is enough and we will hold you accountable, Kupec said Tuesday.

The indictment is part of the Justice Departments China initiative, launched in 2018, notes The Washington Post. The initiative prioritizes countering Chinese national security threats in line with the administrations national security strategy.

Earlier this year, Open Doors USA CEO David Curry warned that China, under President Xi Jinping, was building a "blueprint for persecution" as Christians have been under constant surveillance.

Its implications are not just for Christians within China but for every country and for religious freedom generally, Curry said. Let me put it together. It is like a puzzle. The pieces are there but it is not until you put it together that you see it clearly. When you see it clearly, it is frightening.

I saw with my own eyes the surveillance on the street but also in the churches, watching their congregation, he said. Facial scans when you come in and then tracking you and generating reports [with] assumptions built into their artificial intelligence system that is tracking Christian behavior.

Curry said that the more often a person is seen going to church, the more often they are to be labeled a radical.

They are shutting down house churches at a massive rate  5,596 churches shut down, many because they refuse to put surveillance cameras up to watch their congregation.

In April, several members of Chinas heavily persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church were arrested by communist authorities for participating in an online Easter worship service on Zoom and ordered to cease all religious activity.

China is ranked No. 23 on Open Door USAs World Watch List of 50 countries where Christians face the most persecution.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal says the government plans to extend the adaptive quarantine until August 31.

"Today we plan to continue the adaptive quarantine until August 31," Shmyhal said at a government meeting on Wednesday.

"This is the new resolution. Its implementation is proposed in the period within August 1-31, 2020. It will regulate the establishment of quarantine in the country. What is the difference? Depending on the epidemic situation in the region or individual administrative territorial units  districts, 'green,' 'yellow,' 'orange' or 'red' level of epidemic danger of the spread of [coronavirus] COVID-19," Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said during the government meeting.

According to the minister, the criteria for the division of regions into four zones remain the same.

"The level of spread will be determined by automated software based on certain algorithms and collected data and approved by the State Commission on Environmental Safety, Manmade Disaster and Emergency Response. The basic level of monitoring is monitoring at the level of the area of indicators that are currently used, namely, bed occupancy is not more than 50%, the average number of tests is not less than 24 per 100,000 of populations, the rate of detection of cases of infection is not more than 11% and the indicator of the dynamics of growth of cases of infection is not more than 10%," he said.

"When there is no excess in the region and all its districts are in the 'green' zone, where such restrictions apply: in public buildings, a mask or respirator, holding mass events of no more than one person per five square meters, holding events in cinemas or theaters with 50% fullness, passenger transportation  only within the seating area. Regions that are constantly in the 'green' zone do not need intervention or strengthening of anti-epidemic measures at the national level. If the indicators change for five days, then the region or a district turns into 'yellow,' 'orange' or 'red' zone," the minister said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22) With majority of the world forced into COVID-19 lockdowns, many of our daily activities school, work, and even grocery shopping have switched to digital platforms.

Social media, now more than ever, is playing an important role in our lives.

As such, some Filipino content creators and influencers have joined forces to use their platform for a good cause by lending a hand to the COVID-19 fight.

The Creator and Influencer Council of the Philippines recently organized a fundraiser called #CreatorsUnitedPH, which aims to raise 1 million to help purchase medical-grade protective gear for the countrys healthworkers and frontliners.

Celebrity vlogger Erwan Heussaff, public relations officer of the CICP, told CNN Philippines that the group has already raised around 400,000 and has already distributed PPEs to some regional hospitals in need.

Weve currently met almost half of the target and this is gonna be continuous, and this wont be the first and last obviously as issues arise, Heussaff said in an interview with CNN Philippines' The Source, adding that the group will soon target other organizations and industries that may need support amid the crisis.

Heussaff along with other members of the CICIP also called on other parties in the industry to maximize the use of their platforms, noting how their stature also provides more responsibilities.

Influencers, creators, even brands are becoming their own distribution platforms; theyre becoming their own channels, media outlets sometimes because with great influence obviously comes a lot of responsibilities, Heussaff said.

Interested individuals may pitch in donations as low as 100.

Fore more information, visit CICPs social media pages.
Based in Philadelphia, Miss., in the mid-1950s, Mr. Evers became one of the states first black radio disc jockeys and also ran a hotel, a restaurant, a cab stand and a funeral parlor  steering some of the profits to his brothers civil rights work. But a showdown with the powerful White Citizens Council, including intimidation of his employees, led him to decamp for Chicago with little more than his life and what he remembered as 19 dollars in pennies.
DES MOINES, Iowa, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kemin Industries, a global ingredient manufacturer that strives to sustainably transform the quality of life every day for 80 percent of the world with its products and services, has tapped two of its longtime Kemin Human Nutrition and Health team members for new leadership roles within the global business unit. Joanne Lasrado has been named Sales and Technical Services Director for North America, effective August 3; and Valerie de Bourayne has been appointed Head of Regulatory Affairs, effective September 1.

Lasrado came to Kemin in July 2012 as a regulatory affairs manager for Kemin Human Nutrition and Health. In 2017, Lasrado joined the business unit's leadership team as Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance. Last year, she began managing technical services in North America, as well as supporting worldwide coordination for all technical service managers.

Over the past eight years, Lasrado has led a global team overseeing regulatory, scientific and quality assurance support for product innovation, post-launch customer support, scientific substantiation, safety of ingredients, registrations and government-related activities. During her time at Kemin, Lasrado has contributed to patents and peer-reviewed publications and collaborated with global commercial teams to support sales.

de Bourayne started at Kemin as a technical services, quality and regulatory manager for Kemin Human Nutrition and Health in 2004. In 2011, she became the Senior Regulatory Affairs Manager, overseeing the business unit's regulatory affairs in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region, adding Latin America to her purview in 2013.

In her career at Kemin, de Bourayne has managed essential product registrations, including the novel food dossier that resulted in a positive opinion of Kemin's BetaVia Complete from the European Food Safety Authority. She has worked closely with teams in Europe and Brazil to support sales, and as regional regulatory affairs leader she has been involved in R&D activities, product development and government-related and trade association activities.

"I am thrilled to have these two team members take on leadership roles in our business unit," said Jose Piccolotto, President, Kemin Human Nutrition and Health. "Both Joanne and Valerie have led major projects and driven great progress in their current roles, and I am excited to take their expertise in human health and nutrition, and as well as their experience at Kemin, and use it to further expand our reach to better serve consumers and the nutraceutical industry."

Lasrado previously worked as an associate scientist at Iowa State University's Nutrition and Wellness Research Center. Lasrado has a Ph.D. in food toxicology from Purdue University. She earned both her bachelor's degree in microbiology and biochemistry and her master's degree in nutrition and food science from the University of Mumbai.

Prior to joining Kemin, de Bourayne worked in the pharmaceutical industry in the quality assurance regulatory affairs departments of Sanofi Pasteur and Pharma (vaccines) in Buenos Aires. She also worked in quality assurance at one of the Pharmacia & Upjohn plants for nutrition in France. de Bourayne earned her doctorate in Pharmacy from the Universities of Pharmacy of Paris and Limoges with a specialization in Pharmaceutical Industry and Quality Assurance.

Lasrado will continue to be based from Kemin's global headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., and de Bourayne will remain in Paris.

About Kemin Industries

Kemin Industries (www.kemin.com) is a global ingredient manufacturer that strives to sustainably transform the quality of life every day for 80 percent of the world with its products and services. The company supplies over 500 specialty ingredients for human and animal health and nutrition, pet food, aquaculture, nutraceutical, food technologies, crop technologies and textile industries.

For over half a century, Kemin has been dedicated to using applied science to address industry challenges and offer product solutions to customers in more than 120 countries. Kemin provides ingredients to feed a growing population with its commitment to the quality, safety and efficacy of food, feed and health-related products.

Established in 1961, Kemin is a privately held, family-owned-and-operated company with more than 2,800 global employees and operations in 90 countries, including manufacturing facilities in Belgium, Brazil, China, India, Italy, Russia, San Marino, Singapore, South Africa and the United States.

Media Contact:

Lauren M.G. Burt, Head of Worldwide Communications, [email protected], +1 (515) 559-5589

 Kemin Industries, Inc. and its group of companies 2020. All rights reserved.  TM Trademarks of Kemin Industries, Inc., U.S.A.

Certain statements, product labeling and claims may differ by geography or as required by government requirements.

SOURCE Kemin Industries

Related Links

http://www.kemin.com


The plot of Israel's latest spy series to screen internationally, "Tehran" premiering on Apple TV, seems straight from the news headlines and reflects the Jewish state's deep enmity with Iran. A young Mossad agent is sent on her first mission: to disable Iranian air defences so Israel can strike a reactor and deny the Islamic Republic the ability to make an atomic bomb. The conservative press in Iran -- a country which strongly denies that its nuclear programme is for anything other than civilian use -- has slammed the show as Zionist propaganda. Yet, while the notion of Israel and Iran cooperating on anything -- let alone a television series -- is unthinkable now, "Tehran" co-creator Moshe Zonder said he likes to think of it as at least a cultural coproduction. "We speak more Farsi than Hebrew in 'Tehran'... so to a certain extent, I would like to think that it is an Israeli-Iranian series, although officially it is not," he said. Zonder told AFP he believes the Iranian and Israeli people "could be friends, without the leaders who frighten their population and stir up hatred in order to stay in power". Lead actress Niv Sultan studied Farsi for four months, he said, to prepare for the role of an Iranian-born Jewish woman who is sent back on an undercover mission to the country of her childhood. Two Iranian-born actors are also in the show -- Navid Negahban and Shaun Toub, both of whom have had roles in the US series "Homeland", which is also based on an Israeli-made espionage series. On a separate note, Zonder said that "placing a woman at the heart of this new action series was a political decision". "We wanted to see what a young, talented but inexperienced woman chooses and can do in a world ruled by men when her commanders have failed," he said. "It is definitely a feminist series." - Praise and controversy - Its producers hope "Tehran" will have similar global success as previous series featuring Israel's notorious secret agents. "Fauda", about an undercover Israeli unit fighting Arab militants, marked a breakthrough for attracting international audiences to Israeli productions and runs to three seasons on Netflix. Praised by some for its nuanced portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it has also been criticised for being one-sided and glorifying Israel and its agents. "Tehran", an eight-part series, was produced by Israel's public television network Kan and mostly shot in Athens. Yossi Sivan, a member of an association of Iranian Jews living in Israel, told AFP that the spy thriller series nonetheless "gives the impression" of taking place in Tehran. Sivan, who is in his 70s, moved to Israel when he was 20, but said images of the Tehran suburbs where he spent his childhood remain engraved in his mind. An estimated tens of thousands of Iranian Jews have moved to Israel since its establishment in 1948, although official figures are not available. Sivan, growing audibly emotional, said he had only returned to Tehran once since leaving, "when it was still possible". Before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had diplomatic relations with Israel. Since then, Iranian leaders have repeatedly pledged to see the destruction of the Jewish state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Iran and its purported nuclear weapons programme pose an existential threat to Israel. In Iran, the Kayhan newspaper, which is close to ultra-conservatives, in October slammed the new Israeli show. It charged that "this series tries to portray the Zionist regime's espionage system as so powerful that Israeli spies are roaming around Iran freely". "While Iran's cinema has given up producing anti-Israeli films and series," it argued, "the Zionist regime has set up a production line for anti-Iran material". The co-director of latest Israeli spy series 'Tehran' likes to think of it as a cultural coproduction - the actors speak more Farsi than Hebrew
PHOENIX, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Best Western Hotels & Resorts (BWHR) celebrates its continued dedication to guest satisfaction, announcing today that SureStay Hotel Group* has been named #1 in the economy segment in the J.D. Power 2020 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study. The brand achieved the highest score in the segment across six critical factors including Reservations, Arrival/Departure, Guest Room, Service & Amenities, Hotel Facilities, and Cost & Fees.

"It is an honor to be recognized for guest satisfaction by J.D. Power, and I am particularly proud that SureStay Hotel Group is the highest ranked in the economy segment," said David Kong, President and Chief Executive Officer for BWHR. "For nearly 75 years BWHR has placed significant importance on the guest experience. I am pleased to see our commitment to caring, compassion and service reflected in our brands through this noteworthy accolade. As we look to the future of travel and begin welcoming guests back to our hotels, we will continue to make customer care a top priority."

Launched in October 2016, SureStay Hotel Group is already celebrating more than 190 properties in North America and over 340 properties globally, making it one of the fastest growing brands in the hotel industry today. The group is comprised of four unique brands: SureStay, SureStay Plus, SureStay Collection and SureStay StudioSM, offering guests a variety of options across the economy segment. The brand is known as a trusted and respected lodging option among travelers, boasting an average TripAdvisor rating of close to 4. SureStay properties offer travelers consistent and quality levels of comfort, cleanliness, and a service guarantee, all at an affordable price.

"SureStay Hotel Group has solidified BWHR as a global leader in the economy segment," said Ron Pohl, Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of BWHR. "In a short span of time, SureStay Hotel Group has experienced tremendous growth around the world, bringing the best in service and value to our guests. Beyond the brand's offerings and remarkable growth, it is the commitment of our hotel owners who are driving the success of SureStay Hotel Group as an industry leading brand."

The SureStay Hotel Group brand has garnered significant interest among developers in the economy market because of its competitive fee structure and access to BWHR's powerhouse brand. Every SureStay hotel is provided unparalleled systems and support and is on-boarded with access to BWHR's award-winning website, global partnerships and sales team, and state-of-the-art revenue management system. Hotels also have access to a revenue manager to maximize revenue and reduce operating costs. SureStay Studio will benefit from BWHR's reputation for providing superior guest service and will have access to the award-winning Best Western Rewards program, which contributes nearly 50% of gross room revenue to hotels.

With a strong global and North American pipeline, SureStay Hotel Group shows no signs of slowing down and continues to deliver exceptional guest service. The brand is an example of BWHR's commitment to listening to guest feedback and using it to steer and implement change across each of its brands. In doing so, BWHR has driven improvements across all properties in areas like cleanliness of rooms, a caring staff attitude and working order of room amenities. BWHR continues to celebrate the valued guests who have been with the brand throughout its evolution, and will continue solidifying its position as a go-to travel solution for guests across all segments.

For more information on SureStay Hotel Group, please visit SureStayDevelopers.com.

For more information on Best Western Hotels & Resorts, please visit BestWestern.com.

For more information about the J.D. Power 2020 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study, please visit jdpower.com/awards.

*SureStay Studio was not included in the J.D. Power 2020 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study; therefore, for the purpose of this announcement, SureStay Hotel Group refers to SureStay, SureStay Plus and SureStay Collection.

About Best Western Hotels & Resorts:

Best Western Hotels & Resorts headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, is a privately held hotel brand within the BWH Hotel Group global network. With 18 brands and approximately 4,700 hotels in over 100 countries and territories worldwide*, BWH Hotel Group suits the needs of developers and guests in every market. Brands include Best Western, Best Western Plus, Best Western Premier, Executive Residency by Best Western, Vib, GLo, Aiden, Sadie, BW Premier Collection and BW Signature Collection. Through acquisition, WorldHotelsTM Luxury, WorldHotels Elite, WorldHotels Distinctive and WorldHotels Crafted collections are also offered. Completing the portfolio is SureStay, SureStay Plus, SureStay Collection and SureStay StudioSM franchises**. For more information visit www.bestwestern.com , www.bestwesterndevelopers.com, www.worldhotels.com and www.surestaydevelopers.com.

* Numbers are approximate, may fluctuate, and include hotels currently in the development pipeline.

**All Best Western, WorldHotels and SureStay branded hotels are independently owned and operated.

About J.D. Power

J.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. These capabilities enable J.D. Power to help its clients drive customer satisfaction, growth and profitability. Established in 1968, J.D. Power has offices serving North America, Asia Pacific and Europe.

Media Contact

Katie Ray

Senior PR Manager

602.957.5526

[email protected]

SOURCE Best Western Hotels & Resorts

Related Links

http://www.bestwestern.com


The findings of sexual harassment against former judge Dyson Heydon by an independent investigation commissioned by the High Court have provoked a wave of new inquiries and proposals for reform.

Former High Court judge Dyson Heydon, pictured in 2015. Credit: Anna Kucera

One of the first out of the blocks was Attorney-General Christian Porter ordering a further investigation into allegations that Heydon engaged in further sexual harassment while presiding over the trade union royal commission in 2014.

On July 12, the Victorian government announced no fewer than two inquiries. The first is targeted at improving the workplace culture in Victorias courts and tribunals; the second will look at the policies and practices of law firms that provide legal services to the Victorian government.

Meanwhile, other courts and tribunals are promising bold changes to enhance the accountability of judges and tribunal members. There are many other voices adding calls for law reform and stronger workplace policies.
Microsoft is undeniably one of the Big Tech elite, given its size, wealth and stock market value. But the software giant has stood apart from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple in one important respect: Microsoft, once the bully of the tech world, has escaped antitrust scrutiny so far.

Now Slack Technologies, whose popular chat and collaboration software has become embedded in the daily routines of millions of workers at thousands of companies, is hoping to change that.

Slack said Wednesday that it had filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission, accusing the tech giant of using its market power to try to crush the upstart rival.

In its filing, Slack claims that Microsoft has illegally tied its collaboration software, Microsoft Teams, to its dominant suite of productivity programs, Microsoft Office, which includes Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Slack threatens Microsofts hold on business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means Slack threatens Microsofts lock on enterprise software, Jonathan Prince, vice president of communications and policy at Slack, said in a statement.

Slacks complaint is just a first step. The European Commission must assess the complaint to see if a formal investigation is warranted. In recent years, European regulators have more aggressively pursued antitrust actions against large tech companies than U.S. regulators.

But the complaint threatens Microsofts recent ability to largely avoid regulatory scrutiny. Federal and state regulators in the United States are investigating whether the other tech giants have broken antitrust laws. On Monday, the chief executives of Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook will testify before Congress, which is also looking into them.

Whether a software program like Slack could emerge as a genuine threat to Microsoft is uncertain, industry analysts say. Microsoft has positioned Teams as an all-in-one stop for online video meetings, calls, chat and collaboration, and it works seamlessly with Microsofts Office software.

Slack is making its complaint as adoption of modern communication and collaboration technology is surging. Slack, Microsoft Teams and Zoom are all experiencing huge demand because of the coronavirus-induced shutdowns that have forced much of the workforce to toil from home.

Read more about:
In January, President Donald Trump declared that Americas relationship with China might be the best its been in a long, long time, praising Chinese President Xi Jinping weeks after inking a first-step trade deal with the country.

Flash forward to July: Trump has effectively cut off trade talks, sanctioned Chinese officials over their internment of Muslims and encroachment in Hong Kong, revealed plans to axe visas for some Chinese students in the U.S., restricted Chinese journalists, shuttered a Chinese diplomatic compound in Houston and vowed retaliation for Beijings handling of the coronavirus after initially praising its efforts.

As for Trump and Xi? They havent spoken since March.

The reason for the dramatic about-face is partly grounded in recent developments  the Hong Kong sanctions, for instance, are tied to a controversial national security law that recently went into effect. But Trump is also eager to appear tough on China heading into his reelection campaign, where he is polling well behind presumptive 2020 rival Joe Biden, who is hammering the president for his past admiration of Xi and recently unveiled plans to invest in American manufacturing and combat Chinas economic practices.

In response, Trumps tough-on-China campaign has picked up pace. In the last two weeks, his administration has used a variety of methods  press conferences, new legal judgments, numerous op-eds, high-profile speeches, overseas trips  to suddenly hit Beijing over long-standing issues the president often skirted in the past.

Its only gotten worse for China in polls, said John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster. People always saw China as an economic adversary that stole our jobs, but now they see China as a security threat.

Trump and his administration have long bludgeoned China over specific issues. The reality TV star relentlessly talked about the countrys trade practices on the campaign trail in 2016 and his Cabinet has regularly warned that the country is trying to force technology companies to hand over data. But the president has always balanced these admonitions with ample praise of Xi himself, at times largely side-stepping human rights concerns, such as Beijings infringement on Hong Kongs separate legal system and its detention of Uighur Muslims, an ethnic minority group.

Story continues

In recent weeks, however, the tone has changed. And in the last two weeks, the speed and variety of punishments targeting China has accelerated.

Trump has started spouting off on China unprompted, making sure to regularly blame it for the coronavirus outbreak that turned into a world-changing pandemic. And at a press conference last week, Trump announced new sanctions over Hong Kong after Beijing gave itself broad authority to crack down on political dissent in the region, a move that threatens Hong Kongs independent judiciary. Trump also said he would strip Hong Kong of its preferential trade status over the issue.

Around the same time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Chinas expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea were completely unlawful, a sudden announcement that came four years after an international tribunal had already made the same conclusion. Two days later, Pompeo also revealed the U.S. would restrict visas for employees of Chinese technology companies that he said assisted in alleged Beijing human rights abuses. And overnight Tuesday, the State Department gave Chinese diplomats 72 hours to clear out of a diplomatic consulate in Houston, alleging it had been involved in massive illegal spying and influence operations," and other violations of American sovereignty.

In the media, multiple senior administration officials have been writing op-eds highlighting allegations of Chinas human rights abuses and warning that sourcing products from China poses a national security risk.

Abroad, the administration is making a show of its message. Trumps national security adviser Robert OBrien traveled to Europe last week to meet with his counterparts, and signaled that a priority would be the Trump administrations opposition to Huawei, a Chinese telecom firm vying for contracts to build out 5G networks around the world. The Trump administration has already helped coerce one ally, the United Kingdom, into barring Huawei from its 5G network. Pompeo similarly left for the U.K. and Denmark on Monday, where he planned to discuss Chinas threat to free peoples around the world, according to the State Department.

The Pentagon is even making adjustments to shift focus to China, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday on a Zoom call with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

While we hope the [Chinese Communist Party] will change its ways, we must be prepared for the alternative, he added.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab of Britain and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (right) walk up the stairs in the Foreign Office in London on July 21, 2020. Pompeo met with Raab just hours after Britain suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and blocked arms sales to the former British territory.

At home, Attorney General William Barr has tailored the anti-China message for American tech firms. Last week, he gave a blistering speech accusing companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple of being too cozy with Chinese government leaders and warning of penalties for executives for advocate for Beijings interests. On Tuesday, the Justice Department charged two Chinese men with hacking scores of U.S. companies, including several researching the coronavirus.

Later this week, Pompeo will give his own high-profile speech, delivering remarks to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixons historic trip to China, which paved the way for normalized relations between the two countries. But the theme will not be reconciliation. It will focus on Communist China and the future of the free world, according to the State Department.

A senior administration official called the speeches unprecedented, adding that they are a call to action for business leaders, allies and partners.

The campaign comes at a time when Trump is trying to shore up support amid sagging poll numbers over his handling of the coronavirus  only 38 percent approved in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll . More broadly, five consecutive high-quality national polls have shown Biden ahead of Trump by 10 percentage points or more.

Going after China plays well among key groups of Trump backers. For instance, evangelical leaders  who helped carry Trump into the White House in 2016  have been clamoring for months for Trump to punish Beijing over its handling of the coronavirus. Barrs speech, in particular, got positive reviews from Lou Dobbs, one of Trumps favored cable pundits. But Dobbs warned that the administration has to do more than talk.

Its a powerful speech, but now it has to be backed up with action, Dobbs said last Wednesday on his Fox Business show. And therein lies the dilemma. So much rhetoric, so many speeches, so many promises from the Department of Justice, from the Department of Homeland Security and, indeed, from our Department of Defense. I get the feeling sometimes theyre inert organizations that have no plan whatsoever to actually move to action.

The administration vows more action is coming.

Several senior officials have hinted that there could be a forthcoming ban on social media app TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro also floated possible action against WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app.

The New York Times separately reported that the administration has drafted an order to ban members of the Chinese Communist Party and their families from traveling to the U.S.  a potential dramatic move that some experts estimate could bar roughly 10 percent of the Chinese population from American soil.

Politics sets the stage for people who want to really take a harder line on policy, particularly because the president isnt looking for any deals with Xi Jinping right now and he is extremely angry about Covid-19, said Dan Blumenthal, the director of Asian studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.

A lot of policies China hawks have been advocating for a while are now finally being enacted, Blumenthal added, from the administration going after Huawei to frustration with certain U.S. companies in terms of perceived coziness, and the position on the South China Seas is a long time coming.

The presidents anger at China has been apparent in his recent public appearances. With TV cameras and reporters in the Oval Office on Monday for a meeting about coronavirus relief negotiations, the president jumped in, unprompted, to criticize China.

It came from China, he said, referencing the pandemic. It should have never been allowed to get out. They could have stopped it. They could have stopped it easily. They chose not to. And well have further reports on that. But it came from China. Its not good.

Trump on Tuesday chided China again during a press conference at the White House, repeatedly using the term China virus.

But even close allies of the president warn the Trump administration is only just now crystallizing its China policy, just over 100 days before the November election. And critics saying the velocity of action could have a destabilizing impact on U.S. relations with the worlds second largest economic power, with no apparent strategic gain.

Whether you agree or disagree, you can glimpse more clearly now an approach from the Trump administration thats going beyond ad-hoc roundhouses at China, said Jude Blanchette, a China scholar at Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
Despite the fact that some Canadian oil producers have started to restore the production they had curtailed earlier this year, the pipelines carrying heavy oil to the market are not overflowing as they were a few months ago, according to estimates from analysts and pipeline operators.

Enbridge, the operator of the Mainlinethe largest pipeline network in North Americatold Bloomberg this week that nominations for heavy crude oil exceeded capacity by just 3 percent for July and by 7 percent for August, compared to shipment nominations typically exceeding capacity by 40 percent.

Due to the price and demand crash in the second quarter, Canadas oil production slumped to 4.4 million barrels per day (bpd) in May  the lowest output since the middle of 2016 when wildfires crippled oil sands production, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said last week.

In the first half of 2020, oil producers in Canada cut their production by 20 percent compared to the average 5.5 million bpd oil production in 2019 because of low demand for fuel in North America and low oil prices that had Canadian producers curtail output.

More than 1 million bpd of curtailed crude oil production in Canada and lower demand in the pandemic have resulted in a rare occurrence in Canadas pipeline takeaway capacity in recent yearsthere was space available on the few pipelines taking Canadas crude oil to the United States in the first half of 2020.

In recent weeks, Canadian oil companies  encouraged by higher oil prices have brought back some of the crude oil production they had curtailed.

Husky Energy, Cenovus Energy, ARC Resources Ltd, Baytex Energy Corp, and Imperial Oil are restoring part of the production they had curtailed when prices plunged in March and April. Out of the 1 million bpd curtailed production in Canada, at least 20 percent is being brought online again, according to Bloomberg estimates.

By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Meerut, July 22 : In a shocking incident, a woman and her 10-year-old daughter were murdered on March 28 by the man with whom the woman was in a live-in relationship.

The accused, Shamshad, buried them in the courtyard of his home and continued to live there.

The police, acting on a missing report filed by the woman's friend on July 14, recovered the skeletons of the two on Wednesday.

The police claimed Shamshad had befriended the woman on a social networking site and hid his religious identity.

The couple, along with the woman's daughter from her first marriage, lived together for about four years in his house in the Partapur area. Since the past one year, Shamshad had been putting pressure on her to convert, but she was refusing.

According to the police, Shamshad was called for interrogation, but he fled.

Akhilesh Narain Singh, SP City, said a police team had been sent to Shamshad's native state Bihar. The skeletons of the woman and her daughter were being sent for DNA testing.

Meanwhile, Hindu Yuva Vahini activists told local media this was a case of 'love jihad' and had the police acted in time the murders could have been averted.
Studio 642/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

Medical Center Hospital Chief Nursing Officer Christin Timmons said the emergency department is still a safe space despite the coronavirus pandemic and people should seek general care if needed.

Thats why we ask you to wear a mask, we provide the gel and our staff is in PPE, she said. We have processes and procedures in place to eliminate your exposure to other individuals. We have all the mechanisms in place to protect you.
Vietnam has for the first time been named a semi-transparent market in the 2020 Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) thanks to the progress in its largest markets, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. In this years biennial GRETI, Vietnam secured the 56th position.

JLL and LaSalle have been tracking real estate transparency and championing higher standards since 1999. The 11th edition of GRETI covers 99 countries and territories, and 163 city regions. The latest survey has been extended to quantify 210 separate elements of transparency, and has additional coverage of sustainability and resilience, health and wellness, proptech, and alternative sectors.

Stephen Wyatt, country head of JLL Vietnam, said: It is no surprise that Vietnam has moved from non-transparent to semi-transparent in our latest transparency index. Over the past 10 years, Vietnam has become a top destination for manufacturing in Southeast Asia and attracted significant foreign investment. Vietnam will need to continue rising through the ranks if it wants to attract more foreign investment.

Market growth in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi helps pushing up Vietnams transparency ranking

JLL said the 2020 Index has been launched at a time of massive economic and societal disruption where the need for transparent processes, accurate and timely data, and high ethical standards are in closer focus.

The backdrop of COVID-19 is also ensuring that transparency within the Asia-Pacifics real estate, legal, and regulatory systems is more important than ever to global investors as they look to deploy approximately $40 billion in capital into the region.

In its previous report, JLL said Vietnam, and Southeast Asia in general, have become attractive destinations for foreign investors who want to move out of China.

Besides, many multinational companies have expanded their business in Vietnam.

The report said in 2019, the US imports from Vietnam increased by 35.6 per cent but purchases from China decreased by 16.2 per cent.

Chance for luxury real-estate projects

Not only the industrial property market but also the luxury property market has benefited from the shift by companies from China.

A CBRE Vietnam report said the prices of high-end and luxury apartments in Ho Chi Minh City have jumped 10-13 per cent in the last three years.

Experts expect more developers and buyers to flock to the Vietnamese property and housing market since the country has managed the COVID-19 pandemic very well.

The price of luxury apartments in the central areas jumped by 40 per cent between 2017 and the end of the third quarter of 2019.

Luxury apartments in central areas and near the metro lines have attracted buyers from Singapore, Japan, and South Korea. About 50 per cent of investors buying these apartments in the secondary market are foreigners, indicating that many foreigners want to settle down in Vietnam.

The open-market policies to attract foreign investors and the rising incomes in the country are the main reasons for Vietnam becoming one of the most dynamic emerging countries and one of the economies that have the highest GDP growth.

Thanks to this, many foreign investors have been flocking to the Vietnamese property market.

Furthermore, property-related taxes are lower in Vietnam than in other countries.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the price of an apartment in the central areas is $5,500-6,500 per square metre, much lower than in Hong Kong and other cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok but the appreciation in prices is much higher.

It is difficult for investors to buy apartments in the central areas of the city due to the lack of developments. The citys Department of Construction has restricted licences for high buildings here.

The Grand Manhattan  one of the rare projects in the pipeline in District 1, only a 5-minute walk to Ben Thanh Metro Line

One of the very few luxury apartment projects being developed in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, District 1 is The Grand Manhattan by Novaland. This flagship project of Novaland is a complex of three 39-storey apartment buildings, being built on an area of 14,000 sq.m at the intersection of Co Giang and Co Bac streets. It has attracted many foreign buyers thanks to the steady profits it fetches buyers. What makes the project attractive is the free private parking lot that is offered to buyers buying apartments here. Free private parking space is a special offer since it is hard to buy any in the central area of a gigantic city even if one is willing to pay a lot of money.

Experts expect more developers and buyers to flock to the Vietnamese property and housing market since the country has managed the COVID-19 pandemic very well.
I didn't know much about my Dutch ancestry when I was growing up in New York's Hudson Valley in the 1960s and '70s. I thought of myself as Italian. My father was the second son of an immigrant named Pasquale Bruno, who had made his way to New York as a teenager from southern Italy's impoverished Calabria region. Our holidays were feasts of pasta, meatballs and eggplant Parmesan. The smell of tomato sauce simmering on a Sunday is all I need to feel at home.

But of course there is also my mother's side. Her maiden name is Van Valkenburg. All I really knew about her ancestors was that they had helped settle New Netherland, as New York state and the surrounding territory was called in the 1600s. "Think Rip Van Winkle," I would tell people about that part of my heritage. The Dutch side, I thought, was more white-bread plain. Yet I did wonder about those Dutch, and when the boom in companies like Ancestry turned millions of Americans into amateur genealogists, I joined the trend and started researching. I imagined I'd find a string of farmers and housewives and shopkeepers and laborers, living modest, quiet lives.

Then one day, scrolling through the Ancestry website, I came upon the 1796 last will and testament of one Isaac Collier, born in 1725 in a place called Loonenburg, which is today named Athens. That's my hometown. And Collier is my grandmother's maiden name. Isaac was my five-times-great-grandfather.

Isaac was thinking about his legacy. In his will, the 70-year-old carefully divided his land, working out in precise detail where his property lines extended and to which of his five surviving sons each parcel went. Then he got to other items: to his son Joel, "one other Feather Bed, one Negro Boy named Will and my sorrel mare and sorrel stallion, one wagon and harrow." To his granddaughter Christina Spoor went a "negro wench named Marie."

"The remains of my negro slaves male and female," I read, were to be "equally divided" among his remaining sons and one grandson, "share and share alike."

I sat very still. This will, written in a beautiful, sweeping script, with elegant phrases like "whenever it shall please the Almighty to take me to himself," hit me with a gut punch. Here was a man blithely imagining his reception into heaven while painstakingly leaving this permanent record of sin.

Here, in the branches of my family tree, was incontrovertible evidence that my Dutch ancestors weren't just innocent farmers. That I was the descendant of people who enslaved others. How could this be? Growing up in the North, I'd rarely thought about slavery, and the civil rights struggles of the 1960s seemed as distant as the moon landing. But suddenly, slavery was as real as the rolling hills beside the Hudson River that flowed past my parents' home. Suddenly, my sense of Northern disengagement from our country's original sin was snapped away.

I needed to unearth the story of slavery in New York, a memory that seems to have been smoothed over like so many flat tombstones, polished and whitewashed until they are impossible to read. I remembered something the author Toni Morrison had once said in a radio interview: "If you are really alert, then you see the life that exists beyond the life that is on top." I went looking for that life beneath.

As a child, I'd learned nothing about New York state's history of slavery. I didn't even know that there had been enslaved people in the North. We weren't like those racist Southerners, or so we thought.

In elementary school, we took the requisite trips to places like the Bronck House in Coxsackie, built in 1663 for one of the region's first families, from whom the Bronx gets its name. Low beams, enormous fireplaces, historians wearing Colonial dress. No one mentioned slavery other than in relation to the Civil War, a war that happened elsewhere and much later in history. Northern slavery wasn't part of our school lessons. Only since about 2016 has New York state slavery been listed as a small part of the seventh-grade social studies curriculum, says Dennis Maika, education director of the New Netherland Institute and a former high school teacher, but individual schools can decide what to include.

High school classes have the same limits. Courtney Grey, who teaches high school social studies in Lagrangeville, just east of the Hudson Valley, last year created an elective course called "Black America: 400 Years of African-American Contributions," for juniors and seniors. She devoted a week to the subject of New York slavery, and her students' reactions were, "Why didn't I know that?" she says.

It was my question, too. Not having this knowledge had allowed me to grow up detached from questions of race, from the legacy of slavery, and to think of its consequences as something irrelevant to me. But now I was part of it, and it was part of me. And the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests and our country's ongoing struggles with race have taken on a completely new weight and meaning.

Now that I had a glimpse of this history, I wanted to know: Who were the people my family had enslaved? And could I find a descendant of theirs today?

- - -

Some scholars believe that Northern slavery was deliberately whitewashed from the history books. Leslie M. Harris, a professor of history at Northwestern University and author of "In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863," says that the idea of a free North that helped end slavery is "one of the most powerful elements of our culture." Adding in Northern slavery "complicates what is otherwise a simple, heroic story."

But slavery was not only a powerful institution in New York; it lasted for nearly 200 years there. Not long after colonizing New Netherland in the 1600s, Dutch settlers, needing to fill a labor shortage, began buying enslaved people from traders with the Dutch West India Company. (The Dutch also tried to enslave the Native Americans who lived nearby, but many of them escaped. They also tried using indentured servants imported from Europe, but those people also tended to die very young or run off, according to Historic Hudson Valley, an organization with a website dedicated in part to teaching about slavery in New York. Of course, it was impossible for Africans to blend in and escape in the same way.)

New York was one of the last Northern states to outlaw slavery. But instead of a sudden explosion of freedom, the state passed the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1799, which slow-rolled freedom over nearly 30 years. It was a compromise measure designed to placate the Dutch farmers reluctant to give up their property.

My roots in the mid-Hudson Valley run deep, and now I suspected that if one family in my tree enslaved people, there had to be others. So I dove in. The more I dug, the more enslavers I found in wills and census records: Hallenbeck, Vosburgh, Van Petten, Van Vechten, Conine, Brandow, Houghtaling and, yes, Bronck.

I also realized that I was not alone. Jonathan Palmer, archivist at the Vedder Research Library in Coxsackie, says that anyone with deep-enough Dutch roots in the region will eventually find enslavers. "For them to have that moment when they confront that is special for me as an archivist," he says, "for them to stare at a mirror and realize this was the side they were on." Often, amateur genealogists don't follow up on that information, he says, possibly because going further is a "huge task." But I became almost obsessed with seeing what else I could dig up.

One remarkable document from this history is the Coxsackie Record of Free-Born Slaves, maintained from 1799 to 1827, in which enslavers registered the births of their enslaved people's technically freeborn babies. Local genealogist Sylvia Hasenkopf, whom I hired to dig deeper into my history, brought it to my attention. Of the 46 enslavers on that record, at least 17 belong to me, most as direct ancestors.

Now that I had a glimpse of this history - which surprised my mother and siblings as much as me - I wanted to know: Who were the people my family had enslaved? What had become of them? And could I find a descendant of theirs today?

One name on the record that Hasenkopf found jumped out immediately: Casper Collier, Isaac's fourth son and my four times great-grandfather. In the 1800 federal Census, Casper listed six enslaved people. Who they were is almost impossible to know, since early census records required the full names only of heads of households; everyone else, free and enslaved, was simply a check mark.

But Casper's name also appears in the Coxsackie Record. In 1802, a girl named Sawr was born to a woman named Nan. He officially "abandoned" that infant, a legal maneuver that allowed enslavers to receive some compensation for raising children they technically did not own. The Overseers of the Poor, an early version of welfare superintendents, would pay enslavers for the care of babies born to enslaved women. But rather than receiving complete freedom, the children born after 1799 would be indentured at the age of 7 - bought and sold in a manner almost identical to slavery - until they were young adults.

According to an affidavit that Nan (also called Nancy) filed in 1823 to determine her daughter's future, Nan states that Casper sold her off soon after the birth of Sawr (later renamed Sarah). Nan was sold and resold over the next 10 years, taking Sarah with her - until one of Nan's new enslavers decided that he didn't want the child. Nancy's husband, who bought her freedom in 1812, tried to find a place for Sarah around the same time. Sarah then bounced around from "owner" to "owner."

I may never learn what happened to Sarah, but her story gave me a glimpse into the twilight period of slavery's lethargic end in New York. What it showed is that for people like Nancy - born enslaved and not emancipated until her husband bought her freedom - and Sarah - born free but shuttled from place to place - the official end of slavery meant next to nothing for a long time.

- - -

I dove back into my Ancestry account and built out a family tree based on Nancy, whose surname was Jackson. Hasenkopf found a Nancy Jackson of the right age, living near Albany, where Nancy was living, according to her affidavit. In this household and right next door were other people named Jackson, who were a generation younger, the right age to be her children. I kept plugging these names into an Ancestry tree, Jackson after Jackson, until I came to the contemporary family tree of an African American woman living in the Hudson Valley.

I tracked her down and got her on the phone, hoping we could connect and start to search together. She was polite but distant. She didn't say no, but it became clear to me that she was less interested in getting to know a person potentially connected to her ancestors' enslavers than I had hoped. At the same time, Hasenkopf warned me that all my quasi-creepy research was probably for naught. "I looked at the family tree you created online and frankly don't think some of your assumptions are accurate," she wrote by email. I was back to square one.

Then, through a group called Coming to the Table, which, among other goals, seeks to bring together the descendants of enslaved people and their enslavers, I learned about a Facebook group called I've Traced My Enslaved Ancestors and Their Owners. I posted a note, describing my enslaving ancestors and asking if anyone had a connection to the Hudson Valley in New York. Within 24 hours, I got a response: "I have ancestors who were enslaved in Coxsackie/New Baltimore." Boom. The writer had named the town right next to my hometown. We arranged to talk on the phone.

I was a little nervous about reaching out once again to someone descended from people my people almost certainly enslaved. In that first talk, though, Eleanor Mire and I settled easily into a conversation about family histories. A retired construction engineer, Eleanor, now 69, grew up outside Boston hearing from her grandmother that though some of her ancestors had lived in the Hudson Valley, there had never been an enslaved person in that branch of the family. "She must have known that there had been a slave," she told me. Why had she denied it? I asked. "That was my grandmother all over," she responded. "Pride."

But Eleanor came across the truth when the wife of a distant cousin started doing research and found a wealth of material. Suddenly she was building a family tree and digging into her Hudson Valley roots, all enslaved people: Vanderzee, Van Bergen, Egberts, names that her African American ancestors had taken from their white enslavers, and often the very same names populating my own family tree.

It was strange and sad, I said to her, that my ancestors were involved in the enslavement of hers. She cut me off. "You had nothing to do with it," she said. "To me, if you perpetuate the myth" that slavery was not so bad, "you should feel bad." Otherwise, "there's nothing you could have done."

Over the next few months, Eleanor and I exchanged hundreds of messages with details we uncovered about fuzzy census records, homes, cemeteries, church records and death certificates. We kept coming back to one person: Mary Egberts Vanderzee.

As far as we can figure out, Mary was one of the babies listed on the Coxsackie Record. (The names of the mothers and babies sometimes changed.) Her parents were enslaved people named Cesar Egberts and Rebecca Dunbar. Born in 1802, Mary was sent to the Houghtaling family as a child, where she was raised as a combination of servant and companion to a white child, a common practice. But Mary's childhood didn't last long. Unmarried and still living with the Houghtalings, she gave birth to her first baby at 13 and had three more while she was in her teens, Eleanor told me.

Eleanor is descended from Mary's son Thomas, who eventually took the name of her second husband, John Vanderzee. Mary's first husband, John Van Bergen, whom she married after giving birth to her four children, seemed to have died young. She married Vanderzee on Dec. 25, 1838. Eleanor wondered: Who was the father of Mary's first babies? She decided to get her DNA tested - and turned up matches with several people named Houghtaling. Ancestry told her that the closest are fifth to eighth cousins, including one person with the profile name Redhead1847, descended from a Peter Houghtaling born in 1759. Eleanor sent that person an email but never heard back.

But she had other evidence of a genetic link to the Houghtalings. "My grandmother said her grandfather was fair-skinned and blue-eyed," Eleanor told me. That grandfather would have been Mary's baby Thomas. It seems that a member of the Houghtaling family most likely raped Mary.

Here's where Eleanor and I become linked descendants. I'm a Houghtaling too, descended from a woman named Catrina Houghtaling, born in 1680. She was the second daughter of Mathys Conraed Houghtaling, who as a teenager in 1655 came from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam, the 17th-century Dutch settlement in what is now Manhattan. But while I can build out my own tree with great detail, Mary Vanderzee's life is shrouded in mystery.

Eleanor and I talked and texted, sending snippets of facts, newspaper clippings, photographs. When she told me she'd be visiting Washington in August, we arranged to meet. I was nervous, but we hit it off instantly, two near-strangers on a shared mission.

I asked if she'd be interested in visiting Coxsackie, and she agreed immediately. One morning in September, we made our way to the Vedder Research Library on the grounds of the Bronck Museum, a repository of archives tracing the history of the area back to the 1600s. In the thick file on the African American Vanderzee family, we found an article, written around 1902 for a bicentennial book celebrating the hamlet of New Baltimore, about Mary Vanderzee as she turned 100. "She was brought up as playmate and companion to the children and children's children," the writer notes. "Her life is a romance," and she never tired of telling guests about soldiers passing by her farm during the War of 1812. Black Mary, as she was called, lived "a long and useful life filled with service."

Accompanying the article was a photograph of her taken in her daughter's home. She is rail thin and leaning slightly forward in her oak Morris chair. She is unsmiling, lips pursed. Her eyes look straight forward, almost suspiciously. Her skin is dark, her hair is white, her nose is long and narrow, and her hands are crossed delicately at the wrist.

Eleanor and I share a peculiar thread of the American story, one that starts with white privilege, and another that starts with black oppression. But it doesn't end there.

- - -

It wasn't the first time Eleanor had seen the photo - her cousin had shown it to her years ago. She held it up. "My mother would say that's a Vanderzee face," she said. "I see my grandmother in her face."

The morning passed as we stared at photographs, reviewed Overseers of the Poor records, and tried to make out, from ancient maps, who had owned what land. At one point, Eleanor pulled an index card from a file cabinet. The record showed the Christmas Day marriage in 1838 of Mary Egberts and John Vanderzee. "My family is unbelievable," she finally said. "And it's all from my grandmother's side - who never told us anything."

We drove to Riverside Cemetery. Founded in 1873, it's segregated by custom, with African American graves clustered to one side. Eleanor remembered that when she visited many years ago, she'd had no idea where her ancestors lay, yet she'd found Mary's gravesite almost immediately. Now we drove directly to the spot. The granite stone rested in the dappled shade, with the name Vanderzee carved on the broad side. On the narrow side was carved "Mary Vanderzee, 1801-1907." Nearby were Van Bergens and Van Slykes and Brandows, all black people who had taken the Dutch names of their enslavers. Many gravesites were decorated with medallions to honor the men who had served with the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War.

As we drove out of the cemetery, I deliberately detoured past the stone of Isaac and Casper Collier. I pointed it out, but we didn't stop. Today was not for the enslavers.

Eleanor and I fell into an effortless friendship. Race comes up from time to time. She told me, for example, about an ancestor who was given land in Iowa as payment for his father's service in the War of 1812, only to have his family driven out of the land by racist attacks. But our main and mutual obsession is about filling in the blanks of this whitewashed history. Why were the stories connecting the Dutch immigrants and the people they enslaved not told?

We share a peculiar thread of the American story, one of us from a place that starts with white privilege tempered with immigrant struggles, and another that starts with black oppression. But it doesn't end there. Eleanor's family is packed with people who have touched history, including James Van Der Zee, the famous Harlem Renaissance photographer, and an ancestor who was involved in the Underground Railroad. Mine is more modest. We have been teachers and factory workers and many, many farmers.

I don't know what to say about the past. My Dutch ancestors helped perpetuate an evil that lasts to this day. Even in the context of more than 200 years and five generations past and a time when racism was the norm, what they did was wrong. What I do know is that I can no longer consider racism from afar and feel that it has nothing to do with me. I wish I could take only pride in the fact that my family is older than America, that my ancestors fought in the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. But now my pride is tainted, and my sense of myself and who I am has shifted perceptibly.

And yet Eleanor - who is unsentimental and smart and funny about everything - has shown me that there is a way to look into both our families' histories and see and embrace the truth, but not let it forever weigh us down. In the end, I don't know if this story is about atonement or reconciliation. Or maybe it's more of a reckoning. Eleanor said in one of our talks, "People don't understand. Slavery is a thread going through the generations. It has affected every generation." She and I are not done. But we've started with this.
Hong Kong: It was one of the first protests in Hong Kong after a feared national security law came into effect.

Among a dozen or so lunchtime demonstrators at a luxury mall in the Central business district, a man raised a poster that  when viewed from afar  read in Chinese, Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.

At first glance, this graphic design poster may look like it's made up of mere circles - however, from afar, viewers can make out the eight Chinese characters for "Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our times." Credit:AP

The government had just banned the slogan, saying it had separatist connotations and so ran afoul of the new security laws prohibition of secessionist acts.

Shortly after, riot police entered the mall, shooing away onlookers. They detained the man, telling him the slogan was banned.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Count Rio Arriba among the New Mexico counties seeing huge and fast increases in COVID-19 cases.

Two large influxes of cases have seen Rio Arribas total case count jump by 60% in just five days to a total of 251. The sparsely populated county has more cases per 100,000 residents than Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Lea counties.

We have an outbreak in Rio Arriba County, county Health and Human Services Director Lauren Reichelt said Tuesday.

About two-thirds of the countys cases come from the Jicarilla Apache Nation, a large reservation located in Rio Arribas western half and bordering Colorado.

Many tribal reservations and pueblos in New Mexico have seen outbreaks of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. As of Tuesday, Native Americans comprised 40% of the states case total, though they make up just 11% of the states population.

According to data collected by the Nation, of 4,600 tests, 177 people have tested positive. While its population is around 4,000, Jennifer Muskrat-Velarde, a local resident and former candidate for Nation president, said on Facebook it is unclear if test numbers include non-tribal members who work for the Nation.

She said employees for the Nation have been tested multiple times each.

Muskrat-Velarde also said in a Facebook Live post that, while the Nation has implemented a curfew, it can be difficult for residents to stay at home when important resources are located far away.

Were in the middle of an FDA-defined food desert, she said. We have to travel to all these hotspots.

Reichelt said she has held meetings with Espanola Presbyterian Hospital and the state Department of Health about establishing a pop-up hospital on the Jicarilla Apache Nation, but no plans have been developed yet.

Sixteen tribal members are currently hospitalized and County Manager Tomas Campos said many of them have to make the 90-minute trip to the hospital in Farmington.

Jicarilla Apache President Derrell Paiz did not return requests for comment.
Highlights Lenovo has launched its first gaming phone called the Legion Phone Pro.

The legion Phone Pro is powered by Snapdragon 865+ and has a 144Hz display.

It also comes with a horizontal interface to ease navigation for gamers.

Lenovo has officially announced the launch its first gaming smartphone under its popular Legion brand. It is called the Lenovo Legion Phone Pro in China and Legion Phone Duel otherwise. The Chinese company is putting out all the stops with the Legion Pro -- it has a 144Hz display, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ processor, and packs 90W fast charging. Of course, the company has added the Legion magic to its first gaming smartphone by adding an ecosystem that can offer high-end gaming. Lenovo's Legion Pro is coming hours ahead of the Asus ROG Phone 3 that will also feature the top-notch Snapdragon processor and 144Hz display.

Lenovo Legion Phone Pro Price

The Legion Phone Pro has multiple variants - the 8GB/128GB variant costs CNY 3,499 (roughly Rs 37,300), the 12GB/128GB variant is priced at CNY 3,899 (roughly Rs 41,580), the 12GB/256GB model comes at a price of CNY 4,199 (roughly Rs 44,800), and finally, the top-notch 16GB/512GB variant will be available at CNY 5,999 (roughly Rs 64,000). The smartphone will be up for pre-orders starting today in China while the sale begins on August 8. The Legion Phone Pro will arrive in other Asian countries later while it is also confirmed to arrive in Latin America, Europe, and Africa. Lenovo is skipping the launch of the smartphone in the US and Canada.

Lenovo Legion Phone Pro Specifications and Features

Lenovo Legion Phone Pro is the company's first gaming phone, and rightly so because it is an addition to its branding from the hit Legion series of laptops. The smartphone is designed in a way that will allow for the best gaming experience by readjusting major hardware and interface in the horizontal landscape. The 20-megapixel front camera with f/2.2 aperture and 81.7-degree FOV is mounted on a flap fixed on the centre of the left edge of the smartphone while the rear cameras - 64-megapixel and 16-megapixel - are at the dead centre of the phone, so as to prevent fingers from obstructing the view when the smartphone is handheld vertically for gaming. But, otherwise, both the cameras can be slightly inconvenient for normal vertical use. The interface of the smartphone has also been optimised accordingly.

The Chinese company is using the top-notch Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ processor on the Legion Phone Pro, along with the X55 modem for 5G connectivity using the sub-6GHz spectrum. There is up to 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage, which is theoretically the fastest protocol for data read and write. The smartphone has dual-vibration motors for a much effective and responsive haptic feedback on games and otherwise operation. Legion Phone Pro also has ultrasonic touch-sensitive sensors, which will allow you to reassign virtual buttons towards the phone's edges to give the feel of a controller.

Lenovo's Legion Phone Pro comes with two USB-C ports, one at the bottom and one on the side, opposite the selfie camera module. The company is claiming using two ports at the same time can top the smartphone's two 2500mAh batteries in under 30 minutes. As much weird as it sounds, the company is assuring 90W fast charging with the smartphone. The smartphone also has 3D dual-way cooling of the processor and other innards that might heat up during heavy gaming. The Legion control centre will take care of CPU temperature and its performance by optimising them for the best gaming experience.
Out of one hundred Crimean political prisoners, every tenth convict is a citizen journalist.

"Out of 100 Crimean political prisoners, 77 are Crimean Tatars. Thirty-seven political prisoners stay in Crimea, while 63 prisoners are in Russia. Forty-two people already received sentences of 4 to 19 years in prison. Out of 100 people, ten are citizen journalists. Every tenth political prisoner is a citizen journalist," Head of ZMINA Human Rights Center Tetiana Pechonchyk announced during a press conference at the Ukrinform news agency.

According to Pechonchyk, one more citizen journalist is currently under house arrest.

"These are people who are persecuted because of their civic, human rights, journalistic activities, because of their religious and political views and support for Ukraine," the Head of the Human Rights Center said.

In total, she added, Crimean human rights activists have recorded about 350 cases of violations of the rights of journalists and bloggers.

"These cases include a number of criminal and administrative cases, at least eight cases of physical violence against journalists and attacks on them, detentions by paramilitary groups, as well as at least 40 searches, 18 interrogations, 48 cases of seizure of or damage to equipment. In addition, the occupation authorities have banned Crimean journalists from entering Crimea four times," Pechonchyk said.

In addition, according to her, 30 cases of threats, 18 cases of censorship and blocking of Ukrainian online media outlets, seizure of television and radio frequencies, and almost 100 cases of obstruction of streaming are known.

The human rights activist stressed that, according to the data of Freedom House international organization, Crimea is one of the "worst territories in the world for journalistic activity."

As reported, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine announced the launch of a long-term campaign to protect eleven activists who are citizen journalists and streamers of the Crimean Solidarity initiative: Server Mustafayev, Tymur Ibragimov, Marlen Asanov, Seyran Saliyev, Remzi Bekirov, Ruslan Suleymanov, Osman Arifmemetov, Rustem Sheikhaliyev, Nariman Memedeminov, Ernes Ametov and Amet Suleymanov.

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In countries like South Africa that face severe resource shortages, the burden of fighting COVID-19 falls heavily on citizens to change their behaviour and follow preventative measures. These include avoiding mass gatherings, physical distancing and wearing masks.

But a crucial determinant of whether people will change their behaviour includes having access to credible health information that's trusted and that people can adopt. Inadequate sources of information carry a number of risks. One of the biggest is that people who don't have credible information will be more exposed to the virus because they are less likely to abide by these behaviour changes. The second risk is that people don't fully perceive the danger of COVID-19 or its negative outcomes.

This is often the case with preventative health interventions: they require individuals to make an investment in their health prior to being sick. For example, a person has to wear masks even though they are healthy.

Unfortunately, high-impact behaviour change is not happening fast enough in South Africa. Our research found that most people  91% of those surveyed  reported that they had changed their behaviour since the start of the pandemic. But most of these efforts were on lower-impact strategies, such as washing their hands and cleaning surfaces.

Of those who changed their behaviour, the focus was less on high-impact strategies like wearing masks (53%), avoiding people by either staying at home or not attending large gatherings or avoiding big groups (58%), and physical distancing (25%).

The 'why' question answered

The survey was based on the nationally representative National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS)  Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey . In this survey, 7000 South Africans are telephoned every month and asked a range of questions about their income and employment, their household welfare, receipt of grants, and about their knowledge and behaviour related to COVID-19. Because the same people are contacted every month, researchers can track how their personal and household circumstances change over time.

The first survey showed that there is inadequate knowledge of COVID-19 symptoms among South Africans. For instance, only 11% of those surveyed were able to list tiredness as a symptom, and only 6% could list all three of the most common COVID-19 symptoms  coughing, fever and tiredness.

And 8% of people surveyed were not able to list any symptoms at all.

This is worrying. The country's current public health approach relies on society to monitor their symptoms in order to know when to isolate or seek additional care.

Read more: African countries are moving to make masks mandatory: key questions answered

The infectious nature of COVID-19 means that behaviour changes are required to change the trajectory of the disease. For instance, universal masking of at least 80% is required to flatten the infection curve. The paucity of COVID-19 symptom knowledge implies that South Africans may be unable to self-screen and self-isolate should they become infected. The joint failure on these two fronts may impede the containment of the virus.

The question of where people got their information was also revealing. Almost four in five of those involved in the survey said they relied on news media for their trusted source of COVID-19-related information. Only 14% said they relied on government sources and 11% on health workers.

The study found that those who relied on the government and health workers had more accurate knowledge of symptoms and were more likely to abide by high-impact preventative strategies.

Next steps

There is a clear responsibility placed on South Africans to adopt and adhere to high-impact preventative behaviours, remain vigilant and make daily sacrifices. This commitment requires serious societal buy-in.

So, how should the government go about encouraging this, given that current messaging and law enforcement efforts aren't getting people to change their behaviour sufficiently?

We recommend that positive behaviour change should be encouraged by using clear, concise and consistent communication. And high-impact preventative measures such as mask wearing and physical distancing should be prioritised relative to lower-impact interventions (like surface cleaning and hand washing) when communicating about preventative measures.

There's also a problem with reach: messages from the government aren't reaching the population. Given that people are predominantly using news media, government sources should use these avenues more effectively to distribute centralised messaging.

Finally, given the long term behaviour changes required from South Africans, it may be more effective to create an enabling rather than a punitive environment to encourage the adoption of high-impact preventative strategies. This could include the free provision of masks, restructuring the delivery of services to encourage physical distancing (for example, home delivery of medication and telehealth) and empowering community champions, organisations and leaders to encourage these behaviours.

Changing social norms in a short amount of time is difficult, and a one-size-fits all policy is unlikely to have the desired effect. These changes require messaging that is context specific and which resonates strongly with its targeted audience.

Laura Rossouw has previously worked for organizations that have received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the African Capacity Building Foundation, Cancer Research UK, IDRC, the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases and the South African Medical Research Council. In her personal capacity, she has received funding from the NRF, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Margaret McNamara Education Grant.

Carmen Christian received funding from the NRF and has worked on projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She volunteers as a mentor for the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation.

By Laura Rossouw, Senior lecturer and Health Economist, School of Economics and Finance, Wits University, University of the Witwatersrand And

Carmen S. Christian, Lecturer and Researcher, Department of Economics, University of the Western Cape
EDMONTONRCMP have charged a Calgary man with terrorism offences for allegedly travelling to Syria to participate in Islamic State activities.

In a news release, Alberta RCMP said its Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) have charged Hussein Sobhe Borhot, 34, of Calgary, with participation in activity of a terrorist group and commission of an offence for a terrorist group after a seven-year national security investigation.

Borhot travelled to Syria and took part in the Islamic States activities between May 9, 2013 and June 7, 2014, police said.

The RCMP say Sobhe enlisted with the Islamic State, received training for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the Islamic State, knowingly participated or contributed to the groups activities, as well as knowingly committing the offence of kidnapping in association with the group.

Canada is not immune to terrorist threats, and INSETs are key players defending Canadas national security. said Supt. Stacey Talbot, Officer-in-Charge of K Division INSET.

Through an integrated law enforcement approach, the RCMP and its partners are in a better position to prevent, detect, deny and respond to threats to Canadas national security.

Borhot has been remanded into custody and is scheduled to appear in Calgary Provincial Court on Friday.

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by Melani Manel Perera

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the current health situation does not justify a full lockdown. There are 2,687 cases of contagion in the country; estimated ten dead. Authority: The spread of the coronavirus has been stopped. Public health inspectors go on strike: they want legal protection to deal with the pandemic emergency.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa maintians that the Covid-19 pandemic is under control. On 16 July, in a meeting with the media, the former Sri Lankan president (brother of the current leader of the Gotabaya nation) said that panic is unjustified. "Based on the current health situation - he added - there is no need for a full lockdown."

World Health Organization data puts cases of contagion in Sri Lanka at 2,687 with 11 dead. The prime minister has accused the opposition of spreading lies about the health situation to obtain electoral advantages.

At the same press conference, Anil Jasinghe, director general of the Health Service,claimed that the spread of coronavirus has been stopped. He stressed that all cases related to the Kandakadu rehabilitation center - a recent outbreak of infection in the country - have been identified and isolated: "Only 25 people who left the facility were positive; another 20 in contact with them were immediately placed in quarantine ".

Dr. Jasinghe said that the authorities imposed restrictive measures only in the Rajanganaya area, and 1,400 diagnostic tests are conducted daily. While appreciating the efforts of the health authorities, Anurudda Padeniya, president of the Association of Public Health Officers, asked that at least 4,000 tests be performed daily.

While the government calls the population to calm, public health inspectors decided yesterday to go on strike, stopping anti-Covid-19 health checks. Phiusl, the trade union, asks that its members be assured of the legal tools to carry out their work properly.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the keynote address at the India Ideas Summit at 8.30 pm today. The summit is being hosted by the US-India Business Council. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the formation of the Council and the theme for this year's summit is 'Building a Better Future'. The Summit will witness discussions on areas including India-US cooperation and the future of the relation between the two counties in a post-pandemic world.

PM Modi today tweeted that he was looking forward to addressing the event, where he'll share views on 'Building a Better Future'.

Looking forward to addressing the #IndiaIdeasSummit, organised by @USIBC today at 9 PM. Will be sharing my views on Building a Better Future. Do watch. https://t.co/70XBBZRghL Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 22, 2020

"As USIBC celebrates 45 years of work to grow the US-India partnership, Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi will address a global audience on the US and India as key partners and leaders in a post-COVID world. His remarks are scheduled for July 22 at 11:00 AM EST/8:30 PM IST," the USIBC stated.

The virtual summit will feature high-level presence from Indian and US government policymakers, state-level officials, and thought leaders from business and society.

USIBC President Nisha Biswal said, "Prime Minister Modi has steered the US-India relationship to new heights through engagement with successive US administrations. He has been a sure-footed leader on the global stage and has created a vision for the future that is not only important for India but will influence global perspectives on issues like trade, inclusive economic growth, digital commerce and climate policy."

Union ministers including Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal and Nitin Gadkari have already shared their views at the Summit. Sitharaman on Tuesday said green shoots were visible in the Indian economy and that the government's economic stimulus package had helped organisations in coping with the Covid-19 effects. Goyal proposed 'preferential trade agreement' with the US at the USIBC India Ideas Summit.

Gadkari said the government needed foreign investment, especially in the MSMEs, NBFCs, banks, and infrastructure to create employment opportunities for poor.

Other key speakers at the summit include Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senator of Virginia and co-chair of Senate India Caucus Mark Warner, Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, among others.

Also read: PM Modi 2nd most followed leader on Twitter after Donald Trump but with wider reach
Four days later, Davila was back at Elmhurst Hospital, where he stayed for another month. He was then transferred to Northwestern Medicines Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton where he has spent the last six weeks learning to walk and brush his teeth and write again. When he arrived at Marianjoy he couldnt roll over on his own.
By Rocky Swift

TOKYO, July 22 (Reuters) - Japan's travel ban to stop the spread of the coronavirus has hit a majority of European firms in the country and could prompt those businesses to rethink their future in the world's third-largest economy, a European business lobby said on Wednesday.

Many countries have imposed travel curbs amid the pandemic but Japan's are among the most strict, effectively banning entry of tourists and visa holders coming from 129 countries. Even permanent residents are restricted entry unless they are granted an exception under humanitarian grounds, while in the United States and Europe, non-citizen residents are allowed to return.

A recent survey by the European Business Council of 376 members in Japan showed that 85% had been negatively impacted by the ban, with 44% reporting financial losses. The EBC said the travel restrictions run counter to international treaties.

"This situation may also trigger some investment disputes against Japan," EBC president Michael Mroczek told reporters.

The way the ban was handled creates an air of unpredictability that may cause CEOs to "rethink their policy regarding Japan," he said.

Japan allows its citizens to return to the country if they take a coronavirus test at the port of entry and observe a period of self-quarantine.

Foreigners living in Japan face much higher hurdles for re-entry, such as demonstrating the need to visit dying relatives or be reunited with family in the country.

The EBC's remarks echoed those of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ), which has decried the country's "double standard" in reentry requirements.

Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on the EBC's claims. Immigration officials have said previously that they are considering ways to ease the ban but are prioritizing contagion controls.

Restrictions to contain the spread of the virus have already helped tip Japan's economy into its first recession in 4-1/2 years, as the country tries to stave off a second wave of infections which has brought total cases to more than 25,000 in the country. (Reporting by Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
(TNS)  Theres a new county behind Los Angeles with the second-most confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California, and as soon as this week, the state could overtake the nations initial epicenter in total number of known infections.The state added 11,834 positive tests to its count Monday, according to data compiled by this news organization, increasing its overall case count to 396,501. With another 60 deaths from the virus Monday, the state is averaging 96 fatalities and 9,108 new cases per day over the past week, both near record highs.Californias case count on Monday stood about 15,000 shy of New York, which reported the majority of its 415,000-plus cases in March and April. Its now almost August, and the pandemic has swept into the southern and western parts of the country. While California adds more than 9,000 new cases per day, New York has squashed transmission down to about 725 per day.Californias 63,758 new cases over the past week trails only Texas and Florida, but on a per-capita basis, the virus is more widespread in a rash of smaller states: Florida, Louisiana, Arizona, Alabama, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Idaho, Georgia, Tennessee and Arkansas all have reported more cases per capita in the past week than California (161 per 100,000 residents); only two of those states and five total have conducted more tests per capita than California in the past week (2,170 per 100,000 residents).Even as California catches up to New York in cases, its deaths lag far behind.At its peak, New York was reporting about the same number of cases as California is now  just below 10,000 per day (but with much less testing  about 20,000 per day, compared to 120,000 per day now in California). At the same time, nearly 1,000 New Yorkers were dying from the virus each day. On Californias deadliest day, there were 151 reported deaths from the virus. As a result, the 7,760 deaths in California rank well behind New York (32,000) and also trail New Jersey (15,000) and Massachusetts (8,500).New York, which has about half of Californias 39.5 million population, spent more than a month reporting more cases and deaths per capita each day than Californias peak to this point for either figure. The seven-day average of deaths in New York didnt drop below 2.5 per 1 million residents per day  Californias peak rate on July 12  from March 25 until June 18, while the seven-day rate of cases didnt fall below Californias peak of 246 per 1 million  also on July 12  from March 26 until May 1, again with the caveat that testing is far more prevalent now.New Yorks average daily death toll peaked on April 13 at about 50 per 1 million residents, while its average number of new cases peaked three days earlier at about 506 per 1 million per day over the past week. For comparison, Florida has the highest current per-capita case rate, averaging about 518 new cases per 1 million each day. The highest current daily death toll is in Arizona, where there have about 10.7 fatalities per 1 million residents per day over the past week  one-fifth New Yorks peak.Currently, California is averaging about 230 new cases and 2.4 deaths per 1 million residents each day. It is one of 30-plus states from which travelers to New York must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.Similar to cases, only Texas and Florida have reported the more fatalities from the virus in the past week than California, but nine states have higher per-capita death rates: Arizona, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Nevada and New Jersey.The largest growth continues to come out of Southern California  even more so in the counties next to Los Angeles.A spike in Orange County last week sent the seven-day average there north of 1,000 cases per day; it has since fallen back to about 675 per day  about the level it was at two weeks ago. Orange County overtook Riverside over the weekend while the latter failed to report new test results. After Monday, when both counties reported, Orange Countys case count stood at 29,986  three more than Riverside County.The last time there was a county other than Los Angeles with more cases than Riverside County came May 24, when San Diego had 6,701 cases to Riversides 6,464.As recently as July 2, Orange County had fewer cases than LA, Riverside and San Diego counties. But since then, its growth has outpaced every other hard-hit Southern California county. Its total case count has grown by 99 percent, compared to 83 percent in San Bernardino, 60 percent in Riverside and San Diego, 47 percent in Los Angeles and 26 percent in Imperial County.North of Los Angeles, Kern County hasnt seen the long-lasting rise as some of its neighboring counties but has seen a dramatic spike in cases in the past three days. It added another 787 cases on Monday, which would have nearly quadrupled the daily record prior to this week, if not for another 1,214 cases the previous two days. Just in the past three days, Kern County has reported 21.7 percent of the 9,234 total cases it has reported since the pandemic began.The Bay Area, home to about 8 million people, compared to 3.2 million in Orange County and 900,000 in Kern County, reported one of its highest single-day totals of the pandemic: 1,174 new cases Monday  the fourth time the region has reported more than 1,000 cases in a day. Another nine Bay Area residents succumbed to the virus Monday, keeping the seven-day average near its late-April level of more than 7 per day.The per-capita rate here stood at about 113 new cases and 0.9 deaths per 1 million residents each day over the past week.Hospitalizations in the Bay Area and across California hit record highs on Sunday, the most recent day for which data was available. Bay Area hospitals added a net of 15 patients to increase the total here to 705  40 percent more than two weeks ago  while the total number of patients statewide climbed to 6,921, a 22 percent increase in two weeks.Alameda County leads the region in hospitalizations (159), as well as total cases, followed closely by Santa Clara County (157) but neither cracked the top 10 in hospitalizations statewide. Los Angeles (2,218), Orange (666), San Bernardino (613), Riverside (507), San Diego (390), Fresno (2269), Kern (248), San Joaquin (210), Stanislaus (209) and Sacramento (204) all had more patients hospitalized Sunday than any county in the Bay Area.After a brief dip Friday and Saturday, the number of patients receiving treatment in intensive care units was back at a record high Sunday: 2,157 confirmed or suspected to have the virus. There were eight counties in the state with less than 20 percent of their ICU beds available: San Benito, where ICUs were 100 percent full, Napa (94.7 percent), Madera (90.2 percent), Yolo (88.2 percent), Sacramento (85.3 percent), Imperial (84.6 percent), Merced (84.2 percent) and Placer (81.4 percent).As California neared 400,000 total cases, the country was closing in on 4 million. It has reported at least 60,000 new cases on all but one of the past 10 days, while the nationwide death toll crossed 140,000 on Monday, more than any other country.
NEW HAVEN  The last approval needed for the $100 million biotech research building to be constructed by Carter Winstanley fell into place Wednesday and work is expected to get underway this summer.

The project is being welcomed not only by city officials, but also by biotech firms here looking for room to grow, as well as those needing incubator space. A total of 30 companies coming out of Yale University research are looking for specially equipped lab space, according to experts in the field.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

The sign-off  the unanimous vote of the New Haven Development Commission  followed by a day a vote by the state Bond Commission for $3 million toward the infrastructure work needed to advance the major development, to be known as 101 College Street, on land being reclaimed from the Route 34 corridor.

The building will feature a privately owned public plaza, a biotech training program for city students and a workforce pipeline to 700 to 1,000 permanent jobs, in addition to 1,000 construction jobs.

The 4.5-acre, state-owned property will be transferred to the city, with almost 2 acres to be turned over to Winstanley Enterprises. The company plans to begin construction on the 12-story, 500,000-square foot-specialized lab, research and incubator space this summer, to be completed by November 2022.

Since Winstanley first publicly announced his intention to build 101 College Street in January, the plan has had numerous public meetings with Community Management Teams, as well approvals by the City Plan Commission and Board of Alders, who also updated zoning rules that reward the use of green building techniques.

Attorney Caroline Kone, representing the company, said it meets all the requirements of the Municipal Development Plan, including design elements. She said the developer will contribute $500,000 to scholarships and training for students and has an agreement with New Haven Works to hire personnel with an emphasis on New Haven residents.

The $3 million in bond money is part of $8 million from the state that will be issued for the project over time. The initial funds will be put toward the design and construction of tunnels, driveways and city sidewalk improvements associated with the development.

Winstanley has agreements with the Parking Authority for space at the Temple Street Garage and the Temple Medical Garage, which will be connected by bridges to 101 College Street. It also will build a 117-space underground parking facility on the site.

The project is part of the Downtown Crossing, which is reclaiming some 12 acres of the disappearing Route 34 connector where the city plans to continue to attract private developers. Winstanleys first project here was the 14-story lab building at 100 College St. now occupied by the Yale School of Medicine and Alexion Pharmaceuticals building, a project that also features an 850-car garage.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

The new building will be tax generating for the next 30 years, regardless of whether it is ever bought by a nonprofit or institution such as Yale University.

The purpose of Downtown Crossing is to reconnect the Hill neighborhood with the downtown business district. The major ongoing infrastructure project is supported by a $20 million federal TIGER grant, as well as city and state funds.

Work on phases two and three of Downtown Crossing are ongoing, necessitating close coordination with the Winstanley development. Phase two will connect Orange Street to the Hill neighborhood, with the last phase connecting Temple Street across what was Route 34.

The new building, in addition to the bioscience labs, will have space for small businesses that are qualified through Elm City Innovation, iHaven and the New Haven Small Business Academy. The Yale School of Medicine also will lease space in it.

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media

A 19,912-square-foot public plaza is one of the main features, as is an interior walkway, open during business hours to the public, which will provide an easy walk to the train station.

The Connecticut Economic Resource Center estimates that every bioscience job generates 2.9 more jobs in the region and, for this project, some $179 million in indirect wages.

Winstanley has built more than 1 million square feet of lab space at some five locations in New Haven.

A number of city officials issued statements on the project after the state Bond Commission acted.

High-quality lab space is essential to New Havens economic development in the science and technology sectors, and the state investment will further enhance New Havens leading position in this increasingly important part of our economy, state Sen. Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said.

State Rep. Al Paolillo, also D-New Haven, thanked Gov. Ned Lamont for working with the delegation to secure the release of the funds to build the necessary infrastructure that will continue to attract economic development to our city in this education and biotech corridor.

It goes hand in hand with citys economic development plan to grow jobs, our grand list, and to continue to attract business and investment in this area, Paolillo said.

Mayor Justin Elicker said 101 College is a project of statewide economic significance, and with assistance from Gov. Lamonts workforce team, the development will also be closely attached to the Hill neighborhood through a workforce pipeline at Career High School and scholarships for local students interested in careers in the biosciences.

mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577
By Makiko Yamazaki and Noriyuki Hirata

TOKYO, July 22 (Reuters) - Nominees to Toshiba Corp's board backed by activist fund Effissimo Capital Management said they plan to talk with investors in a push to convince them that additional directors will help the industrial conglomerate fix compliance issues.

The move comes after Institutional Shareholder Services Inc (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co decided last week not to side with a proposal by Effissimo, Toshiba's biggest shareholder, to add three directors, arguing that the current management team is relatively new and diverse.

Calling the decision by proxy advisers a surprise, nominees Tadaaki Sugiyama, a former Kao Corp executive and Akira Takeuchi, an attorney, told Reuters they planned to make a more compelling case and have more thorough discussions with Toshiba shareholders.

They also plan to argue their case again with the proxy advisers.

"If we communicate better with investors and fill in the gaps where our message has not yet gotten across then I do think it's quite possible that shareholders will vote opposite to ISS recommendations," Sugiyama said in an interview.

Effissimo, a Singapore-based fund with a 15% stake, is citing fictitious transactions Toshiba disclosed this year as evidence that its corporate governance has not made significant progress since a major accounting scandal in 2015.

Toshiba has opposed the move, arguing that 12 board members is sufficient and that one nominee, an Effissimo co-founder, is inappropriate, citing conflicts of interest.

While still reeling from the accounting scandal, Toshiba was then plunged into crisis stemming from the failure of its U.S. nuclear power unit in 2017, prompting it to sell $5.6 billion of stock to dozens of foreign hedge funds.

Foreign shareholders now hold 63% of Toshiba's voting rights while Effissimo and other activist funds hold about 30%. Toshiba added seven independent directors last year at the urging of U.S. hedge fund King Street Capital.

Toshiba's annual meeting is scheduled for July 31.

(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki and Noriyuki Hirata; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Innocent consumers should not be denied jobs or timely employment due to potential inaccuracies in their background checks, Lead Counsel John Soumilas of Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C.

The Honorable Judge Charles A. Pannell, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has granted final approval to a settlement agreement in the class action Kevin Wills and Jonathan Santiago Rosario v. Starbucks Corporation, Case 1:17-cv-03654-CAP.

Plaintiffs Wills and Rosario had asserted in separate class action complaints that Starbucks allegedly systematically violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by failing to give job applicants timely notice that consumer credit reports may be used against them in the hiring process. As a result of these two class actions, Starbucks has made substantial changes to its background screening procedures. The modifications should ensure that prospective employees will have a reasonable amount of time to dispute information in their background check.

Innocent consumers should not be denied jobs or timely employment due to potential inaccuracies in their background checks, said John Soumilas, partner with Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C. and lead counsel in this litigation. This settlement will prevent future Starbucks job applicants from enduring the injustice of immediate termination without the chance to correct errors and save their job opportunity. Cases like this foster transparency and promote fairness in the hiring process, which is increasingly dependent upon background screening.

Also, as part of the settlement, Starbucks promised to comply with the FCRA going forward. Equally important, the settlement provides tangible benefits for approximately 8,000 former Starbucks job candidates who were allegedly not timely provided with copies of their background check reports and a summary of their rights under the FCRA as required by law. The settlement compensation per class member varies depending on the circumstances, from an $125 gift card to $840 in cash plus the gift card. The settlement class includes all persons who applied for employment with Starbucks between December 21, 2011 through and including September 19, 2017, who were the subject of a consumer report that was allegedly used by Starbucks to take an adverse employment action against them. Attorneys John Soumilas, David A. Searles, and Jordan M. Sartell of Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C. worked with co-counsel from the firms Skaar & Feagle, LLP and OToole, McLaughlin, Dooley & Pecora, Co., LPA on the case.

About Francis Mailman Soumilas

Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C. is one of the nations premier consumer rights firms. The firm has obtained top verdicts and settlements, ground-breaking legal rulings and class certification in countless important consumer rights cases. The firm represents consumers subjected to unfair credit reporting, debt collection, robo-calling, and employment and tenant screening, as well as general consumer fraud and deceptive practice matters. For more info, visit: http://www.consumerlawfirm.com.
A final decision will be made by the School Board Aug. 4 in regard to what direction the school will go, Brown and board members said.

"We're still collecting information and we're trying to make the best decision." Brown said.

Brown said the passion and love of their children and grandchildren came through from comments made at the meeting.

"We will work together," Brown said.

Cedric Howard, who lives in Crown Point but has a grandchild in the Merrillville school district, asked the board how they made their decision to allow kids to go back to school Aug. 18.

"What is it you heard that we can have school? ... What did you hear that it's okay?" Howard asked.

Howard pointed to the Gary Community School Corporation which is continuing distance learning when students go back there in August.

Brown said school officials proposed the idea of allowing parents to choose an option earlier this month after having discussions with the Lake County Health Department.

"They are providing us with guidelines," Brown said.
The US State Department and Secret Service offered $2 million in reward money for help capturing two Ukrainian SEC hackers.

The US State Department and Secret Service offered $2 million in reward money for help capturing two Ukrainian hackers that have been charged with hacking and selling insider corporate data stolen from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The offer was covered by the State Departments Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program.

The two hackers are Viacheslavovich Radchenko and Oleksandr Vitalyevich Ieremenko, US authorities aim at receiving information that could lead to their arrest.

In the second half of 2017, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosed it was the victim of a cyber-attack in 2016. At the time, hackers were focused on non-public information stored in its EDGAR filing system.

From on or about February 2016 through on or about March 2017, Artem Viacheslavovich Radchenko recruited Oleksandr Vitalyevich Ieremenko and other hackers in Ukraine and managed their criminal efforts to enrich themselves through a sophisticated securities fraud scheme. reads an advisory published by the US State Department. Ieremenko successfully hacked into the computer networks of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and extracted valuable data regarding the financial earnings of publicly traded companies.

Radchenko and Ieremenko were charged in January 2019 for their participation in a scheme to profit from information stolen from hacked from a government database.

The duo was accused of trading on and selling early access to sensitive information from non-public annual and quarterly reports.

A federal grand jury in New Jersey filed 16 criminal charges against the two Ukrainian hackers.

Cyber criminals do not observe nor respect the rule of law in any country. As their criminal reach is worldwide, we welcome the cooperation and coordination of all governments to bring these criminals to justice and protect innocent citizens throughout the world. reads a press statement published by the US Department of State. The United States is committed to that effort in part through the State Departments Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program (TOCRP) to help our law enforcement partners bring cyber and other transnational criminals to justice.

But Ukrainian hackers remain at large.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs  hacking, SEC hackers)
Nurses Honor Fallen Peers in Demonstration on Capitol Lawn: "Is My Life Not Worth Protecting?"

The nation's largest nurses union organized a moving demonstration to demand congressional action to address the ongoing pandemic. On July 21, members of National Nurses United placed 164 white nurses shoes on the lawn of the US Capitol to symbolize the number of nurses who have died as a result of COVID-19. Two months prior, 88 shoes had been assembled in front of the White House to honor the nurses who had died at that point. The demonstration is reminiscent of a 2018 tribute organized by Avaaz memorializing children killed by gun violence .

Stephanie Simms, a nurse at the local MedStar Washington Hospital Center, delivered a powerful speech at the gathering. "There are no words that could fully express the anger and the sadness I feel this morning," she said. Simms went on to note how the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States has now surpassed 140,000, whereas the number was at 70,000 at the time of the first demonstration. Simms added, "That is double the number from May 8, demonstrating a complete and utter failure of presidential and congressional leadership."

Related:

We're Facing a Mental Health Crisis in Healthcare Workers, the Majority of Whom Are Women

National Nurses United has been urging Congress to enforce proper workplace standards and provide more personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and those at the front lines of the pandemic. The union also called on the Senate to pass the Heroes Act, which has already been approved by the House of Representative. The $3 trillion plan would offer additional unemployment benefits, hazard pay, and a second round of stimulus checks, among other propositions.

"Is my life not worth protecting?"

"I ask you to look around today. Today we see 164 pairs of shoes. 164 nurses' lives. Mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, sons and daughters - all gone," Simms said. She later added, "Let us be perfectly clear: if we nurses are not safe, patients are not safe, and every one of us can become a patient at any moment . . . Are the lives of my coworkers not worth protecting? Are the lives of my patients not worth protecting? Is my life not worth protecting?"

Related:

Coronavirus Has Shined a Light on Healthcare Workers' Mental Health, but Their Struggles Aren't New
The Nepal government has decided to resume domestic and international flight operations starting from August 17, nearly four months after they were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The suspension of the flights came on March 22 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the country, reported Xinhua news agency.

During the months, only chartered flights for humanitarian purpose or delivery of medical goods were allowed.

Yogesh Bhattarai, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, told Xinhua on Monday evening that the decision was taken during a cabinet meeting earlier in the day. "My ministry will prepare detailed health protocols to resume the operation of the flights," he said.

The government's move follows the decreasing rate of COVID-19 cases in the Himalayan country in recent days.

With new 186 cases on Monday, total COVID-19 cases in Nepal reached 17,844, according to the Ministry of Health and Population. Monday's decision was welcomed by tourism entrepreneurs.

Also Watch:

Kishor Raj Pandey, chairman of Sathi Travel Agency, told Xinhua on Monday that the move would not help lead to a significant jump in international travels but some business travels could take place.

"We are not expecting tourists coming to Nepal at least for next 3-4 months but people associated with travel agencies abroad are willing to come to Nepal if the flight resumes," he said. On June 10, the country relaxed the COVID-19 lockdown, allowing some economic activities to resume.
Jihadists have killed five aid workers abducted last month in restive northeast Nigeria, group Action Against Hunger said Wednesday.

The announcement came after insurgents affiliated to the so-called Islamic State group released a video online purporting to show the execution of the five Nigerian men.

"It is with profound grief that we confirm the murder of Ishaku Yakubu, Action Against Hunger (ACF) staff member from Monguno, and four other aid workers," the French-based aid group said.

It said the humanitarian workers "were taken hostage by a non-state armed group in Borno State, northeast Nigeria, on June 8".

"This unjustifiable killing reflects the immense difficulty faced by independent and impartial humanitarian actors, and the violence we are exposed to every day to fulfil our mission," ACF said.

Aid group International Rescue Committee (IRC) confirmed that one of its employees was also among those killed.

"The IRC strongly condemns the senseless execution of our colleague, Luka Filibus, and his fellow humanitarian captives," it said.

"We condemn this barbaric treatment and demand the immediate return of his remains to his family."

Humanitarian workers have been repeatedly targeted by jihadist groups waging a decade-long insurgency in northeast Nigeria.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his sympathy "for the families of the five aid workers" and pledged the jihadists would be "wiped out completely".

"Security agencies in the state will work closely with their organisations to implement measures to ensure that no such kidnapping of staff occurs again," a statement from the presidency said.

The 10-year conflict in northeast Nigeria has killed 36,000 people and displaced about two million from their homes.

Last year fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction abducted a group of six humanitarian workers -- including a female ACF employee -- in the region.

Story continues

Five of the hostages were later executed and the ACF worker remains in captivity.

ISWAP splintered from jihadist group Boko Haram in 2016 and swore allegiance to then IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Aid groups provide a vital lifeline for some 7.9 million people who the United Nations says are in need of urgent assistance in the region.

(AFP)
Japan's push to help revive its virus-ravaged economy with a "Go To" travel campaign has dealt a double blow to Tokyo, whose residents were cut off from promised travel subsidies and businesses are set to miss out on tourists.

The program, promoting domestic travel by offering discount vouchers to boost an ailing tourism industry, starts Wednesday ahead of a four-day holiday weekend. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government last week decided to remove Tokyo residents after daily confirmed coronavirus infection cases hit records in the capital and stoked worries the plan could spread the virus.

Having staked its prospects for an economic recovery on demand, Japan, which has relied heavily on Chinese tourists in recent years, has gone further than most countries by encouraging domestic travel after almost 100% decline in foreign visitors during the pandemic. The resurgence of cases in major urban centers, however, highlights the challenges governments face as they try to balance rebuilding their economies with a constantly evolving health crisis.

Tokyo residents, who pay the biggest share of income taxes of any Japanese region, are angry over not receiving travel subsidies and have raised questions about the legality of their exclusion. Businesses say cancellations have led to lost revenue and the government response is muddled.

Tokyo-based software engineer Takehito Fukui is caught in the mix. He booked a $2,800 (300,000 yen) four-day vacation to Okinawa for his family last month after the campaign was announced, expecting at least a third of the trip to be subsidized.

"I honestly feel like I've been swindled," Fukui said in an interview.

Following public criticism, Transport Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba said the government will pay for cancellation fees for trips to and from Tokyo booked between July 10 and July 17.

But the troubles with the program have been viewed by many as another misstep in Abe's management of the virus, which many have seen as, at times, being slow and haphazard. About 60% of respondents said they weren't happy with the government's virus response, a weekend survey by the Mainichi newspaper and Social Survey Research Center showed.
With three of six districts in election-bound Gwalior-Chambal belt recording over 100% growth in COVID-19 cases, it will be a major challenge for Chouhan govt to campaign and organise elections without creating new hotspots

Having spent the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown in politicking, to first grab and then stay in power, the Shivraj Singh Chauhan-led BJP government in Madhya Pradesh launched a 15-day state-wide Kill Corona programme from 1 July. The programme includes door to door surveys in urban slums and low-income households having high population density and poor municipal management as a majority of positive cases have been reported from these areas.

As per data from the governments smart city portal, Indore has the second highest slum population (30 percent) in the state, followed by Jabalpur (46 percent) and Bhopal (26 percent). Health officials have had a hard time controlling the spread in these areas. Experts have also suggested that these areas are witnessing instances of community spread.

Under such circumstances, the survey can prove to be a handy management tool. But ground workers are being offered no incentive or protection. For instance, the Kill Corona Campaign does not mention any incentives for the ASHA and Aanganwadi workers who will be putting their lives at risk for the survey and are overstretched at the moment.

They are not even being given proper PPEs but are only being advised to wear a face cover or masks at all times and observe appropriate social distancing while conducting the survey.

The survey will be implemented under the supervision of District Crisis Management Groups. About 10,000 groups of ASHA  Aanganwadi workers, municipal, health and police staff members have been formed, who are being trained to conduct the survey.

These 10,000 groups are expected to survey 10 lakh houses daily collecting information on number of family members, types of profession, whether they use public toilets or individual toilets, and whether they face any problem of dry cough, body pain or other symptoms. They are also checking for waterlogging outside and inside homes.

The groups will not only look out for symptoms of cough and cold, but will also keep an eye on malaria and dengue-related symptoms as the monsoon season has started.

Carelessness and indifference

On 30 June, Bhopal completed 100 days since the first case was reported, while Indore did that on 3 July. Both cities have been receiving awards for swacchata as the cleanest capital (Bhopal) and cleanest city (Indore) for the last two years, in the Swachh Survekshan organised by the MoHUA.

In fact, Indore had become a case study for global practitioners on waste management and hygiene. This had experts, government officials and citizens wondering what could have caused such an exponential rise in cases despite having such modern and robust cleanliness systems.

In the end, it turned out to be the carelessness and irresponsibility of a few citizens (and officials) in the initial stage who failed to disclose their travel history and the Tablighi Jamaat fiasco that set off the intense outbreak in both cities.

By the end of April, Madhya Pradesh had around 2,600 infections. By May end that number had shot up to 8,000, which placed the state at third position in the rising tally of total cases, behind Maharashtra and Delhi.

And as cases continued to spike especially in Bhopal and Indore, two of the countrys supposedly cleanest cities, it was only in June that the state government implemented a number of steps, like setting up of fever clinics, to curb the spread of virus, which brought Madhya Prdesh to the 12th spot in total numbers, with Indore and Bhopal contributing 50 percent of the total positive cases reported in the state so far.

However, the situation has turned ugly in the last ten days of July as the infection continues to grow in the cities of Indore and Bhopal, still contributing around 50 percent of the total caseload. Not only this, the cities of Gwalior and Morena have also become the new hotspots in the central state. From 1 to 12 July, Bhopal has registered 713 new cases, followed by Indore (551), Gwalior (538) and Morena (537).

The tale that the numbers tell

In April, Indore registered the highest number of positive cases in the country per 10 lakh population  117. That figure reached 683 in May.

The scenario changed a little in early June. The graph showed a decline in new positive cases, pushing it below the list of top five cities which account for more than half of the all-India coronavirus count. During the first 14 days of June, Indore registered only 530 cases from 23,600 samples.

However, this decline was short lived. Between 20-30 June, Indore registered 13 percent more cases than Bhopal. Indore lagged in recovery numbers too, just 249 as compared to 473 in Bhopal. Sadly, these ten days also witnessed 36 percent more deaths in Indore as compared to Bhopal.

In April, Bhopal had 33 percent less cases then Indore. Moreover, it had a recovery rate of 34 percent in comparison to Indores 12 percent. In May, Indore touched 2,238 cases, over 50 percent of the states total caseload, while Bhopal had 900 cases, 20 percent of the total caseload. At this time, the recovery rate in both cities was pegged at 57 percent. However, Indore had 683 cases per million population as compared to Bhopals 380.

But things have taken U-turn for Bhopal since the start of July. In the first ten days of July, Indore has registered only 551 cases compared to Bhopals 713.

Another worrying trend for Bhopal is its positivity rate, which reached the maximum in the first ten days of July. At present, Bhopals positivity rate is 6 percent, up from 3.7 percent during the unlock phase I (from 1 to 30 June). On the other hand, Indores positivity rate has come down from 11 percent to 2 percent now, as compared to Bengalurus 8 percent, Delhis 11 percent and Mumbai 23.7 percent.

Indores lower positivity rate from tests has kept it, for now, from becoming another Mumbai or Delhi.

Nationally, Bhopal (3.4 percent) stands in a much better position than other cities in terms of fatality rates. Ahmedabad has the highest fatality rate of 7 percent, followed by Mumbai (4 percent), Indore (5 percent) and Bengaluru (1.7 percent).

Achievements of the campaign so far

A key part of the Kill Corona campaign is to focus on accelerating the testing drive in these districts (the state currently has 78 testing labs). The government has set a target of 2.53 lakh tests during the 15-day campaign. This will also increase the number of tests per million population, which is currently stagnant at around 4,000, with just 8,000 total tests per day.

Until now, the survey has been completed in 24 lakh 60 thousand households, covering 1 crore 23 lakh population in the state. The survey has identified close to 12,000 patients with COVID-19 like symptoms. On 13 July, the campaign had conducted 1,20,709 tests throughout the state.

The increased testing can help the fight against COVID-19 in Bhopal, Morena, Gwalior and Indore with early identification of cases, their isolation and treatment which is the Central Governments new strategy for the top twenty infected districts in the country.

Bhopal Municipal Corporation is conducting ward-wise surveillance of positive cases. The Smart City authority has been carrying out ward-wise and police station-wise analysis of case load. It is also helping the Bhopal administration in handling the data of quarantined persons, persons under treatment, persons with foreign travel history and other data sets. The smart city authority has also formed a Citizen Support Team under the chairmanship of its CEO for helping citizens and getting their feedback on the COVID-19 situation in the city.

Government versus private

At present, there are 11 COVID-19 testing facilities in Bhopal, out of which four are private. AIIMS Bhopal, Hamidia Hospital and Government Homeopathic College have been designated as dedicated government COVID-19 treatment facilities along with a single dedicated private facility, Chirayu Medical College and Hospital.

In May, local media had reported that the most number of referrals were made to the private Chirayu Hospital by the government. Moreover, several key IAS officials who were admitted in government-identified COVID-19 treatment facilities were transferred by the Shivraj Government to five-star private hospitals, of which some were not even notified as dedicated COVID-19 treatment facility.

As of May, only 99 patients were admitted in the three government facilities as compared to 250 patients in Chirayu Hospital. In fact on 2 June, the state health minister congratulated Chirayu Hospital for successfully discharging 1,000 COVID-19 patients. This was met with criticism by health professionals in the public sector who said that the state government should highlight the efforts of government heath institutions too.

The fever clinics have helped in early identification and isolation of cases. It has also helped authorities in saving beds for more critical cases. These clinics are the first point of care and counselling for persons having COVID-19 like symptoms and those who test positive.

So far, close to 1,000 fever clinics have been established in 52 districts out of which around 50 are in Bhopal. More than 300 patients in Bhopal have been advised and counselled by fever clinics on home quarantining.

Some key concerns

This is not the first time that the state government is doing a door-to-door survey. It had done similar surveys earlier too, but the findings were never made public. Also, the incumbent government has received a lot of flak from citizens and opposition for toppling the Congress Ggovernment in the midst of the pandemic.

In fact, many blame the timing of BJPs power politics for the pandemic getting out control in several districts like Indore, Bhopal, Ujjain and Khargone, etc. Under the current circumstances, it's quite possible that the Shivraj Singh Chouhan regime would be more interested in managing the headlines rather than the outcome on the ground.

With by-elections in 24 Assembly seats coming closer, on-ground campaigning is picking up pace, especially in the politically active Gwalior-Chambal belt which has 16 out of 24 seats that will go for by-polls. In the first ten days of July 2020, Shivpuri (172 percent), Datia (112 percent) and Morena (104 percent) (three of the six districts falling within the belt) have registered more than 100 percent growth rate in COVID-19 cases. Gwaliors growth rate is pegged at 93 epcent.

It will be a major challenge for the BJP government to campaign and organise elections in this region of the state without creating new hotspots in the state and endangering the lives of masses.

Also, this is happening at a time when the flow of information and communication with citizens needs to be greatly improved.

The state used to publish a daily analytical report by Atal Bihari Institute of Good Governance and Policy Analysis which had detailed insights on districts, number of tests, per million cases, etc. But its last report was published on 20 May.

Also, the district administrations have not been sharing any data pertaining to tests, positive cases, etc. The state bulletin is the only source for citizens to understand the COVID-19 situation. Unfortunately, political considerations of winning the upcoming by-elections look likely to outweigh this vital need for transparent data sharing with the public to successfully combat the pandemic.

This article was first published in Citizen Matters, a civic media website and is republished here with permission. (c) Oorvani Foundation/Open Media Initiative.
A banner declaring "Black Lives Matter" that has greeted visitors to the tiny Virginia town of Clifton since June was torn down and stolen early Monday, Mayor William Hollaway said.

The missing sign was reported to Hollaway by a resident who walks her dog at 5 a.m. Also removed and damaged was a mechanism used to raise and lower banners over that spot on Main Street for decades. The mechanism was found nearby in a ditch, the mayor said.

"The audacity they had to take the law into their own hands and tear this down . . . and doing it in the middle of the night is just cowardice," Hollaway said Tuesday. "It undermines the First Amendment, it undermines what this country is about. It highlights that there's a minority subset of people who are uncomfortable with what's going on in this country."

The banner drew mostly support from town residents, but sparked criticism from a few, including Ginni Thomas, who is married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and lives not far from Clifton in Fairfax County.

Leaders of the majority-white town ordered the banner created and raised after demonstrations against racial inequity shook the nation in early June. Thomas and others accused the town council of endorsing the Black Lives Matter advocacy organization, which they denounced - in emails to the council - as Marxist and un-American.

The council said June 11 that it did not back the goals of defunding police, decriminalizing prostitution and other "radical" aims, but wanted to support the broader movement for racial justice and make an anti-racist statement.

Hollaway said no one has claimed responsibility for the theft of the $500 banner and the vandalism of the machinery, which mostly has been used to erect banners advertising community events.

He has filed a police report with the Fairfax County Police Department, which patrols the town. Police said an investigation is underway.

Reports on social media blamed the banner's removal on the Virginia Department of Transportation, but Hollaway said VDOT officials had told him the department had nothing to do with it.

If the state agency had taken down the banner, he added, it would not have been done in the middle of the night and without public notice.

The cost of repairing the mechanical device that raises banners will take a major bite out of the town's budget, Hollaway said. Businesses are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, so income is lower than expected.

The town's biggest event of the year, the Haunted Trail Halloween attraction, has been canceled, he said, but city employees are working more hours than ever because residents are requiring more services.

"I've never seen a year when we've been hit as hard for revenue. It means there is thousands less for some of the services we need," Halloway said.

The town council is planning to discuss the matter at its meeting Wednesday night.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:05:56|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi wrapped up his visit to Iran on Wednesday while Tehran and Baghdad agreed to boost comprehensive cooperation and vowed to honor the independence and sovereignty of each other.

"What is of great importance to the Islamic republic in its bilateral relations with Iraq are the interests, security, dignity, and regional authority of Iraq in addition to the improvement of situation in Iraq," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a meeting with Al-Kadhimi on Tuesday.

"Iran has never wanted and will never interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq," Khamenei said, according to his official website, adding "Iran favors a dignified and independent Iraq with its territorial integrity, unity and domestic solidarity."

The Iranian top leader urged expansion of ties in all fields, saying "one should not be afraid of the Americans by any means."

For his part, Al-Kadhimi expressed gratitude to Iran for its supports for Iraq in the fight against terrorists.

Iran and Iraq have agreed on a target plan to increase bilateral trade value to 20 billion U.S. dollars in near future.

In a joint press conference on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the two sides are determined to implement their earlier agreements, particularly connecting the Iranian Shalamcheh to the Iraqi Basra city via railway.

"The foreign forces will not be able to cause any harm and disruption to the brotherly relations between the two old neighbors," he pointed out.

For his part, Al-Kadhimi said that Iran and Iraq need cooperation and coordination in the face of challenges, like the spread of COVID-19 pandemic and the fall in the crude oil prices.

He said that his government will not allow the Iraqi soil to be used as a platform for threats to Iran.

Al-Kadhimi pointed out that Iraq has turned into a big market for Iranian products and his country will also help Iran overcome its economic challenges.

Besides, Iranian first Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said "the Joint Economic Commission of Iran and Iraq is prepared to draft the comprehensive document on economic and trade cooperation between the two countries."

Strong banking and financial ties are prerequisite for the enhancement of economic relations, he noted, calling for plans to accelerate the implementation of banking agreements.

The bulk of problems that have gripped the regional countries are caused by the outsiders, he said, calling for concerted efforts to overcome the challenges that have been aggravated by the outbreak of novel coronavirus and a decline in the oil prices.

For his part, al-Kadhimi said Baghdad is willing to establish broad relations with Tehran considering their historical, cultural and religious commonalities.

Iran and Iraq agreed on two cooperation documents in the electricity sector during the Iraqi prime minister's visit to Tehran.

Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said that the two sides agreed to finalize and sign the contracts, one of which would entail plans to reduce electricity losses in distribution networks in Iraq's governorates of Karbala and Najaf, and the second one is a contract to make repairs to electricity distribution transformers in Iraq. Enditem
Residents on Australia's east coast have been told to prepare for more wild weather as another strong low-pressure system looks likely to smash the area.

Coastal communities have only just recovered from the damaging system that slammed them in the past few days, with more of the same wet and windy conditions likely to develop into next week.

Forecasters have predicted a deep low-pressure system could develop in the Tasman Sea, bringing damaging winds, big swells and torrential rain to the eastern seaboard.

'Rain and thunderstorms could affect parts of eastern and southeastern Australia at the end of this week with another Tasman Sea low-pressure system possibly on the cards as well,' Weatherzone forecaster Ben Domensino said.

Forecasters have warned a low pressure system could form of eastern Australia for next week. Pictured: photographers watch storm swells smash Ben Buckler Point at Bondi Beach

If the system develops the way forecasters predict, it has strong potential to deliver damaging winds, swells and torrential rain

Sydneysiders cover up under umbrellas as rain falls on Liverpool Street in Sydney's CBD

Last week's system saw incredible coastal erosion the NSW Central Coast, where an apartment block and at least 17 other homes were evacuated at Wamberal due to the threat of collapse.

Hazardous swell and wind warnings were in place throughout NSW in the later part of the week, with Mr Domensino warning more dangerous conditions will be likely if the system behaves the way models predict.

'Some forecast models suggest that another series of upper-level troughs will cause more dynamic and potentially dangerous weather in eastern and southeastern Australia at the end of this week and early next week,' he said.

'At this stage it is too early to know exactly how this system will unfold.'

If the system lines up the way forecasters predict, heavy rainfall could be seen from Cape York in Queensland all the way to Tasmania, where fog is likely and snow will fall.

Queensland looks set for a bout of wet weather into the later part of this week, with thunderstorms forecast through central and eastern parts of the state from Wednesday through to Friday.

Coastal properties at Terrigal on the NSW Central Coast began sliding into the ocean after extreme coastal erosion from last week's storms

An apartment block and at least 17 other homes were evacuated at Wamberal due to the threat of collapse. Pictured: retaining walls and debris at Terrigal after being hit by the huge swell

Forecasters have warned of the threat of flash flooding in Mackay and Bundaberg as the system intensifies before moving to NSW.

Rain and thunderstorms are forecast across southeastern Australia over the weekend, which could lead into a second low-pressure system and another round of severe winds, rain and surf.

Predicted rainfall totals will be updated as the storm gets closer to formation.

A front over the Indian Ocean is due to bring rain to Western Australia over Wednesday and Thursday, with the heaviest falls in the southwest over Albany and Bunbury.

The Bureau of Meteorology also issued a strong wind warning for the North Kimberley coast, Bunbury Geographe coast, Leeuwin coast and Albany coast.

Adelaide will endure cloudy and dry conditions heading into the weekend, while Canberra will wake to sub-zero temperatures this week.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22) - The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is planning to conduct an inquiry next week on the sudden deaths of several high-profile inmates in the New Bilibid Prison allegedly due to COVID-19, committee chairperson Richard Gordon said.

Gordon said Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chief Director General Gerald Bantag will be invited to the Senate, adding that all resource persons will be required to physically attend the televised hearing despite the pandemic.

We can compel them, I am willing to conduct a hearing na nasa harap ko sila (in front of me)," Gordon said. "Magma-mask lang ako (I will just wear a mask), make sure there is proper ventilation, proper distancing, and the sergeant-at-arms will not allow them to move around. We will be in control. It will be shown on TV."

High-profile drug convict Jaybee Sebastian and eight other inmates reportedly died of COVID-19 while inside the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa City.

Gordon reiterated that Bantag may be removed from his post for failing to report to the Health and Justice departments the deaths of Sebastian and nine others.

BuCor said the nine remains were immediately cremated based on COVID-19 health protocols.

Kahit namatay talaga iyon, pero di niya ni-report, pwede sya sibakin, said Gordon. The very fact that this situation was allowed to happen, na hindi nagreport, that indicates that nangyayari talaga.

[Translation: Even though he really died, but he did not report it, he can be kicked out from his post. The very fact that this situation was allowed to happen, that they did not report this, that indicates that it really happened.]

If I were him I will submit a report and then go on a temporary leave," the senator added. "The President is their boss. they stay at the pleasure of the President. "Malaking kasalanan talaga yan (Thats a grave mistake)."

Gordon said that President Rodrigo Duterte could replace him with someone more knowledgeable in handling the prison

Meanwhile, BuCor Spokesperson Gabby Chaclag said that Bantag will most likely attend the inquiry.

"Pag meron namang invitation (If there is an invitation), we cannot turn it down, as long as its a legitimate inquiry, said Chaclag.

He added that Bantag cannot just take a break amid the issue despite suggestions for him to take a leave of absence.

Hindi naman madali mag-vacate ng isang very sensitive position, Chaclag said. Rest assured na ginagawa pa rin niya ang kanyang tungkulin.

[Translation: Its not that easy to vacate a very sensitive postion. Rest assured that he is still doing his duty.]

The BuCor also released to the media on Wednesday the death certificates of the said high-profile inmates.

Despite this, Gordon said he was still suspicious about their deaths.

Nung iniimbestigahan namin yung GCTA (Good Conduct Time Allowance), may mga doktor na tumatanggap [ng pera] para makalabas yung mga preso [] So we cannot trust the system, he told CNN Philippines News Night on Wednesday.

[Translation: When we were investigating the GCTA, we found out that there were doctors who are receiving money in order to release prisoners [] So we cannot trust the system.]

For his part, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra already asked the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct an investigation on the supposed deaths.

CNN Philippines' correspondent Joyce Ilas and mult-platform news writer Vince Ferreras contributed to this report
Former grave digger-turned-'cult leader' Chad Daybell has spent the past several years preaching that the end of the world would take place today - July 22, 2020.

It's likely he didn't predict that he'd be spending his Doomsday like this: locked up in an Idaho jail on charges for helping conceal the remains of his wife Lori Vallow's children, Joshua 'JJ' Vallow and Tylee Ryan.

The twisted mystery surrounding the disappearance of Lori's kids reads like an over-the-top Hollywood movie script: two children vanished, at least three other suspicious deaths of family members, bizarre religious beliefs about the Second Coming of Christ and countless questions that may never be answered.

One of the most elusive characters at the heart of the case is Chad, whom Lori married nearly two months after seven-year-old JJ and 16-year-old Tylee vanished in September 2019.

Chad has been described as many things: a cult leader, a prolific Doomsday author and public speaker, a former cemetery sexton, a loving father to five children with his first wife Tammy Daybell - who died two weeks before he and Lori tied the knot - and now, a suspected criminal.

The 51-year-old was arrested on June 9 after authorities discovered the bodies of JJ and Tylee buried in the backyard of his property in Salem, Idaho.

He is now facing four felony charges - two counts for conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence and two counts for destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

As Chad prepares to face trial, DailyMail.com took a deep dive into what we know about him, based on accounts from court documents, family members, and friends from his past.

Before Chad Daybell was implicated in the disappearance of his wife Lori Vallow's missing children, he was known as a devoutly religious man and possible cult leader who predicted that the world would end on July 22, 2020. Chad is seen in a photo from more than 30 years ago when he served as a missionary in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Chad was arrested last month following the discovery of Lori Vallow's children's remains on his property in Salem, Idaho. He and Lori (right) are both facing felony charges for conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence in the case

Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua 'JJ' Vallow, seven, disappeared in September but were never reported missing by their mother or Chad, whom Lori married in early November

The Doomsday prediction: Chad preached that he and Lori are prophets sent to earth to lead the 'chosen 144,000' into the New Millennium

Those who know Chad have often described him as a private but deeply charismatic man who preached his beliefs in one-on-one chats with his 'followers' and in his many books about the end of the world and near-death experiences.

At the core of those beliefs was the idea that he and Lori were prophets sent to earth by God to lead the 'chosen 144,000' into the New Millennium on July 22, 2020, according to court documents and accounts from friends and family.

Part of their preparations included eradicating the world of 'zombies' before Doomsday arrived, according to Lori's former best friend Melanie Gibb, who was part of a small group with which Chad shared his personal gospel.

'It was their commission to get rid of all the zombies before tribulations came upon us,' Gibb told the East Idaho News back in May.

Chillingly, Lori had accused three of her loved ones of turning into zombies prior to their deaths.

Chad is pictured in March 1999 when he worked as a grave digger at Evergreen Cemetery in Springville, Utah. He once said that the 'rewarding' job helped launch his career as an author

The first death was that of Lori's fourth husband Charles Vallow, who was shot dead by her brother Alex Cox, another one of Chad's followers, last July.

Charles had filed for divorce from Lori five months before he died, and in court documents and conversations with law enforcement he revealed that Lori had threatened to kill him because she believed his body had been possessed by evil spirits.

After Charles died, Lori moved her children to Idaho in August 2019. Gibb recounted a phone call around that time when Lori remarked that her daughter Tylee had also turned into a zombie.

Tylee disappeared on September 8, days before her 17th birthday. Authorities believe she was killed and buried on Chad's property the following day, according to a probable cause statement filed in support of his arrest.

Days later Gibb visited Lori in Idaho, and the mother began ranting about how her son JJ, who was autistic, was 'acting like a zombie' and crawling on the kitchen cabinets.

Gibb was the last known person to see JJ, on the morning of September 23. Authorities believe he was killed and buried the same day, just a few yards away from his older sister.

Neither Lori nor Chad have been charged in connection with Tylee and JJ's murders but they remain key suspects in the ongoing investigation.

The investigation first began more than two months after the children vanished, when a concerned relative contacted police in late November and said they hadn't heard from them since August.

Chad quickly became a leading person of interest in the case after he and Lori fled Idaho for Hawaii the day after investigators began asking questions about the kids whereabouts.

More than six months later authorities learned that the children had been under their noses the entire time - right in Chad's backyard.

Investigators are seen recovering the remains of Tylee and JJ from the backyard of Chad's home in Salem, Idaho, on June 9

Born in Provo, Utah, in August 1968, Chad was raised as a devote member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and went on to study at Brigham Young University.

Whilst pursuing a degree in communications at the the university, which is owned by the LDS Church, Chad met the woman he would go on to marry and have five children with - Tammy.

The pair tied the knot in 1990 and were together for nearly three decades before Tammy died under suspicious circumstances at their home in Salem, Idaho.

This past April, police announced that Chad and his second wife Lori were under investigation for murder, attempted murder and conspiracy in his first wife's death.

The revelation that Chad was a suspect in Tammy's murder and in the disappearance of Lori's kids shocked people who knew him 30 years ago when he worked as a missionary.

Trent Price, who served with Chad in the 1990s, spoke to KSL earlier this year about who he was back then.

'He was one of the best of us. We were a pretty solid group, but he was amazing,' Price said.

'We called him the gentle giant. He was tall and very soft-spoken but he seemed to have this real deep spirituality and people would gravitate to him.'

Chad's wife Tammy Daybell (pictured together) was found dead under suspicious circumstances at their home in Idaho in October

Chad married Lori on November 5, less than two months after her children vanished and two weeks after his previous wife Tammy died. The couple are pictured in January in Kauai, where they fled after police began asking questions about where JJ and Tylee were

One Foot In The Grave: How Chad's 'rewarding' job as a grave digger and cemetery sexton fueled his later career as a self-published author of 25 books

Chad grew in his faith and developed an unusual relationship with death by working as a grave digger at a cemetery in Utah while attending BYU.

He went on to become a sexton at a cemetery in Springville - a job he called 'rewarding' and said helped launch his career as an author.

He released his first book, One Foot in the Grave: Secrets of a Cemetery Sexton, in 2001.

Chad described his fondness for the grave-digging job in an interview with Deseret News the same year.

'Taking care of the graves is rewarding, as well as helping widows and grieving family members deal with the trauma,' he said at the time.

'Sad times are always when you have to bury babies. That's always a poignant moment.'

He said he found cemeteries to be 'fertile ground' for story ideas - foreshadowing his prolific career as a self-published author and book editor.

According to his website, Chad has penned more than 25 books and worked as an editor and publisher on countless others.

In his books, Chad often described how he formed his religious views as a young man when he had two near-death experiences.

The first was when he was cliff jumping as a 17-year-old and he 'crossed into another dimension and realized there was a world beyond this one'.

The second was in his early-20s when he was smashed around in heavy surf. 'He was hit with a monstrous wave at La Jolla Cove in California, the biography for his book Living on the Edge of Heaven states.

'While his body was being tossed by the wave, his spirit was visiting with his grandfather, who showed him future events involving his still-unborn children.

'This accident caused his 'veil' that separates mortal life from the Spirit World to stay partially open, so he often feels as if he has a foot in both worlds.'

He has written about apocalyptic times in a series of 'Times of Turmoil' books. One of the books, Days of Fury, tells of church members coping with the imposition of martial law and the aftermath of an earthquake in Salt Lake City, Utah.

'Many Saints have found refuge and safety at mountain camps, but many others are coping with other natural disasters and civil disturbances that continue to plague the nation's city,' a promotional blurb for the book reads.

'Meanwhile, a convoy of United Nations peacekeepers is making its way to Utah to assist in the full invasion of the United States by the Coalition forces, which will spark World War III.'

According to his website, Chad has penned more than 25 books and worked as an editor and publisher on countless others. He is pictured at a book signing in 2018

Self-proclaimed prophet: Chad leveraged his influence in the Doomsday organization Preparing a People to form his own 'cult'

Many people who've known him over the years have described him as a 'prepper' - someone is getting ready for the end of times.

He began heavily involved in an organization called Preparing a People, which says its mission is to 'help prepare the people of this earth for the second coming of Jesus Christ'.

On its website, the organization says it doesn't represent any church or official church doctrines, policies or positions.

However, many people associated with Preparing A People, and those who speak at their workshops and conferences, are members of the LDS Church.

Friends say that Lori and Chad met through the organization at a conference where Chad was a guest speaker in October 2018.

The organization aimed to distance themselves from Chad and Lori as the missing children's case made headlines, allegedly fearing that misconceptions about Preparing a People could cause members to be excommunicated from the LDS Church.

Born in Provo, Utah, in August 1968, Chad was raised as a devote member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and went on to study at Brigham Young University. He is pictured (left) during his time as a missionary in the 1990s

Trent Price, who served as a missionary with Chad (pictured) in the 1990s, described him in an interview with KTVB. 'He was one of the best of us. We were a pretty solid group, but he was amazing,' Price said. 'We called him the gentle giant. He was tall and very soft-spoken but he seemed to have this real deep spirituality and people would gravitate to him.'

Chad's media portrayal as a 'cult leader' led the leaders of Preparing a People to clarify that his alleged beliefs were not representative of the organization.

Michael James, who operates the Preparing a People website, told the East Idaho News in December that while Chad was a popular speaker at some of their events, he was no longer affiliated with the group.

'He was one of our best speakers, and people really trusted him, (but) Chad evidently had some strange ideas about things we didn't know about,' James said.

'Occasionally, that happens, and when it does, you need to break with them.'

He added: 'I have no idea what Chad and Lori did in their spare time, but Preparing A People is not a cult. It's just LDS people that go to conferences.'

James' remarks were echoed in a statement put out on the Preparing a People website.

'We also do not share any of Chad Daybell's or Lori Vallow's beliefs if they are contrary to Christian principles of honesty, integrity, and truth, or if they do not align with the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,' it read.

Around the same time late last year, DailyMail.com spoke to a religious leader who claimed Chad had been excommunicated from the LDS Church after he declared himself a prophet.

Chad fostered his own intimate religious group on the sidelines of his involvement in Preparing a People.

One of the group's members was Gibb, Lori's best friend. Gibb detailed her complex relationship with Lori and Chad - and their beliefs - in an interview with East Idaho News last month.

A troubled union: Lori's former best friend describes how she became obsessed with Chad's teaching while both were still married to their previous spouses

Gibb first met Chad a few years ago at a religious conference in northern Utah, where he was a guest speaker.

She was already familiar with the books Chad had self-published, many of them about his dreams, near-death experiences and the end of times.

'I wanted to meet him because I thought his dreams were interesting, and when I met him, I thought he was a really nice guy,' Gibb said.

She met Lori later, in October 2018, while teaching a class at her Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Gilbert, Arizona.

The pair became friends instantly, bonding over everything from religion to motherhood.

Last month Lori's former best friend Melanie Gibb (pictured) made the dire prediction that the children are no longer alive during an interview with East Idaho News

Gibb met Lori (above together) and Chad in 2018 through the LDS Church

A few weeks later, they traveled together to St George, Utah, for a conference where Chad was speaking and selling his books.

Gibb described watching Lori approach Chad and struck up a conversation.

She said Chad told Lori that they had met in a previous life and had been married multiple times in prior existences.

'They started talking about these different beliefs that are not something you learn in church,' Gibb said, adding that many of the things they discussed were deeply personal and private.

Lori and Chad then exchanged phone numbers and began talking on a daily basis.

Gibb went on to spend a lot of time with the couple during intimate meetings where Chad would pull people to the side for deep one-on-one conversations.

'He was teaching us about some of his understandings about multiple lives and things of that nature,' Gibb said.

'It was definitely different. The idea was definitely a new concept. Did I 100 percent believe any of it, ever? No, not 100 percent, no.

'When you get introduced to something, you kind of let it marinate. I just listened to them talk about it.'

Gibb said Chad's teachings did not represent the doctrine of the LDS Church - but did not definitively say if she felt the group was a cult.

In hindsight, Gibb admitted that she found Lori and Chad's beliefs about the Second Coming to be 'little unusual', but said they made her feel special by telling her she was one of the chosen and insisting that they'd known each other in previous lives.

And one day, Lori told Gibb she was sealed to Chad.

When Lori married Chad she was still married to her fourth husband Charles Vallow (pictured together). Charles was shot dead by Lori's brother, Alex Cox, in July 2019

Gibb said that Chad (pictured in March) convinced Lori that they had been married in a previous life and were destined to be together

Latter-day Saints believe that relationships continue after death if a husband and wife are sealed in the temple by an officiant. People cannot be sealed to a second spouse if they are already legally married to a living person.

'[Lori said] they felt they were sealed by those on the other side of the veil that had the authority to do that,' Gibb said.

'She said it was okay they did this because they had been married so many times before, that their [current] spouses would understand someday.'

Gibb mentioned several other portions of Chad's teachings that alarmed her, including when he created a spiritual 'portal' in Lori's closet.

'A portal is a spot where he said a prayer or something to create the portal. I wasn't there, so I don't know. [But] it was a way for them to interact spiritually,' Gibb explained.

'I thought it was different. I thought: 'How do you do that?' It was pretty extreme, but to me, everything was new.'

Gibb also described an extensive chart Chad made that ranked people based on their spiritual level.

It was four pages and included Biblical apostles, the current Latter-day Saint 12 apostles, family members, friends and celebrities.

The chart detailed how many lives each person had lives, whether they were 'dark' or 'light' spirits, their previous names and other unusual information.

It stated that Lori was on her 21st life, Chad was on his 31st, and both had lived five lives on this earth. Chad was identified as a Holy Ghost.

Gibb said that Lori and Chad only seemed to share their extreme beliefs with the people close to them.

In hindsight, she thinks they kept them private to protect their membership in the church.

'When you go in the temple, there are certain questions they ask you to see if your belief systems are consistent with the doctrine,' Gibb said.

'They were inconsistent, so that's the reason they're going to be secretive about it.'

Chad and Lori are seen in the first photos released by police last December when they asked for the public's help in locating her children

Thrust into the spotlight: Chad and Lori become household names as police launch a manhunt for her missing children

Many friends and relatives have said they think that Lori and Chad's extreme religious views are involved with the disappearance of her children and the string of mysterious deaths that have occurred in their orbit.

In the East Idaho News interview, Gibb stated that she did not believe the children were still alive.

'They're not on this planet anymore,' she said. 'I don't think they are. That's my personal opinion.'

She speculated that Lori's brother Alex Cox may have done something to the children for Lori or for a 'higher reason' related to the family's extreme religious belief that the end of the world is approaching.

'If he really truly believed these things, maybe he felt he was doing something good for not only them, but God,' she said.

About two weeks after that interview, the missing children's case came to a head on June 9 as authorities discovered human remains on Chad's property in Salem.

While police executed their search warrant at the home, Chad was arrested and charged with two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

Police are seen arresting Chad on Tuesday after human remains were found at his Salem home. He was booked on two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence

Lori was arrested back in February on two felony counts for desertion and nonsupport of dependent children, and one misdemeanor count each for resisting and obstructing an officer, solicitation of a crime, and contempt of court. Prosecutors dismissed the initial felony accounts earlier this month in light of the bodies being found and introduced two new charges for conspiracy to destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

He pleaded not guilty to those charges and was later hit with two more for conspiracy to conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

Chad is currently being held at Fremont County Jail on $1million bond and is set to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on August 3.

Meanwhile, Lori has spent the past five months behind bars at the nearby Madison County Jail.

She was arrested back in February on two felony counts for desertion and nonsupport of dependent children, and one misdemeanor count each for resisting and obstructing an officer, solicitation of a crime, and contempt of court.

Prosecutors dismissed the initial felony accounts earlier this month in light of the bodies being found and introduced two new charges for conspiracy to destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

She is set to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on August 10.

The prosecutor in the case last week filed a motion asking the judge not to allow any video coverage of Lori and Chad's upcoming preliminary hearings.

'Allowing broadcasting/livestreaming of the preliminary hearing will make it more difficult to pick an un-biased jury in Fremont County,' Rob Wood wrote in a memo to support his motion. 'Picking a jury in this case will be difficult and time consuming due to the already existing media coverage.'
Australias national airline Qantass last Boeing 747-400 made its farewell flight over Sydney Harbour to a cheering crowd on July 22 as the airline retired its fleet early due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The flyover was one of three farewell flights organised by Qantas to give staff and passengers an opportunity to say goodbye to the much-loved Queen of the Skies, the airline said in a statement.

The plane will fly to Los Angeles with a full cargo hold of freight before being finally taken to the Mojave Desert. Credit: Michael Rolik via Storyful
AUSTIN, TX  Texas Book Festival officials on Wednesday revealed a pair of keynote speakers for its upcoming Texas Teen Book Festival occurring in the fall.

Like other large-scale events, the literary gathering has metamorphosed into a virtual festival due to continued presence of the coronavirus. The event is scheduled from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, and will feature keynote panels with authors Nic Stone and Elizabeth Acevedo, officials confirmed.

Clap When You Land, Acevedos 2020 novel written in verse, received a standing ovation from Kirkus. Acevedos The Poet X was a New York Times bestseller and won the National Book Award for Young Peoples Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpre Award, the Boston GlobeHorn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also a National Poetry Slam champion.

Courtesy image.

Photo of Elizabeth Acevedo courtesy of Texas Teen Book Festival.

Stone is a New York Times-bestselling author and former festival keynote speaker. Dear Justyce, a much-anticipated follow-up to her young adult bestseller Dear Martin, will be published on September 29, 2020. Stones middle-grade fiction debut, Clean Getaway, and the first of a series based on Marvels Black Panther comics, Shuri: A Black Panther Novel, were published in January.

Courtesy image.

Photo of Nic Stone courtesy of Texas Teen Book Festival.

The decision to move TTBF to a virtual format in place of a face-to-face celebration of reading this year was a difficult one. However, I find myself excited about what this new opportunity offers us, Shawn Mauser, chair of the Texas Teen Book Festival, said in a prepared statement. This year's format is going to allow us to explore new avenues of connection with our TTBF fans and our authors. We get to explore new ways to be creative with this year's festival, and that experience is going to make our in-person festivals even better when they return (and they will).

For more information on the Texas Book Festival, please visit www.texasbookfestival.org, and

follow along on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @texasbookfest.

Story continues

ABOUT TEXAS BOOK FESTIVAL



With a vision to inspire Texans of all ages to love reading, the Texas Book Festival connects authors and readers through experiences that celebrate the culture of literacy, ideas, and imagination. Founded in 1995 by former First Lady Laura Bush, Mary Margaret Farabee, and a group of volunteers, the nonprofit Texas Book Festival promotes the joys of reading and writing through its annual Festival, the Texas Teen Book Festival, the Reading Rock Stars Title I elementary school program, the Real Reads Title I middle and high school program, grants to Texas libraries, and year-round literary programming. The 2020 Virtual Texas Book Festival will take place from Oct. 31 through Nov. 15. Thanks to generous donors, sponsors, and volunteers, the Festival remains free and open to the public. Visit www.texasbookfestival.org for more information, and join the conversation using the hashtag #txbookfest on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @texasbookfest.

ABOUT TEXAS TEEN BOOK FESTIVAL

The Texas Teen Book Festival celebrates the teen reading experience by inviting fans to visit with some of the most popular and critically acclaimed young adult authors in the country. The Texas Teen Book Festival was born as the Austin Teen Book Festival in 2009, when librarian Heather Schubert partnered with BookPeople to organize a gathering at Westlake High School. Five hundred people and 16 authors attended the first year. The event continued to grow, and in 2011-2013 was sponsored by the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation. In 2014 the Fest

became a program of the Texas Book Festival and was renamed the Texas Teen Book

Festival. One of the largest gatherings of its kind anywhere, the annual Fest takes place

in the fall. The 2020 Texas Teen Book Festival will take place virtually from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, during the Texas Book Festival.

For more information, see texasteenbookfestival.org.

This article originally appeared on the Austin Patch
Tranform Zimbabwe leader Jacob Ngarivhume and investigating journalist, Hopewell Chinono, who are facing charges of inciting public violence, are currently appearing in court.

The duos legal attorneys claim that the two were abducted from their homes by suspected state security agents.

Beatrice Mtetwa, representing Chinono, said indications are that his client was abducted by people who broke into his Chisipite home in Harare. Members of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights - Gift Mtisi and Douglas Coltart  are also representing Chinono.

Chinono and Ngarivhume are facing charges of contravening Section 187 (1) (a) as read with section 37 (1) (a) (i) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9:23, incitement to participate in public violence.

Section 187 (1)(a) stipulates that any person who, in any manner, communicates with another person intending by the communication to persuade or induce the other person to commit a crime, whether in terms of this Code or any other enactment; or realising that there is a real risk or possibility that the other person may be persuaded or induced by the communication to commit a crime, whether in terms of this Code or any other enactment; shall be guilty of incitement to commit the crime concerned.

Section 37 subsection (1)(a)(1) also stipulates that any person who acts together with one or more other persons present with him or her in any place or at any meeting with the intention or realising that there is a real risk or possibility of forcibly disturbing the peace, security or order of the public or any section of the public shall be guilty of participating in a gathering with intent to promote public violence, a breach of the peace or bigotry, as the case may be, and be liable to a fine not exceeding level ten or imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years or both.

The crime of participating in a gathering with intent to promote public violence, a breach of the peace or bigotry is committed whether the action constituting it is spontaneous or planned in advance, and whether the place or meeting where it occurred is public or private.

According to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the law enforcement agents alleged that Chinono allegedly posted various messages on his Twitter account using the handle @daddyhope between May 2020 and July 2020 calling upon Zimbabweans across the country to engage in acts of public violence against the government on 31 July 2020.

The journalist allegedly posted several messages on Twitter which read; @Ngarivhume and many others have come to put their hands up and said they will lead anti-looting demo on 31 July, Zimbabwe will never be free from looters through elections it is just a waste of time and If you feel like shouting#zanuPFMustGo and Mnangagwa and his regime has failed, how they will go will be determined by history and yet Mnangagwa refuses change will come by any means.

ZRP members alleged that by posting such messages Chinono intended to disturb the peace, security or order of the public.

The law enforcement agents also raided Chinonos residence late on Monday evening looking for some gadgets, including laptops and mobile phone handsets.

Ngarivhume, who is represented by Moses Nkomo of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, allegedly incited Zimbabweans to revolt against President Mnangagwa.

Ngarivhume posted a message on twitter a few hours before he was arrested saying, When I proposed a national demonstration I knew the risks. But it is sickening for the state to pretend to care about COVID 19 lives yet send me messages threatening to kill me and my family.
Donald Trump arrives to address a news briefing on the coronavirus at the White House in Washington, DC: REUTERS

Donald Trump referred to the coronavirus four times during a rather subdued and short White House briefing on the pandemic, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi soon said she has her own name for the disease.

"It is a pandemic that has gotten worse before it will get better because of his inaction, and in fact, clearly, it is the 'Trump virus,'" the California Democrat told CNN after Mr Trump left the White House briefing room.

Her comments came after Mr Trump spoke to reporters for just 25 minutes, a drastically pared version of the coronavirus briefings from this spring that sometimes pushed the two-hour mark -- and caused ample political headaches for the White House when the president would get angry with reporters or make gaffes like advising Americans to inject themselves with disinfectants to kill the virus.

Mr Trump, for one evening at least, had a more measured tone about the pandemic. When a radio reporter noted he seemed to be offering a "more realistic" outlook as cases are surging in Sun Belt states, Mr Trump nodded.

"It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better," he said. "Something I don't like saying about things  but that's the way it is."

Ms Pelosi dismissed what was immediately reported on cable news and online by some outlets as the president's "new tone" and "new approach." Those reports, however, ignored his previous briefings in which he sounded more measured only to erupt in the following days.

"If he had said months ago, 'Let's wear masks, let's socially distance,' instead of having rallies and political whatever they were, then more people would have followed his lead," she said. "He's the president of the United States."

She said Mr Trump should have had a serious and measured stance all along, "instead of setting a bad example, making it like a manhood thing not to wear a mask."

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Despite his one-night swerve towards something appearing traditionally presidential, Mr Trump did again repeat his view that the virus soon will "disappear."

Cases are increasing rapidly down south, with states freezing or rolling back their steps to re-open.

There are at least 3.9m coronavirus cases in the United States, and at least 141,000 deaths, according to The Johns Hopkins University. But some federal and independent experts say both figures could actually by 3 times to 12 times higher.

The president was asked Tuesday evening if he feels responsible for what he predicted will be a worsening situation. He opted to try sharing the blame instead, a departure from almost every modern president adopting the "buck stops here" mantra first expressed by President Harry S Truman.

"Well, the virus will disappear. It will disappear. I think that, I always like to say, as, you know, either way, when you look at it, the governors are working with me," he replied. "I'm working with the governors. We're working hand in hand. I think we're all responsible. I view it as a team. Very good relationships with the governors. Very, very good relationships.

"I could say I'm fully responsible. But, you know, one day, we had a virus come in, and I closed the borders, did a lot of things that were very good. In fact, Dr [Anthony] Fauci said we saved tens of thousands of lives when I closed the border," Mr Trump said. "And nobody wanted to do it. I wanted to do it. We closed the border to China. We put on the ban. We didn't want people coming in from heavily infected China."

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A new program that would allow high school students to earn an associate degree for free will launch at Port Richmond High School -- in partnership with the College of Staten Island (CSI) in Willowbrook -- at the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

Borough President James Oddo, Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza, College of Staten Island President William Fritz and Port Richmond High School Principal Andrew Greenfield made the announcement on Wednesday that the six-year program Pathways to Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH, will launch at Port Richmond High School, Elm Park, this school year.
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The Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent riots by Antifa, the Democrat party's domestic terrorist arm, have shown Americans what leftism is  an ugly combination of social and government coercion, racism, violence, and anti-Americanism. It's also revealed that the American left has been using American blacks as a vehicle for political power without any regard for actually improving black people's lives. Instead, the left destroys their communities and doubles down on damaging policies.

What few have pointed out, though, is the way BLM protests have revealed the damage that decades of leftist messaging have visited on straight, young, white women. To set the stage, here are some videos of the hysterical young white women who keep showing up in the front row of the Black Lives Matter movement, whether screaming at police, arguing with black people, rioting, or groveling:

If they weren't shitty parents Portland wouldn't be burning every night. https://t.co/Ibiy2WVCeR  Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) July 19, 2020

Some of the moms lauded in the media joined in on trying to break into the Portland federal courthouse. #PortlandRiots #PortlandMoms #antifa pic.twitter.com/GdaIj0NzB7  Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 21, 2020

Me and @ShemekaMichelle at the North Carolina State Capitol.



I was coming here to be a nerd and add this to my collection of State Capitol selfies when we ran into a #BlackLivesMatter protest...



with NO BLACK PEOPLE! 



Should we go over there & ruin their day right now?  pic.twitter.com/tuPwkNKuYL  Benji Irby  (@realBenjiirby) June 27, 2020

Those videos are just a fraction of the footage showing frenzied white women taking the lead in BLM. They are deeply involved in this movement and in the ugliest way possible  and therein lies a sad tale of the leftist takeover of straight, white women.

The root problem is that these women are receiving mixed messages that would make even the strongest person go crazy. Beginning in high school, or even earlier, they're told endlessly that they're both victim and oppressor.

These mixed messages make straight white girls distinct from other students. White boys are told they're evil, toxic oppressors of both women and minorities. It's an ugly message, but a consistent one. Boys lucky enough to have countervailing influences shake it off and become the men they should be. The boys who don't have better influences, interestingly enough, become feminized, even if they're not gay, as if trying to escape that awful toxic masculinity.

Meanwhile, everyone who is non-white and/or non-straight, whether male or female, or something else, is told that he, she, or it is a victim. White privilege, racism, homophobia, transgenderism, misogyny  all of them define how non-white and/or non-straight people suffer endlessly at the hands of straight whites.

And then there are the straight, white girls. On the one hand, they're...well, white and straight. That means they are evil oppressors who have benefited unfairly from white privilege. In the morality play that is leftism, they owe the world big-time. On the other hand, they're women, which means men have victimized them from time immemorial to the present.

That relationship with men is made more toxic by the fact that the young women are told simultaneously (a) that, as liberated women, they should be part of the hook-up culture and (b) that, as biological women, they're the victims of all men's rapacious, rapey sexuality. Given these mixed messages, it's no wonder that these confused young women willingly sleep with the guy at night and then accuse him of rape in the morning. Others avoid this confusion by embracing a trendy lesbianism.

These same women are also betrayed by the leftist culture's refusal to accept that motherhood is (a) biological destiny and (b) worthy insofar as creating and raising a human being does give meaning to life.

Once upon a time, women had no life choice other than motherhood. In a prefree market, pre-industrial world, if one ignores the infinitesimally small number of wealthy women, any search for meaning in life was overwhelmed by the endless struggle to survive. Women didn't have time to compare their lives to men, especially because the men were also fighting for survival against the untamed forces of nature and other men.

With the industrial era and the development of free-market capitalism, things changed. In the West, ordinary people had time for leisure, contemplation, and the search for meaning.

That fundamental change led to the post-industrial, pre-modern cult of motherhood. Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, who lived in Rome in the Second Century B.C., leaped into prominence. People in the 18th and 19th centuries loved that, when catty friends asked why Cornelia wasn't wearing jewels, she pointed to her sons and said, "These are my jewels."

Today's young women are told to focus on a career. In college, though, they take liberal arts classes that don't prepare them for anything useful but do reinforce their status as both victims and oppressors. They leave college, uneducated and unskilled, which leads them to unfulfilling jobs. At those jobs, they work hard while dating frantically. When they find the right man, they get pregnant, drop out of the job market, and resent their husbands' careers. They take all the energy that was meant for their professional success and pour it into hyper-motherhood and activism. (See those raging Portland moms above.)

None of this is healthy; it is, instead, tragic. Straight white women hate themselves for being white; hate their men for being oppressors; hate their meaningless careers; and, even though they love their children, they hate the seeming meaninglessness of motherhood. This profound cognitive dissonance has finally found its most disturbing outlet in their shrill, existential screams on the streets of the Black Lives Matter protests.

Image: Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, by Philipp Friedrich Hetsch.
Andhra Pradesh Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan on Wednesday directed that the state government follow the high court judgment of May 29 ordering reinstatement of retired IAS officer Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar as the state election commissioner (SEC).

A communication to this effect was sent to chief secretary Neelam Sawhney from the Raj Bhavans secretariat in the morning.

The latest development is a setback on the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government which has been waging a prolonged legal battle with Ramesh Kumar after sacking him through an ordinance on April 10.

The Governors directions follow Ramesh Kumars representation to him on Tuesday requesting that he be restored as the SEC as per the directions of the state high court.

The Raj Bhavan communique said in pursuance of the representation given by Ramesh Kumar and the instructions given by the high court in the contempt case on July 17, the Governor was directing the government for taking necessary action as per the directions of the court in its order dated May 29.

While there was no response from the Jagan government to the Governors orders till afternoon, an official in the CMO familiar with the development said the matter was referred to Advocate General Sriram Subrahmanyam for obtaining the legal position.

In the communique, the Governor had nowhere asked the state government to reinstate Ramesh Kumar. It is not a direction to restore his position. He only asked the government to implement the verdict of the high court. Since the state government had challenged the high courts order in the Supreme Court, he cannot be reinstated as SEC, the official said.

The Jagan government had moved the Supreme Court again on Monday, seeking a stay on the high court taking up the contempt petition filed by Ramesh Kumar. It argued that the high court could not take up such a contempt petition at a time when the matter was pending before the apex court.

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Cancer researcher Adam Godzik, an expert on big data analysis and computational biology, has been named the Bruce D. and Nancy B. Varner Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at the University of California, Riverside.

A professor of biomedical sciences in the UCR School of Medicine, Godzik came to UCR in October 2018 from the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, which conducts biological research benefitting human health. After receiving his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Warsaw in Poland, Godzik did postdoctoral training at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. He has authored or coauthored more than 350 peer-reviewed research papers and written several popular bioinformatics algorithms. He is a member of a team that recently identified a new potential drug target in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

"Dr. Godzik has made significant contributions in the cancer field and he is so deserving of the Bruce D. and Nancy B. Varner Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research," said Deborah Deas, the Mark and Pam Rubin Dean and chief executive officer for clinical affairs at the UCR School of Medicine. "From his technical expertise in the development of databases on immunity networks in cancer, to his leadership on multiple international review panels and program committees, he continues to serve as a leading voice. I'm so incredibly proud of Dr. Godzik's noteworthy achievements in cancer research."

UCR's newest endowed chair is made possible by a $1 million gift to the university by Bruce D. Varner, lifelong advocate for higher education, and his late wife, Nancy B. Varner. The gift was matched by UC with $500,000.

A philanthropist and prominent Riverside attorney, Bruce Varner voiced support early for the creation of the UCR School of Medicine. He was appointed to the UC Board of Regents in 2006 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to a 12-year term, beginning in 2006. He served on nearly every committee on the Board of Regents as well as on several executive search committees, including the one recommending Kim Wilcox as UCR chancellor. He chaired the UC Board of Regents from 2013-2015.

Varner remains active in many civic and volunteer associations, including the California State University, San Bernardino; the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Council; and the board of directors of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. He has served continuously as a member of the UCR Foundation Board of Trustees since 1994.

Raised in San Luis Obispo, Varner earned his bachelor's degree in political science from UC Santa Barbara. After earning his law degree from UC Hastings, he became a founding partner of Varner & Brandt, LLP.

Born in Chicago, Nancy Varner earned her bachelor's degree in nursing from Loma Linda University and spent her early career as a registered nurse. She married Bruce Varner in 1975. She served on, and co-founded, various organizations, including Santa Claus, Inc., Assistance League, the Loma Linda University Children's Hospital Foundation Board, and the Big Hearts for Little Hearts Guild. She also launched the Believe Walk that raises money to help persons living with cancer.

In 2006, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She underwent treatment and began to help other patients in her community who were living with the disease. In 2008, she helped form the Inland Women Fighting Cancer Committee and began to support and encourage people living with cancer. She died in June 2019 after a long battle with the disease. Soon after her death, Redlands Community Hospital named its imaging center for women's health the Nancy Varner Center for Women's Health.

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The University of California, Riverside (http://www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 24,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of almost $2 billion. To learn more, email news@ucr.edu.
CARROLLTON  Nearly four months after being activated by the Illinois Air National Guard to provide legal support for Illinois COVID-19 response, Lt. Col. Matt Goetten was released from active duty on July 17.

Goetten was one of nearly 2,000 Illinois Army and Air National Guardsmen activated since March to help fight the pandemic. His duty locations included Springfield and Chicago where he provided legal counsel to Illinois National Guard leaders and field units. Additionally, he collaborated with civilian agency counterparts on the domestic response.
A simple blood test can detect five types of cancer up to four years before any symptoms appear, scientists claim.

The 'liquid biopsy', called PanSeer, analyses blood samples for tiny DNA fragments released by stomach, oesophagus, bowel, lung and liver tumours.

Research found it could detect the different types of cancer up to four years before standard diagnosis methods.

The scientists behind the study said it was unlikely the test was predicting cancer, but instead spotting tumours which had not yet caused symptoms.

Liquid biopsies are hoped to revolutionise cancer diagnostics by being able to pick up on slow-growing cancers years in advance without having to use invasive methods.

Current screening techniques involve imaging tests or conventional biopsies - which see part of an organ surgically removed to be inspected for signs of the disease.

A new blood test can detect five types of cancer up to four years before symptoms appear, according to a new study. Stock picture

HOW TO TELL IF A LUMP COULD BE CANCER Cancer Research UK says all lumps or swellings which don't go away should be taken seriously and deserve a doctor's opinion. Most cancers produce tumours, which are growing lumps of cells which can produce noticeable lumps if they're close to the surface of the skin. If you cannot explain where a lump has come from and it's not connected to a physical injury like a bruise, it may be cause for concern. Cancerous lumps are usually hard and painless to touch, although they may ache at times. Lumps which can be felt usually appear in the breasts, testicles, neck or armpits, but potentially also on the arms or legs. If the appearance of the lump is accompanied by feelings of severe tiredness, night sweats, breathlessness, or unexplained weight loss it could be a sign of cancer. Always visit a doctor if you are worried about a lump or the symptoms above. Sources: Cancer Research UK; Cleveland Clinic Advertisement

Liquid biopsies have become the focus of research teams around the world.

But few have been able to spot tumours before symptoms occur.

Experts have praised the 'exciting' results of the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications.

But they warned it is too soon to say the pioneering test actually works and called for larger trials on thousands of patients to confirm the early results.

The new test scours DNA of blood plasma to look for unique signatures given off by tumours, called methyl groups.

Professor Kun Zhang, one of the authors on the study and based at the University of California, San Diego, said: 'The ultimate goal would be performing blood tests like this routinely during annual health check-ups.

'But the immediate focus is to test people at higher risk, based on family history, age or other known risk factors.'

The authors analysed samples of plasma  a straw-coloured liquid found in the blood  from 605 people who did not show any symptoms of any of the five different cancers.

Almost 200 of the participants were later diagnosed with one of the diseases.

The scientists also looked at specimens from an additional 223 diagnosed cancer patients to train the test so it knew how to spot tumours by scouring the blood.

Results showed PanSeer was able to spot cancer in 95 per cent of the participants who did not have any symptoms when the samples were collected and were only diagnosed with the disease later.

It also flagged cancer in 88 per cent of the samples from 113 patients already diagnosed with the disease.

The technique involves spotting the tell-tale signs of cancer based on very small levels of tumour DNA circulating in the blood.

In addition, the test correctly identified healthy samples 95 per cent of the time.

Blood tests to detect cancer have become the focus of numerous scientific studies in the recent years as they offer a way to screen patients without the need for invasive surgery.

But the researchers said their work is unique because they had access to blood samples from patients who did not have symptoms.

This, they said, allowed them to develop a test that 'can find cancer markers much earlier than conventional diagnosis methods'.

The researchers wrote: 'These results demonstrate that cancer can be non-invasively detected up to four years before current standard of care.'
Santoshi, the wife of martyr Colonel Santosh Babu, who was among the 20 Indian soldiers killed in the Galwan Valley clash, was on Wednesday appointed as Deputy Collector in Telangana. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao handed over the appointment letter to Santoshi at Pragathi Bhavan.

He instructed the officials concerned to give posting to Santoshi in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas. The Chief Minister asked his secretary Smita Sabharwal to be with Santoshi till she gets proper training and settles down with her job.

KCR also had lunch with 20 family members of Santoshi who accompanied her to Pragathi Bhavan and enquired about their well-being. He assured that the government will always stand with Colonel Santosh Babu`s family.

Ministers Jagdeesh Reddy, Prashanth Reddy, Niranjan Reddy, MP from united Nalgonda District Badugula Lingaiah, MLAs Gyaderi Kishore, Bollam Mallaiah Yadav, Chirumarthi Lingaiah, Saidireddy, Zilla Parishad chairperson Deepika Yugandhar Rao, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, DGP M Mahender Reddy, Chief Advisor Rajiv Sharma were also present at Pragathi Bhavan.

On June 19, KCR had announced an ex-gratia of Rs five crore to the family of Colonel Babu. The CM had also announced a residential plot and Group 1 job for his wife, adding that he himself would personally go to the Colonel Babus house and hand over the help. He had said that he would extend all help to the family.

CM Rao had also said that the state government would give Rs 10 lakh each, through the Union Defence Ministry, to the 19 other soldiers who were martyred. The entire country should stand by the military personnel guarding our countrys borders. We have to support those martyred in their line of duty and help personnels family members. With such acts, one should instil self-confidence among the Army personnel and security to the family members. We have to send a message that the entire country is with them," the CM had said while interacting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video conference.

"The Central government extends help to those martyred. But the states should also to extend their help. It is only then that the Army personnel and their family members would have confidence that the country is standing by them. Exhibit the symbol of unity. Though there are problems with the coronavirus, one should cut expenditure somewhere and work for the welfare of the defence forces, he had added.
A person being injected as part of the first human trials in the UK to test a potential coronavirus vaccine, untaken by Oxford University. (AP)

Young people would be less willing to have a coronavirus vaccine than older people, a new poll has found.

Of 18-24s, 67% said they would be happy to have a vaccine for COVID-19, compared to 81% of over 65s, according to a YouGov survey of 4,302 adults.

Meanwhile, 66% of 25-49s and 70% of 50-65s said they would have the vaccine when it became available.

And 8% of those aged 18-24 said they would refuse a vaccine, while 24% said they didnt know.

Overall, 71% of people said they would take the vaccine, compared with 10% who wouldn't and 19% who said they did not know.

Overall, 71% of British people said they would have a coronavirus vaccine. (YouGov)

A scientist at work at the manufacturing laboratory where a vaccine against COVID-19 is being produced at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. (PA)

The results of the survey come after it was revealed on Monday that the COVID-19 vaccine being developed at the University of Oxford is safe and induces an immune reaction.

Researchers say their tests have revealed the jab could provide double protection against coronavirus, meaning it prompts a response in both parts of the immune system.

The early-stage trial found that the vaccine is safe and causes few side effects.

While hopes are growing for a potential vaccine that would see life returning to normal, Englands chief medical officer said it should not be compulsory to take it.

He told the Commons health and social care committee that making the vaccine mandatory was not his preferred option.

Read more: Three reasons scientists are cautious about the Oxford coronavirus vaccine

Forcing people to have vaccines does not strike me as a good answer under any circumstances, he said.

We may well get a vaccine that in any case protects the individual but has no benefit to society  its simply to protect the individual.

In which case, its entirely a matter of choice as to whether someone wishes to be protected against this very potentially significant disease.

Whitty also said he does not believe the vaccine will be available by Christmas, adding: We are incredibly excited by and proud of what the UK has done leading the way on vaccine science here and funding vaccines elsewhere,.

Story continues

Read more: Head of UK vaccines taskforce 'optimistic' we could have drug by end of year

But no one should be under any illusions  the chance of us getting a vaccine before Christmas that is actually highly effective are, in my view, very low.

Whittys comments came after health secretary Matt Hancock left open the option that Britons could be forced to take a coronavirus vaccine.

Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said a coronavirus vaccine should not be mandatory. (PA)

During a briefing in May, Hancock said the government had not addressed the issue yet.

He told reporters: We will only recommend a vaccine if it is safe and that means if we get a vaccine  and I very much hope we will  and people are asked to vaccinate, then they absolutely should, because we will only do it on the basis of clinical advice that its safe.

The question of whether its mandatory is not one we have addressed yet.

We are still some time off a vaccine being available. I would hope  given the scale of this crisis, the overwhelming need for us to get through this and get the country back on its feet, and the very positive impact a vaccine would have  that everybody would have the vaccine.

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The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate for Effutu in the Central Region, James Kofi Annan, has accused police in the area of bias.

It follows what he says is the poor conduct of the police in the ongoing mass voter registration exercise.

The parliamentary candidate was arrested and charged with offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace.

He particularly accused the Police Commander, DSP Samuel Okanta of doing the bidding of the NDC's opponents.

The police are clearly biased especially the command which is not neutral in this registration exercise. On Monday, Afenyo Markin [Effutu MP] himself physically assaulted two of our members at the registration centre. I reported the case to the police and expected that they would have taken the matter up to court, but they didnt do that. But when it got to my case, I was taken to court within one hour. So the police are not neutral, and the commander has shown clearly that he is against the NDC and he is doing the bidding of our opponent, he complained.

Arrest

James Kofi Annan was arrested for allegedly taking on the Chairman of the voters' registration challenge committee in Winneba in the Central Region.

According to the Chairman of the Committee, Samuel Asiedu Okanta who also happens to be the Acting Commandant of the Police Command and Staff College in Winneba, the parliamentary candidate, at about 9:30 am on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, walked into a meeting of the committee and asked the Municipal Electoral Commission why the committee had started hearing a case without the representative of the NDC.

In a charge sheet, Okanta said when he approached the parliamentary candidate to ask him to address any grievance to him [the Chairman of the committee], the aspirant replied saying if you are the Chairman of the Committee and so what? You are the reason why we are not enjoying peace in Winneba Town.

According to the facts of the case as presented by the police, the comment by the candidate was with the intent to provoke breach of peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned.

The NDC candidate was put before court and has since been granted bail.

---citinewsroom
When Jessamyn Stanley started doing yoga, she felt completely out of place.

I was almost always the only fat person, the only Black person, like I'm very physically different from everyone else in the room, said Stanley, 33. It was very alienating.

Despite wanting to quit, Stanley stuck with yoga for the emotional benefits. Nearly a decade later, Durham, North Carolina-based Stanley is a yoga teacher, author of Every Body Yoga, and a renowned body-positive wellness influencer who uses her hard-won visibility to flip existing narratives about who belongs in the yoga and wellness world.

Wellness, however, still hasnt come far in terms of inclusion.

To this day, especially if I go to a random class with people that I don't know, there's still a lot of prejudice, Stanley said. Its like, theres a fat, Black, queer woman, what is she doing here?

The whitewashing of wellness

The reported $4.5 trillion wellness industry is all about self-care, but with $100 yoga pants, studio classes, imagery of long-torsoed, slender  mostly white  women and positive vibes only platitudes, self-care seems like its only for a select few. Those who are left out are often the people who could most use the benefits of practices like yoga, which has been shown to improve mental health and stress.

Black people need self-care more than ever."

Black women in particular deal with a variety of stressors from higher maternal mortality rates to racist microaggressions and police violence, and also receive less mental health care than their white counterparts. All of this chronic stress can lead to physical problems like hypertension and diabetes. Wellness practices like yoga can make a difference  but if only they actually seem like viable options.

Black people need self-care more than ever. Its something that we really struggle with, because it does feel like we have to be constantly plugged in, especially as this fight for change is happening, said Morgan Fykes, a Washington, D.C.-based yoga teacher and practitioner who is Black.

Story continues

Despite the need, Black and brown communities are largely ignored by the wellness industry.

Mainstream wellness is still very white and very elitist, said Chrissy King, a Black Brooklyn-based fitness expert who runs an anti-racism workshop for wellness practitioners. By and large, they still only market to white, thin women.

View More: https://taylorgagephotography.pass.us/chrissy

That particular coupling of wellness with weight loss in the U.S. is something that alienates people and cultures who arent in pursuit of being thin, added King, who points out that movement and healthy living has numerous benefits that have nothing to do with reaching an idealized weight.

I think when we start looking at yoga and the brands around yoga and who gets pushed to the front, it's continuously this image of a petite, super flexible white woman. It's the Lululemon woman, said Fykes. Its also about the people studios hire, how they welcome guests, the questions that they ask," she added. And if you are the owner of a space and you look around, you can't tell me that you don't notice that everyone who comes in looks exactly the same, especially in a city that doesn't match that.

Related:

The irony is that the dominant forms of yoga practiced in the U.S. come from India, where yoga requires no fancy clothing and is often taught and practiced by potbellied old men  the antithesis to American yoga imagery. Theres no data specifically about race and yoga in the U.S. In fact, a 2016 Yoga in America report included myriad demographic data about practitioners and studio owners, but notably made no mention of race.

Toxic positivity

In addition to whitewashed imagery, the wellness world embraces certain mantras that can do more harm than good.

Fitness instructors everywhere espouse generic platitudes, telling people to find gratitude or exhale love." While the positive vibes only affirmations can feel like a welcome escape for some, its the spiritual equivalent of I dont see color. Black women explained that it can often feel like glossing over their experiences  and they cant bring their whole selves to the practice.

With all of these shootings, police brutality, when you're telling me to clear my mind, I cant do that. I feel like that's not taken into consideration when I've been in white yoga and meditation spaces, said Sevon Blake, a Black 29-year-old baker in Queens, New York. And then its just bam bam bam do this pose, do that pose. Theres no real connection or acknowledgement.

There's a level of toxic positivity that we never really talk about, Fykes added. We would all love to be positive all the time, but when your positivity comes as a response to real trauma or pain that people are having, then you're trying to use your positivity to erase instead of empower.

Jesal Parikh (left) and Tejal Patel (right) created a podcast called

Its part of what Tejal Patel and Jesal Parikh call spiritual bypassing. The two Indian-American yoga instructors expose the yoga industrys exclusionary practices in their podcast Yoga Is Dead and also teach classes in New York City specifically addressing the needs of BIPOC participants. Yoga is particularly rooted in spiritual wellbeing, they say, as opposed to, say, an aerobic class. Without that, said Parikh, youre just doing stretches.

Yoga is literally the opposite of escapism; its a trauma-informed practice, said Patel. What yoga tells you is to be present, to work through the emotional discomfort. So if you're buying into a studio culture that only makes you feel good, that only tells you you're OK, even when you're not feeling well, you're not actually gaining the real long-term benefit of yoga.

Changing the narrative

The women interviewed for this story are trying to make yoga and wellness more inclusive by calling out the industry, creating safe spaces for people of all cultures and increasing their own visibility so people know that wellness is for any and every body.

Industries from tech to media have been grappling with their role in benefitting from and promoting systematic racism, but now the corporate gatekeepers in the wellness industry are having these conversations, too.

Jessamyn Stanley, a yoga instructor in North Carolina, encourages students in her yoga classes to ask

For the first time, we're starting to see a shift, said King, who teaches two virtual workshops, one on how to be anti-racist, and one specifically for how wellness practitioners can be more inclusive  everything from language (like why terms like spirit animal shouldnt be used) to tips for making culturally sensitive health recommendations. People in the wellness industry are now open to talking about and learning about their own implicit bias, how they can be anti-racist, and how the wellness industry really hasn't been inclusive.

The issue is how to move past performative wokeness to make an intentional effort for inclusion, she said.

Related: Step by step, you can get there from here.

Inclusion starts at the top  from the boards of directors and executive leadership at wellness companies, to those who are chosen as experts to speak at wellness conferences, King said. We need to avoid tokenization, where companies think they can put a Black face on something and the work is done.

Stanley experiences this too often.

I'll get studios from around the world, reach out to me asking, Can we use your photos to promote our classes? We don't have any teachers who look like you, Stanley said. They literally just see it as a PR issue. Theyre not actually hiring teachers of color or changing their leadership. They just want to be close to what's cool. What's popular. But will they actually want to work within the organization to understand and dismantle the systemic racism that is at the root of everything? That remains to be seen.
Journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by miscreants in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad on Monday (July 20) night, passed away on Wednesday (July 22). Joshi was shot in the head and was admitted to Yashoda Hospital in Ghaziabad where he succumbed to his injuries.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday announced financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh to Joshi's family. He has also announced to give government job to the late journalist's wife and ordered free education for Joshi's kids.

Joshi was attacked by around 10 people at Mata Colony in Ghaziabad's Pratap Vihar. According to doctor, the veins in Joshi's head had got badly damaged due to the bullet injury.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi slammed the Uttar Pradesh over Joshi's murder, saying the journalist was killed for opposing sexual assault of his niece. "Journalist Vikram Joshi was killed for opposing molestation of his niece. My condolences to the bereaved family. They [UP govt] had promised Ram Raj, instead gave Gunda Raj, tweeted Rahul Gandhi.

                          ,     Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 22, 2020

The Ghaziabad Police on Tuesday (July 21, 2020) arrested 9 people including the main accused Ravi in connection with thus matter. The journalist was attacked when he was travelling with his daughters on his motorcycle on Monday night.

Joshi worked at a local newspaper. According to family members of the victims, some boys have misbehaved with Joshi's niece 4-5 days ago. A complaint in this regard was also filed at Vijay Nagar police station but the police did not take any action against the accused boys. Joshi's family members claimed that it is likely that the same boys would have attacked him.

Ghaziabad police said on Tuesday that they have arrested all the accused with the help of a CCTV in which the incident was caught. Pratap Vihar Police station's in-charge has also been suspended for dereliction of duty.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 19:19:30|Editor: huaxia

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LIVINGSTONE, Zambia, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China's policy toward Africa demonstrates a win-win situation and Africans need to view China's presence and the China-Africa partnership in a more objective way, Zambian businessmen have said.

Dil Vashi, corporate development manager at Toronto-based CO2 GRO Inc., called on African countries and people to accept and embrace China's cooperation with Africa as it presents a win-win situation.

He rejected the "neo-colonialism" fallacy against China, saying that Africa needs to understand that China is not a threat to the continent and will never be confrontational.

According to him, China has accumulated wealth after years of high-speed growth. "Capital doesn't just sit, capital needs to work and they (Chinese companies) have identified investment opportunities in places where they can get a high return," he explained.

With Chinese investments in Africa, people there could gain more experience and learn new skills to better engage in economic activities, Vashi said, noting that it is not a zero-sum situation.

For Musaba Chailunga, founder and president of Object Oriented Development in Africa (OOD Africa), said it was a pity that some Africans view the presence of China on the continent negatively.

The OOD Africa, a market-based solution organization for economic development and social change, focuses on training developing communities on the application of social enterprise.

For some, China helping African countries build infrastructure such as railways and stadiums "is a form of colonialism, which I don't agree with," Chailunga added. Enditem
Im the weird breed of person who actually loves to travel. Not just jetting off to new cities and sunny beaches, but I actually like the act of traveling itself. Simply going to the airport, walking through the terminal and people watching. I even like flying on planes.

When I took a job at NBC News nearly five years ago and learned that my position would involve travel, I was over the moon. Since then, Ive flown thousands of miles all over the world. Usually hopping on planes at least once a week, flying to various assignments in new cities, small towns and throughout rural America, places that I never would have seen on my own.

But four months ago, that all came to a screeching halt.

The coronavirus hit and I was grounded. No more travel for work or fun. I was now stuck in my 500-square-foot New York City apartment without a single plane ticket in my future. That lasted about three months for me.

In late May, I got an invitation from a dear friend to spend some time in her cabin secluded in Tennessee. I was nervous to travel, but I needed to get out of my apartment for the sake of my mental health. Plus, after being sick with COVID-19 in March, I had tested positive for the antibodies. While I still had no guarantee of immunity, I felt slightly better about my safety.

I stocked my trusty backpack with masks, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes and decided to go for it. The journey would entail flying from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Atlanta, then finally to to Knoxville, Tennessee. It felt ambitious, but I was ready.

I arrived at LaGuardia and witnessed something I had never seen before: The airport was empty. With the exception of some airline agents, TSA employees and barely a handful of other passengers, the airport that usually feels like a zoo was a ghost town. Everyone was wearing a mask and there were hand sanitizer stations everywhere.

The usually bustling LaGuardia Airport was basically empty. (TODAY)

I got through security in record time. Most stores and eateries were closed. Fortunately, I brought my own snacks.

Story continues

The flight to Atlanta wasnt empty, but it wasnt full. I strategized that it would be best to board last. This way I wouldnt have to encounter other passengers walking by me as they boarded. Even though there were clear markings on the ground to remind people to social distance as they lined up at the gate, I watched as many ignored it and the gate agent needed to repeatedly make reminder announcements.

Finally, I boarded and as soon as I walked on the plane, I was greeted by a cheerful flight attendant who gave me a sanitizing wipe. When I got to my seat, I did what I call the double wipe down. First, I wiped down the seat itself, paying special attention to the arm and head rests, then moved to the seat belt, window shade, TV screen and the air conditioning valves. I folded the wipe and placed it back in its packaging so as not to contaminate anything else. Then I used a second wipe to do my hands and phone.

Thankfully the airline that I fly is very good at not booking their flights 100%. No middle seats were booked and people seemed to be staggered a bit. I worried that wearing my mask for the entire flight would be uncomfortable. But during the two-hour plus flight to Atlanta, it didnt bother me a bit. I even snuck in a little plane nap. At one point, flight attendants gave out bags with a small bottle of water, snacks and another wipe. But there was no aisle service and certainly no in-flight alcoholic beverages.

In lieu of beverage or snack service, attendants handed out these bags. (Lauren Dunn)

When I arrived in Atlanta, I could sense a difference immediately. While in New York, 100% of people at the airport were wearing masks. In Atlanta, that number was more like 70%. While busier than LaGuardia, there were still relatively few people in the terminal. Most restaurants and eateries were closed.

When I finally got to Knoxville, it was a different world. As I got off the plane, I noticed that even fewer people were wearing masks. And the airport seemed a bit more lively. Clearly, I had left my New York City bubble.

Since that trip, I have flown a few more times for both work and fun. Ive noticed that the number of people traveling has ticked up a bit, which actually makes me a little more nervous to fly. But all in all, flying right now is a pretty great experience. While the empty airport seemed eerie at first, its now a welcome feeling to not have to fight through travelers or worry about long security lines. There hasnt even been any traffic to get to the airport. So many of the things that used to make traveling so rough are now all but eliminated.

Yet as we now see new surges of the virus in hotspots across the U.S., Im definitely rethinking travel. Even with the added precautions, Im still nervous.

Ill continue to hole up in my 500-square feet. Ive started taking online Spanish language lessons, which at least helps me to feel like Im in another country  if only for the 30 minutes that the lessons last. I know Ill be back in the air soon. But I think for my next vacation, Ill find a driving destination.
The federal government should take steps against Saudi Arabia and Russias dumping of oil on the American market during the Covid-19 crisis, the chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission has said, after a cross-state government agency passed his resolution that called on Washington to investigate the allegations for oil dumping.

Flooding the market during ongoing negotiations with President Trump and the international community is disingenuous, Wayne Christian said, as quoted by World Oil. More than 100,000 oil and natural gas jobs in the United States have been lost according to Rystad Energy Group. Our federal government must push back against international efforts that harm American energy dominance.

In March and April, Saudi Arabia sent much higher than usual amounts of oil to the United States, with the March average at 516,000 bpda 12-month highand some 14 million bpd shipped to the U.S. during the first week of April alone. Later in April, the Wall Street Journal reported the amount of Saudi crude en route to the United States was seven times the normal intake of Saudi oil by the U.S. in 2019.

The surge in Saudi oil exportsnot just to the U.S.coincided with a colossal demand loss around the world due to the coronavirus pandemic, and some analysts see global oil demand in April crashing by 30 percent, or by 30 million bpd, compared to the worlds typical levels of consumption.

These developments led President Donald Trump to threaten a ban on Saudi oil imports, which would have forced the Kingdom to reroute as much as 40 million barrels of crude.

"After the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the U.S. oil and gas industry, Saudi Arabia shipped 1.3 million barrels a day to our nation, roughly four times February's daily volume and the highest figure since 2014." Wayne Christian said. He did not comment on the inclusion of Russia in the list of oil dumpers.

Russia exported record amount of fuel oil to the United States during the first half of the year, according to a Reuters report, as the U.S. sought to replace Venezuelan oil.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Strong Iran-Russia ties guarantee global peace, security: FM Zarif

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 5:43 PM

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Iran-Russia relations are at their strongest in decades, adding that such sustainable ties will benefit both countries and guarantee global peace and security.

"Today, relations between Iran and Russia are at their highest peak in comparison to the previous decades and we hope that we will be able to maintain these relations all the more powerfully and in a longer-lasting fashion," Zarif said in a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday.

He added that mutual relations "are certainly in line with the two countries' interests and based on mutual respect and will guarantee peace and security in the world."

He hailed Russia's opposition to US unilateral policies against Iran during sessions held at the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The top Iranian diplomat said the vote of Russia and China against the IAEA Board of Governors' anti-Iran resolution and their stern opposition to US attempts to extend the UN Security Council's arms embargo on Tehran indicated "consolidated relations among Iran, Russia and China and their resistance against the US unilateralism."

The stance of China and Russia highlighted their leading role in maintaining the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

China and Russia last month rebuked the UN nuclear agency for giving in to US bullying as the IAEA's Board of Governor passed a resolution critical of Iran for the first time since 2012.

The resolution, submitted by France, Britain and Germany  the three European signatories to the JCPOA  came at a time when the United States is working to extend an arms embargo against Iran as part of Washington's so-called "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran in violation of the JCPOA and the Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorses the accord.

Under the JCPOA, the restrictions imposed on Iran's purchase and sale of arms should be lifted in October

Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif said his current visit is a good opportunity for Iranian and Russian officials to discuss mutual issues and the latest developments in the region, particularly in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Chances to preserve Iran nuclear deal still exist: Lavrov

The Russian foreign minister, for his part, said his meeting with Zarif was an "important stage" in the joint efforts by the remaining members of the JCPOA to maintain this "most important achievement of multilateral diplomacy."

Lavrov emphasized that there are still chances to preserve the international nuclear accord.

"We consider the line that our American colleagues took to completely unravel this important document to be destructive, as has been the case with other documents on non-proliferation," he said.

"Nevertheless, we are confident that chances for the JCPOA to return to a stable course still remain, at least we, like our Iranian friends, are doing our best to this end," the top Russian diplomat pointed out.

Lavrov added that China and the remaining European members of the JCPOA seem to be willing to preserve the agreement as well.

In May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the deal and later re-imposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran, because of it.

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Norfolk Southern Corporation NSC is scheduled to report second-quarter 2020 results on Jul 29, before market open.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter earnings have declined 9% to $1.52 per share over the past 60 days. Moreover, it has an impressive earnings history. The companys earnings have outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the preceding four quarters (missed the same in one). Norfolk Southern has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 6.8%, on average.

Lets discuss the factors that are likely to have influenced the companys second-quarter performance.

As witnessed in the first quarter, freight volumes are likely to have been weak in the June-end quarter, impacting the companys overall performance. Declining shipment volumes stemming from coronavirus-induced issues are likely to get reflected in the companys second-quarter revenues. Also, supply chain disruptions are expected to have affected Norfolk Southerns performance in the to-be-reported quarter.

Apart from the coronavirus-related headwind, coal segment weakness due to low natural gas prices and unfavorable weather conditions is also likely to have affected the companys performance in the June-end quarter.

Intermodal revenues are also expected to have declined due to fall in international volumes from the coronavirus pandemic and excess truck capacity. Moreover, plant shutdowns due to coronavirus are likely to have had put pressure on automotive volumes. The Zacks consensus Estimate for intermodal revenue has declined 9.6% sequentially.

Norfolk Southern Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

Norfolk Southern Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

Norfolk Southern Corporation price-eps-surprise | Norfolk Southern Corporation Quote

Meanwhile, Norfolk Southerns overall performance in the second quarter is likely to have improved owing to low fuel costs. This, in turn, might have improved the operating ratio (operating expenses as a percentage of revenues) and driven the bottom line too. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for operating ratio improved to 69% from its March-end reported figure. Notably, a lower value of this key metric is desirable.

Story continues

What Does the Zacks Model Say?

Our proven model does not predict an earnings beat for Norfolk Southern this time around. This is because a stock needs to have a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Earnings ESP: Norfolk Southern has an Earnings ESP of -5.00% as the Most Accurate Estimate is pegged at $1.44 per share, lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.52. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Norfolk Southern carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), currently.

Highlights of Q1 Earnings

Norfolk Southern's first-quarter 2020 earnings of $2.58 per share (excluding $1.11 from non-recurring items) surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.19. Moreover, the bottom line inched up 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. Railway operating revenues in the quarter under review came in at $2,625 million, edging past the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2,558 million. However, the top line declined 7.8% year over year due to an 11% drop in total volumes owing to weak energy prices and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stocks to Consider

Investors interested in the broader Transportation sector may check out stocks worth considering like Alaska Air Group, Inc. ALK, Southwest Airlines Co. LUV and Air Lease Corporation AL as these also possess the perfect combination to beat on estimates.

Alaska Air has an Earnings ESP of +16.33% and a Zacks Rank #3. This company is set to release second-quarter financial numbers on Jul 23.

Southwest Airlines presently has an Earnings ESP of +19.84% and is a Zacks #3 Ranked player. The company will release second-quarter 2020 results on Jul 23.

Air Lease has an Earnings ESP of +23.32% and is Zacks #3 Ranked at present. The company will release second-quarter 2020 results on Aug 6.

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The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will travel to Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire for their annual summer break in 'early August', Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

Her Majesty, 94, had been self-isolating in Windsor Castle since March, but is now set to travel to Scotland alongside Prince Philip, 99, next month.

Vanity Fair's Katie Nicholl also revealed how Prince Charles, 71, is 'looking forward' to spending time with Prince William, 38, and Kate Middleton, 38, and his grandchildren Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, five, Prince Louis, two, during a 'family holiday' in Scotland in August.

Reports had previously suggested the Queen and Prince Philip were keen to get away for their annual holiday, but would remain socially-distanced from family  who will stay in separate buildings so the royal couple could stay safe from coronavirus.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will travel to Balmoral in early-August for their annual summer holiday, Buckingham Palace has confirmed

The royal couple will leave Windsor Castle, where they have been isolating for the last four months, and travel to Balmoral early next month

Although other members of her family will join them for the traditional summer get-together this time they will not be able to get close to the monarch.

When they get to the 50,000-acre estate in Aberdeenshire she will not host them in the castle, instead staying in other properties on the grounds.

They will be able to meet her for outside activities instead including walks, horse riding and picnics.

A source said a Balmoral bubble of staff numbering some will join the Queen and Philip.

Meanwhile Vanity Fair's Katie Nicholl said the Cambridges would also travel to Scotland next month for a family holiday (pictured, the Duke and Duchess with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis)

Prince Charles and Camilla are also 'looking forward' to joining the family for a holiday in Scotland next month, according to the royal expert

They include Vice-Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt, master of the household; Sir Edward Young, the Queens private secretary, and Paul Whybrew and William Henderson, her pages.

Major Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah, her equerry; Terry Pendry, her head groom; Angela Kelly, the Queens personal assistant and her senior dresser; Jackie Newbold, Kellys PA; and three assistant dressers will also join, according to The Sunday Times.

The Queen has spent a 12-week break at Balmoral for each of the past 68 years of her reign.

Since the coronavirus crisis started, Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh have been in joint isolation at Windsor Castle since the start of lockdown in March.

The Royals at Balmoral back in 2003, with their pet dogs walking in the grounds

They holidayed in Balmoral back in 1960, with the Queen, Prince Philip and their children, Prince Charles, right, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew, seen here

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall recently moved from Birkhall, on the Balmoral estate, to their London home of Clarence House as they lead the royal family in returning to public engagements after lockdown.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge remain at Anmer Hall, Norfolk, with their three children, Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, five, and Prince Louis, two.

The news emerges hours after Prince Philip performed a rare public engagement as he formally handed over his role as Colonel-in-Chief of the infantry regiment The Rifles to the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Queen had been isolating in Windsor Castle and had to hold her audience with the Prime Minister by telephone as the Coronavirus spread around the UK

The Queen rides Balmoral Fern, named after the famous Scottish residence for the Royals

The Duke has been closely associated with The Rifles and its earlier regiments for almost 70 years, but he has now handed over his role to Camilla. Amid extreme social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic, she took part in the second half of the ceremony 100 miles away, at her Highgrove home in Gloucestershire, in a similar event.

Today, Philip stepped out of the castle's Equerries Entrance, smart in his blazer, regimental tie and highly polished brogues, cheerily waving his hand.

The royal - who is a patron, president or a member of more than 780 organisations - has been officially retired since 2017,
Syngenta Group, formed on June 18, 2020 will publish its first half year results on week commencing August 24.

Today, two businesses of Syngenta Group, Syngenta Crop Protection and Syngenta Seeds, have published their half year results.

More detailed financial information on Syngenta AG is available on:www.syngenta.com

About Syngenta Group

Syngenta Group is one of the world's leading agriculture innovation companies, with roots going back more than 250 years. Its 48,000 people across more than 100 countries strive to transform agriculture through breakthrough products and technologies that play a vital role in enabling the food chain to feed the world safely, sustainably and with respect for our planet. Swiss headquartered and Chinese-owned, the Group draws strength from its four business units Syngenta Crop Protection headquartered in Switzerland, Syngenta Seeds headquartered in the United States, ADAMA headquartered in Israel, and Syngenta Group China that provide industry-leading ways to serve customers everywhere.

Data protection is important to us. You are receiving this publication on the legal basis of Article 6 para 1 lit. f GDPR ("legitimate interest"). However, if you do not wish to receive further information about Syngenta Group, just send us a brief informal message and we will no longer process your details for this purpose. You can also find further details in our privacy statement.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements, which can be identified by terminology such as "expect," "would," "will," "potential," "plans," "prospects," "estimated," "aiming," "on track" and similar expressions. Such statements may be subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from these statements. For Syngenta Group, such risks and uncertainties include risks relating to legal proceedings, regulatory approvals, new product development, increasing competition, customer credit risk, general economic and market conditions, compliance and remediation, intellectual property rights, implementation of organizational changes, impairment of intangible assets, consumer perceptions of genetically modified crops and organisms or crop protection chemicals, climatic variations, fluctuations in exchange rates and/or commodity prices, single source supply arrangements, political uncertainty, natural disasters, and breaches of data security or other disruptions of information technology. Syngenta Group assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changed assumptions or other factors.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005946/en/

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Portuguese police have less than two years to make their case against Christian Brueckner for the kidnap and murder of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, her family's lawyer said.

Rogerio Alves said police have only 22 more months and 'time is getting short now' because of a 15-year statute of limitations for prosecutions in Portugal.

Madeleine went missing in 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz. Her parents Kate and Gerry McCann were in a tapas restaurant close by.

Portuguese police have less than two years to make their case against Christian Brueckner for the kidnap and murder of three-year-old Madeleine McCann (pictured), her family's lawyer said

Speaking on McCann: The Hunt for the Prime Suspect on ITV, Alves said: 'We have a 15 years time barrier, even to manslaughter, to homicide, to certain sexual offences  and even to the most serious kind of kidnapping.

'So we are still on time. But time is getting short now.'

The show - set to air at 9pm on Thursday - also addresses the mistakes police made which potentially stopped Brueckner from being a known suspect earlier on.

Rogerio Alves (pictured) said 'time is getting short now' because of a 15-year statute of limitations for prosecutions in Portugal

Last month German police named Brueckner as their prime suspect in the kidnap and murder of Madeleine who vanished while on holiday.

Last month German police named Christian Brueckner (pictured) as their prime suspect in the kidnap and murder of Madeleine who vanished while on holiday

He is currently languishing in a German prison in Kiel on a drug-related sentence.

Detectives in northern Germany have spent weeks making desperate appeals for information to link Brueckner to the youngster's abduction but have not so far secured the vital evidence they need.

Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the investigation, has told the McCanns they have concrete evidence Madeleine is dead, in the biggest break-through in the 13-year-old case.

He said he hoped to be able to charge Brueckner within the next two months  but has added their investigation will not drag on forever.

His lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said it was for detectives to prove he was guilty. As things stand now I do not actually believe there will be any charges, he said. I do not anticipate a prosecution.

Thank God, in our legal system the prosecution has to prove the crime to an accused person and it is not the accused who must exonerate himself.

As long as my client does not know what he is accused of, and on what basis, there is no reason to think otherwise.
OC Sheriffs Department Warns About COVID-19 Contact Tracing Scams

Scammers across the state of California are jumping at the opportunity to monetize the current COVID-19 pandemic by posing as contact tracers and orchestrating fraud schemes using texts and phone calls.

The Orange County Sheriffs Department warned the public on July 13 via Twitter that scams involving fraudulent COVID-19 contact tracers are being reported across the state. The scams are often text messages with a clickable link, the tweet adds.

Clicking the link downloads malware on a mobile device that allows the scammer to steal personal information. Red flags include messages that ask for Social Security numbers or credit card information. Health officials will never ask a person for that type of personal information, the department said.

The heightened threat of scams comes as Orange County experiences a surge in reported cases of COVID-19. County health officials on July 21 reported 20 new deaths, bringing the total to 513, and 990 additional confirmed cases of the disease. With a total of 30,976 confirmed cases, the county now ranks second in the state overall.

Under Gov. Gavin Newsoms California Connected program introduced on May 22, community health workers are able to speak with those who have tested positive for COVID-19 and alert others they may have been exposed, while ensuring all personally identifiable information remains confidential.

Contact tracing serves as an integral piece in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 as it helps diagnose patients earlier, improving their likelihood of being cured, and reduces the chance of the disease spreading to others.

With an increase in available testing in the countya new site opened in Anaheim on July 15and high rates of confirmed cases, contact tracing is likely to ramp up.

It sickens the soul that there are people out there who make it their business to scam you as most of us seek to band together to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a June 8 press release. Real tracers will only ask about medical symptoms and other people who may have been contacted, according to the release.

Real tracers will only send you texts or emails that say theyll be calling younot ask you to click or download anything, the Federal Trade Commission warned.

The FTC urges those who are suspicious of fraud to contact their state health department and confirm whether or not the person getting in touch with them is a legitimate contact tracer.
An eye-opening study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said coronavirus cases are a lot higher than the numbers reported in some parts of the country  up to 13 times higher  because so many who were infected didn't know it and unwittingly spread the virus. Now, we're seeing the results of this undetected spread.

Confirmed cases in the U.S. are edging toward 4 million. The virus has killed more than 141,000 Americans. Texas recorded a thousand deaths in just 10 days. That's as many deaths as in the prior three months.

At hospitals in the Rio Grande Valley, state health officials say 37 ICU beds are available. Hidalgo County is the epicenter.

"Unfortunately, our hospital rooms look like war zones because there are just so many from so many sick people there," Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez told CBS News.

Cortez issued a shelter-at-home order late Monday. Although, Texas Governor Greg Abbott argues that it's unenforceable.

"My job is is to take care of the public health," Cortez explained. "We brought in a lot of refrigerated trailers to access more morgues, and their capacity is 50. Well in the last eight days, we have an average of 22 people die per day."

While cities like Dallas and Houston are now seeing a decrease in positive cases and hospitalizations, virus-related deaths in the state are up 33% over the last 10 days.

A vendor wearing a mask to protect against COVID-19 arranges merchandise at his business in San Antonio on Monday, July 20, 2020. Cases of COVID-19 continue to spike in Texas. / Credit: Eric Gay / AP

Nationwide, just nine states are seeing a decline in cases or holding steady; three of those  New York, New Jersey and Connecticut  are asking visitors from 31 states to self-quarantine.

This comes as new data from the CDC published on Tuesday estimates that COVID infections were as much as 13 times higher in parts of the country than actually reported. But the results found more people are still vulnerable to infection.

"What was interesting about this study is that even given the fact that so many people have likely had COVID-19 without having any symptoms or without having any diagnosis officially made. Still, it implies that the vast majority of Americans have still not been infected," CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook explained.

Story continues

And while a new study found effective social distancing with masks and handwashing could stop 90% of large outbreaks, Big Pharma companies continue their race toward a vaccine. Executives from AstraZeneca and Pfizer predicted millions of doses could be delivered by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, California passed 400,000 thousand COVID cases and could soon pass New York as the hardest-hit state. The city of Los Angeles is bracing for the possibility of another stay-at-home order.

In Florida, at least five counties have no ICU beds available at this time.

Fox News anchors and former reporter accused of sexual misconduct

Lawmakers at odds on next coronavirus stimulus package

CBS New York remembers reporter Nina Kapur
Three persons, including two minors and a 30-year-old man were killed in the early hours of Tuesday during an attack on Fulani herders at Fari village in Kauru local government of Kaduna State.

A community leader in the area, Ardo Kofa, told PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday evening that the three were killed after they were trailed by some unknown persons from a neighbouring village in Zangon Kataf Local Government Area.

He identified those killed in the attacks as seven-year-old Muhajid Musa, 10-year-old Sanusi Ayuba and 30-year-old Abashe Mohammed.

A picture of the attack seen by PREMIUM TIMES shows that the seven-year-old was beheaded by the assailants.

A security source, who did not want his identity revealed as he was not authorised to speak on the issue, described the attack as a wrong retaliation by unidentified youth from the nearby village.

Kaduna police spokesperson, Muhammed Ajile, did not respond to a request for comment from this newspaper.

Buhari bemoans reprisal killings

Meanwhile, in a statement on Tuesday, a presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, attributed the incessant killings in parts of Kaduna State to politically-motivated banditry, mutual violence and reprisals.

He said the area has a comprehensive security structure in place, but the many factors to the crises have made things difficult.

From available records, Southern Kaduna enjoys comprehensive security deployments, including the Army, Special Forces of both the Army and the Air Force, surveillance aircraft by the Air Force and mobile police units that are on the ground on a 24-hour basis to forestall criminality and keep the peace.

But unlike other parts of the country, the problem of Southern Kaduna is more complicated than many critics are ready to acknowledge and understand.

From available security records, the problem in Southern Kaduna is an evil combination of politically-motivated banditry, revenge killings and mutual violence by criminal gangs acting on ethnic and religious grounds.

It is a situation in which one criminal group will kill a member of another criminal group out of ethnic and religious motivations, which in turn leads to the eruption of revenge and counter-revenge, thereby making the job of the security personnel deployed to protect lives more difficult, he said.

Mr Shehu said the revenge and counter-revenge only creates a circle of violence, thereby making everyone else unsafe, especially innocent people.

He advised the people against taking the law into their hands, and urged them to report threats to law enforcement agencies.
New Delhi, July 22 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday said that it arrested a CPI-Maoist from Jharkhand's Giridih in connection with seizure of cash from Maoist cadre case.

An NIA spokesperson said that it arrested Sunil Manjhi, who was a member of Bihar-Jharkhand Special Area Committee (BJSAC) of CPI (Maoist).

The case pertains to seizure of Rs 6 lakh and incriminating material from Manoj Kumar on January 22, 2018, while he was going to make levy payment to CPI (Maoist).

The NIA took over the case in July 2018.

The official said that during investigation, incriminating role of Manjhi emerged.

The NIA claimed that Manjhi was very active in Maoist activities in Parasnath area of Giridih district and was instrumental in collection of huge amounts of levy from contractors engaged in developmental projects being undertaken in that area.

The arrested accused was produced before the NIA Special Court, Ranchi and sent to four days' NIA custody.
Victoria, B.C. (October 5, 2019) - Surework Home Care Solutions is pleased to announce the new design of its senior care website that features a simplified interface for easier navigation and uses color schemes that are relaxing on the eyes for better readability. Similarly, it makes use of a responsive website structure so it will be compatible with any device (desktop, tablet, and mobile) and browser; thus, it can be 
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:45:57|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, learns about grain production, the protection and use of black soil at a demonstration zone for green food production in Lishu County of Siping City, northeast China's Jilin Province, July 22, 2020. Xi Jinping inspected Jilin Province on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

CHANGCHUN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on Wednesday inspected northeast China's Jilin Province.

While visiting Lishu, a county in the city of Siping, Xi went to a demonstration zone for green food production and a farmers' cooperative to learn about grain production, the protection and use of black soil, as well as mechanized and large-scale farming.

Xi also visited the memorial hall for the Siping battle in the Chinese People's War of Liberation, and paid his tribute to revolutionary martyrs. Enditem
There was a mix of happiness and disappointment among residents following this week's Columbus City Council meeting.

The City Council voted at its regular meeting Monday to keep a lot on the west side of town zoned as B-2, commercial, satisfying business owners and surrounding residents and disappointing a couple and their supporters who hoped to bring more affordable housing to Columbus by moving four houses to that area.

The Council voted 5-1 with all but City Council President Charlie Bahr voting to deny the zoning request. There were two absences, John Lohr and Beth Augustine-Schulte.

Adam Osborn and Taresa Kratochvil, whose businesses are near the lot, want to preserve the commercial district. Osborn previously said the affordable housing should go somewhere else. Osborn said after the meeting that he was happy the Citys interests aligned with his.

Matt and Katy Allsman, who had petitioned for the rezoning, said they were disappointed with the decision but that it was a win to bring the issue of affordable housing to the table.

Most of the people in attendance left after the vote on rezoning and were not there for the part of the meeting where council members may speak. Mayor Jim Bulkley took the floor.

I think it was very evident this evening the comments made about affordable housing in Columbus and I think without question we all know there is a need, he said. "Its a shame this particular project wasnt able to find a way to come together.

He said he hoped it doesnt stymie things like this in the future.

They are trying to address it, he added, but its difficult.

Its a difficult end to work towards, Bulkley said.

The hearing began with those speaking against the rezoning. Jacqueline Tessendorf was there representing a couple of the commercial businesses nearby. She said they were all asking the City to deny the application.

You as a City have spent a lot of time coming up with a plan of where the commercial, the residential and all of the flow of the City of Columbus, what it should look like when you come into town, especially as the City has moved things toward the northwest with the beautiful new fire station thats put up there, she said. Also the commercial district should I think with that move of the fire district should continue to grow in that direction.

She said it makes sense to stick with the plan. She said the Council has spent a lot of time planning the streetscaping thats going to occur in 2021 with the resurfacing of Highway 30 and to allow some different spots on corridors and suggested the Council consider that not necessarily following their plan or a good approach to zoning.

The businesses that are there are concerned when you drive out there and look at it, there are houses back behind it but those are very well thought out. Theres restricted covenants. Its a beautiful area, Tessendorf said. And it makes sense to have those houses there in commercial towards highway. They are concerned those business commercial values may decline if theres residential around them.

Osborn said businesses can work off each other generating business of each others foot traffic.

I think it would be a shame to not carefully develop a large road frontage parcels in this town, missing out on a future commercial establishment or the opportunities that would entail with that, Osborn said. I feel that a development of this nature could diminish the future visions I have for my B-2 lot across the street.

Taresa Kratochvil, one of the owners of the accounting firm Kuhlman and Kratochvil, said she has been an owner for 13 years. She said many of their clients are farmers and they liked being across from the U.S. Farm Services Agency.

We have common clients. We also have clients that bring their trucks and trailers as well in and they park along side of that road for both the other business and us, so I think that might be a hindrance with residential there as well, Kratochvil said.

She said they invested in Columbus again recently by completing an addition to the building and if it turns residential they are going to be on that corner surrounded almost on all sides by residential.

I dont plan on selling, I want to be in business here in Columbus for a long time. We were in David City before this and we said, 'Hey, Columbus is a good town. Its good for business, we have good relationships with a lot of the business owners and the bankers and the attorneys in town, she said. We are trying to grow our business and so we would appreciate it if you voted against rezoning.

There were also those who advocated for the City Council to approve the rezoning request.

Clark Grant, on behalf of the Allsmans, said that in his 30-plus years of doing zonings and rezonings he has never encountered a situation where has found it difficult to go from a less-restrictive to more-restrictive zone. Ordinarily the zoning issue is the opposite, he said.

He explained there were three ways they could have done the rezoning. They could have requested R-1, single family residential, which they did. They could have requested UC, urban commercial, which would allow R-1. Or they could have requested a special use permit.

Its not spot zoning, Grant said. Its zoning thats permitted under the code whether it be a special use permit or just simply asking for R-1.

Grant also mentioned a Planning Commission meeting held last week.

There were three members absent. When it came time for them to vote on this matter nobody wanted to come forward and even (to) make a motion one way or the other. The Planning Commission had to ask for direction from legal counsel as to what to do, he said.

Council Member Richard Rich Jablonski (Ward 3) responded to Grants discussion of the planning commission.

You mentioned that there was lack of members at the Planning Commission. We are short two members here. Is that going to be an issue for you? Jablonski said.

Grant said it was not an issue but that he was trying to bring them up to speed.

But I mean to the public -- the public is listening and hearing that you thought that might have been a problem, Jablonski said. Because they were short members at that commission and the decision could have been different.

The Allsmans got up and Katy said there are plenty of properties already in the area that deal with train noise, but so does anyone who lives along 12th Street, since Columbus has a train track going through the center.

They said the houses will bring in foot traffic. The couple also showed a presentation of before and after photos of houses they have flipped.

I was a single mom for a long time before I married my husband. We lived in apartments. We had landlords. My kids couldnt paint their rooms, Katy said.

Colleen Bray said she has been in real estate for 40-plus years and said the argument that a business will be hindered by residences doesnt hold up very well.

Jablonski asked her why she wasnt at the Planning Commission meeting and Bray said she thought it would be held virtually as before.

I would hate the fact that you guys would deny it because somebody didnt have the guts to stand up and say, 'Lets move forward with this project,' she said. They didnt know what to do so they took the easy way out. You can blame me for part of that.

Other supporters mentioned they have kids and have had trouble finding affordable homes. Two of them, including Katy Allsmans sister, said they live in the homes the Allsmans have flipped.

Its a shame we had to move outside of town to find a house in our range," she said.

Following the hearing's conclusion, City Council members did not converse among themselves and quickly voted.

Carolyn Komatsoulis is a reporter for the Columbus Telegram. Reach her via email at carolyn.komatsoulis@lee.net

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A Dalit man was beaten and his head tonsured at Seethanagaram police station, in Andhra Pradesh's East Godavari district on Sunday night. The incident occurred after the victim, Prasad, was taken to the police station following an alleged confrontation with a local YSRCP leader.

Prasad was admitted to the Rajahmundry government hospital for treatment.

A sub-inspector and a constable have been suspended and the police have also registered a case against Prasad for stopping the truck of a local YSRCP leader.

"My relative had passed away on Sunday. We were performing the last rites. During this, a truck was trying to move through my street. As last rite formalities were taking place, I and three others stopped the movement of the sand truck and we asked the truck driver to wait for some time until the body was moved from the place. This led to an argument," Prasad told reporters.

He added that an hour after the incident took place, the YSRCP leader came to his residence and issued threats for stopping his truck.

"A day after this incident, sub-inspector police Shaik Feroze Shah, along with two other constables, took me and two others to the police station for investigation," He added.

Prasad alleges that the SI had punched him and thrashed him with a belt. "The SI later called a barber, got my head tonsured, and my moustaches removed," he said.

Opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu, while reacting to the incident, said that 'jungle raj' had returned to Andhra Pradesh.

"Vara Prasad's head was tonsured by leaders belonging to YCP in East Godavari District's Seethanagaram Police Station. All this happened in the presence of policemen who heckled and beat the man to a pulp, destroying the self-esteem of a Dalit man. His only mistake was to question the illegal sand mining in the region," he wrote on Twitter.

He further questioned why the Andhra Pradesh police had become "toys in the hands of corrupt ruling partymen."

"This is a serious violation of rights. Telugu Desam will stand with Vara Prasad and make sure those responsible for this barbarian act be strictly punished," he added.

The Andhra Pradesh DGP has initiated an inquiry into the matter and suspended the SI and constable over allegations of beating the man.
Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the regulatory body for Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), has announced the launch of the second phase of the AI-powered chatbot, Hadi, including the expansion of the list of smart services available online.



In 2019, Dubai Silicon Oasis was the first free zone to launch an AI-powered chatbot that can answer users questions and process transactions with respect to DSOAs services. It uses an algorithm to analyze repeat questions and provide quick responses.



Since its implementation, Hadi received more than 35,000 queries from around 9,200 users. The chatbot is available to respond to customers through DSOAs website, the instant messaging mobile application WhatsApp, as well as DSOAs official social media channels Facebook and Telegram.



In addition to completing transactions, and to minimize dependency on external links, DSOA added 80 new services under Hadis belt, bringing the total number of smart services that the bot can support with to 226  including topping up e-wallets, renewing IDs, and messaging. The bot leverages AI technologies to continuously enhance user experience.



Badr Buhannad, Executive Vice President - Strategy, Business Services & Risk Management at DSOA, said: The first phase of Hadi, which DSOA launched in December 2019, was exceptionally successful. Its impact was especially positive during the implementation of the precautionary measures, working remotely and social distancing, following the global spread of the novel coronavirus.



He added: Today, in a record period of less than six months, we have successfully developed the second phase of the AI-powered bot. As the first free zone in Dubai to launch such an initiative, in line with the UAE Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031, we are keen to fully service DSOAs customers, residents, and business partners through effective plans that address the current reality and the post-Covid-19 era.



The second phase of Hadi involved additional e-services, including applications to cancel employment package in country, amendment of employment packages, bank guarantees, company establishment card, transfer of employees from government entities to DSOA, as well as a comprehensive e-suite of maintenance services and renewal of lease agreements for residents of DSOA-managed properties.  TradeArabia News Service
Holidaymakers, airlines, tourism businesses and health experts have all been crying out for clarity around travel. They finally got Ireland's 'green list' last night... along with further confusion.

What countries are on the green list?

The countries on the list where it is now deemed "safer" to travel include Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino.

If you have to go abroad for essential reasons, this is a list of countries from which travellers will not have to restrict their movements for 14 days on return.

Read More

Can we holiday in green list countries?

Green suggests 'go', and there are direct flights from Ireland to holiday hotspots like Malta, Italy and Greece, but the Government still says the safest thing to do is not to travel.

"The Pandemic is not over and the public health advice remains the same," it said in a statement last night. Nphet, though it doesn't set policy, also says we should holiday at home.

However, confusion remains - as the Department of Foreign Affairs' travel advice for countries on the green list has now been downgraded from "avoid non-essential travel" to take normal precautions.

What does that mean?

Ireland has four official travel advice categories - "avoid non-essential travel" is Level 3, which since March has applied across the board (and still applies to all other countries). Switching 'green list' countries to Level 1 ('normal precautions') is a surprise, and could be seen by some as a reason to holiday there, despite the Government's wishes.

And, in another confusing note, a general Covid-19 advisory to "avoid non-essential travel until further notice" is still listed on 'green list' country advice pages.

All passengers coming into Ireland will still have to fill out locator forms.

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Will my travel insurance work in a green list country?

Yes, if the advice is to take 'normal precautions', you will most likely be covered by your policy - however, it remains to be seen if the general Covid-19 advisory (above) presents an issue.

The issue of travel insurance had been a concern before publication of the list, as most policies won't cover a country to which "non-essential travel" is advised against.

What are the notable omissions from the list?

There are many - but in terms of popular holiday destinations, Spain, Portugal and France have not made the list. Nor have the UK or US, as was widely expected - despite being two of Ireland's largest tourism markets.

Some have suggested regions like the Canary Islands, which are popular with holidaymakers and have lower caseloads than Ireland, could be well-suited to a 'green list' or 'air bridges'. But the Government has stuck with a broad approach, excluding the Canary and Balearic Islands under the broader omission of Spain from the list.

How was the list compiled?

The list is based on countries that have lower caseloads of Covid-19 than Ireland.

Ireland's 14-day cumulative number of cases per 100,000 people stands at 4.8, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Italy's, the country with the highest incidence on the 'green list', is 4.6. Greece is 4.2 and Malta 1.0, by comparison.

Germany (6.5) and the Netherlands (6.6) narrowly missed the cut, but it seems clear now that France (12.6), Spain (27.1) and Portugal (45.2) were not in the picture - despite outbreaks being in specific regions.

What else has the Government said?

It added that it will "continue with plans to strengthen the existing measures for monitoring passengers who arrive into Ireland, including the introduction of an Electronic Passenger Locator Form, enhanced follow-up procedures, a call centre operated by the Dublin Airport Authority, and a proposed testing regime for symptomatic passengers at airports and ports".

Will the green list change?

It is expected to be reviewed fortnightly, based on changing caseloads.

In theory, that could present another problem for travellers - what happens if a country is removed from the list, and the travel advisory changes while you're on holiday there?

Why publish it then?

By now, ministers must wish a 'green list' had never been mentioned. In just a few weeks, targets have moved, caseloads have risen, the pandemic has worsened and a new Government is at the wheel.

During this time, the list appeared to have evolved from one of safe "air bridges" or "travel corridors", to one of countries considered safe for "essential" trips only, and from which returning travellers won't need to restrict their movements for 14 days.

It is unclear whether the new list will clear up the confusion.

Haven't people been travelling overseas anyway?

Yes, airlines have slowly been resuming routes from Ireland, and Ryanair in particular are pushing summer services and sales, but the figures are all very relative.

About 12,000 passengers are passing through Dublin Airport each day on 200 flights - but that compares to 112,000 on up to 800 daily flights last July. Others are trying to cancel or reschedule, with up to 1m being lost every day on "no-shows", the Irish Travel Agents' Association (ITAA) says. The mess has made the business of travel almost impossible.

If I cancel my flight, will I get a refund?

This is a key issue for many customers trying to decide whether to travel. But if an airline operates a service, it has fulfilled its part of the contract, and does not have to offer you a refund.

Both Aer Lingus and Ryanair are offering free flight changes for a limited time (through December and September respectively), but customers who decline to travel may not be able to get their money back.

What if family or friends visit us from green list countries?

"Family and friends arriving from a green list country should be treated as visitors," the Government advises. "This means you should follow social distancing and other public health guidelines. You should not interact with them in the same way as the people in your household that you live with every day."

What about transiting passengers?

Passengers coming to Ireland from 'green list' countries, but who make connecting flights in countries not on the list, do not have to restrict their movements, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has said.

Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, the Minister said:

If you fly through an airport into another destination, its the destination that youre heading to, or the destination that you originate from, thats the country that determines whether you are effectively on the so-called green list."

What will the new list mean for tourists coming to Ireland?

It depends. People who live in 'green list' countries may be more likely to visit if they don't have to restrict their movements for 14 days.

Travellers are favourably disposed towards Ireland, according to Tourism Ireland research, but quarantine is a significant block - three quarters of consumers in the US, UK, Germany and France say that they would not travel under such circumstances.

However, even if they did, the end of summer is now in sight, the numbers of people who visit Ireland from the 15 'green list' countries is small, and visitors may be further put off if Ireland's list keeps changing or they feel unwelcome.

Either way, any gain would not make up for the devastation of losing our most important tourism markets - the UK and US.

How did it come to this?

The basic debate is about how Ireland should protect its progress against coronavirus, while restarting life, school and business.

Rising cases, a lack of quarantine enforcement and airport testing and the open Border with Northern Ireland (there are some 60 countries on the UK's travel list) have unnerved many. Some believe Ireland should severely curtail travel, or even seal itself off like New Zealand.

Others say connectivity is crucial, travel-related cases are relatively low, and that we should work more closely with the North and improve measures to manage outbreaks.

What has the Government said about Northern Ireland?

"There is no change to the current policy in respect of travel from Northern Ireland," it says.

What have other countries been doing?

Many EU countries have been opening for travel and business - to mostly EU member states and with 'travel corridors' to limited countries beyond (e.g. Canada, New Zealand and Japan). Italy was first to open its borders on June 3. Though a common approach would make sense from some perspectives, countries have largely been creating their own "safe travel" lists - the UK, for instance, names over 60 territories and countries from which returning travellers do not need to self-isolate.

NB: This is a developing story, and is being updated.
PORTLAND, Ore. - Attorneys for Oregon argued Wednesday for a restraining order against federal agents deployed to quell protests in Portland  a standoff that some legal experts have warned could lead to a constitutional crisis in an election year.

A federal judge heard arguments from the state and the U.S. government in a lawsuit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who accuses federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force. Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

The lawsuit is part of the growing pushback to President Donald Trump sending federal agents to Portland and announcing theyd also be going to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to fight rising crime, a move thats deepening the countrys already considerable political divide. Democratic mayors of 15 cities condemned the use of the agents in a letter to the U.S. attorney general.

The court hearing focused on the actions of more than 100 federal agents responding to protests outside Portlands Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which has been a target for more than 50 nights of demonstrations against racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

The motion for a temporary restraining order asks U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman to command agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Protective Service and the U.S. Marshals Service to immediately stop detaining protesters without probable cause, to identify themselves and their agency before arresting anyone, and to explain why an arrest is taking place.

During the hearing  held by videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic  the state acknowledged that federal agents have the right to defend the courthouse but argued that they had overstepped.

Rosenblum, the state attorney general, said she was asking the court to declare it not acceptable for federal officers to use unconstitutional, police state-type acts to detain citizens of Oregon without cause.

David Morrell, an attorney for the U.S. government, called the motion extraordinary and told the court it was based solely on a few threadbare declarations from witnesses and a Twitter video.

The Hatfield courthouse did not damage itself, he said, calling the protests dangerous and volatile.

Its not clear when Mosman will rule, but he challenged the state on whether it had the standing to ask for the restraining order. The judge noted that past legal decisions have required a state to establish a very high bar  quasi-sovereign interest  to successfully sue the U.S. government.

Attorneys for Oregon contended they had met that bar because the actions of the federal agents could erode residents trust in all law enforcement, including state and city officers.

Morrell, the U.S. government attorney, disputed that, saying successful lawsuits usually involved issues that affected many people, not highly individual interests like the arrests.

The lawsuit is one of several filed over authorities response to the Portland protests. On Thursday, a judge will hear arguments in a legal challenge that the American Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of journalists and legal observers who say they were targeted and attacked by Portland police while documenting demonstrations. A freelance photographer covering the protests for The Associated Press submitted an affidavit that he was beaten with batons, chemical irritants and hit with rubber bullets.

U.S. Judge Michael Simon previously ruled that journalists and legal observers are exempt from police orders requiring protesters to disperse once an unlawful assembly has been declared. Federal lawyers say that journalists should have to leave when ordered.

The Portland City Council on Wednesday banned city police from co-operating with federal agents or knowingly arresting reporters or legal observers.

Meanwhile, a fence went up around the federal courthouse, where protesters and federal agents had clashed again overnight. Protesters repeatedly tried to break into the building and set fires around it, and the federal agents drove them back with tear gas and stun grenades, police said.

Far from tamping down the unrest in Portland, the presence of federal agents has energized the nightly protests.

Mayor Ted Wheelers office said he would attend the protests Wednesday night and there would be some form of dialogue with the demonstrators. The Democrat has vocally opposed the federal presence in Portland but has still faced harsh criticism from many sides. Some, including fellow council members, have accused him of not reining in local police, who used tear gas before federal agents arrived. Others, including business leaders, have condemned him for not bringing the situation under control.

One group that has been prominent in the protests, the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, told the mayor to stay away.

The use of federal agents against the wishes of local officials  and the threat that it might be done elsewhere  was deepening the countrys already considerable political divides and potentially setting up a constitutional crisis months ahead of the presidential election. The standoff could escalate after Trump announced Wednesday that he would be sending federal agents to combat crime in Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, which are both led by Democrats.

The mayors of Chicago, Portland and other Democratic-led cities objected to such deployments and called them politically motivated in a letter to Attorney General William Barr and Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf.

Federal authorities have defended their response, saying officials in Oregon had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism against the the U.S. courthouse and violence against federal officers.

Wolf said Tuesday that agents have been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons. While he said federal agencies have made 43 arrests since July 4, he disputed they were done by unidentified agents, noting they have the word police on their uniforms.

Among the protesters was Maureen Healy, who joined a march Monday as people sang songs and chanted the names of Black lives lost.

Just after midnight, she saw a line of authorities wearing camouflage and dark outfits advance on the crowd. Protesters retreated, and Healy said she heard bangs, saw smoke and was struck by a projectile. She went to the hospital with a black eye, a cut to her face and a possible concussion.

I was protesting peacefully, so why did federal troops shoot me in the head? asked Healy, 52, who is chairwoman of the history department at Lewis & Clark College.

___

This story has been updated to correct the federal agencys name to Customs and Border Protection.

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Associated Press writers Sara Cline in Salem, Oregon, and Colleen Long and Ben Fox in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus.
In a file photo, Visa credit cards are arranged on a desk in San Francisco. Visa and MasterCard have agreed to pay more than $7.2 billion in a class-action lawsuit alleging the companies fixed credit card swipe fees. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Australian COVID-19 Debt Will Take Two Generations to Pay Off: Treasurer

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has said Australia needs to prepare for an eye-watering amount of debt in the national budget update on Thursday, July 24.

Australians will see levels of national debt that they had never seen before, Frydenberg warned on Nines Today show on July 22, explaining that this was the harsh reality of the pandemic.

The coronavirus has required the government to spend unprecedented amounts of money to people in need, said Frydenberg.

Explaining that every dollar the government has spent is a borrowed dollar the treasurer said: We are spending $11 billion a month on JobKeeper and that is unsustainable if we kept that going indefinitely.

This is the biggest economic shock this country has ever faced, Frydenberg later told Neil Mitchell on 3AW.

Explaining that the debt will absolutely not be paid off for at least two generations, Frydenberg said that the government believes the higher debt burden needs to be met by the government.

We would not want to see a reduction in services or an increase in taxes. So the option is to grow the economy said Frydenberg.

When you have a stronger economy, you can manage the higher debt, said Frydenberg.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison concurred with the treasurer in an interview on 2GB on July 22 explaining that Australia could not keep burning through $11 billion a month.

This has been the single largest economic impact that the government has had to face since the Second World War, said the prime minister, who also warned that Australians need to wean themselves off the income supports.

Morrison also said that no one should expect any new announcements on July 23 in the treasurers financial statement.

Tomorrow is about just reconciling the books for last year and this year in terms of all the commitments that have been made. So its to be transparent with people about what the cost is, he said.

The treasurer was optimistic though about the Australian economy noting that Australian had entered the economic crisis in a strong position, which gave the government the financial power to respond.

Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on July 22 show that there has been an increase in retail turnover in the past month as Australia starts to emerge from the economic slump caused by the COVID-19 lockdowns.

In the recent figures, retail turnover saw a 2.4 percent rise in June, with the increases mainly coming from cafes, restaurants, takeaway food services; and clothing, footwear, and personal accessory retailing.

The ABS also noted on July 15 that 210,800 people returned to the workforce between May and June.
The battle within the Congress reached the Supreme Court Wednesday with the Rajasthan Speaker filing a petition against a high court order directing him to defer disqualification proceedings against sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs.

Pilot also filed a caveat in the Supreme Court to ensure that no orders are passed on Speaker C P Joshi's petition without hearing him and his supporting MLAs.

IMAGE: Rajasthan assembly speaker C P Joshi. Photograph: ANI

Seeking an interim stay on the high court order, Joshi's petition said it was the top court's duty to ensure that all constitutional authorities act within the 'Lakshman rekha' drawn for each one of them.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari will hear the plea on Thursday.

Amid the tussle for power in Rajasthan, the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at the premises of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother as part of nationwide searches over an alleged fertiliser scam.

The Congress linked the raids targeting Agrasain Gehlot to the alleged attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to topple its government in Rajasthan.

"Prime Minister Modi has created a 'raid raj' in the country but we are not going to be scared," party leader Randeep Surjewala said.

Gehlot has written directly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging the involvement of his BJP in 'horse-trading' of MLAs in the state and naming Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

'I am not aware to what extent this is in your knowledge or if you are being misled,' he said in the letter released to the media on Wednesday.

'History will not forgive those who participate in this deed.'

Pilot has also sent out a notice, asking Congress MLA Giriraj Singh Malinga to apologise -- and pay Re 1 as compensation -- for alleging that he was offered money to switch sides and join the BJP.

In Jaipur, Speaker Joshi said he was moving the Supreme Court to avert a constitutional crisis.

His petition argued that the disqualification proceedings under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution are the business of the legislature, and cannot be interfered with.

The decision to move the apex court was taken the previous evening after the Speaker's office took note of an order from the Rajasthan high court, giving a 'direction' to him.

The order by the court of Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice Prakash Gupta said its proceedings will resume Friday and requested the Speaker also to put on hold any action on the notices till then, recording that 'we direct accordingly'.

The show cause notices sent to the dissident MLAs by the Speaker had asked them to reply by 1 pm on July 17 why they should not be disqualified from the state assembly.

In the high court, the Speaker's counsel had twice before agreed to a 'request' to extend the deadline for receiving the replies.

But the problem arose Tuesday when the Speaker's office received the court order, suggesting it was a 'direction' rather than a 'request'.

"The Speaker had been extending (the deadline) on request. Why then was this word 'direct' there? This was discussed late last night and a decision was taken to file an SLP," a counsel to the Speaker told PTI.

The Speaker's notices followed a complaint from the Congress that the 19 MLAs had skipped two legislative party meetings, defying a whip.

The dissidents, however, argued that a whip cannot be issued when the assembly is not in session.

Their counsels have also challenged the validity of para 2 (1) (a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, a provision which says an MLAs who 'voluntarily gives up' the membership of the party he represents will be disqualified from the House.

The Speaker said circumventing the defined roles of an institution is a threat to parliamentary democracy.

"So, before we move towards a constitutional crisis, I thought it is appropriate that a petition be filed in the Supreme Court," he added.

Joshi said only show-cause notices were issued to the MLAs and no decision had been taken.

At the home of the Ashok Gehlot's brother at Mandore in Jodhpur district, Central Reserve Police Force personnel stood guard as ED officials carried out a search.

Officials said Agrasain Gehlot is the promoter of a seed and fertiliser company, Anupam Krishi.

The central agency, officials said, is searching at least six locations in the state, including the premises of a former Congress MP, who is alleged to have business ties with Agrasain Gehlot.

Raids are also being conducted in West Bengal, Gujarat and Delhi, they said.

The Congress has 107 members in the 200-member state assembly and the BJP 72.

If the 19 dissidents are disqualified, the half-mark in the House will be slashed to 91, seeming making it easier for Gehlot to retain majority support.

-- With inputs from ANI
President Akufo-Addo says at no point in time during his 14-day self-isolation was he flown to the United Kingdom for COVID-19 treatment.

It would be recalled that days after announcing his 14-day self-isolation some media outlets reported that President Akufo-Addo had been sent abroad to receive treatment for the infection.

But the President says those reports were malicious and must be disregarded.

President Akufo-Addo who said he was amazed at media reports said he had been in Ghana throughout his two weeks isolation period.

President Akufo Addo made this known during his first public appearance on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, after his 14-day self-isolation at a meeting with Vehicles and Asserts Dealers Union of Ghana.

I will want to thank you for your interest in my welfare. I am fine and I am here. I was sitting in my room and I was told I was sitting in a plane for Oxford and I was amazed, but here it is; this is the Ghana where we live, he said.

The President went into self-isolation for 14 days as a precautionary measure after being exposed to a person who tested positive for Coronavirus.

He, however, tested negative after his first samples were taken and has since been engaging in his official duties from the Presidential Villa.

During the period, there were reports that suggested the President, had been flown to London to receive treatment for coronavirus.

But Director of Communications at the Jubilee House, Eugene Arhin, in a Facebook post, insisted that the President is in the country, and he is currently at the Presidential Villa in Jubilee House, observing the 14-day self-isolation precautionary measure, in compliance with COVID-19 protocols hence the general public must disregard the false story.

The Minority in Parliament also questioned the grounds on which the President was self-isolating.

The caucus had wondered why the President was directed to self-isolate when reports had suggested he had not tested positive for the virus.

While in isolation, Nana Addo held two virtual meetings  government's 80th cabinet meeting and a meeting with his 2020 Campaign Communications Advisory Team where he urged the team to emphasize the need for adherence to Coronavirus safety protocols.

---citinewsroom
In the run up to formulate an effective coronavirus vaccine, many pharmaceutical companies have expedited their trials. Some have already reached advanced stages of human trials, including Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate. The candidate will be manufactured by Serum Institute of India that aims to enrol 5,000 Indian volunteers, among others, to conduct the tests. Meanwhile, researchers and experts are still questioning the longevity of antibodies in cured COVID-19 patients. A New England Journal of Medicine research found that antibodies fell quickly than in the case of SARS.

Also read: COVID-19 vaccine to cost under Rs 1,000 per dose, says Adar Poonawalla

Also read: COVID-19 vaccine update: Oxford drug gives hope; Serum Institute to seek human trials in India soon

Check out all the latest updates on coronavirus vaccine or drug research from across the world on BusinessToday.In live blog

12:45 PM: Singapore approves COVID vaccine trials

Singapore would conduct coronavirus vaccine trials on volunteers. Health Sciences Authority has approved tests for COVOD vaccine developed by Arcturus Therapeutics and Duke-NUS Medical school. The trials would include up to 108 adults. In the preclinical data, it was found that a single 0.2, 2 or 10 microgram dose resulted in neutralising antibodies.

12:33 PM: Coronavirus vaccine possible this year, says Oxford expert

Professor Adrian Hill who is heading the team of researchers working on the Oxford vaccine has said that coronavirus is possible within this year. "If we got a result in, say, October and we had emergency use licensure (ph) by November, we would certainly hope to have many millions of doses available then in different countries from different manufacturers," he said in a interview to NPR.

12:25 PM: Oxford coronavirus vaccine to be called Covishield

The name of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine has been decided as Covishield. The doeses would be priced at Rs 1,000 or less.

12:15 PM: 'COVID vaccine by 2021 unlikely,' says French expert

French researchers have said that they do not expect a coronavirus vaccine by 2021. French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet said that a vaccine takes several years in development. "Of course, there is an unprecedented effort to develop a vaccine, but I would be very surprised if we had that was effective in 2021. While we would probably have one that worked partially, we were very far from the end of the crisis," he said. Fontanet aid that we would probably have to live with this virus.

12:10 PM: First vaccine this year? EU seems optimistic

European Union regulators might approve the first coronavirus vaccine this year amid a flurry of candidates. "We are preparing ourselves for that possibility so that we as regulators will be ready. It will be a matter of seeing whether this data could be sufficient for allowing any kind of approval by the end of 2020," said Marco Cavaleri, head of anti-infectives and vaccines at the European Medicines Agency.

Oxford and AstraZeneca published promising results from early human tests of a shot on Monday. Pfizer-BioNTech as well as China-based CanSino Biologics also announced early positive data from their vaccine trials.

12:01 PM: China's Sinovac conducts Phase 3 trials in Brazil

Chinese pharma company Sinovac has entered the final stage of testing. The trials would be conducted in Brazil. This is the third vaccine in the world to enter Phase 3. Around 9,000 health workers across six Brazilian states will receive the vaccine, known as CoronaVac, in two doses over the next three months under the study. Sinovac is partnering with a Brazilian public health research center, the Butantan Institute

11:55 AM: China's Sinopharm enters Phase 3

Chinese company Sinopharm has entered Phase 3 of human trials for its coronavirus vaccine candidate. The tests will be conducted in Abu Dhabi. The trials will last for 42 days and will be tested on volunteers aged 18 to 60 years, said the Abu Dhabi government media office. The volunteers must be residents of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain in the emirate.

11:45 AM: COVID destroying vaccine? New candidate in the mix

US-based biotech company PAI Life Sciences, noted that their vaccine candidate offered effects within two weeks after administration through injection into a muscle with the level of antibodies generated comparable to those in people who are recovering from COVID-19. They said the RNA vaccine candidate, based on the genome of the novel coronavirus, enters cells and instructs them to produce proteins that teach the body to recognise coronaviruses, and attack them with antibodies and T cells.

11:30 AM: US willing to work with China for COVID vaccine

Donald Trump said that US is willing to work with China for a coronavirus vaccine. "We are willing to work with anybody that is going to get us a good result," Trump said. This is a significant move as Donald Trump has been blaming China for the breakout of coronavirus and has been demanding answers. The US-China trade relations are also at a tumultuous juncture.

11:15 AM: Who will pay for the coronavirus vaccine?

Adar Poonawalla said that 50 per cent of all the coronavirus vaccine produced by Serum Institute would be reserved for Indians. Moreover, no one would have to pay for it as government will buy it in bulk and then distribute it. "Of course it will be given out at a very affordable price. Today, a Covid-19 test incurs Rs 2,500. There are drugs like Remdesiver that are costing tens and thousands of rupees. We are planning to put the price at around Rs 1,000 or less than that per dose. I don't think any individual will have to pay for it because the vaccines will mostly be bought by governments and then distributed free through the immunisation programmes," he said.

11:05 AM: Govt to expedite regulatory clearances for SII vaccine

The government will speed up the regulatory clearances for the Oxford vaccine produced by Serum Institute of India. "Regulatory facilitation will be ensured. It is already being undertaken. If resources need to be supplemented, that will be actively considered. The government of India will leave no stone unturned to ensure the people of India and the international community have access to an Indian vaccine as early as possible," said NITI Aayog member VK Paul.

10:50 AM: Just 30 minutes to decide the course of vaccine

Adar Poonawalla has said that the decision to manufacture coronavirus vaccine that was not a challenging one. Poonawalla and father Cyrus Poonawalla saw it a moral responsibility to join the race for coronavirus vaccine. "We just thought of it as a moral responsibility that we have to take this commitment and it was a 30-minute decision or less than that where we came to a unanimous conclusion that we have to just go ahead," said Poonawalla.

10.20 AM: COVID-19 vaccine trial to cost under Rs 1,000 per dose, says Adar Poonawalla

The COVID-19 vaccine, designed and developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, will cost under Rs 1,000 per shot, said Adar Poonawalla, CEO, Serum Institute of India. He stated that the world's largest vaccine manufacturer will start phase-III human clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine in India from August with 4,000-5,000 volunteers.

The inoculation, designed by the University of Oxford and developed by UK-based biopharma company AstraZeneca, was found to be safe, prompting a strong immune response in over a thousand people it was administered to in early human trials.

9.45 AM: Serum to make 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine candidate

Serum Institute of India to make at least 1 billion doses Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine after all the necessary approvals. "We are in the process of applying for a licence to start clinical trials of the vaccine, after which we will start manufacturing the vaccine in large volumes. For that, we might have to hold back our work on other products," said Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, speaking during an online discussion organised by the women's wing of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

9.34 AM: Clinical trials of Covaxin start in India

The clinical trials of Covaxin being indigenously developed in India are being conducted throughout the country. Phase 1 and 2, involving 1,800 volunteers will be conducted at 12 clinical sites across the nation, including AIIMS Patna and Delhi. The clinical trials first started in Post-Graduate Institute (PGI) of Medical Sciences in Rohtak on July 17, after which AIIMS Delhi conducted the trials on July 20. Covaxin is being developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and the National Institute of Virology (NIV).

9.20 AM: COVID-19 vaccine candidates in India

In India, at least seven companies have joined the list of hundreds of foreign firms for vaccine development against COVID-19. Bharat Biotech, Zydus Cadila, Indian Immunologicals, Nynvax, Panacea Biotec, and Biological E are among the domestic pharmaceutical firms working on the COVID-19 vaccine.

Also Read: Coronavirus update: 7 Indian firms in race to find COVID-19 vaccine

9.15 AM: Ready to roll out COVID-19 vaccine: Russia

Russia has claimed that it is ready to roll out its COVID-19 vaccine by next month. The Russian Defence Ministry, which is developing the inoculation, has successfully completed its phase-II human trials. This led the country's First Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov to say that the country's first domestic vaccine is ready for use. He added that the trial involving a second group of volunteers ended on Monday, with all of them developing immunity from coronavirus and feeling fine. However, he did not mention when the large-scale phase-III trials would take place or when the vaccine production may begin.

Also Read: Coronavirus vaccine: COVAXIN Phase 1 trials at AIIMS to begin, results in 2-3 month

9.09 AM: Serum Institute to enrol 5,000 as part of vaccine trial in India

Vaccine major Serum Institute of India's CEO Adar Poonawalla has said that the company will apply for COVID-19 vaccine trials within a week and will soon begin manufacturing the vaccine, developed by Oxford University, in large volumes. "The trials have shown promising results and we are extremely happy about it. We will be applying for licensure trials with the Indian regulator in a week's time. As soon as they grant us permission, we will begin with the trials for the vaccine in India. In addition, we will soon start manufacturing the vaccine in large volumes," said Poonawalla. He says the phase 3 clinical trials will start in August. Around 4,000-5,000 participants will take part in the trial. UK-based biopharma company AstraZeneca and Oxford University have chosen the Serum Institute to manufacture the vaccine once it is ready. Oxford scientists have said that they plan to begin human trials (of the vaccine) in India soon.
At the end of a nearly eight-hour meeting that concluded early Wednesday morning, Madisons City Council adopted a sweeping plan that will guide the future of the former Oscar Mayer area site and surrounding area.

The plan will guide development on the 72-acre industrial property, which is located in a critical position for the immediate north side neighborhoods, the city and region. It sits in a primary gateway between the Dane County Regional Airport and downtown Madison, and presents a unique development opportunity for the transportation corridor.

Broadly, the plan aims to connect the north and east side, create a public transit and bicycle hub, form a walkable commercial district, mixed-use area and major employment corridor. It calls for a mix of housing that could accommodate over 2,500 new housing units or nearly 4,000 additional residents in an area, and mixed-use development along North Sherman and Aberg avenues. The area could also include a bus garage for Metro Transit.

After Ald. Syed Abbas, District 12, pushed for changes, the plan now calls for preserving 16 acres of the Hartmeyer Natural Area for wetlands and open space.

Preserving urban nature is never a mistake, Ald. Syed Abbas, District 12, said. Moving ahead, if we do not save this land, we will lose this opportunity forever.

The original plan called for 14.1 acres, which was up from initial concepts of eight. However, many residents and organizations, along with an original amendment from Abbas, called for the entire 31-acres to be preserved.

Renee Walk, co-chair of Sherman Neighborhood Association, called the expanse of natural area a unique Madison gem that should be preserved for future generations, and Catie Shannon, co-chair of the Eken Park Neighborhood Association, described preserving the space in its totality as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

A memo from the citys Planning Division said the 14.1 acres is the maximum amount of open space that staff feels can balance competing needs of accommodating growth in a sustainable way and maintaining open space.

Preserving the full area would result in a loss of housing. In its original form, the plan included approximately 2,780 units of potential new housing across the plan area, with approximately 395 on the Hartmeyer site. City planner Dan McAuliffe said the additional two acres would not result in a loss of housing units but would replace low-density housing, like townhomes, with higher-density housing, like apartments.

Ald. Tag Evers, District 13, did not support any amendment that would have added acreage to the natural area by losing housing units.

We have a housing crisis in this city, Evers said. We need more housing, we need more units and places for people to live.

Oscar Mayer closing a catalyst

As envisioned, the Oscar Mayer Special Area Plan would transform this key part of Madison that for nearly a century, housed the meat process plant.

In 2015, Oscar Mayers parent company Kraft Heinz announced that the companys companys headquarters would move to Chicago and the Madison location would shut down entirely. For many residents and former employees who build their lives around the factor, the closure came as a shock.

While its closure had a devastating impact to many, it created an opportunity and was the catalyst for reconsidering the future of an entire industrial corridor in close proximity to downtown, equipped with a strong regional transportation network, and significant building infrastructure assets, according to the plan.

The processing facility shaped the citys industrial north and east side neighborhood and the local economy.

In July 2017, Kraft Heinz left the site and sold the property three months later to Reich Brothers Holdings, which then partnered with Rabin Worldwide to jointly develop a project called OM Station, which is envisioned to be a mix of commercial and industrial spaces.

Meanwhile, the city launched a two-phase planning process that has resulted in the plan that the council voted on Tuesday.

Additional concerns

In addition to concerns over preserving more natural areas, many residents also worry about environmental contamination  and likely expensive remediation  in the area stemming from nearly a century of industrial use.

However, city staff does not have concerns about using the site for future development because the properties in question  the Oscar Mayer site, Hartmeyer property and the former Burke wastewater treatment plant  currently have "open" cases with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and are subject to a remediation process. Also, city staff said in a memo that redevelopment can be the most effective tool in remediating brownfield properties.

Another sticking point  creating a new signaled intersection at Packers Avenue and Coolidge Street  was resolved Tuesday with an amendment from Abbas that opened Coolidge Street only for bike and pedestrian access.

According to Shannon, Eken Park residents do not want the extra traffic, danger and vehicle speed in the neighborhood.

There is a huge decision to be made about the intersection of Packers and Coolidge that will really change the character and dynamic of the Eken Park Neighborhood, Shannon said.

In additional amendments, the City Council added language to prioritize green development practices and to focus on racial equity and preventing resident exposure to potentially toxic chemicals.

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It was a sneak peek at a historic organization with roots dating to the Middle Ages and the first time in decades in Connecticut that its doors were open to the public.

For three hours early Saturday afternoon, Fairfield's Masonic Temple at 131 Beach Road held an open house opportunity for visitors to tour the lodge, ask questions of members and learn more about this often controversial and mysterious society.

"We felt we wanted to meet the community, remind them we are here and that we contribute to life in Fairfield," said Easton resident and Worshipful Master Andrew Bilukha, 35, the leader of Fidelty St. John's Lodge 3 as the temple is formally recognized.

While once a "secret society," the fraternity now refers to itself as a "society with secrets," meaning it prefers to retain privacy around its rituals and practices, officials said. It maintained that ideal during the open house while still providing a closer look at its rich and colorful history and traditions.

Bilukha was joined by Fairfield resident James D'Acosta, 49, a lodge brother who helped provide historical background.

While there are rumored connections to the builders of King Solomon's temple in Jerusalem and even to Stonehenge, freemasonry is associated to stonemason guilds in western Europe dating to the Middle Ages, L'Acosta said. It was organized as an association for these laborers, who were builders of some of the great cathedrals.

In those days, stonemasonry was a critical craft and, though the era was very restrictive, these workers were allowed free travel.

"As history progressed, methods for masonry changed from operative or labor-oriented, to speculative, in which men were not necessarily masons but using tools and methods to explore spiritual and moral questions," D'Acosta said.

This transformation happened in the years 1500 to 1650, coinciding with the beginning of the Enlightenment period. The fraternity served as a safe and secret haven for discussion about such ideals as democracy, science, education, equality, freedom of religion and freedom of consciousness.

As more freedoms were gained, there was less secrecy, and, in 1717, the first grand lodge was formed in London. The structure, analogies, symbols and rituals it established then -- and those experienced by noted early American masons Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Paul Revere -- are still observed today. The most recognized symbol, which is featured on the face of the Fairfield lodge, is a square and compass.

The society took hold in Fairfield in 1762 and was believed to have been initiated at the Sun Tavern, where meetings were held. Masons met on moonlit nights, as they could see to travel. This tradition of meeting twice a month is still observed today.

The lodge's past masters include members of Fairfield's founding families including the Wheeler, Bulkeley, Lockwood, Penfield, Hull, Rowland and Staples clans. The current facility on Beach Road was established in 1954, at which time membership hovered around 700. Membership currently numbers 170.

The footprint of the lodge interior mimics early templates, with an east-to-west orientation. Elements include an altar, with a Holy Bible, at the center; a Master's chair and raised gallery to the east; a Senior Warden's chair to the west; and a Junior Warden's chair to the south. The north and south sides of the room each feature about fifty blue velvet theater-style seats for members. At the Fairfield site, historical memorabilia such as tools, photographs and record books is also displayed.

The Master, which is a voted position, leads the lodge, with support from the Wardens. He wears a black felt hat and a pendant called a jewel, which is his badge of office, carries a wooden gavel to symbolize his authority and carries a stonemason's apron around his waist.

At meetings, there is no discussion of religion or politics and, while generally an open forum, there are certain lessons presented centered around principles like friendship, morality, brotherly love, service to God, ethical dilemmas and philosophy.

The Masons are very community involved, Bilukha said. They host Red Cross blood drives and a child identification program, conduct a M.A.D.D. program with the Fairfield Police Department, fund burn units at area hospitals, operate a Masonicare health-care program for citizens and seniors, and raise funds for Shriners Hospitals. According to D'Acosta, 2.5 million American masons in more than 15,000 lodges give more than $800 million to charities each year.
Every summer people from around the world take their troubles to the Colorado Trail, hoping the long commune with iconic nature will soothe their souls. The backdrop is different this year.
Press Release

July 22, 2020 More 'persons deprived of life' if pandemic timebombs in prisons not defused The "PDL" stenciled on the prisoners' OOTD stands for "Person Deprived of Liberty." As we are still a government of laws, let us make sure that COVID will not change it to "Person Deprived of Life." Our congested jailswhere prisoners are no longer packed like sardines, but are stuffed like Spam in a canare petri dishes for the coronavirus. Prisons exist so offenders can pay for their crimes with their liberty, but not with their lives. The aim of restorative justice is to change them, and not to cause their cremation. Our jails are full of people charged with petty crimes, like small-scale estafa or possession of a stick of marijuana. Although there is no verdict yet, they, however, are in real danger of being sentenced to death by COVID. As of September last year, BJMP jails had a congestion rate of 386 percent, and BUCOR, 278 percent. Imagine this: the average prisoner cell space in the Philippines is 0.87 square meter, wala pang kalahati ng folding bed. The virus does not discriminate on who to hit in these tight confines. The guard and the guarded are both vulnerable. In fact, hundreds of BJMP personnel had tested positive. It is in the public's interest that jails be COVID-free so jailors will not bring it back to their homes and communities. There is no vaccine yet against this disease. But in the case of jails, there is one non-medicinal option that can prevent its spread, and that is to release those who have reached the minimum jail time if convicted, the old, the senile, and the sick. A 2014 Supreme Court circular spells out the guidelines on the provisional release of inmates whose cases are not moving in courts. There is room for expansion of this order, to cover other qualified detainees, on humanitarian grounds, balanced with public safety. This will not only defuse a public health timebomb, but is good expenditure policy as well. Pre-pandemic, the cost of feeding, guarding and housing one inmate was about P100,000 in BJMP, and P91, 000 in BUCOR, per year. That is the board-and-lodging cost of one prisoner charged to taxpayers. Of this amount, P31,000 represents the meal (P70 a day) and medicine (P15 a day) expenses of a prisoner annually. There is a third agency in the prison republic, and that is the PNP, which maintains precinct-level holding areas. Per reports, 3,000 quarantine violators are locked up there, some for months, due to delays in inquest proceedings. Kung nahuli ang mga ito sa mga checkpoints, inabutan ng curfew dahil walang masakyan at naglakad na lang, o walang pambili ng masks, the ends of justice require their release. If physical distancing is impossible in crammed police stations, where offices and detention rooms are separated only by bars, then these are outbreaks waiting to happenputting our policemen in harm's way and further congesting our already full hospitals.
Branch, an InsurTech startup focused on bundling digital home and auto insurance, is eying national expansion through 2021 after nailing down $24 million in new financing. The MGA also plans to add a reciprocal exchange to its business plan.

The Ohio-based company bills itself as having revolutionized the experience of bundling home and auto insurance with a streamlined process that takes seconds to complete, by asking clients for just their name and address. While it began life as an MGA, it will shortly convert to a reciprocal insurance exchange  Branch Insurance Exchange  initially in the states where it currently operates  Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio and Texas.

Steve Lekas, a former Allstate and Esurance executive, is a co-founder and CEO. He described a reciprocal exchange as an insurance association made up of its members. For Branchs version, it will serve as a manager that facilitates the communitys funds and enables the membership to insure one another.

He explained that this is the correct insurance regulatory model for Branch because Branch isnt what saves clients from lifes uncertainties, its the community and its members who pool small bits of their resources to save the unfortunate few from falling off of their lifes trajectory.

Lekas described the approach as an esoteric model, though he noted there are some well known reciprocal exchanges including PURE, Farmers and Erie Insurance.

Many Investors

Greycroft and HSCM Bermuda co-led the Series A funding round. Returning investors American Family Ventures and Revolutions Rise of the Rest Seed Fund also participated, along with new investors SignalFire, SCOR Global P&C, Elefund, Foundation Capital, and individuals from Stone Point Capital.

Branch explains its technology as integrating data to the point where a traditional application and quote estimate are no longer needed. Its system is designed to give clients an instant purchasable price rather than just an estimate. The company said its technology can be integrated into home financing and car-buying websites, adding that customers complete their purchase without having to dig up additional information to apply or wait for a quote.

Ian Sigalow, co-founder and a partner at Greycroft, said in prepared remarks that Branchs instant-bind capability has never been possible before.

Beyond its basic cover, Branch has incentive programs such as My Community Discount, where customers invite friends to check out Branch, and then get a $25 Amazon eGift Card once they request a price. Both customers and their friends earn discounts on their insurance as long as theyre customers.

Theres also Community Pledge, which involves an app. Customers ask other Branch customers to pledge that they believe they would not commit insurance fraud, and then both can earn discounts between 1 percent and 5 percent as long as theyre both customers.

As well, Branch launched the non-profit SafetyNext, which is designed to help qualifying customers who have suffered home or auto loss and dont have enough of insurance to fully cover the damage.

Lekas and tech entrepreneur Joe Emison launched Branch in 2018. Branch insurance is underwritten by General Security National Insurance Company (GSNIC).

Source: Branch
A top Australian doctor has choked back tears as he described the impending disaster in Victoria due to the latest coronavirus outbreak.

Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone issued the grim warning when he appeared on the Today show on Thursday.

'Our residents in aged care facilities are just a heartbeat away from calamity,' he said.

'We have seen this astronomical explosion in cases there. The PPE is not being worn. Infection control procedures are not being implemented in some.

'This is just absolutely unsustainable and we are just going to see the (case) numbers continue to rise.'

Karl Stefanovic appeared stunned after Dr Bartone issued his warning.

'It's bleak,' the host replied.

Today show hosts Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon appeared stunned after Australian Medical Association president Tony Bartone issued the grim warning

'That man is considered, that man is knowledgeable, and that man is incredibly worried,' Stefanovic said.

'Incredibly worried. Hes saying we need help. We need help here in Victoria.'

Victoria is the only state grappling with widespread community transmission at this point, while New South Wales is seeing some cases from unknown sources but on nowhere near the same scale as in Melbourne.

A further 484 cases were diagnosed in Victoria in the 24 hours to Wednesday - the largest single-day spike in Australia since the pandemic began.

Newly diagnosed cases in other states have been largely linked to returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

Stricter social distancing measures have now been introduced in Victoria in a bid to slow the spread of the disease.

From Thursday police in Victoria will issue $200 on-the-spot fines to anybody in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire who does not wear a face mask while out in public.

Residents within the locked-down suburbs can only leave home for four reasons - daily exercise, shopping for essential goods, to give or receive care or to travel to work.

Victorians could be cut off from the rest of Australia for two years as the state battles a second outbreak of coronavirus

Bartone's grim warning comes as Melbourne struggles to control an unprecedented coronavirus outbreak

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is reportedly desperate to reopen his state to avoid economic ruin, but is resolved to only do so when cases drop dramatically.

Senior government figures told The Australian Mr Andrews wanted daily case numbers 'in the single digits' before reopening the economy.

'It all comes down to the data. Every option is open,' a senior government source said.

Almost nine in ten Victorians who tested positive to COVID-19 between July 7 and July 21 were still leaving their houses while their symptoms developed.

Even after being tested, 54 per cent still left their homes while waiting for their results, Mr Andrews said.

From midnight, wearing a face mask will be mandatory throughout metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire and failure to do so punishable with a $200 fine

Pictured: A map shows Sydney's coronavirus hotspot sites as the virus spreads throughout NSW

Royal Melbourne Hospital this week received an order for an additional 22 ventilators to bolster its intensive care units, which already have 42 beds.

Hospitals in the state are preparing for an influx of of coronavirus patients given hospital admissions appeared to be about 10 days behind the diagnoses of new cases.

Australians aged 20 to 29 had the highest number of infections, while people aged over 70 had the lowest.

Women aged between 20 to 29 and 60 to 69 were the most likely of females to be infected, while men aged 60 to 79 were the most likely of males.

And while the bulk of the infections were acquired overseas during the period studied, 98.8 per cent of cases diagnosed in the last week have been acquired locally.
NEW YORK, July 22 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said Wednesday there is "no excuse" why the bank's recruits from top U.S. universities are not more diverse, and said he wants to move faster to increase diversity among the bank's senior ranks.

Goldman has set some of the most aggressive and specific goals among the big banks requiring that more Black, Latino and female professionals be interviewed and hired for jobs at the bank. But Solomon said the bank is not increasing diversity fast enough, particularly at the upper echelons.

"I'm not pleased with where the senior leadership of the firm is," Solomon said of the bank's predominantly white, male senior ranks.

Last year, Goldman said it wanted 11% of all new analysts and entry-level associates hired in the U.S. to be Black, 14% to be Latino and half to be women to reflect the country's demographics. It also required that at least two diverse candidates be interviewed for any senior job opening, and it recently created a committee in the investment bank to track progress toward these goals. https://reut.rs/2GnvvQ1

Four out of Goldman's 11 board directors are women and its lead director, Adebayo Ogunlesi, is Black.

Speaking at a virtual event hosted by the Economic Club of New York, Solomon said the directors have been critical to the bank's success, and he has plucked people from various roles and moved them around to different executive committees to increase diversity there, too.

In January, the bank also made it a rule that any company that wants Goldman's help in going public must have at least one diverse board director first. https://reut.rs/3dMeDRm

"All of us as leaders have to use our platform to shine a light on things that we'd like to move faster," Solomon said. (Reporting By Elizabeth Dilts Marshall; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
MUSKEGON, MI - Muskegons third marijuana dispensary will open to the public on Thursday, July 23.

Redbud Roots, a Buchanan-based cannabis producer and distributor, will open its second retail location - and first to serve recreational customers, as well as medicinal users - at 237 W. Laketon Ave. in Muskegons marijuana overlay district.

Thats a few days earlier than the company had initially expected, as they navigated coronavirus-related delays, according to Alex Leonowicz, one of the companys four co-founders.

 Ground Control to Major Tom. Commencing countdown, engines on...  Were firing up the rockets for liftoff this... Posted by Redbud Roots Muskegon Provisioning on Sunday, July 19, 2020

The 2,500-square-foot dispensary will offer curbside pickup, and sell both its own products as well as those sourced by other producers.

Stock will include concentrates, edibles, waxes, tinctures and topical creams.

Leonowicz previously told MLive that it pursued a Muskegon location because the city was an early adopter of the cannabis industry.

Muskegon approved medical marijuana businesses in April 2018, and recreational marijuana last October. Such businesses are zoned for an overlay district, comprising two areas in the citys former industrial center, near Seaway Drive.

One square portion is bordered by Seaway, Young Avenue, Park Street and West Hackley Avenue.

The second oddly-shaped portion of the district, which Redbud Roots is part of, is roughly bordered by Laketon Avenue, Park Street, Keating Avenue, Holbrook Avenue and a line just east of Peck Street.

The Redbud Roots dispensary will join two others - Park Place Provisionary, at 1922 Park Street, and Bella Sol Wellness, at 1839 Peck Street - in Muskegons cannabis corridor.

The company is also opening locations in Benton Harbor and Kalamazoo. It currently operates a medical marijuana provisioning center in Williamsburg.

Medical marijuana became legalized in Michigan in 2008. Ten years later, in November of 2018, Michigan became the 10th state in America  and the first in the Midwest  to legalize recreational marijuana, too.

Park Place opened as Muskegons first recreational shop in January.

Read more on MLive:

Legal dispute continues between cannabis company and Muskegon Township

Third marijuana dispensary rises in Muskegon cannabis corridor

New marijuana dispensary opens in Muskegon Township
Executives from four companies in the race to produce a coronavirus vaccine  AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna Therapeutics and Pfizer  told lawmakers on Tuesday that they are optimistic their products could be ready by the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. All four companies are testing vaccines in human clinical trials.

Three of the firms  AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna  are getting federal funds for their vaccine development efforts. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson pledged to the lawmakers that they would produce hundreds of millions of doses of their vaccines at no profit to themselves. Moderna, however, which has been granted $483 million from the government to develop its product, made no such promise.

We will not sell it at cost, said Dr. Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna.

Many Democratic lawmakers have argued that federal funding for vaccine development should include provisions to guarantee affordability and guard against profiteering.

At the congressional hearing Tuesday, some House members raised concerns about Pfizers decision to reject federal funds, suggesting it could lead to price-gouging and a lack of transparency.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

We didnt accept the federal government funding solely for the reason that we wanted to be able to move as quickly as possible with our vaccine candidate into the clinic, said John Young, Pfizers chief business officer.

Well price our potential vaccine consistent with the urgent global health emergency that were facing, Young said, adding that a vaccine is meaningless if people are unable to afford it.

Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., also questioned whether failing to address the financial stakes of vaccine development early on could keep these products out of the hands of the people that need this most.

I dont want to look back, and then have health equity be an afterthought, said Ruiz, who is a physician. It has to be prioritized.

The hearing held by members of the House energy committees oversight panel was punctuated by notes of optimism from executives from each company, several of whom referred to promising early results from studies in people. On Monday, AstraZeneca and Pfizer released data indicating that their vaccines could stimulate strong immune responses with only minor side effects.

Still, the actual effectiveness and durability of these responses against the virus have yet to be determined. No vaccine candidates have been proven effective for preventing infection by the coronavirus, or for protecting people from the severe effects of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Panel members pressed the company executives for a commitment to maintain the highest standards for a vaccine, and not sacrifice quality for the sake of expediency. An ideal vaccine, several committee members stressed, would not only be safe and effective, but also be straightforward enough to manufacture en masse and available to the public at low cost.

It is possible that a COVID-19 vaccine may become available by the end of this year or early next year, said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., the panels chair. Thats a rare bit of good news in this harrowing time.

But, she added, we must remind ourselves that plenty can still go wrong. And so the anticipated timeline is not guaranteed.

A fifth contender, Merck, painted a far less rosy picture of the vaccine development landscape. Dr. Julie Gerberding, the companys executive vice president and chief patient officer, made no promises about when its product would be ready, citing concerns about safety should the process be rushed. We do not expect to be able to accelerate the safety assessment, Gerberding said.

Mercks chief executive, Kenneth Frazier, has previously cautioned against coronavirus vaccine hype and warned that a hurried approval process could damage prospects for protecting the public.

In a statement released on June 30, the Food and Drug Administration noted that any vaccine candidate vying for approval would need to prevent or ameliorate disease in at least 50% of the people who received it. Manufacturers wont have a good sense of these metrics until the completion of so-called Phase 3 clinical trials, which enroll thousands of participants  some of whom are vaccinated, some of whom arent  and track their infection status over the course of multiple months.

Federal approval isnt the only goal of vaccine development, the executives said. Once this milestone is met, the vaccines will still need to be administered widely and also be accessible to a range of populations  particularly those that have been disproportionately affected by the virus. Those would include the elderly, people with underlying medical conditions and Black, Latino and Native Americans.

In written statements to the panel, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer reaffirmed their commitment to diversity in their vaccine development pipelines to ensure that these vulnerable communities will also benefit from their products.

Dr. Macaya Douoguih, who is head of clinical development and medical affairs of Johnson & Johnsons Janssen Vaccines, said at the hearing that her company would be leveraging its past experience with community outreach, noting the importance of equipping higher-risk populations with accurate information about the disease.

And Hoge, of Moderna, said that his company is actively enrolling people representative of the diversity of America into Phase 3 trials.

The subcommittee also stressed the importance of worldwide distribution of any vaccines proven effective against the coronavirus to ensure global health.

None of us are safe until all of us are safe, Young said.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As Covid-19 cases go up in state, the arrival of expats from abroad has slowed down. According to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, majority of flights, mainly coming from Saudi Arabia, were landing in the state with empty seats.In addition to that the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia has informed the government that there is a sense of disinterest among the applicants to return to the state. The chief minister also added that applications seeking permission to operate chartered flights have also come down. Saudi Arabia, which has now listed 46 chartered flights to Kerala, is the second largest country in terms of Malayali diaspora working outside the country after UAE.

At the same time, for the thirteenth consecutive day, local transmission cases remain in the three figure mark as, of the 720 new cases reported on Tuesday, 528 were due to contact. Taking the tally of Covid-19 deaths to 44, a 72-year-old who died on July 16 tested positive for the virus. Upon easing lockdown restrictions in the state, a total of 6, 20,462 returnees had arrived here. Of these, 2,35,231 were from abroad alone. Also, 3, 225 returnees were tested positive. Of these, 1,939 were from abroad. In addition to that, a total of 1,351 flights have arrived from 56 countries so far, the chief minister said.

Meanwhile, with market places and shopping establishments becoming sources of infection and transmission, the state government has decided to provide special attention to such areas. It has been decided to initiate stringent measures including arrests and prosecution proceedings against traders who violate Covid protocol.

Some recent incidents stress the need for special attention at markets. These include wholesale and retail markets. At these places certain regulations will be enforced. In the case of violators, it has been decided to move forward with actions including arrests, prosecution proceedings and even shutting down of such establishments, the chief minister said in his Covid-19 briefing.

742 CFLTCs with 69, 215 beds by July 23

Stating the operation of COVID First Line Treatment Centres (CFLTC) in the state, the chief minister said that as per stats until July 19, a total of 187 CFLTCs were in operation and they together had a total of 20, 404 beds. The chief minister also added that the government is planning to set up 742 CFLTCs with a total bed capacity of 69,215 by July 23.

He also added that those who have tested positive in the rapid antigen test will also be lodged in CFLTCs. Chances are high that asymptomatic patients could transmit the virus to others. Sometimes it might lead to community transmission. Thus they will have to be lodged at a centre like CFLTC. Everyone should cooperate with the health department for the general good, said the chief minister.

Rapid transmission possible in state

The chief minister said that considering the population density and presence of high ratio of senior citizens and those with comorbidities, the virus could rapidly spread among the population resulting in a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. But so far we have fared better. The state which started with one testing centre now has 59 testing centres in the government sector and 51 in private sector. The rate of testing and number of testing centres will be increased, he said.
The global pandemic threw the world for a loop as businesses shut down, schools closed, and working from home became the new normal. Phrases like social distancing and self-quarantine became part of our everyday nomenclature, and safety measures such as temperature checks and mask wearing were integrated into daily life. Its now hard to imagine businesses and gathering places without these new standards in place.

From a business standpoint, reopening still poses many concerns and uncertainty. How can businesses keep employees safe, remain compliant with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and avoid liability while still maintaining a sustainable level of profitability?

From an employee standpoint, while many workers are eager to return to full-time hours and consistent paychecks, they are scared to return to an environment that increases their exposure to COVID-19. They may have questions about proper PPE, enforcement of social distancing and mask wearing, and many face new responsibilities that are not traditional to their position.

Artificial intelligence will play a major role as we try to move to a post-pandemic world, especially as it pertains to tracking peoples health and wellbeing in public areas. Employers will tap technology solutions to help them face challenges such as adhering to new rules and regulations, monitoring compliance, and ensuring employee confidence and morale remains positive.

Todays new reality will rely on technology more than ever, and this trend will only continue to grow as we settle into the new normal. From monitoring individuals to helping to ease customer flow, technology  specifically artificial intelligence  will be critical.

Why AI?

As society plans the reopening of offices, shared spaces and customer-facing businesses, how can we ensure the safety of workers and the community at large?

One option is to hire or assign employees to policing practices such as temperature taking, mask wearing, and social distancing enforcement. Depending on the size of the business, this could take a great number of people. It would most likely involve a two-pronged approach, with employees on the ground as well as employees monitoring the situation from screens.

Human error is a risk in these scenarios. Its difficult to monitor a large group of people to make sure they are adhering to the CDC guidelines. It also places a substantial mental burden on staff; the average human attention span is about 8.25 seconds, and many are distracted by emails, text messages and constant notifications on their phones.

A technology solution is the clear answer in this case. Artificial Intelligence is a powerful technology tool that allows for multiple tasks to take place at once, faster and more efficiently than humanly possible. Cognitive computing systems such as neural networks are a specific type of AI that simulates human thought. This type of AI is used in autonomous vehicles and is also a good structure to build post-pandemic monitoring systems.

Cognitive computing can learn to digest information in different contexts. For example, if people are simply passing each other, or a family walks into a store together, the system will learn that they do not need to physically distance within the group and therefore will not be violating the rules of social distancing.

Not only is AI more reliable than humans at tracking multiple data points at one time, this type of monitoring can reduce liability exposure for businesses and organizations. Amazon is being sued by workers for not enforcing social distancing measures and being careless with contact tracing efforts. At the time, had the company had AI monitoring in place, it could have helped to make sure that such measures were being properly enforced and provided proof that the company took measures to ensure the safety of its workers.

AI in the Workplace

Remote working was the instant solution for many businesses when the pandemic escalated. While some businesses are fully back in office and adhering to mandated expectations for employee safety, others remain remote or are utilizing strategic and flexible work schedules.

For those going into office settings, a host of safety measures need to be implemented, but can pose a myriad of difficulties to ensure compliance and create substantial liability issues. AI can help to monitor body temperatures, ensure employees are social distancing, and even confirm that masks are being worn consistently.

This use of AI technology can help reduce worker frustration and dissatisfaction with new rules of compliance, free up staff from the need to manually attempt a fraction of what todays computing power can achieve, and keep employees doing what they do best, rather than enforcing rules.

The post-pandemic workplace will be made of more controlled environments including more managed daily interactions, reserving time for specific activities, rotating people in and out of smaller spaces, and flexible workspaces where employees can come and go as needed as opposed to each having a dedicated space.

As the COVID-19 situation fluctuates, so will the guidelines that need monitoring. AI systems can quickly and easily be programed to shift with the loosening or tightening of guidelines, allowing for flexibility in the system.

AI in Customer Experience

For those working in retail, hospitality, healthcare and other customer-facing industries, additional unique challenges abound. Customers have been patient and understanding with the recent changes, but as the new normal sets in, this perseverance will surely revert to earlier expectations and customers may even begin to demand more.

Customers will tire of waiting in line and having their temperatures taken to enter a restaurant or shop. While they will still expect safety measures and want to feel safe in the environment, their expectations of a quicker delivery method should be anticipated.

With a situational awareness solution, companies can mitigate risks and still focus on delivering quality customer service. Businesses that rely on heavy foot traffic such as shopping centers, hospitals, casinos, recreational venues and theme parks, will need to evolve to remain safely in business. For such large spaces with big crowds, technology to monitor for social distancing, temperature checks and mask compliance will be critical.

Hospitals will be one of the many workplaces that will evolve and depend on technology to avoid cross-contamination, especially with patients at higher-risk. AI technology can be used to take vitals, heartrate, temperatures and more without the need to enter a patients room. This will help to provide better overall patient care while keeping patients and staff safe.

For retail and theme park settings, customer service can be faster and more efficient. There will no longer be the need to wait in a physical line. Customers will be able to check in, receive a notification when its their turn, and then be able to walk right up for service or to experience an attraction. AI will be more important than ever in these high-traffic situations.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

AI Monitoring and Privacy

With all of these technological implementations, employees and customers alike may be concerned about privacy. AI solutions have the ability to make people into avatars, where only behaviors and other rules are being monitored, which will help to ensure the privacy of individuals.

Unlike the extensive volumes of video surveillance data being collected, this type of monitoring does not entail identity information such as names or images. Moreover, data through this type of platform can be stored locally, not via a cloud system which might be breached more easily. This could reduce the risk of bad actors intruding in the system since access would need to be through the local database.

A Better Future With AI

AI-enabled technology solutions will help lead to a better future. The change has already begun, and the landscape will most likely continue to shift abruptly as we adapt to the post-pandemic world and learn more about how COVID-19 and other diseases are transmitted.

Customers, businesses and employees will all experience concern during phased reopening, but there are ways to safeguard individuals in minimally intrusive ways, thanks to AI, neural networks and other technological advancements.

AI technology solutions will allow us to advance and resume some semblance of normal activity, all while managing compliance, ensuring profitability and mitigating liability.
New Delhi: Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur has tweeted to announced that if his film 'Paani' is ever made, it will be dedicated to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput. 'Paani' was announced years ago by Shekhar Kapur with Sushant in the lead and it was backed by Yash Raj Films (YRF). However, it eventually got shelved, reportedly due to creative differences between the filmmaker and YRF head Aditya Chopra.

In his tweet, Shekhar Kapur also categorically mentioned that for the film, he wants partners with 'humility, not in 'arrogance'.

"If you want to journey with the Gods, or your creativity, you have to walk each step in devotion. In humility. God willing 'Paani' will get made one day. If it does, I will dedicate it to Sushant. But it has to be made with partners that walk in humility, not in arrogance," read his tweet.

If you want to journey with the Gods, or your creativity, you have to walk each step in devotion. In humility. God willing #Paani will get made one day. If it does, I will dedicate it to Sushant. But it has to be made with partners that walk in humility, not in arrogance. pic.twitter.com/pWzTt04IbK  Shekhar Kapur (@shekharkapur) July 22, 2020

According to earlier reports, Sushant had signed a contract with YRF for three films - 'Shuddh Desi Romance' (2013), 'Detective Byomkesh Bakshy' (2015). He was scheduled to work in 'Paani', but the project got shelved.

As per Aditya Chopra, who was questioned by the Mumbai Police last week in Sushant's death case, 'Paani' as not made because of creative differences with Shekhar Kapur and had nothing to do with the actor.

Sushant died by suicide on June 14. He was said to be under stress and depression. So far over 35 people have been questioned by cops in the case.
Over 180 leading historians on Wednesday called for references to the British empire, colonial India and slavery in a key text that migrants need to study before qualifying for permanent residency or UK citizenship to be revised to correct errors and misrepresentations.

All migrants need to pass a Life in the UK Test as part of their application to the Home Office for indefinite leave to remain or UK citizenship. It has 24 questions based on British traditions, history and customs that migrants need to know well enough to pass it.

To prepare for the test, the applicants are prescribed an official handbook called Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents. Over 1.25 lakh migrants applied for naturalisation in 2019, a process that includes the test.

The historians, mainly specialising in the area of British empire, wrote an open letter in protest against what they call misrepresentation of slavery and empire in the test and the handbook, which includes references to colonial India.

The letter says: The official handbook published by the Home Office is fundamentally misleading and in places demonstrably falseIt also states that by the second part of the 20th century, there was, for the most part, an orderly transition from Empire to Commonwealth, with countries being granted their independence.

In fact, decolonisation was not an orderly but an often violent process, not only in India but also in the many so-called emergencies such as the Mau-Mau Uprising in Kenya (1952-1960). We call for an immediate official review of the history chapter.

Signatories include David Washbrook (Cambridge), Yasmin Khan (Oxford), Joya Chatterjee (Cambridge), William Dalrymple, Tirthankar Roy (LSE), Anindita Ghosh (Manchester), Sujit Sivasundaram (Cambridge) and David Olusoga (Manchester).

The letter says: Applicants are expected to learn about more than two hundred individuals. The only individual of colonial origin named in the book is Sake Dean Mohamet who co-founded Englands first curry house in 1810. The pages on the British Empire end with a celebration of Rudyard Kipling.

The aim of the official handbook is to promote tolerance and fairness and facilitate integration. In its current version, the historical pages do the oppositeUntil the history chapter has been corrected and rewritten, it should be formally withdrawn from the test.

The Home Office, headed by secretary Priti Patel, said: Given the breadth of British history, the Life in the UK handbook provides a starting point to explore our past and help those seeking to live permanently in the UK gain a basic understanding of our society, culture and historical references which occur in everyday conversations.

We have published several editions of the handbook since it was launched and will continue to keep its contents under review and consider any feedback we receive.

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Heads of Agreement Signed for Scandium Offtake

3D printing of the Terran 1 launch vehicle at Relativitys Stargate factory

Encompassing four buildings with 20,000 square feet of office space and production facilities, Relativitys LA facility houses design, engineering, and production of the Terran 1 launch vehicle and the Stargate printers.

MELBOURNE, Australia, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sam Riggall, Chief Executive Officer of Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (Clean TeQ or Company) (ASX/TSX:CLQ; OTCQX:CTEQF), is pleased to announce a collaboration with Relativity Space, Inc. (Relativity) to develop scandium-aluminium alloys for 3D printing of launchers for commercial orbital launch services. The two companies have also agreed a binding Scandium Offtake Heads of Agreement for the Company to supply scandium oxide (volumes to be determined at Relativitys election) from Clean TeQs Sunrise Project in NSW, Australia.



The collaboration is consistent with Clean TeQs long term strategy, led by Dr. Timothy Langan, manager of Clean TeQs scandium alloy development programs, to assist industry players to investigate and develop new applications for scandium-aluminium alloys. The Companys aim is to stimulate growth in demand for the material which will be converted into sales of scandium from the Sunrise Project once it is in operation.

Clean TeQs technical and marketing team will work closely with Relativity on development of scandium-containing alloys for Relativitys patented Stargate 3D printing process. Results so far are encouraging and trials are progressing.

Clean TeQs Sunrise Project in New South Wales, Australia, is being developed as one of the worlds largest integrated producers of nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate  key cathode materials for the electric vehicle battery market. However, it also hosts one of the largest and highest-grade scandium deposits ever discovered, positioning Clean TeQ to be a major supplier of low-cost scandium for production of next-generation lightweight aluminium alloys for use in a variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive and consumer products.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Relativity Space, Inc. is a private American aerospace manufacturing company which is developing its Terran 1, the worlds first 3D printed space launch rocket, and Aeon engines for commercial orbital launch services.

Story continues

3D printing of the Terran 1 launch vehicle at Relativitys Stargate factory:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f0d6cea2-28a7-4860-80e3-0d587c27d8d4

Aerospace manufacturing has traditionally relied on large factories, fixed tooling, complex supply chains and extensive manual labour to build costly rockets comprised of 100,000+ parts, with lead-times of two years or more. Relativity has engineered and built the Stargate factory, the first aerospace platform to automate rocket manufacturing, vertically integrating intelligent robotics, software, and data-driven 3D printing technology.

Incorporating the worlds largest metal 3D printers and artificial intelligence driven controls, the Stargate factory continuously optimizes production, resulting in greatly enhanced quality and time improvements, lower costs and part counts, and product designs previously not possible. Relativity has developed multiple proprietary alloys, custom designed for 3D printing to meet mission-critical performance.

Clean TeQs Chief Executive Officer, Sam Riggall, commented, We are delighted to be partnering with Relativity on this important project. Scandium allows us to create a new generation of aluminium alloys with unrivalled functionality  alloys that are stronger, lighter, more corrosion-resistant and printable. These alloys have the potential to revolutionise the manufacturing processes for a range of industries, as Relativity is already demonstrating. Our relationship with Relativity reinforces our strategy of working with innovative companies to find new solutions between raw materials and advanced manufacturing.

Encompassing four buildings with 20,000 square feet of office space and production facilities, Relativitys LA facility houses design, engineering, and production of the Terran 1 launch vehicle and the Stargate printers:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b067c3e3-0c2b-42e3-9fd3-08ceb05574c5

Relativitys CTO and Co-Founder, Jordan Noone, commented, Relativity was founded on the principle that aerospace manufacturing can benefit significantly from emerging technology. Scandium alloys are a key part of being able to combine 3D printing with the structural needs of spaceflight. We are looking forward to working with Clean TeQ to continue our work in revolutionizing aerospace manufacturing.

Further information about the Terran 1 launchers and the Stargate 3D printing technology is available from Relativitys website: https://www.relativityspace.com/.

Under the terms of the Scandium Offtake Heads of Agreement, Clean TeQ will supply scandium oxide to Relativity from the Companys Sunrise Project once production commences. Annual volumes will be determined by Relativity. The parties have agreed a fixed price for scandium supplied pursuant to the Heads of Agreement. The Heads of Agreement is for a maximum ten-year term, and may be terminated by Relativity with notice, or by Clean TeQ if certain defined minimum purchase volumes are not met.

For more information, please contact:

Ben Stockdale, CFO and Investor Relations (Australia) +61 3 9797 6700

About Clean TeQ Holdings Limited (ASX/TSX: CLQ)  Based in Melbourne, Australia, Clean TeQ is a global leader in metals recovery and industrial water treatment through the application of its proprietary Clean-iX continuous ion exchange technology. For more information about Clean TeQ please visit the Companys website www.cleanteq.com.

About the Clean TeQ Sunrise Project  Clean TeQ is the 100% owner of the Clean TeQ Sunrise Project, located in New South Wales. Clean TeQ Sunrise is one of the largest cobalt deposits outside of Africa, and one of the largest and highest-grade accumulations of scandium ever discovered.

About Clean TeQ Water  Through its wholly owned subsidiary Clean TeQ Water, Clean TeQ is also providing innovative wastewater treatment solutions for removing hardness, desalination, nutrient removal and zero liquid discharge. The sectors of focus include municipal wastewater, surface water, industrial waste water and mining waste water. For more information about Clean TeQ Water please visit www.cleanteqwater.com.

This announcement is authorised for release to the market by the Board of Directors of Clean TeQ Holdings Limited.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this news release constitute forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, the Sunrise Project or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as may, would, could, will, intend, expect, believe, plan, anticipate, estimate, scheduled, forecast, predict and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements reflect the Companys current expectations regarding future events, performance and results, and speak only as of the date of this new release.

Statements in this news release that constitute forward-looking statements or information include, but are not limited to statements regarding: the development of the Sunrise Project, sales of scandium, Sunrise becoming an important supplier of low-cost scandium and the development of the scandium market. Readers are cautioned that actual results may vary from those presented. All such forward-looking information and statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by Clean TeQs management in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believe are appropriate in the circumstances. These statements, however, are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information or statements including, but not limited to, unexpected changes in laws, rules or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to contracts to perform as agreed; changes in commodity prices; unexpected failure or inadequacy of infrastructure, or delays in the development of infrastructure, and the failure of exploration programs or other studies to deliver anticipated results or results that would justify and support continued studies, development or operations. Other important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements also include those described under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's most recently filed Annual Information Form available under its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements.

Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Subject to applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this news release.
Job Title: Legal Officer

Organisation: East

African Community (EAC)

Reports to: Executive

Secretary

Duty Station: Lake

Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC), Kisumu, Kenya

REF: EAC/HR/2020-21/28

NB: Open

to Ugandan Nationals

About US:

The East African

Community is a regional intergovernmental organization comprising the Republic

of Burundi, the Republic of Kenya, the Republic of Rwanda, the United Republic

of Tanzania, Republic of South Sudan, and the Republic of Uganda with its

Headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. The EAC mission is to widen and deepen

economic, political, social, and cultural integration to improve the quality of

life of the people of East Africa through increased competitiveness, value

added production, trade, and investments. This is an exciting opportunity

for highly motivated and result-driven professionals who are citizens of East

African Community Partner States (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Sudan

and Uganda) to apply for the following position.

Job Summary:

The Legal Officer will provide legal advice to the Lake Victoria Basin

Commission as well as rendering other legal services.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:



Facilitate

research and articulate regional best practices in harmonization of national

laws;



Draft,

review and guide negotiations on Tripartite Protocols, Agreements, MOUs,

Funding and Grant Agreements, Contracts and other legal documents ensuring

their consistency with the mandate of the Commission and international law;



Provide

Partner States, upon request with all necessary legal support with regard to

the implementation of the EAC Treaty, the Protocol establishing the LVBC and

the Lake Victoria commission Act;



Provide

legal advice to the Commission in its relations with third parties and

employees on matters concerning administration and employment;



Represent

the Commission in legal disputes;



Perform

any other duties as may be assigned by management.

Qualifications and Experience:



The

applicant for the East African Community (EAC) Legal Officer job must hold a Bachelors

Degree in Law from reputable University;



Post

Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice or/and Certification of enrollment on the

Bar in a Partner State;



A

minimum of 5 years of relevant experience at National and/or International

level.



Excellent

legal drafting skills;



Good

communication and negotiation skills;



Proficiency

in use of computers and report writing skills.

Eligibility for applications: Applicants from all EAC Partner States are eligible to apply for

the above position.

Fringe Benefits:

The established

posts offer attractive fringe benefits including housing allowance, transport

allowance, education allowance, a medical scheme, and insurance cover.

Equal Opportunity: The EAC is an equal opportunity employer; therefore, female

candidates are particularly encouraged to apply. EAC will only respond to those

candidates who strictly meet the set requirements.

How to Apply:

All interested

candidates who meet the qualification and experience requirements for the above

mentioned position are advised to :

Fill in the application form attached ( download from here );



detailed CV, Copies of certified academic certificates, and a copy of

National Identity Card or Passport in PDF format scanned in one (1)

file. attach their application letter, adetailed CV, Copies of certified academic certificates, and a copy ofNational Identity Card or Passport in PDF format scanned in



number on both the application letter and envelope. Please quote the respective referencenumber on both the application letter and envelope.



the respective reference number on the subject of the email and send to

the address given below. For electronic submission, please quotethe respective reference number on the subject of the email and send tothe address given below.

Please note:

1.

You may submit your application either electronically or in hard copy but not

both.

2.

Applications which do not :

have EAC application form;



indicate nationality and age;



have the reference number;



or have an application letter attached;





degrees and other professional Certificates; have certified copies of their academicdegrees and other professional Certificates;





be disqualified. or fail to provide three referees willbe disqualified.

3.

Only qualified candidates will be contacted

4.

EAC Staff Rules and Regulations preclude considerations of applicants above 55

years of age.

Please note that EAC

does not require candidates to pay money for the recruitment process. All

invitations for interviews will be done in writing.

A due diligence will

be conducted for all successful candidates in respect of their academic

certificates (certification by a recognized higher education body in the

respective Partner States) and employment records .

The Secretary General

East African Community

P. o Box 1096

Arusha  Tanzania.

Tel: +255 27 2162100

Fax: +255 27 2162190

E-mail: vacancies@eachq.org

Deadline: Friday, 21st August 2020.

For more of the

latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline






The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday initiated suo motu (on its own motion) contempt proceedings against lawyer Prashant Bhushan for accusing the judiciary of destroying democracy and keeping courts shut during the nationwide lockdown restrictions, which were enforced from March 25 onwards in a bid to contain the spread of the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, via his two tweets on June 27 and 29.

A three-judge SC bench, headed by Justice Arun Mishra and also included Justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, issued notice to Bhushan to respond by August 5.

We are, prima facie, of the view that the aforesaid statements on Twitter have brought the administration of justice in disrepute and are capable of undermining the dignity and the authority of the institution of SC in general and the office of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) in particular, in the eyes of the public at large, the court said.

San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. was also made a contemnor by the top court along with Bhushan.

Senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, who appeared for Twitter, told the SC that a tweet can be disabled only on a judicial order passed by a court.

We are an independent platform unable to disable the tweet without an order from a court.

When Poovayya asked the court to pass an order to this effect, the bench said, Why should we direct? On your own, you should have done it.

Poovayya told the SC that he would consult with Twitter and respond by August 5.

The court has also issued notice to Attorney-General (A-G) KK Venugopal for assisting in this case.

Bhushan did not appear, nor was he represented by any lawyer.

The court order took note of the first tweet dated June 27, which was carried in a national daily.

Bhushan put out another tweet on June 29 against which the SC received a petition for initiating contempt proceedings.

The first tweet, which was reproduced in the order, stated, When historians in the future look back at the last six years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the SC in this destruction, and more particularly the role of the last four CJIs.

The second tweet was aimed at the incumbent CJI SA Bobde.

Bhushans tweet, now part of the order, said, The CJI rides a Rs 50-lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) leader at Raj Bhavan, Nagpur, without wearing a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC on lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!

The apex court received a petition filed by one Mahek Maheshwari on July 9 against the June 29 tweet.

The matter was taken up on the administrative side.

The SC found that A-G Venugopals consent as required under Rule 3 (c) of the Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court, 1975, was not obtained.

Then, the apex court decided to take up the matter as a suo motu petition on the judicial side to pass appropriate orders, the SC order said.

This is the third contempt plea against Bhushan.

Earlier, Bhushan, in an interview to news magazine Tehelka that was published on September 5, 2009, had alleged that half of the past 16 CJIs were corrupt.

Though the contempt plea was initiated in January 2010 and was last heard on May 2, 2012, this matter has been listed again before a bench, headed by Justice Mishra, for July 24 (Friday).

Bhushans father and former Union Law Minister Shanti Bhushan had intervened in the decade-old case and had filed a sealed cover giving instances of corruption against former CJIs.

Bhushan had also accused the Centre of misleading the court on the decision to appoint M Nageswara Rao as interim director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) via a tweet on February 1, 2019.

The lawyer had claimed that the High-Powered Committee, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, did not decide on Rao as told to the apex court by A-G Venugopal.

Later, the A-G and the Union of India had filed a contempt plea against Bhushan.

Both the Tehelka interview and Rao appointment contempt pleas are still pending.
Unfazed by a rebuff from the Supreme Court, President Trump ordered U.S. census officials Tuesday to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the population count that will determine the number of congressional districts in each state for the next decade and said his plan could strip two to three House seats from California.

My administration will not support giving congressional representation to aliens who enter or remain in the country unlawfully, because doing so would create perverse incentives and undermine our system of government, Trump said in a statement accompanying his executive order to the agency that manages the Census Bureau.

In another statement, the White House press office said that continuing to include undocumented immigrants in the census count would reward states that encourage violations of federal immigration law. And, in a clear reference to California, the statement said, Estimates suggest that one state  home to more than 2.2 million illegal aliens  could receive two or three more congressional seats than would otherwise be allocated.

California, with 53 House seats, has about 2.2 million undocumented immigrants in its population of nearly 40 million. Gov. Gavin Newsom said Trumps action, rooted in racism and xenophobia, is a blatant attack on our institutions and our neighbors.

The presidents order seeks a dramatic reinterpretation of constitutional provisions on the census. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution requires an actual enumeration of the population every 10 years to determine congressional representation. The 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War, specifies that representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state.

MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images

As civil rights groups noted Tuesday, those provisions have been consistently interpreted to apportion House members according to each states actual population. Census data are also used to distribute $800 billion in federal funds to states and local governments, although Trumps order said only that unauthorized immigrants would be excluded from the count used to determine congressional representation and did not mention funding.

As the Supreme Court has long held, persons are persons under our Constitution, regardless of immigration status, said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Todays memorandum will end up in the dustbin of history as yet another exemplar of Donald Trumps disturbing embrace of white nationalism.

The Constitution requires that everyone in the U.S. be counted in the census, said Dale Ho, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney. President Trump cant pick and choose.

Ho took part in a lawsuit that successfully challenged Trumps attempt in 2018 to add a question on U.S. citizenship to the 2020 census for the first time since 1950.

In a 5-4 ruling in June 2019, Chief Justice John Roberts did not dispute the governments authority to choose census questions but said the administrations stated reason for the addition  that it would aid in enforcement of voting-rights laws  appeared to be contrived. Opponents had unearthed evidence indicating that the actual reason was to reduce representation in states like California with large immigrant populations and Democratic majorities.

Rather than offering a new explanation, the Trump administration withdrew the citizenship question. As a result, said Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, the Census Bureau would be unable to carry out Trumps latest order because it has no reliable data on any states population of citizens or undocumented immigrants.

Given all the legal and practical problems, I think the only real impact of this is likely to be messaging, Levitt said. It reassures the nativist portion of his base that hes on their team.

President Trump has decided that its better to throw unconstitutional red meat at his base than it is to have people look at COVID numbers, Jessica Levinson, another Loyola law professor, said.

Trump said in his order, however, that two weeks after the Supreme Court ruling, he directed federal agencies to provide information to the Commerce Department, to the extent permissible and consistent with law, that would reveal each states population of citizens, noncitizens and unauthorized immigrants.

His order contains further equivocal wording, directing the Commerce Department to take all appropriate action, consistent with the Constitution and other applicable law, to enable the president to carry out his preferred policy to the extent practicable.

But the order insists that Trump is acting within his legal authority. The constitutional requirement to count the whole number of persons in each state in the census must be read to include only inhabitants, the order said  excluding not only tourists and other visitors, but also, at the presidents discretion, immigrants who are here without legal standing.

Levitt, however, said Congress has explicitly required a complete count of all residents in laws dating back to 1929, based on the constitutional provisions.

Congress has said, Mr. President, you cant do this, Levitt said.

The issue has already reached the courts, in a suit by Alabama and one of its House members seeking to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count for redistricting and potentially gain House representation for that state.

The current system is robbing the people of the state of Alabama of their rightful share of political representation while systematically redistributing political power to states with high numbers of illegal aliens, the states lawyers said in court papers.

California, 15 other states and the District of Columbia have filed arguments saying the suit was baseless and should be dismissed. A federal judge in Alabama has not taken any action on the case since it was filed in May 2018.

Although the Supreme Court has never explicitly decided whether illegal immigrants must be included in population counts, the court addressed a related issue in 1896 when it said all U.S. residents, regardless of immigration status, are entitled to constitutional rights, such as the right to due process of law.

All persons within the territory of the United States are entitled to the protection by those amendments, including aliens, the court said in the case of Wong Wing vs. United States  decided on the same day that the court upheld racial segregation in Plessy vs. Ferguson.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
By Trend

As many as 2,586 people have been infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past 24 hours in Iran, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Trend reports citing the ministry.

According to Sadat Lari, 219 more people have died from the coronavirus over the past day.

Sadat Lari added that the condition of 3,609 people is critical.

The official said that Iran's Fars, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Razavi Khorasan, Alborz, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Golestan, Kerman, Zanjan, and Ilam provinces are red zones.

So far, more than 2.22 million tests have been conducted in Iran for the diagnosis of coronavirus.

Iran continues to monitor the coronavirus situation in the country. According to recent reports from the Iranian officials, over 281,400 people have been infected and 14,853 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 244,800 have reportedly recovered from the disease.

The country continues to apply strict measures to contain the further spread. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease.

The Islamic Republic only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19.

The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Linda MacDonald hates the phrase senseless shooting.

She says she rejects the idea that its impossible to make sense out of dramatic acts of violence  the kind that took place three months ago in Nova Scotia.

The shooter who killed 22 people in and around Portapique, N.S., appears to have had a history of violence against women, most specifically his common-law spouse. Research shows one of the few common elements between perpetrators of mass shootings is a history of domestic violence.

It may not be the only factor in the killings that took place in Colchester County in April  the RCMP say the preliminary findings of a psychological autopsy have described Gabriel Wortman as an injustice collector  but its enough for MacDonald to submit that any inquest into the massacre needs to include a feminist lens.

Its a call thats gained increasing public traction in recent weeks and months, as pressure mounts for the provincial and federal governments to begin a promised inquest into the killings  and scrutiny intensifies around what form that inquest could and should take.

Advocates for the approach say it could set an example for how to handle such tragic events in the future.

We cant be sitting around in the dark about the history of what happens before we get to these crimes and we cant be calling them senseless anymore, says MacDonald, the co-founder of Persons Against Non-State Torture (NST), a campaign to raise awareness about abuse  or torture  by families or groups.

We get the fact that mass shootings and misogyny and femicide are all connected. (A feminist lens on the inquiry) is a way of preventing these atrocities down the road.

So what is a feminist lens? What would it mean in this instance?

Practically, says MacDonald, the feminist perspective would be served first by including it  in black and white  in the mandate of the inquiry; then by including on the inquiry panel, someone who has a background in feminist analysis, and a knowledge of misogyny and femicide.

Thats what it would take to learn needed lessons from the Portapique shooting, says NST co-founder Jeanne Sarson.

A feminist analysis has to acknowledge that misogyny is attached  if you will  to all of our perceptions about how Canadian society wants to deal with violence against women and girls, says Sarson. How will this inquiry impact the future? How will Nova Scotians want to deal with violence against women and girls?

In a 2019 Pepperdine University study analyzing mass shootings in the United States, researchers found a significant portion of mass shooters had a history of either domestic violence or stalking.

There are very few commonalities among the diverse profiles of mass shooters, but a history of domestic violence is one that appears too often to ignore, the study found.

Based on their data, author Jacob Shawn Dunlop argued that, the next mass attack may be preventable through prudent policy. This paper argues that policy-makers should prioritize better enforcement of existing federal domestic violence laws, (and) restrict firearm access to felon and misdemeanant-level stalkers.

MacDonald and Sarson are not alone in their call for a feminist perspective in the Nova Scotia case.

In a letter last week, more than three dozen senators urged the federal and provincial government to use a feminist lens in a transparent and comprehensive inquiry into the shootings. Almost as many faculty members from the law school at Dalhousie University in Halifax did the same in a recent letter to Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil.

No assessment, no analysis will bring back those who have died. But in my experience working with those whove been victimized, there are usually two main things they want to know, says Sen. Kim Pate, one of the signatories to the Senate letter to ministers in both the federal and Nova Scotia governments.

And that is: Why? Why them? And how can we prevent it from happening to other people?

And if we dont look at the role of misogyny, the role of violence against women in these early indicators  when we dont take it seriously, then we do a serious injustice to trying to predict how to stop these kinds of patterns from unfolding again in the future.

Wayne MacKay, a professor emeritus at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, is one of 34 people to sign the letter from law school faculty urging the government to conduct, with all due haste, a transparent, impartial and independent assessment of why and how this incident occurred.

But, argues, MacKay, the framework of that inquiry is important too.

One of the provinces delays in announcing an inquiry, along with arguing jurisdiction with the feds, is Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Fureys stance that he would like to take a restorative justice approach to the inquiry.

Restorative justice, according to the Department of Justices own description, is an approach that focuses on addressing the harm caused by a crime by providing an opportunity for the parties directly affected by the crime  victims, offenders and communities  to identify and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime.

Thats a bad idea here, said MacKay, for a few reasons.

One is that a restorative approach  bringing the offender and the offended community together  is questionable in the circumstances surrounding Portapique, where the killer is dead, and so are most of his victims.

The other major problem is that the restorative approach is generally a very secretive process.

I'm particularly concerned that the lack of public commitment and the more behind-closed-doors approach will not be adequate to restore public confidence in the government, the police and the various other agencies, said MacKay, not only in their relation to their response, but in relation to what they did that may have laid the foundation for the problem in the first place.

The problem at the moment, said MacKay, is that all the public has is an open-ended commitment from both levels of government to have some kind of inquiry. Nobody knows the nature of that inquiry, or the timing.

I think its been way too long, for at least that much clarity to be provided the families in particular.

On April 18 and 19, Wortman killed 22 people, torched homes and shot pets during a 13-hour rampage that began in Portapique, and continued throughout Colchester County before police killed him at gas station near Enfield, N.S., almost 100 kilometres away.

A picture of the killer has since emerged as a man with a history of violence against women. In 2013, then-neighbour Brenda Forbes, 62-year-old veteran of the Canadian Forces, told police about reports that Wortman had held down and beaten his common-law spouse behind one of the properties he owned in Portapique.

Forbes previously told The Canadian Press she first became aware of Wortmans proclivity for domestic violence in the early 2000s, shortly after moving to Portapique, when his common-law spouse came to her door one night asking for help, saying Wortman was beating her and she needed to get away. Later in 2013, she learned from three witnesses that Wortman had been seen strangling and hitting his partner behind one of his properties. Other neighbours have reported similar incidents of violence.

Forbes  who has said she ended up moving out of Portapique due to fears of violence from Wortman  reported what she had seen and heard to the RCMP, including the fact that shed seen illegal weapons at his house. RCMP have since said the killings were carried out with guns that Wortman did not have a licence for.

On the evening of April 18, Wortmans killing began after an assault on his common-law wife, authorities have also said. She managed to escape captivity and hide out in the woods surrounding the property until finding police the next morning.

Read more about:
Cybersecurity company provides its cutting-edge Magecart detection solution free of charge for 3 months as a response to the growth of web skimming attacks during the pandemic.

 for more information please visit jscrambler.com

PORTO, Portugal, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Jscrambler , a technology company specializing in client-side security for web and mobile applications is offering its leading Magecart detection technology for free during a limited time. This free detection includes:

Periodic reports of detected malicious behavior and suspected Magecart attacks

A complete website inventory, with details of infected scripts and suspicious network events

A thorough analysis of each detection, including its source and call stack

On-demand access to real-time 24h monitoring and direct technical support

This technology is currently being used by major airlines and retailers to fight off web skimming attacks, which are estimated to have caused over $1 billion in damages to e-commerce businesses. Web skimming attacks are notoriously difficult to detect and tackle - they typically breach companies by infecting their third-party providers, which allows them to fly under the radar of security systems already in place. A new generation of web skimmers is also using bot detection techniques to escape detection, which makes it even more difficult to stop this growing threat.

The company has undertaken a significant R&D push to provide a technology capable of detecting web skimmers regardless of their specific attack approach. This solution is capable of detecting Magecart attacks in any scenario and allows businesses to define a set of rules to automatically block the web skimmer.

We were expecting to see an increase of web skimming attacks during the pandemic due to the sudden growth in online shopping, but the actual figures are even more concerning, said Rui Ribeiro, co-founder and CEO of Jscrambler. Were seeing 20% more web skimming attacks since the pandemic. Most businesses are already fragile and a Magecart breach can be a fatal blow. We decided to act now and give businesses the chance of detecting these web skimmers and reacting in time.

Story continues

Jscrambler will be offering this solution free of charge for a limited time. To find more information about this solution, please visit https://jscrambler.com/free-protection-against-magecart .

About Jscrambler

Jscrambler is the leader in client-side Web security. With Jscrambler, JavaScript applications become self-defensive and resilient to tampering and reverse-engineering, while also capable of detecting and blocking client-side attacks like Magecart and data exfiltration. Jscrambler is trusted by the Fortune 500 and major companies in sectors such as finance, broadcasting, software development, e-commerce, and gaming. For more information, please visit https://jscrambler.com .

Contact:

Montner PR

msmith@montner.com




Libya Remains Calm as Egypt's Parliament Authorizes Military Intervention

By Edward Yeranian July 21, 2020

The Egyptian parliament has authorized President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi to deploy Egyptian troops to neighboring Libya, should the need arise. Sissi warned the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and its backers in Turkey earlier this month not to cross a "red line" Egypt considers vital to its security in the Libyan coastal port town of Sirte.

The vote in Egypt's parliament for Sissi to intervene in Libya did not appear to set off any immediate military activity by rival forces in Libya.

Meanwhile, Egyptian media reported that Sissi spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump in a phone call Monday night, which focused on the need for a cease-fire in Libya to prevent further escalation of the ongoing conflict.

In a statement following its Monday vote, the Egyptian parliament said it "unanimously approved deploying members of the Egyptian armed forces on combat missions outside the country's borders to protect Egyptian national security." Parliament must approve any decision for Egypt to go to war by a two-thirds vote.

Libya's eastern-based parliament issued a statement a week ago authorizing Egyptwhich supports the interim government of Abdallah al Thini in eastern Libyato intervene militarily "if necessary," due to what it called "Turkey's blatant intervention in Libya and breaching of the country's sovereignty."

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri said over the weekend that Cairo is watching the situation in Libya "closely." He said Egypt will take decisive measures to protect "Arab national security."

Egyptian lawmaker Emad Gad told Arab media that parliament's vote to give Sissi a green light to intervene in Libya "does not mean a declaration of war and that parliament did not specify when or how the president might intervene."

Libyan analyst Aya Burweila, visiting lecturer at the Hellenic National Defense College, told VOA that Egypt also is counting on Libyan tribal forces from all parts of the country to play a role in resolving the ongoing conflict. Egypt, she said, "understands that Libya's political and social life is organized around tribes" whose will and interests should not be circumvented.

Meanwhile, the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle recently was deployed off Sirte to monitor any possible advance by Turkish-backed militia forces, according to Arab media. Paris supports eastern-based military commander Gen. Khalifa Haftar.

In other diplomatic activity, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune told Algerian TV that his country supports a political solution to the Libya conflict.

He said he's been in daily contact with the main players in the Libya crisis, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, Tunisian President Qais Said, and with Turkish officials by way of Gulf intermediaries. Tebboune added that he thinks the conflict must in the end be solved through negotiations."

The Tripoli government's interior minister, Fathi Bashaga, visited the Turkish capital Ankara Monday to discuss the Libyan situation with the Turkey's and Malta's defense ministers.

Libyan Army spokesman Col. Khaled Mohieddine told Arab media that Turkey has sent "thousands of militia fighters and mercenaries to fight his forces, including mercenaries from Syria and Tunisia."

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Pro-choice and pro-life activists demonstrate in front of the the US Supreme Court during the 47th annual March for Life in Washington on Jan. 24, 2020. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

Pro-Life Groups in Texas Sue for Right to Call Abortion a Crime

Eight pro-life activists in Texas are suing pro-abortion groups to protect themselves from lawsuits they claim the groups filed to chill their constitutionally protected free speech rights.

These filings were prompted by aggressive attacks by abortion promoters in Texas: Afiya Center, Texas Equal Access Fund, and Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, said lawyer Erick Kaardal of Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based public-interest law firm specializing in religious freedom issues.

This is a response to the left, to the cancel culture warriors who are using defamation lawsuits to cancel out pro-life speech, Kaardal told The Epoch Times in an interview.

The First Amendment continues to protect truthful statements, he said.

The pro-abortion groups filed suit in June against Mark Lee Dickson and Right to Life of East Texas, claiming defamation after Dickson referred to abortion in Texas as a crime, a nuanced legal position that pro-life activists agree with.

The Thomas More Society is seeking a declaratory judgment on behalf of the Texas residents who say Texas statutes criminalizing abortion remain state law.

The federal courts have said there is a right to abortion under the federal Constitution and that enjoins enforcement of the criminal statute in Texasbut it doesnt mean that, in Texas, abortion isnt legally defined as a crime, said Kaardal.

Erick Kaardal, special counsel to Thomas More Society. (Courtesy of Thomas More Society)

The eight separate lawsuits from pro-life activists were filed last week in the state-level district courts for the Texas counties of Eastland, Franklin, Hockley, Hood, Panola, Rusk, Smith, and Taylor, by the Thomas More Society.

The lawsuits hinge on technical legal arguments.

In Texas, language outlawing abortion is still on the books, undisturbed in the years since the Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) made abortion lawful throughout the United States, the Thomas More Society claims.

This point of view was elaborated on by David R. Upham, associate professor and Chair of Politics at the University of Dallas.

He confirmed to The Epoch Times that the Texas legislature never repealed the statute outlawing abortion. Although the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals once held that the state statute had been nullified by implication, that decision was probably wrong, and does not reflect any deliberate action by the legislature to repeal the statute.

As an attorney, I would be very comfortable in arguing before any tribunal that the Texas abortion statute remains good law and can and should be enforced whenever the federal judiciary steps aside.

Citing the continued existence of the state law, some pro-life activists have accused the pro-abortion groups of engaging in criminal activity.

Even if there is a court order saying that law cant be enforced, it doesnt make it any less a crime, and so when it comes to matters of truthfulness, pro-lifers are on the right side here in Texas, and that the people who have brought these defamation claims are just in error, Kaardal said.

It is often assumed that the Supreme Courts judgment in Roe v. Wade somehow canceled or formally revoked the Texas statutes that outlaw abortion unless the mothers life is in danger.

However, the federal judiciary has no power to erase a statute that it declares to be unconstitutional. Roe merely limits the ability of Texas officials to enforce the states abortion statutes against those who violate them. The  decision does not, and cannot, veto or repeal the statutes themselves. Texass criminal prohibitions on abortion continue to exist as state law until they are repealed by the legislature that enacted them.

Therefore, it is entirely truthful for individuals to describe abortion as criminal, Kaardal said. Those who do so cannot be subjected to defamation lawsuits for describing abortion providers and abortion-assistance organizations as criminal entities.

The defendants in the new lawsuitsAfiya Center, Texas Equal Access Fund, and Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equitycould not immediately be reached for comment.

The legal actions come as a small Texas municipality called East Mountain became the 14th local government in the state to attack the legitimacy of the Roe v. Wade ruling by declaring itself a sanctuary city for the unborn.

With an official population of 797, the city council vote July 20 in East Mountain was 3 yes votes and 2 abstentions, the Christian Post reports.
This Usonian gem in Wausau, WI, was snapped up by a Texas couple as a vacation home in Northern Wisconsin. Now they hope to find a new occupant who's just as smitten with the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

"We were looking for a Frank Lloyd Wright homeit didnt matter whereat a price we could afford," explains homeowner David Wood.

They ended up purchasing the four-bedroom, three-bathroom Charles and Dorothy Manson home. Built in 1940, it is considered an early piece from Wright's Usonian period.

When Wood saw the home six years ago, he made an offer with no contingencies, getting it for $160,000. Now that he's spending less time in Wisconsin, he's ready to unload the 2,462-square-foot home for $425,000.

Constructed from local Ringle bricks and Tidewater cypress in a board and batten design, the home earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places during Wood's ownership.

Wood thinks the next owner might be in search of a "trophy home" or a secondary residence. Interest so far has come from architects.

"Were not looking for a local person so much," says Wood, "because its a unique home. Im not looking for the casual Gee, this has been in the area for years and Im finally going to take a look type of buyer.

Wright fans will recognize his signature perforated windows and compressed entry hall and gallery. There's also an abundance of light in the living room thanks to a wall of windows and 11-foot ceiling.

Front exterior Bryan Hung

Exterior Bryan Hung

Living room Bryan Hung

Living room Bryan Hung

Gallery Bryan Hung

Kitchen Bryan Hung

Master bedroom Bryan Hung

Master bath Bryan Hung

Although the Manson family kept the property until the late 1960s, theres been maybe nine or 10 different families over the years" who have owned the home, says Wood. Of those families, two still live in the area.

As with Wrights other Usonian homes, the residence sits slightly lower than street level and features a long, horizontal design. The original carport was turned into a storage room by a previous owner, but it's now been restored.

Wood and his spouse updated the home while maintaining the architectural integrity. They worked with the local historic preservation committee to replace the pebble and tar flat roof with a rubber roof. They also refinished and restained the exterior wood, restored the second-floor bath, and remodeled the kitchen.

Other upgrades include new landscaping, working fireplaces, and an updated heating system. They also created custom seat cushions and insulated curtains.

Using Wrights blueprintswhich come with the housethey commissioned furnishings for the home. Several pieces will remain with the home, including the dining chairs and the framed photos in the 44-foot-long gallery. Also included in the home sale: the original clothes-drying rack and an adjacent 0.34-acre lot just north of the property.

The home fits seamlessly into its surroundings.

A lot of historic homes are in this area, says Wood. Several homes are on the National Register of Historic Places. It is very hilly, very green, and the neighbors are wonderful.



Watch: This Frank Lloyd Wright Home Is a Classic That Feels Modern

The post Historic Home From Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Period in Wisconsin Available for $425K appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
Britain is close to giving up hope of striking a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU as Boris Johnson runs down the clock to his July deadline.

The Government is assuming there will not be a deal and expects it will trade with the bloc on WTO terms when the transition period ends on December 31.

Senior sources told The Daily Telegraph that a 'basic' agreement remains possible if the European gives ground in the autumn.

Britain is currently bound to EU rules during an 11-month period known as the transition which cannot be extended beyond this year.

Talks between Britain and Europe, led by the UK's David Frost and the EU's Michael Barnier, began on Monday and are due to finish tomorrow.

But negotiators remain deadlocked on fishing rights, the deal's governance, the European Court of Justice's role and so-called level playing field - with neither side seemingly prepared to budge as time runs out for Britain before the July deadline.

This means the UK could crash out of the customs union and single market without a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU in place before the end of transition.

The Government is assuming there will not be a deal and expects it will trade with Europe on WTO terms when the transition period ends on December 31. Senior sources claim a 'basic' agreement remains possible if the European gives ground in the autumn

Talks between Britain and Europe, led by the UK's David Frost and the EU's Michael Barnier, began on Monday and are due to finish tomorrow. But negotiators remain deadlocked on fishing rights, the deal's governance, the European Court of Justice's role and level playing field - with neither side prepared to budge as time runs out for Britain before the July deadline

Trading on WTO terms would mean tariffs on goods and red tape that could lead to delays in goods entering and leaving the UK - a price Mr Johnson is willing to pay if the EU does not back down on issues like UK laws and fishing waters.

Britain has so far rejected Brussels' demands for level playing field guarantees amid fears that matching European standards on tax, labour rights and environment will prevent it from forging its own rules after Brexit.

What is the transition period? And why does it matter so much? Though the UK 'left' the EU on January 31, it remains in the EU customs union and single market during transition. This includes: Travelling to and from the EU (including the rules around driving licences and pet passports);

Freedom of movement (the right to live and work in the EU);

UK-EU trade, which will continue without extra charges or checks. Britain has left the European Parliament and European Commission, but it is still following EU rules during transition - eg., the European Court of Justice is the final legal arbiter. The transition also means the UK contributes to the EU budget. While in transition, the UK remains in the EU customs union and single market. The transition cannot be extended beyond December 31. If a post-Brexit trade deal is not struck by then, the UK will crash out without a deal and will trade with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms. Advertisement

The EU is also insisting that the Court of Justice must have a role in the UK-EU agreement, where decisions on the interpretation of EU law are necessary.

Some in the UK government claim the two sides could reach a deal in the autumn, but said it would be a 'basic deal, not a phenomenal deal'.

A senior source told The Daily Telegraph: 'The Government has been making it clear for a while now that it is prepared for no deal. Britain isn't going to budge on fundamentals like fishing rights, so it's all in the hands of the EU.'

A member of the UK's negotiating team said: 'We wanted to see an agreement this month. It's clear from the EU side that's not going to happen. No trade deal has to be the working assumption, because that's what we have to prepare for. But it doesn't mean it's what we want or are working to make happen.'

Britain is pursuing trade deals with other countries and setting up its own sanctions regime, and has previously insisted it should not have to sign up to the bloc's standards.

A spokesman for Mr Johnson claimed on Monday that Britain will continue to engage constructively with the EU in talks on a future relationship, but that London is not willing to give up its rights as an independent state.

The deadlock comes after the Institute for Government (IfG) warned that many British businesses were unprepared for the impact of a No Deal Brexit.

Falling off the cliff edge in December could throw UK plc into dire straits after the Government crashed the economy during the coronavirus lockdown.

Last week the IfG said three out of five firms had not even begun to prepare for the end of the transition period: 'Since the pandemic took hold in February, and with the formal lockdown taking effect in late March, government and business resources have been focused on responding to the pandemic, rightly prioritising this over Brexit preparations.

'Firms reeling from the economic consequences of coronavirus are poorly placed to prepare for Brexit: in many cases, in a worse position than in the months leading up to the potential no deal in October 2019.'
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described the Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East Constituency, Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson as a gangster who does not deserve to occupy a public position of trust following her shooting incidence on Monday.

Last 2 days at Step-to-Christ Polling station, the Minister of Special Development Initiative fired a gun during a tour of voter registration centers in her constituency.

Though she has argued that she was forced to fire the gun because she was allegedly under attack by thugs from the NDC, she has been enormously condemned.

At the NDCs weekly meet the press series today, they say they are totally disgusted by the thuggish and criminal shooting incident involving a gang of NPP thugs who were led by Hawa Koomson.

Hawa Koomson has by this criminal act, and the several brazen brutalities she and her gang have meted to NDC supporters in the last couple of weeks demonstrated that she is a gangster who doesnt deserve to occupy any public position of trust.

And, we join the many voices of conscience in our society to demand her immediate dismissal from office and prosecution for this heinous crime, the Director of Elections of the NDC, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said while addressing the partys press conference today.

While insisting that the violence is sponsored and led by a high ranking government official, the NDC says they condemn in no uncertain terms such thuggery.

Meanwhile, the NDC has also stressed that they will ensure Mavis Hawa Koomson is prosecuted when they win power after the 2020 General Elections.

Read the full speech read by Elvis Afriyie Ankrah at the NDC Press Conference today below:

AN ADDRESS ON THE INCREASING INCIDENCE OF VIOLENCE, BRUTALITY AND INTIMIDATION AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE NDC AND GHANAIANS ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN THE ONGOING VOTER REGISTRATION EXERCISE, AT THE 8TH EDITION OF THE PARTYS WEEKLY PRESS BRIEFING, HELD ON WEDNESDAY, 22ND JULY, 2020 AT THE NDC HEADQUARTERS, ACCRA.

Good morning distinguished friends from the media. Once again, I welcome you with gratitude to the Headquarters of the National Democratic Congress for the 8th edition of our Weekly Press Briefing.

We have invited you here today to address the widespread violent attacks and brutalities being meted out to NDC agents, officials, supporters and innocent Ghanaians, including media personnel in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

This issue has become topical and needs to be addressed because our nation is on a downward spiral, fast descending to the edge of the precipice, and the earlier men and women of conscience spoke, the better for our peace.

What are the crimes of these innocent civilians who are being beaten, attacked, maimed and killed? Friends, their only crime is to brave the odds, particularly in this period when COVID-19 is ravaging our country, to exercise their right to be registered as voters in the ongoing voter registration exercise, and to ensure vigilance needed to protect the integrity and sanctity of our electoral process.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, news broke in the early hours of Monday 20th July, about a gun-violence incident involving the Minister for Special Development Initiatives and the MP for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, Hawa Koomson that happened at the Step-to-Christ Polling station.

As you are already aware, Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson without any provocation, invaded a voter registration center in her constituency in the company of gun-wielding thugs of the NPP, assaulted NDC party agents, burnt motorcycles belonging to NDC supporters and fired sporadic gunshots thereby endangering the lives of her constituents and disrupting the entire voter registration exercise.

It is worthy to point out, that this incident is just one of several coordinated and unprovoked attacks on our members in the ongoing registration exercise in the Awutu Senya East Constituency by Hawa Koomson and her NPP goons who she has imported from Bawku.

These attacks started from the first day of the registration exercise when an NDC agent named Daniel Tachie Mensah at the Lamptey Mills Schools center was assaulted by hooligans numbering about fifteen (15) who were led by the Kasoa NPP Municipal Chief Executive, Michael Essuman Mensah. This case was reported to the Kasoa Divisional Police Command, yet no arrest has been made till date.

This was followed by another attack on a Branch Executive and party agent, one Ebenezer Tetteh whose head was smashed with a piece of concrete by a member of a gang of NPP bandits led by Hawa Koomson herself. This case has also been reported to the Kasoa divisional Police including a video capturing Francis Tetteh a known NPP thug hitting our party agents head with a block. Yet shockingly, the police have refused to act on this evidence till date.

The third attack was executed by these same gangsters brought in from Bawku by Hawa Koomson numbering about 13 on an NDC agent called Prosper, at Amuzukope. This very attack was led by Ato Koomson, the first child of Hawa Koomson.

Not satisfied with the aforementioned attacks, their next stop was at the Kasoa New Town electoral area which happens to be another stronghold of the NDC in Kasoa. Nana One, the NPP constituency youth organizer, and a member of the Delta forces that stormed the Ayawaso West Wougon bye-elections, led these gangsters of land guards to brutally assault NDC agents leaving them with deep cutlass wounds on their heads. Again, the case was reported to the Kasoa divisional police office with no arrest or invite made till date.

Two days before the shooting incident at the Step-To-Christ polling station, the NPP thugs led by Hawa Koomson attacked and assaulted our ward coordinator, Abdallah at the Joemends Electoral area.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, it is worth noting that all these violent attacks on our innocent supporters were committed by the same thugs imported from Bawku to Kasoa by Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson.

The NDC is totally disgusted by the thuggish and criminal shooting incident involving a gang of NPP thugs who were led by Hawa Koomson, which has received both and national and international condemnation, and which have been admitted by the Minister of State herself. We condemn in no uncertain terms such thuggery sponsored and led by a high-ranking government official and law maker who is supposed to uphold the law at all times.

Hawa Koomson has by this criminal act, and the several brazen brutalities she and her gang have meted to NDC supporters in the last couple of weeks, demonstrated that she is a gangster who doesnt deserve to occupy any public position of trust. And, we join the many voices of conscience in our society to demand her immediate dismissal from office and prosecution for this heinous crime.

In any civilized society, this gangster Minister, would have been arrested, and made to stand prosecution by now. And this is exactly what her appointor, President Akufo-Addo should have done by now if he had any integrity, honor, and conscience left. But because he is the chief promoter and enabler of the unprecedented culture of lawlessness we are witnessing, we will not be surprised if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook like the several NPP criminals, such as Double and the Azugu-masked National Security Operatives who perpetrated the AWW violence, the NPPs Delta Force who attacked a court of competent jurisdiction in broad daylight etc., have been shielded from prosecution and punishment by the President.

We would therefore like to serve notice, that if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook by President Akufo-Addo as we anticipate will happen, the next NDC-Mahama government in the year 2021, shall arrest, prosecute and punish her and all the thugs who were involved in this unlawful shooting incident and other criminal acts.

Distinguished friends, the widespread atrocious attacks on our supporters across the country are being perpetrated by hoodlums and hooligans belonging to the New Patriotic Party under the leadership and direction of certain NPP Members of Parliament (MPs), Parliamentary Candidates and officials of the despotic Akufo-Addo government, who sensing imminent defeat in the upcoming December Polls, have resorted to desperate acts of violence and intimidation, to ostensibly impose their will on the Ghanaian people at all cost.

Even more bizarre, is the active involvement of some unscrupulous security officials, belonging to the once revered Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police service in these shameful acts of intimidation and barbaric attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians. This state-sponsored thuggery, as we have sometimes seen, is fast eroding all the gains we have chalked under our Fourth Republican democratic dispensation, and has the potential to plunge our once peaceful nation into total chaos.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, you may recall that few weeks ago, we provided pictorial and video evidence of similar barbaric attacks against our agents and supporters during one of our Weekly Press Briefings and called on our Security Services to act. But till date, no concrete action has been taken by our security agencies to punish the perpetrators of these brazen acts of violence, and to protect our supporters and innocent Ghanaians from further attacks.

It is this inaction, and in some cases, the complicity and/or tacit approval of our security agencies, that has emboldened NPP thugs and brigands to escalate their atrocious attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians across the country, with utmost impunity, over the past two (2) weeks.

I shall at this juncture, recount just a few of the countless violence acts that our party agents and supporters and indeed other innocent Ghanaians have suffered at the hands of NPP hoodlums and their accomplices in state security agencies, in the last few weeks:

1. The unlawful invasion of the office of our Parliamentary candidate for the Ledzorkuku Constituency, Ben Ayiku, over the weekend by some NPP thugs and unscrupulous military officers, based on false and contrived intelligence that he was registering people at his office. Without finding any BVR equipment or evidence of voter registration at the office, these state-sponsored criminals seized the desktop computer at the office, locked up our Parliamentary Candidate, party officials and traditional rulers of the area who were having a meeting at the office at the time and subsequently arrested and detained the NDC constituency Chairman and Organizer for that Constituency for standing up to their intimidation antics.

2. The recent incident involving a Metro TV Journalist by name Alhaji Mustapha Ashley, who while covering the voter registration exercise in the Evalue Gwira Constituency, was assaulted and had his camera seized and recordings deleted by the bodyguard of Catherine Afeku, Minister of State and NPP Member of Parliament for the area.

3. In the Central Region, Akufo Addo's Invisible Forces operating directly under the NPP MPs and NPP Parliamentary Candidates have been brutalizing NDC Executives at the registration centers for insisting on the right thing being done.

In the Effutu Constituency for instance, our Deputy Central Regional Communication Officer - Comrade Lawrence Ghartey was brutally assaulted and nearly killed in the process by these hoodlums under the instructions of the NPP MP of the

Constituency, Alexander Afenyo Markins.

Also, our Constituency Secretaries for Ekumfi and Cape South, Comrades Edward Fayah and George Justice Arthur respectively, were brutally beaten by these same bandits belonging to the invisible forces, and have sustained several degrees of injuries from that attack

Again, our Constituency Youth Organizer for the Abura Asebu Kwamankese Constituency, Hon Eric Mensah has also been brutalized in addition to scores of branch executives, registration agents and party activists. One of the victims of these barbaric acts from Ekumfi Akoanso Kokodo who is our branch youth organizer, is currently battling for his life.

4. The violent invasion of the office premises of Mr. John Dumelo, NDCs Parliamentary Candidate for the Ayawaso West Wagon Constituency, and subsequent brutal attacks on NDC party agents by NPP hooligans under the direction of the NPP MP, Lydia Seyram Alhassan cannot escape our mention.

5. Also, the leaked audio of the Bono East Regional Minister and NPP MP for Atebubu, Kofi Amoakohene who was heard addressing and directing a militia group of the NPP to ensure the registration of NPP minors, attack NDC supporters at registration centers and rig the ongoing voter registration exercise for the NPP, promising to reward them if the NPP wins the upcoming general elections is still fresh on our minds.

6. Ladies and gentlemen, the gruesome murder of a young promising Teacher Trainee in Banda, who was mistaken for an NDC Party Agent is the saddest of all. The culprit, a known NPP Vigilante and brother to the NPP Parliamentary Candidate, Joe Danquah had earlier been arrested for attacking some NDC supporters in the area, Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim but was sadly released within 20 minutes following an order from above. Obviously emboldened by the order from above, and feeling untouchable, he immediately resumed his criminal activities and took them a notch higher by gruesomely murdering the innocent Teacher Trainee. That a young life with so much promise would be curtailed due to the NPPs lust for power is tragic and should not be tolerated.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the sad irony is that, while the NPP hoodlums who have perpetrated all these heinous crimes have been left off the hook, innocent NDC officials and supporters are being harassed on a daily basis by our security agencies, which see nor hear all the evil that the ruling NPP and their state-sponsored thugs are unleashing.

Only yesterday, our Parliamentary Candidate for Efutu, Dr. James Kofi Annan was arrested and charged by the police for offensive conduct. His only crime is that he dared to criticize the Police Commander for Efutu who has become an appendage and accomplice to the violent acts being supervised by the NPP MP for the area, Alexander Afenyo Markin, by uttering these words: You are chairman of the committee and so what, You're the reason why we're not enjoying peace in Winneba.

The fact that these innocuous words could warrant such harassment from the Police highlights how low this nation has sunk, and further accentuates the state-sponsored terror that NDC supporters and other party officials are being subjected to at the hands of the despotic and tyrannical NPP/Akufo Addo-government.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, given the poisoned atmosphere we find ourselves in at the moment, with Government officials who have clearly weaponized themselves and their criminal goons to foment more trouble, we can only see looming trouble ahead of the December polls.

The National Democratic Congress takes this opportunity to salute all its gallant supporters, Parliamentary Candidates, Agents and our rank and file for standing up to these cowardly acts of intimidation being championed by known NPP thugs and their criminal collaborators in our state security agencies. We urge our members not to despair, for as sure as day follows night, good shall surely triumph over the evil. The great NDC party is winning the 2020 General Elections no matter the amount of violence the state and its thugs will met out to innocent citizens of this country.

We hereby urge all NDC supporters to defend themselves in line with the spirit of our 1992 Constitution, against any violent attacks by NPP thugs and any state-sponsored goons.

We further wish to sound a note of caution to some state Security Officials who have lent themselves as willing and pliant agents of violence against political opponents and innocent Ghanaians against their criminal acts. We wish to remind them that power emanates from the people, hence whatever power they exercise must be done in the supreme interest of the Ghanaian people.

As the venerable former President Kuffour once said, power can trick you! Do not be deceived by political power, because the tables will soon turn, and a new NDC government will fish out and deal drastically with all NPP thugs and their collaborators in state security agencies who are currently being used to maim and intimidate innocent civilians.

God bless our homeland Ghana.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

One more suspect has been nabbed by the police in connection with hacking into a bank and attempted transfer of GH46, 129,473 to eight individuals in different banks.

Aisha Konatey, an Ivorian woman, is currently in the custody of the police assisting in investigations, the Director of the Cybercrime Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Dr Gustav Herbert Yankson, told the Ghanaian Times in Accra, yesterday.

He said suspect Konatey was arrested after investigations revealed that she sent a text message to one of the suspects that the money was in his account.

ACP Yankson said the police have mounted a search for the arrest of two others, Boateng Mends, and one other identified as 'Pussy Cat' who is on the run.

The Ghanaian Times in its Wednesday, July 15, 2020, issue reported that six people, who allegedly hacked into a bank and attempted to transfer GH46, 129,473 to eight individuals in different banks have been arrested by the police.

They are Hudu Abdul Mumuni, Emmanuel Adams, Moro Issah, Agbenu Fefous Chrissy, Sam Acquah, a former banker and owner of Adom Sika Savings and Loans Limited and James Taylor, a web developer.

ACP Yankson said on July 2, 2020, a petition was received by the unit from the management of the bank (name withheld) that someone remotely logged into the banking software and used the login credentials of some staff who were on leave to transfer the money to eight individuals of different banks.

He said on July 3, suspect Mumuni was arrested at First Atlantic Bank at Ridge, Mr Adams at Fidelity Bank at Madina, while suspects Issah and Chrissy were apprehended at Dansoman when they showed up to withdraw money transferred from the bank.

ACP Yankson said on July 2, between 1:am and 10:am 13 fake swift transactions with some initiated outside working hours were fraudulently made to the accounts of eight people.

He said the management of the bank detected the fraudulent activity and disabled the SWIFT to prevent the further transfer and all banks involved were quickly alerted to prevent withdrawals.

ACP Yankson said a forensic examination of the devices retrieved from suspects indicated that Mends and Pussy Cat were part of the syndicate.

He said the suspects were currently on police enquiry bail while investigations were ongoing.

adomonline
Trump likens US cities with pro-justice rallies to Afghan towns

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 4:17 PM

US President Donald Trump has described the situation in American cities where pro-justice rallies were held "worse than Afghanistan".

"This is worse than Afghanistan, by far. This is worse than anything anyone's ever seen," Trump said at the Oval office on Monday.

Pro-justice rallies -- some of which have turned violent -- triggered by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd have been held on a daily basis in US cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Portland.

Trump said he planned to send additional law enforcement personnel to some major US cities to clamp down on the anti-racism anti-police-brutality pro-justice protesters he described as hateful "anarchists".

"These are anarchists. These are not protesters...."Well, I'm going to do something; that I can tell you because we're not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore, and all of these, Oakland is a mess, we're not going to let this happen in our country," Trump said.

Trump lauded a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests including use of unmarked cars and unidentified officers in camouflage in Portland, Oregon, saying he would replicate the "fantastic" tactics used there to suppress other pro-justice protests in other major cities.

"In Portland, they've done a fantastic job. They've been there three days and they've really done a fantastic job in a very short period of time, no problem. They grab them. A lot of people in jail," he said.

Trump referred to the pro-justice protesters as "these people", saying local politicians were afraid of them.

"[T]he governor and the mayor and the senators out there, they're afraid of these people," Trump claimed.

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President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Tuesday that directed the federal government to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted in congressional district redraws.

The directive would exclude millions of people from being counted in the United States congressional voting districts that are redrawn next year. It is the latest effort the Trump administration has done to change the way the population in the United States is counted.

The move would directly affect how House seats in each state would be allocated based on the census. It would likely earn Republicans several more seats. A study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies said excluding immigrants from the count would reduce the number of seats for some states and give more to others.

Banning undocumented immigrants in the census would cause three seats to be redistributed. California, New York, and Texas would likely lose their seats. Ohio, Alabama, and Minnesota would gain one seat each.

In a written statement Trump released after signing the memorandum, he claimed the Census Bureau has been concealing the number of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. He also said the "radical left" is trying to erode the rights of American citizens, The New York Times reports.

How does the census work?

Every ten years, the Census Bureau counts every person living in the United States. Both American citizens and undocumented immigrants are included in the count.

The data from the bureau determines how federal resources would be distributed across states and localities. It also determines how the congressional district would be drawn. Noncitizens are counted when determining how many of the 435 House seat states could get.

In July 2019, The Wall Street Journal said President Trump abandoned efforts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. Census. Instead, he signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to collaborate with the Census Bureau to collect citizenship details from U.S. residents.

How did advocacy groups respond to the memorandum?

Dale Ho, a director at one of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) initiatives, said President Trump's memo was unconstitutional. He said the group plans to challenge the order in court.

CASA, an immigrant advocacy group, released a statement where they condemned the order that would effectively ban undocumented immigrants from being included in the Census. The group is expected to file a complaint against the new law.

Michael Li, a senior counsel at Brennan Center's Democracy Program, said the Constitution requires the Census Bureau to count everyone, regardless of age or legal status.

Critics said the Trump administration's latest move would lead to undercounts of even non-American citizens living in the country legally. It could also affect minority residents.

It could also discourage Latinos from complying with the census. Latinos complete the survey at lower rates than people belonging to other races. The move could also result in less representation and federal funding in the areas where most undocumented immigrants and minorities live.

Want to read more? Check these out:
Police in Italy have found cocaine stuffed inside hundreds of coffee beans after opening a suspicious package addressed to a movie character.



Investigators found over 500 coffee beans that had been hollowed out, filled with cocaine and then taped shut for a total of 130 grams of the Devil's dandruff.

According to a statement from the Guardia di Finanza financial police, the package arrived from Colombia to an airport in Milan and a customs officer decided to take a closer look once he read the label - addressing the package to Santino DAntonio, a Mafia boss from the John Wick films..

Police then went to Florence in Italy where a 50-year-old man was arrested at the package's intended destination.

The man in question was registered as living in the Colombian city of Medellin - famously the former home of notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. Might have had better luck addressing the package to him.
Apple Inc. on Tuesday unveiled its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030.



The company said in a press release that it is already carbon neutral today for its global corporate operations, and this new commitment means that by 2030, every Apple device sold will have net zero climate impact.

In its 2020 Environmental Progress Report released Tuesday, Apple details its plans to reduce emissions by 75 percent by 2030 while developing innovative carbon removal solutions for the remaining 25 percent of its comprehensive footprint.

Apple's 10-year roadmap will lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including low carbon product design, expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, process and material innovations, and carbon removal, the company said.

Through a new partnership with Apple, the U.S.-China Green Fund will invest 100 million U.S. dollars in accelerated energy efficiency projects for Apple's suppliers, said the statement.

"The innovations powering our environmental journey are not only good for the planet -- they've helped us make our products more energy efficient and bring new sources of clean energy online around the world. Climate action can be the foundation for a new era of innovative potential, job creation, and durable economic growth. With our commitment to carbon neutrality, we hope to be a ripple in the pond that creates a much larger change," said Apple's CEO Tim Cook.
Cantsink proudly supplied equipment to this 106 MW project in South Carolina Despite the challenges the solar market is facing, it continues to evolve with new technology and ongoing innovation. Cantsink products and services are evolving with it." Cantsink President Patrick Hutchinson

For the eighth consecutive year, Cantsink has been named one of the Top Solar Contractors in the U.S. by Solar Power World Magazine.

This year, Cantsink ranked #11 on the list of Top 20 U.S. Solar Contractors, and also ranked second on the list of Commercial Solar Contractors. Solar Power World reviewed information on more than 400 companies across the nation in compiling the list.

Cantsink even ranked on the lists of top solar contractors for six Southeast/Mid-Atlantic states:



Virginia (#2)

South Carolina (#4)

Tennessee (#8)

Florida (#8)

North Carolina (#10)

Georgia (#13)

The Top Solar Contractors list is developed each year by Solar Power World to honor the work of solar installers big and small. Solar firms in the utility, commercial and residential markets are ranked by number of kilowatts installed in the previous year. Companies are grouped and listed by specific service (developers, electrical subcontractors, EPCs, installation subcontractors, rooftop installers), markets and states.

"The Solar Power World team is so pleased to highlight more than 400 companies on the 2020 Top Solar Contractors list, especially during this unprecedented time," said Kelsey Misbrener, senior editor of Solar Power World. "All contractors featured on the 2020 list reported strong 2019 installation numbers and are continuing to stand tall this year."

Cantsink provides branded equipment to solar installations along with services that supply the companys deep understanding of the solar industry. This years collection of over 400 Top Solar Contractors is facing unprecedented challenges. The first quarter of 2020 was the countrys biggest ever, with 3.6 GW of new solar capacity added. But COVID-19 impacts slowed that pace in Q2. Wood Mackenzie is forecasting significant declines in both residential and non-residential markets this year.

Cantsink remains proudly committed to serving the solar market through this downturn with expertise, high-quality products, and innovation, said Cantsink President Patrick Hutchinson.

Despite the challenges the solar market is facing, it continues to evolve with new technology and ongoing innovation. Cantsink products and services are evolving with it. We are proud to offer innovations like our string inverter mounting product, Centric, which allows centralized design that makes construction faster and O&M easier, Hutchinson said. Our core product, patented helical piers to support equipment pads for transformers, central inverters and battery storage containers, and our Brilliant Rack racking design are dedicated to making solar installations efficient to build, effective in operation, and easy to maintain for the life of the project.

In addition to persevering through this turbulent time in history, the 2020 class of Top Solar Contractors is increasingly adding energy storage to their offerings. Over one-third of this years contractors are also featured on the exclusive 2020 Top Solar + Storage Installers list.

As solar projects increasingly include storage, and microgrid installations grow in popularity, the stability Cantsink helical piers place under heavy equipment pads is more important than ever. With Cantsink stability, solar+storage projects are protected from the disruption of sinking pads.

To learn more about Cantsinks products and services for the solar market, visit http://www.cantsink.com.
Former Miss World Rosanna Davison has announced she is pregnant with twin boys, after welcoming a daughter via surrogacy.

The 35-year-old, from Dublin, who is the daughter of music legend Chris De Burgh, has been open with her 191,000 Instagram followers about her fertility struggles, and welcomed a daughter last November via surrogate after doctors said it was her best option to fulfilling her desire of becoming a parent.

Announcing her news on Instagram, she said she and husband Wes Quirke are 'beyond overjoyed', writing: 'Were absolutely thrilled to complete our family and for our daughter Sophia to have two siblings so close in age to her.'

She went on to explain how she had fallen pregnant after suffering fourteen pregnancy losses in the last few years, adding: 'We found out I was pregnant after the first month of lockdown when I was far more physically relaxed than Ive been in years and enjoying the slow pace of family life at home, despite the anxiety and sadness in the outside world. So perhaps that time out from the stress of busy everyday life made all the difference.'

Rosanna Davison, 36, has announced she is pregnant with twins after welcoming a daughter via surrogate last year

Sharing snapshots of her blossoming bump online, Rosanna wrote: 'We have some news! Wes and I are beyond overjoyed to announce that were expecting identical twin boys this November.'

She continued: 'As Ive spoken openly about this year, we struggled with fourteen pregnancy losses over the past few years and a challenging fertility journey before finally welcoming Sophia last November by gestational surrogate.

'I was told that I would probably never be able to carry my own baby due to a suspected immune system dysfunction, which numerous different medical treatments failed to rectify.

'So for this to just happen naturally, and to have twins too by complete chance, is an absolute dream come true for us.'

Rosanna and Wes welcomed their daughter via surrogate last year after suffering fertility issues for years

She went on: 'My doctor cant offer a medical explanation for why I have been able to sustain this pregnancy and it will probably always remain one of lifes mysteries.'

'We still cant quite believe it ourselves and its taken a long time to properly process it and feel ready to share the news. As if 2020 hasnt already been packed with enough surprises.'

She finished her caption by willing her followers to 'never give up hope', saying: 'Fertility miracles may take some time, but they really can happen in the most unexpected and magical ways.

'As always, sending so much love to those of you still on your baby journey. Never give up hope.'

Rosanna was told by doctors that surrogacy abroad would be the best option for fulfilling their desire of becoming parents (pictured, with her daughter shortly after she was born)

In November last year, Rosanna announced she and her husband Will had welcomed a baby girl by surrogate after a series of miscarriages that medical professionals were unable to explain.

Alongside a photograph of herself holding newly-born Sophia Rose Quirke, she posted: 'And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

'Today, November 21st 2019 at 11.57am, our beautiful and healthy daughter Sophia Rose Quirke arrived safely into the world weighing 6lbs 8oz... shes absolutely perfect.

'Were completely overwhelmed with love and gratitude for our incredible gestational surrogate, who has given us the greatest gift of all and made our family dream a reality #oursurrogacyjourney'

The Former Miss World (pictured) was advised by medics that a surrogate would be the best option after doctors struggled to identify why she was experiencing miscarriages

Rosanna and Wesley who is the son of a millionaire casino mogul, revealed they were travelling to the States in preparation of meeting their daughter last week.

WHAT IS GESTATIONAL SURROGACY? In gestational surrogacy, the child is not biologically related to the surrogate mother, who is often referred to as a gestational carrier. Instead, the embryo is created via in vitro fertilization (IVF), using the eggs and sperm of the intended parents or donors, and is then transferred to the surrogate Source: Surrogate.com Advertisement

Sophia was born via a gestational surrogate, which means the surrogate carries an embryo created using the parents' egg and sperm, but is not genetically related to the baby.

The former Miss World was told that surrogacy abroad would be the best option for fulfilling their desire of becoming parents.

It was suggested that an over-active immune system, had been the cause of her body rejecting embryos.

Rosanna and Wesley married in 2014, a year after getting engaged abroad with a ring estimated to cost around 32,000.

In a 2015 interview with VIP magazine, the new mother-of-one revealed hopes to start having children after promotions for her book 'Eat Yourself Beautiful' ended.

She received a stream of comments from fans and celebrities congratulating her on the birth of Sophia, as many revealed they had emotionally followed her journey to becoming a first time parent.

'I'm so filled with all the emotions for you guys. What a journey. You are the best parents ever already, I just know it. Huge congratulations to you all,' wrote one.
Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School in Scarborough is being renamed after a report found that its current namesake had sexually abused women.

At a July 16 meeting, the Toronto Catholic District School Board approved a staff recommendation to change the name of the school at 959 Midland Ave. to St. Joan of Arc Catholic Academy.

Staff are in the process of updating related school signage, websites, etc. to reflect this name change, said Shazia Vlahos, the TCDSB chief of communications. We will also be communicating this change to the school community.

The decision came five months after an internal report released by Vaniers France-based charity, LArche International, concluded that the internationally renowned Canadian humanitarian had engaged in manipulative sexual relationships that took place under coercive conditions between 1970 and 2005.

Vanier died last year at age 90.

The TCDSB staff report said the director of education determined that there were extenuating circumstances that merited the name change and consultation process.

Trustee Michael Del Grande (Ward 7) said it was urgent to get the name change underway because students would need to order uniforms with the new name for the upcoming school year.

The community did not want the school named after a person who brought scandal to himself, Del Grande said. The community did not want that association.

After consulting with the schools parent council, staff, students, parish priest, local trustee and superintendent, the name change was deemed necessary, the report said.

A list of potential names was compiled by the student council, the parent council and staff during a June 4 meeting.

After surveying the top choices, a shortlist of four names  St. Joan of Arc, Mary Queen of Peace, St. Michael the Archangel and St. Lorenzo Ruiz  was sent for approval to the archdiocese before a vote was held between June 16-20.

St. Joan of Arc received the highest number of votes from the staff, students and community.

The school has seen a recent increase in EQAO scores and will be introducing advanced placement courses in September. To reflect an increased focus on academics, the school staff requested that the new name include Catholic Academy.

There are six Catholic schools in the GTA and surrounding area named after Vanier, who was nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Last month, the York Catholic District School Board announced that its Jean Vanier Catholic High School would be renamed Our Lady Queen of the World Catholic Academy.

RELATED STORIES GTA Catholic community struggling amid report charity founder Jean Vanier sexually abused six women

The York Catholic District School Board remains steadfast in its belief that sexual assault and sexual exploitation are unacceptable behaviours that will not be tolerated, board chair Maria Marchese said in a news release.

The Halton Catholic District School Board also officially approved the renaming of Milton's Jean Vanier Catholic Secondary School to St. Francis Xavier Catholic Secondary School in a unanimous vote on June 16.

Several other schools in the GTA have said they are considering name changes.

The Regina Catholic School Division in Saskatchewan also renamed a school that had been named in honour of Vanier.

LArche is an international private charity that helps people with intellectual disabilities through support networks, programming and housing. According to the report, its inquiry team received allegations from six women and directly interviewed five of them.
'I look back on the Kargil war and wonder what the enemy hoped to achieve.'

'Pakistan had intruded into our land and we defended ourselves with all our might.'

'We drove them away by the courage of our soldiers.'

IMAGE: Dr Arup Basu, sitting, second from left, and the medical staff at the military hospital in Kargil during the 1999 War. All Photographs: Kind courtesy Dr Arup Basu

Dr Arup Basu was a young surgeon at the small military hospital in Kargil when the war broke out.

He spent two months as the only surgeon in the small medical team that battled night and day to save lives during the war.

He had just completed his MS degree from the Armed Forces Medical College in Pune when fate brought him to the frontlines.

"My exposure to surgery came amid fire, guns and bullets," he says over the phone from Jamshedpur, the hometown he returned to after taking premature retirement from the Indian Army.

"Unless you capture territory, plant your flag, the war is never won -- and that was done by the infantry men. I would give them most credit for winning us the war."

The doctor received the Yudh Seva Medal for his duties during the war. His son is now pursuing medicine at the Armed Forces Medical College.

The gastro-surgeon shares his memories of those two months durin the Kargil War with Rediff.com's Archana Masih.

"In February 1999, I was posted to Jammu and Kashmir. In May I was moved to the field hospital in Kargil.

It all happened as a matter of chance because the doctor who was posted in Kargil had gone for two months leave to appear for an exam. I went there to relieve him of his surgical duties.

This was the only hospital in that area. The other major hospital was at Leh.

A small brigade was posted at Kargil and since there were very few soldiers, the workload was less. I was told that I would probably have two, three surgical cases per day and the rest of the time I could relax and play badminton!

Little did I know that war was at hand, but at that time we were not sure what exactly was happening in Kargil. There were very hazy reports about some infiltration.

IMAGE: Dr Arup Basu, left, with anaesthetist Major Ramprasad at the hospital.

'My exposure to surgery came amid fire, guns and bullets'

The war lasted for about 56 days. You may call it destiny that it started just as I reached Kargil and ended when I came back after spending 64 days.

I was young and a novice surgeon who was literally thrown into the battlefield. You can say, I was inculcated in the subject of surgery by firepower.

My real exposure to surgical cases came amid fire, guns and bullets.

This small Kargil hospital had 15 to 20 beds. When the war began we had to deal with a lot of injured soldiers with limited resources.

There was one surgeon, one anaesthetist, a handful of doctors and one Quartermaster.

In the surgical team, we had about three or four operating room assistants. The housekeeping staff would clean up waste of the operating theatre.

Myself and the anaesthetist used to work through the night without any rest.

In the armed forces there is a chain of evacuation. It is rare that a doctor goes in the thick of battle.

He stays some distance away in the first aid post called the regimental aid post. Sometimes, a medical officer may also go into battle, but a surgeon doesn't.

The wounded could not be evacuated in the daytime because the troops were under direct fire from the Pakistanis. The injured were evacuated in the night to the regimental doctor's post.

The doctor would stabilise them, dress the wounds, administer tetanus or antibiotics and then send them to us at the field hospital.

Sometimes Indian Air Force pilots brought casualties.

The patients would come in batches of 10 to 15, generally in the evenings. We would do a preliminary examination to prioritise them into high risk, medium risk and low risk, or triage.

We would take X-rays to find out where the injury was -- whether a bullet was inside the abdomen, chest, liver or if there were fractures and take them for surgery as quickly as possible.

The surgeries would start at about 8.30 pm-9.00 pm and continue throughout the night.

The next day we would evacuate 10 to 12 patients because if we didn't, there would be no beds for the injured on the subsequent day.

'Splinters are more lethal than bullets'

Seventy per cent of the injuries were caused by splinters or shrapnel. These are fragments of bombs, grenades and mortars. They explode into thousands of fragments, each one is very sharp, deadly and has a very high velocity.

These are more lethal than bullets -- one bullet would kill one person whereas splinters would injure 7 to 8 soldiers.

Of course, there were many bullet injuries and some injuries caused by landmines which occurred at the end of the war.

The worst injury that I treated was where a 1-centimeter splinter had entered the abdomen of a young soldier. It had torn his stomach, injured his liver, pancreas. He had lost four litres of blood.

We tried to salvage him for six to eight hours, but sadly could not save him.

Another soldier had come with a hole in his skull. He was hit by a splinter and part of his skull had shattered. He had suffered brain damage, but surprisingly he was absolutely conscious and talking.

He survived.

IMAGE: Dr Arup Basu, fourth from right, with doctors and medical staff.

'I operated upon 300 soldiers, and lost one'

If soldiers came to us as 'brought dead' then the medical officer would certify them.

I had certified the mortal remains of martyr Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja who was killed by the Pakistanis.

I dealt with around 450 casualties out of which I operated upon 300. I lost only one patient whom I operated upon.

All the remaining survived.

Two years after the war, I met an officer whom I had operated upon in Kargil. We were both at the investiture ceremony to receive our Yudh Seva Medals.

I had repaired his abdomen and intestines after a splinter injury. He was in our hospital for a couple of days before being sent to the hospital in Leh.

He obviously didn't remember my face or my name, but his face looked very familiar and I asked him if he was in the war.

He said yes and said that a doctor in Kargil had operated upon him. I told him that was me.

IMAGE: Dr Arup Basu and other medical staff with Bollywood stars Salman Khan and Raveena Tandon.

'And then the war turned. Our men captured peak after peak'

I had bought a notebook from the market and would write down stories the soldiers used to tell me about the war. How they fought and survived for days. At times they swallowed chunks of ice to quench their thirst and hunger.

The Pakistanis were on top of the mountain ridges and had the upper hand. Our soldiers had to climb up mountain slopes at an angle of 60 or 50 degrees. The area was absolutely barren with no trees or grass for cover.

In the initial days, the morale was low because our men were being spotted by Pakistanis and getting shot as they climbed up the slopes.

The initial 20 to 25 days were very gloomy and despondent. Then the Indian Air Force was deployed to bombard some positions and a little clearance was achieved.

In June the mutilated bodies of Captain Saurabh Kalia and his patrol were returned to us.

On hearing about the extreme injuries inflicted on them, the same soldier who appeared extremely despondent in the field hospital was suddenly transformed into a burning dynamite.

They used to tell me that you have to make us recover fast because we want to get back to the battlefield and avenge their deaths.

'We will get to each and every one of them,' they would say.

And then the war turned. The soldiers started capturing peak after peak -- Tololing, Peak 4875, Tiger Hill and Batalik ridges.

'Unless you capture territory and plant your flag, the war is never won'

A lot has been written and discussed about the effort that went into winning the war. The brave soldiers, the bombing by the air force, the firing from the Bofors guns, the diplomatic pressure, etc. I being a soldier on the ground, I know that a war is never won unless the area is captured back on ground.

Unless you capture territory, plant your flag, the war is never won -- and that was done by the infantry men.

It is the sheer steely willpower of the infantry that could recapture those ridges. The infantry won the Kargil war, I would give them most credit for winning us the war.

IMAGE: Dr Arup Basu and the medical staff with Shabana Azmi, her husband Javed Akhtar and Sunil Shetty.

'Like Kargil, Covid took us by surprise'

I could draw parallels between the initial days of the Kargil war and COVID-19.

We were initially taken by surprise in the Kargil War.

There was no uniform policy being transmitted down to the ground level, the military response got streamlined subsequently.

In the military, things happen very quickly. But in the civil world it takes time. Similarly, in the first month-and-a half our response to Covid was not streamlined.

On my part, I walked up to the civil surgeon's office and enrolled my services. I said if there are any Covid positive patients who need surgery, I am willing to render my services at no cost. They have not required my services as yet.

I took premature retirement from the army after serving in several military hospitals. I also spent 10 months on deputation as part of India's medical assistance to Afghanistan. I served in the Indian hospital in Kabul and in several camps in different places in the country.

I still look back on those days of the Kargil war and wonder what the enemy hoped to achieve.

We are not an offensive country. Pakistan had intruded into our land and we defended ourselves with all our might. We drove them away by the courage of our soldiers.

Feature Production: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Using news and government reports, Stacker has highlighted some of the biggest events to take place in the last 100 summers, from 1920 to 2019.
Ground-breaking study reveals hundreds of vessels fishing illegally in one of the world's most contested ocean regions, contravening United Nations sanctions and fueling overfishing

Washington, D.C. - A new study published today in the journal, Science Advances reveals widespread illegal fishing by dark fleets -- vessels that do not publicly broadcast their location or appear in public monitoring systems -- operating in the waters between the Koreas, Japan and Russia, some of the world's most disputed and poorly-monitored waters.

The study, Illuminating Dark Fishing Fleets in North Korea, found more than 900 vessels of Chinese origin in 2017, and 700 in 2018, likely violated United Nations (UN) sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters. The vessels likely caught almost as much Pacific flying squid as Japan and South Korea combined -- more than 160,000 metric tons worth over US $440 million in 2017-2018.

"The scale of the fleet involved in this illegal fishing is about one-third the size of China's entire distant water fishing fleet. It is the largest known case of illegal fishing perpetrated by vessels originating from one country operating in another nation's waters," said Jaeyoon Park, senior data scientist at Global Fishing Watch and co-lead author of the study. "By synthesizing data from multiple satellite sensors, we created an unprecedented, robust picture of fishing activity in a notoriously opaque region."

Following North Korea's testing of ballistic missiles, the UN Security Council adopted resolutions in 2017 to sanction the country, and some of these prohibit foreign fishing.

The detected vessels originate from China and are assumed to be owned and operated by Chinese interests. However, because these vessels often do not carry appropriate papers, they are likely "three-no boats"-- operating without official Chinese authority, with no registration, flag, or license.

Devastating impact on North Korean small-scale fishers

The study also found about 3,000 North Korean vessels fished illegally in Russian waters in 2018.

"Competition from the industrial Chinese trawlers is likely displacing the North Korean fishers, pushing them into neighboring Russian waters," said study co-lead Jungsam Lee of the Korea Maritime Institute. "The North Koreans' smaller wood boats are ill-equipped for this long-distance travel."

Hundreds of North Korean boats have washed ashore on Japanese and Russian coasts in recent years. These incidents often involve starvation and deaths, and many fishing villages on North Korea's eastern coast have now been coined "widows' villages".

"The consequences of this shifting effort for North Korean small-scale fishers are profound, and represent an alarming and potentially growing human rights concern," said co-author Katherine Seto, an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Rogue vessels plunder squid as catch declines

The study claims the previously unidentified vessels pose a huge challenge for squid stock management, with reported catches plummeting by 80 percent and 82 percent in South Korean and Japanese waters respectively since 2003. Pacific flying squid is South Korea's top seafood by production value, one of the top five seafoods consumed in Japan and, until recent sanctions, was the third largest North Korean export.

Disagreement over boundaries in the waters between the Koreas, Japan and Russia have prevented joint fisheries management and hampered national efforts due to a lack of comprehensive stock assessments.

"Illegal fishing in these waters is a very serious matter in Japan, and the lack of shared data and management is a major challenge considering the critical importance of squid in the region," said Masanori Miyahara, President of the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency. "We must face this challenge using the evidence provided by this study and other credible science."

Unprecedented use of satellite technologies to detect the dark fleets

The study used four satellite technologies to illuminate the dark fleets. Automatic identification system (AIS) -- a collision avoidance system that constantly transmits a vessel's location at sea - provides detailed vessel information, but is used by only a fraction of vessels. The study added radar images, which can identify large metal vessels and penetrate clouds, night time imaging which picks up the presence of fishing vessels using lights to attract catch or conduct operations at night, and high-resolution optical imagery, which offers the best visual "proof" of vessel activity and type. These technologies have never before been combined to publicly reveal the activities and estimated catches of entire fleets at this scale.

"These novel insights are now possible thanks to advances in machine learning and the rapidly growing volume of high-resolution, high-frequency imagery that was unavailable even a couple of years ago." said David Kroodsma, research and innovation director at Global Fishing Watch and co-author of the study. "We've shown we can track industrial fishing vessels that are not broadcasting their locations."

New analysis could underpin inter-Korean cooperation

The 2018 inter-Korean summits underlined the need to build peace through cooperation on the waters, create a joint fisheries management area, and address illegal fishing. Achieving these laudable ambitions will rely on unbiased information that all sides can trust.

"Global fisheries have long been dominated by a culture of unnecessary confidentiality and concealment. Achieving a comprehensive view of fishing activity is an important step toward truly sustainable and cooperative fisheries management, and satellite monitoring is a key part of the solution." said Associate Professor Quentin Hanich of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) at the University of Wollongong and co-author. "This analysis represents the beginning of a new era in ocean management and transparency."

The study was itself an example of international cooperation, with scientists from South Korea, Japan, Australia and the United States collaborating to reveal fishing activity in the region.

###

For further information:

Sarah Bladen, Director Communications and Outreach

Global Fishing Watch

sarah@globalfishingwatch.org

Mob: +44 79 20333832

Kimberly Vosburgh, Senior Manager Communications and Outreach

Global Fishing Watch

kimberly@globalfishingwatch.org

Mob: +1-518-590-2979

Note to the Editor:

Download figures and images used in the study and associated visuals, including infographics

More information, including a copy of the paper, can be found online at the Science Advances press package at https://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/sciadvances/. You will need your user ID and password to access this information.

Citation: J. Park, J. Lee, K. Seto, T. Hochberg, B. A. Wong, N. A. Miller, K. Takasaki, H. Kubota, Y. Oozeki, S. Doshi, M. Midzik, Q. Hanich, B. Sullivan, P. Woods, D. A. Kroodsma, Illuminating dark fishing fleets in North Korea. Sci. Adv. 6, eabb1197 (2020).

Acknowledgements: The co-authors of the study wish to acknowledge the contribution from the following technology and data providers; AIS: Spire, ORBCOMM; Optical imagery: Planet; Radar imagery: European Space Agency (ESA), Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; and Night-time imagery: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth Observation Group.

Acknowledgements: The co-authors of the study wish to acknowledge the contribution from the following technology and data providers; AIS: Spire, ORBCOMM; Optical imagery: Planet; Radar imagery: European Space Agency (ESA), Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; and Night-time imagery: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth Observation Group.

Global Fishing Watch (GFW) is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the sustainability of our oceans through increased transparency. By harnessing cutting edge technology, our mapping platform allows anyone to view or download data and investigate global fishing activity in near real-time, for free. GFW was founded in 2015 through a collaboration between Oceana, SkyTruth and Google. Our work is made possible thanks to the support of our funding partners and technology and data providers.

Korea Maritime Institute (KMI) is a think tank for developing national policies on fisheries and marine affairs in Korea. For more than three decades since its establishment in 1984, the KMI has committed to research for the development of fisheries, shipping and port industries, becoming a specialized research institute in shipping, ports, maritime and fisheries sector.

Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency (FRA) is a public organisation, established on April 1, 2016 through a merger of the Fisheries Research Agency (originated from 9 institutes of Fisheries Agency of Japan, Ministries of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries since 1949) and the National Fisheries University. The FRA aims to maximize research and development (R&D) outcomes as the only comprehensive fisheries R&D organization in Japan. The FRA is contributing to the revival of Japan as a nation of fisheries by maximizing R&D outcomes.

SkyTruth: A founding partner of Global Fishing Watch, SkyTruth is a nonprofit conservation technology organization that uses satellite imagery, geospatial data and artificial intelligence to shine a spotlight on environmental issues worldwide. SkyTruth believes that greater transparency leads to greater public participation, better policy, and positive outcomes for people and the planet. SkyTruth is based in Shepherdstown, West Virginia and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) at the University of Wollongong is a globally recognised academic centre of excellence for ocean governance and marine resource security. We bring together teams of specialist lawyers, political scientists and international relations experts, geographers, marine biologists and social scientists to design, innovate and integrate ocean law, maritime management and marine policy. We provide real-world research outcomes that assist decision makers and enhance the quality of policy-making. Our expertise and capacity enables us to employ a multi-disciplinary approach to complex issues and bring to the subject a range of specialised perspectives.

Planet is the leading provider of global, near-daily satellite imagery data and insights. Planet is driven by a mission to image all of Earth's landmass every day, and make global change visible, accessible and actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest earth observation fleet of satellites, and provides the online software, tools and analytics needed to deliver data to users. Decision makers in business, government, and within organizations can use Planet's data and machine learning-powered analytics to develop new technologies, drive revenue, power research, and make informed, timely decisions to solve our world's toughest challenges. To learn more visit http://www.planet.com and follow us on Twitter at @planetlabs.

Located at Duke University, the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab (MGEL) applies geospatial technologies to issues in marine ecology, resource management and ocean conservation. With locations at both the main Durham campus of Duke and at the Duke Marine Lab on Pivers Island in Beaufort, North Carolina, the lab works with students and faculty across domains- from field science to policy.

The University of California, Santa Cruz, is a leading public research university located 90 miles south of San Francisco overlooking Monterey Bay. Home to 16,000 undergraduates and 1,600 graduate students, UC Santa Cruz has earned a national reputation for research and scholarship that challenges the status quo.
Coronavirus LIVE Updates: Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said that the Delhi government has decided to conduct Covid-19 sero- surveillance every month. He added that it would be done from the 1st to 5th of every month. Meanwhile, a total lockdown will be imposed in all red zone districts of Kashmir Division, excluding Bandipora, from today evening till 6 am on 27 July.

India on Wednesday recorded a spike of 37,724 Covid-19 cases and 648 deaths in the last 24 hours. The total Covid-19 cases have risen to 11,92,915 and there are 4,11,133 active cases in the country. The number of cured/discharged/migrated stands at 7,53,050 while the death toll has climbed to 28,732, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

HERE ARE LIVE UPDATES ON CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC:

 Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra has announced a complete lockdown in Bhopal for ten days from July 25 following rise in Covid-19 cases.

 A total lockdown will be imposed in all red zone districts (excluding Bandipora) of Kashmir Division from today evening till 6 am on 27 July. Agriculture, horticulture and construction activities to continue, the department of Information and Public Relations Govt of Jammu & Kashmir said.

New Academic Session in Goa Likely from September | The Goa education department is planning to start the new academic session from September this year, state education director Santosh Amonkar has said. The annual academic session in Goa begins in the first week of June, but it has been delayed this year due to the outbreak of COVID-19, PTI reported. The state education department was earlier hoping to start the 2020-21 academic year by August 15.

 Amid Covid-19, the Sports Authority of India has extended the contract of 32 foreign coaches in 11 disciplines till Sept 30, 2021. The decision was taken to ensure that athletes bound for Tokyo Olympics, which has been postponed by a year, can retain continuity in training with the same coaches.

 Arunachal Pradesh Reports 68 New Covid-19 Cases| Arunachal Pradesh reported 68 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the virus count in the northeastern state to 858, a senior Health department official said here on Wednesday. Of the 68 new infections, 57 were reported from the Capital complex, while six were from Lower Subansiri, three from Namsai and one each from Papum Pare and Lower Dibang Valley districts, he told PTI.

DGP J&K Dilbag Singh inaugurates Plasma Screening Camp, organised by J&K Police & Dept of Health and Medical Education at Kashmir Nursing Home, Srinagar. Police personnel who had contracted #COVID19 and have recovered will voluntarily donate their plasma: Jammu & Kashmir Police pic.twitter.com/BQZhetXhO9 ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

 DGP J&K Dilbag Singh inaugurates Plasma Screening Camp, conducted by J&K Police & Dept of Health and Medical Education at Kashmir Nursing Home, Srinagar.

 India reported a spike of 37,724 Covid-19 cases and 648 deaths in the last 24 hours. The total Covid-19 cases have risen to 11,92,915 and there are 4,11,133 active cases in the country. The number of cured/discharged/migrated stands at 7,53,050 while the death toll has climbed to 28,732, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

Karnataka: People head out in Bengaluru as lockdown has been lifted in the state from today by Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa. The night curfew from 9 pm to 5 am and Sunday curfew will stay in place. pic.twitter.com/rUAJAr6jhJ ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

 Bengaluru residents were seen heading out as lockdown has been lifted in Karnataka from today by Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa. However, the night curfew from 9 pm to 5 am and Sunday curfew will remain.

 The coronavirus situation "is in control" in Mumbai with the number of cases being reported daily being less than 1,500, a senior official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said. Every day, 6,000 to 7,000 tests are being done and most of the citizens are following the safety protocols, additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani told PTI.

 Today's Covid-19 Highlights

- World total cases is now over 15 million, 9.1 million have recovered

-India's mortality rate improves from 2.43% to 2.41%

-India's recoveries now more than 7.5 lakh. Recovery rate 63.1%

-Total cases: 11.93 lakh; Active cases: 4.11 lakh; Recovered: 7.53 lakh; Deaths: 28.7k

- Delhi's new cases more than new recoveries for the first time in two weeks (1349 vs 1200)

- Gujarat crosses 50 total cases; Karnataka now over 70k

 US Leading World in COVID-19 Testing, India Second: Trump | US President Donald Trump said that the United States is leading the world in terms of COVID-19 testing and India is at the second position. Trump made these remarks while giving an update on his administration's handling of the coronavirus crisis. Replying to a question, Trump said the US is leading the world" in terms of COVID-19 testing. "We're going to be over 50 million tests," he said, adding that "second country is India with 12 million (tests)...," Trump said.

 Scientists have known for many months that the novel coronavirus can become suspended in microdroplets expelled by patients when they talk and breathe, but so far there was no proof that these tiny particles are infectious. However, a new study by scientists at the University of Nebraska that was uploaded to a medical preprint site this week has revealed for the first time that SARS-CoV-2 taken from microdroplets, defined as under five microns, can duplicate in lab conditions, news agency AFP reported.

A healthcare worker conducts a coronavirus test on a patient while going house to house in the municipality of Tlahuac, one of the highly contagious zones of Mexico City. More photos of the day: https://t.co/oZm8fPqWDn  @cjassopix pic.twitter.com/6ACEzRJc3i Reuters Pictures (@reuterspictures) July 21, 2020

 Seen here, a healthcare worker conducting a Covid-19 test on a patient while going house to house in the municipality of Tlahuac, one of the highly contagious zones of Mexico City.

 US Reports More Than 68,000 New Virus Cases in 24 Hours | The United States on Tuesday reported 68,524 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, Johns Hopkins University said in its real-time tally. The country, which is reeling hard under the onslaught of the pandemic, has now registered a total of 3,891,893 infections, the Baltimore-based university said on Wednesday.

 Residents of Australia's second-most populous city Melbourne have been directed to wear masks when leaving home from Wednesday. This development comes even as tighter border restrictions were imposed with neighbouring New South Wales state to check the spread of coronavirus. Additionally, cross-border travel between Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) will now only be allowed for work, education or medical care, after the border was closed earlier in July for the first time in 100 years, Reuters reported.

Japan has given a nod to dexamethasone, a cheap and extensively used steroid, as a second treatment of COVID-19 after a trial in Britain revealed that the drug reduced death rates in hospitalised patients.

Japan's health ministry included dexamethasone as an option for treatment along with Gilead Sciences Inc's antiviral drug remdesivir.

 Over 2 lakh cases of violation of prohibitory orders have been registered in Maharashtra till

date since the coronavirus-induced lockdown was imposed in March, an official said on Wednesday.

At least 2,01,158 cases of lockdown violations have been registered, in which 31,424 people have been arrested since March 22, the official said.

 Tripura's COVID-19 tally rose to 3,346 on Wednesday as the state reported its highest single-day spike of 254 fresh cases, officials said. One more patient succumbed to the infection, taking the death toll due to the coronavirus to eight in the northeastern state, they said.

 Alert~254 People found COVID-19 POSITIVE out of 5185 samples tested. Unfortunately, 1 COVID19 POSITIVE patient died today.Also, 81 COVID-19 patients have been discharged today from various District CCCs after their test results came NEGATIVE.#TripuraCOVID19Count Biplab Kumar Deb (@BjpBiplab) July 21, 2020

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb tweeted late on Tuesday: "Alert! 254 people found COVID-19 positive out of 5,185 samples tested. Unfortunately, 1 COVID-19 positive patient died today."

 Former Madhya Pradesh CM & state Congress president Kamal Nath writes to the Election Commission, suggesting that the upcoming Assembly by-elections should be conducted using ballot papers in view of COVID-19 pandemic.

 As India's coronavirus cases exceeded one million last week, spikes in infections in reopened factories are putting workers at risk - accusing companies of skimping on health and safety as they rush to get business back on track, a report in Reuters says. Manufacturers are implementing measures such as temperature checks, mandatory wearing of masks, smaller shift groups and social distancing, industrial associations said. State officials have also stepped up contact-tracing programmes around industrial hubs where cases have been reported, setting up special teams to work with factories on compliance and training workers on the new mandatory safeguards.

India is responding with utmost urgency to Covid-19 from start. It's been continually strengthening preparedness&response measures, says Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, WHO Regional Director, South-East Asia.

India is responding with utmost urgency to #COVID19 from start. It's been continually strengthening preparedness&response measures, including ramping up testing capacities, readying more hospitals, arranging&stocking up medicines&essentials: WHO Regional Director, South-East Asia pic.twitter.com/XXT440Hmk2 ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

Singh adds, "We're aware of varying capacities at sub-national levels. Not unusual in country as big as India &its population size,that measures taken may often not be uniformly sufficient across all areas. Scaling up capacities and response remains constant need in India."
Jacinda Ardern and other New Zealand ministers took a 20 per cent pay cut

Morrison, who is paid $549,250 by taxpayers, said cuts 'wouldn't help anyone'

Scott Morrison has blasted calls for politicians to take a $1000-per-day pay cut as 'political clickbait'.

The Prime Minister, who is on a taxpayer-funded salary of $549,250, said a wage decrease 'wouldn't help anyone'.

The first parliamentary sitting fortnight in August was cancelled due to fears Victorian MPs could spread COVID-19 in Canberra.

South Australian Senator Rex Patrick called for politicians' wages to be cut $1000 for every day they don't attend parliament.

'Parliamentary sitting days should be rescheduled, not cancelled. If we're not sitting, we can't carrying out critical Government oversight activities or deal with legislation. Dock MPs' and Senators' $1000 for every sitting day that is cancelled,' he said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is on a taxpayer-funded salary of $549,250, said a wage decrease 'wouldn't help anyone'

South Australian Senator Rex Patrick called for politicians' wages to be cut $1000 for everyday they don't attend parliament

Mr Patrick tweeted his support for a $1000-per-day pay cut for politicians

'Federal politicians should not be insulated from the impacts, especially when many MPs are not doing fundamental work they are rightfully expected to do; oversight of Government and reviewing and voting on legislation.'

The prime minister hit back at Mr Patrick's remarks, saying 'if he's not working while the Parliament's not sitting that's a matter for him.'

'I can tell you my government members are working as hard outside of the parliament as they do and I can certainly assure you that I am,' Mr Morrison told 2GB's Ben Fordham.

'I think that sort of stuff is just political clickbait for people to put their head above the parapet. It doesn't help anybody, it doesn't get us anywhere.'

Mr Patrick said that while medical advice needs to be followed, Mr Morrison's decision to cancel rather than reschedule two scheduled sitting weeks in August is 'highly disappointing' and 'sends the wrong signal to Australians.'

'There were only 30 Senate sitting days left for 2020. The Prime Minister's decision reduced those planned sittings by more than 20 per cent,' he said in a statement.

'Those August sitting days should not have been cancelled, but rather rescheduled to September, which has only three sitting days planned. There is a lot of work to be done.

'Millions of Australians are facing huge financial difficulties as a consequence of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions. All too many Australians have lost their jobs and many others are working reduced hours with significantly reduced pay.'

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in April announced she and other ministers would take a 20 per cent pay cut for six months to show solidarity with those affected by the pandemic

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in April announced she and other ministers would take a 20 per cent pay cut for six months to show solidarity with those affected by the pandemic.

Mr Morrison's dismissal of a pay cut comes a day after he announced wage subsidies will be cut from $1500 to $1200 a fortnight for eligible full-time workers after September 27 and halved to $750 for those working less than 20 hours a week.

From January, JobKeeper will be further reduced to $1000 for full-time employees and $650 for part-time workers until March.

The coronavirus supplement for JobSeeker will also be extended but drop from $550 a week to $250 at the end of September, and remain at that rate until the end of the year.
In two recent interviews, Vladimirs Remi shared what he has learned throughout his career in the e-commerce and fintech sectors

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 21, 2020 / Vladimirs Remi was recently featured in two exclusive interviews with Ideamensch and Kivo Daily. He spoke about his career in e-commerce and fintech.

With 14 years of experience as a business owner, Vladimirs Remi is the CEO of his own fintech company. He also owns a group of companies with the goal to expand operations beyond Europe, into the U.S. and Asia.

In his interview with Ideamensch, Vladimirs Remi explained how he brings ideas to life.

"Just dream and then do," said Vladimirs Remi.

"I have a lot of dreams that I want to complete, so if I want something I just start moving to that direction and to make at least something in this direction and after that everything just starts happening."

In his interview with Kivo Daily, Vladimirs Remi explained that he decided to create his own business because it gave him the freedom to choose his own career path and pursue his unique vision.

He further explained traits he possesses that make him a successful leader.

"As a leader, I am very focused, clear, and decisive about where my company is headed. I also have a very strong work ethic and a tremendous amount of willpower," said Vladimirs Remi.

"I am committed to consistently doing what is in the best long-term interests of my company and my family. I am a dreamer as well as a doer and I am always moving forward."

For more information, visit https://vladimirsremi.com/

About Vladimirs Remi

Born in Riga, Latvia, Vladimirs Remi is an experienced and successful entrepreneur in the fintech sector. He holds a Professional Bachelor's degree in E-Commerce from the Riga International School of Economics and Business Administration. He is a certified high-risk underwriter and successfully completed the International English Language Testing System Exam in 2010. He began his career as a call support specialist in the world's leading fintech company. He went on to become a software engineer, project manager, and later the Head of e-commerce department in a bank. Today, Vladimirs Remi is the owner and CEO of his own fintech company. He hopes to expand his business beyond the European Union into the U.S. and Asia.

Story continues

Contact:

Vladimirs Remi

vladimirs.remi@gmail.com

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/vladimirsremi

SOURCE: Vladimirs Remi





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/598313/Vladimirs-Remi-Shares-Career-Insights




The new patients, comprising two women and 10 men, had been repatriated on Flight VN5062, which departed Russia and transited Belarus before landing at Van Don International Airport in northern Quang Ninh province on July 17.

All of them have been quarantined upon their arrival.

Meanwhile, Vietnam entered the 96th straight day without community transmission of COVID-19 on July 21.

Among the 396 confirmed cases so far, 256 are imported and quarantined upon their arrival.

Most of the 36 patients still under treatment are in stable condition, including four negative for the virus once and one at least twice.

There are 11,088 people having close contact with confirmed cases or coming from pandemic-hit areas in quarantine at present, including 111 in hospitals, 9,949 in other quarantine sites, and 1,028 at home or accommodation facilities.
The Michigan National Guard will continue its partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Michigan State Police, and local health departments to offer drive-thru COVID-19 testing this week in Delta, Iron, Mackinac, Luce, Menominee, and Dickinson counties between July 24-25.

A press release from the Michigan National Guard announced that the locations for each testing site include:

Escanaba: Upper Peninsula State Fairgrounds 2401 12th Ave N. Escanaba, MI 49829 Friday, July 24 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

St. Ignace: St. Ignace Area School parking lot West 429 Portage St. Ignace MI, 49781 Friday, July 24 from 1:00 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Kingsford: Kingsford Middle/High School parking lot 431 Hamilton Ave, Kingsford, MI 49802 Friday, July 24 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Crystal Falls: Forest Park School parking lot 801 Forest Pkwy Crystal Falls, MI 49920 Saturday, July 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Newberry: Luce County Road Commission garage 12920 County Road 457 Newberry, MI 49868 Saturday, July 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Menominee: Menominee High School parking lot 2101 18th St. Menominee, MI 49858 Saturday, July 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

All team members from the Michigan National Guard have tested negative for COVID-19 and have been following strict medical protocols to ensure health and safety and to protect Michigan communities.

Through our partnership with Michigans public health professionals, the Michigan National Guard has conducted over 75,000 tests, said Maj. Gen. Paul Rogers, Adjutant General and Director of the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. Testing is an important measure to safeguard communities, and we are proud to expand this service across the Upper Peninsula.

Information around this outbreak is changing rapidly. The latest information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

CORONAVIRUS PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Kuwaits 91-year-old ruling emir landed on Thursday in the United States after being flown across the world in a U.S. Air Force C-17 flying hospital, and just days after undergoing an unspecified surgery at home. The dramatic airlift reflected the close ties between the two nations but also raised concerns over the rulers medical condition.

Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah survived the 16-hour trip under the watch of U.S. medical professionals and Kuwaitis, with Kuwaits state-run news agency KUNA saying Kuwaits ambassador to the U.S. was at the airport for the planes arrival.

Kuwait has not released any information on what medical ailment Sheikh Sabah faces, other than to say he was hospitalized on Saturday and underwent a surgery on Sunday.

His condition has renewed concerns over a possible power struggle within the ruling family of Kuwait, a small Mideast nation home to some of the worlds largest oil reserves. Quranic prayer recitations filled state television and social media, all hoping for his recovery.

KUNA did not say where Sheikh Sabah went in the U.S., though flight-tracking data showed the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III that took off from Kuwait International Airport landed in Rochester, Minnesota, after a brief stopover at Germanys Ramstein Air Base.

Rochester is home to the flagship campus of the Mayo Clinic, one of Americas best hospitals, and has treated Sheikh Sabah in the past. The Mayo Clinic declined to comment.

The U.S. military uses some C-17s as airborne hospitals for medical evacuations, able to triage critically wounded soldiers while rapidly flying them onto major bases. The aircraft include onboard oxygen and the same lifesaving equipment as found in hospital emergency rooms. The flights often include critical care air transport teams, comprised of a specialized doctor, a nurse and a respiratory therapist.

Asked about the C-17 flight, U.S. Air Force Central Command based in Qatar referred questions to the U.S. militarys Transportation Command, which declined to comment. A U.S. State Department official said America provided assistance to help with the emirs treatment, without elaborating. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as the information had not been made public.

A short time after the C-17 landed at Rochester, KUNA announced Sheikh Sabahs arrival to the U.S.

A Kuwaiti government Airbus A340 that left Kuwait City also landed earlier Thursday in Rochester. That same Airbus had flown to Rochester and New York City before returning to Kuwait just days before Sheikh Sabahs surgery.

KUNA news agency also earlier quoted a statement from the countrys royal court saying Sheikh Sabah left for America based on advice from the medical team treating His Highness to complete his treatment after a successful surgical procedure.

We ask the Almighty to aid his recovery and sustain His Highness, who is healthy and well taken care of, and to protect him from all harm, the statement said.

Kuwait earlier said that 83-year-old Crown Prince Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah had assumed some of Sheikh Sabahs powers temporarily, without explaining why that was necessary.

A copy of the ministerial decree posted by Kuwaits official gazette, Kuwait Al-Youm, and seen by the AP on Sunday, said the crown prince would be empowered for the duration of a surgical procedure until the health event is over.

The decree did not elaborate. Kuwaits Information Ministry has not responded to requests for comment.

Sheikh Sabah, a widely beloved ruler in this OPEC-member nation, took power in 2006 just nine days into the rule of the ailing Sheikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah. Concerns mounted during Sheikh Saads brief reign as he was seen in public only in a wheelchair and did not speak.

However, Sheikh Sabahs ascension upset an informal power-sharing arrangement between branches of Kuwaits ruling family. While Kuwait has since remained politically stable with the most empowered parliament of any Gulf Arab nation, there have been internal power struggles behind the scenes of his rule.

Kuwait, a nation home to 4.1 million people thats slightly smaller than the U.S. state of New Jersey, has the worlds sixth-largest known oil reserves.

It has been a staunch U.S. ally since the 1991 Gulf War expelled the occupying Iraqi forces of Saddam Hussein. Today, Kuwait hosts some 13,500 American troops, many at Camp Arifjan south of Kuwait City, which is also home to the forward command of U.S. Army Central. Americans remain beloved by Kuwaitis, a rarity in a Mideast still dealing with the fallout of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sheikh Sabah, a longtime foreign minister for Kuwait, has drawn praise during his rule for hosting donation drives for both war-torn Iraq and Syria. He also has been the lead negotiator in trying to resolve a yearslong boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations over a political dispute.

He previously cancelled a White House visit last November while in the U.S. and visited a hospital there for medical checks.

___

Associated Press writer Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
DENTON, Texas, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Thirteen years after closing and two years since renovations began, the historic Fairhaven Denton retirement home is ready for its close-up. Open July 26 for pre-leasing, walk-ins, and tours, the facility is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places after a renovation of the original 1965 design by renowned Texas architect O'Neil Ford.

The effort to build the original Fairhaven Retirement Home was historic, requiring ten years of community fundraising to create the affordable and beautiful property to meet the vision of the women who founded it. They were rewarded for their efforts when, soon after its opening, it was named the Most Beautiful North Texas Senior Citizen Home. Read more about Fairhaven Denton's history on the website.

In 2007, Fairhaven Denton closed, and the property sat until 2018 for the current collaboration between Historic Denton, the Texas Historical Commission, and Investcor to begin its $5 million rehabilitation. The thoughtfully-designed building blends into and showcases the surrounding environment, including the spring-fed koi pond and wooded walking trails. The most efficient technologies have been added, and modern amenities including a bistro and a multipurpose room for yoga, classes and private parties.

In 1965, 17 apartments were pre-leased before the original opening. To celebrate their dedicated work, we are extending the Founder's Special to our new residents. The first 17 pre-leases will receive:

Priority selection of apartment

Application of $500 of the deposit towards first month's rent

of the deposit towards first month's rent Locked-in base rate for the first 12 months

Fairhaven Denton has been a community effort from the beginning. We are proud to invite you to see our updated facility and amenities and to be able to offer you and your loved ones all the comforts of home.

About Fairhaven Denton

Fairhaven Denton is a thoughtfully designed senior living community offering assisted living and respite care services in the Historic Downtown Denton area. The Fairhaven building has been a part of the community since 1965 and now is listed in the National Register of Historic Places after a comprehensive renovation. Insuring resident health and well-being through innovative care and rigorous safety procedures remains Fairhaven Denton's top priority. The everyday experience at Fairhaven is one of living among family, with active and engaged residents in a supportive care environment.

CONTACT:

Sammi Drew, Community Relation Director

[email protected]

903-931-2458

For further information:

http://www.fairhavendenton.com

SOURCE Fairhaven Denton

Related Links

https://fairhavendenton.com


Sara Sampaio recently celebrated another trip around the sun with the help of some good friends.

And the Portuguese model served some stunning off-duty style during a break from quarantine for her 29th birthday.

She put on a leggy display Tuesday in a yellow tie-dye mini dress with spaghetti stripes, as she met her friends for her birthday lunch at The Ivy in Los Angeles.

Legs for days: Sara Sampaio put on a leggy display Tuesday in a yellow tie-dye mini dress with spaghetti stripes, as she met her friends for her birthday lunch at The Ivy in Los Angeles

The 29-year-old accessorized with a pair of black cat-eye sunglasses, gold earrings with a matching necklace and bracelet, completed with a pair of grey satin kitten heels.

She carried a petite white alligator handbag, while taking precautions against COVID-19 in a blue face mask.

Sampaio took to her Instagram story with some selfies, showing herself and friends at the popular restaurant.

She was glowing in her gorgeous summer look, as they sat around a feast fit for a queen on her birthday.

Accessorizing: The 29-year-old accessorized with a pair of black cat-eye sunglasses, gold earrings with a matching necklace and bracelet, completed with a pair of grey satin kitten heels

Celebratory lunch: Sampaio took to her Instagram story with some selfies, showing herself and friends at the popular restaurant

Feast for a queen: She was glowing in her gorgeous summer look, as they sat around a feast fit for a queen on her birthday

Birthday girl: The Clapper actress was serenaded by her entourage, as they sang Happy Birthday to her, over a lit sparkler in a slice of pineapple

Carpool karaoke: She also jammed out to Trap Beckham's 2016 track Birthday B****, while cruising in the backseat of a car with her gal pals

The Clapper actress was serenaded by her entourage, as they sang Happy Birthday to her, over a lit sparkler in a slice of pineapple.

She also jammed out to Trap Beckham's 2016 track Birthday B****, while cruising in the backseat of a car with her gal pals.

Sampaio also shared an adorable throwback photo of herself as a child, sporting perfectly '90s bangs and missing a tooth.

She captioned the photo: 'As I turn 29 today, And look at pics like this, I still wonder if I should cut my fringe.

'But fringe or no fringe all I want is to never lose this child smile ( well minus the missing tooth) . Heres to the last one in the 20s!!!! Thank you all for the bday love!!!'
Government officials have begun work to examine if a bridge could be built between Scotland and Northern Ireland, Downing Street confirmed today.

Ahead of an expected visit by Boris Johnson to Scotland tomorrow, No10 said that some preparatory work the 20billion project was underway.

Mr Johnson revealed in January his desire for a combined bridge and tunnel connection at the narrowest, 20-mile gap between Northern Ireland and the British mainland.

But since then the coronavirus pandemic has torn a massive black hole in the UK's finances.

Asked today if any preparatory work has been done, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'I think government officials have done some work on this and they continue to work on a range of connectivity projects looking into, as the PM said, road, rail, air and cross sea links between all four parts of the United Kingdom.'

One version of the plan would be modelled on the Oresund Bridge, which runs for five miles from the Swedish coast near Malmo to an artificial island in the middle of the Oresund Strait.

The bridge would be most likely to run between Portpatrick in Scotland and Larne in County Antrim, and engineers are understood to have come up with the idea of a bridge-tunnel split as a way of dealing with Beaufort's Dyke, the UK's largest offshore dump site for conventional and chemical munitions after the Second World War.

Ahead of an expected visit by Boris Johnson to Scotland tomorrow, No10 said that some preparatory work the 20billion project was underway

It lies seven miles off Portpatrick and the Ministry of Defence estimates there are a million tons of munitions at the bottom of the deep trench, including 14,500 tons of 5in artillery rockets filled with phosgene gas, in addition to two tons of concrete-encased metal drums filled with radioactive waste which was dumped there during the 1950s.

Under one version of Mr Johnson's plan, the bridge would run from the Scottish coast over the trench, before becoming a tunnel for the final stretch to Northern Ireland.

It came as Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she has no plans to meet Boris Johnson if he visits Scotland this week and urged him and visitors to follow Scottish Government guidance if they do travel north.

The reported visit on Thursday would be the first made by Mr Johnson to Scotland since the general election in December.

Speaking at the briefing on coronavirus today the First Minister said: 'I've no plans to meet the Prime Minister tomorrow - I'm always happy to meet the Prime Minister if he wants to do so.

'I'm always happy to welcome people to Scotland but I would ask anyone coming to, the Prime Minister included, to make sure that they follow all the (Scottish Government) Facts advice while they are here and I'm sure he'll be doing that anyway.'

The First Minister added both the UK and Scottish Governments are focused on the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, before saying the two administrations have their differences on Scotland's future relationship with the UK, which she said they will 'continue to discuss those constructively'.

Initial reports of the visit surfaced on Saturday, Ms Sturgeon's 50th birthday, leading the SNP leader to joke the Prime Minister had given her a 'birthday pressie'.

Further reports emerged on Wednesday of the Prime Minister urging his Cabinet to spend more time in Scotland and explaining the role of the UK Government in the economic recovery from Covid-19 in an effort to strengthen the union.

In recent months, poll ratings for the First Minister have soared, along with support for Scottish independence, with two consecutive Panelbase polls in as many months showing 54 per cent support for separation among Scots.

According to the Daily Telegraph on Monday, the Prime Minister has been urged by supporters of the union to talk up its positives during the visit.
The Supreme Court has issued notices to advocate Prashant Bhushan and Twitter India taking suo moto contempt of two tweets posted by Bhushan last month. The apex court has sought a detailed response from lawyer Prashant Bhushan on his alleged tweets while Twitter India has been asked to file its response in the case. The top court also issued a notice to Attorney General KK Venugopal for assistance and posted the matter for hearing on August 5.

A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Arun Mishra, stated that the matter relates to two tweets posted by Bhushan last month - one directed against the CJI with his photo showing him riding a bike. The tweet was posted on June 29. Another tweet by Bhushan was posted on June 27 wherein he spoke about the role of four former CJIs in destroying democracy without a formal emergency.

When historians in future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs  Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) June 27, 2020

When historians in the future look back at the last 6 years to see how democracy has been destroyed in India even without a formal Emergency, they will particularly mark the role of the Supreme Court in this destruction, & more particularly the role of the last 4 CJIs, Bhushan had tweeted.

For Twitter, senior advocate Sajjan Poovayya appeared and informed the Court that Twitter can only disable a tweet on orders passed by the Court. He proposed the Court to pass an order to this effect but the Court refused. Nobody appeared for Bhushan.

According to the rule of contempt, for a publication (including web/social media platform too), the author and the publisher, both are called out in the matter.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 07:54:17|Editor: huaxia

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International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva gestures as she arrives at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

Stressing that it is "crucial" for policymakers to adopt measures to limit the scarring effects of the pandemic on women, the authors said this could entail a focus on extending income support to the vulnerable, preserving employment linkages, providing incentives to balance work and family care responsibilities, improving access to health care and family planning, and expanding support for small businesses and the self-employed.



WASHINGTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to roll back gains in women's economic opportunities and widen gender gaps, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Tuesday, urging policymakers to adopt measures to limit the pandemic's scarring effects on women.

The COVID-19 had "disproportionate" effects on women and their economic status, according to a newly released IMF blog, co-authored by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, and Stefania Fabrizio, Cheng Hoon Lim and Marina M. Tavares.

The blog highlighted several factors that resulted in the disproportionate effects: First, women are more likely than men to work in social sectors -- such as services industries, retail, tourism, and hospitality -- that require face-to-face interactions, the authors said, noting that these sectors are hit hardest by social distancing and mitigation measures.

Second, women are more likely than men to be employed in the informal sector in low-income countries, according to the authors. "Informal employment -- often compensated in cash with no official oversight -- leaves women with lower pay, no protection of labor laws, and no benefits such as pensions or health insurance," they said.

People walk past the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C., the United States, July 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Third, women tend to do more unpaid household work than men, about 2.7 hours per day more to be exact, the blog showed.

"They bear the brunt of family care responsibilities resulting from shutdown measures such as school closures and precautions for vulnerable elderly parents," the authors said, adding that after shutdown measures have been lifted, women are slower to return to full employment.

Fourth, pandemics put women at greater risk of losing human capital, the authors argued. "In many developing countries, young girls are forced to drop out of school and work to supplement household income," they said.

Stressing that it is "crucial" for policymakers to adopt measures to limit the scarring effects of the pandemic on women, the authors said this could entail a focus on extending income support to the vulnerable, preserving employment linkages, providing incentives to balance work and family care responsibilities, improving access to health care and family planning, and expanding support for small businesses and the self-employed.

They noted that elimination of legal barriers against women's economic empowerment is also a priority.

"Over the longer term, policies can be designed to tackle gender inequality by creating conditions and incentives for women to work," the authors added.

Citing an earlier IMF blog, the authors noted that particularly effective are gender-responsive fiscal policies, such as investing in education and infrastructure, subsidizing childcare, and offering parental leave.

"These policies are not only crucial to lift constraints on women's economic empowerment, they are necessary to promote an inclusive post-COVID-19 recovery," they said. 
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CIT Group Inc. (CIT) today announced that the nonprofit Flushing Town Hall received the most support from customers and followers in its Acts of Caring online poll, and as a result the company will double its grant to expand virtual family programming for the diverse communities of Queens, NY.

Flushing Town Hall provides cross-cultural programming  works that fuse or bridge different cultures  to engage diverse audiences in appreciation of each other's rich culture heritage, fostering a mutual respect and understanding to help build community in an environment where people from all over the world share the same space. CIT's support will help Flushing Town Hall deliver and maintain their series, Global Arts for Global Kids: Arts Education, Arts Equity, to thousands of families, school-aged children, teachers and community members.

"We are thrilled to be receiving this Acts of Caring grant from CIT; it truly shows their commitment to our community during this very difficult time," said Ellen Kodadek, executive and artistic director at Flushing Town Hall. "Thanks to CIT's support we now have the opportunity to creatively enhance our programming for thousands of families and school children during the COVID-19 pandemic."

CIT Acts of Caring

As part of CIT's Acts of Caring program, the company invited customers to nominate a need in their hometown and share how the company could support those efforts on their behalf. Identified by a customer of CIT's direct bank, Flushing Town Hall is one of ten organizations nationwide that CIT will work with this summer. The original grant to the nonprofit was subsequently doubled following Flushing Town Hall receiving the most support in CIT's Acts of Caring poll.

The customer program follows a month-long social good project where CIT employees completed more than 3,000 Acts of Caring and dedicated nearly 5,000 hours in support of causes such as COVID-19 relief, addressing food insecurity, improving the environment and advancing social and economic justice.

"CIT is proud to join with our customers to support the needs of our communities, and the work of Flushing Town Hall resonated the most with our online community," said Gina Proia, CIT chief marketing and communications officer. "We are pleased to support their work in offering virtual culture and enrichment programing to families during this time when we need to find innovative ways to stay connected."

Learn more about CIT's Acts of Caring initiative at cit.com/ActsOfCaring.

About Flushing Town Hall

Flushing Town Hall (FTH), a Smithsonian affiliate, presents multi-disciplinary global arts that engage and educate the global communities of Queens and New York City, in order to foster mutual appreciation. As advocates of arts equity since 1979, we support local, immigrant, national, and international artists, developing partnerships and collaborations that enhance our efforts. As a member of New York City's Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), we serve to restore, manage and program the historic 1862 landmark on behalf of the City of New York. FTH celebrates the history of Queens as the home of Jazz, by presenting the finest in Jazz performance. We are committed to arts education and hands-on learning, for the arts-curious, arts enthusiasts, and professional artists. We serve one of the most diverse communities in the world and strive to uphold the legacy of inclusiveness that has defined our community since the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657.

About CIT

CIT is a leading national bank focused on empowering businesses and personal savers with the financial agility to navigate their goals. CIT Group Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is a financial holding company with over a century of experience and operates a principal bank subsidiary, CIT Bank, N.A. (Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender). The company's commercial banking segment includes commercial financing, community association banking, middle market banking, equipment and vendor financing, factoring, railcar financing, treasury and payments services, and capital markets and asset management. CIT's consumer banking segment includes a national direct bank and regional branch network. Discover more at cit.com/about.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 09:52:46|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives passed its annual defense policy bill on Tuesday afternoon, in which a controversial section is possible to face veto from the White House.

The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the country to spend over 740 billion U.S. dollars in the upcoming fiscal year, was passed with a 295-125 vote.

The bill includes a pay raise for U.S. troops, funding for the military to build pandemic preparedness, and a section that requires the Pentagon to rename military properties named after figures who fought for pro-slavery Confederacy during the Civil War.

The section was proposed as U.S. states and cities were removing some statues of Confederate figures amid a national reckoning over police brutality, racism, and slavery, sparked by the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, who died in May after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The White House said on Tuesday that it strongly objects to renaming U.S. bases.

It is "part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

If the bill "were presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto it," the statement added.

The U.S. Senate hasn't passed its version of the NDAA.

The two chambers must reconcile their versions of the bill before sending it to the White House. Enditem
New Delhi, July 22 : With 2.2 million cases of typhoid being recorded in India alone in 2016, typhoid fever poses a serious disease burden in the country. However, a recent survey reveals that only 66 per cent of people are aware of the typhoid vaccination that can prevent the typhoid fever.

Typhoid tends to affect children most, with peak incidence occurring in children aged 5-15 years.

The survey, conducted by Abbott in partnership with Babygogo, revealed that about one fifth of respondents in Delhi who did not vaccinate their children (18 per cent) considered typhoid to be 'not at all serious' or 'mild/easily manageable'.

The survey was conducted across eight cities -- Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune -- to understand the perceptions and barriers surrounding typhoid vaccination. A total of 1,337 respondents were surveyed online on awareness levels, motivation and behaviours surrounding vaccination against typhoid in India. 37 per cent of caregivers surveyed had children aged 0 to 6 months, 39 per cent had children aged 6 months to a year and 24 per cent of people had children 1-2 years old.

Findings revealed that there are higher levels of awareness for mandatory vaccines, i.e., vaccines given in National Immunization Program of the country (NIP) such as rotavirus (82 per cent) compared to vaccines not given in NIP such as influenza (67 per cent) and typhoid (66 per cent).

Other findings of the survey suggest that key reasons for not vaccinating include absence of vaccine recommendation by the pediatrician (48 per cent) and non-inclusion in the list of NIP vaccines (36 per cent).

Misleading Symptoms and Delay in Treatment Commenting on these findings, Dr. Shyam Kukreja, Director and Head, Department of Pediatrics, Max Super Specialty Hospital, Delhi, said: "The Indian sub-continent has the highest typhoid disease burden. The disease spreads through the oro-faecal route and therefore, improvement in the quality of drinking water and sanitation are some solutions to control the disease. The interim solution is vaccination against typhoid, particularly in high endemic regions. Typhoid conjugate vaccine is the most efficacious vaccine developed against typhoid, and is also effective in younger children under the age of 2 years." Myths on causes of the disease

Survey findings also show that myths about the disease are highly prevalent. As a bacterial bloodstream infection, typhoid fever spreads through contaminated water and food, often due to lack of hygiene and access to drinkable water. Yet 57 per cent of survey respondents nationwide inaccurately attributed the cause of typhoid to a change of weather or season. Only a minority of mothers in Delhi identified close contact (18 per cent), touching contaminated surfaces (25 per cent) or eating food cooked by a typhoid patient (21 per cent) as risky behaviours that could spread typhoid.

Prevention helps lessen infections and drug resistance Studies have shown that vaccinations can help lower the incidence of infection, but 8 per cent of the respondents in Delhi stated that they prefer to take the risk of getting a serious medical condition than to receive a vaccination for it.

Dr. Kukreja added, "Moreover, vaccination helps in reducing the disease burden but there is low level of awareness regarding the benefits of typhoid vaccine. The findings also indicate that the vast majority of people surveyed have low levels of awareness about typhoid and the specific precautions that need to be taken to protect themselves and their families. Education around the benefits of getting children vaccinated is required which in turn can play a key role in ensuring higher immunization rates to protect children from this disease." Dr. Srirupa Das, Medical Director, Abbott India, explains, "The findings shed light on awareness levels, motivation and behaviors around typhoid vaccination in India. They suggest that increased awareness on typhoid and ways to prevent it, such as improved hygiene levels and vaccination, can contribute to lessening India's health burden due to typhoid infections. As part of our mission of helping people live healthier lives, we support educational initiatives on typhoid fever in India, especially amongst new mothers and parents in general." (Puja Gupta can be contacted at puja.g@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Barnaby Joyce has demanded Amber Heard be probed for perjury after allegedly telling an assistant to lie about bringing her two dogs illegally into Australia.

Heard and then husband Johnny Depp made headlines in 2015 after breaching biosecurity laws to bring in their two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo into the country from America.

The former Hollywood couple recorded a now infamous video in 2016 apologising for doing so.

Depp and Heard were given 72 hours to take the dogs back to the US with officials warning they would otherwise be euthanised.

Heard and then husband Johnny Depp (pictured after pleading guilty to falsifying quarantine document in 2016) made headlines in 2015 after breaching biosecurity laws to bring in their two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo into the country from America

Former Nationals leader Mr Joyce said action should be taken after it was heard in a London court that Heard had been warned not to bring in her pets.

'Is the defence for perjury that you have got to be able to act? 'What is the point of having laws if they are not pursued?' he told News Corp.

Evidence was heard in the High Court in London over Depp's libel case against The Sun for publishing an article claiming he was a 'wife beater'. He has strongly denied the allegations and the case is continuing.

Depp's former assistant of eight years, Kevin Murphy, said Heard made him lie under oath when they were accused of bringing in the dogs illegally.

Mr Murphy claimed Heard told him: 'I want your help on this. I wouldn't want you to have a problem with your job'.

The assistant said he had told the actress several times over the phone, email and in person she was unable to bring the dogs.

Paperwork and the required ten day quarantine period had not been arranged for Pistol and Boo.

Barnaby Joyce (pictured) has demanded Amber Heard be probed for perjury after allegedly telling an assistant to lie about bringing her two dogs illegally into Australia

'I also informed her that the criminal penalties for knowingly smuggling animals into Australia without following the correct procedures could be severe,' Mr Murphy said.

He claimed Heard had previously 'smuggled' the dogs into the Bahamas but Australia was a lot stricter.

'Ms Heard later told the court in Australia that I had told her it was fine to bring the dogs into Australia. That is false and I never told her this,' Mr Murphy said.

The actress had taken the dogs to Australia when she went to visit Depp, who was filming Pirates of the Caribbean at the time in May, 2015.

Depp and Heard were given 72 hours to take their dogs, Pistol and Boo (pictured) back to the US with officials warning they would otherwise be euthanised

In April 2016 in an Australian court, Ms Heard received a $1,000 fine and a one-month good behaviour bond after pleading guilty to one count of falsifying border protection documents when entering the country with the dogs.

Australian prosecutors dropped more serious charges of illegal animal importation which could have resulted in the actress being imprisoned for ten years.

My Joyce unleashed on the former couple last week, calling them 'dodgy'.

'Gee, didn't I get it wrong about Johnny - not,' he told news.com.au.

The former deputy prime minister said he was not at all surprised by the new allegations and called Depp and Heard a pair of 'smart arses'.

'Just treating the whole thing as a joke. They had no regard for the law as they had no regard for biosecurity laws,' Mr Joyce said.
Earthquakes Hit Tibet & Xinjiang; Floods Bring Food Crisis; Chinas Internet Police Operations Exposed

As floods continue in southern and central China, in the north, China is facing droughts. And this, combined with locusts, is furthering the risk of food shortages. Many areas currently being hit by floods and droughts are among Chinas top regions for growing grains. For rice farmers, Chinese state reports say harvests are plentiful, but local interviews and reporting show they had almost no harvest in the early season, and substantially reduced harvests in the mid and late seasons.

Meanwhile, on July 21 earthquakes hit in Tibet and Xinjiang. There was a 4.1 magnitude earthquake in Bomi County of Linzhi City of Tibet; and a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in Yutian County of Xinjiang. This was followed by another 4.1 earthquake, also in Bomi county of Tibet.

And a former member of Chinas internet police has come forward to reveal state censorship operations on major Chinese social media applications. The individual, Liu Lipeng, spoke with The Epoch Times about his former work, after immigrating to California.

These stories and more in this episode of Crossroads.

Crossroads is an Epoch Times show available on Facebook and YouTube.

Join Patreon to Support Crossroads: https://www.patreon.com/Crossroads_Josh
Guwahati, July 22 : Amid flood havoc, the Centre has announced to provide Rs 346 crore under the Flood Management Programme (FMP) in Assam, officials said here on Wednesday.

An Assam government official said that during a video conference, Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Sekhawat promised Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal that the first instalment under FMP of Rs 346 crore would be released to the state soon. Sonowal apprised Sekhawat about the massive devastation caused by over a month long flood along with erosion in the state and various steps taken by the state government to deal with the situation.

The central minister requested the Chief Minister to send proposals for sanctioning money under Disaster Risk Management Fund which would facilitate the state government to get more funds from the Central Government for flood management, relief, erosion and other mitigation.

The Chief Minister also urged the Union Minister to allocate sufficient funds to the state government to strengthen 5,000 km of embankments built since 1951 in the state, which also turned into road cum embankments.

Responding to the Assam Chief Minister's request, Sekhawat assured Sonowal that the Central Government would soon hold discussions with the Bhutan Government about the floodwaters from the neighbouring country inundating a large area in northern Assam every year.

The Union Jal Shakti Minister also stressed on the need to adopt latest technologies in flood management and promised to extend all help and support from his ministry in finding permanent solutions to the problems of flood and erosion in Assam.

The on going month-long monsoon flood in Assam has killed at least 89 people, while around 26.32 lakh people of over 2,525 villages in 26 of the 33 districts were affected.

The flood also badly damaged 115,515 hectares of crop area and infrastructures across the state.
A civilian employee at the Defense Distribution Center Susquehanna in New Cumberland died last week, not long after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, a facility spokesperson said Tuesday.

Spokeswoman Dawn Bonsell confirmed the news in a statement, but said the facility wont be releasing the employees name out of respect for their family.

The employee last worked at the distribution center on July 9 and died nine days later. Theyd recently found out they had the coronavirus, Bonsell said.

The Defense Distribution Center provides storage space and distributes military supplies for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Our sincerest condolences go out to the family, employees, friends and co-workers, she said. We are working with the next of kin and immediate coworkers to provide them with support during this trying time.

The installation space where this employee worked was thoroughly sanitized out of an abundance of caution, Bonsell said. Contact tracing was conducted as well.

According to Bonsell, DLA remains fully committed to protecting our service members, their families, and our civilian co-workers as we provide critical support to our nation and our fellow Americans in need.

READ MORE:

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Longford's Eric Ehigie (18) will have the honour of hosting next week's webinar launch of Child Talks 2020.

Child Talks 2020, which showcases the views and experiences of children in Ireland on World Childrens Day, will be officially launched on Wednesday, July 29 at 2pm by the Ombudsman for Children.

Also read: Longford students disappointed as Leaving Cert exam results delayed

The webinar launch will feature a panel of speakers from previous Child Talks events, including the host, as well as the Childrens Ombudsman Dr Niall Muldoon.

The speakers will share their experiences of taking part in Child Talks and how they used their personal stories to highlight issues that mattered to them.

At last years event, Eric, discussed how he became involved in politics at a young age.

Eric commented, Child Talks 2019 was phenomenal! It presented me with the opportunity to meet like-minded young people who are passionate about improving society in their own special ways, learn new skills, build my confidence, and share to the country the issues that I feel most strongly about.

"I have gained so much from the event and the build-up to it. It is certainly a significant moment of my life that I will always remember.

Childrens Ombudsman, Dr Niall Muldoon said, Child Talks is a unique event that gives children and young people the chance to have their say on a public platform. Every year we hear a range of stories from children all over Ireland about the issues that matter to them, whether it be the digital divide, access to healthcare or discrimination.

"The Covid-19 crisis has been a really difficult time for children and young people in particular and has no doubt raised a plethora of new issues. Weve had some amazing young people take part in Child Talks over the past two years, and Im delighted that Eric, Katie McKenna and Kate Murphy will be sharing their experiences with us at the launch next week.

The theme of this years Child Talks will be revealed at the launch, and plans unveiled for workshops for children and young people interested in taking part.



Child Talks 2020 will be held in November to coincide with World Childrens Day.

To register to attend the webinar launch, click here.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:32:40|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen more U.S. soldiers and their family members tested positive for COVID-19 amid rising concerns here about imported cases, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said Wednesday.

The USFK said in a statement that 12 USFK service members and one dependent were confirmed with the virus after arriving in South Korea between July 8 and 20.

Two service members arrived at Osan Air Base on the U.S. government chartered flights from the United States on July 8 and 20. The Osan Air Base is located in Pyeongtaek, 70 km south of Seoul.

Ten service members and one dependent arrived at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, from the United States on separate commercial flights on July 8, 9 and 19.

The confirmed patients have been transferred to a designated isolation facility on Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek.

The total number of infections among the USFK-affiliated personnel rose to 111, according to Yonhap news agency.

It came amid growing worry here about the imported cases. In the latest tally, South Korea reported 63 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, raising the combined number of infections to 13,879.

Of the new cases, 34 were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 2,125. It kept rising in double figures for 27 straight days.

"Despite the confirmed cases, USFK remains at a high level of readiness with less than 1 percent of its active duty service members who are currently confirmed positive for COVID-19," the USFK added. Enditem
The court asked the UGC to explain the import of April guidelines on July guidelines and has listed the matter for further hearing on 24 July.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to clarify if the final year examinations by the universities could be conducted based on Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ), open choices, assignments and presentations, instead of long form exams.

The court was hearing a plea challenging Delhi University's decision to hold Open Book Examination for final year students. The question came up after the Delhi University contended that it that they were holding online OBE exams only because the UGC guidelines make it mandatory to hold final year examinations.

The UGC, however, stated that they "never asked DU to delay their exams." "Whether DU wants to conduct online or offline mode, or whether they can take exams in form of MCQ is up to them. We can't answer," Bar & Bench quoted the UGC's counsel as saying.

A single judge bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh, asked UGC to explain the options available to assess the performance of final year students, after a bunch of petitioners challenged the Delhi University's proposed solution to hold online OBE.

The UGC, in the April, had stated: "Maintaining the sanctity of academic expectations and integrity of examination process, the universities may adopt alternative and simplified modes and methods of examinations to complete the process in shorter period of time... These may include MCQ/ OMR based examinations, Open Book Examination, Open Choices, assignment/ presentation-based assessments etc."

However, in a fresh notification issued in July, it stated that internal evaluation cannot be a valid form of assessment for final year students, and that universities must conduct final year exams before 30 September.

The court asked the UGC to explain the import of April guidelines on July guidelines. The high court listed the matter for further hearing on 24 July.

The UGC submitted that the guidelines do not permit internal assessment for evaluating final year students as it puts credibility of the system at stake. It clarified that when it said that exams can be held online, it always meant that they should be timed.

"We're clear that internal assessment can't be accepted as a mode of evaluation for final year students. The sanctity of exams will come into question in 'take home assignment' mode for conducting exams and we're worried about the possibility of cheating in this mode," Live Law quoted UGC's submissions to the court.

The court, however, contended that the UGC cannot operate under the assumption that a majority of students will cheat.

"You can't make a general assumption that majority of students are going to cheat in 'take home assignment' mode of assessment," the bench said, according to Live Law.

The court also objected to the methodology and preparedness in place for DU's OBE exams, saying that the varsity's version of timed OBE examinations online can be a nightmare for students.

"It is completely impractical to have timed examination. We live in the heart of Delhi and there was no electricity or connectivity for hours due to the rain. Imagine the number of writ petitions that are going to come here due to number of reasons after OBE in August. DU will be struggling with it for years.. I think adminstration has collapsed and students are suffering," Justice Singh was quoted as saying by Bar & Bench.

The Delhi University responded by saying that students do not need internet continuously. "You just need it to download and upload. We are working day and night. There is no other way," DU told the bench.

The bench also noted that the DU's official notification specified that students must have 4G internet to take the OBE exam. The counsel for DU, however, underplayed it stating, "that is not needed, 3G will also do."

"Kashmir doesn't have 3G. There are floods in Assam. What is the penetration of 3G in India," the bench contended, noting that "unlike universities cross the world, DU has not been helping its students."

The court has now asked UGC to consider and clarify whether the options of MCQ, assignments, presentation etc listed in its April guidleines are also available to final year students.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged Americans to wear a mask as he claimed that the coronavirus pandemic in the country may "get worse before it gets better."

Trump said wearing masks will help contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that's been rapidly spreading in the country.

In a news briefing at the White House, the president asked everyone to wear a mask, especially "when you are not able to socially distance."

"Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, they have an effect, and we need everything we can get," Trump was quoted in a CNBC report.

Health officials have been recommending masks and face coverings in indoor and crowded environments. Masks are a low-cost and effective tool in reducing the spread of the coronavirus.

Trump said he sees it as something that can potentially help.

"I have no problem. I carry it. I wear it. You saw me wearing it a number of times and I'll continue," Trump was quoted in a report.

The president had different views on wearing a mask. In a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday, he said he does not agree with the statement that if everybody wears a mask, everything disappears.

Trump has repeatedly said that health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), did not originally recommend the use of masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

On Tuesday, Trump said experts have now changed their minds about wearing masks. He noted that if they have changed their mind, that's good enough for him.

The President has endorsed to use a mask, but he has still refused to issue a national mask mandate.

Many state officials have implemented mask mandates on their respective states. But some have still declined to do so.

Trump is now asking Americans to use masks and to practice social distancing and good hygiene.

He is also urging everyone to avoid packed bars and other crowded gatherings. He said it's better to "be safe and be smart."

Worse Before It Gets Better

In the same news briefing on Tuesday, Trump also said the coronavirus pandemic in the United States will probably get worse before it gets better.

"That's something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is, it's what we have. You look over the world, it's all over the world," Trump was quoted in a report.

Coronavirus cases continue to spread across the nation. Around 3.8 million Americans have been infected with the virus and the number of deaths spiked to 141,118 as of Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University's data.

White House once mentioned a coronavirus model that projected around 220,000 Americans could die of the coronavirus by November 1.

Trump said state leaders are working hard to contain the coronavirus.

U.S. Coronavirus Cases

The U.S. has around 3.97 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, with about 1.16 million recoveries, and 144,000 deaths.

New York has the highest number of positive cases across the country with around 413,000 confirmed cases and 32,218 deaths.

This was followed by California with around 410,000 confirmed cases and 7,883 deaths.

Next is Florida with around 370,000 confirmed cases and 5,205 deaths.

Check these out:

Texas Sheriffs Say No to Coronavirus Mask Rule

Oklahoma Court Says Trump Rally Attendees Not Required to Wear Masks Despite Rise in COVID-19 Cases

Change of Plans: Wear Mask Says US Government to Prevent Presymptomatic Transmission of COVID-19
To the Editor:

I join other residents in expressing serious concerns about the actions of the planning and zoning commission in altering the zoning along Piney Ridge Road in Cromwell to allow for electronic billboards.

Electronic billboards are quite simply a dangerous eyesore, which not only distract drivers, but will create significant light pollution along our scenic Route 9, Cromwell Main Street and the Connecticut riverfront area. Further, the location of this billboard zone abutting a long-established residential development is a dangerous precedent.

These residents did not purchase their homes with the understanding that multiple billboards could be built in their backyards. Finally, these billboards represent further encroachment on wetlands which border this entire area.

Serious consideration needs to be given to development of these precious and unique natural environments. I have heard a lot of statements regarding the economic benefits via tax revenue that these billboards will bring. To those proponents, I ask them to reflect that business and tax considerations should not be placed before the interests of the people.

Our town planning and zoning commission must balance the needs of residents and businesses, but must also preserve open land, our wetlands, and scenic highways.

Cromwell Town Councilman James Demetriades
Description

GIS  22 July 2020: Australia, having developed considerable expertise in blue economy, will continue to offer its support so that Mauritius can further develop this priority sector. This statement was made by the outgoing High Commissioner of Australia to Mauritius, Ms Jenny Dee, following her farewell call on the Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, yesterday, at the New Treasury Building, in Port Louis.

Ms Dee highlighted that the meeting with the Prime Minister was cordial and productive, and that discussions focused on the strong cooperation between the two countries in several areas. These included the partnerships in: education and research so as to support Mauritius agenda of being a transnational education hub; the blue economy, namely, in research, fisheries and aquaculture; and gender equality.

Australia and Mauritius, she pointed out, have a shared agenda of promoting gender equality, and supporting women leadership and entrepreneurship. In this respect, the Australian High Commission has supported several programmes to promote female entrepreneurship and to address the scourge of gender-based violence, which is problematic for both countries. In addition, the Australian Government supported, through various partners in Mauritius, the setting up of the Domestic Violence Observatory, and shared experiences in the Perpetrators Rehabilitation Programme.

Furthermore, Ms Dee recalled that she had a warm and welcoming experience during her three years spent in Mauritius. There is a great diversity in Mauritius, which is a vibrant democracy, and I was also struck by the beauty and diversity of the inner landscape of your island, she concluded.
Aritana Yawalapiti came down with COVID-19 symptoms in recent days, and initially declined to leave his remote village.

Aritana Yawalapiti, one of Brazils most influential Indigenous leaders, has been admitted to hospital in the central city of Goiania to be treated for COVID-19 at an intensive care unit.

The hospitalisation of Aritana, who is about 70 years old and leads the people of the Upper Xingu in central Brazil, is a powerful symbol of the threat to vulnerable Indigenous communities in Brazil, the worlds number-two coronavirus hotspot after the United States.

He arrived at the hospital early on Wednesday after an arduous journey over rural roads with a dwindling oxygen supply.

Aritana came down with COVID-19 symptoms in recent days and initially refused to leave his village in a remote part of the state of Mato Grosso, according to Celso Correia Batista, who works to support Indigenous people. However, as his condition deteriorated, and he needed oxygen to breathe, Aritana agreed to be hospitalised, Batista said.

Aritana and Batista set off on a 10-hour drive to a hospital in the small city of Canarana, in Mato Grosso. After performing a lung scan, they began looking for ways to get Aritana to an ICU but were unable to find a doctor willing to transport him by air. As a result, they decided on a risky nine-hour car journey to Goiania.

Yawalapiti chief Aritana in the Xingu National Park, Mato Grosso State [File: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters]

Batista said they travelled with four 1,000-litre oxygen cylinders during the trip  two of which were practically empty  to keep the chief alive until he reached the hospital. On the way, Batista said, the cylinders were replaced by full ones in a quick pit stop. Otherwise we would have lost him, he said.

After arriving in Goiania at 1:30am on Wednesday, Aritana had to wait 30 minutes outside the hospital, as he had travelled without any documents.

His condition is serious, but he has every chance of survival, said Batista.
Scientists searching for better diagnostic tests, drugs or vaccines against a virus must all begin by deciphering the structure of that virus. And when the virus in question is highly pathogenic, investigating, testing or developing these can be quite dangerous. Prof. Roy Bar-Ziv, Staff Scientist Dr. Shirley Shulman Daube, Dr. Ohad Vonshak, a former research student in Bar-Ziv's lab, and current research student Yiftach Divon have an original solution to this obstacle. They demonstrated the production of viral parts within artificial cells.

The cells are micrometer-sized compartments etched into a silicon chip. At the bottom of each compartment, the scientists affixed DNA strands, packing them densely. The edges of the artificial cells were carpeted with receptors that can capture the proteins produced within the cells. To begin with, the scientists flooded their cells with everything needed to make proteins - molecules and enzymes needed to read the DNA information and translate it into proteins. Then, with no further human intervention, the receptor carpet trapped one of the proteins produced in the bottoms of the cells, with the rest of the viral proteins binding to one another, producing structures that the scientists had earlier "programmed" into the system. In this case, they created assorted small parts of a virus that infects bacteria (a bacteriophage).

We discovered that we can control the assembly process - both the efficiency and the final products - through the design of the artificial cells. This included the cells' geometric structure, and the placement and organization of the genes. These all determine which proteins will be produced and, down the line, what will be made from these proteins once they are assembled." Prof. Roy Bar-Ziv

Vonshak adds: "Since these are miniaturized artificial cells, we can place a great many of them on a single chip. We can alter the design of various cells, so that diverse tasks are performed at different locations on the same chip."

The features of the system developed at the Weizmann Institute - including the ability to produce different small parts of a single virus at once, could give scientists around the globe a new tool for evaluating tests, drugs and vaccines against that virus. Adds Divon: "And because the artificial parts - even if they faithfully reproduced parts of the virus - do not include the use of actual viruses, they would be especially safe from beginning to end". "Another possible application", says Shulman Daube, "might be the development of a chip that could rapidly and efficiently conduct thousands of medical tests all at once".

Participating in this research were Stefanie Forste, Dr. Sophia Rudorf and Prof. Reinhard Lipowsky from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, and David Garenne and Prof. Vincent Noireaux from the University of Minnesota. The research was published today in Nature Nanotechnology.
A socialite who never paid for more than $26,000 in luxury hotel stays, products and services is set to be jailed for what a magistrate labelled a 'shocking' spate of crimes.

Annabel Walker, 32, fought back tears as she fronted Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday over a spate of fraud charges at business between Sydney and Brisbane.

Walker, from Bowral in the New South Wales southern highlands, pleaded guilty to a raft of charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception off businesses up and down the east coast in 2018 and 2019.

The glamorous blonde fought back tears as Magistrate Susan McIntyre explained she would be jailed for her crimes - with the only thing left to decide if Walker receives a full-time prison term, or a suspended sentence.

Magistrate McIntyre did not miss in a scathing assessment of Walker, describing her as having a 'disturbing history of dishonesty'.

Annabel Walker, 32, leaves Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to a number of fraud and obtaining financial advantage charges totaling close to $26,000

The socialite from Bowral, in the NSW southern highlands, is trying to 'get on with her life' her solicitor Michael Moussa (right) told Daily Mail Australia outside court on Wednesday

'Given her shocking record, two breaches of a CCO (community corrections order) and how many drive while disqualified's (she's had) in the last ten years... imprisonment or an alternative is a real prospect,' Magistrate McIntyre said.

'Actually, that is what's going to happen, it is just how that imprisonment is served.'

The court heard that Walker obtained a total of $17, 981 from her former employer in Australian Leisure Group.

There was also $2,030 for a printing job, $3,361.60 for lighting and $2,816 for a sign to be painted.

Walker had also stayed at the lavish Rae's on Wategos resort in Byron Bay and bought products from a Harvey Norman store, none of which she paid for.

Walker was due to be sentenced on Wednesday but issues with court documents led to a further delay in the matter.

In a shocking twist to the case late in the day, Police Prosecutor Craig Smith applied for Walker to be put behind bars immediately.

Mr Smith claimed Walker breached her bail by providing police with a 'fake letter' of admittance to Southern Highlands Hospital, where she was required to be treated.

'She (Walker) was given bail conditions to report to Southern Highlands Hospital, but she has emailed police with a fake admission letter to Southern highlands Hospital,' Mr Smith said.

'The police have been attempting to locate Ms Walker with a view to an arrest and detention application.

The court heard that Walker obtained a total of $17, 981 from her former employer in Australian Leisure Group, while she also did not pay bills to painting, lighting and furnishing businesses

Among the venues she was charged with stealing from was lavish Byron Bay resort Rae's on Wategos (pictured)

'My instructions are they (police) have confirmed with the hospital that she hasnt been admitted to the hospital since 2018.'

Walker's solicitor Michael Moussa said his client insisted she had attended the hospital but that they had been unable to gain access to her records to prove it.

'My instructions are she has been going and she has in my presence tried to contact the hospital,' Mr Moussa said.

'She has been unable to get these records from the hospital, I'm not sure how police have been able to get them so quickly.'

Without a copy of the letter in front of her, Magistrate McIntyre refused to act and dismissed the detention application saying it was a matter 'for police'.

Walker sat quietly in court clutching a tissue tightly in her hand throughout the day.

She now just wants to get on with her life... - solicitor Michael Moussa on Walker

When she was finally called to give evidence in relation to her bail conditions Walker fought back years as she told how she'd lost her job and moved away from Sydney's eastern suburbs after being charged.

'When I was charged I lived in Darlinghurst, but after I moved down to the Southern Highlands to be close to my family,' Walker said.

'I recently lost my lease and property after an article in the local paper about me.'

Outside court Mr Moussa told Daily Mail Australia that Walker was now ready to 'get on with her life'.

'She's had a very hard time and shes learned from her experience and she now just wants to get on with her life,' he said.

'The last year has been very difficult and she has sought the appropriate assistance that she needs and now she's good as gold.'

In a shocking late twist, Police Prosecutor Craig Smith applied for Walker to be put behind bars immediately claiming she had provided a 'fake letter' claiming to have met her bail conditions which stipulated she had to admit herself to Southern Highlands Hospital. Magistrate McIntyre refused to do so, not having a copy of the letter in front of her

Walker's matter is due to return to Downing Centre Local Court (pictured) on September 8

Magistrate McIntyre pushed Walker's sentencing back to September 8, allowing Mr Smith more time to clarify the agreed facts of the matter.

Walker's defence team indicated they intend to organise a psychiatric assessment of her.

In addition to the fraud charges, Walker will also be re-sentenced over a number of driving offences.

The court heard she had previously pleaded guilty to low-range drink driving and a count of driving while disqualified.

She was on a good behaviour bond in relation to both matters at the time she again offended, and as such will need to be re-sentenced.

Walker's matter is due to return to Downing Centre Local Court on September 8.
Philip Morris International Inc. PM reported second-quarter 2020 results, wherein both top and bottom lines surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate. However, both metrics declined year over year mainly due to adverse volume/mix (largely due to soft cigarette volumes) and currency headwinds. However, favorable pricing variance was an upside in the quarter.



Quarter in Detail



Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.29, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.09. However, the bottom line declined 11.6% year over year. On excluding currency, earnings per share fell 7.5%.

Philip Morris International Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise





Philip Morris International Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Philip Morris International Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Philip Morris International Inc. Quote

Net revenues of $6,651 million beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $6,492 million. However, the top line decreased 13.6% from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter. Net revenues, on excluding currency headwinds, declined 9.5%. This was due to adverse volume/mix mainly stemming from soft cigarette volumes, somewhat made up by greater heated tobacco volumes. The company also received some respite from favorable pricing variance.



During the quarter under review, revenues from combustible products were down 19.1% to $5,045 million due to declines in all regions. Revenues in the RRPs improved 9.5% to $1,606 million.



Total cigarette and heated tobacco unit shipment volumes dropped 14.5% to 170.1 billion units. Cigarette shipment volumes fell 17.6% to 151.4 billion units in the quarter, while heated tobacco unit shipment volumes of 18.7 billion units rose 24.3% year over year.



Adjusted operating income fell 12.7% to $2,802 million. After excluding currency, adjusted operating income dropped 9.5% year over year. Adjusted operating margin expanded 0.4 points to 42.1%, while it remained flat on a constant-currency or cc basis.



Region-Wise Performance



Net revenues in the European Union dropped 4% to $2,475 million. Revenues slipped 0.1% at cc due to adverse volume/mix, largely countered by favorable pricing variance, courtesy of improved combustible pricing. Total shipment volumes in the region fell 9.8% to 44,544 million units.



In Eastern Europe, net revenues fell 4.7% to $783 million, while it grew 5.6% at cc. The upside can be attributed to favorable pricing and volume/mix. Total shipment volumes dropped 3.7% to 28,783 million units.



In the Middle East & Africa region, net revenues declined 29.9% (down 28.3% at cc) to $704 million due to adverse volume/mix, partly made up by favorable pricing. Further, total shipment volumes fell 15.5% to 27,373 million units.



Revenues in South & Southeast Asia fell 28.8% (down 25.1% at cc) to $889 million. The downside was a result of adverse volume/mix as well as pricing variance (mainly in Indonesia). Shipment volumes collapsed 28.1% to 33,346 million units.



Revenues from East Asia & Australia fell 5.9% (down 5.1% at cc) to $1,432 million due to unfavorable volume/mix, partly compensated by pricing gains. Total shipment volumes slipped 5.1% to 21,147 million units.



Finally, revenues from Latin America & Canada slumped 30.2% (down 19.2% at cc) to $368 million due to adverse volume/mix, somewhat compensated by improved pricing. Moreover, total shipment volumes declined 19.7% to 14,874 million units.



Other Financials & Developments on IQOS



This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $4,200 million. Also, it had long-term debt of $27,043 million and shareholders deficit of $10,120 million. During the quarter, Phillip Morris announced a quarterly dividend of $1.17 per share.



On Jul 7, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a version of IQOSs marketing as a modified risk tobacco product (MRTP). Also, on Mar 30, the company submitted a supplemental premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) with the FDA for the IQOS 3 tobacco heating device. Notably, total users of IQOS as of the end of the second quarter were estimated at about 15.4 million, including roughly 11.2 million who have shifted from smoking to IQOS.



COVID-19 Update & Guidance



Philip Morris has been on track to lower COVID-19-related business disruptions. The company notified that it currently has adequate access to inputs and is not encountering any major supply-related hurdles. Most of the companys production facilities are operational as of now, including all heated tobacco unit factories. However, some cigarette manufacturing facilities have been temporarily affected by government-imposed shutdowns or production limitations. They form about less than 5% of the companys total cigarette production capacity globally. Considering all factors and the current sales trends, Phillip Morris does not anticipate any out-of-stock situation in any core operating income market.



The company doesnt expect any national lockdown recurrence in any of its core international markets in the second half of 2020. It does not expect a near-term recovery in the duty-free business due to travel-related uncertainties. Further, the company expects complete enforcement of requirements for minimum retail selling price in Indonesia at the earliest by September 2020.



Additionally, total cigarette and heated tobacco unit shipment volumes are likely to fall around 8-10% (on a like for like or LFL basis) in 2020, mainly due to the duty free business as well as situation in Indonesia. Management also anticipates total industry volumes to decline roughly 7-9% (excluding China and the United States). For 2020, Phillip Morris expects net revenues (at cc) to drop in low-single digits (on an LFL basis). The same is expected to grow in low-single digits on excluding Indonesia and the duty free business. CC-adjusted operating margin on an LFL basis is likely to jump more than 150 basis points.



All said, the company envisions adjusted earnings per share to be $4.92-$5.07 in 2020 compared with $5.13 reported in the year-ago period. At cc, adjusted earnings per share are expected to grow 2-5% to $5.23-$5.38.



For the third quarter, the company expects earnings per share to be almost in line with the second-quarter figure. This is likely to be backed by sequential revenue improvement, offset by factors like timing of various costs.



Shares of Phillip Morris have edged down 0.2% in the past three months against the industrys growth of 3.3%.



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Helen of Troy HELE has a Zacks Rank #1 and a long-term earnings growth rate of 6.5%.



Nu Skin NUS, which also carries a Zacks Rank #1, has a long-term earnings growth rate of 10.7%.



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To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Another restaurant on Corydon Avenue has been fined for not following social distancing rules, making it the third restaurant on the strip, and the 12th in Manitoba, to be punished.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Another restaurant on Corydon Avenue has been fined for not following social distancing rules, making it the third restaurant on the strip, and the 12th in Manitoba, to be punished.

The owners of Siraj Cafe & Hookah Lounge have been fined $2,542 for failing to comply with provincial public health restrictions. The business ticketed on Monday. To date, 10 restaurants have received the $2,542 charge, including Chaise Corydon and Arabesque Hookah Cafe and Restaurant, both of which are on Corydon Avenue. Another two restaurants have been fined $486 for not following the regulations.

Shea Ritchie, Chaise Corydon's owner, said its hard to understand the rules. He was fined July 11 following an inspection by Liquor, Gaming & Cannabis Authority of Manitoba officials. It was his second fine for not following social distancing rules.

Ritchie said the reasoning for the ticket changed several times when he questioned officials. He received the ticket because patrons were allegedly dancing and not social distancing. Ritchie said he questioned the provincial health protection unit, and was given different answers than the LGCA.

The LGCA did not respond to an interview request Tuesday.

"There's a lot of misinformation, and it's coming from the top," Ritchie said.

He's on the Manitoba Restaurant & Foodservices Association's board of directors, and he has a copy of the province's public health restrictions. Even so, he said the regulations are confusing to restaurateurs. Rules are different based on who the health inspector is, he said.

"Your degree of certainty just goes down," he said. "You're always wondering, 'Well, now we're not supposed to do that.'"

Ritchie said people now associate his restaurant with rule-breakers. He said he's received hate mail and nasty comments online. That image might extend to Corydon Avenue if restaurants keep getting ticketed, he said.

"How come all of a sudden, when they jack up the rates of the fines, we all decide to stop following the rules?" he said, adding that he hadn't received a fine during the seven years before COVID-19 regulations.

Corydon Avenue is a busy place in summer, which may contribute to the concentration of fines in the area, Ritchie said.

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Manitoba restaurants don't need to limit occupancy, but they must ensure customers can maintain a two-metre distance or install barriers.

Shaun Jeffrey, the executive director of Manitoba Restaurant & Foodservices Association, said the provincial government should do more to educate people about maintaining social distancing while at restaurants.

"The onus is not just solely on the customer, and the onus is not just solely on the restaurant," he said. "Everybody needs to work together to make sure these things are followed."

The Corydon Avenue Business Improvement Zone can't control how restaurants handle social distancing rules, said executive director Katia von Stackelberg.

However, city Coun. Sherri Rollins said she'll ask business associations to track which restaurants get fined. Keeping the public safe and flattening the COVID-19 curve are priorities, she said.

gabrielle.piche@freepress.mb.ca
Union information and technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called for digital platforms to be responsive, accountable and sensitive to the concerns of sovereign nations as far as safety, defence and privacy is concerned.

Prasad raised the issue on Wednesday during the G20 Digital Ministers Meet hosted by Saudi Arabia. His comments come in the backdrop of Indias ban on 59 mostly Chinese web and mobile applications including TikTok and UC browser due to security concerns.

In view of these concerns, the digital platforms having presence in many countries must become trustworthy, safe and secure. It is time to acknowledge that digital platforms anywhere in the world have to be responsive and accountable towards the sovereign concerns of countries including defence, privacy and security of citizens, Prasad was quoted as saying by a press statement.

Chinas digital minister Miao Wei was also in attendance at the virtual meeting. Indias ban on the popular applications came in the aftermath of deadly border clashes with in the eastern Ladakh Sector in June this year, where 20 Indian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers were killed.

According to Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) officials familiar with the developments, neither China nor India took up the issue directly. However, the minister did convey to all present at it is the right of a country to protect the data of its citizens, a MEITY official told HT.

Prasad also raised other data security issues and said that data must belong to the sovereign nation concerned. Digital economy must go hand in hand with the Data economy. We need to acknowledge the sovereignty over data. Data must belong to the sovereign nation concerned, to protect also the privacy concern of its people, Prasad added.

Prasad also asserted that a robust data protection law would soon be passed in India. The concerned bill is still pending in Parliament.

According to Internet Freedom Foundation trustee Apar Gupta, the minister mentioning a robust data protection policy was a positive step.
Lenovo just announced Legion Phone Duel, the companys first gaming phone under the Legion brand in China, as it had promised. It packs a 6.65-inch AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate and is the first phone to be powered by Snapdragon 865+ Mobile Platform with up to 16GB of RAM. It has 45767.32mm dual liquid cooling solution and built-in dual X-axis linear motor, promising true 4D vibration and two ultrasonic trigger buttons.

The Legion Phone Duel features GAE game acceleration engine, which promises steady 120fps frame rate in supported games and the Link Boost feature effectively reduces network latency. It has a 64-megapixel rear camera along with a 16-megapixel 120 ultra-wide camera present in the middle and a side-mounted 20-megapixel pop-up camera, which uses 10 software tweaks to make it easier to use in that orientation.

The phone packs a 5000mAh battery with support for up to 90W super flash charging based on dual-battery ATA architecture to avoid overheating of the battery itself and the board. This lets you charge up to 50% in 10 minutes and 100% in 30 minutes using dual USB-C ports on the bottom and side like ROG Phone. There are also versions with 45W and 65W charging.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel specifications

6.65-inch (2340  1080 pixels) Full HD+ 144Hz AMOLED HDR display with DCI-P3 color gamut

Octa-Core Snapdragon 865 Plus 7nm Mobile Platform (1 x 3.09 GHz Kryo 585 + 3 x 2.42GHz Kryo 585 + 4x 1.8 GHz Kryo 585) with Adreno 650 GPU

8GB / 12GB / 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, 128GB / 256GB / 512GB (UFS 3.1) storage

Android 10 with ZUI 12/Legion OS

Dual SIM (nano + nano)

64MP rear camera with 0.8m pixel size, f/1.89 aperture, 16MP 120 ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture, dual LED flash

20MP pop-up front camera with f/2.2 aperture

USB Type-C audio, dual AWINIC 88264, 1.4cc dual speakers, 4 microphones

In-display fingerprint sensor

Multicolour rear LED, Dual Ultrasonic gaming sensors

Dimensions: 169.17 x 78.48 x 9.9 mm; Weight: 239g

5G, Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS/GLONASS/Beidou, QZSS(L1+L5), 2 x USB Type-C, NFC

5000mAh battery with 45W/65W/90W fast charging

The Lenovo Legion Phone Duel starts at 3499 yuan (US$ 500 / Rs. 37,320 approx.) for the 8GB RAM with 128GB storage 45W charging version, 12GB RAM with 128GB storage 65W charging version costs 3899 yuan (US$ 557 / Rs. 41,585 approx.), 12GB RAM with 256GB storage 65W charging version costs 4199 yuan (US$ 600 / Rs. 44,780 approx.), and the top-end 16GB RAM with 512GB storage 90W charging version costs 5999 yuan (US$ 857 / Rs. 63,975 approx.). It will first roll out in China and will roll out Africa, Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Asia later this year.

Source
The Houston police and fire departments responded Tuesday night to a reported document fire at the Chinese Consulate.

Footage from next door shows what appears to be barrels with burning material inside of them:

This video shared with us by a viewer who lives next to the Consulate General of China in #Houston shows fire and activity in the courtyard of the building. DETAILS SO FAR: https://t.co/2cOeKoap96 pic.twitter.com/0myxe6HIlC

Breaking: Houston police are responding to reports that documents are being burned in the courtyard of the Consulate General of China in Houston. There is a huge police and fire department presence at the scene. (via @KPRC2 ) pic.twitter.com/rY2557jqgp

Reports from local #Houston media that documents were being burned in a courtyard at the Consulate General of China located on 3417 Montrose Boulevard. pic.twitter.com/EQzVbcIiI6

Via Click2Houston:

Houston police say they began receiving the reports that documents were being burned just after 8 p.m. at 3417 Montrose Boulevard where the Consulate General of China is located.

Houston fire officials confirmed they are responding to the scene and HPD officials were needed for traffic control in the area.

A small amount of smoke could be seen and smelled from outside. Dozens of Houston first responders are at the scene.
Britain's government announced Wednesday that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining British citizenship for eligible Hong Kongers from January 2021. In a statement, the Home Office said holders of the British National Overseas passport and their immediate family members can move to the UK to work and study. The change to immigration rules was introduced after China imposed a new, sweeping national security law on Hong Kong.

Those eligible can access the British job market at any skill level and without a salary threshold, but will not have access to public funds. "The UK has a strong historic relationship with the people of Hong Kong and we are keeping our promise to them to uphold their freedoms," Home Secretary Priti Patel said.

Those who come to the UK through the new pathway will be able to apply to settle in Britain permanently once they have lived in the UK for five years. Then after a further 12 months, they can apply for British citizenship. Britain handed over Hong Kong, its former colony, to Chinese rule in 1997 under a One Country, Two Systems framework that was supposed to guarantee the city a high degree of autonomy and Western-style civil liberties not seen on mainland China.

"Today's announcement shows the UK is keeping its word: we will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people," British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.
It's always helpful to see signs and instructions translated when you're travelling abroad and don't speak the language.

But not all efforts at making things easier for visitors are a roaring success, with translations turning on warning signs, restaurant menus and products often turning out unintentionally amusing.

Now, people from around the globe have shared some of the most amusing mishaps they have come upon to Reddit, including a restaurant sign advertising 'crisp automatic duck'.

And while some are close to being correct, others are downright hilarious in their nonsensical nature.

People from across the world have been sharing the hilarious spelling mistakes uncovered on items (pictured, one person's mother found her cushion featured a spelling mistake after she ordered the item off of Amazon)

Which one is the women's? This sign, pictured in an unknown location, directed 'Feman' and 'Male Man' to the toilets

This Chinese restaurant advertised 'Crispy Automatic Duck', instead of British takeaway favourite crispy aromatic duck. It is not known where the image was taken

Meanwhile another multi-coloured striped cushion on sale in Hungary for just over 5, looked pretty but featured the nonsensical message, 'You are my happy'

Surely that's not on the menu! One stunned Reddit user was confronted with a surprising choice while dining out in China

Hand me an egg mirror: These fried eggs, on sale in Hungary, were definitely not mirrors, despite what the sign in front of them said

This bed sheet boasted floral patterns and a cute image of a bear, but the slogan below it appeared to feature a mistake

One user, in an unknown location, was left chucking over this faucet, also known as a tap, after it was as 'clearly superior and competitiveness' by its makers

Another person shared this snap of a safety warning featuring several spelling and grammer mishaps

Another person, in an unknown location, snapped a shot of this toy gun which features a safety warning but the message features the letter T where the letter I should be

Fish in what? This dish was on sale at a restaurant in Myanmar. Although its accompanying picture certainly made it look interesting, it was listed as 'Fish in Troble (Poor Fish)'

And this Hungarian restaurant told its customers, to 'enjoy your male!' rather than 'enjoy your meal'

Another person snapped a shot of this sign, written in Arabic, warning people to beware of 'Crocodils'. It is not known in which country this image was taken

Not a fashion forward t-shirt! One person, from an unknown location, shared a picture of a bold pink t-shirt with a graphic print on it featuring several spelling mistakes
The African Union (AU) is yet to agree on a consensus candidate for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General position.

In a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria( NAN) on Tuesday in Bern, the AU said: as at present there is no African- Union endorsed candidate for this post.

It said that the AU Commission under the guidance of its ministerial committee had made concerted efforts towards the endorsement of a single candidate for the WTO Director-General post.

However, due to circumstances beyond its control, the committee couldn't meet on three scheduled dates  that's way it's yet to decide on a consensus candidate.

The statement, therefore has contradicted claims by the Egypt candidate Mr Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh who at a news conference in Geneva said he had been endorsed by the Union.

In the same vein, the Nigerian Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva has also reacted to Mamdouh's claims.

In a letter to the WTO, the Mission said that the process of deciding and endorsing a single candidate for the Director General post was still ongoing.

 This has put to rest claims that the a particular candidate has been endorsed by the AU , therefore rendering other African candidates illegitimate 

Nigeria's former Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, alongside Mrs Amina Mohamed of Kenya and Egypt's Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh are the three candidate vying for the WTO top job from Africa.

Other candidates are from the UK, Saudi Arabia, Moldova and Mexico.

The candidates had made individual presentations to the WTO Council which held from July 15th to 17th at the kickoff of the selection process.

The second phase of the selection process, in which candidates would make themselves known to members will end on Sept. 7, Similarly, the third phase which is the consultation process would commence same day.

At the forthcoming consultation, Chairman of the General Council alongside Chairs of the Dispute Settlement Body and the Trade Policy Review Body would consult with all the WTO members to determine which candidate is best placed to attract a consensus support.(NAN)
Reality Leigh Winner, 28, who is being held at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, has tested positive for COVID-19

Former NSA contractor Reality Winner, who was convicted of leaking classified documents to a news website, has tested positive for the coronavirus at a federal medical prison in Texas where more than 500 other inmates have come down with COVID-19.

The number of confirmed cases at the Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth jumped to 510 on Tuesday, only two days after the Bureau of Prisons reported that 200 women there had tested positive for the virus.

Only the federal prison in Seagoville, also located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, had more infected inmates, with 1,156 cases as of Tuesday.

'We're like a whole bunch of hamsters in a cage chasing our own tails,' said Carswell inmate Holli Chapman.

FMC-Carswell holds female inmates with medical and mental health issues. It currently has 1,357 prisoners.

Winner is seen during a transfer prior to pleading guilty to transmitting national security information. She was sentenced to five years in prison. She is currently among more than 500 inmates at Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth who tested positive for COVID-19

Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth holds female inmates with medical and mental health issues. It currently has 1,357 prisoners

Among the more high profile inmates, Winner, 28, is serving a five-year prison sentence after the former government contractor pleaded guilty to mailing a classified report to a news organization.

Since April, many inmates have told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram that they were concerned the virus could spread through the prison.

Carswell's administration directed questions to the Bureau of Prisons. A spokesperson did not immediately respond when DailyMail.com reached out.

The agency said in a statement to the Associated Press that it is taking precautions to stem the virus' spread.

'As with any type of emergency situation, we carefully assess how to best ensure the safety of staff, inmates and the public,' the agency said. 'All of our facilities are implementing the BOPs guidance on mitigating the spread of COVID-19.'

Texas is among states that have seen a new surge in coronavirus cases after reopening from mandated lockdowns in May that were imposed to contain the outbreak.

The state has had more than 351,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, which has been blamed for more than 4,100 deaths.

Across the US, there have been more than 3.8 million cases of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for more than 141,000 deaths.

Winner in 2018 pleaded guilty to a single count of transmitting national security information for printing out a classified report at a NSA office in Augusta, Georgia where she worked as a contractor and tucking it into her pantyhose.

The document, a description of Russian attempts to hack into US voting software, was leaked to The Intercept.

Winner (pictured right with her mother Billie Winnerr-Davis) in 2018 pleaded guilty to a single count of transmitting national security information for printing out a classified report at a NSA office in Augusta, Georgia where she worked as a contractor and tucking it into her pantyhose

Winner, an Air Force veteran, was employed by NSA contractor Pluribus International Corporation in Georgia when she took the classified material.

Winner, prior to her conviction, referred to President Donald Trump as an 'orange fascist' in a tweet, and wrote in a diary 'I want to burn the White House down', according to prosecutors.

She also expressed admiration for the Taliban in the diary, prosecutors said.

Her mother Billie Winner-Davis told CNN last year that her daughter was painted as an 'evil person, who hates her country.'

'They don't want the world to be exposed to the real Reality Winner,' the mother told the cable news station in defense of her daughter.

US Attorney Bobby L. Christine acknowledged in a statement last year that Winner's sentence was the longest received by a defendant for an unauthorized disclosure of national defense information to the media, saying the sentence was merited by the crime.

'She knowingly and intentionally betrayed the trust of her colleagues and her country,' Christine said.

'This was not a victimless crime,' he added. 'The document Winner compromised did, in fact, contain TOP SECRET information about the sources and methods used to acquire the intelligence described in the report.'

'That means it revealed how U.S. Intelligence Agencies obtained information,' Christine said, adding that the leak impaired the ability of the U.S. to gather similar information in the future.
The United States has ordered China to close its Houston consulate, Beijing said Wednesday, marking a dramatic escalation in diplomatic tensions between the feuding superpowers.

The move comes as the world's two biggest economies have crossed swords on a growing number of fronts, from trade to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and its policies in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.

"China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision, or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," said foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, adding Beijing was told Tuesday that the consulate would have to close.

"It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side, which seriously violates international law... and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US," Wang said.

He added that China "strongly condemns" the "outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations".

According to local media in Houston, firefighters and police were called to the consulate building on Tuesday evening on reports that documents were being burned in the building's courtyard.

The Twitter feed of the Houston police force said smoke was observed, but officers "were not granted access to enter the building.

Diplomatic row

The Chinese Consulate in Houston was opened in 1979 -- the first in the year the US and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations, according to its website.

The website says the office covers eight southern US states -- including Texas and Florida -- and has nearly one million people in the area registered at the consulate.

There are five Chinese consulates in the US, as well as an embassy in Washington.

President Donald Trump's administration has ramped up pressure on China on a wide range of issues, imposing sanctions on Chinese officials over policies in Tibet and Xinjiang.

The United States has led denunciations of the treatment of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, a far west region where an estimated one million Uighurs and other ethnic groups are believed to have been held in re-education camps.

The US has also downgraded relations with Hong Kong after China implemented a new security law which it says is in violation of its promises of autonomy for the territory.

In addition, last week Washington formally declared Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in South China Sea as illegal, explicitly backing the territorial claims of Southeast Asian countries against China's.

Washington has also infuriated Beijing by banning telecom giant Huawei and seeking the extradition from Canada of top company executive Meng Wanzhou.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the "entire world" to stand up to China on Tuesday during a visit to Britain.
News

Washington, DC - The Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives announced 12 Tribal consultations to occur virtually across the United States in the coming months.

American Indians and Alaska Natives experience disproportionately high rates of violence. President Trump has called the crisis of missing and murdered Native Americans sobering and heartbreaking.

The Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, also known as Operation Lady Justice, announces the upcoming series of Tribal consultations under Executive Order 13898. The Executive Order requires the Task Force to conduct appropriate consultations with Tribal governments on the scope and nature of the issues regarding missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives. While the Task Force had plans in place for a robust schedule of consultations and listening sessions in various locations in Indian country and elsewhere beginning in March, postponement of those sessions was required by the current public health crisis. Therefore, the Task Force has established a series of Tribal consultations to be held virtually. The sessions are regional, based on Bureau of Indian Affairs regions. The schedule, link to register, Dear Tribal Leader letter and framing paper are available on the Operation Lady Justice website, which can be found at OperationLadyJustice.usdoj.gov.

Confirmed Dates and Times

August 17th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Eastern Region  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

August 19th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Midwest Region  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

August 21st, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Southern Plains and Eastern Oklahoma Regions  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

August 25th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Regions  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

August 27th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Southwest Region  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

August 31st, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Northwest Region  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

September 2nd, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Western and Navajo Regions  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

September 4th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Pacific Region First session  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

September 8th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Pacific Region Second Session  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

September 10th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Alaska Region First Session  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

September 14th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

BIA Alaska Region Second Session  Virtual Consultation via WebEx.

September 17th, 1:30 p.m.  5:00 p.m. Eastern

Final session for any leader who could not make their scheduled Regional Session via WebEx.

The members of the Task Force are:

Katharine (Katie) Sullivan, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs, designee for the Attorney General;

Tara Sweeney, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, designee for the Secretary of the Interior;

Terry Wade, Executive Assistant Director, Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, Federal Bureau of Investigation;

Laura Rogers, Acting Director, Office on Violence Against Women;

Charles (Charlie) Addington, Deputy Bureau Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Justice Services;

Trent Shores, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma and Chair of the Native American Issues Subcommittee of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee; and

Jean (Jeannie) Hovland, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Native American Affairs and Commissioner, Administration for Native Americans, Department of Health and Human Services.

Marcia Good of the Department of Justice serves as the Executive Director of the Task Force. The Task Force will present a progress report to the President by Nov. 26, 2020, and a final report detailing its activities and accomplishments by Nov. 26, 2021.
The COVID-19 vaccine, designed and developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, will cost under Rs 1,000 per shot, said Adar Poonawalla, CEO, Serum Institute of India. He stated that the world's largest vaccine manufacturer will start phase-III human clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine in India from August with 4,000-5,000 volunteers.

The inoculation, designed by the University of Oxford and developed by UK-based biopharma company AstraZeneca, was found to be safe, prompting a strong immune response in over a thousand people it was administered to in early human trials.

The preliminary findings were published on Monday in The Lancet Medical Journal. AstraZeneca and Oxford University have chosen the Serum Institute to produce the vaccine in India once its is ready.

Also Read: Russia inches closer to coronavirus vaccine; 'ready for use,' says minister

Shedding more light on what would be the next course of action for the Serum Institute, Poonawalla told Mint that he is "hoping to get approvals" from the government "in about two weeks" of applying for permission to conduct the COVID-19 vaccine trials in India.

He added that following this, the company will begin phase-III human trials in the country and will soon begin manufacturing the vaccine as well.

Poonawalla had said on Monday that the Serum Institute will apply for COVID-19 vaccine trials within a week.

Talking about the cost of the vaccine, considering the Serum Institute would be targeting low- and middle-income countries, including India, Poonawalla said the company would keep the price under Rs 1,000 per dose.

Also Read: COVID-19 vaccine update: Oxford drug gives hope; Serum Institute to seek human trials in India soon

He further expressed certitude that the governments across such nations will procure and distribute the vaccine "without charge".

Poonawalla clarified that the Serum Institute is "well-equipped with state-of-the-art technology to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine."

The vaccine maker had last month signed a deal with AstraZeneca to supply one billion doses to India and other low-and-middle-income countries.
A jilted husband who discovered his police officer wife was having an affair with her colleague staged an elaborate plot to tear them apart, before eventually reconciling with her and having another baby.

Constable Nicole Boyd 'had an extramarital relationship' with Senior Constable Kevin Riboldi shortly after she started working at Wyong Police Station on the NSW Central Coast in 2018.

'During their relationship she and Riboldi exchanged messages, videos and photos and messages via email and the applications Snapchat, WhatsApp and Keepsafe,' agreed court facts obtained by the Daily Telegraph read.

On November 27, Ms Boyd and Mr Riboldi consensually recorded two videos 'depicting intimate sexual acts between them' inside the spare bedroom at her house, the court heard.

Her husband Matthew Brett Boyd, 32, found out about the affair on Christmas Day 2018.

Matthew Brett Boyd (left) discovered his police officer wife Nicole Boyd (right) was having an affair with her colleague before staging an elaborate plot to tear them apart

Constable Nicole Boyd 'had an extramarital relationship' with Senior Constable Kevin Riboldi three months after she started working at Wyong Police Station on the NSW Central Coast in 2018

He later accessed an app on her phone designed to keep private files safe and found the intimate videos.

Two weeks later Boyd created a fake Gmail account and wrote an email so it looked like it had originally been sent by Mr Riboldi's private email address and had been forwarded on a few times.

Boyd made the subject of the email 'Enjoy' and attached the sex tapes before sending it through to his wife's work email and his own email.

Tuggerah Lakes Police started an investigation and and Mr Riboldi was stood down with pay the day after the email was sent.

Boyd told police he received the email and instantly recognised his wife's face.

'The male was sitting on a bed and her face was down between his legs. I recognised Nicole was one of these people from the Chinese symbol tattoo on her stomach,' he said in his police interview.

Constable Nicole Boyd 'had an extramarital relationship' with Senior Constable Kevin Riboldi (pictured) three months after she started working at Wyong Police Station on the NSW Central Coast in 2018

But police traced the email to the fake Gmail account created by Boyd.

He was charged with making false accusations subject to an investigation and knowingly provide misleading information regarding police conduct.

Mr Riboldi was cleared of any wrongdoing and an AVO against him was withdrawn on July 15 last year.

Crown Prosecutor Sally Stuart told Wyong Local Court on Tuesday that Boyd 'acted with malice' in a 'campaign against the victim' for a week-long period and 'wasted police resources'.

But Boyd's solicitor Marc Riviere argued his client was devastated by the affair and tried to turn his wife against Mr Riboldi by framing him.

Mr Riviere said Boyd was remorseful for his actions but wasn't able to bring himself to tell his wife the truth after he went to the police.

'He took a step and then he could not step back from it,' Mr Riviere said.

He said Boyd feared he would 'lose his wife' if he didn't convince her that Mr Riboldi distributed the videos.

In an unexpected twist to the saga, the couple stayed together and have since welcomed a third child.

Magistrate Elizabeth Ellis said Ms Boyd (pictured) and Mr Riboldi's affair is what caused Boyd's offending

Boyd was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to making a false accusation to police, hacking his wife's social media accounts to commit a serious offence, knowingly providing misleading information regarding an officer's conduct and intimidation.

Magistrate Elizabeth Ellis said Ms Boyd and Mr Riboldi's affair is what caused Boyd's offending.

'To a degree all three have some kind of culpability that has landed (the matter) in court today,' she said.

Boyd was sentenced to four community corrections orders for a total of two years with supervision, as well as 200 hours of community service.
Child killer John Beames was pronounced dead on Tuesday following complications from COVID-19. He was 67

Child killer John Beames has been pronounced dead on Tuesday following complications from the coronavirus, the latest Californian death row inmate to die from COVID-19.

The 67-year-old was pronounced dead at an outside hospital and his exact cause of death will be determined by a coroner, CBS San Francisco reports.

Beames was convicted in 1994 of the torture and beating death of the 15-month-old daughter of his girlfriend, who was living with him at the time.

He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in Tulare County in 1995.

An autopsy revealed that the child died from a fierce blow to the abdomen that nearly severed her liver. The girl's mother was sentenced to 25 years to life for allowing the abuse.

So far, eight other death row inmates at San Quentin have died of confirmed or suspected coronavirus, while four others have died in the general prison population in the facility.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the 13 deaths are the second-most COVID-related deaths in the state prison system.

So far, eight other death row inmates at San Quentin have died of confirmed or suspected coronavirus

At the California Institution for Men in Chino, 19 inmates have died.

There are currently 861 inmates at San Quentin with active infections, according to the CDCR's coronavirus tracker.

On July 10, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that some 8,000 prisoners would be released to try to curb the outbreak at state prisons.

His plan applies to low-level offenders with 180 days or less remaining in their sentences and those who are high risk.

In March 2019, Newsom signed an executive order placing a moratorium on executions in California. He then ordered the closure of the execution chamber at San Quentin.

At the moment, there are 717 people on California's death row, the CDCR said.
The very first day of Vanessa Bromley's vow to use less plastic for an entire month did not go well, all because of a seemingly innocuous trip out for Canada Day ice cream with her two kids.

"Of course, here we are, plastic spoons in our hand. Like, great, we failed the first day of Plastic Free July," laughed the Bay d'Espoir mom, teacher and owner of the online zero waste shop Bare Goods NL.

Bromley took the setback in stride, knowing that her decision to take the Plastic Free July plunge  an environmental challenge that began in Australia in 2011 and has since become a global movement  comes during particularly challenging times for anyone looking to ditch the immortal material.

Since pandemic measures reached her corner of Newfoundland's south coast, Bromley has had to adjust her shopping routines, with stores in her area banning reusable shopping and produce bags. She also noted some produce has been swathed in plastic, doing triple duty as a sanitary measure, a life-extender and an environmental irritant.

"Our plastic consumption, in particular for grocery shopping, has been up tremendously," she said.

"It's actually a struggle. I've had to accept that it's basically impossible to be perfect, when it comes to looking after the environment right now."

Submitted by Vanessa Bromley

No goodbye for bags  yet

Bromley is just one eco-conscious consumer feeling the crush of COVID-19-related measures that have seen efforts to scale back single-use plastic stall, both in the province and around the world.

Newfoundland and Labrador was set to bring in a plastic bag ban on July 1, but amid a wave of COVID-19 cases on April 6, Premier Dwight Ball pushed that date back to October 1. Some shopping chains, such as Dominion, banned reusable bags for a period and then reinstated their use, while others have hit pause on reusable programs indefinitely, from bringing your own coffee cup to Starbucks to reusable containers at Bulk Barn.

The federal government has similarly stated that its effort to ban some single-use plastics has been delayed due to the pandemic, although it hopes to keep on its target of bringing in legislation in 2021.

Story continues

While much of this stems from good intentions to protect the public from coronavirus transmission, Calgary ER physician Dr. Joe Vipond said measures like reusable bag bans are based more in a desire to try to control an unpredictable situation than scientific fact.

We can't just ignore one crisis because another crisis is going on. This isn't going away. - Joe Vipond

Evidence is mounting that transmission of the virus from surfaces is a lot harder than first thought, as such scientifically sound sources such as the World Health Organization and The Lancet have published papers to that effect.

"It's a challenging topic, I think, for some grocery stores because they want to feel like they're doing something, and yet this doesn't seem to be helping, in my mind," Vipond, who is also the interim president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, told CBC.

"I think we just need to recognize that washing our hands is much more important than not reusing things."

A mindset shift?

Vipond was one of the more than 100 scientists and medical professionals who added their signatures to a public letter this spring, stating that reusable containers and bags can be used safely during a pandemic, as long as they're washed with soap and water.

It also encouraged contact-free systems, like getting customers to bag their own groceries  policies that are becoming more commonplace as the pandemic continues. But Bromley said she's felt a lingering stigma about bringing hers back to the store as part of her Plastic Free July plans.

"It's kind of still frowned upon," she said. "So I do feel like it's been crushed a little, but, you know, maybe we'll get back there soon, hopefully."

Alessandro Garofalo/Reuters

Despite the very real threat COVID-19 poses, Vipond urged people not to forget that the pandemic doesn't displace other problems looming over our collective future, such as climate change and single-use plastics.

"I think we've all been kind of shocked by entering into this existential crisis known as COVID, and everybody feels their mortality, right? Pretty rare that we have this experience that we are threatened ourselves, but we actually have two or three even other existential crises ongoing at the same time," he said.

"We can't just ignore one crisis because another crisis is going on. This isn't going away."

Ditch (some) of the plastic PPE

The world can feel like a plastic-swaddled place of late. There are the ubiquitous plastic dividers surrounding cashiers, pin pads covered in Saran Wrap, and boxes of disposable gloves placed by the doors of many retail shops.

While some of those are necessary sanitary measures, as someone who has dealt with COVID-19 patients, Vipond feels pretty strongly about that last one.

"I think the thing that drives health-care workers the battiest is people wearing gloves out in public, disposable gloves," he said.

"I only wear gloves when I'm in a COVID room, and I use those gloves and then i come right out and I take them off and I wash my hands right away. I'm never wearing gloves for more than five or 10 minutes at a time. Whereas we're seeing people walking around stores, wearing their gloves, and then touching their faces and grabbing their phones."

Submitted by Joe Vipond

Handwashing is far more effective, he said, and can be done with plastic-free bar soap to the same effect as its bottled counterpart. He also urged people to choose cloth masks over disposable ones in their day-to-day public activities.

"The general public is walking around in a situation where their exposure risk is much much lower and their concentrations they're being exposed to are much much lower. So I personally am very comfortable wearing a cloth mask in public and washing it frequently at home," he said.

Time to think

Back in Bay d'Espoir, Bromley said one unexpected benefit to all her recent downtime  as a teacher, she's been out of the classroom since March  has been the space to figure out an environmental way forward.

"We've been able to focus on making better choices, because I actually have the time to sit and think, and focus on some environmental things that I haven't really had the time to focus on before," she said.

She opened up her online store right before the pandemic hit, delaying her plans for a retail space or pop-up shops. She hopes that will eventually come to fruition, but she's taking her own advice and trying to make small changes toward larger progress that will hopefully outlast the pandemic.

"Pick one thing that you feel like your family can tackle," she said.

"Life gets in the way. COVID may get in the way. You really don't know what's going to happen."

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
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Another 79 people have died of Covid-19 in Britain as official figures released today reveal the daily number of victims is still dropping but cases are still rising in a sign the outbreak is growing.

Department of Health statistics show 64 Britons are succumbing to the illness each day, on average. By contrast, the rate last Wednesday was 75.

Today marked the seventh day in a row that no deaths have been recorded in Scotland and only one death has been counted in the past fortnight, showing the country is on the way to being free of coronavirus.

The number of cases, however, seems to be rising. A further 560 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus, up from 440 yesterday, and the seven-day average has been risen 9.2 per cent in the last week.

There are now an average 638 people diagnosed each day, up from 584 seven days ago and from 546 a week before that on July 8.

The increasing average may be a sign the infection has started spreading again, confirming fears of top scientists that 'Super Saturday' would trigger a surge in cases  or it could be a result of more targeted testing.

As Britain's Covid-19 outbreak continues to fade away, ministers today announced care homes in England will be allowed to reopen for visits for the first time.

Homes now have the green light to work with local authorities and set up visiting systems that allow residents to have one 'constant visitor' each who will be able to pop in regularly provided they book in advance and wear face coverings.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: 'I know how painful it has been for those in care homes not being able to receive visits from their loved ones throughout this period.'

Today's data comes as:

Care homes in England are now allowed to reopen to visitors for their residents, as long as they keep social distancing and PPE rules in place';

An outbreak in Spain is worsening so much that officials may be forced to rethink the rules allowing Brits to holiday there without quarantining on return;

Public health experts say hand-shakes could be a thing of the past because of long-term social distancing rules;

A Government SAGE adviser has claimed that there is no proof of children passing Covid-19 to their teachers anywhere in the world;

A top epidemiologist in Sweden said it is likely that anyone who catches coronavirus will not get it again within six months;

The UK Government is considering 'air bridges' to specific regions which have low levels of coronavirus even when a country as a whole has not been deemed safe;

Swiss health officials say the face shields worn by hairdressers and salon staff do not prevent Covid-19 and are no replacement for masks.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE REALLY DIED OF THE CORONAVIRUS IN THE UK? Department of Health: 45,501 Department of Health's latest death count for all settings (as of 9am, July 22) stands at 45,501. The daily data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities. It also only takes into account patients who tested positive for the virus, as opposed to deaths suspected to be down to the coronavirus. National statistical bodies: 56,113 Data compiled by the statistical bodies of each of the home nations show 56,113 people died of either confirmed or suspected Covid-19 across the UK by the end of May. The Office for National Statistics yesterday confirmed that 51,096 people in England and Wales died with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 by July 10. The number of coronavirus deaths was 824 by the same day in Northern Ireland, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). National Records Scotland  which collects statistics north of the border  said 4,193 people had died across the country by July 19. Their tallies are always 10 days behind the Department of Health (DH) because they wait until as many fatalities as possible for each date have been counted, to avoid having to revise their statistics. Excess deaths: 65,249 The total number of excess deaths has now passed 65,000. Excess deaths are considered to be an accurate measure of the number of people killed by the pandemic because they include a broader spectrum of victims. As well as including people who may have died with Covid-19 without ever being tested, the data also shows how many more people died because their medical treatment was postponed, for example, or who didn't or couldn't get to hospital when they were seriously ill. Data from England and Wales shows there has been an extra 59,324 deaths between March 15 and June 12, as well as 4,924 in Scotland between March 10 and June 22 and 1,001 in Northern Ireland between March 28 and June 26. Advertisement

Department of Health figures released this afternoon showed 140,000 tests were carried out or posted the day before. The number includes antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.

But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery for a month  since May 22.

Health chiefs also reported 560 more people had tested positive for Covid-19. Government data shows the official size of the UK's outbreak now stands at 296,377 cases.

But the actual size of the outbreak, which began to spiral out of control in March, is estimated to be in the millions, based on antibody testing data.

It means the rolling average of daily cases has risen to 638  9 per cent higher than the mean of 584 recorded last Wednesday.

The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.

The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync.

And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon  which only takes into account deaths in hospitals  does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.

For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities 'as soon as they are available'.

The Department of Health has temporarily paused the count on its website after discovering that Public Health England was counting the deaths of everyone who has ever had coronavirus, regardless of their real cause.

Matt Hancock last week ordered a review of how the data is collected because scientists pointed out the daily death tolls were too high because people who were dying of other causes were being included.

Dr Yoon Loke, a pharmacologist at the University of East Anglia, discovered the error and told MailOnline: 'Because of this major flaw in the statistics, and the fact that tens of thousands of older people are being monitored, there is going to be a very very long tail of daily deaths.

'The death toll will go down exceedingly slowly. Its certainly not going to get to zero for months to come yet, because older people who have recovered from Covid-19 will unfortunately still succumb to other illnesses.'

Government figures show the rolling seven-day average of daily deaths now stands at 64  a 15 per cent drop on the mean of 75 this time last week.

NHS England today registered 10 deaths of patients who tested positive for the infection in hospitals across the country. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales announced no new victims.

It comes after data from Office for National Statistics yesterday showed that nearly three times as many people are now dying from the flu and pneumonia than coronavirus in England and Wales.

Covid-19 fatalities have dropped to the lowest levels since well before lockdown, with 283 people succumbing to the life-threatening infection in the week ending July 10.

By contrast, 418 coronavirus deaths were recorded in England and Wales in the seven-day spell before that, and more than 8,000 were registered during the worst week of the crisis in April.

Yesterday's was the lowest figure since the week ending March 13, 10 days before Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the draconian measures to curb the spread of the virus.

For comparison, 917 influenza and pneumonia deaths were registered in the same week. The number of Covid-19 deaths registered  which is always slightly higher than how many occurred  in the same time-frame was 366.

Most recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also show the number of fatalities has fallen in all regions of England and Wales as the virus continues to peter out in the UK.

And deaths of any cause are now the lowest they have been all year, with promising statistics showing the number of fatalities has been below average for the past four weeks in a row.

ONS experts explained that Covid-19 likely sped up the deaths of people who would have died of other causes, meaning the year's fatalities have been front-loaded. As a result, fewer people are now dying of causes such as heart disease and dementia because they have already succumbed to the coronavirus.

Separate data last week showed infection levels in the UK have stabilised and scientists suggest the death rate may fall because of warmer weather. There are growing concerns, however, that the virus could return and cause more death and disease in the winter when people are more susceptible.

The Government today announced that people living in care homes in England will be allowed family visits again for the first time since lockdown started in March - but residents will be limited to just one visitor each.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has given care homes the green light to start arranging visits as long as social distancing and protective equipment rules are followed.

But each resident will only be allowed a single nominated visitor who can visit regularly as long as they book in advance and wear a mask and extra PPE if required.

The much-anticipated move brings England in line with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have been allowing visits in care homes for weeks.

Local councils and public health officials in England will decide on a case-by-case basis which homes will be able to reopen, depending on levels of coronavirus in the area.

Mr Hancock said: 'I know how painful it has been for those in care homes not being able to receive visits from their loved ones throughout this period.

'We are now able to carefully and safely allow visits to care homes, which will be based on local knowledge and circumstances for each care home.

'It is really important that we don't undo all of the hard work of care homes over the last few months while ensuring families and friends can be safely reunited so we have put in place guidance that protects everyone.'
The Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has tested positive for COVID-19.

Mr Fayemi disclosed this Wednesday morning on Twitter.

I took my third Covid-19 test yesterday and it came back positive. Im generally ok and Im already self isolating at home and receiving the best of care from my medical team. Im delegating critical tasks to my Deputy but will continue routine duty from home. JKF, the governor wrote.

Mr Fayemi joins a growing list of state governors and other high profile Nigerians who have tested positive for coronavirus. They include the governors of Kaduna, Oyo, Bauchi and Delta states.

Many of them have since recovered from the virus.

Nigeria has recorded about 30,000 cases of coronavirus since it recorded its index case in February.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The FDNY responded Wednesday to an electrical fire at a three-story, multi-family house in St. George.

Smoke reportedly emanating from the outside of 48 St. Marks Place drew a large emergency response, which temporarily slowed traffic on the narrow, two-way residential street.

No injuries were reported.

A dozen FDNY units and about 60 firefighters were dispatched to the scene, an FDNY spokesman said.

The incident was placed under control within about 30 minutes, according to emergency radio transmissions.
Law enforcement leaders on Wednesday encouraged state legislators to strengthen the process of decertifying an officers license to prevent a bad one from working again in law enforcement.

The officials addressed a joint meeting of the House of Delegates Courts of Justice and Public Safety committees ahead of a special session of the General Assembly. The legislature will take up police and criminal justice reform after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

We want to be part of that meaningful reform with the goal of improving our professionalism and standards across the state, said Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard, who is also vice president of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.

Gov. Ralph Northam has called the General Assembly to Richmond on Aug. 18 for a special session. The House and Senate will work on the budget, as well as other issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and police reform.

I hope we dont just take this opportunity to celebrate the problem, Norfolk Police Chief Larry Boone said. I hope there are measurable and meaningful outcomes.

One reform measure that law enforcement officials are coalescing around is improving the revocation process for police officers because they say the bar for decertification is too high. There are a few reasons an officer can be decertified, including conviction of a felony, certain misdemeanors or domestic assault, and refusing to comply with training requirements or submit to a drug screening.

But, for example, a police chief can fire an officer for use of excessive force or repeat violations of policies, and that officer could still join a nearby police force.

We have to do something to put control measures in place to stop that, Boone said.

DeBoard said the legislature needs to address the challenges police agencies have reviewing information from other departments before hiring someone. She said there have been issues in the past where departments dont open their files, so an agency trying to hire someone doesnt have access to complete information about a candidate.

There is nothing more frustrating from a chiefs standpoint to fire an officer or have an officer resign in lieu of termination only to see that officer go to another agency, DeBoard said.

John Jones, executive director of the Virginia Sheriffs Association, said the decertification of officers needs to be used more often, and he encouraged the creation of a statewide database to coordinate the sharing of information across law enforcement agencies.

Senate Democrats have said they want to work on improving the procedure to revoke officers certification for misconduct. They also have identified other issues for which they want to introduce legislation, including banning chokeholds, prohibiting police from executing search warrants without first announcing their presence and making it illegal for police to have sex with someone in their custody.

House Democrats havent released a list of priorities, but the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus has come up with ideas, some of which overlap with Senate Democrats.

Im anxious to see what we may accomplish together, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, chairman of the Black Caucus, told the delegates Wednesday. This is our moment. This is our opportunity. For decades, members of the Legislative Black Caucus have been working to break down systems of oppression.

The House and Senate joint panels are accepting submitted public comment. People can email the Senate panel at public_comment@senate.virginia.gov and send comments to the House panel at hodspeak.house.virginia.gov.

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On May 12, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the second stimulus package, named Atmanirbhar Bharat in the aftermath of the COVID-19, which has since then been unveiled over five tranches. The package, which is mostly liquidity driven, would be the size of 10 percent of India's GDP.

On 12 May, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the second stimulus package, named Atmanirbhar Bharat in the aftermath of the COVID-19, which has since then been unveiled over five tranches. The package, which is mostly liquidity driven, would be the size of 10 percent of India's GDP. The stimulus package has received a mixed response from the media and experts, with some calling it a rehash of old packages while others highlighting the attempts to further privatise certain industries.

The question arises what benefit is the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan providing to the urban poor? The Centre announced measures on free ration (which qualifies as a short term measure) affordable rental housing for migrants, dilution of labour laws in the name of benefits to workers, loan facilities to street vendors, one nation one ration card ( qualifies as a long term measure). While all of these measures sound appealing, they lack a plan of implementation.

The short term plan of providing free ration to migrant labourers is dependent upon the long term goal of one nation one ration card being realised, without which migrant labourers cannot get ration where they work even if ration is made free. Sitharaman promised to implement one nation one ration card by early next year.

We can decode the sector-wise promises laid out from 13 May, 2020 to 17 May, 2020 in the same light. A total of 395 promises were made in a power point presentation released by the government over the span of five days introducing the AtmaNirbharAbhiyan across various sectors. It mentioned the policy introductions, impacts such measures going to bring in the economy, status of the concerned sector in current times, allocation of money to the sectors to revive the economy, etc.

What does it have for the Urban Poor

Among 395 promises there are 41 catering to the informal sector. Among these, 16 are directly linked to policy reforms of dilution of labour codes. Only 25 promises focus on the kinds of benefits to be provided to the informal sector.

It is important to point out that the informal sector has been categorised as a homogenous population group. The promises made focus primarily on the plight of migrants, with a brief mention of street vendors. However, an analysis of these statements shows that they did not become concrete measures.Within the category of migrant workers, there were five important points:

1. Technology Systems to be used enabling Migrants to access Public Distribution System (Ration) from any Fair Price Shop in India by March 2021 - One Nation One Ration Card.

2. Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) for Migrant Workers / Urban Poor

3. Rs 5,000 crore Special Credit Facility for Street Vendors.

4. Free Food grain Supply to Migrants for 2 months.

5. Dilution of labour laws.

It is also to note that Rs. 1.70 lakh crore relief package under Pradhan MantriGaribKalyanYojana was for the poor to help them fight the battle against coronavirus. (13 detailed promises made for this section which includes for urban and rural areas , among which 6 can also be considered for informal sector in cities)

A section of economists have pointed out those excluded from the government relief  stranded migrant workers without ration cards, seasonal or circular workers in unorganised, semi-formal sectors such as construction, who are not registered with the labour department, as well as, those who don't have access to banking.

These aside, domestic workers, waste pickers and homeless people have been ignored. The 'one size fits all' rule does not apply to the spectrum of informal sectors, as the needs of each sector is different.

Allocation of money

Sitharaman stated that allocation made for poor was Rs 3,10,000 crore, which included free food grain supply to migrant workers for two months, interest subvention for MUDRA SISHU LOAN, Special Credit Facility to Street Vendor, Housing CLSS-MIG, Additional Emergency Working Capital through NABARD,Additional credit through KCC( Kisan Credit Card). This accounts to 14.7 percent of the Special Economic Comprehensive Package. Moreover, to unpack this particular section for the informal sector will imply different results.

Among the allocation made for the poor, selected provisions qualify for the urban informal sector. That is free food grain supply to migrant workers for two months, Special Credit Facility to Street Vendor. The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana which addresses the issue of migrant workers and poor in urban and rural areas. Henceforth, the allocation made for urban informal sector is 1,78,500crore. This accounts to 8.9 percent of the Special Economic Comprehensive Package. Approximately this is 0.89 percent of the entire Nominal GDP of the country 2019-2020.

Unpacking the short term and long term measures

If we take the risk of breaking down these 25 points further, we see that there are promises made both for the short-term and the long-term issues. Among the 25 promises made for the informal sector, 12 focus on short term plan and 13 on long term. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the economic package is to to restart economic activity, put some cash in peoples hands, and infuse liquidity in the system.

In reality, however, the biggest concerns of the informal sector are short term in nature: food and shelter primarily. Then, there is the concern of whether jobs will come back or not. However, it is extremely disappointing to see that the short term plan has only increased allocation of grains per person through the Public distribution System for five months with an allocation of Rs 3,500 crore. While this is a welcome move, the bitter truth is that of Rs 20 lakh, less than 2 percent has been allocated to take care of the most immediate needs of the labourers that constitute 93 percent of our population.

It has become clear that the urban spaces have failed informal groups completely, forcing them to walk thousands of kilometres to go back "home" to access food, shelter and financial support. The plight of the informal sector has been massively documented by the media, families walking from cities, children dying on streets, harassment faced from police officials. When these steps have not been enough, they have been made to stand in groups and sprayed with chemicals in the name of "quarantine ".

How will the stimulus money be disbursed? When will it be disbursed? Which nodal agency will overlook the disbursal and how do vendors apply for the same? There are no answers. What about the hundreds of thousands of street vendors who missed out? Will they have a place of redressal? If yes, then where?

Similarly, the AHRC sounds good and is a welcome step if done correctly, but there are no details on the implementation. Where are the AHRCs to begin with? How many homes will the government build and by when? How does a migrant worker apply for it? If it will be in a PPP model, how will the government pick partners? What is the timeline for the completion of this project? The problem of housing in urban India is well documented and the last thing we need is another plan. The AHRC, for now, seems more like another smart city project.

And lastly, one nation one ration card scheme. It is important to point out that even the government has acknowledged the importance of the PDS, hence the allocation of Rs 3,500 crore. What we need is more allocation for the PDS right now, not another ambitious plan that seems ripe for failure. The PDS is a complicated system wherein state governments also play an important role: by calling for one nation, one Ration card, the role of states is likely to be diminished but we are unclear as to how this transition will take place. Also, how will the system take shape? What are the issues that the government will face and by when can we expect this in motion? Adding to this, on 30 June, 2020, Modi announced the extension of free ration scheme till November.

While the extension of ration is lauded, one would again want to ask how this extension will help the migrant workers when the idea of one nation, one ration card has not been implemented yet.

The author is a researcher working on issues related to caste and housing and is also associated with the National Alliance of Peoples Movements and the National Coalition for Inclusive and Sustainable Urbanization. She tweets @evita_das
Sushant Singh Rajputs final film, Dil Bechara, will premiere on July 24 at 7.30pm on the streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar. While the release date was already known, the time was announced on Wednesday.

Dil Bechara is one of the most awaited films of the year. It marks the directorial debut of casting director Mukesh Chhabra and the debut of Sanjana Sanghi in a leading role. The film is an adaptation of John Greens bestselling young-adult novel The Fault In Our Stars.

In an earlier interview, Mukesh said that Sushant was aware of Dil Becharas direct-to-digital release and was happy about it. Sanjana, meanwhile, requested fans to stop demanding a theatrical release. Lets make this a time to celebrate a legendary life, a film? A time to give a tribute, to embrace these extremely challenging circumstances we all are in. And not a time to revolt, asking for something that in our present reality cannot be made possible, she wrote in an Instagram post.

Also read: How will you feel if those you are ridiculing decide to end themselves? asks Gulshan Devaiah as he advises civility

Recently, in an interview with Hindustan Times, Mukesh said that it was difficult for him to get Dil Bechara ready for release after Sushants death. Its been tough. I was in the middle of finishing the film for release, working on the trailer etc., and looking at Sushant every day- it was so difficult to work on the film. Right now, I dont know what I am feeling- if I should be happy or sad. There are a lot of mixed emotions and I dont know how to react to situations now. It is bittersweet, perhaps. For me, the meaning of the film has changed, as he is gone, he said.

Dil Bechara will be made available for free viewing to subscribers as well as non-subscribers of Disney+ Hotstar as a tribute to Sushant.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
See something, say something is the current slogan of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, if that something you see is a wild turkey in Pennsylvania.

Each summer the commission asks Pennsylvanians help track turkey populations by reporting their turkey sightings.

The Pennsylvania Wild Turkey Sighting Survey, which until 2019 ran only during the month of August each year, again this year has been expanded to a two-month window that is now open through the end of August.

According to the commission, that two-month window follows the current national standard used by all state wildlife agencies and provides comparable data across the wild turkeys entire range.

Turkey sighting reports can be made through the commissions mobile app or through the Pennsylvania Game Commission website.

On the website, click on Turkey Sighting Survey in the Quick Clicks section.

The mobile app can be found by searching for Pennsylvania Game Commission in the Google Play Store or Apples App Store and selecting Turkey Sighting Survey.

Participants are asked to record the number of wild turkeys they see, along with the general location, date, and contact information if agency biologists have any questions.

The turkey survey enhances our agencys internal survey, which serves as a long-term index of turkey reproduction and is used in our turkey population model, explained Mary Jo Casalena, commission wild-turkey biologist.

By reporting all turkeys seen during each sighting, whether gobblers, hens with broods or hens without broods, the data help us determine total productivity, and allow us to compare long-term reproductive success.

Many factors including spring weather, habitat, previous winter-food abundance, predation and the previous falls harvest, affect turkey productivity.

The 2019 spring-turkey population was approximately 212,200, which was slightly below the three-year running average of 216,900.

With last summers sighting survey showing average reproductive success (2.4 poults per hen), the statewide turkey population was stable coming into this years breeding season.

Turkey reproductive success in 2019 improved in 10 of 23 WMUs compared to 2018. It was similar to 2018 in three WMUs but declined to below average in 10 WMUs. Areas where reproduction declined were mainly northern and southeastern Pennsylvania, and within some southcentral WMUs.

If quality nature and outdoor journalism like this is important to you, please consider supporting our work.

Contact Marcus Schneck at mschneck@pennlive.com.
Twitter announced Tuesday it would permanently suspend accounts that violate its policies while tweeting about QAnon, as it pushes through harsh measures to limit the spread of content about the conspiracy theory.

The company said it is acting following problems with misinformation and harassment from the fringe group that claims 'deep-state' traitors are plotting against President Donald Trump.

In the last several weeks, Twitter said it has removed more than 7,000 QAnon accounts for violating the company's rules against targeted harassment, spam, platform manipulation and ban evasion.

However, the new policies on account suspension are expected to impact about 150,000 QAnon accounts globally, they added.

Twitter said it has removed more than 7,000 QAnon accounts for violating the company's rules in the past weeks as it introduces further measures to take action against the fringe group

The social media giant said it is acting on Twitter behavior that could result in offline harm

The social media platform, which announced the change on its Twitter Safety page, said it will no longer serve content and accounts associated with QAnon in trends and recommendations.

It means QAnon terms will no longer be appearing in trending topics or the platform's search feature.

Twitter also said it would block URLs associated with the group from being shared on the platform.

And the act of 'swarming' people in a targeted campaign coordinated by its followers is banned.

The changes are to be rolled out this week.

While many of the new policies listed are already covered under Twitter's existing platform manipulation rules, the social media site decided to move further with a special designation against QAnon.

The company said it was acting now because of rising harm associated with the conspiracy theory.

'We've been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called "QAnon" activity across the service,' the social media giant said in its tweeted statement.

The suspensions will be applied to accounts 'engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension - something we've seen more of in recent weeks,' Twitter added.

Among the decisions made is to fully suspend QAnon accounts found breaking violations

QAnon terms will no longer appear in trending topics or in the site's search function

The company said the new measures will be rolled out this week

It added that it will continue to be transparent about the process

'We will continue to review this activity across our service and update our rules and enforcement approach again if necessary.

'As we work at scale to protect the public conversation in the face of evolving threats, we'll continue to lead with transparency and offer more context on our efforts.'

QAnon is known for advocating a far-right conspiracy theory alleging a secret, 'deep state' plot against President Trump and his supporters.

It alleges that Trump is leading a secret war against the so-called Deep State which includes many political, business and Hollywood elites.

It pushes the theory that the elites worship Satan, abuse and murder children, and engage in cannibalism.

There has yet to be any conclusive proof of these claims, initially made by an anonymous poster called Q on the 4chan website.

It has caused its followers to trawl through pictures celebrities post online to claim they show proof they are eating children and then mount a harassment campaign against them.

Among those often targeted is TV personality Chrissy Tegan who has been the victim of a type of campaign known as 'swarming' or 'brigading' that Twitter is now banning.

QAnon supporters are now a regular feature at President Trump's rallies

QAnon is known for advocating a far-right conspiracy theory alleging a secret, 'deep state' plot against President Trump and his supporters. Its supporters wear the letter Q on clothing

The company added that the rule could also apply to other groups such as QAnon who are primarily motivated by targeted harassment in the future, according to NBC.

The practice has been previously banned by Reddit.

However, as well as online harassment, the group has also been linked to a string of violent crimes including armed standoffs, attempted killings and at least one death.

Last year, the FBI issued a warning about 'conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists' and designated QAnon as a potential domestic extremist threat.

Among the other conspiracy theories pushed, QAnon also claims Democrats are behind international crime rings.

The group had originally found its roots in Pizzagate, the theory that Hillary Clinton was running a a pedophilia ring from a Washington, D.C., pizza place.

The group has steadily emerged into the mainstream from the far reaches of the internet. It alleges that Trump is leading a secret war against the so-called Deep State

QAnon supporters believe the elites behind the 'deep state' worship Satan, abuse and murder children, and engage in cannibalism. They mount online harassment campaigns against them

Yet after October 2017, it began to rapidly emerge from the fringes of the internet to appear at Trump rallies, where supporters wore 'Q' merchandise.

Even Republican candidate for Congress began to publicly voice their support.

There are at least 50 Republican candidates running for public office who have either 'endorsed or given credence' to QAnon, including 11 who will be up for election in November.

Last week, the head of the NYPD's second-biggest union was been spotted giving interviews with a QAnon mug placed prominently in the background.

NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association president Ed Mullins was spotted at least twice in one week giving on-air interviews with a QAnon-emblazoned mug over his shoulder.

In the last few months, the coronavirus pandemic has allowed for the QAnon movement to gain even more momentum as they join with other online fringe groups such as the anti-vaccination movement.

Earlier in July, it targeted the company Wayfair and accused it of trafficking children after a price glitch on the company's site raised the price of pillows and cabinets to tens of thousands of dollars.

Wayfair was trending on Twitter on July 10 and the conspiracy theory continued to rage on TikTok even after the company explained the pricing glitch.
Sky News

Boris Johnson's former chief adviser has said the prime minister knew in advance about a Downing Street drinks party during the first coronavirus lockdown and agreed that it could go ahead, claims that have been confirmed to Sky News by a second source. In an updated post on his Substack page, Dominic Cummings said he raised his concerns about the event in the Number 10 garden in May 2020 directly with the PM and would "swear under oath this is what happened". Mr Johnson's principal private secretary Martin Reynolds emailed officials with an invite to the event on 20 May, suggesting attendees "BYOB" (bring your own bottle, or booze).
A court in Russia-annexed Crimea has sentenced a local Tatar man to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of being a member of an "illegal armed group that resists Moscows control of the peninsula.



The Federal Security Service (FSB) said on July 22 that Nariman Mezhmedinov, 55, had joined the Noman Chelebidzhikhan battalion of Crimean Tatar volunteers in 2016. The battalion operates in Ukraines southern Kherson region bordering the Crimean peninsula.



According to the FSB, Mezhmedinov had actively participated for four months during 2016 in the battalion's activities, namely blocking roads near a checkpoint and searching vehicles coming in and out of Crimea in 2016.



Since the Kremlin annexed the peninsula in 2014 following a revolution that installed a pro-Western government in Kyiv, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars and other local residents who openly oppose Moscows control.



Rights groups and Western governments have denounced Russian actions in Crimea as a campaign of repression and have called for the release of those detained for political reasons.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
(Natural News) In a desperate attempt at salvaging its failed reputation, the World Health Organization (WHO) has partnered up with a high-powered public relations firm to have celebrities push WHO-approved Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) propaganda on the masses.

On May 1, the WHO signed a $135,000 contract with Hill + Knowlton Strategies to seek out celebrity influencers who might be effective at convincing the skeptics that the WHO and the United Nations at large are still somehow relevant and trustworthy.

According to documents recently filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the WHO is specifically seeking out celebrities with more than one million followers on social media, as these types of influencers will have the greatest reach, especially among young people.

There has been criticism and assertions leveled against the World Health Organization (WHO) and media coverage that could undermine WHO as a trusted and critical information source on global public health issues, the PR firm wrote in a statement.

It added that the goal is to ensure there is trust in the WHOs advice and that public health guidance is followed in terms of how people respond to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) plandemic.

In addition to seeking out heavily followed influencers, Hill + Knowlton is also interested in identifying so-called microinfluencers with small, more niche, followings, as well as health experts who might be able to appear on news programs to act as authorities on the subject.

The documents obtained by the DOJ suggest that Hill + Knowltons work was scheduled to take place up through June 15, with the possibility of future consulting  meaning if you see any more celebrities singing the praises of the WHOs response to the plandemic, this is probably the work of Hill + Knowlton.

Remember the One World Together at Home YouTube event? That was completely the product of PR propaganda

As you may recall, a litany of celebrity personalities made an appearance as part of the One World Together at Home propaganda event that was presented on YouTube by Global Citizen and the WHO back in April. This event featured such names as Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Elton John, and late-nigh hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert.

The WHO has taken a considerable blow in recent days, however, with President Donald Trump suspending all U.S. funding of the UN body, followed by the complete withdrawal of the U.S. from the WHO back in early July.

This is a major development, seeing as how the U.S. has long been the biggest funder of the WHO, giving the organization upwards of $500 million in taxpayer funds every single year.

All of this obviously reflects poorly on the WHO, not to mention the fact that it just lost a considerable chunk of its annual operating revenue. Consequently, the WHO is seeking any avenue it can to get its message out, including by continuing to pay celebrity puppets the big bucks to spew endless plandemic propaganda.

Who in Hollywood is for sale? All of them! wrote one Breitbart News commenter. Step right up and pick your hoar (slipped it past you, censors).

Whats particularly galling is to see U.S. taxpayer money funneled to the WHO, which then hires Hollywood personalities with our money to BS us! wrote another, acknowledging the fact that American taxpayers have for decades been handing over their own hard-earned money to the government to be propagandized against their own interests.

As it turns out, the WHO is a puppet of communist China, which would explain why it has a vested interest in continuing to churn out Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) propaganda in the American market.

For more related news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), be sure to check out Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com
Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday once again pleaded with Congress to provide more direct aid to states and local governments across the U.S. that otherwise may have to make deep spending cuts to education, health-care programs, first responders, and more in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

His comments came hours after U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell excluded state and local aid from the priorities he said he would include in his version of the next coronavirus stimulus legislation.

Murphy, acting in his role as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, released a statement saying the proposal leaves states and cities behind.

If Congress does not give states the direct relief we need to shore up our budgets, it will do untold damage to our economies and undermine our response to COVID-19, Murphy said in a statement released by the DGA.

McConnell, R-Ky., listed what he planned to include in the Senate Republican bill in addition to insulating reopening businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits.

Ive said we will start with the facts and develop real, targeted solutions on the subjects that matter most to American families, McConnell said Tuesday. Well, it turns out that means three things: Kids. Jobs. And health care.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

New Jersey so far has received $2.4 billion in the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus law known as the CARES Act. But Murphy has said more is needed, warning of a possible $20 million gap in the next state budget because of massive losses in tax revenue in the wake of business closings.

And he said other states need similar relief as new cases have surged in numerous parts of the U.S. in recent weeks.

With the virus spreading rapidly across the country, its more important than ever that we receive significant direct cash assistance to deal with this unprecedented health and economic crisis, Murphy said Tuesday.

Without funding from the federal government, states will be forced to make massive cuts and slash funding for education, health care programs, housing, first responders, and more, he added. These cuts will deepen the recession and undermine the very programs that Americans will need to get back on their feet. States are leading in this crisis, but we need the federal governments help to make sure we can keep the fight up in the coming weeks and months, and we need it now.

The U.S. House-passed $3 trillion stimulus bill known as the HEROES Act includes $875 billion for state and local governments. The measure also would suspend for two years the Republican tax laws $10,000 cap on deducting state and local taxes, a boost to states like New Jersey and New York that were hard hit by the coronavirus.

McConnell has refused to consider the legislation in the Senate and likely wont have the votes to pass whatever measure he drafts since he needs seven Democrats to cross party lines to bring the bill to the floor for debate.

Murphy has stressed that New Jersey needs a mixture of borrowing, budget cuts, tax increases, and federal aid to help avoid historic layoffs of public workers.

The brutal reality we face is that cuts simply will not be enough given the storm that is raging around us, the governor said last week. We simply cant cut our way out of this.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The New York Times Company (NYT) announced that its chief operating officer, Meredith Kopit Levien, will succeed Mark Thompson as president and chief executive officer, effective Sept. 8. Thompson will also step down as an officer and director of The Times Company. Kopit Levien joined The Times Company in August 2013 as head of advertising. She became chief operating officer in June 2017, responsible for the company's digital product efforts. Before joining The Times, she spent more than five years at Forbes. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
A Long Island man tried faking his death to avoid a jail sentence, but the phony death certificate his lawyer submitted had a glaring spelling error that made it a dead giveaway for fraud, prosecutors said Tuesday.

At first glance, Robert Berger's purported death certificate looked like an official document issued by the New Jersey Department of Health, Vital Statistics and Registry, but there was one big problem: Registry was spelled 'Regsitry,' prosecutors said.

Berger, 25, of Huntington, New York, now faces up to four years in prison if convicted in the alleged scheme.

That's in addition to pending sentences for earlier guilty pleas to charges of possession of a stolen Lexus and attempted grand larceny of a truck - punishment prosecutors say he was looking to avoid.

At first glance, Robert Berger's purported death certificate (pictured) looked like an official document issued by the New Jersey Department of Health, Vital Statistics and Registry, but there was one big problem: Registry was spelled 'Regsitry,' prosecutors said

There were also inconsistencies in the font type and size that raised suspicions, they said.

The real New Jersey Department of Health, Vital Statistics and Registry confirmed that Berger's death certificate was a fake, prosecutors said.

'It will never cease to amaze me the lengths some people will go to to avoid being held accountable on criminal charges,' Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a telephone interview.

Arraigned by video Tuesday because of the coronavirus pandemic, Berger pleaded not guilty to a single count of offering a false instrument for filing.

A judge set bail at $1 but ordered Berger back to jail because of his underlying cases. His next court date is scheduled for July 29.

A message seeking comment was left with a public defender who took over Berger's case after the lawyer who submitted the suspicious death certificate claimed he'd been used as a pawn and had nothing to do with the alleged shenanigans.

Scheduled to be sentenced to a year in jail last October on the theft-related charges, Berger fled the state, while taking steps to convince his then-lawyer, prosecutors and the judge that he had killed himself - including allegedly using his fiance to pass along a bogus death certificate, prosecutors said.

Berger was alive, but not entirely well. While supposedly dead, he'd been arrested in suburban Philadelphia on charges including allegations he provided a false identity to law enforcement and stole from a Catholic college.

He was sentenced in January to up to a year in jail, according to Pennsylvania court records.

Berger's case was reminiscent of one six years ago in which a former Coast Guard petty officer-turned-shoe salesman posed as a former military lawyer, soliciting clients and appearing in court.

That man, Kenneth Goldstein, was outed as a fraud when he started rambling in an un-lawyerlike fashion in a Long Island courtroom.

'You're gonna get caught,' Singas said.

'We say it all the time. Crime doesn't pay. We'll catch up with you eventually. In this case, it's never a good idea to submit phony documents to the district attorney. We were able to make sure that he wasn't able to get away with it.'
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed surprise at reports which claimed that he was flown to the United Kingdom for treatment because he had tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).



In his first public comment on the issue on Tuesday, after his 14-day self-quarantine as a precautionary measure after he came into contact with a person who tested positive for Covid-19, President Akufo-Addo said he was amazed about the media reports.



He said he has been in Ghana throughout his two-week isolation period.



President Akufo-Addo made the comment when he met with members of the Vehicle and Asset Dealers Union of Ghana on Tuesday [July 21, 2020].



President Akufo-Addo expressed appreciation to members of the union for showing interest in his welfare.



I want to thank you for your interest in my welfare, I am fine and I am here. I was sitting in my room and I was told I was sitting in a plane that was heading for Oxford, and it's trajectory plotted on a map. I was amazed but there it is, this is the Ghana in which we live, thank you, President Akufo-Addo said in response to well wishes from the Spokesperson of the Union, Mr Opoku-Agyemang.



The meeting which was at the instance of the President was to discuss concerns raised by the members about the new Automobile Development Policy at the Jubilee House on Tuesday.



Resumption of work



President Akufo-Addo resumed out-of-home work on July 20, 2020, after a 14-day quarantine which started from July 4, 2020.



The President went into self-isolation for 14 days as a precautionary measure after being exposed to a person who tested positive for the coronavirus.



He tested negative for the disease on two occasions before the quarantine and after the quarantine and worked from the Presidential Villa at the Jubilee House throughout the 14 days.



While in isolation, the President held two virtual meetings  governments 80th Cabinet meeting and a meeting with his 2020 Campaign Communications Advisory Team, during which he urged the team to emphasize the need for adherence to the COVID-19 safety protocols.





Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Netflix has sponsored the last two Christmas trees in Rome.

Rome is seeking a sponsor for this year's Christmas tree which this year - due to Metro C works - will not be installed in its usual city-centre location in Piazza Venezia.

Instead the Christmas tree will be placed in Piazza del Popolo, at the opposite end of Via del Corso.

Companies have until 4 September to submit their offer of sponsorship.

The last two Christmas trees in Rome were sponsored by American media services provider Netflix which recently announced that it would be opening a base near Via Veneto.

Two years ago Rome's weedy-looking Christmas tree gained negative headlines around the world, after being dubbed 'Spelacchio' due to its "manginess", but eventually won the affection of Romans.

Photo credit: Gennaro Leonardi / Shutterstock.com.


US, Chinese stocks and gold optimal sources of investment ahead of rebound



By Lee Min-hyung



The Korean economy will likely achieve a U-shaped economic recovery by the end of this year as domestic consumption and exports are expected to bounce back in line with China's strong signs of economic rebound, experts said Wednesday.



The Bank of Korea (BOK) has also toned down its pessimistic views on the near-term rebound of the local economy. Last week, BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol said the economy would be on track for a "steady rebound" in the latter half of this year.



In an issue note released by the central bank, Wednesday, it said the economy is unlikely to achieve a quick V-shaped recovery, which comes shortly after a sharp economic decline, until the end of this year. The U-shaped slow-yet-steady recovery scenario is more feasible for now, it added.



Economists were in line with the bank's assessment. A gradual subsiding sign of coronavirus spread here also increases the likelihood for the nation's U-shaped recovery, they said.






With its high biodiversity level, Kon Plong deserves to be considered as one of Vietnam's most valuable conservation forests.

After many months of field surveys in Kon Plong forest  a remote area of the Central Highland region, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and GreenViet Centre have found a number of endangered animals.

Slow loris in Kon Plong (Photo: Oliver  FFI)

Since 2016, the FFIs systematic surveys have identified a population of about 500 gray-shanked douc langurs in Kon Plong and over 100 species of the central regions yellow-cheeked crested gibbon.

These species are threatened with extinction. The gray-shanked douc was listed among critically endangered ones in the red list of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

An image of a horse bear captured by a camera trap in Kon Plong (Photo: FFI)



In addition, the surveys using camera traps have recorded images of 121 species of mammals and birds, including many endangered and endemic ones.

The owston's palm civet species, which was classified as endangered in IUCNs red list, has been discovered surprisingly in many places in Kon Plong.

Ngoc Linh laughing thrush (Photo: FFI)



Despite its high biodiversity value, Kon Plong forest is facing many threats such as illegal hunting, logging, deforestation and a fragmented habitat due to the expansion of agricultural cultivation, road construction, hydroelectricity and wind power.

Despite significant efforts by law enforcement agencies to control illegal hunting, many species such as pangolin, bear, primate and bird in Kon Plong have become targets for poachers.

Small clawed otters in Kon Plong (Photo: FFI)



The forest areas in the district have been managed by forestry services and riverhead protection; therefore, important biodiversity values have not received the greatest attention. It is crucial to enhance biodiversity conservation through coordination amongst social organisations and relevant agencies. The first and extremely urgent priority is the formation of a protected area to conserve the remaining primary forest legally and effectively.

This natural heritage is a "national treasure" with a flora and fauna that need to be protected and restored.

A star pheasant in Kon Plong (Photo: FFI)

The FFI and local authorities have implemented conservation programmes with the hope that the remaining area of this primary forest can be protected, maintained and developed for future generations.

The FFI and GreentViet are working with local administrations and the community to establish an area for stricter and more effective management and protection of the forest.

The programme has been supported by the Leibniz Wildlife and Zoo Research Institute (IZW), Kon Tum provincial forest management agency and the local authorities and people with funding from the Darwin Foundation (the UK), Rainforest Trust and Stiftung Artenschutz Foundations.
Phuket Tourist Association tells hotels not to raise prices; be honest in marketing

PHUKET: The Phuket Tourist Association (PTA) has warned hotels and other providers of accommodation in Phuket against taking advantage of the governments subsidy in the We Travel Together campaign by increasing their prices despite receiving a subsidy.

tourismeconomics

By National News Bureau of Thailand

Wednesday 22 July 2020, 08:00AM

PTA President Bhummikitti Ruktaengam. Photo: NNT

PTA President Bhummikitti Ruktaengam has addressed reports of price gouging at some hotels, making the final price guests have to pay higher than previously promoted, reports state news agency NNT.

Mr Bhummikitti said hotels are implementing different pricing structures, saying that reports of price gouging may actually be from the sale of hotel vouchers, not from actual bookings.

However, hotel operators should use simplicity and honesty in their marketing campaigns, especially during the current crisis, by transparently disclosing the actual full prices, and the final price guests will have to pay with the subsidy from the government subtracted, Mr Bhummikitti said.

With its economy relying heavily on tourism, Phuket province is facing an unprecedented crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NNT admitted.

With 14 million visitors last year generating B440 billion revenue, the present lack of tourists has already caused some B200 billion in damage to the local economy, according to PTA, the report noted.

The association expects the island province can at best generate B120 billion in revenue this year, if international tourists still cannot visit before the end of the year.

Given this situation, Phuket is now shifting its focus to domestic travelers. Some 35 tourism businesses in Phuket will be staging a travel fair at Siam Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok from July 20 to Aug 2, offering tourism packages at special prices, as well as local delicacies, emphasising to the general public that Phuket is now ready and eager to accept tourists, the report said.
Multiple Arizona child welfare workers have been fired after a photo emerged of them posing in bright pink t-shirts with the words 'professional kidnapper' on the front.

Several unnamed employees at a Department of Child Safety office in Prescott were ousted over the shocking attire, which one staff member brushed off as an 'inside joke'.

The photo shows a group of investigators - who are responsible for handling complaints of child neglect and abuse - sporting the t-shirts reading 'professional kidnapper' on the front and 'do you know where your children are?' on the back.

The group appear to be posing for the picture with some staff face on to the camera and some with their backs to it so that both slogans are clearly visible.

The workers were fired after the photos,seen by AZcentral.com, were widely shared among people working in the child welfare system.

A mock-up of the t-shirt design. Multiple Arizona child welfare workers have been fired after a photo emerged of them posing in bright pink t-shirts with the words 'professional kidnapper' on the front (like the design above)

One of the ousted employees told AZcentral.com the T-shirts, which were allegedly worn during work hours, were an inside joke and just a way to relieve the stress of the job.

They said the t-shirts poked fun at the criticism leveled at the DCS that welfare workers remove children from their families too easily, with some critics even accusing investigators of 'kidnapping' children.

But parents, child abuse experts and former colleagues have all blasted the actions of the group as disturbing and symbolic of the culture at the DCS office.

One woman, who said she had her child taken from her by one of the fired investigators, told AZcentral.com she was enraged by the photo.

The t-shirts read 'professional kidnapper' on the front and 'do you know where your children are?' on the back (similar to the design above)

Several unnamed employees at a Department of Child Safety office in Prescott (pictured) were ousted over the shocking attire which one staff member brushed off as an 'inside joke'

Meanwhile, former DCS unit supervisor Christina Sanders slammed her former colleagues, saying they thought they were 'untouchable' and there was a long history of bullying and entitlement in the office.

'They think they're so untouchable, they don't think they can get caught,' Sanders told AZcentral.com.

She confirmed her former colleagues were in the photos and said the staff had gotten away with abrasive behavior at the office going back years.

She said she emailed DCS Director Mike Faust about the photos and was told it had been passed on to the agency's ombudsman, shortly before news of the firings emerged.

Claire Louge, executive director of Prescott-based Prevent Child Abuse Arizona, added to AZcentral.com that the photo was proof of the bias the child welfare investigators have against parents.

'It really illuminates that people in the system are biased against parents,' she said.

The mass firing has left the DCS office with only one investigator to handle child welfare, reported AZcentral.com.

The agency is currently advertising job openings.

DailyMail.com has reached out to DCS for comment.
LOS ANGELES - Federal investigators have unspecified evidence linking the killing of a mens rights lawyer in California to the suspect in the ambush shooting of a federal judges family in New Jersey, authorities said Wednesday.

The evidence allegedly connects Roy Den Hollander, another mens rights attorney who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the day after an attack that killed the judges son and wounded her husband, to the death of Marc Angelucci in San Bernardino County, California.

FBI officials in Newark, New Jersey, on Wednesday would not describe the evidence or explain how it ties into the two cases.

Angelucci was shot to death at his home on July 11.

The FBI says Den Hollander was the primary subject in the attack Sunday at the home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in North Brunswick, New Jersey, where 20-year-old Daniel Anderl was killed and his father, Mark Anderl, 63, was wounded.

Salas, 51, was in another part of the house and was unharmed. Den Hollander was found dead Monday in Sullivan County, New York.

In both attacks, the suspect appeared to pose as a delivery driver, according to a law enforcement official. The official could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Investigators found items in Den Hollanders possession that prompted concerns about whether he had targeted, or planned to target, other people. The items included a photograph of New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and the address of a state appeals courthouse, a state court spokesperson said.

Den Hollander, 72, described himself as an anti-feminist attorney who filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of ladies night promotions at bars and nightclubs, sued Columbia University for providing womens studies classes, and sued news organizations over what he said was biased coverage.

In more than 2,000 pages of often misogynistic, racist writings posted online, Den Hollander had sharply criticized Salas and other female judges.

He also wrote about wanting to use the rest of his time on earth to even the score with his perceived enemies, using cowboy justice.

Both Den Hollander and Angelucci, 52, were involved in lawsuits seeking to force the U.S. government to require all young women to join men in registering for a possible military draft.

Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition for Men, told The Associated Press that Den Hollander was furious that he hadnt been involved in Angeluccis case.

Roy was just not happy that we did not involve him as a co-counsel. I think unhappy is an understatement, Crouch said. He called me up and threatened me.

Den Hollanders lawsuit, filed in 2015 on behalf of a woman in New Jersey, was assigned to Salas. He withdrew as the lawyer in the case a year ago after being diagnosed with cancer.

__

This storys headline has been corrected to reflect that one of the killings took place in New Jersey, not New York.
While the emirate continues to look for ways to increase the value of its onshore and offshore deposits, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is also reassessing its role in a changing global economy. The idea that some parts of the world are already experiencing a Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), in which artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and big data will transform and enhance the business environment, inspired ADNOC to develop a new strategy through which to bring the industry in line with the digital era.

The Oil & Gas 4.0 programme was unveiled by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, group CEO of ADNOC, and recently appointed UAE minister of industry and advanced technology, at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC) in 2018. The following year, in his keynote address to ADIPEC 2019, Al Jaber described the changing economic and technological landscape. This era of disruption is just the beginning and will only gather pace over time. Yet, the oil and gas company of today can be a winner tomorrow, if it operates at a lower level of cost and a higher level of performance; if it brings digital into the core of its operations; if it embeds sustainability into its DNA; and if it rethinks how to leverage its partnerships. In line with these objectives, ADNOC is forging partnerships with international technology companies to apply 4IR technologies to its operations.

Education Programmes

ADNOC has already taken steps to encourage creativity and innovation in its schools, which it first opened in 2008. The company operates four campuses in the emirate, which provide teaching to approximately 6000 students overall. ADNOC opened the emirates first vocational training establishment, known as the ADNOC Technical Academy, in 1978. The institute has trained over 5000 technicians and operators since its founding.

Related: $40 Oil Isnt Enough For Saudi Arabia

The company has also helped to encourage reform in the wider education sector. In October 2019 ADNOC signed an agreement to promote the Yas in Schools programme, which aims to improve the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) through a series of projects with a motorsports theme. The programme, which was developed by Abu Dhabi Motorsports Management, has been taken up by more than 450 schools across the UAE, for a total of 35,000 students. The Yas in Schools programme is fully aligned with ADNOCs commitment to advance the STEM education and training of the UAEs young generation. We believe that investing in our students today will result in a more competitive workforce for tomorrow, Omar Suwaina Al Suwaidi, director of the Executive Office Directorate of ADNOC, told Emirates News Agency. ADNOC was also the title sponsor for the Formula 1 in Schools World Final in 2019, an annual competition in which teams of children aged between 12 and 16 from around the world researched, designed, built and raced model Formula 1 cars.

Attracting Talent

The company has acknowledged that it has faced difficulties in attracting talented STEM graduates to pursue careers in the oil and gas industry. In March 2019 ADNOC released the results of its inaugural Workforce of the Future survey, which was based on interviews with STEM students and graduates between 15 and 35 years of age in 10 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The survey found that 44% of respondents were interested in working in the oil and gas industry; this was on a par with other sectors such as marketing and advertising (48%), hospitality (47%), transport and logistics (46%), and retail (41%). However, a significantly larger proportion of young people surveyed were attracted by careers in technology (77%), life sciences and pharmaceuticals (58%), and health care (57%). In response to these results, Al Jaber said that it is important for the oil and gas industry to highlight the opportunities that it can offer graduates with strong technology skills.

Technology

In the first year of the Oil & Gas 4.0 campaign ADNOC forged a number of partnerships aimed at leveraging new technology. In November 2018 ADNOC hosted its inaugural AI Forum, where leading experts in energy and technology met to discuss how AI can be used to boost efficiency and increase the value of hydrocarbons resources. In December 2018 ADNOC announced a partnership with IBM to develop an automated accounting system using blockchain to optimise the tracking, validation and execution of transactions among its subsidiaries. [Blockchain] will substantially reduce our operating costs by eliminating time-consuming and labour-intensive processes, strengthen the marketing and trading of our products, and create long-term sustainable value that will ensure that ADNOC delivers on its 2030 smart growth strategy, Abdul Nasser Al Mughairbi, digital senior vice-president at ADNOC, said in the projects announcement.

Related: Israel Moves To Capitalize On Massive Gas Reserves

New Deals

In November 2019 ADNOC announced three new collaborations with technology providers. A joint venture was launched with local AI and cloud computing firm Group 42 (G42) to develop and commercialise AI solutions for the oil and gas industry. Under the agreement, ADNOC will share its archival data with G42 and gain access to the firms computing clusters, data scientists and software engineers.

At the same time, ADNOC is working with French energy giant Total to use drones and unmanned vehicles fitted with sensors to collect 3D seismic data in order to search for new oil and gas deposits. The pilot project of Totals Multiphysics Exploration Technologies Integrated System will see thousands of sensors dropped by a fleet of aerial drones and subsequently retrieved by unmanned vehicles. The aim of the project is to develop a safer and more efficient method for conducting seismic surveys in the emirate. The pilot study will be carried out on a 36-sq-km onshore field in a desert environment, and will be able to produce both 3D and 4D subsurface data.

ADNOC also announced a 10-year partnership with US conglomerate Honeywell to utilise its forge asset monitor and predictive analytics platform at ADNOCs Panorama Digital Command Centre. The centre collects real-time data from all ADNOC businesses, and uses AI and big data to generate operational insights that enable the company to predict and efficiently react to a range of operational scenarios. The partnership with Honeywell will enable ADNOC to monitor up to 2500 pieces of critical rotating equipment. The predictive maintenance project, which is one of the largest in the oil and gas industry, will leverage machine learning and digital twin technologies, allowing operating personnel to better identify impending issues with machinery earlier, thereby reducing unplanned maintenance and downtime. The project will help ADNOC maximise asset efficiency and ultimately enable substantial cost savings. By signalling its openness to utilise the new technologies that underpin the 4IR, ADNOC is looking to take advantage of the rise in global energy demand that is expected to accompany economic development.

By Oxford Business Group

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
PokerStars Stadium Series Round-Up: Lex Veldhuis Bags $96K Score

July 22, 2020

The exciting PokerStars Stadium Series continues to award massive prizes to players from all four corners of the world and Team PokerStars Pro Lex Veldhuis was one of those big winners.

Veldhuis came out on top in the Stadium Series Heat 16-H: $2,100 NLHE, a tournament with $500,000 guaranteed. Tournaments of this magnitude attract the superstars of poker and this event was no different with the entry list reading like a whos who of the poker world.

Antoine A.Saout Saout, Joao IneedMassari Simao, Anatoly NL_Profit Filatov, and Dominik Bounatirou Nitsche were just a handful of the players who made it into the top 31 places where the prize pool was distributed.

Sam Str8$$$Homey Greenwood and Christian eisenhower1 Jeppsson also cashed, with Joao Naza114 Vieira busting in 10th place and setting the final table.

Don't miss PokerNews live coverage of the Stadium Series Follow along with weekly PokerNews live coverage from the Stadium Series finals. FOLLOW HERE

British grinder Andrew stato_1 Hulme was the first finalist to bust and the first player to net a five-figure prize. Hulme collected $10,517. Russias MiracleQ followed Hulme to the cashiers desk and got his hands on $13,869 before former EPT Malta champion Aliaksei ale6ka Boika crashed and burned in seventh-place for $18,288.

Pablo pabritz Brito Silvas exit in sixth-place made the waters slightly less shark-infested. Veldhuis then tripled up when his aces held against the eights of Anton Bomber&Granater Wigg and the queens of Mike SirWatts Watson to put him in contention for the title.

Ivan Negriin Luca, Wigg and Fedor "GlitchSystem" Kruse all busted in succession to leave Veldhuis heads-up against Watson. Amazingly, Veldhuis found aces again to send Luca to the showers.

The final hand saw Watson jam for a shade over 10 big blinds with ace-six and Veldhuis look him up with queen-nine of hearts. A queen landed on the turn to bust Watson and resign him to the $72,911, leaving Veldhuis to bank another $96,143 and doing so in front of his legion of Twitch followers.

Place Player Country Prize 1 Lex L.Veldhuis Veldhuis Netherlands $96,143 2 Mike SirWatts Watson Canada $72,911 3 Fedor "GlitchSystem" Kruse Germany $55,293 4 Anton "Bomber&Granater" Wigg Austria $41,932 5 Ivan Negriin Luca Argentina $31,799 6 Pablo pabritz Brito Silva Brazil $24,115 7 Aliaksei ale6ka Boika Belarus $18,288 8 MiracleQ Russia $13,869 9 Andrew stato_1 Hulme United Kingdom $10,517

Your guide to PokerStars PKO tournaments

Stadium Series Freezeout Weekly Final  High: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max, $1.5M Gtd

The biggest prize of the weeks Stadium Series action went to the Brazilian star Alisson heyalisson Piekazewicz. He triumphed over 1,346 opponents in the $1,050 buy-in Freezeout Weekly Final.

Piekazewicz turned his $1,050 into a colossal $216,705 and the title of champion. The elite Brazilian defeated fellow countryman Luan Pseudo Fruto Felipe heads-up for the victory, the runner-up banked $185,376.

One other player scooped a six-figure score. That was third-place finisher Zar77262 of Russia who netted a cool $119,584.

Others who reached the final table included Daniel Razer2311 Rezaei (9th - $18,128), Teun tinnoemulder Mulder (8th - $22,395), and Pascal FrenchDawg Lefrancois (4th - $85,694).

The tournament took place under the watchful eye of the PokerNews Live Reporting team. Read a blow-by-blow account of this massive tournament at our live reporting pages.

Place Player Country Prize 1 Alisson heyalisson Piekazewicz Brazil $216,705 2 Luan Pseudo Fruto Felipe Brazil $185,376 3 Zar77262 Russia $119,584 4 Pascal FrenchDawg Lefrancois Canada $85,694 5 Breno Breno2728 Drummond Brazil $61,270 6 _m0ney2_89 Russia $43,807 7 K0SICE Netherland $31,322 8 Tino tinnoemulder Mulder Netherlands $22,395 9 Daniel Razer2311 Rezaei Austria $18,128

Alisson "heyalisson" Piekazewicz Wins Second PokerStars Stadium Series Weekly Final

Stadium Series Freezeout Weekly Final  Medium: $109 NLHE 8-Max, $1.5M Gtd

The $109 weekly final was incredible value because the 11,292-strong crowd enjoyed a $370,800 overlay. This money was added by PokerStars and shared among the top 1,367 finishers.

Everyone at the eight-handed final table banked at least $18,364 for navigating their way there. Belgiums Pimello got their hands on this prize and they were joined on the rail first by fozzzi of the Ukraine then Shane shaniac Schleger. This was Schlegers first online cash at PokerStars since August 2015! The man still has skills.

thx4yours$ and |Chomprias|0 busted in fifth and fourth-place, the latter scooping $71,123 for their $109 investment. Russias Goallinfishara saw their tournament end in a third-place finish worth $99,775.

Heads-up pitted CoolerAHAH and Hookz against each other in a heads-up battle for the $196,355 top prize. Second-place was $139,969, more than $56,000 less so it wasnt surprising to see the heads-up duo strike a deal. That deal saw CoolerAHAH finish in second and net $160,662 with Hookz banking $175,662.

Place Player Country Prize 1 Hookz Canada $175,662* 2 CoolerAHAH Malta $160,662* 3 Goallinfishara Russia $99,775 4 Chomprias 0 5 thx4your$ Canada $50,699 6 Shane shaniac Schleger Mexico $36,140 7 fozzzi Ukraine $25,762 8 Pimello Belgium $18,364

*reflects a heads-up deal

Michael 'munchenHB' Telker Wins PokerStars Stadium Series Weekly Final

Some of the other notable victories from the past weeks Stadium Series schedule included:

Lifesucksyah  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 13-H: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max PKO for $124,324*

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 13-H: $1,050 NLHE 8-Max PKO for $124,324* Mitch sirkingmitch Johnson  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 12-H: $1,050 NLHE 6-Max for $89,248

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 12-H: $1,050 NLHE 6-Max for $89,248 spirrevip  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 15-H: $1,050 NLHE PKO for $68,262*

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 15-H: $1,050 NLHE PKO for $68,262* Aleks Better  first-place in Stadium Series Heat 11-H: $1,050 NLHE for $65,763

 first-place in Stadium Series Heat 11-H: $1,050 NLHE for $65,763 veruswelt  first-place in Stadium Series 14-H: $1,050 NLHE Deep Stack for $65,741

 first-place in Stadium Series 14-H: $1,050 NLHE Deep Stack for $65,741 lensia  first-place in Stadium Series Freezeout Weekly Final  Low: $11 for $34,114

How To Get Involved in the Stadium Series

Stadium Series tournaments run every day and continue to do so up until August 2. Head to the PokerStars tournament lobby and buy in now if you have the bankroll for those events. If you dont have the bankroll for the bigger events, or you simply want to save yourself some cash, there are plenty of other routes into the biggest Stadium Series games.

The Stadium Series Heats are the daily tournaments. The top finishers in these tournaments receive a free ticket to the coveted weekly Stadium Series Sunday Finals. Reach the final tables of these finals and PokerStars gifts you a $5,200 ticket to the Grand Final where youll play for a share of a guaranteed $5 million.

Spin & Go specialists can try their luck in the special edition Spin & Gos. These come with buy-ins of $4 and $22 and award a mixture of cash and Stadium Series tournament tickets.

Dont forget you can also complete the Stadium Series Trials via the Challenges Window of your PokerStars account. Start the challenge then play real money multi-table tournaments. You earn one leaderboard point for every $1 spent on tournament buy-ins. Finish in the top 25 of the leaderboard when the promotion ends on August 1 and a $5,200 Grand Final ticket is all yours. Finish in 26-125th place and bank a free Stadium Series Fast track Final ticket worth a cool $1,050.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Stadium Series Fast Track program. These are a series of sit & go and MTT tournaments where you can buy into at any stage, but only Stage 4 awards Grand Final tickets.

Step 1: $1 Sit & Go Tournament (12 players)

Step 2: $11 Sit & Go Tournament (21 players)

Step 3: $109 MTT Tournament

Step 4: $1,050 MTT Tournament

Keep an eye on your email inbox and in the PokerStars lobby for the many planned giveaways. PokerNews has learned PokerStars is giving away more than $2.5 million in Stadium Series tickets and by adding some serious value via other giveaways to make it possible for every player to have a shot at Stadium Series glory.

The Stars Group is a majority shareholder in Oddschecker Global Media, the parent company of PokerNews.
The sun was setting under a Mississippi horizon. Curled in a corner, with his knees drawn in and his hat pulled over his eyes, a Black soldier named Brown found a place to nap.

In the infantry, you're taught to sleep if you're not doing anything else.

But if you listened closely, you would have heard white soldiers whisper among themselves: "Lazy n-."

White noncommissioned officers searched for the Black soldier's team leader to smoke him (make him do push-ups, yell at him, and so on) while white soldiers slept nearby.

Contrast this with how we delude ourselves: Everyone is green in the military.

That's military-speak for "Racism doesn't exist in the ranks."

While some minority soldiers and a lot of white soldiers believe the military enjoys a post-racism world, the rest of us feel the pain of racism acutely.

We all understand that the veterans of our great-grandparents' generation suffered from racism. Lawrence D. Reddick observed in 1949 that the Army had a stereotype of the "Negro" as "fearful, unreliable, and lacking in the manly virtues of a warrior." In fact, white leaders treated their Black subordinates more harshly, according to Margarita Aragon in "A General Separation of Colored and White."

Other minorities felt the pain of racism in different ways.

"In the service, we were all equal," Aragon quoted a Mexican American man as saying.

"We were all Americans, but [we] turned into a Mexican as soon as we took our uniforms off."

Fast forward more than 70 years later and military members like Brown, the Black soldier who took a nap, still face racism from their brothers and sisters in arms. We, two soldiers of color who served together in Iraq, sat down to talk about racism in the military and how and why we participated in it.

You read that right.

Nate is mixed Pacific Islander and white, and he served in three infantry units (two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan) as an infantryman, team leader, squad leader, and as a senior convoy commander in a transportation unit in Afghanistan. Mike is Filipino and served seven years as an infantry medic.

Nate: Doc, can you share examples of racist instances that you've seen in the military?

Mike: One day, Brown -- who we mentioned earlier -- had one of his boots untied. My battle buddy pulled me aside and said, "He's a [N-word]," as if I was in on a great secret. Maybe it was because I'm Asian.

But just a few weeks before, he had pulled back his eyes and said, "Ching ching chong" to me as if it was a joke I'd take with no problem. Was it because I had let him make fun of me that made him think it was OK to call people the N-word?

Nate: How did you feel when your battle buddy said that? Did you say or do anything about it?

Mike: I did not want to start a ruckus, so, unfortunately, I kept my trap shut. In fact, I pretended to be in on the secret.

"Hm, yes, I can see what you mean," I said, rather than, "Hey. That's not cool."

Being Asian, I occupy a unique space where white people occasionally reveal their racist thoughts to me. If there's one thing I've learned from it, it's that racists don't think they're being racist. In fact, when they're being racist, they often play it off as a joke.

Did you ever encounter similar "jokes"?

Nate: Yes, I saw this pretty often throughout my military career. When I attended the Advanced Leaders Course, a bunch of soldiers from Puerto Rico mostly spoke Spanish. The instructor teaching the course got upset that they were speaking Spanish and said, "jokingly," that they needed to stop speaking "that guada-guada s***." He misquoted an Army regulation that states that soldiers are not required to speak English for personal communications. The instructor claimed that soldiers were to speak only English while in uniform.

Mike: It's always a joke, isn't it?

Nate: It is always a joke! On my third deployment in Bagram, Afghanistan, my platoon sergeant was being vocally racist about Black and brown soldiers. It got to the point where I would give him an awkward look, and he would then gaslight me by saying he was "just joking."

One day, he was talking about how Mexican and Black soldiers are "lazy," so I kicked him out of our FOB hopper -- a small pickup truck we used on the base. He claimed to be "just joking" again, but I took off and left him on the other side of the base.

When he got back, he tried to get me in trouble for insubordination, but I had spoken with our commander first, and my platoon sergeant was relieved of his position.

After that, I got a reputation for being "that guy" with white NCOs, because I couldn't take a joke. But my soldiers respected me.

Mike: I have to admit that I was part of the joke, too, because I let the Asian jokes slide. In fact, I perpetuated the Asian stereotype.

We had a Vietnamese soldier with a thick accent, and I would often pretend he was Viet Cong. I'd make him take pictures with AK-47s and say Vietnamese words for my amusement. I thought at the time it was all in good fun -- we're all green, right? But looking back, I imagine he thought I was a jerk for reducing him to his ethnicity.

Nate: As NCOs, we reinforce and reproduce colonialism and white supremacy. In other words, to be successful in the military, we subconsciously buy into the idea that we are subordinate to another ethnicity, that we are dependent on their approval, that we need to not step out of line, that -- as long as we are not "that guy" -- they won't see us as "other" and call us out.

As a soldier, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to. NCOs enforce the standard, and that standard was created in white supremacy and colonialism. In the military, if you can't take a "joke," people will isolate, target, and ostracize you from the group. As a brown man, when I picture myself as a veteran, I see a grizzled, old, bearded white dude, not unlike the NCOs I looked up to.

I use these examples to illustrate how much I had internalized white supremacy and colonialism. I reproduced, in laughing at or making jokes about brown people, the same standard that was forced on me by other NCOs. I thought I was doing right by my soldiers by doing so, but only after years of reflection do I now see the damage I caused.

Mike: I've had my fair share of "dog-eating" jokes lobbed at me. Sometimes soldiers would slap me on the back and say, "Hey there, chink." I would just laugh. I thought it was all in good fun; we all had moved so far past race that we could joke to each other about it. In reality, I've realized that we were reinforcing racial stereotypes and white supremacy.

You don't hear "white people" jokes, and even if you did, they wouldn't have the same power: There's no history of people of color lynching white people in the town square while an audience watched or putting white people in camps during wartime or forbidding white people to own property or withholding the vote from white people or not allowing white people to join the very same military where jokes about people of color are still an ordinary thing.

When I look at how we suffered racist jabs and even perpetuated them, I try to think of what we reinforce by doing so. Besides lowering the self-esteem of an individual, we reinforce a racial stereotype on a person, which has secondary effects on his or her ability to rise in the ranks and gain recognition. Now that person is associated with something potentially disastrous. A joke can be a joke, but a racist joke can affect the well-being and careers of people.

Nate: Like many institutions, racism in the military is far from over.

For us to heal and grow, we must first recognize that racism exists in the military and will continue to exist until we understand that racist jokes are not jokes. We need to normalize and empower our soldiers to go to the equal opportunity office or to the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program (because women are also "in on the joke").

If we do not, we encourage silence. Silence protects racism and it harms our soldiers. Instead, we must motivate our troops to be "that guy" and say something.

Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service.

-- The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
TDT | Manama

Bahrains Ambassador to the UAE Shaikh Khalid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa attended remotely the historic moments of launching the Hope Probe on its Mars mission. The ambassador had received a special invitation from Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre.

Shaikh Khalid extended his congratulations to UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister and Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and UAE Armed Forces Deputy Supreme Commander Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the landmark achievement.

The ambassador said that the Hope Probe, the first of its kind in the Arab world, is a new achievement in the UAEs pioneering record and an indication of its progress in all areas. He also noted that the launch coincides with the worlds gradual exit from the restrictions of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which gives new hope that nothing can stand in the way of moving forward and achieving new outstanding scientific accomplishments.
Coronavirus can spread in airborne particles, drifting around rooms to infect people, new research suggests.

Whether coronavirus can spread through airborne transmission has been a subject of nervous debate as cases continue to surge in the US and health officials scramble to issue guidance that will keep people safe without entirely shutting down life and activities.

We now know that people can catch coronavirus when an infected person coughs or sneezes, spraying droplets of saliva and mucus, which others can inhale.

But a new study from the University of Nebraska suggests that what many scientists have feared may be true: that the virus can travel in fine aerosols that leave the mouth and nose when people are just speaking or breathing normally.

Researchers there samples of air from coronavirus patients' rooms and found that virus in those samples could replicate in petri dishes, according to a preprint that was posted to MedRxiv.org, but has not yet been peer-reviewed for publication.

Its implications are daunting. If breathing and speaking can spread the virus in fine mists (known as aerosols), it can likely linger in the air and travel much further than the six-foot distance people are currently advised to keep apart.

New research suggests that coronavirus can linger in the air in tinier droplets of moisture, called aerosols, than previously thought, suggesting rooms and people may be infectious for longer than and from greater distances than scientists originally believed (file)

The University of Nebraska cared for 13 of the coronavirus-infected passengers of the infamous Diamond Princess cruise ship, which became a stranded floating COVID-19 outbreak in March as the virus spread to more than 700 people aboard and the boat was turned away by six countries after its departure from Hong Kong.

Led by Dr Josh Santarpia, an associate professor of pathology and microbiology researchers at University of Nebraska seized upon an opportunity to study how coronavirus might spread from some of their patients.

To do so, they collected samples of air from about a foot above the patients' beds as they breathed normally, spoke and, in some cases, coughed.

Altogether, the team managed to collect 18 air samples from five patient rooms.

Air - in hospitals, our homes, grocery stores, shopping malls and even outside - is not just composed of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide, but scores of other particles, gasses and water vapor.

The air is also teaming with billions viruses, blowing around in the breeze, but most of these can't infect humans and don't pose any threat.

Viruses are tiny, even smaller than bacteria, but most of those that infect humans need to be protected in relatively large droplets of fluid - such as those we cough or sneeze out - in order to survive.

Aerosol samples from several patient rooms contained coronavirus, which replicated itself in petri dishes (shown at red arrows)

These heavier droplets fall to the ground or surfaces relatively quickly, diminishing the likelihood that people will inhale them.

Viruses that can persist in much smaller liquid units called aerosols, which are more like fine mist than droplets, can travel further and remain suspended in the air for longer.

Collected using a tiny cell phone-sized device, the University of Nebraska team tested whether aerosols from coronavirus patients' rooms could contain virus by transferring the samples to cell cultures in petri dishes.

In five of the 18 dishes, the scientists saw SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - start replicating itself.

That suggested to them that not only could the virus travel in aerosols, enough of it could remain in the air to be infectious.

A growing number of experts are beginning to think that airborne transmission plays a role in the spread of coronavirus.

Top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said that there isn't enough evidence to prove that this is the case, but that it can't yet be ruled out, either.

Even the World Health Organization (WHO) recently admitted that airborne transmission is a possibility.

If the University of Nebraska study holds up to peer review, it will be further evidence that the danger of coronavirus can lurk anywhere an infected person has been, and for longer than previously thought.

That would further underscore the need for people to wear masks at all times when in public.
A childcare centre has been shut down after a toddler tested positive for coronavirus.

Goodstart Anna Bay on the New South Wales Central Coast is closed while it undergoes specialist cleaning, 9 News reported.

A child at nearby Tomaree School was also reportedly infected. It is not known if or how the cases are related.

Earlier on Wednesday, a staff member at a Sydney care home tested positive for coronavirus.

The employee at Ashfield Baptist Homes aged care in Sydney's inner-west dined at the Thai Rock Restaurant in Wetherill Park, which has since been linked to 37 cases.

Scroll down for video

Pictured: A map showing coronavirus cases recorded since July 1. South-west Sydney has been hit the hardest, with 11 cases in the Liverpool local government area. The postcodes seen in the lightest shade of red have recorded one case in the past three weeks.

Pictured: Nurses dressed in personal protective equipment at a drive through testing clinic in Bondi

Other staff and residents at the facility are now in isolation and being tested for the deadly respiratory infection, New South Wales Health said in a statement.

'The risk to other staff and residents is considered to be very low as the staff member wore masks, gloves and gowns when working with residents and did not work while symptomatic,' the statement said.

Ashfield Baptist Homes has since been closed to the public pending test results.

It comes as Mary-Louise McLaws, an epidemiologist and World Health Organisation adviser, admitted the clock is 'ticking' on New South Wales authorities to get the virus under control.

'It's hard work,' she said on the ABC on Wednesday.

'And that's why, I think, it could help to prevent the spread if everybody wore a mask in public until they get a handle on all of those potentially exposed people and put them in isolation.'

Prior to the outbreak at the Crossroads Hotel, which first began when a traveller from Melbourne dined at the venue, New South Wales was close to 'eliminating' the virus.

'It had so few numbers outside those in quarantine at the hotel for returned travellers that we were doing very well. I believe that NSW can get back to that level but it will be a challenge, from a different perspective from Melbourne,' she said.

There are 26 cases linked to the Thai Rock restaurant at Wetherill Park (pictured)

Pictured: A map shows Sydney's coronavirus hotspot sites

Tourists wearing face masks take selfies in front of the Harbour Bridge in Sydney on July 22

Dr Stephen Parnis told A Current Affair the virus could easily spiral out of control in Australia.

'It's always the case that these things could spread,' he said.

'The concern is that NSW could now be where Melbourne was four, five, six weeks ago.'

On Tuesday, 16 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the state.

One of the cases was linked to hotel quarantine, three to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula and 11 associated with the Thai Rock restaurant in Wetherill Park.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her state was facing the most 'critical time' since the initial March lockdown.

She said it was reassuring there were no new outbreaks of coronavirus popping up across the state but was still concerned about community transmission.

'The next few weeks are the most critical in NSW since the lockdown earlier in March and April,' she said.

'We are not out of the woods yet, quite the opposite ... We have some level of anxiety regarding the extent of community transmission.'

Pictured: Nurses dressed in personal protective equipment at a drive through testing clinic in Bondi

The employee at Ashfield Baptist Homes aged care in Sydney's inner-west dined at the Thai Rock Restaurant in Wetherill Park, which has since been linked to 37 cases

A stern warning has been issued against travelling to Sydney as the city's coronavirus numbers continue to creep up.

Newcastle residents were told by local health authorities to rethink their travel plans.

Public Health Physician Professor David Durrheim said the Sydney outbreaks were 'concerning' and that non-residents should stay away.

There is usually a lot of travel between the two east coast cities, sitting just 170km apart.

'We would strongly advise anybody from the Hunter New England region to rather stay at home than visiting Sydney at this stage unless absolutely necessary.

'This virus, if you give it half a chance, can spread very very rapidly and even from the a-symptomatic,' he said.

Newcastle residents were told by health authorities to rethink their travel plans after NSW recorded 16 new cases on Wednesday (pictured, the health alert)

A queue of cars is seen at a coronavirus testing clinic in Sydney's Bondi on Wednesday (pictured) as non-residents are urged to stay away from the city

The 16 cases announced on Wednesday mark seven consecutive days of double-digit daily infections in NSW.

While not yet re-imposing travel bans to regional areas in NSW, Premier Gladys Berejikilan said people should take 'extra caution' when moving around the state.

'There is no zone which is safe,' she said.

'My strongest message is, that all of us are on high alert.

'All of us should be monitoring our behaviour. All of us should consider where we travel. All of us should consider avoiding crowds and those high-risk activities, especially over the weekend.'

The recent community transmission in the state has been traced back to Victoria, where figures have skyrocketed to a record-breaking 484 cases on Wednesday.

New figures showed 90 per cent of patients failed to isolate between falling sick and getting tested and 53 per cent had failed to self-isolate while waiting for the result.

The state has suffered outbreaks at abattoirs, aged care homes, logistics businesses and law firms.
On May 27, the oil well at Baghjan Tinsukia, 500 km from Guwahati 's main district, had a blowout and has since leaked gas. An explosion occurred near well number 5 of Oil India Limited in Baghjan injuring three foreign experts.

An explosion occurred near well number 5 of Oil India Limited in Baghjan injuring three foreign experts who were present at the site, an official said on Wednesday. An explosion occurred near well no.5 of Oil India in Baghjan, Tinsukia district. Three foreign experts who were present at the site injured. They have been rushed to the hospital, Tridip Hazarika, Oil India Limiteds spokesperson said.

As per a Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas release on Wednesday, OIL had informed that while carrying out workover operations in the gas-producing well Baghjan-5 under Baghjan Oilfield in Tinsukia district, the well suddenly became active on May 27 and a blowout occurred. It led to the uncontrolled flow of gas from the well. The well caught fire on June 9.

A barricade was erected by local villagers blocking the road from the well site since afternoon yesterday. More than 200 personnel from OIL, ONGC, Alert, Schlumberger and other contractors working at the site including OIL Directors were not allowed to go out of the site after completing the days work yesterday. After prolonged efforts by OIL Management and District Authority, the barricade was removed but as late as at 02.30 hours this morning, Environmental Resources Management had said.

Oil and gas wells under Baghjan EPS are shut in since July 7, ERM had said.

There is a daily oil production loss to the tune of around 500 KL from these wells. The cumulative loss is 5185MT of Crude Oil and 17.62 MMSCM of Natural Gas in last 12 days. Blockades in Drilling and Work Over Locations Continue: Blockade at two drilling locations and three workover locations still continues since the beginning of June, it said.

The well is located in the vicinity of Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Maguri Motapung Beel, a wetland.

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday touted Operation Legend, his administrations crackdown on violence that involves a surge of federal agents in cities like Portland, Oregon, where detentions of protesters by unidentified agents in unmarked vehicles and other aggressive tactics have prompted local officials, lawmakers and Joe Biden to accuse Trump of ignoring the Constitution and sowing chaos to bolster his re-election campaign mantra of law and order.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers including Department of Justice personnel, FBI agents and U.S. Marshals will now deploy to Chicago, Trump announced. Trump said it was a necessary move to combat criminals in a city plagued by an increase in homicides and violent crime, though Mayor Lori Lightfoot was adamant she didnt want Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.

On Wednesday morning, Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon told C-SPAN that the tactics employed by federal agents under Trumps orders reminded him of the widely-criticized clearing of peaceful protesters near Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., in early June, which paved the way for Trumps procession to a historic church damaged during protests days earlier, where he posed for photos and held a Bible aloft. Aides quickly crafted the scenes into videos and photos shared by the Trump campaign, surrogates and the White House.

The actions taken in Portland are deliberatively provocative, Blumenauer said. Interfering with the rights of peaceful protesters for a photo op.

Abducting private citizens in unmarked cars and taking them away  that crosses the line, he added.

In the wake of nationwide protests over systemic racism following the police killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans, Trump, who expressed sympathy for Floyd, argues that American cities have become increasingly violent.

Earlier this month, Attorney General William Barr announced the launch of Operation Legend, a sustained, systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative across all federal law enforcement agencies working in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight the sudden surge of violent crime.

Speaking from the East Room of the White House Wednesday, Trump and Barr claimed, without offering evidence, that the escalating violence was a direct result of efforts to defund and attack police departments in cities nationwide.

This bloodshed must end, Trump said, citing increases in homicides in Chicago, Albuquerque, Philadelphia and New York.

The initiative, which involves surging federal agents and other federal assets into American cities, is named after LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old who was shot and killed as he slept on June 29 in Kansas City.

But local leaders ranging from Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, to Mayor Martin Walsh of Boston, are urging federal agents to keep out and let local law enforcement do its job.

We didnt ask for these troops in our cities. We dont want these troops in our cities, Wheeler tweeted on Tuesday night.

We didn't ask for these troops in our cities. We don't want these troops in our cities. pic.twitter.com/x9UOrBDX7E  Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 21, 2020

The president and his administration havent been shy about politicizing the effort, openly painting Democratic-run cities as crime-ridden, and falsely claiming that Bidens push for police reform amounts to defunding or disbanding police departments.

Trump has also tried to directly link Biden to the unrest while instilling fear in voters that more violence will erupt across the country if the former vice president wins in November. You and your children wont be SAFE in Bidens America, and neither will anyone else, Trump tweeted earlier this month.

Joe Biden claims to be prioritizing safety of kids by keeping schools closed this Fall. Yet he remains silent about children being slaughtered by violence on the streets of Democrat run cities. You & your children wont be SAFE in Bidens America, and neither will anyone else!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2020

A recent campaign ad depicts a woman unable to reach 911 dispatchers as someone breaks into her home while Fox News Sean Hannity, in background audio from her TV, alleges that Biden is absolutely on board with defunding the police. The ad closes with the same message Trump tweeted: You wont be safe in Bidens America.

In an interview with Fox News Chris Wallace on Sunday, Trump asserted that Biden wanted to defund and abolish police. Wallace fact-checked the president on the spot, and later noted that Trump and his aides couldnt find any indication, because there isnt any, that Joe Biden sought to defund and abolish the police.

Fox's Chris Wallace fact checks Trump and tells Trump that he's wrong to claim that Biden wants to defund the police. pic.twitter.com/arNNZb8K01  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 17, 2020

In a video clip tweeted by the Trump campaign Wednesday morning, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told Hannity that Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago has lost control of her city. Mayor Bill DeBlasio of New York has lost control of his city. She argued there were derelict mayors in Democrat streets and children dying, its unacceptable, and this president will always stand up for these children.

Ken Farnaso, deputy national press secretary for Trumps re-election campaign, told MassLive on Wednesday that the president would not, under any circumstances, allow our great American cities to fall into anarchy and violence at the hands of derelict mayors who have failed to keep them safe.

Democrats, led by Joe Biden, have appeased these rioters for far too long and have even called them peaceful protestors, Farnaso added. In Bidens view, which was the most peaceful method they used to assault the police in Portland  pellet guns, slingshots, fireworks or boards with nails in them?

Biden said in a statement provided to MassLive that Homeland Security agents without a clearly defined mandate or authority are ranging far from federal property, stripped of badges and insignia and identifying markings, to detain people.

In remarks first reported by BuzzFeed News, Biden added that Trump was determined to sow chaos and division. To make matters worse instead of better.

Biden, who also referenced Trumps appalling church photo op, said that the U.S. government has a right and duty to protect federal property.

But he argued the Obama-Biden administration did so without resorting to these egregious tactics  and without trying to stoke the fires of division in this country. We need a president who will bring us together instead of tear us apart, calm instead of inflame, and enforce the law faithfully rather than put his political interests first.

Sen. Kamala Harris of California, one of the women often named as a potential running mate for Biden, said Trump was trying to incite fear and distract from his repeated coronavirus failures by sending in camouflaged federal agents. He must withdraw these agents from Portland immediately.

Lightfoot said on Twitter that under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.

Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.  Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 21, 2020

Make no mistake  what @RealDoanldTrump has done in Portland is unconstitutional, divisive and dangerous. It threatens the core values of our country, tweeted DeBlasio on Wednesday afternoon.

Walsh joined several other mayors in a letter to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to express concern that federal officers used significant force against protesters on a nightly basis. The leaders urged federal officials to cease any further unilateral deployments in U.S. cities.

Weve seen footage of unidentified federal officers aggressively detaining protestors in Portland, Oregon. Weve heard... Posted by Marty Walsh on Tuesday, July 21, 2020

While we have no information that Boston is being targeted, I want to make absolutely clear that behavior and that type of so-called help is not welcome here in the city of Boston, Walsh said at a news conference outside City Hall, State House News Service reported. Its being done with no communication and working with no local elected or no public safety agency in those different cities. Its being done with no regard for the rights or safety of protesters and appears to be needlessly escalating the situation.

OregonLive reported earlier this month that federal officers shot 26-year-old Donavan La Bella in the head with an impact weapon, causing severe injuries.

This appears to be the moment that #Portland protester was struck in the head and suffered a gruesome injury. pic.twitter.com/Na1h5BUaAO  Simulation Warlord (@zerosum24) July 12, 2020

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon referenced the incident in a scathing op-ed on NBC News this week, accusing Trump and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf of unleashing these agents like an occupying army  complete with fatigues, military-style equipment and tactics that are utterly unacceptable in an American city.

These invaders are mounting this assault against my city on the flimsiest of justifications, Wyden added. While Acting Secretary Wolf rants about law and order, most of the incidents of violent anarchists he cites are actually graffiti or low-level vandalism.

Trump previously threatened to use the U.S. military to quell violence, which prompted severe critique from multiple former Trump administration leaders and former military commanders.

Defense Secretary Mark Espers spokesperson told Politico this week that Esper was concerned about federal officers donning military-style gear, giving the impression U.S. troops were improperly engaged in local law enforcement.

Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, recently defended arrests in Portland, saying they have been coordinated with local officials and conducted in a very targeted fashion to go after somebody that has committed a federal crime.

He argued criminals come there each and every night with a barrage of weapons with the intent to destroy federal property and seriously injure federal law enforcement officers.

Morgan also disputed reports that federal personnel were unidentified. He said CBP personnel wear patches indicating CBP, Border Patrol, Police or a unique agent identifier.

Contrary to reports, @CBP personnel wear patches that identify them as:

CBP 

Border Patrol 

Police 

Unique agent identifier  pic.twitter.com/YFgDs2NEPQ  CBP Mark Morgan (@CBPMarkMorgan) July 20, 2020

But Morgan has authorized and supported the removal of name tags from officers uniforms. He said the move protected the agents and their families.

A recent Suffolk University poll released by WGBH News, MassLive, The Boston Globe and the State House News Service found that most Massachusetts residents views are aligned with protesters and lawmakers calls for policing reform. Strong majorities of voters in national polls say they disapprove of the presidents handling of race relations and protests since Floyds killing.

Following national trends of increased backing for the Black Lives Matter movement since the fatal shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, support for the movement in Massachusetts has spiked even further since Floyds death: 85% of residents are now in favor of the movement, with more than half, 51.2%, registering strong support, the poll found.

Blumenauer, whos represented Oregon and much of Portland since 1996, argued the portrayal of a city under anarchy is pure fiction. He said he safely walks the streets of Portland every week and that an overwhelming majority of protests have been peaceful.

He acknowledged some federal buildings had been damaged with graffiti or broken windows  and that white supremacists and anarchists had recently turned up as agitators  but he said there was no excuse to round up protesters. He argued federal agents deployed by Trump were instigating violence and complicating local law enforcement, not helping it.

These (federal agents) were unwanted, unwelcomed and unprepared, and they have done things to my constituents that are inappropriate, Blumenauer said, referencing an Oregon Navy veteran who was struck with a baton and pepper-sprayed after approaching federal law enforcement officers to ask about the oath theyd taken. There is great risk, I think, to having federal interference. I think Donald Trump and his minions went in there deliberately inciting it. They made it worse. The crowds are larger now, and I think it was a made-for-TV event for the Trump re-election campaign.

Federal police strike protester with baton, use pepper spray and tear gas outside courthouse in Portland pic.twitter.com/VX2xTVaaYq  Zane Sparling (@PDXzane) July 19, 2020

Blumenauer also dismissed the notion that protests, and calls for police reform, were matters merely just a few blue cities.

There are people across America whove been deeply concerned about the unequal application of the law, he said. Its not political. Its who we are as a people.

Related Content:
Congress Party workers and supporters light candles to pay tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives following a recent clash between India and China, in Kolkata, India, on June 17, 2020. (DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Killing of 20 Indian Soldiers by China Brings India Closer to US

The recent border conflict that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers on the IndiaChina border has changed the regions power dynamics, according to experts, who say the conflict has made it impossible for India to ever go back to a pro-China narrative, bringing it closer to the United States.

Chandra Mishra, a New Delhi-based former journalist and current political analyst, told The Epoch Times that India has no option left but to seek U.S. support to stand up to Chinese hegemony.

As PM Modis BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] is a nationalist party, and his main vote bank is based on staunch patriotism, the aggression of China on its border is bound to affect his iconic image in the country, and hence the outcome on the 2024 election, said Mishra.

This emerging internal political situation, intense anti-China sentiment due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, and the Galwan incident on June 15 that involved the killing of Indian soldiers have had an irreparable impact on the democratic countrys relationship with its communist neighbor.

It will be difficult for any Indian government, let alone one led by someone who has talked about making India powerful, to say we can go back to the old policy on China, said Aparna Pande, director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Hudson Institute. The key question, however, will be that Delhi will need to think strategically to sustain the economic and military dimensions.

To prevent further escalation, the militaries of the two countries have created a buffer zone where the bloody conflict took place, and five meetings have taken place between the two countries top-level brass, but no resolution has yet been achieved.

Talks are underway to resolve the border dispute, but to what extent it can be resolved, I cannot guarantee. I can assure you, not one inch of our land can be taken by any power in the world. If a solution can be found by talks, there is nothing better, said Indias defense minister, Rajnath Singh, while visiting the region on July 17.

Indian Congress Party supporters leave Chinese goods on a flag displaying the country of China, along with an inscription reading Boycott Made in China, during an anti-China demonstration in Kolkata, India, on June 18, 2020. (Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP via Getty Images)

US and India Need Each Other

Chinas increasing aggression on the disputed territory with India was a bullying tactic to prevent India from forming closer relations with the United States, according to experts. With the killing of 20 Indian soldiers, however, it has ended up doing the oppositebringing India and United States closer than ever before.

Chinas continued aggressive behavior, twice in three years, has convinced most people in Delhi that balance between the U.S. and China isnt the way to go. China may have thought it has taught India a lesson and India will now move away from the U.S., the opposite is what will happen. India is and will further deepen partnerships with the U.S. and Asian allies, Pande said.

Mishra said India, with its 1.32 billion consumers, is the largest market in the world, unlike China, which isnt an open market.

China, being the big brother in the South Asia region, wants to have absolute control over the market here and sees the U.S. as a threat, he said while explaining reasons behind Chinas bullying tactics on the disputed border.

This is a critical juncture in world politics when both the U.S. and India need each other. Because, if China is allowed to establish its monopoly in South Asia, it will be strong enough to challenge the global leadership of the U.S.

Pande said the two countries need for each other would translate into the United States helping India to stand up militarily and economically to China in the region, and that alone will be a help to the United States.

The U.S. can help India by supplying it more defense equipment, more supply parts for defense equipment, defense equipment both for mountainous terrain and the sea and to boost IndiaU.S. naval collaboration to put pressure on China, Pande said.

She said, economically, the United States should help India by encouraging companies that are leaving China due to the COVID-19 pandemic to invest in India.

The United States should boost high tech collaboration and, through partners and agencies like World Bank or International Monetary Fund or Asian Development Bank, help build infrastructure in India and South Asia [instead of China doing so via the Belt and Road Initiative].
New Delhi, July 22 : After almost a three-week-long battle with the coronavirus disease, a 42-year-old doctor employed at Delhi's National Health Mission took his last breath in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) trauma centre.

Dr. Javed Ali had tested positive for coronavirus on June 24, was hospitalised and kept on ventilator in the last ten days. The contractual doctor is survived by his wife and two children.

In April, the Delhi government had announced compensation of Rs 1 crore for health worker's families if they die while dealing with coronavirus cases.

After Ali's demise, the family has sought compensation, asserting that contractual workers are not provided with help despite being at the forefront in the fight against the disease.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took to twitter and said, "Dr. Javed Ali and all the doctors offer their services during this crisis by betting on their lives. He was serving on contract." She further demanded, "It is time to stand with the families of these martyrs. The government should help Dr. Javed's family in every way possible."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Stacker looked at food trends and cultural histories across the United States to determine the signature breakfast foods in every state.
In less than eight hours, the Wall of Moms group in Portland was formed by a Mexican-American mother, who felt compelled to shift the 'pervasive narrative that protesters are rioters'.

Bev Barnum founded the group on Friday night while getting ready for bed and after she had watched several videos on social media showing protesters being detained by federal agents.

The mother-of-two told CNN: 'It didn't take long for me to find a massive array of video displaying obvious human rights violations.'

At first Barnum considered doing a fundraiser. She soon decided against it, saying: 'But I thought I needed to do more so I asked the Portland working moms group to protest with me -- to shield the protesters from harm with our 'mombods,'' she said.

On Saturday night, the Wall of Moms, joined in the 52nd night of protests in the city following the horrific death of George Floyd, who died under the knee of a Minneapolis cop on May 25. Demonstrators have been protesting for 55 nights straight as of Tuesday night.

'We wore our whitest whites to show that we weren't there to make trouble, we showed up to prove that the feds are the violent ones at protest,' Barnum wrote on Facebook.

Scroll down for video

In less than eight hours, the Wall of Moms group in Portland was formed by Bev Barnum (left and right) who felt compelled to shift the 'pervasive narrative that protesters are rioters'

Barnum is seen holding sunflowers ahead of Sunday night's protest in Portland

'And we were right. Kids took down fences and did some skateboarding, two or three kids were banging on walls, but over 100 people were peaceful.'

Barnum then described the moment she and other mothers were teargassed by authorities.

'I want to tell you that I didn't vomit or pee my pants after being gassed, but I did. I guess I lost control of my bodily fluids and soon after I couldn't open my eyes.

'To be clear, we moms weren't armed, throwing rocks, throwing water...THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. We were gassed for chanting 'Leave The Kids Alone.''

Despite being gassed Saturday night, the mothers took to the streets of Portland once again to protect demonstrators.

On Sunday night, Barnum told CNN that around 200 women joined the Wall of Moms movement.

They also changed up their color from white to yellow as they locked arms and chanted outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.

The video that pushed Barnum to action was one that showed authorities without identification badges in unmarked vehicles arresting protesters in Portland.

The mothers gathered on Saturday night and wore white during the protest. The women formed a human shield between protesters and law enforcement officials outside Portland's federal courthouse, donning bike helmets and linking arms

Federal agents teargassed the group of mothers (pictured after being teargassed Saturday night) who formed a 'wall of moms' to protect protesters during a Black Lives Matter demonstration on Saturday

Such incidents have prompted legal action from Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.

On Wednesday, a federal judge heard arguments on Oregon's request for a restraining order against federal agents sent to Portland to quell protests that have spiraled into nightly clashes between authorities and demonstrators.

The lawsuit, filed by Rosenblum, alleges that federal agents sent by President Donald Trump have arrested people with no probable cause, whisked protesters away in unmarked cars and used excessive force to quell the unrest.

It's part of growing pushback against the Trump administration's use of federal agents in Portland and its plans to do the same in other cities.

In a twist, the judge hearing the case - US District Court Judge Michael Mosman - works out of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which has been a target for 55 nights of protests.

The motion for a temporary restraining order asks the judge to immediately command agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the US Customs and Border Patrol, the Federal Protective Service and the US Marhsals Service to immediately stop detaining protesters without probable cause, to identify themselves before arresting anyone and to explain why an arrest is taking place.

During the hearing - held by videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic - Rosenblum said she was asking the court to 'declare it not acceptable for federal officers to use unconstitutional police state-type acts to detain citizens of Oregon without cause'.

Despite being gassed Saturday night, the mothers took to the streets of Portland once again to protect demonstrators, this time wearing yellow

On Sunday night, Barnum said around 200 women joined the Wall of Moms movement

There are 114 federal agents in Portland, according to Steve Lippold, another attorney for the state.

David Morrell, an attorney for the US government, called the motion 'extraordinary' and told the court it was based solely on 'a few threadbare declarations' from witnesses and a Twitter video.

'It's important to underscore what's at stake here. The Hatfield courthouse did not damage itself,' he said, calling the protests 'dangerous and volatile'.

Mosman said the declaration of one man, who said in court papers that he was arrested by federal agents for no reason and later released, seemed meet the bar for Oregon's motion for a temporary restraining order.

But in a back-and-forth with Oregon attorneys, Mosman focused on a Twitter video of another arrest that showed a person being placed in an unmarked van and seemed skeptical of the state's argument that that arrest in particular was made without probable cause.

It wasn't clear when Mosman would rule.

The suit by Oregon's attorney general is one of several filed over law enforcement's response to the Portland protests.

Norma Lewis holds a flower while forming locking arms with other mothers during a Black Lives Matter protest on Monday

Protesters gesture during protests in Portland on Monday, including one mother whose shirt reads: 'Mom is here'

Federal officers used crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Tuesday

Federal officers use chemical irritants and crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters early Wednesday morning

Protesters are seen protecting themselves with makeshift shields on Tuesday night

Far from tamping down the unrest in Portland, the presence of federal agents on the streets of the progressive city has recently energized the nightly protests

On Thursday a judge will hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of journalists and legal observers who say they were targeted and attacked by police while documenting demonstrations.

A freelance photographer covering the protests for The Associated Press submitted an affidavit that he was beaten with batons, chemical irritants and hit with rubber bullets.

US Judge Michael Simon previously ruled that journalists and legal observers are exempt from Portland police orders requiring protesters to disperse once an area has been declared an unlawful assembly.

Federal lawyers say in court filings that journalists should have to leave when ordered to do so.

The Trump administration also faces another lawsuit, accusing federal agents of violating protesters' 10th Amendment rights by engaging in police activities designated to local and state governments.

That legal action was filed by the Western States Center, which helps organize and promote the rights of communities of color and low-income people.

Ahead of Wednesday's hearing, a fence was raised around the federal courthouse, outside of which protesters and federal agents had clashed again overnight, according to the Portland police, who were not present.

Protesters repeatedly tried to break into the courthouse and set fires around it, and the federal agents drove them back with tear gas and stun grenades, the police said.

A woman, who appears to be a part of the Wall of Moms groups, was injured during a clash between protesters and federal agents on Tuesday

Crowds had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 2,000 over the weekend, attracting a broader base in a city that's increasingly unified and outraged

Protesters use umbrellas and shields to block less-lethal rounds fired by federal officers during a protest in front of the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse on Tuesday

During a US Senate committee hearing Wednesday, one of Oregon's senators reiterated what state officials have said: that he believes the use of federal agents (pictured, approaching protesters on Tuesday) in Portland is unconstitutional

Federal authorities, however, have defended their response, saying officials in Oregon had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers (pictured Tuesday) and the US courthouse in Portland

Far from tamping down the unrest in Portland, the presence of federal agents on the streets of the progressive city has recently energized the nightly protests.

Crowds had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 2,000 over the weekend, attracting a broader base in a city that's increasingly unified and outraged.

During a US Senate committee hearing Wednesday, one of Oregon's senators reiterated what state officials have said: that he believes the use of federal agents in Portland is unconstitutional.

'If the line is not drawn in the sand right now, America may be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election,' said Sen Ron Wyden, a Democrat.

Federal authorities, however, have defended their response, saying officials in Oregon had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers and the US courthouse in Portland.

'We need to find a peaceful outcome,' acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said at a news conference Tuesday in Washington.

'At the end of the day, we have to protect the federal property and the law enforcement officers.'

Wolf said agents have been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons. While he said federal agencies have made 43 arrests since July 4, he disputed that they were done by unidentified agents, noting that they have the word 'police' on their uniforms.

Among the protesters this week was Maureen Healy, who joined a march with a family member, as demonstrators sang songs, chanted the names of Black lives lost and held moments of silence.

Just after midnight, she saw a line of authorities wearing camouflage and dark outfits emerge and advance on the crowd.

The crowd retreated, and Healy said she heard bangs, saw smoke and was struck by a projectile as she turned away. She felt blood on her temple and went to the hospital with a black eye, cut to her face and a possible concussion.

'This is my home. I was protesting peacefully so why did federal troops shoot me in the head?' asked Healy, 52, who is the chair of the History Department at Lewis & Clark College.
One Peak, a leading technology investor for growth stage companies in Europe, today announces the closing of One Peak Growth II at its hard cap of 443 million ($507 million). The fund was significantly oversubscribed and closed at the upwards revised hard cap, taking the firm's assets under management to c. 700 million. The fundraise launched in Q1 2020 and closed in Q2 2020.

One Peak, founded by Humbert de Liedekerke and David Klein in 2014, primarily targets significant minority investments in proven, rapidly growing European technology companies with global ambitions. The firm partners with Europe's best entrepreneurs in scaling their businesses by providing growth capital, operating expertise through its value creation team, and access to its extensive network of relationships. One Peak's primary objective is to help European founders transform innovative businesses into lasting, category-defining leaders.

Managing Partner David Klein said, "We have seen first-hand the emergence of a thriving European technology ecosystem over the past few years, and we are particularly impressed with the new crop of entrepreneurs who start their companies in Europe but have the ambition to win at global scale. These are the type of founders we want to partner with and support them with our sector expertise, global network, and value creation platform."

"The fund close comes at an opportune time in view of the current economic backdrop, which forces businesses globally to accelerate their digitalization efforts. We believe this creates plenty of opportunities for technology companies," said Managing Partner Humbert de Liedekerke. "We are grateful and humbled by the support of our investors and look forward to continuing to help some of Europe's most ambitious founders and teams build enduring companies."

Commitments to One Peak Growth II came from a diverse group of global investors, including university endowments, foundations, public pension plans, fund of funds, and family offices.

Proskauer Rose and Van Kampen Liem served as fund counsel and Houlihan Lokey served as placement agent for One Peak Growth II.

About One Peak

One Peak is a growth equity firm investing in technology companies in the scale-up phase. The firm provides growth capital to exceptional entrepreneurs with a view to transform innovative and rapidly growing businesses into lasting, category-defining leaders. One Peak's investments include HighQ, Neo4j, DocPlanner, Spryker Systems, Concentra Analytics, Quentic, Coople, and DataGuard. To learn more, visit www.onepeakpartners.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005961/en/

Contacts:

Humbert de Liedekerke

pr@onepeakpartners.com
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has alleged that the suspended management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund...

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has alleged that the suspended management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), misappropriated N48billion.





He spoke on Tuesday at an investigative hearing at the House of Representatives.





Ngige stated that the management withdrew the amount through fake contracts, proceeds of which were recycled into private pockets.





The minister said there were irregular payments of salaries and allowances of N10million not in line with the condition of service of the organisation.





The former Anambra governor claimed that the suspended management went on leave abroad in first class with their spouses.





He alleged that they paid themselves N9.8million each without the approval of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).





The minister accused them of engaging the services of legal practitioners at the sum of N180million without the approval of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF).





Nigige added that they spent N146million on vehicles, and on May 31, 2020, awarded 30 contracts worth N332billion, splitted into smaller components of N49million.





The splitting, he explained, was to enable the transactions to fall within the threshold allowed by law for the management to award.





The minister added that the suspended NSITF management spent N570million on health insurance outside the National Health Insurance Scheme.





Ngige revealed that since 2012, the NSITF had not submitted records of its audited accounts to the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, in line with the extant laws.





He pointed out that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had since dragged the NSITF management to court on corruption charges.





Ngige stressed that their suspension was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, following his recommendation.





When asked to tender documentary evidence of the presidential approval, the minister only showed a letter to the lawmakers, but refused to tender it as evidence.




"Along with our partners at L Catterton, we are honored to welcome Kathy Chi Thurber as President of Saje Natural Wellness," said Kate Ross LeBlanc, Co-Founder. "I knew it would be a special person who could transition into the leadership of the business that my husband Jean-Pierre and I created nearly 30 years ago. From the moment I met Kathy, I could see she had a special synergy of authenticity, presence, and professionalism. I have every confidence that our people, product, and community are in the right hands, and that she will nurture our original vision for Global Wellness."

Kathy Chi Thurber has over 17 years of management experience working with top lifestyle and beauty brands such as L'Oreal, Starbucks, and Macy's. As a top executive at L'Oreal, Kathy led their Beauty Device Division and Clarisonic Brand as President and General Manager, bringing their vision of personalized beauty to life through consumer platforms and technologies. While at Starbucks, Kathy took on strategic opportunities to drive brand engagement, supporting their China growth strategy and iconic Starbucks Loyalty Program.

"My passion for natural wellness and working for purpose-led companies was in many ways inspired by growing up as a competitive athlete and living in the Pacific Northwest for the past 20 years," said Kathy Chi Thurber. "When looking to enhance mental, physical, and environmental well-being, we are fortunate to have access to all-natural and safe products as well as abundant natural outdoor spaces. That isn't the case for everyone, but I believe we are at the tipping point in a significant shift in consumer demand towards products that are clean, sustainable, and focused on putting the health of our families and homes, first. Saje is a trailblazer in these areas and I couldn't be more grateful to be taking it on its next step to becoming a household name that prioritizes physical and emotional wellness for all."

Saje Natural Wellness was founded in Vancouver, BC in 1992. For many years, Saje expanded slowly across Canada as they pioneered efforts and led the essential oil industry while Health Canada created a category within the Natural Health Product Regulations to encompass essential oil-based medicinal products. As awareness of essential oils grew and the wellness industry began to expand globally, Saje started seeing explosive growth in Canada and online in the US. At this time founders Kate and Jean-Pierre LeBlanc began building plans to expand their retail footprint in the US and identified a need to bring on more professional support and leadership. In August of 2016, the LeBlancs began working with L Catterton, an American private equity company based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

"It was a very exciting time for us. Business was growing rapidly and we knew that we were reaching a point in the Saje story where it was time to expand beyond our original entrepreneurial roots," said LeBlanc. "L Catterton had experience driving the growth of a diverse group of consumer brands into the US and internationally. More importantly they joined my family and me in our commitment to Saje's vision, mission, and culture. They have been incredible partners that have helped us achieve the level of success we have, and we are honoured to be stepping into our roles as members of the Board and entrusting our future business growth to Kathy's leadership."

About Saje Natural Wellness

Saje Natural Wellness believes that all humans deserve physical and emotional wellness. For over 25 years, Saje has been creating 100% natural, plant-based, personal-care products for your home and overall well-beingincluding support for your stress, sleep, pain and symptoms of coughs and colds. Every Saje product contains pure botanical ingredients that are free of any harmful preservatives, parabens, petrochemicals, synthetic fragrances, and additives or fillers. Saje was founded in 1992, opening its first store in Vancouver, BC, and has since expanded their experience-based retail locations across North America and online. To learn more about the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle, connect with their growing community at saje.com , @SajeWellness and #SpreadWellness.

About L Catterton

With approximately $20 billion of equity capital across seven fund strategies in 17 offices globally, L Catterton is the largest consumer-focused private equity firm in the world. L Catterton's team of nearly 200 investment and operating professionals partners with management teams around the world to implement strategic plans to foster growth, leveraging deep category insight, operational excellence, and a broad thought partnership network. Since 1989, the firm has made over 200 investments in leading consumer brands. L Catterton was formed through the partnership of Catterton, LVMH, and Groupe Arnault. For more information about L Catterton, please visit www.lcatterton.com.

SOURCE Saje Natural Wellness
Mike Pompeo

Attacking China for its aggressive moves against its neighbours, including "instigating" a deadly confrontation with India in eastern Ladakh, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Beijing cannot threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas.

Speaking at a news conference in London on Tuesday, Pompeo said China was one of the important parts of his discussions with his British counterpart Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

You can't go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You can't threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. You can't engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organisation, Pompeo said.

Pompeo's comment on Chinese bullying of its Himalayan neighbours came in response to a question if the US would like the UK to do more to confront China.

I don't think about it that way; we don't think about it that way. We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order, he said.

We talked about how we've seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed. We've watched the CCP bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India, Pompeo said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5. The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

China recently staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council and opposed funding to the project.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The discussions between Pompeo and Raab came hours after the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to a controversial security law imposed by China in the former British territory.

He praised the UK for its recent decision on China in particular those related to Hong Kong and banning Huawei from the UK's 5G networks.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the British government for its principled responses to these challenges. You made a sovereign decision to ban Huawei from future 5G networks. You've joined other free nations to condemn China's broken promises on the Sino-British treaty, he said.

The US wants to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy and values that and knows that it is important to their own people, their own sovereign country to be successful, to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them and to work both themselves and collectively to restore what is rightfully theirs, he said.

Describing his meeting with Raab as productive, Pompeo said that they talked about the challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the COVID-19 virus that originated from Wuhan, China.

"On behalf of the American people, I want to extend my condolences to the British people for your losses from this preventable pandemic. The CCP's exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi (Jinping) has shown the world the party's true face," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, during his interaction with London-based think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, described the Chinese military's aggressive activities "destabilising" and said America was "very closely" monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

Esper also highlighted the "increased" military cooperation with India and called it as "one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century."

In his address, Esper said China has a catalogue of bad behaviour which accompanies a pattern of its brazen disregard for international commitments, from its failure to uphold its obligations under the World Trade Organization to regularly disrespecting the rights of other nations under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention.

Esper called on China's leaders to abide by the international laws and norms that China and the Chinese people have benefited greatly from over the years.

We are committed to a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China and within our defence relationship to open lines of communication and risk reduction, Esper said.
Kim Jae-ryun, a lawyer representing a government employee who was allegedly harassed by former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon when she was his secretary, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, Wednesday./ Yonhap





By Kim Se-jeong







A lawyer representing a former secretary of the late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, who filed a sexual harassment complaint against him with police, rejected taking part in the Seoul Metropolitan Government's planned investigation into the allegations, Wednesday, instead asking the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) to look into the case.







"It is inappropriate for the city to investigate the case. Instead it should be held accountable for its failures," Kim Jae-ryun said at a press conference in Seoul, the second press such following one July 13.







"The victim reached out to almost 20 officials in the government for help over more than four years. But, the system within the administration made her stay silent," added Lee Mi-kyoung, director of the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center. "We don't see how city employees will speak the truth to a city-led investigation team and how a fair investigation can be conducted. We believe the NHRCK is the right party to investigate the case. We are planning to submit a request next week."







Following the press conference, the city government announced it will cancel the scheduled investigation. It also promised to comply with any findings by the human rights commission's investigation team.







On July 15, one week after Park committed suicide, the city government had announced plans for a joint investigation into the harassment allegations. Although it promised fairness by inviting outside experts to join the team, few of these were willing to participate.







The former mayor was found dead on a mountainside in Seoul, June 9, two days after the former secretary reported the sexual harassment to police.







Police are not expected to investigate the harassment case but many people believe he killed himself because of the allegations. The victim claimed Park groped her in his office and sent her naked photos of himself through Instagram.







However, officers are investigating the cause of his death and looking into why the city government refused to check out her repeated complaints.







They are also trying to find out who told Park about the accusation  the former mayor disappeared before an official notification took place; and it is illegal for a civil servant to leak such information. The National Police Agency and Cheong Wa Dae said they were aware of the accusation in advance but denied sharing it with Park. His gender adviser in the city government is also denying she tipped him off.







During Wednesday's press conference, Kim offered new information regarding the accusation  she said the legal team had initially contacted the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.







"Prosecutors made it difficult to arrange a meeting, so we contacted the police," she said.







Sexual harassment cases involving high-ranking government officials are rattling Korean society, a "traditionally patriarchal" one.







Meanwhile, a lower court in Seoul rejected a police request for a warrant to search offices in the city government building. Earlier this week, it also rejected a request to forensically examine Park's phone records.


(Newser)  President Trump announced Wednesday that he will send federal agents into Chicago and Albuquerque to help combat rising crime, expanding the administrations intervention in local enforcement as he runs for reelection under a "law-and-order" mantle. Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the "radical left," even though criminal justice experts say the increase in violence in some cities defies easy explanation, the AP reports. "In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle, and dissolve our police departments," Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for "a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders, and heinous crimes of violence." "This bloodshed must end," he said. This bloodshed will end.

story continues below

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot initially objected to the deployment, but later said she and other local officials had spoken with federal authorities and come to an understanding. "Ive been very clear that we welcome actual partnership," the Democratic mayor said Tuesday. "But we do not welcome dictatorship. We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents. That is something I will not tolerate." In New Mexico, meanwhile, Democratic elected officials cautioned Trump against plans to send dozens of federal agents to the state, with Sen. Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, who will be at the White House on Wednesday, to resign. He accused the sheriff of "inviting the president's stormtroopers into Albuquerque."

(Read more Trump administration stories.)
Media watchdogs say the latest case is part of a broader attack on press freedom under the Duterte administration.

Maria Ressa, a journalist who runs a Philippine news website known for its tough scrutiny of President Rodrigo Duterte, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to tax evasion charges in a case media watchdogs have described as part of a broader attack on press freedom in the country.

Ressas latest court appearance is over accusations that her news website Rappler falsified tax returns by omitting the proceeds of a sale of depositary receipts to foreign investors, which later became the basis of the securities regulators attempt to revoke the organisations licence.

The regulator claims the sale of the depositary receipts was a scheme by Rappler to allow foreigners to illegally own shares in a domestic media firm.

Pleaded NOT GUILTY, Ressa, a citizen of both the United States and the Philippines, said in a tweet on Wednesday. She and her website face several other charges.

In another post, Ressa, who was wearing a face mask, said that she had taken extra precautions following news that some personnel in the court, where her case was heard, had contracted the coronavirus disease.

Rappler, a startup, says foreigners never owned shares, but were allowed to invest without voting rights or involvement in its operations. Rappler is still operating pending its appeal against its licence being revoked.

Media under pressure

Ressa, a Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2018 for fighting media intimidation, was convicted of cyber libel last month and sentenced to up to six years in prison, a ruling widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms. She is free on bail while she appeals the decision.

Rappler has repeatedly challenged the accuracy of Dutertes public statements and his justifications for his controversial policies.

It has also reported on alleged atrocities in his war on drugs and probed what it says are massive, state-orchestrated social media hate campaigns against Dutertes critics.

In a statement posted online, graduates of Princeton University in the US, where Ressa once studied, condemned the phoniness of the charges against her, and urged Washington, DC to put more pressure on the Duterte administration to drop all the charges.

Authoritarians throughout the ages routinely attack the press as the enemy, a strategy calculated to avoid accountability and undermine democracy, they said.

Duterte has publicly lashed out at Rappler, calling it a fake news outlet sponsored by American spies.

Media watchdogs and human rights activists say the charges against Ressa are part of a broader strategy to silence or humiliate opponents of Duterte.





Earlier this month, his allies in Congress voted overwhelmingly in favour of denying top broadcaster ABS-CBNs bid to renew its 25-year licence, an outcome that Duterte had repeatedly promised would happen because of its refusal to air some of his election campaign commercials.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque says Duterte supports freedom of speech and any media facing legal cases are for doing so because they broke the law, not as a result of their reporting.

Duterte has also signed into law new anti-terror legislation, which critics say was rushed through Congress in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

Activists, human rights groups and the opposition have warned that the new law could also be used to silence dissent, aside from legitimate violators of the countrys national security regulations.
Court stops new Tennessee heartbeat abortion ban from taking effect

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A judge blocked a new Tennessee law that would ban abortion in most circumstances once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is often around six weeks into a pregnancy.

Governor Bill Lee signed House Bill 2263, also known as Senate Bill 2196, into law on Monday, which included an exemption for life-threatening medical emergency.

Judge William Campbell of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a temporary restraining order soon after that will last until July 27, pending a possible future order.

Campbell argued that the pro-choice plaintiffs, who had filed legal action against the legislation before it had become law, had shown that they will suffer immediate and irreparable injury, harm, loss, or damage if injunctive relief is not granted pending a preliminary injunction hearing.

The Act will immediately impact patients seeking abortions and imposes criminal sanctions on abortion providers. The time-sensitive nature of the procedure also weighs in favor of injunctive relief pending a preliminary injunction hearing, concluded the judge.

The American Civil Liberties Union, who filed suit against the law along with the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and others, celebrated the temporary restraining order.

This is a critical win for people in Tennessee who will not lose access to their constitutional right to abortion, said Anjali Dalal, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, in a statement.

But we cannot lose sight of the big picture: that it took a court order to stop these politicians from pursuing a ruthless anti-abortion agenda in the middle of a pandemic, passing a ban that would disproportionately harm Black and brown people.

In remarks just before signing the bill into law, Governor Lee defended the measure by saying that life is precious and everything that is precious is worth protecting.

Its our responsibility to protect the most vulnerable in our community and certainly the most vulnerable in Tennessee includes the unborn, he said in a video posted to Twitter.

Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser supported the governor signing the heartbeat bill into law, seeing it as part of a broader trend of state-level victories.

We are pleased to see this pro-life legislation signed into law  it includes some of the strongest protections for unborn children in the nation, and is the latest evidence that pro-life support is surging throughout the states, stated Dannenfelser, as reported by LifeNews.com.

As Joe Biden and other party leaders continue to promote taxpayer-funded abortion on demand and even infanticide, we are encouraged that pro-life lawmakers in the states continue to be motivated to promote strong pro-life policies.
Srinagar, July 22 : The Jammu and Kashmir Police along with Army and CRPF have arrested three terrorist associates linked to proscribed terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed(JeM) at a checkpoint from Chadoora in Central Kashmir's Budgam district on Wednesday.

Police said the operation was conducted on the basis of a credible input.

Those arrested have been identified as Javaid Ahmad Bhat, resident of Pulwama, Ajaz Wani, resident of Chitroo Dangerpora and Aqib Ganaie, resident of Khansaib.

Police said incriminating materials including 40 rounds of AK-47, two detonators and three JeM matrix sheets have been recovered from their possession.

"All the recovered materials have been taken into case records for further investigation and to probe their role and complicity in other terror crimes," police said.

Police said as per its records they were involved in providing logistic support and shelter to the active terrorists of proscribed terror outfit JeM operating in the area.

Police has filed an FIR and further investigation in the case has been initiated.
Along with the foreign money pouring in, a big piece of the momentum, as in many Chinese rallies, is fueled by ordinary investors who have few options to build their savings except for property and stocks. There are more than 160 million trading accounts in China, and the majority are held by retail investors who make less than $700 a month, according to a state media survey.

Its just like gambling, said Wu Hao, a small-time investor from Beijing who rode another remarkable rally in Chinese stocks, in 2015. Mr. Wus investment more than tripled. Brave people can make money, he said. But when the market crashed, he lost $2,800.

Now small fry like Mr. Wu and foreign whales with billions of dollars alike are watching the same elements of delirium in the market and wondering: Have we seen this movie before?

Some investors have indeed reversed course, acknowledging the realities of investing in a country whose government has the power to inflate and deflate stocks at will. The market has been punctuated by huge swells one day, as state media talk up a bull run, and sudden plunges the next, as officials warn of irrational exuberance.

Yet even with the ups and downs of recent weeks, Chinas stock market is worth a quarter more than it was a year ago, bringing tremendous wealth to investors. The collective value is hovering around a $10 trillion marker. That was how much it was worth in June 2015, right before a crash prompted hasty reactions from Chinas regulators and set in motion a global sell-off.
Webinar

The hot topics passionately discussed in the industry puts a spotlight on a competition that has started a long time ago. Hoteliers argue that their services and amenities are standardized and superior; cleaning standards and licenses ensure a safe and secure stay. Vacation rentals want to appeal to travelers looking for unique experiences where social distancing is perfected.

What does the data say behind these arguments?

What segment are customers searching for and booking?

The leading benchmarking and data insights providers: STR & AIRDNA will share their perspective on the current state of the industry as well as a future outlook. Additionally, both will dive into specific, global markets for a side by side comparison.

Join this webinar to gain valuable insights into the performance and critical trends of millions of Vacation Rentals and Hotels worldwide.

Presenters

Scott Shatford Founder & CEO of AirDNA Building on his 15 years of experience as a data analyst at Korn Ferry and an Airbnb real estate investor, Scott founded AirDNA, the world's leading provider of short-term vacation rental data and analytics, to help hosts, investors and property managers use data to make the most of the short-term rental market.

Long considered to be an industry expert in vacation rentals, Scott is a vocal short-term rental advocate who regularly speaks at ULI, ALIS, and NYU Hospitality Conference, and is cited as a leading authority on the global impacts and opportunities created by Airbnb in Forbes, WIRED, The Guardian and The New York Times.

Robin Rossmann Managing Director, STR Robin Rossmann is Managing Director of STR, leading its operations across EMEA, APAC and LATAM. Robin is focused on continuing to improve the way STR provides the hotel industry with robust and insightful performance benchmarking that enables stakeholders to make better decisions. Robin has over 15 years' focussed hotel sector experience, including 13 at Deloitte where he advised on hotel strategy, business planning, investment appraisal, market reviews, financial and commercial due diligence, IPOs, debt advisory, valuation, financial assurance, controls improvement and risk management.

Sebastien Leitner Vice President Strategic Partnerships at Cloudbeds Sebastien Leitner, VP Partnerships at Cloudbeds, heads up strategic initiatives, global partnerships and industry relations. Sebastien's team partners with solution providers, guest experience and engagement tools, distribution partners, and new technologies that enhance the guest stay. These partnerships compliment and upgrade Cloudbeds' value proposition while automating and simplifying hosts and hoteliers workflows. His team also oversees Cloudbeds public appearances, relationships with industry partners and associations.

Sebastien has been a board member of HEDNA since January 2014. He is currently serving as President for HEDNA. Sebastien speaks English, German, and French. He is based in Montreal, Canada where he lives with his family and his black labrador.

Webinar: CloudTalks Special Edition: Vacation Rentals vs Hotels is organized by
Ayushmann Khurrana says he and Tahira are deeply and emotionally invested in Gulmeher. All praises for the organisation, Ayushmann adds that this is a step in the right direction.

Bollywood star Ayushmann Khurrana is empowering women ragpickers in New Delhi this Raksha Bandhan. Ayushmann and Tahira have for years supported a non-profit organisation, Gulmeher, that looks to make such women self-reliant by fuelling their inner passion in arts and crafts. It is a womens collective of waste-pickers turned artisans. The NGO works with about 200 women ragpickers and this contribution will help them look after themselves and their families.

The women of Gulmeher have taken it upon themselves to make and sell Rakhis, proceeds of which will go towards their well-being and sustenance. Ayushmann has lent his support again to the cause and is trying to bring in as much attention for them.

The Article 15 actor shares, Tahira and I are deeply and emotionally invested in Gulmeher. The organisation is doing outstanding work to support this needy segment of population in Delhi. With the pandemic, they are most at risk and are also economically vulnerable. Their flow of income has been impacted greatly.

Also Read: #20in2020: Priyanka Chopra completes 20 years in industry, asks fans to join celebrations

Also Read: Nepotism debate rages on: Netizens dig Kangana Ranauts old videos downplaying privilege

He further adds Rakhi symbolises love and a bond between brothers and sisters. Them making rakhis for the fellow citizens of our country to buy and support their cause symbolises a celebration of self-reliance. Lets support our fellow brothers and sisters. We want to empower them so that they can have various avenues to generate income & support their families. We feel thats a step in the right direction.

Also Read: Shakuntala Devi song Pass Nahi Toh Fail Nahi: Vidya Balan spreads cheer among students

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Actress Amber Heard told Londons High Court on Tuesday she punched her ex-husband Johnny Depp because she feared he would push her sister downstairs, as the American actress alleged he had done to his former girlfriend, model Kate Moss.

Heard, 34, is giving evidence on behalf of the Sun newspaper whose publisher, News Group Newspapers, is being sued by her former husband Depp for libel over a 2018 article which labelled him a wife beater.

She says the 57-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star attacked her on at least 14 occasions, threatened many times to kill her, and that he slapped, punched, head-butted, throttled and kicked her when he became the monster - a violent and jealous alter ego fuelled by excessive drinking or drug-taking.

Depp denies hitting Heard and says the claims are a hoax and he was the victim of her assaults.

On her second day in the witness box, Heard was questioned about an incident in March 2015 when she hit Depp during an argument at their Los Angeles penthouse. She said it was the first time she stood up to him and she believed Depp was about to push her sister Whitney down the stairs.

And the moment that happened I remembered information I had heard (that) he pushed a former girlfriend  I believe it was Kate Moss  down the stairs, Heard told the court.

The memory had come to her in a flash and she reacted to defend her sister, she said.

Depps lawyer Eleanor Laws said this was the first time Heard had mentioned any recollection of the alleged stairs incident and it had not appeared in any of her previous statements.

I have never changed my story, said Heard, but agreed she had not said it before.

Regarding another alleged incident in Australia, Laws put it to Heard that Depp could not have grabbed her hair with one hand and punched her with the other because one hand was in a cast.

Heard said Depp had struck her with the cast, prompting Laws to query why she had never stated this allegation before.
The Telangana government on Wednesday appointed Santoshi, the widow of Colonel Santosh Babu who was killed in clashes with Chinese troops in Ladakhs Galwan valley last month, as a deputy collector, the chief ministers office said.

The chief minister has instructed officials concerned to post Santoshi in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas, the CMO said.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao handed over the appointment letter to her.

Earlier on June 22, Rao had said that the Telangana government would extend all support to the family of Colonel Babu. He had then appointed Santoshi as a Group-I officer during a visit to Suryapet town to see the family of the fallen soldier.

The letter in June did not mention the designation and posting. Power minister G Jagadish Reddy had said that Santoshi would be given a posting in whatever department she would feel comfortable.

Colonel Santosh Babu who was the commanding officer of the 16th battalion of the Bihar Regiment and 19 other soldiers were killed in a violent clash with Chinese troops on the night of June 15 along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Galwan valley. An unknown number of Chinese troops were also killed in the clash.

Last week, defence minister Rajnath Singh met soldiers from that battalion in Ladakh and acknowledged their bravery.
The former commander of a private militia unit was sentenced to 8 months in federal prison Tuesday for illegally possessing firearms.

Paul Nicholas III, 49, of Harrisburg, was barred from having guns because of a prior felony conviction, U.S. Attorney David Freed said. Yet, he said that in February 2018 Nicholas was caught with three rifles and a pistol. He pleaded guilty in the case.

At the time of his arrest, Nicholas was commander of the 41st Battalion of the Light Foot Militia in central Pennsylvania, Freed said.

In addition to the prison term, which Nicholas is to start serving on Aug. 17, U.S. Middle District Senior Judge Sylvia H. Rambo ordered him to spend 3 years on probation.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday that the United States and China can still work together against North Korea's development of weapons of mass destruction, despite tensions between Washington and Beijing.

"North Korea's weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs undermine our shared strategic interest in peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. China agrees that diplomacy is the preferred approach to resolving the issue of North Koreas denuclearization," Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said.

"While there is much more China could do to enforce binding sanctions and prevent sanctions evasion  and we will continue to engage the Chinese on that issue," the number two diplomat at the State Department told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He said China has reduced trade with North Korea and made efforts to urge Pyongyang to engage with the United States on a "diplomatic process to bring peace and prosperity to all who live on the Korean Peninsula."

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)
Is the end nigh for institutional Christianity?

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The end seems nigh for conservative institutional Christianity.

Catastrophic... seismic... the opening of a Pandoras Box...

These were some of the terms used by experts who focus on law and religious liberty as they sought to describe the impact of the Supreme Courts June 15 landmark ruling that now includes sex as a factor in hiring and firing, along with race, religion, and national origin.

Today, said Justice Neil Gorsuch, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. He and a majority of his fellow SCOTUS judges found that basing employment decisions on sex or sexual orientation, including gender identity, is indeed discriminatory, based on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Princeton jurisprudence professor Robert George called the decision catastrophic because it will undermine respect for the rule of law.

Russell Moore, leader of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, was concerned that precedents would create confusion. The public meaning of words changes and the Supreme Courts decision in 2020 could mean that future legislators wont know what they are voting to pass.

Whatever the complexities and ambiguities of legal language, for many churches and related religious organizations, it will be apostasy or the arena, compromise or the catacombs.

Jesus shocked His followers one day when they were marveling at the mighty edifice of the Jerusalem Temple. But, warned the Lord, the time will come when not one stone will be left upon another.

This was unimaginable to the disciples. The Temple was the sanctuary, fortress, and repository for all that defined their civilization.

Jesus prophecy came true in 70 AD, resulting in the slaughter of many Jews.

In our time there are people who would celebrate the end of institutional Christianity. But their celebrations would be based on a shallow understanding. The problem is not institutions, but institutionalism, which is an all-consuming, compromise-inducing focus on the survival of the institution, whatever the cost.

In fact, a societys health is proportional to the health of its key institutions. In the Christian worldview these are Family, Church, Education, and Vocation.

But the problem with institutions is that they are fat targets for lawsuits.

Jesus told His disciples what would happen in a period when the stones come tumbling down:

At that time many will fall away and will betray one another. Many false prophets will arise and mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most peoples love will grow cold... But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:10-13)

How, then, can churches endure when institutions are assaulted by the wrecking balls of litigation?

The answer: Take away the target.

This brings us back to the topic of the first century Roman catacombs. The early church endured through the cataclysms of Roman persecution, not necessarily in institutional form, but in dynamic community.

Church leaders now must focus on readying their congregations to function primarily as living organisms rather than inert structures.

This does not mean that there is no institutional form. That structureless condition would only foster chaos and more confusion. The concern is graphically illustrated in Ezekiels vision of the valley of dry bones. (Ezekiel 37)

The prophet sees himself set down in an arid place littered with dried-out bones. In the vision, God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones that God will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. Ezekiel does as ordered. Even before the words are out of his mouth, he hears the rattling of bones coming together.

In the midst of it all, God commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath and call to the four winds to breathe on the slain (bones), that they come to life.

Ezekiel watches as the once-scattered bones are joined, stand on their feet, and become an exceedingly great army.

This vision teaches powerful lessons for churches in the challenging moment we inhabit.

Towns and cities are littered now with the dry bones of religious institutions in scattered disarray, apparently powerless to deal with the crises sweeping toward them. Extremists on one side call for all the institutional forms of the faith to come down, while those in the other extremes want all the focus and resources to be given to buttress the stones of institutionalism.

But Ezekiels vision reveals that structure must be made to be filled with the wind  the Spirit  of God. Institutional structure is dead and useless without the breath.

But the wind must have structure lest it be dissipated in the desert.

Churches must prepare now for the day when not one institutional stone is left upon another.

Jesus spoke to His disciples not only about stones, but also about wineskins. Institutionalism was again the issue  the institution of the Sabbath. He had been criticized by the religious establishment for working on the Sabbath by healing people and sanctioning His disciples as they plucked grain to eat and seemed to forego fasting.

Jesus said to the critics: No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins. (Mark 2:21-22 NASB)

Who knows but that God may be using our difficult cultural period and its upheavals to bring forth a new wineskin?
Press Release

July 22, 2020 Transcript of ANC's interview with Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon Headstart with Ms. Karen Davila Q: What are you expecting from the President's SONA? SFMD: This coming SONA next week is one of the most important state of the nation addresses that people would be witness to. For the first time in our history, we have a pandemic in our midst: 70,764 Filipinos were affected as of yesterday, deaths running to 1,837. That's on the health side. On the economic side, we have 5 million of our people unemployed, 40 percent of our MSMEs closed. According to SWS, which came out in today's media, 5.2 million Filipinos experienced involuntary hunger in the last three months, the highest in the last five years. Unfortunately, this is the situation that confronts us today. Therefore, I would like to hear the President lay out a comprehensive plan that the people would be looking for and would be guided by, including us in the legislature. Unfortunately, the only solution that we see today is the continuous and repeated lockdowns. A lockdown, to my understanding, is to give us time to plan and implement things. That's an end by itself, because if it's an end by itself, you kill the economy and you kill people because of hunger. I would like personally to hear comprehensive plans on the part of the administration how we address this. Let's call a spade a spade. Secretary Duque today lacks credibility to be able to command people to do things. He cannot influence decisions. On the other hand, I don't see any of the economic team in the IATF deliberations. Maybe they are somewhere in the background. Given the fact of the effect of the pandemic in our economy, they should be in the forefront together with our health sector. This is our problem today. We are waiting for a comprehensive plan. Today as I've said, we are still grappling. Q: Would you consider that the IATF has failed? SFMD: Yes, we call a spade a spade. Look at where we are today: 70,000 cases, increasing every day. The prediction is it will be over 80,000 by the end of the month. Q: How would you want the President to address that? He has repeatedly stood by Sec. Duque. You have Sec. Galvez and Ano as I would say leaders there. You would see Sec. Dominguez but he is not a frontliner in the IATF. SFMD: Rather than go into personalities, I would rather like to hear the comprehensive plan of the President. The matter of being in the IATF is a matter of confidence of the President. The influence of Duque and his credibility is something that is lagging today. By saying that the IATF is a failure, what would you want to hear from them? What would a plan entail? For example on the economic side, how much do we need to stimulate the economy? Where do we source these funds? Which side of the equation we stimulate? Where do we source the funds? Do we source it from taxes or borrowings? To my mind, all these policy issues should be addressed by the President, because the IATF failed to address them. Q: The HoR is eyeing a P1.3 trillion stimulus fund but the DOF said it is too high. In Bayanihan 2, what does it really contain? SFMD: You raise the very core issue: how much do we need to stimulate the economy? The House of Representative says it's P1.3 trillion while Sec. Dominguez said we cannot afford more than P140 billion. This is a policy which I would like the President to address, so that we will have direction. Do we increase taxes or do we borrow some more? We would like a guidance from the President and the people would like to see where we stand and where the government wants us to go. There is no solution to this but we have to take the bull by the horn and have proposals that will guide us. Today we have not unfortunately. Q: Do you see the Philippines heading into recession? SFMD: There is no question. The economies define recession as two quarters of economic contraction. In the first quarter, we already contracted by 0.2% and for the second quarter prediction is worse. This means that the next six months will be a question of how to survive. They say that to survive in today's situation is already a success. We must be able to survive so that we can set the stage for economic recovery. On the health sector, I would like to have seen that the lockdown would be used to strengthen our health capability. I didn't see any. What are our plans in the future? How do we intend to fund the UHC so that when another pandemic of this nature would come around, our health sector is more prepared? Today we see in the news that our bed capacity being in the maximum and our health sector being burdened. It has not yet collapsed but I hope it does not get to that. We should have a comprehensive plan to prepare ourselves in case something like this happens again. You just said we should have a comprehensive plan so that the country is prepared if this happens again. That is exactly the reasoning of the DILG in proposing that we have constitutional reform. The DILG has said that it is time to have constitutional reforms to implement the Mandanas ruling so that LGUs will be receiving more. The real intention is in the headlines today. It says that the proposal is to increase to five years the term of local government officials and no term limit. Constitutional reform is always a divisive issue. What we need today is food rather than Cha-cha. You know five million Filipinos experiencing hunger for the past three months, is Cha-cha the solution? Let us see what the intention is. The headline today said the purpose is to lift the term limit and increase their term by five years. Is this the solution? May I ask? The reasoning that the Mandanas be institutionalized does not hold water. The Mandanas ruling being the interpretation of the Supreme Court of what it means of national taxes is already institutionalized. In other words, while ordinary, the Congress can change the decision of the Supreme Court by passing another. In this particular case, we cannot pass a law, which says that national taxes should be limited to the BIR collections. Why? Because a decision of the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution cannot be overcome by passing an ordinary law. On the lifting of foreign investment restrictions, I am not against that. In the Senate, I have led the Senate in passing the legislation, which would liberalize investment. That is not the reason why we are not getting investment. In the recent past, none of those leaving China is coming to the Philippines. You have Indonesia, Vietnam attracting them. I am sure it is not because of restrictions on foreign ownership. Maybe some but I am sure the majority of those locating in other countries would be looking at other factors. Q: Why do you think, because the Philippines is a bedrock of democracy? If it is not foreign ownership, what is it then? SFMD: Infrastructure, for one. Our telecom facilities for another. We have a very inefficient telecom industry. Q: You are right, but how about the political climate? SFMD: They look at stability of both in policy and structure. As long as it is stable, the bottom line is what counts, what they look for is stability. They can operate in an environment better where there is stability rather than changes in policy from time to time. Q: Is the closure of the biggest media network a factor? SFMD: Certainly. It is a factor. The closure of ABS-CB is a factor because the closure is directly related to the political decision. The refusal of the House of Representatives to grant an extension of the franchise notwithstanding the fact that there are similar instances in the past that were treated differently. It is the stability and the predictability of policy, which the investors are looking for. Q: No less than Speaker Cayetano said that the reason why the political dynasty is because of the term limit? SFMD: I do not subscribe to that. Whether or not there is a term limit, so long as we have no implementing legislation on the anti-political dynasty provision of the Constitution, we will have a problem of political dynasties. It is the desire to hold on to political power rather than the term limit that is the cause of these dynasties. Q: There are already rumors, it seems to be organized, saying that Sen. Pangilinan should be replaced. SFMD: You got it correctly - an organized social media campaign. The Senate President has said there is no such plan. Sen. Pangilinan stated it very clearly: as long as the majority in the Senate maintains confidence in Sen. Pangilinan, there is no change. Nothing is written in stone. We hold the minority committee chairs on the will of the majority. Q: Are you seeing a move in the Senate towards Cha-cha? SFMD: I do not see anything. I have not heard any. I have not heard any move to reorganize. The Senate President said that is not a priority. Secretary Roque said it is not a priority of the President. Let's take it at that point. Q: You are often mentioned regarding the anti-terror law, supporters of the anti-terror law said that if the measure has constitutional infirmities it would not have passed Senator Franklin Drilon. Why did you support Sen. Lacson's bill? SFMD: I supported the bill. First, the Human Securities Act was not effective because it was crafted in the manner that was not well debated. For example, the fine of P500,000 a day for the error of law enforcers in cases of erroneous detention. What has happened is for the last 10 years or so, there was not a single prosecution. When Senator Lacson presented the bill supported by the majority. The pendulum was shifted to the other side and became very restrictive. What did I do? I presented bout 14 amendments in order to address the issue of human rights and, at the same time, address the security of the state, because terrorism is a matter that we must all confront. I did my best. I had no ulterior motive. My only motive was to try to balance the need to preserve the human rights and bill of rights versus the need of the state to preserve itself. I did my best. I consulted a number of people and when came out with a number of amendments. I had only one vote. I voted to support those policy considerations but also for a tactical reason. Under our rules in the Senate, unless you vote in the affirmative you cannot become a member of the bicam. Q: So you had another agenda, so to speak SFMD: Yes, I wanted to be a member of the bicam so I could protect and probably to enhance some more the safeguards that we placed. Under our rules, I repeat, I could not be a member of the bicam and be able to influence the final result of the bill unless I voted in the affirmative. That is the tactical reason. That is the tactical reason. Unfortunately the HoR said we accept the version and therefore there was no bicam. I am only one of the 23 senators. I could not have prevented its passage. So what did it do? Try to make the best out of the situation. I really took time to review it and see what I can include in the bill to protect the right of the people against the incursions of the state and the police. Q: Do you believe it can be abused? SFMD: Abuse is, as you would note, in the implementation of the law. I do not deny that the implementers can abuse the law. That is why it is brought to the Supreme Court. These are all questions that would be brought to the Supreme Court. Q: On the deaths of inmates and on the BuCor chief being uncooperative by refusing to provide details SFMD: I am tempted to say fire him and dismiss him, because he appears to be oblivious of the issue of public interest. We lawyers have that principle in public offices, public officials are presumed to be performing their official functions. However, that presumption of the BuCor because of the record of past anomalies that we have unearthed in the Senate, like the sale of good conduct allowance, etc. This presumption of regularity in the performance of official duties cannot be maintained, because the people have no longer confidence in the officials of BuCor. There is no basis to invoke the Data Privacy Act. Public interest is involved. It is a very specific exemption even for the living that the data privacy act will not apply when you endanger the health of the community. There is no question that COVID-19 is a pandemic that endangers the health of our people. A death is not among the sensitive personal information that cannot be released. There must be transparency. Q: The presumption of regularity is quite difficult because there was no CCTV, no photos of the body, and the body was not opened when the body was cremated. SFMD: That is precisely the problem. It enhances the suspicion that something is amiss, something is not right and something is being hidden. Such action does not merit his continued stay in the BuCor. Q: Is it worth an investigation? SFMD: Yes, in the first place, the performance of the BuCor is still a matter that is pending in the Committee on Justice chaired by Sen. Gordon. It is part of the effort to examine the procedure in the BuCor. It should be investigated. Q: Being a lawyer, Jaybee Sebastian is the main witness against Sen. De Lima. How will this affect? SFMD: In the first place, I don't think that there is any validity in the charges against Sen. De Lima. Whether or not Sebastian is there, I don't think it would be critical. Q: Does this make her argument stronger that she should be granted jail? SFMD: As I said, whether or not Sebatian is alive, in my judgment, De Lima should be granted jail. There is no credible evidence against her. Q: Is there anything you'd like to add? SFMD: Again, I would emphasize that today we live in a crucial period. Being in the opposition is not easy, especially with the troll farms all over the place. We are willing to cooperate and provide to the best of our abilities policies that we believe can help our country get out of this difficulty. But we hope that we are listened to also. Q: This is quite interesting you, Sec. Teddy Locsin made a comment on Twitter that you are a presidential material. Is the opposition going to field a candidate and what do you think about you being a presidential material as tweeted by Sec. Locsin? SFMD: Thank you, Sec. Teddy Boy Locsin. Yes, the opposition will have a candidate. Count me out.
TDT | Manama

Bahrain Clear announced yesterday the election of its operations senior director Abdulla Abdin as Africa and Middle East Depositories Association (AMEDA) president, following the retirement of Mohamed Abdulsalam. Kuwait Clearing Company CEO Khaldoun Al Tabtabaie was elected as vice-president during the associations global meeting, which was held virtually.

On this occasion, Abdin commented: The election reflects the progressive steps undertaken by Bahrain Clear in the development of its central depository and post-trade services. Its active participation in regional and international associations re-assures confidence to all stakeholders in the capital markets sector in general and the central depository and posttrade services in particular.

AMEDA, established in 2005, is a non-profit organisation comprised of 30 central securities depositories and clearing houses across Africa and the Middle East. It was formed for the benefit of its member community, as an elective, inter-professional and regional facility, to foster a spirit of cooperation, reciprocity and harmony among members.
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With the fate of the industry unknown, agents and brokers focusing on this space have been putting in overtime to help their clients navigate a challenging environment. One broker described shedding tears with some of his clients as he listened to their stories dealing with the fallout of the coronavirus. The future prospects of this industry are likely to make both businesses and hopeful future travelers weep. Not only will travel likely not return to pre-COVID levels for some time as countries plan for future waves of the virus, but securing insurance coverage is already proving to be difficult.

For hotels, the insurance marketplace was hardening before the pandemic hit, and it has since become even more difficult to secure affordable coverage. With few insurers writing these businesses and the risks associated with hotels at all-time highs right now considering that their future occupancy rates and revenues are uncertain, insurance professionals have sounded off to Insurance Business on the fact that theres not a lot of options for hotels that have remained standing during shutdowns.

In the meantime, some hoteliers have started fighting for coverage on their business interruption claims. Notably, luxury hotel company Ritz-Carlton filed a lawsuit against its insurance company Zurich North America on June 12, demanding the insurer pay for business interruption claims related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is far from the only hotel business that will challenge rejected BI claims  the recent lawsuit was filed by a limited partnership called Crescent Plaza Hotel Owner that looks to represent all the hotels insured by Zurich with similar coverage.

Read more: Ritz-Carlton sues Zurich over denied business interruption claims

Travelers, too, are running into coverage issues and will find it difficult to find travel insurance covering pandemic risks if they do get a chance to take a trip. A widespread ban on travel issued by Global Affairs Canada has led to Canadian travel insurers not issuing any individual travel health insurance for those who ignore the advisory, while UK travel insurance providers are closing their doors on new clients. In fact, travel insurance in markets around the world will be a challenge to navigate in the new normal even as buying the coverage becomes a necessity due to the uncertainties of traveling in a post-COVID world. Experts cited by Forbes recommend that individuals now buy insurance very carefully and determine exactly what theyre paying for, lest they get stuck with a canceled trip or become victims of another travel-related issue that grinds their plans to a halt.

In this increasingly tough insurance market, brokers and agents will need to be dependable advocates for their clients, whether theyre working with business owners or individuals. Not only will policyholders require more handholding to understand exactly what their policies cover and what they exclude, theyll also need to stay informed on why the marketplace is less than friendly right now to new, and even old, risks. As a result, more time will need to be devoted to each client, as brokers and agents have surely already seen, and to staying up to date on resources provided by governments and industry associations that provide guidance on risk management, best practices for returning to work, and financial assistance.

Read more: How to be at the top of your game as an insurance advisor

If theres ever been a time to consider being a specialist broker/agent, this might be it since every industry, and indeed each business, will have unique needs as they operate in this new normal. Staying on top of the developments in each industry let alone each municipality or region will prove to be a challenge for brokers and agents, and will not be for the faint of heart.

As the travel industry attempts to rebuild, those brokers and agents that prove their dedication to clients by approaching their relationships with patience, and who build a deep reserve of knowledge on useful resources and key industry developments, will be by their clients sides for the long-term.
Smart Vision Lights' RM140-4Z (kit) mini ring light with zones The machine vision industry has waited a long time to realize the full potential of cost-effective, multi-wavelength and multi-spectral imaging systems, explains Matt Pinter, founder and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Smart Vision Lights.

Smart Vision Lights (SVL), a global leader in the design and manufacture of innovative LED illumination solutions, is pleased to introduce three separate lines of short wave infrared (SWIR) LED-based machine vision lights. These lights perfectly complement the recently introduced Sony IMX990 and IMX991 SenSWIR line of cost-effective imaging sensors as well as the quantum-dot SWIR Vision Systems CQD sensor line.

Sonys IMX990 and IMX991 image sensors for industrial equipment are the first products to use the companys new SenSWIR technology, in which photodiodes form on an indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) compound semiconductor layer connected to the silicon (Si) readout layer via Cu-Cu bonding  a design that enables high sensitivity over a broad range of wavelengths. The SenSWIR design yields a SWIR image sensor that is compact yet capable of delivering seamless image capture over wavelengths ranging from 0.4 m to 1.7 m. With individual sensor pricing starting below US$1000, chips like the SenSWIR line and the recently introduced CQD sensor are poised to reshape the machine vision industry through a new era of cost-effective multispectral sortation and inspection systems.

Sonys release specifically mentions using different colored lights to capture both surface information and subsurface information using consecutive images under different illumination wavelengths. When Sony says switching light sources, they are referring to SWIR LED lighting where the emission spectrum is relatively narrow and allows easy selection as well as visible light for surface characteristics, explains Steve Kinney, Director of Engineering at Smart Vision Lights.

The machine vision industry has waited a long time to realize the full potential of cost-effective, multi-wavelength and multi-spectral imaging systems, explains Matt Pinter, founder and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Smart Vision Lights. In recent years, SVL has introduced more SWIR wavelengths  ranging from 1050 to 1550 nm  than any other machine vision lighting company. Weve also led the industrys development of multi-zone lights that combine different wavelengths in a single housing, as well as multi-light controllers, such as the LLM with Smart Vision Link wireless Bluetooth control technology, to bring all the elements together. When combined with cameras made from the SenSWIR or CQD sensor lines, our SWIR products empower machine vision system designers to develop powerful multispectral machine vision solutions for about the same price as a traditional color imaging machine vision solution. Thats a game changer, and were excited to be part of it.

Today, Smart Vision Lights offers five different SWIR wavelengths  1050 nm, 1200 nm, 1300 nm, 1450 nm, and 1550 nm  in three different form factors: linear, brick, and proximity spotlights.

To learn more about machine vision applications for SWIR solutions, check out this recent tech note on SWIR imaging, and technical information on our multi-zone lights, controllers, and other specialty lights. To learn more about our SWIR offerings or other industrial and machine vision LED light products from Smart Vision Lights, visit SmartVisionLights.com.

About Smart Vision Lights

Smart Vision Lights (Norton Shores, Michigan) is a leading designer and manufacturer of high-brightness LED lights for industrial applications, including machine vision. Smart Vision Lights products come with universal internal current-control drivers, offering constant or strobed operation, reduced wiring requirements, and easy installation. Smart Vision Lights products are also the safest on the market thanks to the companys in-house IEC 62471 light-testing laboratory, guaranteeing conformity and compliance for your lighting systems, regardless of where they are installed around the globe. Learn more at SmartVisionLights.com or by calling 231-722-1199 in the U.S.


MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A West Virginia city has agreed to settle an excessive force lawsuit filed by the family of a homeless Black man who was shot 22 times by police, an attorney said.

Christopher E. Brown, the attorney for the family of Wayne Arnold Jones, told The Washington Post that the lawsuit was settled for $3.5 million.

I promised my mother before she died that we would continue to fight for justice, Jones brother, Bruce Jones, told the newspaper. The settlement makes me feel a little bit better, but until I can have a chance to have these cops prosecuted, I am still going to be pushing for justice.

The Martinsburg Police Department said in a statement that the settlement was not an admission of guilt.

Police had stopped Wayne Jones as he was walking on a Martinsburg street. Jones was shot after police said the 50-year-old Stephens City, Virginia, resident shrugged off two jolts from a stun gun, fought with officers and stabbed one of them. The officers are white.

U.S. District Judge Gina Groh had dismissed the lawsuit. But a three-member federal appeals court panel reversed the granting of summary judgment to the officers on qualified immunity grounds last month, saying that a reasonable jury could find that Jones was both secured and incapacitated in the final moments before his death.

The court also referenced the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis after white police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee to Floyds neck for several minutes. That death prompted protests by millions of people around the world

The appeals panel noted that although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split-second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives. This has to stop.

The police departments statement said the citys insurance carrier agreed to the settlement to avoid the ongoing costs of litigation along with the stress that a trial would bring to the officers and the families of the officers and Jones.

The city of Martinsburg said in the statement that with this settlement, the City and the MPD hope everyone involved will be able to put this incident behind them and allow the community to heal.

A Berkeley County grand jury declined to indict the officers in the shooting. The U.S. Justice Department later said there was insufficient evidence to pursue criminal civil rights charges against police. Civil rights leaders had pressed for the investigation.

The Jones family has filed a separate appeal in state court seeking a grand jury investigation, Brown said.

The fact that I could tell my client that we still have a shot at criminal prosecution made the (settlement) figure very acceptable, Brown said.
Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) is expected to release the Maharashtra SSC results 2020 within the next few days. Know complete details about when, where and how to check the results.

The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) is likely to release the SSC Result or class 10 result within the next few days. Every year, the Maharashtra Board released the result of class 10 within a week of releasing the HSC Result or class 12 Result. This year MSBSHSE Pune released the HSC or class 12 result on July 16, 2020. So looking at the trend that the board follows, the HSC result is expected within the next few days.

Also, this year pass percentage is expected to improve in comparison to that of last year. Last year, MSBSHSE 10th result pass percentage hit lowest in comparison to the preceding 10 years. The pass percentage in 2019 was only 77.10 per cent. It was a decline of straight 12 per cent in the percentage of 2018. The pass percentage in 2018 was 89.41 per cent.

Check MSBSHSE SSC Result 2020 Online:

Visit the official website, mahresult.nic.in, maharashtraeducation.com, or mahahsscboard.maharashtra.gov.in. Click on the link that reads MSBSHSE SSC Result 2020. Enter login credentials that include your Roll Number. Click on the Submit button. Your subject-wise score-card will appear before you. Print/download your result for future reference.

Also read: NCERT adds abrogation of Article 370 to class 12 syllabus

Also read: Delhi University admissions 2020: NTA to conduct entrance exams from September 6

This year a total of 17,65,898 students appeared for the exams. The board is yet to announce the official dates for the release of the result. Once released, the result will be accessible to students on the official websites, mahresult.nic.in, maharashtraeducation.com, and mahahsscboard.maharashtra.gov.in.

This year, the board had to cancel the Geography exam for SSC or class 10. It was initially slated to be held on March 23 but was postponed to April 14 due to the nationwide lockdown. Later, it was cancelled as the coronavirus situation didnt improve. The board used an internal assessment scheme to evaluate and promote students.

Also read: KVS Admissions 2020: Class 1 admission forms released, know where and how to fill and other details

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Rajasthan Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas on July 22 said the Central government should play the role of a guardian, but the BJP-led NDA regime is making all efforts to topple the Congress government in the state.

They are misusing Central agencies like the CBI, Income Tax Department and Enforcement Directorate against the state government and murdering the democracy, he alleged.

It seems they have taken a pledge to topple the state government, he told reporters outside the hotel at the Jaipur-Delhi Highway where the Ashok Gehlot camp MLAs are staying.

His statement came amid a political crisis in Rajasthan due to rebellion in the Congress, which the party has been blaming on the BJP.

Also, the CBI questioned Gehlot's OSD Tuesday in connection with the alleged suicide by a police officer, while the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday raided the premises of the CM's brother in a money-laundering case.

The Central government's role should be like a guardian...it should work for farmers, labourers and people. But they want to topple the state government, Khachariyawas said.

These attempts are insult to the people of Rajasthan who gave a mandate to the Congress, he said.

This is injustice and harassment. They are not bothered about price rise, fuel price hike and the coronavirus pandemic. They are making all efforts to topple the government, the minister claimed.

He added, We are not going to be afraid. Since they have not been successful in toppling the government, they are misusing government agencies.
Hitting the sweet spot can make all the difference, especially for patients suffering from chronic sinus infection.

New instructions for using nasal sprays may help deliver at least eight times more inflammation-reducing medicine to diseased sinus tissues, according to South Dakota State University assistant mechanical engineering professor Saikat Basu. He has been using computational fluid dynamics to model aerosol sprays designed to help patients with chronic sinus problems as part of a National Institutes of Health project at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Medical School.

Basu began working with associate professor Julia S. Kimbell of the UNC Department of Otolaryngology as a postdoctoral researcher in April 2016. He has continued that collaboration since coming to SDSU in January 2019.

"Topical sprays are the first line of treatment to reduce sinus inflammation. Surgery is used only when medications no longer work," Basu said. The new protocol may help more patients get relief without resorting to sinus surgery, thereby reducing health care costs.

More than 14% of Americans have chronic sinusitis-;and those numbers are increasing, according to a July 2019 article on Medscape.com. Treating the condition costs an estimated $3.4 to $5 billion annually.

Adjusting angle, depth

The researchers found the spray nozzle should be inserted five-eighths of an inch into the nostril and be held at a 35- to 45-degree angle for optimum medication distribution.

This is a deeper insertion and a steeper angle than the current nasal spray guidelines and will result in an eight- to tenfold greater chance the medicine will reach the desired site." Saikat Basu, Assistant Mechanical Engineering Professor, South Dakota State University

He is the lead author on an article describing the aerosol modeling results in the June 2020 issue of Scientific Reports.

"When more drug reaches those critical areas, the effect should be better," said Basu, who has published nearly a dozen journal papers on intranasal transport and topical drugs.

"This study demonstrates how engineering analysis tools can revolutionize health care," said Basu, pointing out that these findings "are also relevant to intranasal vaccines that are developed to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic."

Building, validating model

To determine how to get the steroid spray to the affected sinus cavities, the research team used CT scans from chronic sinusitis patients to build 3D-printed models. Basu then computationally integrated the 3D models into ANSYS software and simulated drug transport and inhaled airflow.

"One of the challenges is the intricate structure of the nasal passages," said Basu. To overcome this challenge, he divided the nasal passages into 12 segments. Then he incorporated data on the aerosol droplet sizes, which ranged from five to 25 microns, as well the force with which the spray bottle is activated into the computational model.

"Smaller drops penetrate further into the air space," he said. "To get larger droplets to hit the target, we need to orient the spray bottle correctly."

After conferring with medical doctors, the researchers chose a narrow corridor in the sinuses called the ostiomeatal complex as the optimum location to deposit the anti-inflammatory medicine. Mucus from the upper sinus chambers drains through this channel into the lower areas beneath the cheeks, Basu explained.

To validate Basu's computational modeling experimentally, the researchers added radioactive particles to the spray to track where the droplets were deposited within the flexible 3D-printed nasal models. To replicate the spray nozzle's angle and depth of insertion into the nasal passages, the researchers used a specially designed positioning device.

In addition, a vacuum line attached to a flow valve mimicked airflow based on breathing data. "The airflow in the sinuses of these patients who were in need of sinus surgery is often compromised by their conditions," he noted. This rigorous experimental testing confirmed the accuracy of Basu's predictive model.

The next step will be to recruit patients for clinical trials. To do this, Basu and the UNC researchers are applying for further NIH funding to collaborate with medical schools at Duke University and the University of Wisconsin.
Torontos response to a petition to rename Dundas Street could lead to far-reaching anti-racism remedies, including the renaming of other city streets and squares, and the removal of monuments from public property.

Those possible outcomes  city council will decide what, if any, actions are actually taken  are in a briefing note released Tuesday by city manager Chris Murray.

The note comes amid a wave of international protests over systemic racism following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. On Saturday, Toronto police arrested activists who splattered pink paint on a number of downtown statues.

Murray, who was appointed city manager four years ago after holding the post in Hamilton, acknowledges racism in the citys protocols for honouring people.

The city of Toronto is committed to addressing the legacy of Dundas Street and establishing a process to more broadly understand and respond to how systematic racism and discrimination are embedded in city assets, commemorative programs and naming policies, he wrote.

This might ultimately touch all named city streets, parks and facilities, public monuments, and civic awards and honours, potentially leading to a variety of actions (e.g., renaming streets, removing monuments, revoking awards or reinterpreting any of these).

A Dundas review alone could also encompass Yonge-Dundas Square, two subway stations, streetcar routes, parkettes and a library branch.

Murray will present his findings and recommendations on Sept. 23 to city councils executive committee and its chair, Mayor John Tory, who tasked Murray with the report in response to the street renaming campaign.

More than 14,000 names are now on the online petition, launched in June by Toronto-based artist Andrew Lochhead, that calls the legacy of Henry Dundas, an 18th-century Scottish politician, highly problematic.

Dundas actively participated in obstructing the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and his actions cost tens of thousands of lives, if not more, the petition states.

Lochhead was inspired by calls in Edinburgh, Scotland, to remove a towering Dundas monument there.

On Tuesday, he welcomed Murrays briefing note as a small but important step toward Toronto reckoning with institutionalized anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism.

I think this is, in ways, more than what I asked for initially, Lochhead said of the wide-ranging city review.

Im very pleased to see the city undertake this process. Its a long way to go and weve got plenty of fight left, but this is important to begin.

The goal is no less than the re-examination of how we engage with public memory here at the city of Toronto. Its important that we dont separate this issue from calls to defund the police service, Black Lives Matter and broader calls for racial equality and justice.

Murrays note suggest options for city council to respond to the Dundas petition that include:

Doing nothing;

Retaining street names and adding ceremonial names;

Retaining street names but renaming three parkettes and the Dundas library branch;

Changing the names of Dundas Street East, Dundas Street West, Dundas Square and Old Dundas Street, as well as other civic assets carrying the Dundas name.

Staff are not recommending option 1, do nothing, the note adds.

If Dundas Street is renamed, Murray said council should not use the citys street-naming policy, which requires the applicant to provide an alternate new name and to get approval from three-quarters of the streets property owners.

He said an alternative process could rely more on public suggestions and input from an advisory panel with Black and Indigenous knowledge and language keepers.

The city is at a particularly turbulent moment, Murray concluded, facing calls for racial justice while COVID-19 disproportionately impacts racialized communities.

Toronto should reaffirm commitments, with necessary actions, to its Action Plan to Confront Anti-Black Racism, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canadas Calls to Action, and the Calls for Justice for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, Murray wrote.

At the midpoint of the UNs International Decade for People of African Descent, taking steps to right wrongs, challenge systematic institutionalized racism and build a more inclusive Toronto is more important than ever, he added.

Addressing the historical legacy of Dundas Street is one of these steps.

With files from Ted Fraser

David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering city hall and municipal politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider
US President Donald Trump warns citizens that the Covid-19 pandemic in the world's most badly affected nation is likely to get worse before it is contained, major regions in US in "tough position" in dealing with the spread of Coronavirus, infecting more people than expected.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday afternoon (local time) that the coronavirus outbreak in the United States will probably get worse before it gets better, Xinhua reported.

It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better, something I do not like saying about things but that is the way it is, Trump said in his first press briefing at the White House on the pandemic in nearly three months.

Some areas of our country are doing very well, others are doing less well, he told reporters, adding, unfortunately now Florida is in a little tough  or in a big tough position.

More than 3.8 million people in the United States have infected with the virus, with more than 141,000 deaths, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University, as some states, including Florida, are seeing a surge in cases.

Also read: US sanctions 11 Chinese companies over Uyghur persecution in Xinjiang

Also read: Ugly faces: US, China embassies lash out at each other in Myanmar

Trump, who did not wear a mask giving the briefing, acknowledged that masks are effective in containing the spread of coronavirus, adding that he has no problem with it.

Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. They will have an effect and we need everything we can get, he said.

We are asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask, he added.

Also read: Oxford Universitys Covid-19 drug shows positive results in clinical trials

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:00:06|Editor: huaxia

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by Xinhua writer Gao Wencheng

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Washington's abrupt and unilateral demand on Beijing to close China's Consulate General in Houston constitutes a brazen provocation, and an unprecedented escalation in its scheme to sabotage bilateral relations.

Condemning Washington's move as "outrageous and unjustified," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday that the United States has seriously violated international law and the basic norms of international relations, as well as the bilateral consular agreement, deliberately undermining relations between the two countries.

It is not the first time that Washington has intentionally bullied China's diplomatic missions in the United States. Well before this recent political provocation, the U.S. side, according to Wang, has imposed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese diplomats, even searching diplomatic bags without permission and seizing official articles.

In stark contrast, the Chinese side has always facilitated the normal operation of U.S. diplomatic missions in China according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, key treaties forming the core of international diplomatic and consular law.

In fact, the demand to close the Consulate General in Houston is just the tip of the iceberg of the White House's ever-expanding anti-China campaign.

Since assuming power, the current U.S. administration has turned increasingly hostile toward China. It has tried to contain China on a wide range of areas from trade to 5G technologies, and flagrantly interfered with the country's internal affairs on issues related to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.

Over recent months, Washington, in a desperate attempt to find scapegoats for its hellish pandemic response, has launched a shameful campaign to stigmatize China.

And during his just-concluded trip to Britain, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of the most notorious China critics, even called for an international "coalition" against China.

As those China hawks stage one episode of their anti-China farce after another, it seems that the only weapon left in Washington's China policy arsenal is to get tougher, while elements of reason have been cast aside.

Today, the world is in the throes of two high-stake battles: the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, and a deep global economic recession. A stable and sound relationship between the world's top two economies is now more important than ever.

Unfortunately, thanks to Washington's persistent anti-China sabotage, the China-U.S. relationship is now grappling with perhaps its most severe challenge since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Beijing has always valued a robust relationship with Washington, but that does not mean China's attempt to maintain this relationship is without principle or a bottom line.

For the moment, Washington must undo its decision to close China's consulate, and prevent such provocations in the future. If the China-hardliners in Washington continue with their bullying tactics, they should prepare for legitimate and forceful countermeasures from Beijing, as it defends its national interests. Enditem
SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Zumper , the largest privately-held rental marketplace in the U.S., announced today that it has partnered with Bing to display Zumper listings on Bing's dedicated apartment search experience. Renters now have another easy and convenient way to find their next apartment on Zumper.

Available on both desktop and mobile web, users who type a rental search query on Bing (e.g. "San Francisco apartments for rent") will see Zumper apartment listings within a dedicated map-based search experience. When users open the search experience and click one of Zumper's listings, they will be able to view the apartment and message the property on Zumper's platform.

"During the summer months, many leases come to an end and people are beginning to think about moving again, so this partnership is very timely," said Vishal Makhijani, President and COO of Zumper. "We wanted to make searching for an apartment even more convenient and ensure renters have seamless access to quality listings on Bing. Zumper's inventory is updated in real-time so renters are getting the most accurate availability and pricing on the market."

This partnership continues to solidify Zumper as a major player in the rental industry, with over 80 million renters expected to use the platform in 2020. Zumper's mission is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. With the launch of Instarent , Zumper's fully digital leasing solution, renters can find, reserve, apply, and lease apartments, all within 24 hours. The entire renting process from start to finish can conveniently and quickly be accomplished on Zumper's platform.

To learn more about Zumper, search for a property to rent, or list a property, visit Zumper.com or download the Zumper app on your iOS & Android device.

About Zumper:

Zumper aims to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. With over 14 million visits every month, Zumper's free online and mobile rental search marketplace has become the largest startup in the industry. Headquartered in San Francisco, Zumper has 200 employees across the U.S. and acquired PadMapper in 2016. The company has raised a total of $140 million in funding from investors including e.ventures, Greycroft, Dawn Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Goodwater Capital, Axel Springer, Stereo Capital, the Blackstone Group, Breyer Capital, Foxhaven Asset Management, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, NEA, CrunchFund, xfund, Divco West, MMC Technology Ventures, Scott Cook, and the DeWilde Family Trust. Learn more at Zumper.com.

Interested in joining the Zumper team? Check out open positions here .

SOURCE Zumper

Related Links

https://www.zumper.com


Warm light glows invitingly from inside Harvard Business School on a cold, winter evening..

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School today (July 21) announced that returning MBA students, some faculty, and staff who come to campus and frequently interact with others should expect to be tested for COVID-19 every three days. The self-administered nasal swab tests will be administered every Tuesday at Harvard Stadium, with results available in one to two days.

A positive test will trigger contract tracing and quarantine/isolation requirements, which all members of the community are required to follow, according to HBS Dean Nitin Nohria and Executive Dean for Administration Angela Crispi. It is important to understand that a negative test does not mean that safety precautions can be ignored, they wrote. While a key indicator of personal health, testing also is done to better understand the prevalence of infection in a community and to prevent outbreaks. As youve heard many times already, but well repeat it here, personal vigilance and adherence to guidance remain vital, even as testing becomes part of our routine.

The testing details were in the latest coronavirus update posted by HBS. The university is still waiting for the state government to release state-wide guidelines for higher education. We hope and expect these will provide additional clarity on issues such as quarantine requirements after travel, events and gatherings, and other aspects of campus life, added Norhia and Crispi. We continue to be reminded that flexibility is the watchword of the year and appreciate your patience as we navigate an ever-changing landscape.

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PLANS A HYBRID FALL RETURN FOR ITS MBA STUDENTS

Angela Crispi, Executive Dean for Administration at HBS

Earlier this month, HBS revealed that it had ruled out an online-only MBA program this fall, deciding to bring all of its MBA students back to campus for a hybrid blend of in-person and online classes. That policy stands in contrast to the universitys plans for undergraduates in which only 40% of undergraduate students will be allowed on campus for the fall semester, making the business school one of only two of Harvards 12 degree-granting schools that are moving forward with face-to-face classroom teaching.

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But the shift to hybrid learning at the business school will vary from student to student and occur in every possible permutation. Among other things, Harvard Business School plans to reduce the size of its core classes or required curriculum (RC) for first-year students to 72 from 90. So instead of having eight sections of 90 students each in RC classes, Harvard Business School plans to have ten sections of 72 students each to allow for social distancing. Second-year MBA students, meantime, will be able to choose from classes taught entirely online and those offered in a hybrid format. Depending on demand, students in hybrid courses may physically be in class on a rotating basis with some portion of their class taking place remotely.

This latest message makes clear that testing will be an important element of the return to campus.Come fall, we can expect testing for the on-campus members of our community who interact frequently with othersstudents, and some faculty and staffto occur probably every three days, wrote Nohria and Crispi. Those who interact less frequently with others will remain on a weekly testing cadence.

POSITIVE TEST RATE IN MASSACHUSETTS NOW AT ONLY 1.6%

The pair noted that things are looking good for a return to campus.The seven-day weighted average of positive molecular test rate in Massachusetts is a number we continue to watch; it stands at 1.6% as of 7/19, down 94% since 4/15, according to the update. As youll recall, maintaining a rate at or below 2% was a condition for the state to continue progressing with its reopening plans. A similarly low rate will be important to sustain within the HBS community and a signal that the appropriate safety precautionslimits on gathering sizes, wearing a face covering, hand washing, and maintaining 6 of physical distancingare being met.

To meet the new testing protocols, Harvard University Health Services is transitioning from baseline viral testing, which began in June, to recurring weekly tests. Moving forward, anyonestudents, faculty, or staffauthorized to be on campus more than four hours per week should plan to incorporate testing into their campus access protocol, added Nohria and Crispi. Tests are on Tuesdays in the Harvard Stadium and registration must be completed before midnight on Sunday to secure a slot. The test is self-administered under supervision using a nasal swab and the process typically lasts less than half an hour. Test results are provided within one to two days.

DONT MISS: Harvard Business School Decides Against Starting Fully Online or Fall 2020 Reopening Plans At The Top 100 U.S. Business Schools

The post Harvard Expects On-Campus MBAs To Take COVID Tests Every Three Days appeared first on Poets&Quants.
Hughes Federal Credit Union: Hughes Federal Credit Union was named one of Forbes Best-In-State Banks and Credit Unions in Arizona for the third year in a row, ranking as one of the states top five credit unions in the 2020 rankings. Forbes partnered with Statista on an independent survey of more than 25,000 customers about their financial dealings. The banks and credit unions were rated on overall recommendations and satisfaction, as well as trust, terms and conditions, branch services, digital services and financial advice.

Laurie Lundeen: Laurie Lundeen, an affiliate agent with the Green Valley-Continental office of Coldwell Banker Realty Arizona, has been ranked among the top 1,000 real estate agents and teams in the United States, as announced in the 2020 REAL Trends The Thousand report published in The Wall Street Journal. REAL Trends ranked Lundeen No. 70 on the list of the top 250 real estate agents in the U.S. based on achieving 161 closed transaction sides in 2019. Most recently, Lundeen ranked No. 1 based on gross commission income for 2019 among sales associates/representatives throughout Arizona in the Coldwell Banker system.
Policy report calls for national delivery to decarbonise heat

A national heat decarbonisation strategy is essential

A new Heat Commission convened by the CBI and University of Birmingham - with leading industry figures - has called on the Government to develop a National Delivery Body (NDB) to lead the development and implementation of a national heat decarbonisation strategy.

Heat is the largest single source of UK carbon emissions, accounting for over one-third whilst decarbonising heat stands as one of the most significant challenges in reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. To overcome this challenge it is vital business, government, regulators and communities work together to shape the policies and delivery mechanisms that will be needed.

The Heat Commissions report Net Zero: The Road to Low-Carbon Heat (PDF) recommends the establishment of an independent, time-limited, impartial body that will work with government on creating, coordinating and delivering an overarching NDB. Crucially, the NDB will be expected to be locally formulated and locally delivered by local authorities who will synergise their own local and energy plan with the national programme.

Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, CBI President and Heat Commission Chair Lord Karan Bilimoria, said: A green recovery and progress towards the UKs net-zero emission target are doomed to fail if we dont address the urgent need to decarbonise heat in our homes and buildings.

Recent Government announcements will undoubtedly fast-forward our transition towards net-zero. The Commissions recommendations offer a roadmap to accelerate progress, ensure our nation stays on a path to sustainable recovery and ensures the UK remains a global leader in meeting climate commitments.

Aside from the moral imperative, theres also a strong economic case for protecting our planet. Large scale heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency would provide a huge jobs boost for the economy at a time when new career opportunities are needed more than ever.

The priorities of the NDB will include decarbonising transport, industrial emissions reduction, decentralising electricity supplies, and supporting local energy plans devised by local authorities.

The proposed National Centre for the Decarbonisation of Heat (NCDH) could prove pivotal in the local delivery of the NDBs work. Proposed by the University of Birmingham, the Manufacturing Technology Centre, Energy Systems Catapult and the Energy Research Accelerator, the West Midlands based NCDH will enable the rapid scaling up of manufacturing, skills and deployment of heat solutions, all necessary to meet carbon reduction targets.

To support the NDB, the NCDH would deliver:

Manufacturing acceleration - The NCDHs Manufacturing Accelerator would work with the heat technologies manufacturing sector to support the rapid scale-up and fast deployment of heating solutions.

Skills academy - The NCDH Heat Skills Academy will help coordinate and train existing and new heating engineers in heat pumps, hydrogen boilers, smart system controls, digital platforms, building integration, energy efficiency, retrofit coordination and surveying, building performance assessment and monitoring.

Business Incubator - The NCDHs Business Incubator will help SME innovators bring their products and services to market in time to help achieve climate targets. This will be achieved by drawing on the Centres system integration, skills and manufacturing expertise.

Building Integration and Living Lab - The NCDH Building Integration and Living Lab unit will provide the capability to test and demonstrate energy innovations, market arrangements, policy and regulations with real consumers. It will help address the challenges of retrofitting new products into existing building stock. The agile and scalable approach to building the unit lends itself to responding to the dynamic nature of heat decarbonisation and future industry needs.

Standards and Verification - The NCDH would work with the standards bodies and industry to help ensure the standards are defined, met and implemented. The NCDH will also provide a range of facilities which will be used to test and validate the efficiency and performance of new technologies.

Speaking about the challenge surrounding the decarbonisation of heat and the need for a NDB, Policy Commissioner, Director of the Birmingham Energy Institute and Director of the Energy Research Accelerator Professor Martin Freer said: "Delivering decarbonisation of heating is the biggest energy challenge we face in getting to net-zero. Unlike electricity, which can be changed at a systems level, it requires over 20 million households to adopt new energy efficiency measures and new ways of generating heat.

There is not a single technology choice and the scale-up required in skills, manufacturing, distribution infrastructure and consumer engagement is huge. The level of coordination to deliver this needs to reach from the region to the nation, with appropriate resource being devolved to local level to be successful. The level of complexity and the urgency for change means the transition cannot be left to chance and a National Delivery Body supported by local innovation hubs such as the National Centre for the Decarbonisation of Heat is essential."

Notes to editors:
WASHINGTON - In a confrontation overheard by a reporter Monday outside the Capitol, Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., "disgusting" and told her "you are out of your freaking mind" for describing poverty as a root cause of crime, prompting the congresswoman to later condemn what she described as Yoho's "virulent harassment" of her.

Yoho also used a sexist slur to describe Ocasio-Cortez once she was out of earshot, according to the Hill newspaper, which first reported on the exchange.

According to the Hill, Yoho uttered the words, "f---ing b---h." A spokesman for Yoho denied that the congressman used the epithet and said he instead uttered the word "bull----" to himself, describing his view of Ocasio-Cortez's policies.

Asked about Yoho's reported comments, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called them "despicable" and "unacceptable" and told reporters Tuesday that the lawmaker should be sanctioned by the House, although he did not provide any details on what form such a sanction might take.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said he was going to meet with Yoho on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the incident.

On Twitter on Tuesday morning, Ocasio-Cortez denounced Yoho's behavior and criticized another GOP lawmaker, Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, who was present for at least part of the exchange.

"I never spoke to Rep. Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation's Capitol yesterday," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Believe it or not, I usually get along fine w/ my GOP colleagues. We know how to check our legislative sparring at the committee door. But hey, 'b*tches' get stuff done."

She accused Williams of joining Yoho in "yelling" at her and blasted the Texas Republican for later telling a reporter he had not been paying attention to the confrontation between the other two lawmakers.

A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

According to the report by the Hill's Mike Lillis, the confrontation took place Monday when Ocasio-Cortez was ascending the steps outside the east side of the Capitol and Yoho, who was descending after a vote, approached her.

Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez she was "disgusting" for recently suggesting that a crime spike in New York City amid the coronavirus pandemic may have been driven by unemployment and poverty.

"You are out of your freaking mind," Yoho said, and Ocasio-Cortez told Yoho he was being "rude," according to the Hill. After the exchange, Yoho continued descending the steps while joined by Williams. A few moments later, when Ocasio-Cortez was out of earshot, Yoho used the sexist epithet, the Hill reported.

Yoho declined to comment to the Hill on Monday when asked about the exchange.

In an email to The Washington Post on Tuesday morning, Yoho spokesman Brian Kaveney confirmed that Yoho "had a brief member to member conversation on the steps of the Capitol." But he said the congressman "did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in the Hill or any name for that matter."

"Instead, he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her polices to be: bullshit," Kaveney said. He accused Ocasio-Cortez of "using this exchange to gain personal attention," even though the confrontation was reported by the Hill before the congresswoman mentioned it publicly.

Kaveney did not respond when asked to confirm Yoho's other reported comments.

Williams, meanwhile, told the Hill that while he was walking down the steps with Yoho on Monday, he had been "thinking about some issues I've got in my district that need to get done" and had not paid much attention to what Yoho and Ocasio-Cortez were saying.

"I don't know what their topic was," Williams told the Hill. "There's always a topic, isn't there?"

In tweets Tuesday morning, Ocasio-Cortez accused Williams of lying and said he had "joined in" with Yoho.

"Gotta love Republican courage from Rep @RogerWilliamsTX: when he undeniably sees another man engaged in virulent harassment of a young woman, just pretend you never saw it in the most cartoonish manner possible and keep pushing," she said.

Ocasio-Cortez added: "What's wild to me @RogerWilliamsTX is why would you blatantly lie to a reporter who saw this exchange? You were yelling at me too, about 'throwing urine.'"

Several Democratic lawmakers defended Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday. At a briefing with reporters at the Capitol, Hoyer called Yoho's comments "despicable" and "unacceptable" and said he "owes not only the congresswoman an apology" but should also deliver a full apology in a speech on the House floor.

"It was the act of a bully," Hoyer said, adding, "It needs to be sanctioned."

Several male Democratic lawmakers noted on Twitter that they shared Ocasio-Cortez's views on the link between unemployment, poverty and crime but had not been similarly confronted by Yoho, suggesting that the lawmaker chose to target the New York Democrat because of her gender.

"Like @aoc, I believe poverty to be a root cause of crime," Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., tweeted. "Wonder why Rep. Yoho hasn't accosted me on the Capitol steps with the same sentiment?"

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., also defended Ocasio-Cortez.

"I can confirm that AOC gets along w many of her Republican colleagues on a range of things that don't have anything to do w legislation or politics," Gaetz said in a tweet. "She is not a [b---h]."

- - -

The Washington Post's Paul Kane contributed to this report.
She spent the past several days documenting her recent idyllic holiday to St Tropez, which also included a very boozy night out with pals.

And Love Island's Georgia Harrison, 25, proudly showed off her post-holiday glow on Wednesday, when she attended the world premiere of new movie Break in London.

Joining actress Michelle Collins, 59, the Love Island star donned a white tie-front crop top and miniskirt as she arrived at the Brent Cross Shopping Centre for the event, which accommodated guests in the car park, to allow for social distancing.

Big night on the town: (L-R) Georgia Harrison and Michelle Collins stepped out for the world premiere of new movie Break at London's Brent Cross Shopping Centre on Wednesday evening

Teaming her plunging long-sleeved top and thigh-scraping skirt with a pair of brown suede cowboy boots, the reality star posed up a storm as she hit the red carpet.

Accessorising with a coin pendant necklace with matching earrings, Georgia wore her golden locks in a sleek blowout, while a blue headband rested atop her mane.

Keeping her makeup light for the occasion, she looked tanned and toned a she struck a series of fun poses for photographers gathered at the event.

Ensemble: The former Love Island star, 25, donned a white tie-front crop top with a matching miniskirt, which she teamed with a pair of brown suede cowboy boots

All in the details: Accessorising with a coin pendant necklace with matching earrings, Georgia wore her golden locks in a sleek blowout, while a blue headband rested atop her mane

Looking good: Meanwhile, veteran actress Michelle, 49, turned heads in a billowing patterned blouse, which she teamed with black skinny jeans and a matching blazer

At the premiere, the joined a host of familiar faces, including Tyne-Lexy Clarson, Terri Dwyer, Shaznay Lewis, Helen Lederer, Michelle Gayle, and the X Factor's Honey G.

Starring Sam Gittins, Break follows Spencer Pryde (Gittins), a gifted snooker player who is described as wasting his talents, choosing instead to indulge in petty crime with his friends.

'When things begin spiralling out of control, he seeks sanctuary in the one place he feels safe, the local snooker hall,' reads a synopsis on the British film's official site.

'While there, he is presented with an opportunity to turn his life around after a chance encounter with a Chinese stranger named Qiang (David Yip).

On the list: Fellow Love Island alum Tyne-Lexy Clarson was also among the guests at the event

Adorable: Donning a crop top with ripped jeans, she was seen cosying up to an adorable pooch

Beam: Donning a patterned jacket and glittering jewellery, the star beamed as she hit the event

'Qiang, a former 8-ball pool champion turned coach, tries to convince Spencer to turn pro. But, in order to make a new life for himself, Spencer will need to break away from his friends, his environment, and the negative elements of his current life.'

Georgia's glitzy outing days comes after she truly got into the holiday spirit on Sunday as stumbled out of St Tropez nightclub L'Opera.

The bleary-eyed star looked distinctly disorientated as she wandered over towards a curb and attempted to fix her Sophia Webster heels.

Needing a little help from her friend, Georgia eventually got to her feet to join the rest of her gal pals while the leg of her white sequin trousers remained rolled up to her thigh.

So chic: Actress Terri Dwyer was resplendent in a red lacy sleeveless gown with a short train

Jewellery: The former Hollyoaks star accessorised with sparkling drop earrings and a bracelet

Mask: Helen Lederer was also in attendance at the event, showing her face mask as she posed

The ITV2 star was seen looking worse for wear after rejoining her pals and sat on a cement bollard with her hands on her knees waiting to go back to her hotel.

Despite her bleary-eyed appearance, Georgia seemed in high spirits as she playfully rolled along the marina, pulling faces and lifting her leg up in the air.

At one stage, she even rolled over onto her stomach and posed for a photo with in front of a luxury yacht.

The reality star jetted off to France last week after lockdown restrictions eased with her pals and recently enjoyed a luxury yacht in St Tropez.

She recently flaunted her long legs in an aqua blue swimsuit from GIGI C Bikinis for the day out on the ocean.

Suit: All Saints star Shaznay Lewis showed off her flair for fashion as she arrived in a black suit

Passion for fashion: India Willoughby, left, opted for a plunging red dress, while Michelle Gayle, right, looked sensational in a white off-the-shoulder dress

Main lady: Break star Anna Danshina was the main attraction as she arrived in a fishtail gown

Flattering frock: Her polka dot number featured a sweetheart neckline and a billowing hem

Distant: Interviews for the event were conducted at a distance, to adhere to government rules

The first of its kind: The drive-in premiere has been touted as the first of its kind by organisers

Georgia's trip away came after she revealed she was made homeless at one point during her late teens when she lived in Marbella.

Speaking to The Sun about her experience earlier this month, she said: 'I was living in Marbella with a friend and this guy who would have really crazy parties with strangers coming in and out of our room in the night. It was scary.

'In the end after a massive argument we had to leave but we had just given him a whole month's rent. We didn't have enough money to live somewhere else, so we literally moved into my car.

Shimmer: DJ and presenter Jodie Weston arrived in a shimmering red off-the-shoulder dress

Read all about it: Model Danielle Mason, 37, arrived in a headline-worthy newspaper print dress

It's me, the G: Former X Factor contestant Honey G showed she's retained her distinctive poses

True blue: She teamed her sky blue trouser suit with a matching baseball cap and black boots

Interview: Terri appeared to be in good spirits as she stopped for an interview before the event

'We had to wash in a nearby hotel. At one point security even caught us and said "we know you don't stay here" and they chased us out, it was crazy.

Adding: 'I would go to work in a club all night, it was so stressful. One time I came back to the car to sleep and it had been towed with everything we owned inside.

'That's the point I was at but I turned my whole life around within a year.'

The TV personality said she ended up using a self-help book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, to turn her life around.

Georgia first found fame with a brief stint on The Only Way Is Essex in 2014 before becoming a household name with an appearance on 2017's Love Island.

Stripe: Actor Sam Gittins, who is the lead star in the movie, cut a dapper figure in a striped suit

You've got to hand it to him: Kidulthood star Adam Deacon was seen shaking hands with producer Dean Fisher, right, and director Micheal Elkin, centre

Group: The stars and film-makers posed together for a group shot ahead of the big screening

Staying apart: Journalists and photographers working the event practised social distancing


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After ending the previous session modestly higher, treasuries saw some further upside during the trading day on Wednesday.



Bond prices gave back some ground after an early upward move but remained in positive territory. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, edged down by 1.2 basis points to 0.595 percent.



With the modest decrease on the day, the ten-year yield closed below 0.6 percent for the first time in three months.



The early strength among treasuries came as traders looked to the safe haven of bonds amid rising U.S.-China tensions after the U.S. asked Beijing to close its diplomatic consulate in Houston within the next 72 hours.



Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the action and warned of retaliation if the U.S. does not reverse its decision.



Treasuries also benefited from lingering coronavirus concerns, as President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that the pandemic 'will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.'



With new cases spiking, the U.S. government placed an initial order for 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate jointly developed by Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) for $1.95 billion and can acquire up to 500 million additional doses.



On the U.S. economic front, the National Association of Realtors released a report showing existing home sales rebounded at a record pace in June after three straight months of declines.



NAR said existing home sales spiked by 20.7 percent to an annual rate of 4.72 million in June after plunging by 9.7 percent to a rate of 3.91 million in May. Economists had expected sales to skyrocket by about 24.5 percent.



'The sales recovery is strong, as buyers were eager to purchase homes and properties that they had been eyeing during the shutdown,' said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist.



Meanwhile, the Treasury Department announced the results of this month's auction of $17 billion worth of twenty-year bonds on Wednesday.



The twenty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 1.059 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.43. Last month, the Treasury also sold $17 billion worth of twenty-year bonds, drawing a high yield of 1.314 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.63.



The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold.



Reaction to the weekly jobless claims report may drive trading on Thursday, with recent data showing the pace of decline in jobless claims has slowed considerably.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks inside of the New York Stock Exchange after earlier ringing the opening bell as the building opens for the first time since March while the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID19) continues in the Manhattan borough of New York, May 26, 2020.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged President Donald Trump on Wednesday to sign a national face mask mandate to help contain the fast-spreading coronavirus that's ripping through the Sun Belt.

Cuomo said he was encouraged by Trump's support of masks on Tuesday after months of resistance. The president also warned Americans that the pandemic in the U.S. will probably "get worse before it gets better."

Trump adopted "a different tone" during his White House press briefing Tuesday night, which was a "good sign," Cuomo said in an interview with MSNBC.

"We need that. We need the federal government to step up, acknowledge the problem. I think there's been too much denial for too long and we need the commitment from the federal government," Cuomo told MSNBC.

He applauded Trump's new endorsement of face masks. On Monday, the president tweeted wearing a face covering was a "Patriotic" action to take during the pandemic.

Cuomo said he wants Trump to take his support a step further by signing an executive order requiring masks across the country. The New York governor said health experts who advise the White House have said that "40,000 more Americans will die because we don't have a mask policy," although Cuomo didn't say who issued that prediction.

"As incredible as that is, you can sign a piece of paper that will save the life of 40,000 Americans. Why wouldn't you want to do that?" Cuomo said.

As Covid-19 cases grow, some states and cities have adopted their own face mask orders, essentially requiring people to wear them when in public and around others. However, the mandates have sparked a national debate over whether local authorities can enforce the policies.

After months of mixed messages, Trump on Tuesday urged Americans to wear a mask, which health experts have said can help slow the virus's transmission. Trump has previously said that he's not in favor of a national mask mandate.

"We're asking everybody that, when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask," Trump said at the White House news briefing. "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, they have an effect, and we need everything we can get."

The coronavirus has continued to spread across the country for weeks. Some states are now beginning to report an increase in hospitalizations and deaths, a sign that their outbreaks are worsening. Texas and Florida hit grim records Monday for daily coronavirus deaths based on a seven-day moving average.

As of Tuesday, hospitalizations continued to grow in 32 states, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project. The virus has infected an average of 66,805 people per day in the U.S. over the past seven days, up more than 7% compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

 CNBC's Will Feuer and Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trumps former personal attorney, arrives at his Park Avenue apartment on May 21, 2020, in New York City.

The filing came a day before a judge in federal court in Manhattan is set to hold a hearing on Cohen's emergency request that he be re-released from the federal prison in Otisville, where he has been for the past two weeks.

Cohen has said he is writing a book about Trump, whom he served for years as a lawyer and fixer. Prosecutors said in their filing that he is "free to work on his book while incarcerated."

Court documents state that the decision to take Cohen into custody was "instigated by the probation officers who observed [Cohen's] behavior at the meeting, and was ultimately made by a [Bureau of Prisons] employee who had no knowledge that Petitioner was writing a book." The filing includes affidavits to that effect from those officials.

During that meeting, Cohen said he was "writing a book 'no matter what happens'" and also told a probation officer to say hello to "Mr. Barr," meaning U.S. Attorney General William Barr, according to the prosecutors' filing.

Instead, prosecutors said in a new court filing, Cohen was taken into custody on July 9 after becoming "antagonistic" and argumentative at a meeting with U.S. probation officials and refusing to agree with a number of other conditions, including being subject to electronic monitoring.

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday strongly denied that Michael Cohen was sent back to prison over a dispute about whether he could publish a critical book about his former legal client, President Donald Trump , while serving the rest of his criminal sentence in home confinement.

Cohen, 53, pleaded guilty in 2018 to financial crimes, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations related to facilitating hush-money payments to two women who claim to have had sex with Trump, who denies their accounts.

Cohen was in the middle of serving a three-year prison term when he was furloughed in late May over concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

He was meeting with his lawyer and probation officials on July 9 about the terms of his home confinement when he was abruptly taken into custody.

Cohen's lawyer Jeffrey Levine has said that he was taken into custody after balking at a provision that he not speak with reporters or publish a book during his period of home confinement.

Levine said that Cohen did not refuse to sign the provision but that the issue had been set aside while they discussed other aspects of the probation monitoring agreement.

Levine said that when Bureau of Prison staff showed up during a break in the meeting to detain Cohen, he and Cohen both said Cohen would agree to the provision in order to avoid being sent back to prison.

Levin and Cohen's other attorneys, who this week filed a lawsuit seeking his release from prison, have said that Cohen is at particular risk from Covid-19 because of preexisting health issues.

Prosecutors, in their reply to that suit Wednesday, wrote that Cohen's "contention that he was not placed on home confinement on July 9, 2020, in retaliation for a book that he is planning to publish that is critical of the President of the United States is not supported by the evidence."

"Cohen and his attorney attempted to negotiate the language of nearly every provision of the agreement, and Cohen stated on at least one occasion that he would not sign the agreement," the filing says.

"In addition to expressing concerns about his book, [Cohen] objected to the requirement that any employment be approved in advance by Bureau of Prisons and the Probation Office; that he refrain from contacting convicted felons; that he refrain from grocery shopping (which would be performed for him by a family member); and to other language that he found confusing."

Cohen's lawyer "also objected to Petitioner being placed on electronic monitoring," the filing said.

And Cohen "stated during this discussion with the probation officers that he would not sign the agreement," according to the filing.

Cohen's excursions outside of his Upper East Side home since he was furloughed were mentioned in the filing, which noted that he had been seen dining at Manhattan restaurants.

That "is relevant to assessing the severity of [Cohen's] claimed health concerns about COVID-19," prosecutors wrote.

Cohen's lawsuit over his reimprisonment says that in his book he describes "first-hand experiences with Mr. Trump, and it provides graphic details about the President's behavior behind closed doors."

"For example, the narrative describes pointedly certain anti-Semitic remarks against prominent Jewish people and virulently racist remarks against such Black leaders as President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela."
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Elnur Baghishov  Trend:

The private sector in Iran has invested some 20 trillion rials (about $476 million) in agriculture, tourism, industry and mining sectors in North Khorasan Province (northeastern Iran) since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 20, 2020), the Governor of North Khorasan Province Mohammad Ali Shojaei said, Trend reports citing the governor offices official website.

Shojaei stressed that the private sector has invested 60 trillion rials (about $1.42 billion) in agriculture, tourism, industry and mining sectors in North Khorasan Province in the last Iranian year (from March 21, 2019 to March, 20 2020).

The governor said that if a businessman invests in a province, the revenues from the initial investment cannot be taken to be invested in another province. The rule was applied to have production, employment, revenues and taxes in the province benefit the local population.

In total, Iran's North Khorasan Province has a population of 863,000 people.

About 37,500 tons of products worth $9.3 million were exported from the province during the first three months of the current Iranian year (March 20-June 20, 2020).
Chennai: While the Centre is working towards allowing end-to-end private participation in the countrys space sector, experts point out that Indias legal and policy hurdles are a serious hindrance. An Indian satellite-maker must pay 18 per cent GST to launch satellites on ISROs rockets, whereas a foreign customer can do the same without paying any GST," a panellist said during an online discussion on Unlocking Indias Private Space Sector: Legal and Policy Challenges organized by the NALSAR University of Law.

"The launch services provided to them (foreign firms) qualify as export of service which are exempt from the levy of GST. So it is cheaper for an Indian-origin company to register their business in a foreign country and launch using ISRO rockets as a foreign customer, said the panellist.

In his keynote address, Dr AS Kiran Kumar, former Chairman, ISRO stated that Indias requirements from space technology are rapidly increasing, hence necessitating a proportional scale-up in capacity. While he agreed that ISRO had laid the foundation in space technology for the country, the future needs must also be catered to.

They include energy requirements, space-tourism, space-exploration/exploitation, most of which gained more prominence after space was recognized as the fourth frontier. Governments want to reduce their focus in business and focus more on governance and thats why private players are being invited. However, the government needs to convince itself on how industry participation can be made more open, less risk-prone and more profitable, said Dr Kiran Kumar.

Even when Indias private firms have certain manufacturing capacity, it won't be easy for any of them to reap benefits from the international market. A case in point is that there are hundreds of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in India who supply components to ISRO.

In many cases, ISRO also happens to be the biggest customer of these firms. But these very same firms cannot sell their products in the global market, as they dont have the Intellectual Property rights for what they manufacture. They only provide manufacturing support. For selling in the global market, they need their own independent design and products, said Narayan Prasad, Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer at Satsearch. He added that there was ambiguity in the term industry, as it could refer to a two-individual company or a firm with 5000 employees.

On the ease-of-doing-business in Indias space sector, Prasad said, Even if satellites are made here in India it is too expensive to launch them on ISRO rockets as we are required to pay 18% GST. Alternatively, it is easier, cheaper to register the same company as a foreign entity for tax exemption(GST in this case) and launch using ISRO rockets via the export of service route.

Adding to the ease-of-doing-business woes are the complex formalities and lack of clarity in even seeking approvals for various space-related business activities. Legal consultants working in the field say that is a serious need for single-window clearance. This can be made possible only if and when the regulatory agencies work with private entities to understand their grievances.

A simple query on whether or not a frequency range is available for satellite operations requires us to look into multiple policies including the National Frequency Allocation Plan, 2018. Even after such detailed inquiry, we are only able to conclude what frequency range is not yet auctioned to the private sector, rather than finding a definitive answer. When policies are silent on what parameters will be considered while judging applications seeking licenses for space activities, it makes it difficult for private space companies to attract investors and ensure a sustainable business model, said Ashok GV, Partner, Factum Law. He emphasized on the need for freedom of commerce and business promotion.

Another crucial aspect of space law and policy involves liability, particularly about who/which entity undertakes the liability(financial) in case of a mishap. What can be defined as a mishap and which would be the agency looking into these issues? In several Western countries with an evolved private space industry, there is a cap on liability and the financial damages that need to be paid. In India, there is no cap on the financial liability and the law also mentions 1-3 years of imprisonment with payment of a fine. So how does this instil confidence in a private player who wants to enter the space industry in India? Poorvi Kantroo, Doctoral Candidate, Centre for AeroSpace & Defence Laws NALSAR University pointed out.

Indias Space Activities Bill, is a laudable initiative but has much ground to cover. Specific areas relevant to commerce such as licensing criterion for space activities are left open-ended for further rules, regulations and guidelines.

Furthermore, in the past, there have been instances where private companies(one American and another Indian) have launched satellites into space through foreign launch service providers when their satellites lacked domestic clearances. While the International Telecommunication Union(ITU) regulations require the responsible state, in which such private sector is domiciled, to notify all domestically cleared satellite missions to the ITU, the Indian bill does not impose upon launch service providers including ISRO to verify such notification at the ITU level before offering launch services to a foreign customer. Such simple omissions in the bill could possibly cause immense complications.

It has the potential to enable private enterprises to avoid complying with critical international regulations designed to mitigate space debris and improve space situational awareness. So from the point of view of both national interests and the interests of the industry, the Space Activities Bill must be revamped to ensure the needs of the present and future generation of space activities and entrepreneurs.

Thus, it becomes imperative for the relevant government agencies to henceforth work with stakeholders from the private sector while formulating laws & policies in the Space sector, which holds immense potential and significance for India and the world in the coming times.
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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Enugu Zonal Office, on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, arraigned one Nnaji George and Nnaji Benedict before Justice I.N Buba of the Federal High Court, Enugu, on two-count charge, bordering on criminal conspiracy and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of N5,500,000.00 ( Five Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira)

One of the charges read: That you Nnaji George and Nnaji Benedict, sometime in February, 2016 in Enugu, within the jurisdiction of this court, with intent to defraud, obtained the sum of N5,500,000 (Five million, Five hundred thousand naira) through the account number: 2015618801 in the name of Nnaji Benedict and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 8(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges, prompting prosecution counsel, Innocent Mbachie to ask the court for a commencement date for their trial and for them to be remanded in prison custody.

The judge, upon the application of the defence lawyer, admitted the defendants to bail in the sum of N10,000,000 (Ten million Naira) each and two sureties in like sum, who must swear to an affidavit of means. The defendants and their sureties must also deposit their recent passport photographs with the court.

The duo was alleged to have misrepresented themselves to the petitioner as real owners of some plots of land, situated on Akanu Ibiam International Airport extension, by claiming that the plots are part of their family land.

In other to cover their tracks, they allegedly forged a layout plan and allocation papers of the area which they passed off as emanating from Enugu State Development Authority and Enugu East Local Government.

The petitioner reported that it was when he started work on the land that he was accosted by officials of the Enugu East Local Government Area and was told that the land was acquired seven years ago, by Government for the purpose of upgrading the airport to international status.

The matter was adjourned till October 20, 2020 for trial.

Similarly, the Enugu Zonal Office of the Commission arraigned one Ndubueze Igwume before the same judge on two-count charge, bordering on obtaining money by false pretence and impersonation, to which he pleaded not guilty.

One of the charges read: That you Ndubueze Igwume (m), aged 41,on or about the 10th day of January 2020, in Enugu within the jurisdiction of this court with the intent to obtain money for yourself by false pretence, fraudulently impersonated one Jumah Eisa Al Mahannadi and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 22(3)(b) of the Cyber Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc) Act 2015 and punishable under Section 22(4) of the same Act.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges. Based on his plea, EFCC counsel, S.A Uhuegbulam asked the court for a commencement date of trial and for the defendant to be remanded in prison custody.

Justice Buba upon an application by the defence lawyer, granted Igwume bail in the sum of N10million (Ten million Naira) with a surety in like sum, who must be resident within the jurisdiction of the court and swear to an affidavit of means.

He ordered the remand of the defendant in the Nigeria Correctional Service pending the perfection of his bail conditions and adjourned the matter till October 21,2020.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: After Express reported about the students who passed their class 12 examinations with flying colours despite all the difficulties, a lot of people including readers and NGOs came forward to help them.

S Sujitha who co-ordinated the conversation with S Abirami and Gabriel Isabella said she was very surprised at the response.

We got calls from different people wanting to help out the kids. One of the good samaritans from Chennai sent Rs 12,000 for both the kids. Not just this, she also ensured to help with medical bills of another child. We are elated at the response, she said. Gabriel Isabella who scored good marks despite suffering fron stomach ulcers due to malnutrition, said a few people promised to look after her education.

One of them had said they would get me aided seat in a college, and that the fees will be very less. A church father too said he will take care of my graduation fees. Now I can finally study and take care of my mother, she said. Since, Abirami who wrote her exams just a month after her father died, wants to pursue Nursing, which is a comparatively costly course, she is looking for somebody who could help.

A businessman from Tiruchy contacted Express on Tuesday and said he would try to help her. After reading Keerthanas story, a Bangalore based couple and Natarajan Raman from an NGO Dream India reached out to Express to help the girl in her future endeavours.

Speaking to Express, Keerthana said, I have since been contacted by at least two people for financial assistance and a Tamil news channel that also wanted to tell my story. We were not expecting this. My family members and I are discussing as to how to take it forward. Keerthanas parents run a grocery shop in Perumbakkam, inside the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board resettlement site. They were evicted from the banks of the Cooum in Thiruverkadu two years ago.
(Natural News) The real reason why there is so much violent crime being committed by Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa terrorists following the death of George Floyd has nothing to do with the mainstream media stirring leftists up into a hysterical frenzy but is rather the consequence of some parts of America still having Second Amendment open-carry provisions.

This is the position of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms, who during a recent appearance on MSNBC blamed Georgias open carry laws for the waves of violence that have been washing over Americas urban cores for more than a month now.

Whats happening in Atlanta is whats happening across the country, she declared during the segment. People are dying of COVID-19. We have witnessed the injustices that have happened in front of our eyes and its boiling over into our streets.

Blaming lack of access to health care and high unemployment for peoples anger, Bottoms trailed off into a tirade about how law-abiding citizens carrying visible weapons on their persons is somehow the same as violent criminals storming businesses and destroying entire city streets.

The irony of it is that our overall crime rate is down by 18 percent, but in Georgia, an open carry state, people are allowed to walk down the streets with assault weapons, and we dont have probable cause to stop them, Bottoms lamented about her states Second Amendment provisions.

You dont get to pick and choose which demographic you get to stop and question as to why theyre walking in our streets with open weapons. It is an issue in Atlanta. Its an issue in other cities across this nation, and it is one that we take very seriously.

Georgia has had open carry for more than a decade and crime sprees only became an issue once the media started riling people up over George Floyd

What Bottoms failed to mention is that Georgia has had open carry laws in place for many years, and never experienced a surge in crime until the mainstream media started blasting the news about George Floyd all over the airways, blaming racist cops for what happened.

As pointed out by William Davis from the Daily Caller, Atlanta is one of many major cities that has seen a dramatic surge in new crime ever since the names George Floyd and Breonna Taylor started being plastered across every news story.

From May 31 to June 27, 93 people were shot in Atlanta, Davis writes. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this represented over a two-fold increase from 2019. In that same period last year, 46 people were shot.

In other words, Georgias open carry laws were never an issue until the Left caught wind of multiple alleged cases of police abuse against blacks. Only then did the crime sprees suddenly surge to unprecedented levels, implicating not the Second Amendment but mainstream media hate-mongering and race agitation.

Weve had open-carry for at least a decade and the shootings in Atlanta only started after she decided to fire all the police for doing their jobs, tweeted conservative commentator Erick Erickson in response to Bottoms statements blaming open carry laws for BLM and Antifa terrorism.

Perhaps Bottoms needs to reflect on the consequences of her new anti-police policies, which have directly contributed to making Atlanta a warzone full of lawlessness and chaos.

She probably wouldnt like it here in Idaho then, one Big League Politics commenter responded to Bottoms statements.

When compared to Blue States we have a pretty low crime rate. Course we are an Open carry Red State too, Several members of my Church even come armed. No one has a problem with it at all.

More Second Amendment-related news is available at SecondAmendment.news.

Sources for this article include:

BigLeaguePolitics.com

NaturalNews.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 18:53:08|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The realization of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will boost the economic competitiveness of African countries, an Ethiopian expert said on Wednesday.

The AfCFTA will create a trade bloc whose size is seven times greater than Europe's, Gedion Jalata, senior adviser to the United Nations Development Program on South-South cooperation and former consultant with the Capacity Development Division of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

The continental free trade area will help African countries compete globally with developed economies.

"AfCFTA's objectives are the facilitation of free movement of labor, goods and capital similar to how Europe developed economically in the aftermath of World War II," he said.

"We live in the age of globalization where a country's or continent's size is an advantage in global economic competitiveness, with AfCFTA helping create a collective economic power for the continent," Jalata told Xinhua.

The AfCFTA can help meet the economic, social and political potential of Africa's one billion plus population, the majority of whom are young people, he said.

"The African continent, which has a majority youth population, has to come together to fulfill the continent's economic, social and political potential and AfCFTA has the capability to fill that potential," Jalata said. Enditem
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) distributed vehicles and other properties forfeited to the federal government to the State House and other federal agencies instead of auctioning them and lodging the proceeds in the federation account where it would be shared by all the federating units of the country.

This was revealed in the response the suspended chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, gave while responding to an allegation that he converted some assets forfeited to the government for personal enrichment.

Last week, President Muhammadu Buhari approved Mr Magus suspension from office.

Prior to his suspension, he was arrested and brought before the probe panel headed by Ayo Salami, a former president of the appeal court, to answer questions about his alleged involvement in corrupt practices and other vices.

Allegations of corruption and insubordination were levelled against him by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami. Mr Magu has denied most of the allegations.

After his arrest, allegations that Mr Magu diverted billions of naira gotten from recovered funds, as well as the interests accrued from the funds, were circulated and published on various media platforms.

Magus response on assets

Mr Malami told the Mr Salami led probe panel in a letter seen by PREMIUM TIMES that the allegation that he enriched himself with forfeited assets was totally false, untrue and merely targeted at destroying my hard-earned reputation as an incorruptible officer.

Since my assumption of office as the Ag. Chairman of the Commission, not a single recovered or forfeited property has been sold and the proceeds fraudulently converted, he wrote.

He said all properties finally forfeited to the government were intact except those that secured presidential approval for allocation to some government agencies.

Of all the properties he said only the proceeds of 244 trucks, which were sold on the orders of the Federal High Court in conjunction with the Department Petroleum Resources (DPR) were remitted to the recovery account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

According to Mr Magu, properties that were distributed with the approval of President Buhari includes vehicles given ministry of humanitarian affairs and disaster management. The value price of these vehicles were deducted from the ministrys allocation, Mr Magu claimed.

Suspended EFCC Acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu

He also claimed the State House, National Commission for Refugees and Displaced Persons and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) were allocated some of the vehicles.

Forfeited motorcycles were given to the National Directorate for Employment (NDE), he added.

Other beneficiaries

Federal agencies who received real estate properties permanently forfeited to the federal government were the Voice of Nigeria (VON), National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, North-East Development Commission and Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD).

Properties which were under interim forfeiture to the government were also rented to the Nigeria Army, Federal Ministry of Finance, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Nigeria in Diaspora Commission, and the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria.

He said the Nigeria National Human Rights Commission and the National Council for Arts and Culture have also approached the commission to rent some properties that were under interim forfeiture. He did not explain who collects the rent.

Mr Magu also did not explain the criteria for distributing the forfeited vehicles to the agencies suggesting that the presidency might have arbitrarily approved the distribution to the agencies.

While the EFCC investigates corruption and secures the forfeiture of proceeds of corruption from all federating units in the country, the letter revealed that it has mainly distributed these assets to federal agencies.

Mr Magu, however, added that the commission temporarily allowed Lagos State government to use a forfeited property as an isolation centre for patients of COVID 19.

He further stated that the EFCC has secured presidential approval to auction over 450 forfeited vehicles in Abuja and Lagos adding that the vehicles had already been valued by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing and the National Automotive Council.
Some concerned students from the Abbeam Institute of Technology have sued the school for deception and fraud.

One of the students who spoke to the mid-morning show host of Angel FM Ohemaa Woyeje said she is a final year student of Abbeam institute of technology.

The student who gave her name as Maame said before applying she saw the advert on TV and then decided to contact the school for affirmation.

According to her, the school authorities told her that when she completes level 400, she will be writing the University of Cambridge exams in the United Kingdom as a final exam for the certificate.

She indicated that after wasting 4years in the school she is now being asked to pay eight hundred pounds (800) before she can get the opportunity to write the Cambridge Exams else she will be graduating with a diploma certificate.

She added that she and other students suffering the same fate have spoken to a lawyer who has sued and served the Abbeam Institute with writs from the High Court

Oheema Woyeje who has vowed to expose such schools said that lot of innocent Ghanaians are being duped and that she has decided to give an opportunity to people who have encountered similar unpleasant situations to speak out their grievances.

She mentioned another vocational school at Flamingo that is alleged to be duping innocent students. ''People are going through a lot that I will be exposing soon starting from today'', Ohemaa stated.
Burma Many Myanmar Mining Firms Fail to Name Politically Connected Owners: Global Witness

A disposal site for loose dirt and rubble from a jade mine in Hpakant. / Seng Mai / Myitkyina Journal

YANGONAt least 10 companies in Myanmar have failed to identify politically exposed personsthose with links to high-ranking present or former military officials and ethnic armed groupsamong their owners, according to a new Global Witness report. The rights NGO based its findings on an analysis of the first batch of beneficial ownership information disclosures submitted by companies in the countrys troubled extractives sector.

In Myanmar, a lack of transparency in the extraction of natural resources in resource-rich ethnic regions helps perpetuate and finance violent conflict in these areas. The countrys extractive sector, which includes jade mining, is controversial and often deadly. A prominent example is the jade mines in Hpakant, Kachin Statemostly run by military-owned companies, companies owned by armed groups, and cronies of the authorities. Recently, a landslide in Hpakant killed at least 172 prospectors, injured more than 50, and left more than two dozen people missing. Companies with opaque ownership have long played a major role in the jade mines of Kachin, where jade projects help drive the states ongoing armed conflict.

The Myanmar Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (MEITI)s Beneficial Ownership Task force defines politically exposed persons (PEPs) as individuals who are or were entrusted with prominent public functions, either domestically or internationally. PEPs pose a higher risk of corruption as they can abuse their positions to hide financial flows or curry political favor due to their influence and positions.

The term beneficial owner refers to those individuals or groups who enjoy the ultimate profits or benefits from owning a company, and who have a degree of control over it, though the company may legally be registered in another name.

In collaboration with MEITI, the Myanmar government published the first batch of information on the beneficial ownership of extractives-sector corporations registered in Myanmar in December last year. Effective Jan. 1, 2020, the government investment agency, the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA), introduced mandatory disclosure of beneficial ownership of companies to encourage transparency and prevent corruption, tax evasion and conflicts of interest.

In its report titled Out of the Shadows launched on Wednesday, Global Witness said that of 162 companies included in the first batch of beneficial ownership information disclosures, only eight declared that they had at least one beneficial owner who qualifies as a PEP.

The report said it had identified at least 10 additional companies whose beneficial owners have or had close ties to high-ranking present or former military (or Tatmadaw) officials, or leaders of ethnic armed groups, and should accordingly qualify as PEPs.

The prevalence of politically connected business tycoons in Myanmars economy, particularly in its extractive sectors, makes the existence of so few PEPs at such companies highly unlikely. In Myanmar, having political connections is perceived to be the norm in some industries, Global Witness said.

This is a non-exhaustive list and likely to be the tip of the iceberg given previous reports on the extent of military and ethnic armed group interests in the mining sector, the report said.

It said Myanmar military-owned Myanma Economic Holdings Public Company Limited (MEHL)s disclosure appears to be incomplete and inaccurate, lacking any PEP declaration and potentially omitting beneficial ownership information.

MEHL declared three beneficial owners, each of whom apparently control 33 percent of direct voting rights in the company: Lieutenant General Hsan Oo, the Myanmar militarys adjutant general (MEHL chairman); Major General Khin Maung Than, director for military procurement (MEHL managing director); and Brigadier General Kyaw Myo Win (retired) (MEHL director).

However, the report said none of the three beneficial owners are listed as PEPs, despite clearly qualifying due to their status as current and former high-ranking military officials.

While it is openly acknowledged that MEHL is controlled by current and former military personnel, the companys failure to correctly declare the PEP status of these individuals, and other concerns about its submission  threaten to undermine the credibility of the register, Global Witness said.

Moreover, it said MEHLs declaration identifies MEHL itself as the legal owner, controlling a 100-percent stake. This means MEHL is essentially declaring that the company owns itself, and sheds no light on its beneficial ownership structure, the report said.

Given that MEHL maintains ownership and controlling interests in some of the largest businesses in the country, such as Myanmar Brewery and Myawaddy Bank, it is vital to know who actually owns this company, the report said.

The report alleges that Htoo International Industry Group of Companies Ltd, Kyaing International Gems Co. Ltd, Nilar Yoma Gems Co. Ltd, and Kyaw Naing & Brothers Gems Co. Ltd also failed to identify their beneficial owners as PEPs. The report found that their beneficial owners were either close associates of the former military junta or had close connections with the relatives of current powerful figures in the Myanmar military.

Global Witness said U Tay Za, founder of Htoo International Industry Group, failed to identify any of its beneficial owners as PEPs, despite the fact that his company reportedly grew into one of the countrys largest conglomerates through his close relationship with the head of the military junta, former Senior General Than Shwe.

According to the report, Kyaing International Gems Co. failed to correctly identify as a PEP one of its beneficial owners, Kyaing San Shwe, the son of Snr-Gen Than Shwe.

As an immediate family member of a former head of state, Kyaing San Shwe clearly meets the MEITI definition of a PEP, Global Witness said.

The human rights NGO said Nilar Yoma Gems Co. should have listed U Aung Ko Win, a prominent tycoon, as a PEP in its beneficial ownership disclosure information, alleging that he is a close associate of former Myanmar military Eastern Command chief General Maung Aye.

The report said the disclosure submitted by the Kyaw Naing & Brothers Gems Co. was also incomplete, as it failed to name U Sai Chin among its beneficial owners. Global Witness alleged that U Sai Chin previously had connections to two important military figures and should also have been listed as a PEP.

The Beneficial Ownership Task Forces definition of a PEP includes members of ethnic armed groups. It includes ethnic armed group leaders, whether they are signatories of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement or not, and all executive committee members and military officers of the rank of lieutenant colonel or higher.

Global Witness pointed out that companies named in the current batch of disclosures did not disclose any links with ethnic armed groups, thereby breaching the October 2019 Presidential Notification. It said transparency in relation to the business interests of ethnic armed groups is a critical requirement for untangling Myanmars economyand especially its mining industryfrom protracted conflict.

Many ethnic armed groups and Tatmadaw-aligned militias are involved in the extractive industries, further fueling conflict, it said.

Global Witness said Ayar Yadanar Company Ltd, Ayeyar Yadanar Gems & Jewellery Company Ltd, Yar Za Hta Ne Gems Company Ltd, Wai Aung Gabar Gems Company Ltd and Kachin National Developments and Progress (Gems) Company Ltd should each have declared at least one of their beneficial owners as a PEP by virtue of their alleged connections to figures in the leadership of ethnic armed groups including the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the Kachin Defense Army (KDA), a military-controlled militia based in northern Shan State.

The report said that of the 162 companies in the extractives sector, 24 (15 percent) never submitted disclosures, while 17 (10 percent) submitted their filings late. Many filings contained incomplete beneficial ownership information.

It said three companies failed to list qualifying legal owners as beneficial owners: Sai Laung Hein Mining Company Ltd, Shwe Gaung Gaung Gems Company Ltd and Myanmar Andaman Pearl Company.

Additionally, five listed corporate owners without providing information on who their beneficial owners were: Myanmar Imperial Jade, Myanmar Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd, Myanmar Yang Tse Copper Ltd, UNOCAL Myanmar Offshore Company Ltd (Yangon Brach) and Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) Ltd (Yangon Branch). The second and third companies listed above are the Chinese companies behind the controversial Letpadaung copper mine in Upper Myanmar.

It also found that three additional companies owned by foreign state-owned enterprises filed inadequate information: Cornerstone Resources (Myanmar) Ltd, PC Myanmar (Hong Kong) Ltd (Yangon Branch) and Petronas Carigali Myanmar Inc. (branch office).

In all, 11 of the 162 companies (7 percent) submitted filings that were incomplete, according to Global Witness.

The report also revealed that there is no public archive of historical beneficial ownership filings. Historical data is imperative to allow investigations into connections between companies and individuals, and is a critical feature of any effective beneficial ownership register.

High-quality and publicly accessible data on who controls the countrys extractive sector is crucial for local businesses and international investors to understand who they are doing business with. It also helps Myanmars civil society organizations, media, and citizens to interrogate who is really profiting from some of the countrys most lucrative companies and to hold the powerful to account, said Paul Donowitz, Myanmar campaign leader at Global Witness.

Global Witness suggested Myanmars beneficial ownership disclosure requirements need to be backed by effective penalties. Ultimately, a beneficial ownership register is only useful if the data it contains is accurate, it said.

It also said that if companies have no incentive to fill out their ownership information properly, then DICA will continue to receive incomplete and inaccurate data. The Beneficial Ownership Task Force, DICA and other relevant authorities must clarify what the consequences are for companies that fail to file accurate beneficial ownership information, Global Witness said.

It recommended that entities failing to do so receive some form of sanction. Companies operating in the extractives sector, for example, could be barred from receiving or bidding for permits, it said.

To ensure data accuracy, there must be incentives for compliance and clear consequences for companies that fail to file accurate beneficial ownership information, Donowitz said.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:06:27|Editor: huaxia

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RAMALLAH, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Palestine on Wednesday slammed the Israeli authorities' "raid" into cultural organizations and the arrest of directors of the organizations.

Israeli police raided three well-known art centers in East Jerusalem and then stormed into the homes of their directors early on Wednesday, said Palestinian and Israeli sources.

"Israel's violent and systematic campaign against Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem aims to erase the Palestinian presence," Hanan Ashrawi, member of Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, said in a statement.

Palestinian Culture Ministry accused Israel of attempting to hinder the cultural scene for Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

"The attack on these institutions is an attack on Palestinian national culture and heritage," said the ministry in a press statement in response to the incident.

Israel has recently banned Palestinians from holding activities or events in East Jerusalem and has shut down many organizations and arrested several of their employees and activists in the city. Enditem
At its July 9 board meeting, the East Montgomery County Improvement District presented the East Montgomery County Fire Department with a $100,000 check.

EMCID and its board of directors feel that the fire safety and protection that our fire departments offer its residents, whether its fire protection or first responders, that its important for them to have funds that make their departments more efficient, said EMCID spokeswoman Kelly Mattlage. This is going to protect our citizens. Its going to improve fire protection and safety of the residents.

East Montgomery County Fire will be going through its budget soon to determine what EMCIDs grant will be spent on, according to fire department spokesman Cpt. Eran Denzler. East Montgomery County Fire Chief Howard Rinewalt said past EMCID grants have gone to operation expenses like vehicle repairs and equipment.

East Montgomery County Fire encompasses 144 square miles and includes five fire stations. Rinewalt said East Montgomery County Fire gets half a percent in the area covering New Caney, Porter and Splendora.

The grant, Rinewalt said, offsets EMCID getting the bulk of the sales tax. Mattlage said in 2010, EMCID agreed to annually forward $100,000 to what was then the Splendora Fire Department, now part of East Montgomery County Fire.

Nearly 100 percent of EMCIDs revenue, Mattlage explained, comes from east countys half a cent to a penny sales taxes in east county.

Our improvement district is like none other, really, in the state of Texas, she said.

Instituted in 1997 to recruit businesses, Mattlage said EMCID is dedicated to the improvement of community development and educational development initiatives in east county. Some grants, she continued, go to nonprofits, along with different area law enforcement and first responder agencies.

We feel that its important that we provide this money to our ESDs (emergency service districts) which are extremely important to our area, Mattlage said.

jose.gonzalez@chron.com

twitter.com/jrgzztx
The first filling of the dams reservoir, which Ethiopias government attributes to heavy rains, has shown to the rest of the world that our country could stand firm with its two legs from now onwards, Abiys statement said. We have successfully completed the first dam filling without bothering and hurting anyone else. Now the dam is overflowing downstream.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 01:40:29|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Wednesday said it has assigned two centers in Baghdad to test coronavirus infection for travelers just a day before reopening airports, while the ministry said that the total nationwide death toll climbed to 4,042.

A statement by the ministry said that it has assigned the laboratories of the Medical City in central Baghdad and Yarmouk Hospital in western the city to conduct COVID-19 tests for travelers who want to leave Iraq, after an earlier decision by the health authorities to resume flights starting from July 23.

The authorities' decision required the travelers to abide by the health preventive measures and pledge to stay for 14 days of home-quarantine upon their return after conducting COVID-19 tests at the two centers.

Meanwhile, the ministry recorded 2,706 COVID-19 cases during the day, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to 99,865, the ministry said in a separate statement.

It also reported 92 more deaths during the day, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 4,042.

The statement also said that 2,197 people recovered, bringing the total recoveries from the disease to 67,147.

The new cases were recorded after 18,416 testing kits were used across the country during the day, and a total of 844,218 tests have been carried out since the outbreak of the disease, according to the statement.

On July 16, the Higher Committee for Health and National Safety, headed by the Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, decided to reduce the hours of the partial curfew, except for the full curfew on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

It also decided to completely lift the curfew after the Eid al-Adha holiday, which is expected to end in the early days of August according to the Islamic lunar calendar.

The committee's decision also included the opening of the Iraqi airports for flights on July 23, in addition to reopening two crossing border points with neighboring Iran and one with Kuwait for commercial exchange.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, Iraq has been taking measures to contain the pandemic.

China has been helping Iraq fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) - Although this pandemic calls for extra and tough protection against germs and viruses, a pediatric dermatologist says that a babys skin only needs gentle care.

Dr. Marivi Dizon reminds parents to be extra careful with disinfectants, especially on babies.

Just be very cautious in using disinfectant, especially alcohol. Water and soap is enough, Dizon in a statement.

She noted that the skin of infants is very gentle and can be compared to a thin wall. It is 30-percent thinner than that of an adult. Hence, it can be easily penetrated by allergens and other irritants.

This is now prone to being challenged by external aggressors from outside, like allergen or irritants that can easily penetrate this thin skin. And that thin skin is continuously maturing through the first year of life, said Dizon.

In the first year of life, we need to be careful of what we put in the skin of the infant especially before becoming one year of age, she added.

Given an infants delicate skin, everything should help clean but be free from any harsh substances, which germicidal products usually have, Dizon added.

She added a gentle soap is needed as water alone cannot clean the dirt from the babys skin.

The problem with water alone is it cannot remove all the dirt that has settled on the babys skin. More so, we are in a hot and humid country, whatever dirt -- it can be bacteria or dust -- it can easily adhere to the infants skin. It needs a gentle cleanser that will serve as vehicle to take the bacteria away from the infant, she said.

Aside from washing, Dizon said that moisturization is also important for the babys continuously maturing skin.

But what kind of products should moms look for in taking care of their babys skin?

Johnson and Johnson Research and Development Associate Director Robert Kwon said that moms should look for products that are gentle, safe, and recommended by doctors.

Moms should look for products that are both gentle and have the ability to protect babys delicate skin... Moms should also look for products that are doctor-recommended and critically made for safety, he said. "For example, at Johnsons, our mission is to create only products that can help protect the babys skin.

Johnson and Johnson has launched the School of Gentle, which aims to provide moms (and even dads) tips and other information in taking care of their little ones.

The School of Gentle is a series of initiatives to bring moms these kinds of advice and information in taking care of the baby, said Kwon.

Johnsons has been committed to improve the lives of mothers and babies, but to this well, we have to understand the importance of partnering closely with health care professionals and other leading experts, he added.

More information on the School of Gentle is available on Johnsons baby on Facebook.
Photo credit: Courtesy

From ELLE

It's been nearly two months since George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minnesota, sparking protests around the world. The Black Lives Matter movement attracted international attention, prompting many to address their prejudices and internal biases and to think seriously about how to become a better ally. Black squares were shared on Instagram and signs were made advocating for racial equality, but to what extent was this support simply performative?

Eight weeks on, the same issues remain, yet the noise has quietened. NAMESldn aims to ensure that the conversation continues beyond the superficial with a new digital platform, founded by Richard Thornn and Oksana Kukla. The pair have created a virtual showroom that seeks to educate those who want to become better allies, as well as celebrating Black creativity.

Viewers are able to explore a virtual gallery with clickable donation links, videos to watch, and written text by featured NAMEldn creators from different arenas, spanning fashion, literature, film and music. Names include Munroe Bergdorf, Akala, Rachel Cargle, Afua Hirsch, Clarice Gargard and Grace Wales Bonner.

"As the antithesis to white-washed black history, together we are highlighting a new line-up of talent that has not been given the recognition we believe they deserve," co-founder Richard Thornn tells us. "Digital platforms like ours have the potential to reach masses therefore spark important and fresh conversations, and deliver poignant messages globally."

Photo credit: Courtesy

NAMESldn launches with 12 unique voices, a roster that will change regularly to give new talents a platform and crucial recognition. The idea is to hold the fashion industry to account for its racism, and to provide an educational toolkit in which to learn more about racial inequality and how white communities can do better.

"We have finally seen a significant shift in the past weeks to the world finally focusing in on perpetuated racial injustice and police brutality that has been happening for years due to the tragic death of George Floyd," says Thornn. "The crux of change is education, and it will only live and last on allies willingness to listen, learn, and educate themselves. Unfortunately, trends pass, and we want to stand up against the possibility of Black Lives Matter becoming a fleeting trend in the industry.

Story continues

"Fashion is permeated with racial inequality manifest in brand scandals and less access and opportunity for black creatives," he continues. "We believe it is only right for us to give our platform in support of the creatives."

To prove that Black Lives Matter is not a passing trend, the 4D showroom will be live indefinitely. "As viewers explore the space they will enjoy a unique and rich body of work that deserves global acclaim," says Thornn. "We hope that this initiative will spark change and inspire others within the industry to use their platforms to take action that has for so long been long overdue."

To browse the showroom visit namesdigital.co/black-lives-matter.

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The Grammy award-winning Houston Chamber Choir announced they will be enhancing its weekly podcast, With One Accord, by adding new episodes and hosts.

Due to the pandemic, the chamber choir was forced to cancel its spring concerts and global tour and are hopeful their podcast can fill the artistic gap for their fans.

The podcast airs at noon Mondays and Fridays and is available on the Houston Chamber Choirs website, Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube.

Choir Artistic Director Robert Simpson hosts the podcasts Music Mondays, where he presents his favorite moments from past choral performances and features musical selections performed by the companys choral ensemble friends. Starting the second week of August, Music Mondays will also showcase an American choir, whether professional, volunteer, youth, or symphony chorus, as they sing their favorite pieces.

Having started as a response to our isolation and anxiety during the first days of the COVID crisis, it is my dream that this time each Monday will give us all a chance to enjoy great music while drawing the global choral community closer, Simpson said in a news release.

Every Friday the podcast will host Behind the Music, hosted by arts and culture expert St. John Flynn, as he offers a glimpse into the personalities and outside musical influences of the choral musicians and collaborators who have worked with the Houston Chamber Choir. Behind the Music will be offered through an audio podcast and video.

As host, my job is to ask the questions whose answers will offer greater insight into the person behind the professional exterior we see on stage, said Flynn in the release. Its a real pleasure for me to delve into the influences and experiences that have shaped the people who have contributed to the Houston Chamber Choir.

And on the last Friday of each month, the podcast will air their Education Spotlight, which brings to light the rising stars of the choral community, hosted by April Harris.

We have been overwhelmed by the incredibly positive response to With One Accord during these last three months, said Mariam Khalili, Houston Chamber Choirs managing director. Although we initially planned to do it for a few weeks, the demand has been so great that we are committed to presenting these works indefinitely. It is quite gratifying to bring such artistic joy to so many people in Houston and far beyond.

ryan.nickerson@hcnonline.com
The two killings on opposite sides of the country were strikingly similar. A gunman showed up at the front door, posing as a delivery man, and opened fire.

One of the victims was Marc Angelucci, 52, a men's rights lawyer who was killed on July 11 outside his home in San Bernardino County, Calif. Eight days later, a shooter approached the New Jersey home of Esther Salas, a federal judge, killing the judges son and leaving her husband seriously injured.

On Wednesday, the F.B.I. office in Newark said in a statement that agents had uncovered evidence linking Mr. Angeluccis killing to Roy Den Hollander, who is also the primary suspect in the New Jersey shooting.

It was the first time that the authorities had publicly connected the two killings.

Mr. Den Hollander, 72, was found dead in the Catskills in New York on Monday in an apparent suicide, hours after the shooting at Judge Salass home. He was a self-described anti-feminist lawyer who wrote thousands of pages in online screeds denouncing women, including female judges.
Spain's cherished saying that there is "a bar on every corner" is in jeopardy with 85,000 drinking and eating establishments facing closure if a coronavirus rebound gets out of control.

That was the warning from the main hospitality business lobby, which said some 40,000 bars and restaurants had already shut down permanently in tourism-dependent Spain which implemented one of Europe's toughest lockdowns.

The Spanish Hospitality Industry Association added that in a best-case scenario, 25,000 more were likely to close by year end, with another 20,000 if spikes were not contained.

Spaniards and foreign tourists have not been drinking and eating out as much as usual when lockdown ended last month.

"In many cases the heart has been more powerful than the head and many of the businesses opened their doors while losing money," association president Jose Luis Yzuel told Reuters on Wednesday.

"How long can (owners) maintain that?" he said, estimating that revenues for the sector were set to halve in 2020, with losses of around 67 billion euros ($77.49 billion).

NO TAX CUT

Spain, which has suffered more than 28,400 deaths and about 266,000 cases of the COVID-19 disease, has seen a sharp rise in new infections over the last three weeks, but still at a level well below the peak.

Several business groups have created a lobby campaign "Together for hospitality" to seek help for a sector that accounts for about 6.2% of GDP and employs 1.7 million people.

Among their demands are a temporary cut in value-added tax and help for micro businesses, as up to 70% of the sector are self-employed or have less than three workers.

But on Wednesday, Industry and Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto ruled out a VAT cut.

"It's not on the agenda at the moment because it involves a very important budgetary effort and the needs we have to support the various economic sectors are enormous," he said.

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A prosecutor in Milan asked for eight years of jail time for Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi over an allegedly corrupt $1.1bn (955m) Nigerian oil deal.

The court should reach a conclusion later this year on the accusation that most of that payment was distributed as bribes. Any verdict could be subject to a long appeals process.

In his closing arguments yesterday, prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale asked the court in Milan for the sentence for Mr Descalzi, who oversaw the company's oil exploration and production unit at the time. The CEO denies any wrongdoing and he was re-appointed to the position by the Italian government in April.

Several former executives of Eni and Royal Dutch Shell are also on trial. The prosecutor sought eight years for Eni's former CEO Paolo Scaroni and seven years and four months for Malcolm Brinded, who ran Shell's exploration and production division at the time.

The companies and individuals accused have consistently denied any wrongdoing.

The allegation is that the executives involved in the 2011 deal to secure the offshore Oil Prospecting License 245 knew that the money that they deposited in an escrow account controlled by the Nigerian government would be disbursed as bribes.

In 2018, two middlemen were found guilty of corruption in a separate trial related to the transaction.

However, the prosecution has since suffered several setbacks. In January, Isaac Eke, a high-ranking retired Nigerian police officer, failed to corroborate the corruption allegations. In March 2019, a retired Swiss oil executive withdrew accusations against Shell and Eni executives, saying earlier statements that they were part of a network of bribes and kickbacks had been made under pressure.

The Italian system has three rounds of sentencing before coming to a final conviction. The first of these is expected to come by the end of the year.

Bloomberg
Kanye West delivered another late-night  and now-deleted  Twitter rant and in it, he said he has been trying to divorce Kim Kardashian.

Its been a wild few days for the rapper turned aspiring politico, kicking off with Sundays presidential campaign rally speech (in which he revealed he and Kardashian nearly aborted their now 7-year-old daughter, North West) and Mondays Twitter tirade (about Kardashian and his mother-in-law, Kris Jenner, subsequently trying to lock me up). An impromptu visit from Dave Chappelle on Tuesday made it seem like the situation may settle, but he was back on social media Tuesday night putting the KarJenners on blast.

West wrote, I been trying to get divorced since Kim met with Meek [Mill] at the Warldolf [sic] for prison reform.' He added that Meek is my man and was respectful. Thats my dog Kim was out of line.

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Feb. 9. (Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Its unclear exactly what meet up West was referring to but Kardashian, who has been studying to become a lawyer and has done advocacy work for criminal justice reform, and Mill headlined Variety and Rolling Stones first-ever Criminal Justice Reform Summit in November 2018. However, it was not held at a Waldorf property.

He also repeated his claim that Kardashian, whom he married in 2014, and her mom, Kris Jenner, tried to fly in to Wyoming, where he owns a ranch, with 2 doctors to have him placed in an involuntary psychiatric hold amid fear he is having a bipolar episode amid his bizarre presidential bid. (West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016.)

West also slammed Kardashian and Jenner for putting out a statement without my approval, likely referring to the TMZ report with quotes from Kardashian sources. Thats not what a wife should do White supremacy.

And while West has previously said that he was so close to Jenner that he called mom, in the Twitter rant he called her Kris Jong-Un  one day after declaring that the momager was no longer allowed to see his children, her grandchildren.

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West, who missed the deadline to file to run for president in South Carolina, where he held his first rally, also asked his Twitter following whether he should continue pursuing the presidency.

"Yall want me to run on nah???" he wrote.

He also referenced Democratic Joe Biden, writing, "I guess all black people supposed to vote on Biden?"

West deleted all his posts rather quickly, again leaving a few up, including one that made it clear his presidential ambitions remain intact. And another promoted the release of his album Donda later this week.

Says the future president  ye (@kanyewest) July 22, 2020

A rep for West hasnt responded to Yahoos request for comment.

Amid this very public drama, however, many celebrities have been calling for support of West. Demi Lovato joined Halsey in speaking out. (Both women have bipolar disorder.)

It would be nice if for once people can put down the meme making apps and pray for someone whos struggling with mental illness. What happened to compassion?  Team Demi (@ddlovato) July 21, 2020

Its also amazing to me that people really think they actually know what some celebrities are going thru. Maybe take a step back and remember you dont know everything about everyone even if you do watch them on tv  Team Demi (@ddlovato) July 21, 2020

Do NOT pretend to know about someones mental illness if you do not personally know them. Check yourself.  Team Demi (@ddlovato) July 21, 2020

And Jamie Lynn Spears  younger sister of Britney Spears, who has publicly struggled with bipolar disorder as well, shared Halseys comments, writing, If you deal with mental illness or care for someone dealing with mental illness, then you know how important it is to respect the situation with privacy for the person, and the family trying to protect their loved ones, no matter how it may appear to the public, and as the public we must learn to do the same.

That led to Jamie Lynn clapping back at a commenter asking why shes not speaking out about her sisters mental health, amid the renewed efforts by fans to #FreeBritney.

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Sony WF-1000XM3 are the same earbuds that were launched in the US and other countries in 2019 and were claimed as the companys flagship product in the portfolio.

A couple of weeks ago we saw Sony unveiling its first two earbuds of the year in India  WF-XB700 and WF-SP800N. However, that might not be all for now. As per sources, the Japanese tech firm is planning to launch its high-end WF-1000XM3 earbuds in India as well. HT Tech has learned that Sony WF-1000XM3 is set to launch in India in first week of August.

Sony WF-1000XM3 are the same earbuds that were launched in the US and other countries in 2019 and were claimed as the companys flagship product in the portfolio. However, the price of these wont be sky-high. It has been understood that WF-1000XM3 will be priced below 20,000 in India. It will be interesting to see what price tag will Sony put on these earbuds, considering it now has the WF-SP800N at 18,990.

So, what are you getting in WF-1000XM3? Sony claims these earbuds to deliver industry-leading noise-cancellation tech with the QN1e processor. This comes in addition to Dual Noise sensor technology, which essentially means the inclusion of dual microphones for catching more ambient sound from your surroundings.

Sony WF-1000XM3 (Sony)

Adding to the mix is the 0.24-inch (6mm) driver unit in each earbud, DSEE HX for digitally enhancing the audio, touch sensors to control music playback, activate voice assistants (Google Assistant, Alexa), take incoming calls and more.

Sony claims that the WF-1000XM3 can deliver up to 24 hours of listening time with earphones alone delivering 6 hours on a single charge and 8 hours with noise cancelling switched off. Also, it can be charged for 10-minutes to deliver up to 90 minutes of play time.

Like weve seen in other Sony earbuds as well, theres a Quick Attention feature wherein you could place your finger over the earbud to automatically turn down the volume and hear ambient sound. It goes back to normal once the finger is lifted.

And the highlight is the Adaptive Sound Control that uses the Sense Engine, something we saw in SP800N as well. The smart function auto detects the environment youre in and adjusts the ambient sound settings as required.

Available in two colour variants  Silver, Black, the earbuds come with a charging case that has a USB Type-C port and uses magnets to keep the earbuds intact while charging. Some other features include NFC, 20Hz-20,000Hz frequency response, Bluetooth v5.0, tri-hold structure and customisable controls.
New details have emerged in the brutal slaying of a Montgomery teen.

Lesley Luna Pantaleon, 17, was attacked with a metal pipe and stabbed with a knife, according to court records made public Wednesday. Her 2006 blue Chevrolet Trailblazer was stolen, as was her cell phone.

Three 16-year-olds - TaNiya Merriweather, Erin Taylor and Tyeshia Whisenant  are charged with capital murder during a robbery in Pantaleons slaying. The victims body was found was found July 4 in Catoma Creek.

Montgomery police and firefighters responded to the lake on Old Selma Road after receiving a report of a possible body in the water. The teens body was taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science for an autopsy and later confirmed to be Pantaleon.

Pantaleon had last been seen June 24 and state authorities had requested the publics help find her.

Montgomery Capt. Saba Coleman said evidence led them to investigate Pantaleons death as a homicide. The investigation shows that the victim and the three suspects were involved in a physical altercation during which Pantaleon sustained injuries that ultimately led to her death.

Charging documents state Pantaleon was killed between 3 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. on June 24.

All three teen suspects were taken into custody Monday. They are charged as adults and are being held in the Montgomery County Detention Facility. Their mugshots are not yet being made public because of their ages.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 18:03 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066882f3d 1 National COVID-19,rapid-testing,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,coronavirus,virus-korona-indonesia,Luhut-Binsar-Pandjaitan,Coordinating-Maritime-and-Investment-Ministry,BPPT Free

Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan has urged the public to use locally produced rapid testing kits developed by the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT).

The minister said the testing kits cost Rp 75,000 (US$5.13) each and had a 98 percent accuracy rate.

They used to be sold at Rp 150,000. I hope the price can get even lower, Luhut said on Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

He added that people should use such tests to reduce dependence on imported medical equipment and to support local industry.

Read also: Doubts loom over widespread use of rapid tests in virus-stricken Indonesia

Experts have raised concerns about the widespread use of rapid antibody testing as a prerequisite for certain activities during the pandemic. A post-market survey showed that many of the testing kits had sensitivities and specificities of less than 50 percent.

The Health Ministry suggested that rapid tests were not to be used for diagnosis on July 13. This is in line with the World Health organizations (WHO) recommendation that a diagnosis of COVID-19 infection based on antibody response will [] only be possible in the recovery phase.

Minister Luhut said the government would never impose any policies that put people at a disadvantage, especially in relation to the COVID-19 response.

President Joko Widodo always reminds us to do whats best for the people, said the minister. (dpk)
Having gotten a taste for public service while in the U.S. Coast Guard, Jonathan Shoop joined the police force looking for a career he was passionate about after managing delivery teams for Amazon for nearly five years, his brother said.

For 405 days, the 32-year-old Shoop, according to his brother, lived what he realized was his calling in life as a member of the Bothell, Washington, police department.

Shoop became the 32nd U.S. law enforcement officer shot to death this year on July 13, marking a 28% jump in felonious officer deaths over the same period in 2019, according to data from the FBI.

In the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May, tremendous scrutiny was placed on policing with peaceful protests broadly calling for reform. But accompanying that was a rise in an anti-police sentiment that, experts say, manifested itself in attacks on officers, patrol vehicles and precinct stationhouses, leaving cops around the country feeling under siege.

PHOTO: A photo of slain Police Officer Jonathan Shoop is displayed at a memorial outside the Bothell Police Department on July 14, 2020 in Bothell, Wa. Shoop was shot and killed after a pursuit following a traffic stop on July 13, 2020. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

An ABC News review found that in recent years, periods of civil unrest coincided with an increase in police killings. While the sample size is small and a multitude of factors come into play in each situation, some experts say that an anti-police sentiment helps embolden offenders.

Maria "Maki" Haberfeld, a professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said while she cannot definitively say that the increase in police officer slayings are related to the mass protests or the increase in anti-police rhetoric by demonstrators and politicians alike, police have become "scapegoats" for broader anger.

"Going out on the street and directing violence to somebody who represents the government, because police are an arm of the government, is the easiest thing to do," Haberfeld said. There is a constant search for the scapegoat for whatever is happening in the society and the scapegoat ends up being law enforcement regardless of what it is that people have grievances about."

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And Don Mihalek, a retired senior Secret Service agent and an ABC News contributor, said it is more than coincidental that the spike in police slayings has occurred during this tumultuous time in which hostilities have been aimed at law enforcement personnel.

Any time the anti-police rhetoric heats up, it sends a message that its open season on law enforcement. We saw it in 2016 and we're seeing it now," Mihalek said.

The police killings have occurred amid a surge in gun violence this year following the spring peak of the coronavirus pandemic and right-wing extremists with anti-police views have also stepped up activities and some say may be looking to deepen the civil unrest the country is experiencing.

Seven of the U.S. officers killed this year were ambushed, according to the FBI data, including McAllen, Texas, police officers Edelmiro Garza, 45, and Ismael Chavez, 39, who died on July 11 when they responded to a disturbance call at a house and were met with gunfire. The 23-year-old suspect took his own life, police said.

PHOTO: McAllen Police officers console one another as they gather outside the McAllen Medical Center, July 11, 2020, in McAllen, Texas. (Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP)

The officers never had a chance to suspect a deadly assault on them," McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said at a news conference.

And the majority of killings happened in Southern and Western states (14 and 10 respectively), following a pattern from prior years. Seven occurred in the Midwest, and one in the Northeast.

'Driven to be a public servant'

Just days after celebrating the completion of his rookie year in law enforcement, Shoop died after he and his field-training officer, Mustafa Kumcur, pulled over a car missing a rear license plate. The driver initially stopped, but allegedly sped off as the officers were speaking to him, hitting a man on a scooter before crashing, according to a report released last Friday by detectives of the Snohomish County Multiple Agency Response Team (SMART).

The suspect, Henry Eugene Washington, 37, allegedly got out of his Pontiac G6 and charged at the pursuing police SUV, firing two rounds through the driver's side window where Shoop was behind the wheel, according to the report. Kumcur, who was hurt when a bullet ricocheted off his gun and hit him in the head, returned fire multiple times, but one of his shots is believed to have fatally struck Shoop, according to the SMART report.

Shoop's brother, Evan Shoop, said the latest details of the shooting don't change the fact that his brother is dead and a suspect with a gun allegedly initiated the fatal confrontation.

Jonny spoke very highly of his training officer. He loved his training officer, and so do I. So, I dont really have anything more to say about it than that," he told ABC News. "We dont view this chaotic situation as his fault.

PHOTO: Bothell Police Office Jonathan Shoop is seen in this undated photo released by the Bothell Police Department. (Bothell Police Department)

He said he and his family are not ready to speak of how his brother died and want to focus on how he lived as they make arrangements for his funeral.

I dont know if it was a dream, but he was driven to serve as an officer. He always was driven to be a public servant," he said, adding that prior to going to Amazon his brother worked as a marine operations supervisor for the Washington State Ferries.

The King County Prosecuting Attorneys Office charged Henry Washington on Friday with aggravated first-degree murder in Shoop's killing. He was also charged with first-degree attempted murder and vehicular assault.

He has yet to enter a plea and was ordered to be held in jail without bail.

In an interview this week with ABC News affiliate KOMO, Washington's mother, Carolyn Washington of Texas, said her son was visiting Seattle and was not of sound mind.

"For them to lose their family, their brother, Im so sorry. I'm so sorry," she said. "They have my deepest sympathies."

She said that she believes her son "didnt intentionally do that."

Police killings rise in times of civil unrest

Police killings are a complicated matter -- involving a multitude of factors, this year primarily being linked to traffic stops and responses to domestic violence calls.

While FBI data doesn't directly link the slayings to the civil unrest or anti-police rhetoric, police advocacy groups and many law enforcement officials say the protests -- particularly when they become unruly -- can contribute to an anti-police atmosphere that puts officers in danger from those looking to exploit the situation.

One federal officer was fatally shot while guarding a federal building during a May 29 Black Lives Matter protest in Oakland, California. But the suspect arrested in the shooting, active duty Air Force Sgt. Stephen Carrillo, was linked to an emerging movement called "boogaloo," a term used by far-right extremists to signify a coming civil war and/or fall of civilization," according to federal court documents. Carrillo was also charged with the June 6 fatal ambush shooting of a Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputy in Ben Lomond, California.

Carrillo, who was not involved in the protests, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

PHOTO: Steven Carrillo, the suspect in the June 6 ambush killing of Northern California sheriff's deputy Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38. (Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office)

In June, retired St. Louis police Capt. David Dorn, 77, who was serving as police chief of Moline Acres, Missouri, was fatally shot while off duty trying to protect a friend's pawnshop that was being looted by a group of people, officials said. Dorn's killing came during the same week that four police officers were shot and wounded in St. Louis and one in Las Vegas as protests over Floyd's death turned increasingly violent for both protesters and police.

As somebody who studies social science and does research in social science, you cannot be very definitive about this because the data is a little bit problematic," Haberfeld said. "If somebody has mental issues and decides to take it out on law enforcement because this is what he or she hears on the news that they are the enemy, its not necessarily something targeted, per se."

Still, recent FBI data show upticks in police officer killings during years when there have been major incidents of civil unrest across the country.

PHOTO: Illustration (ABC News)

In 2016, protests raged across the country over a series of police-involved killings of Black men, including Philando Castile, 32, who was shot to death during a traffic stop in St. Anthony, Minnesota, when he reached for his wallet; and Alton Sterling, 37, who was fatally shot by Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police while pinned to the ground during an arrest. Slayings of police officers surged 61% from 41 in 2015 to 66 in 2016, including 17 who were ambushed, according to the FBI data.

While the officer who shot Castile was acquitted by a jury of manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm in 2017, the two officers involved in Sterlings death were not criminally charged.

Two years earlier in 2014, 51 police officers were slain in the line of duty up from 27 in 2013, an 89% jump. Seven of the officers were ambushed. However, the number of police officer killings in 2013 was the lowest in decades, according to the data, and the number of officer deaths due to felonious acts in 2014 was representative of what was seen in an average year.

The 2014 police officer slayings happened amidst the backdrop of protests that erupted across the country over the police shooting of Michael Brown, a Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, and the police-involved chokehold death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man, in New York City. The officer who shot Brown and those involved in Garner's death were not criminally charged.

And in 2011, the year where Occupy Wall Street protesters clashed with police, law enforcement officers killed increased 28% to 72, including 15 who were ambushed.

My heart and my prayers are so focused on these families," Lorraine Yaslowitz, the widow of a Florida police officer slain in 2011, told ABC News. Her husband, St. Petersburg Officer Jeffrey Yaslowitz, 39, and Sgt. Tom Baitinger, were fatally shot when they went to a home to arrest a man wanted for aggravated battery. The suspect, Hydra Lacy Jr., 39, a convicted felon, opened fire on the officers without warning when they found him hiding in an attic, officials said.

She said she still breaks down when speaking of her husband with their three children -- who were 5, 8, and 12 when their father was killed.

"Its like the rug is pulled out from under you," she said.

And she said the venom directed at police officers has been hard for her to take in the wake of Floyd's killing.

Its a sensitive subject for our family because weve got so many people close to our children being stupid and ignorant and saying, Oh, all cops are bad and we need to wipe them out,' Yaslowitz said. My blood boils when I watch my daughter struggling to answer back and stand up for what she believes without being hated."

'People feel vindicated attacking law enforcement'

Following the surge in shootings of police officers in 2011, Haberfeld participated in a study sponsored by the FBI to examine reasons for the deadly streak. What she found was a myriad of reasons, but hatred for police was not among the top motives.

I think it was different back then. It was more related to issues of people who were trying to avoid going back to prison, or people with mental issues," Haberfeld told ABC News of the findings. It was less related to what I am seeing right now. Right now its just violence against the police."

Haberfeld also said some suspects recently accused of perpetrating violence against law enforcement officers also vary from those seen in the past.

She noted that in late June, two attorneys from Brooklyn, New York, were among three people arrested and charged with tossing Molotov cocktails inside occupied New York Police Department vehicles.

PHOTO: McAllen Police officers investigate a shooting that left two fellow officers dead after they reportedly responded to a disturbance call, July 11, 2020, in McAllen, Texas. (Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP)

MORE: 2 police officers shot and killed in McAllen, Texas

Mihalek said he believes that anti-police rhetoric espoused by some groups and politicians is helping to fan the flames of violence. Noting that attacks against law enforcement officers correlate with times when rhetoric is high, he said he anticipates violence against police to continue.

If that follows the same pattern then the number will go up because now police have been painted as the bad guys and people feel vindicated attacking law enforcement," Mihalek said. "This is where the officials rhetoric can help or hurt depending on what theyre saying."

'The best younger brother'

Since Shoop's killing, a makeshift memorial of flowers and notes of condolences have piled up around his police SUV in downtown Bothell as residents expressed an outpouring of support for the first police officer in the city's history to be slain in the line of duty.

His brother, Evan said he visited the memorial on Thursday and was moved by the outpouring of respect residents of Bothell have shown his brother.

PHOTO: A memorial for slain Police Officer Jonathan Shoop is shown outside the Bothell Police Department on July 14, 2020 in Bothell, Washington. (David Ryder/Getty Images)

"Hes just beloved. Hes the best younger brother. Im so lucky to have had him his whole life," he said. I think one of the reasons were all struggling as a family is because we didnt quite realize the extent to which Jonny was kind of the adhesive for us. Its sinking in now and its tough, man. Its really tough."

He said compounding the grief is the COVID-19 pandemic.

The reality is that physically we cant hug our mom when she needs it the most and its not fair," Evan Shoop said.

He described his mother, who is in her 70s and suffers from health issues, as being "gutted."

MORE: Ohio police officer shot to death in Home Depot parking lot

Evan Shoop said his brother's girlfriend is also devastated. My brother adored her. She is part of our family and was before this. All of us knew that this is a serious thing and we were so looking forward to the next phase with them," he said. This is somebody whose future Jonny was going to spend with."

He said his brother majored in history at the University of Washington, where he first joined the Coast Guard reserve program.

He was just so smart," he said. "The guy always wanted to do the right things. He wanted to do a good job whether it was working at Amazon or the Coast Guard or policing. He was driven to do a good job."

Police officers killed surge 28% this year and some point to civil unrest and those looking to exploit it originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
July 11, 2019: Lori Vallow's husband, Charles Vallow, is killed by her brother, Alex Cox, in Arizona. Police initially rule that Alex acted in self defense but reopen the case months later after the children are reported missing.

August: Lori moves children JJ and Tylee to Rexburg, Idaho, close to where her future husband Chad Daybell lives with his wife Tammy.

September 8: Tylee is seen alive for the last time during a trip to Yellowstone National Park with Lori, JJ and Alex. In the following weeks Lori tells people that her daughter is studying at Brigham Young University's Idaho campus.

September 23: The last time JJ is seen at his school in Rexburg. Lori emails the school the following day claiming she is moving the family to California for a new job.

October 2: Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Lori's niece Melani Pawlowski, is targeted in a drive-by shooting in Arizona. Police identify the vehicle carrying the shooter as a Jeep registered to Charles Vallow, Lori's late husband.

October 19: Chad's wife Tammy, 49, dies at their Idaho home. An obituary states that she passed away peacefully in her sleep. Chad declines an autopsy and her death is listed as due to natural causes.

October 25: A friend of Tylee receives a vague 'miss you' text from her phone but says that it didn't sound like the teen.

November 5: Lori and Chad tie the knot on a beach in Kauai. Receipts indicate that Lori purchased her own wedding ring from Amazon nearly three weeks prior to Tammy's death.

November 26: Out-of-state relatives ask Idaho police to perform a welfare check on JJ. Lori and Chad claim he is in Arizona with relatives and ask their friend, Melanie Gibb, to lie and say she took the boy there for Thanksgiving. Police soon learn that no one has seen JJ or Tylee, since September.

November 27: Police execute a search warrant related to the children at Lori's home and discover that she and Chad have fled Idaho.

December 11: Tammy's body is exhumed from a Utah cemetery and her death is reclassified as suspicious.

December 12: Lori's brother, Alex Cox, is found dead in a bathroom in his Arizona home. Months later an autopsy determines that he died of natural causes while he had the overdose drug Narcan in his system.

December 21: Rexburg police issue the first press release about JJ and Tylee, revealing they believe their disappearance could be linked to Tammy's death and asking the public for information.

December 24: Lori and Chad issue a statement through an attorney saying they love their son and daughter and look forward to addressing 'allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor'.

December 30: Police accuse Lori and Chad of lying to investigators and say they believe the couple know where the kids are or what happened to them.

January 3, 2020: Police search Chad's home in Salem and remove 43 items, including tech devices and journals. They also comb over sections of the snow-covered yard with rakes and metal detectors.

January 26: Lori and Chad are seen for the first time in months as police serve them with two search warrants in Kauai. Lori is also served with a court order to produce the children to authorities in Idaho in five days. The couple are approached by the media while officers serve the documents and refuse to say anything about the children.

January 30: Lori misses the court deadline to produce the children to Idaho authorities.

February 20: Lori is arrested in Kauai and charged with two felony counts for desertion and nonsupport of dependent children, and one misdemeanor count each for resisting and obstructing an officer, solicitation of a crime, and contempt of court.

March 5: Lori is extradited to Idaho, where she is held on $1million bond at Madison County Jail.

March 17: Lori professes her innocence in a statement through her attorney as two other members of her defense team quit and the judge removes himself from the case.

March 24: Court documents filed in the divorce of Lori's niece Melani and her husband Brandon Boudreaux allege that Lori told people she believed her children were zombies before they disappeared.

April 9: Authorities reveal they are investigating Lori and Chad for murder, attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with Tammy's death.

June 9: Police search Chad's home in Salem for the second time and discover human remains in the backyard. Chad is taken into police custody and charged with destruction or concealment of evidence.

May 25, 2021: Lori and Chad are charged with first degree murder in the deaths of the children. Chad is also charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife Tammy.

May 27: Lori is deemed incompetent to stand trial on the murder charges in Idaho.

August 5: Prosecution announces it will seek the death penalty for Chad.
The Blue Jays have a home. It just isnt in Toronto for the 2020 MLB season.

Pittsburghs PNC Park will be busy over the next two months. In addition to the Pirates 30-game home schedule, its also where the Blue Jays will be playing the majority of their home games, after the Canadian government banned them from hosting MLB games at the Rogers Centre.

For the two schedule conflicts, Toronto will just be the home team when visiting the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals for series at their respective parks.

Its official:The Toronto #BlueJays will play the majority of their home games at PNC park in Pittsburgh, as @thehazelmae reported. The exceptions are that they will play one series against the #Yankees and another against the #Nats as the home team at Yankee Stadium and Nats Park  Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) July 22, 2020

Torontos home opener indeed will have to be in Washington on July 29. Its first game at PNC Park is slated for Aug. 11.

The Blue Jays also had reportedly considered using stadiums of their minor league affiliates in Buffalo and Dunedin, but there were concerns over the spike in coronavirus cases in Florida and the organization ultimately wanted to afford its players all of the amenities of playing in an MLB stadium.

This will be a monumental challenge for our staff, but leaning in to help others is what Pittsburghers do best, Pirates president Travis Williams said in a statement. If we are able to safely accommodate, not only will it bring additional international attention to our city, it will also bring with it jobs and revenue for local hotels, restaurants and other businesses that will support the Blue Jays organization as well as additional visiting teams.

Toronto is one of the NHLs hub cities, though.
Facebook is facing a growing advertiser boycott  dozens of companies announced over the past month that they'll pause ad spending on the social network.

A new report reveals that, in addition to the companies that announced they were joining the boycott, a handful of major advertisers quietly paused ad spending on Facebook with no announcement this month.

Walmart, Geico, McDonald's, Allstate, Kellogg's, Kohl's, Dell, Peloton, and Ikea all paused Facebook ads in July, costing the social network millions in revenue, according to a report from Media Matters.

The boycott was started by civil rights activists to protest hate speech and misinformation on Facebook's platform. But for advertisers, pulling out of Facebook is more about brand safety than political activism.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

mark zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes a drink of water as he testifies before a House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 11, 2018, about the use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 election and data privacy.

AP Photo

Facebook's advertiser woes are growing as a mounting boycott of the platform stretches into its second month  and a new report shows that even more major advertisers than previously thought have quietly paused business with the tech giant since early July.

Dozens of companies paused ads on Facebook last month, with many touting their decision to pull out amid calls to boycott the tech giant. Civil rights activists first started pressuring advertisers to take a stand against Facebook for its policies on hate speech and handling of President Trump's posts in the wake of George Floyd's death.

But some major advertisers have also pulled ads with little fanfare. Walmart, McDonald's, Geico, Allstate, Kellogg's, Kohl's, Dell, Peloton, and Ikea all paused ads on Facebook since early July, according to a new report from Media Matters citing industry data and people familiar with the actions.

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The paused ads could have already cost Facebook millions. Walmart spent $145 million on Facebook ads in 2019, according to digital tracking firm Pathmatics. Combined, the nine companies spent $335 million on Facebook ads last year, according to a Media Matters estimate.

A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Facebook has said in previous statements that it's working with advertisers during the boycott to understand their concerns.

The new Media Matters report comes a week after the Wall Street Journal revealed that Disney also quietly slashed Facebook ad spending in July without announcing the decision. Disney reportedly spent $210 million on Facebook ads in the first half of 2020 alone.

The advertiser boycott was initially started by civil rights groups to protest Facebook's handling of President Donald Trump's posts in the wake of George Floyd's death, as well as the spread of misinformation and hate speech on the platform. But ad executives told Business Insider that, for most advertisers, boycotting Facebook is less about politics than brand safety.

"Pulling money out isn't meant to be a punitive action towards Facebook," Elijah Harris, the senior vice president of paid social at IPG Mediabrands, said last month. "It's more for us to assess, as marketers and arbiters of our brands' equity, whether we should continue defaulting to a platform that stands in opposition to consumer sentiment today."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Investors have rushed to open coffee shops as retail premises rent has become very reasonable and the market is returning to a "new normal" status.

In late April, Black Bottle Coffee & Tea opened again after social distancing. One month later, a new shop opened on Hoang Hoa Tham street in Binh Thanh district.





On opening day, the owner of the chain said more shops will be opened in the central business districts of HCM City and that many retail premises in advantageous positions are now available at very reasonable rents.



The retail premises can be leased at rent that is 10-20 percent lower because many businesses gave back the premises because of bad business during Covid-19.



Many F&B shops had to shut down because of Covid-19. However, their failure could be an opportunity for many others, he commented.



Soon after the epidemic was put under control, five take-away coffee kiosks under Viva-Vietnamese Coffee opened.

Vietnamese Coffee To Go JSC, the owner of the chain, plans to set up 10 similar kiosks and then find partners for franchising. Shyan Sunder, general director of the company, believes that the model will attract young people who want to start with small capital, and even bigger investors.

Investors have rushed to open coffee shops as retail premises rent has become very reasonable and the market is returning to a "new normal" status.

With the low investment rate and high expected profit of over 300 percent, the business model will be very attractive not only in Vietnam, but all over the world, he said, adding that about 5,000 coffee kiosks of this kind would be set up throughout the country.



In early June, Viva International opened Viva Reserve on Thanh Thai street in district 10. This is a model upgraded from the existing Viva shops available in nearly all districts in HCM City.



Vival Reserve is equipped with air conditioners, and well designed interior decoration and facilities convenient to office workers and young people who seek new experience with coffee.



According to Le Thi Ngoc Thauy, chair of Viva International, the shops serve six coffee products roasted in different ways and six ways of preparation.



The opening of Ong Bau coffee chain has caught attention from the public recently. This is a project of three famous businessmen  Doan Nguyen Duc, chair of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group, Vo Quoc Thang, chair of Dong Tam Long An, and Tran Thanh Hai, chair of NutiFood.



Following the first shop opening in February, 100 shops of the chain have been set up throughout the country, despite Covid-19. However, the plan is more ambitious: they hope to open 10,000 shops by 2022.

Thanh Lich

Restaurants, coffee chains in Vietnam switch to selling online delivery After HCM City decided to temporarily close restaurants and catering services with the capacity of more than 30 customers, they began selling online and delivering food.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  The leaky, damaged roof of the Staten Island Ferry terminal will be rebuilt thanks to more than $4.1 million in federal funding.

The roof suffers from drainage issues, as well as joint damage and persistent leaking which will be repaired; the project will also improve energy efficiency, safety, and security.

The millions in funding  which was awarded to the City Department of Transportation by the Department of Transportation through the Federal Transit Administrations Passenger Ferry Grant Program -- was secured after advocacy from Rep. Max Rose (D-Staten Island/South Brooklyn) and U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gilibrand.

By rebuilding the terminals roof now, rather than later, well save money in the long run. Between this project and the new ferry boats set to arrive in the coming months, were going to make sure the Staten Island Ferry remains one of the safest and most reliable transit options for Staten Islanders, Rose said.

The lawmakers advocacy began in March when they sent a letter to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), stating the roof was at the end of its useful life.

It would be cheaper to rebuild the roof now rather than later, they said.

Schumer said, The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how important it is to invest in sustaining our public transit systems because essential workers have relied on the Staten Island Ferry and the Islands bus network and railroad to get to the frontlines throughout this unprecedented health and economic crisis.

The Staten Island Ferry is not just an iconic New York staple, it has served as an essential means of transportation for people across the city, and I will continue pushing for additional federal funding to help keep facilities running safely and on time, Gillibrand said.

Last year, Rose, Gillibrand and Schumer secured $3,045,591 to improve and upgrade the ferrys maintenance facility after it was badly damaged by seawater during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

FOLLOW KRISTIN F. DALTON ON TWITTER.
By Ernest Scheyder

July 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense has resumed funding for two projects to process rare earth minerals for military weapons after a review found the grants are in the best interest of the U.S. government, according to documents seen by Reuters.

The Pentagon on April 22 awarded Australia's Lynas Corp and privately held MP Materials funding for rare earths separation facilities in Texas and California, respectively. Those decisions were put on hold on April 29, the Pentagon said, pending "further research."

Reuters reported in late April that a Chinese company's minority stake in MP Materials, which owns the only U.S. rare earths mine and is majority-controlled by a Chicago hedge fund, had prompted concerns from U.S. government scientists.

Several U.S. senators have pushed the Pentagon to fund only domestic rare earth projects. After a legal and program review was completed by a third party, the Pentagon determined the award process was followed fairly and decided to resume funding for Lynas and MP, according to the documents, which were dated July 10.

Officials at the Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment, nor did MP Materials. Lynas declined to comment.

The amount awarded to both companies was not published by the U.S. government, though the funds were allocated for planning work for the construction of processing facilities.

Lynas has said it does not require U.S. government funds to move forward on its Texas project with privately held Blue Line Corp.

Reuters has reported the Pentagon is also reviewing applications for other rare earth-related funding projects. Applicants have said they expect decisions in the coming months. Separately, Nevada-based MP said last week it would go public later this year in a $1.47 billion deal by merging with a private-equity-backed blank-check company.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Additional reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Leslie Adler)

+1-713-210-8512; Reuters Messaging: ernest.scheyder.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
An Afghan girl killed two members of the Taliban by shooting them and injured many others after they murdered her parents, as per a report in AFP.

The Taliban were searching for her father who was the village chief and loyal to the government, according to local police head Habiburahman Malekzada. When the wife put up a fight, they killed both of them, he added.

AFP

Qamar Gul, who was inside the house, took an AK-47 gun the family had and first shot dead the two Taliban fighters who killed her parents, and then injured a few others, he said.



Gul is a teenager but her exact age is not known. Different officials say she is between 14 and 16. It's not unusual that many Afghans are not aware of their proper age.

AFP

Later on, many more Taliban fighters came to attack her house, but were repelled after a gunfight with villagers and pro-government militia.

Security forces have taken Gul and her younger brother to a safer place, said the provincial governor's spokesman.

AFP

The internet is hailing her heroic act. Hats off to her courage! wrote a Facebook user. Power of an Afghan girl, wrote another user.
The Trump administration has escalated tensions, local officials argue, by sending camouflaged officers to confront activists, most of whom have practiced nonviolence. The president, while devolving control of the coronavirus response to state and local authorities, has vowed to replicate the federal crackdown in Chicago, New York and other Democratic-controlled cities seeing sustained protests after the police killing of George Floyd. And he is being cheered on by provocateurs online and in the media pointing to the backlash against federal mobilization as a sign that a still more severe response is needed.
Frustrated healthcare consumers and their Congressional representatives are demanding better healthcare transparency. In a marketplace where the importance of consumer preference is only just beginning to emerge, we are certain that authentic patient financial engagement will soon become an operating imperative for providers everywhere. - Kevin Fleming, CEO, Loyale Healthcare

Before the COVID-19 public health crisis brought about an operational and financial crisis for many of Americas healthcare providers, a critical transformation was already underway for the industry. The degree to which providers participate in this transformation will have long-term implications for their own sustainability.

The coronavirus has not dampened the call for radically improved transparency. Consumers, regulators and the administration are all demanding more and better information about the cost and quality of care. This demand is rooted in the fact that - as with every other economic sector - an understanding of cost and quality has a material effect on consumer choice. Ultimately, this understanding also impacts healthcare accessibility.

If anything, COVID-19-related financial stressors on American households have made cost more important than ever for consumers who are trying to decide whether and where to seek care. With millions losing their jobs and employer-sponsored healthcare coverage and millions more struggling to make ends meet with severely reduced incomes, the ability to find affordable care has become critically important for consumers. Sadly, the industry is poorly prepared to deliver.

Analysts at McKinsey & Company published an article earlier this month titled, Consumer decision making in healthcare: The role of information transparency. In it, authors Jenny Cordina and Sarah Greenberg summarize the results of McKinseys 2019 Consumer Health Insights Study. The survey results reflect pre-COVID-19 answers and sentiments, but we would argue that healthcare consumers today are more interested than ever in more transparent, consumer-friendly interactions with their healthcare providers.

According to the study, Only a fraction of respondents said they have been able to retrieve the information they sought when making healthcare decisions, contributing to low satisfaction. McKinseys analysis points out that, When respondents can access relevant information when making a healthcare decision, they will choose an option that best meets their needs. They often look for lower costs, even if it means making other trade-offs (for example, a more convenient location). In fact, About 90 percent of respondents chose the lower-cost, in-network options that were of average quality over the higher-quality, higher-cost options. The research suggests that providing consumers with better and more accessible information could have a profound impact on how decisions are made.

The need for consumer transparency has become so urgent that prominent business leaders are lobbying for it. According to an article published this week by the National Review, A group of economists and business leaders urged Congress on Monday (July 20,2020) to include healthcare price transparency in the next COVID-19 stimulus package" by expressing their support for the Health Care PRICE Transparency Act, which would require hospitals and insurers to publish their cash prices and secret negotiated rates in an easily accessible place online - noting that Transparency is needed now more than ever with the global coronavirus pandemic that has inflicted abrupt hardship on many Americans.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the agency under which Medicare and Medicaid operate) enacted the Price Transparency Act last November with the requirement that it be implemented by January, 2021. But according to a Rev Cycle Intelligence article, hospital groups are urging HHS to delay requirements mandating the public disclosure of privately negotiated rates. This is taking place about a week after a federal judge dismissed the groups case challenging the upcoming price transparency rule.

The tension has grown between what consumers and their representatives want, and what healthcare providers believe they can deliver. Consumers and healthcare providers are each experiencing profound economic distress as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The difficulties for consumers are described above. For providers, the struggle to compensate for higher costs and dramatically reduced revenues makes compliance with burdensome new transparency regulations seem ill-timed and ill-advised. Unfortunately for them, the momentum of the COVID-19 era seems to be pointing toward transparency.

Getting Transparency Right in a Difficult Environment

We published an article late last year titled, Medicares Price Transparency Rules Alone Dont Deliver What Patients Need. A Patient-First Approach Does. In it, we noted a number of deficiencies in the Price Transparency Act as it relates to real-life consumer expectations. Using a big-ticket retail purchase as an analogy, we pointed out a number of parallels in the consumer experience, emphasizing the fact that, As consumers, we care about price but what really matters is affordability. I can get a good used car for $10,000 which I cant afford. But if the dealer will offer me a payment plan which I can afford, we have a deal.

Consumer transparency in healthcare must ultimately include much more than the disclosure of published and negotiated prices in a machine-readable format on a hospital or health plan website. Based on the expectations that have been well established in every consumers daily experience, true transparency in healthcare must include the following:



The presentation of upfront cost estimates for a patients anticipated course of treatment and all associated expenses, including pre-service eligibility so a reliable out-of-pocket estimate can also be presented.

The availability of multiple payment options to address patient affordability, along with provider-configured options for a variety of payment plans and incentives.

Interactive self-service options with secure, highly personalized online experiences that resemble the best of other online interactions in other sectors.

The delivery of consolidated, plain-English healthcare bills that combine and simplify the many bills that often accompany an episode of care so bills are easy to understand and just as easy to pay.

Personalized, contextual digital communications that honor each patients preferences and behavior - from beginning to end throughout the patients care journey until their financial obligation is fulfilled.

End-to-end provider analytics so hospitals and health systems have the information they need to make evidence-based decisions about their patient-payment portfolios, as care-givers and operators.

The beauty of this approach to transparency is that, while better meeting the high expectations of an increasingly demanding healthcare consumer, it also complies with the Price Transparency Act. Most important of all, these digitally-enabled capabilities have proven their ability to reduce costs, increase productivity and drive significant revenue gains.

Since its inception, our company, Loyale Healthcare, has been dedicated to helping healthcare providers engage more successfully with patients in the areas of price and affordability. After more than 30-years of financial interactions with consumers in complex, high-cost environments we were among the first to see the coming wave of consumerism in healthcare. We set out to engineer a technology platform with the flexibility and resiliency to power even the most complex healthcare ecosystem. As a result, Loyales Patient Financial Manager was chosen as the patient experience platform for one of the largest health systems in the country, with more on the way.

The Health Care Price Transparency Acts implementation deadline of January, 2021 couldnt be coming at a worse time for many healthcare providers. And the Act itself falls far short of meeting the real expectations of patients. But in a marketplace where the importance of consumer preference is only just beginning to emerge, we are certain that authentic patient financial engagement will soon become an operating imperative for providers everywhere. Were honored to be on the leading edge of that transformation.

Kevin Fleming is the CEO of Loyale Healthcare

About Loyale

Loyale Patient Financial Manager is a comprehensive patient financial engagement technology platform leveraging a suite of configurable solution components including predictive analytics, intelligent workflows, multiple patient financing vehicles, communications, payments, digital front doors and other key capabilities.

Loyale Healthcare is committed to a mission of turning patient responsibility into lasting loyalty for its healthcare provider customers. Based in Lafayette, California, Loyale and its leadership team bring 27 years of expertise delivering leading financial engagement solutions for complex business environments. Loyale currently serves approximately 12,000 healthcare providers across 48 states. Loyale is proud to have an enterprise-level strategic partnership with Parallon which includes the deployment of Loyales industry leading technology at all HCA hospitals and Physician Groups.
Cracks may be emerging in the so-called ironclad military alliance between South Korea and the U.S., stoking worries in Seoul that the Trump administration is looking at withdrawing troops from the peninsula.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper isn't ruling out reductions to U.S. Forces Korea, telling a forum Tuesday that, while no order has been given, the administration was looking to adjust its posture globally. He was responding to a July 17 report in the Wall Street Journal saying that the Pentagon had given President Donald Trump options to draw down troops amid a deadlock over U.S. demands for more funding.

While Trump has complained about open-ended U.S. military commitments since before taking office, the threat of a withdrawal has increased since his decision last month to reduce the country's military footprint in Germany. South Korean President Moon Jae-in's government has said little about a troop cut if the two sides can't renew their expired Special Measures Agreement, but some worry the discussion could signal weakness to neighboring North Korea and China.

"The alliance is a matter of survival to South Korea," said retired South Korean Maj. Gen. Kim Joong-ro. "Of course, Washington's SMA demands are overwhelming, but this shouldn't hurt the alliance itself. There is no such thing called a 'second chance' in security."

Trump has asked South Korea contribute about $5 billion for hosting some 28,500 American military personnel, well above the current one-year deal where Seoul pays about $1 billion. The price tag originated with the White House, according to people familiar with the matter, and has been a non-starter in South Korea with both the progressive ruling bloc and the conservative opposition seeing it as exorbitant.

"I've issued no orders to withdraw forces from the Korean Peninsula," Esper said in an internet discussion, but he wouldn't say if that meant a future cut in South Korea. "We will continue to look at the adjustments at every command we have and every theater to make sure we are optimizing our forces."

The troops were intended to provide a frontline defense against North Korea and potentially China. The rumblings come as North Korea has said it sees no point in having nuclear negotiations now with Washington and raised tensions with its neighbor South Korea by blowing up in June a joint liaison office located just north of their border.

Trump has suspended joint military drills with South Korea to help nuclear negotiations with leader Kim Jong Un and said after his first meeting with Kim in 2018 that he would "like to bring them back home, but that's not part of the equation right now."

The seven-decades-old military alliance between the U.S. and South Korea was dealt a blow in April when the American military put almost half of its 8,500 South Korean civilian workers on furlough after the two sides couldn't reach a new financing deal after months of negotiations, letting their deal expire at the end of 2019.

"America needs its troops in South Korea to check China's growing global clout, but if the cost is too high, that strategy may change in any time," said Park Hwee-rhak, a former South Korean army colonel now a professor of politics at Kookmin University in Seoul. "We must note that the alliance is a matter of survival to South Korea, but is one of the many strategic choices to the U.S."
Waymo and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles have inked a deal to develop and test autonomous cargo vans and other light commercial vehicles designed to shuttle goods. The agreement is an expansion of a partnership that kicked off four years ago with a focus on self-driving Pacifica hybrid minivans meant to transport people.

The deal is the latest example of Waymo's efforts to build out the delivery arm of its autonomous vehicle technology business. The two companies said the initial plan is to integrate Waymo's self-driving stack  the suite of software and hardware that allows the vehicle to operate without a human behind the wheel  into FCA's Ram ProMaster vans. These self-driving cargo vans will be used by Waymo Via, the company's trucking and local delivery service.

However, it appears that the terms of the deal could extend far beyond Waymo Via. It's possible that FCA could supply other transport companies with the self-driving vans (equipped with Waymo tech) through a licensing deal.

The companies said the partnership actually covers FCA's entire portfolio of vehicles. The agreement between FCA and Waymo also extends to future affiliates, according to those familiar with the partnership. This point matters because FCA and French automaker Groupe PSA are in the process of merging into a newly formed corporation called Stellantis. If the 50-50 merger closes as expected in the first quarter of next year, the agreement would theoretically include all the brands that fall under Stellantis.

As broad as the Waymo-FCA agreement might be, the automaker has sought out other partners in the autonomous vehicle industry in varying capacities. FCAs approach to rapid advancement of autonomous vehicle technology is to focus on vehicle-side needs while establishing smart and strategic collaborations that promote a culture of innovation, safety and know-how, the automaker previously told TechCrunch.

Last year, FCA and autonomous vehicle technology startup Aurora announced a partnership that was also focused on light-commercial vehicles. FCA said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Aurora, an agreement that has since run its course, a spokesperson said. The two companies are still working on custom-built Pacifica hybrids, which Aurora is using in its testing, but they are not co-developing autonomous commercial vans.

Story continues

Over the last eighteen months, Aurora and FCA have collaborated closely in the specification, design, and development of custom-built Pacificas into which weve integrated the Aurora Driver," Aurora said in an emailed statement. "Aurora looks forward to deploying our self-driving solution on FCAs passenger and commercial vehicles.

FCA is also supplying self-driving vehicle startup Voyage with purpose-built Pacifica Hybrids that have been developed for integration of automated technology. These vehicles come with customizations such as redundant braking and steering that are necessary to safely deploy driverless vehicles.

Waymo is best known for developing, testing and now launching an on-demand ride-hailing business using self-driving passenger vehicles, namely the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans. A spokesperson reiterated that ride-hailing is still its most important business.

While Waymo has publicly talked about its ambitions for self-driving trucks, local delivery vans and even personal car ownership, the ramp-up of its Waymo One robotaxi service in Arizona has largely overshadowed those plans.

Waymo first integrated its self-driving system into Class 8 trucks and began testing them in Arizona in August 2017. Those tests stopped sometime later that year. The company didn't bring back its truck testing to Arizona until May 2019.

Those early Arizona tests were aimed at gathering initial information about driving trucks in the region, while the new round of truck testing marked a more advanced stage in the programs development, Waymo said at the time.

Waymos trucking program has had a higher profile since June 2019, when the company brought on 13 robotics experts, a group that includes Ankis co-founder and former CEO Boris Sofman, to lead engineering in the autonomous trucking division.
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) has taken the first ever image of a young, Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely rare, and -- until now -- astronomers had never directly observed more than one planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun. The observations can help astronomers understand how planets formed and evolved around our own Sun.

Just a few weeks ago, ESO revealed a planetary system being born in a new, stunning VLT image. Now, the same telescope, using the same instrument, has taken the first direct image of a planetary system around a star like our Sun, located about 300 light-years away and known as TYC 8998-760-1.

"This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our Solar System, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution," says Alexander Bohn, a PhD student at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who led the new research published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Even though astronomers have indirectly detected thousands of planets in our galaxy, only a tiny fraction of these exoplanets have been directly imaged," says co-author Matthew Kenworthy, Associate Professor at Leiden University, adding that "direct observations are important in the search for environments that can support life." The direct imaging of two or more exoplanets around the same star is even more rare; only two such systems have been directly observed so far, both around stars markedly different from our Sun. The new ESO's VLT image is the first direct image of more than one exoplanet around a Sun-like star. ESO's VLT was also the first telescope to directly image an exoplanet, back in 2004, when it captured a speck of light around a brown dwarf, a type of 'failed' star.

"Our team has now been able to take the first image of two gas giant companions that are orbiting a young, solar analogue," says Maddalena Reggiani, a postdoctoral researcher from KU Leuven, Belgium, who also participated in the study. The two planets can be seen in the new image as two bright points of light distant from their parent star, which is located in the upper left of the frame (click on the image to view the full frame). By taking different images at different times, the team were able to distinguish these planets from the background stars.

The two gas giants orbit their host star at distances of 160 and about 320 times the Earth-Sun distance. This places these planets much further away from their star than Jupiter or Saturn, also two gas giants, are from the Sun; they lie at only 5 and 10 times the Earth-Sun distance, respectively. The team also found the two exoplanets are much heavier than the ones in our Solar System, the inner planet having 14 times Jupiter's mass and the outer one six times.

Bohn's team imaged this system during their search for young, giant planets around stars like our Sun but far younger. The star TYC 8998-760-1 is just 17 million years old and located in the Southern constellation of Musca (The Fly). Bohn describes it as a "very young version of our own Sun."

These images were possible thanks to the high performance of the SPHERE instrument on ESO's VLT in the Chilean Atacama desert. SPHERE blocks the bright light from the star using a device called coronagraph, allowing the much fainter planets to be seen. While older planets, such as those in our Solar System, are too cool to be found with this technique, young planets are hotter, and so glow brighter in infrared light. By taking several images over the past year, as well as using older data going back to 2017, the research team have confirmed that the two planets are part of the star's system.

Further observations of this system, including with the future ESO Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), will enable astronomers to test whether these planets formed at their current location distant from the star or migrated from elsewhere. ESO's ELT will also help probe the interaction between two young planets in the same system. Bohn concludes: "The possibility that future instruments, such as those available on the ELT, will be able to detect even lower-mass planets around this star marks an important milestone in understanding multi-planet systems, with potential implications for the history of our own Solar System."

###

More information

This research was presented in the paper "Two Directly Imaged, Wide-orbit Giant Planets around the Young, Solar Analog TYC 8998-760-1" to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The team is composed of Alexander J. Bohn (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, The Netherlands), Matthew A. Kenworthy (Leiden Observatory), Christian Ginski (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Leiden Observatory), Steven Rieder (University of Exeter, Physics Department, UK), Eric E. Mamajek (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA and Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Rochester, USA), Tiffany Meshkat (IPAC, California Institute of Technology, USA), Mark J. Pecaut (Rockhurst University, Department of Physics, USA), Maddalena Reggiani (Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, Belgium), Jozua de Boer (Leiden Observatory), Christoph U. Keller (Leiden Observatory), Frans Snik (Leiden Observatory) and John Southworth (Keele University, UK).

For external comment on the paper, please contact ESO Astronomer Carlo Manara, who did not participate in the study.

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world's largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

Links

* Research paper - https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso2011/eso2011a.pdf

* Photos of the VLT - http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/

* For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research - http://eso.org/sci/publications/announcements/sciann17277.html

Contacts

Alexander Bohn

Leiden Observatory, University of Leiden

Leiden, The Netherlands

Tel: +31 (0)71 527 8150

Email: bohn@strw.leidenuniv.nl

Matthew Kenworthy

Leiden Observatory, University of Leiden

Leiden, The Netherlands

Tel: +31 64 172 0331

Email: kenworthy@strw.leidenuniv.nl

Maddalena Reggiani

Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven

Leuven, Belgium

Tel: +32 16 19 31 99

Email: maddalena.reggiani@kuleuven.be

Carlo Manara (astronomer who did not participate in the study; contact for external comment)

European Southern Observatory

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49 (0) 89 3200 6298

Email: cmanara@eso.org

Barbara Ferreira

ESO Public Information Officer

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49 89 3200 6670

Cell: +49 151 241 664 00

Email: pio@eso.org
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Netflix has canceled production of Turkish original If Only over government censorship of a gay character in the script, a source close to the streamer has confirmed.

The announced show was to have been produced by Turkish production powerhouse Ay Yapim and has been described in promotional materials as the story of Reyhan who is unhappy and disappointed in her marriage with Nadir. Ay Yapim has declined to comment.

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Turkish authorities denied permission for If Only production to take place in the country after reviewing the script, in which one of the five characters was gay. Netflix refused to change the script and opted instead to cancel production of the show, while paying all preproduction costs, the source said.

Ay Yapim also produces another Netflix Turkey original, Love 101 (pictured), which recently stirred controversy in Turkey when speculation began circulating on Twitter in April that a character on the show would be revealed to be gay, reportedly irking Turkeys media authority. A Netflix spokesman has confirmed the show does not have a gay character.

Off the back of If Onlys cancellation, local reports in Turkey speculated that Netflix would pull all of its productions in the country. Variety has confirmed, however, that the streaming giant will continue with other projects.

Netflix remains deeply committed to our Turkish members and the creative community in Turkey. We are proud of the incredible talent we work with, the Netflix spokesperson said. We currently have several Turkish originals in production  with more to come  and look forward to sharing these stories with our members all around the world.

Story continues

Netflix currently has five Turkish originals in various stages of production. The streamers first Turkish original The Protector has been a global hit and is considered a game-changer in terms of disrupting production models and storylines in Turkeys TV market.

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Representatives of New Zealand and Vietnam signed the agreement on electronic certification

Being aware of the importance in enhancing food and agricultural trade to ensure trade and economic links continue to flourish between New Zealand and Vietnam, on July 21, the representatives of the New Zealand Ambassy to Vietnam, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) signed an agreement to establish an electronic certificate for food and agricultural products.

Electronic certification (e-Cert) is the direct digital transfer of agreed information between government agencies in different countries to facilitate the border clearance of agri-food products. Complex global supply chains trade, especially during the COVID-19 era, and advances in technology have highlighted the importance of quick, secure, and reliable transfer of information via electronic means. Consequently, an increasing number of countries are moving away from paper-based documentation systems to secure electronic ones.

The direct transfer of certification data simplifies procedures for importing and exporting agri-food products and will facilitate faster clearance at entry points, reduce costs, increase reliability and transparency, and reduce potential for falsification in agri-food trade. Therefore, the implementation of e-Cert will make business easier for both countries importers, exporters, and border officials.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Deputy Minister Le Quoc Doanh of the MARD said, The establishment of the electronic certification with New Zealand is an important step to assist Vietnam to integrate further into global trade and provide smooth pathways into potential markets.

Ambassador Wendy Matthews welcomed this e-Cert cooperation: Put simply, this arrangement will make trade faster, more secure, and cheaper between our two countries. New Zealand has been a world leader in electronic certification for over 20 years. New Zealand has successfully implemented e-Cert with a number of trade partners, with an increasing focus on the ASEAN. We are honoured to work with the Ministries of Finance and of Agriculture and Rural Development to further enhance trade cooperation between our countries and to support Vietnam in realising its Fourth Industrial Revolution ambition.

New Zealand and Vietnam celebrate 45 years of diplomatic relations this year. Since the establishment of New Zealands Comprehensive Partnership with Vietnam in 2009, there has been steady growth in bilateral trade, which more than tripled since 2010 when the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA) came into force.
US Defense Secretary: No Orders Issued to Change Military Force in Korea

By Carla Babb July 21, 2020

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he has "issued no orders to withdraw from the Korean peninsula," while also sounding the alarm on Chinese "bad behavior" that he says has picked up since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking about Asia from the Pentagon, Esper on Tuesday left open the possibility of a future reduction of troops in South Korea, saying the Pentagon will continue to look at potential force size adjustments at every command, in every theater, to make sure it is optimizing its forces.

"I continue to want to pursue more rotational forces, force deployments into theaters, because it gives us, the United States, greater strategic flexibility in terms of responding to challenges around the globe," the defense secretary said during a virtual event hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Pentagon was drawing up plans to reduce its forces in South Korea below the current number of 28,500 personnel, as the two countries remain at an impasse over President Donald Trump's demand that Seoul greatly increase how much it pays for U.S. troops stationed in the country.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and defense expert at the Brookings Institution, says he disagrees with the use of more U.S. rotational deployments on the Korean peninsula because they "wear out a small force."

"Better to signal resoluteness, and reduce the burden on people, with more stable and permanent stationing abroad, especially in countries with good amenities and qualities of life," O'Hanlon said, citing Germany, South Korea and Poland as great examples.

Chinese 'bad behavior" and hints of a potential visit

On China, Esper on Tuesday slammed recent Chinese military "bad behavior" that has raised concerns across the region.

"We've seen it pick up in the last six months since the COVID-19 hit," he said, referring to the disease caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.

Esper said he hopes to visit China for the first time as secretary before the end of the year, although the Pentagon did not provide further details on a potential visit.

The defense secretary called out China for "regularly disrespecting rights of other nations," pointing to a recent large-scale offensive exercise simulating the seizure of a Taiwanese island as "a destabilizing activity that significantly increases the risk of miscalculation."

He also slammed China for its land reclamation and continued military exercises around disputed land features in the

India, US Hold Joint Maritime Drill Amid China Tensions

The exercise signals growing strategic cooperation between New Delhi and Washington at a time of heightened tensions with China

Sea, calling the efforts "patently inconsistent" with international law and urging other nations across the globe to help stand up to counter Chinese behavior.

"If we're not careful, we'll find ourselves in a situation where China is calling the shots, and we have a completely different international order or at least regional order. That puts China at the top and really is based on Chinese values, and I don't think those are things that any of us want to want to see happen in the long run," Esper said.

For its part, Beijing says Washington has no say in the matter and is acting as a "a troublemaker and a disruptor of regional stability."

"The United States is not a country involved in the regional territorial disputes, but it continues to interfere and keeps flexing military muscles in the region," read a July 14 statement from the Chinese Embassy in Washington. "It's stirring up tension and inciting confrontation in the region."

South China Sea Tensions Rise as Militaries Conduct Regional Drills

Beijing reacts strongly to Trump administration's rejection of China's broad territorial claims in South China Sea, calling Washington 'a troublemaker and a disruptor of regional stability'

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says Beijing seeks to expel the U.S. from the region in order to "control and dominate China's weaker neighbors."

"The U.S. must act urgently with its allies and partners to address the increasingly unfavorable military balance of power, to make clear to Beijing that the costs of attempting to achieve its political objectives with military force are unacceptably high," said Bowman.

Earlier this month two U.S. aircraft carriers, the USS Nimitz and the USS Ronald Reagan, conducted joint operations to demonstrate freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where territorial disputes have flared between China and its smaller neighbors.

The deployment was the first time the U.S. has conducted dual carrier operations since 2012.

Last year, the U.S. military conducted more freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea than in any year since it began these types of operations in 2015, as a means of more aggressively challenging Chinese territorial claims there.

China considers much of the sea its territory  overlapping with the territorial claims of other nations  and has created hundreds of hectares of artificial islands to bolster its territorial claims. The U.S. frequently conducts freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to dispute China's claims and to promote free passage through international waters that carry about half the world's merchant fleet tonnage, worth trillions of dollars each year.

Lin Yang contributed to this report.

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Parts of Australia could receive a month's worth of rain in just two days as wet weather drenches the east coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a rain band in central and northern Queensland which could bring up to 50mm of widespread rain.

Thunderstorms might also appear on Saturday and Sunday in the southeast and southern inland.

'Rain and thunderstorms could affect parts of eastern and southeastern Australia at the end of this week with another Tasman Sea low-pressure system possibly on the cards as well,' Weatherzone forecaster Ben Domensino said.

Parts of east coast Australia could receive a month's worth of rain in just two days as a rain bomb inundates the area for four days

The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a rain band in central and northern Queensland which could bring widespread rainfall of up to 50mm in four days (a woman pictured in Brisbane)

If the system lines up the way forecasters predict, heavy rainfall could be seen from Cape York in Queensland all the way to Tasmania, where fog is likely and snow will fall.

Meteorologist Shane Kennedy told the Brisbane Times that rainfall records could be broken between Rockhampton and Townsville in the next 24 hours.

'Rockhampton's July average is 32mm and it has already had 5mm since 9am today, and nearby areas are picking up more rain,' he said.

Brisbane could see as much as 20mm of rain on Sunday and up to 30mm on the Gold Coast.

If the system lines up the way forecasters predict, heavy rainfall could be seen from Cape York in Queensland all the way to Tasmania, where fog is likely and snow will fall

'Sunday should bring a fair bit of rain and the chance of a storm as the surface trough moves offshore  before conditions start clearing from Monday,' Mr Kennedy said.

Forecasters have warned of the threat of flash flooding in Mackay and Bundaberg as the system intensifies before moving to New South Wales.

Meanwhile a high pressure system will continue to linger in NSW for the next 48 hours before a coastal trough brings severe rain by Sunday.

Heavy rain and gusty winds are being predicted in some areas of the southern and central New South Wales coast and parts of the north coast on Sunday.

The Bureau of Meteorology also issued a strong wind warning for the North Kimberley coast, Bunbury Geographe coast, Leeuwin coast and Albany coast in Western Australia.

Adelaide will endure cloudy and dry conditions heading into the weekend, while Canberra will wake to sub-zero temperatures this week.
Americas largest mortgage lender isnt ready to let the conversation around diversity stall. Quicken Loans Mortgage Services (QLMS) Executive Vice President Austin Niemiec said while progress has been made within the industry, it still has a long way to go.

We have a steadfast commitment to promoting diversity in recruitment and leadership. Through sponsoring diversity-focused events, we increase our brand awareness and extend opportunities to communities that may not have been aware of us. This allows us to meet with new candidates from a variety of backgrounds and promote an inclusive environment within Quicken Loans, said Niemiec.

Diversity and inclusion have become increasingly important topics of discussion amongst company leaders in every industry over the past few months, prompted by two major milestone events including the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Civil Rights Act  a decision which now includes the barring of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Companies are taking action by increasing their focus on diversity in recruitment and leadership positions, and actively putting in strategies to help accomplish these goals. Quicken Loans is one of those companies.
Archdiocese of Miami calls for hate crime investigation after statue of Jesus found headless

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The Archdiocese of Miami is calling for a hate crime investigation after vandals beheaded a statue of Jesus at a church, adding to a string of attacks on Catholic monuments nationwide.

Deacon Edivaldo da Saliva of the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in West Kendall, told Local 10 that he found the headless statue of the Savior on Wednesday morning and condemned it as a part of an ongoing attack on church monuments nationwide.

"This morning I found it on the ground, and we presume that it is vandalism," da Saliva said. "We have seen this happening all over the country."

The Archdiocese of Miami now wants police to investigate the vandalized statue as a hate crime.

"Archbishop Thomas Wenski is requesting this investigation be considered a hate crime," Mary Ross Agosta, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Miami, told Fox News. "The statue, located outside the church, was on private and sacred property."

The attack on the Miami churchs statue of Jesus comes in the wake of similar attacks against other monuments to saints and biblical figures.

Last weekend a statue of the Virgin Mary was also beheaded at a parish in Chattanooga, Tennessee, becoming the third such attack, the Catholic News Agency reported.

Fr. Manuel Perez, pastor of St. Stephen Catholic Church, said he found the headless Virgin Mary while walking the church grounds in preparation for mass last Saturday morning.

Fr. Perez said that he looked around the church grounds to see if he could find a missing head and he couldn't locate it, Jim Wogan, director of communications for the Diocese of Knoxville, told CAN about the vandalized $2,000 statue of the Holy Mother.

A statue of Mary was set on fire in Boston, Massachusetts, while in Brooklyn, New York, another statue was tagged with the word IDOL in black spray paint.

Wogan said the attacks were happening at a very chaotic time in our history, noting that anger seems to be sort of a default setting for people right now.

I think our bishop and our pastors would hope that people would remember the sort of example that is set in the Gospels  that, we're to treat each other as we'd want to be treated, he said.

Last month, the Archdiocese of St. Louis in Missouri was forced to defend the statue of King Louis IX of France located in front of the St. Louis Art Museum in Forest Park as praying Catholics clashed with protesters seeking to tear it down.

For those unfamiliar with King Louis IX he was a rabid anti-semite who spearheaded many persecutions against the Jewish people. Centuries later Nazi Germany gained inspiration and ideas from Louis IX as they embarked on a campaign of murderous genocide against the Jewish people. Louis IX was also vehemently Islamophobic and led a murderous crusade against Muslims which ultimately cost him his life, a change.org petition seeking to change the name of St. Louis the city and remove the statue, said.

In a statement defending the king, the Archdiocese of St. Louis called him a saint who reverenced God and did much to care for the poor.

The history of the statue of St. Louis, the King is one founded in piety and reverence before God, and for non-believers, respect for ones neighbor. The reforms that St. Louis implemented in French government focused on impartial justice, protecting the rights of his subjects, steep penalties for royal officials abusing power, and a series of initiatives to help the poor. King Louis IXs renowned work in charity helped elevate him to Sainthood, the archdiocese explained.

King Louis IXs renowned work in charity helped elevate him to Sainthood, the St. Louis Archdiocese continued. His daily suppers were shared with numerous beggars, whom he invited to the royal table. On many evenings, he would not let them leave before he washed their feet. He personally paid to feed more than 100 poor Parisians every day. His care for the sick was equally moving; St. Louis frequently ministered to lepers. He also created a number of hospitals, including one for the blind and another for ex-prostitutes, the statement added.
Netflixs latest addition to the world of reality dating shows, Indian Matchmaking, follows Mumbai matchmaker Sima Tapariaor Sima Auntie, as shes mostly referred toas she tries to find perfect spouses for six different clients. Armed with a stack of profiles listing these potential partners pedigrees and qualifications, Taparia travels between India and the U.S., juggling not just her clients specifications for what they want, but what their families want, too.

The show has earned both rave reviews and criticisms for what Washington Post editor Mili Mitra describes as unthinkingly normaliz[ing] some of the most pernicious biases that plague South Asian communities. Another one of those critics was Slate copy editor Nitish Pahwa, so I invited him to discuss the series and his concerns. Below is an edited and condensed version of our conversation.

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Rachelle Hampton: Indian Matchmaking is a window into a world that I think most non-Indian people have little to no familiarity with, beyond broad-stroke stereotypes. What did you think of how it presented that world?

Nitish Pahwa: I fucking hated it. Admittedly, I went into this with extremely low expectations, considering my own personal aversion to reality TV and dating shows, and my firsthand experiences seeing how arranged marriages and matchmaking have affected people I know well, but it was somehow even worse than Id imagined. But please dont let my vitriol keep you from saying what youd like to say.

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Hampton: As Slates resident expert on reality TV dating shows, I thought it was a lot better produced than it needed to beIm comparing it to its closest cousin, Married at First Sight. As Inkoo Kang wrote in her review for the Hollywood Reporter, its a reality show that aspires to be a docuseries, which I think gives it a sense of authority on a process that I didnt really understand. From a reality TV perspective, it hits all the notes. There were moments that were super cringey and others that were emotionally rewarding. There are villains, like Aparna, who once turned down a man because he didnt know that Bolivia had salt flats, and Akshays mother, who suggests that her 25-year-old sons unwillingness to find a wife is somehow keeping his older brother from having a child? And then there are people I genuinely wanted to find love, like Ankita and Nadia.

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I will say that a lot of the outright colorism threw me off. I think on American dating shows, physical preferences are largely left unspoken, so it was jarring to hear a client say, I dont want anyone too dark. But in a way, I appreciated the transparency.

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Pahwa: Yes, the colorism. It was a not-insignificant part of this show that also really bothered me, and it is certainly a toxic symptom of certain Indian communities and social structures. I cannot speak to other dating showsyoure the expert!but I wonder if that sometimes manifests itself in those more implicitly and insidiously than it does here, where its more, like you said, Oh, I dont want someone dark or I would prefer someone from North India. I think transparency is not a bad thing in and of itself; what I take issue with is the show, and the people involved, taking that colorism for granted as part of Indian dating life. This also holds true for when Sima and some of the families would ask about caste, region, class, occupation, and so on.

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I am not saying this is an infrequent problem in Indian communities both at home and in the diaspora. But to just throw those things out there without digging into or interrogating the structures that enable them feels to me irresponsible. Theres a reason certain families who set up arranged marriages and matchmaking for their kids tend to hold these prejudices. That is shown in a way, I guess, but never actually explained. It was all portrayed as a natural part of Indian dating. With the show generally ending on a note of positivity and optimism about this system and how it worksall of that left a horrible taste in my mouth.

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Im not someone who needs big blinking signs saying BY THE WAY THIS THING IS BAD in pop culture. I love a good show with an antihero. But when youre engaging with certain aspects of Indian cultures and presenting them tolets be honestwhite audiences, who already tend to exoticize and glamorize and hold noxious, incorrect views about the country and its people, I think you have a responsibility to go further. Especially if youre a reality show that aspires to be a docuseries, with all the authority that entails.

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Hampton: As someone who wasnt necessarily primed to see or really understand the way that caste, religion, or occupation play a role in India, all of that wasnt as overt to me as it seems it was to you, which is partially why I wanted to talk to you about it. From a purely American perspective, a lot of the preferences that families had felt very similar to the ones that Ive seen contestants on other dating shows have. Its not uncommon to hear people say, I want a professional or a partner with ambition on, like, The Bachelor.

Which is to say, I dont think the show does a good job of providing specific cultural context, especially around caste. One of the most overt moments, where one client is concerned that her being Guyanese makes her less suitable to traditional Indian families, read to me as xenophobia, but a friend pointed out that it was more likely caste-based discrimination.

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Pahwa: It can be both!

Hampton: I do think the show and Sima required women to adjust or be flexible in a way that left a bad taste in my mouth. Im thinking of when Ankita said she would like to have a conversation with her partner before they moved from the city where shes built a successful business rather than just following him to wherever he went.

Pahwa: Yes, Simas requests for especially her female clients to basically change their natures for the sake of compatibility with some rando really bothered me as well. Again, this is certainly a problem in some Indian societies. And this is a big part of why I didnt hate Aparna as much as everyone else seems to: While she certainly said some weird things, I found Simas demands of her to change herself for a suitors sake far more troubling. Indian women who marry into families like the ones depicted here are often subjected to heavy abuse and browbeating and gaslighting not only from their spouses and in-laws but even their own families who expect them to be totally deferential to their husbands. Again, Ive seen this firsthand. For the show to center and elevate someone who is more than willing to be a cog in this, and is proud of it, is incredibly disturbing.

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That gets into another issue with this show: In a lot of places, through a lot of ways, the show basically seemed to be saying, Matchmaking is a big part of Indian societies and it may seem weird to you but actually in Modern Times participants are fully consenting and things often end up quite well. No! The show only depicted certain middle- and upper-class families and clients who submit of their own accord. It doesnt at all go into how horrible these arrangements can be, especially for poorer families who feel like theyre forced into this. It doesnt get into how the very concept of arranged marriage is extremely a symptom of lingering caste systems that, although they certainly remain in India and in the diaspora, many Indians also now eschew. It doesnt get into how even those who seem fully willing to be set up are responding to implicit pressures from their families and friends. It doesnt really get into how traumatic it can all be for the clients, especially women. I was hoping Akshay could maybe be seen as an example of this (despite his wondering aloud how a working woman will find time to also take care of the kids), but from what I see on Twitter, few viewers seem to actually be factoring in how Akshays experiences with his family have so broken him. And, as weve seen in follow-up Where are they now? updates on the people involved, literally none of these matches worked out.

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I do know people with arranged marriages that have worked. I have known more people with arranged or match-made marriages that were horrible and either ended in separation or mere stasis. I hate to think that people will walk away from this show thinking that arranged and match-made relationships arent so bad as all that across the subcontinent and diaspora. The Indian in the title is such a terrible shorthand that erases all the different cultures and societies within India.

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Hampton: The way Sima crosses the globe so many times really does suggest that theres this homogenous approval of matchmaking, which as youve said and Ive seen in many threads on Twitter, isnt accurate.

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Your point about none of the matches working out really gets to the heart of one of the lingering questions I had about the show. One of the ways shows like these are marketed is to basically say, Youve failed at dating thus far, so why not put it in the hands of a neutral observer? or Youre overwhelmed by choice, so let someone else narrow down the pool for you. Love Is Blind had a similar premise, as do Married at First Sight and Are You the One?, though the latter is a lot hornier than the others. But none of these relationships lasted. The only person whos not single right now is Ankita, who met someone on a dating app, and possibly Rupam, who also met someone on a dating app. It raises the question: Does arranged marriage/matchmaking work when the participants can end the relationship whenever they want? Basically, without the pressure that Sima says no longer exists because the boy or girl can say no, will this process break down? And the answer seems to be  yes.

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Pahwa: Right, thats a great point. The system of matchmaking and arranged marriages is inherently based on power imbalances, whether those stem from caste, class, gender, or other factors. Just being matched with someone based on your dreams of marriage then leads to expedited conversations that, as mentioned in the show, would normally be saved for, like, years into the relationship, like household, ambition, location, and so on.

Putting aside everything else (which is very difficult to do), can we also talk about how inept a matchmaker Sima is? It was so darkly funny to me that she was like, Im so good at this, people I match usually marry by the next day. Then you see her blaming her failures on the participants, on the stars, on destiny, and so on and so forth. Shes simultaneously claiming she can do what she does well while also saying its not under her control at all. Seems like  youre maybe just a grifter?

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Hampton: There was really very little evidence that Sima was Mumbais best matchmaker!

The astrology and face-reading [analyzing a persons facial features to determine their personality] were really interesting to me. Weve talked about this before, but it definitely gave me insight into your aversion to astrology and had me second-guessing the cutesy Co-Star form of astrology that I think most Americans are familiar with. Did I low-key want to get my face read? Yes. Did I want that determining my future marriage? Obviously, no.

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Pahwa: Right. Ive been to weddings whose dates were decided by how best the stars aligned, how auspicious these days would be for the marriage, etc. Some of those ended up being bad marriages. Which is why it bothered me so much, again going back to Aparna, when Sima tried to get her into astrology to see how the stars could determine her better matches since she otherwise seemed to believe Aparna to be hopeless. For what its worth, I dont think theres much harm in simple curiosity in such spiritual things, and I dont want to knock anyones firm beliefs. I just resent how often Ive seen stuff like this become a rigid determinator of Life.

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Hampton: Was there anything you liked about the show?

Pahwa: LOL. I liked a couple of the people, like Nadia. This also is very much pandering to me, but I also liked that in one scene with a family, you could hear the classic Bollywood song Mera Joota Hai Japani in the background. What did you like about it?

Hampton: I mean I love reality TV dating shows, so this was right up my alley in terms of content. I really loved most of the women, though I was left with the same feeling I have on most of these shows, which is that theyd be better off finding someone  not on television. It was interesting watching it in the context of Netflixs other forays into this genre like Love Is Blind, Too Hot to Handle, Dating Around. I think theyre really trying to diversify a very old format, to middling success.

Pahwa: Would you say the performativity inherent to the genre is something that helps prevent such dating from being successful?

Hampton: Oh, definitely, but I also think, rather cynically, that dating is largely just a game of losses and one or two eventual big wins. So, it makes sense that in trying to portray that, youd mostly see losses.

Pahwa: I think the cynical view here is definitely the accurate one.

For more of Slates TV coverage, listen to Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, and Julio Torres discuss the making of their HBO show Los Espookys on Working.
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Linkedin Yunindita Prasidya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 22:19 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066841ea4 1 Business DBS,banking,green-investment,asset-under-management,ESG,outlook Free

Singapores largest bank the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) is seeking to boost the amount of funds it will channel into green investments as investors appetite for environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment products increases.

DBS, Singapores largest bank, recently announced that it planned for 8 to 10 percent of its total assets under management (AUM) to be channeled into sustainable investments within the next five years. As of 2019, the banks AUM stood at S$245 billion.

Eight to 10 percent of AUM we believe is a very good target. Just to give you a sense of comparison, the average bank in Asia currently has about 5 percent of their AUM in ESG-type investments, DBS group head of private bank Joseph Poon said during a media briefing on July 14.

We all believe that social good is good for the soul, its good for business, its good for the community, Poon went on to say. So, we want to be ambitious and double that amount in five years time.

Although a standard definition is lacking, sustainable or ESG investing largely refers to financing efforts that contribute to mitigating the impacts of climate change. This may include financing the pursuit of a low-carbon economy, or supporting businesses that implement ethical conduct and empower the local community, among other criteria.

Poon added that the bank had seen growing interest among millennials in ESG investing. Millennials are more willing to express their values through investments, he noted.

The pandemic has left an indelible mark on investors, with reports indicating that the pandemic has altered how they think about their finances. It is especially true among millennials, a survey has shown.

A UBS investor watch news release, published on July 13, said that millennials had been the most affected by the pandemic, writing that they were now more concerned about their finances than older generations.

They are also concerned about having their money make a societal impact, the report said. A third of millennials surveyed have increased financial support for family and friends, 69 percent are interested in sustainable investing and 60 percent in philanthropy because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These preferences will likely determine long-term trends in investing, Moodys Investors Service wrote in a report published on Feb. 27. It said that the shift toward ESG products would be enduring, as the young cohort that was beginning to invest in the financial market was characterized as being more socially conscious.

The desire to avoid future losses is another reason investors are turning to ESG products.

With greater recognition of the risks and opportunities arising from ESG considerations, such as climate change, investors are increasingly focused on avoiding investment losses connected to these risks, and on positioning themselves to profit from correctly anticipating climate and social trends, the report reads.

Moodys Investors Service estimated that the total addressable market size for ESG products was a rather significant US$89 trillion, more than half of the $129.6 trillion in total global invested assets.

The United Nations expects that within the next 20 years, Indonesia will be one of the top 10 economies in the world. So, Indonesia, in the long run, is a great economy to invest in if you want to be in ASEAN, DBS Bank group head of consumer banking and wealth management Sim S. Lim said.
President Donald Trump talks to reporters while hosting Republican Congressional leaders and members of his cabinet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on July 20, 2020. (Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)

House Passes Defense Policy Bill Despite Trump Veto Threats Over Renaming Amendment

The House of Representatives on July 21 passed its version of the $740-billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), despite the threat of a veto from President Donald Trump over the renaming of military assets named after Confederate leaders.

The annual defense policy bill was approved by the Democrat-led House on Tuesday in a 295-125 vote, paving the way for negotiations with the Senate on a compromise version of the NDAA, which Trump would then sign or veto. Of the 125 no votes, 43 were from Democrats.

The $740.5-billion NDAA also includes a ban on the Confederate flag on military propertyincluding living quarters, vehicles, and clothing.

The White House earlier on Tuesday said in a statement (pdf) that the president would veto the crucial legislation that funds the military for the 2021 fiscal year if it required the Defense Department to strip the names of Confederate generals from U.S. military bases and facilitiesan amendment proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

The Pentagon would be required to rename bases and other military properties within a year under the version of the defense bill approved Tuesday.

In its announcement, the White House said the amendment is part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct, deploring a left-wing cultural revolution.

Many on the left say Confederate names and monuments represent a history of white supremacy.

The Trump administration also has serious concerns about certain provisions of the bill that seek to micromanage aspects of the executive branchs authority, impose highly prescriptive limitations on the use of funds for Afghanistan, and otherwise constrain the presidents authority to protect national security interests, the statement said.

The Senate version of the bill is under consideration and will be debated this week. The Senate bill also includes a plan to change the names of bases such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, which honor men who fought against U.S. troops 155 years ago during the Civil War.

Trump on Sunday criticized efforts to rename military assets named for people who served in the political or military leadership of any armed rebellion against the United States.

We won two World Wars, beautiful World Wars that were vicious and horrible and we won them out of Fort Bragg, we won them out of all of these forts and now they want to throw those names away, the president told Fox News.

Past efforts to rename military installations have stalled on the grounds that these places represent an American tradition.

Warren earlier this month argued that these names represent an ugly past and the names of traitors should not be honored.

Those who complain that removing the names of traitors from these bases ignores history ought to learn some history themselves. These bases were not named in the years following the Civil War. No. They were named decades and decades later, during the Jim Crow era, to strengthen a movement that tried to glorify the Confederacy and reinforce white supremacy, Warren argued.

Warren argued that the current political moment, after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while in the custody of Minneapolis police, calls for ending police brutality, once and for all. It is also about ending systemic racism.

A Pentagon spokesman said he expected Congress and the White House would work out their differences. They understand the importance of the NDAA, and were confident the NDAA will be signed and implemented on time so that we can have a budget for our forces, he said.

Masooma Haq and Reuters contributed to this report.
Its not a threat, its a promise, she said. In every state where its been challenged, its been struck down.

Courts have ruled that such bans create an unconstitutional undue burden to accessing abortion care during the second trimester of pregnancy. Only two of the dozen states that have passed such bans have the laws in effect. Neither of the two has abortion providers that perform second-trimester abortions.

On Tuesday, Nebraska senators voted 30-8 to get LB 814 out of the Judiciary Committee, which had been deadlocked on the measure. Thats five more than was needed for the pull motion to succeed but short of the 33 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

I still have some work to do, Geist acknowledged, while noting: Its apparent that the majority of the body agrees with this bill.

LB 814 would ban an abortion procedure used from week 13 through week 24 of a womans pregnancy in which clamps, forceps or similar instruments are used to remove pieces of a living fetus. The ban would not apply if suction is used to remove pieces of a fetus. It also would not apply if the fetus was dead before being removed.
A change in US president is unlikely to see sanctions against Huawei eased, the Digital Secretary has said.

Oliver Dowden cast doubt on suggestions that the UK ban could be lifted if Donald Trump loses his bid to be re-elected in November, saying that he believes the US stance would remain the same regardless.

Last week, the UK decided to ban the Chinese firm from having a role in the countrys 5G network, owing to tougher US sanctions restricting Huaweis ability to build chips.

The company was initially allowed a limited role within the non-core parts of the network capped at 35%, but security concerns brought on by the US move forced the Government to perform a major U-turn.

Today @DCMS Secretary of State @OliverDowden set out the Government's plan for increasing diversity in the telecomms market. We asked him about how the Government's decision to exclude #Huawei from the #5G network will affect the timescale for rollout. Watch his response  pic.twitter.com/c3RK2oquai  Science and Technology Committee (@CommonsSTC) July 22, 2020

We could continue to keep it under review but that is a somewhat unlikely scenario given that there is pretty much bipartisan consensus on that so I have no reason to believe that a change in the US presidency would change that position, Mr Dowden told the Science and Technology Committee.

If anything what we have seen over previous months and years is that there has been a tightening, there has been no evidence that there is going to be any loosening of those sanctions.

Story continues

British telecoms firms have been told to remove Huawei equipment from the 5G network by 2027 and stop purchasing new 5G equipment from Huawei by the end of the year.

The changes are expected to cost billions and delaying the deployment of 5G by up to three years.

Ministers are in talks with Samsung and NEC about plugging the eventual gap that will be left by Huawei in a bid to make the network as diverse as possible.

Mr Dowden told MPs that he is looking at ways of turbo-charging the process of diversification by creating a taskforce led by a senior person from the telecommunications sector.
A flood that swept villages along the Huaihe River in Anhui province is expected to worsen as heavy rainfall is forecast to hit the river, according to meteorological departments. On Tuesday, the Anhui provincial hydrographic office issued a red alert for flooding, the highest in a four-tier warning system. Near the Wangjiaba hydrological station in the province's Fuyang city, located on the north side of the Huaihe's main stream, the flood left farmland submerged. Routes to villages have been cut off, and rescuers had to send relief materials by boat. The area is home to over 195,000 people, and about 2,000 villagers among them who were doing farm work in the flood basin near the station have been relocated. Lang Maoyong, a 49-year-old villager of Hexie village, Wangjiaba town, said that currently there is still no need to relocate. "Our village is located on higher land above the flood, so it's fine," he said. "Food and other materials we stored in advance can sustain my family for a week. The government has supported us a lot." Guo Chang, an official of the village, said his routine task was to check the number of villagers and whether they need food or medical aid. By Tuesday, the Fuyang city government had sent 11 medical workers to Wangjiaba, and more than 100 policemen were on duty to hand out relief materials and fight the flood. Zhang Fanghua, chief forecaster of the National Meteorological Center, said that a cyclone over the Yellow and Huaihe rivers caused the rain. "The cyclone, a low-pressure weather system, accumulated surrounding water vapor like a water pump, and the system is commonly seen as an indicator of rainstorms," she said. According to the Huaihe River Commission, the water level at the Wangjiaba hydrological station in Fuyang reached 29.66 meters on Monday morning, 0.36 meters above the maximum design level for dikes in the section. The National Meteorological Center issued a blue alert for rainstorms on Tuesday morning, saying that the rain will continue to hit Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei and Henan provinces. Zhang said that these areas should take precautions against floods, mountain torrents and strong winds. After days of rain in Mazhe village, located in Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture in Hubei, a mudslide formed a barrier lake on the upper reaches of a local river on Tuesday morning. Local residents are likely to suffer from a water supply shortage for 10 days because the local reservoir decided to pour out large amounts of water for drinking usage to make room for possible floods coming down from the barrier lake, the local government said. As of Sunday, floods in eastern and southern provinces have affected 23.8 million people, damaged about 160,000 houses and left 31 people dead or missing, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.


Atlantic Canada showed strength in the StatCan report, led by Halifaxs 0.5% monthly increase in June and 2.3% price increase year over year. New Brunswicks three major markets, Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton, saw a combined 2.3% increase year over year, but prices were flat from May to June. Charlottetown, too, held steady in June, but the Index increased an impressive by 1.5% since last year. The only year-over-year decline in the region was St. Johns, Newfoundland, which saw the Index shrink by 0.1% since last year.

Will ex-urbs drive the market?

Analysts told MBN that the numbers point to strength and resiliency in the Canadian housing market, as well as a significant shift towards ex-urbs as homebuyers in a world of remote work realize how much more they can get for their money.

I think this is a sea change, Dr. Sherry Cooper, chief economist at DLC, says of growing demand in suburbs and smaller housing markets.

I believe in the post pandemic world well see more remote employment. Not everyone will just march back to the downtown cores of the major cities, she says, noting the lack of appetite some city residents now have for downtown living  public transit, crowded elevators  in a post pandemic world. I think that many more people will be able to work from home at least part-time. Given that housing outside the core is that much cheaper, people will take advantage and be able to get more for their money.

Cooper says that while weve not seen many completions in these ex-urban markets lately, a great deal of construction is already in progress and likely to accelerate in response to the increasing demand. She says that developers, too, will see opportunity in cheaper land that they can turn into new units, outfitted for designated at-home workspaces.
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Matchaful is bringing an elevated in-store experience to the new Manhattan West Whole Foods Market location. Their new cafe, on the ground floor facing 10th Avenue, will focus on high-quality, single-origin matcha beverages and seasonal plant-based food. Included in the Friends of Whole Foods Market program, Matchaful is one of a number of innovative businesses that will provide shoppers access to unique flavors and cuisines.

Matchaful latte to-go Matchaful's cafe is located on the ground floor, on 10th Avenue at W. 31st St.

This opening marks an exciting phase of growth for the New York City-based company. Founded in 2015, Matchaful has served the greater NYC community through a series of pop-up locations before landing at their current home on Canal Street in Manhattan. Founder and Chief Matcha Officer, Hannah Habes, sees this connection with Whole Foods Market as a logical next step for the brand. "Each of our previous cafe experiences has given us a chance to learn and evolve as a brand over the last three years. When the opportunity came to launch our cafe experience as a Friend of Whole Foods Market, it was a no brainer. With a shared commitment to community and sustainability - it felt like the perfect partnership," says Habes. With a dedication to wholesome, natural ingredients and the highest quality matcha, sourced directly through a single multi-generational Japanese tea farm, the company has remained true to Habes' original mission: To take careof those around you, our planet, and yourselfand to do it every single day.

It's that sentiment that makes Matchaful such a complimentary partner to Whole Foods Market. In addition to the in-store cafe, the brand's line of single-origin, pesticide-free matcha is now available for purchase at 30 Whole Foods Market locations across the Northeast region. "At Whole Foods Market, our mission is to provide customers with the highest quality natural and organic foods," says Chris Manca, Northeast Region Local Forager at Whole Foods Market. "Matchaful's dedication to those same quality standards; ingredients, taste, freshness, and safetyalong with the knowledge and craft they bring to their products, makes them a perfect fit for our stores."

The new cafe will serve a variety of matcha-based beverages, with something for both enthusiasts and beginners. The menu features longstanding Matchaful favorites, such as their signature Vanilla Zen latte and Matcha Avocado Yogurt. As at Matchaful's Canal Street cafe, all products at the Whole Foods Market location are plant-based, feature organic ingredients, and focus on the quality and sustainability of the materials. The new Manhattan West cafe is open daily, and has implemented strict cleanliness and safety protocols to keep customers and employees safe during the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

About Matchaful: Matchaful is a female-founded purveyor of sustainably-grown Japanese green tea. Our direct-trade relationship offers full transparency into your tea's journey from farm to whisk.

Website: www.matchaful.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/matchaful

Name: Hannah Habes

Title: CEO

[email protected]

503-475-2075

SOURCE Matchaful

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A coalition of local veterans is asking for community support to remove graffiti damage at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and replace protest art with images that represent those who have served in the military.

The group, Wisconsin Veterans for a Clean Museum, had secured the go-ahead from building owner Greg Rice to orchestrate the project last month under the condition that members be responsible for funding and overseeing the work, but support for the project was rescinded July 7 after the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation Board voted 6-3 against it.

The group has already raised the $20,000 needed for the work but is uncertain about what to do now without permission from the museums board.

Since early June, the building located on the Capitol Square has been the target of inflammatory graffiti, according to BJ Ganem, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and group organizer. The graffiti first appeared after the Downtown protests against racism and police brutality in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

On the plywood covering the museums windows is a mural honoring Floyd that was commissioned by the city of Madison, but graffiti on the building itself uses language that offends some veterans, according to Tim La Sage, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and a member of the Foundation Board who supports the project.

Theres something that needs to be done with the damage, and we think that theres a pragmatic and compassionate way to do it instead of just letting hate fester, Ganem said.

They had planned to remove the mural and display it at the corner of State and Mifflin streets. In its place, they would put up images from wars throughout history that represent all the veterans of all different colors, sizes, sexuality and sexes, Ganem said.

The images will show the contributions of African American service members before and after military-unit segregation, as well as the cohesive nature of modern-day multiracial, multigender military units, according to a statement from the group.

On June 10, the coalition sent a letter signed by 10 veterans to Wisconsin Veterans Affairs Secretary Mary Kolar offering its assistance in repairing the buildings damage.

Kolar released a public statement saying the museum has covered most of the damaged areas with plywood that has been recently painted with art provided by local artists in order to celebrate inclusivity, diversity and recognize the plight of Black Lives and Black Veterans in Wisconsin.

The organizers say they have tried to contact Kolar to ask if she supports repairing the museum, but have not received a response.

La Sage said its disappointing to see veteran leaders  referring to the museums board and Kolar  not amplifying the voices of veterans, something they are supposed to do.

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation said in a statement that while it appreciates the veterans efforts, it did not vote to act as fiduciary agent on the repair project because the Foundations mission is to solely provide monetary support to the Veterans Museum for developing new exhibits, implementing public educational programs and acquiring historical collections.

They also said the foundations charter does not allow it to collect funds for projects outside its mission.

The state and the Wisconsin Veterans Museum do not own the building, so the buildings owner has jurisdiction over the integrity of the building, the statement said.

Ganem said Rice, the buildings owner, pulled support for the project out of fears that removing the mural and graffiti would invite retaliation and more damage. Rice did not respond to a request for comment.

Ganem said he hopes the community will understand that their efforts are not to silence the voices of those who are protesting, but to honor the diverse veterans who have fought for those protesters rights.

Additionally, the new installation would be covered with a clear plastic that would allow any subsequent graffiti to be easily washed off, according to the group.

Were not trying to stifle their overall message at all that we need systematic changes in this country. Were just trying to de-escalate the situation, make it better and bring people together, Ganem said. We want to put an image up there that is supportive of the national conversation, but also brings back some honor and dignity to the veterans.

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Bollywood actor Manisha Koirala has compared the current scenario of fear and uncertainty with her battle against cancer eight years ago. She says the current scene seems easy in comparison to what she faced earlier.

Manisha told Bollywood Hungama in an interview, Ive faced a worse storm in my life. In comparison this seems easy. I am calm. I am meditating. I am doing yoga. I am spending time with my plants. I am connecting with Nature. After years we can hear birds chirping in Mumbai. I am spending time with my parents. Ive never felt so calm and at peace before. The actor battled ovarian cancer in 2012.

She also said shed felt the constant need to be in a relationship earlier, But that has changed over the years. In recent years, after my illness Im happy to be on my own. This is a time when I am really getting to know myself.

Talking about the lockdown, Manisha had told Hindustan Times in an April interview, During my treatment days in New York, I was basically locked up in my apartment for six long months. Looking back, that was thousand times worse than this for me. (Right now) Even if were locked up for a total of two months, it at least gives us hope that things will get better if we follow all instructions. I understand that were tense and bored, but I think we should also understand the gravity of the situation and take inspiration for our past experiences or from what we see around us.

Also read: Sona Mohapatra says Kangana Ranaut takes full advantage of the toxic star system, adds nepotism must be wiped out

Sharing how she keeps herself busy, Manisha added, Ive just started writing. Lets see what it finally turns out to be, a book or a screenplay, she says, adding that shes loving this time with nature. You can see how happy and bright nature has become. Ive seen few insects and birds that havent seen in the last few years.

Manisha was recently seen in Netflixs Maska and in Sanjay Dutts Prasthanam remake in 2019.

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There is a decline in the number of Indian job seekers looking for employment in the United States. Data from hiring platform Indeed, showed that while the US tops the list destination for overseas jobs, June 2020 job searches for the US fell to 42 percent from a high of 58 percent in January 2019.

There is a downward trend (in Indians looking for US jobs) that predates impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and corresponds instead with uncertainty around, and tightening of, US immigration policy, said a statement from Indeed.

In the year-ago period (June 2019), the figure was about 44 percent according to Indeed data.

Research from Indeed India showed that Indian job seekers remain keen to explore work opportunities across the globe, making up a significant fraction of those employed in various sectors such as technology, administration and management, sales and consumer marketing, and so on internationally.

Over the same period, there was a rise in searches for these roles in Canada, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and Qatar.

Sashi Kumar, Managing Director, Indeed India said, India is a unique market, not only in terms of its large and youthful labour pool, but also in the way that it is woven into the global economy. It is one of the few countries in the world that has a very high rate of mobility and people from India are willing to work in different parts of the world and return home for opportunities as well. This two-way migration connects us to the global labour force.

Demand in the technology sector grows

As a group, Indian job seekers are highly focused on tech in their job searches. Indeed data showed that almost 9 of the top 10 clicked jobs by Indians to the USA are related to technology roles. While looking for employment abroad, there is greater demand for jobs in this sector, especially for niche roles.

Job titles popular among Indians applying to the US

With respect to the job roles which were popular among Indians applying for US jobs, areas like full-stack developer, development operations engineer, business analyst, and java developer were among the leading ones.
(Source: Getty, AAP)

Although the national economy is beginning to show signs of recovery, some Australian workers who were doing comparatively well during the peak of the crisis will soon find themselves out of work, the Reserve Banks governor has said.

In a speech to the Anika Foundation yesterday, RBA governor Philip Lowe noted that the economy had turned the corner, with the number of employed Australians rising by 210,000 and numbers of hours worked increasing in June.

Many firms that were heavily affected by the shutdowns are now rehiring and lifting hours as the restrictions are eased in most of the country, he said.

But on the flip side, some sectors are now facing headwinds.

Through our business liaison we are hearing that many firms, including in the construction sector and in professional services, were able to keep many of their employees over recent months because they had a pipeline of work to complete.

But as new orders have declined, this pipeline is drying up, said Lowe.

If it is not replaced soon, hours worked in these businesses will decline further, just at the same time that other parts of the economy are coming back to life.

Denita Wawn, the chief executive of building and construction industry group Master Builders Australia, said it was the industry most reliant on JobKeeper.

Theres no doubt that JobKeeper continues to be a lifeline for thousands of small builders and tradies as well as many in the building supply chain, she said.

But many small builders and tradies still face an extremely tough 12 months at least, which is reflected in forecasts of a major contraction in demand.

The governments various stimulus packages will help support jobs and businesses as well as keep apprentices in work, she said.

But there will be no point if there is no work for the industry, she added.

Story continues

While there is no question as to the effectiveness of JobKeeper, and JobTrainer a pipeline of work is essential to the recovery of the industry and the economy

As the Government recognises, the massive contraction in demand that we are experiencing is due to the restrictions on economic activity imposed to save lives.

Stimulus measures like HomeBuilder, which creates work for the building and construction sector as well as secondary jobs, would be more effective in bolstering recovery, Wawn said.

Realestate.com.au chief economist Nerida Conisbee said major construction projects can take many years to complete.

So a new apartment building being built now was probably in the planning stages in 2017 or 2018. For major rail infrastructure projects, it would be even longer, she told Yahoo Finance.

For now, this means that the construction sector is being supported by what was planned several years ago. The issue now is that there are fewer projects being started up  it has a limited impact now but will have a bigger impact in the coming years.

AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver said approvals to build non-residential buildings have fallen for four months in a row.

The boost provided by the Federal Governments HomeBuilder scheme will help but wont fully offset the collapse in demand for housing flowing from the collapse in immigration, he told Yahoo Finance.

So in terms of construction I would agree with Governor Lowes assessment that there is a threat to hours worked and employment in that sector.

Make your money work with Yahoo Finances daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, economy, property and work news.

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Republicans have called on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify at Monday's antitrust hearing, which will feature the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

In a letter to Democratic leadership on Wednesday, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote, "We believe there is bipartisan interest to hear from Twitter about its power in the marketplace, its role in moderating content on its platform, and the causes for its recent highly publicized security breaches," a likely reference to last week's hack that affected the accounts of major figures including former President Barack Obama. The letter was addressed to Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.

The call follows ongoing tension between Jordan, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and Democratic leaders over the format of the hearing. Jordan previously asked Nadler to hold the hearing in front of the full committee, rather than before the Antitrust Subcommittee, to allow participation from all members. In Wednesday's letter, Jordan said that Nadler has so far declined that request.

Jordan described Twitter as "a market leader in social media" and said the hearing "represents a significant and unique opportunity to explore these issues with respect to Twitter as part of the Committee's investigation."

But Twitter is much smaller than the four other companies already set to testify, making an antitrust argument against the company more challenging. Though size is not necessarily an indication of anticompetitive behavior in the U.S., Twitter holds far less of the social media market than Facebook. Last quarter, Twitter reported 166 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs). Though it says that metric is not comparable to those for other platforms, it's far below the 1.73 billion daily active users (DAUs) Facebook reported last quarter.

Still, last week's hack demonstrated the amount of power Twitter wields by virtue of its elite userbase comprised of journalists, politicians and CEOs. Hackers were able to post fake messages soliciting cryptocurrency from the accounts of prominent people including former Vice President Joe Biden, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Conservatives, including Jordan, have argued that Twitter and other tech companies censor their voices through biased algorithms and inconsistent application of policies, which Twitter has denied. The company has recently become even more of a focus of conservative ire after it placed fact-check and warning labels over tweets by President Donald Trump it claimed had violated its policies. Shortly after, Trump announced an executive order calling for federal agencies to consider new rules around the legal shield that protects online platforms from liability for their moderation practices and users' posts.

A spokesperson for Nadler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the letter.

Jordan and Antitrust Subcommittee Ranking Member Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., wrote Dorsey earlier this month asking for information on Twitter's content moderation processes, including its decisions to moderate tweets by Trump. Jordan said in the latest letter that Dorsey had yet to respond to that letter, which asked for materials by Wednesday.

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WATCH: How US antitrust law works, and what it means for Big Tech
Marin County on Tuesday became the latest Bay Area county to authorize fines for residents and businesses that violate coronavirus health orders.

The Marin County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance calling for fines of $25 to $500 for individuals, and fines of $250 to $10,000 for businesses that do not follow public health orders.

Local law enforcement agencies and municipal departments in charge of restaurant health inspections will begin enforcing the new ordinance in the next couple of weeks, said Laine Hendricks, public information officer for Marin County.

The county will focus on businesses more than individuals  such as employers that do not enforce mask-wearing among employees, businesses that are open despite being ordered to shut down, and people who are continuing to rent out short-term lodging to vacationers despite a public health order restricting such short-term rentals to homeless people who need a place to self-isolate, individuals who must self-quarantine away from their family or household, or health care workers such as traveling nurses.

Napa County passed similar fines last week, of $25 to $500 for residents and $200 to $5,000 for businesses that flout public health orders.

Contra Costa County is also considering similar fines, but has yet to determine the size of the fines.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Several Bay Area counties have tasked their district attorneys offices to enforce health orders and field complaints from the public about residents and businesses that are allegedly breaking health order rules. Officials have generally sought to avoid issuing fines or citations when enforcing orders, instead trying to educate and warn businesses first.

Most businesses end up complying with the rules after police officers arrive to warn them. But occasionally, prosecutors must send formal letters to the businesses attorneys to notify them that violating health orders is a misdemeanor that could be criminally prosecuted.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho
US President, Donald Trump, has subtly responded to his critics who have condemned him in the past for not wearing face mask as part of efforts to prevent the spread of coronavirus.



The President tweeted a photo of himself wearing a face mask, with a caption that apparently seek to respond to criticisms he had faced in the past for refusing to wear mask.



Some Americans especially journalists, Democrats and health officials have in recent past condemned Mr Trump for failing to lead by example as far as the wearing of face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus is concerned.



The United States is the worst-hit coronavirus region, with its daily death toll rising above 1,000 for the first time in weeks.



In a tweet, President Trump signaled unity among Americans to defeat the coronavirus which he described as the Invisible China Virus.



We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you cant socially distance, he tweeted.



He added There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!









We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you cant socially distance. There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President! pic.twitter.com/iQOd1whktN

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2020









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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CEDAR RAPIDS  Sen. Joni Ernst wants to reward front-line workers who remain on the job during the coronavirus pandemic by suspending federal income taxes as well as federal payroll taxes for essential workers earning up to $50,000 a year.

Legislation she introduced Tuesday would compensate essential workers who have risen to the challenge and continued in their daily jobs to care for and protect Iowans, to produce and deliver food and essential goods, and to uphold our states critical infrastructure, Ernst told reporters on a conference call.

Front-line workers  nurses, truck drivers and grocery store workers, child care providers, and so many others ... are putting the livelihoods of their fellow Americans ahead of their own, the Iowa Republican said. And folks, I think they should be rewarded for their selfless service.

Under Ernsts Financial Relief Noting The Large Impact Of Our Nations Essential Employees Act  FRNTLINE  federal income taxes would be suspended for essential workers up to an annual income cap set at the highest level of pay for an enlisted person in the armed forces. Additionally, the bill would provide suspension of federal payroll taxes for essential workers who earn up to $50,000 annually. It would be retroactive to April 1.

These folks are the heroes who will help America beat this pandemic, Ernst said. Its time we pay them back.

The Senate returned to Washington this week after a two-week state work period and has another scheduled in three weeks. Thats sufficient time to develop a fourth phase of pandemic relief, Ernst said, adding were still in discussions, so I dont know exactly what its going to entail.

In Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, Indivisible members, who hope to defeat Ernsts re-election plans, demonstrated in support of the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act  HEROES Act. Its the House Democrats plan for funding schools, essential services and the postal system. GOP Senate leaders have no plans to take up the bill.

In addition to rewarding essential workers, Ernst hopes that aid for biofuels producers, who have seen their markets shrink during the pandemic, will be included in the broader agriculture relief portion of the package.

According to the industry, it has lost $3.4 billion in revenue since March and used 500 million fewer bushels of corn for fuel production, which typically account for 40 percent of the corn crop.

Ernst also said she supports continued federal support for COVID-19 testing because I think that makes people feel comfortable they know whether they have it or not, and it certainly guides what type of treatments they receive, or how they go about their daily lives.

Shell also be pushing for support for rural health care systems and rural clinics in the next relief package.

Its important to get children back to school, but Ernst said thats a decision for states and local school boards, not the federal government.

I think our superintendents are really happy that the federal government is not nosing down into their business, Ernst said. I think our superintendents, our local school boards, those parents and teachers should be making the decision on how their children receive the education and do it in the safest possible manner.

Asked whether federal funds should be withheld from districts that dont resume in-school classes  as President Donald Trump has suggested, Ernst said it is great that Congress holds the purse strings, and this is not something that Ive heard any member of Congress talking about.
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Telangana: Gay couple enter into wedlock, say it has sent out a message

Galwan Valley martyr Colonel Santosh Babu's wife Santoshi appointed as Deputy Collector in Telangana

India

pti-PTI

Hyderabad, July 22: The Telangana government on Wednesday handed over a letter of appointment as Deputy Collector and also a house site in the city to the wife of Col Santosh Babu, who was martyred in the recent violent clashes with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley.

"The state government has appointed Ms Santoshi, wife of Col Santosh Babu who was martyred in the recent clashes on the Indo-China Border, as Deputy Collector. Honourable Chief Minister Sri K Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday at Pragathi Bhavan handed over the appointment letter to Ms Santoshi," an official release said.

Rajnath Singh meets jawans of 16 Bihar Regiment that gave Chinese a bloody nose

Rao instructed the officials to post Santoshi in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas and also asked his secretary Smita Sabharwal to help Santoshi till she receives proper training and settles down in her job, it said.

Rao had lunch with 20 members of Santoshi's family at Pragati Bhavan, the camp office-cum-official residence of the Chief Minister. He assured them that the government would always stand by Col Santosh Babus family.

Galwan martyr Colonel Babu's wife appointed Deputy Collector | Oneindia News

Earlier, Hyderabad district Collector Sweta Mohanty and ruling TRS MLA Gadari Kishore Kumar handed over the documents pertaining to the allotment of 711 sq yards of land at posh Banjara Hills to Santoshi. Santoshi thanked the Chief Minister and the district Collector for the help. "In remembrance of the martyrdom of Col Santosh Babu, CM came to our house and helped...the Collector invited me today, showed the place (land in Hyderabad) to me and gave the related documents. I am thankful to the CM and Collector," Santoshi told reporters.

It was exactly a month ago (on June 22), when the Chief Minister visited the bereaved family at Suryapet town, about 130 km from here, and pledged his governments full support to the family.

DRDO-developed drone likely to be deployed in Ladakh

During his visit, Rao handed over cheques for Rs five crore announced as ex-gratia by him. He had also personally handed over a letter appointing Santoshi as a Group I service officer in the state government and documents allotting a house site of 711 sq yards at the Banjara Hills here.

The 39-year old colonel was among 20 Indian soldiers who were killed in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on June 15 during a violent clash with Chinesetroops.
HONOLULU - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has designated the waters of two remote beaches in Hawaii as contaminated by trash, forcing the state to address the persistent problem of plastic deposited on its coastlines by swirling Pacific Ocean currents.

The decision will require authorities to establish a daily limit for the trash at the two locations, one of which is so notorious for collecting debris that some call it Plastic Beach or Junk Beach.

Hawaii had opposed the step, which finds the waterways impaired under the Clean Water Act, on the grounds there were insufficient criteria or guidelines for determining what amounts to plastic pollution in waterways. But the EPA overruled the state, saying a lack of formalized methodology was not an excuse.

The agency published a notice about the decision on Friday. Its seeking public comment through Aug. 19. The state Department of Health did not respond to a request for comment.

David Forman, director of the environmental law program at the University of Hawaiis law school, said the state of Hawaii initially didnt want to list any of the 19 water bodies environmentalists had sued to have designated impaired.

So now, hopefully this will force Hawaii to to change that tune and start seriously addressing the problem of plastics in Hawaii, he said.

It may also add fuel to the fire to a broader push to address plastics as a pollutant, he said. This could be at local levels, he said, like the state Legislature and city councils, and at global institutions like the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The environmental groups the Center for Biological Diversity, the Surfrider Foundation and Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii sued the EPA to compel the decision.

Daily limits on trash will have to be incorporated into the states water quality management plan, said Maxx Phillips, the Hawaii director for the Center for Biological Diversity. The state will need to control the amount of plastic pollution at these sites so it doesnt harm water quality, she said.

Both sites are far from population centres. The first, Kamilo Beach, is on the southern point of the Big Island. The second, Tern Island, is an atoll 560 miles (900 kilometres) northwest of Honolulu that is within a wildlife refuge and marine national monument.

Trash lands at these spots in part because the Hawaiian archipelago acts like a comb for debris circulating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The sites also may include trash originating in Hawaii.

Phillips said state and federal agencies should work together to hold those responsible for this pollution accountable.

So that would be, you know, the oil industry, the fossil fuel industry, she said.

Most plastics are made with chemicals from fossil fuels.

In support of its decision, the EPA cited a 2011 study showing plastics were widespread throughout sediment below the high-tide line at Kamilo Beach. The agency noted since 2003, the Hawaii Wildlife Fund has organized cleanups at the beach or nearby coastlines that have removed an average of 16 metric tonnes (18 tons) of trash per year. Plastic is a significant portion of the debris, it said.

Regarding Tern Island, the EPA said 14.5 metric tonnes (16 tons) of marine debris has been collected within 3 miles (4.8 kilometres) of the atoll over an 11-year period. It said 71 per cent of the marine debris at Tern consists of plastics.

Called Kanemilohai in Hawaiian, the atoll is a breeding site for 18 species of seabirds. Nearby small islands have hosted pupping Hawaiian monk seals, a critically endangered species, and nesting Hawaiian green sea turtles, a threatened species.

The EPA noted state of Hawaii ecosystem classifications say Terns waters should remain in their natural, pristine state as much as possible. Under Hawaii law, that means they should have an absolute minimum of pollution from any human source.

Environmental groups wanted the EPA to designate 17 other water bodies in Hawaii as impaired by trash under the Clean Water Act. But the agency found there were questions and uncertainty about the data for the studies used to analyze those sites.

___

This story is corrected to say David Forman said the state of Hawaii didnt want to list any of the 19 water bodies environmentalists sued to have listed as impaired, not the state didnt want to list any water bodies.
It's a match.

In a world-first breakthrough, Australian and New Zealand scientists have cracked the fishy mystery surrounding the oversized oddball of the sea, the bump-head sunfish (Mola alexandrini).

For the first time they have identified which minuscule baby fish, or larvae, develop into these giant marine creatures.

Australian Museum scientists Andrew King and Kerryn Parkinson with a sunfish specimen. Credit:James Alcock

Unlike a puppy or a kitten, a sunfish's offspring or larvae look nothing like their adult form. In fact, they most resemble a Pokemon, said Marianne Nyegaard, lead scientist on the sunfish discovery .
- Ken Gichoya aka Njoro who is a landlord and businessman also has one more feather in his cap; he is a dad

- The beloved actor who is a proud father to two young boys showed off his handsome sons in a lovely Instagram photo

- The three looked alike and their picture was worth a thousand words

Days after most Kenyans assumed Papa Shirandula actor Ken Gichoya aka Njoro had been beaten down by alcoholism, a photo of the happy and healthy chap with his sons has emerged.

The thespian who denied being poor and dejected was spotted chilling with his two favourite boys in a lovely photoshoot taken out in the wild.

READ ALSO: Aston Villa vs Arsenal: Trezeguet goal dents Gunners Europa League chances

Njoro and his boys. Photo: Ken Gichoya

Source: Instagram

READ ALSO: Likoni: Zaidi ya watu 13 wajeruhiwa katika mkanyagano wa feri Mombasa

The renowned actor who was Papas bestie on and off screen dressed in a yellow kitenge and held on to a stuff as he sat next to his two legacies.

The three guys looked alike and anyone who threw one glance at them would immediately know they were cut from the same cloth.

Njoro who shared the photo on Instagram referred to his pride and joy as his gang as he proudly smiled when the cameraman clicked away.

READ ALSO: Tanasha's replacement? Mama Dangote posts photo of hot woman on Instagram

READ ALSO: My wife left as I became financially weak, promised to return if things get better - Heartbroken man

He was a cool dad who raised two cool sons and their photo immediately screamed you cannot sit with us.

The trio looked like they were fresh from a magazine cover and were all majestic in their African attire.

Njoro was different from his character on TV and this time around, his fatherly instincts roared louder than the king of the jungle.

READ ALSO: 7 hottest Diamond Platinumz's hits from his breakthrough to 2020

The actor had people worried when he was pictured in pain while standing next to his friend Papas final resting place in Busia.

Njoro looked haggard, tired, sad and disappointed and his fans worried he could easily slip into depression.

The thespian who acted alongside the late entertainer for years was speechless after losing his dear friend and trusted colleague.

His eyes were watery and his heart was heavy when the man he had spent so many years looking up to finally said goodbye to the world.

The photo made rounds on social media and guys could not try to fathom what the actor was going through at that moment.

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Kamotho, Virginia and Tabitha meet in court over custody battle | Tuko TV

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An Allentown licensed liquor establishment was given a notice of violation for not complying with COVID-19 mitigation requirements earlier this week.

Pennsylvania State Police Liquor Control Enforcement Officers overall visited 1,876 licensed liquor establishments on Monday and Tuesday. The compliance checks drew the one notice of violation, as well as 47 warnings for failure to follow state rules.

As mandated by the liquor code, a notice of violation precedes the issuance of an administrative citation, which is civil in nature, and is intended to provide licensed liquor establishments notification of the nature of violation(s) discovered, according to police. The investigation remains open during this period, pending review by the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement (BLCE).

Establishment names are not released during investigations.

Harrisburg and Pittsburgh tied for having the most warnings at 13 each. Williamsport establishments had seven, Wilkes-Barre had four, Altoona and Erie had three each, Philadelphia had two, and Allentown and Punxsutawney had one.

While compliance checks are focused in areas of the commonwealth where higher rates of coronavirus transmission are occurring, they can happen anywhere unannounced.

All businesses and employees in the restaurant and retail food service industry authorized to conduct in-person activities are mandated to:

Require all customers to wear masks while entering, exiting, or otherwise traveling throughout the restaurant or retail foodservice business (face masks may be removed while seated). Further, employees are required to wear masks at all times.

Provide at least six feet between parties at tables or physical barriers between customers where booths are arranged back to back.

Ensure maximum occupancy limits for indoor and outdoor areas are posted and enforced.

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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 13:22 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668679fe 1 National COVID-19,rapid-testing,coronavirus,virus-korona-indonesia,SIKM,PCR-test,travelers,Airport Free

Airport authorities have stopped asking passengers arriving in the capital city to present their exit and entry permit (SIKM) since July 17, when the Jakarta administration revoked the requirement for both incoming and outgoing travelers and replaced it with the Corona Likelihood Metric (CLM).

PT Angkasa Pura (AP) II has stopped asking for the SIKM at the two main commercial airports in the capital, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten and Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in East Jakarta. The state-owned airport operator has said that eliminating the SIKM has made the predeparture procedure simpler because it required fewer documents.

Read also: COVID-19: Here are the requirements for those seeking to travel to, within Indonesia

AP II operations and services director Muhamad Wasid said that travelers need only present a test report for a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test or a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) that was valid for 14 days.

Document checks will [now] be simpler, as the SIKM requirement has been revoked. A longer validity for the rapid or PCR test report can help travelers be more flexible in managing [their] flight schedules, Muhamad said on Monday in a statement .

The new requirements for air passengers travelling to and from Jakarta are to:

Install the Communication and Information Ministry's PeduliLindungi free contact tracing application (available on Google Play and the App Store) on their smartphones;

Fill out a health alert card (HAC) prior to departure, to be checked upon arrival at their destination;

Present personal identity documents and health certificates; and

Follow the health protocols, including the body temperature check.

These requirements -- except for the HAC -- also apply to travelers using other modes of transportation to enter or leave Greater Jakarta.

The Jakarta administration is also encouraging all travelers to self-report via the JakCLM feature on the Jakarta Kini (JAKI) mobile app, a dedicated app it has developed that will feed the data to the CLM. The free app is available on both Google Play and the App Store, and was developed by Jakarta Smart City, which falls under the city's communication, information and statistics agency.

Read also: Hesitant flyers: People remain wary of air travel because of health, cost concerns, survey shows

Jakarta Transportation Agency head Syafrin Liputo said that the CLM system would help people "feel safe", as it helped them better assess their probability of contracting COVID-19. He urged people to be honest and accurate in reporting their health condition, so that the system could generate an accurate assessment.

However, Jakarta Smart City chairman Yudhistira Nugraha said that self-reporting was a mere suggestion and not a requirement.

The CLM results were required to issue the SIKM [previously] under the Gubernatorial Regulation on SIKM. However, both the letter and the regulation have now been revoked, he said on Tuesday.
The queue is already forming for who will be first to get the Covid-19 vaccine in Ireland - if and when a successful jab is developed.

Recent findings from trials on experimental vaccines to protect against the deadly virus have sparked hope there might be one available early next year.

Read More

But the big hurdle will be producing it in sufficient quantities and deciding who should be the first to benefit.

In a worrying development, the Department of Health yesterday refused to respond to questions on who will be first to get the vaccine despite being asked several times.





Key workers

Top of the queue are likely to be healthcare workers, particularly those in the high-risk end of medical care.

Staff in nursing homes and residential centres would also be seen as a priority because it would have the benefit of reducing the risk to vulnerable residents. After that, it is likely to be offered to older groups and people living in crowded accommodation.





First past the post

There are more than 140 candidate vaccines tracked by the World Health Organisation. Several are leading the pack and are producing promising results in trials, but many will also fall at the final hurdle.

The latest excitement is about Oxford University's experimental jab, which has been found to be safe and able to generate a strong immune response in volunteers.

It has to go through more trials and get regulatory approval - if it is proven to work. That will take many more months.

The UK has ordered 100 million doses of this vaccine as a gamble on it succeeding. The US government has ordered 300 million doses. It has set up Operation Warp Speed, a White House programme aimed at accelerating access to vaccines and treatments.





Ireland's vaccine bid

Ireland is part of an EU virus vaccine scheme which aims to secure advance agreements with manufacturers to provide tens of millions of doses to member states. A small country like Ireland has to throw its lot in to improve its purchasing power.

The EU is planning to spend around 2bn on the advance purchase of vaccines that are undergoing testing on behalf of the 27 member states.





Take-up of vaccine

If there is a safe and effective vaccine developed then we should not underestimate how difficult it might be to get at-risk groups to take it. The flu jab is a good example of a vaccine widely available free to healthcare workers which is still not taken up as much as it should be.

A recent poll showed that almost three in four people are likely to get a Covid-19 vaccine if one is found. The Ipsos MRBI poll, carried out for the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association, which represents the originator biopharmaceutical industry, found that 52pc are "very likely" to get a Covid-19 vaccine, while 21pc are "fairly likely". Some 17pc are unlikely to get the vaccine while 10pc are unsure. As many as 81pc of people believe a Covid-19 vaccine will be found. But most of these believe it will be next year before one is available.





Herd immunity

If there was a 60-70pc uptake of a vaccine, there would be herd immunity. This is a situation in which so many people have become immune to an illness - either by contracting it and recovering or by getting a vaccine - that it can no longer spread.

Before we get to that holy grail, we have to learn to live with the virus and maintain the basics like handwashing, physical distancing and wearing masks.

The lethargy of the Department of Health in preparation for managing a vaccine is a matter of concern.
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has held discussions on bilateral cooperation with the Secretary-General of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Hadi Suleymanpur, the ministry reported on July 22.

During the telephone conversation, the minister expressed his gratitude for the support provided for Azerbaijans active participation in the organization.

The sides discussed development opportunities for cooperation in trade, information and communication technologies, transport, logistics and other areas within the ECO.

Bayramov gave information to the Secretary-General on the military provocation and new aggression committed by Armenia on the international border of the two countries, as well as the current situation in the region.

Moreover, the minister touched upon the fact that tensions in the region are rooted in Armenia's ongoing policy of aggression against Azerbaijan and the ongoing military occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan for nearly 30 years.

Referring to the Secretary General's letter on the recent military provocation of Armenia, Bayramov expressed gratitude Suleymanpur for his call for a speedy settlement of the conflict and his support for Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
* Gaza, all but free of COVID-19, has lifted restrictions

* Eid preparations almost normal unlike elsewhere

* Health officials warn virus will get in, spread fast

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, July 22 (Reuters) - Gazans are thronging beaches and crowding markets filled with holiday sweets and clothes as they prepare to celebrate Eid al-Adha largely free of the coronavirus restrictions affecting the Muslim festival elsewhere.

The 360 sq. km. coastal strip has had little access to the outside world for years due to an Israeli-led blockade which many Palestinians say is like living in permanent lockdown.

No cases have been recorded in the towns and refugee camps where its two million Palestinian population live, although 75 infections and one death have occurred in quarantine centres.

Arrivals spend 21 days in the centres on orders from Hamas, the armed Islamist group that has controlled Gaza for over a decade, but other coronavirus measures, such as restaurant and school closures and bans on large gatherings, have been lifted.

The result is that Gazans are preparing much as normal ahead of Eid, which begins at the end of July, with few people wearing masks in shopping centers that are packed after sunset.

The scenes contrast with restrictions elsewhere: Saudi Arabia has capped the number of its own citizens attending the upcoming haj pilgrimage; Oman has implemented a nightly curfew and Iraq has said its curfew will last through the holiday.

"God protected us from the virus," said Malkeya Abdallah, 62, as she relaxed on the beach near Gaza City.

But medics are alarmed by the risks inherent in Gaza's potentially disastrous combination of poverty, densely packed refugee camps and limited hospital capacity.

"We see total relaxation within the communities, the malls, the supermarkets, wedding halls, the mosques, everything is working as normal with no precautionary measures whatsoever," said Abdelnaser Soboh, director of the World Health Organization's Gaza office, calling for more precautions.

"The virus will eventually get (in) ... you can't isolate Gaza from the world forever."

Story continues

On Saturday, Hamas's health and interior ministries staged a COVID-19 drill, cordoning off a busy area of Gaza City and halting traffic between towns.

The economic impact of the coronavirus is already being felt.

Eighty percent of Gazans, who have seen three wars in a dozen years, already rely on humanitarian aid. Palestinians blame the closures, which neighbouring Israel and Egypt say are needed due to security concerns.

The World Bank expects poverty in Gaza to increase from 53% to 64% due to decreased consumer demand led by potential cuts in public sector wages across the Palestinian Territories, and the potential for losses from the Strip's earlier shutdown.

Meat merchants say far fewer Palestinians buying sheep to slaughter during the four-day Eid festival.

"We would have sold 500-700 sheep by this time last year... so far, we have only sold 30-35," said Mahmoud Abu Warda, a livestock breeder. (Writing by Rami Ayyub and Stephen Farrell; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Export of chemical products from Turkey to Azerbaijan rose by 31.7 percent in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period of last year, making up $203.9 million, Trend reports on July 22 referring to the Turkish Trade Ministry.

In June 2020, Turkey exported chemical products worth $35.6 million to Azerbaijan, which is 54.9 percent more compared to the same month of 2019.

Turkey's export of chemical products to foreign markets decreased by 13.9 percent from January through June 2020 compared to the same period of last year and stood at slightly over $8.6 billion.

Turkey's export of chemical products abroad amounted to 11.5 percent of the countrys total export for the reporting period.

In June 2020, Turkey's export of chemical products to world markets exceeded $1.4 billion, which is 10.2 percent more compared to the same month of 2019, the ministry said.

Turkey's export of chemical products in June this year made up 10.6 percent of the countrys total export.

During the last 12 months (from June 2019 through June 2020), Turkey's export of chemical products to world markets made up $19.2 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Last week, Houston ISD got real and closed schools through at least Oct. 16 to keep teachers, students and families safe. And the likelihood is high that most area students will be learning at home all fall and maybe all spring too. One survey found that if schools do open in October, at least 50 percent of kids will be kept home, out of the viral stew.

With so many students online, we need to get virtual teaching right and not let all that learning time slip away. We cant repeat spring 2020, when many HISD kids didnt even log on to their classes once, and those who did got reduced content. All the good words about righting racial and ethnic disparities after George Floyds death are meaningless if this year, instead of addressing the big inequities in Texas school systems, we let them worsen. Emergencies can galvanize change, and we must use this emergency to jump-start education equity instead.

Interim superintendent Grenita Lathan aims by Sept. 8 to get every student an internet-enabled device with a keyboard they can use to read an article, type an essay and video conference with classmates and teachers. This is the baseline. If theres a short fall on the WiFi or keyboard front, this community must step up to fill the gap.

But technology is just the start  to really learn, students need to be able to ask questions and get feedback on their work. Many parents arent literate in English, and many have to work and cant be here to consult about classes.

A throng of new skilled online tutors is needed to work individually with students daily. Thats what the wealthier families are doing. Hired from the ranks of retired teachers and unemployed college graduates, individual tutors can provide personal attention, talk through questions, catch students up whove fallen behind and help them do better, rather than worse. To credential this game-changing group, supervise them and line them up with the right subject areas and grade levels  HISD needs efficient business partners willing to consult and assist at a high level for a low price in this crisis.

To pay the tutors, use funds from the CARES Act and the next relief bill. Community foundations and local businesses can adopt schools, and some of their employees can tutor too. Parent-teacher organizations of richer schools can help schools with less-ready cash. There are so many ways this community full of dedicated community-minded groups and individuals could organize to get resources to the kids who need them now, not later.

And wed all benefit. Without an educated populace, Houstons economic future goes south. Keeping the community focused on its childrens success gives the city a positive energy well lack if the schools fail. And funds channeled into the expanded group of teachers pockets benefit the whole economy  landlords, merchants and tax revenues.

On the flip side, we also have to help working parents, who are suddenly being threatened with censure at work for looking after their kids. Parents of young kids in particular are overwhelmed; single parents even more so. Instead of thinking of them as distracted workers, think of them as a kind of parenting national guard, whose time away from work when needed, be it an hour here and there or something longer, gets covered  by the company or by the community. And it cant be just be the moms who do the care work. Businesses and the couples themselves should insist that both do half if there are two working parents, so women as a group arent sidelined from careers by this pandemic.

Theres so much more to explore and do about this, and all these issues intersect. A citywide working group on how to deal equitably with all the aspects of COVID-19 learning would be a great way to innovate and share ideas widely.

Swamp your Senators and Representatives with calls for an expanded relief bill that can carry us through the whole pandemic  the CARES supplement benefits not just the families getting the additional unemployment funds but all the businesses they patronize. While youre calling, remind the governor that another eviction moratorium is needed. Once families become homeless, its much harder to get them back in a safe home than to keep them where they already are. And evicted kids will be all the harder for school districts to keep in touch with and on track for learning.

Theres so much to be done  to meet the COVID-19 emergency and the many underlying emergencies that have been systemic all along but are newly highlighted. The first step is stepping up  to ensure that the 2020-21 school year doesnt just stumble along but uses this challenging moment to get up to speed and educate all students equitably and well.

Gregory is the director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender & Sexuality at the University of Houston.
The McArthurGlen Designer Outlet, part of the Plaza Mayor shopping complex near Malaga Airport, has announced that Prada is among the new brands signed up to open a store.

Silbon and Bimba y Lola will also be opening outlet branches on the site.

Because of the prestige of its international name, Milan-based Prada will take one of the vacant units in the central square of the shopping development which opened in February this year. There are various empty sites in this part of the mall still and as yet no opening date has been set for Prada or the other new designer brand names.

At the moment Prada only has stores in Madrid and Barcelona in Spain so its opening at McArthurGlen is a particular coup.

The MacArthurGlen Designer Outlet is British-owned and part of the group that runs sites such as Cheshire Oaks and York Designer Outlet. Malaga is its first centre in Spain.
Its time for legacy churches to ... close

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Its no secret that many legacy churches have been struggling for several decades. You know all the reasons for that and the financial implications that has created. The pandemic has heightened anxiety and fears about viability. Its time for all of us to have some conversations about what is essential of our churchs ministries and even if our church is essential. Those honest and reality based conversations need to lead some of us to invoke our living wills and say no more treatment  no more solutions  we are ready to live out our days. So how do we do that:

Say it out loud: As a pastor, one of the hardest things I have to do is to name reality. Sometimes that is with the health of an individual. Often the person knows they are at the end of their life but the family is understandably struggling. So I need to help them say what is happening out loud. Its only when it is out in the open that we can then talk about the gift of each day and how we want to live out our days.

Grieve: I never thought this would happen to my church. What did we do wrong? If only we had done . . . These are all words of grief. Most people I know would like to have some final conversations, a chance to visit some memorable places and an opportunity to be grateful for life. All of our churches need to do those things as we celebrate the life of a church and its impact on our communities. Cry, celebrate and grieve together.

Celebrate: Please do not let the last 5 years of your life define the rich history of your congregation. The great moment of the church I serve is that we were part of making religious liberty happen in the United States. We did that in the 1770s and 1780s  a long time ago. I like to say, if we have done nothing else positive since then  thats a pretty remarkable legacy our church leaves. So remember your religious liberty story  dont discount that because you have come to the end of your churchs days. Celebrate the great moments  remember the baptisms, weddings and funerals. Remember loading up the station wagons to take the kids to summer camp. Remember the hymn sings and the ice cream. Remember how faithful God has been to your church and give thanks!

Seed new missions well beyond your current thinking. Take some risks with your assets. Many times the assets default to the denomination (and that might be a legal requirement for your church) but if you have the option, look broader then the default option. Help someone else create a story that is amplified by the risk a dying church took on us decades ago. You will need your best thinking and prayerful discernment to do this well.

To the larger faith community that we have supported through the years  would you honor us by coming to our funeral? To our denomination that we have funded  would you stop talking about us as the problem, would you not just look at us as the owner of resources that need to be better deployed  would you simply come for a visit? To our church planting friends that we have supported and helped (intentionally and unintentionally) would you recognize that we have been very successful at doing something you need to learn to do (passing church leadership from generation to generation) would you come listen to our stories and let us help you understand that not every season is harvest season. To both groups  instead of diagnosing what we have done wrong, or thinking about divvying up the assets  just come celebrate what God has done through our church for multiple generations.

The Kingdom of God does not hang in the balance when legacy churches close. So lets stop holding on white knuckled, that requires too much emotional and spiritual energy. Lets pass the torch recognizing our sadness but celebrating the gift of God that we experienced through our church.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. It is abundantly clear that Turkey is a destabilizing factor in the region and a serious challenge to Armenias security, Armenias Ambassador to Poland Samvel Mkrtchyan said in an interview to the Warsaw Institute Review. Moreover, according to the Ambassador, Turkeys attempts to intervene in the conflicts in its neighboring regions have already undermined the security and stability thereon.

Armenpress presents the Ambassadors interview:

- Why has the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia re-ignited in the recent days?

- There is enough clear evidence that the most recent escalation of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in the Northern Tavush region is the logical outcome of pugnacious policies of Azerbaijan. If one follows the warmongering rhetoric of the President of Azerbaijan, the Defense Minister and other high ranking officials pronounced during last weeks and months advocating for a military solution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, you see that the provocation which triggered the developments starting July 12th was not out of the blue. The Armenian side has been continuously warning its international partners that this type of situation is of high probability and, preventive and restraining political and diplomatic steps should be taken to tame the Azerbaijani ill-intentioned fervor. To our disappointment, our warnings have been somewhat overlooked.

- Are the reasons behind the recent altercations similar to the original causes of the 1988 Nagorno-Karabakh War?

- There could be certain similarities. In 1988 the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh started with the Azerbaijani attempt to suppress by brutal military force the peaceful self-determination movement of the people of NK. They spectacularly failed then. Instead of learning lessons, unfortunately, now the Azeri leadership is bringing false historic territorial claims also against Armenia itself. It is in line with the long sustained Azeri narrative that the conflict has always been between Armenia and Azerbaijan and, Nagorno Karabakh with its legally elected authorities has no distinct role to play. Such kind of approach and behavior are not justified whatsoever, and further push away the chances of a peaceful and negotiated solution to NK conflict which is the solely viable option for the Armenian sides and the international community.

- What is the role of Turkey and Russia in the Caucasus and how does it affect the recent conflict?

- The two countries are acting completely differently. Turkish Defence Minister, Foreign Minister, the President and other officials in the course of the last week have already made several statements and comments voicing their unequivocal support to Azerbaijan, also in terms of possible military involvement. This is extremely unhelpful and not only encourages and emboldens Azerbaijan to continue along the dangerous path of escalation, but also raises profound questions on whether that country can play any credible and positive role in the South Caucasus. At this point it is abundantly clear that Turkey is a destabilizing factor in our region and a serious challenge to Armenias security. Moreover, Turkeys attempts to intervene in the conflicts in its neighboring regions have already undermined the security and stability thereon.

These facts make even more impossible for Turkey to play any role in the issues related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, within international, and particularly the OSCE framework. Armenia will continue to consistently work towards maintaining and strengthening the international and regional security, while closely cooperating with international partners to this end.

To the contrary, Russia, though being an ally to Armenia and being bound by military security agreements, opted a balanced approach offering its mediation services not only as the co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, but in its national capacity as well.

- What kind of actions should both countries undertake to fix Baku-Yerevan relations?

- The situation we are currently in, necessitates as quick as possible to engage in negotiations in good faith. Azerbaijan should eventually comprehend that we live in the same region and we need to build a common security space. To achieve that goal, in the first place, the right of Nagorno Karabakh people to self-determination should be unconditionally respected, international legally binding mechanisms should be utilized to exercise it and define the status of NK. By doing so the full potential of the South Caucasus will be unblocked and we all will equally benefit.

- Would you like to see the involvement of international organizations in the peace process building?

- We, as well as the majority of international community, stated that the OSCEs Minsk Group Co-chairmanship  comprising France, United States and Russia, is the only internationally recognized format to mediate peaceful negotiations for a lasting settlement to the NK conflict. And any supportive involvement of other international organizations should be closely coordinated and consulted with Co-chairs. Unfortunately, we have witnessed in the past that when another approach is taken by those international organizations, often, if not intentionally but even inadvertently, it could bring more harm than good to the peace process.

- Since 2016 both sides reported numerous cyber-attacks on its infrastructure  Do you think that this still remains a danger to Armenian security? How Armenians protect from cyber-attacks? Is cybersecurity an important priority for the current government?

- Armenia is not alone. Almost all countries have become vulnerable to cyber-threats and actual cyber-attacks. New definitions have been coined like cyber warfare, hybrid warfare. It is extremely worrisome that cyber-threats will be increasing in the future and so will be the destructive power of such attacks. The main source of such attacks on Armenia comes from our neighbour Azerbaijan. They employ special groups of hackers for that purpose and openly present breaches of Armenian websites. Of course we do a lot to protect ourselves in the cyber-space through building firewalls and sophisticated computer networks. At the same time we believe that we should get together as the international community and elaborate a kind of code of conduct for cyber-space. Otherwise it is going be a very dangerous and incrementally unpredictable world we will be living in.

- Has Armenia been a victim of disinformation campaigns both domestically and abroad? What exactly happened? How to combat this threat?

-Disinformation, fake news, misinformation  in a broader term infodemia, has become part of our daily lives, like it or not. It has always been out there, but with the new reality of digital age, social networks that phenomenon and its corrosive impact has grown exponentially. Quite naturally, we are also affected by it. What can be done to counter and to minimize the damage? Obviously, the most effective course of action is to vigorously and tirelessly offer the true and objective information, to reveal the real motivation of those who stand behind the disinformation, educate the public to be more media literate and proficient in discerning the truth from lie.
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SEATTLE  An apartment building at 318 Boylston Ave. E. sold for under $2.5 million, according to King County records.

The seller was Peak Pickers II LLC, which acquired the property in 1997 for almost $550,000.





. . .
Texas has emerged as a leader in alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind. As the state moves toward a "smart grid" delivery system, the companies that provide energy services are rushing to determine the best ways to balance supply and demand.

Shouyi Wang, associate professor of industrial engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington, is using a three-year, $466,068 grant from the National Science Foundation to determine how to meet the demands of an extremely dynamic and uncertain energy market. Electrical engineering Professor Wei-Jen Lee and industrial engineering Professors Victoria Chen and Jay Rosenberger are co-principal investigators on the project.

Electricity is a commodity whose generation and load must be balanced constantly in real time for system reliability and power quality. In addition to traditional generation-side management, load participation is critical for future sustainable smart grid development.

Wang and his team will develop machine-learning models that predict real-time market prices and manage large-scale participation of residential demand-response programs. The goal is to create a dynamic decision analytics and optimization framework that enables a highly efficient, real-time energy management system for future smart energy markets. The team also plans to construct a smart grid simulation platform that tests the developed machine-learning and optimization framework using historical data from large energy and utility companies.

"If we can determine how best to predict energy demand and react quickly to fluctuations in demand and market prices, then we can use that information to make a much more efficient smart energy supply system with reduced operational costs and increased system reliability," Wang said. "From a consumer standpoint, greater efficiency on the part of the energy markets translates to greater savings on energy costs for everyone."

This research will benefit utility companies, load-serving entities and customers by reducing peak demand. There are financial incentives for market participants to achieve that reduction.

Wang's forecasting model provides sequential forecasts for the energy market. In contrast with current models using deterministic--or cause-and-effect--predictions, the team will develop a probabilistic deep-learning method that is capable of quantifying market uncertainty for decision management and risk control.

The energy market forecasting model will allow energy companies to compute the demands for the next day, then trade computed peak-demand reduction on the day-ahead market. Finally, Wang will create a smart-grid simulation framework to evaluate the forecasting and optimization models using real-world datasets from large utility companies in New York and Texas.

"This is highly relevant research with potential for a far-reaching impact on how we will deliver and use energy in the future," said Paul Componation, chair of UTA's Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering Department.

###

- Written by Jeremy Agor, College of Engineering
The Chinese flag stands on display outside the China Consulate General building in Houston, Texas, U.S., on Wednesday, July 22, 2020.

The Trump administration's decision to close China's Houston consulate Wednesday came after years of FBI intelligence-gathering that showed it was a hotspot of Chinese spying in the U.S., and President Donald Trump has been kept informed on the consulate's activities since soon after he took office, U.S. officials tell NBC News.

Multiple U.S. officials say the Houston consulate has long been used by the Chinese government to steal valuable medical research and was involved in attempts to infiltrate the oil and natural gas industries, and that these concerns had been well briefed to the president.

More from NBC News:

Current and former U.S. law enforcement officials say the consulate is well-fortified, was hardened to prevent U.S. surveillance, and was a high-tech communications hub to coordinate and execute various spying operations.

On Wednesday the U.S. government ordered China to "cease all operations and events" at the consulate.

Sen. Mark Warner, D.-Va., ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NBC News's Katy Tur that he wouldn't discuss the specific intelligence behind Wednesday's closure. "But I can tell you for the last two years," said Warner, "I and other members of the intel committee have been holding classified briefings with business leaders and academic leaders about the concerted efforts of the Chinese communist party to steal our intellectual property, to steal it from companies, to steal it from universities, to be on better guard."

Sen. Warner suggested today's action was driven by the FBI and its intelligence. Current and former federal law enforcement officials applauded the move to close the consulate because they believed it was a strong message that was overdue to be delivered to the Chinese government.

On Tuesday night, hours before the news of the consulate's closure was announced, neighbors noticed and recorded small fires in bins in the consulate's internal courtyard. The Houston Fire Department responded and in a statement said, "Fire crews were denied access by building occupants ... according to international agreement, access to the property can only be obtained with consent."

In a fire at the consulate almost exactly three years ago, the city fire department was allowed in to put out a fire and was praised in a press release by Chinese officials.

As NBC News has previously reported, the Houston consulate  along with China's other consulates and its Washington embassy  has also been involved in 'mask diplomacy' during the COVID-19 pandemic. With China facing criticism over the coronavirus pandemic, its diplomatic missions in the U.S. were on a charm offensive, organizing donations of medical supplies and food to communities large and small.

The displays of generosity to struggling communities were routinely accompanied by ribbon-cutting events with local officials, covered widely by Chinese state-run media outlets in multiple languages and showcased by the consulates and China's government on social media.

Current and former law enforcement officials say the focus by the consulate and the Chinese government on the oil and natural gas businesses  which are entrenched in Houston  \was tied to efforts to understand why those companies were so skilled at finding petroleum fields and drilling locations across the globe.

The FBI in Houston has been carrying out investigations into the efforts of Chinese nationals to funnel advanced research from Houston's University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center back to China.

The efforts of the FBI were focused in part on Keping Xie, a gastroenterology professor at the medical facility and a member of the Chinese government science recruiting program called "Thousand Talents," which has been linked to espionage efforts in the U.S., according to court filings and multiple U.S. officials briefed on the matter.

Xie was arrested on an unrelated charge in 2018, a charge which has since been dropped, and his attorney told NBC News at the time that his client has no knowledge of an espionage related investigation.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R.-Tex., the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said he had been briefed on the investigation. "This is a systematic effort by the Chinese government to get into our medical facilities, our research development facilities, academics as well," McCaul said.

In April 2019, three out of five additional scientists identified by federal authorities as being involved in efforts to steal American research on behalf of China at MD Anderson were also ousted by the institution. A fourth scientist resigned before the conclusion of the investigation, and the fifth was disciplined by the center.

The MD Anderson Cancer Center moved to fire the scientists, whose names were not released, after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) contacted at least 55 medical research institutions to report the names of researchers suspected of sharing federally funded research with China or other foreign governments, the NIH said.

"When NIH notified MD Anderson of concerns with specific individuals within its institution, the university took immediate steps to remediate the problem," the NIH said in a statement.

An NBC News review of heavily redacted MD Anderson investigation reports show they include detailed payment information from Chinese universities and diagrams documenting how the Thousand Talents program participates in a quid-pro-quo scheme that compensates doctors for intellectual property.

One report said the investigator found "compelling evidence" that an MD Anderson doctor also held a compensated position at a Chinese university that paid a monthly subsidy of $30,000 RMB or $4,322.

The reports show that MD Anderson, after gaining access to some of the researchers' email accounts, discovered documents that showed signed consulting agreements with Chinese entities.

Shortly before Xie was charged in August 2018, the FBI Houston field office conducted an unprecedented public briefing with leaders of Houston's medical, science, and academic institutions.

In announcing the briefing, the bureau said, "The FBI works closely with private partners and government agencies to ensure that federally funded research grants are guarded and protected against unscrupulous overseas enemies." The press release did not cite a specific case.

At the briefing, Dr. Peter Pisters, the head of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, said, "We have an obligation to the people of Texas  and to all people facing a cancer diagnosis  to do everything possible to protect our resources and to safely and securely advance our mission to end cancer."

An unclassified 2018 FBI memo obtained by NBC News says, "Chinese Talent Programs pose a serious threat to U.S. businesses and universities through economic espionage and theft of IP."




By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 22, 2020 | 02:00 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY

On Tuesday, deputies with the McCracken County Sheriff's Office say they performed a traffic stop on a vehicle after noticing it driving recklessly along I-24. Additionally, deputies say the temporary tag on the vehicle appeared to be altered and wasn't legible.





After speaking with the two men inside, deputies say it was determined that the passenger, 41-year-old Randall Baker of Glendale Arkansas, had an active felony warrant out of Hopkins County.





The driver, 38-year-old Bradley Stevenson of Dawson Springs, reportedly consented to a search of his vehicle. Deputies say the search revealed a meth pipe with methamphetamine residue in it. They also reportedly located several hydrocodone pills in the vehicle.





Stevenson and Baker were arrested and lodged in the McCracken County Jail.





Baker is charged with first degree possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), and a bench warrant for drug charges.





Stevenson is charged with first degree possession of a controlled substance (hydrocodone), careless driving, following a vehicle too closely, and license plate not legible.





Two men are facing numerous charges after a traffic stop in McCracken County.
Washington  Central New Yorks two congressmen will host a virtual town hall meeting in a Facebook Live event at 1 p.m. today.

Reps. John Katko, R-Camillus, and Anthony Brindisi, D-Utica, will take questions from viewers and discuss their efforts to help the region during the coronavirus pandemic.

The meeting will be streamed live on the Facebook pages of Katko and Brindisi. You can also submit questions to either congressman through their Facebook pages before or during the live event.

The joint town hall meeting will be a first for Katko and Brindisi, who have worked together on matters of regional interest over the past 18 months despite their party differences.

Brindisi is serving his first term in Congress representing the eight-county 22nd Congressional District. The district stretches from Lake Ontario to the Southern Tier.

Katko is serving his third term representing the 24th District, which covers all of Onondaga, Cayuga and Wayne counties and the western half of Oswego County.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Coronavirus update: 13 new cases in Onondaga County

10 more states added to New York coronavirus quarantine list

No mask, no service: Some restaurant diners get mad when told to cover up

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Motorcycle-riding gunmen in northern Nigeria have killed 11 people, local government and community leaders said Wednesday, in the latest violence in the area.

The attack on Monday came a day after assailants gunned down 18 wedding guests in a nearby village.

The gunmen stormed Gora Gan village in Kaduna state after dark and opened fire on residents, said Elias Manza, administrative head of Zangon Kataf district.

"The gunmen killed 11 people in the attack and left 15 with serious injuries," he said.

The attackers also torched houses, a church, a car and seven motorcycles.

Community leader Jonathan Asake who gave a similar toll, said hundreds had fled their homes for fear of renewed attacks.

"We have a total of 559 people who are afraid to go back to their homes and are sheltering in a primary school in the (nearby) town of Zonkwa," he said.

Southern Kaduna has been wracked by a long-standing row between Muslim Fulani herders and ethnic Christian farmers over grazing and water rights.

There has been an upsurge in tit-for-tat killings between the two groups in recent times, prompting the state authorities to initiate an unsuccessful truce.

The Nigerian presidency said in a statement Tuesday the violence was "more complicated than many people are willing to admit".

It added that "revenge killings were worsening the conflict and making efforts of security personnel in ending the violence difficult".

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Hong Kong: Mask rules enhanced

The Government today announced it will further enhance anti-epidemic measures, mandating people to wear masks not only on public transport but at all indoor public places.

Meeting the media this afternoon, Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan explained that people must also wear masks at transport terminals and interchanges and that the extended measures will come into effect on July 23 for 14 days until August 5.

She said: Many indoor public places would be included, for example, shopping malls, supermarkets, markets, all the covered places, the shops and all that, even building lobbies."

Prof Chan emphasised that the Government is monitoring the situation closely and conducting risk assessment every day, adding that it will introduce more stringent measures if the situation continues to worsen.

Whether there will be a lockdown, of course, it depends on the entire situation.

"We are looking at some of the international practices and of course, we also have to balance the needs and the basic daily necessities of the people in Hong Kong.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Apples CarPlay and Googles Android Auto are easily the safest and most user-friendly ways to use your smartphone in your car. These features are available in most new cars and aftermarket infotainment systems, but in most cases they require you to connect your phone to your vehicles USB port.

There are also wireless incarnations of these two features that let you skip the USB cable, but good luck being able to use them. Wireless CarPlay only comes on a few new vehicles and third-party infotainment hardware, and Wireless Android Auto only works in cars with built-in WiFi systems and with just a few phones.

Ive been testing an interesting adapter that makes it possible for almost any vehicle that supports CarPlay to do so wirelessly - that is, if you can get it to work. CPlay2Air connects to the USB port in your car, and then you pair your iPhone to it via Bluetooth. (Theres also a version for Android Auto, but I have not tried it.)

REVIEW: Great tech, better style, good value with the 2019 Toyota C-HR

When it works, its very cool. But the journey may or may not be a pleasant one, depending on what you drive.

I drive a 2019 Toyota C-HR. It supports wired CarPlay through its single USB port, located in the part of the center console thats tucked under the dash. I have a two-port USB charger plugged into the 12-volt socket, which is inside the center armrest.

Normally, I dont mind using a cable for CarPlay, because doing so also keeps my iPhone 11 Pro Max charged. But theres one exception: When I am using one of my GPS apps, such as Waze or Apple Maps, the battery will drain faster than the USB port can charge it. Wireless CarPlay would allow me to connect to the more-powerful adapter in the armrest.

Or, not connect it to anything at all. The iPhone could just stay in my pocket. Imagine that!

The CPlay2Air adapter costs about $130 (the Android version is $110). It comes in a simple white box with the adapter and some very poorly written instructions. In theory, the setup should be easy for anyone whos ever paired a smartphone to a vehicle. Plug in the adapter, look for the Bluetooth connection in the iPhones settings, then pair.

And the first time I did this, the familiar CarPlay display popped up on my C-HRs touchscreen  and then promptly vanished. I tried reconnecting, sometimes getting pairing failed messages and a few times getting just a blank screen.

IN-DASH TECH: Cars infotainment system died? Get ready for adventure

The instructions, which I found incomprehensible, say to check for updates to the adapters firmware by first connecting to a WiFi network generated by the device, then scanning a QR code with the phones camera. That takes you to a web page where you can download and install new firmware. But the instructions dont say the name of the WiFi network, which turned out to be a derivation of my cars brand. Once I figured that out, I was able to download and install the update.

Except it didnt work at first. I had to retry a few times before a display on my cars screen said it was successful. Still, I couldnt get the adapter to pair. I decided to visit the CPlay2Air website to look for tech support. When I looked up after a bit of phone browsing, there was the CarPlay screen, ready to go.

Its working now, but Im not quite sure how. When I look at the connected devices in my iPhones Bluetooth settings, the CPlay2Air shows not connected, but it clearly is. Bizarre!

For the most part, it works just like wired CarPlay, and in my C-HR, its snappy and responsive. Phone calls made through CarPlay sound fine on both ends, and Siri works well for dictating and reading messages. GPS software works perfectly, and yes, my iPhone stays charged connected to my power adapter.

And theres a side benefit to using this adapter over wired CarPlay. If the adapter is plugged into the cars USB port when I start the C-HR, then the infotainment system launches CarPlay without me having to do anything. Typically, with a wired connection, you must tap the CarPlay tile on the Toyotas native display in order to launch CarPlay. I almost never use the Toyota Entune software, so this is a very welcome change.

Release Notes: Get Dwight Silvermans weekly tech newsletter in your inbox

Still, theres that connection wonkiness, where my phone says it is not connected at all. And if I unplug the adapter from the USB port and plug it back in, theres no guarantee CarPlay will launch right away. There arent many scenarios where Id unplug it, so its an issue I can live with.

One big caveat about this review: Your mileage will almost certainly vary, depending on the type of vehicle and infotainment system you have. Setup may be smooth for your car, or not.

You can check the list of compatible models at cplay2air.com., which is also the only place Ive found where you can buy the device. A tip: do a Google search on cplay2air carplay and the name of your vehicles make and model. The CPlay2Air adapter shows up in a lot of discussion forums devoted to vehicles, and you can quickly see common threads for setup issues. I saw my frustrations mirrored on a forum for Toyota C-HR users, and also found some troubleshooting tips.

Now that its working, the CPlay2Air was worth the hassle.

dwight.silverman@chron.com

twitter.com/dsilverman

houstonchronicle.com/techburger
A representative from India and Spain met on July 21 in order to discuss improving bilateral economic cooperation between the two countries in a post-COVID-19 era. The meeting was a part of the 6th Foreign Office Consultations in which representative of both the nations discussed a number of regional and global issues.

Enhancing Bilateral cooperation

According to a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs, the topics that were discussed with regards to multilateral cooperation were international fora and counter-terrorism. The Indian delegation was led by Vikas Swarup, Secretary (West) of Ministry of External Affairs while the Spanish side was led by Cristina Gallach, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ibero-America and Caribbean.

Read: Spain: Barcelona Residents Asked To Socialise Less

Read: Spain: U.S. Man Tells Judge He Was Duped Into Carrying Drugs

According to reports, during the discussions, both sides welcomed the outcomes of the recent 15th India-EU Summit and both countrys agreed to enhance the bilateral agenda which included exchanges between the two nations.

The statement by the ministry read: "Both sides exchanged views on COVID-19 response and in the context of post-COVID recovery priorities, they discussed their reforms and opportunities for enhancing bilateral economic cooperation," and "The two sides reviewed agreements under consideration and ways to strengthen economic, business, cultural, scientific, educational and people-level cooperation,".

Read: In Solemn Ceremony, Spain Honors Pandemic Victims And Heroes

Read: Catalan Leader Demands Investigation Into Spain Spying Claim
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 14:34 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406686f61e 4 National East-Nusa-Tenggara,NTT,labuan-bajo,tourism,tourist-destination,Phinisi,West-Manggarai,manggarai-barat-NTT,Komodo-National-Park Free

Authorities in West Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) have found around 3,600 unauthorized tourist ships operating in Labuan Bajo.

West Manggarai Tourism Agency head Agustinus Rinus said the illegal ships, most of which are traditional phinisi (two-masted schooners), had been earning money in the tourist destination without paying taxes to the local administration.

Of 4,081 ships inspected between February and July, only about 400 ships carried proper documentation and were registered to the local administration. The inspection was carried out by officials from the West Manggarai administration and Komodo National Park in Labuan Bajo.

Most ships operating without permits come from outside the province, Agustinus said on Tuesday, as quoted by tempo.co.

Read also: Labuan Bajo offers free entry to tourist sites to lure visitors amid pandemic

He added his office was still looking on more ships.

Agustinus went on to say the inspection as well as the ship registration would have a positive impact on hotels and restaurants operating in the area. After the inspection, the hotels occupancy rate had increased from 40 to 67 percent.

There are more people staying at the hotels and dining in the restaurants [thanks to the registration]. The amount of taxes filed by the hotel and restaurant is also increasing significantly, said Agustinus, adding that Labuan Bajo accounted for 75 percent of total tourism in the regency. (nal)
HOUSTON (dpa-AFX) - ConocoPhillips (COP) Wednesday said it has agreed to acquire additional Montney acreage in Canada from Kelt Exploration Ltd. for about $375 million in cash, plus the assumption of around $30 million in financing obligations for associated partially owned infrastructure. The acquisition is 140,000 net acres in the liquids-rich Inga-Fireweed asset Montney zone, which is directly adjacent to the company's existing Montney position. The transaction increases the company's Montney acreage position to 295,000 net acres with 100 percent working interest. 'We have tracked and analyzed this adjacent acreage position for a long time,' said Matt Fox, executive vice president and chief operating officer. 'It represents a high-value extension of our existing Montney position, and we're pleased to capture this opportunity at an attractive cost of supply that meets our criteria for resource additions. The transaction provides operating scale and flexibility to create significant value for shareholders by applying our drilling and completion techniques on this asset and optimizing our future overall Montney development plans.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday said it has extended connectivity norms for work from home for IT and BPO companies till December 31.

The time period for work from home was expiring on July 31.

"DoT has further extended the relaxations in the terms and conditions for other service providers up to 31st December 2020 to facilitate work from home in view of the ongoing concern due to COVID-19," the Department of Telecommunications said in a late night tweet.

Currently, around 85 per cent of the IT workforce is working from home and only those performing critical functions are going to offices.

In March, the DoT relaxed certain norms for OSPs till April 30 to facilitate work from home (WFH) amid the coronavirus pandemic which was further extended till July 31.

Confirmed cases of coronavirus in India has crossed 11.55 lakh with 28,084 people losing their lives till Tuesday.

Reacting to the news, industry executives said that the government's decision will help ensure business continuity and employee safety, .

The move will also help the industry increase its talent pool to tier II and III cities, they said.

Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh tweeted that the decision "will ensure business continuity and employee safety" and also "increase our talent pool to tier 2 and 3 cities".

The relaxations announced in March included exemptions in requirement of security deposit and agreement for WFH facility for OSPs (primarily IT and IT-enabled services companies).

Earlier, companies were not allowed to connect office Virtual Private Network to home infrastructure, a rule that was subsequently relaxed in view of coronavirus pandemic.

Currently, over 90 per cent of the workforce of Indian IT companies continue to work from home.

Companies are gradually bringing employees back to work premises while practising social distancing norms and undertaking safety measures.

NV Tyagarajan, Chief Executive Officer of Genpact, tweeted that this move will "solidify" client relationships globally, ensure business continuity and employee safety.

"Thank you to the government for their tremendous support on the new ways of working from day 1. This has helped tremendously in further elevating our standing and responsiveness globally," Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji said in a tweet.

WNS Group CEO Keshav R Murugesh and RPG Group Chairman Harsh Goenka also lauded the government's efforts saying steps like these have helped position Indian IT as a world leader.
By Akbar Mammadov

A group of Azerbaijanis have come under attack of Armenian nationalists during a protest held outside of the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan on 21 July, the consulate reported in its Facebook page today.

Seven Azerbaijanis, including a woman, have been injured during the attack and four of them have been hospitalized. In addition, a police officer of Los-Angeles Police Department trying to protect the Azerbaijani woman from Armenian attackers has received head injury.

The Azerbaijanis were attacked by Armenian radicals in Los Angeles who surrounded the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan and held a protest action against Azerbaijan with aggressive and provocative slogans.

Members of the Azerbaijani community in California carried out a peaceful rival rally against a large number of Armenians. The courage of the Azerbaijanis who met face to face with a large number of Armenians outraged Armenian Dashank radicals who in turn violently attacked Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijans Consulate General reported that Armenians attacked Azerbaijanis and also sought to drive their cars on the peaceful protesters.

The Azerbaijani community members were carrying posters exposing Armenia's aggression and policy of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijan, reflecting the displacement of about 1 million peaceful Azerbaijanis from their native lands as a result of the occupation. "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", "Stop the Armenian aggression!", "Justice for Khojaly", "Armenia is starting a war against Azerbaijan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shame on you! were some of the slogans.

All staff members of the Consulate General, including the Consul General, were in constant contact with the Azerbaijani community members on the day of the demonstration at the Consulate General's office. The consulate said that to ensure the safety of Azerbaijani citizens, Los Angeles Police officers lined up around them.

Seeing the growing aggression of the Armenians, the Consulate General immediately contacted the bus companies and began the process of evacuation of Azerbaijanis from the area. However, 15 minutes later, Los Angeles police informed members of the Azerbaijani community that they were concerned about the safety of the protesters, and started escorting Azerbaijanis away, accompanied by police.

Immediately after the incident, the Consul General contacted Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, informing him of the seriousness of the situation and expressing his serious criticism of the police's inability to prevent the Armenian violence.

Thus, it was noted that the Los Angeles Police was aware of the protest by the Azerbaijani community in advance and assured the Consulate General that the security of the protesters would be fully ensured.

Moore apologized to the Consul General for the police forces failure to take relevant measures to prevent the violence, noting that the issue will be seriously investigated and a special investigation team will be set up.

An investigation team has been set up and an investigation is underway, the consulate said.

Consul General Nasimi Agayev has visited injured Azerbaijanis in the hospital and said that measures are being taken to bring Armenian criminals to justice.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

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Authorities have recovered more than 400 bodies in major cities across Bolivia in a five day period as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to sweep the country.

Officials believe that between 80 and 90 per cent of the deceased  found between 15 and 20 July  died after contracting the novel disease.

Col. Ivan Rojas, director of Bolivias special crime-fighting force, said his officers recovered 420 bodies from streets, vehicles and homes in the capital, La Paz, and in Bolivias biggest city, Santa Cruz.

Bolivias Institute of Forensic Investigations said that nationally, from 1 April until 19 July, its workers had recovered 3,016 bodies of people in possible coronavirus cases.

Andres Flores, director of the agency, said the Santa Cruz department, which includes the city of that name, had the highest number of deaths, followed by Cochabamba.

A scientific committee advising the Bolivian government proposed on Tuesday that the presidential election scheduled for 6 September be postponed because of the pandemic.

Bolivia is trying to resolve the political crisis that erupted last November when street protests over allegations of election fraud led President Evo Morales to resign after nearly 14 years in power.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Bolivia had reported 60,991 cases of coronavirus and recorded 2,218 deaths.

South America has been hard hit by the pandemic in recent weeks, with Brazil, Peru, Mexico and Chile all seeing large numbers of new infections and deaths.

Some Bolivians desperate to avoid or cure the disease are turning to chlorine dioxide.

In a bizarre turn of events, Bolivias senate recently passed a bill touting the chemical as a treatment  despite the countrys health ministry advising politicians not to do so.

Chlorine dioxide is a bleach-like substance that the US Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers can jeopardise health and should not be purchased or drunk as a medical treatment.

But some people in Bolivia think the substance could work in the battle against the virus.

I heard on the news that they were selling chlorine dioxide at the pharmacy. Acquaintances of mine took it, one for prevention and one for healing. It is doing them good, Eric Ocanha told the Reuters news agency outside a pharmacy.

Others said they were confused about the advice they had been given.

As always, the authorities say: Consult your doctor. Which doctor? The poor do not have a doctor, said Dionisio Flores.

Elsewhere, presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have claimed that hydroxychloroquine works as a treatment for the illness, without providing scientific evidence.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil  Wed, July 22, 2020 09:55 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066852eee 2 World Brazil,Jair-Bolsonaro,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-test,coronavirus-testing,COVID-19-infection,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday that he took another coronavirus test and the results were expected Wednesday as he hopes for a negative result two weeks since falling ill.

"I did the test now. Early tomorrow the results will come out," Bolsonaro told supporters, speaking at a distance across the moat in front of his official residence.

"If God wants to give a negative, things will return to normal."

Outside of the United States, Brazil is the worst-hit country in the coronavirus pandemic. The presidents of both countries have played down the extent of the crisis.

Bolsonaro is one of nearly 2.2 million people in Brazil who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to health ministry statistics released on Tuesday.

More than 81,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Brazil.

Bolsonaro tested positive for the novel coronavirus on July 7 but by the next day said he was already feeling well. A follow-up test last week also came back positive for the virus.

Bolsonaro has previously said he has taken the anti-malarial drug hydroxycloroquine - unproven for treating coronavirus but touted by US President Donald Trump - and credits the medication as the reason for his mild symptoms.

He said that he will travel to the northeastern state of Piaui on Friday, presuming he is well.

With the toll of the pandemic rising rapidly, Brazil is also a major center for testing potential vaccines for the virus. On Tuesday, human trials of a second vaccine began and the government approved trials of a third.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

A court in Russia-annexed Crimea has sentenced a local Crimean Tatar man to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of being a member of an "illegal armed group that resists Moscow's control of the peninsula.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said on July 22 that Nariman Mezhmedinov, 55, had joined the Noman Chelebidzhikhan battalion of Crimean Tatar volunteers in 2016, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported.

The battalion operates in Ukraine's southern Kherson region bordering the Crimean peninsula.

Read alsoTwo Crimean Tatars detained during July 7 searches to remand in custody until Sept 9  NGO

According to the FSB, Mezhmedinov had actively participated for four months during 2016 in the battalion's activities, namely blocking roads near a checkpoint and searching vehicles coming in and out of Crimea in 2016.

Since the Kremlin annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars and other local residents who openly oppose Moscow's control.

Rights groups and Western governments have denounced Russian actions in Crimea as a campaign of repression and have called for the release of those detained for political reasons.
A Chinese zoo worker has been sacked after being accused of jabbing a black bear with a giant needle to force it to perform circus stunts.

Footage shows the trainer forcefully poking a bear on the chest with what seems like a stick before the beast begins to play with a Hula Hoop.

The zoo claimed that the rod, described by web users as 'a needle', was plastic and used to direct animals during performances.

A trending video purports to show a circus bear being punished by his trainer after failing to follow his orders. The zoo worker has been accused of poking the animal with a giant needle

An expert has identified the circus animal as an Asiatic black bear, an endangered species protected by an international convention.

The zoo's management deemed the keeper's action as 'inappropriate' amid public outrage.

It has fired the employee for misconduct and shut the bear programmes, according to a statement released by the park on Wednesday.

The incident took place at the animal circus of Xi'an QinLing Wildlife Park in the provincial capital of Shaanxi in north-western China.

It remains unclear when the clip was filmed, but it went viral yesterday after appearing on Chinese social media platforms, including Weibo and Douyin.

The video purports to show a bear being punished by a trainer after failing to follow his orders.

The punished animal (left) is believed to be an Asiatic black bear (right, file photo), an endangered species identified by a yellowish mark shaped like a crescent moon on the chest

The zoo claimed that it had launched an investigation into the matter overnight after spotting the trending video.

It confirmed that the incident had taken place in the 'Big Circus World' inside the park, but denied that the worker had used 'a needle'.

The zoo noted that trainers often used hand-held plastic poles, like the one in the video, to 'guide' and 'remind' bears to complete movements.

The statement said that the zoo's management had demanded the circus dismiss the relevant staff member and cease its bear shows.

Jill Robinson MBE, founder of the Animals Asia charity, has told MailOnline that the punished bear is an Asiatic black bear.

The endangered animal species, also known as a moon bear, is identified by a yellowish mark shaped like a crescent moon on the chest.

The species is listed as Appendix I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international agreement between governments aimed to protect endangered animals and plants.

Appendix I is the highest category for endangered species. According to the convention, animals in the class could face extinction.

Dr Robinson said that her organisation was pleased that the zoo had made a stand a stand against the cruel treatment and taken relevant actions.

'We hope that the directors of the zoo will go further now and ban all animal performances considering that such negative reinforcement is used to train the unfortunate victims of so-called entertainment,' she urged.

She added that her charity's 'not born to perform' campaign, aimed to stop animal performances, was seeing widespread support in China, especially from schools, universities and even local authorities.

In April, the Qingdao Forest Wildlife World, which used to force bears to do handstands and put monkeys on tiny bikes, halted circus shows permanently in the hope of raising the public's awareness of wildlife protection.
It was considerate of the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to tweet the magic term special relationship as he landed for his talks with the prime minister and the foreign secretary. It probably doesnt mean that much to the Trump administration, and most Americans are probably unaware of its existence, but it means a great deal to the British diplomatic and political establishment.

It is certainly true that the UK and US, even in the era of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, share certain values and have many interests in common. It was poignant that Mr Pompeo arrived just as the much-delayed Russia report was published, reminding all concerned (if it were needed) that the Russians enjoy toying around with the democratic processes of those they think of as rivals or enemies, and indeed that they are not fussy about which side they choose and are happy to change sides if they think it suits their national interest.

America and Britain have both experienced such meddling, though Washington has been more effective than Whitehall in investigating it. Both states have also experienced the malign effects of Russian espionage on their own territory, and been fighting low-level proxy wars with Russias allies abroad, most lethally in Syria.
Florida Man says hes sorry.

Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., apologized Wednesday to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for calling her a f_-ing b_ch after a spat on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

The conservative lawmaker took the House of Representatives floor to say sorry for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York.

Even as he said he was sorry, Yoho claimed that he was not referring to AOC when he uttered the misogynistic epithet seconds after walking away from the argument.

The words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues, said Yoho.

Yoho faced off with AOC Monday and called her disgusting for suggesting that a recent spike in New York City crime could be attributed to hungry parents shoplifting food for their families.

Ocasio-Cortez reportedly fired back by calling Yoho rude.

Thats when the Florida guy stalked off. A reporter overheard him use the b-word.

Yoho was immediately hit with a wave of criticism and calls for an apology.

Several male colleagues posted that they agree with AOCs stance on crime, and noted that Yoho had not seen fit to confront them.
At the same time, they are allowed to cross in by car if prior to the arrival they stayed in a country from the 'green list' or 'yellow list' for at least 15 days.

Starting from July 22, travel to Montenegro for residents of Ukraine and Belarus is only possible by air.

"Entry into Montenegro is provided by air traffic to residents of Ukraine and Belarus, with passenger control during boarding and disembarking and fulfillment of other conditions prescribed by the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism," the Government of Montenegro said in a general protective measures report updated on July 22.

At the same time, they are allowed to cross in by car if prior to the arrival they stayed in a country from the 'green list' or 'yellow list' for at least 15 days.

Read alsoTalks ongoing on Schengen borders reopening for Ukrainians  FM Kuleba

Meanwhile, Balkan Observer for Ukraine wrote on Facebook Ukrainian tourists will face new rules while traveling to Montenegro.

A tour operator must ensure temperature screening of passengers at least once before boarding. Passenger with body temperature over the norm shall be banned from boarding a plane en route to Montenegro.

Upon arrival in Montenegro and immediately after border crossing, the tour operator is obliged to provide each passenger with a memo containing recommendations of the Institute of Public Health of Montenegro, and inform them of obligations to comply with anti-epidemic rules.

In cases when the tour includes excursions, the tour operator is obliged to keep a detailed record of all locations visited by their tourists.
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Linkedin Onrizal, Anton Nurcahyo, Serge Wich and Erik Meijaard (The Jakarta Post) Medan/Jakarta/Liverpool/Bandar Seri Begawan  Wed, July 22, 2020 08:10 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066846452 3 Opinion orangutan,Tapanuli-orangutan,Batang-Toru-hydropower-project,Batang-Toru-dam,batang-toru-ecosystem Free

In her recent commentary on the Batang Toru hydro project and the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan, Emmy Hafild attempts to obfuscate the ongoing debate on apes and dams with the oddly titled article collaborative sustainable management of other use areas.

The other use areas Hafild refers to are land areas outside the forest estate, named Areal Penggunaan Lain (APL), which are mostly topographically flat areas suitable for agricultural production. For 10 years, dedicated conservationists from both Indonesia and abroad worked hard to get the Batang Toru ecosystem protected, and they succeeded in getting most orangutan habitat incorporated into protection forests, but strangely not the steep forested part that is now classified as other use area despite environmental laws indicating it qualifies for protection. It looks like this area was already earmarked for another use.

Unfortunately, this other use area happens to have the highest orangutan densities in the entire region. This is not something Serge Wich claims, as stated by Hafild, but was established by rigorous studies in 2015 funded by the International Finance Corporation.

Hafild has taken umbrage at a Fact Check report published by the IUCN, which identifies several public claims made by PT NSHE in relation to the Batang Toru hydro project as being inaccurate or misleading. A quote from Hafilds latest article that deserves special attention is that: "I have found the fact check has a fundamental problem because it was based on wrong and outdated information. PT NSHE has done more work and studies since construction started, and new data and information has changed some of the previous position."

The key phrase here is since construction started. Hafild now claims that orangutans inhabiting APL are mostly in low to moderate density in the area where the dam is being developed. Given that this area has been an active construction site for a few years, it is hardly surprising that some orangutans may have fled the disturbance. The logging, blasting and excavation has certainly led to the displacement of orangutans from this core part of their habitat, as evidenced last year when a displaced orangutan was almost beaten to death by local villagers.

As pointed out in the fact check report and elsewhere, conducting research on orangutans while disturbances are actively ongoing cannot generate baseline insights into population dynamics, and therefore is not a valid basis on which to determine mitigation or avoidance measures. The new data that Hafild refers to does not invalidate previous studies that identified the area where construction is taking place as a core habitat zone for the Tapanuli orangutan, with higher densities than anywhere else in the whole ecosystem.

Why does this all matter? Population trend and viability analyses indicate that the dam and associated infrastructure, as currently designed, will rapidly increase the speed at which the Tapanuli orangutan is declining. This decline has recently been demonstrated, for example, in the Hopong forest, mostly due to human activities.

Looking at the historic range of the Tapanuli orangutan, sources reveal that 100 years ago the species occurred in a much larger area, and that currently about 10 to 20 percent of the former habitat remains. The species disappeared from large areas of the landscape a long time before commercial exploitation of forests started and the most likely reason why orangutan populations became locally extinct is that they were hunted and killed at greater rates than the population could withstand.

Orangutan population modelling indicates that in most habitats an annual killing rate of 1 percent means that the population will become extinct. Basically, if every year you take more than one animal out of a population of 100, that population will go extinct. The entire Tapanuli orangutan species numbers fewer than 800 individuals, split across three subpopulations. It therefore follows that if 8 or more orangutans are lost each year, the species will spiral into extinction. This is the most endangered great ape species in the world, and with such precariously low numbers surviving, every life, and every square meter of habitat, is precious and must be protected.

By developing a zone of disturbance in the only area of connectivity between the three subpopulations of the Tapanuli orangutan, the company would be responsible for stopping any genetic flow that might still occur. This basically means that the main population of about 580 animals in the west block of forest will lose the connection with the 24 individuals in the Sibual-buali Reserve, and probably also the connections with the 162 individuals in the east block. In other words, these two smaller populations (making up 24 percent of the remaining wild individuals) will be condemned to functional extinction. Such loses would also endanger the viability of the remaining orangutans in the west block and could thus condemn the species to extinction. This doesnt even include the orangutans that have been displaced from the construction site, some of which are now likely dead or in captivity.

For all the nice words about collaborative sustainable management by the local governments of North, Central and South Tapanuli, Hafild is clear in saying that this management is intended for economic purposes.

So, Hafilds claim that the sustainable development principles will treat economic, environmental and social dimensions in an equilibrium, so that there is no dichotomy between conservation and economy, is simply Orwellian. It makes gigantic unrealistic promises that are neither in line with Indonesias conservation laws that state that protected species cannot be harmed, nor with science that shows that orangutans are hanging by a thread and can very easily be pushed over the edge into extinction.

The Indonesian government recognizes the extreme risks to the survival of the Tapanuli orangutan. The latest Population and Habitat Viability Assessment (PHVA), published in 2019 by the Environment and Forestry Ministry, identifies hydroelectric infrastructure as a main threat to the species, and one of the recommended priority conservation strategies is the halting of all current development projects, especially the hydrodam and developing roads.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, of which the Indonesian conservation authorities are a member, has also called for a moratorium on the project. It did not call for a project cancellation but for a time of debate and contemplation in which conservation and social experts can work with project planners and government to determine whether this project could be implemented without negatively impacting the Tapanuli orangutan and causing its extinction.

The fact that the hydrodam company is nevertheless pushing ahead, ignoring the recommendations of the governments PHVA and the IUCN, can only mean that ultimately, they are deepening the dichotomy between conservation and economy, despite greenwashing efforts to the contrary.

Finally, we note that Hafilds claim to be an independent environment observer, as stated in the original version of her latest opinion piece, is deeply disingenuous. She has in fact advised the president of PT North Sumatera Hydro Energy, the company behind the Batang Toru dam.

***

The authors have experience in orangutan conservation science and practice. Onrizal works for the School of Forestry, North Sumatra University (USU), Medan; Nurcahyo is an independent scientist; Serge Wich works for Liverpool John Moores University, UK; and Erik Meijaard works for Borneo Futures, Brunei. They declare no conflict of interest.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
LONDON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new market research report titled, "Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Market by Type (Plug-in, Wireless), Component (Hardware, Software), Bus Charging Infrastructure, Connector (CCS, CHAdeMO, GB/T, Tesla Supercharger), Installation, and End User- Global Forecast to 2027", the electric vehicle charging stations market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 39.8% from 2020 to reach $29.7 billion by 2027. In terms of volume, this market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 31.8% from 2020 to reach 15,025.5 thousand units by 2027.

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Electric vehicles (EVs) are a rapidly growing concept within the automotive industry owing to the improved technology, customer inclination towards minimizing carbon footprints, and government policy incentives. Currently, the electric vehicle industry is undergoing a technological transformation with two-fold objectives to improve vehicle range with charging infrastructure. Electric vehicle automakers are investing heavily in charging station infrastructure in order to support their long-range battery electric vehicles. Government incentives, subsidies, and funding for the installation of charging stations and automakers' initiatives for charging infrastructure development are the key factors driving the growth of the global electric vehicle charging stations market. However, the high cost of fast-charging stations; stringent rules for installation; and complex charging infrastructure will obstruct the growth of this market to some extent.

Impact of COVID-19 on the electric vehicle charging stations market

Among the most exposed verticals to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the automotive & transportation industry is currently facing unprecedented uncertainty. The COVID-19 is projected to dramatically affect the supply chain and the market for goods in the automotive sector. The concern of the industry has shifted from focusing on China's supply chain disruption to the overall slump in demand for automotive products. Commercial vehicle demand is expected to plummet with all non-essential services being shut down. Furthermore, shifts in consumer purchasing behavior due to uncertainty surrounding the pandemic may have significant consequences for the industry's near-future growth. Meanwhile, shortfall and cash crunch have already affected fleet operators' sales, which is expected to widen further in the coming months.

However, the electric vehicle production seems to be somewhat less affected by the pandemic as predicted production levels for EVs in 2020 are expected to be more or less similar to that in 2019. As a result, the demand for EV infrastructure is not expected to be significantly disrupted due to the current pandemic, since electric vehicles and its associated charging infrastructure and sales originates from China, which has recovered from the pandemic to sustain its global dominance in terms of EV production. The Chinese government has also announced stimulus packages toward boosting the development of a network of electric vehicle charging stations.

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The electric vehicle adoption rate is growing, and many countries across the globe are investing heavily in research and development. Countries such as Canada, Australia, India, the Netherlands, and Germany have launched numerous programs to promote the adoption of electric vehicles. The government incentive programs for the future would assist the energy industry to solve the economic crisis triggered by COVID-19 through significant investments in charging facilities. Hence, most of the governments in these regions have used rehabilitation of infrastructure as an economic stimulus during COVID-19.

The global electric vehicle charging stations market study presents historical market data in terms of value and volume (2018 and 2019), estimated current data (2020), and forecasts for 2027. The market is segmented on the basis of type, component, bus charging infrastructure, Connector, installation, and end-user. The study also evaluates industry competitors and analyses the market at the country level.

Based on the charging station type, the plug-in charging stations segment is estimated to account for the largest share of the overall electric vehicle charging stations market in 2020. The growth in this segment is mainly driven by the government and automakers initiatives to expand the level 3 plug-in charging station infrastructure. However, the wireless charging stations market is expected to witness rapid growth during the forecast period. The rapid growth of this segment is primarily attributed to the automaker's initiatives for the development of wireless charging stations technology and government funding for the installation of the wireless charging stations.

Further, the plug-in charging stations market is further segmented into level 1 charging station, level 2 charging station, and level 3 charging station. The level 3 charging station segment is estimated to command the largest share of the plug-in electric vehicle charging stations market in 2020. The large share of this segment is mainly attributed to the factors such as rising government initiatives for the installation of fast-charging stations; rebate on the purchase of level 3 charging stations; growing investment by automakers in level 3 charging stations in order to support their long-range battery electric vehicle; and advantage of faster charging than other types of charging stations.

Based on bus charging infrastructure, the off-board top-down pantograph segment is estimated to command the largest share of the overall electric vehicle charging stations market in 2020, which is mainly attributed to its fast, reliable, and versatile operation as it consists of one charging terminal that adds a lot of flexibility to eBus service since the off-board charging infrastructure can be used by several buses per hour, even of different manufacturers. However, the on-board bottom-up pantograph segment is estimated to witness rapid growth during the forecast period. The on-board bottom-up pantograph charging solution is a fast-charging system mainly used for the charging of electric buses in cities with existing DC networks, such as for tramways. The key factor driving the growth of this segment include increasing adoption of electric buses in countries such as China and the United States over the past years.

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Based on connector type, the GB/T segment is estimated to command the largest share of the overall electric vehicle charging stations market in 2020. The largest share of this market is mainly attributed to the fact that China's dominating position in the charging station market, where GB/T is the most common type of charging station connector standard. However, the Combined Charging System (CCS) segment is expected to grow with the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. This is primarily attributed to the increasing preference by major U.S. and European automakers such as BMW (Germany), Tesla (U.S.), Daimler AG (Germany), FCA (U.K), Ford (U.S.), Jaguar (U.K.), General Motors (U.S.), Group PSA (France), MG (U.K.), Polestar (Canada), Renault (France), and Volkswagen Group (Germany).

Based on installation type, the fixed charging stations segment is estimated to account for the largest share of the overall electric vehicle charging stations market in 2020, mainly due to the rising focus of government agencies on providing funds to charging station OEMs for the development of charging stations. Moreover, the growing collaborations among various industry stakeholders such as charging station OEMs, electric vehicle manufacturers, charging network operators, corporates, and utility service providers to deploy fast-charging stations, expand their geographical presence, and enable cost-effective deployment of charging network further supports the growth of this segment. However, the portable charger segment is expected to be the fastest-growing market during the forecast period.

Geographically, the Asia Pacific region is estimated to command the largest share of the overall electric vehicle charging stations market in 2020. Also, Asia Pacific region is expected to witness a rapid growth during the forecast period. The rapid growth of this region is mainly driven by the high adoption of electric vehicles in countries such as China and Japan, owing to the electrification of the automotive industry along with the initiatives for setting up charging infrastructure. For instance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China announced its new energy vehicle (NEV) quota in September 2017, requiring all car manufacturers in the country with over 30,000 annual vehicle sales to produce 10% new electric vehicles in 2019 and 12% in 2020. In addition, countries such as South Korea and India are taking initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the adoption rate of electric vehicles. For instance, on 1 April 2019, the government of India launched the second phase of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles and its associated charging infrastructure.

The report also includes extensive assessment of the key strategic developments adopted by the leading market participants in the industry over the past 4 years (20162019). The electric vehicle charging stations market has witnessed a number of products launches in recent years. For instance, in September 2019, ChargePoint launched its most powerful, fastest and versatile home charger, ChargePoint Home Flex, which can deliver power up to 50 amps. It also offers a unique combination of speed and versatility, making it the most flexible home charger. Similarly, in October 2018, Webasto had launched its two new smart charging solutions: Webasto Live for the European market and Webasto TurboDX for the American and Asian markets. These new solutions allow flexible networking through a mobile network app.

The global electric vehicle charging stations market is consolidated and dominated by few major players, namely ABB (Switzerland), ChargePoint, Inc. (U.S.), Tesla, Inc. (U.S.), Schneider Electric SE (France), Siemens AG (Germany), Efacec (Portugal), Delta Electronics, Inc. (Taiwan), Leviton Manufacturing Co., Inc. (U.S.), EVBox (The Netherland), Blink Charging (U.S.), Alfen (The Netherland), The New Motion B.V. (The Netherland), Star Charge (China), Eaton Corporation Inc (Ireland), SemaConnect (U.S.), Webasto (Germany), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), and ClipperCreek Inc. (U.S.), among others.

To gain more insights into the market with a detailed table of content and figures, click here: https://www.meticulousresearch.com/product/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-market-5078/

Scope of the report

EV Charging Stations Market by Type

Plug-in Charging Station

Level 1 Charging Station



Level 2 Charging Station



Level 3 Charging Station

Wireless Charging Station

EV Charging Stations Market by Component

Hardware

Software

EV Charging Stations Market by Bus Charging Infrastructure

Off-Board Top-Down Pantograph

On-Board Bottom-Up Pantograph

EV Charging Stations Market by Connector Type

CCS

CHAdeMO

GB/T

Tesla Supercharger

Type 1 (SAE J1772)

Type 2 (IEC 62196)

EV Charging Stations Market by Installation Type

Portable

Fixed

EV Charging Stations Market by End User

Commercial

On-Road



Public Parking



Others

Non-Commercial

Residential



Non-Residential

EV Charging Stations Market by Geography

North America

U.S.



Canada

Europe

UK



Germany



France



The Netherlands



Norway



Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific

China



Japan



India



South Korea



Rest of Asia-Pacific

Latin America

Middle East and Africa

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Amidst this crisis, Meticulous Research is continuously assessing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on various sub-markets and enables global organizations to strategize for the post-COVID-19 world and sustain their growth. Let us know if you would like to assess the impact of COVID-19 on any industry here- https://www.meticulousresearch.com/custom-research.php

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Automotive Engineering Services Market by Service Type (Concept, Prototyping, Testing), Application (Body Engineering, Powertrain, Infotainment, Chassis, Safety Systems, Electrical, Body Controls, Connected Cars), Vehicle Type  Global Forecast to 2027

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Automotive Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market by Component (Hardware, Software), Technology (Machine Learning, Computer Vision), Process (Signal Recognition, Image Recognition) and Application (Semi-Autonomous Driving) - Global Forecast to 2027

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Content Source: https://www.meticulousresearch.com/press-release/electric-vehicle-charging-stations-market-2027/423

SOURCE Meticulous Market Research Pvt. Ltd.
Belgium is experiencing a dangerous surge in coronavirus cases after relaxing many of its lockdown measures, health officials said Wednesday, warning of a possible second wave epidemic.

The Belgian national security council will meet on Thursday and could decide to postpone the next phase of the country's staggered return to normal economic and social life.

But already at a public briefing on Wednesday, officials urged residents to take better care to respect social distancing guidelines and to wash their hands more often.

"It is very important that we work together to halt this snowball effect before it provokes a new avalanche," said spokesman Boudewijn Catry.

"The situation is not without an exit, we can still change the course of events, but we must act fast."

Catry was himself replacing Belgium's federal COVID-19 spokesman Yves van Laethem, who he said had gone into voluntary quarantine after being exposed to a coronavirus carrier.

Belgium suffered one of Europe's worst per capita outbreaks of coronavirus earlier this year, but along with its neighbours was able to bring it under control.

Now, however, the number of cases is increasing again. There were 184 new infections per day on average last week, up by 98 percent over the previous seven days.

The majority of new infections are among the active population aged between 20 and 59, Catry said, but nevertheless the hospitalisation of serious cases is also increasing.

"Last week we counted on average 12 new hospitalisations by day on average, up from 9.7 the week before. We expected this increase. This indicator follows that of new infections with a two- to three-week delay."

Some 64,258 cases have been detected in Belgium since the pandemic swept around the world, and 9,805 people have died.

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MENTOR, Ohio, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael Keresman has not only created but personally authors a daily analysis; the "COVID in 60 Newsletter" that analyzes reported statistics by the US Healthcare System, various state, and federal government agencies, along with data from selected third-party sources. His goal is to supply the US Healthcare System, various US Government agencies and the public with accurate unbiased forecasting not found anywhere else.

Michael Keresman, III is the Founder, and former Chairman, President, and CEO of CardinalCommerce Corporation, the global leader in enabling authenticated payments, secure transactions, and alternative payment brands for both eCommerce and mobile commerce.

In a recent interview, Michael Keresman is quoted as saying that "fatalities at the hands of the COVID-19 virus have dropped by 63% since April". He went on to say that "the benefit of our insights and statistically defendable analysis will have far-reaching cultural and economic ramifications as the data presented is available to our readers every day."

Keresman went on to say "In April, there were 55,687 deaths compared to 20,671 for the month ended July 19, 2020, a decrease of 62.8%. Similarly, April's fatality rate was 6.19% versus 1.425% for the comparable time ending this past Sunday. Last week's fatality rate fell to 1.15%."

His initial newsletter was published on April 3rd as a service to his friends and business associates concerned about the new pandemic being reported around the world. It has since grown to a readership that includes senators, congressmen, representatives, CEOs and various state and local politicians and health care professionals looking for objective information to help assess their strategies and planning going forward.

The COVID in 60 newsletter analyzes the confusing statistics found in our media and adroitly aligns these figures in simple to understand color-coded tables. Here a simple grading system is applied; favorable trends receive a green arrow, while unfavorable trends receive a red arrow. There are 10 trends evaluated nationally every day.

Michael uses his actuarial talents cultivated over 30 years, to analyze all the data to make our lives more safe and secure. He uses the same proficiencies that helped him drive the company he co-founded; STERIS into a billion-dollar company in less than 12 years! Mr. Keresman is uniquely qualified and possesses the abilities necessary to shed an objective light on this virus.

Mr. Keresman is the named inventor of over 70 US and international patents with more than 100 pending applications. He currently serves on several prestigious institutional boards and think tank oversight committees in both higher education and local/federal governments.

The COVID in 60 newsletter is available to anyone that wishes this information. To receive Michael's daily newsletter at no charge, you can go here to register.

Media Contact:

Michael Costigan

941-260-5663

[email protected]

SOURCE Michael Keresman
At least half of Indias population is under various types of lockdowns  full, partial or weekend  according to orders issued by different state governments over the past few days.

States such as Bihar, Sikkim, Nagaland are under complete lockdown; West Bengal has announced a two-day lockdown every week, and states such as Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have opted for weekend lockdowns.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Several districts such as Kamrup Metropolitan district in Assam, which includes capital Guwahati, Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh and Raipur in Chhattisgarh are among 326 districts of the total 734 districts in the country that are under some kind of lockdown.

The national lockdown across India was lifted after 68 days from June 1. But the union home ministry has allowed state governments to enforce lockdowns or any other restrictions to control the spread of Covid 19.

Since the lifting of the lockdown, the number of Covid cases in the country has almost doubled from 604,993 on June 1 to 1,153,428 on July 20.

Lockdown is not a solution for controlling Covid-19, Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa said on Tuesday as he ruled out extension of the week-long shutdown in the capital city of Bengaluru and elsewhere.

We were successful at the beginning in controlling the COVID, but in recent days, especially in Bengaluru, COVID cases have increased....I want to tell the people of the state that for the control of the virus, lockdown is not the solution. The solution is wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, Yediyurappa said.

However, some more districts across India enforced complete lockdown to control the spread of Covid on Tuesday.

The Ballia district administration in Uttar Pradesh, for instance, decided on Tuesday to extend the lockdown in the district headquarters and adjoining areas till July 26. The lockdown was imposed on July 3. Following the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the district, the lockdown has been extended till July 26 in district headquarters and adjoining areas, said District Magistrate Hari Pratap Shahi.

Thoubal district in Manipur was put under lockdown till July 27 and urban areas of Durg, Korba, and Bilaspur districts in Chhattisgarh came under lockdown restrictions from Thursday.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

A former Vallejo groundskeeper with terminal cancer won an appeal Monday against Monsanto Co., which was seeking to overturn a trial court decision to award the man more than $75 million in damages.

But the California Court of Appeal in San Francisco reduced the award to groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who suffers from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, from $78.5 million to $20.5 million.

Johnson had sprayed Monsanto's weed killer Roundup on weeds from 2012 to 2015 while working as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District. Johnson's attorneys allege Roundup was a substantial cause of his illness.

"The decision ... affirms the jury's unanimous finding that Monsanto is liable for the significant harm suffered by Mr. Johnson and that the company acted with a willful and conscious disregard to the safety of others," said attorney David Dickens with the firm that argued the case on behalf on Johnson.

"We are pleased that the court considered the substantial evidence supporting Mr. Johnson's claims, rejected nearly all of Monsanto's arguments and upheld the liability verdict. The decision brings Mr. Johnson one step closer to obtaining the justice that he deserves," Dickens added.

He did not say what the next step is. Monsanto's parent company Bayer AG of Germany is considering an appeal.

A jury initially awarded Johnson $289 million in 2018 but trial judge Suzanne Bolanos reduced that to $78.5 million, saying the punitive damages of $250 million was excessive by general guidelines set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In similar cases in federal court in San Francisco and in Alameda County Superior Court, millions were awarded to Edwin Hardeman of Santa Rosa and Alva Pilliod and Alberta Pilliod of Livermore.

Hardeman was initially awarded $80 million in a case involving Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, but that was reduced by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria to $25 million.

The Pilliod's were initially awarded $2 billion, which Alameda County Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith reduced to $86.7 million.

Bayer said in April that it faces more than 50,000 Roundup cases in state and federal courts in the United States.

The main ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is not a carcinogen, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans."

In a statement Tuesday, Bayer said, "The appeal court's decision to reduce the compensatory and punitive damages is a step in the right direction, but we continue to believe that the jury's verdict and damage awards are inconsistent with the evidence at trial and the law.

"Monsanto will consider its legal options, including filing an appeal with the Supreme Court of California. We continue to stand strongly behind the safety and utility of Roundup, a position supported by four decades of extensive science and favorable assessments by leading health regulators worldwide."

Copyright  2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
State government debt levels will soar by almost $50 billion this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, one of the world's leading credit agencies has warned, making it more difficult to spend their way out of recession.

Moody's on Wednesday said every state and territory bar Western Australia faced a lift in borrowing requirements, warning they were likely to have elevated borrowings for the next three years.

State government spending on infrastructure may be challenged due to a large run-up in debt levels. Credit:Justin McManus

Ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, the state and territories had been expected to borrow almost $45 billion from investors. Moody's now believes that due to the pandemic, they will need between $67 billion and $87 billion this financial year.

NSW had been expected to borrow $17 billion in its 2019-20 budget. It ended up borrowing $23 billion, with Moody's tipping it will need between $25 billion and $30 billion this financial year. That will leave NSW with total government debt of $77 billion, up from $58 billion.
July 21, 2020





As e-commerce takes center stage globally, businesses are looking for ways to gain and retain prominence online. How to create brand awareness, sustain visibility, gain, and convert leads online is a priority for marketing executives. Equally important is gaining insights into customer behavior and preferences as a way of helping managers respond appropriately.







Computers that use Natural Language Processing or NLP understand and interpret human language in a way that allows wholesome analysis. Here are 5 ways using NLP can improve customer experience through automated support systems and comprehensive analytics across language barriers.

Sentiment analysis for sales and marketing

Digital marketers formulate their strategies based on consumer behavior and emotions. Collecting this kind of data in real-time using precision tools is key to success in driving sales growth. Rosoka provides excellent multilingual software with next-generation NLP for opinion mining in marketing that targets social media analysis and extraction.

Deploying NLP on this software delivers valuable data on customer insights through versatile sentiment metrics and a salience score system. NLP can help marketers understand customer emotions and their feelings towards your brand. With this wholesome understanding, you can make informed decisions and strategies to power your business growth.

Superior credit scoring

Banks require credible predictive analytics solutions for scoring creditworthiness of their customers reliably and discreetly. Customers in a bid to secure funding may not reveal their true credit score leading to risk exposure for the bank. Using NLP to mine the web for crucial information on prospective credit applicants, the bank can safely calculate the risk factor in lending to a particular customer.

NLP assisted credit scoring can also help prospective customers without a credit history to qualify for lending. This widens the range of your customer base to include customers you would have declined to accept for lack of verifiable credibility.

Accurate feedback on TV advertising

TV advertising, although a favorite of many businesses, is quite expensive to sustain. To make it worth the cost, marketers must measure its correct effect on the target audience. It is important to find out how the audience appreciates and relates to specific aspects of a commercial and if it evokes instant brand recall.

Using NLP Text Analytics on social media traffic can provide comprehensive insights into customer response to aired commercials. This can help the business move in tandem with the customer's feelings as well as preempt their needs. With correct insights, you can create relevant commercials that grow your sales.

NLP search autocomplete

Most times, many new customers abandon their engagement online because they have incomplete search terms. This can be frustrating to customers and a big loss to the business when products or services are not easily accessible online. Search autocomplete is a feature that can help solve this problem easily if incorporated into your business website.

Search autocomplete is based on NLP and helps your search engines understand probable terms around keywords. This makes searches easier and faster for your customers and enhances user experience.

Survey analytics

Businesses conduct surveys to gauge their performance in the market or for purposes of launching new products. For a business with a global reach, surveys can turn up massive amounts of data in multiple languages that can overwhelm. An affordable, fast, and more efficient way to analyze your data would be deploying NLP systems.

Using multilingual NLP systems will not only deliver accurate analysis but will also save you tons of dollars in staff salaries. With properly set algorithms, you can extract and manipulate any specific information from surveys to power your business growth.
With its century-long mission of ocean protection forced into hiatus by Covid-19, Monaco's Oceanographic Museum has wasted no time in bringing to market its latest endeavour  an interactive recreation of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Clownfish, green sea turtles, giant manta rays and humpback whales help populate this living coral environment  projected in real-time over 30 minutes  which its makers hope will be engaging enough to strengthen public will to protect the oceans.

Coral reefs cover only 0.2 percent of the oceans, but they are home to 30 percent of marine biodiversity, says Robert Calcagno, the museum's CEO and a former environment minister. Nevertheless, these oases of life are being threatened on a massive scale.

While digitally constructing their underwater world, the exhibition's curators toyed with the idea of depicting coral bleaching  the reef has suffered three massive bleaching events over the past five years  as well as plastic pollution, but settled instead on creating a virtual dive of the reef in its most idyllic and pristine form.

We wanted to offer a selection of the most beautiful diving moments in record time, to move and challenge the audience to consider the future of these ecosystems in danger, says Eva Muller, who runs the museum's exhibition department.

Iconic reef species replicated in 3D

Taking place at a depth of 10 metres, the Immersion exhibition uses 40 projectors to create a four-sided (three walls and the floor) marine installation starring 3D computer-generated replicas of the Great Barrier Reef's eight most iconic species  among them the giant clam, potato cod, Maori wrasse and white-tip reef shark.

To ensure each creature is true to its real-world counterpart, scenographers worked with Australian divers who instructed on the movements, behaviours and physical appearance of each animal.

It was then the job of programming director Emmanuel Maa Berriet to bring the installation to life in real time. While the software behind the animation is essentially video-gaming technology, Berriet says his team went a step further, employing what are known as Boids  a mathematical technique used to recreate flocks of birds or, in this case, schools of fish.

Boids are small digital points that follow three simple behaviours: repulsion, so they don't crash into each other; steering, so they can bring their speed into alignment with those around them; and flocking, which is their desire to rest in a group, explains Berriet, creator of the AAASeed 3D software used create the Boids.

This method has been studied by scientists in order to simulate group movement and obtain a result that is close to nature.

The visuals are set to whale song and a gentle orchestra of reef sounds recorded by French bioacoustician Frederic Bertucci, whose underwater harmony was then mixed and put to an original score by composer Pierre Caillot. The soft ocean melody is intended to add an element of majesty to the 650-square-metre aquatic sequence as it rolls from day to night.

Promoting marine conservation

In line with the museum's mission of sharing knowledge of the oceans and generating public support for their conservation, Immersion seeks to provoke an emotional response by making the audience a part of the ecosystem under threat.

What we have created is dream-like  we've used the beauty of the ocean and these emblematic species to reinforce the visitor's appreciation for a place that is inaccessible to many of us, says the exhibition's development director, Bernard Reihac.

This isn't just an exhibition  it's a collective experience designed to raise our awareness of the need to preserve our blue planet and its incredible diversity.

A 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the impact of global warming of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels found that 70 to 90 percent of coral reefs would be lost by 2050. Temperture increases of 2C mean corals may never be able to grow back, the scientists warned as they called for urgent action to phase out fossil fuels.

Despite being the the world's biggest exporter of coal, Australia  which along with Monaco co-chairs of the International Coral Reef Initiative  is a vocal proponent of coral reef protection, says Brendan Berne, Australian ambassador to both Monaco and France.

The Great Barrier Reef is the Amazon of the oceans; it's by far the largest coral reef in the world and Australians are custodians of this asset, says Berne, who visited the exhibition ahead of its opening in a private viewing with Monaco's Prince Albert II  whose father was a pioneer of modern oceanography.

Because I'm asthmatic, I'm not allowed to dive in the reef, but visiting the exhibition I felt like I was able to overcome that  this display is highly interactive and sophisticated  and it really does bring to life the beauty of that natural asset we have in Australia.
Scientists have found microplastics and man-made fibres from disposable face masks in the guts of sharks off the Cornish coast.

More than two thirds of four species of seabed-dwelling sharks contained microplastics and other man-made fibres in their stomachs, they found.

Synthetic cellulose, one of the fibres that was collected, is widely used to make clothes and disposable hygiene products such as facemasks.

Widely-available face masks feature a layer of non-woven bonded fabric  commonly made of polypropylene  which gives them a long afterlife when they are discarded and can end up in landfill or oceans.

A total of 379 particles were found in a the 46 sharks examined, although the impact of microplastics on the sharks' health is unknown.

However, the four species of shark are eaten by humans, meaning any residual microplastics in their bodies could end up in our digestive systems.

Scroll down for video

A small-spotted catshark, which lives on and near the seabed. The species is rarely eaten in Cornwall and many fishermen use it as bait. It is however edible and sometimes marketed as sweet William, according to the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide

MICROPLASTIC LEVELS ARE EXPECTED TO RISE Microplastics are plastic particles measuring less than five millimetres (0.2 inches). They have hit the headlines over recent years, as improper disposal has resulted in tonnes of waste making its way into the ocean. Each year, tonnes of plastic waste fails to get recycled and dealt with correctly, which can mean they end up in marine ecosystems. Although it's unclear exactly how they end up in the water, microplastics may enter through simple everyday wear and tear of clothing and carpets. Tumble dryers may also be a source, particularly if they have a vent to the open air. Plastics don't break down for thousands of years and it is estimated that there are already millions of items of plastic waste in the oceans. This number is expected to rise. Advertisement

Microplastic pollution is ubiquitous in the marine environment and is ingested by numerous marine species but sharks are an understudied group regarding their susceptibility to microplastics, the study authors claim.

'Our study presents the first evidence of microplastics and anthropogenic fibre contaminants in a range of native UK demersal shark species,' said study lead author research student Kristian Parton at the University of Exeter.

'We were surprised to find not only microplastics but also particles such as synthetic cellulose, which is most commonly found in textiles  including disposable hygiene items like facemasks  and clothing.'

Synthetic cellulose is classified as micro fibre and not microplastic, Parton said, although it still comes from anthropogenic sources  those that originate from human activity.

When clothes are washed, or items are discarded as litter, tiny fibres are released and these often flow into water sources and out to sea.

You might put that in a washing machine and that releases fibres into water sources that go directly out to sea because they are so small,' Parton said.

'Once in the sea, microfibres can either float or sink to the bottom, which is where these sharks live.

'The fibres could then be ingested via the sharks' food, which is mostly crustaceans, or directly through the sediment theyre feeding in and around on the seabed.

'In terms of the other types of microplastics we found, many of these may have come from fishing lines or nets.'

Due to the tiny size of the particles that the team have discovered, its likely they're going to be excreted straight away.

Blue Olefin polyproylene fibres recovered from one of the sharks, which the researchers said were probably from a fishing net

However, if we can find that these fibres potentially contain inorganic pollutants and chemicals attached to them, that could have consequences on their reproductive system, their endocrine system and their immune system,' Parton warned.

The research team, which included scientists from Greenpeace Research Laboratories, examined the stomachs and digestive tracts of four species  small-spotted catshark, starry smooth-hound, spiny dogfish and bull huss.

These species, known as demersal sharks, can be found at depths up to nearly 3,000 feet (900 metres) and usually live and feed near the sea floor.

Small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula), also known as the sandy dogfish, lesser-spotted dogfish caught as bycatch - by accident

Stomachs and digestive tracts of 46 sharks of the four species were examined and 67 per cent of samples contained at least one contaminant particle.

A total of 379 particles were identified, leading to average estimates ranging from two to 7.5 ingested contaminants per animal for the four species.

The majority of contaminants identified  95 per cent  were microfibres, from textiles and clothing.

Researchers revealed that the majority of the particles were blue (88 per cent) or black (9 per cent) in colour.

A bull huss shark, which typically reaches up to 5 feet and 25 lbs. It's found predominantly around the southern and western coasts of the Britain

Bull huss. This species is 'generally targeted by Cornish fishermen although their meat is good to eat' the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide says

Larger sharks contained more particles, although no differences in plastic ingestion were found based on sex or species.

The team also took a sub-sample of the contaminants and subjected them to FT-IR spectroscopy, which passes infrared radiation through a sample, to learn more about their composition.

A third (33.3 per cent) were identified as synthetic cellulose, 25 per cent as polypropylene (used in clothing and the manufacturing of common plastics) 10 per cent were polyacrylamides (used in water treatment and present in cigarette smoke) and 8 per cent polyester, the synthetic fabric.

'We were not expecting to find microfibres from textiles in so many of our native shark species,' said study co-author Professor Tamara Galloway, of Exeter's Global Systems Institute.

'Our study highlights how important it is to think before we throw things away.'

The study was conducted in Cornwall using sharks caught as 'bycatch' (by accident) in a demersal hake fishery, fishing in and around the North-East Atlantic and Celtic Sea.

The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
A new yellow-and-white vintage tap truck is cruising the streets in San Antonio ready to serve up beer or an alcoholic beverage of your choice at small events and weddings.

Amber Ramirez and Ashlee Combs, owners of Tap Truck San Antonio, rolled out their new business venture in May after they received their custom-built 1940 Ford side panel delivery truck and license from Tap Truck USA, a national mobile bar that allows people to run their own truck in their hometown.

Ramirez and Combs, who also own a permanent hair removal business located in Universal City, said the tap truck is their way to bring something "unique" and "exciting" to San Antonio.

READ ALSO: Texas' only 'luxury mobile nail salon' taking appointments in San Antonio

"We take pride in bringing something new and special to San Antonio," the owners said via email. "Plus, who doesn't love a classic car and a cold beverage."

Tap Truck San Antonio steers its services toward parties, events and weddings. Tap Truck San Antonio is booking events during the pandemic but only those with a safe guest count, the owners said. Local and health officials do not recommend large gatherings during the surge of coronavirus cases Bexar County is experiencing.

Ramirez and Combs said clients and attendees are required to wear face masks when being served by the tap truck.
New Delhi:

Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's son-in-law was on Tuesday sent to two-day police custody by a city court in a case of theft and misappropriating his wife's property.

Syed Mohammad Imran, who was arrested from Bangalore and brought here on transit remand, was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma who remanded him to police custody till November 17.

Delhi Police sought two days custody of Imran saying they have to recover the articles which he had allegedly stolen.

Advocates P Banerjee and Neeraj Kumar, appearing for Imran, opposed the police plea saying the probe agency has violated the provisions of CrPC and he should be released from custody.

The counsel argued that the arrest of accused was not mandatory in this case and the police should have given notice to him to appear before the officer.

According to police, Latika, Dikshit's daughter, had also accused her estranged husband of subjecting her to violence.

Latika and Imran had got married in 1996 but were living separately for the last 10 months.

In her complaint filed in June, Latika had alleged that Imran's attitude had changed towards her and had become aggressive and rude towards her after her mother lost in the Delhi Assembly elections.

Latika had alleged that Imran took away papers of a piece of land owned by her in Nainital, despite having been told not to do so in May.

According to police, she also alleged that some of the belongings, kept at her Hailey Road house in central Delhi, had gone missing and whenever she asked, Imran was evasive. She also alleged that he took away jewellery and other expensive items from there.

Latika also accused one of her female relatives of being "in connivance" with Imran, they said.

A case was registered against Imran under Sections 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property), 120 B (Criminal conspiracy), 201 (destruction of evidence)and 420 (cheating) of the IPC and under 66 of the IT Act.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
(Natural News) In a clear victory for deep blue states who treat illegal aliens better than American citizens in many cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently that the Trump administration could not add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, despite it being a part of census-taking for a century.

And the high court issued its ruling based on a technicality, at best.

The courts majority said the government has the right to ask a citizenship question, but that it needs to properly justify changing the long-standing practice of the Census Bureau, NBC News reported, noting that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the 5-4 ruling that the presidents reasoning for wanting to add the question seemed contrived.

While were not sure when, exactly, Roberts became a mind-reader, the fact is, President Trump remained undaunted by the goofy ruling.

On Tuesday, the president signed an executive order excluding aliens living illegally in the U.S. from being counted by the census for the purposes of apportioning electors and members of Congress to the states.

The memo says that it will become the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in lawful immigration status under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

As such, the order instructs Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (the U.S. Census Bureau falls under Commerce) to provide the president with information on the number of illegal immigrants so they can be excluded from the population totals that determine how many congressmen a state can have.

We will collect all of the information we need to conduct an accurate census and to make responsible decisions about public policy, voting rights, and representation in Congress, he said.

In a separate report, NBC News noted:

The administration argues that the U.S. Constitution does not specifically define which persons must be included in the apportionment base, noting that documented immigrants who are in the country temporarily and certain foreign diplomatic personnel are persons who have been excluded from the apportionment base in past censuses.

It was not immediately clear how undocumented immigrants would be identified in order to omit them from the census count. The census questionnaire, which was distributed in March, did not require respondents to indicate whether they or others in their household are citizens.

Granted, its not very likely that the president got up Tuesday morning and said, You know what? Im gonna issue and executive order excluding illegal aliens from the Census so we can bring our apportionment of electors in line with the number of citizens in states. (Related: California should be stripped of Electoral College votes due to high number of illegals in the CA census.)

There obviously is a strategy to determine how to determine whether or not someone is in the country illegally.

But the bigger question is this: Can the president really do this?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) doesnt think so, which isnt surprising given the organizations Left-wing extremist bent.

BREAKING: Trump tried to add a citizenship question to the census and lost in the Supreme Court. His latest attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities WILL be found unconstitutional. Well see him in court  and win  again, the organization said in a tweet.

BREAKING: Trump tried to add a citizenship question to the census and lost in the Supreme Court. His latest attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities WILL be found unconstitutional. Well see him in court  and win  again.  ACLU (@ACLU) July 21, 2020

The Constitution requires that everyone in the U.S. be counted in the census. President Trump cant pick and choose, said ACLU Voting Rights Project director Dale Ho.

Yes, well, the Constitution says count everyone, thats true. But it doesnt say that illegal aliens have to be considered in the apportionment of electors and congressional representatives.

Trump hinted that something like this was coming during his interview with Fox News Chris Wallace on Sunday.

[W]ere signing a health care plan within two weeks. A full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So were going to solve  were going to sign an immigration plan, a health care plan, and various other plans. And nobody will have done what Im doing in the next four weeks, he said.

Stay tuned.

Sources include:

FoxNews.com

NBCNews.com

NaturalNews.com
China on Wednesday said it hoped that India will continue to follow an independent diplomatic policy after external affairs minister, S Jaishankar said that, like in the past, New Delhi will never join any system of alliance. Speaking to a television channel, Jaishankar said on Monday that India will never join any alliance system in the future just as it never did in the past.

Non-alignment was a term of a particular era and geopolitical landscape. One aspect was independence, which remains a factor of continuity for us, Jaishankar said while speaking on the topic of Geopolitics of opportunity: As the world rebalances, how should India capitalise?

The ministers statement comes in the backdrop of the worst chill in Sino-Indian ties in decades following the violent Galwan Valley clash in eastern Ladakh last month  and New Delhi carrying out a military naval drill with US aircraft carrier, Nimitz, near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands this week.

Also read: Livid China ready to retaliate after US says shut Houston consulate in 72 hours

Responding to Chinese state medias question on Jaishankars remarks, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin said China had taken note of his remarks.

China has noted relevant reports. We hope and believe that as an important force in the global multi polarisation, India will stay to its independent diplomatic policy and play a constructive role in maintaining regional peace and stability and in the management of international affairs, Wang said in his brief response.

Beijing would have also certainly taken note of the Indian navys drills with its US counterpart. Nimitz, the US aircraft carrier, along with another carrier USS Ronald Reagan had earlier carried out a drill in the South China Sea region, deeply riling China.

Also read: Relationship with India important, monitoring LAC very closely - US defense secretary

Following the exercise with the US Navy, the Indian Navy said in a statement, The Passage Exercise near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands involved the United States Carrier Strike Group (CSG) led by aircraft carrier Nimitz and units of Indian Navys Eastern Fleet and Andaman and Nicobar Command.

New Delhi and Beijing are currently carrying out phased military and diplomatic talks to deescalate the tense situation along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

At the end of the fourth round of military talks last week, China had said the talks had made progress in disengaging troops in the western section of the disputed boundary.

The Chinese foreign ministry said it hoped New Delhi would work with Beijing to safeguard peace and tranquillity in the border areas.

The talks, aimed at de-escalation, have taken place in a phased manner weeks after Indian and Chinese troops clashed along the LAC in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh. The violent brawl between troops of both sides on June 15 claimed the lives of 20 Indian army personnel while an unspecified number of Chinese were also killed.
Bajaj Autos international focus will be further bolstered with the opening of two vehicle design centers in Europe and Thailand followed by an assembly plant in Brazil.

The Pune-based, Indias third largest two-wheeler maker, will set up its first design centre outside of India in Bangkok followed by one in Europe, a top company official said on July 22.

Addressing shareholders at the 13th annual general meeting (AGM) Rajiv Bajaj, managing director, Bajaj Auto said, There is no two-wheeler technology that is not in our possession. Our own R&D (research and development) team is 1,200 strong and is leading the way. We are about to open our first design center in Bangkok and very soon we will follow up with one in Europe.

India has been the breeding ground for most of Bajajs R&D work since its inception. This is with the exception of some of the work happening in Austria, which is home to Bajaj Autos partners KTM and Triumph Motorcycles based in the United Kingdom in collaborative projects.

Other Indian companies that have set up or acquired design and technical centers outside of the country are Hero MotoCorp, Royal Enfield, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra.

Though Bajaj Auto is already the largest exporter of two-wheelers from India the company is now strengthening its footprint in the Latin American market. The maker of Pulsar and Avenger bikes will set an assembly plant in Brazil alongside supporting infrastructure such as distribution, sales and marketing teams.

We are present in over 70 countries in a meaningful manner. We have made important inroads in the ASEAN markets over the last 12 months including Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. We are also close to starting operations in Brazil. Perhaps over the next 12 months we will be able to do that, added Bajaj.

Brazils two-wheeler market is the largest in Latin America and the eight largest in the world. While Brazils two-wheeler market is nearly 1 million, it remains dominated by Japanese heavyweight Honda commanding a market share of 80 percent. In Brazil Bajaj would be keen to replicate its success in the African market where it is either number one or number two in more than a dozen countries.

Despite the Covid-19 led disruption Bajaj Autos exports outstripped domestic sales during the June quarter. The company exported nearly 214,000 two-wheelers compared to nearly 186,000 units sold in the domestic market during Q1. In every month since November last year Bajajs exports has been higher than its domestic sales.
A La Rochelle, le masque est obligatoire meme dans la rue

La mesure est prise au nom du principe de precaution: pour eviter tout developpement de cluster de dans sa ville le maire de La Rochelle a decide de rendre obligatoire le masque dans lespace public. La mesure sapplique sur les quais du port et les rues du centre-ville... tres prisees des touristes.
Coalition talks will involve parties representing the ethnic Albanian minority, which makes up nearly a quarter of the countrys 2.1 million population. The main minority party, the DUI, which won 15 seats in parliament, says it wants an ethnic Albanian politician as prime minister as a condition for coalition talks  a demand that both main parties have flatly rejected.
Austria is reintroducing a requirement that face masks be worn in supermarkets, banks and post offices because of an increase in coronavirus infections in recent weeks, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Tuesday.

Austria went into lockdown early in its outbreak in mid-March and began loosening its restrictions a month later, even scrapping the requirement to wear face masks in shops and schools on June 15.

Face masks are still required on public transport, in hospitals and pharmacies and at hairdressers.

While the number of daily infections was regularly well under 50 in May and June, it has increased in the past three weeks - it was over 100 almost every other day this month.

There are areas of daily life where one cannot choose whether one goes or not - the supermarket, the bank, the post office, Kurz told a news conference. We have therefore decided that we will make face masks compulsory again in supermarkets, in banks, in post offices.

Clusters have recently emerged in and near Vienna as well as in the province of Upper Austria, which borders Germany and the Czech Republic. Several of those clusters are linked to churches, and Austria has reported an increase in cases imported from the Balkans, issuing travel warnings for countries there.

Kurz said tighter testing requirements would be introduced for arrivals from the Balkans, and restrictions would be introduced to reduce the size of religious services and force churches to close in the event of a positive coronavirus test.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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Amitabh Bachchan's near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie is known to all. On July 26, 1982, the megastar was badly injured while filming a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar. Amitabh was immediately rushed to a Mumbai hospital where he went into a coma-like situation. The actor, by his own admission, was even declared 'clinically dead' for a few minutes before being put on the ventilator. After multiple surgeries and by the grace of his fans' prayers, he finally moved a muscle on August 2, 1982, and the entire nation breathed a sigh of relief.

Puneet Issar aka Duryodhan of Mahabharat recently went down memory lane during an episode of a singing reality show and revealed that he lost seven to eight films after the infamous accident, and how the Bollywood icon had greeted him with kindness and warmth despite the incident.

Puneeth said, "My encounter with Mr Amitabh Bachchan was rather unfortunate. I remember while shooting for Coolie, we had to perform this particular action sequence. The timing during the final take did not match and I accidentally injured Mr. Bachchan. But he was so kind. He knew I was worried and he greeted me with so much warmth when I went to see him at the hospital. He put his arm around my shoulder and walked me till the gate to show everyone that there was no bad blood between us. My wife even donated blood to him.

He went on to add, "I lost about seven to eight films after this incident until Mahabharat came my way. Initially, I was called in for the role of Bhim but I was keen to portray Duryodhan. I recited Duryodhan's dialogue and bagged the role. The rest is history."

ALSO READ: Puneet Issar On Mukesh Slamming Sonakshi: If She Didnt Know Ramayans Question, World Doesnt End!

ALSO READ: Amitabh Bachchan Was Unable To Speak For Days After Coolie Accident; Wrote Notes To Jaya For Water!
WASHINGTON - Bipartisan Capitol Hill talks have only just begun on a sweeping renewal of coronavirus legislation, but areas of likely agreement  and flashpoints of discord  are becoming apparent as the package starts to take shape.

The Democratic House passed a whopping $3.5 trillion coronavirus response bill more than two months ago, re-upping a $600 per week federal unemployment benefit that expires July 31, another round of $1,200 payments to most people and almost $1 trillion for cash-starved states and local governments. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is set to unveil a $1 trillion COVID-19 aid package on Thursday. The GOPs response will have far less money than the Democrats and will feature a sweeping liability shield for schools, businesses and charities that are trying to reopen. Its up to top congressional leaders to bridge the gaps.

A rundown of the top issues in play as the talks gain momentum.

___

LIKELY IN THE FINAL BILL

$1,200 direct payments. President Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell all agree that there should be another round of $1,200 direct payments to most Americans at a cost approaching $300 billion. Its seen as a slam dunk for inclusion despite grumbling that the aid isnt well targeted to those most in need.

Aid to schools/universities. Both the House and Senate bills contain $100 billion or more to help schools and universities through the crisis and reopen as soon as possible. The emerging GOP draft would dedicate half of a $70 billion school aid package to schools that resume in-school learning, Republicans say, with half going to those reopening with remote learning. Democrats are sure to oppose the idea.

Small business subsidies. The Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, has received $660 million to help generally smaller businesses weather the pandemic, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is pressing for more targeted to especially hard-hit sectors like restaurants. Democrats and Republicans have worked well together on the issue, and theres more than $100 billion in unspent PPP funding that they could re-purpose.

___

LIKELY IN THE BILL, BUT ONLY AFTER A FIGHT

State and local aid. A huge payment to state and local governments, including smaller cities left out of the huge $2 trillion CARES Act passed in March, is one of Pelosis core demands. Shes backed by a bipartisan gaggle of governors, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine. Supporters say the funding is crucial to boost the economy, to prevent a wave of layoffs and to alleviate cuts to education and health care. Republicans so far are only promising new flexibility on $150 billion in state and local funding that was allocated in the March, but Democrats will insist on far more.

Extension of jobless aid. A supplemental $600 per week federal pandemic unemployment insurance benefit that has kept millions of workers and households afloat expires on July 31. Democrats would extend the $600 through January 2021. Republicans want to slash the benefits because many workers make more on unemployment than they would if they were to reclaim their jobs. A robust fight is certain.

Liability shield. Businesses and school systems are among those seeking protection from lawsuits arising from coronavirus exposure. McConnell and John Cornyn, R-Texas, have drafted a plan promising to shield employers from ordinary negligence lawsuits, imposing a higher, though temporary, legal standard. Liability protections are a must-have for McConnell, but Democrats and the still-powerful trial lawyers lobby are sure to resist.

Business tax breaks. Republicans are pressing to extend both the employer retention tax credit, which helps businesses defray payroll costs, as well as the work opportunity tax credit, which subsidizes the hiring of disadvantaged workers. Those are likely to make it into the package, but lawmakers are unlikely to consider more ambitious tax breaks.

Election assistance. States are scrambling to expand their absentee and vote-by-mail capacities during the pandemic. The House bill contains $3.6 billion to pay for printing ballots, for postage costs, and for protective equipment and training for poll workers. Itll end up being far less, but key Republicans support the initiative, despite Trumps campaign against mail-in voting.

POSSIBLY OUT OF FINAL BILL

Payroll tax cut. Trump is pushing to temporarily reduce the 7.65% Social Security and Medicare payroll tax to boost take-home paychecks, but it has little buy-in from Senate Republicans, who are increasingly vocal in their opposition. Still, some version of it is likely to make it into McConnells draft. Democrats are firmly against it, and Trump may not have the leverage necessary to make it happen  though he is pushing hard.
YAKUTSK, Russia -- A shaman in the Siberian region of Yakutia, who gained notoriety for claiming to have a plan to remove President Vladimir Putin from power, has been released from a psychiatric clinic where he was forcibly placed earlier this year amid protests by human rights defenders.

Aleksei Pryanishnikov, a legal coordinator for the opposition group Open Russia, wrote on Facebook that Aleksandr Gabyshev was released on July 22.

"Our efforts have paid off in the end. Without social support and wide media coverage of the efforts of defense lawyers, this treatment could have lasted without end as the court's decision did not limit the time set for being [in the psychiatric clinic]," Pryanishnikov wrote.

Gabyshev was placed in a psychiatric clinic against his will on May 12.

His lawyers filed a complaint with the European Court for Human Rights challenging the move, which they said was illegal.

Gabyshev was briefly released on May 29, a day after his lawyers filed a complaint with the Yakutsk city court questioning the legality of his placement in the clinic.

But a court in Yakutsk subsequently ruled on June 2 that Gabyshev must be committed to a psychiatric clinic.

On July 3, the Supreme Court of Yakutia excluded independent experts from taking part in evaluation of Gabyshev's mental health, which sparked an outcry by his lawyers and supporters.

Several local and federal politicians and officials have challenged Gabyshev's forced stay in the clinic in Yakutsk, Yakutia's capital, equating it with a Soviet-time practice to muzzle dissent.

Amnesty International said Gabyshev "has been made an enemy of the state solely for voicing his dislike of Putin."

In early May, Gabyshev posted a video on YouTube that showed him performing a traditional Yakut shaman's dance while chanting, "Very soon you all will break free."

Gabyshev first made headlines last year when he called Putin "evil" and announced that he started a march to Moscow to drive the Russian president out of the Kremlin.

He set off for Moscow in March last year and walked more than 2,000 kilometers, speaking with hundreds of Russians along the way.

As his notoriety rose, videos of his conversations with people were posted on social media and attracted millions of views.

In July, when Gabyshev reached the city of Chita, he led a 700-strong rally under the slogan "Russia without Putin!"

At the time, Gabyshev said, "God told me that Putin is not human but a demon, and has ordered me to drive him out."

His march was halted when he was detained in the region of Buryatia in September.

He was transferred to Yakutia, where he was confined to a psychiatric clinic.

Gabyshev was released in October, after independent experts hired by his lawyers challenged the local psychiatrists' diagnosis of mental instability, concluding that Gabyshev is sane, does not need treatment in a psychiatric clinic, and is not a danger to society.

In December, Gabyshev and two supporters attempted to resume the march toward Moscow, ignoring Yakutia's sub-zero temperatures.

But they were stopped again by police and forced to return.

Shamans have served as healers and diviners in Siberia for centuries. During the Soviet era, the mystics were harshly repressed. But in isolated parts of Siberia, they are now regaining prominence.
India needs a centralised national database on everything related to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), including standardised data on turnaround testing time, surveillance, home and hospital isolation, and proportion of cases among people with contact history , say epidemiologists and public health experts.

In an opinion article in The New York Times, the former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tom Frieden recommended the compilation of standardised data on a range of parameters to better manage the pandemic that has so far infected 15,154,448 and killed 621,172 across the world. He wrote, specifically of the US that we arent tracking the public health equivalent of vital signs and that this is a big reason the US is losing the battle against Covid-19.

Friedens article is based on work done by his current organisation, NGO Resolve to Save Lives, which, according to an article in NYT found that states were reporting only 40% of the data needed to fight the pandemic. In some ways, experts say, India is similar to the US in terms of its geographical size and diversity. The same data collection and standardisation problems the US has, are also manifest here, they add.

The Resolve to Save Lives website lists some of this data. These include: new confirmed and probable cases and per capita rates by date with 7-day moving average;new screening (antigen) and diagnostic (PCR) testing per capita rates by date, with threshold, with 7-day moving average; CLI (Covid-19 like illness) and ILI (influenza like illness) trends from emergency departments; diagnostic test turnaround time (specimen collection to test report), by week; time from specimen collection to isolation of cases; and new infections among health care workers not confirmed to have been contracted outside of the workplace, by week.

Epidemiologists in India say this data is crucial for clinical and epidemiological research. It is all relevant data, especially turnaround time for testing as in most urban areas where there is a surge in cases, we see that there is considerable delay in testing, which further leads to delay in communicating positive results, and can eventually affect the time of isolation of cases. Hence, these are important parameters to document, and should be documented scientifically. What does not get reviewed wont get done, said Dr Giridhara R Babu, professor, epidemiology, Indian Institute of Public Health.

Experts also advocate transparency  they suggest national data must be shared real-time with the public to empower them to protect themselves.

Merely documenting information is not enough; what is documented should be put out in public domain for the benefit of people at large. If data is accessible publicly then there will be people willing to analyse it and come to conclusions that can help guide decision makers towards the right direction. As things stand now, the information that is in public domain is only what the government wants you to know. Thats not how it should be, said Dr Lalit Kant, former head, epidemiology and communicable diseases division, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

I should have access to information on, say, who is dying-- is it those who are marginalized and dont have access to health care services or the section that has access to treatment. Also, which are the hot spots that I should avoid in case I am stepping out .

Union health ministry officials say that the centre has been closely monitoring the Covid-19 situation across states and union territories, and data generated through its testing and surveillance network is regularly updated at the central level.

A union health ministry official said India is already collecting much of this data and following many of the suggestions mentioned in the article.

Our integrated disease surveillance programme network is updated on a real-time basis and the data is collected till the grassroots level. There is a dashboard in the ministry that is fed all relevant information from states. Laboratories testing Covid-19 samples are also feeding real-time information digitally on identified online platforms. Central teams are being regularly sent to states with high case load to coordinate with and assist local governments in managing the outbreak and look for gaps that need to be filled, said a senior health ministry official, who did not wish to be identified.

Where there are lapses, the problem is largely with the states, the official added.

At least 80% of the contacts are currently being traced within 72 hours of reporting of a case, but it is not the same across states. States are being asked to ensure test results are put out within 48 hours of sample collection, but many states are not following it.

Separate data is being generated from SARI and ILI cases for which all these patients are being tested for Covid-19 in the country. Some states are doing exceedingly well in data reporting such as Maharashtra and Gujarat where we can say the (real) numbers are what is being reported.

There is a huge variation in tests being done per million population across states. While a lot of data may not be available in the public domain, it is available to those who need it, said an ICMR official.

Testing data is duly documented from all 1270 approved laboratories that are conducting Covid-19 tests. Once a lab receives a sample, it takes up to six hours to process it and enter data into the ICMR web portal. The turnaround time is a maximum of 48 hours. All information is not being put out in public domain but internally the data is accessible to everyone who wants details. Its an absolutely transparent and streamlined system, said Dr Rajnikant Srivastava, spokesperson, ICMR.

Still, there is a massive discrepancy in testing rates, and opacity about turnaround testing time, surveillance and contact tracing , say experts.

Aggressive testing is needed but we must also keep in mind that it has to be done in a scientific way, as per the requirement of each state given the country is diverse and no two states will have the same requirement. Some states will have lower testing capacity even though they need more. Focus on states that are backwards in comparison and help them build capacity to meet the demand,  said Dr Jacob John, former head, virology department, CMC Vellore.

Frieden adds in his op-ed that the data would help serve as an early warning system about potential outbreaks or flare-ups; help improve turnaround time of tests; provide information on size, lethality and status of control of every outbreak; and make the system accountable for how many health care workers have been infected each week.

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A year after the US and Denmark butted heads over President Donald Trump's offer to buy Greenland, his secretary of state is visiting the Nordic country on Wednesday, with Arctic issues at the top of the agenda. Arriving from the UK, Mike Pompeo landed in Copenhagen shortly after 10 am (0800 GMT) to meet with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. He is then expected to hold talks with his Danish counterpart Jeppe Kofod at noon, when they will be joined by foreign affairs representatives for Greenland and the Faroe Islands, also a Danish autonomous territory. In Kofod's words, Denmark considers the US its "absolutely closest ally" and has contributed troops to NATO missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. But relations hit some turbulence in August 2019 when Trump floated the idea of the US buying Greenland, an Arctic territory covering over two million square kilometres. Frederiksen called the proposal "absurd", leading Trump to cancel a planned visit to Copenhagen over the "nasty" tone of the response. While the offer was the subject of some ridicule, analysts say it is also indicative of the US' renewed strategic interest in the Arctic region, which had subsided somewhat after the end of the Cold War. A few phone calls between the countries have since eased the tensions, and Greenland officials say they want to put the affair behind them. - 'Increased activity' - "What we said in the past and what we do today are two different things. And what matters is what we do and what we say today," Greenland foreign affairs representative Steen Lynge told reporters on Tuesday. The US reopened a consulate in Greenland's capital Nuuk last month, with approval from Copenhagen, and provided a $12.1 million aid package in April. Greenland is also home to another strategic American asset, the Thule Air Base, which is the US Air Force's northernmost base. Leading up to the visit a statement from the US Department of State highlighted the importance of a partnership in the Arctic "particularly as we see increased activity in the region from Russia and the People?s Republic of China." But there is another bone of contention: the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline being built between Russia and Germany. The US strongly opposes the pipeline, which runs through the Baltic, crossing Danish waters, saying it risks increasing the dependence of NATO countries on Russian gas. It imposed sanctions on companies working on the project late last year -- a move strongly opposed by the European Union -- and has recently threatened more. Denmark was the last country to approve the pipeline, holding up the unveiling by several months, before finally providing the green light in October 2019. Copenhagen denied any foreign pressure over the issue, but a diplomatic source told AFP the small Nordic country has faced great difficulty in balancing the interests of its two main allies, the US and Germany. Pompeo arrived in Denmark after a visit to Britain
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 20:51:00|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- By renewing its pledge to further protect market entities and spur their vitality in times of difficulty and uncertainty, China has given its economy and all market players a fresh shot of confidence.

Chairing a symposium with entrepreneurs Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping listened to their opinions and advice on the economic situation, assuring them that policy support will be enhanced so that market entities can "not only survive but also thrive."

The pledge comes as China, through the combined efforts of the whole nation, has achieved strategic results in epidemic containment and started to see a bounce-back in the epidemic-battered economy.

China saw its gross domestic product expand 3.2 percent year on year in the second quarter, following a 6.8 percent contraction in the first quarter, official data shows.

The better-than-expected recovery has been a result of effective virus control and heavy macro-policy backing, as well as the arduous efforts of all market entities.

However, given the continuous global spread of the virus and mounting external risks, enterprises and individual businesses are still facing challenges, and ensuring their well-being is crucial for sustaining the hard-won rebound.

To protect market entities is to protect productivity. By 2019, China had around 123 million market entities. They have played a major role in the country's development by participating actively in economic activities, creating jobs and pushing technological progress.

Their roles will be increasingly essential as China works to create a new development pattern in which domestic and foreign markets boost each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay.

To provide true support, the symposium touched upon issues of great concern, including relief measures, business-environment improvement and the government-business relationship. Opinions and suggestions from entrepreneurs will also be taken into account in the formulation of policies, such as China's 14th Five-Year Plan.

Xi promised that the Chinese government will provide more high-quality public services to help entrepreneurs take root in China and cultivate the Chinese market.

With such support and solidarity, China's market entities are expected to make greater contributions to the country's economic restoration and the pursuit of socialist modernization. Their hard work and strength will serve to bolster the long-term resilience and vitality of the Chinese economy and beyond. Enditem
The potassium sulfate market is expected to grow by 3,345.51 K MT during 2020-2024. The report also provides the market impact and new opportunities created due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect the impact to be significant in the first quarter but gradually lessen in subsequent quarters with a limited impact on the full-year economic growth.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005687/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Potassium Sulfate Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

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Factors such as strong economic growth and rapid urbanization have resulted in the expansion of the middle-class population, especially in developing regions such as APAC. According to estimates, about 53.55% of the middle-class population in 2020 is expected to originate from APAC. By 2030, the region is expected to account for more than 60% share of the global middle-class population. The growing disposable incomes of this population segment is driving the demand for food products, which is increasing the use of fertilizers in the agriculture industry. These factors are fueling the growth of the global potassium sulfate market.

To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44279

As per Technavio, the high demand for Sulfate of Potash (SOP) from the agriculture segment will have a positive impact on the market and contribute to its growth significantly over the forecast period. This research report also analyzes other significant trends and market drivers that will influence market growth over 2020-2024.

Potassium Sulfate Market: High Demand for SOP from the Agriculture Segment

The global population stood at 7.59 billion in 2019. By 2050, it is expected to increase to about 9.7 billion. This rapid growth in the global population is driving the need for food security. This has resulted in increased investments in the agriculture sector and the adoption of improved farming policies. These factors have increased the use of SOPs, also known as potash fertilizers in the agriculture industry. Therefore, the high demand for SOP from the agriculture segment is expected to boost the growth of the global potassium sulfate market during the forecast period.

"Increasing population in developing countries and the advantages of SOP over Muritate of Potash (MOP) will further boost market growth during the forecast period," says a senior analyst at Technavio.

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Potassium Sulfate Market: Segmentation Analysis

This market research report segments the potassium sulfate market by process (Mannheim process, Sulfate salts reaction, and Salt lake brine processing) and geography (APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America).

The APAC region led the potassium sulfate market in 2019, followed by Europe, MEA, North America, and South America respectively. During the forecast period, the APAC region is expected to register the highest incremental growth due to the expansion of the population in countries such as India and China.

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report, such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Request a free sample report

Some of the key topics covered in the report include:

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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The economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to get worse as we witness a second wave of cases. However, you would never know it from the stock market, which is trading as if the pandemic is over. Given the risk that a dose of reality will eventually confront the market, where is an investor to turn?

Charles Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, offered some sound investment advice: All intelligent investing is value investing  acquiring more than you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.

In view of this, we used TipRanks database to identify three stocks that the analyst community believes currently offer good value. Each ticker is backed by enough Wall Street analysts to earn a Strong Buy consensus rating. Plus, these stocks offer double-digit upside potential.

Ross Stores (ROST)

Well start with Ross Stores, an off-price apparel and home fashion retailer. The company operates 1,831 stores in the US, which sell the Ross Dress for Less and dd's DISCOUNTS brands.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced first quarter results, as all of the companys stores were closed for about half of the quarter. Sales plummeted 52% to $1.8 billion, from $3.8 billion in the prior-year quarter, and the net loss was $306 million versus net income of $421 million the year before. Likewise, the companys stock has dropped 27% year-to-date.

Even so, Guggenheim analyst Robert Drbul sees better days ahead for Ross. He based his view on the following, we remain confident off-price will emerge in a stronger competitive position, driven by 1) Department store & specialty retail store closures, 2) Access to higher quality merchandise and brand-cache level, 3) Favorable real estate (off-mall, large stores), and 4) Consumers desire for value in a challenging economic climate.

As the impacts of COVID-19 persist, weaker economic conditions work in off-price retailers favor. People who have lost their jobs or are earning less look to save money by shopping at an off-price retailer.

Story continues

In light of this, Drbul rates Ross Stores a Buy. The four-star analyst also maintains a $110 price target, which adds up to upside potential of 25% from current levels. (To watch Drbuls track record, click here)

What does the rest of the Street think? For the most part, other pros agree with Drbul. Looking at the breakdown, we have 15 Buy ratings, 4 Holds and 0 Sells, which amount to a Strong Buy consensus rating. In addition, the $104.11 average price target indicates 18% upside potential for the stock. (See Ross Stores stock analysis on TipRanks)

TJX Companies (TJX)

Next on our list is another off-price retailer, TJX Companies, which sells apparel and home fashions through four segments: Marmaxx, HomeGoods, TJX Canada, and TJX International.

Consistent with the retail industry, TJXs results were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Like Ross, the crisis caused it to close all of its stores for about half of the first quarter. Still, just prior to COVID-19, the company saw healthy sales gains, as comparable store sales jumped at least 5% across all four of the companys segments. Moreover, after store re-openings began, sales were strong.

BMO analyst Simeon Siegel thinks that TJXs solid sales performance after store re-openings is not just a consumer response to pent up demand, but rather a longer-term trend. The four-star analyst explained, looking ahead, we continue to see TJX as a post COVID-19 share taker and one of our top long-term ideas; we expect current department store dislocation will provide compelling opportunity to purchase branded inventory and accumulate incremental customers. This is because some retailers will sell inventory at a discount to raise cash and clear space for the next season.

In line with his optimistic view, Siegel rates the stock an Outperform (i.e. Buy) and has a $58 price target, which translates to upside potential of 10%. (To watch Siegels track record, click here)

Turning to the rest of the street, practically all of the analysts agree with Siegel. 16 Buys and 1 Hold signify a Strong Buy consensus rating. Meanwhile, the $62.88 average price target represents nearly 19% potential increase from the current share price. (See TJX stock analysis on TipRanks)

Mondelez International (MDLZ)

Our final stock is Mondelez International, which sells a variety of name brand packaged food products worldwide. The company's portfolio includes high-profile names like Cadbury, Milka, Toblerone, Oreo, belVita, and LU biscuits.

Mondelez recorded strong first quarter operating results despite the impacts of COVID-19. The company saw a considerable increase in demand for its products, some of which came at the expense of its competitors. Revenue increased 2.6%, while adjusted EPS climbed 10.8% to $0.69.

Turning to the companys stock performance, it has been basically flat year-to-date, similar to the S&P 500. Nevertheless, Credit Suisse analyst Robert Moskow believes Mondelezs valuation is appealing relative to other multinational competitors like Nestle and Coke.

After a meeting with the CFO, the analyst is even more bullish on the stock based on, the companys strong execution over the past several quarters (especially in the UK, India, China, and more recently, the U.S.) and its plans to maintain investment spending to further grow market share. Mondelez share grew in 80% of its markets in 1Q and organic sales grew 6.5%.

To this end, Moskow rates Mondelez an Outperform (i.e. Buy), and sets a price target of $62, which implies an upside potential of 14% from current levels. (To watch Moskows track record, click here)

Overall, Mondelez gets a unanimous Strong Buy consensus rating from the analyst community. This is based on 9 Buy ratings and no Hold or Sell ratings. The average price target of $60.11 suggests nearly 11% upside potential. (See Mondelez stock-price forecast on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.
TORONTO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. (TSX: CF) is scheduled to release its first quarter results and supplementary financial information on Wednesday, August 5, 2020 after TSX market close. Interested investors, the media and other stakeholders may review the earnings release and supplementary financial information at www.cgf.com/investor-relations/investor-resources/financial-reports/

QUARTERLY CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST:

Interested parties are invited to listen to Canaccord Genuity's first quarter results conference call via live webcast or a toll-free number. The conference call is scheduled for Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time, 5:00 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 p.m. UK time, 8:00 p.m. China Standard Time, and 10:00 p.m. Australia EST. During the call, senior executives will comment on the results and respond to questions from analysts and institutional investors.

The conference call may be accessed live and will also be archived on a listen-only basis at: www.cgf.com/investor-relations/news-and-events/conference-calls-and-webcasts/

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A replay of the conference call will be made available from approximately two hours after the live call on August 6, 2020 until October 6, 2020 at 416-849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056 by entering passcode 5558518 followed by the (#) key.

ABOUT CANACCORD GENUITY GROUP INC.:

Through its principal subsidiaries, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. (the "Company") is a leading independent, full-service financial services firm, with operations in two principal segments of the securities industry: wealth management and capital markets. Since its establishment in 1950, the Company has been driven by an unwavering commitment to building lasting client relationships. We achieve this by generating value for our individual, institutional and corporate clients through comprehensive investment solutions, brokerage services and investment banking services. The Company has Wealth Management offices located in Canada, the UK, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Australia. The Company's international capital markets division operates in North America, UK & Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

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Today, Donald Trump sent well wishes to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is charged with procuring underage girls to be sexually abused, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) tweeted Tuesday night. Has he sent any well wishes to the families of the more than 140,000 Americans who have died during this pandemic?
"Better to signal resoluteness, and reduce the burden on people, with more stable and permanent stationing abroad, especially in countries with good amenities and qualities of life," O'Hanlon said, citing Germany, South Korea and Poland as great examples.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and defense expert at the Brookings Institution, says he disagrees with the use of more U.S. rotational deployments on the Korean peninsula because they "wear out a small force."

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Pentagon was drawing up plans to reduce its forces in South Korea below the current number of 28,500 personnel, as the two countries remain at an impasse over President Donald Trump's demand that Seoul greatly increase how much it pays for U.S. troops stationed in the country.

"I continue to want to pursue more rotational forces, force deployments into theaters, because it gives us, the United States, greater strategic flexibility in terms of responding to challenges around the globe," the defense secretary said during a virtual event hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Speaking about Asia from the Pentagon, Esper on Tuesday left open the possibility of a future reduction of troops in South Korea, saying the Pentagon will continue to look at potential force size adjustments at every command, in every theater, to make sure it is optimizing its forces.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he has "issued no orders to withdraw from the Korean peninsula," while also sounding the alarm on Chinese "bad behavior" that he says has picked up since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

 Chinese 'Bad Behavior' and Hints of a Potential Visit

On China, Esper on Tuesday slammed recent Chinese military "bad behavior" that has raised concerns across the region. "We've seen it pick up in the last six months since the COVID-19 hit," he said, referring to the disease caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.

Esper said he hopes to visit China for the first time as secretary before the end of the year, although the Pentagon did not provide further details on a potential visit.

The defense secretary called out China for "regularly disrespecting rights of other nations," pointing to a recent large-scale offensive exercise simulating the seizure of a Taiwanese island as "a destabilizing activity that significantly increases the risk of miscalculation."

He also slammed China for its land reclamation and continued military exercises around disputed land features in the Sea, calling the efforts "patently inconsistent" with international law and urging other nations across the globe to help stand up to counter Chinese behavior.

"If we're not careful, we'll find ourselves in a situation where China is calling the shots, and we have a completely different international order or at least regional order. That puts China at the top and really is based on Chinese values, and I don't think those are things that any of us want to want to see happen in the long run," Esper said. For its part, Beijing says Washington has no say in the matter and is acting as a "a troublemaker and a disruptor of regional stability."

"The United States is not a country involved in the regional territorial disputes, but it continues to interfere and keeps flexing military muscles in the region," read a July 14 statement from the Chinese Embassy in Washington. "It's stirring up tension and inciting confrontation in the region."

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says Beijing seeks to expel the U.S. from the region in order to "control and dominate China's weaker neighbors."

"The U.S. must act urgently with its allies and partners to address the increasingly unfavorable military balance of power, to make clear to Beijing that the costs of attempting to achieve its political objectives with military force are unacceptably high," said Bowman.

Earlier this month two U.S. aircraft carriers, the USS Nimitz and the USS Ronald Reagan, conducted joint operations to demonstrate freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where territorial disputes have flared between China and its smaller neighbors. The deployment was the first time the U.S. has conducted dual carrier operations since 2012.

Last year, the U.S. military conducted more freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea than in any year since it began these types of operations in 2015, as a means of more aggressively challenging Chinese territorial claims there.

China considers much of the sea its territory -- overlapping with the territorial claims of other nations -- and has created hundreds of hectares of artificial islands to bolster its territorial claims. The U.S. frequently conducts freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to dispute China's claims and to promote free passage through international waters that carry about half the world's merchant fleet tonnage, worth trillions of dollars each year.


3 1 of 3 James Franco Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Skip Dickstein Show More Show Less 3 of 3





SARATOGA SPRINGS  Hold your horses for a sec. The New York Racing Association will go to the dogs with its Virtual Dog Adoption series during the 2020 meet at Saratoga Race Course.



The online initiative will highlight dogs available for adoption at the Saratoga County Animal Shelter and Greyhound Rescue of New York. NYRA's website will feature photos and a brief description of each dog. New dogs added as they become available. NYRA will underwrite the paperwork for each adoption up to $50.

"The Saratoga County Animal Shelter is pleased to partner with NYRA on its Virtual Dog Adoption series," said Saratoga County Animal Shelter Public Relations Coordinator Karlianna Russell. "We are grateful for the opportunity to showcase our adoptable dogs."



The Virtual Dog Adoption can be found at NYRA.com/DogAdoption. It will run through Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 7.




In a major diplomatic victory for India, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has once again reiterated that the judgment in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case is binding, final and without appeal. This was the courts response to a query by WION. The question asked by WION was: Has India or Pakistan approached ICJ in India Vs Pakistan Kulbhushan Jhadav case?

In July 2019, the ICJ, in its verdict, directed Pakistan to allow consular access and effectively review the death sentence. The court observed that Pakistan had breached international law by not granting consular access.

Earlier in May, Pakistan said that it has "fully complied" with the ICJ's verdict in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, days after India's lead counsel Harish Salve asserted that New Delhi had hoped it might be able to persuade Islamabad through "back channel" to release the Indian death-row convict.

Meanwhile, Pakistan on Friday (July 17) formally offered India third consular access to Jadhav, a day after India asserted that the second consular access was "neither meaningful nor credible". A Note Verbale was sent to India on the matter and India is yet to respond. Jadhav was arrested by Pakistan on alleged espionage charges and is languishing in its jail.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that the next consular access would be as per India's demand to not have a security person. "We have offered them and are awaiting their response," said Qureshi.

Hours after Indian consular officers met Jadhav, India had slammed Pakistan as the "environment nor the arrangements of the meeting were in accordance with the assurances given by Pakistan". The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had stated that it was evident from a camera, that was visible, that the conversation with Jadhav was being recorded. The MEA had added that Jadhav himself was visibly under stress and indicated that clearly to the consular officers.
A hospital in Dublin has confirmed that one of its doctors has died after contracting Covid-19.

A spokeswoman for the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital said Waqar Ali Shah died after three months being cared for diligently and attentively in the hospitals intensive care unit.

A statement said Dr Shah was a frontline healthcare worker who provided selfless emergency care to Covid-19 patients at a number of hospitals as a locum during the pandemic.

He had been due to begin a shift at the Mater Hospital in April when he felt unwell. He asked to be seen as a patient and was admitted immediately with Covid-19 illness, the statement added.

Dr Waqar Ali, a Muslim Doctor working in #Ireland, was in the ICU since April and sadly passed away few hours ago.



Healthcare workers are at the front fighting against #COVID19. They are the real Heroes!



Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Rajioon. pic.twitter.com/YX6e081Y9H  Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri (@DrUmarAlQadri) July 21, 2020

His colleagues remember him as a hardworking and diligent doctor with a humble and down-to-earth personality.

The Mater Hospital extends its deepest sympathies to Dr Shahs wife, family and loved ones at this very sad time.

A spokesman for the Irish Hospital Consultants Association said: Dr Shahs tragic death at a young age reminds us once more of the sacrifices made by frontline healthcare professionals, particularly at this time.

Dr Shah was an exemplary medical professional with an immense dedication to public service.

His expertise, care and warmth made an impression with patients and colleagues alike. This was evident every day among those who worked with Dr Shah and witnessed at first-hand his deep commitment to healthcare.

Observing a minutes silence before handover from the night shift in Mater ED. @MaterTrauma Remembering Dr Waqar Ali. RIP. Condolences and Sympathies to his family his friends and his colleagues. #FrontlineHero #FrontlineSacrifice pic.twitter.com/dUGWvvuZUy  geroconnor (@drgeroconnor) July 22, 2020

At the onset of the Covid-19, Dr Shah put himself selflessly at the front line in the fight against this awful pandemic, paying the ultimate price.

Our thoughts and condolences are with Dr Shahs wife Rubab, his children and mother at this sad time.

Paul Reid, chief executive of the HSE, said: It is with great sadness that I learned this morning of the passing of Dr Waqar Ali Shah in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, following a long illness from Covid-19.

Dr Shah is the eighth healthcare worker to die as a result of Covid-19.

In common with his colleagues, I know he worked diligently and selflessly to care for patients at all times, and particularly during the pandemic.

I wish to extend the sympathy of all in the HSE, and all healthcare staff, to Dr Shahs wife, family and loved ones at this very sad time.

My thoughts are also with all of his colleagues in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital.

Thirty-six new confirmed cases of coronavirus were announced in Ireland on Tuesday, taking the overall tally to 25,802.

No further deaths were announced on Tuesday, with the toll remaining at 1,753.
Cuban girls celebrating their 'quinceanera' are giving a whole new meaning to the social media hashtag #coronabutmakeitfashion.

The quinceanera or 'quince', meaning 15th birthday celebration, is a rite of passage into womanhood throughout Latin America.

Girls in Havana are embracing this moment in history to make their photoshoots -- normally a glamorous affair, complete with hair, makeup and custom gowns -- uniquely of the moment, while protecting themselves and others, says Sofia Valenzuela, who's turning 15.

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SOFIA VALENZUELA, CELEBRATING HER QUINCEANERA, SAYING:

"I designed my quince dress, and the mask was very important because it marked an important stage in my life, which was the pandemic - it lasted three months - so I had to design my face masks to fit with my outfit and for all the colors to work. Apart from combining the colors, it was also for safety."

Cuba made face masks obligatory in public spaces early on in the outbreak and credits them with helping it contain the spread of the coronavirus on the island.

Some Cuban seamstresses have had to innovate, with some fabric shops still closed, making it difficult to create the perfect matching face covering, like this checkered mask, matching a checkered skirt. For a more urban look, a black mask to pair with black pants.

Photographer Manuel Padron, who has been shooting quinceaneras for more than 10 years, says the masks contribute to the look "as if it was part of the whole show."

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) QUINCEANERA PHOTOGRAPHER, MANUEL PADRON, SAYING:

"For young women, this contrast of the mask with the dress - the combination is striking. It is a fashion statement that I think will stay. They were looking for a way to combine the color of the clothes with their masks. These young women are excited and it catches your attention to see them with a mask in the photograph. They took selfies and it added something that's part of the whole experience that is their 'quince' photo."

Still, others will take the mask off for some socially distant glamor shots out in the ocean, but for most young women marking their quince, wearing a mask isn't too onerous, and will make their photos truly unlike any others.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP)  A powerful 7.8 earthquake struck the Alaska Peninsula late Tuesday, triggering a tsunami warning that sent residents fleeing to higher ground before it was called off without any damaging waves. Hundreds wore masks against the spread of the coronavirus as they gathered in shelters.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck Tuesday at 10:12 p.m. local time. It was centered in waters 65 miles south-southeast of Perryville, Alaska, at a depth of 17 miles, deeper than an earlier estimate.

"No reports of any damage," Kodiak Police Sgt. Mike Sorter told The Associated Press early Wednesday morning. "No injuries were reported. Everything is nominal."

The quake triggered tsunami warning for South Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands that was called off early Wednesday about two hours after the quake.

Tsunami warning sirens could be heard blaring in videos posted on social media as residents heeded warnings to evacuate.

On Kodiak Island, the local high school opened its doors for evacuees, as did the local Catholic school, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later called off the tsunami threat for other U.S. and Canadian Pacific coasts in North America as well.

According to the USGS, since 1900 there have been six other earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and higher within 155 miles of Tuesdays quake. The largest of those was a 8.2 quake in 1938.

The Alaska-Aleutian Trench was also where a magnitude 9.2 quake in 1964 was centered.

By MARK THIESSEN, The Associated Press
Multi-year, multi-study collaboration includes two adaptive phase 2 trials with DS-1062 in lung cancer and patritumab deruxtecan (U3-1402) in breast cancer

Program to focus on clinical and precision medicine research and potential combination strategies

Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited (hereafter, Daiichi Sankyo) and Gustave Roussy today announced a multi-year, multi-study research collaboration to enrich and further enable the development of DS-1062 and patritumab deruxtecan (U3-1402), two of Daiichi Sankyo's lead DXd antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), in lung and breast cancer.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005963/en/

The collaboration will focus on clinical and translational research, including potential combination strategies for DS-1062, a TROP2 directed DXd ADC, in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and for patritumab deruxtecan, a HER3 directed DXd ADC, in patients with metastatic breast cancer.

"We look forward to engaging and collaborating with the deep expertise and cutting-edge oncology research capabilities of Gustave Roussy, the premier European Cancer Center, to further advance clinical development of DS-1062 and patritumab deruxtecan," said Antoine Yver, MD, MSc, AIHP, ACCA Paris, Global Head, Oncology R&D, Daiichi Sankyo. "This innovative research program includes two precision-medicine rich phase 2 trials designed with an adaptive approach to help determine which patients are most likely to benefit from our ADCs with optimal speed and efficiency. Combination therapy strategies will also be explored in other studies."

"This partnership is strategic for Gustave Roussy and it brings together all the skills which are essential for top quality research in oncology. Launching clinical trials to test two promising molecules in advanced non-small cell lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer is essential for diseases which unfortunately have an increasing incidence and for which there is an urgent need to make progress," said Prof. Jean-Charles Soria, General Director of Gustave Roussy. "It is by pushing the boundaries of innovation that we will further improve the quality of care for our patients."

About the Collaboration

Under the agreement, Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. will provide funding and support to Gustave Roussy for a comprehensive, integrative research program including clinical, translational and preclinical studies for DS-1062 and patritumab deruxtecan in lung and breast cancer, respectively.

Two adaptive phase 2 trials will be conducted, including a multicenter, open-label study to evaluate efficacy, safety and markers of response and resistance to DS-1062 in patients with advanced NSCLC who have progressed on anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy and platinum-doublet chemotherapy.

The second multicenter, open-label phase 2 study will evaluate the efficacy, safety and biomarkers of response and resistance to patritumab deruxtecan in patients with HER3 expressing metastatic breast cancer.

Each study will enroll up to 100 patients and will be conducted in several sites in France.

The primary endpoint for both studies is objective response rate as assessed by independent central review. Secondary endpoints include clinical benefit rate, progression-free survival, duration of response, overall survival and safety measures. The studies also will primarily be conducted to analyze biomarker expression and tumor sensitivity; the role of receptor biology in the pharmacological activity of the Daiichi Sankyo DXd ADC platform, as well as factors contributing to treatment resistance; immunogenicity and mechanism of action.

The adaptive trial design includes ongoing clinical and biomarker assessments to identify factors associated with individual patient response and the ability to fine-tune development accordingly.

Additional research to be conducted under the collaboration includes several studies exploring multiple therapeutic combinations for each ADC.

About Gustave Roussy

Gustave Roussy, Europe's leading cancer center, is a global cancer center of expertise entirely dedicated to patients. It brings together 3,100 professionals whose missions are care, research and teaching. The Institute has expertise in the management of rare cancers and complex tumors. It treats all cancers at every stage of life and offers its patients individualized care combining innovation and a humane approach. Twenty-six percent of its new patients are included in clinical trials. For more information, please visit: www.gustaveroussy.fr/en.

About DS-1062 and Patritumab Deruxtecan (U3-1402)

DS-1062 and patritumab deruxtecan (U3-1402) are two of three lead DXd ADCs in the oncology pipeline of Daiichi Sankyo. ADCs are targeted cancer medicines that deliver cytotoxic chemotherapy ("payload") to cancer cells via a linker attached to a monoclonal antibody that binds to a specific target expressed on cancer cells.

Designed with Daiichi Sankyo's proprietary DXd ADC technology, DS-1062 is comprised of a humanized anti-TROP2 monoclonal antibody attached to a topoisomerase I inhibitor payload by a tetrapeptide-based linker. Patritumab deruxtecan is comprised of a human anti-HER3 antibody and the same payload and linker as DS-1062.

DS-1062 is currently being evaluated in a phase 1 trial in patients with advanced solid tumors that are refractory to or relapsed from standard treatment or for whom no standard treatment is available. The study is currently enrolling patients with unresectable advanced NSCLC and unresectable/advanced or metastatic triple negative breast cancer.

Patritumab deruxtecan is currently being evaluated in a phase 1 study in previously treated patients with metastatic or unresectable NSCLC. Patritumab deruxtecan is also being evaluated in a phase 1/2 study in patients with HER3 expressing metastatic breast cancer.

DS-1062 and patritumab deruxtecan are investigational agents that have not been approved for any indication in any country. Safety and efficacy have not been established.

About Daiichi Sankyo Cancer Enterprise

The mission of Daiichi Sankyo Cancer Enterprise is to leverage our world-class, innovative science and push beyond traditional thinking to create meaningful treatments for patients with cancer. We are dedicated to transforming science into value for patients, and this sense of obligation informs everything we do. Anchored by our DXd antibody drug conjugate (ADC) technology, our powerful research engines include biologics, medicinal chemistry, modality and other research laboratories in Japan, and Plexxikon Inc., our small molecule structure-guided R&D center in Berkeley, CA. For more information, please visit: www.DSCancerEnterprise.com.

About Daiichi Sankyo

Daiichi Sankyo Group is dedicated to the creation and supply of innovative pharmaceutical therapies to improve standards of care and address diversified, unmet medical needs of people globally by leveraging our world-class science and technology. With more than 100 years of scientific expertise and a presence in more than 20 countries, Daiichi Sankyo and its 15,000 employees around the world draw upon a rich legacy of innovation and a robust pipeline of promising new medicines to help people. In addition to a strong portfolio of medicines for cardiovascular diseases, under the Group's 2025 Vision to become a "Global Pharma Innovator with Competitive Advantage in Oncology," Daiichi Sankyo is primarily focused on providing novel therapies in oncology, as well as other research areas centered around rare diseases and immune disorders. For more information, please visit: www.daiichisankyo.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005963/en/

Contacts:

Daiichi Sankyo

Global/US:

Jennifer Brennan

Daiichi Sankyo, Inc.

jbrennan2@dsi.com

+1 908 992 6631 (office)

+1 201 709 9309 (mobile)

EU:

Lydia Worms

Daiichi Sankyo Europe GmbH

lydia.worms@daiichi-sankyo.eu

+49 (89) 7808751 (office)

+49 176 11780861 (mobile)

Japan:

Masashi Kawase

Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd.

kawase.masashi.a2@daiichisankyo.co.jp

+81 3 6225 1126 (office)

Investor Relations Contact:

DaiichiSankyoIR@daiichisankyo.co.jp

Gustave Roussy

Claire Parisel

Gustave Roussy

claire.parisel@gustaveroussy.fr

+33 1 42 11 50 59 (office)

+33 6 17 66 00 26 (mobile)
Gov. Phil Murphy lashed out at Chris Christie on Wednesday, a day after the former governor said he didnt think Murphy was doing enough to help small businesses in New Jersey that have been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Murphy said public sector workers were crushed under Christie, who said Tuesday he believed the Democratic governor prioritized them over New Jerseys small businesses in deciding how to dole out state resources in reaction to the pandemic.

Christie, a Repblican, argued the states Economic Development Authority could have handed out more small business loans and public workers could have shared in the sacrifices made by other New Jerseyans.

Give me a break, Murphy, a Democrat, said Wednesday at his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton.

Come on, man, particularly given the train wreck that the EDA was under his leadership, (and) all for the benefit of special interests at the expense of small businesses, Murphy said. I dont know whether to the laugh or to cry but hes invoking the EDA, as I understand it in his comments, which was a piggy bank for special interests under his leadership. Big companies at the absolute expense of small companies.

Murphys comment referred to a special task force he ordered that found hundreds of millions in state credits under New Jerseys economic development program  intended to encourage companies to locate here rather than another state  too often went to companies whose jobs were never at risk.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Christie, meanwhile, said Wednesday that Murphys reopening strategy during the pandemic has crushed small businesses in the state.

What is the science behind letting Walmart open but closing Elm Radio & Television in Westfield? What is the science behind letting Target make millions but starving SIX Clothing store in downtown Haddonfield? Christie said in a statement to NJ Advance Media.

It is sad that a wealthy banker from Goldman Sachs continues his career of favoring big business and now crushes small business by using the power of government to do it, Christie added. He uses government to pick the winners (powerful unions) and the losers and right now the losers are NJ citizens looking for work with nearly 17% unemploymentsecond highest in the nation.

The tit for tat began when Christie announced a non-profit, the New Jersey 30-Day Fund he started with former First Lady Mary Pat Christie, raised close to $800,000 in committed funding to help small businesses with $3,000 forgivable loans.

Christie said during the announcement more could have been done for small businesses.

In the end, this has not been shared sacrifice, the former governor said.

Its a policy decision that was made, but you could have shared the sacrifice a little bit more and put more money into the EDA and got those loan programs to be much more robust, he added. These are all decisions. These dont happen by accident, ... believe me, I sat in that job for eight years.

Christie at one point during Tuesday suggested it took too long for the administration to furlough state workers during the outbreak.

The largest union of state workers agreed to pause a 2% planned wage increase and institute furloughs structured around the federal governments $600 weekly supplement in a deal struck with the administration late last month.

Small businesses seeking loans and grants, meanwhile, have overwhelmed the states Economic Development Authority  which has provided tens of millions of dollars of relief.

More than 10,000 businesses applied for $5 million in small business grants a little more than an hour after the Economic Development Authority opened up applications for the grants in early April. Within a week, another 22,000 submitted applications for grants ranging from $1,000 to $5,000.

Last month, the EDA was again flooded with 19,500 applications within hours of accepting requests for a $45 million grant program for small businesses hurt by the pandemic.

Murphy said Wednesday the EDA had already committed $100 million to help more than 20,000 small businesses.

I applaud the effort that he and Mary Pat are making toward small businesses so we shouldnt take away from that, Murphy said. But you know what, I wish he had stopped there.

Chris Christie and Mary Pat Christie say theyve received more than 3,000 applications from small businesses since they launched the nonprofit last month. The group has approved funding for 120 businesses from the more than 3,000 theyve received, they said.

Under the NJ 30-Day Fund, businesses need to be New Jersey-based, employ three to 30 people and have been in operation for at least a year to be eligible. The hope is the $3,000 would help businesses stay afloat for 30 days while they wait for other aid, including federal assistance.

Its modeled after and is a subsidiary of Virginia 30-Day Fund. The Virginia-based nonprofit was established by a tech entrepreneur and has the same eligibility requirements as the New Jersey 30-Day Fund.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
A breach of judicial ethics may have prevented up to 1 million Floridians from voting in November. On July 1, a federal appeals court lifted an order that had blocked Florida from imposing a poll tax on people convicted of felonies. The U.S. Supreme Court then declined to step in. If two judges appointed by President Donald Trump had complied with the judicial Code of Conduct, Floridas discriminatory and unworkable poll tax might well have remained blocked through Election Day. And Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are now demanding that these judges explain their justification for flouting their ethical duties.

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The two judges in question, Barbara Lagoa and Robert Luck, have served on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since late 2019. Trump elevated them to the 11th Circuit from the Florida Supreme Court, where each had served for less than a year. During their brief time on the state court, the justices heard a case about a constitutional amendment passed in 2018 that restored voting rights to Floridians who had been convicted of a felony. The amendment granted suffrage to individuals who have completed all terms of their sentence including parole or probation. Florida Republicans then dramatically limited who could benefit by requiring ex-felons to pay all court-imposed fines and fees before regaining their right to vote. Their scheme essentially imposed a poll taxor, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor later put it, a voter paywall.

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Because Florida funds its criminal justice system by charging defendants a mind-boggling array of fees, this paywall would prevent a huge number of people from voting in 2020. Between 750,000 and 1.1 million Floridians are believed to have court debt, though the state does not keep track of these records and cannot identify how much money most individuals actually owe. To shore up the schemes legality, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantisa vocal opponent of the voting rights expansionasked the Florida Supreme Court to provide a definitive interpretation of the law.

The Florida Supreme Court held oral arguments on the matter, in which Lagoa and Luck energetically participated. Lagoa was particularly combative: Sounding more like an advocate than a jurist, she repeatedly argued that voters understood the amendment to encompass court fines and fees. At one point, she even read aloud a Miami Herald op-ed that allegedly supported her position. I have reams here of op-ed pieces and editorials from different papers all over the state of Florida, Lagoa proclaimed, that made it clear the amendment included fines and fees.

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But neither Lagoa and Luck ever formally ruled in the case. They joined the 11th Circuit shortly before the Florida Supreme Court handed down its decision in January declaring that the state constitution permitted a poll tax on ex-felons. Nonetheless, both judges almost certainly discussed the case with their colleagues and voted on the outcome. Moreover, one or both judges may have participated in the initial stages of drafting the opinion.

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Judges who have participated in a case are required by the judicial code of ethics to recuse themselves from hearing related matters. But Luck and Lagoa, newly appointed to the 11th Circuit, got another chance to weigh in on Floridas law. After the state Supreme Court handed down its ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that the poll tax violated the federal Constitution by conditioning the right to vote on wealth.

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Hinkle also found that Florida had no idea how much court debt was owed and no way to find out. In response, he crafted an injunction that ensured formerly incarcerated Floridians could vote if they were too indigent to pay court fines and fees or if the state could not say how much they owed. Hinkles ruling had huge implications for the November election: If upheld, it could grant roughly 1 million Floridians access to the ballot box, potentially turning the swing state blue.

The federal judiciary largely relies on appellate judges to police their own ethics.

But Hinkles ruling was not upheld. Instead, the 11th Circuit blocked it by exploiting an exceptionally rare procedural maneuver. In the federal judiciary, virtually every appeal is heard first by a three-judge panel; occasionally, the full court, sitting en banc, reviews a case first heard by a panel. This time, though, the 11th Circuit agreed to hear the case en banc first, bypassing the three-judge panel entirely. In the process, the full court swept away Hinkles injunction without any explanation.

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When a court manipulates procedural rules to alter the composition of a swing states electorate in the runup to a presidential election, it had better be on sound ethical footing. The 11th Circuit was not. Given the composition of the court, its likely that Lagoa and Luck cast the decisive votes to lift Hinkles injunction.

Their participation is deeply troubling. Federal law requires a judge to recuse from any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. And under the Code of Judicial Conduct, judges must recuse from a case when they have participated as a judge (in a previous judicial capacity) at other stages of litigation. Lagoa and Luck plainly participated in the litigation around Floridas poll tax at other stages of litigation: They heard arguments about the proper interpretation of the law upon which the federal dispute turns. Their impartiality can certainly be questioned in light of their pontifications about the poll tax scheme on the Florida Supreme Court. Thus, both should have promptly recused from the federal case.

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The 11th Circuit still has to hear arguments and decide this case on the merits. The plaintiffs have urged Lagoa and Luck to recuse themselves from further consideration of the case. All 10 Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee also sent both judges sharp letters on Tuesday demanding an explanation for their non-recusal. These letters noted that Luck told the committee he would recuse from any case where I ever played any role. Lagoa promised to recuse myself from any case in which I participated as a justice on the Supreme Court of Florida. There is no real question that the federal challenge to the states poll tax is a case involving the Florida Supreme Courts decision on the matter.

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Unfortunately, no reliable mechanism exists to force either judges recusal. The federal judiciary largely relies on appellate judges to police their own ethics. Most do follow the rules; in fact, two judges on the 11th Circuit recused themselves from the en banc vote: Robin S. Rosenbaum, a Barack Obama appointee, and Andrew Brasher, a Trump appointee. Rosenbaum did not explain her recusal but presumably has a relationship with one of the many lawyers on the case. Brasher did not participate in the en banc vote because he had joined the court just hours before. He has since recused himself from the case altogether because his former employer, the Alabama Attorney Generals Office, filed an amicus brief.

If Lagoa and Luck had recused too, the court wouldve been divided 44 between Democratic and Republican appointees. The deadlocked court would have left Hinkles injunction in place as the case progressed through the normal appeals process. That process would have taken months, and the court probably wouldnt have reached a decision by November. As a result, Floridians with outstanding fines and fees could still have participated in the upcoming election.

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If the 11th Circuit had kept Floridas poll tax on ice, perhaps the Supreme Court would have stepped in to reinstate it. Or maybe the justices would have hesitated to reverse the appeals court and take ownership of the mass voter suppression that would follow. Either way, at least Floridians would know that the judges respected minimal ethical standards. But Lagoa and Luck have simply waved those standards away. They have tainted this litigation with their own ethical breaches, making it even more difficult to swallow the 11th Circuits peculiar and disturbing treatment of this case.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
by Shafique Khokhar

The two churches  the Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and the Anglican Cathedral Church of Resurrection  are in Lahore. According to Fr Faisal, such government initiatives truly build peace and project a positive image of Pakistan in the world.

Lahore (AsiaNews)  Punjabs Minister of Human Rights, Minorities Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Ijaz Alam Augustine has brought to the attention of his government the state of dilapidation of Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral and the Church of Resurrection, the cathedral of the Anglican Church (Church of Pakistan), both in Lahore.

Augustine asked the provincial government to recognise the two large historic churches as part of the national heritage. He visited both Sacred Heart Cathedral, on Lawrence Road, and the Church of the Resurrection, on Mall Road, where he and met their clergy.

The Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart was consecrated on 19 November 1907 by the then Bishop of Lahore, Fabien Antoine Eestermans. The church was built thanks to funding and materials from Belgium. A Belgian architect, Edouard Dobbeleers of Antwerp, designed the building in the Roman Byzantine style.

The neo-Gothic Cathedral Church of the Resurrection, located in the heart of Lahore, was built in 1887 out of pink sandstone by architect John Oldrid Scott (son of George Gilbert Scott). It contains a Saint Thomas Cross found in 1935 in the ancient city of Sirkap, near Taxila.

Both cathedrals need restoration, including new pipes, electrical system and other beautification work, and should be included in the countrys artistic heritage.

According to Mr Augustine, approximately 50,000,000 rupees (about US$ 300,000) are needed, and his ministry will cover the expenses with the World City Authority.

Both churches will undergo extraordinary repair work in accordance with the appropriate engineering methods.

The minister thanked Punjabs Chief Minister, Usman Buzdar, noting that the work would be completed within a year.

Both the bishops, the clergy and congregations are grateful to the provincial government, and are waiting to see the work done.

Church of Pakistan Rev Salman Babar, Diocese of Karachi, expressed his appreciation for the government's initiative, adding that it will project a very positive image and help build better relations.

Pakistan is going through a hard time as it faces the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the countrys minorities are suffering. This type of initiative encourages inter-faith harmony and peace in the country.

For Fr Faisal Pervaiz of the Archdiocese of Lahore, the government is taking a very positive and courageous step, showing interest in safeguarding the local culture, heritage and historic sites.

This will bring inner peace and satisfaction because such initiatives show that minorities, their heritage and historic buildings are safe in Pakistan.

Fr Faisal noted that this is really good news for everyone. People need education as it is the most powerful weapon to change relationships and even the world, inspiring future generations to live in peace.

Speaking to AsiaNews, the Catholic clergyman said that the media can play an important role by highlighting government projects of this kind, which truly build peace. What is more, through them, the world will have a more positive image of Pakistan.
HeroPath is an end-to-end solution, hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud, fueled by best-in-class Azure components, such as Databricks, Synapse, and Data Lake, as well as Microsoft PowerBI. The platform drives data and AI solutions that help organizations across various industries to adapt, innovate, recover, and grow, with flexibility at scale.

The HeroPath implementation relies on three key stages: 1) Ingest the right data at the right time; 2) Transform it into meaningful insights; 3) Engage users through interactive visualizations.

HeroPath offers an accelerated approach that delivers actionable, practical results in weeks, not months.

Lixar is a nationally recognized Canadian technology brand which is built on 20+ years of experience, offering solutions in data, development, IoT data intelligence and cloud computing. Lixar's experience brings confidence and trust to their clients, reinforcing the message that transparent and explainable modern AI and data-driven solutions and tools are not optional  today, they are necessary.

Lixar is a trusted partner that helps companies weather whatever the future holds, and the Lixar team takes your best interests seriously. Lixar's collaborative and diverse company-wide culture is focused on fueling your success through digital adoption, automation, augmentation, and transformation with data and AI.

Lixar continues to support data and AI adoption in Canada, helping Canadian companies build and rebuild with innovation, imagination, and resiliency. Lixar is honoured to help customers in the public sector, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, and more migrate their data and deploy modern data platform solutions for future success.

Upskilling and remote workforce capability continues to be a priority. Lixar's remote teams are delivering new and ongoing projects to enterprise-scale and mid-tier markets, in addition to strengthening team skill sets through Lixar University. During COVID-19 Lixar continued to upskill team members and achieved Microsoft OctoGold (8x) certification. The company continues to support their team and their clients, while also expanding with BDO Canada. Lixar is very proud to be part of the BDO Canada and the BDO Global family.

"We are honoured by what we have achieved with HeroPath, and the ways in which we've been able to help our clients drive innovation and future-proof their organizations," says George Logaras, Director of Strategic Partnerships Business Development at Lixar. "Being chosen for this metrics and case study-based award truly speaks to Lixar's position as a strong data partner, with expertise stretching from Data Science and Analytics to Data Engineering and Visualization."

About Lixar: Lixar is a Canadian Company that is helping businesses succeed from coast to coast with HeroPath and modern Data and AI-driven services and solutions. Lixar leads with collaboration, diversity and Canadian can-do culture. Lixar is a proud supporter of Canadian Music - the Polaris Music Prize and community organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa and Halifax. Lixar is a member of BDO Canada and BDO Global family. Lixar is the winner of the 2019 Microsoft AI Innovation Award. Government of Canada ITQ 3rd band recognized.

SOURCE Lixar IT

Related Links

http://www.lixar.com/


Russia trying hard to maintain JCPOA, Lavrov says

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Moscow, July 21, IRNA -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that Moscow is working hard to maintain the nuclear deal between Iran and the six world powers, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which the US unilaterally withdrew from.

At the beginning of his official meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Moscow, Lavrov said that Russia condemns the US policy of destroying the JCPOA and "we will do our best to preserve it".

The Russian diplomat stressed that there is still a chance to keep the JCPOA, and not only Russia, but also China is active in this regard, and the European members of the JCPOA are working to maintain this agreement.

Lavrov went on to say that today "we will discuss what can be done to uphold the JCPOA, while we will discuss UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which is an integral part of the JCPOA".

The head of the Russian diplomatic apparatus highlighted that today is a good opportunity to exchange views on the Astana summit talks that took place recently between Russian President Vladimir Putin, his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Lavrov added that "we will also talk about the recent talks between the presidents of Iran and Russia and will discuss in detail the relations".

He also said that the exchange of views on the next steps that the two countries can take is another focus of his talks with Zarif.

9455**2050

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A top Pakistani court on Wednesday expressed alarm at the abduction of a prominent journalist Matiullah Jan, who was later freed, noting that kidnappers wore police uniforms and wanted to "scare" other people too.

The Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the habeas corpus petition against Jan's abduction filed by his family on Tuesday.

The court took prompt action and ordered Secretary Interior, Commissioner, Islamabad and Inspector General, Islamabad to produce the journalist on Wednesday or personally appear before the court.

Jan, who is highly critical of the government and the security institutions of the country, was freed on Tuesday, hours after he was abducted by plainclothes and uniformed personnel in the national capital.

Chief Justice Minallah noted that CCTV footage showed that some kidnappers were in police uniforms.

"Someone has the nerve to do such a thing in police uniforms. What impression will the public get that people are roaming around freely in police uniforms," he said.

He further said the vehicle used in the incident had police headlights and the kidnappers wanted to scare other people also.

When Islamabad Police Deputy Inspector General for Operations Waqar ud Din told the court that an FIR was registered, the Chief Justice said it was a test case for police.

If there is no rule of law, there will be nothing here except chaos, Justice Minallah said and wrapped up the case.

Earlier, he refused to monitor the follow up by police by saying that the police should do its duty to investigate the incident and take action.

Jan's brother Shahid Abbasi said the journalist was preparing to appear in the Supreme Court on Wednesday where he was facing contempt of court proceedings for an allegedly controversial tweet.

Abbasi told the media that he received a call from an unknown number to pick him up from a place in Fateh Jang area of Attock district Punjab province, which is not very far from Islamabad.

"I am back home safe & sound. God has been kind to me & my family. I am grateful to friends, national & int. journalist community, political parties, social media & rights activists, lawyers bodies, the judiciary for their quick response which made it possible," Jan tweeted on Wednesday.

Abbasi said the captors blindfolded Jan after abducting him on Tuesday and kept him in the car for most of the time he was in their captivity.

No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction but a video revealed that about half a dozen men in plain clothes and uniform forced him to come out of his car and forcibly put him in a vehicle in the G-6 area of the capital.

The abduction created an outrage in the country as the media, right groups, politicians and diplomatic community joined to demand his safe release.

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari demanded that the government ensure his safe return soon. The matter was also taken up in the Pakistan National Assembly where opposition parties and the journalists covering the proceedings staged a walkout from the house.

Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists for press freedom, expressed outrage over Jan's abduction, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Canada's High Commissioner to Pakistan Wendy Gilmour tweeted, very worrying development: the role of the media in a democracy is crucial, and must be protected. I trust that @Matiullahjan919 will be soon safely reunited with his family.
The proposed 35 per cent FOL for petrol firms may not be enough to entice overseas investors, Photo: Le Toan

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has proposed the government to allow domestic petrol and oil businesses to transfer up to 35 per cent of stakes to foreign investors. This is part of the draft revision and supplementation of Decree No.83/2014/ND-CP dated 2014, creating favourable conditions for non-national investors to participate in petrol and oil distribution in Vietnam.

Frederick Burke, managing partner of Baker McKenzie Vietnam, told VIR that it is a good time for the state to sell some of its stakes in retail petroleum businesses. It could do so by selling new shares to raise new capital to improve the network, or it could just sell some of its existing shares in order to reduce its risk exposure to this volatile sector, or it could do a combination of the two. However, obstacles remain for either or both options.

Perhaps the main factor that has discouraged foreign interest in petroleum retail distribution, currently subject to ownership restrictions, is the fact that prices are regulated in a way that profitability is very low, he said. These low-capped prices mean that it would be difficult to infuse enough new capital to invest in international-standard equipment for safety and environmental purposes.

The road to market-price petrol is long and it is proving hard for the state to wean consumers off of this costly subsidy. With oil prices becoming depressed by global lockdowns, the pressure has been greatly reduced, making it a good time to relax the price cap and allow market forces to determine the price.

If it becomes more expensive, transport prices and the cost of goods could be impacted, and this may cause drivers to look at alternatives such as energy-efficient vehicles and even hydrogen vehicles in the future. To the extent that it makes retail businesses more viable financially, it will enable the state to realise a better return on its sale and transfer, according to Burke.

Another issue is the 35 per cent cap, which means that the overseas investor may be at the mercy of a majority investor. It would require detailed minority shareholder protections in the underlying company charter to mitigate this risk, which cannot be ruled out entirely.

Also, in view of the changing liabilities under the proposed environmental law, investors would want to know what liability they might assume by joining into such a company by virtue of any contamination or pollution the stations have left behind, Burke said.

Meanwhile, Samuel Son Tung Vu, lawyer at law firm Bae, Kim & Lee Vietnam, said that under 2013s Circular No.34/2013/TT-BCT on roadmaps for goods trading of foreign-invested enterprises in Vietnam, such groups are not permitted to exercise rights to import, export, and distribute oil and petroleum products. However, there has been an inconsistency in the application of these regulations due to different merger procedures in the case of non-listed companies and listed companies.

In the case of non-listed companies, foreign investors are required to apply for approval from the planning and investment department where the target company is located pursuant to Article 26 of the Law on Investment. However, based on Circular 34, it is likely that the local department would reject such proposals.

As for listed companies, foreign investors can freely trade listed shares of companies such as Petrolimex and PVOil. Despite being key importers and distributors of oil and petroleum products, according to current data, Petrolimex and PVOil have 6.05 and 14.57 per cent shares held by overseas investors, respectively.

The current regulations result in different outcomes depending on the status of the target company, whether being a listed or non-listed company.

The proposal by the MoIT to supplement Decree 83 opens a pathway for a target company and its foreign investor(s) to seek approval for equity transactions. However, the threshold of 35 per cent may not be attractive, Vu said. As the default foreign ownership limit (FOL) for listed companies is set at 49 per cent, it may be better if the MoIT raises the threshold to the same level. Under the mechanism proposed, the ministry maintains the right to approve each transaction. Therefore, it can prevent any hostile takeover situation.

According to Vu, the government also aims to equitise state-owned enterprises in import and export, and distribution of oil and petroleum products, and to provide a higher threshold would make equitisation more attractive to foreign investors. The FOL should be sufficient to accommodate both strategic and financial investors and funds.

The representative of one foreign firm engaging in an oil and gas exploration joint venture in Vietnam told VIR that despite the relaxation of FOL in petroleum retail business, it is not easy because of administrative procedures. Also, he added, the market is clearly divided with advantages in favour of domestic enterprises.
Rallies In Russia's Khabarovsk Continue As Protesters Target Anger At Newly Appointed Governor

By Siberia Desk, RFE/RL's Russian Service July 21, 2020

KHABAROVSK, Russia -- Hundreds of supporters of the arrested ex-governor of Russia's Far Eastern Khabarovsk region, Sergei Furgal, rallied for an 11th day in the regional capital, denouncing newly appointed acting Governor Mikhail Degtyaryov.

The protesters gathered on July 21 in Khabarovsk in front of the regional government building and then marched across the city, chanting, "Degtyaryov, come out!"

Degtyaryov, was appointed to the post by President Vladimir Putin a day earlier. He arrived in Khabarovsk on the morning of July 21 but did not show up to meet the protesters.

Earlier in the day, Degtyaryov met with the region's officials for the first time and said that his main priority is to increase efforts to slow down the spread of the coronavirus in the region and become familiar with local social and economic issues.

Putin fired Furgal on July 20 before appointing Degtyaryov to the post. Both are members of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).

Protesters also expressed their anger over the new appointment online with more than 1,300 comments under Degtyaryov's latest Instagram post, the majority of which appeared to criticize the acting governor.

Also on July 21, two local lawmakers, Pyotr Yemelyanov and Aleksandr Kayan, quit the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia to protest Furgal's firing.

Furgal, who was arrested in Khabarovsk on July 9 and transferred to Moscow, is charged with attempted murder and ordering two murders in 2004-05. He denies the allegations.

Furgal was elected governor of the Khabarovsk region, which borders China, almost two years ago in an upset for the longtime incumbent who represented the ruling United Russia party.

The Khabarovsk rallies have attracted thousands of people on the weekends and are the largest protests in the city since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Such sizable demonstrations far from the Russian capital are a rare public show of defiance against the Kremlin and come following a controversial nationwide vote that set the stage for Putin to remain in power until 2036.

Authorities are said to be unnerved by the protests, with the regional capital's mayor calling for calm and saying such rallies were illegal and could help accelerate the spread of the coronavirus.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) had also warned of an alleged terrorist threat involving explosives, which it claimed to have already foiled.

In addition, the authorities in the Khabarovsk region said they were considering a return to strict quarantine measures and attributed this to the "difficult situation with the spread of the coronavirus infection."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/rallies-in-russia-s- khabarovsk-continue-as-protesters-target-anger-at-newly -appointed-governor/30739655.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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A Kenyan Member of Parliament has been arrested for holding a public gathering contrary to COVID-19 guidelines.

MP Charles Ongondo Were was arrested on Tuesday evening and detained at a police station.

The MP was said to have been chairing a meeting at his village home when members of the public expressed concern and reported to the police.

Videos of people dancing during the meeting disregarding social distancing were shared online.

His arrest comes hours after a senator pleaded guilty to violating curfew orders and was fined by a court.

The senator resigned from a Covid-19 committee and apologised for violating curfew orders.

Mr Were will be taken to court on Wednesday morning.

The local police boss confirmed the arrest to the Standard newspaper.

---BBC
Cruise

Shutterstock

Many customers are wondering when cruises are coming back.

But a new CDC report flashes warning signs for how cruises are handling the coronavirus pandemic today.

Just 20 of the 49 ships that have operated in US waters since April 15 tested crew members on board, the study said.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals a worrying view of life aboard the few US cruise ships that have been sailing since mid-April.

According to the July 16 report, just 20 of the 49 cruise ships that have operated in US waters since April 15 have tested crew members on board.

This contrasts with the CDC recommendation that cruise ships conduct regular, random testing of crew. The CDC urged the companies comprising America's $53 billion cruise industry to test more regularly, even when folks don't appear sick.

"Absent wider availability and implementation of testing, undetected outbreaks of COVID-19 among crew are likely to reoccur," the CDC wrote.

The US government barred all cruise lines from sailing in US waters on April 10. Some of these ships remained in operation so that they could repatriate crew members.

The report also detailed allegations that cruise operators including Norwegian and Royal Caribbean did not follow CDC recommendations to cancel social gatherings and relocate crew to single-occupancy cabins with private bathrooms. According to the report, Royal Caribbean sent a letter to the CDC saying it had investigated six such allegations and "believed that it was in full compliance." In its own letter, Norwegian "cited the difficulty in achieving and mandating social distancing among crew members at all times," according to the CDC. Neither cruise line immediately responded to a request for comment.

Cruise ship operators have said they're developing new safety procedures for when they can resume service, but this failure to regularly test crew members  or enforce social distancing  may raise a red flag for would-be passengers.

Story continues

The lack of rigorous safety regulations contributed to problems on ships like the Princess Diamond, aboard which more than 700 people contracted the coronavirus as it sat off the coast of Japan in February. An April Bloomberg report revealed how mismanagement at Carnival, which owns Princess Cruises, "raised questions about corporate negligence and fleet safety."

Nearly 3,000 passengers on US cruises from March 1 to July 10 fell ill with the coronavirus. Thirty-four have died.

Read the original article on Business Insider
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said her order requires people older than 2 to wear a mask when they leave the house and are likely to come into contact with others. Its one of the strictest mask ordinances in the country  and came on the same day the city recorded 102 new coronavirus cases, the highest daily number since early June.
Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan was released on Tuesday evening, approximately 12 hours after he was kidnapped from outside a public school in the heart of Islamabad.

Observers have said it is still unclear who kidnapped him and why but all fingers point to the spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The decision to release Matiullah Jan may have been taken after Islamabad High Court ordered authorities to produce him before it on Wednesday morning.

Camera footage of the incident shows Jans abductors included plainclothesmen as well as uniformed policemen, who were travelling in four cars.

Soon after Jan dropped his wife outside the government school in Islamabad, the footage shows the other cars encircling his vehicle and taking the journalist into custody.

Jan, who is no stranger to controversy, was summoned earlier this week over an alleged tweet against judges and the judiciary.

A three-member bench of the top court headed by the chief justice is hearing the case in which he was to appear on Wednesday morning. The court in its contempt notice stated Jan in a tweet from his Twitter account on July 10 apparently used painful words against judges and the judiciary.

Last week, Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah dismissed another contempt application against Jan, saying the dignity of independent judges is not so fragile and it cant be harmed by a tweet.

A number of journalists and media associations had voiced concern about the safety of the Islamabad-based reporter. His abduction had also elicited comments from ministers in the Imran Khan cabinet.

Information minister Shibli Faraz had condemned the incident but at the same time told reporters that he did not have any information on who had picked up Jan.

Jan was attacked in Islamabad in 2017 but he had escaped unhurt. He was travelling from Islamabad with his children when two motorcyclists threw a rock and smashed the windscreen of his car.

Before that, Jan had said he was chased by another car at night and his windscreen was smashed in a similar attack.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed a criminal weapons charge against a sheriffs deputy who allegedly walked into City Hall last year carrying an illegally modified semiautomatic pistol in his backback.

Jalen Rosales has been charged with felony possession of an assault weapon, according to the San Francisco district attorneys office. Officials said he surrendered Tuesday on a warrant and was released on bail.

This arrest is a reminder that no one is above the law, said Boudin, who has sought to reform law enforcement in the city since taking the helm. My office will continue to hold accountable our law enforcement officers, whom we trust to know and abide by the laws around gun possession.

Boudin has called for an overhaul of the San Francisco justice system, including ensuring that law enforcement officers are held accountable if they break the law.

On November 8, 2019, San Francisco district attorneys officials said, Rosales packed an illegal semiautomatic pistol in his backpack and brought it into City Hall. When he finished an overtime shift for an event at City Hall that day, district attorneys officials said Rosales accidentally left his backpack in a locker room.

Another Deputy, whom Rosales had called and asked to retrieve the backpack for him, found an illegal semiautomatic pistol in Rosales backpack, district attorney officials said.

District attorney officials said the firearm was a legal Franklin Armory Pistol that had been modified to be used as a semiautomatic weapon with features that make it an illegal assault weapon under California law.

Officials said the pistol was registered to Rosales.

Sheriffs spokeswoman Nancy Crowley told The Chronicle that the sheriffs office launched a criminal investigation when they learned Rosales may have broken the law.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

We subsequently shared our investigation with the District Attorneys office and submitted an application for Deputy Rosales arrest warrant, Crowley said.

Rosales joined the sheriffs office in April 2017, Crowley said.

San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto placed Rosales on paid administrative leave on Tuesday, Crowley said.

Rosales is scheduled to be arraigned in Superior Court on August 20.

Lauren Hernndez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByLHernandez
NEW YORK and SINGAPORE, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, today announced that it is partnering with DBS Bank, Southeast Asia's largest bank, to integrate digital trade financing capabilities into the Infor Nexus global network of more than 68,000 businesses. The two companies' first joint program recently went live with one of the world's largest global apparel companies, providing faster and more cost-efficient digital trade financing to suppliers in the apparel company's supply chain ecosystem, which comprises mostly small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

"This is an important relationship for Infor, where a common vision of data-driven financing bonds us and presses us forward," said Gary Schneider, vice president of sales for Infor Financial Supply Chain Management. "DBS is a digital bank, based in Asia, focused on supplier funding and liquidity. Its pursuit of digital innovation and delivering greater value to supply chains, combined with our cloud-based platform and local support team around the globe, makes for a powerful partnership at a time when liquidity is a top priority for everyone."

Sriram Muthukrishnan, group head of trade product management at DBS Bank, said, "We continue to accelerate the deployment of our market-leading supply chain financing and digital capabilities to ensure steady financing to SME suppliers during these times of stress. Data forms the backbone of a successful digital strategy, and its impact across multiple industries globally has been growing exponentially.

"Our collaboration with Infor enables greater transparency into complex supply chains and provides insights into the transaction patterns between an anchor and its ecosystem of suppliers," he noted. "We leverage these insights to provide quicker and more cost-efficient financing to suppliers much earlier in the cycle, as compared to conventional post-shipment supplier financing programs. This is especially relevant today, as we continue to operate in an environment characterized by prolonged trade disruptions and tighter credit lines, where optimal working capital management is key to survival."

The two companies' next joint program for pre-shipment finance, expected to launch in late 2020, will utilize supply chain data as the primary conduit to assess risk and credit worthiness, as opposed to traditional models that result in the majority of suppliers being underfunded or facing challenges to access necessary capital. Infor provides extensive supply chain data, including historic and real-time milestone information on the physical movement of goods to enable a data-driven representation of a supplier's performance and credit risk.

According to a research report from Aite Group analyst Enrico Camerinelli (The Supply Chain Bank, 2018), "In the next three years, the competitive frontier in corporate lending and supply chain finance will be the creation of innovative credit risk models that banks will use to leverage corporate supply chain process data. Banks will capture and analyze events in the physical supply chain (source-to-pay, order-to-cash) in order to generate a more comprehensive and realistic representation of a company's risk profile."

Additional resources

Watch the SCF Community's recent webinar "New ways to finance SMEs," during which Infor and DBS discuss innovative supplier financing tools to help reduce supply chain risk and friction.



About DBS

DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia with a presence in 18 markets. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, DBS is in the three key Asian axes of growth: Greater China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The bank's "AA-" and "Aa1" credit ratings are among the highest in the world.

DBS provides a full range of services in consumer, SME and corporate banking. As a bank born and bred in Asia, DBS understands the intricacies of doing business in the region's most dynamic markets. DBS is committed to building lasting relationships with customers, and positively impacting communities through supporting social enterprises, as it banks the Asian way. It has also established a SGD 50 million foundation to strengthen its corporate social responsibility efforts in Singapore and across Asia.

With its extensive network of operations in Asia and emphasis on engaging and empowering its staff, DBS presents exciting career opportunities. The bank acknowledges the passion, commitment and can-do spirit in all our 28,000 staff, representing over 40 nationalities. For more information, please visit www.dbs.com.

About Infor

Infor is a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry. With 17,000 employees and over 67,000 customers in 178 countries, Infor software is designed for progress. To learn more, please visit www.infor.com .

Infor customers include:

The top 20 aerospace companies

9 of the top 10 high tech companies

14 of the 25 largest U.S. healthcare delivery networks

19 of the 20 largest U.S. cities

18 of the top 20 automotive suppliers

14 of the top 20 industrial distributors

13 of the top 20 global retailers

4 of the top 5 brewers

17 of the top 20 global banks

9 of the 10 largest global hotel brands

7 of the top 10 global luxury brands

Media contacts:

Steve Bauer

Infor

(628) 444-5101 (office)

(650) 670-7135 (mobile)

[email protected]

Phyllis Tan

Infor

+65 9799 9133 (mobile)

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Michelle Tan

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South Africa: Premature to place EC Health under administrator: Mkhize

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize, has shot down calls for the Eastern Cape Health Department to be placed under administration.

Were not thinking about that and the reason is you take over when theres a whole breakdown of management, the reluctance of following directives and instructions and the internal inability for people to cooperate to an extent that it doesnt actually help what you say and have to go in and take that over, Mkhize said.

However, he said the province is not there yet.

Mkhize was speaking at the Livingstone Tertiary Hospital on Wednesday, in Nelson Mandela Bay, where he was assessing the provinces state of readiness for the COVID-19 peak.

Currently, he said the national department is in the process of removing their administrator in the North West because the situation is going back to normality.

We dont believe that we have to do that here. What we have to do here is to reinforce the way that we have done.

The Eastern Cape currently has a newly created Project Management Unit (PMU) to assist with its COVID-19 interventions.

He also threw his weight behind the Premier, MEC and Senior Management.

They have the responsibility to run the department and our responsibility to make sure that they do and in this case, were still comfortable they should be able to do that.

As of Tuesday, the Eastern Cape has 66 759 positive cases and 945 deaths.

Meanwhile, he said the department would ensure they have enough beds and staff to address some of the challenges.

Cleanliness

He also stressed the quality of care which he believes starts with cleanliness.

The Livingstone Tertiary Hospital has been under the spotlight for failing safety audits, being infested with rats, while there are staff shortages.

Were going to start looking at the waste management side. Were going to start looking at the rubble and those rats and we want to see what happened there.

Anyone who walks into a dirty hospital gets sicker than they were before they got into hospital. Its a simple basic issue.

Mkhize said it is not a question of whether the facility has brooms or not, but one of management and that needs to be dealt with.

Staff

Mkhize said the hospital must ensure it had adequate human resources.

The people who must look after the patients must look after the patients. We must ensure we have enough in numbers to give attention where its needed.

The Minister has also given the province the greenlight to hire staff as the need arises.

Meanwhile, other issues of soft services such as food and general care and attention are also important.

These days, people just take a photo and tweet it and they know well find that out. Thats good because you dont need to go through the whole protocol of reporting.

Beds

In addition, Mkhize said the province needs to add more beds to the 3 500 that are currently available as the province is expected to reach its peak in August and September.

Now we need every hospital and every clinic and they need to know how to deal with COVID-19 itself. Thats what puts us under pressure.

He was pleased that the Eastern Cape had renovated some dilapidated hospitals.

They are working on oxygen piping which the Minister conceded was an issue.

Reporting of deaths

Mkhize has pleaded to the Eastern Cape government not to delay in reporting COVID-19 related deaths as it breeds distortion.

MEC, Im going to ask your team to continue to report deaths as they come and dont wait or say you havent found all of them. Youll never find them all. Just give us the report of the deaths on a daily basis, Mkhize said.

However, he said he understood that correlating the number of Coronavirus fatalities is no easy feat as there are several categories to consider.

There are people who have got symptoms of COVID-19 and were well and had nothing else and therefore were clear cut positive or clinically are COVID-19 patients.

Meanwhile, some may have had underlying conditions and lost their lives as their comorbidities got worse.

Then there are those whove got COVID-19 and its just an incidental issue. However, in the end, if they died of something else but cannot deny the fact that they tested COVID-19 positive. Thats one sort of problem; wed report those as you get them.

There are many excess deaths as well, Mkhize said.

The Medical Research Council is tracking deaths every day and they give us those reports. So, youll report to us that there are so many deaths when the MRC study comes out, wed then know whether you under-counted with so much because we see the excess deaths.

Mkhize said he would not allow the province to go on by a day without accounting for COVID-19 deaths.

It does give us a bit of distortion. You suddenly dont have deaths for one day then afterwards you have 400 deaths. It becomes the problem in terms of understanding the distribution, he stressed.

It may not be accurate, we know, but lets keep with the reports.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
"We are worried about a future where European solidarity and the Community method are lost. The European Parliament has set out its priorities and it expects them to be met," Sassoli said in a statement.

"If these conditions are not sufficiently met, the European Parliament will not give its consent," he added, emphasizing that "more than ever it is necessary to act quickly and courageously."

The statement was issued as EU leaders entered their fourth day of negotiations on the new long-term budget and a recovery fund linked to it. The European Commission has proposed, for the first time, to borrow up to EUR750 billion (US$858 billion) on the financial markets as part of a new recovery tool.

Sassoli said the multiannual financial framework, amounting to over 1 trillion euros, must be able to address the main challenges facing Europe in the medium term, such as the green deal, digitalization, economic resilience, and the fight against inequalities.

He said Europe also needed its own resources as well as measures to ensure the effective defense of the rule of law.

Sassoli reiterated the EP's call for an end of rebates that some member states receive, which he had described as "unfair and difficult to justify."

The EU leaders are discussing a proposal by European Council President Charles Michel, who said earlier this month that countries with long-held rebates on their European contributions would continue to get them. These countries include Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden.
The test for COVID-19 comes with a pinch of pain, say Michiganders who have been tested recently, but is well worth it for the peace of mind you gain.

Just go and do it if you think you need to. Its worse not knowing, said Rebecca Stoner, 45, of East Lansing.
Unit case volume declined 36 per cent driven by India and South Africa due to the impact of the coronavirus, said CocaCola

The Coca-Cola Company on Tuesday reported a 16 per cent decline in its unit case volume for the second quarter. (AP Photo)

New Delhi: Global soft drink major Coca-Cola Company on Tuesday reported a 16 per cent decline in its unit case volume for the second quarter dragged by markets such as India and Western Europe.

The Atlanta-headquartered company has reported a 28 per cent drop in its net revenues to USD 7.2 billion and its operating income declined by 34 per cent.

Sparkling soft drinks declined 12 per cent, led by a decline in India, Western Europe and the fountain business in North America due to pressure in away-from-home channels, said CocaCola in an earning statement.

India, which is the fifth-largest market for CocaCola global, had gone through lockdown imposed by the authorities and disrupted the supply chain in the April-June quarter.

In the Asia Pacific region, CocaCola has witnessed a decline of 18 per cent in volumes during the quarter and this was primarily due to strict lockdowns in India.

Unit case volume declined 18 per cent, primarily due to strict lockdowns in India to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The unit case volume decline was partially offset by positive performance in China.

The Coca-Cola Company remained agile in the second quarter, with a focus on maintaining a safe environment for employees while also providing necessary products and services to consumers during this unprecedented time.

Commenting on the performance, James Quincey, chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company said: "We believe the second quarter will prove to be the most challenging of the year; however, we still have work to do as we drive our pursuit of ''Beverages for Life'' and meet evolving consumer needs."

CocaCola has also reported a decline in the performance of its Bottling Investments Group, which represents the company-owned bottling plants.

Unit case volume declined 36 per cent driven by India and South Africa due to the impact of the coronavirus, said CocaCola.

Unit case volume means the number of unit cases of company beverages directly or indirectly sold by the company and its bottling partners to customers.
Leaving Cert results will be issued to students directly via an online portal, the Department of Education has confirmed.

The results will be released at 9am on September 7 and will be issued to the students and their schools simultaneously.

Students will be able to access their results through the calculated grades portal.

Traditionally, in normal times, all students collect their results in their respective secondary schools.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the results are instead being provided online.

However, schools are being asked to provide support to students on the day, including enabling them to come to the school if they wish at a scheduled time.

Schools are also being asked to make staff members available by phone for students to discuss their options following their results.

Students wishing to appeal a calculated grade can do so from September 14.

If students wish to attend school on the day, they will be required to respect social distancing and "to behave in a responsible way, in line with public health advice", the department said.

"Schools will have the flexibility to ask some classes of current students not to attend school on that day to ensure adequate social distancing in schools."

Education Minister Norma Foley urged students to register to opt-in to the calculated grades via the student portal this week before the deadline of 4pm, July 27.

More than 52pc of Leaving Certificate students and 28pc of Leaving Certificate Applied students have already opted in.

"It is important that we recognise the unique set of circumstances for these students, and that we all ensure they get the support that they need," said Ms Foley.

"I am confident that schools will, through their support teams, ensure that the students they have supported and nurtured throughout their post-primary education will be supported on this important day and the following days."

The Leaving Certificate student helpline, which is provided by the National Parents Council, will be available from September 7 for students to talk to a guidance counsellor about any queries they may have.

The Department of Education is also working on updated plans to ensure the smooth running of the CAO offer and acceptance process.

CAO offers will be made on September 11, for acceptance on September 16, with second round offers to be made on September 23, for acceptance by September 25.
 Flash

Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua and French Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Tuesday co-chaired the seventh China-France High-Level Economic and Financial Dialogue held via video link, pledging to strengthen pragmatic cooperation in various fields, and boost ties.



China hopes that the two sides will successfully implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state and push forward the China-France comprehensive strategic partnership, said Hu.

He said that China is willing to work with France to further strengthen anti-pandemic cooperation, consolidate cooperation in nuclear energy, aerospace, advanced manufacturing, and other major projects. He also mentioned expanding cooperation in fields including agriculture, science and technology, and finance, as well as deepening trade and investment cooperation with France to create a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory environment for enterprises on both sides.

The two sides should enhance communication and coordination in international institutions and multilateral platforms, jointly safeguard the rules-based multilateral trading system, push for the improvement of global economic governance, actively deal with global challenges, and promote a stable recovery of the world economy, Hu said.

For his part, Le Maire said France attaches great importance to developing high-quality French-Chinese relations and that the two countries should join hands to strengthen pragmatic cooperation in various fields.

France is ready to work with China to deepen cooperation in traditional fields, tap cooperation potential in emerging fields, and promote bilateral cooperation to achieve more results, he said.
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I have heard it time and again. That cant happen here, we know everyone . . . We need to think the best about people and not assume the worst . . . He may have a problem, but he is going through a restoration program . . .

As a violence prevention expert, as well as a former police officer and violent crime detective, I can tell you that most sexual and violent crime victims perpetrators were people they knew and trusted. As a Christian, I have a deep concern for the safety of ministries and churches, not only from external dangers but from internal threats as well. Sadly, internal threats are not only becoming more common, but they are often happening because church or ministry leadership failed to take the steps necessary to protect the people that come through their doors. And in some cases, leadership has even known there was a problem but believed that their restoration program did not need to be balanced with removing that person from ministry.

Just in the past two weeks, we have read about a revered Menlo Park senior pastor who allowed his son to continue ministering to children and youth within the church, even though the son confessed to his dad that he was sexually attracted to children. There is now an active investigation taking place at the church.

In Indiana, a church knowingly hired a man who, just five years ago, had been fired from a school due to inappropriate and lewd conduct with minor girls. The church hired this man to be its new senior pastor.

At Cedarville University (a Christian college), the president was fired (and then incredibly, reinstated) after he knowingly hired a man for a teaching position who had been fired from pastoring a church due to sexually immoral and illicit conduct. The president of the university hired the man because he had been a former student and had presented a restoration plan that the university president accepted.

Unlike other institutions or organizations, churches and ministries welcome everyone that walks through their doors  and rightly so. Yet, when it comes to volunteering with children and youth or being hired as staff, a far more robust recruiting process that includes quality background checks, authentic reference checks, and an educated knowledge and understanding of a sexual abuser is vital in order to help keep everyone safe.

We  the church  have to separate restoration and protecting children. Sexual abuse is one of the most under-reported crimes and it is not uncommon that a single perpetrator will have a long trail of victims before they are ever caught. Can God heal a sexual abuser? Yes. However, after decades of secular reformation programs, the research is clear and disheartening  these programs have yielded very little success in changing abusive sexual behaviors.

Recently, while at a speaking engagement, a director of a state department of corrections sexual offender management program came up to me and boldly stated that he does this work every day knowing that there is no proven model that works.

So, what should churches do?

1. Pastoral staff need to be wise as serpents and understand the red flags and signs of a predator. Sexual abusers are master manipulators and can be very engaging and personal. They literally can be a lion in sheeps clothing.

2. A criminal background check is not enough, especially if it is using a single source, rather than a multiple database check. Our assessment of many churches across the U.S. has found that most of the criminal background checks that churches use will not always find sexual convictions. Quality reference checks are a must. There are software tools that can do this inexpensively and anonymously.

3. We have a Biblical obligation to be transparent and to protect our children. Selecting a safety and security partner should not be based solely on price or ease of use. Since there is no standard definition of a background check or requirements for who can offer these services, do your homework and find a qualified partner that both understands the church space and also has the professional background and experience of prevention versus, namely, reactive response.

When it comes to kids, we often worry about stranger danger without really comprehending that the greatest danger they face in life is that someone close to them, such as a family member, a trusted teacher, or youth pastor, will harm them. Our kids' greatest threat comes from internal danger, not external.

A pastor told me recently that there are two things that will destroy a ministry: a moral failure by the pastor/leader and harm coming to a child from within the church. It takes just one occurrence of these things happening to bring life-long scars and ruin to children and families, the collapse of a once-thriving ministry, and damage to the witness of Christ.

The time is now for churches and ministries to take preventive action for the sake of their congregants and for the sake of the Gospel.
She likes to celebrate the publication of each of her books with a cold glass of champagne with lots of bubbles. But best-selling novelist Victoria Hislop may feel in the mood for a bottle of retsina this morning  if not a magnum.

For I can disclose that she has just been awarded honorary Greek citizenship by the countrys president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

Such recognition is granted only to people who have provided exceptional services to the country, or whose naturalisation serves the public interest.

Its a rare and well deserved honour There is no greater lover of Greece, its people, its history and its culture than Victoria, her agent told me. She speaks Greek, has a house in Greece and now she is Greek.

In Hislops case, the honour has been conferred for promoting modern Greek history and culture  including, of course, the history of the tiny island of Spinalonga, off the north-east coast of Crete.

Best-selling novelist Victoria Hislop may feel in the mood for a bottle of retsina this morning  if not a magnum

It was on Spinalonga, the last leper colony in Europe, that Hislop set her debut novel, The Island  despite the scepticism of the literary world. Leprosy, reflected Hislop, wasnt considered a particularly commercial idea.

By then, The Island had become an international bestseller. It went on to sell over three million copies, was translated into more than 30 languages and inspired a 26-part television series  the most expensive in Greeces history.

It was on Spinalonga, the last leper colony in Europe, that Hislop set her debut novel, The Island  despite the scepticism of the literary world

Its success was no flash in the pan. Hislop followed up with a string of other bestsellers, including The Thread, also set in Greece, as well as The Last Dance, ten tales of Greek life. She first visited Greece as a teenager in the late Seventies and was instantly bewitched.

It was, she said, love at first sight. The passion has never wilted. Not only has she returned every year since then, but she also takes regular Greek lessons from a fantastic teacher from her local grammar school, while she also has a house on Crete.

But though finding the Greeks intensely friendly and hospitable, Hislop stops short of doing a Shirley Valentine by taking a local lover  opting, instead, to share her island home with her husband, Have I Got News For You team captain Ian.

Sir Mick Jagger has splashed out an undisclosed sum to protect our seas. I adopted my own unique ocean coordinate to get our biggest weapon in the climate crisis back in shape, says Mick, whose coordinates are in the Celtic Sea off the southern Irish coast. He and bandmate Keith Richards have done it as part of the Project Zero initiative, co-founded by Ronnie Woods son, Tyrone.

Sadie joins the hot dog trend  with a pupouse

Carrying your dog in a sling is fast becoming a trend this summer  and Sadie Frost is the latest to jump on the bandwagon.

After Helena Bonham Carter and model Kelly Brook were spotted carting their furry friends about, Sadie, who has four children between her ex-husbands, Jude Law and Gary Kemp, ran errands in London this week with her new sausage-dog pup, Cherry, in a grey carrier.

Carrying your dog in a sling is fast becoming a trend this summer  and Sadie Frost is the latest to jump on the bandwagon

Lady Marys 541 gladiator style...

Socialite Lady Mary Charteris knows how to make a fashion statement even in her bikini. Eschewing normal swimwear, the 33-year-old, who married musician Robbie Furze eight years ago in a see-through dress, opted for a 541 silver studded two-piece.

Posting this picture from her holiday in Ibiza, the Earl of Wemyss daughter refers to herself playfully as a stud muffin.

Socialite Lady Mary Charteris knows how to make a fashion statement even in her bikini

Oscar-winning lyricist Don Black had his work cut out collaborating with Robbie Williams. He played me two songs that I dont think Stephen Hawking could have figured out what they were about, says Diamonds Are Forever writer Black. I tried to explain that anyone listening to this song [Morning Sun] would not have a clue what it was about. Fans seemed to share Blacks confusion. Morning Sun peaked at a woeful No 45 in the chart.

Matts boys night is a tall order for Noel

The boys are back in town! The Crown star Matt Smith is certainly not wallowing in self-pity following his split from Mamma Mia 2 star Lily James. The 37-year-old, who played Prince Philip in the drama, has been enjoying a busy social life since their break-up earlier this year. He was joined at The Ivy in the West End by his male chums aviation boss James Cook  husband of model Poppy Delevingne  and rocker Noel Gallagher, with whom Matt would regularly drink before lockdown.

The boys are back in town! The Crown star Matt Smith is certainly not wallowing in self-pity following his split from Mamma Mia 2 star Lily James

TV presenter Julia Bradbury claims having children later in life has kept her youthful. Mother of three Julia, who turns 50 tomorrow, says: Someone said to me, Youre getting old, and I said thats good as the alternative is a lot worse.

I came to motherhood late in life  I had my first child when I was 40. Perhaps its my children that have given me a renewed energy and vigour for life but I very much have something to live for.

I think being a mum saved my life. It might seem dramatic but, in an emotional way, becoming a mum realigned me.

Christensen gets cheeky with a statue

Going back to work has made supermodel Helena Christensen feel rather frisky.

Shooting in her home country, Denmark, this week, the 51-year-old gave everyone on set a good laugh when she jovially planted a kiss on a statues derriere.

Sporting a pink floral dressing gown and white slippers, and with rollers in her hair, she posed for a picture that she then shared online.

A beautiful day today being back at work with a small group of talented and inspiring people, she captioned it.
LG Electronics (LG) is bringing new meaning to immersive gaming with its new UltraGear (model 27GN950), the worlds first 4K IPS 1 millisecond Gray-to-Gray (GTG)1 gaming monitor.

A 2020 CES Innovation Award and Red Dot Design Award winner, the 27-inch model more than lives up to UltraGears name and reputation for gaming excellence and is a worthy successor to the brands first 1ms GTG IPS gaming monitor (model 27GL850) introduced last year.

Featuring advanced IPS displays, LG UltraGear monitors achieve stunning speed without compromising picture quality, contributing to the brand being named the top gaming-designed monitor in the United States.

The new UltraGear monitor builds on the fast, accurate colours of its predecessor to deliver 4K resolution for maximum gaming impact. A combination of speed, high resolution and 98% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space gives gamers a total sense of immersion. And thanks to VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) technology, the 27GN950 can deliver virtually lossless 4K UHD images in 10-bit colour with a 144Hz refresh rate via just a single DisplayPort cable.

LGs one-of-a-kind monitor supports hardware calibration enabling the companys proprietary Nano IPS display to offer the most precise colour reproduction possible.

And with VESA DisplayHDR 600 certification,5 the UltraGear 27GN950 guarantees a certain level of quality in the form of outstanding colour accuracy, dynamic contrast, high luminance and a wide color gamut. NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible and support for HDR ensures enhanced image quality with reduced screen tearing and minimised stutter that works seamlessly with VESA DSC for an incredibly realistic and exhilarating gaming experience.

We are excited to bring NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible support to LGs most advanced UltraGear model yet, said Kaustubh Sanghani, vice president and general manager, GeForce OEM at NVIDIA. Gamers will be blown away by the responsiveness and the lifelike visuals when playing the latest PC games that feature real-time ray-tracing powered by GeForce technology.

LGs new UltraGear is the ideal all-in-one solution for those who livestream their gaming sessions thanks to its expansive 4K-resolution screen. The generously proportioned display can also be a big advantage for creative professionals when editing high-resolution files or accessing multiple applications simultaneously. Whats more, support for 10-bit color depth and hardware calibration gives the monitor the level of colour accuracy needed for professional-level video production work.

Our latest gaming monitor delivers the unrivalled performance consumers have come to expect from LG UltraGear, said Jang Ik-hwan, senior vice president and head of the IT business unit of LG Electronics Business Solutions Company. UltraGear monitors will continue to push the boundaries of monitor technology, leveraging our advanced IPS 1ms GTG display technology to take gaming to even greater heights.

The 27GN950 will be the first LG UltraGear monitor to sport the new wings emblem designed specifically with victory in gaming in mind. In the UAE, fans can expect to see the new LG UltraGear 27GN950 available from September and the 27GN750 will roll out in August. Check local retailers for price and exact date of availability. -- Tradearabia News Service
The Big Brother cast enjoyed a night on the town after the live finale.

And Talia Rycroft threw social distancing measures to the wind as she locked lips with co-star Casey Mazzucchelli on Wednesday night.

Despite both women being in relationships with male partners, the 22-year-old blonde beauty joked she 'hooked up in the house' with Casey, 25.

Kissy kissy: On Wednesday night, Talia Rycroft locked lips with Casey Mazzucchelli after the Big Brother finale... and they weren't the only housemates sharing a same sex kiss

'Casey and I actually hooked up in the house,' Talia wrote on Instagram stories, as the two girls stuck their tongues out seductively before kissing for the camera.

And they weren't the only Big Brother stars sharing a same-sex kiss.

Self-proclaimed 'Ken doll' Xavier Molyneux puckered up with Garth Saville while out with other cast members at Sydney's Civic Hotel.

'Kissing practice with my hot Aunty,' Xavier wrote on Instagram stories.

'Kissing practice': Self-proclaimed 'Ken doll' Xavier Molyneux (left) puckered up with Garth Saville (right) while out with other cast members at Sydney's Civic Hotel.

It comes after Big Brother fans shared their outrage at the lack of social distancing at the end of Wednesday night's live finale.

While the housemates kept a safe distance with one another for most of the episode, they rushed in to warmly embrace Chad Hurst after he was announced the winner.

'Seriously, social distancing is still a thing and should be represented on our screens,' one disgruntled viewer shared on Twitter.

Outrage: Big Brother fans were in outrage on Twitter over the lack of social distancing, as stars rushed to 'hug and kiss' winner Chad Hurst (pictured with Sophie Budack) during the live finale

'I care less about the result than the fact they're all hugging and not social distancing,' another wrote.

'How's that social distancing going at the end there?!?' and 'Social distancing just went out the window,' were further comments.

One even questioned what New South Wales Health would think of the antics, with the finale having been filmed in Sydney.

'Curious if NSW Health or NSW Police think Big Brother is exempt from social distancing on live TV. Everyone hugged and kissed at the end,' they posted.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Channel Seven for comment.

Online: Disgruntled viewers at home questioned what happened to social distancing during the final moments of the show
A mother who wants to give her son a traditional Aboriginal burial is battling his estranged wife for custody of his body.

Leonard Milson, 40, took his own life on April 27 and his mother Julie Milson has sued for the right to bury him on country in central NSW.

But his non-indigenous wife Elisha Anderson, 41, wants his remains cremated and some of the ashes used to make pendants as keepsakes for his three children.

Ms Anderson claimed her husband had agreed with this plan, was 'embarrassed' about his Aboriginal heritage, and 'did not believe in Sorry Day'.

Ms Milson countered that their marriage was effectively over as Mr Milson had moved out and was having a secret affair with another woman.

Leonard Milson, 40, with his wife Elisha, his son Christopher, and his three daughters before his death on April 27

The bitter case made it to the NSW Supreme Court where a judge was forced to balance Aboriginal cultural issues with his wife's wishes.

Mr Milson and Ms Anderson met in 1996, married in 2002, and had three children, Christopher, 19, Amelia, 15, and Breanna, 12.

The court heard the relationship soured after a series of affairs and Mr Milson moved out of the family home in Beresfield, north of Newcastle, on March 17.

However, Mr Milson still spent a lot of time at the home and slept in one of his daughters' rooms on numerous occasions.

He was having a secret affair since February with a married woman from his bowls club, which Ms Anderson claimed not to have known about until the court case.

On March 22, Mr Milson assaulted his estranged wife at the home, resulting in his arrest on domestic violence charges.

Mr Milson and Ms Anderson met in 1996, married in 2002, and had three children, Christopher, 19, Amelia, 15, and Breanna, 12, before the relationship soured

Ms Anderson told police the argument was sparked by her having a man in her bedroom, but she told the court this was a lie to placate Mr Milson.

A restraining order was granted but Ms Anderson continued to let him visit his children and sleep over at the house.

The court heard on the day of his death, Mr Milson went to Amelia's school to pick up some school supplies, since it was closed due to coronavirus.

He then went to a doctor's appointment and returned in a distressed state, having been given a prescription for antidepressants but not filled it.

Mr Milson went outside to smoke a cigarette and Ms Anderson heard a loud bang but assumed it was her dogs. Ten minutes later she found him dead in the garage.

When the body was to be released from the coroner, Ms Milson petitioned the court to give her custody of it.

Ms Milson planned to bury her son in the ancestral lands of his Wiradjuri tribe in Gilgandra, near Dubbo, in a traditional Aboriginal ceremony.

She claimed Aboriginal culture was against cremation, no one in their family had ever been cremated, and Mr Milson never said he wanted to be.

'She also asserted that the deceased's family would be put to shame if he was cremated and his soul would not be able to rest properly until he was buried on country,' Justice John Sackar wrote in his judgement.

'If cremated she and her family would lose all connections to him and there would be nowhere for them to visit him.

'She does not want any of the ashes if a cremation takes place.'

However, Justice Sackar noted legal precedent where experts said an Aboriginal who died off-country could be cremated and the ashes buried on country.

Ms Milson told the court her son's marriage was 'well and truly over' and there was no intention to reconcile.

Ms Anderson said her husband, in spite of his heritage, told her and his children that he wanted to be cremated.

She said when they were discussing plans for her father's funeral in 2018, which involved a cremation, his daughters said they would like necklaces made with a portion of his ashes in the pendants.

Mr Milson's son Chris (left, pictured with his father) wrote an affidavit and gave testimony in support of his mother's position and asked that he be given the body if she was not

Ms Anderson also claimed Mr Milson downplayed his heritage to the point where she was 'unable to say the deceased was a proud Aboriginal man'.

'He would often say he was embarrassed about being Aboriginal. He also said he did not believe in Sorry Day,' Justice Sackar summarised.

This was despite Mr Milson having his tribal totem, a sand goanna, tattooed on his arm.

Mr Milson's son Chris wrote an affidavit and gave testimony in support of his mother's position and asked that he be given the body if she was not.

When an Australian dies without a will, funeral arrangements are generally determined by the deceased's partner or children.

However, judges are required to give consideration to Aboriginal culture and spiritual tradition when determining contested matters.

Justice Sackar, in his judgement, began by considering whether the marriage was really over, as Ms Milson asserted.

With Mr Milson dead, he turned to the transcript of Mr Milson's interview with police after his arrest for domestic violence weeks before his suicide.

He said Mr Milson was 'depressed and remorseful' over his actions and told police he was seeking help for his thoughts of self harm and the couple were trying to reconcile.

'The deceased presents during the interview as a man seriously in distress and in the midst of marital problems and clearly not coping. He is concerned for his family and especially his children,' Justice Sackar wrote.

'His own evidence does not in my opinion support the view that the marriage was at an end.'

By contrast, his affair was 'at the very best in its infancy' and dismissed her testimony that they discussed wedding plans as 'fanciful'.

'Sadly, whatever relationship he may have had with Ms Bojkowski was entirely insufficient to get him through his depression. He felt he had no other way out but to take his life,' Justice Sackar wrote.

Mr Milson also never told his mother of his mental struggles and assured her he would not kill himself after Ms Anderson told her of her concerns.

Mr Milson's wife wife Elisha Anderson, 41, wants his remains cremated and some of the ashes used to make pendants as keepsakes for his three children

Justice Sackar ruled that it was his wife with whom Mr Milson 'shared his worries, anger and despair', and not his mother or his lover.

More importantly, he ruled that Mr Milson's agreement that he should be cremated indicated his true wishes, which should be respected.

'Notwithstanding the deceased was Aboriginal and notwithstanding the rocky nature of his marriage at the time of his death, he wished it seems to me to be cremated,' he wrote.

'Clearly not unmindful and notwithstanding his respect for his heritage, he put his family above it for entirely sentimental reasons.

'His wishes should be respected, as should the wishes of his wife, but most importantly should the wishes of his children.'

For confidential crisis support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.
By Ayya Lmahamad

First Vice President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has congratulated media representatives on the 145th anniversary of the Azerbaijani national press day.

First Lady's congratulations have been published on her official Instagram page.

Dear media representatives! Dear friends! I sincerely congratulate you on the 145th anniversary of the Azerbaijani national press! I wish each of you strong health, happiness, joy, optimism, inexhaustible energy, creative successes and new achievements! the message reads.

Azerbaijani national press celebrates its145th anniversary on July 22, commemorating the first release of "Akinchi" (Ploughman) newspaper.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz


BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks slipped from a four-month high on Wednesday as the initial euphoria over an agreement on EU stimulus package faded and the focus shifted back to surging coronavirus cases around the world.



As the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 142,000, President Donald Trump said the pandemic 'will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better'.



Brexit deal talks and rising U.S.-China tensions also remain on investors' radar.



The British pound weakened after reports suggested that the U.K. is close to abandoning hope of reaching a Brexit trade deal with the EU amid deadlock on key issue.



The United States has asked Beijing to close its diplomatic consulate in Houston within the next 72 hours, the Chinese foreign ministry said, dealing another blow to the rapidly deteriorating relations between the two countries.



The pan European Stoxx 600 fell 1.2 percent to 372.28 after rising 0.3 percent in the previous session. The German DAX dropped 0.7 percent, France's CAC 40 index tumbled 1.4 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was down 1 percent.



Shares of Iberdrola S.A. dropped 1.4 percent in Spain after the utility reported that its second-quarter net profit declined 13.6 percent from last year as a result of the lockdown following COVID-19 pandemic.



Dutch supermarkets and eCommerce company Ahold Delhaize N.V. declined 1.3 percent.



The company said that its U.S. brand Stop & Shop reached a tentative agreement to terminate its participation in the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) - Industry Pension Fund.



Swiss engineering firm ABB gained 2.4 percent. The company posted better-than-expected results for the April to June period and said it expects improvement in order decline in the coming months.



French car parts maker Valeo SA plunged nearly 10 percent after it swung to a 1.2 billion euro loss in the first half of 2020.



Software AG shares jumped 7.5 percent. The German enterprise software company reconfirmed its current 2020 guidance as a whole after reporting a decline in second-quarter profit.



Kingfisher shares soared 10 percent in London after the home improvement retailer forecast first half underlying profit ahead of last year.



Computacenter surged 11 percent. The IT services firm said its adjusted profit before tax in the first half turned out to be 'substantially ahead' of the same period last year.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 18:54 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066886a67 1 National COVID-19,social-aid,social-assistance-funds,National-Police,embezzlement Free

The National Police are currently investigating 92 cases of alleged embezzlement surrounding COVID-19 social aid in 18 provinces across the country.

The number nearly tripled from a total of 37 cases compiled by the police last week, National Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Ahmad Ramadhan said.

The highest number of cases was found in North Sumatra with 38 cases, followed by West Java with 12 cases, West Nusa Tenggara with eight cases, Riau with seven cases and South Sulawesi with four cases.

"Meanwhile authorities in Banten, East Java, East Nusa Tenggara and Central Sulawesi are investigating three cases each. The remaining cases we found in Central Kalimantan, Riau Islands, West Sulawesi, West Sumatra, North Kalimantan, Lampung and West Papua," Ahmad said on Tuesday.

He said the alleged perpetrators used different methods to carry out the embezzlement.

"Weve discovered a lot of cases all across the country so the modus operandi is different from one another, but the main motive is of course to earn profits," he said as quoted by kompas.com.

Ahmad, however, did not specify whether the police had named suspects in the embezzlement cases.

The government has allocated Rp 695.2 trillion (US$49.3 billion) from the state budget to fund its fight against the coronavirus, with Rp 203.90 trillion allocated for social aid through the Family Hope Program, staple food assistance, preemployment card and electricity discounts, among other things, for low-income people.

Read also: Data fiasco causes delays in disbursement of social assistance: Study

However, the social aid disbursement has been criticized with reports emerging about slow or mistargeted distribution, data disparities and a lack of coordination among the central government and regional administrations.

Data disparity on who should be eligible for the assistance has caused uneven distributions, with many poor families claiming they have not received any social aid while their well-off neighbors have.

A recent survey conducted by Jakarta-based pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia found that 60.3 percent of 1,200 polled respondents across the country said the governments COVID-19 aid packages had not been evenly distributed.

Meanwhile, a coalition of watchdog groups has urged the government to be more transparent in using the trillions of rupiah allotted for the virus response amid a lack of access to information on how the funds are spent, as activists raised concerns over the potential for budget misappropriation.

The coalition -- which includes Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), Transparency International Indonesia (TII), the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency National Secretariat (Seknas Fitra) and the Indonesia Budget Center (IBC) -- said the government had not been accountable and open in utilizing the COVID-19 response funds.

The concern over transparency came after President Joko "Jokowi" Widodos statement that noted the relatively low disbursement of the COVID-19 response funds during a recent Cabinet meeting.

According to Finance Ministry data, the government had only spent 4.68 percent of the Rp 87.5 trillion (US$6.09 billion) allocated for the healthcare sector as of Monday, while spending on social assistance reached 34.06 percent of the Rp 203.9 trillion budget. (nal)
Scheana Shay announced via social media that she's moving out of Los Angeles and headed south to San Diego.

The 35-year-old reality star teased the move in an Instagram post on Sunday that showed her dipping her feet in a pool along with Ariana Madix, 35, at the Viejas Casino & Resort in San Diego County.

'This place is beginning to feel like home and soon SD will be! Thank you @viejascasinoandresort again for having us,' Scheana wrote in the caption for her roughly 1.1 million followers.

Headed south: Scheana Shay, shown Sunday on Instagram with AR announced via social media that she's moving out of Los Angeles and headed south to San Diego.

Scheana has been living at her Palm Springs vacation home with boyfriend Brock Davies amid the coronavirus pandemic, but posted on Twittr on Monday that she was moving from her primary residence that she was renting in Marina del Rey in LA County.

She responded to fan speculation that she was leaving Vanderpump Rules on Twitter and said her move was 'just temporary'.

'No way! Just temporary. I've been in the desert for 4 months. It's too hot and now it's lonely since it's just me. Once work opens and picks back up in La I will get a small apt there again too. But for now, an unemployed b*** has gotta save her $$,' Scheana posted.

Scheana quickly added another status report on her living situation.

Just temporary: The 35-year--old reality star, shown in February in Los Angeles, said the move was 'just temporary'

Cute couple: Scheana and boyfriend Brock Davies, shown on Instagram in June, will be living together in San Diego

Desert living: The West Covina native said she would be back in Los Angeles when worked picked up again

'Update #2: we got approved for our dream condo in SD!!!! Moving in 3 weeks! Ahhhhhhh!!!!,' she tweeted.

Scheana also provided her fans and followers with updates on Vanderpump Rules production.

'Y'all just bc I'm moving now, does NOT mean Im quitting the show,' she tweete4d. 'I love my job!! We aren't filming right now. SUR/LA is closed. I'm wasting so much $ on rent and I'm lonely all the way out in PS. It just makes sense. Once work opens/picks back up, I will too have an apt in LA!'

Dream condo: Scheana tweeted that she and Brock got approved for their dream condo

Restaurant closed: The Vanderpump Rules star tweeted that SUR restaurant was closed

She could not confirm, however, if Vanderpump Rules had been renewed.

"Lol. No. I am not confirming nor denying anything,' she tweeted. 'I know as much as y'all know. And all I know is we aren't filming or open right now so I have no reason to be paying rent in La for the time being. Brock's lease is up."

"It's the smart move to save $," she added.

Not filming: Scheana confirmed the Bravo show wasn't currently filming

'We arent filming anytime soon. Still in a pandemic,' she responded to someone wondering how she could be on Vanderpump Rules if she was living in San Diego.

Scheana is an original cast member of Vanderpump Rules, which premiered on Bravo in January 2013.

Original cast members Stassi Schroeder, 32, and Kristen Doute, 37, were fired from Vanderpump Rules in June for racist actions toward former castmate Faith Stowers, along with show newcomers Max Boyens and Brett Caprioni who were canned for past racists posts on social media.
Angerman said she has been looking into the state statute, and has learned that now when someone votes on a provisional ballot his or her name is on the ballot, which was previously not the case. This change could have skewed the numbers in Gary Precinct 1-24, she said.
There are many drivers who are shocked to see that their insurance went up, even though they have no claims. The reasons for the increase are multiple, but luckily drivers can offset the increase with the right strategies, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company.

Compare-autoinsurance.org has launched a new blog post that presents some unexpected factors that affect the costs of car insurance and what drivers can do to pay less on their premiums.

For more info and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/why-did-the-price-of-car-insurance-went-up-and-what-drivers-can-do-to-take-control/

It can be frustrating for drivers who have no claims to get a car insurance renewal and see the price go up for no apparent reason. There are many factors that can make the price of car insurance increase. Some factors are related to the things that revolve entirely around the policyholders situation, the elements within their control. Other factors are beyond the policyholders control.

Some of the most common factors that can lead to an increase in insurance are the following:



Claims history and driving record.

History of convictions or driving violations.

Change of ZIP code.

New drivers added to the policy.

Cancelation of home policy, or other policy causing the loss of the multi-policy discount.

The removal of a vehicle from the policy, causing the loss of the multi-car policy discount.

Change of employment, causing the loss of a group or professional discount.

Certain medical conditions.

Mistakes made by insurance companies.

Changes to the payment plan fees or structure on the insurance plan.

Factors that raise the premiums and are beyond the drivers control are the following:



Liability claims paid out by the insurance company. If the previous year(s) showed a steady increase in the amount the insurers have been paying on claims, then they can make some adjustments.

Collision, vandalism, or increased claims in the area. Sometimes due to changes in traffic patterns, weather patterns, or if areas become more congested over time, or a variety of other factors, an area may start to see increased claims. In these cases, the insurance providers will adjust their rates.

A rise in car theft rates in the area. Car thefts impact both new and old cars and every time the annual reports of top stolen vehicles come out; insurance companies are sure to take note. Drivers who own models of cars that are likely to be stolen should consider adding anti-theft devices or vehicle engraving and get a discount to offset the increases.

Uninsured drivers. The nationwide rate for drivers without insurance increased from 12.3 percent in 2010 to 13 percent in 2015. Insurance providers pay billions of dollars each year on the claims made on uninsured drivers. To offset these costs, insurance companies will raise the premiums to all policyholders.

Increased repair costs. Newer cars have sophisticated devices and gadgets that are expensive to repair or to replace. Also, some policyholders own older vehicles that have parts that are more difficult to be found on the market.

Credit scoring or underwriting changes. Sometimes, new factors are introduced into the calculations of insurance rates. In some cases, the files are not updated to include all the discounts and changes since the last renewal, and this can lead to a rise in premiums. One example is credit scoring. Most insurance companies use the credit score to determine insurance rates. A bad score will lead to higher insurance costs.

General underwriting rate increase. If an insurance company experiences overall losses that exceed their expectations, or if they have not reviewed their policyholders rates for several years, then they will increase the rates to remain profitable.

To save money on insurance, policyholders should get the help of their insurance agents or brokers. To check from where the increase is coming for, policyholders can ask their agent to quote another car in place of your own, if they think the vehicle is the reason for the increase. If the policyholders think its about the area where they live, their agents can simply get a quote with a changed ZIP code. Agents can also help by checking other insurance companies for better deals.

For additional info, money-saving tips and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/

Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc.
Online high-level talks between Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern,

scheduled for July 22, demonstrate Vietnams wishes and commitments to work together with New Zealand to quickly advance bilateral ties to a new high.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (left) and his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern

The elevation of ties matches the spirit of the joint statement on enhancing the comprehensive partnership towards a strategic partnership, issued during the visit to New Zealand by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in 2018.

Vietnam and New Zealand established diplomatic ties on June 19, 1975 and the bilateral relationship has developed positively and sustainably over the course of the past 45 years.

New Zealand opened an embassy in Hanoi and a consulate general in HCM City in November 1995, while Vietnam opened an embassy in New Zealand in May 2003 and a commercial affairs office in Auckland in 2005, which was moved to Wellington in 2007.

The relationship has made great, rapid strides forward over the years, with the establishment of a comprehensive partnership in September 2009, which is seen as a milestone helping to promote bilateral ties across fields in a more comprehensive, pragmatic, and effective manner.

The two sides reached an action programme for 2013-2016 on the implementation of the comprehensive partnership, and issued a joint statement in which they agreed to foster and deepen the comprehensive partnership towards a strategic partnership in March 2015. They signed another action programme for 2017-2020 on the sidelines of APEC 2017.

The two countries have maintained high-level exchanges and meetings of delegations, with the latest on the New Zealand side being the visits to Vietnam by Governor-General Jerry Mateparae in August 2013, Prime Minister John Key in July 2010 and November 2015, and Prime Minister Ardern during the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in 2017.

Visits to New Zealand were made by Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh in September 2009, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in March 2015, and Prime Minister Phuc in March 2018.

They have also maintained bilateral cooperation mechanisms, including a strategic dialogue on national defence at the deputy ministerial level, which was first held in November 2015.

Two-way trade has also expanded over the years. As of the end of 2018, New Zealand had 28 valid projects worth about 101.94 million USD in Vietnam, ranking it 41st out of 120 countries and territories investing in the country. Meanwhile, Vietnam had six joint venture projects valued at 25.62 million USD in New Zealand.

New Zealand has increased its official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam, from 2.3 million USD during the 2003-2004 financial year to around 7.4 million USD for 2012-2013 and 18.6 million USD for 2015-2018, via both bilateral and multilateral channels, focusing on such areas as personnel development, education and training, and sustainable agricultural and rural development.

Progress has also been seen in cooperation in national defence and security, education and training, labour, transport, tourism, and agriculture.

New Zealand Ambassador in Vietnam Wendy Mathews said the two countries agricultural sectors are reciprocal. New Zealand has allowed the importation of Vietnamese mango, dragon fruit, and rambutan. In turn, Vietnam has opened its doors to New Zealands potatoes, frozen beef, kiwi fruit, and apples.

They supported each other and coordinated closely in the negotiations over and signing of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) agreement and are pushing ahead with talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.

More than 5,000 Vietnamese are living in New Zealand, mostly in Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington.

VNA
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)  Qatar won a legal battle Tuesday in its efforts to end a long-running aviation boycott by Arab neighbors when the United Nations highest court ruled in its favor in a procedural dispute linked to the boycott.

The International Court of Justice rejected an appeal by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of a June 2018 decision by the International Civil Aviation Organization to dismiss the countries challenge to its jurisdiction to rule in the aviation dispute.

The ruling clears the way for the ICAO to be able to rule in Qatars case, filed in October 2017, claiming the boycott breached an international convention governing international aviation.

Qatar's Minister of Transport and Communications, Jassim Saif Ahmed Al-Sulaiti, welcomed the ruling.

We are confident that the ICAO will ultimately find these actions unlawful, he said. "This is the latest in a series of rulings that expose the Blockading Countries continued disregard for international law and due process. Step by step their arguments are being dismantled, and Qatars position vindicated.

The United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the Netherlands, Hissa Abdullah Al Otaiba, said the decision was "technical and limited to procedural issues and jurisdiction to address the dispute; it did not consider the merits of the case. He said the UAE will explain to the ICAO why it imposed the boycott on Qatari planes.

Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut ties with Qatar in the summer of 2017 over its support for Islamist opposition groups that they view as terrorists.

They also launched an economic boycott, stopping Qatar Airways flights from using their airspace, closing off the small countrys sole land border with Saudi Arabia and blocking its ships from using their ports.
Food blogger Ellie Bullen has shared photos of her postpartum body in the hours and days after giving birth to her first child to highlight what the process is really like.

The 27-year-old, who is best known for selling vegan cookbooks and sharing luxury travel pictures on Instagram, brought her son Bowie Watson into the world on July 12.

Ellie, who lives on the Gold Coast with her husband Alex Watson, is in no rush to 'bounce back' after labour and has been enjoying the first few days of taking care of her newborn.

Scroll down for video

Australian food blogger Ellie Bullen has shared photos of her postpartum body in the hours and days after giving birth to her first child (pictured at 34 weeks pregnant)

The 27-year-old brought her son Bowie Watson into the world on July 12 (pictured left at 40 weeks and right one week postpartum)

'I wanted to celebrate one week postpartum by recreating the shoot I did when we were 40 weeks pregnant,' she captioned a recent social media collage.

'It's mind blowing what the body can do and how much it can change in just one week.'

She called on followers to look through the 'real' and 'raw' images of what her body looked like two hours, two days, four days and one week post birth.

'I wanted to share because I think it's something as a first time mum that you're not really prepared for,' she said.

She called on followers to look through the 'real' and 'raw' images of what her body looked like two hours (left), two days (right), four days and one week post birth

'I wanted to share because I think it's something as a first time mum that you're not really prepared for,' she said (pictured at 39 weeks along)

'We're so used to seeing images of women with snatched waists just after having a baby.

'Personally it made me feel a little queazy feeling my squishy belly in those first few days and I even had a nightmare on the first night post birth that someone was chasing me trying to poke it.'

Ellie explained that the uterus takes six weeks to shrink back to its normal size and, stimulated by oxytocin released when breastfeeding, you can 'actually feel a dull "period pain" during feeds'.

'It's fascinating to see it change daily,' she said.

'We're so used to seeing images of women with snatched waists just after having a baby,' she said (pictured left after four days and right a week after birth)

While Ellie's belly was noticeably smaller than it was at the 40-week mark, it was nonetheless still pronounced, something she is embracing (pictured at 29 weeks pregnant)

While Ellie's belly is noticeably smaller than it was at the 40-week mark, it is still pronounced, something she is embracing.

She has been wearing postpartum compression shorts to help with her 6cm abdominal separation, and is trying to go on 10 minute walks outside every day.

Fans of the food writer's who are mothers themselves praised her for being so open about the recovery process.

'So cool. Don't you love the human body? It's an absolute miracle. You look amazing mama,' one woman said.

Fans of the food writer's who are mothers themselves praised her for being so open about the recovery process (pictured with her husband Alex and their dog Oatley at 40 weeks pregnant)

'This is glorious! The woman's body is truly magic. I've learned to love the after birth marshmallow stomach and all. The fact that you can grow a human, house that human and then feed that human after they are born is remarkable,' said another.

A third added: 'Thank you for sharing! I remember four days after having a baby I was so confused why I couldn't fit in even any of my "fat clothes". Media gave me no preparation that your belly sticks around for a bit after having a baby'.

Ellie, who is the founder of The Wholesome Store, had her twin sister Lauren take videos of her in active labour to share on her YouTube channel at a later date.
A teenager was shot through the window of a home in the citys East Germantown section early Wednesday, according to TV reports.

The 17-year-old was asleep on the couch about 1 a.m. when an unidentified person began shooting into the residence on the 1900 block of Laveer Street, 6ABC reported. The boy was shot in the legs three times and was taken to a hospital, where he was in stable condition Wednesday morning, according to Fox29.

The boy had fallen asleep at the home of a friend after a night of playing video games, Fox29 reported. He awoke to nine shots being fired in his direction, according to the station. No other injuries were reported.

The Philadelphia Police Department could not immediately be reached for comment. It was unclear why the gunman was shooting into the home and whether anyone had been apprehended.
N etflixs brand new take on childrens classic The Baby-Sitters Club updates the beloved book series for the 20th century, bringing a fresh perspective to an otherwise timeless tale of friendship and growing up.

The adventures of Kristy Thomas (Sophie Grace) and friends are still just as charming as we remembered, but the show has made slight changes to make it more reflective of a modern audience; shy secretary Mary-Anne Spicer (Malia Baker) is now biracial, finding her voice during one particular episode when doctors keep mis-gendering a trans girl  and the groups first recruit to their club Dawn Schafer (Xochitl Gomez) is now a Latina character.

The clubs diversity is a welcome update to the original series, in which the only character of colour was Japanese-American Claudia Kishi (played by Momona Tamanda)  but even then the book never really delved into Claudias heritage. The Netflix series, adapted by GLOW writer Rachel Shukert, has now weaved in Claudias cultural identity into the story, with episode six of the series (titled Claudia and Mean Janine) really delving into what it means to be Japanese-American.

Shay Rudolph, Momona Tamada, Malia Baker and Sophie Grace in The Baby-Sitters Club. / Kailey Schwerman/Netflix

After Claudia gets into fight with her smart and aloof older sister Janine (Aya Furukawa) their grandmother Mimi (Takayo Fischer) suffers a stroke, in which she wakes up in hospital recalling her childhood in an internment camp  a shocking and disturbing part of American history that is often overlooked.

What was the internment of Japanese-American citizens?

Following the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 which prompted America to enter the Second World War, there were fears from the US War Department that Japanese-Americans may be serving as double-agents and believed detaining them could prevent any further attacks  with Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast considered particularly at risky, despite there being no evidence of any threat.

Shortly after the Pearl Harbour attack, several Japanese community leaders were arrested and accounts in Japanese banks in the US were frozen.

In 1942, the War Department established curfews on Japanese-American citizens, and on February 19, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the US military authority to exclude groups from designated areas.

The best films coming to UK cinemas, Netflix, Disney+ and more in July 1 /6 The best films coming to UK cinemas, Netflix, Disney+ and more in July Hamilton  coming to Disney+ on July 3 A recording of Broadway hit Hamilton with the original cast is set to arrive on the platform on July 3, with Disney sequel Frozen 2 also coming on the same day. The streaming site has made it a little harder for fans to see the film, after ending its seven-day free trial recently, but its still one of the biggest releases of the year for musical fans and a rare chance to see the smash hit show. Disney The Hater  coming to Netflix on July 6 This Polish thriller won Best International Narrative Feature at this years Tribeca Film Festival, and is shaping up to be one of the most interesting releases of the month. The Hater follows a disgraced law student, who is drawn into shady office politics after moving to a PR to impress a girl. Jan Komasa, known for 2019s Corpus Christi, directs the film. The Old Guard - coming to Netflix on July 10 Charlize Theron leads the cast in this fantasy action movie, playing the head of a team of immortal mercenaries whose existence comes under threat for the first time in centuries. KiKi Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli also star in the movie, which is directed by Love & Basketballs Gina Prince-Blythewood. Greyhound - coming to Apple TV+ on July 10 It was originally slated for a theatrical release, but Tom Hanks WWII drama Greyhound will now be arriving on Apple TV+. Its adapted from the C.S. Forester novel The Good Shepherd, and tells the story of the allied forces led by Commander Ernest Krause (Hanks) who crossed the North Atlantic chased by German U-boats during the early stages of the USs involvement in the conflict. Elisabeth Shue, Rob Morgan and Stephen Graham also star in the visceral drama. Tenet - coming to cinemas on July 31 Christopher Nolans latest mind-bending blockbuster sees John David Washingtons special agent attempt to prevent a conflict "worse than World War III" through the manipulation of time. The film was recently moved back two weeks from July 17 to 31. It's still expected to be the first big release UK film fans get to enjoy in reopened cinemas.

While the Order didnt specify the exclusion of Japanese-Americans, they were the group most noticeably targetted following the Order.

Things worsened when the War Relocation Authority was established, which took people of Japanese descent into custody from their homes, and prevented them from buying land.

Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were ordered to report to control stations and register the names of all family members, before being removed to internment camps. Several families were forced to sell their houses, vehicles and belongings before they were relocated.

Between 1942 and 1945 a total of 10 camps were opened, holding approximated 120,000 Japanese-Americans.

The new Netflix show has brought The Babysitters Club to a fresh new audience / Netflix

Conditions in the camp were poor, with internees living in barracks and being forced to share bathrooms and facilities with other families.

Camps were also surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards to shoot those who tried to escape.

The camps saw families live in cramped conditions and the internees tried to set up a sense of community, however, many lived in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty for as long as three years.

Actress Takayo Fischer, who plays Mimi, was interned in real life / Netflix

Internment camp Manzanar, located in southern California, was the first opened. This is the same camp Claudias grandmother Mimi remembers in The Baby-Sitters Club.

Mimi, in the show, describes how she was forced to live in a horse stall.

Its something the shows executive producer Naia Cucukov was keen to include in the episode, written in Jade Chang  with Kishi household being of Japanese heritage, Cucukov includes touches such as the familys shoes outside the front door, and the family sitting down to dinner with chopsticks and bowls.

While Mimis stroke is in the book, the storyline about her time in Manzanar was written into the series as actress Takayo Fischer was genuinely interned as a child.

Anytime you do a TV show and you cast real actors, you're going to deepen those experiences, Cucukov said to NBC News.

We knew that there were still ancestors that had gone through that experience. So it's really important to us that we all represent that correctly.

The Baby-Sitters Club is available to view on Netflix now
ABBA are set to release five new songs in 2021, it was revealed on Tuesday.

The Swedish quartet announced in 2018 they were planning to record new tracks for the first time in 35 years, and it has now been confirmed that they have more songs than originally planned.

Despite the news, ABBA have had to delay the releases, which includes I Still Have Faith In You and Don't Shut Me Down, as well as their ABBAtar hologram tour until next year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Exciting: ABBA revealed on Tuesday that they are set to release FIVE new tracks in 2021 as the band's tour has been postponed because of the coronavirus crisis

Band member Bjorn Ulvaeus - who is joined by Benny Andersson, Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyndstad in the chart-topping group - told journalist Geoff Lloyd as such.

Speaking on an upcoming episode of his podcast Reasons To Be Cheerful, the radio presenter explained: 'I got to spend an hour with Bjorn Ulveaus from ABBA via Zoom. They've recorded five new songs.

'They should have been out at the end of last year. They're going to get these holograms out on tour.

An abundance of tracks: The quartet announced in 2018 they were planning to record new tracks for the first time in 35 years, and they said they have more songs than originally planned

'Because of technical difficulties and the pandemic, it's delayed things. But he promised me that the new ABBA music will be out in 2021.'

In a statement announcing the new songs, ABBA said at the time: 'The decision to go ahead with the exciting ABBA avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence.

'We all four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio.'

In the studio: Band member Bjorn Ulvaeus (pictured in 2019) said the songs 'should have been out at the end of last year' but the pandemic has delayed the release

Bjorn later explained the plans had been delayed until at least 2020 due to the complex technical nature of the show they are creating.

The Waterloo group went their separate ways in 1982 at the height of their career, and during their final years Bjorn divorced bandmate Agnetha whilst Benny and Frida split up, too.

They performed together for the first time in decades in 2016 at a private event, which marked the 50th anniversary of the first meeting between songwriters Bjorn and Benny.
The coronavirus has hit the airline industry particularly hard. As long as COVID-19 rages, it is unlikely that there will be a meaningful resumption of normal services. In the meantime, airlines have taken drastic measures such as refinancing, taking on piles of extra debt, severe cost-cutting initiatives and furloughing employees, in order to remain afloat.

But apart from extreme courses of action, the industry will need to be creative to keep the wolf from the door. A new partnership between American Airlines (AAL) and JetBlue (JBLU) could be the first of many collaborations over the coming months.

Although, new might not be the right word here. Its more a rekindling of an old flame. A decade ago, the two forged a partnership that petered out after four years, so it remains to be seen whether the outcome will be more positive this time around.

The deal, announced on July 16, will provide AAL with entry to 130 JetBlue routes, and in return, JetBlue will be able to use 60 American Airlines routes out of New York and Boston.

The deal makes perfect sense to Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Linenberg, who argues it is a win-win for both airlines.

Linenberg said, We view the move by American and JetBlue to form a partnership as a very positive development for both companies on many levels; we anticipate it will be earnings accretive for both companies in year one We think there is the potential for this partnership to expand into something much bigger than what is highlighted in the initial press release.

So, how will each airline benefit?

For JetBlue, which Linenberg thinks has long been an airline in search of a network, it will provide access to routes between the largest cities and large second-tier cities in the US, as well as an entry into new markets where it presently has little-to-no presence.

As for American, an airline that has lost its dominant position in the New York and Boston markets, it will be a chance to reestablish a commanding presence.

Story continues

By working together, Linenberg summed up, American and JetBlue will create the largest airline network and frequent flyer base in Boston and be of similar size (possibly larger) to Delta and United in New York (rather than where they are today, a distant third and fourth based on revenue, respectively).

To this end, Linenberg reiterated a Buy recommendation on AAL along with an $18 price target. Expect upside of 57%, should the target be met over the next 12 months. (To watch Linenbergs track record, click here)

Linenbergs colleagues arent quite as upbeat. Based on 3 Buys and Holds, each, and an additional 7 Sells, the airline has a Moderate Sell consensus rating. However, the share price has declined to such an extent that theres possible upside of 17%, should the $13.44 average price target be met in the following months. (See American Airlines stock-price forecast on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 16:04:47|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said he is ready to work with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to lead bilateral relations to new achievements in the new era for the benefit of both countries and their peoples.

In a recent exchange of congratulatory messages on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of China-Saudi Arabia diplomatic ties, Xi said he attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations.

Xi added that he stands ready to make concerted efforts with King Salman to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to better synergize the Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and further enrich the strategic significance of their countries' relationship. Enditem
3 churches sue Calif. over singing ban, say it violates 1st and 14th Amendments

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Three California churches have filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom and several state health officials for a ban on singing during church services, arguing that it violates the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Redding by a team of lawyers from the American Center for Law and Justice, Tyler & Bursch, The National Center for Law and Policy, and Advocates for Faith & Freedom.

Let me be clear, the State does not have the jurisdiction to ban houses of worship from singing praises to God, Robert Tyler, partner at Tyler & Bursch, LLP, said in an ACLJ release.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit were listed as Calvary Chapel in Ukiah, Calvary Chapel Fort Bragg and the River of Life Church in Oroville.

Singing in church is a biblical mandate, Kevin Green, pastor of Calvary Chapel in Fort Bragg, told the Los Angeles Times.

In new guidelines issued on July 1, in the face of rising COVID-19 cases, public health officials in California said singing and chanting in houses of worship must not happen because the activity posed a threat to public health.

Even with adherence to physical distancing, convening in a congregational setting of multiple different households to practice a personal faith carries a relatively higher risk for widespread transmission of the COVID-19 virus, and may result in increased rates of infection, hospitalization, and death, especially among more vulnerable populations, health officials said in the new guidelines document.

In particular, activities such as singing and chanting negate the risk reduction achieved through six feet of physical distancing. *Places of worship must therefore discontinue singing and chanting activities and limit indoor attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower, they advised.

Houses of worship, along with other places of work such as hospitals, long-term care facilities, prisons, food production, warehouses, meat processing plants, and grocery stores, were identified as places that had suffered multiple outbreaks of COVID-19.

A report from the Skagit County Public Health Department in Washington state published by the CDC in May showed how quickly the coronavirus spread after a choir practice became a superspreader event for the virus that infected 86% of attending members and killed two of them.

A few weeks ago, California began allowing the reopening of churches for in-person services with guidelines after requiring most Californians in March to stay at home during the lockdown so hospitals were not overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients all at once. A recent uptick in cases led Newsom to reverse that move on Monday for at least 30 counties.

Newsom said churches, protests, fitness centers and businesses in several industries would have to shut down again unless they can operate outside or through pick-up services.

Along with Newsom in his official capacity, California Public Health Officer Sonia Angell, Mendocino County Public Health Officer Noemi Doohan, and Butte County Public Health Officer Ngoc-Phuong Luu, are also listed as defendants in the lawsuit.

The orders are clear: Failure to comply with the Worship Ban constitutes an imminent threat to public health and menace to public health, constitutes a public nuisance, and is punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both, the ACLJ said. The lawsuit requests a restraining order and injunctive relief based on the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Our clients would like to see a quick resolution, with the governor and health officers changing or modifying this wording.
The 84-year-old monarch was admitted to hospital with what state media said was an inflammation of the gall bladder.

Saudi King Salman held a cabinet meeting via video call from hospital in the capital Riyadh on Tuesday, a day after the 84-year-old monarch had been admitted with what state media said was inflammation of the gall bladder.

A video of the king chairing the meeting was broadcast on Saudi state TV on Tuesday evening. In the video, which had no sound, King Salman could be seen behind a desk, reading and leafing through documents.

The king, who has ruled the oil-rich country and close United States ally since 2015, was undergoing medical checks, state media on Monday cited a royal court statement as saying without providing further details.

Three well-connected Saudi sources who declined to be identified, two of whom were speaking late on Monday and one on Tuesday, told Reuters the king was fine.

An official in the region, who requested anonymity, said he spoke to one of King Salmans sons on Monday who seemed calm and that there was no sense of panic about the monarchs health.





King Salman received phone calls from the leaders of Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan on Monday, state media reported.

A diplomatic source said the kingdoms de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman flew back to Riyadh on Monday from his palace in the Red Sea city of NEOM, cancelling a planned meeting with a visiting Iraqi delegation.

The diplomatic source and the third Saudi source said the crown prince was still in the capital.

King Salman last spoke publicly on March 19 in a five-minute televised address about the coronavirus pandemic.

The monarch is the custodian of Islams holiest sites, spent more than two and a half years as the Saudi crown prince and was deputy prime minister from June 2012 before becoming king. He also served as governor of the Riyadh region for more than 50 years.

He named his young son Mohammed, also known as MBS, as crown prince and next in line to the throne after a 2017 palace coup that ousted then-Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.
A new study looking at COVID-19 cases and deaths in long-term care homes has reinforced the Stars earlier analysis showing that for-profit homes were more likely to have wider and more deadly outbreaks than non-profit or municipal homes.

The study was published by the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) July 22. Researchers Nathan Stall, Aaron Jones, Kevin Brown, Paula Rochon and Andrew Costa looked at all 623 long-term care homes in Ontario from Mar. 29 to May 20, 2020, tallying COVID-19 outbreaks, cases and deaths.

The researchers found that while the profit status of a home was not significantly tied to the likeliness of a COVID-19 outbreak occurring, for-profit homes were associated with a much higher rate of cases and deaths compared to non-profit homes when an outbreak occurred, with twice the number of cases (a 196% increase) and almost twice the number of deaths (a 178% increase).

The Stars analysis, published in May, found almost the same results: residents in for-profit homes were twice as likely to get COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from the disease compared to those in non-profit homes.

The Star also found that for-profit home residents were four times as likely to get COVID-19 compared to those in municipal homes.

More than 80 per cent of Canadas COVID-19 deaths have occurred in long-term care homes. The Star found that for-profit homes account for less than 60 per cent of long-term care homes in Ontario, but account for 16 of the 20 worst outbreaks.

Researcher Nathan Stall, a geriatrician at Mt. Sinai Hospital, said its important to note that not all for-profit homes suffered equally  the study isolated certain factors that made some homes more likely to have higher rates of cases and deaths when an outbreak occurred.

Broadly speaking, for-profit homes with older design standards dating to the 1970s and chain ownership had much higher rates of disease and death. Twelve of the 15 homes with the most extensive outbreaks were for-profit homes that fell into this category, as were seven of the 10 homes with the most deaths.

Buildings constructed based on Ontarios standards set out in 1972 tend to have smaller rooms housing up to four residents, more shared washrooms and centralized and crowded common spaces, said Stall. Those factors could result in increased spreading of COVID-19, he said.

But there are other factors related to for-profit status that likely increased these homes chances of being hit with more cases and deaths, he said.

Stall said research dating back more than two decades has associated for-profit homes with inferior levels of care, specifically in terms of staffing levels. Studies have also shown that chain-owned homes have lower levels of staffing, he said, while municipal homes are staffed by city employees with better pay and benefits. Meanwhile, many non-profits are staffed by for-profit companies, which could explain why their numbers fell in between the for-profits and the municipal homes, Stall said.

Clearly, COVID-19 has shone a light on something that experts in the field knew for a long time, which is that this is a neglected sector thats really overdue for upgrade and changes, he said.

Pat Armstrong, a sociology professor at York University who has been researching long-term care in Canada for more than 20 years, said she believes staffing is the single biggest issue leading to bigger outbreaks in for-profit homes.

A Star analysis of union staffing data in June found that for-profit homes in Ontario have on average 17 per cent fewer full-time and part-time workers compared to non-profit and municipal homes.

Armstrong said though advocates call for at least 4.1 hours of direct nursing care per resident daily, in Ontario for-profit homes its usually less than three, compared to around 3.5 for municipal homes.

Bed sores, falls, hospital transfers: All of those things are more likely in for-profit homes than they are in non-for-profit homes, said Armstrong.

A spokesperson for the Ontario Long-Term Care Association said according to their organizations analysis, a number of factors including beds per room, geographic location and the staffing situation contributed to the extent of an outbreak within any given long-term care home.

In particular, data points to the age of buildings and the number of beds per room as major factors ... Nearly half of Ontarios long-term care homes are older, and infection control, cohorting, and isolation are more challenging in these sites, they wrote in an email.

They said the association welcomes the provincial governments commission regarding COVID-19 in long-term care, and cautioned it must look at the perfect storm of long-standing conditions leading to the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in these homes, including staffing shortages.

Stall said now isnt the time to plan a big overhaul, but rather to make short-term changes.

We need to really focus on shoring up the homes that are so vulnerable for successive waves of the pandemic which could start as early as the fall.

Armstrong agreed, adding that in the longer term, increased government oversight and labour rules could eventually phase out for-profit involvement in the care home sector.

But right now its time to prepare for the next wave, she said.

Both Armstrong and Stall pointed to B.C. as an example  early on in the pandemic when it became apparent that long-term care homes were going to be epicentres for the virus, the province temporarily took over as the employer of long-term care staff, said Stall.

Months later, of the almost 9,000 COVID-19 deaths in Canadian long-term care homes, close to 2,800 have been in Ontario, and more than 5,600 have been in Quebec, said Stall. British Columbia has seen less than 200.

It was really two provinces that drove the catastrophe, said Stall.

Clarification  July 23, 2020: This story has been changed to clarify that a lack of air conditioning in older long-term care homes is likely not a factor in spreading COVID-19, according to researcher Nathan Stall.

Read more about:
SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C., on behalf of its managed funds and accounts ("Farallon"), today announced that it plans to vote for the shareholder proposals to Toshiba Corporation (Code: 6502) ("Toshiba") at Toshiba's 181st Annual General Meeting (Proposal No. 3 and No.4) (the "Shareholder Proposals").

Farallon has been a large shareholder of Toshiba since 2017 and has sought to maintain a continuous and constructive engagement with Toshiba's management team during this time. Farallon believes in Toshiba's potential and hopes that Toshiba will continue to take steps to maximize value for stakeholders in accordance with the company's "Toshiba Next Plan."

Based on Farallon's review of publicly available information, including the information included in the Shareholder Proposals, Farallon believes that it is important that Toshiba seek to further strengthen its corporate governance framework in the interests of all stakeholders. Farallon has accordingly concluded that it will support the election of the new director candidates in the Shareholder Proposals. Farallon hopes that the director candidates, if elected, will provide valuable experience and perspective to the Board and management with a view to enabling mid- to long-term value creation in accordance with the Toshiba Next Plan.

About Farallon

Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C., is a global investment firm founded in 1986 and registered as an investment advisor with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission since 1990. Farallon seeks investments across asset classes and around the world through a process of bottom-up fundamental research and analysis emphasizing capital preservation. More information on Farallon is available at www.faralloncapital.com.

[Disclaimer]

This press release should not be construed as soliciting any other shareholders of Toshiba to authorize Farallon or any third party to exercise voting rights on such shareholder's behalf with respect to any matter to be presented to shareholders at Toshiba's Annual General Meeting for its 181st fiscal period. This press release is not intended, and should not be considered to solicit, encourage, induce or seek for any other shareholders of Toshiba to authorize Farallon or any other third party as their proxy in exercising their voting rights on their behalf.

Farallon is not soliciting or requesting any other shareholders of Toshiba to jointly exercise their shareholders' rights with Farallon (including, but not limited to, voting rights). Farallon declares that it does not intend to be treated or deemed a "joint holder" (kyo-do hoyu-sha) with any other shareholders of Toshiba under the Japanese Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

Contact:

ASC Advisors

Steve Bruce / Taylor Ingraham

[email protected] / [email protected]

203 992 1230

SOURCE Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C.

Related Links

https://www.faralloncapital.com


New Delhi: It is indeed that time of the year when the buzz around the biggest reality television show 'Bigg Boss' keeps fans all excited. From superstar Salman Khan hosting the show to list of probable contestants - everything hogs the limelight. However, this year will be different, quite literally!

Due to the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak, reportedly shoots have been delayed. According to Bollywoodlife.co report, Salman Khan's show will premiere in September end. This time the tagline is 'Bigg Boss 14 Hoga Rocking', reportedly.

The superstar, who has been at his Panvel farmhouse ever since lockdown began in March will reportedly be shooting for 'Bigg Boss 14' there. The shoot will commence in September.

It was earlier reported that the actor is charging a whopping Rs 16 crore per episode.

Several celebrity names have popped up as probable contestants this year. From Nia Sharma, Vivian D'Sena, Surbhi Jyoti to Jasmin Bhasin, Alisha Panwar, Mansi Srivastava - all are rumoured to have been approached for the show.

'Bigg Boss 13' was the most successful and controversial season so far. It was won by TV actor Sidharth Shukla and model Asim Riaz stood as the first runner-up.

However, no official word is out on the developments regarding 'Bigg Boss 14' by the makers or actor as of now.
Candidates from the recent Peoples Assembly election, who are traditionally loyal to Assad, have declared the voting to have been corrupted writes Baladi News.

Peoples Assembly candidates attacked the parliamentary elections that Bashar al-Assad held last Sunday, despite these candidates being among the most loyal to the regime. Those include industrialist Faris al-Shihabi and Berwyn Ibrahim, leader of the National Youth Party for Justice and Development.

In two posts on his Facebook page, Shihabi attacked the electoral process, describing it as corrupt, in which he lost to warlords and the Islamic State.

In his latest post on Tuesday, he wrote, My only regret is that I did not withdraw after the visit of Comrade Assistant Secretary General Hilal al-Hilal before the elections, adding that, the message was loud and clear: either blind obedience to the growing system of corruption or exclusion and punishment. Their war against us was public and took place in front of everyones eyes, a war for which they set aside a huge oil supply and utilized all the goblins on earth. They all forgot that Aleppo is not theirs and will never be.

Activists from Aleppo said that Shihabi lost to Hossam Qatirji, who is responsible for smuggling oil for the Assad regime and funds the Qatirji militia, which fights alongside the regime.

In Hassakeh, Berwyn Ibrahim attacked the Baath Party, which heads the National Progressive Fronts list, after failing to be elected into the Peoples Assembly.

In a video recording, Ibrahim said that, the Baath Party is behaving in a non-cooperative way and adopts a policy of exclusion, bearing in mind that it played a big role in the electoral fraud that took place.

Ibrahims appearance came after a statement issued by her party  the National Youth Party for Justice and Development  in which they submitted an objection to the judicial subcommittee in the province of Hassakeh, which included an appeal against the integrity of the Peoples Assemblys elections.

According to the statement, there was a repetition of names, voter fraud and the adoption of nominal charts by district committees, as well as bribes.

In Hama, Waddah Murad, a former member of the Peoples Assembly for the city, wrote in a post on his Facebook page, the elections for the Baath Party and the elections for the Peoples Assembly and various party secretaries are a farce concocted by the fundamentalist parties and contradicts the vision of the head of the regime, as he put it.

Murad accused Hilal, the leader of the Baath Party, of corrupt behaviour during the elections organized by the Baath Party, where representatives for all branches of the party in the Syrian governorates had to be elected.

Yesterday, the city of Hama witnessed a sit-in organized by a group of loyalists to protest against the failure of one of the members to reach the Peoples Assembly. During the sit-in, they raised slogans and banners glorifying Bashar al-Assad and his regime.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The directive, which is part of both the Senate and House versions of a $740 billion military spending bill, topped a list of objections the White House made to the Houses legislation Tuesday, arguing it was an effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct. A few hours later, the House passed its version of the defense bill anyway, by a veto-proof majority.
Weve written about the explosions and fires at various facilities associated with Irans nuclear program, though perhaps we havent given them as much attention as they deserve. The attacks are believed to be the work of Israel. At a minimum, Israel is thought to be behind the most significant explosion  a July 2 attack on the Natanz centrifuge facility. This attack may have set back Irans breakout time for producing nukes by at least a year.

If Israel is behind the attacks, and I see no reason to doubt that it is, one can infer that the U.S. signed off on them. We are a potential target of retaliation by Iran. Its unlikely that Prime Minister Netanyahu would expose America to this risk without getting approval from President Trump.

Thus far, it appears that Iran has not retaliated against the U.S. or even against Israel. Experts in Israel disagree about the likelihood, and likely intensity, of an Iranian response.

Normally, I think Iran would be extremely likely to retaliate. It has done so consistently in the past. When the U.S. assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the retaliation was subdued. Yet the regime did strike U.S. bases in Iraq and reportedly has continued to attack them through proxies.

But right now, theres a special circumstance that probably weighs heavily in the regimes calculations  the upcoming presidential election. The mullahs expect that if Joe Biden is elected, he will reenter President Obamas nuclear deal with Iran. Thus, Iran can be expected to do nothing that would (1) enhance President Trumps reelection chances and (2) provoke Trump to further degrade Irans nuclear capabilities in the next six months.

The smart play, then, might be to refrain from retaliation against the U.S. and from the kind of retaliation against Israel that would pull the U.S. into the mix. However, we dont know whether the mullahs see it this way.

They might think that a confrontation with Iran before the U.S. election would hurt, rather than help, Trump. They might think that Iran would come out of such a confrontation relatively unscathed because Trump wouldnt risk all out war. They might think that Trump will be more dangerous if Biden wins the election because, with nothing to lose during the period from November until inauguration day, Trump will take his fury out on Iran.

In any case, Trump and Netanyahu are to be commended for aggressively degrading Irans nuclear capability. Exiting the nuclear deal was a good move. It put an end to our subsidizing the regimes aggression in the Middle East and squeezed the regime economically. But it invited Iran to step up its nuclear program. Thus, our exit from the deal needed to be accompanied by a plan to curb that program.

It looks like Israel has found a way to do so short of an overt military attack. Whether its attacks can curb Irans nuclear program as effectively as the nuclear deal  a low bar, to be sure  is unclear.

The answer may depend on whether Israel is able to sustain its program of attacks. If Iran thinks Israel can, it may have little choice but to retaliate, the upcoming U.S. election notwithstanding.
Hyderabad: Though government review meetings are a routine part of the day-to-day functioning, sometimes it becomes "very interesting" and knowingly or unknowingly it exposes the state of affairs.

On Monday, the Telangana High Court had come down heavily on the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government on the precarious situation of COVID-19 cases in the state with high number of infections and deaths. The High Court fumed at officials and ordered Chief Secretary and other concerned top officials to appear on July 28.

In view of High Court's scathing remarks, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday called a review meeting on the issue.

However, as bizzare it can be, following is the transcript/verbatim of CMO (Chief Minister's Office) note on what transpired in the meeting. The officials have been quoted without names:

On the Corona issue, every other person is going to the High Court. So far, the High Court has admitted 87 Public Interest Litigations. Due to daily hearings, the officials are facing problems and hardship. Senior doctors and other officials, who are working day and night giving treatment to the needy, are forced to spend more amount of their time to run to the court. In this hour of crisis, these senior officials had to leave their primary duty and are spending time to prepare for the court hearing and to attend the hearings. With this, they have not been able to render cent percent justice to their duties," read the CMO transcript.

"In fact, when compared to other States, situation in Telangana state is better. There is less percentage of deaths. But yet, the state government and the medical officers are working to the best of their abilities. The State administration is ready to provide medical treatment to any number of patients whatever may be their number. Everyday thousands of tests are done. It is painful that though so much had been done, yet the High Court made some comments. In the past too, someone filed a petition asking that tests should be conducted on the dead. The High Court gave orders in their favour. Taking into consideration the factual situation, the Supreme Court had to set aside the HC orders," the transcript further read.

"Yet, PILs are being filed in the High Court and the High Court is admitting them. With the court hearing 87 PILs, it is an inconvenience for the Chief Secretary, principal secretary, Hospital medical superintendents concerned when the High Court is summoning them. The precious time of the medical and other senior officials is spent on attending the court hearings. Based on the comments made by the High Court, some media organisations are also reporting in such a way to convey that the state government is not doing anything on the matter. This is shattering the morale of the medical staff who are rendering the services putting their own lives at stake.

The CMO note mentioned the above greviances of several officials who had participated in the review meeting.

The note concludes as follows: "The CM gave a patient hearing to the opinions expressed. He instructed the officials concerned to file an affidavit in the High Court on conducting the investigative tests, treatment given and precautions taken while administering the treatment with all facts. For the High Court hearing, the officials should submit all the information that the court sought and inform it about the work done," the CM added.

Those in attendance at the meeting included Health Minister Etela Rajender, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Principal Secretary (Medical and Health) Syed Murtuza Rizvi, Principal Secretary (Finance) Ramakrishna Rao, along with several heads of Medical and Health department.
BCA Insurance Group has contracted with NJM Insurance Group (NJM) as an NJM Premier Agent, expanding its ability to connect the business needs of its clients with NJMs insurance solutions.

As an NJM Premier Agent, BCA can provide access to all NJM Business Insurance products, including commercial auto and commercial general liability (CGL) insurance in New Jersey and workers compensation insurance in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

This partnership will also allow BCA to offer any new insurance products NJM introduces as it continues to roll out its plan for geographic and commercial product expansion in the future, according to a company press release.

NJM is a property and casualty insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region and has been a provider of workers compensation insurance in New Jersey for almost a century.

BCA Insurance Group is a full-service independent insurance agency that provides all types of commercial and personal insurance including auto, home and business insurance, in addition to surety bonds and related services, with a focus on New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley. It has offices in Marlton and Northfield, N.J.

Source: BCA Insurance Group

Topics Mergers New Jersey
A survey of hotel operators found that 67% said their business will only be able to last six more months at current projected revenue and occupancy rates, unless they get further assistance from the government.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association said it polled more than 1,000 hotel owners, operators and employees a week ago about the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Remember that cold, hard look that 16-year-old Greta Thunberg shot at US President Donald Trump

just after her fiery speech on climate change at the United Nations Summit?

In September last year, a video which showed the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg giving Trump an icy cold glare has gone viral.

In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, the young climate activist finally revealed what was going on in her mind on that viral moment.

Thunberg recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where the teenager spoke about a wide-ranging spectrum of issues, including the viral photo of her "cold stare" at Donald Trump last year when she visited the US.

Speaking to Colbert, Thunberg touched on a variety of topics including the recent open letter she and other climate activists have written to EU leaders, calling then to action for climate change.

She also spoke about the lengths that some world leaders would go to in order to ridicule her just because they feel threatened of what she had to say.

"It surprises me how far some people are willing to go to just keep the focus away from the climate crisis  everything from organised hate campaigns to threats, just because they feel threatened by a couple of young kids taking to the streets," she said.

Thunberg impressed the world last year with her impassioned speech made by the 16-year-old at the UN climate summit in New York.

Her voice shaking with emotion in an address that was the defining moment of the summit, Thunberg accused world leaders of betraying her generation by failing to act on rising emissions, repeating the words "how dare you" four times.

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones," she said. "People are suffering. People are dying." "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!" climate skeptic Trump tweeted a few hours later, alongside a clip of the speech.

Following the speech, US President Donald Trump had mocked Thunberg by calling her "such a calm, sweet girl". He also mocked the teenager and asked her to "chill".

READ: After Donald Trump Mocks Greta Thunberg With Chill, Go To Movies Barb, She Does This

So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill! https://t.co/M8ZtS8okzE Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2019

Thunberg's reply came minutes later, when she changed the bio of her Twitter account to: "A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend."

Speaking to Colbert, Thunberg also said that the current status of the humanity amid the climate crisis is akin to settings fire to the boat that we are sailing in.

But the most delightful aspect of the interview? When Colbert asked the teen activist what had been going on in her mind when she had shit that mean look at Trump, Thunberg coolly and bluntly said, "I don't think you need an explanation".

Is Donald Trump listening?
SAN ANTONIO, July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCO) (the "Company") announced today that its indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary, Clear Channel International B.V. ("Clear Channel International"), upsized and priced an offering of $375 million aggregate principal amount of 6.625% Senior Secured Notes due 2025 (the "Notes"), an upsize of $25 million over the amount previously announced. The Company anticipates that the closing of the private offering will take place on August 4, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

The Notes will be guaranteed by certain of Clear Channel International's existing and future subsidiaries (collectively, the "Guarantors"). The Company will not guarantee or otherwise assume any liability for the Notes.

The Notes and certain of the guarantees (the "secured guarantees") will be secured, no later than 120 days from the issue date, by pledges over (i) the capital stock and material bank accounts of Clear Channel International and three of its indirect subsidiaries and (ii) any intercompany receivables owed to the parent holding company of Clear Channel International and/or Clear Channel International by such subsidiaries and, in the case of the parent holding company of Clear Channel International, by Clear Channel International, in each case subject to certain agreed security principles. The Notes will be senior secured obligations that rank, in right of payment, pari passu to all unsubordinated indebtedness of Clear Channel International and senior to all subordinated indebtedness of Clear Channel International and rank, in right of security, senior to all unsecured and junior lien indebtedness of Clear Channel International to the extent of the value of the assets that constitute collateral. The secured guarantees of the Notes will be senior obligations that rank, in right of payment, pari passu to all unsubordinated indebtedness of the Guarantors and senior to all subordinated indebtedness of the Guarantors and rank, in right of security, senior to all unsecured and junior lien indebtedness of the Guarantors to the extent of the value of the assets that constitute collateral.

Clear Channel International intends to use approximately $54.9 million of the net proceeds of the Notes to repay a promissory note of Clear Channel International in full at par, and for general corporate purposes, including to fund Clear Channel International's operating expenses and capital expenditures.

The Notes and related guarantees are being offered only to "qualified institutional buyers" in reliance on the exemption from registration pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act, and to persons outside of the United States in compliance with Regulation S under the Securities Act. The Notes and the related guarantees have not been registered under the Securities Act, or the securities laws of any state or other jurisdiction, and may not be offered or sold in the United States without registration or an applicable exemption from the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws.

This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the Notes or any other securities. The offering of the Notes is not being made to any person in any jurisdiction in which the offer, solicitation or sale of the Notes is unlawful.

About Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. and Clear Channel International B.V.

Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCO) is one of the world's largest outdoor advertising companies with a diverse portfolio of approximately 570,000 print and digital displays in 32 countries across Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America, reaching millions of people monthly. A growing digital platform includes more than 16,000 digital displays in international markets and more than 1,900 digital displays (excluding airports), including more than 1,400 digital billboards, in the U.S.

Comprised of two business divisions  Clear Channel Outdoor Americas (CCOA), the U.S. and Caribbean business division, and Clear Channel International (CCI), covering markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America  CCO employs approximately 5,900 people globally.

Clear Channel International B.V operates in 17 countries (16 across Europe plus Singapore) in a wide variety of formats.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on the Company's current management expectations. These forward-looking statements include all statements other than those made solely with respect to historical facts and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the offering of the Notes and the anticipated use of the proceeds of the offering. Numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include, but are not limited to, risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic and whether or not Clear Channel International B.V. will consummate the offering. Many of the factors that will determine the outcome of the subject matter of this press release are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements, or to make any other forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.
The British School of Etiquette India has appointed Pitchfork Partners Strategic Consulting as its public relations and digital consultancy following a multi-agency pitch. Pitchfork Partners will provide strategic communication counsel to strengthen its position as Indias leading institute of etiquette, life skills and service training.



The British School of Etiquette India is the licensed branch of The British School of Etiquette United Kingdom, both global training centres of professional excellence. They are committed to imparting professional tutoring through diverse courses and have established themselves as market leaders boasting the latest global expertise.



We are delighted to partner with Pitchfork Partners for our pan-India communication. The British School of Etiquette India aims to globalise and democratise higher education in training and business management by reaching the learners doorstep. Pitchforks strategic use of data visualisation and storytelling capabilities will help us in our mission, said Niraalee Shah, CEO India, The British School of Etiquette India.



Pitchfork Partners is a strategy consultancy committed to taking care of clients reputation. This is especially important at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has permanently altered the business landscape, from consumer mobility to media consumption and supply chains. In such a scenario, a brands reputation is its strongest asset. To maintain it, therefore, there is an even greater need to ensure positive experiences for stakeholders. This is why Pitchfork Partners specialises in understanding business needs and aligning communication to business goals, championing reputation building, management and protection. The consultancy sees itself as a reputation warrior, offering bespoke solutions and a team comprising marketing and communication veterans.
Bengaluru, July 23 : Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala has nominated five persons, including Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) defector to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) A.H. Vishwanath, as members of the state legislative council, an official said here on Wednesday.

"In exercise of the powers vested in me under Article 171 of the Constitution, I nominate A.H. Vishwanath, C.P. Yogeshwar, Shantharama Budna Siddi, Talwar Sabanna and Bharathi Shetty as members of the Karnataka Legislative Council," the Governor said in a communique.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa called on Vala at the Raj Bhavan and submitted a letter recommending the names for nominating them as MLCs.

Though Vishwanath lost the December 5 by-elections from the Hunsur Assembly seat in Mysuru district, the BJP leadership didn't allow him to contest in the biennial elections to the council held in June.

Vishwanath was among the three JD-S rebel legislators who resigned along with 14 Congress rebel legislators from their Assembly seats in July 2019, leading to the fall of the 14-month-old JD-S-Congress coalition government on July 23, 2019 after its Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy lost the confidence vote in the lower house on the same day.

Yogeshwar, a three-time former lawmaker, lost to Kumaraswamy in the May 2018 state Assembly elections from the Channapatna constituency in Ramanagara district.

Yogeshwar was also a minister in the first BJP government in the southern state (2008-13).

Bharathi is the BJP women's wing president and Sabanna is an academician while Siddi is a social activist.

Vishwanath was also a minister in the S.M. Krishna-led Congress government (1999-2004). Later, he joined JD-S following differences with former Congress Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

Vishwanath and Yogeshwar are reportedly in the race for a cabinet post in the year-old Yediyurappa government along with newly-elected MLC M.T.B. Nagaraj, who too defected from the Congress to the BJP, but lost in the December 5 by-poll from Hoskote in Bengaluru Rural district to Independent candidate Sharath Bache Gowda, son of BJP Lok Sabha member from Chikkaballapur, B.N. Bache Gowda.

Though Yediyurappa has inducted 10 of the 12 defectors from the Congress and JD-S as cabinet ministers on February 6 after they got re-elected in the December 5 Assembly by-elections, six posts are still vacant in the 34-member ministry.

R. Shankar, another Congress defector to the BJP who was elected as MLC in June, is also a ministerial aspirant.

BJP's rebel legislators Umesh Khatti and Murgesh Nirani have also been vying for cabinet posts since the party returned to power nearly a year ago for the third time.
WASHINGTON - A major intraparty rift widened between the White House and Senate Republicans on Tuesday as they stumbled to formulate a unified coronavirus budget plan, lacking agreement on policy goals, budget parameters, or even deadlines.

The Republican and White House positions changed multiple times as the day went on, with some GOP lawmakers refusing to rally behind the White House's demand for a payroll tax cut while others worked to convince President Donald Trump's emissaries that more money was needed for testing and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Other Republican lawmakers appeared mortified about the growing size of the spending bill, bickering over which policies to remove and warning that miscalculations could allow Democrats to seize control of the White House and the Senate in November.

"What in the hell are we doing?" Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked his colleagues at the lunch with White House officials, according to several participants who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the exchange. Cruz was incensed at the push among his colleagues to boost spending levels even more.

The whole process now appears likely to spill into August, something the White House and congressional Democrats had hoped to avoid, because it would mean more than 20 million Americans would lose emergency unemployment benefits when they expire at the end of this month. They have not mapped out a plan for what would happen to these people as the pandemic's turmoil continues to weigh on the U.S. economy.

White House officials did not go into the talks with a preset strategy or a list of proposals that they knew GOP lawmakers would rally behind. This miscalculation created immediate problems. Numerous demands the White House had tried to formulate over the weekend were erased within hours.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that the goal was to keep the spending bill at about $1 trillion, but by Tuesday he had abandoned that mantra. White House officials also backed away from demands for cuts to testing and health funds, and they retreated after a barrage of criticism of President Donald Trump's tax cut demand.

"I think we're going to spend what we need to spend, and we're going to make sure we don't spend more than that," Mnuchin said.

Democrats pointed fingers at the Republican infighting and said the White House and GOP leaders were unprepared to handle the country's mounting economic and health-care challenges. House Democrats passed a $3 trillion spending bill in May that would send another round of stimulus checks, provide more money to states, and help hospitals, among other things, but the White House has vowed to block it.

"Republicans are in complete disarray," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. "Totally incompetent. Totally in disarray. Totally at war with one another."

In an effort to bridge differences, Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow met with Senate Republicans over lunch. But that led to little progress; Republicans made clear to Mnuchin and Meadows that they were not supportive of Trump's insistence on a payroll tax cut or curbed funding for coronavirus tests and the CDC. Mnuchin on Monday had insisted that the payroll tax idea was in the bill, but he did not bring it up during the lunch as the opposition snowballed, two people briefed on the interaction said.

"We haven't reached a conclusion on anything," Sen. John Neely Kennedy, R-La., said when the lunch ended.

Meadows acknowledged the discontent, telling reporters, "Well as you can imagine, any time you have Senate Republicans there, you have a number of different thoughts on what should or should not happen."

The White House and Senate Republican leaders had tried over the weekend to put together a joint deal to bring to Democrats, but those efforts did not lead to a unified GOP position. Talks bogged down over Trump's insistence for the tax cut, something he has pushed since last year to force into law without any success. Some also bristled at Trump's insistence for curbing coronavirus testing funds and a new requirement that aid to schools would be contingent on reopening plans.

Underlying the confusion surrounding the GOP stimulus package are tensions among Trump administration officials about their priorities.

Trump is being represented on Capitol Hill by Mnuchin and Meadows, a tandem that has not brokered a deal jointly with Congress. Trump has for months worried privately that Mnuchin, his chief negotiator with Democrats, was giving away too much to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., leading conservative lawmakers to push for Meadows to have a more active role in this round of talks. Before joining the White House, Meadows was a congressman and leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Mnuchin, meanwhile, has a background as a banker and a Hollywood producer with few ties to the conservative movement.

On Tuesday, Meadows sat toward the back of the room and deferred to Mnuchin as he led the conversation with the GOP senators, according to two people aware of the meeting who spoke on the anonymity to share private conversations. Mnuchin discussed the importance of sending another round of stimulus checks and providing more money for the Paycheck Protection Program.

Mnuchin also told reporters that it was important for lawmakers to reach an agreement before the supplemental increase in unemployment benefits runs out by the end of this month. Republican lawmakers, including Trump, have consistently criticized that benefit increase because they think it makes it more lucrative for workers to stay home than reenter the labor market, but Mnuchin stressed the importance of providing some financial cushion for the jobless.

"Our objective is to try to get something done before the enhanced unemployment insurance expires. There's a lot of people who are still out of work," Mnuchin said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters, though, that it was very unlikely a deal would be reached by the end of next week, laughing and saying no when asked whether that was possible.

Within a few hours Tuesday, it became clear that the White House was already backpedaling on several demands - before negotiations with Democrats had begun. Mnuchin and Meadows met with Senate Republican appropriators in the morning and appeared persuaded to reverse course on the funding curbs; Republicans had sought $25 billion for states for testing and tracing that the administration had initially opposed.

"We're moving in the right direction on all fronts. . . . We are making good progress," said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a senior Appropriations Committee member, when asked about the disagreement over money for testing.

Participants said that talks were ongoing, and that nothing had been finalized.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday that the White House is seeking "targeted" money for testing, and that "we're willing to put in money for targeted testing that makes sense, not just dumping money into a pot that contains $10 billion."

Some experts said lawmakers should approve more money and have the administration send it out quicker.

"States have been using some of this money, but the problem is that it's not enough and easy for the states to draw down," said Sam Hammond, a policy expert at the Niskanen Center, a think tank that has been working with Senate Republicans on bolstering testing. "The scale of the problem will require a lot more money than they have so far."

These programs are just one part of what the administration and McConnell had envisioned as a $1 trillion package that is likely to be the last major coronavirus relief bill before the election.

After attending the Senate Republican conference lunch, the White House envoys met with Pelosi and Schumer.

"We will begin our conversations today. It is my hope that we can resolve our differences and have a bill by the end of next week," Pelosi told fellow Democrats on a conference call Tuesday morning, according to a person on the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss internal conversations.

There has been little GOP enthusiasm for the payroll tax cut plan, even though Trump has said he might not sign a bill that does not include it. And GOP leaders are expecting a hard sell Tuesday but appear unwavering. A few Senate Republicans - including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Steve Daines of Montana - have endorsed the payroll tax cut as a sound policy.

But senators and aides said Mnuchin did not talk about the payroll tax cut during the Senate GOP lunch. Instead he was confronted by complaints about the size of the emerging package, with some lawmakers who had voted for the $2 trillion Cares Act in March saying they could not support the new package if it exceeds $1 trillion.

During the lunch, GOP senators voiced discontent over several components of the emerging aid package, whether it involved provisions pushed by the administration and the apparently ballooning size of the plan, according to officials directly familiar with the private gathering. All of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the closed-door discussion.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, argued against the payroll tax cut, making the case that no voters would notice the tax relief and that he was skeptical that the policy changes could even be implemented before October.

Although the payroll tax cut remains a top priority for Trump, his top lieutenants inside the meeting made little apparent effort to sell the policy to Republican senators, who largely remain opposed to the proposal.

Electoral politics were also in consideration. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., urged other GOP senators to be attentive to what Republicans in competitive reelection bids are hearing on the ground from voters, and he made the case that if the GOP loses the majority, Democrats in control will implement policies that are much more costly to the national debt. So spending a bit more money now in a rescue bill that would aid Republicans in their races would be cheaper in the long run, he argued. Cotton is also up for reelection in November but is not considered to be in a competitive race.

His viewpoint appeared to clash with that of Cruz, who vigorously warned against spending too much money on the package.

Cruz said the GOP should be focused on a safe restart of the economy and warned that if the economy remains shuttered in November, Democrats will win both the White House and the Senate, and that Republican senators, who usually meet in the ornate Mansfield room in the Capitol, will "be meeting in a much smaller lunch room."

Mnuchin, who met with Republican senators before he was to huddle with the Democratic leaders, stressed to the GOP lawmakers that he will not launch into negotiations Tuesday afternoon with Democrats and that he would be in more of a listening mode with them.

Earlier Tuesday, McConnell gave some details of the emerging GOP plan in remarks on the Senate floor.

He said it would include $105 billion to help schools reopen, another round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, more stimulus checks to individual Americans, incentives for hiring and retaining workers, and reimbursement for businesses to establish safety measures.

"The American job market needs another shot of adrenaline," McConnell said. "Senate Republicans are laser-focused on getting American workers their jobs back."

Trump has enacted four laws that provided close to $3 trillion in new tax cuts and spending to try to help the economy and the health-care industry navigate the coronavirus pandemic. The economy remains weak, however, with an unemployment rate of 11.1% and about 20 million people collecting unemployment benefits. Lawmakers are split over what to do next. When he was heading into a meeting with Senate appropriators, Meadows was asked about the highest price tag they could agree to.

"Obviously everybody looks at a trillion-dollar stimulus plan as the goal, but that's going to be up to the senators and the House," Meadows said. "It's going to be a Senate- and House-led process."

Mnuchin said he would be there to see the talks through, having been through numerous rounds of frantic negotiations in the past.

"We're shooting to get something done by the end of next week," Mnuchin told reporters as he entered his first meeting. "I'll be here for the next two weeks until we get this done."
Australia will suffer its largest budget deficit since World War Two due to the coronavirus crisis which has crippled businesses and required extraordinary government spending.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will reveal the 'eye-watering' figure - expected to be about $200billion for this financial year - in an economic update on Thursday.

The budget deficit is the shortfall in the government's income compared to how much it spends.

The figure is so high because the government has spent $164billion on propping up businesses and individuals with new policies including subsidising wages and boosting welfare.

The Australian economy continues to be hammered by COVID-19, particularly Melbourne. Pictured: Greville Street in the inner city suburb of Prahran

A nurse makes her way towards the COVID-19 testing zone as cars queue at Bondi Beach on Wednesday

Nurse Michelle Gibbons conducts a COVID-19 swab test on a man at Bondi Beach on Wednesday

At the same time, tax receipts are down because companies are making less money during the economic downturn brought on by restrictions and lockdowns.

Company tax receipts, which were $93billion in 2019, are expected to fall by more than $25billion over last financial year and this year combined.

The treasurer will also reveal that Melbourne's fresh lockdown - imposed for six weeks on July 8 - is estimated to cost the economy $3.3billion.

Furthermore, business investment is forecast to fall by six per cent in 2019-20 and 12.5 per cent in 2020-21.

But mining investment will be positive for the first time in seven years, increasing by four per cent last financial year and 9.5 per cent this year.

It comes as iron ore exports tick up, with strong demand from China which imported 14 per cent more of the commodity in June compared to May.

Shipments of iron ore to China from the major export hub of Port Hedland in Western Australia reached a record 46.2 million tons in June, up seven per cent from the previous month.

A restaurant in a food court is closed with chairs placed on top of tables during Melbourne's lockdown

Mining investment will grow the first time in seven years, increasing by four per cent last financial year and 9.5 per cent this year as iron ore exports to China soar

A budget deficit of $200billion would represent around 10 per cent of GDP, the highest since World War Two spending took the deficit to about 25 per cent of GDP in 1945.

The figure is four times as big as the Rudd government's budget deficit of $55billion in 2009 after the global financial crisis.

Government debt is already at $720billion and ongoing deficits will see this figure grow significantly.

However, the treasurer will say that the drastic support measures the government has taken have been 'necessary' to prevent more people losing their jobs.

In June almost one million people were officially unemployed - but this figure could have been almost twice as high at 1.7million without JobKeeper and other government support, he will say.

A couple wearing face masks walk through Melbourne. which is under lockdown for six weeks

Barista Alex Pallas (left) serves a customer a coffe at Eeffoc Cafe in Prahran, Melbourne

Mr Frydenberg said: 'The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-century shock that is placing immense pressure on health systems and economies all around the world.

'Our announced measures, together with large declines in taxation receipts, has seen a hit to the bottom line, but this has been necessary in order to cushions the blow for millions of Australians, and to keep businesses in business and keep Australians in jobs.'

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has warned that there is more uncertainty ahead after Victoria suffered a record 484 cases of coronavirus on Wednesday and outbreaks in New South Wales continued to grow.

'The economic and fiscal outlook remains highly uncertain given what is continuing to occur globally and in some parts of Australia,' he said.

It comes as JobKeeper is extended until March but two million Australians will lose access from September as the payment and the JobSeeker supplement are reduced by $300.

Scott Morrison announced the wage subsidy, which currently helps 3.5million Australians, will be reduced in phases as the economy recovers from coronavirus lockdowns.

The payment was due to end on September 27 but instead it will be decreased from $1,500 to $1,200-a-fortnight.

A lower rate of $750-a-fortnight will go to people who worked fewer than 20 hours a week in February, before coronavirus struck.

The two-tiered system has been brought in because one in four casuals are earning more on JobKeeper than when they worked.

From January 4, the payments will be reduced to $1,000-a-fortnight for full time staff and to $650-a-fortnight for those who worked fewer than 20 hours.

The JobKeeper payment will be extended until March and an increased JobSeeker rate will last until December. Pictured: The Prime Minister meeting businessmen on Monday

Fewer businesses will be eligible for JobKeeper as they must continue to prove a revenue decline of 30 per cent compared to before coronavirus.

Many will not meet this threshold because business has picked up after lockdowns ended.

This means that the number of people on Jobkeeper is expected to decline from 3.5million now to 1.4million between October and December, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said today.

From January 1million people are expected to receive the payment.

Australian Council of Trade Unions boss Sally McManus said she feared the lower rates would lead to mass sackings.

'Businesses will be getting less support from the government per worker so they may decide to cut numbers,' she said.

As Melbourne approaches its third week of lockdown, residents are forced to wear masks

But Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the extension until March meant he could keep on 15,000 employees who have been temporarily stood down.

'The extension to JobKeeper until at least March is fantastic for our people and provides them with certainty. Importantly, it will help ensure most of them stay employed with us and come back to work when flights resume,' he said.

From September 24 the JobSeeker supplement will be reduced from $550 to $250, meaning the total benefit will be worth $800-a-fortnight instead of $1,100 in total.

That level will last until December 31 and the Prime Minister expects some level of supplement to remain beyond that.

Unemployment during June amid COVID-19 Australia's unemployment rate climbed from a 19-year high of 7.1 per cent in May to 7.4 per cent in June - the highest since November 1998 Number without work climbed from 923,000 to a record-high 992,300 Close to a million people unemployed for the first time ever - surpassing 960,200 record set in December 1992 Unemployment increased even though 210,800 more people were employed as COVID-19 shutdowns eased That was because the participation rate increased from 62.7 per cent to 64 per cent as more people looked for work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data for June Advertisement

JobSeekers will be able to earn $300 while keeping their full benefits.

They will have to apply for four jobs a month to qualify for the benefits and must not refuse a job if offered.

The ongoing dole rate after March 2021 will be determined in the October federal budget.

The Prime Minister said the aim of extending the support was to make sure Australian economy emerges strongly from the crisis.

'Australia is a country that just doesn't look to survive these things. We don't go through challenges with our heads looking down, overwhelmed by the circumstances. That is not who we are,' he said.

'Who we are is innovative adaptive people, supporting each other, reaching out to each other, drawing us all through, not for survival, but to be on the other side in the position where we can emerge strongly.'

The JobKeeper extension until March 28 will cost $16billion, taking the total expected cost to $86billion.

The new arrangements for the Coronavirus Supplement are expected to cost an additional $3.8 billion.

The government will update the state of the nation's books on Thursday, revealing a budget deficit in the order of $200 billion.

As of July 15, JobKeeper payments totalled $29.8 billion.

As of May more than 1.6million Australians were receiving JobSeeker, which combines the old Newstart unemployment benefit along with sickness and bereavement payments.

Last month close to one million people, or 992,300 Australians, were officially unemployed for the first time ever, as the jobless rate rose to 7.4 per cent, the highest level since November 1998.

The JobKeeper package, costed at $70billion, was announced on March 30, a week after JobSeeker was effectively doubled with a temporary $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement.
The State is set to gain around 750,000 from the sale of 89 bitcoins seized from a drug dealer by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) earlier this year.

Mr Justice Alex Owens permitted the sale in the High Court after concerns were raised about hacking and the "high fluctuation" of the cryptocurrency's value.

However, 49m worth of the cryptocurrency is still out of reach because the codes to 6,000 other bitcoins, held in 12 accounts or "virtual wallets", cannot be found.

Clifton Collins (49), who is originally from Crumlin, Dublin, bought most of the Bitcoin in 2011 and 2012 using cash he made growing crops of cannabis, according to the High Court.

By 2017, their value had soared to around 53m and Collins got worried he could be hacked. He spread the 6,000 bitcoins out across 12 different accounts and kept the access codes in the aluminium lid of a fishing rod case at his rented home in Farnaught, Cornamona, Co Galway.

Landfill

After his arrest for having 2,000 worth of cannabis in the Wicklow mountains, his landlord cleared the property of his belongings and the access codes are believed to have ended up in landfill or an incinerator.

The CAB secured a freezing order on the Bitcoin to ensure it cannot be removed from the accounts without the court's approval. Smaller amounts of Bitcoin, which are accessible, and a sum of cash were also seized.

Counsel for CAB, Grainne O'Neill, asked Mr Justice Owens for an order on Monday allowing the sale of 89 bitcoins owing to security concerns and the "high fluctuation" of the cryptocurrency's value.

Allowing for the sale of the items, Mr Justice Owens said the State can do "whatever one does with these wretched things".

Sergeant Pat Lynch told the judge that Collins accepted the bitcoins were the proceeds of crime and that he had no objection to them being sold.

The CAB's inquiries into Collins began after a chance encounter with Garda James O'Sullivan on a forest road near the Sally Gap in 2017.
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Toulouse Metropole

Global Credit Research - 21 Jul 2020

Paris, July 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Toulouse Metropole and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

The credit profile of Toulouse Metropole (Aa2) reflects a strong operating performance, supported by a strong economy and an attractive territory. While the coronavirus pandemic and the associated economic recession weigh on the intermunicipality's tax revenues, its strong operating balance (GOB) and its budgetary flexibility provide some shock absorption, limiting credit implications. Toulouse Metropole's credit profile also reflects a sound financial management as evidenced by realistic long-term targets, sophisticated multiyear financial planning and well-managed debt and liquidity. Credit challenges include high debt levels and high contingent liabilities although with a low risk. Toulouse Metropole's rating incorporate a baseline credit assessment (BCA) of aa2 as well as Moody's assessment of a moderate likelihood of extraordinary support from the government of France (Aa2).

Story continues

This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodology used for this review was Regional and Local Governments published in January 2018. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

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By Express News Service

DHARMAPURI: A 46-year-old caste Hindu man was arrested near Pennagaram for allegedly assaulting a 14-year-old Dalit boy and forcing him to carry faeces on Tuesday. He was remanded to the Dharmapuri sub-jail on Tuesday night.

Police said the accused K Rajasekar, of Kodarampatti village near Pennagaram, was produced before a Principal District Judge on Tuesday. He was remanded after testing negative for Covid-19.

According to an FIR, last Wednesday the man spotted the boy defecating on his property. The man allegedly thrashed the boy and forced him to eat the faeces and carry it. The boy carried the excreta and fled from the property. The FIR was filed on Friday based on a complaint from the victim's family at the Pennagaram police station on Wednesday.

Rajasekar was booked under Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code (voluntarily causing hurt) and under Section 3 (j) of the SC/ST Act for forcing SC persons to do manual scavenging.
Tomorrow Catherine Martin will know her fate. Was her decision to take on her long-time colleague Eamon Ryan for the leadership of the party they both love a misguided power grab - or an astute political move from a canny operator?

Speaking to the Irish Independent from her ministerial office, Ms Martin says the internal party vote is "really hard to call".

Read More

No matter the outcome of the Green Party leadership contest, she has certainly cemented her reputation as an ambitious TD determined to take on the consensus attitude in the political system.

Her decision to take on Mr Ryan emerged while she was sitting around a negotiating table with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael TDs, seeking to strike a government deal. They were shocked when the notification popped up on their phones; she barely batted an eyebrow.

The internal Green Party debate on the Programme for Government has caused serious divisions in the party. Ms Martin's own husband, Green Party TD Noel Francis Duffy, voted against a deal she backed.

Expand Close Greens leader Eamon Ryan Photo: Gareth Chaney / Facebook

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Whatsapp Greens leader Eamon Ryan Photo: Gareth Chaney

The social media commentary between the opposing factions has been divisive and at times aggressive.

During the leadership contest hustings, Mr Ryan admitted the party had been "swamped" with accusations of bullying and said the party was not able to deal with the influx of complaints.

Ms Martin also concedes all is not well in the party when asked about bullying in the organisation.

"I think it's been a very difficult period for the party and we're in a period now of healing and working together," she said.

"We must have safer processes in place and it is obvious that we don't tolerate bullying and it can never be tolerated and people must feel safe," she added.

Ms Martin is determined to welcome diversity of opinion in the party which she says is a clear example of how it embraces democracy.

Tomorrow's vote will mark the end of a busy year for the new Tourism Minister and she has one eye on her plans for a family holiday once the Dail recesses on July 31.

Ms Martin, her husband and children plan to head straight for Sligo, before making their way to the Burren in Clare ahead of finishing up in Kerry.

"My children are just looking forward to me being on holidays," she said.

The minister is anxious to promote staycations as the beleaguered tourism industry struggles to bounce back from near annihilation due to Covid-19 pandemic.

At her first Cabinet meeting, she told ministerial colleagues to book holidays in Ireland and highlight the fact they are visiting hotels, restaurants and pubs.

"At my very first meeting at Cabinet I said we need to be leading on this. We need to have our holidays at home and be seen to be having our holidays at home," she said.

Ms Martin's convolutedly named Department of Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht is at the centre of the Government's July stimulus package.

The major economic plan being described as a "mini Budget" is aimed at getting people back working and spending after months of coronavirus restrictions.

The 7bn, multi-faceted plan will address various sectors affected by the deadly virus but a key focus will be the tourism and hospitality sectors which have both been devastated by the global pandemic.

Ms Martin is working with Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe on a number of measures aimed at kick-starting the tourism industry.

Central to her plans is a tax rebate scheme on hotel and restaurant bills which will encourage people to spend money in local businesses.

The staycation subsidy is still being developed and the minister's officials are looking at various ways the tax-back scheme could work.

This could include an app or online system where people will be able to claim back the rebate immediately after they pay their bill. They are examining if mobile phone bar codes could be used so people can quickly claim back some of the money they have spent.

However, everything is still on the table and a final decision on how the scheme will work won't be finalised before tomorrow at the earliest.

"We are exploring everything to make it as easy as possible for the customer and incentivise them to spend in hotels and restaurants," she said.

The staycation subsidy won't kick in until at least September for two reasons. The first is that it is unlikely the technology needed to make the scheme customer friendly will be ready in time.

The second reason is there are serious concerns in Government and within the tourism sector that business will fall off a cliff edge in September. Occupancy rates in some hotels are as low as 20pc at the moment and are expected to fall further.

During negotiations on the stimulus package, Ms Martin has argued any supports for the industry, including the rebate scheme, should start in September and remain in place until the start of the summer season next year.

This means, all going well, people will be able to look forward to months of discounted meals and holidays.

"It's about getting businesses through the winter and beyond," Ms Martin said.

"Any measure that can incentivise demand during this period really needs to be considered as part of the July stimulus package.

"I would be looking at sustaining the sector and keeping the sector going through to the start of the 2021 tourism season," she added.

The minister has also insisted that the temporary Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme needs to be extended into 2021 and be available to seasonal workers who previously couldn't claim the payment.

Sport also comes under Ms Martin's brief but she is unable to give any assurance to GAA-starved fans who are desperate to attend matches.

"I know it's disappointing but we have to adhere to public health advice.

"You have to look at how people enter or exit a stadium and how is the social distancing going to be controlled.

"It's not just about the spacing when you are seated," she said.

On the first big test the Government faced, Ms Martin says former Agriculture Minister Barry Cowen would not have had to resign if he had provided more detail about his drink-driving case.

"If more clarity had been given things would have been different. It was too serious an issue to have any information shut down," she said.




POLICE in South Africa on Monday arrested two Zimbabweans who craftly cut out special compartments in a fuel tanker to smuggle locally-made cigarettes worth R7 million across the border where demand has risen following the ban on tobacco smoking as part of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19.





The suspects, aged 36 and 44, were arrested on the South African side of the Beitbridge Border Post after cheating their way past the Zimbabwean immigration checkpoints.

In a statement yesterday, South African Police Service (Saps) said they recovered 533 boxes of Zimbabwean-made tobacco cigarettes valued at R6 993 579 after searching the fuel tanker.





"Members were busy with their routine duties at the border post when they stopped a suspicious petrol tanker which was sealed at the top," Saps spokesman for Limpopo province Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo said.





"Five hundred and twenty three master boxes containing thousands of cartoons of illicit cigarettes were found hidden in a specially made compartment in the tanker."





It was one of the numerous hauls of cigarettes ever since Pretoria banned the sale of cigarettes in that country as a way of preventing the spread of coronavirus.





"The suspects, both foreign nationals, are expected to appear in Musina Magistrate Court tomorrow, Wednesday 22 July 2020," Mojapelo said.





In another matter, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and the Zimbabwe Republic Police last week foiled an attempt by a scrap metal dealer to smuggle 12 160 metric tonnes of copper scrap into South Africa.





This was heard by Beitbridge magistrate Toindepi Zhou when Justice Chirimuta (44) of Highfield, Harare, appeared before him on Monday charged with smuggling, unlawful possession of copper wires and wilful damage to or interference with telecommunication lines.





He was not asked to plead to the charges and was remanded in custody to August 3.





Prosecutor Munyonga Kuvarega told the court that on July 16, Chirimuta, whose business address is Nicoscape Logistics 305 Camera, 260 Wessels Street, Arcadia, Johannesburg, South Africa, was intercepted by authorities after completing customs formalities for his goods.





Upon inspection of the scrap, it was discovered that there were Zesa overhead copper cables and TelOne underground cables.





Chirimuta was arrested and the copper cables were confiscated. Evidence proffered by the State was that on the bill of entry, only seven tonnes were declared out of the 19,16 metric tonnes.








SOITEC REPORTS FY'21 FIRST QUARTER REVENUES

Q1'21 revenues reached 114m, down 5% versus Q1'20

FY'21 guidance confirmed with sales expected to be stable at constant exchange rates and perimeter 1 and Electronics EBITDA 2 margin 3 expected around 30%

Wafer production has been maintained at all industrial facilities during the Covid-19 health crisis

Bernin (Grenoble), France, July 22nd, 2020 - Soitec (Euronext Paris), a world leader in designing and manufacturing innovative semiconductor materials, today announced consolidated revenues of 113.6 million Euros for the first quarter of FY'21 (ended June 30th, 2020), down 4.9% compared with 119.4 million Euros in the first quarter of FY'20. This is the result of a 5.2% decline at constant exchange rates and perimeter1 as well as a positive currency impact of +0.2% and a scope effect of +0.1% which is related to the acquisition of EpiGaN in May 2019.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 health crisis, Soitec's priority has been to safeguard the health of its own employees as well as that of the people working for its various partners, subcontractors, customers and of the wider communities the Company is interacting with. Thanks to the maintained production at all its industrial facilities during the Covid-19 health crisis, Soitec has been able to supply its clients despite the more difficult shipping conditions met in this context. With tight safety measures in place, it has also been able to pursue all critical R&D projects to secure their roadmaps.

Paul Boudre, Soitec's CEO, commented: "As anticipated, we recorded a slight decline in sales in the first quarter of our fiscal year 2021 compared to last year. This is due to the Covid-19 health crisis which has impacted the global semiconductor markets demand. This first quarter is expected to be our "bottom" in terms of revenues as we anticipate a continuous sequential increase in sales throughout the rest of this fiscal year with a strong seasonal rebound in the second half-year. We therefore reiterate our "flat" revenue growth guidance for the entire fiscal year 2021.

In this environment, our RF products sales continue to grow thanks to the increase in RF-SOI content led by the deployment of 4G and 5G cellular generations that has more than offset the decline in smartphone volumes.

In the meantime, our "beyond SOI" strategy is confirming our success as demonstrated by the strategic agreement signed with Qualcomm. Based on customers demand, Soitec is increasing capacity of its POI substrates at the 150-mm industrial facility in Bernin."

First quarter FY'21 consolidated sales (unaudited)

Q1'20 Q1'21 Q1'21/Q1'20 (Euros thousands) change reported chg. at const. exch. rates and perimeter1 150/200-mm 59,469 67,392 +13% +13% 300-mm 53,832 41,269 -23% -23% Royalties and other revenues 6,135 4,961 -19% -22% Total revenues 119,435 113,622 -5% -5%

The level of sales recorded in the first quarter of FY'21 reflects a mixed performance with sustained growth achieved in RF-SOI wafers dedicated to radiofrequency applications for smartphones on the one hand, and lower sales of Power-SOI and FD-SOI wafers dedicated to automotive and IoT/consumer end markets due to the weak macroeconomic environment on the other hand. Sales of POI wafers are growing as expected and should continue to increase quarter after quarter.

150/200-mm wafer sales

150/200-mm wafers mostly consist of engineered substrates for radiofrequency and power applications. In the first quarter of FY'21, 150/200-mm wafer sales rose by 13% at constant exchange rates, compared with the first quarter of FY'20. This growth essentially results from a more favorable product mix with a solid rebound in RF-SOI 200-mm wafer sales, which continue to be supported by greater RF-SOI content for radiofrequency applications, and a decrease in Power-SOI wafer sales essentially due to the decline of the automotive market in the context of the Covid-19.

The ramp-up in the production of 150-mm POI (Piezoelectric-on-Insulator) wafers for RF filters has continued at Bernin 3 and further incremental revenue was recognized in the first quarter of FY'21.

300-mm wafer sales

In the first quarter of FY'21, 300-mm wafer sales declined by 23% at constant exchange rates, compared with the first quarter of FY'20. RF-SOI 300-mm wafer sales were stable and continue to be supported by the still growing 4G market as well as the deployment of first generations of 5G networks and smartphones.

While design and tape-out activities of chips to be built on FD-SOI substrates continue to be very strong, confirming the unique positioning of FD-SOI in some market segments like 5G, Edge-Computing, Automotive, sales of FD-SOI wafers were impacted by the difficult environment and came significantly lower than in the first quarter of FY'20.

Sales of other 300mm products (Imager-SOI for 3D applications for smartphones and Photonics-SOI wafers for data centers) remained stable.

Royalties and other revenue

Total Royalties and other revenues reached 5.0 million Euros in the first quarter of FY'21 compared to 6.1 million Euros in the first quarter of FY'20 (down 22% at constant exchange rates and perimeter).

Key events of the quarter

Soitec provided an updated presentation of its engineered substrates portfolio for the automotive market

On May 9th, 2020, Soitec has made a presentation dedicated to the expansion of its portfolio of engineered substrates aimed at supporting the adoption of automotive megatrends as new vehicles are increasingly connected, autonomous, shared and electric.

The presentation referred to is available from the investors section of Soitec's website:https://www.soitec.com/en/investors/investors-material.

Soitec ranks amongst French top companies for the number of patents filed

On June 26th, 2020, the French institute for industrial property (Institut National de la Propriete Industrielle - INPI) published its 2019 annual ranking based on the numbers of patents filed. With 35 patents filed in 2019, Soitec ranks 39th, up from 46th in 2018, in the global table and ranks 2nd amongst medium-sized companies.

Post-closing events

Mobi-SiC Project

On July 3rd, 2020, the French government announced that the collaborative innovation project Mobi-SiC led by Soitec, Valeo and CEA-Leti has been selected as part of the effort to support innovation for automotive and green mobility.

This confirms the strategic interest for Soitec SiC engineered substrate to improve the efficiency of electrical vehicles in a competitive manner. It will support Soitec to accelerate the development of a pilot line at CEA-Leti in Grenoble. Valeo-Siemens eAutomotive will integrate Soitec's engineered SiC in a prototype of bidirectional on-board charger.

POI substrates business agreement with Qualcomm Technologies for 4G/ 5G RF filters

After multiple years of collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Soitec announced on July 7th, 2020 the signing of a supply agreement of POI substrates for Qualcomm's new generation of RF filters going to smartphones RF front end modules. Soitec's POI substrate brings strong value proposition to smartphones' 4G/ 5G filters for mass markets.

Outlook

Soitec confirms expecting FY'21 sales to remain stable at constant exchange rates and perimeter1 and Electronics EBITDA2 margin3 to reach around 30%.

Analysts conference call to be held in English tomorrow Thursday the 23th July at 8:00 am CET

To listen this conference call, the audiocast is available live and in replay at the following address: https://channel.royalcast.com/soitec/#!/soitec/20200723_1

Agenda

Soitec's Annual General Meeting will be held in September 2020. The actual date of the Meeting will be announced at a later stage.

Q2'21 sales are due to be published on October 21st, 2020 after market close.

Disclaimer

This document is provided by Soitec (the "Company") for information purposes only.

The Company's business operations and financial position is described in the Company's 2019-2020 Financial Annual Report filed with the French stock market authority (Autorite des marches financiers or the "AMF") on July 7th, 2020 under number 306343208_20200707. The French and English versions of the 2019-2020 Financial Annual Report are available for consultation on the Company's website (www.soitec.com), in the section Company - Investors - Financial Reports - All reports - 2019-2020, at the following link: https://www.soitec.com/en/investors/financial-reports-2019-2020.

Your attention is drawn to the risk factors described in Chapter 2.2 of the Company's 2019-2020 Financial Annual Report.

This document contains summary information and should be read in conjunction with the 2019-2020 Financial Annual Report.

The Company's 2019-2020 Universal Registration Document is due to be filed with the AMF and subsequently released early September 2020.

This document contains certain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements relate to the Company's future prospects, developments and strategy and are based on analyses of earnings forecasts and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and are dependent on circumstances that may or may not materialize in the future. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of the Company's future performance.

The Company's actual financial position, results and cash flows, as well as the trends in the sector in which the Company operates may differ materially from those contained in this document. Furthermore, even if the Company's financial position, results, cash-flows and the developments in the sector in which the Company operates were to conform to the forward-looking statements contained in this document, such elements cannot be construed as a reliable indication of the Company's future results or developments.

The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or make any correction to any forward-looking statement in order to reflect an event or circumstance that may occur after the date of this document. In addition, the occurrence of any of the risks described in Chapter 2.2 of the Financial Report may have an impact on these forward-looking statements.

This document does not constitute or form part of an offer or a solicitation to purchase, subscribe for, or sell the Company's securities in any country whatsoever. This document, or any part thereof, shall not form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract, commitment or investment decision.

Notably, this document does not constitute an offer or solicitation to purchase, subscribe for or to sell securities in the United States. Securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from the registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). The Company's shares have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act. Neither the Company nor any other person intends to conduct a public offering of the Company's securities in the United States.

About Soitec

Soitec (Euronext, Tech 40 Paris) is a world leader in designing and manufacturing innovative semiconductor materials. The company uses its unique technologies and semiconductor expertise to serve the electronics markets. With more than 3,500 patents worldwide, Soitec's strategy is based on disruptive innovation to answer its customers' needs for high performance, energy efficiency and cost competitiveness. Soitec has manufacturing facilities, R&D centers and offices in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.

Soitec and Smart Cut are registered trademarks of Soitec.

For more information, please visit www.soitec.comand follow us on Twitter: @Soitec_EN

Investor Relations:



Steve Babureck

+33 6 16 38 56 27

+65 9231 9735

steve.babureck@soitec.com (mailto:steve.babureck@soitec.com)











Financial media contacts:







Isabelle Laurent

+33 1 53 32 61 51 isabelle.laurent@oprgfinancial.fr (mailto:isabelle.laurent@oprgfinancial.fr)







Fabrice Baron

+33 1 53 32 61 27

fabrice.baron@oprgfinancial.fr (mailto:fabrice.baron@oprgfinancial.fr)











Business media contact:







Marie Cabrieres

+33 6 26 70 12 78 marie.cabrieres@soitec.com









# # #

Soitec is a French joint-stock corporation with a Board of Directors (Societe Anonyme a Conseil d'administration) with a share capital of  66,557,802.00, having its registered office located at Parc Technologique des Fontaines - Chemin des Franques - 38190 Bernin (France), and registered with the Grenoble Trade and Companies Register under number 384 711 909.





# # #





Appendix

Consolidated sales (Q1'21 unaudited)

Quarterly sales Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 (Euros thousands) '19 '20 '19 '20 '19 '20 '19 '20 '20 '21 150/200-mm 50,889 59,469 51,150 61,957 58,747 61,885 60,206 91,623 59,469 67,392 300-mm 39,335 53,832 41,261 71,504 52,775 65,133 72,300 103,895 53,832 41,269 Royalties and other revenues 1,714 6,135 2,547 5,555 5,246 8,264 7,776 8,299 6,135 4,961 Total revenues 91,938 119,435 94,957 139,015 116,768 135,282 140,282 203,817 119,435 113,622





Quarterly sales Q1'20 Q2'20 Q3'20 Q4'20 Q1'21 (vs. previous year) change reported chg. at const. exch. rates and perimeter1 change reported chg. at const. exch. rates and perimeter1 change reported chg. at const. exch. rates and perimeter1 change reported chg. at const. exch. rates and perimeter1 change reported chg. at const. exch. rates and perimeter1 150/200-mm +16.9% +12.5% +21.1% +17.3% +5.3% +1.7% +52.2% +47.0% +13.3% +13.1% 300-mm +36.9% +31.7% +73.3% +67.9% +23.4% +19.1% +43.7% +38.8% -23.3% -23.5% Royalties and other revenues +257.9% -17.0% +118.1% +45.5% +57.5% +40.6% +6.7% -1.4% -19.1% -22.1% Total revenues +29.9% +20.2% +46.4% +40.0% +15.9% +11.3% +45.3% +40.1% -4.9% -5.2%

1 At constant exchange rates and comparable scope of consolidation:

in Q3'19 and Q4'19, scope effects relate to the acquisition of Dolphin Integration assets in August 2018

in Q1'20 and Q2'20, scope effects relate to the acquisitions of Dolphin Integration assets in August 2018 and the acquisition of EpiGaN in May 2019

in Q3'20, Q4'20 and Q1'21, scope effects relate to the acquisition of EpiGaN in May 2019

Both Dolphin Integrations assets and EpiGaN are included in the segment Royalties and other revenues.

# # #









1 At constant exchange rates and comparable scope of consolidation; scope effects relate to the acquisition of EpiGaN nv in May 2019, included in the caption Royalties and other revenues.







2 The EBITDA represents the current operating income (EBIT) before depreciation, amortization, non-monetary items related to share-based payments, and changes in provisions on current assets and provisions for risks and contingencies, excluding income on asset disposals. This alternative indicator of performance is a non-IFRS quantitative measure used to measure the company's ability to generate cash from its operating activities. EBITDA is not defined by an IFRS standard and must not be considered an alternative to any other financial indicator.







3 Electronics EBITDA margin = EBITDA from continuing operations / Sales.











Attachment
Population of tiny Italian village reaches 29 with arrival of Denis.

Residents of Italy's smallest village are celebrating the arrival of Denis - the first baby to be born there in eight years, reports Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The population of Morterone, a remote village 50 km northeast of Milan, rose to 29 following the birth of Denis on 19 July.

The baby's parents, Sara and Matteo, announced his arrival by placing a traditional blue fiocco or ribbon on the door of their home.

There are no other pregnancies in sight, at least as far as I know but certainly a newborn is always a joy for all of us", Morterone's mayor Antonella Invernizzi told Corriere della Sera.

The happy news comes the week after Italy recorded its lowest birth rate since records began in 1861, registering 420,170 babies in 2019, a drop of more than 19,000 from the year before.
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of National Australia Bank Limited

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

Sydney, July 22, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of National Australia Bank Limited and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. The review did not involve a rating committee. Since 1 January 2019, Moody's practice has been to issue a press release following each periodic review to announce its completion.

"IMPORTANT NOTICE: MOODY'S RATINGS AND PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY RETAIL INVESTORS. SUCH USE WOULD BE RECKLESS AND INAPPROPRIATE. SEE FULL DISCLAIMERS BELOW."

This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future. Credit ratings and outlook/review status cannot be changed in a portfolio review and hence are not impacted by this announcement. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Key rating considerations are summarized below.

The Aa3 senior unsecured debt and deposit ratings of National Australia Bank Limited (NAB) reflect its strong asset quality, high levels of capital and good liquidity. The Aa3 rating incorporates two notches of uplift from NAB's standalone financial strength of a2, in recognition of the bank's systemic importance and the traditionally supportive approach of Australia's bank supervisors.

Story continues

The economic downturn caused by the coronavirus outbreak has weakened the asset quality outlook and has led to a surge in credit provisions, weighing heavily on profit. The bolstering of loan loss reserves significantly strengthens the bank's loss absorbing buffers against the potential for much higher credit losses. Earnings pressure is likely to remain in fiscal year 2020 as the recent cut to the official cash rate, along with lower credit growth, will put negative pressure on net interest margins. Despite these earnings challenges, NAB's balance sheet buffers remain strong, specifically the bank's capital position, reflected by its high Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 10.4% as at 31 March 2020, which is expected to increase following the bank's AUD4.25 billion equity capital raise.

This document summarizes Moody's view as of the publication date and will not be updated until the next periodic review announcement, which will incorporate material changes in credit circumstances (if any) during the intervening period.

The principal methodology used for this review was Banks Methodology published in November 2019. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.

This announcement applies only to EU rated and EU endorsed ratings. Non EU rated and non EU endorsed ratings may be referenced above to the extent necessary, if they are part of the same analytical unit.

This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for the most updated credit rating action information and rating history.

Francesco Mirenzi VP - Senior Credit Officer Financial Institutions Group Moody's Investors Service Pty. Ltd. Level 10 1 O'Connell Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia JOURNALISTS: 61 2 9270 8141 Client Service: 852 3551 3077 Patrick Winsbury Associate Managing Director Financial Institutions Group JOURNALISTS: 61 2 9270 8141 Client Service: 852 3551 3077 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service Pty. Ltd. Level 10 1 O'Connell Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia JOURNALISTS: 61 2 9270 8141 Client Service: 852 3551 3077

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Albany, N.Y.  State lawmakers from Western New York want to pass a law that could guarantee cops live in Buffalo for their entire career.

A bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes and state Sen. Tim Kennedy would let the Buffalo Common Council established a law requiring all new cops to live in the city. The bill was introduced earlier this month in both chambers.

If successful, it could provide a road map for similar legislation in Syracuse. Lawmakers here generally agree cops should live in the city, but dont have the authority to require it. Syracuse officials have taken a similar approach to other thorny topics, asking state lawmakers to relax state laws surrounding police policy.

Until last year, newly hired Buffalo police officers were required to live in the city for their first seven years of duty, per a clause in the citys contract with the police union. But that contract expired last June, according to a report from The Buffalo News. New cops are no longer required to live in the city.

The new law would not impact officers already on the force, but apply only to new officers.

In Syracuse, advocates and lawmakers have said for years that police officers should live in the city they serve.

The residency issue has earned heightened attention in Syracuse recently. Protesters told the mayor and police chief residency should be a top priority.

During his successful campaign for mayor in 2017, Ben Walsh said he supported residency for cops and would work to make it happen.

But achieving that has been difficult. State law exempts police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers from having to live in the city where they work.

Walsh negotiated a deal with the police union last year that would have required new cops to live in the city for five years. The Common Council rejected it, though, saying he gave away too much in return. The deal guaranteed officers big bonuses and incentives for longevity and professional qualifications.

A video featuring New York Civil Liberties Union Director Yusuf Abdul-Qadir talking about residency went viral recently, with more than 10 million views on Twitter alone.

In it, Abdul-Qadir says that allowing police to live outside the city means that city taxpayers are subsidizing the suburbs and, in effect, de-funding the city schools.

They take their money, on (Interstate) 81, go to outside the city, pay taxes in those communities that have some of the best schools, where we have an underfunded school district, Abdul-Qadir said. We are funding for other peoples communities to have the promise of the American dream while we are denying it in our community ... We are actually funding the suburbs.

Nearly half of the departments officers made more than $100,000 last year, between regular salary and overtime wages. The median income in the city of Syracuse is just more than $31,000.

The police union president has said a residency requirement would make it even harder to recruit new officers. Hes also questioned why cops should be forced to live in the city when Syracuse teachers are not.

The city school district employs more than 4,000 people, including nearly 2,200 teachers. The police department has around 430 officers.

No specific residency plan for Syracuse has been proposed at the state level. But city officials have asked state lawmakers to help out on other issues over which they have little control.

State Sen. Rachel May and Assemblyman William Magnarelli proposed a bill that would let Syracuse pass a law giving ultimate disciplinary authority over cops to the mayor. Disciplinary disputes are currently regulated by the citys contract with the union  something the city is fighting in court.
Students in Longford have expressed their dismay that Leaving Cert results will not be released in the coming weeks, as was previously planned.

News emerged in the Dail on Thursday evening that Leaving Cert results are set to be delayed until September 7, instead of next month.

Students had expected to receive their results not much later than the traditional mid-August date.

The delay has been attributed to the new Calculated Grades grading process introduced, as it wasnt possible to operate the examinations safely in July/August 2020 as planned.

Students locally and nationally have expressed their disappointment at the delay, which will see CAO offers delayed also, as well as students start date for college or university.

Longford student and Vice President of the Irish Second Level Students Union (ISSU) told the Longford Leader that the delay is incredibly disappointing.

It is regrettable that we found out about the news through a media leak rather than any official communication from the Minister or the Department, and that there appeared to be a lack of engagement with student representatives from the ISSU beforehand, he explained.

This delay presents a number of problems for students. For example, students will now have to wait until September to find out where, or even if, theyll be going to college.

This makes it incredibly difficult to make solid plans for the transition to college, including securing and finding accommodation.

It also raises questions and concerns for students who plan to go to college outside of Ireland and the UK, for example to The Netherlands, many of whom needed to have their results submitted before the end of August to secure their place in college.

CAO offers will be made on September 11 and the start date for students is up to each individual college or university.

Students deserve answers and clarity around these issues as soon as possible, and the ISSU will be continuing to work with the Department, and all stakeholders constructively to bring about fair solutions for students, said Luke.

Notably, the delay is largely due to the national standardisation process, an important process which involves statistical analysis and reviewing results from previous years to bring this years results into the line with Leaving Cert results from previous years, which means the Class of 2020 will have Leaving Cert results which stand up to scrutiny.
The team at Harper's BAZAAR Australia had only just started working on plans to relaunch the iconic fashion magazine with a bumper October issue featuring its annual list of Visionary Women.

There had even been discussions about Nicole Kidman  who returned to Australia on the weekend and is currently in quarantine  posing for the magazine's cover.

Cover girl no more: Nicole Kidman had been in talks about posing for the cover of Harper's BAZAAR Australia's October issue. Credit:Getty Images

Trickling back to their Park Street offices, editor-in-chief Eugenie Kelly and her team had good reason to think the magazine, which sits alongside Vogue Australia at the top of the fashion publishing tree, had a rosy future in Australia.

So, when the Harper's team was told to log-in to a Tuesday morning Zoom meeting, many looked forward to it, thinking it was to discuss their plans for the October issue.
Robin DiAngelo, whose white fragility theory has become one of the most influential ideas about racism in America, is on a mission to reeducate you and your children. She wants everyone to talk about race -- teachers, students, parents, children -- everyone. And when she says talk about race, what she means is for people to willfully accept the toxic tenets of modern antiracist ideology, which teaches that America is an inherently racist society steeped in white supremacy culture, a country that is illegitimate because it was founded on slavery and murder.

Talking about race also means dividing entire groups of people into dualistic camps such as white oppressors/non-white oppressed, and stereotyping entire races of people as privileged or targeted, as being anti-black or suffering from internalized dominance. Those who identify as white are taught to confront their whiteness, because according to antiracist dogma, whiteness is inherently racist, oppressive, and provides unearned privileges to whites at the expense of people of color.

Get ready, America. DiAngelos Marxist lectures are coming to a school near you.

As she writes in her seminal paper on white fragility, Whiteness Studies begin with the premise that racism and white privilege exist in both traditional and modern forms, and rather than work to prove its existence, work to reveal it, making it clear shes more interested in forwarding her narrative about the oppressive nature of whiteness than in using the scientific method to prove it. In her Authors Note to her bestselling book White Fragility: Why Its So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (currently #2 on Amazon as I write this), DiAngelo admits that its unapologetically rooted in identity politics, and that we as Americans have yet to achieve our founding principle, but any gains we have made thus far have come from identity politics.

DiAngelos work has taken root across America -- influencing curriculum on college campuses and K-12 school districts and informing anti-bias trainings in businesses and law enforcement agencies; her work has even been adopted by a number of religious organizations. Shes done for whiteness studies and modern antiracism what Jimmy Hoffa did for the Teamsters, helping to fundamentally redefine concepts such as racism, white supremacy, individualism, and colorblindness. And for DiAngelo, its more than a vocation; its a lifestyle. Shes taken up the mission of antiracist work with a fervor and zeal that makes her questionable conclusions and untested theories appear infallible and beyond criticism.

Dubbed by the New Yorker as the countrys most visible expert in anti-bias training, shes been leading diversity seminars since the nineties. DiAngelo has multiple publications and books, including White Fragility, which has been on the New York Times best seller list for two years, and has enabled her to charge as much as $12,000 a day in speaking fees.

In 21st-century America, the antiracism movement is in full bloom. So much so that liberal whites, many of whom come from affluent all-white communities, have quickly gotten on board the antiracism train. Scores of whites are now getting woke and are all too eager to check their privilege -- a phenomenon marked by the evolution of white cultural literacy, and of the fact that a young person can now focus their work in whiteness studies while pursuing degrees in ethnic and cultural studies, as well as in fields like education, psychology, and sociology.

Non-woke whites, on the other hand, have a limited interest in fixating on race. And on the rare occasion that they do participate in an anti-bias workshop -- perhaps they were mandated to attend a diversity training because they committed a microaggression at work, or said or did something that a person of color insisted was evidence of an unconscious bias -- chances are they will be told they suffer from white fragility, a condition where whites supposedly become extremely fragile when they are faced with talking about race. According to DiAngelo, whites consider a challenge to their worldviews on race a challenge to their worth as a person. As she explains in her book, White Fragility:

The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable -- the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defense responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdraw from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy.

As Ben Shapiro pointed out in his piece, 7 Reasons Why White Fragility is the Worst Book Ever, the entire concept is a Kafkaesque trap and is unfalsifiable; even John McWhorter, an African American associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, called the book dehumanizing and deeply condescending to all proud Black people.

So what can be done to combat DiAngelos toxic message? To stop her divisive, anti-American narrative that is polarizing our society and corrupting our youth?

Its time to expose white fragility for what it is -- Marxist propaganda aimed at cultural revolution. To do so we must first educate ourselves on the basic tenets of white fragility, so we can challenge the narrative at the root. As a longtime Philadelphia public schoolteacher and certified school counselor -- with an M.Ed. in Multicultural education -- Ive launched a YouTube channel titled Inside White Fragility, which offers videos that debunk DiAngelos propaganda head on, and call out her intolerant and quite fascistic nonsense. Click here to subscribe.

In addition, Ive launched a companion website of the same name, which provides helpful information on white fragility and the more radical components of modern antiracism, and is a toolkit for thoughtful resistance to these schools of thought (the recommended reading list is particularly useful). Click here to subscribe.

For those interested in challenging the Lefts Marxist cultural revolution, this is the perfect place to start. Please subscribe to these resources and help get out the word; its one thing to fight for equality and racial justice, and quite another to be indoctrinated with polarizing identity politics. And for those who have sons and daughters in Americas K-12 schools, I urge you to get active and take advantage of these tools. Its only a matter of time before DiAngelo and her anti-American reeducation program pop up in your own backyard.

Christopher Paslay is a Philadelphia public schoolteacher, writer, and coach. Follow him on Twitter @cspaslay.
The new website ( https://CollegeCentral.com/miccjobs ) makes it both FREE and easy for every employerlarge, small, public or privateto register just once and then post an unlimited number of jobs to Michigan's community college students and alumni! This extraordinarily useful resource for employers simplifies hiring in today's climate, even with temporarily closed or restricted campuses, and students learning from home.

Today, posted jobs can simultaneously reach tens of thousands of job seekers from Delta College, Jackson College, Kellogg Community College, Lake Michigan College, Monroe County Community College, Mott Community College, Oakland Community College, Schoolcraft College, and Wayne County Community College District.

According to Joy Miller, CCN's Career Services Central National Sales Manager, "Employers need to quickly target timely job postings in response to ever-changing COVID-19 conditions. The Consortium is launching at this time when employers are looking to hire college students and alumni who are willing and able to jump in to meet their state's, regions', or locally specific hiring environment, now. It is important to note that Michigan's community colleges are ideally positioned to help their state's economy rebound fast, and to quickly fill the state's hiring needs in this era of rapid economic and technological change."

"Many employers post jobs at the closest community colleges," Miller added. "But, now, with the Consortium, employers can easily extend their reach. Posting just once, they can go statewide or target a specific combination of regional Michigan community colleges."

CCN's Career Services Central is the exclusive online career office management platform for career centers at all schools participating in the Consortium. Miller sums it up: "Community colleges can have a great impact on the state's economy. As many barriers as possible have been removed, simplifying the process so employers to easily recruit the state's home-grown entry-level talent. The Michigan Community Colleges Jobs Consortium website does exactly that, particularly in light of the added current complications of closed campuses and remote learning."

"Our state's community colleges provide great value and contribute directly to Michigan's economic growth," stated Donna DuHame-Schmidt, Director of Career Services & Cooperative Education, Oakland Community College.

JoAnne Stadnicar, Student Employment Specialist, Schoolcraft College added, "Our Consortium's combined undergraduate reach is massive, providing our state's employers with a diverse mix of students, highly skilled and motivated to jump right into our workforce!"

"Our college recently switched from a four-year, university-centric career platform to CSC. We expect that joining the Consortium will boost our employer registrations and offer more job opportunities that are better geared to our students and alumni," stated Jason Premo, Director of Admissions and Career Development, Delta College. Premo added, "We're excited to expand our employer reach statewide and to make employers more aware of the talented students and adults who have acquired new skills that Delta College is training."

Barry Kinsey, Director of Workforce Development at Monroe County Community College explains, "Michigan's taxpayers have invested in our community college system. And the result is a clear path for our state's employers to see a return on that investment. The Consortium provides our state's employers with direct access to our combined colleges' new and eager job talent."

"Recruiters like the ease of posting just once to reach all Michigan Consortium members' community college talent. Our graduates have the skills, and they are ready and willing to move directly into our local workforce now. Our colleges train our state's students to meet Michigan's specific needs, and our graduates are who today's employers are looking to hire," stated Rennard Martin, District Director, Adult Education, Wayne County Community College District. "It's a perfect fit!"

Patrick Casey, Director, Career and Employment Services at Kellogg Community College shared his thoughts: "I can't emphasize enough how much time and effort is saved by signing up just once and being able to post unlimited opportunities statewide."

As Heather Marshall, Work-Based Learning & Career Services Coordinator at Jackson College adds, "I'm happy to say, the new Michigan Community Colleges Jobs Consortium gives employers a no-cost option and direct path and to our combined community colleges' career centers and talent!"

According to Aron Gerics, Employment Services Coordinator, Mott Community College, "Collectively, our responsibility is to prepare our students to join the workforce or start a career. This Consortium has proved to be the best launchpad for Michigan's employers to find their next hires!"

"Employers who post to the Consortium are specifically looking to hire students and alumni who wish to work in Michigan," said Ken Flowers, Ph.D., Dean, Career & Workforce Education at Lake Michigan College. "It is important to note that our community college graduates almost always accept job offers in the state. That makes this a workforce win-win."

Statistics show that approximately 180,000 students attend Michigan community colleges.*

* "Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System," National Center for Education Statistics, accessed July 1, 2020, https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data.

About College Central Network

Founded in 1997, College Central Network (CCN) has over 23 years of experience connecting employers with qualified emerging talent candidates. More than one million employers have already registered to utilize the Network to post jobs and recruit students and alumni for entry-level jobs.

CollegeCentral.com is absolutely free for any student enrolled at a U.S. college, alumnus/a of a U.S. college, community resident taking classes at a U.S. college, or student attending one of our partner high schools. To learn more, visit: CollegeCentral.com.

About Career Services Central

Career Services Central (CSC) is CCN's intuitive and affordable career office management platform that works on any device and is trusted by hundreds of institutions and organizations across the U.S.

Thousands of career professionals use CSC daily to manage the entire career process for students, alumni, and community residents attending CSC-powered institutions, including appointments, career advice and job searching, resumes, career portfolios, experiential learning, on-campus recruiting, career events, and job fairs. To learn more, visit: CareerServicesCentral.com.

CONTACT:

Barbara Anderson

800-442-3614

[email protected]

SOURCE College Central Network

Related Links

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In a series of video interviews from a gently rocking small boat docked in Vancouver, British Columbia, that has been his office during the pandemic, Bray straightforwardly presented his ideas as a matter of logic. "I am not in some radical fringe because I think the wealth and power in the 21st century is overly concentrated," he said. "The tech industry is a leading candidate for what could be broken up." Loading Last year, when he saw that thousands of corporate Amazon employees had signed a letter urging Amazon to address the climate crisis more forcefully, he added his name. He was the most senior person to join. His involvement thrilled organisers. "To have a VP just confirmed how strongly Amazon employees felt about Amazon taking significant leadership on climate," said Emily Cunningham, an Amazon designer at the time who helped organise the letter.

His public dissent angered some leaders at Amazon, Bray said. He said he had been told to remember the Amazon leadership principle known as "disagree and commit," the idea that people should vigorously debate internally but that once a formal decision on an issue is made, everyone should fall in line and support it. "As a VP, you're not supposed to go off the rails with conflicting messaging, which is not an unreasonable position," Bray said. But that idea would eventually lead to his resignation. In April, Amazon fired Cunningham and several other workers who had raised concerns about safety in Amazon's warehouses. The company said each employee had repeatedly violated various policies. To Bray, it looked "like an explicit policy of firing anybody who put up their hand." "We support every employee's right to criticise their employer's working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies," Jaci Anderson, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. For Bray, the firings crossed a line. He said he had raised concerns internally but could not "disagree and commit" as Amazon wanted. He stayed for a few weeks to wrap up a project and resigned, leaving $US1 million ($1.4 million) in compensation behind.

He turned to his blog to explain the resignation publicly. Bray stayed up until 2 am, preparing his server to withstand greater-than-usual traffic, should Reddit and Hacker News pick up his post as he hoped. The plan worked even better than he had expected. On Monday, Jeff Bezos, the company's chief executive, will testify for the first time before Congress, which is investigating the power of Amazon and other tech titans. Credit:AP "I was aiming at a soft target, it turned out," he said. 'A deep societal problem' In the days that followed, Bray's critique resonated in Washington, DC. He spoke with Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat whose district includes Amazon's headquarters in Seattle. And a group of senators mentioned his resignation blog post when they wrote to Bezos about the firings.

He initially tried to keep a low profile, responding only by email to press requests. But he kept blogging and eventually talked publicly, making even more aggressive criticisms of the company. On a live video in early June with National Observer, a Canadian investigative news site, Bray said Amazon was a symptom of concentrated capitalism. "We don't really have an Amazon problem," he said. "What we have is a deep societal problem with an unacceptable imbalance of power and wealth. "It's not obvious to me why the retail company, the manufacturing company, the voice recognition company, the cloud computing company and the Prime video company should be the same company," he said at the event. "They're not particularly related to each other, and I think it's actively distorting and harmful." A week later, Bray spoke at a virtual conference convened by global unions critical of Amazon. He said that unions should be easier to form in the United States and that "one of the most powerful political programs we could run with the aim of correcting the power imbalances that concern us is anti-monopoly." He also said the sheer size of Amazon and other large corporations gives them inordinate power over politics, policies and labour conditions. The "goodness" Amazon espouses for customers  low prices, endless selection, quick delivery "isn't free," he said. "Right now, the downside of all this goodness is overwhelmingly being experienced by the warehouse workers."

Amazon has strongly defended its labour conditions, saying that it has spent billions of dollars to make its warehouses safe and that its workers are paid at least $US15 an hour, plus benefits. Bray soon turned to formulating a business case for breaking up the company. He wrote it in a standard Amazon format, known as a PRFAQ, envisioning how the company would announce the proposal once it was fully enacted. With antitrust pressures growing, Amazon might prefer to "proactively" spin off its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, he wrote, "as opposed to under hostile pressure from Washington." Loading He posted the document on GitHub, a coding collaboration tool, asking for help improving the pitch. By spinning AWS off, he argued, companies like Walmart that compete with Amazon would be more comfortable using the cloud computing service, opening up more potential customers. "Organisations who compete with Amazon want to take advantage of AWS's industry-leading offerings without having to worry that they are strengthening a competitor," he wrote.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 03:55:36|Editor: huaxia

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TRIPOLI, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday that 131 illegal immigrants have been rescued off Libya's western coast.

"Some 131 migrants were returned to Libya this morning by the coast guard. Among them were 13 minors," IOM tweeted.

"IOM teams were at the disembarkation point in Tripoli to provide emergency assistance to the migrants," IOM said.

Because of the state of insecurity and chaos Libya has been suffering since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, the North African country has become a preferred point of departure for thousands of illegal immigrants who want to cross the Mediterranean Sea toward Europe.

According to the IOM, more than 6,100 illegal immigrants have been rescued off the Libyan coast and returned to Libya so far in 2020, while last year saw 9,225.

Immigrant shelters in Libya are overcrowded with migrants despite repeated international calls to close them. Enditem
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Britons soaking up the sun in Spain may be forced to quarantine when they land back home as the popular holiday destination sees a sharp spike in coronavirus cases.

Spain is on the list of 59 quarantine-exempt countries that Britons can travel to without needing to isolate for 14 days when they get back home.

But just this weekend 4,581 further cases were reported in the country - bringing its total to 264,836. More than 28,000 people have died.

Whitehall sources told The Sun that Spain's recent outbreaks are being watched and the country - or specific regions within it - could be thrown off the list all together if a decision is made this week.

CEO of travel consultancy The PC Agency Paul Charles said: 'It makes sense that if cases continue to rise in Spain, it should fall off the list.

Britons soaking up the sun in Spain may be forced to quarantine when they land back home as the popular holiday destination sees a sharp spike in coronavirus cases

'This is the equivalent of implementing a local lockdown, internationally, but the problem is we are heading into peak holiday season.'

A 'rolling system' for determining the safety of 25 of the 59 countries on the list is set to be introduced whereby information on each destination will be updated frequently - as opposed to reviewed every three weeks.

Only 25 of the 59 allow travel without any restrictions when travellers arrive there.

Tourists walk along the beach without wearing face masks amid coronavirus crisis this week

Barcelona City Council information staff is seen informing some tourists that the access to the beach is closed due to excess capacity

A Spanish Guardia Civil officer watches over revellers in Magaluf as the country tries to balance reopening beachfront bars with protecting against a deadly second wave of cases

Tourists on a night out in Magaluf, Spain, last week. The country faces being taken off the safe list of nations with low coronavirus infection rates after a new spike in cases

To add to the confusion for holidaymakers, the Foreign Office has published its own list of 67 countries where advice against 'all but essential travel' no longer applies. This list already has a rolling system.

Yesterday, a British tourist caused a coronavirus scare in Lanzarote after she tested positive for COVID-19 and is now in quarantine after arriving from the UK for a holiday on the popular Canary island.

Nine other people with whom she had contact with also had to undergo a coronavirus test but all proved negative.

Health authorities on Lanzarote have been testing tourists showing symptoms for Covid-19 and their close contacts. A British woman has tested positive after her husband became symptomatic - although he tested negative for coronavirus

Passengers arriving in Lanzarote have to wear face masks while making their way through the airport. Anyone showing Covid symptoms is tested and risk being placed into quarantine

The Briton is the first holidaymaker from the UK to test positive in Lanzarote since Spain opened its borders on June 21st.

It was actually the woman's husband who felt unwell on arrival at their hotel and had a fever. However, two tests for coronavirus proved negative.

The woman was routinely tested and despite having no symptoms of ill-health whatsoever was the one who was confirmed to have COVID-19.

The island's health department said the coronavirus protocols had been activated at reception on the couple's arrival so they had minimum contact with other people. A specialist team immediately went into action to trace all contacts, including staff.

The health department hasn't specified where the woman is in quarantine or if her husband is with her or if the nine others also have to self-isolate.

Lanzarote currently has eleven active cases of coronavirus: the British tourist, a resident who came from Mexico and went to the Jose Molina Orosa Hospital Emergency Department with symptoms and nine illegal immigrants who tried to smuggle themselves into the island in a tiny boat.

Leaders of the Canaries say other illegal migrants have tested positive and this is giving a wrong impression of the level of coronavirus on the islands which have had a relatively low incidence of infections and deaths.

Last Friday, a boat containing 61 immigrants arrived on the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura and 47 proved positive.

Health chiefs say there is no threat to people's health and the situation is properly under control.

UK records 110 coronavirus victims as daily death toll continues to fall and figures show three times more people are now dying of flu and pneumonia  but cases have risen for the fifth day in a row for the first time since April

by CONNOR BOYD, Health Reporter, for MailOnline

Britain yesterday announced 110 more coronavirus deaths as the number of victims continues to tumble  but cases are still rising amid fears the UK's outbreak could be growing again.

Department of Health data suggests 65 Brits are now succumbing to the life-threatening infection each day, down 20 per cent in a week.

For comparison, just 11 deaths were recorded across the UK yesterday  but counts on Mondays are always lower because of a recording lag at weekends. During the peak of the crisis in April, more than 1,000 people were dying from Covid-19 every day.

Health bosses say the official death toll  which only includes laboratory-confirmed victims and not suspected fatalities  now stands at 45,422.

But separate government statistics revealed cases are still on the rise, with 445 more infections confirmed today amid fears 'Super Saturday' would trigger a resurgence of the virus.

It means the rolling seven-day average of daily infections is now 635  and has risen every day since Thursday after dropping to a four-month low of 548 on July 8. The last time the average had jumped for at least five days in a row was on April 11, when the outbreak first began to slow down before cases plummeted at the end of May and in June.

Other promising data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today revealed the number of people dying of Covid-19 is now the lowest since two weeks before lockdown and nearly three times as many people are being killed by flu and pneumonia. Just 283 people died from the coronavirus in England and Wales in the week ending July 10  down from 418 in the previous seven-day spell.

It is the lowest figure since the week ending March 13, 10 days before Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the draconian measures to curb the spread of the virus. For comparison, 917 influenza and pneumonia deaths were registered in the same week. The number of Covid-19 deaths registered  a different measure to occurrences  in the same time-frame was 366.

In other coronavirus developments:

Government borrowing rocketed to a record high of almost 36 billion in June this year as ministers scrambled to find the cash to pay for the coronavirus crisis;

Audiences could have to walk through metal detector-style arches to be sprayed with disinfectant mist as they enter theatres and gigs under a raft of new Covid measures to reopen the entertainment industry;

Professor Chris Whitty denied the UK was too slow in adopting a lockdown  just moments after fellow adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar told MPs the restrictions came 'too late';

The NHS avoided testing its staff for coronavirus en masse because it was afraid thousands would have to go off sick and leave swamped hospitals without workers, scientists claimed;

Fears of a second wave of Covid-19 in Britain this winter grew after scientists warned a lull in the outbreak this summer could simply be a reprieve because the disease is milder in the warmer months.

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE REALLY DIED OF THE CORONAVIRUS IN THE UK? Department of Health: 45,312 Department of Health's latest death count for all settings (as of 9am, July 20) stands at 45,312. The daily data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities. It also only takes into account patients who tested positive for the virus, as opposed to deaths suspected to be down to the coronavirus. National statistical bodies: 56,093 Data compiled by the statistical bodies of each of the home nations show 56,093 people died of either confirmed or suspected Covid-19 across the UK by the end of May. The Office for National Statistics yesterday confirmed that 51,096 people in England and Wales died with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 by July 10. The number of coronavirus deaths was 824 by the same day in Northern Ireland, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). National Records Scotland  which collects statistics north of the border  said 4,173 people had died across the country by June 22. Their tallies are always 10 days behind the Department of Health (DH) because they wait until as many fatalities as possible for each date have been counted, to avoid having to revise their statistics. Excess deaths: 65,249 The total number of excess deaths has now passed 65,000. Excess deaths are considered to be an accurate measure of the number of people killed by the pandemic because they include a broader spectrum of victims. As well as including people who may have died with Covid-19 without ever being tested, the data also shows how many more people died because their medical treatment was postponed, for example, or who didn't or couldn't get to hospital when they were seriously ill. Data from England and Wales shows there has been an extra 59,324 deaths between March 15 and June 12, as well as 4,924 in Scotland between March 10 and June 22 and 1,001 in Northern Ireland between March 28 and June 26. Advertisement

Department of Health figures released this afternoon showed 100,000 tests were carried out or posted the day before. The number includes antibody tests for frontline NHS and care workers.

But bosses again refused to say how many people were tested, meaning the exact number of Brits who have been swabbed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been a mystery for a month  since May 22.

Health chiefs also reported 445 more people had tested positive for Covid-19. Government data shows the official size of the UK's outbreak now stands at 295,817 cases.

But the actual size of the outbreak, which began to spiral out of control in March, is estimated to be in the millions, based on antibody testing data.

It means the rolling average of daily cases has risen to 635  6 per cent higher than the mean of 597 recorded last Tuesday.

The daily death data does not represent how many Covid-19 patients died within the last 24 hours  it is only how many fatalities have been reported and registered with the authorities.

The data does not always match updates provided by the home nations. Department of Health officials work off a different time cut-off, meaning daily updates from Scotland as well as Northern Ireland are always out of sync.

And the count announced by NHS England every afternoon  which only takes into account deaths in hospitals  does not match up with the DH figures because they work off a different recording system.

For instance, some deaths announced by NHS England bosses will have already been counted by the Department of Health, which records fatalities 'as soon as they are available'.

Government figures show the rolling seven-day average of daily deaths now stands at 65  an 20 per cent drop on the mean of 81 last Sunday.

NHS England today registered 15 deaths of patients who tested positive for the infection in hospitals across the country. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales announced no new victims.

It comes as the most recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), released today, also showed the number of fatalities has fallen in all regions of England and Wales as the virus continues to peter out in the UK.

And deaths of any cause are now the lowest they have been all year, with promising statistics showing the number of fatalities has been below average for the past four weeks in a row.

ONS experts explained that Covid-19 likely sped up the deaths of people who would have died of other causes, meaning the year's fatalities have been front-loaded.

As a result, fewer people are now dying of causes such as heart disease and dementia because they have already succumbed to the coronavirus.

Separate data last week showed that infection levels in the UK have stabilised and scientists suggest the death rate may fall because of warmer weather.

There are concerns, however, that the virus could return and cause more death and disease in the winter when people are more susceptible.

SAGE EXPERTS CLASH OVER LOCKDOWN: PROFESSOR CHRIS WHITTY DENIES UK WAS TOO SLOW - BUT SIR JEREMY FARRAR SAYS RESTRICTIONS CAME TOO LATE The Government's scientific advisers today butted heads about whether the UK was too slow to enforce lockdown. In an uncharacteristically bad-tempered interview, England's chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty claimed there were 'operational difficulties' that made it difficult to shut the country down in a week. During a virtual grilling with MPs, Professor Whitty denied there was no 'huge delay' between ministers being advised to implement the draconian measures and actually following through on the actions. He appeared to contradict his fellow adviser Sir Jeremy Farrar, who told the health select committee moments earlier he 'believed lockdown was enforced too late' and 'should have come earlier', in a sign of a rift between the UK's top experts. It emerged last week that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) had advised the Government to implement lockdown on March 16. But Boris Johnson did not announce the measures until March 23. Professor Whitty was quizzed about whether enforcing the draconian measures a week earlier would have saved tens of thousands of lives, as has been suggested by numerous scientists including Neil Ferguson, nicknamed 'Professor Lockdown' for his grim modelling that swayed ministers into shutting down the UK. The CMO blamed poor pandemic preparations, testing capacity and a lack of PPE for the UK having had the worst outbreak in Europe  with almost 300,000 confirmed cases and over 45,000 deaths. And he launched a staunch defence of the government's actions over the Covid-19 pandemic, saying mass testing had to be abandoned early on in the crisis because health chiefs didn't have enough to capacity to cope with the size of the outbreak. But he accepted ministers and experts failed to recognise 'obvious' risks, such as care home residents being at risk from workers moving between homes and spreading Covid-19. In a thinly-veiled dig during a heated exchange with committee chair Jeremy Hunt, who was health secretary for six years until 2018, Professor Whitty said: 'If we wished to build this capacity up, we could have done it in previous years.' Advertisement

Since the first coronavirus deaths were registered, in the week ending March 13, a total of 50,505 have been counted in the ONS's comparison data up to July 10.

And during the same period, 25,055 people have died with flu or pneumonia mentioned on their death certificate.

For much of the worst days of the outbreak Covid-19 deaths far outstripped those linked to flu or pneumonia. This peaked in the week that ended April 17 when there were 6,827 more coronavirus deaths than those caused by the other lung diseases.

Since then the gap has narrowed gradually and flu and pneumonia became a more common cause of death for the first time since March in the week that ended June 19, when there were 219 fewer Covid-19 deaths than flu/pneumonia deaths.

The two are grouped together to create an even figure for serious respiratory infections - flu season fluctuates wildly but there are other similar bugs that can affect people in similar ways.

Flu and pneumonia deaths have also been lower than average during Britain's epidemic, likely because people who would normally have died of those illnesses caught Covid-19 and succumbed to that instead.

Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, said: 'The last four weeks have seen fewer deaths than the five-year average.

'This week saw 560 fewer deaths than the five-year average, and the last four weeks, 986 fewer deaths have occurred compared to the five-year average.

'This significant trend in reducing deaths compared to the average is likely due to deaths occurring a few months earlier in the frail and the elderly from Covid-19.

Professor Heneghan, an epidemiologist and expert in evidence-based medicine, added: 'It will be essential to observe over these weeks whether this trend continues.'

There were a total of 8,690 deaths registered in England and Wales in the week to July 10, according to the ONS, 560 fewer than the five-year average of 9,250.

This is the fourth week in a row that registered deaths  which relate to when they are recorded as opposed to when they occurred  have been below the five-year average.

The number of deaths in care homes and hospitals in the week to July 10 was also below the five-year average (283 and 901 deaths lower respectively), while the number of deaths in private homes was 706 higher than the five-year average.

Of the deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending July 10, 366 mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate.

This is down from 532 in the previous week, and the lowest number of deaths involving Covid-19 since the week ending March 20 (103 deaths). But actual death occurrences are the lowest since the week ending March 13.

It comes amid fears Britain's coronavirus outbreak may be growing after figures yesterday revealed the average number of daily cases had risen for the fourth day in a row for the first time since April.

Department of Health bosses posted 580 more Covid-19 cases  taking the rolling seven-day mean of infections to 628 after the rate dropped to a four-month low of 546 on July 8.

Government statistics showed the last time the average rose for at least four days in a row was on April 11, when the number of infections began to slow down before plummeting at the end of May and in June.

But it takes patients weeks to die from Covid-19, on average, meaning officials can't rule out a blip in the figures or confirm the outbreak has worsened since 'Super Saturday' for at least another week.

And hospital admissions  another indicator tracking the crisis  have yet to spike despite fears of an inevitable surge prompted by millions of people flocking to pubs to enjoy their freedom on July 4.

Number 10's scientific advisory panel last week admitted the outbreak is shrinking at a slightly slower speed and separate official figures suggested up to 2,000 people were still getting infected each day in England alone.
Titanic Belfast has announced it will reopen on August 1 after a four-month closure likely to have cost the economy tens of millions of pounds.

The venue, which was named world's leading tourist attraction, said it usually helps draw in additional spending for the economy of 60m a year. But its revenue vanished overnight after it was forced to close at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Its closure over more than four months will have cost the economy around 20m in additional spending.

The attraction has now announced new measures and improvements before its reopening.

Measures include advanced booking only, prearranged time slots, reduced capacity, sanitising stations and social distancing throughout.

Chief executive Judith Owens said: "By attracting over 6m local, national and international visitors, we not only became a key economic driver for Northern Ireland but the symbol of it and its spirit.

"Now more than ever, we need to show the spirit and ambition that built RMS Titanic, and be the catalyst for recovery for our city and our industry.

"But to do this, we need local support, and we've enhanced our offering for the home market."

Features include its themed tour with the galleries of Titanic Belfast, and a tour of the SS Nomadic, a ship which ferried passengers to the doomed liner, which sank in 1912.

Ms Owens added: "There are also many developments in the area capitalising on the outdoor space including picnic areas and Titanic Foundation's new Maritime Mile Treasure Trail, which will be launched in August."

The six-floor Titanic Belfast was named the World's Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards in 2016. Economy Minister Diane Dodds said the reopening of Titanic Belfast and other attractions was vital for attracting visitors.

"I would encourage all those enjoying a staycation this year to get out and enjoy all the sights, scenes and tastes Northern Ireland has to offer.

"We must all do what we can to support our local tourist industry if we want to ensure we are able to enjoy all it has to offer in the coming years."

Andrew Webb, chief economist at business advisors Grant Thornton, said attractions such as Titanic Belfast should benefit from the staycation market even if the normal floods of overseas tourists were absent.

He said that on a recent trip to the north coast, he had found that "streets and beaches seemed busier so the staycationers were out in force".

"That might bode well for major attractions reopening.

"While the international travellers are in short supply, there is a domestic market that appears increasingly willing to re-engage in our local tourism offer following lockdown," he said.
Taiwan has rejected the visa permit for two Hong Kong Officials, the citys government revealed on July 21. This comes as Taipei has doubled down on its stance against Chinas national security law and overtly offered help to Hong Kongers.

According to the Hong Kongs Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, the staffers, both from Hong Kong Economic Trade and cultural office, have been sent back home after their permits for residences in Taiwan were rejected. On the other hand, Taiwans Policy Mainland Affairs Council has yet not confirmed visa rejections.

However, it asserted that Taiwan needed to react accordingly in order to defend the nations dignity based on equal and bilateral consideration following unreasonable limitations set by Hong Kong authorities. It is yet not clear if their existing visas were denied or the documents related to a new application were rejected.

Read: 'Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act' To Be Introduced To US Congress This Week

Read: Taiwan Forces Repel Simulated Coastal Assault In Five-day Drill Against Chinese Attack

China-Taiwan relations

Taiwan, which has spoken openly about China's policy considered itself an independent country. However, Beijing has long regarded Taiwan to be a part of China's sovereign territory and has not hidden its ambitions to take back the island. According to reports, Taiwan has existed under the threat of Chinese invasion ever since the island split from the mainland after a civil war in 1949.

With the exponential growth of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army, Taiwan finds itself outgunned. Over the years, China has repeatedly tried to isolate Taiwan from the rest of the world by using its enormous influence to convince other nation-states that Taiwan is a part of China.

Read: AAP MP Sanjay Singh Asks Aviation Min Hardeep Puri To Bring Back Indian Students Stranded In Taiwan

Read: Taiwan Readies For Hong Hong Residents' Influx As 'freedom Haven' After China's Crackdown

Image credits: AP
BARCELONA, Spain, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sentrium has today announced a partnership with Edgecore Networks to provide official support for VyOS on Edgecore hardware, and with EPS Global, a worldwide distributor of open networking solutions. EPS Global will distribute and integrate Sentrium's VyOS feature-rich open-source OS on Edgecore network appliance platforms as part of its hardware and software offering to managed network service providers and enterprise customers.

The goal of such cooperation is to facilitate choosing the hardware for running the VyOS on for customers. Sentrium will provide technical support to VyOS versions created to be launched on the provided specific hardware models. Their compatibility with Edgecore solutions has been thoroughly tested by Sentrium so that it can guarantee an expected highest performance on supported devices.

The Edgecore Network Appliance Platform utilizes standard Intel x86 architecture that provides openness and flexibility to fulfill various use cases in different vertical markets. With the advent of SDN and NFV, the platform supports open-source-based software or 3rd party VNFs that enable Service Providers to deliver and deploy innovative services and applications with agility and scalability. SAF Series devices - SAF51015I and SAF51003I have been tested for compatibility with VyOS. These and other network appliances are available for purchase through selected resellers .

In the emerging 5G networks and edge computing, the platform is an excellent choice for Service Providers to deliver Residential and Enterprise vCPE/uCPE solutions from the communication center.

The platform supports a range of fixed Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports for connectivity along with internal M.2 SSD and HDD storage options, which are all contained within a compact desktop form-factor.

From a simple VPN concentrator to a data-center router and variety tools in between, VyOS on Edgecore hardware offers a comprehensive open networking solution with high performance and advanced support for numerous technologies.

VyOS can be easily deployed on Edgecore hardware from an ISO image prepared by the VyOS team. It is scalable and has many configurable features, which continuously improve with new versions. Merging of VyOS and Edgecore will empower users with multigigabit routing while offering a convenient CLI along with a wide choice of VPN and Firewall technologies for either wired or wireless network management. This combination allows for the creation of powerful open networking appliances utilizing both open hardware and open software.

Yuriy Andamasov, Community and Business Coordinator of VyOS Project said: "Due to our partnership with EdgeCore, we gained profitable opportunities for customers. We developed and tested optimized system versions for Edgecore hardware. Therefore now everyone can build prebuilt images using appropriate makefile targets, while subscribers with support or corp access can download them. This cooperation is not only about thinking of others, hearing others, and finding middle ground. It is an understanding of the benefits. Cooperation means that teams can grow as a result of participation; it is fertile soil for new achievements."

"We are pleased to work with one of the industry pioneers, Sentrium, in supporting the open source router and firewall platform VyOS, which is now supported on Edgecore's network appliance products, the SAF51003I and SAF51015I. This partnership further enables Edgecore's appliance platform to support different deployment options and meet evolving customer requirements," said Lukasz Lukowski, VP, Edgecore EMEA Sales.

"EPS Global has long been an advocate of the open networking model, enabling our customers to leverage network disaggregation, open source software, white box economics, and software-defined standards to significantly reduce CapEx and OpEx," said Colin Lynch, CEO of EPS Global. "Our alignment with Sentrium will prove invaluable to our customers who are rolling out next-gen networking applications at the 5G edge, requiring high performance and security. The combined strengths of Edgecore's pioneering whitebox network appliances together with Sentrium's VyOS open source router and firewall platform should open up huge business opportunities for our customers."

Learn more about VyOS and Edgecore's collaboration and possibilities on the link

About VyOS

VyOS project started in 2013 as a fork of Vyatta Core when the open-source Vyatta version was discontinued. Now VyOS is a fully open-source network OS that provides a wide range of features for any network, from small business to Internet service provider. It runs on commodity x86 hardware from desktop router boards to large servers, as well as virtualized in all popular hypervisors and multiple cloud hosting platforms including VMware, KVM, Xen, Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and more. Its aim is to provide the reliability and user experience of traditional hardware routers, without getting tied to any specified hardware or software vendor. Unified command-line interface and HTTP API for all functions, built-in configuration versioning and archiving, and reversible image upgrades allow network admins to make configuration changes easily.

About Edgecore

Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading network ODM. Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for Data Center, Service Provider, Enterprise, and SMB customers. Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking, providing a full line of open 1G-400G Ethernet OCP Accepted switches, core routers, cell site gateways, virtual PON OLTs, packet transponders, and Wi-Fi access points that offer a choice of commercial and open-source NOS, and SDN software. For more information, visit www.edge-core.com

About EPS Global

EPS Global was established in 1999 and is a leading franchised distributor for specialized IT components and semiconductors used in data networking and storage, virtualization, cloud, and the Internet of Things. EPS Global sits at the center of the open networking ecosystem, bringing together hardware and open NOS software to provide turnkey solutions for any use case, delivering value and expertise to your business. EPS's Engineering team offers advice on the best product set to suit your business needs, offering software configuration and bundling of solutions for hassle-free, consolidated shipments. EPS has local language and currency support in each of its 28 locations, and provides stock availability from its regional distribution hubs worldwide, minimizing lead times. For more information see www.epsglobal.com.

https://sentrium.io, https://vyos.io

SOURCE Sentrium-VyOS
My friend and chair of the history department at Oregons Lewis & Clark College, Maureen Healy, was shot in the head by President Donald Trumps police with a less lethal munition late Monday night. She is doing fine now and at home, but the feds must go. And so must the local police. Long before the feds arrived in Portland, local police assaulted scores of journalists, legal observers and peaceful protesters with tear gas, pepper spray and flash bang grenades, beating some of them with batons.

The story of Portlands progressive Mayor Ted Wheeler resisting Trumps storm troopers brutalization of Black Lives Matter protesters serves Trumps campaign as well as Wheelers efforts to distract from his own police bureaus damning record. In Portland, the mayor is the police commissioner. As the national media focuses on the unconstitutional abductions of protesters from the streets of Portland and the nightly litany of assaults on protesters, the much longer and more persistent history of local police engaging in some of the very same attacks is lost.

In a letter to Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, Wheeler joined with progressive mayors from Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Kansas City to decry the use of significant force against protesters on a nightly basis. Portlands police have been using the same tactics for more than 50 days. Is Wheeler only upset when federal forces are the ones doing the brutalizing? Ultimately, almost all policing is local, and if you want to stop police brutality, you must address police violence in cities led by liberal Democrat mayors.

The apparent showdown between Portlands mayor and Trumps police obscures the fact that local police had already been collaborating with federal police throughout these protests. The mayor has repeatedly insisted that there was no cooperation between local and federal police, and yet hours after one of his public pronouncements, federal officers and Portland police advanced on protesters in a coordinated operation. We also learned from Deputy Chief Chris Davis testimony to state lawmakers that a member of the Federal Protective Services was in the downtown Portland police command post during the demonstrations. Portlands Chief of Police Chuck Lovell also revealed that his officers share real-time plans with the federal police and operate in very, very close proximity. While the mayor is scrambling to distance himself from Trump, it is clear that the federal and local police are standing shoulder-to-shoulder. On Wednesday, City Council voted to cease any cooperation between city law enforcement and federal agents in Portland.

One of the most dramatic examples of federal police brutality, cited by Wheeler and both Oregon senators, was when troops shot Donavan La Bella in the head with less-lethal rubber bullets. Those of us in Portland remember that it was the local police who shot protester Aaron Anthony Cantu in the head with a 40 mm flash bang grenade on Aug. 4, 2014, while he was demonstrating against the right-wing white supremacist Proud Boys. The force of the munition penetrated his bike helmet, which may have caused death had he not been wearing his helmet. The Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw (currently chief of police in Philadelphia) brushed off criticism of these police actions that sent two people to the hospital as kids who whine and complain after losing a schoolyard brawl.

Since the George Floyd protests erupted in Portland, the local police have been using tear gas, pepper spray and flash bang grenades to disperse crowds of peaceful protesters. Shortly after the demonstrations began, the police spent nearly $50,000 on chemical munitions. In response to a lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez issued a restraining order against the police use of tear gas on protesters. Nonetheless, the police continue to use tear gas and other munitions against protesters over the objections of two city council members, a ban on use of tear gas by Gov. Kate Brown, and a recommendation to ban their use by the citys own Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing (on which I sit).

The police have long justified the use of these harsh tactics by pointing to a few individuals who do graffiti, smash windows, light fires and lob water bottles at them. However, it is clear that thousands of peaceful protesters and journalists have been targeted and suffered the consequences.

Its not just protesters who are getting abused by the Portland police. The Department of Justice entered into a settlement agreement with the city in 2014 because of its unconstitutional policing of people with mental illness, including the beating to death in custody of James Chasse. Last year, 60 percent of the people killed by the Portland police were suffering a mental health crisis. Half of arrests and half of use-of-force incidents in the past few years are of homeless people. And Black Portlanders continue to be subject to traffic stops and searches at wildly disproportionate rates.

So, when the mayor of Portland poses as the leader of the Resistance, it causes us to pause. While we do oppose federal agents in our streets, the real danger we have been facing in Portland since long before Trumps election has been the local police.

Young is professor of history at Lewis & Clark College and a board member of the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing.
Coronavirus spread so quickly through a convent in Michigan that it claimed the lives of 12 nuns in one month, beginning on Good Friday.

They were all members of the Felician Sisters convent in Livonia, outside of Detroit, ranging in ages from 69 to 99, the executive director for mission advancement, Suzanne English, confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. A 13th sister initially survived the virus but passed away from its effects in June.

The women were long-time members of the convent and leave behind a legacy of service, according to their obituaries supplied by English. They all served others through different roles, from teaching to helping at-risk children to playing music to publishing a 586-page book about the history of the convent.

One sister won a commercial script-writing contest for Campbell's Soup with her second-grade class. Another was assigned to the Felician Generalate in Rome twice and worked as secretary in the English section of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

"We grieve for each of our sisters who has passed during the time of the pandemic throughout the province, and we greatly appreciate all of those who are holding us in prayer and supporting us in a number of ways," said Sister Mary Christopher Moore, provincial minister of Our Lady of Hope Province.

The women all lived and worked on the 360-acre campus that was once home to 800 sisters, according to the Global Sisters Report, an independent, non-profit Catholic news publisher. Now, only around 50 reside there, according to English.

English said the Livonia convent is one of 60 convents in the US and Canada, plus a mission in Haiti, where the 469 Felician Sisters of North America reside.

The Global Sisters Report said the death of the 13 nuns in Livonia may be the worst loss of life to a community of religious women in the US since the 1918 influenza pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, the convent, like other long-term housing residences, implemented a no-visitors rule and placed restrictions on group activities to help curb the spread of the virus, according to Global Sisters Report.

'It kind of shattered our faith life a little bit'

But the virus spread through the convent and on Good Friday, April 10, came the first death: Sister Mary Luiza Wawrzyniak, 99.

Her death was followed by Sister Celine Marie Lesinski, 92, and Sister Mary Estelle Printz, 95, who both died on Easter Sunday, April 12.

The convent grappled with how they were able to care for each other and only 10 people could attend each funeral, according to Global Sisters Report.

"The faith we share with sisters as they are dying, the prayers we share with sisters as they are dying: We missed all that. It kind of shattered our faith life a little bit." Sister Joyce Marie Van de Vyver told the publication.

At the end of June, the convent lost Sister Mary Danatha (Lottie) Suchyta, 98, to Covid. In total, at least 30 sisters in Livonia were infected with the virus and 17 recovered, English said, citing Sister Noel Marie Gabriel, director of clinical health services for Our Lady of Hope Province.

"Some of our sisters who have had COVID-19 are struggling to recover from a variety of effects, including continuing weakness, respiratory issues and more," a statement released by Felician Sisters in early July read.

In the United States, nearly 142,000 have died from the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases on Tuesday. More than 3.89 million people have been infected with the virus in the US.

The Livonia convent is not the only religious order that has seen the devastating effects of the virus. Sister Mary Ramona (Florence) Borkowski, 93, died of Covid on April 18 at a convent located in Lodi, New Jersey. In 1971, Borkowski founded and became the director of the Felician School for Exceptional Children in Lodi, a position she held until 2018, according to her obituary.

Between April and May, six sisters of different religious orders that lived at Our Lady of the Angels Convent in Greenfield, Wisconsin, died from Covid-19.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a joint press conference with Dominic Raab at Lancaster House: Getty Images

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has claimed the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been bought by China and suggested that his failings have led to the deaths of British people, according to reports.

Mr Pompeo reportedly told MPs that the WHO was a political, not a science-based organisation and said the body was responsible for dead Britons.

It is understood the Trump official made the claim about Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a private meeting with MPs during his visit to the UK on Tuesday.

The allegations are the latest in a string of attacks on the WHO by the Trump administration, which formally withdrew from the body earlier this month over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Pompeo told MPs that his criticism of Mr Tedros was based on firm intelligence foundation but he did not disclose what information he was referring to, according to The Times.

It came as Dominic Raab, the UKs foreign secretary, denied that Britain had been strong-armed by the US into taking a tougher stance against China.

Mr Rabb was asked on Tuesday whether the UKs recent positions on China, such as the decision to exclude Huawei from its 5G network, had been influenced by the Trump administration.

I dont think there is any question of strong-arming  Mike [Pompeo] and I always have constructive discussions and actually a vast majority of the times our views overlap and we work together very well, he told a news conference in London.

Mr Pompeo has called on countries, including the UK, to form a coalition to put pressure on China to change its political course.

We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country  including China  behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order, the secretary of state said.

He also welcomed the UKs responses to China over Huawei and the introduction of a controversial national security law in Hong Kong.

Story continues

The US official, who held talks with Boris Johnson and Mr Raab on Tuesday, said he had seen Hong Kongs freedoms crushed and watched the Chinese Communist Party bully its neighbours.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the British government for its principled response to these challenges, he added.

In recent weeks, the UK has banned Huawei from its 5G network, put forward plans to allow British National Overseas (BNO) passport holders in Hong Kong to come to the UK, suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and extended an arms embargo on China.

Donald Trump tried to claim credit last week for the UKs move to ban Huawei, when he said in a White House briefing that he had convinced many countries to stop using the Chinese technology company.

Its a big security risk. I talked many countries out of using it. If they want to do business with us, they cant use it, Mr Trump said.

On the topic of Huawei, Mr Pompeo said he thought the UK had made a good decision but dismissed suggestions that the White Houses negative opinion of the company was the deciding factor in the move.

Additional reporting by PA

Read more

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US gives formal notice it is withdrawing from WHO

Experts condemn Trumps severing of ties with WHO

Whistleblower complaint accuses Pompeo of questionable activities

US looking into banning TikTok and other Chinese apps, Pompeo says

Mike Pompeo warns China not to interfere with US media in Hong Kong
A 31-year-old criminal who is heavily involved in the deadly Coolock feud has lost 136,000 in assets after a High Court judgment.

Convicted drug dealer Robert 'Roo' Redmond has survived an attempted hit and was also twice arrested for possession of firearms in relation to the feud which has claimed five lives.

He was released without charge on both occasions but is understood to have come under increasing pressure in recent days - because his 32-year-old right-hand man is now in custody on separate firearms charges.

"He is one of the most active criminals operating in the capital," a senior source said last night.

Redmond has been the focus of multiple investigations by specialist garda units, including the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOCB).

He was also closely monitored by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), who made two significant seizures from him in August 2018 and January 2019.

Murder

The CAB seizures came before the Coolock feud kicked off last year with the gun murder of Redmond's pal Sean Little near Balbriggan.

In the High Court on Monday, Mr Justice Alex Owens gave permission to the CAB to sell off Redmond's seized assets and put the proceeds into State coffers.

The assets included a 151 Audi A6 car, high-end watches and handbags, designer clothing and more than 36,000 in cash.

The total value of the assets is estimated at 136,000.

Redmond was not present in court to hear that the State will seize the items, which include a diamond-encrusted Audemars Piguet watch worth over 22,000, a Rolex watch valued at over 16,000, and a ladies Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch valued at over 21,000.

Designer goods worth 10,000, including Louis Vuitton handbags, wallets and sunglasses, Givenchy shoes and designer jackets, were also seized.

Redmond, who has 77 criminal convictions, including four for possession of drugs, was jailed for five years in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2013 when he pleaded guilty to possession of drugs for sale or supply at Burnell Square, Northern Cross, Malahide Road, on September 29, 2010.

He had initially denied the charges and elected for trial.

The court heard that Redmond was caught with almost 43,000 of heroin and cannabis in two apartments.

He said he paid 6,000 in cash for the nine ounces of heroin, which had an estimated street value of 36,970.

Redmond also said he didn't owe money for the drugs and had not been under pressure to store them.

He said a tick list found at one of the apartments was a list of people who owed him money for drugs.

Redmond has been involved in feuds on the capital's north side for over a decade and was shot in the legs when he was targeted by a gunman in the doorway of a pub at Clonshaugh Shopping Centre in Priorswood in 2011.

He also survived an attempted gun murder last September in the Donaghmede area which happened as part of the Coolock feud.

It is understood that Redmond managed to hide in a bathroom while a 30-year-old pal of his suffered serious injuries in the gun attack.

As part of further investigations into the shooting, two guns and ammunition linked to Redmond's associates were seized and a 44-year-old close associate of his was arrested just days after the botched murder attempt.

Catastrophic

In January of this year, Redmond and his right-hand man were arrested before being released without charge over a double shooting in north Dublin which left one victim with catastrophic injuries.

The duo were arrested near a burning black 151 D-reg Citroen C4 car at Greenwood Avenue, Clonshaugh, around 13km away from the double shooting in the St Margaret's area on the afternoon of January 17 last.

They were also arrested and released without charge on July 30 last year in a separate case when detectives from the DOCB seized a pistol and a revolver during an intelligence operation in Coolock.

Redmond's right-hand man, who is currently locked up, is a dangerous and volatile criminal who regularly posts bizarre rants on social media in which he threatens his gangland rivals.

Gardai have been investigating whether Redmond and his associates are part of a gang which has been targeting associates of two notorious criminal brothers from Kilmore in the complicated Coolock feud.

Redmond has been officially warned by gardai on a number of occasions about an active threat against his life.

He was just 11 when his father received a lengthy jail term for manslaughter after he was found guilty of killing a toddler when he threw a petrol bomb into a house in Darndale.

Gerard Redmond (54) admitted he threw the bomb into the kitchen to get back at a man he had fought with earlier in the evening.

It is understood that over the years many of 'Roo' Redmond's pals have been shot dead as part of criminal feuds.

One of these was Sean Little who became the second of five people to die as a result of the Coolock drugs feud.

A 31-year-old criminal who is heavily involved in the deadly Coolock feud which has claimed five lives, has lost 136,000 in assets after a High Court judgement this week.

Convicted drug dealer Robert 'Roo' Redmond has survived an assassination attempt and was also twice arrested for possession of firearms in relation to the feud which threatened to spiral out of all control last year.

However he was released without charge on both occasions but is understood to be under increasing pressure in recent days because his 32-year-old right-hand man is now in custody on separate firearms charges.

"He is one of the most active criminals operating in the capital," a senior source said last night.

'Roo' Redmond has been the focus of multiple investigations by specialist garda units including the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOCB).

He was also closely monitored by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) who made two significant seizures from him in August, 2018, and January, 2019.

The CAB seizures were was even before the Coolock feud kicked off last year with the gun murder of Roo's pal Sean Little near Balbriggan.

In the High Court on Monday, Mr Justice Alex Owens gave permission to CAB to sell off Redmond's seized assets and hand over the proceeds into State coffers.

The assets included a 151 Audi A6 car, a quantity of designer jewellery that included high end watches, handbags, clothing and more than 36,000 in cash.

The total value of the assets is estimated at 136,000.

Redmond was not present in court to hear that the State will seize the items which include a diamond encrusted Audemars Piquet Watch valued at over 22,000; a Rolex watch valued at over 16,000 as well as a ladies Rolex Oyster Perpetual Watch valued at over 21,000.

Designer goods, including Louis Vuitton handbags, wallets, sunglasses Givenchy shoes and designer jackets, worth 10,000 were also seized.

Redmond, who has 77 criminal convictions, including four for possession of drugs, was jailed for five years in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2013 when he pleaded guilty to possession of drugs for sale or supply at Burnell Square, Northern Cross, Malahide Road, on September 29, 2010.

He had initially denied the charges and elected for trial.

The court heard that Redmond was caught with almost 43,000 worth of heroin and cannabis in two apartments.

He said he paid 6,000 in cash for the nine ounces of heroin which have an estimated street value of 36,970.

Redmond also said that he didn't owe money for the drugs and had not been under pressure to store them. He said a tick list found at one of the apartments was a list of people who owed him money for drugs.

Redmond has been involved in feuds on the capital's nothside for over a decade and was shot in the legs when he was targeted by a gunman inside the doorway of a pub at Clonshaugh Shopping Centre in Priorswood in 2011.

He also survived an attempted gun murder last September in the Donaghmede area which happened as part of the deadly Coolock gang warfare.

It is understood that Redmond managed to hide in a bathroom while a 30-year-pal of the convicted criminal suffered serious injuries in the gun attack.

As part of further investigations into the shooting, two guns and ammunition linked to Redmond's associates were seized and a 44-year-old close associate of his was arrested just days after the botched murder attempt.

In January of this year, Redmond and his right-hand man were arrested before being released without charge over a double shooting in north Dublin which left one victim with catastrophic injuries.

The duo were arrested near a burning Black 151 D reg Citroen C4 car at Greenwood Avenue, Clonshaugh, around 13km away from the double shooting at St Margaret's on the afternoon of January 17 last.

They were also arrested and released without charge on July 30 last year in a separate case when detectives from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOCB) seized a pistol and a revolver during an intelligence operation in Coolock.

Redmond's right-hand man who is currently locked up is a dangerous and volatile criminal who regularly posts bizarre rants on social media in which he threatens his gangland rivals.

Gardai have been investigating whether Redmond and his associates are part of a gang who have been targeting associates of two notorious criminal brothers from Kilmore in the hugely complicated Coolock feud.

Redmond has been officially warned by gardai on a number of occasions about an active threat against his life.

Redmond was aged just 11 when his father Gerard received a lengthy jail term for manslaughter after he was found guilty of killing a toddler who was asleep when he threw a petrol bomb into a house in Darndale.

Gerard Redmond (54) admitted he threw the bomb into the kitchen to get back at a man he had fought with earlier in the evening.

It is understood that over the years many of 'Roo' Redmond's pals have been shot dead as part of criminal feuds.

One of these was Sean Little who became the second of five people to die as a result of the Coolock drugs feud.
Mumbai, July 22 : Ishkaran Singh Bhandari, lawyer of former Cabinet Minister Subramanian Swamy, has called for a peaceful digital protest to demand justice for Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who passed away in Mumbai last month.

Bhandari has urged Sushant's fans to light a candle in his name at 8pm on Wednesday and share photographs on Twitter tagging him, which he will retweet.

The protest, #Candle4SSR, is also a peaceful way of requesting authorities to initiate a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the actor's untimely demise.

Bhandari shared a video of himself urging everyone to take part in the peaceful protest.

"3,00,000+ views of this video asking 1st ever Digital Protest in World for Justice to SSR! 75,000+ tweets of #Candle4SSR. Let's all light candles, at 8pm Today! Let's Make HISTORY! Tweet/FB/insta pictures or VIDEO & TAG me, will retweet!" Bhandari tweeted on an unverified account on Wednesday.

"I too will light a candle at 8 pm in memory of SSR and promise to bring to book those behind his untimely and unnatural death," shared Swamy on his verified Twitter account the same day.

Sushant was found hanging at his residence on June 14. Postmortem report stated that the actor committed suicide.

Since last month, several politicians, celebrities and common people have been voicing a demand for CBI enquiry into the 34-year-old actor's death, which is currently being investigated by Mumbai Police.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Gondoliers in Venice have cut the number of passengers they allow on their boats due to 'overweight' tourists putting their vessels at risk of flooding.

Now just five people will be allowed on a smaller gondola da nolo (a privately-hired boat), reduced from six.

On a larger gondola da parada, which are often used to cross the Grand Canal, only 12 people will be allowed onboard, down from 14.

Gondoliers in Venice have cut the number of passengers they allow on their boats due to 'overweight' tourists putting their vessels at risk of flooding

Raoul Roveratto, president of the association of substitute gondoliers, told Italian publication La Repubblica: 'Tourists are now overweight, and those arriving from certain countries are bombs.

'When its full the boat sinks and lets in water. Going ahead with more than half a tonne of meat on board is dangerous.'

And Andrea Balbi, president of Venice's gondolier's association, told the Guardian: 'Its true that compared to 10 or 15 years ago, tourists weigh a bit more.

'Unlike in a lift, where theres a message that says "only six people or a maximum weight", we dont have scales to weigh people, and so we reduced the number of passengers.'

The limits have been introduced as another new rule comes into force - the children of gondoliers will not have to take a tough theory exam if they want to become gondoliers themselves.

To gain their gondolier licence, all they have to do is prove they can row a gondola and have had at least four years' experience working on the boats.

Now just five people will be allowed on a smaller gondola da nolo (a privately-hired boat), reduced from six

Earlier this month, meanwhile, Venice conducted a trial run of an ambitious anti-flood system of 78 inflatable barriers, which it is hoped will protect the lagoon city from devastating high tides.

At a ceremony, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte pressed a button that activated compressors to pump air into the bright yellow barriers, which then started rising from the sea to act as a kind of a dike-on-demand. All 78 barriers were successfully raised, authorities said.

The project, riddled by corruption, was supposed to be working in 2011. Now the latest date is 2021, but Conte expressed hope it could be ready by this autumn. In November 2019, Venice suffered its worst flooding in more than 50 years.
Georgia governor sues Atlanta over mask mandate, COVID restrictions

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Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr filed a lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, seeking to block the states capital and largest city from imposing stricter coronavirus restrictions and mandating its residents to wear face masks in public.

The lawsuit comes a day after the governor issued an executive order laying out updated guidelines for businesses to follow as the effort to stop the spread of coronavirus continues. Notably, while the executive order strongly encourages people to wear face coverings as practicable, it also suspends municipalities from requiring persons to wear face coverings, masks, face shields, or any other Personal Protective Equipment while in places of public accommodation or on public property ... to the extent that they are more restrictive than this Executive Order."

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms called the lawsuit simply bizarre and argued that the Republican governor is putting politics over people, according to the Today show.

I dont think it happenstance that this lawsuit came the day after Donald Trump visited Atlanta, she said. And I pointed out that he (Trump) was violating city law by not having on a mask at Atlantas HartsfieldJackson International Airport.

Last week, Bottoms announced that her city would return to phase I of its reopening plan, citing a surge of COVID-19 cases and the reckless reopening of Georgia following the coronavirus lockdown as justifications for her decision. The Peach State previously made national headlines when it became one of the first states to reopen its economy after the coronavirus caused states to implement stay-at-home orders.

Bottoms decision to implement stricter coronavirus restrictions last week weighed heavily on Kemps decision to sue the city. Kemp took to Twitter to explain his rationale for filing the lawsuit.

These men and women are doing their very best to put food on the table for their families while local elected officials shutter businesses and undermine economic growth. (2/4)  Governor Brian P. Kemp (@GovKemp) July 16, 2020

This lawsuit is on behalf of the Atlanta business owners and their hardworking employees who are struggling to survive during these difficult times. These men and women are doing their very best to put food on the table for their families while local elected officials shutter businesses and undermine economic growth, he said.

On Friday, Kemp appeared on The Dana Show to elaborate further on what host Dana Loesch described as the mask war. During the interview, he doubled down on his opposition to the implementation of stricter coronavirus restrictions.

To simply start jerking the rug out from under  dine-in restaurants and  telling people to shelter in place, I mean, that hurts small business people, it hurts working Georgians, its going to hurt our tax dollars and collections and our revenue, which in turn  hurts all the programs that you need in a crisis like this, he said.

When somebodys going to start  shutting businesses down, Im just not going to stand idly by and let that happen. We have too much at stake. Government cant ask people to stay home, sit in their living room, while they lose their business, not be able to feed their family.

Public figures have had mixed reactions to the lawsuit as well as Kemps executive order prohibiting local jurisdictions from mandating the use of masks. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter indicated her support for Kemps decision to overrule all municipal mask mandates by describing the Georgia governor as a hero.

Former Deputy Labor Secretary Chris Lu, who served in the Obama administration, slammed Kemp for his entirely new level of negligence and agreed with Savannah Mayor Van Johnson that the governor doesnt give a damn about us.

Bottoms stated that at the end of the day, this is about saving lives and that the governor had overstepped his bounds.

Georgia has recorded over 3,100 people COVID-19 deaths.


Railway train Even as the Indian Railways plans to introduce the first set of 12 private trains in 2023, followed by 45 more in the next fiscal, according to an initial timeline drawn by the Railways, the national transporter held a pre-bid conference, which was attended by 16 private players to seek clarifications. The Railways in a formal kick-start to its plans to allow private entities to operate passenger trains on its network has invited proposals from companies to run 151 modern passenger trains on 109 pairs of routes across the country. The project would entail private sector investment of about Rs 30,000 crore. Railways spokesperson said that as part of the bidding process, the Railways conducted the first pre-application conference which received an overwhelming response with the participation of around 16 prospective applicants. He said the issues and concerns raised by the prospective private players were discussed and clarifications were provided by the officials of the Ministry of Railways and NITI Aayog for improved clarity on the provisions of RFQ and bidding framework. He said the queries were mainly related to eligibility criteria, bidding process, procurement of rakes, operations of trains and composition of clusters. The official further said that there were queries on haulage charges to which the Railways replied that haulage charges will be specified upfront and will be suitably indexed for the entire concession period, thereby bringing certainty in the haulage charges. "The Railways will also provide the details of passenger traffic being handled on the routes under bidding. This will enable the bidders to do due diligence for the project," he said. The official also said that Railways has clarified that trains to be operated under the project can be either purchased or taken on lease by the private entities. The national transporter clarified that risks with regard to operation of trains shall be allocated to the parties in an equitable manner. The Ministry of Railways will be providing written replies to the queries received from the prospective applicants by July 31 and the second pre-application conference is scheduled on August 12. As part its privatisation plan, the Railways has planned to introduce 12 trains in 2022-23, 45 in 2023-2024, 50 in 2025-26 and 44 in 2026-27, taking the total number to 151. The request for qualification (RFQ), which was floated on July 8, is likely to be finalised by November, while the financial bids will be opened by March, 2021. The selection of bidders is planned to be done by April 31, 2021, according to a timeline for introduction of private passenger trains prepared by the Railways.




Deputy General Secretary of the ruling NPP Nana Obiri Boahen says Special Development Minister Hawa Koomson did not err by firing a gunshot at a registration centre at Kasoa on Monday.

According to him, the lawmaker took the action to defend herself under the circumstances when she felt threatened.

The MP who has confessed firing a warning shot at the centre claimed it was to defend herself after feeling threatened while touring registration centres at Kasoa.

Civil Society groups, as well as security analysts, have called for her arrest, prosecution and resignation.

The presidency and the ruling NPP have not commented on the issue.

Speaking to Morning Starr Wednesday, the NPP executive said the lawmaker merely protected herself.

For me, Hawa Koomson never erred under the circumstance. That was what she could have done to protect her life.

Meanwhile, Security expert Professor Kwesi Aning says the gun action by the Minister undermines President Akufo-Addos fight against vigilantism in the country.

According to him, the MP is unfit to hold herself out as a lawmaker and also as a member of the ruling New Patriotic Party.

Speaking on Starr Today Tuesday, Head of the Department of Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre said if the President does not take action against his appointee, the police will be weakened in their efforts at curbing vigilantism.

This woman is a disgrace to her party, to the president, and to the republic. If we dont sack this woman, the police will never be able to deal with anyone on vigilantism. she has undermined everything the president has done with vigilantism. Hawas behaviour is a disservice to the NPP, the president and everyone. She is a disgrace to the Republic of Ghana, he said.

---starrfmonline
ALBANY  Albany County is urging anyone who attended the massive July 4 weekend party in Albany that has now been linked to 28 cases of COVID-19 to go get tested, even if they're not feeling symptoms.

The party, which occurred over several days on Hudson Avenue, drew over 200 college-age students, County Executive Dan McCoy said. In recent weeks, a growing number of cases have been traced back to the party, with six new cases confirmed overnight Wednesday for 28 total to date.

McCoy reminded the public that the novel coronavirus can spread even when someone is not feeling symptoms, and pleaded with partygoers to contact their local health department to arrange expedited testing as tracers race to curb further spread. The Albany County Health Department can be reached at 518-447-4640.

Were really trying to stop this domino effect and we cant do that if people say, Hey, I wasnt there, or say, Hey, Im not on Facebook, Im not on Instagram, theres no pictures of me at that party and I feel fine,  he said. Please, come forward. And you can do it quietly. We just want to keep track of it.

McCoy suggested that some partygoers who tested positive for the virus have been less than honest about their whereabouts, and reminded them that they will not face suspension or expulsion from their colleges or universities as a result of coming forward and getting tested. The county is prohibited under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act from releasing the names of infected individuals to a student's school, he said.

No ones going to get suspended, he said. No ones going to get arrested. Kids are kids. You do all these stupid things in life, right? I will say to them, learn from this, do the right thing going forward. But come forward, because youre not in trouble.

McCoy also responded to comments on social media from people who contend partygoers are being unfairly condemned by public health officials while protesters against police brutality get a free pass.

The protesters had masks on, he said. They werent sharing food. They werent drinking. They were close together, but they had masks I cant explain it. But when you have a party and youre not socially distancing and youre hugging and youre dancing and youre having a great time, theres a big difference. So protesters did it right. Partiers arent doing it right.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

McCoy said the county is currently working to confirm a report from the governors office that a resident of Albany County recently died from the virus. He said the report came in Tuesday, but that the county Health Department had been unable to confirm it as of Wednesday morning. If true, it would bring the countys known death toll from the virus to 123.

In total, 14 new cases of the virus were confirmed in the county overnight for 2,139 cases to date.

Four of the new cases were connected to the Hudson Avenue party (an additional two cases reported a day earlier have now been linked to the party as well). Four were related to out-of-state travel. Three had no clear transmission source  a development that concerns local health officials who worry community spread may be on the rise. Two were health care workers. One was a close contact of someone who had previously tested positive.

There are currently 84 active cases in the county, up seven from the day before. Three of them were hospitalized with the virus Wednesday, including one who required intensive care.

Restaurants also continue to be impacted by COVID-19. Two Albany restaurants, the Tipsy Moose and Caffe Italia, temporarily announced shutdowns Wednesday. At the Tipsy Moose, a kitchen worker tested positive, and at Caffe Italia a kitchen worker had exposure to someone who tested positive. Both restaurants announced temporary closures to sanitize their establishments.
The Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) said on Wednesday it would lend $250 million to Pakistan to help the country deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project will be co-financed by the World Bank and will bolster a Pakistan government programme to strengthen health infrastructure, social safety nets, investment in human capital and economic growth, the AIIB said in a statement.

The AIIB has previously approved a loan of $500 million for Pakistan's response to COVID-19. Both loans are part of the AIIB's $10 billion funding facility to help public and private sectors fight the outbreak.

Also read: Coronavirus: US accuses Chinese hackers of stealing vaccine research
MEXICO CITY - Mexican marines allegedly abducted 27 people in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo in early 2018, 12 of whom were later found dead, according to an investigation by Mexicos governmental human rights commission.

The rights commission said Tuesday that marines had violated the victims right to life, but did not say outright they had killed them.

The commission also said marines engaged in illegal searches and arbitrary detentions. The commission issued non-binding recommendation that criminal investigations be opened and changes be made in Navy patrol procedures.

On Tuesday the Navy wrote in its Twitter account that it the points recommended were accepted.

In Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, the Navy was locked in bitter fight at the time against the Northeast cartel, an outgrowth of the old Zetas cartel.

While Mexican marines had played a central role in going after drug cartels in previous administrations, that role has been reduced under current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The Navy has said cartel gunmen sometimes wear fake military uniforms and drive vehicles with military markings, but the commission said that was not an adequate defence.

The commission also said it found inconsistencies, like changed identification of vehicles, in Navy reports on the incidents.

Time after time, witnesses told investigators that their relatives had been picked up while driving or walking on the streets of Nuevo Laredo in early 2018 by marines, or people wearing marine uniforms.

The abductors also barged into some homes and businesses and snatched people without search or arrest warrants, and sometimes used unmarked or police vehicles to take people away.

While 15 were never heard from again, the bullet-ridden bodies of 12 did turn up in subsequent weeks, mostly dumped along roads or on rural properties.

In September 2018, the Navy said in a press statement that 230 marines and 27 officers who had been serving in the area at the time had been called back to Navy headquarters in Mexico City, in order to have them co-operate with the investigations.

The Navy said at the time that it would act firmly and with vigour in accordance with the law in this and all other cases in which naval personnel are considered probably responsible for violations of human rights, 

However, it is unclear whether any charges have been filed in the disappearances. The commission urged civilian prosecutors and military internal affairs investigators to follow through on investigations.

The commission also demanded that all military patrols be videotaped and that military forces not use civilian vehicles.

The commission filed a similar report implicating marines in the disappearance of five people from a motel in Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas in October 2016, including some U.S. citizens. They were never heard from again.

The commission said marines tore the motels security cameras out in an apparent attempt to cover up the abductions.
AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of "a-" of Polskie Towarzystwo Reasekuracji S.A. (Polish Re) (Poland). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable.

The ratings reflect Polish Re's balance sheet strength, which AM Best categorises as strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). The ratings also reflect the lift Polish Re receives due to the support provided by its ultimate parent, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (Fairfax), in particular, the explicit parental guarantee in place for Polish Re. In addition, Fairfax provides technical support in areas such as reserving, retrocession protection and investment management services.

Polish Re's very strong level of risk-adjusted capitalisation, as measured by Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), conservative and liquid investment portfolio, and good internal capital generation, collectively contribute to an overall balance sheet assessment of strong by AM Best. Polish Re's reserves have been historically volatile, stemming largely from motor third-party liability (MTPL) business in Poland, which negatively impacts the company's balance sheet assessment. Polish Re's risk-adjusted capitalisation decreased in 2019, in comparison with 2018, driven by the company's significant top-line growth of approximately 39%, but remains at the very strong level.

Polish Re's tightened underwriting discipline in recent years has reversed the historically unstable operating performance trend, as evidenced by a five-year average combined ratio of 98.3% (2015-2019). The main source of historical volatility has been the MTPL portfolio, which was put into run-off in 2014. The company reported a net profit of PLN 3.02 million (USD 0.8 million) in 2019, reflecting a 99.9% combined ratio, supplemented by healthy investment income. The 2019 results were impacted negatively by property losses due to multiple natural catastrophe events, including earthquakes in Albania and a mudslide in Georgia.

Polish Re benefits from its diversified portfolio offering and long-standing presence across Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as its position as the sole domestic reinsurer in Poland. However, the reinsurer's operations are fragmented, spanning approximately 40 markets, and its profile is constrained by its lack of scale in any given market.

AM Best considers Polish Re's ERM to be developed and appropriate for the company's risk profile and operational scope.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Best's website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper media use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best press releases, please view Guide for Media Proper Use of Best's Credit Ratings and AM Best Rating Action Press Releases.

AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.

Copyright 2020 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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The $600 unemployment benefits according to the Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, should be stopped with no extension since people are not working because of this.

He said on Tuesday that if there are plans to extend the enhanced unemployment benefit, it should just expire on July 31 with no extensions. One of the reasons is that the federal aid only encourages jobless Americans earning more than working, reported News Week.

According to Scalia, benefits per week for unemployment was not devised correctly, but for the right reasons when it got passed by Congress last March. Adding the extra pay given to American's is needed because it is a component of the CARES Act. As the economy jumpstarts bit by bit, this becomes part of the DEMS blueprint to hike the median income for all workers. The labor secretary noted that about 70% of those getting the unemployment benefit were getting more than the salaries they receive from their current jobs. It encouraged them to stay at home and collect money, rather than work.

However, losing the money from the benefit will not be seen as favorable to most Americans.

He said on the program Fox Business that he doubted if the $600 will still be part of the next coronavirus stimulus package.

Based on data that the Labor Department has collected through June 27, it indicated 32 million were getting the unemployment benefits. Most states would have paid each beneficiary as much as $383 a week, cited Brookings.

Also read: Coronavirus Benefits Ending on July 31, Citizens Will Stop Getting $600 a Week

Scalia explained the $600 given a week was necessary during the pandemic. With the lockdowns that slowed the economy, it affected many workers. However, things has changed now. The different circumstance and with the economy waking a bit, it sparks a go signal that it is time to work.

One point raised is that the weekly $600 benefit was far larger than what most businesses would give its workers. So, not working and collecting $15 per hour at home is better.

This is what the DEMS ($15) are setting as their goal as the minimum wage paid. They cited more examples like getting only $10 if there was no pandemic. Overall, there was a total of $25 pay per hour when sitting at home and getting these checks. Scalia made it very clear that the $600 must stop, and discuss further if it should go on which would be favorable for many.

Reality sets in and for many getting this unemployment aid, some have gotten it either on the 25th or 26th of July for the last time. Receiving it on either date depends on what state they live in.

When the Trump administration was asked by Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo if there is a middle point in this circumstance, especially with the looming August recess that will be time off for the House.

Scalia reiterated that getting people working is the president's goal. The extra $600 is paying everyone not to work but to stay home. Getting everyone to start working and not merely depend on federal aid is preferable.

There has been growth in new jobs over a period of time, and keeping the tempo is needed. That's is why the $600 unemployment benefits end on July 31.

Related article: Coronavirus Aid: Democrats, White House to Discuss $1 Trillion Bill

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
MasterChef judge Andy Allen confirmed his engagement to long-time girlfriend Alex Davey in May.

And according to Monday's TV WEEK magazine, the couple look set to wed at the chef's own restaurant, Three Blue Ducks at The Farm in Byron Bay, New South Wales.

The 32-year-old TV personality has become a co-owner of the 32 hectare property, since winning the fourth season of MasterChef Australia back in 2012.

Revealed: The likely setting for MasterChef star Andy Allen's wedding to glamorous fiancee Alex Davey (both pictured)

TV WEEK believe the lovebirds will tie the knot at The Orchard, an on-site venue perfect for hosting wedding ceremonies.

The reception will reportedly be held at The Blue Ducks Restaurant, offering idyllic views of the Byron Bay hinterland.

Previous couples have made use of the nearby organic Macadamia Orchard, for capturing unique wedding photos.

Venue? According to Monday's TV WEEK magazine, the couple look set to wed at the chef's own restaurant, Three Blue Ducks at The Farm in Byron Bay, New South Wales (pictured)

Stunning setting: The reception will reportedly be held at The Blue Ducks Restaurant, offering idyllic views of the Byron Bay hinterland

According to their website, the restaurant offers 'rustic charm' in the form of a converted farm barn.

'Farm-style verandas' are also available for wedding parties who are after something more intimate.

The wedding menu would no doubt feature exquisite wines and organic modern Australian contemporary fare.

Wedding bells: Andy, 32, confirmed his engagement to Alex, 29, in a previous interview with TV WEEK magazine

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Andy for comment.

The cookbook author confirmed his engagement to Alex in a previous interview with TV WEEK.

Andy proposed to the 29-year-old beauty during a romantic getaway in New Zealand earlier this year, before borders were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

There for the ride: Alex has witnessed the highs and lows of Andy's career, since winning MasterChef Australia in 2012

Alex has witnessed the highs and lows of Andy's career, since winning MasterChef Australia in 2012.

Andy previously told Farage that nothing has been handed to him on a silver platter.

'Nothing just happens, you really do have to work for it,' he said.

'A simple piece of advice... do what you love. When you love it, you'll put in more and more effort to make it as successful as possible.'
The Delhi government will accord the 'Corona Warrior' status to a National Health Mission (NHM) doctor who succumbed to COVID-19, and grant his family Rs 1 crore compensation, Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday.

Dr Javed Ali, 42, had contracted the infection in the line of duty and died on Tuesday, he said.

His wife had been appealing to authorities to provide help to the family.

"Dr Javed Ali working as a doctor with Delhi Govt NRHM, had succumbed to Covid. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has announced that he will be given Corona Warrior status. Delhi govt will gives 1 cr compensation to the family," Jain tweeted.

Hundreds of healthcare workers in the national capital have contracted COVID-19 till date.

Earlier in the day, interacting with reporters, Jain had said, "We know that contractual doctor Javed Ali, who was working with Delhi government's National Health Mission, died yesterday of coronavirus. The Delhi government will provide financial compensation to his family because he was a frontline worker who died during COVID-19 duty".

The ex gratia of Rs 1 crore is being given by the Delhi government to all its employees who succumb to coronavirus while discharging their duties as frontline warriors in the fight against the pandemic.

Earlier this month, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had met the family members of Dr Aseem Gupta (52), who died in June fighting COVID-19, and handed over a cheque of Rs 1 crore as an ex-gratia payment to them.

The chief minister had termed late Gupta as a "people's doctor" and said it was a duty of the government to support the families of those people who sacrificed their lives for others.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:22:51|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Wednesday rejected a claim by Greece accusing it of "illegal exploration" in the eastern Mediterranean.

"Greece raised objections to the current survey activity and claimed that the survey area is within its own continental shelf," Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hami Aksoy said.

On Tuesday, Ankara issued a Navigational Telex (NAVTEX) advisory that Turkish seismic survey vessel Oruc Reis would launch a new seismic survey in the region as part of its ongoing hydrocarbon exploration activities in the eastern Mediterranean, the spokesperson said in a written statement.

The Greek foreign ministry on Tuesday said the Turkish NAVTEX covers a part of the Greek continental shelf.

"We call on Turkey to immediately cease these illegal actions which violate our sovereign rights and undermine peace and security in the area," the Greek foreign ministry said in a statement. Enditem
OTTAWA  Provincial inaction has squandered the prospect of millions in federal carbon-tax compensation for Manitoba farmers, according to internal records.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Provincial inaction has squandered the prospect of millions in federal carbon-tax compensation for Manitoba farmers, according to internal records.

Premier Brian Pallister joined farmers in railing against the federal carbon tax being imposed on drying grain after last years wet autumn.

But Manitoba waited until Ottawa closed the door to financial relief to provide the federal Liberals with the data they asked for six months prior, according to records obtained by the provincial NDP.

"They didnt do their homework. They could have presented a strong case," said NDP Leader Wab Kinew.

"They failed to do it, and as a result Manitoba producers are going to be taking a hit here."

Last fall, farmers faced not only a CN Rail strike and Chinas canola boycott, but also a wet autumn requiring them to use fuel to dry their grain, just as the carbon tax took effect.

Using fuel to dry grain is one of the few agricultural tasks that isnt exempted under the carbon levy.

Back in December, Ottawa asked agriculture ministers from the Prairie provinces to tally how much the federal carbon tax added to farmers costs that year, specifically for drying grain, so the Liberals could consider compensation.

Manitoba Agriculture Minister Blaine Pedersen pledged the province would tabulate that cost.

Yet records released Tuesday show that Manitoba declined an offer by the provinces biggest farm group, Keystone Agricultural Producers, to conduct a survey, and didnt compile its own data until it was too late.

Alberta had submitted its own estimate back in February.

On June 9, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau told the Free Press Ottawa assessed the cost for Manitoba and Saskatchewan using its own modelling from 2018.

The federal projections suggested a 0.2 per cent impact on Manitoba farmers operating expenses. The industry disputed that figure, but Bibeau said it was too low to merit financial relief.

The new records show that Manitoba finally submitted its data one week after Bibeau had closed the door to compensation, some six months after being asked to assemble estimates.

In the June letter, Manitoba bureaucrats estimated the grain-drying cost at between $1.3 million and $3 million for 2019.

Its impossible to compare those dollar figures with Ottawas percentage estimates of the grain-drying tax on overall operating costs.

"Weve been frustrated with the length of time, and the steps that were taken," said KAP president Bill Campbell.

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The records show KAP reached out in January to offer the provincial agriculture department help in conducting a survey of farmers.

Bureaucrats discussed the idea with KAP, but ultimately never conducted a survey; no reason is stated in the records.

"We encouraged them to work with us and offered a helping hand to get this information in a timely fashion, where it would have been utilized and presented to the federal government. It may have had some impact on their process," Campbell said.

He wasnt sure how the province assembled its estimates. The variability of moisture for crops being harvested at different times makes it hard to pinpoint fuel costs specific to drying grain, though he said the provincial number seems credible.

Campbell stressed KAP would still be willing to help either level of government if Ottawa reopens the door to compensation.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
1. Yes. Too many kids are staying home. They need a virtual learning option to keep up.

2. Yes. Teachers are out sick and subs cant handle the load. Online learning is needed.

3. No. Its too late in the school year to make a wholesale switch in teaching platforms.

4.No. Many parents arent in a position to stay home while their kids learn virtually.

5. Unsure. It may seem like a good idea from a health standpoint, but it has shortcomings.

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The Bayelsa Government has indicated its readiness to pay special allowances to frontline health workers combating the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic in the state.

Doubara Atasi, the Senior Special Assistant on Media to the Deputy Governor, stated this in a statement on Wednesday.

It would be recalled that Governor Douye Diri had given the assurance to pay the allowances on Tuesday.

He said it at a meeting with the representatives of the labour unions including the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and Association of Resident Doctors in Government House, Yenagoa.

Other unions represented at the meeting include the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria.

The governor, who was represented by his Deputy, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, reassured the health workers of the administrations commitment to give priority to their welfare and other challenges affecting healthcare delivery in the state.

He said the government was prepared to pay the COVID-19 hazard and inducement allowances effective from April 2020 when the state recorded its index case.

Mr Diri, however, said the state was not having the financial capacity to adopt the Federal Governments template for implementing the payment due to the steady decline in its revenues.

On the issue of skipping for medical doctors, Mr Diri assured them that the government would implement the policy as soon as the modalities were worked out by the committee handling it.

He, therefore, urged the labour unions to show understanding by prevailing on their members to accept the well-considered position of the state government.

He said: Health issues will never be at the tail end of this administrations programme. Rather, they will occupy the front burner and a very prominent place as far as we are concerned.

Our team has had useful discussions with yours. Our position which we are appealing to you seriously to consider is that, we will pay only the frontline health workers who are directly engaged in the COVID-19 response.

And our position is not in isolation. It is a position we know quite some states are working on. The Federal Government can afford to do anything because it has less responsibility but more money.

READ ALSO:

On skipping, the Head of Service, Hospital Management Board, the Ministry of Health and officials of the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital are working hard to get the final figures.

We take it seriously because we believe that our doctors should not be treated differently from other doctors in the country, he said.

Earlier, the State Chairman of NMA, Peter Alabrah and Oru Inetsol who is the President, Association of Resident Doctors, Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital Okolobiri Chapter, urged the government to pay the special allowances to all health workers in the state.

Also, the Head of Service, Biobelemoye Charles-Onyema and the Technical Adviser on Treasury, Accounts and Revenue, Timipre Seipulou, called on the unions to come up with more feasible options for the government to consider at the next meeting within the week.

The statement added that others who made contributions include the Deputy Chief of Staff, Deputy Governors Office, Alex Dumbo, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Inodu Apoku and the Chief Medical Director, NDUTH, Dimie Ogoin. (NAN
PORTLAND, Ore.  Najee Gow paced the street Tuesday in front of the graffiti-covered federal courthouse, a megaphone at his lips.

Feds go home! Feds go home! Get out of our city! the 22-year-old man shouted. This is not a dictatorship! This is a democracy!

Gow was putting words to a wave of growing anger and resentment in Portland after President Donald Trump deployed more than 100 federal law enforcement agents last week to the liberal city he has repeatedly criticized.

Critics said the president is testing out heavy-handed enforcement in Portland, a largely white city known as one of the most progressive in the nation, before moving on to more diverse cities. They also accused the president of creating more conflict amid national protests over racial injustice and police brutality against Black Americans.

My sense is they chose Portland because if they had rolled this out in, say, Minneapolis, it would mean to come in direct confrontation with many more Black activists," said Joe Lowndes, a professor of political science at the University of Oregon. "With Portland, its a whiter city and they can demonize Antifa or the idea of anarchist looters and kind of take race out of it in a direct way, and make it seem more sympathetic.

If anything, activists said, the president's show of force seemed to give protesters an injection of energy and enthusiasm, with many returning after weeks of shrinking protests.

"People are legit afraid for their rights," Gow, a nurse, told USA TODAY. "They are coming for our rights. They are exercising martial law."

As in many cities, Portland residents have been taking to the streets for nearly two months to call for police reform following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes over a report of an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.

When some of those protests turned destructive, Trump blamed the cities' Democratic mayors for not shutting them down. Then, without warning, images of armored agents in Portland beating and gassing unarmed protesters, including a Navy veteran, and reports of anonymous agents snatching protesters into unmarked vans began spreading online last week, fueling a national debate about the use of federal forces against U.S. citizens.

Story continues

This is a democracy, not a dictatorship," Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement Tuesday. "We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles.

Trump vowed to send federal agents to other cities. Were looking at Chicago, too. Were looking at New York, he said Monday at the White House. All run by very liberal Democrats. All run, really, by the radical left.

In Portland, activists said the federal presence had created more violence. According to federal court documents filed Tuesday, 114 federal officers have been sent to Portland, including representatives from the Federal Protective Service, Immigration Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Marshals Service. Many of the agents are wearing Department of Homeland Security patches but not name tags.

Gow, who is Black, had avoided the protests for weeks, worried he'd be targeted by Portland police because the city has so few Black men. But with more white people protesting, Gow said he felt safer raising his voice. Portland is 77% white and 6% Black, meaning there are only about 40,000 Black people in the city.

We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2020

As he screamed into his megaphone, Gow urged protesters to remain peaceful but to not back down. Gow said any violence from protesters would give Trump more reason to make an example of Portland.

As a Black man, I am asking you, for the sake of my life, peacefully protest, he yelled, walking the graffiti-covered sidewalk in his flip-flops, directing his message at pedestrians and passing drivers alike. Remain peaceful and our message will be heard. When they beat you, let it happen. When they tear gas you, let it happen. Every time you fight back it gives them a reason to f--- us up.

Conner OShea, 30, a protester who said he was chased by federal officers last week when leaving a demonstration, said the presence of federal agents has fueled renewed support for the protests.

The crowd the last few days, its just insane, OShea said. Its been really intense, and theres lots of righteous indignation  but I think its bringing hope to all the people who never stopped showing up. Its like, Oh my God, fresh troops! I do feel like all this attention could lead to more changes that were pushing for, the reforms we want with local police.

AN ACLU legal observer reaches up to take a picture of the protest crowd outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night.

OShea said he and his friends have seen snatcher-style vehicles, unmarked vans" leaving the back of the federal building every night.

"This is a testing ground, thats what were telling people, O'Shea said. Portland is drawing a focus to federal brutality and what feels like an unwanted military operation.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a statement that Trump was "abusing his authority by sending federal officers to the city. On Monday, Wheeler and mayors of five other major U.S. cities urged federal authorities to withdraw the officers from Portland and other cities, noting that many demonstrations have been peaceful and even in circumstances where this is not the case, it is still a matter for local law enforcement."

In a court filing Tuesday, federal officials in Portland said they had been pelted with bottles and feces, shot at with slingshots and fireworks and blinded by laser pointers, with 28 federal officers suffering injuries ranging from hearing damage and broken bones to a dislocated shoulder.

Federal officials said they detained and released two people over the weekend and arrested five more Monday night on charges of assaulting a federal officer, creating a disturbance, trespassing or failing to comply with an officer's order.

A line of federal agents block access to the road outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night during a protest.

The arrests seemingly did little to deter demonstrators.

Over the weekend, a group of women formed a "wall of moms" between protesters and federal officials, chanting "Moms are here, feds stay clear" and "Leave our kids alone." A video recorded Saturday night of federal agents beating and tear gassing Chris David, a 53-year-old Navy veteran who is white, sparked widespread condemnation.

By Monday night, the protest area saw a series of confrontations between activists and federal agents, who fired repeated volleys of tear gas and pepper spray to push back the crowds after some protesters tried to rip down or break plywood boards blocking the boarded-up Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse, which has become the focal point of local protests. The majority of the city remained untouched by the protests.

Ever since the Feds showed up, its been like war," protester Ted Park, 31, said, coughing as tear gas drifted through the air. "It feels like its re-escalated.

Alice Orleman, 43, a work-from-home mom who is white, said she sat on the sidelines for nearly two months but felt compelled to join for the first time Tuesday as a Wall of Moms protester after some of her conservative family in the East suggested that all protesters be shot. That didnt sit right with her, she said.

She carried a sign Tuesday that read: Strong as a mother. Feds stay clear. Moms are here.

The Feds coming in was the tipping point, she said, standing with a handful of other first-time protesters, all in yellow shirts. I felt like I had to be here.

Trump has called the protests in Portland "anarchy" and said federal agents were there to help local law enforcement regain control.

A fire illuminates people attending a protest at the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night.

"We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators," Trump tweeted Sunday. "They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!"

The president has a divisive history with Portland. When far-right protesters faced off against anti-fascist counterprotesters here in August 2019, effectively shutting down downtown Portland, Trump tweeted, "Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!"

It's unclear when or if Trump will send federal officials into other cities led by Democratic mayors. After Trump said he was considering sending more agents to Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday that the administration agreed to send FBI, DEA and ATF agents instead of the Department of Homeland Security law enforcement deployed to Portland.

"Unlike what happened in Portland, what we will receive is resources that are going to plug into the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime," Lightfoot said. "I've been very clear that we welcome actual partnership, but we do not welcome dictatorship."

Federal agents guarding the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night.

Monday night's protest in Portland was largely peaceful until activists began trying to pry off the plywood blocking the courthouse entrances. Without warning, a group of about 30 federal agents burst from a side door firing tear gas and pepper balls to push back the crowd, some of whom responded by throwing plastic water bottles at the agents dressed in paramilitary uniforms, gas masks and body armor.

Many of the protesters wore bike helmets and makeshift body armor, and dozens carried homemade shields or umbrellas to protect against pepper balls and foam-rubber projectiles.

Usually the middle-class brigade goes home around 10 p.m. Its very humbling and beautiful to see them out here now," Park said around 2 a.m. Tuesday as the crowd began to thin.

Using a megaphone, Park, an unemployed restaurant worker who lost his job because of the national recession, rallied the protesters as wave after wave of tear gas billowed over the area. The staccato pops of federal agents firing paintball guns loaded with pepper balls could be heard over his proclamations.

Theyll run out of tear gas before we run out of people," yelled Park.

Afterward, Park said he and others are committed to making systemic change. If that means nightly protests, that's what they'll do, he said, no matter what Trump says or does.

Two people protest silently outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night.

They have done this paramilitary (stuff) to immigrant communities with ICE ... and now theyre seemingly testing it out in Portland," he said. "I think this is their first attempt to roll it out on a major American city and on white people. I think they thought they were going to get away with it. And we are not going to let them get away with it.

Contributing: Jorge Ortiz, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Portland protests grow larger after President Trump sends feds in
Editors note: Some have termed COVID-19 the great equalizer because it can indiscriminately infect anyone. But the impact it has on people and families is far from equal. The Stars Viral Inequality series looks at how people from various walks of life have seen their lives change, and, in some cases, how theyve slipped through the safety net of government support.

Irene Wu has watched as some of her international student peers opt to register for fewer courses, while others drop out completely, due to mounting challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a design student in the interior decorating program at Humber College, Wu, 21, knows firsthand how high the expenses can pile up  from buying and maintaining personal computers in top form to purchasing and updating essential software. With lockdown measures in place for the past four months, studying from home has increased internet expenses, and it can get overwhelming.

Some people can handle it well, some people cant, said Wu referring to a number of her classmates who shes seen reduce their school workload during the pandemic to concentrate on more immediate challenges. Its a personal decision rather than standard.

Wu, an international student from China going into her second year of studies this fall, did not reduce her school workload, but has seen her own plans for the summer get turned upside down as a result of the pandemic.

Wus mother was supposed to visit her for the first time since she came to Canada for school last year, but that isnt happening. She also envisioned working more hours to offset her tuition and living expenses. Thats nearly impossible too.

As she spends much of her time hunkered down in a shared rental apartment in Etobicoke, Wu keeps wondering what lies ahead for her and her peers in the same boat. Many of the changes and measures put in place by the federal government with regards to international students dont seem to go far enough, she said.

Some have termed the coronavirus the great equalizer, as it can indiscriminately infect anyone, but the impact it inflicts on people is far from equal. Just as families makeup and socio-economic statuses are different, the stakes can be much different when it comes to living in the era of COVID-19.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Wu has relied on WhatsApp and video calls to stay in touch with her parents. Its an arrangement thats not new to them, as she previously studied in New Zealand before coming to Canada last year.

When it became clear her mother wouldnt be able to visit, Wu started planning to finish her first-year classes on time so she could work full-time over the summer to earn extra money. But due to COVID-19, there werent many job opportunities especially in her design and decoration field. Shes only able to work a few hours as a cafe manager in the citys east end.

She had hoped to look for volunteer opportunities and get a financial boost from the Canada Student Service Grant program, but she doesnt qualify for the program that is now on hold after an ethics review was opened up about the federal governments decision to have the WE Charity manage the $912 million fund, a deal that has since been cancelled.

Its upsetting in a way. Nothing is available for us as international students, Wu said.

The federal government recently announced a number of temporary policy changes aimed at supporting international students during the pandemic. These measures include allowing foreign students already in Canada to work more than 20 hours a week in an off-campus service if they are employed in an essential service or function, maintaining eligibility for a post-graduation work permit even if over 50 per cent of their classes are completed online, and allowing those who are still abroad to start classes online if travel restrictions are still in place in the fall.

Wu said those changes are important, but they barely go far enough especially for students already in the country who, for the most part, are simply left to fend for themselves.

They should reduce the tuition fees for sure because we are not using any of their facilities like the bookstores and cafes and gyms or even their internet, she said, echoing sentiments voiced earlier in the spring by other international students and education specialists.

Wu pays about $18,000 a year in tuition. She has heard about some institutions, like the University of Guelph actually increasing fees for international students, which she said is the opposite of what should be happening amid the pandemic.

The way I see it, online learning definitely affects the quality of education especially for us in hands-on programs, its really difficult.

Clarification - July 22, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version to make clear that the Canada Student Service program was not open to international students. Canadian citizens, permanent residents or refugees under 30 were eligible to apply for the grant.

If youd like to share your story as part of the Stars Viral Inequality series, contact Gilbert Ngabo at gngabo@thestar.ca.
Zelda Williams (30), revealed she was making donations to homeless charities in the late actors memory and said she hoped the amount would have made him smile.

She tweeted: Today wouldve been Dads 69th birthday, so to honour him (& that glorious number), I will be donating $69.69 to as many local homeless shelters as I can.

Today wouldve been Dads 69th birthday, so to honor him (& that glorious number), I will be donating $69.69 to as many local homeless shelters as I can. Join me if you like, but regardless, know I am wishing you all at least one hearty, immature belly laugh on Dad today   Zelda Williams (@zeldawilliams) July 21, 2020

Join me if you like, but regardless, know I am wishing you all at least one hearty, immature belly laugh on Dad today.

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Williams, one of Hollywoods most successful comic actors, died in 2014 at the age of 63.

He took his own life. His widow Susan Schneider Williams later said he had been suffering with the debilitating brain disease Lewy body dementia.

Zelda, who is also an actor, has previously spoken about the pain of losing her father, whose best known films include Mrs Doubtfire, Jumanji and Good Will Hunting.

In 2018, ahead of his birthday, she shared a father-daughter picture on social media and wrote: Its that time of year again. Everyone who has dealt with loss knows the pain of certain anniversaries, moments full of memory that come round like clockwork and usurp all others, no matter how hard you may try to prepare for or avoid them.

These weeks are the hardest for me, and thus, youll see me a lot less, if at all. For all the internets good intentions in expressing to me their fondness for dad, its very overwhelming to have strangers need me to know how much they cared for him right now. Its harder still to be expected to reach back.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:22:23|Editor: huaxia

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BANGKOK, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Thailand has extended emergency rule against the COVID-19 pandemic for another month in the face of incoming Thais and foreigners, who might possibly be infected overseas.

The Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, on Wednesday extended the emergency decree, imposed nationwide since March until Aug. 31, said CCSA spokesman Taweesilp Visanuyothin.

Thailand's emergency rule, earlier scheduled to last until the end of this month, has been extended for another month due to the fact that many more Thai and foreign nationals are coming from foreign countries where the pandemic has not been put under control as yet, according to the CCSA spokesman.

For that reason, he said, Thailand is yet to continue to stem the pandemic with measures currently imposed under the emergency rule.

Prayut earlier commented the existing laws pertaining to communicable disease control measures cannot effectively cope with the current pandemic, thus prompting him to use emergency rule. Enditem
No-frills grocer Aldi is ready to launch its fourth Charleston-area store.

The new 21,000-square-foot supermarket will open Aug. 20 in the space formerly occupied by Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Northwoods Marketplace Shopping Center at 7620 Rivers Ave. in North Charleston, according to Aldi construction manager Tim Noah.

The bookstore occupied 25,406 square feet, but Aldi took over the lease for the entire site and has divided about 4,000 square feet off for a future shop with its own entrance that it plans to sublease, Noah said. A tenant has not been secured.

Aldis lease is for 10 years with several five-year options to extend its stay.

The penny-pinching grocer is known for requiring customers to insert a quarter to retrieve a shopping cart and then allowing them to get the quarter back when the cart is returned to its portal. Also, it does not provide shopping bags. It offers a variety of products, mostly under its own label, as well as fresh produce.

The discount grocer has been beefing up its presence in the Charleston region since first opening on Dorchester Road on the edge of Summerville and North Charleston in 2015.

A second store was added in 2017 in Mount Pleasant on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard. A third store opened last spring at North Main and East 9th North streets in Summerville, not far from the Earth Fare supermarket that plans to reopen Aug. 5.

Mask requirement

Bi-Lo supermarket customers will be required to wear masks starting Monday.

Parent company Southeastern Grocers of Jacksonville, Fla., announced the mandate Monday for all of its brands, including Winn-Dixie, Harveys and Fresco y Mas.

"The majority of our stores are under either a local or state government mandate, and given the continued rise of positive COVID cases in our communities across the Southeast, beginning Monday ... we will be requiring masks to be worn by customers to help reduce the spread of the disease," spokesman Joe Caldwell said.

He went on say the company believes enforcement should be the responsibility of state and federally elected officials, who the grocer says should pass a sensible mandate into law to remove the burden from employers and front-line workers.

Downsizing?

A Charleston shopping center could soon be in for a reworking that will affect one of its major tenants.

A marketing brochure by Adams & Wilson Development shows the 76,000-square-foot space currently occupied by Burlington in the Publix-anchored Ashley Landing Shopping Center between Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and Old Towne Road will become available Nov. 1.

A manager at the store between Charleston Amish Furniture and West Ashley Theatre Center said he had not heard the store would be closing but that there was talk of the space being reworked, with Burlington taking over about half the space it occupies now.

Plans show the space being subdivided with 27,504 square feet on the front side for retail and office space and 42,286 square feet on the back side for office, flex or warehouse use.

A small section of the shopping center at the rear next to Burlington also is slated for demolition, according to the plans.

A representative of Charlotte-based Faison said Burlington is under lease until Oct. 31.

"There are ongoing negotiations on a lease extension here, but because there currently is not one in place, our leasing agent is also marketing the space in case they vacate," Faison spokesman Peter Robinson said.

New vision

A new eye care store is now open in Charleston.

Eyeglass World recently opened at 2031 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. in West Ashley. The retailer is part of National Vision, which operates more than 1,100 stores in 44 states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Its other brands include Americas Best Contacts & Eyeglasses, Vision Centers inside select Walmart stores, Vista Opticals inside Fred Meyer stores and on select military bases.

Pet project

A pet supply retailer with two stores in the Charleston area now has a new name.

The Wild is the new moniker for the former All Is Well stores at 1175 Folly Road on James Island and at 3417 Shelby Ray Court in West Ashley.

Book it

Two book sales that help support Charleston County Public Library have been canceled so far this year because of the coronavirus, with the loss mounting to about $20,000.

But another one is still on for Friday and Saturday at the main branch library at 68 Calhoun St. in Charleston.

Books, DVDs and CDs will be available starting at $1 for paperbacks and $4 for hardbacks.

The sale, sponsored by Friends of the Library, runs 10 a.m-4 p.m. Friday and Saturday with special shopping hours for senior citizens 9-10 a.m. both days.

Safety protocols include masked volunteers, sanitized shopping baskets, one-direction lanes, social distancing and adherence to occupancy levels. All attendees must wear a mask.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.  SUNY Empire State College has extended its deadline to apply and enroll in courses this fall to Aug. 10 to give applicants more time to apply in light of new challenges and disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The fall term begins Sept. 8 for all undergraduate, graduate, associate, and certificate programs. SUNY Empire offers students more than 110 flexible online programs, from certificates to masters degrees, and was able to quickly transition to a fully online and distance learning model in March of this year.

The college has been conducting online instruction since 1995, blended with face-to-face learning at campuses and learning hubs in every region of the state.

The decision to extend traditional admission deadlines was made to give current, transfer, and prospective students additional time to apply in recognition that many routine aspects of life  from mail delivery to computer access  have been disrupted by the pandemic and its repercussions.

The rigorous review process will remain unchanged to ensure students meet SUNY Empire requirements and are prepared to meet the demands of their academic program.

SUNY Empire will also extend its COVID-19 Emergency Education Grant Fund to students in the fall term. In March, the college took immediate action to establish the COVID-19 Emergency Educational Grant fund, which has awarded more than $170,000 to 749 students to help them continue their studies despite new hardships imposed by the pandemic.

As SUNY Empires fall reopening plan will limit access to most of its locations throughout the state, the grant will help students meet technology needs to be successful in online and distance learning formats.

As this pandemic creates new challenges, both big and small, for people across New York state and the country, now is the time to be adaptable, not rigid, SUNY Empire State College President Jim Malatras remarked.

Extending our application deadline and our COVID-19 emergency education fund to give future SUNY Empire students more time to get their applications prepared and providing additional financial resources is absolutely necessary. This college was founded to deliver an education that works around students lives, and thats what we continue to do today. Students need flexibility and understanding now more than ever. SUNY Empire is prepared to offer it, Malatras added.

Beginning in Sept., SUNY Empire will reopen four of its campuses in New York for limited services, and to offer students a blend of in-person and virtual campuses. Under the plan, the following campuses will be open to students on a limited basis with strict health and social distancing protocols this fall:

* Student Center at 111 West Ave. and the Capital Region Campus at 113 West Ave. in Saratoga Springs

* Finger Lakes Campus in Rochester

* Long Island Campus in Selden

* Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany
The Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine Summer 2020 issue has been released.

The 128-page magazine focuses on European cruise brands and their strategies going forward. Another major topic is food and beverage, featuring exclusive interviews with industry-leading food and beverage executives and chefs.

The impact of COVID-19 and the return to service is also discussed with input from Carnival Corporation, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean Cruises.

Also covered is crew repatriation, highlighting the cruise companies commitment to their crews and the hurdles they have had to overcome in order to get crew home safe and sound.

Special sections are devoted to expedition cruising and ship operations.

The Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine Summer 2020 issue is packed with original and exclusive reporting covering the global cruise industry.

Subscribe Today.
Good for Belinda Karahalios. Shes the Ontario MPP who this week voted against the Ford governments legislation to expand its emergency powers far beyond whats necessary, and was promptly kicked out of the Progressive Conservative caucus for her trouble.

Karahalios and the opposition MPPs who opposed Bill 195 were right. In her words, the law amounts to an unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy by taking away the legislatures right to review extensions of the governments emergency pandemic powers on a regular basis.

In a better world, legislators like Karahalios, who occasionally vote their conscience rather than the strict party line, would be allowed to remain in caucus. But party discipline almost always wins out in Canadian politics, and the Ford government is no exception. Premier Doug Ford ejected Karahalios, the MPP for Cambridge, immediately.

Theres an important principle involved. An emergency, by definition, is temporary. Were willing to grant governments special powers to deal with it, but that cant become the new normal. At the very least, our elected representatives must be allowed to regularly review emergency orders and decide if theyre still necessary.

Governments almost always overreach in these situations. Given a chance to dispense with time-consuming parliamentary niceties, they prefer to use the excuse of an emergency to do just that. The Trudeau government tried it in late March, but was quickly forced to retreat. The Alberta government did something similar in April.

But democratic oversight shouldnt be just a nice-to-have, even in an ongoing emergency. These are the times when MPs and MPPs have a special responsibility to make sure governments dont go farther than they have to. Belinda Karahalios did just that, and she shouldnt have been punished for it.

The Ford government has a clear majority at Queens Park, so tolerating one dissident MPP wouldnt have endangered its ability to pass whatever legislation it wanted. Clearly, the point was to send a message to the rest: stay in line.

The government also used its majority to push through omnibus legislation designed to do a variety of things, including speeding up construction of thousands of homes at new transit stations, making it easier to appoint justices of the peace to clear court backlogs, and giving school boards the power to hire education directors who havent worked as K-12 teachers.

None of these issues have much to do directly with responding to COVID-19. All deserved to be debated properly and not shoved through the legislature under the guise of dealing with an emergency. The Ford government has the votes to get its way in the end, but MPPs should get a chance to examine each measure and give their input. Thats why we elect them, after all.

Another danger of how the government has proceeded is that it poisons the well on specific issues. Theres a reasonable argument to be made, for example, for the merits of allowing school boards to choose from a wider pool of candidates when they select a new director of education.

Its possible, for example, that someone who has other kinds of experience, such as being dean of a faculty of education, might be the best choice for a board even though theyve never taught school.

Directors of education are expected to run big, complex organizations and surely boards should be encouraged to look at a variety of possibilities when they go looking for the best leader. Education Minister Stephen Lecce has argued it could also help to diversify school board leadership, an obviously laudable goal.

But that debate has now been completely polarized by the way the government chose to proceed. Opponents of changing the teachers-only rule are running a fear campaign around the idea that the governments real goal is to install bean-counters who will push a privatization agenda for public schools.

Trust in government is more essential than ever as we navigate the pandemic. By abusing its power and ramming through these measures, the Ford government is undermining that trust.

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The Chairman of the National Peace Council, Most Reverend Dr Emmanuel Asante has charged the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to institute disciplinary action against the Member of Parliament for Awutu-Senya East, Hon Hawa Koomson for tarnishing the partys image.



According to Most Rev Asante, the NPP must consider some sanctions against the Special Development Initiatives Minister for bringing the name of the governing party into disrepute.



I wish that the NPP will take note of this and take action in respect of what she has done to bring their name into disrepute, he said.



Rev Asante said whilst the party prepares to sanction her, she must do the honourable thing by resigning from her post as Minister for Special Development Initiatives.



Speaking to JoyNews on Tuesday, the Chairman of the National Peace Council described the action of the Minister as an embarrassment to President Akufo-Addo, explaining that the resignation would be the only way to mitigate the consequence of her behaviour.



Most Rev Emmanuel Asante again said that the Privileges Committee of Parliament should meet and discuss the Kasoa shooting incident, believing that the action of the Member of Parliament warrant for such processes.



The Central Regional Police Command says it is investigating an incident that led to the firing of arms by Member of Parliament for the Awutu Senya East Constituency,Hon. Hawa Koomson; thus, the MP has honoured their invitation and given her statement on the matter.



When we went to the scene, it was the four people we arrested that were met but later intelligence led us to identify that she (Hawa Koomson) is someone who can also assist with investigations so we invited her over, the Regional Public Relations Officer, DSP Irene Oppong said on Okay FMs Ade Akye Abia Morning Show.



A Cape Coast Circuit Court has granted the four suspects who were arrested in connection to the disturbance at a voters registration centre bail.



The Court presided by Dorinda Smith Arthur granted them bail to the tune of 30,000 each with two sureties.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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Eight years ago, when Congressman John Lewis came to my home in Connecticut, he met the elders in my family, Connecticut residents who were born and raised in Georgia. There was an instant Southern connection and kinship between us. Although my family traveled north to get away from the Jim Crow South and in search of better economic opportunities, there was a common bond of struggle, strength, perseverance and humor (yes, Congressman Lewis had a good sense of humor). Learning about him when I was a student at Trinity College inspired me, and spending that afternoon together with him made it all the more clear to me that his fight  our fight  was about creating a rising tide in our nation that lifts all boats, and each and every single one of us have the power to make this our reality.

Fifty-five years ago, then 25-year-old John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, fighting for voting rights. He was brutally beaten by Alabama state troopers, yet he managed to survive. He spent the rest of his life fighting for civil rights and social justice, and served as the conscience of Congress. His strength, courage, and determination were contagious and he inspired generations to demand more of this country, and to fight with resilience and passion. Dr. Martin Luther Kings Beloved Community encouraged us to exercise non-violent resistance, to gain understanding, to educate and transform, and to end racism and poverty through transformation. Congressman Lewis not only spoke of the Beloved Community, but he embodied it fully in the way in which he lived and was a walking example of our greatest aspirations. I had never met someone so prominent, important, and influential who embodied such humility and compassion.
RESTON, Va., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SyncDog Inc., the leading Independent Software Vendor (ISV) for next generation mobile security and data loss prevention, today announced a partnership with the global leader in mobile threat defense (MTD), Zimperium. Through this relationship, Zimperium's zDefend solution will be integrated into the Secure.Systems platform. zDefend quickly embeds Zimperium's advanced z9 machine learning-based engine into the platform delivering the following benefits:

On-device, machine learning-based mobile security for device, network and malicious app attacks;

A quickly and invisibly embedded SDK inside apps resulting in 100% security adoption; and

Negligible overhead and minimal permission requirements.

"The need for mobile devices to conduct business operations in today's climate is critical, and the increased importance of employees having that level of access has resulted in enterprises rethinking their mobile security strategies," says Brian Egenrieder, Chief Revenue Officer at SyncDog. "It is imperative that employees are able to access corporate data from wherever they are, on whichever device they choose, without compromising the integrity of their employers data."

Egenrieder continued, "By integrating Zimperium into our Secure.Systems platform, enterprises will be able to offer enhanced mobile protection to their employees, while remaining ahead of emerging mobile threats, all without limiting productivity, invading employee privacy or sacrificing usability. Companies will no longer need to be concerned with the applications employees may have downloaded, and the associated malware that could come with them, as the combination of Zimperium and SyncDog will isolate and encrypt corporate apps and data from personal use apps while continuing to monitor the device to ensure it is secure."

Users will have access to a secure, containerized mobile workspace which utilizes Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) and Data Loss Prevention (DLP), going beyond traditional mobility management solutions. This offering will grant security teams and IT personnel increased visibility into emerging mobile threats and risks that put their organization's data in jeopardy.

The combined solution offers an all-in-one mobile security solution that prioritizes user experience and is easy to deploy and integrate into enterprises' existing mobile strategies, ultimately providing peace of mind for the organization and its employees when conducting business operations outside of the company network.

"As the number of employees accessing enterprise data on their mobile devices steadily increases, so too does the number of threats to those devices," said Nitin Bhatia, Chief Strategy Officer at Zimperium. "With no signs of mobile device use at the workplace slowing, especially with the evolving pandemic, companies must take complete ownership of securing their IP. Part of taking ownership will be to instill a security posture to prepare for employees working remotely, permanently. This relationship will enable SyncDog to offer enhanced protection on both corporate managed and employee owned devices  without the need for an MDM/EMM device management profile - further supporting their use and promoting the productivity of on-the-go employees without worry of cyberattacks targeting mobile devices."

About SyncDog Inc.

SyncDog is the leading ISV for building mobile frameworks that extend app functionality to devices while securing corporate and Government networks from mobile-endpoint threat. SyncDog's flagship solution, Secure.Systems, delivers a rich and unimpeded mobile experience for employees working remotely, and supports a multitude of enterprise productivity apps within a NIST-certified (FIPS 140-2 cert. #2687), workspace. Secure.Systems is ideal for organizations that want to deliver a rich mobile app experience across BYOD, CYOD (choose your own device), or other endpoint device policy. Secure.Systems is a natural complement to security and compliance auditing initiatives to satisfy the mandates of HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, GLBA, FISMA, and other laws/standards for data security.

Secure.Systems can be deployed as managed service from https://secure.systems or as an on- premise solution. Additionally, Secure.Systems can be found on the Microsoft Azure and MobileIron marketplace exchanges, as well as on the App Store (iOS) and Google Play Store (Android).

For more information about SyncDog, please visit https://syncdog.com.

About Zimperium

Zimperium, the global leader in mobile security, offers the only real-time, on-device, machine learning-based protection against Android, iOS and Chromebooks threats. Powered by z9, Zimperium offers the most complete protection for mobile devices and apps against device, network, phishing and malicious app risks and attacks.

Zimperium was the first MTD provider to be granted an Authority to Operate (ATO) status from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). Headquartered in Dallas, TX, Zimperium is backed by Warburg Pincus, SoftBank, Samsung, Sierra Ventures and Telstra. Learn more at www.zimperium.com or Zimperium's official blog at https://blog.zimperium.com.

Media Contact:

Cole Christy

LaunchTech Communications

619-972-9836

[email protected]

SOURCE SyncDog Inc.

Related Links

https://www.SyncDog.com


The Justice Department on Tuesday accused two Chinese hackers of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of trade secrets from companies across the world and more recently targeting firms developing a vaccine for the coronavirus. The indictment, which officials expected to discuss at a news conference, says the hackers in recent months had researched vulnerabilities in the computer networks of companies publicly known for their work in developing vaccines and treatments.

The indictment includes charges of trade secret theft and wire fraud conspiracy against the hackers, who federal prosecutors say stole information not only for themselves but also that they knew would be of interest and value to the Chinese government. The charges are believed to be the first accusing foreign hackers of targeting scientific innovation related to the coronavirus, though US and Western intelligence agencies have warned for months about those efforts.

Last week, for instance, authorities in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom accused a hacking group with links to Russian intelligence with trying to target research on the disease.

China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being 'on call' to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist party's insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies' hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research, Assistant Attorney John Demers, the Justice Department's top national security official, said in a statement.

There was no immediate indication from the indictment that the hackers had successfully obtained any COVID-19 research, despite efforts to snoop on the companies. But prosecutors say the defendants in January conducted reconnaissance on the computer network of a Massachusetts biotech firm known to be researching a potential vaccine and searched for vulnerabilities on the network of a Maryland firm less than a week after it said it was conducting similar scientific work.

The case was filed earlier this month in federal court in Washington state and was unsealed on Tuesday. An email sent by The Associated Press to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, seeking comment on the hacking charges was not immediately returned.

Also read: Trump says virus in US will get worse before it gets better
By Gail Tsukiyama

HarperVia. 320 pp. $26.99

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Gail Tsukiyama's first novel in nearly a decade, "The Color of Air," takes readers to the 1930s Hawai'i of her Japanese father, where sugar was king and labor was hard. Enormous sugar cane and pineapple plantations, owned by privileged white haole families and managed by Portuguese overseers known as lunas, ran on the backs of immigrants seeking a small piece of the American Dream.

Tsukiyama's book focuses on those immigrants and some of their descendants, living in the town of Hilo in 1935, on the cusp of the Mauna Loa volcanic eruption. Her characters include the dependable Koji, who recently lost his lifelong love Mariko to cancer. Koji considers himself a surrogate father to Mariko's son, Daniel, recently returned from the mainland at the same time as his high school sweetheart, Maile. These characters all harbor secrets that hold them back from developing deeper relationships.

But before we can learn more about their backstories, Mauna Loa erupts: "The great white plumes of smoke turned an ash-filled dusty brown before emerging white again, only to be chased away by a spewing red-hot curtain of lava that blew from the fissures hundreds of feet into the air." The 1935 eruption did threaten Hilo; from late November until December, the lava flow advanced a mile per day. Toward the year's end, troops commanded by Lt. Col. George S. Patton dropped bombs to divert the flow; no one knows whether they were successful or whether the eruption simply ended.

Tsukiyama uses this real-life event to great effect, weaving in the beliefs of her characters who think the goddess Pele's anger caused the eruption. "Pele can't stay mad forever," one character says. "Yeah, she can," another replies. She's "not like one of your girlfriends you can sweet-talk out of being mad at you." Daniel was born during an earlier eruption, and his mother liked to say that meant, "Pele will always watch over you."

Now, Daniel's not so sure. As he and Maile return home, both are reeling. A well-educated Chicago doctor, he has a diagnosis on his conscience, and Maile is on the run from an abusive relationship. We learn much more about Daniel than Maile, an imbalance that rankles. Tsukiyama makes up for it in part with her wise decision to create sections that dive into earlier history ("Island Voices") and passages in which she allows the dead to speak ("Ghost Voices"). These interstitials not only provide background and crucial information, they also make the 1930s material feel more urgent and contemporary than it otherwise might in a historical novel.

As Daniel cares for a dementia-ridden Hilo elder, we see that the traditions of Hawai'i need not be subsumed by modernization; Western medicine can coexist with indigenous remedies. We also see, through Koji's memories of the fight to unionize the plantations, that some forms of modernization aren't simply niceties. In "The Color of Air," the beauty is in finding the balance.

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Patrick is the editor, most recently, of "The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians and Other Remarkable People."
As a result, the NSW state government has been able to target the dingo with poisoning, trapping and shooting as a feral animal under cover of its Wildlife and Conservation Bushfire Recovery Scheme. This case is a clear demonstration of what the Wilderness Society calls the need for a strong independent agency capable of making and implementing laws that give meaningful protection to our wildlife. Susan Cruttenden, Dalmeny There exists, in south-west Sydney, a healthy, chlamydia-free and expanding koala population, the koalas are trying to expand from Campbelltown and could reach both the Blue Mountains to the west and Royal National Park to the east if they were provided with corridors and safe crossings. However, this population like most other koala populations in NSW has been abandoned by both state and federal legislation. Not by the legislation itself but by a failure to apply it and enforce the legislation ("Fundamental Failure": Environment Department not protecting Koala Habitat, July 19). It appears that neither the NSW state government nor its federal counterpart is interested in prioritising habitat, corridors or safe crossings by applying legislation that protects the koala and other threatened species. Any review or changes to legislation must address the lack of political will to apply legislation. Failure to do so will see the extinction of the koala in the wild by 2050, which means without action, we might never see these amazing animals in the wild. Maria Bradley, Coogee Your correspondent Graeme Tychsen (Letters, July 22) might enjoy a walk nearby in my Adelaide suburb, as he will find that koalas are not extinct in South Australia. And despite climate change-driven bushfires on Kangaroo Island last summer, he may come there to see koalas in a unique habitat. He should visit our great state soon (after testing negative to COVID-19) as inept commonwealth government environment ministers may change that. Roger Hosking, Mitcham (SA)

Who needs koalas when we can have feral cats, bushfires and land clearing? Anyone interested to join the Koala Party? John Hinde, Millers Point Fake optimism won't create jobs Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit: The thinking around two million people returning to work by Christmas has no connection with optimism ("Jobless rate to rise with aid cut", July 22). The Morrison government has been good at raising people's spirits by daily progress notes on when you can get a haircut or a beer. But deep thinking on sensible economic fixes has not been a true feature of their time in government. Maybe, publishing a gigantic number, to sketch the idea Santa will drop a job down your chimney by December is considered by some as leadership. But, in the main, the audacity is as debilitating to our frame of mind as the virus itself. Optimism has never looked so fraudulent as this latest moment in our political history. David Gunter, Sydney

It is appropriate to look to the future when acting now. We saw that in the government's handling of the health crisis. Action was taken to limit the number of coronavirus cases before the hospitals were overwhelmed. The same might be said of the latest proposals to extend the JobKeeper and JobSeeker supplements, albeit at a lower rate. But, caution is needed. The amount of uncertainty in any forecast needs to be considered. The bigger the uncertainty, the less you should rely on long term forecasts and act on what is likely to happen in the near term. What if Treasury is wrong? (They don't have a good track record in their budget forecasts.) The future looks very uncertain at the moment. When will there be an effective vaccine? When will consumer confidence return? Instead of reducing support on the expectation that the economy will recover, maybe this is a time to wait and reduce support only when it is clear that confidence has returned. David Rush, Lawson It is not good enough for the PM and Treasurer to get up on a podium and make announcements. Michele O'Neil ("We rebuilt from WWII, and must again", July 20) makes a great case for a sustainable manufacturing plan that concurs with Judith Brett's excellent piece, "The Coal Curse", for Quarterly Essay. Brett explains the folly of maintaining an un-diverse economy that relies only on dwindling export commodities. Jobs will not appear that way. I await with interest an admission that a snapback will not happen, and the announcement of a plan to both grow the public service and stimulate manufacturing. Julius Timmerman, Lawson Judge cases on merit Regardless of race, when 10-year-olds commit crimes there needs to be an official and formal response ("Stop locking up kids as young as 10", July 22). This need not be a criminal conviction or incarceration, and as with any other accused person, each case has to be considered separately. It should not be beyond the wit of lawyers/police/magistrates to determine that a stone through a window is manifestly different from stealing a wallet or breaking the other kid's arm. It should not be beyond the scope of psychologists/social workers/medicos to determine whether a child has underlying behavioural problems. Perhaps the real issue is not the age of criminality but the failure to provide adequate diversionary resources for children between 10 and 14 who come to the attention of the law? Sue Hoad, Merewether Rodney Dillon makes a powerful, indeed unanswerable, case for increasing the age at which children can be incarcerated to at least 14. It is disgraceful that some jurisdictions imprison 10-year-old children and others aged 12. Most are indigenous children, many of whom go on to offend again. It doesn't have to be this way. The involvement of their parents, elders and even the victims of their crimes in finding alternatives to incarceration can turn young deprived lives around. Andrew Macintosh, Cromer

Search and destroy trust Strip searches were said to be carried out "on reasonable grounds" but in the vast majority of cases it appears not on the moral high ground with few incursions but numerous humiliations being recorded ("Police double-down on strip-search procedures", July 22). The indignity of the procedure and the young age of the recipients would do little to endear the up and coming generation to the vital role of police in the community. What is needed is guidance, mentoring and education. The police play a crucial and admirable role in the dissolution of the bottom feeders associated with the production and distribution of harmful drugs. Music festival promoters, the idolised musicians and in-tune educators can all help youth search their own common sense as a means to avoid drug death. Maybe naive but just looking for strong grounds upon which to progress. Steve Dillon, Thirroul How do "humiliating and degrading" strip searches fit in with other government policies which aim to protect women and children? Peter Mahoney, Oatley Buck stops here I'm a 72-year-old white Anglo male. Like Jacinta Miller ("Jail death prompts familiar questions", July 21) I am also angry for her, for the death of her brother, angry at all the continuing black deaths in custody, angry at the lack of accountability, recognition and lack of action by the state and federal governments, by Serco, in whose supposed care the inmates are, who pass it back to the government who pass it back to Serco.

No answers, no action, no care, only buck-passing. Only yet another coronial inquest; to find what? That the Government and Serco are liable? Ha! Meanwhile, if it takes as long as it will take yet another Indigenous death in custody gets lost in the statistics. This must stop.! Black lives DO matter. Tony Williams, Port Macquarie Locals only What a joke it was when the NSW State Government announced last week that Callan Park would be saved from developers and be managed by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment ("Agency sparks park privatisation fear" July 21). Callan Park should only be managed by a Trust comprising of local people who have a genuine interest in this iconic park. Karen Eldridge, Leichhardt Clear as mud "A risk-based security program - including to preserve the integrity and security of confidential and sensitive information - that takes into account best practice standards" (Australia Post cagey on staff spying claims, July 21). A magnificent piece of writing. It could be about anything. Otherwise an A+ for obfuscation. Eric Scott, Bondi Junction

Towering History What your correspondent (Letters, July 22) doesn't know is the MLC Building in North Sydney was a huge architectural development in its time. It was one of the first modern office blocks build in Sydney and was designed by Jerry Lewers a prominent Sydney architect. So like the Sirius Building it is worth keeping if only for architectural history in Sydney. Danina Anderson, Newport Big money At a time of global financial insecurity due to the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, let alone in Australia, how on earth can Rugby Australia ("Souths' teen star Suaalii", July 22) justify signing 16-year-old sensation Joseph Suaalii for a reported $2.7 million over a three-year period, with an additional $300,000 for the remainder of 2020? Has Rugby Australia completely lost its marbles? Eric Palm, Gympie, Queensland Under a spell

The rugby league team I coached at Melba High School, Canberra, in 1979 had five Darrens in the starting 13 (Letters, July 22). My halfback, Darren Dodds, confirmed all their parents had been Bewitched fans. They went on to be ACT champions that year. Thank you, Samantha. John McNeill, Hawthorne, Brisbane Eight down, across one At least the Australian Women's Weekly is still in print ("Elle of a day", July 22). Their cryptic crossword is the only one that I'm able to complete. Carolyn Wills, Cremorne Going feral Peter Olive (Letters, July 22) states that feral animals are a "significant contributor to the extinction of unique native animals". May I suggest that some of the ferals are human? Colleen Starkey, Mt Colah
Never let it be said designing unprecedented wage subsidy schemes in the middle of a rapidly evolving pandemic is an easy thing.

When exhausted Treasury officials finalised the details of the government's JobKeeper 1.0 scheme, announced on March 30 off the back of two other massive stimulus packages, they erred firmly on the side of simplicity and generosity.

Amid reports of Northern Italian doctors switching off ventilators for elderly COVID-19 patients to keep younger patients alive, Treasury assumed Australia, too, was headed for an eight-week "hard lockdown" in which all non-essential activity, like retail, construction and mining, would be cancelled.

Treasury thought more than 6 million Australians would need the $1500 per fortnight JobKeeper payment, but only 3.5 million did. Because, of course, as it turns out, that severe lockdown didn't happen.

Instead, in the seven days after the JobKeeper 1.0 announcement, Australia's daily new COVID-19 case tally tumbled, from 279 to 107, and continued to fall thereafter, thanks to border closures and strict social distancing measures.
Labour yesterday issued an unreserved apology to seven whistleblowers smeared by the party after they raised concerns over anti-Semitism.

In a bid to draw a line under the disastrous Jeremy Corbyn years, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to former employees who contributed to a BBC probe into whether the party had victimised Jews.

In a humiliating statement in the High Court, the party accepted it had made 'false and defamatory' comments about the whistleblowers and had caused them 'distress, embarrassment and hurt'.

The party also paid damages to John Ware, the veteran journalist behind the Panorama programme. It is believed the affair has cost Labour up to 500,000 in legal costs and damages.

Labour yesterday issued an unreserved apology to seven whistleblowers smeared by the party after they raised concerns over anti-Semitism. In a bid to draw a line under the disastrous Jeremy Corbyn (pictured, Mr Corbyn with his adviser Seamus Milne in 2016) years, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to former employees who contributed to a BBC probe into whether the party had victimised Jews

In the Commons yesterday, Sir Keir pointedly told the Prime Minister that Labour was 'under new management' with his moderate leadership.

But hard-Left former leader Mr Corbyn said it was 'disappointing' that the party had settled the claim, adding that it was a 'political decision, not a legal one' - prompting the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to call for him to be suspended from the Labour Party.

Last night Mr Ware said he was considering instructing lawyers to launch action against Mr Corbyn for defamation.

The apology is the latest sign of Sir Keir's attempts to draw a clear distinction between the party he leads and the one over which Mr Corbyn presided.

Seven former employees from the party's governance and legal unit, who were responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members, sued Labour after it issued a Press release describing them as having 'personal and political axes to grind'.

The legal action followed the broadcast in July 2019 of the Panorama show Is Labour Anti-Semitic?.

The party officials alleged in the programme that senior figures close to the leadership, including strategy chief Seumas Milne, had interfered in the process of dealing with anti-Semitism complaints. They also claimed they had faced a huge increase in complaints since Mr Corbyn became leader in 2015.

Seven former employees from the party's governance and legal unit, who were responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members, sued Labour after it issued a Press release describing them as having 'personal and political axes to grind'. The legal action followed the broadcast in July 2019 of the Panorama show Is Labour Anti-Semitic? (left, Louise Withers Green; right, Ben Westerman on the BBC Panorama show)

The party officials alleged in the programme that senior figures close to the leadership, including strategy chief Seumas Milne, had interfered in the process of dealing with anti-Semitism complaints. They also claimed they had faced a huge increase in complaints since Mr Corbyn became leader in 2015 (left, Dan Hogan; right, Sam Matthews)

The High Court heard that the seven whistleblowers - Katherine Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Daniel Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman - all had concerns there was 'a lack of commitment' by Labour to investigate anti-Semitism properly (left, Mike Creighton; right, Kat Buckingham)

What did the whistleblowers say? LOUISE WITHERS GREEN: The former Labour Party disputes officer revealed she had agreed to sign a so-called non-disclosure agreement (NDA) when she left the party after witnessing 'horrendous' disciplinary issues. 'I felt a bit complicit, actually... in the Labour Party not dealing with antiSemitism properly.' BEN WESTERMAN: The only Jewish member of the disputes team, he was quizzed on his background. 'The person got up and then turned back to me and said 'Where are you from?' I said 'What do you mean where am I from?' and they said 'Are you from Israel?' What can you say to that? You are assumed to be in cahoots with the Israeli government. It's this obsessionthat just all the time spills... into anti-Semitism.' DAN HOGAN: The investigator on Labour's disputes team revealed how officials linked to the party's former general secretary, Jennie Formby, had overruled decisions linked to anti-Semitism. Asked if Jeremy Corbyn would survive a disciplinary hearing, he said: 'I don't think he would... I think he would be expelled.' SAM MATTHEWS: Labour's former head of disputes said the burden of dealing with the issue left him feeling helpless. 'I actively considered committing suicide. Walking off her [Jennie Formby's] roof  she had a balcony outside her office  as some way not to feel trapped any more. I sat at my desk thinking 'I can't do this any more, I am being asked to do things I am... not comfortable with'.' MIKE CREIGHTON: Labour's former head of disputes said he was laughed at by Seumas Milne, one of Jeremy Corbyn's closest allies. 'He actually laughed at me. I thought he actually wanted to know how we tackle anti-Semitism within the Labour Party. 'I think what he actually meant to say was 'how do we deal with the bad publicity we're getting?' KAT BUCKINGHAM: The former chief investigator in Labour's disputes team said she left the party feeling 'stuck between an angry and obstructive leader's office and an arcane disciplinary system'. She said: 'I couldn't hold the tide and I felt so powerless and I felt guilty and I felt like I failed and yeah I had a breakdown.' Advertisement

The High Court heard that the seven whistleblowers - Katherine Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Daniel Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman - all had concerns there was 'a lack of commitment' by Labour to investigate anti-Semitism properly.

At a brief hearing in London, their barrister William Bennett QC said: 'The whistleblowers were highly critical of the Labour Party's approach to tackling antiSemitism within its ranks.'

He told Mr Justice Nicklin: 'Before the broadcast of the Panorama programme the Labour Party issued a Press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about the whistleblowers.'

Mr Bennett said Labour accused them of 'having acted in bad faith during and after their employment with the intention of harming the Labour Party' - allegations he said were 'untrue and defamatory'.

At the same hearing, Labour apologised to Mr Ware for falsely accusing him of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public'.

The party agreed to pay him 'substantial damages'. Labour has declined to give details of the over all settlement yesterday, but the damages bill alone is thought to be under 200,000.

In a statement, the claimants' solicitor Mark Lewis said: 'Today in the High Court, the Labour Party retracted its false allegations made about the Panorama programme asking whether Labour was anti-Semitic.

'The answer was a clear 'Yes'. Labour chose to double-down and attack the programme's presenter, John Ware, and the whistleblowers rather than addressing the truth of the problem.'

Labour's handling of anti-Semitism allegations under Mr Corbyn's leadership is the subject of an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission - and Sir Keir has already received a draft report from the watchdog.

The party said Labour is 'committed to tackling anti-Semitism' under Sir Keir and deputy leader Angela Rayner.

In a statement, it stressed: 'Anti-Semitism has been a stain on the Labour Party in recent years. It has caused unacceptable and unimaginable levels of grief and distress for many in the Jewish community, as well as members of staff. If we are to restore the trust of the Jewish community, we must demonstrate a change of leadership.'

Outside court, shadow attorney general Lord Falconer said: 'We have brought to an end a chapter when the Labour Party was accusing whistleblowers of behaving dishonestly and I'm incredibly glad that we have brought it to an end.'

Labour Jewish MP Dame Margaret Hodge said: 'This is a big step in the right direction.'

The Jewish Labour Movement said: 'It is a sad reflection of its historic role as the party of working people that Labour sought to pursue and silence its former employees for speaking out against racism.'

However, Mr Corbyn condemned Labour's decision to apologise to the whistleblowers. It is understood he tried to challenge the move this week, but failed.

Last night he claimed lawyers had advised the party it could have won, stressing: 'The decision to settle these claims in this way is disappointing and risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle anti-Semitism.'

IAN AUSTIN: How did my great party become so poisonous?

I'll never forget watching John Ware's documentary lift the lid on the racism that poisoned the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

I had been campaigning against anti-Semitism throughout his leadership and would not have thought it possible still to be shocked.

But the film last year stunned me into silence. I was brought to tears hearing how decent young Labour staff had been treated when they tried to deal with this virus infecting the party. Some were driven out and lost their jobs. Others were made ill. One even contemplated suicide.

Panorama's investigation showed how complaints of antiSemitism soared under Corbyn, and revealed evidence of his inner circle interfering in the processes that were meant to deal with them. Instead of taking the programme seriously and booting out the people responsible, the Labour Party smeared the brave whistleblowers.

IAN AUSTIN: I'll never forget watching John Ware's documentary lift the lid on the racism that poisoned the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn

Under Corbyn, senior figures claimed Jewish people worked with Adolf Hitler or peddled the myth that they financed the slave trade.

Corbyn himself defended a racist mural depicting appalling caricatures of Jewish people on a wall in east London. Jewish party members were driven out.

Female Labour MPs were subjected to grotesque racist abuse, some being told they did not have human blood. The problem became so bad some members were arrested on suspicion of distributing materials likely to stir up racial hatred.

Who would ever have believed that Labour, this great political party that many people joined to fight racism, could have been poisoned to such an extent?

During Corbyn's leadership, people on the Left became obsessed with Israel. The world's only Jewish state and the Middle East's sole democracy seemed to attract more criticism than all the world's other controversies combined. It was heart-breaking to see Labour become the first political party in history to be subjected to a full official inquiry by the independent Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The Jewish community repeatedly demanded the party deal with the scandal.

Britain might have only a small Jewish community but there is no doubt people in areas with no Jewish residents were appalled at the anti-Semitism that flourished under Corbyn. Ordinary, decent people who had voted Labour all their lives rejected the extremism and anti-Semitism that had poisoned the party.

Mainstream, the campaign group against extremism that I lead, called for officials who allowed antiJewish racism to poison the party to be sacked. We said there needed to be an education programme for members and a proper complaints process.

All candidates should sign a pledge to uphold the definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. And we said the legal action against the whistleblowers should be dropped immediately.

So Sir Keir Starmer was right yesterday to apologise to the brave young people who spoke out. But what is more important is wholesale cultural change so the rest of the party's members understand why tough action is necessary if he is to win back the trust of Britain's decent fair-minded majority.

Ian Austin is a former Labour MP and chairman of campaign group Mainstream.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSX-V:BAY; OTCQB:ATBHF) ("Aston Bay" or the "Company") is pleased to present results from Phase 1 of the 2020 diamond drill program at its Buckingham Gold Property located in Central Virginia, USA (see March 24, 2020 Aston Bay press release). Ten large diameter (HQ) oriented diamond drill holes totaling 1,218 metres (m) were completed with significant gold intersected in seven of the holes, including high grade gold intersections in quartz vein and broader zones of lower grade gold mineralization in zones of sericite-quartz-pyrite alteration.

Highlights

Significant gold intersected in seven drill holes, including gold-bearing quartz in the Buckingham Vein in core-length intercepts of : 5.81 g/t Au over 6.29 m including 29.9 g/t Au over 0.92 m (hole BUCK20-014) 19.25 g/t Au over 1.40 m (hole BUCK20-015), and 14.65 g/t Au over 1.06 m (hole BUCK20-016).

These vein intercepts represent a southeasterly along-strike extension of 35 m for the Buckingham Vein from previous Aston Bay drilling.

for the Buckingham Vein from previous Aston Bay drilling. Deepest-yet intercept of the Buckingham vein at 85 m vertical depth; vein remains open at depth.

Additional broad zones of lower grade disseminated gold mineralization to west and west-northwest of the Buckingham Vein in core-length intercepts of: 0.37 g/t Au over 52.66 m (hole BUCK20-007B) 0.24 g/t Au over 30.78 m (hole BUCK20-008) 0.40 g/t Au over 22.73 m (hole BUCK20-009), and 1.01 g/t Au over 9.00 m (hole BUCK20-010).

Ongoing Phase 2 drilling has encountered gold bearing quartz vein material in four drill holes up to 115 m farther southeast along strike, indicating a total additional along-strike extension of 150 m for the Buckingham vein; as well, the vein remains open to the southeast.

"The Buckingham Vein is a high grade, near surface, steeply dipping vein that remains open at depth and to the southeast," stated Thomas Ullrich, CEO of Aston Bay. "Together with the broad zones of lower grade disseminated gold mineralization, we are developing a very attractive and increasingly compelling gold exploration story here at the Buckingham Property in Virginia. We look forward to build on this with the assay results from our ongoing Phase 2 drill program. We clearly have additional exploration potential along strike to the southeast and down-dip with the Buckingham Vein, as well as prospective areas for broader zones of lower grade disseminated gold mineralization to the west and west-northwest of the vein. IP geophysics and additional step-out drilling are the next steps at Buckingham for the second half of the year."

Table 1. 2020 Phase 1 Buckingham Project Drilling Summary with Significant Gold Intercepts. From To Interval Estimated Au Drill Hole (m) (m) Length True Width (g/t) (m) (m)* BUCK20-007 47.00 50.09 3.09 2.47 1.08 and 68.74 72.00 3.16 2.53 1.11 BUCK20-7B 64.78 117.44 52.66 42.18 0.37 including 85.61 86.38 0.77 0.62 1.71 including 96.97 98.00 1.03 0.82 1.77 including 106.24 107.36 1.12 0.90 1.55 including 110.35 116.00 5.65 4.52 1.30 BUCK20-008 74.94 105.72 30.78 24.62 0.24 including 76.50 78.00 1.50 1.20 2.23 BUCK20-009 20.50 32.00 11.50 9.20 1.00 and 43.15 47.67 4.52 3.62 0.70 and 62.29 85.02 22.73 18.18 0.40 including 62.29 63.07 0.78 0.62 1.81 including 68.00 70.00 2.00 1.60 2.09 including 77.44 78.60 1.16 0.93 1.21 BUCK20-010 10.00 19.00 9.00 7.20 1.01 and 51.35 52.29 0.94 0.75 1.58 BUCK20-011 no significant intersection BUCK20-012 no significant intersection BUCK20-013 no significant intersection BUCK20-014 44.71 51.00 6.29 5.03 5.81 including 45.43 46.35 0.92 0.74 29.90 BUCK20-015 44.60 47.00 2.40 1.92 4.47 and 53.00 54.40 1.40 1.12 19.25 BUCK20-016 95.70 96.76 1.06 0.85 14.65 (*assuming a 72 dip on the quartz vein, the true width is 80%)

Significant intersections from the Phase 1 drilling are presented in Table 1. Drill hole locations with the significant intercepts from the Phase 1 drilling are presented in Figure 1; these intercepts along with selected intercepts from previous drilling are presented in a longitudinal cross section in Figure 2. Refer to the June 27, 2019 Aston Bay news release for additional information on previous drilling.

Quartz Vein Mineralization - "Buckingham Vein"

Three drill holes (BUCK20-014, -015 and -016) targeted the south-east extension of the Buckingham Vein. The previously known south-east extent of the vein was delineated in 2019 Aston Bay drilling that yielded 24.7 grams/tonne (g/t) Au over 3.3 m including 34.2 g/t Au over 0.5m and 24.7 g/t Au over 3.57 m including 62.5 g/t Au over 1.39 m in BUCK19-003 and -004. A hole drilled by a previous operator in 2016 (WAR16-004) located 35 m southeast along strike from the two Aston Bay drill holes yielded modest results of 0.9 g/t Au over 1.7 m in a zone of poorly recovered quartz-altered rock and quartz veining, casting doubt on continuation of a productive vein. The current drilling by Aston Bay, however, yielded core-length intercepts of 5.81 g/t Au over 6.29 m including 29.9 g/t Au over 0.92 m, 19.25 g/t Au over 1.4 m and 14.54 g/t Au over 1.06 m in quartz vein from BUCK20-014, -015 and 016, representing a 35 m along-strike extension and a 50 m down-dip extension of the Buckingham Vein.

Zones of Disseminated Sericite-Quartz-Pyrite Mineralization

Seven drill holes (BUCK20-007 through BUCK20-013) targeted the transition from the Buckingham Vein into a zone of gold-bearing sericite-quartz-pyrite mineralization. Previous drilling by Aston Bay and a previous operator intersected broad zones of gold mineralization (2.2 g/t Au over 18.0 m and 1.9 g/t Au over 22.2 m in BUCK19-005 and 0.7 g/t Au over 13.7 m in WAR16-006) west of and northwest along strike of the Buckingham Vein. Four of the current drill holes (BUCK20-007, -008, -009 and 010) that were collard along the line of strike or west of the vein intersected broad zones of lower grade, but significant, gold mineralization (e.g., 0.37 g/t Au over 52.66 m, 0.24 g/t Au over 30.79 m, 0.40 g/t Au over 22.73 m, and 1.01 g/t Au over 9.00 m). No significant intersections were noted in the three drill holes collared north of the strike of the Buckingham Vein (BUCK20-011, -012 and -013).

Phase 2 Drill Program Ongoing

Phase 2 of the drilling program at the property is currently underway (see June 26, 2020 Aston Bay press release), with six drill holes completed to date. Gold-bearing quartz vein material was intercepted in all four of the step-out drill holes located up to 115 m along strike from the Phase 1 drilling of the Buckingham Vein. Samples from the initial three drill holes, two drill holes targeting the vein and one drill hole targeting disseminated mineralization, have been shipped to the laboratory for analysis by standard fire assay techniques which will include metallic screen assaying of selected intervals with visible alteration and mineralization (including visible gold). Results are anticipated in the coming weeks. Drilling of the seventh and final drill hole in the Phase 2 program is underway and anticipated to be completed soon. The Company will provide an update on the Phase 2 program next week.

About the Buckingham Main Zone

The NW-SE trending Buckingham Main Zone, which comprises a series of visible gold-bearing quartz vein outcrops that extend over a strike length of some 150 m have yielded grab sample assay values up to 701 grams per tonne (g/t) Au. The veining and alteration encountered in the current drill program is similar to that encountered in the 2019 drilling of the zone, which included core-length intercepts of up to 35.6 g/t Au over 2.03 m and 24.7 g/t Au over 3.57 m in gold-bearing quartz veins, as well as 2.2 g/t Au over 18.1 m and 1.9 g/t Au over 22.2 m in adjacent but separate sericite-quartz-pyrite alteration zones (see June 5, 2019 Aston Bay release).

The gold-bearing system is hosted within a package of likely Cambrian-age sediments, including greywackes with minor quartz-arenites (phyllite, schist and quartzites), within the Appalachian orogenic belt. This region is the site of the historically prolific Pyrite Belt which hosted a reported 250 gold mines that were in production prior to the California gold rush of 1849 but has seen little recent mineral exploration. Gold production has also occurred to the south in the Carolina Slate Belt, notably at OceanaGold's Haile Mine located in South Carolina with commercial production commencing in 2017 and slated to produce up to 150,000 ounces of gold per year.

Samples from the Company's 2020 Buckingham drill program were shipped for analysis at the ALS Laboratory in Vancouver, BC. A secure chain of custody was maintained, and the program included a comprehensive QAQC program, which did not identify any analytical issues.

QUALIFIED PERSON

As per National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Andrew Turner, P.Geol., a consultant to Aston Bay, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The Company strictly adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines in conducting, documenting, and reporting its exploration activities.

Figure 1: Drill hole locations with significant gold intercepts for 2020 Phase 1 drilling, Buckingham Gold Project, Virginia. Local grid.

Figure 2: Longitudinal cross section with significant gold intercepts, Buckingham Gold Project, Virginia. 2020 Phase 1 drill intercepts in white boxes; previous drill intercepts in blue italics. View looking northeast.

About Aston Bay Holdings

Aston Bay is a publicly traded mineral exploration company exploring for gold and base metal deposits in Virginia, USA, and Nunavut, Canada. The Company is led by CEO Thomas Ullrich with exploration in Virginia directed by the Company's advisor, Don Taylor, the 2018 Thayer Lindsley Award winner for his discovery of the Taylor Pb-Zn-Ag Deposit in Arizona.

The Company has acquired the exclusive rights to an integrated dataset over certain prospective private lands and has signed agreements with timber and land companies which grants the company the option to lease the mineral rights to 11,065 acres of land located in central Virginia. These lands are located within a gold-copper-lead-zinc mineralized belt prospective for Carolina slate belt gold deposits and Virginia gold-pyrite belt deposits, as well as sedimentary VMS, exhalative (SEDEX) and Broken Hill (BHT) type base metal deposits. Don Taylor, who led the predecessor company to Blue Ridge and assembled the dataset, has joined the Company's Advisory Board and will be directing the Company's exploration activities for the Blue Ridge Project. The Company is actively exploring the Buckingham Gold Project in Virginia and is in advanced stages of negotiation on other lands in the area.
Tony Perkins refutes claim that Biden is 'more acceptable choice' for Christians in 2020

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Prominent evangelical activist and pastor Tony Perkins has pushed back against the claim that Joe Biden is a more acceptable presidential candidate for Christians in 2020 than President Donald Trump as the Biden campaign positions itself to appeal to evangelicals.

Perkins, the head of Family Research Council, a leading social conservative lobbying organization in Washington, D.C., responded to the recent news that the former vice president has hired former Republican Josh Dickson to oversee his campaigns national faith engagement.

The hiring of Dickson, who reportedly became a Democrat because of his evangelical faith and worked on President Barack Obamas 2012 campaign, is an attempt by the Biden campaign to win over faith-based voters. Trump continues to paint himself as a champion for Christians as he touts fulfillment of campaign promises related to abortion, religious liberty and judicial nominations.

With exit polls showing that over 8 in 10 white evangelical voters voted for Trump in 2016 and only 16% voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, theres been speculation in the media about whether the devout Catholic Biden can attract a higher percentage of conservative-leaning and moderate Christian voters in 2020 as many may be wary of Trumps divisive tactics.

In an op-ed posted to the FRC website, Perkins, who has participated in events at the Trump White House, called Bidens new strategy of trying to attract faith voters an ambitious strategy that involves trying to win over a group of people [hes] spent the last several years insulting.

Maybe Joe Biden, a self-identified Catholic, is personally spiritual. But authentic? Perkins asked.

Surely, no one who's followed his four-decade career could conclude that Biden shares Christians' values where it matters: in the public arena. And yet even Dickson himself tried to sell the former vice president as the real deal because he 'love[s] our neighbor' and care[s] for the poor and vulnerable.

As Biden is endorsed by the lobbying arm of the nations largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, for his support for abortion rights, Perkins asked whether Biden considers children in the womb vulnerable as well.

This is [a] man running on a vision, not only of abortion-on-demand, but abortion right up until  and perhaps after  birth, he stressed. To cap it off, for those Americans who do have a biblical or moral objection to abortion, he says they should still have to pay for them with their tax dollars. How does he square authentic faith with those radical positions?

Bidens views on abortion have evolved through the years, along with the shifting views of the Democratic Party. As a Delaware senator, Biden supported legislation barring the federal government from providing funding for abortion. But he altered his stance on the Hyde Amendment last year after officially announcing his candidacy.

Perkins accused Biden of trading his 40 years of support for the Hyde amendment for the support of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights organizations.

During a Democratic presidential debate in February, Biden assured that as president, he would have an abortion litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. He also pointed out that he is part of the reason why liberal justices like Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor are on the Supreme Court.

Yes, Joe Biden says when asked if, as president, he would have a litmus test on abortion for Supreme Court nominees.



A litmus test on abortion relates to a fundamental value in the Constitution. A woman does have a right to choose. https://t.co/93QauZSK6e#DemDebatepic.twitter.com/hyUTEKoRQ9  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 8, 2020

Earlier this month, Biden expressed disappointment in the Supreme Courts 7-2 decision in the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, which upheld religious exemptions to a Department of Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate. Critics said that without the exemption, the mandate forces faith-based employers to provide contraception coverage in health plans even if they object morally.

He told nuns they'd have to fund birth control, churches they'd have to cover abortions, and U.S. taxpayers that overseas abortion would be our newest export, Perkins warned. Someone please explain how this is a candidate that can connect with Christians through a shared worldview?

He went on to voice concern with Bidens radical LGBT advocacy that he fears could gut religious liberty and greatly impact the freedom of Christian schools, Catholic hospitals and faith-based nonprofits to uphold policies consistent with their beliefs on sexuality and marriage.

Perkins criticized Biden for announcing that his No. 1 legislative priority as president would be the passing of the Equality Act. The bill, which passed the House last year but has not had success in the Republican-controlled Senate, would codify LGBT non-discrimination protections into federal law.

We're talking about a piece of legislation, the Equality Act, that hunts down and punishes the same evangelicals whose vote [Biden] claims to want! One that also ends women's sports, girls' and boys' bathrooms, Christian counseling, privacy laws, conscience protections, millennia of biology, medical ethics, parents' rights.

Perkins op-ed comes amid growing efforts by Never Trump evangelical figures and Republican groups, who are encouraging conservative Christians to reconsider their vote for Trump in 2020.

One Republican organization is spending millions in 2020 on advertisements seeking to convince conservatives and faith-based voters not to vote for Trump, even running a TV commercial that tells Christians that Trump is using them.

In June, a new book edited by longtime progressive evangelical leader Ron Sider was released. It features the essays of 30 evangelical Christians explaining why Christians should not vote for Trump.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Sider warned that evangelicals should not be single-issue or dual-issue voters focusing solely on issues of religious freedom and abortion but should consider the entirety of Trumps political stances as well as the presidents past immoral actions and statements.

In a USA Today op-ed last week, Sider urged the Biden campaign to do more to appeal to white evangelicals and implored him to address their concerns related to religious liberty and abortion.

While some argue that Biden is a more acceptable choice to Christians because hes less brash and confrontational than Trump, Perkins said that Biden is not necessarily a gentlemanly statesman.

Biden's tirades in local townhalls have been the stuff of internet legend, as he berates, profanes, and shouts his way through the heartland, Perkins argued. If Biden is supposed to be the angel to Trump's devil, no one told him.

He also pointed out that eight women have accused Biden of sexual misconduct and inappropriate touching. Earlier this year, Biden denied allegations by a former Senate staffer who claims that he reached under her skirt in 1993.

The FRC head stressed that evangelicals dont support Trump because hell hold up a Bible but rather because his policies are based on what's inside.

No administration in history has done more for Christians in America and around the world than this president, Perkins argued. And I'll be the first to admit that, four years ago, I didn't think that was possible.

No one is rationalizing or excusing Trump's failings. But consider what he's accomplished for the unborn, religious liberty, Israel, persecuted minorities, the military, our economy, the family. He's had a backbone of steel to push back against LGBT extremism, political correctness, America's enemies, and the world's tyrants.
The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol, the latest effort by Congress to respond to the nationwide protests over systemic racism and injustice.

The bill would remove the bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney from the Old Supreme Court Chamber, in the Capitol. Taney authored the Dred Scott decision in 1857, which declared African Americans couldnt be citizens and was later widely panned. The Taney bust would be replaced with a statue of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice.

The legislation would also remove three statues of Americans who promoted slavery and white supremacy  Charles Aycock, John C. Calhoun, and James Paul Clarke  and require states to reclaim and replace their Confederate statues in the Capitol. There are 12 Confederate statues in the Capitol collection.

Today will be a historic day in the history of the Congress of the United States and of our country, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said. The House is taking a long-overdue and historic step to ensure that individuals we honor in our Capitol represent our nations highest ideals and not the worst in its history.

Despite overwhelming support for the bill in the House, its unclear whether the GOP-controlled Senate will take up the legislation. Senate Republican leaders have so far declined to take action on the issue, saying it is up to states to replace the statues they send to the Capitol. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment on whether the upper chamber will consider the House bill.

Its also unclear whether President Donald Trump would sign the bill given that he has used Confederate symbolism as a cause celebre to rally his supporters in recent weeks.

And while lawmakers in both parties cheered the bill Wednesday, the move still falls far short of advocates demands for police reform after nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd. The House passed a sweeping police reform bill last month, but the Senate failed to take action, meaning the issue is likely on the congressional back burner until after the election.

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Still, Democratic leaders heralded the passage of the Confederate statues removal bill as an important step and a tribute to the late Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died Friday.

The main honor for Mr. Lewis, to me, is to get a signature on the Voting Rights Act. But this is also a way to honor his legacy because what he fought for every day is the exact opposite of the symbols, said Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"Personally, as a black lawmaker, the presence of these statues represent an acceptance of white supremacy and racism, Bass added.

Each state is allowed to donate two statues to the Capitol collection to honor persons notable in their history. And while multiple states have removed or taken steps to remove statues honoring Confederate sympathizers, a dozen such statues remain, including of Georgias Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy.

Stephens is prominently featured in Statuary Hall, just steps from the House chamber, as is a statue of Mississppi's Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. But already some House lawmakers and political leaders in Georgia have started talking about replacing the Stephens statue with one of Lewis, an idea that has received bipartisan support in the Peach State.

The statues bill isnt the only recent action the House has taken on the issue. The House passed its annual defense policy bill Tuesday, which included provisions removing the names of Confederate leaders from military bases. More than 100 Republicans backed the bill in direct defiance of Trump, who has threatened to veto the legislation because he opposes renaming the military bases. The Senate is considering its own version this week.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi also removed four portraits of former speakers who served in the Confederacy from around the House chamber last month.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American in Congress, praised passage of the statues bill and said the monuments should be moved to museums for future Americans to study.

When people say, symbols of heritage are not hate, I say to them, hate is a heritage depending on what side of history you are on, Clyburn said.

Nobody is talking about destroying statues, Clyburn continued. No matter how ill-fated it may be, I do not advocate and dont want anybody tearing down any statutes. Put them in a museum.

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this story.


Every year during the admission time, freshers rush to find Paying Guest (PG) accommodations near North Campus of Delhi University. PG owners usually witness a brisk business as bookings and enquiries start coming in. This year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, admissions also took a digital route and with no clarity about reopening of universities, PG owners do not expect students to come before September.

Rajpal Singh, who has been running girls and boys PG for the past 16 years in Hudson Lane, had to vacate the buildings that he used as a PG on rent.

I am left with my PG buildings now but still have to incur the maintenance cost and electricity bill of the buildings and they are just adding to my loss. Hardly four people are staying here, mostly students have gone back to their hometowns. Even during vacation time, when students used to go back to their hometowns for one to two months, then also I never had a loss like this. During that time, students from DU hostels used to come and stay in the PG. We cannot predict when students will come now and we do not even know if they will be opting to stay in a PG, says Singh.

PG owners did not expect things to be extended for such a long time. During this time, they are usually bombarded with enquiry and booking calls. Sandhya Singh, who has been running a girls PG in Vijay Nagar, Single storey for almost seven years, says that she just received about five calls for enquiry this year.

I have been running the PG on rent and every year we used to accommodate close to 100 students. We just got maximum four to five calls this time, enquiring about the PG but students will not come anytime before September, says Singh

She added that students will not be choosing triple or four sharing rooms, as for many social distancing will be a major concern.

We did not expect things to be extended this much. We were hoping that until admission time, things might get normal. Even if students come in PGs, they will not opt for triple or four sharing rooms now. Everyone is under the fear of the pandemic and even we cannot plan anything right now till we start getting regular enquiries or bookings, she says.

PGs have been vacated since March and this year no freshers have come in till now. PG owners have been slowly vacating rented buildings in order to reduce their losses.

Shankul Sharma, who runs PG in Kamla Nagar, Hudson Lane and Vijay Nagar, says that 90 percent of the accommodation in his PG was by students and out of that 60 percent were freshers.

Every year 60 percent of the students are freshers and rest are second or third-year students, including those also who are doing short term courses in Delhi. I had to let go of one of the buildings that I had taken up on rent to use as a PG. It depends on the owner also, some of them understand the current situation and adjust with us, says Singh, who has been running PG for five years now. Adding, Parents will now be more cautious in sending their kids to PGs and would not want to take the risk. I dont think there will be demand for triple sharing rooms, they will maximum choose a double sharing room or a single one.

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"Every day, in our work across the world, we must strive to do our part to promote inclusion, justice and dignity. We must combat racism in all its manifestations," the secretary-general said on Monday in his remarks to the annual General Assembly Commemoration of Nelson Mandela International Day and United Nations Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize Laureate Recognition, Xinhua news agency reported.

United Nations, July 21 (IANS) United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the international community to promote justice and combat racism in all its manifestations.

"As we celebrate Madiba (the name most commonly used by South Africans for Mandela) and his life-long struggle for justice and equality, we must recognize that we still face the persistent plague of racism," said the secretary-general.

"This abomination violates the Charter of the United Nations and insults our core values," he said.

Guterres warned that "COVID-19 has been likened to an x-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of our societies, and it has laid bare risks we have ignored for decades: inadequate healthcare; gaps in social protection; structural inequalities; environmental degradation; the climate crisis."

"In response, we need world leaders to foster unity and solidarity," he said.

The UN chief called on the international community to work hard "to reduce the common threat of the pandemic" and "to promote a recovery that will build more sustainable, inclusive and gender-equal societies and economies."

"As the United Nations marks its 75th anniversary in this fragile time, let us reflect on the life and work of Nelson Mandela, who embodied the highest values of the United Nations and who took action and inspired change," said the secretary-general.

Nelson Mandela International Day (or Mandela Day) is an annual international day in honour of Nelson Mandela, celebrated each year on July 18, Mandela's birthday. The day was officially declared by the United Nations in November 2009, with the first UN Mandela Day held on July 18, 2010. However, other groups began celebrating Mandela Day on July 18, 2009.

The United Nations Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize was established by the UN General Assembly in June 2014 to recognize the achievements of those who dedicate their lives to the service of humanity by promoting the purposes and principles of the United Nations while honouring and paying homage to Nelson Mandela's extraordinary life and legacy of reconciliation, political transition, and social transformation. This year's laureates are Marianna Vardinoyannis of Greece and Morissanda Kouyate of Guinea, who attended the General Assembly virtual meeting on Monday. The in-person award ceremony will be held at a later date at the UN headquarters in New York.

--IANS

rt/
TCN News

Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) of Rajasthan has strongly condemned the arrest of a young survivor of gang-rape and two Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan (JJSS) activists in Araria District of Bihar.

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In a statement, MKSS has detailed that the three were arrested by a district court and put into judicial custody on July 11, while the rapists remain unapprehended. It said that the survivor was agitated and upset while signing her statement in court, and wanted the presence and guidance of Kalyani and Tanmay (JJSS), who had been supporting her throughout the ordeal of registering the complaint. However, all three of them were accused for creating a disruption during court trial leading the magistrate to order their arrest on charges of criminal conspiracy, obstruction of duty and insulting the judicial officer (Sections 353,188, 228, 120-B of IPC and Contempt of Courts Act).

MKSS has blamed the judiciary for this problematic and insensitive way to treat the rape survivor while further discussing that a special hearing at Araria, the CJM court level granted bail to the gangrape survivor on July 17, but not to Kalyani and Tanmay, who are still unjustly detained in Dalsinghsarai Jail in Samastipur district. Sounding alarm to this appalling decision, MKSS has called out this as an arbitrary turn of events leaving the survivor without her primary support people, hence leaving her open to further emotional and mental distress in the presence of a lingering potential stigma and social pressure from her community.

The government-imposed COVID-19 lockdown has emboldened the state apparatuses to function with arbitrariness, impunity and a lack of accountability, said MKSS on Monday speaking of recent arrests of young activists. It reiterated that keeping Kalyani and Tanmay in jail  two young and sensitive activists, also sends a chilling message that supporting survivors in their struggle for justice can even draw the wrath of the institutions of law. It has also resonated that this case compromises the integrity of democracy and undermines the work of Indian feminist movements which struggled to make various structures of power more sensitive, empathetic, responsible and non-hostile to violence against historically marginalized groups, including women, trans persons and non-conforming gender identities.

Indicating the mishandling of the gang-rape case in Araria as yet another wake-up call for all of us, MKSS has appealed social justice and political institutions to come together in solidarity to protect the democratic and constitutional values that define India, and hold institutional structures accountable and answerable for their excesses.

MKSS expressed their support for JJSS, acknowledging its role as an autonomous peoples trade union working on issues of livelihoods and social justice, appealing to the higher judiciary in the state to intervene immediately in this case with empathy and fairness, but also issue state-specific guidelines to ensure that there is a friendly and non-hostile environment in respect of rape and sexual assault cases, in adherence with the recommendations of the Justice Verma Commission.
Detectives from the Police Service of Northern Irelands Major Investigation Team have launched a murder investigation following the death of 75 year old Daniel Guyler.

Detective Inspector Ray Phelan said: "Daniel Guyler was found with serious injuries in the Termon Street area of Derry on Monday, 23 July 2018. He later died in hospital on 1 May 2019.

Following extensive police investigations detectives have today, Wednesday, 22 July, arrested two women aged 33 and 44 on suspicion of murder.

They have been taken to Musgrave PSNI Serious Crime Suite for questioning.

Detective Inspector Phelan continued: I realise this incident occurred some time ago, however I would ask people to cast their minds back to Monday, 23 July 2018. Did you see anyone or anything unusual in the Termon Street area of Derry?

"Mr Guyler was found injured at approximately 8.45pm, were you in the area before or after he was found? If you were I would appeal to you to contact detectives on the non-emergency number 101 quoting reference 1317 23/07/18.

"Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, which is 100% anonymous.
Press Release

22 July 2020

We are hugely disappointed to announce that we have been forced to cancel the 2020 edition of The Annual Hotel Conference (AHC), which was scheduled to take place at the Manchester Convention Centre, Manchester UK, between the 21st - 22nd September 2020. Unfortunately, due to the on-going COVID-19 circumstances, we're not in a position to bring over 1,000 members of The AHC community together to learn, network and be inspired.

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We're frustrated to be another email into your inbox with sad news but the health and safety of each of our attendees, partners, clients and employees is and always will be our top priority. The industry we are all proud to belong to has been devastated, yet over the last few months, we've witnessed extraordinary displays of solidarity from the hospitality industry and seen organisations use the time to draw breath, reflect and adapt to trends that have accelerated as a result of the pandemic. It has been an incredibly challenging period for us all, but we are filled with hope and optimism for the future. We look forward to welcoming you to The AHC 2021 which will take place on 27th and 28th September 2021.

If you have booked your place at The AHC 2020, you should have received an email with further details about your registration. Should you have any questions, please reach out to Peter Kealy, Delegate Sales Representative at [email protected].

We recognise that staying connected is more important now than perhaps ever before therefore we'd like to invite you to join us at our virtual event; The AHC Reimagined: Reconnecting UK Hospitality, which will take place on Thursday 8th October. The AHC Reimagined will include all the traditional elements of The AHC that place it firmly on the calendar for the UK hospitality industry but vitally, it will offer a chance for our sector which has suffered so greatly, to come together, to enjoy outstanding content and to connect with peers, network with colleagues and meet new partners. More information will be released over the coming weeks but we're hard at work creating a valuable and informative event with plenty of The AHC personality sprinkled throughout.
BATTLE CREEK, Mich., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As stewards of the land, farmers are continuously seeking ways to help improve the health and sustainability of their farms. They also recognize the role they can play to positively impact the land and water sources adjacent to where their crops grow. Doing so takes funding and resources - and farmers find themselves in need of support from organizations to help them get there, especially during these challenging times. That's where public-private partnership plays a key role.

Photo from left to right: Mike Milligan, Michigan Wheat Farmer; Mary Fales, Program Director, The Nature Conservancy; Mary Gallagher, Responsible Sourcing Manager, Kellogg Company

Kellogg Company and The Nature Conservancy have collaborated to help farmers implement conservation agriculture practices on 67,000 acres of Michigan farmland since 2015 in the Saginaw Bay Watershed  the main drinking water source to nearly 1 million residents and the habitat for large populations of waterfowl, birds and more than 90 fish species.

Through their support of both a six-year USDA led program and a pay for performance incentive, farmers adopted practices to help regenerate soil health, support biodiversity and address water quality concerns in the Saginaw Bay Watershed. Participating farmers like Mike Milligan, a fourth-generation Michigan wheat farmer, implemented practices such as cover cropping, no-till farming, soil nutrient management and water drainage management to prevent nearly 3,900 tons (the equivalent of 275 dump truck loads) of soil from running off the land and into waterways.

Soil runoff occurs when heavy rains become too much for the soil to absorb, causing land to erode and drain into nearby streams, rivers and lakes. These stressors can cause nitrogen contamination and algal growth in waterways, which negatively impacts the habitats of native fish and wildlife populations.

"Promoting soil health on my farm is vital not only for boosting production, but also for helping to protect the broader ecosystem of the species and people living in the Saginaw Bay area," said Milligan. "Working with Kellogg, The Nature Conservancy and the USDA has helped farmers like me accelerate conservation and regenerative agriculture practices that are making a significant impact."

The Saginaw Bay is an important sourcing area for Kellogg ingredients, as soft white winter wheat grown there is used to make Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats, Kellogg's Raisin Bran.

In 2019, Kellogg and The Nature Conservancy enhanced its Pay for Performance incentive to enable more Michigan farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices and receive payments based on the predicted environmental benefits. In just one year, the program expanded to nearly 4,000 acres, which is estimated to prevent another 328 tons of runoff from entering the Bay. Additionally, Kellogg has worked since 2015 with its grain supplier Star of the West to measure and track continuous improvement of conservation practices on 70,000 acres of Michigan farmland and 45,000 acres of wheat. The teams meet with farmers each year to share best practices and provide additional resources and technical assistance.

"Promoting soil health and protecting biodiversity has always been a priority at Kellogg," said Mary Gallagher, Responsible Sourcing Senior Manager at Kellogg Company. "This program contributes towards our global Kellogg's Better Days goal to support 1 million farmers, workers and women by the end of 2030. Already, we have positively impacted more than 433,000 farmers through 40+ Kellogg's Origins sustainable agriculture projects worldwide."

"Keeping a healthy, sustainable system is critical," Milligan added. "We're all working towards a common goal here, to have a healthy long-term water supply and healthy soil."

You can read more about this Kellogg's Origins program in this latest Social K corporate blog.

About Kellogg Company

At Kellogg Company (NYSE: K), we strive to enrich and delight the world through foods and brands that matter. Our beloved brands include Pringles, Cheez-It, Special K, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Pop-Tarts, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Eggo, Mini-Wheats, Kashi, RXBAR, MorningStar Farms and more. Net sales in 2019 were approximately $13.6 billion, comprised principally of snacks and convenience foods like cereal and frozen foods. Kellogg brands are beloved in markets around the world. We are also a company with Heart & Soul, committed to creating Better Days for 3 billion people by the end of 2030 through our Kellogg's Better Days global purpose platform. Visit www.KelloggCompany.com or www.OpenforBreakfast.com.

SOURCE Kellogg Company

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 00:57:12|Editor: huaxia

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, on July 21, 2020. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday raised the case of the death of a British teenager killed in an accident with a car driven by the wife of a U.S. diplomat during a meeting with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (Photo by Tim Ireland/Xinhua)

LONDON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday raised the case of the death of a British teenager killed in an accident with a car driven by the wife of a U.S. diplomat during a meeting with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"The Prime Minister reiterated the need for justice to be done for Harry Dunn and his family. He said there was a strong feeling among the people of the UK that justice must be delivered," said Johnson's official spokesperson.

Dunn, 19, died after a crash last August outside the Royal Air Force base in Northamptonshire used by the U.S. military. After the crash, American citizen Anne Sacoolas, the suspect driving the car, fled Britain.

Sacoolas, wife of a U.S. intelligence official based at the camp, claimed diplomatic immunity after the crash.

Ahead of Tuesday's meeting at Downing Street, Dunn's mom, Charlotte Charles, sent a plea to Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, as well as Pompeo, urging action.

The family wants Sacoolas to return to Britain to face justice.

Saying the past 11 months have been horrific, Charles said she would not wish what she has gone through on a worst enemy.

"We've got his anniversary coming up which is going to be beyond painful for us. It's just about doing the right thing. It always has been, it always will be."

Last December, 42-years-old Sacoolas was charged by British justice authorities with causing death by dangerous driving. A extradition request, sent to Washington by the British Home Office, was refused by Pompeo in January, with the U.S. state department's spokeswoman saying the decision was final.

During their talks, Johnson and Pompeo underlined their commitment to negotiate a strong post-Brexit free trade agreement between Britain and the United States.

Pompeo said a third round of talks on a free trade deal were scheduled for later this month.

"The primary focus for the U.S. will be to see if we can make progress and bring this to a closure just as quickly as possible."

Pompeo said he had spoken about a trade deal with Johnson and hopes it could be finalized before too long.

Pompeo said he and Raab would be meeting the British and American Business Council to hear "how we can get to the right place" to reducing trade barriers.

There are rising concerns in Britain that the trade deal would lower barriers to controversial U.S. exports such as chlorine-washed chicken and hormone treated beef.

Johnson has also said previously that Britain's National Health Service (the NHS) is "not on the table" during any post-Brexit trade deal talks with the United States. Enditem
Jake Paul at the Teen Choice Awards at the Galen Center in Los Angeles in 2017. (Jordan Strauss / Invision)

After controversial YouTuber Jake Paul threw a large house party in Calabasas in the midst of a pandemic, Mayor Alicia Weintraub criticized the celebrity and said authorities will begin to fine people $100 for not wearing masks and shut down large gatherings.

Videos captured from the 23-year-olds July 11 gathering show dozens of young people mixing without masks or social distancing. In the clips, carefree partygoers roll dice and drink, swing from a raised excavator crane and pull a car into the packed lobby of Paul's Calabasas mansion.

NEW: The mayor of Calabasas & neighbors tell me theyre outraged after they say YouTube celebrity @jakepaul threw a massive party at his mansion on Saturday. They call it irresponsible, selfish, & say its businesses & workers who pay the price for this w/ lockdowns. 10pm @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/COiVleuDH2  Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 15, 2020

Its completely unacceptable to be interacting with people like that during this time. People need to be wearing masks and people need to be keeping their distance. You cant be having parties with over 100 people, Weintraub said.

As internet influencers played at Paul's house, Los Angeles County officials reported 2,916 new coronavirus cases and 57 more COVID-19-related deaths that day.

Our numbers our rising, Weintraub said, adding that the city has seen 174 cases of the novel coronavirus. Each of the citys 11 COVID-related deaths and 52 of its cases come from nursing facilities, she said, but those numbers dont make Pauls party safe.

Younger and younger people in our community are testing positive, Weintraub said. Even though a young person might not get really sick, they have the potential to spread it to someone else who could get really sick.

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Pauls not the only Calabasas resident throwing parties. Weintraub said a recent baby shower brought in more than 200 guests. A wedding reception got a big crowd too, she added.

People are not acknowledging that were living in the time of COVID-19, she said.

The get-togethers are spreading the coronavirus, and the entire community lives with the consequences, Weintraub said.

So many of our businesses are still shut down or are open with limitations. No child in the state is starting school in person. These are the consequences for parties like this: the constant spread of the virus, she said.

The city will now work with the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department to shut down any gatherings that violate the city's and countys health orders, Weintraub wrote in a Friday media release. Authorities will also issue fines of $100 to people breaching mask rules.

The mayor said she wishes she didnt have to put the new policies in place: It just shows that some people arent taking this seriously.

Weintraub also said she worries that the young people following Paul, who has 20.1 million subscribers on YouTube and has amassed nearly 7 billion views on the platform, will follow his lead and disregard health guidelines. She noted many other internet influencers shared videos from the party.

Im hoping he will turn it around, issue an apology, and start promoting wearing a mask, Weintraub said.

Paul hasnt done anything of the sort yet. During his most recent video, a friend mentions that the YouTuber is embroiled in scandal.

I havent been in a scandal. Ive been in a false accusation, Paul said as a headline from an "Insider" piece about the party appeared. On Twitter, the celebrity reshared a post from YouTuber Tyler Oakley that showed video from the party.

A representative for Paul did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday, but Weintraub said one recently reached out to her.

They apologized. They want him to do better. Only time will tell, she said.
A restaurant in northern California is in hot water following reports that its staff failed to wear masks and patrons were discouraged from using face coverings to protect against the coronavirus. Apple Bistro, located in Placerville, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, received a warning from local officials on Monday after numerous complaints from customers, some of whom said they were turned away for wearing a mask. One of the signs outside the restaurant bluntly tells patrons its position on health guidelines to protect against COVID-19. "No social conditioning. No oxygen deprivation mask. No latex dirty germ spreader," the sign says, adding "Not required here. This may not be for you." Carla Hass, the communications director for Eldorado County, where the restaurant is located, told AFP that health inspectors decided to pay the restaurant a visit after receiving more that 50 complaints in recent days over the face mask issue. "Our environmental management staff met with the partner and owner yesterday to discuss with them how they could come into compliance for requiring their employees to wear face covering," Hass said. She said if the restaurant fails to comply, health official would suspend their permit. A man who answered the phone at the restaurant on Tuesday said "we are not taking media calls at this time." According to local media, the owner disagrees with the health guidelines put in place as coronavirus cases continue to rise in California. Customers meanwhile have taken to Yelp and Twitter to criticize the establishment and to call for a boycott. "He asked me if I had seen the sign," one customer told the local television station. "I was definitely not welcomed to stay with my mask on." Another woman said she was asked to leave when picking up an order while wearing a mask. Other customers, however, said they didn't mind the restaurant's position on health rules and would continue to eat there. "I have no problem," one woman told KABC-TV. "I'm glad to see them still doing business and they are social distancing." California Governor Gavin Newsom recently ordered people to wear masks when in public settings as the number of COVID-19 cases rose sharply in the state. A woman in a face mask walks by a sign posted on a boarded up restaurant in San Francisco, California on April, 1, 2020, during the novel coronavirus outbreak.
VANCOUVERWhen Dr. Bonnie Henry walked through Vancouvers trendy Gastown neighbourhood to pick up the designer shoes named after her, and had her photo taken when she stopped to look at a street-art painting made in her honour, the celebration of her leadership in flattening the curve was at a high.

One month after the province entered the third phase of its coronavirus restart plan, the tone in British Columbia has changed.

Now the key message is about stopping an uptick in COVID-19 cases from turning into explosive growth.

Just as Ontario eases into the idea of Stage 3 reopening strategies, Canadas shining examples of pandemic response in the West  British Columbia and Alberta  find themselves back on high alert.

And what theyre going through could say a lot about whats to come.

The uptick in cases  centred around a tourist hub in Kelowna, Calgary and a handful of health-care facilities  have put public health officials on guard that the success the West and parts of Canada have enjoyed in beating COVID-19 is fragile.

We are no longer having safe interactions, Henry said in her Monday update, referring to a series of Canada Day parties at bars and homes in Kelowna that have now been linked to 60 new cases of the disease.

We do have the possibility of having explosive growth here in our outbreak, if were not careful, she said.

The story is similar in Alberta, which saw a 50-per-cent increase in active cases over the weekend, after 368 new cases were identified. Canadas daily new case numbers had slowed to an average of about 300 new cases a day, but thats increased to an average of 460 new cases per day for the past four days.

The majority of the newly infected are young adults, many of whom have contracted the novel coronavirus by going to bars, restaurants and attending indoor parties, Canadas deputy chief public health officer, Dr. Howard Njoo, told reporters Tuesday at a briefing in Ottawa.

Njoo said he believes there is an invincibility factor playing into the outbreaks among young people, which is being fanned by scientific evidence emerging that shows youth who contract COVID-19 are less likely to become seriously ill.

B.C. officials confirmed the Kelowna parties, which included locals as well as people from the Vancouver area, involved primarily people in their 20s and 30s gathering in large indoor groups.

The good news is that the uptick in cases, though worrying, does not make a full-blown second wave inevitable, experts say. The Wests response at this moment will in fact be critical, they say, in helping the rest of the country understand how to navigate case increases as society opens.

Jean-Paul Soucy, a PhD student at the University of Torontos Dalla Lana School of Public Health, who has been collecting coronavirus case numbers from across the country since the beginning of the pandemic, said it shouldnt come as a shock that cases are going up in B.C. and Alberta, where activities such as going to restaurants and visiting tourist attractions is allowed.

Its certainly not unexpected that once people have been in lockdown for so long theyre going to meet one another  were social animals, he said.

The question for Soucy is whether the public health response to test, trace and isolate will hold up to the increasing pressures of Phase 3.

A lot of people will say the goal is to get to zero cases, like New Zealand, he said. But if we can keep this to a simmer, that would be something to celebrate and would be an achievement.

He described the three aspects of the coronavirus fight: test, trace and isolate, as crucial pieces of a chain where, if one piece falls apart, the whole system loses its worth.

The strength of B.C. and Alberta so far has been in keeping these elements together  testing widely and consistently, diligently tracing people who may have been exposed, and getting the social buy-in necessary for people to isolate when instructed.

Testing remains consistent in the provinces, Soucy said, and contact tracing systems are well established.

But the job of a contact tracer is also getting a lot harder. Public health officials in both B.C. and Alberta said this week that people have been recently socializing with as many as 20 or 30 different people now, compared to fewer than five at the height of the coronavirus restrictions.

If theres one break in that chain, it could lead to things getting more out of control, Soucy said.

Grady Topak, a Calgary business owner, learned first-hand that the coronavirus risk in Calgary  though lower than other parts of the country  still needs to be taken seriously.

A cluster of fitness studios across the city closed last week after instructors attended a private training session on their personal time and contracted COVID-19.

I can imagine walking into a location to support a friend and it might take a couple minutes to think that youre not comfortable with this and, at that point, its hard to turn around and walk out, said Topak, co-founder of YYC Cycle, which was one of the fitness studios affected, though not the host of the event.

Maybe thats the lesson here. That we shouldnt stay in places where we feel uncomfortable, Topak said. I think this made it hit home for people, who hadnt personally known someone with COVID-19 before, that we have to take this seriously. Starting tomorrow, well be asking customers to wear masks indoors until the point they get to their bikes.

Erin Strumpf, a professor of health economics at McGill University, said the case increases should not cause a panic.

Its just mathematically true that as more people leave their homes there are going to be more cases, she said.

In fact, gathering data about where those cases are appearing, and in relation to which activities, could help public officials make more targeted recommendations for reducing the risk of spread COVID-19, and that could actually help provinces focus on opening up those parts of society residents may most be missing, she said.

All pieces of reopening are not created equal, she said.

The choices were making now could make it less likely that well be able to open daycares and schools in the fall.

The spike in COVID-19 cases have led some open bickering.

In a Facebook group of more than 20,000 members made up of people who mostly live in the city of Penticton, B.C., many pointed fingers at young people for flocking to the areas beaches.

The beaches are packed. No masks, or very few are worn by young people. They are our biggest concern because they think they are immune, one man said, to which another member fired back, F--, I love how the older people in this town point fingers at young people.

He instead blamed the seniors playing slo-pitch softball and crowding in pickle ball courts.

Others posted photos of crowds in different locations to shame those in attendance for their proximity to one another.

Njoo, the deputy chief public health officer, suggested some young people attending indoor parties and not following proper physical-distancing measures might be doing so because the ongoing relaxing of pandemic restrictions  including the reopening of bars and restaurants  has sent a signal that they can let their guard down.

It could be happening all over the country, but its up to local authorities to decide whether these establishments should be allowed to remain open, Njoo said.

Moving forward we also recognize we need to at some point reopen our society. The tricky part, really, is trying to find that balance as we slowly as a society figure out how we move forward with the appropriate amount of caution in terms of various sectors.

With files from The Canadian Press

Joanna Chiu is a Vancouver-based reporter covering both Canada-China relations and current affairs on the West Coast for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @joannachiu

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This new, light weight, high power, zero maintenance, Li-Ion battery is designed to revolutionize the way power is delivered to the military," Doug Petito, Senior Vice President, Bren-Tronics.

Bren-Tronics, Inc. (https://www.bren-tronics.com/) recently delivered the first 2-B (highest capacity) fully MIL-PRF-32565B Compliant 6T battery to the U.S. Armys Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Ground Vehicle System Center (GVSC). The Bren-Tronics compliant batteries, both 2-A and 2-B (capacity options), are the result of years of development and lessons learned from our existing line of 24 Volt 6T Power and Energy batteries, first introduced in 2015.

The Bren-Tronics MIL-PRF 32565B Compliant 6T battery is designed to meet the power demands required by ever-expanding electronics packages incorporated into existing and future tactical vehicle fleets, as well as hybrid power solutions, including the USMC MEHPS power system. A single Bren-Tronics 6T will replace at least two of the 12V lead acid batteries used today, cutting weight and volume in half. Applications for the Lithium-Ion 6T power solution include robotics, unmanned vehicles, silent watch, communication systems, weapon systems, active protection systems, auxiliary power systems, and hybrid power systems.

Military power demands have continually increased, making the volume and weight of traditional batteries incompatible with overall platform requirements, said Doug Petito, Senior Vice President, Bren-Tronics. This new, light weight, high power, zero maintenance, Li-Ion battery is designed to revolutionize the way power is delivered to the military. Designed to drop into legacy lead acid systems or be integrated into next generation vehicles and platforms, this technology will meet power requirements for years to come.

About Bren-Tronics, Inc.

Bren-Tronics (Commack, NY) is a small business that has been designing and manufacturing portable power solutions for the war fighter since 1973. Bren-Tronics is the world leader in the design and production of military rechargeable batteries, chargers, and power systems.

Visit Bren-Tronics at https://www.bren-tronics.com/

Media Contact

Kyle Roelofs

Bren-Tronics

kroelofs@bren-tronics.com

631-670-2726
The Bernardston Police Department is warning residents of a new scam related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The department posted on Facebook saying that they are aware of people getting phone calls saying theyve been around someone with COVID-19 and you need to be tested. They are then asking for personal information.

This is most likely false, the Facebook post said. Do not give out your address or credit card information for COVID-19 tests.

Coronavirus related scams have totaled more than $74 million in losses, KOMO News reported.

A number of scams involve fake jobs, fake stimulus funds and remedies or cures, the news station reported.

Theyll ask you to pay some money up front, Ben Spradling of the Northwest BBB told KOMO News. Or theyll ask you to provide some personal information that really no legitimate business is going to ask you to provide.

The Bernardston Police Department suggests calling your medical provider if there are any concerns.

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Special Deal

22 July 2020

Heed the call of the wild this manta season (from now until November 2020) and head to one of the most renowned manta hotspots in the world. With the Maldives reopening its international borders on July 15, 2020 and last year's Baa Atoll high number of sightings, there's never been a better time to join resident Manta Trust experts at Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru to swim with these incredible gentle giants.

2019 saw an incredible 4,423 sightings of 589 individual manta rays in Baa Atoll. A total of 280 new manta rays were identified across the Maldives, taking the total number of reef manta rays in the Maldivian Manta Ray Project (MMRP) database to 4,942: the largest recorded population anywhere in the world.

"Since the MMRP - the founding project of The Manta Trust - was launched at Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru in 2005, we've worked tirelessly to care for the mantas that visit Baa Atoll each year," says Dr. Guy Stevens, the Founder and CEO of the Manta Trust. "We're delighted that sightings were so abundant in 2019, and with the quieter waters of 2020, we're hoping for record sightings this season."

All manta ray activities at Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru prioritize safety, sustainability and conservation, and are run by on-site Manta Trust experts who know hundreds of the regular mantas by name; these include Mr Spotty, the spottiest manta in the Maldives, and the aptly named Blob. With the help of a contactless ultrasound unit, the team discovered Blob was in the early stages of pregnancy last season so are hoping soon to spot an inquisitive manta pup.

Manta is Spanish for "cloak," referring to the ray's wingspan that propels these balletic black and white beauties through their underwater kingdom with the grace of an eagle soaring over mountains. With an evolution that can be traced back 20 million years, studies suggest that manta rays may possibly recognize themselves in the mirror - a high cognitive function ability shared by dolphins, primates, and elephants - and their curiosity often brings them close to snorkelers, making a manta experience even more magical.

Manta Experiences at Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru

Keeping marine magic on speed-dial, from July to November the Resort's Manta-on-Call service sees guests given a "manta phone" that rings whenever mantas are sighted nearby, before an exhilarating speedboat transfer to a once-in-a-lifetime snorkeling experience.

Manta Ray Scientist for a Day is a unique opportunity to be part of the pioneering work of the Manta Trust, the world's leading manta ray charity. Learn to free dive in the Baa Atoll; take ID photos; record environmental data; and even be in with a chance of naming a new manta.

Drawing on more than a decade's worth of local research and analysis, the Manta Trust experts have put together the following list of likely mass aggregation dates, allowing guests the best chance of meeting a manta in 2020 in the waters around Landaa Giraavaru:

July 18-22

August 1-5

August 17-21

August 31 - September 4

September 15-19

September 30 - October 4

October 15-19

October 29 - November 2

November 13-17

Note: Manta ray sightings are subject to weather conditions and the temperament of these gentle oceanic giants.

To be the first to swim alongside manta rays this season with the Manta Watch package, book online, email: [email protected] or call the Central Reservations department of Four Seasons Resorts Maldives at tel: (960) 66 00 888
Considered an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative, the China-Europe freight train service has injected new vitality into Xi'an.

Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has been an important gateway to China's opening-up since ancient times. It was the capital of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and the starting point of the ancient Silk Road. Its political and economic ties with foreign countries dates back over 3,000 years.

Xi'an launched its first China-Europe freight train in 2013. Currently, the train service, known as the Changan China-Europe freight trains, has 15 routes linking Kazakhstan, Russia, Belgium, Germany, Poland and other countries.

More than 5,000 types of goods, including automobiles, textile raw materials, household cleaners and personal care products, are transported by the freight trains.

The Changan China-Europe freight trains, has 15 routes linking Kazakhstan, Russia, Belgium, Germany, Poland and other countries. (Photo: Liang Xiao)

Despite the COVID-19 epidemic this year, the Changan China-Europe freight trains have guaranteed smooth traffic through international trade routes and services of global supply chains for corporations, said Liu Wei, Assistant Director of the Port Operation Promotion Bureau of the Administrative Committee of Xian International Trade & Logistics Park.

The freight train service adopts a segmented transport system, which does not require the personnel involved to be quarantined. The "non-contact" feature is especially significant, especially during a pandemic.

From January to June this year, China-Europe freight trains to and from Xi'an made more than 1,600 trips, twice the number of the same period of last year. The total weight of the cargo was 1.301 million tons, 1.9 times the same period of last year, according to the Xi'an International Trade & Logistics Park.

The freight trains have become locomotive envoys of the ancient Silk Road, exporting products that are made in China and importing specialty products of countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative into the Chinese market, Liu said.
By Natalia Zinets and Pavel Polityuk

KYIV (Reuters) - All 13 people taken hostage on a bus in western Ukraine were freed unharmed on Tuesday after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke by phone with the hostage-taker and agreed to his demand to endorse a 2005 animal rights documentary.

Police arrested the suspect, whom the state security service (SBU) identified as 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh, who seized the bus in the city of Lutsk, saying he was armed with guns and explosives.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said Kryvosh had served time in prison and the SBU said he had propagated "extremist views". Police said Kryvosh threatened to blow up the bus and detonate another explosive in a crowded area in the city.

In a move to secure the hostages' release, Zelenskiy said he spoke to Kryvosh for seven to 10 minutes and agreed to one of his demands, to promote the documentary "Earthlings," narrated by Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix.

Zelenskiy did so in a six-second clip posted on the presidential Facebook page, which was subsequently deleted.

The president said he had persuaded Kryvosh to first release three of the hostages, including a pregnant woman.

"We agreed that he would release three people and after that I will record a video," Zelenskiy said.

Zelenskiy had been given the option of launching an assault on the bus, but did not want to risk hostages dying during the attack. "We have the result - everyone is alive," he said.

The SBU published a picture of Kryvosh sprawled on the ground with security personnel standing over him after his arrest. Avakov said an accomplice of Kryvosh was detained in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

Police had blocked off the city centre with armed officers, cars and an armoured personnel carrier while they tried to persuade Kryvosh to free the hostages in a day-long standoff.

Photos and footage showed a small bus parked in the middle of an empty street, with at least two windows smashed and others covered with curtains. Police said Kryvosh threw a grenade out of the bus. Avakov said Kryvosh had fired shots out of the bus at police.

Story continues

In posts on social media, Kryvosh had also demanded that senior Ukrainian officials publish statements saying that they were terrorists.

"The film this man is talking about is good. And you don't have to ... create such a nightmare for people all over the country. The film can be watched without it," Avakov said.

(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
Lucknow:

In a controversial remark, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said economists were of the opinion that black money helped the Indian economy in times of global recession.

"I am very clear on this...black money should not be generated. Economic experts say the magnitude of the global economic crisis at times is not felt in India because of strong (parallel) economy of black money," he said. "I am opposed to black money. I do not want it," he said on the sidelines of Indo-Myanmar-Thailand Friendship Car Rally flag off in Lucknow.

His remarks come in the wake of the government's sudden decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes to stamp out black money, resulting in serpentine queues outside banks and ATMs. Akhilesh also said that whichever government had troubled the poor, it was shown the door by the masses. "This government has caused immense pain to commoners," he said.

The chief minister was of the view that demonetisation will not serve the purpose of checking black money."It's good that corruption is checked and people become aware that there should not be (any) corruption. But this problem cannot be overcome merely by changing Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes...Those who used to keep such notes are now waitingfor Rs 2000 notes...," Akhilesh had said on Saturday.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Of course, hes getting older, Mr. Poniedzialek added. I think hes much more mature and much deeper now, talking about the human condition.

Although Mr. Warlikowski had become wiser with age, Mr. Poniedzialek said, the director was still like a little prince  closed in his own bubble  and needed strong figures around him to help him realize his creative potential.

Karolina Ochab, a Polish theater impresario and the general manager of the Nowy Teatr, said she agreed Mr. Warlikowski was more a dreamer than an organizer, but noted, For artists, this is normal.

Mr. Poniedzialek said Mr. Warlikowski is very strong, and stubborn. But on the other hand, hes also very fragile, he added. It can really destroy him if the performance doesnt go right, if actors are frustrated, if reviews are roasting him.

In the interview, Mr. Warlikowski focused his ire more on a certain subset of star-struck audience members. The worst public in the opera are these obsessed gays, he said. All these rich guys with nothing to do in their life, just following Anna Netrebko or Jonas Kaufmann on all continents. This is not a real audience for me.

People like this, he said, and audience expectations of opera  that there will be pyramids in Aida, for example  can make the art form into a prison. But, he added, If you are in prison, you must find a way to come out of the prison  in order to make you free.

Tolek Magdziarz contributed reporting and translation assistance from Warsaw.
3 1 of 3 Contributed /Naugatuck Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Contributed /Naugatuck Police Department Show More Show Less 3 of 3





A 46-year-old Naugatuck man was charged with cruelty to animals after police said he left a dog in a car for at least 26 minutes while the temperature rose to more than 102 degrees.

Andre Rodrigues was issued a misdemeanor summons Sunday, after Naugatuck Animal Control was called to the WalMart parking lot at 1100 New Haven Road around 10:47 a.m.
Ly Son Island off the coast of Quang Ngai Province in Central Vietnam is said to be the azure island as the seawater is so azure and pure that it gives visitors a feeling of seeing through the seabed.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump announced he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administrations intervention into local enforcement as he runs for reelection under a law and order mantle.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the radical left, which he blamed for rising violence in some cities, even though criminal justice experts say it defies easy explanation.

In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department, Trump said Wednesday at a White House event, blaming the movement for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.

This bloodshed must end, he said. This bloodshed will end.

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term. With less than four months until Election Day, Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November and Democrats have a chance to make the police reforms they have endorsed after the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests demanding racial justice.

Trump and Barr spoke only of Chicago and Albuquerque, but the White House said in a later press release that the program would be expanded in the next few weeks into Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee, as well.

Crime began surging in some cities when stay-at-home orders lifted. Criminal justice experts seeking answers have pointed to the unprecedented moment: a pandemic that has killed over 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather. Compared with other years, crime in 2020 is down overall.

The plan Trump announced Wednesday expands an existing program that sent hundreds of federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri, after a 4-year-old boys shooting death to help quell a record rise in violence. Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon; Attorney General William Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities with spiking violence. But this effort will include at least 100 Department of Homeland Security Investigations officers who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations, in addition to personnel under the Justice Department umbrella.

DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland, Oregon, and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statutes.

Local authorities there have complained that agents have exacerbated tensions on the streets, while residents have accused the government of violating their constitutional rights. Indeed, civil unrest escalated after federal agents were accused of whisking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause.

Since the racial justice protests began, Trumps campaign has leaned heavily into a pledge to maintain law and order as it has tried to tie Biden to a small group of radicals and anarchists it claims is trying to destabilize Americas cities and rewrite history.

The campaign believes the push can help Trump by drumming up support from suburban and older voters who may be rattled by violent images, which have been broadcast often by conservative media outlets.

In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who had initially blasted the news, said the U.S. attorneys office will supervise the additional agents joining existing federal law enforcement offices.

If those agents are here to actually work in partnership on support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into existing infrastructure of federal agents, not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different, she said, while also accusing the president of trying to distract from scrutiny of the federal response to the pandemic.

In New Mexico, Democratic elected officials had cautioned Trump against sending in federal agents, with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales to resign for attending the White House event.

Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque, Heinrich said in a statement.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf drew a distinction between the mission in Portland  to protect federal property  and the surges in Kansas City, Chicago and Albuquerque to help stop violence.

Albuquerque and Chicago will be getting millions of dollars for new officers, and the Justice Department will reimburse Chicago $3.5 million for local law enforcements work on the federal task force.

In Kansas City, the top federal prosecutor said any agents involved in an operation to reduce violent crime in the area will be clearly identifiable when making arrests, unlike what has been seen in Portland. Hundreds of extra agents have been sent.

These agents wont be patrolling the streets, U.S. Attorney Timothy Garrison said. They wont replace or usurp the authority of local officers.

Operation Legend  named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in a Kansas City apartment last month  was announced July 8.

My one and only child who fought through open heart surgery at four months is gone due to senseless gun violence, LeGends mother, Charon Powell, said at the White House. Children are supposed to be our future and our son didnt make it to kindergarten.

___

Associated Press writers Kathleen Foody in Chicago, Michael Balsamo in Washington and Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report.
A former Colonel in the Ghana Armed Forces says Hawa Koomson's act has embarrassed President Akufo-Addo.



Col. Festus Aboagye (rtd) says the act must not be overlooked and treated lightly especially in an election year.



Special Development Initiatives Minister, who doubles as Awutu Senya East MP, Mavis Hawa Koomson admitted to firing gunshots at a voters' registration centre in her Constituency.



She justified her action saying her safety was threatened.



"Im a Member of Parliament, I need to protect myself. It was at dawn, my police escort had not started work yet. So that is a mechanism I have adopted in his absence," she admitted.



Nonetheless, her action has generated heavy flak and calls for her resignation.



Col. Festus Aboagye (rtd) speaking in an interview on Citi Eyewitness news Tuesday suggested that the MPs action is a slap on the Vigilante Act; 999.



"I disagree with anyone who will say this is a petty case . . . this is not a simple case, this case goes to the heart of Acts 999 (Vigilante Act) and given the situation we find ourselves; somehow we are descending into chaos and the level of political violence is becoming rampant. Her action disrupted the whole registration process . . . we cannot treat this case lightly," he averred.



Police Arrest



The former military officer said unlike the privileges and immunity that Members of Parliament enjoy, the police could have arrested Madam Hawa Koomson on the crime scene (where the gunshots were fired) instead of waiting for a go-ahead from the Speaker of Parliament.



He, however, hopes the Speaker, Prof Mike Ocquaye "will grant access to the MP" adding MPs "must be equal before the law despite the privileges and must make themselves available in cases like this".























Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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MOSCOW  A Russian amateur historian who spent decades unearthing the graves of Stalins victims was found guilty on Wednesday of sexually assaulting his adopted daughter, charges that rights groups, his family and friends have dismissed as blatantly fabricated for political reasons.

The conviction of the historian, Yuri A. Dmitriev, by a court in the northwestern region of Karelia ended a long campaign by the authorities to silence a scholar and rights activist whose work had challenged the Kremlins glorification of Russias past, including the Soviet era.

Some of Mr. Dmitrievs supporters drew comfort from the fact that the court, despite handing down a guilty verdict for sexual violence against a minor, sentenced the historian to just three and a half years in jail, far less than the 15-year sentence requested by prosecutors and less than the prison term required by law for the crime he was convicted of.

He was found not guilty of illegal arms possession and of exploitation of children for the production of pornography.
Economy Minister Diane Dodds is facing calls to take action against Northern Ireland employers using the job retention scheme to make "opportunist lay-offs" before it ends.

Hospitality and tourism workers voiced their concerns at a socially distanced protest outside Parliament Buildings at Stormont yesterday.

Organised by the Unite union, the demonstrators also highlighted an alleged failure by ministers to engage with workers while developing its post-lockdown economic recovery plans.

As part of a UK-wide week of action by hospitality and tourism workers, members of Unite handed in a letter to Mrs Dodds demanding an urgent meeting on the need to secure jobs and skills.

Belfast barista and bartender Amy Ferguson told the protest that those working in the hospitality sector have been left feeling "incredibly let down and completely dehumanised over recent months".

She said: "The fact that we are human beings who require an income to survive but who also have real fears about virus transmission has not been considered in any meaningful way by the Executive.

"I am currently furloughed and to even get that in the first place I had to engage backwards and forwards with my employer for weeks with them coming up with excuses to justify hanging me out to dry," Amy added.

"Now, I don't even know whether or not I'm going back to a job in September when they are stopping my furlough, meaning I've been having to budget 80% of a minimum wage youth rate to try and make it last as long as possible."

Unite hospitality organiser Neil Moore said members like Amy felt it was necessary to bring their demands to Stormont given the failure of politicians to listen to their voice.

Research commissioned by the union estimates that between 10,000 to 15,000 hospitality workers face the threat of redundancy in the coming weeks.

"What we are seeing is a knee-jerk reaction to offload staff before the end of July which is obviously in line with the end of the job retention scheme in October," he said. "We believe there are companies that are using that to pay the full 12 weeks statutory notice.

"It's not right or moral that companies are using a job retention scheme funded by the taxpayers in order to offload staff and restructure in this industry."

Acknowledging that the tourism and hospitality sectors had been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Moore added: "That's why we need the politicians to step in to fund and save our tourism sector but that cannot be at the cost of workers' jobs and skills."

Mr Moore claimed that employers' considerations were being taken into account by Stormont decision-makers while workers' views were being ignored.

He also raised concern at a lack of union representation on Stormont's tourism recovery steering group.

Among the MLAs who lent their support to the protesting workers were SDLP members Justin McNulty and Sinead McLaughlin, vice-chair of the Assembly's Economy Committee and Alliance's Andrew Muir and John Blair.
O rlando Bloom has announced the death of his beloved dog Mighty after the pet went missing last week.

The actor, 43, shared the sad news on Instagram after Mighty disappeared from his home in Montecito, California, and revealed that he has had a new tattoo inked on his chest in memory of the dog.

The Lord of the Rings star said that Mighty is on the other side now after he found the dogs collar following 7 days of searching from sunrise to sunset.

Bloom said he has wept more this week than I thought possible, which has been very cathartic and healing, adding that he left no stone unturned in the search and searched every back yard and creek bed with the help of two separate sniffer dogs.

@orlandobloom

The actor now has a tattoo dedicated to Mighty (@orlandobloom )

He said he felt so grateful to have learned from my little Mighty man that love is eternal and the true meaning of devotion and went on to describe his love for his pet as a soul connection for sure.

@orlandobloom

Bloom with beloved pet Mighty (@orlandobloom )

The star went on to thank his neighbours for allowing him to search through their yards for him and supporting my midnight walks and said that he had seen the best of people even in the worst of times.

Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom - In pictures 1 /17 Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom - In pictures Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom attend the premiere of Carnival Row on August 21, 2019 Getty Images Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom in 2019 Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom in Japan in 2019 Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom facetimeing in 2019 Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom show off Katy's engagement ring in 2019 Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom and their pup on a ski holiday Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom in 2019 SplashNews.com Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom attend the premiere of Carnival Row on August 21, 2019 Getty Images Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom attend the Monte-Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean on September 26, 2018 Getty Images @katyperry @katyperry Orlando Bloom Orlando Bloom

Bloom also shared a series of photos of his new tattoo of his dogs name on his chest, as well as a picture of a gravestone engraved with the message Wish you were here and a silhouette of himself carrying Mighty.

The actor announced his search for the missing pet, who he adopted back in 2017, on social media last week, revealing that Mightys loss felt like a waking nightmare.

Bloom, whose fiancee Katy Perry is currently expecting the couples first child, also has another poodle named Nugget.
BEIJING - The United States said Wednesday that it has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston to protect American intellectual property and the private information of Americans.

China strongly condemned the move, the latest in a series of steps by the Trump administration as it ratchets up pressure on the worlds second-largest economy over trade, technology, human rights and security.

In Houston, firefighters responded to reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds Tuesday night but were barred entry, according to news media reports.

The U.S., in a brief statement, did not provide any details on why the consulate in Texas was targeted.

The United States will not tolerate (Chinas) violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated (its) unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behaviour, said the statement, which was attributed to State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration is taking action to halt long-running intellectual property theft, noting indictments announced Tuesday against two Chinese individuals accused of hacking.

President (Donald) Trump has said Enough, were not going to allow this to continue to happen, he said while on an official visit to Copenhagen.

The U.S. also has decided not to reopen its consulate in the city of Wuhan, which was closed in late January at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in China, a Trump administration official said.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the closure of the Wuhan consulate might mitigate Chinas response to the shutdown of the Houston consulate.

China was informed of the decision Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, calling it an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Wang said at a daily news briefing in Beijing.

He warned of firm countermeasures if the U.S. does not reverse itself. Besides Wuhan, the U.S. has four other consulates in China  in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenyang  along with its embassy in Beijing, according to its website.

In a reflection of Chinas economic importance, a Houston business group expressed regret at the announcement, saying the consulate has been important in building trade, investment and cultural ties. It noted that the Houston consulate was Chinas first in the U.S. when it opened in 1979.

The Greater Houston Partnership expressed hope that China would take immediate steps to address intellectual property and cybersecurity concerns. We look forward to the reopening of the consulate in Houston once these concerns are addressed, it said in a statement.

Houston media reports said authorities responded to reports of a fire at the Chinese Consulate. Witnesses said people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, the Houston Chronicle reported, citing police.

Police were told that occupants were given until 4 p.m. Friday to leave the property, the Chronicle said.

Houston police said in a tweet that officers responded to a meet the firefighter call at the Chinese Consulate building at 3417 Montrose Blvd. The tweet said smoke was observed in an outdoor courtyard area, and that officers were not allowed to enter the building.

Wang accused the U.S. of opening Chinese diplomatic pouches without permission multiple times, confiscating Chinese items for official use and imposing restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the U.S. last October and again in June. He also said that U.S. diplomats in China engage in infiltration activities.

If we compare the two, it is only too evident which is engaged in interference, infiltration and confrontation, Wang said.

He also said that the Chinese Embassy in Washington has received bomb and death threats, and accused the U.S. government of fanning hatred against China.

President Trump, his reelection prospects damaged by the coronavirus outbreak, has blamed China repeatedly for the pandemic. Almost every day brings a fresh U.S. action against what Trump has called the rising Asian superpowers exploitation of America.

Already this week, the Commerce Department has sanctioned 11 Chinese companies over alleged human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region and the Justice Department said two Chinese stole intellectual property and targeted companies developing coronavirus vaccines.

Pompeo is expected to continue the attacks Thursday in a speech on U.S.-China relations at the Nixon Library in California.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, saying U.S.-China relations face their most severe challenge since diplomatic ties were established in 1979, asked recently if the two nations would be able to stay the course after a more than four-decade voyage.

___

Lee reported from Washington, D.C.
OceanTomoBidAsk.com The patents would be of interest to branded pharmaceutical firms, generic pharmaceutical firms, biotechnology companies and research institutes.

Ocean Tomo Transactions, LLC will auction a patent portfolio of 40 unique opioid related compositions of matter and manufacturing processes from Brock University for jurisdictions throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market, auction lot 114, sold by Brock University provides the manufacturing processes of novel opioid related compositions for pain management as well as naloxone-like molecules to treat opioid overdoses.

With all patent rights currently assigned to Brock University, this patent portfolio holds substantial commercial potential for branded pharmaceutical firms, generic pharmaceutical firms, biotechnology companies and research institutes.

To request bidder credentials or for further information on this auction or other auctions on the Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market, contact Layna Guo at Layna@OTI.com or 1-312-327-8179.

About Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market

The Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market is an open on-line platform to buy and sell patents. This market is an important step forward, both as a simplified solution for patent transactions as well as a source of information on patent pricing. The Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market uniquely combines the efficiency of an online platform with an experienced team of brokers fluent in both English and Mandarin. The market uses standard transaction documents and is open, transparent, and free to view.


New Delhi:

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das on Tuesday addressed the media on the issue of currency overhaul as the nation once again queued up outside banks and ATMs to exchange demonetised old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 with valid denominations.

In his Mondays press conference, the Economic Affairs Secretary had announced that an RBI task force was set up to ensure speedy re-calibration of ATMs to dispense new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2000.



He had also said that a daily cash withdrawal limit of 2,000 was removed and that people could not withdraw up to 24000 rupees from banks per week.

The Government on November 8 banned old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 to curb black money and corruption in India, effectively forcing 86 per cent of Indian currency out of circulation.



The massive change has brought banking system to its knees as scores of people continue to queue up outside banks and ATMs to get valid currency for daily use.

Also read :

Micro ATMs to be installed, daily cash limit removed, weekly limit set to Rs 24000: Economic Affairs Secy

Cash Crunch: Govt now banking on Micro-ATMs, know all about the device

Here are the live updates:

#New currency notes leak colour on rubbing, that's sign of its authenticity: Economic Affairs Secretary

#Micro ATMs will be deployed from today (Know all about the device)

#There is anough cash available, there is no reason for any kind of panic: Economic Affairs Secy

#Please do not believe in fake stories circulating on social media: SK Das

#Govt is closely monitoring to monitor the movement, supply and availability of essential commodities: SK Das

#The agencies have been advised to closely monitor black money being deposited in banks: Economic Affairs Secy

#To further ease the pressure on banking system, a task force has been set up to draw up a plan of action for shifting old notes: Das

#Have received reports,many ppl trying to convert black money into white have organised grps of people&are sending them to exchange money-Das

#Reason for long queues at banks and ATMs is that the same ppl keep coming again & again at diff places:Economic Affairs Secy Shaktikanta Das

#We urge religious places like temples to submit small denominations in their bank accounts to ingest loose currency in system: Economic Affairs Secy

# Indelible ink to be used on bank customers to avoid repeat visits by same people: Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das

#Have been trying to analyse reasons for long queues,it has come to notice that same people are coming again at same places: Shaktikanta Das





For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
July 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. demand this week that China close its consulate in Houston is the latest in a string of disputes that have taken the relationship between the world's two biggest economies to its lowest point in decades.

Here are the main points of contention between Beijing and Washington:

CORONAVIRUS

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused China of a lack of transparency about the coronavirus, which first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. He regularly refers to it as the "China virus."

Trump said Chinese officials "ignored their reporting obligations" to the World Health Organization about the virus - that has killed hundreds of thousands of people globally - and pressured the U.N. agency to "mislead the world."

China says it has been transparent about the outbreak and the WHO has denied Trump's assertions that it promoted Chinese "disinformation" about the virus. The United States plans to quit the WHO in mid-2021 over its handling of the pandemic.

TRADE

The Trump administration began increasing tariffs on imports from China, its largest trading partner, in 2018 as part of an ambitious plan to force Beijing to curb subsidies on state manufacturing and tough demands on U.S. companies in China.

After more than a year of tit-for-tat tariffs that slowed global economic growth, the countries signed a trade deal in January 2020 that rolls back some tariffs, but does not address the core issues. Beijing has pledged to increase imports of U.S. goods by $200 billion over two years.

The U.S. Commerce and State departments are pushing U.S. companies to move sourcing and manufacturing out of China.

SOUTH CHINA SEA

The United States has hardened its position in recent weeks on the South China Sea, where it has accused China of attempting to build a "maritime empire" in the potentially energy-rich waters.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam challenge China's claim to about 90% of the sea. A July 13 statement by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the first time the United States had called China's claims unlawful and accused Beijing of a "campaign of bullying".

HONG KONG

Story continues

China and the United States have clashed over pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, most recently Beijing's imposition of new security legislation on the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Trump this month signed an executive order to end preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong, allowing him to impose sanctions and visa restrictions on Chinese officials and financial institutions involved in enacting the law.

China has threatened retaliatory sanctions of its own.

UIGHURS

The United States has imposed sanctions on Chinese officials, companies and institutions over human rights violations linked to China's treatment of minority Muslim Uighurs in the country's western Xinjiang region.

China has been widely condemned for setting up complexes in remote Xinjiang that it describes as "vocational training centers" to stamp out extremism and give people new skills.

JOURNALISTS AND CHINESE STUDENTS

The United States has started treating several major Chinese state media outlets as foreign embassies and slashed the number of journalists allowed to work at U.S. offices of those Chinese media outlets to 100 from 160.

In response, China expelled about a dozen American correspondents with major U.S. outlets and asked four U.S. media organizations to submit details about their operations in China.

Washington in May introduced new rules restricting the granting of visas to Chinese graduate students believed to have links with China's military.

HUAWEI

Chinese tech firm Huawei was added to the U.S. Commerce Department's "entity list" last year due to national security concerns, amid accusations from Washington that it violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and can spy on customers, allegations Huawei has denied. The listing greatly reduced its access to vital parts and supplies, like chips, from U.S. suppliers.

Huawei says Washington wants to frustrate its growth because no U.S. company offers the same technology at a competitive price.

The United States has been successfully pushing countries around the world to drop Huawei.

NORTH KOREA

China is at odds with the United States over North Korea, even though they both want the country to give up its nuclear weapons. Washington has accused China of breaching U.N. sanctions on North Korea, assertions Beijing has denied. China wants to lift some sanctions, but the United States disagrees.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Trump have met three times, but failed to make progress on U.S. calls for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and North Korea's demands for an end to sanctions.

The number-two diplomat at the State Department, Stephen Biegun, said on Wednesday Washington and Beijing could still work together against North Korea's development of weapons of mass destruction despite current tensions. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Chris Sanders, Idrees Ali, David Brunnstrom, Patricia Zengerle and Heather Timmons; Editing by Mary Milliken and Rosalba O'Brien)
Srinagar, July 22 : A Jammu and Kashmir policeman was killed after suspected terrorists shot him from close range in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district on Wednesday night, officials said.

According to police, terrorists shot Abdul Rashid Dar multiple times at his home village Furrah, leaving him critically injured.

He was taken to the hospital where he was declared dead.

"Police and security forces have cordoned off the area and search is on to nab the terrorists," police said.
The Women Leadership Code International [WOLCINT] has placed serious surveillance on women leadership programmes and training activities to enable women to pursue higher positions in governance, management, education and other high public positions and professional careers.



It is the core aim of WOLCINT to support and carry out activities in line with achieving the objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5. WOLCINT, by this commitment is poised to push and pull whatever positive strings necessary towards the gender equality agenda.



It is believed that women have a special ego for leadership, and that alone must be respected and protected at all cost to grow and improve confidence in more women to be able to take up and manage challenging tasks effectively.



Interestingly, when the right conditions are put in place, and all the negative perceptions, prejudices including cultural norms and restrictions against women [which impede and retard progress and development] are done away with, steps and measures towards attaining a balanced gender equality in society will be much more feasible. One of the guaranteed ways to facilitate this agenda is to train and provision more qualified or willing women with the right tools and information all over the world and give them access and opportunity to exercise and explore their great ego.



It is unfortunate some men and religious organizations have less regards for women. The UN SDG 5 enjoins all to have respect for women as chauvinist remarks and gender coloured critique are unfair and do not augur well for womens contribution to national growth and socio-economic development.



In other words, the Women Leadership Code International [WOLCINT] doubts the intentions of the disguised gender attacks and perpetrators of chauvinist remarks to imply that their derogatory remarks against women called to hold high positions exclude all their female relatives, and for that matter, some particular women do not deserve to not deserve to manage national affairs in Ghana.



On the contrary, WOLCINT is ready to support and project any willing woman who qualifies to run for a position in a high office, since it is relatively known that women manage affairs better than men, due to the ability of the special trait they possess by nature in bringing the best out of little.



The paramount expectation of the United Nations Sustainable Goal 5 is that governments and nations will create the enabling environment to make gender equality a prime task to project women to assume available leadership positions at all levels to empower and augment the growth rate of the gender equality agenda to empower all women and girls.



According to the recent development in Ghana, the National Democratic Congress [NDC] has chosen a female running mate, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang. To some extent, this action has attracted tainted comments from the ruling New Patriotic Party [NPP] in an attempt to deride the decision and the choice.



We are very sure that those in the ruling Party who attempted to ridicule Prof. Naana Jane Opoku Agyemangs choice as the NDC flagbearers running mate are fully aware of the objectives of the United Nations SDG 5. Carefully listening to all their analysis, it sounded like women have always held such positions and woefully failed miserably, and for that reason, no woman in Ghana should ever be selected to manage affairs at the national level. Such sentiments and resentments are divisive, deceptive, violate the rights of women, and in a way constitute insolence and the rejection of women in general as development partners in nation building.



Since the fourth Republic of Ghana, the world has witnessed Ghanas practice of democracy in governance as a decent beacon of hope in democracy for Africa. Women Leadership Code International expect a better respect from the incumbent NPP to dignify the choice of such a high profile female elevated to a high position.



In our estimation, it will not be out of place at all for the hierarchy of the ruling Party to distant itself from the derogatory comments made by some of its key members or render an unqualified apology on behalf of its members to avoid the wrath of all well-meaning women in Ghana against the NPP at the 2020 General Elections in Ghana, this December.



WOLCINT strongly believes that, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku Agyemangs partnership with the Former President, John Dramani Mahama, will give women [who currently outnumber men in Ghana] a fresh start-up chance in Ghana and beyond, and open up new opportunities in top higher management positions. WOLCINT is confident in the Professor and strongly certain in her ability do better in managing Ghanas affair.



This is a true test case for Ghanaians, especially women, to support her in all her endeavours. The Women Leadership Code International [WOLCINT] is proud to wish her well for a resounding victory despite all odds at the 2020 General Elections in December.

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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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 38 times, Trend reports referring to Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
As Industrial IoT (IIoT) implementations continue to grow at a rapid pace, enterprise organizations, especially those in mission critical realms, are seeking full stack solutions which blend edge computing, cloud computing, and virtual networking that supports more sophisticated and distributed applications.

IIoT implementations serve many use cases including: transportation, building management, energy, government, smart cities, smart factories, and supply chains, where the requirement to secure data at the edge between device and cloud becomes paramount.

The number of devices are rapidly growing throughout corporate and government networks which increases the attack surface. The rise of cyberattacks on digital systems forces businesses to address this critical vulnerability with existing IIoT implementations, while influencing the way new architectures are designed, especially those which connect machines and people in the most sensitive areas, like the energy grid, public health and transportation systems.

IIoT continues to gain momentum and evolve with AI and machine learning. Three of the industrys top challenges and concerns include data security, resiliency, and economic efficiency. To this end, Austin-based ClearBlade, the industry-leading Industrial IoT Platform and Edge Computing software company with a platform that enables enterprises to rapidly engineer and run secure, real-time, scalable IoT applications, and Dispersive Networks, based in Atlanta, Georgia, a provider of ultra-secure virtual networking for government and enterprise, announced this week that they have partnered to merge ClearBlades Cloud and Edge Computing technology with the Dispersive Virtual Network (DVN), making it easier to implement, protect and accelerate mission critical IoT solutions.

SASE, a framework introduced by Gartner last year, is one of the guiding principles for their partnership. SASE combines network security functions with virtual WAN capabilities to support the dynamic secure access needs of organizations. These capabilities are delivered primarily aaS and based upon the identity of the entity, real time context and security/compliance policies, Gartner says, and can identity sensitive data or malware and the ability to decrypt content at line speed, with continuous monitoring of sessions for risk and trust levels.

ClearBlade is a recognized IoT and Edge Computing leader with amazing innovation that aligns perfectly with our experience and vision for Edge and Cloud. said Chris Swan, Chief Revenue Officer, Dispersive. By uniting our technologies, our customers will benefit with a simpler, faster and much more secure approach to deploying and managing their IoT solutions.

Jointly, ClearBlade and Dispersive have developed a zero-trust and zero-touch single solution that enables that data on the edge is protected across the public Internet, LTE or any other communications network via Dispersives patented overlay solution that permits a fully private and ultra-secure virtual network, while increasing performance and impact strength and decreasing the cost to deploy and manage, down.

Were moving into a new phase in IIoT, said Aaron Allsbrook, CTO, ClearBlade. Trust has never been more important, and for IT professionals and end-users of IIoT applications to have confidence in their connected systems, they need to take a zero-trust posture up and down the security stack. Whether an electrical grid utility, a public transportation system, or a military facility leveraging automated systems in smart buildings, the edge data must be protected for full integrity, at the source, across the network, and in the cloud. The combination of Dispersive and ClearBlade achieves that goal while boosting performance and resiliency.

Edited by Ken Briodagh
Ronald Francis McKay of White Plains, MD passed away July 20, 2020. Friends may visit with the family Wednesday, July 29 from 10 a.m. until time of service 11 a.m. at Thornton Funeral Home, 3439 Livingston Road Indian Head, MD 20640. Interment Maryland National Cemetery (Laurel, MD).







On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 11:00 am please click on the link below to live stream the service.



Please make sure when viewing the services that the volume located in the right lower corner (where it says "live") on the viewing screen is turned up (the bars should be blue).



The streaming will begin once the final family viewing has been done. Therefore, there may be a delay before the service appears on the screen. Thank you.



https://www.thorntonfuneralhomepa.com/live-stream



SERVICES

Funeral Service



Wednesday, July 29, 2020

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM



Thornton Funeral Home, P.A.

3439 Livingston Road

Indian Head, Maryland 20640
A new study outlines how COVID-19 has allowed the spread of racism in the U.S. and created national insecurity, fear of foreigners, and general xenophobia.

The findings are published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice.

Previous research has shown that when viral outbreaks are deadly, fear often drives those at risk to place blame on external groups, such as minorities. In fact, throughout history, many individuals have associated particular diseases with groups of people; for example, Irish Catholics have been blamed for Irish disease (cholera), Jewish immigrants for consumption (tuberculosis), Irish and German immigrants for yellow fever, and Italians for polio.

As for Asian-Americans, in 1900, when the bubonic plague began in San Francisco, public health officials quarantined Chinese residents in Chinatown but allowed white merchants to leave the area.

COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China. Since the spread of the virus to the rest of the world, especially in the U.S., the virus has become labeled by some  including the U.S. president  as the Chinese virus.

Once again, we are seeing a pattern of scapegoating, said study co-author Angela Gover, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. It is important to learn lessons from the past and not repeat history by blaming those of Asian descent for the current pandemic.

Gover teamed up with colleagues from Iowa State University and RTI International, an independent, nonprofit institute in the Research Triangle of North Carolina that provides research, development, and technical services around the world. The researchers looked at hate crime data from the FBIs Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which provide national estimates of hate crime as defined above. The statistics used were from two collections for the 16-year period from 2003 to 2018.

Among their findings:

UCR data revealed that during the two 5-year periods from 2003 to 2007, and 2014-2018, hate crimes against Asian-Americans dropped 30.8%;

NCVS data showed that during the two 5-year periods from 2003 to 2007, and 2014-2018, hate crimes against Asian-Americans dropped 7%.

The large percentage discrepancies between the two institutions cited above suggest vast underreporting of hate crime to police and magnify the hidden nature of hate crime against Asian-Americans in the U.S. today. Importantly, the NCVS data also shows that less than half of Asian hate crime victimizations are reported to police, only 47.6%.

As of July 1, the Stop AAPI Hate self-reporting tool had recorded over 800 discrimination and harassment incidents against Asian-Americans in California in the span of three months, including 81 assaults and 64 potential civil rights violations, said Gover. These occurrences are likely a small fraction of what is actually transpiring as most of these types of incidents go unreported.

Since the use of the term Chinese virus has been widely used by elected officials and the media, anti-Asian sentiments are on the rise. According to reports from late March, the FBI anticipated that there would be a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic and even alerted local authorities to be ready for these occurrences.

Since as early as February, racist acts against Asian-Americans directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic have been recorded and shared on social media to raise awareness of the growing problem. These acts of violence include both physical and mental abuse of Asian-Americans of all ages and genders.

Victims of hate crimes experience significant psychological trauma, often presenting as PTSD and/or debilitating anxiety and depression, said Gover. This isnt surprising being that the cultural stigmatization and othering of a particular group fosters an environment of normalizing instances of assault and harassment, creating a day-to-day atmosphere of fear for the safety and security of themselves and their loved ones.

While use of the term Chinese virus has lessened, the damage has been done. According to the researchers, this narrative linking COVID-19 and anti-Asian sentiment has reignited racist stereotypes.

The U.S. has seen a recurring history of socially entrenched racism towards Asian-Americans with spikes occurring during historical times of crisis, including during the coronavirus pandemic, said Gover.

Moreover, racist attitudes have been reinforced by institutional-level support, thus promoting a culture of othering towards Asians in America, once again. COVID-19 is a public health crisis, not a racial matter. It does not discriminate along racial lines and nor should we.

Source: University of Colorado Denver
Global insurer Chubb announced that Scott Meyer will succeed retiring Bruce Kessler as senior vice president, Chubb Group and division president of Westchester, the companys wholesale and excess and surplus lines insurance business.

As division president of Westchester, Meyer will have executive operating responsibility for the commercial property/casualty insurance business that serves the wholesale and excess and surplus (E&S) lines market, in the U.S. and Canada, through its brokerage, binding, and programs segments.

Kessler, who will be retiring at the end of the year, will assume the role of chairman of Westchester, where he will remain active in the business and focus on key industry issues, strategic planning, and as a senior advisor to Meyer during the transition.

In addition, the company announced Steven Goldman as successor to Meyer as vice president, Chubb Group and division president, North America Financial Lines. In this capacity, he will have executive oversight of Chubbs management and professional liability lines of business, which spans public, private, not-for-profit, and financial institution directors and officers coverages, transactional risk, as well as its errors and omissions and cyber products.

Meyers and Goldmans responsibilities will include oversight of strategy, product and business development, underwriting operations, and profit and loss performance for their respective divisions. They will report to John Lupica, vice chairman, Chubb Group, president, North America Major Accounts and Specialty Insurance.

Meyer has 30 years of underwriting and risk management experience in professional lines. He joined Chubb in 2008 as executive vice president, Professional Risk, ACE USA, and was promoted to division president of Professional Risk, ACE USA in 2012, and subsequently named division president of North America Financial Lines after ACEs acquisition of Chubb in 2016.

Goldman has nearly 20 years of underwriting and risk management experience and is a lawyer with a graduate degree in taxation. Prior to this new role, he served as executive vice president, Financial Lines, Chubb Overseas General, the companys international general insurance business with operations in over 50 countries, where he oversaw Chubbs international financial lines division including directors and officers liability, financial institutions, errors and omissions, transactional risk and cyber risk businesses. He joined the company in 2008, as a senior vice president, on the ACE Professional Risk team at ACE USA, leading the U.S. Financial Institutions business.

Prior to ACEs acquisition of Chubb in January 2016, Kessler was division president of ACE Westchester. He was appointed senior vice president, ACE Group, in March 2014. Kessler has 30 years of insurance industry experience. He joined ACE in 2000 and has held a variety of leadership positions with the company, including division president, Casualty and Specialty Lines, ACE Westchester; executive vice president and chief underwriting officer for Insurance North America; and senior vice president of ACE Tempest Re USA, the companys Stamford, Conn.-based reinsurance company. He has also held senior underwriting positions with American Re-Insurance Co., NAC Reinsurance Co. and General Reinsurance Co.

Topics Excess Surplus Reinsurance Leadership Chubb
By PTI

NEW DELHI: There has been about 82 per cent decline in triple talaq cases since the law against the "social evil" was put in place, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Wednesday, terming August 1, when the legislation came into being as, "Muslim women's rights day".

He also asserted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, has taken its course whenever such a matter has been reported.

In an article 'Triple Talaq -- Big Reform, Better Result' which was posted by Press Information Bureau, Naqvi said triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat was neither Islamic nor legal, but the social evil was still given "political patronage" by "merchants of votes". "August 1, 2019, is a historic day in Indian parliamentary history when the bill against triple talaq was made a law despite the obstacle by so-called 'champions of secularism', including the Congress, Communist Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Trinamool Congress," Naqvi said.

August 1 became the day which ensured gender equality and strengthened constitutional, fundamental and democratic rights of the Muslim women, he said, terming it the 'Muslim women's rights day'. That day will remain a "golden moment" in Indian democracy and parliamentary history, the minister said in the article.

"One year has passed since the law against triple talaq was passed and there is a decline of about 82 per cent in triple talaq cases thereafter," Naqvi said, without elaborating on the figures of such cases. A law against the "social evil" of triple talaq could have been passed in 1986 when the Supreme Court had given the historic judgement in the Shah Bano case, he said.

Naqvi said that the Congress had an absolute majority in Parliament with more than 400 out of 545 Lok Sabha members and more than 159 out of the 245 Members in Rajya Sabha, but the then Rajiv Gandhi government used its strength in Parliament to make the judgement ineffective and deprive Muslim women of their constitutional and fundamental rights. "The then Congress government had bowed down before the illogic of some 'narrow-minded fanatics' and committed a criminal sin to deprive the Muslim women of their constitutional rights," Naqvi said.

He said that the Congress' "mistake of the moment" became a "punishment of decades" for the Muslim women. "The Congress was worried for 'vote ka udhaar' (the loan of votes), while our government was worried for 'samajik sudhaar" (social reform)," Naqvi said India runs on a Constitution, not on Shariat or any other religious textbook, the minority affairs minister asserted.

Noting that earlier various legislations had been brought in the country to abolish social evils such as Sati and child marriage, Naqvi said the law against triple talaq has nothing to do with religion and was made purely to ensure gender equality by ending an "inhuman, cruel and unconstitutional practice".

"Instant divorce by verbally saying Talaq thrice is illegal. There were several incidents coming where women had been given talaq through letter, phone or even through messages and WhatsApp. Such incidents are unacceptable in a sensitive country and to a government committed to inclusive development," Naqvi said.

Several Muslim-majority nations of the world had declared triple talaq illegal and un-Islamic such as Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria and Malaysia. "However, it took 70 years for India to get rid of this inhuman and cruel practice," Naqvi said.

The minister said the month of August is recognised as one of revolution, rights and reforms in the Indian history -- August 8, Quit India Movement; August 15, Independence Day; August 19, World Humanitarian Day; August 20, Sadbhavana Diwas; and August 5, the abolition of Article 370.

The Narendra Modi government made the law against triple talaq to make the Supreme Court's judgement of May 18, 2017, effective. By enacting the triple talaq law, the Modi government has strengthened socio-economic, fundamental and constitutional rights of the Muslim women. Naqvi said that the government is committed to social reforms and empowerment of all sections.
Documents were set on fire in the courtyard of a Chinese consulate in Houston after the Trump administration ordered the diplomatic office to shut down amid claims of spying.

And as the relationship between Washington and Beijing plummeted further, US president Donald Trump noted that its always possible more Chinese consulates could close.

In a move that outraged China on Wednesday (AEST), the US gave staff at the Chinese consulate in Houston 72 hours to leave, citing the need to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

Chinas espionage and influence operations have been a concern for the US for some time, but no specific details were given by the State Department on what exactly this closure was seeking to protect.
HOLCIM Philippines Inc. has recorded a net income of P3.6 billion in 2019, up by 41 percent from 2018 as a result of its continuing improvement initiatives that make its performance sustainable, more resilient and adaptable to market developments.

The companys operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization year-on-year grew by 36.7 percent to P6.7 billion on higher efficiencies and improved costs across all areas of the business.

Holcim Philippines president and chief executive officer John Stull acknowledged that while the current business environment has its challenges, the company is fully ready to face these.

Stull said Holcim Philippines took quick and aggressive measures for personal hygiene, social distancing and health checks to keep people safe against Covid-19 in its facilities.

The company also worked closely with its business partners and host communities to share best practices on health and safety and provide assistance. (PR)
La presente informativa e resa, anche ai sensi dellart. 13 del D. Lgs. 196/2003 Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali (Codice Privacy)

e degli artt. 13 e 14 del Regolamento (UE) 2016/679 (GDPR), a coloro che si collegano alla presente edizione online del giornale Tribuna Economica di proprieta di AFC Editore Soc. Coop.

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By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother on Wednesday as part of countrywide searches in connection with a money laundering case linked to an alleged fertiliser scam, officials said.

ED sleuths were assisted by personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), who were seen standing guard at the farmhouse and residence of the Gehlots' in Mandore area of Jodhpur district. The searches come at a time when a political slugfest is currently on between CM Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot.

Pilot, a former Union minister, was recently sacked as the deputy CM and PCC chief of the state. Officials said the raids are being carried out against Ashok Gehlot's elder brother Agrasain Gehlot, who is the promoter of a seeds and fertiliser company identified as Anupam Krishi.

Responding to the raids, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told reporters in Jaipur, "Prime Minister Modi has created 'raid raj' in the country but we are not going to be scared."

When the Centre's "gimmicks" failed to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan, ED raids started at the premises of Gehlot's elder brother, he said The agency, officials said, is searching at least six locations in the desert state including at the premises of a former Congress MP, who is alleged to have business ties with Agrasain Gehlot.

They said the raids are being conducted by the central probe agency at 13 places in the country including Rajasthan, West Bengal (2), Gujarat (4) and Delhi (1).

The action came after the agency filed a criminal Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), ED equivalent of a police FIR, in a 2007-09 Customs department case of alleged irregularities in the supply of subsidised Muriate of Potash (MOP) to farmers and investigation in this case was finalised in 2013.

The ED complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been filed after studying the FIR and chargesheet filed by the Customs and its specialised probe arm Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), they said.

The raids are aimed to collect evidence in this scam case which is stated to be worth about Rs 60 crore, officials said. Officials of the agency are carrying out the searches under the provision of the PMLA. Sources alleged that Agrasain Gehlot and his company have been slapped with a Customs penalty of about Rs 7 crore in this alleged fertiliser supply scam.

The ED is also probing an alleged forex law violation case against a Jaipur-based businessman Ratan Kant Sharma, who is alleged to have had business ties with Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav in the past. The Income Tax Department on July 13 had carried out multiple raids at over 40 premises of three Rajasthan-based business groups on tax evasion charges and officials had said it seized about Rs 12 crore cash and vital documents.

The premises linked to two state Congress leaders and a business group stated to be close to the top party leadership of Rajasthan were searched.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes had later said that "several incriminating evidences in the form of loose papers, diaries, digital data were found that indicate bullion trading in cash, investment of cash in properties among others.
South Africa: Didiza outlines plan to support agriculture

Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister, Thoko Didiza, says the commitments made by President Cyril Ramaphosa for the department will proceed as planned during this financial year.

Didiza made the remarks when tabling her departments R14.4 billion Budget Vote for 2020/21 during a virtual mini-plenary sitting on Tuesday. The budget, which was re-adjusted to R14.4 billion during the Supplementary Budget Vote on 24 June 2020, was reduced by just under R2.4 billion.

During the mini-plenary sitting, Didiza gave a snapshot of the current progress in terms of the department's commitments, including the process to release around 700 000 hectares of State land for agricultural production, which has begun with the allocation of 135 000 hectares to date.

Didiza announced that the Beneficiary Selection Policy, which was published in the Government Gazette for a 60-day comment period in the first quarter of this year, will be processed to Cabinet for approval in the last quarter of 2020.

The Minister further announced that government, together with its entities, has been reviewing the legislations which would make the commercialisation of hemp possible.

In terms of the department, the draft regulations on the listing of hemp, in terms of the Plant Improvement Act and the Plant Breeders Rights Act, will be published for comment in the month of August 2020.

In piloting the District Development Model, the department had already accommodated an intake of 1 001 youth to this programme from eThekwini, OR Tambo and Waterberg, Didiza said.

Five bills to be submitted for consideration

As part of strengthening the department's regulatory framework, the Minister announced that the following bills will be submitted for consideration by Parliament this year:

Plant Health (Phytosanitary) Bill;

Agricultural Produce Agencies Amendment Bill;

Agricultural Product Standards Amendment Bill;

Preservation and Development of Agricultural Land Framework (PDALF) Bill; and

The Upgrade of Land Tenure Rights Amendment Bill.

Employment Stimulus

Apart from the budget cuts, Didiza said that within the economic recovery stimulus package of R500 billion announced by the President in April 2020, an allocation of R100 billion was set aside as Employment Stimulus, aimed at job creation and retention of current jobs.

Agriculture, as the sector with a relatively higher job creation multiplier effect than most sectors, had set aside R688 million, which we have factored into our Annual Performance Plan. This allocation will be utilised to support 50 000 subsistence producers with an allocation of R12 000, through a voucher system in the peri-urban and rural areas, Didiza said.

The Minister underscored that the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shut down of economies across the globe has necessitated a revision of estimated economic growth projections and human development indices.

South Africa is no different in terms of the experience, but we can utilise the threat provided by COVID-19 to reimagine land and agrarian reform in South Africa. We are known to be a resilient nation and we will emerge stronger and better post COVID-19, Didiza said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

The decree of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev "On measures to eliminate damage caused to the civilian population, state property, including infrastructure facilities as a result of the intensive shelling of the Tovuz district of Azerbaijan by the Armenian armed forces " is of extreme importance, Azerbaijani MP Arzu Naghiyev told Trend.

Naghiyev said that this order once again convinced the Tovuz residents that the state is always by their side.

"I express my deep gratitude to the president of Azerbaijan as an MP from the Tovuz district and as a native of Tovuz. Its important that today all the citizens feel the state care. As its known, the Armenian provocation resulted in heavy damage of 35 houses and other infrastructure in six villages of the district.

The president instructed the Ministry of Economy to investigate all the facts together with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, analyze the information and submit it for consideration to the Cabinet of Ministers. I think this document is very important for eliminating the damage, he said.

I want to emphasize that First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva gave instructions to the Heydar Aliyev Foundation regarding 12 servicemen who died as martyrs in the Tovuz direction. All care for the families of the dead servicemen will be constantly controlled by the foundation," the MP said.

Naghiyev noted that in Tovuz, even in unsafe spots, the residents continue their daily work, there is no panic or tension, and the people are confident in the Azerbaijani army.

"The Azerbaijani army fully controls the territory. Peaceful daily activities continue in Aghdam, Dondar-Gushchu and other border villages. None of the residents left their homes," he added.

Following continuous ceasefire violations of Armenia's armed forces, the country launched another military provocation against Azerbaijan on July 12. Grossly violating the ceasefire regime, Armenian armed forces opened fire in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district.

As a result of the appropriate measures, the Armenian armed forces were silenced. The tensions continued on the border, July 12 night. During the night battles, by using artillery, mortars and tanks, the Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed a stronghold, army vehicles.

The fighting continued in the following several days as well. Azerbaijan lost several military personnel members, who died fighting off the attacks of the Armenian armed forces. As a result of the shelling, many houses in the Tovuz district's border villages were damaged.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
PORTLAND, Ore. Night after night for nearly two months, protesters have taken to the streets of Portland, Oregon, for demonstrations against racial injustice that have devolved into vandalism and clashes with authorities.

Long after such unrest subsided in other cities, small groups of protesters in Portland continued to set fires, spray graffiti on public buildings and battle officers.

The continued conflict prompted soul-searching in the progressive city, which became increasingly polarized over how to handle it.

More recently, the Trump administrations decision to call in federal agents to help protect the federal courthouse the focus of much protest activity has galvanized many in Portland anew. Protests have again swelled and attracted a broader base in a city thats increasingly unified and outraged about the use of federal officers.

The clashes have continued, with some protesters trying to break into the courthouse, while authorities respond with tear gas and projectiles.

But also prominent in the new crowds are groups like the Wall of Moms and PDX Dad Pod, self-described parents who have shown up by the hundreds each night since the weekend, wearing yellow T-shirts and bicycle helmets and ski goggles for protection.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Turkey Faces Pressure as Libyan Conflict Widens

By Dorian Jones July 21, 2020

The Egyptian parliament's decision Monday to authorize the possible deployment of Egyptian troops in Libya is highlighting concerns in the region about a possible escalation of the Libyan conflict. International pressure is, meanwhile, growing on Turkey over its involvement as Ankara doubled down on its support of Libya's Government of National Accord, fueling fears of a wider a regional war.

After a phone conversation Monday, President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al Sissi added their voices to growing international calls for a Libyan ceasefire.

Haftar Parliament Calls for Egyptian Military Intervention in Libya

Eastern-based government led by General Khalifa Haftar says Egyptian move would counter Turkish 'invasion'

"The two leaders affirmed the need for immediate de-escalation in Libya, including through a ceasefire and progress on economic and political negotiations," the White House said in a statement.

Last week the European Union also called for an end to hostilities.

The ceasefire calls come as GNA forces backed by Turkey are poised to attack the strategically important town of Sirte, which is the gateway to much of Libya's vast energy reserves.

In January, Turkey started sending military personnel to Libya in support of the Tripoli-based GNA. The GNA has been under sustained attack from forces led by Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, who has a power base in eastern Libya. Haftar's Libyan National Army has the backing of countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Russia.

The Turkish intervention turned the tide in the conflict, with Haftar forces suffering heavy losses. Alarmed by this reversal, Cairo is looking to intervene.

Widening conflict

On Monday, the Egyptian parliament voted to allow President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to order Egyptian military intervention in Libya.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Friday pledged "never to abandon the Libyan people," claiming a new agreement deepening cooperation with Tripoli will be signed soon.

Ankara has so far not responded to Trump's call for a ceasefire. But geo analyst Yoruk Isik says Trump's intervention is unlikely to end the fighting immediately.

"Ankara will say this is wonderful. I want a ceasefire. But the Trump statement is not necessarily saying I want a ceasefire tomorrow," said Isik.

"If Trump were to call Erdogan and demand an immediate ceasefire, it would, of course, be different. But I don't think that call will happen because Turkey stopping right at this moment, means the Russians will retain the upper hand in Libya, and Washington doesn't want a ceasefire with the Russians fully settling in Libya."

Moscow officially denies militarily supporting Haftar, but a UN report in May said approximately 1,200 Russian mercenaries with the Wagner Group were backing the Libyan warlord. The Wagner Group is a private security force run by Yevgeny Prigozhin; a businessman reported to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Since the end of World War Two, Russia has sought to put Libya under its sphere of influence. Currently, observers say Moscow seeks new naval bases beyond Syria in the Mediterranean.

"Turkey wants to control the Sirte region and then Ankara will agree to a ceasefire, probably the Russians are not happy about that," said Ilhan Uzgel, a political analyst.

Cairo's moves to intervene are a complicating factor.

"I think given how big the Egyptian army is, and it's the advantageous geographical position [bordering Libya] they [Ankara] should be worried," said Isik.

"But militarily Ankara is aware Egypt is seven months late to take this military threat position. If they took this decision before the Turkish operations started, this threat would be credible. But Turkey is already established in Tripoli; they are applying final touches to turn [Libya's] Al Al-Watiyah [airfield] into a full-fledged Turkish air force base. They have also almost completed a naval base in Misrata."

Isik also says Ankara is likely calculating that the Egyptian army would be wary of carrying out a significant operation deep into Libya.

"Egypt doesn't have the experience it been decades since carrying out major cross border operations, also Ankara is calculating that Cairo doesn't have the political will for such a move."

Europe

Alarmed at the prospect of seeing the Libyan civil war escalate into a regional conflict, the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy issued a thinly veiled warning to Ankara over its military backing of the GNA.

"We are ready to consider the possible use of sanctions if the breaches of the [UN Libyan Arms] embargo at sea, on land or in the air continue," read a joint statement.

Ankara is aware previous EU sanction threats rarely result in meaningful measures, given Turkey's strategic importance.

"If there are any sanctions, they would target individuals active in Libyan affairs, such as military commanders and, or businesspeople suspected of intermediating the military aid to the GNA, and not Turkey at large. Thus, they will probably be symbolic," said consultant Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.

Fueling the conflict

Some European diplomats, speaking anonymously to the international media, are also voicing unease that Turkey appears to be the only country targeted for criticism for supplying arms to Libya, a concern shared by Washington, while others have been doing so as well.

"They could at least if they were serious, I think, call them out -- call out all parties in the conflict when they violate the arms embargo," David Schenker, assistant secretary for Near East Affairs at the State Department, said Thursday.

Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Russia are all suspected of supplying arms to Haftar's forces.

Despite growing international pressure, Ankara believes it has a winning hand in Libya, calculating that no country is ready to confront the situation directly.

Analyst Uzgel warns of the dangers of overconfidence.

"There is a kind of hubris self-indulgence. Sometimes this may lead them (Turkish leaders) to make serious mistakes as they've done in the past."

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Federal Judge Rules All Detroit Summer School Students Must Be Tested for COVID-19

In-person summer classes in Detroits public schools may continue, but all students must first be tested for COVID-19 within five days, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The ruling comes after far-left activist group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) filed a lawsuit against the Detroit Public Schools Community District in its latest attempt to stop the district from reopening its school buildings for in-person summer learning amid the pandemic.

We have won a very important VICTORY today in our fight to SHUT DOWN in-person summer school in Detroit to protect Detroit schoolchildren and the community from infection and death, the group wrote on Facebook. As a result of our hearing in front of Judge Tarnow today in Federal Court, a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) was signed which REQUIRED THE DETROIT SCHOOL DISTRICT TO TEST ALL STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN IN-PERSON SUMMER SCHOOL FOR COVID-19.

The school district said in a statement that it will test the over 600 students currently attending in-person summer classes, even though it believes the court order lacks legal authority and creates unfairness. Those tests will be done at school through nasal swabs, and the results will return in 30 minutes.

It is insulting to our parents that they must have their children COVID tested to receive public school services yet parents outside of the city can receive the same services without testing, the districts statement read. We were never completely opposed to student testing but continue to question the legal authority to require parents to have their child tested to receive public school educational services, the inequity of requiring our students to test and other districts and schools not requiring the testing, and the burden it places on our parents who are already overwhelmed.

BAMN protesters, among whom were a number of public school teachers, have been rallying outside the district bus garage since July 13 to block buses from leaving to pick up students for summer school. The Detroit Police Department took no action against the protesters until July 16, when the protests extended to the garage of ABC Student Transportation, a private business. At least a dozen people have been arrested as of Tuesday, the sixth day of protests.

We issued the protesters three warnings on separate times letting them know they were in violation and they could possibly be arrested for disorderly conduct and they could also be cited for blocking traffic, Police Commander Arnold Williams told reporters following the first arrests. After the third warning, we started to take some action, we started to make some arrests on some individuals.

We want you to exercise your constitutional right but you cant cause other people any type of harm when you do it, Williams said. Today they basically caused the business harm, and the students were actually trying to get to school.
The World Health Organization Friday expressed concern over a coronavirus resurgence in Europe as Britain and Austria tightened restrictions and China stepped up testing. Europe accounts for a fifth of the world's more than 15 million cases and remains the hardest hit in terms of deaths, with 207,118 out of 633,711 worldwide, according to an AFP tally at 1100 GMT Friday. The WHO's European chapter pointed to rising cases on the continent over the past two weeks, stressing the need for tighter measures, if required. A three-year-old girl died in Belgium, becoming the country's youngest known coronavirus victim, in a further wake-up call for a continent which has only recently emerged from strict lockdowns in several countries. With 335 new cases for 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks, Kyrgyzstan is the worst affected country in Europe. Others include Montenegro (207), Luxemburg (196), Bosnia (98) and Serbia (71). "The recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases in some countries following the easing of physical distancing measures is certainly cause for concern," a WHO-Europe spokeswoman told AFP. "If the situation demands, reintroduction of stricter, targeted measures with the full engagement of communities may be needed," she said. - 'Mistake to lift mask use' - Britain on Friday made it compulsory to wear a face covering in shopping centres, banks, takeaway outlets, sandwich shops and supermarkets, following the lead of Scotland. Exceptions have been made, for example, for children under 11 or people with respiratory problems, but anyone refusing to cover their nose and mouth risks a fine of up to 100. Austria also made face masks became mandatory again from Friday in supermarkets, food stores, post offices, bank branches and health care facilities in addition to public transport and pharmacies. "It was a mistake to lift mandatory mask use so soon? As a precautionary measure (to prevent the virus's spread) it is the lesser evil" compared to other measures, a shopper, Andreas Poschenreither, told AFP. French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday met his top ministers to discuss virus contagion measures, as his prime minister Jean Castex was due to visit Paris's main airport to check controls in place during the peak tourist season in the world's most visited country. Masks are now mandatory on public transport and in shops and enclosed spaces in France but there are fears that the summer holidays could see a spike in cases with people flocking to beaches and tourist spots. However, the number of new cases across Europe has remained stable at around 20,000 daily since May 20 -- more than two times lower than peak numbers at the start of April. The United States, the hardest-hit country by the virus, recorded more than 144,305 total fatalities. It has seen a coronavirus surge, particularly in southern and western states. US President Donald Trump has scrapped next month's Republican convention in Florida ahead of the November 3 election, saying "the timing for this event is not right." Bolivia meanwhile postponed its general elections for a second time because of the pandemic, putting it off until October 18, while South Africa said it was closing public schools for a month from July 27. There was bad news in China and India -- the two world's most populous nations -- as new clusters emerged. - China, India tighten curbs - Chinese authorities said Friday they would introduce a wave of testing in the port city of Dalian, home to about six million people. The Dalian health commission said the city had to "quickly enter wartime mode". It announced strict new measures, including on-the-spot nucleic acid tests to detect the virus. Kindergartens and nurseries have been closed, and some communities have been placed under lockdown, according to state-run newspaper Global Times. India's death toll overtook France's on Friday with 30,601 fatalities and nearly 50,000 new cases overnight, official data showed. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government imposed one of the world's strictest lockdowns in late March, but it has been steadily eased to lessen the devastating economic impact of the pandemic. State governments have brought in fresh restrictions as cases soar in Bangalore, India's IT hub, and in several states. UN projections have warned the virus could kill 1.67 million people in 30 low-income countries. Virus restrictions have been bolstered in several countries this week, including Australia and Belgium as well as in Hong Kong and the Japanese capital Tokyo. burs-ach/pma Facemasks are increasing obligatory in many countries as a way to stop the virus spreading Britain made face masks mandatory in enclosed spaces Major countries and territories which have recently adopted new measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, as of July 23.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Wednesday afternoon, will hold a sod-cutting ceremony for the construction of the Eastern Regional Hospital.



The 70 million project, which will be the first phase, to be undertaken by Ellipse Projects and Tyllium will be located at Koforidua-Akwadum road.



In addition to the regional hospitals, 88 new district hospitals will be built while some existing hospitals will be upgraded.



President Akufo-Addo assured on Sunday, April 26, 2020 that the construction of the district hospitals will take one year to complete: All these are expected to be completed within one year. Each of them will be a quality, standard design 100-bed hospital with accommodation for doctors, nurses, and other health workers and the intention is to complete them within a year, the president said in one of his periodic updates on the fight against coronavirus.



President Akufo-Addo had indicated that his government will begin constructing 88 hospitals in the districts without hospitals and Eastern Region will benefit from eight of these projects in addition to the regional hospital.



The breakdown for the rest of the regions are ten in Ashanti, nine in Volta, nine in Central, seven in Greater Accra, seven in Upper East, five in Northern, five in Oti, five in Upper West, five in Bono, four in Western North, four in Western, three in Ahafo, three in Savannah, two in Bono East, and two in North East Regions.



Parliament has already approved a 56.1 million loan facility for the construction of 100-bed trauma hospitals at Obuasi and Anyinam as part of efforts to expand health care delivery in the country.



The government as part of the agreement will also build an Accident and Emergency center at Enyiresi Hospital and rehabilitate the Obuasi Health Centre.



The agreement is between the government of Ghana through the Finance Ministry and Deutsche Bank AG (as the arranger and original lender) and TMF Global Services (UK) Limited (as the facility arranger) to finance the project.



The project is expected to be completed three years after commencement and Ghana is expected to repay the loan within eight years.



The hospitals will come with an 18-bed Accident and Emergency ward for adults, 12-bed ward for Paediatric Emergencies and a 100-seater capacity waiting area.

Source: daily guide









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BANGALORE, India, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Augmented Reality (AR) in retail technology allows digital information to be incorporated into the user experience in real-time through devices such as smartphones or tablets. The need to offer improved customer service, increase internet penetration, and rise in IoT spending is expected to fuel the growth of AR In Retail Market size.

The global AR in Retail market size is projected to reach USD 4612.7 Million by 2026, from USD 1544 Million in 2020, at a CAGR of 20.0% during 2021-2026.

Get Detailed Analysis of COVID-19 Impact on AR in Retail Market: https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/QYRE-Othe-2Z282/ar_in_retail_market

TRENDS INFLUENCING THE AR IN RETAIL MARKET SIZE

The growing adoption of smart AR mirrors in the clothing industry is expected to increase the AR In Retail Market Size. Smart mirrors are increasingly being used as an alternative to try-before-you-buy on virtual clothing fitting. The use of try-on solutions has also seen wider adoption in the form of jewelry stores, wherein customers can virtually try on the jewelry before they buy.

It is expected that the growing adoption of AR software solutions and their compatibility with existing hardware devices will support the growth of AR in retail market size during the forecast period. Companies focus on developing various mobile AR applications that retailers can use to attract consumers using smartphones or tablets.

Planning and designing in the retail industry is yet another application where AR has seen widespread adoption. This is due to its use in applications related to furniture and decoration, and automotive interior design. By digitally putting various items to get a sense of the real world, consumers can plan and design their home decor or vehicle interior.

Another major application of AR in Retail is advertisement and marketing, which increases customer engagement. AR allows ads more engaging, allowing advertisers and marketers to reach out in new and better ways to their consumers.

AR in Retail enables the development of immersive catalogs of goods and services with features of a preview. AR in Retail also helps retailers in the e-commerce field to reduce the drawbacks of not having a showroom with the help of catalogs and applications focused on virtual reality. AR in Retail allows businesses to dramatically increase the rate of sale online and reduce the cost of return on goods. AR offers personal customization that offers a glimpse of the product and lets consumers ensure they like it. These advantages are, in turn, expected to increase the AR In Retail Market Size.

View Full Report: https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/QYRE-Othe-2Z282/ar-in-retail

AR IN RETAIL MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS

North America is expected to hold the largest AR in retail market share in 2018. The 12 major US retailers hold one-third of the market share across the world. This is expected to further drive the AR in retail market size in North America.

APAC is expected to have the highest growth in AR in the retail market during the forecast period. Growing customer and commercial markets with rising investment in countries like Japan and China will fuel AR In Retail Market size in the APAC's retail sector. E-commerce is becoming a major focus field for retailers at APAC, with China dominating the space.

Inquire for Regional Report: https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/QYRE-Othe-2Z282/ar_in_retail_market

THE AR IN RETAIL KEY PLAYERS IN THIS MARKET INCLUDE:

Google

PTC

Apple

Microsoft

Wikitude

DAQRI

Zugara

Blippar

Marxent Labs

Augment

ViewAR

Holition

Ikea

Sephora

Amazon.

BY TYPE, THE MARKET IS PRIMARILY SPLIT INTO

By System

Virtual Fitting Room

Visualizing Software.

By Technology

Marker-based Augmented Reality

Passive Marker



Active Marker.

Marker-less Augmented Reality

Model Based



Image Processing Based.

By Application, this report covers the following segments

E-commerce

Physic Stores.

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Internet of Things in Retail Market Report

The global IoT in Retail Market size is projected to reach USD 28.9 Billion by 2026, from USD 11 Billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 17.5% during 2020-2026.

IoT offers retailers opportunities for the development of an ecosystem that connects the physical and digital world. The retail industry has witnessed a wide utilization of connected products by adopting an integrated platform. IoT has changed the retail market and has provided massive growth. By integrating IoT into Retail, companies can improve their customer base and gain significant market revenues.

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Retail Analytics Market Report

The market in North America is expected to hold the largest market share, whereas the APAC region is projected to provide significant opportunities in this market and expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

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Smart Retail Market Report

In 2019, the global Smart Retail market size was USD 12.410 Billion, and it is expected to reach USD 30.730 Billion by the end of 2026, with a CAGR of 13.7% from 2021-2026.

Growth in this market is mainly driven by factors such as increasing adoption of smartphones, growing need for better customer service and shopping experience, decreasing cost of electronic components, and emerging new technologies creating new revenues for retailers.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Retail Market Report

The global AI in Retail market size is projected to reach USD 14.7 Billion by 2026, from USD 2.7 Billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 32.7% during 2020-2026.

This report focuses on global Artificial Intelligence(AI) in Retail status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market, and key players. The study objectives are to present the Artificial Intelligence(AI) in Retail development in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, and Central & South America.

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Digital Transformation in Retail Market Report

The growth of Digital Transformation in Retail Market size is expected to be driven by increased usage of smart devices, growing need for advanced mobile logistics management, and demand for an increase in yield and efficiency

The key regions covered in the Digital Transformation in the retail market report are North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, and Central & South America. The report includes country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by Type and application segment in terms of revenue for 2015-2026.

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Augmented and Virtual Reality Market Report

The global AR and VR market size was USD 11.35 Billion in 2017, and the augmented and virtual reality market forecast is projected to reach USD 571.42 Billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 63.3% from 2018 to 2025.

The study presents an in-depth analysis of the global augmented and virtual reality market along with the current & future trends to elucidate the imminent investment pockets. The quantitative analysis of the global augmented and virtual reality market from 2017 to 2025 is provided to determine the market potential.

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Virtual Reality Market Report

The Global Virtual Reality Market Size is growing with a CAGR of 34.5% during the forecasted period 2019 to 2025

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The global Augmented Reality (AR) Market size is projected to reach USD 3664.5 Million by 2026, from USD 849 Million in 2019, at a CAGR of 27.6% during 2020-2026.

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PETROZAVODSK, Russia -- A court in Russia's northwestern region of Karelia has sentenced historian and human rights activist Yury Dmitriyev to 3 1/2 years in prison on sexual assault charges involving his adopted daughter, which he and his supporters vehemently deny.



About 100 people, including Dmitriyev's relatives and friends, human rights activists, opposition politicians, and others gathered in front of the Petrozavodsk City Court on July 22 when Dmitriyev's verdict and sentence were pronounced behind closed doors.



Dmitriyev's lawyer, Viktor Anufriyev, said that the court dropped other charges of making pornographic materials, sexual misconduct, and illegal weapon possession against his client.



The Petrozavodsk City Court's website said Judge Aleksandr Merkov found Dmitriyev guilty of "violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a person under 14 years of age."



According to Anufriyev, his client may be released as early as November if time served during investigations and the trial are taken into account.



It was not immediately clear whether Dmitriyev plans to appeal the verdict.



Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Dmitriyev to 15 years in prison.



The high-profile case dates back to 2016, when Dmitriyev was arrested on child-pornography charges based on photographs of his daughter that authorities found on his computer.



He has proclaimed his innocence, contending that the images were not pornographic and were made at the request of social workers concerned about the childs development.



A local court acquitted Dmitriyev in April 2018, but the Karelia Supreme Court subsequently upheld an appeal by prosecutors and ordered a new trial.



The historian was rearrested in June 2018 and charged with a more severe charge of "violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a person under 14 years of age" -- again referring to his daughter.

'Spurious' Charges



Supporters of the 64-year-old, who is also the head of the Karelia branch of the Moscow-based human rights group Memorial, have said the charges were brought against him because of his research into a side of history that complicates the Kremlin's glorification of the Soviet past.



Dmitriyev's decades-long efforts to expose the extent of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's crimes have been viewed with hostility by the government of President Vladimir Putin.



Ahead of the verdict, Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed concern about the case, casting doubt on its validity.



The "circumstances surrounding criminal charges" against Dmitriyev "strongly suggest that they are spurious and target him for his human rights work," HRW said in a statement.



In May, dozens of Russian scholars, historians, writers, poets, opposition politicians, artists, and actors signed an open letter asking the Karelia Supreme Court to release Dmitriyev, expressing concerns over the researcher's health as coronavirus infections have been found in the detention center where he is being held.



The European Union has called on the Russian authorities to release Dmitriyev and reconsider the charges against him.

With reporting by Kommersant and Novaya gazeta
Sydney's skyline could soon be home to twin skyscrapers almost mirroring the World Trade Center in New York City.

China's Han's Group has lodged plans for the $727million development, which will be Sydney's third tallest buildings when finally completed.

Standing at 257 metres tall with 80 storeys, they would be slightly shorter than Crown Casino's new building at Barangaroo, which at 271.3 metres will become the city's tallest skyscraper.

The second tallest building will be Mirvac and Coombes apartment building, a $1billion project to build an 80-storey, 270 metres, residential tower on George Street.

China's Han's Group has lodged plans for the $727 million development (pictured), which has increased 13 storeys, or 22 metres, from the initial concept proposal lodged in 2016

The skyscrapers would tower over Sydney's Hyde Park (pictured, as a concept design) and stand 80-storeys-tall

The tallest buildings in Sydney at the moment are Servcorp's Chifley Tower at 244 metres, the Citigroup Centre at 243 metres and Deutsche Bank Place at 240 metres.

Plans for Han's initial development design included the skyscrapers standing at 66 storeys, or 235 metres; however this was dismissed three years ago by City of Sydney's Planning Committee.

Now the proposed development for 338 Pitt Street in Sydney's CBD, just shy of the World Trade Centre's height at 110 storeys, will incorporate 592 apartments, five levels of car parking and 158 hotel rooms.

It will include a sky bridge linking the two buildings on levels 36 and 38, as reported by The Urban Developer.

If approved, the New York-style towers will stand taller than the 75-storey One Barangaroo building, which is 271.3m high.

Members of the public are invited to comment on, object to or flag any concerns about the development (pictured) with the council until August 17

If approved, the New York-style towers will sit on Sydney's Pitt Street close to Hyde Park (pictured, circle in red)

The tower (pictured, in a design) will stand 257m above ground and include a sky bridge linking the two buildings on levels 36 and 38

The ABC reported a draft construction management plan stated the twin towers would require the demolition of buildings on Pitt, Castlereigh and Liverpool streets.

This includes a 24-storey building owned by the Han's Group, it said.

The demolition is not expected to affect any heritage-listed buildings.

Once complete, the sites will sit across a collection of eight others owned by Han's totalling 6,000 square metres in Sydney's CBD.

Members of the public are invited to comment on, object to or flag any concerns about the development with Council until August 17.

Daily Mail Australia reached out to Han's Group for comment.

The proposed development for 338 Pitt Street in Sydney's CBD (pictured) will incorporate 592 apartments, five levels of car parking and 158 hotel rooms
Texas law requires an insurer to defend the grandparents of a 10-year-old boy who was killed while driving their all-terrain vehicle against a negligence lawsuit, even though the carrier says neither the boy nor the crash was covered by its policy, a federal appellate court ruled.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling by U.S. District Judge John McBryde that found State Farm Lloyds had no duty defend Janet and Melvin Richards because the policy did not promise a defense against groundless claims.

The appellate panel, in an opinion issued Monday, said under Texas law an insurers duty to defend is far broader than its duty to indemnify an insured.

The Texas Supreme Court leaved little room for another outcome when it answered a certified question from the 5th Circuit in March. A maxim in Texas state law known as the eight corners rule holds that an insurer has a duty to defend against a claim if allegations made within the four corners of the complaint allege a claim that is covered within the four corners of the policy. No external facts  what lawyers call extrinsic evidence  are relevant.

The Supreme Court said the eight corners rule applies even if the policy doesnt promise coverage for groundless claims. District Judge McBryde had reached the opposite conclusion, finding that because State Farms policy did not promise that it would defend against groundless claims, unlike most homeowners policies.

The Supreme Court did not say whether there are any exceptions to the eight corners rule, leaving that question for another day. But its decision that the absence of a promise within the policy does not exempt an insurer from the duty to defend settled the question as it pertains to the lawsuit against the Richards.

The dispute stems from the death of Jayden Meals on June 11, 2017. Although only 10, Janet Richards had allowed the boy to drive her 2004 Polaris ATV without a helmet and without any safety instructions. Jayden flipped the vehicle while driving on a paved road near the Richards residence. He died shortly after from blunt-force trauma.

The boys mother, Amanda Culver Meals, filed suit against the paternal grandparents, whose homeowners insurance policy had a $300,000 limit. Janet Richards readily admitted negligence in her answer to the complaint.

State Farm Lloyds filed suit seeking a declaration from a federal judge that it has no duty to defend Richards from the suit. First, the insurer said Jayden resided with his grandparents, which would make him an insured person under the homeowners policy. The policy exempted the carrier from liability for bodily injury to any of its insureds.

Secondly, the policy exempted any injury caused by a motor vehicle accident that occurred away from the insured premises. State Farm Lloyds argued that because Jayden was killed while driving on a road away from the Richards property, the crash was not covered.

But the 5th Circuit noted in its opinion that Meals lawsuit did not state that her son lived with his grandparents. In fact, the lawsuit alleged the boy lived with his maternal grandmother, Sharen Culver. Also, the lawsuit alleges that the boy was killed because Richards had allowed him to drive the ATV on her property. It did not allege he was killed because he was allowed to take the ATV elsewhere.

The court said both policy exclusions depended on extrinsic evidence that can be admitted at trial, but dont exempt the insurer from its duty to defend. In other words, those facts were not contained within both the four corners of the lawsuit and the four corners of the policy.

Under the very narrow exception we have recognized, the extrinsic evidence must go solely to a fundamental issue of coverage which does not overlap with the merits of or engage the truth or falsity of any facts alleged in the underlying case,' the court said, citing Ooida Risk Retention Grp., Inc. v. Williams.
His parents, an attorney and social worker who live in southern China, experienced a series of miscarriages before a doctor advised them to seek out a surrogate  a woman who agrees to carry someone elses biological child. Surrogacy is illegal in China, but seeking out surrogates in the handful of nations that openly allow such arrangements is permitted, so Zanes parents turned to an agency halfway across the world, in Illinois. Their U.S. surrogate got pregnant via in vitro fertilization, and on May 29 the couple became the proud parents of a boy.
On Sunday, UNCG put out a long (and I do mean looooong) list of operational details regarding classes, housing, dining, campus life and numerous health and safety measures that students and employees will have to follow when they return to campus. On Monday, Chancellor Frank Gilliam and other university administrators did a livestream with new first-year and transfer students that covered some of the same ground but added some new details.

I'm putting this out there to give you a pretty good idea of what college will look like in the fall. UNCG might not be doing the exact same thing as, say, N.C. A&T or Elon University. But I've been reporting on campus reopening plans for months now, and it's clear to me that the broad strokes are more or less the same at each school in Greater GreensboroWinston-Salem Metroplex: There will be a lot more online classes than usual, social distancing in every campus space will be the norm, face coverings will be required in most campus spaces, capacities in classrooms and dining halls will be lowered, there will be limits on gatherings, much of campus will be cleaned and sanitized regularly, and so on. Re-engineering an entire college campus is a complicated business, and the detailed back-to-campus plans put out by schools like UNCG and Wake Forest and UNC-Chapel Hill only hint at how complex an undertaking this is.
With more than 37,700 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 648 deaths in the last 24 hours, Indias tally of the infection rose to 1,192,915, Union health ministrys data showed on Wednesday.

According to the health ministrys dashboard at 8am, 37,724 coronavirus infections were reported across the country between Tuesday and Wednesday. India has added 607,422 Covid-19 cases in 22 days and 256,734 were added in just eight days.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The government has said the confirmation rate or positivity rate for India is continuously reducing and currently stands at 8.07%. There are 30 states and Union territories which have lower positivity rate than the national average, it said.

There have been 28,732 deaths in the country so far. India, the government has said, continues to have one of the lowest case fatality rates at 2.43% and it is consistently falling.

The health ministry data on Wednesday showed 753,049 patients of the respiratory disease have been cured till date indicating a recovery rate of 63.12%, slightly up from 62.72% a day before. In the last 24 hours, 28,472 people were sent home.

The difference between active cases of Covid-19 and recovered people has further widened to 341,916. There are 411,133 active cases on Wednesday morning.

Maharashtra, which has crossed the 300,000-mark,Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Karnataka continue to add thousands of Covid-19 cases to countrys tally every day.

A serological survey conducted in the national capital indicated the Sars-Cov-2 virus, which causes the coronavirus disease, is much less deadly and far more transmissible than previously thought

Experts believe that the studys findings suggested the Capital city could be closer to achieving herd immunity than previously believed.

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) tested 21,387 people at random from across Delhi between June 27 and July 10, a survey that showed that 23.48% of these had antibodies for the virus, which causes Covid-19, in their blood.

Officials have said that 22.86% of the population may have been exposed to the virus after adjusting for false positives and negatives based on the performance of the kit.

The national average of tests every day per million population has substantially jumped to 180, as on date. There are currently 19 states and Union territories which are conducting more than 140 tests every day per million population as advised by the World Health Organization (WHO), it said.

Goa is testing highest at 1,333 tests per day per million, the government has said.
The COVID-19 pandemic is shifting Americans Bible engagement, with many who are socially distanced from their spiritual communities turning to Scripture less and those who have lost loved ones to the virus reading it more.

Between early 2019 and 2020, the percentage of US adults who say they use the Bible daily dropped from 14 percent to 9 percent, according to the State of the Bible 2020 report released today by the Barna Group and the American Bible Society (ABS).

A decrease of 5 percentage points in a single year was unprecedented in the annual surveys 10-year history; between 2011 and 2019, daily Bible readers had basically held steady at an average of 13.7 percent of the population.

But the decline continued during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, and by June, the percentage of daily Bible users had dropped to 8.5 percent.

Amid the pandemic, a larger decline occurred among the Americans who say their choices and relationships are shaped by the Bible, a group ABS calls Bible engaged. In January, 27.8 percent of American adults were Bible engaged. By June, after months of quarantine and church closures, that figure was down to 22.6 percent.

This study supports the idea that the church plays a significant role in benefitting peoples wellbeing and Scripture engagement, said John Farquhar Plake, ABS director of ministry intelligence. To increase Scripture engagement, we must increase relational connections with one another through the church. The pandemicand now this surveyhave shown that when relational church engagement goes up, so does Scripture engagement, but when it goes down, Scripture engagement drops with it.

Image: State of the Bible 2020 / ABS and Barna Group

Overall, about a fifth (22%) of US adults interact with the Bible multiple times a week, not counting Scripture use at church, according to a January survey. More than a third (35%) of Americans say they never read the Bibleunchanged from last year but up from 25 percent at the annual reports inception in 2011. Sixty percent read the Bible four times per year or less.

In January, women were slightly more Bible engaged than men (19.1% vs. 18.8%) and 2 percent more likely than men to be Bible centered (a Barna and ABS designation for individuals with the highest level of influence from Scripture in their daily lives).

But that changed when the pandemic hit. Women lost more ground than men in Bible engagement, and levels of engagement evened out among the genders for the first time in the surveys history. Womens Bible engagement dropped by 7 percentage points between January and June, compared with 6 percentage points for men. The number of women considered Bible centered in January dropped by 3.9 points by June compared with 1 point for men.

Image: State of the Bible 2020 / ABS and Barna Group

The drop could be related to life adjustments women were forced to make as they juggled work from home and caring for children who previously attended school or daycare, the report speculated. A lack of in-person connection with churches and small groups also could have played a role, according to the report.

You cant download a hug, said Donald Whitney, professor of biblical spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Lack of encouragement from physical presence with other believers can diminish our engagement in the spiritual disciplines because when were together, were encouraged to stay faithful to the things of God.

One way to reengage with Scripture is by meditating on it, said Whitney author of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Christians should read big, meditate small, he said, reading a larger passage and then spending a few minutes thinking about one verse or phrase. Praying the passage and coming up with an illustration are two ways of mediating suggested by Whitney.

Measuring the pandemics affect on American spirituality was a major reason ABS supplemented its January survey of 2,010 people, conducted alongside Barna, with a June poll of 3,020 Americans. The pandemic doesnt seem to have changed the overall percentage of Bible readers, according to the follow-up study, but Americans who lost loved ones to COVID-19 were more likely to increase their Bible use.

About half (49%) of Americans with a family member living in their household who died of coronavirus said they increased their use of the Bible2.3 times more than average. Thirty-six percent of those with a neighbor who died of the virus increased their Bible use (1.7 times more than average), and 33 percent of those with a close personal friend who died increased their use (1.6 times more than average).

When the pandemic hit in March, there were initial signs it might be having an overall positive effect on American spirituality. Three of the largest online evangelism ministriesGlobal Media Outreach, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and Cruall reported increases of people seeking online information about knowing Jesus. The spike in curiosity was corroborated by ABS, which found more Americans exploring the Bible for the first time in June than January.

But apparently the spike in curiosity didnt translate into engagement. In June 13.1 million fewer Americans were Bible engaged than in January. Within that overall decrease, the Bible centered segment was most impacted, decreasing by 9.7 million.

Church closures during the pandemic likely impacted the decrease in Bible engagement, according to ABS.

Faith communities have demonstrated incredible resilience, innovation, and empathy through the pandemic, ABS president and CEO Robert Briggs said. But this survey reveals that a big opportunity still remains for Christian organizations to make an impact on Scripture engagement.

During the pandemic-necessitated lockdown, 48 percent of practicing Christians met virtually with their churches using a streaming service that allowed them to watch but not be seen or heard, according to ABS, and 14 percent did not participate in any Christian church services.

Chris Hall, president of the spiritual formation ministry Renovare, said disruption of life rhythms likely hurt Bible engagement. Prolonged stress also could have affected Christians ability to digest and live out Scripture, he said.

To counter a pandemic-prompted morass in Bible engagement, Hall said, learn to read the Bible in a new way. That could include using a Bible app that plays music as a person reads or a Bible app that reads a selected passage aloud over and over.

Think about the possibilities that the pandemic is offering, he said, rather than simply what is negative.

The annual report also showed that millennials read the Bible more frequently than any other generation, with 26 percent reading it multiple times each week. Thats consistent with previous findings that practicing Christian millennials know the Bible as well as or better than their parents and grandparents. Adults aged 74 and up are the least likely age group to read their Bibles multiple times each week, with only 10 percent doing so.

While most Bible readers (65%) prefer a printed version, millennials are about as likely to read the Bible digitally (52%) as they are in print (48%). Americans who live in a household that owns a Bible (77% of the population) are as likely to use a Bible app as those without a Bible in the house (56% vs. 55%).

African Americans have the highest level of Scripture engagement among racial groups in America, another finding consistent with longstanding trends. Some 27 percent of African Americans are Bible engaged, compared with 24 percent of Hispanics, 18 percent of Asians, and 17 percent of Anglos.

ABS plans to publish additional analysis of Americans Bible engagement each month between August and December.

David Roach is a writer in Nashville.
New statewide mask orders were issued on Wednesday by the Republican governors of Ohio and Indiana and by Minnesotas governor, a Democrat. And city officials in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore issued new, tougher new mask orders as well.

The latest mask mandates came a day after Mr. Trump, who has long resisted wearing masks and at times even disparaged them, made his most robust call for wearing them yet, urging: When you can, use a mask. Some of the nations largest retail chains, including Walmart, Winn-Dixie and Whole Foods, have also moved to require customers to wear them.

Asked if he favored such mandates, Mr. Trump said Wednesday evening that it should be up to the governors  I think all are suggesting if you want to wear a mask, you wear it, he said  and that he would decide over the next 24 hours whether to require masks be worn on federal properties in Washington and at the White House.

But several more governors decided the time for masks had come.

Weve got to get this virus under control, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said Wednesday as he issued a statewide mask order that will take effect Thursday evening. Wearing a mask is going to make a difference.

We all want kids to go back to school, we want to see sports, we want to see a lot of different things, we want to have more opportunities in the fall, said Mr. DeWine, who had previously ordered people only in the states hardest-hit counties to wear masks. And to do that, its very important that all Ohioans wear a mask.

Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana, a Republican, said Wednesday that he would sign an order mandating masks in most public settings beginning Monday. As we continue to monitor the data, weve seen a concerning change in some of our key health indicators, he said on Twitter. Hoosiers have worked hard to help re-open our state & we want to remain open.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Wednesday requiring residents to wear masks in indoor stores and other public indoor spaces beginning Saturday. Mr. Walz said that the state would distribute masks to people and businesses in underserved communities.
The COVID-19 vaccine being designed and developed by Oxford University and UK-based AstraZeneca will be called Covishield in India.

Serum Institute of India will conduct human trials in India and will also manufacture the inoculation in the country.

The vaccine maker will begin phase-III human clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine in the country in August with 4,000-5,000 volunteers, said its CEO Adar Poonawalla.

Talking to India Today TV, he said that 50 per cent of the vaccine doses that will be manufactured by the Serum Institute will be supplied to India and the rest to other nations.

Also Read: COVID-19 vaccine to cost under Rs 1,000 per dose, says Adar Poonawalla

The Serum Institute last month signed an agreement with Oxford University and AstraZeneca to supply one billion doses to India and other low-and-middle-income countries.

Poonawalla further stated that the inoculation will mostly be procured by governments, which will distribute them free of cost through immunisation programmes.

He expressed hope that if human trials of the vaccine go fine with favourable results, Serum Institute would be producing it as a partner with Oxford University.

Also Read: Russia inches closer to coronavirus vaccine; 'ready for use,' says minister

He underscored that the company is seeking regulatory approval from the government to conduct phase-III clinical trials of the vaccine, following which it will begin manufacturing it at a mass scale.

"We have said that we want to give half of our (vaccine) production to India and the other half to other countries on a pro-rata basis every month. The government has been supportive. We need to understand that this is a global crisis and people across the world need to be protected. It's important that we equally immunise the entire world," Poonawalla told the news channel.

He highlighted that if the human trials and results go as planned, the Serum Institute would be able to manufacture a few million shots of the vaccine by November-December, and approximately 300-400 million doses by the first quarter of 2021 for mass usage.

Also Read: COVID-19 vaccine update: Oxford drug gives hope; Serum Institute to seek human trials in India soon

When asked about who would get the inoculation in the first batch, Poonawalla enunciated that the government will take a call on it.

Talking about the cost of the vaccine, considering the Serum Institute would be targeting low- and middle-income countries, including India, Poonawalla said the company would keep the price under Rs 1,000 per dose.
She shot to fame on Love Island three years ago.

But Tyne-Lexy Clarson 22, swapped a Mallorca villa for Brent Cross Shopping Centre on Wednesday night for the drive-In world premiere of new British film Break.

The reality star nailed a casual chic look for the big night out, wowing in a plunging black crop top.

Love Island star:Tyne-Lexy Clarson 22, swapped a Mallorca villa for Brent Cross Shopping Centre on Wednesday night for the drive-In world premiere of new British film Break

Tyne-Lexy showed off her bronzed curves in the skimpy top, layered under a glitzy animal print jacket.

She added a pair of loose-fit, riopped jeans and accessorised with heels and a designer belt.

The Love Island beauty cosied up to another of the red carpet guests, a cute pooch as she posed for photos.

Break is a British independent film starring Sam Gittins, David Yip, BAFTA Winner Adam Deacon and the late Rutger Hauer, telling the rags-to-riches story of the troubled, but innately talented Spencer Pryde who is wasting his life on petty crime and violence.

Gorgeous: The reality star nailed a casual chic look for the big night out, wowing in a plunging black crop top and glitzy animal print jacket

Tyne-Lexy shot to fame on the 2017 series of Love Island, but admitted earlier this year that life after the villa has had its struggles.

In January Tyne-Lexy revealed she has been offered thousands of pounds for sex via her Instagram accounts.

Speaking on the Victoria Derbyshire show with fellow Love Island star, Rosie Williams, she said she was just 19 when she first received a proposal of 20,000 to have dinner and drinks with a man.

Making friends: The Love Island beauty cosied up to another of the red carpet guests, a cute pooch as she posed for photos

'It's high-end prostitution  it's just scary to think if they've messaged me, they've probably sent it to thousands of pretty girls on Instagram,' said the blonde beauty, who boasts more than 420,000 followers on Instagram.

After her stint on Love Island came to an end, Tyne-Lexy revealed that she was contacted by her agency offering to pay her 50,000 to spend five nights in Dubai.

Included in the offer was the requirement to sign a non-disclosure agreement, ensuring that all details surrounding her trip would remain confidential.

And while she rejected the offer, Tyne-Lexy believes there are a number of young influencers with huge popularity on Instagram who may be tempted, due in large part to the pressures of portraying an opulent lifestyle.

'It's a lot of money for some people, it's life-changing amounts of money,' she said.
LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Chilean miner Antofagasta on Wednesday maintained its copper production and cost targets for the year as it posted lower second quarter output. The London-listed miner said copper production in the second quarter totalled 177,700 tonnes, a decline of 8.4% compared to the previous quarter, mainly due to expected lower grades from the Centinela mine.

(Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Editing by Edmund Blair)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
NORWALK  A 34-year-old Bridgeport man has been accused of kidnapping and raping a woman at gunpoint after meeting online, according to an arrest warrant.

Derek Person, 34, of Harriet Street, Bridgeport, was arrested Tuesday and charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault related to a May 11 incident, police said.

Person was arraigned late Wednesday morning at state Superior Court in Stamford, where Judge Bruce Hudock upheld his $1 million bond.

The court is aware of the seriousness of the allegations, which include a firearm, which the victim claims she was threatened with during the sexual assault, the judge said.

Detective Michael Pugliese wrote in an arrest warrant that the victim and Person met in April through Facebook, where he listed his name as Scott Damon.

Over the next month, she and Person had conversations over the phone that she described as casual and comfortable in nature with nothing sexual ever being discussed, though she did say he kept pushing to meet her in person, the warrant said.

The victim agreed to meet Person for the first time at the Rite Aid parking lot on East Avenue in Norwalk around 8:45 p.m. May 11, the warrant said.

Person pulled up in a black SUV, a newer model with tinted windows, the victim told police, according to the warrant. After standing outside the SUV and speaking to Person, she accepted his invitation to get inside when he noticed she was shivering, the warrant said.

He then began to stare at me and did not say anything, the victim wrote in an affidavit included in the arrest warrant. His car smelled like weed. Thats when he put the key in the ignition, he turned it on, and told me that he had a gun underneath his seat and he stated that if I did not comply that he would kill me.

According to the warrant, Person then drove to a secluded place and parked the vehicle. She tried to escape, but the doors were locked, the warrant said.

The victim said Person then raped her at gunpoint before dropping her back off at the Rite Aid, the warrant stated.

In the days after the incident, the victim said Person texted her multiple times, but she did not respond, according to the warrant.

Norwalk police began investigating the incident on May 15 and traced the Scott Damon Facebook account to Person, the warrant said. The victim later positively identified Person in a photo lineup as the man who had kidnapped and raped her, the warrant said.

Police are waiting for test results to see if Persons DNA is on the clothes worn by the victim the night of the sexual assault, according to his arrest warrant.

Persons attorney David Bothwell did not discuss the allegations against his client on Wednesday.

Person did not enter a plea during his arraignment. According to the bail commissioner, Person has multiple violations of probation on his record as well as a conviction for armed robbery.

The case was transferred to the Part A docket where the most serious cases are adjudicated. Person is set to return to court on Aug. 5.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the name of the street Rite Aid is located.
While it is not clear whether the new form will be applicable from this year, some chartered accountants say that things can go both ways. The new deadline for filing ITR is November 30.

While the deadline for filing income tax returns (ITRs) has changed several times owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, its not the only change of which you should be mindful.

A new Form-26AS has been introduced by the income tax (I-T) department which will seek far more details than before.

Archit Gupta, founder and chief executive officer of ClearTax, says: The applicability date is June 1, 2020. At present, taxpayers are successfully filing their ITRs based on the existing Form-26AS, which is available for download while the new form is underway.

The new deadline for filing ITR is November 30.

While it is not clear whether the new form will be applicable from this year, some chartered accountants say that things can go both ways.

The new form will be in place by November, and the new changes will be for financial year 2020-21 for all practical purposes.

Currently, annual information Form-26AS provided by the tax department includes information relating to the payment of taxes (advance tax, self-assessment tax, and others) and tax deducted or collected at source on income (salary, interest, dividend, professional fees, and others) received or earned by the taxpayer during the relevant financial year.

Gopal Bohra, partner at NA Shah Associates, says: Now the new Form-26AS will contain various additional information: (a) specified financial transaction (issue of shares, debentures, bonds and others); (b) tax demand raised or refund granted by the department; (c) any pending proceeding or completed proceeding before/by the tax department; and (d) Information received from any officer under any law or under any tax agreements between countries to the extent it is in the interest of the revenue.

Tax expert Balwant Jain says: The general public is apprehensive about it, they are not very happy about the provision of details. But it is good for us.

Going forward, you will have to mention your email address and mobile number registered with the IT department on the form.

This will help you keep your details current with the tax department.

Jain adds: Since the income tax department will provide details of demand which is outstanding.

"Such information will help you ascertain whether the same demand is genuinely outstanding or the same is disputed.

The newly added details of pending income tax proceeding with the tax department will now include the details of proceedings which have been completed during the year.

It includes the details of proceedings which have been completed during the year.

This will help you remain updated about the appeals, any pending ones sitting at various levels, and also if any such proceedings are there without you being aware of it.

The good thing is that these additional details will help the taxpayers verify and initiate corrective steps in case some of the Information submitted is incorrect.

How to access: Bohra says: "A Taxpayer can download Form-26AS from the income-tax e-filling portal under the tab My Account.

It can also be downloaded from the taxpayer's net banking facility."

Deal with a mismatch: Bohra says: Until now the I-T department has not provided any guidelines as to how a mistake on the part of the department can be corrected.

"However, it is recommended that the assessee brings to the notice of the authorities any mismatch of the Information provided in Form 26AS with necessary supporting documents.

Remember Tax Credit Statement or Form-26AS is an essential document for tax filing and needs to be reviewed carefully.
Describing the Chinese military''s aggressive activities in the region as "destabilising", US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper on Tuesday said America was "very closely" monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

Esper also highlighted the "increased" military cooperation with India and called it as "one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century." He made the remarks during his interaction with London-based think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies amid China's renewed military assertiveness in eastern Ladakh as well as in the South China Sea.

"We are obviously monitoring the situation between India and China very closely, what's happening along the Line of Actual Control and we are very pleased to see both sides are trying to de-escalate the situation," Esper said in response to a question on the tension between the two neighbours.

Asserting that the People's Liberation Army's activities in the region are "destabilising", he said that it "continues its aggressive behaviour in the East and South China Seas." In the midst of India''s border row with China, a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz carried out a military drill with a fleet of Indian warships off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Monday.

The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of tensions between India and China in eastern Ladakh. Esper said that the joint exercise between the Indian Navy and the USS Nimitz in the Indian Ocean just shows the growing cooperation between the two countries.

Also read: India important partner of America: Mike Pompeo

"I want to highlight our increased defence cooperation with India, one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century. We conducted our first-ever joint military exercise last November. As we speak today, USS Nimitz is conducting a combined exercise with Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean, demonstrating our shared commitment to stronger naval cooperation and support to a free and open Indo-Pacific," he said.

"We firmly believe no single nation can - or should - dominate the public commons, and we will continue to work alongside our allies and partners to support a prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific for all," he said. "We also continue to grow our defence sales and look forward to a robust 2+2 ministerial dialogue later this year to build on this progress," he said on US-India defence cooperation.

Under promoting a more networked region, Esper said that the US is encouraging Indo-Pacific nations to expand their own interregional security relationships and networks of like minded partners.

For example, over the past several years, Japan has provided maritime vessels to the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bangladesh bolstering their maritime security. "In June, Australia and India finalised an important logistical support in agreement," he said. "Our carriers have been in the South China Sea and Indo-Pacific since World War II. We will back the sovereignty of our friends and partners," he added.

Esper said that to support its Indo-Pacific strategy, the Trump Administration looks forward to working with the Congress to establish a Pacific Deterrence Initiative that will prioritise its investments, maintain a credible deterrent and demonstrate and enduring whole of government commitment to the region.

"The US efforts across the Indo-Pacific and prepared it well to respond to the prevailing crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. The US government has committed more than USD 325 million in coronavirus released support for its Indo Pacific partners," he said. When asked, how much is the US worried about nuclear and crisis stability between India and Pakistan, Esper said that obviously, when there are two countries with nuclear capabilities and tension between them, it''s something the US watches very closely.

"I also talk to my Indian and Pakistani counterparts fairly routinely. This is just something that you got to keep a close watch on because nobody wants to see a conflict between two countries. And certainly not one that could escalate. I don''t see any indications right now that that''s happening at all. But, it is something that we watch, not just in that part of the world, but in other parts of the world," he said.

Esper said China's unlawful land reclamation and military exercises on and around disputed features in the South China Sea are patently inconsistent with its commitments set out in the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the region. "The Chinese Communist Party continues to engage in systemic rule-breaking, coercion and other malign activities," he said.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. Esper asked the Chinese leaders to abide by the international laws and norms that China - and the Chinese people - have benefited greatly from over the years. "And while we hope the CCP will change its ways, we must be prepared for the alternative," he cautioned.

Relations between the US and China have taken a turn for the worse in recent months over Beijing's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Fresh concerns over China''s crackdown of its Uygur Muslim community in Xinjiang and Beijing imposing a controversial national security law in Hong Kong have also raised tensions.

Also read: Mike Pompeo applauds UK ban on Huawei, urges coalition against Beijing
South Africa: President pays tribute to fallen hero, Andrew Mlangeni

The last surviving Rivonia trialist, Andrew Mlangeni, has passed away.

Mlangeni, who celebrated his 95th birthday last month, was admitted at 1 Military Hospital following an abdominal complaint on Tuesday. He passed away overnight.

President Ramaphosa has since paid tribute to the fallen hero and offered his sincere condolences to the Mlangeni family, as well as the friends, comrades and associates of the struggle hero countrywide and internationally.

The President also participated in Mlangenis birthday celebration last month in the company of President Thabo Mbeki, President Kgalema Motlanthe and Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, among others.

President Ramaphosa said: The passing of Andrew Mekete Mlangeni signifies the end of a generational history and places our future squarely in our hands.

Until recently, we were able to sit at Bab Mlangenis feet and draw on his wealth of wisdom and his unfailing commitment  even at his very advanced age  to a better life for all South Africans, he said.

Bab Mlangenis dramatic life was a unique example of heroism and humility inhabiting the same person and throughout his long life he remained a beacon of ethical leadership and care for humanity in our own country and around the globe.

President Ramaphosa said his passing as the last remaining Rivonia trialist, Mlangeni has indeed passed the baton to his compatriots to build the South Africa he fought to liberate and to reconstruct during our democratic dispensation.

The President also described him as a champion and exemplar of the values we all need to build for a South Africa that provides dignity and opportunity for all and takes its rightful place in the global community of nations.

My thoughts are with the Mlangeni Family today and with all who have had the blessing of meeting and being touched by Bab Mlangenis passion for achieving a better society as well as his passion for a life that is well-rounded, adventurous, healthy and embracing of people from all walks of life.

Forced to leave school at a young age to take care of his family, Mlangeni became a bus driver. He joined the workers struggle and then the ANC Youth League in 1951.

He was present at the Congress of the People in Kliptown in 1955 and sent to China for military training in 1961. Mlangeni was one of the Rivonia Trialists - he spent 26 years on Robben Island after his conviction at the Rivonia Trial in 1964.

Mlangeni was awarded the Isithwalandwe Seaparankwe, the highest honour by the African National Congress for those who have made an outstanding contribution to the liberation struggle in 1992 and received the Presidential Order for Meritorious Service: Class 1: Gold from President Nelson Mandela in 1999.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The Democratic State Committee announced Tuesday its employees will undergo mandatory anti-sexual harassment and workplace discrimination training and will refer all complaint investigations to an outside firm  steps that will erode the systemic disparities in New Jersey politics.

The goal of the new Workplace Culture Program is to address the inequality experienced by people of color, women, the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities, Democratic State Committee Executive Director Saily Avelenda said. A new advisory panel of prominent party leaders will guide the program, with the hope they will use it as a template for county and municipal committees and campaigns, she said.

The state committee is also finalizing a contract with Ritu Pancholy, an attorney who founded Culturupt, a human resources firm with many corporate clients, to handle complaint investigations and review the partys workplace policies, the announcement said.

Womens rights advocates have been calling for greater accountability in politics since a campaign volunteer in Gov. Phil Murphys 2017 election campaign accused a senior adviser of sexually assault. Katie Brennan, the volunteer who later served on Murphys transition team and works in his administration, went public with her claim in 2018 that Murphys senior staff failed to investigate the allegation despite her numerous requests.

Brennan recently settled a lawsuit against the campaign and the state for $1 million, with $600,000 going to a charity of Brennans choice, which was The Waterfront Project, a housing and legal advocacy organization in Hudson County. The remainder was paid in attorneys fees.

Avelenda said she did not develop the program in response to any specific complaint or event.

I started the job in February and I wanted to make it a priority of my tenure with the state party, said Avelenda, adding that the work in this arena is definitely overdue.

We believe that the Workplace Culture Program can become a model for local and county organizations and other state parties to confront the issues of racism, misogyny and homophobia that have permeated politics for decades too long, Avelenda said.

The roughly 10 full-time employees of the state committee will undergo training, which will also be made available to the people running campaigns and party activities on all levels of government, she said. The state party will also create a code of conduct for more established volunteers, she added.

Murphy is a Democrat, and Democrats controls both houses of the Legislature, so the state partys actions have the potential to set a new tone among the most influential politicians in New Jersey.

Its incumbent on us as Democrats to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and with respect and that we end the sad legacy of racism and sexism, as well as a lack of inclusiveness for the LGBTQ+ community, that has too often clouded our political culture, State Democratic Party Chairman John Currie said. This new Workplace Culture Program will be a tremendous step towards those goals.

The co-leader of an independent group formed to expose sexual harassment and misogyny in New Jersey politics and government called the announcement a promising first step.

Were heartened to see New Jerseys Democrats make changes to how theyre responding to those who have been harmed and work towards cultural change with new training requirements, said Patricia Teffenhart, executive director of the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Teffenhart and Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg lead the Workgroup on Harassment, Sexual Assault and Misogyny in New Jersey Politics, which formed after a report by NJ Advance Media on widespread sexual misconduct in local and state politics but few women reported harassment or assault to authorities because they feared it would jeopardize their careers. The workgroup has hosted several public and private meetings to encourage people to tell their stories and make suggestions on how to make politics more equitable.

The culture of N.J. politics needs to change to ensure that all members are able to thrive. Abusive behavior from power brokers, whether on campaigns or in the Statehouse, has gone unchecked for far too long, Teffenhart said. This is a promising first step, and we look forward to learning more about impact and implementation in the months ahead.

Brennans attorney, Katy McClure, also spoke optimistically about the state partys plans, especially its decision to retain an independent investigator for future complaints.

Katie Brennan coming forward publicly with her allegations of sexual assault against a senior official in the Governors campaign and the States failure to take proper action was a watershed moment for political parties, campaigns, and public employees, McClure said.

Effective training, and, most importantly, holding people accountable for creating a genuinely equitable culture inside and outside of our workplace, can surely only be beneficial as party members transition to campaigns and, frequently, public employment, McClure added.

Avelenda said an advisory panel of party leaders will guide the committees work in making sure campaigns are respectful and equitable. She will serve as one of its co-leaders, the announcement said.

The panels other members are:

Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, Honorary Chair;

Nabila Baptiste, Deputy Executive Director, NJDSC, Advisory Group Co-Leader;

Peg Schaffer, Vice Chair, NJDSC & Chair, Somerset County Democrats;

Kelly Stewart Maer, Treasurer, NJDSC;

Shavonda Sumter, Assemblywoman (D-Passaic) & NJDSC Committee Member;

Janine Bauer, Chair, West Orange Democrats & NJDSC Committee Member;

Alixon Collazos, NJDSC Committee Member;

Joyce Mollineaux, NJDSC Committee Member;

Amy DeGise, Chair, Hudson County Democratic Organization;

Arlene Quinonez Perez, Chair, Hunterdon County Democrats & Chair, NJDSC Latino Caucus;

Mary J. Amoroso, Freeholder Chairwoman, Bergen County;

Moira Nelson, Monmouth County Democratic Committee and past Freeholder Candidate;

Deb Fabricatore, Somerset County Democrats, Disability Caucus;

Missy Balmir, Chair, NJDSC Black Caucus;

Fatima Heyward, Chair, NJDSC Youth Caucus;

Steven Goldstein, Chair, NJDSC Jewish Caucus;

Sikander Khan, Chair, NJDSC Muslim Caucus;

Toral Patel, Co-Chair, NJDSC South Asian American Caucus;

Raj Parikh, Esq., General Counsel, NJDSC.

NJ Advance Media Staff Writer Kelly Heyboer contributed to this report.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.



Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 10:14:48|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- More than 1,200 U.S. scientists have signed an open letter, accusing the Trump administration of denigrating "scientific expertise," as the U.S. government downplays the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The open letter has gained signatures rapidly during the epidemic because scientists have witnessed the government's inability and bigotry in tackling the coronavirus crisis, a report by The Guardian said on Monday.

Seeking to "restore science-based policy in government," the open letter started in 2016 as a response to Trump administration's refusal to accept climate scientists' advice and initiating U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, according to the website of the letter.

It rebukes the Trump administration for "denigration of scientific expertise and harassment of scientists," warning that "the dismissal of scientific evidence in policy formulation has affected wide areas of the social, biological, environmental and physical sciences."

In September 2016, 378 scientists signed the letter and the number increased to over 1,000 in April 2018, according to The Guardian.

The U.S. government's recent moves to deal with the pandemic, including seeking to block funding for virus testing and tracing as well as attacks on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines for school reopening, have pushed more scientists to sign the letter.

"Every single week practically you hear about scientists being dismissed or relocated and key positions not being filled," Ray Weymann, an astrophysicist and a co-organizer of the open letter, was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

"Over the last two years this feeling just built up more and more and it was really highlighted by the pandemic," he told The Guardian. Enditem
LOS ANGELESAfter an outcry from the countrys legalize sex workers, New Zealands state-run Kiwibank now says that it will lift its ban on providing financial services for brothel businesses, according to a report by the New Zealand news site Stuff.co.nz.

As New Zealand continues to reopen its economy, after a countrywide effort that reduced its coronavirus case count to zero, Kiwibank released a new policy statement on Tuesday outlining various types of enterprises that were banned from doing business with the bank, which is a subsidiary of New Zealands postal service.

Under the policy, the bank said it will refuse business from casinos, predatory lenders, and businesses dealing in fossil fuels or military-grade weapons. But the countrys legal brothels, as well as strip clubs, were also excluded from holding Kiwibank accounts.

Sex work has been decriminalized in New Zealand since 2003. Operating brothels is also legal, though brothel owners with more than four sex workers at work in their establishments must hold a valid operators license.

After negotiations Wednesday with the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, which had immediately objected to the Kiwibank policy, the ban announced that it would continue to bank businesses in that (adult) sector who can demonstrate good practice.

Sex workers were not banned from doing business with the bank as individuals, but the NZPC objected that by shutting out brothels, the incomes of sex workers would suffer. The sex worker advocates say that the requirement that brothel owners demonstrate good practice still requires them to meet a higher standard of conduct than other, legal businesses.

New Zealand sex workers told Stuff.co.nz that other banks have also refused to do business with them, and that obtaining a ban loan is impossible for sex workers in that country.

But the situation in the United States is similar, even for legal, sexually oriented businesses. And lats year, PayPal announced that it would no longer process payments for adult industry performers.

Photo By Pear285 / Wikimedia Commons
Health Minister Robin Swann has warned of the danger of using unlicensed prescription medicines for the treatment of Covid-19 (Niall Carson/PA)

Unlicensed drugs have been illegally imported into Northern Ireland claiming to be for the treatment of Covid-19, Health Minister Robin Swann has said.

Clinical trials are ongoing but there is no medicine licensed specifically to treat or prevent the infection.

Mr Swann warned of the danger in using unapproved prescription medicines to treat the disease.

Some of these so-called medicines could potentially do more harm than the virus Robin Swann

The minister said: I urge the public not to be fooled by online offers for medical products.

Some of these so-called medicines could potentially do more harm than the virus. Be in no doubt, medicines sourced in this way present a real danger to those taking them.

This problem is not something we can tackle in isolation and my department will continue to work with other agencies to disrupt the supply of illegal medicines.

Illegally imported medicines are not authorised and have not undergone regulatory approvals required in the UK.

Mr Swann added: My departments Medicines Regulatory Group has been made aware that unlicensed anti-viral drugs have been illegally imported into Northern Ireland.

This fake medicine claims to be for the treatment of Covid-19.

Potential vaccines developed by scientists around the world are being trialled but it is expected to be some time before they are widely available.

Uncertainty remains around how long-lasting or effective they will be.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is responsible for regulating all medicines and medical devices in the UK.

Expand Close Chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said the risk to the public due to unlicensed medicines is significant (Niall Carson/PA). PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said the risk to the public due to unlicensed medicines is significant (Niall Carson/PA).

Northern Irelands chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, said: The risk to the public due to unlicensed medicines is significant.

I would urge the public to be vigilant and to avoid putting their health at risk by using medication from an unknown source.

People should only take prescription medicines after an appropriate consultation with their GP or other healthcare professional and source them from a registered pharmacy.

Another nine people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health said on Wednesday.

There were no new deaths for the ninth consecutive day, with the toll remaining at 556.
Liverpool, N.Y.  The first time the novel coronavirus showed up at The Hearth at Keepsake Village was June 16. Operators of the 56-bed memory care facility in Liverpool called families of the residents to say that a staff member had tested positive that day for Covid-19.

Oh no,' Deborah Trepanier remembers thinking.

She worried about her uncle, 86-year-old Lynn Reynolds, who had lived at the facility for three years.

Within three weeks of that first positive test, Keepsake Village sent 22 residents to the hospital with Covid-19. The coronavirus blazed uncontrollably through the facility. Eighteen workers have been forced to stay out sick.

As of July 16, a total of 34 residents of the facility had tested positive, according to a notice sent by Keepsake Village to families.

We got hit hard,' said Kevin Hunter, chief operating officer of parent company Hearth Management. It was a fast and furious outbreak, for sure.'

Three Keepsake Village residents have died of Covid-19 since the outbreak began, Hunter said. Lynn Reynolds was one, according to his family.

He died Saturday at Crouse Hospital. His daughter, Renee Reynolds, a nurse at the hospital, said she was able to see him there, but only through the doorway from outside his room. It was the first time any family member had been able to visit Reynolds since March, when Keepsake Village and other adult care facilities closed to visitors.

Trepanier said when her uncle arrived at the hospital two weeks ago, he was angry at being kept in bed. Initially, he had no evident symptoms of the disease, Renee Reynolds said. But about 10 days later his condition deteriorated rapidly.

All of a sudden, quickly, he was doing worse,' Trepanier said. It was pretty sad.'

Hunter said he cant be certain how the virus entered Keepsake Village, the only one of five Upstate facilities operated by Hearth Management that has had Covid-19 infections. But the delays in getting test results for employees might have helped the virus get a foothold, he said.

Like other state-regulated adult-care facilities, Keepsake Village has tested its staff members regularly for Covid-19 since late May. At first, testing was twice a week. In June, the state relaxed it to once a week.

The first staff member to test positive did not display symptoms that would have kept them out of work, Hunter said. Neither did the second infected employee, whose results came back two or three days after the first. At the time, the facility was waiting about five to seven days for lab results, Hunter said.

That means the two employees likely were working while they were infectious and could have spread the disease without knowing it, he said.

Im not an epidemiologist. Thats my guess, but I just dont know,' he said.

Lynn Reynolds, 86, died July 18 at Crouse Hospital after contracting Covid-19 at the memory care facility where he lived, The Hearth at Keepsake Village, family members said.Provided Photo

Before the virus arrived, Keepsake Village had taken steps to limit the risk of transmission, Hunter said. Employees have consistently worn personal protective equipment, he said. They get temperature checks on the way into the building. All surfaces in the facility are cleaned and sanitized twice a day with a spray mist including hypochlorous acid, a recommended disinfectant, Hunter said.

The dining room was closed, plates and silverware were put away, and meals were served on disposable plates with plastic utensils. Residents ate meals at least six feet from each other, he said, although many needed assistance from staff.

Still, it has been difficult to limit contact in a facility where many patients have dementia, memory issues or Alzheimers disease, Hunter said.

Many residents are not allowed to eat alone, because of choking hazards, Hunter said. The residents were given masks to wear in common areas, but many consistently pulled them off. They were encouraged to remain in their apartments, Hunter said, but some just could not.

There are some folks that just absolutely, positively have to be in constant motion,' he said. There are some that absolutely cant have something over their nose and mouth.'

Keepsake Village shares a site on Old Liverpool Road with The Hearth at Greenpoint, a sister facility with 139 assisted living apartments. The two facilities do not share staff, Hunter said. The Hearth at Greenpoint has no cases of coronavirus, he said.

Camillus-based Hearth Management operates a total of 15 senior living centers in four states. None of the facilities except Keepsake Village currently has any coronavirus cases, Hunter said.

At this point, Keepsake Village is working to keep the virus from spreading further. Residents who have not been infected have been moved to a section of the building closed off from Covid-positive residents, who are in a different area.

The facility still has 19 residents in hospitals, who can only return if they test negative for the disease. There are 15 employees still out with Covid-19. Each must test negative twice before returning to work, Hunter said.

Lynn Reynolds grew up in Texas and served six years in the Army before settling in Liverpool. Some people in the Syracuse area knew him as Tex, Trepanier said.

He worked for 25 years at Allied-Signal Inc. in Solvay. After that, he worked with special education students for 10 years in the Liverpool school district, Trepanier said.

He loved those kids, loved helping them,' she said. That was one of the things that was very dear to his heart.'

In Reynolds obituary, his family thanked the staff at Keepsake Village for the compassionate care that was given to Lynn over the past three years.'

Family and friends will honor Reynolds today at a private funeral service with military honors.

Do you work at Keepsake Village or have a loved one who lives there? If you have information to share about the outbreak, contact reporter Tim Knauss of syracuse.com/The Post-Standard: email | Twitter | | 315-470-3023

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Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com
Turkish forces are maneuvering into position for an attack on Sirte. Control of this city makes it easier to advance inland and take control of the oilfields. Because of that it was never a secret that Sirte was the next Turk target. This coastal city is 500 kilometers east of Tripoli and 560 kilometers west of Benghazi and unexpectedly fell to LNA (Libyan National Army) forces in January 2020. The LNA has been trying to subdue Sirte for years. The LNA eliminated the Islamic terror groups that had, since 2016, operated south of the city but were unable to bring order to Sirte itself. Until the LNA took over, most of the Sirte militias were loyal to the GNA, if only because the GNA didnt try to control what the Sirte militias did. That included working with people smugglers and living off the local population. Shutting down this sort of thing is why the LNA has been able to take control of most of the country. At the end of 2019 the LNA was carrying out airstrikes on the Sirte militias and planning a ground offensive as soon as Tripoli was taken. But LNA leaders had also been negotiating with some of the larger militias in Sirte and finally got a key militia to switch sides. The other militias realized that put them at a serious disadvantage and accepted a peace deal that put the LNA in charge of the city. This was a major, and unexpected, loss for the GNA. As a result, since January the UN-backed government only controls two cities; Tripoli and Misrata. The newly arrived Turkish force, which is mainly Syrian Arab mercenaries, pushed the LNA forces away from Tripoli and out of other parts of western Libya.

Attacking Sirte threatens to bring Egyptian forces into Libya. Turkey has been negotiating with Russia and Qatar to try and avoid a clash with the Egyptians. Russia has long backed the LNA while Qatar (and less openly, Iran) have been backing the GNA and now the Turks in Libya. This is all part of the other war between Iran and most Arab oil states, except Qatar. Thats Arabian politics with Qatar's emir quarreling many of his fellow Arabian monarchs. This is more family feud than grand diplomacy, but it does have Qatar financing the GNA while Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE back the GNA opposition (H0R government and the LNA).

Strained Alliances

Russia and Turkey are occasionally fighting each other in Libya but are now more interested in avoiding a larger war and more damage to Libya. Turkey got involved with Libya in return for a signed (by the GNA) agreement giving Turkey the right to drill for oil in disputed waters between Libya and Turkey. In Syria Russian airstrikes have killed Turkish troops while the Turks have killed Syrian troops. Turkey and Russia have backed away from that kind of thing and sought to cooperate more.

Turkey, Russia and Iran continue to pretend they are all friends and allies of Syria but the reality is different and becoming more visible and violent. To further complicate matter the Assad government of Syria has declared itself an ally of the LNA. The Syrians have sent, with Russian assistance, some equipment and weapons to the LNA. This was all a the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Turkey does not seem to fear an Egyptian military response to the Turkish invasion of western Libya. The official Turkish view is that Egypt is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudis Arabia and the UAE who have been backing the anti-Islamic terrorist LNA in Libya for years. Yet Egypt appears ready and able to send troops into Libya. Most Egyptian troops are poorly trained, motivated and led conscripts. Its a gamble sending these troops deep into Libya to fight experienced Syrian Arab mercenaries backed by experienced Turkish troops.

For the moment the most valuable asset the LNA controls is the Libyan oil fields, pipelines, refineries and oil-export ports. Since January, when the Turkish threat became evident and very active, the LNA has halted all oil exports. The GNA depends on oil revenue to pay for food, medical and consumer goods imports. Without the oil exports the GNA is burning through cash reserves. The LNA oil export blockade will only be lifted if the GNA agrees to a ceasefire and an independent audit of the Libyan Central Bank, which the GNA has controlled since 2016. Much financial misbehavior is suspected and the audit could do more damage to the GNA than anything else.

Since 2016 the LNA has cooperated with the GNA to export oil and use the cash to maintain the welfare state Libyans have enjoyed for decades. One of the many reasons for the wide support the LNA enjoys is a more credible record in dealing with corruption. The GNA has always been more evasive on that issue and the administration of Tripoli has been notoriously corrupt and inefficient. Most Libyans do not want the GNA going nation-wide with that maladministration. Libyans see the Turks as after Libyan oil and thats yet another reason to oppose the Turkish invaders.

Managing The Syrian Mercenaries

Turkey has worked with Syrian Arab mercenaries for a long time, not just in the last few years in northern Syria, but for centuries before that. Turkey offers acceptable terms and tends to fulfill its agreements. The Syrian Arab mercenaries are sent to Libya work on short contracts (three to six months) and then flown back to Syria where they can sign on for more mercenary service in Syria or, at higher pay, in Libya. So far 15,000 Syrian Arab men have signed up for service in Libya. About ten percent will be killed, wounded, injured or declared missing while in Libya. Turkey provides death benefits and health care for the wounded and injured.

Most of the missing are a few dozen, usually younger, mercs who had arranged to use people smugglers still active in Libya to try and reach Europe. The Turks are trying to maintain a force of 10,000 mercs in Libya and so far, there is no shortage of volunteers. Not all volunteers are accepted and all have to undergo several weeks of special training so they can operate in a more organized fashion than they normally do in Syria. The training also allows the Turkish instructors to weed out volunteers who are not suitable.

July 20, 2020: In Egypt the parliament authorized the government to send troops into Libya to deal with the growing Turkish threat. Like all other North African countries, Egypt was once part of the Ottoman Turkish, which dissolved in the 1920s after having lost control of Egypt during the 1798 French invasion. The French were soon expelled by the British and by 1805 an Egyptian monarchy took over until replaced by a military coup in 1952. Egyptians still remember the Turks as brutal overlords who, in the decades before the French invasion, presided over massive famines that killed over 15 percent of the population. Egypt is the most populous and militarily powerful of the North African states the Ott0man Turks conquered and ruled five centuries ago. None of the North Africans want a repeat.

Turkey has sent, by ship, over a dozen Turkish made MLRS (multiple launch rocket system) and self-propelled 155mm artillery vehicles. The MLRS trucks each carry 40 122mm rockets with a range of 40 kilometers. The tracked vehicle carrying the 155mm howitzer is the T-155 Frtna. This vehicle was based on the South Korean K9. The T-155 is a 46-ton armored vehicle. The 155mm howitzer has the same range as the MLRS but is more accurate. The MLRS and T-155 are operated by Turkish troops and both weapons have been used in Syria.

July 19, 2020: In the east, near the oil export port of Brega, two local militias aligned with the LNA fought each other briefly. The oil facilities throughout Libya attracted local militias who demanded jobs as guards or simply cash to keep the facilites unharmed. In many cases there were two or more rival militias in play. The LNA sorted a lot of these situations out but the tensions between rival militias remain and occasionally get violent. The LNA has non-militia forces available as well as officers who can negotiate settlements. These QRF (Quick Reaction Force) personnel as stationed near the key oil ports . These include Ras Lanuf (620 kilometers east of Tripoli) and Es Sider/Sidra (20-30 kilometers further east). In normal times Es Sider and Ras Lanuf can ship 600,000 barrels a day . Nearby is t he oil port of Zueitina (220 kilometers west of Ras Lanuf and 180 kilometers southwest of Benghazi). In between Ras Lanuf and Zueitina is the oil port at Brega. Ras Lanuf , Zueitina and Brega can export 800,000 BPD ( barrels per day ) . Max Libyan production is a little over a million BPD.

July 5, 2020: In Libya there was a damaging series of airstrikes on a Turkish airbase, doing a lot of damage. The airstrikes were apparently arranged by Russia, which then suggested that Turkey allow the two Libyan factions, the Turk backed GNA and Russia-backed LNA/HoR, work out a ceasefire and eventually a peace deal. Turley is under a lot of pressure from NATO (which threatens to expel Turkey) and the EU (which is angry at the Turks for a growing number of reasons). A further incentive for the Turks to leave is the Egyptian threat to send troops into Libya to help its old friend the LNA. Other North African nations are angry at Turkey for invading Libya. The huge expense of the Libya operations has already caused Turkey to send several thousand of its Syrian mercenaries back to Syria and lower paying jobs.

June 28, 2020: In wester Sudan (Darfur) security forces arrested over 120 people suspected of agreeing to go fight as mercenaries in neighboring Libya. A senior Rapid Support Forces (RSF) officer claimed that 72 of the people arrested were members of the Sudanese Awakening Revolutionary Council, a militant group commanded by the former janjaweed militia leader Musa Hilal, who faces UN sanctions for his actions in Darfur. He is currently under arrest in in the capital (Khartoum). Several of the militiamen arrested face charges of attacking a military post and recruiting child soldiers. Sudans transitional government vehemently denies charges that Sudanese forces are involved in Libyas on-going civil war. Mercenaries are another matter and the LNA has been known to hire reliable and effective tribal militias from Chad and Sudan to help keep the peace along borders and throughout southern Libya.

June 24, 2020: T he last elected Libyan government (called the HoR or House of Representatives group) asked Egypt to intervene militarily if the UN and Turk backed GNA government tries to advance east and take the coastal city of Sirte.
NEW YORK and LONDON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CVC Credit Partners ("CVC Credit") is pleased to announce that it has closed Apidos XXXIII, a Collateralized Loan Obligation ("CLO") fund totalling $400 million. This is the second CLO fund CVC Credit has closed in the last month, following the closing of Cordatus XVII in June. Together these funds total $720 million (630 million) of new issuance and increase CVC Credit Partners global CLO asset under management to approximately $15.8 billion.

Adipos XXXIII, was arranged by Goldman Sachs and is CVC Credit's second new-issue to close in the U.S. in 2020. As with previous Apidos CLOs, the fund is primarily comprised of broadly syndicated First Lien Senior Secured Loans.

Cordatus XVII is a 290 million European focused CLO arranged by Natixis. This was CVC Credit's first European CLO closed in 2020, having completed three in 2019. European CLO assets under management now stand at c.$6.3 billion.

Gretchen Bergstresser, Global Head of Performing Credit at CVC Credit Partners, said: "Pricing and closing two CLOs in such quick succession is a great result, and all the more impressive in the context of the challenging economic conditions of the past few months. Both U.S. and European raisings have been a real team effort with our New York and London based teams working simultaneously across both CLOs."

About CVC Credit Partners

CVC Credit Partners is the credit management business of CVC. CVC Credit Partners is a global credit asset manager with offices in the U.S. and Europe, 60 investment professionals and US$26 billion assets under management, as at 31 March 2020.

CVC Credit Partners seeks to generate for its investors positive absolute returns and attractive risk-adjusted returns on capital throughout the credit cycle.

CVC Credit Partners has built a diverse platform which creates significant synergies across its three investment strategies: Performing Credit, Credit Opportunities & Special Situations and Private Debt. For further information about CVC Credit Partners please visit: www.cvc.com/credit.

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A fire fighters brigade works to extinguish the blaze at the Gothic St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral, in Nantes, western France, on July 18, 2020. (Laetitia Notarianni/AP Photo)

Improved Security Needed With Risk Growing to Holy Places

Commentary

Four months ago I warned in a YouTube released video about the risk of empty churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. Today it is even worsemuch worse because of the rise of attacks by organized thugs on the left and right. COVID-19 has caused the perfect storm enabling these vicious groups to destroy our society by trashing our religious places.

I am the author of the new book Security for Holy Places, and I maintain a Facebook page (facebook.com/SECHOLYPLACES) focused on incidents affecting our religious institutions. I also prepare YouTube videos to emphasize certain high-profile dangers to holy places.

Attacks on holy places are taking place across the length and breadth of the United States, and elsewhere around the globe.

In Europe important holy shrines have been destroyed by fire, the latest in Nantes in France where an arsonist set at least three separate fires inside the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Work on that cathedral started in 1434 and was not completed until near the end of the nineteenth century. The fire totally destroyed what is called the Grand Organ of the church. That organ was built by Jacques Girardet in 1619. Initially it was a 27-stop, two-manual organ. Adrien Lepine enlarged the organ in 1768, adding a bombarde reed pedal stop. The organ survived a bombing on June 15, 1944 and another fire on the roof on Jan. 28, 1972 caused by a workmans blow torch.

Along with the organ, a beautiful rose stained glass window above the organ also collapsed and was destroyed.

Holy Places Attacked

While the damage to the Nantes cathedral destroyed parts of an important historical site, the damage and destruction of any religious place, no matter how humble, is a cause for the greatest concern. Across the globe, religion is crucial to providing spiritual and emotional support to individuals, families and communities.

Consider the defacing and destruction of Catholic religious places in the United States. On July 10, a statue of Mary was defaced outside the Cathedral Prep School in Brooklyn, New York. A day later, on July 11, a barrel of garbage and the barrel itself were put over the head of a statue of Mary at the Dorchester, Mass. St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish church. Also on July 11, a Catholic Church in the San Gabriel Valley called the Mission San Gabriel Archangel Church was gutted by fire. Authorities now think the fire was deliberately set.

On July 15, a statue of Jesus at the southwest Miami Dade Good Shepherd Catholic Church was beheaded. On July 16, another statue of Mary was set on fire at St. Peters Parish Catholic Church, near Dorchester.

Also on July 15th in New Haven, St. Josephs Church was vandalized. Satanic and other symbols were painted on the outside and there was some destruction inside. The church was temporarily closed.

Other Christian churches have also been attacked.

On July 18 in Chantilly, Virginia at 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon at the Grace Covenant Church, at a Bible study class, two people were stabbed. One of the two wounded was the Churchs pastor. Luckily for him, Fairfax County Police Chief Ed Roessler was part of the study grouphe jumped to the pastors defense and subdued the attacker. The man who carried out the attack, Chance Harrison, 32, was arrested. No motive was given for the attack.

On a Sunday night night on July 19 or early in the morning on July 20th, a church in West El-Paso Texas called the Abundant Living Faith Center West was vandalized: 27 windows were smashed along with 6 shattered doors. The church is Evangelical Christian.

Synagogues have been attacked too, often spray-painted painted with Nazi symbols and other anti-Jewish graffiti. In Sarasota, Florida on July 15th, a man spray painted Temple Emanu-El at 2:15 a.m. and then went to Temple Sinai, about five miles away, where he vandalized that building. Both attacks were caught on surveillance video.

On July 17, anticipating a neo-Nazi march in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, concrete barriers were placed at Temple Beth Ha Sholom and Ohev Sholom Congregation to prevent vehicle access.

In Europe at least 50 gravestones, including that of Maharam Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg were smeared with greenish paint in a medieval graveyard in Germanys Worms. On the same day in Aude, France 20 Jewish tombstones, apparently chosen at random, were vandalized in the Gruissan municipal cemetery. Death to the Jews and Swastikas were painted on the grave markers.

On July 11, congregants at the Al Ihsaan Islamic Center in Macomb County, Michigan found five windows busted out when they arrived on the morning of Saturday, July 11.

What to Do

Now we are in the second phase of the COVID-19 epidemic, and many holy places remain closed or are operating with limited attendance and other restrictions.

The budgets for our religious institutions have been slashed; membership is down; religiously important ceremonies, even funerals, cant be carried out. Some burials are restricted to virtual mourners.

With limited funds and employees often on furlough, holy places are poorly protected.

There are federal and some state funds available to help with security, but even those who get the money from the Federal government face more than a year of red tape before they can spend even a dime. And there is not nearly enough money. Most of the places that have experienced attacks either lacked security altogether, or the security in place wasnt adequate.

Without more effective, proactive security measures in place providing full time security coverage, those who want to destroy our religious places have an unprecedented opportunity to do even greater damage.

There have been enough attacks by now to warrant a new approach.

Here are some practical proposals:

(1) Provide funds immediately through Federal, state and local programs for full time security guards instead of funding complete security programs.

At the present time money is available for guards but typical awards of up to $100,000 for each holy place covers technology and physical improvements. For the time being money should only go for security guards and protection services. This would free up millions of dollars that otherwise will be tied up in red tape. In short, money would go much further and have an immediate impact. This is especially important because there isnt time for Congress to fill the gap with new money, even if it wanted to do so. But the administration can rework current programs and provide quick and valuable help that will go much further and be available far sooner.

(2) Dont impose delays on religious organizations in getting funding. Government should provide a simple method of compensation to pay for security guards. The red tape associated with current security funding makes no sense when threats are becoming viral.

(3) Beef up, dont weaken police forces so they can help protect holy sites. The defund police political movement among leftists in the United States is putting communities at risk and leaving holy places with no protection.

(4) All religious leaders should support a Holy March on Washington demanding immediate security help from the Federal government. A pro-religion march would be a positive step in making it clear that America is a faith-based society and wont be intimidated by thugs trying to destroy our communities.

Dr. Stephen Bryen is regarded as a thought leader on technology security policy, twice being awarded the Defense Departments highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service Medal. His most recent book is Technology Security and National Power: Winners and Losers.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Iran received its first passenger flight from the United Arab Emirates' flag carrier in five months on Friday after it arrived at Tehran's main airport.

The Emirates service from Dubai touched down at the nearly empty Imam Khomeini Airport with a small group of travellers onboard.

It was the first commercial flight since late February when the airliner halted the route after Emirati authorities found two Iranians who were infected with the coronavirus.

Health officials greeted the passengers on arrival, checking their temperatures, symptoms and collecting declaration forms before they walked through a disinfection station.

Mohammad Reza Karimi, the airport's deputy head, said from least 11,000 coronavirus tests carried out at the airport "under 1% of passengers" had tested positive for the virus.

The outbreak in Iran has seen more than 13,700 reported deaths amid more than 269,000 confirmed cases, according to government figures.
Airport authorities issue guidelines mandating for every international passenger to sign an undertaking for a paid 7-day institutional quarantine, primary and secondary health screenings at the airport. Exceptions to the new rule include pregnant women, people with deaths in the family, those suffering from serious illnesses, and parents travelling with children below the age of 10.

In view of the ongoing COVID-19 scenario, all passengers arriving by international flights at the Delhi Airport will have to undergo seven days of institutional quarantine at their own cost, followed by one-week of home quarantine.

As per the latest guidelines issued by the airport authority, all international passengers will have to sign an undertaking that they accept this obligation (of seven days paid institutional quarantine), which will be retained by the overseas mission/embassy before the booking is confirmed.

Furthermore, international passengers who are planning to stay on in Delhi-NCR region will have to undergo mandatory health screening which includes a primary screening by health officials of the airport, followed by a secondary screening at Delhi government post after which they will be allowed to proceed to the approved quarantine location.

Also read: Amarnath Yatra 2020 cancelled amid coronavirus crisis

Also read: Over 23% Delhiites have Covid-19 antibodies: Sero-Survey

The authority said that only pregnant women, those who suffered death in the family, those suffering from a serious illness, and parents travelling with children below 10 years will be provided an exception for which they will have to send an undertaking form, along with required documents, to airportcovid@gmail.com.

Meanwhile, all domestic passengers will have to undergo mandatory thermal screening near the exit gates and only those who are found asymptomatic will be allowed to leave the airport premises. They will further have to stay under home quarantine for 7 days.

The transit passengers are required to undergo temperature checks at both the departures and entry gates before catching their next flight.

Passengers arriving on an international Vande Bharat Mission flight may only take a connecting domestic flight if it also comes under the Vande Bharat Mission. However, passengers who are planning to board onward domestic flights will have to obtain an authorised exemption certificate, if they are coming through non-Vande Bharat international flights, the authority further said.

With a spike of 37,148 cases and 587 deaths reported in India on Tuesday, the total number of COVID-19 cases stood at 11,55,191, according to the Union Ministry of Health.

The total number of cases include 4,02,529 active cases, 7,24,578 cured/discharged/migrated patients and 28,084 deaths.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi lists BJPs achievements during Covid-19, includes Rajasthan crisis

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Blackrock Gold Corp. (TSXV: BRC) (the "Company") is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement (the "Offering") of 10,416,667 units (the "Units") at a price of C$0.72 per Unit for gross proceeds of C$7,500,000.24. The Company is pleased to advise that Eric Sprott has agreed to purchase C$5 million of the Offering. Each Unit will be comprised of one common share and one-half of one share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one additional common share in the capital of the Company at a price of C$1.00 for a period of two years from the date the Units are issued.

The Offering is scheduled to close on or about July 31, 2020, and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Units to be issued under the Offering will have a hold period of four months and one day from the closing. The net proceeds of the Offering will be used by the Company to fund an expanded exploration program on the Company's Tonopah West property, and for general working capital.

The Company will pay a finder's fee on the Offering of 6% in cash and finder's warrants equal to 6% of Units placed by the finder, each finder's warrant exercisable for one common share for a 2 year term at a price of $1.00.

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and accordingly, may not be offered or sold within the United States except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities in any jurisdiction.

About Blackrock Gold Corp.

Blackrock is a junior gold-focused exploration company that is on a quest to make an economic discovery. Anchored by a seasoned Board, the Company is focused on its Nevada portfolio consisting of low-sulphidation epithermal gold & silver projects located along on the established Northern Nevada Rift in north-central Nevada, and the Walker Lane trend in western Nevada.

For further information, please contact:

Andrew Pollard, President & CEO

Blackrock Gold Corp.

Phone: 604 817-6044

Email: andrew@blackrockgoldcorp.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements concern expected subscriptions and closing of the Offering, net proceeds from the Offering and the intended use of proceeds. Such forward-looking statements or information are based on a number of assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: conditions in general economic and financial markets; timing and amount of capital expenditures; and effects of regulation by governmental agencies. The actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of risk factors including: the availability of funds; the timing and content of work programs; results of exploration activities of mineral properties; the interpretation of drilling results and other geological data; and general market and industry conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on the expectations and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date the statements were made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements included in this news release if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES

OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES



To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60246
The United States ordered the closure of the Consulate General of China in Houston on Tuesday, sparking harsh responses from the Chinese government and workers inside the consulate.

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the closure was due to "unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," although provided no specific allegations of misconduct. She added the closure was necessary to protect American's intellectual property and private information.

Why Houston's consulate general was specifically targeted is unclear. China has since vowed to retaliate, calling the announced closure an "unprecedented escalation" in relations between the two governments, according to the Associated Press.

Now Playing: The U.S. ordered China to close its Houston consulate in what a Chinese official called an outrageous and unjustified move. Media reports in Houston said that authorities had responded to reports of a fire at the Chinese Consulate late Tuesday. (July 22) Video: Associated Press

The move is still under scrutiny, but Republican Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted that the Houston consulate served as a "central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies and influence operations."

"Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest," Rubio tweeted. "This needed to happen."

A Houston police official told the Houston Chronicle that the occupants of the consulate were being evicted from the building at 3417 Montrose Blvd. around 4 p.m. Tuesday. Within hours, witnesses spotted workers inside the courtyard burning papers, the official said.

Firefighters could smell smoke outside the building but found no signs of a "significant threat," according to Houston Fire Department Asst. Chief Ruy Lozano. A firefighter perched atop a large ladder saw material burning in barrels, according to Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena.

"All I know, it's illegal to have open burning in the city of Houston like that," Pena said. "But it's a sovereign country, and we can't get access into those consulates so we're limited in what we can do."

Consulate workers denied firefighters from entering the building. Firefighters will only enter the building without consent if there is threat to someone's health and safety, Luzano said.

The people inside the consulate eventually stopped burning the materials, Pena said.

The consulate appeared to be operating business as usual Wednesday morning until a moving truck and white unmarked van with special consul license plates showed up at a rear garage door. People from inside the consulate were seen loading the van with full trash bags, cleaning supplies and other household items, including decorations.

At the front of the building, a guard stood outside the front doors, armed with a gun on his hip.

Ronald Cline, 75, lives near the consulate and noticed what smelled like burning plastic around 9 or 10 p.m. Tuesday night.

It was all the acid in the air and the smoke, he said.

Aside from the occasional Falun Gong protest outside the building, Cline said, the consulate is a quiet neighbor.

Another property owned by the consulate, on Almeda and Hepburn, sat idle Wednesday morning. Nothing was visible from the street, as a large brick fence, iron gates and barbed wire surrounds the complex. Security cameras also overlook the property, and a People's Republic of China flag waved inside the gates.

City spokeswoman Mary Benton said their international affairs office has been in touch with the state department at Mayor Sylvester Turners request. But because the consulate has diplomatic immunity, she said, theres not much for the city of Houston to do.

Turner is expected to address the consulate closure at a city council meeting later on Wednesday, Benton said.

Houston is host to 92 consulates for foreign governments, she continued.

The Chinese government bought the Montrose Boulevard property, then a five-story apartment building, in 1980 and remodeled it into its headquarters. The purchase signaled a surge in Chinese commerce through the Houston Ship Channel.

The consulate covers Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Puerto Rico.

Houston is no stranger to controversy surrounding the consulate and relations between the Chinese and United States governments.

Three scientists were terminated from MD Anderson Cancer Center in April 2019 after the National Institutes of Health, a public funder of biomedical research, identified researchers throughout the country with possible ties to espionage and trade theft on behalf of China. Critics of the move claimed those scientists were racially profiled.

Rockets general manager Daryl Morey's infamous and now-deleted tweet praising pro-democratic protesters in Hong Kong put Houston in the international spotlight once again in October 2019. The tweet, which was wiped from Twitter within minutes, drew ire from the Chinese government and cost the team millions in revenue.

In 2017, Houston businesswoman Sandy Phan-Gillis returned to the United States after she was arrested during a 2015 trip and accused of espionage.

Also in 2017, a fire broke out inside an apartment in the consulate. Firefighters forced their way in and put out the fire within 30 minutes.

In 2010, three Houston police officers were placed on desk duty after they followed a diplomat and his wife into the consulate's garage and detained the two. The consulate is considered sovereign ground, sparking a controversy described as a "grave violation" of international agreements.

jay.jordan@chron.com

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julian.gill@chron.com
A Minnesota judge on Tuesday lifted a gag order in the criminal case against four former officers charged over the death of George Floyd, but declined to rule on a news media coalition's request to make body camera footage more widely available.

Judge Peter Cahill, of Hennepin County, said he agreed with defense attorneys' arguments that a gag order, imposed on July 9, would be unfair to their clients and limit their ability to defend themselves against negative publicity.

Cahill said, however, that he expects all attorneys in the case to follow the rules on disclosure of information.

J. Alexander Kueng, left, enters the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis with his attorney Thomas Plunkett, right, for the hearing on lifting the gag order imposed July 9

Thomas Lane, another of the four former officers, arrives in court on Tuesday

Tou Thao is charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter

Cahill also ruled Tuesday that he would not hold the lead prosecutor in the case, Attorney General Keith Ellison, in contempt of court as two defense attorneys requested.

He ruled that a statement Ellison made, when he announced that additional attorneys would be assisting the prosecution, was innocuous and did not violate the gag order.

Floyd, who was black, died on May 25 after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, pressed his knee against a handcuffed Floyds neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd said he could not breathe.

Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Three other officers who were at the scene, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter.

All four officers were fired.

From left to right: Derek Chauvin, who remains in jail; plus Kueng, Lane and Thao

Thao, Lane and Kueng are all out on bail.

Thao, 34, posted a $750,000 bond on July 4 and was released.

Lane, 37, walked free on June 10 after paying his $750,000.

J. Alexander Kueng, 26, was released on June 19 following his payment of the same amount.

Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck on May 25

Chauvin, 44, remains behind bars, with his bail set at $1.25 million - a sum he is yet to obtain.

Police body camera videos were filed with the court this month by Lanes attorney, Earl Gray, as part of a request to have Lanes case dismissed.

Gray said he wanted the videos to be made public  prompting Cahill to issue the July 9 order barring attorneys and parties from discussing the case.

Defense attorneys for all four of the former officers asked that the gag order be lifted. The Associated Press is among news organizations that objected to the gag order.

Cahill made the videos available for in-person, by-appointment viewing only.

Media attorney Leita Walker objected to that format, saying it violated the common law, rules of public access to records and the First Amendment, and was essentially equivalent to keeping the videos under seal.

Records of all courts are presumed to be open for public inspection with limited exceptions. Prosecutors said a court may impose restrictions if that access will interfere with the fair and impartial administration of justice, and that reasonable alternatives aren't adequate.

Judge Cahill now has 90 days to make a decision on the body camera footage, but said he plans to do so sooner than that.

Demonstrators continue to demand justice for George Floyd in Seattle on Monday
As four Indian naval ships participated in a two-day joint exercise with the American supercarrier USS Nimitz off the Andaman coast this week, another supercarrier USS Ronald Regan teamed up with navies of Australia and Japan to carry out a similar exercise 4,000 km away on the mouth of the contested South China Sea.

The official statements on the exercises did not name China that has been trying to throw its weight around its neighbours. It didnt have to as the danger is clear and present with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi clearly stating this week that Beijing was moving to the centre of the globe - in effect expounding the Middle Kingdom concept.

The United States has emerged as the bulwark against China in the South China Sea and beyond, deepening partnerships with countries in Asia, Europe and Australia to secure Indo-Pacific from a bellicose China.The two exercises make it evident that India will be the principal ally to US in securing Indian Ocean Region while Japan and Australia will be key to protecting Pacific region.

The message that put China at the centre of the United States focus was reinforced by US defence secretary Mark Esper late on Tuesday. Esper explained the presence of the US supercarriers in and around the South China Sea, which irks Beijing, to back up the sovereignty of friends and partners and to reassure them that we will be there to defend those things in the face of Chinas bad behaviour.

The four navies that participated in this weeks two exercises - US, India, Japan and Australia -- would be in the Indian Ocean later in November as part of the expanded Malabar naval exercise led by India. Australia is expected to be formally invited soon to the exercise.

The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, consisting of flagship USS Nimitz, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Sterett, and USS Ralph Johnson, along with Indian Navy ships Rana, Sahyardi, Shivalik and Kamorta, steam in formation during a cooperative deployment in the Indian Ocean (US Navy)

This would be a QUAD exercise by default, a military commander said, referring to the four-country Quadrilateral security dialogue or QUAD.

The US, which plays the lead role in QUAD, has become a pivot against China; exercising with the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean and Japan and Australia in the Philippine Sea near the mouth of the South China Sea.

Mark Esper said the exercise in the Indian Ocean reflects the shared commitment of the US and India to boost naval cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The exercise with the Indian Navy was conducted beyond the Six Degree channel which separates Great Nicobar from Banda Ache in Indonesias Sumatra. The USS Nimitz, which reaches more than 23 stories high from the keel to the top of the mast, was coming down from the South China Sea into the Strait of Malacca.

Simultaneously, USS Ronald Regan conducted the trilateral military exercise as a show of naval might in the Philippine Sea on the doorstep of the disputed South China Sea.

Throughout the cooperative exercise period, participants will operate and train together, exercising integrated maritime operations in an all-domain warfighting environment, the US Navy said in a statement, pointing that the exercise would help their response to any situation.

China claims much of the neighbouring South China Sea, though the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the waters. The US, in a marked change in stance on Chinas disputes in the South China Sea, had described Beijings pursuit of offshore resources completely unlawful and condemned its campaign of bullying to control the disputed waters.

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(Natural News) Now that the Pandoras Box has been opened and the cancel culture has been turned loose, there is no hiding its scope. It is unrestrained and unrelenting. If you dare cross it, even in the slightest, you will be targeted next  even violently. The cancel culture is out of control.

(Article republished from LifeSiteNews.com)

You cannot reason with it or appeal to it. Logic and truth and facts do not matter. The only way to stop it is to confront it and expose it, openly, clearly, boldly, and unashamedly.

If you compromise on one issue youll be forced to capitulate on all issues. There is no middle ground with this irrational and destructive movement. The sooner we realize that, the better.

Consider these recent examples:

According to Breitbart, Miss Swimsuit UK has been stripped of her title after posting the message ALL lives matter on her Facebook page.

She had written, Yes what happened to George Floyd was wrong and unforgivable but so is what happens to many other people of different races in similar situations. Yet they dont get to protest, loot, take over social media, create a day for their race or even raise $10.3 million in aid of the person who passed. The majority of crime and deaths regarding black people is caused by black on black crime that happens in America.

Such speech is verboten. Away with her! Off with her crown!

According to Policemag.com, after two police officers were ambushed and killed in cold blood, Savannah Chavez, the 16-year-old daughter of one of those officers (who was just 39 years old), tweeted, Words cannot describe the pain Im in, but Im glad my dad is at peace. She continued, You were an amazing man and anyone who ever came across you knew that. And then this: Im going to miss you so much. you died doing what you loved most, you died a hero. i love you daddy, see you soon. #bluelivesmatter.

What gall! How dare she claim that her fathers cold-blooded execution could be compared to someones death at the hands of a policeman. And how dare she co-opt a slogan, since her dad, by birth, was not blue.

This grieving teenager received so much opposition she ended up deleting the tweet.

What on earth is happening to our society?

ZeroHedge.com reports that Facebook deplatformed a former employee who questioned the standard BLM/diversity narrative. Patrick Shyu, who also worked for Google in the past, had claimed in a video that diversity policies were creating more problems than solutions.

As a result, he was banned from Facebook and shadow-banned from YouTube. As he explained,  just because you didnt like something I said for 10 years I said all great things and then one time I say something that you may not necessarily like, you disable my entire account and I lose access to all the past 10 years information and theres no explanation, no customer service, and not much [of] an appeals process.

That is the cancel culture in a nutshell. If you dare stray from the standard script, even for one moment, you are banned for life. No more of you! You can go from ally to enemy in the twinkling of an eye.

In the words of John Gray, an emeritus professor at the London School of Economics, giving a perspective from the U.K., Today we are no longer living in a free society. Instead, we are ruled by those who try to enforce their extreme views by shaming and ruining those who think differently.

It is not far-fetched to compare the methods of this woke movement to those of Chairman Maos Red Guards, who terrorised the Chinese people half a century ago.

As for specific examples, he wrote, Critical race theory  a sub-Marxist ideology in which white privilege is invoked to explain all kinds of injustice  is increasingly being taught as part of decolonising the curriculum.

Indeed, no subject is immune from this re-education campaign in our schools and universities.

Academics at Birmingham City University have proposed that Mozart be eliminated from music teaching and replaced by the rapper Stormzy. Eton College has announced it will change the teaching of history, geography, religion, politics and English, along with school assemblies and societies, in order to ensure that decolonisation is enforced across the board.

And over in Australia, as reported by the Daily Mail, there is a New push to RENAME body parts like the Adams apple and Achilles tendon because they are irrelevant and misogynistic.

Where does this stop? It does not  until it completely devours itself.

The sad thing is that virtually every day, I could write another article just like this, adding more egregious examples by the hour.

The scary thing is that the cancel culture mob has no trouble resorting to violence, be it setting church buildings on fire, vandalizing statues considered sacred, or attacking a meeting supporting the police.

So, once again, I urge you to wake up, stand up, and speak up  while you can.

Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com or Groupthink.news
A magistrates court in Igarra, Edo, on Wednesday sentenced a 31-year-old security guard, Sunday Akpeji, to nine years imprisonment with hard labour for raping a seven-year-old girl.

The police had charged Akpeji with defilement.

Magistrate Nosa Musoe held that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubts with the evidence tendered in court.

The prosecutions evidence is overwhelming and I hereby find Akpeji guilty.

I sentence the defendant to nine years in prison with hard labour without any option of fine, the magistrate said.

The magistrate also ordered that the convict be taken to the Auchi correctional centre to serve his jail term.

READ ALSO:

Earlier, the prosecution Counsel, Obeze Samuel, told the court that the convict committed the offence on the night of August 19, 2019, at Enwan/Ososo Road, Uffa Quarters, Igarra in Akoko Edo Local Government Area of Edo.

Mr Samuel said the convict, who is a security guard in the compound, raped the minor at night when she got out to ease herself.

The offence, he said, is punishable Under Section 218 of the Criminal Code, Cap 48, Vol. 11, Laws of the defunct Bendel State of Nigeria 1976 as applicable in Edo State. (NAN)
This is an obvious attempt to weaponize the census to make sure people already in power stay in power, said Nabila Mansoor, executive director of the Texas chapter of Emgage USA, which works closely with Texass Muslim American community. The demographics are changing such that our districts are going to be more diverse and include many more people that were not there before. If you take out the undocumented community, you are allowing these gerrymandered districts to be further diluted.
Sonny Bill Williams is on the verge of a stunning comeback to the Sydney Roosters this year, agreeing to consider a return to the Tricolours for the last four rounds of the season and the club's finals push for a third successive title.

Sources close to negotiations told the Herald the 34-year-old is seriously contemplating moving his family from Manchester in the coming days after the Roosters strongly indicated they wanted him at their club if he had any desire to return to the NRL following Toronto's exit from the Super League.

Williams is expected to provide the Roosters with a decision by the end of the week, with conversations continuing today.

Sonny Bill Williams celebrates the 2013 grand final victory for the Sydney Roosters. Credit:NRL Photos

Roosters supremo Nick Politis coincidently had lunch with Williams' agent Khoder Nasser in Sydney on Wednesday, but it was a pre-arranged lunch that also included fellow player agent Steve Gillis and News Corp journalist Phil Rothfield.
Diana Salinas tenacious spirit and unyielding persistence have been a driving force in East Montgomery Countys Deerwood community for nearly 30 years.

She helped found the Deerwood Community Center Coalition, aided in securing a trailer to use as the community center, encouraged the development of youth programs in the area, served as the boards treasurer for many years and rallied the residents of the neighborhood which has a large Hispanic population.

But her strong will was unable to surpass her ailing health and the COVID-19 virus. Salinas, 54, died of the virus on Friday after suffering a stroke in December.

Shes being remembered now for her dedication to the betterment of the Deerwood community and as a voice for East Montgomery Countys Hispanic community.

COUNTY UPDATES: Montgomery Commissioners reject appraisal districts proposed $12M budget

Salinas was born in Mexico in 1965. Then her family moved to South Texas. She then made her way to Houston and 28 years ago she and her husband, Javier, settled in the brand new Deerwood neighborhood east of Conroe.

Maria Banos Jordan, President and Founder of the Texas Familias Council, said they were the first Latino family in the Cut and Shoot area.

They were drawn to the new community by the rural atmosphere and sought to raise their young family there. But along with the country living, there was also isolation and a lack of access to community support systems.

Because of the isolation, a criminal element developed in the community and Salinas was spurred into action to make it the safe community she desired for her four daughters.

She worked with the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office and with Rod Chavez with Conroe ISD to address some of the concerns in the neighborhood.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Remembering Lives Lost to COVID-19

She really largely lead that charge to engage some help, Jordan said. She was extremely bright and strong willed and committed to her family and the community. That was what drove her.

The Deerwood Community Center Coalition started in 2004 and they were soon able to acquire a trailer to use as the community center for the neighborhood.

She also wanted to make sure the culture was celebrated and each year organized a big festival with traditional food and dance.

She was adamant in pursuing programs for the youth of the community as well.

Jordan began working with Salinas in late 2008.

Salinas would come to Jordans office every week. If she wasnt there, Salinas would wait for her to get there. Jordan said she was extremely persistent in developing a support system for the communitys youth.

Because of her, Deerwood started the first bilingual Girl Scout troop and became and example for the whole San Jacinto Girl Scout Council.

Jordan admires her courage to speak up as a minority.

Her leading the way and getting support and attention from the outside was a huge first step, Jordan said.

She once told Jordan that if she had the chance to go to college, it would have been to be a social worker.

Jordan reminded her shed already been doing this work, just with out a degree.

She had a natural talent and a heart to care for her community. This will be a big loss for the Deerwood community, she said.

She was also passionate about mentoring younger volunteers so they could develop into leaders.

She mentored the current center president Gabriela Gonzalez and the current treasurer Susan Reyes for many years in hopes that they and the other volunteers continue the efforts there. They were very close, Jordan said.

Her eldest daughter, Anaid, is also serving on the board today.

She is survived by her husband, Javier, and daughters, Anaid, Diana, Nadia and Danya.

Funeraria Del Angel-Highland Funeral Home of Weslaco, Texas is in charge of arrangements.

shernandez@hcnonline.com
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Living in a small town with big dreams often weighs people down. Being stuck in an environment that doesn't seem to foster growth can be very challenging. However, that never stopped TikTok star Josh Liljenquist from garnering international fame through social media.

Fairmont, Minnesota native Josh Liljenquist has garnered massive success by dreaming big. He has amassed over 1.9 million followers on TikTok, over 47,000 followers on Instagram, and 15,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. That kind of stuff is unheard of in his local community in Minnesota, and it's definitely gained him a lot of praise and popularity over the years.

With his immense online following and his overwhelming knowledge of the internet, Josh has managed to publish three books on Amazon. One of his books called the Instagram Masterguide: Extreme Growth is a certified bestseller on Amazon and became the number 1 top trending new release. He also has other books where he reveals the secrets of his explosive growth online, namely TikTok Guide: Insane Growth and Tips to Become Successful: Make A Change. As a definite authority on the matter, Josh reveals his biggest secrets and hopes that readers will come to learn a lot from his published works.

Currently, Josh is attending college at Minnesota State University, majoring in communication. Even before he was on TikTok, famous Josh has been known to be a bit of a record-setter. He continuously broke multiple track records in his high school and became pretty well-known for his multiple achievements. Josh was born to become a star, and with his rising online popularity, it'll only be a matter of time before the whole world knows his name.

For the time being, aside from social media influencing, Josh has also started his own supplement business and is currently exploring other forms of investments. He creates organic workout drinks that help promote muscle recovery. He sees this as an opportunity to fill in a specific market need as he likes to work out himself.

Josh is a testament that coming from a small town should never be a hindrance to reaching your biggest dreams. He is incredibly proud of how far he has come as a social media influencer, and he hopes that he can do more and grow more in his career. With the overwhelming exposure, it's no surprise that he has also received some discouraging sentiments from people online. Josh uses this as fuel for him to work even harder and reach bigger goals for his personal brand.

With his story, Josh hopes to inspire others to put in the work and guarantees them that the results will definitely come in time. Aspiring influencers like him should never give up on their dreams just because they fear that others might judge them. Other people's opinions should never be a hindrance to someone's own happiness, and he wishes to inspire that in his followers. With the overwhelming support of his adoring fans, Josh continues to entertain people and keep them knowledgeable with his "Facts" videos. With his ever-growing popularity that sees huge increments day by day, it's only a matter of time before his social media accounts blow up, and everyone will know the name of Josh Liljenquist.

To know more about Josh Liljenquiest, check out his website to learn more.

Email: joshua.t.lilijenquist@gmail.com

SOURCE: Authority Titans

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598426/Small-Town-Big-Dreams-TikTok-Mega-Influencer-Josh-Liljenquist-Is-Set-to-Take-the-Digital-World-by-Storm
PHILADELPHIA, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Zelira Therapeutics Ltd (ASX: ZLD) (OTCQB: ZLDAF), a global leader in the development of clinically validated cannabis medicines, is pleased to announce it has entered into a binding agreement with US-based Cardiovascular Solutions of Central Mississippi to develop products that target symptoms and health risks related to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. According to the Agreement, Zelira will develop exclusively for CVSCM novel, hemp-derived formulations of CBD and other cannabinoids to address a range of therapeutic needs associated with Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) and Diabetic Neuropathies (DPN).

Under the Agreement, Zelira will receive an upfront licensing fee, which is consistent with previous licensing agreements reported, together with royalties on the commercialized products that result from the Agreement. CVSCM has exclusive marketing rights to the USA market and Zelira retains rights for all other markets, ex-USA.

Diabetes is at the center of an American health crisis, and is the leading cause of kidney failure, lower limb amputations and adult blindness, according to the CDC, For the 30 million Americans who suffer from diabetes, 1 out of 3 over the age of 50 will develop PAD, which is the #1 cause of non-traumatic amputations. DPN is the most common complication associated with diabetes and is a leading cause of disability due to foot ulcerations, fall risks and can lead to infection and limb amputation.

Dr. Foluso Fakorede, CEO of CVSCM said "We are delighted to partner with Zelira, one of the world's leading clinical medical cannabis companies, to pursue new and effective treatment options for PAD Diabetes associated peripheral neuropathies. Our goal for this partnership is to promote the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease in all patients and to achieve health equality for marginalized communities through implementation of applications that address unmet needs."

Dr Oludare Odumosu, CEO & Managing Director USA for Zelira said "Our partnership with CVSCM is in line with our mission to target indications where cannabinoid-based medicines can be used as safe, effective and accessible options. This collaboration represents the first of its kind in this field and allows us to focus on the impact of PAD on quality of life for patients. Dr. Fakorede and the CVSCM team have led the way in reducing rates of amputations in the Mississippi area through intervention and education on the risks and burden of PAD. Zelira is proud to bring our scientific product development expertise to this unmet need and expands our reach into new indications and markets."

See full announcement here: https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20200722/pdf/44kqv4ktffqjx3.pdf

This agreement expands and complements Zelira's strategic interests in cardiovascular indications while maintaining focus on the global launch of its proprietary Zenivol and HOPE products.

About Zelira Therapeutics

Zelira Therapeutics Ltd is a leading global therapeutic medical cannabis company with access to the world's largest and fastest growing cannabis markets. Zelira owns a portfolio of proprietary revenue generating products and a pipeline of candidates undergoing clinical development that are positioned to enter global markets from 2020. The company is focused on developing branded cannabis products for the treatment of a variety of medical conditions.

The Company has developed two proprietary formulations (HOPE) already launched and generating revenues in Pennsylvania, has laboratory capabilities to develop formulations in Pennsylvania and Louisiana with ability to conduct clinical trials and is establishing a national footprint across the US for the licensing of its products.

About CVSCM

Cardiovascular Solutions of Central Mississippi is a center of excellence in the heart of the Mississippi Delta founded in 2015 to bridge the gap in cardiovascular health disparities that have long plagued the region. It became the first cardiovascular minority physician-led comprehensive outpatient-based clinic and procedural center in the state of Mississippi and has treated over 10,000 patients while aiming to reduce geographic disparities in access to care. The CVSCM team has become the gold standard for PAD advocacy with a purpose driven mantra to impact the lives of all underserved communities by demanding a clarion call to action on behalf of the voiceless while seeking disruptive therapies that will ultimately bridge treatment gaps in addressing health care inequities.

SOURCE Zelira Therapeutics Limited
Tuesday, July 21, 2020 at 3:46PM

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 hasn't been as heavily leaked as the top-of-the-line Note 20 Ultra. Tipster Evan Blass shares on Twitter a 360-degree render of what he claims is the Galaxy Note 20. It shows a flatter display than the one on the Ultra, interrupted by a small punch-hole for the selfie camera. At the back, it looks like the standard Note 20 is missing a fourth sensor. That fourth sensor is believed to be either a 3D time-of-flight sensor or for laser autofocus.

The Galaxy Note 20 will reportedly come with either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset or an Exynos 990 processor. And, as with other Note devices, it'll support Samsung's S Pen stylus. We're going to get our first official look at the Galaxy Note 20 series during the Unpacked event on August 5.

Source: The Verge
Photo taken on Jan. 28, 2020 shows the Huawei 5G Innovation and Experience Center in London, Britain. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

China and France have committed to allow Huawei to invest in French 5G networks.

The French finance minister confirmed the news on Tuesday, saying the Chinese tech company will not be subject to a "blanket ban."

Bruno Le Maire said sites of particular sensitivity would be protected and French national security would not be comprised by the decision.

The announcement came as the two countries concluded their seventh annual High-Level Economic and Financial Dialogue.

Le Maire and Chinese vice-premier Hu Chunhua met virtually and the meeting covered a wide-range of topics, from climate change and biodiversity, to agriculture and nuclear power.

On 5G, the statement released at the end of the China-France talks read "Both sides will join efforts to secure a fair and non-discriminatory market environment, and encourage businesses from all countries to participate in the 5G network construction in line with market principles and security principles."

The meeting sought to build on the deals and agreements the two countries made last year, when China and France signed trade deals worth $15 billion.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) meets with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson at Downing Street for talks on July 21, 2020 in London, England.

Hannah McKay - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Mike Pompeo has said that the World Health Organisation 's director-general was "bought by the Chinese government."

The US Secretary of State made the claim in a private meeting with UK members of Parliament on Tuesday.

Pompeo said the WHO was a "political, not science-based organisation," according to two reports.

He added that this alleged deal led to "dead Britons" in the COVID-19 crisis.

A WHO spokesperson described the allegations as "unfounded."

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly claimed that the head of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had been secretly "bought" by China, in comments to UK politicians.

Pompeo, who is visiting the UK this week, reportedly made the remarks in a private meeting with British members of Parliament in London on Tuesday, according to the The Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian.

Pompeo said that he had seen US intelligence showing Ghebreyesus was "bought by the Chinese government" in a deal to secure the job.

Pompeo reportedly said: "When push came to shove, when it really mattered to us, when there was a pandemic in China, Dr Tedros  who was hook line and sinker bought by the Chinese government  and I can't say more but I can tell you I'm saying this on informed intelligence.

"There was a deal made in the election and when push came to shove you've got dead Britons because of the deal that was made."

He went on to say that the WHO was "a political, not a science-based organisation," but did not provide evidence to support his claim China had "bought" its current director-general, Doctor Ghebreyesus, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

A spokesperson for the organisation told Business Insider: "WHO is not aware of any such statement but we strongly reject any ad hominem attacks and unfounded allegations. WHO urges countries to remain focused on tackling the pandemic that is causing tragic loss of life and suffering."

Story continues

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Fabrice COFFRINI/Getty Images

President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of the WHO since the coronavirus outbreak.

In May, he announced that the US was "terminating" its relationship with the global health body and said Beijing had "total control over" it. He also claimed that China pressured the WHO to "mislead the world" when the virus was first found in Wuhan.

Pompeo visited the UK after Boris Johnson's government last week announced that it would remove Chinese telecoms firm Huawei from UK 5G networks by the year 2027 amid concerns over potential risks to national security.

It was tough US sanctions on Huawei that led the UK government to change its position on Huawei, after previously agreeing to let the firm the build the UK's 5G, with a spokesperson for Prime Minister Johnson last week describing them as a "game-changer."

Pompeo on Tuesday held meetings with Johnson and UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

His visit is also seen as a US effort to persuade the UK and other European allies to take a tougher stance against Beijing amid global outrage over human rights breaches both in Hong Kong and against Uighurs in China.

Read the original article on Business Insider
A teenage high school student (16) was detained for spreading a fake message regarding the reimposition of coronavirus disease (Covid-19)-induced lockdown restrictions for seven days from Friday in Tripura via a Twitter handle, which is identical to chief minister Biplab Kumar Debs micro-blogging sites verified account.

The detainee is a resident of Dhaleswar in Agartala. He tweeted a fake message on Twitter that the state government has announced reimposition of lockdown restrictions, starting Friday for the next seven days in a bid to contain the spread of the viral outbreak.

Looking at the situation of the pandemic, the Tripura government has decided to announce a seven-day lockdown from Friday (July 24), the teenager had tweeted on Tuesday, masquerading as CM Deb.

However, the police managed to track down the errant teenager and he confessed to his crime during an interrogation.

The boy was detained from his home on Tuesday. He has been sent to juvenile custody because he is a minor, said Kishore Bhattacharya, in-charge, East police station, Agartala.

Later, the Chief Ministers Office (CMO) said that the Twitter handle was fake and so was the message.

Tripura Police has appealed to the public not to indulge in rumour-mongering on social media about the reimposition of lockdown restrictions or any other news related to the viral outbreak and warned stern action against rumour mongers.
Learning Tools

McGraw-Hill, TutorMe Expand Free Tutoring

McGraw-Hill has announced an expanded partnership with TutorMe. Students using use McGraw-Hill's Connect will receive a free 60-minute tutoring session for their courses.

TutorMe's tutors work one-on-one with students online in real-time. The tutoring software uses video chat, screensharing and virtual whiteboards, whose contents can be archived for later access. Connect is a set of learning tools, including course management and adaptive learning functionality, that delivers McGraw-Hill's digital courseware. The company said it had 4.3 million college student activations of Connect during its 2020 fiscal year.

Last year, the two companies ran a pilot program, to provide tutoring in four course areas covered by Connect as well as McGraw-Hill's ALEKS products: Anatomy and Physiology, English, Math and Accounting. The latest program expands the service to all of Connect's courses.

"By making TutorMe tutoring available to all students who use Connect, more students will have access to help when they need it," said Michael Ryan, president of higher education at McGraw-Hill, in a press release.
San Francisco City Hall. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

A San Francisco County sheriff's deputy has been charged with possession of an assault weapon after he brought a modified semiautomatic pistol into City Hall last year, prosecutors said.

Jalen Rosales, 27, voluntarily surrendered to authorities Tuesday, according to the San Francisco Sheriff's Office.

Rosales was providing security at an event on Nov. 8 at City Hall and left a backpack in a locker room at the government building, according to a release from the San Francisco district attorneys office.

After his overtime shift ended, he asked another deputy to retrieve the bag for him. That deputy found the gun inside the backpack, prosecutors said.

The weapon, which was registered to Rosales, was a Franklin Armory pistol. Although that type of gun is legal, the modifications that made it semiautomatic, rendered it an illegal assault weapon under California law, officials said.

Following the incident, the sheriff's office launched a criminal investigation of Rosales in November and shared the information with the D.A.'s office, said Nancy Crowley, a Sheriff's Office spokesperson.

This arrest is a reminder that no one is above the law, San Francisco Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin said. My office will continue to hold accountable our law enforcement officers, whom we trust to know and abide by the laws around gun possession.

Rosales was arrested Tuesday, but has since been released on bail for $1,000, Crowley said. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the felony charge Aug. 20. If convicted, he could face up to three years in prison, according to the state's penal code. If he were to get probation, it could be up to a year.

Rosales joined the San Francisco Sheriff's Office in April 2017, Crowley said. He has been placed on paid administrative leave by Sheriff Paul Miyamoto.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 20:56:19|Editor: huaxia

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ACCRA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China's participation will be one of the key ingredients to the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, some experts have said.

Speaking with Xinhua, international trade expert Francis Kofi Korankye-Sakyi said the critical role China has played in Africa's economic and political evolution made it one of the key partners in helping the continent implement the free trade area agreement successfully.

He said China's support for African countries in the past and present was born out of its long-standing relationship with Africa.

Through its long-term collaboration with the continent, China played a critical role in the development of the continent's Agenda 2063, Africa's development blueprint, which gave birth to the AfCFTA idea.

Korankye-Sakyi, also chief executive officer of African and Investment Policies Ghana, said China has made itself easier for Africa to work with through its demonstration of solidarity with Africa's needs and a pragmatic approach to financing without the unnecessary conditions applied by the West.

"China and Africa have more mutual benefits to derive from a partnership in the implementation of this agreement with wide markets of consumers. China has the market, and Africa has the market. So it will be mutually good to trade," he said.

Bright Simons, president of mPedigree, a web technology company based in Accra, projected that the existing relations give China a head-start in trade relations with the continent under the new free trade area program.

"This situation gives a strong signal to Chinese investors to consider setting up industrial clusters in Africa. With this, they can absorb intermediate goods and convert them into finished items for bigger markets across the continent," he added. Enditem
By PTI

KOLKATA: The bi-weekly lockdown to be imposed in West Bengal in the wake of a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in the state is likely to affect its jute industry, which was limping back to normalcy after being hit during the nationwide lockdown, industry sources said on Wednesday.

The administration has decided to impose a twice-a- week lockdown in the state till August to stem the rise in COVID-19 cases.

The state's caseload rose to 47,030 and death toll mounted to 1,182 till Tuesday.

The state government has announced that this week's bi-weekly lockdown will be imposed on July 23 and 25.

As per a state government notification, the jute mills' gates will be locked and no worker will be allowed to enter or exit the premises on the lockdown days.

However, the administration has allowed the mills to function if they house the workers inside the premises before a lockdown day begins.

"Jute mills will remain closed (on lockdown days). If the factory workers are inside the premises, then the operation will be allowed," a senior government official said.

The jute industry is not considered a 'continuous process industry' that requires an uninterrupted operation.

However, the government notification has created some problems for the 50-odd operational jute mills in the state.

Jute mill owners will have to incur additional costs to house the workers inside the premises.

Also, there is a risk of the spread of COVID-19 among the workers if they stay together, the industry sources said.

After being shut on March 24, the jute mills were allowed to fully operate from June 1.

However, the industry is facing a shortage of labour as many workers have returned to their hometowns during the lockdown, causing production to be insufficient to meet the government demand, they said.

The supply backlog was 2.5 lakh bales till May.

Jute bags are procured by the government and used for packaging food grains.

Jute production is a major industry in West Bengal.

Most of the mills in the state are concentrated along the banks of Hooghly river in Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas districts.
Alex Trebek says working on Jeopardy! is an elixir, talks quality of life

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Legendary game show host Alex Trebek, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer last March, shared he started to regain his strength as he began recording Jeopardy! He said hes at a stage in his life when you want to just ease yourself into the next level instead of continuing with such a low quality of life.

In about an hour and a half, he narrated introductions for 20 episodes a few weeks ago, Trebek, known for his steadiness and good-humored personality, told The New York Times.

Until the recording started, Trebek was in pain and felt weak. Oddly enough, when we started taping I suddenly started to regain my strength. Its the strangest thing. It is some kind of an elixir.

The show hadnt been recorded since the COVID-19 restrictions were put in place in March, and shows recorded earlier were being aired during the period. But when producers ran out of new material, they decided to resurrect popular episodes from years past.

Trebek, a longtime spokesperson for Christian humanitarian group World Vision, said he recorded show openings at home for a batch of special Jeopardy! episodes that will be released this month.

The host, who has a degree in philosophy from the University of Ottawa, said Jeopardy is a quality program and that he would stop hosting if I start slipping.

Yesterday morning my wife came to me and said, How are you feeling? And I said, I feel like I want to die. It was that bad, he said. There comes a time where you have to make a decision as to whether you want to continue with such a low quality of life, or whether you want to just ease yourself into the next level. It doesnt bother me in the least.

Im doing well, Trebek said in a video shared on the shows official Twitter account last week. Ive been continuing my treatment and it is paying off though it does fatigue me a great deal. My numbers are good. Im feeling great.

In a health update in March, Trebek had said, There were moments of great pain, days when certain bodily functions no longer functioned and sudden, massive attacks of great depression that made me wonder if it really was worth fighting on.

The one-year survival rate for stage 4 pancreatic cancer patients is 18 percent. Im very happy to report I have just reached that marker.

Trebek went on to say at the time that he wouldve given up if not for his support system.

I brushed that aside quickly because that would have been a massive betrayal. A betrayal of my wife and soulmate, Jean, who has given her all to help me survive. It would have been a betrayal of other cancer patients who have looked to me as an inspiration and a cheerleader of sorts of the value of living and hope. And it would certainly have been a betrayal of my faith in God and the millions of prayers that have been said on my behalf, Trebek said.

Trebek told the Times that he had also kept busy with his memoir, The Answer Is : Reflections on My Life, which Simon & Schuster will release Tuesday, a day before his 80th birthday.

According to the publisher, Trebek will share illuminating personal anecdotes along with thoughts on everything from his favorite guests to spirituality and philanthropy.

Trebek was a journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before moving to the United States. In 1998, he became a U.S. citizen. He has hosted Jeopardy! since 1984, when ABC tapped him for the job.

He has won five Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Game Show Host over the course of his over 30 years on the air, according to Biography.com.
Technavio has been monitoring the global commercial vehicle urea tank market size and it is poised to grow by 1296.78 thousand units during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of 2% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005715/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is concentrated, and the degree of concentration will accelerate during the forecast period. ACGB France, Centro Inc., Cummins Inc., Dongguan Zhengyang Electronic Mechanical Ltd., Elkamet Kunststofftechnik GmbH, Gemini Group Inc., Hitachi Zosen Corp., National Oilwell Varco Inc., Rochling SE Co. KG, and Salzburger Aluminium AG are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The increased penetration of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems in commercial vehicles have been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, increased production costs of urea tanks due to the rise in prices of high-density polyethylene might hamper market growth.

Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market is segmented as below:

Application LCV Urea Tank HCV Urea Tank

Geography APAC Europe North America MEA South America



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44357

Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our commercial vehicle urea tank market report covers the following areas:

Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market size

Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market trends

Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market industry analysis

This study identifies the development of single module aftertreatment system as one of the prime reasons driving the commercial vehicle urea tank market growth during the next few years.

Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the commercial vehicle urea tank market, including some of the vendors such as ACGB France, Centro Inc., Cummins Inc., Dongguan Zhengyang Electronic Mechanical Ltd., Elkamet Kunststofftechnik GmbH, Gemini Group Inc., Hitachi Zosen Corp., National Oilwell Varco Inc., Rochling SE Co. KG, and Salzburger Aluminium AG. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the commercial vehicle urea tank market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Commercial Vehicle Urea Tank Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist commercial vehicle urea tank market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the commercial vehicle urea tank market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the commercial vehicle urea tank market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of commercial vehicle urea tank market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Market Characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market Outlook

Market size and forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Application by Volume

Market segments

Comparison by Application by volume

LCV urea tank Market size and forecast 2019-2024 ($ millions)

HCV urea tank Market size and forecast 2019-2024 ($ millions)

Market opportunity by Application by volume

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

ACGB France

Centro Inc.

Cummins Inc.

Dongguan Zhengyang Electronic Mechanical Ltd.

Elkamet Kunststofftechnik GmbH

Gemini Group Inc.

Hitachi Zosen Corp.

National Oilwell Varco Inc.

Rochling SE Co. KG

Salzburger Aluminium AG

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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China has overtaken the United States as Australia's leading research partner, with more Australian-led scientific publications involving researchers from China than any other country.

The new analysis comes as Australian universities face a research funding crisis sparked by the loss of overseas student revenue. China invests half a trillion dollars a year in research, leaving experts concerned local scientists will become increasingly reliant on Chinese resources, or be left behind.

Australian universities are facing a research funding crisis sparked by the loss of overseas student revenue. Credit:Gabrielle Charotte

The paper from the Australia-China Relations Institute found the proportion of Australian scientific publications involving a researcher affiliated with a Chinese institution grew from 3.1 per cent in 2005 to 16.2 per cent last year, overtaking the US for the first time. The United Kingdom was third, followed by Germany and Canada.

The strongest ties with China were in the fields of materials science (developing materials to create products), chemical engineering and energy. In all three areas, about a third of Australian-led publications involve Chinese scientists.
A suspect has been arrested after a motorist travelling into Canada failed to stop for Canada Border Services Agency officers at the Rainbow Bridge.

Niagara Regional Police Const. Jesse Vujasic said police were contacted by CBSA officers at about 2:05 p.m. Wednesday to report the male.

A suspect was located in a small grey Ford SUV with Florida licence plates near the intersection of Kitchener Street and Second Avenue in Niagara Falls.

He was arrested following a short pursuit in which both the suspect vehcile and a police cruiser collided.

CBSA spokeswoman Judith Gadbois-St-Cyr said the lone man within the vehicle failed to stop at the primary inspection booth at the bridge, and both the NRP and Niagara Parks Police were notified.

Asked about reports that the suspect vehicle intentionally collided with police cruisers, Vujasic said it is still in the early stages of the investigation.

Detectives are looking into the matter.

She said more information would be released at a later time.

Gadbois-St-Cyr said CBSA works closely with law enforcement partners to ensure that any person attempting to enter Canada without reporting is found and brought to the CBSA for examination.

The border remains closed to all non-essential travellers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the passing of Rep. John Lewis a few days ago, we lost one of the last members of the generation that launched the modern Civil Rights movement. He was among those who bravely stood up for justice and equality for Black Americans by putting his life on the line in the Jim Crow-era South, leading directly to the Black Lives Matter movement of today.

I was privileged to be a Freedom Rider alongside him, as a handful of us rode buses in an effort to eliminate segregation in the South in the 1950s. You could feel even then that he would leave an indelible mark upon the nation. In a long and distinguished career in Congress, he worked until his last days to deliver justice to oppressed people and break down the systemic racism that has plagued America since its founding.

The life and deeds of John Lewis will be celebrated in the coming days with ceremonies, speeches and marches in communities around the country. Yet, he deserves much more. His memory deserves to be linked with the kind of real, permanent change for which he fought his entire life. For those of us who knew him, his passing reminds us of his charge to us: Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.

We can and must do that here in San Francisco, and honor his legacy by recognizing and atoning for the citys role in maintaining systemic racism.

As early as the 1850s, San Francisco was a hostile environment for Black people, who could not vote or own property, leading to a mass exodus to British Columbia in 1858. That environment remained essentially unchanged through the 20th century: Rampant redlining prevented Blacks from owning property and building wealth, and the racist policy of urban renewal led to the destruction of the Black community in the Fillmore and the steady decline of the Black population here ever since.

Today, Black residents are targeted disproportionately by the police, while lives and families are destroyed by disproportionate imprisonment. Even as millions declare that Black Lives Matter, San Francisco has been declared the most gentrified city in the nation, forcing even more Black residents from their own communities.

Marches and protests cannot by themselves alter the living conditions of Black people in San Francisco that are the result of decades of systemic racism. What is required to repair this historic injustice is the kind of urgent, significant action that John Lewis fought for during his career. It can and should mark the start of making long overdue reparations to the Black community, by both the private and public sectors in San Francisco.

There are three things the citys political and corporate leaders can do today that will mark a good-faith beginning:

Deploy universal WiFi for K-12 students: Public schools in San Francisco will conduct their fall semesters online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in Black neighborhoods and public housing developments, few students have access to WiFi that is essential to learning. The city is home to some of the largest and most successful technology companies in the world. This is an opportunity for companies like Salesforce, Twitter, Uber and others to show they can deliver for those most in need in the city they call home by underwriting the cost of providing wireless access.

Revitalize the cultural heart of Black San Francisco: The Fillmore District was once rightly known as the Harlem of the West until undone by the bulldozers and racism of urban renewal. The Heritage Center in the Fillmore represents the pillar around which we can rebuild that culture. It must be supported by a major financial infusion from the citys corporate and philanthropic community, to ensure the renaissance of the rich Black culture and history that enriches us all.

Create support systems for Black and brown youth: So many Black youngsters in the city grow up in hellish conditions in housing developments and nearby neighborhoods that have been economically and socially marginalized by racism. Children are exposed to constant violence and poverty that has resulted from this marginalization. What they need is a place they can experience personal development and learn self-reliance. San Francisco owns Hidden Valley Ranch, land in La Honda, that was home to a former minimum-security prison. With private and public funding, this could be repurposed into a facility, providing an opportunity for kids to experience life away from the stress of living in places like Sunnydale, Harbor Road and Plaza East.

In his memoirs, Lewis wrote that freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society. We have a unique opportunity to begin here, a process that is decades overdue. In his name and memory, I call upon the citys leaders to do their part and begin, with these steps, to create the fair and just society our Black brothers and sisters deserve.

The Rev. Amos C. Brown is president of the San Francisco NAACP and pastor of the Third Baptist Church in the citys Fillmore District.
 Flash

Chinese premier holds talks with Lao PM - Xinhua | English.news.cn

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held talks with Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith via video link on Tuesday.

China and Laos are friendly neighbors linked by mountains and rivers, and have witnessed their even stronger relations withstanding the test of time, Li said.

The third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) leaders' meeting was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Li said, stressing that his virtual meeting with Thongloun aims to facilitate coordination, make preparations for the LMC leaders' meeting, increase regional connectivity and trade exchanges, and send out a positive signal of seeking mutually-beneficial cooperation and jointly combating challenges.

Saying LMC is an integral part of China-ASEAN cooperation, Li voiced China's willingness to work with relevant countries, including Laos, to successfully hold the series of leaders' meetings on East Asia cooperation and promote the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) within the year.

The countries should also jointly work for the success of the 2020 China-ASEAN Year of Digital Economy Cooperation, to achieve sustainable development of China-ASEAN relations and promote regional peace, stability and prosperity, Li said.

China attaches great importance to relations with Laos and stands ready to work with Laos to advance cooperation on the China-Laos economic corridor and the construction of key projects, assist Laos in increasing its capacity of sustainable development, and elevate the two countries' ties to a new level.

Thongloun spoke highly of his country's relations with China and voiced appreciation of China's valuable support to Laos.

Reaffirming Laos' solid support on issues concerning China's core interests, Thongloun said his country will work with China to build a community with a shared future, and actively implement major cooperation projects.

To promote ASEAN-China relations, Laos will make concerted efforts with relevant countries for the success of the LMC leaders' meeting and the series of leaders' meetings on East Asia cooperation, as well as the signing of the RCEP as soon as possible, the Lao prime minister said.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres held telephone conversations with Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev with the call to de-escalate the border tensions, ARMENPRESS reports Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary General, said in a briefing.

The Secretary General of the UN had telephone talks with Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Those conversations took place today. During both conversations the Secretary General expressed concerns over the clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

The Secretary General once again reiterated his call to immediately and fully de-escalate the situation, refrain from provocative rhetoric and return to table of negotiations, Stephane Dujarric said.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
KALAMAZOO, MI  Ron Hawkins and Luke Howell are facing off for the Democratic nomination for the 63rd District seat in the Michigan House of Representatives. The successful candidate will face Republican incumbent Matt Hall in the November election.

Hawkins is retired after spending 41 years working for the Department of Defense. He has a BA in public administration, he said. He cites 41 year working within the federal government largest bureaucracy and 70 years of life experiences as his qualifications and experience.

Luke Howell said he currently works as an HVAC tech. He said he studied at Iowa State University and the University of South Dakota and jas a BS in Political Science and History with a leadership emphasis.

Hall is the lone Republican running. He will face the winner of the Democratic Primary in November.

MLive Media Group has again partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund to provide candidate information and other voting resources to our readers. Each candidate was asked to answer a series of questions about their policy stances.

Howell did not respond to the League of Women Voters survey. Instead, he sent a message to Mlive that is included in part at the end of the article.

Information on all state and federal races and many of Michigans county and local races will be available at Vote411.org.

EDUCATION: What is your position on the role of public funding of education in Michigan? What measures do you support/propose to improve educational outcomes and accessibility for all Michigan students?

Ron Hawkins

It is my belief that publicly collected funds should follow each child and it is the right and responsibility of the parents to determine the educational environment for their child. As a participant in vocational training in high school I believe this is an important element of education that is currently underfunded and overlooked.

ECONOMIC SECURITY: What policies do you support to increase jobs and help Michigan residents improve their economic positions, in general and given the pandemic?

Ron Hawkins

It is my belief that minimizing governmental intrusion into private business will foster economic growth allowing business expansion and increased jobs as an outcome of business expansion.

ELECTIONS: What state policies do you support regarding Michigan elections, voting and campaign funding? Do you support mailing ballots to all eligible voters?

Ron Hawkins

The integrity of the vote is essential. I will support only those changes which ensure the integrity of the vote can be maintained. A mail ballot which uses the Asian system of individual chop (stamp) and individual thumbprint to validate the mailed in ballot should be considered.

ENVIRONMENT/ENERGY: What actions or policies do you support to protect Michigans water, air and land for current and future generations? What is your position on energy efficiency and renewable energy?

Ron Hawkins

It is my belief that individuals should work toward energy efficiency in their daily lives. It is my belief that public utilities should maintain a reasonable amount of energy resources from renewable energy. I am concerned that any continuing reliance on nuclear energy generation has a high degree of potential environmental damage. A fracturing of the Madrid Faultline has the potential of damaging several nuclear plants whose failure could render the mid-west a near dead zone from the radiation released into the environment from these plants.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: How would you address the racial, economic, health, education, etc. inequities, including Michigans 20% of children and 17% of seniors living in poverty?

Ron Hawkins

It is my belief that all individuals should be treated equally, period. I believe the Michigan Legislature should act to clarify that the Michigan Civil Rights Act term sex is inclusive of sexual orientation to resolve this question and that the Michigan Supreme Court concur with the Legislature clarification. I believe that taxation of seniors income, retirement and social security should be ended.

GUNS: Do you believe that Michigan has a gun violence problem? If so, what measures would you support to alleviate this problem?

Ron Hawkins

I will not support any legislation that diminishes individual rights defined in the United States and State of Michigan Constitutions.

Luke Howell said in statement to MLive, in part:

I will say this. I believe Black Lives Matter, Science is real, I celebrate gender and sexuality diversity, I want a cleaner planet for my children, I believe women should have a choice with their bodies but my faith informs me that we need better policy incentives to help make life a more appealing choice. I believe educators are the most overworked and underpaid profession in this state. I believe that local agribusiness is the lifeblood of the 63rd District. I believe in local control of our communities and protecting local zoning authorities abilities to say no to Gravel Pits and Pipeline expansions and fracking/mining operations. Most importantly, I believe we can create a new system of better direct democracy for Statewide issues that allow every voice to be better heard and I believe in doing so big Ds and big Rs can work together again to do whats right for the people of Michigan.
Photo: The Canadian Press Migrants from Somalia cross into Canada illegally from the United States by walking down a train track into the town of Emerson, Man.

A federal judge has struck down a key agreement on refugees between Canada and the United States.

In a ruling today, Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald says elements of the law underpinning the Safe Third Country Agreement violate constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and security.

Under the agreement, Canada and the U.S. recognize each other as safe places to seek protection.

It means Canada can turn back potential refugees who arrive at ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border on the basis they must pursue their claims in the U.S., the country where they first arrived.

Canadian refugee advocates have vigorously fought the deal, arguing the U.S. is not always a safe country for people fleeing persecution.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, the Canadian Council of Churches and Amnesty International argued in court that by returning ineligible refugee claimants to the U.S., Canada exposes them to risks in the form of detention and other rights violations.
Syngene International fell 1.03% to Rs 418.90 after consolidated net profit dropped 19.4% to Rs 58 crore on 0.2% increase in net sales to Rs 421.60 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019.

Consolidated profit before tax (PBT) dropped 23.9% to Rs 66.30 crore in Q1 FY21 as against Rs 87.10 crore in Q1 FY20. Current tax expense for the quarter slumped 45% at Rs 8.30 crore during the quarter. The result was announced post trading hours yesterday, 21 July 2020.

Consolidated EBITDA slipped 1% to Rs 140 crore in Q1 FY21 as against Rs 142 crore in Q1 FY20. EBITDA margin remained flat at 32% in Q1 FY21 as well as in Q1 FY20.

Syngene International's first quarter performance was driven by robust performances in discovery services and the dedicated centres. The national lockdown resulted in a temporary suspension of operations in all divisions. Since restarting, the expansion of shift working and other protection measures for employees allowed the divisions to return to near normal levels of operation and get client projects largely back on schedule.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate, the pharmaceutical major is actively engaged in various COVID-19 research and diagnostic projects. Its RT-PCR testing facility is supporting hospitals across Bangalore (Karnataka) and has conducted more than 30,000 COVID-19 tests free of charge. It has also indigenously developed an ELISA testing kit that has been outsourced to HiMedia for manufacturing and distribution across the country. In development services, he company is supplying reagents for use in diagnostic kits for COVID-19 testing and has signed a voluntary licensing agreement with Gilead for manufacturing and supply of Remdesivir in India and other markets.

Commenting on the Q1 result, Jonathan Hunt, the managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Syngene International, has said that: "In line with our guidance, Q1 revenue was flat at Rs 437 cr compared to the same quarter last year due to the temporary suspension of operations during the nationwide lockdown. However, the implementation of protective measures allowed all divisions to restart gradually and operate at close to normal levels for the last six weeks of the quarter. Across the company, our teams have worked hard to get projects back on schedule."

"Recent good news was the improved credit rating from CRISIL to AA+ with a stable outlook. This is welcome recognition from the rating agency of the Company's business model, strong client relationships, robust processes and sound risk profile. Overall Q1 performance was as expected and we look forward to returning to growth in 2Q," he added.

Syngene International is engaged in providing contract research and manufacturing services in early-stage drug discovery and development to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 20:34:23|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Japan's government subsidized travel campaign began Wednesday aimed at bolstering the ailing domestic tourism industry which has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The "Go To Travel" campaign is intended to help support local economies and the overall domestic tourism sector through increased consumer spending after a prolonged virus-triggered slump, which in turn would benefit the broader recession-hit economy.

The central government hopes that by subsidizing accommodation and transport fees, more people would be encouraged to take domestic trips.

But the campaign has met with resistance from concerned parties who fear that the plan will only serve to increase the number of COVID-19 infections as more people cross prefectural borders.

Rising COVID-19 cases in Japan, with 677 new cases reported Wednesday evening bringing the cumulative total to over 27,000, has cast something of a shadow over the campaign, ahead of a four-day weekend which comprises two successive national holidays.

Tokyo's new COVID-19 cases rising by 238 to a cumulative total of 10,054 on Wednesday, has also sparked concern as infections in the capital with a 14-million population have been on an uptrend since the government lifted the state of emergency on May 25.

In an abrupt decision by the central government adding to concern and confusion over the campaign, trips by Tokyo residents and those to and from the capital have been excluded from the subsidy campaign, underscoring concerns about the virus as well as the likely drop in expenditure.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike on Wednesday urged the city's residents to "take thorough anti-infection measures and avoid going outside as much as possible."

Koike, who has spoken out against the government's travel campaign, ahead of the long weekend, also warned of a possible "second wave" of infections.

Tokyo's coronavirus alert level has been raised by the metropolitan government to the highest on its four-tier scale, meaning that "infections are spreading."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meanwhile, has urged that antiviral measures be comprehensively taken by establishments involved in the campaign as well as by those traveling, adding that the "resumption of economic activities will be conducted carefully with the cooperation of people."

The subsidy campaign has also been hit by concerns about Osaka Prefecture, Japan's second hardest-hit region by the virus, reporting a record number of new daily COVID-19 cases at 121, according to Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura.

The prefecture's cumulative total has now risen to 2,662 cases, and officials are concerned about the virus' resurgence.

Japan's top government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday said, however, that despite the spike in cases, the government has no plans to make Osaka Prefecture ineligible for the travel campaign as it has done with Tokyo.

Local governments along with opposition parties had called on the central government to reconsider the launch of its "Go To Travel" campaign, suggesting the idea be postponed or its introduction in staggered manner amid the virus' resurgence and due to numerous areas being flooded and hit by landslides following torrential rain in wide swathes of the country recently.

Main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan head Yukio Edano said previously that it was "untimely" to be promoting tourism right now. "We need to stop and rethink it," Edano said.

Toshio Nakagawa, president of the Japan Medical Association, for his part, has said that "extreme caution" would be required by the government in launching the campaign.

"The program was originally planned to start after coronavirus infections are contained and it's not a good idea to bring it forward," Nakagawa said, with reference to the government rescheduling the start of the campaign from the Obon holiday period in August, to coincide with two national holidays from Thursday.
There has been about 82 per cent decline in triple talaq cases since the law against the "social evil" was put in place, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Wednesday, terming August 1, when the legislation came into being as, "Muslim women's rights day".

He also asserted the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, has taken its course whenever such a matter has been reported.

In an article 'Triple Talaq -- Big Reform, Better Result' which was posted by Press Information Bureau, Naqvi said triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat was neither Islamic nor legal, but the social evil was still given "political patronage" by "merchants of votes".

"August 1, 2019, is a historic day in Indian parliamentary history when the bill against triple talaq was made a law despite the obstacle by so-called 'champions of secularism', including the Congress, Communist Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Trinamool Congress," Naqvi said.

August 1 became the day which ensured gender equality and strengthened constitutional, fundamental and democratic rights of the Muslim women, he said, terming it the 'Muslim women's rights day'.

That day will remain a "golden moment" in Indian democracy and parliamentary history, the minister said in the article.

"One year has passed since the law against triple talaq was passed and there is a decline of about 82 per cent in triple talaq cases thereafter," Naqvi said, without elaborating on the figures of such cases.

A law against the "social evil" of triple talaq could have been passed in 1986 when the Supreme Court had given the historic judgement in the Shah Bano case, he said.

The Congress had an absolute majority in Parliament with more than 400 out of 545 Lok Sabha members and more than 159 out of the 245 Members in Rajya Sabha, but the then Rajiv Gandhi government used its strength in Parliament to make the judgement ineffective and deprive Muslim women of their constitutional and fundamental rights, Naqvi said.

"The then Congress government had bowed down before the illogic of some 'narrow-minded fanatics' and committed a criminal sin to deprive the Muslim women of their constitutional rights," Naqvi said.

The Congress' "mistake of the moment" became a "punishment of decades" for the Muslim women, he said.

"The Congress was worried for 'vote ka udhaar' (the loan of votes), while our government was worried for 'samajik sudhaar" (social reform)," Naqvi said.

India runs on a Constitution, not on Shariat or any other religious textbook, the minority affairs minister asserted.

Noting that earlier various legislations had been brought in the country to abolish social evils such as Sati and child marriage, Naqvi said the law against triple talaq has nothing to do with religion and was made purely to ensure gender equality by ending an "inhuman, cruel and unconstitutional practice".

"Instant divorce by verbally saying Talaq thrice is illegal. There were several incidents coming where women had been given talaq through letter, phone or even through messages and WhatsApp. Such incidents are unacceptable in a sensitive country and to a government committed to inclusive development," Naqvi said.

Several Muslim-majority nations of the world had declared triple talaq illegal and un-Islamic such as Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria and Malaysia.

However, it took 70 years for India to get rid of this inhuman and cruel practice, Naqvi said.

The minister said the month of August is recognised as one of revolution, rights and reforms in the Indian history -- August 8, Quit India Movement; August 15, Independence Day; August 19, World Humanitarian Day; August 20, Sadbhavana Diwas; and August 5, the abolition of Article 370.

The Narendra Modi government made the law against triple talaq to make the Supreme Court's judgement of May 18, 2017, effective.

By enacting the triple talaq law, the Modi government has strengthened socio-economic, fundamental and constitutional rights of the Muslim women. The government is committed to social reforms and empowerment of all sections, Naqvi said.
What just happened? No matter how many studies show no link between the two, some people are quick to blame video games for acts of violence. But a new report will hopefully put the debate to rest. It re-examined 28 previous studies that included over 21,000 participants and concluded that video games do not lead to violence or aggression.

The study was led by Aaron Drummond, a researcher from New Zealands Massey University. The meta-analysisa design used to systematically assess the results of previous researchinvolved re-examining 28 studies going back to 2008 that looked for links between video games and acts of real-life violence.

The report, published in the Royal Society Open Science today, found that playing violent video games does not appear to meaningfully increase the aggressiveness of players over time. The previous studies did show an extremely small positive correlation between playing violent video games and aggressive behavior, but it was too small to be practically meaningful.

The meta-analysis also found that some poor-quality studies exaggerated the impact of games on aggression, with better-quality studies confirming that the effects are negligible. It also found that playing games over the long term does not result in users becoming slowly more aggressive. According to the study, theres no evidence to show a long-term link between aggressive video games and youth aggression.

We call on both individual scholars as well as professional guilds such as the American Psychological Association to be more forthcoming about the extremely small observed relationship in longitudinal studies between violent games and youth aggression, wrote the authors.

Back in January, former US vice president and presidential candidate Joe Biden referred to game developers he met while VP as creeps and arrogant who make games that teach people how to kill.

Following several shootings in 2018, video games found themselves under the kind of scrutiny not seen since the Columbine massacre. It led to the subject being discussed in the White Houseand a video games montage being created to illustrate the violence in certain titles (above). We even saw a judge ban a boy from playing violent titles following a shooting threat.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. The settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict is in the interest of all the countries involved in the negotiation process and the entire region in general, ARMENPRESS reports 1st Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Alexander Grushko told TASS.

''As refers to the situation in Nagorno Karabakh, we think that not only Russia, but the rest of the countries interested in bringing stability to this region, should issue statements encouraging the sides to establish peace and ceasefire'', Grushko said.

The Deputy FM emphasized that Russia hold the position that the agreements reached in the sidelines of the OSCE Minsk Group should remain on the negotiation table.

''The current crisis should not lead to the regress of the advancement achieved first of all by the titanic efforts of Russia, since it has made the prospects of the settlement of the conflict closer. By the settlement of this conflict the regional situation will be significantly improved. We urge everyone to accept this position, particularly the Minsk Group member countries'', Grushko said.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
The American public should not be confused about the difference between uniformed military personnel and police officers.

That's the belief of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who is concerned about personnel from across the country wearing camouflage uniforms, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters Tuesday. He made the comments after federal agents in Portland, Oregon, were photographed rounding up protesters and escorting them to unmarked vehicles -- all while in uniforms similar to those worn by U.S. troops.

"We want a system where people can tell the difference," Hoffman said, adding, "I can say unequivocally there are no Department of Defense assets that have been deployed to, pending deployment to, or we're looking to deploy to Portland."

Read Next: New DoD Directive Restricts Display of Ball Team Pennants, Pride Flags

Oregon's Democratic Gov. Kate Brown told PBS NewsHour on Monday that "Trump's troops" had arrived in the city and were "pouring gasoline on a fire."

The personnel in Portland are not troops, but Department of Homeland Security agents dispatched to the city after weeks of protests following the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody. Floyd's death prompted protests in cities nationwide over racism and police violence toward Black people.

Confusion over who's who in camouflage uniforms hasn't been limited to Oregon. Hoffman said there were concerns about police officers wearing similar uniforms to National Guard troops deployed to respond to protests in June as well.

"There are some law enforcement [who] wear uniforms that make them appear military," Hoffman said. "And the secretary has expressed his concern with this within the administration."

Defense leaders are in the process of reviewing the military's response to protests in the wake of Floyd's death, and Hoffman said Esper made clear that the issue of police officers wearing camouflage uniforms is something the defense secretary "wanted to have looked at."

"He has expressed his concern that in some cases law enforcement appropriately performing law enforcement duties were misconstrued with military personnel, who would not be appropriately doing those [duties]," he added.

The review could lead to a meeting with the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary over the uniform issue, but Hoffman said there's not yet a timeline on when that would take place or what Esper's request might be.

Responses to protests across the country have raised questions about the military's practice of selling old equipment to state or local police departments. Some members of Congress are pushing to end the practice through new proposals making their way into the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act now being debated on Capitol Hill.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling wrote in The Washington Post this week that, when training Iraqi police officers, he wouldn't allow them to wear camouflage uniforms. They wanted police there to be visible on the streets or in marked vehicles wearing blue uniforms with name tags and badge numbers, he said.

"Camo should be saved for when you're trying to blend in or hide, not when you're patrolling the streets on foot or in cars," Hertling added.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: Army Ordered to Review National Guard Response to Protests
US President, Donald Trump, has subtly responded to his critics who have condemned him in the past for not wearing face mask as part of efforts to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The President tweeted a photo of himself wearing a face mask, with a caption that apparently seek to respond to criticisms he had faced in the past for refusing to wear mask.

Some Americans especially journalists, Democrats and health officials have in recent past condemned Mr Trump for failing to lead by example as far as the wearing of face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus is concerned.

The United States is the worst-hit coronavirus region, with its daily death toll rising above 1,000 for the first time in weeks.

In a tweet, President Trump signaled unity among Americans to defeat the coronavirus which he described as the Invisible China Virus.

We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance, he tweeted.

He added There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!
Corrections and Clarifications: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the year in which Russian diplomatic facilities were closed. That occurred in 2016 under the Obama administration.

China vowed to retaliate Wednesday after the United States ordered the closure of its consulate in Houston, a move that further inflamed tensions between the two superpowers.

Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, said China was notified Tuesday that it would have to close the consulate within 72 hours. In a regular daily news briefing, he described the action as an "unprecedented escalation" and said China would "react with firm countermeasures" if the United States does not revoke the decision.

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that the closure was "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

"The United States will not tolerate the (People's Republic of China's) violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people," Ortagus said. It is unusual but not unprecedented for the United States to close another country's consulate.

President Donald Trump meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to explain what triggered the decision when pressed on the matter during a news briefing in Copenhagen, where he was meeting with Danish officials. But he raised long-standing U.S. accusations that China's government steals American intellectual property.

He also brought up the Department of Justice's indictment Tuesday of two Chinese hackers charged with stealing trade secrets from hundreds of global targets and probing for vulnerabilities in U.S. companies involved in the development of COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.

"President Trump has said, 'Enough,' " Pompeo said. "We're not going to allow this to continue to happen."

Pompeo did not elaborate on the allegations of spying on treatments and vaccines, nor did he say whether the closure of the Houston consulate had anything to do with that case.

Story continues

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a tweet that "Chinas Houston consulate is a massive spy center," and "forcing it to close is long overdue."

Rubio said Chinas consulate in Houston "is not a diplomatic facility," suggesting it is staffed with spies. "It is the central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States. ... This needed to happen."

The U.S. move marked "a major escalation" in U.S.-Chinese tensions, said Scott Kennedy, an expert on China with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Tuesday's decision was "nearly unprecedented," he said, noting the only other similar incident came in 2016, when the Obama administration closed two Russian compounds in retaliation for Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential election.

"All governments engage in spying from home and via their diplomatic facilities abroad  including the United States," Kennedy said. "So the question is, was the Houston consulate doing things that are beyond the typical type of intelligence gathering that is standard practice?"

He said the Trump administration's statements have not addressed that.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee, questioned whether the consulate closure would have any impact on China's malign behavior, and he criticized the Trump administration for taking an erratic approach to China's aggression.

"I do not believe for an instant that this action will stop that threat, but hopefully the Chinese Communist Party will take it as a signal that their actions have consequences," Warner said in a statement to USA TODAY. "I am equally hopeful that the White House will finally take this issue seriously and work to address it with smart and thoughtful policies, instead of engaging in escalatory actions and intermittent failed trade wars followed by interludes of admiration for the Chinese authoritarian regime."

DOJ: Chinese hackers charged over trade secrets also probed for coronavirus research

Wang said the consulate was operating normally.

Media in Houston reported Tuesday that documents were burned in a courtyard at the consulate. Texas fire and police officers responded to reports of a fire. It was not clear whether they were permitted to enter the property in Houston's Montrose neighborhood.

"You could just smell the paper burning, a witness at the scene told KPRC 2, an NBC-affiliate television station.

A video captured by our crew outside the Consulate General of China in Houston shows people hosing down what appear to be flaming open containers in the courtyard of the property.

DETAILS: https://t.co/2cOeKoap96 pic.twitter.com/ToQitHjy2T  KPRC2Tulsi (@KPRC2Tulsi) July 22, 2020

China's consulate in Houston could not immediately be reached for comment.

In an interview with Fox News, Rubio said it's normal procedure to start destroying documents when an embassy or consulate is closed.

"For us, the Marines are in charge of doing that if someone closes our embassy. So theyll burn documents and shred documents and destroy computers and so forth," he said. He said he expects China to close a U.S. diplomatic facility in China in retaliation.

But Trump suggested there was something nefarious about the fires. "I guess they were burning documents," he said during a White House briefing on the coronavirus pandemic. "I wonder what that's all about."

Asked if he planned to close additional Chinese diplomatic facilities, Trump said "it's always possible."

U.S.-Chinese relations have been battered by a rift over the coronavirus pandemic, strained trade relations and Beijing's move to assert more authority over Hong Kong. In recent weeks, both nations have slapped sanctions on each other's officials.

Coronavirus: US, Canada, UK accuse Russia of hacking COVID-19 vaccine trials

In addition to its embassy in Washington and the consulate in Houston, China has consulates in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco.

"The U.S. has far more diplomatic missions and staff working in China. So if the U.S. is bent on going down this wrong path, we will resolutely respond," Wang said.

The United States has consulates in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang and Wuhan in China.

The U.S. Embassy is in Beijing.

Rob Davis, CEO of Texas-based Critical Start, a cybersecurity firm that monitors threats from state-aligned actors, said the Trump administration's ordered closure of China's consulate in Houston could lead to more hacking against American interests.

"It is no secret that Chinese state actors have long been suspected of engaging in espionage on U.S. soil, including those serving in official roles. The Houston consulate is no different, and it is possible that this is just the tip of the iceberg," he said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: China vows retaliation after US orders Houston consulate to close
Wavemaker India today announced it has won media mandate for Indias foremost design led lifestyle brand, Chumbak. Wavemaker India will manage offline and online media for Chumbak.

Commenting on the appointment, Shazia Zafar, Head of Marketing, Chumbak Design Pvt. Ltd. said, Ten years ago, Chumbak changed the retail landscape in India by introducing India inspired, well designed products that encouraged self-expression. Today, it moves from strength to strength to build a global design-led lifestyle brand that uplifts its creative, confident and encouraging community. The team at Wavemaker mirror our vision for the brand, making them the perfect partner for us. We are confident that Wavemaker, with their global experience and expertise, will contribute significantly to our journey and were excited to have them on board.

Speaking on the win, Ajay Gupte, CEO  South Asia, Wavemaker said, Chumbak is one of the most loved lifestyle brands in India and we are thrilled to partner with them. We believe there is a huge potential to unlock and we are excited to get this opportunity to combine our expertise on creativity, data and technology to drive the growth story for Chumbak.

Speaking on the win Kishan Kumar M S, Vice President, Wavemaker India said, Chumbak is a truly Indian disruptor brand redefining lifestyle retail known for great design sensibilities, omni-channel presence, galloping distribution, fun personality and great customer feedback. I always believe that working with such disruptor brands makes us push our own boundaries and thereby becoming better with collaboration. Chumbak personifies innovation & creativity and that is also the Wavemaker DNA.

The team is extremely happy to partner with Chumbak in this exciting and critical phase of their journey. Our job is to positively provoke Chumbak to growth using our expertise in media, content & technology. The future looks exciting for both of us!
The United States has told the Chinese consulate in Houston to shut down in three days, citing a need to protect American intellectual property and information, amid a sharp deterioration in relations between the two countries.

Beijing condemned the order and threatened retaliation. A source said China was considering closing the U.S. consulate in the city of Wuhan.

Ties between the United States and China have become increasingly tense since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan at the beginning of the year.

The U.S. Department of State confirmed the impending closure of the Houston consulate, after China's foreign ministry reported it had been told to shut the mission.

The news ruffled financial markets with a bout of risk aversion in European stock trading.

The closure had been ordered "in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information", State Department Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

"The United States will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," she added, referring to China by its official name, the People's Republic of China.

The two countries have clashed recently over trade, technology, a national security law imposed on Hong Kong and China's claims in the South China Sea.

China denounced the U.S. order as an escalation.

"The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news briefing.

"We urge the U.S. to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures," he said.

The U.S. government has been harassing Chinese diplomats and consular staff for some time, Wang said, as well as "intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices, even detaining them".

He also said the consulate was operating normally but did not reply to questions about U.S. media reports in Houston on Tuesday night that documents were being burned in a courtyard at the consulate.

"It appears to be open burning in a container within the courtyard of the Chinese consulate facility. It does not appear to be an unconfined fire but we have not been allowed access," Houston fire department chief Samuel Pena was quoted as saying by KTRK, an ABC television affiliate.

"We are standing by and monitoring."

Houston police told FOX 26 that staff there were burning documents because they are being evicted from the building on Friday afternoon.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department indicted two Chinese nationals for a decade-long cyber espionage campaign in which they were accused of stealing information on weapons designs, drug information, software source code and personal data.
- Kennedy Agyapong has shown his philanthropic side

- He has promised to donate $150,000 to help stranded Ghanaians in Lebanon get back home

- His pledge comes after a video went viral showing a group of Ghanaians stranded at the Ghanaian embassy in Lebanon

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, has responded to a distress call from a group of Ghanaians who are stranded in Lebanon.

A few days ago, a video went viral showing some Ghanaians - mostly women- pleading with the government to help them get back to Ghana from Lebanon.

Kennedy Agyapong Photo credits: Instagram/ Hon Kennedy Agyapong

Source: Instagram

READ ALSO: Shatta Bandle drops 1st reaction after losing dad

The Ghanaians were seen standing in their numbers at the Ghanaian embassy in Lebanon saying they are going through hardship in that country and want to come back home.

READ ALSO: Nadia Buari flaunts lookalike sisters in new photo; fans react

According to these stranded Ghanaians, they were promised to be evacuated by the government to Ghana but for some weeks now they have not heard anything.

In a video sighted by YEN.com.gh, Kennedy Agyapong said he has been touched by the plight of Ghanaians and has decided to donate $150,000 to help bring these stranded people back home.

Kennedy said in the video:

Look at where Ghanaians have reached. I feel sad for them, therefore, I am going to donate $150,000 to help them get back home.

READ ALSO: Efia Odo's birthday cake goes viral in new video

Watch the video below:

READ ALSO: Martha Ankomah gives fashion goals; flaunts curvy body in African print

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that Kennedy Agyapong stated he never went to university until 1993.

According to the outspoken politician, at that time, he did not see the need to attend university because he was making lots of money.

Kennedy Agyapong added that he changed his mind and went to the university in 1993 after the former flag-bearer for the New Patriotic Party, Albert Kwadwo Adu Boahen, told him in 1992 that he (Ken Agyapong) was going to a strong businessman.

Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Enjoyed reading our story? Download YEN's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

Source: YEN.com.gh
European leaders on Tuesday agreed on a massive aid package for their pandemic-ravaged economies, as President Donald Trump changed his tune in favour of face masks as a tool against the coronavirus in the United States. The virus has infected more than 14.6 million people and killed over 600,000 of them since it first emerged in China, with fresh alarm being sounded over its accelerating spread in Africa. The pandemic has devastated the global economy, and after a fractious summit, European leaders agreed on a rescue package of 750 billion euros ($858 billion) to try and pull their bloc out of a deep recession. "This is a historic change for Europe," said French President Emmanuel Macron, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed relief that the EU had, in her eyes, shown itself equal to "the greatest crisis" in its history. The package will send tens of billions of euros to countries hit hardest by the virus, most notably heavily indebted Spain and Italy that had lobbied hard for a major gesture from their EU partners. The talks saw strong resistance from some members against sending money to nations they consider too lax with public spending. With even richer nations struggling, experts have warned that the impact would be harshest in poorer regions of the world like Africa. There are fresh concerns about the continent, particularly South Africa, where the death toll crossed 5,000 over the weekend. "I am very concerned right now that we are beginning to see an acceleration of disease in Africa," warned the World Health Organization's emergencies chief Michael Ryan. - Trump supports face masks - With no effective treatment yet, there are few options available to combat the spread of the virus, though they do include face masks -- which Trump and his political allies refused to encourage for months. But he changed direction on Monday, tweeting a photo of himself wearing a mask with the message: "We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance." "There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!" US authorities are struggling to handle the crisis as infections surge towards four million, with more than 140,000 deaths, and Trump has been slammed for his management of the epidemic. The president is scrambling to respond to public anger just over 100 days from the November election, with the human toll rising and the US economy devastated. Tens of millions of Americans have been left jobless, and the extra unemployment benefits keeping some from poverty are set to expire at the end of July. "I'm still struggling to pay the bills and I'm still looking for a job," said Diana Yitbarek, 44, who has been unemployed since April. "And nowadays it's hard to find a job because everything is closed." - Vaccine hopes - Two studies offered new hope on Monday of a potential vaccine, however. One trial among more than 1,000 adults in Britain found that a vaccine induced "strong antibody and T cell immune responses" against the coronavirus. A separate trial in China involving more than 500 people showed most had developed widespread antibody immune response. An effective vaccine is considered key for a return to normality, particularly for travel and large religious gatherings like the Hajj. The massive annual Islamic pilgrimage has been dramatically scaled down by Saudi authorities this year to around 1,000 compared with the usual 2.5 million people. Until a vaccine is developed, many fear they will have to balance the COVID-19 risk with the need to make ends meet. "We have to learn to live with the virus," said Daniel Bailo, a vendor at a hiking and fishing store in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires. "If we don't, the economic damage will be worse than the damage caused by the virus." burs-qan/amj
Judges are not required to remain silent on turbulent issues, such as racial justice and police killings. But a California judicial ethics panel had some advice Wednesday for any judges who may be considering attending a protest demonstration or a similar political event: Dont go, unless youre sure it wont raise questions about your impartiality.

Judges and judicial candidates are not required to surrender their rights or opinions as citizens, the state Supreme Courts Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions said, quoting from Californias ethical standards for judges. They shall, however, not engage in political activity that may create the appearance of political bias or impropriety.

The protest may involve an issue that is likely to reach the judges court, or participation may imply endorsement of a political candidate or organization, the committee said. Or it may result in lawbreaking, like violating a curfew, or involve confrontations between demonstrators and police that could wind up in court.

Judges may not participate in a public demonstration or rally if participation might undermine the publics confidence in the judiciary, said the panel, whose 12 members were appointed by state Supreme Courts justices.

The panels opinions advise California judges on compliance with ethical standards, whose violation is grounds for discipline by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, subject to review by the states high court. Punishment can range from private or public reprimands to removal from the bench, a penalty generally reserved for severe and repeat rules violators.

Not all public gatherings are off-limits, said Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Erica Yew, a committee member. For example, she told reporters, a city council or county board of supervisors may sponsor a meeting on a controversial subject that judges could attend without appearing to take sides.

But the committee said a judge should leave such a meeting if, for example, the judge sees other participants with signs or hears crowds chanting slogans that are inflammatory, derogatory and inconsistent with the judges own ethical duties.

And in an era of social media, the committee said, judges should always assume that their attendance will be known and that their conduct may be subject to comment and reporting.

That development may help to explain past ethical advisory opinions that allowed some California judges to attend the massive Womens March held in numerous cities on the day after President Trumps inauguration in January 2017. Organizers described the event in advance as peaceful and nonpartisan, and, according to the ethical opinions, participants in the march could maintain their public impartiality as long as they did not identify themselves as judges.

Yew said the ethics committee has discouraged judges from attending womens marches that became more partisan in subsequent years. But overall, the committee said, judges who want to express their views on an issue such as discrimination should consider issuing a public statement or sending a letter or a column to the press.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The state Supreme Court and Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye issued statements last month after the killing of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. Both condemned racism and, without going into specifics, promised, in the courts words, to confront the injustices that have led millions to call for a justice system that works fairly for everyone.

Federal judges are subject to similar ethical standards, but enforcement mechanisms are much different. Disciplinary panels in each U.S. appeals court can disqualify federal judges from some types of cases for ethical violations, but a federal judge can be removed from office only by congressional impeachment.

And the ethics rules are not enforced against U.S. Supreme Court justices. When questions arise over their financial holdings, political activities or relationships with parties in the cases before them, individual justices regulate themselves.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
FM Zarif: Renewing Iran's 20-year agreement with Russia on agenda

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Moscow, July 21, IRNA -- Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday described Iran's relations with Russia as strategic, adding that he is going to discuss the renewal of a 20-year agreement with Russia during his visit to Moscow.

In an interview with IRNA upon his arrival in Moscow, Zarif said that renewing the 20-year agreement with Russia is on the agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Zarif said that "I have visited Moscow today (Tuesday) following the talks between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin".

"I stress that Iran and Russia relations are strategic. Besides, in the prevailing situation where significant developments are taking place at the international level, there is a necessity for regular conversation between the two countries and with other friends," he added.

The Iranian foreign minister went on to say that during his visit he will discuss bilateral relations and the JCPOA.

Iran's top diplomat arrived in Moscow on Tuesday to hold meetings with senior Russian officials.

During his stay in Moscow, Zarif is supposed to hold talks with Russian officials.

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Militants on Wednesday night shot dead a policeman in Qazigund area of Kulgam district in Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

Abdul Rashid Dar was shot at by the ultras at around 9.30 pm, they said.

Dar was rushed to a hospital for treatment but succumbed on the way, the officials said.

While intelligence officials said Dar was associated with counter-insurgency in the past, a police spokesman said he was a policeman
Rameswaram (Tamil Nadu) [India], July 21 (ANI): A man was arrested under mysterious circumstances after he reached Rameswaram in a boat from Sri Lanka on Tuesday.



According to the Coastal Security Wing, Mohammad Hussain (62) was arrested by the Coastal Security Wing police when he arrived at Kambipadu near Dhanushkodi, North Coast of Rameswaram Island in a mysterious boat from Mannar, Sri Lanka today at 1 pm.

The police have brought him to the Coastal Security Wing police station in Rameshwaram. An investigation is underway. (ANI)
Jacinda Ardern has sacked her immigration minister for carrying on a year-long affair with one of his staff members.

Iain Lees-Galloway admitted he had acted completely inappropriately in my position and cannot continue as a minister.

The woman involved in the consensual fling worked as a staff member in Mr Lees-Galloways office and also at one of the agencies he oversaw.

Ms Ardern, who leads New Zealands liberal Labour Party, said she was wary about passing moral judgment on Mr Lees-Galloways actions. However, she added that the minister had opened himself up to accusations of improperly using the power of his role, especially because he had oversight of workplace relations and safety.

The prime minister said she learned about the allegations on Tuesday afternoon and questioned Lees-Galloway, 41, about them that evening. His actions have ultimately led me to lose confidence in him as a minister, she said.

The relationship is believed to have ended several months ago.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Lees-Galloways downfall came just one day after Andrew Falloon, an opposition politician, resigned after allegedly sending sexually explicit images to several women including a university student.

Mr Falloon has not commented on the claims, other than to issue an apology for making unspecified mistakes, and to add that he had received mental health counselling.

Judith Collins, the opposition leader, said she had written to Ms Ardern on Wednesday setting out her belief that the culture of New Zealands parliament needed to change. The leaders should work together on the issue, she said.

Parliament and these precincts are not always a safe working place. And its not OK, Ms Collins said. And I believe she and I have an opportunity to fix it.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
The Wassa East District has trained 50 peer educators in COVID-19 prevention measures as part of efforts to step up awareness and reduce the spread of the disease.



The volunteers drawn from 25 communities would complement the work of the Ministry of Health, Information Services Department (ISD) and the National Commission for Civic Education.



The training programme was organized by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC), an NGO and facilitated by the District Health Directorate, Information Services Department, Department of Social Welfare and the Community Development under the West African Governance and Economic Sustainability in Extractive Areas (WAGES) Project.



Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, the Field Coordinator of WAGES, Mr Rusmond Anyinah said, although WAGES mandate was in mining and sustainable local economic development in Wassa East and Prestea Huni-Valley, they were compelled to assist government's efforts in achieving health for all by containing the spread of the virus.



According to him, one of the ways to achieve that was by educating the people about the COVID-19 pandemic.



The District Director of Health, Mr Emmanuel Affel Kum commended the volunteers for their dedication to take up the responsibility of educating people within their community on COVID-19.



He, however, advised the volunteers to conduct their activities based on the information given to them by the facilitators and get rid of opinionated information.



An Assistant Social Development Officer, Mr Jewel Archer took participants through topics such as, how COVID-19 can be prevented, symptoms, transmission, techniques for hand washing and stigmatization among others.



Mr Frank Kwabena Danso, Wassa East District Information Officer, underscored the need for the COVID-19 education to be done in the dialect or language of the people.



He expressed the hope that the education would yield the needed impact if the volunteers communicated in the language of the people.



According to him, the COVID-19 education should target each and every individual member of the community and advised the participants to use the Community Information Centres, Churches, Mosques, among others for their campaigns.



The volunteers were provided with educational materials such as posters and leaflets and received two branded shirts, two face masks and hand sanitizers each.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
She revealed she hasn't been back to the beautiful Balboa Island, which is located in Newport Beach, California, since she was a little girl.

And on Wednesday morning, Kourtney Kardashian shared a slideshow of images and videos from her time on the island.

The 41-year-old reality star rocked a plaid dress with sandals for her day trip with her three children - Mason, Penelope and Reign - and two of sister Kim Kardashian's kids - North and Saint West.

Fun day: Kourtney Kardashian shared a slideshow of images and videos on Wednesday from her time on the Balboa Island

The beauty captioned the 10 slide post with: 'Haven't been back since I was a little girl and it hasn't changed.'

Kourtney smiled near the ferry entrance while flaunting her toned legs in a mustard and black plaid dress, which featured flared sleeves and a high-neckline.

The beauty, who tagged Balboa Island as the location, added simple black sandals and vintage-inspired sunglasses with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

Kourtney enjoyed the day on the beautiful island with her three children: Mason, 10, Penelope, eight, and Reign, five.

Good times: The 41-year-old reality star rocked a plaid dress with sandals for her day trip with her three children - Mason, Penelope and Reign - and two of sister Kim Kardashian's kids - North and Saint West

Views: She revealed she hasn't been back to the beautiful Balboa Island, which is located in Newport Beach, California, since she was a little girl

Arrival: Kourtney shared a video as she arrived to the island via ferry

Kim's children North, seven, and Saint, four, were also on the trip with their Aunt Kourtney and their cousins.

Their trip with their Aunt comes after mom Kim Kardashian spoke out about Kanye West amid his mental health struggles.

Kim and Kanye are also parents to Chicago, two, and Psalm, 14 months.

In another snap, Kourtney posed with Penelope and North in front of the water - with both of the kids wearing face masks.

Another image showed North and Penelope walking ahead of Kourtney, Reign and Saint in front of The Original Frozen Banana shop, which has been a staple on the island since 1945.

Kourtney showed a close up of her frozen banana treat, which she got with sprinkles.

Family is everything: Another image showed North and Penelope walking ahead of Kourtney, Reign and Saint in front of The Original Frozen Banana shop, which has been a staple on the island since 1945

Looks delicious: Kourtney showed a close up of her frozen banana treat, which she got with sprinkles

Kourtney and the family also visited Balboa Candy, which features a wide assortment of retro sweets.

She posted a snap of Saint and Reign choose yummy treats from the local sweets shop.

The mother of three also posted scenic shots of the island and snaps of her weekday outing.

Treats! Kourtney and the family also visited Balboa Candy, which features a wide assortment of retro sweets; Saint and Reign pictured

Nice day out: The mother of three also posted scenic shots of the island and snaps of her weekday outing
A glamorous western Sydney inmate has admitted to hauling blankets and a rock over a prison fence in an attempt to escape in time for Christmas.

Lauren McWatters, 28, pleaded guilty to attempting to escape lawful custody and appeared at Wollongong Local Court on Tuesday.

She staged a daring escape from medium-security Dillwynia Womens Correctional Centre near Windsor with another inmate just days before Christmas, court documents stated.

Lauren McWatters (pictured), 28, plead guilty to attempting to escape lawful custody and appeared at Wollongong Local Court on Tuesday

The Illawarra Star reported the incident occurred on December 16 when the inmates started their getaway at 1pm.

McWatters and another female inmate were seen on CCTV hauling blankets 'looked to be tied together' with a 'medium-sized rock' at an end of the prison yard before walking across and approaching a fence, court documents said.

The inmates could then be seen jumping an inner fence at the complex before approaching the jail's outer fence.

McWatters was spotted on CCTV watching the other inmate attempt to climb the outer fence as she stood at the bottom.

But she fell after climbing a few metres.

The court heard Corrective Services jumped into action, ordering the inmates to lay on the ground, as the women walked away from the fence.

They were apprehended and moved into individual cells.

McWatters, who will remain in jail until her sentencing in August, was charged after the incident was reported to Penrith police.

She was previously in prison on unrelated charges.
(Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.







COMPANIES







Kingfisher reported strong second-quarter trading figures following a good e-commerce performance and the phased reopening of stores in France and the UK as lockdown measures eased. For the second quarter, ended July 18, group like-for-like sales were up 22% but year-to-date, they remain down 3.7%. The DIY retailer said that based on the strong sales seen to date in the second quarter, combined with cost reductions, it anticipates its half-year adjusted pretax profit to be ahead of the prior year. The retailer posted interim pretax profit of GBP245 million last year. Group online sales rocketed in May and June amid the trend for home improvements as lockdowns across Europe forced households to stay at home. "While we are entering the second half with a favourable trading backdrop, second half visibility remains low given uncertainty around Covid-19 and the wider economic outlook. As such, no specific financial guidance is provided for financial 2021," the company said.







Melrose Industries reported a 27% year-on-year drop in revenue for the first half 2020 and said that it is likely to make a "small" adjusted operating profit for the period, mainly due to a focus cash and reduction in working capital. Melrose said an "extraordinary" trading period saw factories of its Automotive and Powder Metallurgy businesses temporarily shut in Europe and the Americas due to Covid-19. Melrose said trading was in line with expectations until mid-March and then fell steeply in the second quarter due to Covid-19. After cost cuts, however, Melrose said it generated GBP200 million in free cash flow before restructuring costs and the January acquisition of Forecast 3D, reducing net debt by GBP90 million in the half-year. The company was loss-making in the second-quarter ended June 30, Melrose said, but rebounded to be breakeven at the adjusted operating profit level in the month of June as recovery started to take place. This means Melrose is likely to make a small adjusted operating profit in the first half.







Fresnillo said second-quarter gold and silver production was resilient due to mine improvement initiatives. However, the Mexican miner decided to lower annual gold output estimate due to Covid-19 related working restrictions mainly at Herradura and Noche Buena mines. For the three months to June 30, Fresnillo recorded gold production of 184,400 ounces, down 6.4% from 196,963 ounces produced in the first quarter of 2020 and 17% lower than 221,307 ounces produced a year ago. First-half gold production decreased 12% to 381,319 ounces from 432,417 ounces last year due to a lower volume of ore processed at Herradura and Noche Buena mines. Fresnillo said silver production for the second quarter stood at 12,944 million ounces, down 3.2% from 13,228 million ounces in the previous quarter and 5.1% lower than the year-ago production of 14,418 million ounces. First half silver production was 26.8 million ounces, down 2.7% from last year. The company retained its 2020 sliver production guidance. Fresnillo expects 2020 gold production to be in a range of 785,000 ounces to 815,000 ounces, from a previously guided range of 815,000 to 900,000 ounces, as a result of Covid-19 related disruption. Silver production guidance remains in the range of 51 million ounces to 56 million ounces.







Chilean miner Antofagasta said second-quarter copper output was hampered by coronavirus-related work disruption, but annual production is still expected to be in line with management's estimates, albeit at the lower end of the guidance range. Chief Executive Officer Ivan Arriagada said: "During the quarter, we have been running our operations with approximately two-thirds of our workforce on-site, with the remainder either quarantining or working at home." The company said copper production in the second quarter ended June 30 was 177,700 tonnes, a decrease of 8.4% compared to the previous quarter, mainly because of expected lower ore grades at Centinela concentrates. First half copper production totalled 371,700 tonnes, in line with expectations and 4.0% lower than in the same period last year. Gold production for the second quarter decreased by 29% to 46,000 ounces compared with the first quarter, mainly due to lower grades at Centinela. First half gold output fell 26% to 111,100 ounces.







MARKETS







London shares were lower amid concerns over rising tensions between the US and China and rising coronavirus infections in the US. Melrose was the worst blue-chip performer, down 17%. "Prior to these results being announced, we viewed the shares as a Buy only for the very brave contrarian investors, our recommendation is now under review," commented Helal Miah, analyst at Share Centre. Gold rose to a fresh nine-year high. US stock market futures were pointed to a lower open.







FTSE 100: down 0.9% at 6,214.94

FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 17,461.56

AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.2% at 890.26

GBP: down at USD1.2671 (USD1.2736)

EUR: up at USD1.1545 (USD1.1491)

GOLD: up at USD1,855.47 per ounce (USD1,839.86)

OIL (Brent): down at USD43.93 a barrel (USD44.62)

(changes since previous London equities close)







ECONOMICS AND GENERAL







The US has ordered China to close its Houston consulate, Beijing said Wednesday, in what it called a "political provocation" that will further harm diplomatic relations. The move comes as tensions soar between the world's two biggest economies on a number of fronts, including a controversial national security law in semi-autonomous Hong Kong. "China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision, or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," said foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, adding that they were told Tuesday that the consulate would have to close. "It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side, which seriously violates international law...and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US," Wang said. He added that China "strongly condemns" the "outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations." According to local media in Houston, firefighters and police were called to the consulate building on Tuesday evening on reports that documents were being burned in the building's courtyard.







Ireland's government has released its "green list" of countries for safe travel, with Italy and Greece included but the UK a notable omission. People arriving from Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino will not be required to isolate for two weeks. Others arriving from overseas a with limited exceptions such as essential supply chain workers - are required to fill in a passenger locator form and self-quarantine for 14 days. People crossing the border from Northern Ireland are not subject to restrictions on their movement. The UK was expected to be excluded, as only countries with a coronavirus infection rate the same or lower than Ireland were allowed on the list. Holiday destinations such as France, Spain and Portugal also have been omitted.







US President Donald Trump acknowledged the coronavirus pandemic will "get worse" and noted a recent surge in cases, marking a change of tone as he revived his regular press briefings on the outbreak. "It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better - something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is," Trump said. The president also noted the "concerning" rise in cases in southern and western US states, notably Florida, Texas and California. He said his administration's "goal is not merely to manage the pandemic but to end it." Trump has previously come under fire for downplaying the country's outbreak. He has also pushed for a swift reopening of the economy. The president encouraged young people to avoid crowded bars and urged the public to wear a mask when social distancing is not possible, even after refusing to cover his face in public in the past. "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact," he said. Trump offered his usual optimistic assessment of the progress on treatments, saying vaccines would be coming "a lot sooner than anyone thought possible."







Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Record 7.5m quarterly revenue despite the financial crisis

Strong 15% revenue growth

Record 6.1m bookings in Q2 2020

Sidetrade (Euronext Growth: ALBFR.PA), the Artificial Intelligence platform dedicated to accelerating company revenue and cashflow, reports a record-breaking second quarter, with remarkable growth in revenue and orders despite the severity of the Covid crisis.

Olivier Novasque, CEO of Sidetrade, had this to say about Q2 2020 achievements:

"Income and bookings achieved an unparalleled level this second quarter despite the overall state of the economy. Even with all of our staff teleworking, we still achieved the best quarter of our history in terms of sales, with 6.1m in new contracts signed. This performance is the fruit of years of work on innovation, especially AI. Additionally, Sidetrades position perfectly meets the needs of todays businesses striving to boost and secure cashflow in an increasingly digital world. Current market dynamics are actually strengthening our leadership position at home and abroad. I would once again like to thank our teams for meeting the present challenges with creativity and dedication. I also want to thank our customers for their continuing trust during difficult times.

Record 7.5m revenue growth demonstrates the resilience of the SaaS model

Sidetrade

(million euros) 2020

Q2 2019

Q2 Variation Revenue 7.5 6.6 +15%

2020 data is consolidated and unaudited.

Following up on an excellent first quarter (+14%), Sidetrade kept-up the momentum, achieving 15% organic growth compared to Q2 2019 (6.6m). Sidetrades Q2 2020 revenue was 7.5m, the highest in their history.

Thanks to their SaaS business model, Sidetrade is weathering the crisis well. More than ever, the resilience of the companys recurrent SaaS model allows them to stand strong. In fact, 89% of Sidetrades quarterly revenues are recurrent, one of the highest ratios in the software industry.

Record 6.1m bookings in Q2 2020

Story continues

The Covid crisis has brought to light just how crucial it is to secure cashflow, which has been good for Sidetrades sales.

In Q2 2020, Sidetrade demonstrated their capacity for adaptation and innovation by tracking the impact of the Covid pandemic on unpaid invoices. The freely accessible tracker showed changes in the payment behaviour of 3.7m businesses since the start of the year in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands.





The crisis has also shown many CFOs the urgency of digitally transforming their business processes. A PwC survey conducted in May 2020 established that 48% of finance departments were accelerating automation and developing new ways of working. Similarly, a recent Gartner survey reported that finance directors intend to maintain, rather than reduce, investments in technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, automation and predictive analysis. 24% plan to invest more in process automation and 20% in cloud technologies.

This trend is a real boon for Sidetrade, whose AI technology aims to shorten payment delays. In the second quarter of 2020, the company clinched a record 6.1m of new deals, including 4.9m in recurrent contracts. These new large enterprise deals are for an average initial commitment period of 38 months, representing 1.6m in annual recurring revenue (ARR) against 1.3m in Q2 2019.

Large enterprise attrition remains well under control, with a rate of just 4.2% as of 30 June 2020 vs. 5% as of 30 June 2019.

In Q2 2020, Sidetrade also extended their geographic reach with such prestigious new customers as Veolia (France), Air Liquide (15 European countries), PageGroup (UK, Ireland, US, Canada, South Africa, Middle East), Chubb (Australia, New Zealand, Canada), Bidcorp Group (UK), Bunzl (Canada), G4S (Ireland), Cordant Group (global), Atnahs (UK), Impellam (UK), and Howden (Europe, US, Australia).

After the first half of the year performance, management is confident that it will weather the crisis with double-digit growth in 2020.

Attachment
MPs demanded an inquiry last night as it was revealed that 71 million of taxpayers' cash was handed to super-rich China in just one year.

Some of the aid money was used to put Chinese firms in competition with British counterparts.

The revelation comes as China  which has the second-largest economy in the world and can afford a space programme  is rapidly becoming an outcast on the international stage, amid hacking, national security and human rights controversies.

Beijing is threatening the UK with retaliation after Downing Street banned Chinese firm Huawei from its 5G network.

The colossal aid sums were buried in the Department for International Development's annual report which was quietly put out this week as MPs go on their summer holiday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping with Queen Elizabeth II during a state banquet at Buckingham Palace, London in 2015

It also reveals that:

The department has investigated a large number of sexual abuse cases involving its staff;

DfID staff took a huge number of flights  4,098, or 11 a day  between London and offices in Glasgow;

Former international development secretary Rory Stewart pocketed a 16,876 payment after he refused to serve under Boris Johnson when he became PM;

The number of DFiD staff earning more than 70,000 a year increased.

The DFiD figures show that 71.6 million was sent to China  whose economy is five times larger than that of the UK  via a combination of direct British aid and a share of funding the UK gives to the likes of the United Nations and EU, who then distribute it.

The money is being spent on training primary school teachers, combating the illegal trade in wildlife and helping China set up off-shore windfarms.

It is also going towards teaching people in one of the world's most advanced countries to use technology and 'support human rights' in a nation with a questionable record.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith last night questioned why the UK was sending money to a country which was 'breaking every rule in the book'.

The vast amount was sent to China in 2018, the latest figures available, and was a 29 per cent increase on the amount sent in 2017.

The colossal aid sums were buried in the Department for International Development's annual report which was quietly put out this week as MPs go on their summer holiday

A Long March-5 carrier rocket at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China's Hainan Province on July 17

As MPs called for action, the Government said it would reduce aid spending across the board as a result of the Covid pandemic.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said 3 billion would be cut from the total aid budget next year to reflect the shrinking of Britain's economy. A source said the 'axe would fall' on countries such as China.

The Mail can reveal that millions in UK cash was channelled through the China Prosperity Fund, which has its own budget of 99 million, to spend between 2018 and 2022.

This pot funds schemes to 'address market failures and weaknesses that impede China's inclusive economic growth'. It is also supposed to bring British and Chinese companies closer.

The Foreign Office is accountable for the scheme, which is to 'help China's ongoing transition to an inclusive, sustainable and productive economy'. Money also went towards improving schools, dealing with climate change and animal welfare, reforming health and bringing in a UK-style pension system.

The huge spending, which counts towards the 0.7 per cent of national income that Britain has committed to spending annually on aid, comes despite the fact that Beijing stands accused of multiple human rights abuses. And it follows concerns about national security.

The DfID report also reveals that British taxpayers funded 5 million in 2018 for despotic North Korea, mainly through multilateral organisations such as the UN and EU.

Millions more went to communist Cuba  4.6 million directly and 1.9 million from multilateral organisations. DfID also admitted that India was handed 287.9 million in bilateral and multilateral aid in 2018  up 7 per cent on the year before  despite a pledge made five years ago to end aid spending in the country.

Sir Iain described the aid spending as 'utter madness' and demanded an urgent review into Britain's relationship with China in the light of the Mail's revelations.

He said: 'It is utter madness that we are busy trying to improve the prospects for business in a country that is breaking every rule in the book.

'China is the second-largest economy in the world, and it is winning business all over the world by undercutting firms in the West.

'It has the largest sovereign fund in the world, and it sells more than it imports. Meanwhile, we are helping these Chinese businesses.

'This makes it all the more urgent that we have a strategic review of the entirety of our relationship with and our dependency on China, including this sort of nonsense spending on aid.'

Last night a government spokesman defended the cash going to the Far East, saying: 'We offer expertise and skills on shared challenges like climate change and health security or, where there is mutual benefit, we invest money which supports UK interests and creates opportunities for UK business.'

He said Britain collaborates only where it has 'clear policy and commercial expertise' and there is a 'clear national interest'.
The Rajasthan political crisis is set to reach the Supreme Court with assembly speaker CP Joshi headed to the top court against the high court that asked him not to decide the disqualification notices he had issued to the group of 19 lawmakers led by Sachin Pilot.

The high court on Tuesday told the Speaker not to move forward on the disqualification notices till Friday when the judges are expected to deliver its ruling.

Sachin Pilot and 18 lawmakers close to him were issued disqualification notices last week on a complaint from the Congress that has accused them of trying to topple the Ashok Gehlot government.

CP Joshi announced his decision to move the Supreme Court at a press conference where he warned that they were heading for a constitutional crisis.

Also Read: At CLP meet, CM Ashok Gehlot assures of win, attacks betrayers

Joshi stressed that there were more than one Supreme Court verdicts that ruled the judiciary could not interfere before the assembly speaker delivered its ruling.

I dont want a confrontation. I respect the judges... but the roles are well defined, Joshi told reporters.

The Speaker has the complete authority to send a showcause notice. I have asked my counsel to file SLP in Supreme Court, he added. Joshi said he is dismayed by the high court judgement.

The Speaker has twice before deferred his deadline for action on the notices as the court proceedings continued beyond the expected time.

The division bench of Chief Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Prakash Gupta heard the petition filed by the Pilot camp challenging the disqualification notice from Speaker on Monday and Tuesday.

Mukul Rohatgi, arguing on behalf of Pilot, mentioned that the high courts power in this case cannot be curtailed and that it has the jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the matter.

Rohatgi also maintained that the Speakers order issuing notices goes against the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.

He also said that while on one hand, the 19 Congress MLAs (including Pilot) were given only three days by the Speaker to respond to the notices, on the other hand, the complaint by BJPs Madan Dilawar regarding six turncoat MLAs who left BSP to join Congress was yet to be heard.

Rohatgi claimed that the proceedings reek of malafides.

Mind you, we are in the middle of Covid19 and only three days time is given for reply, Rohatgi said.

The deferment is being construed as a breather for the Pilot camp.

Also Read: Rajasthan cops stay put in Manesar, Delhi to quiz elusive rebel MLA

After arguments from Rohatgi and Salve, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Sanghvi argued the case on behalf of Rajasthan Government.

Pilots petition is premature. Its not maintainable, he said. Singhvis contention was based on the fact that the Speaker has not adjudicated on the matter so far.

Prateek Kasliwal, Counsel for Joshi, said, It is wrong to accuse the Speaker of being biased. It is up to the Speaker to decide which matter he wants to take up first. If that argument is allowed, then people will begin questioning why their petitions have not been taken first. All arguments have concluded.

Mahesh Joshi, the Congress chief whip, had sought the disqualification of rebel MLAs from the assembly due to their abstinence from the CLP meet.
BOCA RATON, Fla., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The race for Florida's 22nd congressional district has picked up in pace. One clear winner is headed for the finish line against her Republican contenders. Jessica "Jessi" Melton is the only Republican candidate for Florida House District 22 that seems to be capable of taking on "The Squad" in Washington, D.C. The district encompasses the coastline of Broward County to southern Palm Beach County. Including Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, part of Pompano Beach, and Coral Springs. Jessi is a 32-year old telecommunications business owner and mother, positioned to meet the needs of the Republican voter in South Florida.

Jessi Melton for Congress Jessi Melton for Congress

As with most Americans, Jessi's road to success was met with challenges. After working different jobs, Jessi was finally able to achieve the American dream. Her leadership skills, and social media savvy, shine in this hotly contested race. She has been the target of attacks from opponents. Fran Flynn approached Jessi in close proximity on stage, defying social distancing restrictions during the Americans For Trump event held last week. Flynn does not have any financial data available on the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The tension stemmed from a claim that Flynn hired a blogger to author negative articles about Jessi. Flynn responded and admitted paying for advertising on the blog. The incident, caught on video, circulated throughout social media.

Jessi Melton is the leader in fundraising according to the statistics in the race against incumbent Democrat Ted Deutch. This may be why her opponents are resorting to low-blows. A review of the data available on the FEC website, www.fec.gov, shows why Jessi is feared by her competition and revered by her supporters. In this quarter, she raised ~$93,000, demonstrating her ability to connect with voters. This far surpasses her closet opponent. James "Jim" Pruden. Pruden reported $0 of fundraising in this quarter and only raised ~$32,000 in the several months after his initial candidate contribution. Darlene Swaffer would be assumed to be in last place, with only ~$12,000 raised. The only thing saving her from that fate, Fran Flynn. She has no financial data, putting her number at $0. Melton is in first place, raising more in a single quarter than all of her opponents for the Republican primary.

Learn more at: www.votejessi.com

Media Contact: Donna Levy, American Creative Group, LLC.

Phone: 561-877-1920

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Jessi Melton for Congress

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IDEA OF THE DAY: Extremist violence

The Anti-Defamation League counted 42 killings in the United States last year that were committed by political extremists. Of those 42, right-wing extremists committed 38.

That continued a pattern. Over the past decade, right-wing extremists have committed more than 75 percent of killings by extremists.

Another such killing took place this week, according to investigators in New Jersey. They say that Roy Den Hollander fatally shot Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of Esther Salas, a federal judge, and wounded Salass husband. Den Hollander identified himself as part of an anti-feminist movement doing battle with a cabal of feminazis. His online screeds also included racist language.

Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League points out that extremists on both ends of the political spectrum have committed violence over the years. On the left, the Weather Underground and some Black nationalist groups did so in the 1960s and 70s, as did some animal-rights and environmental extremists in the 1990s. More recently, a left-wing gunman shot a Republican congressman and three other people at a baseball practice in 2017.

But that case has proved to be the exception in recent years.

Right-wing violence  by white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and others  began to mount in the 1980s and 90s. It began rising again around 2008, around the same time as the election of the first Black president, Pitcavage said.

This should no longer come as a shock to anyone, Jonathan Greenblatt, the A.D.L.s chief executive, said earlier this year. Lawmakers, law enforcement and the public need to recognize the grave and dangerous threat posed by violent white supremacy. We cannot begin to defeat this deadly form of hatred if we fail to even recognize it.

Related: Twitter said last night that it had removed thousands of accounts that spread messages about the false right-wing conspiracy theory known as QAnon, saying their messages could lead to harm.
As North America battles its worst public health crisis in more than a century, an assistant professor at McMaster University is doubling as a senior adviser to a top United States health official and longtime ally of President Donald Trump.

Paul Alexander  a part-time professor of health research methods, evidence and impact at McMaster since 2015  moved from Hamilton to Washington, D.C., in late March to advise a leading official in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on COVID-19 policy.

The official, Michael Caputo, was appointed as the departments assistant secretary of public affairs in early April.

Caputo, who also worked on President Trumps 2016 election campaign, told The Spectator that Alexander was his first hire as secretary and called him an incomparable asset to the U.S. governments pandemic response.

The president called me at the end of March and told me I should bring expertise with me. Paul was the first call I made after I got off the phone with the president, Caputo said in a telephone interview Friday.

Its terrible times like these that are designed for men like Dr. Alexander  If I didnt have Dr. Alexander beside me in Washington, I dont know if I could do my job.

Caputo has been a face of the Trump administrations response to a virus that has infected nearly four million people and killed more than 143,000.

A Gallup and West Health poll released last month found that 57 per cent of American adults view the national response to COVID-19 as fair or poor.

Alexander, who was not available for an interview, is a decorated academic whose peer-reviewed works have been published more than 60 times  six of which pertain to novel coronavirus research.

He received a masters degree in evidence-based medicine and clinical epidemiology from the University of Oxford and University of Toronto, and completed masters training in health sciences at York University. In 2015, he received his doctorate from McMaster in health research methods.

McMaster said it was unaware how many courses Alexander has taught at the school because his teaching calendar was not readily available Monday. The school is aware, however, that Alexander is working under an HHS official.

Caputo is a communications strategist and former radio host from New York with decades of experience in politics.

He served as an adviser to the Reagan administration throughout the 1980s and director of media services for George H.W. Bushs re-election campaign for president in 1992. He moved to Russia in 1994 where he served as adviser to the countrys first president, Boris Yeltsin, and later as a media consultant to then-prime minister Vladimir Putin. In 2016, Caputo resigned from Trumps election campaign after celebrating the firing of former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski by tweeting, Din Dong the witch is dead.

Shortly after being hired for HHS, he came under fire for a series of now-deleted tweets that made racist and derogatory comments about Chinese people.

Caputo told The Spectator he has no background in health care.

The unlikely relationship between Alexander and Caputo dates back at least five years.

Caputo said Alexander would frequently appear as a guest on his radio talk show to chime in on scientific topics.

From there, a friendship blossomed.

The pair now meet five times a day, Caputo said, often talking late into the night and through the weekend.

Caputo said Alexanders experience in epidemiology and methodology, as well as his being politically savvy, make him singularly qualified for the role of adviser to pandemic policy.

If I looked for these qualifications anywhere in the world, I dont think that I would find them, he said. And I think the Trump administration was blessed that we were already friends.

Caputo said Alexander has an innate sense for the in-and-outs of politics, elections and public opinion.

A sense that is highly unusual, Caputo added. Ive been in politics 35 years (and) his level of knowledge, not only in his speciality but in his application in a political environment, is incomparable.

The Washington Post recently reported that Alexander sent an email to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accusing the federal agency of undermining the president by putting out a report about the risks of the coronavirus to pregnant women.

Alexander allegedly criticized the CDCs methods and said its warning to pregnant women reads in a way to frighten women  as if the president and his administration cant fix this and it is getting worse.

The recent rate of infections south of the border seem to suggest that the health crisis is in fact getting worse.

On Monday, the U.S. recorded 59,966 new cases  a 32 per cent daily increase over the two weeks prior and more than half of the 112,000 total infections Canada has seen since Jan. 27.

McMasters policy on academic freedom states its faculty members enjoy certain rights and privileges, including to engage in full and unrestricted consideration of any opinion.

Meanwhile, Caputo said he takes no issue with a pandemic adviser wading into political discussion.

This is a battle of ideas. And every day, there are winners and losers. We all have to be very mindful that politics has no place in daily life, but undermining the presidency is not a political judgment  it is an administrative judgment, Caputo said, noting earlier in the interview that part of Alexanders specialty is criticizing other peoples work

In the end, when you undermine the president of the United States, you undermine the coronavirus response that (Trump) is responsible for.

The Spectator asked Alexander questions via email. An HHS spokesperson answered on his behalf.

The spokesperson said Alexander  who initially accepted The Spectators request for an interview  considers the opportunity to work in the U.S. government a significant privilege and honour.

When one can play a role in any manner with any administration, including this one, then the call to service, of this president and administration, is not a difficult one to respond to, the spokesperson said.

Paul considers himself one small piece in a major public health response machine put together by the president and remains in admiration of the exceptional work being by the presidents Coronavirus Task Force experts.

The spokesperson said Alexander does not plan to teach any courses at McMaster in 2020 or early 2021 given his current position.

Read more about:
The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused some security officials in the Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police Service of conniving with the government to intimidate and attack its supporters on daily basis in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on the reported cases of violence at some registration centres in the ongoing exercise on Wednesday, 22 July 2020, Mr Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, the Director of Elections of the NDC, said: Even more bizarre is the active involvement of some unscrupulous security officials, belonging to the once-revered Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police Service, in these shameful acts of intimidation and barbaric attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians.

According to him, This state-sponsored thuggery, as we have sometimes seen, is fast-eroding all the gains we have chalked under our Fourth Republican democratic dispensation, and has the potential to plunge our once peaceful nation into total chaos.

The NDC says although it has provided pictorial and video evidence of some barbaric attacks against its agents and supporters during the registration exercise, till date, no concrete action has been taken by our security agencies to punish the perpetrators of these brazen acts of violence, and to protect our supporters and innocent Ghanaians from further attacks.

It is this inaction, and in some cases, the complicity and/or tacit approval of our security agencies, that has emboldened NPP thugs and brigands to escalate their atrocious attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians across the country, with utmost impunity, over the past two weeks, Mr Ankrah stated.

According to him, innocent NDC officials and supporters are being harassed on a daily basis by the security agencies, which, he said, neither see nor hear all the evil that the ruling NPP and their state-sponsored thugs are unleashing.

Mr Ankrah has, therefore, urged all NDC supporters to defend themselves in line with the spirit of our 1992 Constitution, against any violent attacks by NPP thugs and any state-sponsored goons.

---classfmonline
The menace of gully erosion in Anambra State is fast becoming a huge threat to the social balance in addition to the danger it poses to the ecological health of Anambra State, says the governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano.

Speaking through the Project Coordinator of the Anambra chapter of Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP), Engr Mike Ivenso, governor Obiano observed that Anambra State needs urgent help as it has become the undisputed capital of gully erosion in West Africa.

Engr Ivenso who spoke as a guest at the weekly Meet the Media forum organized by governor Obianos Media Team in Awka recently regretted that in spite of the proactive steps taken by the government of Anambra State to stem the onslaught of gully erosion, the state hosts over 1000 geo-referenced gully erosion sites that are known at the moment.

L-R: James Eze (Chief Press Secretary to Governor Obiano) Engr Mike Ivenso (Project Coordinator of the Anambra chapter of Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP) Emeka Ozumba (Deputy Chief Press Secretary to Governor Obiano

Narrating the colossal scale of the devastation wrecked on the state by gully erosion, Ivenso said when you think of erosion in Anambra State, don't think about the deep gully that you see. Think about the lives that have been lost. Think about the businesses that are suffering, the children that won't be able to go to school, the market women that can't access their markets and farmlands to be able to take care of their families.

According to him, erosion in Anambra State is measured in terms of fatalities, houses and businesses caving in from a landslide and burying people. These are stories that have been brought to us by the people who have witnessed it first hand; the destruction of farm lands, critical infrastructure, power lines, roads, telecommunication masts, churches, schools and communities are divided and cut off completely that brothers and sisters cannot mingle amongst themselves. These are the social destruction that erosion brings. So, we are not fighting erosion just for the sake of erosion but we are now fighting erosion because of the human beings that are impacted. Erosion has become a social issue more than an environmental issue in Anambra State.

100Ft Road erosion site at Nnewi: Before

Speaking on the achievements of NEWMAP in Anambra State under Governor Obiano, Engr Ivenso revealed that no fewer than 14 gully erosion sites have been simultaneously tackled by NEWMAP under the Obiano administration. This is outside of other sites handled directly by the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Environment. It tells you in specific terms, what the Obiano administration is doing to curb the erosion menace in Anambra State, he observed, further pointing out that the message we are sending to Ndi Anambra today is to invite them to partner the government and drive the campaign to ensure that our people imbibe those socially and environmentally friendly practices and attitudes that help to reverse the formation of gullies in Anambra State.

100Ft Road erosion site at Nnewi: After

In specific terms, Engr Ivenso urged Ndi Anambra to imbibe the practice of harvesting storm water from within their immediate premises by installing structures that will make it possible for rainwater to flow from rooftops to a storage tank.

Even though the tank won't take the whole water, it slows the velocity of water from a height. So, from the tank, it now flows very quietly and that removes all those erosive force that it has. When each and every onye Anambra installs such tanks, you will see the great impact it will have in helping to reduce erosion. We are also urging our people not to build discriminatory, the laws in this state are made to protect us, to guide us, people always fall foul of the law and they think that they are trying to deal with the system, but we are actually dealing with ourselves. When you build on water channels, water will naturally find its way. Therefore, the process of finding that channel causes trouble for the next man. We are asking our people also to imbibe the culture of not dropping waste in our drainages, because when you dump refuse in the drainage, it blocks the flow of water and it finds a different channel and either causes flood for the neighbors or it causes erosion in a different area, Ivenso further explained.

https://cdn.thenigerianvoice.com/images/content/722202074755_unknown1.jpeg
Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal has stated that Switzerland is among five major investors in the Ukrainian economy and supports the country on the path of change and structural reforms.

"I was honored to welcome President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga to the Ukrainian Government building. Switzerland is a reliable partner of Ukraine, one of five major investors in our economy and supports Ukraine on the path of change and structural reforms," Head of the Government of Ukraine posted on Telegram.

As noted, Shmyhal and Sommaruga discussed join projects on the manufacture of medical equipment and mechanical engineering products.

"I also told the Swiss delegation about the confident steps to complete the decentralization reform and to form a new administrative-territorial system," the Prime Minister added.

On July 20-23, President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga makes a state visit to Ukraine at the invitation of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The program of the visit includes face-to-face talks and negotiations between delegations. It is planned to discuss a wide range of issues of bilateral Ukraine-Switzerland relations, as well as cooperation at the international level.

During the visit, Zelensky and Sommaruga are expected to make a joint working visit to Donbas to get acquainted with the security and socio-economic situation in the region and the progress of implementation of Swiss humanitarian aid projects.

ol
The House's Homeland Security chairman is accusing U.S. law enforcement leaders of reneging on a deal to brief lawmakers next week about national security threats, in the latest clash between the Trump administration and members of Congress over the Hill's access to intelligence.

"Your intransigence at the eleventh hour is outrageous, as is your offer to brief the Committee nearly two months from now, and these actions raise serious questions about whether your agencies are truly committed to keeping Members of Congress informed and respecting the Committees oversight responsibilities, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote in a Wednesday letter obtained by POLITICO.

The missive  addressed to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Lora Shiao, the acting head of the National Counterterrorism Center  says the panel engaged with your offices in good faith for well over a month to schedule the proposed session.

I request that you immediately commit to sending representatives to brief the committee on worldwide threats in a classified setting next week, Thompson wrote.

The friction with the House panel comes as top lawmakers on the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee have separately pushed for President Donald Trump's intelligence officials to testify publicly about worldwide threats before Congress' August recess. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has sought to move the Senate briefing entirely behind closed doors after last year's session prompted Trump to spend days attacking his agency chiefs for contradicting him on issues like Iran and North Korea.

The House Homeland Security panel has traditionally held a public hearing on worldwide threats around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. However, the session didnt occur in 2018, due to pushback from the Trump administration. It took place last year, but only after Thompson subpoenaed the then-acting DHS and NCTC chiefs.

Story continues

A Democratic committee staff member told POLITICO that the panel first engaged DHS, FBI and ODNI  of which NCTC is a part  in mid-June about the annual hearing.

Negotiations between the two sides eventually converted the format into a classified briefing. ODNI then proposed the briefing take place virtually, but that idea was scrapped due to security concerns, the staff member said. The format was altered again to an in-person briefing before all three agencies pulled the plug over the last week, suggesting the briefing occur in September instead.

In his letter, Thompson reiterated a request for the officials to appear before the panel for the annual hearing on Sept. 10, noting that last year the committee was forced to issue subpoenas in order to obtain testimony as a last resort.

I certainly hope your refusal to brief next week and reluctance to commit to testifying do not indicate that compulsory process will be necessary again, the Mississippi Democrat warned, adding hes prepared to use all tools at the committees disposal to ensure lawmakers understand the current threat landscape.

"We received the letter and we are working with the committee," the FBI said in a statement.

ODNI and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A Northampton man wanted for child pornography, a Lynn man wanted in connection to a homicide and a man wanted for seven years for multiple sexual assaults on a child were added to the Massachusetts State Police Most Wanted list Tuesday.

Troopers for the State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section are actively searching for the three suspects, who all have warrants for their arrests for crimes dating from 2013 to 2019, said David Procopio, police spokesman.

Jude Demeis, 49, of Northampton; Mariano Pereyra Jr., 62, of the Boston area, and Ingmar Robles Pojoy, 26, of Lynn, were added to the list. Anyone who has any information about their whereabouts is asked to contact state troopers at 800-527-8873 or call 911, he said.

Northampton Police have been searching for Demeis since receiving an arrest warrant on Sept. 10 charging him with three counts of possession of child pornography and posing or exhibiting a child in the nude.

He is white, about 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs about 180 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and has ties to Northampton and formerly lived in New City, New York. He also has ties to Needham and the greater Syracuse, New York area, police said.

He is highly computer proficient, an avid mountain biker and a rally car enthusiast, police said.

Pojoy has been wanted since Feb. 6, 2019 in connection with the homicide of Vannark Chourb, 29, who died after a shooting on South Elm Street in Lynn. A warrant charges him with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and firearms violations, police said.

He is known to be affiliated with street gangs and has a long criminal record including past convictions for firearms violations, assault and resisting arrest, police said.

Pojoy is Hispanic, about 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds. He has black hair, brown eyes and multiple tattoos including a skull, rose and Thelma on his chest, Robles on his upper back and beads and a cross on his arms and left hand, police said.

He is considered armed and dangerous and has ties to Lynn and Peabody, police said.

Wellesley Police have been searching for Pereyra for more than seven years after obtaining an arrest warrant in March 2013 charging him with rape of a child with force, five counts of aggravated rape of a child, five counts of aggravated rape with serious bodily injury and indecent assault of a child under 14. He is accused of multiple sexual assaults on a child that occurred over a long period of time, police said.

Pereyra is Hispanic, about 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs about 210 pounds. He has gray and black hair, brown eyes and has a visible lump on his chest, police said.

He has trained as a massage therapist and has ties in Boston, Attleboro, Watertown, Wellesley, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and the Dominican Republic. He has a long criminal record for convictions for firearms violations and breaking and enterings, police said.

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Apprehending violent fugitives all in a days work for Massachusetts State Police section
Restricting the sale of handguns to those aged 21 or older is associated with a reduction in suicide rates among adolescents in the United States, finds a study published by The BMJ today.

The researchers estimate that hundreds of suicides could be prevented every year in the US if the 33 states where 18 year olds can still buy handguns raised the age limit to 21 years.

Suicide rates have been increasing in the US, particularly among adolescents, with firearms accounting for more than half of these deaths.

A previous study based on suicide data from 1976 to 2001 found that policies restricting the sale of handguns to those aged 21 or older were associated with reductions in firearm related suicides but not overall suicides among adolescents aged 18 to 20 years.

To fill this evidence gap, a team of US researchers led by Julia Raifman at Boston University School of Public Health, used more recent data to re-investigate the relation between the minimum age of handgun purchase in US states and suicide among adolescents.

Their findings are based on suicide data for over 500 million person years from adolescents aged 13 to 20 years in all 46 US states that did not change their policies on age for handgun sales between 2001 and 2017 (a "person year" is the number of years of follow up multiplied by the number of people in the study).

The researchers found state policies that limited the sale of handguns to those aged 18 or older were associated with an increased suicide rate (average 344 extra deaths) among adolescents aged 18 to 20 years between 2001 and 2017, based on an analysis of suicide rates by age.

The researchers also found state policies that limited the sale of handguns to those aged 21 or older were associated with an 18% reduction in the suicide rate among adolescents.

This is equivalent to almost two fewer suicides per 100,000 adolescents aged 18 to 20 years, based on analysis of how suicide rates changed before and after states changed the minimum age of handgun purchase.

Further analysis indicated increases in suicide rates in states that lowered the age of handgun sales (Missouri and South Carolina), but no effect was found in states that increased the age of handgun sales (West Virginia and Wyoming) during the study period.

It is possible that the high levels of firearm ownership in Wyoming and West Virginia (66% and 59% of households in 2004, relative to 38% in the 46 comparison states) meant that the change in age of handgun purchases had little effect on access to firearms by adolescents in these states, note the researchers.

This is an observational study, so can't establish cause, and the researchers point to some limitations, such as underreporting of suicides and the possibility that adolescents might cross state lines to buy firearms where age limits are lower.

However, key strengths include use of data on the full population of adolescents in all US states and the complementary, rigorous analytical approaches.

As such, they say "changing the age of handgun sales policies from 18 to 21 years across the country or in the 33 states without such policies might reduce deaths from suicide among adolescents."

Such a change is in keeping with public sentiment, they add, noting that in 2018, 67% of American adults reported support for more policies regulating firearms.

But in a linked editorial, researchers argue that age limits on purchasing won't protect the many young people already living with firearms.

Professor Ann John and colleagues point out that most firearms used by people who die from suicide have been in their homes for years - and that in the US, one in three homes with children contain firearms and in half of these homes, the firearms are not locked up.

They acknowledge that legislation that increases the age at which handguns can be acquired "will likely prevent at least some suicides in young people."

However, they say without accompanying efforts to substantially reduce young people's access to household firearms (both long guns and handguns), "sales laws alone might make us feel better but are unlikely to save many lives."

###

Peer reviewed? Yes (research), No (linked editorial)

Evidence type: Observational, Opinion

Subjects: US handgun sales policies
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has made an Instagram post on the occasion of the 145th anniversary of Azerbaijans national press.

In a post on her official Instagram page, Mehriban Aliyeva said: Dear media representatives, dear friends!

I sincerely congratulate you on the occasion of the 145th anniversary of the national press of Azerbaijan! I wish each of you the best of health, happiness, joy, optimism, inexhaustible energy, creative success and new achievements.
US media reported recently that the Pentagon had given the White House options for the possible reduction of the US troop presence in South Korea, amid a battle with Seoul in which Washington is demanding significantly more cash to keep the forces there, reports Xinhua news agency.

Washington, July 21 (IANS) The US' plan of reducing American troops from South Korea has drawn harsh criticism from inside President Donald Trump's Republican party, as well as from experts.

A US military official told the Wall Street Journal that the Pentagon reviewed the 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, as part of a broader look at shifting deployments worldwide.

"It looks like Trump is serious," Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Xinhua, adding that he believes the strategy is "disconnected and non-strategic".

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon held the same view. "I think Trump is serious about the idea," he said.

Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Washington-based non-profit Korea Economic Institute, said that there are good reasons to consider a restructuring of US forces in South Korea.

But in the absence of a vision for the future role for US troops there, "it is difficult to view this as little more than the latest effort to extract concessions from South Korea on burden sharing".

"President Trump has been clear that he does not value US alliances in the same way that prior US Presidents have," Stangarone told Xinhua.

The possible move was lambasted by Republican lawmakers, including Senator Ben Sasse, who said that any such decision was "strategic incompetence".

Trump has caused much anxiety in Washington by threatening allies that he would remove US troops from various strategic areas.

Last month the administration announced it would pull thousands of troops from Germany, claiming that allies are not paying their fair share of NATO costs.

For his part, Trump has said that allies were taking advantage of the US, arguing that Washington has footed the defence bill for years for several allies.

This comes at a time when the White House has already cancelled a number of large US-South Korea military exercises in a bid to keep the nuclear talks on the Korean Peninsula going.

--IANS

ksk/
As you may know, OnePlus unveiled a premium mid-range smartphone today. But wait, LG has one of those too. Sure, the Korean company may have already fully presented the Velvet, but today it decided to announce availability details for the US.

The LG Velvet will be out in the States on July 22, aka tomorrow, for $599, from AT&T. T-Mobile and Verizon will both offer it "later this summer". The Velvet will be offered in Aurora Gray, Aurora Silver, Aurora Red, and Pink White.

Verizon's model will unsurprisingly support that carrier's mmWave 5G network, thus being named LG Velvet 5G UW (it's not the first time we've seen this).

LG's marketing campaign for the Velvet in the US includes Jason Derulo, with additional celebrities lined up for the near future.

The Velvet is LG's latest attempt to win over the mobile world, by focusing on design and usability and not so much on raw specs. If you're intrigued, don't miss our full in-depth review of it, where we also talk about the Dual Screen accessory.

Source
(Natural News) If you havent figured out that Marxists have completely taken over the Democrat Party and are now waging a cultural revolution against America, its time you started paying more attention because the evidence is all around us.

The latest battle in the war against our founding is being waged in St. Louis, where a couple is being prosecuted by a district attorney whose campaign was largely funded by the sedition-minded billionaire George Soros.

Their crime? Reliance on the Second Amendment and Missouris Stand Your Ground law to protect their home with guns from a large, threatening mob of Black Lives Matter protestors who broke down a fence and stormed into their private neighborhood last month.

The prosecutor, Kim Gardner, is charging Mark and Patricia McCloskey with unlawful uses of firearms, though the state statutes clearly empower homeowners to do just that if they are being threatened on their own property.

It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner  that is unlawful in the city of St. Louis, Gardner said in a statement, adding she is recommending that the couple be made to do community service instead of pushing for jail time (they face four years in prison and a $10,000 fine).

Less than two weeks ago, police  acting on a search warrant obtained by Gardner  searched the McCloskeys home and seized an AR-15 which he had used to keep the mob at bay.

In an interview with Fox News Tucker Carlson, Mark McCloskey was aghast and baffled by the bizzaro nature of the whole thing.

It seems like the only person in the United States who thinks we did something wrong is our [citys] circuit attorney. She is the same person that let out of jail everybody that was responsible for the looting and fires and destruction, following the George Floyd death, in the city of St. Louis, McCloskey said.

Its a totally upside-down world. The people who broke into my neighborhood were all trespassing, he continued. The guy that recruited them, that planned this event, said the next day that he intended to break the law; that he needed to break laws in order to send his message.

None of those people are arrested. None of those people are charged, McCloskey noted further. The circuit attorney has apparently decided her job as a prosecutor isnt to keep us safe from criminals but to keep the criminals safe from us.

Its a bizarro, upside-down world. Ive been a little irritated by this process until today and now I am just flat out p**sed off. This has gotten to be outrageous, McCloskey added.

The good news is, the McCloskeys have some powerful friends  including Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons (R) who helped write the stand your ground law when he was still serving in the state Legislature.

Asked by a local talk radio host last week if he would consider pardoning the couple if they were charged and convicted, Parsons made clear his intent.

Oh, by all means, I would and  I think thats exactly what would happen, he said.

You know, right now, you know, thats exactly what I feel. You dont know until you hear all the facts and all that, but right now, if this is all about going after them because they did a lawful act, yeah, if that scenario ever happened, I dont think theyre gonna spend any time in jail, he added.

The states attorney general, Eric Schmitt, also said he will seek to have the charges dismissed.

Enough is enough, he said in a video message posted only a few hours after Gardner filed her charges. A political prosecution such as this one would have a chilling effect on Missourians exercising the right to self defense.

Sources include:

MSN.com

TrendingPolitics.com

Politico.com
Management at the United States Postal Service (USPS) has taken a big step toward privatization with the July 10 release of an internal memo stating that mail deliveries would be delayed due to cost cutting and a subsequent directive prohibiting overtime and promising more to come.

The first memo, titled Pivoting to the Future, declared, Right now, we are at a critical juncture in our organization and must make immediate, lasting, and impactful changes in our operations and in our culture. This operational pivot is long overdue and today, we are talking about the first step in a journey we must take together, for the health and stability of the Postal Service.

The initial step in our pivot is targeted on transportation and the soaring costs we incur, due to late trips and extra trips, which costs the organization somewhere around $200 million in added expenses.

USPS Truck [Credit: Flickr/Lisa Brewster]

One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is thattemporarilywe may see mail left behind or mail on the workroom floor or docks (in P&DCs), which is not typical.

COVID-19 and the economic devastation it sparked has further accelerated the crisis of USPS, with former CEO Megan J. Brennan telling Congress in late May that without support it would run out of cash to pay its over 600,000 employees by September. Brennan requested $75 billion in financial assistance from Congress. No assistance was given, however, and the USPS is surviving off of its remaining cash reserves and a $3 billion loan from the US Treasury, placing it further in debt.

While the Postal Service decays, it is also under increased pressure from its competitors, namely Amazon and United Parcel Service (UPS), which have recorded record revenue and are under the process of expanding their logistics networks after increases in shipments have left them with surplus revenue. Just one example of Amazons growth has been the acquisition of 2,300 trucks to expand its delivery network. UPS has announced a $138 million expansion of its Atlanta facility.

The move to cut workers overtime is part of the US capitalist classs decades-long drive to dismantle USPS, a public entity that occupies a valuable portion of the logistics industry.

According to its website, the USPS handles 48 percent of the worlds mail volume, generated $71.1 billion in revenue in 2019 andif it was fully privatizedwould be number 44 in the Fortune 500 list of the worlds largest companies. This is a massive source of profit that the financial oligarchy is attempting to take over completely. This was outlined clearly by President Donald Trumps 2018 plan calling for the privatization of USPS either through the launch of an Initial Public Offering on the stock market, or sale to an existing company.

The drive to fully privatize the USPS started in 1970. President Nixon transformed the postal service from a department of the executive branch into a public corporation, after a powerful national strike by postal workers. In the 1980s, the postal service was cut off from federal funding, and in 2006 its was obligated to fully fund retirement obligations and benefits up front, beginning its budget crisis. This year, major Trump donor and former Wall Street executive, Louis De Joy was installed as the new Postmaster General, and has continued this decades-long sabotage by announcing the end of overtime and delays in shipping.

Alongside privatization, the wages, benefits, and work conditions of postal workers have long been under assault, with the collusion of the postal worker unions. According to USPS, its peak number of full-time postal workers was 797,795 in 1999. By 2019, it was 496,934, a reduction of over 300,000 full-time employees. While USPS total number of employees today is about 650,000, about 20 percent work part-time and are essentially low-paid and disposable.

Injuries are commonplace and often rewarded with layoffs, as a lawsuit earlier this year revealed, with 44,000 workers fired after getting injured on the job. Postal workers work with faulty and outdated equipment; according to documents obtained by Motherboard, USPS delivery trucks burst into flames at a rate of one truck every five days. In addition to horrific work conditions, the USPS has deliberately hidden COVID-19 cases from the workforce.

Logistics and delivery workers are among the most powerful workers on the planet, and their power has grown as COVID-19 renders their services all the more essential. Among this group, USPS workers are especially powerful, as without their labor great portions of the economy would shut down. However, the trade unions have signed deal after deal taking away their wages, turning them more and more into a temporary workforce, and putting their hard-earned benefits in jeopardy.

The four unions responsible for this are the American Postal Workers Union, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and National Rural Letter Carriers Association. The Teamsters have played the same role at United Parcel Service. Meanwhile, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and other unions have attempted to strangle opposition by non-union workers at FedEx and Amazon by trying to convince them to join and pay dues to these pro-company unions.

The dues extracted from each worker go toward funding the bloated salaries of leading union bureaucrats and to the Democratic Party, through funding PACS and direct donations. The American Postal Workers Union has consistently wasted millions of dollars in each election cycle, funding primarily the Democratic Party, but has recently started to increase funding for Republicans. The politicians supported through these funds have gone on to launch vicious attacks on USPS workers. In 2011, President Barack Obama announced the closure of 3,700 post offices.

Postal workers throughout the world are facing the same struggle. Privatization of the postal service has been achieved in Germany, the UK and Japan with disastrous results for the workers and a shower of profits for the capitalist class.

Autoworkers in the US have taken the first step in fighting back against austerity and unsafe working conditions during the pandemic through the formation of rank and file committees, independent of the corporatist unions. USPS and all logistics workers should follow suit to organize a common fight against the privatization of USPS and to defend jobs and living standards and guarantee safe working conditions for all logistic workers.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

The situation on the Tovuz direction remains calm, there was no new attacks from the Azerbaijani side on the Armenian armed forces, said the head of Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry Vagif Dargahli, Trend reports.

"The situation in this area is calm, we haven't launched any attacks, nor have any losses," he said.

"We did hear some shooting on the Armenian side. It seems that there was a shootout between the servicemen of the Armenian armed forces," he said.

Once again, I'd like to note that we haven't had any losses, despite what the Armenian side is trying to claim, Dargahli said.

Following continuous ceasefire violations of Armenia's armed forces, the country launched another military provocation against Azerbaijan on July 12. Grossly violating the ceasefire regime, Armenian armed forces opened fire in the direction of Azerbaijan's Tovuz district.

As a result of the appropriate measures, the Armenian armed forces were silenced. The tensions continued on the border, July 12 night. During the night battles, by using artillery, mortars and tanks, the Azerbaijani armed forces destroyed a stronghold, army vehicles.

The fighting continued in the following several days as well. Azerbaijan lost several military personnel members, who died fighting off the attacks of the Armenian armed forces. As a result of the shelling, many houses in the Tovuz district's border villages were damaged.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
A 'brutish' rapist who ignored a Melbourne sex worker's pleas to stop and then refused to leave because the booking wasn't over has been jailed for six years.

Ranvir Singh was found guilty of raping the woman twice at a Collingwood brothel in February 2018.

'You ignored her repeated requests to stop. You ignored her physical resistance in the face of that resistance, you asserted your power and physical strength over her,' Victorian County Court Judge George Georgiou said.

Ranvir Singh was found guilty of raping the woman twice at a Collingwood brothel in February 2018

The sex was initially consensual, but that changed when then 24-year-old Singh became 'rough', bit and pinned the woman to the bed.

'Stop. You are hurting me,' she told him.

'I can't take it anymore. You're hurting me.'

Instead Singh ignored her pleas and held her down on the bed, pinning her arms during the rape.

'It's fine. You can take it,' the then 24-year-old said.

After the attacks, Singh told his victim to get back in the bed because 'the booking wasn't over', but she escaped the room and went to her manager.

Singh ignored her pleas and held her down on the bed, pinning her arms during the rape

The woman was haunted by the rapes, left with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and 'stripped of her will to live'.

'It feels as though I am the one being punished, being judged and excluded from society, silenced into submission,' she previously told the court.

'Whatever discomfort you may feel will never come close to resembling the cruelty I have experienced first hand,' the woman told her attacker.

She said she was left an 'empty husk' after the assaults.

The judge said the rapes 'clearly humiliated and degraded her'

'It frightened her, it rendered her powerless and caused her significant pain,' Judge Georgiou said.

Singh felt a sense of entitlement because he paid for sexual services, the court was told.

'Your brutish behaviour and words to the victim at the time you were raping her are consistent with that explanation,' he said.

Singh has continued to deny he did anything wrong and told a mental health professional he blamed police for his conviction.

The 26-year-old from India was jailed for six years and must serve at least three years and eight months behind bars before he is eligible for parole.

He faces deportation after he serves his sentence.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When was the last time you encountered a white knight? Hiding out from Hong Kongs latest wave of the coronavirus, I haven't seen a human for days, forget about getting rescued.

China Inc. is probably feeling the same way  too many damsels in distress and not enough white knights to go around. More likely than not, many bailout deals will fall through, breaking our hearts and wallets.

This sort of uncertainty is unfolding at Car Inc., which once shared a chairman with scandal-ridden Luckin Coffee Inc. The auto-rental operator has been flirting with not just one, but two state-owned car manufacturers for bailout money. On May 31, it entered a non-legally binding strategic partnership with Beijing Automotive Group Co., only to switch gears a month later to SAIC Motor Corp. After SAIC terminated that deal Monday, sending Car Inc.s dollar bonds tumbling, the rental company decided to settle down with BAIC after all. BAIC will replace UCAR Inc.  controlled by the very same embattled former chairman, Lu Zhengyao  as the largest shareholder.

That isnt the end of the story. The BAIC deal is subject to a number of conditions before closing, including regulatory approval of the UCAR share sale. Just an hour after the encouraging BAIC news, Car Inc. disclosed that UCAR was being investigated by securities regulators over suspected violations of information disclosure laws. Car Inc.s shares tumbled Tuesday.

Amid the mainland A-share stock frenzy earlier this month, Xiao Gang, former chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, warned against companies putting out frivolous restructuring filings like these. Such hot air balloons only end up hurting investors, he said.

In less than two months, UCAR announced a deal, canceled it and drew up another, only to scrap that one and replace it with a third, which still hasn't been finalized. In the meantime, Car Inc.s share price rose as much as 78% before tumbling this week. BAICs offer price of HK$3.10 per share is about 15% higher than the prevailing market price.

Story continues

Then consider Tahoe Group Co., a luxury home builder with 56 billion yuan ($8 billion) of debt due this year, but only one-tenth of that in cash on hand. In mid-May, the company said it planned to introduce strategic investors after failing to restructure the ownership of its Hong Kong-based insurance unit, widely seen as a prelude to an asset sale. No white knight appeared, and two months later it became the first large residential developer to default on a bond in five years.

Call me a cynic, but in the coronavirus age, its probably wise to tamp down any expectations of a bailout  especially if the potential acquirer is tied to Beijing. There are many reasons. First and foremost, too many state-affiliated businesses are already waiting in line. Peking University Founder Group Corp., which went into Chinas equivalent of Chapter 11 proceedings earlier this year, is seeking strategic investors; so is perpetually loss-making local government financing vehicle Yunnan Metropolitan Construction Investment Group Co., as well as Tsinghua Unigroup Co., which controls a crown jewel of Chinas chip-making ambitions.

Moreover, municipals have no money themselves. Their funding gap will reach as much as 11.5 trillion yuan this year, based on the Ministry of Finances own estimates. So when times are tough, Chinas state businesses will save their siblings, not private enterprises. Meanwhile, even if there are genuine well-wishers, some distressed companies wont be able to last long enough for acquirers to get the regulatory nod, given Beijings complex bureaucratic system.

So lets be realistic. White knights live in fairy tales, not in China. Anyone betting on a rescue, more often than not, will be living off false hopes.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. She previously wrote on markets for Barron's, following a career as an investment banker, and is a CFA charterholder.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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Describing India as one of the few trusted like-minded countries, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that New Delhi is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trumps foreign policy.

In his virtual keynote address to the annual India Ideas Summit of the US India Business Council (USIBC), Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a rising US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

The United States, he said, desires a new age of ambition in its relationship with India.

Asserting that the US has never been more supportive of Indias security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Trumps foreign policy.

We dont just interact on a bilateral basis. We see each other for what we are great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India is one of the few trusted like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration on issues that span continents, Pompeo said.

Im confident that our relationship is only getting stronger. Lets emerge from this current challenge more resilient and innovative than before. And lets seize this moment to deepen cooperation between two of the worlds greatest democracies, he added.

Pompeo said the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G7 meeting to be hosted by President Trump.

We will advance the economic prosperity network. It is the group of countries and organisations that we consider natural partners with we share values like democracy, transparency and rule of law, Pompeo said.

The Group of Seven (G-7) is an international intergovernmental economic organisation consisting of seven major developed countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are some of the largest IMF-advanced economies in the world.

Pompeo also said that he was happy to report that India is a rising US defense and security partner, in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

Im confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests he said.

Weve revived the so-called quad that comprised the US, India, Japan and Australia. India is also part of a group of likeminded nations that Ive convened regularly to advance shared interests, he said.

Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in view of Chinas growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource-rich region.

On Monday, a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz carried out a military drill with a fleet of Indian warships off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Four frontline warships of the Indian Navy participated in the PASSEX exercise when the US carrier strike group was transiting through the Indian Ocean Region on its way from the South China Sea.

The USS Nimitz is the worlds largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of tensions between India and China in eastern Ladakh as well as in Chinas military assertiveness in South China Sea.
This partnership aims to provide US hospitals with some of the much needed single-dose injectable drugs that have fallen into dangerous shortage amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

MUMBAI, India, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Piramal Critical Care (PCC) today announced a strategic partnership with US-based pharmaceutical outsourcing facility, Medivant Healthcare, to help address the severe shortage of injectable drugs in hospitals across the United States.

Piramal Critical Care has a marketing and sales team with a strong footprint across the United States, serving nearly all hospitals and surgical facilities nationwide. Through this partnership, PCC and Medivant Healthcare will work together to distribute single-dose injectable drugs in approved states for COVID-19 patients that have fallen dangerously short in supply.

Peter DeYoung, Chief Executive Officer, Piramal Critical Care, said, "In the last few months with the disruption caused by the pandemic, we have observed that there has been an acute shortage of certain key injectable drugs in the US. Our partnership with Medivant Healthcare will leverage our robust nationwide US marketing and distribution capabilities that will enable supply of single-dose injectable products to critical and sensitive markets for immediate use."

"We are happy to enter an important partnership with Piramal Critical Care amidst a global healthcare crisis," said Founder and Director of Medivant Healthcare, Viraj Gandhi. "Coupling our focus on producing critical shortage medications with PCC's extensive market reach, I am confident that together we will play an integral role in helping hospitals across the country alleviate these acute drug shortages."

About Piramal Critical Care:

Piramal Critical Care, a business unit of Piramal Enterprises Limited, is a global leader in anesthesia, pain management, and intrathecal therapy. Piramal Critical Care maintains a wide presence across more than 100 countries including the US and the European markets. Our product portfolio includes inhalation anesthetics, injectable pain and anesthesia drugs, injectable drugs for myxedema coma, intrathecal therapy for spasticity management, and plasma volume expanders. Piramal Critical Care has strong manufacturing and process development capabilities with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Bethlehem, PA, United States and Telangana, India, which are inspected by US FDA, UK MHRA and other regulators, and partners with leading pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organizations around the world.

About Piramal Enterprises Limited:

Piramal Enterprises Limited (PEL) is one of India's large diversified companies, with presence in Financial Services and Pharmaceuticals. PEL's consolidated revenues were ~US$1.7 billion in FY2020, with ~34% of revenues generated from outside India.

Piramal Critical Care is a part of PEL's Pharma business that sells a portfolio of niche differentiated pharma products and provides an entire pool of pharma services (including in the areas of injectable, HPAPI etc.) leveraging its end-to-end manufacturing capabilities across 14 global facilities and a large global distribution network to over 100 countries. PEL is also active in the Consumer Product segment in India.

PEL also has a strong presence in Indian financial services sector. PEL is listed on the BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited in India.

About Medivant Healthcare:

Medivant Healthcare is one of USA's newest outsourcing facilities focused on providing hospitals & doctors' offices with single dose sterile injectable drugs on the US FDA's Drug Shortage List.

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1217915/Piramal_Critical_Care_Logo.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1217914/Medivant_Logo.jpg
ST. PAUL, Minn., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Citizens' Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) expresses its strong opposition to Executive Order 20-81, which imposes a statewide mask mandate on all Minnesota residents starting on July 25, and releases the following statement from its president and co-founder, Twila Brase, RN, PHN.

"We are greatly disappointed in Governor Walz today for imposing face masks on all Minnesotans. The idea that wearing a face mask prevents the spread of COVID-19 is false and not backed by scientific data."

"Even Dr. Michael Osterholm, former interim director of the CDC and top infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said in response to the CDC's recent support for masks: 'Never before in my 45 year career have I seen such a far-reaching public recommendation issued by any governmental agency without a single source of data or information to support it.'"

"The fear-mongering generated by mask mandates is irresponsible. At a time when all the key statistics, deaths and hospitalizations, have been steadily improving, the governor has suddenly decided to lock 5.6 million Minnesotans behind masks as though the stats say everything is getting worse. The governor himself said on July 14 that it would be hard to make the case for masks with fewer hospitalizations, fewer ICU patients and fewer deaths. And yet he did, despite no scientific data to support it."

"As the Governor continues to move the flatten-the-curve goalposts from the achievable 'slow the spread' to the unachievable 'stop the virus,' Minnesotans are being put needlessly at risk. This mask mandate will expose Minnesotans to self- and cross-contamination, headaches, difficulty breathing, skin conditions, and a false sense of security that is likely to put them in harm's way, as the World Health Organization warns."

CCHF has worked in its home state of Minnesota and at the national level for more than 20 years to protect health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy rights.

Twila Brase, RN, PHN has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the "100 Most Powerful People in Health Care." She is the host of the national daily Health Freedom Minute radio program and the author of the eight-time award-winning book, "Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth About Electronic Health Records.

SOURCE Citizens' Council for Health Freedom

Related Links

www.cchfreedom.org


United Airlines passengers who refuse to put on a face covering in the airport could be banned from future flights, the airlines said Wednesday in announcing tighter restrictions in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The rules applies to passengers at customer service counters and kiosks, United Club locations, gates and baggage claim areas in the approximately 360 airports where the airline operates.

Nearly every major airport, including Newark Liberty International Airport as well as the major airports in New York City and Philadelphia, already have mask requirements in place for passengers and employees who deal with the public.

Uniteds stricter rules take effect Friday. Signs will be hung throughout the airport informing passengers of the policy. Violators will first be given a reminder card by an employee that explains the policy. A continued refusal to comply could result in a refusal to transport, and United said it could ban the person from flying on the airline while its mask requirement is in effect.

Passengers are also advised of the rule when they book their flight online and at check-in.

United began requiring flight attendants to wear masks in early May and later extended that requirement to passengers during flights.

The airline said its flights were 38% full in May; 57% in June and are expected to be about 45% in July. Less than 15% of flights operate with more than 70% of seats filled due in part to using large planes on some trips.

Face mask 



We are extending our face mask requirement to airports. In addition to on board our aircraft, face masks must be worn at customer service counters and kiosks, United Club locations, gates and baggage claim areas.  United Airlines (@united) July 22, 2020

The face mask policy was created by Uniteds medical team, public health officials and experts at the Cleveland Clinic.

Uniteds extended face mask policy adds another layer of protection for travelers, even before they board an aircraft, said Dr. James Merlino, the clinics Chief Clinical Transformation Officer. Wearing a face mask is an incredibly simple measure that we all can take to help slow the spread of COVID-19. They act as a barrier to keep respiratory droplets from entering the air, where someone else could breathe them in and possibly become infected. The more people that wear masks, the less risk there is of others being exposed to the virus.

United added more flights in June after significantly scaling them back during the height of the pandemic in March and April.

Earlier this week, New Jersey added 10 states and removed one from its coronavirus quarantine travel advisory on Tuesday, bringing the list to 31 states that qualify as COVID-19 hotspots.

People traveling from those states  including New Jersey residents returning home  are being asked to voluntarily self-quarantine for two weeks and to seek a coronavirus test in an effort to prevent a resurgence in New Jersey, which was among the hardest-hit states at the onset of the U.S. outbreak in March and April.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Private health insurers are under pressure to give back half a billion dollars saved on unused extras policies during the COVID-19 lockdown, as consumer group Choice issues scathing report cards naming the worst-performing funds during the pandemic.

Medibank and Bupa, the two largest funds with more than 7 million members combined, were given the lowest score, 1 out of 5, for refusing to roll over unused extras and freeze premiums until July 2021 or offer blanket discounts, and because their hardship policies were not "easy to find online".

Insurers concede they initially saved $515 million on extras services like physiotherapy. Credit:Wade Laube

"While their marketing departments have been quick to tell the community how they're helping, our research has found a lot left to be desired in their COVID-19 responses," Choice health campaigner Dean Price said.

Private Healthcare Australia chief executive Rachel David said about 100,000 of the nation's 13 million health fund members had received premium relief during the COVID-19 crisis, a figure Mr Price said was low given the pandemic's impact on employment levels.
Kim Kardashian is speaking out about husband Kanye West's health.

The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star released a statement on social media on Wednesday, July 22, following another series of tweets from the Grammy winner. "As many of you know, Kanye has bi-polar [sic] disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand," Kim began. "I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health. But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health."

The mom of four continued, "Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor. People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try."

Kim wrote that she "understands" her husband is "subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions." However, she noted that, "He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder. Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions."

Kim Kardashian & Kanye West's Cutest Photos

The 39-year-old star went on to address Kanye's talents. "Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some," she said. "That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true."

Story continues

She then called for understanding and privacy. "We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most," Kim concluded her note. "I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this. Thank you for those who have expressed concern for Kanye's well being and for your understanding."

Kim Kardashian, Instagram

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Kanye took to social media to post various messages involving his wife and mother-in-law Kris Jenner. In one of his since-deleted tweets, Kanye claimed, "They tried to fly in with 2 doctors to 51/50 me," referencing the Welfare and Institutions Code when an adult can be placed on an involuntary hold for three days.

Kanye, 43, went on to talk about his relationship with Kim, stating, "I been trying to get divorced since Kim met with Meek at the Warldolf [sic] for 'prison reform.'" The "Stronger" rapper seemed to be referring to a Nov. 2018 criminal justice summit that was attended by his wife and Meek Mill at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

"Meek is my man and was respectful. That's my dog," Kanye went on to write. "Kim was out of line."

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Cher Show

Kanye also went on to claim that Kris and Kim "put out a statement without my approval."

"That's not what a wife should do," he tweeted. "White supremacy."

E! News has reached out to reps for Kanye and Kim, but have not heard back.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Says the future president</p> ye (@kanyewest) <a href="https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1285825331991949314?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 22, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

While several of Kanye's tweets have since been deleted, a few posts remain that reference his upcoming album, Donda, and his presidential run. "Says the future president," his most recent tweet reads.

After Kanyewho is currently at the family's home in Wyomingmade headlines on Monday for an earlier Twitter spree, a source told E! News that Kim has been privately trying to help her husband but "he won't listen."

"She has been trying for weeks and it's gone nowhere and he has ignored her. It's very upsetting that he hasn't taken his mental health seriously," the insider told E! News. "She has told him he must come back to Los Angeles and get help and he still isn't listening."

The source also added, "[Kim's] worried and concerned. She has always tried to be supportive, but she doesn't want to listen to the ranting that goes nowhere and hurts so many."

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Instagram

Amid his headline-making comments, stars have been sending support to Kanye, who has been candid about his mental health struggles over the years. The artist, who was hospitalized for exhaustion in 2016, spoke out about his bipolar disorder during a conversation with David Letterman on the comedian's Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

"What I want to say about the bipolar thing is because it has the word 'bi' in it, it has the idea of, like, split personality. Well, that works for me because I'm a Gemini, but when you ramp up, it expresses your personality more," Kanye said in 2019. "You can become almost more adolescent in your expression or border into places. This is my specific experience that I've had over the past two years, because I've only been diagnosed for two years now."

As for Kanye's current state, a source tells E! News, "It's a waiting game. Kim is hopeful he will come down from this episode and be able to get help."
Lebanon County commissioners want their pandemic relief money and theyve gone to court to get it.

The board filed suit in Commonwealth Court Wednesday to force Gov. Tom Wolf to release approximately $12.8 million in federal coronavirus relief funding that the administration has thus far withheld. The suit was authorized during an executive session discussion earlier this week.

County Solicitor David Warner said the board is making its case on an argument that the bill appropriating the funds, which Wolf signed into law May 29, very clearly sets out a formula for the distribution of federal CARES Act dollars to all qualifying Pennsylvania counties. Warner said it contains no provision that allows the governor to exercise discretion to withhold those funds, for any basis.

Wolf has made plain his reasons.

The governor is punishing the countys majority Republican commissioners for openly breaking ranks with his administrations phased, pandemic reopening schedule, also in May. In a largely symbolic action, Commissioners Robert Phillips and Bill Ames voted on May 15 to declare Lebanon in the yellow phase of the reopening plan before the Wolf Administration was ready.

Though other boards threatened, it was the only county to take such an action that qualifies for this round of pandemic relief funding, and Wolfs follow-up move has left Lebanon County as the only Pennsylvania county to have been cut off from a $625 million pot of federal coronavirus relief money distributed by the state.

Other counties are using those funds for a wide range of purposes, from grants to small businesses to helping local governments with facility improvements at public buildings.

The lawsuit - which Warner said will be formally ratified during the commissioners next public meeting - states Wolf had no legal right to withhold funding appropriated by the legislature, accusing him of a gross abuse of power and acting like a de facto King.

Wolf addressed his decision to withhold the money at a news conference last week, saying Lebanon County had to pay a price for its recalcitrance.

Dont come and say you want something from the state when you havent followed the rules, the governor said then. There are consequences. These are the consequences.

At a news conference Tuesday, Wolf was asked whether he would give the county the money and about the prospect of a lawsuit. Wolf said he didnt plan on releasing the money and said hed wait for a court ruling if it became a legal battle. But he defended his decision to deny the money.

Maybe the county commissioners in Lebanon County should have thought of that when they violated the law, Wolf said.

Sen. Dave Arnold, R-Lebanon County issued a statement, calling the governors withholding of the money political retaliation for rebelling against his arbitrary and ever-changing guidance.

He added: Lebanon County and its residents will not be bullied by Wolf and will stand up for their freedoms when challenged. The governor is not hurting his political opponents, hes hurting the people he claims hes been trying to help. His actions have now resulted in fewer dollars for mental health, drug and alcohol treatment and business stabilization grants, among others. It is the intent of this legislation to rectify this injustice to Lebanon residents.

Rep. Frank Ryan, R-Lebanon County, echoed that sentiment.

A pandemic is not a good time to be playing politics with public resources that could be providing a lifeline to Lebanon County and residents in need, he said in a statement. While our citizens are suffering during this pandemic, the governors action is not only petty and wrong, it is cruel. Lebanon County leaders are right to pursue legal recourse to correct this situation and secure the funding our county and its citizens need and deserve.

# # #

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

* This story has been updated to include Sen. Dave Arnolds statement as well as that of Rep. Frank Ryan.
BitTitan, the global leader in managed services automation, today announced the commercial release of Voleer, a modern IT toolbox designed to centralize and automate IT tasks for more effective management of resources, security and data governance.

With streamlined, one-click automations, Voleer enables IT teams to schedule and automate repetitive tasks, reducing tedious manual methods and boosting time management.

As the demands of IT solution providers have increased, the need for reliable tools to streamline tasks for efficient IT management has also risen, said Geeman Yip, BitTitan Founder and CEO. Voleer enables IT professionals to leverage trusted, out-of-the-box tools that run in a unified, secure environment, with unparalleled efficiency that allows companies to realize value sooner.

Voleer is fully cloud-based and requires no additional deployments or coding for its ready-to-use tools. It allows real-time reporting and alerting that improves visualization of business intelligence, empowering IT teams to better leverage data to inform business decisions. It also allows IT to easily identify compliance and security gaps, as well as monitor cloud usage costs. Voleer further enhances security by enabling activity-based access control, which limits sprawling access to high-risk credentials, providing access solely to what people need for the action they need to perform.

Voleer is an excellent tool to have in your toolbox, as it provides visibility that you wouldnt otherwise have to unlock value sooner, said Kristee Raethz, Software, Contracts and IT Innovation Specialist with United Data Technologies. With Voleers Microsoft Teams assessment, our team can go in and pull data to understand who is using it, their level of interaction and use that insight to guide specific training.

Voleer features a growing IT toolbox of automations that deliver functionality such as:

Microsoft Teams Channel Copy  Allows content between Microsoft Teams channels to be copied or merged.

 Allows content between Microsoft Teams channels to be copied or merged. Targeted Security Notifications  Prompts users to verify their Office 365 activity to mitigate risk for compromised email security.

 Prompts users to verify their Office 365 activity to mitigate risk for compromised email security. Add User to Group Integrated with On-Premises Active Directory  Allows hybrid automations to be executed in the cloud and in on-premises systems. A user may be added to a group in on-premises Active Directory.

 Allows hybrid automations to be executed in the cloud and in on-premises systems. A user may be added to a group in on-premises Active Directory. Zendesk Data Warehouse  Creates a data warehouse from Zendesk reporting data and configures alerts posted to Teams channels or sent via email.

In addition to the wide variety of ready-to-use tools, IT teams can maximize the value of Voleer by leveraging the capability to develop custom tools for any solution they already use, in a secure and controlled environment.

Our companys vision is to simplify and innovate technologies for great customer experience. With Voleer, our customers can leverage a solution that delivers key results, as the Voleer tools allow enhanced visibility into license management, cloud security and consumption costs, said Ta Ming Yun, CEO of CHASSasia. The ability to create automation in Voleer has allowed us to launch new services for our customers, and in turn, increase our ability to drive revenue and be more profitable.

Voleers out-of-the-box automation supports a range of systems, including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure and Zendesk. IT professionals can easily create an account, with available forever free options, and search Voleers library for automations. Voleer will continue to add new automations to its library weekly.

To purchase Voleer or sign up for a free account, visit the Voleer website. To learn more about Voleers new feature offerings, register here for an upcoming webinar in North America at 11 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, July 28, and here for an upcoming webinar in Singapore at 11 a.m. SGT on Wednesday, July 29.

About BitTitan

BitTitan empowers IT service professionals to successfully deploy and manage cloud technologies through automation. MigrationWiz is the industry-leading SaaS solution for mailbox, document, public-folder and Microsoft Teams migrations between a wide range of Sources and Destinations. Voleer is a solution that centralizes and automates IT tasks, helping empower IT service professionals to streamline daily operations and eliminate redundancies. Since 2009, BitTitan has moved over 19 million users to the cloud for 43,000 customers in 187 countries and supports leading cloud ecosystems including Microsoft, Google and Dropbox. The global company has offices in Seattle and Singapore. To learn more, visit www.BitTitan.com or the BitTitan blog.

For the latest news and information on Voleer, like and follow these social media channels:

Twitter: @Voleer

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View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005011/en/
Kacific has signed a five-year agreement with the Government of Tuvalu to provide the Pacific Island nation with high-speed broadband internet connectivity via satellite.

The bandwidth, supplied by Kacifics high-throughput satellite Kacific1, will connect agencies, businesses, and communities across Tuvalus nine islands with high-quality internet.

Under the agreement, Tuvalu, through the Ministry of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs, will take all available capacity  a total commitment of 150MHz  from the dedicated high-throughput beam Kacific has positioned over Tuvalus Exclusive Economic Zone. This will give Tuvalu unprecedented volume and flexibility for communications and create an immediate step change in internet availability and affordability for the nations citizens.

With Kacifics services, the capital and Outer Islands of Tuvalu will all have access to a high-quality communications infrastructure. Under the agreement, Kacific will provide a comprehensive turnkey service comprising 400Mbps to 600Mbps of satellite capacity depending on size of terminals together with 60 1.2 metre VSAT terminals (satellite dishes) for schools, medical clinics, government agencies and small businesses for immediate connection.

Additionally, Kacific will deliver 40 outdoor WiFi access points to support community connectivity with WiFi hotspots, three maritime antennae to connect ferry services, and several Ka-band antennae to provide trunking and backhaul services for the mobile phone network, which the firm will also install.

Tuvalus Minister for Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs Simon Kofe said: Through this type of agreement, the Government is currently working to majorly reform Tuvalus telecom sector in order to provide the widest possible range of efficient, reliable, and affordable telecommunications and information services to all of Tuvalu. It is hoped that these reforms will promote socio-economic development and create a modern enabling environment that encourages innovation, investment, and job creation.

Christian Patouraux, CEO and founder of Kacific, said that the agreement would enable the Government of Tuvalu to adopt a holistic approach to ensure that all its people, whether remote or urban, have equal access to high-speed internet. This approach will improve domestic and international connectivity, reduce disparities and vulnerability, and ease the burden on those living on remote islands. It will make a significant difference to education, health, business and democratic participation throughout the nation.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China revamped its Shanghai share index on Wednesday for the first time in 30 years, but critics say the changes don't go far enough to fully address distortions in the benchmark of the world's second biggest stock market.

In its first overhaul of the Shanghai Composite Index, the country's oldest index for mainland-listed A-shares, the Shanghai Stock Exchange added 25 STAR Market-listed tech companies, and removed 91 firms labeled as high-risk by the bourse. The number of index constituents stood at 1,493 on Wednesday.

The move aims to address "index distortion", the exchange has said. Between 2009 and 2019, China's annual GDP nearly tripled, but the SSEC - theoretically an economic barometer with a market capitalization of around $5.45 trillion- lost 7%. The blue-chip CSI300 index rose 15% during the period, while Shenzhen's stock benchmark gained 43%.

"The revamp doesn't live up to its purpose," said Liu Wencaifounder of risk-management consultancy D-Union who helped design China's first index futures contracts. "If you measure the length of a table with a ruler, what's the point of using a ruler that is bent?"

But even after the revamp, critics highlight some distortions in the SSEC, noting that it is still based on market value of all shares, rather than tradable stocks only - meaning the benchmark gets skewed by the extent of non-tradable shares in state-owned heavyweights, such as China Construction Bank and Sinopec.

"For state-owned companies such as banks, tradable shares represent a tiny proportion of the entire capital case," said Rocky Fan, economist at Sealand Securities.

Market participants say the index revamp also glosses over deeper issues in Chinese markets, such as a failure to weed out non-viable companies, or prevent bubbles in new stock issues.

To protect investors, the exchange is expelling from the SSEC "special treatment" (ST) shares -- the group of companies that have suffered consecutive years of losses, have unusual financial conditions or have been fined for regulatory violation.

Story continues

And, to reduce volatility, newly-listed stocks will be included in SSEC one year after their debut, instead of after 11 trading sessions previously. The top 10 companies by size will be included in three months.

Yuan Yuwei, a fund manager at Olympus Hedge Fund Investments, said the measures were like "burying your head in the sand". Instead, regulators should focus on strengthening delisting rules, and study ways to prevent "IPO froth", he said.

For institutional investors, the revamp may not matter after all as the SSEC is already fading into irrelevance. Only two Chinese mutual funds track the SSEC, and global investors mostly turn to global index publishers such as MSCI or FTSE Russell.

($1 = 6.9909 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Samuel Shen and Andrew Galbraith and Luoyan Liu; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan & Shri Navaratnam)
India is one of the most affected countries by the Covid-19 pandemic, and people are turning to spiritual and divine powers in an attempt to protect themselves from the new coronavirus.

Last month, Indian media reported on a group of women from a village in West Bengal who had decided to fight the coronavirus in their own way  by worshiping Corona Mai, or Corona Goddess. They set up a small shrine on the banks of Chinnamasta pond, near Asansol city, and started singing songs and mantras, burning incense and bringing offerings like fruits, vegetables, ghee, and jaggery. The women said that they planned to worship and pray to the goddess until she takes away the coronavirus. That may take a while

We hope that Corona devi ensures that the virus leaves us forever, a 23-year-old worshipper told The Hindu. Our offerings and chants will win us some respite from the virus.

Worshipers of Corona Mai range from women in their early 20s to old ladies in their 70s, and they all believe that the best way to help fight the pandemic is to pray to the goddess until she decides to take the coronavirus away.

We have decided to worship Corona devi every Monday and Friday till she becomes satisfied, a 56-year-old woman said.

But while this group of Corona Goddess worshipers from West Bengal set up a small outdoor shrine, one Kerala man set up a temple to worship a coronavirus goddess. As per Hindu traditions, which promote seeing a god in every molecule around us, Anilan Muhoortham, from the town of Kadakkal, worships coronavirus as a goddess.

I have established this temple for Goddess Coronavirus in accordance with the constitutional freedom to worship. Goddess Coronavirus is being worshiped here, the Kerala man said. I dedicate the temple to those health workers, scientists trying to find vaccines, police-fire & rescue officers, other media personnel, journalists and expatriates reporting the information in real-time.

Anilan is obeying the social distancing rules, so whoever wants to make an offering to he Goddess Coronavirus via his home temple can do so by courier or post. Or they can just call him to have the prasad delivered.

So if the vaccines or medical treatment for the coronavirus dont work out, I guess we have a plan B?
Scientists conduct a trial to see which existing medications could counter COVID-19.

Scientists in the United Kingdom are conducting the worlds largest randomised drug trial to see which existing medications might counter COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

It has shown that a cheap off-the-shelf steroid can work in many cases  saving the lives of one-third of critically ill patients.

In the second part of our series from inside Scottish clinics, Jonah Hull meets the medical staff at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride who have been on the front line of these drug trials.
These light, easy-drinking brews drop the calories and alcohol content, but actually still taste great

A 2003 study of 2,000 men and women in Czechia found that beer consumption didnt equal beer belly. One might suspect bias from the country with the highest annual beer consumption in the world (143.3 litersabout 38 gallonsper capita).

Namibia (really?) follows a distant second with 108 (29 gallons). Respect.

But the truth is, its all about the calories. Czechs love their pilsners, and Namibian beer is typically lagers on the light side.

Epidemiological data show mixed results about whether alcohol consumption can lead to weight or obesity problems, but beer can undoubtedly pack on the calories.

One gram of alcohol contains about 7 calories, and whether your beer is entirely fermented malted barley or a mix of wheat, rye, corn, or rice (or entirely sorghum or an equivalent, for those who cant have gluten), its coming from grains and bringing carbohydrates to the final product. The starches are converted into the sugary wort for fermentation, and what isnt turned into alcohol may remain as residual sugars, i.e., more calories. Then consider ingredients added laterfruit juices, lactosewhich bring still more.

Take, for example, a 12-ounce bottle of Leinenkugels Berry Weiss, which is only 4.7 percent ABV but still brings 207 calories and 28 grams of carbs. Thats starting to resemble a can of Coca-Cola140 calories, 38 grams of carbs (but all from sugar or corn syrup).

Drink Low-cally

Enter the low-calorie beers.

Theyve been around decades in the mass marketyou may be old enough to remember tastes great, less filling and trademarking the word Lite. (Miller Brewing tried to make lite its own, but in 1977, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said no: We hold that, because light is a generic or common descriptive word when applied to beer, neither that word nor its phonetic equivalent may be appropriated as a trademark for beer.)

The problem is, dropping calories may also be losing flavor and body. Consider Bud Select dipping to a very pale 55 calories and you may wonder why you didnt stick with water. To be fair, bottled water is pretty close in price.

But brewers are making better low-cal, sessionable beers, responding to the trend toward hard seltzers with lower calories and alcohol content. (Seltzer king White Claw comes in at 5 percent ABV with 100 calories and 2 grams of carbs for a 12-ounce can, and a White Claw 70, their new lower-calorie release, drops those numbers to 3.7 percent ABV, 70 calories, and no carbs.)

So-called session beers lower the higher alcohol content we often encounter in craft beers in many styles, making it possible to drink a couplea drinking sessionand still walk straight. Thanks to that reduction in alcohol, many of those brews land within the 135150 calorie range. Founders Brewings popular All Day IPA Session Ale slips just under the upper limit there, and tastes pretty great.

Here are a few beers that go even lowerand still taste great.

Dogfish Head Craft Brewerys Slightly Mighty Lo-Cal IPA

95 calories, 4 percent ABV, 3.6 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein

Dogfish Head Craft Brewerys Slightly Mighty Lo-Cal IPA. (Courtesy of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery)

I hadnt considered drinking beer to meet my daily protein recommendations, but I am open to the idea. This was the lowest-calorie beer I sampled, and while it is light in body, it is not so in flavor.

Monk fruit, native to China and parts of Thailand, is the latest natural miracle sweetener with no calories. Its use here allows the brewers to cut back a bit on the malted barley while retaining some body and sweetness. The hops give it some tropical aromas as well, and with numbers like that, this is tastefully enjoyable, guilt-free picnic hydration.

Deschutes Brewerys Wowza! Lo-Cal Hazy Pale Ale

100 calories, 4 percent ABV, 4 grams of carbs

Deschutes Brewerys Wowza! Lo-Cal Hazy Pale Ale. (Kevin Revolinski)

A stronger hops presence and a touch of added ingredients set many low-cal craft beers apart from the mass market light beer variety. In this case, Belgian chicory root, in addition to the oats and wheat, gives a bit of depth to this light-bodied ale. Add to that hops with a hint of fruit-juicy character one expects from the hazy style.

Deschutes Brewery also makes Da Shootz!, a 99-calorie, 4.2 percent ABV pilsner that doubles as a helpful pronunciation guide to the brewery name. Punctuation suggests you should shout it.

Allagash Brewing Co.s River Trip

128 calories, 4.8 percent ABV, 7.9 grams of carbs

Allagash Brewing Co.s River Trip. (Courtesy of Allagash Brewing Company)

This was one of the standouts in my modest sampling. A Belgian-style table beer, River Trip is brewed with local grains, spiced with coriander, and dry-hopped with Comet and Azacca hops. It just has a bit more character than the other two, and an extra hint of citrusy hops.

This may be the upper range for the category low-cal, but I think I am willing to go those extra 20 or so calories. I also like that you can get it in 12- or 16-ounce cans.

Guinness Draught

125 calories, 4.2 percent ABV, 10 grams of carbs

Guinness Draught. (Joaquin Ossorio Castillo/Shutterstock)

Dont let that darkness fool you. I admit I wouldnt have expected this in my early beer drinking years, but Guinness is actually pretty light. Bud Light has 110 calories. I will definitely take the same-as-it-ever-was, full-creamy-delicious Guinness for the extra 15.

To be clear, not all stouts are equal. Samuel Smith Imperial Stout, with 7 percent ABV, is on the lighter end of imperial stouts and clocks in with 257 calories and 21 grams of carbs (12 ounces). Crank the booze factor up to 10 percent in a barleywine or a thicker, sweet imperial stout aged in a bourbon barrel, and you are topping 350 calories, on your way to consuming as much as a Big Mac (563 calories) or a Starbucks Venti-sized Java Chip Frappuccino (510 calories).

Kevin Revolinski is an avid traveler and the author of 15 books, including The Yogurt Man Cometh: Tales of an American Teacher in Turkey and several outdoor and brewery guidebooks. He is based in Madison, Wis., and his website is TheMadTraveler.com
Police in Florida are searching for a woman who allegedly tried to steal a gigantic television which is bigger than she is from a Walmart.

Surveillance footage captured the brazen scene on Sunday afternoon in Mulberry, a town 40 miles east of Tampa.

Polk County sheriffs office posted the footage on Facebook, noting: 'Quite the bold attempt she made - trying to steal a TV that's as big, if not bigger than she is.'

The unidentified woman was caught on camera on Sunday afternoon at a Walmart near Tampa

She is seen struggling with a television set which is as large as she is, heading out the store

According to police, the suspect, accompanied by another woman, placed assorted electronics items into her cart before adding the 65" Philips TV.

The huge television, which depending on the model could sell for up to $450, sat precariously in the cart as the woman shopped.

She allegedly bypassed the checkout lines and headed for the door, but Walmart security stopped her and asked to see a receipt for the items in her cart.

They said the woman could not produce evidence that she had paid for the merchandise.

The second woman then allegedly took the smaller items from the cart and placed them in her car, and the pair fled - leaving the television behind.

Sheriffs are appealing for information leading to the arrest of the woman in Florida

The sheriffs seemed amused by the theft.

'If you're reading this before watching the video, you're probably asking yourself, "Does a 65' TV actually fit in a shopping cart?"' they wrote on Facebook.

'The logical answer to that is, "Nonot really".'

They ended their message with a series of hashtags, including 'How did that TV get into my cart' and 'Must have fallen into my cart from a shelf'.

They continued: 'Some women dream of being big TV stars. This woman dreamed of being a big TV thief.'
A Toronto city councillor says his residents have been duped, after Metrolinx abruptly pulled out of a plan to donate land in the Jane and Finch area for use as an arts and culture hub.

Anthony Perruzza (Ward 7, Humber RiverBlack Creek) said city and local representatives have been in discussions with Metrolinx for years about the parcel of land at Finch Avenue West and York Gate Boulevard, which is on the site of a maintenance and storage facility being built for the $1.2-billion Finch West LRT.

The councillor said the provincial transit agency had provided assurances that once construction of the facility was finished, Metrolinx would turn over a portion of the property to the city to build an arts and culture centre. But last week, the agency sent Perruzza an email saying it now plans to sell the land instead.

It feels like weve been duped. It feels like weve been misled all along, Perruzza said, adding the city would never be able to outbid developers if Metrolinx puts the property up for sale.

Debra Eklove, co-chair of the Community Action Planning Group, said she was shocked by Metrolinxs U-turn. Her organization has spent five years working on plans for the proposed Jane-Finch Community Hub and Centre for the Arts, and received funding through the Ontario Trillium Foundation for a feasibility study of the project. The group had also drafted a business plan for the facility.

Theres been many steps taken with the understanding that this piece of land will be for the communitys benefit, Eklove said.

The site of the planned culture hub is just west of the intersection of Jane and Finch on the border between Black Creek and Glenfield-Jane Heights, two of Torontos designated neighbourhood improvement areas. More than a quarter of residents in the two neighbourhoods live in low-income households and unemployment is several percentage points higher than the citywide average.

Perruzza said the LRT lands represented a glowing opportunity to provide a new central amenity in a community where residents often have to travel far to access services. The idea was partly inspired by the Daniels Spectrum, a 60,000 square foot cultural centre built in Regent Park in 2012 to provide space for performances, exhibitions, community gatherings, and youth programming.

A 2019 description of the Jane Finch arts hub published by Community Action Planning Group said the centre would be a place where community members can explore their passions and grow their knowledge and skills and address a long-standing need in the community for a central space and neutral location for the residents to come together.

The hub was also planned to help combat the stigmatization of the Jane-Finch community, which has historically suffered from higher rates of some types of crime. We see the proposed community hub as an opportunity to reject current stereotypes, reduce harm and trauma, and restore trust and hope within the neighbourhood, the CAPG document said.

Eklove said that while her group was blindsided by Metrolinxs about-face, they wont give up.

I think that in this part of Toronto there is a great need for this facility, and I look forward to Metrolinx reversing their decision, she said.

In the July 14 email to Coun. Perruzza, Luiza Sadowski, senior manager of community relations for Metrolinx, acknowledged that early conversations in the project cycle referenced a possibility of divestment at less than market value to be considered for the lands.

While well-intentioned, this consideration had not been properly internally vetted or approved as a reasonable option, Sadowski wrote.

She said that as a responsible landowner Metrolinx has a duty to follow a rigorous process of land review before divestment. As a result of that review, Metrolinx expects to put the land to market when it is no longer needed for the project. The LRT is expected to open in 2023.

Perruzza said that prior to last week, Metrolinx, which bought the property in 2011, had seemed on board with the arts hub plan. In 2016, the agency agreed to include a 32-metre setback from Finch in designs for the LRT facility in order to free up the land for future community use. Public consultation documents the agency released last year stated the setback would be used for future City urban development after construction is completed.

Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said in pulling out of the arts hub plan the agency is acting in accordance with the Ontario governments realty directive, which sets out provincial agencies responsibilities regarding the disposition of surplus property.

Aikins cited the high value of the land as a reason Metrolinx is obligated to put it to market, but declined to say how much the agency believes the property is worth. The city estimates its value at $7 to 9 million.

Metrolinx has engaged with the City of Toronto to explore different options to find the best solution possible to support this community hub project. We look forward to continuing to work with the City and the community as the project advances, Aikins said.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation for the Star. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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Discovery Green's long-awaited "House of Cards" exhibit will finally debut this August during a drive-thru carnival featuring performers, music and live models that Houstonians can experience from the safety of their cars.

The exhibit, which features life-size playing cards that display works from 20 local artists and is illuminated at night with choreographed lights, was originally set to open in the spring before the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Texas. Variations of the exhibit have been displayed in cities across the globe and come August, Houston will be the next city to host the installation.
Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) - Tunisian security units Tuesday arrested dozens of Tunisians attempting to cross illegally the maritime borders for Europe from several coastal points, security sources said here
NORTH KOREA- State Commission of Science and Technology announced that government scientists had started the initial stage of human trials for a vaccine candidate as they join the not less than 30 coronavirus vaccines human testings worldwide joining the race to end the pandemic on Saturday according to the Korea Herald.

In a statement, it is mentioned that there is no case of coronavirus in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, that is why the scientists need to check the shot's effectiveness and conduct trials abroad.

Thus, this raises a question on why the hermit kingdom, a nation that struggles with their health care system and relies on the world health organization for vaccines and other drugs will invest in a vaccine for COVID-19 which they claim is not affecting its citizens.

Moreover, numerous public health experts shared with the New York Times that they were skeptical of North Korea's claim that they have zero cases of coronavirus back in March.

Harvard Medical School lecturer and worked in North Korea, Kee Park, suggested that the country claims they have zero cases because they were not able to run enough testing to suffice their needs in detecting the disease.

Park added that instead of saying they do not have any cases, they should say that they have not confirmed it.

Read also: 3 Common Myths and Misconceptions About Vaccine Debunked

On January 30, North Korea imposed a closure on their border making it harder for outsiders to know what is happening inside the authoritarian state.

Contrary to the claims of the government, there are reports of deaths seemingly caused by COVID-19, aside from that it also includes the 200 North Korean soldiers which cause of death is COVID-19 in March, based on the information given out by the South Korean publication Daily NK, CNN reported.

The early response of North Korea is closing its borders and conduct tens of thousands of people may have prevented the outbreak to be severe compared to its neighboring countries such as South Korea and China.

Even the hermit state has some cases of the virus, it will still be difficult for them to study the efficiency of the vaccine within their borders unless there is an ongoing outbreak. They need to check whether the vaccine really works as it needs to be tested on hundreds and thousands of people exposed to the virus.

As of the moment, the world does not know about the status of North Korea against coronavirus or a vaccine trial has been completed under the hermit state's soil.

While there is still a blackout in terms of North Korea's information and claims zero cases amidst the pandemic, it is not new as other countries fail to report the exact numbers. In Mexico, they are failing to report hundreds or thousands of cases in Mexico City alone.

In Brazil, the government stopped the data sharing of COVID-19 related information in June until it was resumed by their supreme court. And insufficient testing in the United States reflects the need for testing as their numbers are lower compared to their real current status.

Related article: Moderna Leads the COVID-19 Vaccine Race, Set to Begin Final Phase of Trials by End of July

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
She's been posting a plethora of bikini-clad selfies from her sun-soaked family getaway to Marbella.

And Natalya Wright, 19, continued to highlight her model figure as she shared another sizzling swimsuit snap via Instagram on Tuesday.

The younger sister of former TOWIE stars Mark and Jessica Wright accentuated her toned midriff in a stylish white two-piece from online retailer Revolve.

Sizzling: Natalya Wright, 19, continued to highlight her model figure as she shared another sizzling swimsuit snap via Instagram on Tuesday

The brunette beauty's bardot style bikini top featured ruffle sleeves which complemented her golden tan.

Natayla also sported a pair of matching high-waisted bikini bottoms, which also featured ruffle detailing around her midriff.

The Essex beauty complemented her fashionable swimsuit display by working her hair in a half up, half down style held in place with a polka dot silk scarf.

Writing alongside her post, she penned: 'Still trying to come to terms with the fact that I am actually at a beach club, in another country in 2020.. Mind blown'.

Getting chic done: The younger sister of former TOWIE stars Mark and Jessica Wright accentuated her toned midriff in a stylish white two-piece from online retailer Revolve

Golden: The brunette beauty's bardot style bikini top featured ruffle sleeves which complemented her golden tan

Natalya has been making the most of her time in Marbella, having jetted off to the Spanish destination as lockdown restrictions eased and has been sharing plenty of swimwear selfies since landing.

The brunette was scouted by Select Model Management, who have Daisy Lowe, Sam Rollison and David Gandy on their books, at the age of just 16.

But with work commitments on hold she has made the most of recently relaxed lockdown restrictions by jetting off to Majorca for a hastily booked holiday with sister Jess, who is expected to marry fiance William Lee-Kemp on the island in June 2021.

Speaking to HELLO! magazine in June, Jess explained that Majorca has been like a second home to her as her family have a house on the island.

All in the details: Natayla also sported a pair of matching high-waisted bikini bottoms, which also featured ruffle detailing around her midriff

Stunning: Natalya has been sharing a plethora of swimwear shots from her trip

She said: 'I've been dreaming of a fairytale wedding since I was little, when I used to dress up in my mum's net curtains.

'Now I can't wait for the moment I've been imagining for so long, walking up the aisle in a fabulous dress to marry Will.'

Of the location, she added: 'We've enjoyed some amazing holidays here and I practically grew up on the island because it's where my family has a second home.'

It's understood that sister-in-law Michelle Keegan will serve as a bridesmaid when the couple do finally exchange vows.
Heathrow has blamed chaotic scenes at the airport on holiday-makers arriving too early, as passengers complain there were 'no staff managing massive queues'.

Footage posted on Twitter shows throngs of people standing close to each other and wearing face masks while waiting in a long line at the airport's Terminal 2.

The video was captioned: 'Heathrow Airport T2 entry has no social distancing... long queue with people bumping into each other, no system in place and where are your staff managing this?

Footage posted to Twitter, above, on July 19 shows people standing close to each other and wearing face masks while standing in a long line at the airport's Terminal 2

Heathrow airport responded to the footage, reminding they have 'clear signage' and 'ask passengers to keep a safe distance from others', with face coverings mandatory

'Chaos with people coming out of the elevators and zero instruction.'

Airport bosses responded to the footage on Sunday: 'We have clear signage across the airport and ask passengers to keep a safe distance from others, and that face coverings must be worn at all times.'

But the social media user claimed staff were 'bunched up at the filter section' and passengers were 'coming out of lifts with no instruction or idea what to do'.

In response, Heathrow Airport said: 'We apologise for any inconvenience, we will pass this along to our relevant team. Thank you.'

Meanwhile, Motorsport.com's Jon Noble posted pictures of crowded scenes at the airport on Monday complaining of 'packed queues' at Terminal 5's passport control.

Another social media user tweeted images of a long queue of passengers at border control, captioning: 'Welcome to Heathrow... please join the queue.'

Heathrow's chief executive John Holland-Kaye has previously said social distancing will not work at airports due to the 'lack of space'.

In May, he wrote in The Telegraph: 'Forget social distancing  it won't work in aviation or any other form of public transport, and the problem is not the plane, it is the lack of space in the airport.

Other social media users also posted crowded scenes at Heathrow airport, with one complaining of 'packed queues' at Terminal 5's passport control

'Just one jumbo jet would require a queue a kilometre long.'

He then suggested other possible measures to prevent the spread of the virus, such as health checks upon entering the terminal, surgical masks, less contact between passengers and staff and 'fantastic levels' of hygiene at the airport.

A spokesperson for Heathrow Airport told MailOnline: 'We are aware that some passengers are arriving several hours in advance of their flights which is not necessary and causing some congestion issues.

'To prevent this, passengers are advised to arrive no earlier than 2 hours before a short-haul flight and 3 hours for long-haul journeys.

'Our teams are on hand to support where possible, but we recognise that there are points in the journey where social distancing is not always possible.

'That is why face coverings are mandatory in terminals, as they help to reduce the risk of transmission at the airport.'
by Shafique Khokhar

The destruction was taped. According to Abdus Samad Khan, head of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwas archaeological department, the vandalised Buddha statue was 1,700 years old. Its broken pieces were recovered to be assessed for their archaeological value.

Mardan (AsiaNews)  Last Friday, an ancient statue of Buddha was vandalised in Takht Bahi, Mardan district (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).

The statue was destroyed as un-Islamic by the workers who found it (pictured) whilst digging to lay the foundations of a house.

The ancient artefact belongs to the historic Gandhara civilisation which encompassed the region of modern-day north-western Pakistan, more or less Peshawar valley and the lower valleys of the Kabul and Swat rivers.

Gandhara is the old name for the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is highly revered by Buddhists and is deemed an important regional site of Buddhist civilisation.

On Saturday, videos of the destruction went viral on social media. They show a man breaking the statue with a big hammer, with other men expressing their approval and some taping the whole thing.

Pakistani media have reported that four people involved in the incident were arrested.

In 2017, two rare and ancient Buddha statues were found in Bhamala, an archaeological site in Hariput district. The largest statue ever found on the site depicts Buddhas death whilst the second statue was a Buddha with a double halo.

According to Abdus Samad Khan, head of the provinces archaeology department, the vandalised Buddha statue was 1,700 years old; the broken pieces were recovered to assess their archaeological value.

Following the incident, various news channels and social media discussed the protection of others' beliefs in the country.

Whilst the Pakistani constitution respects all religions and all faiths are sacred for their followers, many activists and leaders have come out against the destruction of the statue of Buddha. For Samad Khan, it was a "crime" and showed "disrespect for religion".

Later, police arrested a local contractor and five other people suspected of breaking antiquity regulations.

Two rare and ancient Buddha statues were unearthed in Hariput district in 2017, noted Mansha Noor, executive secretary of Caritas Pakistan in Karachi,

Breaking this ancient statue of lord Buddha shows ignorance of history and a lack of education, Mansha said. Our country is filled with minerals and hidden history. We need to educate our nation about other owners of this land.

In ancient times, Gandhara was a trading and cultural crossroads linking India, Central Asia and the Middle East.
The EU budget cuts to research and Erasmus are not acceptable, Reuters reported referring to the European Parliament head David Sassoli.

There is a proposal on the table, but we would like to improve that, above all by trying to give answers to some of the cuts that weve deemed unjustified, he told a news conference a day after European Union leaders agreed on 1.1 trillion euro ($1.27 trillion) budget for the bloc from 2021-27.

We cannot cut the budget for research and young people and Erasmus, we cant, he added.

According to him, talks on the long-term budget would be needed before parliament approves it, but the assembly was already 'very satisfied' with an attached EUR 750 billion fund to help EU economies recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sassoli said a final parliament vote on both packages would be in a couple of months.
Australia could be plunged into $213billion of debt within just 12 months thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

The government had hoped to deliver the first surplus since 2007-08, forecasting a $5billion surplus for 2019-20 and a $6.1billion surplus for the current financial year.

But a horrifying graph shows the government's balance sheet going in the opposite direction.

The country's debt has been ballooning thanks to a drop in revenue and increasing outgoings, with economists now predicting a deficit of more than $200billion for the 2021/22 financial year.

A record deficit of more than $85billion for the current financial year is also expected.

The Reserve Bank has backed the Morrison government's plans to increase debt levels.

The country's debt has been ballooning thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and economists are now predicting a deficit of more than $200 billion for the next financial year - which is -11% of GDP

Australians have been warned to brace for 'eye-watering' national debts when the latest budget numbers are released (Pictured: the Prime Minister meeting businessmen on Monday)

On Tuesday Scott Morrison announced the JobSeeker payment, which currently helps 3.5million Australians, would be reduced in phases as the economy recovers from coronavirus lockdown (pictured: dozens of people lining up outside Centrelink in Melbourne in April)

The bank's governor Philip Lowe said the government needed to use its balance sheet to reduce the severity of the downturn.

'The biggest policy mistake to make at the moment would be to withdraw support too early,' he told the Australian Financial Review.

Dr Lowe said the government was in a good position to keep borrowing and provide fiscal support for a sustainable economic recovery.

'For a country that has got used to low budget deficits and low levels of public debt, this is quite a change.

'But it is a change that is entirely manageable and affordable, and it's the right thing to do.'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will update the nation on the budget position on Thursday.

Mr Frydenberg has admitted the country will remain in deficit for some years to come.

'You're going to see eye-watering numbers around debt and deficit, numbers that Australians have never seen before,' Mr Frydenberg told Nine on Wednesday.

Cafes and restaurants were forced to close or offer takeaway only when the coronavirus crisis escalated in March (Pictured: A closed cafe in Melbourne on July 9)

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured on Tuesday) has tempered expectations of big spending commitments on Thursday. He said it was 'about just reconciling the books'

'That's the harsh reality of this pandemic. The coronavirus has required the government to spend unprecedented amounts of money to support people in need.

Unemployment during June amid COVID-19 Australia's unemployment rate climbed from a 19-year high of 7.1 per cent in May to 7.4 per cent in June - the highest since November 1998 Number without work climbed from 923,000 to a record-high 992,300 Close to a million people unemployed for the first time ever - surpassing 960,200 record set in December 1992 Unemployment increased even though 210,800 more people were employed as COVID-19 shutdowns eased That was because the participation rate increased from 62.7 per cent to 64 per cent as more people looked for work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data for June Advertisement

'We've also taken a big hit on the revenue side because obviously businesses are not making the profits they were, people are not in jobs in the same numbers they were.'

Ahead of the economic update, the government announced an extension of coronavirus job support payments.

The $20.4 billion extension on the JobKeeper and JobSeeker scheme is worth about 1 per cent of GDP.

The payment was due to end on September 27, but instead it will be decreased from $1,500 to $1,200-a-fortnight.

A lower rate of $750-a-fortnight will go to people who worked fewer than 20 hours a week in February, before coronavirus struck.

The two-tiered system has been brought in because one in four casuals are earning more on JobKeeper than when they worked.

From 4 January, the payments will be reduced to $1,000-a-fortnight for full time staff and to $650-a-fortnight for those who worked fewer than 20 hours.

Fewer businesses will be eligible for JobKeeper as they must continue to prove a revenue decline of 30 per cent compared to the period before coronavirus.

Many will not meet this threshold because business has picked up since lockdown ended.

One million people are still expected to receive the payment from January, down from 3.5 million now.
The trailer for a new hilarious Tauranga-based comedy series Chloe and the has been launched tonight, a week ahead of the pilot.

The dramedy produced by Barefoot Film is set in Mount Maunganui.

It features local Tauranga actors with a soundtrack from local band L.A.B who are currently storming the NZ music scene, and was written by Tauranga screenwriter Alyssa Stringfellow.

Alyssa also stars in the series as Chloe, a woman who just cant seem to sort out her chaotic life. She is joined by some well-known faces including Survivor Nicaragua runner up Tom Paterson, and Luci Hare from the television series Mean Mums and Auckward Love.

Each episode has its own title, based on Chloe and the  with the pilot aptly named Chloe and the Crash Test.

Im really excited to see the culmination of all of our hard work come to life and to be seen by hopefully the masses, says Alyssa.

The pilot was filmed with help from Film Bay of Plenty, with the cast and crew of 47 people made up of local talent. The pilot was shot over three days with the support of Priority One, Tauranga City Council, Tauranga Airport and the Millenium Hotel in Rotorua.

Filming was completed in the week before NZ went into lockdown. The post production work has continued on since then, culminating in the launch of the trailer today, and the pilot itself in a week.

This is a really fantastic project that Film Bay of Plenty has been supporting the development of for the last 18 months, says Film Bay of Plenty manager Anton Steel.

Now that the pilot has been filmed, funding will be sought to continue filming the remainder of the series.

We would really love it to see it come to fruition and provide jobs and income for the film community in Tauranga and the wider Bay of Plenty region, says Anton.

The film community has been growing rapidly in Tauranga over the last two to three years with directors, producers, stunt people, actors and filmmakers relocating to the Bay.

Alyssa has acted in Shortland Street, Home and Away and Rescue Special Ops before writing and starring in Chloe And The Crash Test. Originally from Australia, she is now based in Mount Maunganui with her partner and focusing largely on her career.

Known mostly for his time on popular television show, Survivor, Tom Paterson is another local, based in Mount Maunganui with his wife, model and actress Christina Macpherson.

Chris Mac, another member of the principal cast has appeared on numerous broadcast programmes as well as now being a lead actor in Chloe and the Crash Test.

A fun-loving character, Lucy Hare completes the cast. She has been the lead in Shop Girls and Awkward, as well as appearing in Mean Mums, The Brokenwood Mysteries and Stepdave.

The series is being produced by Paula Jones of Barefoot Films. Paula is also the producer of the multi award -winning feature documentary Hip Hop-eration. Previously Head of Production and Development at South Seas Film and Television School she has also worked as a production co-ordinator for TVNZ and currently has a slate of productions in development.

Producing Chloe showed me just how much talent there is in the Bay of Plenty, says Paula. Im proud of what the cast and crew have achieved.

Anton, who has worked in the film industry for over 20 years as a director, producer and assistant director on major productions including Narnia, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon II and Brief to Terebithia 11, also directed Chloe and the Crash Test.

Filmmaker Chris Matthews lead the film crew. A Tauranga-based DOP cinematographer, Chris is recognised for his work on the NZ classic comedy web series High Road, and TV3s recent comedy series Mean Mums. His cinematography credits include Power Rangers, Cul de Sac, Beyond the Darklands, Descent from Disaster, and Westside  Season 5.

Alyssa was keen to showcase the Mount Maunganui area in the comedy series.

Its about time our regional communities are represented in film. There is so much beauty to be found in some of our smaller towns and its nice to be a part of a project highlighting that, says Alyssa.

This makes me hungrier to work harder than ever to achieve what we need to so that we can fulfil the rest of our dream which is making the entire series here.

I am beyond grateful to everyone who has given their time for free on our project and so grateful to everyone that watches it.

The production team are asking for funding to make the eight-episode series, and welcome any donations via the website www.chloeandthe.com .

Thank you in advance for your support, says Alyssa.

The 40 second trailer has been concurrently launched tonight on the website www.chloeandthe.com, on Instagram  www.instagram.com/chloeandthe and on Facebook - www.facebook.com/ChloeAndThe
The Sudanese army has threatened activists and journalists with lawsuits for insulting the military on 18 July. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) had condemned the blanket threat and called on military forces to stop intimidating the press and respect freedom of expression.

Sudan: Army threatens journalists and activists with lawsuits

The Sudanese army has threatened activists and journalists with lawsuits for insulting the military on 18 July. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) had condemned the blanket threat and called on military forces to stop intimidating the press and respect freedom of expression.

A statement issued on 18 July by the military said Legal action would be taken against activists, journalists and others both inside and outside Sudan." The armed forces took this decision after "systematic insults and accusations crossed the bounds of patience", which they argued formed " part of a plan targeting the countrys army and security system.

The threat is a response to activists and rights groups in Sudan accusing the army of blocking investigation into the killing of scores of protesters on 3 June 2019 when the security forces broke up a sit-in outside the defence ministry. The army had denied these allegations and insisted that those who committed offenses would be punished.

The General Secretary of the IFJ, Anthony Bellanger, said that the Sudanese army's statement is "a blanket threat to freedom of expression, media freedom and the citizens right to access information in Sudan. The statement in its entirety is overloaded with threats against activists and journalists and this is unacceptable. It is clear that the military intends to intimidate and harass activists and journalists to silencing them."

The IFJ calls on the Transitional Government of Sudan to respect citizens right to freedom of expression in compliance with internationally recognised norms and to demonstrate tolerance regarding freedom of assembly and other fundamental rights as enshrined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
China: Churches shuttered, turned into cultural centers promoting socialist values

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As part of Chinas ongoing crackdown on Christianity, Communist authorities have converted a number of state-approved Three-Self churches into cultural centers promoting President Xi Jinping's socialist values.

Persecution watchdog China Aid reports that recently, Flowing Stream Church in Funing Countys Yangzai township, Jiangsu province was forcibly occupied by officials with China's Communist Party and converted to Yangzai Township Flowing Stream Village Cultural Service Center.

The church had previously been disbanded by the local United Front Department and was accused of occupying villages cultural base.

A local villager told China Aid that now, the building is used to promote President Xis core socialist values and spread positive energy instead of the Gospel.

Another church in the vicinity, Beizhouzhuang Church, was converted to Beizhouzhuang Cultural Compound after the members voluntarily donated the venue for the village (according to the government). The church was also first disbanded last October for not having the right registration, according to China Aid.

In recent years, numerous reports have emerged of Chinese authorities replacing crosses with the CCP flag and images of Jesus Christ with President Xi, and converting churches into buildings for political activities.

These activities are part of a larger strategy on the part of the CCP to shut down any kind of organizing outside of the party, according to persecution watchdog Open Doors USA.

The organization, which ranks China 23rd on its list of 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, notes that all churches are perceived as a threat if they become too large, too political, or invite foreign guests.

In April, a believer in the Yangbu town said local authorities demolished the cross of a Three-Self church, with plans to convert the 300-square-meter church into a facility for the elderly.

It was also reported that amid the coronavirus outbreak, poor Christian villagers in several provinces were ordered to renounce their faith and replace displays of Jesus with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi or risk losing their welfare benefits.

David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA who was in China on a fact-finding trip days before COVID-19 emerged from Wuhan province, witnessed firsthand how the Chinese government is using mass surveillance and data modeling to monitor and punish citizens who choose to attend church or share religious material.

The forced closure of thousands of churches and the removal of crosses from buildings are now-commonplace tactics by the Chinese government in order to limit, if not extinguish, Christian practice, Curry wrote in an op-ed. Chinas totalitarian ambition to build a god-as-government state is motivating the steady eradication of religious practice, at any cost.

China, an officially atheist country, has also been accused of engaging in human rights crimes against other religious minority groups, including Uighur Muslims, Falun Gong practitioners, and Tibetan Buddhists.

Last year, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said during a trip to Hong Kong that the CCP is at war with faith.

Its a war they will not win, Brownback declared, according to reports. The Chinese Communist Party must hear the cry of its people for religious freedom.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that federal agents will soon deploy to Chicago to combat violence, escalating his administrations Operation Legend crackdown which has been maligned by local officials and lawmakers who insist that the president is using federal resources to interfere in local law enforcement to boost his re-election campaign.

In the wake of nationwide protests over systemic racism following the police killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans, Trump, who expressed sympathy for Floyd, argues that American cities have become increasingly violent.

Speaking from the East Room of the White House Wednesday, Trump and Attorney General William Barr claimed, without offering direct evidence, that the escalating violence in multiple cities was a direct result of efforts to defund and attack police departments in cities nationwide.

This bloodshed must end, Trump said, citing increases in homicides in Chicago, Albuquerque, Philadelphia and New York.

No citizens have suffered more from the menace of violent crime than the wonderful people of Chicago, Trump said. He noted that more than 400 people have been murdered in the city this year, a roughly 50% increase over the same time period last year.

The Department of Justice, FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Marshals will send hundreds of skilled law enforcement officers to Chicago to help drive down violent crime, Trump said.

The president has consistently infused politics into the operation, threatening to send federal agents to Democratic-led cities and depicting them as dominated by anarchists. He didnt mention Democrats by name Wednesday, but the president accused the far-left of stoking violence.

We will not stand by and watch it happen, Trump said. No mother should have to cradle her dead child in her arms simply because politicians refused to do what was necessary to secure their neighborhood or city.

The Operation Legend initiative, which involves surging federal agents and other federal assets into American cities, is named after LeGend Taliferro, a 4-year-old who was shot and killed as he slept on June 29 in Kansas City.

The president, who did not take questions during the news conference, also announced that the federal government would make $61 million available to cities to hire and train more police officers.

We must remember that the job of policing a neighborhood falls on the shoulders of local elected leadership, the president added.

Local leaders this week have demanded that the president do just that  let local law enforcement do its job.

Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.  Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 21, 2020

Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Twitter on Tuesday night.

In Portland, the repeated use of aggressive tactics by federal officers against protesters, including detentions without giving defendants Miranda rights, has sparked larger crowds and attracted nationwide scrutiny, OregonLive reported.

Several lawmakers in Oregon and across the nation argue its the federal agents, not protesters, inciting violence.

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said Wednesday that agents in Portland were protecting federal property, whereas in Chicago, they would assist local law enforcement to reduce violent crime.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh joined several other mayors in a letter to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to express concern that federal officers used significant force against protesters on a nightly basis in Portland, Oregon. The leaders urged federal officials to cease any further unilateral deployments in U.S. cities.

While we have no information that Boston is being targeted, I want to make absolutely clear that behavior and that type of so-called help is not welcome here in the city of Boston, Walsh said at a news conference outside City Hall, State House News Service reported. Its being done with no communication and working with no local elected or no public safety agency in those different cities. Its being done with no regard for the rights or safety of protesters and appears to be needlessly escalating the situation.

Joe Biden, the likely Democratic presidential nominee whom Trump has tried to link with increasing violence, said in a statement provided to MassLive that the presidents tactics were egregious.

We need a president who will bring us together instead of tear us apart, calm instead of inflame, and enforce the law faithfully rather than put his political interests first, Biden said.

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After deleting his post on late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, actor Samir Soni has clarified that he did not do so under threat or in fear of actor Kangana Ranaur. He shared a note clarifying his stance and insisted that Bollywood bashing must stop.

Samirs note read, I wish to clarify a few points that have been mentioned about me in media. 1) I deleted my post about Sushant Singh Rajput out of my respect for my fans who felt I let them down. And NOT because of fear of Kanganas wrath. 2. As far as Sushants mental health is concerned. I NEVER CLAIMED THAT IT WAS TRUE!!! as there is no way for me to get that kind of information. All I said was the hundreds of reports regarding him being in treatment for depression or bipolar at Hinduja also needed to be investigated. if indeed they are true or not. Whether he was getting proper treatment or not. No ones calling him a -psycho- infact he was probably bordering on being a genius.

The note added, 3. I was on republic TV debate recently and I was told that there was going to be a debate that to survive in the industry you need nepotism and my, argument was nepotism can only give you a little push but you cannot sustain without talent But when the debate opened I was put to defend the so called Bollywood Mafia which I had no interest in. After the show republic tv team was kind enough to apologize for the mix up.

Samir said that he was livid after watching Kanganas interview as she was busy mudslinging others instead of talking about Sushant. 4. The night before, I had seen kanganas interview with Arnab. And instead of speaking about Sushant, she was busy mud slinging at various notable personalities like Javed Akhtar and new talent like tapsee and swara, calling them B grade actress. And I was livid. Its only so much unsubstantiated slander one can tolerate. Yes indeed our industry is not perfect but Im PROUD of it. It gives livelihood and opportunity to millions. If Kangana hates the industry soo much, why does she continue to be part of it and make millions off it.

Im fed up of this industry-bashing and no one standing against it. I will!!!! Hope you will too, he added.



He posted the note and wrote, Wrote this last night, hope my fraternity joins me. If not I will do it myself. ENOUGH OF BOLLYWOOD BASHING!! #nomorebollywoodbashing.

Samir had written in an Instagram post, Ive said this before, Sushant Singh Rajputs death is a huge tragedy and he deserves justice. But, I am against anyone (including Kangana) who is using his death to settle their own personal scores. Deplorable! Stop shooting your gun off a poor dead mans shoulder. Have at least that must respect and for Gods sake Kangana stop comparing yourself with Sushant. The comments come after Kanganas interview with Republic TVs Arnab Goswami, in which she alleged that Sushants career was sabotaged by Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar. She claimed that he was given no acknowledgement for his achievements and declared a flop star.

Also read: Manisha Koirala says situation during coronavirus pandemic seems easy: Ive faced a worse storm in my life

Sushant died by suicide on June 14 and did not leave behind a suicide note. The Mumbai Police are currently investigating the case.

About deleting the post, Samir had told Hindustan Times, I was trolled by so many of Kangana Ranauts fans. I thought I had made my point, but there were so many saying all kinds of stuff, so I said theres no point carrying on with it, I took it off. Not that I think I wrote anything wrong.

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PHILADELPHIA, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- OneClick.chat, an innovative video chat platform, announced today that it has been awarded an additional $1.8 Million from the prestigious National Institute of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research grant, in partnership with researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This additional award builds to a total of over $2 Million awarded to OneClick.chat from the NIH via its National Institute on Aging division. This funding will be used to continue OneClick.chat's research with UIUC into how its video technology can be used to prevent social isolation and improve quality of life and health outcomes in older adults, including those with mild cognitive impairment.

OneClick.chat is a web-based video chat platform that is known for its ease of use and provides users with accessible and fun ways to connect with others using technology, including grouping those who don't know each other based on interests, encouraging socialization and potentially leading to the formation of new friendships.

During Phase I, the startup partnered with Drs. Wendy Rogers and Raksha Mudar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to study the unique needs of older adults at risk for social isolation and how they use technology. They were interested to learn whether a platform like OneClick.chat can be used easily to socially engage older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment. The company plans to build on this research through its Phase II grant, developing additional content for users, demonstrating the improved quality of life for older adults through social activities that use technology, and partnering with home and community-based organizations to allow them to utilize the service in their community outreach.

"We are thrilled at the opportunity to continue studying how our technology can improve the lives of those most at risk for social isolation and the issues that come with it," said OneClick.chat CEO Dillon Myers. "Being awarded this Phase II grant funding by the NIH is further validation that what we are doing is important. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the University of Illinois in this mission."

OneClick.chat will continue its study in partnership with Dr. Wendy Rogers, Director of the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory and Dr. Raksha Mudar, Director of the Aging and Neurocognition Laboratory.

"Dr. Mudar and I have been interested in social engagement for older adults for quite a long time already," Dr. Rogers said. "This technology is designed with their needs and capabilities in mind. We are excited to continue research and bring this beneficial technology to more older adults as soon as possible."

Dr. Mudar explained that one of the participants in the first study summed up OneClick.chat perfectly saying, "It's like having a friend at the touch of a button."

About OneClick.chat

Founded in 2016, OneClick.chat is a web-based video chat platform, based in Philadelphia. A cross generational team, founders Dillon Myers and Alan Gibson, worked to design a platform that made it easy for anyone, especially older adults, to join and participate in video-based meetings and events. OneClick.chat does not require users to download any software or use logins, allowing users to access chat rooms with a simple and shareable URL.

About University of Illinois Research Team

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has an initiative focused on Collaborations in Health, Aging, Research, and Technology (CHART https://chart.ahs.illinois.edu/), led by Dr. Wendy Rogers. The vision for this effort is to Harness Technology to Support Successful Aging. CHART is housed within the College of Applied Health Sciences, which has a mission to advance research, instruction, and public engagement that promotes the development of healthy, livable communities, facilitates optimal living with disability and promotes health and wellness across the lifespan.

DISCLAIMER

This project is supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44 AG059450-02A1. The content is solely the responsibility of OneClick.chat and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health

Media Contact: Erik Yorke, Interdependence Public Relations, (330) 416-2461, [email protected]

SOURCE OneClick.chat
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  Embattled journalist and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa said she pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to tax evasion, one of five tax-related cases against her.

Ressa, entered her plea at the Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 157, where she was charged for giving incorrect information on Rappler's VAT return in 2015 and for not paying over 200,000 in taxes, according to Rappler.

The string of charges against the former CNN journalist have been widely criticized as an attack on press freedom after her news outfit published stories critical of the Duterte administration, including its drug war that has left thousands of suspects dead.

Ressa said during the hearing, the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Internal Revenue asked to amend the charge against her to include Rappler Holdings Corporation, which the judge accepted.

She questioned the timing of the amendment, which was right before her arraignment even though the case was filed two years ago.

"The information or the charge sheet for the criminal charge for the five tax evasion charges was written in such a hasty manner that they forgot to put the company, they only included the target individual, Maria Ressa," she told reporters. "I can only laugh."

CNN Philippines is waiting for response to its request comment from DOJ and BIR.

Just last month, Ressa  one of Time magazine's Persons of the Year in 2018  was convicted for cyber libel along with a former Rappler staffer. She was slapped with another cyber libel charge the same month.

The court has since allowed Ressa to remain free on bail.

Ressa has accused the Duterte government of abusing its power and using the law to silence independent media.
A call about shots fired Wednesday on Belews Creek Road in Winston-Salem brought a SWAT team, including an armored-personnel carrier, in support of a parole officer, authorities said.

Winston-Salem police blocked traffic nearby on Old Greensboro Road, and the situation lasted roughly an hour. No one was shot, said an officer on the scene.

Cars responded shortly after the call came in around noon. Traffic was blocked on Old Greensboro Road at its intersection of Glenbrook Drive.

The other side of Old Greensboro Road, which connects with Fifth Street, was already closed for construction.

At around 1 p.m., units left the scene, and the situation appeared to be over.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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The United States has ordered the closure of Chinas consulate in Houston, escalating tensions between the worlds largest economies as Donald Trump ramps up pressure against the country ahead of the November election.

The closure marked a dramatic step in increasingly contentious relations that have been strained not only by the conronavirus pandemic but disputes over trade, human rights, Hong Kong and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.

The decision comes less than 24 hours after US prosecutors charged two Chinese hackers over attempts to steal US research on Covid-19 vaccines.

The State Department said it ordered the consulate to be closed within 72 hours after alleging that Chinese agents have tried to steal data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system statewide and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston.

Morgan Ortagus, a spokesperson for the State Department, said: We have directed the closure of PRC Consulate General Houston, in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

China said on Wednesday the consulates closure is an unprecedented escalation, and that it would retaliate without US revocation.

China is now considering ordering the closure of the US consulate in Wuhan, according to a source. The US has four other Chinese consulates in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Shenyang  in addition to its Beijing embassy.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate would continue to operate as normal.

Papers were being burnt on the consulate grounds late on Tuesday night, a common practice when a diplomatic post is being shuttered on short notice.

Houston police officers responded to call at the Chinese consulate building, where smoke was observed in an outdoor courtyard area. Officers were not allowed to enter the building.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, added Mr Wang.

We urge the US to immediately revoke this erroneous decision. Should it insist on going down this wrong path, China will react with firm countermeasures, he said.

Mr Wang also accused the US government of harassing Chinese diplomats and consular staff, as well as intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices, even detaining them.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
"The tradition of blowing out candles on a cake has always kind of grossed me out, to be honest, even before COVID-19," says Caissie St. Onge, a comedy writer and television producer in Los Angeles. "I played the trumpet for years, and have always known too well just how much spit a person's breath contains." Sure, she's gone along with it at family parties  "it makes for a festive moment and better pictures," she says  but unless the candle-blower is her husband or her kid, she's passing on dessert. "Why would I want to eat something I just saw you blow on?" she asks. "No thanks."

Will we ever go back to that? Someday, when we are freed from pandemic purgatory, when our birthday parties no longer involve a grid of pixelated faces on a computer screen, will we still dim the lights and sing as a glowing cake slowly glides into the room? Should we even want to go back?

Now imagine it again, this time having spent a 100-something days in quarantine, barraged by news graphics detailing the spit-plume that erupts from our faces every time we speak, laugh, sing or cough. Visualise that same gathering of loved ones, hovering shoulder-to-shoulder, cheering as someone forcibly exhales a blast of aerosolised germs across the surface of a communal dessert.

Picture the scene in its nostalgic innocence, the way it's always been captured in photo albums and home movies: family and friends huddled together, voices raised in song; a smiling face illuminated by flickering flames atop a colourful cake; a momentary darkness when the music ends and the room fills with the distinctive whiff of blown-out birthday candles.

But for those who never played in the horn section of the band, a cake crowned with candles might still represent something more pure. Jennifer Carlson, a 45-year-old human resources director and mum of two sets of twins, still remembers the climactic moments of her own childhood birthday parties  the mesmerising glow of the flames, her parents turning off the lights, all of her favourite people surrounding her. She still remembers the year she wished for a princess doll, and actually got one, and how that made her feel: "Almost as if magic really does happen," she says. "I do hope the tradition of blowing out candles on the cake continues."

History suggests it will, in one form or another. The pairing of cakes and candles has been part of humanity's story since ancient Greece, says Bethanne Patrick, an author, who researched the origin of birthday cakes and candles for her book An Uncommon History of Common Things. Back then, candles were ceremonially placed atop a cake and brought as a worshipful offering to the temple of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, Patrick says.

Birthday parties were added to the mix in 18th-century Germany, Patrick says, thanks in part to one Count Ludwig Von Zinzindorf, who celebrated his birthday in 1746 with a lavish bash featuring a massive cake festooned with candles. Germans started placing a candle on cakes  the fire was meant to represent the light of life itself  to celebrate their children's birthdays. "Candles on cakes evolved from ceremony to extravagance to a celebration for regular people," Patrick says.

From the start, the act of extinguishing the flames was infused with potent symbolism. "The original idea is that the smoke would carry your wish up to the gods," Patrick says. "As part of the process of individuation in the industrial age, it became increasingly about a single person's wish instead of the wish of a community. When you blew out the candle, that carried your wish out to the universe."

The tradition took root in the United States at the end of the 19th century, before the devastation wrought by the 1918 flu pandemic. Patrick couldn't say for sure how birthday parties were affected or altered during that particular chapter of history  but that pandemic obviously didn't stop anyone from blowing out birthday candles once the crisis had ended, which perhaps reveals something about how quickly germaphobia subsides once an imminent threat has passed.
Chennai, July 22 : The Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) on Wednesday inked an agreement for 15 per cent wage hike for bank employees, said a leader of major bank union.

"We are happy to state that in the meeting between the IBA and the UFBU at Mumbai, a broad understanding has been reached and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed," All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) General Secretary C.H. Venkatachalam told IANS.

The AIBEA is one of the constituents of UFBU.

As per the MoU between IBA and the workers and officers unions, the wage revision, which will benefit nearly 10 lakh employees, will be effective from November 1, 2017 The annual wage increase in salary and allowances is agreed at 15 per cent of the wage bill as on March 31, 2017 which works out to Rs 7,898 crore on pay slip components.

According to the MoU, the distribution of the annual wage increase between workers and officers will be worked out separately.

The two parties also agreed for the introduction of Performance Linked Incentive in public sector banks, based on operating/net profit of the individual bank.

They also agreed for encashment of privilege leave at five days every year - seven days for workers and officers aged 55 and above - during any festival.

The bank's contribution to National Pension Scheme will be raised to 14 per cent from the current 10 per cent.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Britain borrowed a record 128billion in just three months to battle the coronavirus crisis  almost enough to run the NHS for a year.

Official figures published yesterday revealed the growing black hole in the UK's public finances, as the cost of emergency measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and protect jobs spirals.

The report fuelled concerns about how the borrowing binge will be paid for when the crisis fades, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies issuing a fresh warning that taxes will probably have to rise from 2022.

Official figures have revealed the growing black hole in the UK's public finances, as the cost of emergency measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and protect jobs spirals

In its monthly health check on the nation's accounts, the Office for National Statistics revealed the Government borrowed 35.5billion in June. This was actually down from April and May as the lockdown eased last month.

The opening of non-essential shops and businesses pushed down the cost of the Government's Job Retention Scheme as furloughed staff returned to work, and tax receipts increased.

But it was still the third highest monthly borrowing figure since records began in 1993  and roughly five times more than was borrowed in the same month last year.

It has pushed Britain a record 127.9billion into the red in the first quarter of the financial year, with 1.4billion borrowed every day over the three-month period.

This is well over double the 55.4billion borrowed in the whole of last year and means the national debt now stands at a record 1.98 trillion.

With the deficit forecast to hit a record 372billion this year, Chancellor Rishi Sunak repeated his vow to put the public finances on a 'sustainable footing'.

But he stressed the staggering cost of bailing out the economy and locking down the country would be worth it in the long-term.

He added: 'The best approach to ensure our public finances are sustainable in the medium-term is to minimise the economic scarring caused by the pandemic.

Our Plan for Jobs does this by providing significant and targeted support where it's needed the most, to ensure nobody is left without hope as we reopen our economy.

'I am also clear that, over the medium-term, we must, and we will, put our public finances back on a sustainable footing.'

Focus is shifting from the cost of the Government's various bail outs, including the Job Retention Scheme, to how they will all be paid for when the dust settles.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said it was unlikely Boris Johnson's Government would unleash another era of austerity spending cuts  meaning tax rises are the most likely option but not until 2022.

The Chancellor repeatedly ruled out raising taxes  thereby breaking key Tory party manifesto promises  while questioned by the Treasury committee last week.

Charlie McCurdy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: 'This crisis is continuing to take its toll on the public finances, though the pace of borrowing slowed in June as the amount the Government is spending on emergency measures eased somewhat.'
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Tuesday his government would impose a night-time curfew and tighten other measures to tackle rising coronavirus infections, adding that anyone who challenged the rules faced severe punishment.



Critics and the opposition said the new steps were linked to anti-government protests planned for next week.



On Monday police arrested an opposition official and a journalist, accusing them of inciting violence ahead of July 31 demonstrations by activists who say government corruption has exacerbated economic hardship.



As of tomorrow, Wednesday, ... all our security services must enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew set to come into force daily between 1800 hours and 0600 hours, Mnangagwa said in a televised address to the nation.





He said anyone who encouraged actions that undermine the governments measures will be liable and severely punished accordingly.



Under the new measures, from Wednesday, those without jobs will be required to stay at home, except to seek food, water and medical help. Business hours will be limited to 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., apart from those performing essential services.



Public gatherings for social, religious or political purposes remain banned.



These measures are being taken for our collective safety. As Zimbabweans, we have to win the war against the COVID-19 pandemic, Mnangagwa said.



Zimbabwe has recorded 1,713 coronavirus cases, a relatively small number compared to neighbouring South Africa, but infections have started to rise faster in the last week.



Many citizens in the southern African nation say their economic prospects have worsened since Mnangagwa took over from the late Robert Mugabe following a coup in 2017.



Mnangagwa says the economy is being sabotaged by local and foreign opponents. His government is wary of demonstrations after the last major protests in January 2019 turned violent and scores of people died after a crackdown by security forces.

Source: reuters.com









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Alex Mills, 33, has been named locally as the woman who died in the incident. She was said to have been in a relationship for several years with her boyfriend called Raj and the pair had talked about getting married

A mother-of-two and her boyfriend are believed to have died in a suspected suicide pact after their bodies were discovered in a flat 'filled with gas'.

Detectives and forensic officers were seen at the first floor flat in Gorleston-on-Sea, Norfolk, this morning following the discovery of the two bodies last night.

Floral tributes have also been left outside the first flat in Oxford Avenue.

Yesterday Norfolk Police launched an investigation and said they were treating the deaths as 'unexplained'.

But today detectives have said they now believe that while they are still treating the deaths as unexplained, they believe there are no suspicious circumstances.

It comes as the female victim has today been named locally as mother-of-two Alex Mills, who was been described by friends as 'bubbly and friendly'.

Miss Mills, 33, was said to have been in a relationship for several years with her boyfriend called Raj and the pair had talked about getting married.

She had worked as a barmaid at the JD Wetherspoon pub The Troll Cart in Great Yarmouth, according to locals, and did not live with her two daughters, aged around 12 and nine, even though they were regular visitors to her home.

The male victim is said by police to be a man, also in his 30s, and both were known to each other, say officers. Formal identification of both bodies is still to take place.

Norfolk Police say they forced entry to the property around 7.30pm yesterday.

Police and firefighters have this morning been seen at the property in Gorleston-on-Sea, Norfolk, following the discovery of the two bodies last night

Police and forensic experts have been seen bringing their equipment in and out of the property in Oxford Avenue

It is believed that one of her relatives had raised the alarm after being unable to contact her and police officers broke in after they got no reply at the door.

Meanwhile, nearby neighbours say they were ordered to leave their homes by firefighters as the flat was thought to be full of gas.

One neighbour said: 'We were told we had to get out because of the gas. We still do not know what happened.'

The East of England Ambulance Service also sent its hazardous area response team to the scene.

White-suited police forensic officers were seen searching for evidence at the flat today and four fire crews arrived at the scene shortly before noon.

Meanwhile a friend of Miss Mills, who asked not to be named, said: 'I am shocked and really numb about what has happened. She was just a lovely person.

'A friend texted me to say what had happened. It is just awful

'I remember her as a bubbly and lovely and friendly person. If I was having down patches, she would always cheer me up.

Norfolk Police say they forced entry to the property around 7.30pm yesterday. It is believed that a relative had raised the alarm after getting no reply from the flat.

Floral tributes have been left outside the home, where police and firefighters have been all morning

'She was always supportive and would go with me for hospital appointments.'

Speaking about Miss Mill's relationship, which she described as 'volatile', the friend said: 'She met Raj on an internet dating site and they had been together on and off for four or five years.

'They got together more seriously a couple of years ago, but he was very possessive and he stopped her speaking to me. He was very domineering.

'He came from Buckinghamshire and would regularly come up here. They were supposed to be moving in together and he was talking about buying her flat. They were also going to get married.

'She was happy, but she had her doubts about him. She came up to mine, saying she did not know what to do, and whether to get rid of him.

'He promised her so many things, but I don't think half of it would have happened anyway.

This morning, Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service cordoned off the flat and three neighbouring homes with tape while they carried out checks to make sure the area was safe.

A police officer in a patrol car was stationed outside overnight and detectives along with forensic officers returned to the scene this morning.

A Norfolk Police spokesperson said today: 'Police investigating the deaths of a man and woman in Gorleston can confirm the incident is not being treated as suspicious.

'Emergency services were called to an address in Oxford Avenue shortly after 7.30pm on Tuesday after concerns were raised for the safety of a person inside the property.

Four fire engines and a number of police cars were also seen at the scene this morning following the discovery last night

Philippa Grimmer, 50, who lives opposite, said: 'We saw them turn the gas off at in cupboard outside the flat.'

'Officers forced entry to the property and the bodies of a man and woman were found inside.

'The deaths continue to be treated as unexplained, however police do not believe there are any suspicious circumstances at this stage and will prepare a file for the coroner in due course.

'Formal identification is yet to take place but both the man and woman are believed to be aged in their 30s and known to one another.'

Speaking about the incident, one local resident said: 'There were some relatives who were apparently trying to get into the flat and they raised the alarm when they got no reply.

'The police turned up first, and then there was ambulances and the fire brigade. Neighbours had to get out and were standing on the other side of the road.

'The lady's relatives were still there and were really upset. It was quite distressing.'

Other neighbours described two fire appliances and two ambulances along with several police cars at the scene.

Philippa Grimmer, 50, who lives opposite, said: 'We saw them turn the gas off at in cupboard outside the flat.

'I saw the guys in white forensic suits working in an upstairs room and taking pictures. My daughter was really frightened because she suffers from anxiety.'

If you have been affected by this story, you can call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 10:32:23|Editor: huaxia

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ATHENS, July 21 (Xinhua) -- European Union(EU) should impose sanctions against Turkey if its "aggressive actions" continue, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Tuesday.

Mitsotakis made the remarks during his meeting with visiting German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas here.

Turkey and Greece have been at odds over overlapping claims for hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said earlier that Turkish plans on drilling for hydrocarbons in the sea were part of its attempts "to usurp the sovereign rights of Greece."

Mitsotakis stressed that Turkey is challenging the sovereign rights of Greece and Cyprus.

"If Turkey continues on this path, then the only response should be imposing EU sanctions against Turkey. It is up to Turkey to choose what relationship it wants to have with Greece, Cyprus and Europe," Mitsotakis said in a broadcast on Greek national broadcaster ERT.

The EU has already taken a clear position on the matter showing solidarity with Greece and Cyprus and the German presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2020 will promote dialogue with Ankara to address the issues, Maas said on his part. Enditem
(Newser)  Amber Heard, testifying for a third day in ex-husband Johnny Depp's libel suit against a British publisher, acknowledged breaking a bottle during an argument in Australiabut said he responded by chucking dozens of bottles at her like they were "grenades or bombs." Heard said Wednesday she had broken the bottle on their second night in Australia in March 2015 as they argued about Depp's drinking, the BBC reports. She told the High Court that Depp threw around 30 bottles, at least some of them full, at her with enough force that a window behind her was smashed. She said the actor threw all the bottles that were within reach, apart from one "celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine." "I would be shocked if Johnny remembers any of this himself, but I was there," she said.

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Heard denied severing the tip of Depp's finger (she said he did it himself during the course of the attack) as well as putting a cigarette out on his cheek during the incident, the AP reports. She told the court that Depp, who was drunk and high on cocaine and MDMA, put the cigarette out on his own cheek while screaming at her that he couldn't feel pain. In Tuesday's testimony, Heard described other alleged incidents of domestic violenceand denied that she had defecated in the actor's bed. "Thats absolutely disgusting," she said. "I cant imagine what kind of human being would have a sense of humor like that, other than Johnny." Depp is suing the publisher of the Sun newspaper over an article that called him a "wife beater." Heard's testimony is due to continue Thursday. (On Monday, Heard revealed Depp's nicknames for actors including Leonardo DiCaprio.)
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.Hustler Hollywood, the national retailer that's part of the Hustler empire built by Larry Flynt, has officially opened its doors for business today in Boise, Idaho, at 5805 W. Fairview Ave. The Boise location is the 35th store for the nationwide chain, and this location has signed a 10-plus year lease with options to extend, and has spent more than $1 million to renovate the 7,000 square foot location, having added 12-15 jobs to the local economy.

"We couldn't be more excited about being a part of the Boise community and hope that residents will stop by, visit us and see what we are all about if they aren't already familiar with us. Our mission is to encourage the exploration of intimacy and enhance relationships. We have been helping in this department for years. I think people will see that we are quiet neighbors and enjoy having us around," said Philip Del Rio, VP of Retail.

Hustler Hollywood has been a leader in the sexual health and wellness arena for more than two decades. The retailer advocates and encourages free sexual expression for all and has products for every individual regardless of sexual orientation or preference, allowing for greater diversity and inclusion. The boutiques are designed to be intimate, sophisticated and curated with some of the finest products on the market, selected by a diverse team of buyers to ensure that the retailer has products for everyone.

In place of the traditional grand opening event that Hustler Hollywood typically holds, for which Larry Flynt himself usually flies in, there will be a grand opening weekend celebration August 1-2, offering promotions, discounts, giveaways and gifts with purchase all weekend long to encourage customers to come in since most have been homebound as a result of the COVID-19 virus.

The first Hustler Hollywood opened in 1998 on the famed Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, making this the company's 22nd year in business.

For more information, visit the website HustlerHollywood.com.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 occurred just off the coast of southeastern Alaska shortly after 10 p.m. local time Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Following this earthquake, a tsunami warning was issued for portions of the Alaska coast. However, the warning was canceled by 12:30 a.m. local time. The temblor and ensuing tsunami warnings did cause some Alaskans to scramble to higher ground, the Anchorage Daily News reported. This was mainly in the communities of Kodiak, Sand Point, Unalaska and Homer, the Daily News said.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

The quake's epicenter was located about 65 miles southeast of the coastal town of Perryville, Alaska, and more than 520 miles from Anchorage. The depth of the quake was about 17 miles (28 km).

Kodiak Police Sgt. Mike Sorter told The Associated Press early Wednesday that there were no reports of damage. "No injuries were reported. Everything is nominal," he said.

The tsunami warning stretched from South Alaska to the Aleutian Islands and the Alaska Peninsula, the AP said.

Michael West, a seismologist with the Alaska Earthquake Center, told Daily News that the 7.8 temblor was "something like 15 times more energy than was released in the 2018 Anchorage earthquake," which produced significant damage in the state, including in Anchorage. Officials with the earthquake center didn't expect much damage from shaking since the quake occurred offshore, the Daily News said.

"These are the style of earthquakes which can be very tsunami-producing," West said.

Shaking was felt throughout the Alaska Peninsula. Weak shaking was felt around the Kenai Peninsula and in Anchorage. There was even one report of weak shaking in Fairbanks, some 774 miles away.

A short time later, a second earthquake was felt in Kodiak, Alaska. The magnitude of this second earthquake was not immediately known, but more earthquakes and aftershocks will be possible throughout Thursday morning given the strength of the initial quake.

There was never any tsunami threat to Hawaii or along the remainder of the West coast of the United States in the aftermath of the quake.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
TDT | Manama

The Court of Cassation yesterday rejected the appeal of a Bahraini man, who was earlier sentenced to five years of imprisonment and fined BD3,000, after he was convicted by the First High Criminal Court for selling drugs (hashish) to two young womena Bahraini, 22, and a Gulf national, 19. The man had earlier appealed not guilty against the verdict and had his plea rejected by the Supreme Court of Appeal.

According to court files and statements of the Anti-Narcotics Department at the Interior Ministry, it showed that the man was arrested at his residence in Hidd after the department was tipped off about his possession of drugs with the intent of selling. The arrest took place on May 14 last year when a police force raided the appellants house and found the two women inside his room at his residence.

A piece of hashish (0.23g), methamphetamine, shabu (2.77g), and prescription pills were found in the mans possession. Additionally, tools used to abuse drugs, such as rolling papers and pipes, were seized. It was also mentioned in the police report that an amount of BD129, which is believed to have been collected from selling drugs, was found.

The appellant earlier told interrogators that he buys the drugs through a person in Pakistan, claiming that he would transfer amounts of money to the alleged overseas dealer, who would lead him to the location where the drugs are hidden here in Bahrain.

As for the women, they told the officers that the man forced them to abuse the drugs, denying any relation to his peddling activities. The First High Criminal Court earlier convicted both women of drugs abuse. The Bahraini woman was sentenced to one year of imprisonment and fined BD100, while the Gulf national received a sentence of one year in jail, a BD1,000 fine, deportation, and blacklisting from entering Bahrain for three years.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 01:36:15|Editor: huaxia

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NICOSIA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades traveled to Paris on Wednesday evening for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, which will focus on the tensions in the eastern Mediterranean, Deputy Government Spokesman Panayiotis Sentonas announced.

Sentonas said that the talks, scheduled for Thursday morning between the two presidents, will focus on Turkey's new notice to navigators announcing a seismic survey in the eastern Mediterranean and related issues in the region, such as energy, defense and bilateral relations.

Anastasiades will be accompanied by the ministers or foreign affairs and defense, the government spokesman and his advisor on energy matters, former energy minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis.

Energy issues will be high on the agenda of the talks, as a French Total and Italian ENI consortium has been licensed to carry out natural gas exploration in several blocks of the Cypriot marine jurisdiction, part of which is being disputed by Turkey.

Sentonas said that before flying to Paris, President Anastasiades had a telephone conversation with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to coordinate action in the face of Turkish actions. Enditem
Think hard about the numbers 9 and 34 for a moment!

Now think about the number 35.

Finally, consider the number 38,400.

As hard as it may be to believe, the numbers 9 and 34 are cited as how many long-term-care beds were created in Ontario during Doug Fords first 18 months as premier. Both come from Fords own government, the first from the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care and the second from the governments long-term care systems report. Both cant be right, but both are equally pitiful.

The number 35 is the number of in-depth reports over the past 20 years recommending ways to improve Ontarios beleaguered long-term care system. And yet Ford will announce in the coming days the names for yet another time-consuming independent commission into whats wrong with the sector.

And the number 38,400 is how many Ontario residents are on waiting lists right now for a bed in a long-term care facility.

Together, these stark statistics are a strong condemnation of Fords neglect and indifference to the troubled long-term care sector during most of his time as Ontario premier.

Despite the numbers, though, it wasnt until the COVID-19 pandemic erupted four months ago, resulting in some 1,700 deaths in facilities across the province that Ford finally sat up and took notice.

The statistics are also a clear sign that Ford has failed our long-term care sector  a system that was already in bad shape when he took office in June, 2018, and which he vowed during the provincial election to address by improving access to long-term care with the expansion of long-term care beds.

Today, the system is in a worsening crisis  with a severe shortage of beds, underpaid and overworked staff, often dreadful living and working conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic that has hit nursing homes and acute-care facilities particularly hard.

No one has watched whats happened in the system in the past few decades more than Natalie Mehra, the tireless executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, which is comprised of more than 400 organizations advocating for improvements in our health-care system.

For years Mehra has travelled tens of thousands of kilometres around the province, meeting with front-line workers, administrators, politicians, patients and their families. What she has heard and seen has shocked, saddened and angered her  enough to make a person weep.

Mehra is convinced Ford must act quickly or the system will degenerate into an even greater mess.

There is no path out of this crisis without the government stepping in, she says. Every day we hear from families who are devastated by what is happening to their loved ones. We are also hearing from staff who are risking themselves and their families to go in every day. It is heartbreaking.

We are hearing from hospital staff, palliative care physicians and others that the residents being admitted to hospitals and in a number of the homes are malnourished and severely dehydrated. There is not enough staff to provide basic care and not enough to provide sound palliative care.

Mehra and other experts have long promoted a wide range of recommendations to address the long-term problems, including a minimum standard of four hours a day of hands-on care for each resident, reinstating mandatory annual inspections that Ford ended, fixing staffing shortages, requiring air conditioning in all buildings and mandating single rooms for residents and much more.

Ford announced last week his government would spend $1.75 billion to cover 8,000 new beds and redevelop 12,000 beds. Sounds good, but in fact Ford was merely reannouncing a promise he made in 2018 and one that was similar to pledges made by the previous Liberal government.

Our government wont accept the status quo in long-term care, Ford said this week at a ceremony announcing a pilot quick-build project for up to 640 new beds in Mississauga. We made a commitment to seniors and their families to improve the quality of Ontarios long-term care homes and we intend to follow through.

As Natalie Mehra says, there can be no excuse for a government not intervening actively, systematically, rigorously to improve the sector. Its their fundamental obligation to Ontarians.

Bob Hepburn is a Star politics columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: is a Star politics columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @BobHepburn
Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations.
The personal driver of Nguyen Duc Chung, chairman of the Hanoi Peoples Committee, has been arrested for appropriating classified documents related to a smuggling and money laundering scandal.

Police officers from the Ministry of Public Security had apprehended three suspects, including a policeman, in association with the appropriation, a exclusive source told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Wednesday.

The first suspect is Nguyen Anh Ngoc, 46, who lives in Bo De Ward, Long Bien District, Hanoi.

Ngoc works in the secretarial office of the assistance team of the Hanoi Peoples Committee.

Second comes Nguyen Hoang Trung, 37, residing in Bach Dang Ward, Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi.

Trung is Chungs chauffeur and an officer in the secretarial division of the Office of the Hanoi Peoples Committee.

The last suspect is identified as Pham Quang Dung, 37, who resides in Thanh Tri District, Hanoi.

Dung serves as an officer at the anti-corruption and smuggling division (C03) under the Ministry of Public Security.

The three are charged with appropriating documents containing state secrets, in relation to the so-called Nhat Cuong case, referring to a technology firm and mobile phone vendor in the Vietnamese capital.

On July 13, police officers searched the houses and workplaces of the three suspects as they were accused of stealing the classified documents, as per Article 337 of Vietnams 2015 Penal Code.

Police have indicted over 20 suspects, including Hanoi officials, for smuggling and violating accounting regulations, resulting in serious consequences.

Nhat Cuongs general director, Bui Quang Huy, is facing accusations of heading a ring that smuggled a huge amount of electronic equipment and concealed revenue to the tune of trillions of Vietnamese dong. (VND1 trillion = US$43 million)

Huy has also been charged with violating accounting regulations, resulting in serious consequences and money laundering.

He has fled Vietnam and been wanted internationally since May 2019.

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Federal agents disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Monday, July 20, 2020, in Portland, Ore. The Trump administration is sending agents to Chicago and has suggested them for "Democratic" cities like Philadelphia and New York as well. Read more

Eight minutes and forty-six seconds became a symbol in protests across the United States and the world, condemning the police killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed Black man. The protests have continued for more than 50 days, shaken the morale of local police departments, and awakened the public to self-educate on systemic racism, grasping onto the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: A riot is the language of the unheard. Meanwhile, COVID-19 is raging throughout the United States with more than 140,000 deaths and disproportionate effects on immigrant and minority communities.

Against this backdrop is the dangerous choice by the Trump administration to deploy federal immigration agents to local protests and beyond.

In early June, an officer from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a protester at a George Floyd rally in New York City; officers had to let him go, because he is Puerto Rican and so has U.S. citizenship. More recently, a police crackdown in Portland, Ore., has involved heavily armed federal law enforcement officers dressed in camouflage stepping out of unmarked civilian vans and forcibly detaining anti-racism and anti-police brutality demonstrators, as Vox reported. The Trump administration has confirmed this includes agents from the Department of Homeland Security.

The Trump administration has also signaled plans to deploy 150 ICE agents to Chicago and mentioned New York City and Philadelphia as possible locations where the president might send federal agents. With a focus by the administration on Democratic cities, the politics are striking. Said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney: The presidents threat is wrong on many levels. To send federal agents to police U.S. cities that have not requested such aid can only impede the work of local governments and exacerbate already heightened tensions in these cities.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), alongside D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, is expected to introduce a bill in the House of Representatives that would improve transparency by requiring federal law enforcement officers to identify themselves. It would also establish an oversight mechanism with reporting requirements. While these are fair moves to at minimum hold these officers accountable, the problems with their role run deeper than identification will solve.

The Department of Homeland Security is a cabinet-level agency created in the aftermath of Sept. 11 whose mission is to counter terrorism and secure the homeland. ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are units in the department whose primary responsibility is to enforce federal immigration law, a complex web of statutes and regulations and involve a range of enforcement activities like arrest, detention, and deportation of noncitizens.

What role do [these agents] have in crowd control? On paper, none. But thats now what they are doing at protests.

What role do they have in crowd control? On paper, none. But thats now what they are doing at protests. They are there to intimidate and harass immigrants and citizens alike. They have become Donald Trumps very own political police force, just what every textbook autocrat needs.

In the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, ICE announced a specific policy to limit immigration enforcement, ostensibly to reduce the spread of disease. ICE and CBP also maintain a policy to generally not carry out immigration enforcement actions in sensitive locations, including schools, hospitals, places of worship, and [d]uring a public demonstration, such as a march, rally, or parade. Despite these policies and significant health and safety concerns associated with crowding and transportation, ICE and CBP have continued to detain and deport immigrantsincluding at public demonstrations  and are expanding their role under Trumps direction.

DHS has limited resources, so choices are made every day about whom to deport and whom to leave alone. The tool that drives these choices is called prosecutorial discretion and is a significant part of the immigration system. The abuse of this discretion by agencies under the Trump administration has motivated many to question whether the structures of ICE and CBP should even remain.

Deploying nameless immigration agents to the streets, snatching protesters, and throwing them into unmarked vans abuses the departments own policies and wastes resources. It also signals a kind of authoritarianism that undermines American democracy.

The House bill to improve accountability would be a good step forward  but ultimately, federal immigration agents should stay off the streets.

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is law professor, director of the Center for Immigrants Rights Clinic, and associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Penn State Law in University Park. She is the author of two books: Beyond Deportation: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion in Immigration Cases (NYU Press, 2017) and Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump (NYU Press, 2019).
The relationship between an elephant and their caregiver can make the difference between surviving and thriving.

Babu Lal of Wildlife SOS Elephant Conservation & Care Center in Mathura, a city of northern India, has amassed 11 years experience working with elephants. He knows firsthand what it takes to give rescued elephants the love they deserve and the care they need to thrive.

Wildlife SOS shared with The Epoch Times via email the story of Babu Lal, who hails from the small north Indian village of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and how he has dedicated his life to animal care.

Elephant caregiver Babu Lal at the Wildlife SOS Elephant Conservation & Care Center in Mathura, northern India (Courtesy of Wildlife SOS)

I came to know about Wildlife SOS the day they rescued Champa, an elephant I had been taking care of, Babu Lal explained. She was the first elephant at the Elephant Conservation and Care Center. When she was rescued, Wildlife SOS offered me a job.

Babu Lal willingly accepted the position. I wanted to stay close to my elephant and take care of her in this new life, he explained.

Babu Lal checks up on Asha on a cold winter morning. (Courtesy of Wildlife SOS)

Wildlife SOS, as part of their effort to improve life for elephants in captivity across India, habitually offers each rescued elephants former keeper the opportunity to work for them, while teaching them respect, care, and animal welfare principles to them in the process.

The Elephant Conservation & Care Center uses humane training methods based upon positive reinforcement to help elephants and their caregivers build trust in one another. Both have the chance to begin again under better conditions.

I have completed 11 years with Wildlife SOS and have entered my 12th year now, said Babu Lal. It has been an enriching experience  [w]hile I was employing more traditional techniques to manage elephants in my previous job, my time at Wildlife SOS has helped me gain a broader perspective.

Babu Lal with Suzy (L) and Asha (R). (Courtesy of Wildlife SOS)

Describing a typical day in his life, Babu Lal, who currently takes care of two resident elephants, namely Asha and Suzy, explained his day begins at 4 oclock in the morning.

I wake up and check on Asha and Suzy, as well as [help in] cleaning their enclosures, he said. [O]nce they come back from their walk at around 9 a.m., I give them their fodder and fruits.

Suzy, who is one of the oldest elephants in their care, having lost her teeth, enjoys watermelon smoothies and finely chopped fodder, which is easier for her to eat.

After their meal, it is time for Ashas target training, and then bath time for both elephants, Babu Lal continued. The veterinarians then come for Asha and Suzys treatments and I assist them with it.

The caregiver then rests for an hour before preparing his elephants second meal and cleaning their enclosures once again. Asha and Suzy then go for an evening walk again until 5 p.m. Finally, Babu Lal fills their feeders, and then he bids his two charges farewell for the night.

(Courtesy of Wildlife SOS)

Explaining more about Asha and Suzys behavior, Babu Lal said that both the elephants are very gentle and calm, adding that Asha is shy and loves sleeping in the pool. I keep hoping that she will play around, but the moment she enters the pool she will doze off, he regaled.

Suzy is completely blind and has no remaining teeth. [W]hen I give her the finely-chopped green fodder, she will repeatedly thrash it against her feet to break it down further before eating it, her caregiver described.

Reflecting on his over-decade-long career, the dedicated man said he loves everything about his job.

He added: [B]ut what I will always love and cherish the most is my journey in taking care of all these elephants. When I calm them down during their treatment, he said, when they raise their trunks each time they sense that I am around, it makes me feel very loved!

Babu Lals dedication to his elephants and the ongoing work of Wildlife SOS would be nigh on impossible without the support of the general public; the conservation nonprofit relies entirely upon the generosity of its donors.

I would like to thank all the people who are supporting our elephants in these difficult times and request everyone to do every little bit that they can so that our centers can survive, Babu Lal implored.

The dream of Wildlife SOS is for humans and wildlife to coexist peacefully and respectfully in their shared landscape. Babu Lals love, dedication, and hard work helps exemplify this dream.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
Actor Sanjana Sanghi finds herself in a weird, numb space after losing her partner-in-crime actor Sushant Singh Rajput, with whom she stars in his swansong, Dil Bechara, a Bollywood remake of Hollywood film The Fault in our Stars (2014).

Its not possible for a human being to feel such extremes of both happiness and gratitude for the fact that its my debut as a lead coming out. But the grief and shock of losing my partner-in-crime has left me in this weird, numb space. Im too young to deal with such things, and trying to do my best to fulfil my commitments. Its only when the storm will end, will I be able to sit back and really look into what Im feeling, says the 23-year-old, who is taking each day as it comes.

Sanghi, 23, recounts talking to Rajput quite often, the last being very recently before he died on June 14. She also says everyone was happy with the fact that their film is releasing on an OTT platform.

So, is she okay with the film not getting a theatrical release? Sanghi says, You cant be okay, in the sense that you set out to make a theatrical film. If somebody had told me that a pandemic will hit, two years ago, when we had started, Id have laughed. You arent okay with things, but as human beings, you adapt. With this OTT release, we cant think of a better way to give tribute to Sushant. Its the release that he deserves.

Rajputs demisehas stirred numerous debates in the film industry. A couple of films have been announced inspired by the late actors life. Sanghi is, however, saddened seeing all this.

Im called an old soul, and was called one even when I was 13 and shooting for Rockstar (2011). I heard about the way in which my parents grew up, surrounded by far more patience, integrity and honesty than were now. It really saddens me to see any kind of circus being created out of such a tragedy. I urge people to give time and respect to all of us reeling with this loss, she tells us.

Rajputs untimely death also led to speculations if he was under any pressure or going through depression. Given that she spent a lot of time with him, we ask her if she ever felt her co-star had any mental health issues. Sanghi feels she is nobody to comment on the matter as she is not a psychologist.

However, she is quick to add. I dont equate being upset on a particular day to being mentally unstable in general. Im upset on many days. All I know is I was working with a passionate, sincere artiste whod do his job better than what was expected out of him. He was always there. Maybe if I knew him in deeper personal capacities, Id have answered this.

Interact with the author on Twitter/ @RishabhSuri02

Follow @htshowbiz on Twitter
Young India is showing the way: PM Modi on Covid vaccination

Azadi Ke Amrit Mahotsav: PM to flag off seven initiatives of Brahma Kumaris

PM Modi to address India Ideas Summit today

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the keynote addresses at the India Ideas Summit today.

The India Ideas Summit will be hosted by the India Business Council. The summit concedes business and government leaders for discussions on the future of the US-India partnership and trends shaping globalisation, trade and investment. It would also deal with the future of work in the COVID-19 era and beyond.

Looking forward to addressing the #IndiaIdeasSummit, organised by @USIBC today at 9 PM. Will be sharing my views on Building a Better Future. Do watch. https://t.co/70XBBZRghL  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 22, 2020

Ministry of External Affairs, Dr S Jaishankar would also deliver the address at the summit.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senator of Virginia and co-chair of Senate India Caucus Mark Warner, former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, among others, will also address the summit. A statement said the summit will witness discussions on areas including India-US cooperation and future of the relation between the two counties in a post-pandemic world.
Campaigners have welcomed a move towards a new organ donation system in Northern Ireland.

Health minister Robin Swann announced his intention to hold a consultation on the introduction of a soft opt-out model.

Mr Swann said changes were needed to increase the number of donor organs available in the region.

Under an opt out model, adults would be considered to be organ donors unless they proactively indicate they do not want to be.

The soft opt-out model gives the family of a deceased person a say on whether donation should proceed.

Today we are thinking of all the families that have courageously allowed us to share their stories of organ donation as we have campaigned for soft opt-out. The announcement today of a consultation from @RobinSwannMoH is an important and welcome step for everyone. #YesIDonate pic.twitter.com/4iX7YtFt6r  BHF Northern Ireland (@BHFNI) July 22, 2020

Introducing the system in Northern Ireland would bring the region into line with other part of the UK.

Mr Swann said: Northern Ireland has an excellent record in organ donation and transplantation however more needs to be done to increase the number of organs available for those in need of a transplant.

While approximately 47% of the Northern Ireland Population are currently on the organ donation register, there are still approximately 112 waiting on a transplant. We must do more to increase the number of donor organs available.

With many more people willing to consider donating an organ than are actually registered as donors, I have long believed that an opt-out system would be hugely beneficial and ultimately would save lives here.

It is therefore my intention to consult on policy proposals for the introduction of a soft opt-out system.

This would bring us in line with the other countries in the UK.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to discuss their wishes about organ donation with their family and friends.

Jo-Anne Dobson, Kidney Care UKs Northern Ireland Ambassador, described the move as momentous.

I thank Minister Swann for his support and for taking this long awaited step on progressing this important issue, she said.

Organ donation is an issue which has and will always remain close to my heart and I am delighted that we have a health minister in Northern Ireland who has taken it to his own.

This move will increase the chances of receiving new life for people who are waiting on a transplant, both now and into the future.

This is a good announcement and a good day for organ donation and transplantation in Northern Ireland.

Fearghal McKinney, head of the British Health Foundation in Northern Ireland, also welcomed the announcement.

It is a positive step that ultimately could help end the heartache for those who are waiting on the precious gift of a donated organ, he said.

A similar change in the law in Wales in 2015 has resulted in family consent rates increasing from less than 49% to 77%.

We want to see the same impact for people in Northern Ireland.

The consultation exercise is expected to be conducted in the autumn.
About 2.5million Australians will be pushed off JobKeeper by early next year, after the government announced sweeping changes to the payment subsidy.

Although the generous scheme, brought in to soften the economic blow from coronavirus, will be extended for a further six months past September, the eligibility criteria will be narrowed and the payments will be slashed.

Scott Morrison announced the wage scheme, which currently helps 3.5million Australians, will be reduced in phases as the economy recovers from coronavirus lockdowns.

The payment was due to end on 27 September but instead it will be decreased from $1,500 to $1,200-a-fortnight.

A lower rate of $750-a-fortnight will go to people who worked fewer than 20 hours a week in February, before coronavirus struck.

The two-tiered system has been brought in because one in four casuals are earning more on JobKeeper than when they worked.

From 4 January, the payments will be reduced to $1,000-a-fortnight for full time staff and to $650-a-fortnight for those who worked fewer than 20 hours.

The JobKeeper payment will be extended until March and an increased JobSeeker rate will last until December. Pictured: The Prime Minister meeting businessmen on Monday

How are the support payments changing from September? JOBKEEPER * The $1500 fortnightly wage subsidy will continue until September 27 * From the end of September to January, JobKeeper will be reduced to $1200 for full-time workers and $750 for people working 20 hours or less * From January to March, the full-time rate will be $1000 and part-time will reduce to $650 * Businesses turning over less than $1 billion will have to requalify for the program at both stages through showing a 30 per cent drop in revenue. * Businesses with more than $1 billion in turnover have to demonstrate a 50 per cent fall JOBSEEKER * The elevated unemployment benefit will remain at $1100 a fortnight until September 27 * From that date until the end of the year the $550 coronavirus supplement will be cut by $300 to make the overall fortnightly payment $800 * People will be able to earn up to $300 without having their payment reduced * The mutual obligation rules requiring people to search for four jobs a month will restart on August 4 * Penalties for people refusing a job offer will be reintroduced * Job search requirements will increase in September when the assets test will also return * The permanent JobSeeker rate to take effect from January next year will be announced in the October 6 budget. Advertisement

Fewer businesses will be eligible for JobKeeper as they must continue to prove a revenue decline of 30 per cent compared to before coronavirus.

Many will not meet this threshold because business has picked up after lockdowns ended.

This means that the number of people on Jobkeeper is expected to decline from 3.5million now to 1.4million between October and December, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Tuesday.

From January 1million people are expected to receive the payment.

Australian Council of Trade Unions boss Sally McManus said she feared the lower rates would lead to mass sackings.

'Businesses will be getting less support from the government per worker so they may decide to cut numbers,' she said.

But Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the extension until March meant he could keep on 15,000 employees who have been temporarily stood down.

'The extension to JobKeeper until at least March is fantastic for our people and provides them with certainty. Importantly, it will help ensure most of them stay employed with us and come back to work when flights resume,' he said.

From September 24 the JobSeeker supplement will be reduced from $550 to $250, meaning the total benefit will be worth $800-a-fortnight instead of $1,100 in total.

That level will last until December 31 and the Prime Minister expects some level of supplement to remain beyond that.

JobSeekers will be able to earn $300 while keeping their full benefits.

They will have to apply for four jobs a month to qualify for the benefits and must not refuse a job if offered.

As Melbourne approaches its third week of lockdown, residents are forced to wear masks

What are the downsides of support payments? Hugely costly for taxpayers Less incentive for casuals to take on extra hours Less incentive for stood-down employees to find extra work Harder for re-opening businesses to hire staff Stop people moving from shrinking sectors into growing sectors Source: Treasury Advertisement

The ongoing dole rate after March 2021 will be determined in the October federal budget.

The Prime Minister said the aim of extending the support was to make sure Australian economy emerges strongly from the crisis.

'Australia is a country that just doesn't look to survive these things. We don't go through challenges with our heads looking down, overwhelmed by the circumstances. That is not who we are,' he said.

'Who we are is innovative adaptive people, supporting each other, reaching out to each other, drawing us all through, not for survival, but to be on the other side in the position where we can emerge strongly.'

Mr Frydenberg said support will continue for those in need when eligibility across both payments are tightened.

'JobKeeper has been an economic lifeline to millions of Australians and that lifeline will be extended for those businesses that need it most,' he said.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said he was concerned that JobKeeper's flat rate led to 875,000 workers being paid more than before the crisis.

'It's good that the government has finally woken up to some of the waste in this scheme,' he told ABC radio.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said Labor had taken the 'wrong approach' and 'should be pushing the Liberal Party to keep a living income, not attacking low income earners.'

The federal opposition wants the dole set higher than the old rate but not above the age pension, which is $860 a fortnight.

A review of the support payments by the Treasury suggested the enhanced JobSeeker payment may be affecting incentives to work.

Mr Albanese rejected the idea the higher rate could encourage people to avoid employment, saying there were 13 people out of work for every job vacancy.

'I don't think this is the time for the government to essentially be running out the 'dole bludger' argument which is so dear to the heart of conservative governments,' he said.

A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts tests for the coronavirus disease at the Bondi Beach in Sydney on July 20

Victoria has recorded 375 new cases on Tuesday as New South Wales teeters on the brink of a major outbreak that may lead to tighter restrictions

There is speculation that pubs and restaurants in NSW could be forced to shut their doors again if the state's coronavirus infections continue to rise

Cutting back both support measures will ease pressure on the federal budget.

The JobKeeper extension until March 28 will cost $16billion, taking the total expected cost to $86billion.

The new arrangements for the Coronavirus Supplement are expected to cost an additional $3.8 billion.

The government will update the state of the nation's books on Thursday, revealing a budget deficit in the order of $200 billion.

As of July 15, JobKeeper payments totalled $29.8 billion.

Under the existing scheme, companies turning over less than $1 billion with a 30 per cent fall in revenue are eligible.

Firms turning over more than $1 billion must show a 50 per cent decline.

Businesses that met the revenue test at any stage during the pandemic qualified for the payments for each employee.

The JobKeeper scheme had disproportionately benefited teenagers, with their wages soaring by an average of 16.8 per cent in the seven weeks to early May.

Every other age group saw their pay levels plunge by 5.4 per cent.

Outgoing Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said a pared back JobKeeper would address those kind of flaws.

'What the review also found was that there were a number of features of JobKeeper that created adverse incentives which may become more pronounced over time as the economy recovers,' he said.

'This formed part of our considerations as we looked at the next phase of the JobKeeper program.'

Treasury advisers were worried about JobKeeper propping up firms that would otherwise have closed.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has also hinted the wage subsidy program will run until March 2021, with his home city of Melbourne in lockdown. Pictured is the Bourke Street Mall

JobKeeper is being extended beyond the end of September because the government is worried about businesses potentially collapsing if it's withdrawn too soon. Pictured is a barista in Sydney on July 1

Unemployment during June amid COVID-19 Australia's unemployment rate climbed from a 19-year high of 7.1 per cent in May to 7.4 per cent in June - the highest since November 1998 Number without work climbed from 923,000 to a record-high 992,300 Close to a million people unemployed for the first time ever - surpassing 960,200 record set in December 1992 Unemployment increased even though 210,800 more people were employed as COVID-19 shutdowns eased That was because the participation rate increased from 62.7 per cent to 64 per cent as more people looked for work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data for June Advertisement

'It distorts wage relativities between lower and higher paid jobs, it dampens incentives to work, it hampers labour mobility and the reallocation of workers to more productive roles, and it keeps businesses afloat that would not be viable without ongoing support,' the Treasury review said.

The review, finalised at the end of June, found JobKeeper had helped businesses that had suffered an average turnover decline of 37 per cent in April 2020, compared with the same month in 2019, and staved off closures.

As of May more than 1.6million Australians were receiving JobSeeker, which combines the old Newstart unemployment benefit along with sickness and bereavement payments.

Last month close to one million people, or 992,300 Australians, were officially unemployed for the first time ever, as the jobless rate rose to 7.4 per cent, the highest level since November 1998.

The JobKeeper package, costed at $70billion, was announced on March 30, a week after JobSeeker was effectively doubled with a temporary $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement.

The doubling of the dole ends on September 24, which could see JobSeeker either revert back to its original $565.70 figure, from $1,115.70, or be permanently raised from its base rate.

Treasury said any dole increase would have to be balanced with encouraging the unemployed to get a job.

'In addition, the introduction of enhanced income support under JobSeeker may also be affecting incentives to work,' it said.

Existing JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments are continuing until the end of September, as legislated, and both schemes are being extended.

The Melbourne lockdowns, expected to last six weeks, are estimated to be costing the Victorian economy $1billion a week, in a city that makes up a quarter of Australia's economic activity.

Treasury is releasing a full economic statement on Thursday as a prelude to the October budget, delayed because of coronavirus.

The government is also making an announcement about the doubling of JobSeeker unemployment benefits, which end on September 24. Pictured is a Centrelink queue at Darlinghurst in Sydney's inner east

Victoria on Tuesday recorded 374 new cases of coronavirus and three elderly women died as New South Wales teeters on the brink of a major outbreak that may lead to tighter restrictions.

Victoria's total is far higher than Monday's figure of 275 and is the state's second-biggest after 428 on Friday.

The women who died were in their 100s, 90s and 80s.

NSW recorded 13 new cases, down from Monday's total of 20.
Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom in 2019. (Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

Orlando Bloom has said that his and Katy Perry's missing dog Mighty has died.

Last week, the actor publicly pleaded for information as he offered up a reward for the safe return of his beloved pet.

However, Wednesday saw the Pirates Of The Caribbean star take to Instagram to disclose Mighty's passing.

Read more: Katy Perry learning to be a mum fast in lockdown

He wrote: "Mightys on the other side now. After 7 days of searching from sunrise to sunset and into the wee hours, today, the 7th day ~the number of completion~ we found his collar...

I have wept more this week than I thought possible, which has been very cathartic and healing..."

Bloom said he had left "no stone unturned" in his search and also used to sniffer dogs to help him locate Mighty.

The 43-year-old went on: "I feel so grateful to have learned from my little Mighty man that love is eternal and the true meaning of devotion.

I feel sure he was looking down on me whistling in every back yard and knowing that I was doing all I possibly could to respect our bond.

"He was more than a companion. It was a soul connection for sure. Im sorry. I love you. Thank you. RIP my MIGHTY HEART my little fellow A."

Bloom continued by thanking those in his community who had assisted in the search effort, as well as tattoo artist Scott Campbell for tattooing the dog's name on his chest.

Read more: Katy Perry expecting a girl with Orlando Bloom

The post was accompanied by a video of Bloom crying while getting the tattoo, of an ace of spades inside a heart inked under Mighty's name.

Perry shared her fiances post, adding: Well miss our little buddy boy, Nuggets brother so much. Forever a paw shaped hole in our hearts.

Bloom is known for his devotion to his pets: following the death of another dog, Sidi, he decided to have the skeleton cleaned and mounted in his house.
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MUST I GO, by Yiyun Li. (Random House, $28.) Late in life, prompted by the diary of a former lover, the steely heroine of Lis fourth novel looks back on her marriages, her love affairs and especially her troubled relationship with her daughter, grappling with how our histories help shape our characters.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  So now what?

New York City has moved into Phase 4 of re-opening after the coronavirus pandemic. You might not have noticed any difference.

Thats because malls were not allowed to open in the five boroughs, as wed been told they would be.

Gyms and movie theaters also remain closed.

Nobody in the city is allowed to dine indoors.

Weve reached the last formal phase of re-opening, but major parts of the city economy remain closed.

Whats the timeline for these shuttered places to re-open? Nobody can or will say.

At least within the framework of phased re-opening, with each phase taking roughly two weeks, we had some sense of when things would happen.

Now? Everything is in limbo. We dont know when decisions are going to be made. Its all up to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And, to a lesser extent, I suppose, Mayor Bill de Blasio.

How are we supposed to keep the pressure on them?

Keeping those sectors of the economy locked down frankly doesnt make any sense. Not when every other region in the state is fully open.

You can go upstate and eat indoors, even if the capacity is limited. You can go shopping at Woodbury Common. Or Roosevelt Field. You can go shopping at the malls in New Jersey, for that matter.

Earlier in the pandemic, much was made of having a coordinated response to coronavirus with the surrounding states, primarily New Jersey and Connecticut. After all, it was said, we didnt want things open in some states and closed in others, because people would just cross state lines to do whatever they couldnt do in their home states.

Thats pretty much out the window now. Were not even consistent within the boundaries of New York State.

New Yorks posture on re-opening has been predicated on keeping infection rates low. The state and city set benchmarks, which would be watched carefully as things re-opened to make sure that things didnt get out of hand.

Weve stayed well below those benchmarks. Infection rates, according to daily testing stats, are at about 1 percent statewide, including here in the city.

Thats with the entire rest of the region open for weeks. We havent seen huge spikes in infection rates, even if we have seen some irresponsible behavior on the part of young people who refuse to socially distance or wear masks.

Still, a lot of our city economy remains locked down.

So what are the new benchmarks? And who gets to decide? And when will they tell us?

Cuomo and de Blasio are concerned about all those young people hanging out in front of bars in the city. Cuomo has threatened to close bars and restaurants again if businesses and patrons cant get their acts together. Hes suspended the liquor licenses of some. Hes blamed the localities (that means you, de Blasio) for failing to enforce social distancing guidelines.

Cuomos also concerned about the spike in virus cases being seen in other states. He rages about it every time he has a press conference these days, to the point that its becoming white noise.

The other day he said that hes concerned about people fleeing to New York from virus states and bringing COVID-19 with them. Does he mean the way New Yorkers fled to other regions back in the spring in order to escape the virus here?

Theres plenty of blame to go around, plenty of room for second-guessing. Even President Donald Trump is a mask advocate these days. Even hes finally acknowledging that things are bad out there.

New Yorkers need a re-opening plan they can rely on. Lets decide on the benchmarks and follow them. Stop moving the goalposts.
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - There are a few different scams going around right now. One is the scammer pretending to be from a computer company telling you that you have issues with your computer and the second is the scammer calling you about a family member being in an accident or in trouble and you need to send money. Both of these scams have been around for a few years but are coming back around again.

The Computer Tech Scam: Tech support scammers want you to believe you have a serious problem with your computer, like a virus. They want you to pay for tech support services you don't need, to fix a problem that doesnt exist. They often ask you to pay by wiring money, putting money on a gift card, prepaid card or cash reload card, or using a money transfer app because they know those types of payments can be hard to reverse. You may receive a phone call from someone pretending to be from a well-known company. You may get a pop-up on your computer screen saying you have a problem and to call this number. Here is the real deal. Real tech support companies will not call, text or email you telling you there is a problem. Also, real tech support companies will not send you a pop-up with a phone number to call. If your computer has an issue run a virus check. If there is a problem call a reputable company.

For further information here is a link to the Federal Trade Commission with some great information: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-avoid-and-report-tech-support-scams

The Family Scam: Scammers try to trick you into thinking a loved one is in trouble. They call, text, email, or send messages on social media about a supposed emergency with a family member or friend. They ask you to send money immediately. They may say there was an accident, they are in jail, or any number of locations. The caller will tell you they need money for bail, transportation or similar reasons. The caller will ask you to wire money or buy gift cards or prepaid cards. If you receive a call like this hang up and make every attempt to call the relative or friend in question to check on them.

For further information here is a link to the Federal Trade Commission with some great information: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0204-family-emergency-scams

Please be cautious of calls from numbers you are not familiar with, especially those from out of the country. If you do answer a call like this, do not give out any personal information. Remember, legitimate companies will not ask for payment through gift or prepaid cards. They also will not keep you on the phone while you buy them.


Raises A$2.75m in Shortfall Placement

Brisbane, July 22, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Emerging lithium miner Sayona Mining Limited ( ASX:SYA ) ( FRA:DML ) ( OTCMKTS:DMNXF ) announced today strong investor support for the Company's expansion strategy, having successfully issued the remaining shortfall securities from the 1 for 4 renounceable rights issue announced on 12 March 2020 in a heavily oversubscribed placement.Due to the high demand, the Company has issued a further 120,416,433 shares and 60,208,233 quoted options ( ASX:SYAO ) on the same terms (Oversubscription Placement). A total of A$2,750,000 will be raised, which will support the Company's growth plans in Quebec, Canada together with further development of its Pilbara gold tenements.Demonstrating his confidence in the Company's outlook, Managing Director Brett Lynch has agreed to subscribe for A$100,000 under the Oversubscription Placement. The issue is subject to shareholder approval, which will be sought at the Company's forthcoming Annual General Meeting.The shares were issued at AUD$0.008 per share with one free attaching listed option for every two new shares subscribed for, exercisable at AUD$0.02 on or before 29 April 2023. Securities issued under the Oversubscription Placement were issued without shareholder approval and using the Company's existing 15% capacity under Listing Rule 7.1.Mahe Capital Pty Ltd acted as Lead Manager to the Rights issue and the Oversubscription Placement.Sayona's Managing Director, Brett Lynch said: "The strength of investor demand is extremely welcome and I would like to thank both existing and new shareholders for supporting Sayona's growth plans in Canada and Western Australia."These funds will support not only our flagship Authier Lithium Project, the NAL bid and Tansim project in Quebec, but also the further exploration and development of our prospective gold tenements in the Pilbara."With the electric vehicle revolution continuing to accelerate globally, we look forward to becoming a world-scale spodumene producer in Quebec, the economic, strategic and green supplier of choice for the North American battery market."About Sayona Mining Ltd

Sayona Mining Limited (ASX:SYA) (OTCMKTS:SYAXF) is an Australian, ASX-listed (SYA) company focused on sourcing and developing the raw materials required to construct lithium-ion batteries for use in the rapidly growing new and green technology sectors. The Company has lithium projects in Quebec, Canada and in Western Australia.

Please visit us as at www.sayonamining.com.au
A Chinese seafood lover has had half of his liver removed after the organ was severely infected by parasites, according to a hospital.

Shocking X-ray image shows an enormous pus-filled lump in the man's liver, with what medics called 'countless lightbulb-shaped' eggs laid inside by the parasitic worms.

The patient told the doctors that he had eaten purposely undercooked fish because it retained a better taste of the meat.

Shocking X-ray image shows an enormous pus-filled lump in the Chinese man's liver, with what medics called 'countless lightbulb-shaped' eggs laid inside by the parasitic worms

The incident was brought to light when the 55-year-old seafood lover, known by his surname Xie, sought medical attention at Hangzhou First People's Hospital in eastern China.

Mr Xie, a migrant worker from south-western Chinese province Sichuan, had suffered mild abdominal pain and diarrhoea after visiting his family in February, according to a hospital report.

He thought the symptoms were caused by low moods and didn't go to the hospital until June when he developed a high fever for three days.

After examining Mr Xie with a CT scan, doctors were shocked to find a giant abscess, measuring 19 centimetres long (7.5 inches), 18 centimetres (7 inches) wide and 12 centimetres (4.7 inches) deep, in the left lobe of the patient's left liver.

The medics initially tried to reduce the lump's size by draining fluids from the growth but decided to cut half of the man's liver due to the severity of the infection.

Following the removal operation, the surgeons said that they found the lump was filled with 'countless lightbulb-shaped' worm eggs.

The X-ray scan shows the lump after the medics tried to reduce the lump's size by draining fluids from the growth. They decided to cut half of the man's liver due to the severe infection

Doctors believed that the parasites entered the patient's body after the man had eaten half-raw fish, a delicacy in his hometown, whilst he was visiting his family in Sichuan. This file picture taken on June 17 shows people shopping for live seafood at a market in Beijing

Mr Xie was diagnosed with clonorchiasis - an infectious disease caused by a type of parasitic worm commonly known as the Chinese liver fluke.

Doctors believed that the parasites entered the patient's body after the man had eaten half-raw fish, a delicacy in his hometown, whilst he was visiting his family in Sichuan.

Mr Xie said that he had purposely undercooked the dish to retain the fresh taste of the meat.

The parasitic worm, endemic to Asia and Russia, infects fish-eating mammals, including humans.

People might be unaware of the infection caused by Chinese liver fluke in the early stages as it rarely shows any symptoms, according to the hospital's post.

The parasite also has a 'shocking reproductive rate', the report says, producing at once around 1,400 to 2,000 eggs which can live for between 20 and 30 years.

But this type of infection has become rarer in recent years as people are more aware of food hygiene, said the Chinese medical facility.

Mr Xie is believed to have recovered from the hospital following the successful surgery.
Tech giant Google will approach the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to seek approval for its Rs 33,737 crore investment in Jio Platforms for a 7.73 per cent stake, according to sources.

Google plans to approach the CCI for approval on the deal in the next two weeks, according to the sources privy to the development.

When contacted, Google and Reliance Jio did not comment on the matter.

The deal, which was announced on July 15 at Reliance Industries' annual general meeting, will see Google pick up 7.73 per cent stake in RIL's technology venture Jio Platforms for Rs 33,737 crore. The partnership will also see the two parties cooperate on technology initiatives, including development of affordable smartphones.

California-based Alphabet Inc (parent company of Google) joined Facebook Inc, which opened the investment cycle in Jio Platforms by picking 9.99 per cent stake for Rs 43,573.62 crore.

Last month, Facebook received CCI approval on its transaction that was carried out through a wholly-owned indirect subsidiary, Jaadhu Holdings LLC.

Reliance has sold a 32.8 per cent stake in Jio Platforms Ltd - the unit that houses India's youngest but largest telecom firm Jio Infocomm and apps - to 13 marquee firms including chipmaker Intel Corp and Qualcomm Inc, for over Rs 1.52 lakh crore.

Jio Platforms, which is also amassing a wide range of services from music streaming to online retail and payments, is expected to use its 388 million mobile phone subscribers as the cornerstone of an e-commerce and digital services business to rival Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart.

Google and Jio are partnering to build an operating system that could power affordable 4G and 5G smartphones. Also, JioMart, online shopping portal, and WhatsApp will be working closely to enable customers to seamlessly transact at mom-and-pop stores.

Commenting on the partnership with Jio, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had said: "Through this partnership with Jio Platforms, we see the chance to have an even greater impact than either company could have alone. This partnership is a key part of the next chapter of investment in India... Our investment of $4.5 billion in Jio is the first - and the biggest - investment we will make through this fund (of $10 billion announced on July 13)."

On July 13, Google announced its 'Google for India Digitisation Fund', wherein it will invest Rs 75,000 crore (about $10 billion) to accelerate India's digital economy over the next 5-7 years.

Disclosure: News18.com is part of Network18 Media & Investment Limited which is owned by Reliance Industries Limited that also owns Reliance Jio
WASHINGTON  As in many cities across the country, sustained demonstrations against police brutality erupted in Portland following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Nearly two months later, the nightly clashes prompted by Floyds death have been largely overtaken by a bitter politically-charged struggle pitting Oregon officials against the federal government and its deployment of dozens of agents to local streets.

The federal action has raised difficult legal questions about local control in Portland and the tactics employed by federal agents largely attired in combat camouflage and whose agency affiliations are not always known. It has also drawn comparisons to an aggressive federal response to largely peaceful protests last month in the shadow of the White House.

Here are few things to know about what is happening in Portland:

Federal agents guarding the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night.

When were federal authorities deployed? And what is their mission?

The largest surge of federal officers was launched in early July. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the primary mission was to secure federal building, including the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse which had become a target for protesters.

'What a disaster': Aggressive federal response in Portland raises legal questions

Since that time, according to federal court documents, an estimated 114 officers and agents have joined the surge representing several DHS law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Protective Service, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Marshals Service, which is under the Justice Department.

Chad Wolf of the Department of Homeland Security says that if federal authorities left Portland, Ore., protesters would burn the courthouse down.

The federal contingent has remained in the city, despite calls for their removal by city officials who have claimed that the federal presence has inflamed clashes on the street.

Wolf has maintained as recently as Tuesday that officers are acting within their authority to protect federal property and because of a lack of action by local officials.

Story continues

We will not retreat, Wolf said at a Tuesday briefing in Washington. We will take appropriate action to protect our facilities.

Local officials and demonstrators have accused federal authorities of shielding their identities and using unmarked cars to conduct investigations and arrests. Is that accurate?

Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of Customs and Border Patrol, acknowledged Tuesday that names have been removed from some officers' uniforms because their personal information was being published on social media, putting them at potential risk.

But Morgan said all uniforms carry markings identifying officers as police or law enforcement. He described the use of unmarked vehicles as "standard procedure" and appropriate "especially under the circumstances."

Analysts, however, have sharply criticized the insertion of immigration enforcement officers from their largely rural border assignments to an unfamiliar urban environment.

'This is not a dictatorship!': Portland protesters push back harder against Trump, federal agents

'Barely worth discussion': DHS official dismisses uproar over use of unmarked vehicles in Portland

Its just not their role or expertise, said Gil Kerlikowske, a former Customs and Border Protection commissioner in the Obama administration. I was shocked that (the Border Patrol Tactical Unit) BORTAC would be used. All of these guys are totally a bad fit."

These teams are not doing anything more than providing political theater for an audience of one, Kerlikowske said, referring to President Donald Trump. Policing in an urban area and policing civil disturbance is not anything they have experience or training for.

Morgan defended the officers' suitability for the Portland mission, describing them as some of the "most highly trained" in the CBP. Morgan specifically defended the use of BORTAC, saying the unit is trained to subdue rioting at DHS detention centers.

Federal agents guarding the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night.

What's legal in the federal response in Portland? What's not? What's in murky territory?

Constitutional law experts say the deployment of federal officers and agents to Portland may run afoul with state and local laws.

While federal officers have the authority to defend and protect federal courthouses and other federal properties, patrolling streets that arent part of federal boundaries  and against the wishes of local and state officials  gets into murky legal territory, Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law expert from the University of Texas at Austin, wrote.

Federal officials do have the authority to arrest people outside federal properties or boundaries when theres probable cause that theyve violated federal or state law. But Oregon law requires federal officers to first have certification and training, Vladeck wrote. Its unclear if the federal officers in Portland have undergone such training.

Others have raised civil rights concerns, citing the use of excessive force and tear gas against protesters. Tensions rose earlier this month after federal officers fired a nonlethal rounds at a protester, critically injuring him.

Protesters projected words on the front of the Multnomah County Justice Center July 20 in Portland, Ore.

One widely circulated video shows two officers in green military fatigues pick up a protester and take him to an unmarked van without explaining why they're doing so, which agency they belong to, or which authority they're working under. Another video shows officers in street clothes yanking a woman off the street and taking her to an unmarked car as bystanders screamed.

"The people do seem to be getting detained without probable cause or the necessary requirements that theyve committed a crime," said Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University. "Even state officers have to comply with those."

Why are local and state officials in Portland resisting federal presence?

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler had relied on police officers, sheriff's deputies and state troopers to man the protests and has repeatedly asked federal officials to leave the city, saying their presence only fuels the unrest and violates the protesters' First Amendment rights.

"Last week, we were seeing the de-escalation of the violence. We were seeing things calm down. But the intervention of federal officers reignited tensions," Wheeler said during a video news conference last Friday.

A 'very dark history': Oregon's racist past fuels ongoing protests against injustice in Portland

State officials have voiced similar concerns.

"This is a democracy, not a dictatorship," Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement. "We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles. I cant believe I have to say that to the president of the United States."

Oregon's attorney general has filed a lawsuit against several federal agencies accusing them of civil rights violations and have asked a judge to issue an order barring them from using tactics state officials see as unconstitutional.

A fire illuminates people attending a protest at the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night.

What are concerns from other cities regarding the deployment of federal forces?

In a joint letter last week to Wolf and Attorney General William Barr, the mayors of Chicago, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Kansas City, Missouri, said: "The unilateral deployment of these forces into American cities is unprecedented and violates the fundamental constitutional protections and tenets of federalism."

The mayors criticized the administration's decision to send federal agents that normally deal with national security threats and immigration violations to conduct crowd control on city streets. They said their actions in Portland have "blatantly disregarded" local rules and expectations about how to deal with civilians.

"Furthermore, it is concerning that federal law enforcement is being deployed for political purposes," the letter said. "The President and his administration continually attack local leadership and amplify false and divisive rhetoric purely for campaign fodder."

The letter came following news that Trump is weighing a broad deployment of federal officers in Chicago and in other cities.

Contributing: Lindsay Schnell

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Portland protests: Trump administration actions raises legal questions
By Billy House| Bloomberg News

Washington  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says no other member of Congress  or any female  should be treated the way a conservative Florida congressman accosted her Monday at the Capitol.

The freshman New York congresswoman wants Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida "to apologize on the floor of the House," she said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

Yoho declined to give his version of their encounter while emerging from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office Tuesday night. He said he didn't want to talk about it.

At issue, according to the freshman congresswoman from the Bronx and Queens, is an episode on a Capitol staircase in which Yoho "just came up on me, put his finger in my face, started calling me 'disgusting.'" She said that Rep. Roger Williams, a Texas Republican, was standing with Yoho.

"And when it became clear he was just not going to stop, I called him rude, but started walking away," she said.

A reporter for The Hill newspaper who witnessed the encounter wrote that Yoho then uttered the words "f------ b---ch." Ocasio-Cortez said in the interview she didn't hear that, but did hear him "making a sound."

She said Yoho, a veterinarian whose district is in northeast Florida, was upset at comments she had made at a virtual town hall about rising crime in New York City being the result of the coronavirus pandemic, poverty and rising unemployment  not lack of policing, that she says some have taken deliberately out of context.

Basically what I had said  violent crime aside, look at petty crime. A lot of what motivates petty crime is poverty, and a lot of these crimes are crimes of poverty, Ocasio-Cortez said.

She added she didnt know why Yoho, in particular, got so upset at her, and that she had never really spoken to him before. Now, however, she wants him to apologize on the House floor  or she will consider taking some other action.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer earlier Tuesday told reporters that Yoho should apologize. He said the incident was "despicable, unacceptable," and that "Mr. Yoho owes not only the congresswoman an apology, but also an apology on the floor."

"It's something that the leader offered. I didn't request that of him," Ocasio-Cortez said.

You know, when it first happened, I tried to kind of brush it under the rug, added Ocasio-Cortez. But as I sat with it, how I really felt was, this wasnt really not about me  about whether I was offended or not offended. Its not a question of that.

Its a question of whether Id want any other person in this body to be treated that way. Would I want my niece, or would I want any of the young girls, or young people in general that say one day I want to go to Congress, to be accosted? she asked.
OTTAWAThe government has quietly relaxed a requirement to fingerprint prospective new federal hires as part of security screening, a move prompted by the need for physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The temporary change to the federal standard on security screening allows departments and agencies subject to the Policy on Government Security to grant conditional security statuses and clearances.

The Immigration and Refugee Board and the Canadian Space Agency told The Canadian Press they had adopted the new flexible measures.

The government must ensure it can effectively respond to public needs during COVID-19 by hiring badly needed workers, the Treasury Board Secretariat said in response to questions about the change.

This has required urgently increasing the workforce necessary to implement the governments emergency measures and to provide support where urgently needed, like health-care workers in Indigenous and northern communities.

The secretariat said that given the physical distancing practices recommended by the Public Health Agency of Canada, it is not always possible to obtain fingerprints, a common step in carrying out a criminal record check during screening.

The decision to grant a conditional security screening clearance under the temporary change in practice is the responsibility of the deputy head within each department or agency, based on individual circumstances.

Agencies continue to diligently assess candidates using security screening measures in a manner that does not present a public health risk, the secretariat said.

This includes, for example, verifying a candidates identity and background, information, education and professional credentials and performing a credit check.

This may include conducting name-based checks for law enforcement inquiries as an alternative to using digital fingerprints or extending the validity of existing screening levels that are due for revalidation during this period.

All candidates for employment with the government are also required to self-declare the existence of a criminal record on a security screening application form.

We are encouraging departments and agencies to only use this conditional screening practice for low-risk positions, the secretariat said.

Even with the variation, access to classified information remains restricted only to employees who have been granted the appropriate security screening status, it added.

Under these circumstances, any letters of offer would be conditional on the security screening ultimately being successfully completed and the employee being confirmed at the appropriate security screening level for the position.

Between mid-March and May, 13 new hires at the Canadian Space Agency received conditional security clearances with no fingerprints, said Andrea Matte, a spokesperson for the agency. Additional screening activities and security measures were put in place.

Since May, with new sanitation measures available, the space agency has been able to take fingerprints for all but two of these new hires and they are now fully cleared, Matte said.

The direction from Treasury Board indicated the measure was meant for agencies that grant employees a level known as reliability status, whereas the RCMP uses the higher level of enhanced reliability status given the nature of its work and security levels within the organization, said Catherine Fortin, a spokeswoman for the national police force.

The RCMP did not provide the authority to implement this measure, and as a result there is no indication it was ever used in our organization.

During the pandemic, hiring has been done on a priority basis and each of the regions had its own processes for use of personal protective equipment and cleaning protocols, Fortin said. Any individuals being hired at this time would have to be considered critical.

Similarly, the Correctional Service of Canada said it had not eased screening practices due to COVID-19, adding the prison service must ensure that individuals with access to government information and assets are reliable and trustworthy.

The Immigration and Refugee Board said it forgoes fingerprinting for about five to 10 candidates a month needing reliability status, but continues to apply other security protocols.

All employees subject to this temporary measure will be subject to fingerprint checks and regular screening procedures once normal screening processes resume, the board said.

Because the total number of conditional clearances granted using the variation will depend on decisions made within each department, an estimate of the number of people affected is not available, the Treasury Board Secretariat said.
Scientists have released the first ever picture of a solar system like our own  a Sun-like star, orbited by multiple exoplanets.

It is the first time that astronomers have been able to directly see a planetary system with more than one planet, with more than one world. Images of exoplanets of any kind are incredibly rare, but the new picture represents a breakthrough in the discovery of other planets like our own.

Researchers hope that in addition to offering the first real look at such a similar planetary system, the image and observations could help us understand how our solar system's planets were formed and went on to evolve around our Sun.

Being able to take such direct observations will also be an important part of the search for planets that can support life, researchers said.

This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our Solar System, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution, said Alexander Bohn, a PhD student at Leiden University in the Netherlands who led the new research, in a statement.

(ESO/Bohn et al. (ESO/Bohn et al.)

The image was taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. It shows the planetary system known as TYC 8998-760-1, which is about 300 light years away.

(ESO)

Astronomers have already found thousands of other planets in our own galaxy. But almost all of them have been discovered through the "transit" method, where scientists watch for the trademark drop in light that happens as the planets move in front of their star, meaning that scientists do not get to see them directly.

Recommended Water is found on habitable alien exoplanet for the first time

Researchers have only ever been able to directly observe two other systems that had more than one planet before. But in both of those cases, the stars were very different from our Sun.

As such, the new image represents humanity's first look at a direct image of star like our Sun, surrounded by more than one planet, as in our solar system.

Our team has now been able to take the first image of two gas giant companions that are orbiting a young, solar analogue, says Maddalena Reggiani, a postdoctoral researcher from KU Leuven, Belgium, who was part of the research.

While the star in the system is more similar to our Sun than any other observed in such a way before, it still has important differences. Scientists describe it as a "very young version of our own Sun", since it is only about 17 million years old.

The planets are even more different from our own Earth  they are gas giants, like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They orbit at around 160 times and 320 times the distance we are from the Sun, and are much heavier than the planets in our solar system.

Scientists were able to take the images using the European Southern Observatory's SPHERE instrument. That is able to block out bright light from the star, allowing the for more dim planets to be seen  such a technique would not work on the planets of our solar system, since they are older and cooler, but younger planets glow from their heat.

Astronomers hope to conduct further observations of this system to understand the history of the planets. New technology such as that in the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope could allow astronomers to see even more hidden planets, scientists said.

The possibility that future instruments, such as those available on the ELT, will be able to detect even lower-mass planets around this star marks an important milestone in understanding multi-planet systems, with potential implications for the history of our own Solar System," Mr Bohn said.
Maria Ressa, executive editor of the Philippine news website Rappler, gestures while speaking to reporters at the Manila Regional Court after being found guilty of cyber libel, June 15, 2020.

Filipino journalist Maria Ressa appeared in a Pasig Regional Trial Court on Wednesday to plead not guilty to charges that she violated the countrys tax laws, more than a month after a Manila court found her guilty of cyber libel.

Ressa, CEO and executive editor of the online news site Rappler, is accused of failing to supply correct tax information for the second quarter of 2015. She faces four other tax evasion cases at the Court of Tax Appeals.

Well fight every step of the way because we will hold the line, Ressa, who was freed on bail, told reporters. Im not voluntarily going to give up my rights.

On June 15, a Manila court convicted Ressa and a former employee, Reynaldo Santos Jr., of cyber libel.

The two were convicted in the case that resulted from a complaint filed by businessman Wilfredo Keng who said a 2012 report libeled him. The Rappler report said he owned a vehicle being used by the then chief justice of the Supreme Court and described Keng as having ties to the criminal underworld.

ABS-CBN

Ressa and Rappler have been critical of the Duterte administrations war on drugs, which has killed thousands of suspected addicts and dealers over the last four years.

Speaking to reporters after her court appearance, Ressa discussed ABS-CBN, and warned that Rappler and other media groups that have questioned Duterte could face similar fates.

ABS-CBN Corp., whose radio and television channels reached millions and provided critical news coverage, including reporting that had angered Duterte, on July 10 lost a bid to have its broadcasting license renewed.

What happened to ABS-CBN can happen to all of us, she said. So, journalists, we have to hold power to account even if power is consolidated. Thats really whats happening now. We need to continue to demand accountability.

If I dont get justice now, Ill get it later, these charges are politically motivated, they are meant to harass, intimidate, to try to make us afraid to keep reporting. The best response to it is to keep reporting, Ressa said.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, meanwhile, accused Ressa of playing the victim card by bringing up the case of ABS-CBN.

We reiterate that the granting of the broadcasting franchise is the sole and exclusive prerogative of Congress and we have maintained a neutral stance on the issue as part of our courtesy and respect to a separate co-equal branch of the government, Roque said in a statement.

ABS-CBN, Rappler, and other news entities continue to report on the events happening in the country, he said. A good case in point is the ABS-CBN News coverage of the not guilty plea of Maria Ressa, which can be read online. There is certainly no truth to Ms. Ressas allegation.
The Reading Area Water Authority is seeking reimbursement for expenses incurred during the COVID-19 crisis, Executive Director Bill Murray announced at Tuesdays meeting.

RAWA has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $433,320 in emergency expenditures dating to the advent of the crisis in March.

Under its Public Assistance grant program, FEMA is reimbursing municipal government agencies up to 75 percent of COVID-19 related costs, an estimated $325,000 for RAWA, an official said.

In response to the crisis, Murray said, RAWA purchased new computers, bought protective clothing for its workers and purchased signage in English and Spanish to alert residents to the dangers of the coronavirus.

RAWA also used its emergency notification system to alert residents to Gov. Tom Wolfs stay-at-home mandate.

And at the outset of the crisis, RAWA distributed free spring water to Reading families dependent on store-bought water.

Some families couldnt find spring water in the stores, Murray said, and they came to us.

Free spring water continues to be available at RAWA headquarters on Kutztown Road, where a facility with two spigots has been installed outside the building.

The facility distributes about 50 gallons a day. Its open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

RAWAs offices are closed and its customer service staff is working from home, but Murray said the authority is in the process of preparing to reopen.

The office is being restructured to minimize contact between staff and customers. No date has been set for reopening.

Murray emphasized that the office does not accept water bill payments. Most customer service concerns can be handled by phone.

The popular Wacky Water Wednesdays program has been expanded to include a sprinkler park in Glenside housing development.

The park has been inoperable, but will open Wednesday after RAWA crews performed pavement and grate repairs.

Wacky Water Wednesdays, heralded by Mayor Eddie Moran, continues Wednesday from 1-4 p.m. at Second and Oley and Third and Spruce streets.

Murray sounded the alarm about potential danger to a major pumping station from fireworks.

On July 4, he said, a bush was set afire by fireworks near RAWAs High Service Pumping Station No. 1, which supplies water to nearly half the city. The fire was posted on Facebook.

There are two trees near the pumping station, Murray said, that could be vulnerable to fireworks.

Amid high demand for electricity during the current heat wave, the Birdsboro Power Plant consumed 2.78 million gallons of water on Monday, a one-day record for RAWA.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 11:52:16|Editor: huaxia

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WUHAN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A tour group from outside Hubei Province on Tuesday kicked off a sightseeing tour of the provincial capital of Wuhan, the first of its kind since the city's lockdown was lifted on April 8.

The eight-member group consists of a family of seven people and a friend, all from neighboring Hunan Province.

Their arrival marked a significant step in the resumption of trans-provincial group tours for the province where the COVID-19 epidemic wreaked havoc. On Saturday, a group of six travelers flew to northwest China's Lanzhou city, becoming the first tour group to travel out of the province.

Hubei last week announced that trans-provincial group tours were allowed to resume, and indoor tourist sites will be reopened in the province.

Tourist spots were allowed to fill up to 50 percent of their reception capacity, up from the previous 30 percent.

According to a notice issued by the provincial culture and tourism department, strict anti-epidemic measures remain a top priority.

"Wuhan people have undergone universal nucleic acid tests, and the city has rich medical resources and publishes information in a transparent way. I feel safe traveling here," said Yu Boyue, a member of the tour group.

On Tuesday, the group visited Yellow Crane Tower, a landmark scenic spot in Wuhan. Together with the group were representatives of over 40 non-local travel agencies, who were conducting in-person investigations for future cooperation with local tourist sites.

Statistics show that Wuhan received more than 310 million tourists in 2019, making it one of the most popular tourist cities in China. Enditem
Her voice temporarily silenced by a nearly three-month battle with COVID-19, Elenice da Silva "talks" by mouthing her words in a Brazilian care unit created to help hard-hit patients recover their health and their lives. "I'm doing great," the 63-year-old tells her physical therapists with her lips in the post-coronavirus treatment center at the Pedro Ernesto University Hospital (HUPE) in Rio de Janeiro. The unit was created to help patients like her, who have overcome severe cases of COVID-19 but now need further specialized care to deal with the after-effects. That is the case for a surging number of people in Brazil, the country hit second-hardest by the pandemic, after the United States, with nearly 2.2 million infections. More than 80,000 people have died of the virus in the South American country, according to official figures. Nearly 1.5 million have recovered. But there is another troubling problem behind that more-hopeful statistic: often, those who survive severe cases of the virus face a long, hard road to regain their health. "They are socially vulnerable (patients) who have recovered from the initial stage of their illness... but still need multidisciplinary assistance," said Marcia Ladeira, one of the specialists coordinating the unit. After long stays in intensive care, patients are often left suffering from atrophied muscles or problems affecting their lungs, hearts or kidneys. Many have other underlying conditions and need longer-term care including an array of therapies: physical, nutritional, psychological, and hearing and speech, Ladeira told AFP. "Our care team creates an environment where these patients can fully recover and leave here walking and eating on their own, without feeding tubes, with their bed sores healed. Ready to reintegrate into society," she said. The hospital opened the unit during the worst of the pandemic in Rio, where the health system was pushed close to the breaking point from April to June. The unit has treated dozens of patients, though the numbers have declined now that new infections are no longer rising exponentially. Just five people were recovering there on a recent visit. - Giant cake - Patients spend anywhere from one week to several months in the post-COVID unit. Da Silva, who also has epilepsy and other underlying conditions, is strengthening her arms and legs with the help of two physical therapists, learning to stand up again in brief intervals. "Intensive care was awful. But now I'm feeling marvelous. If not for these doctors... I would have died," she said, this time speaking with the help of a valve placed in a hole in her trachea. Using the device, she manages to speak for several minutes, albeit with difficulty, and has been able to talk to her children during visits. "Her infection left her very weak... (but) she's doing very well," said one of her physical therapists, Cleiton Ferreira dos Santos. The treatment team's next goal is to help her be able to swallow again so she can eat normally and her feeding tube can be removed. She still has a long way to go. But she already has plans for when she leaves the hospital. "I'm going to bake a giant cake for everyone," she said. Elenice da Silva practices breathing exercises in a post-COVID-19 care unit at the Pedro Ernesto University Hospital in Rio de Janeiro Staff check on Elenice da Silva's tracheotomy in the post-COVID-19 care unit One of the specialists coordinating the post-COVID-19 care unit in Rio de Janeiro says the team "creates an environment where these patients can fully recover and leave here walking and eating on their own" Claudia, a nurse at the Pedro Ernesto University Hospital post-COVID-19 care unit in Rio de Janeiro, takes care of a patient
Growing old and dying are inevitable phases of human life but the University of California San Diego (UCSD) scientists could be a step closer towards delaying the aging process.

Aging is connected with the vigorous changes in the biological, environmental, physiological, social aspects, and psychological behavior of a living being. Aging among some humans result in increased susceptibility to disease, disability, and frailty.

The team of researchers examined aging in yeast to surmise if varying cells age at the same rate and due to the same cause.

With the same DNA under the same environment, yeast cells displayed varied structures of the nucleolus (red) and mitochondria (green), underscoring the causes of varying aging paths.

The UCSD scientists believe that they discovered a way to reprogram cells in order for their life spans to dramatically rise, reported Times Now.

The researchers noted that cells with similar genetic material under the same environment aged in remarkably different ways.

The researchers published their findings in the journal "Science," reported CNN Philippines.

The scientists learned that around half of the yeast cells aged due to a gradual decline in the nucleolus (a round body located in the nucleus of a cell) through methods such as computer modeling and microfluidics.

They discovered that they could manipulate the aging process through computer simulations to reprogram the master circuit and alter its DNA, reported Khaleej Times.

They stated that cells take one of 2 different paths chosen early in their life cycles: nuclear or mitochondrial (that do not change).

Also Read: Secondhand Smoke Risks, Effects and What You Need to Know About It

As an attempt towards delaying the aging process, the scientists were able to modify cells to take on a third aging route that remarkably increased their lifespans, ensuring that they remained healthy throughout the process.

According to health experts, the findings will offer the public the capacity to delay the aging process alongside illnesses that come along with it.

The single-celled fungi were chosen because the cells were convenient to manipulate.

The other half of the yeast cells aged due to a dysfunction of mitochondria (responsible for producing the cell's energy).

"To understand how cells make these decisions, we identified the molecular processes underlying each aging route and the connections among them, revealing a molecular circuit that controls cell aging, analogous to electric circuits that control home appliances," according to Nan Hao, senior author of the study and associate professor in UCSD's division of biological sciences' molecular biology section.

The scientists were able to develop a "novel aging route" with an extended lifespan which could eventually lead to the probability of delaying aging among humans.

"This is an aging path that never existed, but because we understand how it is regulated, we can basically design or regulate a new aging path," stated Hao.

This significant breakthrough of the team in delaying the aging process could have imposing implications with regard to our lifestyles.

The scientists are looking to extend testing on chemical "cocktails" in complex organisms with the ultimate endpoint of conducting testing on humans.

Related Article: How Accurate Is the COVID-19 Finger Stick Test

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Federal authorities say they have evidence linking Roy Den Hollander, who is accused of killing a New Jersey federal judges son and wounding her husband in a shooting, to the killing of a California attorney and mens rights activist earlier this month, the FBI announced Wednesday.

Marc Angelucci, of Crestline, California, was found shot dead outside his home on July 11. The FBI said it has evidence linking Den Hollander to the murder of Angelucci, who, like Den Hollander, was an attorney who also routinely challenged selective service registration in the military. The investigation is ongoing.

The FBI has also identified Den Hollander as the suspect who went to U.S. District Judge Esther Salas North Brunswick home Sunday and killed her 20-year-old son and seriously injured her husband. Den Hollander had a case pending before Salas regarding the U.S. militarys male-only draft registration system, court records show.

According to CNN, friends of Angelucci said Den Hollander held a grudge against Angelucci because they both filed lawsuits challenging selective service registration only applying to men.

Roy was furious and beyond words furious, absolutely enraged that (the National Coalition for Men) and Marc Angelucci were getting into the selective service case. He viewed that as something proprietary for him, one friend said on a Facebook live video Monday night, according to CNN.

Den Hollander, who was a self-described anti-feminist lawyer, was found dead Monday from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in the New York town of Rockland.

According to CNN, Angelucci and Den Hollander were both members of the National Coalition for Men, though the organizations president told the news network that he kicked Den Hollander out of the group in 2015 after Den Hollander threatened him.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Joe Atmonavage may be reached at jatmonavage@njadvancemedia.com.
Even people who classify as social butterflies may crave time alone now and then, and the same could be true for dairy calves.

While we know that social contact is important, the social dynamics in group housing can be complicated, said Emily Miller-Cushon during the July Hoards Dairyman webinar.

The assistant professor at the University of Florida explained that the welfare of animals in social groups might depend on their ability to express a range of social behaviors. We want opportunity for positive social interactions, but maybe animals also need to be able to avoid antagonistic or competitive situations, she said.

This thought led to a study where a shelter that provided a physical and visual barrier for calves was placed in a group pen. Over the course of three days, the 24 calves in the pen were observed. All of the calves visited the shelter; the minimum usage per calf was 10 minutes per day and went all the way up to 20 hours per day.

Miller-Cushon said the preference for social proximity or isolation might vary between individual animals and may change over time or in certain circumstances. Cows, for example, often seek privacy before calving if it is an option.

The research group also wondered if shelter use would rise if calves were uncomfortable or in pain, such as after disbudding. After comparing two groups of calves  one group that was handled and disbudded and one group that was just handled  they found that the disbudded calves did spend more time in the shelter for the three days following the procedure, and they also visited the shelter more often.

We think that this suggests that individual calves may have changing preferences for use in the pen space and social interactions, and social preferences might be affected by states like pain, Miller-Cushon said. Providing more complex environments for calves could accommodate some of these varied behaviors, and she said this may provide some potential indicators of how a calf is feeling.

To learn more about calf rearing and Miller-Cushons research, watch the archived webinar Calf management, behavior, and welfare on our website. This webinar was sponsored by Agri-Plastics.

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2020

July 20, 2020
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to propose on Wednesday a first-ever rulemaking for emission standards for commercial aircraft, Reuters reported, citing officials.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg Law reported that the White Houses regulatory clearinghouse had completed a review of the rule proposed by the EPA, which proposes to set limits to the greenhouse gas emissions of some aircraft under the Clean Air Act.

The proposed rulemaking will be the first emission standard for commercial aviation in the United States and will include large passenger jets, regional jets, large turboprop airplanes. Helicopters, small turboprops, helicopters, and military aircraft will not be part of the emission standards rule, Reuters noted.

According to EPAs own estimates, aircraft account for 12 percent of all U.S. transportation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 3 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions.

The UN agency International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) already has emission standards for aircraft aimed at reducing the impact of aviation greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate.

A U.S. emission standard in line with the ICAO standards or more stringent will be crucial for the U.S. aviation industry because some countries could move to ban aircraft made in the United States if they fall short of ICAO emission standards, administration officials told Reuters.

The proposed rule would be sensible, legally defendable steps to regulate greenhouse gases, while safeguarding American jobs and the economy, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement to Reuters.

Clare Lakewood, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Bloomberg Law this week that many commercial aircraft in the United States already comply with the ICAO standards, while newly delivered airplanes are set to exceed the ICAO standards by around 10 percent.

In January this year, the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, and Friends of the Earth notified EPA of their intent to sue it for taking too long to promulgate any rule on greenhouse emissions from aircraft.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The FBI is linking the anti-feminist lawyer who murdered a New Jersey judge's son on Sunday to the murder of a rival attorney in California earlier this month after learning that he was in the same state at the time of the killing.

Roy Den Hollander is now believed to have been involved in the shooting death of Marc Angelucci in California at the start of July. The motive is as yet unknown.

Hollander is then thought to have returned to the East Coast where he killed Judge Esther Salas's 20-year-old son Daniel on Sunday during an attack on the family.

She was unharmed. He'd fumed about her in online posts where he called her 'hot' but 'lazy' and 'Latina'.

Hollander, 72, killed himself in the Catskills after Sunday's shooting. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer.

In a tweet on Wednesday, the FBI's Newark Bureau tweeted: 'As the FBI continues the investigation into the attack at the home of US District Court Judge Esther Salas, we are now engaged with the San Bernardino CA Sheriffs Office and have evidence linking the murder of Marc Angelucci to FBI Newark subject Roy Den Hollander.'

It came after law enforcement sources told The Daily Beast that they knew Hollander was in California when Angelucci was killed.

Roy Den Hollander is now believed to have been involved in the shooting death of Marc Angelucci in California at the start of July

'We do see him in California on the relevant dates,' the unnamed source said.

Angelucci was shot dead by someone dressed as a delivery driver on July 11.

No one has been arrested for the killing and his friends were at a loss over who his enemies may have been.

He, like Hollander, was a prominent men's rights attorneys.

On Sunday, Hollander opened fire on Judge Salas' son, Daniel, after he opened the door to him at their home in New Brunswick.

Judge Esther Salas. Hollander said she was 'hot' and contemplated 'asking her out' but also said she had an 'inferiority complex'

Daniel, 20, died after being shot in the heart. Hollander then shot Judge Salas' husband, Mark, was shot multiple times but survived after undergoing surgery.

She was in the basement at the time of the shooting and was unharmed.

Hollander had written about her and other women in his life in a rambling 1,700-page self-published book titled Stupid Friggin Fool.

It detailed his failed marriage to a Russian woman, who he claims was a 'mafia prostitute', and how it broke down after she obtained a green-card through the relationship.

He complained that Salas was taking too long to rule on a case he was involved in that was over the military's male-only draft.

'Just unbelievable, by now we should have been knocking on the U.S. Supreme Courts door, but lady unluck stuck us with an Obama appointee.

He was angry that the case was taking so long in Salas' court. Female judges didnt bother me as long as they were middle age or older black ladies.

'They seemed to have an understanding of how life worked and were not about to be conned by any foot dragging lawyer.

Latinas, however, were usually a problemdriven by an inferiority complex,' he wrote.

Hollander killed Salas' 20-year-old son Daniel and injured her husband Mark, 63, on Sunday

Later, he claimed she only became successful as a result of 'affirmative action'. In one racist diatribe, he wrote: 'After Salas agreed to allow the DOJ its fourth motion to dismiss, I checked her bio.

It was the usual effort to blame a man and turn someone into super girldaddy abandoned us, we were indigent, which means they lived off of the taxpayer, but we overcame all odds.

'Right, affirmative action got her into and through college and law school.

Salas worked as an associate in an ambulance chasing firm doing basic criminal work. Left that firm to work as a public defender in the New Jersey District Court representing lumpen proletariat neer-do-wells. Joined 135 politically correct organizations trying to convince America that whites, especially white males, were barbarians, and all those of a darker skin complexion were victims.

'She did, however, have one accomplishmenthigh school cheerleader.'

Sources say he may also have planned to target New York Judge Janet DiFiore, whose name and photograph were found on a piece of paper in his car.

In his rambling, 1,700-page book titled Stupid Frigging Fool, Hollander referred to Salas as 'this hot Latina Judge in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey whom Obama had appointed.'

He wrote: 'At first, I wanted to ask the Judge out, but thought she might hold me in contempt.'

Elsewhere in the book, he called her a 'lazy and incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama.'

The book's dedication reads: 'To mother. May she burn in hell'.

It also tells the story of Hollander's marriage to a Russian bride, Angelina, who was younger than him and left him when they moved from Moscow to the US after obtaining a green-card through their marriage.

The first chapter is titled 'Dream Lover' and tells the story of how they met.

He had been at a party in Moscow where he admitted 'eyeing' girls who were just 16 and 17 before being approached by 23-year-old Angelina.

'Russian babes are real womennot like the man-haters in America who try to act like men,' he wrote.

He used vile language to describe her later, after allegedly learning that she'd been unfaithful to him, and described fleeing Russia without her, calling her a 'dark angel'. By then, she'd obtained her visa.

After returning to the US, he made it his life's work to take on what he called 'Feminazis'.

He filed numerous lawsuits to protect 'mens' rights', including one against a Manhattan bar which offered women free entry, and another against Colombia University, his alma mater, for offering a Women's Studies course which he said was sexist. He lost them all.

Elsewhere in the book, Hollander wrote about his recent cancer treatment and desire to use the rest of his time to 'wrap up his affairs.'

'No more chances now, if there ever really were any, for glory and fortune, but maybe a little old time justice as in all those 1950s television westerns I watched as a kid when the lone cowboy refused to give up without a fight,' he wrote.

'The only problem with a life lived too long under Feminazi rule is that a man ends up with so many enemies he can't even the score with all of them. But law school and the media taught me how to prioritize.'

Hollander's online writings also appeared to point towards a potential connection between himself and the Beaverkill community where his body was found - as Hollander had made reference to going to a family cabin in Beaverkill at one point.

And he had written online about posing as a FedEx delivery person to speak with a young girl, which mirrors the alleged tactic he used at the door to the judge's home.

Hollander had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was suing a hospital which treated him, claiming malpractice. He also declared bankruptcy several years ago.
Kerala gold smuggling case: ED registers money laundering complaint

India

pti-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Jul 22: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering complaint in connection with the Kerala 'diplomatic baggage' gold smuggling case, officials said on Wednesday. They said the agency has registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), equivalent of a police FIR, after studying the NIA complaint filed in the case recently.

The ED case has been booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the agency will record the statement of the accused, they said. The central agency will investigate if proceeds of crime were generated by the accused by laundering of funds that were earned through the alleged gold smuggling racket.

Ramees is Kerala Gold Smuggling case mastermind, modus operandi to fund terror says NIA

The ED also has powers to attach the immovable and movable properties of the accused under the PMLA. The case emerged on July 5 when gold, weighing over 30 kg, was seized by the Customs department from the "diplomatic baggage" that had landed by air cargo at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport from the Gulf. The seized gold is stated to worth nearly Rs 15 crore.

The ED is the fourth central agency that is probing the accused involved in the case after the Customs, NIA and the Income Tax Department. The NIA had arrested the prime accused in the case, Swapna Suresh and her associate Sandeep Nair, from Bengaluru on July 11. The NIA had told a special court in Kochi on Tuesday that Suresh, Nair and others conspired to damage the country's monetary stability by smuggling large quantity of gold from abroad.

In a report submitted to the court, the NIA also said it is suspected that the accused had used the proceeds of smuggling for financing terrorism through various means. The accused deliberately used the diplomatic baggage of UAE as a cover to transact illegal business and it may have serious repercussions in India's diplomatic relations with the UAE government and it is prejudicial to the monetary and economic security of India as well, the NIA said.

Galwan martyr Colonel Babu's wife appointed Deputy Collector | Oneindia News

Unchecked bureaucracy, diplomatic immunity helped Kerala Gold Smuggling accused thrive

The NIA has interrogated Suresh and Nair who are in its custody till July 24. It has booked Suresh, Sarith P S, Nair and Fasil Fareed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Suresh was working in the Information Technology department and her contractual service terminated after her name cropped up in the gold smuggling case. IAS officer M Sivasakar was removed as Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the state IT Secretary over his alleged links with Suresh and other accused in the case. She is also stated to be a former employee of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram. Sarith P S, also a former employee of the UAE consulate in Kerala, was arrested by the Customs department after the gold was seized. Dubai-based businessman Fareed is still at large.
I am writing to you today, as a registered voter of Fairfield County, in regard to the proposed Police Reform Bill 3471 which is to be debated and voted upon in the coming weeks.

I have dedicated the last six years of my life to serving the community of Stamford as a police officer. Prior to my law enforcement career, I spent four years serving New York City as a child protection specialist with the Administration for Childrens Services. Both careers are exhausting and sometimes thankless but I did each to truly serve my community, protect and make a difference.

I was raised in a predominantly black/brown and middle class community in New York City by both parents. While growing up, I witnessed first-hand, gun violence, gang violence, drugs and countless other crimes in my neighborhood. Most people in my neighborhood were hard-working citizens who lived in fear of becoming a victim to this criminal activity every day.

Community Policing helped change the high crime rate in my neighborhood over time and people began to feel safe knowing police officers were there to serve and protect them from criminals.

The proposed police reform bill in its current state will not improve things in the slightest. If this bill passes you will see an increase in crime. You will see proactive law enforcement cease to exist. And you will see virtuous officers leave the job behind. Not to mention how difficult recruiting and retaining high quality applicants will be in the near future. There will be a total paradigm shift in policing as we know it. And this change will be to the detriment of this country.

Several sections of the bill are concerning, specifically the removal of Qualified Immunity. It is not, as others may be convinced, absolute immunity. To have Qualified Immunity, you must qualify for it. To remove this protection from decent and hard-working officers means they can be held civily liable for even the smallest and most frivolous lawsuits. Officers will lose hard-earned money to defend themselves against even the most baseless and ridiculous claims. Officers will hesitate to act on the job for fear of losing everything they own (which will inherently place their lives in immediate unnecessary danger) or fear of public backlash. This hesitation can cost officers, and those we have sworn to protect, their lives.

Other areas of the bill look to take away tools from law enforcement that were granted through federal bills. It seeks, for example, to eliminate consensual searches and forbid police from stopping cars based on equipment violations alone. This will upsurge crime and also rise traffic crashes due to less motor vehicle stops being conducted. This will similarly have an adverse impact on getting illegal drugs and weapons off of the street.

The professional and courteous police officers in the State of Connecticut should not have to pay for the actions of a few bad ones, hundreds of miles away. Not one officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain or chief believes George Floyds killing was justified  we all condemn that.

Of the thousands of public interactions Ive had over my brief career, not one person has ever filed a complaint and not one time have I ever used excessive or unnecessary force. I represent the majority of police in this state. There are overwhelmingly more of us than there are bad ones.

There are plenty of outstanding police officers in Stamford who really care about the city. We are here to serve, but with the restrictions imposed by this new bill we will be essentially handcuffed in the worst possible way. This bill makes us more susceptible to the liability inherent to this work, it will decrease proactive and community policing measures that have kept the city safe and it will cause an overall loss of officers who cannot be replaced.

Please, and I speak with the voice of all Connecticut law enforcement, vote against this bill. Let law enforcement officers collaborate with lawmakers on the necessary changes so this can benefit everyone and not this a select demographic. Do not let the City of Stamford and the State of Connecticut suffer.

Jermaine Sylva works in the juvenile division of special investigations office of the Stamford Police Department.
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Ministers are calling on the government to protect homeowners after it was revealed that at least 800,000 homes have had faulty cavity wall insulation installed at their properties.

Following the government's announcement of a new energy efficiency scheme this month, MPs and campaigners have expressed their concerns about how property owners will be protected from suppliers who fail to meet required standards.

They have also called for registered installers with the Cavity Insulation Guarantee Agency (CIGA) to be investigated after industry insiders told the BBC that at least 800,000 homes had been hit by faulty cavity wall insulation.

The rising fears come just weeks after the Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled a 2billion Green Homes Grant that would allow homeowners and landlords to receive grants of up to 5,000 for insulation and other energy efficiency measures from September.

Sharing his heartache, Gavin Ward, whose insulation work was guaranteed by the CIGA, described how he was forced to leave his home in Bridgend, Wales, after it was deemed 'uninhabitable' by the council.

Gavin Ward was forced to leave his home in Bridgend, Wales, after it was deemed 'uninhabitable' by the council. He later shared a series of photos on social media of the damp, mould and poor electrics he was left with

The property owner said his home was deemed 'uninhabitable' by the council after it was found poor cavity wall insulation

Inside Mr Ward's home the electrical circuits were fully corroded due the amount of water in the insulation

Mr Ward, who was faced with unsafe electrics, damp and mould, said his ordeal began three years prior when he had cavity wall insulation fitted by the company Miller Pattison.

A later examination by a surveyor revealed that the insulation company had not removed the debris from inside the cavity before injecting the mineral wool insulation.

Mr Ward told MailOnline: 'Our installation was done in April 2011 by Miller Pattison. Their pre-installation inspection was not done to standards. Only one inspection hole was drilled in one wall.

'They are supposed to be in each elevation to check for rubble and cavity depth. It transpires that our home had a significant level of rubble in the cavity, along with other issues that would have made it unsuitable from the start.

'Having not assessed the house correctly they ploughed ahead and did the install. They then installed it negligently - again not having knowledge at the time we did not know this.

'Their drill pattern was incorrect, they did not fill to a correct density, did not install a brush strip, areas were left out and the house was in a location unsuitable for cavity wall insulation.

'We didn't notice problems until late 2016 and not for one minute did we think it would have been to do with the cavity wall insulation that was installed to make the house warmer and more energy efficient.

'We did notice our bills increasing but thought that was just due to energy prices - and not that the insulation was becoming wet / saturated. Again could not see it on the inside wall surfaces, as it was going on within the cavity.'

After looking for advice online, Mr Ward found that his problems were due to a faulty cavity wall insulation.

He continued: 'I looked online for advice and saw others with similar problems. I arranged for an assessment and was told that it was due to the cavity wall insulation.

'I instructed a solicitor as it was evident that the damage by far exceeded the CIGA guarantee of 25,000. At the point of sending the initial letter of claim from our solicitor (in March 2017) the level of damage was circa 40,000.'

Inside Mr Ward's son's room mould and damp covered the walls due to poor cavity wall insulation

Images from Mr Ward's dining room revealed the amount of mould that had been left growing on the walls

Despite his efforts to get the insulation company to correct the problem, Mr Ward said he would not be able to receive any money after the company went into voluntary administration.

Mr Ward added: 'It's all well and good the government putting things right for the future but they need to look at all of those that have been let down and had to give up the fight along the way. There needs to be an inquiry.

'A lot of the people that had this work done are vulnerable and those that are not already vulnerable become it during the process of fighting for justice.'

Cavity wall insulation involves injecting materials, such as mineral wool or polystyrene beads, through holes drilled on the outside walls and is carried out to help property owners remain warm.

However there are now increasing calls from campaigners and MPs to investigate registered installers with the industry-funded body CIGA, with those inside the industry telling the BBC that at least 800,000 homes have been hit by faulty cavity wall insulation.

While the the CIGA has since admitted that the insulation by the company in Mr Ward's case should not have been installed and have offered to have it removed, they said they will not pay the 60,000 repair bill.

Earlier this month Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled a 2billion Green Homes Grant that would allow homeowners and landlords to receive grants of up to 5,000 for insulation

A CIGA spokesperson said: 'Following a letter received by Mr Ward's MP CIGA pushed forward, despite still no reported concern, in carrying out an investigation and followed the correct course of action as required under the guarantee.'

They added: 'CIGA recognises that on occasion the Cavity Wall Insulation Industry has not got it right and as a result of some poor practices a number of homeowners have been affected.

'CIGAs response to this in 2016 was not as good as it should have been and as a result CIGA carried out a full review of its structure and processes.

'CIGAs appointed independent Non Executive Advisors to its board, appointed a Consumer Champion (now Consumer Focus), set up a UKTSI approved arbitration scheme, published an annual review and resourced up to a level to guarantee a response to what are stretching Key Performance Indicators.

'At peak CIGA was dealing with 4809 claims per annum and since having dealt with a backlog following the administration of a number of significant operators in the market such as the Mark Group and Carillion CIGA now deals with on average 3250 claims per annum and currently has 540 open cases which we are actively dealing with.

Criteria for cavity wall insulation In order to have cavity wall insulation your home must meet certain criteria. This includes having unfilled external cavity walls, having a cavity of at least 50mm wide, your masonry or brickwork being in good condition, the house being at least 20 years old and the walls not being exposed to driving rain. You also can't have cavity wall insulation if you have damp patches on the inside walls. Advertisement

'CIGA have routinely carried out random and targeted quality inspections of installations under the Guarantee scheme, and since our certification system was put in place in September 2017 has been directly responsible for 5% surveillance of Certified installers.

'We continue to put in place additional measures of quality and compliance that are robust and effectively managed.'

Mr Ward's ordeal is among thousands of stories which have seen homeowners homes fall victim to poor insulation, campaigners say.

Pauline Saunders, from the Cavity Insulation Victims' Alliance, CIVALLI, told the BBC that much of the work carried out by earlier schemes had left affected some of the most vulnerable in society.

Ms Saunders, who last year was shortlisted for Inside Housing's Women in Housing Awards, went on to say that some in the industry 'treat people like idiots'.

Meanwhile the Labour MP for Bristol North West, Darren Jones, has said that he had written to ministers asking how property owners would be protected following the new scheme.

According to the CIGA's website, the independent body provides 25 year guarantees for Cavity Wall Insulation fitted by registered installers in the UK and Channel islands.

In his mini-Budget this month, Mr Sunak confirmed a 2billion Green Homes Grant from September would mean homeowners and landlords could get grants up to 5,000 for insulation and other energy efficiency measures.

Some of the lowest income households will get the full costs of energy efficiency refits paid up to 10,000.

The types of improvements to be offered include wall-to-wall insulation, energy efficient boilers, double or triple-glazed windows, low-energy lighting and insulated doors.

The funding also includes 1billion to improve the energy efficiency and low carbon heating for schools, hospitals, prisons, military bases and other public buildings and 50 million to pilot ways to cut carbon from social housing.

Mr Sunak claimed that his eco-boosting measures would make 650,000 homes more energy efficient, save households up to 300 on their annual bills, cut carbon emissions by 500,000 tonnes and support 140,000 jobs.
Jana Judisch, spokeswoman of the Studierendenwerk Berlin, a public institution to provide the necessary services for studying at the Berlin universities, accepted a donation cheque in the amount of 5,800 Euros for the "Technikfonds" (technology fund). This fund enables needy students to participate in the corona-related new online semester offers of Berlin's universities and colleges.

Anke Boerdgen, head of product management and marketing at Knauer (on the right in the picture) presents Jana Judisch, spokeswoman of the Studierendenwerk Berlin with a donation cheque for 5800 euros. Image Credit: KNAUER

The cheque was presented by Anke Boerdgen, head of product management and marketing at KNAUER. The Berlin based company manufactures high-tech laboratory instruments that are used for a variety of analyses and for the purification of active ingredients, for example.

"I would like to thank the Knauer company on behalf of the Berlin students for the donation and would be very pleased if other companies and alumni would follow this example", appeals the spokeswoman of the Studierendenwerk.

Anyone wishing to find out more about the technology fund "online campus participation" or to support it can find information at www.stw.berlin/technikfonds.

When our managing director Alexandra Knauer heard about this fund of the Studierendenwerk and its financing needs, she was quickly determined to support it. After all, she herself and many of our employees studied at a Berlin university. Corporate social responsibility is a high priority at KNAUER," Anke Boerdgen, head of product management and marketing at KNAUER

As a systemically important manufacturer and thanks to many precautionary measures, KNAUER was able to maintain operations and production during the Corona crisis. It is therefore possible for the company to help those affected by the crisis. In recent weeks, KNAUER has also provided numerous schools, kindergartens, and other institutions with its own hand disinfectant free of charge, produced according to a WHO recipe, Anke Boerdgen continued.

What is the background of the technology fund mentioned? As a result of the corona pandemic, all Berlin universities have switched their courses to online operation. It is not unlikely that the winter semester will also mainly take place online. There are many students who are financially not well-off and therefore technically not yet sufficiently equipped to successfully complete online studies.

According to a survey by the Studierendenwerk, 2 percent do not own a personal computer, 24 percent stated that their computer is too old to be used for video events and another 14 percent stated that they lack additional equipment such as a webcam or headset, reports Jana Judisch.

Students who finance themselves solely through jobs are particularly affected, as many of these temporary jobs have disappeared in the crisis. New purchases of PC hardware or additional running costs for fast Internet access are almost impossible to cope with.

Studierendenwerk and the State of Berlin have created the technology fund "Online Campus Participation" to provide targeted support for these students. Donors are, for example, the state with 100 thousand euros and the Sparkassen, a universal public bank group, with 25 thousand euros.

Payments by the Studierendenwerk can amount to 200 euros for the purchase of accessories or Internet access or 500 euros for the purchase of a suitable computer. The conditions for approval are very strict, so that really only those in need are considered.

Of the approximately 700 applications approved, only 285 have so far been paid because the funds have already been exhausted.

The Studierendenwerk Berlin supports students from a total of 20 universities. As an institution under public law, it has the legal mandate to provide the necessary services for all aspects of study. This includes the canteens as well as the dormitories or advisory services concerning studies and their financing. The Studierendenwerk Berlin is financed by the so-called social contribution that students pay with their semester fee and a subsidy from the state of Berlin. It must cover its costs, but may not make any profits.
Growers have been told be aware of the high risk of turnip yellow virus this autumn as a result of current aphid numbers, plant breeders warn.

Turnips yellows virus (TuYV) is transmitted by aphids, and it is believed that 70% of the most common aphid, peach potato aphids, carry it.

Work carried out at Suffolk-based Broom's Barn Experimental Station a decade ago showed a 30% yield penalty where levels of the virus were high and infection occurred early in the crops life.

Recent data from the research site confirms just how high recent aphid pressure is. The Broom's Barn long term average of accumulated catches of peach potato aphids up to 21 June normally runs to just under 500 aphids caught in their traps.

But for 2020, this was running at 4400, nearly a tenfold increase. Some plants that were being monitored had 50-100 aphids per plant.

AHDB aphids news tells a very similar story; in the report until the end of June, Alex Greenslade of the Rothamsted Insect survey team reported that average air temperatures continued to exceed the long-term average.

Coinciding with this, the total cereal aphid numbers increased to around 120% of the last period, he said.

Dr Vasilis Gegas, EU portfolio manager for OSR at Limagrain, said sugar beet was already showing the consequences of this high aphid pressure with many crops exhibiting symptoms.

"As aphids start flying in the spring they tend to head for sugar beet first, and then as oilseed rape crops are drilled in the autumn they move across into these.

The link between high numbers of aphids in the autumn and corresponding levels of infection is clear, he said.

Infection usually occurs in September to October when aphids are still flying; the earlier a crop is infected, the more severe the symptoms tend to be with harsher yield penalty as the plants have less seeds/pods.

Early drilled crops that are more open, corresponding with mild autumnal conditions, are at the highest risk, he added.

As control of aphids becomes increasingly difficult, so numbers have increased, with a subsequent build up of TuYV inoculum in the environment.

Once an aphid is infected, it is infected for life  if an uninfected aphid feeds on an infected plant, the aphid becomes infected, and so the cycle continues.

Dr Vasilis Gegas said: Infected plants produce fewer side branches, pods, and seeds per pod. Its confined to the phloem, so potentially robs the plant of resources that would be fed to the roots.

But you often dont see severe symptoms, which is why TuYV often goes undetected. Genetic resistance is by far the best way forward.

What are TuYV levels now?

Since 2016, Limagrain UK along with industry partners  Agrii, Openfield and the AICC  have been monitoring levels of TuYV in crops across the UK.

Its part of a programme carried out across Europe, with leaf samples taken both in the spring and autumn and tested using the standard Elisa test.

Weve mapped the incidence of TuYV from the UK to Ukraine and seen it build over the years, said Dr Vasilis Gegas.

Were getting to a situation where in some locations 100% of crops carry the virus. Its now endemic across Europe, and no longer confined to hotspots.

Sampling is carried out twice during the growing season, with an initial small-scale survey conducted in Oct-Nov, followed by extensive testing carried out in early spring.

The last couple of seasons we have found very high levels of infection in UK crops in the autumn, which wasnt the case before, he added.

TuYV incidence reached its highest level ever last season, with an average of 84% of non-TuYV resistant UK crops infected in early spring 2019. Almost all sites had an infection rate between 81-100%.

While incidence was highest in East Anglia and south east England, sites in Scotland and the South West now show high levels of infection.

Four years ago we wouldnt have seen high levels in the North. But last year we saw 70-75% infection of OSR in Perth and 50-54% in Aberdeen, Dr Gegas said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:48:05|Editor: huaxia

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HANGZHOU, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The China National Silk Museum, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, and the UNESCO Silk Roads Programme jointly organized a webinar to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Silk Roads expeditions.

UNESCO launched five expeditions along a desert section of the Silk Roads, or the routes network of the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor, between 1990 and 1995. The first expedition started on July 20, 1990 in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Chinese and international scholars, who had participated in the five expeditions, shared their memories of the journeys at the online reunion held on Monday.

The expeditions laid a solid foundation for the Silk Roads to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014, said Zhao Feng, director of the China National Silk Museum.

Liu Yingsheng, a scholar with Nanjing University and also a three-time participant in the expeditions, said the Silk Roads put Chinese history in a global context and therefore strengthened exchanges between China and the world.

Mechtild Rossler, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, said in her address that the Silk Roads cultural heritage sets a foundation for international cooperation in the future.

At the webinar, Jing Feng, chief of the Asia and the Pacific Unit at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, said that with the support from the UNESCO Silk Roads Programme, the silk museum, located in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, had launched a digital archive to collect documents, academic writings, photographic materials, news reports, and interview recordings about the Silk Roads expeditions. Enditem
Though unemployment rates in Egypt have increased as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, the future for Egyptian IT professionals looks positive. Recent government initiatives such as the National Program for Structural Reforms, announced in April this year, aim to bolster the Egyptian economy, strengthen the countrys infrastructure, and potentially provide thousands of much-needed jobs

Planning Minister Hala Al-Saeed outlined the roadmap for the new government initiative, which aims to increase the contribution of manufacturing, agriculture, telecommunications and information technology sectors to Egypts GDP to 15% by 2024. The scheme, official say, should create between 400,000 and 460,000 new jobs in Egypt.

This news comes as a relief to Egyptian job seekers after a long, difficult year. More than a quarter of Egyptians experienced job loss between the end of February and May 2020 alone, and production dropped in several manufacturing sectors within that timeframe, according to the state statistics agency, CAPMAS. But the employment outlook for the country may see an upswing sooner rather than later, according to regional experts.

Signs point to a restart in hiring in Egypt

Though employment numbers fell at an accelerated rate during the worst months of the pandemic last year, multiple signals suggest brighter days ahead, said David Owen, economist at IHS Markit, in a recent report. Higher demand at some companies, increased backlogs and sentiment rising to a six-month high all point to firms hopefully restarting hiring, he wrote.

With the Egyptian market poised to recover, Egyptians who have found themselves unexpectedly in the job market would do well to use the downtime to upskill in preparation for new demands. Some of the most in-demand IT roles require experience with data science and network engineering, and having certifications in these topics puts job applicants at an advantage. In particular, software engineers should understand which programming tools are in demand  certifications in those tools can assure employers that applicants have up-to-date training.

Most IT companies today are moving from the information technology era to the data technology era which means they are driven by the need to analyse increasing volumes of data, which requires a special skill-set, explains Khaleel Kilani, vice president of HR & Performance Management at Mondia, a mobile technology company that launched its own tech hub in Cairo last year to provide learning facilities for internships and additional skill development.

Start-up boom boosts need for tech jobs

Egypt has a young, educated and motivated workforce and we have recently seen a boom in entrepreneurship and successful start-ups come out of the country, which has fuelled the demand for technical roles, says Kilani.

Tax incentives established in previous years aimed to attract foreign investments and companies may also bolster the post-COVID IT job market. Investments in the communications and information technology sector increased by 300 percent in 2020, according to Planning Minister Hala el Saeed, and economic reforms that have been implemented since 2016 continue to support the Egyptian economy.

While many Egyptians are feeling the immediate effects of the economic downturn, the future does look bright for those who develop and upskill their talents. Below are some of the most in-demand IT roles in Egypt and the skills required to excel in each role. This information has been gathered from a variety of sources, and salaries are provided in EGP on a per month basis.

Software Engineer

8,000 to 15,000 EGP p/m (US$500  $950 p/m)

Software engineering roles vary in their duties from organization to organization, however, in general a software engineer develops software solutions that support needs of businesses and their consumers. Software engineers may be tasked to create a variety of solutions such as desktop and web applications, mobile apps, games, automation tools, and network systems, depending on the needs of their company. Coding in various languages is a must for software engineers.

Security Engineer

Starting at 15,000 EGP p/m

As the global cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, demand for experienced security engineers is on the rise. Companies are searching for cybersecurity professionals that can develop and maintain security protocols across network, end-point, communications, and web security devices. Security engineers are also tasked with the monitoring and investigation of potential and on-going security issues.

Systems/Network Administrator

Starting at 15,000 EGP p/m

Computer networks are the backbone of modern organizations. Network administrators are responsible for the daily operations and maintenance of these systems. Administrators manage servers, desktop, and mobile equipment, and ensure that necessary systems like email and data storage networks are working properly. Prior to COVID-19, network administrators also ensured that workstations were meeting the needs of employees. Now that many employees work from home, network administrators are often tasked with providing and maintaining equipment necessary for a remote work model.

Data analyst

Starting at 25,000 EGP p/m

Across the IT industry, data is king. As users generate more and more data, data scientists and analysts are needed to interpret that data to drive business decision making. Data analysts cull data from a variety of sources, interpreting and distributing that data in a way that is palatable for various stakeholders. A data analyst not only interprets important data, oftentimes they act in an advisory role, explaining the potential value of data to the business using statistical analysis, data mining, and other data visualization techniques.

Front-end developer

8,000 to 15,000 EGP p/m

As many businesses look to bolster their online presence to better service remote clients and customers, front-end developers are in high demand. While a front-end development role may fall under the more general software developer title, front-end developers more specifically create the code that allows a website to be displayed. While a front-end developer might work with a web designer, front-end developers are responsible for implementing the code that makes websites display properly. Front-end developers need to be skilled in a number of coding languages which may include HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Security Architect

Starting at 25,000 EGP p/m

As with security engineers, security architects are needed in Egypt as private and public entities move forward with digital transformation efforts, and the cybersecurity landscape continues to change. Security architects are the builders of cybersecurity systems, and are tasked with building, testing, designing and implementing organization-wide cyber security systems. Security architects are expected to have a deep understanding of IT systems and their weaknesses, as well as the latest security standards and authentication protocols.

Project Manager

Starting at 20,000 p/m

A generalist role, IT project managers spearhead and integrate cross-functional information technology projects. Much of the work of an IT project manager involves coordinating other IT professionals and administrative tasks to come together on major IT projects. IT project managers are responsible for keeping deliverables on time, and project stakeholders on track.
A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Alaska Peninsula on Tuesday at about 11:12 p.m. A tsunami warning has been issued.

The earthquake had a depth of six miles or 9.6 kilometers and was centered 60 miles south-southeast of Perryville, Alaska.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar said anything below 70 kilometers is considered a shallow quake.

"That's important, because shallow earthquakes often cause the most damage, compared to the ones that are deeper, regardless of the strength," Chinchar was quoted in a CNN report.

Report said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center canceled the tsunami warning for South Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands early Wednesday.

A tsunami advisory was also canceled on Tuesday evening for coastal areas east and west of the tsunami warning areas.

The CNN reported that there is no threat of tsunami in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, and California.

CNN meteorologist Pedam Javheri said there have been at least 11 aftershocks with magnitudes ranging from 3.9 to 6.1.

Reports said a local high school on Kodiak Island opened its door for evacuees, as well as a local Catholic school.

Superintendent of the Kodiak School District Larry LeDoux said high schools are full of people as of now.

"I've been passing out masks since the first siren sounded," he was quoted in a report.

LeDoux said they have probably got around 300 or 400 people all wearing mask.

1964 Alaska Earthquake

The 1964 Alaska earthquake struck Alaska's Prince William Sound, about 74 miles southeast of Anchorage. This was recorded as the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America.

The earthquake was so powerful that it registered in all U.S. states, except Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware.

This led to many important scientific discoveries in subduction earthquakes and how to reduce their destruction, according to the History channel site.

Check these out:

6.6-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Mexico; No Tsunami Alert Signal Issued

Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake Strikes US-Mexico Border

Earthquake Shakes Puerto Rico Causing Damage to Buildings in Ponce
RTHK: France effectively forcing Huawei out of 5G networks

French authorities have told telecoms operators planning to buy Huawei 5G equipment that they won't be able to renew licences for the gear once they expire, effectively phasing the Chinese firm out of mobile networks, three sources close to the matter said.

Like other countries in Europe, France is laying the ground for its next-generation 5G mobile market in the middle of a growing geopolitical storm between two global superpowers.

The United States say the company's equipment could be used by the Chinese government for espionage - a charge denied by Huawei and Beijing - and has pressed its allies to ban it.

France's cybersecurity agency ANSSI said this month it would allow operators to use equipment, including Huawei's, under licences of three to eight years. But it added it was urging telcos not currently using the Chinese company's gear to avoid switching to it.

Operators must each apply for dozens of licences for equipment to cover different parts of the country.

The sources said ANSSI had informed operators of most licence decisions for large cities. They said the bulk of authorisations for Huawei gear were for three or five years, while most of those for equipment from European rivals Ericsson or Nokia received eight-year licences.

ANSSI's decisions have not been made public, either by the agency or by the companies.

The sources added that operators had also been told by French authorities during informal conversations in recent months, not stated formally in documents, that licences granted for Huawei equipment would not be renewed thereafter.

ANSSI declined to comment.

A spokesman for the prime minister's office, which oversees the permissions on 5G equipment, said ANSSI was working with operators within the legal framework, adding that any authorisation granted at present did not impinge on whether these would later be renewed or interrupted.

Huawei declined to comment.

Such restrictions, though, would amount to a de facto phase-out of Huawei within France's 5G networks by 2028, given the short time-frame of the licenses, according to the sources, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

French operators might still manage to get an eight-year authorisation for Huawei equipment in some cases, and could yet decide to use its gear for that time period, the sources said. But even this meant eventually dismantling it, they added.

One of the sources said it would be difficult for a telecom operator to take the risk of investing in Huawei gear, given new mobile technology like 5G takes at least eight years to yield a return on investment. "Granting three years amounts to a flat refusal," the person added.

An effective ban would be particularly troublesome for Bouygues Telecom and Altice Europe's SFR, the two French telecom operators that already use Huawei's equipment in their current mobile network.

The new authorisations for 5G network equipment are linked to existing 4G gear - meaning that if an operator opts for a different supplier for 5G, it would also have to replace its existing 4G infrastructure.

The companies have already said several times this year that such a scenario, in which they may be compelled to replace part of their grid at great cost, would lead them to asking for compensation from the state.

Bouygues and Altice declined to comment on whether they had applied for Huawei licences or any licence decisions or whether they had held informal conversations with ANSSI. They also declined to comment on whether they would now drop any purchase plans for Huawei equipment.

France's two other major operators, leader Orange and Iliad, mainly rely on Nokia, Ericsson or both for their mobile networks.

Iliad and Orange declined to comment.

In Britain, where major telecoms groups are heavily reliant on Huawei technology, the government has ordered the Chinese company's equipment to be purged from the 5G network by 2027.

"France's position is similar to that of Britain, but the government's communication is different," one of the sources said. "Huawei can't do much about it." (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The government needs to double its autism budget to maintain the current average amount of behavioural therapy for children and eliminate wait lists, says a new report from Ontarios financial watchdog.

The report from Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman also found that the number of children on the wait list for help hit 27,600 in 2019-20 as the government changed course on autism services last year.

Queens Park is in the midst of fully rolling out a new plan by 2021 to serve the provinces 42,000 children with autism, with a budget of $600 million.

Autism advocates had previously said the amount was sufficient.

But Weltman estimated the cost to be double that, and said while the wait list would be shorter, it would not be eliminated.

Youre still going to have a significant waiting list, but its not as high as it was before, Weltman said of the $600 million in funding. If you as an MPP think, Well, no, we really should clear the wait list completely, then our report says, OK, but thats going to cost about $1.35 billion in year one.

The province had made controversial changes to the autism program before it struck an expert panel to help create a needs-based system that would not limit amounts provided by a childs age or family income.

Some families spend as much $95,000 a year on behavioural therapies, although others spend less.

Weltman said the $600 million would provide an average of $29,000 each year to some 17,860 children, but still leave another 22,900 on the wait list.

Lowering the average funding to $13,100 per child  a 56 per cent drop  would completely eliminate the wait list, the FAO office said.

Social Services Minister Todd Smith said more than 22,000 children are receiving support through existing government programs and one-time funding.

We are determined to get this right and will continue to support children and youth during the transition to the new needs-based Ontario Autism Program, Smith said in a written statement.

Liberal MPP Michael Coteau, who was at one time the minister responsible for the autism program, said when (Premier) Doug Ford implemented his disastrous changes to the Ontario Autism Program last year, everyone told him it was the wrong thing to do. Parents said it. Experts said it. Now, the Financial Accountability Officer is confirming there is less money being spent per child and less capacity in the system. Families are being left behind.

Coteau said children, parents and service providers face dire situations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Children are regressing without in-person therapy or school. Parents are facing severe stress, and service providers worry about keeping their doors open as bills pile up. There needs to be urgent action to support those in the autism community, who have already endured so much.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said while the Ford government inherited a terrible autism program that forced children to wait ...(it) has made it much worse, with longer waits, and a Ford budget that shortchanges kids badly.

She also said that the report found the program needs $1.4 billion for a needs-based autism program that doesnt leave children languishing on wait lists.

NDP Children and Youth Critic Monique Taylor said children with autism are literally having their potential robbed by the Ford government ... These families deserve so much better. They need a fully-funded needs-based program right away.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:06:19|Editor: huaxia

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CANBERRA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Leading Australian scientists have called for more work to be done to help the nation's soil recover from devastating bushfires.

The Australian Academy of Science on Wednesday published a report on the impact of bushfires on soil conditions, revealing the significant damage caused by the fires.

It warned that if more resources weren't dedicated to soil recovery efforts Australia's agricultural productivity would decline.

"The bushfires severely damaged millions of hectares of land, not just above ground but the soil beneath us. This has clear implications for soil fertility, Australia's agricultural productivity and the recovery of native vegetation," Alexander McBratney, a soil scientist and Academy Fellow, said in a media release.

"As a nation we can do more to monitor our soils. Post-bushfires there are opportunities to improve and implement initiatives to better manage Australian soils as we develop a soils recovery plan.

"A nationally consistent framework for soil data collection, storage and accessibility is important to provide the scientific evidence that underpins policy development."

More than 18 million hectares of land were burned during the 2019-20 summer bushfire crisis.

Australia's east coast, which accounts for most of the nation's agricultural production, was hit hardest by the fires.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison acknowledged the threat to Australia's soil in a speech in July 2019.

Rob Fitzpatrick, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, said that Australia must integrate soil management into bushfire recovery programs.

"The successful recovery of Australia's soil condition also extends further than the immediate soil ecosystem," he said.

"Interlinked systems such as biodiversity and conservation programs, agricultural and horticultural industries, and broader ecosystem services will also benefit from better monitoring and management of soil condition." Enditem
(Natural News) Websites that publish contradictory content about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) in opposition to the official pandemic narrative are about to lose their eligibility for participating in Googles behemoth advertising empire.

Starting on August 18, Google will officially ban publishers from using its ad platform next to content that promotes conspiracy theories about Covid-19, meaning unless they tow the governments version of events, they will no longer qualify for Google ad revenue.

This is significant because upwards of 70 percent of all online ad spending is controlled by Google. Getting the axe by Google, in other words, means that sites will potentially be cut off from their primary revenue streams simply for offering a different perspective on the pandemic.

While the new rule will supposedly only apply to specific pages on a web platform that discuss the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), Google added the caveat that in cases where a particular site publishes a certain threshold of material that violates these policies, it will ban the entire site from using its ad platforms.

According to CNBC, one of the mainstream fake news outlets that made the announcement on behalf of Google, these changes are necessary to help steer the general public towards the authoritative scientific consensus on the pandemic.

[B]anned claims, CNBC further indicated, would include conspiracy theories like vaccines being attempts to genetically modify the population, that Bill Gates created Covid-19 or that the disease was a bioweapon created in a Chinese lab.

This latter bullet point is anomalous considering that a peer-reviewed study confirmed that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) is unnatural and likely came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Google sides with communist China in pushing CCPs version of events as fact

CNBC must also think that the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, which include those in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, are also conspiracy theories, as they, too, indicated back in April that they were looking into the suspicious origins of the novel virus.

These agencies, as reported by Zero Hedge back at the time, had been looking closely at the work of a senior scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Peng Zhou, as they examine whether COVID-19 originated from a wet market or whether the naturally  occurring virus may have been released from the level four laboratory in Wuhan that was studying deadly coronavirus pathogens from bats.

It would seem as though the authoritative scientific consensus as defined by CNBC and Google actually originates in communist China, which is steering the narrative away from the truth.

One wonders if Google is also planning to censor and demonetize the unscientific assessments of some 1,200 so-called experts who are on record as claiming that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) did not spread during the George Floyd riots, but is spreading at churches and grocery stores frequented by otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Our guess is no because Google has repeatedly made it clear that its policies are politically one-sided and always stacked against its opposition. Censorship at Google is selective, in other words, and always has been.

It is important to keep in mind that Google is also in charge of the advertising companies that participate in its AdSense program. They are not the ones choosing to not have their ads appear on politically incorrect websites, but rather it is Google that is acting as the all-seeing, all-knowing gatekeeper in deciding who gets paid and who gets financially starved.

I wonder why this is so important to the executives of Google, asked one Zero Hedge commenter. Facts so strong you are not allowed to question or investigate them?

More news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) is available at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com
Slack Technologies, Inc., (NYSE: WORK) today announced it has filed a competition complaint against Microsoft Corporation before the European Commission.

The complaint details Microsoft's illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition in breach of European Union competition law. Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.

"We're confident that we win on the merits of our product, but we can't ignore illegal behavior that deprives customers of access to the tools and solutions they want," said Jonathan Prince, Vice President of Communications and Policy at Slack. "Slack threatens Microsoft's hold on business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means Slack threatens Microsoft's lock on enterprise software."

"But this is much bigger than Slack versus Microsoft this is a proxy for two very different philosophies for the future of digital ecosystems, gateways versus gatekeepers," Prince said. "Slack offers an open, flexible approach that compounds the threat to Microsoft because it is a gateway to innovative, best-in-class technology that competes with the rest of Microsoft's stack and gives customers the freedom to build solutions that meet their needs. We want to be the 2% of your software budget that makes the other 98% more valuable; they want 100% of your budget every time."

"Slack simply wants fair competition and a level playing field. Healthy competition drives innovation and creates the best products and the most choice for customers. Competition and antitrust laws are designed to ensure that dominant companies are not allowed to foreclose competition illegally. We're asking the EU to be a neutral referee, examine the facts, and enforce the law," said David Schellhase, General Counsel at Slack. "Microsoft is reverting to past behavior. They created a weak, copycat product and tied it to their dominant Office product, force installing it and blocking its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behavior during the 'browser wars.' Slack is asking the European Commission to take swift action to ensure Microsoft cannot continue to illegally leverage its power from one market to another by bundling or tying products."

The European Commission will now review the complaint and decide whether to open a formal investigation into Microsoft's anti-competitive practices.

About Slack:

Slack has transformed business communication. It's the leading channel-based messaging platform, used by millions to align their teams, unify their systems, and drive their businesses forward. Only Slack offers a secure, enterprise-grade environment that can scale with the largest companies in the world. It is a new layer of the business technology stack where people can work together more effectively, connect all their other software tools and services, and find the information they need to do their best work. Slack is where work happens.

Slack and the Slack logo are trademarks of Slack Technologies, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005498/en/

Contacts:

Jesse Hulsing

Investor Relations

ir@slack.com

Jonathan Prince

Communications and Policy

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In the case of flaring, researchers say the mechanism may involve particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and other toxic substances. It seems pretty plausible that it would have an effect on premature birth given that air pollution and preterm birth are well linked, said Elaine Hill, a health economist at the University of Rochester Medical Center who was not involved in the study.

In the study, the impacts of flaring fell entirely on Hispanic mothers, raising concerns about environmental injustice at a time when questions of racial inequality have gripped the nation.

Dr. Cushing said there were several potential explanations for the sharp ethnic disparity.

On average, she said, Hispanic women experienced more flaring, and its possible that the effects only manifest above a certain threshold of exposure. Other studies have also shown that women of color are more susceptible to pollution. That may be because their bodies are already worn down by longtime health problems, exposure to other contaminants or chronic stress caused by discrimination, Dr. Cushing said.
New York, July 22 : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that he was confident that through "concerted effort", India and the US can protect their interests in the face of China's "unacceptable behavior".

Calling India "a key pillar in (President Donald) Trump's foreign policy", he said, "The United States has never been more supportive of India's security." Pompeo, who was in Denmark, spoke remotely to the US-India Business Council Ideas Summit. He said, "The recent clashes initiated by the PLA (People's Liberation Army) are just the latest examples of the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party's) unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the death of 20 Indian service members." "I am confident that because of our concerted effort, we can protect our interests," he said.

He added, "I'm happy to report that India is a rising US defence and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally." Pompeo's unequivocal support for India and condemnation of China was in contrast to Trump's recent wavering stand on last month's conflict in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh.

Asked about the possible actions by the US to send a message to China over the conflict, Trump's spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany quoted him as saying, "I love the people of India, and I love the people of China, and I want to do everything possible to keep the peace for the people." Pompeo has been the face of the US campaign against China on security and diplomatic issues, trying to line up countries on matters ranging from technology to aggressive behaviour in Asia, ranging from Bhutan and India to Taiwan and the Philippines.

On Tuesday, the State Department ordered China to shut down its consulate in Houston within 72 hours citing espionage and intellectual property theft.

In the latest incident, the Justice Department accused two Chinese nationals of trying to hack into the US computer systems to steal Covid-19 vaccine research.

Pompeo said, "I specially commend India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok, which represent serious security risk for the Indian people." Turning to trade, Pompeo said that India had the opportunity to benefit from the growing distrust of Beijing and bring in businesses and manufacturing from China.

"India has the opportunity to attract global supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunication, medical supplies and others," he said.

"India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States," he said.

But he added, "India will need to encourage an environment that is more open to increase trade and investment. I know that's possible because Indians and Americans share the spirit of hard-work and entrepreneurship and I'm confident our partnership is only getting stronger." "The private sector will be indispensable in overcoming the economic damage caused by the pandemic that began in Wuhan, China," he added.

In another area of international cooperation, the Blue Dot Network, an international development effort led by the US as an alternative to China's Belt and Road Initiative that has trapped several countries in debt, Pompeo said Washington wants to work with New Delhi in the "crucial" effort.

He said the US wants to work on it with India "to promote high-quality transparent infrastructure development. This effort is crucial to adopt because free markets are the best way to lift people out of poverty. India has seen that in its own recent past".

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)
The campaign, referred to as Incr edible Giving. Powered By You., was developed because the bank believes that everyone should have a stable food source, and no one can really thrive on an empty stomach. For nearly every home, commercial, SBA and motor coach loan written by IncredibleBank, the bank will donate 500 meals* to people in need through their partnership with Feeding America. This year alone, it is estimated IncredibleBank will donate more than 500,000 meals through the Incr edible Giving. Powered By You. campaign.

Todd Nagel, President and Chief Executive Officer of IncredibleBank said, "Before we were bankers, we were farmers. Because of that, when we became bankers, decades ago, we understood that it was still our lifework to feed the hungry. The opportunity to partner with Feeding America and provide meals for virtually every loan we write, is an opportunity that remains consistent with our heritage and roots, but also our mission to do what we can to make a difference to the 37 million Americans fighting hunger today."

"The fight against hunger cannot be won alone. We are grateful for IncredibleBank's generous donation to support people facing hunger," said Lauren Biedron, Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at Feeding America. "We serve our communities best when we work together."

*$1 helps to provide at least ten meals secured by Feeding America on behalf of local member food banks. Feeding America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and is the nation's largest organization dedicated to fighting domestic hunger through a network of food banks. IncredibleBank has guaranteed a minimum donation of $50,000.

To find your local food bank and volunteer, visit https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank .

About IncredibleBank

IncredibleBank is a financial institution headquartered in Wausau, Wisconsin with 15 branches in Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The company's continued emphasis on I.C.E. (Incredible Customer Experiences) has helped the bank grow to over $1.4 billion in assets.

About Feeding America

Feeding America is the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States. Through a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs, we provide meals to more than 40 million people each year. Feeding America also supports programs that prevent food waste and improve food security among the people we serve; educates the public about the problem of hunger; and advocates for legislation that protects people from going hungry. Visit www.feedingamerica.org , find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter .

Related Links:

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Press Contact:

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French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said yesterday that France would not ban China's Huawei from investing in the country, in contrast to Britain which has decided to purge the firm's equipment from its 5G network by 2027.

Mr Le Maire told France Info radio there was "no blanket ban" on Huawei in France, but that sensitive locations would be protected.

"We won't ban Huawei from investing in 5G, we will protect our national security interests," he said, adding that he had reaffirmed France's position to Chinese authorities on Monday.

Mr Le Maire nevertheless condemned China's alleged abuses against the country's minority Muslim population, saying they were "revolting and unacceptable".

UN experts and activists say at least a million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims are being held in detention centres in Xinjiang. China describes them as training centres helping stamp out terrorism and extremism and giving people new skills.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took fresh aim at China last week, saying the United States would impose visa restrictions on Chinese firms such as Huawei that he accused of facilitating human-rights violations.

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Mr Pompeo discussed ways to tackle the growing might of China when he met Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday.

US President Donald Trump has lauded Mr Johnson's ban on Huawei, claiming that he had forced London's hand due to concern over China, which he considers to be the United States' main geopolitical rival of the 21st century. Britain has denied that it made the decision because of US political pressure.

As Britain toughens its stance on China due to its handling of the novel coronavirus and a crackdown in Hong Kong, Mr Pompeo's visit is an attempt to stiffen Mr Johnson's resolve and dangle the potential reward of a post-Brexit free trade deal, diplomats say.

"Our two countries' long-standing, strong bilateral relationship has laid the foundation for today's candid discussion on issues ranging from 5G telecommunication to our negotiations for a US-UK free trade agreement," Mr Pompeo said.

China says the decision to exclude Huawei will hurt Britain's economy, set back trade and discourage investment.

Reuters
The British government failed to determine whether Russia meddled in the 2016 referendum on EU membership, a critical UK parliamentary report has found.

Its authors have demanded the UK intelligence community investigate the issue and make its findings public.

The long-awaited report by the UK parliament's intelligence and security committee found that Russia had tried to influence a referendum in 2014 when voters in Scotland rejected independence.

But it said the committee was unable to say whether Russia attempted to influence the European Union referendum two years later. When asked for evidence, Britain's main domestic intelligence agency MI5 had produced just six lines of text, it said.

The report said there were publicly available suggestions that Russia had sought to influence the Brexit campaign but that hard evidence had not been produced.

"The key point is... they [the government] had not sought even to ask that question and that is at the heart of this report," said Stewart Hosie, a Scottish National Party member of the committee.

"We saw no evidence because there was no evidence and no one in government sought to look or ask the questions that needed to be asked," said Labour's Kevan Jones.

"It is nonetheless the committee's view that the UK intelligence community should produce an analogous assessment of potential Russian interference in the EU referendum and that an unclassified summary of it be published," the committee said in the report, which was produced more than a year ago and shelved until now.

Boris Johnson's government responded by claiming there was no evidence of "successful" Russian intervention in the referendum.

It rejected calls for a review.

The report cast Russia as a hostile power which posed a significant threat to Britain and the West across a range of fronts from espionage and cyber to election meddling and laundering dirty money.

"It appears that Russia considers the UK one of its top Western intelligence targets," the report said.

The Kremlin said Russia has never interfered in another country's electoral processes. Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in the West.

"Russia has never interfered in the electoral processes of any country in the world - not the United States, not Britain, nor any other countries," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Last week, the UK government said it believed Russian "actors" had tried to meddle in last year's general election.
NT Wright identifies 'knee-jerk' reactions Christians have in response to COVID-19

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New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has weighed in on what the Christian response to the coronavirus should be and identified problematic knee-jerk reactions many believers have when tragedies occur.

In a conversation with BioLogos founder Francis Collins and host Jim Stump, Wright, professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, said its both fascinating and worrying the Christian church in the United States is wary of the scientific perspective on the coronavirus.

The idea that science equals Darwin and Darwin equals unbelief  this is just trivial, he said. We need to be able to get way beyond that.

Addressing the science-faith conflict, Wright argued that the United States is experiencing the effects of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, which centered on a Tennessee science teacher who was accused of violating a state law banning the teaching of evolution.

Youre still reaping the whirlwind from [the trial] in terms of people saying, We of faith have to ignore [science] and go somewhere else, which is right now, crazy, he said.

Collins, who heads the United States biomedical research, said he and other health officials have been insisting that people wear masks with very little success. Noting that probably 40-50% new cases are caused by asymptomatic persons, its everyones responsibility to wear a mask so as to not unknowingly spread the coronavirus, he stressed.

With many cities reopening, the U.S. is currently on a steep upward slope of coronavirus cases, he lamented. The U.S. now has over 3.5 million cases and more than 138,000 have died. While the death rate had gone down the last couple months, it recently began to increase.

Collins said he has heard disturbing examples of Christians not following safety guidelines with arguments such as the devil cant get into my church so Im safe or Jesus is my vaccine so I dont need to worry.

Wright agreed that such attitudes are irresponsible and pointed out that caring for the sick is deep in the Christian tradition, as is the responsibility to act wisely while a plague or pandemic is going on.

He admitted that while attending worship services held over Zoom or other streaming platforms is quite depressing, he would much rather have that than more sad funerals which people cant attend in great numbers, of people who shouldnt have died.

We have such short memories as modern-day Christians. We forget that our forebearers of the faith have faced this before, Wright said. We can learn from them.

The theologian, who addresses the Christian response to COVID-19 in his book God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath, identified knee-jerk reactions many Christians have when devastating world events occur, such as passing blame or viewing tragedies as a call to repentance, a sign of Christs return, or an opportunity to share the Gospel with a watching world.

Again, I want to say, Every moment is a moment to tell people about Jesus, he said. If you waited for a pandemic to come along to nudge you into doing so, well shame on you. Whats more, if people outside of the family of faith think were using this as a cheap opportunity to get at them, that may well be counterproductive.

Wright suggested the pandemic is instead an opportunity to carefully read the Bible and delve into Christian history, adding that instead of asking, Why did this happen? Christians should be asking, What can I do?

The Christian response is not to come up with the great theoretical reasons why this is happening and breast-beating about somebody has sinned," he stressed. "Its to say, this world is a strange place, as Paul says, its growing in labor pains at the moment. Our task is to ... be there, being professional, skilled at seeing whether people are most at risk and what on earth we can do to help.

The Bible doesnt give us nice easy packaged answers for tragedies because if it did, it would mean there was a logical and rational and God-given place for evil within Gods good creation," the bestselling author argued.

I think its simply not the case, he said, adding that the virus is anti-Creation and designed to spoil and destroy and kill.

Jesus has defeated them on the cross, Wright emphasized. His resurrection is the beginning of the launch of the new creation: Heaven and earth coming together. That is really all we know about the dark powers, is theyre trying to stop that, and theyre still trying to stop it now. But the new creation has begun, and by the Spirit is continuing.

Christians are called to lament in response to the coronavirus, not offer answers for why it is occurring, according to Wright.

The Spirit is groaning and grieving, and we should  realize its our vocation to be there, too, he said.

During the talk, Collins also mentioned the current status on the development of treatments and a vaccine.

He noted that hydroxychloroquine was not the answer to COVID-19. Two drugs  remdesivir and dexamethasone  have been shown in randomized, controlled, rigorous trials to benefit people who are hospitalized.

While developing a vaccine typically takes five to six years, Collins said they are aiming to roll out with one by the end of this year. We are on the brink of starting what's called a phase three trial of the first vaccine getting out of the gate, which will start enrolling patients later this month, he explained.

The goal is to have 100 million doses of a vaccine by the end of 2020, Collins said, adding that if there are a limited amount of vaccines, most will go to high-risk groups. These include people with chronic illnesses, the elderly, and individuals who for other reasons are at high-risk because of the inability to protect themselves from exposure.

He assured that the vaccine will be safe before its administered.

We will not allow a vaccine thats not proven to be safe and effective to be put out there just because you want to say you did something, he stressed.
Serum Institute of India (SII) has said the company is going to produce 300 to 400 million doses of the experimental Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca by December this year.

Adar Poonawalla, SIIs chief executive officer, said Covishield is the first Covid-19 vaccine they hope to launch if the trials are successful both in the UK and in India.

SII, the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, has been chosen by Oxford and its AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine once it gets ready.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The vaccine from AstraZeneca and Britains University of Oxford prompted no serious side effects and elicited antibody and T-cell immune responses with the strongest response seen in people who received two doses, according to trial results published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday.

Poonawalla said they will start the trials of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate by the end of August on up to 5,000 Indian volunteers after getting the necessary nods and launch the vaccine by June next year if all goes well.

We will be going for large scale manufacturing in mid-August-early-August By the end of this year, we should be able to produce 300 to 400 million doses come end of December. Thats the target and I hope we can do that, Adar Poonawalla said in an interview to news channel India Today.

As he said they expect the vaccine to reach the people of India in large numbers by the first quarter of 2021, he added that is still a bit early of how much is going to cost.

We are going to give it at a very affordable price We are planning to put it at about Rs 1000 or less than that I dont think any citizen of India or of any other country is going to have to pay for it because it is going to be bought by the government and distributed free, he said.

It is going to be very affordable in line with our general philosophy of giving everything at a very affordable price. We generally dont want to make a profit at all, in fact, in the Covid crisis and after the pandemic is over, we may look at a more commercial price that could be available in the market, he said.

Oxford University had on Monday announced satisfactory progress with the vaccine, making it one of the leading ones among the dozens of vaccine candidates being developed around the world.

It has tied up with Serum Institute to manufacture and supply the vaccine to India and over 60 other countries having a combined population of 3 billion.

SII, he said, is putting $200 million at risk by manufacturing nearly 300 million doses before the final nod to launch the vaccine in market.

We are making this application within the next 48 hours to the Drug Controller General of Indias office. They will probably take about 1-2 weeks on what kind of study and trial we will have to do, Poonawalla said, speaking to the CNBC-TV-18 news channel.

It will take another three weeks to inject patients in hospitals, he said, adding, We are talking about a month or month and a half maximum from today...maybe even sooner.

The vaccine under development will be injected into 4,000-5,000 volunteers in Pune and Mumbai, which have high rates of coronavirus infections, as part of the crucial phase three of the trial which will determine if the antidote can be introduced in the market or not, he said.

Poonawalla said unlike the exclusion of older people in the initial phase of trials at Oxford, the Indian trials will include elderly people and health workers as well because the initial phase has conclusively proven the safety of the vaccine.

Other than the process of applying for trials and having actual trials on humans in India, the company will also be applying for special permission to start manufacturing the vaccine in the country, which exposes it to a commercial risk if the vaccine fails at the last stage, he said.

The company will manufacture up to 70 million doses of the vaccine per month up to October as part of the special permission and plans to take it up to 100 million per month by December so that it is ready to hit the market once the final approvals are in place.

If this goes to plan, the phase three trials will take two months after the patients get injected and the vaccine gets a final nod by November, he said, adding that in such a scenario, it can get introduced either in the first quarter of 2021.

The company has already manufactured around 2-3 million doses of the vaccine for getting the process correct and also stabilising its machinery, Poonawalla said, clarifying that these will never be used on humans.

If you look at the process right now, the risk of the opex (operating expenditure) which we are putting in is more than $200 million. If this vaccine fails, we will be down (by) $200 million, he said, adding the expenses exclude the opportunity cost of using the same facility for some other purpose.

Poonawalla also said SII is looking at external investors for the vaccine-related endeavour and added that it has tie-ups with five other vaccine candidates which will be housed into a separate step-down subsidiary, where the family will dilute its stake by 15-20%.

Apart from the five tie-ups already forged, SII is in talks with two other candidates, he said, adding that a manufacturing plant with a capacity to produce 1 billion units of the vaccine per year will also get housed in the subsidiary.

He said it is extremely likely that the Covid-19 vaccine would require two or more doses, like in the case of antidotes for measles and other diseases.

We have got a lot on the line and bet big on this (Oxford-AstraZeneca) candidate. And we really hope it works, he added.

(With agency inputs)
The global tally of confirmed coronavirus cases stands at almost 15 million, of which roughly 6 million are currently active, over 600,000 patients have lost their lives in the pandemic till now, while over 9 million have made successful recoveries. The US is still the worst-affected country in the world, with over one-fourth of all reported cases in the world.

In India, there are now over 1.15 million cases, of which over 400,000 cases are currently active. As many as 28,084 patients have succumbed to the virus, while 724,578 managed to beat the infection. The national capital is the ...
NPP National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye on Monday, July 20, 2020 clashed with seasoned journalist Kwesi Pratt while discussing COVID-19 and matters arising on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo''.



The NPP National Youth Organizer blasted Kwesi Pratt saying he is pessimistic about the efforts and interventions by the government and health Professionals in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.



This is because Kwesi Pratt had earlier argued the country is not doing so well with managing the pandemic.



Looking at the rapid increase of COVID-19 cases in the country, Kwesi Pratt wondered how any person could convince him that the situation is under control.



He also criticized the government for not paying heed to calls that final year students are at risk of contracting the novel disease as they remain in their various schools.



But Nana Boakye resented the criticisms by the Editor-in-Chief of the Insight newspaper saying the government has exceedingly performed in safeguarding the lives of Ghanaians against the viral disease.



He further argued that the President didn't act on his own to direct schools to reopen for final year students but had consultations with all stakeholders in the education sector before letting the students return to their classrooms.



The arguments got heated up as Nana Boakye and Kwesi Pratt couldn't come to a consensus on the issue.



Mr. Pratt explained that some countries like Nigeria, UK and others have prioritized the life of their students over any gains.



''The children's health and life is important to them than certificate'', he said and so would have had the government behave in like manner.



But Nana B slammed him (Mr. Pratt) for finding fault with everything the government does.



''We've managed ourselves well. I plead for us not to disvalue our health system and leaders...The major stakeholder consultations and meetings; look, at the Presidency, sometimes when I go there, the President would close at 11 pm because he meets everybody. He met the parents, teachers, expert, GNAT and GMA and more to get their input. So, there was a major consultation. In fact, before we even opened (the schools), we did disinfected all schools nationwide...and also provided PPEs to all the schools.



''So, we need to appreciate the efforts. Some people are learning from us...I am yet to find out if Kenya provided all of these operational logistics. I am yet to find out if Nigeria did the same. With Nigeria, even testing, they're far, far, far below us...In fact, in Africa, it appears only South Africa and Egypt that's ahead of us. So, we have done so well.''



Kwesi Pratt, on the other hand, stood by his position that Ghana hasn't done so well with managing the pandemic.



He stated;''The facts must speak for themselves...Amongst the more than 50 countries in Africa, Ghana is fourth in terms of worse cases. In fact, when you mention five worse cases, Ghana is among; we're listed number 4. So, if in spite of this statistics, somebody wants to learn from Ghana; then I really wish them well''.



Catch the action below:





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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The President of Ukraine agreed to endorse a movie by Joaquin Phoenix about animal rights in order to bring a hostage situation to a peaceful conclusion yesterday.

44-year-old Maksim Krivosh, who was armed with rifles and explosives, held 13 people hostage on a bus in the north western city of Lutsk in a stand-off which lasted almost 12 hours.

Read more: Joaquin Phoenix comforted pigs at slaughterhouse after SAG win

A bus with people hostage after an armed man seized a bus and took some 10 people hostage in the city centre of Lutsk (Credit: Ukrainian Police Press Office via AP)

According to local media, Krivosh made the hostages watch the movie Earthlings, a documentary from 2005 narrated by Phoenix.

Among his demands were that government and officials from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church post messages admitting to be terrorists.

Krivosh also demanded that President Volodymyr Zelensky endorse Phoenix's movie, which, after speaking with him on the phone, he did.

Posting a short video to Facebook, Zelensky said: Everybody watch the 2005 documentary Earthlings.

Earthlings (Credit: Nation Earth)

Just minutes after the video was posted, Krivosh exited the bus and surrendered to Ukranian security services, the SBU.

Zelensky later said: We were not fighting for ratings. We were fighting for lives.

Earthlings, directed by Shaun Monson, looks at humanity's use of animals in every sphere from food to scientific research.

With all hostages free and the hostage-taker in custody, President Zelensky has deleted the Facebook video of himself complying with the armed man's demand to promote the 2005 film Earthlings featuring narration by Joaquin Phoenix. But here it is for posterity. pic.twitter.com/lPcHB8XD3H  Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) July 21, 2020

The movie, which features hidden camera footage, draws parallels between speciesism and racism and sexism.

Speaking about it in 2007, Phoenix said: Of all the films I have ever made, this is the one that gets people talking the most. For every one person who sees Earthlings, they will tell three.
US space force is getting increasingly real-combat-oriented

By Ji Cheng and Du Jiahua

Following the release of the new Defense Space Strategy in June this year and the setup of the basic organizational structure for its space force, the US Department of Defense (DoD) has recently taken a swirl of moves to build up the space force, reported foreign media. Pentagon has not only accelerated selecting military service members responsible for space combat, but also made substantial progress in improving the defense space system by launching reconnaissance satellites and developing mini space stations. These measures obviously steering the space force toward real combat are bound to invoke strong dissatisfaction and policy response from other countries, aggravate the international space arms race while endangering global strategic stability.

US space force development advances in depth.

The US has taken multiple steps recently to push its space force buildup toward combat operations on all fronts and dimensions.

The US Space Force announced that it had just completed the selection of the first batch of 2,410 soldiers, who, picked out of 8,500 active-duty airmen, will officially join the space force in September and are tasked with space operation missions. Previously about 16,000 military and civilians have been assigned to serve in the space force.

On July 15, a Northrop Grumman Minotaur IV carrier rocket was launched at the Wallops Flight Facility in California, sending four reconnaissance satellites to orbit. The US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) said the launch was aimed at providing intelligence support for the DoD and intelligence agencies. US media reported that the NRO would launch Minotaur IV again in due time next year carrying space reconnaissance satellite.

At the same time, the DoD has begun explorations to build mini space stations. Sierra Nevada Corporation, an American aerospace technology company, recently signed a contract with Pentagons Defense Innovation Unit to build experimental mini space stations, which, when renovated and upgraded, will be able to support space assembly, microgravity experimentation, logistics and storage and other functions and be equipped with sensors serving intelligence, monitoring and reconnaissance purposes as well as offensive or defensive weapons.

US space force building is more real-combat-oriented.

In Americas military strategy, space has evolved from a propellant that assists on the ground battlefield to a potential and important new battle domain. Guided by this concept, the US space force is increasingly oriented toward real combat, taking organizational perfection and inter-service combined operations as main breakthroughs.

Pentagon has taken faster steps to improve the space forces organizational structure. At the end of June, Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of Space Force Headquarters , announced for the first time that the space force would consist of the Space Operations Command, Space Training and Readiness Command, and Space Systems Command. Space Operations Command will be responsible for the operation of military satellites, missile warning constellations and satellite communication systems.

A space satellite warning system targeting Russias strategic missiles and other weapons is being established. Although the US military has been secretive about the satellite carried by Minotaur IV, media reports revealed that it might be the NROL-129 reconnaissance satellite aimed to track the trajectory of Russian strategic missiles. In addition, hypersonic weapons with stronger penetration and attack capability are also a key focus for the US side.

The US military is accelerating the integration of space force with the modernization of conventional services. Take the US Army for example. Gen. Mike Murray, head of Army Futures Command, said they had successfully applied space technologies to improve the remote precise assault capability of artilleries. Developing long-range precision fires is considered the No.1 priority of US Armys modernization and a core element in the theory of future multi-domain operations.

Closer attention should be paid to US hegemonic thinking.

The US military is moving more quickly to enhance the real combat capabilities of its space force for the following considerations.

On the one hand, Pentagon believes space supremacy is the prerequisite for precise attacks. During the Gulf War, the US military used spy satellites to monitor the trend of warfare, spy on targets, and navigate weapons. Soon after the Space Force was formed, reconnaissance satellites were used to successfully issue early warnings against incoming missiles from Iran, which was taken as the services first operation after its formation.

On the other hand, building a real-combat-ready space force is an important approach for the US to seek space hegemony. Washington believes that the ever faster development of science and technology has obviously increased the number of state actors capable of space competition, which is likely to escalate inter-state conflicts to a higher level, even triggering small-scale space conflicts. Thats why the US has been hyping up the space threats from other countries as an excuse for its own space development, in the attempt to jointly dominate the formulation of space code of conduct with its partners and seek space supremacy. Such hegemonic moves in the name of America first will seriously undermine global strategic stability and trigger a space arms race.
Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn leaves the federal courthouse following a status hearing in Washington on July 10, 2018. (Manuel Balce Ceneta, File/AP photo)

DOJ: Flynns Judge in Catch-22 SituationEither Disqualified or Not Entitled to Rehearing

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), its a no-win situation for District Judge Emmet Sullivan, whos seeking a rehearing of an appeals court decision that ordered him to accept the dismissal of the DOJs case against former Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Sullivan, through his lawyer Beth Wilkinson, argued that a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia appeals court erred in its order. Hes asking for a rehearing by the full court (en banc).

But only people with a personal stake in the proceedings can seek appellate review, the DOJ said in a July 20 response to Sullivans petition.

A judge does not haveand under the [Constitutions] Due Process Clause, cannot havesuch a stake, the department said.

Flynns lawyers highlighted the same issue, noting that if Sullivan indeed has a personal stake in the case, it would disqualify him as its judge.

It is unsurprising that the district judge fails to cite a single instance in which a court of appeals has granted rehearing at a district judges behest, the DOJ said.

In fact, we are aware of only one case in which a district judge has even asked for rehearing en banca request the court of appeals denied.

The DOJ response was signed by a lineup of heavy-hitters, including acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, whos responsible for arguing cases on the governments behalf before the Supreme Court, as well as his deputy Eric Feigin, his counselor Hashim Mooppan, and five other DOJ attorneys.

Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration and former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI.

In January, he moved to withdraw his plea. In May, the DOJ moved to dismiss the case after a review uncovered documents suggesting the FBI questioned Flynn solely to elicit false statements from him.

Sullivan didnt grant the DOJ motion. Instead, he suggested he would allow third parties to weigh in on the dismissal. He also denied Flynns motion that argued against third-party arguments in the case.

Flynn responded by asking the appeals court for an extraordinary intervention.

Sullivan doubled down and appointed former federal Judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae (friend of court), tasking him with developing arguments against the case dismissal. The pick of Gleeson was a signal of its own, since just days before the appointment, Gleeson co-authored an op-ed arguing for Sullivans launching a full, adversarial inquiry into the dismissal motion and possibly denying it and sentencing Flynn.

On June 24, the appeals court granted Flynns writ of mandamus petition and ordered Sullivan to accept the dismissal.

Sullivan hasnt complied, taking advantage of the fact the appeals court orders take three weeks to take effect. Instead, he asked for a rehearing. His lawyer has argued that the situation isnt sufficiently extraordinary to require the mandamus because Sullivan hasnt rejected the dismissal yet. On July 10, the appeals court put its decision on hold, ordering Flynn to respond by July 20 to Sullivans petition and inviting the DOJ to do so as well.

According to the DOJ, Wilkinson used incorrect legal arguments and backed them with precedents that dont actually support her claims.

Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have repeatedly affirmed that the executive branch has power over bringing and dropping charges, and judges have no business second-guessing such decisions except for extraordinary cases, such as when a prosecutor goes rogue because of being bribed or when the judge suspects prosecutorial harassment, a situation in which the government plans to drop the charges only to bring the case again for a do-over.

None of this applies to the Flynn case, in which, the DOJ says, the case record including newly available materials showed the interviewing agents and higher-ups at the FBI doubted that Flynn was willfully lying.

Moreover, the department moved to dismiss with prejudice, meaning the case cant be brought again, and Flynn agrees with the dismissal, dispelling harassment concerns.

The parties and now a panel of this Court agree that this case should come to an end, the DOJ said. Yet the district judge, first through his contemplation of extended and intrusive proceedings on the governments motion to dismiss and now through his petition for rehearing en banc, insists on keeping the litigation going.

A majority of the appeals court judges would have to back Sullivans petition for it to go through. Seven of the 12 active judges were appointed by Democrat presidents. While judicial decisions dont always break along party lines, the Flynn case has had broad political implications, particularly since the emergence of the January 2017 notes indicating that both President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden were personally involved in the case.
Chris Evans used his role as Captain America to attract politicians to his passion project, he revealed on Tuesday's episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers.

The 39-year-old actor has founded a website that lets lawmakers explain political issues and legislation.

He described the site called A Starting Point as a 'civic engagement platform' that allows politicians to speak about everything from artificial intelligence to education and the environment.

Superhero role: Chris Evans used his role as Captain America to attract politicians to his passion project, he revealed on Tuesday's episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers

The participating politicians answer basic questions about budgeting, finance, taxes and more, which Chris hopes will help people better understand emerging laws and policies.

The self-professed 'news junkie' immediately saw the idea as a win-win for everyone involved, but it took a lot of work for him to earn politicians' trust.

Convincing people to get on board 'was an uphill battle,' he revealed.

'I think, naively, I thought, ''Well, I'll just write a letter! Who wouldn't want to be a part [of this?]'',' Chris noted. 'But obviously we're trying to cultivate a new relationship. We have nothing to show; we just have our words. There was apprehension.'

Marvel universe: The 39-year-old actor is shown as Captain America in a still from the 2012 film The Avengers along with Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson

In a video, Chris reassured an unknown figure on the phone, who said, 'There have been so many celebrities that have come through and essentially tricked members of Congress.'

Chris swore to them that he would be 'happy to jump on the phone or get a coffee, or whatever's necessary to put their concerns at ease.'

'There were some people I thought would participate who wanted to nothing to do with us,' he told Seth, 46, not naming names. 'And there were some people that I thought never in a million years would sit down with us, and they showed up and answered everything.'

Civic engagement: Chris described the site called A Starting Point as a 'civic engagement platform' that allows politicians to speak about everything from artificial intelligence to education and the environment

The actor had one secret weapon in the halls of Congress, he shared.

'Being Captain America didn't hurt,' Chris said. 'That was the string we were really playing on the whole time. It was nice to use that in a way that got us in the door but didn't add any pressure.'

'In the film world, when you show up, if you're making a movie or in a rehearsal, first day of filming, there's an expectation,' he went on. 'I don't think anyone expected much out of me in D.C., so when the expectations are low, that's where I thrive.'

Captain card: 'Being Captain America didn't hurt,' Chris said. 'That was the string we were really playing on the whole time. It was nice to use that in a way that got us in the door but didn't add any pressure'

Chris and his partners told politicians that they wanted to do the website for the long haul.

'If we're duplicitous, if we get you to answer a question, then we eviscerate you, you're not coming back,' he pointed out. 'The nature of this is to provide something for everybody. What's that saying, ''A good idea is when everybody wins''? Everybody can win here, but it wouldn't happen if we're trying to slam people.'

Since the site was founded in 2017, Chris had made 10 trips to Washington, D.C., and noted that 'each time got easier and easier. And everyone was so sweet and so lovely.'

Trust issues: Chris and his partners told politicians that they wanted to do the website for the long haul.

'Honestly, if you give them a platform and you ensure that the mechanism is not designed to be duplicitous, they respond to it,' he shared.

The Defending Jacob star got the inspiration for the website after a Google search he'd done to learn about 'a policy or bill' turned up confusing, unhelpful information.

'It felt like there was a hole there, that there was something missing,' he recalled. 'I'm sure there are plenty of people who are interested in politics, and it's daunting.'

Needed information: The Defending Jacob star got the inspiration for the website after a Google search he'd done to learn about 'a policy or bill' turned up confusing, unhelpful information

The actor sought out politicians instead of experts because he felt that choosing 'experts' was a subjective matter that would just drag him 'into the weeds.'

'When you read something online, you start questioning: What's the agenda, what's the bias, where's the money?' Chris explained. 'I want to remove as much subjectivity as possible, and allow the connectivity between elected official and electorate exist more clearly.'

'Politicians may not be an expert in every single field, but they're still the ones voting on policy,' he emphasized. 'They're the ones affecting your life, and I think the American people should know who those players are.'

Good point: 'Politicians may not be an expert in every single field, but they're still the ones voting on policy,' he emphasized. 'They're the ones affecting your life, and I think the American people should know who those players are'

A Starting Point allows politicos to present two sides to a debate, or explore issues they feel passionately about without worrying about who their audience is.

Chris cited a discussion about the merits of mail-in voting, which featured U.S. representatives Eric Swalwell and Dusty Johnson.

He considered it 'the gold standard' for civil discourse, noting that they disagreed with each other but started every statement with, 'Ok, I hear what you're saying.'

Gold standard: Chris cited a discussion about the merits of mail-in voting, which featured U.S. representatives Eric Swalwell and Dusty Johnson

'Just that statementit's like a breath of fresh air,' he marveled. 'Somehow I think listening has become conflated with weakness or capitulation, and that just shows you are a thorough thinker.'

Chris offered that he was, at heart, a person who wanted to help other people.

'Some people are so divided and polarized right now,' he said. 'I thought maybe leaning on information, leaning on the north star of truth, might be a more effective starting point.'

Chris first played superhero Steve Rogers in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Captain America: The First Avenger and has reprised the role in several Marvel Cinematic Universe films.
Capt Amarinder Singh

Chandigarh: The Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday approved a US$ 285.71 million project for canal based water supply for Amritsar and Ludhiana cities under World Bank financing.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) would finance US$ 200 million (70%) and Punjab Government US$ 85.71 million (30%), as per the proposal mooted by the Local Government department for adoption of Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) under Punjab Municipal Services Improvement Project.

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Capt Amarinder SinghA decision to this effect was taken in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh held through video conferencing.

The project would have four components including: strengthening urban and water supply service management with total cost of US$ 11.61 million, improving water supply infrastructure at US$ 240.38 million, besides Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement involving cost of US$ 15.62 million, Covid crisis response to the tune of US$ 10 million and project management at US$ 7.6 million, in addition to Front End Fee of US$ 0.5 million.

The Punjab Government had, in June 2018, through Government of Indias Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), requested the World Bank to support Punjab for implementing 24X7 canal based water supply projects in Amritsar and Ludhiana.

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With Technical Assistance (TA) from the World Bank, the pre-feasibility reports were prepared for both cities in 2015 and updated in 2019, which proposed the need to migrate from rapidly depleting and contaminated decentralized ground water sources to a centralized treated surface water source.

Punjab governmentA spokesperson of the Chief Ministers Office said that the RPF lays down procedures and measures to ensure adequate accountability and transparency in the process of assessing land related impacts.

A fair process will be put in place for acquiring land and for compensating those adversely impacted due to replacement cost as described in ESS5 of World Bank, so as to improve or at least restore their livelihoods and standards of living to pre-project levels.

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According to World Banks ESS5, involuntary resettlement instruments, i.e. the compensation, will be based on the replacement cost. For the vulnerable groups, additional support in terms of skill development/training will also be provided.

The spokesperson further said that the entire engagement would be under the framework of the State Partnership between the Punjab Government and the World Bank.

The project would invest in bulk water infrastructure, establish new institutional models for Water Supply & Sanitation (WSS) service delivery, and also strengthen financial sustainability and customer orientation in WSS delivery.

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Capt Amarinder SinghAdditionally, the project would extend flexible just-in-time resources and capacity support to the Punjab government and Municipal Councils across the state to tackle some of the critical challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, especially strengthening city-level response and focusing on frontline service providers.

The land requirement for construction of Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) along with treated Water Collection Tanks and Pumping Stations close to the canals in Amritsar and Ludhiana stands at 40 acres and 50 acres respectively.

In Amritsar, the land has been acquired along the Upper Bari Doab Canal (UBDC) of village Vallah by the Land Acquisition Collector through a negotiated cost of Rs 36.40 crore. In Ludhiana, land has been identified near village Rampur and the acquisition through negotiation is in progress.

No additional land requirement is envisaged for transmission network as alignment is to be along roads and right of way from the WTP to Overhead Service Reservoirs (OHSRs).

The OHSRs/Under Ground Service Reservoirs (UGSRs) shall be constructed in the available public land belong to Municipal Corporation and other Government agencies.
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What began on Twitter as an attempt by antisemites to expose alleged Jewish privilege in America quickly became a platform where Jews could share their own stories of suffering and pain. Contrary to the claim that Jews control the media, the banks, and the governments of the world, Jews have often been the first to suffer, the first to be persecuted, the first to exiled, the first to be killed. Thats what Jewish privilege really looks like.

Writing for the Times of Israel on July 15, Stuart Winer explained that, The Twitter hashtag #JewishPrivilege has been used by anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists for years, but over the last few days has instead become a locus for personal accounts highlighting discrimination faced by Jews over the centuries and today.

The tables were dramatically turned, as one Jew after another posted his or her experience with antisemitism. Yes, Jewish privilege meant that Jews have been privileged to suffer in nation after nation simply for being Jews.

It is true that Jews in America today are among the best educated and most prosperous members of our society. But that is hardly through some kind of privileged status.

Not only so, but financial prosperity and exalted social status have certainly not been the norm throughout Jewish history. Rather, Jewish privilege through history often looked more like Tevye and his family in Fiddler on the Roof: dirt poor, excluded from the best jobs, second-class citizens, and having to flee for their lives because of the latest pogrom.

Jews, then, have been especially privileged to excel in the following categories:

1. Jews have been exiled from more countries than any other people group. Theres not even a close second. Antisemites will tell you that this is because Jews are so evil. But of course!

2. Jews have been hated longer than any other people, and many scholars have referred to antisemitism as the worlds longest hatred, dating back at least to the third century BC. Today, more than 2,300 years later, it is just as vibrant and deadly as ever. What sustains a hatred for so long?

3. Jews have been demonized by more different groups from more different backgrounds than anyone else. This includes being demonized by both Christian leaders and Islamic leaders, white supremacists and black supremacists, atheistic Communists and irreligious Nazis. Thats why antisemitic black leader Louis Farrakhan could say in 2018, Im not an anti-Semite. Im anti-Termite. And then, less than two weeks later, a white supremacist could slaughter Jews in a synagogue, shouting, All Jews must die. This is what Jewish privilege looks like.

4. Jews are the subject of more conspiracy theories than anyone else  what a privilege!  including claims that we created and spread COVID-19 in our day. To quote a Times of Israel headline, Tel Aviv University think tank says libels blaming Jews and Israel for pandemic are spreading, as crisis sparks new iterations of old hatred. In the same way, when the Black Plague decimated Europe, Jews were accused of starting the plague by poisoning the wells with a mixture made of spiders, lizards, and the hearts of Christians mixed together with the sacred elements of the Lords supper.

5. Jews have the privilege of being specially singled out by the United Nations for accusation and censor. As noted by Ben-Dror Yemini in his book, Industry of Lies: Media, Academia, and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, in 2012, the UN General Assembly passed 22 resolutions against Israel, in contrast to four against the rest of the world. In 2015, the General Assembly adopted 20 resolutions singling out Israel for criticismn  and only three resolutions regarding the rest of the world combined. As of 2010, since its inception in 2006, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 33 resolutions against specific countries, of which 27 were against Israel. In 2013, the Council adopted 25 resolutions, four for all the other countries in the world and 21 against Israel. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world were victims of tyrannical regimes, and countless massacres and pogroms were committed. Israel did not commit even a fraction of these misdeeds, but it has been condemned more than any other country, perhaps more than all other countries combined.

In keeping with this, in 2015, At the closing of the 59th UN Commission on the Status of Women, only one political resolution was passed  one that accuses Israel of mistreating Palestinian women, in all aspects of life.

And last July, Israel was the only country named . . . as a violator or trouble spot by the 54-nation UN Economic and Social Council during the session, according to the UN Watch organization.

That is Jewish privilege in a nutshell.

As noted in February, 2018 on The Conversation website, Antisemitism is on the march. From the far-right demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, with their Blood and Soil chants and their Jews will not replace us placards to attacks on synagogues in Sweden, arson attacks on kosher restaurants in France and a spike in hate crimes against Jews in the UK. Antisemitism seems to have been given a new lease of life.

To be sure, the Bible speaks of the Jewish people being chosen by God for a special mission. And religious Jews, in particular, take suffering as part of their calling and a result of their mission.

But let us put to rest this notion of some kind of world-controlling, world-dominating, privileged Jewish status. The opposite has been the norm for millennia.

Thats what Jewish privilege really looks like.
Ziggi's Coffee welcomes new franchisee to the family, bringing the first units to Albuquerque, New Mexico We signed on for three units to start but were not in this to just open two or three locations; we want to have locations throughout the whole state.

The latest franchisee to join Ziggis Coffee (http://www.ZiggisCoffee.com), a Colorado-based coffee shop specializing in drive-thru service, has signed on to bring three units to Albuquerque, New Mexico with big plans to grow the brand throughout the state.

Sergio Bermudez, a local businessman who owns and operates a highly successful grocery chain and restaurants in the area, as well as other investments alongside his two brothers, was looking to diversify into new opportunities in which they could involve a new generation. Bermudez nephews, Luis and Freddie Bermudez, will be heavily engaged in Ziggis Coffee as they aim to build an empire in New Mexico.

My brothers and I started our first business over 22 years ago and now that our children are growing up, its time to bring them in and continue to build our legacy together as a family with Ziggis Coffee, said Bermudez.

With his eye on the coffee industry, Bermudez spent years searching for the right franchise opportunity and once he discovered Ziggis Coffee, he was immediately drawn to its simplicity and amazing support systems.

The coffee industry is growing like crazy, so I already knew there was incredible potential with Ziggis but what really attracted me was how simple the business model is, said Bermudez. We signed on for three units to start but were not in this to just open two or three locations; we want to have locations throughout the whole state.

For Bermudez, the vision to expand the brand is more than just a dream; its a goal. By using Ziggis proven processes and procedures established over years of experience, Bermudez and his family can execute their business plan with ease. Taking direction from a system that has been replicated across the country, their vision will soon become a reality.

The team at Ziggis Coffee is working closely with Bermudez as they seek out viable real estate options for the new locations. Individuals who are interested in franchising with Ziggis Coffee can find more information at http://www.ZiggisCoffee.com/franchise and are encouraged to get in touch with the Franchise Team by filling out an online inquiry form.

About Ziggis Coffee

Ziggis Coffee, the leading specialty coffee shop and drive-thru franchise, was named a 2019 Colorado Business to Watch by Colorado Biz Magazine, for representing the states thriving business ecosystem and promoting valuable growth opportunities. Ziggis Coffee is dedicated to serving only the finest sustainably-sourced coffee, uniquely handcrafted drinks, and amazing, locally-made breakfast, lunch and snack options. Founded in 2004, the Colorado-based company is on a mission to elevate the standard of service within the coffee shop industry. From specializing in a variety of great-tasting coffee and food items to providing fast and friendly service, the Ziggis Coffee brand is focused on creating a positive experience that is faster, more authentic and convenient for the demand of consumers seeking higher-quality coffee and food options on the go. In addition to its distinctive menu and superior service, Ziggis Coffee is also committed to making a positive difference in the local communities it serves. With 25 locations nationwide and 38 additional units in development, Ziggis Coffee is positioned to quickly grow its presence in a variety of communities across the U.S.

To learn more about Ziggis Coffee and its franchising opportunities, visit http://www.ZiggisCoffee.com/franchise or follow Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley flashed her engagement ring as she headed out to go work out in Los Angeles.

The 33-year-old supermodel and actress was spotted heading to the gym on Tuesday afternoon.

The blonde beauty has been romantically involved with action superstar Jason Statham since 2010, with the pair getting engaged in 2016.

Rosie steps out: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley flashed her engagement ring as she headed out to go work out in Los Angeles

The supermodel stepped out in all black, with a black long-sleeved sweatshirt and black stretch pants.

She was staying safe from COVID-19 with a black face mask accentuated with black sunglasses.

The Transformers: Dark of the Moon star had her hair tied back in a messy bun, completing her look with black sneakers while carrying a black purse.

Rosie's look: The supermodel stepped out in all black, with a black long-sleeved sweatshirt and black stretch pants

The British-born Huntington-Whiteley got her start modeling when she was just 16, making her runway debut alongside Naomi Campbell.

She signed with Victoria's Secret in 2006 and she's consistently been one of the highest-paid models every year.

She transitioned to acting in 2010, when she was cast in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, replacing Megan Fox, which was released in 2011.

Rosie's look: The British-born Huntington-Whiteley got her start modeling when she was just 16, making her runway debut alongside Naomi Campbell

She returned to acting with a role in George Miller's 2015 epic Mad Max: Fury Road, playing The Splendid Angharad.

The supermodel started dating Jason Statham in 2010, with the model's representative confirming in 2016 that they were engaged.

The couple has not made any plans for a wedding date since the engagement, with Huntington-Whiteley giving birth to their son Jack in June 2017.

Acting: She returned to acting with a role in George Miller's 2015 epic Mad Max: Fury Road, playing The Splendid Angharad

While Huntington-Whiteley has not been announced for any other acting roles, her fiance Jason Statham has still been working regularly.

He played Deckard Shaw in last year's Fast & Furiouis spin-off Hobbs & Shaw, alongside Dwayne Johnson.

He's attached to return as Rick Ford in Spy 2, and he reunites with director Guy Ritchie in Cash Truck, which is slated for release in January 2021.
Kim Kardashian West has spoken for the first time about her husband Kanye Wests bipolar disorder after he shared a string of concerning tweets.

She said her husbands words sometimes do not align with his intentions.

West has said in recent weeks that he is planning to run to become US president and has made claims about his family life.

He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder, Kardashian said in a lengthy post on Instagram.

She added that she has not discussed his condition before because she is very protective of our children and Kanyes right to privacy when it comes to his health.

She added: But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health.

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The condition does not diminish or invalidate his dreams or his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some, she said.

That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true.

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Society should give grace to those who suffer from mental health issues, she added.

Living with bipolar yourself, or having a loved one that does, is incredible complicated and painful to understand, Kardashian said.

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She added: I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this.

Thank you for those who have expressed concern for Kanyes well-being and for your understanding.

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Earlier this week West claimed his wife had tried to get a doctor to lock me up after he revealed they considered an abortion when expecting their first child.

West, who says he is running for US president, told a crowd on Sunday that a message from God convinced him to keep the baby.

He added that while he believed abortion should be legal, financial incentives to help struggling mothers could be a way to discourage the practice.

Everybody that has a baby gets a million dollars, he said as an example.

While the rapper has said he is running for his countrys highest office, it appears he missed the cut-off to run in South Carolina.

He previously shared a petition calling for his name to be added to the ballot in the state.
WASHINGTON -- As authorities crack down on protests in Portland, Ore., military leaders, lawmakers and former government officials have intensified calls for federal officers to shed the camouflage and return to wearing uniforms that clearly identify them as law enforcement.

The mobilization of federal agents in military-style camouflage in recent days, and their use of unmarked vans to make arrests, has deepened confusion about which force is doing what.

Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies should not allow their officers to wear camouflage.

"They need to stop this charade and stop pretending they're the military. They need to put their ICE uniforms and CBP uniforms back on," he told The Washington Post, referring to federal immigration officers and Customs and Border Protection.

The public has at turns mistaken police for soldiers since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May triggered demonstrations and civil unrest. Defense Secretary Mark Esper was concerned about that conflation during protests in Washington last month, his chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said Tuesday.

"We want a system where people can tell the difference," he said, adding that Esper has expressed those concerns within the Trump administration.

The blurring of the line between military and civilian law enforcement has been fueled in part by viral videos and photos of the DHS officers' actions, former officials and lawmakers said.

"Unidentified military are kidnapping protestors in Portland," the Lincoln Project, a political action group critical of President (Donald) Trump, incorrectly told its Twitter followers. The group repeated the assertion in a tweet paired with a campaign video that received more than 9 million views.

"It's not good for our democracy," David Lapan, a former Marine officer who served as DHS spokesman under Trump in 2017, told The Post. "The public should not feel there is a militarized response to civil unrest."

Tom Ridge, who served as the first U.S. secretary of homeland security, said during an interview Tuesday with broadcaster Michael Smerconish that DHS was established to protect the country "from the ever-present threat of global terrorism."

"It was not established to be the president's personal militia," he said.

Federal officers in the District of Columbia, Portland and elsewhere have worn what is generally called the operational camouflage pattern, or multicam - a smattering of brown, green and beige daubs adopted by the Army for use in Afghanistan in 2010. It has since become the daily wear for Army soldiers and is being fielded by the Air Force.

It is also what National Guardsmen typically wore on the streets of Washington last month during protests, with federal officers often in similar patterns. The soldiers and police intermixed, and sometimes swapped gear, further spreading confusion. In one instance, Federal Bureau of Prisons officers in blue shirts stood behind riot shields marked "MILITARY POLICE." Witnesses told The Post they mistook them for National Guard soldiers.

Part of the Pentagon's after-action review of the National Guard response to civil unrest focused on whether law enforcement personnel should be wearing camouflage, Hoffman said. After the review is complete, Esper may discuss the findings with Attorney General William Barr and acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf, Hoffman said.

CBP sees itself as a paramilitary organization and has become more emboldened as the Trump administration increasingly uses it and other federal law enforcement to respond to violence, Lapan said.

But the agency's mission is law enforcement, Lapan said, not warfare. And its use of military garb, he said, can jumble those missions and misses the point of camouflage in the first place.

"The purpose of camouflage is to blend in and not be visible," said Lapan, now the vice president of communications for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank. "As a law enforcement officer, you shouldn't be blending in. That defeats the purpose."

CBP has defended the use of the camouflage and said it was not aware of any confusion.

"This is the standard uniform for these agents and has been since 2015," CBP said in a statement. "It is a pattern chosen to be appropriate for any operational environment."

Mark Morgan, the acting CBP commissioner, pushed back against assertions that his officers were difficult to identify. They had agency patches and police emblazoned on their vests, he told reporters Tuesday, but their names were removed to protect their identities after officers were doxed.

But former officials and lawmakers said the uniforms, and videos like the one of officers apparently breaking the hand of a Navy veteran, can chip away at the image of the military, which enjoys the highest level of trust of any public institution.

The use of Customs and Border Protection and other agencies as a de facto national police force could erode that trust, said Carrie Cordero, a former Justice Department national security attorney and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

"An agency in military-style uniforms pulling people off the streets is a place we don't want to be," she said. The solution for DHS is simple, she said - return to duty uniforms. CBP officers are already well known for being in blue uniforms, while Border Patrol, for instance, wears green.

Three House Democrats issued a statement saying the federal officers in Portland may "sully the reputation" of service members.

Gallego said perceptions of the military's involvement in breaking up protests can have long-lasting effects.

Young people loosely following the protests and the use of force are in the prime recruiting age for the military, he said, and if the conflation endures, "they're not going to view the military as an organization to protect your rights."

Limiting the scope of DHS authority and mission and instituting training that emphasizes de-escalation could be places to start, he said - along with clearly presented uniforms - following initial confusion of which agencies were on the streets in Portland.

"There needs to be accountability," Gallego said. "We're not going to have that with people hiding who they are."

- - -

The Washington Post's Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Non-Contact Temperature Measurement System market is forecasted to reach USD 1350.2 million by 2027, according to a new report by Reports and Data. Advent of technologies such as IoT and advancements in electronics helps in achieving higher accuracy and making instruments more efficient. Recently, the IR sensor market has seen two significant trends emerge. The most expensive parts of an infrared thermometer are the lenses and detectors. New lens materials, technologies, and mass production of IR detectors for consumer products have lower prices for these two essential components. With the increased demand for industrial IR-thermometers, the high volume production of standard sensors has resulted in greater manufacturing efficiency for the IR thermometer manufacturers. Due to the increasing expectations of users, and competition among manufacturers, these instruments are continually being improved, and electronic design is an area that has seen the most advances recently.

Furthermore, these are used mostly in industrial applications such as quality control, maintenance, and others. Infrared non-contact temperature sensors are highly preferred in the manufacturing industry. The Raytek range of portable units cover temperatures from -50 to 3000C. Fixed units from Raytek and Ircon are well known, and the scanners from both companies can be supplied as complete application packages with software to suit many industrial applications. Continual innovation and new products like the Endurance series, designed in conjunction between Raytek and Ircon. However, the technology has become more sophisticated to widen the scope of the applications that can be handled.

Request free sample of this research report at:

https://www.reportsanddata.com/sample-enquiry-form/3350

The market players are likely to introduce smart technologies that allow the thermometer to be connected to an external mobile application via Bluetooth. Selective filtering capabilities, these detectors can more efficiently be matched to specific applications, improving measurement performance. The growth can also be attributed to the improvements in technology and infrastructure, urbanization, economic growth, and higher living standards in emerging economies such as India, China, and other countries. Due to the spread of pandemic COVID-19 disease, there exists a higher demand for Non-contact body temperature monitoring devices. Another product The Nous scanner, once installed at the entrance or outside the door, uses an IR thermal sensor to detect the body temperature of a person. The increasing availability of such advanced product offerings will propel the market demand during the forecast period. This will lead to increased sales and high production of vendors, which will drive the growth of the Non-Contact Temperature Measurement System market during the forecast period.

The COVID-19 impact:

The outbreak raised concern for the patient dealing with it. However, the global epidemic of COVID-19 is expected to have a positive impact on the growth of the Non-Contact Temperature Measurement System devices market during the forecast period. Non-contact temperature measurement instruments provide essential information on the machine's heating condition. High fever is one of the very first and most common symptoms of COVID-19. Temperature readings of the individual must be frequently monitored to formulate a treatment plan specific to the patient's condition. Thus, with the increasing number of positive cases of COVID-19, the demand for different types of temperature instruments are expected to increase in the near future. A coronavirus-triggered rush is causing devices manufacturers to beef up supply chains and re-examine their product lineups to meet the increasing demand coming from end-use businesses, including automotive, and others. The first wave of urgency came in part from factories and health-care companies. Continuous product innovation in this field is expected to positively impact the growth of the market during the forecast period. Moreover, vendors from all over the world are offering products with improved features to retain existing consumers and attract prospective consumers. For instance, the digital display on the thermometer is large and comfortable to read and more convenient. Furthermore, iProven DMT-316 by iProven can be used on the forehead and ears. The installation of such instruments at the commercial establishments will play a crucial role in curbing pandemic. Furthermore, government authorities had laid down several guidelines to ensure the safety of the patient and the healthcare professional. The market has experienced a downturn over the weeks, which may continue over the next few months. With a rising health concern, the demand would be hitting the roof as soon as there is a development in the condition.

To identify the key trends in the industry, click on the link below:

https://www.reportsanddata.com/report-detail/non-contact-temperature-measurement-system-market

Further key findings from the report suggest

The North America Non-Contact Temperature Measurement System market is anticipated to dominate the in the global market. The major driving factors for the growth of this market are high adoption rate new technology. Furthermore, some countries have taken different paths to industrialization such as new technology, to indicate fever levels.

The fixed mount segment is expected to have the largest market share among the other segments. This is attributed to the fact that fixed mount non-contact temperature products are highly preferred in the end use industry. Increasing industrialization in emerging economies such as India and China are expected to impact the market positively in the forecast period.

and are expected to impact the market positively in the forecast period. Increasingly refined software enables user to potentially determine the areas in interest such as potentially overheating machinery and items on conveyor belts. Furthermore, there are several factors such as fast temperature readings that determine accurate measurement are contributing to the market significantly.

The Non-Contact Temperature Measurement System by application includes fiber optic radiation thermometer as one of the prospects which are expected to fuel the market growth. The features of the system helps industrialist in taking optimal decision and monitor safety and productivity and reduce the overall downtime which will boost the growth of non-contact temperature measurement instrument in the fore coming years.

Healthcare segment is expected to grow significantly for the non-contact temperature measurement system market during the forecast period. Is going to witness growth due to the worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Temperature monitoring has become a crucial component across public places, including shopping malls, airports, offices, schools, thereby owing to substantial market share in the near future.

Key participants include Testo SE & Co. KGaA, Micro Epsilon, CHINO Corporation, Fluke Corporation, OMEGA Engineering Inc., AMETEK Land, DIAS Infratech GmbH, PCE Instruments, Dwyer Instruments, and TE Connectivity among others.

Order Now: https://www.reportsanddata.com/sample-enquiry-form/3350

For the purpose of this report, Reports and Data have segmented into the global non-contact temperature measurement system market on the basis of component, product, instrumentation type, application, end use, and region:

Component Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

Sensors



Displays



Connectors



Processors



Others

Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion; 2017-2027)

Portable



Fixed mount

Instrumentation type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

Broadband Radiation Thermometer



Narrow band Radiation Thermometer



Ratio Radiation Thermometer



Fiber Optic Radiation Thermometer

Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

Body Temperature Measurement



Object/Asset Temperature Measurement



Room Temperature Measurement



Liquid Temperature Measurement



Others

End Use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

Automotive



Healthcare



Electronics



Metals & Mining



Building & Construction



Energy & Power



Petrochemical



Chemical



Others

Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million; 2017-2027)

North America



U.S.





Canada



Europe



Germany





UK





France





Spain





Rest of the Europe



Asia Pacific



China





India





Japan





Rest of Asia-Pacific



Middle East & Africa

&

Latin America



Brazil

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India in May suspended 39 oil import licences to slow duty-free shipments from neighbouring nations, disrupting refiners in Nepal. (AFP Photo)

KATHMANDU: Edible oil refiners in Nepal have all but stopped buying crude palm oil amid surging domestic stockpiles after top buyer India suspended most imports of refined oil from the country, industry officials told Reuters.

India in May suspended 39 oil import licences to slow duty-free shipments from neighbouring nations, disrupting refiners in Nepal which had thrived thanks to preferential access to Indias huge market.

Refiners are not importing fresh crude palm oil but we have to take (delivery) of the stock which is in transit, said Amit Sarda, director at Pashupati Oil Industries, a leading refiner and exporter based at Nepals industrial town of Biratnagar.

Palm oil stockpiles in Nepal have swelled to 70,000 tonnes, overwhelming local demand needs, he said.

As a result, Nepals crude palm imports had plunged to less than 7,000 tonnes per month by mid June from around 21,000 tonnes earlier in 2020, according to government data.

India accounts for nearly two-thirds of Nepals trade and is its sole fuel supplier. The ties between Nepal and India have strained lately following a territorial dispute.

DUTY ARBITRAGE

Nepals palm oil refining industry emerged in response to Indias steep refined oil import taxes, which were raised to 54% in 2018 to promote domestic refiners.

The hike spurred oil refiners to set up plants in neighbouring countries and then sell refined oil into India tax-free under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).

Around 30 billion Nepali rupees ($250 million) were invested to set up 19 refining units in Nepal alone, according to trade body Nepal Ghee and Oil Association.

Nepals palm oil exports to India rose from zero to 45,667 tonnes in the 2018/19 fiscal year, and then to 189,078 tonnes in 2019/20, according to Indias commerce ministry.

These refiners may not be able to repay bank loans if the Indian ban remains in place, said Sarda.

We have fulfilled the SAFTA norms and there is no problem in this. Our value addition is about 32-33%, said Vikkas Dugar, managing director of Nepalese refiner Swastik Oil Industries Pvt Ltd.

India, the worlds biggest importer of palm oil, annually imports more than 9 million tonnes of crude palm oil that is then mostly processed by its own refiners.

It is high time, the SAFTA agreements are reviewed and re-negotiated with longer term objectives like Make in India, said Sudhakar Desai, president of the Indian Vegetable Oil Producers Association (IVPA).
* Euro zone periphery govt bond yields http://tmsnrt.rs/2ii2Bqr

By Abhinav Ramnarayan

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - High-grade euro zone government bond yields edged lower on Wednesday, as concerns around the global economy and rising COVID-19 cases in the United States hit risk sentiment and scotched some of the euphoria from the EU stimulus deal.

Italian, Spanish and Portuguese bond yield spreads over benchmark Germany remain close to their tightest levels since early March, but the rally has eased a touch.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic would get worse before it got better.

On the data front, Japan's factory activity contracted for a 15th straight month in July, denting hopes for a quick global recovery.

"I doubt that we will manage to price a significant improvement in sentiment given the potential for rising cases in the United States after lockdown measures were dropped too early in some states," said ING rates strategist Antoine Bouvet.

"Markets will remain on high alert, and investors will just look to park their money in safe bonds with carry."

Carry is a phrase used in markets to describe a trade where investors borrow short-term money to invest in higher-yielding assets, pocketing the difference.

Germany's 10-year bond yields dropped 1.5 basis points to -0.474%, a move mirrored by other high-grade government bond such as those of Netherlands and France.

Italy's 10-year government bond yields were unchanged around 1.14%, higher than Tuesday's 4-1/2 month low of 1.117%.

That low was hit after European Union leaders clinched a historic deal on a massive stimulus plan for their coronavirus-throttled economies in the early hours of Tuesday, after a fractious summit lasting almost five days.

Demand for euro zone government bonds was also being driven by worries around the Brexit transition period ending without any deal between Britain and the EU, analysts said. (Reporting by Abhinav Ramnarayan; Editing by Alex Richardson)
July 21, 2020

According to the latest federal research done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 25% of Americans spend more than 8 hours a day sitting. The kind of system we have today doesnt make it any better, as people are more likely to work behind a desk at their workplace, sit in long hours of transit, or even while pressing their phones- most times with a slouched spine. However, apart from the sedentary lifestyle that is gradually growing on most people, poor sitting positions are also a major concern.







A study from PubMed Central shows how low back pain (LBP) is common among office workers and is the most common cause of work-related disability in people under 45 years of age. Another study also investigated the relationship between back pain and occupational sitting habits in 64 call-center employees. Seventy-five percent of the participants complained of acute and chronic low back pain; those with chronic pain tend to have more static sitting behavior compared to those without the pain. These studies only prove that your pattern of sitting at work can be detrimental to your health, starting from the common low back pain.

To reduce the health risks that may arise due to your sitting behavior, you need to start by getting the most comfortable office chair, after which you can practice sitting appropriately to maintain a good posture.

Why Do You Need a High-tech Chair?

1. For Comfort and Improved Posture

One of the major reasons most people pay attention to chairs is the level of comfort they can get from it. High-tech furnitures have sensors that determine and adjust to your optimal comfort position. These chairs are made to keep you seated comfortably for long hours and help you do your work effectively without worrying about any form of discomfort or pain. An important advantage of using a comfortable chair is that it helps correct your posture. A good ergonomic chair would keep your feet flat on the floor or on a footrest, with your knees directly below the level of your hips. The adjustable backrest would help lower your back and align your spine. With a chair like this, your posture would be corrected over time and you wont have to fall into a slouched position unconsciously all the time.

2. To Improve Your Health and Productivity

How comfortable you feel while seated can determine your level of productivity. With the right high-tech chair, you will be able to sit for long hours and be productive during that period. This will help you get things done faster than being on an uncomfortable chair that causes your back to ache all the time. In addition, you reduce your risk of certain illnesses when you constantly use a quality chair that keeps your body in the correct posture. Some of these illnesses include back, neck, or shoulder pain, poor circulation, poor digestion, impaired lung function, and misaligned spine, among others.

3. For Lumbar Support

High-tech ergonomic chairs are designed to offer lumbar support to avoid you bending your spine forward. This also prevents the risk of low back pain and fatigue that might result from restricted blood flow to the spine tissue. With a comfortable chair, there is improved circulation in the spine and throughout the body.

4. They Have Multiple Functionalities

In addition to sitting comfortably, these chairs could also provide other benefits such as massages, charging ports, and auto adjust functionalities. The features are numerous and often depend on the kind of high-tech chair you opt for.

What to Look Out For in a High-tech Office Chair

Before you choose your office chair, there are certain features to look out for, some of which are highlighted below:

1. Unique Tech Features

High-tech chairs have features that single them out from other ergonomic chairs, some of which include USB ports, adjustable headrests, touch lighting, AC outlets, cord management, light-up cup holders, powerlift recliner remotes, and more. Check out these features while choosing your preferred chair and opt for one that has your preferred tech features to make your work easier than ever.

2. Highly Adjustable

Look for a chair that is highly adjustable to suit your preference. The best office chairs have about five to fourteen adjustments; while most of these chairs have adjustable height and arm, you should also look out for other adjustable features. This includes the lumbar support, backrest, armrests, arm width and height, seat back width and height, seat and back angle, and the seat pan. You might not get all these features in one chair, as it also depends on your budget but ensure you can adjust it to be as comfortable as you want it.

3. Lumbar Support

While ergonomic high-tech chairs come with a variety of features, one important thing to focus on is the lumbar support, as it helps keep your spine properly aligned and provides support for your lower back. A chair with lumbar support, a reclining option, and a backrest will provide adequate support for your back, which is what you want. Some advanced chairs would allow you to fit the chair to your lower back, which helps prevent back strain that could lead to a condition known as Sciatica.

4. The Materials Used

Beyond aesthetics, the materials used for office chairs play a huge role in how comfortable they are, so you also have to check the kind of materials used. Opt for a chair with breathable fabric to prevent it from becoming uncomfortably warm after long hours of use. Ensure it is smooth, soft, and not itchy to help you have a great experience while being productive even during summer.

5. Wheel Base

Most office chairs have wheels but before you make a purchase, you should consider the condition of your office floor. Is it tiled or is there a carpet on it? This determines the kind of wheelbase to look out for. If your floor is carpeted, you should get a chair with wheels made for carpet. Getting a chair without wheels should be out of the options, as it would make you uncomfortable and could cause back strain while you constantly try to retrieve items that are out of reach.

Should You Invest Money into High-tech Chairs?

High-tech chairs might seem a little pricey and its easy to think of alternatives to save costs. However, these chairs are beyond aesthetics, as they have far more features to help improve your health and productivity. A review of 40 studies of office workers published in 2008 in the Journal of Safety Research shows improved productivity by an average 17% due to the addition of ergonomic office chairs and other technological equipment.

If you are looking to have productive work hours while looking out for your health, then you should consider investing in good chairs. The amount you would spend is nothing compared to the benefits of using a comfortable chair all year long. While you choose your chair, ensure you choose the right one to get maximum benefits.
Last year, Apple had announced at the Black Hat security conference that it will be providing security researchers with jailbroken iPhones to allow them to find more vulnerabilities in iOS. Almost a year later, the company will finally start providing these iPhones to security researchers and analysts that meet the eligibility criteria.

The Apple Security Research Device Program is designed to help improve security for all iOS users, bring more researchers to iPhone, and improve efficiency for those who already work on iOS security. It features an iPhone dedicated exclusively to security research, with unique code execution and containment policies.

The iPhone or the Security Research Device (SRD) provided by Apple as a part of this program will have shell access thereby allowing researchers to run any tools and entitlements of their choice. The company will be providing these iPhones on a 12-month renewable basis and at all times, they will remain the property of the company itself.

This is the first time that Apple is providing devices with shell access to security researchers and hackers. The company also made it clear to TechCrunch that it will be working closely with researchers instead of just shipping them the devices and then forgetting about it. Security researchers and hackers will be able to file for bugs that they find in such devices to Apples bug bounty program where they can receive up to $1 million in payouts.

To be eligible for the program, you must have an Apple Developer Program account along with a proven track record of finding security issues in Apple products or other OSes. The program is also only available in selected countries including Australia, Austria, France, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Poland, the U.K., and the United States.

Apple will individually review all applications and if your application is not approved for this year, it will be automatically considered for 2021. You can apply for Apples Security Research Device Program here.

Our Take

Over the last couple of years, Apple has been increasingly welcoming of security researchers and hackers and has shown its willingness to work with them in making iOS and its other products and services more secure. The impact of this SRD program from Apple is not going to be noticeable immediately but it should still have a positive impact on the overall security of Apple products and services.
By Trend





Iran has good political relations with Russia and China, and these relations have become stronger in recent weeks, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said, Trend reports via IRNA.

"I've sent a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding strengthening of ties between Iran and Russia on both regional and international levels," Rouhani said.

Rouhani expressed hope that Iran's cooperation with the neighboring countries, including Russia, Iraq, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and Afghanistan, along with neighbors in the Caspian basin and the Persian Gulf, would improve.

The president pointed out that Iran has made diplomatic efforts in recent weeks, and the country held important meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazemi.

"The two countries had important agreements regarding customs, transportation, economy, banking relations, and hopefully, they will be implemented," said the president.

Rouhani noted that Iran has settled for proper policies in the past 7 years in economic, political matters, regional security, trilateral relations, with various countries, and this policy will continue.
WASHINGTON  The United States ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, escalating tensions between the worlds largest economies as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure against China ahead of the November election. Beijing denounced the order Wednesday as outrageous and said it would draw a firm response if not reversed.

The physical closure of the consulate, one of six in the United States along with China's mission to the United Nations, marked a dramatic step in increasingly contentious relations that have been strained not only by the conronavirus pandemic but by disputes over trade, human rights, Hong Kong and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.

It was the latest in a series of measure taken by the Trump administration against Chinese officials, students and researchers that have included travel bans, registration requirements and others steps intended to reduce their footprint in the United States. These actions have come as Trump has sought to blame China for the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, where cases have soared, threatening Trump's prospects for reelection.

The State Department said it ordered the consulate closed within 72 hours as it alleges that Chinese agents have been seeking to steal U.S. data from facilities in Texas, including the Texas A&M medical system statewide and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

There were indications consulate staff were preparing to leave. There were reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds Tuesday night  a common practice when a diplomatic post is being shuttered on short notice.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.that the closure was to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

The United States will not tolerate (Chinas) violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated (Chinas) unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior, she said. President Trump insists on fairness and reciprocity in U.S.-China relations.

The Department of Justice on Tuesday had announced the indictments of two Chinese hackers on charges of trying to steal pharmaceutical secrets from U.S. companies related to the COVID-19 pandemic that originated in China. Although there was no indication the two measures were related, the U.S. has long alleged China is involved in nefarious activity around the country, including from its Houston consulate.

Even before the U.S. announced the closure, which was conveyed to the Chinese ambassador to the United States on Tuesday, China strongly condemned it. A foreign ministry spokesperson called it an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily news briefing in Beijing. He warned of firm countermeasures if the U.S. does not reverse itself.

Wang accused the U.S. of opening Chinese diplomatic pouches without permission multiple times, confiscating Chinese items for official use and imposing restrictions on Chinese diplomats beginning last October and again in June. He also said that U.S. diplomats in China engage in infiltration activities.

If we compare the two, it is only too evident which is engaged in interference, infiltration and confrontation, Wang said. He also said that the Chinese Embassy in Washington has received bomb and death threats, and accused the U.S. government of fanning hatred against China.

In Houston, firefighters responded to reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds Tuesday night but were barred entry, according to local reports. Houston police said in a tweet that officers responded to a meet the firefighter call at the Chinese Consulate building at 3417 Montrose Blvd. It said smoke was observed in an outdoor courtyard area, and that officers were not allowed to enter the building.

Foreign diplomatic missions operate under legal immunities accorded by international law and are not able to be entered without permission. However, the destruction of confidential documents at a facility that has been ordered or otherwise forced to close on short notice, including U.S. missions, is not unusual. Most recently in the United States, Russia's consulate in San Francisco made news for burning large amounts of material when it was ordered closed in 2017.

Aside from the diplomatic ramifications, the closure of the Houston consulate will make it more difficult for China to provide assistance to its citizens in the southern United States and for U.S. nationals seeking visas and other services there.

In addition to its embassy in Washington and its mission to the United Nations in New York, China has consulates in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.In an apparent bid to stave off the reciprocal closure of an American diplomatic mission in China, the State Department told the Chinese that it would not re-open its consulate in Wuhan, according to two U.S. officials who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. consulate in Wuhan was shuttered in late January at the height of the coronavirus outbreak that started there, but the State Department had informed Congress in early June that it planned to re-open it, possibly this summer.

Besides Wuhan, the U.S. has four other consulates in China  in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenyang  along with its embassy in Beijing and a consulate general in Hong Kong.

In a reflection of Chinas economic importance, a Houston business group expressed regret at the announcement, saying the consulate has been important in building trade, investment and cultural ties. It noted that the Houston consulate was Chinas first in the U.S. when it opened in 1979.

The Greater Houston Partnership expressed hope that China would take immediate steps to address intellectual property and cybersecurity concerns. We look forward to the reopening of the consulate in Houston once these concerns are addressed, it said in a statement.

Pompeo is expected to continue the attacks Thursday in a speech on U.S.-China relations at the Nixon Library in California.

_______

Moritsugu reported from Beijing.
The death knell of The New York Times?

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I have been a subscriber and virtually habitual reader of TheNew York Times since I was a Princeton freshman in 1965. Then, the Times was quite simply the best newspaper in the world. It had a liberal editorial slant even then, but its news stories were always more comprehensive and fact-filled than those of any other newspaper in the world. And, they covered more wide-ranging subjects on a regular basis than any other English language newspaper.

In fact, when asked more than occasionally why I, a well-known conservative (probably more politically conservative in my youth than I am now) would read TheNew York Times so diligently, I began to issue a challenge: You pick any story from a paper of your choice, and after you have read that story, read the Times story on the same subject, and if you dont learn at least two new things after reading the Times story, I will buy you a steak dinner. (And you know how serious we Texans are about a steak dinner!) I have yet to have to make good on that challenge.

Alas, the paper of record has been in serious decline in recent decades. It has increasingly editorialized in its news pages and propagandized on its editorial pages. They have become dominated by radical leftist ideologies, not twentieth century American liberalism, and they have severely deteriorated as a credible news source.

I still read the Times almost every day. (It has become more of an addiction than a discipline.) However, I find myself increasingly reading it to do opposition research on its latest destructive forays into the culture wars like the nefarious and loopy 1619 Project. Often I find it therapeutic to read TheWall Street Journal editorial pages after each journey into opo research.

Now, from the belly of the beast itself, we have eyewitness, first person testimony to just how far the Old Gray Lady has fallen from her former Olympian heights. Bari Weiss, a prominent Times opinion editor and writer, resigned from the Times, alleging blatant bias and hostile harassment in her workplace.

Ms. Weiss chose Bastille Day, July 14, to launch her missive cruise missile into the Times newsroom. She lamented that the Times had learned nothing from the 2016 election. Instead, she said, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but especially at this paper: that truth isnt a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

Ms. Weiss, a self-described centrist and strong supporter of Israel, concluded:

The paper of record is more and more the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is alluded for its diversity; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.

Ms. Weiss laments how far the Times has fallen from Adolph Ochs famous 1896 statement of his journalistic goal: to make of the columns of the New York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.

Bari Weiss paints a grim picture of political correctness and cancel culture run amok at the Times. She tells of her work colleagues calling her a Nazi and a racist and others posted her name with ax emojis next to it.

In a passage that should strike fear into the hearts of TheNew York Times editors, Ms. Weiss said there is a name for the terrible discrimination she faced in The New York Times newsroom  hostile work environment . . . I am no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong.

It would be very informative, and instructive, if Ms. Weiss were to file a lawsuit claiming unlawful workplace harassment. My guess is that the Times would settle out of court rather than have its extremely dirty laundry aired in a public courtroom.

As this woke revolution and cancel culture proceed, there will be more innocent victims vacuumed up in this rabid cultural jihad.

TheNew York Times has sold its birthright to extreme political correctness.

Will the nation do a better job of protecting the ideals upon which it was founded than TheNew York Times has done?

Or, is the sad demise of TheNew York Times the canary in the coal mine, there to sound the alarm that noxious cultural poisons are loose in the land, and unless precautions are taken, they can be lethal.

Americans are faced with a stark choice. Either we will insist on exercising our God-given and constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech, or we will lose it by surrendering in silence to this modern mob of would-be thought police masquerading as journalists.
The national assembly has insisted that the minister of state for labour and employment, Festus Keyamo will not be handling the recruitment of 774,000 citizens under a special works programme.

This resolution was reached in the senate and the house of representatives following motions passed in both chambers.

Senator Opeyemi Bamidele who moved a motion in the red chamber, stated that the ministry of labour will take up a supervisory role while theNational Directorate of Employment (NDE) will handle the recruitment.

Bamidele said;

The senate hereby reiterates its support of the initiative of Mr President aimed at creating additional 774,000 temporary jobs for Nigerians. There is the need to go ahead and cooperate with the executive arm of government under Mr Presidents watch to ensure the smooth and full implementation of the programme as provided for in the revised appropriation law passed by the national assembly. That while recognising the supervisory role of the ministry labour and employment, the senate notes that the need for it in its oversight and further legislative actions in respect of this programme the need to hold the NDE responsible both for the implementation of the programme and surrendering of accounts for monies appropriated by the programme by the national assembly.

Hon Toby Okechukwu who also moved a motion in the lower chamber, affirmed that section 2 of NDE act vests the agency with the responsibility to combat mass unemployment. He added that the attitude of the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo could jeopardize the capacity of the national assembly to oversight MDAs.

He said;

The supervisory powers conferred on the minister of labour by section 15 of the NDE act do not condone any abnormalities or allow the minister to do so without regards to the law. Aware that by our laws as presently constituted, the NDE is an implementing agency with the minister of labour, not minister of state, an aberration and indeed an entity unknown to the law, is the supervising minister. Mindful that the term minister of state is not a creation of section 145 (1) of the 1999 constitution. This may therefore be the reason for the refusal of the minister of state to be guided on the method adopted by parliament for its proceedings and his assertion that only Mr. President can stop our work, not our laws nor our institutions.

The motions were passed in both chambers after being subjected to a voice vote by Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-23 00:01:08|Editor: huaxia

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Zhao Leji, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, visits Taishan Village of Matou Town in Huai'an, east China's Jiangsu Province, July 21, 2020. Zhao made an investigation and research trip in Jiangsu Province from Sunday to Wednesday. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

NANJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official has called for accurate supervision to consolidate the momentum of stable and sound growth of the country's economy.

Zhao Leji, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, made the remarks during his investigation and research trip in east China's Jiangsu Province from Sunday to Wednesday.

He called on disciplinary and supervisory agencies to perform their duties faithfully and accurately to promote stability on the six fronts and security in the six areas.

The six fronts refer to employment, the financial sector, foreign trade, foreign investment, domestic investment, and expectations. The six areas refer to job security, basic living needs, operations of market entities, food and energy security, stable industrial and supply chains, and the normal functioning of primary-level governments.

During his trip, Zhao visited a local village and two companies, learning about epidemic containment, flood control and relief, work and production resumption, as well as the fight against corruption.

Zhao urged disciplinary and supervisory agencies to maintain supervision in the implementation of decisions and policies made by the CPC Central Committee, including regular epidemic prevention and control measures, flood control and relief, poverty eradication, and accelerating the restoration of economic and social development. He also called for efforts to explore new ways for supervision.

Speaking at a symposium, Zhao pointed out that a system under which officials "don't dare to, are unable to, and have no desire to commit acts of corruption" must be advanced as a whole.

He also underlined the need to improve Party and government conduct, the political ecosystem, and the business environment. Enditem
" " Harpers Ferry sits at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers and has a rich and complex history. Dean Heinrichs/Getty Images

At the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, near a spot in the water where Maryland, Virginia, and the easternmost tip of West Virginia converge, lies Harpers Ferry, a quaint, sometimes bucolic 19th-century town with a rich and dizzying history.

In the early 1800s, Harpers Ferry became a pioneer in the way goods were manufactured, beginning with munitions. Just 70 miles (112 kilometers) or so northwest of Washington, D.C., it bloomed into an American transportation hub, with railroads, bridges spanning the two rivers and boats carrying goods throughout the new country.

During the Civil War, it changed hands from Union to Confederate and back again at least eight times. Things got so confusing that the townspeople were called both rebels (when the Union army occupied) and Yankees (when the Confederates were in charge). A church in town flew a British flag, just to be safe.

But it was in 1859, a few years before the Civil War, with a bold and disastrous bid to launch a slave rebellion, that famed abolitionist John Brown truly put Harpers Ferry on the map.

"It's a very complicated place, and it's hard to tell one story of Harpers Ferry," says Paul Shackel, an archeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland. "There's a lot of different stories and a lot of different histories."

" " In the mid-1800s, the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, the Winchester & Potomac Railroad and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad established Harpers Ferry as a transportation powerhouse. Library of Congress

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The Start of Harpers Ferry

Harpers Ferry sits in a gap among steep, rocky ridges that rise into the rolling hills of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. The Potomac and Shenandoah rivers flow east toward the Chesapeake Bay, meeting at an area of town known as the Point.

In 1783, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the place "worth a voyage across the Atlantic." He wrote about it in his, "Notes on the State of Virginia," in 1785. (Harpers Ferry became part of West Virginia when it joined the Union in 1863.) An excerpt:

The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Patowmac in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder and pass off to the sea.

The town's setting was a natural for commerce and industry. George Washington pushed for Harpers Ferry as the spot of a new national armory, and one was erected in 1799. By the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1861, the U.S. Armory and Arsenal had churned out more than 600,000 muskets, rifles and other weapons.

John H. Hall, a Maine gunmaker, devised precision machinery to forge interchangeable parts that could be assembled by less-skilled workmen, rather than individual craftsmen making individual rifles. It increased production and quality and changed the face of American manufacturing.

At that time, the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, the Winchester & Potomac Railroad and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad already had established the area as a transportation powerhouse. In the 1850s, Harpers Ferry was a bustling place, with pigs running through the streets, hundreds of people working in the armory, and many more laboring in associated mills along the rivers.

All that came to a halt, though, with the Civil War. Even before that, the abolitionist Brown made a move that hastened both the start of the war and the decline of Harpers Ferry.

" " The long-planned raid on Harpers Ferry included John Brown and fewer than two dozen men. Brown was eventually captured, tried and found guilty of treason. Library of Congress

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The John Brown Raid

Today, at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (which covers parts of three states), you can visit the building where the famed abolitionist hero holed up  it's now called John Brown's Fort  as his plans for sparking a slave rebellion went terribly awry, almost from the start.

The long-planned raid Oct. 16, 1859 consisted of Brown and fewer than two dozen men taking over the armory. Two days later, the engine house into which he retreated  his "fort"  was surrounded by soldiers. Brown was captured and, about two weeks later, tried and found guilty of treason. He was hanged Dec. 2. That morning, he wrote these words:

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.

Brown's audacious plan of a slave uprising struck fear into slaveholders in the south. And when he was hanged, Northerners saw it as a rallying cry to finally end slavery.

Harpers Ferry found itself in the middle of everything once again.

" " Just before the Civil War, U.S. forces abandoned Harpers Ferry, burning the armory on their way out of town. Library of Congress

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The Town After John Brown

Once war erupted, Harpers Ferry turned out to be a critical spot to occupy but a difficult one to defend, stuck as it was under high ridges with few avenues for escape. "Whoever controlled Harpers Ferry could control the railroad, which would supply the Army," Shackel says. "It was considered key, but the North and the South did not invest enough to hold it. So they were always blowing up the bridge and rebuilding the bridge."

U.S. forces abandoned the town when the war began, burning the armory on the way out. But the soldiers didn't do a very good job of it and the Confederates took over, moving much of the gun-making machinery deeper into the South.

"The guns that were produced in the Civil War [for the South] were from Harpers Ferry equipment and technology and machinery," Shackel says. "That was just a major blunder on the part of the Union."

John Brown's Fort, used as a prison and a powder house at various times during the war, became a touchstone for both sides; Union soldiers often treating it with reverence, Confederates cursing it as they passed.

"It was one of the only buildings that wasn't destroyed," Shackel says. "U.S. troops would cross the bridge into Harpers Ferry, and there would be a silence as they would march by, or they would break out into song: 'John Brown's body lies a'mouldering in the grave' ..."

The damage inflicted as troops came and went (often burning buildings in their wake) eventually took its toll. From "The Making of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park: A Devil, Two Rivers, and a Dream," co-authored by Shackel and Teresa S. Moyer:

At the end of the war, Harpers Ferry lay in a deteriorated state. Union troops occupied the town for more than a year after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Every day, residents endured, "the ear-piercing notes of the fife and the boom of the drum on the streets." ... "What a God forsaken place," wrote local resident Annie Marmion ...

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Harpers Ferry Today

The C&O Canal proved to be an economic boon postwar, and the town soon wobbled back to its feet. It became a pilgrimage of sorts to those who revered Brown and what he stood for, even as the town's main attraction  Brown's Fort  was moved to Chicago (for the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893), back to a farm near Harpers Ferry (many Southern sympathizers didn't want it in town), to a black college established in Harpers Ferry shortly after the Civil War, and finally, in 1968 (years after the National Park Service bought it), to within 150 feet (45 meters) of its original location, now part of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.

The hills and mountains around Harpers Ferry now are frequented by hikers and trail lovers. The waters are used by kayakers and rafters and are good for catching smallmouth bass. The town also marks the approximate halfway point of the Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail and the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

Many of the 19th-century buildings in the lower town now have been restored. John's Brown Fort continues to be a place visited by those still dreaming of racial equality. And the townspeople, thanks largely to the efforts of those telling the town's story at the national park, mostly have embraced their place in the middle of American history.

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NOW THAT'S INTERESTING In August 1906, Storer College in Harpers Ferry became the site for the first public meeting of the Niagara Movement. There, on John Brown's Day, members made a silent pilgrimage to the fort where the abolitionist was captured, removing their socks and shoes as they entered the "hallowed" ground. The Niagara Movement, founded in part by W.E.B. Du Bois, is considered the precursor to the NAACP.
Srinagar: Police personnels and others, recovered from COVID-19 voluntarily donated their plasma at Plasma Screening Camp organised at Kashmir Nursing Home by J&K Police and Dept of Health and Medical Education, in Srinagar on July 22, 2020. (Photo Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar: Police personnels and others, recovered from COVID-19 voluntarily donated their plasma at Plasma Screening Camp organised at Kashmir Nursing Home by J&K Police and Dept of Health and Medical Education, in Srinagar on July 22, 2020. (Photo Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar: Police personnels and others, recovered from COVID-19 voluntarily donated their plasma at Plasma Screening Camp organised at Kashmir Nursing Home by J&K Police and Dept of Health and Medical Education, in Srinagar on July 22, 2020. (Photo Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar: Police personnels and others, recovered from COVID-19 voluntarily donated their plasma at Plasma Screening Camp organised at Kashmir Nursing Home by J&K Police and Dept of Health and Medical Education, in Srinagar on July 22, 2020. (Photo Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar: Police personnels and others, recovered from COVID-19 voluntarily donated their plasma at Plasma Screening Camp organised at Kashmir Nursing Home by J&K Police and Dept of Health and Medical Education, in Srinagar on July 22, 2020. (Photo Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar: Police personnels and others, recovered from COVID-19 voluntarily donated their plasma at Plasma Screening Camp organised at Kashmir Nursing Home by J&K Police and Dept of Health and Medical Education, in Srinagar on July 22, 2020. (Photo Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar: Police personnels and others, recovered from COVID-19 voluntarily donated their plasma at Plasma Screening Camp organised at Kashmir Nursing Home by J&K Police and Dept of Health and Medical Education, in Srinagar on July 22, 2020. (Photo Image Source: IANS News

Srinagar, July 22 : A plasma screening camp was held by Jammu and Kashmir Police and department of health and medical education at Kashmir Nursing Home in Srinagar, on Wednesday.

Policemen and civilians who had contracted COVID-19 and have now recovered will be voluntarily donating their blood plasma after undergoing screening.

"The screening camp is being organised for patients who recovered from COVID-19. They have been invited for screening to find whether antibodies have developed and whether they are eligible for plasma donation. They have voluntarily decided to donate plasma, when they are eligible, their plasma will be collected. We plan to create a plasma bank," said Dr Naveed Shah, HoD Chest Disease Hospital Srinagar.

Plasma therapy is effective in dealing with the disease but not many have been coming forward to donate plasma. This is an effort to encourage people who recovered from the disease to go for plasma donations in Kashmir. The screening shall continue over the next few days.

"Yesterday I got to know that a plasma screening camp is being organised in Srinagar, so I came here, I had tested positive for the disease and recovered, I think it is my duty to help others who are in need of plasma to recover from the disease by donating it," said Javed Rather, a Srinagar resident.

Meanwhile, there has been a surge in the COVID-19 cases in Jammu and Kashmir. To date over 15,000 people have tested positive and 263 have died due to the pandemic.

The Jammu and Kashmir government has ordered a strict lockdown in Kashmir in all the red districts except Bandipore in North Kashmir from Wednesday evening till Monday.
How did KC mayor return to work so fast after Ozarks quarantine? Rapid COVID-19 test Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas' physician told him 48 hours was plenty of time to tell whether he had contracted coronavirus after posing for a photo with a group of women at the Lake of the Ozarks, his office said in a statement Tuesday.

Thankfully, the Mayo is healthy despite the public relations hit and a great deal of push back on his his pandemic edicts . . . Link tease basically tells the story with more info for subscribers:
K anye West has lashed out at Kim Kardashian and her family in a series of now-deleted tweets, stating he's been trying to divorce his wife after an "out of line" meeting with Meek Mill.

The 43-year-old rapper, who announced his presidential bid earlier this month, claimed that his wife of six years, 39, had met with Meek Mill last year to discuss prison reform at the Waldorf hotel.

He added that he believed the influencers behaviour was out of line.

I been trying to get divorced since Kim met with Meek at the Warldolf [sic] for 'prison reform,' West said in his now-deleted post. I got 200 more to go.

Meek is my man and was respectful Thats my dog Kim was out of line Im worth 5 billion dollars and more than that through Christ.

Wests Twitter tirade also saw him accuse his mother-in-law Kris Jenner of white supremacy.

Sharing a screenshot of his texting history with the 64-year-old Kardashian matriarch, West wrote: This Ye. You wanna talk? Or go to war?

He captioned the photo: White supremacy at its highest no cap.

He added: Kim saved my daughters life in the name of Jesus Its Gods choice only I will live for my children Kris Im in Cody if your not planning another one of your childrens Playboy shoots.

They tried to fly in with 2 doctors to 51/50 me This my lady [sic] tweet of the night ... Kris Jong-Un Lil baby my favorite [sic] rapper but wont do a song wit me.

West continued: Kriss [sic] and Kim put out a statement without my approval ... thats not what a wife should do White supremacy.

Kris and Kim were on the receiving end of Kanye's rant / AFP via Getty Images

Says the future president.

The news comes after West claimed that himself and Kardashian were planning to abort eldest daughter North, now seven, during his first presidential rally at the weekend.

In a separate Twitter thread which has also been deleted, West then claimed the 2017 horror film Get Out was about him.

West has also appeared to reconsider his White House bid, saying that Black people are supposed to vote for Democrat candidate Joe Biden.

Tweeting yesterday that he was going to focus on his upcoming 10th studio album DONDA, he tweeted then deleted: #2020VISION or maybe 24 I guess all black people supposed to vote on Biden? Yall want me to run on nah???

Evening Standard has contacted representatives for West, Kardashian, Jenner and Mill for comment.
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The Saudi Arabian embassy in China held a reception in Beijing on July 21 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.



Turki M. A. Almadi, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to China, gave a speech at the event. He said that Saudi Arabia cherished its friendship with China and hoped China will always be a friend and support the kingdom's undertakings and concerns.

"During the past 30 years, relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and China have been developing rapidly, which have become a model country-to-country relationship," Almadi said. "We have many fruitful achievements along the way as continuous progress has been made in the development of bilateral ties since 1990, and our relations are all-round, multi-field, not only about bilateral trade and mutual investment, but also extended to cooperation in the fields of culture, science and technology, and health."

The ambassador also shared his great appreciation for China's positive stance toward Saudi Arabia, as well as for the mutual support each side has shown one another during the COVID-19 pandemic. "China and Saudi Arabia are good friends who trust each other," he stated.

During China's most critical time in its fight against COVID-19, the Saudi government and companies provided emergency supplies to China. Then, when Saudi Arabia was hit by the epidemic, the Chinese government sent medical experts to the kingdom and Chinese companies helped boost the country's COVID-19 detection capacity.

Senior diplomat Zhai Jun, China's special envoy on Middle East affairs, also attended the celebration. He explained that mutual state visits by leaders of the two countries, the establishment of the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership and the founding of the China-Saudi Arabia High-level Joint Committee in 2016 have injected new and strong momentum into China-Saudi Arabia relations in the new era.



"The two countries understand and support each other on issues concerning each other's core interests and major concerns, while pragmatic cooperation in various fields has continuously achieved new accomplishments," Zhai said.

China is Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner, and Saudi Arabia is China's largest trading partner within the West Asia and Africa region, as well as China's largest global supplier of crude oil for many years.

"The bilateral trade volume jumped from $418 million when diplomatic relations were established to $78.04 billion at the end of last year  representing a 186-fold increase. In addition, the people-to-people cultural exchanges between the two countries are splendid," Zhai noted. "In particular, the important decision of the introduction of Chinese language education to the Saudi curriculum by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, has laid a solid foundation for enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples."

The special envoy hoped the two countries can strengthen mutual political trust, promote the Belt and Road Initiative to be compatible with Saudi Vision 2030, and deepen bilateral pragmatic cooperation. He added that as the 9th ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) was held via video link on July 6, China is willing to work with Arab nations, implement results and consensuses of the CASCF, and build a China-Arab community with a shared future with the support of Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

Several diplomats of other Arab nations in Beijing were also invited to take part in the joint China-Saudi Arabia celebration.
Award-winning Zimbabwean journalist and government critic Hopewell Chin'ono appeared in court Wednesday where he was charged with incitement to violence.

Armed police arrested Chin'ono, 49, at his home in the capital Harare on Monday.

The prominent documentary filmmaker had been investigating reported corruption linked to government purchases of coronavirus protection gear and test kits.

At Harare Magistrates Court, prosecutor Whisper Mabhaudhi accused Chin'ono of inciting Zimbabweans to join a planned anti-government protest during a coronavirus outbreak, which showed "no regard for human life".

Mabhaudhi opposed bail due to the "likelihood for him to abscond" and flee the country with the help of "outside contacts".

Chin'ono has not yet been asked to enter his plea.

His lawyers complained about the circumstances of his arrest and custody.

A video clip recorded at the journalist's house showed the remains of the glass door that police smashed in order to gain entry.

Chin'ono was arrested on the same day as opposition leader Jacob Ngarivhume.

Ngarivhume -- president of a small party named Transform Zimbabwe -- scheduled nationwide protests against state corruption and the country's economic crisis.

The planned protest date of July 31 is the second anniversary of a general election won by President Emmerson Mnangagwa amid accusations of fraud.

But the demonstration was de-facto banned when Mnangagwa imposed a curfew and reinstated confinement measures on Tuesday to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Zimbabwe's recorded tally of COVID-19 surged by nearly a third over the past week to reach 1,713 cases, including 26 deaths.

Ngarivhume was charged alongside Chin'ono and is also awaiting a decision on his request for bail.

The bail hearings will continue on Thursday.

str-sch/sn/ri
The world's biggest lamington has been made by a group of bakers in New Zealand who smashed the previous record set by Australia.

The 17-level treat weighed in at 2,770kg, took nine hours to make and is the equivalent of 50,000 regular lamingtons.

It was created by charity group Cook's Night Off in Auckland on Tuesday to celebrate World Lamington Day.

The New Zealanders broke the world record for the largest lamington set by Australia in 2011, which came in at a respectable 2,361kg.

The 17-level treat weighed in at 2,770kg, took nine hours to make and is the equivalent of 50,000 regular lamingtons

The team of bakers used 13,000 eggs, more than 500kg of flour and 650kg of sugar to create their record-setting treat.

Cook's Night Off Founder, Suzanna Cannel, decided to use chocolate instead of jam in the lamington which caused a bit of controversy.

'I had no idea people had such strong opinions about lamington flavours,' Ms Cannel told NewsHub.

'So why did I choose chocolate? Because I like chocolate.'

Once the lamington was completed, the team eagerly waited to see if they had broken the record.

After it was weighed and the bakers were told they had beaten Australia, they all screamed and jumped for joy.

It was created by charity group Cook's Night Off in Auckland on Tuesday to celebrate World Lamington Day

The kiwis broke the world record for the largest lamington set by Australia in 2011, which came in at a respectable 2,361kg

Though the lamington may have set a new world record, many Kiwis on social media did not find it very appealing.

One woman said: 'I know we have more important issues to focus on today but this is not a lamington. It is a sham-ington.'

'Looks like layers of discarded carpet,' one man said.

'This is not what expected the world's largest lamington to look like,' another person said.

A woman wrote: 'Doesnt look like lammington to me.'
New Delhi: Google India Digital Services Private Limited has informed Delhi High court that it merely works as a Third Party Application Provider (TPAP) to partner banks to allow for payments through the UPI infrastructure as provided by NPCI.

It has been submitted that in so far as the UPI payment system is concerned, it is the NPCI that is the Payment System Operator of the UPI payment system, and Google pay is merely working as a TPAP in the UPI interface which does not require a specific authorisation from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the Payments and Settlements Systems Act, 2007.

It has said that Google Pay is not a wallet (or a prepaid payment instrument)'; or a'System Provider'/ 'Payment System Operator' that requires authorisation under the PSS Act.

It has added that Google Pay is a mobile application which is simply providing a technological platform and interface through which users can undertake transactions through UPI network.

It has said that it works on the multi-PSP model and it connects to the UPI systems operated by NPCI through multiple PSP Banks.

It has added that the features of Google Pay are in consonance with the mechanism enshrined in the Procedural Guidelines and UPI framework designed by NPCI.

The affidavit was filed in response to a PIL which has alleged that Google's mobile payment app, Google Pay was facilitating financial transactions without the requisite authorisation from RBI.

A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan on Wednesday listed the matter for further hearing on 31 August after the petitioner sought time to respond to Google's affidavit

Petitioner Abhijit Mishra, a financial economist, has claimed that GPay was acting as a payments system provider in violation of the Payments and Settlements Act as it has no valid authorisation from the central bank of the country to carry out such functions.

Mishra has also contended that GPay does not figure in NPCI's list of authorised 'payment systems operators' released on March 20, 2019.

PTI contributed to this story.

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Gangster Vikas Dubeys mother has appealed to her younger son to surrender to the police, saying he and his family will be killed otherwise, news agency ANI reported on Wednesday.

Sarla Devis warning to Deep Prakash Dubey came days after Vikas Dubey, accused of killing policemen earlier in the month, was shot dead by Uttar Pradesh police on July 10 after he tried to escape while being brought back from Madhya Pradesh after his arrest.

Dubeys younger brother is still untraceable and officials have said he went into hiding fearing arrest following the ambush on July 3 in Bikru village. Eight police personnel were killed and seven others, including a civilian, left seriously injured in that attack.

Deep Prakash, please come forward and surrender, else police will kill you and your family, Sarla Devi was quoted as saying by ANI.

You will get the safety of the police. You have done nothing, dont hide because of your relationship with your brother, she added.

Police have said Vikas Dubey was the prime accused behind the Bikru village ambush.

Sarla Devi had refused to attend the last rites of her son and said that she has nothing to do with him.

A day before Vikas Dubey was killed in the police encounter, Devi had said that she will have no regrets if her son was gunned down for being responsible for the killing of the eight policemen.

Devi had said Dubey was involved in criminal activities from a young age and did not change his path despite repeated requests by his family members.

Vikas did not have amicable ties with his family members, including his younger brother. The relationship Dubey shared with his younger brother was strained and the differences were so grave that the family did not live under one roof, she had said.

The mother had moved in to live with Deep Prakashs family while Vikas, along with his wife Richa Dubey and two kids, stayed in the separate house in the same locality in Lucknow.
Members of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee heard hours of testimony on two bills that would provide low-income state residents access to critical medical care including low-cost insulin and continued telehealth visits until June of 2021.

One in four Americans is rationing insulin  a dangerous practice that could lead to death  and the coronavirus pandemic has changed the way healthcare is delivered through audio telemedicine that can reach the poor who dont have access to much technology, state Sen. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, said at a public hearing Tuesday.

But industry representatives from the states six largest healthcare insurers are bucking both pieces of legislation, saying the bills need further review and could create unintended consequences.

The Connecticut Association of Health Plans, which represents Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, ConnectiCare, Harvard Pilgrim and United Healthcare, opposes significant portions of the insulin bill on the grounds that capping copays, unfortunately doesnt do anything to address the actual cost of the drugs and the supplies.

At the end of the day, we are always trying to make healthcare more affordable, said Susan Halpin, executive director of the association.

Advocates appealed to legislators for the insulin price caps with heartfelt stories of their experiences.

Kristen Whitney-Daniels was spending her entire income  $2,400 a monthon insulin until she was able to access a government program through a community health center. She now pays $14 a month. But Whitney-Daniels, the chapter director for #Insulin4all understands that there are scores of state residents who dont qualify and who need help receiving the life-saving diabetes medication.

Whitney-Daniels testified seeking adjustments to LCO 3601, which would cap insulin costs at $25 a month for state-regulated insurance plans including Medicaid. At community health centers, it would cap the cost of insulin supplies and allow patients to receive an emergency 30-day supply of insulin without a prescription. The bill would save lives, she said. But it doesnt go far enough to protect enough people.

The cap only applies to 28 percent of residents, she said. There are 5.4 million Americas without health insurance right now.

But its a start, said Danny Houdeshell, whose son, Kevin, died in early 2014. Kevin Houdeshell was well liked and respected by his co-workers at T.G.I Fridays in Ohio. To this day, his parents hear stories about their sons kindness, he said.

Kevin Houdeshell ran out of insulin during the New Year holiday in 2014. His doctor was unavailable to write a prescription that would have allowed the 36-year-old to easily get his medication. Kevin thought he had the flu, his father told the committee by video as he was sitting in his car. What was actually happening was that his organs were shutting down due to the lack of insulin, Danny Houdeshell said.

No person should die because he could not get a refill because his doctor was unavailable, Danny Houdeshell said.

Connecticut would be the 20th state to pass some form of Kevins Law, named after Kevin Houdeshell, which allows a pharmacist to dispense an emergency supply of insulin without a current prescription, said Committee Co-chair Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford.

Your sons loss is not being forgotten in any way, Scanlon said. All of us are proud to have you speak today.

The committee had begun work on the insulin bill before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the legislature. Lawmakers agreed to take up the bill and the telehealth bill during a special legislative session slated to start Thursday.

Halpin, at the health insurers association, agreed there is a cost crisis. But, the association believes the focus should be on the underlying actual drug price charged not on the copays which, if capped, she said will only exacerbate the situation by removing any leverage health plans have to negotiate lower prices with the drug manufacturers.

The association also opposes the bill that would extend telehealth services to be reimbursed the same as in-person visits until June 30, 2021. Gov. Ned Lamont expanded telehealth services by executive order early in the pandemic.

Halpin noted that health insurance carriers have voluntarily extended provider payment parity since the inception of the pandemic, but that they disagree with the wisdom of codifying the provision in statute. While agreeing that telehealth is a critical service, she suggested that more data is needed to determine whether paying parity for telehealth adds value or has the unintended consequence of raising premiums.

The bill would expand the types of medical services that patients can utilize and allow healthcare providers to receive the same fee for service for telehealth as in-person office visits beyond the executive order, which expires in September.

Telehealth during the pandemic has been key for underserved populations, said Mark Masselli, founder and CEO of Middletown-based Community Health Center, which provides low-cost health services to 130,000 residents statewide at numerous locations.

We should not let poverty be a barrier for patients, Masselli said.

Low-income residents who do not have access to technology such as smartphones or tablets have been able to access treatment through telephone calls, he said. States on the west coast have successfully used telehealth for years while in the Northeast, the service is in its infancy, Masselli said.

We cant lose this major innovation now, it would be disastrous, Masselli said.

Anecdotally there are positives and negatives, Halpin said.

Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, a physician who has provided healthcare to coronavirus patients, questioned the associations response to the telehealth legislation.

One way to delay something is to say we need more data, Anwar said. The other way is to say there are unintended consequences.
While plenty of New Yorkers have formed families by gestational surrogacy, they almost certainly worked with carriers living elsewhere. Because until early April, paying a surrogate to carry a pregnancy was illegal in New York state.

The change to the law, which happened quietly in the midst of the states effort to contain the coronavirus, capped a decade-long legislative battle and has laid the groundwork for a broader movement in pursuit of what some activists have termed fertility equality.

Still in its infancy, this movement envisions a future when the ability to create a family is no longer determined by ones wealth, sexuality, gender or biology.

This is about society extending equality to its final and logical conclusion, said Ron Poole-Dayan, the founder and executive director of Men Having Babies, a New York nonprofit that helps gay men become fathers through surrogacy. True equality doesnt stop at marriage. It recognizes the barriers L.G.B.T.s face in forming families and proposes solutions to overcome these obstacles.
The Indian Air Force sent a strong message to the adversaries through rapid deployment of its assets at forward locations in response to the situation in eastern Ladakh and earlier the manner in which it carried out the airstrikes in Balakot, defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Wednesday.

IMAGE: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria at the Air Force Commanders' Conference in New Delhi. Photograph: @SpokespersonMoD/Twitter

"Defence Minister stated that the professional manner in which IAF conducted the airstrikes in Balakot, as well as rapid deployment of IAF assets at the forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in Eastern Ladakh, has sent a strong message to the adversaries," said the defence ministry.

The defence minister's remarks come in the backdrop of the ongoing disengagement process between India-China at friction points between the two armies in eastern Ladakh.

In the address to Air Force Commanders, Rajnath appreciated the proactive response by the IAF in bolstering its operational capabilities over the past few months.

Singh said that IAF's role in some of the most challenging circumstances was well regarded by the nation.

He also said that IAF's contribution during the nation's response to COVID-19 pandemic has been highly praiseworthy.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian Air Force had transported medical supplies to the states and supporting agencies to combat the situation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asserted that the rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that can be trusted. Addressing a virtual conference of the US-India Business Council's India Ideas Summit, PM Modi said, "The rise of India means: a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale."

The PM thanked the US-India Business Council for inviting him to address the 'India Ideas Summit'. "I also congratulate the USIBC on its forty-fifth anniversary this year. Over the past decades, the USIBC has brought Indian and American business closer," he said.

Speaking on the FDI in India in 2019-20, the PM said, "Every year, we are reaching record highs in FDI. Each year is significantly higher than the earlier one. FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were 74 billion dollars. This is an increase of 20 per cent from the year before that."

Inviting the US for investing across several sectors in India, PM Modi said, "The US-India friendship has scaled many heights in the past. Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic. For this vision, there are few better partners than the United States of America. India and the USA are two vibrant democracies with shared values. We are natural partners."

"When the markets are open, when the opportunity is high and the options are many, can optimism be far behind! You can see the optimism when India rises in key business ratings. Particularly the Ease of Doing Business ratings of the World Bank," added the PM.

PM Modi asked the US to invest in sectors including finance, insurance, defence, space, civil aviation, infrastructure, energy, healthcare, agriculture, and technology. "India invites you to invest in finance and insurance. India has raised FDI cap for investment in insurance to 49 per cent. Now 100 per cent FDI is permitted for investment in insurance intermediaries. India invites you to invest in defence and space. We are raising the FDI cap for investment in the defence sector to 74 per cent. India has established two defence corridors to encourage the production of defence equipment and platforms," stated the PM.

He also said, "Civil Aviation is another area of great potential growth. The number of air passengers is expected to more than double within the next 8 years. The top private Indian airlines plan to include over a thousand new aircraft over the coming decade. India invites you to invest in infrastructure. Our nation is witnessing the largest infrastructure creation drive in our history. Come, be a partner in building housing for millions, or building roads, highways and ports in our nation."

The PM added, "India invites you to invest in energy. As India evolves into a gas-based economy, there will be big investment opportunities for US companies. There are also big opportunities in the clean energy sector. India invites you to invest in healthcare. The Healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22 per cent every year. Our companies are also progressing in production of medical-technology, telemedicine and diagnostics."

"India has done historic reforms in the agriculture sector recently. There are investment opportunities in: Agricultural inputs and machinery, Agriculture supply chain management, Ready-to-eat items, Fisheries and Organic produce," he added.

PM Modi also said, "Opportunities in technology also include opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G, Big data analytics, Quantum computing, Block-chain and Internet of things. India is emerging as a land of opportunities. Let me give you one example of the tech sector. Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It said for the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users."

"During the last six years, we have made many efforts to make our economy more open and reform-oriented. Reforms have ensured increased Competitiveness, enhanced Transparency, expanded Digitization, greater Innovation and more Policy stability. Today, there is global optimism towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options. Let me elaborate. India celebrates openness in people and in governance," the PM said.

India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of an Atmanirbhar Bharat and, for that, we await your partnership, said PM Modi. "Global economic resilience can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities. This means improved domestic capacity for manufacturing, restoring the health of the financial system and diversification of international trade. Recent experience has taught us that the global economy has been too focused on efficiency and optimization. Efficiency is a good thing. But, on the way, we forgot to focus on something equally important. That is resilience against external shocks," he said.

"We all agree that the world is in need of a better future. And, it is all of us who have to collectively give shape to the future. I firmly believe that our approach to the future must primarily be a more human-centric one," he added.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdue University is offering an online course to prepare students to apply to Purdues professional pharmacy program and pique their interest in the pharmacy profession.

The course will be available beginning in August to students at colleges and universities throughout Indiana, nationally and internationally.

The asynchronous online pharmacy orientation course will familiarize students with the requirements of Purdues professional program, level the playing field such that all students are prepared to apply, and provide basic pharmacy knowledge and skills.

The course should make students stronger candidates when they apply to the highly competitive program at Purdue and build excitement for the pharmacy field, said Patricia Darbishire, associate dean for academic affairs and clinical professor of pharmacy practice. Darbishire will bring her real-world pharmacy experience to the course to ensure that it is practical and provides important knowledge and skills.

In addition to students from other colleges and universities who may be considering pharmacy school at Purdue, the online course is aimed at Purdue students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. There are two sections available, a one-credit-hour, pass-not-pass option for Purdue students and a noncredit certificate section for students from other schools. There is a noncredit-to-credit pathway if a student is ultimately admitted to the Purdue PharmD professional program  consistently ranked among the best in the U.S. Both the credit and certificate sections are run together as one course.

The online course has the same name as a previous face-to-face course that was offered only to second-year preprofessional pharmacy students at Purdue. However, the online course has been completely redesigned for online learning and includes new content. It is open to anyone interested in applying to Purdues professional program, Darbishire said.

Where the on-campus course was primarily lecture format, the online version will be built around active learning, with short videos providing assignment goals and background information that emphasizes the assignments importance to actual practice. For example, an exercise could involve researching and reporting on characteristics of, or differences between, popular over-the-counter and prescription medications.

The course also will feature interactive chat and online discussion boards. Students in the course will be paired with upper-level Purdue pharmacy students who will act as mentors in what Darbishire called a wonderful learning opportunity for both students.

In addition to learning about Purdues professional program and pharmacy topics, students in the online course will be exposed to skills like resume building and will participate in mock interviews, which can be important when applying to Purdue and throughout their professional careers.

Besides its value to students, Darbishire said the online course is a recruiting tool for Purdues College of Pharmacy that will help diversify its student body. The professional pharmacy program tends to be heavily weighted toward Purdues undergraduate pre-pharmacy students. Given their insights on the admissions process and the mentorship they receive from professional program students, the pre-pharmacy students, who have been at Purdue for two years when they apply, have a strong idea of what a successful application looks like.

Theres this whole other group of phenomenal students out there, and we want them in our program, Darbishire said. This online course can help level the playing field for those currently outside of our college when they apply to the professional program. It should make them a stronger candidate when they apply.

For more information on the online Pharmacy Orientation course and to register, see https://www.pharmacy.purdue.edu/pharmacy-orientation-ii.

Writer: Greg Kline, 765-494-8167, gkline@purdue.edu

Source: Patricia Darbishire, darbishi@purdue.edu

Journalists visiting campus : Journalists should follow Protect Purdue protocols and the following guidelines:
Office of Rep. Suzan DelBeneBy JOHN PARKINSON, ABC News



(WASHINGTON) -- As President Donald Trump says hes getting used to wearing a mask, Congressional Democrats are launching a campaign Wednesday to wear a pink mask to promote their use amid the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.



Washington Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene, who is leading the effort on Capitol Hill, said the message she hopes to spread across the country is that its important that we wear masks.



We want to make it fun to wear one, DelBene, D-Wash., told ABC News. Its about helping your community, helping your neighbor.



Any Member of Congress, man or woman, can participate and DelBene has passed out several pink masks to her colleagues who need them. The Democratic Women's Caucus, which is comprised of all 90 House Democratic women, is helping to promote the pink mask campaign.



DelBene says a member of her staff devised the plan to encourage Democratic members to wear a pink mask and post a picture with the hashtag #OnWednesdaysWeWearPink, borrowing a line from the 2004 American teen comedy, Mean Girls, starring Rachel McAdams and Lindsay Lohan.



Shes hoping the hashtag helps spread the message on social media to encourage younger folks to wear masks -- particularly since public health officials said younger people have spread the disease in large numbers over the past month.



We know that more of the recent cases have disproportionally been younger people, so its more important than ever to wear a mask, DelBene said.



Democratic women have often found comradery in their wardrobe, sporting white at the State of the Union for several years to pay homage to the suffragist movement, or most recently sporting Kente cloth stoles to introduce police reform legislation last month.



To express solidarity with the Me Too movement at Trumps State of the Union address in 2018, the Democratic women of the House wore black clothes with a red pin to commemorate the life of civil rights activist Recy Taylor, who died in December 2017. Taylor was kidnapped and raped in 1944 by six white men who never went to prison.



After spending months downplaying the need to wear a mask and amid sinking support for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump finally wore a mask in public on July 11 during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.



Now, the president appears to have warmed up -- at least a little -- to wearing a mask, warning that the pandemic will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better.



Were asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance wear a mask, get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not, Trump told reporters, pulling a mask out of his pocket during a news conference at the White House on Tuesday night. They have an impact, they'll have an effect and we need everything we can get.



For months, countless congressional Republicans have also publicly resisted wearing masks, clashing with Democrats on Capitol Hill, as the issue became a political wedge during the presidential campaign.



Trump poked fun at the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for wearing a mask in public at a Memorial Day event, brushing off the mask as something that would make him look weak to dictators.



DelBene said she expects the full Democratic caucus to participate in the display, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.



I urge all Americans to wear a mask and do their part to help defeat this pandemic," Hoyer, D-Md., said. "I thank Rep. DelBene for raising awareness on the importance of wearing a mask to protect others. On Wednesdays, we are proud to wear our pink masks to remind the American people: dont be mean, wear a mask.



DelBene stressed that the science shows wearing a mask limits the spread, and is an easy thing to do to help everyone else in your community.



In places where you cant socially distance, its always important to wear a mask, she said. If you are in public, or come in close contact with other folks, then wear a mask.



Our folks have been wearing masks, she said. It will be nice to see a little bit of change and Im just excited so many are participating.



While she begged off identifying any Republicans shed hope to see in a pink mask, DelBene said wearing a mask is about a collective effort.



Anytime I see someone without a mask, Id love to hand them one, she chuckled. Every single one. Any color as long as theyre wearing a mask.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A 40-year-old man who stole 89 guns from a Kent County store and was called a one man crime spree by a judge has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

Charles Edward Skipp was sentenced to 42 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 10 felonies in February.

Those felonies are being a felon in possession of firearms, stealing firearms from a licensed firearm dealer, retaliating against a witness, discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, knowing transfer of firearms for use in a crime of violence, aiding and abetting retaliating against an informant, aiding and abetting arson in the commission of a federal felony, attempted possession with intent to distribute heroin, discharging a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime, and knowing transfer of a firearm for use in a drug trafficking crime.

Skipp stole 89 guns from Family Farm & Home in Cedar Springs in 2017, police said. He sought to cover his tracks by intimidating and retaliating against a witness by shooting that witnesses house and later setting it on fire.

Police said Skipp used one of the stolen firearms to shoot and rob a drug dealer.

Federal prosecutors said authorities are still trying to recover all of the guns stolen in 2017.

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WASHINGTON  When the U.S. House of Representatives passed its annual defense bill Tuesday, Patrick and Teri Caserta felt the smile of their son Brandon radiating down on them.

Brandon Caserta, a U.S. Navy petty officer, died by suicide in June 2018 on his base in Virginia. In multiple notes, Brandon attributed his suicide to persistent bullying and hazing from fellow members and and also leaders in his squadron.

A year later, his grieving parents hopped in their car and drove from their home in Peoria, Ariz., to Washington, D.C. With no experience lobbying Congress, they arranged 20 meetings with lawmakers and pitched them on their ideas of how laws should be changed to help prevent military suicides.

On Tuesday, one of their proposals to increase access to mental health care for active duty military members passed the House. On Wednesday, it was introduced in the Senate.

"Having the Brandon Act named after our son is an honor we will never forget and his legacy will live on which is to save service members lives," said Patrick Caserta, a retired Navy career counselor with 22 years of service.

In 2018, 541 military service members died by suicide, according to most recent U.S. Department of Defense statistics released in September. From 2013 to 2018, the suicide rate for the active duty members increased from 18.5 to 24.8 suicides per 100,000 members. The department has not yet released 2019 data.

As the crisis deepens, military families and lawmakers are pressuring the DOD to do more to address suicides in all service branches. While the suicide rate among active duty members is less than that of veterans, lawmakers have questioned whether the numbers are indicative of cultural and leadership problems within the military or a lack of resources.

Karin Orvis, director of the Defense Suicide Prevention Office at the Pentagon, said in September the rates were not where leaders wanted them to be. DOD has launched many new initiatives to try to turn around the trend.

Theyre not in the direction that we want them to be going, she said. We take this extremely seriously in our department, and it is a top priority for Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

Clifton Park residents Jolee and Michael Hicks, whose son died by suicide on his naval base in 2019, have taken matters into their own hands and launched a non-profit in late 2019 to connect military service members with confidential counseling free of charge, Jolee Hicks said in an interview.

Similar to Brandon Caserta, Michael Hicks said his son, Macoy, reached out to command staff for help, but instead was met with ridicule by his superiors when he asked for help about suicidal thoughts.

Now, Michael and Jolee are spreading the word about their non-profit, Hicks Strong, by mailing hand-painted mugs with their contact information to military members around the country and to those deployed. So far, military members have received about 130 counseling sessions through their non-profit, Jolee Hicks said.

Its so personal for us," Hicks said. "Whats happening is people ask for help and theyre beat down and they lose rank and theyre kicked out and theyre passed up for promotions."

Fear of retaliation for seeking mental health care is why the Hicks established their non-profit to offer free care outside the military.

Through the Brandon Act, the Caserta family hopes to eliminate some of that fear of retaliation by allowing military members to anonymously report and seek mental health treatment by using a safe word like "Brandon Act." If necessary, they could get help outside of their chain of command.

The legislation was lead in the House by Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., a former U.S. Marine, who announced the legislation on the second anniversary of Brandon Caserta's death.

Caserta, who was bullied by his officer and experienced professional setbacks after a collarbone injury, hurled himself into the tail rotor of a helicopter on his base. In a note to his parents, Brandon asked Patrick and Teri to get justice for him and said make them pay for what they did to me, Patrick Caserta said.

Republican Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona introduced the Brandon Act as an amendment to the Senate's National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday. She will also introduce it as a stand-alone bill next week. The bipartisan and bicameral support gives the measure a good chance of becoming law.

"Our service members deserve the same privacy that civilians enjoy when it comes to mental health care.," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who described Brandon Caserta's situation during a Senate hearing on military suicides.

"Brandon Casertas story is a tragic example of why service members need more privacy when accessing mental health care and how a toxic command climate can be a barrier to seeking such care," she said.

Gillibrand, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee, has criticized a Defense policy that requires mental health professionals to report service member mental health issues to a commander in some cases. She said DOD spends more each year on suicide prevention "but their results are not nearly good enough."

The Department of Defense is in the process of rolling out a number of pilot programs aimed at increasing access to mental health care, promoting safe storage of weapons, encouraging peers to identify suicidal behavior and helping military members grieve suicide deaths, the agency's September report said.

Veterans Affairs is also increasing wrap-around services for veterans before and after they leave service, said Matthew Miller, acting director of the Suicide Prevention Program and national director of the Veterans Crisis Line at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Last year, the VA started calling every new veteran one month after they leave active service to refer them to veterans services, including mental health care, he added.

The number of veteran suicides exceeded 6,000 each year from 2008 to 2017, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs latest report. In 2017, the suicide rate for veterans was 1.5 times the rate for non-veteran adults, after adjusting for population differences in age and sex.

After controlling for differences in age and sex between these populations, 2018 suicide rates in the military were roughly equivalent to the U.S. population rates for all components, except the National Guard, the Pentagon report said.
Unemployment in Laredo bounced back substantially in June, dropping to 10.1% from 14.1% in May, according to data from the Texas Workforce Commission.

This means over 4,000 people got back to their jobs in June, said Rogelio Trevino, executive director of Workforce Solutions for South Texas. Still over 11,000 people in Laredo remain unemployed, according to state data.

The leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, showed the greatest change in employment from the month before, growing by about 15%. However this industry has still been hit the hardest compared to this time last year, when employment was 29% greater.

Employment in Laredos largest industry, trade, transportation and utilities, grew slightly from May to June, but is also down from this time last year by about 5%.

Trevino said he hopes Laredo continues to chip away at the severe unemployment brought on by COVID-19, but is unsure of the impact of Julys spike in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

But Mayor Pete Saenz perceives that as the number of cases increase, theres a tendency to slow down the economy.

This occurred when the governor shut down bars across the state and limited restaurants occupancy to 50%. Plus Laredo City Council is asking for the governors approval to shut down maquinitas, bingos and restaurant dining rooms, which would also impact employment and the local economy, Saenz noted

I perceive that theres a direct correlation to the increase in cases  not that well shut down entirely the economy or the businesses here, but there will be a tendency to slow it down and that would be by way of gradation, the mayor said. ... The more restrictions you place, the less business is transacted.

Trevino argues that Laredos worst week was from April 19-25, when over 3,000 locals filed for unemployment. The number of claims started dropping from there, and by the end of May they were receiving about 1,000 a week.

For all of June, fewer than 1,000 Laredoans filed for unemployment each week. But in the first week of July claims went over 1,000 again, Trevino noted.

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
A unique house in Denver built in the Streamline Moderne style of art deco has landed on the market for $810,000.

The home, built in 1940 on Jasmine Street, has the curved forms and nautical elements of the style, which became popular in the 1930s.

The author Don D. Etter featured the home in his 1977 book "Denver Going Modern," which focused on the impact of international styles of architecture on the Mile High City.

The book says the identity of the architect of the house is not known, because several architects at the time were designing local homes in the style.

We dont see a lot of this. We have these houses sprinkled throughout the neighborhoods in Denver, but theyre rare, says the listing agent, Kathy McBane, who is working on the sale of this house for the second time.

She helped the current owner purchase the home in 2017 for $685,000. The previous owner was a flipper, who fixed the property up after buying it for $508,100 in 2016.

This home has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, and measures in at 1,788 square feet.

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Its very open, very light, very airy, McBane notes.

The inside is really cool, because it has these great, rounded walls. It mimics the outside, so if you look at the rounded walls on the exterior, they have those in the roomsjust a whole rounded corner wall.

The primary bedroom is on the main floor, and the bathroom features double sinks, a custom tile shower, and a walk-in closet.

Two more bedrooms are upstairs. The hardwood floors running throughout the home are original.

It feels nostalgic," McBane says. "I feel like I am walking into the past with a current face-lift [and] current finishes, because there is just this element of history in it.

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The kitchen boasts quartz countertops, stainless-steel appliances, and a breakfast bar.

They did high-gloss cabinets instead of wood cabinets, because that would have been traditional [at] the time, McBane explains.

Two cars can fit into the oversized garage, which has alleyway access. An attractive-looking driveway with large concrete blocks serves as part of the generous outdoor space.

A fence and a rolling gate enclose the entire area.

Its like an oasis back there, McBane says. Its the most aesthetically pleasing driveway I have ever seen.

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The home is in the Park Hill neighborhood, which McBane describes as cool and groovy and in walking distance of restaurants, a park, and an elementary school.

Its one of the central Denver neighborhoods that people are really drawn to, because its so convenient to downtown, but still gives a nice residential quiet feel.

Although it's only been on the market for a few days, many people have shown interest in the property and several showings have been scheduled.

McBane says she sees the likely buyer as somebody who "seeks out unique architecture and enjoys owning a piece of history.

Of course, you can do that with a Victorian house, and there are lots of Victorian houses to choose from. These [art deco] houses are rare.

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The post Terrific Throwback: Rare Art Deco Home for Sale in the Heart of Denver for $810K appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
(Newser)  Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says three arrests have been made in the horrific murder of three fishing buddies last weekand the alleged ringleader is "pure evil in the flesh." The sheriff said Wednesday that Tony "TJ" Wiggins, 26, who allegedly "did the damage," has been arrested, along with his younger brother, 21-year-old Robert Wiggins, and his girlfriend, 27-year-old Mary Whittemore, Fox reports. Judd said that after the elder Wiggins shot Brandon Rollins, 27; Keven Springfield, 30; and Damion Tillman, 23, on Friday night, the trio disposed of the gun and went to a McDonald's. The sheriff said the killings at a remote lake near Frostproof, 70 miles south of Orlando, apparently stemmed from a dispute with Springfield over a truck engine, WFLA reports.

story continues below

Judd said the three suspects were behind Tillman in a line at a Dollar General, where Tillman was buying fishing supplies, and they followed him to the lake after overhearing him tell the clerk he was going fishing with Springfield. TJ Wiggins is a "thug" with criminal convictions going back to when he was 12 and more than 230 felony charges on his record, the sheriff said Wednesday. "This is a guy who can hurt you because it's the right thing for him to do in that moment in time with his three brain cells," he said. TJ Wiggins, who was out on bail after a March arrest for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, faces charges including first-degree murder. Whittemore has been charged with being an accessory after the fact. The younger Wiggins, who is the only one cooperating with investigators, had been charged with being an accessory and with evidence tampering. (Read more Florida stories.)
K'taka HC grants interim relief to Twitter India MD, asks cops not to take coercive steps against him

Ghaziabad journalist shot in head dies, Police arrest 9 accused

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Noida, July 22: Ghaziabad-based journalist Vikram Joshi was shot in the head in front of his two daughters on Monday night, four days after he filed a complaint against some men for allegedly molesting his relative.

So far, the police officials have arrested nine people - Vijay, Mohit, Dalveer, Aakash, Yogendra, Abhishek Mota, Abhishek, Shakir and the main accused, Ravi.

According to reports, Joshi, who works with Jan Sagar Today, was on a scooter with his two daughters in Pratap Vihar when he was attacked by a group of men who assaulted and later shot at him. He was rushed to Yashoda Hospital, where he is in a critical condition in the ICU.

COVID-19: Indias fatality drops from 3.36 pc to 2.43 per cent

His family members claimed a police team only enquired about the location of the accused but they were not found. The family further alleged that on July 17, a letter had been sent via post to the SSP office demanding action but nothing was done.

Meanwhile, the Police said the molestation complaint was filed on June 16, and they registered an FIR the same day. Ghaziabad SSP Kalanidhi Naithani has suspended booth incharge of Vijay Nagar police station SI Raghvendra for alleged dereliction of duty, and an enquiry has been set up under a DSP-rank officer to ascertain the delay in action.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

In a CCTV footage, Joshi can be seen riding a two-wheeler with his daughters when he is waylaid by the accused and loses balance. A group of people are then seen assaulting and beating him up. In the middle of the assault, one of the accused shoots at him as he falls to the ground.

As the accused leave, one of his daughters rushes back to Vikram, asking passersby for help.

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Story first published: Wednesday, July 22, 2020, 8:27 [IST]
MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's antitrust authority said on Wednesday it had opened an investigation into whether Apple Inc and Amazon Inc had engaged in anti-competitive cooperation in the sale of Apple products and Beats headphones. It said the investigation was aimed at establishing whether Apple and Amazon had reached an agreement against market rules to prevent electronic retailers not included in Apple's official programme selling the products online. According to the watchdog, the alleged behaviour could have created barriers to entry, affecting competition on prices.

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's antitrust authority said on Wednesday it had opened an investigation into whether Apple Inc and Amazon Inc had engaged in anti-competitive cooperation in the sale of Apple products and Beats headphones.

It said the investigation was aimed at establishing whether Apple and Amazon had reached an agreement against market rules to prevent electronic retailers not included in Apple's official programme selling the products online.

According to the watchdog, the alleged behaviour could have created barriers to entry, affecting competition on prices.

The Italian competition authority said in a statement that its officials searched Amazon and Apple offices in Italy on Tuesday.

An Amazon spokesman said the company is fully collaborating with the regulator. Apple declined to comment.

(Reporting by Elvira Pollina; editing by James Mackenzie and Elaine Hardcastle)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Ukraine expects greater involvement of the OSCE in the issue of Russia's temporary occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

"Emphasizing the importance of upholding the fundamental principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, I would like to remind you of the illegal occupation of Ukrainian Crimea. We need greater OSCE involvement in this issue," Minister of Defense of Ukraine Andriy Taran said during online meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation on Wednesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The Ukrainian minister expressed his belief that Crimea-related sanctions "must stay in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine."

Andriy Taran also stressed that the security situation in Donbas, near Ukraine's borders and in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov Seas "remains tense and is characterized by ongoing unprecedented militarization, occupation of the sovereign territories of Ukraine and Georgia, and obstruction of freedom of navigation."

"We believe that greater OSCE attention and involvement in these processes is needed. Improved monitoring of the situation by the SMM is important to provide an impartial picture, even to a limited extent due to the constant restrictions on freedom of movement," Ukraines defense minister said.

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Alison Hammond hit out at a guest who refuses to work with overweight people, during Wednesday's This Morning.

The bubbly presenter, 45, took issue with fitness guru and writer Samantha Yardly after hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford introduced an upcoming segment with Samantha who told how she wouldn't hire a bigger person regardless of their ability to do the job.

Calling out Samantha, an unimpressed Alison challenged her to spend the day with her, with the defiant TV star ranting: 'I'll run rings around you!'

Not impressed: Alison Hammond hit out at a guest who refuses to work with overweight people, during Wednesday's This Morning

The awkward moment came as Eamonn and Ruth, both 60, introduced Samantha, who was due to reveal why she refused to work with overweight people, whom she declared were 'lazy'.

Ruth said: 'We are going to be talking to a woman. She is a fitness instructor who says she will refuse to work with somebody because of their weight.'

The northern Irish broadcaster then chimed in: 'What? So she wouldn't work with me?'

With Ruth replying: 'Well I dont know cause I dont know her criteria yet.'

Views: The bubbly presenter, 45, took issue with fitness guru and writer Samantha Yardly after hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford introduced an upcoming segment with Samantha who told how she wouldn't hire a bigger person regardless of their ability to do the job

Eamonn then said: 'Shes a fitness writer and her names Samantha Yardly and shes got some views that will be hard for a lot of people to digest but does the truth hurt or is she bang out of order?

'She has some views that may be hard for a lot of people to digest. She will be telling us her views, what she thinks about people who are too heavy.'

As the camera then panned to Alison, Eamonn snapped: 'I didnt mention you, I didnt say a word about you, I didnt bring you into it!'

He added: 'But seriously this is going to be very controversial. Talking to this woman, it might be hurtful.'

Hitting out: Calling out Samantha, an unimpressed Alison challenged her to spend the day with her, with the defiant TV star ranting: 'I'll run rings around you!'

Controversial guest: The awkward moment came as Eamonn and Ruth, both 60, introduced Samantha, who was due to reveal why she refused to work with overweight people, whom she declared were 'lazy'

But Alison, who is an ambassador for Weight Watchers, was quick to defend herself and have her say as she quickly called out Samantha on her views.

She said: 'So whats she saying, because Im big she doesnt want to work with me?

With Ruth saying: 'She thinks if youre overweight, youre lazy.'

Former Big Brother star Alison then exclaimed: 'Im not being funny, come and train me babes lets have a laugh, well have fun and Im not lazy, I'm up for it.

Speaking out: Eamonn then said: 'Shes a fitness writer and her names Samantha Yardly and shes got some views that will be hard for a lot of people to digest but does the truth hurt or is she bang out of order?

Awkward: As the camera then panned to Alison, Eamonn snapped: 'I didnt mention you, I didnt say a word about you, I didnt bring you into it!'

'I'll probably run rings around you!

'Come and train me, Im up for it, how about that?'

Samantha later appeared via video link from her home in Coventry, where she backed up her controversial comments that 'life should be made as difficult as possible for people who are obese.

Defence: But Alison, who is an ambassador for Weight Watchers, was quick to defend herself and have her say as she quickly called out Samantha on her views

You go girl: Former Big Brother star Alison then exclaimed: 'Im not being funny, come and train me babes lets have a laugh, well have fun and Im not lazy, I'm up for it. I'll probably run rings around you!'

As she spoke about her stance that she wouldn't employ larger people, Eamonn said: 'There will be a lot of people mortally offended by this and hurt as well.'

While Samantha argued: 'There are certain things that we do have the ability to change that we should take responsibility for and I think that weight is one of them.'

She also claimed that bigger people take more time off work and encouraged people to 'eat a little less and move a little more'.

This Morning continues weekdays from 10am on ITV.
Boing Boing shares these words from our sponsor Real Tested CBD.

Biden Sort of Decides On Marijuana Legalization: He Is Sort of Still Against It

Richard Cowan

The great thing about voting machines is that you can vote with one hand and hold your nose with the other one. Believe me, I have had a lot of practice with that, and I will do it again this year.

After Biden cinched the Democratic nomination, his campaign focused on getting the support for Bernie Sanders young supporters. Biden was greatly relieved that Sanders was willing to help, so they launched what they called a "Unity Task Force, and one of the major topics was Federal marijuana prohibition.

Politico reported the result as "The left gets rolled on legalizing pot."

Frankly, I absolutely reject that formulation. Marijuana legalization has been supported by the Libertarian right far longer than by the Left. The late Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley Jr. and many other conservatives have long opposed prohibition. Obama, Holder, Biden, Shalala, Clinton, Feinstein and Schumer all supported arresting millions of Americans. Until they opposed it

However, in a meeting with Biden, Sanders is definitely on the Left. Given Biden's long support for the Drug War, even coining the term "Drug Czar", the real world results were not too terrible.

The key points:

"Democrats will decriminalize marijuana use and reschedule it through executive action on the federal level." That will automatically clear the way for banks to do business with cannabis companies. Now they are forced to do business with cash only. "We will support legalization of medical marijuana (federally), and believe states should be able to make their own decisions about recreational use." It should be noted that even if the Federal government legalized marijuana, state laws will still apply. "The Justice Department should not launch federal prosecutions of conduct that is legal at the state level." This provision is seen as a slap at Attorney General Barr, who has been accused of an abuse of his power by ordering an investigation of legal marijuana companies without probable cause. "Lift budget rider blocking DC from taxing and regulating legal marijuana." The Nation's capital is effectively controlled by the Congress. So the Feds would be legalizing marijuana in the Federal Capital, but not Federally. "Remove marijuana use from the list of deportable offenses." Appallingly, from 2003 to August 2018, more than 45,000 people were deported nationwide for possession of marijuana. Under federal law, any marijuana-related criminal conviction, except for a single conviction for possessing 30 grams or less of marijuana, can make even a legal resident deportable. https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2019/08/12/marijuana-offenses-can-result-deportation-immigrants/1869065001/ "All past criminal convictions for cannabis use should be automatically expunged.

In short, as long as we don't call it "Legalization", Biden is in favor of it.

So, what is Trump's position? When he was running for President, he has said that he is in favor of medical marijuana, but since being elected he has allowed prohibitionists, notably his Attorneys Generals, (Sessions, and Barr) to attack state medical marijuana laws.

Mark Meadows, his fourth Chief of Staff, who represented North Carolina's 11th District until he resigned on March 30, to become President Trump's has consistently opposed any easing of Federal marijuana laws.

Meadows even voted against amendments to let military veterans get medical cannabis recommendations from their doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs. In other words, he puts the Drug Warriors ahead of the Americans who fought to keep Meadows free. Ironically, Meadows, who has not been in the military, was born in a US Army hospital in France.

Meadows even opposed a 2015 amendment to protect children and families relying on very limited CBD-only state laws from the DEA. He says he is protecting American children, but who is protecting the children from Meadows?

Over 90% of Americans support medical marijuana and roughly two thirds are in favor of legalization. Biden's position may allow him to have it both ways, but it is immeasurably better than Trump's,

Richard Cowan is a former NORML National Director and author of Marijuana Weekly News syndicated column.
Passengers at Heathrow airport as UK airport chiefs warn on lost revenues. Photo: Matt Dunham/AP

UK airports are set to lose at least 4bn ($5.1bn) in revenue this year as the coronavirus has hammered air travel, according to industry chiefs.

Karen Dee, chief executive of the Airport Operators Association (AOA), said demand would not reach pre-pandemic levels for a considerable period, despite a gradual easing of travel restrictions worldwide.

Airport companies are calling for more UK government support, including a suspension of air passenger duty, wage subsidies after the furlough scheme ends in October, and relief from business rates similar to hospitality and retail firms.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps would not be drawn on whether the government has considered an air passenger duty holiday to help airlines when asked on Wednesday. I cant get into pre-empting Budget and other measures, so I cant confirm that at all, Im afraid, he told Sky News.

New analysis by the AOA suggests UK airports lost more than 150m a day during the first four months of the pandemic. Dee described the period as the worst four months in the history of commercial aviation.

Revenue was down just under 2bn in total compared to the previous year, as passenger numbers fell by as much as 99%.

READ MORE: Airport luggage handler Swissport says 4,500 jobs at risk

Such losses undermines the ability of airport business to power the future prosperity of their local economies, forgoing crucial investment projects and, unfortunately, causing job losses, the trade body said in a press release.

Dee said passenger numbers had begun to pick up, but airports would continue to face pressures unimaginable six months ago. She said the industry was important to prime minister Boris Johnsons levelling up agenda and ambition to make Britain a global trading nation.

Many airlines have been lobbying for the government to lift its two-week quarantine policy for new arrivals in the UK for more countries.

Shapps told Sky News the government would make more announcements on international travel following a fresh review of the policy next week. I will be talking more about the way forward on things like international travel corridors then. But now, each week actually, we are reviewing and, where required, updating the list of countries its safe to travel to.

Story continues

The aviation industry has seen a wave of job cuts announced in recent months amid bleak forecasts for recovery in demand. British Airways (IAG.L) and EasyJet (EZJ.L) are among the airlines announcing thousands of jobs were at risk. Airport luggage handler Swissport said 4,500 jobs were at risk last month, and plane engine maker Rolls-Royce (RR.L) is looking to axe 9,000 roles.

A Treasury spokesperson said: Weve provided a generous package of support for businesses which the aviation sector can draw upon. This includes the furlough scheme - which has helped more than a million employers  access to finance through the COVID corporate financing facility, VAT deferrals, and flexibilities around the payment of tax bills, including air passenger duty.

Earlier this month we set out the second part of our support for the economy, giving businesses the confidence to retain and hire, including supporting jobs with a 1,000 Coronavirus job retention bonus for employers.
WATERLOO REGION  School boards across Ontario will need to find millions of dollars in unbudgeted funding to help keep students safe from COVID-19 if schools reopen this fall, and that includes the bus ride to and from school every day.

Bus routes will need to be adjusted, vehicles will need to be cleaned every day, and masks will be required, but no additional funding is coming from the Ministry of Education to help cover those costs.

During a special board meeting Monday night, trustees heard bus cleaning alone could add up to about $600,000 over the first three months of the school year, or roughly $50,000 per week.

This will be a pressure point for us in the upcoming year, acknowledged Matthew Gerard, treasurer of the Waterloo Region District School Board.

The ministry has been very clear that there is no additional funding to support COVID at this time.

According to a government memorandum sent in June, the WRDSB will receive about $18.7 million from the province for student transportation in 2020-2021, a slight increase over the $18.6 million it received last year.

The Catholic board will receive about $7.5 million, up from about $7.2 million last year.

Both increases are mainly due to increased student enrolment at both boards. It is the only funding the school boards receive to pay for student transportation.

The Ministry of Education is projected to distribute more than $1 billion to school boards for student transportation in 2020-2021 if students return to the classroom  just $12 million more than it did last year.

Overall, the public board estimates it will face at least $7.6 million in unbudgeted COVID-19 costs, including $2 million to buy personal protective equipment for the first three months of the year, $900,000 for additional custodial supplies over three months, and $660,000 for signage and barriers over the entire year.

This is disappointing to hear, that there are not additional funds from the ministry for reopening due to the additional costs that our board is going to ... incur for reopening, said public board vice-chair Joanne Weston Monday night.

Trustee Karen Meissner asked where the funding would come from, and Gerard said those details still need to be finalized but the board may need to run a deficit this year.

The ministry did not respond to a series of questions sent by The Record.

Catholic board chief financial officer Shesh Maharaj told The Record the board expects to spend half a million dollars pre-ordering protective equipment and supplies, and has budgeted an additional $1 million to order more supplies.

This number could easily double, however, since there is too much flux in the environment to say with certainty where it will end up, the chief financial officer said. The cost of cleaning buses will be shared by the two boards, based on ridership.

Despite the challenges this may pose for us financially, we would like families to know that we have all been working around the clock to prepare for school in September, Maharaj said.

School boards are weighing three potential options for September  continued remote learning, normal in-class learning with enhanced public health protocols in place, or a hybrid model with students alternating between classrooms and home.

The province is expected to pick a scenario around Aug. 4, and local plans must also be approved by the government.

If students do return to class in the fall, bus schedules and routes will need to be overhauled since only one student will be allowed per seat to encourage social distancing (though children from the same household will be permitted to share seats). Students and drivers will also be required to wear masks.

This means large school buses will be limited to just 24 students, which essentially halves our ability to transport students at the secondary level, and cuts our ability to support elementary transportation by two-thirds, said Gerard.

Its expected Waterloo Region will use a total of 465 school buses this coming year  more than half (265) will be large buses, along with 100 mini buses, and the rest will be split between wheelchair buses and vans, according to Student Transportation Services of Waterloo Region, which manages busing for both boards.

About 32,000 students ride a bus to school, or roughly a third of the regions approximately 90,000 students.

Benoit Bergault, the general manager of the student transportation service, said it will need to be creative to find efficiencies and revise bus routes during the pandemic. He doesnt expect the service will be able to add any more buses to the current fleet, and said it will be easier to draw up new routes if students attend school on staggered days.

Training new drivers and retaining existing ones  many of whom are older or retired  has also been challenging during the pandemic.

It will take about an hour to sanitize each bus every day, and drivers will have some responsibility for sanitizing touch points between runs, Bergault said.

Households with children in bus zones are being asked to complete an opt-out form if they decide they do not want them riding a bus this year. This will help the boards know how many kids will need a bus, and where they live.

Capacity is very limited, so if (they) dont intend on putting students on a bus they should opt out, Bergault said. Forms have already been distributed to public board households, and the Catholic board is expected to send them out this week, he said.

The form can also be found on the busing service website, and households can opt back into the service if they so choose.
As the Aug. 11 start date for St. Joseph Catholic School quickly approaches, administrators met with parents to discuss plans and restrictions addressing the COVID-19 pandemic this school year.

On Monday, parents were given packets detailing the schools three-tiered approach for classes. In tier one, which is low risk of spread for COVID-19, school will be in session for all students and staff, with guidelines and safety precautions being made. During tier one there will be no temperature checks unless a staff or child becomes or appears ill, or unless otherwise advised.

In tier two, which is a moderate risk of spread, school is in still sessions for all students, with an adjustments to meet the situation and local public health conditions. Temperature checks will be taken in tier two as well as tier three before the child leaves the parent or guardians vehicle.

In tier three, which is a high risk of spread, the school will be at 50% capacity with hybrid in-person and remote learning instruction. Students will be divided by last names to create static groups, and a possible short-term closure may happen. If there is a confirmed COVID-19 case or severe risk of spread in the school, there will be an extended school closure for two or more weeks while the building is cleaned and contact tracing is done through Public Health Solutions.

Head teacher Emily Lohr said no visitors will be allowed in the building after Friday, Aug. 7. She said students can be dropped off at the parish center or outside the building, and that there will be a staggered dismissal based on grade levels. Parents can ring the schools doorbell if dropping a student off late or picking a student up early.

[Beatrice Public Schools] is not providing bus service for parochial schools, and theyre also not allowing people to buy into the busing and pay for it, but they do want you to register in case at a later time they can provide that service for you, Lohr said.

Lohr said if a student has a fever or other COVID-19 symptoms, they must be fever and symptom free for at least 72 hours before coming back to school, or show documentation that theyve seen a doctor. She asked parents to purchase masks in plain colors, but said they will not be required at least in tier one.

The wearing of masks is subject to change at any time, and we must be in compliance to any state mandate, Lohr explained.

The plan states that social distancing in the cafeteria will try to be carried out, with other room options potentially being utilized and tables and chairs disinfected after the lunch period. Computer, music, physical education, art and library classes will still operate, and students may move between these classrooms if it is safe to do so.

We will be following the suggestions of the local health department in regards to number of students out on a playground at one time, making sure shared equipment is sanitized before another group of students plays with the same equipment, and being creative and introducing games that naturally make use of social distancing, the plan states.

The plan states that the school will use the PowerSchool Learning application to communicate with families throughout the year, with the intention that it will allow for a more fluid transition should online distance learning be announced. The number of assignments will likely be reduced in this case, but with the same expectations for in-school work.

If instruction is to be administered completely online at any given time, the school will send out an updated explanation of how we would proceedThe priority would first be on the core classes as it pertains to each grade level. We also realize the need to make use of textbooks when possible to alleviate the strain for those who may have minimal or no internet access, the plan states.

Lohr said the school plans to online stream a class activity on Tuesdays to show parents what students are up to, since they cannot be visit in person.

Students will still attend Catholic Mass, with the Communion encouraged to be received by hand, though not mandatory, and the Sign of Peace not physically extended by shaking hands or any other means of physical contact. Singing and the assistance of servers and readers may also be minimal.

The schools Chief Administrative Officer and Pastor Rand Langhorst said a more detailed plan will be mailed to parents closer to the school start date.

Were unable to really give you a lot, because things are constantly changing day by day at very high levels, so its hard to put something together, Langhorst said. I think probably every educator is going through the same thing in the state of Nebraska and in the country.

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The Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, Calif. (Jeffrey May / Santa Maria Times)

Federal prison authorities must begin transferring medically vulnerable inmates at Lompoc's prison complex to home confinement to prevent further illness after an outbreak of the coronavirus killed four inmates and infected more than 1,000 others, a U.S. District Court judge ruled.

The decision last week by Judge Consuelo Marshall granted a preliminary injunction in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California that accuses the federal Bureau of Prisons of mishandling the response to the outbreak and two federal lockups in Lompoc of failing to take basic hygiene steps to protect those imprisoned. The two prisons house more than 3,700 low-level and medium security inmates.

Under the order, Bureau of Prisons officials are required to tell the court which inmates are eligible for release as part of a plan to reduce the population. Those eligible could be anyone older than 50, and anyone with underlying health conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, serious heart conditions, diabetes, obesity, asthma or cerebrovascular disease.

The courts order is the first step in holding Lompoc prison officials accountable for their total failure to protect the health and safety of prisoners," said Naeun Rim, the lead attorney representing the inmates.

Rim said prison officials admitted that, instead of releasing more nonviolent prisoners to home confinement, they moved inmates from one part of the prison to another and at one point cut off access to showers for nearly two weeks.

She said those actions contributed to the deaths of at least four people.

"The courts order," she said, "will result in less prisoners falling ill, reduce the burden on local hospitals, and ultimately make the surrounding community safer."

In court papers, the ACLU said that, as of April, five dozen inmates had been considered for home confinement and 24 were scheduled to be released but that there had been no documented releases.

Story continues

The lawsuit, filed May 16, alleges that overcrowding prevents prisoners from socially distancing or taking other precautions. Although the CARES Act, which became law March 27, gave the Bureau of Prisons broad discretion to reduce prison populations by releasing inmates into home confinement, its leadership failed to do that or follow Atty. Gen. William Barr's order to release at-risk inmates to home confinement, the suit contends.

Lawyers for the Bureau of Prisons had asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. They noted that the bureau built a field hospital, adopted mass testing in May and that most of the inmates who did test positive showed no symptoms.

But after more than 70% of inmates at the low-security Lompoc facility tested positive, the judge found there was a "substantial risk of exposure to COVID-19, which is inconsistent with contemporary standards of human decency.

Marshall found that the Bureau of Prisons had "likely been deliberately indifferent to the known urgency to consider inmates for home confinement, particularly those most vulnerable to severe illness or death.

The number of those infected at the prison has now fallen to just a few, according to a Bureau of Prisons tracker. The four inmates who died after contracting COVID-19 are among 98 federal inmates to die nationwide, including 10 at Los Angeles' Terminal Island federal prison.

In the ruling handed down July 14, Marshall gave the federal agency until July 29 to produce a sealed list of inmates eligible for release from the two Lompoc prisons.

In court papers, lawyers for the inmates document grave shortcomings in hygiene, including a lack of masks and cleaning materials. When inmates asked for a replacement for their mask which had been damaged, they were told by correctional staff that they did not have any more masks, the records said.

A former inmate in written testimony recalled: "Once guards brought 36 rags to be used by all 140 prisoners on his floor to clean their bunks, bathroom faucets, and toilet handles.
Prakash Fulwariya of Loharawa village in Rajasthans Barmer district, who came second in the Grade XII state board examinations humanities stream, is cross with himself for losing out on a 100% percentile by four marks.

He had expected that he would score full marks -- 100 out of 100 -- in all five elective subjects.

However, the results that were announced on Tuesday showed that he has scored 99 in Hindi Literature and English and 98 in Political Science.

I had worked hard and expected to score full marks in all the subjects, he said wistfully.

He has made his institution proud  the Government Senior Secondary school in Loharwa, which is located 70 kilometres (km) away from Barmer town, the district headquarters.

Fulwariya aspires to become an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, as he hopes it will help set a template for people like me, who have to struggle hard to study.

His father, Channa Ram is a construction worker, who has been bed-ridden for a while after a paralytic attack, compounding the familys financial woes.

He had to brave several odds to come out with flying colours in his higher secondary board examinations.

In our native village, there is an acute shortage of power supply. My elder sister and I used to study using a torch, as electricity was few and far between in most evenings, said Fulwariya, who is the second of his four siblings.

His elder sister, too, scored 83% in her higher secondary board examinations.

Fulwariya has his task cut for the immediate future.

I shall attend a nearby college due to lack of resources. I shall prepare for the civil services examinations after I complete my graduation. I want to become an IAS officer to help poor and needy students like me, who live in remote areas, he added.

However, he is uncertain about his future prospects because of his bed-ridden father, the familys sole bread-winner.

Will he able to able to make a trip to Jaipur or Delhi after his graduation to pursue his IAS goals?

The consistent performer wonders aloud, having bettered his Class X board results, when he had scored 97% two years ago.

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Calling it his way of social media detox, actor Shashank Vyas recently unfollowed everyone on Instagram, and shared it with his followers through an Insta story. ...To my friends and family, I am ALWAYS a phone call away. And to those I unfollowed, please dont take my action otherwise. Be kind and spread positivity, he wrote.

Amid so much social media toxicity and negativity brewing in the showbiz industry, Vyas wanted to distance himself from the unnecessary information available online. Our brain is already occupied with the present crisis. I felt its time I focused on my thoughts and not on whats happening in everyone elses life. If necessary, I might even deactivate my account, he tells us.

While most actors believe that social media acts as a boom in bringing them closer to their fans, the Balika Vadhu actors outlines its duality and feels that it has distanced people from each other.

Vyas, 33, calls for nurturing relations in the real world, instead. The fact that we check on each other via social media nowadays does bothers me. The other day, I called some seven people that I know, and when I started talking to them, I realised their state of mind is different from their social media posts, he says, urging everyone, Baat karo ek dusre se, bas like karne se responsibility khatam nahi ho jaati.

A screen grab of Shashank Vyass Instagram story.

Perturbed by different narratives being peddled around actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death, Vyas raises some pertinent points.

When Sonchiriya (2019) released, how many went for first day, first show? Agar bahut log jaate toh film chalti. Not to forget, when Sushant was alive, there were many negative comments against him. Youve to understand some people are sensitive and we need to be sympathetic towards each other, he explains.

The actor particularly expresses his anger towards the trolling thats rampant on social media and he calls for strict actions against such people.

My female colleagues have shown me the kind of abuses and threats they get on social media. Who gives these people the authority? Its not easy to earn this celebrity tag that too in our profession which is filled with uncertainties. There are struggles and compromises and when you create such unpredictable pressure, it leads to many taking drastic steps. Just like we have one aadhar card, pan card, voters card, we should be allowed to open only one social media account. Whoever does wrong, his or her account should get suspended, says Vyas, who in fact, proposes an idea to have a positive day on social media just like we have so many special days.

One can fake happiness but shouldnt say anything negative on that day, he quips.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Nepal will resume domestic and international flight operations starting from August 17, over four months after they were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 20, the government had banned all passengers, including Nepalis, from entering the country. Four days later, it imposed a nationwide lockdown to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe, the Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, told The Kathmandu Post that a Cabinet meeting on Monday decided to allow both international and domestic flights to resume operations from August 17, as there "has been a decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country".

"All flights will be operated by following special health and safety protocols," Tumbahangphe said. Nepal on Monday reported 186 new cases of COVID-19, taking the number of infections to 17,844, with 40 deaths so far.

The government says the decision to resume flights was taken as some countries have already started to lift the coronavirus restrictions, the report said.

"There are still some countries that are imposing entry restrictions. We will prepare reports on the countries where flights are not restricted and allow them to enter the country accordingly. We will develop protocols and other required measures for the incoming flights," said Buddhi Sagar Lamichhane, joint-secretary at the Civil Aviation Ministry.

With the border closed and internal travel prohibited for nearly four months now, the once-booming tourism sector in Nepal is on the verge of a collapse, and it is not likely to recover any time soon, say industry insiders.

"We have to do homework and hold extensive discussions with health professionals, the government and the industry players on how to build confidence of foreign tour operators and tourists as well. We have to be well prepared to handle the tourists, Yogendra Sakya, a travel trade entrepreneur, was quoted as saying by The Kathmandu Post.

In such a difficult scenario, it's all about survival. Only if we survive now, can we move ahead for revival," Sakya said. Tourism is one of the major foreign currency earners for Nepal.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the travel and tourism's total contribution to the country's gross domestic product stood at 7.9 percent in 2018.
The founders of music streaming service SoundCloud, Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung, have launched a new electric bike subscription start-up called "Dance" with their friend Christian Springub.

The Berlin-based founders are the latest entrepreneurs to try and capitalize on trendy e-bikes, which have soared in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic as city dwellers look for an alternative to public transport.

Instead of selling e-bikes outright like Belgian firm Cowboy and Dutch firm VanMoof, Dance wants to create a community of subscribers around the world. With e-bikes often selling for well over $2000, the SoundCloud founders believe that people will be more inclined to pay a monthly subscription fee via an app than to buy an e-bike outright.

For 59 ($68) a month, Dance customers get an "urban" e-bike that can reach speeds of 15mph (25kph) and free repairs. If the bike is lost or stolen, Dance will replace it "immediately" for free. The e-bikes are manufactured in mainland China and Taiwan.

Dance will start by rolling out around 200 e-bikes in Berlin on an invite-only basis over the next couple of weeks, Dance CEO Quidenus-Wahlforss told CNBC.

"Buying and owning an e-bike is a hassle," he said. "That is why we set out to create a frictionless e-bike subscription service with no upfront costs and all-inclusive services. Dance is the perfect solution for those who are looking for a healthy, environmentally friendly, time-saving and joyful form of mobility."

The company has been backed with an undisclosed amount of funding by venture capital firm BlueYard, as well as individuals like: Ilkka Paananen, founder and CEO of mobile gaming firm Supercell; Neil Parikh founder and chief strategy officer of mattress retailer Casper; and Bjarke Ingels, the founder and chief executive of BIG Architects.

Ljung, who is Dance's chairman, pointed out that music was one of the first industries to witness a shift from ownership to subscription. "At SoundCloud we helped usher in this transformation and established the world's largest and most passionate music community," he said. "Now we want to transfer this experience to the mobility space and start a movement that will ultimately make our cities more livable."
Highlights

 Underlying Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation* in line with prior corresponding period at $63.5m, despite Government lockdown restricting sales of retirement village units in final quarter.

 Total Assets increased by 10.7% to $1.5bn reflecting significant development capital expenditure and new aged care centres completed.

 Operating revenue increased by $7.0m (3.7%) due to increased aged care occupancy, higher income from premium rooms and increased income from retirement village operations.

 Reported net loss after tax of $13.6m due to unrealised movements in the valuation of Investment Property, including changes to key valuation assumptions made in response to COVID-19.

 Underlying net profit after tax* of $42.9m was $7.8m (15.4%) lower than the prior corresponding period due to higher interest costs to fund development activity and higher depreciation charges from completed projects.

 Operating cashflow increased 11.3% to $99.4m as a result of sale proceeds from developments completed in the previous financial year.

 Aged care occupancy of 93.7% at aged care sites not impacted by redevelopment activity, as compared to the prior corresponding period occupancy of 93.2%.

 Final dividend per share declared of 1.2 cents per share (not imputed) payable on 17 August 2020 with record date of 3 August 2020, representing a full year dividend of 3.5 cents per share (not imputed).

Aged care and retirement village operator and developer Oceania Healthcare reported steady Underlying Earnings before Interest, Tax Depreciation and Amortisation* of $63.5m for the year ended 31 May 2020 despite being unable to sell retirement village units during the final quarter of its financial year due to the Government lockdown. Oceania Healthcare CEO Earl Gasparich advised that while Oceania Healthcares reported loss of $13.6m reflects changes to key valuation assumptions made in response to COVID- 19, it excludes the increase in value of property, plant and equipment from the care suites completed at Awatere (Hamilton) and Green Gables (Nelson). Together, these 151 new care suites added $21.9m to our assets this year. In total, Oceania Healthcares asset base increased by 10.7% to $1.5bn in 2020. Mr Gasparich said our Underlying Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation  that are adjusted to remove the impact of unrealised movements in the valuation of our investment properties  were in line with the prior corresponding period which is a good result given the challenges presented by COVID-19 and the lockdown that our business endured over the final few months of the year. During Level 4 of the lockdown, retirement village operators were unable to show prospective residents through villages or settle applications for new occupation right agreements, which negatively impacted earnings over this time. We had achieved good sales in the months leading up to the lockdown and were on track to meet our targets for the full year after a strong first half said Mr Gasparich. Once restrictions were lifted in Level 2 of the lockdown, we experienced a strong increase in inquiries and have taken significantly higher applications over late May and June than we recorded last year. Many incoming residents have reflected on their wellbeing during the lockdown and now appreciate the benefits of living in a retirement village with a community of neighbours and an environment that provides security and peace of mind. None of Oceania Healthcares residents living in its aged care centres or retirement villages contracted COVID-19 and staff were also well protected throughout the pandemic. A number of actions were implemented early on to reduce this risk, including restricting visitor access to sites, taking declarations from staff and monitoring travel, enhancing infection control training and ensuring clear and regular communication to staff, residents and their families. Our teams came up with many innovative ways to keep daily activities going and provide service and attention to our residents. Every one of our 1,200 retirement village residents received a daily wellbeing call from our staff, every day through the lockdown said Mr Gasparich. We received a lot of positive feedback from residents and their families regarding the way in which we managed our aged care centres and retirement villages during the lockdown period. Mr Gasparich was pleased to report that Oceania Healthcares aged care business traded resiliently despite the restrictions of the Government lockdown. As an essential business, our aged care centres continued to operate throughout the Government Alert Levels, with new admissions taken and stable occupancy levels recorded during this period. We maintained a strong cashflow position as we continued to receive payment from the Government for subsidised residents every fortnight and we completed sales of care suites during this time.

Aged care occupancy was 93.7% over the year ended 31 May 2020, compared to 93.2% last year, primarily due to the investment made in refurbishing Oceania Healthcares existing portfolio and in particular converting older, standard aged care rooms into its premium care suite product, which is sold under occupation right agreement. Aged care is a needs based product said Mr Gasparich, hence is a very good, stable business to be in during a time of economic uncertainty. Oceania Healthcares development programme was slowed in mid-March and then temporarily suspended during Level 4 of the lockdown, with construction at nine sites recommencing in late April. The delay meant the annual build rate for the year ended 31 May 2020 was 176 retirement village units and care suites compared to 265 originally scheduled. Our development model and construction procurement methodology gives us the flexibility to match our investment cash outflow with future sale proceeds from retirement village units, meaning that we can prudently manage our cash balances and risk, said Mr Gasparich. Oceania Healthcare is anticipating the completion of 217 retirement village units and care suites for the next financial year, including sites in Tauranga (The BayView) and Christchurch (The Bellevue, formerly Windermere). Mr Gasparich said we continue to invest in our people at Oceania Healthcare and paid all site based operational staff an additional $2 per hour during Level 4 of the lockdown in recognition of the additional work they were doing in difficult conditions. We also provided training to record numbers of our Healthcare Assistants which enabled them to achieve qualifications and receive increases in wage rates during the year. Our employee share scheme achieved a 70% uptake last year and will be offered to all permanent employees again in August this year, giving staff an opportunity to own a stake in Oceania Healthcare and share in our growth.

Oceania Healthcare Chair Liz Coutts advised that Directors had declared a final 2020 dividend of 1.2 cents per share (not imputed) to be paid on 17 August 2020 with a record date of 3 August. This represents a full year dividend of 3.5 cents per share (not imputed) and a dividend payout ratio of 50% of underlying net profit after tax. A dividend reinvestment plan for our New Zealand and Australian shareholders will apply to this dividend. Participating shareholders will be able to reinvest their final dividend, or part thereof, with a discount of 2.5% on the five day volume weighted average price commencing from the ex- dividend date.

Source: Oceania Healthcare

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Important secret. I never really understood the appeal of haiku.

All that discipline and order. You have to count syllables, for Petes sake. Thats not poetry, its math.

Why 5-7-5?

A combination

To a lock inside my mind

I often forget

So I was wary when Scotty Colson -- Alabama ambassador of goodwill and chair of the committee overseeing Birminghams sister city relationship with the Japanese cities of Hitachi and Maebashi  hatched his haiku plan.

He was excited about it, as he always is, which is why he is good at what he does. So I put down my poetic prejudice and listened. He proposed a haiku exchange between the three cities, because human exchanges came to a screeching halt in 2020. Its not a contest, he said, just a way share and bolster across the globe. He asked people to submit their own haikus based on shared COVID struggles.

Like this one, from Toru Suzuki in Hitachi, about the trouble of using so much hand sanitizer your hands turn to sandpaper. In the original Japanese it is:

koronakani

aretaruryoute

tsuyushigure.

In translation it is:

corona life

rough skin hands

though rainy season

Or this one, from Linda T. Roberson back home in Alabama, that requires no explanation here:

I bet you ten bucks

no one on this Zoom call knows

Im not wearing pants

Im starting to think I was wrong about this art form.

The whole thing started when Colson was talking to Toru Suzuki about disruptions of the program, about cancellations of youth exchanges and the burdens of living fully in a world in quarantine.

After we finished whining about the state of the world I started thinking  this is a pandemic and one of the few events since World War II that that whole world has shared, he said.

My mom, who has lived through the depression, World War II, the Cold War, tough marriage, cancer and all keeps saying it is the worst think she has ever seen because We are so alone and cant go places.

So he wanted to break the loneliness, and build connections with words. Hes asking for more, so all the cities can share them on their websites and beyond. Heres his:

Separated Now

Pandemic summer of woe

Friends offer solace

From Japan comes Akira Suzuki with a haiku about finding the energy to beat this virus. It is:

kazokumina

coronataijini

moeteiru

Or in translation:

family member

conquest of corona

have a great enthusiasm

Colson would love for you to send him haikus of your own, to his email at scottycolsonblazer@outlook.com.

Hopefully this will make us realize we are all in this together and intertwined in so many ways, he said. And to sit quietly for a few minutes and compose a simple little poem about how we feel and to share the spirit and feelings of each other.

It does seem to have a sort of mystical power. All that wisdom or humor or feeling in three strict lines. Its not confinement, it is freedom. As Dr. Michael Fleenor wrote:

Breathe in, then breathe out

One final eternal pause

Returns breath to air.

Or Gwen Amamoo on travel problems in Ghana Sweet Ghana:

The summer is here

I am ready to come home

No planes flying now

Perhaps Colson is right. We dont have to speak the same language to understand the power of the feeling in these little poems. We just read them, and understand things we have in common.

Like this one from Bettina Byrd-Giles:

I'm about to lose

My mind up in here in here

Stores close at 7. Ugh!

Yes, they are as timeless as poetry itself. Like this one, another from Linda Roberson:

My gym is shut down.

For exercise Im walking

fast to Krispy Kreme.

Surely, poetry like that can bring the world together.

John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register, Birmingham Magazine and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.
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***Says PDP plotting to sabotage forensic audit

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has lambasted the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for its self-indicting statement speaks of the weight of corruption bedevilling the operations of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The ruling party however said the successive PDP administrations and their cronies institutionalised a culture of contract fraud and other corrupt practices in the country.

The PDP had issued a statement on Monday over the NDDCs probe tagging APC administration as a corrupt government.

But in a statement signed Tuesday in Abuja by the deputy national publicity secretary of APC, Yekini Nabena, said Nigerians can now understand that the PDP was not interested in the current moves by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to reposition the NDDC but the PDP dead-scared of the outcome of the 2001 to 2019 forensic audit and legislative inquests of the NDDC operations.

The PDP is doing everything to sabotage and frustrate the audits.

In recognition of the ongoing forensic audit and legislative inquest into the operations of the NDDC, as a party we have no intention to trade words on how successive PDP administrations and their cronies institutionalised a culture of contract fraud and other corrupt practices which has robbed the Niger Delta region of badly-needed development. We will rather monitor and await the findings of the ongoing audits.

However, one thing is clear, no vested interest will continue to turn the NDDC into an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) while multi-faceted development eludes the Niger Delta region.

We must support the forensic audit of the 19 years of the NDDC, which includes the first 4 years of the President Buhari administration as well as well-meaning legislative inquests for the benefit of the Niger Delta region.

As a party, we totally align and support the resolve of President Muhammadu Buhari to audit and reposition the NDDC. As with all institutions of government, we must continue to entrench transparency and accountability.

The commitment of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration remains the rapid and sustainable development of the Niger Delta region. Hence, the audit must be seen as a decisive move to clear any stumbling block undermining the development of the Niger Delta region.

Has the President Buhari administration demonstrated its zero-tolerance for corruption? An emphatic yes!

Nabena revealed that the administrations fight against corruption is total, unsparing and there are no sacred cows. Public records show that officials of past administrations, members of the opposition, APC, cabinet members, appointees, private sector among others have been given ample opportunity by this administration to defend corruption allegations when they arise.

The PDPs tales of unbridled treasury looting, Ilusionary fraud and other fictitious allegations are part of their tired, baseless and tactless attempts to get public reckoning, cover past fraud and play the role of opposition which it has shockingly failed at. 
Ashok Gehlot

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother on Wednesday as part of countrywide searches in connection with a money laundering case linked to an alleged fertiliser scam.

The searches come at a time when a political fight is currently on between CM Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot.

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Ashok GehlotPilot, a former Union minister, was recently sacked as the deputy CM and PCC chief of the state.

Officials said the raids are being carried out against Ashok Gehlot's elder brother Agrasain Gehlot, who is the promoter of a seeds and fertiliser company identified as Anupam Krishi.

Responding to the raids, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told reporters in Jaipur, "Prime Minister Modi has created ''raid raj'' in the country but we are not going to be scared."

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When the Centre's "gimmicks" failed to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan, ED raids started at the premises of Gehlot's elder brother, he said.

Randeep SurjewalaOfficials of the agency are carrying out the searches under the provision of the PMLA.

Sources alleged that Agrasain Gehlot and his company have been slapped with a Customs penalty of about Rs 7 crore in this alleged fertiliser supply scam.
London:

The British government has no overarching plan for Brexit and may take another six months to agree a negotiating strategy, according to a leaked memo on Tuesday.

Civil servants are struggling to cope with more than 500 Brexit-related projects and an extra 30,000 extra staff may beneeded to handle the workload, according to the memo published by The Times, reportedly prepared for the government by a consultant.

The document, dated November 7 and titled "Brexit update", says "no common strategy has emerged" for leaving the European Union, despite lengthy debate among senior officials.

The government of Prime Minister Theresa May denied theclaims and said it did not commission the report.

"This is not a government report and we don't recognise the claims made in it," a spokesman for May's office said.

"We are focused on getting on with the job of delivering Brexit and making a success of it," he said. It could take another six months for the British government to agree on its priorities for Brexit, the memo, also seen by the BBC, suggests.

Although each government department has developed plans to cope with the departure, "this falls considerably short of having a 'Government plan for Brexit' because it has no prioritisation and no link to the overall negotiation strategy," the memo reportedly states.

It criticises May's approach, accusing her of "drawing in decisions and details to settle matters herself".

May has promised to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March in the year 2017 to formally start the process of leaving the EU, but she has so far given few details of her strategy.

The leaked memo also says big businesses are expected to "point a gun at the government's head" after the government assured carmaker Nissan that it would not lose out on investment after Britain leaves the EU.

May used a key address in the City of London late on Monday to say that Britain will seize on Brexit to become a global leader on free trade and "forge new and dynamic trading agreements".

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi, July 23 : The Supreme Court Wednesday issued notice to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his government on a plea by former Assembly Speaker N.P. Prajapati challenging the appointment of 28 more ministers, as it violated the ceiling on the maximum strength of the council of ministers fixed under the Constitution.

A bench comprising Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian sought a response from the state government as senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha, representing Prajapati, contended that the appointment of 28 ministers in Madhya Pradesh violates the Constitution's Article 164 (1A).

According to this Article, the total number of Ministers, including the Chief Minister, in the Council of Ministers in a state, shall not exceed 15 per cent of the total number of members of the Legislative Assembly of that state.

The plea contended that the 230-strong Madhya Pradesh Assembly currently has 206 members, therefore respondents (Governor, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and MP Government) could not have appointed more than 31 ministers, but the total strength of council of ministers including the Chief Minister is now 34.

Chouhan had expanded his ministry in July, inducting 28 new members. Many of these were former Congress MLAs who brought down the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in the state, by resigning from their seats and joining the BJP.

Prajapati's plea claimed that the respondents have misinterpreted the dictum of Article 164 (1A) to be 15 per cent of the total strength of the Legislative Assembly, which is 230.

The plea has also put forward a legal question, whether the cap of 15 per cent of the total members of the Legislative Assembly would be examined as per the current members of the House, or the total seats in the House? The plea said if 15 percent is applicable on total seats in the House, then it would be 34.5, and if it is read as per the present number of members of the House, then it would 30.9/31.

The plea pointed out that with two deaths and also the resignation of 22 MLAs from Assembly, there are 206 members and 24 seats are vacant.
Viking has announced its new 2021-2022 Viking World Cruise, which will span 136 days, 27 countries and 56 ports, with overnight stays in 11 cities, according to a press release.

Setting sail on December 24, 2021, from Fort Lauderdale on the Viking Star, the itinerary will include three new ports of call for Viking, including Phillip Island and Eden, Australia, as well as Yangon, Myanmar.

The voyage swill first head to Central America; transit through the Panama Canal; journey up the West Coast of North America before crossing the Pacific Ocean and calling upon Hawaii; visit New Zealand and Australia; and sail through Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean before concluding in London.

Guests may also choose a shorter, 119-day portion of the sailing, 2022 Viking World Horizons, which departs from Los Angeles on January 10, 2022 and visits 22 countries and 49 ports before ending in London.

All Viking World Cruise guests will also receive the complimentary option to remain onboard for three additional days and disembark in the ships home port of Bergen, Norway.

For more than 20 years, we have been committed to providing our guests with immersive and culturally enriching experiences while traveling the world in comfort, said Torstein Hagen, Chairman of Viking. This has been an unusual year for all travelers, but we remain focused on the future and are pleased to offer our guests a new destination-focused World Cruise that allows for extensive exploration in 2021-2022.
22 July 2020

On Wednesday 15 July the President of the EPO, Antonio Campinos, met with the Heads of the Ibero-American intellectual property offices. The virtual meeting replaced the annual EPO-IMPI joint event usually held in Geneva in the fringes of the WIPO General Assemblies. This year 22 offices participated, including two EPO Member States; Spain and Portugal, and the DG-elect of WIPO, Mr Daren Tang.

The participants discussed the different measures that their Offices have put in place to support their users in combatting the difficulties caused by coronavirus and the way their cooperation has contributed. For example, the platform Fighting coronavirus', provides a wealth of patent information on technologies which are useful in combating the virus or treating the disease it causes, and includes data from Ibero-American offices. There was also an exchange on the digitalisation process undertaken by offices during the Pandemic. The meeting also presented the Offices with an opportunity to assess opportunities for strengthening their work together in the coming year.

Speaking at the meeting on the two subjects of the COVID-19 Pandemic and on the benefits of cooperation, the EPO President said, We need to find joint solutions to our common problems. Covid-19 is transforming all areas of society including IP, and our responses to it will define tomorrow's reality'.

The meeting also included an exchange with Daren Tang, Director General elect of WIPO, who will assume Office on October 1 2020, following his election earlier this year in May.
ALBANY - The state Senate on Tuesday voted to stop the selling of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores, ending what some state lawmakers and animal advocates say was a puppy-mill-to-pet-store pipeline.

The bill, touted earlier this year before the coronavirus pandemic derailed the work of lawmakers, was approved Tuesday evening amid a flurry of legislation being acted on this week tackling outstanding bills and expanding protections and provisions dealing with COVID-19 and the upcoming general election.

It was unclear Tuesday when the Assembly may take up the bill. It was not on the chamber's Tuesday agenda, and spokespersons for Speaker Carl E. Heastie did not respond to requests for comment.

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, D-Queens, applauded the bills passage.

With so many good animals in need of rescue, there is no need for pet stores to sell animals that predominantly come from abusive puppy and kitten mills, he said. Our four-legged companions should be treated with respect, not like commodities.

Gianaris, who sponsored the bill, said the public typically is exposed to "the classic puppy in the window" - drawing young children and families in to buy an animal.

"What they don't know is what goes on behind the scenes to get that puppy there," he said on the Senate floor.

There are about 80 retail stores licensed to sell animals that the legislation would impact, but proponents of the bill say the bulk of revenue for those stores is from merchandise, not animal sales, and thus they will not be negatively impacted by the ban.

Some downstate pet store owners, however, argued the measure would decimate their businesses and the majority of their sales are animals.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The People United to Protect Pet Integrity, a group in opposition of the bill, has argued that people should have the ability to shop or adopt, and suggests adopting from a rescue can come with more uncertainty than what proponents have suggested results from purchasing pets at stores. The group also points to more people resorting to purchasing animals online, which is unregulated.

The bill, sponsored by Gianaris, does not prevent individuals from purchasing animals from breeders and would allow people to see what type of environment a puppy or young dog is living in.

New York has a few puppy mills in the Finger Lakes Region, but animal advocates say they do not sell to retailers in the state. Although New York might not have many puppy mills, pet stores can purchase animals from breeders across the country, which often come with unknown ailments discovered after a family purchases a pet.

Last year, lawmakers increased health and safety standards for animals being sold in pet stores and by other dealers, passing a law that sets guidelines for sanitary living enclosures and food receptacles. It also mandates annual veterinary exams and grooming, and ensures animals are not locked in darkness during the day and that pregnant dogs have separate spaces as well as room to nurse their litters.
Amid the ongoing political drama in Rajasthan, former deputy chief minister and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sachin Pilot on Tuesday (July 21) sent a legal notice to Congress MLA Giriraj Singh Malinga for claiming that he was offered Rs 35 crore as bribe by Pilot to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

It is learnt that Pilot has sued Malinga for "the false and malicious statement" he made to the media on Monday.

A statement released by Sachin Pilot's office said: "Sources close to Sachin Pilot, ex-Deputy CM, have informed that he has served Giriraj Malinga MLA a legal notice for the false and malicious statement made by him to the press yesterday."

"I had a discussion with Sachin Pilot. He spoke to me and said how much do you want. He told me Rs 35 crore. This has been happening since December, it is nothing new. I told them I cannot do this," Malinga had told reporters in Jaipur, adding that he had spoken to former Rajasthan deputy CM "two-three times".

After Malinga's allegations, Pilot said: "I am saddened but not surprised to be at the receiving end of such baseless and vexatious allegations being levelled against me. This is done solely to malign me and to stifle the legitimate concerns that I had raised against the party leadership of the state, as a member and MLA of INC. This attempt further aims at defaming me and attack my credibility."

"The narrative is being redirected to avoid addressing the main issue. I will be taking appropriate and strictest possible legal action against the MLA who was made to make these accusations. I am sure more such concocted allegations will be thrown at me to cause aspersions on my public image. But I shall be unfettered and remain firm in my beliefs and convictions," he added.

Meanwhile, the Rajasthan High Court on Tuesday told the Legislative Assembly Speaker to defer action on disqualification notices to Pilot and 18 other rebel Congress MLAs till July 24. The court also reserved its verdict on the matter on Friday (July 24). A writ petition was filed by Pilot and 18 other dissident Congress MLAs on July 17, challenging the disqualification notices issued to them by state Assembly Speaker CP Joshi.
Scientists and archaeologists made the discovery in a remote cave in the state of the Zacatecas, central Mexico: Devin A Gandy

An extraordinary new archaeological discovery has revealed that humans arrived in the Americas at least 11,000 years earlier than previously thought - rewriting the human story of the continent and dramatically changing our understanding of world prehistory.

The find reveals that humans arrived in the Americas at least 11,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The find  in central Mexico  indicates the continent was first colonised at some stage prior to 30,000 BC.

Until now, the earliest proven colonisation had been dated to around 19,000 BC, meaning the Americas human story is at least 50 per cent longer than previously thought.

The new research reveals that very early Native Americans were living in Mexico, and presumably therefore also parts of the rest of North America, from at least 30,000 BC onwards.

The discovery  in a remote cave in the state of the Zacatecas, central Mexico  is of huge international importance and represents one of the most significant archaeological finds anywhere in the world in recent decades.

Very lengthy and thorough excavations within the cave have yielded almost 2,000 stone artefacts dating from between 30,000 BC and 11,000 BC, of which around a dozen date from between 30,000 and 24,000 BC (the very earliest chronological phase of the site).

These dozen early artefacts include a very small number of stone projectile points, probably used as spearheads, and some stone flakes, generated during tool-making activities.

Excavation director, archaeologist Dr Ciprian Ardelean (of Mexicos Zacatecas University and UKs University of Exeter) near the caves entrance (Devin A Gandy)

The later artefacts (stone knives, scrapers, adzes, blades and burins) dating from 24,000 to 11,000 BC are also of extraordinary importance, especially as some of those also pre-date the hitherto generally accepted date for the first peopling of the Americas.

A combination of new excavations and cutting-edge archaeological science is allowing us to uncover a new story of the colonisation of the Americas, said one of the leading archaeological scientists involved in the project, Professor Tom Higham of the University of Oxfords radiocarbon dating unit.

Story continues

The discovery that people were there more than 30,000 years ago raises a range of key new questions about who these people were, how they lived, how widespread they were and, ultimately, what their fate was.

The research  published today in the Nature journal  has been carried out by a team of archaeologists and other scientists from Mexico, the UK, Denmark, the USA, Brazil and Australia.

Now that the timeline of the peopling of the Americas has been so dramatically lengthened, archaeologists throughout both North America and South America are likely to redouble their efforts to find additional very early sites.

The newly discovered stone artefacts were almost certainly made by nomadic or semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who, over countless generations, would have ranged across vast tracts of territory in at least parts of Mexico and the US.

Now that archaeologists know that a small group of humans were active at the cave site, it is inconceivable that they would have been the only human group in the Americas at the time.

Indeed, if they had been, they would have found it virtually impossible to survive for the thousands of years that the cave was, albeit probably intermittently, occupied.

It is therefore likely that at least some other sites of comparable or even greater age still await discovery, at least in North America  but possibly also in South America.

The discovery raises three huge questions  who were these newly discovered first Americans, when did their ancestors enter the New World  and how?

Because no human remains and no human DNA has so far been identified at the site, it is not possible to know for sure who they were in ethnic and genetic terms.

Most Native Americans (in both North and South America) are mainly descended from the same ancient peoples that most Chinese, Japanese and other East Asians are descended from.

However, recent genomic research into Native American origins suggests that the initial peopling of the Americas was probably carried out by a different group of people (partly related to modern-day Australian aborigines, Papua New Guineans, Andaman Islanders (from near India) and Mamanwa people from the Philippines.

In prehistoric times, Melanesian-related peoples (ancestral to modern indigenous Australian, Papua New Guinea, etc peoples) appear to have flourished over substantial swathes of southeast and east Asia.

And it is conceivable therefore that the newly discovered first Americans, whose artefacts have been found in the central Mexican cave, were partly related to the ancestors of the modern Aborigines and Papuans etc.

But when and how did they enter the New World?

The proto-Melanesian genetic signature survives as a small element within the genomes of several indigenous American Indian groups in the Amazon basin  and the only ancient DNA evidence for that link also comes from the Amazon (five very ancient skeletons, each at least 10,000 years old).

All the pieces of ancient DNA evidence from later native American skeletons do not show any Melanesian connection  mainly just genomic links with current East Asian populations.

In Asia/Australia etc (as well as modern aboriginal Australian, Papuan and other genomic evidence) ancient proto-Melanesian DNA evidence also comes from a 40,000-year-old skeleton found in northern China.

The earliest date for the newly discovered Mexican site is 30,000 BC.

These very early, perhaps partly Melanesian-related, first Americans therefore arrived in their new world some time before that date.

But how did they get there?

They almost certainly did not arrive by voyaging across the Pacific.

Scientists, inside the central Mexican cave, busy collecting samples for ancient plant and animal DNA analyses (Devin A Gandy)

But they may well have made the journey at least partly by sea (potentially in early kayaks)  by island-hopping, over many generations, from China or even from southeast Asia along the scores of islands that stretch in a great arc between the Philippines and Alaska (the single longest sea journey would have been a mere 120 miles). After reaching Alaska, their descendants would have been able to travel at least partly by sea along the west coast of North America to California and Mexico.

The idea that so far back in prehistory, ancient Stone Age people could have travelled to America, primarily by sea, appears challenging.

But the reality is that sophisticated human seafaring was actually born in Melanesia and the other Asian islands  which is not surprising, given that the area immediately south and east of the Asian mainland has the greatest concentration of islands in the world (currently 34,000 islands with a total landmass of only 1.2 million sq miles).

As far back as around 60,000 years ago, proto-Melanesians made the 40-mile sea journey from islands like Sulawesi and Timor to New Guinea/Australia (at that time one landmass) and became the first Australian Aborigines. By 30,000 years ago early Melanesians were voyaging 100 miles from New Guinea to the Solomon islands  and by 32,000 years ago, early seafarers were island-hopping for 300 miles to Okinawa  from either Taiwan or Japan. And much later, it was the people of that same Asian island region who carried out the worlds first great trans-Oceanic explorations (across the Indian Ocean and, in a series of voyages, across the Pacific).

It is not yet possible to know whether the earliest known Native Americans, who lived in the cave in central Mexico, were among the first generations of humans to live in their new world  or whether their ancestors had arrived generations earlier.

Archaeologists and other scientists, inside the cave in central Mexico, sampling material for radiocarbon dating (Devin A Gandy)

Only a search for additional ultra-early sites in Mexico and the USA might potentially answer that question.

The cave itself would have been an ideal hunting base. Remote, sheltered from storms, it would have afforded its inhabitants reasonable security, as it is not easily visible from afar.

In prehistoric times, the surrounding landscape would have been covered with huge pine trees and Douglas firs (a bit like modern Oregon and British Columbia).

Fresh water was available nearby  and the temperature inside the cave itself was (and still is) remarkably steady all year round, irrespective of the weather outside.

The excavation at the cave site has been led by Dr Ciprian Ardelean of Mexicos Zacatecas University and UKs University of Exeter.

Today the cave is remote and difficult to access. The nearest large town is Zacatecas  the capital of the state of the same name.

The excavations have revealed that it was intermittently home to people using exactly the same stone tool technology and exactly the same style of tools for 19,000 years (roughly 750 generations). it seems that those people of the cave were so remarkably well adapted to their environment that they presumably saw no need to further evolve at least the crucial stone technology aspects of their culture.

The investigation at the cave has even been able to reconstruct the areas ancient environment and climate  partly through an analysis of plant DNA extracted from buried sediments in the cave by a leading member of the investigation team, Professor Eske Willerslev of Copenhagen Universitys Centre for GeoGenetics. This has revealed the changing environment that the very early Americans living in the cave would have experienced.

The discovery is not just significant because it so spectacularly increases the length of Americas human story. Its also important because it completely changes the climatic and cultural contexts in which the first humans colonised the New World. Prior to the Mexican discovery, the oldest proven human site in the Americas was at Gault in Texas (an open-air encampment partly dating from 19,000 BC  during the height of the Ice Age).

But the newly discovered central Mexican site was occupied well before the worlds climate reached its coldest stage (and it is therefore conceivable that the first peopling of the Americas took place, some time prior to then, in a comparatively warm interlude  rather than in an ultra-cold phase, as believed up till now). The discovery also raises the intriguing possibility that our species, Homo sapiens, first arrived in the Americas at very roughly the same time that they reached Britain and the rest of Western Europe, or relatively soon afterwards. Up till now, its been generally believed that the Americas were first colonised by humans 20,000-40,000 years after the rest of the planet had been populated. That long-held belief will now have to be discarded  and the history books rewritten.

Read more

New discovery suggests Londons history is 3,000 longer than thought
Lawmakers' Monday grilling of the CEOs of Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google will culminate a years-in-the-making transformation in the relationship between Washington and Silicon Valley from cooperation to confrontation.

The big picture: The proceedings will focus on questions of monopolistic behavior, but the event will be fueled by a longer list of beefs from both parties about misinformation, censorship, consumer privacy, China and more.

Why it matters: Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai will be forced to answer questions about their businesses as the world watches.

Its the most high-profile antitrust hearing since the feds went after Bill Gates and Microsoft in the 1990s, and it happens as state attorneys general, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission circle the companies as well.

1. The antitrust agenda

Lawmakers plan to drill down with each CEO on ways their companies may have acted to limit competition.

Facebook: The social networks snapping up of WhatsApp and Instagram has drawn questions over whether the acquisitions were aimed at squelching potential competitors. Committee staff have also sought details on any efforts by Facebook to cut off companies from its social graph.

The social networks snapping up of WhatsApp and Instagram has drawn questions over whether the acquisitions were aimed at squelching potential competitors. Committee staff have also sought details on any efforts by Facebook to cut off companies from its social graph. Google: The search giants ad-tech business has drawn the attention of the Justice Department, with publishers complaining about the stranglehold Google has on digital advertising dollars and online advertising competitors saying they are shut out. The company also faces complaints that it gives itself an advantage in search results, and the committee has sought details on how Googles algorithm ranks Google content or services against those of competitors.

The search giants ad-tech business has drawn the attention of the Justice Department, with publishers complaining about the stranglehold Google has on digital advertising dollars and online advertising competitors saying they are shut out. The company also faces complaints that it gives itself an advantage in search results, and the committee has sought details on how Googles algorithm ranks Google content or services against those of competitors. Amazon: Bezos will be grilled over whether the company uses data from third-party sellers to develop its own competing products. The committee demanded Bezos testify after a Wall Street Journal report appeared to contradict previous testimony from an Amazon lawyer who said the company doesnt use individual third-party sellers' data to develop products that competed directly with the sellers. Amazon has also faced questions from committee staff on how it ranks products, including its own.

Bezos will be grilled over whether the company uses data from third-party sellers to develop its own competing products. The committee demanded Bezos testify after a Wall Street Journal report appeared to contradict previous testimony from an Amazon lawyer who said the company doesnt use individual third-party sellers' data to develop products that competed directly with the sellers. Amazon has also faced questions from committee staff on how it ranks products, including its own. Apple: The European Union last month announced antitrust investigations into Apple for forcing app developers to use its proprietary system to offer in-app subscriptions and for blocking developers from informing users of ways they can pay for in-app content that don't go through Apple. Committee staff also have questioned Apple on the removal or restriction of screen-time and parental control apps from its App Store.

2. Misinformation

Since the 2016 election, tech platforms, especially Facebook, have struggled with how to address misinformation about everything from voting to vaccines, balancing efforts to remove false information against freedom of speech.

With the 2020 election coming up, lawmakers  especially Democrats  are sure to press the platforms on how theyre controlling misinformation on both paid advertisements and peoples posts online.

3. Content moderation

Lawmakers, along with President Trump, have been calling into question whether tech companies that host third-party content should continue to be protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for years now.

Members of Congress and presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle have called for changes to the law, and its become a cudgel for grievances against tech.

Expect Democrats to ask why Section 230 should stand if tech companies cant control hate speech on their platforms  and for Republicans to accuse the companies of using the law to perpetuate bias against conservatives.

4. China

The Trump administration has taken a hard line against China, going so far recently as to threaten to ban Chinese-owned video app TikTok.

At the same time, Attorney General Bill Barr has criticized Apple for what he sees as acquiescing to the Chinese government by taking down apps in its App Store and manufacturing many of its phones in China.

Facebook does not operate in China, and Google has been criticized for considering establishing a censored search engine there.

5. Privacy

Central to many lawmakers distrust of the tech giants is how they collect, share and use consumers data.

That data allowed Google and Facebook to become digital advertising heavyweights, prompting calls for regulation of data collection and targeted advertising.

The bottom line: Washington once turned to the tech industry for ideas, economic growth, and signs of hope that the U.S. could innovate its way past its problems. Today, the capital is instead viewing tech as a generator of countless problems and threats demanding government action.
Assaying are pending from 10 drill holes ("DDH") including 4 DDH at the La Pointe Extension

Highlights from the 2020 winter drilling program are: 1.14 g/t Au over 70.30 m including 1.66 g/t Au over 36.90 m 3.65 g/t Au over 4.10 m 1.45 g/t Au over 35.40 m 1.15 g/t Au over 80.10 m including 4.63 g/t Au over 5.95 m 0.60 g/t Au over 51.60 m 4.15 g/t Au over 3.50 m

7,000 m summer diamond drilling program to commence in early August

MONTREAL, QC / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Quebec Precious Metals Corporation ("QPM" or the "Company") (TSXV:CJC)(OTCQB:CJCFF)(FSE:YXEP) is pleased to report additional drill results at the La Pointe Extension discovery following the 7,448 m winter diamond drilling program on the 100% owned Sakami Project (the "Project") in Quebec's Eeyou Istchee James Bay territory. A 7,000 m summer drilling campaign is scheduled to start in early August to better define the exploration potential of this discovery. Assaying is pending from 4 DDH completed at the La Pointe Extension.

Results recently received from winter drilling program continues to highlight gold mineralized system continuity and significant exploration potential to the SW of the La Pointe deposit (see Table 1 for complete results of the program).

Normand Champigny CEO of QPM, stated: "Our exploration activities carried out since the creation of the Company in 2018 have resulted in the La Pointe Extension discovery and a high rate of successful drilling results."

The La Pointe deposit and new La Pointe Extension discovery are part of a larger 2- kilometre-long mineralized trend on the Project striking SSW-NNE (see Figures 1 and 2 and press releases of April 21 , June 18 and June 23, 2020 ). This discovery has potential kilometre-scale extensions that have been subject to very limited surface exploration and no drilling.

The drilling results indicate that gold-bearing mineralization at the La Pointe Extension discovery and La Pointe have a similar geological character: hosted within a volcano-sedimentary sequence of the Yasinski Group (La Grande Subprovince) which is metamorphosed to amphibolite facies and strongly deformed by a regional WSW to ENE event. This sequence is in contact with sedimentary rocks of the Laguiche Group (Opinaca Subprovince) to the east. The lithologies are composed mainly of: 1) biotite-rich and silicified paragneiss with intrusions of granodiorite, tonalite and pegmatite, and 2) amphibolite (metamorphosed sedimentary iron formation and mafic volcanic rock). The gold mineralization is accompanied by disseminated arsenopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite and cross-cutting quartz-carbonate veinlets.

The Project provides the Company with a controlling position over a 23-kilometre-long segment of a favourable geological contact and comprises of 259 claims (131.1 km2). It is located 570 km north of Val-d'Or, 120 km east of the municipality of Wemindji, 90 km from the Eleonore gold mine and 47 km northeast of the paved James Bay Road. Good infrastructure is present including major access roads, a hydro-power grid and airports. Drilling can be carried out throughout the year.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control

The drilling contract was awarded to Forage Val-d'Or Inc. based in Val d'Or, Quebec. The DDH diameter is NQW. Drilling took place from January 15 to March 24, 2020. Quality assurance and quality control procedures have been implemented to ensure best practices in sampling and analysis of the core samples. The drill core was logged and then split, with one-half sent for assay and the other retained in the core box as a witness sample. Duplicates, standards and blanks were inserted regularly into the sample stream. The samples were delivered, in secure tagged bags, directly to the ALS Minerals laboratory facility in Val-d'Or, Quebec. The samples are weighed and identified prior to sample preparation. All samples are analyzed by fire assay with AA finish on a 30 g sample (0.005-10 ppm Au), with a gravimetric finish for assays over 10 ppm Au.

Qualified Persons

Normand Champigny, Eng., Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and Jean-Sebastien Lavallee (OGQ #773), geologist, Vice-President Exploration, director and shareholder of the Company, both Qualified Persons under NI 43- 101 on standards of disclosure for mineral projects, have prepared and approved the technical content of this release.

About Quebec Precious Metals Corporation

QPM is a gold explorer with a large land position in the highly-prospective Eeyou Istchee James Bay territory, Quebec, near Newmont Corporation's Eleonore gold mine. QPM's flagship project is the Sakami project with significant grades and well-defined drill-ready targets. QPM's goal is to rapidly explore this project to advance it to the mineral resource estimate stage.

For more information please contact:

Jean-Francois Meilleur

President

Tel.: 514 951-2730

jfmeilleur@qpmcorp.ca Normand Champigny

Chief Executive Officer

Tel.: 514 979-4746

nchampigny@qpmcorp.ca

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Table 1: Sakami Project - Summary of significant gold results, La Pointe deposit and

La Pointe Extension and Simon area - Press release of July 22, 2020.

Notes:

All widths are drill indicated core length. DDH are generally planned to intersect mineralization as close to perpendicular to strike as possible. True widths are estimated to range from 75% to 90% of the down-hole length when DDH inclination and dip of the mineralized horizons are considered. All gold values presented are not capped.

La Pointe Deposit and La Pointe Extension

Hole # UTM E UTM N Length

(m) Azimuth

() Dip

() Number of samples From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Au

(g/t) La Pointe Deposit PT-20-138 375462 5895042 141 135 -50 94 No significant values PT-20-139 375532 5895041 60 135 -50 59 36.50 40.00 3.50 4.15 PT-20-140 375496 5895077 174 135 -63 149 118.00 119.00 1.00 1.17 173.00 174.00 1.00 1.68 PT-20-141 375536 5895107 132 135 -54 109 54.00 65.00 11.00 1.04 Including 54.00 55.50 1.50 3.41 Including 62.30 65.00 2.70 1.66 79.40 80.50 1.10 1.13 105.00 106.00 1.00 1.23 PT-20-142 375496 5895008 60 135 -50 62 39.00 40.00 1.00 1.31 PT-20-143 375623 5895020 201 0 -50 183 83.00 84.00 1.00 1.99 PT-20-144 375602 5894893 276 330 -50 209 69.00 72.00 3.00 1.68 163.50 164.00 0.50 1.17 193.80 195.00 1.20 1.15 PT-20-145 375650 5894909 216 335 -50 182 22.10 26.10 4.00 1.31 45.30 96.90 51.60 0.60 Including 60.00 63.00 3.00 1.33 Including 72.50 79.00 6.50 2.14 PT-20-146 375695 5894940 270 0 -50 235 60.50 64.70 4.20 1.55 PT-20-147 375812 5894959 276 0 -50 214 22.00 29.00 7.00 2.69 125.90 137.00 11.10 0.31 Including 125.90 127.40 1.50 1.09 171.00 175.50 4.50 1.38 La Pointe Extension PT-20-148 374470 5894276 345 145 -50 316 54.00 55.20 1.20 1.06 241.20 241.60 0.40 5.61 279.00 280.50 1.50 4.06 288.90 296.50 7.60 2.91 PT-20-149 374202 5894096 348 145 -50 280 241.45 242.15 0.70 2.19 252.50 253.20 0.70 5.06 PT-20-150 374263 5894016 270 143.4 -50.7 210 189.50 221.00 31.50 0.49 PT-20-151 373962 5893849 336 145 -50 300 231.90 312.00 80.10 1.15 Including 269.00 293.95 24.95 2.21 Including 288.00 293.95 5.95 4.63 PT-20-152 374632 5894963 729 27 -53 130 700.50 714.00 13.50 0.52 PT-20-153 374019 5893767 267 145 -50 222 152.10 187.50 35.40 1.45 Including 175.00 179.10 4.10 3.65 PT-20-154 374017 5893857 366 145 -50 296 74.80 81.60 6.80 2.74 Including 80.10 81.60 1.50 11.75 196.40 266.70 70.30 1.14 Including 196.40 233.30 36.90 1.66 PT-20-155 373935 5893799 294 145 -50 244 Assays pending PT-20-156 373906 5893749 300 145 -50 278 Assays pending PT-20-157 373865 5893720 378 145 -50 340 Assays pending PT-20-158 373917 5893646 264 145 -50 227 Assays pending

Simon area

Hole ID UTM E UTM N Length

(m) Azimuth

() Dip

() Number of samples From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) Au

(g/t) SI-20-06 376176 5897593 165 315 -60 148 7.50 11.50 4.00 0.37 23.60 31.50 7.90 0.30 48.00 105.30 57.30 0.52 including 48.00 66.00 18.00 0.90 including 84.50 105.30 20.80 0.57 SI-20-07 376442 5897352 150 330 -60 121 No significant values SI-20-08 376232 5897427 126 135 -75 39 78.50 80.30 1.80 0.72 SI-20-09 376143 5897503 146.20 315 -50 124 30.50 31.60 1.10 1.31 SI-20-10 376338 5897569 150 315 -50 48 No significant values SI-20-11 376555 5897372 159 315 -50 70 Assays pending SI-20-12 376759 5897593 129 315 -75 48 Assays pending SI-20-13 377064 5897440 201 315 -75 22 Assays pending SI-20-14 377005 5897500 150 315 -50 24 Assays pending SI-20-15 376934 5897308 150 315 -50 5 Assays pending SI-20-16 376176 5897593 219 315 -72 150 Assays pending

SOURCE: Precious Metals Corporation

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598353/Quebec-Precious-Metals-Drills-114-gt-Au-over-703-m-at-La-Pointe-Extension-Discovery
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national vice president and spokesperson, Baijayant Jay Panda, on Wednesday made a sensational charge linking some Bollywood personalities to Pakistan and the ISI. The former Member of Parliament from Odisha claimed in a tweet that some Bollywood personalities have business and personal links with certain Pakistanis and NRIs who encourage violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

Getty Images

He further asserted that these elements also have verifiable links to the Pakistani army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the notorious intelligence agency of the hostile neighbour. Panda also urged patriotic Bollywood people to shun such dodgy characters within the industry.

Came across shocking threads documenting personal & business links of some Bollywood personalities with certain Pakistanis & NRIs with undeniable track record encouraging violence in J&K, who have verifiable links to ISI & Pak army. I urge patriotic Bollywoodies to renounce them.  Baijayant Jay Panda (@PandaJay) July 22, 2020

The ISI has been held responsible by various Indian governments for spreading terror in India and carrying out attacks that have killed many Indian citizens. In the 1990s, some Bollywood actors and artistes were suspected of having close links with fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim.

Many photographs and videos, which are also in the public domain, surfaced in which these film personalities were seen hobnobbing with Dawood, the mastermind of Mumbai attacks of 1993 at his private parties in the UAE.

Thread:- 



Look who is talking the man @tonyashai (Aka Aziz Ashai) who himself is sitting in the cozy rooms of California and provoking Kashmiri Youth to Pick-up Stones and Guns while his own Son Bilal Ashai recently graduated from Los Angeles @USC with Masters Degree.



1/n  pic.twitter.com/WB8wcQ5IeL  Al iskandar (@TheSkandar) July 21, 2020

This is Aneel Mussarrat, who is close friend of Anil Kapoor Family. Aneel Mussarat is a Pakistan born Muslim British businessman. He is close friend of Imran Khan & is assigned many official tasks by current Pak Govt. He hosts Pakistan hierarchy in London. pic.twitter.com/cs2obN44oM  Arif Aajakia (@arifaajakia) August 18, 2019

And here, we always wondered why @iamsrk was strip searched at US airports 

What did they know that we didnt ?#TonyAshai  Nandini  (@NAN_DINI_) July 23, 2020

I think Mr @iamsrk should be investigated by #NIA for his Business link with #TonyAshai and #AneelMussarat the Pakistani ISI man and close confident of Imran Khan. #BollywoodPakISILink



Someone Please tag my tweet to Sharukh, I am blocked by him. pic.twitter.com/XXconE8XNo  Oxomiya Jiyori  (@SouleFacts) July 22, 2020

This revelation comes on the heels of the problem of nepotism that Bollywood celebrities are facing in the wake of Sushant Singh Rajputs suicide.
Police arrested four and broke up the gathering, which was called to protest against an upcoming vote to grant the government sweeping authority to bypass parliament in enacting measures to combat coronavirus.

It came against the backdrop of a fresh outpouring of discontent with Netanyahu. Protests outside his residence have become a weekly occurrence, with police increasingly taking harsher measures against demonstrators. Last month, they arrested a retired air force general, setting off an uproar.

The protests have since drawn a younger crowd and have grown more defiant. In the past week, thousands have participated in some of the largest demonstrations in nearly a decade against the long-time prime minister, as public discontent bubbles over.

Netanyahu has come under growing criticism for holding office while on trial for corruption, pushing for seemingly anti-democratic measures under the guise of combating the virus and mismanaging the countrys deepening economic crisis.

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On Tuesday night, a large coalition of protest groups combined to march through the streets of Jerusalem from Netanyahus official residence to the Knesset, Israels parliament.

They beat drums, banged on pots and blared on trumpets while calling for the prime ministers resignation and holding banners reading the Israeli spring is here. Towards the end, a young women climbed on to a mounted candelabra, the national symbol, and stripped off her shirt in protest.

Police said they arrested 34 people involved in the disturbances, deploying a heavy hand in the arrests.

The gathering also drew restaurant owners and celebrity chefs, frustrated by the governments inconsistent reopening policies for businesses.

Netanyahu has seen his popularity plummet in recent weeks as his corruption trial has got under way, and as his bloated, emergency coalition government  formed specifically to handle the crisis  has fumbled managing the pandemic.

The prime minister is on trial for a series of cases in which he allegedly received lavish gifts from billionaire friends and traded regulatory favours with media moguls for more favourable coverage of himself and his family.

He has denied any wrongdoing, accusing the media and law enforcement of a witch hunt to oust him from office, and has refused to step down.

Israel received praise for its early handling of the coronavirus crisis and imposing tight movement restrictions, but since reopening the economy in May, new cases have spiked and unemployment remains over 20%, up from 3.9% before the pandemic.

Critics of the Netanyahu governments response say it has provided too little assistance to Israelis and offered no safety net for hundreds of thousands of self-employed workers and business owners.

The government has also been accused of issuing contradictory guidelines that have further stoked the anger of everyday citizens.

An economic aid plan announced by Netanyahu last week, which would see hundreds of dollars handed out to every Israeli household, was widely condemned by economists and has hit a snag in parliament.
Lenovo officially unveils Legion Phone Duel gaming phone. Lenovo Legion Phone Duel comes with Snapdragon 865 Plus chip and 64MP dual cameras. Legion Phone Duel also supports 90W fast charging

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel has officially launched and marks the companys entry into the mobile phone gaming segment. It packs in flagship-grade hardware with Snapdragon 865 Plus chip and the RGB lightning puts it in the league of gaming phones out this year.

In fact, Asus ROG Phone 3 is also set to launch in just a few hours from now but unlike the Legion Phone Duel, it is confirmed to arrive in India. Theres currently no word as to whether Lenovo plans to launch its Legion Phone Duel gaming phone in India.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel pricing

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel starts at CNY 3499 (~Rs 37,000) for the base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage while the 12GB RAM variant with 128GB storage is priced at CNY 3899 (~Rs 41,500). Both these variants come with a 45W fast charging adapter.

Other variants with 12GB RAM/256GB storage and 65W fast charger is priced at CNY 4199 (~Rs 44,700) and the maxed-out variant with 16GB RAM/512GB storage and 90W fast charger is priced at CNY 5999 (~Rs 63,900).

The Legion Phone Duel is expected to launch in other countries in Asia, Latin America and Europe in the coming months.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel specifications

The Legion Phone Duel features a 6.59-inch Full HD+ resolution display that uses an AMOLED panel with a 144Hz high refresh rate. The screen has minimal bezels on the front as the front-facing camera has been repositioned on the side. The display is also home to a fingerprint sensor. The phone has an RGB lighting system underneath the Legion logo on the back which can be customized from the phone. The phone measures 9.9 millimetres in thickness and has a 239 grams weight.

The Legion gaming phone is powered by top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset with an octa-core CPU and Adreno 650 GPU. The Snapdragon 865 Plus is essentially an overclocked Snapdragon 865 with the prime core capable of running at up to 3.1GHz. This is paired with upto 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and upto 512GB UFS 3.1 storage options to choose from. It runs on Android 10-based Legion OS out-of-the-box.

It comes with a dual-camera setup on the back that consists of a primary 64MP camera with an f/1.8 aperture and a 16MP ultra-wide-angle camera with a 120-degree field-of-view. As for the selfie camera, Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is one of the first phones to come with a side-mounted 20MP selfie camera thats housed in a pop-up mechanism. With this placement, Lenovo is targeting gamers who also live-stream their matches as the side-mounted selfie camera will help you add a selfie-inlay while streaming online.

Lenovo Legion Phone Duel is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery that supports 90W fast charging. However, to utilize the full potential of the fast charging compatibility, the user will need to charge it simultaneously by using both the USB Type-C ports. Lenovo claims that by using both the charging ports simultaneously, it takes 10 minutes for the phone to go from 0-50% and 30 minutes to fully charge the battery.
C ardiacs frontman Tim Smith has died at the age of 59.

The musician, who formed the British rock band in 1980 with his brother James 'Jim' Smith, previously suffered from a full cardiac arrest in 2008, prompting him to take a step back from music.

He developed the neurological disorder dystonia after suffering hypoxic brain damage as a result of the heart attack, which impacted his ability to speak and play music.

Smith's cause of death has not yet been revealed.

Cardiacs, who were cited as an inspiration by bands like Blur and Radiohead, released nine albums between 1980 and 2008, before Smith's health condition prompted him to step back from live performances.

In 2018, a crowdfunding campaign was launched to help raise money to cover Smith's ongoing care.

TV host Matthew Wright was among the fans to pay tribute to Smith, writing on Twitter: "Just been told Tim Smith of Cardiacs is no longer with us. He's singing to god in person I guess.

"My deepest condolences to his loved ones, his many friends and countless fans. A sad day for music."

Musician Max Tundra wrote: "RIP Tim Smith. Your inventive splendour helped bend my ears to the very limits of what music can do."

Journalist Rhodri Marsden added: "Incredibly sad to hear about the passing of Cardiacs' Tim Smith.

"A unique musical mind, a wonderful man. What a s**t day. But he'll always be the dazzling light at the centre of a huge musical family."
Restaurants are protesting lockdown restrictions today, which forms part of a fightback against restrictions on cigarettes, alcohol, and other rules.

Restaurants initially planned to block roads with tables and chairs as part of their Million seats on the streets protest.

The SA Police Service (SAPS), however, did not grant restaurants permission to embark on this protest action because of traffic disruptions.

Despite this setback, Restaurant Association of South Africa CEO Wendy Alberts said the nationwide protest will go ahead.

Instead of blocking streets outside their restaurants with tables and chairs, the restaurant owners will now stage a peaceful protest.

The main issue which restaurants are fighting for is to allow all establishments with a valid liquor license to sell and distribute alcohol.

Alberts said the current restrictions on liquor sales make it impossible for restaurants to make ends meet.

She said the government can impose alcohol restrictions in hotspots with a lot of alcohol-related trauma, instead of a national ban.

Other proposals include a limit of two drinks per meal and that alcohol can only be sold when a person orders a main meal.

Legal action

The Free Market Foundations Jacques Jonker said the manner in which the government reinstated the ban on the sale of alcohol disregards the rule of law and the constitution.

Jonker told MyBroadband this approach was problematic, as the government had not gazetted the regulations at this point or immediately following Ramaphosas statement.

Various parties within the alcohol industry, ranging from producers to suppliers and distributors, were caught off-guard by the ban  saying that they received no warning of the change beforehand.

Ten Cape Town restaurants are now challenging the ban of the sale of alcohol at restaurants and have lodged a notice of motion in the Western Cape High Court.

These restaurants are also seeking a declaratory order to have the 21:00 curfew extended to 23:00 for patrons.

Various ministers are respondents, including the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Minister of Tourism, and Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition.

The Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI) is also planning legal action to allow the sale of wine in restaurants.

SAAI CEO Francois Rossouw said they will bring this legal action on behalf of 120 wine farmers which are fighting for survival amidst the alcohol ban.

Distell CEO Richard Rushton said they will exhaust every possible communication channel in their bid to get the alcohol ban lifted.

He added that they are also seeking legal advice on the matter as they have not been consulted on the ban, which was unreasonable.

SAB vice-president of corporate affairs, Zoleka Lisa, told Times Live they are engaging with the government, but no decision has been made on legal action yet.

Cigarette ban

The University of Cape Towns Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP) has published a new report on smoking behaviour during South Africas coronavirus lockdown.

According to the report, current regulations have opened up loopholes for illicit products to be distributed in South Africa.

The ban has also created an environment that will likely encourage smoking once the ban has been lifted.

Being allowed to produce cigarettes for the export market, but not able to sell cigarettes in South Africa, has created a loophole and an incentive to sell illegally in the very lucrative local market, the report said.

The report further found that the average price of cigarettes is nearly 250% higher than pre-lockdown prices, averaging R5.69 per stick. This equates to around R114 for a pack of 20 cigarettes.

Considering the ineffectiveness of the cigarette ban and the negative effect in the industry and taxes, it is not surprising that it is challenged legally.

The Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) and British American Tobacco (BATSA) are engaged in legal action against the ban on cigarette sales.

The BATSA case has been pushed back until 5 and 6 August while the FITA appeal against a courts previous ruling in favour of the government is expected to be ruled on soon.

Restaurant protest photos

Twitter Posts




Pondei fainted after being asked to explain the missing billions from NDDC

The acting managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei has been discharged from the hospital after he fainted yesterday while being interrogated over missing billions, according to Channels Television.

Pondei was rushed to a medical facility after he slowly fainted on his desk on Monday, July 20 while being asked questions by the House of Representatives committee on NDDC.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, informed the gathering after the NDDC boss was led out, that his doctor and some medical officials in the National Assembly were attending to him.

Speaking afterwards, the minister of Niger Delta affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio acknowledged the help rendered to Pondei by Gbajabiamila.

It is expected that a medical report on Pondies health will be released to the public after the incident that left many Nigerians talking.

The incident was the number one trending topic on social media as Nigerians shared their thoughts on the issue.

While some believe the NDDC boss was only acting, others say he should be checked thoroughly by medical professionals.

Another journalist, Fisayo Soyombo wrote on Twitter: Kemebradikumo Pondei, acting MD of NDDC, fainted during todays hearing at the National Assembly.

Nigerian public officials only faint or become sick during public hearings, police arrests and court trials on their financial dealings.

Any other time, theyre as fit as a fiddle.

Pastor Reno Omokri, a former presidential aide, wrote on Twitter:

Before he slumped, Pondei had revealed that the NDDC spent N1.32 billion as COVID-19 relief funds for staff, not N1.5 billion as earlier reported in the news.

He also disclosed that Niger Delta youths were given palliatives to help cushion the effect of the pandemic on the people.

According to him, the youths were idle and to avoid violence, they were paid.

Death penalty is the best way to end corruption in Nigeria
According to Armenian News-NEWS.am, an incident took place in one of the offices belonging to founder of SIL Concern LLC, businessman Khachatur Sukiasyan last evening.

Moscow-based businessman Onik Karapetyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am that Khachatur Sukiasyans younger brother had beaten him along with his bodyguard in the office located in Yerevan.

The brother and his bodyguard called me on the phone and told me they had something to talk about in regard to my maternal aunt's son, adding that I had done business with him in 2016 and that I owed him money. I asked them how they knew about that, and they told me to see them, Karapetyan said.

The businessman said years ago he and his maternal aunt's son had launched a construction project in Moscow, but they had suffered financial losses, after which the maternal aunts son had demanded that the businessman give him back his money, but Karapetyan claims that everything was legal and that he doesnt owe anyone anything.

I went to the area near the office. The man and his bodyguards talked to me and said I owe them money. They stated different amounts and told me they would destroy everything I have, if I didnt pay them. When I told them I dont owe anyone anything, the man and his bodyguards started hitting my face and head and broke my nose. At the end, they told me not to complain to anyone since the Prime Minister and police support them. I spent the whole night undergoing a nose surgery at the hospital, but since there was no place to stay in the hospital due to the coronavirus situation, I went home, he said.

The Police of Armenia told Armenian News-NEWS.am that Karapetyan has filed a report to the police station and informed that he was beaten during a dispute in Yerevan yesterday. The police are preparing a report, and a forensic medicine expert examination has been designated.
CHICAGO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Paschen Engineering Scholars Class of 2020 celebrated their graduation from the program virtually at the annual Hard Hat Ceremony. This is the second group of Chicago Public Schools students to graduate from the program. In addition to the graduation, six rising sophomores from Westinghouse were introduced as the latest class of Paschen Engineering Scholars. A total of 22 scholars and their families were in attendance for the virtual celebration.

The Paschen Engineering Scholars Program curriculum includes hands-on activities to develop technical skills, build problem-solving abilities, and gain real world work experience to improve the scholars' knowledge of and access to career opportunities in the STEM and construction fields. Additionally, the program includes sponsored college-level engineering summer courses at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

"Given the challenging circumstances, we knew we couldn't host the event at our Headquarters, so in conjunction with the tremendous administration at Westinghouse, we got creative and found a way to virtually celebrate all the many accomplishments of the Class of 2020" said F.H. Paschen's Chief Operating Officer, Chuck Freiheit.

The five graduates received over $3 million in scholarships to the colleges and universities of their choice. Additionally, the graduates received senior gifts from F.H. Paschen, consisting of a generous gift card to help cover college related expenses and a package of dorm room/college-living essentials. The new class of Paschen Scholars (Class of 2023) features six students, four of which are women.

"We truly believe in these students and the work that we are doing together with Westinghouse in creating career opportunities in engineering and construction," said F.H. Paschen President and CEO Jim Blair. "F.H. Paschen takes pride in engaging with the communities we serve and providing opportunities for the next generation of leaders in engineering and construction. We are proud and excited for our graduates and look forward to showing our new class what it means to Build With Paschen."

The celebration was held virtually on Tuesday, June 30th.

ABOUT F.H. PASCHEN:

F.H. Paschen is a general contractor and construction manager with over 110 years of experience in the construction industry, serving both public and private customers and clients across the country. We are committed to building strong relationships with diverse businesses and engaging the communities we serve with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, D.C., Dallas and Lafayette. F.H. Paschen is an equal opportunity employer.

SOURCE F.H. Paschen

Related Links

www.fhpaschen.com


NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 21, 2020 / Aegis Capital Corp., - Aegis Capital Corp. (www.aegiscapcorp.com) a full-service wealth management, financial services and investment banking firm is pleased to announce Stephen Todd Walker located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has joined the firm as a Managing Director, Institutional & Corporate Investment Group. Prior to joining Aegis Capital, Todd worked at the Royal Bank of Canada

Mr. Walker has more than 25 years of experience, specializing in wealth management services and currently manages in excess of $215 million in client assets. He works with high net worth individuals, families, institutions and corporations to grow, manage, protect, and transfer their wealth through tailored advice. Mr. Walker began his career in the financial industry with Alex Brown & Sons Inc., then went on to gain his experience working at brokerage firms such as Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and Oppenheimer & Co. where he held leadership roles. Mr. Walker was most recently a Senior Vice President at RBC. His expertise spans fixed income, alternatives products, restricted stock, retirement income planning and corporate cash accounts. Among some of his accomplishments are he authored two recognized finance books, Riding the Wave with Hedge Funds, Commodities and Venture Capital and Understanding Alternative Investments, he was named a member of the Chairman's Group at Morgan Stanley, was one of the youngest Directors in Alex Brown's history and has made several contributions to television, radio and financial publications.

Robert Eide Aegis' CEO commented: "We are excited to welcome Todd to the firm. With significant industry knowledge and a commitment to provide a high level of personalized service to clients, he is a great fit with our firm's culture and will be a valuable addition to our team."

Michael Pata Aegis' Head of Business Development commented: "Todd takes a holistic approach to helping clients by looking at all aspects of their financial lives. His addition speaks to the value of Aegis' boutique and client-focused managed platform. We look forward to providing him with the resources he needs to exceed client expectations."

Story continues

About Aegis Capital Corporation

Aegis Capital Corporation "Aegis" has been in business for over 35 years and maintains a conflict free service platform catering to the needs of private clients, institutions and corporations. Aegis was founded in 1984 and offers its investment representatives a conflict free service platform and is able to provide a full-range of products and services including investment banking, wealth management, insurance, retirement planning, structured products, private equity, alternatives, equity research, fixed income and special purpose vehicles. Aegis is able to bring quality service through its primary clearing relationship with RBC Correspondent Services whose parent company, Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE:RY), is one of the world's leading diversified financial services companies. Member: FINRA & SIPC

Any questions contact:

Michael Pata, Head of Business Development

Telephone: 1-212-813-1010

mpata@aegiscap.com

SOURCE: Aegis Capital Corp.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/598293/Aegis-Capital-Corp-announces-Stephen-Todd-Walker-as-a-Managing-Director-Institutional-Corporate-Investment-Group




Are whales really just food? This documentary focuses not on the "scientific" whaling in the Southern Ocean, but the much more honest whale hunting in Scandinavia, where whale meat has long been a valuable protein supply. We start in the Faroe Islands, part of the Kingdom of Denmark. There, the traditional capture and killing of pilot whales (not endangered) goes back at least a thousand years, and is still done old-school: pods are herded into a shallow cove and slaughtered by hand.

Stacey Dooley.

We then head out into the Norwegian Sea where minke whales (also not endangered) are fished commercially, using harpoons shot out of a canon. Like all Stacey Dooley's best work, it's all very friendly, accessible and non-judgmental, raising important questions rather than providing definitive answers.

Killing whales is bloody and confronting. But so is killing cows. Whales are highly intelligent. But so are pigs. Is it, in fact, more environmentally responsible to harvest wild meat than rely on large-scale livestock farming? And when it comes to the issues of cruelty, it's perhaps one of the Norwegian whalers who provides the most food for thought. "Do they suffer before they die?" Dooley asks him. "I think everybody does that," he responds.
A complex and combative inter-regional political fight involving three Bay Area counties  San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara  is threatening to submarine a sales tax measure that could keep the 156-year-old Caltrain commuter railroad running.

Supervisors from San Francisco and Santa Clara, which sit at either end of the 51-mile-long commuter railroad, have put the squeeze on San Mateo County, insisting on changes in how the system is governed.

But Caltrain officials on Tuesday said a proposed agreement to get the measure on the ballot, which would require a change in how the railroad is run, is illegal and likely to perplex voters.

The new proposal, which was made public Tuesday, would direct all proceeds from the November sales tax into an escrow account controlled by the three-county Joint Powers Board that manages the Peninsula rail system. It would commit $40 million to Caltrain if the rail agency receives no federal stimulus funding.

However, at that point San Francisco and Santa Clara would end their annual contributions of about $30 million, leaving Caltrain officials with a net gain they estimate at only about $10 million. Caltrain officials said thats not nearly enough to salvage the popular commuter line, which has lost 95% of its riders during the pandemic.

The agency is in such dire financial straits that top staff warned it could shut down  or severely cut service  if the 1/8 cent tax measure does not pass.

Any hope of keeping Caltrain from financial ruin will require the proposed sales tax to wind through a long set of approvals from the three counties  as well as four transit boards  before it can get on the ballot. It would then need approval from two-thirds of voters.

Caltrain is operated by the San Mateo County Transit District, which also runs SamTrans, the countys bus system, and plans its road improvements.

The dispute became more of regional battle Tuesday morning, with San Francisco and Santa Clara  the Bay Areas two largest counties, which sit on either end of the commuter rail line  pressuring San Mateo to accept the escrow proposal.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and a passel of elected officials from the two counties issued a joint statement backing a change in governance for Caltrain in connection with the sales tax proposal.

It is never a good time to deal with governance, the officials said, but we cant keep kicking the can down the tracks.

Caltrain and San Mateo County transportation officials countered with a memo from their own attorney, which said the escrow proposal would be illegal.

It is my strong opinion that larding approval with requirements of changed governance or targeted or restricted spending requirements will render the tax subject to a successful taxpayer legal challenge, James Wagstaffe, the agencies general counsel, wrote in the memo.

San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton called Wagstaffes letter an attempt to divert attention from the governance proposal.

We have attorneys that disagree, Walton said.

Officials from all three counties sit on a joint-powers board that oversees the nations seventh-largest commuter railroad. But San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whose objections along with Waltons, threw the original ballot measure proposal into limbo, complained that the board doesnt hire Caltrains executive director or attorney or plan its own budget. Peskin accused San Mateo officials of steering some of Caltrains revenues to run buses in San Mateo County.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The supervisors picked the public fight by refusing to vote to place the sales tax on the ballot because of a refusal to change the agencys governance structure. Caltrain officials said the decision could bring service to a screeching stop, so Peskin and Walton submitted a proposal Friday that would have directed all funds generated by the one-eighth-cent sales tax to the county in which the revenue was collected. The funds would then be deposited into an account controlled by the countys transit agency, which would then have the authority to give all of it  or a fraction of it  to Caltrain.

Caltrain officials and a host of Peninsula lawmakers cried foul, saying the proposed agreement ran counter to state legislation passed in 2017, which allowed the sales tax to be placed on the ballots in the three counties. They also said Peskin and Waltons effort was an attempt to seize control of Caltrain. That proposal was scrapped and replaced with the plan introduced Tuesday.

Its not a power grab, Peskin said in an interview Tuesday. It is about having shared regional governance for what is truly a regional resource.

State Sen. Jerry Hill, who represents San Mateo and wrote Senate Bill 797 to authorize the three-county tax measure for Caltrain, called on supervisors to keep the proposed funding issue simple. In a letter to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, Hill asked the South Bay supervisors to approve a clean ballot measure without conditions that could confuse voters or face a legal challenge.

A vote for anything else is a vote against dedicated funding for Caltrain, and a vote against the riders that depend on it, he wrote.

The latest Caltrain proposal was introduced at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. It had also been scheduled for discussion by Santa Clara County supervisors but the issue was postponed. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board on Tuesday put off a decision until San Francisco supervisors take action.

Clarification: This story was updated to make clear that an earlier proposal from San Francisco supervisors Aaron Peskin and Shamann Walton was replaced by a plan introduced Tuesday.

Michael Cabanatuan and Rachel Swan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com and rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan and @rachelswan
Staff Reporter  The Zimbabwe Daily

Cape Town, South Africa  Following the suspension of the sale and distribution of alcohol as well as a nighttime curfew by the government, the Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) has taken to the streets in protest.

Government has allowed restaurants to operate under strict COVID-19 regulations but RASA is saying the regulations are hurting their economic viability.

We are protesting at our premises and hopefully the government will adhere to our concerns, said Wendy Alberts, RASAs CEO.

Lucky Ntimane, Convenor of the National Liquor Traders Council of South Africa also said they are joining in the protests.

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We are in support of the protests, we want the resumption of the sale of alcohol and cigarettes. We havent had any formal conversation with the government on the way forward, said Ntimane.

With over 380 000 COVID-19 cases government has had to choose between the health of the nation or its economic wellbeing.

Although many medical professionals are in support of the suspension of the sale of alcohol and cigarettes, many economists have castigated the move citing loss of revenue, businesses and jobs.

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Phoenix, AZ -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/22/2020 -- VoiceAmerica, the leader in online media broadcasting and the largest distributor of live internet talk radio, announced the newest podcast episode by Landmark Recovery "Embracing Change", with host, Michelle McGinnis, and guest Dr. Carlo DiClemente, as they discuss integrated care for those battling substance abuse. The episode played live on July 21st and can be found at Landmark Recovery Radio.



In this episode we are joined by guest Dr. Carlo DiClemente. Dr. DiClemente serves as professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland. He is also the co-creator of the Trans-theoretical Model of Change. Dr. DiClemente and Michelle exchange their opinions on using integrated care for treated substance abuse disorders and other co-occurring disorders.



About Dr. Carlo DiClemente

Dr. Carlo DiClemente serves as a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland. Around the globe, he is recognized as co-creator of the Trans theoretical Model of Change, better known as the stages of change. He has written along with coauthored more than 140 publications. His most recent writing is called "Addiction and Change." Throughout his career he has received rewards from multiple different foundations such as the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and ASAM.



About Landmark Recovery

Landmark Recovery offers individualized treatment, including detox, inpatient drug and alcohol rehab, intensive outpatient, and alumni programming to address addiction. Landmark has drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers in Carmel, Louisville, Oklahoma City and Lexington. They also have a sister company, Praxis by Landmark Recovery, that is based in Louisville, Kentucky and serves the Medicaid population. If you or a loved one need help with recovery, call 866-504-8545 or visit Landmark Recovery .



About VoiceAmerica

VoiceAmerica is the original digital broadcast company for the production and delivery of Live Internet Talk Radio programming and continues to be the industry leader in digital media, marketing, and distribution. We are the pioneers of digital radio programming and have been since 1999. We create and distribute over 500 unique and innovative radio programs for our millions of engaged listeners worldwide. Our network channels distribute live programs daily that reach a growing domestic and international audience who connect through all devices via our mobile, desktop, and tablet VoiceAmerica destinations. Learn more at http://www.voiceamerica.com. Download the VoiceAmerica App now to listen live on Apple and Android. follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Call us any time to find out how VoiceAmerica can help you reach your audience, 1-855-877-4666.
Montgomery County commissioners sent officials with the Montgomery County Central Appraisal District sent a message they would not support a budget increase by rejecting the districts proposed 2020-21 Fiscal Year budget last week.

MCAD submitted a $12.2 million budget to the county, a 2 percent increase over the current years budget of $12 million. Since all taxing entities pay a share of the budget, Montgomery Countys portion would be $2.2 million up from $2.1 million. Conroe ISD, the largest contributor to the MCAD budget, is proposed to pay $4 million.

Its a slight increase over what we currently pay but a decrease from what we budgeted, said Montgomery County Budget Officer Amanda Carter.

According to the proposed budget, MCAD is increasing several line items including contract labor, postage, forms and computer services. Carter told commissioners the district did not have any increases for staff raises or new staff.

However, Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack called the budget increase unwarranted.

I went through the budget and would like to make a motion we reject their proposal to increase their budget, he said. A 2-2.5 percent increase is not warranted. (The rejection) would be more symbolic but, I think we need to let them know we are not in favor of raising it at all.

Commissioners agreed to defer the item until a representative with MCAD could attend a court meeting to discuss the increases.

County Judge Mark Keough agreed with Noack and said while he supports increases in some items, he did not agree with others.

Im not in favor of increasing this, yall know that, he said.

Commissioners will revisit the budget at a future meeting.

cdominguez@hcnonline.com
Syracuse, N.Y.  New Syracuse University students who want to arrive to school early and do a mandatory two-week quarantine in their dorm rooms will have to pay the school $1,000 to do so, the school said in an email to students on Tuesday.

In addition to the housing, the $1,000 will cover three meals a day for two weeks. The e-mail was sent to students by school administrators Mike Haynie and Amanda Nicholson.

New York currently requires individuals from 31 different states to quarantine if they come to New York. The state added 10 states to its mandatory quarantine list on Tuesday, while removing one. Before those changes, Syracuse said that nearly 2,000 students would be subject to mandatory quarantine. The addition of those new states increases the number of students that will be required to quarantine.

According to New York State, to comply with a quarantine, students are prohibited from being in public or leaving their assigned living space for two weeks. It requires individuals to have their own living space and individual bathroom.

The states quarantine list currently includes individuals from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The other option for new students from mandatory quarantine states is to quarantine elsewhere in New York or elsewhere in a state that isnt on New Yorks mandatory quarantine list. The school also is looking at putting together a list of local hotels and trying to negotiate a reduced rate for students.

Returning students who plan to live on campus can either quarantine off campus or opt for a local hotel, while off-campus residents can complete their quarantines in their apartments, elsewhere off campus or in a local hotel.

The school said previously that it will require students to produce evidence that they quarantined, although it didnt describe what would be required or how they would be enforced.

Syracuse said that it will continue to communicate with the state and advocate for what it considers safe alternatives to the 14-day quarantine, which poses a substantial challenge for schools to facilitate. The challenge for most schools is that residence halls traditionally have shared restrooms, making it impossible to quarantine all students in school housing.

The school is allowing students who prefer not to come to campus for the fall to take classes remotely and crediting any money that has been paid for housing and meal plans to the spring. It also said that it will work to provide financial help for students who face a hardship in paying for a quarantine.

The school has identified the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel & Conference Center, which is owned by the school, for quarantine and isolation housing that is needed during the school year.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS AND COLLEGES

Syracuse reopening plan: Nearly 2,000 students could need to quarantine; Sheraton will be used during the year

College students confront falls reality: A lot of people are upset were paying more for less

Syracuse University may look much different when students return: Sports, parties, office hours, more

Syracuse University will require negative coronavirus test from students before they arrive on campus

Syracuse University releases suggestions for fall reopening: Dont hold doors and keep 12 months of PPE

How will Syracuse University test 20,000 students for coronavirus? By pooling their saliva

Contact Chris Carlson anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1639
New look: out and about in a face covering

The ongoing coronavirus crisis has already impacted so many elements of our daily lives but as we take the initial first steps towards coming out of lockdown, more adjustments are going to have to be made.

The latest involves wearing a face covering on public transport and in places where it is difficult to stay two metres apart from people outside your household, such as your weekly trip to the supermarket.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, news stories and social media feeds have been filled with images of health care workers who are dealing with skin problems caused by wearing medical grade masks for hours on end, with many seeing increases in breakouts, rashes, and skin irritation.

And while wearing a cloth face covering will cause nowhere near the levels of discomfort experienced by frontline workers, for some, having to wear a mask can result in flare-ups and aggravate pre-existing skin conditions.

According to leading dermatologist Dr Anil Budh-Raja, face coverings can cause a multitude of problems for the skin, including rashes due to friction from rubbing, acne and eczema.

"If any part of the mask touches active acne, this can also aggravate the acne and create more inflamed spots, while severe eczema and psoriasis can also worsen," he explains, adding that edges of poor quality masks may also be sharp or abrasive and can cause substantial irritation, sores, or even cuts.

Dr Anjali Mahto, consultant dermatologist and author of The Skincare Bible, agrees, adding that wearing masks can lead to an accumulation of sweat, which can lead to blocked pores.

Here, we speak to the two leading dermatologists to find out how wearing a face covering might be affecting your complexion and what you can do to help keep your skin clear and healthy.

Making your own mask? Some fabrics are better than others

The good news is, there are several things you can do to prevent your face mask from causing any damage to your skin.

Firstly, it is important to consider the material that your mask is made from, says Dr Budh-Raja.

Unless you are a healthcare worker on the frontline, the government recommends wearing a cloth face covering (so that N95 and surgical masks can be reserved for those who really need them).

Ideally, these should be made from tightly woven cotton instead of synthetic fabric, as they will feel more breathable and softer on the skin.

If you're using a homemade cloth face mask, you should also wash it regularly, as it may be absorbing your skin's natural oils which could lead to breakouts.

Prevention is better than cure

To help minimise the effects of wearing a face mask, you could also consider using an ointment or salve to protect sensitive areas from friction or chafing, Dr Mahto says.

Similarly, it can be beneficial to apply a barrier cream or petrolatum jelly, such as Aquaphor or Vaseline, as an occlusive to cover up broken areas of skin overnight.

Dr Mahto recommends that anyone experiencing itching or an eczema-type rash purchase some OTC Eumovate Cream 0.05%, which is a mild steroid, and apply to any areas of inflamed skin twice daily for a period of seven days.

If there is still no improvement, you should seek medical advice from your GP.

Change up your skincare routine

For day-to-day care, she also stresses the importance of ensuring your skin is properly hydrated as this will help improve the barrier function of the skin. To prevent your skin from drying out, stick to unscented or fragrance-free cleansers like La Roche Posay's Toleriane Dermo Cleanser or Cerave's Hydrating Cleanser.

While it can be tempting to cleanse immediately before and after wearing a face mask, Dr Mahto says it is best to limit yourself to cleansing twice a day, once in the morning and evening, as any more can lead to further dryness, irritation, and redness, especially for those with dry, sensitive or mature skin types.

It is also important to pat your face dry with a towel to dry it after cleansing rather than rubbing the skin and using a moisturiser to prevent water loss.

For this, Dr Budh-Raja suggests investing in a cream that contains ceramides and hyaluronic acid as both these ingredients are highly moisturising, while ceramides create a good barrier layer on the skin.

Similarly, creams containing anti-inflammatory ingredients such as liquorice extract, green tea, colloidal oatmeal, resveratrol and turmeric can help soothe irritated skin.

If your skin is experiencing irritation from wearing a face mask, Dr Mahto advises taking a break from using any harsh scrubs or chemical exfoliators that may worsen the problem.

Adopt a minimalist make-up bag

Face masks create a humid environment that can affect sebum production in your skin, leading to clogged pores and breakouts.

If you are noticing breakouts around your nose, mouth, and chin, it might help to minimise the amount of make-up you wear, particularly foundations and concealer with heavy formulations, underneath your mask.

"You don't need to avoid make-up but it's best to use breathable make-up with a water-based foundation to prevent clogging of pores under the mask," says Dr Budh-Raja. "It can sometimes get warm under the mask, so keep make-up light."
David Mitchell is a writer who loves to hop around in time and space. Cloud Atlas, his best-known novel, begins in the 19th century in the Pacific, sweeps through 1930s Bruges, Seventies California, early 21st-century Britain, a future dystopian Korean state, a post-apocalyptic Hawaii, then back again. In later works, he has visited 18th-century Japan, the early Eighties England of his childhood and West Cork - where he now lives - in 2043.

His latest is set in the British music scene in the hippy heyday of 1967 and the comedown of 1968 (although he can't resist a final leap forward to the present day). It tells the story of Utopia Avenue, a psychedelic group that is somehow more than the sum of its unlikely parts: Jasper de Zoet, a faintly aristocratic, socially awkward virtuoso guitarist who suffers from "aural schizophrenia"; Elf Holloway, a "folk-scene doyenne" who now specialises in Hammond organ pyrotechnics; Peter 'Griff' Griffin, a gruff Yorkshireman who used to drum in a jazz band; and Dean Moss, a leering rock bassist from working-class Essex. They are brought together by Levon Frankland, a shrewd, sharp-suited Canadian manager with boundless patience.

Their name is conjured by de Zoet to sum up the band's "paradoxical" nature. "Utopia is unobtainable. Avenues are everywhere," he explains. It also encapsulates the nature of the Sixties as experienced here. On one level, there is the grand dream of peace, love and understanding; on the other, there's the cold reality of life: boring family meals, grotty service stations, sexism, infidelity, estrangement and untimely death. This may be the most mythologised decade of all time, but Mitchell does not look at it through rose-tinted John Lennon specs.

The band start out with a sparsely attended gig at a students' union and are attacked by mods in the car park afterwards. They will go on to have two hit albums and reach their zenith at a Californian music festival, but the journey there is less magical mystery tour, more mundane misery slog. The Summer of Love it may be, but the band's prevailing emotions are anxiety, jealousy and frustration.

We know this is the Sixties, though, because of the procession of luminaries who pop up like guest stars on a TV Christmas special: "Chuffin' Heck! It's Jimi Hendrix!" We also get cameos from Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Francis Bacon, a pre-fame David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Allen Ginsburg and, in a sour reminder of Mitchell's refusal to airbrush this decade, Jimmy Savile.

Chapters are named after Utopia Avenue song titles. If this were an album, it would be a lengthy and patchy compilation, more Beatles Anthology than Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Some 'tracks' are charming, some affecting, some strangely familiar (both in plot and character), some workaday. But if you don't like this one, don't worry, there'll be another in a few minutes. The author seems to enjoy pitching his characters from one challenging situation to another: being imprisoned unfairly; having a psychotic episode; getting blackmailed by a friend.

Some exchanges border the cartoonish, especially when the forces of anti-hippy reaction are embodied by a harrumphing brigadier, complete with medal and regimental tie. "We didn't smack the Nazis for six just for a mob of guitar-twanging oiks to turn Great Britain into a land of yeah-yeahs and ooh-babys," he intones. The dialogue can be hammy ("I detected a whiff of the Cockney barrow boy about you from the first," Dean's landlady tells him). At other points, Mitchell fires off the novelistic equivalent of a head-turning guitar fill: on the same landlady's wallpaper's "once floral pattern has sunk into a jungle gloom"; the Soho cafe where Dean works is "hot dank and dark as armpits"; a darkroom is "quiet as a locked church".

All told, this is a diverting if not entirely convincing detour on Mitchell's time-travelling odyssey.
The Congress party went all guns blazing against the Yogi Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday after Vikram Joshi, a 35-year-old journalist, died following an attack in Ghaziabad.

Vikram Joshi had sustained a gunshot injury in the head after he was attacked by a group of men late on Monday night at Vijay Nagar of the city. Police have said Joshi was attacked by the men after he had lodged a complaint against one of them for harassing his niece.

Senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said Joshis ruthless murder has exposed the face of goondaraj (rule by hooligans) in Uttar Pradesh as he listed a number of crimes against journalists in the state.

When the situation is like this in Ghaziabad which is adjacent to Delhi-NCR, then you can guess how goodaraj and jungle raj in Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh are on their peak, Surjewala said during a press conference.

The senior leader related the sequence of events before and after Mondays attack on Joshi as he criticised the law and order situation in the state.

Is it a crime to be a journalist in states ruled by the BJP? Are journalists now gangsters? Will the police not heed to calls by journalists like Vikram Joshi? Will journalists be killed by gangsters in broad daylight? The situation in Uttar Pradesh is pitiful, he said.

He said examples of such attacks of journalists and their families are important as he talked about the crimes against them.

And now Vikram Joshi is murdered ruthlessly in public. Where is Adityanathji? Where is the rule of law under the BJP? Is it the same Ram Rajya that BJP promised after it came to power? he asked.

Before that, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also termed the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government as goondaraj, hours after Joshi succumbed to the bullet injury.

Journalist Vikram Joshi was killed after he protested against the harassment against his niece. My condolence to the family. They promised Ram Raj but gave goondaraj, Gandhi tweeted.

Several other leaders of the Congress party also attacked the Adityanath government on the same lines.

Party leader and lawyer Abhishek Singhvi also expressed his shock over the incident.

Shocking jungle raj in #Ghaziabad area with journalist #Joshi, already known as the complainant in #FIR, being shot on a scooter while with his daughters, struggling in a coma with a bullet in the skull! Thank God daughters not hit. Shocking, scary, disgusting lack of fear of law & order! #UP.

Ajay Kumar Lallu, president in of Congress state unit, demanded the chief minsters resignation.

The Ghaziabad incident has shocked the entire state. Its a tragic incident. Nobody is safe in Uttar Pradesh. If it is not jungle raj then what is, he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

The government remains silent while criminals are becoming more active. While leaving home in the morning, people in the state worry whether they will be able to return in the evening or not, he added.
Finding out how many students and teachers are using tech tools can be informative and interesting. But the numbers can also be overwhelming, and they rarely tell the full story.

Schools face steep challenges this fall: balancing pressure to teach students in person while facing the serious threat of COVID-19 transmission; reaching students who struggled to access learning materials or stay connected this spring; narrowing equity gaps that have only become more pronounced and visible in the last few months.

Data can provide districts with a concrete sense of progress and challenges, and a roadmap to addressing issues. Education Week consulted district technology leaders and software platform providers to get a sense of what technology usage looked like this spring, and to ask a critical question for the fall: How can schools use these findings to improve remote learning and technology-based offerings?

Link Low Login Rates to Internet Needs

Little Rock, Ark., School District

For the Little Rock school district, usage data helped paint a picture of access gaps among groups of students that needed extra help.

The Finding: Early on in the pandemic, the districts tech team noticed that schools with higher percentages of English-language learners had lower login rates to ClassLink, a single sign-in portal the district used to remotely connect students to learning materials. All district parents had been asked to fill out a survey indicating what they had for at-home internet access. But some nuances of that access might not have been clear, such as whether the internet connection was on a smartphone or a computer.

The Follow-Up: The district then reached out to students in those schools who were lacking internet access, and, in many cases, sent them hotspots and digital devices, said Travis Taylor, an instructional technology specialist for the district.

You always have to look for the story behind the numbers, Taylor said. You should look at data and it should make you ask more questions.

Scrap Poorly Used Digital Tools

Roxbury School District, New Jersey

Over the last few years, technology has become a major priority for the Roxbury school district, which has a steadily expanding 1-to-1 computing program and a growing number of technology resources for students and teachers to use.

But the platforms have become increasingly scattered, and it was difficult for the districts tech team to separate programs that generated meaningful engagement from programs with only superficial use. In some cases, getting students and teachers to use technology tools the district had was a big challenge, said Teresa Rehman, the districts director of technology.

The Finding: For the past few years, we had a subscription to a video streaming service that has a lot of educational videos on it, said Rehman. We pay a lot for that service on an annual basis for access for all of our students. The usage was extremely low, but the usage of YouTube and finding free educational videos was working for everyone.

The Follow-Up: Next year, the district will abandon the video streaming service. That frees up money for us to pay for the purchase of a new assessment program., Rehman said. It allows us to shift that money around and put it towards tools we really need.

In other cases, technology products that could be useful arent being used because teachers dont know about them. Rehmans team saw low usage numbers for the PDF editing tool Kami, so it organized a couple of mini-sessions to help explain its value.

Understand When Students Do Their Work

Madrid-Waddington School District, New York

The Madrid-Waddington school district in rural upstate New York paid special attention this spring to the websites students visitedand when they visited them.

Prior to the pandemic, usage of certain websites would spike among groups of students who were doing a project on a particular subject. After the pandemic hit, the number one site was always Google Classroom because thats where the kids go to get everything, said Michelle Burke, an instructional technology specialist.

The Finding: Some of what happened was predictable: visits to ed-tech programs like Kastle Learning, Edmentum, and Study Islands were up as students looked for resources to replace some of their in-person instruction.

Others were more surprising: Our use of video statistics has actually gone down. That is not something I thought I would see.

Students often used to watch videos for fun during study hall or periods of down time during the school day. But when theyre at home, theyre busy on their own devices or doing other things, rather than using the school computer to watch videos, Burke speculates.

The Follow-Up: Taking a more sophisticated look at the usage of technology in the district helped provide a better picture of when students are learning. Approximately 30 percent of students completed much of their work outside of nontraditional school hours, which really shocked me, Burke said.

Approximately 5 percent did it very early in the morning. Its likely that many of those students live in rural areas and have daytime responsibilities on family farms, Burke said. Indeed, the usage data reflect that many of those students are in high school.

As long as our kids know were behind them, were happy to connect with them [at anytime].

Produce Resource Guides for Families

Brighton School District, Michigan

Chris Turner, director of technology for the Brighton School district in Michigan, often spends his time troubleshooting Wi-Fi and network issues at school buildings. He had developed a data-driven approach to identifying and resolving those problems that came in handy during the pandemic. We knew that pivoting to the online environment would reveal how important it was that technology was performing for our teachers and students, he said.

The Finding: The pivot to remote learning this spring for the district led to a massive surge in usage of the Google Meet videoconference tool. On average, during the first half of the school year, the schools platform was used six minutes a day. Once school buildings closed, that number went up to more than 40,000 minutes per day, among both students and teachers.

The Follow-Up: Turner attributes the rapid growth to his teams decision to designate Google Meet early on during school closures as the platform everyone was expected to use. Turner also collaborated with curriculum and library media specialists to quickly assemble resource guides families could use. Those employees were also on call to answer questions.

Turner recently sent a message to all families in the district outlining the districts usage stats from the spring. This transparency helps parents understand the role that technology is playing in the district, and gives them confidence that the district is working on refining its offerings.
The Founder and Leader of Perez Chapel International, Bishop Charles Agyinasare, has launched a blistering attack on people who do not agree with him on national issues.

He describes such opponents as 'attack dogs'.

When you do, they release their attack dogs who pounce on you through the media and social media and they insult you, threaten you and label you, he said, adding we cannot raise issues in this country anymore; when you do, then you are branded NDC or NPP , depending on whose ox is gored.

Bishop Agyinasare who started World Miracle Bible International, which has metamorphosed into Perez Chapel, has been using his pulpit to attack the government of late, saying that it has collapsed indigenous banks and was favouring foreign business.

Besides, he has said that the government has crippled opposition media and was not tolerating dissenting views, adding specifically that some politicians have made it so difficult to criticize their wrongs.

In some of his broadcasts, the popular Bishop said, We do not even have any known opposition radio or television station, and we pride ourselves that we are a democracy. It is a shame on us, adding the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

We need people that can tell the unpleasant truth. If we build a nation of yes-people, then we are doomed.

We have too many sycophants who only tell leaders that: 'You were making a mistake' after their fall. 'I knew things would go wrong', they say. So, why did you not say it then?' he said on another forum.

Politicians and leaders, it is time you appreciated those who would show you 'sins' but not those who would sing your praise, he said, stressing that leaders on all fronts need people who would not fear your office but respectfully tell you that: 'The king is naked' but not say: 'Oh king, you have a nice transparent garment on'.

Voters Register

He also waded into the resolve not to allow foreigners to register for the Voters ID card in the ongoing registration exercise and appeared to whip up ethnocentric sentiments by claiming that the government is trying to divide the people.

Our politics must stop dividing us. Politicians must stop polarizing our country. We used to be one country. In our boarding houses, we were bonded together: the Christian and the Muslim; the Ewe and Ashanti; the Ga and Dagbani or Frafra; the Dagaba and Nzema, etc. We all stayed in one dormitory or hostel, so, we saw ourselves as one people.

It is not right for us to see some Ghanaians as foreigners, was his reaction, similar to what former President John Mahama echoed recently in the Volta Region, where the opposition NDC claims the NPP government is harassing them because they were saying they are allowing Togolese to come into the country to register.

The Prez Chapel Bishop said, Today, our politicians see some Ghanaians as foreigners and so a 70-year-old blind man, Mr. Christian Agbeviade, who had worked with the Ministry of Defence at Burma Camp for 30 years and now retired to his village, can be harassed by security forces to prove he is a Ghanaian because he is branded Togolese, adding when I saw the video, my stomach churned as to what our country is coming to.

He said apparently, this old man was the in-law of the Moderator of the Global Evangelical Church (Right Reverend Dr. Kwadzo Setorwu Ofori).

Divisive Politicians

Our politics must stop dividing us and we must stop this attitude of 'you are a foreigner' because it does not build a nation but destroys a nation, Bishop Agyinasare pointed out, adding we don't need to be piling ethnic or tribal explosive powder under our national carpet. When we do, it will explode in our faces one day, he warned.

He then tried to create the impression that something serious is happening in the country and even likened it to the Nazi Germany era, quoting German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, regarding the silence of good people during the rise of the Nazis in his country, to buttress his supposed claims.

Fight Back

His critics have been sharing on social media where they said Bishop Agyinasare 'enjoyed' from the NDC and created the impression that he was doing the bidding of the opposition as the December election draws closer.

They claimed he used a diplomatic passport during the NDC tenure and that privilege had been taken away by this government.

They also claimed that Bishop Agyinasare was a Board Chairman for the insolvent First Trust Savings and Loans then owned by Nii Kotei Dzani, currently a Member of the Council of State, and added that he took loans from the collapsed financial institution.

More Clarification

When his attention was drawn to the fact that those banks taken over by the government breached laid-down regulations, including blowing taxpayers sweat in the form of bailouts given them, the pastor became offended and issued a statement through Apostle Raymond Acquah who is the Administrative Bishop of Perez Chapel International, saying anytime some one criticizes the authorities, they release their 'attack dogs' on the person.

The statement said the allegations were false and were calculated to tarnish the reputation of the Bishop.

Bishop Statement

It has come to our attention that some ridiculous and mischievous information is circulating on social media and on some unsuspecting news portals.

It is a known fact that if one dares to speak about the ills of society, attack dogs are readily unleashed to sustain the crippling culture of silence in our dear country.

I am to state on authority that Bishop Charles Agyinasare has never applied for or secured any loan from the collapsed First Trust Savings & Loans Company and the GN Bank.

The statement said further that the allegation is a complete fabrication and is therefore false, adding for the record, I am to clarify and confirm the following that Bishop Charles Agyinasare was one time Board Chairman of First Trust Savings & Loans Company.

The statement added that Bishop Charles Agyinasare NEVER applied for or ever received a loan from First Trust Savings & Loans, either before, during or after his Chairmanship of the Board of First Trust Savings & Loans. Bishop Charles Agyinasare or the church he presides over has NEVER applied for or

ever received a loan from GN Bank or First Trust Savings & Loans.

We are by this press release urging the media and the general public to disregard the lies and falsehood, asking those persons circulating such lies and unfounded allegations to put an end to them.

We ask the general public to disregard this failed attempt to malign Bishop Charles Agyinasare, the release added.

---Daily Guide
By Trend





The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) plans to increase the share of high-quality bonds in 2020 in the portfolio of securities with fixed income, which are characterized by a lower risk of price volatility, Executive Director of SOFAZ Israfil Mammadov told Trend.

Mammadov was answering the question about increasing the share of the state bonds in SOFAZs investment portfolio.

"For this purpose, the corporate bonds are being replaced with state bonds and bonds of state agencies with high credit ratings on the most favorable terms of purchase and sale," executive director said.

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan was established in 1999 with assets of $271 million.

According to the SOFAZ regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as for addressing important national problems.

The main goals of the State Oil Fund include accumulation of resources and placement of assets abroad in order to minimize the negative effect to the economy, prevention of 'Dutch disease' to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations and support of current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan.
The self-confessed middleman in the murder of Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been found with serious knife injuries to his throat, hours before he was due to give evidence in court.

Melvin Theuma, a former taxi driver, was in critical condition on Wednesday with knife injuries to his throat and torso, authorities said.

According to police, first indications were that the incident was suspected self-harm, but investigations are ongoing.

Theuma was granted a presidential pardon in November to reveal all about the car bomb murder which shocked in the Mediterranean island in October 2017.

His evidence so far has implicated top businessman Yorgen Fenech, the alleged mastermind who was arrested in late November and accused of complicity in the murder. He is awaiting trial and denies the charge.

Melvin Theuma, a former taxi driver, was in critical condition on Wednesday with knife injuries to his throat and torso, authorities and local media said. Above, Theuma pictured in a police car as he leaves a Valletta court in December 2019

Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia pictured in April 2016.She was killed by a car bomb in Malta on October 16, 2017

His evidence so far has implicated top businessman Yorgen Fenech, the alleged mastermind who was arrested in late November. Fenech pictured leaving a Balletta court in November 2019

'First indications are that Melvin Theuma self-harmed but investigations are continuing,' police said in a statement, suggesting attempted suicide.

The statement said Theuma was found late Tuesday in a pool of blood at his residence by officers who were mounting a round-the-clock guard outside. They were alerted by a lawyer who said he could not reach Theuma by phone.

Media reported Theuma's wounds included serious injuries to his vocal cords and abdomen.

The incident happened hours before Theuma was due to continue to give evidence in a Valletta court.

In evidence so far, Theuma has alleged he was paid by Fenech to contract three men - currently under arrest - who carried out the car-bombing.

He also described how he has since lived in fear of his life and how he had gone to a seminary for confession.

Protestors hold up pictures of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia during a demonstration outside Malta's prime minister's office in Valletta

'My life ended at 3 p.m. on October 16, 2017,' he told a magistrate, referring to the time and date of the murder.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, described as a 'one-woman WikiLeaks,' was killed in October 2017, while investigating alleged corruption at the heart of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's government.

In April last year, one of the three murder suspects, Vince Muscat, told police that the investigative journalist was blown up in a Mafia-supplied car bomb they planted underneath her seat for 150,000.

The suspect claimed that he, along with two brothers, George 'The Chinese' and Alfred 'The Bean' Degiorgio, obtained a bomb from the Italian Mafia after aborting plans to shoot Galizia with a sniper rifle.

According to Muscat's account, he had dropped his friend Alfred Degiorgio at the Busy Bee, a harbour front cafe near the island's capital, in the summer of 2017.

After a few minutes, Degiorgio got back into the car and allegedly told his accomplice that they had a 128,000 contract to kill Galizia. Around 25,000 was given upfront.

The first arrests in the investigation took place on December 3, 2017 when Muscat and his two alleged accomplices, brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio, were charged with Daphne's murder. All three denied the charges.

After lengthy preliminary hearings, they were indicted in July to stand trial by jury at an undetermined future date.

Vince Muscat told police how they recruited Maltese gangsters to obtain a car bomb from the Italian Mafia (pictured: the wreckage of Galizia's car outside the town of Mosta)

Brothers George 'The Chinese' and Alfred 'The Bean' Degiorgio, were charged with Daphne's murder, alongside Vince Muscat in December 2017

Muscat, who was known to police for minor misdemeanours, including importing birds, agreed to spill the beans in April 2018 after police said his statement would only be used as evidence if Muscat obtained a pardon.

A person briefed in detail about Muscat's confession relayed the contents to Reuters.

He explained that the men used a bomb bought from Maltese gangsters and supplied by the Italian mafia.

Police have said they believe Muscat was a henchman for George Degiorgio, known by the nickname 'Ic-Ciniz' (the Chinese), leader of an organised crime group.

Alfred Degiorgio, known as 'Il-Fulu' (the Bean), was a member of the same gang, according to police.

The brothers continue to deny Daphne's murder and have declined to answer police questions. Marc Sant, a lawyer defending Vince Muscat, declined to comment, as did lawyers for the brothers.

In interviews with police, Muscat named taxi driver Melvin Theuma as the middleman who arranged Daphne's killing, the person familiar with his confession said.

Muscat drove Alfred Degiorgio to several meetings with Theuma, Muscat told police.
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he was sending 'hundreds' of federal agents into Chicago and other cities to combat street violence  including an influx of a controversial Homeland Security unit that has been deployed in Portland.

The president also said he was holding back on dispatching what he termed 'large numbers' of federal agents, pending requests from city mayors  then added: 'At some point we may have no other choice but to go in.'

Following a spate of gun violence in Chicago, plus clashes between federal agents and protesters that have stretched on for weeks in Portland, Trump said he ordered an 'immediate surge' of agents into the nation's third largest city.

'The FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshalls Service and Homeland Security will together be sending hundreds of skilled law enforcement officers to Chicago to help drive down violent crime,' Trump said at the White House.

'What cities are doing is absolute insanity,' Trump said, blasting calls to defund police departments, as he staged an announcement about plans to send agents to Chicago

The president defended his previous blasts at local leadership  all Democrats  while deploring a crime wave he casts as out of control.

'Chicago is a disaster. The mayor is saying dont come in. The mayor is telling us not to come in,' the president fumed at an afternoon press briefing following his announcement.

'At some point we can void that if we have to and we may have to because its out of control,' Trump said.

He repeated the threat later in his remarks, accusing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot of raising objections for 'political reasons.'

'Shes a Democrat. Im going to be nice,' Trump said. 'Shes making a big mistake. People are dying in Chicago and other cities and we can solve the problem. They have to ask us but we can solve the problem.'

Trump seemed to say the federal government was hamstrung unless local authorities asked for help  but then contradicted this. 'At some point we may have no other choice but to go in,' he threatened.

He struggled to explain why he had previously blamed President Barack Obama for violence in his hometown of Chicago when Obama was in office, but blamed local officials now that he was president.

'President Obama he could have gone into Chicago, he could have solved the problem and he didnt,' Trump said.

'These are the cities where you have the problem,' Trump said, in remarks where he also singled out Philadelphia.

'If you look at Chicago, if you look at Detroit ... We are sending them help. But we are really waiting for them to call for the big help, for the big numbers, for the large numbers of people that we have ready willing and able,' Trump said.

'We are ready willing and able to go in there with great force,' Trump said. 'We also have people that are going in and arresting drug dealers, arresting some of the shooters that are doing the shooting, we know who they are.'

He added: 'We are ready willing and able to go into these cities that are just being decimated by these shootings.'

Attorney General Bill Barr clarified Wednesday afternoon that the group will include Homeland Security Investigations units. Those agents have been involved in violent clashes in Portland. Protesters have complained they can't see the agents' insignia, and the cammo-wearing agents have been videotaped used unmarked vehicles to snatch bewildered suspects off the streets, infuriating fellow protesters.

Chad Wolf, the acting director of the Homeland Security Department, sought to stress the distinction between the two missions. In Chicago, the agents will help local authorities battle a spate of street violence that has ripped apart families and injured young children and bystanders.

'In Chicago the mission is to protect the public from violent crime on the streets,' said Wolf, who has not been confirmed by the Senate for his position.

Trump during remarks repeatedly tore into local officials, blaming them for violence in their cities.

'When they abdicate their duty the results are catastrophic,' the president said. He repeatedly connected violent crime to left-wing policies, as he faces a stiff challenge from Democrat Joe Biden amid protests over police violence and stresses his own 'law and order' platform.

'What cities are doing is absolute insanity,' Trump said, blasting calls to defund police departments. He decried a 'rampage of violence.'

'These are street agents. Theyre investigators. Working to solve murders and to take down the violent gangs,' said Attorney General Bill Barr

'While others want to defund defame and abolish the police, I want to support and honor our great police. While the radicals want to abolish charter schools and eliminate school choice I want to expand school choice,' Trump said.

Barr, who spoke separately and who was photographed with federal officers before they used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear protesters out of Lafayette Park in front of the White House, stressed differences between the new operation and the federal role in Portland.

'These are street agents. Theyre investigators. Working to solve murders and to take down the violent gangs,' Barr said.

'This is a different kind of operation obviously than the tactical teams we use to defend against riots and mob violence,' he continued. 'Were going to continue to confront mob violence,' Barr vowed.

The administration has relied on a legal justification related to protecting federal buildings for inserting Portland agents, who are opposed by local officials. The Chicago model is to be based on 'Operation LeGend,' which has already been used in Kansas City.

The operation is named after LeGend Taliferro, a four-year-old boy shot and killed in Kansas City, Missouri June 29.

Trump is expanding the operation by deploying FBI and other agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to quell what he claims is out of control violence.

Lightfoot offered some off-ramp to the tensions before the formal announcement, saying a plan to surge FBI and DEA agents to help her city contend with local crime had her approval - but not an 'undemocratic' insertion of unidentified Homeland Security agents, as Trump has ordered in Portland.

Her statement signaled a possible de-escalation as critics fume about the Trump administration's use of 'secret' Homeland Security Investigations agents who have taken part in violent clashes with protesters in Portland.

Lightfoot, who has publicly clashed with Trump , had vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' in her city, just hours before gun violence erupted at a funeral.

Fifteen people were wounded on Chicago's South Side in the shooting outside a funeral home Tuesday night. Police said at least 60 bullets were fired in the shootout when gunmen in a car opened fire on the funeral party, who then returned fire on the vehicle.

Violent crime is soaring across Chicago, with 12 killed in shootings and another 51 injured this weekend.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' of federal agents in her city

CCTV footage believed to be from the incident shows the horrifying moment mourners are shot at while standing outside the funeral home. A dark car is seen pulling up by the pavement where attendees of the funeral are gathered. Gunshots can then be heard and the people run for cover from the bullets

Police investigate the scene of the shooting Tuesday - in what marked yet another day of shocking violence in the city

The Trump expansions of Operation Legend puts AG Bill Barr's resources into both Chicago and Albuquerque.

While crime has soared in Chicago - there were 116 murders over the 28 days through July 19, an increase of nearly 200 percent, police department data shows - the reason for the deployment to the New Mexico city is less clear-cut.

OPERATION LEGEND: FEDS' SURGE IN KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, SPREADS Operation Legend is named for four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was asleep in his mother's apartment in Kansas City, Missouri, when he was killed by gunfire from outside the home. The killing came amid a 40 per cent increase in homicides in the city so far this year. In the wake of the June 29 killing, the city's mayor welcomed help from the Department of Justice to crackdown on killings. A total of 100 FBI, U.S. Marshals, DEA and ATF were ordered by Attorney General Bill Barr to surge into the city, working with local police to tackle violent crime. The operation, launched on July 8, was intended to bring an 'increase in prosecutions' which have yet to materialize. Advertisement

The Bernalillo Democratic sheriff, Manuel Gonzales, was expected at the White House Wednesday, the Albuquerque Journal reported, but the city's mayor Tim Keller - also a Democrat - said he did not want federal assistance.

Operation Legend was launched in Kansas City at the invitation of local officials, who were concerned about a rise in gun crime - not about protests.

It has seen FBI, DEA and ATF agents increase their presence in the city.

It announced its first arrest Monday: Monty W. Ray, 20, who agents pulled over in a stolen vehicle. They called him a 'violent crime waiting to happen.'

He had outstanding warrants for assault on an officer and fleeing after he allegedly ran over a police officer's foot. His lawyer said he was a habitual drug user.

In Chicago, police superintendent David Brown blamed turf battles among the roughly 117,000 gang members in the city of 2.7 million people, where one shooting begets another in an endless cycle of revenge.

'This same cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. This cycle is fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs,' he said. 'Too many people in Chicago have been touched by gun violence.'

Lightfoot also vowed in a tweet before that incident: 'Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump's troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.'

Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, told reporters Tuesday she spoke with U.S. John Lausch and received reassurances, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. On Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported DHS would dispatch 150 of its HSI agents to the city, after Trump said he was 'sending in law enforcement.'

According to an HSI website, its agents tackle a variety of crime, including 'narcotics and weapons smuggling/trafficking' as well as 'transnational gang activity.'

'I don't put anything past this administration, which is why we will continue to be diligent and why we will continue to be ready,' sad Lightfoot. 'If we need to stop them and use the courts to do so, we are ready to do that.'

Lightfoot tweeted after 15 were injured in a Chicago shooting Tuesday

Federal agents disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Monday, July 20, 2020, in Portland, Ore. Officers used teargas and projectiles to move the crowd after some protesters tore down a fence fronting the courthouse

Amid confusion about what federal agents might be sent in, Lightfoot hedged her language. DHS has refused to comment on 'leaked' reports about its agents being deployed.

'What I understand at this point  and I caveat that  is that the Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago,' she said.

'As I understand it, what we will be getting are some additional resources in the FBI, the DEA and the ATF,' she added.

She even described the federal help as potentially useful in combatting the city's crime wave  which Trump made a campaign issue in 2016 and has been fuming about again.

'What we will receive is resources that are going to plug into the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime in our city,' she said.

She said Laushch would be 'in the loop.' She called what happened in Portland 'not only unconstitutional, it was undemocratic.'

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had to field questions at Tuesday's press briefing about a former U.S. Navy serviceman who was beaten and pepper sprayed by federal agents in Portland, where protests have centered around a federal courthouse.

McEnany cited a statute allowing for the protection of federal assets as the justification for sending federal agents there despite opposition from state and local officials. There was no such immediate threat to a federal building in Chicago.

She also cited instances of protesters hurling objects at police. The feds sent in the forces after weeks of protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for information about what federal agents were being sent to Chicago.

Police said the incident Tuesday night took place near where a funeral was being held for a man shot and killed last week in the city.

Lightfoot tweeted: ''When a person picks up a gun, we suffer as a city. This cannot be who we are. Too many guns are on our streets and in the hands of people who should never possess them. These individuals will be held accountable.'

Trump brandished the power of federal law enforcement at the White House on Monday.

'I'm gonna do something, that I can tell you,' Trump vowed, 'because we're not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these  Oakland is a mess. We're not going to let this happen in our country,' he said.

There will be 'more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,' Trump said.
The Armenian government has reported a significant decrease in the number of local businesses failing to comply with its safety regulations aimed at minimizing coronavirus infections in the country.

Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian, who coordinates the governments response to the pandemic, said on Tuesday that sanitary authorities fined and/or briefly shut down about 400 private entities for such violations during the first ten days of this month. This is sharply down from 1,339 firms sanctioned in the same period of June, he said.

Despite growing coronavirus cases, the government reopened virtually all sectors of the Armenian economy in early May. It at the same time set concrete operational rules designed to contain the spread of the virus. Shops, cafes, restaurants, manufacturing firms and other businesses are required, among other things, to enforce physical distancing among their employees and customers and to make sure that the latter wear face masks.

An RFE/RL correspondent witnessed on Wednesday numerous violations of these rules during a brief tour of small businesses across Yerevan. In particular, many vendors in the citys food markets pulled masks under their chins or did not wear them at all.

I took it off so I can talk to you, claimed one of them.

I put it on as soon as a customer approaches me, said another woman selling agricultural produce.

Wearing a mask or a cloth covering mouth and nose not only in enclosed spaces but also in the streets and all other public areas has been mandatory in Armenia since the beginning of June. Thousands of people have been fined for not complying with this requirement.

Almost 35,700 coronavirus cases have been registered in the country of about 3 million to date. The Armenian health authorities detected 439 of those cases as a result of a smaller-than-usual number of coronavirus tests carried out on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Health also reported on Wednesday morning the deaths of 18 more people, including a 59-year-old doctor, infected with COVID-19. It said that the virus was the main cause of 16 of those fatalities, bringing the official death toll to 678.

According to the ministry, 217 other infected Armenians have died primarily because of other, pre-existing diseases.
MOUNT STERLING  A Brown County YMCA has partnered with a provider of school supply kits to buy 25 complete sets of school supplies for Brown County families in need of help.

Jeff Summers, branch executive director at Mount Sterling Community Center YMCA, said the project was funded by money raised by the YMCAs annual fundraising campaign, during which businesses and individuals donate money to help the organization fund community programs.

The YMCA has organized the school kit program for the past couple of years, Summers said. This is the second year the YMCA has partnered with Midwest Supply Central School Kits in Mount Sterling to obtain kits.

The YMCA purchased 19 school supply kits and Midwest Supply Central provided another six, Summers said.

The number is in keeping with past years efforts and means there are five kits each available for kindergarten through fourth grades. As of Tuesday afternoon, 14 kits were still available on a first-come, first-served basis at the YMCA, Summer said.

Each semester, Brown County Schools releases a list of supplies children need for classes  such as crayons or hand sanitizer. The kits available at the YMCA have all the supplies on the upcoming semesters list, Summers said.

The kits are available to any family in Brown County; people just need to stop by the YMCA to pick up one per child, Summer said, adding that no questions about the familys financial situation will be asked.

We know a lot of people are going through a rough time right now, Summers said. If youre a low-income family that has two or three kids, school supplies are a huge expense for you.

Supporting childrens education is a worthwhile endeavor for the YMCA, he said.

The youth are our future and we dont want our youth not having their supplies, he said.

Families interested in obtaining a kit can go to the Mount Sterling Community Center YMCA at 896 Illinois Route 99 between 5:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. weekdays, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturdays and between noon and 4 p.m. Sundays.
Debates continue among Chinese officials and analysts as to whether the United States has the ability and willingness to reduce or even completely cut off China's access to the US dollar system, reflecting a sense of uneasiness in Beijing about the potential ramifications of a financial war with Washington.

The general consensus, according to published reports and views, is that Washington will not go to this extreme, as it has with Iran and North Korea, because of the risks that such a drastic move would pose to the US itself and to the global economy.

However, for China, the risk remains real that the US could use the US dollar's hegemony to inflict pain on China if relations continue to deteriorate.

Washington has already announced that it will penalise individuals involved in undermining Hong Kong's autonomy and punish Chinese financial institutions that continue to do business with them - a relatively targeted approach to financial sanctions. A big question is whether these sanctions could escalate.

Wang Yongli, a former vice-president at Bank of China and a former member of the board of Swift - the international financial payments system - wrote in a note over the weekend that it would be "highly complicated and impractical" for the US to exclude all Chinese and Hong Kong financial institutions from the US dollar payments system.

"The United States has huge economic, trade and financial interests in Hong Kong. Kicking Hong Kong out of Swift would not only harm Chinese financial institutions in the city, but would severely affect all international institutions in Hong Kong, including American institutions," Wang wrote.

Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a network used by banks around the world to send and receive information about financial transactions. It is one of the pieces of infrastructure that underpins the anchor role of the US dollar in international trade and investment.

Story continues

Foreign banks have correspondent relationships with US banks, through which they conduct US dollar transactions. The US government can order US banks to stop processing transactions with certain individuals, institutions and countries, denying them access to the US dollar payments system.

Wang added that China must not panic, but must calmly respond to potential US sanctions, because if the US cuts off Hong Kong from the US dollar payment system, it will "shoot itself in the foot" and deeply affect global demand. This, he said, would likely promote the establishment of a new international payment and settlement system to replace the current US dollar-denominated one, and, at the same time, pose a major threat to world peace.

A senior official in Beijing who is close to the country's central bank told the South China Morning Post that he thinks it would be impossible for the US to exclude all Chinese institutions in Hong Kong from Swift, because doing so would be a major escalation in the confrontation between the two countries.

Ding Shuang, chief China economist at Standard Chartered bank, agreed that the US is unlikely to impose financial sanctions on Hong Kong as a whole but may sanction some individual Chinese banks in the city.

Relations between the world's two largest economies have deteriorated sharply over a sea of issues including the trade war, the Covid-19 pandemic, territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the new national security law, and arms sales to Taiwan.

Last week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end Hong Kong's special status under US law, as well as the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which provides for mandatory sanctions against individuals and entities seen as contributing to the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy, and, after a year, penalties for banks that still do business with them.

Despite economists repeatedly arguing that the risk of the US cutting off Hong Kong or China from Swift is low, Chinese state media and officials have continued to discuss the potential consequences and what China could do to mitigate the risks.

"Although the US has a great influence on Swift, the organisation is not ruled by it. Given the scale of China's economy and finance, the probability of being completely cut off from the US dollar payment and settlement system is extremely low," the Securities Times, a newspaper affiliated with People's Daily, the Communist Party's mouthpiece, said on Monday.

A commentary in the Global Times, the state-backed nationalistic tabloid, said last month that China "must be cautious of the US's malicious intentions". It also warned that, for the US, cutting off China from Swift would be like "drinking poison to quench its thirst".

"Blocking China from Swift would cause big trouble and losses for China, but it would also harm the US. Although the US wouldn't immediately lose its superpower status, US dollar hegemony would be doomed to collapse. After all, China has an economy second only to the United States, with huge dollar reserves and dollar bonds in its hands," the commentary said.

Guotai Junan Securities, the Shanghai-based investment bank and securities company, said in a note on Monday that if the US suspends China's access to Swift, the mainland could lose US$300 billion in trade per year. It will also lose more than US$90 billion in foreign direct investment in China and more than US$80 billion in outward foreign direct investment.

"All Chinese state-owned commercial banks, as well as the stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen, have joined Swift. Once they are cut off from the system, meaning the US imposes financial sanctions on all Chinese commercial banks, the source of US dollars for these banks will completely dry up," the report warned.

Last month, China modestly increased its holdings of US Treasury securities, the first in three months, in a potential sign that Beijing is not worried about being cut off from the US dollar payment system.

China added US$10.9 billion of US Treasury securities in May from a month earlier, after cutting its holdings in each of the previous two months, according to a report released by the US Treasury Department last week.

For Hong Kong, the worst consequences would be the city losing its status as an international financial hub, as institutions in the city would be unable to obtain US dollars, risking the collapse of Hong Kong's US dollar peg and a drastic depreciation of the Hong Kong currency in the short term, the report said.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
The financial reality of the pandemic hit Dr. Gary Sheppard hard in the spring, when he had to replace the EKG machine used to read the heart activity of his patients.

With patients staying clear of his southwest Houston practice out of fear of contracting COVID-19 and revenues vanishing, Sheppard and his partner, Dr. Dilawar Ajani, faced a dilemma. They could buy the EKG machine at a cost of up to $6,500 or keep his six employees on the payroll for a week.

Sheppard and Ajani, however, were spared that choice after receiving a $98,000 loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, the federal initiative to help small businesses and their employees make it through the coronavirus pandemic. Theyve not only avoided layoffs, but also bought the much-needed EKG.

We werent sure if we were going to be able to afford to get this, Sheppard said.

Sheppards and Ajanis internal medicine practice, Southwest Memorial Physician Associates, is among the more than 10,000 Houston area health care businesses  from doctors practices to ambulance services to assisted living facilities  that received a lifeline through the PPP program. But with COVID-19 cases rising and job losses increasing the number of uninsured, health care businesses increasingly worry what will happen after the loan is spent and patients dont return.

Now the question is, said Tom Banning, president of the Texas Association of Family Physicians, are patients going to vote with their feet and stay at home? Are we going to see a repeat of March and April where volumes and revenues drop?

Saving jobs

PPP loans are low-interest funds disbursed by the Small Business Administration to help companies that employ either 500 or fewer workers or meet other federal criteria.

Federal officials will forgive the loans if they are spent within 24 weeks or by Dec. 31, and 60 percent of the loan is spent on retaining employees, who must be paid at least 75 percent of their salaries. The number of employees on payroll must remain the same; if people were laid off or furloughed, employers must have made a good-faith effort to rehire the workers.

The vast majority of local health care businesses getting PPP loans  nearly 9,000  received less than $150,000, including one practice that received just $1. More than 1,000 received between $150,000 and $350,000, 412 between $350,000 and $1 million and 122 between $1 million and $5 million dollars.

One clinic received more than $5 million.

FEDERAL MONEY: Big hospitals are getting millions from the CARES Act. One Houston-area clinic only got $10.

The PPP loans saved approximately 142,000 health care jobs in the Houston area during the spring, according to the data reported to federal health officials.

The Menninger Clinic, which specializes in mental health, received $5.4 million in funds, the most out of any health care business or nonprofit in the Greater Houston region, according to federal data. Clinic president Armando Colombo said the funding saved 453 staff jobs.

Because we had payroll protection funds for employees wages and benefits, Colombo said in a statement, we were able to use some operating funds on the unanticipated cost of buying sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment to keep our patients and staff safe and moving forward with treatment.

The PPP funds ensured that staff could still conduct telemedicine appointments, and take in overflow psychiatric patients from other Texas Medical Center hospitals.

Keeping staff employed was crucial, said Colombo. In the months since Texas began reopening, hospital admissions at the clinic have doubled, hinting at a surge of patients seeking medical care as restrictions ease.

Saving small businesses

Dr. Russ Kridel, a facial plastic surgeon, operates out of a Texas Medical Center office that costs $24,000 per month. For seven weeks, he closed his doors, opening just twice to handle emergency face reconstruction for car crash victims.

His staff canceled scheduled surgeries and returned deposits, leaving almost no cash flow from mid-March to mid-May.

Kridel was relieved when his $120,000 loan arrived the first week of May. But the relief is fading away, because hes already spent most of the money on paying his seven employees and his pricey rent.

His landlord deferred one month of his rent, and Kridel agreed to pay a little bit extra every month going forward to pay off his postponed rent. Patients are starting to return, Kridel said, but hes only at 60 percent of the number of patients he saw before.

We just have to see if we can make it with less income coming in to cover our expenses, Kridel said.

Sheppard, the internal medicine doctor, said his $98,000 PPP loan allowed him to keep six employees working at his southwest Houston office, freeing up other reserves to buy the EKG machine. He is back up to 60 percent of his usual patient volume.

WHOS AFFECTED: Essential workers, missed messages: COVID is raging through Houstons Hispanic communities

Sheppard, who is also president-elect of the Harris County Medical Society, an organization representing doctors and medical residents, said hes heard from several physicians worried that their margins of profit are so small that their practices will fold after the PPP runs out.

Some think they will have to furlough and lay off workers, or not take a paycheck to keep their assistants and nurses employed.

If youre not bringing in money, Sheppard said, and your reserves are gone, then how are you going to keep your practice going?

Stop the bleeding

Sheppard and Banning, the Texas Association of Family Physicians president, both worry that the worst is yet to come.

Life after the PPP loan runs out is uncertain. Although businesses have six months from receiving PPP loans to spend the money, it remains unclear whether and when patients will feel comfortable coming back into the office.

If the chilling effect of the pandemic lasts beyond six months, doctors said they would need more financial aid to keep them from closing practices.

Banning said big health systems may take the opportunity presented by the downturn to buy out struggling physician offices. If that happens, costs could go up for patients as competition dwindles. In a worst-case scenario, doctors  particularly in low-income and rural communities  would start closing down.

PPP helps stop the bleeding, Banning said. But what happens if the hemorrhaging continues?

gwendolyn.wu@chron.com

twitter.com/gwendolynawu
Homeland Security officials said yesterday that they are preparing to deploy federal agents to Chicago, and President Donald Trump threatened to send US law enforcement personnel to other Democratic-led cities experiencing spates of crime as he defended his use of force in Portland, where agents have clashed nightly with protesters and made arrests from unmarked cars.

Calling the unrest in Portland "worse than Afghanistan", Mr Trump's rhetoric escalated tensions with Democratic mayors and governors who have criticised the presence of federal agents on US streets, telling reporters at the White House that he would send forces into jurisdictions with or without the co-operation of their elected leaders.

"We're looking at Chicago, too. We're looking New York," he said. "All run by very liberal Democrats. All run, really, by the radical left."

"This is worse than anything anyone's ever seen," Mr Trump continued. "And you know what? If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell."

With his poll numbers sinking amid widespread frustration at his response to the pandemic, Mr Trump has cast himself as a law-and-order strongman who will pacify US communities roiled by spreading disease, the economic crisis and large street protests for racial justice.

Three Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said the agency has been preparing to deploy agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to Chicago, but that operational details are not yet finalised.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the agents, who are part of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations division, would not engage in immigration enforcement operations and probably would assist with intelligence-gathering and targeting of the drug-trafficking groups and gangs driving the violence.

Mr Trump has mentioned New York and Philadelphia as two other cities where his administration is looking to send in federal agents, but two DHS officials said Chicago is the only city where their plans have advanced.

The 'Chicago Tribune' first reported on the plans Monday and said up to 150 agents would be involved, but the DHS officials said the size of the HSI contingent would likely be smaller.

DHS officials involved in the preparations also said the federal agents would be directed by the Department of Justice, and their assignment in Chicago would be very different from the standoff between federal forces and protesters in Portland, despite the president's attempts to link the two.

On Sunday, Mr Trump lashed out at the Democratic officials in Oregon who have asked his administration to withdraw from Portland, saying the tactics of DHS agents was exacerbating the confrontation outside the federal courthouse where violent clashes have played out recently.

Border Patrol SWAT teams from the agency's BORTAC tactical unit have squared off against militant protesters including anarchists wielding fireworks, laser pointers and slingshots.

"The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it," the president tweeted on Sunday. "Unimaginably bad things would happen to America. Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy. We sent in help. Look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. NO!"

Portland and Seattle are the only cities that have seen sustained clashes between militant protesters and authorities. The federal forces have mostly been withdrawn from Seattle. In Portland, they remain to defend the federal courthouse that has become a proxy for the Trump administration.

Last month, Mr Trump assailed state and city officials for the violence, describing them as having a "lack of leadership". In response, Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Twitter that Mr Trump was "using the victims of gun violence in our city to score cheap political points".

 Washington Post
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has supported the creation of a ministry for strategic industries.

A respective decision was made at a government meeting on Wednesday, July 22, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"The act [on the establishment of the ministry] was drafted on the basis of the law on 'National security of Ukraine,' presidential decree No. 59 of February 27 this year 'On the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's decision of February 18, 2020 'Main figures of the state defense order for 2020, 2021, 2022' and Verkhovna Rada resolution No. 802 of July 16, 2020 'On the appointment of Oleh Urusky as Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Strategic Industries of Ukraine.' The act is aimed at establishing a central executive body responsible for the formation and implementation of state industrial policy in the development of strategic industries," Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Industries of Ukraine Oleh Urusky said.

According to him, the adoption of the respective resolution will help ensure the sustainable development of strategic industries, job creation, an increase in revenues to the state budget, regional development, and will have a positive impact on the market environment of Ukraine.

On July 16, the Verkhovna Rada appointed Oleh Urusky as Ukraine's deputy prime minister and minister for strategic industries.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a government meeting on July 22 that the government intended to begin the creation of a new ministry that will focus primarily on industrial development, as well as on defense and high-tech industries.

op
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 11:21:34|Editor: huaxia

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MANILA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines has released a total of 21,858 inmates as part of its efforts to decongest the country's crowded jails and prevent the contamination of COVID-19 among prisoners, Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano said on Wednesday.

Ano said the 21,858 so-called persons deprived of liberty were released from March 17 to July 13 from 470 jail facilities across the country supervised by the Bureau of Jail and Management and Penology (BJMP).

Of the total number, Ano said 5,102 were paralegal releases through bail, plea-bargaining, parole or probation, while 6,756 were freed through acquittal or served sentence.

Among the inmates who were set freed, Ano said 409 were elderly, 621 were sick, and 24 were pregnant.

Ano said in a statement that his department is also taking concrete measures to decongest jails such as improving and putting up more jail facilities and fast-tracking the court hearings of the persons deprived of liberty.

As of July 15, Ano said the BJMP has recorded 180 active COVID-19 cases. These cases include 126 prisoners and 54 jail personnel. He added that 895 inmates and jail staff have recovered while 11 died from the disease.

Ano said the BJMP is currently conducting targeted testing across 51 jail facilities and three BJMP offices as part of the efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chief Gerald Bantag on Monday said 21 prisoners of the New Bilibid Prison in Mutinlupa City have died from COVID-19 since March. Bantag said five prisoners are currently being isolated in the jail's quarantine facility.

The Supreme Court has slashed bail for indigent detainees for offenses with a penalty of six months and one day to 20 years in a bid to decongest jails and prevent coronavirus transmission. Priority is given to inmates whose age and underlying medical conditions make them vulnerable to COVID-19.

The Philippines now has 70,764 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 23,281 recoveries and 1,837 deaths. Enditem
NORTHFIELD, Ill., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Stepan Company (NYSE: SCL) today reported:

Second Quarter Highlights

Reported net income was a record $35.7 million , or $1.54 per diluted share, versus $30.2 million , or $1.30 per diluted share, in the prior year. Adjusted net income* was a record $38.3 million , or $1.65 per diluted share, versus $35.1 million , or $1.50 per diluted share, in the prior year. Total Company sales volume increased 4% versus the prior year.

, or per diluted share, versus , or per diluted share, in the prior year. Adjusted net income* was a record , or per diluted share, versus , or per diluted share, in the prior year. Total Company sales volume increased 4% versus the prior year. Surfactant operating income was a record $48.5 million versus $32.1 million in the prior year. This increase was primarily attributable to a 10% increase in global Surfactant volume and an improved product mix. The sales volume growth was principally due to higher demand in the global consumer product end markets driven by increased demand for cleaning and disinfection products as a result of COVID-19, and a $5.0 million operating income improvement in Mexico . As previously announced, the Company plans to acquire Clariant's anionic surfactant business and associated sulfonation equipment in Mexico .

versus in the prior year. This increase was primarily attributable to a 10% increase in global Surfactant volume and an improved product mix. The sales volume growth was principally due to higher demand in the global consumer product end markets driven by increased demand for cleaning and disinfection products as a result of COVID-19, and a operating income improvement in . As previously announced, the Company plans to acquire Clariant's anionic surfactant business and associated sulfonation equipment in . Polymer operating income was $15.5 million versus $22.8 million in the prior year. This decrease was mostly attributable to a 13% decline in sales volume versus prior year. Global rigid polyol sales volume declined 8% driven by Europe and North America , due to COVID-19 construction project delays and cancellations, partially offset by strong growth in China . Lower volume and higher raw material inventory cost within the phthalic anhydride business also contributed to the decline in operating income versus the prior year.

versus in the prior year. This decrease was mostly attributable to a 13% decline in sales volume versus prior year. Global rigid polyol sales volume declined 8% driven by and , due to COVID-19 construction project delays and cancellations, partially offset by strong growth in . Lower volume and higher raw material inventory cost within the phthalic anhydride business also contributed to the decline in operating income versus the prior year. Specialty Product operating income was $3.2 million versus $6.0 million in the prior year. This decrease was primarily attributable to order timing differences within our food and flavor business and lower margins within our medium chain triglycerides (MCT) product line.

versus in the prior year. This decrease was primarily attributable to order timing differences within our food and flavor business and lower margins within our medium chain triglycerides (MCT) product line. The effect of foreign currency translation negatively impacted net sales by 4% and net income by $2.5 million , or $0.11 per diluted share, versus the prior year.

, or per diluted share, versus the prior year. The Company had negative net debt at quarter-end as cash balances of $272.9 million exceeded total debt of $207.9 million . The Company has access to a committed $350.0 million revolving credit agreement and has only $9.3 million of remaining debt maturing in 2020. The Company believes it has sufficient liquidity to operate in the challenging near term environment.

First Half Highlights

Reported net income was $63.3 million , or $2.72 per diluted share, versus $55.2 million , or $2.37 per diluted share, in the prior year. Adjusted net income* was $62.5 million , or $2.69 per diluted share, versus $65.8 million , or $2.82 per diluted share, in the prior year. Total Company sales volume was up 1% compared to the first six months of 2019. A 4% increase in global Surfactant sales volume was largely offset by an 11% decrease in global Polymer sales volume.

, or per diluted share, versus , or per diluted share, in the prior year. Adjusted net income* was , or per diluted share, versus , or per diluted share, in the prior year. Total Company sales volume was up 1% compared to the first six months of 2019. A 4% increase in global Surfactant sales volume was largely offset by an 11% decrease in global Polymer sales volume. First half results were negatively impacted by the first quarter Millsdale plant power outage as previously disclosed. The Company's insurance provider has acknowledged this incident is a covered event and the Company is pursuing insurance recovery for incremental supply chain expenses and business interruption.

* Adjusted net income is a non-GAAP measure which excludes deferred compensation income/expense, cash-settled stock appreciation rights (SARs) income/expense, as well as other significant and infrequent/non-recurring items. See Table II for reconciliations of non-GAAP adjusted net income and earnings per diluted share.

"Today, the world continues to be challenged in many ways. At Stepan we believe there is more that unites us than divides us. We are fortunate to have a team that is committed to each other and to the supply of critical products to the market. We are grateful to our employees for their passion and ability to get the job done. Our plants continue to run and we have been able to keep our employees safe and healthy," said F. Quinn Stepan, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.

"Despite these challenges and the impact of the first quarter power outage at our Millsdale, IL facility, the Company had a solid first half of the year. Surfactant operating income was up significantly during the second quarter on the strength of 10% global volume growth. Most of the volume growth was attributable to strong demand in the consumer product end markets driven by increased demand for cleaning and disinfection products as a result of COVID-19. Mexican operations delivered strong earnings growth versus the prior year quarter. Our Polymer business was down versus the prior year quarter as North America and Europe experienced construction project delays and cancellations as a result of COVID-19. Our Specialty Product business results were down due to reduced margins within the food and nutritional business and order timing differences within our food and flavor business."

Financial Summary



Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30

($ in thousands, except per share data) 2020



2019



% Change



2020



2019



% Change

Net Sales $ 460,549



$ 473,003





(3) %

$ 910,536



$ 962,173





(5) % Operating Income $ 44,623



$ 41,065





9 %

$ 84,627



$ 70,803





20 % Net Income Attributable to Stepan Company $ 35,707



$ 30,218





18 %

$ 63,252



$ 55,202





15 % Earnings per Diluted Share $ 1.54



$ 1.30





18 %

$ 2.72



$ 2.37





15 %















































Adjusted Net Income * $ 38,315



$ 35,131





9 %

$ 62,473



$ 65,766





(5) % Adjusted Earnings per Diluted Share * $ 1.65



$ 1.50





10 %

$ 2.69



$ 2.82





(5) %

 See Table II for reconciliations of non-GAAP adjusted net income and earnings per diluted share.

Summary of Second Quarter Adjusted Net Income Items

Adjusted net income excludes non-operational deferred compensation income/expense, cash-settled SARs income/expense and other significant and infrequent or non-recurring items.

Deferred Compensation: The current year second quarter reported net income includes $1.9 million of after-tax expense versus $1.2 million of after-tax expense in the prior year.

The current year second quarter reported net income includes of after-tax expense versus of after-tax expense in the prior year. Cash-Settled SARs: These management incentive instruments provide cash to participants equal to the appreciation on the price of specified shares of Company stock over a specified period of time. Because income or expense is recognized merely on the movement in the price of Company stock it has been excluded, similar to deferred compensation, to arrive at adjusted net income. The current year second quarter includes $0.5 million of after-tax expense versus $0.2 million of after-tax expense in the prior year.

These management incentive instruments provide cash to participants equal to the appreciation on the price of specified shares of Company stock over a specified period of time. Because income or expense is recognized merely on the movement in the price of Company stock it has been excluded, similar to deferred compensation, to arrive at adjusted net income. The current year second quarter includes of after-tax expense versus of after-tax expense in the prior year. Business Restructuring: The current year second quarter includes $0.2 million of after-tax decommissioning expense related to the Company's Canadian plant closure versus $0.3 million of after-tax expense in the prior year.

Percentage Change in Net Sales

Net sales decreased 3% quarter-over-quarter due to the unfavorable impact of foreign currency translation and lower selling prices, partially offset by a 4% increase in global sales volume. The lower selling prices are mainly attributable to the pass-through of lower raw material costs. The higher sales volume primarily reflects Surfactant growth of 10% partially offset by a Polymer decline of 13%.





Three Months Ended June 30, 2020



Six Months Ended June 30, 2020

Volume



4 %



1 % Selling Price & Mix



(3) %



(3) % Foreign Translation



(4) %



(3) % Total



(3) %



(5) %

Segment Results





Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30

($ in thousands)

2020



2019



% Change



2020



2019



% Change

Net Sales















































Surfactants

$ 332,335



$ 313,380





6 %

$ 659,406



$ 663,030





(1) % Polymers

$ 112,409



$ 140,636





(20) %

$ 218,900



$ 260,815





(16) % Specialty Products

$ 15,805



$ 18,987





(17) %

$ 32,230



$ 38,328





(16) % Total Net Sales

$ 460,549



$ 473,003





(3) %

$ 910,536



$ 962,173





(5) %







Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30

($ in thousands)

2020



2019



% Change



2020



2019



% Change

Operating Income















































Surfactants

$ 48,503



$ 32,086





51 %

$ 84,659



$ 69,253





22 % Polymers

$ 15,527



$ 22,760





(32) %

$ 23,043



$ 34,865





(34) % Specialty Products

$ 3,226



$ 5,982





(46) %

$ 7,210



$ 9,113





(21) % Total Segment Operating Income

$ 67,256



$ 60,828





11 %

$ 114,912



$ 113,231





1 % Corporate Expenses

$ (22,633)



$ (19,763)





15 %

$ (30,285)



$ (42,428)





(29) % Consolidated Operating Income

$ 44,623



$ 41,065





9 %

$ 84,627



$ 70,803





20 %

Total segment operating income increased $6.4 million, or 11%, versus the prior year quarter. Total segment operating income in the first half of 2020 increased $1.7 million, or 1%, versus the prior year.

Surfactant net sales were $332.3 million for the quarter, a 6% increase versus the prior year. Sales volume increased 10% mostly due to higher demand for products sold into the consumer product end markets, driven by increased demand for cleaning, disinfection and personal wash products as a result of COVID-19. Partially offsetting this growth was lower demand in the Company's functional product end markets. Sales volume into the global agricultural market was up 4% offset by lower demand in the oilfield market. Selling prices were up 1% and the translation impact of a stronger U.S. dollar negatively impacted net sales by 5%. Surfactant operating income increased $16.4 million , or 51%, versus the prior year primarily due to the strong sales volume growth and a $5.0 million operating income improvement in Mexico .

for the quarter, a 6% increase versus the prior year. Sales volume increased 10% mostly due to higher demand for products sold into the consumer product end markets, driven by increased demand for cleaning, disinfection and personal wash products as a result of COVID-19. Partially offsetting this growth was lower demand in the Company's functional product end markets. Sales volume into the global agricultural market was up 4% offset by lower demand in the oilfield market. Selling prices were up 1% and the translation impact of a stronger U.S. dollar negatively impacted net sales by 5%. Surfactant operating income increased , or 51%, versus the prior year primarily due to the strong sales volume growth and a operating income improvement in . Polymer net sales were $112.4 million for the quarter, a 20% decrease versus the prior year. Sales volume decreased 13% primarily due to lower North American and European demand for rigid polyols used in rigid foam insulation and insulated metal panels. This lower demand primarily reflects COVID-19 construction project delays and cancellations. In addition, phthalic anhydride volumes were down significantly while China sales volume increased 41% versus the prior year quarter. Selling prices declined 5% and the translation impact of a stronger U.S. dollar negatively impacted net sales by 2%. Polymer operating income decreased $7.2 million , or 32%, versus the prior year quarter primarily due to the sales volume decline and lower North American margins. The lower North American margins reflect high cost raw material inventory carried over from the first quarter due to production issues at the Company's Millsdale, IL facility.

for the quarter, a 20% decrease versus the prior year. Sales volume decreased 13% primarily due to lower North American and European demand for rigid polyols used in rigid foam insulation and insulated metal panels. This lower demand primarily reflects COVID-19 construction project delays and cancellations. In addition, phthalic anhydride volumes were down significantly while sales volume increased 41% versus the prior year quarter. Selling prices declined 5% and the translation impact of a stronger U.S. dollar negatively impacted net sales by 2%. Polymer operating income decreased , or 32%, versus the prior year quarter primarily due to the sales volume decline and lower North American margins. The lower North American margins reflect high cost raw material inventory carried over from the first quarter due to production issues at the Company's Millsdale, IL facility. Specialty Product net sales were $15.8 million for the quarter, a 17% decrease versus the prior year. Sales volume was flat between years. Operating income decreased $2.8 million versus the prior year quarter primarily due to order timing differences within our food and flavor business and lower margins within our medium chain triglycerides (MCT) product line.

Corporate Expenses





Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30

($ in thousands)

2020



2019



% Change



2020



2019



% Change

Total Corporate Expenses

$ 22,633



$ 19,763





15 %

$ 30,285



$ 42,428





(29) % Less:















































Deferred Compensation

$ (6,464)



$ (2,395)





170 %

$ 859



$ (9,868)



NM

Business Restructuring

$ (225)



$ (450)





(50) %

$ (582)



$ (1,183)





(51) % Adjusted Corporate Expense

$ 15,944



$ 16,918





(6) %

$ 30,562



$ 31,377





(3) %



* See Table III for a discussion of deferred compensation plan accounting.

Corporate expenses, excluding deferred compensation and business restructuring expenses, decreased $1.0 million , or 6%, versus the prior year quarter. The quarterly decrease was primarily due to the non-recurrence of an environmental remediation reserve adjustment in the second quarter of 2019.

Income Taxes

The Company's effective tax rate was 23.9% for the first half of 2020 versus 21.8% for the first half of 2019. This year-over-year increase was primarily attributable to: (i) lower tax benefits derived from stock-based compensation awards exercised or distributed in the first half of 2020 versus 2019, and (ii) a less favorable geographical mix of income in the first half of 2020 versus 2019.

Shareholder Return

The Company paid $6.2 million of dividends to shareholders and repurchased $6.5 million of Company stock in the second quarter of 2020. During the first six months of 2020 the Company paid $12.4 million of dividends and repurchased $13.8 million of Company stock. The Company has 189,050 shares remaining under its Board of Directors' share repurchase authorization. The Company has increased its dividend on the Company's common stock for 52 consecutive years.

Selected Balance Sheet Information

The Company's net debt level decreased $32.8 million versus the first quarter while the net debt ratio dropped from -4% to -8%. The decrease in net debt was primarily attributable to an $18.6 million increase in cash and a $14.2 million decrease in debt primarily due to scheduled debt repayments in June 2020.

($ in millions) 6/30/20



3/31/20



12/31/19

Net Debt





















Total Debt $ 207.9



$ 222.1



$ 222.1

Cash

272.9





254.3





315.4

Net Debt $ (65.0)



$ (32.2)



$ (93.3)

Equity

897.4





866.8





891.8

Net Debt + Equity $ 832.4



$ 834.6



$ 798.5

Net Debt / (Net Debt + Equity)

-8 %



-4 %



-12 %

The major working capital components were:

($ in millions) 6/30/20



3/31/20



12/31/19

Net Receivables $ 286.7



$ 290.6



$ 276.8

Inventories

208.2





198.2





203.6

Accounts Payable

(187.4)





(187.9)





(194.3)

Total $ 307.5



$ 300.9



$ 286.1



Capital spending was $21.5 million during the quarter and $54.7 million during the first half of 2020. This compares to $19.4 million and $45.1 million, respectively, in the prior year. For the full year, capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $100 million to $120 million.

Outlook

"2020 will continue to be a difficult year for the world, our country and our industry. We believe Stepan's business remains better positioned to perform than most as we demonstrated in the second quarter. Our teams are working to minimize vulnerabilities and capture opportunities that are available to us," said F. Quinn Stepan, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer.

"We believe our Surfactant volume in the consumer product end markets should remain strong as a result of heightened demand for disinfection, cleaning and personal wash products. We anticipate that demand for surfactants within the agricultural market will approximate last year and that the oilfield market will remain down for the balance of 2020. Although the long-term prospects for our Polymer business remain attractive as energy conservation efforts and more stringent building codes should increase demand, we believe the business will be challenged in the short term as re-roofing and new construction projects continue to be deferred or canceled. Additionally, we continue to anticipate higher North American costs due to the Illinois River lock closure occurring during the second half of 2020. Our Specialty Product business should approximate prior year results. We have a strong balance sheet and significant cash on hand. Given our strong balance sheet and available liquidity we believe we are well positioned to operate in the challenging near-term environment."

Conference Call

Stepan Company will host a conference call to discuss the second quarter results at 10:00 a.m. ET (9:00 a.m. CT) on July 22, 2020. The call can be accessed by phone and webcast. Telephone access will be available by dialing +1 (800)-920-2997, and the webcast can be accessed through the Investors/Conference Calls page at www.stepan.com. A webcast replay of the conference call will be available at the same location shortly after the call.

Supporting Slides

Slides supporting this press release will be made available at www.stepan.com through the Investors/Presentations page at approximately the same time as this press release is issued.

Corporate Profile

Stepan Company is a major manufacturer of specialty and intermediate chemicals used in a broad range of industries. Stepan is a leading merchant producer of surfactants, which are the key ingredients in consumer and industrial cleaning and disinfection compounds and in agricultural and oilfield solutions. The Company is also a leading supplier of polyurethane polyols used in the expanding thermal insulation market, and CASE (Coatings, Adhesives, Sealants, and Elastomers) industries.

Headquartered in Northfield, Illinois, Stepan utilizes a network of modern production facilities located in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

The Company's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol SCL. For more information about Stepan Company please visit the Company online at www.stepan.com

More information about Stepan's sustainability program can be found on the Sustainability page at www.stepan.com

Contact: Luis E. Rojo 847-446-7500

Certain information in this news release consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements include statements about Stepan Company's plans, objectives, strategies, financial performance and outlook, trends, the amount and timing of future cash distributions, prospects or future events and involve known and unknown risks that are difficult to predict. As a result, Stepan Company's actual financial results, performance, achievements or prospects may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the use of words such as "may," "could," "expect," "intend," "plan," "seek," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "guidance," "predict," "potential," "continue," "likely," "will," "would," "should," "illustrative" and variations of these terms and similar expressions, or the negative of these terms or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Stepan Company and its management based on their knowledge and understanding of the business and industry, are inherently uncertain. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and stockholders should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

There are a number of risks, uncertainties and other important factors, many of which are beyond Stepan Company's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Such risks, uncertainties and other important factors include, among other factors, the risks, uncertainties and factors described in Stepan Company's Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and Form 8-K reports and exhibits to those reports, and include (but are not limited to) risks and uncertainties related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; accidents, unplanned production shutdowns or disruptions in manufacturing facilities; reduced demand due to customer product reformulations or new technologies; our inability to successfully develop or introduce new products; compliance with laws; our ability to identify suitable acquisition candidates and successfully complete and integrate acquisitions; global competition; volatility of raw material and energy costs and supply; disruptions in transportation or significant changes in transportation costs; downturns in certain industries and general economic downturns; international business risks, including currency exchange rate fluctuations, legal restrictions and taxes; unfavorable resolution of litigation against us; maintaining and protecting intellectual property rights; our ability to access capital markets; global political, military, security or other instability; costs related to expansion or other capital projects; interruption or breaches of information technology systems; our ability to retain executive management and key personnel; and our debt covenants.

These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and Stepan Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Table I STEPAN COMPANY For the Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 (Unaudited  '000's Omitted)





Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30





2020



2019



2020



2019

Net Sales

$ 460,549



$ 473,003



$ 910,536



$ 962,173

Cost of Sales



362,054





380,044





732,772





784,605

Gross Profit



98,495





92,959





177,764





177,568

Operating Expenses:































Selling



12,921





14,140





26,453





28,109

Administrative



20,731





21,544





39,603





40,850

Research, Development and Technical Services



13,531





13,365





27,358





26,755

Deferred Compensation (Income) Expense



6,464





2,395





(859)





9,868







53,647





51,444





92,555





105,582



































Business Restructuring



225





450





582





1,183



































Operating Income



44,623





41,065





84,627





70,803

Other Income (Expense):































Interest, Net



(1,259)





(1,766)





(2,489)





(3,619)

Other, Net



4,437





235





1,175





3,380







3,178





(1,531)





(1,314)





(239)



































Income Before Income Taxes



47,801





39,534





83,313





70,564

Provision for Income Taxes



11,958





9,324





19,931





15,376

Net Income



35,843





30,210





63,382





55,188

Net Loss Attributable to Noncontrolling Interests



(136)





8





(130)





14

Net Income Attributable to Stepan Company

$ 35,707



$ 30,218



$ 63,252



$ 55,202

Net Income Per Common Share Attributable to

Stepan Company































Basic

$ 1.56



$ 1.31



$ 2.75



$ 2.39

Diluted

$ 1.54



$ 1.30



$ 2.72



$ 2.37

Shares Used to Compute Net Income Per Common Share Attributable to Stepan Company































Basic



22,923





23,086





22,973





23,092

Diluted



23,184





23,329





23,235





23,329





































Table II Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Net Income and Earnings per Diluted Share *





Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30

($ in thousands, except per

share amounts)

2020



EPS



2019



EPS



2020



EPS



2019



EPS

Net Income Reported

$ 35,707



$ 1.54



$ 30,218



$ 1.30



$ 63,252



$ 2.72



$ 55,202



$ 2.37



































































Deferred Compensation

(Income) Expense

$ 1,938



$ 0.08



$ 1,210



$ 0.05



$ (920)



$ (0.04)



$ 5,090



$ 0.22

Business Restructuring

Expense

$ 168



$ 0.01



$ 325



$ 0.01



$ 431



$ 0.02



$ 865



$ 0.04

Cash-Settled SARs

(Income) Expense

$ 502



$ 0.02



$ 220



$ 0.01



$ (290)



$ (0.01)



$ 1,451



$ 0.06

Environmental

Remediation Expense









$ -



$ 2,210



$ 0.09











$ -



$ 2,210



$ 0.09

Voluntary Debt

Prepayment Expense









$ -



$ 948



$ 0.04











$ -



$ 948



$ 0.04



































































Adjusted Net Income

$ 38,315



$ 1.65



$ 35,131



$ 1.50



$ 62,473



$ 2.69



$ 65,766



$ 2.82



* All amounts in this table are presented after-tax

The Company believes that certain measures that are not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), when presented in conjunction with comparable GAAP measures, are useful for evaluating the Company's operating performance and provide better clarity on the impact of non-operational items. Internally, the Company uses this non-GAAP information as an indicator of business performance and evaluates management's effectiveness with specific reference to these indicators. These measures should be considered in addition to, neither a substitute for, nor superior to, measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Reconciliation of Pre-Tax to After-Tax Adjustments





Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30

($ in thousands, except per

share amounts)

2020



EPS



2019



EPS



2020



EPS



2019



EPS

Pre-Tax Adjustments































































Deferred Compensation

(Income) Expense

$ 2,550











$ 1,592











$ (1,210)











$ 6,698









Business Restructuring

Expense

$ 225











$ 450











$ 582











$ 1,183









Cash-Settled SARs

(Income) Expense

$ 661











$ 289











$ (381)











$ 1,909









Environmental

Remediation Expense

















$ 2,908



























$ 2,908









Voluntary Debt

Prepayment Expense

















$ 1,247



























$ 1,247









Total Pre-Tax

Adjustments

$ 3,436











$ 6,486











$ (1,009)











$ 13,945











































































Cumulative Tax Effect on

Adjustments

$ (828)











$ (1,573)











$ 230











$ (3,381)











































































After-Tax Adjustments

$ 2,608



$ 0.11



$ 4,913



$ 0.20



$ (779)



$ (0.03)



$ 10,564



$ 0.45



Table III Deferred Compensation Plan

The full effect of the deferred compensation plan on quarterly pre-tax income was $2.6 million of expense versus $1.6 million of expense in the prior year. The year to date impact was $1.2 million of income versus $6.7 million of expense in the prior year. The accounting for the deferred compensation plan results in operating income when the price of Stepan Company common stock or mutual funds held in the plan fall and expense when they rise. The Company also recognizes the change in value of mutual funds as investment income or loss. The quarter end market prices of Company common stock are as follows:





2020



2019





12/31

9/30

6/30



3/31



12/31



9/30



6/30



3/31

Stepan Company

N/A

N/A

$ 97.10



$ 88.46



$ 102.44



$ 97.06



$ 91.91



$ 87.52





























































The deferred compensation income statement impact is summarized below:





Three Months Ended June 30



Six Months Ended June 30

($ in thousands)

2020



2019



2020



2019

Deferred Compensation































Operating Income (Expense)

$ (6,464)



$ (2,395)



$ 859



$ (9,868)

Other, net  Mutual Fund Gain



3,914





803





351





3,170

Total Pretax

$ (2,550)



$ (1,592)



$ 1,210



$ (6,698)

Total After Tax

$ (1,938)



$ (1,210)



$ 920



$ (5,090)



Table IV Effects of Foreign Currency Translation

The Company's foreign subsidiaries transact business and report financial results in their respective local currencies. As a result, foreign subsidiary income statements are translated into U.S. dollars at average foreign exchange rates appropriate for the reporting period. Because foreign exchange rates fluctuate against the U.S. dollar over time, foreign currency translation affects period-to-period comparisons of financial statement items (i.e., because foreign exchange rates fluctuate, similar period-to-period local currency results for a foreign subsidiary may translate into different U.S. dollar results). Below is a table that presents the impact that foreign currency translation had on the changes in consolidated net sales and various income line items for the three and six month periods ending June 30, 2020 as compared to 2019:

($ in millions)

Three Months Ended June 30



Increase (Decrease)



Decrease Due to Foreign Currency Translation



Six Months Ended June 30



Increase (Decrease)



Decrease Due to Foreign Currency Translation





2020



2019



















2020



2019

















Net Sales

$ 460.5



$ 473.0



$ (12.5)



$ (20.2)



$ 910.5



$ 962.2



$ (51.7)



$ (28.5)

Gross Profit



98.5





93.0





5.5





(4.4)





177.8





177.6





0.2





(5.8)

Operating Income



44.6





41.1





3.5





(3.3)





84.6





70.8





13.8





(4.1)

Pretax Income



47.8





39.5





8.3





(3.3)





83.3





70.6





12.7





(4.1)



Table V Stepan Company Consolidated Balance Sheets June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019





June 30, 2020



December 31,

2019

ASSETS















Current Assets

$ 796,376



$ 818,789

Property, Plant & Equipment, Net



634,004





639,317

Other Assets



113,028





121,261

Total Assets

$ 1,543,408



$ 1,579,367

LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY















Current Liabilities

$ 319,172



$ 339,114

Deferred Income Taxes



24,068





23,391

Long-term Debt



184,315





198,532

Other Non-current Liabilities



117,592





125,834

Total Stepan Company Stockholders' Equity



897,429





891,783

Noncontrolling Interest



832





713

Total Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity

$ 1,543,408



$ 1,579,367



SOURCE Stepan Company

Related Links

http://www.stepan.com


Photo credit: Kevin Mazur - Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

Kim Kardashian is reportedly desperately worried about her husband, Kanye West, following a rally he held in South Carolina, during which he gave a speech accusing Harriet Tubman of not freeing slaves and revealing private details about Kims first pregnancy.

A source told Page Six that Kim is desperately worried and the Kardashians believe Kanye is having a bipolar episode.

She has desperately been trying to help Kanye, keep him calm, and prevent him from having any public meltdowns. The family believe he is having a bipolar episode. He wont take medications because he feels they make him less creative. But to go out and say that about [their eldest daughter] North is shocking. Kim is devastated. Shes worked so hard to help him, but she wont let him do this to their children.

An additional source told People, Kim is shocked that Kanye spoke about North at the rally and she is furious that he shared something so private. She loves her kids tremendously and wants to protect them. Her favorite thing in the world is being a mom. Things have broken down significantly between the two of them, and its happened pretty suddenly.

The outlet previously reported that Kanye is struggling with his mental health, with a source saying, Kanye has been doing well for a long time. In the past, he has suffered both manic and depressive episodes related to his bipolar disorder. Right now, he is struggling again.

Kim hasnt spoken publicly, but on Monday night, Kanye tweeted about his wife attempting to get him medical care. The posts have since been deleted.

If you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the NAMI Helpline at 800-950-NAMI or text NAMI to 741741.

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A Florida woman whose neck and spinal cord were broken in a brutal beating by officers at Lowell Correctional Institution in August 2019 has been denied a test for COVID-19 after she was possibly exposed to infected inmates last week, her lawyers said.

In a Monday motion filed in Cheryl Weimars case against the Florida Department of Corrections, her lawyer said she was exposed to COVID-19 at the nearby Florida Womens Reception Center in Ocala late July 13, but was refused a test for the disease even after offering to pay for the test herself.

The motion requests that the department transfer Weimar to an outside medical facility to test her for COVID-19 and protect her from the virus.

Weimar, 51, was left a quadriplegic in the beating and suffers from other health problems as well as trauma from the the attack, which remains under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. After initially being treated at a hospital and having surgery, she was sent back to prison, where she has been incarcerated since.

Cheryl Weimar has been paralyzed from the neck down since a beating by corrections officers at Lowell Correctional.

Weimar is serving time on a domestic violence-related charge and has a history of mental and physical disabilities. She has been incarcerated since January 2016.

In the motion, filed in the U.S. District Court in Ocala, her lawyers say security staff knowingly and deliberately allowed the doors to negative pressure entryways connecting cells of COVID-positive inmates to be opened for at least 45 minutes, exposing employees and inmates to the disease.

Weimars hospital bed is less than 50 feet from the door.

The revelation comes from a sworn affidavit by Weimars assigned night nurse. She testified that after the incident, several nurses and staff quit, including the director of nursing, leaving the prison severely short-staffed with medical providers.

As of Wednesday, the prison had 11 inmates test positive. Just 210 of approximately 1,456 inmates have been tested.

Weimar is medically fragile and susceptible to catching COVID-19, her lawyers wrote. Her injuries rendered Weimar dependent on catheters, mechanical breathing assistance, tracheostomy and feeding tubes and a specialty hospital bed. She oftentimes struggles to catch her breath, which her attorneys point out is a significant comorbidity as it relates to COVID-19.

Story continues

In her affidavit, the nurse who cared for Weimar said she fears [the Florida Department of Corrections] and the medical staff will let her die and not give her the testing and care that she will need and which should be provided in a hospital.

The Department of Corrections cannot comment on individual inmates, but said it is instituting broader COVID-19 testing at the Florida Womens Reception Center.

Centurion, the contracted managed care provider, did not respond to a request for comment.

Weimars trial in her case against the department is scheduled for December.

This story has been updated with a comment from the Department of Corrections.
Some Califonia hair salon owners have been eager to reopen after being shut down for months amid the coronavirus pandemic, and now they have the green light to reopen with new rules enforced.

After initially being ordered to shut down again earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday that salons could resume services if they are held outdoors.

The state's new guidelines for hair salons include cleaning and disinfecting protocols, providing temperature screenings for employees and customers as well as wearing masks and safe social distancing when possible.

Similar guidelines were also put in place for nail salons that open outdoors. These rules include asking manicurists to use hand sanitizer first, work at single stations and offer color palettes instead of nail polish.

PHOTO: Insignia Hair Salon stylist Regina Muslimova gives a haircut in the parking lot behind the salon, July 21, 2020, in Walnut Creek, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Owners Chad and Grazia Brunochelli of Pasadena-based salon Passione explained to "Good Morning America" how much they loved their jobs and were willing to work anywhere.

The owners also mentioned that services will be limited. "If we do color highlights, the client has to go home and rinse it out so we prefer just right now to do haircuts and blow-dries."

MORE: Here's how hair salons are reopening amid COVID-19

PHOTO: Insignia Hair Salon stylist Regina Muslimova gives a haircut in the parking lot behind the salon, July 21, 2020, in Walnut Creek, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

While many are eager to get their post-quarantine cuts, experts warn that paying a visit to your salon still comes with potential risks.

MORE: Drybar salon to require client temperature checks, face coverings

"You still have people in close proximity to one another," Dr. John Brownstein told "GMA." "You have to physically be touching another human in order to perform these activities. So there is a potential for risk."

If you have prolonged contact with individuals over half an hour or an hour, the probability of a transmission event goes up, Brownstein said.

California reopens outdoor hair, nail salons amid coronavirus pandemic originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
Former JNU scholar Sharjeel Imam, an accused in the conspiracy behind the Delhi riots, has tested positive for Covid-19, his legal team said on Tuesday.

As per the conversation between Imam, who is in a jail in Guwahati, and his lawyers, he tested positive on Monday, a member of Imam's legal team told IANS over phone.

"I am unwell, weak and also feeling shortness of breath and weakness; I would like to bring it to the attention of the authorities to shift me and other inmates to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital so that we would be provided with proper medical and health facilities," Imam told his legal team.

Imam is currently lodged in a jail in Guwahati in connection with a case relating to an alleged inflammatory speech given by him during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

A member of his legal team informed that during the interview, Imam has stated that the Guwahati Central Jail is overcrowded and social distancing norms are also not being complied with.

Imam's legal team alleged that the authorities had earlier decided that inmates will be treated inside the jail premises and therefore, a makeshift hospital was set up. "But medical facilities are not being provided and there has been no medicine or oxygen," the lawyer said.

Earlier this month, the Delhi High Court dismissed his petition challenging a trial court's order granting more time to complete the probe against him and also seeking default bail in a case pertaining to giving an inflammatory speech during the anti-CAA protests.

Imam came into the eye of a storm for his speech in Delhi's Jamia over Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) on December 13 and subsequently on January 16 at Aligarh Muslim University, where he allegedly threatened to "cut off" Assam and the rest of the northeast from the country. A case of sedition was filed against him. He also figures in the Delhi riots charge sheet.

A team of Delhi Police's Special Cell had reached Guwahati on Friday to take him back to the capital where he was scheduled to be produced before a court on July 25.

Sharjeel and the Delhi Police team were tested for Covid-19 before their departure from Guwahati but while the police team tested negative, he tested positive. This has delayed his transfer, an official source said.
SAN ANTONIO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Pioneer Energy Service Corp. ("Pioneer" or "the Company") today announced that Wm. Stacy Locke has decided to step down as President, Chief Executive Officer, and as a director of the Company effective July 17, 2020.

Mr. Locke has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company since December 2003 and has been associated with the Company in various leadership capacities for over 25 years. The Company expresses its deep appreciation for Mr. Locke's many years of dedicated service.

Commenting on Mr. Locke's achievements, Charlie Thompson, chairman of the Board of Directors of Pioneer, noted, "Stacy's vision and leadership enabled Pioneer to navigate some challenging waters, including through various financial crises and business cycles, and to grow Pioneer both organically and via acquisitions into the outstanding mix of assets that it is today. We are truly grateful to Stacy for his commitment to the Company and his dedication to its employees, shareholders, and customers. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors."

Mr. Locke commented, "I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to have worked with such an outstanding leadership team and all the great employees at Pioneer. I especially want to commend this group for its efforts in safety and for caring deeply about protecting the lives of the Pioneer family and all others working at our sites. This culture is bar none the best in the industry and makes me very proud to have played a part in it. I depart the Company feeling Pioneer is in very good hands and has a bright future."

Matt Porter, a member of the Company's Board of Directors will serve as interim President and interim Chief Executive Officer until a successor is appointed. Mr. Porter, age 44, has been a director of the Company since May 29, 2020. He is currently a founding partner at Activos, LLC, a consulting company in the domestic and international oilfield service industry and Allied Industrial Partners, an investment firm that focuses on investments in manufacturing, distribution, energy and industrial service companies. Previously, he was a chief executive officer, president and director at Xtreme Drilling Corp. and chief financial officer at Bronco Drilling Company. He started his career at BOK Financial Corp. as a portfolio manager. Mr. Porter received his M.B.A. and B.B.A. from University of Oklahoma. The Company believes that Mr. Porter's extensive knowledge of the energy industry will be a vital asset in his interim leadership role.

About Pioneer Energy Services Corp.

Pioneer Energy Services provides well servicing and wireline services to producers primarily in Texas and Rocky Mountain regions. Pioneer also provides contract land drilling services to oil and gas operators in Texas and Appalachia regions and internationally in Colombia. Pioneer is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

Contact:

Dan Petro, CFA, Vice President, Treasury and Investor Relations

Pioneer Energy Services

(210) 828-7689

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements contained in this press release that express a belief, expectation or intention, as well as those that are not historical fact, are forward-looking statements made in good faith that are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. These forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs, intentions, and expectations. Any statements that express, or involve discussions as to, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often, but not always identifiable by the use of the words or phrases such as "will result," "expects to," "will continue," "anticipates," "plans, "intends," "estimated," "projects," and "outlook") are not historical facts and may be forward-looking and, accordingly, such statements involve estimates, assumptions and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Our actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those we express in the foregoing discussion as a result of a variety of factors, including the effects of our bankruptcy on our business and relationships, the concentration of our equity ownership following bankruptcy, the application of fresh start accounting, and the effect of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on our industry. We have discussed many of these factors in more detail in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, as amended by Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2019, and in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended March 31, 2020, including under the heading "Risk Factors" in Item 1A. These factors are not necessarily all the important factors that could affect us. Other unpredictable or unknown factors could also have material adverse effects on actual results or matters that are the subject of our forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We advise readers that they should (1) recognize that important factors not referred to above could affect the accuracy of our forward-looking statements and (2) use caution and common sense when considering our forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Pioneer Energy Services Corp.
Eric Breemen who is accused of running over the Sikh owner of a liquor store in suburban Denver is facing a hate crime charge on July 21, 2020. (Jefferson County Sheriff's Office via AP)

Man Accused of Running Over Sikh Man Charged With Hate Crime

A man accused of running over the Sikh owner of a suburban Denver liquor store after reportedly telling him and his wife to go back to your country is now facing a hate crime charge in addition to 16 other charges, including attempted murder.

Prosecutors said the hate crime charge was filed against Eric Breemen on Tuesday nearly three months after the alleged assault in the parking lot of the Lakewood store Lakhwant Singh owns with his wife. The charges came after an investigation prosecutors say was delayed by the severity of Singhs injuries, his 65-day stay in the hospital, and coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

The announcement from the office of First Judicial District Attorney Peter Weir said investigators recently conducted their first in-person interview with Singh with help from the FBI after Singhs release from the hospital.

This is a very serious case and another example of the challenges we face in the criminal justice system during this public health emergency, Weir said.

Public defender Alex Taufer, who has represented Breemen in court, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

The information gathered by prosecutors that led them to pursue the hate crime charge has not been introduced into the court record at this point in the proceedings and cannot be released yet, district attorney spokesperson Pam Russell said Wednesday.

A police document laying out the reasons for Breemens arrest soon after the April 29 incident said that Breemen thought Singh, who wears a turban and uncut beard in adherence with his Sikh faith, was an older Arab.

According to the document, Breemen denied threatening Singh and said Singh had jumped in front of his car as we were driving away from the store.

However, a regular customer who was in the parking lot told police a man Singh had been arguing with got in his car and accelerated toward Singh, who tried but was not able to get out of his way, the document said.

According to the Sikh Coalition, a civil rights organization that fights discrimination against Sikhs and represents Singh, Breemen began picking up items in an agitated manner after entering Two Angels Liquors before harassing Singh and his wife, telling them to go back to your country, and damaging numerous items in the store.

The couple were protected by a plexiglass window on the counter that they had installed because of the pandemic, and they repeatedly asked Breemen to leave before he finally did so, legal director Amrith Kaur Aakre said in a June 1 letter to police and prosecutors urging authorities to pursue a hate crime charge.

Singh followed him outside to take a photo of Breemens license plate, which the coalition said enraged Breemen and caused him to use his vehicle to hit him, Aakre said.

In a statement released by the coalition, Singh said he appreciated authorities hearing his story and recognizing the role that hate played in his alleged assault.

I am so very grateful to everyoneSikhs and non-Sikhs alike, from Lakewood, elsewhere in Colorado, across the country, and beyondwho have stood with me and my family in this incredibly difficult time, he said.

The Sikh Coalition was formed following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when Sikhs were targeted because some people mistakenly believed they were Muslim. Sikhism, a monotheistic faith, was founded more than 500 years ago in the Indian region of Punjab and has roughly 27 million followers worldwide, most of them in India.

By Colleen Slevin
Russia-occupation forces in Donbas fired on Ukrainian positions six times on Wednesday, two servicemen wounded, he press service of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) headquarters has said.

"On July 22, Russia-occupation force violated the ceasefire regime six times. The enemy continues to use heavy weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements," the JFO headquarters said on its Facebook page.

In particular, in the area of responsibility of the Pivnich (North) task group, the enemy mounted attacks from 120-mm mortars at Ukrainian positions near the settlement of Mayorsk. The enemy also opened fired using grenade launchers and machine guns at the strong positions of the Ukrainian defenders near Khutir Volny.

In the area of responsibility of the Skhid (East) task group, the enemy attacked Ukraine's positions near the settlement of Maryinka and Lebedynske using grenade launchers of various types and large-caliber machine guns. Against the defenders of the settlement of Bohdanivka, Russian mercenaries used an unmanned aerial vehicle, from which dropped a VOG-25 grenade launcher.

"During the current day, as a result of enemy shelling, two defenders from the United Forces were wounded. They were promptly taken to medical institutions and provided with the help of doctors," the JFO said in the statement.
BOSTON - Virtual instruction. Mandated masks. Physical distancing. The start of school will look very different this year because of the coronavirus  and thats OK with the vast majority of Americans.

Only about 1 in 10 Americans think daycare centres, preschools or K-12 schools should open this fall without restrictions, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. Most think mask requirements and other safety measures are necessary to restart in-person instruction, and roughly 3 in 10 say that teaching kids in classrooms shouldnt happen at all.

The findings are a sharp contrast to the picture that President Donald Trump paints as he pressures schools to reopen. Trump said Wednesday that he would be comfortable with his son Barron and grandchildren attending school in person this fall.

I would like to see the schools open, he told reporters.

Few schools, however, plan to return to business as usual. Many of the nations largest school districts have announced that theyll be entirely virtual in the fall or use a hybrid model that has children in classrooms only a couple of days a week.

The poll finds only 8% of Americans say K-12 schools should open for normal in-person instruction. Just 14% think they can reopen with minor adjustments, while 46% think major adjustments are needed. Another 31% think instruction should not be in person this fall. Its little different among the parents of school-age children.

The poll also shows Americans feel the same about colleges and universities reopening this fall.

Americans show little confidence in Trumps handling of education issues. Only 36% say they approve of Trumps performance, while 63% disapprove. But a stark political divide on opening schools suggests many Republicans are taking cues from the president.

About 9 in 10 Democrats say requiring students and staff to wear masks is essential to reopening, while only about half of Republicans say the same. Democrats are roughly twice as likely as Republicans to say schools should use a mix of in-person and virtual instruction to reduce the number of students in buildings, 77% to 39%.

Patty Kasbek, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, said she desperately wants her two children, ages 5 and 10, to return to school. After months at home, the family is stressed and anxious. But with the virus surging, she doesnt see a safe way to reopen.

School shouldnt even be considered right now, said Kasbek, 40. We need to get this under control before we play with the virus. Its just too dangerous to put our kids out there like guinea pigs.

Her local school district is planning to reopen with new safety measures, she said, but shes opting to enrol her children in a virtual school. She isnt as worried about her own health but fears that reopening schools could spread the virus to others.

I just see it going very badly, and Im very, very worried for the teachers, said Kasbek, who considers herself a Democrat.

The poll finds a majority of Americans, 56%, say they are very or extremely concerned that reopening schools will lead to additional infections in their communities; another 24% are somewhat concerned.

Some, however, see little risk. James Rivers, of Ramsey, Minnesota, said schools should reopen without protective measures against the virus. Rivers, a Republican, says Trump is doing a fine job and will have his vote in November.

I think it should be just business as usual, said Rivers, 54. Yes, there is a COVID virus, but is it any more deadly than the common flu? I dont think so.

Rivers, who does not have school-age children, said parents who fear the virus can home school. As for everybody else who isnt afraid of a virus that has a less than 2% chance of being fatal, send your kid back to school. Lets get it done, he said.

Majorities say it is essential that buildings be disinfected daily, temperature checks and face masks be mandatory and desks be spread apart if schools are to reopen.

And 6 in 10 think a mix of in-person and virtual instruction is necessary, to limit the number of students inside at one time. Some of the nations largest districts, including New York Citys schools, plan to use that model. But Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says that fails students and taxpayers, arguing that students should be in the classroom every day.

In his campaign to reopen schools, Trump argues that Democrats oppose it for political reasons. He has threatened to cut federal funding for schools that fail to reopen fully. The White House has said he wants to work with Congress to tie future relief funding to reopening. He argues that other countries have reopened schools safely, although some he cites have used the hybrid model that DeVos decried.

The Trump administration also has argued that its not just about academics. Students need access to meal programs and mental health services, it says.

But Trumps demands put him at odds with his own health officials. He rebuked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for releasing school guidelines that he said were too tough.

The poll finds about half of parents saying they are at least somewhat concerned about their child losing services like school lunches or counselling because of the pandemic.

More say they are worried about their child falling behind academically: 55% are very concerned, with another 21% somewhat concerned.

A majority of parents, 65%, are at least somewhat concerned about their own ability to juggle responsibilities.

Jimmy La Londe, 70, of Hiawassee, Georgia, thinks schools should reopen with safety measures that local officials think are necessary. Still, La Londe, who considers himself a Republican, said keeping schools closed will only hurt students and anger taxpayers.

They have to keep the momentum, they have to keep people used to going to school, he said. I dont think you can stop school forever.

___

Fingerhut reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,057 adults was conducted July 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

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Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/
Donald Trump has announced a surge of hundreds of law enforcement officers into Democratic-run cities including Chicago, drawing condemnation from civil liberties watchdogs.

The US presidents move came after a crackdown by federal agents on anti-racism protesters in Portland, Oregon, and was consistent with his emphasis on law and order as a key component of his reelection campaign.

Today, Im announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime, Trump said at the White House on Wednesday. Well work every single day to restore public safety, protect our nations children and bring violent perpetrators to justice.

Related: Federal agents retreat to Portland base as protesters control streets

The aggressive move renewed fears of an expanding state security apparatus threatening the rights of peaceful demonstrators. The American Civil Liberties Union tweeted: We will continue to defend our constitutional rights from Trumps lawlessness  in Portland, Chicago, and wherever else necessary.

With just over a hundred days until the presidential election, Trump has argued that violence would worsen if his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, is elected. He cast the latest move in starkly political partisan terms.

My administration will be working to remove dangerous offenders sprung loose by these deadly policies and, frankly, by these deadly politicians, he said. America must be a sanctuary for law-abiding citizens, not criminal aliens. My vision for Americas cities could not be more different from the lawlessness being pushed by the extreme radical left.

The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, US Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security would all send agents to Chicago, Trump added, giving a lengthy description of recent violence in Americas third biggest city and accusing its Democratic leaders of failing residents.

No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms simply because politicians refused to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city, he said.

Story continues

The announcement pits Trump against Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago, who has made clear her opposition to federal intervention.

Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents, she tweeted on Tuesday.

Yet on Wednesday, the president denied the initiative was a political stunt and claimed Chicago actually wanted his help. The cities, unfortunately, that are in trouble are all run by Democrats. You have radical left Democrats running cities like Chicago and so many others  Unfortunately, thats the way it is. I mean, thats the facts.

Mayor Lightfoot sent me a letter yesterday, and I think, in their own way, they want us to go in. Therell be a time when theyre going to want us to go in full blast, but right now were sending extra people to help. Were arresting a lot of people that have been very bad.

He added: Shes a Democrat. Shes making a big mistake. People are dying in Chicago and other cities, and we can solve the problem.

A reporter challenged Trump over why he blamed his predecessor, Barack Obama, for a rise in crime in Chicago in 2016, yet does not accept responsibility now. He replied: Because President Obama was invited in, and he did a poor job. President Obama could have gone into Chicago. He could have solved the problem, and he didnt. In our case, they dont want us in. We can solve the problem very easily.

The president and William Barr, the attorney general, also announced on Wednesday that two dozen agents would be dispatched to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

William Barr delivers remarks on the operation in the East Room of White House on Wednesday. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Barr said: Today, we have extended Operation Legend to Chicago and Albuquerque to protect the residents of those cities from senseless acts of deadly violence by targeting those involved in gang activity and those who use guns to commit violent crime.

The justice department says Chicago is experiencing a significant increase in violent crime, with murders currently up 51% over 2019, while Albuquerque is on pace to break 2019s record for murders in the city.

Martin Heinrich, a Democratic senator for New Mexico, condemned the intervention. Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque police department, the sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque, he said.

The president has linked the growing violence in the streets with protests against racial injustice in what critics say is a ploy to stoke fears in predominantly white suburbs. Experts in criminal justice say the rise in crime is more complex, especially in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and economic slump.

The unrest in Portland only grew after federal agents in camouflage were seen taking people away in unmarked cars without probable cause. Several lawsuits have been filed questioning the federal governments authority to use broad policing powers in cities.

Related: US mayors demand stop to federal policing with 'no oversight' in Portland

Democratic mayors of 15 cities, including Portland, have condemned the use of the agents in a letter to Barr and the acting homeland security secretary, Chad Wolf.

The announcement on Wednesday marked an expansion of a justice department programme launched by Barr on 8 July. Operation Legend was initially devised to address violent crime in Kansas City, Missouri, and named after LeGend Taliferro, a four-year-old boy fatally shot there last month. The first federal arrest under Operation Legend was announced on Monday.

Leon Panetta, a former defence secretary and CIA director, said: One of the last holdouts for tyrants is to try to have the military be able to protect them, and that fear that he may try to do that raises a lot of concerns about just how far will he go to try to take over a lot of these cities and states in terms of their ability to conduct law enforcement on their own.

Panetta added: Its interesting, because federalism has always been a calling card for Republicans to avoid having the federal government impose its will on states and communities. To have a president whos prepared to send federal officers into these communities I think represents a step that ought to not only create fear in the people that are impacted by that decision, but should raise a hell of a lot of fear for those Republicans who have defended federalism most of their lives.
Russian jets took off from the Hemeimeem airbase as Israeli jets fired missiles at southern Syria, but were unable to stop the attack writes Al-Masdar.

On Tuesday, the Russian publication Avia.Pro reported that the Russian Air Force intercepted an Israeli warplane during the latters attack on Damascus last night.

Despite claims that Russia may not have control over the airspace over the region, it turned out that a few minutes before the IDF strike, Russia had lifted its military aircraft from the Hemeimeem airbase, which allegedly took off in a southeast direction, the publication noted, the take-off of Russian aviation assets was recorded at 09:47 pm, while Israel launched an attack at 09:48 pm.

According to Avia.Pro, the Russian Air Force could have stopped the Israeli attack after deploying their jets to southern Syria last night.

Given the distance from Hemeimeem airbase to Damascus, Russian aircraft could have covered it in a matter of minutes, but analysts believe that Russia couldnt have prevented the IDF from continuing its strikes as the attack was carried out from airspace controlled by the Israeli military.

While the Kremlin has made no mention of this claim, there have been similar reports about the Russian Air Force intercepting Israeli aircraft in the past.

However, despite these claims, the Israeli military was able to hit some sites around the Sahnaya suburb of Damascus. A report from the Syrian capital said that the Syrian Arab Army was able to down some of the Israeli missiles, but a few others managed to hit their intended targets.

This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
A single email is shedding light on why Metro Health Director Dawn Emerick may have stepped down from her position in late June, as San Antonio's COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to climb.

The resignation came as a surprise to the public as she had just started in January and was a leader in the city's response to the pandemic.

However, in that time, a strife was brewing between Emerick and her boss, Assistant City Manager Dr. Colleen Bridger.

Through a public records request, the San Antonio Express-News obtained an email sent from Bridger - now interim Metro Health director - to the city's human resources director, one day before Emerick announced her resignation.

Below are excerpts from that email.
And loyalty doesnt always go both ways. Talk to a customer like Edward Gerety. Hell tell you that all the offers in the world wont sway him unless a company is willing to reciprocate his loyalty. Gerety, a financial manager who lives in Kaneohe, Hawaii, said he canceled American Airlines tickets to the mainland after a surge in covid-19 cases. American said it would cost each family member $150 to redeposit our points, he says. No amount of negotiation would make it budge.
The only comet I remember seeing with the naked eye in my life was HaleBopp, which increased in brightness and developed two tails, one blue 
In his first coronavirus briefing in months, Trump said the pandemic will probably get worse before it gets better.

United States President Donald Trump, in a shift in rhetoric on facial coverings, encouraged Americans on Tuesday to wear a mask if they cannot maintain social distance from people around them in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

In his first briefing focused on the coronavirus pandemic in months, Trump told reporters at the White House it will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better.

Something I dont like saying about things, but thats the way it is.

Trump has been reluctant to wear a mask himself in public. He wore one for the first time in public during a recent visit to a military hospital, but has otherwise avoided putting one on in front of the press.

As cases rise in states around the country, including in politically important states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona, Trump is shifting his tone to try to get the number of cases under control.





Were asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, theyll have an effect and we need everything we can get, he said.

Trump said he was getting used to masks and would wear one himself in groups or when on an elevator.

I will use it, gladly, he said. Anything that potentially can help  is a good thing.

The president also urged young Americans to avoid crowded bars where the virus could spread.

The comments came at the end of Trumps evening briefing, which lasted less than half an hour. Trump appeared alone, with no public health experts joining him.

During the question-and-answer session following his prepared remarks, Trump raised eyebrows by saying he wished alleged sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell well, noting that he had met her multiple times in the past.

Trump was asked if he thinks Maxwell will turn in powerful men following her arrest, given that she was the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein and was his alleged co-conspirator.

I dont know, I havent really been following it too much, Trump said of the case. I just wish her well, frankly. Ive met her numerous times over the years  especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach  but I wish her well, whatever it is.

Maxwell was arrested early this month in New Hampshire, where authorities said she had been hiding at a sprawling property she bought while shielding her identity.

Prosecutors have accused Maxwell, 58, of helping Epstein recruit and eventually abuse girls as young as 14 from 1994 to 1997 and lying about her role in depositions in 2016, charges she has strenuously denied.

Her trial is set to start on July 12, 2021.
Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management. Adam Jeffery | CNBC

This week, Bill Ackman, through Pershing Square Holdings, is sponsoring the largest Special Purpose Acquisition Company ever raised. A SPAC, also known as blank check companies, has no commercial operations and is formed strictly to raise capital through an initial public offering for the purpose of acquiring an existing company. Pershing Square's SPAC will be called Pershing Square Tontine Holdings and will raise $4 billion by offering 200 million units at $20 per share. Additionally, Pershing Square will be acquiring between $1 billion and $3 billion of units, for a total amount of capital of up to $7 billion. However, based on Pershing Square's current assets under management, we do not expect their contribution to exceed $1.5 billion, for a total capitalization of $5.5 billion. This is the second time in its history that Pershing Square has sponsored a SPAC. Pershing Square also served as co-sponsor of Justice Holdings, with Nicolas Berggruen and Martin Franklin. Justice Holdings raised approximately $1.5 billion in its initial public offering in February of 2011 (including a $458 million investment by Pershing Square). In April of 2012, Justice Holdings purchased from 3G Capital a 29% stake in Burger King Worldwide Holdings Inc. for $1.4 billion in cash, and subsequently merged with Tim Hortons, to form Restaurant Brands International. Pershing Square still remains the second-largest investor in Restaurant Brands International. As of June 30, 2020 the stock of Restaurant Brands International has generated a compound annual total return of 19% since its merger with Justice Holdings, even after losing 30% of its value during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How it works

The basic structure of a SPAC is that investors buy common stock in the IPO of a blank check company, in this case, for $20 per share. In addition to the common stock, they receive warrants as an incentive for them to invest. These warrants are generally detachable, allowing the investor to trade them as separate securities and inviting the short-term investing arbitrage world into SPACs, which often make up a significant part of the shareholder base. The SPAC sponsor will then find a company to acquire and investors will essentially have the choice of staying invested in the SPAC through the acquisition or redeeming their shares for the full amount they acquired them for. The structure of Tontine Holdings is unique on many different levels. First, each unit consists of: (i) one share of common stock, (ii) one-ninth of a redeemable warrant, exercisable at $23; and (iii) two-ninths of a warrant, exercisable at $23 provided that they are not redeemed in connection with a proposed business combination. It is this last element that is significant. The one-ninth of a warrant is detachable on day 52 and this is a normal incentive for SPAC investors. However, unlike virtually all other SPACs where all warrants are detachable, two-thirds of the warrants issued to shareholders are not detachable, discouraging the arb community and encouraging long term investors. Moreover, the investors do not even receive these two-thirds of warrants if they choose to redeem their stock prior to the closing of the acquisition, giving a significant amount of more certainty that the acquisition will close. And finally, as additional incentive to hold the securities through the closing, if a shareholder does redeem, their warrants are distributed pro rata to the shareholders who remain in the SPAC, hence the name "Tontine" holdings. A tontine is an investment plan devised in the 17th century whereby each investor pays an agreed sum into the fund and thereafter receives a periodic payout with that payment devolving to the other participants upon the death of an investor. But the most unique feature of this SPAC and the greatest departure from historical SPACs is the compensation terms for the SPAC sponsor, in this case Pershing Square Holdings. The normal historical SPAC sponsor will partly capitalize the operations of the SPAC by acquiring sponsor warrants giving them a participation in the upside of the company. But that is far from their main compensation. Typically, SPAC sponsors receive 20% of the shares in the SPAC for extremely nominal consideration. These founders shares compensate the sponsor regardless of whether the shares in the company appreciate or decline. For example, in a recent SPAC sponsored by Goldman Sachs, they raised $700 million at $10 per share. They paid $16 million for warrants to acquire 8 million shares at $11.50 per share and received Founders shares for 20% of the company for $5,000. On the day of the closing that $5,000 payment yielded them $140 million of stock assuming a deal closes. Another example a little older but involving a peer of Pershing Square is Third Point's 2018 sponsoring of Far Point Acquisition Corp. where it raised $500 million at $10 per share. In that situation, Third Point paid $12 million for warrants to buy 8 million shares at $11.50 per share and received its 20% of Founder shares for a nominal payment of only $25,000. So, assuming a deal closes, Third Point receives $100 million of its shareholders' investment regardless of whether the investment is successful or not. Moreover, under the Founders' shares compensation structure, Third Point and Goldman Sachs still receive tens of millions of dollars of compensation even in a failed investment that loses half of its value. In contrast, in Tontine Holdings, Pershing Square and its affiliates (including Tontine board members) are paying $67.8 million for warrants to acquire 6.21% of the company. This is much more consideration than the $16 million and $12 million that Goldman and Third Point paid and much less than the 9.1% and 12.8% of shares that Goldman and Third Point received. Moreover, Goldman and Third Point's warrants were exercisable at a 15% premium to the IPO price whereas Pershing Square's are exercisable at a 20% premium, and Pershing Square has agreed not to exercise its warrants for three years after the closing of the acquisition.

Why it's 'groundbreaking'

But this is not the really groundbreaking feature of the Tontine compensation structure. The truly remarkable departure from SPAC standard terms is that Pershing Square is not taking any founders shares. By removing this egregious compensation element, Pershing Square really shows their allegiance to their investors. Pershing Square's sole compensation for founding and capitalizing the SPAC and sourcing, negotiating and closing a $10B+ acquisition will be a 6.21% promote after the investors have already received a 20% return. To put it another way, under Pershing Square's warrant-only compensation structure, Pershing Square does not receive any compensation until after the shareholders receive a 20% return, whereas under the typical founders shares compensation structure (as illustrated by the Goldman Sachs and Third Point SPACs above), the shareholders do not see any return until after the company receives a 20% return. Furthermore, Pershing Square paid $67.8 million for these warrants, money they do not get back if a deal is not procured and closed. So, why did Pershing Square wait almost 10 years after its extremely successful Justice Holdings SPAC to do another one? The answer is market environment.

What's different now

Pershing Square started working on Justice Holdings right after the financial crisis, when there was an extreme level of uncertainty in the markets. Uncertainty is the mortal enemy of IPOs  until the day of the IPO, companies are not sure what price they will get, how much money they will raise and if it will even happen during times of ultra-volatility in the markets. Pershing Square patiently waited for that market environment to repeat itself, except this time in the form of a global pandemic and a presidential election. With COVID-19 surges coming or not coming and vaccines coming or not coming depending on the day, there is too much uncertainty in the markets over the next nine months or so for companies to risk an IPO, particularly a $5 billion IPO. Isn't it much easier to go public through a SPAC where you know exactly how much you are getting for your shares and have a contractual obligation from the acquirer? Moreover, management does not have to deal with the loss of focus inherent in an IPO and all of the meetings, issues and road shows. The only uncertainty in a SPAC is if the acquirer will approve it or if its shareholders will choose to redeem instead. Well, Pershing Square's structure has taken a lot of that uncertainty away as well. The transaction will not necessarily require shareholder approval, just board approval; and the possibility of redeeming shareholders was greatly mitigated because of the Tontine-style warrants, the fact that Pershing Square will be investing over a billion dollars of its own money and because unlike most SPACs, shareholders are not looking at a 20% dilution from Founders shares. So, the $64 million question (or $5.5 billion question in this case) is what kind of company is Pershing Square looking for and when is it likely to happen.

Finding the right match

Pershing Square is looking for a minority position and we are assuming they will have $5.5 billion of capital. We also believe it will be just one large company they will be spending the money on. By prospectus, they have to spend at least 80% of their capital. If you assume they would want at least 10% of the company, that makes the target worth between $8.8 and $55 billion. Pershing Square will look for a company with similar characteristics as its activist investments: a simple, high-quality, high return on capital business that generates predictable growing cash flows that can be estimated within a reasonable range over the long term. The types of companies it will be looking at will be: (i) a high-quality, well-managed, large capitalization company that is looking for a better alternative to an IPO, such as Rocket Mortgage, which just recently filed for an IPO; (ii) a "mature unicorn"  a high-quality, venture-backed business that has achieved significant scale, market share, competitive dominance and cash flow that does not have as much private funding options as it used to due to the problems at Softbank and the ramifications to the venture market from companies like WeWork; (iii) large private equity portfolio companies that have become distressed due to their typically highly leveraged balance sheets and will require substantial equity infusions to withstand the impact of the current crisis; and (iv) large, high-quality, private family-owned companies that now are required to raise capital due to the economic downturn caused by the COVID19 pandemic. How long will this take? Well, by prospectus, they have 2 years to sign a deal and then six months to close thereafter. But it will not take nearly that long. The crisis that has made this the perfect environment for this strategy will last for about another nine months. We expect Pershing Square to find the company by then. There are only approximately 150 companies that fit their parameters, so they likely already have their top ten wish list, including obvious companies that pop out such as Airbnb and Bloomberg.

The perfect opportunity
Hyderabad: Responding to the High Court's ire over the Chandrashekar Rao administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials of the Medical, Health and Family Welfare department were summoned to a review meeting with the chief minister on Tuesday.

They were told to place the facts before the High Court on measures taken by the state government to contain the pandemic.

The review was held at Pragati Bhavan with chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao presiding. It was attended by health minister Etala Rajender, chief secretary Somesh Kumar and senior officers of the Medical, Health and Family Welfare department.

It provided an occasion for health officials to submit their difficulties to the chief minister. Senior officers informed the chief minister that no less than 87 public interest litigation petitions have been admitted by the High Court on Covid-19 issue, and it has been quite a task to furnish all the information required by the judges.

Some of the officers complained that rather than attending to COVID fighting work, they were having to devote more time to preparing of reports to the court and attending hearings.

Some officers pointed out that the High Court order directing the state government to conduct COVID-19 tests on all the fatalities had been struck down by the Supreme Court.

Sources said that the senior officers expressed concern at some media

houses publishing news reports which gave an impression that the state

government was doing nothing to fight the coronavirus which in turn was

undermining the morale of medical staff.

Chandrashekar Rao told the officers to furnish the details sought by the High Court and also explain the measures taken up for containment of the

virus.
There will be a mass exodus from the New York City Council in 2021. After serving two consecutive four-year terms, 34council members out of 51 districts are term-limited and will have to leave office at the end of 2021. Some of them already had exit plans  City Council Member Rafael Espinal Jr. resigned earlier this year to take a job leading the Freelancers Union and Council Members Ritchie Torres and Donovan Richards are expected to resign later this year after they win their races for Congress and Queens borough president, respectively. Most of the others will serve out their terms, but that doesnt mean theyre not planning for the next step in their careers. Some city lawmakers have already filed with the New York City Campaign Finance Board and announced their ambition to seek higher office. For example, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson is running for mayor in 2021, and every move he makes  or doesnt make  is viewed through that prism.

Most of the more than dozen council members who are not term-limited in 2021 are expected to run for reelection, and historical precedent tells us that the incumbents will be favored. But another term isnt guaranteed, as evidenced by City Council Member Robert Holden unseating Democratic incumbent Elizabeth Crowley in 2017. At least two members that arent term-limited are on their way out anyway, with Council Member Ruben Diaz Sr. of the Bronx announcing that he wont run for reelection and Council Member Bill Perkins of Harlem expected to retire as well.

Recent former council members have ended up everywhere from the halls of Congress to a prison cell. Here is where each term-limited New York City Council member may be headed after their career in the City Council ends in 2021.

Margaret Chin

1st District

Democrat

According to a spokesperson in her office, While Council Member Chin doesnt have concrete plans to share at this time, she has no doubt she will continue to stay engaged on the issues important to Lower Manhattan communities.

Corey Johnson

3rd District

Democrat

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson is running for mayor in 2021. Hes aiming to appeal to progressives, talking up safe streets while capping donations at $250 and pledging not to accept contributions from real estate firms, lobbying groups or corporate political action committees. Other top contenders include City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Ben Kallos

5th District

Democrat

Last fall, the city lawmaker launched his run forManhattan borough president. The council member has dozens of labor union endorsements and the support of fellow Upper East Sider Rep.Carolyn Maloney. But Kallos, who has nearly $105,000 in his campaign account as of July, is expected to face a crowded field, including his colleague Council Member Mark Levine.

Helen Rosenthal

6th District

Democrat

The Upper West Side council member was fundraising for a run for comptroller, but announced in July  a year before the June 2021 Democratic primary  that she would be dropping out of the race. She told Gotham Gazette that, while she wants to stay in public service, she doesnt plan to run for another office in 2021.

Mark Levine

7th District

Democrat

Council Member Mark Levine isrunning for Manhattan borough president in 2021 and is currently leading the other candidates in fundraising, including Kallos, with more than $180,000 in the bank as of July. The Manhattan Democrat has also received endorsements from Assembly Member Al Taylor and Council Member Margaret Chin, who was once rumored to be eyeing the office herself.

Ydanis Rodriguez

10th District

Democrat

Ydanis Rodriguez failed in his 2020 bid to succeed Rep. Jose E. Serrano in representing the 15th Congressional District in the South Bronx  which may have had something to do with the fact he lives in Manhattan. His colleague, Council Member Ritchie Torres, is expected to take the seat in November. With the federal bid behind him, Rodriguez is now rumored to be eyeing a run for Manhattan borough president.

Andrew Cohen

11th District

Democrat

According to his office, the council member will not make definitive decisions about his future before the presidential election. Elect[ing] a Democratic president remains a top priority, his spokesperson said. However, he is exploring a run for Bronx borough president and looking favorably at the position as an opportunity to contribute to revitalization and progress in the borough. Andrew Cohen, a lawyer, was previously considering becoming a judge in the state Supreme Court.

Andy King

12th District

Democrat

The Bronx Democrat is facing his third set of ethics charges in just two years. The Council Standards and Ethics Committees allegations against the council member include disorderly conduct and conflicts of interest, according to The New York Times. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said in February that King should be removed from office if found guilty of the charges. Allegations against King come after a one month suspension from the council this past fall. Regarding his future plans, King declined to comment.

Fernando Cabrera

14 District

Democrat

Fernando Cabrera dropped his bid to challenge Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 2020 Democratic primary after former news anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera entered the race. That was probably a good idea, since AOC soundly defeated her. Cabrera said he now plans to run for Bronx borough president in 2021, where hell likely face other current colleagues, including Council Member Vanessa Gibson.

Ritchie Torres

15th District

Democrat

Ritchie Torres is all but guaranteed to become the first new member of Congress in the South Bronx in nearly three decades, after topping a crowded field in the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jose E. Serrano. Torres will likely resign from the council at the end of 2020, setting up a special election early in 2021 to fill his Bronx seat.

Vanessa Gibson

16th District

Democrat

Vanessa Gibson is campaigning to be the Bronxs top executive, running to succeed the term-limited Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. Shes expected to face other council colleagues including Fernando Cabrera. She hasnt started fundraising, as of July, and her campaign account was more than $9,000 in debt.

Paul Vallone

19th District

Democrat

The northeastern Queens council member decided against running for the open Queens borough president seat in 2020. While he hasnt publicly announced future plans, the council member would seem to have options, such as becoming a judge like his brother, former City Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., or joining Constantinople & Vallone Consulting LLC, his fathers lobbying firm.

Peter Koo

20th District

Democrat

The Queens Democrat was elected to the City Council in 2009 and continues to own and run a local chain of pharmacies. According to his spokesperson, His future plans are to be determined, but all options are open.

Costa Constantinides

22nd District

Democrat

The council memberannounced his bid for Queens borough president in September, but appears destined for a third place finish in the June Democratic primary behind the likely winner, City Council Member Donovan Richards, and Elizabeth Crowley, a former City Council member. The Astoria council members future plans arent yet known.

Rory Lancman

24th District

Democrat

The council memberran for Queens district attorney in 2019 but suspended his campaign just four days before the primary election and endorsed the eventual winner, Melinda Katz. Rory Lancmans spokesperson declined to comment on his future plans, but as an attorney and the husband of a judge, Lancman has been rumored to be eyeing a seat on the bench himself.

Daniel Dromm

25th District

Democrat

The Queens Democrat told City & State that he does not have any specific plans yet, but wants to go into education administration or policy. A former public school teacher, the council member used to chair the councils Education Committee. Education is my passion, Dromm said. Thats why I ran for the position in the first place.

Jimmy Van Bramer

26th District

Democrat

The Western Queens council member planned to run for Queens borough president in 2020, but suspended his campaign before the primary, reportedly due to concerns about his mothers health. A source with knowledge of Jimmy Van Bramers thinking told City & State that he is considering his options in regard to a run for Queens borough president in 2021 and a run for Assembly in 2022.

Daneek Miller

27th District

Democrat

City Council Member I. Daneek Miller has served on the council since 2013. According to his spokesperson, the Queens Democrat is not ready to announce his future plans right now.

Karen Koslowitz

29th District

Democrat

City Council Member Karen Koslowitz was first elected to the City Council in 1991 and reelected in 2009. After she leaves the council, she would like to work part time, in either the private sector or the government sector, her spokesperson told City & State. She will continue to be active in the affairs of her neighborhood, continuing to promote the interests of her community.

Donovan Richards

31st District

Democrat

While votes continue to be counted in the race for Queens borough president, Donovan Richards seems all but guaranteed to win the Democratic primary, which would make him a virtual lock to win in November and take office before the end of the year. A special election would then be held for Richards Southeast Queens council seat in early 2021. Richards would be expected to run for his first full term as borough president later in 2021.

Eric Ulrich

32nd District

Republican

Last year, the Queens Republican lost the special election for New York City public advocate to fellow Council Member Jumaane Williams. Now, Eric Ulrich has expressed interest in becoming the executive director of the New York City Board of Elections, for which he needs the vote of six commissioners on the board. While Ulrich toyed with running for mayor in 2017 before ultimately declining; he isnt expected to vie for the partys nomination in 2021.

Stephen Levin

33rd District

Democrat

At this time, the Brooklyn Democrat could not give a comment to City & State. As the chair of the councils General Welfare Committee, Stephen Levin could likely get a job running a social services nonprofit.

Antonio Reynoso

34th District

Democrat

The Brooklyn Democrat is running to replace Eric Adams as Brooklyn borough president. Hes raised nearly $105,000 and still has more than $81,000 in his campaign account, as of July.

Laurie Cumbo

35th District

Democrat

The City Council majority leader was rumored to be considering a run for Brooklyn borough president, but hasnt made any moves yet and hasnt formed a campaign committee.

Robert Cornegy Jr.

36th District

Democrat

Like his colleague Antonio Reynoso, the tallest politician in New York is running for Brooklyn borough president. Robert Cornegy Jr. has raised more than $192,000 for the race, but as of July, has just $32,000 left in his campaign account.

Carlos Menchaca

38th District

Democrat

City & State has not received a comment from the Brooklyn Democrat. As the chair of the councils Immigration Committee, Carlos Menchaca could likely get a job in immigration advocacy.

Brad Lander

39th District

Democrat

The Brooklyn Democrat hopes to succeed New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer in 2021. And with Helen Rosenthal dropping out of the race, he may be the only council member running  though hes facing a handful of state legislators. Brad Lander has racked up endorsements from progressives like state Sens. Alessandra Biaggi and Julia Salazar, and he had more than $351,000 in his campaign account as of July.

Mathieu Eugene

40th District

Democrat

The Haitian sensation, who is currently the longest-serving member of the City Council, tells City & State hes eyeing a run for Brooklyn borough president. But unlike his colleagues, he has yet to officially declare for the seat and hasnt started fundraising.

Inez Barron

42nd District

Democrat

As of right now, the Brooklyn Democrat has not decided to share her plans with City & State, but observers think she may attempt to swap seats once again with her husband, Assembly Member Charles Barron, who held this council seat before her.

Alan Maisel

46th District

Democrat

City Councilman Alan Maisel was elected to the council in 2013. According to his office, the Brooklyn Democrat has not made plans for his future yet.

Mark Treyger

47th District

Democrat

The Education Committee chair is rumored to be considering a bid for Brooklyn borough president, but he has not yet filed a 2021 campaign committee.

Chaim Deutsch

48th District

Democrat

The southern Brooklyn council member failed in his bid to unseat Rep. Yvette Clarke in the 2020 Democratic congressional primary. Now Chaim Deutsch is rumored to be considering a run for Brooklyn borough president, after raising his boroughwide profile by running for Congress. But he hasnt yet filed a 2021 campaign account.

Deborah Rose

49th District

Democrat

The North Shore council member was rumored to be considering a run for Staten Island borough president, but no longer appears to be aiming for the seat. She hasnt filed a committee for the 2021 elections yet, but as chair of the Committee on Youth Services, Deborah Rose would be well positioned for a nonprofit position after leaving office.

Steven Matteo

50th District

Republican

The City Council minority leader is the only official candidate running to succeed the term-limited Jimmy Oddo as Staten Island borough president. And with more than $156,000 in his campaign account, the Republican may scare off any opposition, at least from his own party.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Robert Cornegy Jr. as the world's tallest politician. He was unseated in October by Jon Godfread, North Dakota's insurance commissioner.
Brookdale, named for a stream along the eastern border, was established in 1938 by Cooper Lightbown. It was advertised as a community of distinctive small homes and was part of a larger tract known as the Friendship land grant of 1713. Lightbown, a builder and developer and native of Washington, was inspired by his European travels and had returned to the area after living and working in Palm Beach from 1912 to 1928. It was there that he built the famous estate of E.F. Hutton and Marjorie Merriweather Post, better known as Mar-a-Lago and now owned by another famous resident, President Trump.
SHANGHAI, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Acorn International, Inc. (NYSE: ATV) ("Acorn" or the "Company"), a leading marketing and branding company in China, today announced that it has terminated its previously authorized 10b5-1 share repurchase program due to questions and information Acorn has received suggesting that a new take private offer for the Company may be forthcoming soon. Accordingly, the Company has determined, out of an abundance of caution, that it would be prudent to terminate the share repurchase program.

Acorn's Board of Directors originally authorized the repurchase of up to US$2.5 million worth of its American depositary shares ("ADSs") over a 12-month period. As of July 20, 2020, the Company had purchased approximately 10,000 ADSs at an average price of US$14.34 per ADS.

About Acorn International, Inc.

Acorn International is a leading marketing and branding company in China, leveraging a twenty-year direct marketing history to monetize brand IP, content creation and distribution, and product sales, through digital media in China. For more information visit www.acorninternationalgroup.com.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

This news release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "future," "going forward," "intends," "outlook," "plans," "target," "will," "potential," and similar statements, and include Acorn's expectation that a revised take private offer for the Company may be forthcoming soon. Such statements are based on current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond Acorn's control, including the extent and duration of the adverse impact of COVID-19, the availability of financing, and the performance of the capital markets in the U.S. and elsewhere, each of which may cause actual results, performance, actions, or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties, or factors is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law.

Investor Contacts:

Contact:

Compass Investor Relations

Ms. Elaine Ketchmere, CFA

Phone: +1-310-528-3031

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Acorn International, Inc.

Related Links

www.acorninternationalgroup.com


Photo: (Photo : Screenshot from Instagram)

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the education system in the United States had to shift to online platforms. Before the end of the previous school year, establishments like schools had to shut down. This incident meant that classes had to be conducted online, and students are no longer allowed to go to school.

In the coming fall, schools will re-open. However, this has sparked a lot of debates among parents.

For dad and Fowl Language Comics artist Brian Gordon, returning to school is a struggle not only to kids but also to parents.

Hence, he thought of creating comics that would encourage discussion on the matter. Surely, it engendered some opposing opinions when posted on Instagram.

READ ALSO: 17 Funniest Dad Jokes of All Time On Twitter [Shared by the Children and Dads]





The School Reopening Concerns

"Will it be safe to send my kid to school?"

"Should I homeschool my kids?"

"Will wearing a mask be enough?"

These questions are just a few of the many things that parents ask when the topic of returning to school is raised. Some say it is a premature action, while others say that it is the right thing to do.

Brian Gordon, in an interview with HuffPost, shared that it is a complex issue. "There are clearly strong opinions on all sides of this issue and I get it."

The comics artist is a father of four children. They have already settled that two of his kids will remain at home and continue with remote schooling. The other two, however, are still up for decision.

They live in Kansas, and the fact that there is still uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus makes them consider many things. He said, "Like many of us, my wife and I are struggling with the prospect of sending our kids back to school in the fall."

READ ALSO: Viral video: Dad shows the difference in phone hand gestures of generations





Brian Gordon's comics

Last week, a comics created by Gordon sparked a debate on Instagram. He said, "There were many fans who loved the comic and felt supported and heard, and then there were those who challenged me to propose a better solution than what already exists."

The talked-sbout comics shows a group of parents and kids in front of a burning school building. Two of the adults in the comics were debating whether the kids should go back inside the still-burning building, or not.

READ ALSO: Father and son create viral TikTok videos to redefine father's past





The debates

In the comment section of the Instagram post of Fowl Language comics, parents and teachers expressed opposing opinions on the matter at hand.

Some parents say that this should not be an issue as other countries have implemented it.

Some agreed with Brian.

Gordon says he chose to share this because it reflects his life experience as a parent.





READ ALSO: Dad Who Grew Up Without a Father Creates a YouTube Channel For Kids Who Need Support
Central African Republics health minister is blasting the big inequality crisis in coronavirus testing as he sees rich countries like Britain conduct scores of thousands of tests daily while his own struggles to obtain supplies for a couple hundred at most.

Pierre Somse told a World Health Organization briefing Thursday that we are in a scarcity, a misery of tests"  a blunt assessment of the scrambling by African nations and rising fears as the pandemics first wave hits the continent of 1.3 billion people.

The minister said his country of more than 4 million people is still waiting for testing supplies ordered via the WHO. I believe this is due to global competition, this is well known, he said. He recalled listening to radio reports of thousands, even millions of tests carried out in richer countries in short stretches of time.

The United States has conducted more than 700,000 tests a day in the past few days. And weeks ago the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected late last year, tested nearly 10 million people over 19 days.

Central African Republic has more than 4,300 confirmed virus cases  a small fraction of the more than 644,000 across Africa  but the true number is unknown.

Its hiding a major health problem because we cannot have the real situation, the health minister said. Without donations of testing materials from the Chinese, we could not have done nothing, nothing at all."

He called for more than just talk about global solidarity in the pandemic, especially for small and fragile states, saying his own is being completely overlooked in the global race for testing and medical supplies.

Confirmed virus cases across Africa have jumped by 23% in the past week, and South Africa makes up nearly half of all cases. Even South Africa, the continent's most developed country, has pointed out shortages of testing materials as the backlog of tests at one point reached nearly 100,000 and the average wait for some results reached 12 days.

There's no doubt about the lack of testing materials, especially for low-income countries that rely on international support for procurement, said the WHO Africa chief, Matshidiso Moeti.

That especially hurts in Africas most fragile countries. In a sampling of just seven nations more than 1,800 virus cases have been confirmed among refugees, migrants and displaced people or in areas of humanitarian crises, the WHO said, adding its likely an underestimate because of limited testing.

In some African countries the more you test the more cases you find, Moeti said, but not always. She noted that had not occurred in Senegal when the country produced its own test kits and significantly expanded testing.

There is some underestimation of cases in Africa, Moeti acknowledged, but she repeated they don't believe there are thousands of people infected and dying undetected.

Access in Africa to any successful COVID-19 vaccine is another issue.

Concerns are widespread that a vaccine will be snapped up by richer countries and Africa will be last in line, an echo of the time when it took years for affordable HIV drugs to become available on the continent and many people died.

Its going to be difficult, I think, lets acknowledge it, Moeti said of a COVID-19 vaccine. That's when well really need global solidarity in action.

In a separate briefing Thursday, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the intellectual property from any effective vaccine should be made available for local manufacturing and swifter distribution on the continent.

John Nkengasong also told reporters that people across Africa have all kinds of differences in genetic makeup, so we want to be sure that we are participating fully in vaccine trials.

The continent has more than 80 potential clinical trial sites with the ability to enroll participants and monitor them carefully, he said.

Nkengasong also warned that as Africa's cases continue to climb sharply we are in for a long, long journey.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

Suspected armed robbers have attacked Gbantongo community market in the Bawku West District of the Upper East Region.

The incident which occurred on Sunday, July 19 at around 5:00pm caused fear and panic among community members in the area.

Many of the market women, mobile money vendors, drug stores and former Assemblymember of the area were robbed in the process.

The Assemblymember of Gbantongo electoral area, Hon. Cletus Assibilla Awini said four armed Men arrived on motorbikes at the Gbantongo market dressed in jackets and face masks.

He added that the armed men started shooting sporadically causing the traders in the market to run for their lives.

According to him, the armed men robbed a former Assemblymember Patrick Avoka, a drug store, mobile money vendors and traders.

He indicated that Patrick Avoka was returning from Zebilla market after selling his cow for Ghc2000 which was also taken from him by the armed robbers.

He said the armed men shot one Elijah Asouah, a unit committee member on the leg and stabbed another on the head.

According to him, the armed men ordered all market women to surrender their belongings or lose their lives.

Hon. Cletus said several calls were placed to the Ghana Police Command in the District Capital Zebilla but arrived late to the scene due to wrong direction.

Hon. Cletus calls on residents to be each other's keeper and report any strange movement by unknown people in the area for swift response.

The District Police Commander Supt. Ahmed Adam Mahama told ModernGhana news that his team found it difficult to locate the scene due to wrong directions given by the residents.

Superintendent Ahmed said when the police finally got to the scene, empty AK47 cells were retrieved from the scene.

According to him, the police has commenced investigation on the matter to fish out the perpetrators for the law to take its course.

He noted that the Command will bring back the police checkpoint in the area which was initially kicked against by the residents.

Supt. Ahmed assured the people of Bawku West District of maximum security for economic activities to thrive.
Recessions are scary. It makes it even more so that this one is triggered by a contagious virus that affects the whole world. Further, no one knows how long the pandemic is going to affect the economy, our lives, and our livelihoods.

Canadas unemployment rate was higher than 12% last month. If you count the people who wanted to work but gave up looking and those who are working less than they want, that rate quickly jumps to over 25%!

Many stores were closed during lockdowns, but many have since reopened with a lower operating capacity, as social distancing and other precautionary measures are in place. This means theyre going to earn lower sales and profits (if theyre able to go above breakeven).

Thankfully, certain companies are resilient in this recession. Investors can forget the recession and win by investing in these TSX stocks.

Gold stocks

Fiscal policies have triggered unprecedented levels of money printing. In contrast, gold production is fixed. Thats one reason why gold prices have been on the rise. Its now at levels that are close to last times high set in 2011.

Because of the money printing, gold bulls believe there are still lots of room to run for gold prices and therefore gold stocks. In fact, some believe that gold prices will go for US$3,000 per ounce in this bull run. Thats a runway of more than 60% from current levels.

It can be difficult to invest in gold after the run up. Since 2019, gold prices have appreciated about 43%. In comparison, Franco-Nevada (TSX:FNV)(NYSE:FNV) stock has greatly outperformed gold by more than doubling, appreciating 132%, because its profits are leveraged to gold prices.

Id recommended Franco-Nevada stock in late August 2018 when the market ignored gold and the stock was trading at very low levels compared to now. Since then, the gold stock has appreciated 140%. Although its no longer on sale, gold prices are still trending higher. So, Franco-Nevada stock can still do well for investors who buy it on meaningful dips.

Story continues

Franco-Nevada has increased its dividend every year since 2009 with a five-year dividend-growth rate of nearly 5%. Right now, it offers a yield of about 0.6% as a bonus.

Utility stocks

Gold stocks dont pay much of a yield, while more income will help investors tremendously in any recession. Investors can look to utility stocks to receive nice dividend income, as many utilities earn recession-resilient earnings.

People need electricity in good and bad economic times. Capital Power (TSX:CPX) is aiming for a low-carbon, cleaner future. It generates power from multiple sources, including wind, waste heat, solid fuel, natural gas, landfill gas, coal, and solar.

Approximately 83% of its adjusted EBITDA is contracted, including 29% of EBITDA from Alberta, 26% from other parts of Canada, and 28% from the U.S.

Capital Power has a dividend-growth streak of six consecutive years with a five-year dividend-growth rate of about 7%.

The utility currently yields 6.9%. Additionally, it intends to increase its dividend by about 7% next year and 5% in 2022.

Whats more to like is that the dividend stock appears to be discounted. Analysts have an average 12-month price target of $33.50 per share, which represents near-term upside potential of 20%.

The Foolish takeaway

If youre looking for sure returns during this recession, consider gold stocks and utility stocks.

The post Forget the Recession: These 2 TSX Stocks Win No Matter What appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

Fool contributor Kay Ng owns shares of CAPITAL POWER CORPORATION.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020
Consecutive changes in requirements for goods labels are making it difficult for businesses to perform, Photo: Le Toan

The purpose of the amendment of Decree No.43/2017/ND-CP dated 2017 on good labels is to combat trade fraud to suit the new situation, as well as to remove difficulties for businesses according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

However, complaints have emerged over some burdens it may make on business, with unnecessary red tape that forces exporters to attain confirmation of foreign codes and barcodes.

The new draft, expected to come into effect in June 2021, requires that the name of the trader in charge of the goods (usually the importer) must be written on the original label for customs clearance at the border.

This means that all products imported from abroad to Vietnam or exported from Vietnam must clearly state the names of the importing units. But some enterprises have stated that this is an unreasonable and unnecessary requirement as goods from manufacturers can export to many countries, so they cannot meet specific requirements for Vietnam.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (AmCham) also said that multinational enterprises produce in many places and sell goods around the world with the same main label. With this provision, exporters will have to design private labels for Vietnam which is expensive and unfeasible.

On two occasions since 2017, changes have been made regarding legislation on labelling, and next summers expected update will be the third. Firms say this is far too frequent, costing businesses hefty sums just to replace labels.

Enterprises want a stable business environment. Changing too much makes businesses extremely tired and produces large costs due to changing labels too often, said a representative of AmCham Vietnam at a recent conference.

Nguyen Hoai Nam, deputy general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers explained that the provision is also contrary to international best practices which state that exporting organisations and individuals are only responsible for supplying goods strictly according to the contract in each case.

The importer is also the owner of the goods and is responsible for ensuring that labelling of exported goods does not violate laws of the importing country.

Decree 43 also set organisations foreign codes compliant with barcode standards, and shall assume responsibilities including ensuring codes or barcodes are competently issued and used according to a foreign code owners authorisation.

If authorised by an owner of a foreign code, the organisation using such codes must inform the competent regulatory authority to get confirmation of use of the codes according to the decree.

As per the Ministry of Science and Technology, using labels and barcodes helps manufacturers and suppliers avoid commercial fraud and protect consumer rights. They will help promote trade and international integration by facilitating businesses in e-commerce and product traceability.

Regarding the policy, we agree with businesses that the amendments should contribute to progress and support them in areas such as electronic labelling, so it should be fixed soon and there must be a schedule for implementation, he said.
This all leads to scenes such as the one in Chicago the other day, with cops trying to protect a statue of Christopher Columbus in Grant Park, overwhelmed by a large, angry mob. Dozens in the crowd carried black umbrellas to hide their identities, as they dumped cases of frozen water bottles on the ground. And the mob threw them like bricks at the heads of officers.
Bernie Sanders has a message for his most dedicated supporters. Unlike in 2016, when he was also the runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination, he will not be leading a long march to the convention. This time he is working with Joe Biden and wants to get him to the White House.

This is the message he will convey Wednesday night in a phone call with some of the more than 1,000 delegates he won during the primaries. But he will also outline areas where he hopes his supporters will continue to push the Democratic Party establishment to the left on a host of issues, while also telling his backers, in the words of someone close to the Vermont senator, that they have already accomplished a lot and made constructive gains on that front.

But for some of Sanderss most vocal supporters, including former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, their work is far from over, and progressives must be prepared to keep pressure on the party even after a Biden win.

Were also organizing to have the progressive wing of the party in the ready should Biden win, Turner told Yahoo News. From the day hes sworn in ... not giving him a moments rest. Youre not going to have any more honeymoons.

Sanders plans to participate in a formal acclamation releasing the delegates he won in the primary to Biden following the roll call at the convention next month, which is mostly taking place virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. On Wednesday evenings call, he also plans to tell his supporters and delegates that he feels Bidens team has been pretty respectful and decent toward him and the resurgent progressive movement hes led since 2016.

Its a marked contrast from 2016, when Sanders continued his presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton well into the summer, long after it was clear she had the votes to win the Democratic nomination. Relations between the Sanders and Clinton camps were acrimonious, and many Sanders supporters engaged in vocal protests against Clinton  including on the convention floor.

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Sanders supporters at the Democratic convention in 2016. (Charles Mostoller/Reuters)

Its a bitter memory for Clinton and other establishment Democrats who blamed Sanders supporters for Donald Trumps victory in 2016, particularly since Trump won by razor-thin margins in key states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

This time, following a strong showing in the early states, Sanders ended his campaign in April after heavy losses. And since then he has largely marched in lockstep with Biden in an effort to keep the party together and focused on beating Trump.

Earlier this month, Sanders praised recommendations drawn up by a Democratic Unity Task Force as a compromise that will make Biden the most progressive president since FDR. And  in part due to the pandemic moving the convention online  some Sanders diehards who planned to protest Biden will be staying home.

Still, some of Sanderss most influential and prominent backers have been organizing opposition to the Democratic Party establishment ahead of the convention.

Turner was a high-profile surrogate for Sanders in 2016 and became a co-chair of his presidential campaign this year, making her one of his most visible allies. Now shes a strategic delegate adviser to RootsAction.org, one of three groups sponsoring the Bernie Delegates Network  an organization dedicated to working with the representatives to the Democratic convention that he won in the primary to keep the partys left wing active and influential despite Bidens victory.

In a conversation with Yahoo News earlier this month, Turner said the group includes people who were elected Sanders delegates in 2016 and 2020 as well as leading progressive activists who may not have previously been involved in internal Democratic Party politics. She describes the coalition as made up of what she calls Berniecrats.

They really care from a humanistic point of view about what is going on in this country and in this world. And they want to see wholesale systemic change. They do want that revolution, Turner said of the Berniecrats, adding, They dont really care about the party; they care about the issues.

Sanders with former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner at a campaign event in February. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Turner and other leaders of the Berniecrats arent satisfied with the Unity Task Force that Sanders is set to praise Wednesday night. The task force compiled a long list of policy recommendations that, in some cases, were cribbed directly from Sanderss campaign platform. But Turner noted that the policies were simply suggestions.

She also said that elements of the Berniecrat agenda  including nationwide marijuana legalization, the ending of Americas wars abroad and large reductions in military spending  were not backed by the task force.

OK, they put out the damn task force. You know, theyre pretending like its kumbaya. The major issues that we care about are not anywhere to be seen, Turner explained.

Norman Solomon, the national director of the RootsAction group and a Sanders delegate, likewise said progressives cant be satisfied and must keep pushing for their policy goals.

Were not going to be satisfied ... until health care as a human right isnt just rhetoric, its a reality  and we have many other topics, Solomon said.

Despite his early exit, Sanders won seven states during the primary, including major victories in Iowa, New Hampshire and California. The primary will officially wrap up next month after a final vote in Connecticut, but so far Sanders has earned more than 1,070 delegates. Biden, meanwhile, has more than 2,600 delegates. But those numbers ensure that Sanderss supporters are in a position to be a prominent voice at the convention.

Turner and other progressive activists are eager to use that clout. And they are working to draft what she called a manifesto of items they hope to see adopted as part of the Democratic platform.

The Sanders wing of the party has scored a few victories since the Vermont senator left the race. Rep. Ro Khanna, another prominent Sanders backer, has been selected to co-chair Californias delegation to the convention, along with progressive Rep. Barbara Lee and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, a Biden ally. That will give Khanna and Lee a significant degree of influence in the crafting of this years Democratic platform, which Sanderss supporters hope will be the most progressive in modern political history.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna. (Scott Morgan/Reuters)

It gives the power to be able to go into the convention and flex, Turner said of Khannas appointment.

Party platforms are nonbinding and in many ways largely symbolic documents used to promote unity within the ranks. Nevertheless, a platform is valuable as a statement of what the partys voters want from their candidates. And data shows elected members of a given party largely tend to vote in line with the positions outlined in a platform.

The Biden campaign responded to the Berniecrats platform push by stressing that the former vice president is eager to work with progressives.

Uniting the party and bringing people together is core to who Joe Biden is, and the goal of our campaign has always been to build the broadest, most diverse coalition to beat Donald Trump, a Biden aide, who requested anonymity to discuss campaign deliberations, said.

For its part, the Democratic National Committee has stressed progressive elements of the partys platform and the fact that it was crafted with Sanderss input. A DNC official said a draft of the platform, which was sent out to party leaders on Tuesday evening, was crafted through unprecedented collaboration between representatives of Vice President Biden and Sen. Sanders.

The DNC official, who requested anonymity to discuss the process, noted that the platform draft included strong actions toward achieving universal health care along with steps for addressing climate change and revitalizing American diplomacy.

Along with the platform, the Berniecrats are pushing to keep rule changes that will be ratified at the convention. While Turner said Sanders has not been involved with the Bernie Delegates Network so far, he plans in his call on Wednesday evening to urge his supporters to ensure that reforms he pushed for after the 2016 race are reinstituted ahead of the 2024 campaign.

Sanders endorses Biden for the presidency during a virtual event in April. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Those rule changes included measures that limited the influence of unelected superdelegates  a group of party insiders who are automatically made delegates regardless of who wins the most votes during the primaries.

[Sanders] wants to make sure that theres a level playing field for future candidates and preserve those same reforms. Wed like to make sure thats high on the agenda, the source close to Sanders said.

Sanders also plans to express support for the efforts to push the party platform to the left, although the source said the senator wont delve deeply into specifics, since he doesnt want to micromanage the process.

Even with Sanders himself emphasizing his collaboration with Biden, the prospect of his supporters and activists agitating ahead of the convention likely conjures up some bad memories of 2016 among those who continue to blame Sanders for Clintons loss.

Turner dismissed concerns that more moderate Democrats might have about the progressive push. Those moderates, she said, want left-leaning voters to take a blood oath to a party, where Berniecrats care more about actions and getting things done.

Turner also rejects the premise that agitation from the Sanders wing of the party is a boon to Trump. She said the Berniecrats are simply making demands for a better life, and the onus is on Biden and the party to effectively respond to those concerns.

What enables Trump to win is if the Democratic Party does not seize this opportunity to say to the American people that once our party members of our party are elected, youre going to see a material difference in your life, said Turner.

A Sanders supporter demonstrates against the Democratic establishment, July 2016. (Jim Young/Reuters)

Solomon, RootsActions national director, argued that the progressive efforts will actually help Biden defeat Trump. He pointed out that young voters who have been somewhat unenthusiastic about Biden largely back a progressive agenda and cited the fact that Sanderss Medicare for All universal health care plan enjoys widespread popularity.

Were trying to save the Biden campaign from itself, Solomon said. Were trying to help Biden win by moving him in a more progressive direction.

Ultimately, Solomon said, I completely support defeating Trump and I completely support voting for Biden.

RootsAction is going to work very hard to get Biden elected, he added.

But the Berniecrat delegates arent only targeting the convention. On Monday, over 140 of Sanderss California delegates sent an open letter to Biden urging him to pick a progressive running mate.

Specifically, the letter called for him to choose from among three black women: Turner, Rep. Barbara Lee or Rep. Karen Bass. None of the three are among the names widely believed to be leading Bidens shortlist.

That move underscores another Berniecrat aspiration, which is to raise the profile of progressives who might one day take up the Vermont senators mantle, such as Khanna, Lee, Bass or Turner. The three members of Congress touted by the Berniecrats did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

However, Turner, who has been out of elected office since she lost a bid to become Ohios secretary of state in 2014, said she was highly honored by progressive calls to have her on Bidens ticket, although she was otherwise coy about her future plans.

We shall see. I always hold open, on my list of next pursuits, running for office again, Turner said. There are many people who would love to see me run again.

Cover thumbnail photo: John Minchillo/AP

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:
Following a meeting of the Cabinet last evening, the Government has agreed that the following countries be included as Normal Precautions - 'Green List' on the Department of Foreign Affairs Travel Advice: Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco, and San Marino.

Anyone arriving into Ireland from these countries will not have to restrict their movements. Passengers from any other country outside of those with a Normal Precautions advisory are asked to restrict their movements for 14 days. (USA, UK and Germany, to name a few who have a large number of direct flights) There is no change to the current policy in respect of travel from Northern Ireland.

The list will be reviewed on a fortnightly basis, based on advice from officials including public health experts.

The Government also confirmed that they will continue with plans to strengthen the existing measures for monitoring passengers who arrive into Ireland, including the introduction of an Electronic Passenger Locator Form, enhanced follow-up procedures, a call centre operated by the DAA, and a proposed testing regime for symptomatic passengers at airports and ports.

Processes to restrict flight or passenger travel in certain circumstances will also be explored.

In conjunction with these preventative measures, there will be a renewed communications campaign across all platforms to ensure maximum public awareness of the latest advice.

The Pandemic is not over and the public health advice remains the same. The safest thing to do is not to travel.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:46:34|Editor: huaxia

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URUMQI, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The imam of a major mosque in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has refuted a U.S. claim that the welcome plaque of the mosque has disappeared.

The plaque, originally hung over the entrance of the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, southern Xinjiang, has been put on an outer wall of the main prayer hall inside the mosque after repair works, said Memet Jume, imam of the mosque with a history of more than 500 years.

The U.S. embassy in China recently alleged on its Twitter account that the historic Id Kah Mosque's welcome plaque with a history of over 100 years is gone.

"The U.S. allegation does not accord with the facts," said Memet Jume. The welcome plaque, 2.7 meters long and 1.3 meters wide, was made and put into use in 1982.

The characters and patterns on the plaque had faded and sustained damage due to years of exposure to wind and the sunshine, he said. In 2017, the plague was renovated together with other facilities in the mosque.

The renovated plaque was moved to its current place with a large canopy to keep it from being exposed to the weather, he explained.

Thanks to the support of the government, the well-equipped mosque boasts air-conditioners, stable supply of hot water, electricity, telecommunication facilities and firefighting equipment, among others, the imam said.

The Id Kah Mosque was listed as a key national cultural relics unit in 2001. Four major renovations have been carried out for the mosque, with the latest in 2011 when the Chinese government invested 11 million yuan (about 1.58 million U.S. dollars) for overall repair works while keeping its original appearance.

"Today, the mosque is bright and tidy, warm in winter and cool in summer. It is very comfortable for devotees to attend religious service in the mosque," said Memet Jume. Enditem
A significant package to assist third level institutions with reopening and help end the digital divide will benefit students in Louth a Senator has explained.

Senator John McGahon said the 168 million package will ensure third-level institutions have the necessary tools to return to education in a safe manner and ensure all students can access remote learning.

Senator McGahon added: Throughout the pandemic, further and higher education never closed.

Even during the most restricted period of the pandemic, institutions and providers continued to provide education through emergency remote learning.

We need to support them now as students seek to return in September. This significant financial package for our third level institutions will assist with their safe re-opening.

In addition, significant further supports are being put in place for students, including increasing student supports, access to mental health services and a new scheme aimed at helping students with access issues.

The Government also acknowledges that there is a significant digital divide emerging among the student population.

Many students have difficulties accessing devices such as laptops or tablets, while some cant access WiFi and others need assistance in using the devices for college work.

This new scheme of 15 million will help us address that digital divide and give students the tools to continue their education.

Funding will also be provided for research projects that could not be completed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Senator McGahon continued: The package today responds to the serious financial impact of Covid-19 on third level education but it also provides supports to meeting the student and learner requirements.

A critical requirement has been identified for students and learners who are experiencing difficulty in accessing course provision and completing assessment owing to not having access to devices.

This cohort are the most vulnerable students who need assistance and support to remain in education and complete their studies.

Senator McGahon said: In addition, my Fine Gael colleague, Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris is publishing a high level Further and Higher Education Roadmap, which will offer guidance on the return across further and higher education.

This guidance has been prepared on a consultative basis with stakeholders and the assistance of public health expertise available to the Department. This guidance is a live document and can change and update as public health advice evolves.

We want to see students back at college but it must be safe for students, safe for staff and safe for the community. We must continue to stay vigilant and adapt our plans in line with the progression of Covid-19.

With additional funding and guidance, our third-level institutions have the necessary tools to return to education in a safe manner.
Even though 2020 has gone to the dogs, you can still make the most of this summer by having some socially distant fun with your canine companion.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Even though 2020 has gone to the dogs, you can still make the most of this summer by having some socially distant fun with your canine companion.

Before getting out and about, however, its a good idea to acquaint yourself with the risks heat, bugs and wildlife can pose to pets.

Make the most of this summer by having some socially distant fun with your canine companion. (Supplied)

"The No. 1 thing that could potentially be the most lethal is heat stroke," says Dr. Ron Worb, a veterinarian with Anderson Animal Hospital and Wellness Center.

Older dogs, those with heart and lung issues, and breeds with shortened snouts  like pugs, French bulldogs and boxers  can be particularly susceptible to heat stroke. That said, any animal left in a hot car without air conditioning can die in a matter of minutes.

Symptoms of heat stroke in dogs include lethargy, glazed and sunken eyes, dizziness, loss of consciousness and excessive panting. Owners can try lowering their pets temperature by applying damp towels and cool water to their feet and mouth before taking them to a vet as soon as possible, says Worb.

Hot asphalt can also present a seasonal danger.

"Dogs are walking on bare feet and we already this summer have been dealing with some pets that have actually burned their paws," Worb says. "One needs to be cognizant about the time of day and the surface their pet is walking on."

The following are five pet-friendly activities to do in Manitoba this summer, plus some animal health advice:

Hit the beach

Cooper enjoys playing fetch in the water at the Winnipeg Beach dog beach. (Jesse Boily / Winnipeg Free Press)

Pooches arent allowed on most beaches with defined swimming areas, but there are 12 provincial parks where dogs are welcome to enjoy the sun and sand. The closest option is Winnipeg Beach, which has a long stretch of shore designated for dogs just south of the towns iconic water tower. The beach is well-shaded and theres plenty room for humans to set up a towel or two.

Other dog-friendly swim areas include Sunset Beach in Hecla-Grindstone Provincial Park; Kiche Manitou Lake in Spruce Woods, next to the footbridge on the southeast shoreline; and Max Lake in Turtle Mountain, on the west end of the main beach.

When it comes to dogs and water, Worb suggests checking water-quality warnings before taking the plunge and rinsing your pet off after a day in the lake. Dogs can be susceptible to coliform bacteria, such as E. coli, and ingesting algae can cause life-threatening liver toxicity.

Owners should also be aware of their pets swimming ability.

"Not all dogs like water," Worb says. "If you have a dog that youre not sure how well they swim and youre gonna be in a boat, they should probably wear a lifejacket."

Take a hike

Spice up your summertime walk routine with a hike in the woods.

Jaime Manness  creator of Hike Manitoba, a self-published trail guide  hikes regularly with her five-year-old blue heeler-Rottweiler mix, Jasper. The pair have been all over the province, but their favourite routes are the Bear Lake trail in Whiteshell Provincial Park and the Gorge Creek trail in Riding Mountain National Park.

Jaime Manness with her faithful hiking companion Jasper. (Supplied)

"Both are moderately difficult but theyre not too challenging for his little feet," Manness says via email.

As an experienced hiker and dog owner, Manness has some tips for trekking safely with a canine; the most important of which is to keep your dog leashed at all times. Provincial and national parks have strict leash laws to protect pets, minimize wildlife encounters and keep visitors comfortable.

Manness packing list includes a special sling that allows her to carry Jasper if he cant finish the trail and dog booties in case he injures a paw  neither of which shes had to use yet. She also packs a bear bell for Jaspers collar, plastic bags for dog poop and extra food for both of them.

"I carry enough water for him in my pack and never assume or rely on water access on the trail," she says. "A lively brook in spring could very well be dry by late June."

If your would-be hiking partner is of the feline variety, Worb strongly encourages doing some harness and outdoor exposure training at home first or using a backpack cat carrier instead. Cats are easily spooked and can get injured or lost.

Try a new dog park

Yellow Quill Provincial Park off-leash dog area in Portage la Prairie is fully fenced. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press)

If the neighbourhood dog park is getting a bit stale, take a drive for a change of scenery. There are a dozen off-leash dog parks in Winnipeg (check the citys website for a full list) and plenty more past the Perimeter.

Portage la Prairie has a fully-fenced dog park at Yellow Quill Provincial Park. Located just off the Trans-Canada Highway, the park is a well-positioned rest stop for road-weary travellers and their animal companions. Its also a good option for Winnipeggers looking for a pet-friendly day trip. While youre in Portage, check out some of the towns many roadside attractions, like the worlds largest Coca-Cola can and Canadas largest Great Grey Owl.

South of Winnipeg, there are fenced dog parks in Morden, Winkler and Niverville  the latter even has an agility obstacle course.

Bring some water and bags to clean up after your dog. Dogs should be properly licensed, socialized and trained to respond to your commands before getting turned loose.

Pitch a tent

Camping is a great way to explore the outdoors with your dog, but packing light and keeping everyone comfortable can be a bit of a balancing act.

Bailey Skaftfeld camps with her boyfriend, Jared Ayotte, and his six-year-old blue heeler, Bronson. The couples dog-friendly packing list includes Bronsons favourite sleeping blanket, collapsible food and water dishes, and a bone to keep him occupied during downtime  although, Skaftfeld advises putting bones and food away at night to deter bear visits. She and Ayotte have also perfected their leashed camping routine.

Bailey Skaftfelds six-year-old blue heeler, Bronson, camps in Sioux Narrows Provincial Park. (Supplied)

"A really easy way to avoid the leash getting all tangled around rocks, stumps or objects is to tie a long rope between two trees like a clothes line and attach a longer leash to hang from it so that it can slide side to side," Skaftfeld says via email.

Their favourite Manitoba campground is Tulabi Falls in Nopiming Provincial Park.

"(The) privacy is great so you dont have to worry about high traffic around your site, especially if your furry one gets a little excited when they meet new people like Bronson does," Skaftfeld says.

Dogs should be up to date on their vaccines, particularly for rabies, and treated with Lyme disease and heartworm prevention before heading into the bush.

If tenting isnt your cup of tea you can always look into "comfort camping" (a.k.a glamping) at a provincially owned cabin or yurt. Dogs and cats are both welcome at select locations with a maximum of two animals per reservation.

Grab a sweet treat

Fete Ice Cream and Coffee co-owners Elise Page and Teri-Lynn Friesen will welcome your canine for a cone. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press)

Ice cream is a sweet reprieve during the dog days of summer and many local shops have special treats for four-legged customers.

Watch your dog frolic at Bonnycastle Dog Park while enjoying a cone or coffee from Fete Ice Cream and Coffee. The cafe is located at 300 Assiniboine Ave.  right next to the downtown dog park  and offers puppycinos (whipped cream) and pup cones (vanilla ice cream with a dog treat). While dogs arent allowed in the shop for health and safety reasons, staff have carabiners on-hand so owners can tie their pups up outside. The business also has a Doggie Wall of Fame filled with adorable Polaroids of local pooches.

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Sweet Tops on Henderson Highway, Dug & Bettys Ice Creamery on Des Meurons Street and Sargent Sundae on Portage Avenue can also make a dog-friendly scoop.

While vanilla ice cream is a safe snack for dogs, many summertime food staples are not.

"With barbecues and cookouts people are eating corn on the cob," Worb says, "If youre not keeping garbage covered a dog will swallow an entire cob and it can be a life threatening intestinal obstruction because they arent going to pass them."

Bones can also cause internal damage and grapes, raisins, macadamia nuts and chocolate are toxic to dogs. Avoid feeding your dog morsels from the picnic table to prevent upset tummies and allergic reactions.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney
Researchers are making good progress in developing vaccines against Covid-19, with a handful in late-stage trials, but their first use cannot be expected until early 2021, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert said on Wednesday.

WHO is working to ensure fair vaccine distribution, but in the meantime it is key to suppress the viruss spread, said Mike Ryan, head of WHOs emergencies programme, as daily new cases around the globe are at near-record levels.

Follow latest updates on coronavirus coverage

Were making good progress, Ryan said, noting that several vaccines were now in phase 3 trials and none had failed, so far, in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response.

Realistically it is going to be the first part of next year before we start seeing people getting vaccinated, he told a public event on social media.

WHO was working to expand access to potential vaccines and to help scale-up production capacity, Ryan said.

And we need to be fair about this, because this is a global good. Vaccines for this pandemic are not for the wealthy, they are not for the poor, they are for everybody, he said.

The US government will pay $1.95 billion to buy 100 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc and German biotech BioNTech if it proves safe and effective, the companies said.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage

Ryan also cautioned schools to be careful about re-opening until community transmission of Covid-19 is under control. Debate in the United States over restarting education has intensified, even as the pandemic flares up in dozens of states.

We have to do everything possible to bring our children back to school, and the most effective thing we can do is to stop the disease in our community, he said. Because if you control the disease in the community, you can open the schools.
A Texas man has been arrested and charged with capital murder after allegedly storming into his ex-girlfriend's apartment and shooting her dead as she lay in bed with her four-year-old daughter.

Kimberly Robinson, a 28-year-old mother-of-five from Houston, was killed in the July 17 shooting. Her youngest daughter, Harmony, suffered injuries after being struck by shrapnel.

Robinson's four other children, all under the age of 12, were downstairs at the time of the domestic attack.

The victim's ex-boyfriend, Cedgadrick Harris, 24, turned himself in to the Houston police on Monday.

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Cedgadrick Harris, 24, has been charged with capital murder in the shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, Kimberly Robinson (right), in Houston

Police say Harris kicked the front door into Robinson's home in the 1800 block of Barker Cypress Road early Friday morning and stormed into her bedroom

According to investigators, the incident began unfolding at 4.20am last Friday, when Harris kicked in the front door to Robinson's apartment in the 1800 block of Barker Cypress Road.

Harris allegedly entered the woman's bedroom and fired at least six shots, killing Robinson, reported KHOU11. Her daughter Harmony, who was in bed with her mother, suffered graze wounds to her jaw and shoulder, and was taken to Texas Childrens Hospital for treatment. She is expected to recover.

Robinson's four older children were unharmed. One of them, a 10-year-old girl, called family members for help after the shooting.

Robinson had gotten a protective order against Harris in November. A month ago, police were called to her home on a report of domestic violence

Kimberly's mother, Janet (left), said her daughter had decided more than a month ago that she was not going to get back with Harris

Houston Police Sgt Michael Casso told KTRK that Robinson had reported at least one domestic violence incident involving her ex-boyfriend to the police a month ago, when he allegedly attacked her.

Janet Robinson, Kimberly's mother, told KHOU11 that about a month and a half ago, her daughter had decided she was not going to reconcile with Harris.

"Im not going back to him. Im not going back to this situation,' the mother said Kimberly had told her. 'I think this time he really knew she meant it.'

Court records indicate that Kimberly had gotten a protective order against Harris in November 2019.

'When I think about it, she had to have been living in constant fear and she didnt want us to know,' Kimberly's mother said.
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The vagaries of politics are always legion, but the coronavirus crisis has created a multitude of political consequences throughout the world. In Stormont, apart from the row over Bobby Storey's funeral, it has had a unifying, almost benign, impact on the conduct of government here.

In the Republic it actually enhanced the position of Leo Varadkar and his caretaker Fine Gael government, which was generally seen as having done a good job in combating the virus. It could in fact be argued that the emergence of the virus thereby deprived Sinn Fein from gaining a place in the new Irish administration.

And in the USA, given the opinion polls over the past while, it is clear that President Trump's popularity has tumbled because of the spread of the coronavirus and its serious impact on the economy, in particular the frightening rise in unemployment. This has impacted harshly among blue collar workers, whom Trump relies upon for support.

His Democratic opponent, former Vice-President Joe Biden, is now regarded as having a very good chance of winning the race to the White House in November, a mere four months away.

In Israel the recent resurgence of Covid-19 has thrown the country into a spin.

Having thought that the virus had been suppressed and the lockdown generally eased, it has reoccurred and restrictions reimposed.

As a result Benjamin Netanyahu, now Prime Minister for an unprecedented fifth time, has been told by his major partner in government Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White Party that instead of proceeding with the contentious issue of the annexation of the West Bank, the government urgently needs to readdress the issue of the pandemic.

Gantz and his party also support annexation, but say it has to be coordinated with the international community.

However, he is not in favour of annexation if it jeopardises ties with neighbouring Jordan.

This has greatly annoyed Netanyahu, who is anxious to distract attention from his ongoing corruption trial with a big political win in the form of annexation. Grabbing part of the West Bank has long been the aim of the Likud Party and many others on the Israeli Right.

However, the effect of Netanyahu's proposed annexation of 30% of the West Bank, where three million Palestinians live, would mean that the occupation by Israel of the Palestinian territories would become permanent and inextricable from Israel proper.

It would so shrink and diminish the territorial integrity and institutional viability of a Palestinian state based on the remainder of the West Bank. Such a state, if ever established, would become what some commentators have mockingly termed "a Swiss cheese statelet".

A thousand European parliamentarians, including a number of British Conservatives, have signed a public letter opposing annexation.

Boris Johnson, reflecting the consensus of international opinion, has stated that such annexation would be contrary to international law.

The European Union has also expressed its opposition to the proposed unilateral move by Israel.

Eleven EU countries including Ireland have demanded that the commission quickly provide them with a list of possible actions, including sanctions and the possible formal recognition of a Palestinian State, to stop Israel carrying out its intentions.

They have described the situation as "a matter of great concern". Meanwhile, a group of 47 United Nations experts stated that annexation would be a crystallisation of an already unjust reality of two peoples living in the same space and same state, but with profoundly unequal results.

For the moment at least, due to the coronavirus, the Israeli coalition is seriously split on the issue of annexation.

It will now be difficult for Netanyahu to move forward on it without causing a major rift in the government.

In addition, there are those to the right of Likud, including settlers, who are lobbying against annexation as part of President Trump's peace plan, because the peace deal requires Israel to recognise sovereignty of the Palestinians over the remaining 70% of the Occupied Territories.

Even Trump, who unwisely supports Israeli annexation, has been taken aback by the strength of international opposition to the proposed move, and is keen to keep Jordan and the Gulf States happy.

He also faces opposition at home, with his Democratic rival Biden coming out against this unilateral move. Some Democrats, traditionally strong supporters of Israel, have proposed curtailing US military aid to the country if it moves ahead with its plans.

If Trump were to lose in November, which is now more than a mere possibility, then annexation is no longer doable.

Therefore there is an anxiety by Netanyahu to annex now. That would be a disaster for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

As Biden has forthrightly said about the threat of annexation: "It will choke off any hope of peace."
Just like you, the source of our Italian beef is unknown, unregulated and questionably legal. Its the perfect way to wind down after a long day of curb stomping skulls and denying people their constitutional rights, Fascist Frank (played by Second City alum Brian Stack) said in the 80-second sketch that opened Tuesdays episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The Laboratoire national de sante (LNS) and the Integrated Biobank of Luxembourg (IBBL) have launched MIRABANK. This joint project, which is based on the creation of a bank of multi-resistant bacterial strains in Luxembourg, was selected following a European call for tender launched in May 2019 on behalf of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Under the coordination and responsibility of IBBL, the biobank will be tasked with collecting bacterial strains  which are a new type of sample for the institute  as well as temporarily storing them prior to analysis. The LNS, for its part, will be responsible for confirming the identification of the strains, and carrying out the antibiogram according to a reference method following European directives. The strains studied are resistant to carbapenems and/or colistin  the antibiotics of last resort in human medicine.

Analyzing antibiotic resistance

Antibiotics are drugs used to treat bacterial infections. They have led to a considerable reduction in mortality associated with infectious diseases during the 20th century. However, their excessive and prolonged use has led to the emergence of bacteria that are resistant to these drugs, a phenomenon known as antibiotic resistance. This is now a major public health problem, as it leads to increasingly heavy, longer and more expensive treatments, which can lead to therapeutic deadlock, with bacteria that have become resistant to all antibiotics. Dr Monique Perrin, Head of the Bacteriology, Mycology, Antibiotic Resistance and Hospital Hygiene Unit at the LNS

4,000 strains from 37 European countries

This project is of great importance in the fight against resistance to antibiotics of last resort, as carbapenem resistance is a problem that has particularly increased in Europe in recent years and needs to be studied for the health of patients in Europe. We are very pleased to provide our expertise for this project, and to do so with the LNS. IBBL will receive some 4,000 strains from 37 European countries in the coming months. They will be forwarded to the Bacteriology, Mycology, Antibiotic Resistance and Hospital Hygiene Unit of the LNS Microbiology Department, before returning to IBBL for freezing, storage and shipment to a genomic analysis laboratory. The first strains integrated into MIRABANK, in July 2020, are the strains from Luxembourg collected thanks to the participation of the countrys four hospitals. Subsequent strains will come from Denmark, Austria and Hungary, followed by other countries in the coming year. Dr Kristin Kornerup, Project Manager at IBBL

Mobilizing complementary excellence

Dr Alexandre Mzabi, Deputy Head of the Bacteriology, Mycology, Antibiotic Resistance and Hospital Hygiene Unit at the LNS, emphasizes that "the ultimate aim of this ambitious project is to centralize these multi-resistant strains in order to then fully sequence their genome. This genomic analysis will provide a better understanding of the genetic and epidemiological mechanisms of these strains, as this data is now a matter of public health. In addition to cooperation in the framework of this large-scale European project  which has made it possible to mobilize the complementary expertise and excellence of IBBL and the LNS  MIRABANK has generated many fruitful exchanges between the IT teams of these two national institutions, leading to the implementation of a highly efficient and secure electronic data flow.
"I am honored to be selected as 2020 Star Nurse finalist and I thank my colleagues for nominating me," said Eshkevari. "As a member of one of the most trusted professions in the United States, I am committed to helping my patients receive the high-quality care for the best possible outcomes."

The Washington Post and the American Nurses Association (ANA) partnered to present 2020 Star Nurses, a new nurse-recognition event that honors patient, consumer, and peer-nominated nurses who work in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. It is part of the World Health Organization's year-long Year of the Nurse and Midwife celebration to highlight nurses' vital position in transforming healthcare. Eshkevari was one of 92 finalists selected from hundreds of nominees. Six Nightingale Award winners will be selected from the finalists and announced in September.

"The AANA is proud that one of our members, Dr. Eshkevari, was chosen by her peers in the ANA for this prestigious honor," said AANA President Kate Jansky, MHS, CRNA, APRN, USA LTC (ret). "CRNAs provide care across all settings and in all patient populations and as advanced practice registered nurses with expertise in airway and ventilation management and critical care, many are on the frontlines during the COVID-19."

Eshkevari completed a master's degree in nurse anesthesia from Columbia University in New York and earned a doctorate in physiology and biophysics at Georgetown. She has more than 25 years of experience in nurse anesthesia, including serving as program director of the Georgetown University Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice Program. Eshkevari received a diplomate in acupuncture from the Maryland Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Bethesda and has done extensive research on incorporating acupuncture into both care and medical curriculum.

Eshkevari serves as chair of the AANA Foundation Board of Trustees. She was also co-chair of the Education Committee of the District of Columbia Board of Nursing and is a member of its Advanced Practice Nurse Advisory Board. In this capacity, Eshkevari wrote new graduate education regulations as it relates to practice and education of all levels of nursing, interface with various Board and Department of Health members to resolve regulatory issues. Nationally, serve as chair on the Board of Trustees of the Foundation of the AANA. Eshkevari was recently inducted as a Fellow in the prestigious National Academy of Nursing.



As advanced practice nurses, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) are among the most trusted professions according to Gallup. CRNAs provide anesthesia care across all settings and in all patient populations and are the primary anesthesia providers in rural and underserved areas and on the battlefield in forward surgical teams.

SOURCE American Association of Nurse Anesthetists

Related Links

www.aana.com


COVID-19 has tested the worlds healthcare systems. Movement restrictions and second wave infections have forced healthcare providers to innovate to deliver medical services to patients. Telehealth is one innovation that healthcare providers globally have expanded to provide timely services to patients during the pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic the Australian government acted swiftly to broaden the Medicare Benefits Schedule, or MBS, to support expanded telehealth services. This included broadening the criteria for access to the MBS item numbers for telehealth consultations by GPs and other health professionals to new patients. This has meant that patients have had more choice in the doctors they can consult via telehealth for services that are not provided by their regular GP. This includes the medical termination of pregnancy, STI testing and treatment including HIV prevention services.

Medicare benefits for telehealth have been wound back.

On Monday, the criteria for MBS support of telehealth during this pandemic was wound back so that patients can only access telehealth services under the scheme if they are a regular patient of a GP or practice and have been an active patient within the last 12 months.

The premise of this rollback is that the MBS changes under COVID-19 have led to a proliferation of what the college of general practitioners classifies as "low-value" pop-up telehealth services, mostly aligned to pharmacies. Unfortunately, the change will significantly impact the provision of established, reputable telehealth services to patients who are unable to access specialised healthcare through their regular GPs, ultimately disadvantaging patients, limiting the provision of timely services and placing additional strain on health providers.
T his is the heart-stopping moment a young boy and his toddler brother were caught by bystanders after jumping from a burning building.

The two boys, aged 10 and three, were saved from an apartment fire in the city of Grenoble, in France, after dropping about 33ft from a window and being caught by people below.

They were unharmed during the fall on Tuesday but French media reported they may have suffered from smoke inhalation.

Footage of the dramatic rescue showed the younger brother being dropped from at least three storeys up as black smoke billowed from the window and flames engulfed an adjacent balcony.

As onlookers screamed, the older brother then hung from the window and let himself fall into the arms of those below.

The boys were taken to hospital along with 17 residents of the building, the media reports said.

Four of the people who caught the boys were also taken to hospital to check if any bones were fractured when they caught the boys.

Athoumani Walid, a 25-year-old student who suffered a broken wrist from helping catch the children, said he heard screams and went out to investigate after seeing the fire from his nearby apartment and rushed to help along with four or five other people.

We didnt know what to do, Mr Walid said. We wanted to break the door but it wasnt possible.

They then went outside and shouted for the boys to jump into their arms, he said.

Although he initially feared for the boys, when they jumped, fear disappeared, Mr Walid said.

What mattered was to catch them, he added.

Mr Walid said he hopes the rescue will change perceptions of the Villeneuve neighbourhood, which has a large immigrant population.

We are told its a sensitive neighbourhood, he said, but yesterday we showed we are here for each other, and we save each other.

Mayor Eric Piolle congratulated residents on the rescue, which he said underscored the citys tradition of solidarity and mutual help.

In May 2018, a young Malian migrant rescued a child dangling from a balcony and was offered French citizenship.

Video of the rescue showed 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama climbing up four floors of the apartment building in just seconds to rescue the child, to cheers from onlookers.

By the time Parisian emergency services arrived, he had already pulled the child to safety.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 21, 2020 / Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (TSX:NDM)(NYSE American:NAK) ("Northern Dynasty" or the "Company") reports that its 100%-owned US-based subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership (the "Pebble Partnership") released a public statement today commenting on future production potential from the proposed Pebble mine project, noting it is poised to become one of the leading metals producers in the United States.

The Pebble Partnership release states:

"With a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Record of Decision (ROD) for the proposed Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum mine project in southwest Alaska expected this summer, Pebble Partnership CEO Tom Collier noted it appears more and more likely that Alaska could become home to another significant metals producer.

"The lead federal regulator for the Pebble Project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), has signaled its intent to publish a Final EIS on July 24 and a ROD shortly thereafter. Pebble's Collier said the Draft EIS published by the USACE last year, and subsequent contributions from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the State of Alaska, tribal entities and other cooperating agencies, point toward a positive outcome for the federal permitting process.

"'We have reason to believe that Pebble will be judged to be a project of merit, and will receive its key federal permits under the Clean Water Act and River & Harbors Act this summer,' he said. "The next steps facing the company and the project will be to secure a major funding partner and acquire the state permits necessary to take Pebble into production.'

"State permitting for Pebble is expected to take 2 - 3 years to complete, followed by a four-year construction phase. Once operating, Pebble will be among the leading metals producers in the United States. As described in the Project Description1, each year during 20 years of production the proposed Pebble mine would produce mineral concentrates containing, on average:

Story continues

318 million lb copper;

362,000 oz gold;

14 million lb molybdenum; and

1.8 million oz of silver.

"Collier said Pebble has the potential to be the third largest copper producer in the United States (producing ~12% of US output annually) and the fourth largest gold producer (producing ~6% of US output each year). It also contains rhenium, a relatively rare element used in jet engines and high-octane fuels, and palladium, a precious metal employed in fuel cells and catalytic convertors, among other applications.

"Depending on prevailing market prices, about 60% and 30% of the annual value of production at Pebble will be derived from copper and gold respectively, with the balance coming from other metals.

"'There's absolutely no doubt there is growing domestic and international market demand for the metal commodities Pebble will produce,' Collier said. Whether it's surging demand for copper to facilitate the US and global transition to a low carbon future, the increasing demand for gold we're seeing in the current economic climate or the other strategic metals our mine will produce, the world needs Pebble.'

"America's transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean and renewable sources of power will be particularly copper-intensive, as will the requirement for smart grid technology to make the nation's energy transmission and distribution system more efficient. Electric and hybrid-electric cars, solar and wind power installations, as well as the energy infrastructure required to enable these technologies, will all require substantially more copper than the transportation and energy systems they replace.

"The US currently imports 35% of its annual copper needs from foreign producers, as well as 82% of its rhenium, 68% of its silver and 32% of its palladium. For copper and many other strategic metals, America's import reliance is expected to grow in future as domestic demand rises faster than supply.

"'It in the United States' best interest to develop reliable and long-term domestic sources of mineral commodities like copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, rhenium and palladium - strategic metals that are critical to the country's economic, energy, military and industrial future,' Collier said.

"'It is equally important to source these minerals from jurisdictions that are known to be leaders in environmental protection, in conserving healthy fish and wildlife populations, as well as in environmental justice and human rights. That description fits Alaska to a tee, and is one more reason why Pebble is poised to become one of America's leading metals producers.'"

Stephen Hodgson, PEng, Vice President Engineering for Northern Dynasty reviewed and approved the technical information in this news release.

About Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.

Northern Dynasty is a mineral exploration and development company based in Vancouver, Canada. Northern Dynasty's principal asset, owned through its wholly owned Alaska-based U.S. subsidiary, Pebble Limited Partnership ("PLP"), is a 100% interest in a contiguous block of 2,402 mineral claims in southwest Alaska, including the Pebble deposit. PLP is the proponent of the Pebble Project, an initiative to develop one of the world's most important mineral resources.

For further details on Northern Dynasty and the Pebble Project, please visit the Company's website at www.northerndynastyminerals.com or contact Investor services at (604) 684-6365 or within North America at 1-800-667-2114. Review Canadian public filings at www.sedar.com and US public filings at www.sec.gov.

Ronald W. Thiessen

President & CEO

US Media Contact:

Dan Gagnier

Gagnier Communications

(646) 569-5897

Forward Looking Information and other Cautionary Factors

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that the Company expects are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in its forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements should not be in any way construed as guarantees of the ultimate size, quality or commercial feasibility of the Pebble Project, that the Pebble Project will secure all required government permits, or of the Company's future performance.

Assumptions used by NDM to develop forward-looking statements include the assumptions that (i) the Pebble Project will obtain all required environmental and other permits and all land use and other licenses without undue delay, (ii) studies for the development of the Pebble Project will be positive, (iii) NDM will be able to establish the commercial feasibility of the Pebble Project, and (iv) NDM will be able to secure the financing required to develop the Pebble Project. The likelihood of future mining at the Pebble Project is subject to a large number of risks and will require achievement of a number of technical, economic and legal objectives, including (i) obtaining necessary mining and construction permits, licenses and approvals without undue delay, including without delay due to third party opposition or changes in government policies, (ii) the completion of feasibility studies demonstrating the Pebble Project mineral reserves that can be economically mined, (iii) completion of all necessary engineering for mining and processing facilities, and (iv) receipt by NDM of significant additional financing to fund these objectives as well as funding mine construction, which financing may not be available to NDM on acceptable terms or on any terms at all. The Company is also subject to the specific risks inherent in the mining business as well as general economic and business conditions, as well as risks relating to the uncertainties with respect to the effects of COVID-19.

The National Environment Policy Act EIS process requires a comprehensive "alternatives assessment" be undertaken to consider a broad range of development alternatives, the final project design and operating parameters for the Pebble Project and associated infrastructure may vary significantly from that currently being advanced. As a result, the Company will continue to consider various development options and no final project design has been selected at this time.

For more information on the Company, Investors should review the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and its home jurisdiction filings that are available at www.sedar.com.

1 See https://pebbleprojecteis.com/

SOURCE: Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/598331/Northern-Dynasty-Alaskas-Pebble-Project-has-Potential-to-Become-One-of-Americas-Leading-Metals-Producers




Mumbai: As Mumbai continues to struggle with the rising coronavirus COVID-19 cases, people gathered at Nalasopara station on the western line of Mumbai's local trains and created a ruckus demanding that common people be allowed on local trains.

In view of the COVID-19 epidemic, the local train facility had been allowed for people working in essential services only. Mumbai's western line runs from Churchgate to Dahanu.

Before the loc-down, about 3 million people used to travel on this line of the local train daily. It is said that earlier buses were plying on roads to go to Mumbai from this area, but due to the increase in the corona cases it was stoped.

Nalasopara falls under the Vasai-Virar municipality, the number of people infected by coroanvirus in the ares has reached 10186.

On July 1, the Indian Railways had decided to expand its suburban services and run 350 trains each in the Central and Western Railway Zones. The trains were functional only for essential services personnel identified by Maharashtra government.

On the Mumbai Division of Central Railways, 200 trains were running on the line and 150 was added taking the total to 350. On the Western Railways, 202 trains were plying and 148 was added.

Railways has urged the state government to ensure all those allowed to travel, are allowed only after ensuring that they are medically fit and no traveler is coming from a containment zone.
The Australian couple who own Thai Rock restaurant, which has a cluster of 37 coronavirus cases, have hit back at vile trolls abusing them online.

Restaurant owners David and Stephanie Boyd called for people to 'remain together' against 'fear and misunderstanding' after their staff were abused online.

The couple and their workers haves been inundated with abuse since one of their workers tested positive for coronavirus on Friday.

The employee did not know he was infected when he worked five shifts at the restaurant at Stockland Mall in Wetherill Park in Sydney's west between July 9 and July 14.

Radio 'shock jock' Ray Hadley accused the restaurant of allegedly defying health instructions on Monday, sparking further abuse against the owners.

David (right) and Stephanie Boyd (left) own the Thai Rock restaurant in Wetherhill Park, which has a COVID-19 cluster of 37 cases. They hit back at vile online trolls on their restaurant Facebook page on Tuesday

The Boyds called for unity and understanding on Tuesday.

'We recognise there is fear and misunderstanding however we believe that sense and truth will prevail,' the couple wrote on the Thai Rock Facebook page.

'We need to remain TOGETHER with everyone at this time to overcome the impact of this pandemic on our society. Stay safe and well.'

The couple were responding to a comment from a Thai woman who said Asian businesses are being targeted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

'Some people just keep ranting to you guys while the virus isn't your fault at all,' the woman wrote.

'It seems like they are targeting Asian business, including one with 'white' owners such as you guys. It is such a shame of behaviour like this during this hardest time.'

Mr and Mrs Boyd during a trip to Thailand. They called for people to 'remain together' against 'fear and misunderstanding' on Tuesday after being inundated with abusive comments

Thai Rock revealed all of their remaining Wetherill Park staff, both Front of House and Kitchen, returned negative results on Monday. The infected worker is still recovering.

The restaurant's Facebook comment section is filled with false accusations that the venue did not practice social distancing and that staff are not self isolating.

One person also posted a link to Ray Hadley's accusations against the restaurant.

'The allegations I've received are principles involved in the restaurant who were then told to go into self quarantine didn't deserve that direction,' Hadley said on Monday.

'And I'm told one of them, possibly two, has diagnosed positive for COVID-19.'

But the restaurant posted a picture of all seven of their front of house staff members 'staying safe' by self isolating at home later on Monday.

The Australian Taxpayers' Alliance came out in support of Thai Rock on Wednesday.

The Thai Rock restaurant in Stockland Mall. There were 11 new cases linked to the restaurant cluster on Wednesday and 16 total in NSW

'The owners and employees of Thai Rock have gone above and beyond to stop the spread of COVID-19 and yet, many thoughtlessly blame them for the spread of a virus we all know to be highly contagious,' ATA Director Policy Emilie Dye said.

'COVID-19 has disrupted everyone's life and we all want a scapegoat. But now is not the time to cast blame, especially on family-owned businesses. Don't bankrupt the hands that feed us.'

Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone also voiced his support for the restaurant on Saturday.

'When the virus came in from Victoria, Thai Rock were one of the business that unfortunately got caught up, like the Planet Gym and the Crossroads Hotel,' he wrote on Facebook.

'Its easy to blame, but it could have been any business and any family or anyone of us that got hit by the virus from the Crossroads.'

NSW recorded 16 cases on Wednesday, 11 of which linked to Thai Rock cluster - this marks seven consecutive days of double-digit daily infections in the state.

The recent community transmission in the state have been traced back to Victoria, where figures have skyrocketed to a record-breaking 484 cases on Wednesday.
A significant number of Senior High School (SHS) students who tested positive for COVID-19, have recovered and are back in school, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service has said.



He said out of the 96 cases recorded in some schools in the Greater Accra Region so far, 73 had recovered and were back in their various schools with the remaining 23 at different stages of recovery.



The Director General said all 56 students who tested positive in the Accra Girls Senior High School were among the total number of students who had so far recovered from the virus.



Dr Kuma-Aboagye disclosed this when he gave an update on the countrys case count and case management on Tuesday, at the bi-weekly press briefing organised by the Ministry of Information in Accra.



He said schools such as Accra High Senior High, Ada Secondary/Technical had one and three active cases respectively and were currently under care at isolation centres.



Wesley Grammar has six suspected cases, which are currently quarantined, Saint Marys had two cases, all recovered and for Ebenezer Senior High School there were three suspected cases, one confirmed case who has recovered and so there is no problem in the school.



In Okai Koi North, Achimota Senior High had seven cases, all recovered. When you come to Odorgonno Senior High they had 18 confirmed cases, it is quite recent and we are waiting for them to recover but they are all asymptomatic, Dr Kuma-Aboagye added.



In the Volta Region, he said 49 cases had been recorded across some schools, adding that a significant number had recovered.



The Director General said out of the number, one was from Mawuko Girls Senior High, which was on its 14th day as at Monday July 20, three from Dabala Technical, one of which was active and was also on the 14th day as at Monday July 20, 2020.



The rest included Bishop Herman with 17 cases, currently on their 11th day as at Tuesday, July 21, Mawuli School, 25 cases with ten moved to isolation centre for treatment.



Dr. Kuma-Aboagye said Abutia Secondary School had two confirmed cases on their fourth day in isolation centres.



Some of the regions like Bono East had three cases over all but only one active case, Western North has one positive case and most of the regions have very few cases, he added.



On measures put in place to ensure the safety of students, Dr Kuma-Aboagye said all schools had been assigned to health facilities, and that health workers had also been assigned to every school to ensure early detection, isolation and treatment of cases.



As of Tuesday, July 21, Ghana recorded a total of 28,989 cases of COVID-19 with its active cases at 3,505.



A total of 25,331 persons have recovered or discharged with the death toll at 153.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
A German state has banned the use of burqas in school, saying that the full-face Islamic covering does not belong in a free society.

Baden-Wurttemberg in southwest Germany announced the ban on Tuesday. The state has already banned the use of such coverings for teachers.

State Premier Winfried Kretschmann said that it was rare for school girls to wear burqas but that a ban was required for the exceptional cases.

The new rule will apply to girls attending primary and secondary schools in the state.

Baden-Wurttemberg in southwest Germany announced the ban on Tuesday (File image)

Kretschmann added that such coverings, which are usually worn by conservative Muslim women and girls, do not belong in a free society, although he admitted that banning them at university level was a more complex matter.

Members of Germany's ruling CDU party have long called for a ban on full-face coverings in schools.

The country's left-wing Green party has been divided on the issue, but in Baden-Wurttemberg, Green party leaders were in agreement with the CDU, with state party leaders Sandra Detzer and Oliver Hildenbrand referring to the burqa and the niqab as 'symbols of oppression.'

Other party members have argued that a ban could stoke tensions and negatively impact cultural integration.

It comes after a ruling earlier this year which saw a court in Hamburg overturn its own ruling on full-face coverings.

In February, a German court overturned a school's niqab ban after a 16-year-old girl was told she had to show her face to teachers.

Hamburg education officials had ordered the girl's mother to ensure that her daughter did not wear the veil at school, a decision which an administrative court overruled.

State law does not currently permit the authorities to impose such a ban, the court said in a statement.

The teenager, who is studying retail sales, has 'a right to unconditional protection of her freedom of belief' the statement added.

Hamburg's social-democratic education senator Ties Rabe immediately said that he would seek to change the state law.

Each German state has its own education ministry, and the 16 states have differing laws on headscarves in schools.

In 2015, Germany's Constitutional Court overturned a blanket ban on teachers wearing them, ruling that it was against religious freedom. However, eight of Germany's states maintain restrictions on wearing the hijab by female teachers.

Germany's neighbouring countries including The Netherlands, France, Austria and Denmark have introduced a so-called 'burqa ban' to varying degrees.
At this time every year, parents across the United States are typically gearing up for the new school year, shopping for school supplies and uniforms.

But with reported COVID-19 infections and deaths still rising across many parts of the country, the first day of classes this year will differ starkly across districts.

Some schools are planning full-time classroom learning, while others want full-time online instruction or a hybrid system  leaving parents scrambling to find ways to send their children back to classrooms safely, or to manage remote learning, all while keeping up with their own jobs.

A woman shopping for school supplies at a Walmart store in San Diego, California [File: Mike Blake/Reuters] [Daylife]

I dont know how were going to make not going to school, work, said Joy Soler, a mother of two, aged four and 10, but we have to do it anyway.

Soler, who lives in Tucson, Arizona said her school district is offering families a choice between full-time online or full-time in-class instruction. She opted for the online option, largely because her youngest daughter suffers from a rare disorder that affects her respiratory system.

I feel like everyone is on an island and we are talking from island to island, trying to reinvent the wheel, its very isolating, Soler told Al Jazeera, adding that she will have to manage the childrens school work and assignments, in addition to trying to reopen her bookstore cafe.

Plain dangerous

The issue of school reopenings has become a political hot button topic, key to President Donald Trumps re-election bid in November. His administration has been pushing for schools to reopen, which could allow many parents to return to work and help revive the economy. Trump threatened to cut off federal aid to schools that do not comply.

Young people have to go to school, and theres problems when you dont go to school, too, Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday on Fox News. And theres going to be a funding problem because were not going to fund when they dont open their schools.

Trump has also accused his Democratic rivals of pushing to keep schools closed for political reasons, rather than over legitimate fears about a pandemic that has infected more than 3.9 million Americans and killed at least 142,000, leading the world in both figures.

President Donald Trump urged school reopenings saying he would halt funding to schools that did not reopen [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who has been leading Trump in most polls, on Friday unveiled his plan to reopen schools. His proposal, which he says is based on science rather than political consideration, leaves final decisions up to state and local officials.

Everyone wants our schools to reopen. The question is how to make it safe, how to make it stick, Biden said in a video he recorded with his wife, Jill, a former teacher. Forcing educators and students back into a classroom in areas where the infection rate is going up or remaining very high is just plain dangerous.

Everyone wants our schools to reopen. The question is how to make it safe and how to make it stick. Forcing educators and students back into classrooms in areas where infection rates are going up or remaining too high is just plain dangerous. pic.twitter.com/8OeTj2eWdt  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 17, 2020

A divisive issue

Evidence shows that the majority of Americans do not support sending their children back to school. A recent opinion poll showed that 55 percent do not believe it is safe to reopen schools.

Were absolutely staying home, said Tina Marie Burgio, a mother of two from Austin, Texas, a state with 351,071 cases and 4,199 deaths on Wednesday.

Looking at the infection rate in our area and our school building, which was overcrowded by 250 students last year, this is not an environment that I am comfortable sending my children to, Burgio said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued guidance that school districts should try to get students back to campuses, saying children learn best when they are at school, but that the decision should be based on the infection rate in the area.

School districts in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Houston have announced they will all begin the school year online only. Other districts plan on using a hybrid model, dividing classes so groups of students rotate between in-school learning and at-home distance learning. The plan would reduce class sizes and allow social distancing, with an added focus on hygiene and cleaning practices.

Florida teachers, whose largest union is against their members returning to school, hold a car parade protest in front of the Pasco County School district office in Land O Lakes, Florida, US [Octavio Jones/Reuters]

But the issue has been dividing average Americans.

The largest teachers union in Florida has filed a lawsuit against the governor and the state over the push to reopen schools five days a week, calling it reckless and unsafe.

In Arizona, hundreds of teachers have been protesting against the states reopening plan with motor marches driving around cities with slogans such as, Remote learning wont kill us but COVID can.

Some Arizona parents are planning a Reopen our schools protest on July 30 in Phoenix in support of the governors mandate that in-person classes resume on August 17.

David Robles, a teacher in Harlem, New York says in addition to offering a fully online option for students, the Catholic charter school where he teaches fifth graders, will be installing desk partitions, disinfecting machines and mobile whiteboards. The school will also mandate the use of masks, gloves, and have hallway and bathroom policies.

Robles says he is torn between concerns over his own health and the importance of opening schools, which he says is crucial to providing students with the socialisation and interaction they need.

Theres a part of me thats hopeful, that feels that this will be enough, Robles said, but theres another part of me that feels that teachers are being sacrificed just to get children into a building, he said.

An opportunity to think differently

Jordan Shapiro, author of The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World, says online learning could be beneficial to high school students by providing an opportunity to work independently or in small groups  preparing them for higher education.

But the online format is less ideal for younger children who need to learn social skills, which is difficult to relay on a screen. Elementary students are also less likely to be able to engage with online meetings and lectures, and many require the supervision of an adult.

The benefit of online learning should be the ability for people to work in a nonlinear fashion, to be able to work at their own pace, to some extent, Shapiro told Al Jazeera.

These learners still need structure, but some people may want to do their work at two in the morning and others may want to work at two in the afternoon, he said.

Oakes McClenahan, 7, doing his school work while watching his teachers recorded lesson on a computer at home, in Seattle, Washington, US [File: Jason Redmond/Reuters]

When schools abruptly shut down in March, students and teachers were forced to quickly switch to distance learning until the end of the school year. The lack of planning led to a haphazard system of learning apps, video meetings and emailed assignments that parents had to supervise.

The system also requires access to tablets or computers and an internet connection, bringing to sharp focus the countrys economic and geographic inequities and divides.

Most schools have yet to detail their online curriculums or lay out how distance learning will be conducted, but polls suggest that the majority of parents are worried about keeping their childrens education on track.

Education experts say for online learning to be successful, it requires embracing the positives of technology, rather than simply reproducing school at a distance.

Eliza Bobek, a clinical assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, says children and families need connection and community with other people, whether it is a big or small group, above all else. They also need the social services that public schools provide, such as childcare and meals.

This is an opportunity to think differently in school districts, if they can be brave and do something about it, such as more teaching outdoors and project-based learning, Bobek said, and not just replicate what we always do, but just on a screen.
Saudi Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon jets perform during a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of the King Faisal Air Academy at King Salman airbase in Riyadh on January 25, 2017.

Indonesian legislators and military observers on Wednesday urged the government to not go ahead with a proposal to buy Austrias fleet of 15 Eurofighter Typhoon jets after Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto expressed interest in acquiring the warplanes.

Prabowo wrote in a letter to his Austrian counterpart, Klaudia Tanner, that his proposal to purchase the jets could lead to a mutual benefit for our two countries.

House member Tubagus Hasanuddin was among those who called on the government to not pursue the plan.

It has been the commitment of the government and the House of Representatives not to purchase used military equipment, said Hasanuddin who serves on the House commission on defense.

If this proposal is true, then the Ministry of Defense must stop it, he told BenarNews.

In his July 10 letter to Tanner, Prabowo said he was aware of the controversy in Austria surrounding its purchase of the Typhoons, adding his proposal could offer a promising change for both sides, according to a copy seen by BenarNews.

Austria purchased the jets in 2003 in the countrys largest post-World War II arms deal, but later claimed that it paid too much to manufacturer Airbus because payments to middlemen were priced into the contract. Airbus, meanwhile, denied the allegation.

According to its purchase contract, Austria cannot resell aircraft without the approval of Airbus, aviation observer Georg Mader told Austrian news agency APA.

Austrian newspaper Die Presse reported Monday that the countrys Defense Ministry confirmed it received Prabowos letter and that Tanner was reviewing it to determine whether the Indonesian offer was serious.

Meanwhile, another member of Indonesian House defense commission, Effendi Simbolon, said he was not aware of the proposal, adding the Defense Ministry had not submitted its strategic plans to the commission.

We have never been informed directly by Defense Minister Prabowo. We only found out about it from the media and other sources, Effendi said.

There was never any discussion on this in our meetings, he said.

Indonesian Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Djoko Purwanto declined to comment when contacted by BenarNews.

Bartering for jets

In 2018, Indonesia signed a deal valued at U.S. $1.14 billion (16.7 trillion rupiah) with Russia to buy 11 Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets.

Under the agreement, Indonesia agreed to pay through a barter agreement in which Jakarta would exchange a $570 million (8.3 trillion rupiah) package of Indonesian commodities including crude palm oil, rubber and coffee.

Indonesia previously purchased 16 Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-30 jets from Russia between 2003 and 2012.

The Indonesian Air Force also has 33 U.S.-made F-16s.

News website Defense World reported in mid-March that Indonesia and Russia continued negotiations on the barter portion of the 2018 deal which was complicated because of the fluctuating prices of some of the commodities.

Earlier this month, Lyudmila Vorobieva, Russian ambassador to Jakarta, said the deal was on track and played down the possibility of U.S. sanctions complicating it.

Indonesian officials have expressed concern that the Countering Americas Adversaries through Sanctions Act signed by President Donald Trump in August 2017 could potentially hinder the purchase.

The act targets Russia, Iran and North Korea for sanctions and stipulates that the U.S. can impose sanctions on governments or entities that purchase weapons or military hardware and parts from Russia.

In March, Deputy Defense Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono told BenarNews that the Indonesian government was considering buying F-35 fighter jets from the United States instead, citing unspecified obstacles in going ahead with the Russian deal.

In addition, the U.S. State Department announced earlier this month that it had approved a possible sale of eight MV-22 Osprey aircraft and related equipment to Indonesia valued at $2 billion (29.2 trillion rupiah). The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the aircraft could improve Indonesias humanitarian and disaster relief capabilities.

In December 2019, Indonesia and South Korea agreed on a joint project to develop a next-generation fighter jet called the KAI KF-X, in which Jakarta would shoulder 20 percent of the $7.36 billion (107.8 trillion rupiah) development cost.

Eurofighter proposal questioned

Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, a University of Indonesia defense analyst, questioned whether the Air Force needed the Eurofighter Typhons.

All of sudden they want to buy Eurofighter jets. Have they talked to the Air Force chief?" Connie told BenarNews.

She said acquiring the Typhoons could complicate the Air Forces logistical and operational systems and prove to be financially burdensome.

The defense minister can no longer act like a Kopassus commander, she said, referring to Prabowos past role as the chief of the Armys special forces (Kopassus).

Earlier this month, President Joko Jokowi Widodo urged Prabowo to refrain from importing military hardware and to prioritize using local products instead to shore up the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Monday, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati urged the Defense Ministry to spend its budget wisely and efficiently.

Is it important to strengthen our defense equipment? Yes, its important, she said. Still, things have to be taken into account and of course we must prevent corruption.

The Defense ministrys budget is 127.35 trillion rupiah ($8.7 billion) for 2020.
(Philadelphia)  This week, Congress is considering another pandemic stimulus package, as unemployment remains stubbornly high across the country and coronavirus cases rise nationwide.

One hotly watched agenda item is the extra $600 per week in unemployment assistance the federal government has been bankrolling since the spring, which is set to expire at the end of the week.

The majority of the 3.3 million Pennsylvanians who have applied for some form of unemployment assistance since the CARES Act passed should have received the additional $600 payments, according to the state Department of Labor and Industry.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the commonwealth has passed on $13.5 billion in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation funds to Pennsylvania residents.

Heres a rundown of how that program has worked so far, and the other forms of assistance that will keep running if and when this one expires.

A person wearing a protective face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus walks past stuttered businesses in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 7, 2020. (Matt Rourke / AP Photo).

How it works

In March, the CARES Act created Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), or that extra $600 on top of regular unemployment benefits. It goes to anyone who qualifies for benefits under either the traditional unemployment system or a new, broader category of unemployment that includes freelancers and gig workers that was known as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).

The $600-a-week federal supplement was designed to make the average worker whole during the worst economic downturn in at least four decades.

Typical unemployment payments, on average, cover only about 41% of an American workers salary, according to the Brookings Institution. In Pennsylvania, the amount is capped at up to 50% of your weekly wages.

Now, without further action from Congress, FPUC is slated to end on July 25. That sets up a tussle over the federal vision for the next phase of pandemic assistance. Democrats in Washington have lobbied for extending the payments as is. Republican leaders have expressed a desire to reduce payouts to avoid making jobless benefits competitive with working wages.

President Donald Trumps administration has also proposed instead using stimulus funds to reduce payroll taxes.

Since the boosted benefits were created, some have questioned their logic. Some employers have complained the funds have made it harder to reopen as normal.

Others have complained that its not fair for essential workers in some cases to get paid less than they would make on unemployment. Many workers have taken relief in a benefit that has allowed them to get by without pushing them into job situations that could be a health risk.

Data collected on who receives unemployment in Pennsylvania indicates that restaurant, tourism and hospitality workers are generally the hardest hit and are remaining on unemployment.

Workplaces are still shut down, or  are not hiring again, and its really impossible to find a job, said Julia Simon-Mishel, supervising attorney in the unemployment compensation unit at Philadelphia Legal Assistance. Workers are terrified of losing the extra $600.

Jamie Lee, who lives in Wilkes-Barre with her husband and three of their kids, said that without the boosted benefits she would be bringing in $220 a week on traditional unemployment. She was laid off in mid-March from her job at an adult day care center.

I can honestly say it has kept us floating during this whole pandemic, she said in an email. Her husband has continued to work as a delivery driver, but his income is not enough. Her job was supposed to start back in July, then in August, but shes not sure that will happen with cases worsening. She has tried to find work in other fields, such as retail, only to be turned away due to lack of business.

Lee said theyre still behind on some of their bills, such as their two car payments, but without the extra $600 a week, we would be in a bigger mess than we are now.

Many other Pennsylvanians find themselves similarly dependent on the boosted federal benefits.

For a lot of my clients, their regular unemployment rate is somewhere between $90 and $150 a week, and so the $600 has been the only thing keeping them afloat during this time, said Simon-Mishel. The minimum payment for PUA is $195 a week.

Unemployment duration is extended, even if extra cash isnt

Despite the federal debate over boosted benefits, traditional unemployment aid and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance will continue.

Both the state and federal governments have announced extensions to the amount of time someone who is unemployed can draw compensation.

Under normal circumstances, benefits in Pennsylvania run out after 26 weeks of unemployment payments are received in a given year. The federal government created an extension, called Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), extending benefits by an additional 13 weeks.

In the event that a person exhausts that program as well, the state has its own backstop program, called simply extended benefits, which tacks on up to an additional 13 weeks. All told, someone who remains out of work for a full year due to the pandemic would be able to receive unemployment compensation the whole time. However, they wont receive the greater amount of money going forward unless Congress renews it.

The extended assistance program, PUA, which covers temporary workers, people in the gig economy or those without a documented work history, runs for 39 weeks or until the end of 2020.

As for those people worried about affording necessities if the extra $600 goes away, state officials urge that they apply for food, health care and utilities assistance and emergency cash payments.

The federal government funds [FPUC], and theyre ending the payments, said state Labor and Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak. I want to remind you that there are other resources available through the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

He said anyone still waiting on backdated $600 payments will still receive them and be made whole.

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BARCELONA, Spain, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sentrium has today announced a partnership with Edgecore Networks to provide official support for VyOS on Edgecore hardware, and with EPS Global, a worldwide distributor of open networking solutions. EPS Global will distribute and integrate Sentrium's VyOS feature-rich open-source OS on Edgecore network appliance platforms as part of its hardware and software offering to managed network service providers and enterprise customers.

The goal of such cooperation is to facilitate choosing the hardware for running the VyOS on for customers. Sentrium will provide technical support to VyOS versions created to be launched on the provided specific hardware models. Their compatibility with Edgecore solutions has been thoroughly tested by Sentrium so that it can guarantee an expected highest performance on supported devices.

The Edgecore Network Appliance Platform utilizes standard Intel x86 architecture that provides openness and flexibility to fulfill various use cases in different vertical markets. With the advent of SDN and NFV, the platform supports open-source-based software or 3rd party VNFs that enable Service Providers to deliver and deploy innovative services and applications with agility and scalability. SAF Series devices - SAF51015I and SAF51003I have been tested for compatibility with VyOS. These and other network appliances are available for purchase through selected resellers .

In the emerging 5G networks and edge computing, the platform is an excellent choice for Service Providers to deliver Residential and Enterprise vCPE/uCPE solutions from the communication center.

The platform supports a range of fixed Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports for connectivity along with internal M.2 SSD and HDD storage options, which are all contained within a compact desktop form-factor.

From a simple VPN concentrator to a data-center router and variety tools in between, VyOS on Edgecore hardware offers a comprehensive open networking solution with high performance and advanced support for numerous technologies.

VyOS can be easily deployed on Edgecore hardware from an ISO image prepared by the VyOS team. It is scalable and has many configurable features, which continuously improve with new versions. Merging of VyOS and Edgecore will empower users with multigigabit routing while offering a convenient CLI along with a wide choice of VPN and Firewall technologies for either wired or wireless network management. This combination allows for the creation of powerful open networking appliances utilizing both open hardware and open software.

Yuriy Andamasov, Community and Business Coordinator of VyOS Project said: "Due to our partnership with EdgeCore, we gained profitable opportunities for customers. We developed and tested optimized system versions for Edgecore hardware. Therefore now everyone can build prebuilt images using appropriate makefile targets, while subscribers with support or corp access can download them. This cooperation is not only about thinking of others, hearing others, and finding middle ground. It is an understanding of the benefits. Cooperation means that teams can grow as a result of participation; it is fertile soil for new achievements."

"We are pleased to work with one of the industry pioneers, Sentrium, in supporting the open source router and firewall platform VyOS, which is now supported on Edgecore's network appliance products, the SAF51003I and SAF51015I. This partnership further enables Edgecore's appliance platform to support different deployment options and meet evolving customer requirements," said Lukasz Lukowski, VP, Edgecore EMEA Sales.

"EPS Global has long been an advocate of the open networking model, enabling our customers to leverage network disaggregation, open source software, white box economics, and software-defined standards to significantly reduce CapEx and OpEx," said Colin Lynch, CEO of EPS Global. "Our alignment with Sentrium will prove invaluable to our customers who are rolling out next-gen networking applications at the 5G edge, requiring high performance and security. The combined strengths of Edgecore's pioneering whitebox network appliances together with Sentrium's VyOS open source router and firewall platform should open up huge business opportunities for our customers."

Learn more about VyOS and Edgecore's collaboration and possibilities on the link

About VyOS

VyOS project started in 2013 as a fork of Vyatta Core when the open-source Vyatta version was discontinued. Now VyOS is a fully open-source network OS that provides a wide range of features for any network, from small business to Internet service provider. It runs on commodity x86 hardware from desktop router boards to large servers, as well as virtualized in all popular hypervisors and multiple cloud hosting platforms including VMware, KVM, Xen, Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and more. Its aim is to provide the reliability and user experience of traditional hardware routers, without getting tied to any specified hardware or software vendor. Unified command-line interface and HTTP API for all functions, built-in configuration versioning and archiving, and reversible image upgrades allow network admins to make configuration changes easily.

About Edgecore

Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading network ODM. Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for Data Center, Service Provider, Enterprise, and SMB customers. Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking, providing a full line of open 1G-400G Ethernet OCP Accepted switches, core routers, cell site gateways, virtual PON OLTs, packet transponders, and Wi-Fi access points that offer a choice of commercial and open-source NOS, and SDN software. For more information, visit www.edge-core.com

About EPS Global

EPS Global was established in 1999 and is a leading franchised distributor for specialized IT components and semiconductors used in data networking and storage, virtualization, cloud, and the Internet of Things. EPS Global sits at the center of the open networking ecosystem, bringing together hardware and open NOS software to provide turnkey solutions for any use case, delivering value and expertise to your business. EPS's Engineering team offers advice on the best product set to suit your business needs, offering software configuration and bundling of solutions for hassle-free, consolidated shipments. EPS has local language and currency support in each of its 28 locations, and provides stock availability from its regional distribution hubs worldwide, minimizing lead times. For more information see www.epsglobal.com.

https://sentrium.io, https://vyos.io

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1135214/Sentrium_Vyos_Logo.jpg
Two ambitious friends who spent lockdown learning how to launch an online clothing label have made almost $65,000 in their first month of business.

While other young men whiled away hours of isolation on Xbox and Instagram, Christian Russo, 18, and Jack Tanasi, 22, were on Zoom calls with small business owners, jotting down advice about starting their own.

With millions housebound, the boys from central Melbourne decided to create a website selling plush ponchos, socks and sleep masks, capitalising on the booming 'locked down' market for comfortable loungewear and accessories.

'Frenchies' launched on June 22, and since then Mr Russo and Mr Tanasi have raked in an average of $2,000 a day - amounting to a cool $64,830.79 in just one month.

Daily Mail Australia has verified this figure from the company's financial statements.

Scroll down for video

Customers wear the $89.95 'Frenchie' ponchos, which have made Melbourne friends Christian Russo and Jack Tanasi a cool $65,000 in their first month of business

Christian Russo, 18, (left) and Jack Tanasi, 22, (right) who launched Frenchies loungewear label on June 22

When COVID-19 reached Australian shores on January 25, it set in motion an extraordinary chain of events that would scupper Mr Tanasi's marketing job and Mr Russo's plans to launch Friday events at a nightclub in Melbourne.

After the federal government announced lockdown on March 23, the boys were determined to use the time productively and contacted local entrepreneurs for guidance on building a business.

'We learned from their mistakes and the tips they gave us,' Mr Tanasi told Daily Mail Australia.

'We didn't go into this with any arrogance, we just wanted to find out everything we could. We literally asked them every question under the sun about sourcing, budgeting, marketing, ads, just everything.'

After weeks of hunting for products that would 'do well on social media', they settled on $89.95 one-size-fits-all unisex ponchos, $7.95 ankle socks and $19.95 sleep masks, manufactured in Asia then shipped to their Melbourne headquarters.

The plush poncho (pictured) is perfect for lazy days on the sofa and winter nights in front of the television

A customer wears a $19.95 Frenchies sleep mask, one of three products that have banked the founders five figures in one month

The cosy clothing is perfect for lazy days on the sofa and winter nights in front of the television - a short-term certainty for Melburnians who face stage three lockdown for at least another four and a half weeks.

That's good news for Frenchies, which is among the few businesses likely to benefit from the draconian measures if retail figures from the first wave of isolation are anything to go by.

Tracksuits, elasticated pants and loose-fitting jumpers dominated clothing sales in March, when the loungewear category enjoyed a 120 percent increase in demand year-on-year according to data from Australian online retailer The Iconic.

Similarly, lounge and activewear sales were up 40 percent in the US and 97 percent in the UK year-on-year during the first week of April, Business of Fashion reported.

The ponchos (pictured on Melburnian influencers) come in charcoal and fairyfloss pink

During their first week of trading customers snapped up one month's worth of stock in 48 hours, causing a deluge or orders that Mr Russo confessed initially felt 'very overwhelming'.

'We've been in the office until 5am packing for the next morning a lot, but we've handled it well,' he said.

Opposite skill sets make the young businessmen a perfect professional match.

'We get along like yin and yang,' Mr Tanasi said.

While he takes care of 'front end' aspects like marketing and influencer promotions, Mr Russo handles logistics, finances and inventory behind the scenes.

An 'Instagram' couple wears matching colours of the one-size-fits-all unisex ponchos

What two Melbourne boys learned about business in lockdown 1. Understand acquisition cost Acquisition cost is the total cost that a company incurs for products or equipment after discounts, transport and other necessary expenditure before sale. Successful entrepreneurs told Mr Russo and Mr Tanasi to view this as 'the cost of finding your customer', something they said should be at the forefront of a business person's mind at all times. 2. Knowledge is knowledge Mr Russo and Mr Tanasi agreed they learned their most valuable lesson from small businesses rather than large corporations. 'Even if a company does 10 sales a week, but they do it well, that can be enough. We felt we could learn from anyone, and we did,' Mr Russo said. 3. Marketing is everything Mr Tanasi said he learned the value of strategic marketing from the entrepreneurs he spoke to in isolation, which showed him how to create a brand that consumers would connect with. 'We provide a product that our customers value and feel part of. That's why we have 'Frenchie family' on our website,' he said. 'Our ponchos and accessories are stuff you wear hanging on the sofa with your friends and family, so we wanted to build the brand around that message.' Advertisement

Conscious that their products are best suited to the cooler temperatures of the short Australian winter, the boys are already planning a summer range and a strategic marketing campaign that they hope will circumvent seasonality.

'We're thinking about running social media ads in Europe and America when it gets into winter there,' Mr Russo said.

'We also want to release satin and polyester pyjamas sets, we feel there's a real gap in the market for ladies pyjamas right now.'

The wider retail industry may be reeling from the impact of the virus crisis, but for these driven young friends at least, the pandemic has paid dividends.

'We're just two mates, two regular Melbourne boys who took advantage of a bad time,' said Mr Tanasi.

'We're in the prime of our lives and we obviously can't go out, so we said let's make the most of it.'
This article will reflect on the compensation paid to John Wobensmith who has served as CEO of Genco Shipping & Trading Limited (NYSE:GNK) since 2017. This analysis will also evaluate the appropriateness of CEO compensation when taking into account the earnings and shareholder returns of the company.

View our latest analysis for Genco Shipping & Trading

Comparing Genco Shipping & Trading Limited's CEO Compensation With the industry

Our data indicates that Genco Shipping & Trading Limited has a market capitalization of US$255m, and total annual CEO compensation was reported as US$2.4m for the year to December 2019. Notably, that's an increase of 8.2% over the year before. While this analysis focuses on total compensation, it's worth acknowledging that the salary portion is lower, valued at US$650k.

In comparison with other companies in the industry with market capitalizations ranging from US$100m to US$400m, the reported median CEO total compensation was US$340k. Hence, we can conclude that John Wobensmith is remunerated higher than the industry median. Furthermore, John Wobensmith directly owns US$1.5m worth of shares in the company.

Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary US$650k US$650k 27% Other US$1.7m US$1.6m 73% Total Compensation US$2.4m US$2.2m 100%

Speaking on an industry level, nearly 20% of total compensation represents salary, while the remainder of 80% is other remuneration. Genco Shipping & Trading pays out 27% of remuneration in the form of a salary, significantly higher than the industry average. It's important to note that a slant towards non-salary compensation suggests that total pay is tied to the company's performance.

A Look at Genco Shipping & Trading Limited's Growth Numbers

Over the past three years, Genco Shipping & Trading Limited has seen its earnings per share (EPS) grow by 69% per year. It achieved revenue growth of 2.7% over the last year.

This demonstrates that the company has been improving recently and is good news for the shareholders. It's good to see a bit of revenue growth, as this suggests the business is able to grow sustainably. Historical performance can sometimes be a good indicator on what's coming up next but if you want to peer into the company's future you might be interested in this free visualization of analyst forecasts.

Story continues

Has Genco Shipping & Trading Limited Been A Good Investment?

Given the total shareholder loss of 34% over three years, many shareholders in Genco Shipping & Trading Limited are probably rather dissatisfied, to say the least. Therefore, it might be upsetting for shareholders if the CEO were paid generously.

To Conclude...

As we noted earlier, Genco Shipping & Trading pays its CEO higher than the norm for similar-sized companies belonging to the same industry. But the company has impressed with its earnings per share growth, but it's disappointing to see negative shareholder returns over the same period. Although we'd stop short of calling it inappropriate, we think John is earning a very handsome sum.

While it is important to pay attention to CEO remuneration, investors should also consider other elements of the business. We did our research and spotted 1 warning sign for Genco Shipping & Trading that investors should look into moving forward.

Arguably, business quality is much more important than CEO compensation levels. So check out this free list of interesting companies that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
The memory of his nephews body laid on a stretcher is seared into Stephen Boakyes mind.

Also, there are thoughts of the silence that has followed, and of the unanswered questions he has for the investigators charged with finding out what actually happened in Mississauga last November when Clive Mensah was Tasered by Peel officers and then died.

Im in the dark, Boakye told the Star Tuesday.

Nine months after Mensahs death, Boakye and William Owusu, another uncle, are still waiting on the investigation by Ontarios Special Investigations Unit, which they say is overdue.

Im wondering about how this happened, Boakye said. Up to now, I dont know.

According to Ontarios Special Investigations Unit, those answers could still take some time to come.

The SIU is continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Nov. 20, 2019 death of a 30-year-old man in Mississauga, SIU spokesperson Monica Hudon said. We are awaiting the results of toxicological analysis as well as the post-mortem report.

According to the SIUs recent annual report, the watchdog took an average of 136 days to close a case in 2019  or about four-and-a-half months per case. Last week, the SIU completed its investigation into the shooting of Mississauga mother Chantelle Krupka, 34, laying charges against a now-former Peel officer just over two months after the shooting.

Meanwhile, Mensahs family and Toronto lawyer Emily Lam are digging for answers where they can, with little to work with to date, except for hospital medical records, scant detail of Mensahs history of mental health issues, and the SIUs brief initial account of the case.

According to the initial report, neighbours living near Runningbrook Drive and Riverspray Crescent in Mississauga, where Mensah rented a basement apartment, called police over a noise complaint shortly after 3 a.m. on Nov. 20.

Peel police officers were dispatched, and soon after they located a person of interest in the backyard of one of the homes.

According to the SIU account, officers attempted to communicate with the man before a struggle ensued, during which the officers used several use of force options, including deployment of a conducted energy weapon.

Soon after the man was arrested, he went unconscious; he was pronounced dead in hospital after 4. a.m., the SIU said.

We dont actually know what happened when police arrive, Lam said. We do know that Clive was found dead in his own backyard.

Woken up by a call, Boakye arrived at Mississaugas Trillium Hospital not long after his nephew.

He said he reluctantly followed medical staff into the room with Mensahs body. They said he was Tased, and that their attempts to save his life had failed, Boakye remembers.

According to hospital records Boakye has obtained, paramedics reported Mensah was Tasered roughly six times, and was handcuffed and lying on the ground when they arrived.

Both Boakye and Owusu say their nephew experienced worsening mental health issues, especially after his fathers death in Ghana in 2015, followed the next year by the loss of his mother, who also died in Ghana.

According to Lam, Mensahs mental health first began to deteriorate in 2014, and worsened in 2015 after he was charged with robbery and pleaded guilty to theft and assault.

He had been hospitalized several times under the Mental Health Act, according to a report by Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care, where he was treated during his criminal case. During one such period, he was diagnosed with an unspecified psychotic disorder, the report said.

Despite these struggles, Owusu said he thought Mensah had been faring well and was meaningfully employed as a forklift driver.

Hes a peaceful boy, Owusu said.

Lam says she is already planning her next move. If the SIU decides not to lay criminal charges against the Peel officers, Lam plans to pursue answers via a coroners inquest, which is mandatory when a person dies in police custody.

My intention is to ask for the coroner to look at the systemic issues that were at play, she said, pointing to Mensahs race, his mental health and the actions of Peel police.

Lam will also call on the coroner look at the deaths of Ejaz Choudry and DAndre Campbell, two other racialized men with mental health issues, both killed in interactions with Peel police earlier this year. (The subject officer in the Campbell case has also refused an interview with the SIU.)

For his part, Boakye hopes answers will come soon from the SIU. Im grieving because I dont really understand what happened, he said. I want justice.

Jason Miller is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering crime and justice in the Peel Region. His reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. Reach him on email: jasonmiller@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @millermotionpic

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Kanye's bid to become President may actually be a PR stunt (or not!), but if he indeed pushes through, this would not be something the rest of his wife Kim Kardashian's family would like. In fact, it would the family matriarch, Kris Jenner's worst nightmare.

According to National Enquirer, July 27, 2020 edition, Kanye West scares the rest of the family with his announcement that he is running for US presidency. While the rest of the country gawked and the rest of the world laughed, the entire Kardashian family's reaction was different. They allegedly quaked in fear with regard to the idea.

Sources claimed that Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner, as well as the rest of the famous siblings, Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Kendall Jenner hated the thought. They know that if Kanye runs for presidency, this would open a can of worms. All the dark secrets that the family members are hiding can somehow be exposed.

Even though the girls truly appears as if their lives are open book in their social media accounts, with some of them being involved in the craziest scandals ever, they are also very private individuals at the same time. They also have kids who they now want to protect at all costs.

Insiders dished that while momager Kris Jenner is not one to shy away from publicity, positive or negative, she did not like this particular announcement of Kanye that drew the world's attention to their family. She is allegedly furious about it, and this frustration is generated by some deep fears.

Allegedly, Kris Jenner is worried that if West continues on with his doubtful political ambition, this would attract the media like bees to their business - wreaking havoc to their private lives. Even if the family's main business is to show people "their lives" through the reality show, "Keeping UP with the Kardashians," Kris knows that the media scrutiny in case Kanye West runs for president will be a whole new level. For one, it's not something they could have control over, unlike what they want to show in their reality series and social media posts.

In fact, to say Kris Jenner is furious is an understatement. The sources said she was positively livid at Kanye because he was ignorant on the consequences of his announcement. The sources also said that Kris Jenner is wise enough to know that once West is part of the crazy race to become the leader of the nation, the family will be like raw meat for the media as well as Kanye's political opponents.

Kris Jenner is even particularly worried that the media and opponents will start sniffing around once more on OJ Simpson's alleged role in Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman's brutal murders in 1994.

Everyone knows that Kim's ex-husband Robert Kardashian was part of the "Dream Team" that aided OJ escaped a double murder rap. However, few believe that it was the right verdict. Many questions linger with regard to the possible secrets Robert might have taken to his grave with regard this case when he died in 2003. For Kanye to be putting the family in such a limelight, the whole family's dirty secrets can come out one by one.

Since it is still unclear if Kanye West is serious or not about becoming the US President, the family must be at a crossroads right now - to support or not support?

READ MORE: Kanye West Hostage: Rapper Claims Kim Kardashian Wants Him 'Locked Up'
The organization warned of a humanitarian crisis, saying that close to one third of Bangladesh has already been flooded, with more flooding expected in the coming weeks. It said that 2.8 million people have been affected, and that more than 1 million are isolated.
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Linkedin Yunindita Prasidya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23 2020

State-owned fertilizer holding firm PT Pupuk Indonesia will be offering bonds worth Rp 2.5 trillion (US$169 million) as part of a funding diversification strategy, a company executive has said.

The bond offering is the first phase of the shelf registration of conventional bonds (PUB) II for 2020 with a total value of Rp 8 trillion and is scheduled for Aug. 14 to 18.

We are planning to use the proceeds to refinance our loans, either for the holding company or its subsidiaries. This is part of the companys strategy to diversify external funding, aside from banks, Pupuk Indonesia president director Aas Asikin Idat said during a virtual press conference on Monday.

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In California Gov. Gavin Newsom's Wednesday update on the coronavirus pandemic, he announced 12,807 individuals tested positive yesterday. This marks the highest number of cases recorded in a single day.

The seven-day average for new cases reported in a single day is 9,420, up from about 8,300 a week ago.

"More tests, obviously more positives, but also the positivity rate continues to go up," Newsom said.

The positivity rate across 14 days has remained stable at 7.4% over the past week, but the seven-day rate is up to 7.6%. "That is cause of some concern," he said. "Every decimal point is a significant increase in terms of positivity rate."

California's total cases climbed above 400,000, which Newsom noted isn't surprising in a state as large as 21 states combined.

The state has created a watch list of counties with increased transmission, and today the number of counties on the list jumped to 35 with Butte County being added. In the nine-county Bay Area, only San Mateo isn't on the list.

With cases continuing to climb, Newsom addressed the state's preparedness to address the surge and said efforts are underway to procure more personal protective equipment, or PPE, including masks.

Speaking from a Sacramento warehouse that stores PPE, Newsom noted the state uses on average 46 million masks per month.

The state currently has 111 million N95 masks and 147 million procedural masks in inventory, but Newsom noted this is not enough to fulfill the ongoing need. "We need to be big and bold in our procurement," he said.

The governor announced he's extending a contract with China-based manufacturer BYD to buy hundreds of millions more masks. He also hopes to manufacture PPE in-state and has had conversations with the CEO of Honeywell about opening a California-based facility that would create more than 100,000 jobs. "We hope to encourage that facility but those units won't come online as quickly as we need them," he said.

Newsom said the manufacturer 3M and California had a commitment for delivery of 12.4 million masks. Of the 12.4 million, only 290,000 have been delivered so far. "They're just not providing the delivery at the necessary scale," he said.

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:

Sign up for 'The Daily' newsletter for the latest on coronavirus here.

 California woman allegedly pees on floor of Verizon store after being asked to wear a mask

 Trump says virus in US will get worse before it gets better

 White House, GOP in disarray over spending plan as benefit expiration nears

 How long should you isolate if you test positive for the coronavirus? New CDC guidance says 10 days, not 14

How Taiwan's COVID-19 response saved lives without wrecking the economy

Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
The New Nigeria Collective (NNC) group has dismissed the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, as an incurable liar for failing to own up to his acts of ingratitude and cruelty to Captain Idahosa Wells Okunbo.

This followed his recent outright denial of everything accused him of in his reply to Captain Okunbos letter to President Muhammadu Buhari and the people of Edo State on the state of the state preparatory to the September 19 governorship election.

In a press release signed by its chairman, Adeola Adewunmi, the group, which described Obaseki as an incurable and habitual liar, said Captain Okunbos detailed letter advertised in a majority of the key national dailies on Monday, painted a vivid picture of the governors crimes against him, citing places, names, witnesses and dates.

This, the group maintained, was an indication of a man, who came clean to the public with all the facts before him, unlike Obaseki, who only resorted to emotional blackmail and danced round the issues without paying attention to the clearly identified issues.

We read with absolute shock and its resultant helplessness, albeit momentarily, all the lies put together by Governor Godwin Obaseki, in an attempt to look good before the public against the well documented grouses of one of Benins great and illustrious sons, Captain Idahosa Okunbo.

We are quick to note that your reply is a cocktail of lies and an afterthought, which is of no consequence. Where were you when your men, armed with falsehood and deceit, were throwing stones at Captain Hosa? If truly he was your brother or friend as you claimed, did you ever reach out to him even after he said at different times that you and your men should leave him alone?

Why didnt you also confirm to the whole world that Captain Hosa was your brother and friend by asking your foot soldiers to stop all their attacks against him, at least, after you saw a letter he personally wrote and addressed to the public? But after that, the attacks escalated.

You are but a very wicked man trying to draw the sympathy of the public. You brought down the hotel of an innocent citizen, who once supported you just, because you couldnt get his support this time around and sent your agents on a bombing spree of perceived and real political opponents and more, the group alleged.

According to NNC, the governor also went further, using his libelous claims through his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Crusoe Osagie, without any iota of proof and that exposed the modus operandi of the state, which he stated, automatically brought to naught, his reply to Captain Hosa, intended to draw up sympathy

With Crusoe, Adaze and one Lukeman still on rampage against Captain Hosa for unsubstantiated claims on various social media platforms, the governor must be delusional to have written such a letter just to attract the sympathy of the unsuspecting public. But thats no more.

Deep down in his conscience and before God, Obaseki knows that all Captain Hosa stated in his statement were true and if he was actually his friend or brother, he should have also known that the Captain does not tell lies.

As a major stakeholder in Edo State and your brother and friend as you claimed, did you ever tell him you were interested in a second term and therefore needed his support and vote? Anyway, we can say unequivocally that Captain Hosa is ready and willing to face the consequences of his choice as indicated in your letter.

The group further noted with disdain, Obasekis penchant for calling Oshomhole a godfather and yet was the greatest beneficiary of that status he so conferred on the former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

As the economic adviser to Oshiomhole for eight years, why did you not resign your appointment since you said you did it pro bono, especially if the man was evil as being painted now the same way you are trying to paint Captain Hosa with lies.

Captain Hosa could only have supported the truth and nothing but the truth, rather than draw him into an ethnic war with Oshiomhole, who is more Benin in mind and actions than yourself, because you had nothing to offer him like the carrots you were throwing at others after making them hungry and creating poverty in the land, the group posited.

Restraining from mentioning the names of people allegedly at Obasekis house the day he made the embarrassing phone call that exposed his evil plots against Okunbo, because of the enormous respect we have for such individuals, the group said, But if you strongly contest it, we will be very glad to summon witnesses to court to prove the allegations

Besides, dont forget that the receipts of the tickets that captain Hosa bought for you to China are still with him as evidence? Why, therefore, would Oshiomhole even need you to steal Edos money, when he already did his eight years?

We make bold to say Oshiomhole did more infrastructure developments than your propaganda of the last four years, orchestrated by some young men, who need genuine help but whom you have hired to be abusing their elders in the name of politics? Politics has never being played this way before in Edo State. This is the lowest and thanks to you, Governor Obaseki.

It would, therefore, be delusional for Obaseki to think Captain Hosa would reckon that his poorly written letter was in good faith, when indeed, it was a deceit intended to once again mislead the public and attract undeserving sympathy in his desperation for a re-election, the group claimed.
(Newser)  Roy Den Hollander hated women, as he made clear in countless online posts and other writings, including a 1,700-page self-published bookbut he apparently hated a rival men's rights activist just as much. The FBI confirmed Wednesday that it has evidence linking the "anti-feminist attorney" to the July 11 murder of lawyer Marc Angelucci in San Bernardino County, California, the AP reports. Angelucci, 52, was the vice president of the National Council for Men. Harry Crouch, the group's president, tells CNN that Den Hollander saw Angelucci as a rival and was furious about not being involved in the group's lawsuit against the Selective Service System in California. Crouch says he kicked Den Hollander out of the organization in 2015 after he called him, upset about the case, and "threatened to come to California and kick my ass."

story continues below

Den Hollander, 72, also had a case against the men-only Selective Service System before New Jersey federal judge Esther Salas. Den Hollander was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday, a day after he allegedly went to Salas' home disguised as a FedEx deliveryman and shot her 20-year-old son dead. Sources tell CNN that the gunman in the Angelucci killing was also disguised as a delivery driver. Attorney Ronda Kennedy tells CBS Los Angeles that Den Hollander apparently resented Angelucci's success. "I never thought that one would kill another one," she says. "But, yeah, Marc was successful in areas that this other attorney wasnt." Den Hollander, who reportedly had terminal cancer, wrote about seeking to "even the score" with his perceived enemies. (Read more Roy Den Hollander stories.)
By ANI

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday expressed condolences to the family of journalist Vikram Joshi who passed away today and said that voices are being muzzled and even media is not being spared.

"My heartfelt condolences to the family of Vikram Joshi, a fearless journalist who passed away today. He was shot in UP for filing an FIR to book his niece's molesters. An atmosphere of fear has been created in the country. Voices being muzzled. Media not spared. Shocking," the West Bengal Chief Minister tweeted.

My heartfelt condolences to the family of Vikram Joshi, a fearless journalist who passed away today. He was shot in UP for filing an FIR to book his nieces molesters. An atmosphere of fear has has been created in the country. Voices being muzzled. Media not spared. Shocking.  Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) July 22, 2020

Journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by unknown miscreants near his residence in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad on July 20, breathed his last at a hospital on Wednesday.

Doctors monitoring Joshi had said that the veins in the journalists' head had got badly damaged due to the bullet injury.

Meanwhile, the Station in-charge has been suspended and departmental inquiry initiated after the family of the journalist alleged inaction by the police.

The incident occurred on Monday, days after Vikram Joshi had filed a complaint with Vijay Nagar Police Station stating that some men were harassing his niece.

Hours after the death of journalist Vikram Joshi, Uttar Pradesh Police on Wednesday stated that it has arrested three accused in the case along with six others, while one is accused is absconding.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan Railways signed a contract with McKinsey& Company, and started working on the development of the Corporate Strategy of Azerbaijan Railway until 2030, railways press service reported on July 21.

According to the companys management, due to favorable geographical location of Azerbaijan, the role of the railway in international transport corridors passing through the country has increased. In addition a recent targeted steps lead to a positive impact on the transit potential of the country.

Moreover, according to the statement, it is important to increase the participation of all links of the transport chain in this process and cooperation with stakeholders in developing the relevant corridors.

During the videoconference, company presented the reviews and trends of development of world and regional railway sector, impact of COVID-19 pandemic on it, as well as the expected consequences of global and regional trends, in order to make the strategy more successful.

Earlier it was reported that, Azerbaijans Ministry of Energy and McKinsey & Company signed an agreement to conduct a detailed diagnostics of the countrys gas supply system.

Under the agreement, the company will provide consulting services to the ministry, when preparing proposals for reforms in this area in order to improve the efficiency of the countrys gas supply system, taking into account best international practices, to ensure reliable satisfaction of consumers needs.

McKinsey & Company is management consulting firm, founded in 1926 that provides advice on strategic management to corporations, governments and other organizations.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A man who masturbated on a bus from Dublin to Portlaoise received the benefit of the probation act at Portlaoise District Court last Thursday.

Before the court was Jaime Marcuello (40) of 15 Glenbrook, Ballyroan who was charged with offensive conduct of a sexual nature on July 26, 2019.

Sgt JJ Kirby told the court that two young ladies boarded the green bus in Dublin, to Portlaoise on July 26, 2019. They were in their early 20s.

One sat in front of Mr Marcuello and the other to the side of him. One of the girls fell asleep. The other observed Mr Marcuello going to the toilet a number of times. She then observed him masturbating on the bus. She woke her friend and contacted the Gardai.

Defending solicitor, Philip Meagher said that Mr Marcuello was a 40-year old man. He had made no form of contact with either girl on the bus. This was a significant embarrassment for him.

Mr Meagher told the court that Mr Marcuello worked in a financial institution in Dublin. In the week before the incident he had received bad news about his mother who was in poor health.

He went to a work function on the evening in question. At the function he broke the news of his mother to a number of his work colleagues. He consumed a large amount of alcohol.

A colleague subsequently brought him to the bus. He was in a very inebriated state.

On the bus he had had to go to the toilet on a number of occasions. He did not realise what he was doing.

He fully appreciated that his behaviour was appalling and realises that taking that amount of drink was inappropriate. He had stopped drinking and attended a counselling course.

He had written a letter of apology to both girls. He had 1,000 in court for each girl.

Judge Catherine Staines said it was abhorrent behaviour, which was extremely disturbing and upsetting. She said that Mr Marcuello's behaviour in the bus merited a prison sentence.

She noted that Mr Marcuello had no previous convictions, was in good employment, had received bad news about his mother, and was intoxicated.

She had read the injured party's statement in detail and noted that Mr Marcuello attempted no contact with either girl on the bus.

He had become totally absorbed in his own self-gratification, she said. He had chosen to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity and had written a sincere letter of apology.

She noted that he had 2,000 in court for both of the girls. Because one of them had not witnessed the incident, she ordered that 1,000 be paid to Laois Domestic Violence.

She said that the other girl could avail of the 1,000 if she so wished.

Noting that it was an aberration and that she was giving him an opportunity, Judge Staines applied the probation act.
President Trump on Tuesday signed an order directing the U.S. Census Bureau not to count illegal immigrants when awarding seats in the House of Representatives based on each states population.

The directive requires Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to provide information permitting the President, to the extent practicable to exclude immigrants without legal status from the population count used to divide up House seats. States use the census count, conducted every 10 years, to redraw congressional districts based on how their populations have shifted.

I have accordingly determined that respect for the law and protection of the integrity of the democratic process warrant the exclusion of illegal aliens from the apportionment base, to the extent feasible and to the maximum extent of the Presidents discretion under the law, Trumps memorandum states.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled against an attempt by the administration to ask respondents in the census if they are citizens. Trumps attempts to utilize the census in his immigration agenda have encountered fierce opposition from Democrats.

The House of Representatives will vigorously contest the Presidents unconstitutional and unlawful attempt to impair the Census, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a Tuesday statement.

The presidents order is expected to face legal challenges, including from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The presidents latest attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities will be found unconstitutional. Well see him in court, and win, again, said Dale Ho, director of the ACLUs Voting Rights Project.

State legislative districts will be redrawn after the completion of the 2020 census, which began months ago and has counted 62.2 percent of the country so far, according to Census.gov. The Constitution states that House seats are awarded according to the whole Number of free Persons in each state and does not mention citizenship status.

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Google has come up with a feature that allows people to understand the information they find in the real world in the language of their choice. In 2019, the company brought camera-based translation to Google Lens which translates texts into more than 100 languages. The search-engine giant has extended this tool to the millions of Google Assistant users on KaiOS devices in India.

With Lens, users have to just point their camera at text they see and it will get translated. It can even speak the words out loud in users preferred language.

This is another step in our commitment to make language more accessible to everyone, and we hope this will enable millions of KaiOS users across the country to have a more seamless language experience, said Google.

People will have to click on the camera icon to simply point their phone at real-world text like a product label, street sign, or document, and have it read back in their preferred language, translated, or defined from Assistant. They have to just long press the center button from the home screen to get started with Assistant.

This feature is currently available for English and several Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil, and will soon be available in Kannada and Gujarati, informed the company.

According to 9To5 Google, the search-engine giant introduced Assistant for KaiOS-powered feature phones with numeric keypads for text entry in 2017.

The Assistant was unveiled through a dedicated voice key, it is now equipped with a new Camera translate button.


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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Jerusalem  Wed, July 22, 2020 10:53 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668573d0 2 World Benjamin-Netanyahu,corruption-case,Israel,coronavirus,COVID-19,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

About 2,000 Israelis rallied outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday as protests mounted against him over his handling of a worsening coronavirus crisis and alleged corruption.

Wearing protective masks, the demonstrators marched from Netanyahu's official residence to Israel's parliament, holding up signs that read "Crime Minister" and calling on the five-term premier to step down.

Reimposed coronavirus curbs after a rise in new COVID-19 cases have prompted Israelis demanding better state aid to take to the streets in almost daily demonstrations.

Public anger has also been fuelled by corruption alleged against Netanyahu, who went on trial in May for bribery, fraud and breach of trust - charges he denies.

Netanyahu has announced numerous economic aid packages. But frustrated by red tape and a slow pace, many Israelis say the aid is coming too little, too late.

"It's humiliating and insulting. You pay social security and taxes for thirty years and then have to beg [the authorities] in order to make ends meet. I'm here to protest, so that this evil government quits," said Doron, 54.

He asked not to give his full name and said he has been on unpaid leave for three months.

As part of the protest, restaurant owners set up a free buffet for the demonstrators, demanding their businesses keep open or else receive compensation.

Israel lifted in May a partial lockdown that had flattened an infection curve. But a second surge of COVID-19 cases and ensuing restrictions has seen Netanyahu's approval ratings plunge to under 30% and unemployment soar to 21%.

Police did not provide a figure for the number of demonstrators. A Reuters cameraman estimated that about 2,000 people rallied. Israeli media said the protest drew thousands from across the country. At least six people were arrested, police said.

With a population of 9 million, Israel has reported more than 50,000 coronavirus cases and 422 deaths.
The Brazilian government has u-turned over solar equipment import duty by introducing a measure to remove the 12% levy for 101 types of module plus some inverters and trackers. President Jair Bolsonaro had vetoed a similar proposal by the Senate and House of Representatives in November, stating it would be too costly.From pv magazine Latin America. Brazil's Resolution No. 70, of July 16 - published on Monday in official journal Diario Oficial da Uniao - will remove import duties for goods including several types of PV module, inverter and solar tracker. The measure, taken by the Foreign Chamber ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
With the 2020 Presidential election four months away, Vice President Mike Pence stressed the importance of the choice that Americans have to make regarding the outcome of the nation.

On Friday, Pence delivered a speech to about 50 at Ripon College in Wisconsin. Throughout the speech, he warned of the dangers that a Joe Biden Presidency would have on the U.S. if he wins the election.

Ripon, Wisconsin also happens to be the birthplace of the Republican Party, which was formed in 1854. According to the Associated Press, three existing parties that would form the Republican Party had their first meeting at the Little White Schoolhouse, which is now a national historic landmark.

When that first convention met here in 1854, they wrote that their decision to found a new political party had been forced upon us by the slave power and in the defense of freedom,' Pence said. They said that they would cooperate and be known as Republicans.

Like the original Republicans, the Vice President made it clear that Americans today are standing on the crossroads of freedom.

You know, its not so much whether America will be more conservative or more liberal, more Republican or Democrat, more red or blue. Its whether America remains America. Pence said.

Its whether we will leave to our children and our grandchildren a country grounded in our highest ideals of freedom, free markets, and the unalienable right to life and liberty  or whether we will leave to our children and grandchildren a country that is fundamentally transformed into something else, he continued.

Before us are two paths, one based on the dignity of every individual, and the other on the growing control of the state, Pence noted. Our road leads to freedom and opportunity. Their road leads to socialism and decline.

Pence then asserted that if Biden wins it would bear dangerous ramifications on the nation as he would reverse everything that President Trump has accomplished. While Trump has cut taxes by $5.5 trillion, Pence noted that Biden would raise taxes by almost $4 trillion within the forthcoming decade alone.

The 2020 presumptive Democratic nominee also plans to undo what Trump has done with immigration.

Joe Biden is for open borders, end to deportations, free lawyers and free healthcare for illegal immigrants, all paid by American taxpayers. Its extraordinary, Pence said.

Regarding school choice, Pence assured Americans that Trump is a champion when it comes to what schools parents want their children to attend. For Biden however, he wants to take that all away.

Joe Biden would take away the right of parents to choose where their children go to school  public, private, or parochial. Pence advised. So you need to tell your neighbors and friends: Joe Biden wants to end school choice. Those are the facts.

Biden is also in favor of taxpayer funded abortions, late-term abortions, and wanting to repeal the Hyde Amendment. While Trump stands without apology for the sanctity of human life.

In response to Joe Bidens self-reference as a transition candidate, Pence noted that Biden has linked up with socialist Bernie Sanders and the radical-left wing of the Democratic Party.

Its clear Joe Biden would be nothing more than an autopen president, he said, a Trojan horse for a radical agenda.

Biden, alongside Sanders, recently put out the Unity Agenda, a document outlining their future plans for the country. But Pence was quick to note that it further solidifies Bidens connection to the radical left.

You know, I thought Joe Biden won the Democrat primaries, but looking at their unity agenda, it looks to me like Bernie won. he said. When you look at their agenda, the only thing it ended up unifying was Joe Biden to the radical left.

Pence also referenced Trumps recent executive order in holding China accountable for its treatment of Hong Kong. But Pence says that Biden pretends to be tough on China, adding that he has helped China all along the way.

With the significant increase in gun violence and murders across American cities, Pence warned that this is a frightening preview of Joe Bidens agenda in action, as Biden wants to defund law enforcement.

When you hear Joe Biden call for defunding the police, remember whats at stake: law and order, safety, and the peace of mind that you, your family, and your children have every right to enjoy as citizens of this country.

Towards the end of his speech, Pence encouraged Americans by saying, this is a freedom-loving nation and a nation of faith, and that the people have the choice of maintaining that freedom.

The Bible says, Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, (2 Corinthians 3:17). And so millions of Americans believe, as I do, that when we stand up for the God-given freedoms of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the freedoms won and defended throughout our nations history, we make his work on this Earth our own, and that means freedom always wins.

Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla/Staff

Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. He is also the co-hosts of the For Your Soul podcast, which seeks to equip the church with biblical truth and sound doctrine. Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.
TROY  Workers have begun erecting a series of bus "stations" along the future route of the Capital District Transportation Authority's Blue Line Bus Rapid Transit route. The line, the second for CDTA, will connect Waterford, Cohoes and Troy to Watervliet and Albany.

The $42 million project includes stations, new buses, and an expansion of the CDTA garage in Troy to accommodate the additional vehicles.

Buses will run from Albany's South End, through downtown Albany and up through Menands and Watervliet, crossing over to downtown Troy and then north up River Street and Second Avenue.

The route splits into two at 112th Street, with some buses crossing over to serve Cohoes, while others will continue north thr0ugh Lansingburgh, crossing the Hudson into Waterford. Buses' destinations will be clearly labeled, spokewoman Jaime Watson said.

CDTA will have a mix of traditional and larger-capacity articulated buses serving the route.

Watson said the buses would offer passengers wifi, a service also available on CDTA's original Red Line route that connects Albany and Schenectady, and on its NX commuter service along the Adirondack Northway.

The $36 million Red Line, which began operating in April 2011 as BusPlus, offered expedited service along the Route 5 corridor, with fewer stops, frequent service, preferential treatment on roads with dedicated lanes and sensors to trigger traffic signals, among other features.



A third BRT route, the 8.5-mile, 16-station Purple Line, will connect downtown Albany and Crossgates Mall, stopping at the College of Saint Rose, University at Albany campuses and SUNY Polytechnic Institute as well as the Harriman campus.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The $77.7 million project includes all infrastructure including a dedicated "busway" through the Harriman State Office Campus.

When the Red Line was introduced, CDTA officials said ridership increased 25 percent, boosting annual ridership along the route to 4 million passengers.

CDTA's Navigator app offers passengers the ability to pay for their ride or buy various passes with their mobile phone. Fare payment can be touch-free.

Expansion of the Troy garage is expected to be completed by the end of August, and Blue Line service is expected to debut in November, according to Watson. The Purple Line, meanwhile, is expected to begin service in the autumn of 2022.

eanderson@timesunion.com
Story Highlights 58% of Americans say policing needs major changes; 6% say none are needed

Almost all support increased focus on accountability, community relations

About half support reducing police funding, with large gaps by race, political party

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the wake of widespread protests sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a majority of Americans (58%) say major changes are needed to make policing better. An additional 36% say minor changes are needed, while 6% say no changes are needed. There are substantial differences by demographic groups. Almost nine in 10 Black Americans (88%) say major changes are needed, compared with 63% of Hispanic Americans and 51% of White Americans.

Americans' Views of the Need for Changes in Policing Which of the following best describes your view about changes that may or may not need to be made to policing in the United States? Major changes needed Minor changes needed No changes needed % % % All Americans 58 36 6 Black Americans 88 10 2 Asian Americans 82 17 2 Hispanic Americans 63 33 4 White Americans 51 42 7 Democrats 89 10 1 Independents 60 36 4 Republicans 14 72 14 18-34 81 16 3 35-49 61 33 7 50-64 43 50 8 65+ 46 47 7 Gallup Panel, June 23-July 6, 2020

Political party affiliation is also a significant predictor of Americans' likelihood to say major changes are needed. About nine in 10 Democrats (89%) respond this way, versus 14% of Republicans, with political independents in between at 60%. Most Republicans, 72%, say minor changes are needed.

Finally, younger Americans are most likely to say major changes are necessary. Eight in 10 adults younger than 35 give this response, compared with six in 10 adults aged 35 to 49 and less than half of those aged 50 and older.

Reform Proposals Have Varying Levels of Public Support

In the weeks after Floyd's death, several U.S. cities, including New York, Denver and Minneapolis, announced a variety of reforms, from banning chokeholds and "no-knock" warrants to diverting funds from police departments to youth development or social service programs -- or even (in the case of Minneapolis) disbanding the police force altogether.

The Gallup Center on Black Voices recently asked Americans whether they strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose each of nine proposed approaches to solving the problem of police misconduct. The results can be divided into ideas that have broad support across demographic groups, those that have little support and those for which support is highly dependent on Americans' race, age and political affiliation. For reference, the tables at the end of this article list the percentage within each demographic group who strongly or somewhat support each idea.

Ideas With Broad Public Support

Requiring officers to have good relations with the community. This idea meets with little controversy, as almost all Americans (97%) support it overall, including 77% who strongly support it. Since the 1980s, some cities have adopted community policing techniques as a way to foster trust and positive relations with community members. Such techniques emphasize police officers' visibility in the community and proactive partnerships with community organizations. Black Americans are somewhat more likely to strongly support this requirement, at 83%, than are White (76%) or Hispanic Americans (77%).

Changing management practices so officer abuses are punished. Establishing greater accountability for officer misconduct within police departments also has broad public approval. Ninety-six percent of Americans support changing management practices so officer abuses are punished, with 76% saying they strongly support the idea. Nine in 10 Black Americans (91%) strongly support such a change, versus eight in 10 Hispanic Americans (80%) and just over seven in 10 White Americans (72%).

Changing management practices so officers with multiple incidents of abuse of power are not allowed to serve. Again, almost all Americans (98%) support this idea at least somewhat. Eighty-three percent strongly support it, including 92% of Black Americans, 87% of Hispanic Americans and 81% of White Americans.

Promoting community-based alternatives such as violence intervention. Some of those who advocate rethinking the role of police call for greater reliance on other community organizations, such as family services and programs that intervene with young people who are at high risk for violent crime (for example, Massachusetts' Safe and Successful Youth Initiative). Eighty-two percent of Americans overall support a greater role for community organizations, with 50% saying they strongly support it. Most likely to strongly support the idea are Black Americans (73%), Democrats (75%) and adults aged 18 to 34 (65%).

Ideas With Little Public Support

Abolishing police departments. This is the most extreme proposal in response to police misconduct: disbanding police departments in favor of different public safety models. The Minneapolis City Council voted in June to go this route, saying the problems that contributed to George Floyd's death are too deeply ingrained to reform the existing department. For most Americans, the idea of abolishing the police goes too far: 15% overall say they support it, with Black Americans (22%) and Hispanic Americans (20%) somewhat more likely than White Americans (12%) to do so. Almost no Republicans (1%) support the idea, versus 27% of Democrats and 12% of independents. However, there is also a sharp distinction between younger and older adults on this question; one-third of those younger than 35 (33%) support the idea, compared with 16% of those aged 35 to 49 and 4% of those aged 50 and older.

Ideas With Mixed Public Support

Ending "stop and frisk." In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled that the practice of stopping and frisking people without probable cause is not unconstitutional if an officer has a "reasonable suspicion" that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime, or may be armed. Stop-and-frisk policies have long been controversial from a racial justice perspective; in 2013, a federal district court found that it had become a "policy of indirect racial profiling" in New York City, and in 2014 Mayor Bill de Blasio scaled back its practice in the city. However, stop and frisk remains legal in the U.S. as long as racial or ethnic characteristics do not factor into officers' decision to stop people. Overall, 74% of Americans support the idea of ending stop-and-frisk policing altogether, with 58% saying they strongly support it. Though Black Americans are most likely to strongly or somewhat support ending stop and frisk at 93%, strong majorities of Hispanic (76%) and White Americans (70%) do as well. However, there is a much larger partisan divide; 94% of Democrats versus 44% of Republicans support ending the practice, with independents in between at 76%.

Eliminating police unions. In recent years, some who advocate police reform have accused police unions of blocking efforts to increase officers' accountability for their actions, such as forming independent offices to investigate allegations of misconduct. A majority of Americans, 56%, support eliminating police unions, with results relatively consistent among Black (61%), Hispanic (56%) and White (55%) adults. Despite much higher approval of labor unions in general among Democrats than Republicans, Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to favor eliminating police unions (62% vs. 45%, respectively). Political independents fall closer to Democrats, at 57%.

Eliminating officer enforcement of nonviolent crimes. This idea is a response to perceived overreaches of so-called "broken windows" policing, which is based on the premise that addressing low-level violations (such as minor traffic violations, sleeping in public or substance possession) is necessary to prevent more serious crimes. Critics say the idea, like stop and frisk, has resulted in aggressive "overpolicing" of minorities -- and some call for eliminating the enforcement of minor offenses. Half of Americans overall (50%) strongly or somewhat support this idea, including majorities of Black (72%) and Hispanic (55%) Americans, compared with 44% of White Americans. As with ending stop and frisk, there is also a huge partisan divide on this proposal; three-fourths of Democrats (75%) and about half of independents (49%) support the idea, but 16% of Republicans do.

Reducing police department funding and shifting the money to social programs. Since George Floyd's death, "defund the police" has become a common -- and controversial -- refrain among many Americans who are angry about police brutality. The idea could take many forms; some advocates would use defunding to disband the police altogether, while others would divert some portion of funds from police departments to social services like substance abuse and mental health treatment programs. This ambiguity in what defunding the police actually means may be a factor in Americans' lack of consensus on the idea. Overall, 47% say they support reducing police department budgets and shifting the money to social programs, including 28% who strongly support it. However, 70% of Black Americans strongly or somewhat support reducing police department budgets, versus 49% of Hispanic Americans and 41% of White Americans. Moreover, the partisan divide is wider for this idea than for any other police reform proposal: 5% of Republicans support it, compared with 78% of Democrats and 46% of independents.

Implications

George Floyd's death was a tipping point that elevated the national dialogue about racial injustice in law enforcement and other U.S. institutions. In subsequent weeks, Black Lives Matter protests spread to all 50 states and other countries around the world, books about racism dominated bestseller lists -- and police departments across the U.S. began to reevaluate their own procedures.

But as the ideas discussed above demonstrate, police reform is a complex issue with many possible goals and strategies. Further, like so many issues in American life, those that have to do with law and order have become highly politicized. Local communities may thus face considerable challenges in finding solutions that are both effective and acceptable to their residents.

However, the survey results reported here point to a set of commonly accepted principles -- strengthening positive community relations, establishing greater accountability within police departments, and striking a better balance between the role of police and other community organizations -- that reformers can use as starting points. The Gallup Center on Black Voices will help inform the national conversation on policing by tracking the systemic disparities and various reform proposals shaping the Black experience across the country.

Americans' Support for Policing Reform Options, by Race/Ethnicity Percentage who "strongly support" or "somewhat support" each reform idea All Americans Black Americans Asian Americans Hispanic Americans White Americans % % % % % Changing management practices so officers with multiple incidents of abuse of power are not allowed to serve 98 99 98 99 97 Requiring officers to have good relations with the community 97 97 98 96 97 Changing management practices so officer abuses are punished 96 98 99 96 95 Promoting community-based alternatives such as violence intervention 82 94 91 83 80 Ending stop and frisk 74 93 89 76 70 Eliminating police unions 56 61 68 56 55 Eliminating officer enforcement of nonviolent crimes 50 72 72 55 44 Reducing the budgets of police departments and shifting the money to social programs 47 70 80 49 41 Abolishing police departments 15 22 27 20 12 Gallup Panel, June 23-July 6, 2020

Americans' Support for Policing Reform Options, by Political Affiliation Percentage who "strongly support" or "somewhat support" each reform idea Republicans Democrats Independents % % % Changing management practices so officers with multiple incidents of abuse of power are not allowed to serve 95 99 98 Requiring officers to have good relations with the community 96 98 98 Changing management practices so officer abuses are punished 91 99 96 Promoting community-based alternatives such as violence intervention 62 97 81 Ending stop and frisk 44 94 76 Eliminating police unions 45 62 57 Eliminating officer enforcement of nonviolent crimes 16 75 49 Reducing the budgets of police departments and shifting the money to social programs 5 78 46 Abolishing police departments 1 27 12 Gallup Panel, June 23-July 6, 2020

Americans' Support for Policing Reform Options, by Age Group Percentage who "strongly support" or "somewhat support" each reform idea 18-34 35-49 50-64 65+ % % % % Changing management practices so officers with multiple incidents of abuse of power are not allowed to serve 98 97 97 98 Requiring officers to have good relations with the community 97 97 97 97 Changing management practices so officer abuses are punished 98 95 95 95 Promoting community-based alternatives such as violence intervention 88 83 77 79 Ending stop and frisk 88 78 63 65 Eliminating police unions 65 58 49 49 Eliminating officer enforcement of nonviolent crimes 68 52 37 40 Reducing the budgets of police departments and shifting the money to social programs 70 50 32 32 Abolishing police departments 33 16 4 4 Gallup Panel, June 23-July 6, 2020

Learn more about how the Gallup Panel works.
A weekend police shooting on U.S. 1 in the Lower Keys was justified because the suspect first pointed a gun at officers from behind the wheel of his car, the Monroe County sheriff said Wednesday.

Initial reports by the sheriffs office indicated that the suspect got out of the car and fired at least once at officers on July 18.

But the gun jammed, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay said in an interview on U.S. 1 Radio.

Ramsay also said the suspect was feeling the effects of the hallucinogenic drug, LSD.

Julian Vaughn Thomas, 24, whose home address is listed in arrest records as Houston, was shot three times by officers  twice in the shoulder and once in the chest.

He will live, Ramsay on Tuesday, in a Facebook video statement in which he briefly mentions the police shooting.

An armed robbery suspect who was shot by police on July 18, 2020, in the Florida Keys left this handgun in the vehicle he had tried to flee Key West in, according to the Monroe County Sheriffs Office. Police said he fired at them first.

As proof of the police version of events, Ramsay held up a large photograph, apparently taken from an unidentified officers body camera.

The sheriff then says if you look closely, you can see a handgun inside the car pointed in the officers direction.

Ramsay later said the photo shows a round is stuck in the guns slide as its pointed at officers.

Thank God, the gun jammed, the sheriff said in an interview with U.S. 1 Radios Morning Magazine host Bill Becker. That close, he would have shot our officer before we could have returned fire and protected our own lives.

Thomas was visibly impaired at the time of the shooting and told medical staff at Jackson Memorial Hospital he had taken LSD, according to Ramsay.

Seeing him on the in-car videos and stuff, you can tell he appears to be very high on something, Ramsay said. We think he was high on acid when he committed these heinous crimes, which makes it that much more scary and dangerous.

The sheriffs office on Wednesday said the body camera footage is part of an active investigation and cannot be released at this time.

Thomas led police on a slow-speed chase up U.S. 1 until he was finally stopped by Florida Highway Patrol troopers at mile marker 10 on Big Coppitt Key

Story continues

A trooper slammed into the Ford Focus, forcing it to stop and deputies approached the suspect, Ramsay said.

We had the car surrounded with multiple law enforcement cars on both sides, Ramsay said.





But Thomas would not comply with orders to get out of the Ford, he said.

A deputy went up to the Focus, which had tinted windows, and broke the glass so he could see the suspect, Ramsay said.

Key West police on July 18 2020, released this photograph that they said was taken at the scene of an armed robbery that took place in Key West. The suspect was later shot by police after a pursuit up U.S. 1. The Monroe County Sheriffs Office said the suspect fired on officers first.

He looked inside and he saw the barrel of a gun about two feet from his head pointing right at him, Ramsay said. At that point in time, that deputy and the other officers engaged him and discharged their weapons, firing and striking him three times.

Ramsay said, His injuries, thank God, were not life-threatening. More so, thank God, no police officers got shot in the melee.

Once subdued, Ramsay said, Thomas dropped the gun and put his hands out the window.

We took him out of the car, Ramsay said.  Deputies immediately began rendering first aid.

Thomas remained hospitalized in Miami on Wednesday, the sheriff said.

Hes up there still, Ramsay said Wednesday. We expect to get him back next week.

Ramsay said his office has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate.

https://www.google.com/maps?rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS883US884&q=mile+marker+10+big+coppitt+key&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjpztDktOHqAhUIRqwKHfluCs8Q_AUoAXoECA4QAw

Deputies and state troopers were pursuing Thomas because Key West police said he robbed a man of his cellphone earlier.

Thomas pointed a handgun at a man who was outside the county library branch at 700 Fleming St. in Key West, demanding his Metro By T-Mobile cellphone.

Give it, Thomas said, according to the cellphones owner, Todd Mahoney.

Here you go, Mahoney replied, the Key West arrest report states.

Thomas had pointed the gun at Mahoneys face, Key West police said.

After taking the phone, valued at $100, Thomas got back into a silver Ford Focus with Louisiana plates  after pointing the handgun at Mahoney a second time  and took off, obeying traffic signals and laws, according to Key West police.

But Thomas wouldnt stop for officers, who tailed him as he drove out of town and onto U.S. 1, the only road in and out of the Florida Keys.

He wouldnt stop for sheriffs deputies, either, police said.

Deputies popped one of the Fords tires with a spike strip laid over the road. A maneuver by the FHP brought the Focus to a stop.

Key West police have filed felony charges of armed robbery and resisting an officer by fleeing or eluding law enforcement officers.

Ramsay said his agency will add charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.

This young mans got a lot of problems coming his way, Ramsay said. Were just so thankful that no one got killed, whether it be the suspect himself, the victim who was robbed or the police officers who have to do a difficult job every day.

An armed robbery suspect was shot by police after pursuit on U.S. 1 in Keys, cops said
We have followed the extraordinary case against General Flynn as events have warranted. By all rights it should be a sidebar to the biggest scandal in American political history by far, yet it opens a window on incredible wrongdoing at the highest reaches of the Obama administration in the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Justice, including Team Mueller. It is a disgrace that Attorney General Barr has sought to expose and to mitigate.

The mandamus proceedings to which Judge Sullivan is subject are a sidebar to the sidebar, or a sideshow in the sidebar. Judge Sullivan resists. He seeks to continue the prosecution of General Flynn. Indeed, he has filed a petition for rehearing of the decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granting the writ of mandamus.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall has now responded to Judge Sullivans petition for rehearing. Techno Fog has posted Walls response on Scribd here. Mr. Fog rightly draws attention to Walls discussion of the procedural improprieties of Judge Sullivans petition at pages 15-17. Wall presents them in four bullet points that strike me as devastating. We will have to return to them in the event that the court grants Judge Sullivans petition and aggravates the disgrace.
Even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, a combination of fabulous beaches, great cities, deep heritage and superb cuisine has earned Spain the title of the perfect holiday nation.

In a social media poll with more than 6,000 respondents, Spain was just 55 votes ahead of Italy.

On behalf of The Independent, Twitter users were asked: Suppose you were told all your future overseas holidays had to be in the same foreign country. Which would it be?

In the series of semi-finals, each attracting around 3,000 self-selecting responses, Spain was way ahead of Germany, Turkey and Russia  taking almost three-quarters of the vote.

In the other European semi-final, Italy took only one-third of the vote  but against very tough competition from Greece, Portugal and France.

The first worldwide semi-final saw Australia taking more than half the votes, ahead of Thailand, India and China.

In the second, the United States secured three-fifths of the ballot, with the rest divided by Mexico, South Africa and Egypt.

In the final, Spain received 1,951 votes, just ahead of Italy with 1,896.

In third place was the United States with 1,379, with Australia trailing well behind in fourth with 795.

Head to head: Spain received only 55 more votes than Italy (Simon Calder)

The tussle attracted a fair amount of heckling, with Deb Smith writing: Out of all the amazing places in the world and people are voting Spain?

But @jonnyro5 said: Definitely Spain  it includes blissful, sub tropical winter sun in the Canary Islands only four hours from the UK."

Heather Jordan, though, spoke for many when she wrote: Has to be Italy out of those four. Location, diversity of geography, culture, people, history, food.
Music streaming service Spotify said on Wednesday that it had signed a new, multi-year licensing agreement with Vivendi's Universal Music Group (UMG), reinforcing Spotify's catalogue and products.

Spotify and UMG said they would collaborate on new, state-of-the-art marketing campaigns across Spotifys platform. UMG will also deepen its role as an early adopter of future products and provide valuable feedback to Spotifys development team.

Earlier this month, Spotify said it was rolling out a video feature for podcasts and the company also launched its music streaming service in Russia, its fastest growing international market for music.

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(CNN)  United States Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that Washington is counting on Asian partners to help rein in an increasingly aggressive China, as two of the US Navy's most powerful warships conducted drills with allies in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Esper accused Beijing of bullying nations around the Pacific, depriving countries with claims in the South China Sea of fishing rights and trillions of dollars of oil and gas revenue. He also accused China of "brazen disregard of international commitments."

"Make no mistake, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has been engaged in this sort of behavior for many years," Esper said. "But today, its true intentions are on full display for all to see."

The US defense chief, delivering an online speech to the UK based International Institute of Strategic Studies, said Washington was prepared to uphold its pledge to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific, banking on a three-pillar strategy to do so: "preparedness, strengthening partnerships and promoting a more networked region."

The partnerships were critically important, said Esper, who called them "a strategic network our competitors cannot match."

That network was on display around the Indo-Pacific as Esper spoke from the Pentagon.

In the Philippine Sea, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group were joined by Australian and Japanese warships for joint exercises.

And in the Indian Ocean, the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group teamed up with four Indian warships to practice communications and air defense drills.

"I want to highlight our increased defense cooperation with India, one of the all-important defense relationships of the 21st century," Esper said.

Besides India and longtime US allies Japan and Australia, Esper rattled off a long list of Asian nations that are cooperating with the US on military and maritime security issues.

Those included Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam, all nations with claims in the 1.3 million square mile South China Sea, most of which China claims as its own sovereign territory.

Esper said not only were US allies and partners upping their cooperation with Washington, they were also working with each other. The US defense chief cited a recent military base access agreement between Australia and India.

The Indian Navy noted the kind of cooperation Esper was talking about when it tweeted Monday about its exercises with the US Navy. Indian warships had recently completed similar exercises with the Japanese and French navies, it said.

While US partners are putting their military hardware in positions to make a statement with the exercises, they are also being vocal about what they see as a more belligerent China.

In its annual defense white paper released this month, Japan said China had been putting continued pressure around the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which Beijing calls the Daioyu, while also sending more ships and planes on missions around Japanese maritime and airspaces. Tokyo called these "a matter of grave concern."

It also criticized Chinese actions in the South China Sea.

"China is moving forward with militarization, as well as expanding and intensifying its activities in the maritime and aerial domains, thereby continuing unilateral attempts to change the status quo by coercion," Japan's defense white paper said.

India gets vocal

India has also been more vocal about the South China Sea issue, though unlike Japan it doesn't regularly deploy military forces there. It has no territorial claims in the region, but like many countries it relies on busy shipping lanes in and around the South China Sea.

Twice in May, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs made statements asserting that the waters of the South China Sea are a global common that should be subject to freedom of navigation rules.

"There's nothing new in terms of the position, but the tone and tenor of the statement tells you that India is going to speak in a louder voice on what's happening in the South China Sea," said Abhijit Singh, a senior fellow and head of Maritime Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

In April, the Philippines issued what analyst Richard Javad Heydarian called an "unprecedented solidarity statement" with sometime rival Vietnam after a Vietnamese fishing boat was sunk by suspected Chinese Coast Guard vessels.

"I've never seen anything like that coming out of the (Philippine) Department of Foreign Affairs," said Heydarian, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Claims by the Philippines and Vietnam received a boost earlier this month when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US had formally rejected "most" of China's maritime claims.

Washington had sent the message earlier, by deploying the Nimitz and Reagan carrier strike groups to the region. It was the first time in six years that two US aircraft carriers had converged on the South China Sea.

A US Navy statement at the time previewed the message Esper conveyed on Tuesday.

"Nimitz and Reagan form the most effective and agile fighting force in the world, supporting US commitment to mutual defense agreements with regional allies and partners, and promoting peace and prosperity throughout the Info-Pacific," the statement said.

However, Beijing says it is Washington that is threatening the rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific.

"The international community knows well who is the troublemaker," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a press conference Monday, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.

Wang accused Washington of harboring "a Cold War mentality" against China and only abiding by international laws and treaties that advanced its policies, according to Xinhua.

China has been conducting its own drills, which could become more frequent and routine if the US continues to ramp up military provocations in the region, said state-run tabloid the Global Times, quoting analysts.

The article noted reports of PLA fighter jets being deployed to Woody Island in the contested Paracel chain -- known as the Xisha islands in China -- in the northern reaches of the South China Sea.

Those Chinese jets and fighter bombers engaged in two days of drills attacking maritime targets, the Global Times said.

Because of US actions like the dual-carrier exercises, "China is forced to take countermeasures to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity," the Global Times said.

Despite the displays of military might, both Esper and Chinese officials said they do not want to see military conflict in the region.

A US visit to Beijing?

Esper said Tuesday he hopes to visit Beijing before year's end.

"We are committed to a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China and within our defense relationship to open lines of communication and risk reduction," he said.

"China is committed to developing a China-US relationship featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation," Xinhua cited Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang as saying Monday.

But the Global Times, citing Chinese analysts, urged caution in viewing Esper's hopes to visit Beijing.

"China needs time to find out if such a stance represents genuine goodwill or is just a 'smoke bomb'" that obscures Washington's true intentions, the Global Times said.

On Tuesday, the US government abruptly ordered China to "cease all operations and events" at its consulate in Houston, Texas, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, in what it called an "unprecedented escalation" in recent actions taken by Washington.

US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the consulate was directed to close "in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "US defense chief pushes allied effort to challenge China."
B5 Company Limited, leading steel and iron manufacturing company in Ghana and within West Africa, continues to make giant strides amid the COVID-19 crisis even though organizations and businesses continue to count losses.

B5 Plus has proven to be the touch-bearer of the steel and iron manufacturing industry even in a global crisis.

In the month of July 2020 alone, the B5 Plus Company Limited and its Chairman, Mukesh Thakwani, have won three prestigious industry awards.

Two of the three prestigious awards are personality-based awards presented separately to Mr. Thakwani at the Ghana Manufacturing Industry Awards, and Ghana Entrepreneur & Corporate Executive Awards.

At the Ghana Entrepreneur & Corporate Executive Awards, Mr Thakwani was honoured with the Outstanding Iron & Steel Entrepreneur Of The Year (2010-2020) Award. He won the Personality of The Year Award at the Ghana Manufacturing Awards.

B5 Plus also once again won the Steel Manufacturing Company Of The Year Award.

Speaking in an interview with journalists, Mr Thakwani thanked staff of B5 Plus for their hard work and dedication to the company.

He said without his staff, it would not have been possible for the company to win such awards.

Touching on the general economic situation during the coronavirus lockdown in Ghana, he said 2020 has been "rough."

However, he stated that B5 Plus was sailing through the tough times successfully.

According to Mr. Thakwani, B5 Plus has not sacked any employee since the outbreak of the pandemic.

He said in such difficult times, if companies cannot create new jobs, they should at least try not to fire workers who have been with them for months, weeks and years.

Mr. Thakwani said that despite the difficult economic situation, B5 Plus continue to honour its corporate social responsibility duties.

He reiterated that more than 1,000 boxes of free meals have been provided to families of B5 Plus employees and residents within communities in which it operates.

Mr. Thakwani further reiterated that B5 Plus has donated Ghc 300,000 to Ghana National Covid-19 Fund.

In addition, he stated that the company continues to provide free oxygen to government and private hospitals towards the fight against coronavirus.

According to him, B5 Plus continue to work hard to remain the leader in the industry.

When you are the number one it is important that you keep doing the right thing to stay on top, keep providing the right services, he says.

Two decades back, B5 plus used to import its products from Togo, Nigeria, South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire.

Mr Thakwani said today, B5 Plus has become the net exporter of steel and iron products to those countries and other West African nations.

According to him, B5 Plus was employing at least 5,000 people directly and indirectly.

He thanked the Ghanaian Government for prudently managing the coronavirus situation.

However, he appealed to the Government to include water and electricity supply in its new industrialization program.

---Daily Guide
Al-Shabaab is targeting teachers in order to expel those it views as outsiders from majority-Muslim north-eastern Kenya. The governments response  to evacuate non-native tutors  has shuttered the areas schools. Nairobi should supply funds to hire local educators, while it works to restore security.

Whats new? Jihadists have repeatedly attacked schools in north-eastern Kenya in the last eighteen months. In response, the government has shuttered many schools and pulled most teachers out of a long-neglected region that is one of Al-Shabaabs main recruiting centres outside Somalia.

Why does it matter? The education crisis adds to an already existing sense of marginalisation in north-eastern Kenya. Thousands of out-of-school youngsters could constitute an attractive pool of recruits for Al-Shabaab, which is engaged in a long-term campaign to deepen its foothold in the region.

What should be done? The Kenyan government should afford the north easts residents, including police reservists, a greater role in tackling militancy and revive community-centred efforts that to some degree succeeded in rolling back Al-Shabaab in the past. It should also restore learning by providing stopgap funding so local administrations can hire replacement teachers.

I. Overview

Kenyas 2011 deployment of troops to fight Al-Shabaabs insurgency in Somalia has, over the years, eroded security at home. In 2013 and 2019, Al-Shabaab attacked Nairobi, respectively hitting a shopping mall and a luxury hotel, and exposing the vulnerability of the capitals soft targets. But the groups activities in the long-neglected north east are of greatest concern to Kenyan officials today. In January 2020, Al-Shabaab staged a major assault on a joint U.S.-Kenyan military base near the Somali border, exhibiting its operational prowess in the area. It has also pursued a campaign of killing teachers, in effect stripping the north easts children of the chance to get a modern education. In response, the authorities have evacuated all non-native teachers from the north east. While understandable, given the peril these teachers faced, the policy has brought the school system to a halt and may play into Al-Shabaabs hands by further alienating an already disaffected population. The government should work with local residents to restore security and take steps to preserve education for young people in the north east.

II. Al-Shabaab Attacks and an Education Crisis

North-eastern Kenya has proven fertile ground for Al-Shabaab, which has vowed revenge against the government ever since Nairobi sent troops to Somalia in 2011. The groups leaders have long eyed the area, one of the countrys poorest and where the ethnic Somali population has for years complained of mistreatment by the state, as a target for infiltration.Security sources in Kenya say the militants have built a loyal intelligence network in the region, which shares a 700km largely unmanned border with southern Somalia, itself under partial Al-Shabaab control.

As Al-Shabaab has stepped up its activities in Kenya, it has often been with the idea of fomenting sectarian strife. In 2014, gunmen belonging to the group killed more than 50 civilians in the mainly Christian town of Mpeketoni. After the incident, an Al-Shabaab spokesman, Sheikh Mohammed Dulyadeyn, himself a Kenyan national, said Kenya might also be divided along Christian and Muslim lines. In 2015, the jihadists took credit for killing 148 more people on a college campus in Garissa, the biggest town in the north east. Attackers spared Muslim students, training their sights on Christians.

The insecurity has hit the education sector hard since 2018, when Al-Shabaab began attacking schools and killing teachers.
America's oldest conservation organization is reckoning with its history of racism and the troubling views of its founder, environmental icon John Muir.

"The Sierra Club is a 128-year-old organization with a complex history, some of which has caused significant and immeasurable harm," read a statement posted on the organization's website Wednesday morning.

The post went on to examine the club's own role in "perpetuating white supremacy" and spoke out against its revered founder and "Father of National Parks" on his racism and ties with figures involved in eugenics.

The Sierra Club  historically considered a progressive and liberal organization  made the statement at a time when institutions across the country are being forced to reckon with their problematic pasts.

In the statement Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said that Muir "made derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life. As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muirs words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club."

There may be no one more important in the history of environmental conservation than Muir, who founded the club in 1892 in San Francisco and became its first president. But Muir's views on people of color often echoed the white supremacy shared by many figures in the early conservation movement.

The naturalist, who helped convince Congress to establish Yosemite Valley as a national park, once referred to African Americans as Sambos, an epithet that many Black people consider to be as offensive as the n-word. He also once wrote that the Native Americans he encountered while walking the country were "dirty."

Muir realized many of his greatest accomplishments while living in the Bay Area at a 14-room Italianate Victorian mansion in Martinez. The house and surrounding tract of native oak woodlands now form the John Muir Historic Site, a U.S National Historic Landmark.

Tom Leatherman, the General Superintendent at National Park Service, told SFGATE that the Martinez site wants to tell the story of John Muir, including the parts of it that are problematic today, and they would "welcome the opportunity to sit down with the Sierra Club and discuss his legacy."

Beyond speaking out against its founder, the Sierra Club's statement goes on to shine a light on other early club associates' problematic history, describing member and founding president of Stanford University, David Starr Jordan, as "a 'kingpin' of the eugenics movement" who "pushed for forced-sterilization laws and programs that deprived tens of thousands of women of their right to bear children  mostly Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and poor women, and those living with disabilities and mental illness."

"For all the harms the Sierra Club has caused, and continues to cause, to Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, I am deeply sorry," Brune added.

Read the Sierra Club's full statement here.

Andrew Chamings is an editor at SFGATE. Email: Andrew.Chamings@sfgate.com | Twitter: @AndrewChamings
Hour glass and calendar concept for time slipping away for important appointment date, schedule and deadline

Investors are increasingly turning towards dividend stocks amid increasing broader market volatility. Dividends are a great way to compensate for a capital loss at least to some extent in such volatile markets.

So, if you are sitting on some cash, consider these TSX stocks, which have their ex-dividend dates scheduled in the next few days. The ex-dividend date is a day prior to a date when the company checks whether your name appears in its books to allot dividends. So, one needs to buy shares a day prior to an ex-dividend date to receive those dividends.

Lets see which top TSX stocks have their ex-dividend dates scheduled in the near term.

Bank of Montreal

Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO)(NYSE:BMO), one of the countrys largest banks, has its ex-dividend date as July 31. The bank is expected to pay a dividend of $1.04 per share on August 26. So, new investors can buy BMO shares before July 31 to receive these dividends.

Bank of Montreal stock currently yields approximately 6%, one of the highest among top TSX stocks. The bank has managed to increase its dividends by 6% compounded annually in the last five years. Its reasonable payout ratio suggests that the bank could comfortably fund its dividends, despite going through a downturn.

BMO stock exhibited a notable weakness during the broad market weakness due to the pandemic. However, it has recovered more than 35% since its record lows in March. Despite the recent rally, BMO stock looks fairly valued compared to peers, indicating a lower potential downside.

Emera

Investors generally turn to utility stocks amid broader market volatility. Top utility stock Emera (TSX:EMA) has its ex-dividend date scheduled on July 30. The utility declared dividends of $0.6125 per share, which will be paid on August 14. It offers a dividend yield of 4.4%.

Emera makes approximately two-thirds of its total earnings from the United States. Its large regulated operations make its earnings and ultimately its dividend relatively stable.

Story continues

In the last five years, Emera raised its dividends by a solid 10% compounded annually. It has been paying dividends regularly since 1992.

Top regulated utility stock Emera would be a safe play amid this market uncertainty. Utility stocks offer unparalleled stability and represent low correlation with broader markets. Thats why they are more prone to outperform in market downturns.

Canadian Tire

The retail giant Canadian Tire (TSX:CTC.A) declared a dividend of $1.14 per share in May. The ex-dividend date for it is July 30, and it will be paid on September 1.

The current dividend indicates an annualized yield of almost 4%. It has been paying dividends for the last 21 consecutive years. Notably, it has managed to increase dividends by more than 13% compounded annually in this period.

Canadian Tire took a serious hit last quarter amid lockdowns. However, it could soon see its business normalize as lockdowns release. Its scale with brick-and-mortar stores and its growing digital presence make it stand tall in the retail space. The advent of its e-commerce segment could bode well for its future earnings growth.

Canadian Tire stock looks attractive, given its discounted valuation and earnings prospects. Its extensive presence, diversified product range, and unique brand give it a competitive advantage, which could make up for the lost time.

The post 3 High-Yield TSX Stocks to Buy Ahead of Their Ex-Dividend Dates appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Vineet Kulkarni has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020
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Locum tenens means to hold the place of, to substitute for and locum tenens contracts are a common form of agreement for physicians who provide temporary medical services in place of full-time physicians.

Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, increased demand puts physicians in a better position to negotiate their locum tenens contracts. However, too many practitioners sign them without fully understanding their implications. This is a mistake. A well-drafted locum tenens contract (a) protects the physicians interests beyond compensation, (b) anticipates and addresses disputes, and (c) limits risks.

How locum tenens works

Physicians provide locum tenens services through third-party placement agencies or directly to health care facilities. Placement agencies recruit and directly contract with physicians to meet the temporary staffing needs of health care facilities they represent. Although these agencies market themselves as advocates for physicians, their primary loyalty is to the clients that pay their fees  the facilities they represent. This is why physicians should hire an attorney well-versed in drafting and negotiating locum tenens agreements.

What physicians need to know

Locum tenens contracts vary between agencies and facilities. Some use a blanket master services agreement. For most agencies, this is signed before placing physicians. It is supplemented by written locum tenens assignments (e.g., work orders, statements of work, or confirmations), which specify the facilitys location, dates of engagement, compensation, and possible modifications to the master services agreement.

Term

A basic but still important provision in any locum tenens agreement is its term  i.e., how long it remains in effect. An evergreen clause automatically renews the term for successive periods of time. Evergreen provisions have several advantages and disadvantages for physicians.

Termination

Termination provisions allow either party to end the contract. These provisions can differ considerably according to whether termination is without cause or for cause or for good reason.

Without cause means one party can terminate the agreement and/or assignment, for no reason, usually following a specified period of written notice. The main issue here is what amount of notice is best for you.

For cause means the health care facility can terminate you either immediately or after a cure period of time if the issue triggering a default under the contract is not adequately addressed during a cure period. The traditional laundry list of for cause events includes valid reasons for immediate termination. However, they also often include reasons like failure to perform Physicians duties to the reasonable satisfaction of Hospital, and for these curable breaches, it is important that the physician insists on notice and an opportunity to cure.

How the termination is characterized is important because the consequences of each type can differ greatly. These consequences are not always easy to spot because they are usually found in other sections of the agreement and obscured by legalese.

Restrictive covenants

Restrictive covenants prohibit the physician from competing within a fixed geographic area, certain facilities, or both, for a period of time. They are governed by state law, and state laws vary greatly. Many residents and fellows are under the misconception that non-competes are unenforceable. New York and New Jersey, among many other states, enforce non-competes when the restrictions are reasonable. In determining reasonableness, courts look to: the scope (the types of services), the duration (the length of time), and the geographic limitations.

Malpractice insurance

Medical malpractice insurance is a standard provision, but which party provides the coverage, the policy type, its term, the policy limits, tail coverage, and other important aspects vary wildly.

The two main types are occurrence and claims-made policies. Occurrence policies cover the physician for incidents that occur when the policy is in effect, regardless of when the claim is made, while claims-made policies cover the physician if the policy is in effect when the claim is made. Accordingly, if the claims-made policy is not renewed, the physician is exposed to a gap in coverage. To avoid this, physicians should ensure that their agreements include an extended reporting endorsement, commonly referred to as tail coverage.

Compensation and reimbursed expenses

Pay for locum tenens positions is usually on a per diem (daily or shift) or hourly basis, and the amounts are driven by market forces.

There are several provisions physicians should consider incorporating, like rate premiums such as shift differential, holiday, on-call, or call back pay and escalators. Understand reimbursed expenses, including insurance, licensing, credentialing, and privileging fees, as well as reimbursement for travel and housing. When expenses like housing are not needed, consider negotiating an increased rate as the facility will not have to pay this expense.

Boilerplate provisions

These seemingly innocuous clauses are usually found at the end of the agreement, and they have significant practical and legal implications.

An entire agreement or merger clause, states that the written contract is the complete expression of the parties agreement. Do not expect any statement that is not included in the written contract to be enforceable.

The choice of law and forum selection clauses impact the outcome of a contract dispute, as well as the amount and type of relief. Substantive and procedural law varies between jurisdictions and court systems. Usually, both the governing law and the forum are in the same jurisdiction, although they can be different (e.g., the governing law could be the home office of the hospital group while the venue is the home office of the agency). Many physicians find that they agreed to litigate their dispute far from both their home and place of work.

A force majeure clause should shield physicians against liability from their failure to perform if the inability to perform is caused by a specified event beyond the reasonable control of the physician.

Conclusion

Understand that agencies and hospitals hire sophisticated counsel to draft their locum tenens contracts to protect their interests. Physicians should retain their own attorneys to safeguard and uphold theirs. Click here for a complete version of this article.

This article is for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice. For guidance on your specific circumstances, call or write. We are happy to help.

Jack A. Gordon and Andrew E. Sarti are attorneys, Kent, Beatty, & Gordon, LLP.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Ramees is Kerala Gold Smuggling case mastermind, modus operandi to fund terror says NIA

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probing the Kerala Gold Smuggling case has claimed that the four accused were part of a large conspiracy that was aimed at terror financing in India.

The NIA said this in its remand note while seeking custody of Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair, who are the second and fourth accused respectively in the case.

The NIA makes a mention of Ramees K T, who is the kingpin in the case. The NIA quotes Nair as saying that Ramees insisted on smuggling gold iii large quantity and maximum number during the lockdown percoid as the financial position of the country is weak. Nair also stated that Ramees commands and always moved with a group of persons and have contacts abroad, the NIA said.

Unchecked bureaucracy, diplomatic immunity helped Kerala Gold Smuggling accused thrive

The agency also said that Swapna and Sandeep conspired together to create monetary instability and destabilise the Indian economy by smuggling large quantity of gold from UAE. They conspired separately and together at various places in Kerala to damage the monetary stability of India by destabilising the economy by smuggling large quantity of gold from abroad and it is suspected that they had used these proceeds of smuggling for financing terrorism by various means.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

Their deliberate acts of using diplomatic baggage of UAE as a cover to transact illegal business many have serious repercussions on the diplomatic relations with the government of UAE and it is also prejudicial to the money and economic security of India as well, the remand note also read.
Reskill and Restart - powered by Infosys Wingspan - takes job seekers on a guided journey, beginning with aptitude and skills assessment, followed by curated job-specific skills training, and culminating in matching them with available positions.

Photograph: Vivek Prakash/Reuters

IT major Infosys on Wednesday said it has formed a consortium with pymetrics, Merit America, Per Scholas, Revature, and Woz Enterprise that will leverage its Wingspan solution to create a free online platform, connecting employees and employers, and provide training for job seekers.

The consortium will leverage Infosys Wingspan and pymetrics' AI-based talent-matching platform to meet reskilling and employment needs raised by the COVID-19 crisis in America, a statement said.

Reskill and Restart - powered by Infosys Wingspan - takes job seekers on a guided journey, beginning with aptitude and skills assessment, followed by curated job-specific skills training, and culminating in matching them with available positions, it added.

"The consortium of partners has built new pathways for talent to transition from traditional jobs across various industries and workstreams to digital and operations jobs of the future," it added.

This will also enable employers, who are scaling up, to review the available talent pool for the right match and hire them while they undergo rapid and job-specific reskilling on this integrated multi-stakeholder platform.

Infosys has always invested in and promoted lifelong learning, and the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has made radical reskilling an even more urgent priority for job seekers and employers alike, Infosys president Ravi Kumar said.

"We are intensely focused on creating job opportunities in the US, and this solution demonstrates our broader commitment to American workers and the US economy," he added.
From a small child, Ive never doubted that God loved me and would protect me. As my life progressed, I experienced His hand at work in many situations. Not only does He protect us when were little, but He is within every situation of our lives. I also found out as I got older, that He has a myriad of angels which can be dispatched at anytime. Of course, I had parents watching over me, also.

Peter, in his ministering to churches in Rome, as well as in Asia Minor, was addressing the elders of a church in how to watch carefully for the ways of the devil. He warns of this:

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls

around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist

him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of

suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the

world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all

grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself

perfect , confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion

forever and ever. Amen. First Peter 5:8-11.

Be assured that God cares for you and that He will keep believers from all harm. The times were living in now may test our faith, but He is the One who is faithful to watch over us.

In Psalm 3, David says:

But You, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the One who

lifts my headSalvation belongs to the Lord; Your blessing be upon

your people! Psalm 3: 3 and 8.

God never meant for us to be alone in this world. Jesus wasnt alone. He had a family, His disciples, and many people who followed Him as He traveled through Israel with His message. He showed the people how good God is and how they should act toward each other.

Right now, its hard for us to be totally aware of what God is doing. We do know He always has a plan, no matter where we are in time. And His plans are coming forth in His timing. So we have to watch and wait for God to soon reveal His plans for us. It is comforting to know and realize His timing of what will happen on earth next, will be perfect.

The best part of knowing God loves us is that He also cares much more for us than all the things Hes made on the earth or in the skies. He will protect us and feed us even as Jesus fed the 5,000 people.

God says this in Isaiah 41: 10:

Do not fear for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am

your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you; surely I will

uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Lean on God and let Him be your guide in all circumstances. Dont worrybe happy!

Comments welcomed to gailbox@consolidated.net .
Evidence of glacial retreat in the Wilkes Basin 400,000 years ago suggests ice loss in this region could add 10 to 13 feet (3 to 4 meters) to future global sea level rise

Questions about the stability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet are a major source of uncertainty in estimates of how much sea level will rise as the Earth continues to warm. For decades, scientists thought the East Antarctic Ice Sheet had remained stable for millions of years, but recent studies have begun to cast doubt on this idea. Now, researchers at UC Santa Cruz have reported new evidence of substantial ice loss from East Antarctica during an interglacial warm period about 400,000 years ago.

The study, published July 22 in Nature, focused on the Wilkes Basin, one of several bowl-like basins at the edges of the ice sheet that are considered vulnerable to melting because the ice rests on land that is below sea level. The Wilkes Basin currently holds enough ice to raise sea level by 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet).

Ice flows slowly through the basins from the interior of the continent out to the floating ice shelves at the margins. Ice loss causes the grounding line--the point at which the ice loses contact with the ground and starts floating--to shift inland, explained first author Terrence Blackburn, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz.

"Our data shows that the grounding line in the Wilkes Basin retreated 700 kilometers [435 miles] inland during one of the last really warm interglacials, when global temperatures were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than now," Blackburn said. "That probably contributed 3 to 4 meters to global sea level rise, with Greenland and West Antarctica together contributing another 10 meters."

In other words, a period of global warming comparable to what is expected under current scenarios for manmade greenhouse gas emissions resulted in an increase in sea level of around 13 meters (43 feet). Of course, this wouldn't happen all at once--it takes time for that much ice to melt.

"We've opened the freezer door, but that block of ice is still cold and it's not going anywhere in the short term," Blackburn said. "To understand what will happen over longer time scales, we need to see what happened under comparable conditions in the past."

The problem with studying the interglacial periods during the Pleistocene is that they all ended in another ice age when the ice sheet advanced again and covered up the evidence. For the new study, Blackburn and his colleagues used a novel technique based on isotope measurements in mineral deposits that record past changes in subglacial fluids.

Uranium-234 (U-234) is an isotope of uranium that accumulates very slowly in water that is in contact with rocks due to the high-energy decay of uranium-238. This happens everywhere, but in most places hydrological processes carry water away from sources of enrichment, and the U-234 gets diluted in large bodies of water. In Antarctica, however, water is trapped at the base of the ice sheet and moves very slowly as long as the ice is stable, allowing U-234 to build up to very high levels over long periods of time.

Blackburn explained that the ice sheet acts like an insulating blanket, so that heat from Earth's interior causes melting at the base. But temperatures are colder where the ice is thinner at the margins of the ice sheet, causing subglacial water to refreeze.

"Water flowing beneath the ice starts refreezing at the edges, which concentrates all the dissolved minerals until it becomes supersaturated and the minerals precipitate out to form deposits of opal or calcite," he said. "Those deposits trap uranium-234, so we can date the deposits and measure their composition, and we can track that through time to get a deep history of the composition of water under the ice sheet."

What that history suggests is that the U-234 in subglacial water in the Wilkes Basin was flushed out during the interglacial period 400,000 years ago as the ice melted and the grounding line retreated. That reset the U-234 concentration to low background levels, and accumulation then restarted when the ice advanced again.

Blackburn noted that present-day evidence for the accumulation of U-234 in subglacial fluids can be found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, the only place where Antarctic glaciers terminate on land. There, highly concentrated brines emerge from the glaciers in places such as Blood Falls, where the blood-red color comes from high iron concentrations in the brine.

"The isotopic compositions of those brines are comparable to the precipitates that we've dated from a range of locations, and they all share the characteristic U-234 enrichment," Blackburn said. "The brines are what's left when the subglacial fluids get all the way to the edge of the ice sheet."

He said the new study was inspired by a 2016 paper in which researchers studying deep-sea corals reported evidence of a major change in ocean chemistry, including a spike in U-234, coinciding with the end of the last ice age, when the vast Laurentide Ice Sheet that covered much of North America melted.

"They speculated that it accumulates under the ice sheets and pointed to some possible sites in Antarctica where that might be happening," Blackburn said. "I happened to be in one of those places at the time."

So was his colleague, glaciologist Slawek Tulaczyk, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. They discussed the paper and began planning this study, which eventually involved several UCSC faculty and students. The team collected some samples of mineral deposits themselves, but some of the most important samples used in the study were collected in the 1980s and archived at the Byrd Polar Rock Repository at Ohio State University.

###

In addition to Blackburn and Tulaczyk, the coauthors of the paper include James Zachos, professor and chair of Earth and planetary sciences, graduate students Graham Edwards and Gavin Piccione, undergraduates Michael Scudder and James Babbe, and instrument specialist Brandon Cheney, as well as Bernard Hallet at the University of Washington and Noah McLean at the University of Kansas. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

Mid-morning show host of Angel Fm Ohemaa Woyeje says whoever wins 2020 elections, whether NPP or NDC, should pay aggrieved Menzgold customers their locked up cash because most of them are dying.

According to her, many people have lost their source of livelihood.

Ohemaa Woyeje intimated that one cannot entirely blame Menzgold customers and insinuate that they were greedy.

''Government must have plans for Menzgold customers and should have been considered before collapsing the company. People have taken too much advantage of the vulnerability of others and Ghanaians should not be quiet," she added.
George Floyd's memorial in Manchester's Stevenson square has been defaced with racist slur painted on it using spray paint. The mural has now been covered in brown paper.

The portrait of the 46-year-old Floyd, who was killed in police custody, was painted by street artist Akse in his memory. Floyd was killed in police custody in May Minneapolis, Minnesota after he was pinned to ground and chocked to death by a white officer Derek Chauvin.

Disgusting. A racist has defaced the George Floyd memorial in Stevenson Square. This is not how we act in Manchester. pic.twitter.com/bXYQ7Wtyvk The Manc (@TheMancUK) July 22, 2020

Manchester administration has said that it will initiate a probe to nab the miscreants who defaced the memorial and "do everything we can to find out who committed this abhorrent crime". The cops have retrieved the CCTV footage to identify the miscreants. The defacement was first seen by on-beat cops and is believed to have been done overnight, according to BBC.

"We will do everything we can to find out who committed this abhorrent crime," Manchester City Council's deputy leader Nigel Murphy was quoted as saying.

On May 25, Floyd was pinned to the ground and chocked to death by cop Chauvin. 0'I can' breathe' were Floyd's last words as he chocked to death. His last words became the rallying cry in the subsequent anti-racist protests.

The incident fueled anti-racism protests across the globe. Major US cities were up in arms while statues of colonial leaders and slave traders were toppled in many countries as an attempt to erase the racist and colonial past.
V imto maker Nichols said its chief executive Marnie Millard has decided to step down from the company she has led for seven years.

The soft drinks company revealed board changes as it reported results for the six months to June 30. The figures showed how the coronavirus crisis has weighed on the business.

Millard will stand down as boss and resign from the board on December 31.

Andrew Milne, currently chief operating officer and a board director, will succeed Millard from January 1, 2021.

Millard told the Evening Standard: I feel the business is in really good shape, despite Covid, and in really good hands with Andrew.

Nichols saw first half sales decrease 17.3% to 59.2 million, and pre-tax profits fell to 2.9 million from 13.3 million.

It was hit by the Covid-19 lockdown, with cinemas, pubs and restaurants that sold Nichols products closed in March. They were allowed to reopen in England in July.

The company said first quarter sales were up 6.2% from a year earlier, but second quarter revenues were 35.2% down from the same period in 2019. Nichols did see at-home demand for Vimto rise in the UK in the first half.

John Nichols, non-executive chairman, said: Although the immediate future remains uncertain, we are confident in Nichols' ability to emerge from this period well-placed to continue to deliver the group's long-term strategic plan.

He added: On behalf of the board I would like to thank Marnie for her significant contribution to the group over the last seven years and wish Andrew every success in leading the business during the next phase of its development. Marnie will now commence her handover to ensure a smooth transition."
The Supreme Court approved on Wednesday the Uttar Pradesh governments draft notification to appoint former top court judge BS Chauhan as the head of a three-member inquiry commission to look into the killing of eight policemen as well as the subsequent deaths of gangster Vikas Dubey and five of his alleged associates.

The top courts bench, headed by chief justice SA Bobde, directed that the inquiry commission should start functioning within a week and the probe be concluded within two months. Former high court judge Shashi Kant Agarwal and retired director general of police of Uttar Pradesh KL Gupta.

The bench, which also included justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said: Both the July 2/3 incident (when Dubey and his men allegedly killed eight policemen) and the July 10 incident when Dubey was killed have to be touched upon. The first was the motive for the second incident.

The commissions probe will also examine how Dubey got bail/parole despite being accused in over 64 criminal cases. We consider this as the single most important factor that this incident happened, the judges said.

In a hearing on Monday, the chief justice said giving bail/parole to Dubey reflected failure of the institution when such a man ought to have remained behind bars.

On July 3, Dubey and his men gunned down a deputy superintendent of police and seven other cops who were attempting to arrest him. In a dramatic week that followed, Dubey went underground while several of his men were killed in police encounters. He was detained in a town in Madhya Pradesh on July 9.

On July 10, while being brought back to Kanpur, he was killed in what police described as escape attempt following an accident of the car Dubey was in.

The commission will hold its sittings in Lucknow and the government has to set it up within a week, providing it space and all secretarial assistance.

A clutch of PILs filed before the court raised doubts over the July 12 decision of the UP government to appoint a one-man commission of justice Shashi Kant Agarwal to conduct the investigation.

The action of the state government to pick justice Chauhan was objected to by one of the petitioners Ghanshyam Upadhyay, a lawyer practicing in Mumbai. The CJI shot back: Even I would have chosen justice Chauhan.

It was the court that suggested the UP government choose a judge from the state. A similar enquiry ordered into an encounter in Telangana in December 2019 came to a halt since lockdown restrictions prevented members of the enquiry panel to travel or meet.
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LONDON - Britains government announced Wednesday that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining U.K. citizenship for up to 3 million eligible Hong Kongers as of January, taking another step toward solidifying a policy denounced by China.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FILE - In this Wednesday, July. 1, 2020 file photo, protesters against the new national security law gesture with five fingers, signifying the "Five demands - not one less" on the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China from Britain in Hong Kong. Britains government has announced that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining U.K. citizenship for eligible Hong Kongers from January 2021. The Home Office said Wednesday, July 22, 2020, that holders of the British National Overseas passport and their immediate family members can move to the U.K. to work and study. The change to immigration rules was introduced after China imposed a new, sweeping national security law on Hong Kong. Those eligible can access the British job market at any skill level and without a salary threshold, but won't have access to public funds. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, file)

LONDON - Britains government announced Wednesday that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining U.K. citizenship for up to 3 million eligible Hong Kongers as of January, taking another step toward solidifying a policy denounced by China.

In a statement, the Home Office said holders of the British National Overseas passport and their immediate family members can move to the U.K. to work and study. The change to immigration rules was introduced after Beijing imposed a new, sweeping national security law on Hong Kong.

Todays announcement shows the U.K. is keeping its word: We will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

Britain announced in early July it was extending residency rights for some 2.9 million people eligible for the British National Overseas passport in Hong Kong, stressing that it would uphold its duty to the former British colony after the new law was imposed.

Eligible individuals from Hong Kong currently can come to the U.K. for six months without a visa. With the rule change, they will have the right to live and work in the country for five years. After that, they will be allowed to apply for settled status and then again for citizenship.

Those eligible can access the British job market at any skill level and without a salary threshold, but wont have access to public funds.

Want to get a head start on your day? Get the days breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

The U.K. introduced a special, limited type of British nationality in the 1980s for people who were a British dependent territories citizen by connection with Hong Kong. The passports did not confer nationality or the automatic right to live and work in Britain, but entitled holders to consular assistance from U.K. diplomatic posts.

Britain handed over Hong Kong, its former colony, to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997 under a One Country, Two Systems framework that was supposed to guarantee the city a high degree of autonomy and Western-style civil liberties not seen on mainland China.

The new national security law, enacted just ahead of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong becoming a special administrative region of China, criminalizes subversive, secessionist or terrorist activities and collusion with foreign forces to intervene in the city's affairs.

In some cases, mainland China will assume legal jurisdiction and suspects could be sent there for trial.

The changes are seen by many as Beijings boldest move yet to erase the legal firewall between the semi-autonomous territory and the mainlands authoritarian Communist Party system.

Beijing has said that Britain's move to offer refuge to Hong Kong residents constitutes interference in internal matters.
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From Ali Galadima, Bauchi

A Cooperative Society known as Nunkwai based in Bauchi State has received about one point eight million naira (N1. 8mn) grant for groundnut processing as part of effort to empower women engaged in marketing of farm produce.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the disbursement of two hundred thousand naira of the grant to twenty women, the Chairperson of the Society, Mrs. Tabitha Ayuba Salem said part of the money was used to purchase machinery for groundnut processing.

She said thirty other women who were trained alongside the present beneficiaries would subsequently receive loan from Nunkwi Cooperative Society to boost processing of groundnuts into various products such as groundnut oil, peanuts and groundnut cake popularly known as Kuli-kuli.

We applied for this grant from DEC which is supported by a German based NGO Bread For Life, to assist our women to replace age long manual method of processing groundnuts with modern machinery to reduce their hardship so that they can have maximum benefit from their toil, Mrs. Tabitha Salem added.

Mrs. Salem urged the beneficiaries to make maximum use of the grant to attract patronage of their products by consumers in Bauchi and other parts of Nigeria.

Earlier, a technical consultant, Mr. Ayuba Salem admonished business women in Bauchi State to embrace modern business methods of keeping records of production costs, sales and profit to ensure judicious use of available resources given to them.

He said experience has shown that most women fail to keep records of their sales and as such often ended up mismanaging loans or grants given to them to do business.

The one point eight million naira grant from DEC was also used to purchase processing machines including power generator, sievers, grinding machines, oil extractors, manual machine fryer and mechanized machine fryer.
President Donald Trump told a briefing the COVID-19 situation in the US could get worse.

"The China virus is a vicious and dangerous illness, but weve learned a great deal about it and who it targets. We are in the process of developing a strategy thats going to be very, very powerful. Weve developed them as we go along. Some areas of our country are doing very well; others are doing less well. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better  something I dont like saying about things, but thats the way it is. Its the way  its what we have. If you look over the world, its all over the world, and it tends to do that," he noted.

"The governors are working very, very hard, and we are supporting them 100 percent. Everything they need, they get. And we are taking good care. We have tremendous supplies and a great supply chain, whether its ventilators or gowns or just about anything they need. So thats a big difference from inheriting very, very empty cupboards."

"The median age of those who succumb to the China virus is 78 years old. Roughly half of all deaths have been individuals in nursing homes or in long-term care. In one study, 90 percent of those hospitalized had underlying medical conditions, whether its heart or diabetes, but usually its some kind of a condition. It seems that people have that. And if they do, its a problem  no question about it," he added.
LARKSPUR, Calif., July 22 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Catalyst Housing Group ("Catalyst") announced that Stephanie Fuhrman will lead Innovation for the company. Overseeing the newly formed Catalyst Innovation Lab, Fuhrman will be focused on incubating, piloting and scaling innovative solutions, tools and partnerships that drive operating margins, building efficiencies and portfolio sustainability throughout the multifamily sector.

"Stephanie is widely recognized across the multifamily industry as a technology leader and sustainability champion, dedicated to developing thoughtful, novel, consumer-centric solutions," said Jordan Moss, Founder of Catalyst. "Our primary goal has been delivering greater affordability to our essential workforce  the nurses, teachers and first responders who are increasingly priced out of the very communities they serve. Stephanie will leverage innovative partnerships, technology and platforms to drive incremental affordability and enhanced quality of life to our residents."

Focused on the intersection of housing, innovation and impact, Catalyst has developed a unique financing model allowing for the scaled production of essential middle-income housing throughout California. In May, Catalyst launched the Essential Housing Fund, a nonprofit organization focusing its initial efforts on further reducing rental housing costs for public school teachers.

"I'm thrilled to join a company that is pushing to transform the multifamily space, and is excited to pilot new, sustainable solutions in our communities," said Fuhrman. "Our goal is to provide meaningful value to our residents, positive environmental outcomes to our communities, and innovative socially-driven investment models to our industry as a whole."

In the past year, Catalyst has partnered with the California Community Housing Agency to acquire in excess of $500 million of premier multifamily rental communities. These formerly market-rate properties  Serenity at Larkspur (Larkspur, CA), Verdant at Green Valley (Fairfield, CA) and Annadel Apartments (Santa Rosa, CA)  have all since been converted to rent-restricted assets serving middle-income households earning no more than 120% of the area median income.

Fuhrman joins Catalyst following six years at Greystar, where she was the Managing Director of Global Innovation. Prior to joining Greystar in 2014, Fuhrman was Executive Vice President at Riverstone Residential Group, and has management experience in multiple industries. She is a frequent speaker and panelist, including SXSW and numerous multifamily industry events. She holds an executive MBA with honors from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and a bachelor's degree in finance from Washington State University.

SOURCE Catalyst Housing Group
TWO Limerick lads have made waves on the Internet with their film showing a midnight paddle on the Shannon going viral.

Friends Jason Roche and Alan Kavanagh got together on their paddle boards, and filmed a two-hour odyssey of the river by night.

After recording their exploits, their film has generated tens of thousands of views.

Jason Roche, who lives in the city centre, said they had done paddles on the Shannon by day  but never in the small hours.

That all changed, as they started off at the Curragower Slip in Clancys Strand before taking in Thomond Bridge, then following the Shannon upstream passing onto the Abbey River before heading back out to the new Limerick Marina, having done a complete loop of Kings Island.

They paddled through the small lock gates by the Shannon boat club turning 180 degrees around by the Limerick Boat Club under Sarsfield Bridge and back to where they started at Curragower.

Jason said: Its a lovely paddle. People dont know we its there Im a Limerick native, Ive been here all my life. You dont realise you have it on your doorstep.

Something that stood out to him was how serene and peaceful it was, with the weather conditions perfect for their paddle.

Ive done paddles for a number of years and thats the best one Ive done. It was a combination of the high-tide, the weather and lockdown being on, and it left the town so quiet as a result, he added.

The lads dedicated the video to Limerick Suicide Watch, which provides nightly riverside patrols to those in distress on the banks of the river.
Mumbai, July 22 : Amid the corona pandemic, the first of its kind emergency Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) surgery was performed on a Thane farmer at the Sir H. N. Reliance Foundation Hospital, an official said here on Wednesday.

On June 20, 62-year-old farmer Vitthal Kadam was rushed from Navi Mumbai (Thane) to the hospital after he was gasping for breath, suffering from low blood pressure, no urine output and body-swelling which indicates a severe heart failure.

A team of heart specialists including Dr Maulik Parekh (TAVR expert, Proctor), Dr Anvay Mulay, Dr Manoj Mashru, Dr Ajit Menon, Dr Pravin Kulkarni, Dr Talha Meeran, Dr Niranjan, Dr Himanshu, Dr Bhavesh Vora assessed him in the emergency ward.

"We knew he had severe heart failure because of dysfunction of one of his artificial heart valves that was implanted in an open heart surgery six years ago. We put him on dialysis and multiple medicines to support his dropping blood pressure," said Dr Parekh.

Though certain he required a valve replacement, a repeat open heart surgery was considered extremely high risk because of his critical condition and previous surgery, he added.

Hence, he was offered the safer alternative of TAVR -- which is a Valve-in-Valve procedure -- that was performed within 4 hours, again considered a record in itself.

"The TAVR is a complex minimally invasive cardiac procedure to treat severe narrowing (stenosis) of the aortic valve (valve between heart and the main blood vessel)," Parekh explained.

Normally, the TAVR is a planned/elective procedure which takes 15-17 days to organize as it involves a battery of diagnostic tests, planning of team of doctors, deciding on the right size of the valve.

In Kadam's case, the planning of the TAVR was a herculean task as he was critical and was not fit for a CT scan to determine the right size of the valve. With his deteriorating health, it was a race against time to arrange logistics for ordering the right size valve in a short time.

Luckily, he had undergone an angiography a week before he was brought to Sir HNRF, which helped the doctors to judge the exact type and size of the previously implanted valve and source it for him.

In the hour long procedure, the cardiologists inserted a new valve inside the previously implanted valve which had failed without opening the chest, and the TAVR proved to be lifesaving as within two hours of the operation, all his vital parameters were in control and he was discharged on July 2, said Parekh.

The patient's nephew, Dr Sanjay Kadam termed the development as "a rebirth" for his uncle, who is now leading a normal life.

In the lockdown, this was the third TAVR case at Sir HNRF hospital, but the earlier two were planned procedures and all the patients are doing well.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 06:55:16|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said on Tuesday that his country is keen to achieve progress in controversial issues that are essential to reach a balanced agreement on the disputed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Sisi's remarks came during a mini-African summit aimed at reaching a deal regarding filling and operation of the dam, Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady said in a statement.

The summit was convened on Tuesday through video link with participation of Sisi, Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country chairs the current session of the African Union.

During the summit, Sisi stressed that reaching a comprehensive deal on the dam requires a political will to enhance the opportunities and efforts to reach the desired agreement that achieves the common interests of the three countries.

At the end of the summit, it was agreed to continue negotiations and focus for the time being on giving priority to developing a binding legal agreement on the rules for filling and operating the dam, the statement said.

Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia have recently ended a round of talks on the GERD without reaching an agreement on the filling of the dam. Enditem
Terrance Andrews, a drug-addicted psychiatric patient, repeatedly told his caregivers at UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside that he was going to kill one of his neighbors.

Then, he did it. In May 2008 he slashed 18-year-old Lisa Maas, a Pennsylvania Culinary Institute student, to death with a pair of scissors.

Maas mother Laura sued UPMC, claiming it had a legal duty to warn he daughter and the other neighbors at the Oakland apartment complex, of the danger posed by Andrews.

A divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed with her this week, refusing a plea by UPMC to dismiss her suit. That ruling backs a decision a state Superior Court panel issued two years ago, and it edges the case closer to a trial.

In the Supreme Courts majority opinion, Justice Kevin M. Dougherty rejected UPMCs argument that Andrews threats werent specific enough to trigger its legal duty to alert readily identifiable potential victims.

Andrews repeatedly told his caregivers that he would kill his neighbors, so UPMC officials knew those who were in danger lived near him in Hampshire Hall, Dougherty found. Plus, the justice noted, Andrews specifically threatened his next-door neighbor and a neighbor who had knocked on his door in the middle of the night.

It cannot reasonably be said that when Andrews threatened to kill a neighbor, he was uttering an ambiguous threat against an amorphous group of the public at large, Dougherty wrote.

He cited the Code of Ethics of Pennsylvanias State Board of Psychology, which states psychologists should take reasonable measures to prevent harm when a client has expressed a serious threat or intent to kill or seriously injure an identified or readily identifiable person or group of people.

Given the specifics of Andrews threats, UPMC officials should have realized Lisa Maas was a readily identifiable potential victim of his murderous intentions, Dougherty found.

Justice Max Baer filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor.

Baer argued that Andrews threats werent specific enough to trigger UPMCs duty to warn. Ones neighbor in an urban settingis not readily identifiable, as it may encompass tenants on either side of ones apartment; tenants residing on the same floor; those living on other floors in the same building; residents inhabiting apartments in a building adjacent to the patients residence; and those living on the same block or within the same community, and so on, without a discernable limited criteria, he wrote.

To impose a legal obligation on mental health professionals to warn a large, amorphous group of potential targets is unworkable, as mental health professionals will be unable to ascertain who is entitled to a warning, Baer insisted.

Andrews, now 50, was convicted of first-degree murder by an Allegheny County jury in 2011. He is serving a life prison term with no possibility of parole.
Mlangeni, the last remaining co-defendant sentenced alongside Nelson Mandela in the Rivonia Trial, has died.

South African anti-apartheid icon Andrew Mlangeni, the last remaining co-defendant of the historic Rivonia Trial that sentenced activists including Nelson Mandela to life imprisonment, has died at the age of 95.

Who was Andrew Mlangeni?

Mlangeni was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1963 for his role in the liberation struggle against the white minority government that imposed the oppressive and racist system of apartheid.

He spent 26 years in prison, mostly on Robben Island alongside Mandela, Dennis Goldberg, Walter Sisulu and other activists who were sentenced for planning to overthrow the apartheid government.

After his release, Mlangeni served as a legislator in South Africas first democratic Parliament from 1994.

End of an era for South Africa

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa paid tribute to Mlangeni, saying his death signified the end of a generational history.

With his passing as the last remaining Rivonia Trialist, BabMlangeni has indeed passed the baton to his compatriots to build the South Africa he fought to liberate and to reconstruct during our democratic dispensation, Ramaphosa said.

The foundation of former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife, Leah, said in a statement: [Mlangenis] passing sounds the last post on a courageous generation of South Africans who forfeited their freedom, careers, family lives and health so that we could all be free.

They also recalled Mlangenis comment: I did not go to prison for 26 years for people to steal from the poor.
Rhode Island has licensed a laboratory to test marijuana produced by licensed growers and distributed at dispensaries for medical use in the state.

The Department of Health said Monday it issued a license to Green Peaks Analytical to sample and test marijuana to identify the potency of active ingredients.

Like all other patients in Rhode Island, people who use medical marijuana deserve to have access to safe medication, and they deserve to have accurate information about that medication, said Nicole Alexander-Scott, director of Rhode Islands health department, in a statement.

Previously, growers in Rhode Island tested their own products or dispensaries tested the marijuana they sold themselves if they had the capacity, or contracted with unlicensed private labs.

The Departments of Business Regulation and Health will consult with Rhode Island's three dispensaries, growers and patients over six weeks to set a deadline for including potency totals on all marijuana products sold in the state.

Eleven states and Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational use of marijuana, but not all have allowed for retail stores. More than half of states have medical marijuana programs.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  Foreign direct investments plunged by 68 percent in April, with market players putting business plans on hold as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on.

That brought the four-month FDI tally to $1.98 billion, down by a third from the $2.92 billion haul recorded in January-April 2019

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the country received $311 million investment inflows for the month, the lowest since May 2019. Investments likewise dropped from the $507 million level in March.

"The slowdown in FDI inflows reflected the continued weak global and domestic demand prospects prompting many investors to put on hold investment plans amid the unresolved COVID-19 pandemic," the central bank said in a statement.

RELATED: Recovery from huge economic losses due to pandemic will take years, ADB says

The entry of foreign investments boost capital for local business expansions and often mean the opening of more job opportunities for Filipinos.

Investments have been on a steady decline since the start of the year when COVID-19 spread globally, triggering lockdowns and paralyzing economies for months. In the Philippines, April marked the first full month under lockdown, which stretched on to more than two months for Metro Manila, the biggest economic hub.

Investments dropped across all instruments, with equity and debt placements seeing the biggest declines from a year ago.

Investments in debt instruments, such as bonds and treasury notes, settled at $223 million in April, barely a fourth of where it was a year ago. Meanwhile, bets on equity netted just $7 million, a sharp 82.6 percent decline from a year ago.

Gross placements went down by 68.3 percent to $47 million, which was partly cancelled out by withdrawals worth $39 million.

Preferred sectors were manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and real estate industries. Investors from Japan, the United States, Singapore and Germany continued to pour funds into local investment channels.

READ: Duterte wants a cautious reopening of Philippine economy amid rising COVID-19 cases in the country

Meanwhile, reinvested earnings  which refer to profits made by global companies in local operations retained here  stayed relatively steady at $81 million, although still lower than the $96 million retained a year ago.

As a result, the four-month FDI tally remained depressed. Funds mostly went into additional capital for manufacturing, real estate, and administrative and support service industries.

The BSP expects FDIs to ease this year as investors hold on to cash during the pandemic, with the country seen raking in just $4.1 billion compared to $7.6 billion infused by investors a year ago.
Last December, Amitabh Bachchan made headlines when he visited the Polish city, Wroclaw The veteran actor had met the Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Olga Tokarczuk and had attended an event organized to pay homage to his father, the famous Indian poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan.

Amitabh Bachchan shared a video today by the Wroclaw university students and they are heard reciting Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachchans Madhushala. He shared it on social media saying, I am moved to tears ! Wroclaw, Poland was awarded UNESCO City of Literature, today they organised a recitation of Babujis Madhushala by University students on the roof of the University building. They pass the message Wroclaw is a City of Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan.

Watching the video even Shweta Bachchan commented saying, Such a beautiful and emotional tribute for Dadaji. Goosebumps.

T 3601 - I am moved to tears !

Wroclaw, Poland was awarded UNESCO City of Literature, today they organised a recitation of Babujis Madhushala by University students on the roof of the University building. They pass the message Wroclaw is a City of Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan. pic.twitter.com/Rvl4q7Liof  Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 21, 2020






Pfizer and BioNTechs vaccine showed promise in early-stage small studies and is set to be tested in a large trial.

The Trump administration will pay Pfizer and Germanys BioNTech SE nearly $2bn for a December delivery of 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical companies are developing, the United States Department of Health and Human Services announced on Wednesday.

The US could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement.

The deal is part of President Donald Trumps Operation Warp Speed vaccine programme, under which multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously. The programme aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.

We are assembling a portfolio of vaccines to increase the odds that the American people will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year, US HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement on Wednesday [File: Alex Brandon/The Associated Press]

Under the initiative, the government will hasten development and buy vaccines  before they are deemed safe and effective  so that the medication can be in hand and quickly distributed once the FDA approves or authorises its emergency use after clinical trials.

Through Operation Warp Speed, we are assembling a portfolio of vaccines to increase the odds that the American people will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE announced separately that the agreement is with HHS and the defence department for a vaccine candidate the companies are developing jointly. It is the latest in a series of similar agreements with other vaccine companies.

Pfizer and BioNTech said the US will pay $1.95bn upon receipt of the first 100 million doses it produces, following FDA authorisation or approval.

Americans will receive the vaccine for free, the companies said.

Azar said the contract brings to five the number of potential coronavirus vaccines that are under development with US funding. Nearly two dozen are in various stages of human testing around the world, with several entering final tests to prove if they really work.

Trump said on Tuesday at a briefing that the vaccines are coming, and theyre coming a lot sooner than anyone thought possible, by years.

As early as next week, a vaccine created by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc is set to begin final-stage testing in a study of 30,000 people to see if it is safe and effective. A few other vaccines have begun smaller late-stage studies in other countries, and in the US studies are planned to begin each month through fall (autumn) in hopes of, eventually, having several vaccines to use.

Pfizer is finishing an earlier stage of testing to determine which of four possible candidates to try in a larger, final study.

Other countries are also scrambling to get a vaccine for COVID-19, which has killed more than 617,000 people, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Nearly four million Americans have been infected by the new coronavirus and at least 142,000 have died from COVID-19, the disease it causes, according to Johns Hopkins.

The United Kingdom announced on Monday that it had secured access to another 90 million experimental COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and others, a move some campaigners warned could worsen a global scramble by rich countries to hoard the worlds limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

China, where the new coronavirus originated, also has several vaccine candidates entering final testing. Trump blames Beijing for not doing a better job of containing the virus and allowing it to spread around the world. Still, he said he would be willing to work with China if it were first to the market with a reliable vaccine.

Were willing to work with anybody thats going to get us a good result, Trump said on Tuesday. Were very close to the vaccine. I think were going to have some very good results.

The FDA has told manufacturers it expects any vaccine to be at least 50 percent effective to qualify. But at a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Representative Frank Pallone said he was worried Trump could push the agency into prematurely clearing a vaccine.

My fear is that FDA will be forced by the Trump administration to approve a vaccine that lacks effectiveness, Pallone said.

Executives from five leading vaccine companies testified that they will take no shortcuts in their testing of the shots so that people can be confident in the results. Also, it will not be just the FDA rendering an opinion  each vaccine will likely be judged nearly simultaneously by regulatory authorities in Britain and Europe.

I dont think any of the regulatory bodies that we have interacted with are lowering their standards, said Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president of AstraZeneca, which is manufacturing a potential vaccine developed by Oxford University. We would not be trying to launch a medicine that is not effective.
A senior Pakistani journalist, known for his criticism of the country's powerful institutions, who was abducted by unknown persons from Islamabad on Tuesday, was released late night. Matiullah Jan was forcibly snatched from his car in Sector G-6 area of Pakistan's capital and taken towards some unknown location, according to a video circulating on social media.

'The least you all can do...'

Award-winning Pakistani journalist Taha Siddique who is living in exile in Paris since 2018 after he escaped an attempt to abduct him by armed men in Islamabad on Tuesday said that none of the big names in journalism in Pakistan will name the Pakistan Army even tho they all know who abducted Matiullah.

Taking to Twitter, he said, "Shame on those who are resorting to such self-censorship. Speak up. The least you all can do for Matiullah is name and shame his GHQ abductors."

None of the big names in journalism in Pakistan will name #PakistanArmy even tho they all knw @Matiullahjan919 has been abducted by them. Shame on those who are resorting to such self censorship. Speak up. The least you all can do for Matiullah is name and shame his GHQ abductors  Taha Siddiqui (@TahaSSiddiqui) July 21, 2020

Siddique later retweeted a picture of Matiullah Jan after he was released and called it "Such great news!!!" Welcoming Jan, Siddique praised the people who raised their voice for Matiullah.

Such great news!!! Welcome back @Matiullahjan919. So good to see your smiling face. Stay safe, my friend! And more power to all those who raised their voice for him! https://t.co/ivnAiiz3xk  Taha Siddiqui (@TahaSSiddiqui) July 21, 2020

'It is our duty to protect journalists'

Earlier on Tuesday, Jan's wife and brother told the media that his car was found parked outside a school with one of his mobile phones inside it. Information Minister Shibli Faraz told the media that he had sought details of the incident from the interior ministry. "It is our duty to protect journalists and we will try to know his whereabouts as early as possible," he said.

READ | Mohammad Rizwan scores century in Pakistan's intra-squad practice match in England: Watch

CCTV footage showed several armed men exiting at least three vehicles and putting Jan in a vehicle. Jan was critical of the government, security institutions and judiciary. The Supreme Court last week took cognizance of one of his tweets and initiated proceedings against him. The abduction was widely criticized by politicians, rights groups and social media users.

READ | Pakistan pacer Haris Rauf tests COVID-19 positive soon after negative test results: Report

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also demanded the government to take immediate steps to recover the journalist. Editor of influential newspaper Dawn, Zaffar Abbas, said it was "extremely disturbing" and "highly condemnable". He asked the media to highlight the abduction. The Islamabad High Court later in the day ordered senior police and interior ministry officials to produce the abducted journalist on Wednesday otherwise personally appear in the court.

READ | Islamabad High Court orders Pakistan Govt to produce abducted journalist Matiullah Jan

READ | Elderly Pashtun confronts Shahid Afridi over Pakistan ISI's oppression; exposes his sham

(With PTI inputs)
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95th joint patrol on Mekong River kicks off - Xinhua | English.news.cn

Law-enforcement authorities from China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand joined forces on Tuesday for the start of the 95th Mekong River joint patrol.

Two Chinese vessels departed from Jingha Port, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, in southwest China's Yunnan Province, while vessels of the other three countries departed from ports in Laos and Myanmar. The patrol will last four days and three nights.

Before the patrol, law-enforcement authorities of the four countries held a video conference to discuss the security situation of the river and reach agreement on jointly cracking down on illegal activities such as drug and gun-related crimes.

The Mekong River, known as the Lancang River in China, is a vital waterway for cross-border shipping.

China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand have been carrying out joint patrols on the Mekong River for eight years.
The Guardian

The Steelers quarterback is headed to the Hall of Fame. But he was unloved outside Pittsburgh for understandable reasons Ben Roethlisberger almost certainly played his final game in the NFL on Sunday. Photograph: Ed Zurga/AP Ben Roethlisberger is lucky that football legacies are not decided by finales. If Sunday night was indeed Big Bens last ever NFL game, as he has strongly hinted, it wasnt exactly a mic drop. In the 42-21 beatdown by the Chiefs, Roethlisberger struggled with rollouts, and l
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 16:33:54|Editor: huaxia

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VIENTIANE, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Lao health authorities focus on fight against dengue fever, as the number of confirmed cases in the country continues to rise.

All provinces have set up special taskforces to combat dengue. All stagnant water is being removed to prevent dengue-carrying mosquitoes from breeding.

If people fall ill, they should suspect that dengue may be the cause of their illness and get a blood test at a hospital, according to a report from Lao Ministry of Health on Wednesday.

As of Wednesday, 3,504 people has been diagnosed with dengue fever and eight deaths were recorded.

The highest number of dengue patients is reported in Lao capital Vientiane at 736, while 409 cases were recorded in Vientiane province, and 399 cases were reported in Bolikhamxay province.

The eight deaths included three in Lao capital Vientiane, two in Bolikhamxay, and one each in Khammuan, Xayaboury and Xieng Khuang provinces.

Lao health authorities advise that every family should throw out water that collects in jars, vases, and dishes and should cover such vessels to prevent more water from filling them up.

According to a Ministry of Health report, five simple measures are advised as being the most effective method of dengue control.

These measures consist of closing and sealing all unused containers, flushing out all water vessels, placing small guppy fish in water jars as these eat mosquito larvae, cleaning areas around homes, and, finally, remembering to do these four tasks each week. Enditem
On July 1, 2020, Netflix brought back the true crime drama, Unsolved Mysteries, for a series reboot. The streaming giant dropped six episodes for armchair detectives at home to help solve. Fans are confident that the unprofessional coroner helped cover up the murder of 23-year-old Alonzo Brooks.

Unsolved Mysteries | Netflix

What happened in the Alonzo Brooks case, No ride home on Unsolved Mysteries?

On April 3, 2004, Brooks went with three friends to a party about 45 minutes away, in La Cygne, Kansas. During the party, guests said racial slurs were directed toward Brooks. He was of African-American and Mexican descent, and many party goers stated he was likely the only Black person there.

His friend, Justin Sprague, left the party to pick up cigarettes, but got lost and didnt return. Brooks other friends left without him, and the next day the 23-year-old turned up missing. His mother filed a missing-person case, and the search began.

RELATED: Netflix Unsolved Mysteries Reboot Has 3 Major Issues According to Fans

On May 1, 2004, the boys family found him dead in a creek close to where the party was located. The FBI and KBI searched for weeks prior but did not locate the body. The coroner ruled the cause of death undeterminable. However, Brooks family and friends feel that he was the victim of a hate crime. The family believes his body was moved to that location after the murder.

Why do Unsolved Mysteries fans believe the coroner is covering up the Brooks murder?

If hes been beaten, it has not left anything identifiable, Dr. Erik Mitchell, the medical examiner, said in the Netflix episode. I do not know his cause of death.

Mitchell explained that the soft tissue around his neck wasnt recognizable, so he could not determine if he was strangled. There was no evidence of broken bones, no signs of blunt force trauma, or injury. The coroner also indicated that there were no signs of drowning in his lungs.

RELATED: When Does Netflixs Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2 Drop?

Moving a dead body is not convenient, Mitchell said in the true crime episode.

However, he explained that if someone wanted to move Alonzos body to that location, it could be done. Fans are in an uproar over the way Mitchell could not give a straight answer.

That ME was extremely unprofessional, and I too was yelling at my TV with his BS assumptions, one fan wrote on Reddit. Couldnt determine a possible cause of death, but wants to give his opinion about how the body was possibly stuck in some branches up river, or how searchers miss finding dead bodies all the time?

Fans point out that the medical examiner has a history of tampering with evidence

I dont like this, Dr. Erik Mitchell, another fan wrote. Heres an article from 1993 on his resignation after being found to remove organs from a corpse without familys consent and other violations.

After the episode aired, many credible tips came in. On July 21, 2020, Brooks body was exhumed by the FBI, reported KSNT news. Many fans believe it is because the coronor was covering up valuable information.

RELATED: Unsolved Mysteries: 3 Major Details Missing From the Rey Rivera Episode on Netflix

The armchair detectives also found another case that Mitchell was involved in. A man went to jail for 19 years but was recently granted a new trial because Dr. Erik Mitchell adjusted the possible time of death.

I have to say I felt there was something about him, too, added one more viewer. He seemed to be very pessimistic about how much information he could gain from the body. He couldnt even tell accurately how long the body had been out there.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

It is now more than 30 years that Armenias military aggression, the war unleashed by Armenia against Azerbaijan continues, Assistant to Azerbaijan's president, Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev said in an interview with France 24 TV channel, Trend reports on July 22.

Recent border incident is not just a sporadic act that happened on the border of the two countries, it is simply continuation of Armenias military aggression against Azerbaijan, Hajiyev said. Armenia wants to create a new hotbed of conflict in the region.
Without further disaster relief, there will a significant housing and financial issue.



From the NMHC: NMHC Rent Payment Tracker Finds 91.3 Percent of Apartment Households Paid Rent as of July 20



The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)s Rent Payment Tracker found 91.3 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by July 20 in its survey of 11.1 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country.



This is a 2.1-percentage point decrease from the share who paid rent through July 20, 2019 and compares to 92.2 percent that had paid by June 20, 2020. These data encompass a wide variety of market-rate rental properties across the United States, which can vary by size, type and average rental price.



"The extended unemployment benefits and other government support that have proven critical to keeping apartment residents in their homes expire in just a few days, said Doug Bibby, NMHC President. "Lawmakers are currently negotiating, but Members of Congress and Trump administration leaders need to understand that unless comprehensive action is taken now to protect the tens of millions of Americans who live in an apartment home, they risk destabilizing the nation's housing market, undermining the nascent economic recovery, and turning the ongoing health and economic crisis into a housing crisis."

emphasis added

CR Note: It appears fewer people are paying their rent compared to last year (down 2.1 percentage points from a year ago). In the previous surveys, over the last few months, people were paying their rents at about the same pace as last year. The disaster relief has been key to helping people pay their bills, especially the extra unemployment benefits and the PPP.
YOKNEAM, Israel, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- RealView Imaging Ltd. today announced the completion of its $10M series C financing round. New investors in this round include OurCrowd, a major hi-tech venture capital fund, Judith and Kobi Richter, among the most prominent technology and medical Israeli entrepreneurs, as well as other notable investors and leading physicians. The majority of the company's existing shareholders have also participated in this round, including well-known investors as Dr. Shimon Eckhouse, Zohar Gilon and Uzia Galil.

HOLOSCOPE-i: Over-the-head Holographic System by RealView Imaging, Creating Digital 3D Holograms in the Physician's Hand

Dr. Kobi Richter, Founder and Chairman of Medinol, and Prof. Michael Eldar, former Director of the Cardiology Institute at Sheba Medical Center, joined the company's Board of Directors as part of this closing.

RealView Imaging is pioneering the field of Holography Guided Interventions, introducing the HOLOSCOPE-i - the first and only system that creates true 3D volumetric holograms from medical imaging data. The HOLOSCOPE-i is uniquely designed to enable physicians to view and directly interact with hyper-realistic 3D holograms of the patient's actual anatomy, which float in free space at hands reach during interventional procedures. The system's highly advanced 3D interactive visualization tools empower imaging-based minimally-invasive medical interventions, which is one of the most rapidly growing fields in medicine.

The company was founded by Aviad Kaufman, Shaul Gelman and Prof. Carmel Rotschild, with a seed investment led by Dr. Shimon Eckhouse, the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Along the development of the core holographic technology, RealView has generated a strong IP portfolio (35 patents filed, 21 granted). In 2019 the company unveiled its first installation of the HOLOSCOPE-i commercial configuration at Toronto General Hospital, in the presence of the President of Israel - Mr. Reuven Rivlin. Recently recognized as the fourth best hospital in the world by Newsweek, Toronto General was the first-in-the-world to use true holographic imaging during interventional cardiology procedures. In addition, RealView was the first-ever to perform a clinical study to evaluate the feasibility of live 3D holographic imaging in a clinical setting, which was conducted in collaboration with Philips Healthcare and Schneider Children's Medical Center in Israel.

"We are now focused on the commercialization of the HOLOSCOPE-i system, initially in North America and in Europe," said Dr. Shimon Eckhouse, RealView's Chairman of the Board. "By incorporating medical holography into routine clinical workflow, we expect to revolutionize the way clinicians engage with 3D medical imaging."

Dr. Kobi Richter, a major investor in this round and now a Director in the company, added: "RealView has created a unique solution that will address fundamental usability requirements and a wide range of clinical needs for advanced imaging. Given the company's broad IP portfolio and technology maturity, I believe RealView can significantly impact the growing field of structural heart interventions, as well as additional future clinical fields such as electrophysiology and interventional oncology procedures. All these fields strongly rely on advanced 3D imaging technologies that will guide the physician accurately and clearly in his intervention in patient's spaces that are not visible to his eyes."

RealView Imaging's vision is to leverage its pioneering position to globally lead the field of Medical Holography for multiple clinical applications. The company's next generation product, the HOLOSCOPE-x, projects 3D holographic images inside the patient's body, making the patient literally transparent. This product, currently under development, is uniquely designed to enable precise minimally invasive Interventional procedures.

"Spending most of my career in Medical Imaging, I envisioned that holography will become a major tool in therapeutic medical procedures, supporting the required accuracy and minimizing errors," explains Dr. Morry Blumenfeld, Venture Partner at OurCrowd and formerly Managing Director of GE Healthcare Israel. "We have recently seen significant M&A activities in our industry, predominantly around companies supporting minimally-invasive procedures. There is no doubt that RealView is well positioned for great success in this market."

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1218100/RealView_Imaging_HOLOSCOPE_i.jpg

For further information, please contact:

Aviad Kaufman

RealView Imaging Ltd.

[email protected]

SOURCE RealView Imaging Ltd.

Related Links

http://realviewimaging.com


Universities' frantic struggles to create fall semester plans that bring students back to campus often hinge on social distancing.While students are excited about the promise of an on-campus fall, many detailed university plans have made it clear that freshman year will hardly resemble the bustling experience it was before.Instead, strict social distancing standards may set the stage for an isolating semester.Most reopening plans rely heavily on keeping students separate, even in on-campus scenarios that would otherwise bring them together to socialize or learn. For example, the University of Virginia recently announced that it will give students the option to return for a mix of online and in-person learning. While small classes will be held in socially distanced on-campus spaces, all large lecture classes-a staple of many majors-will be held online.Students will be required to wear masks and social distance everywhere except for inside their individual dorm rooms, in which only they and their roommates will be allowed. Common spaces will be closed.UVA's plan is typical of many universities as they try to balance their interest in providing an on-campus experience with ensuring the safety of their students and the local community. Many schools are taking their restrictions even further by de-densifying dorm rooms . For students sharing rooms, the CDC recommends using plexiglass or plastic partitions to separate beds.With restrictions like those in place, socializing on campus will hardly resemble anything that students have experienced before. Despite schools' best efforts to maintain community through online events and adapted residential programing, a socially distanced fall may raise the risk that students have trouble adjusting, both socially and academically.Schools have recognized these risks, and many are doing their best to avoid them with a myriad of creative strategies. At Grinnell College, a small liberal arts school in Iowa, administrators have come up with a program that assigns groups of students to family units within their residence halls called "scurries," a term that describes a group of squirrels (in homage to Grinnell's informal mascot).Returning students will get to play a role in creating their scurries by choosing friends they want to live with, and freshmen will be placed in scurries based on a shared academic course. While large social gatherings will not be allowed, students will be permitted to share meals and socialize within their scurries.Even with scurries in place, not all students are so convinced that an in-person fall will be worthwhile.said Christopher Victoria, a rising sophomore at Grinnell. Victoria worries that scurries will be very limiting and might lead to social tensions during the year.While Victoria says that Grinnell's plans sound nice, he worries about how they will shake out and would be happy to abide by more dramatic restrictions in order to experience a more normal fall. He even suggested that he would be willing to let campus administrators hold onto his car keys during the weeks that school is in session. Because of the odd fall semester, Victoria says that some of his friends are planning to take a leave of absence or to transfer.It's important to note that Grinnell's fall plans are far from the norm for another reason: not all students will start their classes on campus at once. Instead, Grinnell plans to increase the number of students taking classes on campus over the course of the year, which will be split into four seven-and-a-half-week terms. For students who live off-campus at any point over the next school year, Grinnell has also set up an online initiative called " Grinnellians Stay Connected ," which will provide issue-specific discussion forums, live and on-demand fitness classes, and links to campus podcasts and blogs.Behind the scenes, some schools are also adding precautions in case they need to cancel in-person instruction and send students home. For example, Virginia Tech University updated its student housing contract to include a clause clarifying that the school will not refund housing costs or fees if the housing contract is terminated and students are sent home.Many schools have taken far more traditional paths toward reopening in the fall, including the University of North Carolina system, where students will be able to choose between in-person, online, and hybrid courses. Students will be welcome to learn on campus but will be required to wear masks and stay six feet apart from each other at all times. While the university is considering different ways to keep students socially connected, no specific plans have been announced.Despite the possibility of fairly stringent social distancing requirements, Faye Struble, an incoming freshman at UNC-Charlotte, is optimistic about the fall.she said.While Struble recognizes that meeting new friends might be a bit of a hassle, she is hopeful that everyone will stick to social distancing requirements so things go smoothly. After finishing high school during the peak of social distancing restrictions across the country, she is ready for something new.she said.
The Trump International Hotel has posted dozens of images on social media with employees wearing masks in recent weeks. The hotel also attempted to open its outside sidewalk cafe, as other restaurants and hotels have done during the pandemic, but closed it again after guests were being bothered by passersby on the street.
Now Open

22 July 2020

IHG Hotels & Resorts announces the opening of Holiday Inn Express Amsterdam - North Riverside, the largest Holiday Inn Express in Europe. Located on the northern shore of the IJ-lake, just a short free ferry ride from Amsterdam City Centre, the hotel is a perfect choice for those travelling for tourism or business. Holiday Inn Express is known for catering to smart, savvy travellers who are on the move to their next meeting or connection.

A twenty five minute drive from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and a ten-minute drive from Amsterdam Central Station, the Holiday Inn Express Amsterdam - North Riverside has 438 rooms, all featuring the brand's latest concepts. Designed to enhance guest experience and equip travellers with everything they need, the hotel features black out curtains, high-quality bedding, a power shower, and free high-speed Wi-Fi. The rooms are also fitted with smart design features such as a flexible workspace, flat screen TV, ergonomically designed chairs and ample USB ports and plug sockets next to the bed. The hotel is pet friendly and all guests staying at the hotel will have an Express Start Breakfast included in the price.

Holiday Inn Express champions simple, smart travel by serving as a no-fuss basecamp where guests can work, rest, relax and recharge. The dynamic commons areas of the hotel are designed to provide guests with the space and amenities to work remotely or relax. In the hotel's lobby guests will find community tables with integrated outlets and wireless charging devices - all part of the brand's Next Generation design solutions. A mix of seating styles provide a welcoming and comfortable spot to wait or grab a drink in the bar with friends or colleagues.

IHG Clean Promise

IHG has a long-standing commitment to rigorous cleaning procedures at all its hotels worldwide. This is being extended with additional COVID-19 protocols and best practices, in partnership with industry leading experts Cleveland Clinic, Ecolab, and Diversey, as well as introducing the IHG Clean Promise. For more information, please visit http://www.ihg.com/clean.

Holiday Inn Express is IHG's largest and fastest growing hotel brand globally with 2,872 hotels open and an additional 761 set to open in the next few years. Across Europe, there are over 250 Holiday Inn Express hotels open and 71 due to open in the next 3-5 years. IHG recently signed Holiday Inn Express Budapest City Centre, the groups first new hotel for Hungary's capital in 23 years, due to open in 2020.
A lawsuit filed Monday accuses four Fox News personalities of sexual harassment, including an allegation that co-anchor Ed Henry "violently" raped a colleague.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, comes after the network's announcement that it had parted ways with Henry after having been made aware of a past accusation of sexual harassment.

In addition to Henry, the federal suit accuses on-air personalities Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Howard Kurtz of harassing a woman in various instances.

The lawsuit includes allegations by two women, Jennifer Eckhart, a producer for Fox Business, and Cathy Areu, who frequently appeared on the network. The contents are so graphic in parts that the complaint comes with a "trigger warning" about its sexual nature.

Henry, who was co-anchor of "Fox & Friends Weekend" before he was promoted to the network's weekday current affairs program "America's Newsroom," is said to have "sexually assaulted her [Eckhart] on office property and raped her at a hotel where Fox News frequently lodged its visiting employees," the complaint says. The suit also details lurid communications it alleges Henry sent to both women.

Henry is also accused of sending Areu, a regular guest on Fox News, "wildly inappropriate sexual images and messages  which are in her possession  throughout the first half of this year," according to the complaint.

Eckhart is suing Henry and the network for violation of sex trafficking laws and human rights laws and gender-motivated violence. Areu is suing for violations of human rights laws and gender-motivated violence.

Henry's attorney, Catherine Foti, said in a statement: "The Me Too movement has helped to bring to light a number of injustices in our society, and everyone that has suffered deserves to be heard. This is not one of those cases." The statement continued, "The evidence in this case will demonstrate that Ms. Eckhart initiated and completely encouraged a consensual relationship." Foti added that Eckhart had sent other "aggressively suggestive communications."

Story continues

Foti had no further comment when asked to respond to Areu's allegations.

The suit alleges that Hannity offered $100 to a group of men at Fox News to take Areu on a date. Carlson and Kurtz are alleged to have asked Areu to meet them at a hotel.

In a statement, Fox News, which is also named in the suit, said: "Based on the findings of a comprehensive independent investigation conducted by an outside law firm, including interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, we have determined that all of Cathy Areu's claims against Fox News, including its management as well as its hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Howard Kurtz and its contributor Gianno Caldwell, are false, patently frivolous and utterly devoid of any merit."

Representatives for Carlson, Hannity and Kurtz were not reachable for comment at time of publication. Carlson, who hosts "Tucker Carlson Tonight," was host of the nightly program "Tucker" on MSNBC from 2005 to 2008.

In a statement provided by the law firm Wigdor LLP, which has represented 20 claims against Fox News, Eckhart said, "I stand for all victims who have been mistreated, harassed, assaulted, and even worse, at the hands of those in power, and the institutions that continue to support them."

The network said the two women were free to pursue their claims against Henry "as Fox News already took swift action as soon as it learned of Ms. Eckhart's claims," which were made June 25.

Wigdor lawyer Michael J. Willemin, who represents the women, countered the Fox News statement, saying "the complaint asserts that Fox News did nothing" even though it was aware of the claims against Henry for some years.

In a statement, Fox News responded, "There were not sexual harassment claims against Ed Henry at Fox News prior to Jennifer Eckhart's claim on June 25, 2020."

The explosive lawsuit represents a fresh round of serious sexual misconduct allegations for Fox News after the network fought to present itself as a much-changed organization.

Fox News parted ways with prime-time anchor Bill O'Reilly and the network's founder, the late Roger Ailes. Both men were also accused of wrongdoing, which both men denied.

The suit also claims that it is "widely documented in the public record that Fox News has not only cultivated and fostered sexual harassment and misconduct, but has consistently accepted and rewarded it."

"Nevertheless, Fox News would have the public believe that it is a different place from the Fox News that was run by former disgraced Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes," the suit says.

"Unfortunately, it is actually worse," the suit continues.

Fox News said in a statement, "We take all claims of harassment, misconduct and retaliation seriously, promptly investigating them and taking immediate action as needed  in this case, the appropriate action based on our investigation is to defend vigorously against these baseless allegations."

Several news organizations, including NBC News and CBS News, have dealt with allegations of serious sexual misconduct within their own ranks in recent years.
A stern warning has been issued against travelling to Sydney as the city's coronavirus numbers continue to creep up.

Newcastle residents were told by local health authorities to rethink their travel plans after New South Wales recorded 16 new cases on Wednesday.

Of the new infections, 11 are associated with the Thai Rock cluster in Sydney's Wetherill Park, taking the total number of cases linked to the restaurant to 37.

Public Health Physician Professor David Durrheim said the Sydney outbreaks were 'concerning' and that non-residents should stay away.

There is usually a lot of travel between the two east coast cities, sitting just 170km apart.

Newcastle residents were told by health authorities to rethink their travel plans after NSW recorded 16 new cases on Wednesday (pictured, the health alert)

Four people who dined at Thai Rock Restaurant (pictured) in Stockland Mall, Wetherill Park were infected, before passing the disease on to six of their contacts

'We would strongly advise anybody from the Hunter New England region to rather stay at home than visiting Sydney at this stage unless absolutely necessary.

'This virus, if you give it half a chance, can spread very very rapidly and even from the a-symptomatic,' he said.

The 16 cases announced on Wednesday mark seven consecutive days of double-digit daily infections in NSW.

While not yet re-imposing travel bans to regional areas in NSW, Premier Gladys Berejikilan said people should take 'extra caution' when moving around the state.

'There is no zone which is safe,' she said.

'My strongest message is, that all of us are on high alert.

'All of us should be monitoring our behaviour. All of us should consider where we travel. All of us should consider avoiding crowds and those high-risk activities, especially over the weekend.'

The recent community transmission in the state have been traced back to Victoria, where figures have skyrocketed to a record-breaking 484 cases on Wednesday.

New figures showed 90 per cent of patients failed to isolate between falling sick and getting tested and 53 per cent had failed to self-isolate while waiting for the result.

The state has suffered outbreaks at abattoirs, aged care homes, logistics businesses and law firms.

Chief Health Officer Professor Brendan Sutton said Victoria is considering introducing a draconian stage four lockdown.

Pictured: A map showing coronavirus cases recorded since July 1. South-west Sydney has been hit the hardest, with 11 cases in the Liverpool local government area. The postcodes seen in the lightest shade of red have recorded one case in the past three weeks

A queue of cars is seen at a coronavirus testing clinic in Sydney's Bondi on Wednesday (pictured) as non-residents are urged to stay away from the city

In New Zealand, stage four lockdown saw butchers, bakers, fruit shops, hairdressers and even construction shut down. Businesses such as Bunnings and Kmart closed, and even takeaway food was banned.

Asked if such harsh restrictions were on the table for Melbourne, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said: 'Everything is under consideration.'

But he said a New-Zealand style lockdown may cause terrible economic damage and may not even help bring cases down.

'To go to a particular model of lockdown that worked for one country at one point in time is not the solution,' he said.

'We have to understand what the dynamics of transmission are in Victoria at this point in time. It may well be that it's an awful impost on the economy and on people's lives with no material benefit.'

A woman is tested at the pop-up testing clinic at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Harris Park in western Sydney (pictured on Tuesday)
SBC leaders Albert Mohler, Russell Moore criticized for honoring John Lewis due to liberal record

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After civil rights icon and Democratic Congressman John Lewis death was announced Friday, Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear honored his memory by sharing one of his tweets from 2015. The tweet, which included a smiling mug shot of the late congressman, said: Even though I was arrested, I smiled bc I was on the right side of history. Find a way to get in the way #goodtrouble.

While other SBC leaders like Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Russell Moore, president of the SBCs Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, also noted Lewis passing as a great loss for the nation in fuller statements, some from the evangelical Christian community are unhappy with their praise of Lewis because of his support for issues like abortion and LGBTQ rights.

Rep John Lewiss story is integral to telling the American story. His courage and suffering in the Civil Rights movement are inspirational to all Americans. He will be honored in the American memory. We dare not extend honor only to those with whom we are in political agreement.  Albert Mohler (@albertmohler) July 18, 2020

What a loss to this country. Grateful for John Lewis courage and endurance and patriotism. I agree, with the many who have said so, that theres a bridge in Selma that needs a new name, Moore tweeted on Saturday.

Rep John Lewiss story is integral to telling the American story. His courage and suffering in the Civil Rights movement are inspirational to all Americans. He will be honored in the American memory. We dare not extend honor only to those with whom we are in political agreement, Mohler also noted in a statement on Twitter.

Lewis, the son of sharecroppers, suffered beatings at Selma and throughout the Jim Crow South in the fight for racial equality. He died at the age of 80 after battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

A number of Christians, including pastors responding to both Mohler and Moore, refused to celebrate Lewis life.

Get your mind away from the fog of academia and back into simple biblical truth. This is more than a small political disagreement. To bestow honor upon one whose political positions funded and endorsed the killing of millions of innocent babies is shameful leadership in the SBC, Byron Williamson, senior pastor at First Baptist Pampa in Texas, noted in a reply to Mohler late Monday.

Lewis had a 100% pro-baby slaughter record with NARAL. Let that sink in. Every single time he was presented with the option to advance the slaughter of the pre-born, he voted yes. Every. Single. Time, wrote Pastor Derin Stidd of Harmony Baptist Church in Frankfort, Indiana, along with a link to Lewis voting record.

Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, noted, however, that it isnt unreasonable to praise someone you disagree with on some issues.

Look people, there will be a time to examine Rep. Lewis' flaws. Not now, though. Now is a moment to honor him for his virtues, for the good he did. That's why we honor flawed (like all of us) men like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, King--not for the flaws, but for the good, he noted on Twitter.
Colstrip owners in Washington and Oregon have put forth 20-year plans for shifting away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy by upgrading generation at hydropower dams, increasing wind and solar generation, as well as investing in battery storage. Puget Sound Energy insists that it can sell off its share of Unit 4 to NorthWestern, cover future environmental cleanup costs associated with the share and still save customers money, up to $46 million, by getting power elsewhere. Avista Corp. has also said it will save customers $2 million a year by getting out of coal power, arguing that even without the 2025 coal-power ban in Washington, getting out of Colstrip would make financial sense.
Though the pacesetting favourite Criminal Record gamely fought for the lead, Trip Hammer powered past late in the stretch to win the fastest of three $7,500 Alberta Plainsman eliminations on Tuesday (July 21) at Century Downs.

Criminal Record cleared control while Trip Hammer, starting from the pylon post, secured the pocket prior to a :27.4 first quarter. The three-year-old gelding by Trust The Artist continued to ride the leaders helmet past a :57.3 half, but vacated the pocket approaching three-quarters in 1:25. Spinning into the stretch Criminal Record held a slim lead as Trip Hammer dug into the 3-5 favourite, eventually grinding by nearing the finish to win by a half length in 1:55.1. Wink N Win rallied from 10 lengths off the lead to take third.

Trained and driven by Nate Sobey, who co-owns with Diane Bertrand, Robert Gilhespy and Terry Ostashek, Trip Hammer won his third race from 12 starts, earning $35,180. He paid $12.30 to win.

Chazmichaelmichael swept to command past the quarter and maintained command to the finish of a 1:56.2 mile to win the first elimination of the Alberta Plainsman.

Past the quarter in :28.2, Chazmichaelmichael endured little pressure through the mile. Westcoast Dragon chased from the pocket through middle fractions of :58.2 and 1:27.1, giving futile pursuit to the pacesetter in the stretch as Chazmichaelmichael strode to a one-length victory as the 1-2 favourite. Westcoast Dragon held second with Red Rooster taking third.

Co-owned by trainer-driver Kelly Hoerdt with Blair Corbeil, Chazmichaelmichael remains undefeated in three starts while accruing $8,950 in earnings. The colt by Custard The Dragon paid $3.00 to win.

The final Alberta Plainsman elimination went to 1-9 favourite Major Custard, who commandeered the field past the quarter and strolled to a 1:56.1 victory.

Horse held a brief lead by a :27.4 first quarter but soon scoped a trip from the pocket as Major Custard circled to the lead. Just Mac then angled first over from fourth as the tempo slowed to a :59.1 half but parked into the backstretch with an accelerating pace. Major Custard took the field to three-quarters in 1:27.2 and began to widen his lead around the final turn, rolling through the stretch to a three-and-three-quarter length victory over Horse. Ragged But Right came from second over for third.

Owned by J J J Stables and Jim Marino, Major Custard won his seventh race from nine starts, earning $96,500. Michael Campbell trains the Custard The Dragon gelding while Brandon Campbell sat in the bike. He paid $2.10 to win.

To view Tuesday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Tuesday Results - Century Downs.
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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 07:15 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406684162d 1 National KPK,harun-masiku,PDI-P,Law-and-Human-Rights-Ministry,Immigration-Directorate-General Free

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has filed a request with the Law and Human Rights Ministry to extend an overseas travel ban for Harun Masiku as it continues its search for the graft fugitive.

KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri said the commission had filed the request on July 10 with the ministry's Immigration Directorate General. The commission asked for the travel ban to be extended six months.

The antigraft agency is continuing to pursue the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician, who was named a suspect and put on the KPK's most-wanted list in January.

As of now, the KPK is continuing our coordination with the police and the immigration office to track and capture the most-wanted fugitive, Ali wrote in a statement published Monday.

Harun, alongside his fellow PDI-P politician Saeful Bahri, was accused of bribing then-General Elections Commission (KPU) commissioner Wahyu Setiawan. He allegedly offered Rp 1.5 billion (US$101,641) to secure a seat in the House of Representatives that was left vacant by a deceased member from the ruling party.

Read also: Months in, two of KPK's key graft suspects remain at large

Immigration Directorate General spokesperson Arvin Gumilang said this was the last time the KPK would be allowed to extend Haruns travel ban.

According to Article 97 of the 2011 Immigration Law, a travel ban is valid for a maximum of six months and can be extended for a maximum of six months, Arvin told tribunnews.com on Tuesday.

KPK investigators failed to capture Harun during an operation in January, but they managed to arrest Wahyu, Saeful and six other suspects. It was later discovered that Harun had departed for Singapore on Jan. 6 and had returned to Indonesia on Jan. 7, before the KPK named him a suspect on Jan. 9.

His escape and subsequent disappearance have turned the spotlight on fellow PDI-P member and Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, who established a fact-finding team that ended up blaming an error in the immigration system for allowing Harun to slip over the border.

Harun's whereabouts remain unknown.

The Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced Saeful to one year and eight months of prison for bribery in May and ordered a Rp 150 million fine. Wahyu is now on trial for allegedly accepting the bribe.
Creating a safe, accessible, and comfortable living environment is something everyone can relate to these days, whether it's having a convenient work-from-home station or finding cost-efficient ways to stay cool indoors. But life during a pandemic has also shed light on the realities of growing old in one's own home.

People who have lived in their homes for decades find comfort in memories and familiarity. Moving to a new space might cause distress or emotional turmoil, as it often involves learning new patterns and purging belongings, says Alessandra Wood, vice president of online interior design at Modsy.

And since many of the early outbreaks of COVID-19 took place in assisted-living facilities, it may be safer in one sense to continue living at homebut that will require changes. Those may include downsizing, relocating to a single-level home, or renovating an existing house. If aging in place might be of interest for you or a loved one, here are some tips on how to prepare a home.

Design for safety

Aim for an open floor plan with as little obstruction as possible.

Be sure layouts, furniture placement, and doorways allow ample room to walk around the space or use wheelchairs and walkers when necessary, says Wood.

If a home has stairs, Wood recommends installing a chairlift to reduce the possibility of falls. Area rugs can be tripping hazards, so consider removing them.

And be sure corners and edges are not jutting out.

Eliminate pointed edges, such as on coffee tables, dining tables, or beds, where possible as these can be hazardous when bumped into," Wood says.

Design for accessibility

Cabinet drawers make aging in place easier. Serghei Starus/Getty Images

Making the home environment more accessible can make day-to-day living easier.

Designing for accessibility can include installing cabinet drawers, which reduce the amount of bending and reaching required by the homeowner, says Bryson Cook, design expert and Miami showroom manager for Scavolini.

In kitchens, we like shallow drawers for accessories like utensils, and deeper drawers for pots, pans, and Tupperware. Drawers, combined with inventive organizers, can also be used in place of regular cabinetry for dish and flatware storage, says Cook. In bathrooms, drawers incorporated into vanities and other storage can enhance accessibility.

He says its not a bad idea to equip drawers with a servo drive system, which opens the drawers with a simple touch, and adding an LED strip with a sensor makes it easier to see whats inside.

Cook also thinks a kitchen wall oven is a nice addition, especially if built into a tall cabinet to make it more ergonomic.

It allows you to load and unload oven contents without having to bend over. There are some new oven options that even open sideways so that you do not have to lift a heavy door, says Cook.

Design for convenience

Another tenet of aging in place is having things at a comfortable height or level. Lowered countertops can allow one to perform tasks like cooking or washing dishes while sitting comfortably.

Upper cabinets with pull-down shelving also enable access to anything that is needed for cooking and can be very stylish and efficient, says Cook.

He also suggests storing the most-used small appliances at counter height for easy access.

Design for simplicity

Any addition of technology can really simplify everyday tasks in the home, and part of aging in place is embracing gadgets that can make our lives easier.

Devices such as smart bulbs allow for lights to go on and off with speech commands. The Nest Thermostat senses your temperature preferences based on your usage and can be easily controlled from afar, says Wood.

Touch-activated faucets and lamps are worth integrating into your home. And here's one more to consider: push-to-open appliances.

With a light push, you can open your fridge, freezer, ovens, and other appliances with minimal effort, says Cook.

The post Why Aging in Place at Home Matters Now More Than Ever appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
State Duma adopts amendments protecting Russias territorial integrity

 flickr.com/ David Baron

15:55 22/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 22 (RAPSI)  Bills establishing punishments for actions aimed at cession of Russias territory and calls for such actions have passed its final third reading in the State Duma, according to a statement of the lower house of parliament.

The documents are authored by co-chairs of the working group on drafting amendments to the national Constitution State Duma deputy Pavel Krasheninnikov and Senator Andrey Klishas.

The respective prohibition is enshrined in the amended Constitution; to set it in effect it is proposed to amend a number of Codes and laws of the Russian Federation; the bills have been already positively assessed by the Government and the Supreme Court, the statement reads.

The bills are to introduce administrative responsibility for first time offenders publicly calling for violation of territorial integrity of Russia instead of criminal responsibility for such deeds as currently envisaged; the repeated violations committed within a year are to be criminally prosecuted. Criminal fines are to be increased and set at 200,000 to 400,000 rubles (about $3,000 to $5,500 at the current exchange rate), whereas the imprisonment terms up to 4 years are to be unchanged.

Administrative punishments are to include fines in the range from 30,000 to 60,000 rubles ($425 to $850) for individuals, from 60,000 to 100,000 rubles ($850 to $1,500) for officials, and from 200,000 to 300,000 rubles ($3,000 to $4,200) for corporations. Higher fines are to be applied in cases where public calls were made via mass media outlets, internet, or other means of communications: from 70,000 to 100,000 rubles ($1,000 to $1,500) for individuals, from 100,000 to 200,000 rubles ($1,500 to $3,000) for officials, from 300,000 to 500,000 rubles ($4,200 to $7,000) for corporations. The cases are to be initiated by prosecutors offices and heard by district courts.

It is proposed to introduce a criminal punishment for violation of territorial integrity of Russia in the Criminal Code; the respective imprisonment terms are to make from 6 to 10 years.

Krasheninnikov reminded that the State Duma had recently approved in the first reading a package of laws against extremism, which includes certain provisions protecting territorial integrity of Russia.
The UK Government has today been accused of 'taking a leaf out of Donald Trump's playbook' after using social media to publicly denounce journalists.

Ministers have come under increasing scrutiny from the press during the pandemic for a series of failings which have led to the UK suffering the worst death toll in Europe.

The latest tactic has seen the Department of Health use its official Twitter account, which has 700,000 followers, to dispute negative newspaper articles highlighting shortcomings it doesn't agree with.

Officials have lashed out at a number of credible outlets and reporters, branding their stories 'false', 'inaccurate', 'misleading' and 'complete fabrications'.

The strategy was today likened to that of the US President, who has often accused journalists of writing 'fake news' and being 'enemies of the people' in a bid to undermine the media and silence his critics.

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran told MailOnline it is an 'attempt to undermine the media straight out of Donald Trump's playbook.

'It is bizarre that the government is spending its time disputing stories on Twitter instead of addressing the legitimate concerns that have been raised,' she added.

Olivia Blake, Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, added: 'Rather than shoot the messenger, the Government should listen and learn from what NHS and social care staff have told us about the problems in our health and care systems.'

Journalism unions said the Government clearly wanted to 'criticise and troll' journalists who 'highlight its inadequacies'.

The Department of Health branded a June 19 story by former Guardian reporter Ian Cobain a 'complete fabrication' when he claimed PPE batches imported from Turkey had went AWOL

On May 15, the DHSC tweeted that ITV and the Guardian had 'published false, inaccurate and misleading claims' about stockpiles of personal protective equipment (PPE) being damaged

The new tactic was first deployed on April 21 - at the height of the crisis - in response to a story by the Guardian. The newspaper claimed nursing shortages were forcing Nightingale hospitals - built to take pressure off ICU wards during the crisis - to turn away patients

The new tactic was first deployed on April 21 - at the height of the crisis - in response to a story by the Guardian.

The newspaper claimed nursing shortages were forcing Nightingale hospitals - built to take pressure off ICU wards during the crisis - to turn away patients.

DHSC officials branded the story 'misleading', claiming there were no such shortages and that nurses were trained and ready to deployed if they were needed.

On May 15, the DHSC tweeted that ITV had 'published false, inaccurate and misleading claims' about stockpiles of personal protective equipment (PPE) being damaged.

The news outlet had claimed that 'chaos' at the warehouse of one of the UK's main suppliers of PPE, Movianto, 'may have resulted in delays in deploying vital supplies to healthcare workers'.

'The Guardian and ITV News have reported false, inaccurate and misleading claims about the management of the pandemic influenza stockpile and its subsequent deployment,' a DHSC tweet said.

This week the DHSC fired back at Sky News and the BBC for reporting that the NHS Test and Trace system had broken a key data protection law

In response, officials replied publicly to say the reports were unfounded and 'there was no evidence data was being used unlawfully'.

Department of Health may have been counting Covid-19 deaths wrong in latest scandal The Department of Health might have been counting Covid-19 deaths figures wrong, it emerged last week. The DHSC 'paused' publication of the daily coronavirus death figures on July 17 as Health Secretary Matt Hancock orders an urgent review into how the numbers are calculated. British researchers highlighted 'statistical flaws' in the way the deaths are reported across England, saying they are left looking far worse than any other part of the country. Public Health England's figures figures feed into the daily death statistics published by the DHSC, with information from Public Health Wales, Health Protection Scotland and the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency also fed in. According to a note on the Government's website, the review means it is 'pausing' the publication of the daily death figure 'while this is resolved'. The daily DHSC data represents the number of reported deaths of people who have tested positive for Covid-19, who have died in all settings. But in a blog entitled 'Why no-one can ever recover from Covid-19 in England - a statistical anomaly', Professors Yoon Loke, from the University of East Anglia, and Carl Heneghan, from the University of Oxford, said more robust data is needed. They argued that PHE looks at whether a person has ever tested positive and whether they are still alive at a later date. This means anyone who has ever tested positive for Covid-19 and then dies is included in the death figures, even if they have died from something else. Advertisement

'There has been no damage to any of the stockpile and it has been safely and securely stored at all times,' it added.

The Government department then branded a June 19 story by former Guardian reporter Ian Cobain a 'complete fabrication' when he claimed PPE batches imported from Turkey had went AWOL.

The journalist's exclusive peice in the Middle East Eye claimed the DHSC had lost records of protective garments being imported from Turkey to cope with shortages.

But the Department fired back on Twitter, rubbishing the report and lumping blame on the NHS, which it said made the order in the first place.

This week the DHSC fired back at Sky News and the BBC for reporting that the NHS Test and Trace system had broken a key data protection law.

In response, officials replied publicly to say the reports were unfounded and 'there was no evidence data was being used unlawfully'.

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union for Journalists (NUJ), told MailOnline: 'The Government's communications strategy has certainly been interesting to follow.

'They appear to want to criticise and troll journalists who have highlighted their strategic inadequacies.

'Picking on specific individuals on twitter is clearly not the best way to approach issuing official Government communications, reactions and rebuttals.'

A Government spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We make no apologies for calling out factually misleading or inaccurate content online.

Last week it emerged that the Department of Health might have been counting Covid-19 deaths figures wrong, in the latest scandal to hit the department.

The DHSC 'paused' publication of the daily coronavirus death figures on July 17 as Health Secretary Matt Hancock orders an urgent review into how the numbers are calculated.

British researchers highlighted 'statistical flaws' in the way the deaths are reported across England, saying they are left looking far worse than any other part of the country.

Public Health England's figures figures feed into the daily death statistics published by the DHSC, with information from Public Health Wales, Health Protection Scotland and the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency also fed in.

According to a note on the Government's website, the review means it is 'pausing' the publication of the daily death figure 'while this is resolved'.

The daily DHSC data represents the number of reported deaths of people who have tested positive for Covid-19, who have died in all settings.

But in a blog entitled 'Why no-one can ever recover from Covid-19 in England - a statistical anomaly', Professors Yoon Loke, from the University of East Anglia, and Carl Heneghan, from the University of Oxford, said more robust data is needed.

They argued that PHE looks at whether a person has ever tested positive and whether they are still alive at a later date.

This means anyone who has ever tested positive for Covid-19 and then dies is included in the death figures, even if they have died from something else.
The US on Wednesday claimed that China's Communist Party is seeking to build its military by exploiting the US research institutions, academia and private firms for their key technologies.

Taking to micro-blogging site Twitter, the US Department of State said, "The Chinese Communist Party is seeking to build its military by exploiting American research institutions, academia, and private firms for their key technologies."

The Chinese Communist Party is seeking to build its military by exploiting American research institutions, academia, and private firms for their key technologies. Learn more about #MilitaryCivilFusion: https://t.co/Kh6Zfeviyv. pic.twitter.com/7cLf2Kg3UU  Department of State (@StateDept) July 22, 2020

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "Even if the Chinese Communist Party gives assurances about your technology being confined to peaceful uses, you should know there is an enormous risk to Americas national security."

In an official release, the US has said the following:

What is Military-Civil Fusion (MCF)?

Military-Civil Fusion is a national strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to develop the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) into a world class military by 2049. Under MCF, the CCP is acquiring the intellectual property, key research, and technological advances of the worlds citizens, researchers, scholars, and private industry in order to advance the CCPs military aims. The CCP is systematically reorganizing the Chinese science and technology enterprise to ensure that new innovations simultaneously advance economic and military development. PRC President and CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping personally oversees the strategys implementation. He chairs the CCPs Central Military Commission and the Central Commission for Military-Civil Fusion Development.

Its goal is to enable the PRC to develop the most technologically advanced military in the world. As the name suggests, a key part of MCF is the elimination of barriers between Chinas civilian research and commercial sectors, and it's military and defence industrial sectors. The CCP is implementing this strategy, not just through its own research and development efforts, but also by acquiring and diverting the worlds cutting-edge technologies  including through theft  in order to achieve military dominance.

Why is MCF so important to the Chinese Communist Party?

The CCP sees MCF as critical to advancing its regional and global ambitions. It believes that artificial intelligence (AI) will drive the next revolution in military affairs and that the first country to apply AI to next-generation warfare will achieve military dominance. MCF aims to pave the way for the PRC to be the first country to transition to intelligent warfare, and therefore develop the military capabilities it sees as critical to achieving these goals.

What technologies are targeted under MCF?

Key technologies being targeted under MCF include quantum computing, big data, semiconductors, 5G, advanced nuclear technology, aerospace technology, and AI The PRC specifically seeks to exploit the inherent dual-use nature of many of these technologies, which have both military and civilian applications.

How is the PRC targeting these technologies?

The CCP is developing and acquiring key technologies through licit and illicit means. These include investment in private industries, talent recruitment programs, directing academic and research collaboration to military gain, forced technology transfer, intelligence gathering, and outright theft. CCPs MCF strategy allows a growing number of civilian enterprises and entities to undertake classified military R&D and weapons production. The CCP also exploits the open and transparent nature of the global research enterprise to bolster its own military capabilities through bodies like the China Scholarship Council, which requires academic scholarship recipients to report on their overseas research to P.R.C. diplomats.

Why should we be concerned about MCF?

MCF threatens the trust, transparency, reciprocity, and shared values that underpin international science and technology collaboration and fair global business practices. In a clandestine and non-transparent manner, the CCP is acquiring the intellectual property, key research, and technological advancements of the worlds citizens, researchers, scholars, and private industry in order to advance military aims. Joint research institutions, academia, and private firms are all being exploited to build the PLAs future military systemsoften without their knowledge or consent.
A Fort Worth women's prison is experiencing one of the largest confirmed outbreaks of COVID-19 at a federal prison after more than 500 inmates tested positive for the deadly virus, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in inmates at Federal Medical Center-Carswell jumped to 510 on Tuesday. Three inmates have died from the virus and three staff members have also tested positive. According to the BOP's statistics, only four inmates have recovered since the outbreak began.

Were like a whole bunch of hamsters in a cage chasing our own tails, Holli Chapman, an inmate at Carswell, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

LOCKED INSIDE: An outbreak at Harris County Jail was the 'nightmare scenario.' Then it actually happened.

Only FCI Seagoville, a low security federal correctional institution also based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, had more infected inmates, with 1,156 cases as of Tuesday, per the BOP.

The BOP said in a statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram it is monitoring COVID-19 at all its prisons and is taking steps to prevent the spread of the virus.

As with any type of emergency situation, we carefully assess how to best ensure the safety of staff, inmates and the public, the agency said in the statement. All of our facilities are implementing the BOPs guidance on mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

The BOP has begun additional testing of asymptomatic inmates to assist in slowing transmission within a correctional setting.

FMC-Carswell holds female inmates with medical and mental health issues and many of the women have preexisting conditions. Public health officials have made clear that the most vulnerable people are ones with preexisting conditions and weak immune systems.

The most recent and third prisoner death happened on Monday when 51-year-old Teresa Ely died from the virus. The first prisoner, Andrea Circle Bear, died in April. In July, 69-year-old Sandra Kincaid became the second woman to die there from the virus.

According to state leaders, common places for COVID-19 outbreaks in Texas include nursing homes, jails and meatpacking plants. An outbreak was reported at the Harris County Jail after more than 1,000 inmates and jail staff had contracted the virus by mid-May, the Houston Chronicle reported.

As of yesterday, the BOP has 129,236 federal inmates in BOP-managed institutions and 13,708 in community-based facilities. The BOP staff complement is approximately 36,000. There are 4,167 federal inmates and 350 BOP staff who have confirmed positive test results for COVID-19 nationwide.

shelby.stewart@chron.com
An international student has pleaded guilty over a fatal car crash that killed a young backpacker on a dream holiday in Australia.

Vivian Ng admitted causing the car crash that killed Irishwoman Amy Gill, 23, and another man on the New South Wales/Victorian border in February 2019.

Her lawyer Kylie McDonald acknowledged there was a 'high likelihood' her client will face prison time over the horror crash.

Ng pleaded guilty to two counts of dangerous driving occasioning death and two counts of dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm at the New South Wales District Court on Wednesday, news.com.au reported.

Amy Gill, 23 (pictured) was killed in a collision near the NSW/VIC border in February 2019

She will face sentencing on October 16.

The Malaysian student was driving in a black Volswagen Passat when it crossed into incoming traffic and collided head-on with a Holden at Salisbury West, north of Bendigo in Victoria, last February.

The two passengers in the back died at the scene.

One of them was Irish backpacker Ms Gill who was travelling to her second day of work at a tomato farm with her best friend Catherine Langan.

The two had left Mayo in Ireland only a month earlier on January 14 to embark on 'a life changing trip Down Under'.

They had only been in Australia for a few weeks before tragedy struck.

The irish backpacker (pictured) had left Mayo in Ireland only a month earlier with her best friend Catherine Langan on January 14 to embark on 'a life changing trip Down Under'

Family members raised more than $70,00 through a crowdfunding page Go Fund Me to bring the backpacker's body back home to rural Ireland.

At the funeral, an emotional tribute was read out from Ms Langan who was still recovering in a Melbourne hospital from her own injuries.

Amy was remembered as 'the most caring, modest, understanding person' she had ever met.

While the funeral's celebrant Father Peter Gannon described her as 'a beautiful girl in every respect'.

'Her tragic death has been like a blackout in her community. One moment the sun was shining, the next we were plunged into darkness,' Father Gannon said.

Amy's family members will attend the sentencing hearing via video link from Ireland.
A scientist who denied the existence of bisexual men has admitted it is biologically possible to be attracted to both sexes.

Fifteen years after a controversial report, Dr Gerulf Rieger from the University of Essex presents 'robust evidence' that bisexuality is not just a label but a biological fact.

In a U-turn on his previous findings, Dr Rieger presents 'compelling evidence' that bisexual-identified men show bisexual genital and subjective arousal patterns.

Researchers based their findings on an analysis of more than 400 men's penile responses to erotic videos of men and women.

Male sexual orientation is expressed on a continuum rather than 'dichotomously'  divided into two parts or classifications, Dr Rieger and his co-authors say.

Male sexual orientation and arousal encompasses a 'range', with heterosexuality on one end, homosexuality on the other and bisexuality in the middle.

Pictured: Dr Gerulf Rieger. His scepticism stemmed from a previous small study he had done with Professor J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University in 2005, and which found no evidence of bisexual arousal in men

Male bisexuality had been challenged based on the assumption that men are either straight or gay, with 'nothing in between', but this study indicates that bisexual men have been 'telling the truth', according to the university.

Dr Gerulf Rieger said: 'It has always been clear that bisexual men exist in terms of self-identity and behaviour, but many, including myself, were sceptical about their ability to be sexually aroused to both men and women.

'Now, with this exceptional number of participants, we have clear proof of their bisexual arousal.

'This reshapes our entire understanding of male sexual orientation.'

Dr Riegers and Professor J. Michael Bailey or Northwestern University in the US had published a small study back in 2005 disputing the existence of bisexuality.

They wrote: 'Male bisexuality appears primarily to represent a style of interpreting or reporting sexual arousal rather than a distinct pattern of genital sexual arousal.'

The study was based on experiments at the university at the time, which were covered by the New York Times in an article titled 'Straight, Gay or Lying?', causing dismay in the bisexual community.

The researchers had found that three quarters of men who described themselves as bisexual had the same sort of arousal patterns as gay men when showed erotic films.

The remaining quarter had arousal patterns from heterosexual men, which led to report that bisexuality did not physically exist.

However, a further study by the same team in 2011 confirmed the existence of bisexual arousal in men.

The new analysis includes data from both of these studies, as well as six others, which affords 'much greater statistical power' than data from any of the individual studies on their own.

'We investigated whether men who self-report bisexual feelings tend to produce bisexual arousal patterns,' the researchers say.

'Prior studies of this issue have been small, used potentially invalid statistical tests, and produced inconsistent findings.'

The existence of male bisexuality is contested by some, with sceptics claiming that men who self-identify as bisexual are actually either homosexual or heterosexual

Researchers combined nearly all available data, from eight previous American, British and Canadian studies, to form a dataset of more than 500 men around 29 years of age, much larger than any previous individual study, and conducted rigorous statistical tests.

Each study assessed changes in the penile circumference of participants, most of which were collected using a strain gauge around the penis.

The eight previous studies used Kinsey scores  a measure of self-reported sexual orientation used by many researchers  and measures of genital and self-reported arousal to erotic stimuli.

The Kinsey scale describes a person's sexual orientation, ranging from 0 (heterosexual) to 6 (homosexual).

In the bisexual Kinsey score range (2-4), the men showed smaller differences in genital arousal to male versus female erotic stimuli, compared with exclusively heterosexual and homosexual men having Kinsey scores of 0 and 6, respectively.

Self-reported arousal across the Kinsey scale - a measure of self-reported sexual orientation used by many researchers. The scale describes a person's sexual orientation, ranging from 0 (heterosexual) to 6 (homosexual)

Genital arousal patterns (above) aligned with self-reported sexuality in the Kinsey scale (as seen in the first image). In the bisexual Kinsey score range (2-4), the men showed smaller differences in genital arousal to male versus female erotic stimuli

Researchers also considered two measures  firstly, whether erotic videos of women aroused bisexual men more than they aroused gay men and whether erotic videos of men aroused bisexual men more than they aroused straight men.

Bisexual men were aroused more in both instances, they found.

Secondly, they examined the difference in each man's arousal to women and men, to see if bisexual men would show less difference in arousal to women and men, compared with straight and gay men.

Bisexual men showed less difference to arousal in both sexes, they also concluded.

The results showed smaller differences in bisexual men's genital arousal to male versus female erotic stimuli, compared with exclusively heterosexual and homosexual men.

'Our results paint a powerful picture of male sexual orientation having gradients and nuance,' said lead author Jeremy Jabbour, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University.

'Although I dont think that bisexual men need research like this to validate or justify their lived experience to others, Im hopeful that findings such as ours will continue to help the public see the many shades of gray that exist in human sexuality.'

One of the co-authors of the paper is John Sylla, president of the American Institute of Bisexuality, a charity focused on bisexual research and education.

Sylla said people who are purely straight or purely gay can 'generalise their own experience' and think all other people 'must be one or the other'.

'There are bisexually aroused men and women, even if for different reasons they choose to pass as just straight or gay,' he said.

The studies only concern bisexual men because 'the existence of female bisexuality has been less controversial'.

The study, 'Robust evidence for bisexual orientation among men', has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Groups such as Citizens Against Beltway Expansion and the Sierra Club already were alarmed by how the deck seemed stacked against such options as increased transit and telecommuting options. Now that the virus has forced us to shift so many of our habits, they wonder whether Maryland should be reconsidering a $10 billion public-private partnership that would see houses, parks and playgrounds demolished so acres of concrete and asphalt can take their place.
On May 21st, Mary Kay Inc., an advocate for global womens empowerment and entrepreneurship, joined the International Women's Forum (IWF) Virtual Conference, for a session titled SAFE SETS: An online panel discussion with TIMES UP UK.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005187/en/

Carolyn Passey, General Manager, Mary Kay United Kingdom & Ireland (Photo: Mary Kay Inc.)

The live session tackled the ever-present issue for women across the globe: sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace. TIMES UP UK stressed the critical importance of changing the culture to ensure a safe workplace free from harassment and referred to the work being done to define safety for women in film through intimacy guidelines.

The speakers with TIMES UP UK included:

Dame Heather Rabbatts, TIMES UP UK Chair, Managing Director of Cove Pictures; Chair of Soho Theatre and non-executive board member for Arts Alliance.

TIMES UP UK Chair, Managing Director of Cove Pictures; Chair of Soho Theatre and non-executive board member for Arts Alliance. Ita OBrien, the UKs leading Intimacy Coordinator and founder of Intimacy on Set, her company through which she has been developing best practices regarding intimacy and nudity in film, television and theatre and through which she trains Intimacy Coordinators all over the world.

TIMES UPs efforts will help bring about broader change for women in the workplace  worldwide and across industries, said Carolyn Passey, General Manager of Mary Kay UK and Ireland. As one of the worlds leading champions of womens empowerment, Mary Kay is proud to support, through IWF, women leaders who are standing up to give fellow women a voice, help them embrace their identity and define their own boundaries.

What was increasingly apparent throughout the conversation was how #MeToo and TIMES UP have had a huge and positive influence for changing the way productions work, how they are shifting to better practices in many new ways, and in particular with the new role of the Intimacy Coordinator, said Dame Heather Rabbatts. The conversation about safe sets is about how we make the culture shift, one industry after another, until we dont need to have this conversation ever again.

Yes, means yes, no means no, and maybe means no  we celebrate and embrace the no, emphasized Ita OBrien, when talking of the process during which actors get to voice their comfort level when shooting intimate scenes. The firm founded by OBrien, Intimacy on Set, has put in place guidelines to provide clear lanes of communication and consent not only between actors, but also everyone else involved in shooting intimate and emotional scenes. Clear boundaries actually create freedom and help understand what is right for you.

This line goes to the heart of the matter, and how we are all learning to express where our boundaries lie, and not being afraid to share them, concluded Dame Heather Rabbatts. Having in place some mechanisms to protect yourself is very important, so that we know we can exercise a no. This should empower us in all the sticky and difficult situations that happen in life, whether personal or professional.

It is invigorating to witness the influential work that female thought leaders and advocates have achieved over the past several years for the advancement of womens safety and security in the workplace. These women, some of the most influential thought leaders in the United Kingdom, are on a mission to champion the next generation of women to become tomorrows leaders, said Marty Wikstrom, Member of IWF U.K. and co-chair of the Cornerstone Conference. IWF has been advancing womens leadership and championing equality worldwide since 1974, and Mary Kay has been an advocate of womens entrepreneurship and leadership since 1963. This session reflects a meeting of the minds, and we are proud to showcase this female-fueled partnership.

About Mary Kay

One of the original glass ceiling breakers, Mary Kay Ash founded her beauty company more than 56 years ago with three goals: develop rewarding opportunities for women, offer irresistible products, and make the world a better place. That dream has blossomed into a multibillion-dollar company with millions of independent sales force members in nearly 40 countries. Mary Kay is dedicated to investing in the science behind beauty and manufacturing cutting-edge skin care, color cosmetics, nutritional supplements and fragrances. Mary Kay is committed to empowering women and their families by partnering with organizations from around the world, focusing on supporting cancer research, protecting survivors from domestic abuse, beautifying our communities, and encouraging children to follow their dreams. Mary Kay Ashs original vision continues to shineone lipstick at a time. Learn more at MaryKay.com.

About International Womens Forum (IWF) and the Leadership Foundation

IWF is an invitation-only membership organization of more than 7,000 diverse and accomplished women from 33 nations on six continents. IWF advances womens leadership and champions equality worldwide by connecting accomplished women both globally and locally. Members include Fortune 500 executives, government leaders from the local to sovereign level, international nonprofit leaders, and luminaries from the academy, arts and sciences: www.iwforum.org.

About TIMES UP UK

TIMES UP is an organisation that insists on safe, fair and dignified work for women of all kinds. In response to the growing TIMES UP movement in the US, a group of UK-based women: actors, producers, writers and others from the film, TV and theatre industries catalysed a sister initiative in the UK. For maximum impact it is set up under the TIMES UP brand and aims to amplify and reinforce the message already promoted in the US.

The UK movement seeks to build on key elements of the solidarity letter released by TIMES UP and the statement by the activists attending the Globes, which emphasised the need to highlight the connections between the harassment revelations in Hollywood and the wider, systematic nature of harassment and violence against women across all industries, contexts and countries with the recognition that this issue is universal. We seek strength in unity and maximum cooperation. The activist statement also flagged the ways in which the TIMES UP initiative joins an ever-growing collective of organisations, movements and leaders working to end gender-based violence. The UK work stands absolutely in solidarity with existing movements: TIMES UP UK is also now a recently formed charity, and as a charity we can only continue the work with support and donations. We all appreciate that we are experiencing unprecedented challenges but as TIMES UP focusses on safety for all women in the workplace, which now includes the home, we hope you will be able to support us: www.timesupuk.org.

About Intimacy on Set

Founded in 2018, Intimacy on Set provides services to TV, film, & theatre when dealing with intimacy, sexual content, and nudity. Its Founder, UKs leading Intimacy Coordinator, Ita OBrien, pioneered the role of the Intimacy Coordinator and since 2014 has been developing best practice Intimacy on Set Guidelines, which have been widely adopted in the industry. Championed by the TIMES UP movement and others, the firm advocates for safe, fair and dignified work for everyone. OBrien has worked on numerous high profile productions including Normal People (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), Gangs of London (Sky Atlantic), The Great (Hulu) and I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), and has been widely covered in the national and international media as the leading spokesperson in this space: www.intimacyonset.com/.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005187/en/
A Statement Issued By The Prominent Civil Rights Group; Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) in Response to the Statement from The Presidency Explaining The Incessant Killings in Southern Kaduna, calling for a state of Emergency to be Declared in Kaduna State to Curb the Organized Genocide going on in the State and noting the Failure of the Attorney General of the Federation and the Inspector General of Police in bringing The Perpetrators to Justice. THE PROMINENT CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCACY GROUP- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) ALSO CARPETED THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IN THE HAGUE NETHERLANDS FOR FAILING TO ACT ON THE NUMEROUS PETITIONS ON THESE KILLINGS SENT TO THE BODY OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS:

BRIEF:

It cannot be gainsaid nor overemphasized that the primary role and duty of any government is to keep the society intact and in peace section 14(2)(B) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended.

All over the world, maintenance of law and order is ensured through the police, armed forces and the courts by protecting the liberties of individuals in the society. This is done by regulating the conduct of individuals living within the society and punishing offenders of law.

Based of the above, it is the duty of the government to protect lives and properties of the citizens residing within the country and outside the country as the case may be. This ensures the enjoyment of the right to life (Section 33(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended and to own and use properties section 44(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 as amended.

In Nigeria, violent attacks by Armed Fulani herders from northern Nigeria against sedentary agrarian community for their landed assets in the central and southern zones have escalated in recent years and are spreading southward, threatening the countrys security and stability. Indeed these armed marauders are the greatest threats to national security of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and unfortunately the government of the day has continuously provided the needed motivation and encouragement to these armed terrorists based on their Ethno-religious affiliations to the top officials of the Federal Government of Nigeria headed by President Muhammadu Buhari. The media office of the President has become the official media spin doctors of these killer herders who kill at will and are never arrested neither has the central government done the needful to DECLARE ARMEDFULANI HERDSMEN AS A TERRORIST GROUP but the same government was too quick to wrongly declare the unarmed civilians under the auspices of the Indigenous peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and the Islamic Movement of Nigeria as terrorists groups only because they are demanding sekf determination and freedom for their unjustly incarcerated national leader Sheikh Elzakzacky. This is a shameful show of hypocrisy and indeed the most inexplicable political hypocrisy of the 21st century World.

With a daily occurrence, these killings of farmers and innocent civilians in their homes including the burning down of their homes and Churches are becoming as potentially dangerous as the Boko Haram insurgency in the north east. Yet, to date, response to the terrorism of the armed Fulani herdsmen at both the federal and state levels has been poor.

Our team, with the single agenda of building a formidable and economically strong united Nigeria is worried that Nigeria stands the risk of witnessing massive reprisal killings because of the bloody violence unleashed on farming communities all over Nigeria without the Federal Government doing anything under the law to arrest, prosecute and punish the armed Fulani herdsmen and their sponsors in and out of government circles.

Hence, our complete and independent initiative as a prominent civil rights group with no political affiliations, looking at the Presidencys statement on the recent attack in southern Kaduna questions and the readiness of this government to protect the lives and properties of innocent citizens, which is the primary duty of any sincere government. To put it mildly, the attempt by the President to explain away the killings by armed Fulani herdsmen of villagers in Southern Kaduna State as reprisals is the most reprehensible and primitive approach to a grave threats to our national security. Nigeria is on fire and all that we hear from the central government are empty rhetoric and sophistry that sounds like tales by moonlight.

THE ISSUE:

The ceaseless and unending violent attacks of the Christian dominated Southern Kaduna State by armed Fulani herdsmen whilst the Kaduna State Governor Nassir Elruffai speaks from both sides of his mouth and does nothing to stop these incessant killings with the latest being the killing of 21 villagers in Kagoro, in Kaura local government area council of Southern Kaduna State by armed Fulani herdsmen who were said to be hiding on top of the Kagoro hills is traumatising

More worrisome is that the Presidency is handling the matter with kid gloves evident from the statement by the Spokesperson of the President; Mr. Garba Shehu wherein he explained the incessant killings in southern Kaduna state of Nigeria.

Garba Shehu in the statement and speaking on behalf of the Presidency said that the problem of insecurity in the southern Kaduna is more complicated than many people are willing to imagine. We ask: please what are these complications? Is it that these Armed Fulani murderers enjoy unofficial immunity or those behind them are untouchable? The Presidency should come out clear and tell us.

If Southern Kaduna enjoys comprehensive security deployments made up of the Army, Special Forces of both the Army and the air force, surveillance aircraft by the Air force and mobile police units that are on a 24-hour basis to forestall criminality and keep peace as claimed by the Presidency, how come an alarming spate of armed violence and terrorism are over widening in space? Or are they just an occupation force preying on the people rather than protecting them?

Last month, the Kaura L.G.A Youths had told the World that there were armed Fulani herdsmen camping on top of Kagoro hills but both the Kaduna State Governor and his commissioner for internal security disputed this claim. Where were these security deployments?

Aside the Southern Kaduna, which has been volatile, serial attacks by these Armed Fulani bandits masquerading as herdsmen abound. This year alone between January to now, we have recorded violent attacks from them and all the Presidency could do is to advice the local authorities to radically improve their intelligence capabilities so that security agencies will be alerted in a timely manner to enable them forestall any planned attacks. What happened when the Youths in Kaura alerted the state government? How about practical steps to address the issue through bringing the perpetrators to book?

Between January and July this year in Kaduna State, there have been over 63 attacks and kidnapping incidents, in which over 107 people have been killed, around 49 injured, and over 66 men, women and girls abducted for ransom. In addition, over 111 houses have been burnt, 32 entire villages destroyed and 20, 000 persons displaced. These attacks have continued to happen despite the Special Forces in place as claimed by the Presidency.

Apart from kaduna State and for the purpose of emphasis, other states have not been left out in these serial attacks by Armed Fulani herdsmen. The evil activities are taking place in all parts of the South East; Abia, Imo, Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi and other regions. The people have been crying especially in the face of the emphasis the Federal Government places on Agriculture. None of the herdsmen have been arrested and tried by the law enforcement agencies. Yet the evil acts continue unabated.

OUR POSITION:

We reject the Presidencys explanation in the characterization of the serial attacks in the southern Kaduna state as a conflict. What kind of conflict is it that hacks children to death when they are sleeping? This laziness of language should stop.

The problem is that of massive and irresponsible governance, and the fact that Governor Nasir ElRufai in particular, who is the Chief Security Officer of the State and the Federal Government at large have failed to address the crisis in an even-handed manner.

Government should go back and study the Section 33, sub section 1 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which states that the right to life and safety is paramount and remains the reason of all other rights..

Given the intense insecurity in southern Kaduna, preventive measures are urgently needed. Affected communities in Southern kaduna and other parts of the country currently grappling with this high wave of herdsmen attack must be made to feel like their lives and the monumental impact of the crisis matters. Ending impunity also means reducing the chances of violence and punishing offenders as international scholars have affirmed.

The Global Terrorism Index in 2015 classified Armed Fulani Herdsmen as Fulani Militants and ranked as the fourth deadliest in the world and the biased policy of President Muhammadu in appeasing the killer armed Fulani herdsmen is the single most dangerous public relations damage being done to the Nigerian Fulani community because the violent activities of the few who are being backed by some influential power wielders in the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is making other multi Ethnic and Religious groups in Nigeria to perceive the Fulani indigenous Nigerians as war mongers and mass killers.

We restate that the best solution to this building up of toxic perception about the Fulani ethnicity is for the current administration to declare armed Fulani herdsmen as terrorists so the anti-terrorism law is applied fully to deal decisively with the killer Fulani herdsmen who have clearly declared war on Nigeria and Nigerians including even the peace loving Fulani like those killed by armed Fulani herdsmen in a part of Bauchi State not too long ago.

It would be recalled that we have for over fifty times within the last five years asked that President Muhammadu to emphatically declare armed Fulani herdsmen as terrorists because of the cocktails of organised genocides and mass murders that they have continued to perpetrate since the last few Years resulting in the killings of over 6,000 innocent people all over the nation with the epicentre being the North Central states of Southern Kaduna State, Benue and Plateau states and more recent times, the South East.

President Muhammadu Buharis administration and the affected state governments need to work together, taking immediate steps to shore up security for farmers, strengthening conflict resolution mechanisms and initiating long term efforts to reform livestock management practices, address negative environmental trends and curb cross-border movements of both cattle rustlers and armed herders.

We will not forget to state here that the Attorney General of the Federation; the number one law officer of the country together with the Inspector General of Police; the number one law enforcement officer of the country have failed spectacularly to bring the perpetrators to Justice which leaves a question mark on their ability to occupy such offices.

We urge the President; His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR) in the strongest possible term to declare a state of emergency in Kaduna State so Soldiers and armed security forces can continuously comb the forest and hills to decimate and degrade the armed Fulani herdsmen camping in those places.

COMRADE EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO:

NATIONAL COORDINATOR.

MISS. ZAINAB YUSUF:

DIREVTOR OF MEDIA AFFAIRS.

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA).

22/JULY/2020.


Regulatory News:

Groupe SEB (Paris:SK) is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement to take a majority stake in StoreBound, owner of the Dash brand of Kitchenware, which has emerged as the top choice among health-conscious consumers in America. The transaction is expected to be completed by July 31st, 2020.

Founded in 2010, StoreBound develops housewares focused on better living under brands including Dash, Sobro, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian and others, and distributes its products through top-tier US retailers off-line et on-line.

In just 8 years, StoreBound has built the largest organic social media following in the US industry, attracting notably over 1-million Instagram followers, earned billions of marketing impressions, and product distribution in North South America, Europe and Asia.

The company has launched over 200 products through a strong omnichannel distribution model, combining offline retail, e-commerce and social media.

StoreBound's sales have been increasing rapidly, amounting to over $100M in the past 12 months. Headquartered in New York City, the company employs around 50 people. StoreBound was recognized on the INC List of Fastest Growing Businesses for 4 consecutive years and in the Top 100 of the Entrepreneur 360 List in 2019.

Thierry de La Tour d'Artaise, CEO of Groupe SEB, stated: "With the investment in StoreBound, we will strengthen our presence in the American housewares market. With its strong and innovative business model and brands, StoreBound is very complementary to our consumer business in the US. The company has launched over 200 products and built the largest organic social media following in the US industry. We are pleased to welcome the StoreBound team and founders into the Groupe SEB family."

Evan Dash, CEO and Founder of StoreBound, stated: "After our careers in retail, my wife, Rachel and I started StoreBound to inspire people to enjoy healthy home cooked meals shared around the table with loved ones. In less than 10 years, StoreBound has emerged as the market leader for health-conscious consumers in the US. We are proud to join Groupe SEB, a respected fellow industry player, combining iconic brands, manufacturing capabilities and global strength. We are looking forward to leveraging their innovation engine to accelerate our pace of new product introductions while strengthening our global operating capabilities.

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World reference in small domestic equipment, Groupe SEB operates with a unique portfolio of more than 30 top brands including Tefal, Seb, Rowenta, Moulinex, Krups, Lagostina, All-Clad, WMF, Emsa, Supor, marketed through multi-format retailing. Selling more than 360 million products a year, it deploys a long-term strategy focused on innovation, international development, competitiveness and service to clients. With products being present in over 150 countries, Groupe SEB generated sales of approximately 7.3 billion in 2019 and had more than 34,000 employees worldwide.

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A building is inundated by flood in Zhenjiang, China, on July 20, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

As China Suffers From Severe Flooding, Regimes Leaders Disappear From Public

As hundreds of millions are impacted by historic flooding in China, the Communist Party leaderships noticeable absence drew the attention of citizens and China analysts.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not show up in public for 21 days until July 21, when he hosted an economic seminar in Beijing.

Then, on Wednesday, he visited the Siping Battle Memorial Hall in northeastern Chinas Jilin province. During Chinas civil war, from March 1946 to March 1948, the Kuomintang (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fought four grueling battles in Siping, which killed at least 55,000 soldiers from both sides. The CCP won the first and last battle, while the KMT won the second and third ones.

On both occasions, he did not mention the severe flooding in at least 27 Chinese provinces and regionscaused by heavy rainfall since June. Nor have Xi or other members of the Politburo Standing Committeethe Partys most powerful decision-making bodyvisited the disaster areas to command relief tasks, as their predecessors did. Only Premier Li Keqiang has made a brief visit to a flooded village in early July.

The CCPs top leaders have not appeared much in public throughout 2020.

U.S.-based China political affairs commentator Zhong Yuan noted that this is unusual for the Party. He raised the question of whether the senior officials left Beijing in order to avoid contracting the CCP virus.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping arranges his papers at the closing session of the regimes rubber-stamp legislature in Beijing, on May 28, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Xi Jinping

On the afternoon of July 21, Xi hosted a seminar for entrepreneurs in Beijing, joined by two Politburo standing committee members Wang Huning and Han Zheng, as well as other senior central government officials.

Executives at some of Chinas biggest firms were in attendance: Chen Zongnian, chairman and Party leader of Hikvision, the surveillance equipment manufacturer; Ning Gaoning, chairman and Party leader of Sinochem, a state-run oil and gas conglomerate; Huang Li, chairman of Wuhan Guide Infrared, a manufacturer of infrared thermal imaging equipment; Jiang Bin, chairman of Goertek, an acoustic components company; Hsiao-Wuen Hon, chairman of Microsofts Asia-Pacific R&D Group; and Zhao Bingdi, president of Panasonic China.

At the seminar, Xi mentioned power-to-money trading between CCP officials and companies, as well as commercial bribery, according to state media reports, hinting that corruption was a big problem in the country.

Xi claimed that the Chinese economy was in good shape, but also made a point to encourage the individual merchant.

Earlier in June, individual merchants were a concept promoted when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang proposed reviving street vendor markets in order to alleviate the unemployment crisis.

But Xi soon made remarks contradicting Lis proposal, stating that China had a large middle-class population.

With Xi making positive comments on individual merchants for the first time, some analysts said it could be an indicator that the economic downturn has gotten so severe that Xi was forced to reverse his position.

This aerial view shows submerged streets and inundated buildings after a dam was breached due to flooding in Jiujiang city, Jiangxi Province, China, on July 13, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Floods

Aside from Lis visit to a village in Tongren city in southwestern Chinas Guizhou Province on July 6 and 7, no other top official has toured the disaster zones.

The highest-ranking official to be sent to the disaster regions is E Jingping, Chinas minister of water resources, who visited Jiangxi Province on July 12.

Wang Yong, head of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and member of the cabinet-like State Council, has not yet visited the flooded areas.

Guizhou has experienced flooding since early June. Mudslides buried villages in Tongren and other cities since then, but state-run media have barely covered the news, while authorities have not assessed the overall damage or number of casualties.

Guizhou is one of the poorest provinces in China. In rural areas, many live in houses made of mud and straw, making them susceptible to storm damage.

On July 19, Guizhou Meteorological Bureau alerted locals that more heavy rain will hit the province, and with rainfall between 6 to 7.9 inches in the following 48 hours.

Heavy flooding has also damaged large swathes of the central and eastern provinces of Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Hunan.

Officially, authorities stated that at least 43 million people were impacted, with nearly 3 million losing their homes. But many suspect the true damage is even greater.

More rainfall is forecasted, as Chinas three major rivers have overflowed and may have embankment breaches at any time.

A tourist site is submerged by floods near the Yangtze river in Zhenjiang city, Jiangsu Province, China on July 20, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Hiding

According to state media, Xi hosted one video conference to discuss the disaster on July 17 and delivered two messages about the flooding to officials on June 28 and July 12.

Zhong Yuan commented on July 22 that it is unusual for central government leaders and provincial Party bosses to be missing during such large-scale catastrophes. CCP leaders used to show up on the frontlines to create an image of being close to the people, he noted.

Zhong analyzed Xis written instructions to officials, as published on state media, and the public reactions of each level official. He concluded that local governments have not followed Xis orders, nor responded to peoples needs.

They dont care about peoples lives and losses, Zhong commented.

As Xi and other senior leaders have kept a low profile since January, Zhong questioned whether they are trying to avoid public appearances and protect themselves from contracting COVID-19especially as Beijing recently experienced a new wave outbreak.
Dillehay said the proposed date for the artifacts may be valid if it stands up to further examination. But he suspects they arent more than 20,000 years old and probably fall in the range of 15,000 to 18,000 years old. He doesnt question that some of the artifacts are probably man-made, but said he would like to see other evidence of human occupation of the cave, such as hearths, butchered bones and burned edible plant remains.
A factory fishing vessel that docked in the Alaska fishing port of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands has 85 crew members infected on board with the coronavirus, officials said.

The boat named the American Triumph has departed the Dutch Harbor community of Unalaska late Sunday or early Monday and will travel hundreds of miles to the community of Seward, arriving Wednesday, Alaskas Energy Desk reported Sunday.

The 85 infected workers represent more than two-thirds of the crew on the ship owned by Seattle-based American Seafoods Group LLC, one of the biggest firms in the billion-dollar Bering Sea pollock fishery.

The crew members who tested positive and medical personnel will be taken to Anchorage for further care and monitoring after the ship arrives in Seward.

American Seafoods spokeswoman Suzanne Lagoni said all crew members will be housed in a secure facility in Anchorage.

The Triumph will be deep cleaned and sanitized before continuing to fish for pollock in the Bering Sea, Lagoni said.

Lagoni cited privacy protection when declining to provide a breakdown of the nationalities of crew members.

We are proud of the diversity of our crews, Lagoni said. They all have the right to work on our vessels.

The ship arrived in Unalaska Thursday with seven crew members reporting symptoms consistent with COVID-19 infection.

The seven workers tested positive, leading to virus screening of the remaining 112 crew by Unalaska clinic Iliuliuk Family and Health Services.

All crew members were restricted to the vessel or isolation locations while the ship was docked in Unalaska, city officials said.

Unalaska is the largest community in Alaska without a critical access hospital, and the nearest emergency room is almost 1,000 miles away in Anchorage.

American Seafoods staffed the ship with an additional paramedic to assist crew members during the sailing, while the vessel plans to hug the coast for easier evacuation if necessary, said Melanee Tiura, chief executive of the Iliuliuk clinic.

There are exit strategies if that additional level of care is needed, Tirua said.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for some  especially older adults and people with existing health problems  it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics COVID-19
He was always praying for his friends, always praying for his family, always praying for the sickle cell disease community, Ashley said. Hed wake up and say, Im in a lot of pain today, but Im happy and feeling grateful and fortunate to live another day, and then he would use that day to try and make the world a better place for everyone around him.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- In 1946, at the height of Soviet dictator Josef Stalins cultural offensive against bourgeois art, the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. issued a resolution condemning this citys foremost literary magazines, Zvezda and Leningrad, and in particular their publication of the supposedly seditious works of satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko and poet Anna Akhmatova.

Accused of poisoning Soviet minds, the two writers were fired, shunned by the powerful Writers Union, and stripped of their income and status. The episode, which paved the way for a purge that became known as the Leningrad Affair, would be cited as an example of authoritarian persecution of independent artists and help elevate Zoshchenko and Akhmatova to the pantheon of dissenters seen as sacrificing their own creative freedom by standing up to the totalitarian regime.

But it wasnt until 50 years later, in 1996, that Veniamin Iofe, a historian of Stalin-era repressions, uncovered an official document proving that Zoshchenko and Akhmatova had become collateral in an internecine Communist Party conflict targeting Stalins chief ideologue, Andrei Zhdanov. For Irina Flige, Iofes widow, the story of Zoshchenko and Akhmatovas downfall -- and the black-and-white interpretations it prompted -- contains important lessons for observers of another prosecution taking place in modern Russia: the trial of Yury Dmitriyev, a gulag researcher who on July 22 was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison on a child sexual-abuse charge he and his supporters say was trumped up to silence him.

The authorities work under a different logic, Flige said in an interview at the St. Petersburg offices of Memorial, a prominent NGO that documents the crimes of Russias totalitarian past. The people who decided to arrest Dmitriyev -- we dont know what their intentions were.

State prosecutors had asked the judge presiding over the trial in Petrozavodsk to sentence the 64-year-old to 15 years in a penal colony. To his supporters, the far softer punishment, which due to time served means Dmitriyev will be released in September, confirms that the evidence presented was weak and unconvincing.

The absolutely groundless nature of the accusations was obvious from the outset, said Flige, who heads the St. Petersburg branch of Memorials historical research center. And a sentence like this on such serious charges means one thing: The prosecution had no evidence that Dmitriyev was guilty of any abusive sexual acts toward his adoptive daughter.

In July 1997, Dmitriyev, Iofe, and Flige discovered a mass grave of prisoners of the gulag forced-labor camps, hidden in the forests of Karelia near Russias border with Finland. Over the next two decades, Dmitriyev would devote himself to documenting the identities of the 7,000 former gulag inmates thought to have been executed at the site, known as Sandarmokh, as well as the countless others murdered at similar sites scattered across Russias north.

He continued the work even after his arrest in December 2016 on suspicion of producing child pornography and committing lewd acts with his adopted daughter, charges that he has vehemently denied from the outset. He was acquitted in April 2018, but Karelias Supreme Court ordered a retrial that June after a graver charge was added -- "violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a person under 14 years of age"  launching a new case that culminated with the July 22 judgment.

Dmitriyevs second trial unfolded in parallel with a state-backed campaign to dig up part of the Sandarmokh burial site in a bid to prove a controversial theory advanced by several Russian historians: that among the skeletons lying in Sandarmokh are hundreds of Soviet POWs executed by the Finns, who occupied Karelia during World War II.

Sergei Koltyrin, a local museum director and critic of the excavations, was sentenced last May to nine years in prison on the same child sexual-abuse charges that Dmitriyev has fought. He died in a prison hospital less than a year later, after an appeal from prosecutors delayed his release on health grounds.

Flige, who is well-acquainted with Dmitriyev since his tenure as the head of Memorials chapter in Karelia, says he was someone the authorities viewed as inconvenient. But while she believes his arrest was likely connected to his historical research, she expressed skepticism at the idea that there was a special order to arrest him in connection with Sandarmokh.

'To End Human Memory?'

The conflict of the individual and the state, the conflict between truth and falsification, are conflicts inherent to modern Russia. A free person sooner or later enters into a conflict with the state, she said. In the case of Dmitriyev, these things came together. Thats why in the popular imagination, he and Sandarmokh merged.

On July 20, in his closing statement ahead of the trials conclusion, Dmitriyev sought to justify the painstaking attention he gave his adopted daughter -- who arrived in his family with health issues related to malnourishment -- and issued a scathing rebuke of the politics of memory engaged in by President Vladimir Putins government, which has challenged all criticism of the Soviet Unions conduct before, during, and after World War II and downplayed the significance of Stalinist repressions.

For better or for worse, my road [in life] is based on retrieving from oblivion those people who died by the hands of our state, having been unjustly accused, executed, buried in forests like homeless animals, he said, according to a transcript of the statement released without attribution by news outlet Meduza. God gave me, perhaps, that cross to bear, but God also gave me that knowledge. Sometimes -- occasionally -- I find places of mass human tragedy. I match them to names and try to make of that place a place of memory, because memory is what makes a human being human.

I completely agree with our state that those who died in [World War II] should be commemorated, because thats part of our memory, he continued. Thats why, your honor, I believe that this casewas specially created with the aim of discrediting my name and casting a shadow over the graves and cemeteries of victims of Stalinist repressions, which I managed to open and to which people now flock. Why was this case started? I certainly dont know. To end human memory? Those actions will not achieve that.

Flige refrained from speculating about the specific reasons for Dmitriyevs arrest, and suggested the truth may emerge in the years to come. But she said his conviction, and the controversial excavations at Sandarmokh, signal an escalation of an ongoing campaign to transform Russias official narrative on history in a way that relativizes at best, and whitewashes at worst, the darkest episodes of its past.

There is a campaign aimed against objective historical research, and its nationwide, she said. But the aim is not to rewrite history. Its to devalue it, to devalue memory. To create a hybrid history.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan held a telephone conversation with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the initiative of the latter.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Offic eof the Prime Minister, PM Pashinyan emphasized that Armenia highly appreciates the consistent focus of the Secretary-General on peace and security in the South Caucasus region. Pashinyan presented the tense situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border resulted by the provocative actions of Azerbaijan, emphasizing that Azerbaijan took these actions against the call of the Secretary general to preserve global peace in the period of the pandemic.

''I assure you that Armenia spared no efforts for ceasing the military operations and easing the tensions'', PM Pashinyan said.

Speaking about the violations of agreements by Azerbaijan on ceasing the military operations, PM Pashinyan added that at this moment one can see the contradictory statements and activities by the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan. ''We understand the the domestic situation in Azerbaijan is serious, but we cannot be held hostage to the trap set by President Aliyev. The hatred and threats of war propogated against Armenia for years had created an illusion of military dominance, which is now disappearing. We have no confidence if the leadership of Azerbaijan has the ability or will to preserve the ceasefire regime and refrain from provocative rhetoric'', Pashinyan said.

Nikol Pashinyan reaffirmed Armenia's commitment to the peaceful settlement, emphasizing that in this particular situation the strengthening of the monitoring capacities of the OSCE and implementation of agreements are of key importance.

''It's necessary that the leadership of Azerbaijan publicly denies using force or the threat to do that. The Azerbaijani leadership must accept that peaceful negotiations have no alternative'', the Armenian PM said.

Antonio Guterres expressed concerns over the escalated situation in the region, emphasiizng the importance of immediate measures aimed at easing the tensions, including by the implementation of the agreements on the strengthening of the ceasefire regime. The UN Secretary general reaffirmed his support to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs' format.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
A Huntsville City council member and a woman running unopposed for a seat on the Madison County Commission pushed the commission today to move a Confederate soldiers monument from outside the courthouse, and one commissioner pushed back in the latest debate about the statues future.

Commissioners were also warned by another speaker its only a matter of time before angry citizens try to pull the statue down themselves. About two dozen people spoke at todays meeting, and those wanting the statue removed outnumbered those wanting it to stay by 3-to-1.

Violet Edwards won the Democratic nomination for County Commission District 6 this month and faces no Republican opposition in November. She invoked U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17, and his praise of good trouble.

When you see something that is not right, that is not fair, something that is not just, you say something and you do something, Edwards quoted Lewis. Thats good trouble.

Taking a long, hard look at the statues history and its purpose for being where it is, thats good trouble, Edwards said. Removing that statue in rebuff of an unjust law is good trouble. Signing a (memorandum of understanding) that you accept the consequences of breaking that law, thats good trouble. Paying the state fine and helping restore unity and peace in our community, thats good trouble.

Edwards said she has more than 13,000 signatures on a petition to move the statue. One of them she identified as Miss E worked in the courthouse 20 years. And while some people say theyve never noticed that statue until recently, Miss E took alternative routes to her desk because she did not want to pass that statue as she entered this building, Edwards said. We have been taunting people of color with that statue for more than 100 years.

Miss Edwards, I dont want to get started off on the wrong foot; youre not in office yet, Commissioner Phil Riddick interjected. But you know that weve taken an oath of office to uphold the laws and constitution of the state of Alabama, and were not likely to just mildly go into violating the law or taking it into our own hands.

Whether we think it is right or not is not the issue, Riddick said. We dont get to make that decision. We dont get to go in and take an oath of office and then say we like these laws and we dont like these laws.

Are you telling us now, in public here that when you take your oath of office, youll choose which laws youre going to uphold and which ones youre not going to uphold? Riddick asked Edwards.

That is not what Im saying, Edwards responded. What Im saying is you are at least considering it, because youve opened it up to hear what people have to say.

Riddick said later in the meeting that the issue isnt whether he agrees with a law, but that he took an oath to uphold the law. Commissioners unanimously asked a state monument preservation committee this month for permission to move the statue to a Confederate burial site, but the committee rejected the application.

Huntsville councilwoman Frances Akridge, left, holds hands with protester Dantraeon Calvert, 28, of Huntsville outside city hall on June 5, 2020. (Paul Gattis | al.com)

Im tired of hearing people talk about history..., Huntsville City Councilwoman Frances Akridge said. You are creating a wall by defending that iconography that says its the principles of the Confederacy that are being maintained there.

I remember one of my heroes, Ronald Reagan, who said, Mr. Gorbachev, take down that wall, Akridge said. In his spirit, Mr. Chairman, Im asking you to, Move that monument,because it is a wall of division and its a  folly to defend anything but the United States flag where we have justice for all.

I want you to understand something, monument supporter and retired Brig. Gen. John Scales said to the commission. That monument represents young men and boys who were asked by your predecessors to go to war to defend them against an invading army.... They werent there to defend slavery; most of them didnt have slaves or werent from families with slaves. They went there to defend their homes. President Lincoln himself said the war wasnt about slavery, many times, not just once.....

Your predecessors are the ones that wanted these young men, many of whom did not return and thats their monument, your predecessors were the ones that wanted them to go to war, Scales said. What will happen in 30 years when Im gone and the young soldiers I led in Vietnam, whose names are on a monument over there, will you then remove them because of some political correctness?

If we forget those who answered the call of their communities, Scales said, then were forgetting everything thats important about the United States.

Sonja Rossow said she and her husband are fairly new residents and both veterans. I would really want you to think about your responsibility to the citizens, every citizen of this community that you represent, Rossow said. What do you want your legacy to be? That youve upheld what the Confederacy stands for or what we envision as the future, what we think of ourselves as Huntsville, a progressive city, bringing good businesses in. Do you think those companies and the citizens of our community want to see a continued representation of the Confederacy? I think not.
Dubai, July 22 : Indian expats, whose children are stranded in India, are urging the authorities here to issue them visit visas to return to the UAE during a special arrangement for flights between the two countries, which lasts until July 26.

India is currently not on the list of countries from which passengers are eligible to secure visit visas.

Indian parents, who spoke to Gulf News, urged the UAE Embassy in New Delhi to take up their humanitarian cases with the immigration authorities in the UAE and help them with special permission to bring their children home.

Many fear their General Directorate of Residency and Foreign Affairs (GDRFA) and Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship (ICA) approvals will expire along with their Covid-negative test results.

Nita Salam, administrator for the online initiative #takemetomom -- a group that was formed by over 200 Indian mothers whose children are stranded in India -- said: "Various kinds of requests from distressed parents are coming forward. Many have applied for residency visas and have not received approvals, some have their application statuses suspended due to the COVID-19 issue, and some have expired visas to name a few." Indian expat and tarot reader Shradha Salla has been stranded in Mumbai with her daughters Aarna (15) and Sunehra (13) since March, while her husband is here in Dubai. The family was in the process of making Dubai their second home when the pandemic hit. Though Shradha has a valid UAE visa, her daughters do not. "I need to get my girls' birth certificates attested. Unfortunately, as the UAE Embassy in Delhi is closed, I cannot proceed with the paperwork," Shradha told Khaleej Times from her home in Mumbai.

"Before COVID-19, I used to travel to Dubai every few weeks for the past four to five years. In February this year, we began our official move to the UAE. We were hoping to start the process after my girls' school closes, and get their residency procedures completed as well," she explained.

Ever since India has begun allowing flights for stranded expatriates, Shradha has knocked on every possible door to get back to the UAE with her daughters. She added: "Earlier since my girls had US visas, they did not need a separate UAE tourist visa. I applied for a visit visa on May 28 and got the approval on July 2. I immediately completed my COVID-19 tests, got the necessary approvals and we booked our tickets to Dubai." Even after receiving the boarding passes from Emirates and getting her luggage checked-in at the airport, Shradha and her daughters were not allowed to travel at the last minute. "After waiting hours at the airport, we had to return home dejected. My GDRFA approvals will expire by July 27. I have lost money, lost energy, and my kids' hope and morale is so low," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:20:00|Editor: huaxia

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PHALOMBE, Malawi, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Girls living with disabilities face a number of challenges in trying to access quality education during adolescence. One of the challenges includes a lack of proper information and communication on issues of self-hygiene, sanitation and sexual reproductive health.

To fill the gap, the Malawi government in conjunction with local NGOs in Malawi have started a capacity-building project for sanitation response in special needs education. The project aims at empowering disabled girls with proper self-hygiene during the adolescent period.

The project has started with the meeting and engaging traditional leaders and school teachers. It is expected that the first phase of the program will benefit 500 disabled girls with basic skills and information in Phalombe and Chikwawa districts in the southern region of Malawi.

According to Mataya, a school teacher at a local primary school in Phalombe district, disabled children especially girls face a number of challenges in regards to self-sanitation and sexual reproductive health.

"There has been a number of cases whereby young girls would miss school because of menstrual experience. This is so because the girls lack proper knowledge and skills on how to cope with such situations, for this reason, many shun away from attending classes because they feel ashamed to associate themselves with non-disabled friends.

Furthermore, due to lack of proper and constructive information, many disabled girls are getting pregnant at a very young age, a development which is very negative to the development of girls education in the district, she said.

Literature shows that women and girls with disabilities may experience menstruation differently and more negatively compared to non-disabled children. In addition, disabled women and girls may be less likely to gather information about relevant topics for themselves.

According to Lucy Nkhoma, Project Officer at Campaign For Health Education, Sanitation and Hygiene (CAHESH), the project will see girls with special needs getting information about how they can take care of themselves during menstruation. The project also aims at eradicating taboos and myths that members of the community have towards menstruation in general.

"We believe that a child who is able to take care of herself can also enjoy class lessons and community companionship. For this reason, the project aims at educating girls with disabilities on how best they can take care of themselves in order to build their self-confidence.

The project will also target parents and guardians in the communities who for years have been rooted in myths and beliefs that perhaps hinder girls to attend classes when they are experiencing such moments.

"We thank the government of Malawi and Water Supply Collaborative Council (WSCC) for their support in this project which we believe will have a huge impact on class attendance once school reopens," she said.

Commenting on the development, Senior Chief Kaduya of Phalombe district praised the organization for coming up with the initiative. She said that the project is timely and lately elderly women in her area have been providing information to young girls about personal hygiene. However, there has been a gap to communicate efficiently with girls with living with disabilities on the same because of insufficient skills and resources. Enditem
TDT | Manama

National Security Advisor and Royal Guard Commander His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa received French Ambassador Jerome Cauchard. HH Shaikh Nasser stressed the importance of the great development in relations between Bahrain and France, which has contributed to opening more areas of cooperation between the two friendly countries.

HH Shaikh Nasser also praised the levels of cooperation and coordination achieved by the two countries at various levels. HH Shaikh Nasser lauded the efforts exerted by Ambassador Cauchard and his keenness on strengthening ties between Bahrain and France.

The French diplomat expressed his appreciation of Bahrains keen interest in consolidating ties and boosting cooperation across all areas. The meeting also covered issues of shared interest.
VWPUAC Chairman, Pastor Alan Nafuki (fourth from left) and members pose with Prime Minister at entrance to Office
California says chicken wings, cheese sticks, fried calamari and french fries are not considered meals as it cracks down on outdoor restaurants that are offering drinks without food as the state battles a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The state's Alcoholic Beverage Control agency has issued guidelines on what constitutes as a 'meal' after Governor Gavin Newsom reversed reopening measures last month by ordering all bars to shut.

While bars are now closed, restaurants can still offer outdoor dining across the state.

The alcohol agency posted guidance on its website to help licensed venues adhere to requirements amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On the list are snacks including pretzels, nuts, popcorn, pickles and chips.

California's Alcoholic Beverage Control agency has issued guidelines on what constitutes as a 'meal' after Governor Gavin Newsom reversed reopening measures last month by ordering all bars to shut. Pictured above is Palm Springs on July 16

EXAMPLES OF FOOD THAT DON'T COUNT AS MEALS IN CALIFORNIA Pretzels Nuts Popcorn Pickles Chips Cheese sticks Fried calamari Chicken wings Pizza bites (as opposed to a pizza) Egg rolls Pot stickers Flautas Cups of soup Bread rolls French fries Onion rings Small salads Frozen entrees Dessert Advertisement

More substantial food that also does not count as a meal includes items ordinarily served as appetizers or first courses, such as cheese sticks, fried calamari, chicken wings, pizza bites, egg rolls, pot stickers, flautas and cups of soup.

French fries, onion rings and desserts are also not considered meals, according to the agency.

Pre-packaged sandwiches and salads don't meet the requirement but the agency said it does recognize that many sandwiches and salads are 'substantial and can constitute legitimate meals'.

'Given the tremendous variety of foods available at the many different licensed premises, this definition provides necessary flexibility to look at the totality of the circumstances in determining whether or not the food service provided by a licensee is a legitimate offering of meals in a bona fide manner,' the agency's website reads.

'Although multiple courses are not required to constitute a meal, in order for the patron to be served a meal there should be a sufficient quantity that it would constitute a main course in a multiple-course dining experience.'

California initially succeeded in slowing the spread of the virus but has had a sharp reversal with COVID-19 infection rates climbing sharply in recent weeks.

The most populous US state recorded 413,579 cases on Wednesday after adding a record 12,807 spike in new daily infections to its tally.

California residents starting in March were urged to stay home as much as possible and state health orders shut down all but essential businesses such as grocery stores.

Throughout May and June, California reopened much of its economy, and people resumed shopping in stores and dining in restaurants.

But infections began to surge and a new round of business restrictions were imposed, including a ban on indoor dining in restaurants and bars.

CALIFORNIA: The most populous US state recorded 413,579 cases as of Wednesday after adding a record 12,807 spike in new daily infections to its tally

While bars are now closed, restaurants can still offer outdoor dining across the state. The alcohol agency posted guidance on its website to help licensed venues adhere to requirements amid the coronavirus pandemic. Pictured is San Diego on July 17

California's Governor Gavin Newsom last week rolled back some of his reopening plans for the state by announcing the closure of some indoor venues that attract crowds such as bars, restaurants, movie theaters, zoos and museums.

He also ordered gyms, churches and hair salons to close in the 30 hardest-hit counties of the state.

The state's latest COVID-19 figures means it now has 5,000 more cases than New York - the original epicenter of the nation's outbreak.

New York currently has 408,181 total infections throughout the state.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday tightened the state's outdoor dining rules to order bars to sell substantial amounts of food, and not just snacks, with drinks.

Outdoor dining resumed in New York City on June 22.

Last week, Cuomo tightened the rules to force bars and restaurants to serve food with drinks.

The bars responded with $1 or 50-cent menus, offering items like 'Cuomo chips' in a bowl or peanuts to meet the new rules..

Cuomo clamped down again this week, ordering that they have to serve a 'substantial' amount of food to people to be able to stay open.

He also said he never gave bars the green-light to offer outdoor service in the first place.

Gov. Cuomo is tightening the rules for bars which he says are not allowed to offer outdoor service at tables if people are only drinking, and now they must enforce 'substantial' food orders
Suspected members of the extremist Boko Haram sect have shot dead five persons believed to be humanitarian workers.

The terrorist group publicized the development via a viral video it published on social media Wednesday.

The gunmen who carried out the killing said their victims were aid workers working for nongovernmental organisations.

The 35 seconds video featured five hooded armed men standing behind five abductees who were kneeling before them.

An unidentified voice speaking in Hausa said, this is a message to the infidels who are using you to cheat and turn our people into unbelievers. You should know that your employers are just using you to achieve their aims, but they dont care about you. Thats why whenever we abduct you, they dont care about you.

Our advice for you is that you should repent and turn to God, or else we shall continue to waylay and abduct you all in all the routes that you traverse.

And if you dont heed to our warning, what is about to happen to these five aid workers would also be fate that will befall you too.

At the end of the speech, one of the gunmen ordered them to fire the abducted aid workers.

The gunmen summarily shot at the five men whose faces were all blinded.

PREMIUM TIMES was unable to immediately determine the identities of the five executed aid workers.

The Nigerian government did not also immediately comment on the development.

The Nigerian presidency later in a statement identified the aid workers to be those of the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee who were abducted a month ago.

President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the murder of the humanitarian workers, pledging that his administration would implement measures to prevent a reoccurence of such tragedy.

The statement signed by Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to the President on media and publicity, further quoted Mr Buhari as sympathising with the families of the five aid workers, while praying that God will comfort them for their irreplaceable loss.

He assures them that his government will continue to do all it can to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram is wiped out completely from northeastern Nigeria and that the perpetrators of this atrocity face the law.

President Buhari also condoles with the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, whose staff have suffered this gruesome fate.

He thanks them for their continued dedication and service to the victims of Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. He assures them that security agencies in the state will work closely with their organisations to implement measures to ensure that no such kidnapping of staff occurs again.
In a country like Yemen, which is already torn apart by conflict, COVID-19 has made things worse, as cases have been on the rise on a daily basis. The virus is compounding the effects of war. The violent conflict between Houthi rebels and Saudi-UAE military coalition has leftover 1,00,000 dead in Yemen.

The United Nations (UN) has called it the worlds worst humanitarian crisis'. People have been battling food shortage and the lack of an adequate health infrastructure.

Mail Online

The pandemic has only added to this misery, and many experts claim that there's almost a sense of denial among people. Claire HaDuong, Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) - head of the mission in Yemen - says that "There has been a strange mixture of fear and denial about the coronavirus here. People havent wanted to accept the possibility that it could arrive, or that it was already circulating. But as soon as people have been faced with a case, it has caused panic."

In one such glaring case of negligence, head doctor of an intensive care unit in Yemen spent 10 days in a coronavirus-induced coma after being misdiagnosed with dengue fever because experts didn't think COVID-19 had reached the country, reports Mail Online.





The report states that Dr Madhi Mahdi Abdel Kawi, head of ICU at Aden German International Hospital, was initially diagnosed with dengue, in April.

He stayed at home battling a fever for 10 days and tried to ease his symptoms by taking paracetamol. But things began to deteriorate.

He was showing symptoms of COVID-19, including respiratory problems such as coughing and shortness of breath.



Also Read: Abandoned By The World, Here's How Yemen War Victims Are Getting A New Lease Of Life In India

Before April there was no official confirmed cases of COVID-19, so doctors were not using personal protective equipment (PPE) to treat patients. Dr Kawi, a specialist in emergency medicine and intensive care, said: "There were no confirmed cases in Aden, only suspected ones."

Reuters/Image For Representation

"We used to try to get in touch with the disease surveillance but they repeatedly told us those symptoms were not COVID-19 symptoms. Therefore, we did not use PPE because we thought Yemen was virus-free back then. We had three or four suspected cases at the hospital, but there were no testing kits," he told Mail Online.



Dr Kawi is also warning the world about COVID-19 in the war-torn Middle Eastern country, which confirmed its first case on April 10.

Also Read: Thousands Of Illegal Workers 'Trapped' In Saudi Arabia & Coronavirus Seems A Chance For Escape



When the virus broke out, Yemen only had 500 ventilators. With half the health services destroyed by conflict, one in four people who contract the virus is dying, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). According to a Gulf Today report, the official death toll from COVID-19 in Yemen is 418.
By Guy Faulconbridge and Paul Sandle

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday the United States wants to build a global coalition to counter China as he accused Beijing of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to further its own interests.

U.S. President Donald Trump identifies China as the United States' main rival, and has accused President Xi Jinping of taking advantage over trade and not telling the truth over the novel coronavirus outbreak, which Trump calls the "China plague".

Pompeo, on a visit to London, lauded Prime Minister Boris Johnson for ordering a purge of Huawei gear from its 5G mobile phone network, saying it was the right decision as data could have ended up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

The secretary of state cast China as an aggressor, saying it had made illegal martime claims, bullied Himalayan countries, covered up the coronavirus outbreak and exploited it to further its own interests in a "disgraceful" way.

"We hope we can build out a coalition that understands the threat and will work collectively to convince the Chinese Communist Party that it is not in their best interest to engage in this kind of behaviour," Pompeo told reporters alongside British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

"We want to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy...to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them."

Pompeo offered no evidence of how China had exploited the coronoavrius.

As Britain toughens its stance on China due to its handling of the coronavirus epidemic and a crackdown in the former British colony of Hong Kong, Pompeo's visit is an attempt to stiffen Johnson's resolve and dangle the potential reward of a post-Brexit free trade deal, diplomats say.

Pompeo said a deal could be finalised before too long.

"A third round (of negotiations) scheduled for later this month, a primary focus for the United States is to see that we can make progress on this and bring this to a closure just as quickly as possible," Pompeo said, adding that he had discussed this with Johnson.

Story continues

Beijing says the West - and Washington in particular - is gripped by anti-Chinese hysteria and colonial thinking about the communist state.

China, whose $15 trillion economy is five times the size of the United Kingdom's, says the decision to exclude Huawei, the world's biggest telecoms equipment manufacturer, will hurt Britain's economy, set back trade and discourage investment.

Pompeo is also due to meet Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law and the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon, William James and Andy Bruce; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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Linkedin Yannick Pasquet (Agence France-Presse) Berlin, Germany  Wed, July 22, 2020 10:03 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668536c1 2 Art & Culture Berlin,Germany,Museum,tourism,culture Free

Berlin museums might house the iconic Nefertiti bust, the Ishtar gate of ancient Babylon or Rembrandt masterpieces, but they still trail global counterparts in popularity -- and the coronavirus is making things worse.

Millions of euros have been poured into the institutions, yet the 19 museums managed by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) attracted just 4.2 million visitors last year, while the Louvre alone drew 9.6 million.

Alarmed by lackluster public interest, Germany is planning a major shake-up after a report commissioned by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government slammed the foundation as dysfunctional, outdated and out of touch.

For Joerg Haentzschel, a culture journalist at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, the capital's museums are plagued by "a persistent culture of exclusivity, lack of transparency and institutional arrogance".

"Those responsible for museums are still serving their own peers first and foremost, rather than bringing everyone in -- children, people with dementia, people from other origins and educational backgrounds," he said.

Read also: Louvre museum reopens after 16-week virus shutdown

Quiet halls

Around the corner from Potsdamer Platz in the city's bustling business district, the Gemaeldegalerie sits quietly in the shadows of shiny high-rises, its exhibition halls typically dotted with just a handful of visitors.

The museum boasts world-famous masterpieces by Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Vermeer -- and yet it attracted only 310,000 visitors last year. And that was before the pandemic hit.

The Gemaeldegalerie is one of 19 museums managed by the SPK, one of the most important cultural institutions in the world with 15 collections and 4.7 million items.

The SPK's most treasured possession, which has pride of place in the Neues Museum, is a limestone bust of Nefertiti, considered by some to be the most famous depiction of a female face in the world after the Mona Lisa.

But comparisons with the Louvre end there. At the Gemaeldegalerie, there are no crowds jostling for a glimpse of the ancient Egyptian queen.

Read also: Germany strives to kickstart culture in a world blighted by virus

'Institutional arrogance'

And this despite Berlin's reputation as a vibrant cultural hub, attracting artists in droves from all over the world -- and a tourism industry that has exploded over the past decade, though now hobbled by COVID-19.

In the damning report, experts called for the SPK to be abolished and replaced by four separate bodies.

With around 2,000 employees and a budget of 335 million euros ($381 million) this year, the SPK is the largest cultural sector employer in Germany.

The experts pointed in particular to failures in the digital arena, accentuated at a time when many of the world's museums are relying on the internet due to international travel restrictions.

"Many international museums have a large number of followers on social media," Marina Muenkler, who chaired the working group behind the report, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

"Museums need to be in contact with the public before they come to the museum ... Apps can be created for exhibitions. But this is often no longer possible in Berlin, because many museums do not have Wi-Fi."

The report criticized a reliance on " partly ... outdated ideas about museum work" and a failure to reflect the "diversity of the world".

As a result, Berlin's museums "have partly lost or risk losing touch with international developments," it said.

The criticism comes despite millions of euros spent on ambitious cultural projects in the German capital in recent years.

Take the James Simon Gallery, the new entrance building to Berlin's UNESCO World Heritage-listed Museum Island designed by star British architect David Chipperfield -- at a cost of 134 million euros.

Or the Neue Nationalgalerie with its Expressionist gems, due to reopen next year after more than five years of renovation work, also led by Chipperfield.

For Culture Minister Monika Gruetters, the report marked a "first, very important step towards making the foundation future-proof", or adapted to future challenges, as she promised to reform the SPK within three to five years.

Topics : Berlin Germany Museum tourism culture
Jacob Ehrman, left, and Ken Siler will face off in the Republican primary for the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners District 3 representative. (Photos provided to MLive)

WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI -- Two western Washtenaw County residents are running in the Aug. 4 Republican primary for a chance to bring small government values to the County Board of Commissioners. Jacob Ehrman, a web development professional and recent Eastern Michigan University graduate, and Ken Siler, a retired engineer and farm operator, will face off in August for a chance to unseat incumbent Shannon Beeman, D-Manchester, in the November general election for District 3. The district covers the southern region of Washtenaw County. Both candidates emphasize the need for small government and Ehrman said hes specifically seeking to represent conservative values on the all-Democrat county board. MLive Media Group has partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan to provide candidate information and other voting resources to readers ahead of 2020 elections. All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for a necessary cut if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for a necessary cut if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The league never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

Each candidate was given a list of questions relevant to the office for which they are campaigning. The voter guide can be accessed at vote411.org.

Here are how both candidates answered the questions:

What in your education and experience make you the best qualified candidate for this position?

Ehrman: My chosen profession is all about utilizing technology to create innovative solutions. I believe that government on all levels should search for the best solutions which requires this sort of innovative mind. I have minor leadership experience through being captain of the Saline High School swim team, also by attending Boys State (a summer program organized by the American Legion in which high school boys form a mock state government) and having considerable success in being elected to the Senate by about 100 of my peers. While in the Senate I stood alone as the only conservative, but by the end of my time there I had flipped exactly half the Senate to my side.

Siler: 38 years with Ford Motor Company handling and estimating project costs. Bookkeeping and accounting training and practical experience both in formal education and organizations as treasurer.

What are your goals should you be elected and how will you work to accomplish them with current resources?

Ehrman: My first goal is to be a voice for the residents who consider themselves to be conservative. They do not have any representation with the current commission as all commissioners are on the left. My second goal is to push innovative solutions to our infrastructure. This will actually save us money long term by lowering maintenance cost and frequency. It will also provide higher quality infrastructure. My third goal is to ensure a free economy. This will be accomplished only by getting the government out of the way of business.

Siler: Reduce the costs passed on to the property tax payers of the county through the various millages, especially those affecting road funding.

What are the most serious problems facing the County and how will you work to solve them?

Ehrman: Inclusiveness is this countys biggest issue. The voice of our conservative citizens has been shut out of the government. I will provide that voice.

Siler: Public transportation and housing deficiencies and I would work to reorganize both of these shortfalls.

What are Washtenaw Countys greatest assets and how can they be used to help the community thrive?

Ehrman: Washtenaw Countys greatest assets are our law enforcement and our innovative spirit. Our law enforcement keeps our community safe for all people to thrive free from fear. Our innovative spirit can and should be harnessed to bring solutions to all our problems, keeping our technology modern and our solutions new.

Siler: As with all other government agencies the residents and the properties that they own and a more efficient spending of the county resources/

MORE ELECTION NEWS:

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These 8 proposals are on the Aug. 4 primary ballot in Washtenaw County

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T he UK and US have agreed to amend the anomaly that allowed Harry Dunns alleged killer Anne Sacoolas to claim diplomatic immunity, the Foreign Secretary has said in a written statement.

Harry, 19, was killed when his motorbike crashed into a car outside a US military base in Northamptonshire on August 27 last year.

Ms Sacoolas, 43, the wife of a US intelligence official and a reported CIA operative, claimed diplomatic immunity following the crash and was able to return to her home country, sparking an international controversy.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab revealed on Wednesday that changes had been made that would "see justice done" if another family was to end up in a similar position to that of the Dunn family.

Despite the anomaly being amended in the immunity agreements surrounding RAF Croughton, the base near where Harry died, his alleged killer still remains in the US.

Harry Dunn (left) with his mother Charlotte Charles (centre) and twin brother Niall Dunn (right). / PA

Mr Raab said in a written statement: First and foremost, the US waiver of immunity from criminal jurisdiction is now expressly extended to the family members of US staff at the Croughton Annex, thus ending the anomaly in the previous arrangements and permitting the criminal prosecution of the family members of those staff, should these tragic circumstances ever arise again.

We have the deepest sympathy for Harry Dunns family. No family should have to experience what they have gone through and I recognise that these changes will not bring Harry back.

However, I hope that the knowledge that the Croughton arrangements have been revised and that a family in their position would now see justice done brings some small measure of comfort.

Charlotte Charles, the mother of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn welcomed Wednesday's announcement / AFP via Getty Images

Harrys mother Charlotte Charles told the PA news agency, Wednesdays announcement was a huge step forward  adding that one of the familys aims was for this to never happen to another family again.

She said their campaign would continue for Sacoolass return to the UK.

Timm Dunn, Harry's father said the changes were "great news" in a post on Twitter.

"Should stop what happened to us happening to anybody else," wrote Mr Dunn in the post.

The US State Department said the amendment of the diplomatic immunity arrangements at RAF Croughton is a reflection of our especially close relationship with the UK.

A spokesman said: Under the arrangement, the United States has extended pre-emptive, limited waivers of certain diplomatic immunities pertaining to the staff of the Embassy office in Croughton and their family members for acts performed outside the course of official duties that occur on or after July 20, 2020.

This arrangement is a reflection of our especially close relationship with the government of the United Kingdom.

Harry Dunn's mother makes appeal to Boris Johnson and Mike Pompeo

Northamptonshire Police said while the changes were not retrospective the force "welcomes these changes".

Northamptonshire Police has today been advised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that they have reached an agreement with the US government to restrict the immunity from criminal jurisdiction of embassy staff, officers and family members at RAF Croughton," said the police force in a statement.

Northamptonshire Police remains committed to working with colleagues in the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure Anne Sacoolas is returned from the US to allow criminal proceedings to go ahead here in the UK.

An extradition request submitted by the Home Office for Ms Sacoolas was rejected by Mike Pompeo in January  a decision the State Department has said is final.

Ms Charles urged US and British leaders to discuss the case during Mr Pompeos visit to London on Monday.

The Dunn family want a "very clear timetabled structured plan to bring Anne Sacoolas back," their spokesperson Radd Seiger told Sky News as he called on Mr Raab to "stand up to the US".

He told the programme that It is no longer any good  that they raise it continually. That means nothing to the family."
On July 22, 2020, the successive session of World Trade Organization (WTO) General Council was held in WTO headquarters located in Geneva of the Swiss Confederation, during which the application of Turkmenistan on accession to WTO as an observer was considered, Trend reports with reference to Turkmen embassy in Azerbaijan.

The Turkmen side was represented at the session by the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations at Geneva, as well as the representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations, Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan who took part via videoconference.

In honor of assessing the request of Turkmenistan for accession to WTO in the status of an observer, a special ceremony was organized during which the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan delivered a speech on behalf of the Government of Turkmenistan. During the address, he informed the participants of the General Council about the background of the accession process to the Organization, in particular about the pioneering policy of implementing the external economic activity of Turkmenistan. It was stated that the Programme on Foreign Economic Activity of Turkmenistan for 2020-2025 is a vital document in this regard.

The gaining of this status by the country is intended to contribute to the dynamic development of the national economy of Turkmenistan, strengthen its standing in regard to foreign trade, carry multilateral cooperation, attract foreign investments and improve international trade ties. This also concerns the development of commercial and trade strategies including their successful implementation.

Following the address of the Turkmen side, a number of representatives of the Organizations member-states, including Afghanistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Republic of Panama, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkey and Ukraine expressed support to the initiative of Turkmenistan on the accession to the Organization as an observer.

After the discussions, the member-states of WTO General Council unanimously adopted the resolution on granting Turkmenistan the status of an observer in WTO.

Currently there are 164 WTO member-states. Twenty four countries possess the status of an observer. Turkmenistan became the 25th country with a status of an observer.
Wallace & Turner is proud to reach the 150-year mark of service to our policyholders and be in a position to carry on Harry Turners motto of doing good things for the community, said Patrick Field (pictured top), partner, and a proud third-generation Wallace & Turner employee. He said the agency had planned to mark the momentous anniversary with several in-person celebrations this summer, but given the current public health crisis, they will be donating the funds theyd planned to spend to several local non-profit organizations. In addition, the firm is also giving all of its employees $150 to donate to a charity of their choice.

The agency has a long history of being very active and supportive in the local community, both in terms of dollars and in terms of time, Field told Insurance Business. I was raised on the theory that Wallace & Turner will only do as well as the community it works and does business in. Anything we can do to help the community certainly helps us as well. Most of our people currently sit on a local non-profit board or have sat on a non-profit board in the past, and we certainly encourage all employees to get involved in local community initiatives.

Read next: 'You gave me COVID-19' - Pandemic sparks requests for extra liability coverage

Wallace & Turners community-centric culture has been critical in the agencys long lifespan. As P.J. Miller (pictured below), partner, and second-generation Wallace & Turner employee explained: A lot of our clients are good friends of ours, and a lot of them have been with us for 30, 40, 50, even 60-years. Just as Patrick and I are generationally involved with Wallace & Turner, so are a lot of our clients. Its been really exciting to watch our local clients transition, like us, through time and generation.

The Ohio agencys 150th anniversary is even more impressive considering the huge uptick in agency consolidation over the past few years. Given the agencys strong financial stability, consistency in service, range of products (the agency is approximately 50:50 for personal and commercial lines, with a separate life & health department), and its consistent clientele, it could be considered a prime target for acquisition. However, both Field and Miller said this is not on the cards.

A friendly competitor of ours who had an agency not nearly as old as ours, but similar in style, sold to a regional broker a few years ago, who in turn sold to a national broker. Frankly, that has created a lot of opportunities for us, said Field. Springfield, Ohio, is not terribly small, but its certainly not a huge city  everyone knows everyone. As such, there is a very significant push in our community to do things locally with locally owned businesses. People want to do business with Wallace & Turner locally, they see what we do, they see how we support the community and how we interact with our clientele.

Sometimes that interaction and that local servicing doesnt exactly fit the big broker business model. As I tell my colleagues, our competitors model is a fantastic business model until you bring it to Springfield, Ohio, which is a bit of an anomaly because the city is so tight-knit and community-oriented. The people here expect local service, they expect camaraderie, and they expect friendship  all things weve been able to provide at Wallace & Turner. And so sometimes the big agency model doesnt fit in so well here, and, conversely, our agency model probably wouldnt fit so well in some big metropolitan cities because were so focused on services and relationships.

Read more: Non-profit organizations face "feast or famine" during COVID-19

The next steps for Wallace & Turner revolve around growth and perpetuation. In October 2019, the agency expanded its footprint with the opening of a second office in Urbana, Ohio  another very community-centered area. Perpetuation is more of a challenge, not only for Wallace & Turner but for the industry as a whole, according to Field.

Were working on this all the time, he said. We are constantly looking for people who we think would be the right fit to join us and help us build that long-term perpetuation. As we continue to grow, most of our growth is generated from the hiring of new parties and the relationships that they bring into the agency. Our second big growth tool is word of mouth. At the end of the day, our best advertising comes from our own clients.
American International Group is moving its global headquarters in 2021 as part of a continued push to modernize its operations, the company disclosed on July 21.

The property/casualty insurance giant will still maintain a Manhattan corporate address, which it has had at one location or another for much of its history.

Specifically, AIG will leave its corporate headquarters at 175 Water Street in Manhattan and move to 1271 Avenue of the Americas  approximately 6 miles away  where it will occupy 8 floors and 325,000 square feet.

Thats not the only corporate move AIG is planning. The company said it expects to consolidate its remaining New York City area footprint into approximately 450,000 square feet divided between two new locations at 28 Liberty Street in Manhattan and 30 Hudson Street in Jersey City, New Jersey. Expectations are that AIG will move into the three buildings in 2021.

AIG described 1271 Avenue of the Americas as a premier, fully redeveloped 48-story office building located in Rockefeller Center. The 28 Liberty St. location is an iconic 60-story landmarked office building in Lower Manhattan, and 30 Hudson St. is a 40-story office tower on the Jersey City waterfront, AIG said.

AIGs office relocation plans are not unexpected. The insurer disclosed in an annual regulatory filing at the end of 2019 that it had sold and leased back its corporate headquarters building at 175 Water Street. New York real estate publication The Real Deal reported in August 2019 that the sale netted AIG $270 million, AIGs lease would expire in 2021 and the new owner wanted to convert the top half of the 684,000-square-foot building into residential space.

AIG President and Global Chief Operating Officer Peter Zaffino said that the office space changes are part of AIG 200, the companys global, multi-year effort to revamp and modernize its operations.

We are designing offices in these three class A buildings that will allow our teams to work more effectively and collaboratively with high-quality infrastructure, Zaffino said in prepared remarks.

While Zaffino did not mention the COVID-19 pandemic specifically, he referred to it indirectly, mentioning that work-from-home policies that arose from the pandemic will influence workplace designs in the making.

Our people are our most important asset, Zaffino said. We remain committed to providing a safe and productive work environment while incorporating key learnings that have emerged while working remotely.

AIG CEO Brian Duperreault said that the headquarters move will help the insurer with its daily busines operations.

Our new Midtown headquarters building is in close proximity to many of our clients, distribution partners and other stakeholders, Duperreault said in prepared remarks. We take pride in our role as a responsible corporate citizen and remain committed to doing our part to help strengthen our New York City and Jersey City communities.

As of the end of 2019, AIGs General Insurance arm (its property/casualty divisions), owned offices in 12 foreign countries and regions including Bermuda, Ecuador, Japan, Mexico, the UK and Venezuela, according to AIGs 2019 regulatory filing. The rest was leased, and AIG said in the filing our leases and properties are sufficient for our current purposes.

AIG employs 46,000 people globally.

Source: AIG

Topics New York AIG
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:

Azerbaijans ASB Bank OJSC completed the first half of 2020 with the net profit of 3.3 million manat ($1.9 million), which is 1.6 times less compared to 1H2019, Trend reports referring to the banks financial statement.

According to the statement, the profit was driven by interest expenses worth 7.7 million manat ($4.5 million), and non-interest expenses of 2.7 million manat or $1.5 million (down 2.4 times).

As of June 30, 2020, interest incomes of the bank amounted to 8.3 million manat or $4.8 million (growth of 19.3 percent), and non-interest incomes  7.1 million manat or $4.1 million (up 24.5 percent).

The banks operating profit dropped by 2.02 times year-on-year compared to the same period in 2019, standing at 3.4 million manat ($2 million).

($1 = 1.7 manat on July 22)

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Fidan_Babaeva
(Natural News) The time has come for the West to confront communist China over its rampant human rights abuses, says Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, warning that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has become the new Nazi Germany of the modern age.

Speaking to a group of supporters recently, Farage emphasized that the West must go beyond just fighting Chinese hegemony on economic and security issues, and also address the prolific human rights abuses that are taking place against groups like the Uighur Muslims, who are being tortured and abused in communist Chinese concentration camps.

If the West chooses to do nothing on this front, there is a high likelihood that communist China will eventually become the dominant power in the world, Farage warned.

The brutal truth that it is utterly right to compare the way the Chinese government treats minorities, treats different points of view, within its country  with what the National Socialists did between 1933 and 1945, Farage stated, adding that the skeptics have not been making the argument properly and fully about the plight of the Falun Gong, the plight of the Uighurs.

There is a form of state-sponsored genocide that is going on in China, and weve done too little to expose this, he added.

BMW, Volkswagen, Apple and others rely on Uighur forced slave labor at communist Chinese factories

As many as 1.5 million of the 12 million people living in Chinas northwestern province of Xinjiang, where a bulk of Uighur concentration camp occupants currently reside, are being forcibly reeducated under communist Chinese tutelage. This, Farage and others warn, is exactly the type of thing that happened in Nazi Germany during World War II.

Further, these political and religious prisoners face horrific living conditions and human rights abuses that include coercion to renounce their religious beliefs, or else face persecution and other consequences. This is what Farage wants to see addressed by Western superpowers as they combat the scourge of CCP encroachment all around the world.

Xinjiang has also become a spying and surveillance nightmare, with John Chin, Deputy China Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal, having recently told the BBC that the all-seeing eye, so to speak, of the CCP has become a ubiquitous presence throughout the region.

Not only are there police checkpoints in place about every 200 yards, he contends, but there is visual and audio surveillance taking place everywhere, along with facial recognition devices at the entrances to every building.

Virtually every movement by citizens is tracked, writes Victoria Friedman for Breitbart News, adding that there is not a moment where Uighurs are not being observed when out in public.

And none other than Huawei, a Chinese mobile phone technology giant that was banned by President Donald Trump from playing a role in the 5G rollout here in the U.S., is said to be overseeing the creation and implementation of this mass surveillance apparatus.

Even inside their own homes Uighur families are being forced to participate in a visit program whereby CCP officials move in for anywhere from nine to 14 days at a time to observe their behavior and activities. In many cases, the men of these homes have already been shipped off for reeducation, while the women and children become prisoners in their own living spaces.

If CCP officials determine that women and children also require reeducation, then they, too, are sent off to be indoctrinated and coerced into renouncing their religious beliefs and agreeing to become communist Chinese supporters. Many of them are also forced to work hard labor at multinational corporate factories that do business there, including for companies like Volkswagen, Apple, BMW and the Gap.

To learn more about the horrors taking place in communist China, be sure to check out Tyranny.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com
Renewable energy has now overtaken fossil fuels as Europes main source of energy, a new report shows.

Europes long goodbye to coal is speeding up, in a transition smoothed by the rise of wind and solar power and energy policy that has priced the fossil fuel out of many markets, according to data released on Wednesday.

Centuries after powering Europes industrial revolution, coal cannot compete with less polluting fuels to generate electricity, prompting governments and companies to close mines and plants.

Renewable sources of power have taken over for the first time in 2020, generating 40 percent of European Union electricity, while fossil fuels generated 34 percent, independent think-tank Ember said in a half-yearly report.

In Spain, coal generation fell 58 percent in the first six months of the year, even before half its remaining plants closed in June as they no longer complied with EU emissions rules.

Embers findings were reinforced by Global Energy Monitor researchers, who predicted a record rate of closures globally in 2020.

The pace of plant closures in Spain, with 69 percent of the entire fleet to be shuttered between 2020 and 2021, has no precedent, Global Energy Monitor Programme Director Christine Shearer said.

The fact that such a rapid decline has taken place indicates the increasingly uncompetitive economics of coal power, Shearer said.

The coronavirus outbreak depressed demand for power, further reducing coal consumption, the analysts said.

In Portugal, coal generation fell 95 percent in the first half of 2020, Ember said. Last week major utility EDP brought forward its Iberian plant closures to 2021, after reducing their value on its balance sheet last year.

The Netherlands, Austria and France all saw reductions of more than 50 percent. Sweden and Austria closed their last plants in March.

A source of tension

In Germany, coal-fuelled generation fell 39 percent, taking it for the first time below Poland, which now generates as much electricity from coal as the EUs remaining 25 countries put together.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieckis image with the word shame is projected by Greenpeace activists on a cooling tower of Polands Belchatow Power Station, Europes largest coal-fired power plant [File: Rafal Milach/Greenpeace via Reuters]

All five EU countries with no clear closure plan for their plants are in central and Eastern Europe, consultancy Energy Aspects said in a separate report this month, predicting Polands coal reliance will cause tension in the bloc.

Meanwhile, former US Vice President Al Gore said he is encouraged by the fact that so many economic stimulus plans across the globe are focused on carbon reduction. Speaking at a virtual event organised by the Bloomberg news agency, he said it shows that the world has crossed a threshold beyond which it is ever clearer that sustainable technologies are cheaper and better.

Also speaking at the Bloomberg Green event was famed climate economist Nicholas Stern who said the coronavirus pandemic has created new political momentum for climate policies across the globe.

Stern, who chairs London School of Economics Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change also said: If you look at the opinion polls  they show that people want to build back better. They recognise the old system was dangerous and they recognise that we can change quickly. The political leaders not only have the space to do it, they have the pressure to do it.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 07:22:48|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Tuesday that he had not issued orders to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea, but adding the Pentagon would continue to conduct adjustments at every theater command.

"I've issued no orders to withdraw forces from the Korean Peninsula," Esper responded to a question on potential U.S. force restructure in South Korea at a think tank event.

While he also said that he would look at every geographic combat command to implement U.S. national defense strategy.

"So we will continue to look at the adjustments at every command we have in every theater to make sure we are optimizing our forces," he added.

Esper's remarks came as the Trump administration is weighing the possibility of reducing U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. media reported recently that the Pentagon had given the White House options for the possible reduction of the U.S. troop presence in South Korea, amid a battle with Seoul in which Washington is demanding significantly more cash to keep U.S. forces there.

A U.S. military official told the Wall Street Journal that the Pentagon reviewed the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, as part of a broader look at shifting deployments worldwide.

Trump has caused much anxiety in Washington by threatening allies that he would remove U.S. troops from various strategic areas. Last month the administration announced it would pull thousands of troops from Germany, claiming that Berlin is not paying their fair share of NATO costs. Enditem
A bizarre love triangle involving Tziporah Malkah and two ex-partners - one a former policeman and the other a female jailbird - is set to play out before the courts.

The former supermodel and one-time fiancee of billionaire James Packer has led an interesting life since returning to the public eye.

Late last year the 46-year-old was pictured holding hands with Victoria Rupp at Sydney's Bondi Beach.

But after that relationship fizzled the woman formerly known as Kate Fischer began dating former cop Nicholas Patsidis, 40, also a one-time lover of Rupp's.

Now the trio are also connected by a pair of AVOs.

Police took out one of the orders last week to protect Malkah from Patsidis after he was charged with assaulting her.

The other AVO is in place to protect Patsidis from Rupp after she was accused of bombarding the ex-cop with abusive text messages following their split.

Tziporah Malkah (left) was allegedly assaulted by her boyfriend Nicholas Patsidis (right) inside a Randwick unit last Thursday morning. Patsidis, 40, has pleaded not guilty to assault charges

Patsidis currently has an AVO out against Victoria Rupp (left), who is understood to have been in a relationship with Malkah (right). Rupp and Malkah are pictured holding hands at Bondi Beach late last year

Court papers reveal that Patsidis allegedly attacked Malkah at her unit in Randwick, in Sydney's east, between 9am and 9.15am last Thursday.

'It will be alleged in Court the man punched the woman during an argument,' NSW Police said in a statement.

Police will allege that assault followed three days of text messages from Patsidis.

Patsidis was arrested by police in the middle of the night on Friday and charged with common assault and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.

He has entered a plea of not guilty and was granted bail, as part of which he cannot contact Malkah or comment about her on social media.

It is understood Patsidis and Malkah met when she was staying with Rupp.

Rupp had invited Patsidis to meet with Malkah, but instead they hit it off and began a relationship.

Around that time Patsidis claimed he received a flurry of abusive text messages from Rupp.

NSW Police then took an AVO out against Rupp, ordering her to steer clear of him.

A one-time student of the elite Sydney school Kincoppal Rose Bay, Rupp has been in and out of jail in recent years for crimes including drug dealing and assault.

In comments on Facebook this week she vigorously denied any wrongdoing in the Patsidis matters and described Tziporah as a 'former friend of mine'.

The former supermodel and one-time fiancee of billionaire James Packer (seen here at a gala dinner in November 2006) has led an interesting life since she returned to the public eye a few years ago after a long absence

Tziporah's relationship with Nicholas Patsidis (left) broke down last week when he was charged with assault and harassing her over text. It's a far cry from her amicable split with billionaire James Packer (right) in 1998

The former supermodel changed her name to Tziporah in her early 20s after converting to Judaism

TZIPORAH'S ALLEGED ASSAULT AT HANDS OF BOYFRIEND - Nicholas Patsidis and Tziporah Malkah started dating in early 2020 - According to court papers, Patsidis allegedly assaulted Tziporah at a unit in Randwick on Thursday, July 16 - The alleged attack was allegedly a culmination of three days of text messages from Patsidis to Malkah - NSW Police arrested him about 1am last Friday morning and took him to Maroubra Police Station - He was charged with assault and using a carriage service to harass - Patsidis has pleaded not guilty and will return to court on July 23 Advertisement

Malkah has similarly not been a stranger to the courts, with several appearances in recent times as she faced charges including assault and drink driving.

In March she made headlines after having a verbal stoush in court with a police prosecutor who called her 'Ms Fischer'.

'That's not my name,' she responded, having changed to Tziporah in order to 'reclaim' her Jewish heritage.

That visit to court was over another unrelated AVO.

It followed a 2018 incident in which she was fined $1200 for scratching, biting and punching her ex-boyfriend and three police officers in South Australia.

The daughter of former NSW politician Pru Goward, Malkah rose to prominence as the face of many leading brands throughout the 1990s.

But it was her relationship with billionaire James Packer that really put Malkah on the map.

The pair dated for five years and were engaged before splitting in 1998. She received the house they shared as part of the settlement, and sold the home for $2.825million in 2000.

Despite that wealth, while on Channel Ten reality show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! she claimed a rabbi had conned her out of all her money and left her broke.

Malkah and Packer dated for five years and were engaged before their very public split in 1998 (the pair are pictured that year at one of their last public engagements before they broke up)

The daughter of former NSW politician Pru Goward, Malkah rose to prominence as the face of many leading brands throughout the 1990s

Malkah claimed she had fallen in love with the man, who told her he would invest her money for her.

'I was stupid and I was in love, and why would a Rabbi lie to me? I got swept away a little bit with him,' she said.

'He was incredibly charismatic, very convincing. He said he could invest (the money) better than me and I believed him.

'When I was down to my last few thousand dollars in the bank and I went: "You really need to kind of help me now because I won't be able to pay my rent in a few months' time".

I just thought: "I think he's f***ed me over".

'I thought I was going to have to sleep under a bush (so) I went down to the Salvation Army and said: "Help me, I am going to be homeless".'

Patsidis is next due to return to Waverley Local Court on Thursday, July 23.
A government-backed bill meant to complete the controversial dismissal of three of the nine members of Armenias Constitutional Court came into force on Wednesday three weeks after being passed by the parliament.

President Armen Sarkissian has pointedly declined to sign the bill into law, leaving it to parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan to do that. Sarkissian has not explained his refusal to validate the legislation strongly condemned by the Armenian opposition.

Mirzoyan, who is a leading member of the ruling My Step bloc, signed it immediately after the end of a three-week period given by the Armenian constitution to the largely ceremonial head of state.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian swiftly announced Mirzoyans move on his Facebook page. Three new Constitutional Court judges will be elected soon, he wrote.

The National Assembly controlled by My Step passed the bill on June 30 one week after voting to amend the constitution. The amendments require the gradual resignation of seven members of the high court installed before April 2018.

Three of them are to resign with immediate effect. Also, Hrayr Tovmasian must quit as court chairman but remain a judge.

Tovmasian and the ousted judges have refused to step down, saying that their removal is illegal. They have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to have them reinstated.

Tovmasian and six other court justices have been under strong government pressure to step down over the past year. Pashinian has accused them of maintaining close ties to Armenias former government and impeding his judicial reforms. Tovmasian and opposition figures have dismissed Pashinians claims and in turn accused the prime minister of seeking to take control of the countrys highest court.

Under Armenian law, the three new Constitutional Court members are to be nominated by Pashinians government, President Sarkissian and an assembly of the countrys judges and appointed by the parliament. The nine court justices will then pick their new chairperson.

Justice Minister Rustam Badasian told reporters that the government has yet to choose its candidate to fill one of the three vacancies. He said that in any case it will nominate an apolitical individual who can guarantee judicial independence.
GUILFORD  Retiring Chief of Police Jeffrey Hutchinson will be replaced by his current deputy, according to a release from First Selectman Matthew Hoeys office.

Hutchinson announced his retirement in late May, Zip06 reported.

Deputy Chief Warren Butch Hyatt Jr. will take over as head of the department effective Aug. 11, he said.

Im very grateful to be given the opportunity, Hyatt said.

A former state trooper, Hyatt joined the department as deputy chief in 2017, the town release said, adding that he is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and the director of Law Enforcement Services for the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Hyatt said the Guilford Police Department has a great reputation of working with the community.

I hope to  build on that culture of working directly with the community, he said.

Hyatt also said the department is fortunate to have a group of professional and dedicated officers and support staff.

After 30 years with the department, five years as chief, Hutchinson had his last day on the job in late May, Hoey said.

Its a wonderful story as Jeff actually grew up in town, and started as a patrol officer, and wound up as chief, Hoey said. Truly a hometown success story.

While Hutchinson doesnt officially leave the role of chief until late next month, he has been using accumulated sick and vacation days to take time off, and Hyatt has been leading the department in the interim, Hoey said.

The first selectman complimented Hutchinsons leadership.

Jeff was a superb leader of our police department ensuring that professional police standards were adhered to in accordance with the CALEA and state of Connecticut P.O.S.T. accreditations that the department had earned, he said.

(Connecticut P.O.S.T. is the Connecticut Police Officers Standards and Training Council.)

Hutchinson leaves some big shoes to fill, Hyatt said.

But town officials say Hyatt is more than qualified to take on the challenge.

We are thrilled that Butch Hyatt has agreed to take on the role of Police Chief, said Hoey. We are fortunate to have someone with Butchs vast experience and reputation in the law enforcement community lead our highly regarded and accredited department.

Robert Welsh, chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners, described Hyatt not only as an excellent law enforcement officer but also as an outstanding person.

Weve hired a guy that I think is going to be a real asset to our community, Welsh said. He brings so much experience and talent and expertise to the job. ... Hes a man of tremendous integrity.

Though he was not on the commission at the time, Welsh understands that when the town hired Hyatt as deputy chief in 2017, it did so knowing that after a long stint with the department, Hutchinson might seek retirement and Hyatt could be a possible successor, Welsh said.

In February, the commission approved a tentative agreement to offer the position to Hyatt after Hutchinsons last day, Welsh said.

Now, its official.

In a vote Monday, the Board of Selectman unanimously approved Hyatts appointment, Welsh said.

meghan.friedmann@hearstmediact.com
The U.S. government has placed an initial order for 100 million doses of a vaccine candidate being developed by Pfizer and a German firm, BioNTech, for $1.95 billion, the companies announced Wednesday.

The U.S. can acquire up to 500 million additional doses, the statement said.

Meanwhile, federal unemployment benefits are taking a hit at a time when more states are abruptly pausing their reopening plans. The $600 weekly jobless benefits bonus, approved in March, is about to expire and likely won't be extended or replaced before next month.

The U.S. has been averaging more than 60,000 new cases daily for multiple weeks, and hospitalizations have climbed to totals not seen in three months. A USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Tuesday shows 10 states set seven-day records for new cases while five states had a record number of deaths over the period.

 Today's stats: The U.S. has more than 3.9 million cases and more than 141,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Globally, there have been almost 15 million cases and more than 615,000 deaths.

 What we're reading: It's not just dexamethasone. Other steroids may be used to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients, study says.

Making headlines:

California has surpassed New York as the state with the most confirmed cases of the virus, but with only a fraction of the deaths.

A judge has ordered Detroit summer school students to be tested for COVID-19.

Former CDC chief Tom Frieden says states should make more data easily accessible.

Top COVID-19 vaccine makers say safe, effective and low-cost candidates are possible by early 2021.

Ohio Gov. announces statewide mask order

Gov. Mike DeWine reversed course Wednesday, issuing a statewide face mask mandate in the face of rising coronavirus cases.

DeWine previously resisted a statewide order, although mask use was mandated in public places in red counties where coronavirus cases were on the rise.

Cases of COVID-19 continue to spike in Ohio. On Wednesday, the state reported its third highest case count since the outbreak began.

Story continues

 Patrick Cooley, Columbus Dispatch

GOP senators consider short-term extension of extra $600

Senate Republicans are in talks with the Trump administration about temporarily extending the supplemental pay that millions of Americans receive on top of their weekly unemployment benefits.

The extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits, approved four months ago to help Americans deal with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, is set to expire at the end of the month.

Congressional leaders and the White House are in discussions about another broad coronavirus aid package but are unlikely to pass a new bill before the increased unemployment benefits expire.

A short-term extension of unemployment benefits is now on the table, although its unclear how long that extension would run and whether it would be for $600 or a lesser amount.

 Michael Collins, USA TODAY

US hospitalizations back to peak levels as confirmed cases surge

More than 59,000 Americans are hospitalized with COVID-19 related illness, a return to the peak that rocked the nation in April, according data from the COVID Tracking Project. Hospitalizations have been steadily rising since hitting a low point of 27,772 on June 15. Several days with more than 59,000 were reported in April before the number began dropping steadily. But it has been rising for more than a month, according to the data.

Dr. Matthew G. Heinz is an internist in Arizona, which has struggled in recent weeks as the numbers rise. "Hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus lag significantly behind reports of new infections," he said.

Pfizer hopes for approval of vaccine as soon as October

Pfizer and BioNTech announced a deal with the federal government for 100 million doses of their vaccine candidate once the companies obtain approval or emergency use authorization from U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Americans will receive the vaccine for free, the firms said. If the ongoing studies are successful, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to be ready to seek Emergency Use Authorization or some form of regulatory approval as early as October.

The companies expect to manufacture globally up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020 and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. The federal government, under Operation Warp Speed, has cut deals with multiple drug companies, trying to line up massive amounts of vaccines as soon as they become available.

Expanding Operation Warp Speeds diverse portfolio by adding a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech increases the odds that we will have a safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year, said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

John Burkhardt, head of the Pfizer Groton, site speaks at a press conference Wednesday, July 22, 2020, in Groton, Conn.

California surpasses New York with most confirmed cases in nation

Californias confirmed coronavirus cases surged to over 409,000, giving the state the dubious distinction of the most cases in the nation. Johns Hopkins University data shows California has about 1,200 more cases than New York, which was the global hot spot for the virus and related fatalities this spring. New York has 32,520 confirmed deaths; Californias about 8,000. California, with a population of 40 million, is about twice the size of New York. Scientists say reported coronavirus cases vastly underestimate the true number of infections because of the small number of tests.

United expands mask requirement to airport, threatens travel bans

If you're flying United, you already know you have to keep your mask on during your flight. Now, the airline says you also need to keep it on throughout the airport effective Friday. The company announced Wednesday, ahead of its quarterly earnings call, that customers are expected to don masks at United customer service counters and kiosks and United Club locations, plus at gates and baggage claim areas.

"We're really trying to close all the travel gaps," United CEO Scott Kirby said in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box. A company statement warned that "if customers refuse to comply, they may be refused travel and banned from flying United at least while the mask requirement is in place."

 David Oliver

CDC director Redfield 'absolutely' ready to send grandkids back to school

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday he "absolutely" feels comfortable sending his own grandchildren back to schools this fall despite few gains in the pandemic struggle in the U.S. Redfield said failure to provide in-class education results in multiple public health issues as well as putting pressure on parents who need to return to work.

"It's really important to get out schools open," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." He said other than concerns about one grandchild who has cystic fibrosis, "I'm 100% that they can get back to school."

Florida governor: Schools should reopen, people shouldn't be afraid

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged Floridians Wednesday to not let fear get the best of us and harm our children in the process, reaffirming that school districts in the state should reopen in the fall.

The governor added that no parent will be "forced" to send their kids to school if they don't want to amid the coronavirus."

You can bet your bottom dollar that keeping schools closed will increase the impact of the achievement gap, exacerbate depression and anxiety and limit kids opportunity to participate in sports, he said.

Floridas Department of Health announced the states cases of COVID-19 had grown by 9,785 Wednesday, bringing the states known total to 379,619.

- Elinor Aspegren

Pandemic 'super-profit' companies: And the rich get richer...

Amid the rash of bankruptcies and mass layoffs, some American companies are reaping "dramatic profits" during the pandemic, according to a new study by an international poverty-fighting group. An analysis published Wednesday by Oxfam, a Britain-based activist organization, found that 17 of the top 25 most profitable U.S. corporations, including Microsoft, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Facebook, Pfizer and Visa, are expected to make almost $85 billion more in 2020 in what it called "super-profits" than in previous years.

"Thanks to a combination of government assistance and pure luck, a handful of corporations are raking it in and making already rich shareholders even richer," said Irit Tamir, director of the private sector department at Oxfam America.

 Kim Hjelmgaard

Phoning it in: Americans expect to be working, learning from home this fall

Most Americans expect their home to be a place of work and learning when the school year starts. More than 6 out of 10 Americans said it is likely they will be working from home this fall, according to The Harris Poll survey of 1,970 U.S. adults from July 18-19. And two-thirds of Americans said they expect their kids will be taking courses online from home. And bad news for the travel industry: 79% say it's unlikely they will travel on an airplane this fall, and 74% say they don't plan to stay in a hotel this fall, either.

Only 27% of parents say they expect to take their kids trick-or-treating, but they apparently will be wearing "masks." Support for wearing protective masks in public is up to 68% from 54% since late March.

 Mike Snider

Brazil President Bolsonaro still testing positive

Brazils government says President Jair Bolsonaro is still testing positive for the coronavirus following his July 7 announcement. The positive test Tuesday came after a follow-up check on July 15. The government says he remains in good health and that Bolsonaro will keep holding videoconferences instead of face-to-face meetings. He had to cancel a trip to northeastern Brazil. At least four members of Bolsonaros Cabinet have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Many COVID-19 complaints falling on deaf ears in Supreme Court

The coronavirus pandemic has fueled an outbreak of lawsuits from voters, church worshipers, prisoners and others challenging public health policies, but the Supreme Court is proving to be a roadblock for those taking their complaints into courtrooms. Taken together, the high court's actions signal a desire to leave the pandemic in public officials' hands  an effort that may prove difficult as Election Day draws near.

This is the most litigious year Ive ever experienced on voting rights," said Dale Ho, director of the voting rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed 15 lawsuits so far. COVID has turbocharged these controversies and has created more emergencies around the country than weve ever had in an election year.

 Richard Wolf

'Perfect Pitch' star says she skipped a mask once  and got COVID-19

Actress Anna Camp, a co-star of the "Pitch Perfect" films, said she believes she contracted COVID-19 after not wearing her mask in public "One. Time."

Camp, who said she was "extremely sick" for three weeks, described her experience in an Instagram post in which she urged readers not to let their guard down. Camp lost her sense of taste and smell, with the smell only returning partially a month later. Other lingering symptoms, a month later, include dizziness, extreme fatigue, sinus problems, nausea, vomiting and fever, she said.

"Im lucky. Because I didnt die. But people are," Camp, 37, wrote. "Please wear (your) mask. It can happen any time. And it can happen to anyone."

 Bryan Alexander

State records fall as pandemic tightens grip on US

Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Puerto Rico set records for new cases over a seven-day period that ended Tuesday. A USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data also revealed that a record numbers of deaths for a seven-day period were reported in Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. The 581 deaths in Arizona was more than six times the number of deaths reported in any week in the state during the spring, the nation's death toll was hitting its peak.

 Michael Stucka

Ex-CDC chief says more COVID-19 data should be released

States should release 15 categories of information deemed "essential" to understanding the pandemic, said Dr. Tom Frieden, now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative designed to prevent epidemics and cardiovascular disease.

Vital information includes such data as a rolling average of new cases and deaths, hospitalizations per capita, testing turnaround time and percentage of people wearing masks. Only 40% of essential data points are being monitored and reported publicly, and half isn't made public at all, Frieden said.

"With clear guidance, we can understand our risk better and improve our response rapidly," Frieden said. "This information was obtained with taxpayer dollars and we should demand that we have access to the information."

 Karen Weintraub

Detroit schools expect student test results within 30 minutes

The superintendent of schools in Detroit said the district will comply with a judge's order to test the 600 in-classroom summer school students for COVID-19 by Monday. U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow ordered the testing to begin Wednesday. Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the district has worked with the city of Detroit to obtain tests.

"We will allow parents who made the decision to send their children for face-to-face summer school instruction to have their children COVID-tested through nasal swabs," Vitti said. He added that the tests would be administered at the schools and results should be available within 30 minutes.

It was not immediately clear what impact the ruling would have on the new school year. The district tentatively plans to offer optional, in-classroom learning for the district's 50,000 students.

 John Wisely, Detroit Free Press

Some daycares welcoming toddlers  but don't forget the mask

President Donald Trump has pushed for a return to campus for older students, but the calculus is different with ages 2 to 4, an impressionable phase that leaves parents concerned about the possible impact of exposing children to a mask- and temperature check-filled setting from which parents now are excluded for health reasons. While protocols vary, many pre-K and day care facilities now have measures to keep teachers and children safe that include car drop-offs, fever checks and the wearing of masks or shields.

We do see apprehension from parents, says Jessica Chang, who co-founded WeeCare to help connect parents with some 2,500 child care facilities nationwide. We offer virtual ways to interact with providers to raise their comfort level. And we encourage providers to make things fun when they can.

 Marco della Cava

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID update: Pfizer's US vaccine deal; $600 in unemployment ending
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Gotion High-Tech, China's No.3 battery maker, celebrated on July 20 the first spade cut for its battery manufacturing base in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to a posting on the company's WeChat account.

Prior to the Liuzhou base, Gotion High-Tech has already had seven battery production bases in Hefei, Qingdao, Tangshan, Nanjing and Nantong. The new base will be operated by Liuzhou Guoxuan Battery Co.,Ltd. (Liuzhou Guoxuan), a sub-subsidiary of Gotion High-Tech.

The battery manufacturer announced on January 19 that it had struck a deal with Liuzhou's local government for the investment in building a power battery manufacturing base with an annual capacity of 10GWh.



Covering an area of 400 mu (266,666 square meters), the Liuzhou base will be equipped with battery cell production workshops, battery pack assembly workshops, warehouses and other supporting facilities, according to the agreement. The whole construction is set to be conducted in two phases, of which the first one should be completed within 15 months.

According to Xu Xingwu, executive vice president of Gotion High-Tech' Engineering Research Institute, the Liuzhou base will primarily produce lithium ion soft packs with the 390 or 590 soft package modules to be made first.

Liuzhou Guoxuan will attach more importance in the future to offering power battery system adaptive to various automobile platforms of the clients like SAIC-GM-Wuling, and carrying out industrial cooperation in the battery lifecycle applications. Its products will cover Sichuan, Chongqing, Guangdong and surrounding markets, and even influence Southeast Asian market (Gotion High-Tech's WeChat account).
MORLEY  While in the process of creating its fall reopening plan, the Morley Stanwood Community Schools Board of Education discussed the challenges of making sure students wear masks during its board meeting this week.

"The hardest part is going to be the masks," Superintendent Roger Cole said at Monday's meeting.

Currently in phase four of reopening, students in sixth grade or higher would be required to wear masks throughout the day. Students in kindergarten through fifth grade, however, only would be required to wear them when they leave their designated classrooms.

While these aspects of the plan are required as part of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's Return to School Roadmap, Cole said there are various challenges in seeing the requirements through.

"What are we going to do with the kid, or the parent, who says 'I'm not wearing it'?" Cole asked the board during the meeting.

One idea the district is considering is to provide two reusable face coverings for students  a cloth mask and a neck gaiter.

Cole said one would be worn by older students during the day and then replaced with the other face covering during sixth hour. At this time, teachers would collect the old mask, give students their new clean masks and send the old masks to be washed over night.

In the morning, students would show up to school in the mask they received during sixth hour and the process would continue for as long as masks are required.

However, Cole said there is the possibility of students not following this plan or forgetting their masks at home.

"We are assuming 50% of the kids will do it right," he said.

In the instance of a student not wearing a mask, Cole said a paper mask likely will be provided the first time. After that, the student would get a call home, and a third time without a mask would result in a student getting sent home for the day.

"I know that sounds extreme but there's a fairly decent sentiment amongst the superintendents that that's the way we need to go," Cole said.

The board also discussed plans for students who are unable to wear masks.

"There are health exceptions," Cole said.

In these circumstances, students would need to bring in a signed note from their doctor and no mask would be required. However, these students may instead be required to wear face shields that do not directly cover the nose or mouth, Cole said.

In addition to wearing masks, the board also discussed other ways to limit the spread of illness.

"Our idea is to rotate teachers," Cole said, noting this would limit student travel throughout hallways as well as the need to sanitize rooms between every group of students.

Cole said schools also would be limiting the circumstances for parents to enter school buildings, and said those who do need to would have to be health screened prior to entry.

While no official reopening plans have been set for the school district, schools in Michigan must come up with a reopening plan by Aug. 15, or seven days prior to the first day of school.
A Minnesota judge on Tuesday lifted a gag order surrounding the trial of four former police officers charged in the killing of George Floyd, CBS Minnesota reports. Although the order was lifted, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said he still expects the lawyers to follow the rules on disclosure of information.

The order was initially put in place by Cahill after Earl Gray, the lawyer representing former officer Thomas Lane, submitted body-worn camera footage to the court in an effort to get the case against his client dismissed. Gray wanted the videos to be made public, prompting Cahill to enact the gag order preventing attorneys from discussing the case, The Associated Press reports.

Lawyers representing all four ex-officers objected to the gag order. Several media organizations, including CBS Minnesota, also objected to the order and the sealing of the bodycam videos.

Cahill made the videos available to view by appointment, but a lawyer representing the coalition of media organizations argued this was basically the same as keeping the videos sealed. Cahill noted concerns that the videos could prejudice potential jurors, but the attorney argued clips of Floyd's arrest and descriptions of the bodycam video are already available online, CBS Minnesota reported.

"We have the bystander cellphone video, we have transcripts of the body camera footage, and we have summaries from journalists who've watched the body camera footage by appointment, so the media coalition's view is the media itself should be made widely available," attorney Leita Walker said.

A courtroom sketch of Tuesday's hearing shows attorney Earl Gray arguing the body camera video submitted on behalf of his client should be released to the public. / Credit: Cedric Hohnstadt

Cahill said he will decide within 90 days whether or not to release the videos.

At Tuesday's hearing, Cahill also opted not to hold Attorney General Keith Ellison in contempt of court, which defense attorneys had been pursuing. Cahill decided Ellison's statements to the press regarding the case were not an attempt to intimidate the court, CBS Minnesota reported.

Story continues

Three of the former officers, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng, are out on bail and appeared in person for the hearing. Derek Chauvin, who faces the most serious charge of second degree murder, appeared virtually.

Fox News anchors and former reporter accused of sexual misconduct

Lawmakers at odds on next coronavirus stimulus package

CBS New York remembers reporter Nina Kapur
At 3,000, it's far from a snip. But that's the price one lockdown flouter is paying after he was fined for visiting a hairdresser.

Gareth Le Monnier, 37, was told to self-isolate for two weeks on July 3 after leaving his home in Jersey to see his wife in neighbouring Guernsey.

But just before his fortnight was up, he went to a salon as well as a toy shop and a Waitrose cafe, Guernsey Magistrates' Court heard. He admitted two breaches over two days and was fined 3,000 for each, totalling 6,000.

His breaches were uncovered by a welfare check which found he wasn't at his registered address on July 16.

Gareth Le Monnier, 37, was fined 3,000 for visiting a hairdresser after being told to self-isolate for two weeks on July 3 after leaving his home in Jersey to see his wife in neighbouring Guernsey (stock image)

Judge Graeme McKerrell said the defendant had knowingly and deliberately put his own needs before that of the wider public good.

He also ordered the fine would have to be paid in full before he would be released from custody.

He added: 'The defendant has selfishly put his needs above those of the public.

'Working out when a period of 14 days expires is not rocket science.'

The judge said it was the interest of the wider public good which had to prevail and there had to be significant penalties in order to deter others who might consider doing the same.

But just before his fortnight was up, he went to a salon as well as a toy shop and a Waitrose cafe, Guernsey Magistrates' Court heard. He admitted two breaches over two days and was fined 3,000 for each, totalling 6,000 (stock image)

He added the defendant might have been asymptomatic, but that did not mean that he could not be carrying the disease and passing it on to other people.

Prosecuting Officer, Sarah Watson, told the court that on 16 July, when customs officers went to the address he had given in the Grand Bouet, nobody answered the door and he could not be contacted by phone.

One of the officers called the defendant's wife who said her husband might be asleep upstairs.

Before the officers had left the Bouet address, the couple arrived back there in a car with the defendant hiding low on the seat.

The woman got out of the car and said she would go upstairs to try and wake her husband, who was seen getting out of the same vehicle by an officer who had followed it on foot.

Enquiries later established his whereabouts the day before - including his haircut.
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Visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper speaks during a joint press conference with Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (not in the picture) in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, on Feb. 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Rahmatullah Alizadah)

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper's remarks came as the Trump administration is weighing the possibility of reducing U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula.

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Tuesday that he had not issued orders to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea, but adding the Pentagon would continue to conduct adjustments at every theater command.

"I've issued no orders to withdraw forces from the Korean Peninsula," Esper responded to a question on potential U.S. force restructure in South Korea at a think tank event.

While he also said that he would look at every geographic combat command to implement U.S. national defense strategy.

"So we will continue to look at the adjustments at every command we have in every theater to make sure we are optimizing our forces," he added.

Esper's remarks came as the Trump administration is weighing the possibility of reducing U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. media reported recently that the Pentagon had given the White House options for the possible reduction of the U.S. troop presence in South Korea, amid a battle with Seoul in which Washington is demanding significantly more cash to keep U.S. forces there.

A U.S. military official told the Wall Street Journal that the Pentagon reviewed the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, as part of a broader look at shifting deployments worldwide.

Trump has caused much anxiety in Washington by threatening allies that he would remove U.S. troops from various strategic areas. Last month the administration announced it would pull thousands of troops from Germany, claiming that Berlin is not paying their fair share of NATO costs.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:

A representative of the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan (NCEOA) will be appointed Chairman of the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TTCI), Spokesperson for the confederation Ilhama Abdullayeva told Trend.

"Last year, the Turkic Chamber of Commerce and Industry was established. In the second half of 2020, a representative of the confederation will be appointed chairman of the chamber, in connection with which we plan to organize numerous business missions and international forums with participation of observer countries such as Hungary and Turkmenistan," she said.

Abdullayeva said that in the framework of cooperation between the NCEOA and the Islamic Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (ICCIA), its planned to create a digital trade platform for members of the TTCI.

She said the NCEOA has been member of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (CCTS-Turkic Council) for many years.

"To eliminate bureaucratic and communication barriers between small and medium-sized businesses in the member states of this organization, an electronic Turkic business portal was created last year," she said. "This platform allows for quick communication between small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) without intermediaries, and is very effective for collecting information about the trading potential of participants, and operations between various business entities, within a single web portal."

Abdullayeva also noted that the simplification of communication between entrepreneurs and the centralized receipt of the proper information will significantly increase the speed and volume of trade between the countries of the Turkic Council.

The National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers') Organizations of Azerbaijan was established on March 5, 1999 in Baku and passed the official state registration.

The NCEOA unites over 1000 business entities, including 35 associations and unions of socio-economic profile.

----

Follow the author on Twitter: Fidan_Babaeva
Town becomes 14th community in Texas to ban abortion

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A Texas town has become the 14th local government to declare itself a sanctuary city for the unborn, rejecting the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

The City of East Mountain, official population 797, decided on Monday to become a Sanctuary City, with 3 City Council members voting yes and 2 abstaining.

Right to Life of East Texas, a pro-life advocacy group that has campaigned for such local ordinances, took to social media to announce the successful vote.

We are thankful for the support of the men and women of East Mountain Baptist Church and those from throughout the city who wanted to see this ordinance passed. This could not have happened without their support, they stated on Facebook.

May all of our churches and all of the residents of our cities do their part and call upon their leaders to pass good laws that protect the citizens and culture of their communities! As it says in Amos 5:15, may we all Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the city gate.

Since last year, several Texas towns and small cities have passed ordinances declaring their refusal to accept the legality of abortion with their municipalities.

This has included vowing to outlaw abortion if the Supreme Court decides to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which concluded that abortion was a constitutional right.

The first Texas city to pass such an ordinance was Waskom, which voted in June of last year to prevent abortion providers from conducting business within their jurisdiction.

Waskom Mayor Jesse Moore said in a statement quoted by Fox at the time that the pro-life ordinance was focused on preventing the possible creation of an abortion clinic in the city.

We decided to take things into our own hands, and we've got to do something to protect our cities and to protect the unborn children, stated Moore last year.

Seven of the towns experienced a legal challenged by the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union over their ordinances, which argued that they violated the Constitution.

Filed on behalf of the Lilith Fund and Texas Equal Access Fund, the ACLU dropped the lawsuit in May when the ordinances were amended to clarify that the abortion providers could perform abortion-related advocacy work in the towns.
Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) said here Wednesday military personnel deployed in the Volta Region were not intimidating residents to prevent them from participating in the ongoing voter registration exercise
A week after fire destroyed four businesses and their upstairs apartments in downtown Gardiner, the building owners are still unsure what they will do next.

Were still under investigation with the insurance company, said Lisa Curtis, who with her husband, Chuck Curtis, own all of the buildings that were destroyed in the July 14 fire.

We cant do anything until the investigation is through.

The businesses destroyed were the Two Bit Saloon, Montana Raft Co., Rosies Bistro and Reds Blue Goose Saloon. The Blue Goose was torn into with an excavator to prevent the fire from spreading down the block, which borders the north side of Yellowstone National Park.

A fire investigation by the Park County Sheriffs Office ruled the blaze accidental, Curtis said, although the cause of the fire has not been identified.

On Monday the Gateway Hose Co., Gardiners fire department, removed sprinklers that had been soaking the damaged buildings for three days, 24 hours a day. Yet the blackened, charred ruins were still steaming, said fire chief Bob Kopland.

This place looks like a bomb went off, Curtis said.

An employee at the Montana Raft Co. said the business lost all of its inventory used to outfit rafters on float trips down the nearby Yellowstone River, such as neoprene booties and life jackets. Owners Patrik and Sarah Ondrus also own the Paradise Adventure Co., so operations for the rafting business are now being based out of there.

Were very lucky it didnt get this (building), too, the employee said. Paradise Adventure is on the same block as the four buildings that burned.

Chuck Tanner, who leased the Two Bit Saloon, said the loss of the businesses has put a crimp on supplying food and adult beverages to Yellowstone travelers. He said the line at his other restaurant, the KBar, has seen lines 70 people deep.

The biggest problem is it wiped out two restaurants and two of the busiest bars in town, he said.

The buildings that burned date back to the towns founding. The Two Bit Saloon building was erected in 1900 out of native stone. The upstairs contained apartments for employees that once housed a brothel that serviced miners from nearby Jardine, Curtis said.

The structure that housed Rosies Bistro dated back to 1905 and Reds Blue Goose to 1920. The buildings were owned by Charles Red Curtis  Chuck Curtis father  who died on May 19 at age 90. According to an online tribute, Reds childhood was marked by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, he went on to serve our country as a member of the military police during the Korean War. He then worked on the Northern Pacific Railway and still built a business with (his son and wife at the Oklahoma City) Old Paris Flea Market before retiring to Gardiner and the Blue Goose.

Curtis said she and her husband are pleased that no one was injured in the fire.

We are blessed and its a miracle no one was hurt, she said.

Local nonprofits are helping displaced employees, which were estimated to number about 60 with another 16 who lost their belongings and apartments in the fire.

To help with the relief effort, the Yellowstone Community Fund, a local nonprofit, is taking donations. They can be dropped off at the Gardiner Chamber of Commerce drop box or mailed to the Gardiner Chamber of Commerce, PO Box 81 Gardiner, MT 59030.

Gardiner Fire Relief Fund for Small Businesses is holding a T-shirt fundraiser with proceeds going to the business. As of Tuesday $5,800 had been raised.

A separate Rosie's Bistro Employee Fund has also been established for seven of its employees and has so far raised $2,775. According to the Facebook page for the workers, they lost all of their belongings, no longer have a paycheck and are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

A Two Bit City employee fundraiser was also established on Facebook. The fund for seven employees who lost all of their belongings has already raised $24,796.

Tanner said housing was found for all of his displaced Two Bit employees.

The Gardiner Food Pantry is taking donations at PO Box 459, Gardiner, MT 59030. Donors must state that their gift is allocated for fire relief and displaced employees.

Scammers were also latching on to the pleas for financial assistance prompting warnings to donors.

_____________________________

PHOTOS: Historic buildings burn in Gardiner

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We know the ATF, FBI, DEA are coming to and are in Chicago engaged in activities to help local law enforcement  that seems like legitimate activity to go after criminal enterprise, Pritzker said. But its this other thing thats going on where people are wearing camouflage uniforms with no identification about who they are, claiming to be protecting federal buildings  that is not something that is acceptable in the state of Illinois or city of Chicago.
A local court on Wednesday sent Sanjay Jain to police custody for two more days in connection with allegations of horse trading of legislators to topple the Gehlot government in Rajasthan, an official said. It is alleged that Jain was acting as the "middleman" in the negotiations and his voice figured in the purported audio clips of the conversation related to bribing of legislators.

Meanwhile, the Special Operations Group (SOG) team sent to Manesar in Haryana to investigate the case could not trace Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma, who was purportedly talking with Jain in the tape. Sharma is from the camp of Sachin Pilot, who along with 18 legislators has revolted against the Gehlot government.

"Sanjay Jain has been sent on two-day police remand after being produced before the court and the team sent to Manesar is being replaced by another team to carry out the search operation further," ADG (ATS and SOG) Ashok Rathore said. Jain was earlier produced before the court on Saturday and was sent to a four-day police remand.

The SOG had registered and FIR on the basis of complaint lodged by Congress Chief Whip Mahesh Joshi who had submitted audio clips as evidence. The Congress has alleged that Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat's voice also figures in the audio clips but he has dismissed the charge.

However, the FIR does not identify Gajendra Singh, referred in the clip, as Union minister Shekhawat, a senior BJP leader from Rajasthan. Shekhawat has denied that he figures in the clip and said he is open to a probe.

The Congress claims Jain is a BJP leader while the BJP has rejected the allegation saying he has no association with it.


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. dollar slipped against its most major opponents in the European session on Wednesday, as concerns over the looming stimulus spending deadlock in Washington and growing U.S.-China tensions triggered a sell-off in the currency.



Republicans and Democrats differed significantly on stimulus package that recommended a payroll tax cut and funding for coronavirus tests and the CDC.



Republicans are planning to unveil a roughly $1 trillion bill, a stance that Democrats oppose.



In a White House briefing on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump conceded that the coronavirus situation would 'get worse before it gets better.'



The death toll from coronavirus in the U.S. exceeded 1,000 on Tuesday, according to a data from Johns Hopkins University.



More than 65,000 new covid-19 cases has been recorded, adding to a nationwide tally of more than 3,874,000 since the pandemic began.



Tensions between the U.S. and China escalated further after the Trump administration ordered China to close its Consulate General in Houston.



China said that the move was unilaterally initiated by the U.S. and it would 'react with firm countermeasures' if Washington didn't 'revoke this erroneous decision.'



The greenback retreated to 1.2730 against the pound, from a 2-day high of 1.2644 seen at 5:00 am ET. On the downside, 1.31 is likely seen as its next support level.



The greenback dropped to 1.1602 against the euro, its weakest level since October 2018. The greenback is likely to find support around the 1.18 level.



The greenback fell to 0.9301 against the franc for the first time since March 10. The greenback may find support around the 0.90 level.



The greenback slid to near a 7-month low of 0.6689 against the kiwi, more than 1-year low of 0.7183 against the aussie and near a 6-week low of 1.3419 against the loonie, after rising to 0.6632, 0.7112 and 1.3483, respectively in early deals. The next possible support for the greenback is seen around 0.68 against the kiwi, 0.74 against the aussie and 1.31 against the loonie.



In contrast, the greenback was up against the yen, at 107.15. If the currency rises further, it may find resistance around the 109.00 level.



The latest survey from Jibun Bank showed that the manufacturing sector in Japan continued to contract in July, albeit at a slightly slower pace, with a manufacturing PMI score of 42.6.



That's up from 40.1 in June, although it remains well beneath the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.



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Christian missionary, father-of-4 brutally murdered in India by Maoists

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A Christian missionary and father-of-four was brutally murdered by a Maoist group in India angered by his mission work amid a rise in religious persecution across the country.

Morning Star News reports that on July 10, a Maoist group in the Gadchiroli district of Indias Maharashtra state shot and killed Munshi Dev Tado, a 28-year-old Christian convert and father of four children, ages 6, 5, 4 and 1.

Tados wife, Jaini Munshi Tado, told the outlet that her husband was leading worship on his property when three armed men and three women interrupted the service.

They shook hands with him at first, then took him by his hand and, after few steps, they tied his hands at his back with a rope, she said. I, my father-in-law and brother-in-law followed after them, pleading and enquiring as to why they are taking him. They said they just want to talk to him and that we need not worry, they will send him back in a little while.

Hardly five to seven minutes later, we heard a gunshot, she said. We immediately ran in the direction only to find the body of my husband in the pool of his blood, and the Maoists had gone. I wept bitterly, my husband was gone.

After killing the pastor, the Maoists left a note in Tados pocket claiming he was a police informant. However, when police arrived to investigate, they said Tado was not an informer for them and that they did not even know him.

According to Asia News, the pastor and his family began to suffer persecution after leaving the Maoist Naxalite movement and converting to Christianity several years ago. Villagers angered by his conversion attacked Tados home and threatened to kill his family on several occasions.

Tension escalated when the pastor began to lead regular worship services at his home and villagers began receiving Christ, said Pastor Vijay Kumar Vachami, a mentor and close associate of Tado.

There were only three Christian families in the past, but this year due to the hard work of Tado, the number of families increased to 18, he said, adding, He was a very simple man and a very faithful servant of God. Please pray for his family that is left behind.

Villagers had sent three letters to Maoists at different times spreading false information to instigate them against him, Vachami said, and they pestered the Maoists to the point that they actually executed the horrendous killing.



Speaking to AsiaNews, Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, condemned the murder "in the strongest possible terms and called on law enforcement to "bring the killers to justice.

Tados murder marks the fourth religiously motivated killing of a Christian in India in less than two months.

In Bari village, Jharkhand state, on June 7, followers of a tribal religion abducted and killed Kande Munda, leaving his body mutilated beyond recognition.

Also in June, followers of a tribal religion in Odisha state abducted 16-year-old Sambaru Madkami for his faith before stabbing and stoning him to death.

In May, tribal Hindus in Chhattisgarh state persecuted a widowed, Christian mother of four before her body was found severely mutilated in the wilderness near her village.

A new report from the Delhi-based Evangelical Fellowship of India documented 135 cases of persecution that occurred across India in the first half of 2020. Cases documented included lynching, community ostracization, and concerted efforts to stop worship and Gospel-sharing.

According to EFI, many cases of persecution go unreported due to fear among the Christian community, a lack of legal literacy and, the reluctance or refusal of police to register cases.

Persecution Relief, which tracks anti-Christian persecution and harassment in India, also reported 293 cases of Christian persecution in the first half of 2020.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on April 28 urged the U.S. State Department to add India as a Country of Particular Concern to its list of countries that engage in or tolerate egregious violations of religious freedom.

USCIRF voiced concerns with how national and state governments have allowed nationwide campaigns of harassment and violence against religious minorities to continue with impunity."

India is ranked No. 10 on Open Doors 2020 World Watch List of the countries where it's most difficult to be a Christian. The watchdog notes that persecution against Christians has worsened since Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014.
Armenia's Armed Forces have inflicted tangible damage on Azerbaijani border villages in the clashes on the border since July 12, after which Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree aimed at restoring destroyed buildings and infrastructure. According to the decree, a working group will study the degree of destruction of residential and non-residential buildings on the territory of the Tovuz region for their early restoration.

The government will keep under control concerns of the families of military personnel killed on the battlefield. On behalf of the President, apartments were allocated to the families of deceased General Polad Gashimov and Colonel Ilgar Mirzoyev.



At the same time, on behalf of Vice-President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation will keep under control concerns of the families of the 12 killed soldiers. They will also be patronized by the State Committee for Social Protection and Employment.

According to preliminary data, the Armenian Armed Forces destroyed 35 private houses in four villages of the Tovuz region: Agdam, Alibeyli, Dondar Gushchu and Agbulag. The damage was caused to the gas pipeline which delivers natural gas to the villagers, the power grids and other socially important objects. The progress of restoration work is under the control of the President now.



It is worth noting that the government had previously kept such issues under control. On April 19, 2018, Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures to improve the social protection of family members of servicemen who gave their lives for the countrys territorial integrity and who are listed as dead after going missing during military operations. According to the decree, a one-time payment of 11,000 manats should be paid to the heirs of servicemen who gave their lives for the countrys territorial integrity and who are listed as dead after going missing during military operations until August 2, 1997.

More than 7,600 apartments and private houses have been allocated to families of those killed during the hostilities and to the disabled.



The President also supervised the reconstruction work required after the "four-day war" in April 2016. Then 3 million manats were allocated to Agdam and Tartar districts to restore destroyed buildings and infrastructure. Large-scale construction work was carried out in the liberated Jojug Marjanli village in Jabrayil region, where a feed plant, greenhouses, apiaries, and incubators were also built.

Several destroyed houses have been rebuilt in the Tartar district, major repairs have been carried out in two dozen houses, and partial repairs - in 231 houses. Major repairs were carried out both in the Tatar secondary school and the school for 120 students in Gazyan village.

Eight five-room and four-room houses were built in Aghdam region, 15 houses were fully restored, 25 houses underwent major repairs, 693 houses - partial restoration work. In addition, a school and two kindergartens were repaired.



On July 21, Ilham Aliyev and Mehriban Aliyeva attended the ceremony to give out apartments and cars to families of martyrs and war disabled, which was held in Baku.
The race is on to save a sperm whale after it was found entangled in an abandoned fishing net off the coast of Spain.

Distressing images show the large mammal completely caught up in the potentially fatal net in waters in the Strait of Gibraltar.

The entire length of the whale's body from its head to its tail had become entangled, preventing it from being able to swim properly.

It comes just days after heartbreaking footage showed another sperm whale caught in fishing nets off the Italian coast.

Distressing images show the large mammal completely caught up in the net in waters in the Strait of Gibraltar

Images taken by underwater photographer Rafael Fernandez Caballero showing the 33ft-long sperm whale caught in the net off the Spanish southern coast were sent to the Spanish Ministry of the Environment

The whale off Spain was first spotted by marine conservation group Nereide Association, which raised the alarm to authorities last week.

The group said they were unable to immediately help the whale due to a lack of resources on board and adverse weather conditions.

Images taken by underwater photographer Rafael Fernandez Caballero showing the 33ft-long sperm whale caught in the net off the Spanish southern coast were sent to the Spanish Ministry of the Environment.

A mission to free the animal from the net was launched by Spanish environmental authorities, who are working alongside marine biologists to track the animal down.

Eva Carpinelli, president of Spain's Nereide Association, said the sperm whale was 'completely trapped in a fishing net covered from its head including the mouth to its tail'.

She said the fishing net made it difficult for the animal to swim, and the whale's blowhole which allows it to breathe air seemed 'weak'.

'Due to a lack of resources on board the search vessel and sudden adverse weather conditions at sea, we had to return to the coastline and were unable to help the sperm whale,' Ms Carpinelli told the Gibraltar Chronicle.

'We felt frustrated at not being able to help the animal or stay with it to check its vitals.'

Just days ago, separate images emerged showing a giant sperm whale caught in a fishing net off the Italian coast near a tiny Mediterranean island.

Just days ago, separate images emerged showing a giant sperm whale caught in a fishing net off the Italian coast near a tiny Mediterranean island

Boaters on Saturday had spotted the struggling sperm whale in that stretch of the Tyrrhenian Sea off Italy's west coast and contacted the coast guard.

The operation to free the sperm whale off Italy over the weekend was particularly difficult 'due to its state of agitation' that didn't allow for continual intervention near the whale

In a coast guard video, a diver can be seen slicing away some of the net in the waters surrounding the Aeolian Islands archipelago.

Boaters on Saturday had spotted the struggling sperm whale in that stretch of the Tyrrhenian Sea off Italy's west coast and contacted the coast guard.

The operation to free the sperm whale was particularly difficult 'due to its state of agitation' that didn't allow for continual intervention near the whale, the coast guard said Sunday.

Three weeks ago, the Italian coast guard freed another sperm whale ensnared in a fishing net, also in the sea off the Aeolian Islands.

Since the start of the year, the coast guard has sequestered illegal fishing nets totalling more than a 62 miles in length.

The coast guard says it has stepped up its efforts this year to combat illegal fishing.

'Bycatch' is the term given to the accidental capture of marine life in fishing gear.

It is a global issue, affecting many different species including seals, turtles and sea birds.

It's estimated that at least 300,000 cetaceans (aquatic mammals) are caught in this way every year, according to The International Whaling Commission.
The vast majority of Ontario motorists want the province to play a stronger role in regulating the towing industry, according to a recent study.

The poll, commissioned by the Canadian Automobile Association for South Central Ontario, comes amid a turf battle that has seen murders, assaults, threats and shootings rock the GTA tow truck industry and brought the arrest or suspension of police officers in corruption-related investigations.

The CAA study released Wednesday says 90 per cent of Ontario drivers want some form of provincial regulation, such as tow truck licensing, certification and provincial oversight.

The study, which was conducted in April, also found that 44 per cent of respondents believe there is organized crime involvement in the local tow truck industry.

In May, York Regional Police said four organized crime groups are fighting for shares of the business in that region.

Premier Doug Ford promised in June to put together a task force to review and reform the towing industry, vowing: To all the bad actors out there, my message is very clear  the partys over. Were coming for you, and well catch you, and we will lock you up.

According to the CAA study, commissioned in April, only one in five Ontario drivers currently feels very protected by the current towing system.

Consumers should have the confidence that they will be protected regardless of where in the province they are and what kind of towing services they may require, Teresa Di Felice, assistant vice-president of government and community relations, said in a prepared statement.

The current system leaves drivers vulnerable to fraud, the CAA states, noting that less than five per cent of communities across Ontario have bylaws regulating towing.

The CAA blames what it calls a lack of provincial oversight for leaving drivers vulnerable to inconsistent towing rates, processes, and standards.

Last week, Toronto police announced that several Toronto police officers had been suspended with pay amid what spokesperson Meaghan Gray called a very active investigation into tow truck industry corruption.

The force hasnt said exactly how many officers have been suspended or who they are. The CBC earlier reported at least five officers have been suspended.

Last month, veteran Toronto police Const. Ronald Joseph, 47, was charged with breach of trust, secret commissions, fraud, commission of an offence for a criminal organization and participation in the activities of a criminal organization regarding the GTA towing industry.

There have been at least four murders in the GTA over the past 18 months related to the towing industry.

No charges have been laid in the murder of Lawrence Taylor Gannon, 28, a tow truck driver who was shot to death execution-style in the driveway of his Scarborough home on April 29, 2019.

No charges have also been laid in the January 2019 death of Lingathasan Suntharamoorthy, 36, a towing company worker who was shot dead in his highrise home near Kennedy Road and Highway 401.

Three Ottawa police officers were charged in April with breach of trust and accepting secret commissions relating to their citys tow truck industry.

One Ottawa officer was also charged with allowing access to confidential police databases.

The poll results are based on online surveys of 5,003 Ontario drivers licence-holders. The polling company considers the results accurate within 1.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
A serious, independent look at runaway overtime for select officers in the Albuquerque Police Department is long overdue.

Because it should raise more than eyebrows when an officer/spokesman is the citys highest-paid employee  making $192,923 in one year (2018), which was more than department directors, the fire chief, city attorney and chief financial officer. Throw in claims of double dipping  collecting OT for spokesman work and chiefs overtime for private security duty at businesses at the same time  and the questions multiply.

With this occurring two years ago, APD has had plenty of time to address this internally and provide some answers. Yet a spokesman said its still a work in progress.

So its good news state Auditor Brian Colon, in an effort joined by Attorney General Hector Balderas, has ordered a special audit to check compliance with relevant laws, regulations and more that will include looking into whether there has been actual fraud.

In this case we had enough red flags, Colon said recently. We determined we wanted a full-blown audit.

Overtime poster boy Simon Drobik was on track this year to top his old record, raking in $106,607 since Jan. 1. However, that wont happen since he submitted his paperwork on July 10 to retire from APD prior to the completion of an ongoing Internal Affairs investiation.

Drobik was the subject of inquiry and criticism for his overtime in 2018, with the citys Civilian Police Oversight Agency concluding he had violated policies and recommended both Drobik and his supervisor be fired. That didnt happen. The agency also recommended an overtime cap of 25 hours a week  still a lot.

Spokesman Gilbert Gallegos refused to say whether there is a cap, but last week the city said it notified Colon of suspected fraud involving wages paid to Drobik.

Drobik, meanwhile, fell to No. 7 on the city pay list last year at $166,485.

Drobik is far from alone when it comes to APD officers and overtime. Last year, APD accounted for 149 of the citys top 250 earners, including the No. 1 slot  Sgt. Michael Hernandez, who was paid $193,666, according to the citys online records.

APD is undermanned and overtime is necessary. We need cops on the street and answering calls, and the pandemic has added to manpower stress.

But Colon is right when he says, We need to make sure resources in the Albuquerque Police Department are going where theyre going to do the most good. Exorbitant overtime that is with a very small handful of officers  its hard to believe thats the best use of resources or the best use of staffing.

The audit, to be conducted by an outside accounting firm, will evaluate whether any of the compensation was unjust. Colon said he was particularly concerned about the tone at the top of the city with regard to police overtime and whether concerns raised previously have been taken seriously enough.

Mayor Tim Kellers office said last week that APD has ongoing issues with overtime, which it blames on a long history of poor oversight and accounting practices.

No kidding. But at some point you cant keep blaming the last administration. Keller spokesman Matt Ross said the city had cut APD overtime by $1 million last fiscal year and were glad to work with the new auditor to continue making changes to a broken system.

As an aside, in the relatively small world of New Mexico politics, Keller is a former state auditor who defeated Colon for the mayors job in 2017.

The system is, indeed, broken. It is incumbent on the auditor and attorney general to ferret out wrongdoing and work with the city to ensure we have policies and practices that keep the public safe while using tax dollars in a way that is both reasonable and fair to the men and women of APD.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
ALBANY, N.Y., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Growing prevalence of diabetes is pushing up demand for diabetes devices. It is helping market grow considerably. Over the next few years, factors such as technological advancement and increase in research and development activities will also drive global diabetes devices market forward.

Transparency Market Research notes, "The global diabetes devices market would grow at a rate of 6.4%, compounded annually, from 2019 to 2027. In 2018, the market was valued at USD 41.8 billion. Over the stated period, it will reach valuation of USD 73.4 billion."

Request for Analysis of COVID-19 Impact on Diabetes Devices Market  https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/covid19.php

Key Findings of Global Diabetes Devices Market Study:

Over the forecast period, hospital pharmacies are set to be highly lucrative segment under the category of distribution channels

In terms of product type, glucose monitoring devices will be the leading segment in the market; insulin delivery devices will dominate as a sub-segment

Region-wise, North America would dominate market share

Download a PDF Brochure of Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/brochure.php

Key Drivers of Growth in Global Diabetes Devices Market:

Growing prevalence of diabetes is leading to growth in the global diabetes devices market over the forecast period. Transparency Market Research notes that a slew of contributing factors mark the landscape, driving it on a high growth trajectory. A glimpse into such growth factors is provided below:

Poor lifestyle choices is one of the major reasons leading to high incidence of diabetes in the world

Sedentary lifestyle, malnutrition, and high stress levels marking modern lifestyle create high risk of diabetes among people

Incidence of type-1 diabetes is high and growing number of cases are being noticed across the world

Increase in investment towards research and development in the field is set to pave way to higher growth in the market

Robust pipeline of products such as artificial pancreas system is also set to contribute to growth

For a detailed analysis of global diabetes devices market by product-type, distribution channel, and region, visit TOC at https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/14

Regional Analysis of Global Diabetes Devices Market:

Availability of advanced technology, high spending on healthcare is set to drive North America to dominant position in the global diabetes devices market

to dominant position in the global diabetes devices market Over the forecast period, Asia Pacific region will chart a high CAGR owing to growing awareness, high prevalence of diabetes; India and China carry majority of the burden

region will chart a high CAGR owing to growing awareness, high prevalence of diabetes; and carry majority of the burden Prevalence of diabetes is growing at a rapid pace in middle and low income countries, driving demand for these devices in these regions

Analyze global diabetes devices market growth in 30+ countries including US, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Benelux, Nordic, China, Japan, India, and South Korea. Request a sample of the study https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php

Competitive Landscape of Global Diabetes Devices Market:

The fragmented vendor landscape of global diabetes devices market has no dearth of strong players. Some of the top ones are profiled by Transparency Market Research. These include Medtronic, Novo Nordisk A/S, Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Company, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc, Abbott Laboratories, Cellnovo, Insulet Corporation, LifeScan, Inc., and Owen Mumford Ltd, among others. The report also carries details into business strategies, product portfolio, and recent developments led by these players.

Top focus areas for most players operating in the diabetes devices vendor landscape are launching new products, gaining regulatory approvals, and striving for innovation. Launch of slim X2 insulin pump with control-IQ technology by Tandem Diabetes Care in January 2020 is one such example. Collaborative agreements, partnerships, and mergers and acquisitions are also crucial strategies aimed at achieving growth.

Purchase the Diabetes Devices Market Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php

The global diabetes devices market has been segmented as follows:

Global Diabetes Devices Market, by Product Type

Glucose Monitoring Devices



Self- monitoring blood glucose meters





Blood glucose testing strips





Lancets





Continuous glucose monitoring meters



Insulin Delivery Devices



Insulin syringes





Insulin pens





Insulin pumps



Diabetes Management Software



Artificial Pancreas System

Global Diabetes Devices Market, by Distribution Channel

Hospital Pharmacies



Retail Pharmacies



Online Pharmacies



Diabetes Clinics/Centers

Global Diabetes Devices Market, by Region

North America



U.S.





Canada



Europe



Germany





U.K.





France





Italy





Spain





Rest of Europe



Asia Pacific



China





India





Japan





Australia & New Zealand

&



Rest of Asia Pacific



Latin America



Brazil





Mexico





Rest of Latin America



Middle East & Africa

&

GCC Countries





South Africa





Rest of Middle East & Africa

Explore Transparency Market Research's award-winning coverage of the global Healthcare industry:

Insulin Delivery Devices Market: According to the report, the global insulin delivery devices market was valued at US$ 10,385.0 Mn in 2017 and is projected to reach US$ 21,783.3 Mn by 2026, expanding at a high CAGR of 8.7% from 2018 to 2026. Increase in the prevalence rate of diabetes and related diseases across the world is anticipated to fuel the global insulin delivery devices market during the forecast period

Blood Glucose Monitoring Systems Market: Technological advancements continue to drive innovations in the blood glucose monitoring systems market and improve diagnostic techniques and equipment. Research and development activities continue to explore and discover new non-invasive glucose monitoring techniques. At the back of these factors coupled with favorable government policies, the global blood glucose monitoring systems market is expected to reach ~US$ 25 Bn by the end of 2027

Insulin Pumps Market: The global insulin pumps market is anticipated to stretch around a value of US$9.50 bn before the finish of the conjecture time frame, which was assessed in 2016, to be around worth US$4.18 bn. The market is foreseen to thrive at a CAGR of 9.80% inside the forecast period from 2017 to 2025.

Gain access to Market Ngage, an AI-powered, real-time business intelligence that goes beyond the archaic research solutions to solve the complex strategy challenges that organizations face today. With over 15,000+ global and country-wise reports across 50,000+ application areas, Market Ngage is your tool for research on-the-go. From tracking new investment avenues to keeping a track of your competitor's moves, Market Ngage provides you with all the essential information to up your strategic game. Power your business with Market Ngage's actionable insights and remove the guesswork in making colossal decisions.

About Us

Transparency Market Research is a next-generation market intelligence provider, offering fact-based solutions to business leaders, consultants, and strategy professionals.

Our reports are single-point solutions for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data collection methods along with ability to track more than one million high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized solutions through adhoc reports. These requests are delivered with the perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories.

TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with right methodology of research is the key to help enterprises reach right decision."

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Transparency Market Research

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Suite 700,

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United States

USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453

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Press Release Source: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/diabetes-devices-market.htm

Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

SOURCE Transparency Market Research
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Bucharest, Romania  Wed, July 22, 2020 19:30 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066888df0 2 World Romania,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-infection,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

The number of coronavirus infections in Romania rose by a record 1,030 new cases in the past 24 hours, the government said on Wednesday, as the World Health Organization sounded the alarm over spikes in southern Europe and the Balkans.

Romania has confirmed 40,163 cases including 2,101 deaths since the pandemic hit in late February.

The government has extended a state of alert, in place since May 15, by another 30 days until the middle of August.

Romania's spike this month is in part because of a legislative void that enabled thousands of infected people to walk out of hospitals or not be treated at all.

The Constitutional Court ruled in early July that the government could not hospitalize or isolate people based on cabinet decrees, but only through a law approved by parliament. which came into effect on Tuesday.

Earlier this week, Health Minister Nelu Tataru warned that if the situation escalated, the government may quarantine specific outbreak areas going forward.

"While certainly in western Europe the disease has come under control, we still have some worrying trends in southern Europe and the Balkans so we're not out of the woods just yet in the European environment," WHO emergencies program head Mike Ryan warned on Wednesday.

"It requires sustained vigilance."
Kim Kardashian West has urged compassion for her husband Kanye West as she spoke about his bipolar disorder after he shared a string of concerning tweets.

In recent weeks, the megastar rapper has said he is planning to run to become US president and has made claims about his family life.

Here the PA news agency explains more about bipolar disorder.

 What is bipolar disorder?

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition that shows itself through significant mood swings.

Those diagnosed with the condition have episodes of manic highs and depressive lows.

There is also the possibility of some psychotic symptoms during manic or depressed episodes.

A sufferer told the mental health charity Mind: Its an emotional amplifier: when my mood is high I feel far quicker, funnier, smarter and livelier than anyone; when my mood is low I take on the suffering of the whole world.

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 How many people suffer from it?

Three million people in the UK have bipolar, according to the Bipolar UK national support charity.

It describes it as one of the UKs common long-term conditions, and says it takes an average of nine years to get a correct diagnosis of bipolar.

There is a misdiagnosis an average of 3.5 times, the charity says.

 Is there just one type of bipolar disorder?

People may be diagnosed with a specific type of bipolar disorder, bipolar I, bipolar II or cyclothymia.

People can experience the moods and symptoms in different ways and with different levels of severity.

Someone who is diagnosed as bipolar I will have had at least one episode of mania which lasted longer than a week.

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They may also have had depressive episodes.

Those with bipolar II will have had both at least one episode of severe depression and hypomania, namely periods of being over-active and excited behaviour.

Someone may be diagnosed with cyclothymia if they have experienced both hypomanic and depressive mood states over the course of two years or more and their symptoms arent severe enough to meet the criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar I or bipolar II.

 Is there a cause or cure?

Research has still not led to either a consensus on the cause or a cure.

According to Bipolar UK, some research suggests that there is, if not a known genetic link, then certainly an inherited predisposition to developing bipolar.

It is also known that stressful life events may often precede an episode of mania, hypomania or depression.

 How can it be treated?

Medication may be offered during a depressive episode and treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy or talking treatments may be suggested.

The aim of treatment should be to help people maintain stable moods, manage their symptoms well and to feel supported, according to Mind.

Antipsychotics, lithium, anticonvulsants and antidepressants are among the medications which could be prescribed by psychiatrists or GPs.

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Current and past symptoms, such as whether patients are having a manic or depressive period, how long previous episodes have lasted and what has triggered them can all have an impact on what medication is offered.

The physical health of the sufferer, particularly whether they have diabetes, kidney or weight problems and how likely they are keep on taking their medication, are also key.

 How can friends and family help?

The condition can be distressing for friends and family.

Mind suggests they could try to be open to talking to someone about what is happening in order to feel they have support.

Ima focus on the music now  ye (@kanyewest) July 21, 2020

Sorting out a plan with a loved one while they are well, to try and cope with their manic episodes could help.

It could include a range of things such as doing something creative, helping them keep a routine including regular meals and a good sleep pattern or managing their money while they are unwell, according to Mind.
SANTA ANA, Calif, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Demonstrating its commitment to community for an array of design types, SVA Architects, Inc. has earned six (6) 2020 Gold Nugget Awards of Merit and a Judge's Special Award. The Gold Nugget Awards is considered one of the Nation's most competitive and prestigious design competitions. Typically, the awards ceremony is part of the annual PCBC conference and trade show (formerly known as the Pacific Coast Builders Conference), which was cancelled this year due to COVID. The Gold Nugget Awards will instead be a virtual event on July 24, with the awards presentation beginning at 5pm. Receiving these Gold Nugget Merit Awards demonstrates SVA's passion for designing affordable, senior, interior, rehabilitation, performing arts, and education projects.

The Gold Nugget Awards recognizes outstanding architectural design and planning achievements in more than 50 building categories, including mixed-use, affordable housing, educational, special use, senior housing, and more. This year's 57th annual competition elicited 575 entries from around the world. A Grand Award winner will be announced from the Merit Award winners in each category during the virtual Awards event.

Judge's Special Award: Serramonte Faculty & Staff Housing

One of four projects chosen to receive a Judge's Special Award is Serramonte Faculty & Staff Housing for Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City, CA. Jefferson UHSD is the nation's first K-12 school district to pass a bond exclusively to build an affordable housing community for teachers and staff. The innovative project is anticipated to cost $61 million, with $33 million in bond funds provided by the passage of Measure J in June 2018. The project will consist of 122 apartment homes, with rental rates estimated at 50% of market rate at the time of occupancy. This innovative project will help the District retain top teaching talent, maximize staff members' time, and increase educators' investment in the local community.

Gold Nugget Awards

SVA's projects to be recognized at the 2020 Gold Nugget Awards include:

Serramonte Faculty & Staff Housing ( Daly City, CA )  Judge's Special Award (nominated for Best On-the-Boards Affordable Housing Community)

)  (nominated for Mirasol Village ( Sacramento, CA ) - Best On-the-Boards Affordable Housing Community

) - The Barn ( Riverside, CA )  Best Special Use Project and Best Rehabilitation Project

)  and The Fred Kavli Theatre ( Thousand Oaks, CA ) - Best Interior Renovations

) - Albany Middle School Annex ( Albany, CA )  Best Educational Project

)  Twin Oaks Senior Residence ( Oakley, CA ) - Best Senior Housing CommunityOn the Boards

Ernesto M. Vasquez, FAIA, CEO of SVA Architects, says, "SVA is grateful to the judges of PCBC for recognizing the firm's diversity of work that's enriching our communities and creating healthy environments for education and much-needed affordable housing."

About SVA Architects, Inc.

Founded in 2003, SVA Architects has become one of the Country's most innovative and respected design and planning organizations. The award-winning firm specializes in urban planning, architecture, and interior design of public, private, and mixed-use projects. Among the firm's portfolio are civic, educational, residential, commercial and mixed-use developments. SVA Architects values institutional and public environments as the foundation of a community and the backdrop against which we live, learn, work, worship, and play. The company is headquartered in Santa Ana with offices in Oakland, San Diego, and Honolulu. For more information, visit www.sva-architects.com.

Media Contact: Beth Binger

BCI

Mobile: (619) 987-6658

[email protected]

SOURCE SVA Architects, Inc.

Related Links

https://sva-architects.com


The Dubai Health Authority sees the reopening of airports, aggressive testing and sanitisation, and resumption of elective surgeries and other healthcare services as clear indicators of Dubais readiness to restart health tourism in the emirate.

Prior to the pandemic, Dubai has projected that the sector would contribute about 500,000 visitors in the emirate by 2021. An increasing number of tourists around the world are now waiting to travel for health or medical reasons to Dubai and may soon resume their impending flight plans following the emirates lifting of entry restrictions to tourists and visitors due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this regard, the Health Tourism Department held on July 22 a webinar themed Dubai Leads the Great Comeback: DXH welcomes the world to exceptional health experiences to announce the sectors readiness to welcome health tourists.

The Dubai Governments leading efforts to strongly implement precautionary measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 in coordination with national health authorities, as well as its high-level engagement to help patients recover, had put the emirates advanced healthcare sector once again in the global spotlight.

The webinar, attended by key stakeholders from the tourism and health sectors and led by key speakers from the Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), and private hospitals which are members of the DXH, further shed light on how the country is planning to make Dubai a destination of choice for health tourists amidst the current situation as well as the strategic measures of the authorities to ensure patient safety upon health tourists arrival.

Dr. Marwan Al Mulla, CEO - Health Regulation Sector, Dubai Health Authority, said: "As we all know, the world is currently facing an unprecedented crisis - one that has managed to impact various industry verticals, including health tourism. However, the government's commitment and effort to address the impact of the pandemic has put us on the path to recovery rather soon. In fact, the exemplary actions of the government has allowed the UAE to be ranked as one of the safest nations during the pandemicnumber one in the Arab region and one of the world's top 10 in managing Covid-19."

He added: Amidst the pandemic spread and the implementation of restrictions for businesses and individuals alike, Dubais healthcare sector has efficiently provided virtual assistance in licensing, including the provision of telemedicine which many hospitals have immediately adopted at the height of the situation. We are proud of the performance of the healthcare sector during that time. As some of the last patients have left from hospitals, we are resuming normal services for both inpatients and outpatients. This experience has been incredible for Dubai and a true test to the strength of our healthcare system.

"The Dubai Health Authority has licensed a total of 3,397 health facilities in the emirate, 45 of which are newly established during the first half of 2020. Dubai Health Experience remains committed to supporting the emirates journey to become the most preferred global health tourism destination and a hub for top-accredited healthcare facilities," concluded Al Mulla.

The panel discussion which included Dr Al Mulla; Issam Kazim, CEO of CEO of Dubai's Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM); Sherif Beshara, Group Chief Executive Officer - American Hospital; and Dr Tarek Fathey - Chief Operating Officer  Mediclinic Middle East, talked about the ongoing investments in new technologies in the sector as well as the increased number of healthcare professionals in the country, and the adaptability of the infrastructure sector to provide advanced healthcare facilities, especially during the peak of COVID-19 spread in the country.

The Health Tourism Department has raised its efforts to support Dubai in its journey to become the most preferred global health tourism destination and a hub for top-accredited healthcare facilities. It plans to boost its efforts post Covid-19 focusing on preventive and alternative health practices such as ayurveda, homeopathy, and yoga. Statistics have shown that the UAEs wellness and spa travel market caters well to both inbound and domestic travellers, which is about 15 per cent of the total tourism market. - TradeArabia News Service
EDMONTON, Alberta

July 21, 2020

April 2020

Canada





University of Alberta



Ken Brizel

Alberta, Canada

Canada

Edmonton

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/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Canadian and US customers can now purchase ACAMP's washable, reusable respirators with over 90% particle filtration efficiency and breath-ability to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 for travel. With air, train and bus travel returning, the A90 respirator can be worn anywhere and is an excellent choice for travelers spending extended periods of time in confined spaces. This design comes fully assembled and sanitized, with a return filter for extended travel and alcohol wipes for personal use.ACAMP developed its line of respirator products inin response to seeing so many unprotected people shopping and travelling. The A90 respirator and replacement filters, is available inor US at http://www.actionbyacamp.comA respirator is markedly different from paper or cloth masks as it creates a base-seal around the wearer's nose and mouth which forces airflow primarily through the front filter. Respirators filter two ways: protecting wearers from inhaling the virus, and preventing wearers from exhaling it to loved ones and co-workers.The A90filters provide 90% particle filtration efficiency, are washable and reusable, and the respirator can be easily adjusted for comfort and fit. The round-trip respirator body is made of thermoplastic and is available in one adult size at this time.The A90respirator's efficiency was tested against commercially available N90-rated models by the respiratory aerosol mechanics team at theFaculty of Engineering. They rated the ACAMP A90filters at similar levels of filtration efficiency as N90 filters.Technical information, test results and videos can be found at http://www.actionbyacamp.comFor interviews contact:kbrizel@acamp.ca 780-468-2443About ACAMP Founded inin 2007, ACAMP is a unique industry-led advanced technology product development centre that entrepreneurs count on to move their innovation from proof-of-concept to manufactured product by providing access to multidisciplinary engineers, technology experts, unique specialized equipment, and industry acumen. ACAMP focuses on electronics hardware, firmware, software (ML/AI), sensors, and embedded systems. ACAMP is the only advanced technology product development group inthat provides a full range of support at each stage of the product development process. Offices inand, ACAMP offers support to companies worldwide. For more information, please visit acamp.ca. A95and A90TM are trademarks of ACAMP,SOURCE ACAMP
Federal police stand guard on Salmon Street after pushing protesters away from the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 21, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Trump Announces Surge of Federal Agents to Chicago, Albuquerque to Combat Rise in Violent Crime

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday a surge of federal law enforcement will be sent into Chicago, Illinois, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, as part of efforts to combat a recent surge in violent crime in those cities and restore public safety.

The announcement represents an expansion of a Justice Department (DOJ) programknown as Operation Legendto stem the spike in violent crimes across the country. Operation Legend, named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while sleeping in his home, was first launched in Kansas City, Missouri, as part of Trumps promise to assist cities that have have been hit by a recent string of violence, the DOJ said.

Trump said the hundreds of law enforcement officers from the FBI, U.S. Marshal Service, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) will be sent to the cities in an effort to drive down crime, in particular gun violence. Hundreds of federal agents have already been sent to Kansas City to address violent crime after Taliferros death.

Chicago is currently facing a significant increase in violent crime, with at least 414 people murdered this yearwhich is about a 50 percent increase compared to the same time last year. Over the weekend of July 17, more than 60 people were shot in Chicago, where 14 were killed. Similarly, Albuquerque is also facing a surge in crime, with four murders within a 24-hour period on the July 10 weekend, federal authorities say.

This rampage of violence shocks the conscience of our nation and we will not stand by and watch it happen, Trump said. No mother should ever have to cradle her dead child in her arms simply because politicians refuse to do what is necessary to secure their neighborhood and to secure their city.

Joining Trump in the White House for the announcement were family members of Taliferro, Jacqueline Vigil, who was fatally shot in November 2019 in Albuquerque, and Vernado Jones Jr., a 14-year-old boy who was shot and killed in early July in Chicago.

More than 100 officers from the FBI, DEA, and ATF will be directed to augment existing joint federal, state, and local task forces investigating Chicagos violent gangs, gun crime, and drug trafficking operations, the DOJ said. Meanwhile, the U.S. Marshal Service and the Department of Homeland Security have also committed to sending about 100 agents each to support the operation.

An additional 35 agents will also be sent to Albuquerque.

The most basic responsibility of government is to protect the safety of our citizens, Attorney General William Barr said.

This comes as the Trump administration has drawn widespread criticism for deploying federal forces to Portland, Oregon, to protect federal buildings and monuments. The city has seen over 5o consecutive days of rioting and violence. Rioting began in the city since late May in the wake of George Floyds death, but Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said the unrest only escalated after federal forces dispatched to the city.

Accounts of how federal officers have been arresting rioters who have caused damage to a federal courthouse have raised concerns among local officials and U.S. lawmakers. Protesters have alleged federal agents wearing camouflage and tactical gear without identifying insignia are detaining individuals and placing them into unmarked vehicles without stating the basis for an arrest, according to various accounts made to media outlets.

The accuracy of these reports has been disputed by acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, who says the federal officers wear multi-camouflage that have insignia that read Police and that the operations only target and arrest individuals who have been identified as committing criminal acts.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has been highly critical of the events in Portland, appeared receptive to the announcement on Wednesday, saying that the federal agents being sent as part of Operation Legend are different from the ones that were deployed to Portland.

Lightfoot said that the federal agents being sent to Chicago are unlike the ones in Portland as they are part of the FBI, DEA, and ATF and will be plugged into the existing infrastructure of those agencies and managed and supervised on existing cases and investigations.

If those agents are here to work actually in partnership in support of gun violence and violent cases, plugging into the existing infrastructure of federal agencies, not trying to play police in our streets then thats something different and that may add value, Lightfoot said in a press conference following Trumps announcement. But the proof is in going to be in the pudding. Its too soon to say whether this is a value add or not.

Meanwhile, New Mexico officials said they will actively monitor the operation for potential civil rights violations but added that they would welcome genuine conversation about community public safety work and fighting violent crime.

If the Trump administration wishes to antagonize New Mexicans and Americans with authoritarian, unnecessary and unaccountable military-style crackdowns, they have no business whatsoever in New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham wrote in a statement.

An exercise meant only to escalate tension in New Mexico communities would be flatly unacceptable.

Trump, during his press conference, also announced that the DOJ will provide more than $61 million in grants to help state and local law enforcement agencies to hire hundreds of police officers in cities that will focus on Operation Legend.

Every American no matter their income, their race or their zip code should be able to walk their city streets, free from violence and free from fear, he said.
The ventilator is easy to carry, runs on battery for 10 hours, and costs roughly $700 to produce, compared with the $20,000 of a traditional ventilator.

In the eastern Afghan city of Herat, 18-year-old high school student Somaya Faruqi adjusts a suction cap as she puts the finishing touches before unveiling a low-cost, lightweight ventilator created by her and six other young women.

The all-female Afghan Robotics Team, which has won international awards for its robots, started work in March on an open-source, low-cost ventilator as the coronavirus pandemic hit the war-torn nation.

It took the team almost four months to finalise the ventilator, which is partly based on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) design, and they received guidance from experts at Harvard University.

The device is easy to carry, can run on battery power for 10 hours, and costs roughly $700 to produce, compared with the $20,000 price of a traditional ventilator.

"We are delighted that we were able to take our first step in the field of medicine and to be able to serve the people in this area as well. All members of our team feel happy because, after months of hard work, we were able to achieve this result, Faruqi told Reuters.

Although the ventilator still has to undergo final testing from health authorities before it can be used, officials welcome it in a country with only 800 ventilators to treat the fast-growing number of coronavirus cases in a health system damaged by decades of war.

Health Ministry spokesman Akmal Samsor said once the ventilators were approved they would be rolled out in Afghan hospitals and the design shared with the World Health Organization.

"We appreciate the initiative and creativity in Afghanistan's health sector...after they are approved, we will use these ventilators and we are determined to contract with companies so we can also export them," he said.

Afghanistan has recorded around 35,500 COVID-19 cases and 1,181 deaths, though experts warn the true count is probably far higher due to low testing rates.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNBC on Wednesday that additional financial aid to Americans is needed to support the U.S. economy's recovery from the coronavirus-induced recession.

"You can help people stay open, pay the rent, pay the utilities ... even pay employees, but if you don't have people coming in the doors, you're still having a problem," the California Democrat said in an interview with Jim Cramer on "Mad Money."

"So that's why we want to put money in the pockets of the American people so that they can, in this consumer economy, spend, inject demand into the economy, create jobs," she said.

Pelosi's comments Wednesday come as lawmakers in Washington begin working on another piece of coronavirus relief legislation, ahead of the scheduled expiration of a key financial lifeline for millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the pandemic.

The talks on Capitol Hill also are transpiring as Covid-19 cases in the U.S. have been rising in recent weeks. Daily deaths from the virus on Tuesday eclipsed 1,000 for the first time since May 29, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told CNBC on Tuesday that he believes it will likely be August before Congress approves another piece of coronavirus relief legislation.

Republicans and Democrats must iron out differences on issues such as liability protections for businesses; a potential second round of stimulus checks to individuals; and the federal supplement to unemployment insurance, which is one of the biggest unanswered questions.

The current $600 per week supplement  on top of state-level benefits  is set to expire at the end of the month. Republicans are considering extending it at a lower rate of $400 per month through December, CNBC reported earlier Wednesday. Some GOP lawmakers contended that $600 each week may be too generous and deter people from returning to work.

TWEET

Senate Democrats have proposed tying the level of the federal supplement to state unemployment rates, with the weekly benefit amount being reduced as the economic conditions in a state improve. Democrats in the House extended the $600 weekly benefit through January in a $3 trillion rescue package approved by the chamber in May.

Pelosi told Cramer that an extension of the benefit is necessary because it provides "a floor for America's working families," comparing it to the support for financial markets provided by the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

"We should not be quibbling over $400 or $600 when people are in desperate need and have great uncertainty," Pelosi said. "You know how the markets and the business community doesn't like uncertainty. We shouldn't inject uncertainty further into the lives of America's working families."

Pelosi also reiterated her support for another round of direct payments to Americans, building off of the $1,200 checks that many received earlier this spring. The White House and congressional Republicans also have expressed support for another batch of stimulus checks, but there is debate on who would qualify to receive them and the amount.

The ultimate support for the U.S. economy is reducing transmission of the coronavirus, Pelosi contended. "It's all a health issue. If we just defeat the virus, we can open up our schools and our economy."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  The Bureau of Corrections has released the death certificates of nine high-profile inmates of the New Bilibid Prison whose controversial deaths are being tied to the coronavirus disease.

This is the first time that the beleaguered bureau confirmed the names of the other detainees after announcing the death of Jaybee Sebastian, a convict who confessed to running the Bilibid drug trade and implicated former Justice Secretary and now Senator Leila de Lima. The lawmaker, who is detained in Camp Crame, denies the drug charges.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, the BuCor presented to the media copies of the death certificates of the following inmates:

 Amin Imam Boratong

 Eugene Ho Chua

 Francis Go

 Benjamin Marcelo

 Sherwin Sanchez

 Willy Yang

 Shuli Zhang

A notice of death was presented for the ninth fatality, Hung Kin Sing Jimmy, also known as Jimmy Ang.

BuCor Director General Gerald Bantag earlier cited the Data Privacy Act and refused to disclose the names of the Chinese and Filipino drug lords who he said died of COVID-19. But the National Privacy Commission said that public interest justifies the release of the information.

Death certificates show COVID-related deaths

According to the documents given to the media, the eight inmates died in May and June, while Sebastian passed away on July 18.

All of them, except the Chinese convict Francis Go, had coronavirus-related complications as cause of death, the documents indicate. Go died of hypoxia and severe pneumonia on May 28, according to his death certificate.

BuCors chief doctor, Henry Fabro, suspects that the viral illness entered the highly secured Building 14 through an infected personnel.

There was a time po na may pumasok sa Building 14 na personnel na duty. Nagpositive po sila sa rapid test. Immediately, we quarantined them, Fabro said.

[Translation: There was a time when some personnel entered Building 14. They tested positive in the antibody test. Immediately, we quarantined them.]

Ongoing probe

Benjamin Marcelo, the known leader of Chinese inmates in Bilibid, died on June 2, the same date of death of Eugene Ho Chua, another Chinese drug lord.

Marcelo, Chua, Boratong and Sebastian are among the so-called "Bilibid 19"  a group of high-profile convicts who were found with drugs and other contraband items during a controversial raid under De Lima's term in 2014.

As suspicions hound the sudden deaths of the inmates, the BuCor also showed a photo of Sebastians remains, but it was not allowed for broadcast due to the ongoing probe and as a sign of respect to the dead and his family.

The National Bureau of Investigation is looking into the deaths of the nine high-profile inmates as some officials fear they could have faked their deaths to get out of jail, or they could have died of other reasons.

A total of 476 inmates died in BuCor facilities this year, 21 of them were due to coronavirus-related complications, but this is nothing out of the ordinary, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said in an online media briefing Wednesday. He said it may be slightly higher due to the COVID-19 crisis, but it is still within the usual daily average of two to three inmates dying behind bars.

A Senate probe is scheduled for next week regarding the issue, separate from the ongoing investigation.
In July of 1990, 13 young Red Kites were brought from Spain and released in Chiltern Hills. Thirty years after, experts pride that the Red Kite has grown into 1,800 breeding pairs and 10,000 individuals across Britain. The initiative is recognized as one of the most successful reintroduction projects in the world, and more species have been reintroduced and are on the waiting list of a comeback since.

Red Kites are recognized as one of Britain's distinguished birds of prey. Its distinct features are its angled-wing, forked tail, reddish-brown body, and a unique "mewing" call.

According to Jeff Knot of RSPB, one of the organizations that initiated the reintroduction in Chiltern, people interested to see a red kite had to arrange for a special trip to a handful of sites in the 1980s.

Today, Red kites are a common sight for millions of people. Knott emphasized that the species had leaped from being at the brink of extinction to increasing the population to 10 percent of the entire world population. Knott prides the initiative as one of the species success stories in the conservation history of the UK.

These magnificent birds used to breed across the UK. Red Kites were known in the 1400s as scavengers in the UK, feeding on carrion and rubbish. Over centuries, persecution and egg collection has caused the massive decline of the Red Kite population to a few breeding pairs in Central Wales. In 1990, only 38 were raised in its Welsh stronghold.

According to Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, the government's conservation watchdog, the success story of the Red Kite in Chiltern Hills prompted a "pretty strong momentum" for other reintroductions.

National England issued licenses to allow the release of five white-tailed eagles on the Isle of Wight to reintroduce the raptor to England. The 25-year environmental plan is committed to the reintroduction of species provided that there are environmental benefits.

Juniper is optimistic that the white-tailed eagles, which was spotted in Oxfordshire and London, would have the same success as the red kites.

Other reintroduction projects in the pipeline are beavers and white storks.

The beavers that were reintroduced to Scotland are now considered as protected native species. In England, scientific studies on beavers on the River Otter in Devon revealed that they provide enormous environmental benefits for biodiversity, flood management, and water quality and tourism. The government has yet to authorize its reintroduction program. Juniper attributed the delay to the coronavirus crisis.

The issuance of a license for lynx and wildcats may also take longer, Juniper said.

Juniper also mentioned that another reintroduced species, the white stork has fledged in the wild. This is the first fledged chick spotted in Britain since 1416.

Despite concerns raised by conservationists on the impact of the predatory birds on rare amphibian and reptile species, Juniper had no doubts on the white stork's comeback.

For him, animals like the white storks and white-tailed eagles are ambassadors of natural recovery. The success of these big animals to thrive in the wild indicates a healthy, natural environment.
Chandrasekaran, who is the co-recipient of this year's USIBC Global Corporate Leadership Award, also said it is possible to have a limited deal between India and the US before the elections there in November if both sides work together to get something done and not try to solve all issues at once.

Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

The global supply chain is getting redesigned and redefined in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, current geopolitical situation and trade issues, Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Wednesday.

Speaking in a discussion at the India Ideas Summit organised by the US-India Business Council (USIBC), Chandrasekaran, who is also the co-chair of the US-India CEO Forum, said India can be a very important partner for the US and the companies there, and play a significant role in their supply chain.

Chandrasekaran, who is the co-recipient of this year's USIBC Global Corporate Leadership Award, also said it is possible to have a limited deal between India and the US before the elections there in November if both sides work together to get something done and not try to solve all issues at once.

Without naming China, he said, "...the global supply chain is getting redesigned, redefined because supply has always been created for efficiency.

Now the recent incidents, the pandemic, the geopolitical situation and trade issues have stressed the importance of having a supply chain that is rebalanced, resilient and not only efficient."

While India and China recently had violent clashes at the border in Ladakh, the US has been having a trade war with China. On the other hand, the coronavirus pandemic originated from Wuhan in China.

Sharing the outcome of the fifth meeting of India US CEO Forum, Chandrasekaran said the Indian side stressed on the fact that "India can be a very important partner for the US, companies in the US, to play a significant role in the supply chain".

"So we have got to work on policies, work on all the aspects that go with it," he added.

Commenting on the Indo-US trade deal, which has been in the works for sometime, Chandrasekaran said industry leaders from both sides "agreed that we have got to conclude the current discussions with a limited trade deal" and start working on a pruned version, so that an FTA (free trade agreement) could be done in the coming years.

He also said it is possible to have a limited trade deal between the two countries "if both sides work together because we are talking about getting something done, rather fall forward and not trying to solve all issues."

Chandrasekaran also asserted that "we will never have a situation where there are no pending issues. When two countries at this level operate, there will always be issues."

It is important to recognise that "US is a very very large economy and India is becoming a very sizable economy with huge potential" and something "really very special" can be achieved if the aspirations of the two nations are put together, he added.

If India and the US help each other and are able to work on supply chain, very high quality jobs can be created in sectors like electronics, advanced manufacturing, medical devices and telecom, thereby creating ecosystems, Chandrasekaran added.

"These ecosystems will spur a lot of innovation, a lot of small scale industries and a lot of direct and indirect jobs," he said.

Saying that "the potential is very high if we start looking at what is possible, what is out of possible, without getting stuck on one particular issue", he added, "there will always be one issue or the other which will always boil and we need to address that, but that should not stop us from aspiring to create something special".

Chandrasekaran also said India has a very large human capital with a lot of skilled manpower and it would like "a free access to the services market in the US because of the expertise that we can bring".
Saudi Arabia is accelerating plans to privatise state assets in the education, healthcare and water sectors and hopes to raise SR50 billion ($13.3 billion) in the process in the next four to five years, Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan said on Wednesday during a virtual forum organised by Bloomberg.

He said the government doesn't seek to support the GDP through these sales, but aims to increase efficiency.

On the question of income tax as an option to raise revenue, he did not rule it out, but said income tax is not imminent in the kingdom.

The government is considering all options to bolster its finances and while income tax isnt imminent and would require a lot of time to prepare, the kingdom isnt ruling anything away for now, he said.

Saudi Arabia has been taking steps to shore up its economy from the double whammy of the coronavirus and lower crude prices. The economy is set to shrink 6.8% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, in what would be the deepest contraction in over 30 years. However, Al Jadaan didn't agree that the decline will be so deep.

The government has already taken unprecedented measures to support its finances, including tripling value-added tax, increasing import fees, and canceling some benefits for government workers. The kingdom has traditionally been tax-free for individuals, with oil revenue supporting a wide range of subsidies and benefits for citizens.

Not Austerity

Al Jadaan also denied any austerity measures by the government in the wake of the Covid-19 situation.

Saudi Arabia is not in austerity and we are not getting into an austerity phase, Al Jadaan said. While the government has re-allocated some spending, total spending in 2020 is likely to be more than a trillion riyals, as planned.

The kingdom is also likely to have to borrow about SR100 billion more than planned this year and plans to tap the global debt market at least one more time in 2020 after so far selling $12 billion in international bonds in 2020, Al Jadaan said.

Saudi Arabia will continue to invest at home and abroad and will be on the lookout for right opportunities, he said.

The kingdom raised almost $30 billion from the sale of shares in oil producer Saudi Aramco last year, and recently sold a stake in two grain mills. Otherwise, progress on plans to privatise large parts of the economy that were announced several years ago has been slow.

While the Saudi government is focusing on containing costs, it also transferred $40 billion from reserves held by the central bank to pay for an investment spree by its sovereign wealth fund.-TradeArabia News Service
The decision by a rising number of school districts to start a new year with remote-only learning during the pandemic could disadvantage millions of students, and children of color in particular, acccording to a new analysis.



Overall, 16.9 million children under the age of 18 lack high-speed home internet, the study from four groups says. And children in one in three Black, Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native households lack such internet access, making children in those homes more likely than their White peers to be disconnected from online learning, the analysis states.

Students of Color Caught in the Homework Gap was published by Alliance for Excellent Education, the National Indian Education Association, the National Urban League, and UnidosUS. Pointing to this data, the groups are calling for $6.8 billion in new funding for the federal E-Rate program, which provides discounted internet services to schools and libraries, in any future virus relief packages.

Such connectivity is crucial for students seeking to keep up with their schoolwork during the pandemic, those four groups say, especially since relying on a mobile device for internet access is largely ineffective for completing digital assignments and participating in online classes.



Among different student racial groups, American Indian/Alaska Native students are the most likely not to have such internet services at home, as you can see from the chart at the beginning of this pieceby some measures, Native Americans have had the highest rate of coronavirus infections at different points during the pandemic.

In addition, when the data is broken down by income, 23 percent of all households lack high-speed internet. Not surprisingly, the share of households with relatively low incomes without such internet access is much higher than that. And households without high-speed internet or computers are much more likely to be in non-metro rural areas than in metro areas, the report says, with particularly acute shortages in states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The new analysis from the four groups relies on information from the 2018 American Community Survey, and defines high-speed home internet access as a wireline broadband internet subscription. The report draws information about households with children under 18, and therefore does not focus solely on school-age children, although early learners can also be affected by the lack of internet and connected devices.

This digital divide and the homework gapterms that generally refer to disparities in access to high-speed internet and connected devices between groups of studentshas been an issue for years. And according to results from a survey Education Week conducted in April, those inequities have become even more raw and obvious during the pandemic.

In districts with the lowest percentages of students from low-income families, just 1 in 5 leaders reported in late March that a lack of basic technology is a major problem, compared with nearly two-thirds of leaders in districts where the highest percentages of students are from low-income families, Education Weeks Ben Herold wrote in April about those survey results.

The homework gap for American Indian students threatens to have long-term impacts on Native students, and it is the duty of the federal government to uphold its treaty and trust responsibilities, including those for equity and sovereignty in education, to Native nations, National Indian Education Association Diana Cournoyer said in a statement accompanying the report.

And UnidosUS President and CEO Janet Murguia said the pandemic has exposed the impact of the digital divide on the academic progress of many students of color and low-income students, which in turn has denied them the opportunity to meaningfully engage in online learning, resulting in learning loss and widening achievement gaps.

A virus relief package passed by the House in Mayand rejected out of hand by the Senatewould provide $1.5 billion in new E-Rate funding, and an additional $4 billion to help low-income families pay for internet service.

Follow us on Twitter @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .
Businesses and community gathering places across Oregon will face tighter restrictions starting Friday as state leaders and public health officials attempt to regain control over the spread of coronavirus.

Indoor venues such as restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters and houses of worship must limit occupancy to 100 people, down from 250, Gov. Kate Brown announced during a press briefing Wednesday morning. And restaurants and bars will have to close by 10 p.m. instead of midnight in counties that are in Phase 2 of reopening, which covers much of the state. Lincoln, Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties are still in Phase 1.

Although Oregon is not shutting down gyms as California and Arizona have done, all Oregonians must wear masks when they go to the gym beginning on Friday. That eliminates a previous face covering exemption for people strenuously exercising indoors.

The governor also announced that children ages 5 and older must wear masks in public starting Friday. That mandate covers indoor public places, such as malls and schools, plus outdoors when children and adults cannot maintain 6 feet of distance.

Oregonians ages 12 and older have been required to wear masks at indoor public places since July 1 and the governor announced last week a mask requirement for crowded outdoor places, along with a ban on indoor social gatherings of more than 10 people.

Some people will hear this announcement and think these restrictions dont go far enough, Brown said, reading from prepared comments. Theyll say we should completely close all restaurants and bars, or move them to outdoor service only. They are legitimately worried about their family, their friends and their neighbors. Others will hear the news and think these restrictions go too far and are too onerous.

Brown said Wednesday she is considering limiting tourism from other states into Oregon, particularly for people coming from coronavirus hotspots elsewhere in the nation. Officials in her administration are talking with leaders in neighboring states about options including mandatory quarantine for people coming here from hot spots.

Oregon has one of the lowest COVID-19 case rates in the nation, with data compiled from state and local health agencies by The New York Times showing the state is 45th in the nation since the beginning of the pandemic. But Oregons infection rate has increased in recent weeks and the states case rate for the last week is now 36th in the nation, meaning the disease is spreading more quickly here than in New York.

State Epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger said there were more than 2,400 new cases in the last week, a 26 percent increase from previous week.

The bad news is our sporadic cases are growing, Sidelinger said. These are people who became infected with COVID-19 and we dont know where they got it. These untraceable infections accounted for nearly half of Oregons cases as of last week, The Oregonian/OregonLive has reported, and Sidelinger said Wednesday that means the virus is circulating even more than wed hoped.

In particular, were concerned about some of our rural and eastern Oregon counties that have some of the highest rates of community spread right now, Sidelinger said.

The governor said counties with the most concerning rates of coronavirus spread might face additional scrutiny or restrictions in coming days.

Wednesday was the first time Brown held a media briefing and took questions from reporters in more than a week, and one journalist asked if she would consider holding more frequent press briefings as governors including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo are doing. Brown held daily briefings early in the pandemic but stopped near the end of March. In recent weeks, she announced some far-reaching coronavirus policies including pausing county reopenings in press releases, while scheduling interviews with specific news organizations such as the video site Cheddar that focuses on trending news.

By lowering the age requirement for face coverings, Brown is bringing Oregon closer to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which says children ages 2 and older should wear masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Oregons current requirement for masks starting at age 12 was an outlier among states with face-covering mandates, most of which started at much younger ages, The Oregonian/OregonLive previously reported.

I dont make these decisions lightly and there are no easy choices, Brown said. Its up to all of us to do our part to look out for one another. Oregon, we are going to get through this together.

The governor tried to drive home to Oregonians how tenuous the states economic reopening is, two months after she lifted the stay-home order that helped prevent the state from getting swamped with COVID-19 cases early in the pandemic.

It may still be possible for us to keep restaurants and shops open, to gather in groups, to continue to hike, camp, and go to parks, the governor said. But it all depends on you. Your choices determine our future. If we dont slow the spread of the virus, I will have no choice but to force widespread and difficult closures again.

Reporter Aimee Green contributed to this story.

-- Hillary Borrud: hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Iselin, NJ, July 22, 2020  Claim Genius, a world leader in instant vehicle damage assessment solutions using computer vision and artificial intelligence technology, announced the closing of its $5.5 million Series A funding round today, following its earlier $2.3 million seed round in 2018. The latest round is backed by a diversified mix of strategic investors including Malaysia-based Financial Link (http://www.financial-link.com/), a pioneer of digital insurance automation services in Asia, and SIRI Info Solutions (https://www.siriinfo.com/) a global technology solution provider based in Edison, New Jersey USA.

Claim Genius is rapidly expanding its services globally, with multiple integration projects underway for top insurance carriers, third party loss adjusters, repair shop networks and leasing firms. At present Claim Geniuss AI solutions have been piloted by over 15 customers across the US, Canada, SE Asia, India and European Union. Claim Genius recently launched Version 3.0 of its GeniusCLAIM web and mobile suite which includes many features that enhance its powerful claim assessment capabilities, including improved photo capture workflow, increased damage detection accuracy, and simplified customer onboarding and integration. GeniusCLAIM provides industry-leading functionality and performance in an easy-to-use package, allowing customers to quickly transform their claim operations to decrease cycle time, reduce loss adjustment expense, and increase profitability. The Series A funding will help Claim Genius to further scale its sales and development efforts and facilitate the launch of the new products for the auto claims market worldwide.

We are thrilled to announce the closing of our Series A round and fantastic new partnerships with Financial Link and SIRI Info Solutions, said Raj Pofale, founder and CEO of Claim Genius. The auto claims industry is in the midst of a global revolution, driven by advancements digital and mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Claim Genius is leading the charge of this transformation through our

advanced product capabilities and growing list of technology and delivery partnerships across the entire claims ecosystem. Todays funding will further enable us to scale this vision and truly make touchless claims a reality for our customers worldwide, Raj added.

Our strategic investment and partnership with Claim Genius is another example of Financial Link bringing innovative and creative solutions that improve the responsiveness, accuracy and efficiency of the claims management process, said Financial Links CEO Cheam Wooi Seong. Financial Link founded in 1994 is a leading insurance technology provider for Malaysia and SE Asia providing its services to over 90% of the

General Insurance Industry and major automotive distributors and franchisees. With Claim Genius, Financial Link will have the capability to provide a more complete suite to the insurance industry in South East Asia, from instant vehicle damage assessment to submission of claims to insurance companies and roadside assistance support services.

SIRI Info Solutions is a New Jersey-based technology services provider with a broad portfolio of staffing and support solutions for customers, including the insurance industry. SIRI is proud to be a part of both rounds of funding for Claim Genius. We firmly believe that insurance industry will greatly benefit from the innovation and AI solutions that Claim Genius is driving across the industry, said Subba Arumilli, Founder & CEO of SIRI Info Solutions.

About Claim Genius

Based in Iselin, New Jersey, USA, with development centers in Nagpur & Hyderabad, Claim Genius, Inc is a rapidly emerging leader of AI-based claims solutions for the auto insurance industry. Using Claim Geniuss patent-pending image analysis and predictive analytics tools, carriers can provide instant damage estimates and rapid processing of claims based on uploaded accident photos from our easy to use mobile app. Claim Genius aims to reduce claims processing time, increase carrier profitability, and revolutionize the claims experience for

insurance customers worldwide. Claim Genius Makes Touchless Claims A Reality.

About Financial Link

Incorporated in 1994, Financial Link Sdn. Bhd. Is one of the leading system integrators and application service providers in Malaysia. Our breadth of innovative digital services and solutions have enabled us to build a broad customer portfolio that includes a wide array of private sector and governmental firms, including over 90% market share among general insurance companies, automotive distributors and franchisees, local banks, and numerous major telecommunication companies across Malaysia.

About SIRI Info Systems

Siri InfoSolutions is a private equity consortium providing IT staffing services to Fortune 500 clients across the US. Based in Edison, NJ and Hyderabad, India, we provide a variety of technology development and support services to a wide spectrum of global customers across verticals such as Banking, Financial Services, Healthcare, Human Resources, Telecom, Insurance, Hospitality, Retail & Distribution and Manufacturing.

Media Contact:

contactus@claimgenius.com

732-546-3809
Indian villagers harvest a field of cereal crops near the Barh Super Thermal Power Station in Barh, in the Indian state of Bihar on April 6, 2019. (Xavier Galiana/AFP via Getty Images)

US, India Deepen Strategic Energy Partnership

India moves closer to United States on coal, oil, gas, infrastructure

The United States has expanded its strategic energy partnership (SEP) with India, with U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette recently prioritizing new areas of cooperation with Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan.

According to Brouillette, the meeting that convened between the United States and India reflected both countries resolve to place energy development at the center of their relationship, as both nations seek to quickly emerge from the pandemic crisis to a position of strength.

It helps to have a common perspective on energy, Brouillette said in a statement. The United States and India share a bedrock belief that there is no distinction between good and bad energy. We are committed to deploying every energy fuel and technology at our disposal.

Brouillette said that this mutual understanding opened up a wide range of opportunities for collaboration.

Strategic Energy Partnership

The U.S.Indian partnership was born when President Donald Trump met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a summit in June, 2017, where the leaders recognized the importance of energy to the progress of both nations. At the direction of the two leaders, Indias Department of Energy and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas set up the SEP in 2018. This cooperation was also instrumental in forming the overarching U.S.India Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership in February.

Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump as First Lady Melania Trump looks on before a meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, on Feb. 25, 2020. (Prakash SinghH/AFP via Getty Images)

The energy partnership rests on the four pillars of oil and gas, power and energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainable growth. The two nations also agreed to continue their research and development efforts on smart grids, energy storage, and civil nuclear technology, while introducing new research measures in advanced coal technologies and in the development of hydrogen-fueled energy solutions.

Secretary Brouillette Addresses U.S.-India SEP Ministerial Read more https://t.co/QNkWzEnObe pic.twitter.com/pacDDcNVDt  DOE Press Staff (@EnergyPress) July 17, 2020

Brouillette said that the United States and India are exploring opportunities for cooperation in oil and gas development and trade. Led by industry, the U.S.India Gas Task Force is working on expanding Indias gas sector, which will benefit exporters of American liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Pradhan has also said that his government is taking steps to transform India to a gas-based energy system. The SEP will help promote natural gas as an on-demand energy source that will help the second-most populous country meet its growing need for energy. In addition, Indias gas grid must be developed, along with LNG import infrastructure.

While India is working on expanding its gas pipeline infrastructure, it is also investigating the possible use of a virtual gas pipeline system that will distribute natural gas via truck, rail, or ship to areas unserved by traditional gas pipeline infrastructure.

Shale oil and gas resources should also be developed, according to the SEP, while Brouillette and Pradhan also signed a memorandum of understanding on developing a strategic petroleum reserve for Indiapart of which could involve India using U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage capacity to buffer crude oil.

Today Indias @PetroleumMin signed an MOU with @Energy on cooperation on Strategic Petroleum Reserves. This will bolster global #EnergySecurity and facilitate technical cooperation on oil stockpile management and emergency response.  DOE International Affairs (@DoeIntlAffairs) July 17, 2020

Meanwhile, Indias power grid is in need of modernization, with the SEP focusing on secure and efficient power distribution systems. As India currently produces most of its energy from coal, the SEP will also facilitate making power generation at existing plants more flexible, more efficient, and cleaner. Improving the energy efficiency of buildings will also be a priority, while the SEP will assist in the deployment of affordable renewable energy.

The US-India Strategic Energy Partnership also benefits our people closer to home. @usaid_india and @mnreindia have agreed to work together on refrigeration & air conditioning initiatives to increase energy efficiency in buildings  sustainable, cost-effective, & cool. #AsiaEdge  State_SCA (@State_SCA) July 17, 2020

Indias Energy Situation

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Indias population of 1.36 billion and its rapid economic growth in recent years have fueled a corresponding increase in demand for energy. Trends such as urbanization and a growing manufacturing sector are driving demand for fuel and electricity, with up to three quarters of Indias electrical power produced from coal. The IEA says that coal is also set to remain Indias main source of energy.

India doubled the share of solar and wind in its energy portfolio (from 4 to 8 percent) since 2016. A big factor in improving human health in India is the countrys prioritization of enabling access to electricity and clean sources of energy for cooking, such as bottled gas. Traditionally, many rural Indians have relied on firewood or dung as fuel for cooking, contributing to poor respiratory health.

According to the IEA, some 700 million people have gained access to sources of electricity since 2000, while 80 million connections to LPG pipelines have been made to facilitate cleaner cooking.

USIndia Energy Trade

The U.S. energy secretary said in a statement that he was excited about increasing energy trade between the two nations.

U.S. crude oil exports to India jumped from 26,000 barrels per day in 2017 to an average of 256,000 barrels per day in 2019a nearly tenfold increase, Brouillette said. Through May of this year, India received 68 shipments of U.S. natural gas as LNG, totaling 234.7 billion cubic feet. And India is now the worlds single largest importer of U.S. coal.
Elaine Scully (42) from Carlow has acute leukemia and is receiving chemotherapy in St James's Hospital Dublin

A WOMAN with leukemia in St James's Hospital has given a stark account of how, because of Covid-19, she has not seen her husband or sons since before she was diagnosed.

Elaine Scully (42) from Carlow has acute leukemia and is receiving chemotherapy in the Dublin hospital.

Staff only enter the room for essential medical procedures and as much as possible, patients care for themselves by checking their own pulse and taking their own blood pressure and temperature. Meals are left outside their hospital room door for patients to collect.

Ms Scully said that since starting chemo, she has not been able to see her husband or her sons Jack and Dylan.

"I finished eight days of chemo last night," she said.

"On this ward they are very careful because the patients are all transplant patients with low immune systems so they are always careful, but they've had to change things drastically a the same time.

"The fact you can't even have visitors, no one can hold your hand and you've to pull yourself back together so you can get through it. I feel like this is something that's going to be part of history but I feel like I'm separate to it. I'm living a different kind of experience than everyone at home.

Expand Close Elaine Scully (42) speaking on RTE Investigates' behind the scenes report of St James's Hospital, Dublin, during the Covid-19 pandemic / Facebook

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Whatsapp Elaine Scully (42) speaking on RTE Investigates' behind the scenes report of St James's Hospital, Dublin, during the Covid-19 pandemic

Ms Scully was speaking on RTE Investigates: Inside Ireland's Covid Battle, which airs tonight with a behind the scenes look inside St James's Hospital.

The programme hears accounts from bone marrow transplant patients going through weeks in solitary isolation with the bare minimum of human physical contact.

The long term physical and psychological impact of the virus on young nurses and healthcare assistants. The documentary visits the Emergency Department where after a lull, the number of patients is rapidly returning to pre-Covid levels.

Because of the lowered immune systems of the bone marrow transplant patients, like Ms Scully, human contact is kept to a bare minimum.

The Carlow woman said that her husband was not allowed to enter the hospital with her for her diagnosis, and since then she hasn't been able to see her family.

"It's missing human contact. You're given this awful diagnosis and you can't give hugs," she said.

"I love hugs so that's what I miss the most. It's funny, one of my nurses has cold hands but I love when she's my nurse because I can feel her on my skin when she's doing my drip. I might get a rub of her cold hand on my arm and that simple little touch makes me feel that I'm not on my own.

"It's awful because when I went into A&E I had to go in on my own, you couldn't bring anyone with you so it was the last I saw of him and in normal circumstances, when you are diagnosed with something like this, both of us would be told together," she continued.

"I'm very lucky that every single night I have a FaceTime call with my sons and my husband at 7 o'clock.

"I'm thankful that they're not little. I'm not leaving little children behind. I don't think that I could do that, I really couldn't."
Enormous Brands, one of India's leading independent creative agency has bagged the creative duties for Bharti Axas Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana in a multi-agency pitch. The mandate will be handled out of the companys Delhi office.

This sowing season Bharti Axa will act as an insurer to farmers in states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. As part of the mandate, the agency will be handling the creative work for both the states.

Read Also: Bharti AXA General Insurance appoints Sanjeev Srinivasan as CEO & MD

Commenting on the scheme, Alok Shukla, Senior Vice President & Head, Agriculture and Rural Business & Legal Claims Bharti AXA General Insurance Company Ltd. said, We are honoured and happy to be governments partner in PMFBY. As part of the mandate, we will insure the farmers in Maharashtra and Karnataka for three years, which provides them protection for the losses occurring owing to uncertainty or unfavorable events like weather vagaries, pest attacks resulting in yield deprivation on the field. Crop Insurance portal will speed up service delivery and will also enable the digitization of notification of areas, crops, schemes for enabling information access to multiple stakeholders thereby facilitating ease of access to the farmers in availing crop insurance services.

Commenting on the creative duties Geetanjali Kothari, Vice President and Head - Marketing, Bharti AXA General Insurance Company Ltd. said, We are happy to partner with Enormous Brands for PMFBY. Farmers are the lifeline of the nation and we are delighted that the government has trusted us for this mandate. The agriculture sector has faced a difficult time due to climate change and the ongoing pandemic. We recognize the need to empathize with the sector more than ever before as we take the message on ground urging them to secure their crops. Enormous Brands understands this and we, in partnership with Ashish and team, are working towards designing a communication strategy that will help build trust along with instilling the need for the product.

Commenting on the mandate, Ashish Khazanchi, Managing Partner Enormous, said, We are very proud and honored to be working on the government initiative of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana with Bharti Axa. As we know agriculture is the largest employer in the country, during these unprecedented times our motive will be to create and strategic and creative framework for this product. I look forward to beginning this journey of innovative work for Bharti Axa Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.
Major players in the COVID19 drug-associated APIs market are Dr. Reddys Laboratories, Lianyungang Guike Pharmaceutical, Alembic Pharmaceutical, Wockhardt Ltd, Sandoz Srl, Lupin Limited, Aurobindo Pharma Ltd.

New York, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "COVID-19 Drug Associated APIs Global Market Report 2020: COVID 19 Growth and Change" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05933756/?utm_source=GNW

, Shanghai Shyndec Pharmaceutical (Haimen) Co Ltd, and Yatai Pharma.



The global COVID-19 associated API market is expected to grow from $4.07 billion in 2019 to $5.11 billion by the end of 2020 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.6%. The growth is mainly attributed to the COVID-19 outbreak and the urgent need to treat the growing number of cases. However, with the COVID-19 cases continuously increasing, restrictive containment measures involving social distancing are enforcing the closure of industries and other commercial activities. This has an impact on all stages from production to international trade attributing to transportation and supply chain disruptions. The market is expected to reach $6.02 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 5.6%.



The COVID19 drug-associated APIs market consists of sales of active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the manufacturing of COVID19 drugs. The active pharmaceutical ingredients are chemicals which are responsible for pharmacological activity in the human body and are used as a base in pharmaceutical drug or medicine. The APIs used for the preparation of COVID19 drugs and include Azithromycin, Fentanyl, Albuterol, Cisatracurium and others.



Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the largest region in the COVID-19 associated API market by the end of 2020.



In February 2020, Dr. Reddy Labs announced the acquisition of the branded generics business of Wockhardt for an amount of $242 million (INR 1,850 crore). The acquisition is expected to scale-up the former companys presence in home markets including India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. The Wockhardt business consists of a product portfolio of 62 brands and in multiple therapy fields such as dermatology, neurology, respiratory, VMS, pain, gastroenterology, and vaccine. Wockhardt Ltd. was founded in 1999 and is a global biotechnology and pharmaceutical company based in Mumbai, India.



The COVID19 drug-associated APIs market covered in this report is segmented by drug class into antimalarials; bronchodilators; antibiotics; antivirals; others.



The disruptions caused by the COVID19 outbreak in the supply chain of medical products limited the growth of the COVID-19 drug-associated APIs market in the past few months. The source for APIs plays a crucial part in the strategic plan to combat the COVID19 pandemic. The majority of APIs for generic drug manufacturing across the globe are sourced from India, with nearly 30% generic APIs used in the USA. The restrictions imposed on the export of pharma products owing to COVID19 supply chain disruptions restricted the market growth. For instance, India imposed an export ban on 26 pharma products and medical devices in March 2020. The ban was imposed attributing to the supply chain disruptions on API and other bulk drugs due to restrictive measures such as lockdown and closure of factories in many countries across the globe to ensure that the disease spread is contained. Thus, shortages caused by the disruptions in supply chains and restrictions imposed on the export of pharma products impacted the growth of the COVID19 drug-associated APIs market over the last few months.



Key players operating in the pharmaceutical industry that manufactures COVID19 drug associated APIs are focusing on strategies such as plant capacity or production capacity expansion to meet the increasing demand due to the rising number of coronavirus cases across the globe. For instance, in March 2020, Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd announced that the company is ramping up the production for the companys production for azithromycin to 20 tons per month. Likewise, In April 2020, FUJIFILM Corporation announced the expansion of its manufacturing capacity and increase in the production of influenza antiviral Avigan Tablet (Favipiravir) by nearly 2.5 times by the end of July. Avigan is currently undergoing clinical trials testing its safety and efficacy for the treatment of COVID19 patients.



High demand for some antiretrovirals, antimalarials, sedatives, bronchodilators, and other respiratory drugs drives the demand for the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used in the production of COVID19 drugs. Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are the biologically active component used in manufacturing pharmaceutical drugs. Remdesivir and Favipiravir are two common antiviral medications used currently for the treatment of COVID19 patients. Remdesivir is a medication approved for emergency use in the USA and Japan for the treatment of COVID19 patients. Remdesivir gained emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA on May 1, 2020, based on its preliminary data showing a faster time to recovery in hospitalized patients with several diseases. Favipiravir, which used to treat influenza in Japan, has also shown a positive effect on COVID patients. As COVID-19 is a respiratory ailment, the demand for bronchodilators spiked significantly. Therefore, the increasing demand for antivirals, antimalarials, and bronchodilators is projected to boost the demand for COVID19 associated drug APIs market over the forecast period.









Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05933756/?utm_source=GNW



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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CONTACT: Clare: clare@reportlinker.com US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001




Sacoolas, the wife of a U.S. official accredited as a diplomat, admitted she was driving on the wrong side of the road when she collided with Dunn. She fled to the United States, despite having told British police that she had no plans to return home. U.S. officials said she had diplomatic immunity.
SLC5 is strategically located in Bluffdale, UT, on DataBank's 23-acre Granite Point Campus, an engine of digital growth that is helping to give the region its "Silicon Slopes" nickname. The campus features its own 66MW, N+1 substation guaranteeing lower costs and scalability needed for the most ambitious enterprises and hyper-scale cloud ventures.

DataBank's newest facility features 50,000 sq ft of raised-floor space, 13 MW of total power availability, a comprehensive suite of Colocation, Cloud, Connectivity, and Managed Services, and has been designed from the ground up with a full suite of customer amenities and all the security features needed to meet HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SSAE-18 SOC1 and SOC2, GDPR, and FedRAMP compliance requirements.



This combination of power, network, facilities, and the convenience and peace-of-mind of a campus setting ensure that DataBank's SLC5 is the ideal data center for the high-performance computing, content providers, cloud giants, hyperscale providers and large enterprises. In addition, the Granite Point Campus is located in an area of low natural disaster risk, making it an ideal backup and recovery location for customers looking for an alternative to data centers in Los Angeles or San Francisco.

"DataBank's expansion in Salt Lake City is further evidence of the city's growing importance in the data center market," says Philbert Shih, Managing Director of Structure Research. "The region's accessibility, quality of life, and business-friendly climate are attracting technology companies and talent, making it a legitimate data center location option for those on the west coast."



"DataBank has long been a believer in Salt Lake City as a fantastic data center market," comments DataBank CEO, Raul K. Martynek. "We've demonstrated our commitment to the metro by investing heavily in the Granite Point Campus. SLC5 is just our latest expansion, and if market response is any indication, it will not be our last. Plans are already on the drawing board for SLC6."



For more information about SLC5, or to take a virtual tour, please visit https://www.databank.com/data-centers/salt-lake-city/granite-point-campus/slc5/

About DataBank

DataBank is a leading provider of enterprise-class data center, cloud, and interconnection services, offering customers 100% uptime availability of data, applications and infrastructure. DataBank's managed data center services are anchored in world-class facilities. Our customized technology solutions are designed to help customers effectively manage risk, improve their technology performance and allow them to focus on their core business objectives. DataBank is headquartered in the historic former Federal Reserve Bank Building, in downtown Dallas, TX. For additional information on DataBank locations and services, please visit www.databank.com or call 1(800) 840-7533.

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'Uttar Pradesh, our largest state by population and the most powerful, is also the worst governed.'

'The only way to fix it is to split it into four or five states,' suggests Shekhar Gupta.

The state of Uttar Pradesh has finally given us a break from coronavirus and China.

But what can we say to it in response, thanks, but no thanks?

Because, the context is every bit as disturbing as the threat of a rampaging pandemic or the army of an intrusive neighbour.

A man has been killed in an alleged encounter so poorly staged that the policemen -- and their political bosses -- who did this should lose their jobs for incompetence if not be sent to jail for extra-judicial killing.

If you believe this yarn, you'd even believe that the fables of Vikram-Betaal are a reality.

To me, even some of those might look more convincing.

We are, however, leaving the forensics and jurisprudence aside for the moment and reading the political message here.

What is the state of Uttar Pradesh, whose population constitutes 15 per cent of the entire republic of 36 states and Union territories, and which has given India's ruling party more than a fifth of all its Lok Sabha MPs, the prime minister, defence minister, telling us? It is saying, go to hell.

Take your Constitution, the rule of law and the courts with you.

We make our own law, and then break it at our pleasure.

Why? Because we have the size.

Uttar Pradesh is our most powerful state. It is also our worst governed.

It remains carved up between many competing mafias.

Its state government is just one of these.

The chronic virus that's eating up Uttar Pradesh from inside is its size. It is also taking India down with it.

Let's first size up the problem called UP.

It is a state with 75 districts, that is, more than one in ten out of all of India's 739.

To understand how unmanageable the state is, think of some nations with populations about the same as Uttar Pradesh.

Pakistan and Brazil have both about the same population, in the 200 million ballpark.

The first has four full provinces and two supposedly 'autonomous' federative units, and the second has 26 states.

The chief minister of UP does it all by himself. It is an impossibility.

And it shows in the state's governance quality and social indicators.

We did, at The Print, once carried a story that showed with copious data how UP, while having the same population size as Pakistan, also nearly matched its poor social indicators.

Trifle better on some (infant mortality), worse on some others (per capita income, gender ratio), but about the same on the most significant negative: Population growth.

IMAGE: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya perform aarti on the banks of the Ganga in Prayagraj. Photograph: Jitendra Prakash/Reuters

Uttar Pradesh's population growth has slowed lately, but is at almost exactly the same level as Pakistan's, around 2 per cent, which makes it twice as high as the India's.

Uttar Pradesh's per capita income is about half our national average.

Its crime rates, mafia infestation, and criminalisation of politics are the stuff of movies.

It is because the state is so large, and its politics so divided on the basis of caste and religion, that those left out of the power structure then seek refuge in caste mafias and 'bahubalis' (strong men, mafiosi), for protection, justice and equity.

Let's try and illustrate how this works.

If a Yadav father or son is in power, it means the Yadavs have the power.

That is only about 9 per cent of the population.

They make an alliance with Muslims, and often with Thakurs.

So, they are all accommodated in the legitimate power tent.

All governance, distribution of welfare, including sinking of tube wells and hand pumps, appointment of the most important officers.

The castes that feel left out then lean on their mafia leaders.

This results in a counter-intuitive situation where the more active mafias usually consist of castes that are not in power.

In the past, until the 1980s, when upper castes were usually chief ministers, crime syndicates and dacoit gangs were backward castes.

It was V P Singh as chief minister who first brought encounter culture to the state in 1981-1982 with the killing of 299 'dacoits' in just over a month.

It stopped, unfortunately, when his brother, Justice Chandra Shekhar Prasad Singh of the Allahabad high court, was killed along with his teenaged son in apparent reprisal.

V P Singh resigned soon thereafter.

An important political aside is that this is when a still young former wrestler called Mulayam Singh Yadav made his fame as an unlikely human rights activist campaigning against encounters.

Many of the encounter victims were of the backward castes that later became his support base.

Of course, once power in the state shifted to the lower and middle castes, including the Yadavs, upper castes moved to organised crime too.

Brahmin and Thakur gangs came up now, while western UP became a lawless zone in its own right.

The mafia the state is now dealing with in Kanpur is exclusively Brahmin.

Remember, the last Brahmin chief minister this state had was Narain Dutt Tiwari in 1989.

That is after a succession of Brahmin strongmen from Govind Ballabh Pant to Kamlapathi Tripathi.

Now the community has been deprived of that political power for 32 years.

So, a Vikas Dubey became its Robinhood in Kanpur, as Hari Shankar Tiwari might have been in Gorakhpur in the past.

It is because on the context today is law and order that we have dwelt in so much detail over one dimension of this mis-governance.

You can quickly run your eyes over the rest.

In seven decades, the state has failed to develop any new entrepreneurship, even a tiny flourishing industrial estate except Noida, the sliver of territory abutting Delhi.

It inherited some of India's oldest and finest cities.

They are all in decay, if not dead already like Kanpur and Allahabad.

Its farming languishes, barring the few Green Revolution districts in its west.

IMAGE: Police personnel arrest gangster Vikas Dubey at the Mahakal temple in Ujjain, July 9, 2020. Hours later, he was killed in an alleged police encounter. Photograph: ANI Photo

Two hundred million people, divided over 75 districts spread over 243,000 sq km, is too much to govern for one government, especially when run entirely by one individual, which is the norm in our states now.

Similarly, 80 seats in Lok Sabha is too much power for one state in a federal republic.

It is more than Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka put together.

It is politically distortionary. Especially when its politics is so internally divisive, based on caste and religion, that the incentive for improving social indicators is poor.

Uttar Pradesh must be cut into four, if not five.

The western districts have been demanding a Harit Pradesh for some time.

Bundelkhand, to its south, should be carved out as another state, with three to four contiguous districts of Madhya Pradesh added.

Purvanchal, with capital in Gorakhpur, should include all the districts going east along the Nepal border up to Bihar.

The central state -- you can call it Awadh Pradesh or any other -- can be governed from Lucknow.

This would make it four new states.

In my book, however, five would be even better as Purvanchal will be too big and too under-developed still.

So, split it into two, Varanasi being the capital of the other.

No political leader wants to do it.

One with a full majority has an even greater vested interest in keeping UP together: Why mend what is working, never mind how broken it is.

But, unless somebody takes up that challenge, this state, where about one of six Indians lives, has no hope.

By Special Arrangement with The Print

Feature Production: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22) President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to unveil the detailed COVID-19 recovery plan for the Philippines during his State of the Nation Address slated next week, Malacanang said Wednesday.

Speaking to CNN Philippines, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque noted Duterte will discuss the coronavirus pandemic and the governments response to the crisis in much detail when the latter addresses the nation for the fifth time.

I think you can imagine that the President will summarize the effects of the COVID pandemic as well as the responses of government and the way forward, Roque said in an interview with The Source.

But I think the difference will be, he will be presenting now a roadmap for recovery, which actually, if youve noticed, the economic team has not unveiled yet. And I think the reason is they want to unveil it in the SONA itself, and in many fora after the SONA, he added.

The chief executive is set to show up at the Batasang Pambansa on Monday for this years SONA, despite concerns on his physical attendance amid the pandemic.

Only a limited number of Cabinet members and lawmakers will join him in Batasan, Roque earlier said, in line with strict health protocols to avoid mass gatherings. Previous SONAs were jampacked with high-profile guests, making them a red carpet event featuring a display of lavish outfits.

READ: Who's coming with Duterte to Batasang Pambansa for his 5th SONA?

In May, the National Economic and Development Authority unveiled its proposed recovery plan for the country a three-phased approach to restart the economy which includes providing access to more bank loans and reviving infrastructure projects, among others.

ANALYSIS: A bounce-back strategy for a crisis like no other
Once at the epicenter of the states coronavirus pandemic, Stamford Hospital is now at the front of a better trend: the overall sharp decline of COVID-19 patients in hospitals across Connecticut.

The hospital last week announced it had discharged its last COVID-19 patient and, as of Tuesday, it still had no COVID-19 patients admitted.

And although Gov. Ned Lamont reported Tuesday afternoon that hospitalizations in the state had increased by eight since Monday  bringing the total number to 62  overall hospitalization numbers have fallen considerably since the outbreak began.

You would never know even that COVID hit if you walk around the hospital, said Dr. Maher Madhoun, hospitalist director and infectious disease doctor at Stamford Hospital. The mood is back to normal.

Local health officials largely credit the decline to public compliance, and dedicated hospital staff. But experts stressed vigilance to help keep the numbers from popping up again.

Though Nuvance Health  the system that includes Norwalk, Danbury, Sharon and New Milford hospitals  didnt give the number of patients at its properties (due to the fact that numbers can change quickly), chain spokeswoman Amy Forni said the hospitals had only a handful of positive patients.

Meanwhile, officials at the states two major hospital chains said theyve seen huge drops in the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The Yale New Haven Health system had a total of 24 patients at its Connecticut properties as of Tuesday morning, including 11 at Yale New Haven Hospital, nine at Bridgeport Hospital and four at Greenwich Hospital.

Contrast that to April, when there were 444 patients at Yale New Haven Hospital alone.

Weve gone down very substantially across our system, said Dr. Thomas Balcezak, Yale New Haven Healths chief clinical officer.

He said, in additional to the low COVID-19 census overall, there are only three patients in all the intensive care units throughout the system, and that there hadnt been a death in a couple of days.

Balcezak attributes the falling numbers partly to hard work and good preparation by the hospitals. But a lot of the credit goes to the general public, he said.

People are taking this very seriously, extremely seriously, he said Theyve been following guidelines about social distancing and masking. My only plea is that they continue to do so, and not stop. Where we go from here is very much up to the public.

An official at another of the states major hospital chains had a similar message. Hartford HealthCare has a total of 17 patients at its hospitals, including three at St. Vincents Medical Center in Bridgeport, and nine at Hartford Hospital.

Like Balcezak, Hartford HealthCare Chief Medical Officer Ajay Kumar said Connecticut residents played a major role in driving the numbers down.

Theres a lot that Connecticut has to be proud of, Kumar said.

But Kumar added that people need to continue to be vigilant if they dont want hospitalizations to jump again.

I think its really important to continue social distancing, he said. Masks are important. Limit travel. And protect vulnerable populations.
The number infected with SARS-CoV-2 in early May in India is estimated by a method utilising the unequivocal number available, namely deaths due to COVID-19. The estimated numbers are far in excess of reported numbers and indicate the systemic flaws in reporting deaths in India, augmenting the extent of underestimation. Additionally, there is the overestimation of the doubling time of infection. A realistic picture of the epidemic at the community level is presented, which informs us about the level of preparedness required to deal effectively with the epidemic.

The reported numbers of the SARS-CoV-2 infection have so far remained relatively low during the COVID-19 epidemic in India, despite high population density and consequent difficulties with physical distancing. The number of diagnostic polyamerase chain reaction (PCR) tests carried out has also remained low at ~864 per million population, as against several thousand per million population in many developed countries. The number diagnosed as infected is in a large part determined by the volume of testing.

The cumulative number of positive tests in India as on 5 May 2020 was only 46,476, a mere 3.9% of the 1,19,19,463 tested. In contrast, in the United States, the test positive rate was 16.3% until 5 May. The testing policies were differentthe lower the yield, the less efficient the policy.
'The PLA will not voluntarily withdraw from Indian territory.'

IMAGE: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, third from left, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, right, army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane, second from right, Northern Army commander Lieutenant General Yogesh Kumar Joshi, left, with officers at a forward base in Ladakh. Photograph: @DefenceMinIndia/Twitter

National security expert Dr Bharat Karnad is the emeritus professor in national security studies at the Centre for Policy Research.

Dr Karnad helped draft India's nuclear policy and authored India's Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security.

Dr Karnad was one of the first security experts to have issued several warnings about the Chinese incursion and occupation of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh.

"War is apparently not the preferred mode of action for a peacetime army with leadership that, other than counter insurgency operations, has not experienced real war," Dr Karnad tells Rediff.com Contributor Rashme Sehgal in the concluding segment of a two-part interview.

You say a limited war is the only option for India. What prevents the government from taking this step?

Is our army diffident about taking on the Chinese army?

Or does our political leadership want to avoid a confrontation?

Limited war is the only option because the PLA will not voluntarily withdraw from the Indian territory it is ensconced in.

But war is apparently not the preferred mode of action for a peacetime army with leadership that, other than counter insurgency operations, has not experienced real war.

Your blog alleges that Prime Minister Modi wants to cut some kind of deal with the Chinese.

What are you alluding to?

How else to interpret Modi's reticence in calling out Xi's China for its calculated policy of territorial aggrandisement?

Do you see any kind of political fallout of these developments within the country?

It depends on what the Opposition parties want to make of it, and how successfully they are able to convey to the masses the fact of Modi's capitulation to China.

Several army sources believe the PLA and the Pakistan army will move in unison and are likely to attack India in the coming months.

What is the likelihood of such a move?

(This is a) Zero possibility.

The Pakistan army is too professional and pragmatic to get into a situation that could redound to its disbenefit.

With China supplying submarines and other naval equipment to the Pakistan navy, will this accelerate tensions further?

China as the primary supplier of military hardware to Pakistan is not a new development and will not aggravate the existing India-Pakistan or Sino-Indian tensions.

While Modi hesitates to take on China, he showed no hesitance in taking on Pakistan after Balakot.

The smaller, weaker, Pakistan is easier to belabour.

Besides, being tough with Pakistan has domestic political dividends in that the Hindu-Muslim tensions at home are externalised in India-Pakistan relations.

Feature Production: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
U.K. Report Calls For Further Study Of Russian Interference, Claims Meddling In Scottish Vote

By RFE/RL July 21, 2020

A British parliamentary committee has criticized the government for failing to investigate Russian interference during the 2016 Brexit referendum despite "credible" commentary that Moscow had tried to meddle in the Scottish independence referendum two years earlier.

In a much-anticipated report published on July 21, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) described Russian interference in Britain as "the new normal" and called for a "full assessment" of Moscow's actions during the referendum to decide whether Britain should leave the EU.

ISC committee member Stewart Hosie said no one in the government wanted to touch the issue of Russian interference with a "10-foot pole" and that its members "did not want to know" because it was too hot a topic.

"There should have been an assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum and there must now be one, and the public must be told the results of that assessment," Hosie said.

The report was completed in March 2019 and was originally submitted to Prime Minister Boris Johnson in October. Critics said his government delayed its release to shield Johnson and his Conservative Party from embarrassment.

The government initially said the report couldn't be published until it was reviewed for national security leaks, enabling 10 Downing Street to postpone its release until after the December general elections. Further holdups were caused by delays in appointing new members to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

The opposition Labour Party has accused the government of failing to publish the report because it would lead to further questions about links between Russia and the pro-Brexit campaign in the 2016 referendum on European Union membership, which Johnson helped lead.

The heavily redacted report made little mention of the 2016 referendum, saying the British intelligence community should produce an assessment of potential Russian interference in the EU referendum analogous to that produced by the United States following allegations that Moscow meddled in its 2016 presidential election.

The intelligence and security committee recommended that an unclassified summary of it be published.

"In response to our request for written evidence at the outset of the inquiry, MI5 initially provided just six lines of text. It stated that ***, before referring to academic studies," the redacted version reads, adding that "the government was slow to recognize the existence of the threat."

The report did, however, say Russia attempted to interfere in a 2014 independence referendum in Scotland.

"There has been credible open-source commentary suggesting that Russia undertook influence campaigns in relation to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014," the report says.

The Scottish referendum, a closely fought contest that divided the country and drew attention worldwide, narrowly failed, with 55.3 percent voting against independence while 44.7 percent backed it.

Russia has constantly denied meddling in the affairs of any other sovereign nation, often meeting accusations of interfering with claims of anti-Russian sentiment.

Analysts say Russia apparently saw a "yes" vote in the Scottish plebiscite as a way of justifying its own annexation of Crimea earlier in 2014, after a hastily arranged "referendum" condemned by the West.

"Russia has never interfered in the electoral process in the United States, the United Kingdom, or any other country. We don't do such things and we won't tolerate other countries' attempts to interfere in our political affairs," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on July 21.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and TASS

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/uk-report-calls-for- further-study-of-russian-interference-claims- meddling-in-scottish-vote/30739361.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Kim Kardashian's "heart hurts" for Kanye West, a source tells E! News.

Just hours ago, the SKIMS founder asked the public to offer their "compassion and empathy," as the 43-year-old rapper continues to struggles with bipolar disorder. In a series of tweets, that have since been deleted, West made several comments about Kim, Kris Jenner and other celebrities. He also claimed he's "been trying" to divorce his wife of six years.

In light of Kanye's recent posts, a source tells E! News the longtime couple is "spending time apart for now."

"[Kim] is still in Los Angeles and [Kanye] is staying in Wyoming. He hasn't seen the kids in a week. Kim has been trying to fly to Wyoming to get Kanye help and he is refusing it," the insider shares. "She wants to help him and has been trying for over a month now. Kanye's behavior has progressively gotten worse."

According to the source, Kourtney Kardashian has been taking care of North West, 7, and Saint West, 4, so the KKW Beauty founder can "deal with the situation at home."

Kim Kardashian & Kanye West: Romance Rewind

It's unclear if Chicago West, 2, and Psalm West, 14 months, are also staying with Kourtney, however, the source says they too are protected from the situation. "Kim doesn't want the kids knowing an ounce of this situation or seeing their dad in that light," the insider explains.

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West

According to the source, Kanye hasn't spoken to or seen the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star, "because he thinks she will try and have him committed."

"It is very bad between them right now and Kim feels defeated and helpless," the insider shares. "Kanye doesn't think he needs help. He has many friends who have been checking in on him."

One of those friends has been Dave Chappelle. On Tuesday, July 21, the Jesus Is King rapper told his Twitter followers that the comedian flew to Wyoming to check on him.

Story continues

"THANK YOU DAVE FOR HOPPING ON A JET TO COME SEE ME DOING WELL DAVE YOU ARE A GOD SEND AND A TRUE FRIEND ALL LOVE," Kanye wrote, alongside a one-minute video.

Additionally, we're told a group of Kanye's childhood friends, manager Bu Thiam, and music creatives like Don C, John Monopoly and Damon Dash are with him in Wyoming taking action to get him help and prioritizing his safety. On Wednesday, the rapper was assessed by a doctor, who determined he did not need immediate hospitalization.

As for the timing of Kanye's recent behavior, the source says it's due to "overstimulation" of working on "really creative projects" such as his music.

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, 2019 Met Gala

Adds our insider, "Kim decided to speak out because her heart hurts for Kanye and anyone dealing with mental illness. She also wanted to wanted to dispel the ongoing misinformation being spread."

"She tries to keep their family matters private and is very upset he lashed out against the family," the source says.

Despite the couple's troubles, our insider noted "there are no serious talks of divorce yet."

"Kim has brought it up several times but she isn't planning on filing until Kanye stabilizes. If anything, Kanye would most likely be the one to abruptly file for divorce," the insider shares. "Kim is not planning on leaving him during a time like this when he is vulnerable."

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Wedding

In her social media statement posted on Wednesday, July 22, Kim asked her millions of followers to remain sensitive to her husband's situation.

"[Kanye] is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar [sic] disorder," she wrote. "Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions."

"We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most," Kim concluded. "I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this. Thank you for those who have expressed concern for Kanye's well-being and for your understanding."

A rep for West could not be reached for comment.
WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans struggled to finalize a $1 trillion coronavirus relief bill Wednesday, confronting internal divisions and continued White House demands for a payroll tax cut that most lawmakers oppose.

Several lawmakers speculated openly that they might be unable to make any deal with Democrats at all, suggesting the possible need for a stand-alone extension of unemployment benefits that expire at the end of this month.

Lawmakers and aides emphasized that their intention was to negotiate and pass a deal with Democrats in the next several weeks. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is readying a bill as a starting point for talks that he had hoped to release as early as Wednesday, though that timeline slipped to Thursday as internal negotiations bogged down.

In one sign of progress, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows announced an agreement with key senators late Wednesday on certain spending priorities in the bill. As part of this, senators agreed to $16 billion for testing and tracing - down from $25 billion they had initially sought - after administration officials argued that $9 billion remained unspent in a federal fund. Administration officials had initially sought to zero out the testing funding.

But the internal divisions over multiple other issues, from the payroll tax cut to whether a new bill is even necessary, led to pessimistic forecasts from some.

"I'd say it's gonna be tough," said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. "There are some over here that think we benefit from doing nothing because people don't want to spend any more money."

Cramer said he thought it was possible that even if they succeed in overcoming their internal differences, Republicans would be unable to bridge the "pretty big gap" with Democrats, who've embraced a $3 trillion bill containing multiple priorities Republicans oppose, such as a large package of aid for cities and states, among other things.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other administration officials insist they must act by the end of next week because enhanced unemployment benefits are set to expire for millions of Americans. McConnell has dismissed that timeline as unrealistic but is working to unveil his bill so that negotiations with Democrats can commence.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said lawmakers may consider a two-month extension in emergency unemployment benefits at a level below the current $600-per-week subsidy if they are unable to come to an agreement on the broader $1 trillion stimulus package. Portman suggested the extension could be used to give lawmakers time to create an unemployment system more closely tied to a worker's prior earnings.

"I think we should do the whole thing, but if we can't get it all done by next week we cannot allow there to be a cliff in unemployment insurance given that we're still at about 11 percent unemployment," Portman said. "I think we need to do something and the interim period we can have a compromise."

The enhanced benefits were passed as part of the Cares Act in March, one of four pieces of legislation Congress approved nearly unanimously at the outset of the pandemic. Those laws injected nearly $3 trillion into the economy but many of their benefits, such as stimulus checks and small business loans, have been spent. For some, that spirit of urgency has waned, while others are simply divided on what are the best steps to take next.

"There's not going to be unanimity," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "So, as you know it doesn't take unanimity pass a bill."

Senate Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and there's little chance the legislation they are currently crafting would be able to secure the 60 votes needed to proceed to a final vote. But emerging from the discussions with a formal plan would give them a starting point to begin negotiations with House Democrats.

Whether to include a payroll tax cut remained a critical outstanding question Wednesday, a day after Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows encountered a barrage of criticism on the issue during a private lunch with GOP senators on Capitol Hill. A handful of other items remained unsettled, too, but the contours of much of the legislation has come into focus over the past several days.

McConnell has said it would include $105 billion for education. Of that money, $70 billion will go to elementary and secondary schools, according to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a senior member of the Appropriations Committee. The $70 billion will be split into two pots, with half of it going to all schools through grants, and the other half reserved for schools that submit a reopening plan and can then use the funds for costs associated with reopening, according to a person familiar with the proposal who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe it.

Reopening schools has become a major focus for President Donald Trump that's sparked a heated debate nationwide with coronavirus cases spiking and some major school districts announcing plans to start the fall with virtual learning only. In Florida, the teachers' union sued the governor over his plans to reopen schools.

The GOP plan is not expected to include much if any new state and local aid, but will allow state and local leaders flexibility with how they spend the $150 billion already allocated in the Cares Act in March. It will include around $100 billion in additional funding for the small-business Paycheck Protection Program, targeted for businesses that can demonstrate need.

The GOP legislation will also include about $25 billion for states to conduct coronavirus testing and tracing, and billions more for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. The Trump administration had initially sought to block this spending, but backed down under pressure from Blunt and other key senators.

Republicans also want to include new legal protections for businesses that would make it harder for employees to sue their employers if they become sick.

McConnell has said the package will include another round of direct stimulus payments to individuals. Treasury previously sent out $1,200 stimulus payments to everyone earning under $75,000 per year. Republican lawmakers have eyed lowering that threshold in the next stimulus package, but leading GOP lawmakers - including Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) - have suggested that they may simply follow the model for stimulus payments in the Cares Act.

"If the parameters stayed the same, we could do it really quickly," Thune said, although aides said the issue remained unsettled.

A major area dividing lawmakers was the question of what to do with the expiring unemployment benefits. Some Republicans want to cut the $600-per-week benefit approved by Congress in March to around $200-per-week.

Those benefits are set to expire for between 20 million and 30 million people by the end of the month.

At a closed-door lunch on Wednesday, GOP senators were shown polling from a group called the Foundation for Government Accountability, invited by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, suggesting public opposition to extending the enhanced unemployment benefit at its current level.

At a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Trump floated changing the unemployment benefits so they amount to about 70% of a typical worker's income while he or she was employed - which translates into cutting the extra benefit to about $175-per-week, according to Ernie Tedeschi, who served as an economist in the Treasury Department under the Obama administration. The federal unemployment benefit comes on top of existing state unemployment benefits that vary widely.

"If they lowered it to $200 a week, 30 million workers would wake up with a pay cut from a third to a half overnight," Tedeschi said. "While $200 is marginally better than full expiration, the U.S. would still take a major economic hit from this summer and this fall as a result from it."

U.S. Gross Domestic Product would be 1.33 percentage points smaller at the end of the year under Trump's proposal than if extended at $600-per-week for the rest of the year, Tedeschi said, as well as more than 1 million fewer jobs because of the contraction in spending.

Republican lawmakers have also looked at a short-term unemployment extension as part of the broader package, rather than a separate measure, according to one person aware of internal planning granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. If included in the broader stimulus package, that measure could include a two-month extension of unemployment only slightly below current rates before fading out over time.

If the payroll tax cut is included, it is expected to defer rather than eliminate the 7.65 percent tax employees pay, which goes to support the Social Security and Medicare programs. That would allow the proposal to technically not add to the cost of the bill. Workers might have to repay the money at a later date, but Congress could also decide to waive that entirely.

Trump views the payroll tax cut as a good way to stimulate the economy and help workers, but GOP senators have raised multiple objections, including that it only benefits those with jobs, the benefit will not be immediately felt, and it will drain the already shaky Medicare and Social Security trust funds.
As the pandemic continues to disrupt daily lives, it can be tough to find inspiration to get out of bed, let alone be creative and produce art.

Its really sort of bleak out there, said Joyce Honsberger, who operates Arts Place Gallery in Port Colborne. Ive talked to a lot of artists who have told me they just cant find that inspiration with everything thats going on. And thats understandable, its a strange time.

Not only has the pandemic put a damper on many artists ability to create, it has scuttled many of the creative outlets artists had been using to present their work.

Between writing and publishing and getting everything organized, my book launch was a long time in the making, said artist Mori McCrae. And then it all got shut down by this virus.

McCrae is a multi-medium artist who writes poetry, draws and dabbles in other forms such as sculpting. While artists are finding it tough to find inspiration during such dark times, McCrae said she ended up finding a bit of inspiration she couldnt even explain.

Sometimes, the true meaning of my own art eludes me, she said as she explained the object of her most recent bout of inspiration  apple cores. Its a symbol that has been used a lot by different artists, and at first I wasnt quite sure what drew me to it, then I realized it was my way of making light of original sin.

Religion is something McCrae said she has a complex relationship with, at once embracing it, but finding it difficult to swallow at times.

The whole idea of original sin, ya know what, Im over it. Lets all get over it, because its this thing that weighs us down, the guilt of it all, said McCrae.

No stranger to taboo subjects, her debut poetry collection is called Sex and Death in Canada.

When I started looking at my poems, I realized a lot of them were either about sex, or death, both of which are subjects people dont really like talking about, said McCrae. But through art, theres something that makes those subjects easier to approach and discuss.

While her original book launch and poetry reading has been cancelled, McCrae has been using her Instagram account to host readings from the book. Her poetry collection includes many of her original sketches and visual arts pieces. Those works are also adorning the walls of the Arts Place Gallery, which reopened this week with new artwork for the first time since the pandemic shutdown in March.

It was very hard for all the local artists, and for us, said Honsberger, who noted the gallerys signature fundraiser, its summer auction, had to be cancelled, alongside the summer studio tour. Both of those events would help keep the lights on at the gallery, but also provide an opportunity for local artists to sell their works.

Theres not a lot of places for artists in south Niagara to have their work on display and up for sale, so its been difficult for a lot of artists during the shutdown, said Honsberger.

The gallery is operating again four days a week, and with some COVID-19-related restrictions. The gallery, at 714 King St., is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Only four people are allowed inside at once time, and while Honsberger said she would prefer people to wear a mask while inside, it is not currently mandatory.

McCraes artwork will be on display alongside that of local artist Richard Pattison. Anyone who stops by the gallery can also enter a ballot to win one of McCraes drawings.

For more information about the gallery visit artsplacegallery.com and to watch McCraes poetry readings, visit instagram.com/morimccrae.
Egypt Parliament approves troop deployment in Libya

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 2:49 AM

The Egyptian parliament has unanimously approved the deployment of troops outside the country, laying the groundwork for a possible military intervention in Libya.

In a statement on Monday, the parliament said members of the Egyptian armed forces can be sent on combat missions outside Egypt's borders to defend Egyptian national security to fight "criminal militias and terrorist groups".

The decision comes after President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi warned Cairo could intervene in neighboring Libya across Egypt's western border.

The move could bring Egypt and Turkey, both US allies that support rival sides in Libya's chaotic war, into direct confrontation.

Forces of Libya's UN-backed Government of National Accord are moving closer to the strategic city of Sirte, which Sisi described as Cairo's red line.

Libya has been beset by chaos since the overthrow and killing of its long-serving ruler Muammar Gaddafi following a NATO operation in 2011.

The conflict has escalated into a regional proxy war fueled by foreign powers pouring weapons and mercenaries into the country.

Tensions escalated further last year after the Libyan National Army under renegade general Khalifa Haftar moved toward Tripoli to seize the city.

The UN-backed government in Tripoli has the support of Turkey, while the LNA based in Benghazi is supported by Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

A big escalation in Libya could risk igniting a direct conflict among the foreign powers that have poured in weapons and fighters in violation of an arms embargo.

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New Delhi, July 22 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called upon the US industry to take advantage of the scale, opportunities and recent reforms in India by investing in sectors as diverse as space and healthcare.

Addressing the India Ideas Summit hosted by the US-India Business Council via video conferencing, Modi said that there has never been a better time to invest in India.

"India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat'. And for that, we await your partnership," he said.

"Today, there is global optimism towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options. Let me elaborate. India celebrates openness in people and in governance. Open minds make open markets. Open markets lead to greater prosperity. These are principles on which both India and the US agree," the Prime Minister said.

Modi also said that India is emerging as a land of opportunities.

"Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It said that for the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users. Imagine the scale. There are about half a billion active internet users in India now. Half a billion connected people. Does this sound huge to you? Hold your breath.

"Because, there are over half a billion more people who are being connected. Opportunities in technology also include opportunities in the frontier technologies of 5G, Big data analytics, Quantum computing, Block-chain and internet of things," the Prime Minister said.

Modi also pointed out the extensive options to invest in India.

He cited sectors such as agriculture, aviation, insurance and finance, defence and space, among others, which offer long-term sustainable returns and scale.

Exhorting investors, he said that tapping into the country's food processing, aviation and power industry can be beneficial for them as key reforms have been carried out in these sectors.

"India has done historic reforms in the agriculture sector recently. There are investment opportunities in agricultural inputs and machinery, agriculture supply chain management, ready-to-eat items, and fisheries and organic produce. India's food processing sector is expected to be worth over half a trillion dollar by 2025.

"To grow more streams of revenue, the best time to tap investment opportunities in Indian agriculture sector is now. India invites you to invest in healthcare. The healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22 per cent every year," he said.

Modi also talked about investment opportunities for US companies in the country's energy sector as India evolves into a gas-based economy.

On a lighter note, the Prime Minister said: "I have given you a few options and that too without any consultancy fees." In terms of FDI inflows, the Prime Minister revealed that India attracted $20 billion in foreign capital during April-July despite the Covid pandemic.

FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were $74 billion, he said.

"But, India offers many more opportunities. We have what is needed to power the global economic recovery," Modi said.

"The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale, and a rise in your returns on investment with the availability of skilled human resources,"m he added.

In addition, the Prime Minister said that the US and India are natural partners as both are vibrant democracies with shared values.

"Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic," he said.

"American investors often look out for the perfect timing to enter a sector or a country. To them, I would like to say: There has never been a better time to invest in India," the Prime Minister added.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Like Europe, the Northeast suffered a devastating wave of illnesses and deaths in March and April, and state leaders responded, after some hesitation, with aggressive lockdowns and big investments in testing and tracing efforts. Residents have largely followed rules and been surprisingly supportive of tough measures, even at the cost of economic pain.

Dr. Jha said the difference in regional trajectories was so pronounced that, by the time flu season rolls around in the late fall, I would not be surprised if what we have is two countries, one which is neck-deep in coronavirus, its hospitals overwhelmed, and another part of the country that is struggling a little, but largely doing OK with their economy.

It is also true that the Northeast remains the corner of America that has suffered most from the virus. New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have reported the countrys most deaths per capita over the course of the pandemic, with more than 61,000 combined. And the economic wounds from prolonged shutdowns are deep: Massachusettss unemployment rate in June climbed to 17.4 percent, the worst in the country, according to federal data released on Friday.

But polls, so far, suggest that voters in the Northeast are prepared to tolerate prolonged economic pain in order to stop the spread of the virus. Governors from the states that were hit early in the pandemic have sustained the highest approval ratings in the country.

And in May, when a poll by Suffolk University Political Research Center asked Massachusetts residents how long they could endure the hardships of a shutdown, 38 percent of those surveyed answered indefinitely.

This isnt an economic policy, this is life or death, said David Paleologos, the centers director. That is at the core of why people are saying, Ill do whatever it takes.

The crisis has drawn out key regional differences in how Americans view the role of government in their lives, said Wendy J. Schiller, chair of the political science department at Brown University in Providence, R.I. The Northeast, she said, with its 400-year tradition of localized, participatory government, has been less affected by decades of antigovernment rhetoric.
Amid the border row with China, defence minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday asked the Indian Air Force (IAF) to be prepared for any eventuality, saying the rapid deployment of aerial assets at forward locations in eastern Ladakh had sent a strong message to the adversary.

The IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, said his force was poised to counter any aggressive action by the adversary.

Singh was addressing IAFs top commanders on the opening day of a three-day commanders conference.

In his inaugural address, he said the professional manner in which IAF conducted air strikes in Pakistans Balakot last year and the rapid deployment of aerial assets at forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in eastern Ladakh has sent a strong message to Indias adversaries.

The countrys resolve to defend its sovereignty stands firm on the faith its people have in the militarys capability, he said.

Singh appreciated IAFs proactive response in bolstering operational capabilities over the past few months. He assured the IAFs top brass that all needs of the armed forces will be fulfilled.

In his speech, Bhadauria said the IAF was well prepared to counter short-term and strategic threats and its units were evenly poised to counter any aggressive action by the adversary. He emphasised on the need to focus on the ability to handle situations at short notice for a robust response.

The conference is being held days ahead of the IAF inducting its first batch of five Rafale combats jets acquired from France. They will be inducted at Ambala airbase on July 29.

IAF is inducting the jets against the backdrop of heightened tensions with China. It can deploy the new Rafale jets in Ladakh sector as part of Indias overarching plan to strengthen its military posture in the region, where Indian and Chinese forces have been locked in a tense confrontation for months. A protracted process of disengagement began recently and is still ongoing.

India-specific enhancements on the Rafales include cold engine start capability to operate from high-altitude bases.

India ordered 36 Rafale jets from France in a deal worth 59,000 crore in September 2016, as an emergency purchase to arrest a worrying slide in IAFs combat capabilities.

The possible deployment of Rafale fighters in Ladakh could be discussed at the commanders conference, where the air force brass is expected to focus on the border row with China, IAFs preparedness and new purchases that have to be made quickly.

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Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry stressed the necessity to achieve a ceasefire in Libya during a phone call on Tuesday with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

According to a statement by the Egyptian foreign ministry, Shoukry reasserted the Egyptian position concerning recent developments in Libya, including its keenness on winning the support of the Libyan people for the Cairo Declaration, which is based on the Berlin conferences conclusion and previous UN-brokered agreements, in order to reach a sustainable settlement that enables the restoration of stability and security and eliminates terrorism in the country.

The Egyptian foreign minister also reasserted his total rejection of foreign intervention in Libya, as well as the necessity of stopping the transfer of Syrian fighters to the country, actions which represent a threat to the stability of the region.

According to the statement, the ministers also agreed on further cooperation between the two countries.

Earlier, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi spoke with the leaders of Russia and France about the situation in Libya and the importance of restoring political negotiations.

Egypt's parliament on Monday unanimously approved sending troops outside the countrys borders in the western strategic direction to defend Egyptian national security.

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Researcher Charged with Illegally Using U.S. Grant Funds to Develop Scientific Expertise for China

A rheumatology professor and researcher with strong ties to China has been ordered held without bond to face a charge of grant fraud for not disclosing that he was engaged in a sophisticated scheme to use approximately $4.1 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop Chinas expertise in the areas of rheumatology and immunology. He is also charged with making false statements about maintaining employment in China at the same time he was employed at universities in the United States, including The Ohio State University.

Song Guo Zheng, 57, was arrested Friday, May 22, 2020, after he arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, aboard a charter flight and as he prepared to board another charter flight to China. When he was arrested, he was carrying three large bags, one small suitcase and a briefcase containing two laptops, three cellular telephones, several USB drives, several silver bars, expired Chinese passports for his family, deeds for property in China and other items.

Yet again, we are faced with a professor at a U.S. University, who is a member of a Chinese Talent Plan, allegedly and deliberately failing to disclose his relationship with a Chinese university and receipt of funds from the Chinese Government in order to obtain millions of dollars in U.S. grant money designed to benefit the health and well-being of the people of the United States  not to be hijacked to supplement the research goals of the Chinese Communist Party, said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. This case, like too many others, should serve as a reminder that the United States Government takes seriously the obligation of truthfulness and transparency on grant applications, and those who violate the law to benefit China or any other foreign nation will be held accountable.

"This case highlights another example of a Chinese Talent Plan member allegedly using U.S. taxpayer funds for the benefit of the Chinese government," said Alan E. Kohler, Jr, Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. "According to the criminal complaint, Zheng violated laws concerning the use of federal research funds and did not disclose his employment in China. The FBI will continue to work with our partners to stop such illegal activity and protect U.S. research."

We allege that Zheng was preparing to flee the country after he learned that his employer had begun an administrative process into whether or not he was complying with rules governing taxpayer-funded grants, said David M. DeVillers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. This is our offices third recent case involving the illegal transfer of intellectual property and research to China. This underscores our commitment to work with the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, and our research institutions to protect our countrys position as a global leader in research and innovation, and to punish those who try to exploit and undermine that position.

"The taxpayers of the United States are the real victims when researchers defraud our government and exploit our system to benefit China, stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman. The cutting-edge technologies that are being developed in our country must be carefully protected from our foreign adversaries and the FBI will continue to work with our partners to safeguard these important innovations.

A criminal complaint filed May 23 and unsealed following todays detention hearing charges Zheng with one count of fraud or bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, a crime punishable by up to ten years in prison, and one count of making false statements, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers ordered Zheng held without bond because he is a flight risk. The case will be presented to a federal grand jury for possible indictment. The investigation is continuing.

An affidavit filed with the complaint alleges that, since 2013, Zheng has been participating in a Chinese Talent Plan, a program established by the Chinese government to recruit individuals with knowledge or access to foreign technology intellectual property. Since then, Zheng has used research conducted in the U.S. to benefit the Peoples Republic of China. Zheng allegedly failed to disclose conflicts of interest or his foreign commitments to his U.S. employers or to the NIH.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney DeVillers, and Christopher Hoffman, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Cincinnati Field Division announced the criminal complaint. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Douglas W. Squires and Courter Shimeall, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher St. Pierre, and Trial Attorney Matthew J. McKenzie with the Department of Justice National Security Division are representing the United States in this case.

A criminal complaint merely contains allegations. All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Press Release

July 22, 2020 Villanueva asks DOLE to draw up workers' safety guidelines for schools as govt okays face-to-face classes in low-risk areas Senator Joel Villanueva is urging the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and education authorities to craft guidelines on workers' safety protocol for school personnel after the government on Monday night greenlighted the proposal to allow face-to-face classes in areas determined to have low risk in the transmission of COVID-19. Villanueva asked DOLE to convene with their counterparts in the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission in schools and training facilities that would be allowed to open for students. "Bago po tuluyang payagan ang mga paaralan at training institutes na magpapasok ng mga estudyante, dapat pong magbalangkas ng mga panuntunan para sa kaligtasan ng mga guro at iba pang empleyado ng mga paaralan at training institutes," Villanueva said in a statement. Sa pagpapatupad ng mga safety protocol sa mga paaralan, gusto po natin bigyan ng kasiguruhan ang mga magulang na ligtas para sa kanilang mga anak ang pumasok sa mga eskwelahan." "Schools and training facilities safety protocols should also assure school personnel that workers' safety is a top priority. A safe working environment contributes to sound operation of the school," he added. Villanueva, chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment, and Human Resources Development, explained that the prevailing regulation on COVID-19 prevention jointly issued by the labor and trade departments in May might not be enough to cover the nuances of school operations. He suggested that the DOLE convene with education authorities to come up with specific occupational safety and health standards for schools and training facilities. The law on workers' safety, formally known as Republic Act No. 11058 or the Occupational Safety and Health Standards (OSH) Act, mandates the institution of measures in workplaces to promote the well-being of workers. The strict observance of OSH standards has drawn more significance in the prevailing pandemic while a vaccine remains to be discovered, pointed out Villanueva, who principally authored and sponsored the measure in the Senate. "Umaasa po tayo sa DOLE na ito ang mangunguna sa pagbabalangkas ng mga panuntunan para sa kapakanan ng mga manggagagawa sa sektor ng edukasyon. Dapat pong maging malinaw ang ipapatupad na workers' safety protocol sa mga paaralan at training facilities upang hindi na dumami pa ang kaso ng COVID-19," Villanueva said. He also reiterated his appeal to DOLE to resume its labor inspections at workplaces to ensure the strict observance of OSH standards in preventing the spread of the disease.
MANCHESTER, CT  The town of Manchester has launched a new map to promote businesses and attractions in the downtown area.

The map, officially unveiled Wednesday, was commissioned by the town to promote the Greater Downtown Manchester area by highlighting its many "commercial and quality of life assets" for visitors.

Staff members from the Manchester Department of Planning and Economic Development worked with Discovery Map International, Inc., a leading national publisher of local maps and travel guides, to create the map.

Manchester is the first Connecticut municipality to have its own "Discovery Map."

The front of the 11-by-17 full-color, glossy map is a colorful, hand-illustrated rendering of the Greater Downtown area. Sponsor businesses are identified along with services, recreational amenities, historic sites, and other points of interest. Buildings are color coded by use. An alphabetical grid system makes it easier to cross reference the map locations with the listings on the reverse side of the map.

The back of the map features a resource list that includes additional information on where to shop, where to eat, where services are located, things to do, points of interest and a Downtown calendar of events.

Because the coronavirus pandemic the calendar listing comes with a disclaimer was added suggesting that users, "Please use contact info to confirm status of event."





(Town of Manchester)

(Town of Manchester)





A total of 10,000 copies of the Greater Downtown Manchester Discovery Map were printed and have been distributed throughout town to sponsor businesses, services, sites and attractions listed on the map as well as to area hotels and apartment complexes.

"Manchester has a wealth of assets that contribute to its quality of life and make it a great place to

live, work and visit," Director of Planning and Economic Development Gary Anderson said. "We

hope this map project raises awareness of the visitor resources present in the Greater Downtown

Manchester area, knowing that it reflects only part of what Manchester has to offer. With all the

recent positive development Downtown and as businesses start to slowly reopen, we thought this

would be a great time to remind those inside and outside Manchester of just how much we have to

offer.

Story continues

"The Town of Manchester hopes that this map will be a simple, fun and useful reference tool that

visitors and residents alike can use to discover all there is to see and do in the Greater Downtown

Manchester area. A digital version of the map will soon be launched on the Town of Manchester

website to allow expanded access to the map."

Requests for a copy of the Greater Downtown Manchester Discovery can be made via the

Town of Manchester Customer Service and Information Center at customer@manchesterct.gov or

860-647-5235.

This article originally appeared on the Manchester Patch
The family of 8-year-old Royta Giles Jr. has filed a lawsuit against the Riverchase Galleria, as well as its general manager and security company.

The lawsuit was filed late Tuesday night in Jefferson County Circuit by Birmingham attorney Courtney French of Petway, French and Ford on behalf of Roytas mother, Jesslyn Layfield.

The suit names as defendants the Galleria, General Manager Mike White and Andy Frain Services Inc., the company that provides security at the states largest indoor mall.

According to the complaint, the defendants were negligent and wanton in failing to provide adequate security at the Riverchase Galleria, resulting in the wrongful death of 8-year-old Royta D. Giles, Jr.

The complaint also says, based upon numerous prior violent acts, assaults, shootings and a death at the Riverchase Galleria, it was foreseeable or should have been foreseeable that the Riverchase Galleria was an environment where this tragedy would likely occur.

They had a duty to provide adequate security for shoppers and guests at the Riverchase Galleria, prominent Birmingham Attorney Courtney French said. The family of hopes that no one else has to experience the pain they are suffering right now, French added.

White said he cannot comment on the pending lawsuit. Efforts to reach the other defendants named in the suit werent immediately successful.

The Riverchase Galleria paid for Roytas funeral and, since his death, has launched a Vapor Wake Public Safety Canine Detection Program (VWK9) that went into effect on July 11. In an effort to ensure the safety of the shopping center, specially trained canines patrol with security officers to detect explosives and/or firearms.

The lawsuits asks for unspecified damages.

On July 3, Royta was killed when he, his mother, stepfather Anthony Jones, and sisters Trinity, 5, and Marlee, 4, were waiting to go into the Childrens Place at the Riverchase Galleria to buy new outfits for the Fourth of July.

Hoover police say a 22-year-old man armed with an automatic pistol got into a dispute with a group of men and a barrage of gunfire was exchanged.

When it stopped, Royta was motionless on the mall floor, surrounded by his family. He had been shot in the head and would be pronounced dead within hours. According to Hoover police, a shootout that lasted only seconds long ended Roytas life and wounded three other innocent bystanders who are now recovering.

Three people have been charged with capital murder in Roytas death: Montez Moses Miracle Coleman, 22; King Gary Williams, 19, and Demetrius Dewayne Jackson Jr., also 19.

Police say an ongoing feud between the young men came to a head when they encountered each other inside the states largest indoor mall. Coleman, they said, brandished an automatic pistol and fired at a group of five who had just come down the escalator.

Williams and Jackson returned fire. Police have not said whose bullets struck Royta and the other three innocent bystanders. Attorneys for Williams and Jackson are claiming self-defense.
We lost two giants.

So said the Rev. Charles Becknell Sr., president of the New Mexico chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, regarding civil rights icons John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, both of whom died Friday.

Im reminded of the words of Alex Haley who once said, When an old person dies, its like a library being burned to the ground,  Becknell said Tuesday.

Becknell, 78, didnt know Lewis personally but served for many years on the national SCLC board with Vivian. It was during annual SCLC national meetings in Atlanta that Vivian and other former Freedom Riders would share stories of crossing the deep South on buses in 1961 to integrate bus terminals and the attendant lunch counters. Many of the riders, both Black and white, were beaten, jailed and killed.

Lewis, one of the original Freedom Riders, was, at age 21, the first of them to be assaulted, during a stop in South Carolina.

Vivian, who like Lewis, was a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., told the story of how he confronted a Southern sheriff who punched him in the face and knocked him to the ground. Becknell asked Vivian why he simply got up and continued to speak to the sheriff in a civilized tone, rather than respond in an equally aggressive manner.

He told me the whole concept of nonviolence rested on that one moment and he not only believed in nonviolence, but he lived it, Becknell said.

Becknell lived it, too. After graduating from high school in Hobbs, he and others in 1962 organized to integrate department store lunch counters and restaurants in the then-segregated southeastern New Mexico community. Becknell has been actively involved in the civil rights movement since.

Nonviolence works, and the movement was designed to change the hearts of people, because you can write a policy, but unless you can change hearts, the policy will just fade away, Becknell said.

Harold Bailey, president of the Albuquerque NAACP, called Lewis one of the most influential civil rights leaders and a distinguished political icon. Bailey, 73, said he agreed with the description of Lewis as the conscience of the United States Congress.

Lewis, he said, became a national civil rights leader in his early 20s, and recalled how he stood front and center, crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and took a beating from Alabama state troopers.

Both Lewis and Vivian, whom he called the quiet warrior, had fire and passion, dedicated their lives to civil rights and never gave up.

Involved in local, state and national politics since the early 80s, James Lewis said John Lewis and Vivian were giants on whose shoulders were standing today as we address systemic racism.

James Lewis, 72, who served as assistant U.S. energy secretary under Bill Richardson during the Clinton administration, said he had an opportunity to spend quality time with Rep. Lewis and called him an icon whose sacrifices were second to none.

He didnt know Vivian, but I knew his name, and I knew his work, Lewis said. Both of these individuals laid the foundation for us to take the next step for voter education, voter registration and voter participation. They showed us that to change things, you have to get involved.

James Lewis did just that. He grew up in segregated Roswell, and his family moved to Albuquerque when he was in second grade. I didnt see a Black teacher until I got into Lincoln Junior High, where there were two.

In the early 80s, he decided to run for office. I was told there was no way an African American could win a countywide race for treasurer, and was told the same thing when I ran for state treasurer, Lewis said.

He won both races and had a busy career in public service.

Although Leon Howard, 38, was born long after the civil rights movement of the 1960s, as legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, he has studied the work of Rep. Lewis, Vivian, MLK and others working for racial justice and equality.

The deaths of Lewis and Vivian during a national uprising about racial justice, and now with allies that weve never seen before on our side, is likely to have filled them with hope in their final weeks, Howard said.

The torch is being passed on to younger people, like me, to litigate civil rights cases and be a voice for the Black community, Howard said. I feel a heavy sense of responsibility.
The regional government of Madrid has issued instructions for reopening schools in the fall that school principals are describing as impossible to observe.

One of Spains largest labor unions, CC OO, has filed a legal appeal against the measures, which it termed illegal, reckless and scandalous. And parents are complaining that the guidelines are too vague.

The public school community has come together in opposition to the plan, and it is asking regional officials to tweak its instructions for a safe reopening of schools. Failing that, the Madrid government could be facing protests and even strikes when the new academic year begins in September.

Spanish children stayed home from school throughout the three-month coronavirus lockdown that began in mid-March, and experts note that remote learning has not worked equally well for everyone. In Spain, education policy is devolved to the regions, although the central government has issued its own recommendations for a safe return to school.

Its a disaster, its unacceptable and its irresponsible. Its putting at risk the health of teachers, students and families Esteban Alvarez, Association of Public Secondary School Principals

The Madrid governments plan considers four possible scenarios with different coronavirus situations. Scenario 1 creates classroom bubbles for early and elementary school students who will not have to wear face masks or keep a physical distance between each other. Scenario 2 eliminates cafeteria lunches, recess and other group activities, and introduces more distance learning. Scenario 3 contemplates a new lockdown with only online classes available. And Scenario 4 is reserved for a return to full normality, with added hygiene measures still in place.

But the plan makes no provisions for more teachers, maintains the same classroom sizes as last year, and demands much greater safety measures while warning about a very tight budget without providing any specific figures.

Its a disaster, its unacceptable and its irresponsible. Its putting at risk the health of teachers, students and families, said Esteban Alvarez, of the Association of Public Secondary School Principals.

Hand sanitizer and other hygiene measures will become an increasingly important part of the school day. SANTI BURGOS

Ricardo Marchand of UGT, Spains other main union, said that the guidelines are a cut-and-paste from other years; they contradict the health authorities, and they make no mention of how to adapt the curriculum to make up for the content that was lost this past academic year.

Oscar Martin Centeno, of the Board of Madrid School Principals, said that Scenario 2, which involves a combination of online and in-person teaching, is not feasible. We are going to move straight from in-person to at-home, because even if they were to hire a large amount of teachers, there is no space for 20 students to a classroom, he noted.

Private schools that get public funding  known as concertados  seem less concerned. Jose Antonio Poveda of Escuelas Catolicas, a group representing 67% of the sector, said the Madrid government is being realistic.

It is a great organizational challenge, but we need to find solutions. The alternative is staying at home, he said, while admitting that not all schools may have the resources to handle the combined online and in-person scenario.

Some sticking points Same number of students. Each class group may have as many as 28 children in early and elementary school, up to 35 in secondary school and 35 to 39 in Bachillerato, a post-secondary degree, warn the unions. These numbers are allowed by the Spanish Education Ministry, note regional officials. Same staff. Schools will have the same teachers as last year in the best of cases, said a source at CC OO. But there have been significant cuts at many secondary schools. There is a generalized elimination of teachers for students with special needs. The Madrid government said it plans to hire 3,500 more people, including teachers and other staff, if Scenario 2 is adopted. Smaller budget. The regional education chief, Enrique Ossorio, has warned about a very tight budget. At this point in the year, it is not possible to provide a figure for next years budget, said a department spokesperson. But UGT feels it is completely impossible to adapt the centers without more money. Asked about a 290 million allocation from the central government, regional authorities said the money will go towards buying equipment, cleaning, new technology training, and hiring new teachers among others. But no itemized spending document was provided. Cleaning. Schools are expected to conduct a full cleaning up to three times a day, including the restrooms several times a day All common areas must be disinfected and well ventilated. Each center would have to be permanently cleaning. If current contracts are not doubled, we cant do it, said a school principal. School cafeterias. This is a major problem due to rules about reduced capacity in communal areas. Private schools are talking about having children eat in their classrooms.

English version by Susana Urra.
Disney Enterprises, Inc.

En espanol | When ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff was globetrotting with his son, Mack, 29, he couldn't imagine that their new series Rogue Trip (July 24, Disney Plus) would debut in the middle of a pandemic. But their travelogue about conflict-troubled locations  Colombia, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Ukraine  provides homebound viewers a virtual world tour, and a chance to see how countries cope with challenging times. In these times, we need this show.

Many Americans are feeling fatigued by forced togetherness. On your trip, how did you and Mack make it work?

It was the first time in my life where I was able to spend hours every single day for almost four straight months with Mack. Stuck in the car for long periods, we had plenty of fights. It introduced us to a whole new technique of getting along with each other. He would get up very early in the morning, to get away from me. He would wander off as much as he could  Mack's true love is photography and digging up pieces of information that he never knew about before.

In 2006, a roadside bomb in Iraq gave you a life-threatening brain injury; you spent 13 months recovering. Why did you go back to some of the places you'd been in more dangerous times?

It was crucial for me to show Mack [and his daughter Cathryn, who joined them in Ukraine] some of these countries where they had seen me, but always in conflict. Every time we've covered wars, we know that somewhere in these countries were amazing people in many ways similar to us. We've seen images of these countries buried in these very intense news stories. In journalism we've always covered the negative  the negative is the tiny minority.

Were your kids afraid because of what happened to you?

I think a wake-up to the danger was when I was actually hit. When I was covering wars, I would not tell them details if there were confrontations, potentially dangerous. They didn't see a ton of that danger.
She always looks flawless in her social media snaps.

And Bella Hadid was looking stunning again in a racy selfie posted to her Instagram stories on Tuesday.

The model, 23, posed up a storm in a white dressing gown for the snap taken in the back of a car.

Flawless: Bella Hadid looked stunning as she flashed a hint of sideboob in a white dressing gown for a selfie

The beauty flashed a hint of sideboob in the low-cut gown and put on a Pikachu face filter.

Bella also wore her trademark raven locks in tight curls for the car selfie.

She captioned the post 'back to work baby' as she returns to her modelling gig after being stuck in lockdown.

It comes after the supermodel revealed to her 31.8 million Instagram followers that she was building herself a swing, though it appears she's taking baby steps when it comes to mastering her DIY skills.

DIY: Bella showed off her taut tummy as she gets crafty during lockdown by building herself a swing on Tuesday

'Built a swing,' she captioned the post, before adding: 'She's not done but one day you'll get the final I promise.'

Bella showed off her taut tummy as she filmed herself grappling with a screwdriver while putting together the apparatus.

The model then showed off the swing seat which she appears to have painted herself.

Bella has been quarantining at her mother Yolanda Hadid's Pennsylvania farm, and it seems by the her post that she is loving having some downtime in her plush surroundings.

Getting to drips with it: The supermodel showed off her DIY skills though admitted that the swing wasn't ready yet

Filming herself: The model treated her fans to a DIY swing-making show

Feeling crafty: Bella shows off her swing before she starts painting it

Not done yet: Bella told fans in her post that they'll be able to see the finished product 'one day'

Recently, the half-Palestinian, half-Dutch socialite documented her time at her mom's $4M 32-acre farmhouse, which included making cupcakes and spending quality time with her older sister Gigi Hadid, who is expecting her first child with Zayn Malik.

Last week, Bella celebrated her pal Leah McCarthy's birthday's there, while staying careful to keep Gigi's baby bump hidden.

Both Gigi's father Mohamed Hadid and pal Leah posted snaps of Gigi, who is expecting her first child with former One Direction star Zayn Malik, at the picnic celebration, where they posted a Tinkerbell emoji over her bump.

Gigi beamed with joy as she celebrated Leah's birthday alongside Bella, her brother Anwar Hadid and his girlfriend Dua Lipa.

Creative: The model showed herself having fun picking colors for the swing
The Times recently topped six million paying readers, putting it more than halfway toward the companys ambitious target of hitting 10 million subscribers by 2025. Like other news publishers, The Times has suffered a hit to its advertising business because of the pandemic. The company forecast that ad revenue would continue to decline by as much as 55 percent for the second quarter of 2020. (The Times will report second-quarter results on Aug. 5.)

Ms. Levien emphasized that The Times would continue to invest heavily in its journalism, adding that she also favored the addition of digital games and other non-news content. Along with its main news offering, The Times has attracted subscribers with a crossword app and a cooking site.

We have really big ambitions for The New York Times, and we have big ambitions for independent journalism, more generally, she said.

The Times has fared better than many other news organizations since readers started showing a preference for getting their news on screens, rather than print. Newspaper publishers, many now under hedge fund ownership, have cut back staff and resources in recent years. Roughly half of all newspaper jobs were eliminated from 2004 to 2019.

The Times Company has a healthy balance sheet, with about $687 million in available cash. Ms. Levien said she would not rule out acquisitions, while adding that the market for additional subscribers was vast  potentially as many as 100 million people, she said.

The Times has a big opportunity to go after it, she said.

Ms. Levien, who was the chief revenue officer at Forbes Media before joining The Times, said she was skeptical, at first, when she was approached to join the paper seven years ago.

I asked people for advice, and just the sentiment was that it was a great journalism company, but maybe the best days of its business were behind it, she said.
The head of the Azerbaijan-Israel Association Lev Spivak in a letter to the Chairman of the Knesset Yariv Levin to urgently resume the work of the Israel-Azerbaijan parliamentary friendship group in connection with the hostilities in the Tovuz region of the Azerbaijan Republic.

This resumption of work of this parliamentary group will reflect the Knesset's willingness to maintain permanent, meaningful and strong parliamentary relationship. "The time has come to show solidarity with Israel's true friends. Being in constant contact with members of the government and parliament of friendly Azerbaijan, we know how important it is for Baku to show goodwill and solidarity. Who, if not us, the people Israel, can understand and appreciate the manifestation of solidarity in difficult times. Today we have the opportunity to set an example and express solidarity with a faithful and courageous friend - Azerbaijan!" Lev Spivak believes.

Azerbaijan and Israel are linked by friendly relations and fruitful strategic cooperation. Over the past decades, the Israeli government has been successfully working towards strengthening ties and cooperation with Azerbaijan, which these days needs support and calls on the international community to immediately end violations of UN agreements and resolutions, violations of its sovereign borders, hostile actions that threaten lifes of innocent civilians.

A copy of the letter was sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly emphasized the close partnership between the two countries.
There is one trending question all over the internet right now - who is Steve Huff? Why is this question trending? It is because Steve Huff is a paranormal investigator, who has been recently making claims to have talked with late actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Yes you read that right.

Steve, by profession, is a paranormal researcher and also a photographer, who owns the blog and YouTube channel called Huff Paranormal. In his channel, he claims to be the inventor of a few powerful devices that help connect with the dead, called The Portal and The Wonderbox.

On his website, Huff writes, Yes, I am a spirit magnet, and while I make it look easy..it has taken me years of dedication, research, money, time and meditation to get here.

Talking about how he became interested in this field, Steve in his blog mentions that he spent most of his childhood with Ouija boards, connecting with spirits. Whats more intriguing is that despite the near death experiences, he further claims that hes never had a bad experience.

Steve writes, When my Father died in 2000, that night at home we heard knocks, our water faucet came on full blast in the bathroom in the middle of the night, we had odd voicemail recordings on our home phone. We actually fled the house that night and went to my sisters but that was my very 1st experience with paranormal in the real world. I then knew that my entire lifes curiosity about all of this, well, I was being told that we do go on as I felt my father's presence there that night and for about 24 hours after we came back a few hours later.

Steve has been connecting with the paranormal world for more than eight years.

After almost eight years of doing this work now, I feel I have found some amazing answers to what happens when we die. Now, some of this information I have not mentioned to anyone, as I feel if I spoke about it many would be shocked and some would be upset. But one day I will tell all about the messages, information, and one on one contacts I have made within the spiritual realms. Maybe a book in 2020, we will see, he adds.

Of late, people in India took a lot of interest in his videos and thats for one main reason - that he connected with Sushant Singh Rajput. His YouTube channel has over 1.37 million subscribers. Within a week, he posted three videos on Sushant Singh Rajput wherein his first video crossed over 5 million views, and his follow-up currently holds more than 3 million views.

In the first 11-minute-long video, Huff is trying to contact Sushant through his soul speaking device. Huff feels Sushant is not alone, and is guided by a lady.

"Today I have a new video for all of you that was done due to thousands of requests to do so, and I am so glad I did as not only did Sushant come through, he spoke clearly and directly with me. He also brought along someone with him, someone powerful to help him speak. I had no guides with me here, so he brought his own. This is miraculous, and I felt the extreme love energy pouring into my session room during these recordings. Enjoy this video, and remember that LOVE is the KEY," Huff says.

The video has Steve questioning 'Are you in the light?'. In the video, one is heard saying, "Steve, I am getting the light". However, people on the internet, who watched the video, claimed that Sushant is actually saying, "Steve, I am murdered". This is the first time Steve spoke to an Indian celebrity. He has earlier allegedly spoken to pop icon Michael Jackson's spirit.

Watch part 1 here:

Huff did another session which had many more deep questions.

Watch part 2 here:

In fact, Huff also mentioned that the videos that he made in regards to Sushant are not monetized.

Watch part 3 here:

As per reports, Sushant Singh died by suicide in his Bandra residence on June 14. He was 34.
Netflix has started testing a new mobile subscription plan in India. The new Netflix plan offers HD viewing and even support for laptop.

Netflix is currently testing a new mobile subscription plan in India. Called Mobile+, this Netflix plan is priced at 349 per month. It comes with support for HD streaming and supports all devices except TV.

The new Netflix plan is currently in testing so everyone may not see it. This subscription plan supports HD streaming on any phone, tablet or even computer. But it can be used on only one device at a time. This is the second mobile plan Netflix has introduced in India. Netflix launched its first mobile plan priced at 199 last year with support for SD (Standard Definition) streaming.

The new Netflix plan which was first spotted by Android Pure, is actually cheaper than the basic Netflix plan priced at 499 per month. The basic Netflix plan also doesnt have support for HD content and can be used on one device at a time. The only difference here is that on this plan users can watch Netflix on TV.

"We launched the Mobile Plan in India to make it easier for anyone with a smartphone to enjoy Netflix. We want to see if members like the added choice this offer brings. Well only roll it out long-term if they do, Netflix said.

The new Netflix plan seems like a much better deal than the basic plan. If users exclude watching Netflix on TV, the Mobile+ plan has better perks and it's cheaper too.

Netflix has two more subscription plans for Indian users. The standard plan is priced at 649 per month, and it comes with HD streaming and support for two devices. The most expensive one is the 799 premium plan that lets users watch 4K, HDR content and supports UHD streaming. Also, this Netflix plan supports four devices at a time.
(Bloomberg) -- Chinese fintech giant Lufax, backed by Ping An Insurance Group Co., is targeting to raise at least $3 billion in a U.S. initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is weighing a U.S. share sale as soon as this year after previously exploring an offering in Hong Kong, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.

Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Group AG are among banks helping preparations for the share sale, according to the people. HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have also done some early work on the deal, the people said.

The bank lineup hasnt been finalized, and details of the offering could change, the people said. Political tensions between the U.S. and China could also affect Lufaxs listing plans, one of the people said.

Shares of Ping An Insurance slipped about 0.2% as of 10:10 a.m. in Hong Kong, compared with a 0.5% gain in the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Lufax is preparing for a confidential filing, Reuters reported earlier on Wednesday, citing unidentified people. Reuters didnt specify the size of the potential offering. Representatives for Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Lufax and UBS declined to comment.

Lufax, which was once among the countrys largest peer-to-peer lenders, has morphed into a financial giant offering wealth management and retail lending services. The startup, which has explored an IPO for some years, transformed its business after Chinese authorities launched a sweeping crackdown of the once-unruly P2P lending sector. Now an arm of Ping An, its assets under management dropped by 6.1% in 2019 after asset portfolio adjustment and restrictions on consumer finance products slashed transaction volumes by 30%.

(Adds Ping An Insurance shares in the fifth paragraph.)

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The minister was speaking at a conference on promoting opportunities for international education programmes in Vietnam, held at the Hanoi-based Vin University (VinUni) by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) on July 21.

While overseas Vietnamese students may be confused about what to do during the epidemic as they return to Vietnam to study, the mission of the domestic universities is to create favourable conditions for them to study in the best possible learning environment, Minister Nha said.

On the other hand, this is also an opportunity for domestic and foreign universities to connect with each other, thereby offering quality training programmes, he added.

Vietnamese higher education institutions have developed multiple quality training programmes in English and some other foreign languages with international accreditation. There are about 400 joint training programmes between Vietnam and over 30 countries across the globe. Several Vietnamese higher education institutions have been listed amongst the most prestigious in Asia and the world according to the well-known QS and Times Higher Education (THE) rankings.

The conference offered an opportunity for educational experts and other relevant parties to discuss and promote the quality of the existing policies on international training linkage, Nha said, adding that overseas Vietnamese students can rest assured when returning to Vietnam to continue their international training as linkage programmes are at a similar quality to those offered abroad.

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha chairs the conference.



In addition to over 400 joint training programmes, mainly in the fields of economics and management, there is a lot of room to expand such joint training to other fields, such as IT, software, biotechnology and tourism, all of which are necessary for Vietnamese human resource development, the minister stated. In addition, social sciences and humanities also have a lot of potential to expand training linkages to offer opportunities for international students to experience education in Vietnam, he added.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many higher education institutions around the globe have had to switch to online learning, while social restrictions in foreign countries have also greatly affected international learners, including overseas Vietnamese students. Meanwhile, Vietnam has been controlling the pandemic very well, offering favourable conditions for domestic universities to welcome back students and resume normal training activities. This is a good opportunity for Vietnamese higher education institutions to receive overseas Vietnamese students returning home to continue their international studies, and also to admit international students to study in Vietnam.

Participants at the conference exchanged experiences in implementing international training programmes by domestic higher education institutions, by which making them ready to welcome Vietnamese students from abroad and international students to study in Vietnam during the complicated COVID-19 pandemic around the world.

The conference also looked at the long-term goal of continuing to improve the quality of Vietnam's higher education system through promoting the provision of international training programmes and a stable learning environment to enable Vietnamese students to "study abroad on the spot.

On the occasion, VinUni and the US-based Cornell University inked an agreement to deploy the "Study Away" joint training programme, offering Cornell's international students who are facing difficulties returning to the US a chance to be admitted by VinUni to continue their online learning under Cornell's programmes in Vietnam, while also having the opportunity to follow the "Discover Vietnam" programme at VinUni, featuring various cultural activities, business opportunities, startup programmes, research projects and software (hackathon) development contests.
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Weve gotten used to a life of restricted menu options during this pandemic, an analogy that extends all the way to our treatment if we contract COVID-19. But theres an item still on the list at most medical institutions, and if it strikes you as familiar, it should: Its been around  and working  for more than a century.

Convalescent plasma therapy, in fact, is promising enough that its something you and your doctor may want to consider if youre sick and hospitalized. Its got history, it isnt very risky (more on that in a moment), and, however sadly, the pool of potential plasma donors to fight coronavirus in the U.S. is growing rapidly.

You may not have heard the term convalescent plasma in full, but chances are it still rings a bell. Thats the power of celebrity. Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, and George Stephanopoulos are among the well-known Americans whove donated plasma after recovering from COVID-19, and theyve advocated for other recovered patients to do the same.

Heres the gist of the concept: Plasma is the yellow portion of the blood that contains antibodies, which we use to fight infection. A person who has already recovered from COVID-19 often has developed such antibodies, according to recent data. Thus, injecting that persons plasma into an ill individual may help boost the immune system, avert a tragic end, and speed recovery.

It is hardly new. Convalescent plasma has been used to treat bacterial and viral infections going back to diptheria outbreaks in the 1890s and the Spanish Flu in 1918. In recent decades, the tactic was used to fight H1N1 influenza, SARS, and Ebola outbreaks with some documented success.

With treatment options lacking right now, plasma infusions merit a close look. Weve had so many people  more than 1.3 million  become infected and then recover in the U.S. that the potential donor base is large. Currently, the treatment is being offered primarily to those who are seriously or critically ill, with more than 31,000 patients receiving the plasma. Multiple studies show that it appears to be a safe therapy.

The historical medical literature is encouraging, from a review of Spanish influenza pneumonia patients decades ago to a trial of 80 patients with SARS in Hong Kong, where those treated with convalescent plasma before day 14 of their infection had almost four times better outcomes  and three times better survival rates  than patients receiving plasma later. Though some of this research is limited by poor design or lack of randomization, it offers some precedent for investigating plasma and its potential efficacy.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that plasma infusions reduce the amount of virus in the blood, although I should point out that not all have shown a mortality benefit, including a recent meta-analysis of severe influenza patients and an Ebola trial. But what about COVID-19, you ask?

The best answer: Its promising, and its early.

The first reported use of convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19, in five critically ill patients in Wuhan, China, resulted in the patients clinical status improving, with three of them coming off ventilators and being discharged. In a second Chinese study, all ten patients with severe illness not only improved clinically, but also had higher oxygenation levels and demonstrated positive changes in their lung scans. Recent reports from Italy indicate lower mortality rates with plasma use in COVID-19 patients there. Not all the studies are failsafe, mind you, but these recent returns are good.

A small, non-peer-reviewed study from Mount Sinai Hospital found that 39 severely ill, COVID-19 individuals who received convalescent plasma experienced better outcomes than patients not given the treatment. In fact, preliminary data suggest that nearly half as many patients died in the plasma group as in the control group. Getting the treatment earlier in the disease course appears to be important; the researchers did not find a benefit in more critically ill patients, who already had been placed on ventilators in the ICU. By that point, the horse may have already left the barn, rendering plasma therapy less effective.

At Houston Methodist hospitals, 25 patients with severe or life-threatening cases of COVID-19 were provided plasma, and within two weeks, more than three-quarters of them showed some degree of improvement. And a very recently published randomized control trial of 103 severely ill patients in Wuhan, though it did not reach statistical significance, trended toward better outcomes in the convalescent plasma group versus the standard treatment group.

Convalescent plasma has become a hot commodity. Twenty countries in Europe are using or plan to use it. In the U.S., physicians from 57 institutions established the National COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project to better investigate its use to treat the virus.

As we surpass 11 million cases and 530,000 deaths worldwide from COVID-19, we face an immediate and unprecedented challenge. With the data limitations noted, I believe the literature gives us hope that plasma treatment can make an immediate difference. In fact, it may be one of our most promising therapy options available right now, along with steroids and proning patients.

Better-designed trials are already underway, looking at plasmas use both in severe and less severe cases, and as a form of prevention in individuals who are exposed to the virus, like health care workers. In a world of limited options, this oldie could prove golden.

Carolyn Barber is an emergency physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Federal officers operate amid tear gas while clearing the street in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on July 21, 2020 in Portland, Oregon.

Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

US Sen. Ron Wyden told Business Insider on Tuesday that President Donald Trump will likely deploy federal troops in liberal jurisdictions around the country.

"You bet that what is happening in my hometown won't stop at my hometown," Wyden said. The Oregon Democrat believes Trump will likely "expand this gross abuse of power into other cities."

On Tuesday, Politico reported that the Department of Homeland Security was planning to expand what it calls "Operation Legend" and deploy more field forces.

"Where are the Senate Republicans who preach state rights and freedoms as Trump sends paramilitary forces into cities uninvited and tramples on the Constitution?" Wyden asked.

Also on Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden accused federal officers in Portland of "brutally attacking peaceful protesters."

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Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, doesn't think President Donald Trump will be content only deploying federal agents in Portland.

"You bet that what is happening in my hometown won't stop at my hometown," Wyden told Business Insider on Tuesday, saying he fears the president  running a campaign of "law and order" against a moderate Democrat he falsely accuses of wanting to defund the police  will soon "expand this gross abuse of power into other cities."

Federal agents were deployed earlier this month in Portland amid weeks-long protests that began after the death of George Floyd after police officers knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Some of those protests have included scenes of property damage, but most  including a Sunday rally featuring a "Wall of Moms"  have been overwhelmingly peaceful, with local officials saying whatever violence there is has been exacerbated by heavy-handed law enforcement.

This weekend, for example, The New York Times reported, "Officers in camouflage and gas masks beat [Navy veteran Christopher David] with batons and blasted pepper spray in his face," leaving him with shattered bones.

Story continues

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

'Where are the Senate Republicans who preach state rights?'

Along with other congressional liberals, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris, Wyden is supporting legislation that would strictly curtail the president's ability to deploy what he terms "a paramilitary squad" in other jurisdictions. But with Democrats a minority in the upper chamber, such an effort would require Republican support that would also have to meet a number sufficient to overcome a certain presidential veto.

Wyden wonders what happened to the conservative argument for local sovereignty. "My question," he said, "[is] where are the Senate Republicans who preach state rights and freedoms as Trump sends paramilitary forces into cities uninvited and tramples on the Constitution? Are they so cowardly that they too will try to convince the country that 'walls of moms' are threats?"

At least 114 federal agents are currently deployed in Oregon's largest city, according to the US Department of Justice. Local elected officials, from the mayor on up to the governor, oppose the show of force, accusing Trump of embracing authoritarianism to feed a base riled up by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mayors from Seattle to Atlanta have also spoken out against the use of "paramilitary-type forces," fearing their cities could be next. They have good reason to believe that.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that officials at the Department of Homeland Security "have considered deploying mobile field forces to protect federal property in cities across the country that experience unrest."

'They are brutally attacking peaceful protesters'

Federal law enforcement officers, deployed under the Trump administration's new executive order to protect federal monuments and buildings, face off with protesters against racial inequality and police violence in Portland, Oregon, U.S., July 21, 2020.

REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs

At a press conference earlier in the day, Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said federal officers were deployed in response to "a lack of action from city officials," the BBC reported. Those officers have arrested 43 people since July 4, he said.

"We are only targeting and arresting those who had been identified as committing criminal actions, like any law enforcement agency," Wolf claimed, despite reports of nonviolent protesters being detained and held for hours simply for being in the vicinity of unrest.

Former Vice President Joe Biden joined the chorus of skeptics on Tuesday. In a statement, he suggested the deployment of federal law enforcement agents in Portland was political theater meant to "sow chaos and division."

"Now Homeland Security agents  without a clearly defined mandate or authority  are ranging far from federal property, stripped of badges and insignia and identifying markings, to detain people," Biden said. "They are brutally attacking peaceful protesters, including a US Navy veteran."

Legal experts echo those concerns, questioning the White House claim that its right to protect federal property, such as a courthouse in Portland, grants it the right to detain protesters who aren't even on it.

"There is no federal statute agents are enforcing by engaging with protesters," Jimmy Gurule, a University of Notre Dame law professor, told Reuters. "My concern is whether their protection of federal property is a ruse to interfere with protesters' free speech."

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com

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The Iranian Foreign Ministry said that the black box of a Ukrainian plane that crashed in January after taking off from Tehran has been sent to France for decoding.

The black box of the Ukrainian airplane was taken to Paris on Friday by the officials from Iran Civil Aviation and an Iranian judge, Xinhua news agency quoted Mohsen Baharvand, deputy foreign minister for international and legal affairs, as saying on Saturday. The process of analyzing its data will begin on Monday, said Baharvand.

Also Watch:

On January 8, the Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 aircraft en route to Kiev crashed near Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board. Later, Iran's armed forces confirmed that an "unintentional" launch of a military missile shot down the Ukrainian airliner.
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio - Even if the scores of cookie jars lining the shelves in Lucys Sweet Surrender were overflowing with cash, Michael Feigenbaum probably would still have to close his bakery.

Related coverage, posted Oct. 20, 2021: Lucys Sweet Surrender planning auction; longtime bakery looks to close this year

Feigenbaum has owned the business for 26 years. He moved it from the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood to its current location on Chagrin Boulevard just west of Warrensville Center Road a decade ago. Its located in the former Chandler & Rudd space, a 145-year-old specialty grocer that had been in the spot since 1960.

But the end of the bakery, as he sees it, is coming soon. It's not coronavirus, it's not poor financing or mounting debt, it's not issues over a lease.

It's Feigenbaum's inability to find someone who wants to take over.

"My number-one goal was to find people like I was 25 years ago who want to own a bakery," he said. "Instead of starting from scratch, they can start with a substantial amount of money coming in the door, a huge reputation, income streams from online shipping, delivery around Cleveland, the farmers markets and the store.

"If they were eventually buying me out completely, yes, they would own everything - the recipes, the methods, the name, the website - all of what I own I would give them."

It would be a deal, he said, because a new owner wouldn't have to invest $300,000 to $500,000 to start such a business from scratch. They could apprentice to learn Lucy's style as they transitioned into running the place.

But that idea is proving elusive because no matter how hard Feigenbaum looks, prospective bakers-business owners aren't rushing in.

Last week, he posted an emotional Facebook plea born out of frustration with not being able to find a future buyer.

I am seriously looking at the end of this bakery next month we will be so short of help I will cut back even more than... Posted by lucy's sweet surrender bakery on Friday, July 17, 2020

I decided to write that thing as a Hail Mary, he said.

He remains on the lookout for potential buyers. He has scoured culinary schools. He traveled to a pastry school's job fair in Chicago.

"They wouldn't move to Cleveland," he said. "I got nothing out of it. I spent two days there. I have been aggressively looking behind the scenes."

Envisioning the end started last Christmas for Feigenbaum. He could barely keep up with holiday demand.

Feigenbaum, 66, has a back worn by the countless hunches that come with kneading, rolling, cutting, shaping. But he kept plodding on.

Michael Feigenbaum, owner of Lucy's Sweet Surrender, turns a tray of hamantaschen in the bakery in 2018.

My wife and I had a heart-to-heart about What are we going to do now? " he said. They figured they could handle the slower winter, January through March, on their own, then gear up with some help for Easter and Passover.

"Somehow we'll pull it off," he said, "so we'll have a booming holiday season and then I'll call the liquidator."

Then coronavirus hit. Liquidators backed off from any potential sale.

"We stayed open," he said, despite about $8,000 worth of Easter and Passover orders being canceled.

Then something interesting happened. Lucy's neighborhood, once you get off Chagrin Boulevard, is heavily residential. When Feigenbaum moved into the spot he thought the residents would find him. For whatever reason, they didn't, he said. But when the stay-at-home order hit, the residents suddenly found his place as a brief respite, a quick stop on a walk to get out of the house.

Michael Feigenbaum has run Lucy's Sweet Surrender for 10 years in its current Chagrin Boulevard location.

That stream of business, albeit limited, along with a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan, and the hire of two college students who were home, helped the business eek along.

Now the pair of students are leaving. He's weathered two major recessions, 9/11 and the pandemic. He's had a steady, neighborhood business. He delivers to farmers markets and has crafted desserts for restaurants. But what he doesn't have is a farm system of prospective bakers, a pool of talent to choose from, someone to run the business that he admits "is a lot of hard work, and you're inheriting a heritage and a legacy."

Its always been good but not great. Its never been bad where I go Ive got to go out of business because I dont make enough money, " he said.

The bottom line, he said, is that he has "come to the conclusion that I'm not willing to keep going anymore. We're facing a Rosh Hashanah season in September where we have to make 800 or 1,000 loaves of bread in three days with no help. And I'm not going to do it."

Physically, the demand of baking for 40 years has taken its toll for the Shaker Heights High School graduate who grew up on Lytle Road a block from the bakery.

Physical demands and the dearth of prospective buyers who want to own and operate a bakery are forcing Michael Feigenbaum to see what looks like the end of the road for his business.

Fruit Danishes, chocolate-chip cookies, glazed doughnuts and other goodies fill the counter in Lucys, which covers about 3,000 of the more than 5,000 square feet in the building. Dozens of freshly baked loaves cool in the kitchen. The cookie-jar collection shapes the decor. But unless Feigenbaum finds someone by mid-August, he is ready to put everything up for sale, from the oven to the utensils.

"There could be a last-minute Hail Mary answer," he said, "and I'm ready to do it."

But for now, as Feigenbaum says, "I'm fighting an uphill battle."

I am on cleveland.coms life and culture team and cover food, beer, wine and sports-related topics. If you want to see my stories, heres a directory on cleveland.com.
New Delhi, July 22 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to advocate Prashant Bhushan over the alleged contemptuous remarks made on Twitter. The court also asked the Attorney General to assist it in the case.

A Bench, comprising Justices Arun Mishra, B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari, asked Bhushan and Twitter to file reply by August 5.

"We are, prima facie, of the view that the aforesaid statements on Twitter have brought the administration of justice in disrepute and are capable of undermining the dignity and authority of the institution of the Supreme Court in general and the office of the Chief Justice of India in particular, in the eyes of public at large," the court said.

Senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, representing Twitter Inc, USA, contended that he would advise his client to delete the offensive tweets.

The Bench questioned Twitter why it couldn't disable the tweets on its own even after a contempt case had been initiated. The counsel for Twitter said he understood it and would convey the court's intent to his client.

He also submitted before the Bench to direct it to disable tweets by Bhushan, and insisted that Twitter couldn't delete tweets without the court direction.

"We take suo motu cognizance of the aforesaid tweet also, apart from the tweet quoted above and suo motu register the proceedings. We issue notice to the Attorney General for India and to Prashant Bhushan also," the court said referring to Bhushan's two tweets.

The Supreme Court initiated suo motu contempt proceedings against Bhushan for allegedly making derogatory comments against the top court on Twitter.

The first tweet, posted on June 27, alleged the last four Chief Justices had played a role in the "destruction of democracy" during undeclared "emergency" for the last six years.

The second tweet on June 29 allegedly said the present Chief Justice rode a stationary bike at Nagpur while keeping the apex court in lockdown and denying citizens their right to access to justice.

The apex court has been hearing cases through video link all through the lockdown.
(Bloomberg) -- WeWork, the troubled co-working giant backed by SoftBank Group Corp., is set to suffer the loss of a major tenant in Japan as Rakuten Inc. exits, according to people familiar with the matter.

Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce giant, will let its contract run out in August without renewing, the people said, asking not to be identified because the details are private. That will leave about 700 desks empty in Tokyo. Rakuten is moving staff in its financial tech arm from the co-working spaces into its new offices, one of the people said.

Spokespersons for Rakuten and WeWork declined to comment.

Shared offices around the world emptied out as the number of coronavirus infections mounted earlier this year. But even as the pandemic subsides in certain areas, its not clear tenants will return. WeWorks short leases make it particularly vulnerable to budget cutbacks, while its dense office layouts run counter to new social distancing norms. Many firms have also discovered working from home to be a viable alternative.

Japan is an important market for WeWork in part because it is home to SoftBank. The Japanese conglomerate bailed out the co-working startup last October after its initial public offering attempt imploded and now owns about 80% of the company. A month later, SoftBanks founder Masayoshi Son cited WeWorks Japanese operations, which were profitable at the time, as the reason he was convinced the business can be turned around.

WeWorks Escape Plan Is Buried in the Books at Its Tokyo Office

WeWorks higher proportion of large corporate clients in Japan, including SoftBank, has helped it weather the first wave of the pandemic better than it has in other markets. Still, it saw occupancy plunge to about 60%, one of the people familiar said, describing the current situation as dire. Occupancy is key for pulling out of the red and was over 90% for Tokyo locations late last year. In addition to Rakuten, WeWork Japan is also losing smaller tenants including publisher Kadokawa Corp. and Oyo Hotels, another SoftBank company. Kadokawa and Oyo didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

Story continues

Even before the virus hit, WeWork was already cutting costs worldwide and freezing expansion to focus on profitability. The New York-based company responded to the outbreak by offering some tenants discounts to minimize cancellations amid government-mandated quarantines. It also hasnt paid rent for some locations and has approached landlords regarding rent abatements, revenue-sharing agreements and other lease amendments as it seeks to trim liabilities.

But the outbreak has also created new sources of demand for WeWork, as companies seek to distribute their workforces over a greater geographic area, according to a separate person with close knowledge of WeWorks operations. Outside Japan, the company has succeeded in attracting major new tenants recently, including Mastercard Inc. and TikTok-owner Bytedance Ltd., the person said asking not to be named. Microsoft Corp. is moving its Tel Aviv development center to a WeWork location, while drug maker Merck & Co. signed a lease in New Jersey, according to media reports.

WeWork is on track for positive cash flow in 2021, Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure told the Financial Times earlier this month, without giving further details. The company had previously targeted cash-flow positive by 2023 and positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by 2021.

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear the appeal of Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi against the stay order of Rajasthan High Court that asked the Speaker to not take action against the rebel MLAs till July 24. The stay order was passed on a petition by Sachin Pilot and 18 other MLAs.

Speaker Joshi has said that he has filed Special Leave Petition (SLP) in Supreme Court to avoid contradiction between the decisions of Speaker and court.

"My effort was to respect the Rajasthan High Court`s order that`s why I extended hearing for July 21 when the court asked. Yesterday, the court asked me to wait till July 24 and I respected that too. Since the matter is in court, the Speaker can not proceed further. I have filed a Special Leave Petition in Supreme Court to avoid contradiction between decisions of Speaker and court," CP Joshi told ANI.

Joshi approached the Supreme Court against the interim order passed by the Rajasthan High Court on the petition filed by Sachin Pilot and MLAs from his camp against the disqualification notices issued against them.

In his SLP, Joshi said the impugned interim order has interdicted and restrained the Speaker from calling of replies and conducting hearing of the disqualification proceedings pending against the respondents till July 24.

Sachin Pilot also filed a caveat in the Supreme Court to ensure that no orders are passed on Joshi`s petition against High Court interim orders without hearing him and his supporting MLAs. Notably, a caveat is a notice seeking that certain actions may not be taken without informing the person who gave the notice.

Earlier on Tuesday, the high court had said that it would deliver its order on July 24 on a petition filed by Pilot and 18 other MLAs, asking the Speaker to defer the disqualification proceedings till then.

Joshi had sent notices to Sachin Pilot and 18 dissident MLAs under the anti-defection law after chief`s whip application for their disqualification.

The notices to these MLAs were served after the party complained to the Speaker that the legislators had allegedly defied a whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings last week.

The Sachin Pilot camp, however, argued that a party whip applies only when the Assembly is in session.
The federal government has reached a $1.95 billion deal with Pfizer to acquire 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate against the coronavirus if the Food and Drug Administration OKs it. The vaccine would be free to Americans, according to the deal, though health care providers could charge to administer it, NPR reports.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense announced the deal Wednesday as part of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's push to have a coronavirus vaccine widely available by January.

Pfizer is working on the vaccine with BioNTech, a German company. Clinical trials began in April, and Pfizer announced positive early results this week, though it has yet to announce that data have been vetted and published in a medical journal. Larger safety and efficacy studies could begin later this month.

"If the ongoing studies are successful, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to be ready to seek Emergency Use Authorization or some form of regulatory approval as early as October 2020," the company said in a statement.
(Natural News) On the evening of Saturday, July 18, a mob of Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters attempted to set fire to the office building of the Portland Police Association in the North Portland neighborhood.

The Portland Police Association (PPA) is the police union that has represented rank-and-file members of the Portland Police Bureau (PPB)  police officers, sergeants, detectives and criminalists  since its establishment in 1942. It states that its aim is to advocate for and represent its members, as well as help, connect Portlands officers with the communities that they serve.

Reports from the PPB stated that at around 10:45 p.m. on Saturday, the Antifa and BLM rioters were able to break into the associations office and start a fire, while other members of the crowd tried to block off parts of nearby North Lombard Street with dumpsters, which were also set on fire, to try and slow down the inevitable police response.

As the fire inside the PPA office was ignited and it began to spread, the rioters, many of whom were wearing helmets and were armed with shields and improvised clubs, started chanting Black Lives Matter! (Related: By refusing to acknowledge nightly BLM violence in Portland, the mainstream media is complicit in turning American streets into war zones.)

The stream is deleted but evidence remains. Rioters chanting Black Lives Matter set fire to the Portland Police Association building. pic.twitter.com/rqtvptjWG4  Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) July 19, 2020

The rioters fled the scene as soon as officers from the PPB arrived to respond to the break-in and attempted arson. Several officers went into the PPA building to put out the fire.

Soon afterward, the PPB declared the evenings demonstration outside the building to be a riot due to the violent conduct of the large group creating a grave risk of public alarm, according to their statement.

Order around the area was restored by 11:30 p.m. but before that time the officers engaged in a running battle with rioters who were throwing projectiles such as rocks, smoke bombs and paint-filled balloons. The PPB reported that several of their officers were injured by these weapons.

The union building is located in a residential area of Portland. This means that, if the PPB hadnt reacted quickly, the attempted arson could have spread to nearby houses.

Ash Leabenworth, who has lived several houses down from the PPA building for the past eight years, said that up until several weeks ago, the neighborhood had always been a quiet area.

We heard shouting and then after a little while we heard a pretty big bang, which we came to realize was the dumpster being lit on fire in the middle of Lombard  We felt pretty scared for our neighbors then.

Watch this episode of Brighteon Conversations, as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, has a special and intriguing conversation with Terrence Popp and his producer, Blake, about what went wrong with society today.

PPA President: Portland community has had enough of riots

On Sunday, the morning after the attempted arson attack, Daryl Turner, president of the PPA, held a press conference outside the union office. He was surrounded by several people including local residents, PPB officers, business owners and faith leaders, as he said that the violence Portland is experiencing has to stop and that the residents of the city have had enough of the riots.

The elected officials have condoned the destruction and chaos, said Turner. They have placed their political agenda ahead of the safety and welfare of the community. This must stop.

Turner continued his statement by claiming that the riots in Portland are no longer about George Floyd, the Minnesota man whose death kickstarted the nationwide wave of rioting and civil unrest. He said it was also no longer about racial equity, social justice reform or the evolution of policing.

This is about violence, rioting and destruction. Our city is under siege by rioters.

After Turners statement, Pastor J.J.W. Matt Hennessee of the Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church issued a call for Portlanders to have a moratorium on future demonstrations. Hennessee also stated that Portland needs to be taken off the front page of national news outlets, and a pause on demonstrations would give Portlanders some much-needed peace.

Turner and the PPAs call to stop the rioters echoes the sentiments of the Trump administration, who have repeatedly stated that the attacks on Portland and on federal buildings like the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in the Downtown Portland neighborhood have to end.

The Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Chad Wolf, has even said himself that Portland was under siege by a violent mob.

Portland has now been dealing with over 50 days of continuous peaceful protests, which occur during the day, and violent riots and demonstrations, which happen in the evenings. Stay updated on the latest events in Portland and in other Antifa and Black Lives Matter hot spots across the country at Rioting.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

PPAVigil.org

KPTV.com

OregonLive.com

PortlandMercury.com
The United States on Tuesday offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the chief justice of Venezuela's supreme court, who faces US money laundering charges. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Maikal Jose Moreno Perez had "personally received money or property bribes to influence the outcome of civil and criminal cases in Venezuela" in recent years. "Moreno Perez received the bribes in exchange for judicial actions" in more than 20 cases, such as ordering lower-court judges to release the accused or dismiss cases, Pompeo said. Moreno Perez, who has been on the US Treasury's sanctions blacklist since May 2017, was added to the State Department's separate list on Tuesday, along with his wife, for "involvement in significant corruption." That means the couple cannot enter the United States "indefinitely." In a statement, Pompeo said the moves "reaffirm the US commitment to combating corruption and transnational organized crime in Venezuela." The administration of US President Donald Trump has recently ramped up the pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his entourage. Washington no longer recognizes Maduro as the legitimate president of the crisis-wracked country, and is seeking to force him from power. The supreme court in Venezuela is seen as stacked with Maduro loyalists. The chief justice of Venezuela's supreme court, Maikal Jose Moreno Perez (C), seen in Caracas in June 2020, has been indicted in the United States on money laundering charges
MOORESTOWN, NJ  Three Moorestown Council seats will be up for grabs in the Nov. 3 elections. None of the incumbents chose to run for re-election this year, so there will be three new faces on Moorestown Council come January.

Patch sent questions to candidates in the race, and is publishing their responses in a series of profiles. Information provided by Dave Zipin can be found below.





Age (as of Election Day)

47

Position Sought

Council

Party Affiliation

Democrat

Family

Spouse: Cyndi, Children: Abby(13) and Maddie(13)

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

I work for the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency. I previously worked with the Department of Community Affairs in various capacities, Division of Local Government Services, the Local Finance Board, and the Government Records Council. I also worked for several years as the Assistant Solicitor for Cherry Hill Township, and briefly as the Acting Director for Community Development. Following my graduate school studies, my career has consisted entirely of state and local government jobs.

Education

JD, Rutgers School of Law, 2001

MBA, Rutgers School of Business, 2001

BS in Business Administration with concentrations in Finance and Marketing, Albright College, 1995

Occupation

Attorney with the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency since June, 2009 - Legal Analyst, Agency Ethics Liaison Officer, and Deputy EEO-Harassment/Discrimination Officer

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Moorestown Planning Board, 2019 to present

Moorestown Economic Development Advisory Council, 2020 to present

Campaign website

MoorestownTogether.com

Why are you seeking elective office?

I want to bring my vast experience and knowledge of proper local government function and protocol to Moorestown. I want to ensure that Moorestown is run in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner, with a focus on transparency and sound government practice. Moreover, I want to help grow Moorestowns business community by both ensuring that Moorestown strives to partner with existing businesses to help them succeed and works to make Moorestown an attractive place for new businesses. As part of this effort, I think its important that Moorestown expand its range of services to the business community and work to remove the onerous barriers to doing business in Moorestown. In order to achieve any of these goals, it is imperative that we rise above partisan divides to bring Moorestown together as a community that is welcoming and respectful of all opinions and ideas. Council needs to work with all members of the community, and not just a select few, to help Moorestown meet its vast potential.





Story continues

The single most pressing issue facing our community is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Today, the most pressing issue facing Moorestown and the country as a whole is the challenge we face fighting the pandemic/CoVid19. It is more important than ever to have capable and compassionate leadership at all levels of government. Beyond the immediate concerns surrounding the pandemic, I think the most important problems confronting Moorestown relate to the internal divisions that have emerged in recent years and our cumbersome business environment. First, I want to see Moorestown come together as a community, not as a collection of party loyalists. I believe this starts with leadership and transparency in government, both in how the local government functions and what the governing body's intentions are with all issues, large and small. Many achievements can be accomplished when we close the divide between those within the community who disagree, by ensuring that all opinions are heard and respected and by giving all the residents an opportunity to participate. My second focus will be on strengthening the existing business community and growing that community by making Moorestown an attractive place to do business. Moorestown is already a highly sought-after community in which to live; I would like to see that same enthusiasm exhibited by small businesses. Local government plays a central role in providing support to businesses, and I believe that there are enormous opportunities for synergies between our residents, the business community, and council. I am confident that I can bring my extensive experience in local government to promote a healthier business community, by listening to business owners and working to remove the obstacles that stand in their way.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I am only comfortable sharing what I can about myself and what I believe is important for the community and successful leadership. I will respectfully leave it to the voters to make those comparisons.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

I am seeking election to a vacant council seat. No incumbent is running in the 2020 Moorestown Council election

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

I want to see Moorestown strengthened and unified as a community. I want it to become a destination for small businesses. Given the many reasons that make Moorestown a wonderful place to live and raise our children, there is no reason that it cannot also be a healthy, vibrant place to do business. Moreover, I would like to see Moorestown become an even more desirable destination to live, work, play, as well as open a business.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I have a more than 20-year career as an attorney, dedicated to serving the communities I have called home. That service has both taught me how local government should operate and has also given me the opportunity to help my community in important ways. I have served as an ethics officer for eleven years in my current role, and as an investigator with the Local Finance Board reviewing local government ethics issues for many years prior. These experiences have reinforced how government should function and how leadership running those government entities should conduct themselves.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Be yourself and be true to what you believe.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am not a politician but rather a proud Moorestownian who wants to see Moorestown remain a great community that thrives for years to come. I am proud to call Moorestown home, I am proud to be raising my family here, and I have a wealth of knowledge and experience that I believe will benefit the community and make it stronger.

This article originally appeared on the Moorestown Patch
The death toll in the Assam deluge rose to 87, while heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of the Gandak river in Nepal led to flooding in parts of north Bihar on Tuesday.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has positioned 122 teams in 20 states to tackle the flood and heavy rain situation during the ongoing monsoon season. A maximum of 19 teams have been deployed in Bihar, followed by 12 in Assam, a spokesperson of the force said.

The death toll in the Assam floods rose to 87 as the situation due to the calamity remained unchanged with 24.19 lakh people affected in 24 districts, a government report said.

According to the daily flood report of the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), one person died at Raha in Nagaon district and another at Morigaon town. Twenty-six others have died due to landslides triggered by the rains and floods, it said.

The affected districts are Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Biswanath, Darrang, Baksa, Nalbari, Barpeta, Chirang, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Dhubri, South Salmara, Goalpara, Kamrup, Kamrup Metropolitan, Morigaon, Nagaon, Golaghat, Jorhat, Majuli, Sivasagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Cachar.

Four children and a woman died in floods in Meghalayas West Garo Hills district and 1.52 lakh people have been affected, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said and announced Rs 4 lakh ex-gratia to the next of kin of the deceased.

Heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of the Gandak river in Nepal has led to the discharge of excess water from the Valmikinagar barrage in West Champaran district, flooding parts of north Bihar.

Several rivers except the Ganges continued to flow above the danger mark and the flood waters have hit nearly four lakh people in eight districts, a disaster management department bulletin said.

Meanwhile, at least 10 people died due to lightning strikes in four districts of the state, an official said.

Two persons were killed in lightning strikes in Jammu and Kashmirs Poonch district, officials said.

A fresh spell of heavy rains lashed the national capital, inundating the low-lying areas and affecting traffic movement in parts of the city.

Residents shared pictures and videos of rainwater gushing into their houses and vehicles navigating waterlogged roads on social media platforms.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the major weather stations in Delhi, including Safdarjung and Lodhi Road, recorded around 20 mm rainfall.

The convergence of moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal and southwesterly winds from the Arabian Sea is likely to continue over northwest India for another two-three days, weather experts said.

The monsoon trough is also running through the region and these two factors led to moderate to heavy rains in Delhi-NCR, they said.

On Sunday, at least four people died as heavy rains lashed the city.

Widespread rains lashed Haryana and many parts of neighbouring Punjab, causing the maximum temperatures to drop sharply, the IMD said.

It said more rain or thundershowers are likely at a few places in the two states over the next two days.

Light to moderate rain accompanied with thunder occurred at most places in Uttar Pradesh with Maharajganj recording a maximum of 12 cm rainfall, the meteorological office said.
TUCSON, Ariz., July 21, 2020 -- Critical Path Institute (C-Path) announced today that the Biomarker Qualification Program (BQP) at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a positive response to the Qualification Plan (QP) for glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) as a safety biomarker for drug-induced liver injury (DILI), developed by C-Path's Predictive Safety Testing Consortium (PSTC) and Duchenne Regulatory Science Consortium (D-RSC).

In this QP, PSTC and D-RSC provided scientific evidence supporting the use of GLDH as an important and accurate measurement of DILI in clinical trials involving patients affected by inherited muscle disorders, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) or idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, and muscle damage caused by strenuous exercise or drug induced muscle injury. In its Determination Letter, the Agency stated, "FDA has completed its review and has agreed to accept your QP."

In clinical trials, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and total bilirubin (TBil) levels in blood are the current gold standard biomarkers for detecting DILI. Although ALT is a sensitive marker of DILI, this enzyme is also expressed in other tissues, including muscle. This severely limits the reliability of ALT as a biomarker of liver damage in clinical trial subjects with underlying muscle degenerating conditions, such as DMD and related neuromuscular conditions.

"This project was launched to address an unmet need in drug development for increased precision in detection of DILI and serves as a powerful example of advancing translational science from preclinical to clinical use," said PSTC Executive Director John-Michael Sauer, Ph.D. "Through PSTC's and D-RSC's efforts, GLDH's sensitivity and specificity for detection of DILI has been demonstrated in nonclinical studies, and this research can now be translated to application in clinical trials. We are improving the ability to more accurately detect DILI through collaboration and data sharing across consortia and industry members."

FDA expressed support for the consortia's intent to pursue biomarker qualification for GLDH and invited submission of a Full Qualification Package, the final stage that details how the biomarker demonstrates clinical and analytical validity for its intended Context of Use (COU) as a safety biomarker. PSTC and D-RSC propose the qualification of GLDH levels in serum for use as a specific biomarker of DILI in clinical trial subjects with underlying muscle injury or degeneration, in conjunction with standard hepatic injury monitoring biomarkers, such as alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and TBil.

"When ALT levels increase during clinical trials, including in people with underlying muscle disease such as those living with DMD, this can lead researchers to incorrectly conclude a drug candidate is causing liver damage and therefore the study may be discontinued unnecessarily," said C-Path D-RSC Executive Director Jane Larkindale, D.Phil. "Measuring GLDH in addition to traditional biomarkers will provide a new tool for drug developers that generates more accurate and sensitive safety data throughout the clinical trial process."

"GLDH will allow drug developers to properly determine the onset of liver injury in clinical trials for novel therapies to treat patients with muscle disease, where the traditional DILI biomarkers may be confounded by active skeletal muscle injury," said Jiri Aubrecht, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Scientific Director, Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and industry co-director for PSTC.

As part of the 21st Century Cures Act, passed into law in December 2016, public-private partnerships consisting of government entities, including FDA, the biopharmaceutical industry, health care providers, academic researchers, and patient advocacy organizations have been encouraged to work together to foster innovation in development of new therapies by qualifying new drug development tools that can accelerate the process of making new therapies available to patients. Any groups that would like to join in this effort or have information or data that may be useful, can contact Dr. John-Michael Sauer (jsauer@c-path.org) the point of contact for this project or visit C-Path's website at https://c-path.org/programs/pstc.

C-Path's PSTC is supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award U18FD005320 totaling $424,450 with 46 percentage funded by FDA/HHS and $490,000 and 54 percentage funded by non-government source(s). C-Path's D-RSC is supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award U18FD005320 totaling $10,000 with 2.5 percentage funded by FDA/HHS and $390,000 and 97.5 percentage funded by non-government source(s). The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by FDA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

Critical Path Institute (C-Path) is an independent, nonprofit organization established in 2005 as a public and private partnership. C-Path's mission is to catalyze the development of new approaches that advance medical innovation and regulatory science, accelerating the path to a healthier world. An international leader in forming collaborations, C-Path has established numerous global consortia that currently include more than 1,600 scientists from government and regulatory agencies, academia, patient organizations, disease foundations, and dozens of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. C-Path US is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona and C-Path, Ltd. EU is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with additional staff in multiple other locations. For more information, visit c-path.org and c-path.eu.

###

Media Contact:

Kissy Black

C-Path

615-310-1894

kblack@c-path.org
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 15:00:10|Editor: huaxia

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NEW DELHI, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The three-day-long Indian Air Force (IAF) commanders' conference began Wednesday in the capital of New Delhi.

The conference with the theme "Indian Air Force in the Next Decade" began at the IAF headquarters and was inaugurated by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.

"Addressed the inaugural session of the Air Force Commander's Conference today. IAF's role in some of the most challenging circumstances is well regarded by the nation. Their contribution during the nation's response to COVID-19 pandemic has been highly praiseworthy," Singh said in a brief statement posted on social media.

The conference was chaired by India's Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria.

Officials said during the three-day conference the present operational scenario and deployments of the air force, besides increasing their capability will be discussed. Enditem
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov and the Secretary General of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Hadi Soleimanpour held a telephone conversation on July 22, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani MFA.

Accepting the Secretary General's sincere congratulations, Bayramov expressed gratitude for the support of Azerbaijan's active participation in the ECO.

The parties exchanged views on the possibilities of developing cooperation within the organization in the field of trade, information and communication technologies, transport, logistics and others.

Bayramov informed Soleimanpour about Armenias military provocation on the state border with Azerbaijan, as well as about the current situation in the region.

The minister also brought Soleimanpours attention to the fact that at the root of the tension in the region lies the policy of aggression that Armenia continues against Azerbaijan, and the fact of the occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and other seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan for about 30 years.

The Azerbaijani FM, referring to the letter of the Secretary General in relation to the latest military provocation of Armenia, expressed gratitude to Hadi Soleimanpur for his call for an early settlement of the conflict and support in this context for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lashes out on China again- accuses China of a revisionist agenda in the neighbourhood, co-opting the WHO to suppress Covid-19 details, and further aggaravating global hostility by committing atrocities against civilians.

US State Secretary Mike Pompeo once again blasted at Beijing on Tuesday (local time) and urged nations to push back against the Asian giant, disgruntled on the fact that rather than helping the world during this Covid crisis, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is bullying its neighbours and militarise features in the South China Sea.

Following his talks with British foreign secretary Dominic Raab, Pompeo used the press to accuse China of engaging in a cover-up and co-opting the World Health Organisation by allegedly suppressing early details of the preventable coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 610,000 people globally.

The CCPs exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi has shown the world the partys true face. We talked about how we have seen Hong Kongs freedoms crushed. We have watched the CCP bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India, the American top diplomat said at a press briefing.

Also read: China cries foul on UKs suspension of extradition treaty with HKSAR

Also read: US sanctions 11 Chinese companies over Uyghur persecution in Xinjiang

We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order. You cannot go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You cannot threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. You cannot engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organisation, he added.

Pompeo met British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the heat of an emerging crisis in relations between London and Beijing over everything from Chinas treatment of Hong Kong to its persecution of over one million ethnic Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities.

Pompeos last visit to London was in January this year, just days after Johnson ignored Washingtons warnings and allowed Huawei to take a leading role in building Britains next-generation mobile data network.

This time amid a tense standoff between the United States and China, the State Secretary utilised the opportunity to congratulate the British government for deciding to remove Huawei equipment from Britains 5G networks and said it has generously opened its doors to the Hong Kong people, halted the extradition treaty with Hong Kong and introduced an arms embargo on weapons that could be used against protesters.

We support those sovereign choices, we think well done, he added.

Pompeo praised the relationship between the US and the UK but said every country needs to be wary of China.

Meanwhile, Raab said he and Pompeo had discussed their serious concerns about the situation in Hong Kong and that they talked about raising the issue of Chinas actions at the G7 level.

He said there was no question of strong-arming over the decision to ban Huawei but said after the US imposed sanctions on China, blocking the use of American-made chips, the UK had to look for a clear-sighted perspective.

Raab appeared positive about a free trade deal being agreed with the US, saying that the current annual 3bn in turnover between British and US businesses can increase.

Pompeo further welcomed the enduring strength of the special partnership and both the leaders discussed the Five Eyes partners, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and US, taking an ambitious approach to the technologies of the future.

The diplomats said they also spoke about their shared global policy, Chinas actions in Hong Kong and the Uighur Xinjiang region, and the death of teenager Harry Dunn outside a US airbase in Northamptonshire.

Also read: China remodelling its tactics to wipe out Uyghurs

For all the latest World News, download NewsX App
US rapper and apparent presidential candidate Kanye West has opened up in the past about his struggles with bipolar disorder. But his recent erratic behaviour has again called into question his health and treatment.

He launched his election campaign Sunday with a rambling speech that saw him rant incoherently, reveal he had wanted to abort his daughter, and break down in tears.

The rapper then posted a series of tweets, most of which are now deleted, late on Monday that claimed his wife, reality television star and make-up mogul, Kim Kardashian was trying to lock him up on medical grounds, he also went on to add that Get Out, a horror film about race relations, is about him, he tweeted, Everybody knows the movie get out is about me.

In a tweet that was deleted later, Kanye wrote, Kim was trying to fly to Wyoming with a doctor to lock me up like on the movie Get Out because I cried about saving my daughters life yesterday.

In another now deleted tweet he wrote, If I get locked up like Mandela Yall will know why. Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid revolutionary and political leader, was imprisoned for nearly three decades under apartheid before he became South Africas first Black president.

Other celebrities who have spoken publicly about their diagnoses include actor Stephen Fry and the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

What is the mental illness and why is it often associated with creative people?

- Highs and lows -

Bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, is characterized by extreme mood swings.

On the one hand, patients experience very high periods known as mania when they feel energized, elated and can make reckless decisions. They sometimes also experience delusions.

They can almost have no inhibitions at all, which means they can spend their life savings in a day, said Andrew Nierenberg, a psychiatry professor at Harvard.

They can do something thats really bad judgment that they wouldnt ordinarily do, either sexually, or in relationships, or work.

The other pole of the illness is depression: ultra-low episodes that can include inability to feel pleasure and suicidal thoughts.

In fact the suicide rate among bipolar disorder patients is 10-30 times higher than that of the general population.

The illness affects up to three percent of the population, which makes it more common than schizophrenia but rarer than depression.

And there can be much variation among patients, said Timothy Sullivan, the chair of psychiatry at Staten Island University Hospital.

Some are more depressive and rarely manic, while others are the other way around.

As a result, diagnoses are typically delayed for years. If a patient has so far only experienced depression, they may be misdiagnosed.

West first revealed his diagnosis on his 2018 album Ye, where he called it his superpower. Last year, he revealed it caused him paranoid delusions and described being handcuffed during treatment.

- Risk factors -

Bipolar disorder is known to be one of the more heritable mental illnesses said Katherine Burdick, a psychologist at Harvard and the Brigham and Womens Hospital.

If one of your parents had the disorder, your risk is somewhere between 10 to 20 percent.

Scientists are looking for the genes responsible, and trying to understand how these might affect the parts of the brain that deal with emotion.

Another line of research suggests that bipolar disorder could be linked to a flaw in how cells regulate energy, said Nierenberg.

There may also be environmental factors.

For many, but not all patients, theres a higher rate of childhood trauma, childhood abuse and neglect, said Burdick.

Substance abuse is also a risk factor, and women sometimes develop it later in life compared to men.

- COVID a trigger? -

The bedrock for treatment is mood stabilizing drugs.

Lithium, which has been used since the 1940s, is still considered by many clinicians as the gold standard despite side effects.

Anti-inflammatory drugs that reduce an abnormal immune response are being investigated as a treatment, but research is preliminary.

Experts have also started to understand the role that the disruption of social rhythms play in bipolar disorder, which has shifted more attention toward therapy.

For instance, the death of a pet can trigger a depression-mania cycle, but when scientists studied such events closely, they realized patients were not driven by grief alone.

Not only did the person suffer psychologically from that loss, but they used to take the dog out for walks,they got exercise, and it also got them up early in the day so that they had social interactions, said Sullivan.

People with bipolar disorder are sensitive to such disruptions, which means events like the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns can cause particular harm.

I have actually had one patient who I havent seen in more than 10 years, who I dont currently treat, who called me up out of the blue and shes clearly manic, said Sullivan.

Support groups like the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance are credited with raising awareness and destigmatizing the illness.

- Creative link? -

There is thought to be an over-representation of artists, writers and musicians among people with bipolar disorder, a subject explored in the book Touched with Fire.

Figures from history who may have had the illness include Vincent Van Gogh.

Creative people are distinguished by particularly unique ways of thinking that involve intense emotional experiences explained Sullivan.

It may be that capacity for that sensitivity involves regulatory systems in the brain that also render you vulnerable to mood disorders.

Some patients with bipolar disorder see their condition as an asset, even if it can alienate friends and family.

Researchers have asked a group of patients with different diagnoses, If you had a button that you could press tomorrow and make this go away, would you? said Burdick.

And the only group of patients that do not opt, more commonly than not, to press the button, are bipolar patients.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)

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A lawn bowls club has been forced to close its door after a group of members tested positive for coronavirus.

Club Malua in Malua Bay on the NSW south coast was forced to shut on Wednesday after several members were diagnosed with COVID-19.

The confirmed patients attended the club on July 7, 8 and 12, with NSW Health authorities notifying management, who closed the business for two weeks.

'Cabra Bowls Group have made the decision to close the club and the bowling greens effective immediately,' a Club Malua Facebook update reads.

Club Malua (pictured) in Malua Bay on the NSW south coast was forced to shut on Wednesday after members were diagnosed with COVID-19

'A deep clean of the premises will be outsourced to a certified cleaning company at the very earliest availability.

'The club will remain closed for a period of 14 days per the recommended guidelines.

'All staff and patrons who have visited the club on these days have had their contact details provided to NSW Health.

'We are very committed to the safety of our staff, customers, and wider community and will continue to operate under the advice which NSW Health has provided to us.

'NSW Health has advised those with symptoms to get tested and stay home.'

The closure follows on from a growing coronavirus cluster at the nearby Batemans Bay Soldiers Club.

Several members were diagnosed with COVID-19 after visiting the club on July 7, 8 and 12. Pictured: a nurse at the Bondi Beach coronavirus pop up test facility on Wednesday

Eight confirmed cases have been linked to the Batemans Bay site, but there are fears more people could have been infected.

NSW recorded 16 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, following an outbreak which started at the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, in the city's south-west.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state was on 'high alert' for further spread of the deadly respiratory illness.

She said the next few weeks for NSW were 'critical' to slowing the spread of the virus in Australia's most populated state.

'If we manage get on top of the community transmission at this stage, we have a much better chance of continuing the move forward in a positive way,' she said.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over the killing of a journalist and said people were promised 'Ram Raj' but got 'Gundaraj' instead.

He also condoled the death of Ghaziabad-based journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot in the head by miscreants on Monday night and succumbed to his injuries early Wednesday.

Joshi had lodged a complaint with the police alleging harassment of his niece on July 16.

"Journalist Vikram Joshi was killed for opposing the molestation of his niece. My condolences to the bereaved family. The promise was of giving 'Ram Raj', but gave 'Gundaraj'," he said in a tweet in Hindi.
THE END IS NEAR

So lying Trump has decided he might already contest the results of the election. Whats the matter, bunker boy? Have you run out of ways to cheat? It will not make any difference when Biden takes the White House in November. Security will just haul your fat rear end out and arrest you for trespassing.

TIRED OF WINNING?

William H. Evans has it backwards, Monumental failure of Donald Trump. Trumps presidency has been a monumental success for our country. Unemployment rates reached an all-time low and more important millions went from welfare to employment. Blacks, Latinos and women benefited from the Trump economy; Isis is no longer decapitating Christians; our retired veterans have adequate health care; and the U.S. is energy independent. The stock markets anticipate a return of the Trump economy.

JR

PRAY FOR HELP

Thankfully that person in Havertown that insists on displaying the large Trump sign is also asking for Gods blessing. We certainly need any help we can get during this difficult time of Trumps mismanagement.

HAIL TO THE DOCTOR

Id like to sound off about the fact that the Washington Nationals had Dr. Anthony Fauci throw out the first ball. I can remember when the presidents of the United States would throw out the first ball. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason our narcissistic, self-centered, self-absorbed president will not do this as because he might need to the overwhelming deafening boos that come from the crowd because of being asleep at the wheel during this coronavirus? What do you think, Sound Offers?

DIAMOND JIM FROM DARBY

WATCH OUT

M.F. from Westbrook, You are wrong about our modern digital clocks and watches. They identify the time as AM or PM so that our broken clocks are no longer right twice a day. Squirrels scurry to find nuts because they have a poor memory and forget where they buried the nuts. Your message shows how unintelligent and misinformed Trumps supporters seem to be. Thanks for two reasons not to vote for Trump.

TRUMP 2020 NOT

HIS OWN MEDICINE

So Trump refuses to say he will accept the results of the presidential election in November if he loses. When he loses the election and if he decides not to leave, it would be so gratifying to see those same federal troopers who are arresting peaceful demonstrators in Portland drag Trump out of the White House, throw him into a minivan and drive off to who cares where.

JAY FROM UPPER PROVIDENCE

PROGRAM FOR MISERY

One of my friends watches MSNBC with Joe and Mika. She told me they dont give one positive reason for anything. So I watched for a few days. If youre depressed then dont watch the show. It gives, you no positive reason for anything. Its negative coverage all the time. After five days I felt worse than before. They gave me no reason for a positive future. I was more depressed than ever. I have nothing to look forward to, according to them. Its all downhill, according to Joe and Mika. People are suffering and they need something to lift their spirits. This station isnt helping one bit.

NO GO FOR JOE

The latest ridiculous commercial by Donald Trump claims that Joe Biden is in favor of defunding the police. As soon as the idea of defunding police was floated Joe Biden was on national TV saying that he didnt want to defund the police. Its another example of Donald Trumps penchant for lying.

NOT A JOKE

This is for the man in Folcroft who was complaining about people not wearing masks. I live in Folcroft and I do wear a mask. And I hope that gentleman who does have the terminal cancer gets well and I do understand where he is coming from. They should shut all those stores down who do allow people to come into the store without a mask. This is no joke.

GOING POSTAL

What is going on with mail delivery in Springfield? I havent received mail in two days and its impossible to get through to the post office.
Since Europeans colonised Australia, about 100 of Australias unique flora and fauna species have become extinct. Unfortunately, the rate of loss has not slowed over the past 200 years

On Tuesday, a review of the Environment, Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act found the legislation ineffective in enabling the protection and conservation of the environment and found Australias natural environment was in an "overall state of decline" and that the "current environmental trajectory is unsustainable."

In this episode, climate and environment editor Nick O'Malley is joined by climate and energy reporter Mike Foley to discuss the review.

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The United States has already recorded more than three million coronavirus cases since January. Almost 140,000 have died due to complications brought by the Coronavirus.

In Nueces County in Texas, eighty-five (85) babies, who have not even celebrated their first birthday,. tested positive for coronavirus. Health officials are attributing this number of positive cases on babies to different factors.

With this announcement, local authorities encourage residents to be more proactive in stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

A report from CNN says Texas is one of the states in the U.S., which has become a hotspot of the coronavirus pandemic.

READ ALSO: Parents get Coronavirus, father survives, but the mother dies after giving birth

Positive cases in Nueces County

Last Friday, the director of public health in Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Annette Rodriguez, announced the 85 babies that tested positive with coronavirus.

There were no details provided on the condition of the babies. However, a report mentioned that one baby, who tested positive and was under the age of one, succumbed to death. The baby was brought to the hospital for a different reason, but when tested, the baby was positive of COVID-19. The baby died at home, and an autopsy is being conducted to find the cause of death.

Although the announcement was made last Friday, officials clarified that this was not a sudden surge. The provided number of positive cases on babies was an accumulation of cases since mid-March.

Nueces County Judge, Barbara Canales, clarified that the figures were provided for illustration. She said, "For context, the spokesperson was using that statistic to illustrate that no one is naturally immune to this virus."

READ ALSO: Through two pandemics: 106-year-old grandfather survives COVID-19 and lived through the Spanish Flu

Increase in positive cases

Local officials state that the increase in the number of cases in Texas can be attributed to several factors. However, authorities also clarified that the relentless testing and contact tracing led to an increase in recorded cases.

Specifically, Nueces County is targetting high-risk critical infrastructure jobs to get tested.

As of writing, around 75 people have died in Nueces County due to the coronavirus.

Health officials have called on to the public to be extra careful. They reiterated that it is through the residents' help that they can stop the Coronavirus spread.

READ ALSO: Man diagnosed with coronavirus documents struggles and shares it on TikTok

Risks of infectio in kids under 1

According to a report from the Fox News, babies or children under one year old, have higher risks of getting severely-ill if infected by the coronavirus.

In the report, the news outlet cited that Mayo Clinic says that the babies' immature immune system can lead to a higher risk of severe illness. Thus, this makes babies more susceptible to respiratory virus infections.

The report also mentions that babies whose mothers tested positive with Coronavirus should be undergoing special care.

READ ALSO: Youngest COVID-19 Death in Florida is an 11-year-old Boy
More than 60,000 residents are vying for a shot at rental assistance from New Jerseys $100 million rental relief fund, a federally-funded program to help struggling renters affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The tens of thousands of applications for the Covid-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which will provide up to six months of rental assistance to low- and moderate-income households, came in during the two-week window to apply, said Department of Community Affairs spokeswoman Lisa Ryan.

It was the states first rental relief open for residents since the coronavirus pandemic sent the states economy into a tailspin, as nonessential businesses closed to curb the spread of the virus, which led to skyrocketing unemployment and an inability for people to pay their rent.

In response to the unprecedented job loss, Gov. Phil Murphy placed a moratorium on lockouts and enacted a rent freeze for 36,000 homes in New Jersey. Some landlords could also defer their mortgage payments, depending on the type of mortgage they have.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Murphy, a first-term Democrat, pleaded for landlords to have compassion with tenants struggling to pay the rent while housing advocates called on the governor to do more for renters  including ceasing eviction settlement hearings that have already begun at two county courthouses.

Anne Kat Alexander, a faculty assistant with non-profit Princeton-based research group The Eviction Lab, noted the application had very strict eligibility requirements.

Applicants must have an annual income below the maximum income limits in their county, and would only help renters who have been unable to pay their rent as far back as March due to a loss in income because of Covid-19, according to the DCA.

Rent relief programs with onerous document requirements or narrow eligibility requirements would run the risk of locking out tenants who would be and should be eligible for aid, because they arent able to access the aid, she said. If tenants arent able to access that kind of aid, then its a situation where youre wondering if the program has achieved the goal.

Alexander also pointed to Houstons $15 million rental assistance fund  for a city of 2.3 million people  which was claimed within two hours of opening.

The amount of need is just staggering. If $15 million for one city runs out that fast, it makes $100 million look like a smaller sum, she said.

Its unclear how many of the 60,838 applicants will be selected. Winners will be selected through an online lottery on July 29  applicants can check their status at waitlistcheck.com for updates.

If selected, tenants must contribute 30% of their income to rent, while the state covers the other 70%. The DCA will make the payments directly to the landlord. Households will be reviewed in October to determine if theyre still eligible for the second three months of the program.

Residents can also apply for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program for help with utility costs. The program recently received $29 million through the CARES Act.

The New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, which provides funding for affordable housing, has also expanded its programs to include renter and pre-foreclosure housing. Counseling is also available for renters who need to approach their landlord for help.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz.

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Any act of terror implies two types of victims: direct and indirect. For terrorists, direct victims are those whom they captured  the means. Terrorists don't care about their lives. Culprits are more interested in affecting another category  victims of information waves. Those who will experience anxiety about both the direct victims and themselves. Incidentally, among other things, so to speak, they will also most certainly hear or see the demands put forward by terrorists. Usually, terrorists intend to convey their message through someone else's suffering. So, whoever stands behind yesterday's acts of terror, we have all become their victims.

But what message was the Lutsk gunman trying to convey? It was nonsensical, more or less.

Did anyone take responsibility for the exploded trash bins in Kyiv? No one did!

The main message that the whole country heard and saw yesterday is the very fact of acts of terror. Despite the ongoing hostilities in the country's east, the rest of the county has traditionally been considered a safe place. Now it may seem that it's not. Indeed, if someone seizes a commuter bus and holds passengers hostage, why can't this happen in your local supermarket or a subway station near you? Or even at your office?

Some even wonder, was there even a terrorist act at all?

So the first implication is irritation. People are irritated over the fact that pseudo bombings take time to deal with, that talks with a Lutsk hostage-taker went for so long, that the country's president did wrong by conceding to the terrorist's demands, and that terrorism prevention doesn't work. The security system is ineffective. All those CCTV cameras installed throughout Ukrainian cities for some reason fail to spot those who planted IEDs in those trash bins. People are irritated that a convicted felon with a few prison terms behind his back is able to obtain firearms. Some even wonder, was there really a terrorist act at all?

This whole narrative gradually leads people to distrusting authorities. It's not even about distrust in some certain politicians, it's about doubting that the government is able to keep you safe. People are disappointed in the State of Ukraine  both Ukrainians and international community. A so-called "failed state", which isn't worth dealing with And here the main threat is being watered down  it's not clearly external anymore, it's not only about the war with Russia  it's here, among us.

Remind me please, aren't these by any chance Russian messages? Aren't these the Kremlin narratives regarding Ukraine? No wonder that it was Russian media outlets who took a major part in spinning the "Lutsk terror" story.

Another message is fear. Fear comes where fake terror acts eventually become real. And that fear will expand further if law enforcers fail to expose Kyiv bombers if similar IEDs in trash bins eventually kill someone, as it was in the City of Dnipro back in 2011-2012, and if it comes to someone's mind to copycat the Lutsk gunman.

Russians have been living under similar conditions since 1999 when Putin started setting off bombs in apartment blocks

Now, when people are guided toward fear and anxiety, it's really easy to channel another message: "safety in exchange for freedoms". That is, expanding the authority of law enforcement at the expense of restricting people's rights. Russians have been living under similar conditions since 1999 when Putin started setting off bombs in apartment blocks. Will our own law enforcers exploit the situation to also boost authority? Yes, they will. After all, it's exactly what they did after a deadly road accident outside Kyiv when they passed at first reading a bill expanding the rights of police officers.

Most probably, something like this is coming this time, too. But will Ukrainians be eager to swap freedoms for safety? I doubt it. At least, so far the society has resisted such offers.

And one more thing Talking about the prospects, we're entering an electoral campaign period of tensions. And this is what brings most problems. The situation during the elections traditionally escalates. The curve of activity always goes up. And there are always risks that, seeing the bar that high at the very start where we witness a high profile hostage situation  we might as well face a further increase of aggression and violence.

Bohdan Petrenko is a deputy chief of Ukrainian Institute of Extremism Research
Fourteen people have been wounded in a shooting outside a Chicago funeral home, authorities said.

The incident took place on Chicagos South Side on Tuesday, amid an increase in street violence.

Chicago Police Department deputy superintendent Eric Carter said an SUV drove past the funeral home and shot at mourners.

Several targets were said to have exchanged fire with the suspect as he continued down the street, and crashed.

All we saw was just bodies laying everywhere, said witness Arnita Geder to NBC Chicago. Shot up everywhere, all over. Legs, stomach, back, all over the place. We thought it was a war out here.

Whilst the SUVs occupants dispersed in multiple directions, police said one person was in custody.

All 14 victims, who were adults, were taken to hospitals in the area.

Several people were thought to be in serious or critical condition, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said police were appealing for more information on the shooting, with motives unknown.

While families were mourning at a funeral in Auburn Gresham, cowardly gunmen opened fire, wounding 14 in a horrific mass shooting, said mayor Lightfoot. When a person picks up a gun, we suffer as a city. This cannot be who we are.

She said some hours earlier that she would not allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.

That came as the Trump administration on Tuesday said federal agents would be deployed to the city, where 70 people were shot over the weekend.

It comes after 87 people were wounded and 17 were killed during gun violence on the 4th July weekend.
C-Path's PSTC, D-RSC receive positive FDA response to plan for liver safety biomarker

TUCSON, Ariz., July 21, 2020 -- Critical Path Institute (C-Path) announced today that the Biomarker Qualification Program (BQP) at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a positive response to the Qualification Plan (QP) for glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) as a safety biomarker for drug-induced liver injury (DILI), developed by C-Path's Predictive Safety Testing Consortium (PSTC) and Duchenne Regulatory Science Consortium (D-RSC).

In this QP, PSTC and D-RSC provided scientific evidence supporting the use of GLDH as an important and accurate measurement of DILI in clinical trials involving patients affected by inherited muscle disorders, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) or idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, and muscle damage caused by strenuous exercise or drug induced muscle injury. In its Determination Letter, the Agency stated, "FDA has completed its review and has agreed to accept your QP."

In clinical trials, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and total bilirubin (TBil) levels in blood are the current gold standard biomarkers for detecting DILI. Although ALT is a sensitive marker of DILI, this enzyme is also expressed in other tissues, including muscle. This severely limits the reliability of ALT as a biomarker of liver damage in clinical trial subjects with underlying muscle degenerating conditions, such as DMD and related neuromuscular conditions.

"This project was launched to address an unmet need in drug development for increased precision in detection of DILI and serves as a powerful example of advancing translational science from preclinical to clinical use," said PSTC Executive Director John-Michael Sauer, Ph.D. "Through PSTC's and D-RSC's efforts, GLDH's sensitivity and specificity for detection of DILI has been demonstrated in nonclinical studies, and this research can now be translated to application in clinical trials. We are improving the ability to more accurately detect DILI through collaboration and data sharing across consortia and industry members."

FDA expressed support for the consortia's intent to pursue biomarker qualification for GLDH and invited submission of a Full Qualification Package, the final stage that details how the biomarker demonstrates clinical and analytical validity for its intended Context of Use (COU) as a safety biomarker. PSTC and D-RSC propose the qualification of GLDH levels in serum for use as a specific biomarker of DILI in clinical trial subjects with underlying muscle injury or degeneration, in conjunction with standard hepatic injury monitoring biomarkers, such as alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and TBil.

"When ALT levels increase during clinical trials, including in people with underlying muscle disease such as those living with DMD, this can lead researchers to incorrectly conclude a drug candidate is causing liver damage and therefore the study may be discontinued unnecessarily," said C-Path D-RSC Executive Director Jane Larkindale, D.Phil. "Measuring GLDH in addition to traditional biomarkers will provide a new tool for drug developers that generates more accurate and sensitive safety data throughout the clinical trial process."

"GLDH will allow drug developers to properly determine the onset of liver injury in clinical trials for novel therapies to treat patients with muscle disease, where the traditional DILI biomarkers may be confounded by active skeletal muscle injury," said Jiri Aubrecht, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Scientific Director, Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and industry co-director for PSTC.

As part of the 21st Century Cures Act, passed into law in December 2016, public-private partnerships consisting of government entities, including FDA, the biopharmaceutical industry, health care providers, academic researchers, and patient advocacy organizations have been encouraged to work together to foster innovation in development of new therapies by qualifying new drug development tools that can accelerate the process of making new therapies available to patients. Any groups that would like to join in this effort or have information or data that may be useful, can contact Dr. John-Michael Sauer (jsauer@c-path.org) the point of contact for this project or visit C-Path's website at https:/ / c-path. org/ programs/ pstc .

C-Path's PSTC is supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award U18FD005320 totaling $424,450 with 46 percentage funded by FDA/HHS and $490,000 and 54 percentage funded by non-government source(s). C-Path's D-RSC is supported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award U18FD005320 totaling $10,000 with 2.5 percentage funded by FDA/HHS and $390,000 and 97.5 percentage funded by non-government source(s). The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by FDA/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

Critical Path Institute (C-Path) is an independent, nonprofit organization established in 2005 as a public and private partnership. C-Path's mission is to catalyze the development of new approaches that advance medical innovation and regulatory science, accelerating the path to a healthier world. An international leader in forming collaborations, C-Path has established numerous global consortia that currently include more than 1,600 scientists from government and regulatory agencies, academia, patient organizations, disease foundations, and dozens of pharmaceutical and biotech companies. C-Path US is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona and C-Path, Ltd. EU is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with additional staff in multiple other locations. For more information, visit c-path.org and c-path.eu.

###

Media Contact:

Kissy Black

C-Path

615-310-1894

kblack@c-path.org

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Well-Connected Suspects In Large Corruption Cases In Iran Are Often Off The Hook

Radio Farda July 21, 2020

One of the suspects in a major financial corruption case in Iran has gone "missing," the Young Journalists Club, an Iranian state TV affiliate, revealed on Tuesday July 21.

The missing man, Ali Ashraf Riahi, is the son-in-law of former industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh. Riahi is believed to be on the run somewhere in Iran while his wife and daughter have reportedly fled the country, the report said. It did not mention where exactly they have found refuge.

The corruption case, better known as the case of mishandling foreign currency at the Petrochemicals Trading Company, has been under investigation a court in Tehran since early 2019 and its 10th hearing session started on Monday 14 months after the previous session.

On March 13, 2018, the National Iranian Petrochemical Industries Company (NIPIC) announced in an official statement that PCC "has failed to return 500 million euros of debt to NIPIC since 2013."

The statement also asserted that managers of PCC paid the government for oil exports in local currency instead of euros, pocketing illegal profits in the process. The suspects allegedly kept the foreign currency gained from exports in their own accounts and pocketed the interest.

There are at least 15 suspects in the case, but five of them including Mr. Riahi, are of special interest to the media in Iran as they live outside Iran and the judges charge that they have "fled" the country.

Nonetheless, they are not the only regime insiders who have managed to exit the country despite being implicated in a major criminal case. Even some of those who are supposed to be serving jail sentences have been outside the prison and sometimes causing controversies.

A good example is former Vice-President Hamid Reza Baqai. According to Iranian media, earlier this week he showed up at the office of Sharq newspaper in Tehran and videos on social media show him attacking journalists and causing damage to the office as he believed a story about him in the paper was libellous. Baqai, an aide of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was jailed for financial corruption last year, but hardly spent any time in jail.

In another example, President Rouhani's brother reportedly came out of prison hours after being jailed for convictions relating to financial corruption including bribery. He has not been seen after that.

However, people arrested or convicted of political offenses rarely are allowed to go free on bail. Some spend months in prison before even a trial is held. In some cases health emergencies of political prisoners are ignored and they endure solitary confinement.

Mr. Riahi's wife Zeynab who has fled the country, has been convicted by a court in another case of disrupting the country's economy and hoarding medicines. Her sister Shabnam Nematzadeh, nicknamed by Iranian media as "the queen of medicine" was sentenced to 20 years in prison in January.

The judge at the court on Monday, July 20 said that Riahi was also traveling abroad. However, he went missing after returning to Iran. The judge accused him of disrupting the economy and acquiring wealth through illegitimate ways.

In a court session last year, Riahi rejected the accusations, nevertheless, he did not show up at the court session on Monday. He had also said at the hearing last year that he has not taken advantage of his family ties with the former Industry Minister.

He said that he was employed as a technical adviser by the company 6 years before marrying the minister's daughter.

Two of the daughters of the ex-minister, who is currently an adviser to Iran's oil minister and a key player in Iran's petrochemicals industry, were convicted in the case relating to a pharmaceutical company.

Based on a 2016 report by Expediency Council member Ahmad Tavakoli, Mr Nematzadeh's wife and two of his daughters have been active as managing director and board members in 10 different petrochemical companies.

Nematzadeh's daughters and their husbands are not the only individuals linked to regime insiders who have been implicated or convicted for involvement in financial corruption. The son of a former army commander and the son-in-law of labor minister Mohammad Shariatmadari have also been convicted for financial corruption in two recent major cases.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/well-connected- suspects-in-large-corruption-cases-in-iran-are -often-off-the-hook/30739620.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 02:11:28|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday urged the United Kingdom to give up the illusion of retaining colonial influence over Hong Kong and correct its mistake immediately. This was after the UK decided to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and introduce a ban on arms sales.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a daily press briefing when asked to make comments on the above-mentioned moves by the UK.

"The UK's erroneous remarks and steps on Hong Kong are a serious breach of international law and basic norms governing international relations and gross interference in China's internal affairs," said Wang. "China firmly opposes them and reserves the right to react further."

Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs that allow no foreign interference. The Chinese government is determined to defend national sovereignty, security and development interests, to implement "one country, two systems" comprehensively and faithfully, and to oppose foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs, he said.

"Intervening and pressuring tactics will never work on China," said Wang. "China urges the UK to give up the illusion of retaining colonial influence over Hong Kong, correct its mistake immediately and stop interfering in China's internal affairs in any form to avoid further damage to China-UK relations."

Responding to a query about his view on whether the term "golden era," as was used before, is accurate to describe current China-UK relations, Wang said relations between countries should be based on mutual respect, especially with regard to core interests and major concerns, equality and mutual benefit. At the same time, non-interference, a basic norm in international relations, should also be observed.

"When it comes to China-UK relations, actions matter, not words," the spokesperson added. Enditem
Britains most senior police officer has said she would not take a knee in the symbol of solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters.

Dame Cressida Dick said officers who knelt at London demonstrations following the death of George Floyd may have felt pressured by crowds.

The Metropolitan Police commissioner said all officers in the force had since been banned from taking a knee at demonstrations or in other operations.

Some of my officers took the knee on 7 June, she told LBC radio on Wednesday. I believe they did that because of the crowd that was in front of them.

Theyd endured, all of them, a long, hard day, hours of protest, they were being abused and shouted at by all kinds of people  not least my black and minority ethnic officers suffering racial abuse. Theyre police officers so they get on with their job.

That section of the crowd were saying again and again and again, Take the knee, take the knee, take the knee. I imagine, but I havent spoken to them personally, that they thought, in order to keep that bit of the crowd a bit quieter and to show some respect and some humility, some respect for what had happened to George Floyd, they took the knee.

Dame Cressida said that on the evening of 7 June she issued a direction telling officers not to repeat the gesture in public order situations or operations, adding: Every briefing after that for the protests included we will not be taking the knee.

She stopped short of condemning other senior officers, including the chief constable of Kent Police, who had taken a knee but said: I wouldnt, Im a professional police officer and I dont think we should when in operational duties.

Scotland Yard has faced renewed accusations of racial profiling after Great Britain sprinter Bianca Williams and her partner, Ricardo dos Santos, were pulled from their car in a stop and search.

Dame Cressida denied that footage of the evidence reveals racism and said the vehicle was stopped because of the way it was being driven.

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UK Protesters holding placards gather in Manchester Getty Images Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A man gestures during a Black Lives Matter march in in London AP Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Girls hold placards in London AP Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A demonstrator in Parliament Square REUTERS Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A demonstrator wearing a protective face mask during a Black Lives Matter protest in Leicester REUTERS Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A protest placard is affixed to the plinth of a statue of the Duke of Wellington on the second day of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Piccadilly Gardens Getty Images Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Deansgate, Manchester PA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Demonstrators stage a Black Lives Matter Protest in Leicester city centre EPA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A demonstrator points towards a mounted police officer laying in the road after being unseated from their horse, during a demonstration on Whitehall, near the entrance to Downing Street AFP via Getty Images Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A 'Black Lives Matter' (BLM) protest at Parliament Square EPA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Manchester Piccadilly Gardens PA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Protesters in Whitehall following a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Parliament Square, London PA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Protesters in Whitehall following a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Parliament Square PA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Protests at Parliament Square in London EPA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A demonstrator holds a placard during a Black 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the UK Demonstrators are seen standing on top of a bus stop wearing protective face masks and face coverings as the Black Lives Matter protesters march to the Home Office in London REUTERS Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Manchester Piccadilly Gardens PA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Demonstrators during a Black Lives Matter protest in Manchester are seen by a mural of George Floyd REUTERS Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK People take part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Parliament Square, London PA Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK A demonstrator is seen wearing a protective face mask as the Black Lives Matter protesters march to the Home Office in London REUTERS Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Protest in Parliament Square REUTERS Black Lives Matter protesters gather across the UK Demonstrators with a flare are seen during a 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She said she had apologised to Ms Williams as one human being to another for any distress caused, but believed the officers had done nothing wrong.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating the incident.

Lawyers for the Metropolitan Police are currently looking at how clips from officers body cameras can be released more quickly without breaching privacy laws, in order to counter versions of events on social media.

A second recent incident that provoked controversy was the arrest of Marcus Coutain, in Islington, north London, during which an officer placed a knee on his neck.

Dame Cressida said: The techniques that you saw are not taught in training.

But she insisted that dealing with suspects can be a fluid situation involving physical confrontation.

Last month, UK police leaders announced that a plan of action was being drawn up to address racial inequalities in the criminal justice system.

The National Police Chiefs Council said it aimed to address concerns over stop and search, the use of force and under-representation of black and minority ethnic officers.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin has rejected claims from Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald that his administrations handling of the travel issue had been cack-handed (Niall Carson/PA)

The Irish Governments message not to travel abroad for a holiday remains clear despite the publication of a green list of safe countries, the Taoiseach has said.

Micheal Martin rejected claims from Opposition leader Mary Lou McDonald in the Dail that his administrations handling of the travel issue had been cack-handed.

Mrs McDonald said Irish people who faced having to cancel foreign holidays had been thrown under the bus by the Government and left without support or compensation.

The list of 15 countries was released late on Tuesday night, with popular holiday destinations like Italy and Greece included but Great Britain and the US omitted.

Government has agreed that the following locations be included as Normal Precautions on the Department of Foreign Affairs Travel Advice: Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco, and San Marino. pic.twitter.com/3e6F9ErkWf  MerrionStreet.ie (@merrionstreet) July 22, 2020

The Government has been accused of mixed messaging by publishing a safe travel list despite continuing to recommend against non-essential travel to anywhere outside the island of Ireland.

Im clear the safest thing to do is not to travel, Mr Martin told the Dail on Wednesday.

Thats the clear message  were saying to people to holiday at home this year.

People arriving from countries on the green list will not have to self-isolate for 14 days in Ireland.

As well as Italy and Greece, the list includes Malta, Finland, Norway, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino.

Expand Close Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the Government is pursuing policy on a wing and a prayer (Brian Lawless/PA). PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the Government is pursuing policy on a wing and a prayer (Brian Lawless/PA).

People arriving from other overseas countries  with limited exceptions such as essential supply chain workers  are still required to fill in a passenger locator form and self-quarantine for 14 days.

People crossing the border from Northern Ireland are not subject to restrictions on their movements.

The Taoiseach insisted it would be impossible to enforce mandatory quarantine, and that the most important thing is how quickly the authorities can trace potential Covid-19 contacts.

He highlighted the importance of families with children self-quarantining on arrival from countries not on the list, warning that failure to do so could present a risk to school reopening plans.

During leaders questions in the Dail, Mrs McDonald claimed the coalition is at odds over the issue, highlighting comments by Tanaiste and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar on Tuesday when he questioned the value of having a green list if government advice relating to travel was unchanged.

The Sinn Fein leader also asked why the Government had not published a red list flagging countries that pose the highest risk of Covid-19 infection.

The Opposition leader, who has called for a north/south approach to travel and has advocated self-isolation for everyone arriving on the island, said the Taoiseach is pursuing a reckless policy with virtually no checks and balances.

Taoiseach confirms 134,000 passengers through Dublin Airport so far in July - no effective quarantine, testing or monitoring in place. #COVID19 #ShamblesGovt  Mary Lou McDonald (@MaryLouMcDonald) July 22, 2020

She also accused Mr Martin of doing precious little to support or compensate those families who are losing out financially.

There is absolute public confusion and a lack of public confidence in your whole approach, which has been marked as cack-handed and, frankly, operating on a wing and a prayer, she said.

Mrs McDonald added: You have put yourself at odds with the public health advice, which is for no international travel.

And you have at once said to the public that you can travel with reduced risks but please do not do so.

Ordinary people have been thrown under the bus, Taoiseach  they face the situation that those that listen to the public health advice and forgo their holidays are potentially out of pocket by thousands of euro.

Those that do not heed the public health advice and do travel will do so uninsured.

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Mr Martin suggested Mrs McDonald was failing to be constructive and was instead engaging in partisan sniping.

He accused Sinn Fein of adopting contradictory positions, highlighting that the party backed a move by the Northern Ireland Executive to draw up a safe list of almost 60 countries.

The leader of the Opposition suggested I was at odds with the Tanaiste, which Im not, he said.

Well, I have to put it to the deputy that she seems to be at odds with herself.

Mr Martin acknowledged that the Government had not brought forward specific schemes to compensate people set to lose out by cancelling holidays.

But he said citizens would benefit through measures due to be unveiled in an economic stimulus package which would support the hospitality and tourism sectors.

The Taoiseach said he wanted to maximise the synergy between the administrations in Belfast and Dublin but that a fully aligned all-island approached would be challenging, given Northern Irelands role within the wider UK response to coronavirus.

Mr Martin also urged people not to over-estimate the numbers of people arriving in the country.

He pointed out that nearly 1.5 million travelled through Dublin Airport in the first 12 days of July last year, compared with 134,000 in the same period this year.

Theres been a lot of hype about travel, there has been a lot of concern about it, I acknowledge the concern, but we need to keep it in perspective, he said.

Theres a 91% drop in travel in and out of Dublin Airport in the first 12 days of July between this year and last year.

The Government has pledged to beef up protocols and procedures in airports to deal with the spread of Covid-19.

That includes the introduction of an electronic passenger locator form, enhanced follow-up procedures, and a proposed testing regime for symptomatic passengers at airports and ports.

Great Britain and the US were expected to be excluded from the green list, as only places with a coronavirus incidence rate the same or lower than Ireland were included.

Thirty-six new confirmed cases of Covid-19 were announced in Ireland on Tuesday, taking the overall tally to 25,802.

No further deaths were announced on Tuesday, with the death toll remaining at 1,753.
A BJP MLC and a Civil Surgeon were among the three persons who died due to Covid-19 at AIIMS-Patna in the last 24 hours. Thirty other doctors, afflicted with coronavirus, are also admitted in the same premier hospital in the State Capital. This excludes 18 doctors of the Patna Medical College and Hospital who have tested coronavirus positive.

With the coronavirus pandemic showing no sign of improvement in Bihar, the Opposition in the State on Wednesday asked the Nitish Kumar Government whether it was advisable to conduct Assembly elections, slated for October-November this year.

Track live updates on coronavirus here

"Sad to hear the demise of BJP MLC. My heartfelt condolences to Sunil Singh Ji. My simple question to Nitish Government is: 'Lashon ki dher pe chunav kyon karwana chahti hai yeh sarkar'? (Why is this Government keen to conduct the polls on the piles of dead bodies?)," said Leader of the Opposition, Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday.

The number of coronavirus patients in Bihar, as of today (Wednesday), had gone up to 30,066. "Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has become invisible. The situation has become worse in the State whether it is Covid-19, law and order or floods," said the RJD leader who, on Wednesday, distributed food and relief materials among the flood victims in Darbhanga and adjoining areas.

Also Read: Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases

Plea to Election Commission

Recently, the main Opposition parties in Bihar, including the RJD, Congress, CPI, CPM, CPI-ML, RLSP and the HAM, had asked the EC to rethink how polls could be conducted amid such pandemic as the event may lead to "alarming exponential surge in coronavirus cases".

The Opposition leaders had asked the EC to explain how it planned to ensure social distancing in a State which has 7.5 crore voters out of 13 crore population.
CHICAGO - Fourteen people were injured, one person was being questioned and multiple suspects were being sought after gunfire erupted outside a funeral home on Chicagos South Side where at least one squad car was present, police officials said Tuesday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chicago police investigate the scene of a mass shooting where more then a dozen people were shot in the Gresham neighborhood, of Chicago, Tuesday, July 21, 2020. (Tyler LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

CHICAGO - Fourteen people were injured, one person was being questioned and multiple suspects were being sought after gunfire erupted outside a funeral home on Chicagos South Side where at least one squad car was present, police officials said Tuesday.

First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said mourners outside a funeral home in the Gresham neighbourhood were fired upon from a passing vehicle. Carter said several targets of the shooting returned fire. The vehicle later crashed and the occupants fled in several directions. Carter said all the victims were adults.

A person of interest was being questioned Tuesday night but no arrests had been made, said police spokesman Hector Alfaro.

The victims were taken by the Chicago Fire Department to nearby hospitals in serious condition, said spokesman Larry Langford. They include at least four women between the ages of 25 and 38, one of whom was shot in the chest, police said. Other victims include a 40-year-old man who was shot in the chest, arm and forearm, and two men, 32 and 22, who were shot in a hand, police said.

Police said the shooting happened at or near the site of a funeral or post-funeral event for a man fatally shot last week in the Englewood neighbourhood.

Arnita Geder and Kenneth Hughes said they heard gunshots while in their home watching television, adding that they came outside to find bodies that were shot up and laying everywhere.

Chicago police investigate the scene of a mass shooting where more then a dozen people were shot in the Gresham neighborhood, of Chicago, Tuesday, July 21, 2020. (Tyler LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

We thought it was a war out here, Geder told the Chicago Sun-Times. Its ridiculous all the shooting thats going on out here, it really has to stop.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday night in a series of Twitter posts that far too many people" have attended funerals and attempted to begin the process of healing entire communities following another senseless tragedy." She added that people with information should speak up, even if anonymously.

When a person picks up a gun, we suffer as a city. This cannot be who we are. Too many guns are on our streets and in the hands of people who should never possess them, Lightfoot continued. These individuals will be held accountable."

Carter said at least 60 shell casings were found at the scene of the shooting. It wasnt immediately known if anyone other than attendees of the funeral were victims, nor if anyone in the SUV had been wounded. The person being questioned was uninjured, according to authorities. Investigators havent determined how many people were involved in the shooting.

A squad car was assigned to monitor the funeral as a precaution because of the sizable number of mourners attending, Carter said, adding that he was unaware of any warnings from community activists that trouble at the funeral was imminent.

The district commander took every precaution that he could, Carter said.

The shooting comes as the Department of Homeland Security is planning to deploy dozens of federal agents to Chicago to deal with an uptick in violent crime in the city.

Lightfoot, after threatening to sue if President Donald Trump acted without her permission, also noted earlier Tuesday that the city would be working with federal agents to fight crime.

Lightfoot has been skeptical of federal agents being sent to Chicago by Trump due to the controversy in Portland, Oregon, where the Trump administration sent federal officers after weeks of protests there over police brutality and racial injustice that followed the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

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Lightfoot said she expects Chicago will receive resources that will plug into existing federal agencies that already work with the city, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Oregons governor and Portlands mayor have expressed anger with the presence of the federal agents, saying that the citys protests had started to ease just as the federal agents started taking action.

Trump has framed such protests in the nations large cities as a failure by liberal Democrats who run them, praised the officers actions and said he was looking to send agents to other cities.

He pointed to rising gun violence in Chicago, the nations third-largest city, where more than 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend.

___

Associated Press writer Torrance Latham contributed to this report.
Federal violence against protesters in Portland, Oregon, has escalated this week, with federal officers in military gear and helmets using batons and tear gas against protesting moms late on Tuesday night. Throughout the past week, uninvited and heavily militarized Customs and Border Protection agents have been violently seizing and detaining protesters. On Monday, the president promised to expand this operation to Chicago and other majority-Democrat cities. CBP agents are normally tasked with policing the border. So why are they in our cities, potentially violating the First, Fourth, and Fifth amendment rights of Portlanders in ways that clearly have nothing to do with enforcing immigration law? Unfortunately, court decisions created loopholes that have emboldened CBPs lawless behavior against undocumented immigrants at the border, abuses that are now being exported into the interior of the country against American citizens by President Donald Trump.

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The White House has deployed the Border Patrol, claiming that their presence is needed to protect court buildings and monuments, and enforce criminal law in American cities. The CBP is normally tasked with enforcing immigration law and apprehending undocumented migrants. It is unclear why the White House enlisted CBP in the current mission. CBP and the Department of Homeland Security more broadly are better-funded than interior federal law enforcement agencies, like the FBI. However, CBP has a very different mandate and culture. The tactics that are now being decried as indicative of fascism or authoritarianism have been deployed by the CBP for years. The authorization of federal authorities in a realm that is generally in the purview of state and local law enforcement may be a symbolic show of federal force and its unclear what these actions are meant to achieve other than dangerous political theater.

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After Sept. 11, when immigration, and specifically the Southern border, began to be portrayed as a national security threat, the border became increasingly militarized and the agencys influence grew exponentially. An expansive definition of terrorism helped justify the agencys doubling in size from 2003 to 2019, along with its budget. In 2020, the CBP budget was $18.2 billion, a nearly 20 percent increase from just 2019 and triple what it was in 2003.

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Ordinarily, the CBP works primarily in the border regiontheir normal statutory authority is confined to within 100 miles of the borders of the United States. Critically, federal courts have had a tendency to view the border as a place where the Constitution works differently. Its also important to note that CBP officers normally enforce civil immigration law, not criminal law. Constitutional protections also work differently when it comes to enforcing civil law, with one hallmark being less robust procedural protections. Further, the targets for CBP officers are most often undocumented migrants, many of whom either just entered the United States or are seeking entry into the United States.

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The border that CBP patrols has been given a different constitutional status, especially with respect to the Fourth Amendment. And it is the Fourth Amendment that is most implicated by federal agents detaining protestors and putting them into vans for interrogation. Suspicion-less stops and seizures forbidden elsewhere have been accepted by both travelers and courts when they occur near the border. These ordinarily occur at border checkpoints, but CBP has taken wide latitude in extending those checkpoints nearly anywhere within 100 miles of the U.S. border, a vast space that includes many major U.S. cities along both American coastlines and the Northern and Southern borders. The Supreme Court has even gone so far as to explicitly allow for racial profiling at the border, and the agency itself was exempt when the Obama Justice Department tried to ban racial profiling by law enforcement.

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Because the CBP engages in civil immigration enforcement, many of the protections that the public takes for granted under criminal law simply have not applied to their interactions with undocumented immigrants. Judicial warrants are not needed for arrests, and Miranda warnings are rarely, if ever, provided.

Sadly, the Supreme Court itself just this term indicated that undocumented migrants who recently crossed the border have fewer due process rights, with the court denying the right of habeas corpus to asylum-seekers who complain of an unconstitutional process. Even before this decision, some federal district courts ruled undocumented migrants do not have Fourth Amendment rights at all.

What may be most disturbing is how difficult it has been to hold the agency accountable even when it does violate the law. Earlier in the term that just ended, the Supreme Court ruled that a CBP agent could not be sued civilly, even when an officer shot and killed a teenager in cold blood across the Mexican border. The court ruled that the CBP officers constitutional violation had no remedy under the law. While a police officer could be sued under a section of federal law known as Section 1983, no such mechanism existed for the Mexican parents of the murdered teenager.

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The CBP has enjoyed legal authority to treat people and communities at the border with force untethered from the Constitution and without legal accountability. It is tragic, but perhaps unsurprising, that they are now conducting themselves in the same reckless and lawless manner in our cities and against people who are accustomed to constitutional protections. As outrage over these tactics used against protesters grow, the public should demand these practices be ended everywhere, including at the border.

Back in early June, there was considerable outrage over the idea of using the military to conduct what are essentially police operations and crowd control. The use of the CBP is perhaps an even worse alternative. The federal police power was viewed with caution by the founders, and federal authority to police crime has wisely been limited in scope and has required explicit congressional authorization. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution specifically designates all powers not designated to the federal government to the states and localities, and police powers have always been deemed to be the strict purview of state and county criminal law enforcement agencies.

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Whether the conscription of the CBP to engage in law enforcement in our cities is lawful will be an issue the courts will answer, but in the meantime, the practical implications of this choice will be felt by city residents confronted by officers from the Border Patrol, untrained and unused to being held accountable.

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As Yale historian Timothy Snyder, the author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century, told the New York Times Michelle Goldberg: This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regime . When fascistic escalations have happened in the past, the people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.

Perhaps instead of bringing the borderand its lawlessnessto our cities, we should bring democratic rule of law and constitutional rights to the border.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Islamabad: The Pakistani government on Wednesday filed a petition in the Islamabad high court seeking a lawyer for former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav to file a review petition against the death sentence awarded to him for alleged espionage.

This comes days after India said two Indian officials, who met Jadhav on Thursday last when Pakistan provided second consular access to him since he was detained in March 2016, could not engage him on his legal rights. India said the two were prevented from obtaining Jadhavs written consent for arranging his legal representation.

In its petition, the Pakistani government submitted Jadhav, 50, has refused to engage a lawyer and file a petition. It added it is in the national interest that a legal representative is appointed on behalf of Jadhav for the review of his conviction and sentence, and for Pakistan to comply with the International Court of Justice (ICJ)s order.

The ICJ last year ordered Pakistan to provide consular access to Jadhav and review his death sentence by a Pakistani military tribunal. A Pakistani ordinance, promulgated ostensibly to comply with ICJs order, envisages an Indian consular official filing the review petition.

The Pakistan government cited the ordinance and said Jhadav has a short period of time left to file an appeal. So far, neither Jadhav nor the Indian government, through its high commission in Islamabad, have filed a petition, it added.

The two Indian officials on Thursday last met Jadhav to discuss filing the review petition in the high court against his death sentence.

The meeting ended inconclusively with New Delhi accusing Islamabad of breaching its assurance of providing unimpeded access to Jadhav. The ministry of external affairs said when two Indian consular officials went to meet him, they found Pakistani officials with an intimidating demeanour near Jadhav and a camera being used to record the conversation. It added Pakistans obstructive and insincere approach during the meeting violated its assurance to the ICJ to implement the 2019 judgment. India said Pakistan has also failed to act in accordance with its own ordinance.

Pakistan on Thursday reiterated its accusations that Jadhav was arrested in Balochistan in March 2016, and confessed to his involvement in terror activities. India has dismissed such charges and said he was kidnapped by Pakistani intelligence operatives from Irans Chabahar port, where he was running a business.

ICJ ruled in July 2019 that Pakistan had violated Jadhavs rights under the Vienna Convention. It stayed his execution and called on Islamabad to take all steps for an effective review and reconsideration of his sentence, including enacting appropriate legislation.
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Lori Vallow and her daughter Tylee Ryan gushed about each other in heartfelt social media posts in the years before the 'cult' mom was implicated in the disappearance of the teen and her brother.

Photos from Tylee's private Instagram account show her smiling and goofing off with Lori, whom she called 'the best person' and 'the best example of how I want to be as a mother someday'.

Lori shared similar affection for Tylee on her own Instagram, wishing her a happy birthday every year and praising the 'beautiful' young woman she was becoming.

DailyMail.com uncovered the posts six weeks after Tylee's body was found burned, dismembered and buried in the backyard of Lori's current husband Chad Daybell alongside her seven-year-old brother Joshua 'JJ' Vallow.

Lori and Chad are both behind bars on felony charges of destruction of evidence in the case which began when the children vanished in September.

It's believed Tylee was killed just hours after she was last seen on September 8 - days before what would have been her 17th birthday.

Over the course of the investigation Lori has been painted as a cold, uncaring parent who didn't bother to report her children missing, refused to help law enforcement locate them and may have even been involved in their deaths.

But the Instagram posts portray Lori in a much more positive light as a doting mother whose daughter adored her.

Lori Vallow and her daughter Tylee Ryan gushed about each other in heartfelt Instagram posts years before the 'cult' mom was implicated in the disappearance of the teen and her brother. Left: Tylee wishes her mom a Happy Mother's Day on May 14, 2017. Right: Lori wishes Tylee a happy 14th birthday on September 24, 2016

Photos from Tylee's private Instagram account show her smiling and goofing off with Lori, whom she called 'the best person' and 'the best example of how I want to be as a mother someday'. Pictured: Tylee wishes her mother a happy birthday on June 26, 2017

Lori shared similar affection for Tylee on her own Instagram. Pictured: Lori posted a photo of Tylee and her brother JJ in honor of the girl's 15th birthday on September 24, 2017

DailyMail.com came across the photos from Lori and Tylee's Instagram accounts after a woman who knew the family posted them on Facebook this week.

The earliest post from Tylee's account is dated May 14, 2017, and includes four photos of the then-14-year-old with her mom.

Two of the photos show the pair at the beach, as they were believed to be living in Hawaii with JJ and Lori's fourth husband Charles Vallow at the time.

In another photo Tylee is seen planting a kiss on Lori's cheek, and a fourth shows them together a few years earlier.

'My love for my mom grows every day, she is truly the best person for the job,' Tylee wrote in the caption.

'Through everything we have been through as a family and as individuals her faith just gets stronger. She's the best example of how I want to be as a mother someday. Happy Mothers Day.'

DailyMail.com came across the photos from Lori and Tylee's Instagram accounts after a woman who knew the family posted them on Facebook this week. The earliest post from Tylee is dated May 14, 2017, and includes the photo above of the then-14-year-old with her mom

Another photo from Tylee's post on May 14, 2017, shows her and Lori several years back

On June 26, 2017, Tylee posted the photo above in honor of her mother's birthday. It appeared to have been taken on a beach in Hawaii, where the family was living at the time

The June 26, 2017, birthday post also featured a photo of Lori holding a baby - possibly JJ

On Lori's birthday in 2018, Tylee shared a photo of her mom with her brother JJ, writing: 'I won the lottery with this one as my mom'

Tylee posted more photos of the pair together the following month in honor of Lori's birthday on June 26, 2017.

'Happy birthday to my mom [heart emoji],' the caption reads. 'My mom is superior to yours so don't even try [laughing emoji]. She is talented, beautiful, smart and caring. Love you, from your favorite child [smiling and celebration emoji].'

On Lori's birthday in 2018, Tylee shared a photo of her mom with her brother JJ, writing: 'I won the lottery with this one as my mom.'

In a post from last year, dated March 1, 2019, Lori is seen kissing Tylee on the cheek, with the caption: 'Who needs words when parks & rec has you covered?'

Tylee praised her mom in yet another post with pics of the pair, writing: 'Emergency Mother Appreciation Post: This is slightly random but much needed thank you to my mom for ALWAYS being there & helping me so much [kissing emoji]. She's the greatest little mommy in the [world emoji].'

The date of that post is unclear as the time stamp is cut off.

In a post from last year, dated March 1, 2019, Lori is seen kissing Tylee on the cheek, with the caption: 'Who needs words when parks & rec has you covered?'

Tylee praised Lori in yet another post with photos of the pair (above), writing: 'Emergency Mother Appreciation Post: This is slightly random but much needed thank you to my mom for ALWAYS being there.' The date of the post is unclear as the time stamp is cut off

Tylee shared several photos of her adopted younger brother JJ and of her half-brother Colby Ryan, the eldest son of Lori and one of her previous husbands.

She wished JJ a happy fifth birthday in one post on May 26, 2017, alongside photos of her and the youngster with their mom.

'When you thought you posted this yesterday but it never went through! Happy (late) birthday to this little one [heart emoji],' she wrote.

Tylee also shared several photos of her adopted younger brother JJ

In the caption of JJ's birthday post Tylee wrote: 'When you thought you posted this yesterday but it never went through! Happy (late) birthday to this little one [heart emoji]'

Tylee also shared several photos of her half-brother Colby Ryan, the eldest son of Lori and one of her previous husbands. Colby and Lori are pictured above together in an undated photo

Several of the photos Tylee shared are also shown on Lori's Instagram account, where she praised her 'beautiful daughter' and reminisced on her childhood.

On Tylee's 14th birthday, September 24, 2016, Lori shared a single black and white photo of the girl with the caption: 'Happy Birthday to my little girl who is all grown up!! Your mommy loves u so much [heart emojis].'

The following year she posted a string of photos of Tylee with her family, writing: 'My beautiful daughter turned 15 today ! Happy birthday Ty Ty !! I love you so much!!! [kiss emojis].'

Lori also posted a birthday message for Colby on April 8, 2018, writing: 'Happy Birthday to the most beautiful boy ever ! Today he is 22 and the magic age when I had him and he filled my life with love [heart emoji].

'Colby J you are precious to your momma!'

Several of the photos Tylee shared are also shown on Lori's Instagram account, where she praised her 'beautiful daughter' and reminisced on her childhood. Lori wished Tylee a happy 15th birthday in the post above from September 24, 2017

Another photo Lori posted on Tylee's 15th birthday shows the girl playing on the beach

Tylee and her adopted brother JJ are seen in a goofy selfie posted by Lori in 2017

Lori also posted a birthday message for Colby on April 8, 2018, along with a photo of him, her and Tylee when they were kids

The happy family portrayed in the Instagram posts was shattered last November with the revelation that Tylee and JJ had disappeared nearly two months earlier in September but were never reported missing by their mother.

Lori and Chad went on the run the day after police began searching for the children and reopened an investigation into the death of Chad's first wife Tammy Daybell, who died on October 19, 2019.

Police tracked the couple down in Hawaii in January and Lori was later arrested on charges of child abandonment and desertion.

The search came to a devastating end last month as JJ and Tylee's remains were discovered in Chad's backyard in Salem, Idaho.

Investigators believe Tylee was killed and buried there by Lori's brother, Alex Cox, on the day after she disappeared, September 8.

JJ is believed to have been buried less than two weeks later on September 23, the last day he was seen alive.

Authorities have not yet said how the children died or who is responsible for their deaths as the investigation is ongoing.

Lori (left in her mugshot) was arrested in February and is now facing felony charges for conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence. Chad (right in his mugshot) was arrested after the children's bodies were found and is also facing felony charges

Investigators are seen recovering the remains of Tylee and JJ from the backyard of Chad's home in Salem, Idaho, on June 9

Court documents stated that Tylee's body had been dismembered and partially burned, while JJ's was wrapped in plastic and duct tape.

Chad was arrested the same day the bodies were found, June 9, and charged with two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, to which he pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors added two new felony counts for conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration, or concealment of evidence earlier this month.

Lori was also hit with two new charges for conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration, or concealment of evidence after prosecutors dropped the desertion charges in light of the body recovery.

Both Lori and Chad are scheduled to appear in court for preliminary hearings next month.

They have maintained their innocence throughout the course of the case.
Researchers from KU Leuven, the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and RTI International investigated the effects of trade on hunger in the world as a result of climate change. The conclusion is clear: international trade can compensate for regional food shortages and reduce hunger, particularly when protectionist measures and other barriers to trade are eliminated.

Climate change has consequences for agriculture worldwide, with clear differences between regions. Expectations are that sufficient food will remain available in the Northern hemisphere, but in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia, falling crop yields may lead to higher food prices and a sharp rise in hunger. Further liberalisation of world trade can relieve these regional differences: "If regions like Europe and Latin America, for example, where wheat and corn thrive, increase their production and export food to regions under heavy pressure from global warming, food shortages can be reduced," says doctoral researcher Charlotte Janssens. "It sounds quite obvious, but there are many barriers that complicate this free trade." Tariffs and infrastructure

Import tariffs are a major barrier to international trade in food. They increase the cost of importing basic food crops like wheat, corn or rice. Around a fifth of the worldwide production of these grains is traded internationally. That makes good trade agreements very important in the battle against hunger. Professor Miet Maertens explains: "In the early 21st century, we saw a major liberalisation of the international market. This caused the average import tariffs on agricultural products in Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to drop by a third. Our research shows that this liberalisation makes global food provision less vulnerable to climate change. We also see that further reduction and phasing-out of tariffs can intensify this positive effect."

Besides, there are also other barriers. In some countries, the logistical aspect is a sticking point. Roads are sometimes poor or ports are not equipped for loading and unloading large container ships. Countless complicated trade procedures can drive up the effective cost of trade. "A global food strategy must go hand in hand with improvements to trade infrastructure," argues Charlotte Janssens. 60 scenarios

The international research team, consisting of scientists from KU Leuven, IIASA and RTI International, among others, are making their recommendations based on 60 scenarios. They took into account different forms of trade policy, along with climate change varying from a 2 to 4-degree warming of the Earth. 2050 was set as the horizon for each scenario. "Under the current barriers to trade, the worst-case climate scenario of a 4-degree warming will lead to an extra 55 million people enduring hunger compared to the situation without climate change. If vulnerable regions cannot increase their food imports, this effect will even rise to 73 million," argues Janssens. Where barriers to trade are eliminated, 'only' 20 million people will endure food shortages due to climate change. In the more mild climate scenarios, an intensive liberalisation of trade may even prevent more people from enduring hunger owing to climate change.

Yet a liberalisation of international trade may also involve potential dangers. "If South Asian countries would increase rice exports without making more imports of other products possible, they could be faced with increased food shortage within their own borders," warns Charlotte Janssens. "A well thought-out liberalisation is needed in order to be able to relieve food shortages properly." Crisis and protectionism

"Sadly enough, we see that in times of crisis, countries are inclined to adopt a protectionist stance. Since the start of the current corona crisis, around ten countries are closing their borders for the export of important food crops", says Janssens. "In the context of climate change, it is highly important that they avoid such protectionist behaviour and instead continue to maintain and utilise the international trade framework."

###

This research is a collaboration by researchers from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven in Belgium, the International Institute of Applied System Analysis (IIASA) and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria, RTI International and the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the US, and Ritsumeikan University in Japan.
By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has discussed bilateral cooperation and the recent Armenian provocation with the Secretary-General of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking Countries Baghdad Amreyev, the ministry said on July 22.

During the telephone conversation, the sides expressed satisfaction with the current level of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking Countries (Turkic Council) and exchanged views on future prospects of this cooperation.

Regarding that, Baghdad Amreyev commended Azerbaijan's active role within the organization and its contribution to the work of the organization and expressed confidence that cooperation with Azerbaijan will continue at a high level.

In his turn, Minister Jeyhun Bayramov informed the Secretary-General about the military provocation committed by the Armenian armed forces on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and the ongoing tension in the region.

The minister expressed gratitude the Secretary-General for the statement made by the Turkic Council on the recent military provocation of the Armenian armed forces and the tension on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, based on the norms and principles of international law.

---

Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
WATERLOO REGION  Interest in an anti-racism town hall being hosted next week by the Region of Waterloo is so high that a second day has been added.

Clearly theres a huge amount of citizen engagement and interest in the whole anti-racism movement, said Regional Chair Karen Redman.

We want to hear from everybody and hear all those voices.

The virtual town halls follow a motion unanimously passed by regional council in June, confirming its commitment to combatting racism in the community by supporting policies and programs that address inequities  brought forward by Redman in response to local Black Lives Matter marches and calls for action from the movement.

Redman acknowledges that systemic racism exists in Waterloo Region, both in the community and the municipal institution.

This is a first step. We recognize there will be many steps along the way, Redman said.

Everyone is welcome to join the virtual meetings  being held on Thursday, July 30 at 6 p.m. and continued on Friday, July 31 at 10 a.m.  to speak about the systemic racism that exists in the community and share ideas on how the region can address it.

As of midday Thursday, 24 people registered as speakers and another 120 as listeners.

People can also watch the meetings live without registering or later on the regions YouTube page.

We really hope that a lot of people tune in to hear what people have to say, Redman said.

She said the town halls are about far more than a conversation.

This is about action. This is about combatting systemic racism wherever its encountered.

The process wont be perfect, it wont make everyone happy and may not move fast enough, Redman said, but she is committed to making sure action comes out of this.

The region plans to form a working group that will bring recommendations to council in the fall, and possibly create an anti-racism secretariat as other areas have done.

Find out more at www.engagewr.ca/anti-racism.
It was like a scene out of a movie. Consular staff pulling files and destroying documents as a diplomatic mission is abruptly abandoned. Only this time the setting wasnt Iran or Venezuela, it was Montrose.

Chinese officials were spotted burning papers inside the Houston consulate grounds Tuesday night, prompting a call by neighbors to the fire department as smoke rose from the building. Shortly after, it was reported the U.S. government had ordered the consulate closed to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information, according to a State Department spokeswoman.

Why Houston was chosen out of the five consulates general in the United States remains unclear, unless you listen to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, who tweeted that the consulate was a vast network of spies and influence operations.

What is clear is that this rise in tensions between Washington and Beijing will not only harm relations with the worlds second-largest economy, it will hurt our region unless cooler heads prevail.

The United States accused China of being increasingly aggressive in conducting massive illegal spying and influence operations throughout the United States. On Tuesday, the Justice Department indicted two Chinese hackers for allegedly targeting American companies involved in coronavirus research.

China has been involved, through a variety of means, in trying to steal information from the United States, experts said, calling it a closed issue. But shuttering a consulate is not an action to be taken lightly.

Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, called the move a political provocation that will sabotage China-U.S. relations, during a press conference Wednesday. Unless the U.S. reconsiders, China will respond with firm countermeasures, he said.

This is a huge escalation, Steven Lewis, an expert in Chinese-American relations at the Baker Institute, told the editorial board Wednesday. I cant think of an example of closing a consulate over these kinds of charges.

Even the accusations that would eventually result in indictments over Russian meddling in the 2016 election did not lead to consular closures. Instead, the Obama administration ordered the expulsion of 35 diplomats, instituted sanctions and closed two properties used by Russia  a strong retaliation that was still in keeping with diplomatic interests, experts said.

That the move with China comes almost three months before an election where President Trumps poll numbers are cratering over his response to the pandemic cannot be ignored. China provides the administration an easy target to vilify and shore up votes.

That doesnt mean the U.S. governments actions can be dismissed as purely political posturing, said Richard Stoll, a political science professor at Rice University.

You can question the timing, but this is not something the administration made up, he said. Along with spying accusations, China has engaged in widespread human rights abuses, poorly handled the initial coronavirus outbreak, is cracking down on protesters and dissidents in Hong Kong, and has taken a more belligerent posture in its claims of control over the South China Sea.

All those actions have been condemned by the international community.

It would be easier to connect Chinese transgressions to the closing of the consulate if President Trump had presented a clear strategy when dealing with Beijing. Instead, he has been as likely to praise President Xi Jinping as he is to call COVID-19 the kung flu; as liable to ask for Chinas help investigating political opponents as he is denouncing unfair trade practices.

We urge American and Chinese officials to sit down and resolve these issues before they further strain relations. Our countries have become increasingly entwined and any pull back will result in economic damage for both, an especially daunting prospect as the world works to recover from the pandemic.

In Houston alone, China is the regions second-largest trading partner and we have benefited from having the consulate  which covers Texas along with seven other states and Puerto Rico  in our city, giving Texans convenient access to visas and lines of communication.

Make no mistake, the United States must continue to press China on a host of concerns, but dealing with Beijing demands a sharp scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
New Delhi, July 22 : A serological survey will now be conducted in Delhi every month to find out how many people have developed antibodies from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday adding that the next survey in Delhi will be conducted between August 1 and 5.

Addressing a press conference, Jain said, "The Delhi government has decided to conduct sero-survey every month. It will be done from the first day of the month till 5th of every month." The next survey will be conducted on August 1, the minister said, adding that more samples will be taken this time as compared to the last.

For the last exercise, survey teams were formed, blood samples were collected from selected individuals after taking written informed consent and then their sera were tested for the IgG antibodies. As many as 21,387 samples were collected during the survey.

"But the sample size of next survey will be larger than this. And samples for the survey will be collected on a random basis from all over Delhi," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said.

Out of the 11 districts, eight have sero-prevalence of more than 20 per cent. In the central, north-east, north and Shahdara districts, the sero-prevalence is 27 per cent. Delhi's south-west area has 12.95 per cent sero-prevalence, the least in the city, followed by south and west Delhi at 18.61 per cent and 19.13 per cent, respectively.

Jain further said that in the previous sero survey which was conducted in Delhi between June 27 to July 5, it was found that 24 per cent people in the national capital have developed antibodies from Covid-19 virus, which means that 24 per cent people have got infected by the virus and then recovered.

The minister said that it was found in the survey that most of the people were not even aware that they have been infected by Covid-19 virus. Jain once again reiterated that in Delhi the spread of Covid-19 has reached the "community", but he cannot say whether it is community spread or not.

Jain himself had tested positive for Covid-19 last month but has recovered and resumed work on Monday.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Praise God First: an uplifting book filled with insights that show the importance of praising God as the first step before any intercession and even throughout ones prayer. Praise God First is the creation of published author Kimberlee Hutcherson, a photographer from Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Hutcherson shares, When do you praise God? When he has done something grand? How about when hes done something you dont understand or agree with? Are you praising God for being a Giver and a Taker? It is important to recognize Gods attributes that please us as well as the ones that dont, then offer up praise to him for all things and in all circumstances.

Often, praise is completely left out of our prayers to God. If we follow the example Jesus gave in Matthew 6:913, then praise should come first, yet finding the words to do this can be challenging. This book contains over five hundred praise words to help facilitate a more intimate knowledge of God, broadening our ability to praise him specifically for his attributes. This book is a powerful transforming tool to be used in a daily walk with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Choose a word, then offer up a first fruit sacrifice of praise to God. If it is heartfelt and sincere, God will be pleased. You will be blessed because of the intimacy this creates.

When we are praising, we are not controlling, we are releasing. Praise prayer is different because it removes the tendency to give orders to God that sounds something like please fix this, change that, dont do this, give me that. Sometimes a defeated tone is present in our prayers, sounding like God, this is what I want. But your will be done, which is probably not my will. So Im not sure how to pray. Praising God first can take away the need to control and the feeling of defeat by releasing it to God, focusing entirely on him and his sovereignty in all circumstances.

Praise God first. Thats what we can do. God has got the rest.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Kimberlee Hutchersons new book instills to readers the proper way to bring glory to the Lord by giving Him due honor and gratitude through praising.

Readers can learn valuable information on Gods nature and will that will help them achieve the needed knowledge on how to praise Him with dedication and fervor.

View the synopsis of Praise God First on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase Praise God First at traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about Praise God First, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
By Dhara Ranasinghe and Ritvik Carvalho

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Market gauges measuring euro zone break-up risk have fallen silent after this week's deal among European leaders on a fund to tackle the coronavirus fallout, suggesting fears of another existential crisis for the currency bloc have eased.

The European Union has agreed to raise billions of euros on capital markets on behalf of all its 27 states, in an act of unprecedented solidarity.

That contrasts with the slow and disunited response when the pandemic broke out a few months ago, which raised fears of a fresh crisis that could fragment the euro area.

Here are some of the gauges which show those fears fading.

INSURANCE - LESS NEED

Italy has been the focus of markets' euro breakup fears in recent years, but its Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri said the government had been strengthened by the "historic" EU accord.

The deal pushed the cost of insuring Italian sovereign debt against default to six-week lows.

Significantly, the gap between Italian five-year bond yields and credit default swaps has narrowed by around 100 basis points from April levels to around 160 bps. A wide spread is a danger sign, as Italian borrowing costs can be held down by ECB purchases, but the CDS reflects investors' view of how risky they consider the debt to be.

That spread blew out in April to its widest in about 18 months after joint debt issuance - which would have assured investors of Italy's creditworthiness - appeared out of reach.

Under the 750 billion euro recovery fund, Italy will receive an unprecedented 209 billion euros, of which just over 80 billion euros will be in grants. While the money will take time to arrive, the fact that it is on the way should keep anti-euro sentiment at bay.

"Italy...is now becoming a net financial beneficiary; no doubt an objective for (Angela) Merkel and (Emmanuel) Macron from the start was to help slow/stop any anti-EU movement in Italy," UniCredit group chief economist Erik Nielsen said.

Story continues

EURO HIGH

The easing of break-up risks is evident in the euro's rally to 18-month highs and the decline in the premium investors demand to hold southern European bonds instead of German debt - a measure of the relative risks within the bloc.

The euro has surged above $1.15, more than 8% above March lows when the coronavirus-induced market turmoil raged.

"One of the reasons the euro could move up is euro area break-up risks calming down. When you hear Italy is on board with the recovery plan it shows Italy is in a happier place with how policymakers are treating the periphery," said Mohammed Kazmi, a portfolio manager at UBP.

Italy's 10-year bond yield spread over Germany is at 160 bps - 70 bps tighter than it was just before the recovery fund plan was unveiled in May. Spanish and Portuguese spreads are 15-20 bps tighter.

GOOD BYE NEW YORK?

Whenever Italy's euro zone membership is considered at risk, its dollar bonds tend to outperform its euro-denominated debt.

That's because in the event of restructuring, dollar bonds issued under New York law would offer better protection than those governed by Italian law. If Italy exits the euro, the latter would be vulnerable to redenomination into its new currency.

At 3.07%, an Italian dollar bond maturing in 2033 traded with yields that are roughly 130 bps below March highs. But yields on a similar-maturity euro issue have slid far more - by 175 bps.

For an interactive version of the below chart, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/39qlTSA.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe; Graphics by Ritvik Carvalho; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  President Rodrigo Duterte's claim that face masks could be re-worn after being disinfected with gasoline may have been made it in jest, a Department of Health official said Wednesday.

Dito naman sa sinabi ni President, hes mentioning, really, the reusable na mga face mask katulad ng cloth mask. Alam niyo naman pag nagsasalita si Presidente, baka iyong mga jokes lang niya iyon, especially for gasoline, Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire told reporters in a media forum, referring to Dutertes speech aired on Tuesday.

[Translation: In this statement by the President, hes mentioning, really, the reusable face masks such as cloth masks. You know the President - his claim about the gasoline may be one of his jokes.]

In a taped address, Duterte said that a mask could be reused once they dry out after spraying them with alcohol and disinfectant spray or dipping them in gasoline or diesel, if the two disinfectants are not available.

Kung wala kayo  if you want to disinfect, maghanap ka ng gasolina, he said, adding that the cleaning process must be done outside the house.

[Translation: If you do not have disinfectant spray and alcohol but you want to disinfect your masks - look for gasoline.]

Ibabad mo [sa] gasolina o diesel  di uubra iyan diyan, he added, not laughing and sounding serious about his advice.

[Translation: Plunge it in gasoline or diesel. Coronavirus is no match to them.]

He made the statement to emphasize the importance of wearing face masks to avert a coronavirus infection.

For her part, Vergeire stressed that cloth masks must be washed every after use, as she reminded the public that N95 masks and surgical masks cannot be reused and should be disposed properly to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Kung paano i-treat ang maduming bagay at infectious waste, ganun din ang pag-treat at pag-handle sa masks, Vergeire said.

[Translation: We should handle and treat single-use masks like we do any infectious waste.]
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan today held phone talks with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the initiative of the latter.

Prime Minister Pashinayn emphasized that Armenia highly appreciates the Secretary-Generals ongoing attention towards peace and security in the South Caucasus, presented the tension caused by the provocations made by Azerbaijan in the direction of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and emphasized that those actions were launched contrary to the Secretary-Generals call to declare a global ceasefire during the pandemic.

I assure you that Armenia did everything possible to put an end to the military operations and reduce the tension, Pashinyan stated.

Touching upon Azerbaijans violations of the agreements reached for termination of military operations, Pashinyan added that in this period we are witnessing the mutually exclusive statements and actions of Azerbaijans military and political leadership.

Armenia understands that the situation in Azerbaijan is grave, but we cant become hostage to the trap of President Aliyev. For years, the hatred against Armenians and the threat of war had created an illusion of excellence in the military, but now we see that it was false. We are not sure if Azerbaijans leadership has the ability or desire to maintain the ceasefire and prevent the provocative rhetoric, Pashinyan said.

The Prime Minister reaffirmed Armenias commitment to a peaceful settlement and emphasized that, in the current situation, what is strictly important is the expansion of capacities of the OSCE monitoring and implementation of the agreements.

The UN Secretary-General expressed concern about the tension in the region and emphasized the importance of immediate actions to ease the tension, including through the implementation of agreements targeted at the strengthening of the ceasefire regime. Guterreas also reaffirmed his support to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship.
Ask Dr. Land: Was Trump's Mount Rushmore speech provocative?

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Question: Why all the controversy over President Trumps Mount Rushmore Speech on 4th of July weekend?

Unless you have been on a spiritual retreat and completely cut off from electronic communication, you know there has been an amazing kerfuffle over President Trumps speech at Mount Rushmore on the Friday of July 4th weekend.

If you have not seen the speech, I would encourage you to watch it. Whether you are a Trump fan or not, it was without doubt the best speech of his presidency.

The president, against the dramatic backdrop of Mount Rushmore, delivered a full-throated, eloquent defense of American exceptionalism in a speech that was both inspirational and aspirational.

However, you would never know this, or be able to deduce it, from the reporting in the mainstream media. These mainstream media mavens hated the speech so much that they would not, or could not, report it accurately. Perhaps the most egregious example was the news article on the speech by the Washington Posts Robert Coats and Philip Rucker. These reporters commenced their account of the event with this lead: President Trumps unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination, crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement Friday night at Mount Rushmore. . . .

Big problem. President Trump made absolutely no reference to the Confederacy or anything related to it. His only mention of the Civil War was to praise President Lincoln for the abolition of slavery.

Picking up this theme of falsely reporting Mr. Trumps remarks, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois (evidently on Joe Bidens short list for a running mate), said that Mr. Trump spent all his time talking about dead traitors. One assumes she was not referring to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Theodore Roosevelt  former presidents all  who were the historical figures Mr. Trump most prominently defended.

Whether President Trump is your flavor of the month or not, the speech itself was a powerful narrative both of Americas uniqueness and its ongoing promise.

As Rich Lowry of National Review Online described the presidents speech, It would be difficult to get a more textbook expression of the American civic religion than the speech at Rushmore . . . or a more affirming account of the greatness of America and its meaning to the world.

Lowry went on to characterize the speech as a celebration of Americas Founders, its ideals and freedom, its capacity for self-renewal, its astonishing variety of geniuses, adventurers, warriors, inventors, and great musicians and athletes.

The president asserted that our Founding Fathers in 1776 founded not only a revolution in government, but a revolution in the pursuit of justice, equality, liberty, and prosperity.

The president then put his finger on the one thing that truly separates the Declaration from many other documents: They enshrined a divine truth that changed the world forever when they said, . . . all men are created equal. These immortal words set in motion the unstoppable march of freedom. Our Founders boldly declared that we are all endowed with the same divine rights  given [to us] by our Creator in Heaven.

As I said at the beginning, the speech was aspirational as well as inspirational.

Upon this ground, we will stand firm and unwavering. In the face of lies meant to divide us, demoralize us, and diminish us, we will show that the story of America unites us, inspires us, includes us all, and makes everyone free. We must demand that our children are taught once again to see America as did Reverend Martin Luther King, when he said that the Founders had signed a promissory note to every future generation. Dr. King saw that the mission of justice required us to fully embrace our founding ideals. Those ideals are so important to us  the founding ideals. He called on his fellow citizens not to rip down their heritage, but to live up to their heritage. Above all, our children, from every community, must be taught that to be American is to inherit the spirit of the most adventurous and confident people ever to walk the face of the Earth.

And then the president said,

From this night and from this magnificent place, let us go forward united in our purpose and re-dedicated in our resolve. We will raise the next generation of American patriots. We will write the next thrilling chapter of the American adventure. And we will teach our children to know that they live in a land of legends, that nothing can stop them, and that no one can hold them down. They will know that in America, you can do anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

So, what was the problem? Perhaps it was that the presidents assertion that we are the greatest country in the world is under severe and sustained attack.

Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage.

In specific relation to Mount Rushmore, the president said,

This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore. They defile the memory of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. Today, we will set history and historys record straight.

I must say that the actions of protesters defacing and destroying statues to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt, among others, coupled with the apoplectic denunciation and mischaracterizations of his speech, certainly furnish evidence favoring the presidents assertion.

Before leaving the subject of the presidents Mount Rushmore speech, however, it must be said that the president did identify the most important thing about the Declaration, the distinction that has given it its enduring power  a belief that human rights come from God.

Contrast that with the French Revolution, which began with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, a mere 13 years after the American Declaration of Independence commenced the American Revolution. While many contemporaries thought they were essentially the same revolution (including Thomas Jefferson), they were wrong.

While there may have been superficial similarities, the enormous philosophical difference soon became apparent to all. The French Revolution in extremely short time degenerated into a horrendous and bloody reign of terror and a Napoleonic dictatorship that became the model for modern totalitarian regimes. In contrast, the American Revolution led to the longest, sustained democracy in the history of the world  the United States.

The essential and defining difference in the two revolutions can be identified in their foundational statements. As the president has pointed out, the American Revolution declared to the world, 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.

The French Revolution asserted the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, based purely on the human assertion of those rights, as opposed to the American Revolutions basing them on the Creator and natural law.

The American Revolution did not declare its independence from God  the French Revolution did. In fact, the French Revolution was virulently anti-religious and sought to go all the way back to the pre-Christian roots of European civilization, back to Greco-Roman paganism. They dressed up a famous French actress as the goddess of reason, placed her on the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral, and worshiped her.

The Judeo-Christian roots of the American Revolution laid the foundation that protected human rights instead of sacrificing them to the false glory of the secular state.

Thank God our forefathers were American, not French, and they worshiped the one true God, not themselves.

Our second president and one of the more prominent authors of the U.S. Constitution, John Adams, emphasized the importance of this difference. In 1798, which serving as president, he explained, We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.

President Adams understood that this new and unique experiment in self-government was a bold attempt to wed Judeo-Christian values and beliefs with Enlightenment ideas of self-government, which gave unprecedented freedom and liberties to ordinary people. However, John Adams also understood that such a deliberately limited self-government depended on an understanding that the vast majority of the citizenry would voluntarily obey the law even when no one was watching because they were aware of being accountable to a higher moral authority, namely God. If there were to come a time when human passions were no longer controlled by the internal morality and religion of the people, then the freedoms made possible by such limited government would ultimately collapse into moral license, social chaos, and economic disaster. In other words, Americas unprecedented liberties were inextricably intertwined with her Judeo-Christian beliefs, and societal abandonment of one would inevitably end in the loss of the other.

Given the events unfolding on the streets of our major cities in the last two months, John Adams words are indeed sobering.
UAE-based Modon Properties has awarded the infrastructure development contracts for phases three and four of Riyadh City South worth AED1.93 billion ($525 million), in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Housing Authority.

With this contract awarding, the total value of infrastructure development deals for the Riyadh City South has risen to AED5.83 billion.

The infrastructure works will begin this year and will cover a total area of 15.8 million sq m. Phase Three of the project covers 6,153,000 square metres, while phase four spans 9,647,000 square metres. Both phases make up roughly 45% of the total project area.

Jaber Mohammed Ghanem Al Suwaidi, General-Director of the Crown Prince Court of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Housing Authority, said: "This project falls in line with the efforts of the UAEs wise leadership to provide a high-quality of life for families, social stability for citizens, and sustainable communities for residents."

"The Riyadh City South is one of the most important housing projects in Abu Dhabi, and it will contribute significantly to the development of the housing sector in the UAEs capital," remarked Al Suwaidi.

We look forward to working together with Modon on Riyadh City South. This project forms a part of our ongoing initiatives designed to enhance our contribution to the development of integrated and sustainable residential communities built in accordance with the highest international standards. It also aligns with our vision of providing all Abu Dhabi residents with a high-quality of life, he added.

Modon Chairman Abdulla Al Sahi said: "We are delighted to announce the awarding of all the infrastructure works for Riyadh City South, one of the most significant housing initiatives in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi."

"Through this project, Modon is enriching the lives of citizens by providing them with an exceptional quality of life within a cohesive and sustainable community. Riyadh City South will cater to the needs of all residents by offering a range of comprehensive and integrated facilities," he added.

Modon began developing the infrastructure for the first, second, and fifth phases of Riyadh City South since last year, and officially commenced work on the remaining phases of the project during 2020.

The infrastructure work across the third and fourth phases includes the construction of internal and external roads, the installation of lighting systems, the construction of water and sewage networks, the implementation of groundwater level reduction systems, and the installation of rainwater drainage.

Two contractors, Tristar Engineering & Construction and Nurol were awarded the contracts for the development of the infrastructure.

Once completed, the infrastructure works for the two phases will span 5,438 residential plots, 5,326 villas, 112 townhouses, seven schools, four nurseries, one hospital, six medical clinics, 30 mosques, one civil defence centre, three fuel stations, two government facilities, 11 social service centres, and 24 commercial plots.

Upon the completion of all five phases of the project, Riyadh City South will encompass 14,765 residential plots, 133 commercial plots, 12,896 villas, and 1,869 townhouses.

In addition, the well-rounded community will be home to 18 schools and two universities, one hospital and 12 medical clinics, 84 mosques, five civil defence centres, nine fuel stations, nine government facilities, as well as 26 social service centres.

"We have a detailed construction schedule in place for the completion of all five phases of the project and are committed to continuing to contribute to the transformation of Abu Dhabis housing sector by delivering integrated and modern residential experiences in line with the future vision for Abu Dhabi," remarked Al Sahi.

"We are looking forward to completing all the construction works in accordance with the highest stands within the next three years," he added.

Abu Dhabi Housing Authority Director-General Bashir Khalfan Al Muhairbi, said: "The Riyadh City South project was in line with the Authoritys efforts to cater to the needs of citizens by developing residential communities that provide them with a diverse range of facilities and amenities, supporting social stability and family life."

It aligns with the Abu Dhabi Governments strategy of building integrated and sustainable residential communities, stated Al Muhairbi.

"This involves creating neighbourhoods that cater to the needs of citizens and residents by offering an integrated range of community facilities, including parks, schools, shops, mosques, medical centres, and community centres," he added.

Covering an area of 8,000 hectares, equivalent to 85% of the area of Abu Dhabi Island, Riyadh City is ideally situated near the UAE capital.

Riyadh City, which was previously known as South Shamkha and Al Wathba North, represents a new modern style of sustainable and vibrant living in Abu Dhabi, and has been specifically designed for UAE citizens.

It has been designed to be close to major road networks leading to and from Abu Dhabi City, as well as important urban and industrial areas. The new city is 30km from the island of Abu Dhabi, and a short distance from a range of major landmarks surrounding the UAEs capital.-TradeArabia News Service
Naftogaz starts drilling new gas well in Kherson region

11:20, 22.07.20 182

The design daily flow rate at the Strilkove field is 40,000 cubic meters.
Voting in the Green Party leadership contest has closed, however members will not find out who has won until Thursday.

Party members have been voting for current leader Eamon Ryan, who has held the role since May 2011, and Catherine Martin, who has been deputy leader of the party since June 2011.

The deadline for the receipt of ballots for the leadership contest was 5.30pm on Wednesday.

Ballots were issued to 2,336 Green Party members in the Republic of Ireland, and to 598 Green Party members in Northern Ireland.

Almost 2,000 Green Party members had voted in the leadership contest by lunchtime on Wednesday.

The count will take place on Thursday with the result expected to be announced at 7pm.

Counting will be overseen by independent auditors while observers from both of the candidates will also be present.

Both candidates have been setting out their stalls in recent weeks in a bid to secure the leadership role.

Ms Martin told a previous hustings that she wanted to become leader to help the party achieve their goals in Government, adding that experience was not a prerequisite to becoming a leader.

After the Greens voted to go into Government, Ms Martin said that there was a missed opportunity by her party to promote women within its ranks to ministerial positions.

Ms Martin was also critical that Green TDs who opposed the Programme for Government document were excluded from the Cabinet table.

She said that while the party talks the talk on promoting diversity and inclusivity, it is not backing that up with action.

Ms Martin previously said: I guess as a female pilot politician and someone who set up the caucus, I would always seek to promote women in our party.

But having said that, all Green Party ministers who are there are good for the job and I respect the decision there.

That was the prerogative of Eamon as leader but I do feel that forever we have women who have proven that they are ready and very able, then we should always seek to promote because young girls cannot aim to be what they cannot see and we should always be seeking to do that to promote women.

Mr Ryan, meanwhile, used the hustings as an opportunity to focus on his experienced in government and as the Minister for Climate Action.

He said he wanted to remain as party leader, adding that his experience at the helm is important.

While the leader attracted some criticism when he appeared to be sleeping during a vote in the Dail last week, it is not expected to impact the final vote.

Once the vote has been declared, both candidates are expected to give a short speech.
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Public policy wonks tend to look at the question of the legalization of marijuana from a purely social angle. They check to see how such legalization would affect the health and security of society. The legalization of weed, however, has fiscal implications that are often overlooked. Lets get a glimpse of how much money the U.S. is losing by failing to legalize marijuana and how far legalization would go to help solve some of the most urgent issues in the U.S, plus how tax revenue collected from marijuana is spent.

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How Much Money is The U.S. Losing for Not Legalizing Marijuana?

By not legalizing marijuana, the United States government at all levels loses money in two ways: the cost of marijuana prohibition enforcement and tax revenue from marijuana.

State and Local Loss Attributable to Marijuana Prohibition, millions of dollars, 2016

State Expenditures to Marijuana prohibition Marijuana tax revenue Total loss Alabama 51.20 60.81 112.01 Alaska 17.40 9.24 26.64 Arizona 96.70 85.41 182.11 Arkansas 40.30 37.3 77.6 California 951.40 488.49 1439.89 Colorado 64.20 68.26 132.46 Connecticut 74.10 44.91 119.01 Delaware 25.1 11.83 36.93 Florida 180.40 253.62 434.02 Georgia 424.00 127.77 551.77 Hawaii 33.90 17.85 51.75 Idaho 23.2 20.71 43.91 Illinois 125.40 160.84 286.24 Indiana 236.50 82.84 319.34 Iowa 59.00 39.11 98.11 Kansas 54.20 36.41 90.61 Kentucky 56.80 55.43 112.23 Louisiana 72.20 58.49 130.69 Maine 63.50 16.65 80.15 Maryland 77.50 75.1 152.6 Massachusetts 115.50 84.99 200.49 Michigan 200.90 124.24 325.14 Minnesota 130.70 68.68 199.38 Mississippi 86.30 37.45 123.75 Missouri 76.60 76.12 152.72 Montana 28.7 12.93 41.63 Nebraska 31.1 23.72 54.82 Nevada 34.60 36.13 70.73 New Hampshire 65.20 16.66 81.86 New Jersey 117.80 111.94 229.74 New Mexico 59.30 26.06 85.36 New York 308.80 247.38 556.18 North Carolina 263.30 125.71 389.01 North Dakota 153.70 9.48 163.18 Ohio 111.00 145.38 256.38 Oklahoma 209.50 48.95 258.45 Oregon 57.20 50.42 107.62 Pennsylvania 179.60 160.25 339.85 Rhode Island 76.10 13.22 89.32 South Carolina 47.40 61.32 108.72 South Dakota 67.50 10.75 78.25 Tennessee 53.90 82.62 136.52 Texas 291.30 343.62 634.92 Utah 151.90 37.46 189.36 Vermont 19.5 7.84 27.34 Virginia 81.20 104.82 186.02 Washington 82.40 89.7 172.1 West Virginia 94.50 23.06 117.56 Wisconsin 62.70 72.26 134.96 Wyoming 42.90 7.35 50.25 District of Columbia 8.5 8.4 16.9 Total 6,036.60 4,019.98 10,056.58

Federal Loss Attributable to Marijuana Prohibition, billions of dollars, 2016

Expenditures to Marijuana prohibition Marijuana tax revenue Total loss 3.96 39.21 43.17

Data source: https://www.cato.org/publications/tax-budget-bulletin/budgetary-effects-ending-drug-prohibition

The total amount of money lost by all states due to marijuana prohibition is $10.05 billion, while the Federal Government loses $25.64 billion. Among the states, California loses the most money at $1.4 billion, while the District of Columbia loses the $16.9 million, which is the lowest of all jurisdictions. The total losses associated with this prohibition is a very substantial $53.23 billion.

What Can $53.23 Billion Do?

It costs $10.4 billion to treat all the cases of flu in the U.S. $53.23 billion can finance the treatment of all flu cases in America for 5 years.

Coronavirus has been declared a global pandemic, and governments are grappling with its social and economic cost. According to Business Insider, It costs $1,425 to treat one case of the COVID-19 virus. $53.23 billion would fund treatment for 37,354,386 patients . This is equivalent to the populations of Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania put together.

. This is equivalent to the populations of Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania put together. How many people can this money provide medical insurance? A premium for average employment medical insurance costs $1, 242 annually, according to Investopedia. $53.23 billion can put 42,858,293 Americans under medical insurance. This is equivalent to the entire population of Nevada and California combined.

under medical insurance. This is equivalent to the entire population of Nevada and California combined. One of the most important preventive measures for coronavirus is using alcohol-based hand sanitizers. A pack of two 12-ounce sanitizers goes for $149 (data collected in March 3th). $53.23 billion is more than enough to buy a package for every last American !

! Face masks are another critical preventive measure. The average cost of a box of 20 masks is $400 (data collected in March 3th). The money saved from legalizing marijuana can buy 134,075,000 boxes kitting the entire population of the five most densely populated cities in the U.S.

Marijuana Tax Revenues Deployment across States

Weve talked bout how the potential economic benefits of legalizing marijuana,now its time to dig deeper into how money from marijuana is spent in reality.

Some states in America have legalized marijuana and included the marijuana business into the tax bracket. These revenues have been increasing every year in all the states that have legalized it. The following are some of these states and how they deploy their tax revenues:

Alaska

Total tax revenue: $10,801,357 (F.Y 2018)

All revenues collected through the marijuana tax are deposited into the general fund, but the State Senate has mandated the creation of a sub-fund for marijuana revenues. The find is referred to as the Recidivism Reduction Fund.

The money is then distributed as follows:

Alaska Department of Administration  50%

Marijuana Education  25%

General fund  25%

The legislature has discretion on how to spend the 25% that remains in the general fund. They usually reserve it to reduce recidivism through programs in the Department of Corrections, Department of Health and Social Services, and the Department of Public Safety.

California

Total tax revenue: $635,000,000 (F.Y 2019)

The funds are usually distributed as follows:

Youth anti-drug programs  60%

Environmental Conservation  20%

Public Service Management  20%

Although this revenue goes to these broad categories, it is channeled to different specific activities as below:

Support of children from low-income families who are in childcare

To support and equip police and fire departments from cities where marijuana dispensaries are located.

To fight against the illegal growth of marijuana and the restoration of wildlands

To help youth who are at risk of falling into drug abuse to keep them from getting hooked

Provides financing grants to social workers in the state

To finance parks and other recreational locations

To pay for cannabis research. This head finances institutions that research both the science and related policy.

Colorado

Total tax revenue: $302,458,426 (F.Y 2018)

The 15% taxed on recreational marijuana is shared on a 90:10 basis between the state and local authorities, respectively. The 2.9% levied on medical marijuana goes to the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund alongside another 2.9% levied on all non-marijuana products that are sold in retail marijuana outlets.

The 90% from recreational marijuana that goes into the states general fund is subdivided as follows.

71.85% goes to the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund

15.56% is retained to the general fund to be used for general state expenses

12.59% goes to public schools where it is used for the education of children from kindergarten to grade 12

Massachusetts

Total tax revenue: $84,000,000 (F.Y 2018)

The revenue is first used to finance the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC). State legislation dictates that the remainder should be used on initiatives that help reduce any negative impacts associated with the use of cannabis in the state.

The Cannabis Control Commission breaks down activities geared towards reducing the negative impacts of marijuana:

Public awareness campaigns

Public behavioral health

Evidence-based substance abuse prevention

Substance abuse training

Youth education at the local level

Public safety and

Municipal police training

Possible activities for the restoration of communities adversely affected by marijuana-related imprisonment include: 

Restorative justice

Diversion programs

Technical assistance for the cannabis industry

Mentorship, and

Workforce development

Michigan

Total tax revenue: $59,000,000 (F.Y 2018)

Marijuana revenue is distributed as follows in this state.

30% goes to the counties where the marijuana outlets are located. The more the outlets in a county, the more significant the portion of the funds they get.

30% goes to the First Responder Presumed Coverage Fund from which the state receives money to pay disability claims for first responders.

25% is allocated to the municipalities where marijuana outlets are located. The amount is shared out proportionately according to the number of facilities in a particular city so that the city with more outlets gets more of the funds.

5% for the support of sheriffs in whose counties marijuana facilities are located. This allocation is distributed using the same formula as the rest where the Sheriffs Department in whose jurisdiction more facilities are located receives more funding than the rest, and all the others receive proportionately.

5% to Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards. This money is used to train law enforcers on law enforcement in general and the aspect of law enforcement related to marijuana.

5% to the Department of State Police

Nevada

Total tax revenue: $69,800,000 (F.Y 2018)

The taxes are distributed for different purposes as follows.

52.1% goes to local governments in which the marijuana sale facilities are located. These are municipalities and counties. These funds are distributed proportionately according to the number of facilities in each of the local jurisdictions.

41.4% is for the State General Fund, where the state legislature allocates it at its discretion alongside all the other funds in the general fund.

2.6% State Distributive School Fund where the money is used to finance general education and also inform pupils about the use of marijuana and the associated dangers.

Oregon

Total tax revenue: $115,915,277 (F.Y 2019)

The law breaks down the distribution of these resources as follows.

40% goes to education. This refers to K-12 schools, and the money, therefore, forms a part of resources used to manage the general education of children in the state and not just to train them about marijuana.

20% is sent to the Oregon Mental Health, Alcoholism and Drug Services to help combat mental illness, treat those who have problems with drugs, and to deal with recidivism.

15% to the State Police to aid in matters enforcement. This money increases the capacity of police organizations in the state and enables them to handle any possible additional workload that may directly or indirectly arise due to marijuana usage.

5% of the amount goes to the states authority on the prevention of drug and alcohol abuse.

Washington

Total tax revenue: $395,500,000 (F.Y 2019)

The law states clearly that all the money gathered in the Dedicated Marijuana Fund should be disbursed every three months as follows:

$125,000 to the Department of Social and Health Services. This money is intended for research on the impact of drugs on the youth. Some of the specific areas the survey researches include how drugs affect academic performance and the general behavior of youth in the state.

$50,000 to the same department to do a cost-benefit analysis of the entire marijuana industry on the state as a whole.

$5,000 to Washington State University to help run its drug and alcohol abuse institute.

$1,250,000 to the Liquor Control Board to be spent for marijuana regulation, such as preventing illegal farming, inspections, and enforcement of standards, among others.

The amount that remains after these deductions is spent as follows.
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Market Highlights

The sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor is a rare type of cancer derived from the stromal component of the ovary and testis. This tumor comprises granulosa, thecal cells, and fibrocytes. Sex cord-gonadal stromal tumors are mostly of seven types, namely, granulosa cell tumor, Sertoli cell tumor, thecoma, Leydig cell tumor, gynandroblastoma, Sex Cord Tumor with Annular Tubules (SCTAT), and Sertoli Leydig cell tumor. In humans, this type of tumor accounts for 8% of the ovarian cancers and around 5% of testicular cancers.

It is noted that the increasing cases of ovarian and testicular cancer, technological advancements, and increasing healthcare expenditure are the key factors driving the sex cord gonadal stromal tumor market.

Various other factors such as the growing awareness about the cord-gonadal stromal tumor, unmet medical needs, enhancing regulatory framework, increasing government assistance, and rising funding and reimbursement are continuously contributing to the growth of the global sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market.

Owing to the increasing cases of ovarian and testicular cancer, technological advancements, increasing healthcare expenditure, growing awareness about sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor, unmet medical needs, enhancing regulatory framework, increasing government assistance, and rising funding and reimbursement, the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market has evolved significantly.

However, huge capital investments with low-profit margins, strict FDA regulations, and poor healthcare system in low and middle-income countries are likely to hamper the growth of the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market over the forecast period.

It is estimated that the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period of 2017-2023.

Key Players

Some of the key players in the global sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market are Abbott, Abcam plc, Affymetrix, Inc., Agilent Technologies, Inc., Beckman, Dickinson and Company (BD), Bio SB Inc., BioCurex, BioModa, Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, Cell Signaling Technology, Inc., Clarient, Inc., CooperSurgical Inc., Correlogic Systems, Inc., Danaher Corporation, Epigenomics AG, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Gen-Probe, Inc., Hologic, Inc., Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Karl Storz GmbH & Co. Kg, LiNA Medical USA, Merck Millipore, PerkinElmer, Inc., Qiagen, Radient Pharmaceuticals, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Veridex LLC, and others.

Regional Analysis

The Americas dominates the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market owing to the increasing prevalence of ovarian cancer in this region and high healthcare expenditure. According to the American Cancer Society, around 22,240 women are likely to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 14,070 women are likely to die from ovarian cancer, in 2018.

Europe holds the second position in the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market. The financial support provided by the government towards R&D and technological advancements are expected to drive the European sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market. The increasing healthcare expenditure is also boosting the European sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market.

According to the data suggested by Eurostat, it is observed that among the EU Member States, the highest value of healthcare expenditure was recorded in Germany in 2014, i.e., EUR 321 billion which is further followed by France with EUR 237 billion and United Kingdom with EUR 223 billion. In 2016, the R&D expenditure in the pharmaceutical industry was EUR 35000 million, suggested by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Association.

Asia Pacific is the fastest growing sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market owing to a huge patient pool and development in the pharmaceutical sector. Healthcare expenditure is found to be boosting in various regions of Asia Pacific. As per the data suggested by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare during the year 2015-2016, the total health expenditure was nearly USD 170.4 billion, i.e., 3.6% higher than the expenditure of 2014-2015.

The Middle East and Africa holds the lowest share of the global market due to slow development, lack of technical knowledge, and poor medical facilities.

Segmentation

The global sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market is segmented on the basis of type, diagnosis, treatment, and end-user.

On the basis of tumor type, the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market is classified as granulosa cell tumor, Sertoli cell tumor, thecoma, Leydig cell tumor, Sertoli Leydig cell tumor, gynandroblastoma, and Sex Cord Tumor with Annular Tubules (SCTAT). The granulosa cell tumor is further classified as functioning tumors and non-functioning tumors.

On the basis of diagnosis, the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market is classified as microscopy immunohistochemistry, tumor marker, ultrasound, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and others. The tumor marker segment is further classified as inhibin-alpha, calretinin, Melan-A, and others.

On the basis of treatment, the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market is classified as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and others. The surgery segment is further classified as salpingo-oophorectomy, abdominal hysterectomy, Retroperitoneal Lymph Node Dissection (RPLND), and radical inguinal orchiectomy. The sub-segment of salpingo-oophorectomy includes unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy.

On the basis of end-user, the sex cord-gonadal stromal tumor market is segmented into hospitals and clinics, cancer research centers, research and academic institutes, and others.

Get full report @https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/sex-cord-gonadal-stromal-tumor-market-5912

Intended Audience

Medical Device Companies

Research and Development (R&D) Companies

Diagnostic Laboratories

Government Research Institutes

Academic Institutes and Universities

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Endometrial Cancer Market

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Jeremy Corbyn faces legal action over Labours antisemitism scandal after Sir Keir Starmer turned on him and declared the party to be under new management.

The leader and his predecessor clashed openly for the first time after the party agreed to pay substantial damages to seven whistleblowers over defamatory and false allegations made following a Panorama investigation.

Labour also issued an unreserved apology to the former staff members and to John Ware, the journalist who presented the programme.

Mr Corbyn reacted angrily, denouncing the decision to settle in court as political, rather than legal, and insisting: Our legal advice was that the party had a strong defence.

The settlement risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about the actions taken to tackle antisemitism under his leadership, his statement claimed.

It prompted Mr Ware to begin legal action. Mark Lewis, from Patron Law, who represented both him and the whistleblowers said: I can confirm that I have been instructed to pursue cases.

Earlier, Sir Keir made clear his break with the old regime, telling Boris Johnson, during a clash over the Russia report: The Labour Party is under new management.

The High Court settlement  Labour refused to comment on speculation it was as high as 500,000  followed a July 2019 Panorama broadcast entitled Is Labour Anti-Semitic?.

Seven former employees from the partys governance and legal unit, which investigated misconduct allegations against party members, highlighted a lack of commitment by their bosses.

Protests against Labour antisemitism Show all 14 1 /14 Protests against Labour antisemitism Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters clashed during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism in the Labour Party AFP/Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters hold placards and flags during a demonstration, organised by the British Board of Jewish Deputies for those who oppose antisemitism, in Parliament Square Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square to protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP Luciana Berger speaks during the protest PA Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester blows through a shofar during the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of London's Jewish community protest in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn outside parliament EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP John Mann speaks during a protest against antisemitism PA Protests against Labour antisemitism People protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party as Jewish community leaders have launched a scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he has sided with antisemites again and again PA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour politicians Stella Creasy and Chuka Umunna leave after attending the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A pro-Jeremy Corbyn protester holds a placard during a counter-protest Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A support of the Labour Party hold up a placard during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Jeremy Corbyn supporters during the demo Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester holds up a sign reading For the many, not the Jew AFP

They then sued Labour after it issued a press release describing them as having personal and political axes to grind.

In a statement, Labour admitted that the party, under Mr Corbyn, had issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about their own employees and Mr Ware.

On the whistleblowers, it said: We unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and lying. We would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress, embarrassment and hurt caused by their publication. We have agreed to pay them damages.

But Mr Corbyn hit back, saying: The partys decision to apologise today and make substantial payments to former staff who sued the party in relation to last years Panorama programme is a political decision, not a legal one.

The decision to settle these claims in this way is disappointing, and risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle antisemitism in the Labour Party in recent years.

His close ally Len McCluskey, the Unite union chief, protested: Todays settlement is a misuse of Labour Party funds to settle a case it was advised we would win in court.

The Jewish Labour Movement said: It is a sad reflection of its historic role as the party of working people that Labour sought to pursue and silence its former employees for speaking out against racism.
A 60-year-old farmer died on Wednesday morning after being attacked with sharp-edged weapons and sticks by some unidentified assailants in a village in Baran district, police said.

The victim, Krishanmurari Mali, was sleeping under a tin shade near his farm in Sakatpur village in the Atru police station area on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday when he was attacked, they said.

Mali sustained critical injuries to the head and the chest, and was rushed to the Baran district hospital, where he died around 3 am on Wednesday, SHO Harlal said.

A case of murder was lodged against unidentified accused and an investigation initiated, the officer said.

The body was handed over to the family members after an autopsy, he added. PTI CORR IJT IJT
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22) -- The Department of National Defense (DND) is putting on hold over a dozen military projects under its modernization program as it cuts spending to help government fund the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Wednesday that the department has remitted P19.3 billion of unused funds to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

With this, Lorenzana pointed out, there will be a "reprogramming of the budget from some (DND) projects toward the COVID fund."

"Out of the 19.3 billion pesos returned to DBM, 9.4 billion (pesos) was for the modernization (program of the military)," Lorenzana said during a forum along with other department heads in preparation for President Rodrigo Dutertes State of the Nation Address next week.

Lorenzana, however, explained that most of the projects that will be delayed for a few years "are not very critical to the mission" of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Of the 15 modernization projects that were put on hold for the meantime, Lorezana noted five are considered "big-ticket" items:

-3.5 billion for the Army's C4ISTAR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance) equipment

-2.2 billion worth of equipment and vehicles for the Army's combat engineering units

-1.4 billion for the procurement of Army light tanks

-800 million for the acquisition of the Navy's landing dock vessels

-264 million for the purchase of the Air Force's medium lift aircraft

"These funds are not yet obligated and the procurement process is still ongoing so they can be postponed to later period without affecting the effectiveness of the AFP," Lorenzana said in a message to CNN Philippines.

Other DND funds that were not utilized and turned over to DBM were the P9.7 billion for capital outlay and P125 million for MOOE (maintenance and other operating expenses).

Lorenzana said there is no timetable on when the shelved modernization projects will be implemented since these are "just shoved into the rear for future consideration."
After a series of major offshore oil discoveries since 2015, with the largest ever made earlier this year, the tiny South American country of Guyana has become a hotspot for international oil majors. The deeply impoverished former British colonys oil potential is being compared to nearby Brazil and that countrys prolific pre-salt oil fields. By February 2020, another oil discovery by Exxon in the Starbroek block lifted the global integrated energy majors recoverable resource estimate to 8 billion barrels. If that assessment translates into oil reserves, it will catapult the impoverished South American country into an exclusive global club comprised of the top-20 countries by oil reserves. This highlights the considerable oil wealth possessed by Guyana and its population of 800,000 people. Those discoveries sparked an investment frenzy as foreign oil majors and smaller upstream explorers scrambled to acquire interests in various offshore oil blocks in Guyana.

It is easy to understand the substantial interest in Guyanas offshore oil potential. The Guyana-Suriname basin, two decades ago, was rated by the U.S. Geological Survey as the second-most prospective unexplored oil basin globally. Guyanas deep-water offshore hydrocarbon complexes have been compared to Brazils prolific offshore oil basins.

The economics are impressive. According to industry consultancy Wood MacKenzie, Guyanas Liza Complex, where Exxons discoveries were made, has development returns over 30% and full-life breakeven costs of $40 per barrel. That makes them highly attractive to develop, even in the current difficult operating environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic and March 2020 oil price crash.

Exxons 2017 Liza discovery alone, in the Stabroek Block, is estimated to hold 100 million to 150 million barrels of oil equivalent. In December 2019, Liza Phase 1, comprising 17 wells, started pumping oil in December 2019 and is expected to reach full production capacity of 120,000 barrels daily during 2020. The Liza Phase 2 project, which is expected to come on-line by the end of 2022, will add another 220,000 barrels daily of oil production.

Related: $40 Oil Isnt Enough For Saudi Arabia

Exxon is also working on the Payara development which could commence operations as early as 2023 producing 220,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily. The oil major anticipates it will be producing 750,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from the offshore Stabroek Block by 2025. The integrated energy major isnt the only oil company operating in Guyana. Other international oil explorers and producers have acquired interests in various offshore oil blocks, among them Hess, Tullow Oil, Equinor and CGX.

Map of the Stabroek Block. Source: Guyana Times.

Exxons significant investment coupled with the interest of many other international oil companies increases the likelihood of Guyana realizing its oil potential. If Exxon successfully executes the projects under way Guyanas will become the fourth largest oil producer in Latin America. That is bound to generate considerable wealth, even at todays low oil prices, for the deeply impoverished country.

The development timeline for Guyanas offshore oil discoveries are remarkable. In the space of roughly five years the first discovery has achieved commercial production. That can be attributed to the appealing economics with breakeven prices of $30 per barrel or less and an impressive rate of return for the capital invested.

For these reasons, even the latest oil price crash will do little to slow investment and Guyanas burgeoning oil boom will keep growing at a solid clip. The petroleum bearing geological formations in the Guyana-Suriname Basin have been compared to those which underpin Brazils prolific pre-salt oil fields. Brazils state-controlled oil company Petrobras claims its pre-salt wells have an average lifting cost of roughly $5 per barrel and breakeven at around $21 per barrel. That, along with accelerating investment in Guyanas oil fields leading to technological and infrastructure improvements, indicates that breakeven costs could fall to well under $40 per barrel. Industry consultants Wood Mackenzie issued a report earlier this year pointing to a $30 per barrel breakeven price for the Stabroek block. That makes Guyanas offshore oil plays an especially attractive long-term investment even in the current difficult operating environment.

Related: Where Will Bakken Oil Go When Pipelines Run Dry?



The impoverished South America countrys considerable petroleum wealth and rapidly growing oil production will give the economy an unimaginable boost. The IMF forecasts that Guyanas 2020 gross domestic production will expand by an incredible 53% year over year. That is compared to the IMF predicting Latin Americas regional GDP will shrink by 9.4% this year.

While Guyana possesses the potential to become a leading petroleum producer and experience unimaginable economic growth, leading some analysts to claim it could be the next Qatar, there are fears it isnt adequately equipped to manage such a monumental oil boom. Recent events point to Guyana being a risky and unstable jurisdiction. The South American country is mired in a political crisis which emerged from the disputed March 2020 election. There were allegations of vote tampering and electoral fraud. The countrys political system is ethnically divided, further complicating the impasse.

The longevity of the unresolved crisis could lead to an illegitimate government. Such governments are more likely to engage in unscrupulous activities as well as implement highly bureaucratic legal and regulatory frameworks that can be easily compromised, facilitating corruption. A long history of weak government institutions and a lack of transparency relating to the award of petroleum licenses, as well as related profit-sharing agreements, is ringing alarm bells.

Those risks are heightened by the global COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. demanding that President David Granger step aside and comply with the election results. U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo has flagged visa restrictions for anyone Washington believes is undermining democracy in Guyana.

Such circumstances could cause Guyanas vast oil wealth to be squandered. They also ratchet-up the political risk for oil companies investing in the South American country. Guyana will become South Americas latest mega oil boom that even the latest oil price crash cant derail, but geopolitical risks abound. If they materialize, those risks will fuel further instability creating a tense political atmosphere and murky regulatory environment. This could delay oil projects costing the government billions of dollars in revenue and act as a deterrent for further investment.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
A group of more than 60 current and former state and federal prosecutors signed a statement Monday defending St. Louis city prosecutor Kim Gardner, who filed felony weapons charges against a couple who brandished guns toward protesters in their neighborhood last month, and denouncing political interference in the case.

The group denounced political interference in the case after Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, R, filed an amicus brief asking for the charges to be dismissed. The attorney general in Missouri has no jurisdiction in criminal cases, and no motion to dismiss has been filed, but Schmitt has criticized Gardner and her handling of the case.

Schmitt has been joined by President Donald Trump and other Missouri Republicans in lambasting Gardner since she announced that she would investigate lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey for pointing guns at marchers outside their home on June 28. She filed felony counts of unlawful use of a weapon against both McCloskeys on Monday.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday that the president thought that the charges against the McCloskeys were "absolutely absurd" and "an extreme abuse of power by the prosecutor."

On Wednesday, a group of 67 state and federal prosecutors, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, former Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti, and current prosecutors in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas and elsewhere issued a joint statement condemning the "shameful, aggressive and blatantly political attacks on Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner."

Barbara McQuade, the former U.S. attorney for eastern Michigan, told The Post, "President Trump needs to realize he's no longer a loudmouth at the country club. He's the president, he's using a bully pulpit to have influence on public opinion, and it's improper influence that can put a heavy thumb on the scales of justice."

"The political and personal attacks by state and federal politicians against Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner," said Channing Phillips, the former U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., "threaten the ability of every prosecutor in this country to do the job they were elected to do."

During the course of civil rights protests in St. Louis last month, a stream of marchers walked to the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson, located in a gated community of the city's Central West End. Video obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows the marchers streaming through an open, undamaged gate and walking past the McCloskey mansion.

Almost immediately, Mark McCloskey can be seen shouting at the protesters and wielding a rifle, while organizers tell the marchers to keep moving. Mark McCloskey and his wife then moved from the terrace of the home to the lawn, videos show, with Patricia McCloskey aiming a pistol at the marchers, who do not appear intent on attacking the McCloskey home.

The videos caused Gardner, D, a reformist prosecutor facing a reelection primary next month, to say she would investigate whether the McCloskeys had committed a crime. St. Louis police executed a search warrant and seized the McCloskeys' two guns, and then submitted an investigation to Gardner for possible charges.

Gardner's actions outraged Missouri Republicans. Gov. Mike Parson, also facing reelection this year, called for Gardner to resign, then said if the McCloskeys were convicted, he would pardon them. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr demanding a civil rights investigation. Trump said any attempt by Gardner to prosecute would be "a disgrace."

Gardner said she received death threats from around the country as the McCloskey case soared to national prominence. And when Gardner filed charges Monday, state Attorney General Schmitt immediately filed an "amicus," or "friend of the court," brief supporting a motion to dismiss charges. Judges in Missouri criminal cases may accept or deny amicus briefs from outside parties, and are not required to abide by the opinions submitted.

"It's disheartening to see politicians," said Wesley Bell, the prosecutor of neighboring St. Louis County, "some of whom have no law enforcement experience, interfering in cases and trying to engineer outcomes." Bell, elected in 2018 as a reformist, said despite the politics of elections, "a prosecutor should endeavor to be as apolitical as possible. To attack just a charging decision, after a full investigation, or try to encourage an outcome prior to it getting to a jury, is to me indefensible and completely against the idea of our constitution and our justice system."

Bell was one of the 67 prosecutors who signed the letter in defense of Gardner, organized by Fair and Just Prosecution. "We should all be concerned when enforcing the law," the prosecutors wrote, "including conducting a local investigation and bringing charges consistent with the law - even if at odds with the political agenda of some - becomes the basis for personal and vicious attacks against the elected local prosecutor."

Among the signers of the letter are San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner, Cook County, Ill., state's attorney Kim Foxx, Boston district attorney Rachael Rollins and Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby. In the Washington area, the prosecutors of Fairfax, Va., Prince George's, Md., Arlington, Va., and Loudoun, Va., counties and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine also signed the letter.
SEOUL, South Korea  When the United Nations imposed its toughest sanctions yet on North Korea in 2017, one of the main targets was squid.

It was one of the countrys top exports, and the Security Council hoped to bring the trade to a halt, as part of the international effort to pressure the North into giving up nuclear weapons.

But squid fishing in North Korean waters has continued on a large scale, a nonprofit group that tracks commercial fishing said Thursday. And the boats bringing in most of the catch are not North Korean, but Chinese  dark fleets that defy sanctions enforcement by concealing their locations and identities.

Since the sanctions took effect, Chinese vessels have caught more than half a billion dollars worth of squid, says the group, Global Fishing Watch, which advocates for sustainable fishing. That money does not go to North Korea, but the boats pay the North for fishing rights  an arrangement that has been in place for more than 15 years, and which still brings in hard currency for the pariah state, despite the ban.
plc, a world leader in data storage and management solutions, today announced the availability of its Exos and Nytro Systems in India.

With this launch, Seagate partners with Kronicles to introduce a revolutionary modular approach to building and deploying storage systems that solve the specific needs of public and private Cloud providers, service providers, and traditional data centers.

The global data sphere is projected to grow to 175 zettabytes by the year 20251, and businesses are facing a phenomenal growth in data sources and data volume that needs to be stored and processed.

In order to tame this complexity and continue to put data to work during this IT 4.0 environment, a multi-tier architecture that connects the Cloud, the Edge, the Internet of Things, and traditional enterprise data centers is required.

Seagate's Exos and Nytro System designs deliver modular flexibility combining a selection of Seagate Exos and Nytro drives in enclosures, enabling IT architects and data center managers to build versatile architectures that are designed to grow.

All system components, including the enclosure, the controller, the firmware, and the drives, are developed by Seagate to work together seamlessly and all critical components are interchangeable regardless of size or budget.

"We are excited to introduce our Exos and Nytro systems in India to serve emerging IT 4.0 markets, as well as Cloud and traditional data center customers," said Sameer Bhatia, Director of Asia Pacific Consumer Business Group and Country Manager for SAARC & India,

"Our goal is to arm customers and partners with the right technologies to empower their businesses. With modular products that deliver versatility and usability, customers will enjoy drastically simplified user experience while successfully addressing their diverse business needs," added Sameer.

"Kronicles offerings are built on the three key attributes of 'Performance, Simplicity and Dense Design.' Seagate's storage systems have amazing synergy with these principles, and we are very excited to partner with Seagate to deliver these products to the market. Kronicles uses Seagate systems to power up modern data solution for its object storage, hyper-converged infrastructure, and software-defined storage solutions, delivered in a consumption-based model to accelerate and solve today's modern business challenges," said Eric Liew, Regional Sales Director, Kronicles.

Seagate Exos Systems

Seagate Exos storage systems provide the data sphere's largest data center building block. By matching Seagate's industry-leading high-capacity Exos enterprise hard drives with an enclosure that leverages up to 106 devices, it can provide an unprecedented 1.7 PB (petabyte) of business intelligence in only 4U of rack space. It delivers industry-first capacity and density without sacrificing data access speed. With an overall maximum bandwidth of 36GB/s, users can access business-critical and archival data with lightning speed.

This enclosure is suited for high data retention requirements that are expected to grow. Its innovative drive placement maximizes airflow and minimizes power consumption, and unique performance, efficiency, and scalability features provide an unprecedented low TCO. The system's new modular, the user-focused design minimizes system downtime and it features tool-less drive carriers that allow an administrator to snap drives into the 106 bays in minutes.

Seagate Nytro Systems

Seagate's Nytro all-flash and flash-intensive systems offer modular flexibility combining Seagate Nytro flash drives in enclosures that houses up to 24 drives. Offering up to 12Gb/s speed and effective maximum throughput of 14.4GB/s per I/O module or 28.8GB/s in a dual controller configuration, these systems are optimized to support the data sphere's highest-performance platform for maximum IOPS at minimum cost.

Seagate Nytro systems are suited for high-capacity, transaction-dependent environments that demand tighter Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements and faster response times for optimal data availability.

Availability

Seagate Exos and Nytro Systems are available through Kronicles for distribution in India. For more information on Exos and Nytro Systems, please visit www.seagate.com/enterprise-storage/systems/.

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.

(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.)
'When you have a committee, there will not be any autocracy.'

'It means one person cannot take any decision on the temple.'

The Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala would have remained unknown to the rest of the world if treasure worth billions of rupees was not discovered in the secret vaults (kallara) of the temple in 2011.

Suddenly, people from all over the world started rushing to the Kerala capital to have a look at the world's richest temple.

This was also the beginning of a legal tussle between the state government and the Travancore royal family which managed the temple.

The Kerala high court in 2011 passed an order asking the state to constitute a board to manage the affairs of the temple, a ruling that was against the Travancore royal family.

The appeal against this verdict was filed by the royal family in the Supreme Court. Last week, the highest court in India pronounced a verdict hailed as a landmark judgment by many.

In a way, the Supreme Court upheld the rights of the erstwhile royal family in the administration and management of the temple.

The court also said that the death of the last ruler would not affect the rights of the shebait (one who renders service or seva to the idol or a deity) of the family over the deity.

Analysing the verdict in an interview with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com is historian Professor M G Sasibhooshan, an expert on the temple. The first of a two-part interview:

When I spoke to you in 2011, you had said the treasure belonged to the temple and nobody else.

Now the Supreme Court, quashing the high court judgment, has said that the administration of the temple lies with the royal family. How do you interpret the judgment?

As a person who went through the entire judgment, I would say that if the administration was centralised till now. The Supreme Court has taken a decision to decentralise it.

When I say the administration was centralised, what it means is, as per the covenant, the temple had been under the exclusive management of successive rulers from the Travancore royal family for centuries.

Based on the covenant they signed in 1949, there was a trust and on behalf of the trust, the ruler of the royal family was entitled to appoint an executive officer to take care of the temple.

The new verdict changes that.

Now, the responsibility to find a suitable person as the EO lies with an administrative committee.

As per the court verdict, the committee will be chaired by a district court judge, a member of the Travancore royal family, the tantri of the temple, and one representative each from the central and state governments.

Why then has the verdict been interpreted as one in favour of the Travancore royal family, and that the administration of the temple will continue to be under them?

I don't think they will have the same administrative powers that they had before. I see the constitution of the committee as decentralising administrative powers.

When you have a committee like this, there will not be any autocracy. You should understand that this will become a public trust.

The stand of the family prior to 2011 was that it was a private trust. But in 2011, they submitted a new affidavit in the Supreme Court and admitted that it was a public trust. It also means one person cannot take any decision on the temple.

You mean unlike during the days of the last ruler, Balarama Varma?

Yes.

In his will, he had not written anything about the temple as he believed the temple did not belong to him. Did the change happen because of that?

Yes, he had not mentioned anything about the temple in his will.

The problems started after his brother Marthanda Varma took charge of the temple in 1991 after the death of the last ruler, Balarama Varma.

The discontent among the public culminated in a court case in 2008.

In 2007, Marthanda Varma claimed that the temple treasure belonged to the family.

His stand from the beginning was that the temple and the treasure belonged to the royal family. But he also had to change his stand later because of pressure from the public. That's why in the 2011 affidavit in the Supreme Court, they were forced to say that it was a public trust.

When I spoke to you in 2011, you had said that the treasure belonged to the temple. But then who does the temple belong to?

The temple belongs to the people, and the administration is by a public trust.

If we look back, we will see that even in 1760, the then maharaja, Marthanda Varma, did not say that it was his kula kshetram (family temple).

What he said was it was his ista daivam which means Padmanabha Swamy was his personal deity.

In fact, he submitted the entire state of Travancore to the deity and called himself a dasa (servant) of Padmanabhaswamy.

So, it never was a private trust.

The present family also has now accepted the fact that it was a public trust.

When the case went to the Supreme Court, the Kerala government argued that Balarama Varma, the last ruler, was no more and as there was no ruler now, the temple belonged to the state. So, the state should have authority to administer the temple.

In fact, in the covenant, the ruler's name was not mentioned; it only says 'the ruler'.
Queensland will have to cede ground under any plans to alter border checkpoint arrangements, after NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian rejected a proposal from her northern counterpart.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wrote to Ms Berejiklian this week to ask that she consider a previously mooted move to shift the police line south to the Tweed River, amid lengthy delays.

Conversations between the states' police ministers at the height of the pandemic in March fell flat, with Queensland claiming the change would make it easier to manage the busy border.

The river is seen as an ideal point as there are only a handful of bridges crossing it, in contrast to the many heavily used streets in the Tweed and Coolangatta communities the official line crosses.
Less than 2 miles away, around 12:10 a.m. Wednesday, a 28-year-old man was getting out of his car in the 200 Block of East 121st Place, when a man drove by, firing shots from a gray SUV, according to police. The 28-year-old was struck in the chest and torso and taken to Christ Hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Information on his identity wasnt immediately released.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  The Department of Tourism said the industry has incurred 66 percent decline in revenue from tourism in the first six months of the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tourism Spokesperson Benito Bengzon told CNN Philippines Newsroom Ngayon that they have estimated tourism revenue of 81 billion for the first six months of 2020, down from 243 billion recorded in the same period last year.

Travel restrictions were implemented by the government as part of its goal to control the spread of the infectious disease which led to thousands of flights and cruise trips canceled.

In February, Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat said the countrys tourism industry could lose 42.9 billion in revenue due to restrictions imposed on travelers that have made aviation and cruise industries suffer.

She said that the negative impact was expected after the Philippines recorded a substantial increase in arrivals from China in 2018. In the first ten months of 2019, a total of 1,499,524 Chinese arrived the country.

To curb the pandemic's effects, the DOT is slowly opening subsectors of the industry. Last week, the department released guidelines for the holding of meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions (MICE) in areas under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).

As for areas under other quarantine classifications, MICE events are still not allowed.

Under Administrative Order No. 2020-03, MICE suppliers, exhibitors, and venue operators can only use up to 50 percent of the total venue capacity. Moreover, only those living in areas under MGCQ can participate in MICE events.

Bengzon said venues should follow the following protocols: have contact tracing forms; place sanitizing mats and drying pads; designate loading and unloading bays; place alcohol and sanitizer dispensers in the venue; place acrylic glass or plastic barriers between tables; have foot pedal or sensor-operated trash bins; and for attendees and staff to always wear face masks.

Employees should also accomplish health declaration forms, have their body temperature checked, use personal protective equipment, and have regular personal hygiene briefing.

Implementation of guidelines will be monitored by the DOT and the MICE exhibitors.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered a grim forecast calling for soaring cases of the novel coronavirus across the country, acknowledging "it will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better."

The statement was a rare admission from Trump that all is not well with the response to the virus by his administration, which has rejected the advice of scientific experts, been reluctant to take responsibility and has issued contradictory and at times divisive public messaging.

As he convened the first White House coronavirus task force briefing in weeks, the president struck a newly somber and pessimistic tone. After months of playing down the virus and the dangers of its resurgence, Trump said his acknowledgment that the situation will worsen is "something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is. That's what we have."

At the briefing, he asked the American public to wear masks after weeks of resisting to do so himself in public. "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact, they'll have an effect, and we need everything we can get," Trump said.

But Trump also took a defensive posture, refusing to take responsibility for America's current status as the country with the world's highest number of coronavirus cases by far. Even adjusted for population, the United States has notched more cases than China and most countries in Europe and Latin America.

"I'm working with governors. We're working hand in hand. I think we're all responsible," Trump said.

The briefing represented a notable shift by the president, who has spent recent weeks largely focused on other subjects, such as cutting regulations. Aides have said he stopped attending coronavirus task force meetings because he did not have time.

His resurrection of the task force's daily briefings comes as the number of daily cases have spiked and as Trump's approval ratings have plummeted.

On Tuesday, the United States recorded more than 1,000 new deaths, the first time the country has topped that mark in nearly 50 days. It was the highest single-day death total since June 2, when 1,052 fatalities were reported, and the milestone undercut Trump's claims during the news briefing of a fast-falling mortality rate.

Tuesday's death number was lower than the pandemic's darkest days in April, when the virus regularly claimed upward of 2,000 lives in 24 hours. But the average number of daily deaths has been rising steadily for most of July, according to data compiled and analyzed by The Washington Post. And experts warn the daily death toll - which lags by weeks behind infections and hospitalizations - is likely to rise sharply in the coming month.

States that had rushed to reopen quickly - Arizona, Florida and Texas - led the nation in reported deaths Tuesday, each posting more than 130. Georgia, where the governor has chastised local officials over mask orders, reported 78. In California, where state leaders have been comparably cautious, 61 deaths were reported.

The nation continues to struggle with a wily pathogen that can produce no symptoms at all in some people, even as it sickens and kill tens of thousands others. Large swaths of the nation remain in turmoil as many communities debate how to reopen schools this fall, wrestle with rising virus-related hospitalizations and, in some cases, roll back restrictions to restart a flailing economy.

Amid the rising numbers, the country's response to the virus remains in disarray. Many governors continue to resist calls from experts to mandate the wearing of masks.

None of the federal government's top public health experts were permitted to talk at Trump's briefing Tuesday, such as U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams or coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx.

Notably absent was the nation's top infectious-disease expert, Anthony Fauci, who has been attacked by Trump and others in the White House as Fauci has continued pushing for stricter safety measures nationwide. And it is unclear how great a voice scientists and experts will have in guiding the federal government's response.

In a CNN interview an hour before the White House news conference, Fauci said he had not been invited to the briefing. In a weekend interview, Trump called Fauci "a little bit of an alarmist" and alleged Fauci had "made some mistakes."

Asked about the president's criticism, Fauci said, "I consider myself more a realist than an alarmist. But you know people do have their opinions other than that."

Other top White House officials have harshly disparaged Fauci, who remains one of the most trusted officials in the Trump administration, according to polls.

After a long period of no interactions with the president, Fauci said he was able to brief Trump toward the end of last week. He continued urging government officials and the public to take greater action against the virus.

The precarious situation the country finds itself in was underscored Tuesday by new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that the number of actual coronavirus infections is likely far higher - by two to 13 times - than reported cases.

The new study gave details on the undercount: In Missouri, the estimated number of actual infections was 13 times greater than confirmed cases. In Utah, it was at least twice as high.

The higher estimate is based on a study on antibodies, which indicate who has had the virus. The number of reported cases in the United States stands at 3.8 million.

The CDC also reported that only a small proportion of people in many parts of the country had antibodies to the coronavirus as of this spring, meaning most of the population remains highly susceptible to the virus.

Amid that gloomy background, a glimmer of hope emerged Tuesday as pharmaceutical executives told Congress they hope to have vaccines with some sort of regulatory approval by the fall.

"It's a difficult question to answer in terms of probabilities," Mene Pangalos, an executive vice president at AstraZeneca, told a House subcommittee on oversight and investigations, when asked about the likelihood that a vaccine would be available by year's end. "If we have efficacy data, we hope it will happen anytime from September onward."

Biotechnology company Moderna said a vaccine would be possible by fall. Executives from Pfizer said their company could deliver up to 100 million doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion in 2021. Janssen Vaccines, part of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, said it would start its large trial in September and hoped to have results by early 2021 - and 100 million doses by the end of March. Merck executives said their company did not anticipate a vaccine until sometime in 2021 at the earliest.

"We're definitely taking positive steps in the right direction in the vaccine data," said Eleanor Murray, assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University. But she and others cautioned it is still early in the vaccine development process. "We obviously are going to have to wait and see for bigger trials to be done."

At Tuesday's briefing, even as he acknowledged the growing case numbers, Trump painted a rosy picture of his administration's response. Of supplies needed to combat the virus, Trump said, "we again have tremendous amounts of supplies. We are in very good shape." But hospitals, nurses and local health officials say they are encountering shortages of N95 masks, gowns and gloves.

Trump boasted of the millions of tests being conducted, even as labs say they are being overwhelmed and test results in some states are taking up to 10 days to turn around, rendering them useless for combating the virus.

When asked whether he supported funding for testing now being debated in Congress, Trump was noncommittal. "If the doctors and the professionals feel that - even though we're at a level that nobody every dreamt possible - they would like to do more, I'm okay with it," he said.

On Tuesday, the White House and Senate Republicans struggled to settle on a unified coronavirus budget plan, lacking any agreement on policy goals, budget parameters or even deadlines.

The Republican and White House positions changed multiple times as the day went on, with some GOP lawmakers refusing to rally behind the White House's demand for a payroll tax cut while others worked to convince Trump's emissaries that more money was needed for testing and CDC.

Other Republican lawmakers appeared mortified about the growing size of the spending bill, bickering over which policies to remote and warning that miscalculations could allow Democrats to seize control of the White House and Senate in November.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Tuesday the White House is seeking "targeted" money for testing, saying that "we're willing to put in money for targeted testing that makes sense, not just dumping money into a pot that contains $10 billion."

- - -

The Washington Post's Jacqueline Dupree, Seung Min Kim, Jeff Stein and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist

Lockdown imposed in Manipur, Bhopal as Covid-19 cases in India crosses grim 12 lakh-mark

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, July 22: Several states in India on Wednesday extended lockdowns in an effort to control the increasing spread of coronavirus cases as India's tally crossed the grim 12-lakh mark, worldometer has reported. India on Wednesday recorded 37,724 new cases, taking the country's tally to 11,92,915. The toll increased to 28,732.

In Manipur, a complete lockdown would be imposed for 14 days from July 23. The Jammu and Kashmir administration has announced a six-day shutdown in the Valley, except for Bandipora district, from July 22 to July 27. Bhopal will also be under lockdown from July 24 to August 3.

Biggest single day surge in southern states, over 17K COVID-19 cases reported

In Uttar Pradesh, total 2,300 people have been tested positive for coronavirus infection on Wednesday in the largest single-day rise till date, while 34 persons died of it in the last 24 hours. The two figures raised the death toll due to the disease in the state to 1,263 and total cases to 55,588. The active COVID-19 cases in the state, however, stands at 20,825, Additional Chief Secretary (Medical and Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said on Wednesday.

Galwan martyr Colonel Babu's wife appointed Deputy Collector | Oneindia News

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization praised India for responding to the coronavirus pandemic with "utmost urgency".
Fruit wines dont get nearly as much publicity nor anywhere near as many accolades as their dry counterparts. You wont find pictures of them on the cover of any national wine magazine or read long expository reviews from a sommelier about their flavors or mouthfeel.

Still, they are plentiful, both around Pennsylvania and in other sections of the country, their releases timed to the late spring and summer months. For whatever they lack in national or even local recognition, they make up for it in the large number of fans who purchase and consume them year-round.

Some but not all of the wine competitions include fruit wine as a category; youre more likely to see that in a state competition than a regional or national one. Here are several of the recent winners from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.

Pennsylvania

2020 Pennsylvania Wine Competition, best fruit wine

Conneaut Cellars Winery, NV Red Raspberry

2020 Pennsylvania Farm Show, best fruit wine

Armstrong Valley Winery, 2018 Blackberry Merlot

2019 Pennsylvania Wine Competition, best fruit wine

Arsenal Cider House & Wine Cellars, 2018 Red Raspberry

2019 Pennsylvania Farm Show, best fruit wine

Heritage Wine Cellars, NV Blackberry

New Jersey

2018 New Jersey Wine competition, Beverage Testing Institute, best fruit wines

94  Tomasello (NJ) NV Cranberry Wine 4% rs. $12.95/500 ml Gold Medal & Best Buy2018 Best New Jersey Fruit Wine

93  Tomasello (NJ) NV Red Raspberry Wine 6.5% rs. $12.95/500 ml Gold Medal & Best Buy

92  Tomasello (NJ) NV Red Raspberry Moscato 6.5% rs. $13.95 Gold Medal & Best Buy

92  Tomasello (NJ) NV Cranberry Moscato 4% rs. $13.95/500 ml Gold Medal & Best Buy

91  Tomasello (NJ) NV Blueberry Wine 4% rs. $12.95/500 ml Gold Medal & Best Buy

90  Tomasello (NJ) NV Cherry Moscato 6% rs. $13.95 Gold Medal & Best Buy

89  Tomasello (NJ) NV Cherry Wine 6% rs. $12.95/500 ml Silver Medal & Best Buy

88  Tomasello (NJ) NV Pomegranate Wine 4% rs. $12.95/500 ml Silver Medal & Best Buy

88  Tomasello (NJ) NV Blueberry Moscato 5% rs. $13.95 Silver Medal & Best Buy

88  Tomasello (NJ) NV Blackberry Moscato, New Jersey 10.6% rs. $13.95 Silver Medal

88  Auburn Road (NJ) NV Give Peach A Chance Peach Wine, New Jersey. $12 Silver Medal & Best Buy

86  Tomasello (NJ) NV Blueberry Forte 5% rs. $12.95/375 ml Silver Medal & Best Buy

86  Auburn Road (NJ) NV Apple Wine, New Jersey. $13 Silver Medal & Best Buy

Maryland

2019 Governors Cup Competition

Dove Valley Winery  Perky Peaches NV, best fruit wine

2019 Maryland Comptrollers Cup Competition

Red Heifer Winery  Blueberry NV, best fruit wine

2018 Governors Cup Competition

Great Shoals Winery  Hard Strawberry 2018, best fruit wine

2018 Maryland Comptrollers Cup Competition

Laytons Chance Vineyard & Winery  BoBerry Strawberry Wine 2017 (Dorchester Co.), best fruit wine

So what makes an excellent fruit wine that stands out among all the variations of techniques and varieties of fruit?

Kevin Ford, the owner and operator of Red Heifer Winery in Smithsburg, in Washington County, says a good fruit wine should stand on its own as well as any grape wine without being cloyingly sweet unless that sweetness complements the other tasting notes. The western Maryland winery sits at an elevation of 1,500 feet on a property that at one time was home to the Naylor Peach Orchards. It opened in 2012.

The way I explain sweetness to customers is that just like a pepper spice in a chili. The burn should complement the flavor and not be the flavor, he says, adding that he uses a panel of consumers and a blind tasting to find his winemaking parameter goals for products like his award-winning blueberry wine. When you eat blueberries you are initially greeted by that familiar sweet and unquestionably identifiable taste to be followed up with the tart tang from the skins of the berry. Whenever possible I try to source local Maryland fruit and have plans to eventually grow our own blueberries as an added crop to our current grapevines.

Seven Mountains Wine Cellars is located in Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, a couple of minutes off Route 322 and a half-hour east of State College.

Currently, he says, he sources blueberries from several surrounding states, including Pennsylvania.

Scott Bubb is a longtime winemaker in Centre County, about a half-hour east of State College. He started making wine in 1976, which ultimately led to he and his wife Mary Ann opening Seven Mountains Wine Cellars in 2008. His list of more than 40 wines includes Pennsylvania Farm Show Governors Cup winners in both the dry and fruit categories, something that hadnt been done in the history of the competition.

Bubb says you can judge a quality fruit wine by the answer to a simple question: Does the finished wine taste like the fresh fruit itself? I believe you accomplish this by making the amount of sugar in the finished wine the same as what the fruit had as natural sugar in its raw state.

He explains that by what he does with blueberries, which he said contain around 9 brix, or sugar content, in their juice. That amounts to about 5 percent alcohol.

So we add enough sugar to get that up to 20.5 brix. which will then make the alcohol level somewhere around 12 percent, he says. All this sugar, both what we added as well as the natural sugar, gets converted into alcohol, leaving us with a wine that has zero sugar. After many months of stabilizing and filtering its time to balance the wine prior to bottling. We are balancing the sugar with the acidity. It is my strong belief that when we add enough balancing sugar as to match what the fresh fruit had in the beginning that the wine will taste more like the fresh fruit.

Fresh fruit contains sugar for a reason, he says. They taste better that way. Some fruit like cranberries, blackberries and raspberries are very acidic, therefore those wines need to be sweeter in order to achieve proper balance.

The process of making these isnt much different than most wines in terms of needing the fruit to ferment and then develop into a tasty drink. Blueberries, for instance, arent picked off a plant in July and then crushed and put into a bottle for sale. Rather, the entire cycle will take the better part of a year.

Blueberries are different in that they naturally contain a yeast inhibitor often added to a grape wine when it is done fermentation to maintain sweetness, Ford says. Thus fermenting blueberries requires more temperature control, additional yeast nutrients, and most importantly patience. We also make a wonderful peach wine using local peaches that is a more challenging process-wise to make than some of our finest dry red wines. Grapes want to be made into wine while other fruits can be encouraged sometimes reluctantly into making something of themselves with great results.

Red Heifer Winery in Smithsburg, Maryland, is open Wednesdays through Sundays. There is plenty of outside seating to meet the COVID-19 requirements for social distancing.

For Bubb, the biggest challenge sometimes is extracting the juice from the fruit. Some fruits are very high in pectin. And this makes it difficult, he says. Take strawberries, for example. If you took a fresh strawberry in your hand and squeezed the juices out you are probably not going to get much juice. We will add special enzymes after crushing everything that will break down this pectin and basically turn all that pulp or solid part that you now have squished in your hand all to liquid, which increases the yield greatly.

After the fermentation is complete there is nothing left that remotely looks like a strawberry. From this point, the process is basically the same.

While this is the height of fruit picking season, which begins in late May with strawberries and continues through the summer with the harvesting of blueberries, cherries and peaches among others, the selling season for fruit wine has extended through the entire calendar, with a few exceptions. We do offer a few as seasonal only. like cranberry and spiced apple, Bubb says. The cranberry is best for the holiday season and the spiced apple served warm will get you through January and February.

[But] there is a time and a place for [all of them], he adds. Just like how that dry red wine can make a steak dinner fabulous. A glass of fruit wine with dessert or even as a dessert by itself can be very satisfying, he said.

Charlie Tomasello at his namesake winery in southern New Jersey might sell as many fruit wine variations as anyone on the East Coast, with a long list of fruit wines (blueberry, blackberry, red raspberry, pomegranate, cranberry, cherry), variations off those (sparkling blueberry and blueberry forte port wine) and a similar length of beverages that blend the juices from the fruits with Moscato grapes (including grapefruit, salted caramel, tangerine, huckleberry and peach along with many of those mentioned above). Generally semisweet, all are recommended to be served chilled.

They have evolved into a pretty big chunk of our business, Tomasello says of the Moscato blends, which the winery has been making for the past several years. He discovered what ultimately became the winerys new line while visiting a distributor in Virginia. He came across a bottle of peach Moscato in a grocery store, made in Italy. In a Champagne bottle, and it had a lot of effervescence, he said. More like a Champagne with fruit in it. I thought it was phenomenal.

That Moscato blend evolved into the present line, with a mix of fruits that customers are picking up or ordering from January to December. We found they were an absolutely delightful drink, producing a slight fizz but little buzz at slightly less than 7 percent alcohol.

Tomasello Winery's lineup of products includes a number of straight-up fruit wines and also Moscato blends. The South Jersey-based winery has 10 locations. Its first vineyard was planted in 1888, and the winery opened to the public in 1933.

They became everyday wines for the consumer as opposed to dessert wines, he says. That created a much bigger niche than just the fruit wine market.

Indeed, they add to the growing varieties of products that are appealing to a market looking for new tastes and mixtures to explore. Bottom line, they satisfy customers interests while adding to a winerys cash flow.

Maybe someday, Ford says, theyll also gain a little more respect than they tend to do now.

I feel that negative attitudes toward fruit or sweeter wines are bizarre if compared to a chefs offerings, he says. A pastry chef makes sweets and is generally treated as seriously as their entree-focused counterpart. I personally make more dry wines than sweet or fruit wine and treat them all as equals during the winemaking process. Our blueberry pairs extremely well with a brie or goat cheese in addition to our winery charcuterie boards.

--

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Business leaders in Derry have urged the Northern Ireland Executive to look at creating a better local supply of personal protection equipment (PPE).

The Londonderry Chamber of Commerce has written to Finance Minister Conor Murphy, Health Minister Robin Swann and Economy Minister Diane Dodds urging the Executive to adopt a new and sustainable strategy for procuring PPE.

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, over 450 NI companies repurposed their operations to meet serious PPE shortages within the health service, including several local firms.

While Northern Ireland has now passed the first peak of the virus, it has become clear that much higher levels of PPE, on a much more frequent basis, will be necessary for thousands of front-line workers across the health service as well as other sectors in the economy.

Paul Clancy, Chief Executive of the local chamber, said Covid-19 had exposed 'serious problems' in how Northern Ireland sources and procures its PPE stocks.

When the virus looked like it might possibly overwhelm our health service, there was a scramble to get equipment from halfway across the world.

While we are rightly proud of local companies like ONeills, Bloc Blinds, Nuprint and many others who pivoted their businesses to ensure our doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals had the PPE they needed, the Executive now needs to put in place a comprehensive strategy which will ensure we have a strong, secure and consistent stream of PPE.

As this virus naturally peaks and troughs, and until a vaccine is developed, PPE will become a feature of daily life.

With the economy and other sectors of our society gradually reopening, PPE will be used by a wider section of frontline workers than just our healthcare staff.

However, it is not sustainable for Northern Ireland to continue to get its protective equipment from countries like China when we need a more readily available supply chain closer to home.

Local companies have proven that they have the expertise and skills to fulfil these orders, but they need support from government and assurances that they can win significant public procurement contracts before they commit to the long-term investment and permanently reconfiguring their business operations.
HOBOKEN, N.J., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- eMazzanti Technologies, a New York City area business IT consultant and managed services provider (MSP) has published guidance on three critical IT areas for small and mid-size business leaders seeking to prosper in the new normal.

The informative article identifies Email Deliverability and Security, Cyber Security Protection, and the New Remote Workforce as critical areas for leaders to understand and address. The article and associated 40-minute webinar include a valuable offer for a Free Dark Web Scan.

"Born in crisis (9/11), eMazzanti exists to help your business survive and thrive in this new normal," stated Jennifer Mazzanti, CEO, eMazzanti Technologies.

Below are a few excerpts from the Article: "How to Make Your IT Effective in the New Normal."

"With mounting economic pressure on every business, it's time to allocate your technology resources wisely by deploying the right tools. Without the right systems in place, you risk inconsistent customer communication, data security breaches and significant overspending. Consider these realities:

In response to COVID-19, cyber-criminals stepped up their game, increasing hacking and phishing attacks dramatically.

With few workers at the office, they started attacking them at home.

This behavior drove corporations and email platforms to tighten up message receipt restrictiveness. Your email might not be getting through."

Partner with eMazzanti Technologies

For 19 years, eMazzanti Technologies has been helping organizations navigate the business technology landscape to achieve their business goals. With a new paradigm in business IT, eMazzanti encourages leaders to make the pivot now. To learn more, view the Effective in the New Normal Webinar .

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RTE Investigates: Future Health Care

RTE One, 9.35pm

More behind-the-scenes filming from St Jamess Hospital, Dublin, as the apparent pause in the pandemic means the facility gears up its treatment for other conditions.

We see how anti-Covid measures have reduced the capacity of the emergency department, and see some of the other protective measures being introduced through the hospital.

There's also a focus on the increased risks to staff, and the psychological impacts of Covid on both staff and patients.

Mrs America

BBC Two, 9pm Cate Blanchett continues in her role as American conservative campaigner Phyllis Schlafly.

Being Frank: the Chris Sievey Story

Sky Arts, 10pm

Documentary on the Manchester man best known for his alter ego, featuring the papier-mache head of Frank Sidebottom.

Sport

Man Utd v West Ham ( Sky Sports, kick-off 6pm) has the home side battling for a Champions League spot, while the visitors are safe from relegation. Later, it's Liverpool v Chelsea (Sky Sports, 8pm) with the Blues also looking to secure a top-four finish.
Canadians who need genetic testing should feel somewhat relieved after the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the federal Genetic Non-Discrimination Act (GNDA). Parliament has played its role by enacting the legislation. Now it is time for the provinces and territories to also act to protect our genetic information.

Parliament passed the GNDA in 2017. The Quebec government promptly challenged significant portions of the legislation, arguing that Parliament did not have the power to act; rather, they said, it was up to the provinces to do so.

In an odd twist, the federal government supported Quebecs challenge. The question before the Supreme Court of Canada was whether Parliament could invoke its criminal law power to prohibit compulsory genetic testing and nonvoluntary use or disclosure of genetic test results. The judgment spanned 156 pages, but the bottom-line answer is: yes, this is a legitimate use of the criminal law power by Parliament.

Criminal prohibitions in the GNDA establish that people cannot be required to undergo genetic testing or be compelled to share existing test results. The legislation also amends the Canada Labour Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit requiring genetic information or discriminating based on a genetic characteristic. These amendments offer an additional layer of protection against genetic discrimination.

Why, with all these protections, do we say that the provinces and territories need to act?

The amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code only apply to individuals who are employed by or receive services from the federal government, First Nations governments, and federally regulated businesses. This leaves a significant gap because provinces and territories are responsible for matters such as insurance, health care and adoption. Matters of profound importance in relation to genetic testing are governed by provincial and not federal laws.

Each province and territory has human rights legislation that is aimed at preventing, remedying and ameliorating discriminatory conduct at the individual and systemic levels. This legislation contains broad remedial powers to enable the realization of those aims. The provinces and territories should amend their human rights legislation to ensure that all Canadians, and not only those in the federal sphere, receive the same comprehensive protection against genetic discrimination.

Human rights legislation is also advantageous in being user-friendly. It offers an administrative complaint process that is accessible and offers flexibility in resolving grievances. The process focuses on preventing discrimination and resolving grievances, often through conciliation.

In contrast, the criminal law does not provide an accessible path to prevent or redress harms for individuals. The criminal law can be a blunt and unwieldy mechanism. It requires police to decide whether to lay a charge and a prosecutor to decide whether to carry the case on behalf of the public. The aggrieved individual has little or no say in the matter.

This means the likelihood of an adequate response to a circumstance in which a person believes their genetic information has been used inappropriately is slim at best. Further, a criminal prosecution might punish the wrongdoer, but only after a victim of the wrongful use of genetic information has been harmed.

It is understandable that the provinces and territories havent yet acted. It made sense to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on who had jurisdiction over the issue. That is now settled. Parliament has done its job. It is time for provinces and territories to do their part by amending their human rights legislation to protect genetic information.

Elaine Gibson is a professor at the Dalhousie Health Law Institute.
India and China have found themselves nearing war in recent months, and the US is hoping India will look West.

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged India on Wednesday to focus on domestic supply chains and reduce its dependence on China for telecommunications and medical supplies, as Washingtons ties with Beijing deteriorate dramatically.

India had a chance to move supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunications, medical supplies and others, Pompeo said at the US-India Business Councils India Ideas Summit, being conducted online.

India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States, Pompeo said.

The US administration has squarely blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic and accused Chinese firms like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd of cyberspying and facilitating human rights violations in China, charges Huawei and Beijing deny.

The US has also lambasted Chinas new national security law for the former British colony of Hong Kong.

The US has told China to close its consulate in Houston in a dramatic deterioration in ties between the worlds two biggest economies amid accusations of Chinese espionage.

Indias relations with China have strained following a border clash in the Himalayas last month in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

Pompeo accused the Chinese of initiating the conflict, also denied by Beijing.





The recent clashes initiated by the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) are just the latest examples of the CCPs (Chinese Communist Party) unacceptable behaviour, Pompeo said.

India, which recently banned dozens of Chinese apps in the country  including the popular TikTok video app, has not yet made a call on Huawei after allowing the Chinese telecoms company to participate in trials for 5G networks. India is the worlds main generic drug supplier, and its dependence on Chinese raw materials for its medicines is almost 70 percent.

Separately, Indias ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, said New Delhi was open to US firms building manufacturing plants in the country.

Indias military confrontation with China prompted calls for closer security ties with the US and its allies, including Japan.

India is modernising its military to narrow a gap with China and has increasingly turned towards the US over its traditional supplier, Russia.

The United States has never been more supportive of Indias security. India, too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President [Donald] Trumps foreign policy, Pompeo said.
Ravindra Rao

Most base metals have noted sharp rebound from the multi-month lows hit earlier in the year led by a surge in Copper prices. LME three month Copper prices have rallied more than 50 percent from the January 2016 low of $4,371 per tonne hit in March to hit a two-year high of $6,633 per tonne as on July 13.

Zinc has been a not so close second with prices jumping almost 36 percent from 2016 lows of $1,671 to hit highs of $2,272. The rest of the pack too have noted double-digit bounce from the lows.

The recovery in prices has been fueled by hopes of a revival in global economic health along with the expectations of further fiscal and monetary stimulus measures. Prices have further sought support from weakness in the US Dollar Index.

However, despite most metals managing to hold on to their gains, the pace of gains is faltering. There has been a confluence of mixed factors on the macro front that have led to directionless trade in the past few sessions.

On the global growth front, optimism over V-shape recovery is being questioned following a recent spate of mixed data from top consumers US and China. In the US, a higher number of people claiming unemployment benefits and weaker reading of consumer sentiment is indicating the rocky road to recovery. Meanwhile in China, even though Q2 GDP has shown economy expanded at a faster pace of 3.2 percent following 6.8 percent contraction in Q1, a continuing slump in retail sales data for the month of July is spelling caution.

Meanwhile, on the coronavirus front, positive development on COVID-19 vaccine is being offset by a surge in coronavirus cases globally which in turn is fanning worries of the possibility of back paddling of reopening of economies and even fears of re-imposition of lockdown measures which may eventually hurt the nascent pace of global recovery. On the vaccine front, encouraging data from trials of three potential COVID-19 vaccines, including a closely-watched candidate from Oxford University, have lifted sentiments; Reuters reported. Meanwhile, global cases have crossed 14.6 million with cases rising in hotspots like the US, Brazil and India along with worries over the second wave in nations like Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

Furthermore, support due to record stimulus and weak US Dollar is being offset by lingering US-China tensions. On stimulus front, European Union leaders reached a "historic" deal on a massive stimulus plan for their coronavirus-hit economies at a pre-dawn meeting on Tuesday after a fractious summit that lasted almost five days, Reuters reported.

Focus now shifts to the US wherein congressional Republicans announced plans to seek another $1 trillion in coronavirus economic relief. However, tensions continue to simmer between the world's two largest economies- US and China- as they are loggerheads over varied reasons.

Overall the push and pull due to abovementioned factors may keep metals prices in a narrow range in near-term. However, from a longer perspective, most metals may have become vulnerable to correction as they seem to have outrun their fundamentals.

The author is VP - Head Commodity Research at Kotak Securities.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on Moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told CNBC on Wednesday he expects airfares to slip as the pandemic continues to depress demand for flights.

"My guess is that pricing is going to go lower for the short term," Kirby said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "All of the normal pricing metrics ... in this pandemic are a little bit irrelevant."

The airline lost more than $1.6 billion in the three months ended in June and is now focused on shaving more than a third off its daily cash-burn rate from $40 million during the second quarter to $25 million in the third quarter.

"The most important metric is cash burn," he said.

The pandemic and travel restrictions designed to stop it from spreading have devastated air travel demand. United has been cautious about adding flights and said it could pull back capacity even more, depending on future demand.

Kirby said demand has appeared to have bottomed after slipping in recent weeks, but that revenue could plateau at 50% of 2019 levels, until there's a widely available vaccine for Covid-19. United's revenue fell more than 87% in the second quarter from a year earlier.

United on Tuesday said it expects to have $18 billion in liquidity after raising more than $16 billion since the start of the crisis through debt and stock sales, as well as federal aid.

Airlines received $25 billion in federal payroll support that prohibits them from cutting jobs through Sept. 30, but airlines are warning workers about potential cuts when the aid terms expire. United told 36,000 workers on July 9 that their jobs are at risk. The airline and other carriers are urging employees to take buyout packages. United said Tuesday that some 6,000 have volunteered.

When asked whether more federal aid is needed Kirby said: "I'm confident we can get through the crisis without any more funding, but it's also going to have an impact on employment."




DANVILLE - Authorities said they are investigating a homicide in northcentral Pennsylvania and have questioned a person of interest.

W. John Ditzler Jr., 83, was found dead in his Bloom Road home in Cooper Twp., Montour County about five miles east of Danville late Tuesday evening, state police said.

No information has been released on how Ditzler was killed or the identity of the person of interest.

State police say the investigation is ongoing and there is no apparent threat to the public.

An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday, Coroner Scott E. Lynn said.

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San Francisco, July 22 : Enterprise messaging platform Slack on Wednesday filed an anti-competitive complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission, alleging that the tech giant abused its market dominance to kill the competition in breach of European Union competition law.

Slack alleged that Microsoft has "illegally tied its Teams" product to Office productivity suite and is "force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers." "We're confident that we win on the merits of our product, but we can't ignore illegal behaviour that deprives customers of access to the tools and solutions they want," said Jonathan Prince, Vice President of Communications and Policy at Slack.

"Slack threatens Microsoft's hold on business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means Slack threatens Microsoft's lock on enterprise software." The European Commission will review the complaint and decide whether to open a formal investigation into Microsoft's anti-competitive practices.

Prince said that Slack offers an open, flexible approach that compounds the threat to Microsoft because it is a gateway to innovative, best-in-class technology that competes with the rest of Microsoft's stack and gives customers the freedom to build solutions that meet their needs.

"We want to be the 2 per cent of your software budget that makes the other 98 per cent more valuable; they want 100 per cent of your budget every time," Prince said.

Microsoft was yet to comment on the Slack complaint.

David Schellhase, General Counsel at Slack, said that "Microsoft is reverting to past behaviour.

"They created a weak, copycat product and tied it to their dominant Office product, force installing it and blocking its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behaviour during the browser wars," he alleged.

Slack is asking the European Commission to take swift action to ensure Microsoft cannot continue to illegally leverage its power from one market to another by bundling or tying products.

Slack last month joined Amazon in a multi-year agreement to take on its closest rival Microsoft Teams. Under the new deal, all Amazon employees will get access to Slacks office tools.

After claiming that Microsoft Teams is not a real competitor to Slack, Stewart Butterfield, CEO of the enterprise messaging platform, said in May that the success of Slack threatens Microsoft's entire Office 365 empire.
Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo signed a government decree granting compensation, restitution and assistance to citizens victimized in terrorist attacks that occurred before 2018, the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) said Tuesday.

The decree, which came into force on July 8, replaced one issued two years ago that did not apply retroactively, according to Edwin Partogi, deputy chairman of LPSK, a government agency.

Victims of past acts of terrorism are entitled to compensation, medical assistance or psychosocial and psychological rehabilitation, stated the decree, a copy of which was obtained by BenarNews.

The new decree would cover a string of deadly terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of people in Indonesia during the first decade of this century.

These include the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, the 2003 bombing at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12, the 2004 attack on the Australian Embassy that killed nine, and twin bombings at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta in 2009 that killed seven along with two suicide bombers.

Those attacks were been blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional militant network linked with al-Qaeda.

Victims of these attacks and others before 2018 must submit an application no later than June 22, 2021, for compensation, Edwin said.

If they fail to submit an application by that date they are considered to have forfeited their rights to compensation, he told BenarNews.

Edwin said the government did not have records for many of the victims because they had chosen to move on or had no medical records.

He estimates that between 800 and 1,000 victims have yet to receive compensation. Of those, 215 had received health care and psychological assistance from LPSK.

The National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) will come up with a list of compensation recipients, with LPSK assisting with assessment, Edwin said.

There is compensation for minor injuries, serious injuries and death. We will work with the Finance Minister on compensation schemes. After that compensation payments will be made, he said.

Between 2017 and 2019, LPSK provided assistance valued at 4.3 billion rupiah (U.S. $292,000) to 50 victims on an ad hoc basis, Edwin said.

Hasibullah Sastrawi, an activist at the Indonesian Peace Alliance (AIDA), a group that seeks to empower victims of terrorism, welcomed Jokowis action.

Helping the victims is very important because it is an indicator of how serious the government is about addressing terrorism, he said. We need to continue to encourage the government to improve efforts to eradicate terrorism and help victims.

Cipto Wibowo, chairman of the Indonesian Survivors Foundation (YPI), a group representing survivors and relatives of terror victims, called the action a breath of fresh air for the victims.

It may be material compensation, but it is a form of justice afforded to victims who have suffered for more than a decade, said Cipto, who suffered neck and ear injuries in the 2004 Australian embassy bombing.

Ni Luh Erniati, whose restaurant worker husband Gede Badrana was killed in the 2002 Bali bombings, said she had struggled to pay for her childrens education.

Being a single parent is difficult. I am grateful that the regulation has been signed because we had been waiting for a long time, she told BenarNews.

I hope compensation will be realized soon. At least the government is now paying attention  they didnt before.

Nanda Olivia Daniel, who was injured in the Australian Embassy bombing, said compensation would be a welcome gesture.

I had stopped expecting anything. But Ill be grateful if I get my rights because being a bomb victim, we have suffered physically and psychologically, she told BenarNews.
The Outsider actress Cynthia Erivo is teaming up with her 'sis' Lena Waithe for a Universal musical drama with the working title, Talent Show.

The British-Nigerian 33-year-old - who's an Oscar away from EGOT status - will play a 'failed songwriter returning to her Chicago hometown to lead a group of at-risk youth in their talent show,' according to THR.

The 36-year-old Emmy winner (Queen & Slim) is executive producing and she wrote the most recent version of the Talent Show script, which will be directed by Gandja Monteiro (The Chi).

Collaboration: The Outsider actress Cynthia Erivo (L) is teaming up with her 'sis' Lena Waithe (R) for a Universal musical drama with the working title, Talent Show (pictured in 2018)

'I finally found my sis,' Cynthia wrote after originally meeting Lena at the 2018 Met Gala.

'Lena you are absolutely everything. You are perfection. What a meeting of minds, glad to have you in my life! Stuck like glue! Shine queen shine!'

But first, Erivo portrays Aretha Franklin in the fully-authorized eight-episode series Genius: Aretha, which premieres this fall on National Geographic.

'She came to see The Color Purple on Broadway. Aretha stuck around to meet people afterward, so I got to meet her, and she was just funny,' the Harriet star told Harper's Bazaar this month.

Only an Oscar away from EGOT status! The British-Nigerian 33-year-old will play a 'failed songwriter returning to her Chicago hometown to lead a group of at-risk youth in their talent show' (pictured February 23)

Action! The 36-year-old Emmy winner is executive producing and she wrote the most recent version of the Talent Show script, which will be directed by Gandja Monteiro (pictured)

After meeting Lena at the 2018 Met Gala, Cynthia wrote: 'I finally found my sis. Lena you are absolutely everything. You are perfection. What a meeting of minds, glad to have you in my life! Stuck like glue! Shine queen shine!'

'She sang the last line of [my character's song] "I'm Here" at me. I was like, "What is happening? This is crazy." It was nuts. I thought, "Okay, that's it. I'm never going to see her again." But then I performed at the Kennedy Center Honors later that year, and she was there. We ended up at a reception at the White House, talking at a buffet table where you could pick up little hors d'oeuvres with your fingers to eat.'

Cynthia recalled: 'I think she was with Clive Davis, and I remember she was wearing red. I went to reintroduce myself, and she was like, "You're the girl in The Color Purple. You can really sing." And then when I sang at the event, I didn't realize it, but the camera caught her, and she was singing along in the audience. To be able to portray her is like a dream come true.'

The 18-time Grammy winner died, age 76, at her Detroit home on August 16, 2018 from a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor.

Premieres this fall on National Geographic! But first, Erivo portrays Aretha Franklin in the fully-authorized eight-episode series Genius: Aretha

The Harriet star told Harper's Bazaar this month: 'She came to see The Color Purple on Broadway...To be able to portray her is like a dream come true' (pictured in 2015)

Erivo's project should not be confused with Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence's MGM Aretha biopic, Respect, hitting US theaters in December.

The RADA grad has literally built her entire career on playing African-Americans, and she told THR in January that she's interested in getting US Citizenship.

Cynthia will next headline the BBC's first online Creative Diversity Xperience streaming July 28-29 during which she'll take part in a Q&A with BBC Radio 1 presenter Clara Amfo.

Hitting US theaters in December! Erivo's project should not be confused with Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence's MGM Aretha biopic, Respect
Also targeted for removal are the statues of John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the former vice president who led the pro-slavery faction in the Senate; John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a former vice president who served as the Confederate secretary of war and was expelled from the Senate for joining for the Confederate Army; Charles Brantley Aycock, the former governor of North Carolina and an architect of a violent coup detat in Wilmington led by white supremacists; and James Paul Clarke, a senator and governor of Arkansas who extolled the need to preserve the white standards of civilization.

Each state is allowed to send two statues to the Capitol to be featured in the National Statuary Hall collection, which is typically visited by thousands of tourists every day. Federal law gives state leaders, not members of Congress, the authority to replace them. Because Republican lawmakers have long argued that states should retain that right, House Democrats, even though they are in the majority, have been unable to remove the statues.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, is unlikely to allow the bill to receive a vote in the Senate, calling the move clearly a bridge too far and an attempt to airbrush the Capitol. He has also contended that the decision should be left to the states, though in 2015 he called for a statue of Jefferson Davis displayed prominently in front of Kentuckys State Capitol to be moved to a museum.

But in a striking display of bipartisanship, 72 Republicans voted in favor of the measure on Wednesday, arguing that it was an important symbolic step toward reconciliation.

The history of this nation is so fraught with racial division, with hatred, said Representative Paul Mitchell, Republican of Michigan, who supported the bill. The only way to overcome that is to recognize that, acknowledge it for what it is.
People queue up outside a Centrelink office for government payments in Melbourne on April 20, 2020. (William West/AFP via Getty Images )

Australias JobKeeper Wage Subsidy Extended 6 Months With Changes

The federal government will extend the JobKeeper program for another six months passed the September 27 deadline to support Australian households and businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic recovery.

JobKeeper will now run through to March 28, 2021.

Announcing the changes in a media release on July 21, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: There is no silver bullet and this is about delivering the support Australians need and the policies our economy requires to reopen, recover and create jobs.

These supports are a lifeline, but our JobMaker plan is also setting Australia up for our countrys recovery. Were delivering the initiatives and reforms that will help grow our economy and create the jobs we need for the years ahead, said Morrison.

The government estimates that the extension of JobKeeper will cost an additional $16.6 billion.

Fortnightly Rates Will Reduce to Adjust Workers to the Economy

The program will see a reduction in the fortnightly rate from December to March as the government attempts to adjust businesses to the new economic environment.

From September 28 a two-tiered payment will be introduced to more reliably represent the incomes of employees before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This means for those working full time from Sept. 28, 2020, to March 28, 2021, they will receive $1200 (USD$832) per fortnight, and from Jan. 4, 2021, to March 28, 2021, $1000 (USD $700) per fortnight.

Employees who were employed for less than 20 hours a week on average will receive $750 (USD$526) and $650 (USD$456) for the same periods.

From Sept. 28, 2020, businesses, and not-for-profit organisations will also need to demonstrate their eligibility for the scheme by showing in their actual June and September quarter turnovers that they have suffered a continuing ongoing decline in revenue.

To qualify for the payments after Dec. 31, 2020, employers will also need to demonstrate that they have had a decline in revenue in the previous three quarters ending on Dec. 31, 2020.

COVID-19 Income Support to Continue

The Morrison government will also extend the payment period for the temporary Coronavirus Supplement for those on income support to Dec. 31, 2020, and boost the fortnightly payment by $250 (USD $175).

The extension is estimated to cost the federal government $3.8 billion and will ensure there are appropriate incentives for those receiving the payment to seek out employment or study opportunities.

To encourage people back into the workforce, the government will increase the income free area for the JobSeeker Payment and Youth Allowance from $106 per fortnight to $300 per fortnight.

These changes will mean individuals will be able to earn up to $300 per fortnight without losing any JobSeeker payment or affecting their eligibility for the Coronavirus Supplement.

The Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said in an interview with Sky News on July 21 that she believed the changes were very sensible.

She said the government was now making sure that the incentives are right for people to get back up and running where they can, and for people to work when they can.

However, Westacott said that the real challenge was now how the government could get the economy growing again so that the economy did not experience a second wave of unemployment.

And make sure that were putting money in peoples pockets. Some of that JobKeeper extension is vital to that but maybe we should think about things like bringing forward those personal tax cuts so people have got money in their pockets,  she said.
Mikkel Winther Pedersen and other team members carefully sample different archaeological layers in Chiquihuite Cave.

Mads Thomsen

Archaeologists have long debated when and how the first people made it to North America from Asia.

Researchers previously thought early humans crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia to Canada 13,000 years ago.

But artifacts discovered in a Mexican cave shift the timeline, revealing people may have been in North America 30,000 years ago.

The land bridge was impassable at that time, so the research suggests the first Americans arrived by sea.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Video: 6 ways human evolution is challenging

New evidence suggests people have been living in North America twice as long as archaeologists previously thought.

Stone tools and artifacts discovered in a remote cave in Zacatecas, Mexico, offer evidence that humans were on the continent as far back as 32,000 years ago, during the last ice age.

That upends the idea that the first people arrived in North America between 18,000 and 13,000 years ago after continent-hopping from modern-day Siberia via the Bering land bridge. The new finding, described in a study in the journal Nature on Wednesday, pushes that timeline back at least 15,000 years. It also shatters our previous understanding of how humans arrived in the North America: Since the land bridge was blocked during the last ice age and only opened after the ice started to recede, the new timeline means early people likely made their way on the ocean.

"We have enough evidence to challenge the existing paradigm," Ciprian Ardelean, the lead author of the new study, told Business Insider.

A stone tool made from greenish crystallized limestone.

Ciprian Ardelean

A sheltered cave high in the mountains

The 200-foot-wide cave in which Ardelean's team found the ancient tools, called Chiquihuite Cave, is nearly 9,000 feet up in the Astirello mountains. Locals in the area first guided him to the site in 2012, and there he found stone tools and traces of ash  evidence of early humans.

Ardelean returned with a team in 2016 and 2017 for further excavations, which yielded nearly 2,000 artifacts. They'd been buried 9 feet deep in the cave walls and floor.

Story continues

Mikkel Winther Pedersen takes sediment samples from the Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico, looking for early human DNA.

Devlin A. Gandy

The age of those artifacts suggests early people occupied Chiquihuite Cave on and off over 17,000 years  a period from about 30,000 to 13,000 years ago. Ardelean said it's likely humans used the site as a recurring shelter: a pit stop during seasonal migrations crisscrossing the continent.

The model this discovery challenges  that the first humans arrived in North America after crossing over land from Siberia  has been around since the 1930s. This line of thought suggests that humans slowly traversed southward, leaving behind distinct, grooved spear tips that became known as Clovis points.

It's known as the "Clovis-first" model of archaeology.

Clovis points from the Rummells-Maske Site in Cedar County, Iowa.

Bill Whittaker/Wikimedia Commons

But starting in the mid-1970s, researchers began uncovering sites dating back more than 13,000 years. Those discoveries multiplied in subsequent decades. Scientists found fossilized human poop that's about 14,000 years old in an Oregon cave. Artifacts from a settlement in southern Chile were dated to be between 14,500 and 19,000 years old. A horse jaw bone that bore human markings suggested humans occupied the Bluefish Caves of Yukon, Canada 24,000 years ago.

But none of these discoveries pushed the timeline as far back as Ardelean's study.

A second paper published Wednesday throws even more cold water on the "Clovis-first" model. For that research, two archaeologists looked at artifacts and traces of human occupation from 42 sites across North America. By dating those findings, the researchers modeled how and when people dispersed across the continent. They concluded that humans were "probably present before, during, and immediately after the Last Glacial Maximum"  that's the peak of the last ice age, which occurred between 26,500 and 19,000 years ago.

"As these older-than-Clovis sites increased in number, most archaeologists came to reject the Clovis-first model," Ruth Gruhn, an archaeologist who was not involved in the study, told Business Insider via email. "These two papers in Nature will finally put an end to it."

A stone tool made from greenish crystallized limestone.

Ciprian Ardelean

She added, "the evidence now indicates that people have been in the western hemisphere at least twice as long as archaeologists and geneticists believed."

The first people in the Americas didn't cross the Bering Land Bridge

If humans were on the continent before or during the peak of the last ice age, they could not have come via the Bering Land Bridge, since it would have been partially submerged or blocked by impenetrable ice sheets.

"Just because the bridge is considered a standard entry doesn't mean it's the only one," Ardelean said, adding, "the panorama of human arrivals during the Last Glacial Maximum is much more complex than we thought."

A simulation of what the Bering land bridge, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia, looked like 20,000 years ago.

NOAA

Lorena Becerra-Valdivia, an archaeological scientist at the Universities of Oxford and New South Wales and the lead author of the second paper, told Business Insider that "the new findings suggest that humans likely took a coastal route."

That means they were probably seafarers who arrived by boat, possibly from modern-day Russia or Japan. Then they expanded south by sailing down the Pacific Coast.

A migratory people who hunted terrestrial animals to extinction

Regardless of early humans' route to North America, both Ardelean and Becerra-Valdivia think they were anatomically modern humans.

"Neanderthals had already disappeared from the fossil record by the time Chiquihuite Cave was occupied," Becerra-Valdivia said.

The archaeologists' own experience in the cave suggests its sheltered location helped these early hunter-gatherers survive during the ice age. Ardelean said summers in the area were too wet to do field work, so they conducted research in the winter. Outside, he said, temperatures would be below freezing temperatures and snow would fall.

"But the cave itself is well insulated, so no matter what happens outside, you could be inside in just your T-shirt. That speaks of the cave's potential as a shelter," he said.

About 14,000 years ago, when the climate started to warm further, early humans were finally able to thrive and expand across the Americas. They were likely fearsome predators, Becerra-Valdivia said, hunting land mammals like horses, camels, and mammoths to extinction.

An artist's reconstruction of early humans in present-day New Mexico hunting a giant ground sloth.

Alex McClelland / Bournemouth University

"This expansion likely had a major role in the dramatic decline of megafauna in the region," she said.

Some research suggests early humans in South America may have even butchered giant ground sloths.

Read the original article on Business Insider
School officials in New Jersey are racing to make sure they will have enough substitute teachers amid much uncertainty about what will happen when in-person instruction resumes in September.

While finding substitutes for when teachers are out sick or unavailable long has been a challenge in New Jersey, the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in unprecedented uncertainty.

Camden City Schools Superintendent Katrina McCombs, speaking at a county government forum Tuesday, said about a third of the districts teachers indicated in a recent survey they might not be willing to return to the classroom.
The number of people confirmed to be infected globally with the coronavirus has passed a staggering 15 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, with the US leading the world in cases as well as deaths.

It came as the World Health Organisation warned that the first vaccine against COVID-19 would likely not be available until early 2021.

The death toll from coronavirus in the US stands at more than 142,000. Credit:AP

While researchers were making "good progress" in developing vaccines, the key until then was to suppress the virus' spread, said Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies program, as daily new cases around the globe are at near-record levels.

"We're making good progress," Ryan said, noting that several vaccines were now in phase 3 trials and none had failed, so far, in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response.
Emerging market economies gravely damaged by the coronavirus emergency could be the source of a new international financial crisis, according to the former governor of Indias central bank.

Raghuram Rajan, a highly influential financial economist who served as governor of the Reserve Bank of India between 2013 and 2016, told Econ Films CoronaNomics show he was concerned by the potential for damaging spill overs from less developed economies to the financial systems of the West.

Mr Rajan presciently warned in 2005, ahead of the global financial crisis, about the potential vulnerabilities of the international financial system as a result of the explosion of financial innovations in Western financial institutions such as mortgage-backed securities and the rapid growth of shadow banking.

But he said that the main financial danger was now posed by emerging market economies and their supporting financial systems.

This time around the centre of the damage will be in the developing countries and emerging markets, especially the ones that are yet to control the virus, he said.

If theres a financial sector spill over  and there could well be both in emerging markets and industrialised countries if this continues for a long time  this will start first in countries that havent been able to support their corporate sector.

China, where corporate debt has risen rapidly over the past decade, has often been cited a potential source of global financial contagion.

Yet Mr Rajan said Beijing seemed to have dealt with the health crisis relatively well and had managed to restore economic activity to pre-crisis levels.

For countries that havent dealt with it yet, theyre going to be in this half living, half dead stage where theyre not into full motion because theyve still got the pandemic and at the same time they cant do the lockdown because people have already been through a lockdown are not willing to support more of that kind, he said.

Its going to be very difficult for those countries. Since they have limited resources they cant bailout their corporations and cant bail out families beyond a certain point.

Earlier this month Mr Rajan warned that Indian banks would likely see a surge of bad debts due to the coronavirus crisis.

And the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cautioned in June that high levels of debt may become unmanageable for some borrowers due to the global recession and that losses resulting from insolvencies could test bank resilience in some countries.

The IMF is projecting the GDP of emerging and developing countries to fall by 3 per cent this year, with particularly large declines in Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

Given potential spill over impacts on global financial systems, Mr Rajan said it was vital for Western financial regulators to be on guard.

I think the decision by some countries to stop banks paying dividends makes sense, he said.

In this environment when we really dont know what is going to happen better opt for safety than be sorry down the line. Its important to preserve capital because we simply dont know what is going to happen.

Mr Rajan, who was widely tipped as a potential Governor of the Bank of England last year, also said the primary challenge facing central banks around the world had changed.

The old problem of central bankers was how do you keep inflation down. That was a problem of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, central banks, for whatever reason, seem to have succeeded in keeping inflation down  now their problem is that its too low, he said.

How do we get it up, especially in a world with enormous debts contracted during the pandemic? A little bit of inflation helps the medicine go down.

However, Mr Rajan said he was not convinced by recent calls for central banks to target nominal GDP, rather than inflation.

My own preference is lets figure out what else we can do to elevate growth rather than relying on monetary policy magic. There are far more important things we can spend our time on, he said.

Watch the full CoronaNomics interview with Raghuram Rajan here
Children with special needs and those from poor or migrant families will suffer the greatest "loss of learning" as a result of homeschooling during the pandemic, a new ESRI report has found.

The study paints a bleak picture of the challenges the lockdown had, and will continue to have, on children and young people's lives for years to come.

Among its findings, the impact of the pandemic will be most acutely felt by young people from economically and socially disadvantaged backgrounds, including those from migrant or refugee backgrounds.

Once the schools eventually reopen, they will "return to school having suffered greater levels of learning loss on average".

Some children who were not "highly engaged in school before the closure may not re-engage in full-time education," the authors warn.

And those with "special needs will likely face particular challenges in re-adjusting to the routine of school and in making up learning loss. If schools do not resume on a full cohort or full-time basis in the coming school year, the learning loss is likely to continue".

The report's authors predict that "additional learning supports will be crucial when schools resume". Merike Darmody, one of the lead authors from the ESRI, said: "The disruption of learning is likely to have long-term consequences for many, especially for more disadvantaged children and young people.

"While short-term measures are important to address the immediate needs of children and young people, the actions taken need to be underpinned by policies addressing larger structural inequalities."

The report drew on existing and emerging Irish and international research on the effects of the pandemic on children.

'Implications of the Covid-19 Pandemic for Policy in Relation to Children and Young People' is released by Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman today.

Meanwhile a recent survey of 11,615 secondary school pupils, parents and guardians found more than half are worried about "learning loss" due to schools being closed. Pupils said they were concerned that distance learning had left them at a disadvantage and they will already be behind as the new school year starts.
A massive global study of the world's reefs has found sharks are 'functionally extinct' on nearly one in five of the reefs surveyed.

Professor Colin Simpfendorfer from James Cook University in Australia was one of the scientists who took part in the study, published today in Nature by the Global FinPrint organisation. He said of the 371 reefs surveyed in 58 countries, sharks were rarely seen on close to 20 percent of those reefs.

"This doesn't mean there are never any sharks on these reefs, but what it does mean is that they are 'functionally extinct' - they are not playing their normal role in the ecosystem," said Professor Simpfendorfer.

He said almost no sharks were detected on any of the 69 reefs of six nations: the Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar.

"In these countries, only three sharks were observed during more than 800 survey hours," said Professor Simpfendorfer.

Dr Demian Chapman, Global FinPrint co-lead and Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Institute of Environment at Florida International University, said it's clear the central problem is the intersection between high human population densities, destructive fishing practices, and poor governance.

"We found that robust shark populations can exist alongside people when those people have the will, the means, and a plan to take conservation action," said Dr Chapman.

Professor Simpfendorfer said it was encouraging that Australia was among the best nations at protecting shark populations and ensuring they played their proper role in the environment.

"We're up there along with such nations as the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia and the US. These nations reflect key attributes that were found to be associated with higher populations of sharks: being generally well-governed, and either banning all shark fishing or having strong, science-based management limiting how many sharks can be caught," he said.

Jody Allen, co-founder and chair of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation which backs the Global FinPrint project, said the results exposed a tragic loss of sharks from many of the world's reefs, but also gave some hope.

"The data collected from the first-ever worldwide survey of sharks on coral reefs can guide meaningful, long-term conservation plans for protecting the reef sharks that remain," she said.

###

For more information and a new global interactive data-visualized map of the Global FinPrint survey results, visit https://globalfinprint.org.

Global FinPrint is an initiative of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and led by Florida International University, supported by a global coalition of partner organizations spanning researchers, funders and conservation groups. The project represents the single largest and most comprehensive data-collection and analysis program of the world's populations of reef-associated sharks and rays ever compiled.
Refugee superhero

Noemie, 16, France

This contest caught my attention for its goal to inspire hope and solidarity and for its ability to raise awareness while staying at home. My superhero is a woman inspired by a Sudanese refugee girl walking under the rain on one of your Instagram posts.

My art is not only for this girl but for all refugees, their unique stories, and their courage I admire. My superhero also has a metal leg which at first is an injury but now is her strongest power, as her fears are now strengths.

Fighting the virus and stereotypes

Nesime, 16, Greece (from Afghanistan)

It is true that the coronavirus is now a part of our lives, but we should not be worried. We should fight together to defeat the coronavirus.

I now live in Greece. People have an image of me in their minds, but I am who I am.

Ray of hope

Mukah, 24, Cameroon

The COVID-19 outbreak and the crisis in my country motivated me to participate. My artwork is entitled Ray of Hope. A group of refugees on the left depict those stricken by war.

Through the donations of nations and individuals that care, UNHCR is able to help refugees. This comes to them as a ray of hope for a brighter future and shows that they matter to our world.

Protection everywhere

Alpha, 25, Kenya (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Im a Congolese refugee living in Kenya. I wanted to communicate through my painting that solidarity is the best way to protect the lives of everybody in the world from this pandemic, including refugees.

Love begets love

Maria, 23, Cyprus

The girl in the drawing offers love to the refugee boy. He in turn conveys the love to his father. The father is a doctor and offers his love to a patient suffering from the coronavirus.

Finally, the patient, who is now healthy, offers her love to her daughter, who is the girl who appears in the original cartoon.

Dark world, blue heart

Mayu, 16, Japan

My drawing shows two hands joining each other to protect a refugee boy, inspired by the flag of UNHCR. There is a dark sky full of conflicts and viruses in the back. But people have united to form a cage that blocks them.

The boy has a hole in his heart. But the hearts of people all over the world pour down to create a deep blue heart. There are so many he cant hold them. You can also imagine that the boy sends back the love.

The potential of a child is immeasurable.

Rain of love

Faida, 20, Rwanda

Refugees in a camp are looking forward to receiving a heart which symbolizes love.

Just for a moment, love is enough to solve their problems, and that is love which comes from everywhere  thats why its coming from the sky.

As countries around the world went into COVID-19 lockdown, many young people reached out to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, asking if there was a way to help while staying at home. We launched the 2020 Youth with Refugees Art Contest to give them a chance to use their creativity for a good cause. Within two months, we received 2,000 drawings from 100 countries.

See also: Winners announced for UNHCR Youth with Refugees Art Contest

The selection of the seven global winners  whose drawings have been animated by Japanese studio SPEED inc.  was made by a jury drawn from UNHCR high-profile supporters, refugee members of our Global Youth Advisory Council, artists, animation experts and our partners. UNHCR has also awarded five regional prizes, five prizes for cartoons and 20 special mentions. All winners are receiving a box of pencils offered by Caran dAche, which partered with UNHCR for the art contest. All participants have received a certificate of participation.
Sleep is an essential part of life and key to the proper functioning of the circadian rhythm. But stress, anxiety and fatigue can often lead to sleep disturbances and disorders, and thats been the case especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Indian study published in the journal Chronobiology International in July 2020 revealed that poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness was highly prevalent among corporate professionals and students in the country.

Many other studies have also pointed this to be a global phenomenon, and methods to fix your sleep cycle during COVID-19 pandemic have been indicated by many as well. One of the most effective tips is to give yourself a wind-down period that begins at least an hour before bedtime. Relaxation techniques can be used to de-stress during this time and electronic devices must be avoided.

Experts at both the US National Sleep Foundation (NSF) and Harvard Medical School recommend yoga as a gentle and restorative way to wind down your day.

NSF data reveals that those who practice yoga daily sleep for longer, fall asleep faster, have better sleep quality and feel better during the day as well.

If you find it difficult to sleep, try the following five yoga asanas before bedtime every day.

1. Balasana

This resting pose relieves back pain and calms the mind at the same time.

Kneel on a mat with your toes placed together. Rest your hips near your heel and place your knees hip-width apart.

Breathe in deeply, and fold your torso onto your thighs while exhaling.

Your hands should be on your sides, palms facing up and relaxed to release the tension in your shoulders by widening the blades.

Try to touch the mat with your forehead, and you can gently roll your head from side to side to release the tension in the brow.

Hold this position for five minutes while breathing gently yet deeply through your nose.

2. Uttanasana

This simple forward bend stretches out all the muscles from your neck and back all the way down to the hamstrings and ankles.

Stand with your feet hip-width apart and breathe in deeply.

Exhale and bend down from your hips in a gentle and smooth movement. Keep your back as straight as possible.

Do not strain to touch the ground with your hands. You can instead rest them on the shins.

Hold this position for a minute while breathing normally, then gently come back up.

Repeat twice more.

3. Viparita Karani

This simple pose takes the strain off your feet and legs to recirculate blood flow.

Place a mat perpendicular to an empty wall.

Gently lie on the mat and place your legs up the wall.

Relax your arms on the sides with the palms facing up.

Close your eyes and stay in this position for five minutes or as long as you want while breathing normally.

4. Baddha Konasana

This asana stretches out the inner thighs, groin and knees while relieving the pressure from your legs and feet.

Sit with your back straight and legs straightened in front of you.

Inhale, then bend your knees and pull your heels towards your pelvis while exhaling.

Drop each knee to the side and press the soles of your feet together.

Bring the joint heels as close to the pelvis as possible, then grasp the big toe of each foot with the first and second fingers and thumbs. If you cant reach the toes comfortably, hold the ankle or shins.

Keep your back straight and apply gentle pressure to push the knees towards the ground.

Stay in this pose for upto five minutes, then inhale, lift your knees and stretch your legs back to return to the original position.

5. Savasana

This is the final resting position in yoga and leads to complete relaxation.

Lie flat on your back without any props or cushions. You may place a rolled-up towel under your neck if absolutely necessary.

Keep your legs slightly apart and relax your thighs, knees, calves, ankles and feet.

Place your arms by your sides, slight away from your torso. Leave the palms open and facing upwards. Relax your shoulders, arms, elbows, palms and fingers.

Close your eyes, relax your entire body, breathe normally and gently focus on each and every part of your body.

Stay in this position for 10-15 minutes, open your eyes and gently sit up.

For more information, read our article on Yoga.

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health.
DALLAS, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Comerica Bank continues its response to supporting local communities with investments totaling $2 million to Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) assisting small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

Investments of $1.5 million to Lendistry and $500,000 to California FarmLink are part of Comerica Bank and the Comerica Charitable Foundation's $8 million investment in community programming support for businesses impacted by COVID-19. The investments will provide necessary funding to small businesses across Comerica's five-state footprint of Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Texas.

"Lendistry and California FarmLink work directly with small businesses to deliver critical funding and resources," said Comerica Bank Chief Community Officer Irvin Ashford, Jr. "These businesses provide valuable services, goods and jobs that are vital to our communities, and we want to help those needing support recover and weather these challenging times."

Lendistry, led by a team of experienced commercial and community lenders, provides affordable small business and commercial real estate loans. The CDFI delivers economic opportunities and progressive growth for small business owners and underserved communities as a source of financing and financial education. Lendistry ranks second nationwide in SBA Community Advantage lending.

"Reversing the staggering unemployment numbers depends on small businesses having the resources to get back on track," Lendistry CEO Everett K. Sands said. "Comerica's investment in Lendistry will support loans to some of the smallest and most underserved businesses in Comerica's markets, including those owners by minorities, women and veterans.

"Comerica's capital also will enable Lendistry to accelerate our development and enlarge our impact as we rise to meet the growing need for the combination of small business support, low-cost financing and fintech efficiency that Lendistry was built to deliver. We appreciate Comerica's vision and commitment to our shared purpose, along with its trust and partnership."

California FarmLink invests in the prosperity of farmers and ranchers through lending, education and access to land. FarmLink helps farmers to build strong business skills, access fair financing and establish secure land tenure.

"We deeply appreciate the bank's partnership. Today, FarmLink's loan portfolio of $15 million serves 200 small-scale farmers throughout California," said California FarmLink Executive Director Reggie Knox. "These farmers are the future of regional food systems. So far this year, more than 35% of borrowers are women and 80% are farmers of color. Many of these farmers have been adversely impacted by the closing of restaurants, schools and other sales channels due to the coronavirus pandemic. Comerica's timely commitment of capital to our loan fund will support these farmers, and help to guarantee continued access to fresh, healthy foods in this time of crisis."

On May 7, Comerica Bank and Comerica Charitable Foundation announced investments totaling $8 million to support community programming and businesses impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Coupled with aid to small and micro businesses, investments are directed toward community service organizations providing services to youth, seniors and other vulnerable populations. Among the aid recently announced includes a $1 million commitment to the National Business League to launch the Black Capital Access Program, and access to capital to assist Black businesses across the country.

Comerica Incorporated (NYSE: CMA) is a financial services company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and strategically aligned by three business segments: The Commercial Bank, The Retail Bank, and Wealth Management. Comerica focuses on relationships, and helping people and businesses be successful. In addition to Texas, Comerica Bank locations can be found in Arizona, California, Florida and Michigan, with select businesses operating in several other states, as well as in Canada and Mexico. Comerica reported total assets of $84 billion at June 30, 2020 and celebrated its 170th anniversary in August 2019.

SOURCE Comerica Bank

Related Links

http://www.comerica.com


Custom casket maker, SoulShine Industries, donates casket to Spc. Vanessa Guillen's family for her funeral.

"We are honored to be apart of celebrating Vanessa Guillens life. As her story has swept the nation we pray for the ones she left behind. Her family and her loved ones are in our thoughts and prayers. Many blessings," said the company through a Facebook post.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF FORT HOOD LAUNCHED: Spc. Vanessa Guillen's death sparks independent review of Fort Hood by Secretary of the Army

Trey Ganem, the owner of SoulShine Industries shared a few photos of the custom-made casket with Chron.com.

"SoulShine poured their heart and soul into creating the casket," said State Senator Carol Alvarado. "By including personal details such as the Mexican and American flags, Vanessas favorite color, and the Virgen de Guadalupe, the casket truly reflects who Vanessa is and embraces what she loved."

Ganem also donated the casket to the family of 4-year-old Maleah Davis last year.

Guillen, whose death sparked a nation to come together demanding justice for the slain Fort Hood Soldier, has inspired many like SoulShine Industries to honor the 20-year-old native Houstonian.

State Rep. Christina Morales of District 145 was inspired by the donation made to Guillen family stating the following:

Vanessa Guillens death has had an echoing effect throughout the community, and it gives me hope that individuals, businesses, and the community are coming together to support her family," said Morales. "The generosity and kindness shown during this time show the strength of our community and commitment to one another. We must continue to do all that we can as a community to support her family and remember Vanessa Guillens story.

Guillen had been missing since April and was later discovered to have been murdered on Fort Hood, according to Army investigators.

Recently, Rep. Sylvia Garcia was instrumental in garnering humanitarian visas for Vanessa Guillens grandmother and six of her aunts and uncles to attend the funeral services for Guillen in Houston.

To date, no formal plans are in place for Guillen's funeral but the family is planning to participate in a peaceful protest in Washington D.C. on July 30 in honor of the slain soldier.

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A program aimed at helping consumers find where to buy fresh produce and other products from Alabama was celebrated with a special market today in front of the State Capitol.

Sweet Grown Alabama is a nonprofit organization started in September as a collaboration of seven organizations. More than 150 farmers and businesses that produce and sell Alabama products are members. Officials said the program can grow much bigger.

For now, consumers looking for any of about 100 categories of products, from apples to zucchini, can search the Sweet Grown Alabama online database for names and locations of farms, markets, and other vendors.

Gov. Kay Ivey spoke at todays event, along with Alabama Agriculture & Industries Commissioner Rick Pate. Pate said locally grown is the most powerful label for consumers making decisions about buying food products but that it hasnt always been easy to know when it applies.

If you stop on the side of the road and somebodys selling tomatoes there, are you really getting the Mexican tomato or the California tomato or is it actually a locally grown? Pate said. To be a member of our organization, youve got to actually grow it here. Thats the criteria.

More than 30 vendors participated in the Sweet Grown Alabama Day market. Angela Arrington, market manager for East Lake Market in Birmingham, sees a lot of potential as the program becomes more well known.

A lot of our farmers havent heard about it yet or are leery of it because its something new, Arrington said. But I think its going to be great. Im excited about what can happen with the program.

Alabama Farmers Federation President Jimmy Parnell said the federation has talked about the concept for years and said Pate embraced it when he became agriculture commissioner last year.

A lot of folks want to know where this is going, Parnell said. Im not sure any of us know where this is going. This has the potential to be much bigger than ever imagined by any of us.

The first, most logical place is the farmers that grow produce. Produce is grown locally. Its sold local. Its easy to put that brand on it of where it came from. But well take this product and figure out how to do more with it.

Founding organizations were the Alabama Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils, Alabama Ag Credit, the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industries, the Alabama Farmers Cooperative, the Alabama Farmers Federation, First South Farm Credit, and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
The Member of Parliament for Damongo in the Savannah Region, Adam Mutawakilu has urged the Electoral Commission to re-open the TB Kojokora Registration centre after registration was suspended there.

Registration at the centre was halted after the military allegedly stormed the centre; a situation that caused the suspension of the exercise.

Speaking to Citi News, Adam Mutawakilu called on the electoral management body to step up efforts to ensure the resumption of the registration exercise.

I will like the Electoral Commission to sit up and do a proper investigation. Those people are in the community and it is proper that the exercise was suspended. They should put measures in place, educate the people and handle it in a manner that each party will be okay with. The EC should make the military aware that they have no right to chase out a voter, but the parties have the right to challenge. The military is not the ones to be driving voters away. They are supposed to protect the voters for the law to take its place.

Two persons were on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, arrested for illegal possession of firearms at Kojokora in the West Gonja district of the Savannah Region.

This was after it emerged that they were aiding and escorting some persons believed to be Ivorians to go and register at the Kojokora registration station centre.

According to the Savannah Regional Police Command, the suspects Inusah Iddisah and Salifu Abubakar said they were accompanying some other persons to the registration centre with the weapons for safety.

They were arrested with guns, ammunition and machetes.

The incident is said to have led to the suspension of the registration exercise at the centre.

There have been increasing reports of accusations between the two main political parties over the busing of non-Ghanaians to register in some constituencies, among others.

They have thus been urged to use the electoral laws in resolving their differences in the ongoing voters registration exercise rather than resorting to violence.

The EC has condemned such acts during a civil exercise like the Registration of Voters and has called on security agencies to investigate the issue as a matter of urgency to bring the perpetrators to book.

---citinewsroom
Starbucks Corporation SBUX is leaving no stone unturned to reach to more customers in China. Starbucks lovers in the country can now place orders via multiple Alibaba Group Holding Limiteds BABA apps. Starbucks has introduced its mobile order and pay feature  Starbucks Now  to multiple platforms in the Alibaba Digital Economy, which includes Taobao, Amap, Koubei and Alipay.



Starbucks customers can use Starbucks Now feature to pre-order and pay for their favorite Starbucks beverage and food online before in-person pick-up at local stores. This will help Starbucks in expanding presence in China as Alibaba Digital Economy has user base of nearly 1 billion. Notably, Starbucks sales have declined sharply owing to the pandemic. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the company is making every move to recover sales.



In 2018, Starbucks announced partnership with Alibaba in order to provide a seamless Starbucks Experience in China and drive growth. Starbucks began delivery services in Beijing and Shanghai via Alibaba's Ele.me platform. The company announced that it has surpassed its goal of expanding Starbucks Delivers presence to 3,000 stores in 100 cities by the end of fiscal 2019. Starbucks' business in China is rapidly growing courtesy of innovative store designs, local product innovations and the success of MSR program.



Starbucks has been focusing on expanding delivery services globally. In fact, the company has online delivery services in China, Japan, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mexico, Colombia and Chile. These efforts are aimed at capitalizing on the robust online food delivery market.



China: A Key Market



China is the fastest growing market for Starbucks. Improving customer experience via innovative new store designs, upgrading product offerings and margin expansion through process and supply chain efficiencies are driving performance. China has witnessed comps growth of 1%, 3%, 6% and 5% in the first, second, third and fourth of fiscal 2019, respectively. In first-quarter 2020, China delivered comps growth of 3%. Although comps declined in second-quarter fiscal 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak, China still remains one of the most important markets for the company.



Management believes that China and the Asia-Pacific region will drive business growth over the next five years supported by rapid unit growth, growing brand awareness, and increased usage of the digital/mobile/loyalty platforms.



Shares of Starbucks have fallen 14.7% year to date, compared with the industrys decline of 6.4%.

Story continues







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Yum China surpassed estimates in each the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 62.9%.



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The Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) has endorsed its Founder, Mr Kofi Akpaloo, as its presidential candidate in the upcoming general election.



In a similar fashion, it has also endorsed Mrs Margaret Obrian Sarfo, a business woman, as the running mate to support the party in its bid to win power in the upcoming elections.



At an event to introduce both the presidential candidate and his running mate in Accra yesterday, 13 national executives of the party were also acclaimed to aid the party to capture political power.



National Executive



The executive members are Mr John Ameka, National Chairman; Mrs Sophia Akpaloo, National First Vice-Chairman; Mrs Eunice Adu, National Third Vice-Chairman; Mrs Sarah Grant, General Secretary, and Mr Fleischer Lartey, National Organiser.



The rest are Mr Clement Boadi, National Youth Organiser; Mr Samuel Owusu Afriyie, National Communications Director; Alhaji Adam Sulley, National Zongo Coordinator; Mrs Krystle Houston, Director of International Relations, and Mr Jerry Owusu Appiah, Director of Operations and Elections.



In an address, Mr Akpaloo commended the national council for having confidence in him by electing him to lead the party in the upcoming elections.



I pray that your effort will not be in vain and your desire to see me become President of our dear nation will be realised. The LPG is what Ghanaians are waiting for; we have arrived on the scene to rescue them and we are not going to fail them, he said.



Education



Giving a blueprint of the partys vision, he said it had a clear-cut objective of developing Ghanas human resource to help transform the economy.



Mr Akpaloo said his strategy was to run a government that would prioritise investment in education, health care, agriculture, information technology, research and development.



He explained that his government would also put in place the needed resources, policies and incentives which would bring about the development of the educational system, from the primary, secondary through to the tertiary level.



According to him, developing people and communities was the surest and shortest way to get Ghana out of relative poverty to inclusive prosperity.



We know this because having an extensive local and international learning and working experience, we have learnt that when human development is prioritised in society, carried along as a national agenda, the prosperity penetration increases exponentially, he said.



He said with such agenda, the LPG, if voted into power, would ensure that the countrys tertiary institutions would be the centres of excellence where world-class research and development would take place.



Agriculture



Touching on agriculture, he said an LPG government would mechanise farming and bring about agricultural industrialisation to make life better for farmers and increase yields in the country.



He said such an effort would lead to more employment opportunities because farmers could earn more as a result of increased yields.



Agro mechanised and its attended agro-allied services in the areas of agro production and industrialisation need massive interventions and support from the government. We will put in place funding and subsidy regimes to support our farmers, while discouraging importation, he said.



Entrepreneurship



He said his government would create one million entrepreneurs within four years, adding: I have done this as a business man and I will do it as a civil servant.



The world has changed dynamically and the most important resource needed for transformational change, the most vital commodity, the most attractive capital, both foreign and local, are the people, he noted.



In addition, Mr Akpaloo said Ghana would be a place where students and graduates could compete internationally for jobs and services.



Running mates response



For her part, Mrs Sarfo expressed her gratitude to the leader of the party for nominating her to be his running mate.



She observed that the task ahead  winning this years elections  was daunting but expressed optimism that it was achievable.



She, therefore, urged all the members to work harder and start winning votes for the partys presidential and parliamentary candidates with immediate effect.



Resources are limited, unlike the NPP and the NDC, but our determination, commitment and the judicious use of available resources will push us to victory. Lets focus on the light at the end of the tunnel and we will certainly reach it, she said.









Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The Texas Railroad Commission last month surprised many: it said it would tighten the rules for gas flaring at oil fields later this year. Texas is certainly not the state with the best environmental policies record for obvious reasons, such as the fact it is the largest single producer of oil in the U.S. But gas flaring literally wastes billions of dollars. Perhaps the time has come to stop the waste.

Every year, the oil and gas industry flares some 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The reasons vary: at oil fields, gas is flared when there are no pipelines to transport it to a collection or storage hub; at refineries, some gases need to be flared to avoid explosions.

And there is more. Many oil producers have no idea how much gas they are wasting through flaring because they have no monitoring systems, Mark Davis, CEO of Capterio  a company that provides flaring elimination services. They also dont see the gas they flare as a potential revenue stream, mostly because in order to start capturing it, they need to make an additional investment, which is often deemed uneconomical. And finally, Davis says, there are capex constraints. A lot of oil producers, especially in the U.S. simply cannot afford to stop flaring, at least on their own.

Yet these billions of cubic meters of unwanted gas costs money, even if the global gas market is currently oversaturated. Therefore, flaring gas means losing money. It also means higher emissions of both methanewhich is what most of the flared gas is made up ofand carbon dioxide.

Methane is drawing more and more attention from climate change activists and other organisations because of its powerful greenhouse properties. As a result, the energy industry has come under stricter scrutiny, with many companies voluntarily announcing plans to keep a closer eye on how much methane they produce in the process of oil and gas extraction. Exxon, Chevron, and BP were among the first to announce methane monitoring systems.

When you look at the future, the Achilles heel of the gas industry is the methane emissions, the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said last year. And the good news is for the industry, this can be fixed by existing technology, only using the best practices. And I can tell you that many companies are taking this seriously.

They have no other choice but to take it seriously really, in an environment fraught with mistrust of the industry and accusations of driving climate change with their business. Shareholder pressure alone has proven to be a major driving force behind change, for the public players in the field. And now, the pressure to end flaring may increase, after it became clear what a powerful effect on flaring-related emissions oil production cuts had.

In the U.S., in the Permian alone, carbon dioxide emissions from gas flaring are set to drop by half during the second half of this year thanks to the well shut-ins producers were forced to implement in response to the oil demandand pricecrash from earlier this year, according to Rystad Energy. In addition to the shut-ins, there will be fewer new wells put on stream in the second half of the year, which would also contribute to the decline in flare-related emissions.

This would be a decline following a plateau of flaring-related emissions, by the way. After last year gas flaring in the Permian hit an all-time high of 661 million cu ft of gas, it declined slightly to 500 million cu ft towards the end of the year and stayed there until the oil price crash. Now, if the Texas Railroad Commission does tighten rules for flaring, the decline would likely accelerate as E&Ps look for other ways to deal with the waste gas, which, by the way, in 2018 alone cost Texas oil and gas producers almost $750 million.

The oil and gas industry has been undergoing fundamental change over the past several years, transforming from a cash-inundated juggernaut to an unstable, declining player that the State of Texas depends upon for its financial health, said the authors of the report that calculated how much Texas had lost from flaring. In this context, the RRCs duty to address waste in oil and gas production is not only a legal requirement but also a practical imperative that is becoming more and more critical for the financial future of Texas, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said.

Its not just money that is wasted, either. The World Bank, which has launched a Zero Routine Flaring by 2030 initiative, has calculated that the amount of gas flared annually could generate as much as 750 billion kWh of electricity. This is more than Africas total consumption. While the WB notes that not all flared gas can be used for electricity generation, there are other things one can do with it, such as reinject it into oil wells to stimulate production.

There are also purely practical considerations regarding flaring. Flaring in the U.S., counterintuitive as it may seem, has relatively low intensity, Capterios Davis told Oilprice.com. Flaring in some large OPEC producers, on the other hand, is very high. And in addition to wasting all this money and opportunities, it can literally damage equipment if the company flaring does not pay enough attention. Add this to the reasons why ending flaring is good for the industry.

But times right now are challenging and an increase in oil well yields, for example, is hardly a good reason to capture associated gas instead of flaring it. Capex constraints have increased significantly as shale producers struggle to survive. Yet pressure is increasing from both environmental groups and government agencies, and, importantly, from energy investors.

We cannot continue to waste this much natural gas and allow the practice of flaring to tarnish the reputation of our states thriving energy sector to the general public and investors on Wall Street, the chairman of the Texas RRC said after the announcement of the planned flaring caps.

Investors have always had the swing vote in oil and gas. This time, their vote may well mark the first step towards ending a decades-old practice of wasting energy and money in a win-win situation.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The New York Times

Climate change threatens to create turmoil in the financial markets, and the Federal Reserve and other regulators must act to avoid an economic disaster, according to a letter sent on Tuesday by a group of large investors.

The climate crisis poses a systemic threat to financial markets and the real economy, with significant disruptive consequences on asset valuations and our nations economic stability, reads the letter, which was signed by more than three dozen pension plans, fund managers and other financial institutions that together manage almost $1 trillion in assets.

That financial threat, combined with the physical risks posed by climate change, may create "disastrous impacts the likes of which we havent seen before," the letter says. It urges the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies to explicitly integrate climate change across your mandates.

Investors worry that if regulators do not act, climate change may cause the price of some companies to fall suddenly, the effects of which may ricochet through the economy. Providing more information about that risk  for example, by requiring companies to disclose more about their greenhouse gas emissions, or which of their facilities are at risk from rising seas  could help investors make better decisions.

That, in turn, might encourage companies to lower their emissions, or risk losing access to investment or affordable insurance coverage.

"Every medium and large business has bank loans and has insurance," said Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, a group that works with investors and which organized the letter.

The letter calls on regulators to adopt the steps Ceres outlined last month in a report that makes 51 recommendations to eight federal agencies. At its core are two demands: that the agencies treat climate change as a systemic risk, and that the SEC ensures mandatory and consistent disclosure of climate threats facing companies.

According to Ceres, regulators can adopt each of its recommendations without new legislation from Congress. Still, during the Trump administration, even agencies that are meant to have a degree of independence from the White House have been reluctant to address climate change. President Donald Trump has called global warming a hoax, and he has reversed nearly 70 environmental rules, with another 30 in progress.

Nevertheless, Ceres recommendations offer a blueprint for how a Democratic administration might begin to tackle climate change, should former Vice President Joe Biden win the presidency in November. Last month, Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis released a report that echoed some of the recommendations from Ceres, particularly ones regarding the disclosure of financial risks.

The letter on Tuesday suggests that those recommendations have significant support among investors as well.

The letter was signed by some of the largest pension funds in the country, including the California State Teachers Retirement System, or CalSTRS, which manages $246 billion; the New York City Comptrollers Office, which oversees pension funds worth $206 billion; and the New York State Comptrollers Office, which manages the states $211 billion retirement fund.

Liz Gordon, executive director of corporate governance for New York states fund, said that even large institutional investors with skilled researchers could not protect their holdings against climate risk. We do a lot of engagement with companies individually, Gordon said. But thats not going to solve the broader problem.

She said the SEC, which regulates the stock market and requires publicly traded companies to regularly disclose information about a range of perils they face, should also require those companies to better disclose the financial risks they confront from climate change.

Other asset managers warned that climate change would increasingly disrupt businesses.

Julie Gorte, senior vice president for sustainable investing at Impax Asset Management, which manages $23 billion, said the SEC should force companies to disclose the location of their physical assets, such as factories and other facilities. That way, investors can gauge the risks facing those facilities from wildfires, hurricanes or flooding, and push companies to address them. Investors would then be able to choose whether to invest based on that information.

Regulators actually have the power to make the risks smaller, she said. That will help all investors.

Another useful change, Rothstein said, would be for the Fed to require banks to examine the climate vulnerability of the companies they lend money to. Banks already do those tests for other types of financial risk, through a process that regulators and investors call stress tests.

Banks could then use the information from those climate-related stress tests to increase the amount of money they hold in reserve, to help them stay solvent if some of those companies defaulted. After the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of the U.S. housing market, we looked at stress tests for banks, focusing on housing, Rothstein said. Now, he said, think about the climate risks.

Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Federal Reserve governor and deputy secretary of the Treasury who wrote the foreword to Ceres list of recommendations, said that U.S. regulators were falling behind their counterparts in other countries, which have already begun imposing stress tests for climate change as well as other steps.

You see very credible central banks, like the Bank of England and the European Central Bank, taking the risk of a climate calamity into their mission in a very disciplined and structured way, Raskin said. These arent fringe ideas.

While the changes dont require congressional approval, the objections of some Republican lawmakers to acting on climate change have had a chilling effect on regulators, said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., who signed the letter.

Some civil servants logically fear that certain legislators, certain committees would come after them or attack them, Curbelo said. By and large, regulators try to stay out of controversy.

Still, Curbelo said the need to act was clear. The risks are real, he said, and those of us who live here in South Florida observe them on a daily basis.

Christopher Flavelle. c.2020 The New York Times Company
The letter said the audit could find "no benefit received by the State Fair, in goods or services, for the $149,415.60 paid, through the two checks at issue, to RKBB."

The audit also found other irregularities related to payments and compensation to Kopke.

For example, he received a performance bonus of 20% of his salary for 2019. No other employee received a bonus of more than 10%.

The audit also noted that both Kopke and former fair Executive Director Lori Cox made questionable credit card purchases related to meals, travel, fuel and other items.

The letter recommended that the State Fair "take immediate action to recover any funds that are found to have been disbursed improperly."

It said that because the audit's findings point to the possible violation of state laws, they are being forwarded to the Nebraska Attorney General, the Nebraska State Patrol and the Hall County Attorney.

The audit also recommended that the fair institute a number of changes, including better segregation of duties among staff, better adherence to its own administrative procedures and making sure all approved expenditures are supported by documentation.
Stacker determined the most popular grocery stores in America by consulting consumer ratings from polling source YouGov, released in February 2020. YouGov ratings are based on national polling and weighted to equitably represent different demographics, such as age and gender.
The drone 'Bharat' also provides real-time video transmission during the mission and can detect humans hidden under deep forest covers.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has provided indigenously-developed drones called 'Bharat' to the Indian Army amid the ongoing boundary tensions at LAC between India and China.

The drones are sent in order to conduct accurate surveillance along the Line of Actual Control in high altitude and mountainous terrains of Eastern Ladakh, ANI quoted defence sources as saying.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Bharat, has been developed by Chandigarh-based laboratory of the DRDO.

Projected to be among 'world's most agile and lightest surveillance systems', the drone has been developed indigenously by the DRDO.

The "small yet powerful drone works autonomously at any location with great accuracy. The unibody biomimetic design with advance release technology is a potent combination for surveillance missions", according to DRDO sources.

The UAV was made in a way to ensure its survival in extreme cold weather temperatures.

With transgression by the Chinese troops along the LAC as the major challenge, the drone also provides real-time video transmission during the mission and can detect humans hidden under deep forest covers.

It has been equipped with advanced night vision capabilities and its stealthy design ensures that its signature remains undetected from enemy radars.

It is gaining a lot of popularity because it can operate in swarm operations, sources said.

"The drone is capable of providing real-time video feed as well as still images to its operators and its controlling software has built-in artificial intelligence tools for analysis and decision-making," Tribune quoted a senior DRDO as saying.

"Besides the armed forces, it also has the potential for being used by the Central Armed Police Forces and law enforcement agencies," he said.

Bharat has been designed entirely by DRDO's Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL), which is involved in development, production, processing and characterisation of different high-explosive compositions, fragmentation studies of warheads, captive flight testing of bombs, missiles and airborne systems and ballistics evaluation of protective systems like body armour, vehicle armour and helmets.

Meanwhile, as the tensions between the two countries grew, the Indian Army has deployed six T-90 Bhishma missile-firing tanks and top-of-the-line shoulder-fired anti-tank missile systems in the Galwan Valley sector in June.

Considered as the main battle tank for the Indian Army, it has a capability to deal with chemical and biological weapons and can fire 8 shells in 60 seconds.

With inputs from ANI
Members of staff on The Ellen DeGeneres show are reportedly 'loving' that people are coming forward amid claims there is a 'toxic working environment' on the show.

Last week, Buzzfeed published a damning report of the hit show, claiming to speak to anonymous workers - one currently still working there - who had been mistreated either by Ellen, 62, or her producers, and now a Wednesday report by UsWeekly claims the scandal is uniting staff behind-the-scenes.

'They've been calling and texting each other about the story,' a source claims to the publication. 'They're loving that the truth - which has been an open secret for years in the industry - is finally receiving more interest.'

Embattled: Ellen DeGeneres - pictured earlier this filming an at-home version of her show - has been faced with reports of bad behavior by current and former staffers

Buzzfeed's bobmshell article spoke to 11 people associated with the show, that made claims of them facing racism, fear and intimidation while working on the syndicated series.

Responding to that particular report, executive producers Ed Glavin, Mary Connelly and Andy Lassner issued a joint statement, saying they 'strive create an open, safe and inclusive work environment.'

'We are truly heartbroken and sorry to learn that even one person in our production family has had a negative experience,' the statement added.

Happy face: Ellen is known for her kind-hearted gestures on her daytime talk-show

Earlier this month, reps for the show were forced to deny reports that show was on the verge of being cancelled. 'Telepictures can confirm its untrue,' reps for the talk show host's production company told the New York Post.

DeGeneres has continued to broadcast her daytime show - which she's been doing since 2003 - from her living room of the Santa Barbara, California mansion she shares with wife Portia De Rossi, 47.

She has been increasingly slammed on social media after multiple reports surfaced in April painting an uncomfortable picture of the way she treats others when the cameras aren't rolling.

A group of around 30 crew members were upset after she hired an outside company called Key Code Media to film the shows, and also rankled at what they called a lack of communication or transparency about their jobs following the March shutdown amid the coronavirus outbreak, Variety reported in April.

Weathering the storm: The host has been doing her best to carry on as normal filming the show from home, which backfired when it was claimed she had hired a non-union crew to help out

'Higher-ups in production would occasionally answer phone calls but reveal little' to the crew members, who had their pay slashed by 40 percent amid changes brought about by the virus, insiders told the outlet.

Sources told the outlet that this was not the case with all the shows, as crews for John Oliver, Desus and Mero and Samantha Bee were paid their full rates, while Jimmy Kimmel dipped into his own pocket for a time to keep his staff getting their regular rates.

Producers responded that 'Our executive producers and Telepictures are committed to taking care of our staff and crew and have made decisions first and foremost with them in mind.'

Her character also came under fire after a series of tweets from comic Kevin T. Porter March 20 asking his followers to post 'insane' tales of 'Ellen being mean' caught the attention of social media. (Porter's effort was linked to a charity drive for the Los Angeles Food Bank.)

Host with the most... complaints: Ellen, 62, has been facing a barrage of criticism lately for alleged bad behavior on her show

Writer Ben Simeon said that 'a new staff member was told, "Every day she picks someone different to really hate. Its not your fault, just suck it up for the day and shell be mean to someone else the next day." They didnt believe it, but it ended up being entirely true.'

'Everyone must chew gum from a bowl outside her office before talking to her and if she thinks you smell that day you have to go home and shower.'

Ellen - who Forbes reported is worth around $330 million - has also caught flak for tone deafness after joking that locking down in her opulent mansion was 'like being in jail.'
NY Planned Parenthood is dumping Margaret Sangers name but its keeping her legacy, pro-lifers say

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Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced Tuesday that it's disassociating from its founder, Margaret Sanger, for her racist legacy and view on eugenics. But pro-life advocates say that despite dropping her name, the abortion business is carrying on her legacy.

Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced it will remove Sangers name from its buildings and a street sign and both will be renamed, according to PPGNYs statement.

The removal of Margaret Sangers name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthoods contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color, said Karen Seltzer, board chair at PPGNY.

Nia Martin-Robinson, director of Black Leadership and Engagement at Planned Parenthood, that police violence, access to healthcare and abortion criminalization are the real problem black Americans face.

Lila Rose, founder of the pro-life group Live Action, responded on Twitter, saying, "The evil that Margaret Sanger started when she founded Planned Parenthood 100 years ago pales in comparison to the atrocities the corporation does today. Every day, Planned Parenthood kills 900 babies. 900 irreplaceable, precious human lives destroyed."

The evil that Margaret Sanger started when she founded Planned Parenthood 100 years ago pales in comparison to the atrocities the corporation does today.



Every day, Planned Parenthood kills 900 babies.



900 irreplaceable, precious human lives destroyed.https://t.co/7k3HEOiByP  Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) July 21, 2020

NFL athlete, author and pro-life advocate Benjamin Watson responded to the Planned Parenthood clinic's decision in a segment on "Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream," Tuesday where he said: "To denounce or disavow Margaret Sanger for Planned Parenthood that's surprising considering what they've said about her, giving out awards in her honor and touting her has a hero."

"The legacy of Margaret Sanger is being carried out in the present," he continued. "While at one time we're looking back and denouncing her for what she said then  the racism, the eugenicism ... They have to realize that they are literally carrying out her legacy today as mothers and children and fathers and families are being broken up because of the atrocity of abortion.

"Let's talk about how people who are affected by the racism that they're denouncing from Margaret Sanger are the ones that are most affected by this because of so many other factors that are driving people who are poor and minorities into their clinics. And they're not offering them help. What they're offering is the option to terminate pregnancies. The legacy is being continued."

Watson, who's also working on a pro-life film, shared the Fox News segment on Twitter where he added: "Disavowing Margaret Sanger for her eugenic racist ideology is a hollow gesture when you continue to perpetuate her legacy with your actions. Preserve life while combatting the harmful institutional racism you denounce on this day. But first preserve life..." He then added the number 345,672," which is the number of babies aborted at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide last year.

. @ppfa,

Disavowing Margaret Sanger for her eugenic racist ideology is a hollow gesture when you continue to perpetuate her legacy with your practices. Instead, preserve life while simultaneously combatting the harmful racism you denounce. But first preserve life...



345,672 pic.twitter.com/jYAqvclT8B  Benjamin Watson (@BenjaminSWatson) July 22, 2020

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, who has long been calling on cities to stop honoring Margaret Sanger, wrote on Twitter: "For years, the pro-life movement has been treated like 'crazy conspiracy theorists' for raising the point that Planned Parenthood was founded in racism. Today, Planned Parenthood of NY re-affirmed what we've been saying for decades."

Students for Life has also launched a "Strike Out Sanger" petition, urging supporters to demand that the Smithsonian Museum remove Sanger's image from the National Portrait Gallery and for New York City and Boston, Massachusetts, to "stop honoring this racist."

Margaret Sangers ties to eugenics and racism was apparent when she held a speech with a branch of the New Jersey Ku Klux Klan, according to The Daily Signal. In the speech, Sanger made anti-immigrant remarks for genetic control reasons. She also called Australias Aborigines the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development.

Eugenics, or the process of using selective breeding on people to control a population. Eugenic practices were legal in the United States from 1907 to 1940 and led to sterilization of 64,000 Americans, according to Eugenic Sterilization Laws by Paul Lambardo.

According to The Daily Signal, Sanger was not an advocate for abortion.

"She thought that access to birth control was a 'human right'  but was repulsed by abortion. 'In my opinion it is a cruel method of dealing with the problem,' Sanger wrote upon returning home [from the Soviet Union], 'because abortion, no matter how well done, is a terrific nervous strain and an exhausting physical hardship,'" The Daily Signal noted.

This has led many opponents of Planned Parenthood to say that the nation's largest abortion business exceeded Sanger's objectives by slaughtering millions of black babies.

Elizabeth Harrington, a national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, wrote on Twitter: "If they truly disavowed Margaret Sanger, they would close up shop Planned Parenthood has fulfilled Sanger's mission: 19 million black babies have been aborted since 1973."

PPGNY added in its statement that it's starting an initiative called Reviving Radical. The initiative is said to focus on Planned Parenthoods legacy and contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color and divesting from and dismantling white dominant organizational cultural norms and values.

Dr. Lynn Roberts, commissioner of Planned Parenthoods Reviving Radical, said in the statement that she's glad Sangers name will be removed.

I am heartened by the decision by PPGNY to rename its Manhattan Health Center, Roberts said. While this comes at a time when the entire nation is reckoning with its sordid past and present realities of racial injustice, I am even more encouraged that this symbolic gesture is also accompanied by a deeper commitment to take even bolder steps toward institutional transformation.

PPGNY did not provide a date for when Sangers name will be removed from buildings and the street sign.
(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to edge down at the open on Wednesday as enthusiasm over the EU's coronavirus package faded.

The FTSE 100 was called to open 14 points lower at 6,255.



CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "European markets enjoyed a fairly solid session yesterday, with the German DAX hitting a new five month high, however the progress proved to be hard to sustain with the DAX, CAC40 and FTSE100 all closing well off from their intraday highs.



"The early optimism that came about as a result of yesterday's eventual agreement on a new EU budget, as well as the make-up of the new pandemic recovery program, soon gave way to the reality that the distribution of any funds still remains some way off.



"Despite the scepticism, and there is plenty to go around, yesterday's agreement does appear to break a previously important taboo, which is the creation of some form of common debt."



In UK corporate news, engineering company Melrose Industries pulled its interim dividend and said it expected to post a small first-half operating profit, after a slump in revenue due to the Covid-19 crisis.



The company said revenue fell 27% after a "steep decline" in the second quarter as lockdowns shuttered its factories. However, there was a rebound in June as measures were eased and adjusted operating profits were breakeven.



"This means Melrose is likely to make a small adjusted operating profit in the period," the company said.



"While we are encouraged by the strong cash performance in the period, your board does not consider it appropriate to pay an interim dividend to shareholders in 2020."



DIY group Kingfisher said it expected interim pre-tax profits to be higher as strong demand continued across its markets after the lifting of coronavirus lockdowns, but withheld guidance due to continued uncertainty.



The B&Q owner said group second quarter like-for-like sales to July 18 rose 21.6%. For the year to the same date they were down 3.7%.



"Based on the strong sales seen to date in Q2, combined with cost reductions benefiting H1 (some of which are non-recurring), the company anticipates its half year adjusted pre-tax profit to be ahead of prior year," it said.




Carlyle co-CEO Glenn Youngkin speaks at a US Chamber of Commerce panel discussion in 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Carlyle Group has announced that Glenn Youngkin will step down as co-CEO at the end of September, leaving Kewsong Lee as the firm's sole CEO. The pair took over for co-founders David Rubenstein and Bill Conway in early 2018, around the same time that rivals Apollo Global Management and KKR made high-level leadership changes of their own.



The move marks the end of a 25-year career for Youngkin at the Washington, DC-based buyout giant. As co-CEO, he has overseen the firm's energy, infrastructure and real estate units. He was the firm's president and COO immediately before his short stint as co-CEO, and before that he filled a range of other roles, including leading Carlyle's industrials division and its buyout teams in the US and UK.



Youngkin, 52, said in a press release that he now plans to focus on community and public-service initiatives he believes can "make a meaningful impact." Already, he's getting such efforts underway. Youngkin recently launched VA Ready, a Virginia-based program that pairs community colleges with companies in the healthcare, tech and manufacturing industries to help workers impacted by COVID-19 re-enter the workforce.



"He did an outstanding job as co-CEO, but I certainly understand the pull of the kind of public service activities to which Glenn is committed," Rubenstein said in a statement.



Youngkin had an eventful few years in charge at Carlyle. Along with Lee, he oversaw the firm's transition from a publicly traded partnership into a corporation as well as the closure of more than $40 billion in new funds, including an $18.5 billion flagship vehicle, a $6.6 billion Asia fund and a nearly $7.4 billion Europe fund. Carlyle grew its assets under management from $195 billion to $217 billion under Youngkin and Lee's guidance, and the firm's stock price has increased by nearly 30%.



Last November, the firm found itself embroiled in a feud between pop star Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun, who acquired Swift's music catalog through a Carlyle-backed deal earlier in the year.



The announcement of Youngkin's retirement comes a little more than a week before Carlyle is scheduled to announce its earnings for the second quarter of the year, the first quarter to play out entirely under the shadow of the coronavirus crisis.



During Q1, when the impacts of the pandemic were beginning to be felt, all of the major publicly traded private equity firms suffered a hit. Carlyle posted a loss of $612 million, with its energy portfolio depreciating by 22%, its credit portfolio by 21% and its private equity portfolio by 8%. The firm increased its distributable earnings by 73% on a year-over-year basis, however, topping analyst expectations for the amount of cash it could pay out to shareholders.



Now, such concerns will be the sole domain of Lee, who joined Carlyle in 2013 after previously working at Warburg Pincus. Before ascending to co-CEO, and now CEO, Lee was the deputy chief investment officer of Carlyle's private equity unit and its head of global credit.
MONTREAL - A father who was the subject of an intense 10-day manhunt had killed his two young daughters with a blunt object and taken his own life before an Amber Alert was ever triggered for them, Quebec provincial police said Wednesday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A body believed to be Martin Carpentier is carried by police investigators, Monday, July 20, 2020 in Saint-Apollinaire Que. Romy and Norah Carpentier were found dead in Saint-Apollinaire Que. A man hunt was launched to find the missing father of the two deceased girls. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

MONTREAL - A father who was the subject of an intense 10-day manhunt had killed his two young daughters with a blunt object and taken his own life before an Amber Alert was ever triggered for them, Quebec provincial police said Wednesday.

Chief Insp. Guy Lapointe said the tragic string of events began on July 8 when Martin Carpentier took his daughters Norah and Romy for ice cream. It ended with all three dead less than 12 hours later.

The "tipping point," the police spokesman said, was a car crash, which is not believed to have been deliberate but seemingly caused Carpentier's behaviour to veer from normal to erratic.

Police did not elaborate on a motive or what could have led to such a radical and swift change in Carpentier's behaviour.

"The reality is that the suspect is deceased, so there are things we'll never really know," Lapointe told a news conference in Montreal.

But investigators are confident, he added, that by the morning of July 9, "all those sad events had already been played, and all three were already dead."

Surete du Quebec Chief Insp. Guy Lapointe resounds to a question during a news conference in Montreal on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Provincial police confirmed that the two young sisters found dead after an Amber Alert near Quebec City this month were murdered with a blunt object by their father. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

He said that since the criminal investigation is complete, it's now up to the provincial coroner to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

The trio's disappearance led to a search that only ended Monday night when Carpentier's body was found.

The intense police search southwest of Quebec City lasted 10 days before being scaled back last weekend. It included two visits to the wooded property where Carpentier's body was eventually discovered.

Carpentier was last seen crossing the highway with his daughters after abandoning the damaged vehicle, leaving behind his cell phone and a melting ice cream.

Norah, 11, and Romy, 6, were injured in the car crash, but they died from blunt force trauma inflicted by their father, investigators concluded.

The girls' bodies were found July 11 in a wooded area in St-Apollinaire, Que., two days after the Amber Alert had been triggered.

Police said the Amber Alert wasn't issued until the day after the crash because there was no immediate indication Carpentier would have abducted his daughters.

"There was worry, but you have to understand they were implicated in a car crash, so it was a worry in regards to their status or health following the car crash," Lapointe told reporters in Montreal. "It wasn't a worry that the father would do anything to the daughters, and that's exactly what we were getting from the family."

Police said the crash was not deliberate, and there were signs Carpentier tried to regain control of the vehicle. But the accident was the moment when things began to change, Lapointe said.

"Every behaviour that was noted ... prior to that moment, is behaviour that is normal, that fits what we would expect from that individual," he said. "Except that from that point on, following the crash, it's everything else that doesn't add up to what we would call normal behaviour."

Investigators believe Carpentier made his way to a trailer within the search perimeter, where he took items including a shovel and a lighter. While the girls were believed to be alive at that point, only Carpentier's DNA was found inside.

The girls' bodies were found about 750 metres from the trailer, and Carpentier's body was found about 5.5 kilometres from the crash site.

Lapointe said that while the outcome of the investigation is unsatisfactory, police are confident they did everything they could to find the girls based on the information available to them.

He said police had visited the property where Carpentier was found on July 10 and 17, but it was outside the area being searched on foot and with dogs. At the time of the visits, the property owner had not noticed anything missing, although a ladder was later found in the area where the body was found.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
Federal agents on Tuesday arrested one of the most powerful officials in Ohio state government, the Republican House speaker, along with a former state Republican Party chairman and three other people in what law enforcement officials described as a $60 million scheme to bail out a foundering energy company.

In a criminal complaint, the F.B.I. described a wide-ranging conspiracy in which the energy company helped finance the election of the House speaker, Larry Householder, in 2018. It then allegedly bankrolled an effort led by Mr. Householder to pass a $1.3 billion bill subsidizing two troubled nuclear power plants and a campaign to defeat a 2019 referendum to repeal that bill.

Along the way, the company also put $500,000 into Mr. Householders personal accounts, including more than $100,000 to pay for costs related to a home he owned in Florida, according to the complaint. Millions more were paid in bribes to Mr. Householders co-conspirators, the complaint said.

The conspiracy was likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio, the United States attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, David M. DeVillers, said in a news conference.Though the criminal complaint did not name the energy company, the two nuclear power plants were owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, a former subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp.
With contactless delivery to curb the spread of coronavirus, she added, you can't tell servers...
Israeli arms dealers doing business with dictatorial states has devastating consequences both internally and externally for Israel, activist and writer based in Israel wrote for Asbarez.

His article runs as follows:

Last week Azerbaijan used Israeli-made missiles, drones and high-technology weapons to hit military targets and civilians in Armenia, resulting in loss of Armenian lives and damage to civilian structures such as schools and factories.

In Israel, it has been suggested that it is developing close relations with Azerbaijan, including the weapons trade, as part of a strategic military campaign against Iran. But I believe that this is a smoke screen for laundering arms trade with the dictatorial regime of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan has a long border with Iran, the population of Azeris living in Iranian territory is double that of the entire population of Azerbaijan. Therefore, I dont believe that the regime in Baku will endanger its people in Iran and its own political survival by forming a military alliance with IsraelIrans great enemy. The purpose of the arms deals between Azerbaijan and Israel is for improving Azerbaijans military competence against Armenia and enriching the cash flow of the Israels military industrial complex.

Azerbaijan continues to condemn Israel in every international forum, along with other Muslim countries around the world (including Iran).

So far, Azerbaijan has not opened an embassy in Tel Aviv, even though there has been an Israeli embassy in Baku since the early 1990s.

The Azerbaijani army used Israeli-made weapons to attack Armenia, an Israeli-friendly country that only recently announced its intention to open an embassy in Tel Aviv. The President of Armenia even visited Israel last January and met with top officials.

The author, Yaron Weiss, at an Armenian Genocide commemoration protest in Jerusalem

It is absolutely clear that one of the goals of Israeli weapons exports is to inject cash into the weapons industry in order to enable the continued development of military hardware for Israels Defense Forces. Israeli arms industries need weapons exports like oxygen to the body. They cannot afford to be dependent on the local market alone.

However, it seems that the security relations with Azerbaijan deviate from normal supplier-customer relations. It seems that Israeli weapons traders are trying hard to persuade their customers in Baku to purchase advanced types of weapons, that Armenia cannot get. (Azerbaijans defense budget is four times higher than Armenias defense budget).

The use of high technology weapons made in Israel by the Azerbaijani army is increasing the level of violence in the conflict by encouraging the Azerbaijanis to launch attacks against the Armenian army, knowing that it will be very difficult for them to defend. These include fire control systems, missiles, suicide drones and more.

The leaders of the Israels arms industries and its government are not showing solidarity and friendship toward Armeniaan ally of Israel.

Therefore the Israeli society wont be surprised that there is no friendship and solidarity among themselves, as reflected in the most precarious social situation in recent times
The ASEAN Online Sale Day (AOSD), an initiative of Vietnam within ASEANs cooperative framework, is to take place on e-commerce platforms on August 8,

the Vietnam e-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency (IDEA) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade has announced.

It will be the first online shopping event conducted simultaneously throughout the entire ASEAN region.

IDEA Director Dang Hoang Hai said that the ASEAN Coordinating Committee on E-commerce (ACCEC) has officially launched a website dedicated to AOSD, at http://asean.onlinesaleday.com, which will feature businesses participating in the programme.

More than 100 e-commerce businesses from ASEAN member nations are expected to join the online retail gala, selling a range of goods and services at special prices on August 8.

ASEANs e-commerce sector is expected to triple by 2025, from 100 billion USD to 300 billion USD. As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, e-commerce was a highlight of economic growth, as consumers and businesses increasingly shopped online.

AOSD is designed to promote and encourage consumers and businesses to buy and sell on reputable e-commerce platforms in the region.

The event is hoped to support and facilitate the development of commerce and e-commerce in the region, while promoting digital integration and building trust and credibility for ASEAN businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises trying to overcome the difficulties caused by the pandemic.

According to a study conducted by Bain & Company in 2017, ASEANs digital economy is expected to reach 8.5 percent of GDP by 2025 from only 1.3 percent in 2015.

In the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, digital conversion speed is accelerating strongly across fields such as education, banking, healthcare, and commerce.

As a result, ASEAN has the conditions necessary to hasten its digital transformation through the existing ecosystem of more than 300 million mobile and broadband users in the region.

Hai said AOSD will be held on August 8 every year as an occasion to promote digital commerce in the region and strengthen cooperation among stakeholders, including government agencies, businesses, and consumers.

The programme also aims to promote and develop appropriate initiatives and policies and innovative technologies to foster cross-border e-commerce in the region.

It is also an activity that contributes to the implementation of the ASEAN Agreement on E-commerce, Hai added./. VNA
Discussing Niagara-on-the-Lake tourism by analyzing numbers from the past three years has very little value as the world recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, according to the towns chamber of commerce president.

The town was averaging upwards of 3.5 million tourists in prior years, but with the border now closed and Ontarians hesitant to travel even within their own province, its time to rethink the industry entirely, said Eduardo Lafforgue.

He said its time to forget about the number of visitors and cars that travelled through the town in the past. For the time being its about residents supporting local businesses.

The tourism industry needs to first focus on attracting hyperlocally, regionally and then provincially, he said.

To go from provincial to international will take a long time.

When hired president of the chamber in 2019, Lafforgues first presentation to its board was about sustainability for tourism. He spoke about producing values for the community, the environment and financial values.

We need to produce the social and cultural value, the value for environment and value for businesses, he said.

Bad planning and bad management will lead to over-tourism, he explained.

A new group in town  Residents for Sustainable Tourism  hopes to participate in conversations with stakeholders to avoid over-tourism.

Spokesman Bruce Gitelman said the group was formed to voice concerns regarding the town and chambers decision to close Queen Street on weekends to vehicles and the impact it would have on residential roads.

The group is happy with the changes that were made to Queen Street for this past weekend but continues to be worried about how the blocking of parking spaces will still strain smaller streets.

The true purpose of the group going forward is to work with all the stakeholders  the merchants of Queen Street, the accommodation industry, the Shaw Festival, Parks Canada  to come up with a long-term solution to reduce the density of traffic in the town while increasing profitability of the merchants on Queen Street and making tourism sustainable in the long run, Gitelman said.

Lafforgue said hes spoken with Gitelman and invited him to join conversations, while Giteman said theres also been contact with Shaw and good communication with town council, and plans to connect with stakeholders such as Parks Canada.

Residents for Sustainable Tourism is a group that hopes to give locals a voice, and to help focus on providing a quality of life and safety that is both satisfying to residents and visitors.

Were hoping to participate in a process that will make things happen or create projects that every stakeholder can buy into, Gitelman said.

Examples he gave are additional parking areas near the entrance into the Old Town, a possible shuttle service and creating more picnic areas.

We simply want to be supportive of anything that makes sense to prevent in the future over-tourism that harms everybody, Gitelman said.

It would be wonderful given the incredible resources of Niagara and the Niagara River if there was good use of all the land around Niagara-on-the-Lake to make it comfortable for everybody to do day visits, visit the main street and at the same time preserve the quality of life and safety of the residents that live in the town.

Residents for Sustainable Tourism are expressing their sympathy with the merchants struggling through COVID-19, and Gitelman said its important that decisions made amongst stakeholders is done to allow business owners to profit, residents to live a comfortable life and for visitors to enjoy what the town has to offer.

All were asking is to be a part of that process of making Niagara-on-the-Lake a better place, Gitelman said.

The group, he said, is dedicated to learning and being part of the process going forward.

Collectively, he said, its a great time to call on the the town, Niagara region, the province and the federal government to build infrastructure that will make tourism sustainable and quality of life of residents can be factored in.

Lafforgue said theres no crystal ball, so its hard to predict where tourism is heading in the next few years.

First thing we have to do is understand who we are, what is the essence of our attractiveness, preserve it and look how to create this value for local partners and community, value for natural and cultural environment and value for businesses and visitors, Lafforgue said.

Once that can be achieved, Lafforgue is confident everyone will see the benefits of tourism.
By Laman Ismayiloca

Azerbaijans national postal stamp agency (Azermarka) has issued a postage stamp timed to National Press Day.

The stamp depicts a sower scattering seeds on arable land. There is also a quote which belongs to prominent publicist Hasan bey Zardabi, who laid the foundation of National Press, Day.Az reported.

Hasan bey Zardabi sowed the seeds of the development of the national press 145 years ago, to draw attention to the personality of the founder of the Azerbaijani press, thereby preserving this history and passing it on to future generations.

The stamp created by the chief artist of Azermarka Vugar Eyyubov was printed by Bobruisk Integrated Printing House with a circulation of 5,000 copies.

On June 30, 2020, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree "On holding the 145th anniversary of the Azerbaijani national press."

The story of the press in Azerbaijan began with "Akinchi" (The Ploughman) newspaper, published for the first time in 1875 on July 22.

The newspaper covered a wide range of scientific, educational and cultural topics and harshly criticized superstition and backwardness.

The first Azerbaijani-language newspaper played a major role in the formation and development of Azerbaijani National Press.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Are Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex dealing with family tension with the royals? One source believes that Meghans family is worried about her because she may be struggling after recent events.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry | Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage

Meghan said she felt unprotected by the royal family

In court documents submitted for the Sussexes lawsuit against Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, there are claims that Meghan felt unprotected by the royal family when she was pregnant.

According to a report from ET, the legal documents state that Meghan had become the subject of a large number of false and damaging articles by the UK tabloid media, specifically by the Defendant [Associated Newspapers Limited], which caused tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health.

The documents further explain how Meghans friends had never seen her in this state before and that they were rightly concerned for her welfare, specifically as she was pregnant, unprotected by the Institution, and prohibited from defending herself.

Any friends and family of Meghan were told to tell media outlets no comment.

This shared frustration amongst [her] friends left everyone feeling silenced, as it appeared that other so-called sources were able to disseminate false statements, the documents note. While the people who knew her best were told that they needed to remain silent.

RELATED: Queen Elizabeths Final Proposition About Prince Harry and Meghan Markles Exit Shocked the World and Was Ruthlessly Clear, Experts Claim

Her family is worried about her

The stress of the situation seems to be impacting Meghan, a source explained. She has gone very quiet. I think she is likely to be feeling extremely low and probably struggling, a relative of Meghans shared with Sunday Mirror.

They added, The legal battle and the increased tension its created with the royals due to the information thats coming out has to be putting a lot of strain on them both.

Meghans been a lot more distant and introverted over the last few weeks  her family is worried. And Harry must be tormented by his fractured family ties. He was particularly down on Williams birthday on June 21, the source noted.

Meghan had a falling out with a close friend

Meghans relative also shared that the duchess may be facing some additional stress and worry after having a falling out with friend Jessica Mulroney.

Meghans fallout with Jessica has hit her really hard and shes not even been speaking to some of her closest friends, the source explained. Shes shut down  and they think shes at a loss over who to even trust any longer.

ITV's @tombradby spoke to Meghan as he gained exclusive access to the royal couple as they toured Africa for 10 days with their son Archie.



The documentary, Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, airs on Sunday at 9pm on @ITV #HarryandMeghan https://t.co/Uy21iE6ozJ pic.twitter.com/XYlHVytiHF  ITV News (@itvnews) October 18, 2019

Meghan is being supportive of Prince Harry, who is reportedly struggling

Many royal experts have weighed in with how they think Prince Harry is doing after leaving his royal life behind. In the book Royals At War: The Inside Story of Harry and Meghans Shocking Split With the House of Windsor, authors Andy Tillett and Dylan Howard shared how one source believes that Prince Harry is feeling secretly tortured.

On top of it all, hes got cabin fever, a source told the authors (via The Sun), believing that Prince Harry is overwhelmed with guilt by the Sussexes move.

It was far from an ideal situation. Harrys gone from feeling excited about the move to feeling secretly tortured, the insider explained.

The source added that Meghan is supporting her husband through this challenging time. Shes assuring [Harry] that once things go back to normal, hell love their new life in LA. Meghan wants to take him hiking and talks about the local polo club and how much hell love surfing, they explained.
More than 10,000 third-level students are to be given money to buy laptops, iPads, and other tablets, and also to connect them to the internet so they can study from home.

Under a plan to be announced today by Simon Harris, the higher education minister, a new 15m fund will help students buy the devices, as many third-level campuses will not be fully open, forcing many to study remotely.

The initiative will also include a major fund of up to 150m for universities and institutes of technology to help them kit out their campuses so they can operate during the Covid-19 outbreak.

A total of 168m in funding is to be made available, the Irish Examiner has learned.

Just less than a tenth of the funding will be made available for access to devices and supports for online learning.

This could help over 10,000 students access laptops, tablets, and internet connectivity, a senior government source said.

The funding is set to be the subject of an announcement by Mr Harris and Michael McGrath, the public expenditure minister.

It is understood the matter was subject to Cabinet approval at last nights meeting at Dublin Castle.

Sources have said they are to announce new student supports to help them address the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Read More Leaving Cert results will be issued through online portal this year

It has been confirmed that:

Funding in excess of 160m for further and higher education costs and new student supports will be announced;

The Student Assistance Fund will be doubled from 8m to over 16m;

An additional 3m will be allocated for mental health supports in light of Covid-19.

Students have incurred additional costs as the lockdown commenced, and will incur costs when they return in the autumn, a Government source said.

"This is at a time when many students have lost their part-time work and opportunities to avail of the J1 visa scheme."

It is understood that the funding will also cover costs incurred by third-level institutions ahead of reopening in September, including funding for the necessary health protection measures for students and staff.

While the aim is for students to return to campus, there will be funds to assist with online provision of modules and courses.

Mr Harris is to task the Higher Education Authority to speedily devise a scheme through which the supports are to be distributed to students. The funds are more than likely to be channeled through access offices in the seven universities and institutes.

It is also expected that Thursdays delayed July stimulus package will include up to 10,000 additional training places to help those now seeking a new career.
President Trump announced Wednesday a surge of federal law enforcement into Chicago and other cities as part of a crime-fighting initiative that officials say is different than the governments controversial actions in Portland, Ore.

The agency will send agents with the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Marshals Service to Kansas City, Mo., Albuquerque, N.M., Chicago and other American cities to confront recent spikes in crime, Trump and Attorney General William Barr announced at the White House.

Trump said the initiative first announced on July 8, named Operation Legend after a 4-year-old boy, LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed last month in Kansas City. The program will also give $61 million in grants to the involved cities to hire more police officers.

He lambasted what he described as an antipolice crusade that has led to surges in crime.

The effort [from local officials] to shut down policing in their own communities has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence, Trump said. This bloodshed must end.

Crime and policing experts have attributed the spike in crime to many factors  such as a breakdown in police-community relations and stress from the pandemic  while cautioning against looking too closely at a relatively short period to determine crime trends.

A shootout outside a funeral home in Chicago left 14 people wounded on Tuesday. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

Agents from the Department of Homeland Security will assist local law enforcement as part of the partnership, acting Secretary Chad Wolf said Wednesday. They will also help investigate cases involving transnational gangs and narcotics trafficking.

The department is under scrutiny for its alleged actions in Portland, which residents and local officials say has included officers in military uniform  but without identification  patrolling the streets and unlawfully detaining protesters, claims that the agency has denied. The city has seen more than 50 days of demonstrations against police violence prompted by the killing of George Floyd.

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But both Wolf and Barr insisted that Operation Legend is unrelated to whats occurring in Portland.

In Portland, we see almost two months of coordinated, violent attacks by anarchists against a federal courthouse and federal law enforcement officials sworn to protect it, Wolf said. In Chicago, we see an unprecedented rise in crime against fellow citizens. The DHS mission in Portland is to protect federal property and our law enforcement officers. In Chicago, the mission is to protect the public from violent crime on the streets.

Barr said Operation Legend aims to enforce federal law.

Were talking about the standard crime-fighting activities we have been carrying out across the country for decades, he said. These are street agents, investigators, working to solve murders and working shoulder-to-shoulder with state and local colleagues.

In advance of the announcement, Trump hinted at a national effort to fight crime, criticizing Democratic mayors for the violence in their cities. Both Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened to fight Trumps administration in court if they took such actions.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a press conference on June 15. (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images)

At a press conference on Wednesday, Lightfoot concurred that Operation Legend appears to be different than Portland, and noted that the federal agents will be supervised by John Lausch, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Federal agents who are here in Chicago have been here for decades, she told reporters. We routinely work in partnership with them. They know the city and they live here.

Lightfoot said that the initiative will send agents, not uniformed law enforcement like in Portland, who will be aiding criminal investigations in the city. But she also seemed skeptical of the effort.

That doesnt mean [Trump is] not going to try it here in Chicago, she said. We have to remain diligent. And I am calling on all Chicagoans, that if you see something that doesnt look right, please dont hesitate to report it.

The deployment of federal law enforcement to U.S. cities is stirring up controversy on Capitol Hill. Earlier on Wednesday, 27 Democratic senators, including Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar, sent Barr and Wolf a letter raising questions about disturbing reports of unidentified federal officers responding violently to protesters in various cities.

Democratic senators also on Wednesday morning used an intelligence committee nomination hearing for two mid-level officials to castigate the Trump administration for its decision to deploy federal agents into American cities to police civil unrest.

Describing his home town of Portland has having been invaded by militarized federal law enforcement, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon accused the administration of essentially fascist practices that until recently would have been unthinkable in America.

Wyden, who is has been a strong critic of the administration on intelligence issues, used his time during the hearing to focus on what he portrayed a pressing domestic issue. If the line is not drawn in the sand right now, Wyden said, America may be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election.

President Trump at a White House event on combating violent crime in American cities on Wednesday. (Sarah Silbiger/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Oregon senators comments came during a hearing to consider Trumps nomination of two officials for positions in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Patrick Hovakimian for general counsel and Christopher Miller for director of the National Counterterrorism Center. However, Wyden focused his questioning of Hovakimian on issues related to his current position at the Justice Department.

Do you believe that unidentified federal forces in unmarked cars can drive around seizing and detaining American citizens? Wyden asked.

Given repeated opportunities, Hovakimian seemed unable or unwilling to answer the question directly. Hovakimian preferred to repeat his view that generally speaking  its a great idea to identify oneself as a federal law enforcement officer and that the department takes the constitutional rights of Americans very seriously.

Following Wydens remarks, Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said he had been informed Tuesday by U.S. Attorney for New Mexico John Anderson that, as part of the expansion of Operation Legend, federal law enforcement agents would be sent to Albuquerque.

We dont want the Portland model coming to the city of Albuquerque, frankly, Heinrich said.

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Read more from Yahoo News:

Thumbnail Credit: (Evan Vucci/AP)
Its official: the U.S. Air Force will buy the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets denied to Turkey following that countrys decision to purchase the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air-missile system.

The Pentagon announced Monday that it had awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. an $862 million firm-fixed-price contract for the conventional takeoff and landing jets for the Air Force's use.

Read Next: In Error, Tricare Tells 600K Beneficiaries Theyve Had COVID-19

"This modification exercises options to procure eight Lot 14 F-35A Lightning II repositioned aircraft as a result of the Republic of Turkey's removal from the F-35 program, and six Lot 14 F-35A aircraft for the Air Force," according to the contract award. The additional six jets are part of a surplus of jets authorized by Congress in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, according to Defense News. Congress typically gives the services the option to buy extra F-35s each year that were not in the original budget request.

The Lot 14 jets -- part of a deal made with Lockheed in October -- have yet to roll off the production line. Turkey was originally set to take ownership of those eight aircraft between 2022 and 2023. They will now be turned over to the Air Force, a defense official told Defense News.

The deal does not include jets already delivered to Turkey, though they remain on U.S. soil. Officials at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona accepted the third and fourth F-35 jets for the Turkish pilot training program in April 2019, part of the first six jets purchased by the NATO ally.

Last year, after Turkey ordered Russia's S-400 missile system -- known to Moscow as the "F-35 killer" -- the U.S. stopped it from purchasing the F-35 and began phasing out aircraft parts the country produces. It also asked Turkish students -- pilots and maintainers -- attending F-35 training at Luke and at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, to leave.

The fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act included $30 million to store the fifth-generation jets until a plan for their use is formalized; they remain in storage, Defense News reported. The pending fiscal 2021 legislation would allow the Air Force to purchase those jets as well.

Turkey was responsible for supplying roughly 1,000 different parts for the stealth jet; U.S. officials noted last year that finding new suppliers could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The Pentagon set a date of March 2020 to formally cut ties with Turkish industries; however Turkish officials have said parts are still in production.

Turkey's impending ouster from the program has placed a greater burden on other suppliers, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released in May.

"We found that Turkey's recent suspension from the F-35 program is likely to compound these existing supply chain issues," the report states. "Turkish suppliers will provide parts through the end of lot 14 deliveries (scheduled to take place through 2022), in part, to avoid disruptions to aircraft deliveries and additional cost growth from standing up new suppliers."

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related: Trump Hints at Removing Foreign Manufacturers from F-35 Supply Chain
Photo: The Canadian Press Nick Beaton, whose wife Kristen Beaton was killed in the April mass shooting, attends a march organized by families of victims demanding an inquiry into the crimes in Nova Scotia that killed 22 people, in Bible Hill, N.S. on Wednesday, July 22, 2020.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

Family members of victims and their supporters marched to an RCMP station on Wednesday, calling for a full public inquiry into the April mass shooting that left 22 people dead in Nova Scotia.

About 280 people walked from a grocery store parking lot to the station in Bible Hill, N.S., where many of the RCMP officers who responded to the rampage were based.

The event was organized by families of the victims to protest the failure of the provincial and federal governments to call an independent public inquiry, more than three months after the April 18-19 killings in central and northern Nova Scotia.

Relatives carried signs in memory of each victim and chanted, "We demand answers" as they walked the three blocks. Children carried photographs of lost grandmothers as their parents pushed them in strollers.

Organizers Nick Beaton, whose wife Kristen Beaton was killed, and Darcy Dobson, who lost her mother Heather O'Brien, said the action was on behalf of all 22 families.

The families had an online meeting scheduled with Nova Scotia Justice Minister Mark Furey after the march, and late Wednesday, Beaton said he'd been informed that the province will make an announcement about an inquiry Thursday.

Beaton said he is "not fully pleased" about the planned format but declined further comment.

Earlier, Beaton had said he's concerned about shifting language from politicians on the nature of a potential inquiry, noting that at times the justice minister has referred to it as a simple "review."

The families want hearings that are open, overseen by an independent party and include a detailed look at the police response, he said.

"We deserve answers and the truth. We're finished sitting back. It's been three months now .... We want a public inquiry," he said.

Furey has said the provincial and federal governments were ironing out details of how an inquiry would work, and he has attributed delays to "legalities and technicalities."

He had originally said the investigation could take the form of a traditional federal-provincial public inquiry led by an independent commissioner, but on July 2 he made it clear that some sort of hybrid is in the works.

The challenges facing legal teams in Ottawa and Halifax appeared to stem from the fact that Nova Scotia wants the probe to include a restorative justice element.

When Nova Scotia created a "restorative inquiry'' in 2015 to look into allegations of long-term abuse at a former orphanage in the Halifax area, its collaborative approach featured private "sharing circles'' with former residents and others.

Dobson said she is concerned about the minister's recent statements, saying she would not favour efforts to shift testimony behind closed doors. She said she wonders what is behind the delays.

"There was supposed to be an announcement over a month ago, and there hasn't been," Dobson told reporters.

An emailed statement from the Nova Scotia Department of Justice late Wednesday said the province is working with Ottawa and "an announcement is forthcoming."

"We recognize the families, those most impacted, and all Nova Scotians are looking for, and deserve, answers about the tragic events that happened in April," the statement said.

Tom Webber, the father of victim Joey Webber, said in an interview that he has specific questions about how the killer managed to escape from Portapique after committing 13 murders and setting fire to homes.

His son was killed on April 19 during an errand to pick up furnace oil in Shubenacadie, N.S., and the killer then stole Joey Webber's car.

"The police don't seem to give us any answers, and that's what we're looking for," Webber said.

"It's hard to imagine this really happened. You wake up thinking that it didn't happen. But it did."

Leon Joudrey, a resident of Portapique who gave shelter to the shooter's common law spouse early on April 19, said he's also hoping for an open inquiry that looks carefully at the police response.

He recalled a nightmarish scene of burned houses and dead bodies in the small community in the early hours of April 19, and yet when he drove through the community, he said he saw little police presence.

Joudrey said if officers had knocked on his door, he could have provided helpful information about the killer, Gabriel Wortman, a 51-year-old Halifax denturist.

"I'm here today to point out the fact the police didn't handle this correctly at the management level .... Let's a get a public inquiry going," he said.
Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and News Group Newspapers (NGN) faced each other again inside a London courtroom to tackle the claims that the actor was a "wife beater."

On July 20, more bombshells were dropped when people heard more allegations surrounding Depp's libel case.

The "Pirates of the Caribbean" actor started two different lawsuits simultaneously -- one in London and the other in Fairfax County in Virginia.

In his legal battle against News Group Newspapers, Heard stood as the star witness who can reportedly prove the contents of The Sun's article. The said article that the news outlet published years ago claimed that the actor was an abusive husband towards Heard -- leading to the publication to call him a "wife beater."

Amber Heard Calls Johnny Depp A 'Monster'

This week, Heard is set to unroll her versions of the events, and she already dropped a controversial claim during the first day.

The "Aquaman" star divulged that Depp had an alter-ego he called "the monster."

"He would blame all his actions on a self-created third party instead of himself, which he often called 'the monster'," Heard said, according to BBC. "Some incidents were so severe that I was afraid he was going to kill me, either intentionally, or just by losing control and going too far."

Per the actress, Depp allegedly punched, slapped, choked, and headbutt her, so much so that she thought he would kill her "multiple times."

Furthermore, Heard disclosed to the court that during their tour to Australia in 2015, she suffered from emotional and physical abuse for three days straight.

"It is the worst thing I have ever been through. I was left with an injured lip and nose, and cuts on my arms," Heard claimed.

Previously, Depp and his team already said that Heard was the abuser in their relationship. They also shared accounts of her alleged aggressive and abusive behavior during his cross-examination.

Johnny Depp, Amber Heard Text Messages

Heard's claims about "the monster who tried to kill her" somewhat supported the text messages which the NGN representatives read during the previous pre-trial and brought up again last week.

In February 2020, the official read the texts concerning the reported threats of the actor to his ex-wife inside the Royal Courts of Justice's courtroom 13.

Depp allegedly sent the unseen 2013 text messages to actor Paul Bettany and stated that he would "burn and drown" his ex-wife.

The most severe and alarming words came when Depp allegedly texted: "I will f*** her burnt corpse afterward to make sure she is dead."

The barrister for The Sun, Adam Wolanski QC, and the publication's executive director Dan Wootton pushed the actor to the edge even more when they publicized another text to Bettany regardinghis alleged "altercation" with Heard on a plane in May 2014.

A part of the message read: "I'm gonna properly stop the booze thing, darling... Drank all night before I picked Amber up to fly to LA, this past Sunday...Ugly, mate."

Wolanski added that Depp was accused of "screaming obscenities" during the flight, as he slapped Heard in the face. The actor reportedly also kicked the "Aquaman" actress in the back before throwing a boot at her, causing her to allegedly "pass out" inside the plane's toilet.

Heard's time to share her accounts will last for a week, and more shocking revelations are expected to come out.

Only time will tell what will happen to Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and NGN in their court battle. However, by the looks of it, things could get messy.

READ MORE: Amber Heard Selfish? Actress Put Personal Assistant In Danger To Save Herself
The government must not jail terrorists for longer and hope for the best, it has been warned as MPs passed a controversial suite of terror laws.

The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill contains a range of powers to keep extremists in jail for longer, despite concerns about radicalisation inside prisons.

Three attacks, in Fishmongers Hall, Streatham and Reading, have been carried out since last November by released inmates while a fourth alleged attack happened inside a high-security prison.

David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, called for greater focus on deradicalisation and rehabilitation efforts, and funding for the stretched probation service that supervises freed terrorists.

He said: It is simply not good enough to lock terrorists away for longer, put them out of our minds and hope for the best. As weve seen from the devastating attacks at Streatham and Fishmongers Hall, this approach does not work.

Mr Lammy argued that longer prison sentences alone cannot protect the public from ever-present threat of radicalisation and serious terrorist atrocities.

Even offenders convicted of the most serious terror offences will at some point be released back into society - that is the reality, he told MPs.

We have a moral duty to ensure that offenders leave prison less dangerous and less willing to harm the fabric of our society than when they went in.

Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, said the proposed changes intended to protect the public and keep our country safe.

He told MPs: The UK has one of the strongest counter-terror systems in the world but we continue to face a threat that is complex, diverse and rapidly changing.

The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday, and will now be considered by the House of Lords.

Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Show all 22 1 /22 Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Armed police officers on Streatham High Road. The Metropolitan Police warned people to stay away from the Streatham area boguta37/PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings The man was shot dead by police after two stabbed in 'Islamist-related' terror attack in London boguta37/PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Sudesh Amman, the attacker, has been named as a convicted terror offender who was released from prison days ago Metropolitan Police/PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Items left on the pavement at the scene in Streatham High Road Isis supporter Amman was just 18 when he was jailed in December 2018 after police found a stash of bomb-making manuals and other propaganda. Now 20, he had declared his own wish to carry out a terror attack and stockpiled a combat knife, air gun and black flag at his family home in London PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings He was being monitored by undercover police and being followed as part of a proactive counterterrorism operation when he started the rampage in Streatham AP Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Amman was able to stab two people before being shot dead by armed officers outside a busy row of shops Gabriel Video/PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings A woman reacts as police officers interview people near to the scene Getty Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings An armed police officer on Streatham High Road Deputy Assistant Commissioner Lucy DOrsi said Amman was wearing a fake suicide ves Gully/PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Police forensic officers work outside of a Boots store AFP via Getty Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Police officers at the scene Getty Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings A police forensic officer works at the scene in Streatham High Road PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Items left on the pavement at the scene in Streatham High Road PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings A police officer on the scene Dave Chawner/SWNS Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Police forensic officers are seen near the site Reuters Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Police officers on the scene outside an Iceland supermarket Andy Bullemor/SWNS Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Police are seen near a site where a man was shot Reuters Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings A policeman secures the site of the incident EPA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings A view of the scene Megan Tobeck Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Armed police at the scene in Streatham High Road PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings A view of the scene Michael Owens Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings Police forensic officers at the scene PA Streatham attack: Man shot dead by police after stabbings A Police officer is seen near a site where a man was shot Reuters

The law would increase the maximum penalty from 10 to 14 years imprisonment for several terror offences and judges would also be able to increase the sentence for any crime punishable by more than two years in prison by finding a terrorist connection.

The law would force terrorists given extended determinate sentences to serve the entire term in prison, rather than being released on licence, but only if the maximum penalty for the crime was life.

Legal changes would see those found guilty of selected offences, such as planning attacks, handed a minimum 14-year prison term and monitored for up to 25 years after their release under new serious terrorism sentence.

Recommended Terrorist prisoners free to network and radicalise inmates in UK jails

An impact assessment commissioned by the Ministry of Justice said that while longer sentences could give terrorists more opportunity to engage in deradicalisation programmes, there is a risk of offenders radicalising others during their stays in custody.

The document also warned that lengthy imprisonment could destroy protective relationships with loved ones and increase the risk of reoffending.

A 2016 report on Islamist extremism in prisons commissioned sparked the creation of separation centres to remove influential extremists from the general population, but only one of four units is now in operation.

A recent trial heard that convicted terrorists were free to exchange jihad banter and discuss attacks inside HMP Belmarsh, and in a separate case three jihadis who met in prison in 2013 planned an attack together after their release.

The justice secretary said that the number of specialist probation officers and imams would be increased, and a review of multi-agency public protection arrangements (Mappa) will be published before the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill goes to the Lords.

It would also increase licence periods and introduce lie detector tests for released prisoners.

 Usman Khan: What we know about the London Bridge attacker

Several MPs questioned the reasons for a proposed widening of Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs), which allow police to impose wide-ranging restrictions on suspected terrorists without trial.

The orders can currently be imposed for a maximum of two years before being reviewed, but the new law would lower the standard of proof, expand their powers and enable them to be renewed indefinitely.

The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall QC, said questioned the operational case for the changes and warned of a conspicuous lack of safeguards.

Recommended How British prisons became a breeding ground for Islamist extremism

In a report published last month, he wrote: Terrorism laws are not in general best served by unnecessary expansions.

Mr Buckland said that authorities would seek to prosecute or deport suspected terrorists over using a TPIM, but that they remained a vital risk management tool.

A lower standard of proof will allow for TPIMs to be considered for use in a wider variety of cases and will better protect covert sources and methods, he added.

The government has no desire to keep individuals on a TPIM for any longer than is necessary and proportionate to protect the public.

Mr Buckland said an independent review of the Prevent counter-extremism programme should be completed by next August, but that the government needed to remove its previous statutory deadline with the bill.

The review, originally announced in January 2019, was delayed after a legal challenge over impartiality forced the resignation of lead reviewer Lord Carlile. A replacement has not yet been appointed.
This article will reflect on the compensation paid to Greg Guidry who has served as CEO of Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (NYSEMKT:GTE) since 2015. This analysis will also look to assess whether the CEO is appropriately paid, considering recent earnings growth and investor returns for Gran Tierra Energy.

Check out our latest analysis for Gran Tierra Energy

How Does Total Compensation For Greg Guidry Compare With Other Companies In The Industry?

According to our data, Gran Tierra Energy Inc. has a market capitalization of US$131m, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth US$2.2m over the year to December 2019. That's a notable increase of 38% on last year. While this analysis focuses on total compensation, it's worth acknowledging that the salary portion is lower, valued at US$462k.

For comparison, other companies in the industry with market capitalizations below US$200m, reported a median total CEO compensation of US$613k. This suggests that Greg Guidry is paid more than the median for the industry. Furthermore, Greg Guidry directly owns US$1.3m worth of shares in the company.

Component 2019 2018 Proportion (2019) Salary US$462k US$293k 21% Other US$1.7m US$1.3m 79% Total Compensation US$2.2m US$1.6m 100%

Talking in terms of the industry, salary represented approximately 19% of total compensation out of all the companies we analyzed, while other remuneration made up 81% of the pie. It's interesting to note that Gran Tierra Energy pays out a greater portion of remuneration through salary, compared to the industry. It's important to note that a slant towards non-salary compensation suggests that total pay is tied to the company's performance.

Gran Tierra Energy Inc.'s Growth

Over the past three years, Gran Tierra Energy Inc. has seen its earnings per share (EPS) grow by 81% per year. In the last year, its revenue is down 20%.

This demonstrates that the company has been improving recently and is good news for the shareholders. While it would be good to see revenue growth, profits matter more in the end. Moving away from current form for a second, it could be important to check this free visual depiction of what analysts expect for the future.

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Has Gran Tierra Energy Inc. Been A Good Investment?

With a three year total loss of 85% for the shareholders, Gran Tierra Energy Inc. would certainly have some dissatisfied shareholders. So shareholders would probably want the company to be lessto generous with CEO compensation.

In Summary...

As previously discussed, Greg is compensated more than what is normal for CEOs of companies of similar size, and which belong to the same industry. However, we must not forget that the EPS growth has been very strong, but we cannot say the same about the uninspiring shareholder returns (over the last three years). Although we don't think the CEO pay is too high, considering negative investor returns, it is more generous than modest.

While it is important to pay attention to CEO remuneration, investors should also consider other elements of the business. That's why we did some digging and identified 2 warning signs for Gran Tierra Energy that investors should think about before committing capital to this stock.

Switching gears from Gran Tierra Energy, if you're hunting for a pristine balance sheet and premium returns, this free list of high return, low debt companies is a great place to look.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
The US House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan legislation, urging China to peacefully de-escalate the situation with India along the Line of Actual Control. The legislation on Tuesday came a day after the House unanimously passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), slamming China's aggression against India in the Galwan Valley and its growing territorial assertiveness in and around disputed areas like the South China Sea.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5. The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead. The resolution, sponsored by Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi along with eight others, was passed by the House along with National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2021 and condemned Chinese aggression towards India along the Line of Actual Control.

Through the passage of today's bill, the House has sent a clear, bipartisan message that the government of the People's Republic of China must peacefully de-escalate the situation along the Line of Actual Control with India, Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. China's military provocations of India are unacceptable, and the peaceful resolution of their border standoff will help restore greater security to the Indo-Pacific region, he said.

Through this vote, the US House of Representatives has reaffirmed the readiness of the US to stand with its allies and partners like India against Chinese military aggression, Krishnamoorthi said. Other co-sponsors of the resolution are Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna and lawmakers Frank Pallone, Tom Suozzi, Ted Yoho, George Holding, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Haley Stevens and Steve Chabot.

In the months leading up to June 15, along the Line of Actual Control, the Chinese military reportedly amassed 5,000 soldiers; and is trying to redraw long-standing settled boundaries through the use of force and aggression, the Congressional resolution says.

Noting that India and China have reached an agreement to de-escalate and disengage along the Line of Actual Control, the resolution says that on June 15, at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unconfirmed number of Chinese soldiers were killed in skirmishes following a weeks-long standoff in Eastern Ladakh, which is the de facto border between the two countries.

The Government of the People's Republic of China should work toward de-escalating the situation along the Line of Actual Control with India through existing diplomatic mechanisms and not through force, it said.

It is the sense of the Congress that there is significant concern about the continued military aggression by China along its border with India and in other parts of the world, including with Bhutan, in the South China Sea, and with the Senkaku Islands, as their aggressive posture towards Hong Kong and Taiwan.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. China has impeded commercial activity like fishing or mineral exploration by countries like Vietnam and the Philippines.

Ties between China and Japan have been strained by a territorial row over a group of islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China.

A day earlier, the House had passed a similar NDAA amendment moved by Congressman Steve Chabot and Indian-American lawmaker Ami Bera which said that India and China should work towards de-escalating the situation along the LAC and also expressed concern about Chinese aggression in an around disputed territories like the South China Sea.

The resolution comes days after the House of Representatives Caucus on India and Indian-Americans in a letter to India's Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, said that over the last few months, the Chinese authorities have been acting with impunity and have attempted to transgress on the LAC, which resulted in diplomatic discussions to implement a process for de-escalation along the LAC on July 6.

It was led by Congressmen Holding and Brad Sherman and signed by seven other lawmakers.

Also read: US gives China 72 hours to close Houston consulate
Hospitals may be pleading financial hardship in seeking $100 billion more in funding from Congress, but some organizations are already prospering from the governments largess.

With profit bolstered by hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus money, HCA Healthcare, the giant for-profit hospital chain, reported much higher second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, even as its revenue fell when its huge network of hospitals treated fewer patients during the pandemic.

The company reported $1.1 billion in net income for the three months that ended June 30, a 38 percent jump from the same period in 2019, on lower revenue of $11.1 billion. The news surprised investors, who sent the stock 10 percent higher in early trading.

HCA, already a major beneficiary of hospital bailout money, said it had received a total of $1.7 billion from the federal government so far. Executives told investors they were not sure how much of the latest funding the company would be able to keep under stricter requirements to qualify for the funds, but it recorded $822 million before taxes during the most recent quarter.
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (Saul Loeb / Associated Press)

The U.S. has abruptly ordered China to close its consulate in Houston in what Beijing warned was "an outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-U.S. relations" and prompt it to retaliate.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin confirmed at a news briefing in Beijing that the U.S. had demanded Tuesday that China's Houston consulate cease operations and evacuate all personnel by Friday. Wang did not state what reason the U.S. had given for the consulate's closure.

The State Department said in a brief statement that the shutdown order was given to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information. The statement did not elaborate on the issue.

"President Trump has said, 'Enough, we're not going to allow this to continue to happen,'" Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said at a brief news conference Wednesday in Copenhagen. "We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they don't, we're going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our national security and also protect our economy and jobs."

Closure of a diplomatic mission would represent a significant escalation in the accelerating breakdown of relations between Washington and Beijing. A trade war has already engulfed the worlds two biggest economies, and the Trump administrations accusations of Chinese mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak have further strained relations.

The two countries have imposed restrictions on each other's journalists, expelling many of them, and the U.S. has restricted visas for Chinese graduate students with ties to entities deemed to be seeking to acquire foreign technology for Chinese military purposes.

Wang called the consulate closure an "unprecedented escalation" of U.S. actions against China. He said Chinese diplomatic personnel had been twice restricted in the U.S., without specifying how, in June this year and October last year.

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He said the U.S. had opened and confiscated items from Chinese diplomatic pouches, and that the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. had received bomb and death threats to its personnel "as the U.S. flagrantly drives stigmatization and fans hatred against China."

Wang also accused U.S. Embassy personnel in China of engaging in "infiltration and interference activities" and said the U.S. Embassy was constantly publishing articles "smearing China" on its website.

The spokesman threatened "firm countermeasures" from China if the U.S. did not withdraw the Houston consulate closure, without specifying what those measures could be.

Local media in Houston reported Tuesday night that documents were being burned in the Chinese consulate courtyard. Firefighters had responded to reports of the fire but did not enter the premises. Under international convention, the consulate is considered Chinese territory.

Earlier this week, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on 11 Chinese companies  in addition to four Chinese officials already under sanctions  for involvement in human rights abuses against the Muslim-minority Uighurs in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. Beijing has responded by banning several U.S. lawmakers, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), from entry to China.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice indicted two Chinese hackers who it said had stolen trade secrets from U.S. companies and had begun targeting firms engaged in research on a COVID-19 vaccine.

Tensions have also flared over Hong Kong, where the U.S. has called China's imposition of a national security law on the region a violation of the "one country, two systems" agreement by which China was supposed to allow Hong Kong's semiautonomous status to continue until 2047.

The U.S. has withdrawn Hong Kong's special trade status and imposed visa restrictions on several Chinese Communist Party officials, which the Chinese government calls "interference in domestic affairs."

And last week, Pompeo issued an official rejection of China's maritime claims in the South China Sea, calling them "completely unlawful" and saying Beijing had engaged in a "campaign of bullying."

It remains to be seen how Beijing will respond to the Houston consulate closure. The Global Times, a nationalistic state-owned tabloid, quickly tweeted a suggestion, citing "experts" who said that shutting down the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong could be a countermeasure. Then it published a poll on Twitter asking which U.S. consulate China would most likely close in retaliation: Hong Kong and Macao, Guangzhou, Chengdu or another.

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report.
The US government is set to pay Pfizer and BioNTech nearly $2 billion to manufacture 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines by December, if a vaccine is proven safe and effective, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced on Wednesday.

German-biotech firm BioNTech and American pharmaceutical company Pfizer are developing a vaccine jointly. In a statement, the companies announced that they are "on track" to begin a vaccine safety and efficacy trial later this month to submit for government review from the federal Food and Drug Administration as early as October. The vaccine is among five in development with US support.

The $1.95 billion agreement with the HHS and Department of Defence  part of the Trump administration's "Operation Warp Speed"  promises free distribution of the vaccine to Americans, with up to 1.3 billion doses delivered by the end of 2021. It is the largest agreement yet between the government and drug firms as the world speeds towards development of a coronavirus vaccine.

The US can acquire up to 500 million doses, per the agreement.

"Expanding Operation Warp Speed's diverse portfolio by adding a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech increases the odds that we will have a safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year," Secretary Azar said in a statement. "Depending on success in clinical trials, [the] agreement will enable the delivery of approximately 100 million doses of this vaccine to the American people."

During his first White House coronavirus press briefing since April, the president told reporters on Tuesday that "vaccines are coming, and they're coming a lot sooner than anyone thought".

"We now have five vaccine candidates that prioritise the US people," Secretary Azar told Fox News on Wednesday. "We're going to manufacture a vaccine and work to secure FDA approval of them all at the same time."

BNT162 is the companies' current vaccine candidate. Researchers said an early clinical trial discovered that the candidate produced some neutralising antibodies, which may be able to prevent future infections.

If the ongoing studies from Pfizer and BioNTech are successful, the companies will seek an Emergency Use Authorisation from the federal government, or regulatory approval for widespread use, as early as October.

 How does the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine work?

In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Secretary Azar said that the government is "not concerned" about supply chain shortfalls that may hinder the vaccine's delivery.

"We've secured that to be able to ensure that we'll be able to vaccinate the American people once we get vaccines that are demonstrated safe and effective to the FDA's gold standard of approval or authorization," he said.

Pfizer and British-Swedish drug firm AstraZeneca  developing a vaccine with Oxford University  published a report in medical journal The Lancet this week claiming positive immune responses from early trials. That vaccine development is bolstered by more than $1 billion from the US government.

Moderna, a biotech firm that manufactured the first potential vaccine to be tested in humans, also recently claimed its drug showed a positive immune response in The New England Journal of Medicine. Moderna's vaccine development is supported by $486 million from the federal government.

The US government also has pledged more than $450 million to Johnson & Johnson and another $628 million to Emergent Biosolutions to expand vaccine and drug-manufacturing capacity

Roughly two dozen potential vaccines are currently being developed and tested around the world.

Nearly 4 million people in the US have been confirmed to be infected with Covid-19 since the onset of the outbreak. More than 142,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Tuesday, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the nation's actual rate of infection is likely 10 times higher than initially reported.
They were attacked by Samuel Croal (right), 52, outside Shepherds Bush station

Scott Wright, 45, came to rescue of Ruby Bynoe and her mother Simone Bynoe

A former Coronation Street star rescued a woman and her teenage daughter as they were being beaten up by a stranger near Westfield Shopping Centre.

Scott Wright, 45, came to rescue of Ruby Bynoe and her mother Simone Bynoe after they were kicked and punched by Samuel Croal, 52, outside Shepherds Bush tube station in west London on July 25, 2019.

The two women had been walking to the shopping centre when Croal confronted the teenager in the street and kicked her twice on the back of the leg.

When her mother Simone rushed to her daughter's aid, Croal shoved her and then punched her twice in the head.

Former Coronation Street start Scott Wright, 45, came to rescue of Ruby Bynoe and her mother Simone Bynoe after they were attacked outside Shepherds Bush tube station

Moments later, Wright who played stripper Sam 'The Masked Python' Kingston in the ITV soap, who had been walking past, immediately put himself between the Croal and the two women and prevented him for hitting them again.

Croal then threatened Wright, who starred in the hit ITV drama from 2000 to 2002 , but soon after left the scene of the attack.

Wright, who won Rear of the Year in 2002, quickly summoned police over and when they questioned Croal he started shouting abuse at the women and had to be restrained with handcuffs and arrested.

At Hendon magistrates court in West London District Judge Alexander Jacobs commended Wright's behaviour as he convicted Croal of assault.

The judge said: 'When independent members of the public step in to help and then are prepared to come and be a witness to events, the court is incredibly grateful.'

Video evidence of Croal kicking Ruby was shown to the court on CCTV footage, and he was also caught on camera landing two hard punches into Simone Bynoe's face.

Ruby told the court that she felt the hard kick to the back of her heel which left a mark, and when she looked round and saw Croal, he whispered to her: 'You're asking for it'.

The teenager immediately told her mother about the kick and she confronted Croal about the attack.

Simone Bynoe told the court: 'We were face to face and I was asking him why he kicked my daughter and then these two punches came out of nowhere. The first was on my mouth and split my lip and the second landed on the left side of my jaw.

Samuel Croal (pictured being arrested), 52, was arrested by police after he kicked and punched the two women outside Shepherds Bush tube station in west London

'I was really shocked and luckily this gentleman came in between us. If he had hit my daughter like that he would have knocked her to the ground and if had a weapon I could have lost my life that day.'

Speaking as a witness Wright said of Croal: 'I just saw him land a load of punches and I instinctively got in between him and the women but in a totally non-violent way. I put my arm out to prevent him punching her any more.

'He then started to threaten me and said he was going to beat me up, but he clearly thought twice about that and then started to walk away.'

Croal, from London, was found guilty of two counts of assault by beating and was bailed to appear for sentencing.

He had a previous conviction from 1993 for wounding which he served a 30-month prison sentence, and also had conviction for criminal damage also from the early 90s.
By Seol In-hyo





In last May, the tally of coronavirus deaths in the United States alone had surpassed 100,000, which exceeded the number of U.S. military combat fatalities in every conflict since the Korean War, according to New York Times. COVID-19 calls for a fundamental review of the national security paradigm, given that the top ranked countries by the death toll from the virus are the traditional five major powersthe U.S., Britain, Italy, Germany, and France.



The military has played a special role in supporting the government and the private sector worldwide amid the spread of COVID-19. There is a limit to the government and private institutions preparing for a massive emergency. This is because the resources to be used in case of crisis situation are basically idle facilities. The military has the advantage of being able to respond effectively in the event of a crisis that goes beyond the capabilities of the private sector. The swift and effective support of Korean armed forces played a crucial role in ROK's successful national quarantine.



The military can be highly vulnerable to the spread of infectious diseases considering their living conditions. Therefore, there was a high risk of massive infection in the military barracks, which not only leads to weakened combat readiness posture, but also to negative impact on the spread in the local community.



From the beginning of the epidemic, the Korean military has been able to prevent such risks by preemptively blocking the inflow of infectious diseases into the military. As of Feb. 22, the day after the first confirmed case in the armed forces, the Ministry of National Defense imposed a total ban on vacations, outings, overnight stays, and visits to all soldiers.



The move was taken one month ahead of the health authorities' "strengthened social distance guidelines."

In order to prevent any loopholes in national security, South Korea's defense authorities have established and implemented "high-intensity measures to prevent infection," especially for command posts and key forces which are essential for carrying out main operations. In case of temporal closure of major command centers, emergency quarantine measures and alternative operation options are systematically established.



In the case of core surveillance and main offensive forces, preliminary power is designated in case of sudden suspension. As the pandemic situation was prolonged, various measures were taken to minimize training gaps and maintain combat capabilities.



Based on the success of quarantining itself, the Korean military has been able to actively support the government and civilian areas from the initial stage of the pandemic. The Ministry of National Defense has provided more than 200,000 people, defining it as a "war-like situation" at the very day when the health authorities upgraded the crisis alert for the disease to the highest level.



Military personnel continued to do various jobs at airports and ports nationwide, such as providing temporary quarantine and inspection facilities for people with symptoms, life treatment centers for minor patients, and temporary living facilities for Korean residents from China, Iran, Spain and Italy. The military provided two military hospitals as national hospitals for infectious diseases and allowed the Joint Military University's Defense Language Institute as a temporary facility for Korean residents from abroad. Over the past few months. We have witnessed our military members' all-out efforts through various media.



Given the magnitude and seriousness of today's non-traditional security threats, as clearly indicated by the COVID-19, national security cannot be guaranteed without effective response. At the same time, if military and defense systems are not protected from non-traditional security threats, they cannot serve their own purpose, to defend national security. Additionally, modern military threats themselves are accompanied by non-military threats which are difficult to be distinguished from various non-traditional security threats, experts say. Therefore, it would be correct to say that modern national military should have sufficient ability to effectively deal with non-traditional security threats even for its original purpose.



However, it is also necessary to recognize the potential risks of expanding security concepts indefinitely. Considering the security environment surrounding the Korean Peninsula, ROK Ministry of National Defense should make a top priority in establishing its ability to respond to traditional military threats. Military tensions heightened by North Korea during June clearly illustrate this point. At this time, the reality is that it is difficult to categorically define the relative importance of non-traditional security threats and traditional military threats in the Korean defense.



The situation is rapidly changing. For the time being, the military authorities have no choice but to continue to seek a proper balance between the two while closely monitoring the changing reality. It is important to compose public consensus on the extended role of the military given that in many occasions expanding the role of national defense in responding to non-traditional security threats requires revision of relevant laws.





The writer has a Ph.D. in international relations at Seoul National University. He is a research fellow and chief of the current issues analysis team at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA). He was a visiting fellow of U.S. National Defense University in 2017.




By Laman Ismayilova

With its rich history, Azerbaijani national press plays a major role in the country's public life.

Azerbaijani national press celebrates its145th anniversary, commemorating the first release of "Akinchi" (Ploughman) newspaper.

Published for the first time in 1875 (July 22) by Hasan bey Zardabi, "Akinchi" gave a powerful impetus to the formation of a national press.

With its progressive mission, the newspaper fought against injustice and ignorance.

The newspaper covered a wide range of scientific, educational and cultural topics.

"Akinchi" harshly criticized superstition and backwardness. Popular science articles on agriculture and natural sciences as well as various stories about social and cultural state of Muslims in the Caucasus were also published on its pages.

Over that years, Hasan bey Zardabi had to face many challenges. During the Russo-Turkish War (18771878), Tsars censorship prohibited to touch upon political issues in the newspaper.

Since 1880, this newspaper was published under the name Ziyayi-Qafqaziyye".

Despite its closing in 1884, "Akinchi" paved the way to other national publications.

In the following years, newspapers like Shergi-Rus (1903-1905), Hayat (1905-1906), Molla Nasreddin (1906-1931), Fuyuzat (1906-1907), Shalale (1913-1914), Igbal (1912-1915), Dirilik (1914-1916), Achiq Soz (1915-1918) continued the noble goal of the "Akinchi" newspaper.

The satirical magazine "Molla Nasraddin" was another achievement of Azerbaijani national press.

The magazine was revolutionary for that time as it criticized corruption, snobbery, ignorance, religious fanaticism.

"Molla Nasraddin" actively promoted equal rights for women as well as freedom of expression and preservation of national language and traditions.

The name "Molla Nasraddin" was inspired by the 13th century Sufi wise man with a good sense of humor. His stories had a subtle humor and was very popular in public.

"Molla Nasreddin" also addressed uneducated people and used satirical verses, stories and cartoons to convey its messages to the society.

The magazine was banned several times in 1912, 1914 and 1917. The magazine was printed over 25 years (1906-1931).

Since gaining independence in 1991, Azerbaijani press has been actively working on providing information about the unfolding of events .

Azerbaijan Press Council is in charge of media self-regulation. Founded in 2003, the Press Council aims at enforcing public oversight of the profession, ensuring freedom of the press and strengthening the relationship between government and media.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Over on Facebook, for the last year and a half, Fethiye Times has been inviting readers to share their pictures on a weekly theme, which weve then posted on Saturday mornings.

Of course, the project has generated a sense of community and participation among our regulars but its also helped to promote the area to new readers.

However, by its nature, social media is a transient thing and, after a while the images vanish  at least from public view.

A new home

Weve therefore decided to give them a more readily accessible home on our website.

Well still be asking our readers to share their images and youll still be able to access them from Facebook  but their permanent home will be right here on the Fethiye Times website instead.

Also, readers who want to be part of the gallery neednt wait for us to announce a theme. If they have 15 images (or fewer) of a particular destination or event relevant to a visit to Turkey, then all they need to do is send them in via Facebook Messenger or email at fethiyetimes2017@gmail.com and well add them to the list for publication.

Quality counts

One thing though; as they will now be published on a website rather than Facebook, they need to meet certain criteria with regard to quality and resolution. For example, images less than 1MG in size may lose a little during electronic distribution. Well also need a little detail about the visit they relate to for inclusion in a short article to go with every submission.

We thought wed kick off with Kdrak this week  the often-overlooked pebbly beach between Oludeniz and Faralya.

If you havent been before and would like to visit yourself, there are admission fees to pay and charges for sunbeds and umbrellas but they remain much the same as the other council-run beaches. There are showers, toilets and changing rooms too as well as a bistro-style cafe serving simple meals, beers, soft drinks and ice cream.

The beach is on the dolmus route to Faralya and Kabak but also a regular stop for taxis from Oludeniz. Simply, find one, hop in and ask the driver for Kdrak (pronounced Kud-rak) and youll be there in a few minutes.

But, if you have some pictures of your favourite spot, why not send them in? Well share them here and on Facebook along with your tips and thoughts on a visit.

So where are you taking us next?
Nearly 10 times as many Bay Area residents had been infected with the coronavirus by the end of April than the official tally at the time, according to a new federal study that analyzed antibody tests to determine how widespread the virus was across a handful of United States hot spots.

The study underscores just how deficient testing for the virus was in the early weeks of the pandemic, when the vast majority of cases were never identified.

At the same time, it provides further evidence that aggressive shelter-in-place orders protected much of the Bay Area, where researchers estimate only about 1% of all residents had been infected by the time the study was done. That number is surely higher now with the outbreak surging again.

Scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 65,000 people in the Bay Area had been infected with the coronavirus by April 27, based on results of antibody tests conducted on a sample of the population. During that period, only about 7,000 cases had been reported,

The CDC performed antibody tests on about 16,000 blood samples collected in 10 regions in the United States, including the Bay Area, in March, April and May. Results showed that the Bay Area had the lowest infection rate in the country during that time period, compared to 6.9% in New York City, which had the highest rate.

The study, results of which were published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is the largest look so far at the estimated infection rate in several of the countrys COVID-19 hot spots. As with previous studies, it shows how widespread the virus is in American communities and how much testing for active infections has fallen short, according to the authors and infectious disease experts.

This study is consistent with what everyones been thinking: The number of cases reported are a gross under-estimation of the actual number of cases occurring, said John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert with UC Berkeley.

The 1% infection rate in the Bay Area certainly has climbed since the antibody tests were done at the end of April, infectious disease experts said. But the percentage of people who have been infected is probably still very small overall  potentially 2% to 6%, based on the number of confirmed cases now compared to two months ago. The CDC has not yet done a follow-up study in the Bay Area but has plans to do so, the authors said.

The regions remarkably low infection rate, especially compared to places like New York City, demonstrates the success of sheltering in place for two months, infectious disease experts said. When the antibody tests were done, the Bay Area had been under stay-at-home orders for five weeks and case counts and hospitalizations were at their lowest.

James Tensuan / Special to The Chronicle

In fact, though the Bay Area was one of the first parts of the country to experience community spread of disease, it had the lowest overall infection rate, according to the CDC study.

This is what we managed to do, said George Rutherford, an infectious disease expert with UCSF. Even with the current surge in cases in the Bay Area, he guesses the percentage of people who have been infected remains small.

Youre only talking about hundreds of cases a day in a region with millions of people in it, he said.

New York City had the highest infection rate, at close to 7% at the end of March; a follow-up study there found that the rate had jumped to about 23% by the first week of May. Washington state, which was also an early hot spot, had an infection rate of 1.1%.

About 5.8% of people had been infected in Louisiana at the time the antibody testing was done, and 4.9% in Connecticut, which was wrapped up in New Yorks outbreak. About 1.9% of people in South Florida had been infected by early April; that climbed to 2.9% about two weeks later, and infectious disease experts said the percentage is likely much higher now, as cases have swelled there in recent weeks.

The CDC study looked for coronavirus antibodies in blood samples taken from people during routine screening, such as cholesterol tests. Samples were analyzed from the Bay Area, New York City, Connecticut, South Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Utah and western Washington State, plus the metro areas in Minneapolis and Philadelphia. The Bay Area samples were collected and tested April 23-27.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle

The CDC researchers extrapolated the positive results to the community at large to determine what percentage of all residents in the area likely had been infected.

The body produces antibodies to a pathogen when a person is infected, regardless of whether the individual experiences symptoms of disease. So antibody tests can identify people who were infected and may not have known it, or who were never tested for active illness because they did not have access to testing.

In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, testing for active infection was in extremely short supply in the United States. Infectious disease experts have long said the number of confirmed cases represents only a fraction of the actual number of people infected. Generally, experts have estimated that the actual infections are about 10 times the confirmed cases.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

In all sites, the estimated number of infections with the virus that causes COVID-19 ... was much higher than the reported cases. This may reflect the number of persons who had mild or no illness or who did not seek medical care or undergo testing, but who still may have contributed to ongoing virus transmission in the population, said the studys lead author, CDC researcher Fiona Havers, in an email.

Because people often do not know if they are infected, the public should continue to take steps to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, she said, including wearing face coverings, maintaining social distance and washing hands frequently.

An earlier study from Stanford looking at antibody results in Santa Clara County reported 2.4% to 4.2% of people had been infected, but that analysis has since been widely challenged. Another study, by UCSF, that looked at antibody prevalence in the Mission District found that about 6% of residents there had been infected as of early May. Almost all of the infections were found among Latino residents who were essential workers and unable to shelter in place.

The CDC study comes with some caveats, in particular that the people who were tested are not necessarily representative of the larger population, since they were individuals with access to health care who were undergoing routine screening.

But infectious disease experts said its still an important snapshot of how widespread the disease was in American communities. Such studies are critical to understanding key questions about the virus, including how many cases are asymptomatic. It will be important to repeat these studies at later dates to get a sense of how the spread of disease has changed over time, experts said.

These studies also demonstrate how much more testing needs to be done for active infections. Depending on the region, the number of people testing positive for antibodies was six to 24 times greater than the confirmed cases.

The good way to interpret this study is despite this huge pandemic, the actual number of people getting infected, even in places like New York City, was not that high. So thats kind of reassuring, said Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley. But the bad way of looking at this is there are still a lot more people who could potentially get infected in the future.

Its unclear yet whether antibodies prevent individuals from being reinfected, though most experts believe they provide at least some protection for a period of time.

The pandemic hasnt gotten everybody, Riley said. If the antibody is protective, there are still a lot of people who arent protected.

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @erinallday
A campaign of caring for children in summer vacation is launched in Beijing on July 16. [China Women's News/Yang Rui]

A campaign of caring for children in summer vacation was launched in Beijing on July 16. With the theme of children's safety protection, diversified voluntary activities of caring for children will be held online and offline across the country while keeping regular epidemic prevention and control measures in place.

Shen Yueyue, President of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), announced the start of the campaign at the launching ceremony. Huang Xiaowei, Secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group of the ACWF and Vice-President and First Member of the Secretariat of the ACWF, attended the ceremony.

Sponsored by the ACWF, the Ministry of Education and nine other organs and people's organizations, the campaign will mobilize social forces, link resources and organize voluntary services in a bid to create a good environment of caring for children, especially rural left-behind children whose parents have migrated to other places for work and disadvantaged children.

According to the detailed plan of the activities of caring for children in summer vacation released at the ceremony, it will organize children to tell anti- COVID-19 epidemic and anti-poverty stories in their eyes by drawing paintings, writing compositions, reciting stories or family letters, making or broadcasting short videos about the battle against poverty and the anti-COVID-19 epidemic fight.

With more attention to the protection of children's physical and mental health, the campaign will include training sessions on prevention of sexual assault, bullying and drowning, improving parents' awareness of guardianship and guiding them to help children seek outlets for their unhealthy emotions properly. Lectures on legal and health knowledge will be given to children, guiding them to use the law to protect themselves and to practice good hygiene habits.

Volunteers will be organized to provide pairing-up services to left-behind and disadvantaged children in rural areas to give them help and warm their hearts.

During the ceremony, representatives of lawyers, presidents of the women's federations of villages, women volunteers, college student volunteers and village officials as well as community workers who are responsible for children's work share their stories of protecting children's safety via video link.

Brochures on how to ensure children's safety and "Love Package" from the HELLO Kids charity program launched by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund were handed out to children at the event.

After the launching ceremony, a video course on girls' protection and children's cyber safety was broadcast online, during which experts taught children and parents relevant knowledge and specific precautions.

The launching ceremony was livestreamed by CCTV.com, a major news website sponsored by China's state broadcaster China Central Television.

The "Love Package" prepared for every child attending the ceremony. The packages were donated by the HELLO Kids charity program launched by China Children and Teenagers' Fund under the All-China Women's Federation. [China Children and Teenagers' Foundation]

A parent-child reading activity is organized in Hechuan District of Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality to guide parents and children to learn safety knowledge together. [Chongqing Women's Federation]

Under the guidance of volunteers, the children perform a children's song on safety education in summer vacation in Central China's Hubei Province to popularize self-protection knowledge. [Hubei Women's Federation]

Relying on women and children's activity center, parents' schools and children's micro homes, women's federations at all levels in Central China's Hunan Province carry out publicity and education activities on drowning prevention, travel safety and prevention of sexual assault before the summer vacation. [Hunan Women's Federation]

Wu Qiuping, a loving mother from the Women's Federation of Suijiang County in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, helps a rural schoolgirl comb her hair. [Yunnan Women's Federation]

A lecture on sexual assault prevention is held in a Children's Happy Home in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. [Ningxia Women's Federation]

(Women of China)
FILE PHOTO: The spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Barcelona

MADRID (Reuters) - The prevalence of the novel coronavirus in Spain has risen three-fold over the last three weeks as authorities struggle to contain a rash of fresh clusters, mainly in the Catalonia and Aragon regions, Health Ministry data showed on Monday.

After registering thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths per day during an early April peak, Spain succeeded in slowing the number of new infections to a trickle.

But since restrictions on movement were lifted and Spaniards relaxed back into daily life, some 201 new clusters have appeared, with heavy concentrations in and around the Catalan cities of Barcelona and Lleida.

The occurrence of the novel coronavirus has jumped from eight cases per 100,000 inhabitants at the end of June, when the country's state of emergency ended, to 27 per 100,000, deputy health emergency chief Maria Sierra told a news conference on Monday.

Over the weekend 4,581 new cases were recorded, bringing the total to 264,836, she added. More than 28,000 people have died.

"Where measures have been relaxed is where these clusters appear," Health Minister Salvador Illa said. "We're talking about gatherings of extended family and spaces associated with nightlife."

Describing the situation in Catalonia as concerning, he appealed to residents to respect health measures.

On Friday the Catalan regional government urged some four million people, including residents of Spain's second largest city Barcelona, to stay at home and avoid gatherings of more than 10 people. It also told bars and restaurants to reduce their capacity.

That was in addition to ordering the mandatory confinement of at least 160,000 people around Lleida. [nL5N2EO2UW]

To try to prevent similar outbreaks, most Spanish regions have made face masks compulsory even when social-distancing can be guaranteed, going further than a national directive.

(Reporting by Nathan Allen; editing by Joan Faus and Barbara Lewis)
The Australian share market finished session down on Wednesday, 22 July 2020, as investors locked in recent profits amid concerns about a record surge in Covid-19 cases in the country. At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index declined 81.23 points, or 1.32%, to 6,075.06. The broader All Ordinaries dropped 76.15 points, or 1.21%, to 6,192.64.

Australia recorded 501 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, its highest since the epidemic took hold in March, with Victoria state, of which Melbourne is the capital, accounting for almost 97% of the new cases. Neighbouring New South Wales state with 16 new cases was put on "high alert" due to community transmission and Covid-19 cases in new places.

Healthcare stocks fell, weighed down by industry behemoth CSL and Cochlear, each dropping nearly 4%.

The big banks were all lower, with CBA down 0.4% and NAB down 0.8%.

ANZ and Westpac both dipped 0.6%.

Materials and resources stocks were lower. Mining giant BHP fell 3.4%, Rio Tinto declined 1.5%, and Fortescue Metals dipped 1.9%. Copper miner OZ Minerals rose 4.2% after upgrading its production guidance following a strong first half at both its Prominent Hill and Carrapateena mines in SA.

Tech stocks suffered on profit booking. Afterpay dropped 3.4%, Wisetech Global fell 3.9%, and Altium dipped 2.8%.

Bucking the trend, gold miners were higher, with Newcrest, Evolution and Northern Star up between 0.6% and 1.3%, while Resolute Mining soared 13% after reporting strong production from its Syama Gold Mine in Mali.

Energy stocks gained on following a rise in Brent crude prices, with Woodside up 1.3% and Santos gaining 2.3%. Beach Energy shares jumped 4.7% after announcing its full-year earnings and oil production will be close to previous guidance, despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices.

CURRENCY NEWS: The Australian dollar was buying over 71.50 US cents for the first time since April 2019, having risen nearly 30% since hitting a 17-year low in March.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Asif Mehman  Trend:

A rally against Azerbaijan was jointly held by a group of radical Armenian organizations, including the Armenian Youth Federation and the Armenian National Committee of America in front of the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles on July 22, Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev said, Trend reports.

During the rally, about 3,000 Armenians surrounded the consulate building and began to shout anti-Azerbaijani slogans, consul general added. Then about 50 activists of the Azerbaijani community with Azerbaijani flags and slogans approached the Armenians.

While chanting slogans, our compatriots informed the local community about the occupation policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan, the policy of ethnic cleansing, more than one million Azerbaijani refugees, the military provocation committed by Armenia last week and the murder of Azerbaijani civilians, Aghayev said.

For the first time, Azerbaijani activists in Los Angeles came out with a protest against the rally held by the Armenians, consul general said. As far as the Azerbaijanis continued to fairly protest, the aggression of the Armenians was growing and one of their groups attacked our compatriots.

The consul general said that despite the Los Angeles policemen tried to prevent the attack, they failed, as a result, seven Azerbaijanis were injured.

Four of our compatriots were hospitalized, one was severely injured, Aghayev said. Later the injured persons condition stabilized and our compatriots were discharged from the hospital.

Immediately after the incident, I contacted Head of the Los Angeles Police Department, Michel Rey Moore, bringing his attention to the incident seriousness and expressing him utter discontent with the polices failure to prevent the violent actions of the Armenians, the consul general said.

The mayor of Los Angeles was also informed about the incident, Aghayev added. This issue must be investigated, we strongly demand that those who have resorted to violence, to be identified and to be brought to justice."
Chinas Ambassador to Austria has indicated an equal countermeasure after the United States ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston. Li Xiaosi called it a regrettable decision and quoted a Chinese proverb, saying it would be impolite to not retaliate in equal measures. It means the authoritarian government may order the closure of at least one US consulate.

Very regrettable. But as an ancient Chinese saying goes, "It's impolite not to make a return for what one receives ()". https://t.co/UgGtaZ46PM  Li Xiaosi (@li_xiaosi) July 22, 2020

Earlier, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin had urged the United States to immediately reverse the decision, warning that China will otherwise certainly make legitimate and necessary reactions. Wang had called the order unprecedented and illegal under international law and accused the US of harassing Chinese diplomats and consular staff in America.

Washington ordered Beijing to shut its diplomatic consulate in Houston, serving another blow to already deteriorating relationship over several issues ranging from maritime disputes, coronavirus pandemic, and intellectual property theft. After the Trump administration notified China about its decision, Houston police and fire departments responded to reports of a fire in the consulate building.

Houston police said that its officers responded to a firefighter call from the China Consulate General in Houston building at 3417 Montrose Blvd. The police department informed that smoke was observed in an outside courtyard area but they were not allowed inside the building. It is believed that the smoke billowed from documents being dumped into flaming barrels.

Read: US Gives China 72 Hours To Shut Houston Consulate General; Accounts Claim Docs Being Burnt

Chinese hackers indicted

The latest order comes after the US Justice Department charged two Chinese hackers of targeting intellectual property and confidential business information, including COVID-19 research. The hackers working with Guangdong State Security Department allegedly hacked into the computer systems of hundreds of victim companies, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individual dissidents among others.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a statement that China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in the shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cybercriminals. He added that those criminals work for the benefit of the state, and feed hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research to the Chinese Communist Party.

Read: US Accuses Xi & China Of Global Hacking Attempt To Steal Millions In Covid Vaccine Secrets

Read: China Alerts Students In US To 'be On Guard' Over 'arbitrary Detentions, Interrogations'
Chandigarh, July 22 : Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has, in a letter to Border Security Force (BSF) Director General Surjeet Singh Deswal, expressed his appreciation over the seizure of Rs 300 crore drugs by the 10th Battalion along the international border.

All members of the team involved in the seizure of 60 kg heroin should be rewarded, the Chief Minister recommended. "But for the alertness of the jawans and the prompt action thereafter, drugs would have entered India and severely impacted the lives of many," he said.

The exemplary action of the 14-member BSF party, involved in the operation to save the nation's youth from the clutches of drugs, deserved to be commended, Singh said.

He said the gap at GIN-61 is tough, particularly during the night, as it was riverine and unfenced, but the BSF personnel not only displayed exceptional alertness but also risked their lives while battling the strong current in the Ravi river in the Gurdaspur sector.

On the night of July 18, constable Birsa Murmu, who was part of the patrol and positioned at a stone mound, spotted some suspicious items floating from the Pakistan side to the Indian side in the river.

He sounded the alert and the BSF personnel of 10th Battalion immediately swung into action and recovered 60 cloth packets, containing 59.6 kg heroin.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Smithfield, N.Y.  The man was struggling to hold his head above water when deputies found him.

The two Madison County sheriffs deputies responded to the town of Smithfield earlier this month after a caller reported hearing someone yelling for help in a wooded area. When they arrived, the deputies found a man pinned under a lawn mowing tractor that had rolled over into Oneida Creek.

The deputies  Deputy D. Ladd and Deputy R. Marriott  rushed into the creek to save the man, county officials said. And on Tuesday, the deputies were lauded for the rescue.

Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood has awarded the deputies divisional commendations, the countys spokeswoman said in a news release. The commendations were given just over two weeks after the Smithfield rescue.

The accident happened near 5300 Oxbow Road on July 6. The tractor driver told deputies he was mowing grass when his tractor slid down an embankment, the spokeswoman said. The tractor rolled over into the creek, trapping the man in the water.

The man guessed he was in the creek for at least half an hour before deputies arrived, the spokeswoman said.

When they found the trapped man, deputies Ladd and Marriott waded into the water and helped the man keep his head above water, the spokeswoman said. And when more help arrived, Ladd and other responders lifted the tractor off while Marriott supported the mans upper body and head, she said.

The man was helped out of the creek and into the care of EMTs. He suffered minor injuries, the county spokeswoman said.

The sheriffs office was assisted in the rescue by the Smithfield Fire Department; the Smithfield Eaton Volunteer Ambulance Corp.; and Trooper Wetzel of the New York State Police.

Staff writer Samantha House covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, a story idea, a comment or a question? Reach her at shouse@syracuse.com.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

Turkey will be supporting fraternal Azerbaijan in all its decisions taken in the right cause, a statement following National Security Council meeting chaired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Trend reports with reference to the statement.

The meeting was held today, July 22,2020.

"Armenia must leave the occupied Azerbaijani lands, and Turkey will support fraternal Azerbaijan in all its decisions taken in the right cause," the statement said.

The statement said that aggressive policy of Armenia, which has been occupying Azerbaijani lands for many years, obstructs peace, ignores international law and is strongly condemned.

"Armenia must end its aggression and leave the occupied Azerbaijani lands," the statement said.
TORRINGTON  LARC is beginning a phased reopening of the agencys Vocational and Day Services programs over the next several weeks.

The agency, which closed March 20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, formed a reopening committee in May to begin planning for a strategic phased-in reopening, according to a statement.

Under guidelines issued by the State of Connecticut, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the CT Department of Developmental Services (DDS), LARC will proceed slowly, gradually opening various programs starting on or about July 15, according to the statement.

Since the pandemic closed the agencies around the state, LARCs residential program, which includes six group homes, has been at full capacity with round-the-clock staff ensuring the residents were safe, members said.

To date, LARC has not had a single case of COVID-19 among its staff or individuals. This track record is due in large part to the stringent policies and procedures in place in the group homes and active worksites, according to the statement. This adherence by LARC staff to the guidelines issued by the CDC, DDS and the State of Connecticut will be the driving force behind all reopening plans.

Full opening of the agency will take place with careful planning over several months. This will necessarily depend upon the situation of individuals who wish to return to the programs, guidance from the state, and as community worksites become operational.

In the statement, LARC emphasized that reopened programs will not look or operate the same way. A strict protocol, which has been practiced during the past several months in preparation for reopening, will be implemented, including increased cleaning and safety procedures for every aspect of the agency including programming, transportation, personal care, activities, and meals.

Among other protocols, all staff and individuals participating in a program will have daily temperature checks and symptom monitoring, wear of a face mask at all times, practice social distancing, and follow frequent handwashing rules, encouraged through signage and weekly updates.

Staff have been reaching out to individuals over the last four months to maintain contact and keep them engaged. Concerned that individuals who were no longer attending a day program or job, might feel isolated, a number of the LARC staff took advantage of available new technology to provide virtual programming, members said. Thanks to funding through Torrington Savings Banks rapid response grant program, LARC was able to purchase Chromebooks that allowed staff to innovate with technology and offer virtual services remotely.

LARC has communicated initial reopening plans directly with individuals, families and guardians, and will be meeting with them over the next few weeks to discuss what programs will be available and to make sure everyone understands what to expect, according to the statement.

The agency will continue to update the community as phases of the reopening plan roll out. Additional updates and information will be made available on LARCs website https://www.litchfieldarc.org, as well as CT Department of Developmental Services (DDS), https://portal.ct.gov/dds; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), https://www.cdc.gov/
The United States has ordered the closure of Chinas consulate in the city of Houston, a move Beijing called an unprecedented escalation that will sabotage relations between the two countries.

In a statement on Wednesday, Morgan Ortagus, spokeswoman for the US Department of State, said Washington directed the consulates closure in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

She did not elaborate further.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:26:19|Editor: huaxia

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LAGOS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Kayode Fayemi, the governor of Ekiti, a state in southwest Nigeria Wednesday announced that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The governor, who revealed the news on his verified Twitter account, said the result of his latest test came back positive and he had consequently proceeded on self-isolation.

"I'm generally okay and I'm already self-isolating at home and receiving the best of care from my medical team," he said, adding he has trusted critical tasks to his deputy but will continue routine duty from home.

According to local media, Nigeria has seen at least seven state governors testing positive for the virus since the country recorded the first confirmed case on February 27. Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama on Sunday confirmed he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Figures from the Nigeria Center for Disease Control showed the country on Tuesday night recorded 576 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total infections to 37,801 with 805 deaths. Enditem
A government office that tracks and records every real estate transaction in Charleston County has closed for the week because its leader tested positive for the coronavirus.

Michael Miller, who was elected Register of Deeds in 2018, said he plans to reopen on Monday. He announced on Facebook that he saw his physician last week "after not feeling like myself" and that he was tested for COVID-19.

The results came back positive Tuesday. He is quarantining for 14 days, as are any employees who came in close contact with him while he was at work early last week.

"Unfortunately, I may have unknowingly and unintentionally exposed the Register of Deeds office and my staff," he said in the social media post.

Miller added that his leadership team will be tested for the virus on Thursday.

In an phone interview Wednesday, he said he's feeling better. He decided to close the office, which is on the second floor of the O.T. Wallace Office Building at 101 Meeting St., after consulting with the human resource, risk management and legal departments.

"That will give the county a couple of days to go in and do a really good cleaning," he said.

The shutdown is expected to result in delays for law firms and banks that need to officially record real estate-related transactions, including property sales and new mortgages.

Miller said the registry is not equipped to operate completely remotely, and it can't process electronic filings.

"We haven't gotten to that point," he said.

The office was struggling with a paperwork backlog before the COVID-9 outbreak, which has exacerbated the situation. Miller said multiple employees have had to stay home occasionally for child-care reasons after local schools were closed. All the while, the real estate filings that need to be stamped and recorded continue to pour in, he said.

"This office never slows down at all," said Miller, who estimated that the office's document processors each handle 50 to 100 filings a day. "How do you produce the same amount of work when you have reduced staff? It's impossible. You can't do it."
In the months following Megxit, especially as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic swept across the globe, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry made an effort to make amends with the British royal family.

The Sussexes relationship wth the royals had become strained after The Crown stuck to their stiff upper lip policy while Meghan was enduring constant harassment and bullying from the British press and public. Though the duchess was an actor prior to marrying Prince Harry, this type of scrutiny was something she never dreamed she would encounter.

Though tensions have eased, Meghans privacy lawsuit against Mail On Sunday may have opened new wounds. Now royal experts believe the royals may sub the duchess on her upcoming birthday.

RELATED: Prince William Is Beginning to Question If the Stiff Upper Lip Policy Is Still Relevant

Meghan Markle has been speaking out about her time in the royal family

In court documents from her lawsuit against Mail on Sunday, Associated Newspapers Limited, Meghan is revealing just how lost and alone she felt during her time as a senior working royal.

The duchess explained that she was unable to defend herself against lies. She also revealed that she felt exposed and unprotected when she was pregnant with her son, Archie Harrison. The privacy claim reads,

The Claimant had become the subject of a large number of false and damaging articles by the UK tabloid media, specifically by the Defendant, which caused tremendous emotional distress and damage to her mental health. As her friends had never seen her in this state before, they were rightly concerned for her welfare, specifically as she was pregnant, unprotected by the Institution, and prohibited from defending herself. The stance of no comment was taken by the KP Communications Team without any discussion with or approval by the Claimant, as is standard practice for Royal communications.

RELATED: Prince William and Kate Middleton Reportedly Miss Prince Harry More Than Meghan Markle But Heres Why Its Normal

The British royal family is terrified about Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys upcoming book

Meghans claims have already put the royal family on edge. However, a forthcoming book about the Sussexes experience within the royal family might tip them over the edge.

The book, Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family written by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand is set to showcase the Sussexes perspective and some of the things Meghan endured. The royals and their staff are apparently already on edge. A source told The Sun,

They are worried William especially will be portrayed in a bad light. This sort of family spat shouldnt be out there in public. This shouldnt happen to future monarchs. The book could be the most damaging thing to the Royal Family since Prince Dianas interview on Panorama with Martin Bashir. The concern is it will somehow paint [William] as an unfeeling baddie against kind and philanthropic Harry and Meghan. The aides are privately worried about it. Unsympathetic, unfeeling and unsupportive are the words being used but of course no one knows exactly whats in it.

RELATED: Fans Are Furious That the Royal Family Is Defending Kate Middleton but Not Meghan Markle

The British royal family might snub Meghan Markle on her birthday

Meghans 39th birthday is Aug. 4 and with the book and the lawsuit, it appears that it may go unnoticed by the royal family. Typically on a royals birthday, the bells ring at Westminster Abbey. However, one royal expert thinks the duchess may be snubbed.

I hear that Westminster Abbey will not ring its bells for Meghans birthday next month, Daily Mail royal correspondent Richard Eden wrote. To add insult to injury, it did ring them for the birthday of beleaguered Prince Andrew in February, even though hed stepped down from royal duties.

Since Meghan and Prince Harry are no longer senior working members of the royal family, the bells probably wont ring on the princes birthday either.
The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term. With less than four months until Election Day, Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November and Democrats have a chance to make the police reforms they have endorsed after the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests demanding racial justice.
A vulnerable couple who went missing have been found after a police dog tracked down their scent using a piece of bedding.

The husband and wife, both in their eighties and suffering from dementia, had not been seen for more than two hours when their disappearance was reported at around 11pm on July 16.

Authorities launched a major search effort across their home area in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, with every available police unit dispatched to help.

Police dog Rey, a German Shepherd, found a piece of bedding and was able to trace the scent into a field.

Officers then used a 44 to search the area, which was inaccessible to police cars.

At 12.30am, they spotted the couple in a ditch, where the woman had fallen and hurt her back.

The pair received emergency first aid until an ambulance arrived.

They were then taken to hospital and are expected to make a full recovery.

Inspector Reuben Palin, of Dyfed-Powys police, said: This was a superb effort by all involved to find this elderly and vulnerable couple.

The couple had not been seen for two hours, and we were searching in almost darkness from the start, making conditions difficult.

The swift work of PD Rey allowed us to take the right direction in our search, and the capability of the rural teams off-road vehicle was crucial in covering rural ground quickly.

Without this asset, the outcome could have been very grave indeed.
"Troy's depth and breadth of experience in finance, investments, economic development and operational leadership will be a tremendous asset to the organization and to the diverse stakeholders we serve across the state of Maryland," stated Myra Norton, TEDCO's Chair of the Board and President of Arena. "Troy's most compelling strengths go well beyond his impressive background and experience. He is a galvanizing, inspiring and inclusive leader with a track record of delivering outcomes in challenging times. We are delighted to welcome Troy, and look forward to supporting his leadership and the TEDCO team."

Troy has over 25 years of experience in the fields of investment management, higher education, telecommunications, information/communication technology, management consulting, and non-profit leadership/management.

"I am fortunate, honored and humbled to be selected as TEDCO's next CEO/Executive Director," said Troy LeMaile-Stovall. "In these times of uncertainty brought on by public health, economic and racial concerns, TEDCO should continue to be the voice of innovation that can help Maryland address these concerns for all her citizens. I look forward to serving."

Troy serves as Chief Operating Officer at the University of the District of Columbia and he founded and serves as Managing Member of LeMaile Stovall LLC, a management consulting firm focused on strategy, operational performance and capital stack formation. Troy was Interim President for Zenith Education Group, a $400M+, 56-campus career education system. Additionally, Troy was a Principal at Butler Snow Advisory Services, serving not only higher education clients but also senior levels in higher education as EVP/COO at Howard University and Sr. VP/CFO at Jackson State University. He co-founded and operated as the first President/CEO of GulfSouth Capital, Ambassador John N. Palmer's (Skytel founder) multi-million dollar family investment office; he served global technology and telecommunications clients as a Sr. Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Co.; and held positions at Southwestern Bell Telephone (now AT&T), Bell Labs and Rockwell International. He holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University cum laude, a master's degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

"I want to congratulate TEDCO's Board of Directors on their appointment of their new CEO Troy LeMaile-Stovall," said Governor Larry Hogan. "TEDCO provides essential tools and resources to our entrepreneurs during critical company growth stages. Their mission to provide access to capital and advisory support and utilize federal and state programs to assist tech and life science startups benefits our economy amidst our current challenges and helps to create more jobs in communities all across Maryland."

TEDCO's Board of Directors enlisted Korn Ferry, in January 2020, to assist the organization with a national search for the selection of a permanent CEO/Executive Director.

"TEDCO has been an innovative organization that has kept Maryland at the forefront of emerging technologies on the East Coast," said Speaker Adrienne A. Jones. "I am pleased with the rigorous process that the Board of Directors undertook to select Troy Stovall. As we look at a shifting economy coming in to 2021, I look forward to working together with Troy to invest in Maryland companies and new job opportunities so that every Marylander is a part of the 21st century economy."

"TEDCO serves an important role in the innovation ecosystem of Maryland," stated Senate President Bill Ferguson. "Mr. Stovall adds a new, yet experienced, voice to Maryland's economic development landscape. I offer my congratulations to Mr. Stovall and to the TEDCO Board and I look forward to working together on legislative solutions to the challenges facing the entrepreneur community in Maryland."

TEDCO has carried the "innovation to market" banner for 22 years and has added tremendous value to the state's evolving entrepreneurial ecosystem. Recognized as one of the most active seed/early-stage investors in the nation, TEDCO has a diverse portfolio of more than 400 investments. TEDCO's initial $22 million awarded to startups led to $1.6 billion in follow-on funding; 7,800 jobs created at an average salary of $74,700; nearly $67 million in annual government revenues attributed to TEDCO activities. TEDCO has also supported more than $157 million in 465 stem cell research grants through Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, keeping Maryland at the forefront of research in this critical future growth area.

"We also want to recognize and offer our sincere gratitude to Linda Singh, our interim CEO/Executive Director, whose strong leadership during this period has laid a foundation for the organization to thrive in the months and years to come. We are pleased she will continue to lead the organization in preparation for Troy's arrival," stated Norton.

About TEDCO

TEDCO enhances economic development growth through the fostering of an inclusive entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem. TEDCO identifies, invests in, and helps grow technology companies in Maryland. Learn more at www.tedcomd.com.

SOURCE TEDCO

Related Links

http://www.tedcomd.com


(Newser)  A $740 billion defense policy bill that President Trump threatened to veto has passed the House with a veto-proof 295-125 majority, with 108 Republicans voting in favor of the 2021 Defense Authorization Act and 43 Democrats voting against. The bill calls for military bases and other properties named after Confederate military officers to be renamed within a year, a move Trump firmly opposes, the Hill reports. It also includes a 3% pay rise for troops and allocates $1 billion to a pandemic preparedness fund.

story continues below

The House bill passed with bipartisan support, although Republican lawmakers strongly objected to an amendment placing limits on the president's ability to use the Insurrection Act to deploy troops within the US, CNN reports. The amendment passed 215 to 190, with only one Republican voting in favor. The Senate is expected to pass its version of the bill this week, which calls for the renaming of bases named after Confederate officers within three years. Trump said weeks ago that he would veto any bill that included the renaming of bases, but since the measure appears in both the House and Senate version of the defense policy bill, it is likely to remain in the final version that makes it to his desk. (Read more National Defense Authorization Act stories.)
The United States, which is the worst-hit nation globally by the Covid-19 pandemic, has promised to pay USD 1.95 billion to purchase 100 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine, which is being developed by US pharma giant Pfizer in collaboration with Germanys Biontech, the German firm said on Wednesday.

Americans will receive the vaccine for free consistent with the US governments commitment for free access to Covid-19 vaccines, the German firm said in a statement. Under the agreement, the United States government has placed an initial order for 100 million doses to be delivered if regulatory approval is granted for the experimental vaccine.

Scientists in a number of countries around the world are involved in a frantic race to develop a vaccine to help stem the worst health crisis that the world has witnessed in over a century. More than 200 candidate vaccines are currently under process with roughly 24 of them at various stages of clinical trials involving human volunteers.

The United States also has an option open to purchase as many as 500 million additional doses, the Biontech statement indicated.

German pharma major Biontech and Pfizer have shortlisted their vaccine candidates down to two frontrunners and are waiting for regulatory approval to begin a mass trial involving 30,000 healthy volunteers, which may happen later this month.

If successful results are achieved and regulatory approvals follow, Pfizer and Biontech are likely to manufacture up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020, and potentially more than 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021. Clinical trials so far have shown that their treatment triggers robust antibody and T-cell immune responses against the coronavirus, according to Biontech.

Closer home, Indias Serum Institute has reportedly already started manufacturing the Oxford vaccine (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19) for coronavirus. The company intends to manufacture two-three million doses by August end, Suresh Jadhav, Executive Director of Serum Institute has said.

The Serum Institute of India on Tuesday said it would be starting trials of the Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University and British pharma major AstraZeneca by the end of August on up to 5,000 Indian volunteers after getting the necessary approval.

The pharma company plans to launch the vaccine by June 2021 if all goes well. The Serum Institute of India is one of the global partners for the production of Britains Covid-19 vaccine on a large scale, once it gains regulatory approval.

British pharma major AstraZenecas experimental Covid-19 vaccine was found to be safe and has managed to produce a significant immune response in healthy volunteers in the initial stages of clinical trial, according to data released earlier this week. Oxford University also announced satisfactory progress with the vaccine, making it one of the frontrunners among the vaccine candidates being developed around the world.

The experimental vaccine did not display any serious side effects and produced antibody and T-cell immune responses in the volunteers on whom it was tested, according to the results of the clinical trials. Scientists involved in the trials have said the vaccine caused minor side effects more frequently than a control group, but some of these effects could be reduced by taking common paracetamol, with no serious harmful effects from the vaccine The vaccine has been called AZD1222 and was under development by pharma giant AstraZeneca in collaboration with scientists at Britains Oxford University. The varsity has tied up with Serum Institute of India to manufacture and supply the vaccine to India and over 60 other countries having a combined population of 3 billion, the companys management has said.

The new vaccine is a chimpanzee adenovirus viral vector (ChAdOx1) vaccine that expresses the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. It uses a common cold virus (adenovirus) that infects chimpanzees, which has been weakened so that it cant cause any infection in humans, and then has been genetically modified to code for the spike protein of the human SARS-CoV-2 virus, according to scientists working with the pharma major.

The widely-followed clinical trial is currently at an advanced stage, with ongoing trials in the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa.
A conservative legal foundation filed suit Tuesday to overturn Gov. Gavin Newsoms order barring schools in most of the state from bringing students into the classrooms this fall.

The suit, which was filed in a Los Angeles federal court by the Center for American Liberty, accuses Newsom of arbitrarily depriving children of their right to an adequate education and argues that he has no constitutional power to make that decision.

The governor and the state have ushered in a new wave of COVID-19 restrictions, this time barring in-person schooling for most children in California, the suit charges, adding that they have placed politics ahead of the well-being of children and deprived millions of children of the opportunity for meaningful education and the attendant hope for a brighter future.

On Friday, Newsom released his plan for how schools can start the new academic year during the coronavirus pandemic, which in recent weeks has roared through the state, setting records in the number of cases and hospitalizations. The plan essentially barred in-person classes in any of the 33 counties now on the states coronavirus watch list, representing the vast majority of California schoolchildren.

Learning is non-negotiable, Newsom said in his announcement calling for a move to distance learning. Students, staff and parents all prefer in-classroom instruction, but only if it can be done safely.

But Harmeet Dhillon, founder of the center and attorney for the Southern California families named in the suit, charged that relying on home computers and a keyboard instead of a desk in a classroom is unfair to parents and students alike, especially those in low-income families or with special needs that cant be handled from afar.

All the students weve seen were failed by the state of California when schools were closed in the spring, said Dhillon, former vice chair of the California Republican Party and a national GOP committeewoman. For parents of special needs children, the state has failed to provide the specialized help needed.

Christine Ruiz, a plaintiff in the case with two autistic children, said its impossible to duplicate the help available at school.

When my son goes to school, he has a team, she said in the Zoom news conference with Dhillon. We are the ones left behind.

The governors office has not commented on the lawsuit.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The suit calls for a permanent injunction barring the state from enforcing the school closure rules.

This isnt the first suit Dhillon and her center have filed against the state. She has challenged Newsom on everything from church services to Orange County beach closures and fought for various other causes around the country.

If youre able to get a haircut or have your nails done in California, you can thank the Center for American Liberty, she said.

Dhillon said her suit is not about the coronavirus, but about choice.

I dont know any educator in California who believes we should reopen (schools) with business as usual, she said. Were advocating parental choice: Take the reasonable risk of sending children to school or face the prospect of having them fall behind for at least a year.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has initiated the landmarking process for 10 Depression-era frescoes that could be destroyed as part of UCSFs 1.5 million-square-foot expansion at its Parnassus Heights campus.

The series, History of Medicine in California, was painted in 1935 by radical artist Bernard Zakheim, a Polish-born muralist who studied with Diego Rivera and contributed to the murals inside Coit Tower. It was one of more than 220,000 works of art partly funded by the Works Project Administration.

In June, The Chronicle first reported that the murals likely would be a victim of the UCSF expansion unless an individual or group came forward with a plan and money to move the works, which weigh 2,500 pounds apiece. UCSF said it had consulted with two preservation architecture groups that concluded it would cost $8 million to preserve and move the artwork, and that some of the panels could be damaged in the process.

UCSF has decided not to use public funds to physically preserve the murals, especially at a time when the UC system faces financial challenges in the wake of COVID-19, the university said in a statement at the time. This decision in no way has to do with any complaints about the murals.

On Monday, however, UCSF Vice Chancellor Brian Newman told the supervisors Land Use and Transportation Committee that the university would like to see the artwork preserved.

We understand how passionate people are, including our own community and alumni, to preserve these murals, Newman said. Time will tell, based on the work we are doing now, if they can be saved.

Peskin described the landmarking as honorific because UCSF, as a branch of state government, is not subject to San Franciscos zoning or planning codes. That means that even if the murals are designated a city landmark, UCSF could destroy them.

(UCSF) is not subject to our local laws, but I believe that these incredible, radical 10-part frescoes deserve that level of honor and deserve that protection, Peskin said.

Newman said UCSF is neutral on the landmarking proposal, but my colleagues and I are certainly sympathetic with its goals.

The murals are in Toland Hall, a lecture auditorium within UC Hall, a 103-year-old building Newman called seismically deficient and functionally obsolete.

The building is scheduled to be razed in 2022 and replaced with a new, 8-story research and academic building on the same footprint. UCSF is hoping the UC Board of Regents will approve the plan in January.

Newman said UCSF is soliciting proposals from art conservation groups interested in moving and preserving the frescoes. In the meantime, UCSF is documenting the artwork digitally.

Destroying the artwork is the worst case scenario that we are assuming, but its certainly not a worst case scenario that we are hoping for, Newman said.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Zakhiems son, Nathan Zakheim, an art conservator based in Los Angeles, disputed the $8 million price tag to move and preserve the artwork. He told The Chronicle he could move and restore the collection for about $1 million.

Theres local support for preserving the murals, too.

The frescoes are the work of a master and represent his largest and perhaps most significant work, said Woody LaBounty, deputy director of the preservation group San Francisco Heritage.

Supervisor Dean Preston, whose district includes part of the Parnassus campus, said the possibility the murals could be destroyed is a reminder of what is sometimes lost when we are moving forward with these developments.

The city landmarking process requires the Planning Department to prepare a designation report, which would be subject to votes at the Historic Preservation Commission, the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com
TD Jakes implores people to take COVID-19 seriously: easier to wear a mask than wear a ventilator

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Bishop T.D. Jakes has called on West Virginians to get tested during the pandemic and to wear face masks, declaring that it's easier to wear a mask than wear a ventilator.

A native of South Charleston, Jakes brief message was posted to Facebook last Friday by the Herbert Henderson Office of Minority Affairs. It included a link to a government website that listed where free COVID-19 testing was available.

You need to get tested for COVID-19. It's running rampant. Its hurting a lot of people. Its killing them, said Jakes in the video message.

Wear a mask. Its so much easier to wear a mask than to wear a ventilator. Wear a mask. Social distance yourself, even from people you know and love. If they dont live with you, keep your distance.

Jakes went on to say that West Virginia was in my prayers and in my thoughts and that were going to get through this together. Hang in there, be smart!

West Virginia currently has over 5,000 coronavirus cases and 101 deaths, according to the state Department of Health and Human Resources. The overall positive rate is 2.16%.

The senior pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, has been critical of those who refuse to adhere to guidelines aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

In a Facebook Live broadcast made back in May, Jakes said that Christians who spurned social distancing guidelines were engaging in unbiblical foolishness.

When the Bible said Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days and Satan said, if thou be the Son of God cast yourself off of this mountain for it is written that the angels will bear you up,' Jesus did not throw Himself off the mountain just to see if angels would catch Him. Thats not faith, thats foolishness, he stated at the time.

To put yourself in a situation where you disregard common sense, disregard it just to see if God has got you, please dont do that. Im on here talking to you today because Im concerned and Im worried, and I love you and Im scared for you.

For their part, The Potters House has been holding online services in light of the pandemic until further notice.

Jakes message about getting tested comes days after Andy Stanley, head of Atlanta, Georgias North Point Community Church, interviewed a friend of his who survived COVID-19.

The survivor, named Stuart Hall, explained to the megachurch pastor that his ordeal taught him that the coronavirus must be taken very seriously and that it is not a mere conspiracy theory.

This is not a political agenda. And more than anything, Andy, its incredibly disrespectful to the medical community. Men and women who are risking their own life to save lives, said Hall.

Put a mask on  Care about your neighbor.
Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush actor Himanshu Soni went through an ordeal after his wife Sheetal was diagnosed with Covid-19 and later the doctors in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, said she was critical. It was unbelievable when the doctors told me she was critical and it took me two to three hours to come to terms with it. I was crying and didnt know how to handle the situation. I went blank for some time. I believe that my faith in God gave me the ability to make the right decisions, says the actor. His wife was discharged yesterday and will now continue her treatment at home for a month.

Soni reveals Sheetal had travelled to Rishikesh for work and they dont know how or where she got infected. He shares, At first, it was cold, flu and fever but as she had tested negative before leaving, she didnt think it could be Covid-19. Once she checked her oxygen levels, she realised it was low and she had breathing trouble. She got admitted to an isolation ward in Rishikesh on July 2. I reached the next day and the doctors told me that she is serious, has pneumonia, so they will shift her to ICU. She would get oxygen in an isolation ward and medicines in the ICU but when I consulted doctors in Mumbai, they told me to shift her to Delhi immediately. On July 4, we shifted her to Delhi with help of her boss Mr BK Modi and his team, Preeti Malhotra, Anamika Sikari and Manish, who organized the ambulance and a bed in Max Smart Sanket hospital. He also helped get the medicine Remdesivir, which is low in stock. The doctors, Arun Diwan, Vivek Nangia and team and the nursing staff took great care and my wife felt good after two doses and recovered easily. She was out of the ICU on July 12, on her birthday.

Soni admits that meditation gave him calmness and sanity in those tough moments. Prayers and meditation and medication, of course, helped her, he says, adding, he is thankful to all the doctors at the hospital, the plasma donors  Mallikji and Gagan Makkar ji and urges that people shouldnt dismiss symptoms of cold, cough, fever. Please dont take it lightly and get a test done after consultation with a doctor.

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Houston pastor says his megachurch is among the 'safest places in America' from COVID-19

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If any one of their more than 10,000-members is going to get sick with the new coronavirus, Olus Holder, executive pastor of Fallbrook Church in Houston, Texas, says they wont be getting it from attending his church.

Fallbrook, which was founded by Senior Pastor Michael A. Pender Sr., was announced Thursday as one of two COVID-19 testing sites established in the city with help from New York state. The church sits on a 40-acre property and its sanctuary seats about 2,300 people. The other church established as a COVID-19 testing site with aid from New York state is southwest Houston's Higher Dimension Church.

Through capacity restrictions, a ban on congregational singing, the use of thermal and laser screening technology, along with appropriate mask-wearing, hand sanitizing and social distancing, Holder told The Christian Post in an interview Friday that not one member has gotten the virus yet.

If they are going to get sick, theyre going to get sick somewhere else because of all the sanitary measures we have, the social distancing, Holder said.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Texas authorities have reported almost 293,000 cases of COVID-19 with 3,561 fatalities as of Thursday. In Harris County where the states largest city is mostly located, nearly 52,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed by local health officials along with just over 500 deaths among a population of more than 4.7 million.

Holder explained that Fallbrook had initially migrated online completely but later discovered that there were some members who did not have access to the internet.

I think people forget, everybody dont have the internet in the United States of America. And we didnt think about it until they called us and told us, he said.

The church then developed a rigorous COVID-19 protocol which includes the use of thermal scanning cameras and laser thermometers. They also limited in-person attendance to 7% or just 161 attendees to accommodate individuals who don't have access to the internet.

Since the church is only open for a specific group, Holder says those in-person gatherings are not promoted.

If someone comes, well let them in but we wont go over 161, he said.

If you come in our sanctuary, seats are blocked off, whole sections are blocked off. Another neat thing that we do, when you come into Fallbrook you have to sanitize your hand. Also we have thermal scanning temperature cameras. We have two of those, he explained.

If someone has a temperature, we get an alert, we get a picture. Then we send them to the next station where we have the laser thermometers. And then, if that says they have a temperature with our thermal cameras, we send them home. So far we have not had that, Holder said. Im just trying to show you how safe we are. We are one of the safest places in America.

Congregants are also asked not to sing inside the church and members of their praise team are separated by plexiglass.

We dont allow singing in the congregation, but our praise team, they have Plexiglass monitors between each one of them and then our stage is so far away from the seating. We do not recommend singing. Of course, you can't stop people from doing that, but everybody has on their mask, he said.

On Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the state would be doing up to 1,000 daily COVID-19 tests at Fallbrook and Higher Dimension Church which serve at-risk minority communities.

Along with testing supplies, New York sent more than 20 healthcare workers and public health experts to Houston to consult on the city's COVID-19 response.

"When New York went through the unprecedented challenge and unimaginable tragedy of COVID-19's apex in the state, states throughout the country provided supplies, ventilators and personnel during our time of greatest need," Cuomo said in a statement. "Now that New York's numbers have stabilized, we're returning the favor across the country, and I am glad to be able to help the great city of Houston establish two testing sites in vulnerable communities. I thank our incredible partners for their efforts to establish the sites and provide supplies and expertise."

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who Holder describes as a friend of Fallbrook, praised Cuomo for his leadership on responding to the pandemic.

I've watched your daily briefings on a regular basis. I learned a lot from what you have done and your people have done in New York, he said.

We are facing a situation where our numbers have surged. More people have been testing positive, showing up in our hospitals and our ICUs. Testing is a big issue. And you're also right that this virus is having a disproportional impact on communities of color, low-income communities, and where even more testing is needed. And people  a lot of people  who are wanting testing, needing testing and they've having to wait a long time. So let me thank you and your team for reaching out," Turner said in a statement.

The church testing sites were established with the support of SOMOS Community Care, NorthwellHealth, the Greater New York Hospital Association, the Mount Sinai Health System, Montefiore Medical Center, and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Holder said about 356 people showed up for testing from the community on Thursday and a steady stream of people was coming in on Friday morning. He said the support from New York for Houston was welcome.

We think that is great because again, Fallbrook church, we serve the people and thats what the state of New York, Governor Cuomos office is doing. The medical team, his whole staff is very professional. They are very warm, they have a great heart and they serve, they work hard. And thats how Fallbrook is. We are a church, we work hard to serve the people and were not looking for any credit, he said.

The Houston testing sites add to New York commitment to helping other cities and states fight COVID-19 across the country. On Monday, Cuomo announced New York would send testing and contract tracing teams to Atlanta, Georgia. On July 10, Cuomo also announced New York would send the COVID-19 medication Remdesivir to Florida.

The schedule of testing at the churches are listed below.

Fallbrook Church testing availability:

July 16-18, 9 a.m  5 p.m

July 20-24, 9 a.m  5 p.m

July 25, 8 a.m. - 12 p.m.

July 27, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Higher Dimension Church testing availability:
Summer Samba! kicks off today with the first-ever official video for Getz and Gilberto's enduring and enchanting classic, " The Girl From Ipanema ," the international hit that put bossa nova on the map and turned a young, inexperienced singer named Astrud Gilberto into a worldwide sensation. Produced by Dreambear and animated by The Crocantes , the vivacious video bursts with vivid colors and brings the evocative song to life, transporting viewers into a world of infinite beaches, endless cocktails and joyful music soundtracked to bright orange sunsets and nights out on the town. A love letter to mid '60s Brazil, the video celebrates the music, fashion and spirit of the time as it follows a "tall and tan and young and lovely" woman as she enjoys a carefree day lounging on Ipanema beach, lazing at home listening to records, traveling by scenic gondola and ending the night, dressed in her best mod fashion, with a live performance by the legendary jazz ensemble of Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Tiao Neto, Milton Banana and of course Astrud Gilberto singing the breezy tune in her signature beguiling style. Nods to classic albums of the genre and revered musicians can be found throughout. Watch it here: https://Verve.lnk.to/TheGirlFromIpanemaPR

Visualizers for three of the most important and perpetually popular bossa nova tracks will also be released this week: Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd's "Samba De Uma Nota So (One Note Samba)" from Jazz Samba, their 1962 album that launched the bossa nova craze in America; Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Wave," the title track of his 1967 album; and Getz/Gilberto's "Desafinado," sung in Portuguese by Joao Gilberto. Each of the visualizers feature stylized animations and a unique color palette that perfectly match the song and capture their individual moods. These compelling visuals are both good for a quick mental vacation or to put on your TV for a tranquil and festive backdrop to add a tropical vibe. A number of other classic songs have received album cover videos containing album art with subtle background animations. In the coming weeks, animated videos will be released for Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto's "Corcovado," as well as Astrud Gilberto's "Aqua De Beber," one of the many highlights from her classic 1965 debut record, The Astrud Gilberto Album, celebrating its 55th anniversary this year. All videos are available to view at Verve's official YouTube channel. To view the videos as well as listen to the official Summer Samba! playlist visit: https://Verve.lnk.to/SummerSambaPR

"UMe and Verve's unmatched catalog is filled with the amazing samba and bossa nova albums that define the genre and made the music a global phenomenon," said Bruce Resnikoff, President & CEO of UMe. "Summer Samba! continues UMe's ongoing initiative to create engaging videos by pairing time-honored songs with exciting modern visuals."

"The music of artists like Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim is timeless," said Jamie Krents, EVP of Verve/Impulse!. "The UMe team are best in class when it comes to creating new visuals that live up to classic recordings, and we're excited to reach new fans with the help of these videos. We also can't wait for music lovers everywhere to hear how incredible the Getz/Gilberto album sounds remastered for vinyl as the inaugural title from our new Acoustic Sounds vinyl series."

On August 28, Getz/Gilberto will be released as the first title of Verve/UMe's new Acoustic Sounds series. Seeking to offer definitive audiophile-grade versions of some of the most historic and best jazz records ever recorded, the series, supervised by Chad Kassem, CEO of Acoustic Sounds, the world's largest source for audiophile recordings, utilizes the skills of the top mastering engineers and the unsurpassed production craft of Quality Record Pressings. Mastered from the original analog tapes, the album will be pressed on 180-gram vinyl and packaged by Stoughton Printing Co. in high-quality tip-on gatefold jackets. Getz/Gilberto is not only a marvelous album, but one which had a profound influence upon the face of jazz and American popular music, exemplified by winning Album of the Year at the 1965 Grammy Awards, the first jazz album to ever win the top honor.

This stunning 1964 collaboration between Stan Getz, one of the most popular and respected tenor saxophonists of the era, and the remarkable Brazilian guitarist Joao Gilberto, popularized bossa nova and launched the career of Joao's wife, Astrud Gilberto, with the hugely popular and iconic hit song, "The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema)." Even more impactful, it introduced the famed Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim to the English-speaking musical world. In addition to playing piano on the album, Jobim also composed six of the eight compositions, including two of his most popular masterpieces, "Desafinado" and "Corcovado," along with the aforementioned "Garota de Ipanema." The endlessly covered song is believed to be the second-most recorded pop song in history behind "Yesterday" by The Beatles. The song, which has been performed or recorded more than 150 times by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole to Amy Winehouse and Madonna, was added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2004.

Characterized by finger picked nylon-string classical guitar, slinky syncopation, swaying rhythms and a laidback vocal delivery, bossa nova formed out of a fusion of samba and jazz and took the world by storm. Meaning "new wave" or "new trend," Summer Samba! celebrates this rich music and is a perfect time to revisit or jump on the wave.

July 22nd:

Stan Getz feat. Astrud Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema (Official Video)

Antonio Carlos Jobim - Wave (Visualizer)

Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd - Samba De Uma Nota So (One Note Samba) (Visualizer)

July 24th:

Stan Getz feat. Joao Gilberto - Desafinado (Visualizer)

July 29th:

Stan Getz feat. Astrud Gilberto - Corcovado (Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars) (Official Video)

July 31st:

Astrud Gilberto - Agua De Beber (Water To Drink) (Official Video)

Throughout July & August:

Album cover videos for 12 additional Bossa Nova classics

including "Triste" and "So Danco Samba"

SOURCE UMe
The fight for control of the company that publishes the Toronto Star is headed to court Thursday  but legal experts say they think it is unlikely that the courts will block the deal.

During the hearing, which is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., Ontario Superior Court Justice Cory Gilmore is expected to rule on whether the takeover bid for Torstar by entrepreneurs Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett can go ahead.

Legal experts say it is possible that Gilmore could block the $60-million deal, which on Tuesday was overwhelmingly approved by Torstar shareholders, but they doubted she would, unless new evidence is presented.

If it goes ahead, the acquisition is expected to close July 28.

Gilmore must look at whether the bid, the actions of Torstars board leading up to it, and the actions of a special committee that explored a sale since last October, were fair to all shareholders and in good faith, legal experts say.

The court will be interested in whether the proper procedures were followed by the board  The judge will also consider if the arrangement is fair and reasonable on the surface, said Ermanno Pascutto, executive director of investor rights group FAIR Canada and former executive director of the Ontario Securities Commission.

The fact that shareholders, including those who hadnt signed hard lock-ups guaranteeing their support for the NordStar bid, voted overwhelmingly in favour of it, makes it much less likely Gilmore would block the deal from closing, Pascutto said.

Approval by about 82 per cent of the disinterested shareholder in this case will carry a lot of weight with the judge, Pascutto said.

On Tuesday, 98.7 per cent of Torstar shareholders voted in favour of the 74-cent-per-share bid from NordStar. According to a Torstar press release, 99.7 per cent of the votes by class A shareholders were in favour of the deal, along with 98.1 per cent of class B shareholders. Even among shareholders who hadnt signed lock-ups, support was strong, with 81.9 per cent voting in favour.

Poonam Puri, a professor at York Universitys Osgoode Hall law school, said judges give considerable weight to shareholder approval for a simple reason.

Overwhelming approval by the majority of shareholders, and by the majority of the minority, is a key indicator of whether those affected by the plan consider it to be fair and reasonable, said Puri, adding that its not the only factor a judge would consider.

Among the other factors, said Puri, is whether the bid was recommended by an independent committee, whether competing offers were solicited, whether the board got independent legal advice, and a fairness opinion by an independent legal source.

Based on what Torstar has made public so far, and the high level of shareholder support, Puri said it seems likely that the NordStar takeover (called a plan of arrangement in legal terms) will be approved by the court.

It is more likely than not that a court will issue a final order approving the plan of arrangement. This may change, however, if a dissenting security holder is able to provide new evidence that contradicts Torstars public disclosure, Puri said.

The Bitove-Rivett bid  made through their company NordStar  is expected to be opposed in court by representatives of a second bid group, Canadian Modern Media Holdings.

Minority shareholders, including former Hamilton Spectator publisher Pat Collins, are also expected to oppose the NordStar bid. (Joe Groia, who will be representing some minority shareholders Thursday, did not respond to requests for comment from the Star.)

Theyll likely have a tough road ahead of them, Puri said.

It is rare for a court to block a proposed takeover on the basis of a breach of directors duties. Canadian courts give deference to reasonable decisions of public company directors who are independent, have acted in good faith, on an informed basis, in a diligent manner, Puri said.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews speaks to the media in Melbourne, Australia on July 20, 2020. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Poll Shows Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews Losing Support

Support for Victorias Labor Premier Daniel Andrews handling of the CCP virus pandemic has fallen for the third month in a row in the latest Newspoll poll.

This comes as the state government struggles to control the COVID-19 outbreak in the state where new confirmed cases of the virus number in the triple digits every day.

In the latest Newspoll by News Corps The Australian, Andrews overall rating was shown to have dropped from 58 percent in April, to 40 percent in June, and now to 20 percent in July.

During that same period, the number of people polled who think the premier is handling the CCP virus pandemic badly has grown from 11 percent to 36 percent.

The poll was conducted between July 15-18, a day before mask-wearing became mandated across Metro Melbourne.

Related Coverage New Mandatory Face Mask or $200 Fine Rule in Victoria

Greater Melbourne and Mitchell Shire are currently under lockdown for six weeks until Aug. 19, as a result of the virus outbreak.

New South Wales (NSW) residents were also asked how well they thought their state leader was handling the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus.

NSW Liberal Party Premier Gladys Berekjiklians poll numbers for her handling of the pandemic also worsened slightly dropping from 77 percent to 68 percent.

Prime Ministers Rating in Victoria and NSW

A separate survey asking voters in Victoria and NSW about Prime Minister Scott Morrisons performance has shown that his approval rating has gone up in both states; up 5 points in NSW, and up 7 points in Victoria.

Morrisons satisfaction rate had soared since April when he spearheaded the international call for an investigation into the origins of the CCP virus.

Probes into Victorian Governments Handling of CCP Virus Outbreaks

Two inquiries into the Victorian Labor governments handling of the CCP virus are being conducted.

An investigation by the Osmundbun is looking into possible human rights violations towards residents put under hard lockdown in ten of Melbournes public housing towers. Residents were forbidden to leave their units or go outside for exercise.

The Melbourne Hotel Quarantine program inquiry began on July 20 and is looking into alleged mistakes made by government decision-makers, which may have contributed to the second-wave of COVID-19 outbreaks.
Katy, Texas, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CW Petroleum Corp (CWPE), announced today the company has recently engaged a major Investment Bank to raise a combination of Debt and Equity to expand the companys business nationwide. The company has also entered into discussions with a top 10 Convenience Store chain to become a potential Franchisee for several stores over the next few years. The company signed a franchise agreement document that states the terms and conditions of owning and operating each store.



The company has targeted the ownership of Convenience stores as part of its long-term Business Plan to become a fully integrated Refined Products Company and Seller of its own Branded Fuels at these locations. The equity will be used for inventory, personnel and equipment to expand its sales of refined products and proprietary EPA approved reformulated no ethanol gasoline.

About CW Petroleum Corp

CW Petroleum Corp supplies and distributes Biodiesel, Biodiesel Blends, Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel Fuel, Regular Gasoline, and Proprietary EPA Approved Reformulated No Ethanol Gasoline to distributors, retail stations, marinas and end-users

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may contain "forward-looking statements" regarding future events and our future results. All statements other than statements of historical facts are statements that could be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about the markets in which we operate and the beliefs and assumptions of our management. Words such as "expects," "anticipates," "targets," "goals," "projects", "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "endeavors," "strives," "may," or variations of such words, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, estimate or verify. Therefore, actual results may differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include those factors described in the Company's most recent annual report on Form 1-K, as such may be amended or supplemented by subsequent semiannual reports on Form 1-SA, or other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements. For more information, please refer to the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For additional information, visit our website at cwpetroleumcorp.com or call 281-817-8099
Days after a fatal shooting downtown that shocked the public and authorities, Charleston police said the department will ramp up patrols in an effort to prevent crime.

Beginning Thursday, residents will see more deputies and State Law Enforcement Division agents downtown, with traffic checkpoints and extra patrols throughout the peninsula.

A second police commander has been assigned to the night shift and the SWAT team will be activated for "proactive interdiction control," which police defined as stationing officers in high-crime areas to arrest wanted people with criminal histories. Officers who usually focus on community oriented policing, traffic and narcotics work will form extra patrol units to supplement the usual rounds.

The stretch of King Street where Tom DiLorenzo, 63, was fatally shot on Friday morning as he walked with his wife, Suzanne Austin, the new provost at the College of Charleston, has a low rate of violent crime. Police have increased patrols there since protests calling for an end to racism and police brutality following the death of a Black man in police custody in Minneapolis in May.

"People don't want us to depolice, quite the opposite," Chief Luther Reynolds said. "People are concerned right now, (they) need to know that we're paying attention."

In a city with relatively low rates of violent crime, where officers promptly arrested two teens suspected of killing DiLorenzo, Reynolds said he hopes the increased visibility will remind the community that Charleston police have been present all along.

Officers have been working long hours to deal with the pandemic, protests calling for justice in George Floyd's killing and Friday's homicide. Reynolds said he's proud of the force's dedication, especially as officers have increased community response in attempts to help with drug overdoses and homelessness.

But ACLU of South Carolina Director Frank Knaack said police don't have the resources to solve the social problems with which so many are tasked, and worried the increase in officers will do more harm than good. Traffic stops and increased patrols will only threaten justice if they target low-income communities or focus on people who've already served time for their crimes.

"All this will do is criminalize poor people, criminalize Black people," Knaack said. "We know what happens when police go down this road, it's not new."

In the wake of a departmentwide audit probing racial bias, Reynolds said officers as focused as ever in ensuring they don't further alienate Charleston's marginalized communities. The new program won't approach stop-and-frisk protocol, he said, and officers will be more focused on necessary arrests than ticket quotas.

Reynolds claimed that most residents have asked for increased policing, and that the department will focus on areas with recent swells in complaints. The augmented force will focus on community-based policing as well as arresting violent criminals, he said, and address quality-of-life concerns in addition to real danger.

"That's what we do every day, and we hope to build on that model through this mission," Reynolds said. "It's just all hands on deck."
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orders plaintiff to join Fr. Ebube Muonso, woman as co-defendants

By Chuks Eke

An Onitsha High Court in Anambra state, presided over by Justice Victoria Nwoye has granted a motion restraining a Catholic Priest, Rev. Fr. Zeribe Ibeneme and three others from selling, renovating, alienating or otherwise disposing of a bungalow belonging to the Late Lawrence Ibeneme which is situated at No. 11 Onwudiwe Street, Ontsha, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.

The court also ordered that Rev. Fr. Emma Obimma (a.k.a Fr. Ebube Muonso), the buyer of the said bungalow, now in dispute and Mrs. Ekwunife Ibeto, the eldest surviving daughter of the late Lawrence Ibeneme be joined as co-defendants in the suit, adding that all the originating processes should be amended to reflect their names, while other processes filed in the suit be served on them.

She further stated in the affidavit that after Georges death, the first defendant/respondent and some of their family members started making demands for her to release the title documents in her possession, adding that even when a family meeting was called, it could not be resolved until she eventually agreed to release the title document to Rev. Fr. Ibeneme, the third respondent.

She further averred that a joint account was opened with Zenith bank to keep the proceeds from the properties until March 4, 2020 when her solicitor wrote to the tenants demanding for the accrued rents. My Tenants were shown a letter dated January 17, 2020 from a new landlord demanding the tenants to vacate the property on the strength of a sale agreement.

She alleged that the first to third defendants sold the property to a buyer whom the fourth respondent represents, adding that both the buyer, the fourth respondent and their privies are taking steps to destroy the building and alter the character of the residence, hence the application to restrain them, pending the determination of this suit.

Counsel to the defendants, Azubuike Anazor filed a 21-paragraph counter affidavit deposed to by the third respondent, Fr. Ibeneme for himself and other members of the Estate of the late Lawrence Ibeneme in which they denied many paragraphs of the plaintiffs affidavit, adding that the late Lawrence has seven children and not only George.

They argued that after the death of Lawrence, his son, George did not take over Lawrences properties because George himself died 16 days after his fathers death, adding that the family met and agreed that the title documents be handed over to Fr. Ibeneme, the third respondent who was also mandated to jointly be the signatory to the account with the first respondent, Ifeanyi Paul Ibeneme.

They contended that it was when the 50-year lease was about to expire that the beneficiaries of the Estate came together with the applicant and the second respondent, Nwadinobi Cyril representing co-lessee agreed to let the original owner of the property sell it and remit part of the proceeds to the beneficiaries and the co-lessee, instead of losing out.

They admitted that on the strength of the MoU, the property was sold to Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Chibuzor Obimma (Fr. Ebube Muonso) and the proceeds remitted as agreed by the parties under the MoU, adding that the remaining title documents to the other properties have been handed over to the eldest surviving daughter of the late Lawrence, Mts. Ekwunife Ibeto and as the property was sold to Fr. Obimma, there was no way he (Obimma) or any of the respondents could demolish, renovate or tamper with the property.

Justice Nwoye noted that as a court of law, it has the inherent powers as guaranteed by Section 6(6) of the 1999 constitution, as amended and the discretion to order the joinder of a person whether as plaintiff or defendant whose presence before the court is necessary to enable the court effectually and completely adjudicate upon and settle all questions involved in the case or matter.

The plaintiff/applicant, Mrs. Nwando Ibeneme, wife of the late George Ibeneme, son of the late Lawrence Ibeneme, for herself and on behalf of other members of the Estate of the Late Lawrence, her father-in-law had approached the court with the motion on notice against four defendants/respondents, Ifeanyi Paul Ibeneme, Nwadinobi Cyril, Rev. Fr. Zeribe Ibeneme and Engr. Umeh E.

In the Motion No. 0/106/2020, filed on her behalf, by her legal counsel, Humphrey Udechukwu with S. U. Ezekwesili, the widow had sought an order of the court restraining the first to fourth defendants/respondents, their agents, servants and privies from inter-meddling with, selling, dealing or otherwise with any of the Late Lawrence Ibenemes properties in dispute.

The plaintiff/applicant mentioned the properties in question as 2-storey building situate at No. 15 Bedwright/Orji Street, Enugu, Enugu state; 1-storey building situate at No. 9 Ozomagala treet, Onitsha; 1-storey building situate at No. 26 Ogaraonye Street, Onitsha and the bungalow at No. 11 Onwudiwe Street, Onitsha already in dispute which is the subject of this matter.

In a 29-paragraph affidavit she deposed to in support of the motion, the plaintiff/applicant stated that in September 27, 1963, one Alphonnsus Nwadinobi entered into a lease agreement with the late Lawrence Ibeneme with respect to No. 11 Onwudiwe Street, Onitsha for a period of 50 years, adding that during their life time, the property was divided into two and rents were collected until the late Ibeneme acquired other above-mention properties.

She noted that after the death of Lawrence, his son, the late George took over the management of the properties, to the extent that herself and other members of the late George, her husband became the beneficiaries of the Estate of late Lawrence.
Western Australia gold miner released guidance due to gaining better clarity regarding the impact of COVID-19 restrictions.

The company is expecting to end the year at 270,000 to 300,000 ounces at a cash cost of sales between $1,200 and $1,300 an ounce, and an all-in-sustaining cost of between $1,460 to $1,560 an ounce.

The company said it withdrew guidance due to the impact upon the ramp-up of output at the Big Bell Mine.

Westgold currently owns and operates three gold projects. All are located in the historically prolific gold producing region of the Central Murchison of Western Australia.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A grand jury has indicted a Cleveland man with felonious assault and ethnic intimidation charges that accuse him of trying to run over a group of Black teenagers at a graduation party while hurling racial slurs.

Rickey Adkins, 50, who is white, is also charged in a January incident in which he robbed his brother at knife-point and escaped from Ohio Highway Patrol troopers after a high-speed chase, prosecutors said.

The indictments handed up Tuesday charged Adkins with counts of felonious assault, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, domestic violence and other charges.

These violent and overtly racist attacks will not be tolerated, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael OMalley said in a news release. It is a miracle that no one was seriously injured by such outrageous actions.

Adkins is currently jailed on $75,000 bond. He is set for a Friday arraignment in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

Prosecutors say Adkins broke into his 72-year-old brothers home on Riverside Avenue near West 35th Street on Jan. 20. Adkins shoved his brother to the ground, held a knife to his throat and stole money and the keys to his brothers car, prosecutors said. He sped off in the car, then refused to pull over when troopers tried to stop him on Interstate 77 for a traffic violation, prosecutors said. Adkins sped up, reaching 100 mph before troopers called off the chase, prosecutors said.

The graduation party took place on June 21, at a home on Riverside Drive near West 32nd Street. Adkins asked a man at the house if he could help repair his bike, but the man said he couldnt, according to police reports.

Adkins later drove his SUV onto the front yard and tried to hit several Black teenagers and yelled a racial slur out the window, prosecutors said.

Adkins drove by the party seven or eight more times and tried to hit several more kids and one adult, according to police. A partygoer recorded video part of the incident on a cellphone, police said.

Officers spotted Adkins SUV shortly after and chased it down Denison Avenue, according to a police report. Adkins got onto Interstate 480 and the officers stopped chasing the SUV when it left the city limits, the report says.

Adkins was released from prison in 2019 after serving a six-month sentence out of Portage County Common Pleas Court on a theft charge. He is currently on post-release control.

He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2015 after pleading guilty in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court to charges of domestic violence, aggravated menacing and animal cruelty, and also received a 30-month sentence in 2011 after he pleaded guilty to multiple counts o felonious assault and domestic violence, according to court records.

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While the Cotswolds has long been known as the starriest country destination for stars looking to escape the city, Tatler reveals Somerset is now giving it a run for its money.

Though it might not have the all-out star power of its neighbour, where the Clooneys and Beckhams both have homes, Somerset still has more than its fair share of celebrity residents drawn to its 'quaint villages' and 'buzzy hotel scene', according to the society bible.

Somerset has more than its fair share of celebrity residents drawn to its 'quaint villages' and 'buzzy hotel scene', according to Tatler. Above, a map illustrating where residents live. Clockwise from left: Phoebe Philo, Mariella Frostrup, Jemima and Ben Goldsmith, Gabriella Wilde, Stella McCartney, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, George Osborne, Alice Temperley

Big names from the worlds of fashion (Stella McCartney), the arts (Sir Cameron Mackintosh) and British society (Ben and Jemima Goldsmith) have all snapped up properties in the area, with some even making the county their full-time home.

George Osborne is set to be among the newest arrivals, after he had an offer accepted on 1.6million Georgian home in the town of Bruton, which was once described by British Vogue as 'the new Notting Hill'.

Here, FEMAIL offers a guide to what draws stars and socialites alike to Somerset...

SOCIETY RESIDENTS AND FAMOUS FASHIONISTAS

Poldark actress Gabriella Wilde (left), 31, who is also known as the half-sister of Cressia Bonas, has a place in Somerset, as does fashion designer Stella McCartney (right)

Ben Goldsmith and wife Jemima are living on the family farm in Somerset with their daughter Vita, who was born in April. Pictured, the couple at Lady Gabriella Windsor's wedding last year

Fashion heavyweights Phoebe Philo (left) and Alice Temperley (right) both have houses in Somerset. Temperley lives in a stunning eight-bedroom home near Ilminster

London might boast the social hotspots where well-heeled aristocrats and blue-blooded beauties can be photographed in their finery, but many also hold the charms of country life close to their hearts.

Actress Gabriella Wilde, 31, who is also known as the half-sister of Cressia Bonas, has a place in Somerset, as do Ben Goldsmith, 39, and his wife Jemima, 33.

The couple are living on the family farm with their baby daughter Vita, who was born in April. Her arrival brought joy for Ben, who last year suffered the devastating loss of his daughter, Iris, 15. The couple are also parents to daughter Margot and son Arlo.

Also living nearby are three of the biggest names in British fashion: Stella McCartney, Alice Temperley and Phoebe Philo, best known as the former creative director of Chloe and Celine.

Temperley, who is a Somerset girl born and bred, is the proud owner of a stunning house that boasts a purple bathroom and a living room painted a deep aubergine.

CELEBRITY NEIGHBOURS

Journalist and TV presenter Mariella Frostrup, left, lives in Somerset. Right theatre heavyweight Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the producer behind hits like Cats, Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, owns the breathtaking Stavordale Priory in Charlton Musgrove

Film star Nicholas Cage bought 18th century Midford Castle in 2007, for a reported price of 5million. He went on to sell it two years later. Pictured, the castle in a stock image

Journalist and TV presenter Mariella Frostrup, 57, lives in Somerset and has spoken warmly of her country home.

Theatre heavyweight Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the producer behind hits like Cats, Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, owns the breathtaking Stavordale Priory in Charlton Musgrove, which was built in the 13th century.

Meanwhile Don McCullin is a long-time resident, having moved to the county decades ago.

Film star Nicholas Cage bought 18th century Midford Castle in 2007, for a reported price of 5million. He went on to sell it two years later.

THE NEWCOMER

Somerset made headlines last month when it was revealed former Chancellor George Osborne had an offer accepted on a five-bedroom, late 18th century, Grade II-listed house in Somerset. Pictured, with Emily Sheffield, David Cameron's sister-in-law, who replaced him as editor of the Evening Standard when he was promoted to editor-in-chief last month

Somerset made headlines last month when it was revealed former Chancellor George Osborne had an offer accepted on a five-bedroom, late 18th century, Grade II-listed house is set in three acres of grounds.

Mr Osborne, who revealed in May that he is dating Thea Rogers, the 38-year-old former chief of staff who overhauled his image while he was at the Treasury, reportedly 'loved' the house but, under policy he introduced in 2016 as chancellor could be hit by a three per cent stamp duty surcharge. This policy means he would face a tax bill of 153,750 rather than 105,750.

His prospective property is close to the railway station at Castle Cary, near Bruton, means that he will be able to commute to Paddington in 90 minutes for his main job as editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard.

He was promoted to the position last month, with Emily Sheffield, David Cameron's sister-in-law, replacing him as editor.

'BUZZY HOTELS'

Babington House - the first Soho House country retreat - is arguably the jewel in Somerset's crown. Since 1999 it has been a go-to venue for celebrities tying the knot

Babington House - the first Soho House country retreat - is arguably the jewel in Somerset's crown. Since 1999 it has been a go-to venue for celebrities tying the knot, with Eddie Redmayne and Millie Mackintosh among those who have exchanged vows at the stunning estate.

Handily for A-list guests, the hotel also boasts a helicopter pads - making it the perfect choice for celebrities looking to arrive at nearby Glastonbury in style.

Nearby is Durslade Farmhouse, the trendy six-bedroom retreat on the site of Hauser & Wirth Somerset's gallery.
US Charges 2 Chinese Nationals in Global Hacking Campaign

By Masood Farivar July 21, 2020

Two Chinese nationals working with China's state security ministry have been charged with a decade-long global campaign targeting intellectual property and confidential business information at hundreds of entities, including COVID-19 vaccine and treatment research conducted by U.S. firms.

Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, were charged in an 11-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday, marking the first time alleged Chinese hackers have been indicted for the "blended threat" of working for the Chinese government while also targeting victims for personal gain.

"It is the first time we're announcing charges that present what we call this blended threat of criminal hackers also doing state sponsored activities and being allowed to do their criminal activities and profit off those criminal activities by the state because they can be on call to state to do this work as well," said Assistant Attorney General John Demers.

Li and Dong, who allegedly studied computer applications technologies at the same Chinese university, remain at large. No officials of China's Ministry of State Security involved in the campaign were charged.

Officials say the hacking campaign began in 2009 and continued through early July when the two men were indicted. Targeted businesses included high-tech companies in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and Britain, according to the indictment. In recent months, as U.S. biotech firms began developing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, the hackers unsuccessfully sought to target their research. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

In addition to attacking businesses, the alleged hackers also infiltrated the online accounts of non-profits as well as dissidents, clergy and rights activists in the United States, China and other countries, underscoring their services to the Chinese government, according to Demers.

"These intrusions are yet another example of China's brazen willingness to engage in theft through computer intrusions contrary to their international commitments," Demers said.

The indictment comes as U.S. officials raise the alarm about Chinese efforts to steal U.S. intellectual property as part of an effort to supplant the United States as the world's only superpower.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, on July 7, called China's economic espionage the "greatest long-term threat to our nation's information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality."

Almost half of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases are related to China, Wray said, adding that the bureau is adding a new counterintelligence case related to China every 10 hours.

Attorney General William Barr said on Thursday that China is engaged in an "economic blitzkrieg" against the United States, accusing U.S. businesses of bowing to Chinese pressure in pursuit of profit.

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Kim Kardashian has broken her silence on her husband Kanye Wests mental health following a series of troubling social media posts from the rapper.

West, who says he is running for US president, recently tweeted then deleted a series of concerning posts, including one that claimed Kardashian had called a doctor to come and lock [him] up. He then stated he is divorcing Kardashian, whom he referred to as a white supremacist.

The controversial artist also recently took part in a rally in South Carolina, at which he made a number of outlandish comments and a tearful anti-abortion speech.

Posting on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday (22 July), Kardashian wrote: As many of you know, Kanye has bipolar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand.

She said she has never spoken publicly about how this has affected her family at home because she is "very protective of my children and Kanyes right to privacy when it comes to his health".

But today," she wrote, "I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health.

Kardashian went on to explain that those who understand mental illness know that the family is powerless unless the person is a minor, adding: The individuals themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try.

She added that West is a brilliant but complicated person and said his words sometimes do not align with his intentions.

Living with bipolar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams or creative ideas, she wrote.

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Kardashian concluded the post with a plea for compassion and empathy from the media and the public.

West has spoken before about his recent history of mental illness, acknowledging in 2018 that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He described the condition as a superpower in a song on his album Ye, and said the condition could make him hyper-paranoid at times.

While it is unclear how serious Wests presidential campaign is, he has filed to get on the November ballot in Oklahoma and Illinois. Some, however, have speculated that the campaign is a ruse designed to promote his upcoming album DONDA.

If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you are in the UK and are experiencing feelings of distress and isolation, or are struggling to cope, The Samaritans offers support; you can speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
realtor.com

House Party is realtor.coms official podcast about the overlapping worlds of real estate and pop culture, hosted by Natalie Way and Rachel Stults. Click the player above to hear our takes on this weeks hot topics.

Thank you for being a friend! One of the buzziest real estate stories of the summer happened last week when the iconic "Golden Girls" house landed on the market for $3 million.
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China urges UK to correct its mistake - Xinhua | English.news.cn

China on Tuesday urged the United Kingdom to give up the illusion of retaining colonial influence over Hong Kong and correct its mistake immediately. This was after the UK decided to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and introduce a ban on arms sales.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a daily press briefing when asked to make comments on the above-mentioned moves by the UK.

"The UK's erroneous remarks and steps on Hong Kong are a serious breach of international law and basic norms governing international relations and gross interference in China's internal affairs," said Wang. "China firmly opposes them and reserves the right to react further."

Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs that allow no foreign interference. The Chinese government is determined to defend national sovereignty, security and development interests, to implement "one country, two systems" comprehensively and faithfully, and to oppose foreign interference in Hong Kong affairs, he said.

"Intervening and pressuring tactics will never work on China," said Wang. "China urges the UK to give up the illusion of retaining colonial influence over Hong Kong, correct its mistake immediately and stop interfering in China's internal affairs in any form to avoid further damage to China-UK relations."

Responding to a query about his view on whether the term "golden era," as was used before, is accurate to describe current China-UK relations, Wang said relations between countries should be based on mutual respect, especially with regard to core interests and major concerns, equality and mutual benefit. At the same time, non-interference, a basic norm in international relations, should also be observed.

"When it comes to China-UK relations, actions matter, not words," the spokesperson added.
A man accused of murder and attempted murder has been jailed for 18 months after he slashed a prison guard with a homemade razor when the guard handed him lunch through the hatch in a cell door at Goulburn Supermax.

Kevin Pettiford, 34  who is listed in court documents as having the alias "The Hand of Death"  was arrested in November last year after he allegedly murdered a 56-year-old homeless man in a park at Tweed Heads in northern NSW.

Goulburn Supermax, where Pettiford is being held. Credit:Barry Chapman

While being held on remand at Shortland correctional centre, near Cessnock, he allegedly attempted to murder another inmate by slashing his throat with a razor. Pettiford was then moved to Goulburn's high risk management unit.

According to police facts, while at Goulburn Pettiford fashioned a makeshift weapon using a plastic ring and four razor blades, which he hid in his genital area until a Corrective Services officer was doing the lunch rounds on March 9.




Nunieh and Akpabio

The minister for Niger Delta affairs, Godswill Akpabio, has revealed before the House of Representatives that the former acting managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joy Nunieh, was sacked following a letter from the late Abba Kyari.

He said the letter disclosed that Nunieh did not have a valid NYSC certificate or exemption letter. He also pointed out that she was sacked for insubordination.

According to a report by TheNation, Akpabio said Kyari, the late chief of staff to the president, noted that Nunieh does not have the requisite qualification to occupy a public office.

Akpabio who was testifying before the House of Representatives committee investigating the missing N40 billion from the commission said Kyaris letter stated that the former NDDC boss does not have an NYSC certificate, adding that the letter formed one of the bases for her removal from office.

He also said the other reason for her removal from office bothers on insubordination and her refusal to attend a meeting of the Federal Executive Council to offer an explanation on certain actions of the commission.

He said: she ignored the letter written to her by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry directing her to attend a meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC). She felt that she is bigger than the Minister because she has a bigger budget.

In a rather rowdy session with members of the House committee, Akpabio denied claims by Nunieh that the forensic audit of the commission has not commenced, saying the forensic audit has since commenced.

Members had queried the minister on his alleged usurpation of the powers of the former managing director asking to what extent he had influenced or exercised such powers in the agency.

If I find out that the MD of NDDC is not acting in the interest of the Niger Delta people, I will intervene. I had to do that once when I heard about the payment for Lassa fever. I called and found out that they had paid N2.9 billion and they were about to pay another N572 million, I had to intervene and say they should not because there was no budget at that time. The contractor wrote to me to approve N572 million, he said.

A member, Benjamin Kalu accused the minister of not answering the committee question, but Akpabio denied the allegations, saying; I am giving you the facts.

He also accused the minister of usurping the functions of the managing director of NDDC by writing a letter to BPP securing a letter of no objection, but Akpabio said It is the NDDC that eventually became the procuring agency.

What happened was that we thought the government was going to pay for the forensic audit. But when the approval of the president came out, he said NDDC should pay and so the letter we wrote was withdrawn. We had even gone to the federal tenders board. But eventually, the NDDC became the procuring agency, he said.

Akpabio also refuted allegations by Nunieh that he approved from NDDC coffers a whopping N10bn for her to share to its contractors

He further said that the N2.5 billion for the forensic audit exercise was included in the 2019 budget of the agency

On the allegation that the agency had been awarding contracts to its contractors without going through the procurement process and signing of necessary documents, he said that the agency only awarded three contracts after he assumed office as minister.
UP assembly polls will be about '80 per cent vs 20 per cent'; BJP will win: Yogi Adityanath

UP: Elections not won on exit polls basis, results will be surprising: Kamal Nath

Justice Chauhan to head Vikas Dubey encounter inquiry commission

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: The Uttar Pradesh government has proposed the name of former Supreme Court judge Justice B S Chauhan to head the commission of inquiry into the Vikas Dubey encounter death.

The UP government also told the Supreme Court that it would include former DGP, K L Gupta in the committee. Former Allahabad High Court judge Shashikant Agarwal will also continue in the committee, the UP government said.

The commission of inquiry would start functioning in a week's time and submit the report in two months. The state would place the report in the assembly following this.

Gangster Vikas Dubey died of 'haemorrhage, shock: Post-mortem report

While approving the committee, the Supreme Court told the UP government not to resort to further encounters to eliminate dreaded gangsters in the state.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter earlier this month. The encounter came days after his gang members killed 8 policemen on duty, while they were trying to nab him.
Erin McGroarty/News-Miner

Two new F-35 fighter jets taxi along Eielson Air Force Bases front flight line Tuesday afternoon, April 21, 2020, after traveling from Fort Worth in Texas earlier that day.
STOCKHOLM, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- OXE Marine AB (publ) (the "Company") has today entered into a Preliminary Development Agreement (PDA) with the BMW Group to carry out a preliminary study of its 2.0 litre, 4 cylinder turbo diesel engine for marine application - to power the Company's next generation of OXE200 series. Additionally, both companies have agreed to co-brand the OXE300 to further develop the Company's marketing and sales strategy with the aim of promoting the premium quality of the product.

The Company's current OXE200 series utilises GM's 2 litre, 4 cylinder turbo diesel engine - it produces 200hp at the propeller whilst delivering 415 Nm of torque at the crank. This specific powerhead is now reaching end of life and the Company has been evaluating options for the next generation of the OXE200 series. The company has sufficient number of power heads for 2021 production. The company had engaged with the BMW Group to explore the possibility of marinizing its 2.0 litre, 4 cylinder turbo engine. This has culminated with the signing of a Preliminary Development Agreement ("PDA") today which assesses whether the marinized powerhead will meet the Company's requirements, particularly of producing 200hp at the propeller and 400Nm of torque at the crank, whilst meeting all pertinent emission regulations. The Company is confident this engine will meet all its requirement to power the next generation of the OXE200 series.

Following a successful assessment of the powerhead for marinization purposes, the Company will proceed with developing the next generation of the OXE200 series. The start of production will be confirmed closer the time when the parties enter into a Supply and Development Agreement ("SDA"). The Company has also set targets for continuous improvements in delivering a world class product that meets the demanding needs of its commercial and governmental customers.

Following the successful collaboration with the BMW Group of marinizing their 3 litre, 6 cylinder bi-turbo engine for use in the OXE300s, both parties have agreed to co-brand the OXE300. The purpose of this is to develop the overall sales and marketing initiatives with the focus on the premium quality aspects of the product - as phrased in the Company's promise of delivering "products of unprecedented power, reliability and endurance". The BMW logo and the caption "In cooperation with BMW" is to be displayed on the side and rear of the cowling as well as to be used in various marketing material.



"I am really pleased of our collaboration with the BMW Group with respect to the OXE300 Bison project. They have set the example of an ideal collaboration partner, providing all the necessary resources and support in making not only the development of the product a success but also assisting with production standards and promoting the product from a sales and marketing standpoint. Not surprisingly, both parties are keen to continue their collaboration and have entered into a PDA to assess the marinization of 4-cylinder diesel engine for the next generation of the OXE200 series - I am confident the powerhead will meet all our requirements and am excited for our future as we continue to improve and broaden our product offering", says Myron Mahendra, CEO, OXE Marine AB.

"OXE Marine offers the BMW Group a chance to re-enter the marine business after several years of absence. We therefore decided to take up the challenge and support this outstanding development project transforming a BMW 6-cylinder automotive diesel into an outboard engine. It turned out to be a very professional collaboration with OXE Marine in all aspects with a very unique product as an outcome, especially since the state of the art BMW-Diesel Technology helps to significantly reduce the CO 2 -Footprint of outboard engines. Therefore, we are looking forward to the next challenge using the 4-cylinder diesel engine as a basis for the OXE200.", says Uwe Breitweg, BMW Vice President Powertrain Systems Business Customers.

CONTACT:

Certified Adviser

FNCA Sweden AB is Certified Adviser for OXE Marine AB (publ). Contact details to FNCA Sweden AB: tel. +46 8 528 00 399, e-mail [email protected].

For further information, please contact:

Myron Mahendra, CEO, [email protected], +46 76 347 59 82

Anders Berg, Chairman, [email protected], +46 70 358 91 55

OXE Marine AB (publ) is obligated to make this information public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, on 22 July 2020 at 17.00 CET

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/oxe-marine-ab/r/oxe-marine-ab--publ----assessment-of-the-automotive-2-0-litre-turbo-diesel-engine-for-next-generatio,c3154573

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/16067/3154573/1282613.pdf Assessment of the automotive 2.0 litre turbo diesel engine for next generation of the OXE200 series and co-branding of the OXE300. https://news.cision.com/oxe-marine-ab/i/oxebmw-rev1,c2806756 OXEBMW rev1

SOURCE OXE Marine AB
The NO BAN Act has broad support among Democratic legislators but is unlikely to advance in the Republican Senate.

The United States House of Representatives voted 233-183 on Wednesday to pass legislation reversing President Donald Trumps controversial order banning entry to immigrants from mostly Muslim-majority countries.

The bill, called the NO BAN Act, was broadly supported by Democratic legislators but is unlikely to advance in the Senate because of opposition from Republicans and the White House.

There are today millions of Americans who, because of the Muslim ban, are separated from families and loved ones: parents who cant be reunited, families who cant be reunited, grandparents who are missing out on life events, said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a group supporting the bill.

The bill expands anti-discrimination provisions in US immigration law and would limit the ability of US presidents in the future to bar entry based on religion.

Today, the House passed the #NoBanAct because no one should be discriminated against or singled out based on the faith they practice. I will end President Trump's Muslim Ban on day one and sign this bill into law.  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 22, 2020

Specifically, the bill would terminate Trumps executive orders imposing a ban on immigration from mostly Muslim-majority countries. The presidents initial ban targeted Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, triggering criticism that it amounted to unlawful religious discrimination. Trump then expanded the ban to include Venezuela and North Korea, and later added Nigeria, Sudan, Myanmar and three other countries to the list.

In Wednesdays debate, Democrats plan to share stories from dozens of their American constituents who have seen family members prevented from entering the US for arbitrary reasons under the ban.

The legislation, however, is unlikely to be embraced in the Republican-led Senate, which means prospects for its passage this year are dim. Instead, it appears the issue will be fought out in the US presidential election contest.

Democratic US presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden has pledged to reverse President Trumps executive orders imposing an effective ban on immigration from a number of Muslim countries [Leah Millis/Reuters]

On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who is courting Muslim votes, told a Muslim political organisation that he would reverse the ban if elected president on day one.

Biden appeared by video at a two-day virtual conference hosted by Emgage Action and attended by 3,000 Muslim-American voters.

Muslim communities are the first to feel Donald Trumps assault on Black and brown communities in this country, with his vile Muslim ban. That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure and insults, Biden told the group.

If I have the honour of being president, I will end the Muslim ban on day one, Biden said.

Wael Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, a Muslim-American civic engagement and political mobilisation organisation, said, Bidens vow to end the Muslim ban on the first day of his presidency is poignant.

It exemplifies his commitment to ending this form of institutionalised Islamophobia that has caused great pain to global Muslim communities, Alzayat told Al Jazeera.

In a political speech at the White House last week, Trump cited his travel ban as he sought to draw distinctions between himself and Biden.

Trump accuses Biden of wanting to end all travel bans, including from jihadist regions, and he implied Biden would allow people that are going to come in and blow up our cities, do things.

But that rhetoric belies the facts and data about how the travel ban has been implemented to effectively prohibit immigration from predominantly Muslim countries, Khera said.

Their argument is what Trump has been saying since the get-go  which is, they try to wrap what is blatant bigotry in a shroud of national security which does not meet what the real threat is and is not the reality of who is being excluded from the country, she said.

The bill would require the US Department of State, in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, to provide a public report on the numbers of people denied entry from specific countries.

Democrats had planned to bring the NO BAN bill to the House floor for a vote in early March, but pulled the legislation because of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

House Democrats plan to tell the stories of their Muslim-American constituents who have suffered from Trumps Muslim ban [Yuri Gripas/Reuters]

Republicans had planned to attack the legislation as an irresponsible bid by congressional Democrats to prevent Trump from imposing travel bans to limit the spread of the virus.

The bill was amended to provide a public safety exception that allows presidents to restrict travel as necessary to contain a communicable disease of public health significance.

We are not too thrilled with that language that was added at the last moment, said Iman Awad, legislative director for Emgage Action.

We think that it stigmatises the immigrant community and especially during this heightened rhetoric coming from President Trump, we are concerned about tying any of these negative stereotypes to the immigrant community, Awad told Al Jazeera.

The Trump administration, through another executive order issued in April, has effectively shut down immigration to the US at present because of the pandemic.

The legislation to lift the so-called Muslim ban was introduced by Democrats in April 2019 and is sponsored in the House by Representative Judy Chu of California and in the US Senate by Chris Coons of Delaware.

The US Supreme Court had ruled in 2017 that the president has the authority to impose the ban under existing US immigration law. During his election campaign in 2015, Trump had called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
Trump: U.S. virus crisis to 'get worse before it gets better'

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic will likely get worse before it gets better.

"Some areas of our country are doing very well, others are doing less well. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. Something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is," Trump said in his first press briefing at the White House on the pandemic in nearly three months.

In a break from previous comments downplaying the importance of wearing a mask, Trump encouraged people to wear them. "We are asking everybody when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask," he said. "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact."

Johns Hopkins University has reported more than 14.7 million COVID-19 cases worldwide with nearly 3.9 million confirmed cases in the United States. More than 141,000 people have died from the virus in the U.S., a toll that experts warn will likely surge following recent record spikes in case numbers and an alarming rise in hospitalizations in many states.

The state of Mississippi reported more than 1,600 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, a record for the second straight day.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, more than 500 female prisoners have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.

As COVID-19 spreads across the U.S, schools in many states are still preparing to reopen. Florida's teachers are suing the governor of the state to block an emergency order mandating schools reopen in August with in-person lessons. The teachers argue the state's constitution requires that schools must be operated safely.

In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said Hidalgo County could not order residents to stay home and said mask and social distancing rules were sufficient to keep businesses open in the Rio Grande Valley, on the U.S. border with Mexico.

In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp has sought to prevent Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from enforcing an order that residents wear masks in public.

U.S. lawmakers are considering another stimulus package to help struggling businesses and those who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

The lawmakers and White House officials on Tuesday held negotiations aimed at crafting an agreement on new COVID-19 aid legislation as the country continues to see an upsurge in infections and deaths.

Health officials in Canada said Tuesday that more young people are getting COVID-19. More than 55 percent of new infections are people under the age of 39.
Western Sydney developer Jean Nassif, who shot to prominence in a viral video surprising his wife with a yellow Lamborghini, is suing 2GB host Ray Hadley for defamation over a series of broadcasts about his residential developments.

Mr Nassif, who heads the Toplace development group behind Sydney apartment projects in areas including Parramatta, Castle Hill and Canterbury, launched Federal Court action against Hadley and his employer Harbour Radio on July 17 over eight broadcasts spanning almost a year to June this year.

Jean Nassif, who runs property development company Toplace, with his wife Nissy.

Four of Mr Nassif's companies are also suing for defamation as part of the claim.

Lawyers for Mr Nassif and the companies say in court documents the broadcasts conveyed a range of false and defamatory claims, including that Mr Nassif as a builder is "disgracefully incompetent and dishonest" and "so dishonest that a buyer should have serious concern about purchasing a property from [him]".
Trump will say Wednesday if more federal agents are being sent to Chicago

In two of the incidents the boys are said to have fired their guns

One carjacking victim said she had a gun held to her head by boys as young as 11

Their warning comes amid an uptick in violent crime in the city and as President Donald Trump and Mayor Lori Lightfoot clash over federal troops being sent in

Armed children as young as 10 years old have helped carry out at least 16 carjackings across Chicago in the last few weeks, according to police.

Officers were forced to issue an alert on the incidents after a spate of carjackings in parking lots and at gas stations in the South Side area between June 23 and July 18.

Their warning comes amid an uptick in violent crime in the city and as President Donald Trump and Mayor Lori Lightfoot clash over federal troops being sent in.

On Tuesday, 15 people were wounded in a shooting outside a funeral home. A three-year-old girl was also hospitalized in serious condition after being shot in the head in a separate incident early Wednesday, police said.

One carjacking victim, Alyssa Blanchard, 44, told Fox 32: 'I'm scared to use my garage. I don't feel safe in my neighborhood. I was just scared for my life. I thought, 'this is it'.'

A gang of boys held guns to her head as she drove into her garage. After taking her car they also drove $300 in cash from her purse.

Armed children as young as 10 have helped carry out at least 16 carjackings across Chicago in the last few weeks, according to police. Their warning comes amid an uptick in violent crime in the city. On Tuesday 15 people were wounded in a shooting outside a funeral home, pictured

Officers were forced to issue an alert on the incidents after a spate of cars being taken from drivers in parking lots and at gas stations in the South Side area between June 23 and July 18

Blanchard's stolen BMW was then said to have been used to steal a Lexus from a 21-year-old female driver in the parking lot of nearby Trinity Hospital.

In two of the incidents the boys are said to have fired their guns but no injuries were reported.

In a statement police said no arrests have been made.

They describe the gang members as African Americans between 5 foot and 5 foot 10 inches tall with thin builds and between 10 and 17-years-old.

President Donald Trump is set to escalate his federal intervention in cities like Chicago Wednesday by expanding 'Operation Legend,' deploying FBI and other agents there to quell what he claims is out of control violence.

The move was to be announced Wednesday afternoon by the president at the White House. It puts him once again at odds with Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Lightfoot, after threatening to sue if Trump acted without her permission, had noted on Tuesday that the city would be working with federal agents to fight crime.

The mayor has been skeptical of federal agents being sent to Chicago by Trump due to the controversy in Portland, Oregon, where the Trump administration sent federal officers after weeks of protests there over police brutality and racial injustice that followed the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Lightfoot said she expects Chicago will receive resources that will plug into existing federal agencies that already work with the city, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted she won't let federal troops 'terrorize' the city

Police address the media at the scene of the shooting outside of a funeral home. More than 2000 people have been shot and more than 400 have been murdered in Chicago this year

Oregon's governor and Portland's mayor have expressed anger with the presence of the federal agents, saying that the city's protests had started to ease just as the federal agents started taking action.

Trump has framed such protests in the nation's large cities as a failure by 'liberal Democrats' who run them, praised the officers' actions and said he was looking to send agents to other cities.

He pointed to rising gun violence in Chicago, the nation's third-largest city, where more than 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend.
15th century Nantes Cathedral damaged in fire; French authorities open arson investigation

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Precious artifacts, the grand organ and stained glass windows were damaged Saturday after fires started in three places inside a 15th-century Nantes Cathedral in western France, according to French authorities, who have opened an investigation into arson.

After Notre-Dame, Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral, in the heart of Nantes, is in flames, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter. Support for our firefighters who take all the risks to save this Gothic jewel of the city of the Dukes."

More than 100 firefighters took three hours to contain the fire Saturday morning in the city of Nantes. It didnt spread further because the roof of the cathedral was rebuilt with concrete in 1972 after it was destroyed in a fire, according to Laurent Ferlay, the director of the regional fire department.

Nantes Prosecutor Pierre Sennes said the fires, believed to be arson, started in three places in the cathedral.

A witness, Jean-Yves Burban, who runs a newsagent facing the cathedral, told Reuters he heard a bang at around 7:30 a.m. local time. I am shaken up because Ive been here for eight years and I see the cathedral every morning and evening. Its our cathedral and Ive got tears in my eyes.

Today, all Nantais and Nantaises are in this emotion, this sadness, Nantes Mayor Johanna Rolland was quoted as saying. Its a place for all Nantais, a part of our history.

A Rwandan refugee, a volunteer who was in charge of locking up the day before the fire broke out, was detained, according to BBC. His detention was to clear up inconsistencies in the man's schedule.

We must remain careful as to the interpretation of this police custody. It is a normal procedure, Sennes was quoted as saying.

The construction of the Roman Catholic Gothic cathedral began in 1434 and took 457 years to finish in 1891.

Last April, the Notre Dame Cathedral, a major church that has long been an enduring iconic symbol of Paris, was heavily damaged due to a severe fire.

The world watched in horror as flames consumed the roof and spire of Notre Dame, both of which collapsed. The church was being renovated at the time.

Construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral began in 1163 and took nearly 200 years to complete. The Gothic church is one of the first to make use of flying buttresses, which slant to form a separate pier, usually forming an arch with the wall it supports.
Canadian business tenants were found to be less resilient to the COVID-19 outbreak than their counterparts in other developed nations, according to a new survey by HSBC.

The study  which polled 2,600 companies worldwide, with Canadian entities comprising 200 of these  found that 85% of Canadian businesses were on some level prepared for the economic impact of COVID-19. This was significantly lower than the 92% seen among global companies, The Financial Post reported.

Only 22% of Canadian ventures managed to diversify their businesses once the pandemic took hold, which was markedly lower than the 29% global average.
Don't worry about the 'market concentration' in Big Tech, says Credit Suisse's Golub

Published Wed, Jul 22 2020 11:07 AM EDT Updated Wed, Jul 22 2020 11:33 AM EDT
Illinois College plans to reopen for the fall semester with a hybrid education arrangement.

The colleges Hilltop Ready Plan will incorporate face-to-face instruction with online education. The full plan is available on the colleges website.

Those on campus will be required to wear a face covering and practice social distancing, monitor their temperatures and symptoms daily, avoid unnecessary travel and keep social gatherings to fewer than 10 people. Reusable face masks will be provided to students and both disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer will be available throughout campus.

The college announced a revised academic calendar for the fall term earlier in July. The calendar staggers move-in dates, suspends fall break and changes to remote instruction after Thanksgiving.

Staff members who can continue working remotely will do so to reduce the number of people on campus. Campus buildings and facilities are undergoing a sanitation process.

 Marco Cartolano
The New York Times has struck a deal to acquire Serial Productions, the maker of the hit true crime podcast "Serial," the New York Times announced Wednesday night.

Why it matters: The deal speaks to The Times' commitment to grow its audio footprint. Earlier Wednesday, The Times named COO Meredith Kopit Levien as its new CEO. In an interview with Axios, Levien said the company would continue to expand its audio ambitions.

Details: "Audio has been a very big area of focus and investment for us," Levien told Axios.

"The Daily, which has now had over 1 billion downloads, has become a daily habit for so many people," she said.

"We've begun to use The Daily as a mechanism to put other audio journalism into the world."

Last September, Axios reported that The Daily, on average, garners more than 2 million downloads each day.

The deal could be worth as much as $50 million, the Wall Street Journal's Ben Mullin reports.

The Times also announced it entered into a business relationship with This American Life that will allow it to collaborate on long-form audio with Serial Productions and to work together on marketing and advertising sales.

By the numbers: The Times' media columnist Ben Smith first broke the news that The Times was eyeing a deal with Serial in March.

At the time, he reported that Serial looking to sell at a valuation of $75 million, although The Times is expected to pay less than that.

The big picture: The podcast industry is growing quickly, aided by a slew of recent deals aimed at helping the industry of fledging startups consolidate.

For The Times, investments in podcasting have helped the company grow its TV and film business.

The Times' TV and film executives told Axios last week that podcasts have helped train reporters to invest in new multi-media projects.

Go deeper: The New York Times' "The Daily" podcast hits 1 billion downloads
American rapper, Kanye West seems to have ended his six-year marriage to Kim Kardashian in an extraordinary rant on social media, saying hes been trying to get divorced from Kim since she met his fellow rapper Meek Mill at the Waldorf Hotel.

The 43-year-old rapper recently caused an uproar in the Kardashian family during his first presidential rally over the weekend, when he dropped a nombshell that his wife Kim wanted to abort their first child, North West.

Sources said Kim Kardashian was considering divorcing him if he didnt keep their personal life out of his political ambitions.

In his latest Twitter outburst on Tuesday night, Kanye West claimed he had been trying to divorce Kim Kardashian since she met Meek Mill at a hotel under the pretence of prison reform.

The rapper added that said that Meek is my man and was respectful thats my dog, without elaborating further, before he veered off into his $5billion wealth and a reference to Michael Jackson.

Kanye said Kim was out of line to meet Meek Mill to talk about prison reform, and described her mother Kris Jenner as Kris Jong-Un while accusing the pair of white supremacy.

He also repeated his claim that his wife (Kim) and mother-in-law (Kris) had tried to fly in with two doctors to have him hospitalized amid concerns about his well-being after his bizarre entry into the presidential race.

Kris and Kim put out a statement without my approval thats not what a wife should do, Kanye said after reports that the Kardashians were infuriated by his latest antics.

The 43-year-old deleted his late-night tweets barely half an hour after posting them, except for a final post in which he signed them off as coming from the future president.

Sources told The Sun that Kim and Kanye are already living apart and have been at each others throats with daily bust-ups during lockdown.

Kim Kardashian has maintained public silence throughout Kanye Wests outbursts over the weekend but fans have been begging her to speak out.

KanyiDaily recalls that on Monday, Kanye had asked Kim and her mother-in-law Kris Jenner to call him and accused them both of trying to get doctors to lock him up after his presidential rally speech in South Carolina the previous night.
by Austin Bay July 22, 2020

Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting. In less colorful words, securing water is worth going to war.

Ethiopia and Egypt are now engaged in a vicious struggle over Nile River water rights. Their confrontation began well over a decade ago.

If the opening epigram strikes you as cliche Hollywood western dialogue, then good chance you've never suffered thirst with a sandpaper throat; been a farmer watching crops wither; or scratched it out as a pastoralist -- a fancy term for animal herder anywhere in any era, Mesopotamia to Oklahoma -- watching sheep, cattle or goats die from lack of H2O.

Human survival, individual and societal, requires water. Just ask Egyptians. At least 7,000 years of life on the Nile has proven the adage "Egypt is the Nile" to be true. From Aswan north to Alexandria, the green band bordering the great river is home to 90% of Egypt's population.

Twenty-first-century Egypt still confronts pharaoh-era East African geographic and climactic facts. Egypt gets 80% to 90% of its annual water needs from the Nile. The Blue Nile River originates in Ethiopia's watered highlands. Tributary? The Blue Nile provides roughly 85% of all Nile water. The Blue Nile meets the White Nile near Sudan's capital, Khartoum. Enriched in Sudan, the world's longest river rolls north, through Egypt and into the Mediterranean.

Regional politics add complexity. Ethiopia objects to the 1929 Nile Waters Agreement, a colonial document engineered by Great Britain, which gives Egypt the right to veto upstream water projects. Ethiopia signed the agreement, but it also affects Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, whose water feeds the White Nile. In 2010, Ethiopia authored the Entebbe Agreement, which would give Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania a diplomatic mechanism for altering the 1929 division of Nile water rights. Rwanda and Burundi also support the Entebbe agreement.

So Ethiopia built the GERD, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The GERD now dams the Blue Nile River near the Sudan border. This month, Ethiopia began filling the dam's reservoir, which could ultimately hold 75 billion cubic meters of water.

Ethiopia says GERD provides water for its own growing population and produces hydroelectric power, enough to light Ethiopia with the excess sold throughout Africa. The GERD has the physical potential to become Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant. Why, high-tension lines could run to Cairo.

But as far as Cairo is concerned, the GERD is an Ethiopian weapon capable denying Egypt 75% or more of its annual water supply. It's an existential threat far greater than the COVID-19/Wuhan pandemic or a border war. It represents systemic societal death from thirst.

Where is the U.S.? During a 2013 regional trip, then-President Barack Obama deplored sub-Saharan Africa's lack of electrical generation capacity. Obama strictly focused on improving African electrical generation capacity and grids. However, that isn't how Ethiopians and Egyptians heard him. In both countries, the president's comments were heard as supportive of Ethiopia. Egyptians noted Obama's father was a Kenyan, and Kenya and Ethiopia are close allies.

In 2013, the Ethiopian government promised Egypt it would fill the reservoir so slowly it would not affect its water allotment. Ethiopia has also reiterated its offer to sell Egypt part ownership in the dam and guarantee Egypt a share of the electricity generated by the dam. Egypt didn't accept the offer, but 2013 was the year the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship fell.

What is to be done? A war between east Africa's two most powerful nations would be a disaster for both but especially Sudan, which lies between them.

In late January 2020, the Trump administration, acting as an "external mediator," tried to hammer out a "joint responsibility agreement" for managing drought crises. The U.S. has good relations with Egypt and Ethiopia. The deal didn't gel -- but the idea of guaranteeing Egypt water during a drought is a rational approach.
Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi has reached a new social media milestone, with 60 million followers on Twitter. While this number reflects his popularity, it doesnt tell the whole story.

That story is about how PM Modi has used social media to communicate with people, establishing a new paradigm in political leadership. This is particularly relevant because political communication has become more challenging where multiple, often conflicting, constituencies and issues have to be addressed simultaneously. A leader has to be in constant communication with citizens, allay their anxieties, give them hope, keep them informed, provide guidance and boost morale, and communicate with the international community.

PM Modis early embrace of technology is well-recognised. In his seminal book, The World Is Flat, Thomas L Friedman wrote that while there was no email in 1992, just over the next 10 years, the world changed so drastically that it became difficult to fathom a world without emails. That is how quickly technology became a part of our lives. Modi was quick to understand the importance of technology in strengthening a participatory democracy, where the state is both accountable and responsive.

He has used technology for a democratic purpose and to ensure accountability. The issues of the modern world go beyond gender binaries of providing food, water and shelter. There are subgroups within groups, and all groups have to be spoken to and be heard. There are issues concerning children, transgender communities, working professionals, homemakers, even those who do not want to be classified under any tag. The democratisation of communication, which has been fuelled by the advent of social media, has helped trigger debates on all sorts of issues.

This has also put the onus on governments to respond to concerns and injustices. PM Modi has taken the challenge with amazing ease on the domestic front. Both in terms of messaging, and language  he has used different languages to communicate with citizens in his tweets  he has reached out.

He has used technology to ensure crucial nation-building tasks and fulfil governance responsibilities. Take the global context  the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis debate and the scourge of terrorism have led the world to adopt a multidimensional approach to communication. The need for government heads to talk directly to people has never been greater. In India, the PM has made use of his social media reach to do the needful on this front. For instance, at a time when Indians stared at despair with the sudden lockdown forcing them to stay inside their houses, Modi gave the country a sense of we are in this together by asking people to light diyas on their balconies and terraces. By that one act alone, he brought 1.3 billion people of the country together.

He has also used technology to enhance citizen awareness. We often dont see tall leaders talk about everyday issues. But Modi is an exception. He spoke about people throwing garbage on roads and spitting in the open on August 15, 2014. His appeal to people to take to yoga to make health a priority now has made the world follow suit with June 21 being celebrated as World Yoga Day. His accounts have also showcased examples of courage and exemplary citizenship. He has recognised unsung talent, and amplified stories of grit and innovation that had so far remained untold.

Finally, he has used technology to ensure peace and harmony. The sheer size of the country and the magnitude of its population opens the room for many fissures and conflicts. But when a leader keeps the channel of communication with his people open, resolutions can be found quickly.

It is not just Twitter. To achieve these objectives, there is hardly any social media platform which hasnt been put to use by the PM. To take his voice deeper into the hinterland of India, Modi took to the radio. With 66 episodes till June 28, Mann Ki Baat is a programme people look forward to every last Sunday of the month. From the economy to Swachh Bharat, from health and spirituality to beating the fear of exams, Modi has spoken his heart out to people and invited citizen participation.

With the responsibility to govern a country that prides itself as the worlds largest democracy, the fact that the PM is committed to communicating with citizens shows his democratic commitment and skills. The Twitter milestone is thus just a glimpse of what Modis leadership has meant in the past six years.

Bhupender Yadav is national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party and a Rajya Sabha member

The views expressed are personal
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman told CNBC on Wednesday he's bullish on the U.S. and markets over the long term, but companies with a high debt will have a hard time surviving as the country struggles to reopen fully.

"We are long-term bullish on America; We are long-term bullish on the markets," Ackman said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "But I would say I'm cautious on markets over the next period of time. We have today a short position in a high-yield index. We are bearish on highly levered companies."

"The highly levered businesses will struggle because it will take time for the economy to reopen," he added. "I don't think the Fed is going to bail out companies with too much debt." Such companies carry a high level of debt to cash and therefore have a stronger likelihood of default or bankruptcy during a crisis.

Ackman is betting against high-yield companies at a time when the Federal Reserve is buying up recently downgraded "fallen angels," companies that slipped from investment grade into junk due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management revealed he continued to own the same positions in Hilton, Restaurant Brands, Lowe's and Starbucks. He added that his hedge fund is approximately "98% long."

"We are not short any stocks. We are obviously bullish on America, owning restaurant companies, hotel companies, real estate development companies. These are a bet that the country will recover," Ackman said.

Ackman turned heads on Wall Street earlier this year by pocketing more than $2 billion in bets against markets in March. The activist investor went on CNBC in mid-March to warn investors that "hell is coming" and urge the White House to shut down the country for a month. He later revealed his firm exited the short positions on March 23, just as the S&P 500 bottomed.

His dire comments later sparked controversy, with many saying his fund would profit from further market declines. His hedge fund managed $10.7 billion of assets as of June 9.

"I really blame CNBC," Ackman said. "It took 15 seconds of my interview and then went around scaring people because it was good television. ... I gave a very bullish message. I said I was buying stocks."

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A fierce critic of Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been arrested and charged with inciting violence. Journalist Hopewell Chin'ono is accused of encouraging attendance at an anti-government protest. Also, despite the documented abuses at some Islamic schools in parts of Nigeria, some poorer parents say they don't want the institutions to close, as they are often the only schools available. Plus, we visit a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration camp in Cameroon where former secessionist fighters are trying to prepare themselves for civilian life.
Katrina Shanks, FANZ

It's time for insurance to boost its conduct and culture - but how is it done? Do broker commissions need to go? How big an issue is transparency? Katrina Shanks, CEO of Financial Advice New Zealand, gives us her thoughts.
Tinsukia/Dibrugarh: A massive blast occurred near the Oil India Limited's Baghjan well in Assam's Tinsukia district on Wednesday, injuring three foreign experts involved in the dousing of the well fire raging for over a month. The experts have been rushed to a hospital at Dibrugarh, Oil India Limited's senior manager, public affairs, Jayanata Bormudoi, said. The experts have been identified as Anthony Steven Reynolds, Doug Dallas and Craig Neil Duncan, he said.

The blast occurred when the experts were on their way to open the spool of the well before putting up the blow out preventer (BOP) that finally douses the fire, Bormudoi said.

The well has been spewing gas since May 28 and a fire has been raging in the area since June 9 in which two firefighters lost their lives.

The dousing operation has been called off at Baghjan after the blast. The cause of the blast, its scale and nature are being ascertained, the official said.
LONDON  Britain will no longer offer immunity from criminal prosecution to the families of the American staff at a military base near where a teenager was killed by a car driven by the wife of an American diplomat.

The change, announced by Foreign Minister Dominic Raab on Wednesday, comes after intense lobbying by the family of Harry Dunn, 19, who died in August 2019 after his motorcycle was struck by Anne Sacoolas, an American, near the base at Croughton Annex  a British installation used by the United States.

Image: Harry Dunn (Courtesy of the Dunn Family)

The United Kingdom's decision comes a day after Dunn's death was raised in a meeting between Prime Minister Boris Johnson  who has previously called for Sacoolas to return to the country  and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who was making a brief trip to London.

"The U.S. waiver of immunity from criminal jurisdiction is now expressly extended to the family members of U.S. staff at the Croughton Annex," Raab said in a statement. "Permitting the criminal prosecution of the family members of those staff, should these tragic circumstances ever arise again."

Raab said the changes took effect Monday, implying they would not be retroactive.

Dunn's mother, Charlotte Charles, welcomed the decision as a "huge step forward" and said it would ensure a similar tragedy would "never happen to another family," she told Britain's PA News Agency.

She said her son would be "proud" but vowed to continue to campaign for Sacoolas to return to the U.K.

The case sparked a transatlantic dispute between Washington and London about whether Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity from prosecution.

Dunn's parents have called for Sacoolas to return to the U.K. to face trial after she was charged in December with causing death by dangerous driving.

Her lawyer has said previously that Sacoolas will not return voluntarily to potentially face jail for "a terrible but unintentional accident."

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The State Department also said Sacoolas was covered by diplomatic immunity and could not be extradited, in a move that caused friction with London. NBC News has yet to receive comment from the State Department on the latest U.K. rule change.

Image: The Parents Of Harry Dunn Brief Media After Meeting Foreign Secretary Raab (Peter Summers / Getty Images)

In October, Dunn's family met with President Donald Trump at the White House to petition him to extradite Sacoolas. During the meeting, Trump dropped a "bombshell" according to Dunn's mother, revealing that Sacoolas was waiting to meet the family in the room next door. The family declined to meet her.

"We have the deepest sympathy for Harry Dunn's family. No family should have to experience what they have gone through and I recognize that these changes will not bring Harry back," Raab said.

He said he hoped the change in rules would at least bring "some small measure of comfort" to the Dunn family.
Three candidates have qualified to challenge Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle as he seeks a fourth term in city elections next month.

One name is familiar in Huntsville political circles while two others are political newcomers.

Unofficial city watchdog Jackie Reed  who typically runs either for mayor or a city council seat in Huntsville municipal elections -- will run for mayor for the ninth time.

Also on the ballot is Andy Woloszyn, a Huntsville native who spent part of his childhood growing up in Madison and returned to the Rocket City in 2016. The third challenger is Maurice Shingleton Jr., a California native who has lived in Huntsville since 2008.

Battle announced his intentions to pursue another term in office almost a year ago.

Qualifying for the Aug. 25 election ended at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

Both of Huntsville city council seats on the ballot will include challengers to the incumbents.

In District 1 in north Huntsville, council President Devyn Keith is seeking a second term. Chris Baker will be on the ballot to challenge Keith.

In District 5 in west Huntsville, incumbent Will Culver is seeking a fourth term. John Meredith, who ran for the seat in 2016, will again challenge Culver next month.

Two seats on the Huntsville City Schools board of education are also up for election. Incumbents Michelle Watkins in District 1 is seeking her second term and Carlos Mathews in District 5, nominated to replace Pam Hill in 2019, is seeking is first full term.

Mathews has no opposition that qualified.

Three candidates are still awaiting approval from the Alabama Ethics Commission, according to Huntsville city clerk/treasurer Ken Benion -- the citys top elections official. Those candidates are Joseph Wayman (city council District 1), Deidra Willis-Gopher (school board District 1) and Tom Hoph (city council District 5).

Updated today, July 21, 2020, at 7:34 p.m. with Maurice Shingleton Jr. also qualifying to run for mayor.
Click here to read the full article on SPIN.

Its been about a month since weve heard a new tale from Daves True Stories.

And after sharing a touching story about his dad on Fathers Day, the latest story, Dave Grohls latest story (now in audio) is about not only the importance of teachers but more importantly, his mother, Virginia.

More from SPIN:

Every kid should feel so lucky to have that favorite teacher, Grohl said. The one who changes your life for the better.

Recounting how his mother went above and beyond the role of a teacher despite only making about $35,000 a year at the time. She was one of those teachers who became a mentor to many and her students remembered her long after they graduated, he said.

With the debate on whether or not schools should reopen in a few weeks, he pointed out the fact that teachers are now having to face more challenges than getting their kids to listen during class.

Teachers are also confronted with a whole new set of dilemmas that most people would not consider. Theres so much more to be addressed than just opening the doors and sending [children] back home, my mother tells me on the phone, Grohl said. Now 82 and retired, she runs down a list of concerns based on her 35 years of experience: Masks and distancing, temperature checks, crowded bussing, crowded hallways, sports, air-conditioning systems, lunchrooms, public restrooms, janitorial staff. Most schools already struggle from a lack of resources. How can they possibly afford the mountain of safety measures that will need to be in place?

Grohl explained why remote learning is currently the way to go, despite what the current administration is pushing for.

The solution, for now, is remote learning, Grohls mother argued, although that too presents a challenge for working class and single parents dealing with the logistical problem of balancing jobs with the children at home, as well as technological and social issues. Remote learning is an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution, but as much as Donald Trumps conductor-less orchestra would love to see the country reopen schools in the name of rosy optics, ask a science teacher what they think about White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnanys comment that Science should not stand in the way. It would be foolish to do so at the expense of our students, teachers and school.

Story continues

He ended the piece with a sense of gratitude for all the teachers who are doing what they can to keep education going and how we all should respect them.

Until youve spent countless days in a classroom, he said, devoting your time and energy to becoming that lifelong mentor to generations of otherwise disengaged students, you must listen to those who have. Teachers want to teach, not die. And we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be.

Listen to Dave Grohls new story below.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest guitarists of all time, click here.
Negotiations with a foreign manager, whose name has not been disclosed, are underway.

Head manager of Hungary's FC Ferencvaros, Ukraine's Serhiy Rebrov has rejected FC Dynamo Kyiv owners' offer to lead one of Ukraine's top clubs.

Rebrov, 46, is Dynamo's former star striker who has already served as club manager in 2014-2017, Dynamo.kiev.ua reports.

Citing a source, the outlet says Rebrov has declined the proposal after thoroughly thinking it over, deciding to retain his current job in Hungary.

Read alsoFC Dynamo Kyiv fires Football Manager Mykhaylychenko

The source says Dynamo, this year's runner-up in Ukraine's Premier League, may invite a foreigner to the top post.

The name has not been revealed, although the publication says this is not Croatia's Nenad Bjelica. Negotiations are underway.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on July 20, the Dynamo Kyiv fired its manager Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko, 57, along with the team of his assistants.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 16:48:20|Editor: huaxia

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CHONGQING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China-Europe freight trains to and from southwest China's Chongqing Municipality have made more than 1,000 trips as of Wednesday, up 12 percent for the same period last year.

On Wednesday, a train carrying laptops, printers and liquid crystal displays left Chongqing for Duisburg, Germany, becoming the 1,001st train to shuttle between the Chinese metropolis and European or Central Asian cities.

The China-Europe rail service is considered a significant part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Chongqing started the rail cargo service to Duisburg in 2011.

In the first half of this year, the total value of goods transported by the trains to and from Chongqing went up 47 percent year on year to around 37 billion yuan (about 5.3 billion U.S. dollars).

While shipping Chinese goods such as laptops, mobile phones and integrated circuits abroad, the trains bring back commodities, including imported automobiles, food, and mother and baby products, from Europe and Central Asia.

China-Europe freight trains have played a crucial role in helping with the global fight against the COVID-19 epidemic as massive quantities of medical supplies were sent through them to affected countries and regions.

According to the China State Railway Group, during the first half of 2020, anti-epidemic supplies totaling 3.67 million items and weighing 27,000 tonnes were sent through freight trains. Enditem
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's military rejected allegations on Wednesday by Papuan separatists that a father and son killed at the weekend in the country's easternmost province were civilians, insisting the victims were linked to an armed rebel group.

The two adult men were carrying weapons when they were fatally shot by troops on Saturday near the district capital of Nduga, said Colonel Gusti Nyoman Suriastawa, a military spokesman, adding that a gun, cash, and a phone that belonged to a soldier were retrieved from their bodies.

The military in a statement said the two men were linked to an armed separatist group led by Egianus Kogoya, a leader from the Free Papua Movement.

"Why would they carry a pistol with them? Why would they snatch the weapons and a backpack belonging to the military?", Suriastawa said, insisting those killed were not civilians.

Papua has been plagued by long-running separatist tensions since the former Dutch colony was incorporated into Indonesia after a U.N.-backed 1969 referendum called the Act of Free Choice, which has been widely criticised by human rights groups.

Sebby Sambom, a spokesman for the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), said the victims had no connection to the separatist movement.

It followed a similar incident in February, when the army said it killed a 18-year-old Papuan separatist in a shootout. The TPNPB said was victim was a civilian and no gunfight happened.

Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman told Reuters the separatist label was irrelevant and the men should have been arrested.

"That was just (an) express killing. Even if they were members of the TPNPB, they were supposed to be tried then served justice," she said. "Those were extrajudicial killings."

Records by rights group Amnesty International showed the father and son were refugees among thousands who fled a military crackdown in 2018 in the Nduga area, in response to a separatist attack on a group of construction workers.

(Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Kate Lamb and Martin Petty)
New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. High 77F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Windy and becoming cloudy late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 32F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  Davao City-bound passengers are no longer required to obtain negative swab test results at their airport of origin. Instead, it becomes a mandatory requirement prior to exiting the Davao International Airport

As approved during the meeting, the requirement of a negative RT-PCR result taken within 24 to 72 hours from departure date shall not be mandatory upon check-in at the airport of origin but shall be required upon exit at the Davao International Airport, Davao Mayor Sara Duterte said in a statement Wednesday.

This was agreed upon during a meeting between the National COVID-19 task force and the city government. Duterte said this will ensure that all those who enter the city are COVID-free.

"We ensure that travellers who enter the city are negative, they just proceed with home quarantine," Duterte said. "So we would not go after people for contact tracing since they do not have close contact."

The swab test, also known as the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction or RT-PCR, is considered the gold standard for coronavirus testing because it can detect the actual presence of the virus even when the patient is not showing symptoms.

The local government said passengers have two options: to be tested at their place of origin at their own cost; or to be tested at the Davao airport for free, but will have to wait for their test result inside a holding facility for 24 to 48 hours.

Davao City will provide a free RT-PCR test for passengers who have yet acquired a negative result taken within 72 hours. The free service is under the P6 million Bayanihan Grant allocated for swab testing at the Davao airport.

Those who were tested within 24 to 72 hours from departure at their place of origin but have not received their results are not allowed to exit the airport until the result is available.

The city government will also accept a negative RT-PCR result taken within 24 to 72 hours from the domestic departure date conducted by a laboratory overseas for an international flight passenger, provided that all results written in a foreign language must have an English translation, it added.

As for children 12 years old and below, they are exempted from the test requirement, given that the accompanying adult passenger has a negative test result.

Duterte also asked the transportation department to request airlines to deplane first all those with negative test results, followed by those who have no results yet.
At over 1,300 pages and nearly 6 lakh words, Vikram Seths 1993 tome A Suitable Boy tested the reading skills of many, but BBC hopes its adaptation for television beginning Sunday will delight them and others with what is billed as the first all non-white cast for a BBC series.

Starring Tabu, Ishan Khattar and Tanya Maniktala, the six-part 1950s drama shot entirely in India is directed by Mira Nair after Seths novel was adapted by Andrew Davies. A buzz has been building up before its screening, with the UK media highlighting its non-white cast.

The British Raj in India has been a major theme in British films and television in recent years and decades, depicting a certain narrative of the colonial project, but the Britain of 2020 is considered more receptive to non-white themes, actors and performances.

The non-white cast is a point of interest , but not so much for the cast, whose leading lights have been interacting with the media. Nair appeared on BBC on Wednesday morning, other actors joined a webinar, while Maniktala told The Guardian: This is an Indian story, so its about time it was told by us. None of the characters in Seths novel are white.

The series, announced in 2017, tells the story of university student Lata (Maniktala), coming of age in north India in 1951 at the same time as the country is carving out its own identity as an independent nation and is about to go to the polls for its first general election.

Torn between duty to her family and the excitement of romance, Lata embarks on a journey of love, desire and heartache as three very different suitors vie for her hand. Her choice will play out against the tumultuous political backdrop of India in the 1950s.

It is a vast, panoramic tale charting the fortunes of four large families and exploring India and its rich and varied culture at a crucial point in its history, the BBC said, adding that it will be on Netflix a year for all global territories, except Canada, the United States and China after a year.

Damian Keogh of production company Lookout Point, said: Were hugely excited to be partnering with Netflix to bring A Suitable Boy to international audiences, hot on the heels of its UK debut on BBC One.

This epic tale speaks of human truths of life, love and family amid a country in rapid transition  themes and experiences as relevant today as when they were written.

Caroline Stone, director of Independent Drama at BBC Studios, added: The demand for quality British drama is higher than ever globally so we are thrilled to be partnering with Netflix on this wonderful series to bring audiences around the world Vikram Seths literary classic reimagined with such colour and vigour.

The talent on and off screen for A Suitable Boy are exceptional and have helped to make this a series of which we are very proud, she added.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 21)  Evidence shows that nine policemen killed four soldiers in Jolo, Sulu in late June, the National Bureau of Investigation said in a complaint filed with the Justice Department on Tuesday.

The NBI lodged a complaint for murder and planting of evidence against the police officers.

After a thorough perusal of the records of this case, we are convinced that the evidence presented amply demonstrates that the victims were killed and that it was the nine police officers who killed them, the NBI said.

The respondents are Senior Master Sergeant Abdelzhimar Padjiri, Master Sergeant Hannie Badiri, Staff Sergeants Iskandar Susulan and Ernisar Sappal, Corporal Sulki Andaki, and Patrolman Mohammad Nur Pasani, all from the Jolo municipal police, as well as Police Staff Sergeant Almudzrin Hadjaruddin, Patrolmen Alkajal Mandangan and Rajiv Putalan from the Sulu provincial drug enforcement unit.

Although not all of them fired their government-issued firearms, the others assisted the police officers who shot at the soldiers, the NBI said.

The nine police officers simultaneously attacked the victims who were not given the opportunity to defend themselves, the NBI added.

READ: Jolo encounter shows 'excessive' use of force by PNP vs slain soldiers

Citing eyewitness accounts supported by evidence, one of the victims, Major Marvin Indammog did not carry any firearm when he alighted from the vehicle, leading the NBI to conclude that the rifle recovered in his left hand was indeed planted.

Also facing a case for neglect of duty are Sulu provincial police director Colonel Michael Bayawan, Jolo Municipal Police chief Major Walter Annayo, and provincial drug enforcement unit head Captain Ariel Corcino.

They failed to inform their subordinates of the June 29 military operation which was being conducted against two female suicide bombers and the maker of their vests, the NBI said.

Aside from Indammog, Captain Irwin Managuelod, Sergeant Jaime Velasco, and Corporal Abdal Asula, all from the 9th Intelligence Service Unit of the 11th Infantry Division, were killed.

The cops earlier claimed self-defense.

The Philippine National Police agreed that the soldiers did not fire a single shot at the police. They have since ruled out the misencounter angle and called it a shooting incident.

According to the initial results of an autopsy conducted by NBI, one of the soldiers suffered eight gunshot wounds, while the others had at least three each.

President Rodrigo Duterte has appealed to both the military and police to remain calm amid the ongoing investigation.

CNN Philippines' Anjo Alimario and Eimor Santos contributed to this report.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

A leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has lauded President Akufo-Addos initiative to build hospitals in some 88 districts across the country.

The Agenda 88 project, which is expected to last for a year, is scheduled to commence this month, according to the President.

Answering a question as to which projects Akufo-Addo can be remembered for in the health sector same way former President John Mahama is noted for completing some hospitals like the Ridge Hospital, he mentioned the district hospitals yet to be constructed.

On Face to Face on Citi TV, Mr. Otchere-Darko asked Ghanaians to look out for the hospitals as they would end up being better and built at lesser costs compared with the amount of money spent building the hospitals John Mahama is noted for.

One of the challenges that we have seen as a country is that our health system is extremely weak and we need to strengthen it. This whole idea of Agenda 88 [hospitals] tells you that there are districts in this country that dont have hospitals. If there were enough hospitals in this country, and hospitals that when you go with your NHIS card you could be treated, I dont think we would be having the Agenda 88 that we are having, he remarked.

Mark this on the wall, when Akufo-Addo starts rolling out the hospitals, you will realise that they can be built better and cheaper than what has been put up because it is not about just putting up infrastructure for the sake of it. Are you giving the country value for money? Because if Akufo-Addo can build, for instance, a district hospital for under $20 million and Mahama was building for US$40million, what does that tell you? he wondered.

About Agenda 88

President Akufo-Addo announced the ambitious plan to construct the 88 hospitals during his eighth natonal address to give updates on the novel coronavirus situation in Ghana.

The President also promised to construct six new regional hospitals and rehabilitate the Effia Nkwanta Hospital in Sekondi, which is the regional hospital of the Western Region, all in a bid to boost healthcare delivery in the country.

The standard 100-bed facilities which will be in districts without hospitals will also have accommodation for staff.

The Local Government and Rural Development Minister, Hajia Alima Mahama on the back of this then directed the various district assemblies without hospitals to identify and release a minimum of 15 acres of land for the projects.

---citinewsroom
The prime minister will first pay a visit to Hanuman Gadhi, then take darshan of Ram Lalla before taking part in the 'bhoomi poojan'ceremony, Swami Govind Devgiri Maharaj said

Pune: A member of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra trust on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on 5 August.

Talking to reporters here, Swami Govind Devgiri Maharaj also said that all chief ministers must be invited for the ceremony.

"The PM has agreed to come to Ayodhya on 5 August for the 'bhoomi pujan' of Ram temple. He will be there for one- and-a-half hours. He will first pay a visit to Hanuman Gadhi, then take darshan of Ram Lalla before taking part in the 'bhoomi poojan'ceremony," Swami Govind Devgiri Maharaj, also known as Kishorji Vyas, said.

"Earlier, they had decided that the prime minister will do the 'bhoomi pujan' online. But I insisted that he (prime minister) should come there in person and perform the ceremony. And Modiji accepted it," he said.

"Modiji had sought two dates. So his office was informed about two dates  29 July and 5 August. Finally he gave consent to 5 August," he added.

However, there has been no official confirmation from the PMO so far that Modi would be attending the ceremony.

Swami Devgiri Maharaj said that while the prime minister performs the ceremony, the people of the country will celebrate the moment by staying indoors.

"You will see there will be a wave of happiness in the country. If our morale goes down, we will get defeated in our fight against coronavirus. So to keep the morale high, we should create a wave of happiness and if that happens, COVID- 19 will start subside," he added.

According to him, in 1951, prime minister Pandit Nehru did not go to the Somnath temple (for inauguration) due to some "family traditions".

"But the then President of India, Rajendra Prasad, went there. Nehru opposed Prasad's decision, but the latter firmly said that he will go to Somnath temple even if he has to tender his resignation. This is called nationalism. Modiji has the same nationalism in him and that is why he is going," he said.

"This moment was awaited for the last five centuries and he (Modi) also shares the same feeling. That is why he has given his consent," the teasurer of the trust said.

Asked if Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will be invited to the ground-breaking ceremony, the seer said, "He must be invited."

"There is no question of not inviting CM Thackeray. He must be invited... I think there is no point in not inviting anybody. We must invite all the CMs, notable saints and social leaders," he added.

In view of the coronavirus pandemic, there will be only 200 people at the 5 August ceremony at Ayodhya, he said.

All social distancing norms will be followed at the event, he added.

He termed Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray as a "great hero" who had emphasised building a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Talking to PTI later, Swami Devgiri said that the responsibility of inviting the saints and sages lies with the trust, but that of inviting the political personalities is with Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

"So things will take place as per the decisions taken by Yogiji," he said.

He, however, said that if the invitation is sent, it will be sent to all the chief ministers.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut had on Tuesday said that Uddhav Thackeray will definitely go for the ground-breaking ceremony. Asked whether Thackeray has received an invitation for the ceremony, Raut had said, "It will come."

Asked about NCP chief Sharad Pawar's recent statement that some people think building a temple will help eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic, Swami Devgiri Maharaj said, "People love Modiji so much that they always like to talk about him."

"They always try to find a chance to talk about him  for or against. If someone talks in support, it does not become news, but if someone speaks against, it does and there are people who always like to be in news therefore they speak," he added.

Swami Devgiri, who returned to his ashram in Pune from Ayodhya on Tuesday, said that the construction of the temple will complete in three and half years and the trust is in the process of acquiring more land.
A leading member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Gabby Otchere-Darko has downplayed the perception of him being hugely influential in the Akufo-Addo administration despite having no official portfolio.



Speaking on Citi TVs Face to Face, he described such claims as propaganda as he defended the President against claims of nepotism and cronyism.



In Gabby Otchere-Darkos view, his critics had to create something for me because they expected that Akufo-Addo was going to appoint me, when the NPP was voted into power.



He, however, acknowledged that he has been influential in the political space with different presidents over the last two decades.



It just happens that this time, the President [Nana Akufo-Addo] is someone that I am known to be very close to.



Gabby Otcher-Darko further said persons who seemingly overestimate his influence in governance do so because they think I merit it.



He also held that any political appointment granted him would have been justified because of his competences despite the expected accusations of nepotism.



If I had been offered an appointment, would it have been fair for any Ghanaian to say it was due to nepotism? [No, I would have merited it].



Gabby Otchere-Darko proceeded to defend President Akufo-Addo, who has been accused of running a family and friends government.



The National Democratic Congress earlier came out with a list of 51 names to support its accusations of nepotism and cronyism.



But Gabby insisted that the ends justified the means.



He defended the appointment of Lauretta Asante as one of the Directors General at SSNIT and purported beneficiary of nepotism because she is also the sister of Nana Asante Bediatuo, the Presidents Executive Secretary.



Look at SSNIT and look at the gains it has made in terms of increasing the number of people who are actually paying contributions.



Though the current government made similar accusations against the Mahama administration, Gabby Otchere-Darko said he never went that route.



As the president, you have the right to choose the people that you think can deliver for you. Are they delivering or not?

Source: citinewsroom.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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Care homes residents in England will be allowed family visits again for the first time since lockdown started in March  but they will be limited to just one visitor.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has today given care homes the green light to start arranging visits, as long as social distancing and protective equipment rules are followed.

Each resident will only be allowed a single nominated visitor, who can visit regularly as long as they book in advance and wear a mask and extra PPE if required.

The move finally brings England in line with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where care home visits have been allowed for weeks.

Local councils and public health officials in England will decide on a case-by-case basis which homes will be able to reopen, depending on levels of coronavirus in the area.

Charities and care providers said the move has been 'long overdue' and the lack of contact with families may have already caused irreparable harm to the mental and physical health of frail residents.

Mr Hancock said: 'I know how painful it has been for those in care homes not being able to receive visits from their loved ones throughout this period.

'We are now able to carefully and safely allow visits to care homes, which will be based on local knowledge and circumstances for each care home.

'It is really important that we don't undo all of the hard work of care homes over the last few months while ensuring families and friends can be safely reunited so we have put in place guidance that protects everyone.'

Some care homes have allowed relatives to visit in a drive-through setup but none have been able to let family members inside the homes for fear they would carry Covid-19 in with them (Pictured: Residents receiving outdoor visits at a home in Banbury, Oxfordshire)

Betty Higginbotham, 93, meets her great grandson Freddy for the first time through a glass window after months of shielding from coronavirus in a care home in Watford, Hertfordshire,

Local public health officials will decide whether visiting should be allowed at homes in their community, in a sign the government is moving away from its top-down approach to the crisis.

Visitors will need to wear a face covering and wash their hands thoroughly before and after putting it on and taking it off.

They will be asked to give up their contact information so they can be tracked down by NHS Test and Trace if someone tests positive in the home.

WHAT ARE THE NEW RULES? Only one nominated family member will be allowed to visit each care home resident under the new guidance. They can visit regularly as long as they: Book slots to see loved ones in advance, with the Government strongly advising against any walk-in visits.

Wear a face covering and wash their hands thoroughly before and after putting it on and taking it off.

Put on extra PPE, including gloves and aprons, if local public health officials or the care home see a rise in community transmission.

Give up their contact information so they can be tracked down by NHS Test and Trace if someone tests positive in the home. Advertisement

If there is a pick-up in community transmission then some visitors may need to wear extra PPE, including gloves and aprons.

Providers will decide whether visits should take place in a communal garden or outdoor area, where the fresh air and heat make it hard for the virus to spread.

It is expected care homes will tentatively start relaxing visiting rules, with family members of residents nearing the end of their life taking priority.

Charities have said the restriction on family visits has had 'damaging consequences' on the mental and physical health of residents with dementia.

Care homes in Wales that are virus-free have been allowing visits from relatives since June 1. Scotland followed suit on July 3, while Northern Ireland allowed visitors into its homes on July 13.

All three nations are still only allowing one single nominated visitor, which limits the number of potentially infected people bringing the disease into he homes.

Lisa Lenton, chair of Care Providers Alliance, said the measures had been 'long overdue' in England.

She added: 'The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has taken its toll in many ways. The effect of not being able to see friends and family has been very difficult and very upsetting for many - both for the people who access care and support, and for their loved ones who have been isolated.

RAPID COVID-19 TEST TO BE TRIALLED IN LONDON CARE HOMES New Covid-19 swab tests that give a diagnosis in under an hour are being trialled in London care homes. Queen Mary University researcherswill give the tests to up to 2,000 staff and residents in 50 care homes. They want to see how effective rapid daily Covid-19 testing is at reducing rates of infection, hospitalisation and deaths in the sector. At the moment, outbreak control in homes and communities is hindered by limitations in testing. It can take days to swab a person suspected of having COVID-19, send the sample to a laboratory and receive the results. The rapid PCR based testing system in this trial has been developed in the UK by Novacyt, and uses the Covid-19 PCR test already in use in NHS laboratories. Residents, staff and visitors in 25 care homes will receive daily testing on the rapid testing machines which each have the capacity to process up to 100 samples a day. Meanwhile the other 25 care homes will receive the standard central laboratory testing once a week to serve as a control group to compare the results to. The trial team comprises researchers, medical students and laboratory experts from Queen Mary and Novacyt, who are also using a new and more convenient simple nose swab for daily testing, instead of the more common and invasive nasopharyngeal swab which involve throbbing deep at the back of the throat. Professor Jo Martin from Queen Mary University of London who is leading the study said: 'This work has the potential to bring a new rapid COVID-19 testing system to those at highest risk, and help interrupt community transmission. 'If found to be successful in care homes, it could be very useful in a wide range of settings, helping to make a quick diagnosis and keep an environment free of COVID-19. 'With rapid daily testing, we can report back to the care home on the same day, so that they can take action to reduce transmission in their care home and prevent outbreaks into the wider community. By undertaking this study in the diverse East London community, we're hoping to protect one of the most vulnerable groups in the UK, and the frontline staff who are caring for them.' Henry Black, chief finance officer, NHS North East London Commissioning Alliance said: 'Working with our partners in East London we are at the forefront of detecting COVID-19 infections. Rapid testing is essential if we are to reduce transmission of the disease in social care settings. 'The testing equipment is also portable enough to be used in community situations and we believe it will be a valuable tool in tackling any local outbreaks.' Advertisement

'The Care Provider Alliance welcomes this overdue guidance - the CPA has been calling for Government guidance for many weeks and released its own visitors protocol last month in its absence.

'People need people and this is such an important step for the wellbeing of individuals and their relatives.'

Dr Sanjeev Kanoria, chairman at the private care provider Advinia Health Care, added: 'Throughout the pandemic our homes have sometimes felt more like hospital wards.

'After an incredibly challenging few months, we are so excited to carefully welcome families and visitors once again and bring back the sense of community and warmth that gives our residents and tireless staff such a boost.'



The social care sector has been devastated by coronavirus, after the infection swept through homes and killed almost 20,000 elderly residents in England and Wales.

Many care homes across the country stopped visits from friends and family a week or more before the lockdown came into place in an effort to stem the spread of coronavirus.

The elderly are most vulnerable to severe Covid-19 infection and death, and so the signs of potential devastation were clear from an early stage.

However, the coronavirus still battered the care sector due to a number of faults, the largest of which was discharge of hospital patients to care homes.

On 19 March, NHS guidance said that patients must not be in a hospital bed unless required in a move to free up beds for coronavirus patients.

Mr Hancock - and many other ministers before him - claim people were discharged on an individual assessment basis and often hospital is a risky place for a frail person to be.

But a negative coronavirus test was not needed to allow transfers or admissions into the care home, guidance on April 2 said.

This was prior to and during the peak of the coronavirus crisis in UK, when thousands of people were being diagnosed in the community and hospitals every day.

From 15 April, the government said that all patients discharged from hospitals would be tested for coronavirus after an uproar.

By this date, over 28,116 elderly patients had been moved from hospitals to care homes in England.

There are no official statistics to show how many cases of coronavirus were brought into care homes via this route.

But Chris Hopson, head of hospital representative body NHS Providers, said 'a very small number of asymptomatic Covid-19 patients' were discharged to social care.

Asymptomatic people, or 'silent carriers', are those who have the virus but are not showing symptoms.

They were unlikely to have had a test during the Covid crisis because tests were only offered to those with symptoms until the end of April.

It was also problematic that elderly people are more likely to show atypical symptoms, and therefore may not appear to have the virus.

The Government insists it and other leaders globally were unaware that the virus could spread asymptomatically.

Care minister Helen Whately said: The social care workforce has gone above and beyond during the pandemic and I am hugely grateful to everyone working in care homes for all they have done to protect residents and staff and help save lives during these challenging times.

'We know how important it is for families and friends to be able to visit their loved ones. This guidance sets out how families and residents can safely come together again.'
Heinrich pressed Hovakimian on whether he thought the threat of violence to monuments rises to the level of requiring intelligence collection, especially if it comes at the cost of not gathering information on white-supremacy groups that have threatened to commit acts of violence. Hovakimian skirted the question, saying it was difficult to opine categorically on hypotheticals.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is waging an assassination campaign in Europe to silence its critics and pressure European governments to adopt conciliatory measures. The uptick should serve as a wakeup call. Amid popular unrest in Iran and the possibility of a snapback of UN sanctions, violence has become an even more attractive tool for a desperate regime. European governments are afraid to get tough on the Islamic Republic, lest they jeopardize the 2015 nuclear deal, yet passivity only encourages more violence.

Europe has long been an unsafe place for Iranian dissidents and opposition figures. The clerical regime has executed more than 60 assassination operations since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

Former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar was murdered in Paris in 1991. Last year, opposition journalist Ruhollah Zam was lured from his hideaway in Paris to Iraq and arrested by regime intelligence agents. Zam currently faces execution in Iran. And just last month, Sadegh Zarza, a 64-year-old former member of the leadership of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, barely survived an assassination attempt in the Netherlands. Zarzas brother Taher told the Dutch paper Leeuwarden Courant that Sadegh suffered numerous stab wounds to his chest, stomach, neck, and head.

Also in June, Mohammad Davoudzadeh Loloei, a 40-year-old Norwegian Iranian who chaired the Norwegian-Iranian Friendship Association, received a seven-year prison sentence in Denmark for his involvement in a plot to murder an Iranian-Arab dissident in that country. Likewise, the Dutch government last year accused Irans regime of assassinating two Iranian dissidents in the Netherlands.

The Dutch murders, coupled with Tehrans plot to bomb a 2018 Iranian exile conference in Paris, did rouse a European response, but it consisted of no more than tame penalties on Khameneis regime: Brussels froze the assets of an Iranian intelligence unit and two of its employees.

This timidity is a longstanding European habit. Its leaders are more concerned about protecting the nearly dead 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, than punishing the regime for terror attacks on European soil. German Chancellor Angela Merkels government even failed to punish the regime for its recruitment of a Pakistani man for espionage and possible assassination attempts on behalf of Irans Qods Force  a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The Qods Force agent was reportedly scouting Jewish targets in Germany and France for future attacks.

Making matters worse, Merkels government has provided refuge to some of the Islamic Republics most violent human rights abusers. Iranian cleric and former judge Gholamreza Mansouri, fearing arrest after being charged with corruption in Tehran, reportedly sought shelter in an infamous Hanover clinic, which at one time hosted another top human rights abuser, the now deceased former judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi. Mansouri, known for imprisoning and torturing journalists, later surfaced in Bucharest, Romania, where he was found dead, most likely pushed out of his hotel window by regime agents.

Other current and former regime officials roam Europe freely, often maintaining homes in major cities. Ataollah Mohajerani, a former minister of culture and Islamic guidance who once defended the religious death sentence on Salman Rushdie, resides in London and is a frequent commentator for BBC Persian. Italy is reported to be a major source of multi-entry visas for regime officials.

How can Europe force the Islamic Republic to rethink its tactics? First, in response to regime assassinations and terrorism, the European Union (EU) and individual member states should suspend diplomatic relations with the regime and withdraw their ambassadors from Tehran. Furthermore, Iranian ambassadors should be expelled from European capitals. In addition, the EU and its member states should impose sanctions against the regime for its assassination campaign and gross human rights abuses. Lebanese Hezbollah, the regimes terror proxy, should also be banned by all European countries.

One might object that cutting lines of communication to Tehran will only make it harder to resolve tensions. Yet nearly forty years of European diplomacy with various regime presidents has not curtailed Iranian state-sponsored terrorism. After all, Berlin prosecutors accused the late Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khamenei of ordering the murders of Iranian Kurdish dissidents in the West Berlin restaurant Mykonos in 1992. After Mykonos many European countries broke off relations with Tehran. The ultimate perpetrators of the assassination, including former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian, remain at large. If the regime cannot respect the most basic norms of international politics, such as refraining from violence against civilians on foreign soil, then diplomacy serves little purpose but to make additional concessions.

Without European pressure, the Islamic Republic will continue its terror and assassination campaign. A lack of European punishment may even induce the regime to conduct mass casualty attacks on European soil; Hezbollah has a history of terrorist bombings in several European countries, including France and most recently Bulgaria. Ignoring the Islamic Republics terrorism is likely to make the problem worse than ever before.

The opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily the views of Radio Farda
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother on Wednesday as part of countrywide searches in connection with a money laundering case linked to an alleged fertiliser scam, officials said.

ED sleuths were assisted by personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), who were seen standing guard at the farmhouse and residence of the Gehlots' in Mandore area of Jodhpur district.

The searches come at a time when a political slugfest is currently on between CM Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot.

Pilot, a former Union minister, was recently sacked as the deputy CM and PCC chief of the state.

Officials said the raids are being carried out against Ashok Gehlot's elder brother Agrasain Gehlot, who is the promoter of a seeds and fertiliser company identified as Anupam Krishi.

Responding to the raids, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told reporters in Jaipur, "Prime Minister Modi has created 'raid raj' in the country but we are not going to be scared."

When the Centre's "gimmicks" failed to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan, ED raids started at the premises of Gehlot's elder brother, he said

The agency, officials said, is searching at least six locations in the desert state including at the premises of a former Congress MP, who is alleged to have business ties with Agrasain Gehlot.

They said the raids are being conducted by the central probe agency at 13 places in the country including Rajasthan, West Bengal (2), Gujarat (4) and Delhi (1).

The action came after the agency filed a criminal Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), ED equivalent of a police FIR, in a 2007-09 Customs department case of alleged irregularities in the supply of subsidised Muriate of Potash (MOP) to farmers and investigation in this case was finalised in 2013.

The ED complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been filed after studying the FIR and chargesheet filed by the Customs and its specialised probe arm Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), they said.

The raids are aimed to collect evidence in this scam case which is stated to be worth about Rs 60 crore, officials said.

Officials of the agency are carrying out the searches under the provision of the PMLA.

Sources alleged that Agrasain Gehlot and his company have been slapped with a Customs penalty of about Rs 7 crore in this alleged fertiliser supply scam.

The ED is also probing an alleged forex law violation case against a Jaipur-based businessman Ratan Kant Sharma, who is alleged to have had business ties with Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav in the past.

The Income Tax Department on July 13 had carried out multiple raids at over 40 premises of three Rajasthan-based business groups on tax evasion charges and officials had said it seized about Rs 12 crore cash and vital documents.

The premises linked to two state Congress leaders and a business group stated to be close to the top party leadership of Rajasthan were searched.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes had later said that "several incriminating evidences in the form of loose papers, diaries, digital data were found that indicate bullion trading in cash, investment of cash in properties among others."
Journalist, Vikram Joshi, succumbed to bullet injuries after being shot by miscreants near his residence in Vijay Nagar; investigation grips speed against a group of 9 men, as political reactions pour in from parties in the opposition.

Journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by unknown miscreants near his residence in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad on June 20, breathed his last at a hospital, doctors said on Wednesday.

The doctor monitoring Joshi said that the veins in the journalists head had got badly damaged due to the bullet injury.Meanwhile, the Station in-charge has been suspended and departmental inquiry initiated after the family of the journalist alleged inaction by the police.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government as goonda raj (rule by hooligans), hours after journalist Vikram Joshi succumbed to bullet injury he received from a group of men, who had allegedly harassed the scribes niece. Journalist Vikram Jashi was killed after he protested against the harassment against his niece. My condolence to the family. They promised Ram Raj, but gave Goondaraj, Gandhi tweeted.

                          ,     Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 22, 2020

Also read: Amarnath Yatra 2020 cancelled amid coronavirus crisis

Also read: Cong will be reduced to a party that only tweets: Prakash Javadekar slams Rahul Gandhi

Is it the same Ram Rajya that BJP promised after it came to power? This is complete Goondaraj. Neither journalist, nor those who protect the law are safe in UP, so how can the common man expect justice, tweeted his party colleague Randeep Surjewala.

     ,          ?     .                 ?        https://t.co/njaRlt49Jz  Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) July 22, 2020

Expressing his shock over the incident, party leader and lawyer Abhishek Singhvi said, Shocking jungle raj in #Ghaziabad area with journalist #Joshi, already known as the complainant in #FIR, being shot on a scooter while with his daughters, struggling in a coma with a bullet in the skull! Thank God daughters not hit. Shocking, scary, disgusting lack of fear of law & order! #UP.

Shocking jungle raaj in #Ghaziabad area with journalist #Joshi, already known as complainant in #FIR, being shot on scooter while with his daughters, struggling in coma with bullet in skull! Thank God daughters not hit. Shocking, scary, disgusting lack of fear of law & order! #UP  Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) July 22, 2020

Ajay Kumar Lallu, Congress president in the state added, The Ghaziabad incident has shocked the entire state. Its a tragic incident. Nobody is safe in Uttar Pradesh. If it is not jungle raj then what is. The government remains silent while criminals are becoming more active. While leaving home in the morning, people in the state worry whether they will be able to return in the evening or not.

In the meantime, the Station in-charge has been suspended and a departmental inquiry has been ordered after the journalists family accused the police of inaction. A total of nine accused have been taken into the custody, while efforts are on to nab another accused.

Also read: Over 23% Delhiites have Covid-19 antibodies: Sero-Survey

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PRESS RELEASE

July 22, 2020

New CEO appointed

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Allan JF Kristensen as CEO Frontmatec Group. Allan has extensive experience from various senior management positions working internationally within complex project sales, execution of large specialized technical engineering projects and building up aftermarket focused organisations in many different industrial segments. Key focus has been delivering high customer satisfaction, supported by skilled and motivated people. The last 20 years Allan has been with the Howden Group in various senior management position and is currently based in Singapore as CEO for Howden Asia.

I know Allan is looking forward to return to Denmark and is excited about the opportunity to be in charge of Frontmatec. He will have his base in Kolding.

Frontmatec has through a number of acquisitions created one of the strongest companies globally within equipment, software and service solutions for primary and secondary red meat processing. We are recognised as a leader in the field of automation. I am convinced Allan with his experience and knowledge will be a major force in driving Frontmatec further ahead and cementing our position in the market.

Allan will formally start his position as CEO with Frontmatec latest during December 2020.

I would like on behalf of us all in Frontmatec to wish Allan welcome.

Arne Vraalsen

Chairman Frontmatec Group

For further information, please contact:





Frontmatec:

Arne Vraalsen, Chairman

Tel.: +41 799 448 960

email: arne.vraalsen@mac.com





About Frontmatec

Frontmatec develops world-leading customized solutions for automation in the food industry, other hygiene sensitive industries and the utilities industry. We are especially renowned for our high-quality systems for the entire value chain in the meat industry  from hygiene systems to control systems, from carcass grading to harvest lines, from cutting and deboning lines to logistics and packaging. Frontmatec employs more than 1200 employees in 10 countries with a turnover of 250M EUR.

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When it comes to states rights, President Donald Trump is all over the map.

To battle the coronavirus, he has told states they are largely on their own. But when it comes to stamping out protests in cities led by Democrats, Trump is sending in federal troops and agents  even when local leaders are begging him to leave.

His is a driven-by-expedience approach that has been a hallmark of his stormy presidency, one that has little to do with ideology and more to do with re-election efforts.

After seeing Trump in the White House for three and a half years, anyone expecting to find classical ideological consistency is bound to be mistaken, Andrew J Polsky, a political science professor at Hunter College, told the Associated Press.

All of this is done for partisan political purposes with an eye toward the election.

For months now as he has tried to skirt responsibility for the nations flawed response to the coronavirus, Trump has put the onus on states, first to acquire protective gear and testing agents, and then to scale testing and contact tracing.

The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, were not a shipping clerk, Trump said in March when testing in the US severely lagged behind other countries and governors were pleading for help as they competed against one another on the open market.

Just a month later, Trump flipped to asserting vast executive authority as he pushed states to reopen their economies fast.





When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total, he declared in April, in an inaccurate interpretation of the constitution.

He quickly reversed course, saying he would leave reopening plans up to the states, but continued to threaten to intervene if he did not like what they were doing. Now, he is pressuring schools to fully reopen in September, saying he will pull funding from school districts that continue to keep kids home.

That approach contrasts with Trumps view of law and order, the mantle under which he has decided to run his 2020 race.

After National Guard troops were deployed to Washington, DC, to quell protests near the White House following the police killing of George Floyd, the Department of Homeland Security now has agents patrolling Portland, Oregon, to protect federal buildings, despite pleas from the mayor, governor and local activists to leave.

And the DHS is poised to deploy about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago to bolster local law enforcement, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Keep your troops in your own buildings, or have them leave our city, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said on Friday.

We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it, Trump tweeted in response. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE.

We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2020

Chad Wolf, the acting DHS secretary, whose agency was created after the September 11 attacks to protect the country from terrorist threats, said on Monday on Fox News the agency had every right to protect some 9,000 federal facilities across the country.

I dont need invitations by the state, state mayors or state governors to do our job, Wolf said. Were going to do that, whether they like us there or not.

But Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, said federal agents dressed in camouflage, indiscriminately using munitions and abducting people in unmarked vans have escalated tensions and made the situation worse.

What the federal agents are doing in Portland should concern people everywhere in the United States, she said. We know that the president is trying to change the narrative (and say) that cities like Portland are in crisis, that hes got to send in federal agents to bring about law and order, and that couldnt be further from the truth.

He wants to be a law-and-order president, she said. But he is not bringing law and order. This is lawlessness and needs to be stopped.

Federal law enforcement officers, deployed under the Trump administrations new executive order to protect federal monuments and buildings, face off with protesters against racial inequality in Portland, Oregon [Nathan Howard/Reuters]

Oregons two US senators and two of its House members have demanded US Attorney General William Barr and Wolf immediately withdraw these federal paramilitary forces from our state. And top leaders in the US House said on Sunday they have called on federal inspectors general to investigate.

Still, Jennifer Selin, an assistant professor of constitutional democracy at the University of Missouri whose work has focused, in part, on the separation of powers, said that, while Trump has been unusually blatant in his efforts, presidents have relied on politicised interpretations of federalism since George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion over taxes.

Selin pointed to the 1950s and 1960s as the country grappled with the extent to which it should be up to states to integrate schools and allocate housing.

I think that the short answer is that federalism can be used strategically and politically, which, to be 100 percent honest, is nothing new, she said.

Hunter Colleges Polsky said that, when it comes to the virus, Trump has attempted to displace responsibility for dealing with the pandemic onto states, onto governors. I dont think that was driven by ideology. I think that was driven by wanting to keep responsibility as far from him as possible.

But when it comes to law enforcement, Polsky sees an attempt to stoke unrest in sites that can then be broadcast on television, at least in the conservative and right-wing media to rouse the Republican base and scare suburban voters into believing a strong approach is needed.

Its selective federalism, added Julian Zelizer, an historian at Princeton University. I think obviously when it comes to closing and how to do reopening, he has been incredibly hands-off  he hasnt used his presidential hand in ways that he could have. And then you have protests in the city of Portland, which really shouldnt be a centre of discussion right now, and then you have these troops being sent.

Obviously with President Trump, theres no logic to it, Zelizer said  other than what may serve his political interests.
They are identical twin brothers; they married women who are also twins. Their wives became due for delivery almost at the same time a...





They are identical twin brothers; they married women who are also twins. Their wives became due for delivery almost at the same time and both gave birth to twin children as well five years ago, albeit, through cesarean section (CS) which was carried out on the women about 48 hours apart.





Any inquisitive individual would readily ask if it was some twin party or, at best, if both intentionally impregnated their wives at the same time, even when such an idea is scientifically counter-intuitive.





More is that the real picture is a bit different from what has been circulating on social media platforms. It is true that Saad and Saeed Yusuf, the twin brothers from Dutse LGA in Jigawa, tied the knot on August 30, 2014 and welcomed their beautiful sets of twins in June 2015.





While Saads wive gave birth to the adorable twin girls on June 15, that of Saeed delivered of the boys on June 17. In fact, both wives had to be delivered of their babies through surgery, with the mothers ripped open and their babies fetched.





The adorable children celebrated their 5th birthday in June 2020

Pictures of the brothers, however, went viral on different social media platforms on Monday, with speculations that they had recently welcomed the twins.





Reacting to the misleading online reports in a chat with TheCable Lifestyle, Saad, one of the fathers, said the twin children celebrated their 5th birthday last month.





Contrary to online reports, he added that there was a two-day interval between their births.





Saad also expressed disappointment that some popular social media figures had put out his personal story and pictures, spreading misconceptions without reaching out for consent.





I wonder why people change the format of a story without getting in touch with the persons involved. The thing is that were twins, and we gave birth to twins. Were both also married to twins. Reports that they were all born on the same date is wrong, Saad, who has fathered other children, explained.





Even if we would have wished they were all born on the same day, we cant change the destiny of such. We couldnt do that one. Because all the mothers underwent cesarean section.





Saad and Saeed Yusuf





There was a two-day space between the two twins. When people spoke of this on social media, they made it sound like it happened yesterday.





But it happened five years, one month ago. June 15 and 17, 2015. My wife gave birth to our twins on 17 while that of Saeed Yusuf was on 17. My twin brother and I got married to twins on the same date.





On whether they had planned to replicate their own story with the infants by ensuring they were given birth to on the same day, he dismissed such insinuation, saying women cant get pregnant at the same time on purpose.





I think it has to do with hereditary traits. Since then, weve given birth to younger children that are not even twins. Right now, were in Jigawa state, Saad told TheCable Lifestyle.





For CS, the condition states that, maybe the mother couldnt give birth by herself, they then get the consent of the father. We were all at the maternity at the same time, waiting.




Governor takes Phukets water woes to the Cabinet

PHUKET: Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew is to attend a meeting with a Cabinet committee today (July 22) to help gain momentum in resolving Phukets crippling water-supply situation.

Water-Supplyconstructiontourismenvironmentnatural-resourcesweather

By Tanyaluk Sakoot

Wednesday 22 July 2020, 12:40PM

Governor Narong is to attend a Cabinet committee meeting in Bangkok today in the hope of getting projects approved to resolve Phukets recurring water-shortage crises. Photo: PR Phuket

Last Friday [July 17], I went to see Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan to talk about the major issues of problems with water supply and flooding in Phuket so it can be raised with the Cabinet, Governor Narong told reporters at Phuket Governors House on Monday evening (July 20).

On Wednesday [July 22] I have to go join a meeting in Bangkok about these issues, to talk to a Cabinet committee about, for example, turning seawater into freshwater, the water-supply pipeline from Phang Nga dedicated to serving Phuket and the development of the Bang Neow Dum reservoir, he said.

Ironically, also to be tabled are strategies to prevent flooding on the island from heavy downpours during the rainy season.

The move to take the islands water-supply woes to the top follows Phuket Provincial Waterworks Authority (PWA) Chief Graisorn Mahamad confirming that no work has begun on the Phang Nga pipeline, considered a vital part of staving off future crises.

After this project was approved by Cabinet in September last year, some officials came to inspect sites in Phang Nga and Phuket where the project was to be carried out, but since then nothing has been done, Mr Graisorn previously explained to The Phuket News.

The project is bungled up in red tape, Mr Graisorn explained.

The water-supply pipeline project has not started any part of construction because it is still in the process of setting the terms of reference (TOR), which defines the purpose and structures of a project as well the cost of materials and equipment. These aspects of the project are under the responsibility of the Provincial Waterworks Authority main headquarters in Bangkok, he said.

Noting the importance of the islands water-supply needs for the tourism industry and the failure to get the project started, Kongsak Khongphongsakorn, President of the Thailand Hotels Association Southern chapter, has already sent a formal letter to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha requesting that the issue be given immediate attention.

I am worried about the delay in starting this project. Construction will take years. People need water every day, and we have less water in the main reservoirs and limited private water sources in Phuket, Mr Graisorn said.

Mr Kongsak agrees that the water-supply pipeline from Phang Nga is important for Phukets tourism development and urges that this project start as soon as possible.

The water-supply pipeline from Phang Nga is necessary for people who live here and for future tourists here. We need water to fill our reservoirs so we are ready for droughts in the future, he said.

Even without the usual number of tourists on the island due to the COVID-19 pandemic, by April this year the water level at the Bang Wad reservoir in Kathu  the islands main reservoir with a capacity of 10.6 million cubic metres of water  sank so low that an old shrine that had not been seen since the drought of 2002-3 became visible again. At that time, on Apr 18, Mr Graisorn confirmed the reservoir contains just 80,000 cubic metres of water.

Even heavy rains during the beginning of the rainy season this year did little to help.

PHANG NGA PIPELINE

Under the plan explained by Mr Graisorn to The Phuket News last year, the entire project is planned to be rolled out in two phases costing a budgeted B3,517,785,000, with Phase 1 alone costing B2.597bn.

Phase 1 will see a water-production station built to draw water from the Phang Nga Canal, which runs through Phang Nga Town.

This will purify water and be able to supply Phuket about 3,000 cubic metres per hour, Mr Graisorn noted, adding that the water will be dedicated to supplying Phuket only.

Phase 1A will see B846.266mn spent on building a water-producing station and a pump station in Phang Nga, and the beginning of water mains installation.

Phase 1B, costing B889.468mn, will see construction of a pump station building and pipe installation in Mai Khao, and Phase 1C will see B861.266mn spent on installing the water pump equipment, and more pipe installation, at the Mai Khao pump station.

The second phase of the project is expected to cost B920.785mn, with construction hoped to start in 2023, Mr Graisorn said.

Phase 2 will see water production in Phang Nga ramped up 5,000m3 per hour, he added.

UNDER PRESSURE

Last year, people in Phuket used about 80mn cubic metres of water, Governor Narong said on Monday.

About 60% of that supply came from the reservoirs, heavily depleting them, while the remaining 40% came from canals and private water sources, he said.

The rapid expansion of urban communities and the rising number of tourists to Phuket, which are expected to return in the years to come, have placed the islands water-supply reserves under increasing pressure, the Governor noted.

Also, the water use rate will increase by 12% per year. Predictions expect the water demand to increase to 112mn cubic meters per year by 2032, he added.

THREE SOLUTIONS

Governor Narong today is to propose three solutions.

First, is the consideration of building another desalination plant on the island. Phuket already has one desalination plant, just north of Karon. However, that plant was built as a test project and was always intended to only supplement water supply to the southern west coast tourist areas, namely Kata and karon, but now also feeds southern areas in Patong.

The project to produce freshwater from seawater is currently still in the study phase, but if completed it will increase water supply by 6.57mn cubic meters, Governor Narong explained.

Second, the water-supply pipeline from Phang Nga, if completed, will increase the volume of tap water produced by 49mn cubic meters, he added.

Also a long-term plan is the expansion of the Bang Neow Dum reservoir. If completed, the reservoir will be able to store 10mn cubic metres of water, Governor Narong explained.

The plan to expand Bang Neow Dum reservoirs current capacity from 7.2mn cubic metres was announced in April last year, but now also remains stalled by bureaucratic red tape, despite a request for a budget of only B20 million.

The delay has seen workers miss the opportunity to excavate earlier this year, when the island suffered its worst drought in over a decade, allowing workers easy access to carry out the works.

If these projects are moved on and the budgets are approved so they can be completed, then the islands water-shortage problems will be solved for the long term, and add to the islands sustainability, Governor Narong said.
Thiruvananthapuram, July 22 : The Kerala High Court on Wednesday declined to intervene in the gold smuggling case even as the National Investigation Agency probe now enters a crucial phase.

A division bench of the High Court refused to intervene by maintaining that the NIA should be allowed to move forward with its ongoin investigation.

Many are, meanwhile, waiting with bated breath to see if the huge political controversy over the case would rock the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala due to alleged heavy damage inflicted on its public image.

The first phase of the probe ended on Tuesday after the NIA probe team visited different parts of the state capital to collect evidence in the matter. It took along accused P.S. Sarith, Swapna Suresh, and Sandip Nair, all of whom are in the NIA custody.

According to those in the know of things, in the second phase of the investigation beginning on Wednesday, the NIA team will hold joint quizzing session with the three key accused. This is going to determine the future course of the probe, as till now the NIA has collected evidence in the form of forged documents and fake seals.

The NIA probe is categorised into two sections -- one to investigate the role played by the accused in the racket and the help they received from higher-ups. Secondly, the manner in which money was used by the end-users, comprising mostly middlemen who supply gold to jewellery shops. It's here that the NIA will look into the terror-funding aspect of the whole racket.

The NIA is also probing if the money generated by the gold smuggling racket reached the Malayalam film industry.

Meanwhile, the opposition clamour for Vijayan's scalp in the case continues to grow.

Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said: "His office is the epicentre of all the shady activities, including handing out consultancies and appointing people without qualifications and merit in key posts. By now, his free-for-all has come out in cases like Sprinklr, Bev Q app, illegal sand mining deals etc. No matter how much he tries to defend himself in the gold smuggling case, he just cannot wash his hands off since the involvement of his office is now out in the open." The Communist Party of India -- the second biggest ally in the ruling LDF alliance -- has also taken potshots against the way things are turning out. State CPI Secretary Kanam Rajendran said: "Not always will the graph of the government go high." The biggest setback for Vijayan is the flak on the social media. All his previous statements on the need for upholding probity in public life are being played out, when he went hammer and tongs against then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy ( 2011-16) in the 'solar scam'.

The CPI-M central committee will take up this issue at its meeting later this week and also at the Left Democratic Front's special meeting here next week.

The big question nowadays many in Kerala are asking is -- Why is what all he spoke against Chandy not applicable to him?

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Press Release

Boulogne-Billancourt, 22 July 2020

Completion of the acquisition by Kokusai Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd ("KPP") of all Antalis shares formerly held by Sequana and Bpifrance Participations

New financing structure for Antalis

KPP's proposed friendly simplified cash tender offer

Change in Antalis' governance

Change of control and new financing structure

Antalis has been informed of the completion of the acquisition by KPP on 21 July 2020 of all Antalis shares held by Sequana at a price of 0.10 euros per share, and of all Antalis shares held by Bpifrance Participations at a price of 0.40 euros per share, representing 83.7% of the share capital of Antalis (based on a share capital of 71,000,000 shares). As a result, KPP has become Antalis' new majority shareholder with 59,460,094 shares.

It should be noted that simultaneously and inseparable from the acquisition, a restructuring agreement for the refinancing of 100 million euros of the outstanding facility amount through a new financing granted by Mizuho Bank, together with a write-off for the remaining amount, was concluded with Antalis' former lenders.

Antalis will also benefit from an intra-group loan of 80 million euros from KPP and potential complementary financing from other Japanese banks, enabling Antalis to pursue its strategic development through internal and external growth. In addition, Antalis will maintain its existing factoring programmes.

Simplified cash tender offer - Mandatory squeeze-out

In accordance with the provisions of Articles 233-1 and 234-2 of the AMF's General Regulation, KPP will file a simplified cash tender offer at a price of 0.73 euros per share (the "Offer") with the Autorite des marches financiers (AMF) for all Antalis shares not currently held by it, i.e. 11,039,964 shares.

In addition, KPP has announced its intention to request the implementation of a squeeze-out procedure at the same price as the Offer, if the conditions provided for by law and regulations are met.

Finally, Antalis' Board of Directors met on 21 July 2020, in its composition existing prior to the proposed KPP directors joining Antalis, to issue a reasoned opinion on the proposed Offer. After having consulted its Ad Hoc Committee and reviewed the report by Finexsi, appointed as independent expert, Antalis' Board of Directors considered that the Offer represented an opportunity for Antalis shareholders to sell their shares at a price significantly higher than that offered by KPP to Sequana and Bpifrance Participations in connection with the sale of control of Antalis.

The Board of Directors therefore unanimously decided to issue a favourable opinion on the Offer, which is in the interest of Antalis, its employees and shareholders, and recommended that Antalis shareholders tender their shares to the Offer. This reasoned opinion will be reproduced in full in Antalis' draft reply document, which will be the subject of a separate press release in accordance with Article 231-26, II of the AMF's General Regulation.

It is specified that the Ad Hoc Committee put in place by the Board of Directors on 5 March 2020 for the purpose of appointing and monitoring the work of the independent expert, was dissolved following the completion of its mission as evidenced by the adoption of the reasoned opinion of the Board of Directors.

Governance

In accordance with the terms of the Offer, Antalis' Board of Directors, at its meeting of 21 July 2020, decided to modify its composition following the adoption of the reasoned opinion reflecting the change of control.

Mr. Pascal Lebard, Chairman of the Board, Mrs. Cecile Helme-Guizon and Mr. Bruno Basuyaux have resigned from their positions as Directors.

Mr. Madoka Tanabe, Mr. Yasuyuki Sakata and Mr. Shojiro Adachi, proposed by KPP, were co-opted by the Board of Directors in accordance with Article L. 225-24 of the French Commercial Code, with Mr. Madoka Tanabe appointed as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Antalis' Board of Directors is now composed of the following eight members:

Mr. Madoka Tanabe, newly appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors;

Mr. Herve Poncin, Chief Executive Officer and Director;

Mrs. Clare Chatfield, Director (independent);

Mrs. Delphine Drouets, Director (independent);

Mrs. Christine Mondollot, Director (independent);

Mr. Yasuyuki Sakata, Director, newly appointed;

Mr. Shojiro Adachi, Director, newly appointed; and

Mr. Frederic Richard, Director representing employees.

Herve Poncin, Chief Executive Officer of Antalis, said:

"Antalis, its management and its teams are delighted with this transaction with KPP, which will enable Antalis to write a new page in its international development by benefiting from new resources to strengthen its positions in its various markets and ensure its development. It opens new opportunities for its clients and suppliers with a world-class business partner."

Pascal Lebard, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Antalis, said:

"After a long search and several discussions with potential partners, the backing by KPP, an industrial and strategic partner, enables Antalis to ensure its long-term financial structure and future development. I am delighted, together with the Board of Directors, with this successful outcome in the interests of the company, its shareholders and its teams, and wishes Antalis every success in this new phase of its history."

About Antalis

Antalis (Euronext Paris: ANTA) is the leader in B2B distribution of Papers (number 1 worldwide outside the United States) and industrial Packaging, and number two in the distribution of Visual Communication media in Europe. In 2019, the Group reported sales of 2.1 billion and employed 4,700 people serving over 115,000 customers, companies and printers in 39 countries. Through its 117 distribution centres, Antalis makes around 11,000 deliveries per day worldwide and it distributed 1.1 million tons of paper in 2019.

Analysts & Investors Contact

Steve McCue

+33 (0)1 58 04 21 00

contact@antalis.com

www.antalis.com

Media Contact

Image Sept

Claire Doligez

+33 (0)1 53 70 74 25

cdoligez@image7.fr

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Solano County, California has a really big problem brewing and I think most people have no idea. It's a problem that could be both an economic and environmental catastrophe, not just locally, but regionally. The environmental implications potentially have global impact.While I lived there many years ago, I was a part-time college student and I wanted to be an urban planner. In hopes of preparing for a career in planning, I used the existing county rail plan as a focus of my studies.Every time a class asked me to pick a real world issue to analyze or write a paper about or do some kind of work on it, I would pick some element of the county rail plan to examine. Over the course of several classes, this eventually was developed into a presentation At the time that I began my research, there was only one Amtrak station in Solano County. It was part of the Capitol Corridor Route . This route connects the state capital, Sacramento, to San Francisco and Solano County had the largest stretch of rail on that route with no stations.There were existing plans to build three more rail stations to fill in the gaps in Solano County. Unfortunately, the process used to pick the intended sites for new stations was not a sound process.Instead of having some organization analyze the county as a whole for where those stations should go, the local cities got together at a meeting and divied up the pie politically. Only after that was done did they hire a consultatnt to pick specific sites to serve each city in question.The consultant did what they were paid to do. They weren't paid to analyze the county as a whole and pick which cities should get a site and they no doubt knew which side their bread was buttered on. The resulting plan has serious flaws.For starters, Travis Air Force Base (AFB) had no representation at the meeting where the pie was divided politically. It had no representation because it is not a city, so it likely was not invited at all.The problem is that it is the single largest employer in the county to the tune of more than a billion dollars annually and the resulting rail plan could encourage the federal government to move Travis elsewhere. The federal government toys with the idea of relocating it periodically anyway simply because its function could be served from almost anywhere on the West Coast and almost anywhere else would be cheaper than the San Francisco Bay Area.The issue with the rail plan is encroachment on the base. This is a security issue for military facilities and is a factor in deciding which bases to close and which bases to keep.The primary environmental concern is the decision to give one of the stations to Benicia even though there is no good place to put a station. The station would be located in a protected wetland that is an important bird sanctuary and a critical part of the Pacific Flyway. So it impacts bird migrations over a very long distance in both North and South America. This is not just a local issue.There are some other issues with the plan as well. For example, the site chosen for Benicia will not ever have much development around it because it is protected wetlands and the station is likely to slowly sink into the marsh, like Venice. The chosen sites do a generally poor job of serving the existing population centers, so are unlikely to have good ridership.In the years since I did the research, one of the three planned stations had its grand opening in April 2018 . Although millions of dollars were spent, this station is a threat to Travis AFB, so it is a threat to more than a billion dollars annually in local revenue. So I think it would make sense to shut it down and go with the sites my analysis suggest are generally superior to the existing plan.I am not politically savvy, I no longer live in California and I have no idea how to go about promoting the idea that there is an alternate plan and this alternate plan is based on better metrics, like ridership, protecting Travis AFB and protecting critical habitat. Yet I remain convinced the plan I developed is a better plan and I remain concerned about the consequences of implementing the existing rail plan for the county.Writing words on the internet is something I know a little about. So here I am, returning to my old habits, as it were.
When Stephanie Eldridge joins a Zoom call with eight or nine other moms, its like a breath of fresh air in the middle of a never-ending day.

The computer screen lights up with their faces; some have tired eyes because a baby kept them awake all night while others are fixing kids a snack, while eating a few bites themselves.

Eldridge feels safe to leave her 9-year-old son and two daughters (ages 2 and 4) to their own devices, so she can log in for an hour of much-needed virtual support from the new Menninger Moms Program.

Moms can disappear into the background and go unnoticed, said Eldridge, 30. As a mom, we have to be so malleable and flexible. But I think deep down, I would want to be a in a group. Being seen and heard is something that is so important.

In the middle of a global pandemic, Eldridge and her family of five moved to Houston from Louisiana.

Eldridge, who is a registered nurse, chose to stay at home in a long-term rental with her children during the transition. In the last few months, she has had to act as mother, teacher, spouse, real estate agent and recreational activities coordinator.

With two girls and a boy, theyre all so different but its a lot of fun, too, Eldridge said. Its very challenging, and sometimes I cant wait for them to go to bed. You learn to enjoy the pocket moments and value quality over quantity.

Eldridge wants to help her kids start their lives in a new city, cope with COVID-induced boredom and handle the prospect of starting the school year at home. But she also needs help herself.

Last month, Eldridge joined the moms program, a virtual support group offered by The Menninger Clinic that focuses on mental and physical wellness for moms with children of varying ages. The group works as therapeutic relief through conversation and acts as a space for moms to trade practical advice, like the best school districts or good pediatricians.

For the first time, Im able to ask OK guys, what do I do in this situation? How do I help my kids through this move and cope through a pandemic? she said. I feel like I can actually do this with the support of this crew.

Support groups and therapy sessions have historically been an in-person experience; the face-to-face interaction helps people identify with each other and learn to trust others who arent yet family or friends.

Social distancing due to the coronavirus means many therapy appointments and sessions have gone virtual through video conferencing and other means.

But the moms group started virtually, and it may stay that way even after its safe to congregate in person again, said Dr. Jessica Rohr, psychologist at The Menninger Clinic.

On HoustonChronicle.com: The pandemic has tripled the number of people who say theyre lonely. But theres hope.

Rohr, who is also a mother, said the pandemic has shed light on a real need for moms to have access to more virtual services. The program is currently split into free or paid group educational sessions, which last eight weeks.

If you ask a mom who is already overwhelmed because shes working full-time, in or out of the house, to then drive an hour in traffic to go to therapy, she will likely say Im OK not doing self-care today, Rohr said. We have an individualistic culture where moms feel like they have to do it themselves, and these inequities have been amplified during the pandemic.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one-in-10 women reported symptoms that suggest they experienced a major depressive episode in the last year.

Research also shows that one out of eight women experience symptoms of postpartum depression after giving birth.

Eldridge experienced postpartum depression after the birth of all three of her children, and she didnt have much support with the first two. She had to learn how to cope mostly on her own, she said.

With my third one, Ive had more support and its made a world of difference as far as feeling stronger. Ive been able to bond and connect with my children better, Eldridge said. When I sought therapy, it was so nice to be heard for the first time and talk about something that I felt was shameful and a little bit taboo.

No diagnosis is necessary to participate in Menningers moms group, which focuses on prevention rather than treatment.

Dr. Elisabeth Netherton, clinic psychiatrist, said moms are describing anxiety and depression surrounding one main issue: How do I keep myself and my family safe, fed and entertained?

We know of the burden being carried by women and mothers, especially minority mothers and mothers from the LGBTQ community, Netherton said. Theyre navigating concerns about sending their kids back-to-school, how to stay connected with family, too. But the isolation is a piece that is a true challenge for many moms, especially new ones.

On HoustonChronicle.com: How a son saved his dad's life through a rare liver donation

Before the advent of social distancing, the number of Americans struggling with feelings of loneliness had tripled, according to an online survey conducted by Womens Health Interactive. According to the survey, women are lonelier than men, and those living with children saw the largest increase in loneliness.

Mothers of school-age children are feeling higher levels of depression and anxiety due to increased isolation from their adult peers and the drastic changes for their families due to COVID, Netherton said.

The pandemic is exposing a fallacy that only new mothers struggle with depression, Netherton said. Society assumes that moms with older children have it under control, but working-from-home and remote education has revealed the cracks in many home-lives, she added.

Moms are not getting the social support of their peers, so getting them to a support groups like this is an opportunity to talk to others moms. They can complain, but not feel bad about it, Rohr said. Its the ability to be with like-minded people.

Each week, about 10 moms from across Texas log in for the group sessions. Rohr said it feels good to provide a free service in times of widespread mental distress.

Eldridges son will turn 10 in September. She expects the virus will still be a problem then, and she needs ideas of what to do for her boys special day so it wont be so lonely. He hasnt had a chance to make new friends in Houston yet.

Im already thinking about his birthday, and I cant wait to go to my moms group and ask them what they have done and how can I make it special for him, she said. Maybe they can bring their kids and do a drive-by, and he can make friends that way.

julie.garcia@chron.com

Twitter.com/reporterjulie

Renew Houston: Get the latest wellness news delivered to your inbox
Tesla chooses Texas for new Cybertruck factory FILE PHOTO: The Tesla logo is seen on a car in Los Angeles

(Reuters) - Tesla will build its $1.1 billion Cybertruck factory near Austin, Texas, ending an intense competition with neighboring Oklahoma, the electric carmaker's chief executive, Elon Musk, announced late on Wednesday.

The 2,000-acre site on the Colorado River is about 13 minutes from downtown Austin, Musk said during Tesla's second-quarter earnings call.

"It's going to be an ecological paradise ... open to the public," he said.

Musk said Tesla would consider site runner-up Tulsa, Oklahoma, for future production.

Musk and his team met earlier this month with officials in both states, which were competing to land the plant.

Tesla's new Cybertruck and its heavy-duty Semi truck, as well as the Model 3 and Model Y cars for eastern North America, will be built at the Texas plant, Musk said Wednesday.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott welcomed the news. "Tesla is one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world, and we are proud to welcome its team to the State of Texas," he said in a statement.

Oklahoma's secretary of commerce, Sean Kouplen, in a statement said the state would actively pursue Tesla's supplier base to persuade them to locate in Oklahoma.

Both states offered hefty incentive packages, including tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks, in efforts to woo what is now the world's most valuable automaker, as measured by stock market capitalization.

Tesla told Texas officials the plant would create at least 5,000 jobs, while Oklahoma officials were told about the creation of at least 7,000 jobs in the near term and up to 20,000 positions down the line.

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler)
After lengthy review and expert consultation, the organization has developed a multi-phase, dual ROV, non-evasive method to safely excavate and investigate the Marconi Radio. This new tooling and methodology will allow us to expose the key components in their current resting state and determine if safe extraction and recovery is possible. This unique dual ROV ladder deployment system on the Titan manipulators will allow non-evasive entry to areas of interest without wreck disturbance. Each ROV will be equipped with their respective tooling to first dredge and clean the area for a thorough investigation. Components approved safe for extraction will be gently removed using both ROV's and collected to salvage baskets for safe recovery to the surface. The organization has also released additional imagery of the custom deep-sea tools that will be used to recover the Marconi.

Originally scheduled to occur this summer, the expedition has been moved to 2021 to abide by ongoing travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The safety of our crew, ports where we conduct business and foremost the care of the artifacts is our top priority," states Bretton Hunchak, President of RMS Titanic, Inc. "Given the ongoing pandemic, current travel restrictions and the changing landscape, we have no choice but to move this important expedition. We will continue to refine our strategies and further our outreach to the community so that all can enjoy this historic moment. We look forward to 2021 and conducting this expedition with our partners and the world."

"We appreciate the flexibility and understanding of our partnerships, including that of Magellan Limited and Managing Director Richard Parkinson, who have worked tirelessly with our team to help determine the best course of action with thoughtful and resourceful solutions," continues Hunchak.

"It's been a pleasure working with RMS Titanic and applying Magellan's expansive skill, equipment and experience in ultra-deep-water. We are particularly proud that our company, headquartered out of St. Peter Port, Guernsey, has been chosen to play an instrumental role in a project of such global significance," states Richard Parkinson, Managing Director of Magellan Limited.

THE LAST CRIES OF THE MARCONI

On April 14th, 1912, the day before Titanic sank, the Ship's emergency Marconi radio had lost its voice. According to the Marconi Company protocol, its radio operators aboard the ship were directed to leave the fragile system for professionals to repair once they reached port. However, onboard Marconi radio operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, decided to ignore protocol and worked for hours to nurse the wounded system back to health, giving the Ship back its far-reaching voice, the only source of communication to the outside world - just hours before they struck the iceberg that would eventually pull their Ship into the sea and leave over 700 men, women, and children stranded in lifeboats desperate for rescue. Just minutes after Titanic fatally struck the iceberg that day, the Marconi's voice was heard screaming out loud over the frigid sea, calling for help to all who would listen. Within 17 minutes, the SS Carpathia had heard the Marconi's call, reversed course, full steam ahead to the aid of the sinking ship. But with the SS Carpathia nearly four hours away, the Marconi continued in its desperate cry for help. Even when the system's 25-year-old chief operator, Jack Phillips, had been relieved from his post and could have survived like his co-worker Harold Bride, he instead heroically stayed with the Marconi, calling out for help on behalf of the ship's survivors until the power failed three minutes before the ship plunged into the icy depths.

About Experiential Media Group, LLC/ RMS Titanic, Inc.

RMS Titanic, Inc. (RMST), a subsidiary of Premier Acquisition Holdings, LLC and an

ffiliate of Experiential Media Group, LLC serves as the exclusive steward of RMS Titanic which tragically sank on April 15, 1912. The Company is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Ship, wreck site and all her passengers and crew. Since 1987, RMST has honorably conducted eight research expeditions to the wreck of RMS Titanic exclusively recovering and conserving more than 5,500 artifacts. Utilizing these recovered objects in concert with scientific data and historical research, RMST brings to the general public the celebrated and moving experience Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, currently open in Las Vegas, Orlando, Arizona and soon at La Cite de la Mer in Cherbourg, France. RMST is committed to engaging the global community in RMS Titanic 's story at www.emgroup.com.

#Titanic #RMSTITANIC #MAGELLAN #DIVE2021 #Marconi

Imagery Captions:

The following images shows RMS Titanic, Inc.'s Marconi extraction plan which includes a multi-phase, non-evasive method to safely investigate and remove the Marconi Radio. The new tooling and methodology allow the opportunity to view components in their current resting state and determine if safe excavation and recovery is possible. Once that is determined, components will be gently removed and collected to salvage baskets for safe recovery to the surface. Credit: RMS Titanic, Inc. and Magellan Limited.

Media Contact:

Katherine Seymour

Chief Marketing Officer

[email protected]

SOURCE RMS Titanic, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.emgroup.com


Germany's embattled DTM series may need to adopt GT3 regulations in order to survive.

That is the admission of F1 legend Gerhard Berger, who is now boss of the German touring car series that will be down to just a single manufacturer in 2021 after Audi's withdrawal.

There are even rumours that BMW - the last manufacturer in DTM - could pull out.

"If no German manufacturer is ready to support this series, things will get tight," Berger told Servus TV. "With this corona situation we have a lot of headwind."

One solution, he admits, is the adoption of GT3 regulations.

"If we as ITR want to continue it, we have to do GT3," said Berger. "It's the only technical regulation that involves a lot of manufacturers. Going to GT3 is obvious."

(GMM)
Construction of the long-awaited Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system is set to begin next month after Chinese firm Stecol Corporation secured a Sh5.6 billion tender.

The Ministry of Transport and Public Works awarded the multi-billion shilling contract last week, paving the way for the construction of special lanes for high-capacity buses through the Nairobi city centre and Thika highway.

We signed the contract last week and the contractor is mobilising to commence next month for the first phase covering the corridor from Clayworks to Haile Selassie and then to Kenyatta National Hospital. That should be done after eight months, Housing and Urban Development Principal Secretary Charles Hinga told the Business Daily.

The daily reports that Stecol Corporation will begin by demarcating sections of Thika highway to be remodelled to accommodate support facilities such as of boarding stations and footbridges.

The existing footbridges on Thika highway will guide the placement of the initial stations for the BRT system.

A major park-and-ride terminus will be put up at Kasarani to allow private vehicle users to leave their cars and proceed to town with the BRT.

The PS said the BRT project would involve dedicating the two innermost lanes of the highway to special high-capacity buses and erecting boarding ramps to ease access to the buses.

It will comprise 100 buses that will be run by private operators but regulated by the Nairobi Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (NaMATA).
Two Chinese nationals have been indicted for seeking to steal COVID-19 vaccine research and hacking hundreds of companies in the United States and abroad, including defense contractors, the US Justice Department said Tuesday. Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, also targeted human rights activists in the United States, China and Hong Kong, Assistant Attorney General John Demers said. The indictment comes amid rising tensions between the global superpowers fueled by the coronavirus pandemic which President Donald Trump blames on China. Li and Dong, who are believed to be in China, acted in some instances "for their own personal gain" and in others for the benefit of China's Ministry of State Security, Demers said at a news conference. "China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran, and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals," Demers said. The Justice Department said Li and Dong, who were classmates at an electrical engineering college in Chengdu, have been engaged in a computer hacking campaign for the past 10 years. They have targeted companies in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and Britain, it said. "Targeted industries included, among others, high tech manufacturing; medical device, civil, and industrial engineering; business, educational, and gaming software; solar energy; pharmaceuticals; defense," it said. "More recently, the defendants probed for vulnerabilities in computer networks of companies developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments," it said. Justice Department officials said that Li and Dong targeted biotech companies in California, Maryland, Massachusetts and elsewhere but did not appear to have actually compromised any COVID-19 research. - Dissidents targeted - The Justice Department said they also targeted "non-governmental organizations, and individual dissidents, clergy, and democratic and human rights activists in the United States and abroad, including Hong Kong and China." According to the indictment, Li and Dong supplied the Ministry of State Security with passwords for personal email accounts belonging to Chinese dissidents, a Hong Kong community organizer, the pastor of a Christian church in Xian and a former Tiananmen Square protestor. Among the material allegedly stolen were emails between a dissident and the Dalai Lama's office. The pair were accused of stealing source code from software companies, information about drugs under development from pharmaceutical firms and weapons designs and testing data from defense contractors. Targeted foreign companies were not identified by name. But according to the indictment they included a Dutch electronics firm, a Swedish gaming company, a Lithuanian gaming company, a German software engineering firm, a Belgian engineering software company, an Australian defense contractor, a South Korean shipbuilding firm, a Spanish electronics and defense firm and a British artificial intelligence and cancer research company. Li and Dong allegedly stole information from defense contractors regarding military satellite programs, military wireless networks and communications systems and microwave and laser systems. The indictment was returned by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Washington state on July 7 but was only unsealed on Tuesday. Li and Dong were charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, wire fraud, unauthorized access of a computer and identity theft. China accused the United States last month of smearing Beijing following allegations that Chinese hackers were attempting to steal coronavirus research. The claims exacerbated tensions between the two countries, which have traded barbs over the origin of the pandemic that has killed more than 600,000 people since it emerged in China late last year. "China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to such smearing," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said. "Judging from past records, the US has carried out the largest cybertheft operations worldwide," Zhao said.
The consulate was notified of the order early Tuesday, according to a former senior U.S. official with knowledge of the situation. U.S. agents monitoring the consulate observed personnel going to a Home Depot to buy barrels, which they used to burn documents, the former official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matters sensitivity.
Print editions have taken significant hits at newspapers and magazines across the world as financial setbacks caused by covid-19 rip through newsrooms. As part of the Journalism Crisis Project, the Tow Center continues to tabulate an increasingly grim number of cutbacks in the field; reduced, suspended, or aborted print runs make up a notable portion of the list. Tow found that more than a hundred outlets scaled down their print production since the beginning of the pandemic. Many of these publications announced a suspension of print publishingnoting temporary economic constraints or logistical limitations. Others altered their print run from daily to weekly, or consolidated sections in the print edition. Some outlets announced their intention to stop print production entirely.

Last week, The Guardian laid off 180 staffers70 in editorial positions. In addition to the layoffs, the Press Gazette reported that several sections of The Guardians Saturday print edition would be cut to save costs: The Reviewa culture and literature section; The Guidea television, music, and arts section; The Weekenda section focused on features; and the travel section. Choices made during a crisis are difficult, but indicate certain priorities.

In a memo to staff, Guardian editor in chief Katharine Viner wrote, We propose reducing some aspects of sport and lifestyle journalism, and we are also proposing a reorganisation in the ways we produce our journalism so that our editorial processes are truly digital-first, Telegraph reporter Chris Williams noted on Twitter.

Joshua Benton reported for Nieman Lab last week that, in Wyoming, the last true daily newspaper, the Casper Star-Tribune, stopped printing seven days a week, eliminating its Monday and Tuesday editions. The subhead of the piece announced that It could be the first time a U.S. state will publish no newspapers on Monday morningsever. The president of the Star-Tribune said that the papers decision to cut a day of print reflected changes in readers news consumption, stating, This is a shift many news organizations are making as more and more readers already consume their news online.

Still, there are some readers who depend on print. As recently as 2016, the Pew Research Center reported that around half of newspaper readers relied exclusively on the print edition. Last month, ABC News in Australia reported that News Corps decision to end print production at a number of Australian newspapers left older readers feeling isolated and underinformed.

As business models and consumer habits continue to change, journalism outlets wrestle to balance business interests, accessibility, and keeping up with a changing worldand choices made during a crisis will ripple into the future.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

The Journalism Crisis Project aims to train our focus on the present crisis, tallying lost jobs and outlets and fostering a conversation about what comes next. We hope youll join us (click to subscribe).

CONTRIBUTE TO OUR DATABASE: If youre aware of a newsroom experiencing layoffs, cutbacks, furloughs, print reductions, or any fundamental change as a result of covid-19, let us know by submitting information here. (Personal information will be kept secure by the Tow Center and will not be shared.)

Below, more on recent changes in newsrooms across the world:

JOURNALISM JOBS AND OPPORTUNITIES: MediaGazer has been maintaining a list of media companies that are currently hiring. You can find it here. The Deez Links newsletter, in partnership with Study Hall, offers media classifieds for both job seekers (at no cost) and job providers. The Ida B. Wells Society announced that its micro-loan program for journalists would no longer require recipients to repay their loansyou can apply here and donate here.





A previous version of this newsletter misidentified the Gainesville Daily Register as the Gainesville Daily News.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Lauren Harris is a freelance journalist. She writes CJR's weekly newsletter for the Journalism Crisis Project. Follow her on Twitter @LHarrisWrites.
Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa pleaded not guilty on her 5th tax case before a Pasig Regional Trial Court on Wednesday, July 22. The International Federation Journalists (IFJ) together with South East Asia Journalist Unions (SEAJU) calls the authorities in the Philippines to drop all cases against Maria Ressa and Rappler.

Ressa and Rappler as well as the newsrooms directors and a former researcher are facing at least seven cases as of January 30, 2020. Ressa has been accused for a slew charges, including fraud and tax evasion. She was arrested twice and has posted bail eight times in a three month period. The total number of cases were dropped after a Pasig trial court judge in October 2019 ordered a reinvestigation of the two cases citing that the cases were filed in due haste. In November 2019, a Quezon city prosecutor has dismissed libel complaint against Ressa and reporter Rambo Talabong due to a lack of probable cause.

On June 15, Ressa and former Rappler researcher-writer Rey Santos Jr were convicted by judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa in the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC), sentencing Ressa and Santos to jail. The tax-related charges are connected to alleged foreign media ownership breaches designed to shut Rappler down. Together with the criminal libel conviction, which is currently under appeal, and a second pending libel action, convictions in all these cases could theoretically lead to a century in jail for Ressa.

The ongoing cases against Ressa and Rappler are endangering press freedom in the country. Authorities are using its powers to silence the media. Two weeks ago, the Philippines House of Representatives committee voted to deny the renewal of ABS-CBNs broadcasting franchise. The continued threats against press freedom have sparked global outcry. IFJ is a part of the #HoldTheLine Coalition which demands the Philippines authorities drop a barrage of bogus tax and foreign ownership cases against Ressa and Rappler.

SEAJU said:This is nothing but the continuation of the state's persecution of the independent media, as it did with ABS-CBN, as it seeks to silence criticism and dissent.

The IFJ said: The governments stern action will decrease transparency, ultimately endangering society amid the global pandemic when access to independent and timely information is vital. The IFJ urges the government of the Philippines to review the directive, drop all charges and acknowledge the importance of press freedom, accurate reporting and the publics right to know.
(Alliance News) - Ireland's government has released its "green list" of countries for safe travel, with Italy and Greece included but the UK a notable omission.

People arriving from Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco and San Marino will not be required to isolate for two weeks.

Others arriving from overseas a with limited exceptions such as essential supply chain workers a are required to fill in a passenger locator form and self-quarantine for 14 days.

People crossing the border from Northern Ireland are not subject to restrictions on their movement.

The UK was expected to be excluded, as only countries with a coronavirus infection rate the same or lower than Ireland were allowed on the list. Holiday destinations such as France, Spain and Portugal also have been omitted.

The Dublin government said in a statement following a Cabinet meeting it would "continue with plans to strengthen the existing measures for monitoring passengers who arrive into Ireland, including the introduction of an Electronic Passenger Locator Form, enhanced follow-up procedures, a call centre operated by the DAA, and a proposed testing regime for symptomatic passengers at airports and ports".

It added it would consider processes to restrict flights "in certain circumstances".

"The pandemic is not over and the public health advice remains the same. The safest thing to do is not to travel," the government statement said.

The list was labelled as confusing by opposition parties prior to its release.

Roisin Shortall, the Social Democrats co-leader, said that the "big weakness" in Ireland's pandemic response is the failure to control the importation of the virus from abroad.

She said: "The promised announcement of the green list for countries considered as safe, while at the same time advising against all non-essential travel is inherently contradictory.

"But of much more concern is the government's ambiguity about travel from countries that are not on the green list.

"Not only has the government operated a self-isolate policy which has been largely unenforceable over recent months, but inexplicably in the last few weeks the travel advice has actually changed and weakened for those countries.

"Incoming travellers are now advised to merely restrict their movements.

"This poses a huge risk to our health, the lives of our vulnerable and to our economy."

The agriculture minister, however, has said the government is not scared to make tough calls to prioritise public health.

Dara Calleary said pushing back the reopening date for all pubs demonstrated that ministers would not baulk at taking unpopular decisions in order to suppress Covid-19.

Meanwhile, coronavirus outbreaks are happening in construction, fast food and supermarket workplaces, Ireland's acting chief medical officer warned on Monday night.

Ronan Glynn said people cannot underestimate how quickly clusters develop.

The health system has been notified of 36 new confirmed cases, bringing the overall tally to 25,802 on Tuesday night.

No more deaths have been recorded.

source: PA

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
RTHK: Philippine journalist pleads not guilty in tax case

Embattled Philippine journalist Maria Ressa pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to tax evasion, as President Rodrigo Duterte's government faced growing calls to drop all charges against the veteran reporter.

Ressa, 56, and her news site Rappler have been the target of a series of criminal charges and probes after publishing stories critical of Duterte's policies, including his drug war that has killed thousands.

The award-winning former CNN journalist is on bail pending an appeal against a cyber libel conviction last month for which she faces up to six years in jail.

Ex-Rappler journalist Reynaldo Santos was also found guilty in that case.

In a video posted on Twitter, Ressa said she pleaded not guilty to tax evasion -- one of five tax-related charges she faces  in the capital Manila.

Her application to quash the charge was rejected by the judge, she said.

Ressa, who is also a US citizen, is accused of providing incorrect information for a company tax return involving nearly 300,000 pesos in 2015, Rappler reported.

"We'll fight every step of the way because we will hold the line," Ressa said defiantly in the video. "I'm not going to voluntarily give up my rights."

Ressa posted on Twitter selfies of herself and her lawyer, both wearing face masks and shields, at the court.

Rights groups and press advocates say the charges against Ressa and Rappler, and a government move to strip the news site of its licence, amount to state harassment.

Earlier this month Duterte signed an anti-terrorism law that many fear will be used to silence dissent and threaten press freedoms.

Fellow alumni and staff from Princeton University took out a full page ad in The Washington Post on Tuesday calling on US President Donald Trump's administration to "exercise its influence" to convince the Duterte government to drop all the charges against Ressa, Santos and Rappler.

"Presidents throughout the history of the United States have used their leverage against authoritarian governments that violate the rights of US citizens abroad; the current administration should do the same," the open letter said.

An online petition launched by international press groups in support of Ressa and Philippine media has received more than 10,000 signatures so far.

But the pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears. Earlier this month Duterte called Ressa a "fraud". (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A Chinese-made vaccine against the new coronavirus entered the final stage of testing Tuesday in Brazil, where volunteers received the first doses of what officials hope will be a game-changer in the global pandemic.

The vaccine, developed by private Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech, became the third in the world to enter Phase 3 clinical trials, or large-scale testing on humans -- the last step before regulatory approval.

"We're living in unique and historic times, and that's why I wanted to be part of this trial," said the 27-year-old doctor who received the first dose at the Clinical Hospital of Sao Paulo.

Her name was withheld for confidentiality.

Around 9,000 health workers across six Brazilian states will receive the vaccine, known as CoronaVac, in two doses over the next three months under the study.

Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria said Monday initial results were expected within 90 days.

Sinovac is partnering with a Brazilian public health research center, the Butantan Institute, on the trials.

If the vaccine proves safe and effective, the institute will have the right to produce 120 million doses under the deal, according to officials.

Brazil is the second-hardest-hit country in the coronavirus pandemic, after the United States.

Its death toll surpassed 80,000 Monday, and it has registered 2.1 million infections.

Because the virus is still spreading quickly in the South American country, it is seen as an ideal testing ground for vaccine candidates.

Brazil is also helping carry out Phase 3 testing of another experimental vaccine, developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.

It has a similar deal to produce that vaccine domestically if it is successful in tests, which are also being carried out in Britain and South Africa.

Brazilian health regulators announced Monday they have also authorized Phase 1, 2 and 3 trials of two more vaccines, developed by US firm Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech.

Researchers worldwide are racing to develop and test a vaccine for the virus. There are more than 150 projects so far.

Studies published Monday in British medical journal The Lancet found two vaccine candidates were safe and produced an immune response in Phase 2 trials: the Oxford vaccine and another Chinese-made vaccine, developed by pharmaceutical firm CanSino Biologics and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology.
Journalist and film critic Rajeev Masand has now been summoned by the Mumbai Police in connection with Sushant Singh Rajputs death investigation. The development has come days after Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut on her 'Nation Wants to Know' interview with Republic TV's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami named Masand as a person who she felt should be summoned in the investigation. Now, the Queen actor's team has also reacted on social media on the news of Rajeev being summoned by the Mumbai Police.

Also Read: 'You Yourself Said I Am Not An A-lister': Kangana Ranaut's Message To Taapsee Pannu

Kangana Ranaut's team lashes out at Rajeev Masand

Quoting, Republic's tweet on the same, Kangana's team further lashed out at Masand and expressed their happiness on the news. The actor's team stated that this is a small victory for all those who had fought for #JusticeForSushant. They further called Masand as the most 'vile, vindictive and a sell-out' journalist. The Panga actor's team also wrote that Rajeev had mercilessly butchered the late actor's character. They also went on to state that even if Masand feels 1 percent of the helplessness of the agony and anguish that Sushant went through during his last days. the latter's fans will feel vindicated. Take a look at the tweet made by Kangana's team on Masand.

Also Read: Kangana Ranaut Praises Deepika Padukone, Says she Had Sense To Not Accept An Award

This is a small victory for all who fought for #JusticeForSushant.

Rajeev Masand most vile,vindictive& bikau journalist who mercilessly butchered Sushants character is being called to police, even if he feels 1% of helplessness, agony-anguish Sushant felt we'll feel vindicated https://t.co/wUBbwuaav2  Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) July 21, 2020

Kangana Ranaut lashed out at the 'emotional vultures'

Kangana revealed in her interview with Republic TV that, "I am not saying that anyone wanted Sushant to die, but definitely doomed. These people are emotional vultures. They want to see people lynch themselves. To date, Mahesh Bhatt is selling Parveen Babi's illness in so many versions through his films. Why is Mumbai Police not summoning  Aditya Chopra, Mahesh Bhatt, Karan Johar, Rajeev Masand? These 4 people. Why, because they are powerful? With this interview, I only have things to lose."

Calling the investigation by Mumbai Police a 'sham', the Judgemental Hai Kya actor had said, "Sushant's family shouldn't be harassed because these people are too powerful. These people aren't even summoned. Mumbai Police investigation is a complete sham. I have said no to Bhansali's Padmaavat but he hasn't done anything vengeful. He doesn't gang up on anyone but he's being summoned. Shekhar Kapur, a God-like figure in the industry is being summoned."

Also Read: This Day That Year: Kangana Ranaut Turned Bollywood's PM And Talked About Her Cabinet

Also Read: When Kangana Ranaut Played 'Never Have I Ever' With Maniesh Paul & Said She 'steals Towel'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 16:56:13|Editor: huaxia

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LANZHOU, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Ma Yisa once thought his life would be no different from the older generations of his family: living off the land, grazing animals and doing casual work deep in the mountains. Yet after he came across hand-pulled noodles, he found a chance to break free from a stagnant life.

In Monigou, a township in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Gansu Province, roads weave through mountains, adding to the difficulty of making money locally or venturing out.

Around 2000, a story had it in the poverty-hit village where Ma lived that wealth would pour in with the craft of making hand-pulled noodles. It intrigued Ma.

"I was eager to learn the skill, and live a better-off life like the noodle artisans in my village," Ma said.

The hand-pulled noodles Ma mentioned was Lanzhou beef noodles. With a history of more than 200 years, the well-known regional specialty consists of a flavorful broth, shaved beef, radish slices and chewy handmade noodles. While a bowl of hand-pulled beef noodles can be prepared quickly, it may take years to master the skill of noodle making.

The bond Monigou forged with hand-pulled noodles went deeper upon the early stage of China's reform and opening up, when a band of villagers blazed a trail to seek fortune in eastern China. With fine workmanship in making the noodles, they got established in big cities like Shanghai. Back in their hometowns, these artisans built new houses and drove new cars, being some of the first to amass wealth.

Decades later, Ma went down the same road. In 2007, the then 17-year-old was introduced to a noodle restaurant in east China's Jiangsu Province. There he started as a dishwasher. Constantly striving to gain more knowledge, Ma squeezed in learning noodle know-how from the cooks.

At first, he was too weak to pull wheat flour dough by hand into long strips. To overcome it, he often lifted the solid wood benches in the restaurant to build up arm strength. Every night before bed, he would go over every technique in his mind.

"Even in my dreams, I was thinking about the amounts of some ingredients," he said.

Two years into his stay in Jiangsu, Ma saw his dream come true. He became a noodle cook and his salary doubled.

With the increased income, his family became better off. They renovated their adobe home and purchased an agricultural vehicle. Their life in the mountains was renewed.

"Our people dream big, dare to venture out and are persevering. With the noodle craft, we have carved out a niche," said Ma Xiaolong, township chief of Monigou. "Hand-pulled noodles are helping us win the fight against poverty."

To foster the noodle industry, the township has designated the craft as a pillar for the local economy, organizing training courses and offering loans to those in need. It also encourages those trailblazers to promote its popularity, opening noodle restaurants around the country.

Since 2015, nearly 1,100 residents in Monigou have joined in the training, and loans of about 36.62 million yuan (5.25 million U.S. dollars) have been granted, according to official statistics.

Once the idea of owning a restaurant flickered in Ma Yisa's mind, the next second he ruled it out. "It would cost 60,000 yuan or even more. How could I get so much money? Plus, I have no experience in management. So the plan had to be shelved," he said.

In 2015, opportunity knocked again. Ma applied for a 50,000-yuan loan for targeted poverty alleviation and attended courses organized by the local government on the management of restaurants. His wife, meanwhile, received training in making hand-pulled noodles and some other home cooking.

Soon the couple opened a noodle bistro in Jiangsu. Today the annual profit of Ma's business is over 150,000 yuan, more than tripling the income of him as a noodle cook.

Early this year, he prepared to rent a storefront on a commercial street and applied for another 50,000-yuan loan with the help of a program designed to encourage startups.

So far, a total of 1,038 households in Monigou Township work in the noodle industry, creating more than 2,200 local jobs with a monthly salary of over 4,000 yuan. The annual output value of the noodles reached around 100 million yuan in the township.

Now Ma has taken one more title as a pathfinder in creating wealth out of hand-pulled noodles. Recently, he was occupied helping two homies select a restaurant location.

"Due to the support of homies and the local government, I have rid myself of poverty. Now it's time to return the favor and lead more people to taste the blessings of hand-pulled noodles," he said. Enditem
EDWARDSVILLE  Woodland Elementary School has a new principal, Susan Converse.

Announced at the districts board of education meeting Monday, Converse has made the switch from Edwardsville High School (EHS) to Woodland. She comes from EHS where she was a special education teacher and founder of the Tiger Den.

It [becoming principal] was not in my future plans but Im excited, she said.

Converse was on the verge of leaving EHS to open a second Tiger Den at Lewis and Clark Community Colleges N.O. Nelson Campus. However, due to COVID-19 that has been put on hold giving her time to move on to Woodland.

With about 20 years of experience, she also comes to Woodland after being named 2019 Illinois Teacher of the Year by the Illinois State Board of Education.

Im fortunate to be inheriting a school with such a strong heritage of respect and I want to build on that, Converse said. I want to celebrate all our different cultures and accomplishments and expand on what Tara Fox accomplished.

Converse took over after Fox accepted an administrative role as the director of curriculum and instruction at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. For the past couple of months, Tiana Montgomery has overseen Woodland, but she will soon officially become the new principal of Albert Cassens Elementary School.

Retirement is on the horizon but I am still energetic and got a new energetic position, Converse said. I plan to build something in the community to help them [special education students] be employed and give back. I do have plans for the future where I have contacts to make a non-profit to help further their education too.

For now, Converse is focused on Woodland and creating the best atmosphere she can despite the pandemic. She added that she wants the parents, students and faculty to know that she is a resource and there to help bounce ideas and take in suggestions.

I just hope I do half the job that Tara Fox did and that I can make and hold a connection with parents, even if its electronically for now, Converse said.
A 14-year-old girl was doused in petrol and torched to death by her uncle after her father barred her from marrying her cousin in Pakistan.

The girl's father Mohammad Yousuf turned down a marriage proposal from his brother Mohammad Yaqoob, who wanted to wed the 14-year-old girl, named Sadia, to his son in Chiniot, Punjab.

The father had already promised the girl to another relative two months prior, according to Gulf News.

Police said last Friday, the uncle lay in wait until Sadia returned to her family home and doused the teen in petrol before setting her alight.

A 14-year-old girl was doused in petrol and torched to death by her uncle after her father barred her from marrying her cousin in Pakistan. Pictured: An Islamic Organisation protest against 'honour killings' of women in Lahore on November 21, 2008

They added that she was left alone with her injuries and that no one was in the house.

After the attack, the youngster managed to escape from her home and was rushed to hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

According to reports, the parents and other family members tried to cover up the crime, telling others that the girl had been injured and died in a horrific cylinder blast.

Police found contradicting factors in the statements of her parents and in-laws and eventually took the uncle into custody. He confessed during questioning.

Last month, the body of a 24-year-old woman was found after she was stoned to death in an honour killing in Pakistan.

Last month, the body of a 24-year-old woman was found after she was stoned to death in an honour killing in Pakistan (A Pakistani human rights activist holds a placard during a protest in Islamabad on May 29, 2014)

National Highway and Motorway Police found a mutilated body with severe head injuries near the Indus Highway on June 27.

Local police were able to identify the body of that of Waziran who lived in the village of Wadda Chachar.

It is believed the woman, Waziran, had been pelted with stones and repeatedly hit with a wooden stick in Jamshoro and police are treating her death as an honour killing.
MADISON, Wis., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Rural Mutual Insurance and Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation announced that the Wisconsin Beef Council has joined them as a partner in raising awareness for the Wisconsin Food and Farm Support Fund.

Through this awareness, the American Foods Group generously donated 5,000 pounds of ground beef to Feeding Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Food and Farm Support Fund stepped up and matched the donation with an additional 5,000 pounds of beef, bringing the total donation to 10,000 pounds. The ground beef will be distributed to food banks across the state.

"We are proud to support the Wisconsin Beef Council and their efforts to support the state's farmers and Feeding Wisconsin," says Mark Winter, VP Fresh Meat at American Foods Group. This donation will help neighbors in need during these challenging times, and to support Wisconsin's cattle farmers who are working hard every day to ensure that their high quality, nutritious beef is readily available.

Together, with generous donations from employees, the public, corporate sponsors and Rural Mutual Insurance agents, the fund has raised over $45,000 to help support Feeding Wisconsin and Harvest of Hope.

"Feeding Wisconsin and our network of food banks is grateful for the support of this growing partnership and the generous community giving that we've seen," said Feeding Wisconsin Executive Director Stephanie Jung Dorfman. "At a time when we are seeing an increased demand for our services and our food banks are purchasing more food than ever before, these funds are enabling us to source great Wisconsin products to distribute to our friends and neighbors in need."

Rural Mutual Insurance is focusing on collecting funds for Feeding Wisconsin. Feeding Wisconsin is the statewide association of the Feeding America food banks that provide food to more than 1,000 local food programs in all 72 counties of the state.

Wisconsin Farm Bureau is focusing on collecting funds for Harvest of Hope, a farm family crisis relief fund that is supported by the Madison Christian Community. Wisconsin farm families that are experiencing financial stress can fill out a short application requesting up to $1,500.

Learn more about the Wisconsin Food and Farm Support Fund and how you can donate by visiting ruralmutual.com/about/donations or wfbf.com/wisconsin-food-and-farm-support-fund.

Rural Mutual Insurance Company has been protecting Wisconsin for 85 years. As an AM Best A+ Superior company, Rural Mutual provides a full line of insurance products exclusively to families, businesses and farms in Wisconsin. The company is headquartered in Madison, WI with over 150 local agents across the state. For more information, visit RuralMutual.com.

Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation is the state's largest general farm organization and is made up of 61 county Farm Bureaus. WFBF represents farms of every size, commodity and management style. For more information, visit wfbf.com .

Wisconsin Beef Council is a producer-directed not-for-profit organization funded by the $1.00 per head assessment on all cattle sold in the state of Wisconsin per the Federal Beef Promotion and Research Act & Order. The purpose of the Council is to fund beef promotion, research and consumer education activities supporting Wisconsin's beef industry. For more information, visit beeftips.com .

American Foods Group (AFG) is one of the largest beef processing companies in the United States and employs over 1,500 people locally. The AFG protein capabilities include beef in fresh, frozen, value-added, and fully prepared formats; additionally, animal components for medical research. Based out of Green Bay, WI, with locations throughout the Midwest, AFG is proud to be a trusted partner to their employees, customers, suppliers, and communities. For more information, visit americanfoodsgroup.com .

SOURCE Rural Mutual Insurance Company

Related Links

https://www.ruralmutual.com


DETROIT - Talk about a sweet deal! Actor and comedian Kevin Hart has just partnered with Michigan sweet tea company, Ellis Island Tea, brewed in the Motor City by Nailah Ellis, who describes herself as the largest Black female beverage manufacturer in the United States.

Ellis founded her company in 2008. The tea is based on a family recipe created by her great-grandfather, Cyril Byron, a Jamaican immigrant and chef who came to America through Ellis Island more than 100 years ago. Ellis says when Byron passed his recipe down, his instructions were that it was to be sold, not told.

Before he died, he passed the recipe along to his family. The recipe had never been written down before me, Ellis told MLive. In our family, the tea was made for every big family gathering and holidays. Our family is full of chefs and the tea was always the talk of the dinners.

Ellis said she not only hoped the tea recipe would be her ticket to becoming an entrepreneur, but at the same time would carry on her great-grandfathers legacy.

Cyrils story is one of a true risk taker. He came here with nothing but his dreams, Ellis said. He went on to become a head chef on Marcus Garveys Black Star Line and then the owner of Byron Caterers, one of the most successful Black-owned catering businesses in the Bronx.

KEVIN HARTS INVESTMENT

Ellis says her investment with Hart came about in an unconventional way through four degrees of separation.

I really wanted to pitch to Hart for an investment. His bodyguard happens to be from Detroit. So, a friend of a friend is really good friends with Harts bodyguard. I called him up and asked him if he could do anything and he mentioned my company in passing to Hart and a meeting was set up. It happened so fast and yet it happened so slow.

I like the healthy component to it,Hart told Nailah in a live Instagram conversation promoting the tea. I think a lot of us are dying and suffering from the same things over and over again. It starts with taking care of yourself. So, when youre providing the things that we like and youre putting some health benefits in it, I think thats an amazing recipe for success. Im already in. Im team you. Im going to be team you.

Ellis says she still cant believe she was not only able to meet with Hart, but land an investment with him.

Youd be surprised what can actually happen if you just put it out here. I felt crazy every time I said I wanted to get in front of Hart. Like, yeah right. I felt awkward for dreaming that large. But when I sat down in front of him he was just in love with the story and he said he wanted to see me win. Before he cut the check he said youre a dreamer, Im a dreamer and I love dreamers. The rest is history. Im still in a state of shock.

This investment couldnt have come at a better time for Ellis as she is now rolling out her tea in southern Walmart stores this month, with Target and CVS stores in the near future. Harts investment has paved the way for Ellis Island Tea to create new packaging, lower prices to better compete and to add new e-commerce options. Ellis says all of this should create rapid growth.

We were able to purchase new equipment which makes us more efficient. We got out of glass and now were running in plastic. Shipping was crazy. We were selling online for $60 a case with glass. Now were able to ship anywhere in the country for less than $30. Weve increased our online sales over 1,000 percent. Hart is also going to be activity involved on the marketing side to increase our product awareness.

WHERE TO FIND ELLIS ISLAND TEA

Along with being sold online here and soon to be at Walmart stores in the southern region of the U.S., you can find the tea at select Sams Club locations and Costco stores along with various airport concessions across the country.

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SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Syapse, a real-world data company accelerating the delivery of precision medicine through the Syapse Learning Health Network, today announced results based on real-world data that were highlighted at the AACR Virtual Meeting on COVID-19 and Cancer. Findings from the research suggest a higher incidence of COVID-19 reported among Black Americans, and worsened outcomes in patients with cancer and COVID-19. For people with cancer diagnosed sometime over the past five years, who were also diagnosed with COVID-19, there was an increased risk of severe events with an even greater risk among those with active cancer under recent treatment.



The rapidity with which we conceived of, designed and analyzed this study is nothing short of impressive, and has enabled us to better understand and anticipate the clinical outcomes of patients with cancer and COVID-19, said Shirish M. Gadgeel, M.D., Division Head for Hematology/Oncology, Associate Director, Patient Experience and Clinical Care at the Henry Ford Health System. Unfortunately, these evidence-based results provide further proof that minority populations and those at the lowest income levels are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19  including hospitalization and ventilation support.

The data we analyzed in collaboration with Syapse revealed a stark reality that people with cancer are at an increased risk of more serious outcomes from COVID-19, said Harpreet Singh, M.D., Associate Director, Cancer in Older Adults and Special Populations, FDAs Oncology Center of Excellence. Its imperative that we continue to rapidly examine real-world data to address the urgent health care challenges brought on by this pandemic. We will continue to work diligently to meet the needs of cancer patients, who constitute a vulnerable population at risk of contracting COVID-19.

Study Objectives and Findings

The study, using Real-World Data (RWD) from an integrated platform for rapid analysis of patients with cancer, with and without COVID-19, across distinct health systems (Henry Ford Cancer Institute, Detroit, Michigan; Advocate Aurora Health, Wisconsin) included 154,585 people who had a diagnosis of malignant cancer and who were treated at the health systems within the last five years. The primary study objectives were to rapidly leverage integrated real-world data from electronic medical records and ancillary clinical sources for patients with active cancer and/or a history of cancer.

The study included COVID-19 diagnoses between February 15 and May 13, 2020. The rapidly-generated results included information gathered from direct integrations with Syapses health system partners and structured molecular data from reference labs to provide detailed insights. The key conclusions are listed below. Please visit the Syapse website to download a copy of the presentation slides.

Compared to cancer patients without COVID-19, cancer patients with COVID-19 have:

Higher prevalence of pre-existing cardio-pulmonary/vascular & renal conditions; and

Increased risk of hospitalization, mechanical ventilation and mortality.

Groups experiencing increased COVID-19 risk and increased hospitalization and mechanical ventilation were:

Non-Hispanic Black patients with cancer; and

Patients with cancer and with median annual household income of zero to $30,000.

Factors associated with increased mortality for cancer patients with COVID-19 include:

Age, diabetes mellitus, renal failure and pulmonary circulatory disorders (active cancer); and

Age and coagulopathy (past history of cancer).

We continue to explore ways to leverage real-world evidence in order to optimize treatments for cancer patients  especially those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. With these results, we shine another light on the more serious manifestations of COVID-19 and in particular, the increased risks for people with cancer, advanced age, and underlying chronic illnesses, along with evidence for health care disparities, said Thomas Brown, M.D., chief medical officer at Syapse.

Through its collaborations with various health systems, Syapse continues to engage oncologists in its Learning Health Network in joint outcomes research. This work supports Syapse in enabling the use of RWD by oncology care providers to inform patient care decisions. In turn, Syapse incorporates the methodologies used for outcomes derivation into its Learning Health Network capabilities.

About the Syapse Learning Health Network

This global network of healthcare providers shares real-world data to support clinical decisions and foster collaborations among participants. Healthcare providers, including doctors and nurses, share and learn which cancer treatments produced better real-world outcomes in clinically and molecularly similar patients. Researchers learn from real-world clinical, molecular, treatment and outcomes data. These collaborations are enabled by a secure platform of shared de-identified data that is standardized and normalized across the Learning Health Network and complies with all applicable federal and state data privacy protection regulations.

About Syapse

Syapse works with leading health systems, life sciences companies, and regulators to explore opportunities to use real-world evidence to improve the outcomes of cancer patients. By bringing these organizations together into the Syapse Learning Health Network, Syapse has built one of the worlds largest networks with a goal to improve outcomes in cancer care through improved precision medicine. Syapse and its partners are working towards a future in which all cancer patients have access to the quality of care they need.

Source: Syapse Inc.
ATLANTA  Family, friends, supporters and lawmakers paid their respects to late civil rights icon C.T. Vivian Wednesday as he lay in state inside the Georgia State Capitol.

Mourners formed a circle around Vivians coffin that was covered by a Georgia state flag with a wreath made of white flowers standing at its side. Later in the afternoon, pallbearers opened the casket to show Vivians body.

Vivians son, Mark Vivian, said he wanted his father to be remembered as a humble, kind man who went above and beyond for those he loved.

This is an ultimate honor, Mark Vivian said after a short ceremony in the Capitols rotunda. Its just an honor that now more folks are learning who he is and what he stood for, and also what the movement was and how the movement came about.

In this June 19, 2014, file photo, Civil Rights pioneer Rev. C.T. Vivian preaches during a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act in Knoxville, Tenn. The Rev. C.T. Vivian, a civil rights veteran who worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and served as head of the organization co-founded by the civil rights icon, has died at home in Atlanta of natural causes Friday morning, July 17, 2020, his friend and business partner Don Rivers confirmed to The Associated Press. Vivian was 95.

C.T. Vivian: 5 things you may not have known about the giant figure in the civil rights movement

MORE: Funeral for C.T. Vivian, civil rights advocate and adviser to Martin Luther King Jr., scheduled for Thursday

Vivian died of natural causes July 17 in Atlanta in his home. Fellow civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia also died the same day. Vivian was 95.

Democratic state lawmakers said Wednesday they were pleased that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp allowed Vivian to lie in state. Vivian is the first civilian Black man to lie in state at the Georgia Capitol, lawmakers said.

Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones said Vivian paved the way so that Black people could hold public office, including President Barack Obama, the first Black president.

There would be no Obama had it not been for C.T. Vivian, said Jones. There would be no Black female Congresspersons had it not been for C.T. Vivian. His legacy will live forever.

State Rep. Calvin Smyre said that while Vivian often worked behind the scenes, he was one of the pillars of the civil rights movement.

He helped lay the groundwork, he helped lay the blueprint for the civil rights movement, Smyre said. For him to lie in state is a major occurrence here in our state because hes not one who is known all over, but he certainly paid his dues.

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Supporters from the greater Atlanta community also showed up at the capitol to honor Vivian.

Dezaree Gates said she worked on get-out-the-vote campaigns with Vivian when she was a college student.

He was a wonderful person to know, said Gates, 69. He was one of my idols.

Shirley Baker said she never met Vivian but always admired him.

President Barack Obama awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to C.T. Vivian in the East Room at the White House on November 20, 2013, in Washington, D.C.

Its only right for us to stand up and come together as one and show our respect for a man that did so much for us, said Baker, 61. If it wasnt for him, we wouldnt be standing right here today.

The tribute to Vivian was in some ways a symbol of how far the fight for civil rights has advanced in recent decades in part because of his leadership. In 1968, former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox refused to let the body of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. lie in state after King was assassinated, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Decades later, Coretta Scott King became the first Black person  and the first woman  to lie in state in the Georgia Capitol in 2006.

After lying in state for three hours, Vivian was moved across the Capitol lawn to a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage traveled toward the Southern Christian Leadership Council National office where Vivian served as national director of affiliates.

Mourners lined the streets and followed the processional, which was led by a police motorcade. The processional ended at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park.

PJ Booker, 66, lives near the park and joined the dozens of people who were gathered.

Booker said she didnt know Vivian but grew up playing with Kings children.

I Just wanted to give my last respects to such a great man, Booker said. I hope (todays activists) take from how he was as a man and how he wanted things better for us as a nation and as Black people.

C.T. Vivian, integration leader, left, leads a prayer on the courthouse steps in Selma, Ala. on Feb. 5, 1965, after Sheriff James Clark, background with helmet, stopped him at the door with a court order. Vivian led hundreds of demonstrators armed with petitions asking longer voter registration hours. Clark arrested them when they refused to disperse.

Vivian's civil rights work stretched back more than six decades, including his first sit-in demonstrations in the 1940s in Peoria, Illinois. He met King soon after the budding civil rights leaders victory in the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Vivian became an active member of what would become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and later participated in the Freedom Rides in Mississippi, when activists faced great violence while challenging segregation in public transit by riding buses across the South in 1961.

King once described Vivian as "the greatest preacher to ever live."

In 2013, Obama honored Vivian, who had continued to promote racial equality in recent years, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Wednesday's memorials came one day before Vivian will be remembered in a private funeral in Atlanta's Providence Missionary Baptist Church. The service is scheduled for 11 a.m. ET Thursday and will be open only for family because of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

Contributing: Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: C.T. Vivian: Body of civil rights leader taken to MLK Jr.'s tomb, Georgia Capitol
A Boeing 777 plane burst into flames today in front of shocked passengers while being parked in one of the busiest airports in China.

The cargo plane belonging to Ethiopian Airlines caught fire at around 4pm local time on the tarmac of Shanghai Pudong International Airport, according to authorities.

The fire was put off about an hour later, said the local authorities. No injuries or deaths have been reported as the time of writing.

Terrifying footage has captured the moment a Boeing 777 engulfed by a huge blaze and smoke at an airport in China. The Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane caught fire at around 4pm today

The fire was put off about an hour later. No injuries or deaths have been reported as of writing

An investigation into the cause of the incident is said to be underway.

Shocking footage shows smoke and flames engulfing the Boeing 777 while several emergency vehicles were rushing towards the burning aircraft.

The aircraft, registered as ET-ARH, was a cargo plane owned by Ethiopian Airlines, according to a statement from the international carrier.

It was scheduled to fly to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for transfer before heading to Sao Paulo of Brazil, the notice said.

No injuries or deaths have been found in the incident, according to Shanghai Fire Brigade.

As one of the busiest transport hubs in China, the Shanghai Pudong International Airport saw over 76million passengers and 511,000 flights flying in and out of the Chinese metropolis in 2019, according to reports.

Shocked air passengers who witnessed the scene today posted accounts online, describing the terrifying incident.

One wrote on Twitter-like Weibo: 'I happened to see it as my plane was landing. There was so much black smoke coming out. Hope everyone's safe.'

The fire was put off about an hour later, said the local authorities. No injuries or deaths have been recorded. An investigation into the cause of the incident is said to be underway

The cargo plane was scheduled to fly from Shanghai to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for transfer before heading to in Sao Paulo of Brazil, according to a statement from the carrier

Shanghai aviation authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the fire

Eighteen fire trucks were called to the scene for rescue, said the local authorities. The fire was put off at about 5pm.

Local aviation authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the fire, said the air company.

Ethiopian Airlines experienced a similar fire in 2013 while a Boeing-787 Dreamliner was parked on the tarmac.
VERO BEACH, Fla., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Retail Solutions (FKA Boston Barricade) is pleased to announce and welcome Mr. John Noonan as its new Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Mr. Noonan will be responsible for Sales Team leadership, business development, marketing programs, client services, and contributing to new product & service offerings. John joins Boston Retail Solutions with over 30 years of successful experience in brand implementation and maintenance programs, including; signage, graphics, custom branded elements, and construction services. He and his teams have been responsible for multiple new division startups, company re-branding and digital marketing programs, sales team development, and more than doubling revenues and profits at several organizations. He has been an Expert Speaker at SPECS, PRSM, NRA, ISA, and other trade associations. John has personally delivered solutions-based presentations to the majority of the Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. He has extensive experience in the Retail, Restaurant, Banking & Financial, Health Care, and Corporate markets.

Boston Retail Solutions EVP Sales & Marketing

John holds an MBA from Pace University and a BS in Marketing & Finance from New York University.

Media Contact: Adam Acosta, Director of Marketing 772-257-7428

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John Noonan

Boston Retail Solutions EVP Sales & Marketing

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SOURCE Boston Retail Solutions
She's one of the world's most iconic supermodels.

And Cindy Crawford looked sensational in a casual chic ensemble as she stepped out in Santa Monica, California, on Tuesday.

The model, 54, was seen carrying a 1000-piece puzzle and a bottle of her husband Rande Gerber's Casamigos Blanco Tequila, which she took to a friend's house.

Outing: Cindy Crawford looked effortlessly chic as she arrived at a friend's house in Santa Monica with a 1000-piece puzzle and a bottle of her husband Rande's Tequila on Tuesday

Cindy looked effortlessly chic in a loose fitting white shirt that she tucked into a pair of light wash denim jeans.

She boosted her height in a pair of brown suede boots and added a chic touch to her look by cinching her outfit at the waist with a Gucci belt.

Cindy's brunette locks were brushed into a sleek, straight style that fell over her shoulders, and she used a light palette of make-up for the occasion.

Stylish: Cindy looked effortlessly chic in a loose fitting white shirt that she tucked into a pair of light wash denim jeans

Fashionista: boosted her height in a pair of brown suede boots, and she was seen putting the puzzle and drink in a bag before heading to her friend's house

Impressively, Cindy (born Cynthia) and husband Rande celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary on May 29.

Cindy's street sighting came a month after revealing her every day beauty routine 'never takes more than five minutes.'

Crawford told British Vogue that all she needed was 'amazing concealer, a little Charlotte Tilbury "Cheek to Chic" blusher, and drugstore mascara.'

Missing from Cindy's side was her 18-year-old daughter Kaia and 21-year-old son Presley, who she shares with Rande.

Sweet: Cindy and husband Rande (R) celebrated their 22nd wedding anniversary on May 29 (pictured with their son Presley in December 2018)

Their heavily-tattooed son currently lives in their Malibu guesthouse and works in the kitchen of his father's Cuban and Mexican restaurant, Cafe Habana.

Presley will be on probation through 2022 after pleading no contest to one misdemeanor DUI stemming from a January 1, 2019 arrest, according to TMZ.

Kaia has been following in her mother's footsteps by scoring Vogue covers and storming the catwalks of Miu Miu, Chanel, Alexander McQueen, Givenchy, and Valentino this year.

Thanks, Dad! Their heavily-tattooed son currently lives in their Malibu guesthouse and works in the kitchen of his father's Cuban and Mexican restaurant, Cafe Habana (pictured April 28)
In light of updated guidelines from the Texas Education Agency and after consulting with local health officials, two more Montgomery County school districts have released their plans for the start of the 2020-21 school year.

On Monday, a letter from the Montgomery County Public Health District to county superintendents urged districts to postpone in-class instruction until no earlier than Sept. 8 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

MORE FROM JAMIE SWINNERTON: Conroe ISD urges state to suspend STAAR testing, modify accountability ratings as COVID-19 continues

The letter, signed by Charles Sims of the Montgomery County Public Health Authority and Robert Dickson, medical director of the Montgomery County Public Health District; argued that postponing traditional instruction would give schools the best chance of opening safely, and potentially reduce the risk of a forced closure later.

This advisement is based on the continuing growth in COVID-19 cases in Montgomery County, the near-capacity caseload of patients in all our area hospitals, and concern for the spikes in cases that have been noted 10-14 days after holiday weekends earlier this summer, the letter stated. Each school may need additional time to plan for another potential spike in cases that follow the Labor Day weekend.

Some districts have already announced that they will be starting the year fully online. Conroe ISD, Willis ISD, Montgomery ISD, and now New Caney ISD have all announced that for the first few weeks of school students will be utilizing remote learning.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: TEA releases new guidance for Texas schools on online-only classes, start of year

While MCHD advised not having students return until Sept. 8 at the earliest, each district can bring students back at their discretion. According to the announcement about next years return, New Caney isnt sure when students will be back in class yet.

It is not known how long online-only instruction will continue, according to a statement on the districts website. The district will re-evaluate circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic as the school year begins. Decisions about beginning on-campus, face-to-face instruction will be made with the welfare of students and staff in mind first. The district will continue to work within the guidance provided by TEA as well as local and state health officials.

MCHDs letter urged districts to re-evaluate their opening plans the week of Aug. 24 to determine if a Sept. 8 opening would be safe and viable. Postponing classes, the letter argues, gives teachers and staff a chance to practice safety protocols, identify potential problems, and become comfortable with using PPE.

But, MCHD also recommends letting small groups of students back on campus before Sept. 8 to be able to practice protocols with limited numbers, and practice cleaning protocols.

Splendora ISD is taking a slightly different route to re-opening. Instead of remaining completely online for all students, the district will be welcoming back students on a staggered schedule.

Aug. 17-21: Pre-kindergarten through first-grade students who have chosen on-site learning will be at their campus.

Aug. 24-28: Pre-kindergarten through third-grade students who have chosen on-site learning will be at their campus.

Aug. 31-Sept. 4: Pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students who have chosen on-site learning will be at their campus.

Sept. 8-11: Pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students who have chosen on-site learning will be at their campus, but high school students who have chosen an on-site learning model will transition to a hybrid model. Details about the hybrid model have yet to be released.

We feel this plan aligns with the MCHD recommendations while allowing our district to meet the needs of our families and community, Splendora ISD Superintendent Jeff Burke wrote in a release.

He warned district families that the districts return plan may change as the COVID-19 situation changes.

We understand that this is an extremely challenging situation for all involved, Burke said. As a school district and community, we will continue to face difficult decisions as we navigate these uncertain times. It is paramount that we continue to communicate with transparency, honesty, and integrity throughout this process. As always, the safety of our students and staff will guide all of our decisions.

jamie.swinnerton@chron.com
Prime Minister Paul Martin receives a standing ovation after responding to questions concerning the sponsorship scandal in the House of Commons on April 20, 2004. The scandal became a significant factor in the defeat of the Liberals in the 2006 federal election after more than 12 years in power. (CP Photo/Tom Hanson)

What Determines Whether a Political Scandal Will Stick

News Analysis

Although polls show some decrease in support for the Liberals due to revelations they handed a large contract to a charity with ties to the prime ministers family sans a bidding process, few people are ready to drop their support for the party.

Political experts say that could change, however, since the timing, context, and content of scandals determine whether they will impact votersparticularly if a police investigation is launched.

A poll released July 20 by Abacus Data found that if an election were held today, the Liberals would have the support of 36 percent of Canadians. This was a four-point percentage drop from an Abacus poll at the end of June, but still left the Liberals five points ahead of the Conservatives.

Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, says he expected the WE Charity scandal would have limited impact because it is less serious than the SNC-Lavalin affair.

I thought, Yeah, that makes perfect sense because most people arent thinking about that. And also its a different type of scandal because here youre dealing with a charity. And with SNC-Lavalin you were dealing with bribery and foreign operatives and a long history and interference within the cabinet.

Wiseman says the political impact of a scandal depends on its timing, content, and context, and in the present scandal the context is the pandemic.

The pandemic is consuming if not all, most of the oxygen in the media world and in the real world. So in that context, anything else that happens is for most people quite secondary.

When it comes to scandals, he says, timing is absolutely critical because the public has a short attention span, but that timing alone cant guarantee an electoral impact. The release of blackface photos of Justin Trudeau a month prior to the federal election provides a recent example.

Most people just shrugged about this, [despite] all these editorials  [saying] how this is racist, this is totally unacceptable. And then it came out that all kinds of people had been involved in blackface and a lot of people just didnt see it as racist, including blacks, he says.

From 1996 to 2004, a previous Liberal government bought ads to publicize federal support for Quebec industries and thereby undermine support for Quebec separation. Some Liberal-linked ad firms did little or no work but had Liberal organizers or fundraisers on the payrolls, or donated funds back to the Liberal Party.

Early in 2004, Auditor General Sheila Fraser wrote, I think this is such a blatant misuse of public funds that it is shocking. I am actually appalled by what weve found.

In June of 2004, the AdScam sponsorship scandal reduced Paul Martins Liberal government to minority status. Yet when he called an election a year-and-a-half later, the Liberals seemed ready to regain a majority.

Wiseman says the turning point came shortly before Christmas, when the commissioner of the RCMP announced they were investigating the finance minister and his office, prompted by a letter from the NDPs finance critic.

Once the RCMP comes out and says theyre investigating the public figureshey, theres smoke, there must be fire. This fits the whole Conservative narrative that the government is corrupt!

Wiseman expects the WE scandal will be largely forgotten by the next election unless criminality comes to light.

The question is, whats the criminal element? he says. The police are there for the criminal code. The Conservatives are calling for the police to launch an investigation but thats purely partisan showmanship.

Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch has also written the RCMP commissioner to request an investigation. A Supreme Court of Canada precedent lays out five elements for Section 122 of the Criminal Code, which relates to breach of trust. Conacher says four of those elements have already been admitted to. He says if Chief of Staff Katie Telford exerted political influence over the recommendation of WE Charity by bureaucrats, then the fifth element is fulfilled.

Conacher says the WE scandal is less widespread and systemic than AdScam, yet is going to be very damaging because swing voters care about these issues and swing voters decide election results. And [Trudeau has] shown very clearly that he just reads the government ethics law as a suggestion, not a law, and he even ignores that suggestion.

Daniel Bernier of Earnscliffe Strategy Group says Trudeaus previous ethics violations in the SNC-Lavalin affair and the acceptance of a helicopter ride to the Aga Khans private island make the WE Charity scandal harder to shake.

Theres a cumulative effect, he says, adding that the scandal is a gift that can continue to give for the Opposition because it will grow and it will continue. Of course, the government is playing its usual book all the way to Im sorry and the excuses and all that, but I think Canadians will be the ones to judge on that one.

A commission led by Justice John Gomery found that of the $150 million handed out in the sponsorship scandal from 1996 to 2004, $2 million was awarded in contracts without proper bidding and in one instance $250,000 was added to a contract for no apparent reason. In addition, $1.5 million was given for work that was never done, of which $1.14 million was repaid.

WE Charity was awarded a sole-sourced contract worth as much as $43 million to administer a $921 million program. The contract was cancelled after it came to light that members of Trudeaus family were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak at WE Charity events.
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Compared to all other racial or ethnic groups in the United States, American Indian and Alaska Native children are more likely to live in grandfamilies (aka grandparents and other relatives raising grandchildren, kinship care). These children are dramatically overrepresented both in kinship foster care and in grandfamilies who live outside the formal foster care system. The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest crisis to disproportionately impact Native peoples, and more grandfamilies are coming together every day as a result.

There is a long and proud tradition of extended family relationships and kinship care in Native cultures, and the disproportionate number of American Indian and Alaska Native grandfamilies reflect that strength.

"Cousins may refer to one another as brother and sister. Aunts and uncles may be called mom and dad. Within this kinship structure, there are many potential caregivers and natural supports," as Sarah Kastelic, Executive Director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) said.

But the substantial overrepresentation of Native children in foster care also reflects racial and cultural biases, racism, and lack of understanding of their strengths. The systems that have been put in place do not build on these attributes. Instead, American Indians and Alaska Natives must navigate the many silos that impact grandfamiliessuch as child welfare, aging, education, and housing seeking culturally appropriate services. As dual citizens of the United States and their sovereign tribe, and residents of the state in which they live, the systems of supports accessible to Native peoples are complex and often fragmented.

"Generations United is proud to be working with NICWA to provide the first resource to help agencies and organizations best serve Native grandfamilies," said Donna M. Butts, Executive Director of Generations United. "Together, our goal is to transform foster care and address systemic racism by giving mainstream helpers a greater cultural understanding of American Indian and Alaska Native grandfamilies."

The new toolkit provides concrete tools to encourage culturally appropriate services including:

Cultural context on the historical trauma and other negative effects suffered by American Indians and Alaska Natives separated from their tribes and culture for centuries

The benefits and strengths of preserving and restoring cultural identity

Practice and policy recommendations for addressing systemic racism and biases that limit existing supports to Native grandfamilies and the children they raise

Download the toolkit: https://bit.ly/RacialEquityToolkits

The partners are also proud to release a parallel toolkit to government agencies and nonprofits to address systemic racism and better serve African American grandfamilies in culturally appropriate ways.

About Generations United: www.gu.org

About the National Indian Child Welfare Association: www.nicwa.org

SOURCE Generations United

Related Links

http://www.gu.org


Mark Nicotra is president of the Columbus Monument Corporation Board. He submitted this commentary on behalf of Nicholas J. Pirro, vice president; Virginia Lostumbo, treasurer; Bob Gardino, secretary; and Carmine Federico, Josephine Federico and Edward McLaughlin, board members.

After reading the commentary by Philip Arnolds and Sandy Bigtree in Sundays Post-Standard (Embrace democratic values. Remove iconic fascist memorials) , we would like to respectfully respond.

From Syracuses Columbuss Monument unveiling in October 1934, we have had 86 wreath ceremonies and countless luncheons celebrating the Columbus Monument in Columbus Circle. Those celebrations are meant to honor a magnificent mariner from Genoa, Italy, whose four voyages to this Western Hemisphere opened up a hemisphere never written about or thoroughly explored before by and for Western Civilization. He is Christopher Columbus.

But, also, and vastly important, is the symbolism of the Columbus Monument in Syracuse. In 1910, Syracusan Professor Torquato DeFelice visited Florence, Italy, to meet with Signor Renzo Baldi, renowned sculptor, to start the discussions of the monument. For the next 25 years, through World War I and the Great Depression, the Syracuse and Central New York communities were vigorously petitioned to donate money for the Columbus Monument. Most of the outreach, of course, was to the Italian-American communities on whose behalf this monument was being built. They were the major contributors.

To understand the intense fervor for this monument to exist and to continue, one must put the Italian-American immigrant population into perspective at that time. The 1890 mass lynching of innocent southern Italian immigrants in New Orleans, Louisiana, started to stoke the fire in the hearts of Italian immigrants. It is the largest mass lynching in Americas history. The lynching was only the tip of the ethnic bigotry that Italian-American immigrants experienced. Jobs, churches, schools, neighborhoods were all off limits for many Italian immigrants. The only reason for this exclusion was their ethnicity and the bigotry hurled at them.

So after 25 years, we have a date in 1934 to unveil the Columbus Monument. Italian-Americans will now have something tangible for all to admire that represents them. They have something they can point to show the world that they love America; they love their Syracuse, even though they have been treated harshly. No revenge, no bitterness but a showing of respect to a country they sailed to from the same area, using the same path as Christopher Columbus, their idol. They came here to live, survive and be successful.

Imagine that day Oct. 12, 1934, with close to 20,000 marching down North Salina Street from the far North Side to downtown Syracuse, passing Clinton Square and turning down downtown streets to gather at then called St. Marys Circle. Over 5,000 people were huddled around the Columbus Monument in joyous fervor for the event. There on stage among many in attendance were Mayor Roland Marvin, Italian-American dignitaries, sculptor Renzo Baldi, Professor Dwight James Baum, the architect for the entire circle. Also present were Chiefs Andrew Lewis and William Farmer from the Onondaga Nation, who were a major part of the ceremonies that day. They presented tribal headdresses to Baldi and Baum and placed them on their heads.

This has been only a small part of the history. There is so much more to discuss and read. The Onondaga Historical Society published a comprehensive, 10-page account in its fall 2019 quarterly written by Bob Searing, curator of history. It is an excellent view of our journey starting in 1910 ending in October 1934.

Come down to Columbus Circle and gaze upon an important historical landmark and artistic achievement a nationally and locally protected preservation site that we feel is a gift to the community of Syracuse.

Please sign the petition in support of keeping the Columbus Monument standing.

Also, please follow the Columbus Monument Corp. on Facebook.

Also in Opinion: More views on Syracuses Columbus monument: Keep it, remove it, add to it (Your letters)
House Democrats want to send a message to President Donald Trump about potentially pardoning himself or any associates who would offer him political favors: If he attempts to do so, the courts will consider it either null and void or an act of bribery.

The House Judiciary Committee will attempt to establish those limits Thursday, when its members meet to vote on two bills: one to set the confines of the president's pardon power, and another to freeze statute of limitations on any crimes a president may commit for the duration he or she is in office.

The pardons bill is the brainchild of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who drafted it in 2018 after Trump and his lawyers opined that the president could entice his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort not to cooperate with federal investigators by dangling the promise of a pardon.

For Democrats, the issue took on new urgency earlier this month, when Trump commuted the sentence of his friend Roger Stone, who was due to start a 40-month prison term for seven felonies, including lying to investigators and witness tampering.

Schiff's bill requires that if the president issues a pardon for a matter in which he or she is a subject, target or witness, the attorney general must give Congress all materials and evidence from that case within 30 days. In the weeks since Trump took action to save Stone from going to prison, Schiff's bill has been amended to state also that, if the president trades a promise of a pardon or commutation of a sentence for anything of value, that will be considered a violation of the federal bribery statute.

The committee is expected to consider an amendment also from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a former constitutional law professor, to make it clear that a president cannot pardon himself or herself. His amendment states that any such pardon would be "void and of no effect" in the courts, and would not give the president "any legal immunity from investigation or prosecution."

Trump has claimed that he has an "absolute right" to pardon himself of federal crimes, despite the fact that statement directly conflicts with a 1974 Justice Department memo, drafted in the aftermath of the Watergate investigation and just days before Richard Nixon resigned the presidency.

"Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself," the memorandum from the department's Office of the Legal Counsel reads.

Still, Trump's attitude about pardons - and his demonstrated willingness to utilize them to protect his political interests - has unnerved his critics, who worry the president may compromise cases that could be brought against him after he leaves office.

In 2018, reports identified Trump as unindicted co-conspirator - "Individual 1" - in a hush-money payment case against the president's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. While the federal courts have effectively closed additional proceedings related to Cohen's case, and the Manhattan U.S. attorney who oversaw those matters, Geoffrey Berman, was removed from his post, it is possible that the Justice Department could pursue action against Trump in the future. Separately, Manhattan's district attorney is pursuing a similar case, over which a president's pardon power would not extend.

Additionally, former special counsel Robert Mueller III's investigation into suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election - the probe that gave rise to the cases against Trump's associates - identified several instances where the president purportedly obstructed justice. Attorney General William Barr determined that the evidence in Mueller's report did not merit bringing charges, and Trump decried that report as a "witch hunt" in his papers commuting Stone's sentence. But Mueller's insistence that the evidence "does not exonerate" Trump could also influence future prosecutors.

Whether such cases are ever brought, however, depends on whether the five-year statute of limitations on the relevant charges has expired. That concern is at the heart of the second bill the House Judiciary Committee plans to consider Thursday.

Justice Department memos from 1973 and 2000 make clear that agency's policy is not to indict a sitting president. But the statute of limitations on certain federal crimes is shorter than a two-term presidency.

The second bill, which House Judiciary Democrats have dubbed the "No President Is Above the Law Act," seeks to get around this problem by freezing the statute of limitations on offenses committed before or during a president's term for the duration that he or she is in office.

A president's "tenure in office shall not be considered for purposes of any statute of limitations," the measure states.

Committee Republicans are expected to object to both proposals, despite the fact neither is retroactive. The bills also face stiff odds of ever being taken up in the Republican-led Senate.
Portland will immediately ban all police bureau members from cooperating with federal law enforcement or intentionally using force on or arresting journalists and legal observers, under new policies the City Council passed Wednesday.

Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who crafted and introduced the last-minute resolutions, Commissioner Amanda Fritz, Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and Mayor Ted Wheeler unanimously voted to approve the new rules, calling them necessary as President Donald Trump has refused to remove federal officers from the city.

Portlanders have taken to the streets for eight weeks to protest police brutality and systemic racism and have been met with force from city and federal officers leading to injuries, arrests and lawsuits.

The ban on coordinating with federal officers cites an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by the federal government as reason to discipline any Portland police member if they provide, request or willingly receive operational support from any agency or employee representing the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Marshal Service, Federal Protective Service, Customs and Border Protection or any other federal service while they are occupying the city.

The other policy condemns intentional targeting of press members and legal observers who are documenting police conduct during the protests unless city officers have reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime. A federal judge in Portland has already ordered credentialed journalists and legal observers be exempt from arrest or threat of arrest by Portland police after officers have issued an unlawful assembly or riot declaration.

The new city policy will remain in place for as long as the judges order remains in effect.

Eudaly said she feels the city has to take every action available to ensure the police bureau protects people and that peoples rights arent being violated. She said federal officers have tear gassed and fired munitions at protesters without warning and the majority of people impacted by them arent engaged in criminal activity. She denied the notion that the city is under siege. She also thanked journalists and legal observers for their work documenting demonstrations over the last two months, saying they shouldnt have to risk their safety to inform the public and noting that its their job to hold the government accountable.

Whether you agree with the protesters or not, if you believe in the Constitution of the United States, you must oppose the actions of this president and the violent suppression of individuals exercising their constitutional rights, Eudaly said.

[Read the city resolution on Portland police cooperation]

[Read the city resolution on targeting of journalists, legal observers]

The city faces several lawsuits over the actions and tactics of Portland officers during demonstrations, including tear gas use and assaults on journalists. Wheeler, police officials and other city leaders have denounced the actions of some protesters whove set fires, graffitied public, city and federal property, and thrown bottles, fireworks and other items at officers during demonstrations.

Oregon officials have also recently sued the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals Service and other federal agencies. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblums lawsuit arguing federal officers President Donald Trump sent to Portland have illegally detained, threatened, injured and arrested protesters.

City, state and congressional leaders, including Wheeler, have called for Trump to remove federal officers from the city. The president, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and other federal officials have refused, saying the federal Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse and Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building downtown need to be protected from graffiti and other damage from demonstrators.

Portland police officials said last week that the bureau regularly communicated with federal authorities during downtown protests to be aware of what the other was doing and that a member of the Federal Protective Service was stationed in the Portland police command post. Theyve said neither agency has direct control over the others operations.

Wheeler, who is also Portlands police commissioner, has said the city doesnt want or need federal aid and that the city didnt know what federal officers were doing or why.

During the weekend, the police bureau announced it would no longer have a federal presence in its command post. The fire bureau announced the next day that Hardesty, who oversees the agency, approved a policy change to prevent any law enforcement from using city fire stations as a base for tactical operations.

Hardesty said Wednesday that shes been appalled by the actions of law enforcement toward demonstrators. She accused Trump of trying to silence Portlanders First Amendment rights and accused the Portland Police Association, the union that represents the majority of city officers, of lying to the public about the bureaus level of cooperation with federal authorities.

She questioned why Portland officers didnt protect demonstrators from being tear gassed and attacked by federal authorities. She said she disagreed that there are riots in the city most nights, as police have declared, and said that acts of resistance from the public shouldnt be met with excessive force.

If Portland does not stand up now and we as a city council dont hold our own police officers accountable for this egregious behavior, we will go down in history as having failed in our obligation to protect community members, she said.

Hardesty said she believes Portland polices response to demonstrations opened the door for federal officers being deployed and also using force. Wheeler and police officials have said, by contrast, that Portland police had protests under control to the extent they were close to petering out and that federal overreaction and overreach was responsible for reigniting Portlanders fury.

The blame should rest entirely on the Portland Police Bureau and their lack of de-escalation skills, their lack of ability to engage communities where they are and their lack of desire to protect Portlanders, who are under fire every single night, Hardesty said.

Hardesty said she was shocked when, during a recent conversation with Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell, he said he didnt think journalists were protected under the Constitution. When police order people to leave, Hardesty recalled Lovell saying, everyone should leave whether they are part of the media or not. She said she couldnt convince him otherwise.

The fact that the chief does not know that the media has a right to record their actions makes this resolution vital, Hardesty said.

Fritz said the city planned to take more actions to address federal officers in the city, condemned the actions of the president and federal officers, and called on Portlanders to remain united against racial injustice.

People who commit violent acts arent welcome here, whichever side of the confrontation line they occupy during the demonstrations, Fritz said. Those responsible must be brought justice whether they wear a badge or not.

Wheeler said he didnt agree with everything Eudaly, Fritz and Hardesty said, but he was deeply disturbed by reports of journalists being targeted by federal and city police officers during demonstration. He said they should be allowed to do their jobs without fear of police interference.

He said the community is being attacked by federal officers the city has no oversight of and that they werent invited, properly trained or welcome in the city.

Therefore, I have no reservations about directing the Portland Police Bureau to continue to reject any or all requests for support from these federal interlopers, Wheeler said. Whats happening on our streets is not only an assault on Portland values, but on American norms.

Wheeler announced Monday that he joined the mayors of Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle and Washington D.C., in sending letters calling on the Trump administration to scrap plans to send federal forces to major American cities and for Congressional leadership to launch an investigation into the deployments.

Wheeler said Wednesday that he would order Lovell to have all police staff follow the new rules immediately

-- Everton Bailey Jr; ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 | @EvertonBailey

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Portlands mayor says Donald Trump sent camouflage-clad and heavily armed federal officers into his city like a bulldozer to quell protests, but whether they have the necessary legal authorities beyond federal property appears dubious.

The president will have an opportunity on Wednesday afternoon to address a list of questions about just what the federal personnel, a hodgepodge force composed of Department of Homeland Security officers, are doing in Portland and under what legal authorities. He is slated to give remarks on the subject, though he rarely focuses on federal laws and statutes  Mr Trump prefers to speak of anarchists and left-wing mobs.

Trump administration officials have yet to clearly explain under what federal authorities the law enforcement personnel are operating, other than to cite statutes allowing Washington to protect federal buildings. But Portland officials say the federal forces are doing more than that.

We had a contained [situation], we were using our de-escalation strategies. We were engaged in limited arrests of people who were engaged in illegal activity, thats modern policing. And then these guys came in like a bulldozer, Mayor Ted Wheeler said. And what it did was re-energised Portlanders, it brought people back into the streets.

Mr Wheeler accused the Trump administration of having trampled over the constitution, saying the federal law enforcement officers have fired munitions [at] non-violent demonstrators, in one case, nearly killing somebody, the way theyve trampled over the requirement for probable cause.

That is one of the biggest questions about the DHS deployment to the Oregon city, deployments the administration reportedly is planning in Kansas City and Chicago to address escalating violence in those midwest metropolises.

Insofar as federal law enforcement officers are enforcing federal law and/or state law on federal property, federal law also provides detention and arrest authorities, according to Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Of course, detention and arrest must still comport with the federal constitution  under which warrantless arrests require probable cause to believe the individual has committed a crime.

In other words, federal law enforcement officers in Portland could have the legal authority to arrest individuals when they have probable cause for violations of federal or state law, according to Vladeck, but in the latter case, there are statutory notice and transfer requirements that, if media reports are accurate, are not being honoured.

It also is murky whether the federal forces are obtaining the legally required Oregon state certifications to make arrests.



Made-for-TV

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat who represents part of Portland, on Wednesday called the situation there a made-for-TV artificial crisis.

Donald Trump and his henchmen have taken a very difficult situation and turned it into a militarisation he called unwelcomed and uninvited.

The congressman accused the federal forces of refusing to identify themselves to protesters; Mr Vladeck, however, said there is no federal statute requiring them to do so  unless they are making an arrest. But even then, it is legally murky if they have to disclose their specific agency.

Senate Judiciary Committee member Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeted this week that peaceful protesters exercising their constitutional rights arent an enemy & shouldnt be attacked with weapons of war.

What we are seeing in Portland is not law enforcement, but a blatant disregard for Americans rights, Mr Blumenthal wrote, suggesting the officers mission violates the law. Unidentified federal officers should not be acting like a secret police force disappearing people off the streets. This authoritarian escalation must stop.

But Mr Trump and some of his top lieutenants say using federal officers is necessary to prevent sometimes-violent protesters from destroying American cities and suburbs.

Were going to have more federal law enforcement  that, I can tell you, Mr Trump told reporters on Monday. In Portland, theyve done a fantastic job. Theyve been there three days, and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time. No problem.

Mr Trump boasted that DHS officers are arresting protesters, but he did not explain how they might be trying to comply with state laws.

They grab them. A lot of people in jail. Theyre leaders. These are anarchists. These are not protesters. People say protesters. These people are anarchists. These are people that hate our country. And were not going to let it go forward, the president said in the Oval Office.



Theyre afraid

Rather than speaking in terms of legal authorities or emergency powers, the president who warned about American carnage in his inauguration speech, said he is deploying what some call a secret police force because Democratic local and state leaders are scared.

And Ill tell you what: the governor and the mayor and the senators out there, theyre afraid of these people, he said. Thats the reason they dont want us to help them. Theyre afraid, Mr Trump contended. I really believe theyre actually maybe even physically afraid of these people  because what theyre doing is incredible.

With some Democrats accusing him of using the federal force to help his re-election campaign, which includes his pitch as a law-and-order president, Mr Trump used the situation to take a jab at his expected general election foe.

And you know what? If Biden got in, that would be true for the country, he said. The whole country would go to hell. And were not going to let it go to hell.

His acting DHS secretary, Chad Wolf, on Monday made clear he has no intention of pulling his forces back.

My message is simple: if youre looking to peacefully protest in Portland, the department respects your right to do so, he said. Please do so away from the violent activity thats taking place near the courthouse on a nightly basis, for your own safety.

If you are a violent rioter looking to inflict damage on federal property or law enforcement officers, you need to find another line of work, he said. We will not retreat. We will continue to take the appropriate action to protect our facilities and our law enforcement officers.
Hyderabad: Looking to boost your immunity to take on Covid-19, or at least prepare for a good fighting chance to keep the coronavirus at bay? It is taking multivitamins every day for some. Or traditional concoctions with spices and herbs from the kitchen for others. While popping vitamin polls has become part of daily regimen for millions, there have been other unconventional immunity boosters that have made it to the store shelves, including the likes of branded honey and cooking oils. Some have stayed. The others have disappeared after a brief presence.

Among such products that were shortlived on the store shelves was bread, including one manufactured by Modern Foods. The immuno bread that was supplied to stores in the city at Rs 45 for a 400-gm loaf in the middle of this month was pulled out by the company after the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) sought to check on the veracity of the claims made by one of the countrys oldest bakers with manufacturing units in several cities.

The bread on its packaging had the line Ayush Ministry recommended immunity ingredients now in bread, printed. It was learnt the FSSAI southern region office based in Chennai collected loaf samples from Chennai and other places to check on the claims made by the manufacturer.

This is not the only bread to make such claims. A Ludhiana-based company introduced in May its own immunity boosting version of bread. While the version offered by Modern Foods had turmeric, ginger, clove, black pepper, cinnamon, cumin and jaggery, as immunity boosters, the Nu Health bread introduced by Bonn based out of Ludhiana listed turmeric, black pepper, oregano, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cumin and ginger to boost your immune system.

Ever since Covid-19 took hold in the country, people appear to have rediscovered the importance of developing general immunity and this pursuit has resulted in practical daily shortages of multivitamins, zinc and Vitamin D supplements country as doctors have been speaking about how these may help people stave off the coronavirus. The Ayurdeva major Patanjali, which announced amidst much fanfare its Coronil claiming that it cured people of Covid-19, backtracked and later claimed that its product was an immunity booster and cough and fever cure.
PORTLAND, Ore., July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, "Plastic Solar Cell Market by Type (PN Junction Structure (P-N Heterojunction), Dye-Sensitized Nanocrystalline Solar Cells), Application (Disposable Solar Panel, Hydrogen Powered Car, Wireless Devices, and Others) End User (Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Power & Energy, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20192026". According to the report, the global plastic solar cell industry was pegged at $2.4 million in 2018, and is projected to reach $386.3 million by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 88.0% from 2019 to 2026.

Major determinants of the market growth

Rise in demand for plastic solar cells in the electronics industry, surge in demand for energy in remote areas, and increase in government initiatives and support for renewable source of energy have boosted the growth of the global plastic solar cell market. However, conversion efficiency of PV system technology hampers the market growth. On the contrary, R&D in solar cells technologies and advent of new technologies in manufacturing process of plastic solar cells are expected to create lucrative opportunities for the market players in the coming years.

Download Report Sample (230 pages with Insights) @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/6457

Covid-19 scenario:

Due to continuous lockdown in several countries and depressed demand for solar cells, small and medium companies in the market are unable to absorb the losses and are likely to go bankrupt.

As the majority of raw material is imported from China , the uncertain political situation would be challenging for the market players.

The dye-sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells segment to manifest highest CAGR through 2026

By type, the dye-sensitized nanocrystalline solar cells segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 92.4% during the forecast period, owing to rising demand for LED applications, voltages, temperature sensors, circuit rectifiers and varactors for voltage-controlled oscillators. However, PN junction structure (P-N heterojunction) segment held the largest share in 2018, accounting for more than three-fifths of the global plastic solar cell market, due to need for shifting to renewable energy because of rapid consumption and depletion of fossil fuels.

Get detailed COVID-19 impact analysis on the Plastic Solar Cell Market @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/6457?reqfor=covid

The disposable solar panel segment dominated the market

By application, the disposable solar panel segment held the largest share in 2018, contributing to more than half of the global plastic solar cell market. This is owing to increase in demand for rooftop installation of solar panels because of growth in urbanization coupled with macroeconomic factors such as government incentives and tariffs and cheap alternative source of power. However, the hydrogen-powered car segment is anticipated to register the fastest CAGR of 97.7% during the forecast period, due to surge in demand for automation in vehicles, high competition in the automotive industry, surge in demand for electric cars to control pollution, and increase in trend of driverless cars.

LAMEA, followed by Asia-Pacific and North America, to witness highest CAGR by 2026

By region, the market across LAMEA would manifest highest CAGR of 90.5% during the forecast period, owing to increase in urbanization and population explosion and low cost of the product, especially in countries such as China and India. However, the global plastic solar cell market across Europe contributed the highest share in 2018, holding more than two-fifths of the market, due to rise in demand for distributed systems in the European market.

Major market players

Abengoa Solar S.A.

Applied Materials.

Acciona Energia S.A.

eSolar Inc.

Bright Source Energy Inc.

Konarka Technologies.

Gintech Energy Corp.

Canadian Solar Inc.

Sunpower Corporation

Tata Power Solar

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The Kerala High Court on Wednesday rejected a plea seeking a central agency probe into recent consultancy appointments in various departments of the state government in the backdrop of the recent gold smuggling case.

While rejecting the plea, a division bench of the court headed by Chief Justice S Manikumar observed that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe was on in the smuggling case and there was no need for any intervention at this juncture.

In his plea, petitioner Michael Varghese, an activist and journalist, sought the court to give a direction to the investigating agency to also include chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans office in the ambit of probe alleging some of the recent consultancy appointments were dubious and mired in controversy. He sought a separate probe into this issue.

Also Read: Kerala gold smuggling case: NIA custody of accused extended

But, the court said the NIA can probe all these angles and there was no need for any intervention now. Probe has just started. Let the agency probe all angles in the case. There is no need of any intervention now, it observed.

Meanwhile, the customs department arrested two more persons in connection with the gold smuggling case alleging they were part of the thriving racket. They also raided the house of the gunman of the consulate office who was hospitalised after an alleged suicide attempt.

The customs had seized 30 kg gold from a consignment that came in the name of an official of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram on July 5. Later, the case was handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Many other central agencies including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are involved in the investigation. The NIA has arrested four persons and customs has arrested 15 in connection with the case so far.

Also Read: ED joins Kerala gold smuggling probe, registers money laundering case

In the remand extension petition for the four accused including Swapna Suresh before a special court in Ernakulam on Tuesday, the NIA said the accused were part of a larger conspiracy that aimed at financing terrorism in the country. The CMs powerful principal secretary M Sivasankar and his IT fellow Arun Balachandran, were sacked after their alleged links with Suresh surfaced.

The accused has conspired together and separately at various places in Kerala to damage the monetary stability of India by destabilizing the economy and it is suspected that they had used the proceeds of smuggling for financing terrorism through various means, the remand report said.

This is the first time that the NIA has taken up a smuggling case in the country.

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A lawyer has been ordered to pay more than $30,000 to Air New Zealand after she reduced staff members to tears and accused them of racism.

Solicitor Anjela Sharma, her husband and their six children, who are all teenagers or adults, flew from Nelson to Auckland before boarding a business class flight from Auckland to India in December 2018 when the conflict began.

Sharma believed the business class tickets allowed her whole family of eight to access Air New Zealand's exclusive Koru Lounge in Nelson Aiport before their domestic flight.

But only the parents were Koru Club members, while their six children were not. Club policy also only allows for one guest per member.

When the Lounge Hostess questioned their entitlement to use the lounge, the family accused her of being 'stupid and racist', court documents revealed.

The airline warned her about her behaviour via email and she was later banned from flying with Air New Zealand in July last year - a decision she challenged in the High Court.

But Sharma's claims were rejected by the High Court of New Zealand and she was ordered to pay the airline $31,465 and another $3,407 in disbursements on July 9.

Solicitor Anjela Sharma, her husband and their six children, who are all teenagers or adults, flew from Nelson to Auckland before boarding a business class flight from Auckland to India in December 2018 when the conflict began

Only the parents were Koru Club members, while their six children were not. Club policy also only allows for one guest per member

The Sharma family were 'intimidating' to Air New Zealand staff when they were in the lounge, according to court documents obtained by the NZ Herald.

'The report described the applicant and members of her family as being very loud, disruptive, and intimidating during their dealings with the Lounge hostess over their entitlement to use the lounge,' the documents read.

'Members of the applicant's family called the lounge hostess stupid and racist, and mocked and loudly mimicked her voice when she greeted other passengers entering the lounge.'

Eventually, a security guard was called to the lounge and even offered to call the police to make the family leave.

Sharma was already notorious among staff at Nelson Airport for 'bullying' them until she got her way, according to the documents.

The barrister and solicitor was later warned about her alleged behaviour via an email from Air New Zealand.

Sharma's claims were rejected by the High Court of New Zealand and she was ordered to pay the airline $31,465 and another $3,407 in disbursements on July 9

Sharma argued there was no need for the warning email in a separate email to former Air New Zealand chief executive Christopher Luxon in April, 2019.

The mother of six attempted to check in online for an Air New Zealand flight in June 2019, but wasn't able to do so.

When she went to check in in person for the flight the next day, she claimed an Air New Zealand staff member was abusive to her, in an argument that left the woman in tears.

Sharma believed the woman's tears were all for show but a team leader who witnessed the argument said the lawyer was aggressive.

'The team leader describes the applicant (Sharma) criticising the staff member serving her, calling the staff member as 'pathetic' and claiming that the staff member had 'put on the tears',' the court documents read.

After making the Air New Zealand worker cry, Sharma was banned from flying with the airline on July 2 last year.

She challenged the decision in the High Court but was ordered to pay a total of $31,484 to the airline earlier this month.
Appointment

22 July 2020

Mr Nardiello began his career in the hospitality industry at the tender age of 15 and completed his hotel management studies in Sorrento, Italy. During his extensive hospitality career, Mr Nardiello has held several senior management positions in numerous hotels and has gained international experience in London, Italy, Germany, France and Croatia. He has worked for many international hotel brands, including Hilton and Le Meridien. Before joining Maslina Resort, Mr Nardiello held the position of Rooms Division Manager at the DoubleTree by Hilton, Venice, Italy.

Mr Nardiello has demonstrated effective leadership and efficient management in the roles he has previously held which include front-office management, rooms division management and a year as the resident manager at Lafodia Sea Resort in Lopud, Croatia. With his long-standing career in the hospitality industry and extensive knowledge of luxury and internationally renowned brands, Mr Nardiello will bring a wealth of experience to Maslina Resort.
EU Minister for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell today held three-way phone talks with Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Azerbaijan Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Jeyhan Bayramov to discuss the recent clashes that took place along the length of the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border.

As reported the EUs press service, these phone talks were Borrells first talks with the two foreign ministers following private talks with each of the ministers on July 13.

Borrell expressed condolences to the families of the victims and wished the wounded a speedy recovery. He also called on the sides to stop the armed conflict and refrain from taking actions and using rhetoric that provokes tension, particularly from threatening to strike major infrastructures in the region.

The EU MInister for Foreign Affairs also called on the sides to reaffirm their commitment to the ceasefire and take immediate measures to prevent further escalation, adding that, in this context, Armenia and Azerbaijan need to use the mechanism for direct communication, that is, the format that has been established under the leadership of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. He also emphasized the need to resume essential talks over pivotal provisions for settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict under the auspices of the Co-Chairs.

Borrell stressed his willingness to continue to cooperate with the two sides and assigned the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia to continue close contacts with the two sides and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.
ABBOTSFORD, British Columbia, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cascade Aerospace, an operating unit of IMP Aerospace & Defence, is pleased to announce that it has won the publically tendered contract to perform structural and special inspection (6 yearly) and other maintenance work for one of the Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) C-130B aircraft.

Beginning in fall of 2020, Cascade will perform the structural inspection, the special inspection, overhaul components and provide additional maintenance work in accordance with the BAF's Maintenance Program. This marks the first contract between Cascade Aerospace and the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and Cascade is looking forward to establishing a long term relationship supporting BAF's fleet.

All work will be completed in Abbotsford, Canada.

Contract was signed by Directorate General Defense Purchase (DGDP) of Bangladesh and Cascade Aerospace on June 30, 2020.

About Cascade Aerospace

Cascade Aerospace, an operating unit of IMP Aerospace & Defence, is a leading Canadian specialty aerospace & defence contractor that provides long-term integrated aircraft support programs and comprehensive program management, aircraft maintenance, modification, fleet management, engineering & integrated logistics support to domestic & international military, government, OEM and commercial customers.

Media Contact: Kim Tamminga, IMP Aerospace & Defence, Direct: +604-557- 2646, ktamminga@impaad.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1217761/Cascade_Aerospace_Inc.jpg
New Delhi: Atleast 45 newly elected Rajya Sabha members were sworn in on Wednesday (July 22, 2020), of which 18 MPs are from BJP. The Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu administered the oath.

All these BJP MPs will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi over tea at his residence at 4:00 pm today.

This is the first time that oath-taking of members took place in the House chamber during the inter-session period so as to maintain norms of physical distancing due to COVID-19.

The new members, including 36 first timers, took the oath of office in the Rajya Sabha chamber while following physical distancing norms. The chairman said the new MPs will be nominated in committees soon.

Oath-taking is usually done either during the session or in the chamber of the Rajya Sabha Chairman when the House is not in session.

The oath-taking ceremony was earlier postponed due to the nationwide lockdown amid the Covid-19 outbreak. The voting to the Rajya Sabha`s vacant seats was held in June 2020.
The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old. Prov. 20:29

Within a span of 24 hours, we learned of the deaths of two titanic figurescivil rights leader and United States Congressman John Lewis, and evangelical theologian J.I. Packer. Both were oldLewis was 80 and Packer 93but upon reflection, I couldnt help but see each, in my own imagination, at radically different periods in life. With Lewis, I saw the smiling, young civil rights worker in the mug shot after his arrest in Mississippi. With Packer, I saw the frail, wizened theologian ambling through a library, a stack of books precariously cradled in his arms.

Lewis and Packer were both young once. Any who paid attention likely recall images of each from their youthLewis at the 1963 March on Washington, or Packer as a young scholar at Oxford. What intrigued me, however, was how the first image in my mind was of Lewis as the strident and exuberant demonstrator and of Packer as the elderly sage. I could envision the old John Lewis to be sure, but I had to work my way there from the past. For Packer, it was the reverse. Some of this is due, no doubt, to the primary callings of each. Lewis was a thinker and a politician, but his primary mark was as an activist. Most of us came to know Packer by reading his books on the authority of the Bible, or knowing God, or on the Puritans, or by reading his columns in Christianity Today.

But theres more to it.

Our knowledge of these two stalwarts comes to us in the guise of what popular culture would call an origin story. In the narrative version of Lewiss lifeat least as we know ita signature moment was the awful beating he suffered on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. When we reflect on that horrific incidentwhether in history books or film or the graphic novel about his life, The Marchwe can see its consistency with the rest of his lifethe lawmaker fighting against repeal of voting rights laws or the elderly congressman walking across the House floor to embrace an ailing white U.S. senator of the opposing party grappling with disease. Many of us could still see in his aged face the expressions of the young man with a head injury, or the smiling mug shot after his Mississippi arrest.

With Packer, its the reverse. Whatever pictures of the young scholar we may see, we project backwards the light of the revered elder evangelical statesman who carefully reasoned us through the importance of biblical inerrancy, or who modeled a calm and non-vindictive demeanor when assailed by separatists of a narrower Calvinism who rejected his work with Roman Catholics and higher-church Anglicans, or when lambasted by progressives in his Anglican Communion for his refusal to evolve on matters of sexual morality.

A life well lived does not view youth as something to be hoarded nor age as something to be evaded.

The reason for this difference, to me, has to do with the integrity of each. Lewiss youth comes first to our minds not because his early life was more accomplished than his later life (he was a skillful legislator and orator to the day of his death). Rather, what we see in the young John Lewis is the courage it took to sacrifice not just his life but also his youth. If Lewis had died on the Pettus Bridge or elsewhere in South during the violence of the 60sa very real possibilityhe would have been remembered as the young protege of Martin Luther King, Jr., and as a valiant hero. But we would have missed witnessing what it looks like for the courage of youth to encompass an entire life. Even in the throes of pancreas cancer, to see Lewis standing with protesters against racial injustice after the death of George Floyd is to see the courageous young Lewis of the Edmund Pettus Bridge standing there too.

Packer, on the other hand, modeled what it looks like for an evangelical celebrity to age without scandal or bitterness or resentment toward those who harmed him or resentment of the generations coming after hima sight sadly in short supply. He wrote in his final years of what it means to be near to death, and did not seek to hide from view what many deem the indignities of age. Instead, he taught how weakness is the way. When we read Packers early and middle writings, we see a building wisdom toward the humble sage we knew at his lifes end.

The narrative consistency between youth and age in the course of a lifebetween who one is in their prime and in the valley of the shadow of deathis essential to integrity. Youth is about more than self-indulgence or self-protection. And old age is about more than reflecting back on the good old days of the heights of ones powers. A life well lived does not view youth as something to be hoarded nor age as something to be evaded. A life well lived sacrifices ones future by standing in the face of danger for the sake of those one may never see, and similarly, such a life sacrifices ones legacy by teaching those younger how to wither into weakness embraced by the knowing God of ones youth.

This is counter-intuitive in a day when the young are expected to project an image of cynicism and world-weariness and the old are expected to airbrush their profiles to maintain relevance and strength. What we admire in these giants we lost is their refusal to do either. Lewis seemed young even when he was old. Packer, by his own admission, seemed old even when he was young. The maturity of youth and the vibrancy of age, both are needed in times that seem too juvenile for gravity and too decrepit for joy.

Russell Moore is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is the author of the forthcoming book The Courage to Stand: Facing Your Fear Without Losing Your Soul (B&H).
The Hong Kong stock market finished session steep lower on Wednesday, 22 July 2020, as profit booking triggered on following the previous day's rally and a record jump in infections in the city. Meanwhile, selloff pressure intensified late afternoon on heightened US-China tensions after the US ordered China's consulate in the city of Houston to close within 72 hours.

At closing bell, the benchmark Hang Seng Index stumbled 2.25%, or 577.72 points, to 25,057.94. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dropped 1.93%, or 201.91 points, to 10,243.51. Of the 50 members of the benchmark, 46 posted losses.

The Hang Seng Index, which had gains in the early session before turning down some before and after the lunch break, began sliding hard on the news over the consulate.

Investors are worried that the China and US relationship may get worse after news that the US ordered China's consulate in the city of Houston to close within 72 hours. In quickly moving news, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the United States had demanded Beijing close its consulate in the Texas city, calling the move unprecedented escalation and threatening retaliation. It was the latest instance of friction between the world's two largest economies on everything from trade to the South China Sea and Beijing's tightening grip over Hong Kong.

The latest and most serious outbreak of coronavirus is also weighing on sentiment. The third wave of coronavirus infections killed two more elderly patients as the city confirmed another 61 confirmed cases on Tuesday.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BEND, Ore. -- When most people find that their actions have resulted in an undesirable outcome, they tend to rethink their decisions and ask, "What should I have done differently to avoid this outcome?"

When narcissists face the same situation, however, their refrain is, "No one could have seen this coming!"

In refusing to acknowledge that they have made a mistake, narcissists fail to learn from those mistakes, a recent study from Oregon State University - Cascades found.

The mental process of analyzing past actions to see what one should have done differently is called "should counterfactual thinking." Counterfactual thinking is the mental process of imagining a different outcome or scenario from what actually occurred.

All of us engage in some level of self-protective thinking, said study author Satoris Howes, a researcher at OSU-Cascades with the OSU College of Business. We tend to attribute success to our own efforts, but blame our failures on outside forces -- while often blaming other people's failure on their own deficiencies.

"But narcissists do this way more because they think they're better than others," Howes said. "They don't take advice from other people; they don't trust others' opinions. ... You can flat-out ask, 'What should you have done differently?' And it might be, 'Nothing, it turned out; it was good.'"

Narcissism is typically defined as a belief in one's superiority and entitlement, with narcissists believing they are better and more deserving than others.

The study, published recently in the Journal of Management, consisted of four variations on the same experiment with four different participant groups, including students, employees and managers with significant experience in hiring. One of the four was conducted in Chile with Spanish-speaking participants.

Participants first took a test that ranked their narcissism by having them choose among pairs of statements ("I think I am a special person" versus "I am no better or worse than most people"). In the first of the four variations, they then read the qualifications of hypothetical job candidates and had to choose whom to hire. After choosing, they were given details about how this hypothetical employee fared in the job, and were assessed regarding the extent they engaged in "should counterfactual thinking" about whether they made the right decision.

The four variations employed different methods to analyze how counterfactual thinking was affected by hindsight bias, which is the tendency to exaggerate in hindsight what one actually knew in foresight. The researchers cite the example of President Donald Trump saying in 2004 that he "predicted the Iraq war better than anybody."

The authors note that prior research has shown that hindsight bias is often reversed as a form of self-protection when a prediction proves to be inaccurate -- e.g., Trump saying in 2017 that "No one knew health care could be so complicated" after failing to put forth a successful alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

In the OSU study, researchers found that when narcissists predicted an outcome correctly, they felt it was more foreseeable than non-narcissists did ("I knew it all along"); and when they predicted incorrectly, they felt the outcome was less foreseeable than non-narcissists did ("Nobody could have guessed").

Either way, the narcissists didn't feel they needed to do something differently or engage in self-critical thinking that might have positive effects on future decisions.

"They're falling prey to the hindsight bias, and they're not learning from it when they make mistakes. And when they get things right, they're still not learning," Howes said.

Narcissists often rise in the ranks within organizations because they exude total confidence, take credit for the successes of others and deflect blame from themselves when something goes wrong, Howes said.

However, she said, over time this can be damaging to the organization, both because of low morale of employees who work for the narcissist and because of the narcissist's continuing poor decisions.

To avoid the trap of hindsight bias, Howes said individuals should set aside time for reflection and review after a decision, even if the outcome is positive. Whether the decision was favorable or unfavorable, they should ask themselves what they should have done differently. And because narcissists don't engage in this process, Howes said it would be wise to have advisory panels provide checks and balances when narcissists have decision-making authority.

###

Co-authors on the study were Edgar E. Kausel at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Alexander T. Jackson at Middle Tennessee State University and Jochen Reb at Singapore Management University.
Athough COVID-19 is a world-wide pandemic, recent news coverage has focused on conflict within the United States.

The world has watched civil unrest unfold between American citizens, and medical professionals. Specifically about the use of face masks in public.

There is another country in South America, however, where government leadership is also being criticized for its response during the coronavirus crisis.

Brazil's President Bolsanaro has downplayed the COVID-19 in the country, comparing it to the average flu, despite his own positive diagnoses.

And COVID-19 has now left Brazil in a state of distress, with over 2 million confirmed cases flooding the country's hospitals.

Luckily, charities such as Instituto Dana Salomao are rising to the challenge. Instituto Dana Salomao, run by Maia B. Toguchi, is a social charity dedicated to education, culture, and inter-cultural programming that promotes diversity and inclusion projects and activities in Brazil. And when Brazil declared a state of emergency, Instituto Dana Salomao was quick to revamp its mission in order to serve the needs of their people as quickly as possible.

Toguchi and her team set to work assembling basic necessities to those most in need in the form of emergency kits. Their emergency kits included items like alcohol gel, sanitizer, masks, soaps and more. In other words, items that were most essential to the survival of many Brazilian from the virus.

The team's efforts, and distribution of masks in particular, were timely, and coincided with the relaxing of mandatory masks laws in Brazil.

As masks and other items are in short supply and inaffordable to many, Jacob Maslow sent a supply of hundreds of adult and childrens masks as well as alcogel and other supplies from Israel,

As a result, Instituto Dana Salomao was able to successfully distribute over 5,000 masks and 1,000 alcohol sanitizers throughout the Federal District of Brazil.

With health organizations and media outlets around the world advising citizens to adapt to the "new normal" as a fixture in our daily routines, for at least the next 12 months, Insitituto Dana Salomao has committed to continuing their important work serving Brazil's most vulnerable.

Instituto Dana Salomao recommends that Brazilians follow international hygiene guidelines, anticipating that the country's situation will continue to worsen in the coming months.

Despite the grim outlook for Brazil, Toguchi's team at Instituto Dana Salomao will continue their requests to the government for assistance for all Brazilians during this global crisis.
Ms. Boitnott comes to LGA with over 20 years of underwriting experience. Throughout her career, she has been responsible for internal and external assessments of new data sources, underwriting innovations, Insurtech partnerships and market shifts.

Speaking to her new role, Ms. Boitnott shared, "I am thrilled to be a part of LGA and to have the opportunity to advance the company's priority of delivering solutions that customers need. I look forward to working with the team to drive the growth and competitiveness of LGA's underwriting strategy."

Mark Holweger, President and CEO of LGA said, "We are excited to welcome Ms. Boitnott to our LGA team. We are constantly looking for ways to transform our business and to foster digital solutions for our customers, and Ms. Boitnott enables us to do so. Her expertise and leadership will propel LGA's participation in an increasingly technology-oriented marketplace."

Prior to joining LGA, Ms. Boitnott was the vice president of underwriting at SCOR Global Life Americas for Velogica, its automated underwriting rules engine. At SCOR, she oversaw the development of underwriting rules for new data sources and increased the platform's efficiency. She also coordinated the guidance and implementation of automated and accelerated programs with multiple carriers. Before SCOR, she was a production underwriter with Shenandoah Life Insurance and AIG, where she worked with advisors to progress the sales process, foster healthy field relationships and support the shared goals of financial security.

Ms. Boitnott served on the AHOU Executive Council from 2015-2019 and holds the certifications of FALU, FLMI, ARA, and ACS. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her husband Adam and their two daughters.

Notes to editors

About Legal & General America

Legal & General America is part of the worldwide Legal & General Group. For over 70 years, the Legal & General America companies have been in the business of providing financial protection through life insurance for American families. The Legal & General America companies are Banner Life Insurance Company and William Penn Life Insurance Company of New York. With more than $62 billion in new coverage issued in 2019, LGA is ranked in the top ten of U.S. life insurers and ended 2019 with in excess of $784 billion of coverage in force with 1.3 million U.S. customers. LGA shares Legal & General's independent financial strength ratings: A+ Superior from A. M. Best and AA- Very Strong from Standard and Poor's and Fitch. For more information, please visit www.lgamerica.com.

Legal & General America life insurance and retirement products are underwritten and issued by Banner Life Insurance Company, Urbana, MD and William Penn Life Insurance Company of New York, Valley Stream, NY. Banner products are distributed in 49 states and in DC. William Penn products are available exclusively in New York; Banner does not solicit business there. The Legal & General America companies are part of the worldwide Legal & General Group.

SOURCE Legal & General America (LGA)

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Worried by the surge in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as well as an uptick in cases in the Bahamas, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis announced Sunday he is closing the country to international commercial flights and commercial vessels that carry passengers from the U.S. Travelers from Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union are still welcome. Bahamasair, the national airline, has already halted its flights in and out to the U.S.
Turkey and Russia agreed at talks in Ankara to continue joint efforts to create conditions for a lasting and sustainable ceasefire in Libya and are considering the creation of a joint working group, a joint statement said on Wednesday.

The statement, published by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said Ankara and Moscow also agreed in the talks to facilitate the advancement of intra-Libyan political dialogue and called upon the parties to take measures ensuring safe humanitarian access and delivery of urgent assistance to those in need.

Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA), who are supported by Turkey, are reportedly planning to launch an attack on the port city of Sirte and in Jufra, which has a major military airbase.

The GNA backed by Turkish troops, Syrian mercenaries and Qatar, is based in Tripoli and controls Libyas western and northwestern areas. According to a recent report by the US Defense Department, Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 Syrian mercenaries to Libya fin the first three months of this year.

The Libyan National Army (LNA), allied with the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, controls Libyas oil-rich, eastern regions. Egypt, France, Russia and the UAE back the LNA.

In June, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on Libyan parties to respect the current lines and start negotiations. El-Sisi said that Sirte and Jufra are "considered a red line for Egyptian national security."

He also said that Egypt has called for a comprehensive settlement in Libya that involves the elimination of terrorist militias and has participated in Libya-related international conferences.

On Monday, Egypt's parliament unanimously approved "sending elements of the Egyptian armed forces in combat missions outside the borders of the Egyptian state to defend the Egyptian national security in the western strategic front against the acts of criminal militias and foreign terrorist elements until the forces' mission ends."

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A French mine expert was killed when an explosive device hit his car and the incident has highlight the difference between competing Kurdish factions writes SY 24.

Local sources reported today that a French expert, accompanied by members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia, was killed in an explosion that targeted their car, as it travelled through Raqqa Governorate.

The sources said that, a French mine expert and two SDF members were killed as a result of an explosive device, stressing that, the incident occurred in the village of Muwailih, in the al-Jarniyah suburb of the western countryside of Raqqa.

The Syrian Kurdish opposition figure, Hassan Shendi, revealed internal conflicts in a special statement to SY24, in which he said, Personally, I think that recently, after the Americans started protecting Mazloum Abdi and in light of the French support hes received, tensions started between the Qandil movement and Joanne Shorshkur  who are spread in all areas of SDF-control, kidnapping children, and committing violations against all Syrians  on the one hand, and the Mazloum Kobani movement, which wants to maintain their relations and create a balance between their organic link to Qandil and their interests in America and the Syrian regime, on the other.

This matter bothers PKK leaders who want to keep Kobani loyal, as he has been for more than 30 years, being at their complete disposal. PKK leaders do not want Kobani to submit to America and its conditions or rapprochement with the Kurdish Council, backed by Barzani. They want him, however, to remain loyal to them and to Assad and Iran and resist Turkish influences even if that meant suffering from great losses.

Shendi emphasized that based on the aforementioned, he believes that other operations will be carried out whenever Mazloum Abdi tries to protect himself and his comrades by the means of Western support. He also believes that targeting of the French expert is a message from Qandil to everyone trying to shuffle the cards, because the French have been sponsoring the reconciliation between the Kurdish Council and the oppressed Abdi.

He explained that, Those east of the Euphrates and all the parties that once thought that they could take advantage of the blood of the martyrs of the national revolution, will come away empty-handed. The national cause, with all its sub-identities, will break all the dictatorship statues and suppressive authorities, be it Arab or Kurdish.

Operations are being carried out nearly every day in eastern Syria by leading figures and members of the SDF, Iran, and the Syrian regime.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
Departure: Ryanair will no longer have a base at Frankfurt and hubs at other German airports are under threat

Ryanair is to close its base at Frankfurt Hahn Airport, and bases at Berlin Tegel and Dusseldorf airports are likely to shut down at the end of the summer after German pilots rejected proposed pay cuts, the Irish airline said yesterday.

The moves, which will include an undisclosed number of pilot job cuts, come after a slight majority of German pilots voted against a proposed deal of savings that Ryanair said were required by Covid-19 disruption.

"We must move on with alternative measures to deliver savings, which regrettably will mean base closures and dismissals," Ryanair said in a memo to German pilots seen by Reuters.

The airline, Europe's largest low-cost carrier, said in the memo that 70pc of its pilots across Europe had already accepted cuts to pay and conditions in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here in Ireland, management bypassed the union and got pilots to accept the new conditions individually.

In Austria, the airline announced the closure of the Vienna base of subsidiary Lauda before doing a deal with some pilots to save it weeks later.

German union Vereinigung Cockpit, in a statement released before Ryanair announced the base closures, said it believed there was still scope to resolve the dispute.

"We are not giving up hope. The employer would be well advised to get back to the negotiating table quickly now," it said.

But it reiterated its opposition to the deal offered by Ryanair, saying the duration of the offered job security would have been until March 2021 whereas pay cuts were demanded until 2024.

Ryanair said it would stop basing planes at Frankfurt Hahn Airport from the start of November, with pilots at the base to receive letters with details of their notice period this week.

Berlin Tegel and Dusseldorf "are likely to close" in advance of the winter season, with details to be provided next week, the statement said.

Once the closures have been completed, Ryanair will look to cut pilots based at Frankfurt, Cologne and Berlin Schoenefeld airports through a collective dismissal process.

Other cost-saving measures include changing rosters and freezing promotions and base transfers, it said.

Reuters
Only half of all salaried workers in Korea plan to travel during their summer holidays, a straw poll suggests.

Employment portal Job Korea said Monday that a poll of 2,056 salaried workers found that only 53.2 percent want to go away for the summer. That is down 16.5 percentage points from a year ago.

Some 69.5 percent of those who have no travel plans cited the coronavirus epidemic.

Those who do intend to go somewhere said they plan to take their summer breaks in early August, with 26.2 percent in the first week and 16.4 percent in the second week, while many eye short trips lasting just two days.

Asked what factor was the biggest concern when planning their summer holiday, 58.8 percent cited location, 36.2 percent timing and 26.1 percent outdoor places to swim.
Khamenei Tells Iraqi PM: 'We Will Strike Back At US' For Soleimani's 'Assassination'

Radio Farda July 21, 2020

In his first public meeting since the onset of the coronavirus crisis in February, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Iraq's visiting Prime Minister Mostafa Al-Kadhimi in Tehran on Tuesday July 21.

During the meeting, Khamenei vowed to take revenge for former IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in January. He said: "We will definitely strike back at the U.S. in response to the assassination of our general."

Nevertheless, probably responding to Al-Kadhimi's call on Iran not to intervene in Iraq's affairs during an earlier meeting with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, Khamenei said: "Iran has never had and will never have any intention to meddle in Iraq's affairs. Iran seeks a dignified, independent Iraq with its territorial integrity and internal unity and cohesion protected."

He reiterated: "Iran is certainly against anything that weakens Iraq," adding that "The U.S. outlook concerning Iraq is exactly the opposite to our outlook because the U.S. is the enemy in the true sense of the word and opposes an independent, strong Iraqi government elected by popular vote."

Khamenei's words contrast with accusations that Iran finances thousands of Iraqi Shiite militiamen who operate outside government control and have been attacking Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. and other coalition forces. In addition, Iran is said to be actively interfering in Iraqi politics by grooming factions to dominate the parliament and by extension other government institutions.

Explaining Tehran's official position, Khamenei said: "It doesn't matter to the U.S. who the Prime Minister of Iraq is. They want a government like that of Paul Bremer," the U.S. government official who served as director of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq (200304).

"Iran doesn't interfere in Iraq-U.S. relations but expects the Iraqi friends to know that the U.S. presence in any country brings corruption and destruction. Iran expects the decision of the Iraqi government, nation and parliament to expel the U.S. to be pursued because U.S. presence causes insecurity," Khamenei said.

Khamenei further charged: "The U.S. crime in assassinating General Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis is an example of the its presence. They killed your guest in your home, and they blatantly confessed to this crime. This is not a trivial matter."

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget the martyrdom of Hajj Qassem Soleimani and will definitely strike a reciprocal blow to the U.S.," he said.

Khamenei expressed support for the Al-Kadhimi's administration and praised Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Hashd al-Shaabi militia's role in Iraq but did not touch upon the outstanding economic issues between the two countries.

Although many analysts in Iran and the region expected some reference to Iraq's possible mediation to improve ties Iran's ties with Saudi Arabia, there was no mention of it in the media.

During the earlier meeting with Rouhani, however, Al-Kadhimi and Rouhani mainly discussed security issues and said the two countries' security were interconnected. Meanwhile, Rouhani called for the expansion of bilateral cooperation.

The two officials agreed to set up a joint committee to follow up on previous agreements between Tehran and Baghdad. However, nothing came up at least in the official news about outstanding financial problems between the two.

Iran exports natural gas and electricity to Iraq thanks to a sanction waiver the United States awarded to Iraq for transactions with Iran. The two countries have been having problems about how to compensate Iran for its energy export as Iraq cannot pay Iran amid U.S. banking sanctions on Iran.

Many Iranian and regional analysts have said that Iran's influence in Iraq has sharply declined after Soleimani's death and it is not clear to what extent Iran can control or influence its proxy Shiite groups in Iraq.

According to Iranian news website Tabnak, during Iranian Foreign Minister's visit to Baghdad on Monday, three rockets were fired at areas around the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, but no group seems to have assumed responsibility for the attack.

After months of political turmoil in Iraq, Iran reluctantly agreed to support Al-Kadhimi, but some hardliner Iranian sources insist that he had played a part in developments that led to Soleimani's targeted killing.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/khamenei- tells-iraqi-pm-we-will-strike-back-at-us-for- soleimani-s-assassination-/30740053.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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The recent buzz in the media is that Mani Ratnam's production house Madras Talkies is in talks with leading actors in Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu to play the lead roles in Navarasa, an anthology for Amazon Prime.

Already, Suriya, Vijay Sethupathi, and GV Prakash Kumar have been approached by the makers. We hear that talented Malayalam actor Fahadh Faasil has also been approached to play an important role in one of the episodes.
Tesco staff will be asked to clean toilets, shelves and floors of 2,000 of its stores after supermarket bosses axed contract cleaners.

Regular employees at Metro and Express supermarkets will have to take over the responsibilities of professional cleaners from August 24 - a move that will come as a surprise at a time when the global pandemic has increased the focus on hygiene.

It has also angered store staff, one of whom said they felt 'stabbed in the back' by the 'cost-cutting' measure after they had worked hard to keep stores stocked and enforce social distancing.

Regular employees at Metro and Express supermarkets will have to take over the responsibilities of professional cleaners from August 24 - a move that will come as a surprise at a time when the global pandemic has increased the focus on hygiene. File photo

One Tesco employee told The Guardian: 'Like it or not there is still a stigma around being a cleaner. It's a big ask when you have been busting a gut on the checkout or filling shelves to have to do this as well.

'If a store is not doing well then overtime gets cut and people end up being quite stretched. The danger is staff will not have enough time to clean properly.'

Tesco insists that budgets for cleaning products would be increased and staff given more time to finish the necessary cleaning. It also claimed the move would improve standards.

Usman Mohammed, Campaigns manager at Organise, an online workers' rights platform, said: 'Tesco staff are taking action to challenge the decision to get rid of cleaners during a pandemic.

'Staff are already overloaded and exhausted, working hard to make huge profits for Tesco. A pandemic is not the time to be taking risks with hygiene.'

Tesco and other grocers have emerged as the big lockdown winners as supermarket spending hit a record high.

Industry figures from Kantar showed grocery sales rose 16.9pc in the 12 weeks to July 12 to 31.6bn.

The chain reported 15.1% growth, while Sainsbury's saw sales rise by 13.5%, and Asda sales grew by 11%.

The move has also angered store staff, one of whom said they felt 'stabbed in the back' by the 'cost-cutting' measure after they had worked hard to keep stores stocked and enforce social distancing

Further sales growth has been held back by the demands of social distancing, which has limited the number of customers allowed in a store at any one time.

Tesco recently scrapped one way systems on aisle floors as it eased social distancing restrictions, although it will still ask customers to stay two metres apart.

The grocer said it will monitor how many customers visit now measures have been relaxed but some stores are now allowing more people inside at one time.

Tesco said: 'Currently we use third-party suppliers for cleaning. Following a successful trial, we have found that giving our stores more ownership and control over their cleaning results in better and more consistent standards.

'We will now roll this out to all our Express stores and convenience Metro stores.'
COVID-19 cases rise to 401 as five more people test positive

At a quarantine area in Ha Nam province

The number of COVID-19 cases in Vietnam has risen to 401 as the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control announced five new patients on July 22 morning.

All the five patients are imported cases, four of whom came home from Russia and the other was repatriated from the US. All were immediately quarantined upon arrival.

It has now been 97 days since the country recorded the last infection in the community.

Up to 261 out of the total 401 patients are imported cases who were put under quarantine right after their arrival, posing no risk of community transmission.

As many as 365 patients were given the all-clear of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, while the remaining 36 are being treated at medical establishments across the country.

There are currently 12,484 people who had close contact with COVID-19 patients or entering Vietnam from pandemic-hit regions being quarantined, including 114 at hospitals, 11,239 at other facilities and 1,131 at home.

Nearly 280 Vietnamese citizens flown home from Europe

Close to 280 Vietnamese citizens in Romania, Poland and some nearby European countries have been repatriated on a flight that landed at the Da Nang International Airport, the central city of Da Nang, on July 22.

The passengers include children under 18, people with illnesses, elderly people, students who have completed their study and faced accommodation difficulties, short-term visitors and workers with expired visa and working contracts.

The flight was arranged by authorised agencies of Vietnam, Vietnamese representative agencies in Romania, Poland, and the nearby European nations, the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, and competent agencies of the host countries.

As many countries have imposed travel restrictions to curb the spread of the pandemic, Vietnamese representative agencies in Europe had actively worked with the host countries authorities to prepare necessary procedures and instruct the citizens to move to airports in Bucharest and Warsaw to board the flight. They had also sent staff to the airports to coordinate with the airlines and local authorities to assist the citizens in handling relevant procedures.

Disease prevention measures were carried out during the flight. Upon landing at the Da Nang airport, the passengers received health check-ups and were sent to quarantine centres in line with regulations.

In the time ahead, authorised agencies of Vietnam, the countrys overseas representative bodies and domestic airlines will conduct more repatriation flights with regard to pandemic developments, overseas citizens needs, and local quarantine capacity.

From April 10 to July 16, Vietnam organised 55 flights bringing 13,323 citizens home from overseas in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang.

Foreigners illegally entering Vietnam found in Da Nang

Da Nang police has detected two cases of foreigners illegally entering Vietnam.

In an official announcement on July 21, the city police said in an administrative inspection of a house in Duong Tu Giang street, Khue My ward, on July 11, they found four Chinese who had illegally entered Vietnam. The police has launched a case on brokering illegal entry into Vietnam under Article 348 of the Penal Code.

Another inspection of a hotel in Loseby street, An Hai Bac ward on July 16, revealed 27 Chinese who had also illegally entered the country. The group of foreigners have been tested for SARS-CoV-2, and the results of the first tests were all negative. They are now being quarantined at the hotel.

Investigation is underway into the cases.

US firms present medical supplies to HCM City

The American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (AMCHAM Vietnam) and Intel Products Vietnam company presented medical supplies to the 115 Emergency Centre in Ho Chi Minh City at a ceremony on July 21.

The supplies included an ambulance and specialised equipment worth over 2.2 billion VND (95,600 USD).

Speaking at the ceremony, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Ho Chi Minh City To Thi Bich Chau thanked the AMCHAM Vietnam for joining hands with Ho Chi Minh City in the fight against COVID-19.

She also spoke highly of medical cooperation between the US and Vietnam, including the role of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Agency for International Development.

Deputy Director of the CDC office in Ho Chi Minh City Amy Bailey, for her part, congratulated Vietnam on its positive achievements in COVID-19 control.

Bailey said AMCHAM Vietnams presentation of medical supplies to Ho Chi Minh City is a vivid symbol of US firms core community value.

She also wished that ties between the two countries will be increasingly closer.

Five more COVID-19 patients given all-clear on July 21

No new case of COVID-19 was reported while five more patients were given the all-clear on July 21, according to the national steering committee for COVID-19 control.

Vietnam has been free from community transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 for 96 days in a row since 6am April 16.

A total of 365 out of the 396 COVID-19 patients confirmed so far in the country have recovered, and there has been no death.

Meanwhile, 11,088 people who had close contact with COVID-19 patients or arrived from pandemic-hit areas are being quarantined across the country, including 111 in hospital, 9,949 at concentrated facilities and 1,028 at their accommodations.

Over 300 Vietnamese repatriated from Malaysia

Relevant agencies of Vietnam, the Vietnamese Embassy in Malaysia, the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, and Genting Malaysia Berhad on July 21 coordinated with competent Malaysian agencies to organise a flight bringing home over 300 Vietnamese citizens.

To ensure the safety of the passengers and crew and prevent the spread of COVID-19, the carrier strictly implemented security, safety, and hygiene measures during the flight.

After landing at Can Tho International Airport in the Mekong Delta city of the same name, all passengers and crew members had their health checked and were taken to a concentrated quarantine centre, in line with Vietnams regulations.

Implementing Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phucs directions, relevant domestic agencies and Vietnamese representative agencies abroad are coordinating to bring Vietnamese citizens home when domestic quarantine capacity permits.
Indias ability to fight Covid-19 largely rests on how well it manages Centre-state relations, NK Singh, the chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, said.

Singh was addressing students of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore on Wednesday through video conference.

Giving a lecture on Impact of Pandemic on Fiscal Architecture - Fiscal Federalism in the Near Future, I stressed the need to reset the fiscal architecture in light of the pandemic. Unlike other countries, India has far more harmonious management of the Centre-State polity, Singh tweeted.

He said the states, which are fighting the pandemic, need resources, and the government should relax their borrowing limits. This is the time for fiscal norms to be suitably relaxed. States need greater room to meet additional obligations caused by the pandemic, IIM Banglore said in a tweet quoting him.

In order to give fiscal space to states in this time of crisis, the Union government recently raised their borrowing limits. Announcing the last tranche of Rs 20 lakh crore Atamnirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-Reliant India Initiative) on May 17, finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Centre also accepted the demand of states to raise their borrowing limit from 3% of their respective gross state domestic product (GSDP) to 5%, and this would give them additional resources of Rs 4.28 lakh crore during the Covid crisis.

The increased limit, however, depended on implementation of reforms by the states in four areas  one-nation-one-ration-card, ease of doing business, power distribution, and urban local body revenues, she said. In a statement, the finance ministry on July 12 said that it issued a formal communication to state governments raising borrowing limits by 2% of their projected GSDP in 2020-21 subject to implementation of specific state-level reforms.

Speaking at IIM Bangalore, Singh explained the concept of fiscal federalism, a term first introduced by the German-born American economist Richard Musgrave in 1959 that deals with the division of government functions and financial relations between levels of government.

He revisiting the evolution of fiscal federalism in India, which primarily dates back to pre-Independence era and emanates from the government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935. While the 1919 act provided for a separation of revenue heads between the Centre and provinces, the 1935 Act allowed the sharing of Centres revenues and the provision of grants-in-aid to provinces.

He also explained the difference between Union and Federation. Political scientist Alfred Stepan classified India as a holding together as opposed to a coming together federation. Unlike the federal form of government in the United States, which is described as an indestructible Union composed of indestructible states, India is an indestructible Union of destructible states, he said.
ENDEAVOUR ANNOUNCES AN INCREASE OF 554,000 OUNCES IN M&I RESOURCES AT ITS HOUNDE MINE

2.5Moz of Indicated resources discovered at the Kari Area within three years at

HIGHLIGHTS:

Hounde M&I Resource increased by 554koz to 4.45Moz Au following further resource delineation at the Kari Area

Today's resource increase includes extensions for the Kari West and Kari Center deposits plus maiden resources for the adjacent Kari Gap, Kari South, and Kari Pump NE deposits

The Kari Area now accounts for 57% of the Hounde M&I resource, with 2.5Moz of Indicated resources discovered over the past three years

The Kari Area hosts high grade deposits with ~ 84% of Indicated resources grading more than 2.0 g/t Au, amounting to 2.1Moz

Low discovery cost of less than $15 per Indicated resource ounce for the Kari Area

An exploitation license has recently been awarded for the Kari Area and mining commenced at the Kari Pump deposit

Maiden reserves for Kari West, along with an updated Hounde mine plan, are expected to be published in Q3-2020 followed by maiden reserves for Kari Center and Kari Gap in Q4-2020

An additional 20,000 meter drill program is expected to start in H2-2020

Abidjan, July 22, 2020 - Endeavour Mining (TSX:EDV) (OTCQX:EDVMF) is pleased to announce that Measured and Indicated resources at its Hounde mine in Burkina Faso have increased by 554,000 ounces to 4.5 million ounces following further resource delineation at the Kari Area, as shown in Table 1 below.

Sebastien de Montessus, CEO, commented:

"We are very excited to announce this resource update as it continues to demonstrate the Hounde mine's potential. Over 2.5Moz of Indicated resources have now been discovered in the Kari Area, ranking it as the largest resource in the Hounde mine complex. Ourability in moving the Kari Area from discovery to production in under three years underscores the success of aggressive exploration strategy and the value of our strong and established government partnerships in West Africa.

Last year, the 1.0Moz Indicated resource delineated at Kari Pump led to a reserve conversion of over 700koz. We now look forward to quickly completing the work to convert the additional 1.5Moz of Indicated resources delineated for the other deposits. With 84% of the Kari Area resource grading above 2 g/t Au, we are confident we will achieve our goal of producing 250koz/year over a 10+ year mine life at Hounde by displacing lower grade material."

Table 1: Hounde Mineral Resource Evolution, current as at December 31, 2019

On a 100% basis.

Resources shown are

inclusive of Reserves. PREVIOUS RESOURCE UPDATED RESOURCE ? AU CONTENT Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Au koz) Measured Resource 1.7 1.75 96 1.7 1.75 96 +0 Indicated Resource 58.6 2.01 3,797 72.9 1.86 4,351 +554 M&I Resource 60.4 2.01 3,893 74.6 1.85 4,447 +554 Inferred Resource 6.9 2.07 456 7.9 1.90 481 +24

Mineral Resource and Reserve estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definitions standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources are constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. The Hounde Mine Resource is current as at December 31, 2019 and includes Reserves but does not include 2020 mine depletion. For the notes relating to the Hounde Mine Resource Estimate, please consult the March 5, 2020 press release available on the Company's website.





As shown in Table 2 below, the Kari Area now accounts for 57% of the Hounde M&I resource with 2.5 million ounces delineated over the past three years.

Table 2: Hounde Mineral Resource Estimate

On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves. MEASURED & INDICATED RESOURCE INFERRED RESOURCE Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) Kari Area deposits 45.0 1.76 2,542 5.1 1.46 239 Vindaloo deposits 26.8 1.92 1,654 2.6 2.63 217 Other (Bouere, Dohoun) 2.9 2.69 251 0.2 3.39 24 Total deposits 74.6 1.85 4,447 7.9 1.90 481

Patrick Bouisset, Executive Vice President Exploration and Growth, said:

"We are very pleased with the additional resources delineated at the Kari Area for a number of reasons. Firstly, the very favorable mineralization characteristics. A large portion of the resources is high grade, specifically those at Kari West. A large portion is also oxide and transitional material, while the Vindaloo deposit being mined currently is mainly fresh ore. These deposits are also amenable to open pit mining with potential strip ratios significantly lower than that currently being seen at the Vindaloo deposit and more than half of those at the high grade Kari Pump deposit. Lastly, the attractive metallurgy provides for potential gold recovery rates above 90%.

As we continue to drill in the Kari Area later this year and into 2021, we are confident that we will continue to delineate resources along the Kari Center trend, which remains open. In addition, we are keen to start drilling other high priority targets close to the Hounde mill after spending three years focusing mainly on the Kari Area."





ABOUT THE KARI AREA EXPLORATION PROGRAM





As shown in Figure 1 below, the Kari Area includes a large area of anomalous drill intercepts covering an area 5km by 4km wide and which is host to numerous deposits located 7 to 10km northwest of the Hounde processing plant.

Figure 1: Kari Area and Deposits Location Map





The Kari Area has been the focus of extensive exploration since 2017, with over 400,000 meters drilled and six discoveries made: Kari Pump, Kari Center, Kari West, Kari Gap, Kari Pump NE and Kari South. The drilling activity is summarized in Table 3 below and it is estimated that approximately 20% of the anomaly remains to be drilled.





Table 3: Kari Area Drilling History

PROGRAM METERS DRILLED HOLES RESULTS Q3-2017

to Q4-2018 203,900 2,237 comprised of 1,431 AC, 716 RC and 90 DD - Kari Pump maiden Indicated resource Q4-2018

to Q4-2019 166,280 1,493 comprised of 886 AC, 538 RC and 69 DD Extended Kari Pump mineralization

Delineated a maiden resource for Kari West and Kari Center H1-2020 44,445 370 comprised of 175 AC, 14 DD, 164 RC, and 17 RC/DD Delineated Kari Center trend

Converted Kari West Inferred and Kari Centre Inferred resources into the Indicated category

Maiden resources for Kari Gap, Kari Pump NE, and Kari South Total 414,625 4,100 -Discovery of 2.5Moz of Indicated resource

Further information regarding the 2017-2019 exploration results are available in the press releases published on November 13, 2017, May 24, 2018, November 15, 2018 and November 25, 2019, available on the Company's website.

As shown in Figure 2 below, 55% of H1-2020 drilling was concentrated on extending and delineating the Kari Center trend, with 15% directed towards delineating Kari Pump NE, while the remaining 30% was dedicated to Kari West infill drilling with the goal of converting Inferred resources into Indicated resource category and testing deeper extensions of the deposit. A total of 370 holes were drilled amounting to 44,445 meters comprised of 175 Air Core ("AC") holes totaling 14,318 meters, 14 Diamond Drill ("DD") holes totaling 2,916 meters, 164 Reverse Circulation ("RC") holes totaling 23,427 meters, and 17 RC/DD holes totaling 3,784 meters. Exploration results were very good with over 80% of the holes completed during H1-2020, intersecting mineralization of at least two meter thickness (downhole) with grades of 0.5 g/t Au or above.

In addition, 35 DD and RC/DD holes totaling 5,853 meters were drilled for geotechnical and metallurgical testing purposes on Kari West, Kari Centre and Kari Gap. There was an additional 62,267 meters of grade control drilling completed at Kari Pump to prepare for H2-2020 production and 157 RC holes totaling 11,717 meters were drilled for sterilization of the Kari Pump waste dump and ROM pad areas.

Figure 2: H1-2020 Drilling Activity in the Kari Area







Selected intercepts from the H1-2020 drill program in the Kari Center structural trend include:

Kari Center

(true width uncapped) Kari Gap

(downhole thickness uncapped)



Kari South

(downhole thickness uncapped)



KC20-040: 3.0m at 7.77 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 16.30 g/t Au



KC20-003: 18.7m at 1.55 g/t Au, including 2.90m at 5.15 g/t Au



KS20-019: 8.0m at 2.54 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 3.82 g/t Au



KC20-045: 11.0m at 2.46 g/t Au, including 3.0m at 5.42 g/t from



KC20-004: 4.9m at 4.12 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 11.55 g/t Au



KS20-047: 33.9m at 2.03 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 12.02 g/t Au



KC20-052: 9.9m at 4.20 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 34.60 g/t Au



KC20-005: 6.9m at 3.80 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 9.42 g/t Au



KS20-050: 13.9m at 2.87 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 13.85 g/t Au



KC20-055: 13.9m at 2.10 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 5.26 g/t Au



KC20-006: 5.9m at 5.21 g/t Au, including 2.9m at 8.47 g/t Au



KS20-065: 11.0m at 2.49 g/t Au, including 3.0m at 4.74 g/t Au



KC20-056: 12.9m at 3.09 g/t Au, including 4.0m at 7.75 g/t Au



KC20-008: 4.9m at 10.0 g/t Au, including 2.9m at 16.23 g/t Au



KS20-067: 6.0m at 4.61 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 3.62 g/t Au



KC20-080: 4.0m at 5.77 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 19.80 g/t Au



KC20-010: 3.9m at 6.23 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 9.04 g/t Au



KS20-070: 30.9m at 2.73 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 4.34 g/t Au



KC20-081: 2.0m at 53.21 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 106.00 g/t Au



KC20-030: 3.9m at 6.22 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 11.53 g/t Au



KS20-114: 5.0m at 4.31 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 15.20 g/t Au



KC20-092: 12.9m at 2.01 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 6.67 g/t Au, and including 2.0m at 4.18 g/t Au



KC20-033: 20m at 1.43 g/t Au, including 0.8m at 3.02 g/t Au



KS20-114: 4.0m at 7.07 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 23.5 g/t Au



KC20-093: 7.9m at 3.30 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 9.19 g/t Au, and including 2.0m at 4.64 g/t Au



KC20-110: 3.9m at 6.08 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 10.36 g/t Au



KS20-125: 9.0m at 13.78 g/t Au, including 3.0m at 36.15 g/t Au, and including 1.0m at 5.43 g/t Au, and including 1.0m at 5.24 g/t Au





ABOUT THE KARI AREA RESOURCE

Today's resource increase includes extensions for the Kari West and Kari Center deposits and maiden resources for the nearby Kari Gap, Kari South, and Kari Pump NE deposits, as shown in Table 4 below.

Table 4: Kari Area Mineral Resource Estimate

PREVIOUS KARI AREA UPDATED KARI AREA ? AU

CONTENT On a 100% basis.

Resources shown inclusive of Reserves. Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) koz % INDICATED RESOURCE Kari West 15.7 1.71 861 20.4 1.53 1,005 +144 +17% Kari Center 3.7 1.18 140 6.6 1.26 269 +129 +92% Kari Gap 0.0 0.00 0 3.9 1.41 176 +176 n.a. Kari Pump NE 0.0 0.00 0 0.3 1.98 21 +21 n.a. Kari South 0.0 0.00 0 2.1 1.09 75 +75 n.a. Kari Pump 11.3 2.71 987 11.6 2.66 996 +9 +1% Total Kari Area 30.7 2.02 1,988 45.0 1.76 2,542 +554 +28% INFERRED RESOURCE Kari West 3.4 1.65 179 2.5 1.41 114 (65) (36%) Kari Center 0.4 1.21 16 0.5 1.68 25 +9 +56% Kari Gap 0.0 0.00 0 0.1 1.76 8 +8 n.a. Kari Pump NE 0.0 0.00 0 0.0 1.81 3 +3 n.a. Kari South 0.0 0.00 0 1.7 1.30 69 +69 n.a. Kari Pump 0.3 2.21 20 0.3 2.16 20 0 0% Total Kari Area 4.1 1.64 215 5.1 1.46 239 +24 +11%

No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

Due to the intensive infill drill program conducted in H1-2020, 88% of the total resource for Kari West, Kari Center, Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE has been classified in the Indicated category, with the potential to convert additional resources through upcoming drilling.

The mineralized lenses have favorable mining characteristics as they are amenable to open pit mining with mineralization starting at surface. The deposits added in the Kari Area are expected to have low strip ratios, with the Indicated resource pit shell strip ratio amounting to 6.1, 7.1, 6.4 and 6.6 for Kari West, Kari Center, Kari Gap and Kari South, respectively. In addition, today's announcement brings significant oxide and transitional material additions, representing approximately 30%, 66%, 74%, 73% and 100% of the Kari West, Kari Center, Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE Indicated resources, respectively.

As shown in Table 5 below, the Kari Area hosts high grade deposits, with approximately 84% of Indicated resources grading above 2.0 g/t Au, amounting to 2.1Moz, at various cut-off grades.

Table 5: Kari Area Indicated Resource at an Average Grade of > 2 g/t Au at Variable Cut-off Grades

CUT-OFF

GRADE TONNAGE AVERAGE GRADE GOLD CONTENT WITH

AVERAGE GRADE >2 g/t

Based on various stated cut-offs TOTAL GOLD CONTENT

Based on 0.5 g/t cut-off PORTION OF TOTAL RESOURCE >2g/t (Au g/t) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Au koz) % Kari West 1.10 12.3 2.0 792 1,005 79% Kari Center 1.20 2.5 2.0 159 269 59% Kari Gap 1.00 2.1 2.0 133 176 76% Kari Pump NE 0.70 0.3 2.0 21 21 100% Kari South 1.35 0.5 2.0 30 75 40% Kari Pump 0.00 11.6 2.66 996 996 100% Total Kari Area 29.3 2.26 2,131 2,542 84%

Further details by deposit are provided in Appendix A of this press release. No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and based on stated cut-offs. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

A sensitivity analysis performed at various gold prices demonstrates the robustness of the Kari Area resource estimate, due to their shallow nature and advantageous mineralization characteristics, as shown in Tables 6 and 7 below.

Table 6: Kari Area June 2020 Indicated Resource Sensitivity

BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE OF $1,700/oz OF $1,500/oz OF $1,300/oz On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves. Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) INDICATED RESOURCE Kari West 21.1 1.52 1,029 20.4 1.53 1,005 19.2 1.54 951 Kari Center 7.5 1.22 296 6.6 1.26 269 6.1 1.26 247 Kari Gap 4.4 1.37 192 3.9 1.41 176 3.7 1.42 167 Kari Pump NE 0.4 1.95 22 0.3 1.98 21 0.3 2.00 19 Kari South 2.3 1.08 81 2.1 1.09 75 1.9 1.12 68 Kari Pump 12.0 2.61 1,006 11.6 2.66 996 9.7 2.94 914 Total Kari Area 47.7 1.71 2,626 45.0 1.76 2,542 40.9 1.80 2,366

No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and for sensitivity purpose by MII $1,300/oz and $1,700/oz pit shells and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

Table 7: Kari Area June 2020 Inferred Resource Sensitivity

BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE OF $1,700/oz OF $1,500/oz OF $1,300/oz On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) INFERRED RESOURCE Kari West 2.9 1.38 129 2.5 1.41 114 1.9 1.48 89 Kari Center 0.6 1.52 30 0.5 1.68 25 0.4 1.80 21 Kari Gap 0.2 1.67 9 0.1 1.76 8 0.1 1.94 6 Kari Pump NE 0.1 1.73 3 0.0 1.81 3 0.0 1.82 2 Kari South 2.0 1.22 80 1.7 1.30 69 1.2 1.39 52 Kari Pump 0.3 2.11 21 0.3 2.16 20 0.2 2.36 17 Total Kari Area 6.1 1.39 272 5.1 1.46 239 3.8 1.54 187

Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and for sensitivity purpose by MII $1,300/oz and $1,700/oz pit shells and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

ABOUT KARI WEST

In 2019, intensive RC drilling defined the Kari West target as a broad mineralized area extending over 1,000 meters in strike length at a width of 500 meters and delineated a maiden Indicated resource (published on November 25, 2019). As shown in Figure 3 below, the additional 69 holes, totaling 10,045 meters drilled in H1-2020, allowed for the conversion of most of the 2019 Inferred resource into Indicated status. As a result, the Indicated resource for Kari West increased from 861koz to over 1Moz of gold.

Figure 3: 2020 Drilling activity over Kari West

Drilling also demonstrated that the deposit remains open at depth, as shown in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4: Section 4960 at Kari West

At Kari West, the weathered bedrock and saprolite thickness varies between 25 meters and 75 meters with thicker zones noted to the south. Laterite up to 20 meters thick covers most of the area. The Kari West deposit is located in the hanging wall of a N240 trending and steep northwest-dipping lithological contact zone between dominantly meta-volcanic units (hanging wall) and a dominant metasedimentary unit (footwall). The deposit was formed under purely brittle conditions.

ABOUT KARI CENTER STRUCTURAL TREND AND DEPOSITS

Mineralization was first intercepted at Kari Center during initial AC reconnaissance drilling in 2017. Follow up RC and DD drill programs in 2018 confirmed mineralized trends and significantly extended the continuity towards the southwest. The Kari Area 2019 drilling campaign mostly concentrated on the larger Kari West deposit, but reconnaissance drilling along 200 azimuth delineated two main areas of mineralization on the broad Kari Center trend, each with their own characteristic of trends and dips. The whole Kari Center trend extends over a 3.5km stretch and was the subsequent focus of the H1-2020 drilling campaign with 175 holes totaling 23,634 meters.

This campaign was very successful, as shown in Figure 5 below, and allowed to confirm mineralization for the extension of Kari Center, the discovery of Kari Gap (which is near but separate from Kari Center), and the better definition of Kari South. The latter appears to be made of two mineralized trends. All three zones have characteristic trends and dips, which confirm the 3.5km concentration of mineralization hosted along a north-northeast trending shear corridor.

Figure 5: H1-2020 Drilling on Kari Center Trend

ABOUT KARI CENTER

At Kari Center, the main mineralization trends northeast and dips moderately steeply towards the northwest. The zone now covers an area approximately 1,000 meters along strike at a width of approximately 500 meters and is open at depth, in the direction of Kari Pump and Kari Gap.

Resource conversion drilling confirmed the geologic model and the continuity of two mineralized zones, both characterized by strong lithological and structural controls. The main mineralized corridor follows a 100 meter wide sericite-albite alteration corridor that has developed at the contact between a mafic volcanic unit to the northwest and a volcano-sedimentary unit (graywacke, locally black shales) to the southeast. It is associated with quartz veining and bleaching of the surrounding lithologies, along with fine disseminated pyrite and no arsenopyrite observed to date. The mineralization is diffuse, locally high grade (>2 g/t Au) but mostly lower grade with large volumes of oxidized and argilized ore in the main part of the deposit.

A second brittle mineralized corridor has developed to the southeast, parallel to the alteration corridor, in sedimentary units with no sericite-albite alteration expressed. Gold grades are structurally controlled, locally higher grade (> 5g/t Au) but on narrower tension gashe quartz vein type intercepts. Significantly, recent results indicate that the thinner higher grade mineralization is more consistent than previously thought. To date, neither visible gold nor arsenopyrite have been observed in drill cuttings.

Alteration has developed mainly in volcanics due to porosity but also due to rock chemistry (feldspar), giving bleached white rock totally overprinting original texture where the alteration is most intense, very similar to that observed at Kari West. In more impermeable sediments and with unfavorable chemistry, alteration is only very rarely expressed, only very locally along narrow veins.

ABOUT KARI GAP

Kari Gap is located 300 meters south-southwest of the southwestern tip of Kari Center and broadly follows the geological continuity of Kari Center. The deposit covers an area approximately 600 meters along strike at a width of approximately 300 meters and is today open at depth, towards Kari Centre, and towards Kari South.

Kari Gap exhibits a similar stratigraphic sequence as Kari Center, with lithological units dipping moderately to the northwest and consisting of volcanics with intercalated volcano-sedimentary units which seem to be narrower than those occurring at Kari Center. Sericite-albite alteration is also expressed, hosted in the volcanics at the hanging wall of the contact with the sedimentary unit.

The Kari Gap deposit is located at the intersection of northeast trending lithologic units and a north-northeast trending shear corridor. The mineralization has a strong lithological control as well as structural control, and in general, mirrors the lithological contact. The mineralization is associated with quartz veining and whitish sulphide-sericite-albite alteration and fine disseminated pyrite, like that observed at Kari Center. To date, neither visible gold nor arsenopyrite have been observed in drill cuttings.

Kari Gap is composed of two main zones hosting mineralized lenses. The first is hosted around the sericite-albite altered volcanics and in general provides lower grade and large volume, while the second zone appears to be hosted in brittle structures within and at the footwall of the volcano-sedimentary unit, and provides higher grades and smaller volumes, as shown in Figure 6 below.

Figure 6: Kari Gap Central Section

The area between Kari Gap and Kari Centre still host significant potential which will be addressed during the Q4-2020 drilling campaign.

ABOUT KARI SOUTH

Kari South represents the southern end of the mineralization system associated with the Kari Center shear corridor. It covers an area approximately 1,600 meters along strike at a width of 300 meters and remains widely open at depth and towards the south. Further potential exists to delineate additional resources as Kari South's detailed structure and mineralization is still in the early interpretation phase.

Kari South is underlain by volcanics with minor thin intercalated volcano-sedimentary lenses. The mineralization generally trends north-northeast with some higher grade clusters and mostly consists of volcanics with pervasive sericite-albite alteration and disseminated pyrite (same as Kari Center and Kari Gap). Like in Kari Center and Kari Gap, neither visible gold nor arsenopyrite have been observed in drill cuttings.

ABOUT KARI PUMP NE

Step out drilling targeting the possible extension of near-surface mineralization near Kari Pump, over a 700 meter span towards the northeast, allowed for the discovery of new mineralization which appears to be of a similar spatial orientation as the Kari Pump mineralized shear, as shown in Figure 7 below.

Figure 7: Kari Pump NE and Selected H1-2020 Intercepts

The new mineralized interval is located approximately 40 meters beneath (footwall) the main Kari Pump mineralized shear and has similar thickness and grades in drill intercepts. As shown in Figure 8 below, it stretches out to the surface, approximately 200 meters to the northeast of the Kari Pump pit shell, and is open downdip to the west and down plunge to the northwest.

Figure 8: Kari Pump NE Section 8280

Although the Indicated ounces defined to date for Kari Pump NE are relatively modest (21koz), the occurrence of this new mineralization with Kari Pump characteristics below the main deposit at Kari Pump presents an additional exciting opportunity that will be pursued through additional drilling (DD and RC) during the next drilling campaign.

NEXT STEPS

Kari West maiden reserves expected to be published in Q3-2020

Kari Center and Kari Gap maiden reserves expected to be published in Q4-2020 following completion of metallurgical and geotechnical testing

A 20,000-meter drilling program is due to begin in Q4-2020, after the rainy season, and will continue in 2021, with the following key objectives: Pursue exploration at the junction of Kari Center and Kari Gap Pursue delineation and extend resource drilling on Kari South Test the extension of the Kari Pump NE mineralization to the north/northwest Explore the remaining targets in the Kari area Pursue exploration of other neighboring targets in the area such as Sia and Vindaloo South



KARI AREA RESOURCE MODELING

The geological models, statistical analyses and resource estimates were prepared by Helen Oliver, FGS CGeol. Ms Oliver is Endeavour Mining's Group Resource Geologist and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. The Kari West and Kari Center Mineral Resource Estimates (MREs) have been updated and Maiden MREs have been developed for Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE in Geovia Surpac software.

The mineralization model for Kari West has been updated with the new drilling and improved continuity has been proven, resulting in a reduction in the number of mineralized lenses from 94 to 70, grouped into four domains (reduced from eight). An additional eight mineralized lenses have been identified at Kari Center resulting in 22 mineralized zones. Eighteen mineralized lenses have been modeled at Kari Gap, fifteen at Kari South and seven at Kari Pump NE.

The gold assays from the drill holes were composited to one meter intervals within the mineralized wireframes and capped by lens or not at all depending on the high grade outliers within the individual lens. Two lenses at Kari West were capped at 25 g/t Au, one at 20 g/t Au, eight at 15 g/t Au and the remainder at 10 g/t Au, 5 g/t Au or not at all; Kari Center lenses were capped at 15 g/t Au, 10 g/t Au or not at all; Kari Gap lenses were capped at 15 g/t Au, 10 g/t Au, 5 g/t Au or not at all; Kari South was capped predominately at 5 g/t Au with two lenses at 10 g/t Au; and Kari Pump NE was capped at 10 g/t Au, 5 g/t Au or not at all. Each mineralized lens was subjected to a spatial analysis of the gold distribution using variograms. Except for Kari South, the majority of the lenses showed a good continuity of gold grade along strike and down-dip and were used to establish ordinary kriging ("OK") estimation parameters.

Density parameters were determined by deposit and rock type. The laterite has a density ranging between 2.0 t/m3 and 2.1 t/m3, saprolite between 1.7 t/m3 and 1.9 t/m3, saprock between 2.2 t/m3 and 2.4 t/m3 and fresh rock between 2.7 t/m3 and 2.8 t/m3.

The gold grade was estimated by OK, constrained by the mineralized lenses in all the deposits with the exception of Kari South where inverse distance squared (ID2) was used due to poor variography. The grade was estimated in multiple passes to define the higher confidence areas and to extend the grade into areas of extrapolated mineralization. The grade estimation was validated by visually comparing drilling data and block grades, comparing inverse distance squared and OK estimated grades and by swath plots comparing block grades and composite grades.

The mineralization was classified as Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources depending on the sample spacing, number samples, confidence in mineralized zone continuity and geostatistical analysis. Indicated Mineral Resource classification was generally applied to blocks within the mineralized zone defined by a minimum of five samples from at least three drill holes within a 55 meter search at Kari West and 50 meter at Kari Center, Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE. Inferred Mineral Resource classification was defined by a minimum of three samples within a 75 meter to 85 meter search at Kari West and 80 meter at Kari Center and 75 meter at Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE. The Mineral Resources were constrained by $1,500 gold price pit shells (sensitivity performed for $1,300 and $1,700) and a 0.50 g/t Au cut-off grade. The Whittle pit shell optimizations assumed a base mining cost of $2.00/t and an adjusted ore mining and haulage cost of $3.60/t for oxide, $4.60/t for transition and $4.80/t for fresh rock, a mining recovery of 95%, mining dilution of 0%, a pit slope of 40o, average gold recovery of 90% (94%, 89% and 82% for oxide, transition and fresh rock, respectively for Kari Pump NE), a processing and G&A cost of $14.00/t for oxide, $15.00/t for transition and $18.00/t for fresh rock, and a gold selling cost (royalty, refining and selling) of $80/oz.

ASSAYS AND QUALITY ASSURANCE / QUALITY CONTROL / DRILLING AND ASSAY PROCEDURES

RC drill samples were collected at one meter intervals using dual tube, percussion hammer with a drop center bit. This same configuration was used on modified AC drills for regional drill programs. RC and AC samples were split at the drill site using one tier or three tier riffle splitters based on bulk sample weight collected at the cyclone. The target was a 2kg to 3kg sample for Au analysis in addition to an equivalent backup reference sample. Bulk weights, analysis sample weights and reference sample weights were all recorded. All measures were employed to avoid collecting wet samples; however, if wet samples were generated the entire sample was dried and later split using one tier and three tier splitting equipment.

Representative samples for each interval were collected with a spear from the bulk sample bag and sieved into chip trays for geological logging and stored in a secure location. Drill core (PQ, HQ and NQ size) samples were selected by geologists and cut in half with a diamond blade saw at the project site. Half of the core was retained in the core trays at the site for reference purposes. The average sample interval was approximately one meter in length and 2kg to 3kg in weight.

All aspects of sampling at the Kari Area project sites were monitored with a quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) program, compliant with NI 43-101 Standards. To ensure there are adequate internal quality control samples in each analytical batch, a QA/QC insertion schema was generated by the Endeavour Exploration QA/QC management team for verification of the preparation and analysis at the laboratory. Coarse blanks, field duplicates and certified reference material (CRM) were inserted into the sample stream by the project chief geotechnicians. QA/QC sample insertion rates for reginal AC programs see one blank, one field duplicate and one CRM each 30 samples. One blank, one field duplicate and one CRM were inserted each 25 samples in RC delineation drilling. For DD core samples one blank and one CRM each 20 to 25 samples with the laboratory contracted to generate one pulp duplicate per each 30 samples in DD core sample sequences.

All samples were transported by road to ALS Chemex in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in secured, labelled poly-woven bags. The laboratory implements its own internal QA/QC protocol, the results of which are monitored by the Exploration QA/QC Management Team.

On arrival, the AC, RC and DD samples were weighed and crushed to -2mm (70% passing), and a two-kilogramme sample taken by a rotary split and pulverised to -75m (85% passing). The two kilogramme pulverized samples were analyzed for gold by Fire Assay (50g charge) with an Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS) finish.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, external consultants could not audit the Kari Area drill and QA-QC programs over the course of the drilling programs undertaken to date.

Full drill results covering January to May 31, 2020 are available by clicking here .

QUALIFIED PERSONS

The scientific and technical content of this news release has been reviewed, verified and compiled by Jonathan Lawrence, VP Exploration Burkina Faso for Endeavour Mining. Jonathan Lawrence (FAIG, MAusIMM) has more than 20 years of mineral exploration and mining experience and is a "Qualified Person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The resource estimation was completed by Helen Oliver, FGS, CGeol, Group Resource Geologist for Endeavour Mining and a "Qualified Person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Martino De Ciccio



VP - Strategy & Investor Relations

+44 203 640 8665

mdeciccio@endeavourmining.com Brunswick Group LLP in London



Carole Cable, Partner

+44 7974 982 458

ccable@brunswickgroup.com (mailto:ccable@brunswickgroup.com)







Vincic Advisors in Toronto



John Vincic, Principal



(647) 402 6375

john@vincicadvisors.com

ABOUT ENDEAVOUR MINING CORPORATION

Endeavour Mining is a multi-asset gold producer focused on West Africa, with two mines (Ity and Agbaou) in Cote d'Ivoire, four mines (Hounde, Mana, Karma and Boungou) in Burkina Faso, four potential development projects (Fetekro, Kalana, Bantou and Nabanga) and a strong portfolio of exploration assets on the highly prospective Birimian Greenstone Belt across Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali and Guinea.

As a leading gold producer, Endeavour Mining is committed to principles of responsible mining and delivering sustainable value to its employees, stakeholders and the communities where it operates. Endeavour is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, under the symbol EDV.

For more information, please visit www.endeavourmining.com.

Corporate Office: 5 Young St, Kensington, London W8 5EH, UK

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" including but not limited to, statements with respect to Endeavour's plans and operating performance, the estimation of mineral reserves and resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of future production, future capital expenditures, and the success of exploration activities. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects", "expected", "budgeted", "forecasts", and "anticipates". Forward-looking statements, while based on management's best estimates and assumptions, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to the successful integration of acquisitions; risks related to international operations; risks related to general economic conditions and credit availability, actual results of current exploration activities, unanticipated reclamation expenses; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; fluctuations in prices of metals including gold; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, increases in market prices of mining consumables, possible variations in ore reserves, grade or recovery rates; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labor disputes, title disputes, claims and limitations on insurance coverage and other risks of the mining industry; delays in the completion of development or construction activities, changes in national and local government regulation of mining operations, tax rules and regulations, and political and economic developments in countries in which Endeavour operates. Although Endeavour has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Please refer to Endeavour's most recent Annual Information Form filed under its profile at www.sedar.com for further information respecting the risks affecting Endeavour and its business. AISC, all-in sustaining costs at the mine level, cash costs, operating EBITDA, all-in sustaining margin, free cash flow, net free cash flow, free cash flow per share, net debt, and adjusted earnings are non-GAAP financial performance measures with no standard meaning under IFRS, further discussed in the section Non-GAAP Measures in the most recently filed Management Discussion and Analysis.

APPENDIX A

Table 8: Kari Area June 2020 Indicated Mineral Resources defined by cut-off grade

CUT-OFF GRADE TONNAGE GRADE CONTENT (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) KARI WEST 0.1 22.9 1.40 1,032 0.5 20.4 1.53 1,005 1.1 12.3 2.00 792 1.5 7.9 2.41 610 KARI CENTER 0.1 7.8 1.12 281 0.5 6.6 1.26 269 1.1 2.9 1.88 174 1.5 1.6 2.38 121 KARI GAP 0.1 4.7 1.23 186 0.5 3.9 1.41 176 1.1 1.8 2.13 126 1.5 1.2 2.56 101 KARI PUMP NE 0.1 0.3 1.98 22 0.5 0.3 1.98 21 1.1 0.3 2.18 20 1.5 0.2 2.53 17 KARI SOUTH 0.1 2.7 0.94 82 0.5 2.1 1.09 75 1.1 0.7 1.70 41 1.5 0.4 2.14 25 KARI PUMP 0.1 11.7 2.65 997 0.5 11.6 2.66 996 1.1 9.5 3.05 936 1.5 7.3 3.59 843

On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves.

No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell. Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

Attachment




The police officer was arrested for threatening civilians with is service pistol

An officer attached to the Raiders Unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department of the Lagos State Police Command has been arrested for harassing members of the public with his service pistol.

The officer, Inspector Yemi Ojumoola was arrested and will now undergo orderly room trial.

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Bala Elkana, confirmed this on Tuesday.

He said the state Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, ordered that the inspector should face an orderly room trial, where his fate would be decided.

Ojumoola was caught on video engaging a motorist in an argument over traffic issues in Ibadan, Oyo State.

The motorists wife, however, challenged Ojumoola for bringing out his gun, wondering if he wanted to shoot her husband.

She dared him to shoot as the cop smashed the phone with which she was filming the incident.

Ojumoola later told our correspondent that he only wanted to scare the motorist and had no intention of using the gun.

He noted that the pistol was in its holster, adding that for the 28 years he had been in the police, he had never misbehaved.

Findings by our correspondent showed that Ojumoola was attached to the Raiders Unit of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Panti, Yaba.

Elkana said the command had commenced investigation into the matter.

The CP has ordered his (Ojumoola) arrest and detention. He will be tried in an orderly room trial. The result of the trial will be made public, he stated.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Nargiz Ismayilova - Trend:

The export of Azerbaijani products to Moldova increased 13 times from January through June 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, Trend reports citing the statistical bulletin of the State Customs Committee.

According to the committee, the export of Azerbaijani products to Moldova in the first half of this year amounted to $3.3 million, while in the same period of last year this indicator was $253,000. The share of Moldova in the total export of Azerbaijan increased from 0 to 0.04 percent of the total volume of export.

In 1H2020, foreign trade operations between Azerbaijan and Moldova amounted to $5.2 million, an increase of 2.3 times over the year.

In the reporting period, the volume of import of Moldavian products to Azerbaijan declined by 0.7 percent, amounting to $1.9 million. Moldovas share in the total import of Azerbaijan increased from 00.3 to 0.04 percent of the total volume of import.

The foreign trade balance of the two countries for the reporting period was positive and surpassed $1.3 million.

In the first six months of 2020, Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover amounted to $12.6 billion, having decreased by 34.1 percent year-on-year. The balance of foreign trade turnover on an annualized basis declined by 10 percent and remained negative, amounting to $2.6 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @IsmailovaNargis
New Delhi:

Taking strict action against Islamic preacher Zakir Naik's NGO 'Islamic Research Foundation,' government has banned his NGO for five years under Unlawful Activity Prevention Act, ANI reported on Tuesday.A

Taking cognizance of the controversy revolving around Zakir Naik, earlier the Home Ministry found it to be allegedly having dubious links with Peace TV, an international Islamic channel, accused of propagating terrorism. According to a draft note, which was also based on the inputs from Maharashtra Police, Naik, who heads the IRF, has allegedly made many provocative speeches and engaged in terror propaganda.

Government bans Zakir Naik's NGO 'Islamic Research Foundation' for five years terming it illegal. a ANI (@ANI_news) November 15, 2016



Maharashtra Police had also registered criminal cases against Naik for his alleged involvement in radicalisation of youths and luring them into terror activities, a source said.

Naik also transferred IRF's foreign funds to Peace TV for making 'objectionable' programmes. Most of the programmes, which were made in India, contained alleged hate speeches of Naik, who had reportedly 'urged all Muslims to be terrorists' through Peace TV, sources claimed.Two educational trusts run by Naik have also come under the Home Ministry scanner and agencies were looking into their activities. The draft note was placed before the Union Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for its approval, sources said.

Naik is accused of radicalising youths into terror and receiving foreign funds and spending those to lure young people into terrorism. He came under the scanner of the security agencies after Bangladeshi newspaper 'Daily Star' reported that one of the perpetrators of the July 1 terror attack in Dhaka, Rohan Imtiaz, ran propaganda on Facebook last year quoting Naik.

Naik in a lecture, aired on Peace TV, had reportedly "urged all Muslims to be terrorists". The Islamic orator is banned in the UK and Canada for his hate speech aimed against other religions. He is among 16 banned Islamic scholars in Malaysia. He is popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preachings often demean other religions and even other Muslim sects. The Mumbai-based preacher has not returned to India ever since the controversy came to light.



For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New York: US President Donald Trump told reporters to "ask Prince Andrew" when questioned about what went on at Jeffrey Epstein's "cesspool" private island, in a newly unearthed interview.

Trump was asked in 2015 about Epstein and the alleged sexual abuse that took place on Little St James, the Caribbean island owned by the disgraced financier who died in a prison cell in August last year.

Prince Andrew's lawyers are in a back-and-forth with US prosecutors over his friendship with Epstein. Credit:AP

"That island was really a cesspool, there's no question about it, just ask Prince Andrew - he'll tell you about it," Trump told journalists shortly before he entered the presidential race. "The island was an absolute cesspool."

According to flight logs, the Duke of York paid at least one visit to the island, travelling on Epstein's private jet, although former staff claimed he visited Little St James several times.
Dublin, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Medical Central Vacuum System Market - Global Outlook and Forecast 2020-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



In-depth Analysis and Data-driven Insights on the Impact of COVID-19 Included



The study considers the present scenario of the medical central vacuum system market and its market dynamics for the period 2019-2025. It covers a detailed overview of several market growth enablers, restraints, and trends. The study offers both the demand and supply aspect of the market. It profiles and examines leading companies and other prominent ones operating in the market.



The global medical central vacuum system market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 16% during the period 2019-2025



The global medical central vacuum system market revenue will grow by 2.5X during the forecast period. The market is expected to witness a rise in non-conventional cleaning equipment such as centralized vacuum systems in several end-user segments on account of the growing awareness of hygiene, clean indoor air, and green cleaning practices. Central vacuum systems are becoming an ideal choice for residential as well as non-residential segments where they are installed at a designated location. An increase in awareness toward the need for enhanced safety requirements and health hazards at workplaces in the healthcare sector is driving the demand for medical central vacuum systems.



The surge in COVID-19 impact worldwide is increasing the demand for new hospitals. For instance, several governments are developing makeshift hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients. Due to the demand for isolation wards, several major and other prominent vendors are strengthening their market presence to meet the increasing demand for medical vacuums. Hence, the outbreak of pandemic has provided a stimulus to medical central vacuum systems.



Market Segmentation



The global medical central vacuum system market research report includes a detailed segmentation by end-user, application, technology, and geography.



The coronavirus pandemic has led to unexpected growth in demand for medical central vacuum systems. The hospital and pharma segments have witnessed unprecedented growth due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic has laid the foundation of several specialty hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. The requisite of clean medicine production, avoidance of cross-contamination, and safe elimination of hazardous chemicals, pathogens, and a hygienic environment in operation theaters are driving the demand for central vacuum systems.



Multifunctional medical central vacuum systems have witnessed an impetus in 2020 due to the rising demand from rapidly build hospitals for COVID-19 patients and hospitals, which have retrofitted as designated COVID-19 hospitals. The demand for effective multifunctional systems is growing as they remove bodily secretions and maintain clean and pure indoor air. The demand for medical central vacuum systems for dedicated gas scavenging applications is likely to be highest from two end-user segments - hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.



Rotary vane pumps are available in two types - oil-less and oil-sealed. Oil sealed rotary vane pumps are durable, long-lasting pumps with high application in hospital and laboratory end-users. The use of oil in the pump increases efficiencies, lowers operating temperatures and decreases sound levels. Therefore, the segment is witnessing high adoption in several end-user applications. Central vacuum systems with oil-sealed rotary vane pumps are capable of achieving the highest level of vacuum and suction. As these systems are relatively low cost than other central vacuum system technology types, they are finding higher adoption in general cleaning applications with hospitals being their key end-users.



The demand for oil-sealed rotary vane technology is expected to gain traction in India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Mexico, Argentina, and Sri Lanka. Dry claw pumps are the most technologically advanced innovation and are gaining traction in medical and laboratory applications. Central vacuum systems with claw pump technology have lower ultimate vacuum levels than oil-sealed rotary vane pumps, and this makes them ideal for use in dedicated waste anesthesia gas disposal systems.



Segmentation by Technology

Story continues

Rotary Vane

Clamp Pump

Segmentation by Application

Multifunction

Gas Scavenging

General Cleaning

Segmentation by End-user

Hospitals

Pharmaceuticals

Clinics and Nursing Homes

Others

Insights by Geography



The healthcare segment in Europe is expected to emerge immune from political uncertainties post the Brexit negotiations and the corona pandemic. The economic growth in the region could result in low demand for cleaning services and non-conventional cleaning equipment during the forecast period. Vendors of medical central vacuum systems have been able to meet new orders in Q1 2020, despite lockdown in several countries. However, these events are expected to have an impact on the overall global economy by affecting manufacturing on a global scale, and it will also affect the production and supply chain for medical central vacuum systems, which can eventually decline production capabilities in Q3 2020.



Germany is the largest market in Europe due to the presence of over 1,942 hospitals, 1,142 habilitation nursing homes, 19,478 pharmacies, and extensive cleaning industry in the country. Healthcare institutions and pharmaceutical industries in Germany are increasingly adopting eco-friendly or green cleaning technology to reduce the risk of environmental pollution. Smart cleaning technology, such as a centralized collection for medical waste, will continue its growth in the region.



Segmentation by Geography

North America

Europe

APAC

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Insights by Vendors



The global medical central vacuum system market is highly competitive with the presence of several vendors offering a plethora of equipment that can act as a substitute for medical central vacuum systems, especially in non-dedicated applications. Another key factor increasing the competition is the presence of smaller-than-potential addressable market as many medical facilities across geographies restrict the use of medical central vacuum systems to operation theaters and centralized gas scavenging systems; whereas, application segments such as general cleaning are still addressed by manual cleaning or using standalone vacuum cleaners. The major players in the market are Busch LLC and Tri-Tech Medical Inc.



Prominent Vendors

Busch LLC

Tri-Tech Medical

Other Prominent Vendors

Atlas Copco

Cardiovascular Systems

Toshniwal

Lindsay Manufacturing

Medikar

Medicare Gas Pipeline Services

VAC-U-MAX

Nilfisk

Labconco

Dustcontrol

AutoVac

Becker

Drainvac

Dint-Tech Control

MIL'S

Republic Manufacturing

BGS GENERAL SRL

NOVAIR MEDICAL

Megasan Medikal

MIM Medical

Millennium Medical Products

Powerex

Allaway

Drger

Dynapumps

Silbermann

Key Questions Answered



1. What is the market size of the global medical central vacuum system market analysis?

2. What are the factors impacting the growth of the medical central vacuum system market forecast?

3. What is the growth of Europe Medical central vacuum system market during the forecast period?

4. How will the hospital segment growth be likely in the medical central vacuum systems market during the forecast period?

5. What is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the market?



Recap of Market Dynamics



Opportunities & Trends



Rising Potential In General Cleaning and Non-Medical Spaces

Enhancements In Functionalities of Vacuum Systems

Growth Enablers

New Hospital Constructions

Rising Demand for Indoor Hygiene

High-Cost Effectiveness

Restraints

Code Compliance Hindrance to Healthcare Construction

Low Demand from Clinics and Nursing Homes in Emerging Countries

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/m95j1z

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900




A "devious" man who dressed up as a banana to collect money for charity has been convicted after fraudulently obtaining hundreds of pounds from a vulnerable mother and daughter.

Kevin Cole, 55, who also goes by the name of Peter Penfold, was found guilty by a jury of two counts of fraud by false representation on Tuesday.

The court heard that Cole, of Brookfields Avenue, Mitcham, had been contacted by an old school friend, the victim, on Facebook in 2016, where he falsely claimed to be a manager of a charity.

The victim was not aware that Cole had only worked for the charity as a volunteer collector and was only entitled to receive costs for travel and food.

But the victim was given a fraudulent receipt in exchange for her 300 donation.

Cole also befriended the victims daughter who was aged 19 at the time. He agreed to employ the daughter as his receptionist at a different charity if she left her place of employment and paid 100 for two sets of uniform.

Cole dressed up as a banana to collect money for charity / Met Police

She resigned from her place of work and was given a start date by Cole. The charity she believed she was going to work for had in fact closed two years previously.

Cole was interviewed by police in January 2017, where he replied mostly "no comment" to the majority of the questions put to him.

He was charged with two counts of fraud by false representation on June 27, 2017.

During the trial which started on Monday, July 13, it was revealed that Cole promotes himself as the "Banana Man" - a persona he dressed up as to collect money for charity.

He also claimed he had collected 1.2 million for charity.

During the trial, despite providing a "no comment" response in interviews, Cole admitted to being given the money by both the mother and daughter.

He also admitted in court to being arrested numerous times for fraud, making the court aware of his 22 previous convictions.

He was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court to repay the victims the sum of 400 and four months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months.

The conviction of Cole follows a four-year investigation / Met Police

The conviction follows a four-year investigation by the Economic Crime Unit within the Metropolitan Polices Central Specialists Crime Command

Investigating officer PC Carl Blissett said: "I was disgusted that anyone could take 300 while promising to dramatically change someones life knowing that it was no more than hot air.

"He used the names of former charities to entice the victims to supply him with funds, raising their hopes that they might vastly improve their circumstances.

"How Cole was able to sleep at night knowing what he had done to a vulnerable mother and daughter beggars belief and it is gratifying to know that he has been made to answer for his crimes."

PC Blissett added: "The mothers hopes of a better life were dashed and her daughter gave up her employment for a job that never existed  this clearly demonstrates how devious and self-serving Cole truly is.

"Whilst this was a long and drawn out investigation and court process, it was worth every hour invested.

"No one should have their hard earned cash taken away from them in this callous way and I hope this outcome serves as a message to anyone committing fraud that not only do we take these allegations seriously, but we will find those responsible and hold them to account.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has taken over an investment conglomerate run by kidnapped billionaire Xiao Jianhua amid allegations of unauthorized lending, as General Secretary Xi Jinping announced moves to strengthen the domestic economy.



Xiao is believed to have been abducted by mainland Chinese state security police from his apartment in Hong Kong's Four Seasons Hotel in January 2017.



The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said it is targeting 38 major shareholders of banks including Baoshang Bank, which was taken over by regulators last year, and banks affiliated with Anbang Insurance, which was also taken over by the regulator a year earlier.



"There are still a few banks and insurance companies failing to abide by the regulations and which took part in related-party transactions, so as to make profit in improper ways," the commission said in a statement on its website.



"In some cases, assets under banks and insurance companies are even being withdrawn illegally, posing a serious threat to the stability of financial institutions," it said.



The commission said that Xiao's Tomorrow Group had forced Baoshang to make inappropriate loans which contributed to a buildup of nonperforming assets.



Nine insurance and trust companies owned and run by the Tomorrow Group were officially taken over by the authorities last week, state broadcaster CCTV reported.



A WeChat post from the Tomorrow Group questioning the purpose of the takeover was deleted a few hours after posting.



Meanwhile, the China Securities Regulatory Commission also handed over control of Tomorrow's New Era Securities, Guosheng Securities, and Guosheng Futures to institutions it entrusted with their administration.



Strife among powerful factions



But analysts said that asset seizures are an intrinsic part of factional strife among China's richest and most powerful people, and that no wealth can be generated in China without the ruling faction's say-so.



Anyone who does make a fortune remains at risk of having it taken away again, once their assets, power base, and influence become large enough to pose a potential threat, they said.



He Chun of the China University of Political Science and Law said the takeovers indicate that the authorities are getting ready to bring Xiao to trial.



He said there are clearly powerful people backing both Xiao and Tomorrow Group against the ongoing crackdown under Xi Jinping.



"We can say that he isn't supported by the government, but that there are certain [powerful] forces backing him up," He said.



Tomorrow Group said in a statement that it has always fully cooperated with the investigations into Xiao's affairs, adding that investigation teams had already been sent into a number of financial institutions under the group's control, and had effectively removed their autonomy.



He said the actions against the privately owned Tomorrow Group were part of a coordinated operation targeting private wealth in China under Xi, who gave a speech recently calling for the domestic market to be "strengthened."



"What we are seeing is state-owned enterprises flourishing everywhere ... while private enterprises are shutting down or running into trouble [having assets seized]," he said.



According to Caixin.com, the newly seized financial institutions hold total combined assets of more than 1.2 trillion yuan.



Current affairs commentator Guo Baosheng said the move on Tomorrow Group didn't surprise him.



"The main surprise is that the Tomorrow Department also issued a statement speaking out against this takeover and seizure of its assets," Guo said.



He said there were parallels between this situation and a statement from former Anbang Insurance chairman Wu Xiaohui, who accused the government of targeting the conglomerate to enrich a particular political faction.



"The central government was offended by this, and Wu Xiaohui was eventually sentenced to 18 years in prison," Guo said, adding that Xiao would likely suffer a similar fate.



"Once they've gotten rid of him, all of his assets will go to [the government under Xi]," he said. "He will definitely get a very heavy sentence."



Wealth tied to Party connections



Commentator Ma Guoqiang said Xiao's huge wealth had always stemmed from his connections with Xi's "princeling" faction in the first place.



"It is normal for one faction to annex [the assets of] another eventually," Ma said. "It's just a shame for the ordinary people who have invested all their capital in the Tomorrow Group."



The crackdown on the Tomorrow Group comes amid signs that Xi increasingly wants both private and state-owned companies to accept the leadership of the ruling party.



Addressing a symposium of entrepreneurs on Tuesday, Xi lauded the role played by state-owned and private companies in helping China's social and economic recovery from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, CCTV reported.



To do this, they had acted "under the leadership of party committees and government at every level ... and actively participated in the people's war against the pandemic," Xi said.



Major private enterprises in China, including foreign-owned companies, are increasingly under pressure to set up Chinese Communist Party committees to oversee their operations.



Since November 2017, CCP committees have been expected to take a leadership role in state-owned companies with more than three CCP members, while they are expected in private enterprises merely to ensure that no laws are broken.



CCP cells can and do exist in foreign-owned companies and subsidiaries in China, but the Chinese partner in a joint venture can't force the foreign partner to allow a party committee to take a leadership role, under a law governing joint ventures.



Reported by Qiao Long and Zheng Chongsheng for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 02:00:21|Editor: huaxia

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A staff member shows a limited-edition Swiss watch at the Lifestyles exhibition area during the second China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, east China, Nov. 6, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)

Swiss watchmakers are bracing for the worst year in the modern history of watchmaking as the coronavirus pandemic led to factory closures, shuttered shops and travel bans.

GENEVA, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Switzerland's watch industry experienced an "unprecedented crisis" in the first half of this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and a temporary halt in production and sales, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) warned on Tuesday, adding that it expects a market contraction of around 30 percent for 2020.

The sector exported the equivalent of 6.9 billion Swiss francs (7.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2020, far from the 10.7 billion posted for the same period last year, representing a year-on-year fall of 35.7 percent, industry data released by the Federation showed.

The most severe consequences of the pandemic were felt in the second quarter, which saw watch exports plummet by 61.8 percent.





WORST YEAR IN MODERN HISTORY

"Consumer confidence is a key element in the recovery. At a time when all eyes are on China, which is showing the first signs of a return to normal, there are still numerous factors affecting the recovery process," the FH said in a statement.

Swiss watchmakers are bracing for the worst year in the modern history of watchmaking as the coronavirus pandemic led to factory closures, shuttered shops and travel bans. Switzerland's two biggest watch trade shows -- Baselworld and Watches & Wonders Geneva -- were both canceled due to the coronavirus.

"Unfortunately 2020 will be remembered as the 'annus horribilis' (horrible year) for the world and more specifically for the whole luxury industry," Oliver Mueller, founder at LuxeConsult based in Geneva, wrote in emailed comments to Xinhua.

"I expect 2021 to be a much more stable year, mainly thanks to the Chinese market which is gradually regaining momentum," Mueller added.

The Federation said that the return to normal for Swiss watchmaking will be a medium- or even long-term process.

"Watch exports are likely to reflect a market contraction of around 30 percent overall in 2020, with certain marked differences between key players," the FH said.

Switzerland exported 5.5 million timepieces during the first half of the year, compared with just over 10 million last year, a drop of 44.9 percent. All markets fell sharply between the first half. China was the exception, with a decline of only 14.6 percent, the data showed.

"Overall, demand from China is very strong indeed. Chinese consumers are not traveling, and spending their luxury dollars in China. This creates a mechanical boost in sales in China," Luca Solca, managing director of luxury goods at Sanford C. Bernstein, said in an email.

"I also expect that the macroeconomic pain in China is going to be lower than in the U.S. and in Europe, supporting discretionary demand," Solca said.

China's economy bounced back to growth in the second quarter, expanding by 3.2 percent year on year, as the country gradually resumed work and production, official data showed last week.

"It is safe to say that the brands being strong in China such as Omega, Longines or Rolex will take advantage of a recovering Chinese economy which represents the biggest market worldwide for luxury products," Mueller wrote.

Swiss watchmakers were hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak in China as their business heavily depends on demand from Chinese shoppers.

"The high-end watch market will slowly recover, lifted by e-commerce, and thanks to valuable partnerships made by Swiss watchmakers and e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com," said Thierry Huron, founder of The Mercury Project, a Swiss watch and jewelry consulting firm.





DIGITAL CLOCK IS TICKING

The COVID-19 pandemic has also spurred a digitalization across the luxury industry.

Traditional Swiss brands like Swatch, Tissot and TAG Heuer are trying to keep pace with digital trends and have started to produce both luxury as well as more affordable smartwatches for the younger consumers and millennials who increasingly want digital wristwear.

"I think most Swiss brands underestimated the threat from smart watches and tried to underplay them. This was a mistake," Solca said.

The Apple Watch was released in 2015. Sales estimates by Strategy Analytics showed that Apple shipped nearly 31 million devices in 2019, a 36-percent jump over the previous year. In comparison, the Swiss watch industry only shipped an estimated 21.1 million units in 2019, a decline of 13 percent over 2018.

"The Swiss have once more -- after the quartz crisis in 1975-1983 -- ignored a technological game changer," Mueller wrote in an email.

"It seems that some brands are -- finally! -- recognizing the urgent need of a response in the mid-price segment with Tissot, TAG Heuer or Alpina launching new interesting products. Is it too late? Time will tell." (1 Swiss franc = 1.07 U.S. dollars) 
WATERLOO REGION  A new omnibus bill passed Tuesday in the Ontario legislature threatens the protections put in place by the Environmental Assessment Act, environmental groups say.

Bill 197, the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, will change dozens of pieces of Ontario legislation.

Groups including the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Ontario Nature and the Federation of Ontario Cottagers Associations argue the bill allows the province to ignore due process for environmental protection.

The bill divides projects into high-impact ones that are subject to a comprehensive environmental assessment, and medium-impact projects that go through a streamlined environmental assessment.

The province will categorize the projects with consultation from the public, stakeholders and Indigenous communities, says Lindsay Davidson, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.

Nonetheless, environmental groups say they have concerns.

Kevin Thomason, vice chair of the Grand River Environmental Network, argues the provinces redesign of the environmental assessment process and focus on speed is reckless. These protections are not red tape, theyre there to keep the public, our ecosystems and watersheds safe, he says.

There are some changes Thomason does agree with, like the convenience of moving the environmental assessment process online, but he warns this bill will affect the lives of all Ontarians for generations and needs to be crafted with more care.

The middle of a pandemic is not the time to be redesigning our entire environmental assessment process.

The province says the current Environmental Assessment Act, passed in 1975, is outdated and requires modernization to streamline the approvals process for projects. Their aim is to cut down the time required to approve projects.

The changes are intended to modernize the environmental assessment program while ensuring strong environmental oversight and getting critical infrastructure projects off the ground quicker, the province says in a notice posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario.

Environmental groups have also expressed concerns at the speed and lack of consultation with which the Bill 197 changes were introduced. Previously, the province was required to publicize regulations that could have a significant effect on the environment by announcing those changes for at least 30 days in the Environmental Registry of Ontario.

But that requirement was temporarily removed in April. The province did post a notice about the Bill 197 changes in the Environmental Registry, but said it was doing so for informational purposed only, adding there is no requirement to consult on this initiative on the Environmental Registry of Ontario.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 16:03:25|Editor: huaxia

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MALE, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Maldives has received over 195 million U.S. dollars as aid from international donors amid the COVID-19 pandemic, local media citing the Ministry of Finance reported here Wednesday.

According to data from the Ministry of Finance, the government has received aid, in the form of grants and concessional loans, including 52.3 million U.S. dollars from the Asian Development Bank, 31 million U.S. dollars from the World Bank, 28.9 million U.S. dollars from the International Monetary Fund, and 22.6 million U.S. dollars from the European Investment Bank.

The country has also received 35.6 million U.S. dollars from the Islamic Development Bank and 20 million U.S. dollars from the OPEC Fund for International Development.

In terms of bilateral aid, Maldives has received 7.4 million U.S. dollars from Japan, 1 million U.S. dollars from Canada, and a range of technical assistance from countries such as China, India, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

According to state media, financial aid has been funneled into strengthening anti-epidemic measures, including expanding capacity for testing and treatment and buffering businesses and individuals against the economic impacts of COVID-19. Enditem
Chinese video-making company TikTok has said that it plans to add 10,000 jobs over the next three years in the US after facing scrutiny from the government. A TikTok spokesperson told news agency AFP that the new jobs would be in various regions of the US including engineering, marketing, and other sectors.

"These are good-paying jobs that will help us continue to build a fun and safe experience and protect our community's privacy," another spokesperson told CNN. TikTok currently has 1400 employees in the US.

The House of Representatives has voted to prevent government employees from installing TikTok on government-issued devices, as per Gizmodo.

Colorado Republican Congressman Ken Buck passed the banning of TikTok as one of several amendments to the 2021 defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.

As per the amendment, no employee or officer of the United States may download TikTok, or any app from any Bytedance-owned entity.

The development comes shortly after US President Donald Trump's administration posted ads on Facebook encouraging users to sign petitions banning TikTok from the US.

"The Chinese Communist Party is using TikTok to collect massive amounts of data from American citizens and our government that could be used in a cyberattack against our republic," Buck said in a House session. "We must take action to protect our nation and stop the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to undermine our national security."

TikTok has previously said that it was reviewing the structure of the company. "As we consider the best path forward, ByteDance is evaluating changes to the corporate structure of its TikTok business. We remain fully committed to protecting our users' privacy and security as we build a platform that inspires creativity and brings joy for hundreds of millions of people around the world," TikTok in a statement said.

TikTok does not have headquarters aside from ByteDance which was founded in China. It has its largest offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Dublin, and Singapore. ByteDance has signed an office space deal at WeWork Nesco in Mumbai, as per a report by ET.

The Indian government banned TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps citing security concerns. TikTok, which is not available in China, distanced itself from Beijing after the Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps, according to correspondence by Reuters.

It's not just the US where TikTok has been criticised. Pakistan issued a final warning to TikTok over "immoral, obscene, and vulgar content" on the app. Several Australian legislators have also proposed a ban on TikTok as they fear the app was being used by the Chinese government to collect users' data.
Some 1,044 centrifuges enrich uranium at Fordow

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 21, IRNA -- Spokesman of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said on Monday that some 1,044 centrifuges are enriching uranium at Ahmadi-Rowshan Nuclear Site in Fordow.

Talking to IRNA on Monday, he said that Members of Parliament are keen on cooperation with Organization of Iran Atomic Energy to promote the country's nuclear achievements.

Abulfazl Amouei said that a number of lawmakers visited Ahmadi-Rowshan and Shahid Ali Mohammadi nuclear sites on Monday to examine latest developments in the country's nuclear activities.

At Shahid Ali Mohammadi site in Fordow, some 1,044 centrifuges in six cascades of first-generation uranium centrifuges enrich uranium by 4.5 percent, he said.

"At Shahid Ahmadi Roshan Nuclear Site in Natanz, we saw first, second and fourth generation centrifuges put in the enrichment chain," Amouei said.

Currently, the process of research and development of new generations of centrifuges, including "IR 6", "IR 8" and "IR 9" centrifuges are underway, and legislators saw the activities of young nuclear scientists on research and development on the centrifuges at the site, he said.

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By ANI

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be holding a one-to-one meeting with the ministers for two days -- July 22 and July 23.

Chouhan said this in a cabinet meeting here on Wednesday.

"Today and tomorrow, for two days I will have a one-to-one meeting with the ministers. Departmental information, road map, delivery mechanisms will be discussed. If ministers get any departmental information from any source then they should go deep into it and take actions if needed," said Chouhan.

The Madhya Pradesh CM added that he will review all the departments with the respective ministers and discussions will also be held on "Aatmanirbhar Madhya Pradesh".

"In July, you should check your department well, understand it and set a target for work. I will start reviewing the department from August. Discussions will be held on Aatmanirbhar Madhya Pradesh," said Chouhan.
Grease has announced new touring dates for 2021, having been rescheduled due to the pandemic.

Peter Andre will return to the role of Teen Angel in the show after performing in 2019, while also taking on two new roles: Vince Fontaine and the Sergeant. Further casting is to be announced.

The new production is directed by Nikolai Foster and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, with designs by Colin Richmond, orchestrations and musical supervision by Sarah Travis, lighting design by Ben Cracknell and sound design by Tom Marshall. It initially ran at Curve in Leicester over Christmas 2016. It is the first new production of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's iconic musical in 25 years, with Jacobs and Casey's work turned into a hit film starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta.

The 2021 tour will begin at Theatre Royal Plymouth, running from 22 to 30 January, and will then play Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff from 1 to 6 February, Bristol Hippodrome from 8 to 13 February, Edinburgh Festival Theatre from 16 to 20 February, Norwich Theatre Royal from 22 to 27 February, Milton Keynes Theatre from 1 to 6 March, Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin from 16 to 27 March, The Alhambra Theatre, Bradford from 29 March to 3 April, Liverpool Empire from 5 to 10 April, Sheffield Lyceum from 12 to 17 April, Churchill Theatre, Bromley from 19 to 24 April, Stoke Regent Theatre from 3 to 8 May, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton from 11 to 15 May, Grand Opera House, Belfast from 18 to 22 May, Theatre Royal Nottingham from 24 to 29 May, Royal & Derngate Northampton from 31 May to 5 June, Palace Theatre Manchester from 7 to 19 June, The Orchard Theatre Dartford from 21 to 26 June, The Marlowe Canterbury from 28 June to 3 July, The Sands Centre, Carlisle from 6 to 10 July and The Alexandra, Birmingham from 12 to 17 July.

Andre is confirmed to perform at dates in Plymouth, Cardiff, Bristol, Milton Keynes, Dublin, Liverpool, Bromley, Southampton, Nottingham, Manchester, Dartford, Canterbury and Birmingham.

He said: "I was so thrilled to have been returning to Grease this year as I had the most wonderful time last year working with our incredible cast and creative team. Sadly, this year's tour had to be postponed due to COVID-19 but I'm overjoyed that we can return in 2021. Grease is joyous and will truly allow you to escape to a different time, with show-stopping dance routines and some of the most iconic songs of all time. It's a show about solidarity and it celebrates friendship. As the song goes, We Go Together!"
The meeting between a mediatory delegation and then detained publisher of Sahara Reporter, Omoyele Sowore, was convened by late Ismaila Isa-Funtua, not the President Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidency has said.

Presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said this on Tuesday in reaction to a statement by Mr Sowore that the delegation tried to persuade him to jettison his call for revolution in return for freedom during a four months detention in 2019.

Nobody sent anybody to go and negotiate Sowores freedom as he put it, Mr Shehu said in a tweet.

ISMAILA ISA: SOWORE HAS NOTHING TO GAIN BY ATTACKING A DEAD SOUL. Lets get the facts straight on the meeting with Sowore in SSS detention.  Garba Shehu (@GarShehu) July 21, 2020

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The late Malam Ismaila, on his own called me to ask that I broker a meeting with him and two others (Sam Amuka and Nduka Obaigbena) with the SSS, which they agreed to, Mr Shehu wrote in the tweet.

He added that despite (that Mr Sowore) got into his problems due (to) politics, not journalism, the meeting was conceived because his being a publisher imposed a duty on the media leaders to seek ways of making him free.

Mr Shehu added that, contrary to the posturing in Mr Sowores statement, the meeting ended on a happy note and Mr Sowore was happy with a resolution proposed, although the latter said his lawyer needed to come on board.

He noted that the fence mending process collapsed after the team met Mr Sowores lawyer in Lagos.

He threatened to release the tape of the meeting if it is available with the SSS.

I dont know what Sowore wants to achieve by distorting the facts of what transpired, but my advice to him is that he should stop his attacks on a dead, well-meaning intercessor.

Faced with this posturing and the unfair attacks on the dead, we certainly will be forced to ask for the release of tapes, in case they are available for the public to judge.

Sowore counters

Under the thread of Mr Shehus tweet, Mr Sowore denied entering any agreement with the delegation.

He said it is true he was nice to your team because you werent my problem, you were just an errand boy.

In fact, I patted you on the back saying I had never met you before. You were respectful but I knew you were there on a hatchet job, the activist added.

My insistence then got Isa Funtua riled and he said that my lawyer was only grandstanding and that he too had been imprisoned by Buhari in 1983 and that no one can defeat the government. Your wicked self kept quiet but (Obaigbena) Nduka noticing I was upset, took me to the DOs ante room

When I arrived downstairs I made a telephone call to my lawyer, Femi Falana, in the presence of the DSS (SSS) officials telling him that I do not want to negotiate my freedom and that when he meets your team, he should restate my position. He did exactly that, your team got upset again.
Rana Kapoor, the founder of Yes Bank, sought bail on the ground that the investigation in the case was completed as chargesheet has been filed. (PTI Photo)

Mumbai: A special PMLA court on Tuesday rejected the bail plea filed by Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged multi-crore fraud at the bank.

Kapoor had sought bail on the ground that the investigation in the case was completed as chargesheet has been filed. Hence there was no reason to keep him in jail as it would amount to pre-trial incarnation, his lawyers said. Also, most of the evidence was documentary in nature and cannot be tampered by the accused.

The agency on the other hand has opposed the bail application saying that the case is very serious in nature and economic offences are not considered as offences against an individual but against the society at large and hence he should not be granted bail.

After hearing the arguments, special judge P.P. Rajvaidya who is presiding over Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court rejected the plea filed by Kapoor.

The banker was arrested in March under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act for roles allegedly played by him, his wife and daughters in the Yes Bank fraud case. Apart from ED the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is also investigating a related case against Kapoor and others.

According to the probe agency, the Yes Bank bought debentures worth `3,700 crore of DHFL. In lieu of it, DHFL sanctioned a `600-crore loan to EoIT Urban Ventures Pvt Ltd, a company in which Kapoors daughters are directors. It is alleged that the loan was given without adequate collateral.
Courtesy Dr. Jessica ShepherdBy KATIE KINDELAN, ABC News



(NEW YORK) -- A group of 80 women physicians are joining forces to put a spotlight on Black physicians and health care for Black women.



For the social media campaign, called #SharetheMedicalMic, 40 white female physicians will hand over their social media platforms to 40 Black female physicians all day Wednesday.



The campaign is modeled after #ShareTheMicNow, which saw celebrities give their social media platforms to Black women for a day amid the racial reckoning that happened in the country after the death of George Floyd in May.



Two physicians, Dr. Renee Paro and Dr. Lauren Powell, used that idea to launch the #SharetheMedicalMic for Black voices in medicine.



"Many times I dont think people see a lot of Black faces from a physician standpoint, so a campaign where youre seeing them all at once is really helpful for community," said Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a Dallas-based OBGYN who is taking over the social media platforms of Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, a Portland-based OBGYN. "When we think of racial disparities in health, a lot of that has to do with, one, representation but, two, for [Black women doctors] who do represent their community, if their voices arent heard then change cant be made."



In the United States, only 5% of all physicians are Black and only 2% are Black women, noted Lincoln, who said she hopes the campaign puts a spotlight on the "ridiculous disparity" when it comes to representation.



Black women in the U.S. have a projected life expectancy that is nearly two years shorter than that of non-Hispanic white women, according to data shared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health.



Black women, as well as American Indian and Alaska Native women, are also two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, according to data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



Here are five more things Shepherd and Lincoln want people to know about Black women's health and representation in medicine as they #SharetheMedicalMic:



1. Racial disparities for maternal mortality are real: "The racial disparities when it comes to Black maternal mortality are real," said Lincoln. "When we boil it down, its the basis of race, and that you can boil down to systemic racism and implicit bias."



"Thats real and until we address that were not going to get anywhere with the Black maternal mortality issue in this country," she said. "Until women are treated better and doctors understand this and address their implicit bias and understand that when it comes to Black women and pregnancy, we need to do a lot better."



2. Multiple health conditions affect Black women more seriously: Shepherd points out that Black women are more likely than other populations to die from heart conditions.



She also said Black women are more likely than other women to have uterine fibroids, and when they do they are more likely to suffer from symptoms longer and to be offered a hysterectomy as treatment.



"You can draw down into the levels of insurance coverage, access to health care and also socioeconomic status and what resources are provided to them," Shepherd said of the outcomes of health conditions for Black women. "In each of those pillars you can see the difference and the paucity of what Black women are given as options, given as resources, given availability to or their coverage that creates a lot of those barriers."



3. Black women 'need to be heard' when it comes to mental health: "I think there are many women who have had experiences with depression and anxiety and what we have seen is their complaints are not taken as seriously," said Shepherd. "Black women need to be heard."



"There needs to be a community effort in order to minimize the stigma that comes with mental health and then also creating a place where you can have vulnerability in seeking mental health treatment," she said.



4. Black women deserve an overhaul of health care: "There needs to be from the top down a complete overhaul of how there is equity in access to treatments and resources," said Shepherd. "I think the organizations and healthcare systems need to be aware of the disparity and how to cross those barriers. I think there needs to be a call to action in healthcare and how we can do a better job at creating a decrease in that gap that we see."



5. Representation matters: "We can only expect kids to become what they see, so if theyre not seeing Black female physicians out there and in the norm and part of their every day narratives and what they see when they go to the hospitals, then how are they going to think that they can achieve that?," said Lincoln. "Thats another big goal of this [campaign], to get these voices out there so people can continue to follow them and amplify them."



"My hope is maybe there is a girl who is following my feed and now shes following Dr. Shepherds feed," she said.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
MARSHALL, MI  As citizens across the United States continue to debate the pros and cons of piping oil across the country, a decade-old disaster in the Kalamazoo River serves as an example of what can happen when things go wrong.

The Line 6B pipeline near Marshall ruptured on July 25, 2010, sending 843,000 gallons of oil flowing into a creek leading to the Kalamazoo River, investigators later determined, marking the start of what would be classified among the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history.

Oil, flowing with the freshwater of the river, soon showed up on wildlife like the birds that make their home in the riverbed, and settled into pockets on the floor of the river. Oil traveled 39 miles downstream to Morrow Dam, where it was contained, east of Kalamazoo.

The ensuing cleanup lasted several years and cost more than a billion dollars.

The impacts are still lingering today, and the disaster was a wake-up call for people in Michigan and other places relying on pipelines for oil transport.

Line 6B and the disaster that ensued was really a watershed moment for Michigan and the Great Lakes in its awakening to understanding that we are really at the epicenter of fossil fuel transport, said Liz Kirkwood, environmental attorney and executive director of For Love of Water (FLOW). Its not just the Gulf.

It helped many in Michigan realize there was a pipeline running in the open water of the Great Lakes, Kirkwood said. The disaster made people ask if it is a good idea, she said, and it remains part of the debate as some advocate for pipelines  such as Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac -- to be shut down to avoid future disasters.

Dream becomes spill cleanup site

If not for the disaster, the riverbed could look a lot different today.

The ruptured pipe was feet away from a farm owned by the family of 60-year-old Frank Daniel Zinn. His grandfather, Frank, bought the farm around 1940, and his father, Frank, grew up there.

Zinn said his family had plans to build a 150-site residential development surrounding a vineyard with a restaurant and winery near the banks of the Kalamazoo River. They wanted to develop it in an environmentally sustainable way, he said.

It was going to be laid out in a way where people could have their own vineyards and have their own labels at the winery, Zinn said.

But the oil spill changed their outlook in a matter of days, as thousands of gallons flowed through the creek on the property to the river, Zinn said. Enbridge was not notified until the day after the spill that oil was seen flowing into the water.

State and federal officials descended on the scene along with company workers, Zinn said. Enbridge used his familys property as a staging area for the cleanup, and oil contaminated materials were stacked there, he said. Trees were cut at the 420-acre farm and Zinn was notified after the fact, he said.

He held back emotion while describing the land he left as part of an undisclosed settlement with Enbridge.

The family had spent about $100,000 for things such as building renderings and plans at the time the oil pipeline ruptured, Zinn said. They were about to move forward with construction when the spill happened. We were about ready to launch, he said.

Plans for a development were taking shape and the project was about to launch when an oil spill happened in July 2010, Frank Zinn said.

Instead, they watched the land get affected by the oil and the associated cleanup activities.

They hoped the business could be saved at first, but once the extent of the damage became more apparent, they realized they had to leave the site, Zinn said.

The land was important to the family and it was going to be something special, Zinn said.

Its almost like losing a family member, he said about losing the land.

The cleanup cost $1.21 billion to Enbridge, according to a filing with the SEC. The company reimbursed the government $63.2 million in cleanup costs, according to the EPAs latest estimate, the agency said in July 2020.

Kirkwood said it happened in the aftermath of the BP oil spill and was overshadowed.

However, the disaster did trigger some changes several years later, according to the EPA. In May 2017, a federal court entered a final settlement between the EPA and Enbridge, the requirements of which cover Line 6B and the entire Enbridge Lakehead Pipeline System nationwide, are still being implemented with the oversight of EPA.

It requires Enbridge to:

 Implement an enhanced pipeline inspection and spill prevention program.

 Implement enhanced measures to improve leak detection and control room operations.

 Implement additional leak detection and spill prevention requirements for a portion of Enbridges Line 5 that crosses the Straits of Mackinac.

 Create and maintain an integrated database for its Lakehead Pipeline System.

 Enhance its emergency spill response and preparedness programs by conducting four emergency spill response exercises to test and practice Enbridges response to a major inland oil spill.

 Improve training and coordination with state and local emergency responders by requiring incident command system training for employees, provision of training to local responders, and participation in area response planning and response exercises.

 Hire an independent third party to assist with review of implementation of the requirements in the settlement agreement.

At the time of the settlement, Enbridge estimated the measures would cost the company at least $110 million, according to the EPA.

The lessons we learned from this incident have ultimately made us a safer company. Weve since put in place a wide range of measures to enhance the safety and reliability of our entire North American pipeline system, Enbridge in a 2020 document titled, Whats changed since Marshall? sent in response to questions from MLive.

From 2011 through 2019, Enbridge invested more than $8.4 billion on programs to help maintain the fitness of systems across North America, the company said.

The company continues to own and operate pipelines, including one in the Great Lakes -- Line 5 -- which environmentalists and others fear could cause a much bigger problem if it does rupture.

Line 5 was shut down last month after something dragging on the lake bottom caused damage to a pipeline support, the company reported on June 18, 2020. When it is running, Line 5 transports nearly 23 million gallons of oil per day through the Straits of Mackinac in northern Michigan.

The company loses about $1.8 million per day when the pipeline isnt running, Enbridge said in court filings.

While cleanup crews worked to ensure the 2010 spill in Marshall did not reach Lake Michigan, a rupture of Line 5 would already be in the Great Lakes. Thats a concern for activists and clean water advocates like Kirkwood.

Here we are a decade later, we still have that pipeline operating in our Great Lakes, she said, calling the possible rupture a race against time.

Now we have the knowledge, Kirkwood said. Now we know what it could be.

Line 5 should be decommissioned, Kirkwood said.

Why is it that we are externalizing the costs of doing business to the natural world? Kirkwood said. Why is it that natural resource damage is considered the cost of business to operating a pipeline? Because that, in my opinion, is unacceptable.

Zinn said his family members advocated against the installation of the pipeline in 1969 over a concern it could rupture.

We were told there would never be a problem, and that turned out not to be true, Zinn said.

He said he believes the Marshall spill should be considered in the debate over Line 5, where he believes a possible disaster is looming. Containing a spill in the Great Lakes would be much more difficult than the spill in Marshall, he said.

Its a pipe running under water that could break, Zinn said. No matter what they tell you they wont be able to put the genie back in the bottle; put the oil back in the bottle.

As the battle over Line 5 plays out in court, pending a judges order, Enbridge is attempting to build a $500 million tunnel beneath the Great Lakes that the company says would protect the waterways.

Read more:

Enbridge Line 5 remains shut down pending Michigan judges ruling

Enbridge reports significant damage on Line 5 pipeline to state

Past MLive stories on the Kalamazoo River oil spill
The Port of San Diego has announced the completion of what it calls the transformation of one of Southern Californias most iconic, over-the-water restaurant complexes. On Monday, July 20, 2020, the Port of San Diego and The Brigantine held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of The Brigantines Portside Pier at 1360 North Harbor Drive overlooking San Diego Bay along the North Embarcadero.

Despite the challenges we are all facing in these unusual times, the Port of San Diego is excited to deliver this project with The Brigantine and the Morton family. Portside Pier and its restaurants enhance the aesthetics of the waterfront with a unique architectural structure and provide locals and visitors with new experiences and dining options to enjoy, said Commissioner Rafael Castellanos, Port of San Diego Board of Port Commissioners, in a prepared statement. In addition to great food and drinks, were thrilled to give the public another place to take in remarkable, panoramic views of San Diego Bay and perfect San Diego sunsets.

As a local, family-owned company, we could not be more excited for this opportunity. The location and facility are amazing, the offerings are diverse and were looking forward to giving San Diegans and visitors the outstanding experience they have come to expect from the Brigantine Restaurants for many years to come, added Mike Morton, Jr., President and CEO of The Brigantine, Inc.

Portside Pier offers a variety of dining options at different price points  fresh seafood at Brigantine on the Bay, authentic Mexican flavors at Miguels Cocina, pub fare at Ketch Grill & Taps, and walk-up service at Portside Coffee & Gelato. In addition, the public can enjoy views of San Diego Bay with free access to a second level perimeter walkway and a viewing deck that has tables and seating for up to 108 visitors. There is also a dock and dine to accommodate up to four vessels.

The opening of the Portside Pier not only delivers public access along the iconic Embarcadero but will also help spark San Diegos economic recovery amid a global pandemic, commented Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer, City of San Diego. With hundreds of new jobs coming for one of our hardest hit industries, this opening comes as welcome news!

As part of the ports efforts to promote quality development to enhance San Diego Bay and the North Embarcadero, the port stated that it selected The Brigantines Portside Pier restaurant redevelopment concept for this site after a competitive public process. Pacific Building Group was commissioned for the project. Some of the most notable architectural features include curved steel and zinc shingles on a barrel-shaped roof that resembles a fishing boat, and two stick-framed glass structures stretching 26-feet and 31-feet tall that resemble fishing baskets.

The Port of San Diego is self-funded. Revenues generated by tenants like The Brigantine, along with other real estate and maritime revenues, are reinvested into the Ports 22 parks, public improvement projects, redevelopment projects, the Harbor Police Department, and more on the San Diego Bay and the surrounding waterfront. As part of the ports Tenant Percent for Art Program, the Brigantine has given $100,000 to be allocated for future, to-be-determined art along the bayfront.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 09:38:38|Editor: Lu Hui

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BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- KLM Royal Dutch Airlines resumed passenger flight services between Shanghai and Amsterdam starting from Tuesday, according to KLM China.

Resuming the Shanghai-Amsterdam air route highlights the importance of the Chinese market in the KLM global network, said the airline.

It is also the airline's first resumed passenger flights between the Chinese mainland and the Netherlands after the outbreak of the pandemic.

The flight services will be carried by Boeing 777-300 airplanes with a round-trip service once a week.

The airplane departs from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport each Tuesday and returns from Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Wednesday, via a stopover in Seoul.

KLM maintained the operation of cargo flights between China and the Netherlands during the pandemic, sending medical and other supplies to support the anti-pandemic fight. Enditem
Concordian co-leads effort to see future of AI from an Indigenous perspective

In the late winter and spring of 2019, a group of Indigenous scholars met in Hawai'i to think through concepts around artificial intelligence (AI) and how they related to the Indigenous experience.

Co-organized by Jason Edward Lewis, professor in the Department Design and Computation Arts, the multidisciplinary group included participants from Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Concordia graduate students Scott Benesiinaabandan (MFA Studio Arts) and Suzanne Kite (PhD INDI) as well as Concordia research associate Skawennati also participated.

The first session in March largely consisted of brainstorm workshops about how and where Indigeneity intersects with AI. The second, in May, focused more on writing and laying the foundations of what would become the now-completed Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Position Paper.

The 205-page document is a collection of scholarly articles, essays, short stories, poems and tech prototypes, each offering a unique perspective on what AI means and offers to Indigenous peoples. Topics are as diverse as the workshops' participants: one essay asks us to imagine ways to design AI that align with Indigenous values and ethics. Another questions data sovereignty and appropriation. Others ask how AI can be incorporated into and become a part of creation stories or how blockchain technology combined with AI can be used to manage Indigenous communities' business affairs.

Diverse nations, diverse thought

With workshop participants including representatives from Australian Aboriginal, Hawaiian, Maori, Oglala Lakota, Euskaldun (Basque), Anishinaabe, Coquille, Cree, Crow, Cheyenne and Mohawk, among other communities, Lewis says they really wanted to reinforce the diversity of Indigenous thought.

"We decided that there would be no one format for the position paper; authors should write in the mode that was most effective for them. As a result of that, people felt comfortable and we were able to create a document that still fit together," he explains.

Lewis, who is also Research Chair in Computational Media and the Indigenous Future Imaginary, adds that the decision to base the workshops in Hawai'i was both practical as well as personal. The island chain sits neatly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, reasonably accessible by air from Australia and New Zealand as well as from North America and Europe. Additionally, as a scholar of Hawaiian, Cherokee and Samoan descent himself, it gave him the opportunity to better understand and study his own heritage. Finally, Hawai'i offered a rich example of what a vibrant, Indigenous-led tech scene can achieve.

"In a way that I don't think exists elsewhere other than New Zealand, there is a full ecology of Indigenous cultural practitioners, language keepers, critical cultural researchers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists -- everything you need to work at the cutting edge of digital technology centred on Indigenous Hawaiian bodies," he says.

A future alternative

As a document, the position paper acts as a starting point upon which to build an Indigenous voice that can add to the global discussions around the future and implications of AI. Lewis, however, insists it is only a beginning.

"This is about practicing what I call the future imaginary," he notes. "How do you create the outlines of a future that you want to go toward? How do you build capacity to help get there? We want to ensure that Indigenous voices are a central part of this technology's development, and that it develops in ways that are beneficial to us."

As AI progresses and integrates into our daily spaces, Lewis hopes that the position paper inspires young Indigenous programmers to embark on their own projects that do not necessarily start with a traditionally Western, utilitarian, profit-driven perspective. He imagines a programming language based in Hawaiian, for instance, and how that could build capacity to develop AI differently.

The workshops received funding from CIFAR's AI & Society Program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Concordia Office of Research.



Learn more about the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Working Group.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Nathaniel Warren was born on April 11, 1929 in Hilltop, Maryland, located in Charles County, to the late Yellie Y. and Laura E. Warren. He departed this life on July 17, 2020, peacefully, at home with his wife by his side.



Nathaniel served in the United States Army in 1951 until he was Honorably Discharged. Shortly after his discharge from the Service he began his career training as a carpenter under the leadership of Mr. Perry Crawford and Mr. Samuel Jackson. He worked for the District of Columbia Government as a carpenter until his retirement. He loved carpentry work and helped to build houses; remodeling, and repairing houses for many neighbors, friends and family. He was also a truck driver and had a passion for delivering saw dust to people who had horses. Nathaniel was a jack of all trades.



At a young age, Nathaniel joined Zion Baptist Church in Hilltop, Maryland where he was baptized. During his membership, he served on the Usher Board and sang in the choir.



Later on in life, he joined Mt. Hope Baptist Church, located in Nanjemoy, Maryland. There he served as an usher, trustee and sang with the Male Choir. At Mt. Hope, he also played the harmonica and served on the Building Fund Committee. He loved reading the word of God, and his favorite scripture was the 23rd Psalm.



In addition to his parents, Nathaniel was preceded in death by sisters, Mary Warren, Martha Fisher, Irene Fisher, Laura Warren, Rachel Wills and Christine Savoy; brothers, Aljourn, James, Roland, Samuel and Rev. Yancey Warren.



He leaves to cherish his memories, his loving wife of 69 years, Annie, one sister, Madeline Johnson, four sisters-in-law, Betty Ross, Shirley Lewis, Geraldine Ward, Virginia May (James) and a host of nieces, nephews and friends.



His Viewing will be 9:30 am, until time of Service, 10:30 am, Tuesday, August 4, 2020 in the Chapel of Thornton Funeral Home, P.A., 3439 Livingston Road, Indian Head, Maryland 20640. Interment, Maryland Veterans Cemetery, 11301 Crain Highway, Cheltenham, Maryland 20623.



On Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at 10:30 am, please click on the link below to live stream the service.



Please make sure when viewing the services that the volume located in the right lower corner (where it says "live") on the viewing screen is turned up (the bars should be blue).



The streaming will begin once the final family viewing has been done. Therefore, there may be a delay before the service appears on the screen. Thank you.



https://www.thorntonfuneralhomepa.com/live-stream



SERVICES

Funeral Service



Tuesday, August 04, 2020

9:30 AM - 10:30 AM



Thornton Funeral Home, P.A.

3439 Livingston Road

Indian Head, Maryland 20640
To earn this recognition, Pear Deck submitted evidence to Digital Promise confirming a link between research on how students learn and the product's design. Digital Promise believes research-based products are ones that are most likely to support the full diversity of learners because their design is based on valid, empirical research about how people learn.

"School leaders and teachers need effective edtech tools that enhance learning and engagement now more than ever," says Michal Eynon-Lynch, Pear Deck Co-Founder and Chief Educator. "We're proud to earn this certification as it reaffirms the proactive work that we've done to design Pear Deck in a way that supports proven instructional strategies."

Pear Deck was founded in 2014 by educators on a mission to transform classroom technology into effective tools to foster learning and connection. Since the beginning of the year, the company has rapidly built new product features, infrastructure, and resources to support a growing number of classrooms around the world in their transition to remote learning.

"Schools and families want to know which edtech products can actually help students learn," said Karen Cator, president and CEO of Digital Promise.

The Research-Based Design product certification uses a competency-based learning framework, developed in consultation with Digital Promise's Learner Variability Project advisory board, expert researchers in the Learning Sciences field, and dozens of educators across the United States. Further detail can be found in Digital Promise's new report, " Designing Edtech that Matters for Learning: Research-Based Design Product Certifications ."

To learn more about the learning science behind Pear Deck, visit www.peardeck.com/efficacy .

About Pear Deck

Pear Deck was founded by educators on a mission to help teachers create powerful learning moments for every student, every day. Pear Deck's student engagement platform is used by 1 out of 3 schools in the United States to foster connections with learners of every age and ability. Backed by investors focused on solving major global problems in education, Pear Deck designs technology that is inclusive, accessible, and promotes equitable engagement in the classroom. To learn more about Pear Deck, visit www.peardeck.com .

About Digital Promise

Digital Promise is a nonprofit organization that builds powerful networks and takes on grand challenges by working at the intersection of researchers, entrepreneurs, and educators. Our vision is that all people, at every stage of their lives, have access to learning experiences that help them acquire the knowledge and skills they need to thrive and continuously learn in an ever-changing world. For more information, visit the Digital Promise website and follow @digitalpromise for updates.

SOURCE Pear Deck

Related Links

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Australian office workers are most enraged by emails that start with 'just circling back' and end with 'hope this helps!', a viral thread on Twitter has revealed.

The debate was started by New York journalist Delia Paunescu who posted a thread asking people to reply with passive-aggressive corporate phrases typically used to mask a multitude of frustration.

''I'm a little confused' is by far my favourite - it's absolute rage masked as a professional pleasantry,' she wrote.

'What are some of your best [or] most insufferable work gibberish phrases?'

Thousands of Australians sent back their most-hated jargon, with 'per my last email', 'just to clarify' and 'as previously discussed' among the worst offenders.

'How about 'at your earliest convenience'? I.e. 'do it NOW!' Sadly, I use that one a bit,' one woman said.

Scroll down for video

A woman writes a work email, which are often filled with corporate jargon like 'just circling back' and 'I'm a little confused' (stock image)

'As previously discussed' or 'as per our discussion' - also code for 'I don't really trust you, so the conversation we had needs to be documented',' said another.

Poll What is your most-hated passive-aggressive corporate email phrase? As previously discussed Hope this helps Per my last email Just to clarify I'm a little confused A few things What is your most-hated passive-aggressive corporate email phrase? As previously discussed 57 votes

Hope this helps 39 votes

Per my last email 56 votes

Just to clarify 36 votes

I'm a little confused 61 votes

A few things 37 votes Now share your opinion





A third said she reads 'just to clarify' as another way of saying: 'I'm going to ask this question again, simpler this time, so you can see exactly how stupid what you're asking me to do is.'

One woman said she 'loves nothing more than being copied into passive-aggressive emails' that she has nothing to do with.

Many perceived 'per my last email' as a thinly veiled dig at the recipient about ignoring previous correspondence while still sounding professional.

A man said 'hope this helps' is just a passive-aggressive way of telling people you have supplied them with the requisite information, but have no intention of completing the task for them.

Others felt it was code for 'never ask me for anything ever again'.

A woman from New South Wales decoded what 'thanks for your time on the phone today' really means.

'I'm about to put down IN WRITING what we discussed, so there's no way you can deny that you said, promised or agreed to the things you did, and can't say the deadlines weren't clear!' she said.

A man decodes the meaning of the common 'I hope this helps!' email sign off

A woman says what everyone is thinking about the corporate phrase 'per my last email'

One of the most-hated phrases in Australian workplaces, which conveys deep annoyance in a professional manner

Ms Paunescu, who started the discussion, said the phrase 'just a few things' really means 'the ways in which you have messed up are so vast, I need to make a list'.

'Let me know if any questions!' means 'God I really hope you don't have any questions',' said another woman.

One man said he cringes when he reads 'thank you for your feedback, I'll be sure to keep it in my mind' at the end of an email, because it's a polite way of saying 'I think your criticism is completely irrelevant if not flat out wrong'.

A journalist said she can't stand emails that begin with 'just circling back on this', because she sees it as corporate slang for 'just give me an answer to the question'.

Corporate email jargon decoded 'Per my last email' - The information is in previous correspondence. Why did not bother to read it before asking? 'Hope this helps' - Never ask me for anything again. 'Thank you for your feedback, I'll be sure to keep it in mind' - Your criticism is incorrect and irrelevant and I'll never consider it. 'Just to clarify' - Do you realise how stupid that sounds? 'Just circling back' - Give me an answer to my question right now. 'As previously discussed' - I didn't put it in writing last night because I assumed it was obvious and that you were an adult. 'While I understand your urgency' - Just because you didn't do something when you were supposed to doesn't make it my problem. 'I'll let you two take it from here' - I'm not part of this conversation and I don't want to be. 'Thanks for the input!' - Do not speak to me ever again. 'I've attached another copy for your convenience' - Don't pretend like you didn't see the first one. 'Just a few things'  This is so terrible, where do I even begin? 'Friendly reminder'  There is nothing friendly about this message. 'At your earliest convenience' - Do it now! 'Let me know if any questions!' - I really hope you don't have any questions. Advertisement

One woman said 'while I understand your urgency' really means 'procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part'.

Another said the phrase 'I'll let you two take it from here' in group emails is another way of saying 'I'm not part of the conversation, and I don't want to be'.

Others saw 'I've attached a copy for your convenience' as a slight at the recipient for pretending they haven't received the first document.

Many poked fun at the opener 'friendly reminder', which is taken as the opposite - that there is nothing friendly about the message at all.
Lagos, Nigeria, 22 July 2020: The Future Project in partnership with Rubbin Minds recently held the 5th edition of The Nigeria Symposium for Young and Emerging Leaders themed Leaping the Bounds: Making Government Work.

Hosted by youth advocate and media personality, Seyi Awolowo, the annual Symposium avails Nigerian youth the opportunity to engage in thought-provoking conversations with public office holders and heads of parastatals on specific challenges facing the nation.

The program which aired live on Channels TV kicked off with an interview session featuring the Honourable Minister of State for Health, Sen. Olorunnimbe Mamora, who spoke about the state of the Nigerian health sector saying, the current state of medical teaching in the country is abysmal, due to funding and lack of commitment on the part of current lecturers compared to what obtained in the past. According to the Minister, the pandemic has brought to the fore the extant need to massively invest in the health sector, the absence of which has made the sector unattractive and susceptible to brain drain. He also stated that, in every seemingly bad situation, some good can come out of it as the global pandemic has brought with it, a call to revamp the Nigerian health sector as structures are currently being built and the welfare of health care workers is currently being looked into in terms of salaries, and insurance scheme.

The first session themed, No Flight Out: Fixing the Nigerian Health Sector, focused on Nigerias ailing healthcare system and emphasised how leaders and key players in the health sector need to provide answers to why swift measures were not taken to curb the pandemic given the inadequacy of health structures.

The second session titled, Conversations on Hunger Virus, circled in on poverty and its place as the principal cause of hunger in the country.

Speaking on the conversations on hunger virus, Vice President, Care for Heroes, Aisha Salis, stated that, Until the government, business owners, and entrepreneurs start taking agriculture seriously, we will still keep coming back to the problem of hunger in Nigeria.

Honourable Onofiok Luke highlighted poor transportation systems for conveying food products from the farm to market places, and little or no provision of storage facilities for perishable food items as a major reason for starvation within the masses.

From leadership crises to high maternal mortality rates, the third session, Clocking 60: Business as Usual, focused on the slow growth of Nigeria post-independence as well as specifics required for the much-needed transformation.

Speaking on the event, Lead, The Future Project, Bukonla Adebakin said, The Future Project is proud to return again this year  as we have for the past five years, to shed light on matters of importance on the national level. These conversations will drive us towards tough and highly needed answers. Our symposia have been important points of national and cultural discourse and we are hoping that in this time of so much uncertainty and structural mistrust that we can get answers and enrich our perspectives.

Speakers at the Symposium include Honourable Minister of State for Health, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora; Members of the House of Representatives, Hon. Luke Onofiok; Hon. Kabir Ibrahim Tukura; Hon. Babajide Balogun; Hon. Najibullah Tafida; and Honourable Hafiz Kawu; Executive Director, YIAGA, Samson Itodo; Social advocate, Maryam Laushi; and VP, Care for Heroes, Aisha Salis.

Watch here:






Data intelligence helps facilitate action. Whether we want to admit or not, artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a part of our day-to-day lives as consumers are routinely inundated with personalized solutions that adapt and respond to available data. Across the financial industry there has been a shift towards greater data consumption and digital transformation, accelerated further by the global coronavirus pandemic. We live in a data-driven society where artificial intelligence is emerging in the form of operational tools to help manage and organize the vast amounts of available data.

This blog explains what artificial intelligence is, the idea of robotics, available data tools, and how these resources are impacting lenders across the financial industry.

What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the development and deployment of systems that are able to perform human tasks, such as decision-making, predicting outcomes, assessing efficiencies, and automating adaptions to complete a specified task. Theres a spectrum of currently available artificial intelligences that range from integration to automation to machine learning and cognitive processing.
Science gets canceled by post-truth culture

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Reading Joy Pullmanns July 2020 article in The Federalist made me both wince and smile. Although not aimed at spiritual matters, her editorial documents something that Christians, and Christian apologists in particular, have experienced for quite a while in their evangelistic endeavors. While painful to read, I couldnt help but feel a bit vindicated over similar observations Christianity has been making for a long time now.

Pullmann rightfully bemoans the fact that scientific findings are being either suppressed or deceitfully criticized in public if the conclusions dont conform with the goals of the current cancel culture. She documents multiple examples as she calls out the fact that, These researchers are attempting to hide information that doesnt support policies roving violent mobs are attempting to impose at the blunt ends of bricks, sticks, and guns. This bias and cowardice is only the tip of the iceberg of the scientific corruption weve been seeing increase since, perhaps, the scientific method became accepted as a valid way to perceive reality.

In like fashion, Christianity has forever been highlighting strong philosophical and empirical evidence that supports belief in God only to have it swatted away by unbelievers who dont want God to exist. Moreover, data that shows the sometimes devastating mental and physical effects of acts like abortion and sex reassignment surgery on individuals is routinely either buried or lackadaisically dismissed by secular adversaries.

Given recent trends, should we be at all surprised that the universal solvent of post-truth thinking is now eating away at the last secular foundation that supports the concept of objective truth?

Repeat after me, this is not a joke

Its easy to dismiss some of the thinking being put out in the public square for consumption as silly, but its really no joke. One recent example was math teacher Brittany Marshall posting the following tweet, which she has since removed: The idea of 2 + 2 equaling 4 is cultural and because of western imperialism/colonization, we think of it as the only way of knowing.

While mathematics and other hard sciences were somewhat safe in the postmodernist world, the new post-truth culture has laid waste to them along with everything else. Instead of, as philosopher Sren Kierkegaard said, understanding truth to be subjective (i.e. we subject ourselves to it), leftists and post-truth adherents take any situation that contains truth they dont care for and shake it like a reality-altering Etch-A-Sketch hoping to start over with something that adheres to their personal preferences.

Frank Camp reflects on this in a recent post: The difference is that the weapons we previously used to wage verbal war against absurd ideologies have been effectively neutralized. Data and reason have been replaced by 'lived experience' and 'personal truth.' Exchange of information has been supplanted by the brute force of emotions.

This is nothing new. Rejecting truth because of personal desires has been occurring in all disciplines, including science, for a long time. But in matters relating to God, its been happening almost since Day 1.

Disapproving of truth

In her book, Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think, Rice University sociologist Dr. Elaine Ecklund looked into why some scientists believe in God while others do not. While Ecklund noted that some scientists do not believe because of their scientific studies, she summed up her overall findings this way:

In fact, for the majority of scientists I interviewed, it is not the engagement with science itself that leads them away from religion. Rather their reasons for unbelief mirror the circumstances in which other Americans find themselves: they were not raised in a religious home; they have had bad experience with religion; theydisapprove of God or see God as too changeable.[1]

The idea that some scientists reject a Creator because they disapprove of God sounds eerily similar to whats happening today with the shredding of scientific findings the Left doesnt like and reminded me of a conversation years ago that one of my seminary professors had over lunch with a biologist who was an atheist.

As the lunch progressed, my professor respectfully confronted his lunch mate with the fallacies of atheism where God is concerned. Surprisingly, the atheistic professor said at the end of their lunch, I think youre right. I do think the evidence youve presented is correct with respect to God. That said, Im still going to remain an atheist.

Baffled, my professor asked why. Because I want to keep living how Im living, came the reply.

While it may be surprising to hear such honesty, other atheists have admitted the same thing in the past. For example, in addressing Christianitys influence in society, Aldous Huxley wrote, We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.[2]

I bring this up not to say that atheists are immoral while Christians are more ethical, but instead to underline the fact that there are motivations beyond pure rational and evidential arguments as to why people reject God and why, today, the same internal preferences are causing people to reject science.

Afraid of truth

Adherence to post-truth philosophy and its canceling effects began with things like safe spaces on college campuses where students hide from speech that upsets them. Whats sad is that stiff-arming disliked opinions can lead to disastrous consequences when those opinions prove to be true and the cost of ignoring them comes home to roost.

An excellent example of this in Scripture is when the Apostle Paul is imprisoned under Felix, who was the governor of Judea and Samaria at the time. Felix sent for Paul to talk to him, but the Bible says when, Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, 'Thats enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.' (Acts 24:25).

While canceling science in this life can lead to some awful end results, it pales in comparison to annulling truth when it comes to eternity. The Bible has strong warnings for those who suppress the truth (Rom. 1:18) as our post-truth devotees do today. Jesus described them and their fate this way: They are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit (Matt. 15:14).

Watching the once-safe truths of science now fall to personal preference is a reminder of the cognitive dissonance and strong rebellious spirit inside all of us. Never before has what Pascal said so long ago been true: People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

[1] http://goo.gl/BRGTo, my emphasis.

[2] http://www.scribd.com/doc/19433148/Huxley-Aldous-Ends-and-Means, pg. 273.
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"Brightway exists to help everyone associated with the brand reach their potential, and we're thrilled that Eric has been wildly successful leveraging the holistic business support we provide to him and to other agency owners like him," Miller added. "The Brightway system works; it produces great wealth for those who leverage it. In fact, one out of every four Brightway Agencies has a book of business larger than $5 million*."

Brightway, Boca North has been helping Floridians protect their financial futures since 2009. The Agency is located at 9858 Clint Moore Road, Suite C 103 in Boca Raton (near Publix) and offers Home, Flood, Condo, Renters, Personal Articles, Auto, Motorcycle, RV, Boat, Business and Umbrella insurance. The company has access to many insurance brands including Bankers, Burns and Wilcox, Edison, Foremost, Nationwide, Olympus, Progressive, Safeco, Tower Hill and Travelers. Hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (EDT).

"We have a phenomenal team that always goes the extra mile to ensure our customersour neighbors and friendsreceive expert counsel on every policy we write," said Rand.

Brightway's low-risk, high-reward business opportunities allow people from a wide variety of backgrounds to prosper. A centralized team of experts provides training and support in areas including Customer Service, Accounting, Marketing, Distribution, Business Analytics, Carrier Appointments, Licensing, Onboarding, Training, Hiring and Retaining personnel. The company's signature after-the-sale service empowers franchisees to focus on new business sales and provides their customers the personalized service they deserve.

In addition to providing holistic business support, Brightway has relationships with hundreds of insurance companies, giving franchisees the ability to offer more choice in insurance brands to consumers. During tough financial times, having options is important for consumers.

If you are interested in becoming a Brightway Franchise Owner, please fill out this form or you may email [email protected].

About Brightway Insurance

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Brightway's focus is on producing Win, Win, Win outcomes for consumers by offering customized insurance solutions and for people wishing to sell insurance by providing business opportunities that span from single Agent to multi-unit enterprises. Regardless of the path taken, Brightway provides the support necessary to consistently outsell other insurance agents.

Brightway got its start in 2008 and has since grown to nearly 900 people in 208 offices across 22 states serving customers in all 50 states.

Consumers seeking a better insurance buying experience may visit Brightway.com, and people wishing to learn more about franchise ownership with Brightway may visit BrightwayDifference.com.

SOURCE Brightway Insurance

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The National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, has held a maiden zoom meeting with the Partys Regional Chairmen with a call on them to work hard to ensure victory for the party in the December polls.



The digital meeting forum afforded the National Chairman the opportunity of receiving firsthand reports from his Regional Chairmen on the ongoing new voters registration exercise across the Regions.



The Volta Regional Chairman of the Party, Mr. Makafui Kofi Woanya , in giving his account of the measures put in place by his team to ensure vigilance at the boarders, expressed worries about the consistent attempt by the opposition NDC to smuggle non-Ghanaian citizens from neighboring Togo to register.



Sighting few examples of how groups being transported in buses by the NDC were detected and handed over to the security services.



He commended the security services for their quick response in preventing such illegalities and maintaining sanity at the various polling stations. Mr. Woanya was confident that with the new voters register being compiled, the NDC would find it difficult to manipulate the election results in the Volta Region as has been the practice over the past general elections. He was also confident that with the great development interventions by the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government, the Party executives in the region are working hard to secure about three parliamentary seats for the Party in the upcoming December polls.



The Greater Accra Regional Chairman, Mr. Divine Otoo on his part expressed excitement about the registration figures of over 1. 5 million registered voters so far in his region.



He mentioned that the registration exercise was going on smoothly except for a few flash points where the NDC loyalists attempted to ferment troubles but due to the timely interventions of the security agencies, law and order was restored.



There were equally similar reports by the Regional Chairmen from Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, Upper West and Western Regions. The Upper East Regional Chairman, who doubles as the Secretary to the Regional Chairmens Caucus, Lawyer Anthony Namoo, expressed much appreciation to the partys rank and file who have in diverse ways supported his region towards a successful registration exercise so far.



The Regional Chairmen sharing boarders with the Ashanti Region expressed their uttermost gratitude to their colleague Regional Chairman, Chairman Wontumi, for the financial and logistical support he has provided them to aid them conduct their monitoring and vigilance more effectively. They also thanked the National Party Office for the supports provided to all the Regions for their coordination of the grassroots mobilization towards the new voters registration exercise across the country.



The National Chairman was pleased with the Regional Chairmens participation and contributions to the meeting. I am deeply touched by the amount of sacrifices being made by all of you in galvanizing the Partys grassroots and providing some assistance to qualified Ghanaian citizens in undertaking their constitutional right to register and vote in the December 2020 general elections.



He commended them for holding the forth in their respective Regions to ensure that the country goes into the upcoming general elections with a credible voters register.



I am equally encouraged by the cooperation you continue to offer agencies of state in realizing the main purpose for which the nation is embarking on compiling a new voters register.



The National Chairman urged all the Regional Chairmen to work harder in the next three weeks to whip up more interest in the ECs new voters registration exercise across their regions and ensure all NPP supporters and admirers who are qualified to register, do so observing all the COVID 19 safety protocols.



UNITY AHEAD OF THE 2020 POLLS



Following ongoing efforts by the Chief of Staff and the National Party to foster reconciliation among successful and unsuccessful contestants and their supporters from the Partys Parliamentary Primaries, the meeting also discussed how the respective Regional Chairmen are complimenting these efforts towards mending relationships and forging a united front against apathy for victory 2020.



The National Chairman further observed that with over 7 million voters registered so far, it is clearly indicative that Ghanaians are preparing to determine the leader they have the most confidence in during the December polls, particularly during these times where COVID 19 poses a huge threat to the countrys economic growth and prosperity of the Ghanaian people.Undoubtedly, this global pandemic with severe impacts across nations, is certainly the first of its kind any government in Ghana has had to deal with. Yes! there have been challenges with the management of the pandemic, and maybe sometimes a few mistakes by individuals and even the experts advising the President.



However, despite the constraints, the fight against COVID 19 has so far been very well sustained and managed by President Akufo Addo and his government.



EDUCATION ON COVID 19



The National Chairman, Freddie Blay called on the Regional Chairmen to encourage their respective communicators to intensify public awareness on the COVID 19 protocols, bearing in mind that irrespective of the several policy interventions by any government in Ghana to limit the spread, its containment can only be achieved if we all as Ghanaians comply with government directives and the personal safety protocols for COVID 19.



Obviously, it does not serve the interest of the Party and government to be burdened with the management of increasing COVID 19 cases and deaths. Such a situation has the potentials of shading some of the gains of the Nana Addo-led NPP government and equally increasing governments spending on the pandemic over a longer period. Therefore, the fight against the deadly virus must continue unabated by all citizens as we go about our normal lives as individuals and as a nation.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









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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Democrats dropped several items they had pursued, including the restoration of voting rights to felons and a measure that would have put the state attorney general in charge of prosecuting police killings. Democrats had also pressed for a rule requiring police officers to live in the communities where they work, but in a compromise, the bill calls for departments to offer incentives for officers to live where they police, though it is unclear how that would be funded or enforced.
Steven T. Wax

Wax is the legal director of the Oregon Innocence Project and former head of the Federal Public Defender office in Oregon for 31 years. He started his career as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and lives in Portland.

The rule of law is the foundation of a free and just society. Though laws are not enough. Even handed application of just laws is a necessity if a society is to be truly free. So, too, is an understanding that power and force are not the same as law.

Following the police killings, pandemic and protest that have roiled our nation this spring, there was cause for some hope as the U.S. Supreme Court wound up its term. In backing prosecutors subpoena of President Trumps financial records, the court reminded all Americans that no one is above the law.

But recent events in Portland have dimmed my hope  reminding me of my work with detainees in Guantanamo. While the rule of law lives in America, it is fragile and under attack. The use of force by police, brought into high relief by the killing of George Floyd, is continuing to test our countrys commitment to the law as demonstrated by the police response to Portland protests.

Federal law enforcers in Portland and around the country are acting as if they are an occupying army, applying tactics more in line with the Savak in Iran and KGB in Soviet Union than with the democratic principles of the U.S. Donavan La Bella recently suffered facial and skull fractures when shot in the head by a federal law enforcement officer with an impact munition. Video of the shooting shows La Bella standing across the street from the federal courthouse in Portland holding a speaker above his head. He then moves a tear gas grenade away from himself and steps back, raising his hands above his head again. Seconds later, he was shot in the head.

In the last several days, video has emerged of a new tactic in Portland  federal agents in camouflage seizing people off the street, throwing them into unmarked cars and detaining them.

Following La Bellas shooting, condemnations from Oregons congressional delegation and state and local officials were swift. An internal investigation was announced by the U.S. Marshals Service. Similar condemnations have followed the recent detentions. While laudable, those statements are insufficient.

The Multnomah County district attorney and U.S. Attorney need to convene state and federal grand juries to explore the possibility of criminal charges. Shooting a person in the head may well be a crime. A person can commit attempted murder and assault under both federal and state law if he acts intentionally or with reckless indifference. The detentions may also be criminal. Seizing and detaining a person who is not engaged in criminal activity fits the definition of kidnapping. This is true whether or not the seizure is intended only to intimidate protesters.

A grand jury should answer important questions. Was La Bellas shooter a sharpshooter? Did he or she aim for the head? What did law enforcement officers say before the shot was fired? What training did the shooter have with the type of round fired and did that include instruction to never aim for a persons head? What tests had been done on the damage that can be caused by the type of weapon used?

What was discussed about detentions in tactical planning sessions? Did supervisors discuss intimidation and the need to make sure only lawbreakers were seized? Are there instructions emanating from Washington? Is the White House seeking to provoke violence for political purposes?

Lets be clear: the fact that the president has directed federal law enforcement officers to protect federal property and given them weapons to do so, does not give them free rein under the rule of law. While dealing with protesters can be emotional and difficult for law enforcement, that does not excuse or justify unlawful actions against protesters.

As with the law enforcement officers who killed George Floyd, nothing in the law immunizes federal agents in Portland from criminal prosecution. The U.S. attorney for Oregon and the Multnomah County district attorney have an obligation to act. If crimes have been committed, the rule of law can be vindicated and we can all be kept safe only if indictments are brought. Every elected official, public safety system stakeholder and community advocate should urge the prosecutors to make clear that all lawless behavior will be addressed under the rule of law.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio - The federal corruption case against House Speaker Larry Householder that is rocking the Ohio Statehouse could be the largest such probe in history. Were talking about Householder and the other main characters in the case on This Week in the CLE.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts Wednesdays daily half-hour news podcast, with help from criminal justice editor Kris Wernowsky, politics editor Jane Kahoun and a special guest, Statehouse reporter Andrew Tobias. We answer many of the questions youve sent through our text message platform.

Youve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom account, in which he shares once or twice a day what were thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.

And youve been offering all sorts of great perspective in our coronavirus alert account, which has 13,000-plus subscribers. You can sign up for free by texting 216-279-7784.

Here are the questions were answering today:

1) Is the $60 million FirstEnergy bribery case involving Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder the biggest bribery case in Ohio history? The U.S. Attorney handling the case called it likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people in the state of Ohio.

2) What is Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder accused of doing in the massive indictment describing a $60 million First Energy bribery scheme? In a criminal complaint, federal authorities lay out how Householder used millions of dollars to engineer his rise back to power, the passage of a bill bailing out FirstEnergys nuclear plants and the crushing of a referendum that attempted to overturn the bailout.

3) Who is Matt Borges and what is he accused of in the massive indictment describing a $60 million FirstEnergy bribery scheme? The lobbyist and prominent Ohio Republican attempted to help his client, FirstEnergy Corp., wade through the ugly fight of a legislative referendum, authorities say.

4) Who is Neil Clark and what is he accused of in the massive indictment describing a $60 million FirstEnergy bribery scheme? Federal authorities say the longtime Columbus lobbyist became Householders fixer in recent years, concocting clever ways to ensure that the speakers interests were furthered with millions of dollars in dark money under their control.

5) Who is Juan Cespedes and what is he accused of in the massive indictment describing a $60 million FirstEnergy bribery scheme? Authorities say the Columbus-based lobbyist helped funnel millions from FirstEnergy Corp. into a dark-money group controlled by Householder.

6) Who is Jeff Longstreth and what is he accused of in the massive indictment describing a $60 million FirstEnergy bribery scheme? The federal complaint describes Householders longtime political strategist as instrumental to the corrupt efforts to pass the controversial nuclear bailout and defeat the ballot measure that sought to overturn it.

7) How is it that Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder could operate a fund in complete secrecy, with $60 million passing through it and no one in Ohio being the wiser? Is this dark money? Is it the result of sleazy laws passed in Ohio? What gives? Previous reporting by cleveland.com shows how dark money influenced the nuclear bailout bill.

8)Who are the 10 Democrats in the House who voted for the corrupt bailout of FirstEnergys nuclear plants, and are any of them from Northeast Ohio? Several of those who supported the bill are from Northeast Ohio.

9)Why didnt the feds charge Householder and his cronies with civil rights violations for illegally impeding the people trying to put the corrupt FirstEnergy nuclear plant bailout on the ballot? Is there any way to restore the rights to these people that they were deprived of? We might not know the answer to these questions for awhile.

Want more? You can find all our past episodes here.

Do you get your podcasts on Spotify. Find us here.

If you use Stitcher, we are here.

RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.

On Google Podcasts, we are here.

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.
Marcel Amon-Tanoh, a longtime ally of President Alassane Ouattara and until recently his foreign minister, declared on Wednesday he would run in Ivory Coasts presidential election in October, breaking with the governing party.

The campaign was thrown into uncertainty earlier this month when Ouattaras choice to succeed him after a decade in power, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died suddenly, leaving the ruling RHDP party scrambling to choose a replacement candidate.

The October 31 election is seen as a key test of stability for Ivory Coast, the worlds top cocoa producer. Ouattaras first election win in 2010 sparked a civil war fought largely along regional and ethnic lines that killed about 3,000 people.

Source close to Amon-Tanoh said he would create his own political party in the coming days [Mike Segar/Reuters]

Political tensions have been rising in recent months. The RHDP said on Monday that it had asked Ouattara to go back on his decision not to stand for a third term. His opponents say running again would violate constitutional limits.

Late last year, the government accused another presidential hopeful, former prime minister and ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro, of plotting a coup against Ouattaras government. He is now in exile in Europe.

Amon-Tanoh resigned in March as foreign minister, a post he had held since late 2016, after Ouattara announced that Gon Coulibaly would be the RHDPs candidate. Amon-Tanoh had been widely seen as angling to be the candidate.

We have built bridges, but we have forgotten to construct bridges between men, he said in a speech announcing his candidacy, an implicit rebuke to Ouattaras record on reconciling Ivorians after the civil war.

Sources close to Amon-Tanoh said he would create his own political party in the coming days. It was not clear how much support he would be able to mobilise independent of Ouattara, to whom he has been a close ally for decades and previously served as presidential chief of staff.

The RHDP said on Monday that Ouattara would announce whether he planned to run in the next few days.

The other main declared candidate in the race is Henri Konan Bedie, who was Ivory Coasts president from 1993-1999.
Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - Mauritania is making moves to reform the public and private media sector, official sources told PANA here Tuesday
Church gives away two cars, 100,000 pounds of food in relief effort

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As many households across America continue to struggle with food and job insecurity, i5 City Church in Glen Burnie, Maryland, partnered with Joyce Meyer Ministries in Missouri and several others over the weekend to distribute some 100,000 pounds of food and two new cars to community members in need.

We have so many people in need and that are feeling hopeless and lonely, that what better way to get people together than to serve the community? i5 City Church Pastor Jimmy Rollins told the Capital Gazette at his church Sunday where scores of volunteers had come to help distribute food from the churchs parking lot.

The church, which describes itself as a group of people crazy enough to believe we can change the world, draws its mission from Matthew 25:34-36.

God has called us to be the tangible hands and feet of Jesus. We do this by meeting practical needs in our community. And all this can be seen in our name i5. The I stands for IMPACT, and the 5 is the five missional ways we impact the world: Food, Water, Shelter, Clothing, and Care, the church explains on its website. We are not just a church that does outreach. We are an outreach powered by a church. We live beyond ourselves, love beyond our preferences, and laugh beyond our struggles.

Other partners involved in Sundays effort included Lighthouse Church in Glen Burnie, Gods Pit Crew in Virginia, the Anne Arundel County Food Bank and Food Rescue Baltimore.

Julie Burnett of Gods Pit Crew told WFXR that they partnered with Joyce Meyer Ministries to donate a tractor-trailer load of 1,440 food boxes toward the effort.

People reportedly showed up in hundreds of cars to get food while volunteers also brought packages of food to those who were unable to physically collect the gifts.

Single mother Danyelle Thomas, who said she had been praying to God for a car so she can have better access to job opportunities, was a recipient of one of the two new cars given away by i5 City Church and she said it was more than she expected.

This is more than what I could have asked for; this car is literally new, Thomas said of the Nissan Sentra she received. I feel blessed.

Thomas told the publication that the first thing she would do is worship in the car then get on the hunt for a better job.

One of my biggest things was I couldnt hold a job because I couldnt get the kids to daycare or pick them up on time. Now I can do that, she said. Everything that was harder for me has now become easier; something simple as making to a doctors appointment.

Rollins explained that even though his church wasnt physically meeting in the church for worship because of the coronavirus, they decided to remain active in meeting the needs of the community because he sees it as the churchs duty.

County Executive Steuart Pittman said he was proud of how the community came together to help their neighbors in the effort.

The economic victims of this pandemic are our neighbors whose incomes barely cover monthly expenses, he told the Capital Gazette. I am proud of the way that our public servants and our community leaders have stepped up to build a safety net, particularly through food distribution.
A university student was Monday charged with raping his ex-girlfriend in Dagoretti sub-county in Nairobi.

Denis Bonyinyo Abuga, a student at St Pauls University, allegedly committed the offence on July 9 when he had gone to collect his belongings following a breakup.

A Kibera Court heard that Abuga called the woman and told her that he was paying her a visit to pick his stuff. The woman agreed.

Police added that when Abuga arrived, the victim left him in the sitting room and went into her bedroom but the accused followed her and sat on the bed.

A police report indicates that Abuga wanted to talk to the woman but she told him she wanted to leave for work.

The suspect then became violent, grabbed the woman and threw her on the bed. He then tied her with her handbag and raped her.

The victim called neighbours who took her to Kilimani police station where she filed the complaint.

On top of the rape charge, Abuga was also charged with committing an indecent act with an adult contrary to Sexual Offences Act.

He denied the charges before Kibera chief magistrate Abdul Lorot and asked for lenient bond terms, the Star reports.

The accused, through his lawyer, said he was booked for an operation at a city hospital and needed to be freed on bond.

The prosecution asked the court to direct that a sample be taken from the accused for a DNA test.

The magistrate granted the accused Sh200,000 bail with a surety of similar amount and ordered the suspect to present himself at Kilimani police station for extraction of a sample for DNA testing on Wednesday next week.

The case will proceed on August 3.
Tropical Storm Gonzalo formed Wednesday morning in the Atlantic Ocean, the National Hurricane Center said. It's the earliest "G" storm in any Atlantic hurricane season on record.

The storm is expected to become a hurricane Thursday, with winds of at least 75 mph.

The hurricane center said Gonzalo was far from land: As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, it was about 1,110 miles east of the Southern Windward Islands of the Caribbean. The system had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was moving to the west at 14 mph.

"Gonzalo is expected to move near or over the southern Windward Islands this weekend and could bring direct impacts from winds and heavy rainfall," the hurricane center said.

It is forecast to weaken back to tropical storm strength as it nears the islands.

When Gonzalo became a named storm Wednesday morning, it broke a record set by Tropical Storm Gert, which formed July 24, 2005, during a notorious season.

Gonzalo's forecast path shows the storm moving into the Caribbean Sea by the weekend.

According to AccuWeather, many storms this year have beat out storms from the 2005 season, known as the most active on record, for the title of earliest to form in the basin. The 2020 season pales in comparison with 2005 in terms of overall intensity.

By this point in 2005, the Atlantic basin had spawned three hurricanes and two major hurricanes  Category 3 or higher  according to Phil Klotzbach, a tropical meteorologist at Colorado State University.

Hurricane season 2020: From Arthur to Wilfred, here's the list of hurricane names this season

In addition to Gonzalo, forecasters monitored a system in the Gulf of Mexico, which could spin up into a tropical depression or storm in the next couple of days, the hurricane center said.

"Regardless of development, increasing winds and seas across the upper Texas coastal waters should begin on Thursday, and the threat of heavy rainfall spreads into Southeast Texas Friday through Saturday," the National Weather Service in Houston said.

In the Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Douglas strengthened into a hurricane Wednesday morning. As of 5 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Douglas had winds of 80 mph and was 1,690 miles from Hilo, Hawaii.

Story continues

It could impact Hawaii on Sunday, probably after weakening back to a tropical storm, the hurricane center said.

More: Hurricane season off to historically fast start: What does that mean for the rest of the year?

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gonzalo forecast: Tropical storm likely to become Atlantic hurricane
They can be a real nuisance to drive with. (Getty Images)

We all have that one friend who visibly recoils every time we approach a junction or insists on going a certain way when youre driving.

Yes, this type of behaviour is a real nuisance, but apparently it can serve a purpose.

New research has found that rather than losing it with vocal passengers, we should be happy to have them around because they might help our driving.

In fact, the study found that backseat drivers could help to lower the accident rate for drivers over the age of 24. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Read more: Are you a modern man?

Theres this perception out there that passengers can be distracting, nagging and so forth, but after the age of 24 having a passenger in your car actually decreases the chance youre going to have a crash, says co-author Samuel Charlton, professor of psychology at the University of Waikato.

Having a passenger look out the left-hand window and telling you whether its clear to go or not is very helpful.

That doesnt give white-knuckled riders an excuse to scream every time you drive past a lorry, though. Thats not productive for anybody.

Tone plays a highly important role in whether or not backseat drivers are appreciated or just, well, annoying. Those who adopt a kind and helpful tone are less likely to get the backs up of the driver than those who are abrasive or nervous.

Finding fault in somebodys driving, especially if theyre new to it, is never a good idea and could end up knocking their confidence.

Read more: A third of young people struggling to emotionally support partners in lockdown

Charlton recommends passengers ask the driver before they head off whether or not theyd like help with anything, whether thats checking their blind spots or guiding them into a parking position.

It can also be helpful to pass famished drivers food or drink on long car journeys  but only if this is done safely, of course.

According to the RAC, its not illegal to eat and drink food in your car as long as youre not distracted in the process.

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Auto Europe even provides a list of easy foods to eat in the car, in case you or your backseat driver need a bit of inspiration.

These include chopped fruit and vegetables (such as apples, bell peppers and celery sticks), nuts like almonds, walnuts and peanuts, and dark chocolate broken into chunks.
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse)  Wed, July 22, 2020 07:04 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066840a71 2 Books Harry-Potter,jk-rowling,author,books,transgender,LGBTQ,Britain,backlash Free

Harry Potter fans started to distance themselves from the English author JK Rowling back in June, after she posted a series of controversial tweets affirming that women can only be identified by their biological sex.

This ongoing cultural boycott is notably visible in Rowling's print book sales in the United States, which are experiencing a sudden drop according to recent figures from NPD BookScan.

Variety reported that the English novelist saw her US print book sales rise by just 10.9 percent in June, while multiple titles in adult, young adult and juvenile sectors have experienced double-digit growth in recent weeks.

Sales of Harry Potter print books, including those of licensed titles not authored by Rowling, have also seen a sudden drop and increased just 7.7 percent for the month of June.

NPD BookScan figures do not account for eBook, audiobook sales, or sales to libraries and direct publisher sales, which have likely been boosted by the recent launch of the new Harry Potter At Home hub via WizardingWorld.com.

While the NPD Group has not commented on Rowling's slowing sales, her underperformance comes at a time when the Harry Potter author has been under fire for her statements and beliefs on transgender identity.

Multiple actors from the Harry Potter movies and spinoffs, such as Daniel Radcliffe, Eddie Redmayne, Noma Dumezweni, and Emma Watson, have since spoken out against Rowling's remarks.

Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they arent who they say they are.  Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) June 10, 2020

Two leading Harry Potter fan sites, namely the Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet, have also announced that they will no longer cover Rowling's personal endeavors, or feature photos and quotes from the author.

"We find the use of her influence and privilege to target marginalized people to be out of step with the message of acceptance and empowerment we find in her books and celebrated by the Harry Potter community," they wrote in a joint statement.

While calls to #cancel the English author have appeared on social media, Rowling hit back by signing an open letter in Harper's Magazine that warns about the spread of "censoriousness" and "a vogue for public shaming and ostracism."

More than 150 writers, academics and artists have also expressed their similar concerns about cancel culture, including Martin Amis, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Malcolm Gladwell, and Gloria Steinem.

The initiative was met with criticism online, with American journalist and author Glenn Greenwald noting in a tweet that "several of the people on this @Harpers Open Letter have behavior in their past that reflects the censorious mentality they're condemning here."

As is usually the case for people who manifest in favor of free & open debate and against repression, several of the people on this @Harpers Open Letter have behavior in their past that reflects the censorious mentality theyre condemning here.https://t.co/L9ApuHURim https://t.co/HX653faGaF  Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 7, 2020
PORTLAND, Ore.  Attorneys for Oregon argued Wednesday for a restraining order against federal agents deployed to quell protests in Portland  a standoff that some legal experts have warned could lead to a constitutional crisis in an election year.

A federal judge heard arguments from the state and the U.S. government in a lawsuit filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who accuses federal agents of arresting protesters without probable cause, whisking them away in unmarked cars and using excessive force. Federal authorities have disputed those allegations.

The lawsuit is part of the growing pushback to President Donald Trump sending federal agents to Portland and announcing theyd also be going to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to fight rising crime, a move thats deepening the countrys already considerable political divide. Democratic mayors of 15 cities condemned the use of the agents in a letter to the U.S. attorney general.

The court hearing focused on the actions of more than 100 federal agents responding to protests outside Portlands Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which has been a target for more than 50 nights of demonstrations against racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

The motion for a temporary restraining order asks U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman to command agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Protective Service and the U.S. Marshals Service to immediately stop detaining protesters without probable cause, to identify themselves and their agency before arresting anyone, and to explain why an arrest is taking place.

During the hearing  held by videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic  the state acknowledged that federal agents have the right to defend the courthouse but argued that they had overstepped.

Rosenblum, the state attorney general, said she was asking the court to declare it not acceptable for federal officers to use unconstitutional, police state-type acts to detain citizens of Oregon without cause.

David Morrell, an attorney for the U.S. government, called the motion extraordinary and told the court it was based solely on a few threadbare declarations from witnesses and a Twitter video.

The Hatfield courthouse did not damage itself, he said, calling the protests dangerous and volatile.

Its not clear when Mosman will rule, but he challenged the state on whether it had the standing to ask for the restraining order. The judge noted that past legal decisions have required a state to establish a very high bar  quasi-sovereign interest  to successfully sue the U.S. government.

Attorneys for Oregon contended they had met that bar because the actions of the federal agents could erode residents trust in all law enforcement, including state and city officers.

Morrell, the U.S. government attorney, disputed that, saying successful lawsuits usually involved issues that affected many people, not highly individual interests like the arrests.

The lawsuit is one of several filed over authorities response to the Portland protests. On Thursday, a judge will hear arguments in a legal challenge that the American Civil Liberties Union filed on behalf of journalists and legal observers who say they were targeted and attacked by Portland police while documenting demonstrations. A freelance photographer covering the protests for The Associated Press submitted an affidavit that he was beaten with batons, chemical irritants and hit with rubber bullets.

U.S. Judge Michael Simon previously ruled that journalists and legal observers are exempt from police orders requiring protesters to disperse once an unlawful assembly has been declared. Federal lawyers say that journalists should have to leave when ordered.

The Portland City Council on Wednesday banned city police from cooperating with federal agents or knowingly arresting reporters or legal observers.

Meanwhile, a fence went up around the federal courthouse, where protesters and federal agents had clashed again overnight. Protesters repeatedly tried to break into the building and set fires around it, and the federal agents drove them back with tear gas and stun grenades, police said.

Far from tamping down the unrest in Portland, the presence of federal agents has energized the nightly protests.

Mayor Ted Wheelers office said he would attend the protests Wednesday night and there would be some form of dialogue with the demonstrators. The Democrat has vocally opposed the federal presence in Portland but has still faced harsh criticism from many sides. Some, including fellow council members, have accused him of not reining in local police, who used tear gas before federal agents arrived. Others, including business leaders, have condemned him for not bringing the situation under control.

One group that has been prominent in the protests, the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, told the mayor to stay away.

The use of federal agents against the wishes of local officials  and the threat that it might be done elsewhere  was deepening the countrys already considerable political divides and potentially setting up a constitutional crisis months ahead of the presidential election. The standoff could escalate after Trump announced Wednesday that he would be sending federal agents to combat crime in Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, which are both led by Democrats.

The mayors of Chicago, Portland and other Democratic-led cities objected to such deployments and called them politically motivated in a letter to Attorney General William Barr and Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf.

Federal authorities have defended their response, saying officials in Oregon had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism against the the U.S. courthouse and violence against federal officers.

Wolf said Tuesday that agents have been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons. While he said federal agencies have made 43 arrests since July 4, he disputed they were done by unidentified agents, noting they have the word police on their uniforms.

Among the protesters was Maureen Healy, who joined a march Monday as people sang songs and chanted the names of Black lives lost.

Just after midnight, she saw a line of authorities wearing camouflage and dark outfits advance on the crowd. Protesters retreated, and Healy said she heard bangs, saw smoke and was struck by a projectile. She went to the hospital with a black eye, a cut to her face and a possible concussion.

I was protesting peacefully, so why did federal troops shoot me in the head? asked Healy, 52, who is chairwoman of the history department at Lewis & Clark College.

___

This story has been updated to correct the federal agencys name to Customs and Border Protection.

___

Associated Press writers Sara Cline in Salem, Oregon, and Colleen Long and Ben Fox in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus.
WOONSOCKET (dpa-AFX) - Major retailers in the U.S. are joining hands to find alternative solutions to single-use plastic retail bags and tackle the retail bag waste. Investment firm Closed Loop Partners said that along with CVS Health Corp., Target Corp. and Walmart Inc. as founding partners, it is forming the 'Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag'. Collectively, the consortium partners have committed more than $15 million to launch the 'Beyond the Bag' Initiative. Kroger Co. and Walgreens have also joined the group. With funding from Walmart, Target and CVS Health, the three-year initiative aims to test, identify and implement viable design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the current plastic retail bag. Closed Loop noted that the global risks from climate change, the global pandemic and mounting plastic waste have revealed the vulnerabilities of the current system. The 'Beyond the Bag' Initiative is a joint effort by the retailers to drive long-term, transformational thinking to address the complex global waste challenge. Studies have shown that more than 100 billion single-use plastic retail bags are used in the U.S. every year, and less than 10 percent of these are recycled. Every year, plastic retail bags are among the top 10 items found on beaches and waterways worldwide. Closed Loop Partners said the consortium is inviting inventors and innovators from around the world to submit their solutions to the 'Beyond the Bag Challenge', which will be launched in partnership with global design firm IDEO on August 3. Closed Loop Partners will launch a Circular Accelerator, develop potential piloting opportunities and make infrastructure investments to help the development of market-ready solutions, with an initial focus on implementation in the U.S. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
By Azernews





By Akbar Mammadov

A group of Azerbaijanis have come under attack of Armenian nationalists during a protest held outside of the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan on 21 July, the consulate reported in its Facebook page today.

Seven Azerbaijanis, including a woman, have been injured during the attack and four of them have been hospitalized. In addition, a police officer of Los-Angeles Police Department trying to protect the Azerbaijani woman from Armenian attackers has received head injury.

The Azerbaijanis were attacked by Armenian radicals in Los Angeles who surrounded the building of the Consulate General of Azerbaijan and held a protest action against Azerbaijan with aggressive and provocative slogans.

Members of the Azerbaijani community in California carried out a peaceful rival rally against a large number of Armenians. The courage of the Azerbaijanis who met face to face with a large number of Armenians outraged Armenian Dashank radicals who in turn violently attacked Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijans Consulate General reported that Armenians attacked Azerbaijanis and also sought to drive their cars on the peaceful protesters.

The Azerbaijani community members were carrying posters exposing Armenia's aggression and policy of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijan, reflecting the displacement of about 1 million peaceful Azerbaijanis from their native lands as a result of the occupation. "Karabakh is Azerbaijan!", "Stop the Armenian aggression!", "Justice for Khojaly", "Armenia is starting a war against Azerbaijan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shame on you! were some of the slogans.

All staff members of the Consulate General, including the Consul General, were in constant contact with the Azerbaijani community members on the day of the demonstration at the Consulate General's office. The consulate said that to ensure the safety of Azerbaijani citizens, Los Angeles Police officers lined up around them.

Seeing the growing aggression of the Armenians, the Consulate General immediately contacted the bus companies and began the process of evacuation of Azerbaijanis from the area. However, 15 minutes later, Los Angeles police informed members of the Azerbaijani community that they were concerned about the safety of the protesters, and started escorting Azerbaijanis away, accompanied by police.

Immediately after the incident, the Consul General contacted Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, informing him of the seriousness of the situation and expressing his serious criticism of the police's inability to prevent the Armenian violence.

Thus, it was noted that the Los Angeles Police was aware of the protest by the Azerbaijani community in advance and assured the Consulate General that the security of the protesters would be fully ensured.

Moore apologized to the Consul General for the police forces failure to take relevant measures to prevent the violence, noting that the issue will be seriously investigated and a special investigation team will be set up.

An investigation team has been set up and an investigation is underway, the consulate said.

Consul General Nasimi Agayev has visited injured Azerbaijanis in the hospital and said that measures are being taken to bring Armenian criminals to justice.








Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-21 22:56:20|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- China appreciates the New Zealand government's positive remarks that it attaches importance to and is committed to developing relations with China, according to a foreign ministry spokesperson on Tuesday.

Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a press conference when asked to comment on the remarks made by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at Monday's China Business Summit, held in Auckland.

Ardern noted that China is New Zealand's largest trading partner and one of its most important relationships. As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, the two sides should continue to strengthen cooperation in areas such as free trade, improving the business environment, climate change, and public health.

Noting China and New Zealand are important partners to each other, Wang said the sound and steady development of China-New Zealand relations serves the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples.

In the current circumstances, China is ready to work with New Zealand to uphold the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, enhance mutual trust, deepen cooperation and make joint efforts in global cooperation to fight the pandemic and promote economic recovery, Wang added.

Ardern also said at the summit that New Zealand will continue to express its concerns to China on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, human rights, and other issues.

"We are firmly opposed to other countries interfering in China's internal affairs by using the so-called Hong Kong, Xinjiang and human rights issues. China is determined to safeguard its sovereignty, security, and development interests," Wang said. Enditem
A protein powder and collagen powder stocked in Coles supermarkets is making waves around the world, after Khloe Kardashian revealed how much she loves it.

The 36-year-old uploaded a photo of herself using the New Zealand brand Dose & Co's Collagen Powder and 'Collagen Creamer' to her 117 million followers, which resulted in a slew of sales for the new business.

'Good morning,' Khloe posted on her profile, alongside a photo of her making a smoothie with Dose & Co's collagen products.

Khloe also showed how she uses the 'Collagen Creamer' in her morning coffees.

A protein powder and collagen powder stocked in Coles supermarkets is making waves around the world, after Khloe Kardashian (pictured) revealed how much she loves it

Dose & Co (products pictured) was born as a result of many years of founder Libby Matthews looking for clean, great-tasting high-dose collagen at an accessible price point

What is collagen? * Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body, accounting for about a third of its protein composition. * It's one of the major building blocks of bones, skin, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Collagen is also found in many other body parts, including blood vessels, corneas, and teeth. * Many think of it as the 'glue' that holds our body together. * There are at least 16 different types of collagen, and your body makes procollagen by combining two amino acids: glycine and proline. * Collagen is found in the connective tissues of animal foods, like chicken and pork skin. * Collagen peptide comes in a powder that can be incorporated into foods. * The peptide form doesn't gel, so you can mix it into smoothies, soups or baking without affecting texture. Source: Healthline Advertisement

So what is Dose & Co and what makes the products so special?

Born as the result of many years working in nutrition, founder Libby Matthews said she wanted to create 'clean, great tasting, high-dose collagen products at an accessible price point'.

'Our intent with the brand has always been to help people look and feel better, pure and simple,' Libby told FEMAIL.

'Our expectations have been completely blown away with how fast it has grown.'

Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body, accounting for about a third of its protein composition and it's one of the major building blocks of bones, skin, muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

Many describe it as the 'glue' which holds everything in our body together, and while we do produce it naturally, products that contain collagen or help you produce more naturally have become increasingly popular in recent years.

'All Dose & Co products contain a high dose of 10 grams (10,000mg) of collagen per serving.

'This means you'll get results fast!' Libby explained.

'When you begin supplementing with collagen, you are providing your body with a dose of amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and collagen molecules.

'Your body then takes these and delivers them throughout the bodies systems to form new collagen.'

The 36-year-old uploaded a photo of herself using the New Zealand brand Dose & Co 's Collagen Powder and 'Collagen Creamer' to her 117 million followers (pictured)

Khloe (pictured) has been using an array of Dose & Co's high-dose collagen products, with great results for her hair, skin and nails

At present, the Dose & Co range includes an array of products including vanilla and caramel-flavoured coffee creamer, chocolate fudge protein powder, creamy vanilla protein powder and pure bovine collagen powder.

The prices range between $34.99 and $51.99, and all of the products have an impressive five star rating, with a host of glowing reviews.

'This goes in my coffee every single morning without fail and has improved my skin, helped take away the eczema on my hands, lessened the appearance of stretch marks, and made my hair grow and thicken!' one woman posted.

'Noticed visual results in nail growth and strength in a week and it definitely has helped grow baby hairs and skin health has improved,' another added.

Others said the products have helped them with their energy levels, while also curbing sugar cravings throughout the day.

The prices range between $34.99 and $51.99, and all of the products (pictured) have an impressive five star rating, with a host of glowing reviews

Models including Elle Ferguson (left) and fitness influencers (right) have been enjoying trying various products from the range

Khloe Kardashian isn't the only high-profile fan.

Closer to home, model Elle Ferguson is enjoying using the brand, while other fitness experts and personal trainers mix the products into their morning coffees each day.

'What makes Dose & Co different is our beliefs,' Libby said.

'On the search for the right supplements, I noticed many were loaded with fillers, dodgy sweeteners and all sorts of nasties that outweighed the benefits of the supplements themselves.

'Plus the packaging was often plastic-heavy and I struggled to justify the damage to the planet that purchasing these products would inevitably do.'

As a new mother, she knew she wanted products that were safe to use during pregnancy and breastfeeding, all of which inspired her to launch Dose & Co, which is designed to create better health from the inside out.

For more information about Dose & Co, you can visit their website here. You can also follow the brand on Instagram here.
2 | Next crop of COVID-19 vaccine developers take more traditional route: The handful of drugmakers dominating the global coronavirus vaccine race are pushing the boundaries of vaccine technology. The next crop under development feature more conventional, proven designs. The world will need several different vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, given the sheer size of global need, variations in effects on different populations, and possible limits of effectiveness in the first crop. Many leading candidates now in final-stage testing are based on new, largely unproven technology platforms designed to produce vaccines at speed.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced on Wednesday that the US has signed a contract with Pfizer for delivery in December of the first 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical company is working to develop. The US could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement, Azar said.

Now those would, of course, have to be safe and effective and be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Azar said during an appearance on Fox News.

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE announced separately that the agreement is with HHS and the Defense Department for a vaccine candidate the companies are developing jointly.

The agreement is part of President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, under which multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously. The program aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021, according to HHS.

Under the initiative, the government will speed development and buy vaccines  before they are deemed safe and effective  so that the medication can be in hand and quickly distributed once the FDA approves or authorizes its emergency use.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

Pfizer and BioNTech said the US will pay $1.95 billion upon receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval.

Azar said the contract with Pfizer and BioNTech brings to five the number of potential coronavirus vaccines that are under development.

Trump said Tuesday at a briefing that the vaccines are coming, and they're coming a lot sooner than anyone thought possible, by years. But other countries are also scrambling to get their hands on a vaccine for COVID-19, which has killed more than 617,000 people, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Nearly 4 million Americans have been infected by the new coronavirus and at least 142,000 have died from COVID-19, the disease it causes, according to Johns Hopkins.

Britain announced Monday it had secured access to another 90 million experimental COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and others, a move some campaigners warned could worsen a global scramble by rich countries to hoard the world's limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

Nearly two dozen potential vaccines are in various stages of human testing worldwide, with a handful entering necessary late-stage testing to prove effectiveness.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chastised her 35-year-senior colleague on Wednesday for a non-apology after Republican Representative Ted Yoho said he 'cannot apologize for my passion.'

Yoho grinned through remarks on the House floor after he was called on to apologize after revelations of a profanity-laced confrontation between the congressman and Democrat Ocasio-Cortez surfaced.

'This is not an apology,' Ocasio-Cortez said of the supposed atonement, where Yoho can be seen smiling and reading prepared remarks.

She rattled off reasons on Twitter Wednesday as to why she did not consider Yoho to be remorseful.

'- Does not apologize or name any action he did

- Does not accept responsibility

- Lies (this was not a 'conversation,' it was verbal assault)

- Distracts by making it abt poverty (ironically)

- Says everyone else is wrong and the incident never happened,' the New York City lawmaker tweeted in list-form.

'He didn't even say my name,' she concluded in another post.

Yoho said in his remarks: 'I stand before you this morning to address the strife I injected into the already contentious Congress.'

Yoho said in prepared remarks after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called on him to apologize for his conduct from the House floor.

'I rise to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York,' the Florida Republican continued after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called on him Tuesday to apologize for his conduct from the House floor.

'It is true we disagree on policies and visions for America, but that does not mean we should be disrespectful,' he continued, dismissing the aggressive ordeal as a 'misunderstanding.'

Ocasio-Cortez denounced Yoho's comments.

'Republican responds to calling a colleague 'disgusting' & a 'fing b***h' w/ 'I cannot apologize for my passion' and blaming others,' the progressive freshman congresswoman posted on Wednesday along with a clip of his remarks.

'I will not teach my nieces and young people watching that this an apology, and what they should learn to accept,' she continued, adding: 'Yoho is refusing responsibility.'

A reporter with The Hill revealed Tuesday that he overheard a confrontation between the two lawmakers where he claimed Yoho, 65, called Ocasio-Cortez, 30, a 'f***ing b***h.'

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed Wednesday that Rep. Ted Yoho's remarks following a report that revealed he called her a 'f***ing b***h' are 'not an apology' - and she listed reasons she did not take it as such

She added that the Florida Republican didn't even use her name during his prepared remarks

Representative Ted Yoho refused during a House floor speech Wednesday to apologize for his 'passion' when confronting Ocasio-Cortez, which he dismissed as a 'misunderstanding'

'It is true we disagree on policies and visions for America, but that does not mean we should be disrespectful,' Yoho said during his prepared remarks

Ocasio-Cortez condemned his non-apology, claiming 'Yoho is refusing responsibility' after confronting her on the Capitol stairs Monday

In response to the profanity-laced insult, which took place on the east steps of the Capitol Monday, Ocasio-Cortez shot back in a tweet on Tuesday: 'B*****s get stuff done.'

The progressive New York City lawmaker was ascending the stairs to cast her vote on the same day the House stood in a moment of silence to honor the late Rep. John Lewis after he died Friday months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when she was approached by Yoho.

'You are out of your freaking mind,' Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez in the brief interaction, according to The Hill.

Yoho also called AOC, as she was dubbed early on in her political career, 'disgusting' for recent comments where she said the spike in New York City crime in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic are due to increased levels of poverty and unemployment.

He claimed Wednesday that he felt the need to approach Ocasio-Cortez because of his 'passion' for the topic.

But Ruben Gallego, a Democratic representative from Arizona, defended his colleague on Twitter Tuesday, claiming he has made the same claims and not been accosted in the way Ocasio-Cortez was.

'I have suggested the same thing that @aoc has poverty & unemployment lead to crime,' he claimed. 'Weird neither Yoho or any other member has ever talked to me that way.'

Ocasio-Cortez detailed to Yahoo News Tuesday that the representative put his finger in her face.

Yoho insisted to the Daily Caller that he did not use the vernacular outlined by The Hill.

Instead, he said he used the word 'bulls**t,' and said Ocasio-Cortez is trying to use the brief exchange for her personal benefit.

'He did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in The Hill or any name for that matter,' Yoho's office told the right-leaning media outlet. 'It sounds better for the Hill newspaper and gets more media attention to say he called her a name - which he did not do.'

'It is unfortunate that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is using this exchange to gain personal attention,' his office added.

'Instead,' it insisted, 'he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her polices to be: bulls**t.'

Yoho's remarks and demands for an apology came after the 65-year-old retiring lawmakers called his Democratic colleague, 30-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, a 'f***ing b***h' during a heated exchange at the Capitol on Monday

The progressive 30-year-old congresswoman said Yoho put his finger in her face as he called her 'disgusting' and 'out of your freaking mind' for linking a surge in crime in New York City on rising unemployment levels in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic

She also shot back on Twitter Tuesday, claiming, 'B*****s get stuff done,' and asserting she usually gets along with her GOP colleagues

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called on Yoho Tuesday to personally apologize to Ocasio-Cortez, and demanded he also make amends for his comments in a speech on the House floor

'He kept muttering insults at me as I was walking away, but I didn't try to make it out,' she explained. 'I thought he had said something but didn't assume that's what he said.'

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the behavior 'despicable' and demanded Tuesday that Yoho make a personal amends as well as a speech on the House floor apologizing to Ocasio-Cortez.

'Mr. Yoho owes not only the congresswoman an apology, but also an apology on the floor of the House of Representatives,' Hoyer told reporters.

'It was the act of a bully,' the Maryland Democrat continued of Yoho. 'Bottom line, I think it was despicable conduct. It needs to be sanctioned.'

Ocasio-Cortez told Yoho, who was joined by Texas Rep. Roger Williams on the Capitol stairs, that he was being 'rude.'

As the two walked away from each other, Yoho said audibly: 'F***ing b***h.'

She later expanded on her response on Twitter following the release of the report over the exchange.

'I never spoke to Rep. Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation's Capitol yesterday,' the social-media active lawmaker posted Tuesday morning. 'Believe it or not, I usually get along fine w/ my GOP colleagues.'

'We know how to check our legislative sparring at the committee door,' she asserted.

'But hey, 'b*tches' get stuff done,' Ocasio-Cortez quipped, adding a shrugging emoji.

The Hill reported that Williams was in ear-shot of the whole back-and-forth, but when approached about the specifics of the comments said he wasn't paying attention to it at the time.

'I was actually thinking, as I was walking down the stairs, I was thinking about some issues I've got in my district that need to get done,' Williams said. 'I don't know what their topic was. There's always a topic, isn't there?'

Ocasio-Cortez wasn't buying the excuse.

'Gotta love Republican courage from Rep @RogerWilliamsTX: when he undeniably sees another man engaged in virulent harassment of a young woman, just pretend you never saw it in the most cartoonish manner possible and keep pushing,' she tweeted, adding in a parentheses, '(He's lying, by the way. He joined in w/ Yoho)'.

'What's wild to me @RogerWilliamsTX is why would you blatantly lie to a reporter who saw this exchange?' she continued in calling out the Republican representative. 'You were yelling at me too, about 'throwing urine.'

Ocasio-Cortez explained the incident in more detail in a direct message with Yahoo News on Twitter.

'When I pass other members on the steps, regardless of party, I usually nod or say hello if I'm able,' the progressive lawmaker detailed. 'Out of nowhere, Yoho comes up to me and puts his finger in my face and flies off in a rage.'

'He started going off about shootings and bread and nonsense, calling me crazy, shameful, out of my mind, etc.,' she continued.

'At first I tried to talk to him, but that just made him yell over me more,' she claimed.

'Williams then started joining in, yelling things at me and said something about throwing urine  I don't know what that was about,' she added. 'I said he was being rude and that this was unbelievable and started to walk away.'

She asserted that it was Yoho who called her 'rude' and not the other way around, and said following the interaction she 'just kept walking to my vote.'

Texas Republican Rep. Roger Williams was accompanying Yoho down stairs on the east side of the Capitol after a vote when they confrontation occured. But he asserted he was not paying attention to the back-and-forth: 'I was actually thinking, as I was walking down the stairs... I don't know what their topic was'

Ocasio-Cortez didn't buy Williams excuse, claiming he 'joined in w/ Yoho' in 'harassing' her

'Why would you blatantly lie to a reporter who saw this exchange?' she questioned of the Texas lawmaker, asserting he was yelling at her about 'throwing urine'

Yoho has served in Congress since 2013, but in December 2019 the Florida lawmaker announced he will not seek reelection in November.

He has been married to his wife since he was 19-years-old, and hey have three children together  two daughters and one son.

His daughters  Laueen, 32, and Katie, 33  are just a few years older than Ocasio-Cortez.

Yoho's comments when confronting AOC were about remarks she made earlier this month during a virtual town hall where she defended the rise in crime in New York City as people 'stealing bread to feed their children during record unemployment.'

Police data shows that shootings in the city last month were up 130 per cent this year  from 89 shootings last year to 205 this year.

But Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of Queens and The Bronx, questioned: 'Do we think this has to do with the fact that there's record unemployment in the United States right now?'

'Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren't paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent,' she continued. 'And so they go out, and they need to feed their child and they don't have money so they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.'

The comments were widely chastised by Republicans, who pointed to the rise in violent crime rather than shoplifting or petty theft.

'That kind of confrontation hasn't ever happened to me  ever,' Ocasio-Cortez, who is often criticized publicly by GOP lawmakers, told The Hill of the in-person interaction. 'I've never had that kind of abrupt, disgusting kind of disrespect levied at me.'

Yoho, however, had 'no comment' on the matter.
(Refiles to fix media identifier)

PARIS, July 21 (Reuters) - France's foreign minister on Tuesday condemned the treatment of Uighur Muslims in China and said Paris wanted independent observers to be allowed into the area.

"All of the practices in the area are unacceptable because they go against all the global human rights conventions and we condemn them strongly," Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers in parliament.

"We ask that China allows access of international independent observers in this zone and the high commissioner for human rights to be allowed to freely enter this zone." (Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Selectman Kit Devereaux signed a lease Monday morning, July 20, for her new home in Annapolis, Md., and will soon be moving to be nearer her family.

Devereaux has lived in New Canaan for 28 years and said she will miss her adopted town.

I am fully invested in New Canaan and it will be a very sad day for me to leave. But, I am going toward something that is good, she said. In these days of COVID, its good to be close to your family.

Devereaux is moving to be with her husband Robert Geitz to be closer to their only child, daughter Anne, and her grandson, William Colestock.

It is going to be starting over. I will make new friends, she said. I have made so many wonderful friends, that there is no way to replace [them].

Devereaux lost her run for first selectman in 2017 by 33 votes, a feat for a Democrat in New Canaan.

Retired from Salomon Brothers, she served on Town Council, Board of Finance and the Parks and Recreation Commission.

She does not plan to build a similar record of service in her new home.

Not at this level. Never, she said. You have to build a lot of bridges, before you become involved in a position of responsibility  particularly a town of that size.

I will join a church, she said. I will join the League of Women Voters. I will probably sing in a choir.

In New Canaan, Devereaux co-chaired the May Fair at St. Marks Episcopal Church for the last three years while she was a selectman. She was also president of the League of Women Voters, president of the board of the Nature Center and on the New Canaan Library Board of Trustees.

In addition to those posts, she sang in the choir of St. Marks, and she was involved with Spencers Run dog park in Waveny Park.

I have done a lot of things, she said.

The process

She will soon send the official announcement of her retirement by certified mail to the town clerks Office, according to Town Clerk Claudia Weber.

Then Weber will officially inform Town Council Chairman John Engel, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectman Nick Williams that a vacancy exists.

It will be up to them to choose a replacement in 15 days after receiving notification, according to the town charter section C3-11, Weber said.

The selectman must be a member of the same party, the Republican town clerk said, citing the charter.

In this case, since Devereaux is a Democrat, Thats a given. So it is going to be a Democrat -- thats the way our charter reads, Weber said.

The Democratic Town Committee will be expected to submit a candidate.

If people wish to contest the choice put forward by Moynihan, Engel or Williams, they will need to present a petition signed by a minimum of 5 percent of the electorate (or 678 voters as of June 1) within 15 days of the decision, Weber said.

The right time

It seemed like a good time for her to leave, the popular selectman said. She has been renting a house that had been on the market for three years and it sold recently.

We are going to have to move anyway, there is huge pressure on rentals in New Canaan at this time, she said.

She visited Annapolis this past weekend and looked at two houses and one was really good for us, she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 16:50:34|Editor: huaxia

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DHAKA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- A natural disaster has been deepening in South Asia as new figures reveal that nearly 10 million people have been affected by monsoon floods, devastating large areas of India, Bangladesh and Nepal, said International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Wednesday.

Jagan Chapagain, secretary general of IFRC, said that millions of people across Bangladesh, India and Nepal have been marooned, their homes damaged and crops destroyed by floods.

"Every year there are monsoon floods, but this year is different as it comes at the height of a deadly COVID-19 global pandemic. Tragically, already 550 people have lost their lives and more than 9.6 million people have been swamped across South Asia," he was quoted as saying in a prepared statement on Wednesday.

Close to one third of Bangladesh has already been flooded with forecasts of worse flooding in the coming days, said the IFRC.

More than 2.8 million people have been affected, including over 1 million who remain isolated and surrounded by floodwaters, according to the Bangladesh Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief.

In India, IFRC said more than 6.8 million people have been affected by severe floods, mainly in the northern states of Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Meghalaya bordering Bangladesh, according to the Indian National Emergency Response Centre.

In Nepal, it said flooding and landslides have already killed close to 110 people. Across India, Bangladesh and Nepal, 550 have died according to government figures.

Millions have been displaced from their homes, it added.

"People in Bangladesh, India and Nepal are sandwiched in a triple disaster of flooding, the coronavirus and an associated socioeconomic crisis of loss of livelihoods and jobs," said Chapagain.

Flooding of farm lands and destruction of crops can push millions of people, already badly impacted by the COVID-19, further into poverty.

Volunteers in India, Bangladesh and Nepal are helping with shelters, providing tarpaulins, dry food and hygiene kits, and installing pumps for safe water.

In Bangladesh, Red Crescent teams have distributed cash grants to help more than 35,000 people cope with the flooding. In India, over 9,200 tarpaulins have been distributed to most at-risk families. In Nepal, Red Cross teams are airlifting relief supplies to communities that cannot be reached by road.

Many communities in Bangladesh and India are still recovering after Cyclone Amphan damaged or destroyed more than 260,000 homes, crops and infrastructure, merely two months ago.
They dont know what caused the drop in premature births and can only speculate as to the factors in lockdown that might have contributed. But further research might help doctors, scientists and parents-to-be understand the causes of premature birth and ways to prevent it, which have been elusive until now. Their studies are not yet peer-reviewed and have been posted only on preprint servers. In some cases the changes amounted to only a few missing babies per hospital. But they represented significant reductions from the norm, and some experts in premature birth think the research is worthy of additional investigation.
Ecobank Ghana has dismissed reports of an attempted seizure of its assets over a debt the bank owes a private entity.

A report by Citinewsroom said the bank prevented the seizure of its assets on Tuesday, July 21, 2020 over fraud related to a loan.



The report said the Police was at the Ecobank Head Office to provide assistance to bailiffs including Mike Agbemashior, George Tykhonov and Yury Shelkov to execute a writ in which the bank is commanded to make a payment of GH4 million with an accrued interest of GH10 million dating back to the year 2015 to Yuri M Plastics, which is the fourth defendant in the case.



According to the report, the order was as a result of a fraud committed against the plaintiffs and Ecobank was to pay GH4 million to the fourth defendant.



Ecobank reacts



However, Ecobank says no such levies have been issued against the bank.



"Ecobank unequivocally refutes the story as reported and states clearly for the records that no such execution has been levied on the Bank," Ecobank said in a statement.



"Ecobank is open for business and assures all stakeholders and the general public that the Bank is fully compliant with all legal and regulatory directives".





Source: Daily Graphic









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(Newser)  A Long Island criminal defendant tried faking his death to avoid a jail sentence, but the phony death certificate his lawyer submitted had a glaring spelling error that made it a dead giveaway for a fraud, prosecutors said Tuesday. Robert Berger, 25, of Huntington, New York, now faces up to four years in prison if convicted in the alleged scheme. That's in addition to pending sentences for earlier guilty pleas to charges of possession of a stolen Lexus and attempted grand larceny of a truckpunishment prosecutors say he was looking to avoid. "It will never cease to amaze me the lengths some people will go to to avoid being held accountable on criminal charges," Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas tells the AP. Scheduled to be sentenced to a year in jail last October on the theft-related charges, Berger fled the state.

story continues below

He took steps, however, to convince his then-lawyer, prosecutors, and the judge that he'd killed himselfincluding allegedly using his fiancee to pass along a bogus death certificate, prosecutors said. At first glance, Berger's purported death certificate looked like an official document issued by the New Jersey Department of Health's Vital Statistics and Registry office, but there was one big problem: Registry was spelled Regsitry," prosecutors said. There were also inconsistencies in the font type and size that raised suspicions, they said. The real New Jersey health department confirmed Berger's death certificate was a fake, and a public defender took over Berger's case after the lawyer who submitted the suspicious death certificate claimed he'd been used as a pawn. Berger pleaded not guilty to a single count of offering a false instrument for filing. A judge set bail at $1 but ordered Berger back to jail due to his underlying cases. His next court date is scheduled for July 29.

(Read more weird crimes stories.)
No poem ever seemed more romantic than the one read aloud at the wedding last Friday of Princess Beatrice: I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart).

Those lines, recited by the brides mother Sarah Ferguson, were written by the American poet e e cummings (who avoided capital letters and most other forms of punctuation). The groom posted them on social media, too  though he apparently had second thoughts, and deleted them minutes later.

Many people, if theyve heard of Cummings at all, will know him for the phrase the moons a balloon, in another blissfully romantic poem in which everyones in love and flowers pick themselves. The actor David Niven chose that childlike image as the title for his bestselling autobiography.

Its unlikely that either Beatrice or her bridegroom, property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, let alone the other royals listening to the wedding day poem, could have guessed how that ditty had its first inspiration.

No poem ever seemed more romantic than the one read aloud at the wedding last Friday of Princess Beatrice (pictured): I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart),' writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

Edward Estlin Cummings had many muses. He was married three times and, in his later years, was a darling of female poetry fans, who adored him for his risque and sometimes sexually frank verses.

But his first love that he never forgot  the first heart that he carried with him  belonged to a Parisian prostitute during World War I.

When the naive and scholarly 22-year-old from a sheltered, middle-class family in Massachusetts first encountered the putains or whores of the French capitals red-light district in 1917, he was thrilled and scandalised in equal measure.

Some he slept with. Some he immortalised in poems. One obsessed him. Her name was Marie Louise Lallemand and in one verse he called her the putain with the ivory throat.

Cummings was besotted with her. He wrote reams of love letters to her, pouring out his desire: Darling Marie Louise, you who are more to me than the scarlet poppies which are mown . . . take the kiss which I give you, that kiss, without value, because it comes from a soul which loves you.

Though he desperately wanted to sleep with her, he was also terrified of catching venereal disease because he couldnt face the shame. His religious upbringing had left him deeply repressed. Fear and sex go together in my life, he complained. In his final year at Harvard, in 1916, he wrote: I led a double life, getting drunk and feeling girls up but lying about this to my father and taking his money all the time.

He remembered his adolescent fumblings in a later poem: May i feel said he/ill squeal said she/just once said he/its fun said she/lets go said he/ not too far said she/whats too far said he/where you are said she.

One evening, Cummings borrowed his fathers car to visit a brothel in Boston with a classmate, Tex. They parked it outside, only to discover when they emerged in the small hours that the car had been towed away.

Mr Cummings Snr received a call at 3am to inform him his car had been discovered outside prostitutes lodgings and impounded.

Edward Estlin Cummings (pictured) had many muses. He was married three times and, in his later years, was a darling of female poetry fans, who adored him for his risque and sometimes sexually frank verses

Thoroughly ashamed of his own behaviour, Cummings volunteered to serve on the Western Front as soon as the U.S. formally joined the war against Germany in April 1917. But his ambivalence to sex was mirrored by conflicted feelings about the war. He wanted to be involved but he didnt want to fight, so he joined the ambulance corps, attached to the Red Cross.

Arriving in Paris with a friend, Slater Brown, he discovered they were a day late. So there was nothing for Cummings to do  except meet prostitutes, who fascinated him. He captured them in a series of poems. One begins: Wanta spend six dollars, Kid? Two for the room and four for the girl. The woman was not quite 14.

Describing a womans lazy strut, another poem read: The breasts look very good, firmlysquirmy with a slight jounce. Kitty, Mimi, Marjorie, Lucienne, Minette, Marie Louise  he called them his little ladies. Cummings, who drew as avidly as he composed verse, sketched Marie Louise, conveying her beauty and wariness in a few lines.

After five weeks, the pleasure-hunting ended. Cummings and Brown were posted to a series of camps on the front line. Appalled by what they saw, both men began writing letters home  and Brown was especially frank about the low morale of the French and the spread of venereal disease among U.S. troops.

They were offended, too, by the menial tasks, such as cleaning their commanding officers car. Other volunteers regarded them as arrogant and aloof. Certainly, as an adult, Cummings would develop racist views that would repulse most people today.

In one 1950 poem, using a racist slur that cannot be printed here, he wrote that Jews were the most dangerous machine as yet invented by even yankee ingenuity and claimed that Jewish people produced nothing but a few dead dollars and some twisted laws. Scarcely surprising, then, if Cummings and Brown were disliked.

They certainly made enemies. In September, a French officer and two American soldiers arrived at their base and arrested them in front of their comrades. Cummings tried to make a joke of it: Gentlemen, friends . . . I am going away immediately and shall be guillotined tomorrow!

Oh, hardly guillotined, murmured one of the soldiers, with a chilling sarcasm. Cummings suddenly realised that he and Brown were in serious trouble.

These lines (pictured), recited by the brides mother Sarah Ferguson, were written by the American poet e e cummings (who avoided capital letters and most other forms of punctuation)

They were accused of treason and espionage because of their unpatriotic comments in the letters. Without a friend to help them in France, they were sent to a military detention camp in Normandy and held with dozens of others in a dormitory for more than three months.

At first, Cummingss anxious parents were informed that he would be released without charge. Then they heard he had embarked on the troop ship SS Antilles, which was sunk in the Atlantic by a German U-boat, with the loss of 67 lives. A week later, they were told their son had not drowned  but no one knew where he was. It took two more months, and a handwritten plea from his father to the President, Woodrow Wilson, before Cummings was released from the detention centre.

He arrived home in Massachusetts on New Years Day, 1918. But before he left France, Cummings sent one last impassioned letter to Marie Louise, begging to meet her: If you think that I have forgotten the days and nights that we spent together, then you are mistaken. But he never heard from her again.

Its a sad and sordid story. And perhaps, if Beatrice and Edoardo had known the scandalous truth that lay behind the poem  not to mention the vile anti-Semitism that flowed alongside it  they might have chosen another piece of verse for their otherwise glorious wedding day.
MEDIA COURTHOUSE  A Media man has pleaded guilty to one count each of dissemination of child pornography and criminal use of a communication device, both second-degree felonies.

Leonard Carpenter, 58, of the 200 block of Monroe Street, faces two to six years in state prison and five years of consecutive sex offender probation under the negotiated guilty plea worked out by Assistant Attorney General Michelle Lynn Laucella and defense counsel Joseph Lesniak.

Brian King, an agent with the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General, indicated in an affidavit of probable cause that he had downloaded two files on multiple dates in November from a unique Internet Protocol address that was later traced back to Carpenters Monroe Street apartment.

King, assisted by other special agents and Media Borough police, served a search warrant at the apartment on the morning of Jan. 29, but found only the defendants mother at home, according to the affidavit.

She told them her son was at work and that the two had shared the apartment for 12 years, with no other guests for at least a year, according to the affidavit. She also said that she does not have a computer and that her cell phone is not capable of accessing the internet, according to the affidavit.

Agents allegedly located multiple computer devices in Carpenters bedroom, including a black computer tower. The towers contents were forensically reviewed and found to contain the file names Siberian Mouse and siberian_mouse_2, which King identified as the same files he downloaded from the BitTorrent Network in September, triggering the investigation. Also located in Carpenters bedroom was a thumb drive containing at least 25 images of child pornography, according to the affidavit.

Carpenter was taken custody at his job in Springfield the same day the search warrant was executed and agreed to be interviewed, the affidavit says. During that discussion, Carpenter allegedly told investigators that he uses multiple websites to search for pornography, specifically the BitTorrent client software UTorrent.

While searching for pornography, Leonard Carpenter explained that he uses search terms such as Asian Teen and Preteen,' according to the affidavit. When asked why he uses those search terms, he explained that he has an attraction for young teen models under 52 and under 100 lbs. He further explained that he searches for adult pornography in addition to youngish style pornography  

Carpenter had been charged with 56 counts, including five counts of dissemination, 50 counts of possessing child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication facility. The remaining charges were dismissed under the plea deal.

Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 26 before Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge John Capuzzi. In addition to prison time, Carpenter will register as a sex offender for 25 years, forfeit the seized devices, have no contact with minors and is not to access the internet except for work.

Lesniak indicated his client, who posted 10 percent of $100,000 bail Feb. 19, has already undergone a psychosexual evaluation as part of his bail conditions and has been undergoing sexual offender treatment.
Swan Hellenic is making a return to the cruise business with two new expedition ships, according to a press release.

Two state-of-the-art expedition ships are being built in Helsinki Shipyard Oy, Finland aimed at providing 152 guests an elegant, intimate and personal onboard experience delivered by 120 warm, friendly and knowledgeable staff, according to a statement.

The ships were previously ordered by Vodohod, a Russian river cruise brand.

According to a company spokesperson, Swan Hellenic has some shareholders in common with Vodohod while other are international investors. The two brands function and operate independently.

Swan Hellenic will be headquartered in Cyprus and will have its operations office in Monaco.

The first ship will set sail for Antarctica in November 2021, the second will be launched in April 2022.

Andrea Zito, Swan Hellenics CEO said: I am proud to announce the rebirth of Swan Hellenic a pioneering iconic travel brand with the mission to be the leader in cultural expedition cruising The new Swan Hellenic, retains its British heritage whilst being international in outlook. Aimed at the traveller, who wishes to explore, experience and enrich whilst the infinite beauty of the world and its inhabitants in a safe and sustainable way.

Zito added: Swan Hellenic was always a family brand and we want to continue along the same line by inviting all cruise industry partners to become part of the new Swan Hellenic community."

The company will launch with offices in Monaco, the UK and Germany to start with. The senior management team has more than 100 years of cruise industry experience led in the UK by John Warner (GAdventures/Trailfinders) and Mario Bounas (Royal Caribbean/The Langham), Alfredo Spadon in Germany (Silversea/MSC) and Andrea Zito in the Monaco Headquarters (Silversea/Vships).
Several RE/MAX Properties and RE/MAX Renaissance agents were touched by the large numbers of COVID-19 cases that were reported at a neighboring nursing home, NHC Rossville.

Officials said, "Since so many of our realtors are licensed to sell in Georgia and some reside in Georgia, we decided to act."

"Not knowing exactly what the needs were, I placed a call to the social services director says Brenda Purcell, Community Relations liaison for the two RE/MAX firms, "I asked, 'What can we do to help your residents.'



"Our goal was to try and bring some sunshine to lift spirits and boost morale. At that point, the director shared the need for more iPads and specially designed head phones for the hearing impaired. These could be used to allow residents to read their daily devotions, play games and have Face Time visits with clergy and families. Using technology could open up the outside world and allow more seniors to communicate. We knew time was of the essence, so our agents quickly contributed to this cause."



Longtime realtor, Sheila Cross, shared with project organizers that her husband had suffered a stroke not too long ago and rehabbed at a few centers. She saw firsthand how lonely the residents get. So, it was just natural for her to give. I am glad to work for a company who saw a quick need and responded," she said.

"This community service project definitely allowed us to express concern for our Georgia neighbors," says Broker Jennifer Cooper. Several years ago her grandmother was a resident at the nursing home. This allowed her to give back to a place that cared for her loved one.

"There is a saying that goes something like thiswhen you dont know what to dojust do something," said Ms. Cooper. "We will continue to look for ways to make a difference and meet needs in the communities we serve."
WEST SPRINGFIELD  The Bear Hole Watershed, 1,500-acre wilderness recreation area surrounded by the populated metro region, is closer to getting stronger protections against development and more than $1 million in a trust fund for its enhancement and maintenance.

The West Springfield Town Council voted Monday to approve a conservation restriction arrangement between the municipality, which will continue to own the property, the Massachusetts Audubon Society and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, Mayor William C. Reichelt said.

Most of the property is in West Springfield but some is in Holyoke.

The council first got the proposal in January, but put off approval while members had questions about it.

West Springfield gets $1 million  $700,000 from the state and $300,000 from Mass Audubon, according to documents from West Springfield.

In exchange, the state and Mass Audubon get the development rights to the property, blocking any building or development there forever, Reichelt said.

"Now it'll be protected in perpetuity," he said. "It's huge."

West Springfield will take the money and put it in a trust fund for the benefit of the property.

"It's a passive recreation area," he said.

The property was once, but no longer is, used for drinking water. It has a lake surrounded by woods and trails.

Mass Audubon said the property serves several purposes for the natural world.

Its forest stores carbon and combats global warming. The reservoir stores massive amounts of water, preventing floods  a vital role in the time of climate change. The property also provides a corridor for wildlife to move from habitat to habitat. And its a home to dozens of species of rare plants and animals.

Reichelt said the next step is to get home rule legislation passed in the Statehouse approving the deal, and to then finalize the contract between West Springfield, Mass Audobon and the DCR.

West Springfield, Holyoke and Westfield already stand to make more than $2 million over the next 10 years in a carbon sequestration program covering the watershed areas in all three cities, including Bear Hole.

The Tri-City Carbon Sequestration Program converts those trees  and what they absorb in carbon dioxide and give off in life-giving oxygen  into carbon credits that are sold to developers looking to offset the impact of their projects.
"This RPM program is unique and clinically powerful as it enables remote monitoring in real time. Coala's solution supports our telemedicine strategy and enables efficient virtual diagnostics. We will have the ability to remotely follow thousands of patients in Southern Florida using Coala Heart Monitors," says Qasim Ahmad, Chief Administrative Officer of the My Cardiologist group.

My Cardiologist is one of the largest private cardiology providers in Florida with 23 cardiologists at five locations across South Florida. The practices were started in 1960 by Dr. Bernard Silverstein and the My Cardiologist group was formed in 2019 following the merger of South Miami Heart Specialists and South Miami Cardiology.

The Covid-19 pandemic has quickly transformed cardiovascular medicine with shift from traditional hands-on care to remote hands-off telemedicine to keep patients and their medical staff safe.

Coala Life is a Sweden-headquartered medical device company marketing the first fully configurable, real-time solution enabling patient-empowered remote monitoring and analysis of heart and lungs. Coala's Microsoft Azure-based platform enables physicians to remotely access data to optimize the management of patients.

Source: Coala Life Inc.: Philip Siberg, (949) 590-7195, (+46)-707-906-734

Email: [email protected]

URL: www.coalalife.com

Photos: https://press.coalalife.com/



-----------------------------------------------------

Media Contact: Stephen Jaffe, Jaffe & Co., (310) 275-7327; Cell: 310-713-4849

Email: [email protected] and [email protected]

SOURCE Coala Life Inc.

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Narcissists don't learn from their mistakes because they don't think they make any

BEND, Ore. -- When most people find that their actions have resulted in an undesirable outcome, they tend to rethink their decisions and ask, "What should I have done differently to avoid this outcome?"

When narcissists face the same situation, however, their refrain is, "No one could have seen this coming!"

In refusing to acknowledge that they have made a mistake, narcissists fail to learn from those mistakes, a recent study from Oregon State University - Cascades found.

The mental process of analyzing past actions to see what one should have done differently is called "should counterfactual thinking." Counterfactual thinking is the mental process of imagining a different outcome or scenario from what actually occurred.

All of us engage in some level of self-protective thinking, said study author Satoris Howes, a researcher at OSU-Cascades with the OSU College of Business. We tend to attribute success to our own efforts, but blame our failures on outside forces -- while often blaming other people's failure on their own deficiencies.

"But narcissists do this way more because they think they're better than others," Howes said. "They don't take advice from other people; they don't trust others' opinions. ... You can flat-out ask, 'What should you have done differently?' And it might be, 'Nothing, it turned out; it was good.'"

Narcissism is typically defined as a belief in one's superiority and entitlement, with narcissists believing they are better and more deserving than others.

The study, published recently in the Journal of Management, consisted of four variations on the same experiment with four different participant groups, including students, employees and managers with significant experience in hiring. One of the four was conducted in Chile with Spanish-speaking participants.

Participants first took a test that ranked their narcissism by having them choose among pairs of statements ("I think I am a special person" versus "I am no better or worse than most people"). In the first of the four variations, they then read the qualifications of hypothetical job candidates and had to choose whom to hire. After choosing, they were given details about how this hypothetical employee fared in the job, and were assessed regarding the extent they engaged in "should counterfactual thinking" about whether they made the right decision.

The four variations employed different methods to analyze how counterfactual thinking was affected by hindsight bias, which is the tendency to exaggerate in hindsight what one actually knew in foresight. The researchers cite the example of President Donald Trump saying in 2004 that he "predicted the Iraq war better than anybody."

The authors note that prior research has shown that hindsight bias is often reversed as a form of self-protection when a prediction proves to be inaccurate -- e.g., Trump saying in 2017 that "No one knew health care could be so complicated" after failing to put forth a successful alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

In the OSU study, researchers found that when narcissists predicted an outcome correctly, they felt it was more foreseeable than non-narcissists did ("I knew it all along"); and when they predicted incorrectly, they felt the outcome was less foreseeable than non-narcissists did ("Nobody could have guessed").

Either way, the narcissists didn't feel they needed to do something differently or engage in self-critical thinking that might have positive effects on future decisions.

"They're falling prey to the hindsight bias, and they're not learning from it when they make mistakes. And when they get things right, they're still not learning," Howes said.

Narcissists often rise in the ranks within organizations because they exude total confidence, take credit for the successes of others and deflect blame from themselves when something goes wrong, Howes said.

However, she said, over time this can be damaging to the organization, both because of low morale of employees who work for the narcissist and because of the narcissist's continuing poor decisions.

To avoid the trap of hindsight bias, Howes said individuals should set aside time for reflection and review after a decision, even if the outcome is positive. Whether the decision was favorable or unfavorable, they should ask themselves what they should have done differently. And because narcissists don't engage in this process, Howes said it would be wise to have advisory panels provide checks and balances when narcissists have decision-making authority.

###

Co-authors on the study were Edgar E. Kausel at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Alexander T. Jackson at Middle Tennessee State University and Jochen Reb at Singapore Management University.

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The results of a national survey of students, parents and guardians, with over 11,000 participants shows serious concerns about the impact of distance learning on post- primary students.

The survey by the National Secondary School's Union (ISSU) and National Parents Council Post Primary(NPCPP), says over 51% of respondents noted concerns regarding academic issues.

A common concern for students was that distance learning leaves them at a disadvantage, starting the new school year already behind.



In assessing the concerns highlighted, the groups are making the following recommendations:

Support students health and wellbeing, especially those most disadvantaged by school closures

Increase one-to-one support for students through the reinstatement of dedicated Guidance Counsellor hours to support their social-emotional wellbeing, and deal with anxieties around academic and vocational challenges.

Provide extra guidance to students transitioning through educational/developmental milestones or transitioning from primary to post-primary, and out of post-primary.

Provide a back-to-school wellbeing programme to address the social, mental, physical and environmental consequences of the pandemic and school closures.

Implement additional learning programmes and social supports to address learning loss, particularly for vulnerable or at-risk students, and/or those with special educational needs.
A probation officer has said Michael Cohen told him he was writing his tell-all book 'no matter what happens' and told him to 'say hello to Mr Barr', as a New York court casts doubt on claims he was thrown back in prison to stop its publication.

Donald Trump's former personal lawyer filed a lawsuit Monday against Attorney General William Barr and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) director, alleging he was unjustly imprisoned to prevent him finishing his bombshell book criticizing the president.

Cohen's memoir promises to go into 'graphic details' about Trump's behavior 'behind closed doors' and reveal how he used 'anti-Semitic remarks' against Jewish people and 'racist remarks' against Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.

It comes hot on the heels of explosive books from former national security adviser John Bolton and Trump's niece Mary Trump - both of which the president tried and failed to block the release of.

But court documents filed in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Wednesday have hit back at Cohen's claims he was imprisoned in retaliation for writing a book, saying it 'is not supported by the evidence'.

A probation officer has said Michael Cohen (left) told him he was writing his tell-all book 'no matter what happens' and told him to 'say hello to Mr Barr' about AG Bill Barr (right) as a New York court casts doubt on claims he was thrown back in prison to stop its publication

The documents filed by Barr's attorney Audrey Strauss claim Cohen was actually denied house arrest because he was 'antagonistic' to probation officers and 'took issue' with the terms of the agreement.

'The evidence instead shows that Petitioner, who had been released from prison on furlough, was remanded in custody on July 9, 2002, because he was antagonistic during a meeting with probation officers at which he was supposed to sign the agreement that would have allowed him to complete the remaining portion of his criminal sentence in home confinement,' the document reads.

It states he refused to sign the agreement over his house arrest and disagreed with the terms of his release, including that he must not contact convicted felons, that all employment must be approved by the BOP and that he must wear an electronic tag.

The decision to hold Cohen in prison also came from a probation officer who 'had no knowledge' he was writing a book and who revealed the convict was going to spill his secrets 'no matter what happens', the records state.

Adam Pakula, the probation officer assigned to his case, said in a supporting document that Cohen told him 'he was writing a book "no matter what happens"' and told him to 'say hello to "Mr. Barr"' - referring to the Attorney General.

'While I was aware that Cohen was a high-profile inmate, at the time I drafted the [Federal Location Monitoring] Agreement I was not aware that Cohen was writing a book,' said Pakula.

Court documents filed in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) Wednesday have hit back at Cohen's claims he was imprisoned in retaliation for writing a book, saying it 'is not supported by the evidence'

Adam Pakula, the probation officer assigned to his case, said in a supporting document that Cohen told him 'he was writing a book "no matter what happens"'

Cohen filed the lawsuit late Monday in Manhattan federal court, alleging his First Amendment rights were violated when he was returned to the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, on July 9.

It offers a first glimpse into the secrets plans to spill in his long-anticipated book, which he started behind bars.

'Mr. Cohen's book describes Mr. Cohen's first-hand experiences with Mr. Trump, and it provides graphic details about the President's behavior behind closed doors,' the lawsuit says.

'For example, the narrative describes pointedly certain anti-Semitic remarks against prominent Jewish people and virulently racist remarks against such Black leaders as President Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.'

The book 'will rely upon and publish numerous previously unknown anecdotes, supported by documentary evidence,' the lawsuit states.

Cohen spent hours behind bars writing the memoir before he was released from prison on furlough in May as part of an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus in federal prisons which had fast become hotbeds for the deadly virus.

Cohen was thrown back into prison one week after tweeting that he would release his tell-all book ahead of the November presidential election

He had served only a year of his three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.

Cohen's campaign finance charges related to his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to stop porn star Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from airing claims they had affairs with Trump.

On July 9, Cohen was thrown back behind bars after federal officials said he refused to sign an agreement of his home confinement including that he would not publish a book until he completes his sentence.

This came one week after Cohen tweeted on July 2 saying he planned to release the book ahead of the November presidential election.

'I am close to completion of my book... anticipated release date will be late September,' he tweeted.

Monday's lawsuit said Cohen was taken back into federal custody because he made it clear he planned to release the book including his crimes related to 'lying to Congress on behalf of Mr. Trump and committing campaign finance violations on behalf of Mr. Trump' in the lead-up to the election.

Donald Trump's former personal lawyer (pictured) filed a lawsuit Monday against Attorney General William Barr and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) director, alleging he was unjustly imprisoned to prevent him finishing his bombshell book criticizing the president

'In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, he intends to tell the American people about Mr. Trump's personality and proclivities, his private and professional affairs, and his personal and business ethics,' according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit said US probation officers, working on behalf of the Bureau of Prisons and its director, Michael Carvajal, demanded of Cohen that he agree not to speak to or through any media, including by publishing a book.

The lawsuit also reveals that Trump used his personal attorney Charles Harder to try to gag Cohen in April.

Harder, who led the Trump family's failed attempt to gag Mary Trump earlier this month, wrote to Cohen on April 30, the lawsuit reveals.

It says he sent 'a cease and desist' to one of Cohen's attorneys, claiming Cohen had sign a non-disclosure agreement when working with Trump.

' Mr. Cohen believes that he never signed such an NDA,' the lawsuit says.

Cohen's memoir comes hot on the heels of explosive books from former national security adviser John Bolton (left) and Trump's niece Mary Trump (right) - both of which the president tried and failed to block the release of

'Though Mr. Harder purported to attach the NDA to the letter, no NDA was in fact attached. Even after Mr. Cohen's attorney followed up to request that Mr. Harder send the purported NDA, he failed to do so.'

Cohen has remained in solitary confinement since he was taken to Otisville, the lawsuit said.

It said his health has also suffered, with his blood pressure spiking to critical levels, 'leading to severe headaches, shortness of breath and anxiety.'

This marks the third explosive book that promises to reveal Trump's deepest White House secrets after Bolton's 'The Room Where It Happened' was released last month.

Mary Trump's 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man' was released on July 14 and sold 950,000 copies on its date of sale.

Trump had tried to stop both books from coming out, alleging that Bolton had revealed classified information and that Mary Trump had violated a nondisclosure agreement.
First Deputy Majority Chief Whip Mathew Nyindam, has condemned, the shooting incident involving Mrs Mavis Hawa Koomson, the Minister for Special Initiatives and MP for Awutu Senya East.



He, however, disagreed that she should be hauled before the Privileges Committee of Parliament for the reported shooting, stressing that the Police should be allowed to investigate the matter and get to the root of it.



Speaking to journalists at the Parliament House, in Accra, the Whip said some information he had gathered, indicated that Mrs Koomson admitted the shooting, but added that I think it has to do with the Police, and the Police must do their investigation and get to the bottom of it.



But for somebody to say she should be called before the Privileges Committee, I disagree with that.



The Police is reported to have written to the Speaker over the incident to invite the MP for investigation, and Mr Nyindam said, the Speaker would answer that letter, but with belief that Speaker would in no way stand in the way of the investigation.



On whether calls on the Minister to resign or be dismissed are justifiable, Mr Nyindam responded that the one who has the power to hire, has the power to fire.



The President hired her and the President will decide to fire if need be.



Asked whether he would support the call for the MP to resign, Mr Nyidam said he did not have the full facts, and also the matter was not personal.



Mr Nyidam admitted he has a gun for self -defence, explaining that, these days, you travel and you dont know what will happen.

Source: GNA









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Funeral services were held Tuesday for former Luca Luca creative director Raul Melgoza.

Melgoza, 48, died of lung cancer at his home in Roxbury, Conn., on July 18, according to his husband, John Gomes.

Born in Los Angeles and raised by his mother, Melgozas interest in fashion emerged in unexpected ways. At the age of four, he developed an obsession with ironing, offering to iron everyones clothes. In junior high school and in high school, he would occasionally skip class to examine the womens clothing name brand stores at South Coast Plaza. Melgoza also frequented the Virgin Records store to listen to jazz and musicians like Stacey Kent. For the past 17 years, that was the same music that he listened to whenever he was designing, his husband said.

Adhering to his familys belief that business was the most opportunistic career path, Melgoza graduated from the University of Southern Californias Marshal School of Business with top honors. He then decided to do what he wanted  to get into fashion  and earned a second degree at Parsons School of Design. There, as a senior, he won the schools Golden Thimble award among five nominees for the Designer of the Year award.

In 2004, Gomes had acquired the Norman Norrell brand with his business partner Patrick Michael Hughes, who was then a business professor at Parsons. In need of a design assistant for the Norrell brand, Hughes suggested to Gomes that they check out the display windows at Saks Fifth Avenues flagship where the senior thesis collections of Parsons five leading design students were on view. Gomes said, One night Patrick and I went up to look at all of the designers. I said, The only one that I am interested in is this guy. I couldnt really pronounce his name, and it was Raul.

Melgoza was hired. By the end of that year, we had failed miserably. My designer and I didnt get it right. I was a fish out of water. I didnt have any experience in fashion and I didnt have any business doing that, Gomes said. But even though it failed miserably for me, it was the biggest success of my lifetime because Raul went on to become my husband.

Story continues

With the help of Tim Gunn, Melgoza later joined Luca Luca as an assistant to founder Luca Orlandi. When the Miami-based Equitium Group acquired Luca Luca in 2008 and Orlandi was no longer involved with the day-to-day operations, Melgoza was hired as the creative director. After moving on from Luca Luca, Melgoza started Phoebe James, an accessories company geared for teens and tweens.

Inspired by architecture and the construction of the form of things, Melgoza and Gomes traveled extensively, visiting six of the seven continents. Raul loved nature, design, beauty, flowers and his children. He was a family man first and foremost. All of those things were his work as his love. He never stopped designing or sketching, Gomes said.

Gomes, who now heads up the Eklund Gomes team at Douglas Elliman real estate, said, Raul helped everybody to understand all of it. A lot of gifted and talented designers keep to themselves. They dont like to share their secrets. Raul was very sharing. He loved to teach people and engage people.

His involvement with the fashion industry receded last year, after Melgoza, a five-miles-a-day runner, was diagnosed with lung cancer in November. His husband is considering planning a retrospective of Melgozas work with the Savannah College of Art and Designs fashion historian Carmela Spinelli, who taught fashion history to Melgoza at Parsons. Melgoza was a Style Lab mentor at SCAD.

He had this deep soulful stare, something that was a combination of his maturity and his curiosity as a design student. I watched him grow as a designer, interested in research of his materials, prices and execution, Spinelli said. I like to say that he was a good listener of the fabric. Yohji Yamamoto used to say [to his patternmakers], Just listen to the material. What is it going to say? Just wait. Probably the material will tell you something.

As a final tribute, a service was held at the historic First Congregational Church in Washington, Conn., where a horse-drawn hearse carried the deceased in a wooden casket covered with a bed of 400 red roses. The black horses were adorned with purple plumes, purple fabric draped over the black hearse, trumpets blared, drums beat and then guests sat outdoors beneath a white tent in a quintessential New England setting to share memories of Melgoza, Gomes said.

In addition to his mother, Martha Madrigal, and his husband, Melgoza is survived by twins Paloma Melgoza Gomes and Raphael Melgoza Gomes, and his brothers Dorian Madrigal Melgoza and Alexander Madrigal.

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By Guo Xiaobing

The recent nuclear leak at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has exposed employees to the contamination by plutonium oxide powder. This accident came as the US is trying to quickly increase the labs nuclear weapon production capacity to make sure it will be able to produce 30 nuclear weapon cores per year by 2030.

While the US has been more eager than ever to retreat from a spate of international treaties to enhance its nuclear forces, news like this is sure to get on worlds nerves. For boasting the worlds largest nuclear arsenal, the US has constantly made headlines for its poor nuclear security management and frequent accidents. Why is that?

First of all, the nuclear missile force is loosely disciplined, where cheating in exams is a common phenomenon that has become a tradition over the past decades. American military officers that used to serve in the nuclear missile force revealed that cheating had been a regular practice. During the exam cheating scandal at Malmstrom Air Force base exposed in 2014, over half of the service members at the base cheated.

There is also the prevalent drug abuse in the force. Senior US military officials admitted in 2016 the situation of drug use at the Warren Air Force Base, a land-based nuclear missile base, which they ascribed to the scarcity of promotion opportunity and the low morale. However, the efforts to increase funding and promotion opportunities for the nuclear missile force have been of little avail. Two servicemen at the base were discharged for drinking inside nuclear missile facilities in May 2019, followed by a drug scandal in February this year. The list goes on.

Second, security management has critical hazards, and the management of essential components and parts is chaotic. Vandenberg Air Force Base, a US Space Force Base, has once put off a missile launch because of rain leak at a launching silo. Coincidentally, the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana has also reported a case where the silo blast door was left open while one crew member was sleeping on duty. These incidents spoke volumes for the polyporous security management system for Americas military nuclear facilities.

In addition to the mismanagement of the nuclear facilities, US politicians have become addicted to quitting groups and scrapping treaties. In recent years, the US administration has successively withdrawn from the INF Treaty and the Treaty on Open Sky despite strong opposition from the international community. It has also been passive about the renewal of the US-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and been filibustering the approval of the Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Moreover, some American politicians have been playing with fire with regard to the core interests of other major countries and openly waging an arms race, which has increased major-country conflicts and frictions, even the risk of nuclear conflicts.

Possessing the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, Washington put massive investment in rolling out new nuclear weaponry while turning a blind eye to its security management loopholes disrupts global strategic stability and poses higher security risks. The US should earnestly fulfill its special and primary responsibilities to nuclear disarmament and promote global strategic security through concrete deeds. That concerns not only the safety of the US itself, but also the collective security of the whole of world.

(The author is director of the Arms Control Research Center of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations)
LOS ANGELES, July 22 (Reuters) - Clint Eastwood filed lawsuits on Thursday over the fraudulent use of his name to sell CBD products and claims that he has retired from the movie business to enter the wellness industry.

The 90-year-old "Dirty Harry" star alleged that his name and likeness were being used in online scams to sell CBD oil, gummies and other products.

CBD, or cannabidoil, is a non-psychoactive compound in cannabis, and is also derived from the hemp plant. It was legalized in the United States in 2018.

"Mr. Eastwood does not have, and never has had, any association with the manufacture, promotion, and/or sale of any CBD products," the lawsuit states.

The first lawsuit cites an online news article carrying a purported interview in which Eastwood falsely reveals that he is developing a new CBD line and is "stepping away from the spotlight to put more time into his wellness business."

Eastwood, a double Oscar-winning director and actor, rarely endorses anything, the lawsuit said. Furthermore he "does not express a point of view about CBD products or the legitimate CBD industry," his representative said in a statement.

A second lawsuit claims that programming code has been used to illegally insert Eastwood's name into some online searches for CBD products.

The two related lawsuits, which allege defamation, trademark infringements and invasion of privacy, seek unspecified damages and injunctions. They were filed in a federal court in California against a number of laboratories, corporations and individuals but the lawsuit said their true identity was unknown.

My client is not one to sit idly by as the defendants use his good name to dupe customers into purchasing products with which he has no affiliation," Eastwood's lawyer Jordan Susman said in a statement.

Eastwood won Oscars for directing the movies "Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby." His most recent film, "Richard Jewell" was released in 2019. (Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Ohioans now have a general idea of how much their state is worth following House Speaker Larry Householders arrest on a racketeering charge stemming from what federal authorities say were $60 million in bribes.

The charge is monumental and marks the second time in as many years that the feds are looking into a Republican speakers potentially illicit activities. Householder is a heavy hitter in Ohios political scene with connections to Republicans, Democrats and multiple industries.

The immediate ramifications of the charges against Householder and four associates  top aide Jeff Longstreth and lobbyists Matt Borges, Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes  are readily apparent. Calls for Householders resignation began pouring in Tuesday afternoon. Whether there are enough votes in the House to boot Householder  remember, he stands accused of taking bribes to build a political machine  isnt clear.

Republicans control the House with a supermajority, but they are far from unified. Householders ascension to the post came after former GOP Speaker Ryan Smith found himself in a protracted battle to take the reins from Cliff Rosenberger  also under FBI investigation  in 2018. That lengthy battle was engineered by Householder.

Theres no reason to expect a smooth transition. And if Householder doesnt leave office  which he said he has no plans to do  expect the gridlock at the Statehouse to get even worse. No lawmaker will want to touch anything even tangentially related to Householder at the moment. Its too politically toxic.

In theory, this should be a devastating blow to Republicans around the state. A racketeering charge against the GOP speaker in an election year should mean a slam dunk issue for Democrats. The television spots and digital ads write themselves. Most people dont want to vote for someone facing 20 years in prison, and Householders heavy involvement in Statehouse races would normally make his slate of candidates radioactive as well.

And, in theory, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine should be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Householders camp has been the biggest thorn in his side during the response to the coronavirus. The speaker has worked to undermine the governor every step of the way. With Householder relegated to crook status in the public consciousness right now, theres nobody to take up the mantle of DeWines chief agitator  at least nobody with the same clout as Householder.

It seems straightforward enough. There should be clear political winners and losers in this.

But thats not the case. Even if the charge is true, Householder wasnt able to amass power simply because he had a slush fund to do so (though, that certainly didnt hurt). He was able to amass power because at his core, hes a deal-broker. And his deals involved just about everyone.

Take, for instance, his climb to the Speakers dais against Smith. Republicans werent the one who put him over the top. Instead, it was a faction of 26 Democrats that put Householder over the top after Householder acquiesced to some of Democrats demands. The ordeal directly led to current House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes replacing then-Minority Leader Fred Strahorn.

With that, the majority of the House Democratic caucus was intertwined with whatever happened to Householder. Theyre complicit in putting him in power. Its part of the reason Democratic social media was so quiet throughout Tuesday.

More complex, however, are the connections state power brokers have with House Bill 6, the $1.3 billion publicly funded nuclear bailout at the center of Householders case. According to the feds affidavit, the bribes to Householder were part of a multi-year effort by FirstEnergy to get the legislation passed to prop up the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants.

Householder wasnt the only one touting the bill to the public or trying to strongarm lawmakers. Labor unions, particularly the AFL-CIO and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, were heavily involved in lobbying for its passage. Ten House Democrats joined 43 Republicans to vote in favor of it. Republican Senate President Larry Obhof, no friend of Householders, guided its passage through his chamber. DeWine signed it immediately.

If even half of what the federal government claims is true, the legislation is tainted. Everyones involvement is suspect, whether they had pure intentions or not. That goes for Democrats as well as Republicans.

Perhaps most importantly, everyones decision making during Householders tenure should  and will  be under a microscope. And there are a panoply of unanswered questions for voters.

Democrats knew of Householders past FBI investigation for campaign finance irregularities when they put him in power. They knew he planned to ram through the nuclear bailout bill. They allowed themselves to be pressured into supporting him by labor unions. How could Democrats put Householder in power after his past  which includes a previous FBI investigation into campaign finance irregularities  was well-documented?

DeWine is a former prosecutor and the head of his party. He doesnt have a good relationship with Householder, but theyve worked together on multiple issues. DeWine even sent a state plane  at taxpayers expense  to Chicago to retrieve three lawmakers to vote on the bill. How could someone with his pedigree not only allow, but involve himself, with efforts to pass the bill?

The Ohio Republican Party is likely neutered by the news as well. Its an election year and Republican President Donald Trump already has to contend with corruption allegations. They just spent more than a week railing against the Ohio Democratic Party for taking a Paycheck Protection Program loan  a legal but politically foolish move considering it makes ODP an easy target. Now, their speaker of the House is charged with the same crime as mafia bosses. How can you make any argument on corruption when one of your elected leaders is possibly corrupt to the tune of $60 million in bribes?

ODP will probably have the best luck with the news, though how much theyll be able to capitalize is a serious question. Theyll be happy to pump up the news in a handful of competitive districts, but with their members so intertwined in both Householder and HB6, thats a bit of a gamble.

And what of HB6? Corporate bailouts are unpopular. Had the surcharge increase gone to a vote of the public, it probably would have failed. Legislators probably have no choice but to at least discuss repealing it. Theres dirty money involved, and voters dont like dirty money.

And there could be more to come. U.S. Attorney David DeVillers said at a news conference that Tuesdays arrests were just the start of the investigation.

With so much money being spread around, who knows what DeVillers will unearth  and what charges may come.

One thing is for certain, though. Ohioans shouldnt expect state government to get any less turbulent in the near future.

Read more cleveland.com politics coverage:

Read the criminal complaint against Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, aide, lobbyists charged with racketeering conspiracy

Larry Householders cash support from FirstEnergy, others in utility industry

Why isnt FirstEnergy charged (yet) in the Ohio nuclear bailout bribery case?

What the feds say is at heart of Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householders unholy alliance with FirstEnergy
London, the worlds number one international financial centre, is not the place to launder Russian money, according to transport secretary Grant Shapps.

The comments come after the UK parliaments intelligence and security committee said yesterday that London had become a particularly favourable destination for Russian oligarchs and their money, referring to London as the laundromat.

It is very very important that the good name of London, the City and the United Kingdom - when it comes to anti-money laundering legislation - is maintained, Shapps told the BBC.

This is not the place to come and launder money, Shapps said. Its not welcome.

Russia has become a hotspot and a home for many wealthy Russians.

Shapps also said there was no evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 Brexit referendum, adding that UK spies did not take their eyes off the ball on Russia.

There needs to be some evidence that theres an issue there - which there isnt, Shapps told Sky when asked if there should be a further investigation of possible Russian meddling in the European Union referendum.

The committee said that there were indications that Russia had sought to influence the Brexit campaign but no hard evidence had been produced.

I dont think its the case that the intelligence services took their eye off the ball, Shapps added.
With lockdown upon them, Maureen and Colin Binns thought they would have no market for the hundreds of truffles ripening in their Te Puke truffiere.

We had a lot of truffles last year and this year it looked as though we would have three to four times more truffles than last year. Enjoying our best growing year for truffles and potentially having no market due to COVID  I was really quite worried, says Maureen. Were we even going to be able to sell any truffles at all?

Fortunately three things happened. The easing of the COVID restrictions plus word-of-mouth helped, but then Maureen discovered the Modern Forager website, set up by Mount Maunganuis Melissa Woods.

Stacey Jones from Kitchen Takeover found us on Modern Forager and visited us with her chef.

The meeting and ensuing collaboration resulted in sell-out truffle tastings at the truffiere.

Stacey used our truffles at their Hunter Gatherer pop-up restaurant dinners. I went to the first dinner, spoke about truffles and people have been coming back to me ever since.

At the pop-up restaurant events, Maureen and Colin take guests truffle hunting for the diamond of gastronomy with their English springer spaniel Jed, while Kitchen Takeover head chef Rob Forsman conjures up delectable truffle delights for a goodie bag.

Maureen sees herself as a teacher-librarian, rather than a marketer.

"I like helping people learn first of all, that there are truffles growing in New Zealand. If youve got a truffle, what do you do with it? Im trying new things all the time.

The Modern Forager website, set up during lockdown, is an online marketplace for Kiwis to buy direct from New Zealand growers, farmers and producers and required photos and a website in order for the Binns truffiere to be listed. Maureen quickly completed the website shed started: www.tepuketruffles.com

Immediately she found people started contacting her.

Things happened, its a wonderful story of community, she says about the collaboration with Modern Forager and Kitchen Takeover.

For visitors on a truffle hunt, she likes to give people a taste of her truffle shortbread, truffle butter, truffled brie  thats brie with lots of truffle in it, as well as truffled scrambled eggs, truffle salt, and truffle macadamia nuts.

Back in 2008, Colin ploughed 50 tonne of lime into a half-hectare paddock on their lifestyle block, helping pitch the right pH. Perigord black truffles require high soil pH  a minimum 7.8  whereas bianchetto fruit at lower soil pH, between 6.5 and 7.3.

Once the soil was prepared, they planted the trees  half of them oak and the rest hazelnut. The truffle fungus explores the soil for water and mineral nutrients, which it passes along to the tree. In exchange, the tree provides sugars produced through photosynthesis to the fungus. This interdependence between the tree and the fungus is subtle and fragile.

This year is their sixth harvest.

The truffles start growing around November or December when the tree wants something. The truffle can give something to the tree and the tree can give something to the truffle, says Maureen.

The truffle grows on the tree root until about April and can vary between the size of a walnut and 500 grams of butter. When we started getting ripe truffles in late May we put the dog through and although there were hundreds of truffles, he only indicates when he smells a ripe truffle.

The advantage of having Jed the English springer spaniel, rather than a truffle pig, is that hes not interested in eating the truffles once hes found them.

Maureen says Colin has a theory about why women in particular seem keen on coming to the truffle experiences.

Women love the aroma of truffles. When we've got people here, its the women who keep coming over, picking up the truffle and sniffing it. Colin puts it down to the fact that traditionally in France, you had truffles in the ground and they exude a sort of a sweaty smell like a boar who knows that the sows are on heat. The sows in the wild forest come and find the truffles, dig them up and eat them. Then the truffles re-spore through the sows depositing their faeces all over the forest. So Colin reckons thats why women like the truffles aroma.

I'm not sure that I go along completely with that.

The experiences with Kitchen Takeover have been a sold out success with more planned, but Colin and Maureen also enjoy providing a truffle experience to smaller groups, tailoring tours to suit peoples needs, particularly for those who may have mobility issues.

On their lifestyle block they have also put in olive trees, farm sheep in other paddocks, and have developed small orchards. Growing there are grapes, passionfruit, macadamia nuts, almonds, persimmons, limes, lemons, oranges, grapefruit, mandarins, cherries, nashis, pears, peaches, feijoas, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, walnuts, tamarillos, avocados, plums and apples.

There are a lot of truffle growers in the Bay of Plenty, says Colin. And we belong to the New Zealand Truffle Association. There are about 100 members in New Zealand.

They didnt know back in 2008 if their truffiere was going to be successful or not.

To be honest, I didn't mind too much because you know, when you're doing an experiment and you're living a fantastic life, for me it doesn't actually matter too much about what is success, says Maureen. But success for Colin is having all our trees producing, which is a pretty rare and wonderful thing.
Hyderabad, July 22 : The Telangana government on Wednesday appointed the widow of Colonel B. Santosh Babu, who was killed in the clash with Chinese troops in Ladakh last month, as a Deputy Collector.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao handed over the appointment letter to Santoshi at Pragathi Bhavan, the official residence of the Chief Minister.

He instructed officials concerned to post Santoshi in Hyderabad or its surrounding areas. He also asked his Secretary Smita Sabharwal to be with Santoshi till she gets the proper training and settles down in her job.

KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, had lunch with 20 of the family members of Santoshi who accompanied her to Pragathi Bhavan. He enquired about their well-being and assured that the government would always stand by Santosh Babu's family.

It was exactly a month before that KCR had visited the family of Santosh Babu in Suryapet town to console his parents and other family members and handed over Rs 5 crore as ex gratia.

He had also handed over to Santoshi the letter of her appointment to Group-1 job and documents on the allotment of a house site measuring 711 square yards in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.

Meanwhile, officials were busy making arrangements to handover the land to the family. Hyderabad Collector Shweta Mohanty and other officials inspected the land which is to be handed over to the martyr's family.

Santosh Babu and 19 other other soldiers were killed in the clashes with Chinese troops in Galwan Valley of Ladakh on June 15.

The colonel is survived by his wife, a nine-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son.
WASHINGTON  Federal investigators are examining whether a suspect in the ambush shooting of a federal judges family in New Jersey also killed a fellow mens rights lawyer in California, a law enforcement official said.

The federal agents are trying to determine whether Roy Den Hollander, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the day after an attack that killed the judges son and wounded her husband, had any role in the killing earlier this month of Marc Angelucci.

Angelucci, like Den Hollander, was involved in lawsuits alleging gender discrimination against men. He was shot to death July 11 at his home in San Bernardino County, California.

The official cautioned the investigation was in its early stages and federal officials were working with local homicide detectives. In both cases, the suspect appeared to pose as a delivery driver, the official said.

Investigators are also examining Den Hollanders financial and travel records, as well as misogynistic screeds he posted online, said the official, who could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The San Bernardino County sheriffs department referred questions to the FBI.

Den Hollander, 72, described himself as an anti-feminist attorney who filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of ladies night promotions at bars and nightclubs, sued Columbia University for providing womens studies classes, and sued news organizations over what he said was biased coverage.

The FBI said Den Hollander was the primary subject in the attack Sunday at the home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in North Brunswick, New Jersey, where 20-year-old Daniel Anderl was killed and his father, Mark Anderl, 63, was wounded. Mark Anderl remained hospitalized and was expected to have more surgery Tuesday, according to Mayor Francis Mac Womack, a family friend.

Salas, 51, was in another part of the house and was unharmed.

Den Hollander was found dead Monday in Sullivan County, New York.

Investigators found items in his possession that raised concerns about whether he had targeted, or planned to target, other people, including a photograph of New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and the address of a state appeals courthouse, a state court spokesperson said.

Both Den Hollander and Angelucci, 52, were involved in lawsuits seeking to force the U.S. government to require all young women to join men in registering for a possible military draft.

Den Hollanders lawsuit, filed in 2015 on behalf of a woman in New Jersey, was assigned to Salas. He withdrew as the lawyer in the case a year ago after being diagnosed with cancer.

Harry Crouch, president of the National Coalition for Men, told The Associated Press that Den Hollander was furious that he hadnt been involved in a similar case being handled by Angelucci.

Roy was just not happy that we did not involve him as a co-counsel. I think unhappy is an understatement, Crouch said. He called me up and threatened me.

Crouch said Den Hollander did not have a good reputation among other mens rights advocates.

I think he was very hostile, very, very hostile that he finally went over the hill, Crouch said.

In more than 2,000 pages of often misogynistic, racist writings posted online, Den Hollander had sharply criticized Salas and other female judges.

He also wrote about wanting to use the rest of his time on earth to even the score with his perceived enemies, using cowboy justice.

J. Steven Svoboda, a spokesman for the National Coalition for Men who said he was speaking personally and not on behalf of the organization, said Angelucci was beloved for his groundbreaking legal work all. in his mind, to make the world a better place.

___

Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia also contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 13:23:36|Editor: huaxia

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MADRID, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Europe should resist U.S. pressure to isolate China and remain independent in its decision making in the face of so-called security concerns, a Spanish expert has said.

"If the U.S. wants to include Europe in its 'anti-China' strategy because it does not want anyone to threaten its hegemony, the EU must bear in mind that China is not a threat to its security," said Xulio Rios, director of the Spanish Observatory of Chinese Politics in Spain, in an analysis titled Huawei and the Mantra of Security.

A ban against Huawei will result in European countries' increasing dependence on U.S. technology, Rios said in the article published Monday, calling it "the American trap."

The repeated use of national security to discredit Huawei looks like a good story, and "it seems that with any technology where China excels, there will be a problem of this nature," Rios said.

However, "there is no evidence, only suspicions, even though they (the U.S. side) will have to look for it intensely," he stressed.

The truth behind the U.S. pressure on its allies to block Huawei is that "Huawei's technology is highly competitive and places China ahead in the marketplace" and threatens Washington's dominance in such fields, he said.

"America's record in cracking down on any foreign company that challenges its technological leadership shows the forcefulness of its pressure. But we are talking about the commercial policy and not security issues," he added, comparing the Huawei ban to the acquisition of French company Alstom.

In April 2013, Frederic Pierucci, a former executive of Alstom, was arrested in New York by the U.S. authorities for his alleged role in a corruption case involving Alstom in 2003-2004 in Indonesia. A year later, Alstom was asked to pay a huge fine of 772 million U.S. dollars, which eventually led to the partial acquisition of the French company by General Electric, its arch rival and a giant technology corporation based in the United States, and blocked a potential merger between Alstom and Shanghai Electric Company.

The United States was using a similar strategy against Huawei by arresting Huawei financial director Meng Wanzhou in Canada, Rios said. "By taking over Alstom, the U.S. gained control of the maintenance of all French nuclear power plants ... And hardly anyone said anything ..."

The expert urged the EU to stick to its "strategic autonomy" to make independent decisions despite the U.S. pressure, especially after Britain's announcement of a Huawei ban earlier this week.

"London's decision will have broad implications for relations with Beijing. It is not just about the millions of pounds of added cost and the delay in launching the 5G network, but the damage to the mutual trust between the two parties," Rios said.

"Europe's economic cooperation with China is as vital as transatlantic distancing and is the only way to strengthen itself if it aspires to avoid decline," Rios said.

"China has made huge investments and developed bold policies that have contributed significantly to its progress in the technology research and development that we are seeing today," he said.

"National security is a priority for everyone, but there is no evidence to support a ban on Huawei equipment," he said, pointing out the existing interconnection between European and Chinese tech companies and markets, such as Nokia and Ericsson operating in China and Huawei's cybersecurity labs in Europe.

"Symbolically defeating Huawei may be tantamount to defeating China. But it also subdues, once again, Europe," he concluded. Enditem
Indonesia-based ride-hailing company and "super app" Gojek said today that it has named a new chief technology officer. Severan Rault, who previously held leadership positions at Amazon and Microsoft, takes over the role from Ajey Gore, who announced last month he was leaving for personal reasons.

In a statement, the company said Rault will oversee Gojeks engineering teams in Southeast Asia and India and report to co-chief executive officer Kevin Aluwi.

Rault has a long history of leading engineering teams at large tech companies, as well as his own startups.

Before joining Gojek, Rault worked at Betawave, a virtual reality studio he founded in 2016. During his stint at Amazon, Rault was one of the founders of Prime Air, the companys drone delivery program. At Microsoft, he was the principal architect of Bing, the companys search engine. Raults other experience includes founding Kikker Interactive, a wireless solutions provider that was acquired by Microsoft in 2008.

Rault's appointment comes at a critical time for Gojek as it faces competition from rival Grab and deals with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month, Gojek said it was laying off 430 employees, or about 9% of its workforce, and closing GoLife, its lifestyle services division, to focus on its core payments, transportation and food delivery businesses as part of its long-term response to the pandemic.

Founded in 2010 as a motorcycle ride-hailing company, Gojek has since transformed itself into a "super app" that offers online payments and a roster of on-demand services, including transportation, e-commerce deliveries and logistics. Gojek recently added Facebook and PayPal to a list of high-profile investors, including Google and Tencent.

Gojek disclosed in March that it is valued at $10 billion and now has more than 170 million users, but it faces fierce rivalry from Grab, another Southeast Asian on-demand ride-hailing and logistics platform that is also building an online financial services business. With a valuation of $14 billion, Grab is the larger company. Earlier this year, reports emerged that the two were discussing a merger, which Gojek denied and Grab declined to comment on.

In a statement, Rault said, "It is a time like no other to be at Gojek. The company is entering a critical phase as it moves from startup to maturation and its special to be a part of that. Building systems and processes for a business of Gojeks scale and complexity is a challenge one rarely enjoys in their career and Im grateful for the opportunity."
One of the original "Rosie the Riveters," 94-year-old Mae Krier is back on the front lines making face masks to help the nation during the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to ABC NEWS.

Krier who is from Levittown, Pennsylvania, was part of the well-known World War II "Rosie the Riveters." According to ABC News, "at just 17, she left home to help build B-17s and B-29s at Boeing in Seattle." Now Krier is once again giving back to her country as she fights a different kind of war from the one she did 75 years ago.

GIRL SCOUTS ANNOUNCE 24 NEW BADGES: Girl Scouts announce 24 new badges in traditionally male-dominated career fields

When I make these bandanas, I make them with good feeling, Krier told ABC News. If just one of these little face masks can save one life, I've done my job.

People say to me, 'You helped win WWII and now you are helping our country win this battle over this virus.' These are nice things to hear, Krier said in a USA Today article.

The signature pose of "Rosie the Riveter" has been imitated across the globe and stands as a symbol of the women who worked tirelessly in factories during WWII to give back to their nation the best way they knew how.

A cultural icon, Krier represents a generation of women who were part of a movement that has stood the test of time since the 1940s and still inspires new generations of women in the workforce.

In addition to making masks, Krier is on another mission to garner a Congressional Gold Medal for her fellow Riveters in recognition for their hard work. According to USA Today, the U.S. House of Representatives agrees with Krier but the Senate hasn't yet.

Orders for Krier's masks, which are made to look just like the red polka dot bandanas the Rosies wore, have skyrocketed. Visit Krier's Facebook page here to learn more or send in requests for masks.

Her message to the world: "We can do it!"

STAY INFORMED: Sign up to receive breaking news alerts delivered to your email here.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a money laundering complaint in connection with the Kerala 'diplomatic baggage' gold smuggling case, officials said on Wednesday.

IMAGE: Youth Congress members hold pictures of Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, centre, former UAE consulate officer Swapna Suresh, left, and State IT Secretary M Sivasankar, right, during a protest over the Kerala gold smuggling case. Photograph: PTI Photo

They said the agency has registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), equivalent of a police first information report, after studying the National Investigation Agency (NIA) complaint filed in the case recently.

The ED case has been booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the agency will record the statement of the accused, they said.

The central agency will investigate if proceeds of crime were generated by the accused by laundering of funds that were earned through the alleged gold smuggling racket.

The ED also has powers to attach the immovable and movable properties of the accused under the PMLA.

The case emerged on July 5 when gold, weighing over 30 kg, was seized by the Customs department from the "diplomatic baggage" that had landed by air cargo at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport from the Gulf.

The seized gold is stated to worth nearly Rs 15 crore.

The ED is the fourth central agency that is probing the accused involved in the case after the Customs, NIA and the Income Tax Department.

The NIA had arrested the prime accused in the case, Swapna Suresh and her associate Sandeep Nair, from Bengaluru on July 11.

The NIA had told a special court in Kochi on Tuesday that Suresh, Nair and others conspired to damage the country's monetary stability by smuggling large quantity of gold from abroad.

In a report submitted to the court, the NIA also said it is suspected that the accused had used the proceeds of smuggling for financing terrorism through various means.

The accused deliberately used the diplomatic baggage of United Arab Emirates as a cover to transact illegal business and it may have serious repercussions in India's diplomatic relations with the UAE government and it is prejudicial to the monetary and

economic security of India as well, the NIA said.

The NIA has interrogated Suresh and Nair who are in its custody till July 24.

It has booked Suresh, Sarith P S, Nair and Fasil Fareed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Suresh was working in the Information Technology department and her contractual service terminated after her name cropped up in the gold smuggling case.

IAS officer M Sivasakar was removed as Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the state IT Secretary over his alleged links with Suresh and other accused in the case.

She is also stated to be a former employee of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram.

Sarith P S, also a former employee of the UAE consulate in Kerala, was arrested by the Customs department after the gold was seized.

Dubai-based businessman Fareed is still at large.
Boris Johnson has denied Russian interference was responsible for Britons backing Brexit, despite politicians concluding the Government failed to fully assess Moscows influence.

The Prime Minister accused Islingtonian Remainers of seizing on the Intelligence and Security Committees (ISC) report to cast doubt on the 2016 referendum result.

He also said Sir Keir Starmer was unable to bring himself to accept people supported leaving the EU to take back control of laws, cash and trade policy.

Labour leader Sir Keir had questioned why the Prime Minister sat on the ISC report into Russian interference in UK politics for 10 months and why the Government had not filled gaps in the UKs national security legislation.

He pressed Mr Johnson to look again at the licensing for Moscow-backed TV network RT, formerly Russia Today, to operate in the UK.

The ISC report released on Tuesday found the Government failed to fully assess the impact Russian state-run media and troll accounts could have had on the EU referendum.

The committee said open-source studies had pointed to the prevalence of anti-EU or pro-Brexit stories on the RT and Sputnik networks as evidence of Russian attempts to influence the process.

Speaking at Prime Ministers Questions, Mr Johnson said he took the strongest possible action against Russia when he was foreign secretary.

He added: (Sir Keir) sat on his hands and said nothing while the Labour Party parroted the line of the Kremlin when people in this country were poisoned at the orders of Vladimir Putin.

Sir Keir replied: I stood up and condemned what happened in Salisbury and I supported then-prime minister (Theresa May) on record, so Id ask the Prime Minister to check the record.

He asked about delays in bringing forward new security legislation, and Mr Johnson insisted new laws are coming in connection with espionage, theft of intellectual property and sanctions.

Story continues

The Prime Minister went on: Lets be in no doubt what this is really all about  this is about pressure from the Islingtonian Remainers who have seized on this report to try to give the impression that Russian interference was somehow responsible for Brexit.

Thats what this is all about. The people of this country didnt vote to leave the EU because of pressure from Russia or Russian interference, they voted because they wanted to take back control of our money, our trade policy and our laws.

Sir Keir accused the Prime Minister of reading pre-prepared answers rather than addressing national security concerns, and Mr Johnson replied: Theres no other Government in the world that takes more robust steps to protect our democracy, to protect our critical national infrastructure and to protect our intellectual property from interference by Russia or by anybody else.

Mr Johnson said the criticisms were motivated by a desire to undermine the referendum on EU membership.

Sir Keir pressed for action against Kremlin-backed disinformation and highlighted RTs operations in the UK.

Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Ministers Questions (House of Commons/PA)

Mr Johnson said Sir Keir should have called out Labour former leader Jeremy Corbyn when he took money for appearing on Russia Today, adding: The leader of the Opposition has more flip-flops than Bournemouth beach.

Tory MP Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) was then accidentally called early by the Speaker before Sir Keir could ask his sixth question.

The Labour leader later got his chance, telling Mr Johnson: Pre-prepared gags on flip-flops  this is the former columnist who wrote two versions of every article ever published.

In case the Prime Minister hadnt noticed, the Labour Party is under new management and no frontbencher of this party has appeared on Russia Today since Ive been leading this party.

He finished by asking for targeted sanctions against those responsible for abuse against Uighur Muslims in China, adding: This simply cannot be allowed to stand in the 21st century.

Mr Johnson said Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had condemned the treatment of the Uighurs and the UK had developed its new sanctions regime.

Labour former minister Ben Bradshaw accused Mr Johnson of knowingly and repeatedly put his own personal and party interests before the national security by delaying publication of the ISC report, something the Prime Minister denied.

Mr Johnson repeated his claim that the rage and fury of the Remainer elite was being displayed in response to the ISC report.
Popular seafood including orange roughy, common octopus and pink conch are among those species of fish and invertebrates that are in rapid decline across the globe. The latest one-of-a-kind research done by an international research initiative and a member of the Global Fisheries Cluster at the University of British Columbia showed a decrease in biomass, which is the weight of a given population in the water, after assessing more than 1,300 populations of sea animals along with the researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the University of Western Australia. The researchers have recorded global declines, some sever of many species that are most favourite kinds of seafood.

The lead author of the study and manager of the international research initiative Sea Around US, Maria Deng Palomares said that the study is first-ever on a global scale that studies the elongated trends in the population biomass of the marine fish and invertebrates that are exploited for human consumption. When the researchers looked at such species and their population over the span of the last 60 years, they found low biomass level.

Maria Deng Palomares said, This is the first-ever global study of long-term trends in the population biomass of exploited marine fish and invertebrates for all coastal areas on the planet.

When we looked at how the populations of major species have been doing in the past 60 years, we discovered that, at present, most of their biomasses are well below the level that can produce optimal catches, she added.

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Very bad category

As per the study published on Sea Around Us official website, of all the populations that were analysed by researchers, at least 82 per cent of them are below the level that can, in turn, produce maximum sustainable yields because the rate at which they have been taken out from the sea is more than what is regrown. The study even said that this finding also implies, that fishers are catching less and less fish and invertebrates over time, even if they fish longer and harder. Palomares said that some of these populations are currently in very bad category.

In fact, more than 8 per cent of these populations or about 87 populations are currently in the very bad category, with biomass levels less than 20 per cent of the level that might maximize sustainable fisheries catches, Palomares said.



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Alabama Media Group columnist John Archibald has been awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University for the academic year beginning this fall, the Nieman Foundation announced today.

Archibald won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2018. He has been a reporter for The Birmingham News since 1986 and columnist since 2004. His columns appear on AL.com and in The Birmingham News, The Mobile Press-Register and The Huntsville Times.

He is also the author of Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution, published by Alfred A. Knopf and set for release on March 9, 2021. Its a book about his family, civil rights in the South and the churchs role in a conspiracy of silence about discrimination based on race and later sexuality.

Each year, the Nieman Foundation awards fellowships to as many as 24 journalists working in print, broadcast, digital and audiovisual media. During their nine months at Harvard, Nieman Fellows attend seminars, journalism shop talks, master classes and journalism conferences. They audit at least one class per semester.

Its something Ive always wanted to do, Archibald said. Its something I never thought Id get a chance to do.

The academic setting will offer a chance to focus on a single topic over a long period of time.

Its an environment where people will push me and make me better, he said.

Archibald said he hopes to focus on researching the issue of how journalists cover crime in the digital age, how the changing media landscape affects perceptions of crime versus reality of crime, and the perception of police. He will seek to determine whether algorithms that often favor crime stories contribute to a culture of fear.

I wonder if it drives us apart, he said. I dont know what Ill find but Im excited to find it.

Archibald is currently finishing a narrative podcast about the 1979 police killing of Bonita Carter, which changed Birmingham and presaged the Black Lives Matter movement. He has been married to Alecia Archibald for 33 years, and the two have three grown children.
A rchitect Peter Morris has planning permission from Camden council to rebuild his Victorian house, which he describes as environmentally terrible, leaking heat.

Hes using insulated concrete blocks made off-site that slot together quickly and will shave four months off building time, saving on construction energy.

We should always be building better, he says. Nicknamed the Cloud House, it will have cloud-like windows and a green roof.

The millennial pink building will be a pair of houses, one for Morris to live in with his wife and daughter and the other to sell.

The Disney castle-style design was inspired by the tall, thin arches of the Grade I-listed church nearby, described by architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83) as the craziest of London's Victorian churches".

"A lot of people say the design is quite Art Deco-style, others have said it looks like a mosque. I wasnt directly influenced by either of those things but I can see what they mean, said Morris.

The choice of buff pink walls with teal window frames and metalwork was inspired by the famous Art Deco architecture of Miami, where Mr Morris and his wife spent their honeymoon.

The family plan to make the interiors even bolder, with contrasting colours and patterns and polka-dot tiles followed through from the roof.
Democrats slam Trump administration for failures in PPE supply, testing as virus hits hospitals in South and Southwest

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the latest Trump administration official to run into a barrage of criticism from Democrats in Congress who are furious over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor, who is leading the agency responsible for providing masks and protective gear to hospitals nationwide, appeared before a committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday as the US death toll from COVID-19 climbed above 142,000.

The Trump administrations response to the coronavirus has been an abject failure and the American people have suffered the consequences, said Congressman Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

We are no more prepared now to address the pandemic today than we were in its outset, Thompson told Gaynor.

We still have a shortage of medical supplies and equipment like masks, gowns, clothes and gloves. Wait times for COVID-19 test results are climbing. And most alarmingly, they have an urgent demand for ICU beds in states where the virus is spinning out of control, Thompson said.

Coronavirus outbreaks are surging now in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and California. Thirteen states are now reporting problems with testing, and members of Congress continue to hear from hospitals about inadequate supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), Thompson said.





Administrator Gaynor said the US suffered shortages of PPE because most medical masks, gowns and gloves are manufactured in other countries. As a result, the US government was forced to compete for the supplies with other countries as well as with state and local authorities in the US.

This is a global pandemic, Gaynor said. We are in competition still for PPE around the globe.

Most PPE is made in China, Malaysia and Vietnam, Gaynor said. The United States, we make very, very little. We make virtually no rubber gloves in the US, for example.

We are going to have to improve the industrial base to make these critical items in the US, he said.

Gaynor said, however, FEMA is in a much better position now to manage the US stockpile of PPE than it was 60 days ago, and he sought to assure members of Congress that hospitals dealing with shortages can request help from local FEMA officials

We know the commercial, medical-grade PPE distribution is very healthy today, Gaynor said, adding if hospitals cant get it via their normal supply chain  we can help.

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat who represents hard-hit Houston in Congress, presses FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor for more federal help for the coronavirus pandemic [Anna Moneymaker/Pool via Reuters]

Gaynor was pressed on the wider response to the virus by President Donald Trump and other US agencies by Democratic politicians representing areas of the US like Texas that are now being hit hard by the virus.

Americans are dying. They are dying. I dont know how many times I need to say this. They are dying and our hearts are broken, said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, which is now a US epicentre of the coronavirus.

We are in such a catastrophic crisis, Jackson Lee said, describing needs for more oxygen, more testing, and overwhelmed morgues and crematoriums in Texas.

Jackson Lee said that just in Houston, the fourth most populous city in the US, there are 83,000 cases of COVID-19 at present and in the last 24 hours, 784 people have died.

@JacksonLeeTX18 in Homeland Security hearing fighting for more testing & medical needs for Houston and Texas. People are dying. We must have local authority to issue stay at home orders to save lives! We cant do contact tracing fast enough because community spread keeps growing! pic.twitter.com/ilVV0hbkTT  Sheila Jackson Lee (@JacksonLeeTX18) July 22, 2020

Trump has been under criticism by Democrats in Congress for his refusal to develop a national, coordinated strategy for defeating the coronavirus. Instead, the president and his advisers have left decision-making to governors of the 50 states and deferred to the private sector for production of needed equipment.

Case numbers, which had declined and then flattened nationally, have begun to rise sharply as Trump and Republican governors pushed to reopen the US economy quickly.

Gaynor described FEMAs efforts to speed the delivery of PPE from Asia by deploying 249 flights to bring critical supplies to the US faster, a programme called Project Air Bridge.

The programme has delivered tonnes of material to states in need, but the US is not out of the woods completely because most manufacture of PPE remains offshore, Gaynor said.

The US Congress has authorised more than $3.3 trillion in spending in four separate bills to address the crisis, and lawmakers are debating another round of rescue spending likely to be between $1 trillion and $3 trillion.
"It's like a battlefield out here," says Prof Mignon McCulloch, a paediatrician on the frontline in the Red Cross Emergency Centre. "Besides being confronted by the Covid-19 pandemic, we are also treating critically ill and injured children every hour on the hour. From those injured due to road accidents, fires and falls, to children who are victims of the surge season - the dreaded period between May and November when patients are admitted with respiratory illnesses and gastroenteritis."

Frontline campaign launched

The pressure felt by the unsung heroes I work with is overwhelming and we need your help. At present the emergency centre is not adequately equipped to manage the influx of patients due to limited space, overcrowding and inefficient logistics. We are in a crisis and we need to empower the men and women on the frontline with the facilities, tools and armour that they need to keep saving lives, she says.In response to this appeal for assistance, the Childrens Hospital Trust has embarked on a frontline campaign to raise funds for the upgrade and expansion of the Emergency Centre. The upgrade which began in April 2019 comes at a cost of R122m of which R74,270,201 has already been raised. A balance of R47,729,799 is outstanding.The Childrens Hospital Trust is an NPO that raises funds to advance child healthcare through the Red Cross War Memorial Childrens Hospital. From upgrades to its buildings and facilities, to the implementation of several projects and programmes, and upskilling of medical professionals from across Africa since 1994. Today, the hospital is internationally recognised as a centre of medical excellence and its emergency centre remains the first and only specialist paediatric centre in sub-Saharan Africa, managing around 45,000 patient visits every year.Says Chantel Cooper, CEO of the Childrens Hospital Trust, Now is the time to join hands with us by standing alongside the unsung heroes who fight to save lives day in day out while confronted by the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. Join us by stepping onto the battlefield like generations before us and help ensure that frontline medics are properly equipped, and the facilities are adequate to save and protect our children.This is your opportunity to leave a legacy by safeguarding the health and well-being of future generations of South Africans, she adds. Click here for more information on how to donate.
New Delhi, July 22 : The role of some of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) office-bearers (pracharaks) may change after the three-day meeting of the organisation's top brass which started in Bhopal on Wednesday.

Several functionaries working in more than three dozen bodies of the RSS may be given new responsibilities after the meeting.

Sources said that July is the time when the RSS entrusts responsibilities to the new 'pracharaks', and this is the reason why some office bearers are shifted from one wing to another.

The three-day meeting of the RSS held in July every year is special in many ways as Sangh reshuffles many of its 'pracharaks' in its affiliated wings, which are at least 36 in number -- Seva Bharti, Aarogya Bharti, Sanskrit Bharati, to name a few. These affiliated bodies are run only by volunteers from the Sangh.

RSS sources said that after this July meeting being held under its chief Mohan Bhagwat, some 'pracharaks' may be seen in new roles.

Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi, Dattatreya Hosabale, Dr Krishna Gopal among others are participating in this 3-day meeting being held in Bhopal.

Nagpur's Sangh ideologue Dilip Deodhar told IANS that the RSS has three major meetings every year. The Akhil Bhartiya Pratinidhi Sabha is held in March in which decisions related to changes in its internal structure are taken and previous decisions are reviewed.

At the July meeting, the Sangh decides to change the role of some of the 'pracharaks' associated with its 36 affiliated wings. At the same time, personality development of volunteers is discussed in the third important meeting to be held around Diwali.
MAXXI L'Aquila contemporary art museum will open in October.

MAXXI L'Aquila, a new contemporary art museum under the management of Rome's Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, is set to open in the Abruzzo capital L'Aquila on 30 October.

The museum will be housed at Palazzo Ardinghelli whose extensive restoration, financed with the support of Russia, is nearing completion following L'Aquila's devastating earthquake in April 2009.

The project, stalled by the covid-19 emergency, has seen the complete renovation of the 18th-century Baroque building which was formerly the home of culture ministry offices.

On 21 July the culture ministry entrusted the museum to MAXXI whose president Giovanna Melandri says the reopening of Palazzo Ardinghelli will be symbolic of a "double rebirth", after the devastation of the earthquake and the suspension of time caused by the coronavirus lockdown.

Interior of Palazzo Ardinghelli after the earthquake

MAXXI describes the project as offering the community "a new collective place, a platform of cultural creativity, open, shared, at the service of the relaunch of the city."

On 5 September the museum will be presented to the media, followed by guided tours for the public from 15.00-19.00 on 5 September, and 11.00-13.30 on 6 September.

The tours will be led by students of the Academy of Fine Arts in L'Aquila, in compliance with safety regulations, with reservations required (via MAXXI Aquila website).

MAXXI L'Aquila will be inaugurated on 30 October, in the presence of Italy's culture minister Dario Franceschini and the Russian ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov.

The museum's exhibitions will include works by Elisabetta Benassi, Daniela De Lorenzo, Alberto Garutti, Nunzio, Ettore Spalletti, Anastasia Potemkina, Paolo Pellegrin and Stefano Cerio, in addition to a selection of works from the MAXXI Collection.

For insights and updates on the new museum see the MAXXI L'Aquila website.

L'Aquila earthquake

In the early hours of 6 April 2009 a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the central Italian city of L'Aquila, killing 309 people, leaving 70,000 homeless and devastating more than 50 villages in the Abruzzo region.

Cover image: Andrea Jemolo / MAXXI.
Hyundai cash discounts are applied immediately upon purchase, lowering the overall cost of the model being bought. These promotions are available for a limited time, so interested parties are encouraged to act quickly.

Hyundai Motor Finance is offering sizeable cash discounts to qualified buyers on select new Hyundai models. All cash discounts, as well as other financing and leasing incentives, are available at the Apple Valley Hyundai dealership in Winchester, Virginia. Hyundai cash discounts are applied immediately upon purchase, lowering the overall cost of the model being bought. These promotions are available for a limited time, so interested parties are encouraged to act quickly.

Select 2020 and 2019 Hyundai vehicles have cash discounts. Most 2020 Hyundai models with cash discounts apply only to specific trim levels. They include:



2020 Accent SEL - $1,000.

2020 Elantra Base - $2,000.

2020 Elantra GT Base - $1,000.

2020 Ioniq Hybrid Blue - $1,000.

2020 Kona SEL - $2,250.

2020 Santa Fe SE 2.4 - $3,250.

2020 Sonata SEL Plus - $2,000.

2020 Sonata Hybrid - $2,000.

2020 Tucson Sport - $2,750.

2020 Veloster 2.0 - $1,500.

2020 Veloster N - $500.

2020 Venue SE - $1,500.

2019 models with cash discounts have no restrictions on trim. The eligible 2019 models include:



2019 Elantra - $3,250.

2019 Elantra GT - $2,000.

2019 Ioniq Hybrid - $1,750.

2019 Sonata - $4,500.

2019 Sonata Hybrid - $2,000.

2019 Sonata Plug-in Hybrid - $5,000.

2019 Tucson - $3,750.

Persons who would like to learn more should visit the Apple Valley Hyundai website at https://www.applevalleyhyundai.com/. Apple Valley Hyundai is available via phone by calling 855-463-5530. The dealership is located at 2934 Valley Avenue, Winchester.


The Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid strikers, from 1984, are congratulating the Debenhams workers for their battle for improved redundancy and their campaign to change legislation and prevent this situation from happening again.

There are approximately 120 Co Kildare workers impacted by the sudden closure of Debenhams in Ireland.

36 years ago, the Dunnes workers began their three year battle for the right to not handle South African goods.

Karen Gearon, shop steward during the strike, said the Debenhams workers are an inspiration to all workers facing injustice in Ireland and abroad.

She said:What has happened the Debenhams workers is atrocious. Some workers have given decades of service to the company and then when it suits the company just abandons them. But what is inspirational is the fact the workers are trying to change legislation to protect all other workers from this terrible predicament.

Ms Gearon said:When we started our pickets in 1984, people told us we couldnt win. They said ordinary retail workers didnt have the power to change legislation. Well 10 of us stuck to our guns and we forced the Irish government to ban all South African goods."

She said: "There were only 10 of us, there are 1,000 Debenhams workers. Imagine the changes they can force if they stick together in their trade union.

Mandate Trade Union has been calling for legislative changes to prevent these situations from occurring since 2013. Brian Forbes, Mandates National Coordinator for Campaigns said:Weve seen this type of thing happening again and again and the government keeps kicking cans down the road."

He said: The solution isnt that difficult to understand. Implement the findings of the Duffy/Cahill report and ensure that workers are seen as preferential creditors and prevent companies from transferring assets out of the business. We would also like to see the liquidation process recognise collectively agreed redundancy agreements as part of a workers entitlement."
New Delhi/ Mumbai: Capping nearly three years of intense negotiations, bank employees' unions and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) have agreed for an annual wage hike of 15 per cent, a move that will result in an additional yearly outgo of around Rs 7,900 crore for the lenders.

As many as 8.5 lakh bank employees are set to benefit from the wage hike, which will be effective from November 2017. Under the agreement reached on Wednesday, Performance Linked Incentive (PLI) will also be introduced for public sector bank staff and it will be based on operating or net profit of individual banks concerned.

Basic pay has been merged with dearness allowance, the IBA said in a statement. Close to 37 banks, including public, private and foreign banks, have mandated the IBA to negotiate with unions on wage hikes for their employees.

The annual wage increase in salary and allowances has been agreed at 15 percent of the wage bill as on March 31, 2017, which works out to be Rs 7,898 crore on payslip components, as per the agreement signed between the IBA and bank unions.

The agreement on the 15 percent annual wage hike was reached at a meeting between the IBA and members of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) representing workmen unions and officers association.

PLI will be applicable for public sector banks from the current fiscal, while it will be optional for private and foreign banks.

There will also be an increase the banks' contribution to the NPS (New Pension Scheme) fund to 14 percent -- 14 percent of pay and dearness allowance -- instead of the present 10 percent from the prospective date of signing the settlement subject to the approval of the government, according to the agreement.

"Today IBA & UFBU have signed an MoU for 15% increase in pay slip component of Bank Employees, in Principal agreement to remove cap & offer 30% of Basic Pay as family Pension," IBA Chief Executive Officer Sunil Mehta said in a tweet.

As many as 35 rounds of negotiation meetings took place before reaching the common ground and the outcome is satisfying, All India Bank Employees Association General Secretary C H Venkatachalam said.

Details on the implementation of wage hike and allowances are likely to be finalised in the next few days. The last round of negotiation happened on March 16 before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, he said, adding the wage hike will benefit about 8.5 lakh employees and officers.

During a round of wage negotiations in May 2018, IBA had offered only two percent wage hike. In protest, bank unions had also gone on a two-day strike from May 30 that year.

The parties will endeavour to finalise the Bipartite Settlement within a period of 90 days from July 22, the agreement said. Once concluded, this would be the 11th Bipartite Settlement. The 10th Bipartite Settlement ended in October 2017.

In the 10th Bipartite wage settlement, which was signed in May 2015, for the period between November 2012 and October 2017, the IBA had offered a 15 percent hike.

As per the latest agreement, the PLI would be payable to all employees annually over and above the normal salary payable.

"In today's banking scenario, there is stiff competition amongst different categories of banks that are public, private, foreign banks. In order to inculcate a sense of competition and also to reward performance, the concept of PLI is felt to be introduced," the agreement said.

The quantum of PLI will be nil if the operating profit earned by a bank is less than 5 percent. If the operating profit is between 5-10 percent, employees would be entitled to get an additional five days salary, an additional 15 days salary will be given in case of operating profit exceeding 15 percent on an annual basis. The latter will be applicable only if the bank concerned has a net profit.
I think that it has to come up again. Its not a matter of if. It has to come up again, and the reason I say that is that there is no way that we can sit around and be on the wrong side of history, he said.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Some Grand Rapids city commissioners Tuesday said they want discussions to move forward on reallocating police funds to social services and programs amid a surge in violence in the city.

The continued interest in shifting money toward community investments came as the city commission received a second legal opinion saying the public body cant raise a budget amendment without support from City Manager Mark Washington.

No police force is equipped to solve the issue of community violence, and I think thats part of what were hearing from the community when the talk turns to the power of reimagining law enforcement, or public safety, said Commissioner Joe Jones during the Tuesday, July 21 meeting.

Jones was one of the first to call for defunding a portion of the Grand Rapids Police Department.

Its this idea of a greater focus on prevention around community violence, and that has little to do with law enforcement, he said. That has more to do with, again, creating opportunities for economic prosperity and just the ability to operate with a greater sense of hope.

The meeting Tuesday night was the first since a bi-monthly meeting earlier this month. At that meeting, City Attorney Anita Hitchcock advised a last-minute halt to a budgetary amendment motion from Commissioner Melinda Ysasi to defund the Grand Rapids Police Department from 38.6% to 32% of the general fund - the lowest possible share under the citys charter.

Related: Defunding police conversations wont stop with thwarted budget amendment, commissioner says

Hitchcock, after fielding legal opinions from outside sources, said twice during the Tuesday night meeting that raising a budget amendment for discussion without collaboration with Washington was not allowed under state and city law.

Washington, in his concluding remarks, gave no indication that he was working toward putting forward a police department budget amendment that so far, four of the seven commissioners have asked to at least discuss.

Much of the public comment on Tuesday, as has been the case since the death of George Floyd, centered around the question of defunding the Grand Rapids Police Department to reallocate those funds to social services and programs rather than more police officers on the street.

Defunding the police, or reallocating resources from them, gained national traction during demonstrations against racism and police brutality across the country, triggered when Floyd, a Black man, was killed May 25 when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

A narrow majority at the commission meeting supported continued discussions around defunding the police department.

One person cited the recent uptick in gun violence in the city, and some others shared anecdotes of alleged drug use in the city, as reasons to keep the police departments funding at the current level.

In the past week, two people were killed in the city and several others shot or stabbed. Altogether, the citys homicide count of 20 people killed so far this year tops prior year totals in 2019 and 2018.

So far, commissioners Jones, Ysasi and Kurt Reppart have called for discussions around reducing the police departments budget to 32 percent of the general fund. The reduction would equate to a roughly $9 million cut to the departments $55 million budget.

Though Commissioner Senita Lenear hasnt openly supported defunding that portion of the budget, she did on Tuesday express frustration that city staff has not set forward a path to discuss that topic, which commissioners and a great number of the public have asked for.

We did not hear, then, how do we reconcile the 5,000, close to 6,000, forms of communication that weve received regarding this topic, she said. And I think that thats an important discussion to have.

Commissioner Jon OConnor on Tuesday gave his most direct remarks toward the issue of defunding. He opened by saying that as a blanket statement, he has zero desire to think that thats a great idea.

Instead, OConnor called for a slow process to evaluate structural changes in the community that may end up taking some funds away from the police department to fund strategies and initiatives for change.

Lets take the time to do that and do that right, and not make this broad political statement were just defunding the police department, he said.

The budget amendment proposal from Ysasi that was quashed by city staff wouldve allowed until Dec. 31 to reallocate $9 million away from the citys police department.

Read more on MLive:

Grand Rapids already has a CAREN Act outlawing racially biased 911 calls

The Rapids CEO, Deputy CEO provided 5 months pay after resigning

Police identify missing teen after finding his body in Lake Michigan

Grand Rapids police release photos to identify alleged riot suspects
The hunt is on for almost 200 people who have disappeared from their COVID-19 quarantine after lying to police officers at Queensland's interstate and international boundaries.

Authorities discovered 185 people were missing after police officers conducted compliance checks on those supposed to be in mandatory self-quarantine after coming into Queensland.

Police said most of the 2322 people officers have checked up on since April 18 were doing the right thing, but 387 people, equating to almost 17 per cent, had caused concern.

In a statement, the Queensland Police Service provided a breakdown of what happened in each of the 387 cases where self-quarantined individuals were not at their designated addresses.
Dame Vivienne Westwood hit out at BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire and shouted 'get me out of the cage' during a bizarre, rambling interview about the extradition of Julian Assange to the U.S today.

The British fashion designer and businesswoman, who has remained a staunch supporter of the WikiLeaks founder, 48, criticised the presenter after she was accused of talking 'absolute nonsense'.

Westwood's comments came a day after she dressed as a canary and suspended herself in a giant birdcage outside The Old Bailey in central London to protest the extradition of Assange to the U.S.

Speaking to Ms Derbyshire today, Westwood said: 'He has got to be let out of his cage and he cannot be extradited to America for his own sake because he will be embedded in a concrete jail for the rest of his life.'

However as the cameras drew away from Westwood at the end of the interview, and cut back to Ms Derbyshire, the designer again shouted 'get me out of the cage' as the deadpan BBC presenter continued: 'Get me out of the cage I think were her last words.'

Dame Vivienne Westwood told BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire that Julian Assange 'had to be let out of his cage' during an interview today

The fashion designer, who has remained a staunch supporter of the WikiLeaks founder, 48, criticised the presenter after she was accused of talking 'absolute nonsense'

During her interview, Westwood said: 'He really is the canary in the cage which is what I'm dressed up to be because I am Julian Assange.

'It is a signal for American government to arrest anybody in like for publishing the truth and once they do it then that will be worldwide and if they're going to arrest Julian Assange for publishing war crimes which were the truth then they've got to arrest The Guardian, The New York Times, Der Spiegel.

'Everybody that also publishes information'.

Moments later the fashion designer went on to claim that The Guardian had published the code for the documents identifying activists, whistleblowers and informants before Assange decided to release it.

She said: 'What happened is all his stuff was redacted but The Guardian had the code for the unredacted documents and they published that code number.

'Then after that Julian Assange decided also to release it because thought all those people whose lives were in danger should be warned against it.'

However when Ms Derbyshire immediately called out the allegations and said 'The Guardian say that's absolute nonsense that they did that', Westwood hit back at the presenter.

She responded: 'You want him in concrete don't you? All the media they are just such morons. Such brainwashed people and you're one of them!'

Earlier in the interview, Westwood refuted claims that the Wikileaks founder was being extradited because he had hacked into a U.S. department of defence computer system and went on to claim that America was 'inventing charges'.

She continued: 'Yes but what I am saying is if they arrest him then they all should also arrest the other people.

During the interview, Westwood said America was inventing charges against the WikiLeaks founder

The fashion designer said if Assange were to be extradited to the U.S. he would be 'embedded in a concrete jail for the rest of his life'

As the cameras drew away from Westwood and cut back to Ms Derbyshire, the designer again shouted 'get me out of the cage'

'They are inventing charges and fit them to him. He is a hacker so they are charging him with hacking and that's got nothing to do with anything because all their charges are worded so as to tick the box.

'You are guilty because you are guilty. Tick the box you are a hacker therefore you are a hacker aren't you, yes guilty. I mean this is the way they are dealing with this case.'

Westwood also claimed that Assange would not be given due legal process if he were to be flown to America.

She said: 'You are assuming that he is the subject of due legal process and it's the abuse of due legal process in his particular case that is so bad that if he had been a murderer or a drug dealer it would have been thrown out of court.

'You've got to allow me to tell you exactly what has been happening.'

The scenes come just a day after the fashion designer led a colourful band of protesters chanting 'Free Julian Assange' outside the Old Bailey in central London.

Using a megaphone outside the court she said: 'I am Julian Assange. I am the canary in the cage. If I die down the coal mine from poisonous gas, that's the signal for all the miners to leave.

The scenes come just a day after Westwood suspended herself in a giant birdcage outside The Old Bailey in central London

The designer took to the streets of London yesterday to protest the extradition of Assange to the U.S.

'But I am half poisoned already from government corruption and gaming of the system and legal system by governments. I am still whistling away but 7 billion people don't know what the f**k is going on.'

Assange is wanted in the U.S. to face 17 charges under the Espionage Act and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion after the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011.

He is currently being held in London's maximum-security Belmarsh prison while the court system tries to reschedule his extradition hearing, which was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Assange's full extradition hearing is set to take place on September 7, having originally been scheduled for May 18.
The nightmare of the coronavirus doesn't end when you leave Intensive Care and are allowed to go home. Covid-19 can be fatal at any time, but it also attacks in the medium and long term.

Different international and Spanish research is starting to show results about the consequences of the virus on the body once the worst of the illness is over. According to a study featuring 143 Italian patients who had been released from hospital, which was published last week in the Jama Network medical journal, 87 per cent of them were still suffering from at least one symptom 60 days after becoming infected, and the scientific evidence shows that Covid-19 has a much longer-lasting effect than people in general realise.

Cerebral problems

One of the most unusual consequences of Covid-19 is that it can cause cerebral problems, from hallucinations to fatal vascular accidents, and this could be more common than was previously believed and even affects patients who only had mild symptoms, according to a study in the scientific magazine Brain.

A team of doctors from University College London studied the neurological symptoms of 43 patients who were hospitalised due to an infection which was confirmed as or suspected to be coronavirus. They discovered that there were ten cases of temporary cerebral dysfunction, twelve of brain inflammation, eight cerebral vascular accidents, and eight nerve lesions.

Pulmonary fibrosis

In one of its documents for medical professionals, the Spanish Ministry of Health says that "due to the analogy with SARS", Covid-19 patients may develop pulmonary fibrosis. This causes scarring of the lung tissue, which becomes thicker and harder, and causes respiratory difficulties for the patients.

Asthenia, dyspnea and weakness

The Costal del Sol hospital has attended to 68 patients who were admitted to a ward or the ICU with pneumonia, most of them bilateral, during the coronavirus crisis. After recovering, many patients suffered from asthenia (extreme fatigue), dyspnea (feeling of suffocation, generally associated with effort), muscular weakness and weight loss.

Doctors at the University Hospital in Santiago de Compostela are coming to similar conclusions to those of their colleagues in Malaga. Extreme fatigue, loss of muscle mass, sleep disturbance, alopecia and the urge to cry are common consequences in post-Covid patients.

Alopecia

This doesn't seem to be a direct result of the coronavirus, but once GP appointments began to get back to normal and doctors began to see more patients each day, they say more people are reporting that they suffered unusual hair loss during the lockdown period.

Fragility in older people

It is not only those who have had and survived coronavirus who face possible consequences. People who remained inside their homes for weeks without going out are also doing so, and that group includes elderly people who have been shielding because they are at risk.
As Peterborough prepares to make masks mandatory starting Aug. 1, Hiawatha First Nation has been requiring people to wear masks in public since Monday.

Chief Laurie Carr said at a virtual press conference on Wednesday that her council approved mandatory masking on July 13, with the policy going into effect Monday.

Carr also said Hiawatha has only recently entered Stage 2 of business reopenings and will remain there for about another three weeks before moving on to Stage 3.

It means amenities such as boat launch, beaches and playgrounds are still closed, she said.

Gatherings are still limited to 10 people in Hiawatha First Nation, Carr said, so we can watch our numbers.

Ontario COVID-19 cases This interactive map shows confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths related to the virus as reported by public health units across Ontario. The map is updated hourly.

Peterborough Public Health weekly situational report View document on Scribd

As Ontario moves into Stage 3, we really need to keep an eye on that, she said.

Peterborough Public Health held its 31st and final virtual press conference on Wednesday to update the public on COVID-19 locally.

Medical officer of health Dr. Rosana Salvaterra said at the conference that more than 20,500 people have now been tested for COVID-19 in Peterborough city and county, Curve Lake First Nation and Hiawatha First Nation  950 of them over the past week, Peterborough Public Health reported Wednesday.

Thats about one out seven residents, for a testing rate of 13.8 per cent, the health unit reported.

Drive-thru COVID-19 testing continues at the Kinsmen Centre on a first-come, first-serve basis for people without symptoms who drive or walk into the clinic. This week, the hours are from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays. As of July 27, the clinic will be open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays.

Anyone with symptoms should call 705-876-5086 to arrange for testing at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre assessment centre. To arrange for a test on a weekend, with or without symptoms, also call 705-876-5086.

No new cases were reported by the health unit as of Wednesday afternoon.

There are no active cases and no institutional outbreaks, with the last confirmed case being on June 20 in the jurisdiction. There have been 95 cumulative confirmed cases during the pandemic, with 93 recovered and two earlier deaths.

Of those cases, 54 per cent were women and 46 per cent were men. Five were under 20, 29 were 20 to 39, 28 were 40 to 59, 22 were 60 to 79 and 11 were 80 or older.

Peterboroughs rate of 64.3 cases per 100,000 people is less than a quarter of the provincial average of 279.3 cases per 100,000 people as of Wednesday afternoon.

New cases in City of Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton

Two new confirmed COVID-19 cases, one in the City of Kawartha Lakes and one in Haliburton County, were reported Wednesday afternoon by the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit.

The jurisdiction has now had 211 cumulative cases, up four from a week ago and up 13 from the start of the month as more businesses reopened from lockdowns and cottagers and day-trippers flocked to the Kawarthas for some summer relief.

There are now four active cases in the City of Kawartha Lakes, two in Northumberland County and one in Haliburton County, the health unit reported.

The active cases include a man in his 30s, two men in their 50s, a woman in her 50s, a man in his 60s and a man in his 60s, according to Public Health Ontario.

Galaxy Cinemas

No decision has been made yet on a reopening for the Galaxy Cinemas in Peterborough.

Under Ontarios Stage 3 reopening guidelines, movie theatres were allowed to reopen in many parts of the province, including Peterborough, as of Friday but with a limit of 50 moviegoers in the building at a time, regardless of how many auditoriums it has.

Galaxy Cinemas in Peterborough has 11 screens.

Executives at Cineplex Inc. are urging the Ontario government to loosen restrictions to allow 50 moviegoers inside each auditorium, The Canadian Press reported Wednesday.

Heritage hunt resumes

The Peterborough Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee has launched its annual Heritage Hunt contest after postponing it earlier this year due to the pandemic.

Small groups and individuals can test their knowledge of Peterboroughs architecture for a chance to win prizes.

The contest involves identifying 34 architectural details on buildings in a defined area of the city. All details are visible from the sidewalk and both sides of the street are in play.

Participants are asked to follow public health recommendations on physical distancing.

An online fillable form and printable PDF including a map of the Heritage Hunt area where all the architectural details can be found is available on the citys website at peterborough.ca/heritagehunt.

A print version of the Heritage Hunt will be in Thursdays edition of Peterborough This Week.

Prizes will be awarded in both individual and group categories for the correct identification of the most architectural elements on the clue sheet. This years prizes will feature items from local downtown businesses.

Completed answer sheets should be emailed to heritage@peterborough.ca by Aug. 31 at 4:30 p.m.
A California woman peed on the floor of a Verizon store after employees told her she had to wear a mask, authorities said.

Reuters

When employees at a Verizon store in Roseville, California, asked a woman inside to wear a mask on Friday, she pulled down her pants and urinated on the floor, the police told a local CBS affiliate and People magazine.

The police said they arrested the woman after finding stolen items in her car.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A California woman visited a Verizon store on Friday in Roseville, outside Sacramento, without wearing a mask. When employees asked her to put one on or leave  as required by the store's policy  she pulled down her pants and urinated on the floor, the police told CBS Sacramento and People magazine.

A spokesman for the Roseville Police Department told People that officers identified the 32-year-old woman as a suspect in an earlier theft reported at Dick's Sporting Goods and found several bags of stolen items in her car.

"This is an extremely odd incident," the spokesman, Rob Baquera, told People. "Never before have I seen someone become so disgruntled while shopping. In the end, this suspect's actions helped lead to her ultimate arrest."

The woman, who was not named in the reports, was charged with grand theft and could face additional charges related to the public urination, Baquera told People.

Shoppers unhappy with mask requirements, intended to keep guests and employees safe in the middle of a pandemic, have caused trouble at stores around the country. Some who are frustrated with the temporary inconvenience of wearing a mask have gotten mouthy with store managers just trying to do their jobs. Others have turned violent.

Earlier this month in Michigan, a man stabbed a customer who asked him to wear a mask, officials said. The police fatally shot him.

In May, two Target customers who refused to wear masks were arrested after starting a brawl that broke an employee's arm, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Read the original article on Insider
COLUMBIA  Vice President Mike Pence told Gov. Henry McMaster the Trump administration fully supports his decision to encourage schools to reopen and provide in-person instruction as an option five days a week.

"For the sake of our kids, for the sake of their well-being, governor, the president and I believe you're 100 percent right in making the decision to get our kids back in the classroom here in South Carolina," Pence said at the outset of a roundtable meeting Tuesday in Columbia with policymakers and education leaders.

"It's also great for working families," Pence added. "We think particularly of single mothers and fathers who bear the disproportionate burden of school closures."

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who flew from Washington with Pence for the trip, added she believes decisions about how  not if  schools should open safely should be left to local leaders.

"They know their students, their teachers and the health situation in their area better than folks in Washington," DeVos said at the event, hosted at the University of South Carolina Alumni Center.

The Pence visit was part of a dual city stop Tuesday that included a fundraiser in Charleston for GOP congressional candidate Nancy Mace, who enters the general election matchup with a $2.3 million fundraising disadvantage against Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham in the 1st District.

She declined to give a specific total of what was raised Tuesday night, but Mace said her campaign collected "a strong six figures" from the event hosted at her alma mater, The Citadel.

The campaign event was closed press, meaning the news media did not have the opportunity to observe, document or photograph what happened inside the Holliday Alumni Center firsthand.

Mace tweeted a few highlights from her own Twitter account, including a moment when Pence reportedly said, This district deserves a common sense conservative.

Earlier in Columbia, Pence and DeVos heard from several South Carolina officials during the hourlong roundtable, including USC President Bob Caslen; Anderson School District 5 Superintendent Tom Wilson; and education consultant Akil Ross, the former award-winning principal of Chapin High School.

The participants voiced a variety of different approaches, not all of them directly aligned with McMaster's plan.

Caslen, who led USC to be one of the first colleges in the country to announce reopening plans for the fall, noted that they made in-person attendance optional for both students and faculty. While Caslen said that would create some logistical difficulties for the university, he felt it would allow people to grow more confident over time.

"We didnt want to force anybody to, especially in this environment, do something that made them feel unsafe," Caslen said.

Wilson said McMaster's plan is "exactly like ours" for his Anderson school district and voiced similar concerns to the governor about the long-term impact it would have on students if they are not back in school in the fall.

While Wilson said some colleagues had criticized him for expressing that view, he said he did not want to "play politics in a pandemic."

Ross recommended encouraging schools to make their own individual decisions about how to reopen, with some starting virtually, some starting in person and others offering some sort of hybrid approach.

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S.C. Education Superintendent Molly Spearman did not attend the vice president's roundtable. She was attending a charter school event, her office said.

Spearman and McMaster differ on how districts should handle in-person instruction when schools reopen in the fall. While McMaster pushed for a full-week classroom option, Spearman said, state leaders cannot "turn a blind eye to the health and safety of our students and staff" with cases increasing at a pace among the highest in the world.

In a press briefing after the roundtable, Pence said the administration views the recent rise of coronavirus cases in South Carolina and other states as "serious" but argued that the country is now better equipped to handle the surge than it was in the early days of the pandemic.

"The people of South Carolina should know that we are in a much better place to respond to this pandemic across the South than we were two or three months ago," Pence said.

McMaster has worked with several Trump administration officials as he oversees South Carolina's response to the pandemic. Last week, he met with Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force and participated in a briefing with her.

Later in Charleston and following her fundraiser, Mace said it is clear the current pandemic is affecting how campaigns are being waged.

"If we didn't have COVID-19, we would have had 500 people and a rally, and instead we had 50 people in a room for a a very small, tight-knit fundraiser," she said of her event.

Photos show Mace and Pence spoke from separate podiums. Mace said that was a decision made to maintain social distancing practices. Those in attendance were also required to wear masks at all times. Squares taped on the floor indicated where people could stand.

S.C. GOP Chair Drew McKissick was among the attendees. He said there were hand sanitizers on every table and that masks were mandatory.

"I've got a picture of myself and the vice president, and we're both wearing masks," McKissick said.

McKissick also confirmed there was a pre-fundraiser event with the vice president.

"Everyone who was in the pre-event with the vice president had to have a negative coronavirus test within the last 24 hours, and have documentation of that," McKissick said.

He estimates Pence spoke for at least 20 minutes at the main event.

"He said he knows that the road to the Republican majority and the House majority runs through the 1st Congressional District. He said he and the president are all on board to do whatever we need to win it back," McKissick said.

The Nov. 3 general election is just over three months away.
KYODO NEWS - Jul 22, 2020 - 23:04 | All, Coronavirus, Japan

Japan will begin granting re-entry to foreign residents who have been locked out of the country for months by a travel ban aimed at limiting the spread of the novel coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday.

Speaking at a meeting of the government's task force on the coronavirus response, Abe also said Japan will enter into discussions with 12 Asian economies including China, South Korea and Taiwan on ways to safely resume travel.

The re-entry of foreign residents irrespective of their specific visa status will take place "gradually," Abe said. Of the 208,000 currently abroad, roughly 88,000 people including students and skilled workers who left the country before the travel ban took effect will be given priority.

The ban, however, has not been fully lifted. Those who departed later or have newly obtained a visa with plans to move here will be allowed in at a later date, a government official said.

Japan's expatriate community has been outraged by the government's prior refusal to let foreign residents back in except under "special exceptional circumstances," a nebulous set of criteria that includes the death of a family member.

Many other countries that have imposed travel bans such as Germany and France do not discriminate between citizens and foreign residents in granting re-entry.

The resumption of travel to and from the 12 Asian economies, which also include Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar and Singapore, is contingent on discussions for extra coronavirus prevention measures including mandatory testing, a government official said.

Japan will also consider allowing in a small number of businesspeople from other countries such as the United States and parts of Europe if they follow certain rules such as traveling only by private jet and limiting their stay to 72 hours.

The travel ban currently covers 129 countries and regions, with 17 areas including Nepal and Kenya to be added on Friday. Foreign travelers who have been to any of these within 14 days of arriving in Japan are being turned away.

Abe also indicated the government would begin considering conditions of entry for athletes and other individuals involved with the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, now due to kick off a year from Thursday.

Grappling with a resurgence in coronavirus infections in urban centers such as Tokyo and Osaka but eager to mitigate the pandemic's blow to the world's third-largest economy, Abe's government has already entered discussions to resume travel with several countries including Australia and New Zealand.

Flights to and from Thailand and Vietnam are set to resume this month with 14-day quarantine periods to be imposed on travelers, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters.

Meanwhile, the government on Wednesday extended its suspension of visas and visa waiver agreements with other countries by one month to the end of August.

Related coverage:

Japan to negotiate easing travel bans with China, S. Korea, Taiwan

Half of Japan's federations want Olympic decision this year: survey

Tokyo's cumulative coronavirus cases top 10,000
International students have been told not to make travel plans to Canada until after Ottawas border restrictions are lifted.

In the latest update of its program guidelines, the federal immigration department said Tuesday that international students will not be allowed to enter Canada if they have received a student visa after the countrys border lockdown on March 18.

Even those who have a valid study permit from that date or earlier will be denied entry unless they can prove their travel is non-discretionary or non-optional.

While many Canadian college and university campus locations are closed, classes are generally continuing online. Travel will be deemed discretionary or non-discretionary depending on individual circumstances, said the advisory.

In 2019, more than 650,000 international students studied in Canada at the post-secondary level. The sector contributed more than $21 billion to the Canadian economy through students spending and tuition fees, which are two to three times higher than their domestic peers. The largest cohort of the students usually arrives in the fall.

To ensure Canada remains a competitive destination of choice for international education during the pandemic, the federal government is allowing students to count the time spent pursuing their studies online abroad toward their eligibility for a post-graduation work permit.

If they have submitted a study permit application and if at least half of their program is completed in Canada when the border reopens, they will be eligible for the work permit, which many international students count on as an ultimate pathway for permanent residence.

The pandemic has had a significant impact on international students and the Canadian institutions and communities that host them. This is why we have implemented a series of measures to support them, Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said earlier.

We value the contribution of young people seeking a high-quality education in Canada, and were making every effort to minimize how current challenges affect their plans and dreams for the future.

Despite the special COVID-19 measures, international students have complained that schools still require the same hefty tuition fees for online programs, which present other challenges regarding time-zone differences. Some students may have to stay up for their class in the wee hours from their home countries.

Sarom Rho, a migrant student worker organizer, said Ottawa has been tone-deaf to the needs of international students, who have been asking for a tuition freeze and work permit extension, among other things that could help them through the pandemic.

International students are disappointed with these announcements, said Rho of Migrant Students United. The governments response is geared towards maintaining international enrolment and fees as a source of revenue to keep schools operating. Its disavowing its responsibility to the quality of education for these students.

According to the immigration departments updated guidelines, border agents have the final say in admitting arriving students.

Students must prove their presence in Canada is necessary for their continued participation in their program, such as in labs and workshops, or prove that pursuing online studies is not an option for their school or program or not possible from their home country, for example, due to internet restrictions or bandwidth limitation.

Like all travellers, international students who enter Canada must undergo the necessary health checks and self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

Some universities and colleges have issued support letters to incoming international students advising them to take extra precautions before travelling to Canada because students are responsible for the costs of returning to their home countries.

At the University of Saskatchewan, for example, students are recommended to provide border agents support letters from the administration saying that your studies cannot be completed online and you are expected to to start on-site.
Over 500 churches using phone streaming so members with limited internet can listen to live services

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More than 500 churches are using a telephone-based streaming service to allow members to listen to live worship services if they don't have internet access to watch online.

Known as PhoneLiveStreaming.com, the service was launched in March after churches were ordered to close during state lockdowns in response to the coronavirus. As many as 550 churches are now using the service.

The audio service allows people to listen to a livestream of a church worship service on a traditional telephone line instead of watching it online.

Hugh Plappert, whose son David developed the system while on spring bring in March, told The Christian Post that people can just pick up the phone and they're in church.

It actually does streaming across the internet to a server that then converts the signal and then puts it on a phone line, said Plappert.

So people with traditional phone lines are receiving streaming. People with poor or no internet access are the main audience.

Plappert also told CP that churches that've used the audio service have mentioned that they intend to keep the streaming system even after they reopen post-pandemic.

The surprise, a lot of churches say, is they didn't realize how many people were not able to watch their livestreaming, when they thought everybody was, he explained.

He compared PhoneLiveStreaming.com to a handicap ramp, noting that while a lot of church members might not use the service per se, some will find it necessary.

You could kind of look at it as the technology handicap ramp for churches. You don't have a lot of people using the handicap ramp and you didn't build it for a lot of people, but you build it for some key people and so you're going to take care of it and maintain it, said Plappert.

Initially, the audio service was created for a limited number of churches in the Great Lakes region, with Plappert and his son sharing it with a few people on social media.

However, the audio service got a serious jolt in attention when Pastor David Platt of the megachurch McLean Bible Church in Virginia promoted it on Twitter in late March.

If you know someone without internet access, we dont want them to be left out on Sundays. So spread the word! Platt tweeted at the time.

Since the spread of COVID-19 to the United States earlier this year, many Christian organizations and churches have adjusted their outreach in response to state lockdowns that forced many churches to close.

These have included expanding their online presence, adding outdoor worship services to their agenda, and even giving various sacramental rites over the phone.

For example, in April, Virginia Theological Seminary and General Theological Seminary launched Dial-A-Priest to allow clergy to give last rites to people in the hospital over the phone, especially for COVID-19 patients for whom access might be limited.

VTS Dean, the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, said in a statement at the time that Dial-A-Priest was a way to make sure the dying do not feel alone.

In a season where hospitals are overwhelmed and where pastoral care is limited because of physical distancing, the seminaries step in to suggest a way forward, said Markham.

Our goal is to make sure that the dying do not feel alone at this time. It is a simple idea: we provide this free service to support those who are most in need.
CHICAGO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacific Oak Residential Trust, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Pacific Oak Strategic Opportunity REIT, Inc., announced the acquisition of a 196 single-family rental home portfolio in Illinois.

The announcement comes on the heels of the company's July 1st merger with Battery Point Trust, Inc. Following the Battery Point merger and Illinois asset acquisition, Pacific Oak Residential Trust now owns and manages a portfolio of approximately 1,750 single-family rental homes located throughout the United States.

"This acquisition marks another step forward in the continued development of Pacific Oak's single-family residential investment business," said Jeremy Healy, president of Pacific Oak Residential Trust. "We have already acquired an attractive portfolio of single-family homes and continue to identify potential additions to our rapidly growing asset base."

Peter McMillan, president and chairman of Pacific Oak Strategic Opportunity REIT, added, "The single-family rental home sector has fared well during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and we believe this compelling asset class will continue to do so over the long-term. The demand versus supply balance and the outlook for revenue growth is very favorable compared to many property sectors."

John Pawlowski, senior analyst of residential at Green Street Advisors, a respected leader in real estate investment research, predicted in a recent presentation that single-family rentals will outpace the multifamily sector in terms of rent, revenue and net operating income growth for the next several years.

"We don't see any meaningful cracks in the single-family rental homes' fundamentals," Pawlowski stated at the conclusion of his presentation.

About Pacific Oak Residential Trust, Inc.

Pacific Oak Residential Trust, Inc. ("PORT") is a Pacific Oak Strategic Opportunity REIT Company that acquires and asset manages affordable single family rental properties throughout the United States. PORT has significant holdings in the Midwest (including Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio) and the Southeast (including Alabama, Northern Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas) with plans for expansion throughout the United States.

Contact: Damon Elder

Spotlight Marketing Communications

(949) 427-1377

[email protected]

SOURCE Pacific Oak Residential Trust, Inc.

Related Links

https://pacificoakresidentialtrust.com


Kim Kardashian has broken her silence over the Twitterrantings of her husband Kanye West and appealed for compassion and understanding....

broken her silence over the Twitterrantings of her husband Kanye West and appealed for compassion and understanding. Kim Kardashian hasand appealed for compassion and understanding.





She blamed Wests behaviour on his bipolar disorder.





Kanye West has spoken disjointedly on a lot of things, including saying he wanted to abort the pregnancy of the couples child.





He had said he wanted to divorce Kim and has called the mom Kris Jenner, Kris Jong Un.

He said Michael Jackson was assassinated in 2009 and that iconic Harriet Tubman did not actually free slaves.





In between, he announced that his new album, Donda will be dropping on Friday.





Kim on Wednesday offered a long explanation for what has been happening, as West holed himself in a bunker in Wyoming.





The reality star, 39, called Kanye a brilliant but complicated person but said she feels powerless to help him, in a lengthy post on Insta story.





She wrote: As many of you know, Kanye has bipolar disorder. Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how complicated and painful it is to understand.





Ive never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanyes right to privacy.





But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health.





Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behaviour know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor.





People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgemental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try.





I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions.





He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experiences the painful loss of his mother and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder.





On Kanyes presidential campaign, Kim said his ambitions are part of his genius.





Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words sometimes do not align with his intentions.





Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some. That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his dreams have come true.





We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with in times when they need it the most.





I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this.





Thank you for those who have expressed concern for Kanyes well being and for your understanding.




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Linkedin Moch. Fiqih Prawira Adjie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23 2020

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has filed a request with the Law and Human Rights Ministry to extend an overseas travel ban for Harun Masiku as it continues its search for the graft fugitive.

KPK spokesperson Ali Fikri said the commission had filed the request on July 10 with the ministry's Immigration Directorate General. The commission asked for the travel ban to be extended by six months.

The antigraft agency is continuing to pursue the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician, who was named a suspect and put on the KPK's most-wanted list in January.

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White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday it is unlikely the coronavirus will ever be eradicated.

While the virus will not disappear, it's possible world leaders and public health officials could work to bring the virus down to "low levels," the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said during an interview with the TB Alliance.

"I think with a combination of good public health measures, a degree of global herd immunity and a good vaccine, which I do hope and feel cautiously optimistic that we will get, I think when we put all three of those together, we will get control of this, whether it's this year or next year. I'm not certain," he said.

But, he added, "I don't really see us eradicating it."

Fauci's comments are at odds with President Donald Trump, who reiterated his claim Tuesday evening that the virus would disappear. The president's remark comes amid warnings from experts, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that Covid-19 cases and deaths could rise this fall.

"The virus will disappear. It will disappear," Trump said during a White House briefing on the pandemic.

The coronavirus is not disappearing and continues to rapidly spread across the U.S. The virus has infected more than 3.9 million people in the country, killing at least 142,090 as of Wednesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Texas and Florida hit grim records Monday for daily coronavirus deaths based on a seven-day moving average, as hospitalizations continue to surge in 34 states.
Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Wednesday wrote a letter to information technology giant Googles CEO Sundar Pichai to seek investment in the state, officials said.

CM Rawat also appointed chief secretary Utpal Kumar Singh and additional chief secretary, MSME department Manisha Panwar to coordinate on the same, according to officials.

The development came after Google CEO Pichai announced an investment of USD10 billion in India over the next five to seven years.

An official privy to the development on condition of anonymity said, CM Rawat in his letter to Pichai has urged him to include Uttarakhand also in Googles huge investment plan for India.

In his letter, he stated that there is a need for an alternative development model due to the Covid-19 pandemic in which IT has a very vital role to play. He also said that small cities have vast opportunities in investment for giants like Google. If chosen, the Uttarakhand government will provide every possible help to Google in the state, said the official.

Informing more about the move, chief secretary Utpal Kumar Singh said, The CM in a proactive manner has made a pitch seeking investment from Google. We believe Uttarakhand is very well suited for it with the kind of advantages the state enjoys.

Singh added, As directed by the CM, I and additional chief secretary Panwar will establish contact with the people concerned in Google in this regard. We will help them with whatever information they need or field visits required for investing here.

Asked about specifying the areas where Uttarakhand is interested in investment from Google he said, As of now Google has made the announcement for an investment of USD 10 billion and its details are yet to be known. Once we know that, then we will talk to them on the kind of investment they are looking for and we are looking at.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kalyan Das Kalyan Das covers crime, transport, human rights and central government offices from Bhopal and Indore. ...view detail
The settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is in the interests of all states of the region and countries participating in the negotiation process, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Alexander Grushko said in an open interview with First Deputy Director General TASS Information Agency.

"As far as the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh is concerned, we believe that not only Russia, but also other states that are concerned about establishing and strengthening stability in this region, should make statements encouraging the parties to establish peace, ceasefire, and separate the parties, about which cant agree," he noted. "Stabilization of the situation is now in the interests of all participants in the process."

As the Deputy Minister noted, Russia proceeds from the fact that everything that was previously developed by the international community in relation to Nagorno-Karabakh within the OSCE and the Minsk Group should remain on the negotiating table.

"The resolution of this conflict will significantly improve the situation in the region as a whole, including improving bilateral relations between all partners. We urge everyone to take exactly the same position, especially the countries of the Minsk Group," he added.
Gov. Phil Murphy will hold his 98th press conference on the coronavirus pandemic at 1 p.m. Wednesday.

The gathering at the Trenton War Memorials George Washington Ballroom will be steamed live on the governors YouTube channel.

Joining Murphy will be state Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli, communicable disease service medical director Dr. Edward Lifshitz and acting State Police Superintendent Colonel Pat Callahan.

Its unclear when the state Department of Education will provide guidance on the all-remote option for kindergarten-12th grade students that will be available when schools reopen in September. The governor said Monday that details on that plan would be provided this week. Theres another briefing scheduled for Friday.

There are 873 coronavirus patients in New Jersey as of 10 p.m. Tuesday. Thats an increase of 40 over the previous 24-hour period. Officials say 151 patients are receiving critical care with 77 on ventilators. A day earlier those numbers were 169 and 79.

At the peak of the pandemic in mid-April, more than 8,000 residents were hospitalized.

State health officials reported 22 new confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 424 new cases on Tuesday, though a reporting issue with Quest labs tests that was disclosed on Monday continues to affect the states numbers, Murphy said. At least 13,763 have died of the virus since March with another 1,974 fatalities listed as probably caused by the coronavirus.

At 5 p.m. Murphy will be interviewed on KYW 1060, a Philadelphia news radio station.

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Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A woman who lives in the Kebele 5 neighborhood of Gambella Town, Ethiopia, holds a dose of Mectizan tablets, distributed for the elimination of river blindness.

A woman crosses a bridge over the Baro River in Gambella Town, Ethiopia. The Baros clean water and swift current form an ideal breeding environment for the black flies that transmit river blindness. (Photos: The Carter Center/ R. Youngblood)

Most of the Carter Centers work against neglected tropical diseases takes place in rural locations that are far from health care facilities and other resources. However, these diseases can be found in some unique urban settings, too, and the Center is just as committed to combating them there to ensure elimination is achieved.

In 2000, Ethiopia invited The Carter Center to assist in controlling onchocerciasis, a disease commonly known as river blindness. Twelve years later, Ethiopias Federal Ministry of Health boldly decided that merely controlling the disease  doing just enough to keep cases from increasing  was insufficient and instead set a goal of eliminating it altogether. The decision established Ethiopia as a leader and innovator among onchocerciasis-endemic countries.

Whereas control means committing resources indefinitely, elimination frees assets and resources to be used to fight other problems. To achieve elimination, transmission of the disease must be interrupted in low-endemic areas that are not prioritized in control programs. It also requires checking for the disease in places where it typically would not be seen, such as urban areas.

River blindness, a parasitic disease, causes intense itching and rash and can eventually lead to loss of sight. It occurs in tropical regions, mainly in Africa, with clean, rapidly flowing water where the black fly that transmits the parasite breeds. One such place is Gambella Town (pop. 62,000), the capital of Gambella region, where the Baro River rushes through on its way to South Sudan.

Originally, we did not expect to find river blindness in Gambella Town because urban rivers are usually too polluted for the black flies to breed, said Gadisa Mohammed, the Carter Centers deputy program director for the Gambella region. But the Baro River is actually quite clean, as well as fast, so it is suitable for the flies.

After extensive testing of the population, the program found a low level of river blindness does exist in Gambella Town, while the surrounding area is highly endemic. As a result, both the town and the area around it must be treated, said Aderajew Mohammed, program manager for the Carter Centers health programs in Ethiopia.

When Ethiopias goal was control of river blindness, people in highly endemic areas were given the drug ivermectin (Mectizan, donated by Merck & Co., Inc.) once a year via mass drug administration (MDA). Local volunteers called community-directed distributors, or CDDs, educate people, measure for the correct dose, and administer the medication. Elimination requires intensified intervention efforts: Now The Carter Center assists the Federal Ministry of Health with Mectizan treatments two times a year, four times in areas identified as hot spots.

Different settings require different approaches.

Urban people tend to be more skeptical and more assertive about asking us challenging questions, said Gadisa.

With support from local political officials, the health ministry and The Carter Center use posters, loudspeaker-equipped trucks, and town criers to extol the benefits of Mectizan and promote upcoming MDA events. That strategy is very effective, Gadisa said. We work hard on that.

To advance trust, CDDs are recruited from the local population. But this, too, takes extra effort.

Whereas rural people usually are farmers who can make time to assemble for MDA events during the week, most city people are working at jobs, so it can be a challenge to find people who have flexibility to be CDDs, Gadisa explained. This requires conducting MDA on weekends and scheduling around religious services.

So it was on a hot Sunday afternoon (before MDA activities were temporarily suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic), a team of government health extension workers and CDDs set up tables under a large shade tree in Kebele 5, a densely populated Gambella Town neighborhood. An energetic crowd gathered to hear one of the CDDs deliver a persuasive educational message about onchocerciasis and invite them to take the free medicine to eliminate the disease. Understanding its importance to the communitys and countrys health and prosperity, the majority then eagerly lined up to receive the tablets.

When Ethiopia eliminates river blindness, productivity will be increased, without any doubt, Gadisa said. School retention will be increased. Greater education will lead to improvement in the economy, in technology, and so on. If a person including a woman or child is ill, the family must spend its money on health care and not on other things, and that affects the economy.

Since MDA began in Gambella Town in 2016, nearly 400,000 doses of Mectizan have been administered there. In 2021 or 2022, the program intends to evaluate the impact treatment is having on transmission of the parasite. If transmission is shown to have been interrupted, MDA can safely be halted.

"Being free of disease is what we aspire to," Gadisa said.

Learn more about the Center's River Blindness Elimination Program 
Hryvnia weakens to UAH 27.66 to U.S. dollar on July 22

09:40, 22.07.20 6118

The official forex rate against the euro for Wednesday is fixed at UAH 31.67 per euro.
Kushwaha with the diamond he mined.

Bhopal: A poor farmer in Madhya Pradeshs Panna district has harvested a sparkling fortune when he mined a high quality diamond weighing 10.69 carat in his land taken on lease from the government.

Anandilal Kushwaha (34), resident of Ranipur village, was thrilled to find the precious stone in his field, a culmination of his year-long mining activities, on Tuesday.

I along with my partners have indulged in mining in our leased land for the past one year. We could not believe our eyes when we found the diamond of such high quality and size," he said.

Kushwaha has deposited the diamond piece before the Panna district mining department, as per the lease conditions of the state government.

Kushwaha has deposited a 10.69 carat diamond with the diamond officer," Panna district mining officer R K Pandey said.

The MP government gives small patches of land on lease in Panna diamond reserve area to local farmers and labourers to mine diamond and deposit them with the district mining officer.

The Panna district mining department auctions the diamonds deposited with them and gives the proceeds to the diamond owners after deducting royalty and tax.

The diamond found by Kushwaha may fetch Rs 50 lakh in the auction, officials say.

Kushwaha had also found a 70-cent diamond in his field recently.

Panna district falls under Bundelkand region of Madhya Pradesh, known for rich diamond reserve.
Passengers wishing to board a United Airlines flight will now have to wear face masks at ticket counters and in its airport lounges as well, or risk a flight ban from the carrier.

The announcement followed a similar warning made by Delta CEO Ed Bastian in an interview with the Today Show, in which he warned that any customers who insist on not wearing a face covering will be instructed to find another airline to fly with.

United, Delta and all other major U.S. carriers require passengers to wear masks during flights, however the policy has been inconsistently enforced.

United said Wednesday that it is now broadening mask requirements for passengers even before they board the plane.

We're really trying to close all the travel gaps, United CEO Scott Kirby said in an interview with CNBC. If customers refuse to comply, they may be refused travel and banned from flying United at least while the mask requirement is in place.

Passengers wishing to board a United Airlines flight will now have to wear face masks at ticket counters and in its airport lounges as well, or risk a flight ban from the carrier

We're really trying to close all the travel gaps, United CEO Scott Kirby said in an interview with CNBC. If customers refuse to comply, they may be refused travel and banned from flying United at least while the mask requirement is in place'

The only passengers excluded from Uniteds policy are children under two-years-old. Any adult other passengers who believe they have an extraordinary circumstance to justify not wearing a mask are told to contact airline representatives before flying.

If customers refuse to comply, they may be refused travel and banned from flying United at least while the mask requirement is in place, according to a company statement.

The mask policy will apply at ticket counters, lounges, gates and baggage areas across the 360 airports worldwide where United operates.

Passengers can expect to see signs throughout airports reminding them of the policy, as well as verbal reminders from employees, a statement from the company said.

United workers will also offer a free mask if customers aren't wearing one  and those who don't comply will receive a reminder card detailing the policy.

An internal memo obtained by USA Today also stipulates that United staff must also closely adhere to the policy.

While we already require employees to wear masks in any shared spaces, including the airport terminal, break rooms and elevators, not everyone is wearing a mask when they should be. So weve made the policy and consequences even more clear: If an employee violates this policy, they are subject to discipline up to and including termination, the memo read.

Speaking to CNBC, Kirby reiterated that flying is one of the safest environments that you can be in indoors.

It's not like being in a restaurant or an office building or even a hospital for that matter, he said, citing the companys new enhanced ventilation system aboard its aircraft that was unveiled this week.

United, Delta and all other major U.S. carriers require passengers to wear masks during flights, however the policy has been inconsistently enforced

The only passengers excluded from Uniteds policy are children under two-years-old. Any adult other passengers who believe they have an extraordinary circumstance to justify not wearing a mask are told to contact airline representatives before flying

The mask policy will apply at ticket counters, lounges, gates and baggage areas across the 360 airports worldwide where United operates

Delta also warned that any customers whom insist on not wearing a face covering will be instructed to find another airline to fly with

Kirbys comments followed similar sentiments shared by Delta CEO Ed Bastian, who also reiterated his airlines policies regarding Facemasks.

Speaking with Willie Geist, Bastian said that Delta has been steadily and rather aggressively stepping up enforcement of it mask policy to keep its crew and passengers safe amid the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic.

You cannot board a Delta plane unless you have a mask on, he said. If you board the plane and you insist on not wearing your mask, we will insist that you don't fly Delta into the future.

Bastian says the airline has already placed more than 100 customers on its blacklist, preventing them from booking with Delta in the future.

On Monday, Delta announced that any passengers claiming to have an underlying health condition that prevents them from wearing a mask must be medically cleared at the airport or consider a different mode of transport.

We implemented a new procedure this week because we've had some customers indicate that they have underlying condition that makes wearing a mask dangerous for them, Bastian said. We've told them that you may not want to fly, to reconsider whether air travel is the right form of transportation.

Deltas Clearance-to-Fly procedure involves a screening conducted in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and STAT-MD, a physician service that provides consulting to airlines.

The process could take more than an hour, and anyone found to be falsifying claims of a disability or health condition to obtain a mask exemption could be suspended from flying with the airline indefinitely.

Delta CEO Bastian said that Delta has been steadily and rather aggressively stepping up enforcement of it mask policy to keep its crew and passengers safe amid the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, Delta announced that any passengers claiming to have an underlying health condition that prevents them from wearing a mask must be medically cleared at the airport or consider a different mode of transport.

A Delta Airline employee gives a face mask to a passenger during check in at the Ronald Reagan National Airport on July 22

A airport employee performs an aircraft disinfecting demonstration of a Delta flight

Bastian also highlighted other safety precautions like Delta planes being regularly sanitized and electrostatically fogged. He added all flights are booked out at 60 percent capacity and middle seats are blocked off to aid social distancing.

The flight experience today is really positive, he said. I know there's a lot of anxiety in the general public and even from road warriors who have been out flying for years. The first time back, there's a level of angst that they need to almost be walked through the process.

Airlines have been one of the hardest-hit industries during the coronavirus pandemic. Air travel plummeted earlier this year, but was slowly recovering before again beginning to stall in recent weeks as infections surged around the U.S.

About 530,000 people went through security checkpoints at U.S. airports on Tuesday, the lowest number in July other than the July 4 holiday.

On Tuesday, United reported a $1.6 billion loss during the normally strong second quarter, as revenue plunged 89 percent from the same period last year.

Delta has also been haemorrhaging money during the pandemic. The company was losing $100 million a day in March and later reduced to $27 million a day in June.

We need demand to come back, Bastian said. I don't know if government assistance is the answer. What we really need is a vaccine, we need some medical confidence back in consumers and to continue to restore confidence in air travel.
The New York Times

Executives from four companies in the race to produce a coronavirus vaccine  AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna Therapeutics and Pfizer  told lawmakers on Tuesday that they are optimistic their products could be ready by the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. All four companies are testing vaccines in human clinical trials.

Three of the firms  AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna  are getting federal funds for their vaccine development efforts. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson pledged to the lawmakers that they would produce hundreds of millions of doses of their vaccines at no profit to themselves. Moderna, however, which has been granted $483 million from the government to develop its product, made no such promise.

We will not sell it at cost, said Dr. Stephen Hoge, the president of Moderna.

Many Democratic lawmakers have argued that federal funding for vaccine development should include provisions to guarantee affordability and guard against profiteering.

At the congressional hearing Tuesday, some House members raised concerns about Pfizers decision to reject federal funds, suggesting it could lead to price-gouging and a lack of transparency.

We didnt accept the federal government funding solely for the reason that we wanted to be able to move as quickly as possible with our vaccine candidate into the clinic, said John Young, Pfizers chief business officer.

Well price our potential vaccine consistent with the urgent global health emergency that were facing, Young said, adding that a vaccine is meaningless if people are unable to afford it.

Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., also questioned whether failing to address the financial stakes of vaccine development early on could keep these products out of the hands of the people that need this most.

I dont want to look back, and then have health equity be an afterthought, said Ruiz, who is a physician. It has to be prioritized.

The hearing held by members of the House energy committees oversight panel was punctuated by notes of optimism from executives from each company, several of whom referred to promising early results from studies in people. On Monday, AstraZeneca and Pfizer released data indicating that their vaccines could stimulate strong immune responses with only minor side effects.

Still, the actual effectiveness and durability of these responses against the virus have yet to be determined. No vaccine candidates have been proven effective for preventing infection by the coronavirus, or for protecting people from the severe effects of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Panel members pressed the company executives for a commitment to maintain the highest standards for a vaccine, and not sacrifice quality for the sake of expediency. An ideal vaccine, several committee members stressed, would not only be safe and effective, but also be straightforward enough to manufacture en masse and available to the public at low cost.

It is possible that a COVID-19 vaccine may become available by the end of this year or early next year, said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., the panels chair. Thats a rare bit of good news in this harrowing time.

But, she added, we must remind ourselves that plenty can still go wrong. And so the anticipated timeline is not guaranteed.

A fifth contender, Merck, painted a far less rosy picture of the vaccine development landscape. Dr. Julie Gerberding, the companys executive vice president and chief patient officer, made no promises about when its product would be ready, citing concerns about safety should the process be rushed. We do not expect to be able to accelerate the safety assessment, Gerberding said.

Mercks chief executive, Kenneth Frazier, has previously cautioned against coronavirus vaccine hype and warned that a hurried approval process could damage prospects for protecting the public.

In a statement released on June 30, the Food and Drug Administration noted that any vaccine candidate vying for approval would need to prevent or ameliorate disease in at least 50% of the people who received it. Manufacturers wont have a good sense of these metrics until the completion of so-called Phase 3 clinical trials, which enroll thousands of participants  some of whom are vaccinated, some of whom arent  and track their infection status over the course of multiple months.

Federal approval isnt the only goal of vaccine development, the executives said. Once this milestone is met, the vaccines will still need to be administered widely and also be accessible to a range of populations  particularly those that have been disproportionately affected by the virus. Those would include the elderly, people with underlying medical conditions and Black, Latino and Native Americans.

In written statements to the panel, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer reaffirmed their commitment to diversity in their vaccine development pipelines to ensure that these vulnerable communities will also benefit from their products.

Dr. Macaya Douoguih, who is head of clinical development and medical affairs of Johnson & Johnsons Janssen Vaccines, said at the hearing that her company would be leveraging its past experience with community outreach, noting the importance of equipping higher-risk populations with accurate information about the disease.

And Hoge, of Moderna, said that his company is actively enrolling people representative of the diversity of America into Phase 3 trials.

The subcommittee also stressed the importance of worldwide distribution of any vaccines proven effective against the coronavirus to ensure global health.

None of us are safe until all of us are safe, Young said.

Katherine J. Wu. c.2020 The New York Times Company
The new development will feature 270,000 square feet of industrial space, including 7,000 square feet of office space; 32' ceilings; columns spaced at 50' x 50'; 6" concrete floors; sixteen truck docks, with an additional 30 knock-outs for future development; and the potential to accommodate a future rail spur. The property will include parking for more than 130 employees. The total investment is expected to be approximately $11 million. The developers expect to break ground later this summer and have the building ready for move-in by March 2021.

Industrial Partners USA is a joint venture between Clark Logic and Great Lakes Capital. Clark Logic, based in Portage, Michigan, provides warehousing, real estate management, and transportation & logistics services. Established in 1969, it owns 45 properties with more than 2 million square feet of space in Calhoun, Kalamazoo, and St. Joseph counties.

Greg Dilone, Jr., Vice President of Development at Clark Logic, said, "Our understanding of Southwest Michigan has been gained by building relationships with communities for the last 50 years. Given Battle Creek's location, workforce, and competitive costs, we believe there is a tremendous opportunity here. This is the first of three phases we have planned for the site. If we are successful, we will build two more buildings, creating an additional 500,000 square feet of industrial space."

Great Lakes Capital, of South Bend, Indiana, is a real estate private equity firm established in 2005. The company provides office, industrial, retail, medical office, multifamily and mixed-use space. The company's portfolio includes seven industrial spec buildings in northern Indiana, home to companies like Amazon, AM General, and Borg Warner.

Jeff Smoke, Managing Director and Principal at Great Lakes Capital, said, "This development will be a great complement to the Fort Custer Industrial Park. There is nothing like this property available in this region right now. With its easy access to the highway and high visibility along I-94, we expect that this project will attract a lot of attention from major national companies."

BCU President Joe Sobieralski explained, "There is a significant lack of industrial space in this region, which is driving investment to other markets. This project will meet the local demand for modern facilities. These types of investments have been proven time and time again to capture companies that go elsewhere due to lack of immediate availability and inventory in the market. An industrial building like this could easily support 100 to 200 jobs."

The property was owned by the Battle Creek Tax Increment Finance Authority (BCTIFA), which is managed by BCU. The BCTIFA acquired the property in 1997 and has since leased it for farmland.

ABOUT BATTLE CREEK UNLIMITED

Established in 1972, Battle Creek Unlimited (BCU) is a private, nonprofit corporation which serves as the economic development arm for the City of Battle Creek and manages the Fort Custer Industrial Park. The Fort Custer Industrial Park is home to over 80 businesses, including 25 international companies, and employs over 13,000 people. BCU's mission is to build a strong community by driving strategic investment and job creation.

SOURCE Battle Creek Unlimited
One US Marine has truly run out of patience for people who refuse to wear a mask during the pandemic after he 'finally' got home from being stationed overseas.

Timmy Byrnes, a 24-year-old aviation supply specialist with Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron (MALS) 12, took to TikTok this week to go on a rant against anti-maksers who whine about the discomfort of masks and moan about a lack of 'freedom.'

'To you ... geniuses who are like, "This is America, I have the freedom not to wear a mask"  it's called a dress code, Kevin!' the upstate New Yorker shouts in now-viral video, which has already racked up five million views across TIkTok and Twitter.

Timmy Byrnes, a 24-year-old from upstate New York, posted a rant on TikTok

An aviation supply specialist with Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 12, he was stationed in Japan for two-and-a-half years before the pandemic hit

Byrnes, who was stationed in Japan for two-and-a-half years, appears furious to have come home from protecting American freedom abroad only to find that his countrymen can't make such a simple sacrifice during a worldwide pandemic.

In a video recorded from the driver's seat of a front car while wearing his uniform, he urges viewers to wear a mask.

'But it's hard to breathe,' he whines, imitating objections he has heard to mask-wearing.

'Have you ever had to wear this f***ing noose?' he asks, pulling up what looks a like military-issued scarf over his face.

'Notice how you don't really understand me?' he goes, demonstrating how he has to pull the fabric away to make his voice clearer.

'Don't get me started on this ball of fun,' he adds sarcastically, gesturing to a photo of him in full uniform, including a gas mask.

Just do it! He is frustrated with people who refuse to wear masks and mocks their whining and complaints

Try this! He pointed to much more cumbersome gear he's worn in the Marines, chastising people not to be 'beta b****es'

'You're gonna be fine,' he tells viewers. 'Stop being a little beta b***.'

He continues his impassioned speech, pointing out that mask-wearing rules are just a simple dress code: something that nearly every public and private place has to some degree.

'The 7-11 also requires you to wear a shirt,' he says. 'So I don't have to explain to the kid I'm babysitting why a crackhead-looking Santa has bigger t****es than his ma.'

'I've been oversees for two and a half years  Japan, not anywhere f***ing dangerous, I'm a POG  and I finally get back to America just in time for it to shut down!' he yells.

'And you idiots are making it shut down longer! It's a piece of cloth!' he concludes.

Grow up! Byrnes noted that even 7-11 has a dress code, which is what the mask requirement is

Popular: Byrnes's charismatic video has taken off across social media users, with viewers on Twitter applauding him as 'hilarious' and 'amazing'

Byrnes's charismatic video has taken off across social media users, with viewers on Twitter applauding him as 'hilarious' and 'amazing.'

'He is a complete mood. I screamed and then fell out. He is tired of people's [poop emoji],' wrote one.

'I'd like to buy that Marine a drink,' said another.

On Tuesday, the United States recorded just over 1,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day for the first time since May  with 58 per cent of the fatalities being reported in hotspot southern states.

The increase in daily deaths on Tuesday marked the first time fatalities have surpassed the 1,000 mark since May 29 when 1,179 were recorded.

The US reported more than 900 COVID-19 deaths on multiple days last week.

The increase in daily deaths on Tuesday marked the first time fatalities have surpassed the 1,000 mark in the United States since May 29 when 1,179 were recorded

Of the deaths recorded on Tuesday, 58%, or 592 fatalities, occurred in the South, where coronavirus has been spiking since at least Memorial Day

There has been an uptick in deaths, on average, across the US since the beginning of July after hotspots states including Florida, Texas, and Arizona saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations.

Of the deaths recorded on Tuesday, 58 per cent  or 592 fatalities  occurred in the South. where coronavirus has been spiking since at least Memorial Day, according to COVID Tracking Project data.

Twenty four per cent, or 252 deaths, occurred in the West where Arizona and California are currently experiencing surges.

Meanwhile, the Northeast region, where New York and its surrounding states were the initial epicenter of the nation's outbreak, accounted for six percent of Tuesday's death toll.

More than 142,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19 across the country and over 3.9 million people have tested positive for the virus.

In total, deaths across the United States increased 5% in the week ending July 19, compared to the previous seven days

The US also reported over 460,000 new coronavirus cases last week, up nearly 15% from the prior week. Nationally, new COVID-19 cases have risen for seven straight weeks

The number of infections across the country are now on track to reach four million within the next two weeks. In the past week, the average number of daily cases has been 66,000. Based on that trajectory, cases will increase by one million in two weeks.

Until recently, the number of deaths per day from COVID-19 had been falling for months even as the hotspot states experienced huge daily surges in cases.

Health officials have been warning for weeks that deaths would surge again because the fatality rate lags several weeks behind infections. A coronavirus death, when it occurs, typically comes several weeks after a person is first infected. Experts had predicted states that saw spikes in cases and hospitalizations would, at some point, see deaths rise too.

In total, deaths across the United States increased five percent in the week ending July 19, compared to the previous seven days, according to a Reuters analysis of the COVID Tracking Project data.

Nineteen states have reported increases in deaths for at least two straight weeks, including Arizona, Florida and Texas.
A journalist from Uttar Pradesh, who was shot in Ghaziabad near Delhi by unknown persons on Monday, died on Wednesday morning at a hospital.

The journalist, identified as Vikram Joshi, was attacked while he was returning from his sister's place on a motorcycle with his two daughters when a group of men opened fire at him.

Joshi received a bullet injury on his head and was in a critical condition at city's Yashoda Hospital, reported ANI.

Senior Superintendent of Police Kalanidhi Naithani said nine persons have been arrested, including two main accused  Ravi and Chotu. He added that an illegal weapon was also seized from their possession, ANI reported. Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said the chief minister has announced an ex gratia of Rs 10 lakh for the family of the deceased and a job for his wife.

Visuals of the attack were captured in CCTV footage of a road in Ghaziabad's Vijay Nagar area, where the attack took place. Nine people have been arrested in connection with a case.

The journalists nephew said that they would not accept his uncle's body until the main accused are arrested.

Some boys including Kamal-ud-Dins son used to eve-tease my sister. It was her birthday when the incident occurred. My uncle was coming home with her when Kamal-ud-Dins son attacked him and shot him. We'll not accept my uncle's body till main accused is caught, the nephew was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched an attack on the state government over the incident and said that the promise of 'Ram Raj' was given to the people but 'Gunda Raj' was delivered instead.

"Journalist Vikram Joshi was killed for protesting against the harassment of his niece. My condolences to the bereaved family. The promise was of 'Ram Raj' but 'Gunda Raj has been given,'" Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

                         ,    Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 22, 2020

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the killing raises many questions about the law and order situation and added that the journalist's killers must be punished.

                                     Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) July 22, 2020

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra slammed the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over the incident and said that'jungle raj' was increasing in the state.

"Journalist Vikram Joshi was shot in front of his daughter for opposing harassment of his niece. He died today. 'Jungle Raj' has increased in UP that after complaining, the common man is afraid of criminals. On the issue of crime, the BJP government has failed like the previous governments," Priyanka Gandhi wrote in a tweet in Hindi.

                                                           Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) July 22, 2020

Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi termed the incident as shocking and added that there was a lack of fear of law and order. Shocking jungle raaj in #Ghaziabad area with journalist #Joshi, already known as complainant in #FIR, being shot on scooter while with his daughters, struggling in coma with bullet in skull! Thank God daughters not hit. Shocking, scary, disgusting lack of fear of law & order! #UP, Singhvi wrote on Twitter.

Shocking jungle raaj in #Ghaziabad area with journalist #Joshi, already known as complainant in #FIR, being shot on scooter while with his daughters, struggling in coma with bullet in skull! Thank God daughters not hit. Shocking, scary, disgusting lack of fear of law & order! #UP Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) July 22, 2020

BSP chief Mayawati, in a tweet in Hindi, said that the manner in which serious crimes, including murders, were continuing in Uttar Pradesh, it has become clear that "Jungle Raj" and not law is governing the state. She added that the government should pay attention to this.

                                                        Mayawati (@Mayawati) July 22, 2020

AAP leader Sanjay Singh said that it was saddening to see that even seeking justice had become a crime in Uttar Pradesh.

"Journalist Vikram Joshi sought help from the police two hours before the incident but the SO did not help him and goons shot him in front of his daughters. May Vikram Joshi's soul rest in peace," Singh tweeted in Hindi.

In the CCTV footage of the incident, Joshi's bike can be seen veering when suddenly in no time, a group of men surround the vehicle and begin hitting him. The two children started to run away the moment the bike fell.

Joshi was then dragged towards a car and the accused started to beat him before fleeing the spot, following which Joshi's daughter came running towards him, screaming for help.

The incident took place days after Joshi filed a complaint with Vijay Nagar Police Station stating that some men were harassing his niece.
Queensland MP Bob Katter has teamed up with suspended University of Queensland student Drew Pavlou to call for a parliamentary inquiry into foreign influence on Australian universities.

Mr Katter said he had the numbers to get a motion through at the next federal parliamentary sitting and assign the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to carry out the inquiry.

The Kennedy electorate of Katter's Australia Party MP Bob Katter covers a large part of north Queensland. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"I'm very confident we've got the numbers for a proper inquiry here, there are a lot of people in Canberra that are sick of this," he said in Brisbane on Wednesday.

In July last year at UQ's St Lucia campus, Chinese Communist Party supporters clashed with people protesting against the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghur Muslims and Hong Kong citizens.
TORONTO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. (TSX: CF) is scheduled to release its first quarter results and supplementary financial information on Wednesday, August 5, 2020 after TSX market close. Interested investors, the media and other stakeholders may review the earnings release and supplementary financial information at www.cgf.com/investor-relations/investor-resources/financial-reports/

QUARTERLY CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST:

Interested parties are invited to listen to Canaccord Genuity's first quarter results conference call via live webcast or a toll-free number. The conference call is scheduled for Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time, 5:00 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 p.m. UK time, 8:00 p.m. China Standard Time, and 10:00 p.m. Australia EST. During the call, senior executives will comment on the results and respond to questions from analysts and institutional investors.

The conference call may be accessed live and will also be archived on a listen-only basis at: www.cgf.com/investor-relations/news-and-events/conference-calls-and-webcasts/

Analysts and institutional investors can call in via telephone at:

647-427-7450 (within Toronto )

) 1-888-231-8191 (toll free outside Toronto )

) 0-800-051-7107 (toll free from the United Kingdom )

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Please ask to participate in the Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. Q1/21 results call. If a passcode is requested, please use 5558518.

A replay of the conference call will be made available from approximately two hours after the live call on August 6, 2020 until October 6, 2020 at 416-849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056 by entering passcode 5558518 followed by the (#) key.

ABOUT CANACCORD GENUITY GROUP INC.:

Through its principal subsidiaries, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. (the "Company") is a leading independent, full-service financial services firm, with operations in two principal segments of the securities industry: wealth management and capital markets. Since its establishment in 1950, the Company has been driven by an unwavering commitment to building lasting client relationships. We achieve this by generating value for our individual, institutional and corporate clients through comprehensive investment solutions, brokerage services and investment banking services. The Company has Wealth Management offices located in Canada, the UK, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Australia. The Company's international capital markets division operates in North America, UK & Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. is publicly traded under the symbol CF on the TSX.

Investor and media relations inquiries: Christina Marinoff, Vice President, Investor Relations & Communications, Phone: 416-687-5507, Email: cmarinoff@cgf.com, www.cgf.com/investor-relations
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has indicated that they will respond to the fictitious claims of some 60 achievements of President Akufo-Addo government in the area of youth empowerment.

This follows comments by the National Youth Organizer of the ruling NPP, Henry Nana Boakye, popularly knowns as Nana B who was speaking at the fifth edition of the Youth Must Know series in Kumasi last week, listed youth empowerment achievements under the current government which he stressed beats what the erstwhile Mahama government did for the youth in the country.

In a Facebook post of Edem Agbana who is the Deputy National Youth Organizer of the NDC, he noted that all the claims will be addressed when the Electoral Commission ends its voter registration exercise next month.

..After the ongoing voters registration exercise, which is the topmost priority of the NDC youth at the moment, we shall on 10th August, 2020 respond to the fictitious claims and so-called achievements being peddled by the SUB-STANDARD National Youth Organizer of the NPP, Henry Nana Boakye, relative to the youth empowerment record of the failed NPP/Akufo Addo-government, he wrote.

According to him, the NDC Youth will establish with incontrovertible and indisputable facts, the towering and unparalleled achievements of the Mahama administration to underline why the youth in the country must reject President Akufo-Addo in the 2020 General Elections.

Read Edem Agbanas post on Facebook below:

NOTICE IS HEREBY SERVED, that after the ongoing voters registration exercise, which is the topmost priority of the NDC youth at the moment, we shall on 10th August, 2020 respond to the fictitious claims and so-called achievements being peddled by the SUB-STANDARD National Youth Organizer of the NPP, Henry Nana Boakye, relative to the youth empowerment record of the failed NPP/Akufo Addo-government.

We shall establish with incontrovertible and indisputable facts, the towering and unparalleled achievements of the NDC for the youth of this country, as well as our superior Policy alternatives for youth empowerment. And above all, demonstrate why the youth of this country must reject DISHONEST and CORRUPT Akufo Addo and vote for the visionary John Dramani Mahama in the upcoming December Polls.

Until then, all NDC youth are entreated to defy the intimidation tactics of the oppressive Akufo Addo-government and continue mobilizing the rank and file of the great NDC to register in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

Comrade Edem Agbana

#RescueMission
WASHINGTON - Ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, already laicized and the subject of a Vatican investigation, is accused in a newly filed lawsuit of orchestrating the abuse of boys by other clerics at his New Jersey beach house in the early 1980s.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday evening in New Jersey Superior Court by a man who says he was abused by McCarrick, a former District of Columbia archbishop and until recently one of the country's best-connected and influential Catholic clerics; and five other New Jersey clerics when the victim was between 11 and 16 years old. Four of them did so at the beach house, the suit alleges, when McCarrick was bishop of Metuchen, N.J.

The suit alleges that the boy needed money to pay for his Catholic education, and that one cleric - who had already sexually abused the boy - told him he needed to talk to "the boss," then introduced him to McCarrick, who allegedly began abusing him.

McCarrick, who was defrocked in 2019, has been accused of sexual misconduct with at least seven minors, according to three individuals who spoke to The Washington Post for a report in October. One of the individuals is an accuser, one of five who are represented by the same attorney. The second is Camille Biros, who is a member of the independent reconciliation and compensation board set up by the New York Archdiocese. The third, who has direct knowledge of all the claims U.S. church officials sent to the Vatican for its investigation, spoke on the condition of anonymity because canon law forbids unauthorized people to speak about internal cases.

The Vatican said in defrocking McCarrick that he had been credibly accused of sexually harassing seminarians and young priests.

The accuser in this week's lawsuit is coming forward for the first time, said his attorney, Jeffrey Anderson. His name is not included in the lawsuit, and The Washington Post usually does not publish the names of alleged victims of sexual misconduct without their permission.

Pope Francis in October 2018 launched an investigation into McCarrick and how he rose to such prominence even as rumors and reports to church higher-ups of sexual misconduct streamed in for decades. Anderson said the new accuser has spoken to Vatican investigators for that ongoing probe.

McCarrick's civil attorney, Barry Coburn, declined to comment Wednesday. McCarrick, in limited comments he has made since being suspended in 2018, has said he did nothing wrong.

The suit accuses the dioceses of Metuchen and Newark - which oversees Metuchen and where the other accused clerics were based - as well as various schools and parishes within those dioceses of failing to protect children in their youth programs.

The dioceses "knew or should have known that it had numerous agents who had sexually molested children," the suit says.

The accused clerics aside from McCarrick are: the Rev. Anthony Nardino, Brother Andrew Thomas Hewitt, the Rev. Gerald Ruane, the Rev. Michael Walters and the Rev. John Laferrera. They were priests in Newark. None could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Ruane, Walters and Laferrera are on Newark's list of credibly accused clerics. Hewitt and Ruane are deceased, the list says. Hewitt is on the list of credibly accused clerics from the Christian Brothers, the order to which he belonged, according to a ProPublica investigation of accused clerics. Hewitt was the boy's principal at the time the abuse occurred, the suit alleges.

Nardino left the priesthood and there is a separate, additional claim against him of minor abuse, Anderson said. Walters and Laferrera were removed from the priesthood, Newark's list says.

The dioceses of Metuchen and Newark declined to comment specifically on the lawsuit, which a Metuchen representative said officials there had not seen. Both said they were committed to victims, prevention, resolution and closure.
CHICAGO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ten top industry executives in the convenience-store industry will participate in CSP's groundbreaking digital-based Outlook Leadership Community.

The executives, whose chains include five of the 20 largest operations in the c-store sector, are participating individually in a video feature called "Talks from the Top," moderated by CSP Vice President of Retailer Relations Mitch Morrison.

The bi-weekly series launches Aug. 4 and will cover a wide range of topics, including the impact of COVID-19 on brick-and-mortar retail, innovation in customer engagement, challenges and opportunities in foodservice and the fuel island, race relations in the midst of Black Lives Matter, and much more. The lineup includes exclusive conversations with:

Polly Flinn , Executive Vice President and President GetGo Cafe+Market, Giant Eagle

, Executive Vice President and President GetGo Cafe+Market, Giant Eagle Jim Forsyth , CEO, FKG Oil/MotoMart

, CEO, FKG Oil/MotoMart Scott Hartman , President and CEO, Rutter's Farm Stores

, President and CEO, Rutter's Farm Stores Chris Jones , Chief Marketing Officer, Casey's General Stores

, Chief Marketing Officer, Casey's General Stores Tanner Krause , President, Kum & Go

, President, Kum & Go Kevin Lewis , Chief Marketing Officer, Alimentation Couche-Tard (Circle K)

, Chief Marketing Officer, Alimentation Couche-Tard (Circle K) Natalie Morhous , President, RaceTrac

, President, RaceTrac Simon Richards , President & CEO, Thorntons

, President & CEO, Thorntons Joe Sheetz , CEO, Sheetz Inc.

, CEO, Sheetz Inc. Blackie Wills , Executive Vice President, Dash In, convenience division of The Wills Group

"With executives from retail powerhouses to the roster of impressive midsize outfits, 'Talks from the Top' will explore the vision and tactics that make each company so unique," said Morrison. "In 30 minutes, viewers will gain critical insights and strategic takeaways necessary to compete in a beleaguered retail landscape, where businesses are closing every week."

The Outlook Leadership Community platform will provide more than 30 educational webinars, interviews with key industry retailers, networking discussion boards and new product information. The community is free to join for retailers and will be live Aug. 4 to Dec. 14.

To learn more about Outlook Leadership Community: https://outlookleadership.com/

Contact: Amanda Buehner, [email protected]

About Winsight, LLC

Winsight, LLC is a business-to-business information company serving the restaurant and noncommercial foodservice, convenience and petroleum retailing and grocery industries. Winsight provides research and analytics, branding solutions, face-to-face opportunities, lead generation initiatives, and content marketing services through products including subscription data products, reports, research tools, research programs, fully custom studies, conferences, custom marketing services, meetings, print and digital trade media.

To learn more, www.winsightmedia.com.

SOURCE Winsight, LLC


New Delhi/Washington: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday pitched India as a trustworthy and open business partner for the United States (US), seeking American investments in areas ranging from agriculture to health care to defence in a bid to boost economic recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

PM Modi also portrayed India as a perfect combination of openness, opportunities and options, said India had what was needed to power the global recovery post the pandemic, suggested that India and the US could together help the world recover, and reiterated that Indias domestic campaign for self-reliance would aid this process.

The PMs comments, while delivering the keynote address at the India Ideas Summit organised by the US India Business Council (USIBC), come in the backdrop of increased tensions of both US and India with China, for different reasons, and a search by global businesses with bases in China for alternative investment destinations.

The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale. And a rise in your returns on investment with the availability of skilled human resources, he said. Experts suggest that the PMs emphasis on trust and openness is a clear attempt to contrast India with China.

The PM referred to his governments efforts over the past six years to make Indias economy more open and reform-oriented and to ensure increased competitiveness, enhanced transparency, expanded digitisation, greater innovation and policy stability. Indias opportunities, he noted, could help power the global economic recovery.

Describing India and the US as natural partners, Modi said: Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic. American investors often look out for the perfect timing to enter a sector or a country. To them, I would like to say: there has never been a better time to invest in India.

The approach to the future, the PM also said, must be a more human-centric one while focusing on resilience against external shocks, the lack of which was exposed by the pandemic. He referred to his governments efforts to increase self-reliance in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, saying, Global economic resilience can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities. This means improved domestic capacity for manufacturing, restoring the health of the financial system and diversification of international trade. The PM claimed that through the self-reliant campaign, India was contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world.

Modis invitation to US business was in line with his efforts to pitch India as a trade and investment destination during the recent India-EU Summit and to build alternative supply and trade chains at a time of the heightened tensions with China following a months-long border standoff.

He invited US businesses to invest in technology while pointing out that India has half-a-billion connected people, while an equal number are in the process of being connected. He also cited a recent report to claim that there were more Indians connected in rural areas than in urban areas. There were opportunities in front-line technologies such as 5G, big data analytics, quantum computing, block-chain and internet of things, he said.

He also sought investments in agriculture, health care, energy, infrastructure, civil aviation, finance and insurance, and defence and space. Indias food processing sector is expected to be worth more than half a trillion dollars by 2025, while the health care sector is growing at more than 22% every year, he noted.

US firms can tap opportunities in Indias efforts to moves toward a gas-based economy and in clean energy, while the number of air travels is expected to more than double within the next eight years and the countrys private airlines plan to induct more than 1,000 new aircraft over the next decade.

This is a huge opportunity for any investor who chooses to set up manufacturing facilities in India, which can become a base for supplying regional markets, Modi said.

Turning to space and defence, he said: We are raising the FDI cap for investment in the defence sector to 74%. India has established two defence corridors to encourage production of defence equipment and platforms. We offer special incentives for private and foreign investors.

FDI flows into India during 2019-20 were worth $74 billion, an increase of 20% percent from the year before, Modi said, adding USIBC had informed him that the pledged investment from the US has crossed $40 billion this year. Amid the pandemic, India attracted foreign investments worth more than $20 billion between April and July, he added.

The annual value of India-US trade has jumped to $140 billion and the Modi government has taken steps to increase the purchase of oil and gas from the US in recent years. However, the two sides were unable to bridge differences on key issues such as market access and tariffs to stitch together a mini trade deal in time for US President Donald Trumps visit in February.

Efforts are believed to be underway to conclude this mini trade deal before the US presidential elections at the end of the year.
Welcome back to Tech Chronicle. If you want to read something thats positively nontoxic, consider subscribing to this fine newsletter.

Ever since people figured out how to transmute Silicon Valleys home-brewed inventions into stock-market gold, there has been a steady business in monetizing Northern Californian optimism.

Technology is the cure for what ails you, and all you have to do is believe in its transformative power, or so the pitch goes.

Forget your troubles.

Come on, get happy!

Never mind that Judy Garland sang that particular anthem at a time in her life when she was particularly miserable. Or that the lyrics are about preparing yourself to meet your maker.

Actually, thats all quite fitting for Silicon Valleys obsession with disruption and destruction of the existing order and evangelical embrace of the new. Its better on the other side of the river, we promise!

Yes, theres some salesmanship involved in bringing new technology to the market, and some optimism required to found or fund a startup. But in recent years, thats become its own kind of orthodoxy, where the only appropriate response to new technology, according to the insiders of Silicon Valley, is cheerleading. Criticism of technology isnt viewed as rational skepticism by those for whom innovation has become a religion; its heresy.

Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle 2015

There are signs of this toxic positivity everywhere. Take Theranos Elizabeth Holmes, who dismissed whistle-blowers and journalists exposing her blood-testing fraud: First they think youre crazy, then they fight you, then you change the world. This was shortly before the company fell apart under scrutiny.

Or Tesla CEO Elon Musks insistence that the undeniable environmental benefits of electric cars justify just about any of the questionable moves hes pulled over the years. (Musk once told me he wouldnt answer any of my questions about Tesla because I wasnt sufficiently interested in painting a positive portrait of the company.)

Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty Images 2019

Clap along, if you feel like happiness is the truth. (Other options are not presented.)

Theres a name for this that has recently emerged: toxic positivity, an insistence on happiness that is hurtful because it denies real causes for negative feelings. In Silicon Valley, this expresses itself as an always-be-hustling attitude; an embrace of growth hacking by any means necessary; ceremonious ostracism of doubters; and a conflation of mission and meaning.

Keeping your chin up is one thing. But forcing a smile on yourself or others is something technologists should reject. What we need now is radical pragmatism, not techno-utopianism.

Lets remember our troubles, and others, and get real about them. Maybe then well have something to get happy about.

 Owen Thomas, othomas@sfchronicle.com

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Quote of the week

No one knows what the future holds. The immediate response was that wed come out V-shaped, then U-shaped. Now everyone is being honest and saying we dont know.  Austin Chamber of Commerce executive Leigh Christie, to Marker on the prospects for a tech recovery

Coming up

The CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are being called to testify before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee on Monday.

What Im reading

Shannen Balogh on eBay and PayPals payments split. (Business Insider)

Dominic Fracassa on San Franciscos new business-tax compromise, which would not spare tech. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Skylar Woodhouse and Ben Brody on new lobbying spending records set by Facebook and Amazon. (Bloomberg News)

Tech Chronicle is a weekly newsletter from Owen Thomas, The Chronicles business editor, and the rest of the tech team. Follow along on Twitter: @techchronicle and Instagram: @techchronicle
Omni-channel campaign is rooted in a commitment to the care and comfort of guests, drawing on Loews dedication to intuitive service, authenticity and familial hospitality



(TRAVPR.COM) USA - July 21st, 2020 - NEW YORK (July 21, 2020)  Today, Loews Hotels draws on its core differentiator to affirm its position as one of the nations leading hotel companies with Welcoming You Like Family, a dynamic multi-channel brand campaign, utilizing video, photography, digital experience platforms and on-property touchpoints, which defines Loews as more than simply a collection of hotels, but a brand deeply rooted in welcoming and caring for guests like family.

In 2019 we began the process to identify a much-needed opportunity to define a new brand message that captured what makes Loews Hotels different, said Jonathan Tisch, Chairman & CEO, Loews Hotels & Co. Welcoming you like family clearly defines the brand and what our hotels do best, which is care for guests just like we care for our own family. While deeply ingrained in our DNA, this message resonates now more than ever in the age of COVID-19, and there couldnt be a better time to stand behind what makes Loews unique in the industry.

The new campaign, which has been under development for more than a year, captures the powerful feeling of belonging, familiarity and comfort that characterizes the Loews guest experience. More than a brand campaign, Welcoming You Like Family is a philosophy that guides service and operations and unites the 26 Loews hotels and resorts across the U.S. now and for years to come.

The Welcoming You Like Family brand message stemmed from a positioning exercise Loews Hotels conducted through internal stakeholder interviews, external focus groups and a multi-disciplinary internal workshop. The findings led to the conclusion that what ultimately differentiated the Loews brand was its commitment to caring for guests just like family.

Loews Hotels partnered with creative and branding agency, Winkreative, for additional insights gathering, conceptualization, execution and production to bring the new campaign to life. The rollout of Welcoming You Like Family includes a comprehensive advertising campaign, refreshed visual identity and omni-channel marketing activation, including the Loews website, hotel rooms and social media networks. On property the campaign is further reflected as part of the new normal with signage and touchpoints throughout hotels to safely, and warmly, guide guests through their stay.

Now, more than ever, as travel resumes, travelers want to feel safe, protected and cared for, just as they would at home, or when visiting family. What makes the guest experience at Loews properties particularly special is that Loews team members are empowered to provide unscripted, familial service, further illustrated through campaign taglines such as a smile that says youre home and the space to be yourself.

Welcoming You Like Family illustrates that it is the people behind the Loews brand that bring this new brand message to life and thus Loews team members are featured throughout the campaign creative, including within video and photography assets. Visuals that illustrate Welcoming You Like Family include a grandfather and his granddaughter playing chess, children jumping on the bed and a Loews team member welcoming a four-legged guest  scenes that are imbued with the familiarity and pleasures of home, yet take place at a Loews hotel. Photographer Patrick Michael Chin was engaged for the campaign imagery.

At Loews, we understand that the future of travel is contingent on how hospitality brands make guests feel, said Sarah Murov, Vice President, Communication & Brand, Loews Hotels & Co. While important, guest comfort needs to go beyond simply communicating cleaning protocols and statistics. Brands need to find a way to connect with their guests and ensure that a human element to travel remains, even in our currently physically distanced world. Through Welcoming You Like Family we aim to do just that.

Additionally Welcoming you Like Family will become the name of the companys new and enhanced protocols and standards. On property the campaign is further reflected as part of the new normal.

View Welcoming You Like Family brand assets here.

For reservations or more information about Loews Hotels, call 1-800-23 LOEWS or visit www.loewshotels.com.

#####

About Loews Hotels & Co

Established 1960

Headquartered in New York City, Loews Hotels & Co is rooted in deep heritage and excellence in service. The hospitality company encompasses branded independent Loews Hotels, and a solid mix of partner-brand hotels. Loews Hotels & Co owns and/or operates 26 hotels and resorts across the U.S. and Canada, including the new Loews Kansas City and the soon to open Universals Endless Summer Resort  Dockside Inn and Suites, the eighth hotel in partnership with Comcast NBC Universal, which will open in Summer 2020. Located in major city centers and resort destinations from coast to coast, the Loews Hotels portfolio features properties grounded in family heritage and dedicated to delivering unscripted guest moments with a handcrafted approach. For reservations or more information about Loews Hotels, call 1-800-23-LOEWS or visit: www.loewshotels.com.

Like Loews Hotels on Facebook: www.facebook.com/LoewsHotels

Follow Loews Hotels on Twitter: www.twitter.com/loews_hotels

Watch Loews Hotels on YouTube: www.youtube.com/LoewsHotels

Read our Wish You Were Here Blog at www.loewshotelsblog.com

Media Contact:

bread & Butter

LoewsHotels@wearebreadandbutter.com

###
WASHINGTON - Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced Wednesday that the U.S. has signed a contract with Pfizer for delivery in December of the first 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical company is working to develop.

The U.S. could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement, Azar said.

Now those would, of course, have to be safe and effective and be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Azar said during an appearance on Fox News.

Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE announced separately that the agreement is with HHS and the Defence Department for a vaccine candidate the companies are developing jointly.

The agreement is part of President Donald Trumps Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, under which multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously. The program aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021, according to HHS.

Under the initiative, the government will speed development and buy vaccines  before they are deemed safe and effective  so that the medication can be in hand and quickly distributed once the FDA approves or authorizes its emergency use.

Pfizer and BioNTech said the U.S. will pay $1.95 billion upon receipt of the first 100 million doses, following FDA authorization or approval.

Azar said the contract with Pfizer and BioNTech brings to five the number of potential coronavirus vaccines that are under development.

Trump said Tuesday at a briefing that the vaccines are coming, and theyre coming a lot sooner than anyone thought possible, by years.

But other countries are also scrambling to get their hands on a vaccine for COVID-19, which has killed more than 617,000 people, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Nearly 4 million Americans have been infected by the new coronavirus and at least 142,000 have died from COVID-19, the disease it causes, according to Johns Hopkins.

Britain announced Monday it had secured access to another 90 million experimental COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and others, a move some campaigners warned could worsen a global scramble by rich countries to hoard the worlds limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

Nearly two dozen potential vaccines are in various stages of human testing worldwide, with a handful entering necessary late-stage testing to prove effectiveness.
Hollywood songstress Katy Perry, who is expecting her first child with actor Orlando Bloom, recently reacted to the rumours which stated that Jennifer Aniston would be the godmother to their baby. In an interview with a news daily, Katy Perry spoke about the situation and remarked that Jennifer Aniston was shocked about the rumours and had left a text message to Katy Perry to get some clarification about the same. Adding to the same, Katy Perry remarked that she and her husband, Orlando Bloom are still friends with the actor and called the rumour wild and fun.

Also Read | Unseen Pic Of The Day: 'FRIENDS' Fame Jennifer Aniston's 'then' & 'now' Pic Is Unmissable

No Godmother yet!

Katy Perry also remarked that she had no idea where the rumour came from. In an interview with a daily, Orlando Bloom, who is known for his work in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, spoke about the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and revealed that the outbreak has planted hindrances in his wedding plans with Katy. The actor, who is reportedly planning a destination wedding with Katy in Japan, confirmed that the pandemic is definitely a factor in whether or not they will go forth with their original date. If the reports are to be believed, Katy was very unhappy to have postponed the date of her big day. However, it was also reported that Katy told her friends and family that they might do something private at home and then have a big celebration in Japan when the COVID situation calms down across the globe.

Also Read | Jennifer Aniston's Golden Globes Nominated Movies & Series That Cannot Be Missed

On the professional front

Katy Perry recently made it to the news when she dropped the cover art of her upcoming album, Smile, which debuts on August 14, with the title track releasing this Friday. It seems like Katy Perry has adopted the carnival theme for the covert art, as the songstress is seen resting her chin on her palms as she dons a round, red clown's nose. Katy Perry is also seen sporting a blue-and-white checkered outfit and pinkish-blonde hair styled up. Take a look at the post shared by Katy Perry:

Also Read | Jennifer Aniston On Being Typecast As Rachel From FRIENDS: 'It Was Terrifying'

As per reports, Katy and Orlando first started dating in 2016 but, separated off after being in a relationship for over a year. The couple got back together around five months later in August 2017 and announced their engagement in February 2019.

Also Read | Unseen Pic Of The Day: 'FRIENDS' Fame Jennifer Aniston's 'then' & 'now' Pic Is Unmissable

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The Congress on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after failing to kidnap democracy and topple the Rajasthan government.

The accusation came after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlots elder brother Agrasen Gehlots premises in the morning.

The people who sit in Delhi think that they can trample democracy and when they fail to kidnap democracy they use ED for raids. As soon as the BJP conspired to topple the government, they sent the income tax department and ED which raided Congress leaders Dharmendra Rathore and Rajeev Aroras places, Randeep Singh Surjewala, national spokesperson of the Congress told reporters.

The ED raided the house of Ashok Gehlots elder brother Agrasen Gehlot in Jodhpur just because he is the elder brother of the chief minister of the state. He has nothing to do with politics, Surjewala said.

On July 20 and July 21, the CBI questioned MLA Krishna Poonia who brought laurels for the country in the Olympics. Why is the BJP conspiring to topple the government, Yesterday chief ministers OSD Devaram Saini was also quizzed. The central leaders in BJP have given birth to raid raj (Raid Rule). BJP has become mentally bankrupt and they use these agencies when they fail but they should understand that people of Rajasthan who have a history of bravery and their elected MLAs will not bow down in front of them, Surjewala said.

The Congress has the BJP has been behind a campaign to lure away its MLAs to topple the Gehlot government.

The BJP hit back with deputy leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore saying that before making any allegations against the ED and Income tax department, Congress should look at what Rajasthans Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) and the Special Operations group (SOG) are doing.

What powers does the SOG have to arrest an MLA on the basis of recordings which have been leaked from CMs residence? Before making allegations on us they should know what they are doing in state, Rathore said.
Tracee Ellis Ross shared a number of stunning throwbacks from her luxurious vacation off the Italian coast, from July 2017.

In addition to sharing enviable snaps on a private cruise, the 47-year-old Black-ish star flaunted her taut figure in a strapless bikini top and barely-there bottoms to her nearly nine million Instagram followers on Tuesday.

As she posed up a storm on the yacht's deck, the beauty put her sun-kissed legs on full display and flashed a bright smile.

Sunshine: Tracee Ellis Ross has shared a number of stunning throwbacks from her luxurious vacation off the Italian coast, from July 2017

After basking in the sun, one of her pals filmed the actress diving into the postcard-perfect ocean and swimming around.

'Longing for Italy. Desperately missing my vaca crew,' the Golden Globe winner captioned her slideshow, which included a boomerang video of herself joyfully throwing her arms in the air.

While reminiscing on her trip, she uploaded a video standing up and beaming in front of the flag of Italy with the caption, 'Miss this!!!'

Boating bliss: the 47-year-old Black-ish star flaunted her taut figure in a strapless bikini top and barely-there bottoms to her nearly nine million Instagram followers on Tuesday

Cheeky display: After basking in the sun, one of her pals filmed the actress diving into the postcard-perfect ocean and swimming around

'Longing for Italy. Desperately missing my vaca crew,' the Golden Globe winner captioned her slideshow, which included a boomerang video of herself joyfully throwing her arms in the air

The majority of pictures featured her rocking a braided updo, which she later tucked under a wide-brimmed floppy hat.

As she enjoyed the relaxing seaside excursion, Tracee could be seen closing her eyes and wearing minimal makeup.

In 2018, she spoke of being a 'creature of habit' and enjoying returning to places she knows her way around, like Italy.

All smiles: While reminiscing on her trip, she uploaded a video standing up and beaming in front of the flag of Italy

'Ive been going to Italy for the last ten years with a group of women who are my best friends,' she told CNN.

She also noted that her longtime love of travel has afforded her 'the opportunity to connect with other human beings' and 'learn about different cultures and traditions.'

'It has given my life a richness that I really appreciate,' Ross told the outlet.

Happy place: As she posed up a storm on the yacht's deck, the beauty put her sun-kissed legs on full display and flashed a bright smile

'Ive been going to Italy for the last ten years with a group of women who are my best friends,' she told CNN in 2018

Explorer: She says her longtime love of travel has afforded her 'the opportunity to connect with other human beings' and' learn about different cultures and traditions'

Her trip down memory lane comes amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has caused more than 140,000 deaths in the United States.

Since late June, the US has seen a resurgence in new cases and now, six weeks later, deaths have also begun rising, according to a weekly Reuters analysis of state and county data.

America is losing about 5,000 people to the virus every week. By contrast, neighboring Canada has reported total deaths of 8,800 since the pandemic started.
Its not hard to see how recent protesters occupying City Hall this summer harken back to a similar movement nearly a decade ago. Although participants in Occupy Wall Street in 2011 were focused on income inequality rather than police brutality and NYPD budget cuts, both protests made having a 24/7 presence in parts of New York City a prominent part of their strategies. And both eventually were cleared out overnight by police officers, with Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg saying the encampments presented health and safety concerns.

But these arent the only examples of how occupations, protests and civil unrest have fused together in New York, often with the backdrop of economic insecurity and police confrontations. City & State took a look back at other similar historical movements and events.

Occupy City Hall (2020)

Since Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd in late May, protests against systemic racism and police brutality have been raging for weeks in New York City before Occupy City Hall gained traction. A group of activists and organizers began camping out in front of City Hall on June 23, a week before New York Citys budget deadline, to press lawmakers  who were otherwise not actually in City Hall due to the coronavirus pandemic  to cut the NYPDs budget by at least $1 billion and shift that funding to social services.

After the vote, most protesters returned home. But those who remained transformed Occupy City Hall into Abolition Park: a mixture of a protest in favor of abolishing policing and a commitment to help the homeless people who joined the protesters at the encampment. All hadnt been peaceful there, however, with fights breaking out and allegations of sexual harassment. The occupation ended early in the morning on Wednesday when police descended on the camp, pushing the protesters out, removing tents and cleaning graffiti.

Cooper Union occupation (2013)

Leadership at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art announced in April 2013 that undergraduates would have to pay tuition for the first time in more than a century rather than continuing to cover their education with full scholarships. Backlash quickly followed among the schools students, who were pursuing degrees in architecture, fine arts and engineering. Rather than taking their protest outside, students took over the presidents office for two months. College officials told students to vacate, bathrooms and water foundations were boarded up, and armed guards stood around the building. But eventually the space was conceded to students, with the colleges president, Jamshed Bharucha, forced to work remotely. The protests succeeded in making the college reconsider charging tuition. Two years later, Bharucha resigned, still plagued by the decision that led to the occupation.

Occupy Wall Street (2011)

Emerging from what was then one of the worst financial recessions in modern history, Occupy Wall Street represented growing frustrations about income inequality. The movement  which spread to 80 countries  grew in Zuccotti Park in Manhattans Financial District, landing occupiers close to the offices of Wall Street executives. Thousands gathered in the park and throughout the city for about two months calling for economic equity, which coined the distinction between the 1% of the countrys wealthiest residents with the remaining 99%. Though the movement dissolved with little concrete policy results, Occupy Wall Street also laid some of the groundwork for the burgeoning progressive energy in New York City.

Tompkins Square Park (1988)

In 1988, Tompkins Square Park in Manhattans East Village became a symbol of New York Citys growing inequality. It became the site of homeless encampments, drug users and other New Yorkers pushed to the fringes while wealthier residents began to move into the neighborhood. Eventually, the city Parks and Recreation Department instituted a 1 a.m. curfew to tamp down on the people that had begun to occupy the park overnight. But that decision further inflamed tensions between the areas more destitute residents and their richer neighbors. Activists and homeless people gathered in the park on August 6, 1988, to fight back against the curfew  declaring Gentrification is Class War  but what ensued was a violent confrontation with police officers. NYPD officials and media outlets lambasted officers for instigating the violence and beatings, often while covering up their badges  not unlike what happened during the protests this year  but few were disciplined in the aftermath. Although the curfew was removed soon after the conflict, the city cleared all the homeless people from the park three years later.

Columbia University anti-war occupation (1968)

Sentiment against the Vietnam War during the 1960s fueled protests throughout the county. That energy, in part, generates a historic level of activism and occupation at Columbia University.

Students had two concerns. Many denounced the universitys ties to a government-affiliated think tank involved in military research. Others were concerned about Columbias decision to build a gym in Morningside Park that would largely exclude the neighborhoods predominantly Black residents, with the backdrop that the universitys expansion had pushed many in the community from their homes. Black students with the Student Afro-American Society began to speak out on behalf of Harlem residents, eventually intertwining their energy with the first group of majority-white students focused on anti-war activism  though their differing goals also led to tensions.

In response, students occupied five buildings on campus for a week. University administrators were reluctant to use force out of fear of inciting riots in the neighborhood, especially given that the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. happened just weeks before. Eventually, 1,000 police officers stormed the university, making 700 arrests and injuring more than 100 students. But the protests succeeded in stopping the gyms development, giving greater voice to Black students and faculty and leading the university to end its relationship with the think tank.

Central Park Hoovervilles (1931-1933)

While many occupations in New York Citys history stem from a desire to protest, the Hoovervilles that arose during the 1930s were a result of enormous economic distress. Dubbed after then-President Herbert Hoover, shanty towns of homeless families proliferated across the United States amid the widespread homelessness of the Great Depression.

Central Park became the site of one notable Hooverville, as about 2,000 New Yorkers became homeless. People began to occupy an empty reservoir in Central Park that would eventually become the Great Lawn, occasionally facing run-ins with police, though the charges were typically quickly dismissed. The city eventually cleared the area in 1933 with just 10 days notice to resume work on the reservoir.
Industry veteran Domenic Leo to lead the new business unit joined by several IP legal industry experts

BOSTON, July 22, 2020, the leading provider of innovation and intellectual property management solutions, today announced the launch of a new business unit that will address the diverse needs of today's global law firms. As part of this expansion, Anaqua is making additional investments in its leadership and law firm platforms, AQX Law Firm and PATTSY WAVE. The move underscores Anaqua's commitment to the law firm market as an essential part of the IP ecosystem and to the company's strategy of organizing to meet the needs of this market.

Leading the business unit is Domenic Leo, who joins Anaqua as Vice President & General Manager, Law Firms. Leo will assume overall responsibility for Anaqua's global law firm offering and will oversee the newly acquired IP management software and practice automation business, O P Solutions.

"With over 30 years' experience in the IP Management industry, Domenic will deepen Anaqua's law firm DNA and focus on how we can better serve and deliver solutions that help the law firm community," said Bob Romeo, CEO of Anaqua. "We are thrilled to welcome Domenic to the team."

Leo added: "Anaqua listens to the market and has a reputation for delivering leading IP management solutions. That's the culture at Anaqua and is one of the many reasons why I joined. I am very excited to lead a talented team of Anaqua staff, O P Solutions management, and recently hired industry experts. Together we will help drive the success of our law firm clients across the globe."

Joining Leo and Anaqua's existing law firm dedicated staff are recent hires Jayne Durden and Joe Bichanich, as well as Mike Frechtman and Ethan Waters, who both became part of Anaqua with the acquisition of O P Solutions.

Durden comes to Anaqua with extensive experience as both an IP practitioner and an IP management service provider. A trademark attorney and solicitor, Durden previously worked in large, as well as boutique law firms in Australia and the U.S., including Ladas & Parry LLP, Allens, and The Webb Law Firm. In her role, as Vice President, Law Firm Strategy, she will work closely with the Anaqua law firm client community to bring their needs to the forefront and will collaborate with the Anaqua product team to further translate those needs into IP platform enhancements.

Bichanich, a JD, joins Anaqua as Client Director, Global Law Firms, with over 10 years of legal and technology program leadership, his most recent role as Director of Information Technology and Practice Support at Michael Best & Friedrich LLP. At Anaqua, Bichanich will be responsible for developing and implementing creative strategies to enhance the long-term success of Anaqua's clients. He will also be supporting IP practices in how to develop and apply Anaqua's technology to transform their businesses.

"We are very excited that with the backing of our Board we are making a significant investment in people, technology, and products to better serve the law firm sector's IP management needs," said Romeo. "With the formation of this unit, and with this team in particular, we are strengthening our knowledge of the sector and our ability to understand and translate our law firm clients' needs into effective market-leading solutions."

About Anaqua

Anaqua, Inc. is a premium provider of integrated, end-to-end innovation and intellectual property.

Attachment
Washington:

Outgoing US President Barack Obama has cautioned his successor Donald Trump against undoing of international decisions like the Iranian nuclear pact and the Paris climate change agreement, saying a great deal of effort has gone into signing these landmark agreements.

"These international agreements, the tradition has been that you carry them forward across administrations,particularly if, once you actually examine them, it turns out that they are doing good for us and binding other countries into behaviour that will help us," Obama, 55, told reporters at a White House news conference.

He said the Iranian nuclear deal was good example of the"gap between" some of the rhetoric in this town, not unique to the President-elect, and the reality.

"I think there was a really robust debate about the merits of the Iran deal before it was completed. I actually was pretty proud of how our democracy processed that. It was a serious debate.

I think people of good will were on both sides of the issue. Ultimately, we were able to persuade members ofCongress and the public, at least enough of them, to support it," he said.

"At the time, the main argument against it was, Iran wouldn't abide by the deal. That they would cheat. We now have over a year of evidence that they have abided by the agreement.

That's not just my opinion. It's not just people in my administration. That's the opinion of Israeli military and intelligence officers who are part of a government that vehemently opposed the deal," he said.

About Paris Climate deal, Obama said there had been a lot of talk about the possibility of undoing this international agreement. "Now, you've got 200 countries that have signed up for this thing, and the good news is that what we've been able to show over the last five, six, eight years is that it's possible to grow the economy really fast and possible to bringdown carbon emissions as well.

"What the Paris agreement now does is say to China andIndia and other countries that are potentially polluting, come on board. Let's work together so you guys do the same thing.

And the biggest threat, when it comes to climate change and pollution, isn't going to come from us because we only have300 million people. It's going to come from China with over 1billion people and India with over 1 billion people," he said.

"If they are pursuing the same kinds of strategies that we did before we became more aware of the environment, then our kids will be choked off. Do I think that the new administration will make some changes? Absolutely," Obama said.

To unravel a deal that's working and preventing Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon would be hard to explain, particularly if the alternative were to have them free from any obligations and go ahead and pursue a weapon, he said.

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Over the past five years, Switzerland has allocated CHF125 million to the implementation of projects in Donbas.

Switzerland is one of the countries that most actively helps Ukrainians in Donbas. Switzerland is among the top ten international donors of Ukraine the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine posted on Facebook.

The Foreign Ministry specified that CHF 125 million had been allocated for projects in Donbas within the framework of the Swiss Cooperation Strategy for Ukraine over the past five years.

It is noted that 24 technical assistance projects are being implemented in Ukraine under the auspices of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of Switzerland. In particular, the projects promote the development of local governance, improvement of infrastructure, energy efficiency, health care and sustainable economic development.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the main humanitarian projects are drinking water treatment in Donbas and delivery of medicines and medical equipment.

"Thanks to Swiss humanitarian aid, 4 million residents of Donetsk region on both sides of the demarcation line will be provided with drinking water by the end of 2020," the Foreign Ministry emphasizes.

In addition, eleven humanitarian cargoes have been sent to eastern Ukraine east since April 2015. The total value of the 10th and 11th cargoes was CHF 3.3 million.

Additional CHF 700,000 was allocated to overcome coronavirus pandemic in Ukraine.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reminds that President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga plan to visit the front line in Donbas on July 23.

On July 20-23, President of the Swiss Confederation Simonetta Sommaruga makes a state visit to Ukraine at the invitation of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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New Delhi:

An earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale hit northeastern states on Tuesday, an official said.



The moderate earthquake did not cause any casualties or damage, reports said.



The tremor was felt at 7.40 am with an epicentre located in Assam's Karimganj district bordering Bangladesh, an official of the Regional Seismological Centre was quoted in a media report.



The seven northeastern states -- Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur - are considered by seismologists as the sixth major earthquake-prone belt in the world.

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<! FIRS asks landlords to charge 6% stamp duty on tenancy or leases >

By Mustapha Sumaila

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has asked landlords and property agents to charge six per cent Stamp Duty on all tenancy and lease agreements they enter into with all leases and remit same promptly to the Service.

Mr Abdullahi Ahmad, Director, Communications and Liaison Department of the service, made this known in Abuja on Wednesday.

Ahmad said doing so was necessary so that they would not run foul of the Stamp Duty Act.

He said the admonition came following the recent release and wide circulation of a stamp duty clarification guide by FIRS Executive Chairman, Mr Muhammad Nami.

He stated that property-related transactions like tenancy or lease agreement fell under the Ad Valorem category of the stamp duty which attracted six per cent duty payable in percentage of the total value or sum of the tenancy or lease.

According to FIRS, the burden of payment of the six per cent lies on the beneficiary of the tenancy or lease agreement, whom the Stamp Duty Act identified as the tenant or renter.

Also, the responsibility of collection and remittance fall on the landlord or agent in charge of the property for lease or rent.

In any case, the party making the payment shall have the obligation to account for the applicable stamp duties.

Some other Stamp Duty types and their rates are Appraisement or Valuation of Property, 1.5 per cent; Certificate of Occupancy, Partnership N1,000 flat rate; Gift of Land, 1.5 per cent Legal Mortgage, 0.375 per cent, Legal Mortgage (Upstamping) and 0.375 per cent.

Others are deed of Conveyance or Transfer on Sale of Property, 1.5 per cent: Gift of Land, 1.5 per cent Memorandum of Understanding (Related to Land, Sales, Joint Venture, Surrender, Subdivision Agreements, 1.5 per cent, Power of Attorney (Irrevocable/Land Related), 1.5 per cent and Sales Agreement, 1.5 per cent he said.

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Thats why some think tanks and western EU leaders originally wanted to tie the receipt of money from Brussels, whether from its next seven-year budget or the new coronavirus pot, to compliance with the rulings of the EUs highest court, in Luxembourg, on such matters as the rule of law or press freedom. But after elaborate theatrics, especially by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, this conditionality was watered down into a vague promise to revisit the subject soon. For the sake of a deal, the EU surrendered.
Economists said the latest takeover would help contain systemic risks in the countrys financial sector.

Secretive billionaire Xiao Jianhuas Tomorrow Holding Co. Ltd. found itself back under the spotlight after the Chinese government last week seized control of nine companies linked to the fallen tycoons financial empire.

The once-freewheeling conglomerate has been one of the highest-profile targets of Chinas crackdown on risks to the financial system. For years, Tomorrow Holding hid behind layers of shell companies and complicated transactions as it forged ahead with a debt-fueled expansion that put its clients and other financial institutions at risk.

The seizures mark a major step in regulators efforts to dismantle Xiaos hidden empire, following last years takeover of Inner Mongolia-based Baoshang Bank Co. Ltd., a debt-ridden lender controlled by the billionaire.

The rise and fall of Tomorrow Holding shows how the risky growth strategies employed by Chinas privately owned conglomerates ended up threatening financial stability, forcing regulators to take unprecedented steps to protect the system.

Here are five things to know about the mysterious conglomerate.

Why the takeover?

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) took over (link in Chinese) four insurance companies and two trust firms, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission seized (link in Chinese) two securities companies and one futures firm, citing their illegal activities, according to official statements released Friday.

The seizures involve assets worth nearly 1 trillion yuan ($142.8 billion). The nine companies had been controlled by Xiao, whom Chinese authorities began investigating in January 2017 on graft allegations.

Both regulators said the goal of the seizures is to protect investors legitimate interests.

What has Tomorrow Holding done?

Founded by Xiao in 1999, Tomorrow Holding grew into a conglomerate with businesses as diverse as banking, securities, insurance, coal and real estate. Companies controlled by the conglomerate were involved in a number of high-profile acquisitions in recent years, including the 3.7 billion yuan privatization deal of state-owned power company Luneng Group Co. Ltd. in 2006 and Thailands Charoen Pokphand Group Co. Ltd.s purchase of a stake in insurance titan Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China Ltd. in 2013.

Xiao, 49, graduated from the prestigious Peking University with a degree in law and started his business selling personal computers in the early 1990s. In 2016, the year before he was probed, the Hurun Chinese rich list ranked him the 32nd-richest person in China with a net worth of around $6 billion.

Xiao is a Canadian citizen, according to a statement released by Tomorrow Holding in 2017, and has maintained a low profile. Multiple media outlets reported that he had used connections with relatives of government leaders to expand his companies businesses.

However, Tomorrow Holding eventually began to face questions about the legality and risks of some of the deals linked to Xiao who made use of shell companies and complicated transactions among interconnected companies.

What did Tomorrow Holding do after Xiao was investigated?

Since Xiao fell under investigation in early 2017, Tomorrow Holding has been offloading assets.

So far, the company and its affiliated companies have shed or planned to shed stakes in a number of companies, including Hong-Kong listed Hengtou Securities Co. Ltd., Guangdong-based brokerage Lianxun Securities Co. Ltd., and regional lenders Bank of Weifang Co. Ltd. and Bank of Taian Co. Ltd. Some of the stakes were sold to state-owned enterprises.

Several regional lenders, including Bank of Taian, Bank of Weifang and Harbin Bank Co. Ltd., have been subject to government-led restructuring measures and have cut ties with the troubled conglomerate. Behind one of the most typical cases is Baoshang Bank, which Chinas central bank and CBIRC took over last year, marking the first time in 20 years that a private lender in China had been directly taken over by the government.

Why the Baoshang takeover?

In May 2019, regulators took over Baoshang Bank, citing severe credit risk. The central bank later said that Tomorrow Holding, which controlled an 89% stake in Baoshang Bank, embezzled the lenders funds.

A source told Caixin previously that Baoshang Bank helped Tomorrow Holding put together at least 150 billion yuan in funding through shadowy practices.

Baoshang Banks case triggered fears that its problems could spread through the financial system and that other small Chinese banks faced similar risks. The lender relied heavily on the interbank market, where banks borrow from each other, using debt raised there to bolster its liquidity, which allowed it to leverage up. Regulators later injected hundreds of billions of yuan into the market to calm jitters.

Baoshang Banks takeover is widely seen as a milestone in the history of Chinas financial system, and in the specialist cleanup of Tomorrow Holding. The good assets of the lender were later taken over by Mengshang Bank, whose major shareholders include a national deposit insurance fund managed by the central bank, the government of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Anhui-based Huishang Bank Corp. Ltd.

How do regulators supervise risky conglomerates?

In 2018, Chinas central bank identified Tomorrow Holding as one of several financial holding companies whose ownership structures, connected-party transactions and sources of funding needed to be scrutinized as part of a sweeping clampdown on financial risks.

Over the past few years, the Chinese government has stepped up scrutiny over companies like Tomorrow Holding, including Anbang Insurance Group Co. Ltd., a freewheeling conglomerate controlled by now-imprisoned businessman Wu Xiaohui. Other debt-laden giants such as HNA Group Co. Ltd. and Dalian Wanda Group Co. Ltd. have also been selling off assets.

Economists said the latest takeover would help contain systemic risks in the countrys financial sector. Many believed the government would give more weight to contain risks as the worlds second-largest economy is recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.

Han Wei, Lin Jinbing, Timmy Shen, Denise Jia and Wang Yuqian contributed to this report.

The story has been updated to correct that the seizures involved assets worth nearly 1 trillion yuan.

Contact reporter Tang Ziyi (ziyitang@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)

Caixin Global has launched Caixin CEIC Mobile, the mobile-only version of its world-class macroeconomic data platform.

If youre using the Caixin app, please click here. If you havent downloaded the app, please click here.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday inducted two ministers  Chelluboyina Venugopala Krishna and Seediri Appala Raju into his council of ministers in a minor cabinet reshuffle.

Andhra Pradesh governor Biswabhushan Harichandan administered the oath of office and secrecy to the two ministers at a simple and brief ceremony at the Raj Bhavan in Vijayawada.

Apart from Jagan, assembly speaker Tammineni Sitaram, other cabinet ministers and a few public representatives attended the swearing-in ceremony. Entry into Raj Bhavan was restricted to only a few members in view of the Covid-19 pandemic prevailing in Vijayawada.

The induction of the two ministers was required following the resignation of two senior members Pilli Subhash Chandra Bose and Mopidevi Venkataramana on Monday after their election to the Rajya Sabha. Both the leaders were sworn in as MPs by Rajya Sabha chairman and vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Seediri Appala Raju, who hails from the fishermen community, is a first time MLA from Palasa assembly constituency in Srikakulam district. A doctor by profession, Appala Raju attracted the attention of the chief minister with his pro-active measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 in his constituency.

Venugopala Krishna, however, has nearly two decades of experience in politics. A businessman from East Godavari district, he had started his career in the Congress party since 2000. He had been a member of the Zilla Parishad twice in 2001 and 2006, before being made East Godavari District Congress Committee president between 2008 and 2012.

Krishna later joined the YSR Congress party and unsuccessfully contested the assembly elections from Kakinada rural constituency in 2014. He fought the assembly elections again in 2019 from Ramachandrapuram and he won with a huge majority.

Though the portfolios of the newly-inducted ministers were not finalised yet, an official in the chief ministers office said Appala Raju might get the portfolio of fisheries, while Venugopala Krishna would be given roads and buildings.

There will be a vacancy in the post of deputy chief minister because of the resignation of Subhash Chandra Bose and the chief minister is likely to elevate present roads and buildings minister Dharmana Krishna Das as Deputy CM with the revenue portfolio, the official said.
Mumbai, July 22 : Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande and Shekhar Suman were among celebrities who joined fans to take part in the Candle4SSR online protest on Wednesday evening, initiated as a tribute to Sushant Singh Rajput and to demand justice for the late actor.

Kangana lit a candle to show solidarity with the movement, a picture of which was posted by her Twitter team, which goes by the name of Team Kangana Ranaut, on their unverified Twitter account.

Sharing an image on Instagram, Sushant's ex-girlfriend Ankita also penned a note for Sushant.

"HOPE,PRAYERS AND STRENGTH !! Keep smiling wherever you are," she captioned the picture.

Earlier, Ishkaran Singh Bhandari, lawyer of former Cabinet minister Subramanian Swamy, had initiated the peaceful digital protest #Candle4SSR demanding justice for Sushant, who passed away last month.

The digital protest called upon everyone to light a candle in Sushant's name at 8pm. Fans of the late actor's participated in the protest.

Actor Shekhar Suman and his son Adhyayan Suman also took to Twitter and shared how they paid tribute to Sushant by chanting prayers and lighting candles.

"You will be burning in our hearts for ever #SSR love you I hope wherever you are..you are at peace brother ! #Candle4SSR #CBIEnquiryForSushantSinghRajput," Adhyayan tweeted.

"This is for you #SushantSinghRajput my heart still refuses to accept that you are no more. Hope justice prevails! #Candle4SSR," actress Meera Chopra wrote on Twitter.

#Candle4SSR has been trending on Twitter throughout Wednesday.

The protest, #Candle4SSR, is also a peaceful way of requesting authorities to initiate a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the actor's untimely demise.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
<! <img width="510" height="353" src="https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/breaking-buhari-off-to-mali-thursday-for-peace-mission.jpg" class="attachment-single-thumbnail size-single-thumbnail wp-post-image jetpack-lazy-image" alt="" data-attachment-id="264311" data-permalink="https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2015/11/29/u-s-organizes-a-global-boycott-of-nigerian-crude/president-buhari-departs-for-iran-to-attend-3rd-gas-exporting-co-8/" data-orig-file="https://i2.wp.com/www.pmnewsnigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PRESIDENT-BUHARI-DEPARTS-FOR-IRAN-21-e1454344264417.jpg?fit=510%2C353&ssl=1" data-orig-size="510,353" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"5","credit":"SUNDAY AGHAEZE\/OFFICE OF THE PRE","camera":"Canon EOS 5D Mark III","caption":"PRESIDENT BUHARI DEPARTS FOR IRAN 1A&B&2. President Muhammadu Buhari departs Abuja for the 3RD Gas Exporting Countries' Forum (GECF)\u00a0taking place in Tehran, Iran from Presidential Wings of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja. PHOTO; SUNDAY AGHAEZE. NOV 22 2015.","created_timestamp":"1448166772","copyright":"@Sunday AGHAEZE","focal_length":"142","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.001","title":"PRESIDENT BUHARI DEPARTS FOR IRAN TO ATTEND 3RD GAS EXPORTING CO","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="PRESIDENT BUHARI travels DEPARTS FOR IRAN TO ATTEND 3RD GAS EXPORTING CO" data-image-description="

PRESIDENT BUHARI DEPARTS FOR IRAN 1A&B&2. President Muhammadu Buhari departs Abuja for the 3RD Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) taking place in Tehran, Iran from Presidential Wings of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja. PHOTO; SUNDAY AGHAEZE. NOV 22 2015.

 data-medium-file=https://i2.wp.com/www.pmnewsnigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PRESIDENT-BUHARI-DEPARTS-FOR-IRAN-21-e1454344264417.jpg?fit=510%2C353&ssl=1 data-large-file=https://i2.wp.com/www.pmnewsnigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PRESIDENT-BUHARI-DEPARTS-FOR-IRAN-21-e1454344264417.jpg?fit=486%2C336&ssl=1 data-lazy-src=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/breaking-buhari-off-to-mali-thursday-for-peace-mission.jpg?is-pending-load=1 srcset=data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 />President Muhammadu Buhari departing Nigeria >

PRESIDENT BUHARI DEPARTS FOR IRAN 1A&B&2. President Muhammadu Buhari departs Abuja for the 3RD Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) taking place in Tehran, Iran from Presidential Wings of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja. PHOTO; SUNDAY AGHAEZE. NOV 22 2015.  data-medium-file=https://i2.wp.com/www.pmnewsnigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PRESIDENT-BUHARI-DEPARTS-FOR-IRAN-21-e1454344264417.jpg?fit=510%2C353&ssl=1 data-large-file=https://i2.wp.com/www.pmnewsnigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PRESIDENT-BUHARI-DEPARTS-FOR-IRAN-21-e1454344264417.jpg?fit=486%2C336&ssl=1 class=wp-image-264311 src=https://onlinenigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/breaking-buhari-off-to-mali-thursday-for-peace-mission-1.jpg alt width=700 height=485 data-recalc-dims=1>

President Muhammadu Buhari will Thursday depart for Bamako, Republic of Mali on a one-day visit, following the briefing by the ECOWAS Special Envoy to the country, former President Goodluck Jonathan.

A statement issued by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina on Wednesday said the Nigerian President and some ECOWAS leaders led by the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the sub-regional organisation, President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger Republic, agreed to meet in Mali to engage in further consultations towards finding a political solution to the crisis in the country.

Host President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Presidents Machy Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Alassane Ouattara of Cote dIvoire are expected to participate in the Bamako meeting.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan was at the State House in company of President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, on Tuesday to brief President Buhari on the unfolding situation in Mali, necessitating the visit of ECOWAS leaders to consolidate on the agreements reached by various parties.

We will ask the President of Niger, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS to brief us as a group, and we will then know the way forward, Buhari had said.

He thanked Jonathan for his comprehensive brief on the situation in Mali, which you had been abreast with since when you were the sitting Nigerian President.

The former President had filled in Buhari on his activities as Special Envoy to restore amity to Mali, rocked by protests against President Keita, who has spent two out of the five years second term in office.

A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the Constitutional Court must be dissolved, and the President resign, before peace can return to the country.

Crisis had erupted after the court nullified results of 31 parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of President Keita.

Riots on July 10 had led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, causing the crisis to spiral out of control, hence the intervention by ECOWAS.

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Albany, N.Y.  Hospitalizations due to the coronavirus in New York fell by 10 to 714 on Tuesday.

Hospitalizations remain far below their peak of 18,000 over multiple days in April.

Another nine people in the state died due to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 25,068, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomos office. New deaths in a single day peaked at 800 in mid-April.

A total of 81 patients were newly admitted to hospitals with the virus on Tuesday, up 21 from the day before, and 179 people were in intensive care units, up 16.

A total of 96 people were intubated due to the virus, up five.

The percentage of people testing positive for the virus fell to 1.04% from 1.29%. The statewide positive test rate has generally been around 1% in recent weeks.

The positive test rate in Centra New York was .7% on Tuesday, down from 1% on Monday.

New York now has 408,886 confirmed cases of the virus, including 705 new cases on Tuesday. The state conducted another 67,659 tests for the virus on Tuesday.

Cuomo-Trump

Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters today that he spoke with President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Trump recently suggested he might send federal agents to New York City to patrol in the face of increasing crime there.

Cuomo said he told the president that New York didnt need federal help right now and that any crime problems could be handled by the city and state together.

Cuomo said Trump told him theyd talk again if Trump felt the need to act.

Federal officers have been responding to protests in Portland, Oregon, for several days. Trump has defended their actions and said he would send officers to other cities as well, including New York, according to The Associated Press.

State and local authorities in Oregon charged in a new lawsuit that masked federal officers arrested people in Portland with no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars, AP said.

Later in the conference call, Cuomo said he was concerned and disturbed by the increase in crime hes seeing in New York City. He said hes been talking with the city about the situation.

Theres no need to declare an emergency yet and theres certainly no need for federal action, but Cuomo said the city must act.

Federal help

Cuomo repeated his call for federal funding for state and local governments. Hes been asking for aid for months now.

Local officials in Central New York, including Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon and Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, have echoed his pleas.

RELATED: Syracuse City Hall mulling cuts to everything that isnt tied down to plug $25M budget hole

Lawmakers in Washington are negotiating a new coronavirus aid bill now.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Coronavirus update: 13 new cases in Onondaga County

10 more states added to New York coronavirus quarantine list

No mask, no service: Some restaurant diners get mad when told to cover up

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598
Gerald Darmanin has had a tumultuous first two weeks as France's interior minister as the country questions whether someone under investigation for rape allegations can and should be its "top cop".

The 37-year-old's appointment on July 6 drew immediate outrage that has showed no signs of abating -- women's rights campaigners have picketed every one of Darmanin's public appearances to date.

He is accused by Sophie Patterson-Spatz of raping her in 2009 after she sought his help to have a criminal record expunged while he was a legal affairs adviser with the UMP, the predecessor of France's main right-wing party, the Republicans.

Darmanin maintains they had consensual sex.

The case has been thrown out multiple times, but appeals judges in Paris last month ordered a new investigation after Patterson-Spatz approached France's highest court.

The uproar over Darmanin's promotion to a key cabinet position just weeks after that ruling seems to have taken the government and President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party by surprise.

Their defence of Darmanin has focused on the presumption of innocence, even as they appear to have exonerated him despite an ongoing inquiry.

Macron explained on French television that he had a "relationship of trust, man-to-man" with Darmanin, a phrase many criticised for being tone deaf.

- 'Manhunt' -

A member of Macron's team defended the appointment by telling AFP the criminal case was evolving "in the right direction" and "presented no obstacle" to Darmanin's elevation.

Darmanin himself has complained of a "manhunt" and told a regional newspaper this week it was hard for a falsely accused person to explain to their parents "what happened because, it's true, I lived a young man's life".

Patterson-Spatz also accuses Darmanin of sexual harassment and abuse of power. He has filed a libel complaint against her in return.

Even if he is ultimately cleared, critics say the mere hint of impropriety makes Darmanin unsuitable for the interior ministry job, especially as Macron had promised a "moralisation of public life" on his watch.

"It is not certain that we are properly evaluating the damage that this case is causing," Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, an analyst at the Sciences Po university in Paris, said of the political support being drummed up for Darmanin at a time of widespread mistrust in government.

A cabinet minister who asked for anonymity told AFP: "What is annoying is that this issue will ripple out."

In a press interview, Darmanin said he was "completely at ease," but on Tuesday his lawyers warned that he reserved the right to sue over "any defamatory remarks that stain his honour and esteem."

Even within his own ministry, Darmanin's appointment has raised eyebrows -- if questioned in the probe, it would be by police officers of whom he is now the boss.

- 'Culture of rape' -

And his fellow cabinet members are finding themselves in difficult positions.

Elisabeth Moreno, the new minister for gender equality, said after a "woman-to-man" conversation with Darmanin that he deserved the benefit of the doubt, "but if he is found guilty, we will talk again."

One minister told AFP that "Legally speaking, I think the case falters. But then follows the moral question: Has Darmanin always behaved well towards women?"

The allegations are not the first against Darmanin -- a woman accused him of using his position as mayor of the northern city of Tourcoing to seek sexual favours from 2014 to 2017, though prosecutors dismissed that case in 2018.

Wednesday evening saw a feminist association pile further pressure on Darmanin by saying it had launched legal action against him over alleged abuse of influence while Tourcoing mayor.

Darmanin's lawyer, Mathias Chirchportich, rejected the accusations and quoted a text message from the plaintiff in Tourcoing dating from the time he was appointed to the government and stating that for her "the matter is closed".

Women's rights activists including Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi wrote in Le Monde that Macron's cabinet shuffle which promoted Darmanin marked an "anti-feminist political shift."

Women's groups gathering under slogans such as: "The culture of rape on the move" -- a play on Macron's Republic on the Move party -- have staged protests in Paris and the rest of France, even in Brussels, since Darmanin's appointment.
Vietnam is an invaluable member of the ASEAN Community and has actively shepherded a number of important initiatives and led efforts that continue to enrich the ASEAN agenda and experience,

Permanent Representative of the Philippines to ASEAN Ambassador Noel Servigon told the Vietnam News Agency's reporter in Jakarta.

Permanent Representative of the Philippines to ASEAN Ambassador Noel Servigon

The positive effects born during Vietnams Chairmanship of ASEAN in 2010 alone, with its theme Towards the ASEAN Community: From Vision to Action, continue to this very day, the ambassador said. Among the effects are the raising of the profile of the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty in multilateral forums, strengthening the East Asia Summit with the inclusion of more non-ASEAN Member States as participating countries, leading discussions on efforts to restore and sustain the financial health of the region, which was recovering from a financial crisis, promoting sustainable development, narrowing the development gap in ASEAN, and fostering infrastructure development and ASEAN connectivity, he added.

Servigon recalled the time when he served as Ambassador of the Philippines to Vietnam, saying he saw the tremendous progress Vietnam was making at that time.

It was heart-warming to witness the widespread enthusiasm exhibited at all levels of society in Vietnam when ASEAN celebrated its Golden Year in 2017, he remarked. Indeed, from what I observed, the Vietnamese people hold their countrys membership and engagement in the ASEAN Community in the highest regard, he said.

He went on to highlight Vietnams role as Chair of ASEAN this year. With the year 2020 comes the task of negotiating numerous successor Plans of Action with Dialogue Partners, as well as with the UN, the ambassador said, adding that the Philippines appreciates Vietnams leadership in ensuring these Plans of Action are finalised within the year and contribute to the further strengthening of ASEANs external relations while upholding the primacy of the blocs centrality.

This year, Vietnam is also steering efforts to conduct a comprehensive mid-term review of all community blueprints that guide economic, socio-cultural, and political policies, he continued. The outcomes of these reviews will ensure that ASEANs growth and development continue on the correct path to secure a better collective future for all peoples of the bloc.

The diplomat also praised Vietnams leadership in manoeuvring ASEAN through the global COVID-19 crisis, saying the countrys remarkable success in containing the pandemic has served as a model not only in ASEAN but around the world.

Our concerted efforts this year will help ensure that all member states emerge stronger and better equipped to respond and recover from future pandemics, he said.

According to the ambassador, ASEAN has become one of the most important regional organisations in the world. An economic dynamo and a major player in the regions political-security architecture and the world, ASEAN has gone from strength-to-strength and has continuously risen to myriad challenges.

A key aspect of ASEANs strength as a regional organisation is the powerful sense of community, one that has been carefully nurtured through the decades, threading across the ten very diverse member states, particularly among ASEANs leaders and policy-makers, he said.

He added that the triumph of cooperation and consensus over conflict continues to shape ASEANs achievements in a region that could have been so easily fraught with destabilising issues. This has brought about an ecosystem of peaceful co-existence in the region and underpins the concerted efforts of member states towards common aspirations across the economic, socio-cultural, and political areas, the ambassador said./. VNA
Mount Juliet Estate in Co Kilkenny has been named as Ireland's Hotel of the Year for 2020 by AA Ireland's Hospitality Services team.

"This award comes at a time when hotels, guesthouses and B&Bs across the country are facing an enormous challenge," said Conor Faughnan, AA Director of Consumer Affairs.

"But we know that while much is changing in the world around us, Mount Juliet Estate will continue to be a jewel in the crown of the Irish hospitality sector.

Celebrating the five-star resort, the AA highlighted its "exceptional service", "warm welcome" and "excellent food options showing the best local produce the region has to offer".

"Mount Juliet Estate goes from strength-to-strength," it added.

"It's a little ray of sunshine in the midst of all the madness," said Mark Dunne, General Manager of the 530-acre estate, who paid tribute to his team and their hard work for the win.

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Since its acquisition by Tetrarch Capital in 2014, Mount Juliet has gained a Michelin Star for its Lady Helen restaurant, and added an entirely new accommodation block - the 93-bed Hunter's Yard.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Mount Juliet Estate is named AA Hotel of the Year. Pictured are (l to r) Arwen Foley, AA Ireland; Mark Dunne, General Manager of Mount Juliet Estate; and Conor Faughnan, Director of Consumer Affairs AA Ireland. Photograph: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland Hunters Yard, Mount Juliet / Facebook

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Whatsapp Mount Juliet Estate is named AA Hotel of the Year. Pictured are (l to r) Arwen Foley, AA Ireland; Mark Dunne, General Manager of Mount Juliet Estate; and Conor Faughnan, Director of Consumer Affairs AA Ireland. Photograph: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland

Last year, it joined Marriott's Autograph Collection of independent luxury hotels - a move it hoped would boost the number of overseas visitors.

Then, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

"It's been really tricky, really difficult," Dunne says. "You have the care of the guest on one hand and the care of your colleagues on the other, and you're trying to make them both meet in the middle in a very safe manor."

But they have struck that balance, he says. Guests today still receive a warm, five-star welcome - though the smiles are behind visors and everything from pool slots to breakfast tables can be booked in advance.

A 'Welcome Back' special sees room rates from 169 this summer.

The AA makes its awards based on anonymous visits by a team of trained inspectors who make "exacting" notes on hospitality, service, cuisine, facilities and staff, it says.

Winners must also clearly demonstrate continuous improvement, it adds.

In other awards for 2020, Ghan House in Carlingford, Co Louth, was named AA Guest Accommodation of the Year, while Mulranny Park Hotel in Co Mayo took the AA Courtesy & Care award for customer care.

The news follows Travel + Leisure magazine's ranking of Ashford Castle as the No.1 resort hotel in the UK and Ireland in its annual reader survey.

In a coup for Irish tourism, the influential US publication went on to include eight Irish hotels on the UK and Irish Top 10, including Ballyfin Demesne, Powerscourt Hotel Resort & Spa, Sheen Falls Lodge, the K Club, Ballynahinch Castle Hotel, Dromoland Castle and Adare Manor.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said:

"Our industry has been one of the hardest hit by COVID-19, so this accolade is extremely welcome, as we look to the future and plan for the recovery of overseas tourism.

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Three foreign experts were injured in an explosion which occurred near Oil India Limited (OIL)s gas well number 5 at Baghjan, in Assams Tinsukia district on Wednesday.

The incident occurred when operations to douse the fire at Baghjan oil field was going on. The operation has been halted now, news agency ANI quoted Tridip Hazarika, the spokesperson of Oil India Limited, as saying.

Three foreign experts who were at the site are injured. They have been rushed to hospital, Hazarika said.

The damaged gas well is spewing gas uncontrollably for 56 days since a blowout - an uncontrolled release of gas and oil condensate - took place on May 27. Two firefighters of OIL also died at the site then.

Over 9,000 people have been shifted to relief camps since the blowout at the well. It caught fire on June 9.

Foreign experts brought in to put out the fire and plug the blowout were expected to complete the task by July 7. But flood caused by heavy rain inundated the area near the well and damaged roads and a bridge leading to the site affecting work for several days.

OIL had said that various assessment and impact studies of the blowout as well as the blaze in villages and nearby forest areas by multiple agencies such as ERM India, TERI, CSIR-NEIST and IIT-Guwahati.

Total number of families surveyed till July 18 in both Tinsukia and Doomdooma circles is 1,751, the Public Sectory Undertaking (PSU) had said.

The well is located near the Maguri-Motapung Wetland and Dibru Saikhowa Biosphere Reserve, which are among the few remaining habitats for several endangered and range-restricted species. The blowout led to the uncontrollable flow of oil from gas and caused extensive damage to biodiversity and wildlife in the region. The wildlife includes endangered hoolock gibbons and the Gangetic dolphins.

There are 17 oil and five gas wells in the Baghjan oil field.

Last month, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) constituted an eight-member committee of experts to probe the blowout, subsequent fire and the damage it has caused to humans, wildlife and environment.
A total of 254 staff of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi have tested positive for covid-19 since the outbreak in the country.



Two Hundred and three (203) out of the number have, however, recovered and were back at post while one had died.



Dr Oheneba Owusu Danso, the Chief Executive of the hospital, told journalists in Kumasi that the remaining 50, who are currently in isolation, were at various stages of recovery and would resume work soon.



The meeting was to update the media on the state of the hospital, the second largest health facility in the country, in the fight against covid-19.



Dr Owusu Danso said so far the hospital, which was one of the testing centres in the country, had tested a total of 2,853 samples of which 812, representing 28.4 percent, had tested positive to the virus.



Four hundred and twenty one (421) out of the number have recovered while 31 samples tested were currently awaiting results.



Dr Owusu Danso said although the facility had recorded some covid-19 deaths, its performance in terms of response and management of the covid-19, had been successful.



He appealed to the public to strictly adhere to all the preventive protocols outlined by the Ghana Health Service to combat the spread of the disease in the country.

Source: GNA









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Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: Two more people died in the floods in Assam on Tuesday where the toll swelled to 87 while the situation was no better in Arunchal Pradesh and Meghalaya.

The latest casualties were reported from Nagaon and Morigaon districts of Central Assam. Combined with 26 deaths in the rain-triggered landslides earlier, 113 people died so far.

According to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority, over 24.19 lakh people from 2,323 villages and localities across 24 districts are reeling under the flood. Cropland affected was in areas of over 1.10 lakh hectares.

Altogether 397 relief camps in 16 districts were still operational where 44,498 of the marooned were taking shelter. The State Disaster Response Force, police and locals were engaged in rescue operations.

Major rivers such as Brahmaputra, Dhansiri, Jia Bharali, Kopili, Gaurang, Kushiyara and Sankosh were flowing above the danger level at several places.

The Siang in Arunachal, which along with two other rivers flow down to Assam and form the Brahmaputra, was also in a spate. At Kaziranga National Park, 116 animals, including 11 rhinos, have perished so far due to various reasons including drowning and vehicle hits.

The Garo Hills region of Meghalaya is also battling a flood. According to official sources, five people lost their lives there while an estimated one lakh others were affected.

In a telephonic conversation with Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, Union Home Minister Amit Shah took stock of the situation and assured him of all possible support to the state from the Centre.

NDRF has positioned 122 teams across the country to tackle the flood and heavy rain situation during the ongoing monsoon season, a force spokesperson said on Tuesday.

He said 85 rescue and relief teams have been pre-positioned in "vulnerable" states and all its 12 battalions across the country have been alerted and asked to be prepared to tackle any flood situation caused by heavy rains.

He said these teams are positioned in 20 states with a maximum of 19 in Bihar, followed by 12 in Assam, the two states facing flood situation.

Nine teams have been deployed in Gujarat, seven in Maharashtra, six teams each in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, four in Karnataka and three each in Kerala, Punjab and Uttarakhand.

Besides, one team each has been deployed in Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Manipur, Rajasthan, Sikkim and Tripura; two each in Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir, he said.

Apart from this, 37 teams are permanently stationed in 23 states at the regional response centers (RRCs) of the NDRF.

"A total of 122 self-contained teams of NDRF comprising trained responders like doctors, divers, paramedics and engineers have been deployed for rains and flood rescue task."

"They are equipped with adequate boats and other flood rescue and life-saving equipment and they are on the alert to deal with any eventuality," the spokesperson said.

The composition of these teams is not uniform and the number of rescuers ranges from 25-45.

The force, the spokesperson said, is in constant touch with various state governments to chalk out combat strategies.

Meanwhile, the United Nations on Tuesday offered to extend support to India. The offer was made by Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson of the UN Secretary-General, at a daily press briefing

(With PTI Inputs)
US Army Colonel Karl Konzelman Joins Veterans Home Care As Intern We are proud to welcome Karl to the Veterans Home Care team. He has served admirably at the highest levels of the military and is highly decorated. Our family has known Karl for several years and he has a real passion to help those who have given so much for our nation, said Bonnie Laiderman, CEO,

Veterans Home Care (VHC) announces US Army Colonel Karl Konzelman, most recently Chief of Staff/Commanding General at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, has joined the firm as an intern in preparation for full time employment. Konzelman is utilizing the benefits of the Armys Career Skills Program to transition to the civilian workforce. He will officially retire from the military on December 31, 2020, completing 30 years of service.

Konzelman is helping VHC expand their relationships with the VA and veterans organizations about the Aid and Attendance pension. The little-known pension, available through the Veterans Benefits Administration, provides qualifying veterans and their spouses with assistance for daily living in their homes.

We are proud to welcome Karl to the Veterans Home Care team. He has served admirably at the highest levels of the military and is highly decorated. Our family has known Karl for several years and he has a real passion to help those who have given so much for our nation, said Bonnie Laiderman, CEO, who runs Veterans Home Care along with husband/CFO Howard Laiderman and President Larry Kay, retired Army Brigadier General.

My goal is to make a positive impact by helping educate the community and all levels of government on the available benefits for our veterans and their spouses in need, Konzelman said. I am most appreciative Veterans Home Care is providing me with this special opportunity.

Konzelman is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, and a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University. He holds a Master of Health and Science from Touro University International and was a National Security Fellow at Harvard University in 2011-2012.

Konzelmans command and key staff assignments include the COVID-19 Crises Action Team that was responsible for the coordination response for all of Fort Leonard Wood, plans officer to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Military Assistant to the Deputy Under Secretary of the Army, and a Company Commander in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

He is a senior strategic planner, force manager and project manager and has received numerous awards and decorations including two Legions of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal and seven Meritorious Service Medals.

ABOUT VETERANS HOME CARE

Veterans Home Care, a woman-owned business headquartered in St. Louis, was founded in 2003 by Bonnie Laiderman to help wartime veterans and their surviving spouses who qualify, apply for a non-service related disability pension from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which pays for assistance with activities of daily living in their homes. VHCs VetAssist Program utilizes a network of more than 3,400 home care agencies to provide home care, matches them with caregivers and follows up to assure that the veteran or spouse remains in medical compliance with VA guidelines to continue receiving the pension. Veterans Home Care has helped more than 17,000 veterans or their surviving spouses to access VA benefits for the care they need. Veterans Home Care is not a government agency and is not affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Some presidents, when they get into trouble before an election, try to wag the dog by starting a war abroad. Donald Trump seems ready to wag the dog by starting a war at home. Be afraid  he just might get his wish.

How did we get here? Well, when historians summarize the Trump teams approach to dealing with the coronavirus, it will take only a few paragraphs:

They talked as if they were locking down like China. They acted as if they were going for herd immunity like Sweden. They prepared for neither. And they claimed to be superior to both. In the end, they got the worst of all worlds  uncontrolled viral spread and an unemployment catastrophe.

And then the story turned really dark.

As the virus spread, and businesses had to shut down again and schools and universities were paralyzed as to whether to open or stay closed in the fall, Trumps poll numbers nose-dived. Joe Biden opened up a 15-point lead in a national head-to-head survey.

So, in a desperate effort to salvage his campaign, Trump turned to the Middle East Dictators Official Handbook and found just what he was looking for, the chapter titled, What to Do When Your People Turn Against You?
JACKSON COUNTY, MI  Keeping jurors safe as Jackson County resumes jury trials during the novel coronavirus pandemic is the main concern, a Jackson County judge said.

Jury trials should restart in mid-August after being paused in mid-March when the courthouse closed because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Jackson County is restarting the trials because theres a chance Michigan could be shut down again, Circuit Court Judge Susan Jordan said.

Folks are waiting in jail and theres a public safety risk to let them out, we have to process their case and dispense that justice, said Jordan, the countys chief circuit judge.

Getting potential jurors to show up is going to be difficult, but the court will do everything possible to keep them safe, Jordan said.

Theres going to be a lot of fear from folks, she said. Were just going to have to reiterate that were doing everything we can to make things safe and see who shows up and well work with what we got.

Court staff, defense attorneys, public defenders and an assistant prosecutor met at the American 1 Event Center at the Jackson County Fairgrounds/Keeley Park, 200 W. Ganson St., on Tuesday, July 21, to discuss what jury trials will look like during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ensuring that people can easily see and hear whats happening was a main concern of those in attendance.

The event center will be used by the court for some trials because it allows social distancing, especially when juries are being seated and there are a lot of potential jurors.

Seats will be sanitized between people using them, microphones will be wiped down before someone else touches them and chairs will be six feet apart.

Some trials, however, will happen in the courthouse, Jordan said. The jury will have to sit throughout the courtroom because the jury box is not big enough to social distance.

In all cases, the YouTube streams of court proceedings will continue because the public wont be allowed in.

We just want folks to know were going to do everything we can to keep them safe if they have to come do jury duty, Jordan said.

Any potential jurors with concerns can talk to the jury coordinator and staff, Jordan said. Information on safety procedures will be posted on the court website.

The court is trying to stay within its budget while following safety guidelines but ensuring safety while performing justice as mandated by the Constitution is important, Circuit Court Administrator Charles Adkins said.

Were trying to be as efficient and effective as we can, trying to do our legally required duty, Adkins said. If it costs a few more dollars, well, thats just the cost of justice.

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The Western Regional office of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has threatened to retaliate if alleged attacks on its members from the camp of the Member of Parliament for Evalue-Ajomoro-Gwira, Catherine Afeku, continues.

The party says it will take such action if the police fail to take action to forestall such unprovoked attacks.

Addressing a press conference at Axim, the Western Regional Secretary of the NDC, Joseph Nelson, recounted instances where NDC officials were allegedly attacked by the bodyguard of the incumbent MP and her followers.

He said, on July 12, 2020, the bodyguard of Catherine Afeku, allegedly attacked the NDCs Constituency Electoral Officer who was discharging his legitimate duty.

He added that on July 6, the NDC's Parliamentary Candidate for Evalue-Ajomoro-Gwira, Kofi Arko Nokoe was also allegedly slapped and his phone confiscated by the MP's followers at one of the registration centres.

He alleged that in all such instances, the police failed to take appropriate action.

This region has had the enviable record of being very peaceful both in season and out of season. Hardly did you hear of clashes between the main political players, the NDC and the NPP. Over the years the two have co-existed peacefully, but it's sad to say that this peaceful environment has recently come under serious threat. The source of this threat is the misconduct of the Member of Parliament for the Evalue Ajomoro Gwira constituency, Catherine Afeku and her rampaging associates. Over the period that the registration has been on, there have been some ugly incidents in the constituency perpetrated by the MP and her hoodlums, and the NDC has been at the receiving end.

On 12th July 2020 the bodyguard of the MP, a serving police officer physically assaulted our constituency elections director at the Axim Community Centre on her instruction, when the gentleman was only doing his legitimate duty of ensuring that the right things were done at the Registration Centre. He had not broken any law of the land, and even if he had, the decency and lawful act would have been a report to the police officer at the centre. Instead, they preferred to take the law into their own hands. Again on 16th July 2020 another member of the NDC was physically attacked and his phone taken from. This time it was no less a person than the NDC's Parliamentary Candidate and soon to be declared MP for the Evalue Gwira constituency, Kofi Arko Nokoe, who was at the receiving end of a blinding slap from an aide of the MP and a member of the NPP. The perpetrator of this crime alleged that the PC was recording him.

Joe Nelson said, although allegations against their parliamentary candidate have turned out to be untrue, the police has not arrested anybody several days after reporting the alleged attack.

In all of these instances of blatant display of impunity and provocation of the NDC, we remained calm and law-abiding because of our peaceful nature. The cases were reported to the police, with the expectation that they would effectively deal with them and ensure that justice is served. Sadly, the conduct of the police rather than being reassuring has instead bruised our confidence in them. The investigations have been botched and so as we speak, justice has not been served, neither is it being demonstrably served. As we have it, both the bodyguard and the Aide are walking free. It is obvious that they have been emboldened to wreak further assault on us.

The journey to the 7th December election has only just begun with the ongoing registration exercise and if current happenings in this constituency are anything to go by then we are in for a bumpy ride. Our message to the police is that we can no longer sit idle by as our people are abused for no reason without appropriate action from them. The laws of this country allow for self-defence, and so we shall take steps to defend ourselves from hence. We shall respond appropriately to any future attacks on our people and the only way out is for the police to bring a firm and unbiased conclusion to the cases pending before them, he warned.

Afeku refuses to comment

Meanwhile, when Citi News contacted Catherine Afeku for a response, she turned down the opportunity.

She said the allegations were only meant to serve as a distraction.

---citinewsroom
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A 12-year-old girl was shot in the foot Tuesday night as police responded to three separate shooting incidents in just 90 minutes.

Police say the girl was among two victims in a shooting at 7:30 p.m. in the Hough neighborhood at the corner of East 59th Street and Olive Court. The second victim, a 40-year-old man, was wounded in the back. Both were taken to hospitals in private vehicles.

Another male, also 40 years old, was wounded in the back in a shooting at Luke Easter Park in the Woodland Hills neighborhood at about 8 p.m., police say. The victim was taken to the Cleveland Clinic by a private vehicle before being transferred by ambulance to University Hospitals.

About 30 minutes later, a 63-year-old male was wounded in the head in a shooting at the corner of Thornhill Drive and Arlington Avenue, which is near Forest Hills Park in the Forest Hills neighborhood. Police said the victim was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center.

Police did not release any other details on the shootings, including the conditions of the victims.

It was all part of a busy afternoon for police, beginning with a stabbing at 4 p.m. on the 2500 block of East 38th Street in the Central neighborhood. Police say the 38-year-old victim was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center with wounds to his leg and arm.

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ALBANY  One in every 10 Capital District workers was unemployed in June, the highest such figure for the month in records going back three decades. The 10.5 percent jobless rate was also the second highest for any month during that period, topped only by the 13.6 percent rate posted in May as the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the economy.

As bad as the figure was, it was nevertheless the second lowest among the state's metros. Only the university town of Ithaca, in the Finger Lakes, posted a lower jobless rate, at 8.9 percent.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. The report prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh on the implementation of Resolution 73/178 Missing Persons adopted by the UN General Assembly was disseminated at the United Nations Organization (UN) as an official document, which is available at the following link: https://undocs.org/A/74/941, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Foreign Ministry of Artsakh.

The report provides comprehensive information on the implementation of this resolution, as well as on the urgent issues related to the situation of missing persons in the context of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict.

The document, in particular, reads that the issue of persons missing in the context of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict emerged long before the full-scale war, which was unleashed by neighbouring Azerbaijan against the Republic of Artsakh in 1991. Incidents of hostage-taking and kidnapping of ethnic Armenians by the authorities of Soviet Azerbaijan were already occurring in Artsakh in 19881989. Later, however, due to the hostilities, the issue of hostages and missing persons became more acute.

The report underlines that, unfortunately, it was impossible to achieve significant progress in determining the fate of those missing in connection with the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict, due to the destructive policy of the Azerbaijani side. Instead of constructive cooperation with the relevant bodies of the Republic of Artsakh, the Azerbaijani side continues to politicize the problem of missing persons, which is an exclusively humanitarian issue. The refusal of such cooperation is another evidence of Azerbaijan's non-fulfillment of its obligations under international humanitarian law.

The document states that in order to create conditions for the effective implementation of the goals of the UN General Assembly resolution, it is, first of all, required to ensure the active involvement of all the parties to the conflict, as the issue of missing persons cannot be solved on a unilateral basis, as well as to introduce an agreed and efficient mechanism to set clear benchmarks of control for achieving progress.
3-kg bomb at Delhi flower market: Police yet to zero in on any suspect

7-day paid institutional quarantine for international passengers arriving at Delhi airport

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, July 22: Amid spike in coronavirus cases, all passengers arriving by international flights at the Delhi Airport will have to undergo seven days of institutional quarantine at their own cost, followed by one-week of home quarantine.

Besides, international passengers who are planning to stay on in Delhi-NCR region will have to undergo mandatory health screening which includes a primary screening by health officials of the airport, followed by a secondary screening at Delhi government facility, following which they will be allowed to proceed to the approved quarantine location.

The authority said that only pregnant women, those who suffered death in the family, those suffering from a serious illness, and parents travelling with children below 10 years will be provided an exception for which they will have to send an undertaking form, along with required documents, to airportcovid@gmail.com.

Amid transit pax, symptomatic ones will be isolated and sent to containment zone next to terminal building escorted by respective airline officials. They will be sent to Hospital/Medical centres for COVID checks/treatment, news agency ANI reported.

Delhi sero-survey results: Over 23% residents have COVID-19 antibodies

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

Meanwhile, all domestic passengers will have to undergo mandatory thermal screening near the exit gates and only those who are found asymptomatic will be allowed to leave the airport premises. They will further have to stay under home quarantine for 7 days.

The transit passengers are required to undergo temperature checks at both the departures and entry gates before catching their next flight.

"Passengers arriving on an international Vande Bharat Mission flight may only take a connecting domestic flight if it also comes under the Vande Bharat Mission. However, passengers who are planning to board onward domestic flights will have to obtain an authorised exemption certificate, if they are coming through non-Vande Bharat international flights," the authority further said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has said that he is no United States of Americas President Donald Trump, who can tolerate the peoples suffering.

Thackeray made this statement in a promotional video of an interview that he had recorded earlier this week for Saamana, the mouthpiece of the ruling Shiv Sena, which he heads.

In the interview conducted by Sanjay Raut, executive editor of Saamana and a Sena member of the Rajya Sabha, Thackeray categorically stated that his decisions would be based on the betterment of the people without any fear or favour.

I am not [Donald] Trump; I cannot see my people suffer before my eyes, Thackeray said in a short clip released by Raut as a teaser campaign for the upcoming two-part interview.

ALSO WATCH | Shortage of beds, bodies piling up at KEM? What Aaditya Thackeray has to say

The interview will be published in the Marathi daily on July 25 and July 26 ahead of the CMs 60th birthday on July 27.

Thackeray said that the past six months have brought a lot of challenges, including the ongoing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak that appears to be unending.

He took on the criticism about not frequently visiting Mantralaya  the administrative seat of the Maharashtra government  in his stride.

He explained that he wanted to set an example of self-discipline for the public amid the viral outbreak, where maintaining the social distancing norms is the need of the hour.

The CM also shared his thought on whether students should appear for their final-year college examinations amid the pandemic.

He is of the firm believer that the college examinations must be held, as nobody should be under the illusion that students wont get [infected with] Covid-19 otherwise.

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The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said the attacks on its members by thugs of the ruling NPP has reached a crescendo.

The party has charged its followers not to sit and watch but defend themselves against further attacks by goons of the New Patriotic Party in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

The calls follow another attack at Step-to-Christ Polling station on Monday where the Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East, Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson fired a gunshot to disperse the registrants.

The MP who doubles as Minister of Special Development Initiatives accompanied by some thugs set some motorbikes ablaze.

Since the start of the compilation of a new voter register by the Electoral Commission (EC) last month, there have been pockets of violence at some registration centers.

The main opposition party has expressed worry over what they say are violent attacks and brutalities being meted out to NDC agents, officials, supporters, and innocent Ghanaians.

We hereby urge all NDC supporters to defend themselves in line with the spirit of our 1992 Constitution, against any violent attacks by NPP thugs and any state-sponsored goons, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah who is the Director of Elections of the NDC said while addressing the partys press conference in Accra today.

He further indicated that the NDC will ensure they deal with thugs doing the bidding of the NPP when John Dramani Mahama wins the 2020 General Elections.

NDC government will fish out and deal drastically with all NPP thugs and their collaborators in state security agencies who are currently being used to maim and intimidate innocent civilians, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah added.

Read full statement below:

AN ADDRESS ON THE INCREASING INCIDENCE OF VIOLENCE, BRUTALITY AND INTIMIDATION AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE NDC AND GHANAIANS ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN THE ONGOING VOTER REGISTRATION EXERCISE, AT THE 8TH EDITION OF THE PARTYS WEEKLY PRESS BRIEFING, HELD ON WEDNESDAY, 22ND JULY, 2020 AT THE NDC HEADQUARTERS, ACCRA.

Good morning distinguished friends from the media. Once again, I welcome you with gratitude to the Headquarters of the National Democratic Congress for the 8th edition of our Weekly Press Briefing.

We have invited you here today to address the widespread violent attacks and brutalities being meted out to NDC agents, officials, supporters and innocent Ghanaians, including media personnel in the ongoing voter registration exercise.

This issue has become topical and needs to be addressed because our nation is on a downward spiral, fast descending to the edge of the precipice, and the earlier men and women of conscience spoke, the better for our peace.

What are the crimes of these innocent civilians who are being beaten, attacked, maimed and killed? Friends, their only crime is to brave the odds, particularly in this period when COVID-19 is ravaging our country, to exercise their right to be registered as voters in the ongoing voter registration exercise, and to ensure vigilance needed to protect the integrity and sanctity of our electoral process.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, news broke in the early hours of Monday 20th July, about a gun-violence incident involving the Minister for Special Development Initiatives and the MP for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, Hawa Koomson that happened at the Step-to-Christ Polling station.

As you are already aware, Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson without any provocation, invaded a voter registration center in her constituency in the company of gun-wielding thugs of the NPP, assaulted NDC party agents, burnt motorcycles belonging to NDC supporters and fired sporadic gunshots thereby endangering the lives of her constituents and disrupting the entire voter registration exercise.

It is worthy to point out, that this incident is just one of several coordinated and unprovoked attacks on our members in the ongoing registration exercise in the Awutu Senya East Constituency by Hawa Koomson and her NPP goons who she has imported from Bawku.

These attacks started from the first day of the registration exercise when an NDC agent named Daniel Tachie Mensah at the Lamptey Mills Schools center was assaulted by hooligans numbering about fifteen (15) who were led by the Kasoa NPP Municipal Chief Executive, Michael Essuman Mensah. This case was reported to the Kasoa Divisional Police Command, yet no arrest has been made till date.

This was followed by another attack on a Branch Executive and party agent, one Ebenezer Tetteh whose head was smashed with a piece of concrete by a member of a gang of NPP bandits led by Hawa Koomson herself. This case has also been reported to the Kasoa divisional Police including a video capturing Francis Tetteh a known NPP thug hitting our party agents head with a block. Yet shockingly, the police have refused to act on this evidence till date.

The third attack was executed by these same gangsters brought in from Bawku by Hawa Koomson numbering about 13 on an NDC agent called Prosper, at Amuzukope. This very attack was led by Ato Koomson, the first child of Hawa Koomson.

Not satisfied with the aforementioned attacks, their next stop was at the Kasoa New Town electoral area which happens to be another stronghold of the NDC in Kasoa. Nana One, the NPP constituency youth organizer, and a member of the Delta forces that stormed the Ayawaso West Wougon bye-elections, led these gangsters of land guards to brutally assault NDC agents leaving them with deep cutlass wounds on their heads. Again, the case was reported to the Kasoa divisional police office with no arrest or invite made till date.

Two days before the shooting incident at the Step-To-Christ polling station, the NPP thugs led by Hawa Koomson attacked and assaulted our ward coordinator, Abdallah at the Joemends Electoral area.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, it is worth noting that all these violent attacks on our innocent supporters were committed by the same thugs imported from Bawku to Kasoa by Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson.

The NDC is totally disgusted by the thuggish and criminal shooting incident involving a gang of NPP thugs who were led by Hawa Koomson, which has received both and national and international condemnation, and which have been admitted by the Minister of State herself. We condemn in no uncertain terms such thuggery sponsored and led by a high-ranking government official and law maker who is supposed to uphold the law at all times.

Hawa Koomson has by this criminal act, and the several brazen brutalities she and her gang have meted to NDC supporters in the last couple of weeks, demonstrated that she is a gangster who doesnt deserve to occupy any public position of trust. And, we join the many voices of conscience in our society to demand her immediate dismissal from office and prosecution for this heinous crime.

In any civilized society, this gangster Minister, would have been arrested, and made to stand prosecution by now. And this is exactly what her appointor, President Akufo-Addo should have done by now if he had any integrity, honor, and conscience left. But because he is the chief promoter and enabler of the unprecedented culture of lawlessness we are witnessing, we will not be surprised if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook like the several NPP criminals, such as Double and the Azugu-masked National Security Operatives who perpetrated the AWW violence, the NPPs Delta Force who attacked a court of competent jurisdiction in broad daylight etc., have been shielded from prosecution and punishment by the President.

We would therefore like to serve notice, that if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook by President Akufo-Addo as we anticipate will happen, the next NDC-Mahama government in the year 2021, shall arrest, prosecute and punish her and all the thugs who were involved in this unlawful shooting incident and other criminal acts.

Distinguished friends, the widespread atrocious attacks on our supporters across the country are being perpetrated by hoodlums and hooligans belonging to the New Patriotic Party under the leadership and direction of certain NPP Members of Parliament (MPs), Parliamentary Candidates and officials of the despotic Akufo-Addo government, who sensing imminent defeat in the upcoming December Polls, have resorted to desperate acts of violence and intimidation, to ostensibly impose their will on the Ghanaian people at all cost.

Even more bizarre, is the active involvement of some unscrupulous security officials, belonging to the once revered Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police service in these shameful acts of intimidation and barbaric attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians. This state-sponsored thuggery, as we have sometimes seen, is fast eroding all the gains we have chalked under our Fourth Republican democratic dispensation, and has the potential to plunge our once peaceful nation into total chaos.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, you may recall that few weeks ago, we provided pictorial and video evidence of similar barbaric attacks against our agents and supporters during one of our Weekly Press Briefings and called on our Security Services to act. But till date, no concrete action has been taken by our security agencies to punish the perpetrators of these brazen acts of violence, and to protect our supporters and innocent Ghanaians from further attacks.

It is this inaction, and in some cases, the complicity and/or tacit approval of our security agencies, that has emboldened NPP thugs and brigands to escalate their atrocious attacks on NDC supporters and innocent civilians across the country, with utmost impunity, over the past two (2) weeks.

I shall at this juncture, recount just a few of the countless violence acts that our party agents and supporters and indeed other innocent Ghanaians have suffered at the hands of NPP hoodlums and their accomplices in state security agencies, in the last few weeks:

1. The unlawful invasion of the office of our Parliamentary candidate for the Ledzorkuku Constituency, Ben Ayiku, over the weekend by some NPP thugs and unscrupulous military officers, based on false and contrived intelligence that he was registering people at his office. Without finding any BVR equipment or evidence of voter registration at the office, these state-sponsored criminals seized the desktop computer at the office, locked up our Parliamentary Candidate, party officials and traditional rulers of the area who were having a meeting at the office at the time and subsequently arrested and detained the NDC constituency Chairman and Organizer for that Constituency for standing up to their intimidation antics.

2. The recent incident involving a Metro TV Journalist by name Alhaji Mustapha Ashley, who while covering the voter registration exercise in the Evalue Gwira Constituency, was assaulted and had his camera seized and recordings deleted by the bodyguard of Catherine Afeku, Minister of State and NPP Member of Parliament for the area.

3. In the Central Region, Akufo Addo's Invisible Forces operating directly under the NPP MPs and NPP Parliamentary Candidates have been brutalizing NDC Executives at the registration centers for insisting on the right thing being done.

In the Effutu Constituency for instance, our Deputy Central Regional Communication Officer - Comrade Lawrence Ghartey was brutally assaulted and nearly killed in the process by these hoodlums under the instructions of the NPP MP of the

Constituency, Alexander Afenyo Markins.

Also, our Constituency Secretaries for Ekumfi and Cape South, Comrades Edward Fayah and George Justice Arthur respectively, were brutally beaten by these same bandits belonging to the invisible forces, and have sustained several degrees of injuries from that attack

Again, our Constituency Youth Organizer for the Abura Asebu Kwamankese Constituency, Hon Eric Mensah has also been brutalized in addition to scores of branch executives, registration agents and party activists. One of the victims of these barbaric acts from Ekumfi Akoanso Kokodo who is our branch youth organizer, is currently battling for his life.

4. The violent invasion of the office premises of Mr. John Dumelo, NDCs Parliamentary Candidate for the Ayawaso West Wagon Constituency, and subsequent brutal attacks on NDC party agents by NPP hooligans under the direction of the NPP MP, Lydia Seyram Alhassan cannot escape our mention.

5. Also, the leaked audio of the Bono East Regional Minister and NPP MP for Atebubu, Kofi Amoakohene who was heard addressing and directing a militia group of the NPP to ensure the registration of NPP minors, attack NDC supporters at registration centers and rig the ongoing voter registration exercise for the NPP, promising to reward them if the NPP wins the upcoming general elections is still fresh on our minds.

6. Ladies and gentlemen, the gruesome murder of a young promising Teacher Trainee in Banda, who was mistaken for an NDC Party Agent is the saddest of all. The culprit, a known NPP Vigilante and brother to the NPP Parliamentary Candidate, Joe Danquah had earlier been arrested for attacking some NDC supporters in the area, Hon. Ahmed Ibrahim but was sadly released within 20 minutes following an order from above. Obviously emboldened by the order from above, and feeling untouchable, he immediately resumed his criminal activities and took them a notch higher by gruesomely murdering the innocent Teacher Trainee. That a young life with so much promise would be curtailed due to the NPPs lust for power is tragic and should not be tolerated.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the sad irony is that, while the NPP hoodlums who have perpetrated all these heinous crimes have been left off the hook, innocent NDC officials and supporters are being harassed on a daily basis by our security agencies, which see nor hear all the evil that the ruling NPP and their state-sponsored thugs are unleashing.

Only yesterday, our Parliamentary Candidate for Efutu, Dr. James Kofi Annan was arrested and charged by the police for offensive conduct. His only crime is that he dared to criticize the Police Commander for Efutu who has become an appendage and accomplice to the violent acts being supervised by the NPP MP for the area, Alexander Afenyo Markin, by uttering these words: You are chairman of the committee and so what, You're the reason why we're not enjoying peace in Winneba.

The fact that these innocuous words could warrant such harassment from the Police highlights how low this nation has sunk, and further accentuates the state-sponsored terror that NDC supporters and other party officials are being subjected to at the hands of the despotic and tyrannical NPP/Akufo Addo-government.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, given the poisoned atmosphere we find ourselves in at the moment, with Government officials who have clearly weaponized themselves and their criminal goons to foment more trouble, we can only see looming trouble ahead of the December polls.

The National Democratic Congress takes this opportunity to salute all its gallant supporters, Parliamentary Candidates, Agents and our rank and file for standing up to these cowardly acts of intimidation being championed by known NPP thugs and their criminal collaborators in our state security agencies. We urge our members not to despair, for as sure as day follows night, good shall surely triumph over the evil. The great NDC party is winning the 2020 General Elections no matter the amount of violence the state and its thugs will met out to innocent citizens of this country.

We hereby urge all NDC supporters to defend themselves in line with the spirit of our 1992 Constitution, against any violent attacks by NPP thugs and any state-sponsored goons.

We further wish to sound a note of caution to some state Security Officials who have lent themselves as willing and pliant agents of violence against political opponents and innocent Ghanaians against their criminal acts. We wish to remind them that power emanates from the people, hence whatever power they exercise must be done in the supreme interest of the Ghanaian people.

As the venerable former President Kuffour once said, power can trick you! Do not be deceived by political power, because the tables will soon turn, and a new NDC government will fish out and deal drastically with all NPP thugs and their collaborators in state security agencies who are currently being used to maim and intimidate innocent civilians.

God bless our homeland Ghana.
PHOENIX, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- National Parent's Day is July 26th, a time to celebrate your mother and father and let them know how much they are loved and appreciated. As parents get older, many will turn to their adult children to help them in the next steps of senior living. Many of these adult children live an average of 450 miles from their parents and are having to assume the role of a long-distance caregiver. According to the National Center on Caregiving, approximately 5 to 7 million adult children in the U.S. are long-distance caregivers.

Assisted Living Locators, a leading nationwide senior placement and referral service, is encouraging long-distance caregivers to use this commemorative day as an opportunity to start the dialogue about how they can best assist their aging parents during this transition. The company provides free, personalized help finding housing and care solutions for seniors and their families.

To honor National Parent's Day in July, Assisted Living Locators' nationwide network of senior care advisors will post photos of their parents and share caregiver strategies for helping aging parents across social media channels and on the company website.

"This month is an opportunity for long-distance caregivers to assess the current lifestyle of aging parents and evaluate what can be improved to strengthen their loved one's health and happiness," said Angela Olea, Assisted Living Locators CEO RN. "No matter what stage of life your parents are in, talking about long term care and creating a plan now for the future can help them live their life on their own terms."

She stated the next step for long distance caregivers in the transition toward senior living is to have a needs assessment conducted by a knowledgeable professional to help understand your loved one's physical and cognitive condition.

Olea added that Assisted Living Locators senior care advisors provide an in-depth assessment of all the client's needs, along with thoughtful analysis and recommendations for best-fit care options. Long-distance caregivers can begin their assessment process with an easy-to-use online tool on the Assisted Living Locators website, which then directs you to a local senior care advisor for a phone or video call in-take interview to learn about the best options to meet your needs.

During COVID-19, senior care advisors provide virtual tours with qualified vetted home health, hospice, assisted living, memory care and adult family homes. They can also give families status updates on visitation and acceptance of move-ins for assisted living communities and skilled nursing facilities in your area.

If you're noticing changes in your parents physical and cognitive health and have questions about next steps in senior living, speak to an Assisted Living Locators Senior Care Advisor at 877-266-7788 or visit today at www.assistedlivinglocators.com.

SOURCE Assisted Living Locators

Related Links

http://www.assistedlivinglocators.com


The doctors had given up hope, even if Roxanne Kwiecinski had not.

The end was near, they told her. She needed to prepare herself.
The Trump administration has been detaining immigrant children in hotels, before deporting them to their home country.

The Trump administration is detaining immigrant children as young as one in hotels, sometimes for weeks, before deporting them to their home countries under policies that have effectively shut down the nations asylum system during the coronavirus pandemic, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

A private contractor for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is taking children to three Hampton Inn & Suites hotels in Arizona and at the Texas-Mexico border, where they are typically detained for several days, the records show. The hotels have been used nearly 200 times, while more than 10,000 beds for children sit empty at government shelters.

Federal anti-trafficking laws and a two-decade-old court settlement that governs the treatment of migrant children require that most kids be sent to the shelters for eventual placement with family sponsors. But President Donald Trumps administration is now immediately expelling people seeking asylum in the US, relying on a public health declaration to set aside those rules.

A representative from the Texas Civil Rights Project confirmed to Al Jazeera the accuracy of the claims and that a lawyer with the organisation has visited a hotel where children were being held.

People waiting in line for their appointment at the Miramar Immigration and Customs facility, in Miramar, Florida [AP Photo/Lynne Sladky]

Lawyers and advocates said housing unaccompanied migrant children in hotels exposes them to the risk of trauma as theyre detained in places not designed to hold them and cared for by contractors with unclear credentials. They are challenging the use of hotels as detention spaces under the Flores court settlement.

Theyve created a shadow system in which theres no accountability for expelling very young children, said Leecia Welch, a lawyer at the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law. There really arent enough words to describe what a disgraceful example of sacrificing children this is to advance heartless immigration policies.

ICE largely declined to answer questions but referred to the contractors as transportation specialists who are non-law enforcement staff members trained to work with minors and to ensure that all aspects of the transport or stay are compliant with the court settlement. It would not say whether theyre licensed child care professionals or have received FBI background checks.





In McAllen, Texas, people in scrubs went room to room on the fourth and fifth floors of the Hampton Inn caring for children, according to Roberto Lopez of the nonprofit Texas Civil Rights Project. He walked through the hotel Friday, spotting a small child holding on to a gate in a doorway as an adult on the other side played with him. Lopez said he could hear the cries of at least one child in the hallway.

Parked outside were unmarked white vans with the silhouettes of adults and children visible through the windows, Lopez said. He did not see logos or insignia for any government agencies on the vans or in the hotel.

The records obtained by AP show the Hampton Inn in McAllen was used most often to detain children  123 times in two months. The other hotels are in Phoenix and El Paso.

Hilton, which owns the Hampton Inn brand, said in a statement Tuesday that all three hotels were franchises and it believed rooms were booked directly with those owners. Hilton would not say how many rooms had been used to detain children or how much the rooms cost.

We understand these properties have been used for their intended purpose  temporary accommodation for guests traveling between locations, the statement said.

Castle Hospitality, which operates the McAllen hotel, said it did not know its rooms would be used to detain children until they arrived.

We are not making any political statements one way or the other by taking in this group and we feel that anyone, especially children in such difficult circumstances, is entitled to safe and clean accommodations and thats what we aim to provide, a company statement said. In our conversations with the group contact, we have been assured that all state and federal regulations are being followed.

Girls eating lunch at a shelter for migrant teenage girls, in Lake Worth, Florida [AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee]

At least 2,000 children have been expelled since March, when the Trump administration announced it would broadly refuse entry to people seeking protection in the US. The administration has cited the threat of the coronavirus in saying it does not have the resources to allow migrants to stay.

The US has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in the world, and the virus is ravaging much of the West and South, including Texass Rio Grande Valley, where McAllen is located.

Before March, Central American children who crossed into the US alone were generally sent to facilities overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS facilities have bedrooms and schooling, and children are given access to lawyers and generally placed with family sponsors. The facilities also are licensed by the states where they are located. Federal anti-trafficking law requires the government to promptly refer most children to HHS.





While US Customs and Border Protection said it made 1,564 apprehensions of unaccompanied children at the southern border in June, HHS said it received just 61. CBP would not say how many children are expelled right away, how many are sent to hotels or how border agents decide between those options or referral to HHS. The agency referred questions about hotels to ICE.

ICE said it uses contractor MVM Inc to transport single minors to hotels and to ensure each minor remains safe and secure while in this temporary housing. MVM had a contract with ICE for transportation services extended for $49m on March 31, according to federal contracting data. The company declined to answer questions.

According to MVMs hiring website, it is looking for bilingual travel youth care workers based in Phoenix and McAllen to provide humble care and service to unaccompanied children and teens. The posting does not require a child care background but said selected applicants wiould be given a government background investigation.

The border agencies and MVM have been criticised for their treatment of immigrant children during the Trump administration, including wide-scale family separations in 2018 and the detention of children in squalid border stations in Texas last year.

The government provided records on the detention of children and teenagers expelled in April and June to a team of lawyers representing the interests of immigrant children under the Flores agreement, reached in 1997. Records for May were not available.

The Hampton Inns in McAllen, El Paso and Phoenix were used 186 times. No other hotels appear in the records, which indicate that 169 children were detained at the hotels, some with multiple stays.

At least two one-year-olds were held for three days. But some young children, including three- to five-year-olds, were detained for two weeks or longer. One five-year-old was detained for 19 days in the McAllen hotel.

The records indicate the children were not accompanied by a parent but did not say more about the circumstances of their crossing the border. In the past, some very young children have been brought by older siblings or other relatives. Others have been sent by parents waiting for their court dates in refugee camps on the US-Mexico border with hopes they will be placed with relatives.

Karla Vargas, a Texas Civil Rights Project lawyer, represented a 13-year-old girl who was detained in a hotel and later expelled to El Salvador. Vargas said border agents did not tell the girls mother in the US that they had detained her daughter. A person who crossed the border with the girl called her mother.

The children with whom weve spoken say there are other children in the hotels, Vargas said. We know that there are masses of children.
Sonu Sood said that the first chartered flight from Kyrgyzstan to Varanasi will operate on 22 July, followed by charters for other states

Sonu Sood announced that he will be helping around 3,000 stranded students in Kyrgyzstan come back to India.

The first chartered flight from Kyrgyzstan to Varanasi will operate Wednesday (22 July), followed by charters for other states, the actor tweeted.

Many Indian students go to the landlocked Central Asian country to get their medical degree. But with the outbreak of novel coronavirus, the students staying at hostels could not come back due to travel restrictions. Now with the first flight from the countrys capital Bishkek to Varanasi, many stranded students will be reunited with their families.

The actor tweeted the news on Tuesday and said, Time to come home."

This is to inform to all the students of Kyrgyzstan that its time to come home we are operating the first charter Bishkek -Varanasi on 22nd July.The details of which will be sent to your email id and mobile phones in a while. Charters for other states will also fly this week.  sonu sood (@SonuSood) July 21, 2020

This came after Sood asked students in need to send any information regarding evacuation to his email ID. Tweeting on 15 July, he had mentioned that his team does not ask for any money for rescuing them and people should be aware regarding the same.

Dear students of kyrgysztan, for any info related to your rescue pls mail us on sonu4kyrgyzstan@gmail.com,

only EMAIL ID used for the rescue of Indian students. Beware that Team Sonu Sood is NOT CHARGING or COLLECTING ANY MONEY from you in any manner for managing this.  sonu sood (@SonuSood) July 15, 2020

Stranded students have been tweeting and asking for help from Indian authorities for a while now. Earlier a group of over 650 students from Tamil Nadu studying in the country had appealed to the Indian Embassy in Kyrgyzstans capital Bishkek, to help them return home, writes The Hindu.

As the number of positive cases increased in Kyrgyzstan, the students were asked to stay inside their hostels. But MBBS students felt a crunch in supplies. Also as online classes have started, the students believe they can participate in them from home.

Sood has been receiving a number of requests from all across the world. One Twitter user stranded in Uzbekistan recently got a message of reassurance from the actor.

Send me your details. https://t.co/G8N73PhmaU  sonu sood (@SonuSood) July 18, 2020

Earlier this week, it was reported that Sood, who catapulted to the national spotlight for his work in helping migrants reach their homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, will pen a book about his experience.
Ive never really felt homesick or lonely  in fact, I made things official by becoming an Australian citizen five years ago. Its probably relatively easy for Brits to get used to the Australian way of life because were quite similar, but what I love about Australia is not only that its bright and sunny and filled with exotic animals  although I do enjoy that  but that its a place where it feels like anything is possible.

It doesnt matter who you are or where you come from, you have as good a shot as anyone else to fulfil your ambitions. It doesnt get any better than that. Adjusting to Australian life hasnt been easy, but Im getting the hang of it. Jen Plahm, a 37-year-old PR consultant from Chicago, US, was working in Utah when she met Australian travel writer Craig Tansley. They married last July, two years after her move to Queensland. Jen Plahm and Craig Tansley.

If someone had said to me that I would one day move  not only to Australia, but to the Gold Coast  I would have thought they were crazy. I travelled to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne each year for work, so, while the other cities werent unfamiliar, it was Melbourne that I felt connected to. With its fashion, lifestyle and weather, it reminds me of Chicago, which is another way of saying it feels a lot like home. Meeting Craig was just as surprising. Id moved to Park City in Utah for work, but it wasnt exactly noted for its dating scene for my age group  lots of 24-year-old ski bros or married men. Craig arrived in 2015 as part of a group media famil [familiarisation] that I was looking after and we hit it off right away, so much so that he extended his stay after everyone else went home. For the five days I hosted him, we spent our time doing the most insanely romantic things any two people could do: hot-air ballooning, horseback riding, candlelit dinners, and by the time I dropped him off at the airport, we were both like, How can we make this work? Loading Moving to Australia was not what you would call easy. We spent time travelling before we decided to settle on the Gold Coast, where Craigs family is, but there was so much paperwork and expense. We werent in the habit of putting photos of each other on our social media accounts, so that was an issue because those things are checked, as are the dates and times of any activities youve done together, letters or emails youve written, and even shared bills. After 20 months of work, I got my de facto visa and Im waiting to receive my permanent residency. I cant become an Australian citizen because it would mean having to forfeit my US citizenship; quite an ask. Living by the ocean and the change of pace are two of the things I love most about living in Australia. Here, people are relaxed and not so caught up with what you do or where you went to school. Its more about getting to know who you are as a person and I respect that. Also, in America you get two weeks off a year, but in Australia theres a holiday every other week and thats a way of life I can really get behind!

The adjustment to Australian life hasnt been as easy as I thought it would be, but Im starting to get the hang of it. At first, Craig would have to explain some of the common words that are shortened, such as Chrissie and servo, but now that Ive started asking How are you going? rather than How are you doing?, Im certain the rest will follow. It would be difficult to find anyone who loves Australia more than I do The relationship that brought her to Australia may not have worked out but Lucy Pearson, a 33-year-old book blogger at The Literary Edit, insists the best mistake I ever made led her to a love far greater. Lucy Pearson. You never expect your life to take on a different path just by catching the ferry, but sometimes it can be as simple as that. It was during a three-week holiday out here in 2015 that I raced to get onto the Manly ferry after a festival. I started talking to a guy with bare feet and a happy, relaxed attitude and when he asked me out on a date to watch the sunset over in Watsons Bay [in Sydneys eastern suburbs], I couldnt say yes fast enough; our connection was electric.

I cancelled my flight to Melbourne two days later, spent six days with him, then decided to pack up my life in London to move back here to be with him. It was all based on a feeling. Youd find it difficult to find anyone who loves Sydney as much as I do now, but I was never unhappy in England. I had a great job, lived in a lovely house, earned lots of money and enjoyed the company of a wonderful group of friends and family. It was only once I arrived here that I realised what a special place Australia is. Loading As my relationship with the guy began unravelling not long after I arrived, my passion for the country  and for Sydney itself  intensified. I love the relaxed nature of the locals (good luck finding a guy whod want to take you to watch a sunset back in England) and the community feeling you get, but its the coastal walks, the daily ocean swims and, yes, you know Im going to say the weather. The heartache when we finally broke up was painful, but I still swear he was the best mistake Ive ever made because he led me to my true love: Australia.
More than 600,000 Tricare users in the military health system's East Region received emails Friday asking them to consider donating blood for research as "survivors of COVID-19."

But given that just 31,000 persons affiliated with the U.S. military have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, the email came as a surprise to beneficiaries.

Read Next: Fort Hood IDs Another Soldier Found Dead Off Post

"Just wondering [if] anybody [got] an email from Tricare saying since you are a COVID survivor, please donate your plasma.?? I have NOT been tested," wrote a beneficiary on Facebook. "Just remember all those people inputting data are human and make mistakes."

Humana Military, the company that manages Tricare for part or all of 31 states and the District of Columbia, issued a call to blood donors located near military installations that are collecting plasma from recovered coronavirus patients, also known as convalescent plasma, as a potential treatment for the illness.

But the message went to every beneficiary located near a collection point.

"As a survivor of COVID-19, it's safe to donate whole blood or blood plasma, and your donation could help other COVID-19 patients. Your plasma likely has antibodies (or proteins) present that might help fight the coronavirus infection. Currently, there is no cure for COVID-19. However, there is information that suggests plasma from COVID-19 survivors, like you, might help some patients recover more quickly from COVID-19," the email stated.

Six hours later, Humana issued a mea culpa.

"In an attempt to educate beneficiaries who live close to convalescent plasma donation centers about collection opportunities, you received an email incorrectly suggesting you were a COVID-19 survivor. You have not been identified as a COVID-19 survivor and we apologize for the error and any confusion it may have caused," the company wrote.

Marvin Hill, Humana's corporate communications lead, said the company apologizes "for the confusion caused by the original message," which was sent to recipients based on their proximity to a plasma collection facility and not "on any medical information or diagnosis."

"As a part of an effort to educate military beneficiaries about convalescent plasma donation opportunities, Humana was asked to assist our partner, the Defense Health Agency. Language used in email messages to approximately 600k beneficiaries gave the impression that we were attempting to reach only people who had tested positive for COVID-19. We quickly followed the initial email with a clear and accurate second message acknowledging this. We apologize," Hill said in a statement sent to Military.com.

The Defense Department announced in late May that it planned to collect 8,000 units of plasma by Sept. 30 from patients who recovered from COVID-19, part of a nationwide effort to study the effectiveness of convalescent plasma as a treatment for the illness.

But Friday, DoD officials said they have increased the goal to 10,000. The department has already collected 4,601 units.

"Our goal is to encourage all personnel who have fully recovered from COVID-19 to donate their convalescent plasma as a way to help their friends, family, or colleagues who may be suffering from the disease now or who may contract the disease in the future. The need is now," said Army Col. Audra Taylor, chief of the Armed Services Blood Program.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved convalescent plasma as an investigational therapy in March for those hospitalized with the illness, and more than 35,000 patients in the U.S. have received it.

While there is no data that proves "definitively" that convalescent plasma works, there have been "encouraging reports and a lot of mechanistic reasoning that in fact convalescent plasma may be helpful," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the FDA.

"These studies are being done as we speak ... we need donors. Blood drives are ongoing, and the U.S. government will be trying to accelerate these drives for convalescent plasma," Woodcock said in a call with reporters last week.

Antibodies found in convalescent plasma also serve as a source for another potential treatment for COVID-19: monoclonal antibodies. These are clones of isolated neutralizing antibodies -- either taken from humans or artificially created -- that are currently in development and safety testing as an "antibody cocktail" to treat the coronavirus for patients both in and out of hospitals, according to Woodcock.

In addition to collecting convalescent plasma at 15 military blood donation centers, DoD plans to deploy a mobile blood collection unit to areas with a high concentration of COVID-19 cases, Taylor said.

To be eligible, donors must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 lbs., be in good health and be symptom-free for 14 days. Additionally, potential donors must have a prior diagnosis of COVID-19.

As of Monday, 31,418 patients affiliated with the Defense Department have tested positive for COVID-19, including 21,909 service members. Nationwide, nearly 3.9 million Americans have contracted the virus and 141,426 have died.

Worldwide, since the coronavirus was first detected in China in December, 14.7 million people have had confirmed cases and 611,599 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

-- Military.com Staff Writer Oriana Pawlyk contributed to this report.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Related: Air Force Couple With COVID-19 Has Baby in Madrid Apartment
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the premises of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother on Wednesday as part of countrywide searches in connection with a money laundering case linked to an alleged fertiliser scam, officials said.

ED sleuths were assisted by personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), who were seen standing guard at the farmhouse and residence of the Gehlots' in Mandore area of Jodhpur district.

The searches come at a time when a political slugfest is currently on between CM Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot.

Pilot, a former Union minister, was recently sacked as the deputy CM and PCC chief of the state.

Officials said the raids are being carried out against Ashok Gehlot's elder brother Agrasain Gehlot, who is the promoter of a seeds and fertiliser company identified as Anupam Krishi.

Responding to the raids, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala told reporters in Jaipur, "Prime Minister Modi has created 'raid raj' in the country but we are not going to be scared."

When the Centre's "gimmicks" failed to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan, ED raids started at the premises of Gehlot's elder brother, he said

The agency, officials said, is searching at least six locations in the desert state including at the premises of a former Congress MP, who is alleged to have business ties with Agrasain Gehlot.

They said the raids are being conducted by the central probe agency at 13 places in the country including Rajasthan, West Bengal (2), Gujarat (4) and Delhi (1).

The action came after the agency filed a criminal Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), ED equivalent of a police FIR, in a 2007-09 Customs department case of alleged irregularities in the supply of subsidised Muriate of Potash (MOP) to farmers and investigation in this case was finalised in 2013.

The ED complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been filed after studying the FIR and chargesheet filed by the Customs and its specialised probe arm Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), they said.

The raids are aimed to collect evidence in this scam case which is stated to be worth about Rs 60 crore, officials said.

Officials of the agency are carrying out the searches under the provision of the PMLA.

Sources alleged that Agrasain Gehlot and his company have been slapped with a Customs penalty of about Rs 7 crore in this alleged fertiliser supply scam.

The ED is also probing an alleged forex law violation case against a Jaipur-based businessman Ratan Kant Sharma, who is alleged to have had business ties with Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav in the past.

The Income Tax Department on July 13 had carried out multiple raids at over 40 premises of three Rajasthan-based business groups on tax evasion charges and officials had said it seized about Rs 12 crore cash and vital documents.

The premises linked to two state Congress leaders and a business group stated to be close to the top party leadership of Rajasthan were searched.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes had later said that "several incriminating evidences in the form of loose papers, diaries, digital data were found that indicate bullion trading in cash, investment of cash in properties among others."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 15:40:19|Editor: huaxia

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China on Tuesday donated a consignment of medical supplies to Zimbabwe to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The donation includes 30,000 testing kits, 220,000 surgical masks, and 40,000 medical gloves. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa expresses profound gratitude to China for its continued support to Zimbabwe's fight against the pandemic. As of Tuesday, Zimbabwe recorded 1,820 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 488 recoveries and 26 fatalities.
TDT | Manama

One of the largest schools in the Middle East is facing huge financial crunch due to the unexpected economic situation that has resulted from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The Indian School Bahrain (ISB) recently issued a circular addressed to parents regarding the unprecedented low collection of fees caused by the current health crisis.

In the circular dated June 22, principal VR Palaniswamy stated: We would like to bring to your kind attention that the school is passing through a bad financial situation, due to unprecedented low fee collection during these days. The fees due as of now are more than BD 700,000 from 7,950 students, which is affecting the day-to-day operations of the school and leading towards an unmanageable situation.

We appeal to the parents to give top priority for the payment of school fees and clear the pending fees at the earliest to ensure the stability of the school. ISB chairman Prince Natarajan said that the schools authorities had alerted parents who have been affected by COVID-19 repercussions to submit an application for fee concession last April itself.

We have received nearly 1,500 applications requesting for fee concession, Natarajan told TDT. The committee already verified the documents submitted by 350 parents and is also making online interviews to understand their problems. We are in the process of verifying 1,000 eligible applications.

We are not able to reduce any costs mainly because the teachers are putting extra efforts to make videos and PowerPoint presentations to prepare for online classes. Right now we have a twomonth delay for staff salaries and we want to clear at least 75 per cent of this amount before Eid. This can happen only if the parents pay the fees with immediate effect.

Parents are urged to make the fee payments using the existing online platforms. The parents should take this issue seriously to save the school, Natarajan added. Since we have only 1,500 applications for fee concession, we assume the rest of the parents can afford to pay the fees, but delays are happening exploiting the market situation or for no reason.
The officers ran after him and when he dropped it while fleeing, it hit the ground and fired. Nobody was shot and the man was taken into custody, police said.
Factbox: Who's bidding to be next World Trade Organization chief? A sign is pictured in front of the chair of the Director General before the start of the General Council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva

GENEVA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - World Trade Organization members are considering eight candidates competing to replace Brazil's Roberto Azevedo, who is stepping down as director-general on Aug. 31, a year early.

The new WTO chief will need to steer reform and negotiations in the face of rising protectionism, a deep recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and growing trade tensions, notably between the United States and China.

Candidates, including three women vying to be the WTO's first female boss, were vetted by members last week. Campaigning continues until Sept. 7 with a final decision expected later this year, possibly after the U.S. election in November.

In the meantime, a temporary caretaker director-general will be chosen from among four current deputies from China, Nigeria, Germany, and the United States.

Below is a summary of the eight permanent candidates by order of their candidacy:

Jesus Seade (Mexico), 73, senior trade official in Mexican government

Seade helped found the WTO in the early 1990s and led his government's negotiating team to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement. The veteran negotiator also previously worked at the International Monetary Fund and at universities in Hong Kong.

He said the next chief needed to combine depth of understanding of trade issues with the political clout needed to "get the WTO out of the hole" it is in. While there is no formal regional rotation requirement, some say that coming from Mexico might be a disadvantage since Azevedo was from the Americas.

Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt), 67, currently Geneva-based lawyer

Former trade negotiator for Egypt and ex-WTO official who helped draft an agreement on trade in services in the landmark Uruguay Round deal - an experience that he said gave him essential "bridge-building" skills.

Mamdouh, who was officially endorsed by the African Union, is currently advising G20 president Saudi Arabia on trade matters and vows to "immediately revive the negotiating function of the organisation" if chosen. Some delegates say a lack of political experience could be a handicap but he denies this.

Story continues

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria), 66, board chair of the global vaccine alliance Gavi

Okonjo-Iweala, one of three women and three Africans in the race, is an economist and development specialist who has served as Nigeria's foreign minister and finance minister and as a managing director of the World Bank. Branding herself a "do-er", she points to her strong negotiating skills including a deal to cancel billions of dollars of Nigerian debt.

Described by some as one of top candidates, she told Reuters she has "strong support" from the continent. [L8N2DZ3ER] [L8N2E663I]

Tudor Ulianovschi (Moldova), 37, former minister of foreign affairs

Ulianovschi, the youngest candidate, was foreign minister in 2018-2019 and formerly a diplomat, with a 2016-2018 posting as Moldovan ambassador in Switzerland, covering also the WTO.

He said his immediate priority as chief would be to work towards a multilateral trade deal at the 2021 ministerial conference.

Yoo Myung-hee (South Korea), 53, trade minister

South Korea's first female trade minister previously led the renegotiation of a trade deal with the United States and worked on Seoul's trade pacts.

Yoo vows to make the WTO more "relevant, resilient and responsive" and rebuild trust in the body.

Amina Mohamed (Kenya), 58, sport and culture minister

Mohamed is a former Kenyan ambassador to the WTO who in 2005 was the first woman to chair the WTO's General Council.

She ran for the top post unsuccessfully in 2013 although she says she has gained key skills since, including through chairing a Nairobi ministerial conference where deals were struck.

She has advocated broad participation in the WTO reform process and expressed some sympathy with U.S. criticism of the body. Some delegates see her as a frontrunner.

Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri (Saudi Arabia), minister advising the royal court

Al-Tuwaijri, who studied aeronautics and business, was a Saudi Air Force pilot before working for a number of banks. He became minister of economy and state planning from 2017 until he was relieved of his post in March. He has also been on the board of directors at Saudi Aramco, Saudi Railways and Saudi Arabian Airlines and says his private sector experience allows him to take a "fresh look" at the WTO.

Some delegates say political tensions with Qatar might prevent him earning broader support.

Liam Fox (Britain), 58, member of parliament

A former defence minister as well as an ex-doctor and staunch Eurosceptic, Fox campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union and, after the Brexit vote, became secretary of state for international trade, but lost his position a year ago.

Fox, who was given early odds of 33/1 by betting agency Ladbrokes before the vetting process began, says this is a job for a politician "and probably one who has been around for a while and carries the scars of the most difficult battles."

(Reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Andrea Shalal in Washington, William James in London, Belen Carreno in Madrid, Katharine Houreld in Nairobi and Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
(@FahadShabbir)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2020) Top Moldovan diplomat Oleg Tulea will travel to the Ukrainian capital soon for talks with his counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, the Moldovan Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

The upcoming working visit was discussed during a video conference held by the Moldovan secretary of state for foreign affairs, Dumitru Socolan, and Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar.

"It was agreed that the two foreign ministers will hold a meeting in Kiev in the near future," the Moldovan ministry said in a statement.

Apart from coordinating the high-level visit, the diplomats talked about the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, plans for the gradual reopening of borders, and cooperation in regional and international organizations.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said the foreign policy officials also discussed progress in joint projects in trade, economy, energy, transport, culture and the humanitarian sphere.
Airport runway FOD detection systems manufacturers continue to push for product improvements with advancements in mechanisms for superior efficacy in functionality.

ROCKVILLE, MD / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / The global airport runway FOD detection systems market is expected to grow with a moderate 4% CAGR between 2020 and 2030. According to the Fact.MR report, the coronavirus outbreak has adversely impacted the global aviation industry, with air passenger footfall dropping drastically over fears of the contagion. Consequently, the demand for new installations in runway FOD detection systems are witnessing a downturn in the short-term hurting market prospects.

"The airport runway FOD systems market largely gaining ground owing to major advances in terms of radar systems. In addition, agencies regulating the aviation sector in multiple nations are pushing for improvements to performance standards in critical airport facilities, which will benefit the runway FOD detection systems market for the foreseeable future," says the FACT.MR study.

Request a report sample to gain more market insights at

https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1897

Airport Runway FOD Detection Systems Market- Key Takeaways

Airport runway FOD detection systems hardware components are key to revenue streams owing to extensive investments airport refurbishment and modernization projects.

Rapid rise in investments for defense infrastructure is giving impetus to applications in military airports.

Europe and North America are the leading consumers for airport runway FOD detection systems

Airport Runway FOD Detection Systems Market- Driving Factors

The critical nature of detecting foreign object debris, before and after landings and takeoffs in terms of safety standards is a key growth factor.

Uptick in military aviation activities in recent years is generating key growth opportunities.

High investments by government bodies towards air travel safety infrastructure will bolster market growth.

Airport Runway FOD Detection Systems Market- Key Restraints

High costs of airport runway FOD detection systems are a key factor hindering adoption rates.

Regular maintenance requirements remain a key challenge for market players.

COVID-19 Impact on Airport Runway FOD Detection Systems Market

With the ongoing covid-19 crisis, the installation and maintenance activities of airport runway FOD detection systems have taken a downturn. Social distancing trends have negatively affected air travel. Restrictions on trade are also impacting market developments. On the other hand, government financial stimulus will help recovery of the industry in the years ahead.

Explore the global Airport Runway FOD Detection Systems market with 152 figures, 57 data tables, along with the table of contents of the report. You can also find detailed segmentation on https://www.factmr.com/report/1897/airport-runway-foreign-object-debris-detection-systems-market

Competitive Landscape

Market participants in the airport runway FOD detection systems market are pushing for product innovations to build on performance standards. For example, Israel based Xsight is pushing for the deployment of an intelligent runway debris monitoring system in Qatar, for automated, real-time functions. Moog Inc., The Stratech Group Ltd., and Xsight Systems Inc. are some of the major airport runway FOD detection systems market players.

About the Report

This study offers readers a comprehensive market forecast of the airport runway FOD detection systems market. Global, regional and country-level analysis of the latest industry trends impacting the airport runway FOD detection systems market is covered in this FACT.MR study. The report offers insights on the airport runway FOD detection systems market on the basis of component (hardware and services), and end use (civil airport and military airport), across six regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, East Asia, South Asia & Oceania, and MEA).

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A Graniteville man who sexually abused a young girl two years ago was sentenced Tuesday to two years in prison.

Marco Rodriguez, then 43, resolved his case in March by pleading guilty to the top charge against him midway through jury selection in state Supreme Court, St. George.

An indictment said Rodriguez subjected the victim to sexual contact between May 28 and 30, 2018.

The defendant touched the girls private parts, said a criminal complaint.

The child was under age 13 then.

She and the defendant knew each other, said police.

Rodriguez was arrested about a month later on June 26, 2018, based on an investigation.

He was charged with felony and misdemeanor counts of sexual abuse. He was also accused of misdemeanor counts of forcible touching and child endangerment.

Four months ago, Rodriguez, over prosecutors objection, accepted an offer by the court to plead guilty to the top count of first-degree sexual abuse.

Prosecutors had originally offered the defendant a two-year sentence to plead guilty to the felony sex-abuse charge but withdrew the offer before the start of jury selection, said a source familiar with the case.

Rodriguez had shown no interest in the offer until after jury selection was underway, the source said.

The defendant also pleaded guilty then to a misdemeanor count of criminal contempt for violating an order of protection in a separate case in September 2018.

Besides two years behind bars, Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 years post-release supervision in the sex-abuse case.

The defendant must register with state authorities as a sexual offender; an eight-year order of protection was issued in the victims favor.

Rodriguez was sentenced to a concurrent term of 364 days behind bars for the criminal-contempt conviction. A five-year order of protection was issued for that victim.

Rodriguez, who is not a U.S. citizen, could face deportation after serving his sentence.

Defense lawyer Michael Cirigliano declined comment on the cases.
A woman has been arrested today on suspicion of murdering her baby by 'cutting its throat' in Wembley after horrified neighbours heard screams.

One local told how a woman dressed in black was taken away in handcuffs by police this morning at an address in Wembley, north-west London.

The woman had screamed at the policeman as she was arrested while the baby's father was 'hysterical', according to the neighbour.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police told MailOnline that all parties involved were known to each other, but would not discuss further details.

Ilona Sidorova, 45, said she made coffee for a woman investigating the incident who told her that the 'lady killed her baby - eight months old - for no reason'.

A woman has been arrested today on suspicion of murdering her baby by 'cutting its throat' in Wembley after horrified neighbours heard screams (the scene at a residential property on Preston Road, Wembley where a baby has been found dead and a woman has been arrested)

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police told MailOnline that all parties involved were known to each other, but would not discuss further details

She said: 'The lady who I made coffee for said that the mother killed the baby, cut the neck and called to the husband and said 'I killed your baby.''

Ms Sidorova said that she was 'shocked' to find emergency services vehicles and hear screaming after returning home from work.

'I came back after my night shift, but there was some noise and screaming in front of the door. What I saw first was the woman covered in black,' she said.

'She was already wearing handcuffs and was screaming for the policeman. I saw the lady in black screaming and about 15 metres away there was a man.

'He was hysterical, he was screaming and the police took him in the car and then took her too. I just saw them as neighbours - that's it.

'They were looking so friendly, all of them. There were seven or eight people living there, more than one family. I would see them and speak with them. Sometimes children came and I allowed them to pick blackberries.

'I was shocked. I work as a nurse in a house for people with mental health problems so I see people with those problems, but I never saw anything strange or suspicious.'

Earlier a convoy of marked and unmarked police cars lined the street while forensics officers, dressed in hazmat suits, walked back and forth from the house to their van.

A single police car remains outside the semi-detached house in Wembley.

Roy Smith, Met Police North West Commander, said: 'This is a tragic incident and my thoughts are with all those affected including the family and our first responders who rushed to the scene. 'Whilst I know the effects of this death will reverberate throughout the local community, please be reassured that we are doing everything we can to investigate and, at this early stage, are not seeking any other person in connection with the death'

A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a baby was found dead at property on Preston Road in Wembley, North West London. Pictured: General view of Preston Road

Roy Smith, Met Police North West Commander, said: 'This is a tragic incident and my thoughts are with all those affected including the family and our first responders who rushed to the scene.

'Whilst I know the effects of this death will reverberate throughout the local community, please be reassured that we are doing everything we can to investigate and, at this early stage, are not seeking any other person in connection with the death.

'I would like to hear from anyone who feels they may have information that could assist our investigation to understand this horrific tragedy.'

LONDON MURDERS 2020 Where the 69 murders across the capital this year have happened William Algar, 53, Jan-03, Barnes

Takieddine Boudhane, 30, Jan-03, Finsbury Park

Krasimir Kartikov, 60, Jan-13, Croydon

Harinder Kumar, 22, Jan-19, Seven Kings

Narinder Singh, 26, Jan-19, Seven Kings

Baljit Singh, 34, Jan-19, Seven Kings

Tahereh Pirali-Dashti, 40, Jan-20, Barnet

Beverley Denahy, 61, Jan-22, Chingford

Unnamed man, 60s, Jan-24, Clapton

Louis Johnson, 16, Jan-27, Croydon

Eraj Seifi, 46, Jan-29, Queens Park

Unnamed man, 33, Feb-12, North Finchley

James Dowdell, 54, Feb-17, Chelsea

Sundeep Ghuman, 36, Feb-18, Thamesmead

Lennox Nigel Alcendor, 42, Feb-21, Cricklewood

Li-Qing Wang, 35, Feb-25, Waltham Forest

Tyler Roye, 24, Feb-26, Croydon

Archie Beston, 19, Feb-29, Kingston

Asante Campbell, 24, Feb-29, Hendon

David Siirak, 27, Mar-01, Hillingdon

Shanur Ahmed, 16, Mar-03, Newham

Ricardo Fuller, 24, Mar-07, Ilford

Vanita Nowell, 68, Mar-08, Southwark

Damani Mauge, 17, Mar-08, Croydon

Cameron Murfitt, 18, Mar-15, Greenwich

Tracey Kidd, 57, Mar-17, Hackney

Shadika Mohsin Patel, 40, Mar-19, Newham

Abdullahi Mahmoud, 29, Mar-19, Enfield

Stefan Melnyk, 54, Mar-22, Acton

Kelly Stewart, 41, Mar-26, Barking

Tomas Macionis, 35, Mar-31, Walthamstow

Sonia Teresa Burton Calvi, 56, Apr-01, Stockwell

Edgar Aguilera Daza, 59, Apr-01, Stockwell

Maryan Ismail, 57, Apr-06, Edmonton

Ralph Gibson, 42, Apr-15, Putney

Denise Michelle Keane-Barnett-Simmons, 26, Apr-16, Brent

Mark Baker, 62, Apr-19, Walthamstow

Jay John, 27, Apr-25, Hackney

Baljit Singh, 37, Apr-25, Hayes

Pavinya Nithiyakumar, 1, Apr-26, Ilford

Nigish Nithiyakumar, 3, Apr-26, Ilford

David Gomoh, 24, Apr-26, Newham

Anthony Rooks, 79, May-04, Holloway

Yonas Haile, 32, May-05, Hammersmith

Francois Kablan, 19, May-13, Southwark

Jemal Ebrahim, 23, May-13, Haringey

Chad Gordon, 27, May-18, Haringey

Oluwamayowa Adeymi, 21, Jun-05, Hackney

Nicole Smallman, 27, Jun-07, Wembley

Bibaa Henry, 46, Jun-07, Wembley

Alexander Kareem, 20, Jun-08, Shepherd's Bush

Unnamed woman, 50s, Jun-10, Lewisham

Mihai Gae, 48, Jun-13, Hornsey

Kyle Kelson, 25, Jun-19, North Cheam

Wayne Hoskyns, 41, Jun-19, Bexley

Steve Morrison, 30, Jun-23, Epping

Sayagi Sivanantham, 5, Jun-30, Mitcham

Imani Allaway-Muir, 22, Jul-04, Islington

Khloemae Loy, 23, Jul-05, Greenwich

Donnell Rhule, 18, Jul-08, Dulwich

Muhammed Samir Uddin, 19, Jul-10, Poplar

Jahreau Shepherd, 30, Jul-11, Kennington

Dean Edwards, 43, Jul-12, Penge

Ahmed Yasin-Ali, 18, Jul-15, Maida Vale

Billy McCullagh, 27, Jul-16, Harlesden

Peter Petrou, 37, Jul-16, Kilburn

Skender Ismaili, 30, Jul-17, Enfield

Unnamed man, TBC, Jul-20, Ealing

Unnamed baby, TBC, Jul-22, Wembley



A Met Police spokesman said: 'Officers were called to an address in Preston Road, Wembley, at 9.51am to a report of an injured infant.

'Officers and London Ambulance Service attended. A baby, believed to be less than a year old, was pronounced dead at the scene.

'Next of kin are being supported by specially trained officers. A woman was arrested today and remains in custody.

'It is believed that all parties involved were known to each other. At this early stage, police are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident.'

The latest death, which comes just two days after a man was stabbed in Ealing, is the 12th murder to hit the capital in the last 18 days.

Last week, figures from the ONS revealed police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument rose to 46,265 for the year to March.

This was 51 per cent higher than when data of this kind was first collected in 2011 and is the highest number on record, the report said.

The number of such offences rose seven per cent in London, but dropped 10 per cent in West Yorkshire and remained the same in the West Midlands - the three areas of the country with the highest rate per 100,000 population.

The report said: 'Knife or sharp instrument offences continue to be concentrated in metropolitan areas across England and Wales, with around a third (34 per cent) of all offences recorded by the police in London.'

The highest rate was also seen in London, with 179 offences per 100,000 population This compared with an England and Wales average of 82 offences per 100,000.

According to the latest statistics, assault with injury and assault with intent to cause serious harm offences, and robbery, each accounted for 44 per cent of all offences involving a knife or sharp instrument (20,333 and 20,159 respectively).

The ONS report added: 'Offences involving knives or sharp instruments have been experiencing a rising trend since the year ending March 2014, although in recent years the rate of increase has slowed.'
In the wake of the coronavirus, Smyles Graves was furloughed from the radio station where he worked as an administrative assistant. Hes been living off unemployment  most of which is slated to end this week for him and about 380,000 other Alabamians.

Ive been sitting here thinking about it, like how Im going to plan this out? he said of losing $600 a week of his unemployment income. I dont really know right now, to be honest, said Graves, who lives in Wetumpka.

As Congress debates whether to extend CARES Act unemployment benefits, Alabamians whove lived on up to$3,500 in unemployment since March may face a rude awakening next week when their weekly check drops to a maximum of $275, which amounts to a monthly income of $1,100 or less.

Im nervous about it because you start wondering, can I really maneuver on just the basic unemployment amount that the state pays? said Graves, who says he will prioritize his rent first, and his food and cable bill last, since his work just extended his furlough another 90 days.

Impossible Choices

Graves is not alone in his worries. For some Alabamians participating in mortgage and student loan relief programs, a lump sum repayment will soon be due for months of bills, risking a possible domino effect of evictions, foreclosures and bankruptcies in the months ahead.

The expiration of the CARES Act will force families to make impossible choices, like putting food on the table, paying rent, or paying for essential utilities like water, said UA Law Professor Allyson Gold.

Nearly half of Alabamians reported a loss of income this month, and the number who say they fear a loss of future employment jumped from about 26 percent to 37 percent last week, according to the Census Bureaus Weekly Household Pulse Survey.

About a third of Alabamians (34 percent) fear losing their homes, a roughly 11 percent jump from the week prior.

In a positive turn, the states unemployment rate dropped significantly in June to 7.5 percent, down 22 percent from May. Yet as coronavirus case numbers spike, it is unclear if or when businesses will rehire remaining laid off workers.

April Mejia loved working with rescued animals at the Greater Birmingham Humane Society, where she was employed for over 5 years before being laid off in June.

It was a huge loss for me. I felt like I was doing something that made a difference, she said.

Mejia is the only income-earner in her family. She says the extra $600 in CARES Act unemployment got them through the past month, and she is not sure what will happen when she loses those funds this week.

I worry about running out of food. Ill panic and probably spend money I shouldnt, and get this or that, because Im trying to keep as much (food) as I can to the side, she said.

Mobile-based attorney James Patterson says he thinks pandemic programs are propping some people up, but that is ending.

Right now (people are) able, probably, to maintain their rent or pay their mortgage and buy stuff and certainly (thats) keeping the economy going. You know, that $600 is a lot of extra money for folks, he said.

According to the Urban Institute, nearly half of Alabamians had some type of debt in collections, even before the pandemic.

Lately Pattersons office is only filing about half the number of bankruptcies per month it typically does, he says, but hes anticipating a change.

I think youll see a big surge of bankruptcy towards the end of this year, he said.

And, in another twist, Patterson says Alabama may have missed some of the refusal to work cases that could get reported by employers later on. Down the road, Alabama may demand the repayment of unemployment paid wrongfully to those who refused to go back work, further limiting their ability to recover financially, he said.

Theres gonna be a lot of people that are going to get hit with letters from the state Department of Labor saying, Hey you owe us $4,000, $5,000, he said.

Evictions

Despite the financial boost from CARES Act unemployment, a third of Americans reportedly did not pay rent this month.

In Alabama, eviction filings increased by more than 50 percent from May to June in the states top evicting counties, Jefferson, Mobile, Madison, and Montgomery, according to online court records. The increase came after Alabamas eviction ban for privately-owned properties ended June 1.

A federal eviction ban that applies only to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backed mortgages and HUD properties is sunsetting at the end of July.

These (HUD) programs exist to provide housing for low-income individuals and families. If a tenant is evicted from this housing, it is very difficult to secure replacement housing, said Gold.

The Alabama Department of Labor has been overwhelmed during the pandemic, and some residents are still awaiting their payments.

The states unemployment fund is being drained by the demand. According to the department, it has over $234 million for unemployment remaining, enough to last a few more months. After that, Alabama will need to borrow money from the federal government.

But for regular people, getting extra money through unemployment does not necessarily translate to paying the rent, said UAB professor of finance Dr. Stephanie Yates.

Human nature says, Hey its an unusual time, and I have all these other obligations or needs or wants, she said. Maybe I can take that (extra money) to get caught up on my medical debt, my other debt, things that have been nagging at me, she said.

Maybe I can go and make that purchase Ive always wanted to make but couldnt quite afford, added Yates.

Utilities

Mejia, who got laid off from the humane society, says she used some of her unemployment to replace several kitchen appliances that broke down unexpectedly since she lost her job.

Her wife and son are immunocompromised, so shes applying to positions that will allow her to work from home.

Shes not at risk of losing her home because her family gets housing assistance. Her healthcare is through the Affordable Care Act. Right now, Mejias biggest worry is paying for utilities.

They dont care what my income is, she said of utility providers.

Alabama is in a minority of states that did not issue a moratorium for utility shutoffs during the pandemic, and some Alabama utilities that voluntarily paused disconnections for non-payment have resumed them.

Gold, the law professor, expects to see more utility disconnections in the months ahead. She says data show some Americans have their water cut off during times of economic insecurity, and that possibility is especially troubling during a pandemic.

If you lose that access to safe, reliable, stable water supply, then you are very simply unable to wash your hands in accordance with the CDC or ADHP guidelines, which makes you vulnerable to COVID-19 transmission and infection.

Job Hunt

Graves, the radio station worker, is trying to head off such scenarios by applying for jobs. He has a bachelors degree in political science and a masters in criminal justice, but was never able to get a job as a paralegal when he graduated about 20 years ago. Thats a familiar narrative for many of his friends, he says, and he thinks race plays a part.

From what I have seen in Alabama, he said Its about who you know.

He says hes hopeful Congress will extend the $600 a week. In the meantime, hes seeing thick competition for scant opportunities in the Montgomery area.

It looks very slim out here right now, Graves added. While youre applying for a job, everybody else is

Clarification: This story was updated at 12:09 p.m. on July 22 to reflect that Alabamians have been receiving up to $3,500 in unemployment a month
The Criminal Division of the Accra High Court is expected to on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 fix specific dates in October to commence the murder trial of Gregory Afoko and Asabke Alangde.

Afoko and Alangde have been charged for the murder of the late New Patriotic Partys (NPP)Upper East Regional Charman Adams Mahama, somewhere in 2015.

They have both pleaded not guilty to the offence and are currently in prisons custody awaiting the trial to commence by way of the state calling its first witness.

In court on Wednesday, the court presided over by Justice Merley Afua Wood adjourned the case to July 29, 2020 for dates to be taken in October to start the trial.

This means he trial will commence in the new legal year as the courts begin a two months Legal Vacation from August 1, 2020.

When the case was called, lawyer Agyenim Agyei Boateng holding Lawyer Osafo Buabengs brief for Afoko told the court that concerning the letter which was to be written to the Chief Justice, counsel in this matter is of the opinion that due to the current measures taken by the Supreme Court and in particular the Chief Justice (on Covid-19), it is more likely that the appeal against the refusal for the grant of bail will be heard at the Court of Appeal before we hear a response from the CJ for an expedited trial.

Counsel, he said is therefore satisfied in taking dates for trial in October.

Ms Lilly Atutiga, a State Attorney representing the Attorney General said between now and October anything could happen with regards to Chief Justices directives on (Covid-19 regarding movement of remand prisoners), so we are in the courts hands.

EIB Networks Court Correspondent Murtala Inusah reports that the accused persons who are currently on remand were absent from court while two members of the jurors were also absent from the sitting.

Background

Afoko is one of the two men alleged to have conspired to kill the Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alhaji Adams Mahama in 2015.

On March 14, 2019, Accra High Court, presided over by Justice George Buadi, admitted Afoko to bail in the sum of GHc500,000 with two sureties, one of whom must to be justified.

However, on July 15, another High Court, presided over by Justice Merley Afua Wood, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting as a High Court judge rescinded that bail that was granted to Afoko.

The court that is hearing the fresh case rescinded the bail after upholding the arguments by the prosecutor, Ms Marina Appiah Opare, a Chief State State Attorney.

A seven-member Jury has been empanelled.

Brief facts

Alhaji Mahama suffered severe bodily injuries after a substance suspected to be acid was allegedly poured on him in front of his house in Bolgatanga on May 20, 2015.

He later died from the injuries at the Bolgatanga General Hospital.

---Kasapafonline
Hundreds of Americans who needed new hearts took themselves off of waitlists amid the coronavirus pandemic.

About 75 percent more people inactivated themselves off the organ waitlist in comparison with the period before the pandemic.

What's more, there was about one-quarter fewer donor organs were collected in spring 2020 than in winter of the same year.

The team, from New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, says the findings are concerning because many people will never receive the new organs they so desperately and will die before undergoing a transplant.

A new study found that from mid-January to mid-March, 343 people took themselves off the waitlist in comparison with 600 people who did from mid-March to mid-May, a 75% drop (pictured)

The number of available donors hearts fell by 26% from 1,878 in winter 2020 to 1,395 in spring 2020 (pictured)

For the study, published in JAMA Cardiology, the team looked at data from the United Network for Organ Sharing and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They analyzed waitlist inactivations, waitlist additions, deceased donor recovery, and transplant volumes from January 19 to March 15, 2020 - before the coronavirus pandemic - and from March 15 to May 9, 2020, during the pandemic.

During the pre-COVID-19 era, there 343 people who took themselves off the waitlist in comparison with 600 people who did so during the pandemic - a decrease of 75 percent,

Of the 600, more than two-thirds, or 67 percent, reported that it was linked to COVID-19 precautions.

The Northeast (91 percent), Southwest (81 percent) and the Great Lakes (66 percent) regions saw the highest number of inactivations.

Researchers say it's because these were the areas that had the highest number of coronavirus cases.

Additionally, only 395 people added themselves to the waitlist compared with 637 people pre-pandemic, a 37 percent drop.

The Northeast (91 percent), Southwest (81 percent) and the Great Lakes (66 percent) regions saw the highest number of inactivations due to high coronavirus caseloads (pictured)

However, there was a slight increase in one region, the South Midwest, which saw 8.5 percent more people themselves to the list than did pre-coronavirus.

Deceased donor recovery, meaning how often doctors were able to secure donor hearts for transplants, fell by 26 percent from 1,878 to 1,395.

The North Midwest saw the biggest drop at 41 percent, which surprised the team because of its relatively low virus rates.

Lastly, the number of heart transplants themselves decreased by 26 percent across the US from 525 operations in the preCOVID-19 era to 389 in the COVID-19 era.

'In addition to challenges regarding safety and resource allocation, changes in behaviors and activity as a result of social distancing measures will continually affect the deceased donor pool,' the authors wrote.

'Furthermore, we must be prepared for more inactivations and fewer transplants if and when future surges of COVID-19 cases occur. In the coming months, the consequences of these waitlist inactivations and decreased transplant volumes on waitlist mortality must be surveilled.'
(July 22, 2020) Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria : The Intl Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (Intersociety) has strongly called on the authorities of the Nigeria Police Force High Command led by IGP Mohammed Adamu Abubakar to urgently rise to the occasion by urgently drafting secularly composed special police detachments to Southern Kaduna especially in the Christian dominated areas of the State so as to secure and protect the endangered Christian populations or communities in the State who are now massacred at will on daily basis by the Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and their affiliated Jihadist groups operating under different names and covers across the State.

The call was strongly made in a legally worded letter to the IGP, dated today, July 22, 2020, which has since been electronically delivered. The Letter, signed by Intersocietys four principal officers: Emeka Umeagbalasi (Criminologist & Graduate of Security Studies), Board Chair, Barr Damaris Amaka Onuoha, Head of Campaign & Publicity, Barr Uju Igboeli, Head of Civil Liberties & Rule of Law and Barr Ndidiamaka Bernard, Head of Intl Justice & Human Rights, also called on the Nigeria Police High Command under the IGP to secure and protect Nigerians secularly and without bias or soft spot for any ethnic or religious grouping. The IGP was also strongly urged to detect and end the perceived raging culture of conspiratorial fraternity or brothers at jihad among the drafted security and law enforcement agencies in Kaduna State.

Such special police detachments under our demand must particularly be dominated by secularly composed experienced and specially trained policing intelligence personnel or detectives from the Force Intelligence and Criminal Investigation (F-CID) as well as anti terrorism and special operations squads drawn from the High Commands Department of Operations. Their composition must exclude the personnel of the Mobile Police (MPF) because they have become a doyen of corruption and incompetence within the Nigeria Police Force.

It is also our call that the Kaduna State Police Command should totally be overhauled and secularly re-composed, which must include immediate removal and transfer of the State Commissioner of Police, Umar Musa Muri and total and secularly reorganization of the Operations and the intelligence or detective departments of the State Police Command. This is because there seems to be conspiratorial fraternity or brothers at jihad between non state actor perpetrators responsible for the ceaseless butcheries in the State and Muslim dominated state actor security chiefs and drafted field law enforcement personnel including military officers and their field combatants.

These have led to incessancy of medicine-after-death security approaches and highly biased protection and response ratios allocated to the perpetrator-groups and the victim communities. The biased disposition of the drafted security forces including the Kaduna State Police Command has become so pronounced that even when the victim-communities or groups address the media and reel out irrefutable statistics of attacks against them, the State Police Command which has failed woefully to prevent the attacks or arrest and punish the attackers, will turn around to threaten the victim groups including labeling their reeled out statistics as fake news; with threats to arrest and detain their leaders.

Realistically speaking, the Nigerian security forces and NPF led law enforcement agencies are far from being neutral and secularly disposed in their responses (if any) to the ongoing anti Christian butcheries in Southern Kaduna; to the extent that several reports and credible accusations abound saying that at harmless protests by the victim groups against incessant massacre of their fellow Christian natives and destruction or burning of their properties including worship and learning centers, the security forces and law enforcement officers will turn around and open fire on them with live bullets-while turning blind eyes on the perpetrator groups.

Apart from several eyewitnesses accounts accusing the Jihadist Herdsmen attackers of dressing in military uniforms during such butcheries, eyewitnesses and survivors have also alleged severally of seeing military personnel taking sides including shielding the attackers to safety and arriving the scenes of the butcheries hours after they are perpetrated. Sometimes, if not in many occasions, they are accused of turning their weapons and bestiality against the victim groups or communities. It is therefore part of our call that the NPF High Command should use field and ICT intelligence to monitor the alleged nefarious conducts of the military officers and personnel stationed (if any) in the troubled areas.

The IGP was also reminded that our letter to him and the NPF High Command is in line with the stipulations and directions of Nigerias body of laws especially the 1999 Constitution as well as principles of the countrys pluralistic democratic process. He was also reminded that the Nigeria Police Force is not created to serve the interest of a particular religion such as Islam or Christianity or Jihadism in Islam; or ethnic group such as Hausa-Fulani or Igbo or Yoruba, etc. The NPF is secularly created and entrusted with policing the countrys pluralistic democratic process including religious freedoms and tolerance.

Under Nigerias pluralistic democratic process, NPF is the General Overseer of the countrys internal security while the Armed Forces serve as allowed interloper strictly restricted to defense of territory in situations of intra and interstate armed conflicts. The NPF is also totally forbidden from recognizing in principle or practice any religion as a state religion. This is according to Section 10 of the Constitution. Section 38 of the Constitution further guarantees the citizens rights to freedom of religion, conscience and thought while Section 42 forbids discrimination on the grounds of tribe or religion, etc. Section 14 (2) (b) of the Constitution and Section 4 of the Nigeria Police Act firmly direct the NPF to ensure security of the citizens and protection of lives and properties.

620 Christian Lives Lost In 18 Months & 20 Days In Southern Kaduna : It is shocking to note that in the 565 days gone by or 1st Jan 2019 to 20th July 2020 (18 months and twenty days), Southern Kaduna had lost not less than 620 Christians; involving: 320 lives lost in 2019 and 300 lost in the past 200 days of 2020 or 1st Jan to 20th July 2020. In 2019, the Adara Community and environs alone lost 240 lives and other parts of Southern Kaduna no fewer than 80; and in the past 200 days of this year (1st Jan to 20th July 2020), same Adara and environs located in Kajuru Local Government Area has lost 152 lives and the rest parts of Southern Kaduna 148 lives. With the current rate of anti Christian butcheries going on in the State with the central Government of Nigeria and its security forces and law enforcement agencies doing little or nothing, the Christian populations in the State are at high risk of being completely wiped out in coming few years.

300 Christians Killed In Southern Kaduna In 200 Days

Southern Kaduna has lost no fewer than 300 defenseless Christians in first 200 days of 2020 or 1st Jan to July 20, 2020. Out of this figure, Adara Community and environs in Kajuru Local Government Area was visited with 152 Christian deaths while remaining parts of Southern Kaduna took 148 deaths. In the past twenty days or July 1 to July 20, 2020, Southern Kaduna has further lost 107 Christian lives to Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen attacks or violence. That is to further say that the total Christian casualties from Jihadist Herdsmen killings across Nigeria including Southern Kaduna, Benue and Plateau States and Igbo Land in the past 200 days or 1st Jan to 20th July 2020 have risen to 926 deaths; out of which Southern Kaduna lost 300 and the rest of the country recorded 626 killings or Christian deaths.

139 Christian Deaths In Southern Kaduna In 20 Days Of July If The Abducted Are Presumed Dead: Till date, too, the whereabouts of over 32 Christians including women, children, old citizens and others abducted by the invading Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen on 16th July 2020 in Mai-ido and other neighboring villages in Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State have remained unknown, raising strong fears of their possible death in captivity. Four defenseless Christians including John Auta, Danjuma Bala and Christopher Ayuba were massacred during the attacks. If they are correctly presumed dead in the Jihadist Herdsmen captivity, this would bring the total number of defenseless Christians killed by the Jihadist Herdsmen in Southern Kaduna in the last twenty days of July 2020 to 139 deaths.

Commending Senate Over Its Resolution Asking Service Chiefs To Quit: This bold move by the Senate is highly commended. What the upper chambers of Nigerias lawmaking arm of Government is saying is that the continuation in office by the Service Chiefs and manipulation and illegal extension of their tenures are unambiguously unknown to any law or Act of National Assembly existing in Nigeria including those deemed to have been legislatively passed into law under Section 315 of the Constitution. They are also grave usurpation and undermining of the duties of the National Assembly clearly stipulated in Section 218 (4) of the Constitution (1999).

Intersociety had on 25th June 2020, issued a special statement, asking the countrys Service Chiefs to leave office with immediate effect. We had found that their tenures, both legally and illegally, have elapsed since 13th July 2019. In other words, they have occupied their respective offices illegally and unlawfully since 13thJuly 2019. The Service Chiefs must not only leave their respective offices at once with unreserved apologies to Nigerians but must also be made to refund all the remunerations and other entitlements including overheads collected and pocketed since July 14, 2019.

Note: The attached photo was taken from the funeral site of 19th July 2020 anti Christian massacre in Kukum Daji, Kagoro under Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

Contacts:

Phone/WhatsApp: +2348174090052

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.intersociety-ng.org


SYDNEY (Reuters) - Residents of Australia's second most populous city Melbourne must wear masks when leaving home from Wednesday, as tougher border restrictions were put in place with neighbouring New South Wales state to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Cross-border travel between Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) will now only be permitted for work, education or medical care, after the border was closed earlier this month for the first time in 100 years.

Staff or students travelling from Victoria into NSW to attend boarding schools or universities are now required to self-isolate for two weeks and test negative to coronavirus, while seasonal workers from Victoria are barred.

Melbourne has seen a rapid increase in the number of coronavirus cases in recent weeks, with the virus spreading to many aged and nursing homes and some prisons.

Victoria has recorded just under 6,300 total confirmed cases of COVID-19, nearly half of the total infections in Australia. The state recorded 364 new cases on Tuesday.

Australia has recorded nearly 12,500 COVID-19 cases and 126 deaths since the pandemic began earlier this year. Though the overall health outcome is better than many of its rich world peers, authorities and policymakers are increasingly worried about spread of the virulent disease in Melbourne.

In NSW, of which Sydney is the capital city, 16 new COVID-19 cases were recorded with Premier Gladys Berejiklian saying the state was on "high alert" due to community transmissions and new locations of cases.

She raised concerns over another Black Lives Matter protest planned next week, as a possible vehicle for the spread of the virus.

"Irrespective of the issue, we need to follow the health advice. Large crowds are a huge concern. We cannot allow that march to continue unfortunately," Berejiklian said.

"Its just not sensible at this time to expose yourself and others to the spread of the virus. Were at a critical point in New South Wales and we dont want to see the virus spread and actions like that are a huge health risk."

(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Michael Perry)
Maxwell, 58, was denied bail last week and is to remain behind bars as she awaits trial on charges she recruited girls for the financier to sexually abuse more than two decades ago. The British socialite was a romantic partner of Epstein, who killed himself in prison several weeks after being charged with sex trafficking.
- Lucy Atieno was reported to have contacted her friends and the police informing them that she was going to take her own life

- According to her brother, she told her friends that she was depressed

- Police in Austria said she threw herself on the railway line before she was run over by a train

- Her family decided to have her body cremated in Austria but her ashes will be buried in Seme, Kisumu

The family of Lucy Atieno Hareter is yet to come to terms with her death after she allegedly committed suicide in Vienna, Austria, about a fortnight ago.

Atienos brother, James Auka, said she called a friend and a police station in Vienna informing them she was about to take her life due to depression.

READ ALSO: Double blessings: Twin sisters married to twin brothers give birth to twin babies hours apart

Lucy Atieno Hareter committed suicide in Vienna, Austria. Photo: Hareter Lucy

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Mugomati: Indigenous multipurpose tree curing many diseases facing extinction in Maragoli land

According to a report issued by police in Vienna, the 35-year-old threw herself on the railway line at the Bahnhof Atzgersdorf train station in the 12th district of Vienna and was run over by a train.

Her body is at the Wien Bestatting Funeral home and Crematorium in Vienna and this is where she will be cremated, an officer in Vienna said.

Auka who is also the family spokesperson said the family decided to cremate Atieno on July 29 in Vienna, then bury the ashes at their home in Seme Reru, Kisumu a week later.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: County governments purchase mass graves, body bags in preparation for the worst

In her calls to the police and her friend, she said life had become difficult after her business went down," said Auka.

"She also said that she was no longer able to cater for her needs and those of some of her siblings who kept on requesting her for money back home, he added.

READ ALSO: Meru: Police officer guarding Equity Bank collapses, dies

The 35-year-old threw herself on the railway line in Vienna, Austria. Photo: Hareter Lucy.

Source: Facebook

In 2019, concerns were raised after Kenyan students going abroad for studies were reported to be dying through suicide or under mysterious circumstances.

This left communities of Kenyans living in the United States (US) brainstorming on the need to hold the hands of learners who find themselves in the deep end outside their country.

Among them was Martin Moto aka Berlin who went missing in November 2019 in Germany and a few days later, he was found dead. His body was retrieved from an underground train station.

READ ALSO: Tension in Taita Taveta as over 10k residents face eviction from historical Maktau land

Britney, a 15-year-old girl, reportedly went missing and days later was found dead.

The minor is said to have quarrelled with her mother before she hurriedly left their home in Germany.

Rita Awuors body was found in June 2019 dumped in a forest in Germany. The family said she went missing in April 2019 after dropping off her children at a neighbours house.

Norah Borus was a top student in KCSE and was found dead at her on-campus residence in US in June 2019. Borus was a student at Stanford University.

READ ALSO: Nairobi senator Johnson Sakaja spends night in police cell after he was arrested in a nightclub

Jelagat Cheruiyot was found dead in her apartment in Osbourne Park, Australia days after it reported that she had gone missing on May 30, 2019. Police declared her death as a homicide.

Moses Maina allegedly committed suicide in Chicago in the US in March 2019 and was quickly cremated without the family being informed about it.

Mercy Muthui, 32, a Kenyan musician, was found dead in a ditch near her home in the Netherlands in February 2019. Her death saw her husband arrested but later released.

Do you have a groundbreaking story you would like us to publish? Please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690. Contact Tuko.co.ke instantly

Source: TUKO.co.ke
/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/



TORONTO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Caldas Gold Corp. (Caldas Gold or the Company) (TSX-V: CGC) announced today that, in connection with its previously announced bought deal private placement of special warrants (the Special Warrants), Scotiabank and Canaccord Genuity Corp., acting as co-lead underwriters and on behalf of a syndicate of underwriters (collectively, the Underwriters), have exercised their option to purchase an additional 2,222,222 Special Warrants at an issue price of CA$2.25 per Special Warrant (the Issue Price) for additional gross proceeds of approximately CA$5,000,000, bringing the aggregate gross proceeds of the offering to CA$50,000,000 (the Offering).

Serafino Iacono, Chairman and CEO of Caldas Gold, commented, We are very pleased with the success of the Offering and interest in Caldas Golds equity, including Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. who, through their wholly owned subsidiary, Wheaton Precious Metals International Ltd., are also providing US$110 million through a streaming transaction as part of the funding to build Colombias next major gold mine at our Marmato Project. In light of this Offering, we now anticipate raising an aggregate of up to US$115 million in the previously announced offering of units consisting of senior secured gold-linked notes and common share purchase warrants.

Caldas Gold also announced that Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (Gran Colombia), the Companys principal shareholder, has agreed to purchase 8,888,889 Special Warrants in the Offering, for an aggregate subscription of approximately CA$20 million, to preserve its equity interest above 50%. Upon the exercise or deemed exercise of the Special Warrants, Gran Colombia will have an approximately 53.6% equity interest in the issued and outstanding shares of Caldas Gold.

Closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about July 29, 2020, or such other date as the Underwriters and Caldas Gold may agree. The net proceeds of the Offering are expected to be used for the expansion of the underground mining operations at Caldas Golds Marmato Project.

Story continues

The Closing of the Offering is subject to the completion of formal documentation, including but not limited to, the execution of an underwriting agreement with the Underwriters in connection with the Offering and receipt of regulatory approvals, including approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Caldas Gold will use commercially reasonable efforts to obtain a receipt for a short form prospectus on or prior to September 21, 2020 to qualify the common shares and warrants underlying the Special Warrants. Until a receipt issued for the prospectus, the Special Warrants (and any common shares and warrants issued on exercise thereof) will be subject to a hold period under applicable Canadian securities laws expiring on the date that is four months and a day following the Closing Date.

The securities offered have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any State in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

About Caldas Gold

Caldas Gold is a Canadian junior mining company currently advancing a major expansion and modernization of its underground mining operations at its Marmato Project in the Department of Caldas, Colombia. Caldas Gold also owns 100% of the Juby Project, an advanced exploration-stage gold project located within the Shining Tree area in the southern part of the Abitibi greenstone belt about 100 km south-southeast of the Timmins gold camp.

Additional information on Caldas Gold can be found on its website at www.caldasgold.ca and by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation concerning the business, operations and financial performance of Caldas Gold. Forward-looking statements in this press release, which are all statements other than statements of historical fact, include, but are not limited to: the successful completion of the Offering; the expected timing and receipt of any required regulatory approvals for, and the closing of, the Offering; the size of the unit offering of gold-linked notes and warrants; and the expected use of proceeds of the Offering. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Caldas Gold to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include: the closing of the Offering is subject to certain termination rights of the Underwriters, and the other risk factors as described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Filing Statement dated as of February 19, 2020 which is available for view on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and Caldas Gold disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

For Further Information, Contact:

Mike Davies

Chief Financial Officer

(416) 360-4653

investorrelations@caldasgold.ca

This announcement does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States, nor may any securities referred to herein be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration as provided in the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 as amended (the Securities Act) and the rules and regulations thereunder. The securities referred to herein have not been registered pursuant to the Securities Act and there is no intention to register any of the securities in the United States or to conduct a public offering of securities in the United States.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Another prisoner has tested positive to coronavirus as the Victorian government rebuffs pleas to release inmates at increased risk of catching COVID-19.

Corrections Victoria confirmed on Wednesday a prisoner who was in protective quarantine at the Metropolitan Remand Centre returned a positive result after being tested on Monday.

A spokeswoman said there was no connection between the latest case and a previous positive case at Metropolitan Remand Centre last Friday, or a prison officer at Ravenhall Correctional Centre.

Corrections Victoria confirmed on Wednesday a prisoner who was in protective quarantine at the Metropolitan Remand Centre (pictured) returned a positive result after being tested on Monday

The officer at Ravenhall was confirmed on Tuesday to have contracted the virus and the facility went into lockdown.

Five other prisons were also put in lockdown, including Hopkins Correctional Centre, Langi Kal Kal, Barwon Prison, Fulham and Loddon.

The officer has been self-isolating since July 16 after being notified they were a close contact of a positive case.

Despite the positive cases and multiple prisons in lockdown, Premier Daniel Andrews said the government has no plans to free inmates.

'I was asked this the other day, and my answer hasn't changed. That is not a focus of our attention at the moment,' Mr Andrews said on Wednesday.

'This is a challenging environment. We've always known there was the potential for somebody connected with this unique environment to be positive.'

Corrections Victoria confirms a prison officer at Ravenhall Correctional Centre, 32km west of Melbourne, has contracted the virus and the facility is now in lockdown

The Jesuit Social Services wants the state government to release groups including low-level offenders who do not pose a threat to community safety, people on remand, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and those with chronic health conditions.

'Our political leaders taking a proactive approach now will protect the health and wellbeing of people who have contact with the system, including prisoners and staff, and may literally save lives,' chief executive Julie Edwards said on Wednesday.

The request follows a similar bid by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services' to prevent deaths in custody due to COVID-19.

The opposition's David Southwick has slammed the bid to release prisoners saying COVID-19 should not be a 'get out of jail free card'.
A Canary island-bound couple have been been given a 900 pay-off to miss their flight after a booking blunder meant the plane with empty seats was filled under new coronavirus guidelines.

The sun-seeking couple were preparing for take-off onboard the easyJet flight from Manchester to Lanzarote this morning when the cabin crew apparently announced there were too many passengers.

That's despite there being eight empty seats on the flight, due to Covid-19 guidance from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

However, passengers say cabin crew told them there should have been nine empty seats, rather than eight, and that one or more holiday-makers would have to leave the plane.

In a bid to entice passengers to voluntary miss the flight, crew members offered 450 in compensation, a full refund, hotel accommodation and a seat on the next available flight - which two passengers accepted.

Today Easyjet has confirmed the flight was overbooked, that it had found a new flight for the couple and added their 'sincere apology' for the mix-up.

The sun-seeking couple were preparing for take-off onboard the easyJet flight from Manchester (pictured: easyJet aircraft at Manchester Airport) to Lanzarote this morning when the cabin crew apparently announced there were too many passengers

In a bid to entice passengers to voluntary miss the flight, crew members offered 500 in compensation, a full refund, hotel accommodation and a seat on the next available flight - which two passengers accepted

The flight was delayed around thirty minutes as a result of the incident this morning at Manchester Airport

A spokesperson for the budget airline said: 'easyJet can confirm that two passengers were unable to travel on flight EZY1971 from Manchester to Lanzarote as the flight was overbooked.

'In line with our policy we sought volunteers who willingly agreed not to fly in return for 500 euros (around 450) each in compensation, alternative flights with another airline tomorrow, hotel accommodation and a full refund.

'We would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.'

The spokesperson said the firm was adhering to EASA's Covid-19 guidelines which require all airlines to protect a number of seats - which it says varies by individual aircraft type.

The spokesperson added that, 'like most airlines', it was easyJet's policy to overbook flights by a small number as around five per cent of customers did not show-up.

He said this took place where the firm could 'confidently predict everyone who wants to fly should be able to' and that easyJet did 'not deny boarding to passengers in the majority of cases'.

The incident was documented by one Facebook user, Karen Appleton, who was on the flight - which was due to take off from Manchester Airport at 6.20am today.

Posting as the plane was delayed, by 30 minutes, on the tarmac, she said: 'So sat on an easyJet plane with one too many on board and they're asking if anyone is willing to get off. Good luck with that one.

In a series of comments, she later added: 'We are still waiting and won't go until someone gets off.

'Apparently COVID regulations state they have to have nine spare seats and we only have eight.

The couple were due to visit Lanzarote, one of the Spanish owned Canary Islands in the Atlantic. Pictured: Fisher boats at the laguna Charco de San Gines and the tower of the historic church Iglesia de San Gines at sunshine, city of Arrecife, Lanzarote

'Fifteen minutes delay up to now and no one is volunteering to get off.'

Ten minutes later, she wrote: 'So now promised a couple compensation, hotel and next available flight but they've got to ring the call centre to sort it out.

'Don't know whether to give them the heads up that their call centres are dire or hope they get sorted out.

'Round of applause for the lovely couple who volunteered.. Not a great start for EJ.

'500 offered. They are that desperate.'

Dozens of social media users took to the post criticising EasyJet for not realising the error earlier.

Sophie Clements wrote: 'Surely they knew they had too many for the plane before this point.

'Were they hoping someone would get lost in the departure lounge?'

However, some people saw the funny side and praised the couple who stepped forward.

Sam Howard wrote: 'Rock, paper, scissors? Oh my goodness, well done on that couple.

'Not sure I would put myself forward. Now hope you can all get away and have a fabulous holiday.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 05:56:06|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's army announced on Tuesday that it killed 18 terrorists as its forces thwarted a major terror attack on a military outpost in North Sinai province.

In a statement, the army said members of the armed forces managed to foil a terrorist attack on a security post in North Sinai's Beir al-Abd area, adding that the assault caused the death of two soldiers and the injury of four others.

The troopers at the outpost, in cooperation with air forces, chased the terrorists at a nearby farm and uninhabited homes, killing 18 of them, including one suicide bomber, according to the statement.

Three of the four vehicles used by terrorists in the attack which were booby-trapped were destroyed, it said.

Egypt has been fighting a wave of terrorist activities that have killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians since the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Most of the attacks in Egypt over the past few years were claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the Islamic State regional terrorist group.

The Egyptian security forces, in return, have killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared following Morsi's ouster. Enditem
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Despite Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageris cautiousness in putting all meetings on hold, the coronavirus managed to sneak in, with his private secretary Amarnath reportedly testing positive. Amarnaths office was sealed and sanitised, sources said. Speaker Kageri told TNIE, Amarnath tested positive and was shifted to a hospital and is now doing well.

The Covid scare continues to haunt Vidhana Soudha. Over 20 persons in Soudha and adjoining Legislators Home have tested positive. Secretary of the Assembly Secretariat Vishalakshi told TNIE that the staff was asked to attend to pending work by ensuring a skeletal presence, while following all the norms of social distancing. Meanwhile, in Kumara Krupa Guest House, earmarked to house VVIPs for quarantine, 16 staffers have tested positive and have been home-quarantined since Sunday.
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Ambassador to the Netherlands Tigran Balayan has published an article in the Daily Netherlands Dagblad, about the recent clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border which resulted in casualties.

Armenpress presents the full text of the article:

While the rest of the world is trying to address the coronavirus crisis and its consequences on July 12 the armed forces of Azerbaijan, after artillery shelling, attempted to conquer Armenian border posts. There was a lot of damage and sixteen lives lost on both sides. This was a clear violation of the trilateral truce concluded in 1994.

This ceasefire ended the war between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh, which was supported by Armenia. Almost four year war had preceded, with 35,000 killed. Azerbaijan started that war in response to the intention of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to reunite with Armenia. In 1921 it was separated from Armenia and given to Azerbaijan by Soviet leader Stalin.

The artillery violence is also a violation of the international humanitarian law, because it targeted civilian infrastructure, including villages and homes have been shelled and directly endanger lives.

Armenia has made numerous attempts to draw the attention of other countries to the threat of large-scale violence and called for immediate action. Nevertheless, the mentioned provocation of the armed forces of Azerbaijan to destabilize the situation on the border came as a surprise for the international community The signs, however, were obvious. Azerbaijan faced a financial (licences of 4 banks were revoked) and political crisis, involving tough action against the opposition. Also sharply declining oil prices and the country suffered from the pandemic. Borders were closed, so Azeris sometimes were stuck a few meters away from the national border and denied access to their homeland. In this situation, the Azerbaijani authorities stepped up their rhetoric, even launching claims about the territory of Armenia. Also large scale military exercises were held (with more than 10,000 soldiers) in the border area. All this to distract the attention of the public from the various crises and protest of the population on tackling COVID-19.

The neglect of human lives and absence of any responsibility of ones action is vividly expressed in the statement of the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan: Armenia should not forget that our rockets are directed to its Nuclear Power plant, and we can fire them causing a catastrophe for Armenia. Azerbaijan has been saying for years that the nuclear power plant poses a threat to the surrounding area, but experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency consider the plant as safe.

Another worrying aspect is the provocative role of Turkey in which the highest political and military leaders openly encourage use of force and promise all possible support in an eventual war against Armenia. Erdogan says: "We will never leave our brother, Azerbaijan, alone. We will support Azerbaijan till the end".

Fighter planes and espionage drones have been flying in recent days above the unilaterally closed border between Turkey and Armenia. In support of Azerbaijan, Turkey closed its border with Armenia during the war in 1993. The supply of arms to Azerbaijan has also intensified: a dangerous behavior of a NATO member state that has not been condemned by its allies.

Further intensification of this conflict and its eventual expansion will only lead to a humanitarian disaster with deadly victims and refugee flows.

The message of Armenia is unequivocal: There is no alternative to a peaceful settlement.

We remain committed to this and are working on de-escalation and on an environment, which promotes peace. The international community should support this narrative and urge all sides to strengthen the 1994 cease-fire regime, agree to the proposal on deployment of the OSCE monitors along the trenches, as well as establish an OSCE investigative mechanism into alleged ceasefire violations. Only in this way a lasting peace will be in the sight.
Mukesh Ambani, the chairperson of Reliance Industries Ltd, is now the worlds richest man after surging past Warren Buffet, according to Forbes.

The 63-year-old is now worth $74.6 billion, surpassing Berkshire Hathaways chief executive Buffetts $72.7 billion as of Wednesday, according to the Forbes billionaires list.

Mukesh Ambani has seen a string of deals for his digital business and shares of his conglomerate have more than doubled since a low in March.

All this came after RILs Jio Platforms got more than $15 billion in investments from companies including Facebook Inc and Silver Lake.

And last week, Google agreed to buy a $4.5 billion stake in Jio Platforms Ltd, adding to a series of large US investments into an online venture that has nearly 400 million users in India.

The search engine will acquire 7.7% of the fast-growing internet unit for Rs 337.4 billion.

Amazons Jeff Bezos leads the list with $185.8 billion, followed by Bill Gates of Microsoft with $113.1 billion of wealth.

Bernard Arnault and family, the chairperson and chief executive of luxury brand LVMH is the third on the list with a wealth of $111.8 billion. Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg is the fourth richest with a net worth of $89 billion.
Leader: Iran to deal US 'counterblow' for Gen. Soleimani's assassination

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 4:06 PM

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says Iran will never forget Washington's assassination in Iraq of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and will definitely deliver a "counterblow" to the United States.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget this issue and will definitely deal the counterblow to the Americans," Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran on Tuesday.

General Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was assassinated in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport on January 3, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force, and a number of their companions.

The strike came while General Soleimani was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital.

Both commanders were extremely popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

"They killed your guest at your own home and unequivocally admitted the atrocity. This is no small matter," Ayatollah Khamenei stated.

The Leader considered the assassinations to be one "example of the result of the Americans' presence [on Iraqi soil]."

Shortly after the atrocity, the Leader warned about a pending "harsh revenge."

The IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles at two US bases in Iraq on January 8. According to the US Defense Department, more than 100 American forces suffered "traumatic brain injuries" during the counterstrikes. The Corps, however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans, who perished during the retaliation.

Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining US President Donald Trump, who ordered the assassination, and several other US military and political leaders behind the strike.

Iran expects "the Iraqi friends to know the US ['s nature] and also the fact that the US's presence in whatever country is the source of corruption, destruction, and ruin," Ayatollah Khamenei added, citing the situation governing Yemen  that has been under a Saudi-led and US-backed invasion since 2015  as another example

Iran also expects follow-up action on a decision made by the Iraqi Parliament after the assassinations for all US-led forces to leave the Arab country "because their presence begets insecurity," the Leader noted.

The Leader said Tehran has never sought and will never seek to interfere in Baghdad's internal affairs, adding, "What is of great consequence in bilateral relations for the Islamic Republic is Iraq's interests, good, security, esteem, regional power, and betterment of its [overall] condition."

Iran is against whatever that could weaken the Iraqi government, Ayatollah Khamenei noted, cautioning, however, that the United States' goal concerning the Arab country was "the exact opposite."

"This is because the US is, in the true sense of the word, the enemy, and is against an independent and strong Iraq that enjoys a government brought to power by majority vote," the Leader said.

The US does not care who becomes Iraq's prime minister, the Leader said, adding that what Washington favors for Iraq is an administration similar to that of "Paul Bremer."

Bremer was assigned to supposedly administer Iraq's affairs under American tutelage for a year following the US-led invasion of the Arab country in 2003.

'US incapable of denting Iran-Iraq ties'

Ayatollah Khamenei said Washington was also the leading opponent of development of Iran-Iraq ties. "The US, though, should not be feared at all because it cannot to a damn thing," the Leader said.

The Leader, meanwhile, congratulated the Iraqis on the consensus that led to formation of Premier al-Kadhimi's government in Iraq earlier this year, and considered Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's highest religious authority, and the Popular Mobilization Units anti-terror force to be two sources of great advantage for the Arab country.

Kadhimi: Terror fight united Iranians, Iraqis in blood

The Iraqi prime minister, for his part, voiced great delight at the opportunity to meet with the Leader, and expressed gratitude towards the Islamic Republic over its support for his country, especially during the battle against Takfiri terrorists.

"The Iraqi people will never forget Iran's support. The fact of the matter is that Iraqis and Iranians' blood was infused together during the war against the Takfiris," Kadhimi said.

"Your directions and pieces of advice serve as the key for resolution of problems. I express gratitude for these instances of guidance," the Iraqi official told Ayatollah Khamenei.

Kadhimi, meanwhile, confirmed that the countries' ties that run deep, go long back in history, and are deeply rooted in religious and cultural commonality, are predicated in the Iranian and Iraqi peoples' shared love for the Household of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

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Premier Doug Ford insists he was blindsided by a Progressive Conservative MPPs vote against the government on key COVID-19 legislation that forced him to eject her from caucus.

In his first public comments on the defenestration of Belinda Karahalios, Ford Wednesday said he had a phenomenal relationship with the Cambridge MPP.

I was with her for two days last week. Never said a word to me. Didnt mention anything to me, the premier said.

Karahalios stunned him Tuesday by voting against Bill 195, which expands the governments emergency authority and is opposed by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ontario Federation of Labour.

It easily passed 60-28.

One hour later, Ford turfed Karahalios from caucus, dispatching her to sit as an Independent with other defrocked Tories, Randy Hillier (Lanark-Kingston-Frontenac) and Jim Wilson (Simcoe-Grey).

The premier said he was left with no choice.

This is one piece of legislation that is absolutely critical, he said of the bill that enables the government to impose emergency orders like closing public places or restricting large gatherings without being in a declared state of emergency.

But Karahalios, who was not available for comment, is not the only Tory concerned about the law she described as an unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy.

PC sources said as many as a dozen MPPs and cabinet ministers privately expressed reservations about the bill.

Even though it was not a confidence motion that could topple the government, Tory MPPs were whipped to support it.

While Ford admitted there are some good heated discussions behind closed doors in caucus, at the end of the day, you come out united.

Asked if he were worried about dissension in the ranks, the premier said: Not at all. Anyone can call me and thats the first Ive heard about it.

Government house leader Paul Calandra suggested Karahalios could be allowed back into the Tory fold before the 2022 election.

If Ms. Karahalios indicates at some point time in the future that she would like to return to the Progressive Conservative caucus, that is something that we would bring to the caucus and allow a vote from the full caucus on, said Calandra.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Karahalios had a moment of principle, daring to contradict Ford, like MPP Amanda Simard (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell), who quit the PC caucus in 2018 to protest cuts to French-language services and now sits as a Liberal.

He simply cannot tolerate a difference of opinion, Horwath said of the premier.

Because Ontarios state of emergency, which began March 17 and was extended numerous times, expires Friday, the government wanted to pass Bill 195 quickly in order to keep emergency orders on the books.

Karahalios warned the bill essentially silences every single Ontario MPP on the most important issue facing our legislature today.

The Ontario Federation of Labour, which represents 1 million workers in 54 unions, said the new law is anti-democratic and overrides the rights of Ontarians.

Legislative decisions must not be made behind closed doors. The people have a right to know about and respond to government actions, said OFL President Patty Coates.

Bill 195 is a blatant overreach by Doug Ford and an assault on democracy, said Coates, warning a legal challenge is certainly in the cards, and increased labour action is also clearly on the table.

There are now 72 Tory MPPs in the 124-member legislature, including Speaker Ted Arnott, who does not caucus with the government, 40 New Democrats, eight Liberals, the three ex-PC Independents, and Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

Robert Benzie is the Stars Queens Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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A research team from Tel Aviv University's Zimin Institute for Engineering Solutions Advancing Better Lives, led by Prof. Noam Shomron and doctoral student Artem Danilevsky, has developed a method to detect cancer cells in the abdominal cavity in real time. Following a tumor removal surgery in the abdominal cavity, the team can detect whether all cancer cells were removed through an interdisciplinary combination of medicine, engineering, and computer science.

Prof. Shomron explains that there are often undetected cancer cells in tumor removal surgeries -- for example, in surgeries of the abdominal cavity. Those cells can spread to various body parts; subsequently, the patient must undergo chemotherapy. The problem is that the critical time frame between the surgery and cancer cell detection test results extend for several weeks, a delay which drastically increases the risk for a renewed cancer spread.

The new tool is based on a genetic sequencing device called MinION, produced by Oxford Nanopore Technologies. The tool allows doctors and patients to receive results quickly, in a range from minutes to several hours. The researchers take blood and abdominal cavity fluid samples while the patients undergo tumor removal surgery. The samples are inserted into the MinION device, which, programmed with a unique algorithm developed by the researchers, can tell whether the sample is more similar to that of a healthy person or a cancer patient.

The researchers note that the innovative technology is already implemented in a preliminary pilot trial at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov). "We are waiting outside Dr. Guy Lahat's operating room, at the Division of Surgery at Ichilov, and during the surgery, we wait for Dr. Shelly Loewenstein to collect a small part of the abdominal cavity fluid sample for us," Prof. Shomron explains. "The sample itself is sent for the standard lab test. The lab test results arrive after a few weeks.

"Simultaneously, we insert our sample into the MinION and calculate whether it contains cancer cells or healthy ones. It's a lot less complicated than sequencing the whole genome. If the results turn out positive, Dr. Lahat continues with a designated abdominal cavity chemotherapy treatment. Afterwards, he performs a saline washing, takes another sample and repeats the cycle again, until we ensure that the patient is free of cancer cells. With a simple but smart application based on existing technology, we can outline a lifesaving medical treatment," Prof. Shomron adds.

The researchers warn that the implementation of the novel device is still in its initial trial stages, and more time is required before the new device can reach the precision level of older, slower, and larger devices. Prof. Shomron also estimates that in several years it might be possible to expand the implementation of this novel technology to detect cancer cells with a simple blood test during everyday life, not only during a surgery.

The Zimin Institute for Engineering Solutions Advancing Better Lives, established with a generous donation from the Zimin Foundation, is the only research institute that focuses on breakthrough projects which have an implementation potential to change the world in various respects, ranging from slowing the aging process to artificial intelligence.

"The Institute was searching for an engineering application to improve life," Prof. Shomron says. "They asked for novel and unique projects, projects that would not get a funding from any other foundation but would be implementable.

"We combined several research areas in order to offer a smart and fast diagnostic tool, but there were no buyers," Prof. Shomron continues. "We went through various hospital divisions and asked the doctors, 'Who wants a DNA test done in an hour?' Fortunately, we found Dr. Lahat, the Director of the Division of Surgery at Ichilov, who jumped on the opportunity to shorten and improve diagnostic processes for the benefit of cancer patients."

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American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers -- ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #66 in the world.
The opposition are united in their concerns about the government's "green list" for travel.

The list, which is due to be published today after a cabinet meeting will include a shortlist of countries that are deemed "safe" to travel to due to their similar or lower rate of Coronavirus to Ireland.

Sinn Fein, the Social Democrats and Labour have all spoken out against the idea due to the contradictory nature of telling people they can only travel for "essential purposes" and publishing a list of countries safe for foreign travel.

Social Democrat co-leader Roisin Shorthall warned against ignoring the public health advice published in a letter by NPHET last week, "I think more importantly, we haven't heard yet government about their intentions, in respect of those countries that don't make the green list, those countries that have high levels of the virus," she said.

"A couple of weeks ago, we saw the government actually weakening the advice to people coming in from high-risk countries and moving away from the recommendations."

"There has been quite a marked shift in emphasis on safety measures, since the new government formed, and I think they have been distracted, and I think their focus has been elsewhere.

"The strategy seems to be very ad hoc and keeping their fingers crossed.

"That's just not good enough.

"There are very clear alarm bells being rung by NPHET, and we ignore those at our peril."

12% of recent new Coronavirus cases in Ireland were the result of international travel, as well as a significant number of clusters.

There have also been concerns about the lack of temperature tests in Irish airports, and lack of enforcement of quarantine for tourists arriving in the state.

Likewise, Sinn Fein's Darren O'Rourke says there has been "absolute confusion" in relation to the list.

"We have said consistently that the policy approach from government has been incompletely incoherent, confused and confusing.

"If there is going to be a green list, it needs to be matched with a response, not just in terms of the list but in terms of the checks and controls that are airports and that's the crucial piece that's missing because it's around testing and quarantining, and that reflects that the threat and the green list in and of itself, won't do anything close to that."

It's understood there has been consistent conflict between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens over the issue, with Eamon Ryan and Micheal Martin's parties both against the idea of publishing the list.
Cynthia Keppel, leader of Experimental Halls A and C at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, has been named a DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellow. She is one of three DOE National Laboratory scientist fellows who will receive $1 million to devote to a project of her choosing over the next three years.

"It feels beyond great to receive this recognition!" Keppel exclaimed. "Imagine waking up one day and your lab director calls to say guess what... It seemed almost unreal, definitely one of the best surprise calls ever."

According to the DOE announcement, Keppel received the highly competitive award for her "contributions to the exploration of the quark structure of hadrons and nuclei through electron scattering, and creating successful collaborations across disciplines, including electron and neutrino scattering, theory and experiment, and nuclear and medical applications."

Jefferson Lab Director Stuart Henderson said, "It's fantastic to see Cynthia recognized for her scientific accomplishments in nuclear physics and for the work she has done in bringing together researchers from different disciplines to tackle tough problems. Her work expands the boundaries of our knowledge and saves lives at the same time."

Keppel plans to use the award to bring together a collaboration of six institutions to further develop new detector technologies to benefit both nuclear physics research and cancer radiation therapy. The collaboration will work to dramatically improve GEM detector systems. Primarily used in nuclear and particle physics, GEM or gas electron multiplier detector systems are designed to allow for precise detection of subatomic particles.

"These are high spatial resolution detectors, so they can differentiate between particle positions quite clearly. Think of a picture going from blurry to clear by using more pixels to cover an area; that is improved spatial resolution. They are also designed to take a smaller signal and amplify it, while maintaining the excellent spatial resolution," she said.

This last property, while a plus for most nuclear and particle physics experiments, is a hindrance to some new potential applications of GEM technology. When they are bombarded with a lot of particles too quickly, they lose their ability to differentiate between individual particles in time.

Keppel and her colleagues plan to develop and implement several ideas for never-before-attempted technologies to modify the detectors, so that they still provide high-precision spatial resolution but may be installed in very high-rate environments. The planned detector developments are well-matched to other ideas for speeding up the GEM systems' ability to record data by adapting newer electronics to the GEM systems.

"I don't think these improvements were even possible before some of the newer electronics that we're now seeing for readout were made available," Keppel explained.

She says, if successful, these and other planned improvements will pay off big for nuclear physicists who are now in the planning stages for several technically difficult, future experiments.

"We've been challenged from quite a few angles to work on this. There are many upcoming nuclear physics experiments that would benefit from improving these detector systems, for example enabling new types of effective targets for nuclear physics studies of structures beyond the protons and neutrons," she said.

She says the improved detectors would also allow for more precise targeting for cancer patients who are being treated with proton and other radiation therapies. Installing GEMs in the proton therapy suite would allow doctors to not only use proton radiation to treat cancer, but also to provide high-resolution imaging of patients' tumors and organs around the cancer.

With the one-time total award of $1 million in funding, DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellows are expected to develop, sustain and promote scientific and academic excellence in research through collaborations between institutions of higher education and national laboratories.

Of the six institutions included in Keppel's project, five are based in Virginia. The institutions involved in the project include two research institutions: Jefferson Lab and the University of Virginia. Also involved are two Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Hampton University and Virginia Union University. Finally, two clinical cancer research and treatment centers are involved: the Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute and the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, Michigan.

Keppel currently manages two of the four experimental halls in Jefferson Lab's Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, a DOE User Facility. She is a prominent, award-winning nuclear physicist and a spokesperson for 11 Jefferson Lab experiments focusing broadly on precision proton/neutron structure studies and novel detection techniques.

She is the 2019 Distinguished Lecturer on the Application of Physics for the American Physical Society Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics. She is an APS Fellow, and her intellectual property has received both Medical Technology Breakthrough and R&D 100 awards (2018). She received the APS SESAPS Francis G. Slack Award (2016), and the Virginia Outstanding Faculty (2000) and Outstanding Scientist (2011) awards. She received an NSF CAREER award while in a previous joint position as an endowed professor at Hampton University and Jefferson Lab staff scientist.

At Hampton University, she served as director of the HU Nuclear and High Energy Physics Research Center. She serves as senior executive director of the HU Proton Therapy Institute (consulting), which she helped to establish, and is community faculty at the Eastern Virginia Medical School.

She earned her Ph.D. in 1995 from The American University for research at the DOE's Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and her B.A. in 1984 from St. John's College in Annapolis, MD. She has served on the APS DNP Executive and Program Committees, the NIH National Advisory Research Resources Council, the Board of the Pediatric Proton Foundation, and as chair of the National Nuclear Physics Summer School Committee. She served as director of the Hampton University Graduate Studies program at Jefferson Lab Summer School for more than a decade. She is an author of more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications and is active in applying nuclear physics techniques to medical technology development, where she holds several patents.

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Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, a joint venture of the Southeastern Universities Research Association, Inc. and PAE, manages and operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, or Jefferson Lab, for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.
WATERLOO REGION  Grand River Hospital will soon have two new testing machines up and running, vastly improving the number of COVID-19 tests that can be done and processed locally.

For now, about 800 tests are done at the drive-thru centre on Glasgow Street in Kitchener as well as on patients and health care workers at both Grand River and St. Marys hospitals each day.

With the new testing instruments operating by mid-September, hospital staff expect to conduct 1,344 tests in a 24-hour period, said microbiology manager John Vanderlaan.

Laboratory director Renee Giroux said the new testing instruments are an important addition for the fight against the coronavirus.

More testing can be done on site. That greatly reduces the turnaround time for results, she said. Its expected results will be available within 24 hours rather than the current wait of three to six days, she said.

This new technology with increased capacity will decrease our turnaround time and we will be better able to identify who is positive and isolate and quarantine them, focusing on contact tracing, she said.

Giroux said quicker results mean infected people can be identified more quickly, helping prevent the spread of the virus.

Having the capacity in-house will significantly reduce our turnaround time, she said.

The first testing machine arrived in early July and the second one is expected by mid-August. The first machine should be operating by the middle of next month, Giroux said.

Money from the province allowed the hospital to purchase the machines, Giroux said.

Its an injustice to our community to not have this on site, she said.

Grand River has one testing instrument currently but its capacity is limited, Vanderlaan said.

It can handle assessing about 66 nasal swabs. The new technology can process both throat and nose swabs and test 94 swabs every three hours.

People are now being trained on the new instruments and the hospital is hiring more staff, Vanderlaan said.

Most of the current test swabs are sent to Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto to be processed, Giroux said. It can take up to six days for results. Before that, local tests were sent to Hamilton for processing and the system was overwhelmed.

The new testing instruments can be used for a variety of tests, not just COVID. In the fall, the machines will be used to test other respiratory viruses, she said.

The drive-thru testing centre opened in the parking lot of 137 Glasgow St. on June 13 and it has been consistently busy, conducting between 400 to 500 tests a day.

The drive-thru carries out about 60 per cent of all tests in the region. Since March 9, Grand River has conducted more than 19,000 tests.

Three other sites offer testing in the region: Cambridge Memorial has a clinic in the hospital, St. Marys General Hospitals test site is on Bathurst Drive in Waterloo, and theres a Waterloo walk-in clinic on Westmount Road. Like the drive-thru, all are open seven days a week.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has claimed the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been bought by China and suggested that his failings have led to the deaths of British people, according to reports.

Mr Pompeo reportedly told MPs that the WHO was a political, not a science-based organisation and said the body was responsible for dead Britons.

It is understood the Trump official made the claim about Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a private meeting with MPs during his visit to the UK on Tuesday.

The allegations are the latest in a string of attacks on the WHO by the Trump administration, which formally withdrew from the body earlier this month over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Pompeo told MPs that his criticism of Mr Tedros was based on firm intelligence foundation but he did not disclose what information he was referring to, according to The Times.

It came as Dominic Raab, the UKs foreign secretary, denied that Britain had been strong-armed by the US into taking a tougher stance against China.

Mr Rabb was asked on Tuesday whether the UKs recent positions on China, such as the decision to exclude Huawei from its 5G network, had been influenced by the Trump administration.

I dont think there is any question of strong-arming  Mike [Pompeo] and I always have constructive discussions and actually a vast majority of the times our views overlap and we work together very well, he told a news conference in London.

Mr Pompeo has called on countries, including the UK, to form a coalition to put pressure on China to change its political course.

We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country  including China  behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order, the secretary of state said.

He also welcomed the UKs responses to China over Huawei and the introduction of a controversial national security law in Hong Kong.

The US official, who held talks with Boris Johnson and Mr Raab on Tuesday, said he had seen Hong Kongs freedoms crushed and watched the Chinese Communist Party bully its neighbours.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the British government for its principled response to these challenges, he added.

In recent weeks, the UK has banned Huawei from its 5G network, put forward plans to allow British National Overseas (BNO) passport holders in Hong Kong to come to the UK, suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and extended an arms embargo on China.

Donald Trump tried to claim credit last week for the UKs move to ban Huawei, when he said in a White House briefing that he had convinced many countries to stop using the Chinese technology company.

Its a big security risk. I talked many countries out of using it. If they want to do business with us, they cant use it, Mr Trump said.

On the topic of Huawei, Mr Pompeo said he thought the UK had made a good decision but dismissed suggestions that the White Houses negative opinion of the company was the deciding factor in the move.

Additional reporting by PA
Listen! said my husband Ivo, cross voice. Cant you hear her? Ziggy was outside, with the bees and butterflies and the swallows dipping in and out of the barn.

I could hear birdsong and, yes, barking. I cant take it anymore! he wailed. The barking!

I was in London on a flying visit and he was in Somerset in reluctant sole charge for the second day on the trot of our fluffy, adorable, yet inexhaustible five-month-old cockapoo. So I made an executive decision to come back and relieve him a day early.

Masked up, sanitised, lunch from Pret, my son Ludo and I hopped on the 13.03 ghost train to Plymouth, arrived in Taunton at 14.49, picked up the Volvo, zoomed to Sainsburys for provisions, then headed for the hills.

Rachel Johnson who hit her five-month-old cockapoo Ziggy (pictured) with her Volvo, reflects on the accident in Exmoor Valley

It was a golden, hot July afternoon. Exmoor was at a dewy, verdant peak, painted green and bouncy by the luminous sunshine. Morale was high.

I was about to be reunited with my Ziggy, my lockdown puppy and apple of my eye. I imagined her jumping into my lap and whining with delight as I sat at the wheel, engine still running.

I slowed down as I came up the track into our yard. Ziggy has no road sense. We all knew that.

During lockdown, the endless delivery vans had trundled by on the track that runs past our door to the various dwellings on the remote farm (I should explain: my father was in the longhouse; I was in the farmhouse; my brother Max was in a converted byre).

The remote Exmoor valley we live in is two miles from a Tarmac road, but Piccadilly Circus in terms of traffic.

Sometimes we had Ziggy on a tether. We put up signs saying: Slow, animals and children. I begged everyone to look out for her on their endless comings and goings, especially as she liked to sit in the yard, her pale baby fur camouflaged on the dusty white concrete, bang in the middle of the only track in and out.

Id texted my husband as I was leaving Taunton, so he knew I would be arriving.

Rachel (pictured) admits she fled across the yard and began banging her head on a barn door, instead of rushing to Ziggy

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him mowing the lawn, but I was looking for a white blur with a face composed of three black dots. She wasnt in her lookout on the wall. She wasnt sitting in the yard. I had eyes only for Ziggy, but I didnt see her.

I heard her. A high-pitched, terrible, affronted scream. Another. From under the car. My world went dark. I assumed Id run her over  killed her with two tonnes of Swedish metal.

I am not proud of the next bit. Instead of rushing to her, I fled across the yard and spread-eagled myself on a barn door, banging my head on it, yelling: No, no, no! I couldnt bear to see her gashed and smashed like roadkill. Ivo rushed to the scene. Then I heard my son calling: Mum! I think shes OK.

He had crawled under the Volvo and pulled out Ziggy. We converged on her limp form. Apart from black smudges, she appeared intact. But when we tried to move her, she cried and yelped.

I screamed at Ivo: I texted to say I was leaving Taunton!

Unspoken charge: You were in control of the puppy. You were in charge.

Rachel (pictured, with Ivo) who had a boot full of groceries including ice cream, drove to the seafront after taking Ziggy to the vet

Why didnt you stop! he shouted. You knew she would be excited and run out when she heard your car!

Unspoken charge: Dont put this on me. This is your fault! You knew she was a silly puppy who runs in front of cars.

We all had snot and tears coursing down our faces. I sat in the dirt with Ziggy and told her I was sorry over and over again, and how much we all loved her. We did not know if the accident was survivable.

Ivo went inside to call the emergency vet. It was a Sunday.

We got back in the car. I had a boot full of groceries, including Ben & Jerrys Phish Food, and a broken puppy. I sat in the back with her, singing her song and feeding her treats.

When we got to Minehead, we told Becky, the duty vet, what had happened.

It will be at least an hour, she said, adding something consoling like: Happens all the time. We need to do X-rays. Ill call you.

We drove to the seafront. The tide was out. Ivo and I didnt speak. I walked across the flat sand, weeping and walking and praying. Oscar Wildes line, Yet each man kills the thing he loves pierced me like a cold shard.

Rachel was advised to ensure Ziggy has four weeks of crate rest. Pictured: Rachel at her home in Exmoor

An hour later, Becky called.

Its good news . . . in the circumstances, she said. I started shaking. Do you want to come back to the surgery?

Ziggy had a broken pelvis. Crate rest for four weeks, Becky said when I picked up Ziggy  plus meds  the next day.

We brought her home and she laid in her crate. She had diarrhoea. She wouldnt eat her pills, even if I hid them in salmon and peanut butter. She thinks youre trying to find new ways to kill her, my husband said, helpfully. It must be like living with your murderer.

I ended up powdering them into scrambled egg.

That Sunday was one of the worst days of my life, but she has started to get better.

When she barked again  the magnificent Charolais bull and his herd were in the yard and she had to show them who was boss  even Ivo rejoiced at the penetrating sound. When she started biting our hands again, we almost cried with happiness.

When I tell people about this  and I cant not tell people, I have to warn everyone how easy it is  they try to make me feel better by telling me all the people who have run over their pets, too.

Rachel (pictured) reveals the accident has made Ivo almost fall in love with Ziggy

One brother reminds me that our grandfather ran over an old sheep who sat in the yard for years, and that Old Blindie, whod had his eyes pecked out by crows as a lamb, ended up as a Johnson Sunday lunch.

Silver lining? The accident has made Ivo almost fall in love with Ziggy, too. Mainly out of solidarity. Shes so much nicer after she was run over by you, he says.

As we are en route north for a holiday, I had to take her back to her birthplace, a kennels in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, for rehab until we return.

Youve broken her and now youre taking her back to the shop, saying this one doesnt work, said Ivo, supportively.

It was agony at the kennels. You must not blame yourself, said lovely Gwen. Then she told me about a local who ran over his own two-year-old child, thus proving my theory that whatever you say, however shattering, someone will trump it.

Let this be a lesson to you, happy lockdown puppy people. I do blame myself, but accidents waiting to happen, happen.

Love this idea, Courtney!

Rachel admits she admires Courtney Love (pictured), after hearing gossip that she's become a legal resident at Londons Chiltern Firehouse

The best gossip Ive heard during the coronavirus crisis is that Courtney Love was staying at Londons Chiltern Firehouse when lockdown began, and then politely declined to leave. The hellraiser allegedly remained at the A-list hotspot for so long, she became a legal resident. If this is true, it fills me with envy and admiration. Thats the way to do Covid! If youre still there, Love, fancy a drink?

Lockdown has proved Ill never be a smug sober'

I know people who have smugly given up drinking over the past few months. But I know far more who have taken to the bottle out of boredom and stress.

So news that four out of ten households are drinking way more than before, especially those where people have been furloughed, does not surprise me. During lockdown, I have drunk almost every night, apart from the odd Thursday, which is temperance night as the next day I host an LBC radio talk show (it helps to be on the ball when people are shouting at me about the Government). On all other nights, as the hours advance and everyone else is offering each other G&Ts and ice-cold beers, I get so cranky I crack.

As soon as Im holding a glass of cold white Burgundy, I can contemplate yet another evening in the company of my loved ones.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  No disrespect to my friends in western New York, but what do you mean Im no longer welcome in Buffalo?

That was my reaction last week when I heard that Gov. Andrew Cuomo added Ohioans to the list of travelers who shall not visit New York.
Teens who were hired using a state grant to clean streets in Hillside also distributed a newsletter with the mayors name on it that chided the town council and the police chief.

Hillside Councilman George Cook says that was a misuse of a state Department of Environmental Protection grant that awarded the town nearly $32,000 to keep streets clean, but a spokesman for Mayor Dahlia Vertreeses administration denies any wrongdoing.

They were paid to clean, said the spokesman, David Cummings. In the process of cleaning, did they distribute the newsletter to residences as well? Yes. I want to be clear, everything in the newsletter is factual and true. We have not gotten anything but positive feedback from it being so informative.
Nobel prize banquet set to be cancelled for first time in 64 years: Reports

According to a report in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, the annual Nobel prize banquet is set to be cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Photo courtesy: Pixabay

This will be the first time in over half a century that the banquet will not be held - the last time it was cancelled was in 1956, in protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary. It was also cancelled during World War One and Two.

The Nobel Prize winners for 2020 will be announced but the banquet, which is always held on December 10 and normally has around 1,300 guests, will not go ahead.

Dagens Nyheter quotes Nobel Foundation Chairman Lars Heikensten as saying, "There are two problems. You can not gather that many people next to each other. And it is uncertain whether people can travel to Sweden to the extent they want."
Someone in Ireland has won 49.5m in last night's EuroMillions draw.

The prize is the eighth-highest amount ever won in this country.

The winning numbers are 14, 15, 24, 29 and 42, and the lucky stars are 2 and 4.

Fran Whearty, from National Lottery, is urging people to check their tickets.

We purposely dont reveal the location of the winning ticket yet, he said.

I think its very important for a win of this size to give the winner the time and the space that they need just to let the win sink in.

And to let them get some legal financial advice before they claim the prize.

They have 90 days to contact Lotto HQ and claim their prize.

The winner is the 16th person to win the EuroMillions top prize in Ireland, and the second to win it this year.

In February, a family from Mayo shared the 17m jackpot.

In July 2005, Dolores McNamara from Limerick was Irelands first and biggest EuroMillions winner, scooping over 115m.
His work impressed Steven R. Swartz, the chief executive of Hearst Communications, and Mr. Young succeeded David Carey as Hearst Magazines president in 2018, winning the job over the high-profile former editor and magazine executive Joanna Coles.

That promotion came after at least four employees had complained about what they described as Mr. Youngs bullying or harassing behavior to the human resources department or senior executives, according to four former Hearst employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

One incident involving Mr. Young occurred during a visit to the Cosmopolitan office when he was the digital head, according to two people who were present. Mr. Young picked up one of the sex toys that had been sent to the magazine and asked if he could keep it, the people said. Referring to the openings of two toys, he said he would definitely need the bigger one, the people said.

Mr. Young also emailed pornography to a high-level Hearst editor, Jay Fielden, according to three people with knowledge of what happened. Mr. Fielden complained to Mr. Carey, who was then the division president, the people said. In May last year, Mr. Fielden left Hearst, where he had been the top editor of Esquire and Town & Country. He declined to comment for this article.

At a Cosmopolitan holiday party in 2013, Mr. Young joined a group in which a young staff member was describing a bad date with a man who complained of an ex-girlfriends odor. The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive conversation, said Mr. Young had told her that she should have inserted her fingers into herself and asked her date if he liked her smell. The woman said she was shocked by his comment and walked away.
Face shields worn by hairdressers are not protective against Covid-19  but masks are, health chiefs in Switzerland have claimed.

Swiss officials investigated an outbreak of 'several' coronavirus cases that occurred at a hotel in a village in the Alps  even though employers took precautions.

Experts revealed only those who wore plastic visors were infected. But no-one who wore a mask, either alone or in addition to a face shield, caught the coronavirus, according to the study.

Clear visors are recommended by the UK Government for hairdressers, barbers, nail technicians and tattooists as a barrier between them and the customer.

But it claims no other protection needs to be worn by either the worker or customer in order to protect against the coronavirus.

Experts say there is a lack of strong scientific evidence to support face shields and virus-laden droplets may still be able to enter the mouth.

Face shields worn by hairdressers (pictured) are not protective against Covid-19, health officials in Switzerland have warned

An outbreak of 'several' coronavirus cases at a hotel in Switzerland revealed those who only worse plastic visors (like the one pictured) were infected

The hotel outbreak occurred in the village of Pontresina, Graubunden region, where several employees and at least one guest tested positive for the virus.

Local health officials determined that all those infected had been relying solely on a face shield to protect themselves.

'The visors do not serve as an alternative to hygiene masks,' Yann Hulmann, of the Federal Office of Public Health, told local media 20 Minutes.

He added: 'Visors can be worn with masks to further enhance your own protection.'

Swiss officials investigated an outbreak of 'several' coronavirus cases that occurred at a hotel in the village of Pontresina, Graubunden region

The World Health Organization says face shields can help prevent the virus, but only in combination with other safety measures such as wearing a mask (pictured)

The government claims no other protection needs to be worn by either the worker or customer in order to protect against the coronavirus

ARE FACE SHIELDS PROTECTIVE? In a scramble to find ways to protect people from catching the coronavirus, masks, goggles, visors and gloves have all been touted as possible layers of protection. Some people have even been seen with homemade attempts, such as wearing lunchboxes or water bottles over their faces. But do visors work? Some research has shown that people are at risk of becoming more seriously ill with COVID-19 if they receive a larger 'viral load' - the first dose of viruses that they are infected with. Epidemiologist Dr Eli Perencevich and a team of scientists at the University of Iowa said a visor could reduce the amount of virus someone inhaled by up to 92 per cent form 2m away from the source. They said: 'Face shields... should be included as part of strategies to safely and significantly reduce transmission in the community setting.' Dr Robert Glatter, a doctor at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said that early data was 'promising'. But research carried out before the pandemic does not show any clear benefits of using visors on their own, other scientists say. A study by the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) done in 2016 found there is no proof to back up claims that face shields work on their own. He said viruses or bacteria could come in through around the edges of the visor and still cause infection  and said they should only be used in addition to other PPE. Lawrence Young, a virologist and oncologist, University of Warwick, told MailOnline: 'I dont know of any systematic studies properly evaluating the benefits of face shields.' He noted an 'interesting' review led by the University of Hong which comprehensively explored the different types of facial protection measures, including masks. The team highlighted the fact that strong evidence is lacking in terms of the effectiveness of face shields against the transmission of viral respiratory diseases'. Writing in the journal Oral Diseases, the team add: 'Because most face shields do not form a tight seal around the side of the face and chin area, they do not offer protection against aerosols leaking in from the margins of the face shields.' Advertisement

The World Health Organization (WHO) says face shields can help prevent the virus, scientifically called SARS-CoV-2.

But the agency says they only work in combination with other safety measures such as wearing a mask, social distancing, and frequent hand-washing.

And the Federal Office of Public Health  the Swiss government's health agency now says: 'Visors are no substitute for a face mask.

'They protect the eyes from possible infection through droplets, but the possibility of infection via the nose or mouth cannot be excluded.'

But according to the Department of Health in the UK: 'There is no requirement for the client to wear any additional protection such as a mask or face covering, when the practitioner is wearing a visor.'

In guidance for workplaces such as hairdressers and barbers, spas, beauty salons, tattoo and photo-shoot studios, ministers have recommended face visors to ensure they can operate in a Covid-19 secure way.

Guidance says: 'Both disposable and re-usable visors are available. A re-usable visor must be cleaned and sanitised regularly using normal cleaning products.

'Visors must fit the user and be worn properly. It should cover the forehead, extend below the chin, and wrap around the side of the face. A screen may be used by practitioners working with clients hands.

'There is no benefit to either the client or the practitioner of wearing additional PPE [personal protective equipment].'

It is not clear what the Department of Health base their advice on and MailOnline has contact the government branch for comment.

But ministers have repeatedly said throughout the crisis they have been 'following the science' to draw up guidance and policies.

Officials say social distancing and regular handwashing are still the most effective methods of preventing the transmission of Covid-19.

But there are concerns the precautions people are taking will slip if face shields create a false sense of security.

To date there has been little scientific evidence to encourage the use of face shields to protect against the coronavirus  despite there being huge debate about whether face coverings and masks are effective.

Lawrence Young, a virologist and oncologist, University of Warwick, told MailOnline: 'I dont know of any systematic studies properly evaluating the benefits of face shields.'

He noted an 'interesting' review led by the University of Hong which explored the different types of facial protection measures in detail.

Writing in the journal Oral Diseases, the team highlighted the fact that 'strong evidence is lacking in terms of the effectiveness of face shields against the transmission of viral respiratory diseases'.

If a face shield does not completely cover the entirety of the face, it leaves room for droplets expelled by the mouth and nose to escape.

Droplets are the main form of Covid-19 transmission, the WHO says, and the outbreak in Switzerland suggests the visors worn by the hotel staff do not act as a barrier against infection.

The WHO is also looking over evidence that the coronavirus is airborne, meaning it can be inhaled in much smaller particles.

If the face visor is not tightly sealed, it would allow the wearer to breathe in the air  and possibly virus particles  around them.

Face visors are also worn by doctors, nurses and other hospital workers on the Covid-19 frontline, but with the addition of a fitted surgical face mask.

Professor Young said: 'Face shields are useful when PPE is in short demand  they are robust, durable and can easily be disinfected.'
T he UK Government has reportedly abandoned hope of striking a Brexit trade deal with the EU.

It comes just days before the end of July when Boris Johnson said he believed an outline agreement could be passed.

But now ministers are working with the assumption that Britain will begin to trade with Europe on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms when the transition period ends on December 31, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The UK's chief negotiator David Frost and the EU's Michel Barnier began the latest round of talks in London on Monday.

Michel Barnier arrives at Downing Street for the latest round of talks / PA

However, neither side is backing down on fishing rights, so-called level playing field guarantees, governance of the deal and the role of the European Court of Justice.

The negotiations are due to finish on Thursday with no expectation of a breakthrough. And there are no more face to face talks scheduled this month, meaning Mr Johnsons July deadline will have passed.

Senior sources told the Telegraph that there is an assumption "there won't be a deal" but a "basic" agreement could still be struck if the EU yields ground in the autumn.

Frost and Barnier (file photo) (Photo by OLIVIER HOSLET/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) / POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, businesses have already been told to start preparing for a no trade deal exit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also called on Brussels to step up preparations for a no-deal scenario since "very limited" progress has been made during the negotiations.

A senior source told the newspaper: The Government has been making it clear for a while now that it is prepared for no deal. Britain isnt going to budge on fundamentals like fishing rights, so its all in the hands of the EU.

Britain is seeking a zero tariff, zero quota trade deal.

But if a deal is not made, trading on WTO terms means tariffs on goods and red tape could lead to delays in the passage of goods entering and leaving the UK.

Brexit negotiator, David Frost, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove take part in a video call with EU members (file photo) / 10 Downing Street/AFP via Getty

Mr Johnson had earlier told her the UK was willing to walk out of negotiations if necessary, while diplomats in Brussels insisted that the EU was ready for whatever the outcome of the trade talks may be.

They are right to work on the basis of no deal [as] we are as well, a diplomat from an influential member state told the Telegraph.

One UK negotiating team source said: We wanted to see an agreement this month. Its clear from the EU side thats not going to happen.

No trade deal has to be the working assumption, because thats what we have to prepare for. But it doesnt mean its what we want or are working to make happen.

Britain has said repeatedly that it is not asking the EU for a better deal than it has given other nations. But Brussels insists it will only offer a deal with strings attached.

EU negotiators mantain that the real deadline for a deal is the end of October, which would still allow time for member states to ratify the agreement before the end of transition.

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One source on the British side said: There is a chance of a deal, but it will be a basic deal, not a phenomenal deal. We should know by mid-August whether theres any chance it will happen.

It all depends on whether the EU wants to step up negotiations over the summer. If it doesn't, then the Governments view is that it's not interested.
Natasha Trethewey, author of "Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir," in her mother Gwendolyn's arms in Gulfport, Miss., in 1966. (Family photo)

Natasha Trethewey tells me a ghost story. Years ago, on a research trip through her home state of Mississippi for her third poetry collection, Native Guard, she was staying in an antebellum mansion that had been converted into an inn. On her second night there, she awoke to a tense voice: "You, sir, must understand my intent." Seconds later, frozen in her bed, she felt a depression beside her, as if someone had sat down on the mattress. The presence then lay down and slung an arm over her. Tretheway stayed awake, unmoving, she says, until I heard the train whistle that I knew was dawn. She left that morning.

Strange occurrences seem to populate her life, she says by phone from her home in Evanston, Ill., on the sunny morning of Juneteenth: Chance phone calls with long-estranged family members; the coincidence of her own birth on the 100th anniversary of Confederate Memorial Day (April 26, 1966).

Then there was the spring evening in 2005 when Trethewey, out for dinner with her husband in Atlanta, struck up a conversation with a stranger, an assistant district attorney. Suddenly, he paused. Was your mother Gwen Grimmette? he asked. When I look back at him, she writes in her transcendent new memoir, Memorial Drive, there are tears welling in his eyes, and then he drops his head and weeps.

In 1985, he was a police officer, the first on the scene when Tretheweys mother was discovered dead outside her apartment, with holes in her hand and head (as if the former could have stopped the fatal bullet). Now, almost 20 years later to the day, he offered to bring Trethewey a box of court documents that were about to be destroyed. Had they not met, she says, she likely never would have heard some of her mothers last living moments  recordings she transcribed directly into Memorial Drive.

Trethewey is a famous poet, to the extent that one can be such a thing in 21st-century America. In 2007, she won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Native Guard, and five years later was named the nations poet laureate  recognized for work that shimmies the American Souths history of racism right up alongside the palpable pleasures of its thousand shades of green. Flickering in between are visions of her mother  sometimes bruised, sometimes dancing.

Story continues

She didnt open the box immediately, Trethewey says in her rich and deliberate voice. She knew what might haunt her from the box: I mean, Ive seen Law & Order. The process of unpacking it and composing the memoir took seven years. When I left Atlanta, vowing never to return, she writes of the years immediately after the killing, I took with me what I had cultivated all those years: mute avoidance of my past, silence and willed amnesia buried deep in me like a root.

To tell her mothers story  and her own as her mothers child  she had to reclaim the totems and memories and documentary evidence of the years between 1973 and 1985, when Joel Grimmette, her stepfather and her mothers killer, abused and tormented both of them. What she slowly pulled from that box included an autopsy report, crime-scene photos, court records and a letter written by the police officer guarding her mothers apartment  whod left just before Grimmette, who had already threatened to kill her, showed up. And that is the moment, Trethewey says now, her voice clotting with emotion, that ... I don't know. I just kind of started wailing, because it's all there. They could have saved her.

She couldnt save her mother, but she could reanimate her memory and welcome her spirit back into her life.

A family portrait of Rick, Gwen and Natasha Trethewey, in Gulfport, Miss., before the parents divorced. (Family photo)

Stone Mountain is nearly 1,700 feet high. Its massive bas-relief sculpture of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson  a Confederate Mt. Rushmore, the largest of its kind  looms at the very end of the titular Memorial Drive, visible from the front gate of the apartment where Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough (her mother's maiden name, the one Trethewey prefers) lived and died.

The mountain was carved to intimidate, to remind Black Georgians of their tenuous foothold on freedom. Sam Venable, its owner in the early 20th century, granted the incipient second wave of the Ku Klux Klan permission to hold a cross burning there on Thanksgiving Eve 1915. In a fit of racist pique, the state of Georgia bought the property not long after the Supreme Court's ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. A few years later, Stone Mountain was officially opened to visitors on the centenary of Lincolns assassination.

It reminds me, Trethewey writes, of what is remembered here and what is not. Memorial Drive, the avenue and the book, form a literal throughline from the public pain of Black Southerners to the private suffering of Trethewey's family.

Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Miss., to a white father and a Black mother whose marriage wasnt legally recognized in the state. (The Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage the following year.) Until she was 6, Trethewey lived within sight of her great-aunts and -uncles, next to her grandmothers house, where the latest issue of Jet lay on the coffee table beside a photograph of the civil rights movement. She lived a dual reality: skipping between those houses gathering sunshine-yellow daffodils in the cocoon of her extended family; and then out on the streets experiencing the tension of being mixed race. With her father, she was accorded respect; with her mother, sneers and threats. A cross was burned on their lawn. When I was growing up, if I did anything well, white people would always say things like, Oh, well, that's your white side.

Her parents divorced, and in 1972, Trethewey, called Tasha by her family, joined Gwendolyn in Atlanta, arriving as it was transitioning into what she laughingly calls a chocolate city. (She kept in touch with her father, also a poet, but lived with her mother.) Trethewey writes with calm and quiet love of the school she entered there, a place where Black intellectuals and heroes were studied year-round and children performed James Weldon Johnsons The Creation. Then Joel Grimmette came along.

Trethewey doesn't speak much during our conversation about the abuse her former stepfather brought into the family home. How he beat her mother at night and accidentally became the first audience for Tashas writing, cracking open her diary. Writing helped Trethewey evolve, but it hasnt healed her. This is just a state of being I'm in these days, she says at a tender moment in the conversation. I did go to that difficult place.

She went there in her poetry, albeit slant, for years. At the University of Massachusetts, where Trethewey got her master's in fine arts, a professor once advised her to unburden yourself of being Black. Unburden yourself of the death of your mother, and write about the situation in Northern Ireland. Of course, Trethewey disregarded this advice. Her race and her mothers murder were, she says, her two existential wounds.

There is a twinning of documentary evidence and personal memory in much of Tretheweys poetry, as in Memorial Drive. Domestic Work uses photographs of workers in the South to call up memories of clotheslines sagged with linens,/ a patch of greens and yams,/ buckets of peas for shelling. Bellocqs Ophelia re-imagines a prostitute in Storyville (the old red-light district of New Orleans) sitting for real photographs and musing on her own exploitation  body and image. In my room, she thinks, Everythings a prop for his composition. Native Guard, released in 2006, reported and magnified the stories of a Black Union Army regiment: Some names shall deck the page of history/ as it is written on stone. Some will not. Permanence  and what we choose to commemorate  has preoccupied Trethewey for decades.

Native Guard was dedicated to Tretheweys mother, and after it won the Pulitzer, journalists mined the poet's life for background material. She understands the impulse. My poems are rooted in my personal history, they're autobiographical, she says. But the profiles usually mentioned her mother almost as this sort of afterthought, just this murder victim. And that wounded me, the way that she was constantly being portrayed, and I think even diminished.

Justly or not, she wound up blaming herself. I realized that I had committed this kind of same act of erasure I had dedicated the book To my mother. I did not include her name. So it was still just a monument to Natasha Trethewey's mother.  Not Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough. Memorial Drive is a monument with a name.

The irony isnt lost on Trethewey that shes commemorating her mother  a career woman, a quiet revolutionary, a woman who gave her daughter room to thrive even in the throes of abuse  just as statues of unworthy men are being yanked down with ropes across the country. A friend in Georgia sent her a video of the removal of a Confederate monument outside the DeKalb County Courthouse, where Grimmette was sentenced to life in prison. I wish I could have been there, she says. To her, the symbolism matters. Three days after our second conversation, Mississippi legislators voted to remove the state's flag, which contains a Confederate symbol. All these totems are a disservice to our humanity, and an ongoing disfigurement of the souls of white folk.

But Trethewey doesnt want Stone Mountain dynamited into dust. I'd like to find a way that we tell the fullest version of the racist history behind it, she says. So that when people look at it, what they encounter is not just some message of Southern gallantry and heroism and nostalgia, but the real truth of what it symbolized. To her, its not only a symbol of a distant Civil War but also one of recent history  Americas and her own. The monument was first commissioned in 1915, she reminds me, but wasnt completed until 1972, the year she moved to Atlanta with her mother.

Natasha Trethewey. (Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press)

Memorial Drive essentially consists of three parts, dotted with small inflection points and snippets of dreams. It bears the contours of tortured memory: natural detours and unexpected chasms, vivid flashes and black holes. The first part deals with Trethewey's pre-Atlanta childhood, the second with those 12 years shed repressed. The third stakes out wild new territory. One section flits between first and second person  that is me, she tells me, "trying to confront myself about these years of willed forgetting  How do you integrate the self again, when something has divided you?

The book eschews the common memoiristic route of picking apart the aftermath of trauma. Trethewey doesnt write about Grimmette's sentencing, which she missed. I was on my way there. I don't know if it was intentional. ... I got to the courthouse, but it was over. She says she never even contemplated chronicling any of her life past 1985. There is no mention of Grimmettes recent release from prison after serving 34 years.

Instead, the closing chapters of Memorial Drive are almost entirely in Gwendolyns words; the grace and polish of the poets voice recedes to reveal a monument with an iron core.

In the files the assistant district attorney turned over to Trethewey, she found a 12-page handwritten letter police had discovered in her mothers briefcase. In it, Gwendolyn explains, in a clear, unruffled style, exactly how she left her husband after, knife in hand, he told her he would be nice and let me choose the way I wanted to die. This is followed by a 27-page transcript of the two phone calls she recorded with Grimmette  evidence of his threats for the district attorney  in the two days before he killed her.

Theyre anguishing to read. Gwendolyn is a model of reason and calm, her voice as composed as Tretheweys, as she points out the impossibility of Grimmette compelling her to love him at gunpoint; she tells him, Ive just decided that theres just some, some times in your life that you just have to make a stand.

"Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir" by former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. (Ecco)

Trethewey says including the transcripts is the one thing I was nervous about doing  [But] the proof is there in black and white. I could try to tell you how great my mother was, how calm, how resolute, how resilient, how lovely. And it would just sort of sound like a daughter saying that about her mother. ... I wanted you to see it yourself.

Its an astonishing decision  to cede the stage to her mothers words, unedited and practically bleeding on the page. Its an act of preservation and a reckoning. The photos and true histories in Tretheweys poetry tether her subjects lives and avoid sentimentality; they become more real with her evocation, not less. Memorial Drive is even more naked, a specimen of found poetry. After decades spent dotting her work with remnants of her mother, the fullest expression of Tretheweys grief was to offer up what shed found in that box.

Its no wonder that even as she cheers demolition of so many symbols of a racist past, Trethewey doesnt want Stone Mountain destroyed. Shes found value in looking directly at the origins of hate and grief and untold loss. Like any good poet, she quotes Rumi on this. "The wound is the place where the light enters you."

Kellys work has been published in New York Magazine, Vogue, the New York Times Book Review and elsewhere.
Even in Ocean County, where there was also a hard-fought Republican primary in the 3rd Congressional District, turnout was higher on the Democratic side  47% to 40%.

I would say New Jersey Democrats are on pace to cast 1.1 million votes, Froonjian said. In 2016, when (Hillary) Clinton and (Bernie) Sanders were still sniping ... there were just under 900,000 (Democratic votes) cast.

District 1, covering Camden County and parts of Burlington and Gloucester counties, is likely to have tallied almost 60,000 Democratic votes in the primary, even though incumbent Rep. Donald Norcross has no challenger.

In 2018, there were about 47,000 cast (in the primary), and Norcross had a challenger, Froonjian said. So somethings going on.

Caterson said her office has sent out 615 cure letters to people whose signatures on their ballots did not match their signatures on record, or who forgot to sign ballots. Voters have until the close of business Thursday to sign and return a certification that the ballot is theirs.

If the proper paperwork is provided, those ballots will be added to the count, Caterson said.
Australia has reported a record 501 new coronavirus cases today, nearly four months after the pandemic initially peaked in the country.

Victoria accounted for 484 of the new cases as authorities struggle to bring the outbreak under control despite a nearly two-week lockdown in Melbourne.

Sydney's state of New South Wales is also on 'high alert' with infections popping up in new places and spreading in the community.

Australia's new cases previously peaked on March 28 with 459 new cases, according to data compiled by AFP. Restrictions were then eased as the outbreak appeared to be under control.

Australia has reported a record 501 new coronavirus cases today. Above, frontline medical testing staff are seen at a pop-up site at Colac Area Health in Victoria

Victoria accounted for 484 of the new cases as authorities struggle to bring the outbreak under control. Above, registered nurse Debbie Bhatti and team members conduct COVID-19 swab tests as large crowds queue at a Bondi Beach drive-through testing clinic on July 22

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews announced 484 new cases and two more deaths in the state today, bringing the state's total active cases to just over 3,400.

Australia has now recorded almost 13,000 cases of COVID-19 and 128 fatalities in a country of about 25million.

Melbourne residents will be required to wear masks outside from midnight - making the city the first place in Australia to mandate face coverings in public - in a new effort to slow the virus spread.

But Andrews said 'further behaviour change' would still be required, after analysis showed almost nine in 10 people diagnosed with coronavirus over the two weeks to Tuesday did not self-isolate between feeling sick and seeking a test.

Just over half of people also failed to stay at home between being tested and receiving their results, he added.

'That means people have felt unwell and just gone about their business,' Andrews told reporters.

'They have gone out shopping. They have gone to work. They have been at the height of their infectivity and they have just continued on as usual.'

Authorities believe that insecure work conditions are a key factor in discouraging people from isolating.

Andrews said casual workers across a range of industries, who do not get sick leave provisions, were worried about 'feeding their kids, paying their bills' but could apply for a Aus$1,500 (840) hardship payment if they contract the virus.

There are growing fears about the virus spreading through vulnerable populations after outbreaks at several nursing homes, while inmates at six prisons have been confined to their cells after a guard tested positive.

Australia has now recorded almost 13,000 cases of COVID-19 and 128 fatalities in a country of about 25million. Above, a man is seen wearing a face mask in Melbourne on July 22

Victoria accounted for 484 of the new cases overnight as authorities struggle to bring the outbreak under control despite a nearly two-week lockdown in Melbourne

Andrews warned that the number of cases would stay on an upward trajectory if people did not self-isolate after getting tested.

'And a six-week shutdown will not be for six weeks. It will run for much longer than that.'

Victoria has recorded more than 6,700 coronavirus infections, more than half of Australia's total.

The outbreak has left Australia rattled and dampened hopes of a speedy economic recovery.

An inquiry into how the virus spread in Melbourne heard this week that many cases were likely linked to infection control breaches at hotels used to quarantine residents returning from overseas.

Victoria has effectively been sealed off from the rest of the country in an effort to contain the virus, but new cases have been detected in neighbouring New South Wales state.

Cross-border travel between Victoria and NSW is only allowed for work, education or medical care, after the border was closed this month for the first time in 100 years.

Staff and students travelling from Victoria into NSW to attend boarding schools or universities are required to self-isolate for two weeks and test negative for the virus, while seasonal workers from Victoria are barred.

St Johns Ambulance Victoria volunteers Caitlin Styles (left) and Alannah Griffiths are seen at a pop up Hospital at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Melbourne

Barricades have been installed along some of Coolangatta's streets to help stop people crossing the Queensland-NSW border without going through the appropriate checks

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian described the coming weeks as 'the most critical' since the height of the last lockdown, when the state held the mantle of Australia's hardest-hit region.

Several clusters have emerged in Sydney, which health officials believe sprung up after an infected man from Melbourne visited a popular pub.

'We are not out of the woods by any stretch, quite the opposite,' Berejiklian told a press conference.

'We remain on high alert and we have some level of anxiety as to the extent of community transmission.'

Berejiklian said new restrictions would come into force Friday to tighten rules for bars, cafes, weddings and funerals, warning they could still be extended further.

'A lack of compliance now has made us go down the compulsory path and we don't apologise for that,' she said.

She raised concern about a Black Lives Matter protest planned for next week.

'Irrespective of the issue, we need to follow the health advice. Large crowds are a huge concern. We cannot allow that march to continue unfortunately,' Berejiklian said.

'We're at a critical point in New South Wales and we don't want to see the virus spread and actions like that are a huge health risk.'

Some states and territories were due to report daily figures later Wednesday but new community outbreaks have not been detected in less-populated regions for weeks.

Australia, like neighbouring New Zealand, has generally been lauded for its pandemic response.

The latest outbreak in Australia has set back plans for the two countries to create a 'travel bubble' which would ease their strict border restrictions.

New Zealand has not seen a new case in the community for more than two months, with every new arrival quarantined at the border.

The country has seen 1,555 cases and 22 deaths.
Nicola Sturgeon takes London to task over Russia report

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 5:21 PM

As the British political establishment digests the contents of the Russia report, Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has seized the initiative by calling out the government for its complacency.

The report leveled a very direct accusation against Russia, namely that entities linked to the Russian state had tried to influence the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014.

The report went even further by describing this alleged interference as "the first post-Soviet Russian interference in a Western democratic process".

For her part, Sturgeon was at pains to distance the Scottish independence movement from the alleged activities of the Russian state.

To that end, Scotland's First Minister said: "The Scottish independence movement and the values I and my party stand for I don't think could be further removed from the kind of values that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime stand for".

Sturgeon, who is also the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), said she would have "no objection" to a "deeper inquiry" into possible Russian interference into Scottish affairs.

The SNP leader threw the ball into London's court by saying the British government "should be taking greater steps to find out" whether this "interference" is happening in the first place.

"I don't think you can draw any conclusion from the three lines the report has on the Scottish independence referendum, but I would include that in my general remarks about not being complacent about Russian interference", Sturgeon added.

More broadly, both the Scottish Tories and Labor's shadow Scottish secretary, Ian Murray, have called for an inquiry to determine the extent of (if any) of Russian interference in the September 2014 independence referendum.

But Scotland's First Minister was adamant that investigating the issue resides solely within the competence of the British intelligence community.

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Android is an open and susceptible device for ill-intentioned people to carry through bad things with its apps. Like other computer systems, Android offers checks and balances to maintain your safety and security towards avoiding and removing viruses and malware on Android.

The progression of mobile devices has bolstered our lives, but yet, we need to be vigilant regarding security threats. It is worth considering that Android is the most targeted OS.

Phone malware is currently on the radar. Android mobile phones do not get "viruses" traditionally but they are susceptible to a series of malicious software.

Undertaking simple measures will make it convenient for the user to scan and remove viruses, reported AVG.

Do not sideload applications. You might feel compelled to download a seemingly fun game trending lately but do not. Sideloading applications could be alright for people attempting to test new features in future releases of the official software, but it is not alright for downloading themes, games, and other sundry applications, according to Tech Republic.

Remove a malicious app. If your Android phone is playing up, the reason behind this might be that you have installed a malicious app. To identify and remove malicious apps, you can download Kaspersky Internet Security for Android, reported Kaspersky.

Android is commanding more than 75 percent of the smartphone market worldwide and Android malware is a persistent problem. If there exists a malware on your phone, it is possibly not a virus as technically, a virus is a malware that attaches itself into otherwise on your operating system's untainted files. Then the virus modifies such files so it can utilize your device's resources to duplicate itself. This is why avoiding and removing viruses and malware on Android is vital.

Also Read: Wireless Workout Headphones of 2020 With Awesome Reviews

Shut down until you discover the specifics. In case your phone becomes under siege by a malware, hold down the power button and completely turn off your phone. The very act might not stop the malware from initiating damage but it halts the problem from aggravating and might halt ongoing malware attempting to access networks in close proximity.



Run an anti-virus scan. An effective way to check for malware throughout your Android phone is doing such. Prior to purchasing an anti-virus software for your Android, ensure that you look out for the most comprehensive product suitable for your device to avoid and remove viruses and malware.

Use official apps. Google is incorporated into Android smartphones. Google will regularly recommend the top applications to install from the Play Store.



Clear the cache. Clean out pop-ups and redirects by clearing your browser cache. This is through going to Apps & Notifications > Chrome > Storage > Clear Cache or through your browser's own settings menu.



This is less serious than imposing a system reset that is another direct way to remove an Android virus.

If you don't know what the app is, do not download it. Ponder over or think twice if you do not know what the app is or where it originated to avoid and remove viruses and malware.

People usually get e-mails with links to an application. Do not blindly download full apk files (file type for Android apps) indicated in the said e-mails, or are linked to spam text messages towards avoiding and removing viruses and malware on Android.

Related Article: US Considers Banning TikTok and Other Chinese Social Media Apps



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Insurance fraud seems like it might be an easy thing to do. Insurance companies are often so huge, one wonders how they might not even notic...
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:34:05|Editor: huaxia

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by Zhang Jianhua, Chanthaphaphone Mixayboua

VIENTIANE, July 22 (Xinhua) -- For the past 10 years, Noutsady Phetouthone has been working with Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina) and grown into an experienced and reliable staff of the Chinese state-run enterprise's Lao branch company, while her Chinese colleagues kindly call her "Nuo" (meaning "promise" in Chinese language).

Noutsady, born in 1986 in central Laos' hilly Hin Heup District to the north of capital Vientiane, went to Vientiane alone at the age of 21 to look for a job and go on with her study.

In 2009, with sound knowledge of accounting and favorable English communication skills, she stood out from many applicants and became an employee of PowerChina's Lao Cement Industry Co., Ltd.

Noutsady showed her talent and capability soon in the accounting position, completing nearly 200 payments for more than 50 downstream transporters every month, timely and accurately.

Working and spending time together has brought Noutsady and her Chinese colleagues closer.

"I feel great with PowerChina, and I will try to achieve the same like PowerChina to 'keep promises and make promises valuable' and start a new life here," Noutsady told reporters in Chinese.

PowerChina has entered the Lao market for more than 20 years. Since 1996, the corporation has participated in the construction of infrastructure such as hydropower plants in Laos. In 2007, the company put a cement production line with a capacity of 1 million tons into commercial operation, which was the largest cement production line in Laos at that time.

When talking about the "Lion Brand" cement products of the company, Noutsady is full of pride.

"We are one of the earliest cement manufacturers in Laos," she said, "from the many hydropower plants around the country to the broad 450th Anniversary Avenue in the capital and the magnificent Lao National Convention Center, even many house buildings in my hometown, the 'Lion Brand' cement is used," she said.

In 2017, PowerChina Lao Cement Industry Co., Ltd became the supplier of the China-Laos railway, a major project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

Witnessing trucks of cement being shipped to the construction sites of the China-Laos railway, Noutsady said she seems to see Laos being converted from the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia to a well-connected land-linked hub in Indochina Peninsula.

She worked more vigorously since then. Every day, she was busy checking accounts with more than a dozen sites, reviewing China-Laos railway cement supply invoices, and applying for relevant preferential policies with the Lao taxation authority, to make cement supply smoother and faster.

In the last decade, the Lao lady has not only seen the development of the cement company, but also established her own small family. Now, Noutsady lives with her daughter in a cosy apartment provided by the company.

At the end of 2019, Noutsady was also honored as an outstanding foreign employee of PowerChina.

At the risky times of the COVID-19 pandemic in Laos, Noutsady and other 230 Lao staff, together with 60 Chinese colleagues worked together for the normal operation of the company.

Noutsady said that during the pandemic, "Chinese colleagues brought me and my daughter meals every day, which I will never forget. Now, the haze of the epidemic in Laos is gradually dissipating, and another new decade has begun. I will cherish it even more, loving my daughter, loving my life, and loving my PowerChina." Enditem
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) today announces the advancement of its strategic initiative to strengthen its sustainability efforts in support of environmental, social and governance principles.

The initiative builds upon numerous achievements in these areas, including significant reductions in emissions and water usage, with additional goals developed to further these successes.

The enhanced environmental focus expands upon PNM's plans to fully exit coal no later than 2031 and achieve emissions-free energy by 2040, a goal that is considerably more aggressive than the reductions called for by the Paris Climate Agreement and five years earlier than the 2045 requirement included in New Mexico's Energy Transition Act. To further advance the commitment to clean energy, additional goals will specifically address further reductions in Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) and Sulfur Oxide (SOx) emissions as well as water usage.

"Our business is rapidly changing to fully embrace carbon-free energy and realize our vision of a clean and bright energy future. We believe that ESG principles help establish a framework to meet our objectives," said Pat Vincent-Collawn, PNM Resources' chairman, president and CEO. "Strengthening our commitment to these principles across PNM and TNMP is essential for the transition to a sustainable utility that reliably serves customers."

Consistent with this initiative, the company's long-term plans focus on the robust transition to a reliable, resilient and secure grid that delivers clean energy. As the technology and price curves advance for renewables, battery storage and other emerging emissions-free resources, utility infrastructure must be able to integrate and deliver these resources to customers reliably and affordably.

PNM announces its Wired for the Future program to prioritize up to $450 million of new investments over the five years of 2021 through 2025 in transmission and distribution infrastructure with three primary objectives: delivering clean energy, customer focus and grid resilience.

These investments supplement current transmission and distribution projects supporting clean energy, including PNM transmission expansion projects (BB2 and Western spirit transmission lines) to support new renewable resources under development and the TNMP interconnection of three,100-megawatt battery storage facilities along with numerous solar farms as ERCOT plans for substantial renewable additions to its grid.

During the company's second quarter earnings call scheduled for July 31st, management will discuss its strategy and commitment to ESG principles with new goals, sharing these achievements through improved disclosures, along with supporting investment plans.

Background:

PNM Resources (NYSE: PNM) is an energy holding company based in Albuquerque, N.M., with 2019 consolidated operating revenues of $1.5 billion. Through its regulated utilities, PNM and TNMP, PNM Resources has approximately 2,811 megawatts of generation capacity and provides electricity to approximately 790,000 homes and businesses in New Mexico and Texas. For more information, visit the company's website at www.PNMResources.com.

CONTACTS:





Analysts Media

Lisa Goodman Ray Sandoval

(505) 241-2160 (505) 241-2782

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

Statements made in this news release for PNM Resources, Inc. ("PNMR"), Public Service Company of New Mexico ("PNM") and Texas-New Mexico Power Company ("TNMP") (collectively, the "Company") that relate to future events or expectations, projections, estimates, intentions, goals, targets, and strategies are made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers are cautioned that all forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and estimates. The Company assumes no obligation to update this information. Because actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, the Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on these statements. The Company's business, financial condition, cash flow, and operating results are influenced by many factors, which are often beyond its control, that can cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of risk factors and other important factors affecting forward-looking statements, please see the Company's Form 10-K, Form 10-Q filings and the information included in the Company's Forms 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which factors are specifically incorporated by reference herein.

SOURCE PNM Resources, Inc.

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In an escalation of the bipartisan anti-China campaign, US Department of Justice officials in Spokane, Washington on Tuesday unsealed an indictment against two former engineering students, charging them with hacking in order to steal data on COVID-19 vaccine research.

In the 11-page indictment, Chinese citizens Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, are accused of working on behalf of the Chinese government to hack into the computer systems of US and international companies in order to steal trade secrets, personal information, and information on a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

The indictment states that the two not only worked on their own for profit, but also at the direction of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), a civilian spy agency, on behalf of the Chinese government.

Each of the two is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, unauthorized access of a computer and seven counts each of aggravated identity theft.

If convicted on all counts and given maximum sentences, the pair would spend up to 64 years in prison. However, it is extremely unlikely they will ever be extradited to the US.

Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, the indictment alleges, are former classmates at the University of Electronic Science and Technology, an electrical engineering college in Chengdu, China. Li and Dong are accused of using their technical training to hack the computer networks of a wide variety of companies, beginning in September 2009.

The indictment does not allege that the defendants actually stole any information related to COVID-19 vaccine research. This, however, did not stop the Washington Post, CNBC, MSNBC and the New York Times from running headlines accusing the two of stealing vaccine data for China (the Times) or smearing China for sponsoring criminal hackers targeting coronavirus vaccine research (the Post).

The accusations come less than a week after the intelligence agencies of the US, Canada and the UK accused the Russian government of plotting to steal coronavirus research. The Times breathlessly promoted the baseless claims of the intelligence agencies on its front page, despite there being no actual evidence or named victims.

It also follows unsubstantiated allegations by FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General William Barr that China has been hacking into US-based companies involved in coronavirus vaccine research.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained last week:

There is a ferocious global struggle between competing corporations and nations to be the first to patent a vaccine for the coronavirus. At stake are billions of dollars for corporate CEOs, investors and bankers, and an immense geopolitical advantage for the country that wins the vaccine sweepstakes Under no conditions is US imperialism prepared to allow either Russia or China to dominate the global market for a COVID-19 vaccine. It is seeking in advance to criminalize their efforts, very possibly as a prelude to banning the import of such a vaccine into the US and lesser powers dependent on it, such as the UK and Canada.

The indictment against Li and Dong does not name any companies but does give general locations and singles out industries that were allegedly hacked. The two are accused of compromising the security of various US engineering and technology firms as well as a Virginia federal and defense contractor.

The US also accuses the pair of breaking into a British artificial intelligence firm, a Swedish online gaming company, a Lithuanian gaming company, a South Korean shipbuilding and engineering firm, and an Australian solar company.

Li and Dong are alleged to have researched and identified targets through publicly available information. According to the indictment, they were able to gain access using publicly known software vulnerabilities in popular products.

In announcing the charges, FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich accused the Chinese government of stealing intellectual property and research which bolster its economy, and then they use that illicit gain as a weapon to silence any country that would dare challenge their illegal actions.

John Demers, head of the Justice Departments National Security Division, ramped up the saber rattling, stating: China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cybercriminals in exchange for those criminals being on call to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist Partys insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research.

The announcement of the charges comes one week after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo branded nearly all Chinese claims in the South China Sea as illegal. Earlier this month, the US sent two aircraft carrier battle strike groups into the South China Sea for war games in the vicinity of Chinese military bases, escalating Washingtons war preparations against the nuclear-armed country.

It should also be noted that earlier this year reports surfaced that for at least five decades the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, through a Swiss diplomatic encryption company they owned, have spied on the private communications of world leaders and government officials around the world.
Hyderabad: Parents of children with disabilities, apart from teachers and activists dealing with such kids, are worried over the emphasis the state government is giving to online education.

They are categorical that mere online learning will put children with disabilities at a major disadvantage, jeopardising their future in the long run.

This is the strong belief of, among others, P. Anasuya, faculty member of National Institute of Visually Handicapped (NIVH) at Bowenpally, which is part of the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual Disability (NIEPID).

Mother of a visually impaired son herself, she teaches children daily living skills, such as eating, bathing, walking without running into objects and even wearing clothes. All such instructions need touch and feel guidance.

Anasuya recalls her struggle in teaching students to differentiate between idli rava and Bombay rava.

If I was with them, I can help them understand the difference in texture by guiding their hands. It is an absolute challenge doing this on phone, she maintains. As a result, Anasuya is unable to teach more than five students at a time on the phone.

Srinivasulu of Hyderabad-based Network of Persons with Disabilities Organisation (NPDO) says Covid-19 pandemic has made life much tougher for children with disabilities.

Even during ordinary times, families rarely give importance to a disabled childs education. With thrust on online education, such families will ask their kids to forget all about education, Srinivasulu points out.

Kolli Nageshwar Rao of All India Disabled Persons Rights Forum (AIDPR) feels Telangana governments measures leave much to be desired. The government set up a helpline for disabled persons in April, but did not bother to publicise it. No one in rural areas even knows about the availability of a helpline number, he says.

A survey by NGO Swabhiman and National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) paints a grim scenario with regard to the future of children with disabilities if online education is insisted upon.

The survey in which over 2,000 children, parents and teachers participated, predicts that 43.53 percent of disabled children will drop out from getting educated just because of the sole reason that they do not have a smartphone.
At least 14 people were wounded in a mass shooting at a funeral home on Chicago's South Side on Tuesday night, police said at a news briefing.

The big picture: The shooting happened one day after President Trump threatened to send federal law enforcement into other cities run by Democrats  including Chicago, where Homeland Security was reportedly drafting plans to send some 150 federal agents this week.

About 2,000 Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration officials have been on standby for deployment to cities, per the New York Times.

What they're saying: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted on Tuesday night, "Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump's troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents."

What's happening: Chicago Police First Deputy Eric Carter said shots were fired about 6:30pm from a black vehicle toward attendees at the funeral home at 1018 W. 79th Street. "Attendees of the funeral exchanged gunfire with the black vehicle," he said.

Shots continued to be fired as the vehicle drove down the road before it crashed. The occupants fled, but police have a suspect in custody.

The victims were hospitalized, but police could not give any information on their conditions.

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
Listen to Outbreak Alabama: Stories from a Pandemic, above.

Today, we hear from Lorrie Lane, a Tuscaloosa artist who along with nine other women, moderates a Facebook group called West Alabama COVID 19 information group dedicated to updating the Tuscaloosa and Birmingham area on developments related to coronavirus.

To join the group, you must agree to guidelines that ask that users please keep posts about COVID-19 and its impact on West Alabama. They include things like being polite and excluding politics or inflammatory content, among other rules.

Seems simple enough, but this is Facebook. And there will be politics and inflammatory content. Thats why Lorrie Lane and her fellow moderators dedicate themselves to keeping the group as informative, timely and civil as possible, as if its a second job, because there are currently nearly 22,000 people who depend on it for accurate information and updates.

Managing an active Facebook group is demanding and stressful. Mix that with a pandemic, with topics that literally deal with life and death and how your community is impacted, and it can take a toll on those keeping it in line.

We talk about how they decide whats appropriate to post, how they manage politics and misinformation, what it takes for someone to get kicked out and how the group has done the community some good during the pandemic.

West Alabama COVID 19 information group moderators: Kelli Ball, Kathleen Bindon, Que Chandler, Amy Hoggle, Lorrie Lane, Loretta Lynn, Ashley Nicholson. (Past moderators include Jill Grogg, Mona Ochoa Horshok, Katie Sandlin)

Outbreak Alabama will release two or three episodes per week, chronicling the experiences of those directly impacted by COVID-19s spread, including health care professionals, business owners, city leaders, artists, AL.com reporters and many others.

If you or anyone you know is affected by coronavirus and want to share your story, please email bflanagan@al.com. For all of our coverage on the outbreak and how it continues to impact Alabama, visit AL.com/coronavirus.

Listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, please rate it and write us a review. Thank you for listening.

More from Outbreak Alabama:

The scramble to reopen schools

Yall have to wear a mask

COVID-19s psychological toll

Setting the wrong records

What its like to have coronavirus

Its not about you

The death rate

Its on us, yall

The unemployment crisis

Trending the wrong direction

Do we even want a football season?

Where is God right now?

Are you ready for concerts again?

CNNs Kaitlan Collins on covering COVID-19 and Trump

Protesting during a pandemic

Cases are surging in Tuscaloosa

Nick Saban steps it up

Whats next for schools?

The spike in Montgomery

Astonishing disparities in the rural South

Where is the nursing home data?

Is it a mistake to reopen now?

Whiter Thomas on staying creative during the pandemic

Our successes and failures so far

The return of retail

A barbers dilemma

Is it really time to reopen Alabama?

A coronavirus survivors message to the rest of us

Ivey not ready to reopen just yet

Crime in the age of coronavirus

What role do our churches play?

The absence of sports

Learning from a distance

Walt Maddox on leading Tuscaloosa through coronavirus

Social distancing, or not

Coronavirus early impact on musicians

Alabama restaurants
THE High Court has approved a scheme to ensure the continued operation of a Limerick-city based aircraft lessor Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC).

Nordic Aviation Capital DAC sought to enter into a scheme of arrangement with its lenders, which was approved on Tuesday by Mr Justice David Barniville, due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the aviation industry.

The judge approved the scheme, which will allow the group to continue to operate after being told that over 90pc of the different classes of the group's creditors had approved the scheme.

Noting the level of approval and the lack of opposition to the proposal the judge said he was satisfied that he had the jurisdiction to make the order, giving international recognition of the scheme, and that the scheme was "fair and equitable."

The NAC group, whose chief commercial officer is Jim Murphy, is the largest lessor of aircraft to regional airlines and the 5th largest aircraft lessor in the world employing over a 100 people at its Limerick headquarters.

It owns approximately 500 aircraft.

Under the terms of the scheme, millions of euro in principal and interest payments due over the next six to 12 months from NAC to its lenders linked to more than 5bn of debt will be put on hold.

The terms of the agreement also require that NAC's shareholders inject $60m (53m) into the group and reduce non-essential expenditure, and cut costs.

The group also will also eliminate an uncommitted proposed capital expenditure programme for 2020 to 2025 of $5.7bn.

Payments under a committed capital expenditure programme of $1.5bn will be deferred and the proposed delivery of 21 new aircraft will now be cut down to eight.

Seeing orders under the Companies Act for the scheme's approval, Lyndon MacCann SC, appearing with Kelly Smith Bl for NAC, said that there had been overwhelming creditor support for the scheme.

Counsel said well over 90 percent of secured and non-secured creditors who had attended creditors meetings had voted in favour of the proposals contained in the scheme.

No party had objected to the scheme, he said.

The group sought to enter into an arrangement with its lenders due to the impact of the Covid-19pandemic.

The court heard that unless the scheme got the go ahead it was feared it would run out of cash by the end of July.

The bulk of the group's customers sought various concessions on its aircraft leasing agreements.

The pandemic had also resulted in a substantial decrease on the amount of money paid to the group, the court also heard.

Separately, Nordic Aviation Capital appointed industry veteran Patrick Blaney to its board as a non-executive director and member of the Strategic Advisory Committee. Mr Blaney is currently chairman of the Aircraft Leasing, Finance and Law Programme in UCD Michael Smurfit Business School and was CEO of GPA Group until 2001.
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Amber Heard today denied severing the tip of Johnny Depp's finger and stubbing out a cigarette on his face during a violent argument in Australia claiming the Hollywood star was lobbing up to 30 booze bottles at her 'like grenades' while holding her hostage for three days in a mansion.

The actress, who accuses the 57-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star of physical abuse on at least 14 occasions, was questioned about an incident Down Under in March 2015 on her third day in the witness box at the High Court in London.

Depp says the tip of his finger was severed during an argument when Heard, 34, threw a large vodka bottle which struck his hand, but Ms Heard hit back today saying: 'I only threw things to escape Johnny when he was beating me up'.

Describing the row she said she had taken a bottle from Depp from which he was drinking and smashed it on the floor, prompting a furious response from him. Ms Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs, before giving a long answer in which she said Mr Depp had thrown '30 or so bottles' towards her 'like grenades'.

She said he threw all the bottles within reach bar one, saying: 'He picked them up ad started using them like grenades or bombs...throwing one after another in my direction.'

Depp's lawyer Eleanor Laws said Heard's account that the actor had severed his finger by smashing a phone against a wall and then continued to assault her was a lie. 'No it's not,' she replied. 'I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he carried on attacking me.'

Laws also accused Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on Depp's cheek. 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me. He often did things like that,' she said. It came after Ms Heard claimed Johnny Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' Amber Heard as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Amber Heard strides into the High Court with her girlfriend Bianca Butti as she prepares to give evidence for the final time in the bombshell libel trial. Mr Depp (pictured today) is accused of going into rages while on drink and drugs and since splitting with Ms Heard she alleges he has run a campaign of harassment

The carnage in a property in Australia after Depp and Heard allegedly had a fight in 2015, which was released as part of Ben King's evidence a week ago

Depp is on the stand at the High Court for a third day today and was questioned about the incident after he previously claimed the injury was sustained when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him during the fight in Australia. Mr Depp also has a cigaretted burn on his right cheek, but is ex-wife denies it was her

Amber Heard's third day of cross-examination by Johnny Depp's lawyers began on Wednesday with Eleanor Laws QC asking about the alleged incident in Australia in March 2015, which Ms Heard has described as a 'three-day hostage situation'.

Ms Laws put it to the actress that she 'worked yourself into a rage, screaming at him' and threw a glass bottle, adding: 'Because you would get yourself into rages on occasions.'

Ms Heard said: 'No, I got angry at times but not into a rage that would cause me to throw anything at him.'

Mr Justice Nicol clarified her answer by repeating that she would sometimes get angry, and Ms Heard continued: 'But not to the extent where I would throw anything at him offensively.'

Ms Laws said: 'I'm going to suggest you threw a bottle at his head and it smashed the mirror behind him.'

Ms Heard said the majority of bottles were thrown downstairs. She told the court: 'I would like to be clear, I did break a bottle but it was very early on in that evening, it was the second evening, if I recall correctly, and it was before Johnny had started to throw the bottles at me.

'We were in an argument about whether he was going to drink ... the liquor. When I confronted him about it he offered me the bottle ... he said, 'here, take it'.

'He said, 'Oh yeah, you want it? Here, take it', and at that point drinking had already been ... he had already given it up for a while and it was on the list of 'if this happens, I leave' sort of thing. It was no fly.

'And he gestured to offer it to me and I reached to take it and he pulled it back.

'He was teasing me to take it and would revoke it when I reached (for it).

'Then he did it again and I have in my head all the times that he said that I saved his life, and I thought honestly I could short circuit (a row about drinking).

'So I reached for it a second time and I smashed it on the floor in between Johnny and I.

'I regret I did that.'

Describing the alleged bottle attack, Ms Heard said: 'He started picking them up one by one and throwing them like grenades.

'One after the other after the other, in my direction, and I felt glass breaking behind me, I retreated more into the bar and he didn't stop.

Amber Heard is accused of lying about Johnny Depp's Thanksgiving attack as court is shown video of them celebrating and laughing about 'the monster' with actor's son and Marilyn Manson

Amber Heard was today accused of 'making up' claims Johnny Depp was violent after being shown a video of the couple partying happily with friends including Marilyn Manson on the night the actress claims her ex-husband threw her across the room and 'busted' her lip.

Ms Heard alleges that Mr Depp also ripped her shirt and left her with a 'lump' on the back of her head on Thanksgiving in November 2015.

Today two videos were played in court from the holiday weekend where people can be heard talking excitedly and laughing with Heard and Depp, who filmed the group enjoying themselves.

When asked by Eleanor Laws, Mr Depp's QC, to explain the footage, which showed no violence taking place, Heard replied: 'Our fights never happened in front of the family. They typically happened after everyone had gone to bed.'

Ms Laws alleged that Heard was lying about the entire incident and said: 'You are making up this up as you go along'.

Not all the faces of those in the darkened video are visible, but Heard can be seen picking up a drink and revealed that she could tell that Marilyn Manson was present after recognising his fingernails. She also told the court that others presenter were her friend Rocky Pennington, Depp and his son Jack, Heard's father David and Erin Boerum, Heard's nurse and friend.

Amber has claimed that her megastar ex-husband would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs. In the film Depp can be heard joking with Jack Depp about a monster being in the room while Amber exclaims to a guest: 'What are you doing? Get away get away'.

Amber Heard picks up her drink while partying with Johnny Depp and friends including Marilyn Manson on the night she claims her ex-husband hurled her across a room and 'busted' her lip

Ms Heard was asked about an alleged incident in Tokyo in January 2015, during which the actress claims Mr Depp slapped her, grabbed her hair and knelt on her back.

Ms Laws asked if she attended a film premiere while there and when it was, and Ms Heard said she did and it was two days after the alleged attack, adding that she was concerned about bruises on her back.

Ms Laws said: 'Do you remember wearing a backless dress to that premiere?' Ms Heard replied: 'Very well.'

The barrister asked: 'You didn't have any injury on your back, did you?' Ms Heard replied: 'Not visible ... I remember checking obsessively'.

He threw all the bottles that were in reach

'I was too scared to look behind me. He threw all the bottles that were in reach, all except for one which was a celebratory magnum-sized bottle of wine.'

Ms Heard said she remembered that was the only bottle not smashed out of 30 or so.

The actress then said: 'He (Mr Depp) told me over and over again that my work in trying to get him clean and sober ... when he was clean and sober he would tell me I saved his life.'

In response to Ms Laws disputing her version of events, she said: 'Absolutely not, Ms Laws, I was there, I watched it.

Depp insisted that the only attack on the trip had been launched by Heard when she hurled a vodka bottle at him and caused the infamous injury which cut off the top of his finger

Depp also admitted to doing graffiti on a bathroom mirror after the fight with Heard, which resulted in his finger being severed. He admitted that some of it was done with his blood and some with paint

'I would be shocked if Johnny remembers any of this himself, but I was there.'

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard that Mr Depp's finger was not severed as a result of his hand smashing against the wall, which the actress disagreed with.

The barrister then said: 'This injury was you throwing a bottle in his direction, smashing it down and severing the tip of his finger with glass, wasn't it?' Ms Heard replied: 'No.'

Ms Laws referred to a photograph showing a mark on Mr Depp's face and accused Ms Heard of stubbing a cigarette out on his cheek, which the actress denied, adding: 'Johnny did that.'

Ms Laws said: 'You did it, didn't you?' To which Ms Heard replied: 'No, Johnny did it right in front of me, he often did things like that.'

Ms Laws said: 'According to you, Mr Depp sliced his finger off all on his own ... and then carried on attacking you.'

Ms Heard said: 'Yes, he did. I don't think he meant to sever the finger but yes he did continue the attack.'

Ms Laws said: 'This was a nasty incident in which you were extremely violent.' Ms Heard replied: 'Absolutely not.'

Eleanor Laws QC then said: 'And afterwards, we have got those tapes... when security arrived, you were screaming at Mr Depp not to leave and then in another moment calling him a f****** coward for going.'

Ms Heard said: 'I didn't hear it on the audio files.'

Pressed further she added: 'No on both of those accusations, absolutely not. I was just in another room crying.'

There was an exchange between Ms Laws and Ms Heard about whether she had listened to the audio file and she confirmed she had only listened to part of it, but said it was the relevant part.

She told the court: 'At the beginning of the tape, you can hear how it ended. It ended with Johnny (shouting) incoherently and I was in the bathroom crying.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress about her using the phrase 'have you been so angry you've lost it?'

Amber Heard said: 'I have referred to losing your cool as 'losing it'. I specifically denied referencing it to Ben King.'

She added: 'I said if I did use that phrase or anything like it, I would've been asking about Johnny's behaviour, not my own.'

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard that it was a phrase she had used about herself, and played part of an audio recording to the court, which was mostly inaudible in the overspill courtroom where the media are listening to proceedings.

The barrister then asked: 'Is it true that sometimes you get so angry you lose it?'

Ms Heard replied: 'Sometimes I get angry enough that I lose my cool.'

During their visits to Australia in 2015, the couple stayed in this mansion owned by former MotoGp champion Mick Doohan

Ms Heard, who started her third day of evidence this morning, claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published today, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Today Ms Heard is expected to give her final evidence with her ex-husband Johnny Depp feet away as the biggest English libel trial of the 21st century comes to a head.

Ms Heard, who smiled and waved as she walked into the Royal Courts of Justice with Bianca Butti, has been in the witness box for the past three days where she claimed she feared Mr Depp, 57, was 'going to kill' her on several occasions.

Amber has said that the megastar would blame his 'alter ego' called 'the monster' for the alleged violence while intoxicated with copious amounts of drink and drugs.

On another extraordinary day at the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday, Ms Heard claimed that Mr Depp once pushed supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs during their relationship in the 1990s. The actress said that was why she had punched the actor  over fears he was about to do the same to her younger sister Whitney.

Amber also denied that she had an affair with Elon Musk, James Franco or 'anybody else' while she was with Johnny Depp, who she claimed was 'jealous' and accused her of sleeping with at least eight co-stars and also Leonardo DiCaprio after an audition, giving DiCaprio the nickname 'pumpkin-head'.

But the actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Ms Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

Amber Heard and her girlfriend Bianca Butti went sightseeing through Central London yesterday after her court appearance

The couple were having a 'nasty row' at the top of stairs in March 2015 when Whitney, then 26, tried to intervene, the court heard.

Accused of punching the Pirates Of The Caribbean star with her closed fist, Miss Heard, 34, replied: 'I did strike Johnny that day in defence of my sister.

'He was about to push her down the stairs and, the moment before that happened, I remembered information I had heard that he pushed a former girlfriend  I believe it was Kate Moss  down the stairs. I had heard this rumour from two people and it was fresh in my mind. And in a flash I reacted in defence of her.

'I have been for years Johnny's punching bag  it was the first time I actually struck him back.'

Eleanor Laws QC, for Depp, accused Miss Heard of 'just making this up as you go along', saying she had 'added' Miss Moss  whom Depp dated in the 1990s  to her evidence. Miss Heard admitted she had never mentioned it before, in any statements or previous explanations of the incident.

Miss Heard said: 'He was about to push my sister down the stairs. My baby sister. She has never hurt anyone in her life.

'I would have done anything to prevent her being pushed down a flight of stairs.'

Miss Laws said: 'You are making this up as you go along, throwing in details, new details, which you have thought of literally on your feet to make your account more credible.'

Miss Heard replied: 'Of course not.'

Miss Laws said: 'You don't want to admit the truth, which is that you are violent, do you?'

Miss Heard said: 'Only in self-defence.'

There was no response from Miss Moss's spokesperson yesterday for requests to comment.

Ms Heard sketched giving evidence during the bombshell libel proceedings brought by Mr Depp against The Sun after being branded a 'wife-beater'

Amber Heard made the sensational claim that Johnny Depp pushed British supermodel Kate Moss down the stairs while they dated in the 1990s (pictured together in New York in 1994)

Ms Laws then asked Ms Heard about an alleged incident in the Bahamas in August 2014, when the couple were staying on Mr Depp's private island while he was detoxing.

She read out part of Ms Heard's witness statement where the actress referred to a door being splintered during the violent episode.

The barrister then read from notes of Mr Depp's doctor, Dr Kipper, which stated that Ms Heard went to get him and nurse Debbie Lloyd and described Mr Depp as 'erratic and paranoid'.

The notes said the pair found Mr Depp 'sitting quietly on his porch' and that he was calm and said he was frustrated with the detox process.

Ms Laws said: 'I suggest to you that he didn't assault you in any way on that day.'

Clarifying the question, Mr Justice Nicol said: 'Did Mr Depp assault you on that day?' To which Ms Heard replied: 'Absolutely.'

Ms Laws then asked about photographs of the broken door, saying: 'That is not a photograph from the Bahamas, is it?'

Ms Heard said: 'No. It was a mistake in the divorce.

Ms Laws said: 'You just include any photographs, anything you can, in a very cavalier way, don't you?'

Ms Heard explained there was a large bundle of evidence in the divorce proceedings, adding: 'This is a different door he kicked.'

The court was then played a video which showed the interior of Mr Depp's property in the Bahamas.

Johnny Depp's nose showed visible signs of injury after Amber Heard 'lost her temper' on their Orient Express honeymoon, star's QC claims

The High Court was shown this picture of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp on their honeymoon on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in 2015 with his QC claiming his reddened nose is a sign of injury inflicted by his then wife

Johnny Depp's QC Eleanor Laws then moved on to the 'train incident', when Johnny Depp is said to have been violent to Ms Heard on the Eastern and Oriental Express in South-east Asia in August 2015 on their honeymoon.

Miss Heard alleges Depp picked a fight with her, hit her and pushed her against a wall by the throat, causing her to fear for her life. This is denied by Depp.

The barrister said: 'This is yet another occasion when you had a row and it was you who lost your temper.'

Ms Heard said: 'No, I disagree.'

Ms Laws showed Ms Heard a photo of Mr Depp, taken on the train, which she said showed 'an injury on his face'.

Ms Heard said she could not see any injury to Mr Depp.

Ms Laws continued: 'This is yet another occasion where you have completely turned an incident around and blamed Mr Depp.'

Ms Heard said: 'No, I have tons of pictures from this vacation and these days and he's uninjured. He strangled me.'

'Johnny's the boss': Amber Heard claims it was Depp's decision to bring their terriers Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally

Amber Heard today denied it was her decision to take their dogs Boo and Pistol into Australia illegally in 2015 and said: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened'

The actress said she took the blame to avoid disrupting her then-husband's filming schedule for Pirates of the Caribbean.

The barrister read a series of emails sent between Ms Heard and Mr Depp's then-estate manager Kevin Murphy, in which Mr Murphy told her that 'the dogs will not be allowed to fly commercial in the passenger compartment to Australia'.

Ms Heard told Mr Murphy that she did not want to put the dogs in 'cargo', and said: 'Unless there's another way to get them there or get them on the plane with J.'

A photograph of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp's pet Yorkshire Terriers Pistol and Boo, who were taken into Australia illegally

Heard and Depp at Southport Magistrates' Court in Australia in April 2016. Heard received a $1,000 fine and a one-month good behaviour bond after pleading guilty to one count of falsifying border protection documents when entering the country with the dogs

Eleanor Laws, QC for Mr Depp, said: 'You were told by Kevin Murphy, who had been doing quite a lot of work on this, that he wasn't able to get the documentation ready in time.'

Ms Heard said: 'No ... this is a process that had been going on for about six months and I was out of the country filming a movie, I wasn't there with Johnny so it was quite confusing to me.'

She added: 'When Johnny wanted something it happened. He always found a way to make it work.'

Ms Heard continued: 'He told me when I landed. I was only in LA for a matter of hours before we got on his plane for his movie on his flight with his staff.'

She said Mr Depp told her 'everything had been taken care of', adding: 'I had no reason to get any clarity.'

Eleanor Laws QC put it to Amber Heard: 'You took a decision to take them (the dogs) anyway.'

Ms Heard replied: 'It wasn't my decision.'

She added: 'Johnny's the boss.'

Ms Laws said: 'You are the boss, aren't you?'

Ms Heard said: 'I didn't call any of the shots. This is Johnny's plane, Johnny's crew, Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'We both filled out the same entry cards... we both filled out the same thing, yet I took the charges because if Johnny got charges it would have further compromised Pirates (Of The Caribbean), which was already compromised.'

Ms Laws suggested that every time Ms Heard was asked a question 'you used it as an opportunity to say something negative about Mr Depp'.

She added: 'You knew full well that you shouldn't have taken those dogs.'

Ms Heard replied: 'Johnny told me that we would bring the dogs in.'

Ms Laws asked: 'What about Kevin Murphy?'

Ms Heard said: 'That's Johnny's staff.'

She also said: 'I was the only one to get charged so I plead guilty... I took the blame.'

Ms Laws then suggested that Ms Heard tried to 'shunt the blame' on to Kate James, her former assistant.

Ms Heard replied: 'I plead guilty, why would I need to do that?'

Amber Heard claims she had 'plenty of injuries' despite her mark-free face when she appeared on The Late, Late Show with James Corden, High Court told

Amber Heard claimed that just 24 hours before she appeared on the Late Late Show with James Cordon show on December 16 2015.

She claims that Depp launched a vicious attack which left her with 'tons of injuries' including: bruised ribs and arms, bruises all over her body, two black eyes, a broken nose and a broken lip.

Heard poses with guests Luke Bracey and Wanda Skyes on the Late, Late Show with James Corden on December 16, 2015

Amber Heard claimed that Johnny Depp physically abused her one day before she was on The Late, Late Show with James Corden on on December 16, 2015 (above) - and said after her appearance that she 'just did that show with two black eyes'

The court was then played footage of Heard's appearance on the show, with her face immaculately made up and no visible marks on it.

Ms Laws said: 'That's what you looked like on the show, no injury is there?'

Heard replied: 'I have tonnes of injuries.'

Ms Laws alleged that the night before her appearance on the James Cordon show, it was Heard who was violent towards Depp and that she attacked him.

Heard claims that during the fight, Depp dragged her around their Los Angeles penthouse by her hair, knocked her to the floor, pushed her onto a bed and then jumped on top of her so hard that it broke and also headbutted her.

Describing the headbutt, which Depp claims was accidental and not forceful in the way Heard claims, she told the court: 'His head came into contact with mine very deliberately. He clenched his fists, leant back and slammed his head into my nose.'

Ms Laws claimed that prior to appearing on the James Cordon show she was seen without any makeup by her stylist Samantha McMillan and that she did not notice any injuries to her face.

Photographs were issued by Heard's legal team of her with injuries to her face around the time of the alleged attack on December 15, 2015, showing bruising across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes after Depp allegedly headbutted her. Depp is believed to have been shown these pictures in court last week while he was giving evidence

Ms Heard told the court there were two bedrooms in penthouse five of the Eastern Columbia Building in LA, which were used for clothing, jewellery, hair and makeup.

Ms Laws asked the actress about an alleged incident in December 2015, the night before Ms Heard appeared on James Corden's The Late Late Show, when she says Mr Depp headbutted her.

The barrister said stylist Samantha McMillen saw Ms Heard shortly before her appearance on the chat show and said in her evidence that the actress was not wearing makeup, with which Ms Heard disagreed.

Ms Heard said Ms McMillen saw her while she was already having her makeup done.

She said Ms McMillen was her stylist for a short time while she was married to Mr Depp, adding: 'She is Johnny's stylist.'

Ms Laws said: 'You had a row which turned violent and you were attacking him and he was restraining you, do you agree or not?'

Ms Heard said: 'No he only came up with that story after hearing the audio.'

Ms Laws said: 'Do you agree or disagree?' To which Ms Heard replied: 'I disagree.'

Ms Laws said: 'And his head came into contact with yours, not deliberately at all.'

Ms Heard said: 'Very deliberately.' She added: 'He clenched his fists, leaned back and slammed his head directly into mine.'

Ms Laws said: 'Do you agree that you caused injury to Mr Depp's face on that night?' Ms Heard replied: 'I don't see how I could have, I'm sorry.'

Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard that a photograph of her with bruises on her face taken after the alleged December 2015 incident was 'completely set up', which Ms Heard denied.

Ms Laws then said: 'If someone is grabbing you by the hair and pulling your hair out, it would come out at the root.'

Ms Heard said: 'No of course not, of course not. It comes out wherever it breaks.'

Ms Laws then asked the actress why she took a photograph of her scalp, and Ms Heard said her scalp was 'in pain' and her friend Raquel Pennington took a photograph because she had red spots on her head and it was 'pussy' from where it had been pulled out.

A short clip of Ms Heard's appearance on The Late Late Show was then played to the court, following which Ms Laws said: 'That is what you looked like on the show, there is no injury, is there?'

Ms Heard replied: 'I had tonnes of injuries.' She then said she had makeup on covering the injuries and added: 'You can tell by the size of my lip alone.'

Ms Laws asked Ms Heard about her first allegation of violence against Mr Depp, which she says happened after she remarked on his 'Wino Forever' tattoo.

Ms Heard said it was the 'first time I had been hit like that since I was a child', adding: 'It didn't feel painful necessarily, it just felt like a pop.

'The first time he hit me, I didn't even know he was serious, I was laughing, I thought he was joking ... I just didn't know.'

She said she was left with 'just redness' on her face, adding: 'My eye didn't pop out.'

The actress then said she had told her therapist about it at the time.

Amber Heard accuses Johnny Depp of a four-year harassment campaign after split

Amber Heard today claimed Johnny Depp and his lawyers have run a four-year campaign to 'harass' and 'abuse' their as well as wreck her career after they split up.

Ms Heard, who started her third day of evidence this morning, claims the megastar actor, 57, and his allies have tried to 'embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses' ahead of his extraordinary London libel trial.

In a new witness statement published today, the actress, 34, said she was 'eager for this trial to proceed' claiming her ex-husband's 'campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being. It has been extremely upsetting'.

She said: 'Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings'.

She added: 'I have been subjected to a campaign of targeted online abuse on social media, as well as online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with L'Oreal. It has also been aimed at what is most important to me: my humanitarian work, including my partnerships with the United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and many others, and the important work that these organisations do'.

Self-harm

Johnny Depp's lawyer Eleanor Laws QC challenged Amber Heard's testimony of the incident, suggesting that scars she claims were inflicted by Depp depicted in photos shown in court were 'far more akin' to self-harm scars

Scars on Amber Heard's arm were the result of self-harm rather than a brutal attack by Johnny Depp, his QC suggested.

Miss Heard said they were inflicted during a terrifying ordeal in Australia in March 2015  which she has termed the 'three-day hostage situation'  at a house they rented while Depp filmed one of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies.

She said yesterday: 'I had been strangled, assaulted, punched, sexually assaulted, strangled, among other things.'

She claimed that Depp had guzzled whisky and ecstasy tablets before hitting and choking her, smashing bottles and throwing her around on a kitchen top strewn with broken glass in the incident in which he drunkenly severed his own finger before daubing 'I love u' with his blood on a mirror.

She told the court, her voice cracking with emotion: 'I was trying to push him off me. I was saying, 'Johnny, it's me, you're really hurting me, stop please'  it's like he couldn't hear me.'

She added: 'He pulled me around by my neck and pushed me down against the bar, I was against the bar, naked, bent over backwards, my back against the marble.

'He was pressing so hard on my neck I couldn't breathe. I was trying to tell him that I couldn't breathe. I remember thinking he was going to kill me in that moment. The floor was wet and I was slipping.'

She said she could not get any purchase on the floor or the countertop 'from all the broken bottles'.

Miss Heard said she still bore scars on her arm. A photo taken on April 18, a month later, at the Tribeca Music Festival in New York, was shared on Twitter, and the court also saw other photos.

Eleanor Laws QC, for Depp, asked her: 'These are not scars sustained while you are writhing around, trying to get away from Mr Depp  jagged, uneven  they are straight in line, aren't they?'

Mr Justice Nicol intervened to ask: 'It is suggested these are not scars sustained in the Australia attack  do you agree?' Miss Heard did not.

Miss Laws said: 'These are far more akin to self-harm scars, straight and inflicted by you, and certainly not in a struggle with Mr Depp.'

But Miss Heard replied: 'I have had these scars on my arm since that evening and I have never self-harmed.'

And she added: 'Johnny's a self-harmer, I'm not a self-harmer.'

KEITH RICHARDS PHOTO

The actress was accused of changing her story about being 'backhanded' by Depp in a so-called 'disco bloodbath'  after she saw a picture of the couple with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards in which Miss Heard does not have any visible injuries to her face.

The photo was taken on March 23, 2013. Miss Heard had initially claimed Depp smacked her on March 21 but she later changed this to March 8.

She said Depp had become jealous of a painting her ex-partner Tasya van Ree put up in their bedroom, and that in a drug-fuelled rampage he had tried to set fire to it and had hit her so hard that the wall was 'spattered' with blood from her lip.

Miss Laws suggested Miss Heard had altered her account after seeing the photo of her, her sister Whitney and Depp with Richards, saying: 'You have changed the date in order to explain away the clear face in the photo.

'You have woven a web of lies that you have had to shift and change according to when evidence has emerged.'

Miss Heard replied: 'I disagree.'

PLASTER CAST

The actress was also accused of 'a complete lie' over her claims that Depp grabbed her hair with one hand and punched her with the other in March 2015.

It was impossible, said Miss Laws, since the actor's right hand was swathed in bandages  Depp had chosen a children's dinosaur design for fun  following the severing of his finger in Australia during a previous row. Miss Heard told the court she wasn't lying, saying: 'He grabbed my hair with this hand, and hit me with the hard plastic cast. It was especially unpleasant.'

Miss Laws said the actress had not mentioned the plaster cast before, and suggested that if it had been true it would have been 'a primary feature of the assault' that Miss Heard would have wanted to record.

'BLACKMAIL'

Miss Heard was accused of trying to extort and blackmail the star as they divorced. Her list of demands included three LA penthouses and a black Range Rover.

A letter from her lawyers demanded Depp's 'immediate co-operation' to complete the divorce quickly and without publicity. She also peppered the star with text messages saying 'Please call me, it's important', 'please!' and 'emergency!', the court heard.

Miss Laws said: 'It's blackmail, isn't it?' The actress said: 'No.' Miss Heard filed her divorce declaration on May 26, 2016  five days after the alleged phone-throwing incident  and obtained a court restraining order the following day, saying she was 'petrified' that her husband would return to the apartment.

Miss Laws suggested this was 'not true'. The actress replied: 'I was petrified of the monster that Johnny could become.'

OUT WITH FRIENDS

Miss Heard was also pictured apparently enjoying herself with friends in the days after the May 21 phone-hurling incident, during which she claimed her husband had been 'drunk and high' and smashed 'everything he could' in the apartment with a magnum bottle of champagne.

Three days later, CCTV footage from the lift of her apartment building showed her going out with her sister Whitney and friend Rocky Pennington, coming back at 11pm with wine.

Miss Heard has been accused of faking her injuries with help from her friends, in what Depp's legal team claims was part of a 'hoax'.

FAECES ON THE BED

Amber Heard has rubbished accusations that she defecated in Johnny Depp's bed, as bombshell photographs of faeces at the centre of their bitter court row were made public for the first time

In the latest twist to what was dubbed 'Poogate' by Miss Heard and her friends, the actress vehemently denied she was responsible for leaving 'disgusting' human excrement on the bed she shared with Depp in their Los Angeles penthouse on her 30th birthday. She blamed it on their dog Boo, who was unwell after it ate some of the star's drug stash, the court heard.

Depp says he made up his mind to divorce his wife after being informed about the faeces.

Miss Laws asked Miss Heard: 'You left human excrement on the bed?' Miss Heard responded: 'That's absolutely disgusting.'

Asked if any of her friends had left it, she replied: 'No, of course not. That's unimaginable to me.'

She claimed Boo, Depp's Yorkshire terrier, had had a problem with her bowels since eating cannabis that belonged to Depp when she was a puppy.

The case continues.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has answered France24s question about Turkey possibly being the real reason for what happened on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

Question: Who is responsible? I imagine you are pointing the finger at Azerbaijans leader Ilham Aliyev who has publicly said a couple of weeks ago that the efforts to bring a peaceful solution were leading nowhere, or are you also thinking that Turkeys president Rejep Tayyip Erdogan might be the real reason for what happened at the border?

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Well, I would reiterate in very strong terms Armenias full commitment to the strictly peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The war is not an option. The war is a total catastrophe for the entire region. Armenia is capable to defend. Nagorno-Karabakh is capable to defend. But war should be totally ruled out in this. We are fully committed to the peaceful resolution of the conflict in a way that needs the interests of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in equal measure as it is expected for Azerbaijan. This is the compromise-based solution that we are working for and we will continue to invest every effort in the peaceful settlement. This has been and remains the commitment of Armenia.

So far as Turkey is concerned, again this is particularly concerning, because we have been observing a very destabilizing role of Turkey in its other neighbourhoods - the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East. Now what we are observing is an attempt to export this factor of instability in our region, in the South Caucasus. This attempt has been also laced with a notion of historical mission of Turkey in the South Caucasus. Now you understand that for Armenia such historical mission revives very sad memories of the Armenian Genocide at the beginning of last century, and of course, we received this with serious concern. We also observe that the impunity for these atrocities against the Armenians is also the reason in which Turkey decisively claims any role in the South Caucasus.

Question: I am going to ask you maybe very bluntly, you have mentioned the example of Turkeys role in Syria and Libya. Are you concerned that Turkey could play a more direct role in this dispute with Azerbaijan, including militarily? Is this a concern, or you believe they are just talking, declaring their support?

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: There is no role for Turkey in this. The peaceful resolution concerns Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan, and we will continue to work closely in a very constructive manner with Azerbaijan on finding a solution together with Nagorno-Karabakh. We need to work on strengthening and steeling the very firm ceasefire regime, we have to hear from Azerbaijan the firm denouncement of the threat or use of force. We need to work on an environment, which favors progress in the negotiations.

We have to work on such a balance of commitments that helps to achieve a measurable compromise, it has to be a compromise-based solution, a maximalist position of Azerbaijan is not helpful in this. So we will continue to work for this purpose within the internationally agreed format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship. We value very highly the role of the Co-Chairs - France, Russia, and the United States, and their contribution is very solid, their commitment and engagement is also very solid. Within this format and within this arrangement we will continue to work for peace.

Question: I am going to repeat my question. Are you concerned about potential Turkish intervention, a more direct intervention in this conflict?

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan: Obviously, we cannot be indifferent, because this role is a role of instability, and of course we cannot receive this indifferently; of course its a matter of concern.
Serbias government on Tuesday acknowledged that Serbian defense companies have supplied weapons to Armenia but did not confirm Azerbaijani claims that they included mortars.

A government-linked Azerbaijani news website, Haqqin.az, claimed on July 19 that Serbian-made mortars as well as ammunition for them were delivered to Armenia via Georgia recently and used in deadly clashes that broke out on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on July 21.

Serbias ambassador in Baku, Danica Veinovic, was summoned to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry in connection with the report. Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov was reported to tell her that the alleged arms supplies called into question Azerbaijans friendly relations with the Balkan state.

Serbias outgoing Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said in this regard that private Serbian firms sold small quantities of light weapons to Armenia earlier this year.

I cannot name those companies, but according to our information, they mainly supplied rifles and pistols to Armenia, Serbian media quoted Ljajic as saying. Their combined market value is less than 1 million euros. Those weapons were supplied in two batches, in May and June.

Ljajic made no mention of mortars. He stressed that there are no international sanctions or agreements that bar his country from selling weapons to Armenia.

It is therefore hard to turn down that countrys offers to buy our weapons, added the Serbian minister.

Meanwhile, Georgias Foreign Ministry denied the alleged transit of Armenia-bound weapons through Georgian territory. It denounced the Haqqin.az claim as disinformation aimed at undermining Georgian-Azerbaijani strategic partnership.

Azerbaijan itself has purchased billions of dollars worth of heavy weapons from Russia, Israel, Turkey and other countries over the past decade in a bid to gain a military superiority over Armenia. Yerevan has repeatedly expressed concern over those arms deals.
Jaipur, July 22 : Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who has been fighting rebellion from his political rival Sachin Pilot, on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi drawing his attention towards the alleged horse trading going on in the state to topple the government. Gehlot questioned Modi asking, "How can the ruling party at the Centre play the main role in the conspiracy to topple the state government leaving aside its priority to tackle corona management?" Addressing the PM as 'Priya Shri Narendra Modi ji' in his letter, Gehlot alleged that efforts are being made to topple the elected government in Rajasthan in which Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and a few leaders of the BJP as well as the Congress are playing an active role.

The Rajasthan CM in his letter said, "I would like to draw your attention to the efforts being made to demolish elected governments in the states through horse trading which is contrary to democratic norms." "Due to the multi-party system in our Constitution, governments of different parties are elected in the states and at the Centre. This is the beauty of our democracy that these elected governments have worked in the public interest rising above party politics," he added.

"In last few years, there have been malicious attempts to destabilise the democratically elected state governments by flouting the norms of anti-defection law which were framed by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 and the amendments were later brought into it by former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee government." "This is a grave insult to constitutional values and public mandate. Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh are live examples in this case," Gehlot further said.

"Saving lives remains to be our top priority during the Corona time. However, in such times, an attempt is being made to topple the elected government in Rajasthan. The act includes Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, a few BJP leaders and some very ambitious leaders of our party, one of whom is our senior leader Bhanwarlal Sharma." "During his past tenure as BJP MLA, he had tried to topple the Bhairon Singh Shekhawat government by indulging in buying and selling MLAs. In those times, I met the then Governor Baliram Bhagat and Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in my capacity as opposition party leader and opposed his act." Gehlot wrote, "I regret the fact that when the central and state governments own the responsibility to save lives and livelihoods, how can the ruling party at the centre play the main role in the conspiracy to topple the state government leaving aside its priority to tackle Corona management. Similar allegations were also raised a few months back when the MP government was toppled and your party earned disrespect across the nation." "I do not know to what extent you are aware of this, or if you are being misled. History shall never forgive those who participated in such actions." Gehlot ended his letter saying, "Constitutional values and democratic principles shall win and we shall complete our tenure giving good governance."
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bodies on Wednesday condemned the attack on Ghaziabad-based Vikram Joshi, who succumbed to his injuries during treatment and demanded a judicial probe into it as well as other incidents of assault on scribes in

Observing that attack on journalists, especially in Uttar Pradesh, has been increasing in the recent times, the Press Association and the Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC) demanded that the government bring to book all the culprits in the attack on Joshi as well as in other assault on scribes in the state.

Joshi, who was shot in the head by some assailants, succumbed to injuries at a private hospital early on Wednesday.

He had lodged a complaint with the police alleging harassment of his niece on July 16 and was shot around 10.30 pm on Monday near his home in Vijay Nagar area, according to officials.

The Press Association and the IWPC condemned the "dastardly attack" on Joshi.

"We observe that attack on journalists, especially in Uttar Pradesh, is increasing in recent times. At the same time, no concrete action has been taken by the state government in many of the cases," the Press Association and IWPC said in a joint statement.

"We demand that all the culprits in this case as well as in previous cases must be brought to book by launching a 'special operation' by the state government," they said. The two bodies also demanded adequate financial help for the bereaved family of Joshi.

More importantly, considering the past record of murderous attacks on the next of kin of the victims in Uttar Pradesh, the state government must provide adequate security to the members of Joshi's family, the statement said.

There also should be a high-level judicial inquiry into this incident and past incidents of attack on journalists, they said.

"We understand that nine accused have been arrested and the station in-charge has been suspended with the initiation of departmental inquiry after the family of the alleged inaction by the police. But these are not enough to bring out the truths and bring the culprits to book," the Press Association and IWPC said.

(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.)
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. accused two Chinese hackers of working for Beijing to steal or try to steal terabytes of data, including coronavirus research, from Western companies in 11 nations -- the second time in a week a foreign nation has been singled out for vaccine-related hacking.

The Justice Department released an indictment Tuesday against the individuals, whom it identified as Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi. It said that the two men were assisted by Chinas Ministry of State Security and that defense contractors and weapons systems were hacked along with medical research.

Li and Dong, former classmates at an electrical-engineering college in Chengdu, China, used their technical training to hack the computer networks of a wide variety of victims, according to the indictment. The defendants stole hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade secrets, intellectual property, and other valuable business information.

TikTok, Hong Kong and More U.S.-China Flashpoints: QuickTake

Rising Tensions

The accusations threaten to escalate tensions even further between the U.S. and Beijing -- over Chinas treatment of Hong Kong, the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, claims in the South China Sea and the future of next-generation 5G technology. Intellectual-property theft concerns have long been a source of strain between the two powers.

Covid Cold War Flares Up With Claims of Russian Vaccine Hack

China is providing a safe haven for hackers working for personal profit and the states interests, John Demers, head of the Justice Departments National Security Division, said at a press conference Tuesday. Cyber intrusions are part of the countrys rob, replicate and replace strategy to technological development, he said.

Demers declined to specify whether the hackers were successful in stealing coronavirus research. But he said the U.S. is concerned that attacks against companies working on Covid-19 research could slow down their efforts, or result in data being manipulated.

Story continues

The indictment doesnt name specific companies or institutions that were targeted, but does provide some identifying information -- such as where they are located and when the attacks took place. For example, between January and February 2020, Li Xiaoyu searched for vulnerabilities in computer networks of firms in Massachusetts, Maryland, and California that were researching Covid-19 vaccines and antiviral drugs.

The U.S. knows the identity of Chinese officials who aided the hackers but declined to indict them at this time, Demers said.

In a briefing in Wednesday in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin rejected the U.S. hacking accusations. The Chinese government is a staunch supporter and champion of cybersafety, Wang said. Weve been cracking down on all forms of cyber attacks and cybercrimes. We demand the U.S. side immediately stop discrediting China on the issue of cybersecurity.

According to the Justice Department, companies targeted by the hackers were based in the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. The hackers had been carrying out attacks for over a decade, according to the statement.

Source Code

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to steal trade secrets from at least eight known victims, which consisted of technology designs, manufacturing processes, test mechanisms and results, source code, and pharmaceutical chemical structures, according to the statement.

Such information would give a market edge by providing insight into proprietary business plans and savings on research and development costs in creating competing products, the Justice Department said.

The FBI had previously warned that Chinese hackers were targeting Covid-19 research organizations in an effort to obtain data related to vaccines, treatments and testing.

And last week, cybersecurity agencies from the U.S., U.K., and Canada accused a Russian government-linked hacker group of trying to steal Covid-19 vaccine research. Known as APT29 or Cozy Bear, it had developed malware and exploited known security vulnerabilities in an effort to break into computers used by organizations working on the vaccine, according to the agencies. Russia has rejected those accusations.

(Updates with Chinese foreign ministry statement in ninth paragraph.)

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

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At the end of February, just as the coronavirus was beginning to cast its pall over Europe, an elite crowd that included the likes of Anna Wintour, Jeff Bezos and Seth Meyers gathered in the gilded 19th-century halls of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in Paris to watch Diane von Furstenberg be awarded the Legion dHonneur.

The woman clothed by Diane von Furstenberg is free in her movement and free to take life in her own hands, said Christine Lagarde, who wore a red wrap DVF pantsuit while pinning the medal on Ms. von Furstenbergs velvet dress. She noted that Ms. von Furstenberg, 73, deserved the honor for her service to womens liberation, for raising $100 million for the renovation of the Statue of Liberty and for what she meant to fashion.

Within four months, the British and French operations of Ms. von Furstenbergs company had done the European equivalent of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Just over 60 percent of the corporate and retail staff in the United States, Britain and France was laid off, creditors were complaining vociferously about unpaid bills, and Ms. von Furstenberg was making plans to close 18 of her 19 remaining directly operated U.S. stores. She was transforming her company from one rooted in bricks and mortar to a business focused on the intellectual property value of her brand name, which can be attached to products and e-commerce initiatives.

Her glamorous personal brand had masked the fact that her fashion line had been losing money for years. Her company, like many fashion brands, had been relying on an old business model. When Covid-19 hit and stores were closed, there was nowhere to hide.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has berated Victorians for not self-isolating after the state recorded two more deaths and 484 cases of coronavirus, its worst total ever.

New figures showed 90 per cent of patients failed to isolate between falling sick and getting tested and 53 per cent had failed to self-isolate while waiting for the result.

'Unless we have people who get tested, staying at home and isolating until they get their results, then we will not see these numbers go down,' Mr Andrews said.

The Premier said that casual workers were still doing shifts despite falling ill because they do not get sick leave.

He urged workers to apply for a $1,500 one-off payment from the government if they cannot work because they are isolating.

The state has suffered outbreaks at abattoirs, aged care homes, logistics businesses and law firms.

Chief Health Officer Professor Brendan Sutton said: 'We are at a really, really challenging stage of the pandemic.'

He suspects the virus reproduction rate is above one, meaning the outbreak will continue to grow.

A cyclist is seen on Swanston Street in Melbourne. Residents are allowed to leave home for work and exercise

A woman is seen wearing a facemask on July 22. Face masks or coverings will be mandatory from Thursday 23 July

Rowers are seen on the Yarra River on July 22. Residents are allowed to leave home for exercise

Professor Sutton said Victoria is considering introducing a draconian stage four lockdown.

In New Zealand, stage four lockdown saw butchers, bakers, fruit shops, hairdressers and even construction shut down. Businesses such as Bunnings and Kmart closed, and even takeaway food was banned.

Asked if such harsh restrictions were on the table for Melbourne, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said: 'Everything is under consideration.'

But he said a New-Zealand style lockdown may cause terrible economic damage and may not even help bring cases down.

'To go to a particular model of lockdown that worked for one country at one point in time is not the solution,' he said.

'We have to understand what the dynamics of transmission are in Victoria at this point in time. It may well be that it's an awful impost on the economy and on people's lives with no material benefit.'

When asked about reports he was considering a stage-four lockdown, Mr Andrews said on Wednesday: 'There are no announcements being made today about rule changes.'

But he did not rule out harsher restrictions in the future.

'These matters are under review based on the data each day,' he said.

Of the state's new cases, 97 are connected to known and contained outbreaks while 387 remain under investigation.

Overwhelmed contact tracers in Victoria are still investigating the source of more than 2,000 cases.

The state's death toll hit 44 after two men in their 90s in aged care died overnight.

There are 205 Victorians in hospital with 40 in intensive care.

A total of 24,726 tests were conducted in Victoria on Tuesday. Eight new cases were recorded in regional Victoria which is not under lockdown.

New Zealand-style lockdown 'may not even help' Amid reports the state government is considering a New Zealand-style lockdown for Melbourne, Premier Andrews said: 'These matters are under review based on the data each day.' But Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said it may not slow the spread because people would still be allowed to go shopping and to work. 'I certainly wouldn't even assume that a New Zealand-style lockdown will address the issues that we have,' he said. 'Obviously people were very constrained during that 4-week period in New Zealand, but New Zealand didn't have significant community transmission - again. 'They were identifying the close contacts of international travellers, and it was a much, much more straightforward contact-tracing process - as it was in Victoria through the first phase. 'So I wouldn't make assumptions that harder, more constrained lockdown is necessarily the way to go. We have to be targeted in terms of seeing where the issues are and addressing them directly.' Stage four would see the definition of 'essential' workers narrow to reduce the number of people leaving their homes. In New Zealand, stage four lockdown saw butchers, bakers, fruit shops, hairdressers and even construction shut down. Businesses such as Bunnings and Kmart closed, and even takeaway food was banned. A stage-four lockdown has not been defined in Australia but the Premier is considering one, according to Sky News. Advertisement

Mr Andrews' critics accused him of blaming Victorians for the outbreak after he said that 90 per cent of patients failed to self isolate before getting tested.

Liberal MP James Newbury told Daily Mail Australia: 'Victorians have stopped listening because they are sick of being blamed.'

Referring to the hotel quarantine disaster, he added: 'They are sick of government failures where no-one takes the blame, and they are sick of not knowing the government's plan.'

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured) is considering harsher restrictions for locked-down Melbourne

Medical testing staff are seen at a pop-up site at Colac in Victoria on Tuesday

New South Wales recorded 16 new cases on Wednesday as the state's outbreak continues to grow. All the recent cases of community transmission in the state have been traced back to Victoria.

Queensland recorded one new case on Wednesday, a member of the ADF who is in quarantine.

Of the new infections in NSW, 11 are associated with the Thai Rock cluster in Wetherill Park while three are linked to the outbreak at the Crossroads Hotel in Casula in Sydney's south-west.

One of the cases confirmed was from hotel quarantine, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

Ms Berejiklian said while it was reassuring no additional outbreaks had been detected up to 8pm last night, she added the state was still on 'high alert' for further spread of the deadly respiratory illness.

Ms Berejiklian said the next few weeks for NSW were 'critical' to slowing the spread of the virus in Australia's most populated state.

'If we manage get on top of the community transmission at this stage, we have a much better chance of continuing the move forward in a positive way,' she said.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said there were now 53 cases associated with the Crossroads Hotel cluster and 37 from the Thai Rock outbreak.

Pictured: A map showing coronavirus cases recorded since July 1. South-west Sydney has been hit the hardest, with 11 cases in the Liverpool local government area. The postcodes seen in the lightest shade of red have recorded one case in the past three weeks

On Wednesday Melbourne entered its third week of a six-week lockdown, with no sign that case numbers are decreasing.

The outbreak began in June after the virus escaped from hotel quarantine when security guards interacted with patients.

More than 60 people have been fined for breaching Melbourne's coronavirus lockdown restrictions, including someone who travelled more than 100km to go surfing.

Police conducted almost 5,000 spot checks at homes, businesses and public places across locked-down metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire in the past 24 hours and issued 61 fines.

Fines were issued to a person caught travelling from Strathmore to the Surf Coast for a surfing trip, a group of people 'sitting on a park bench drinking alcohol in the Melbourne CBD' and people attending a party in Monash.

Nineteen fines were also issued to drivers at vehicle checkpoints leaving the city.

A 25-year-old Glen Waverly woman has also been fined after she visited several shops in East Gippsland while awaiting results of a COVID-19 test, The Age reported.

On Wednesday Melbourne entered its third week of a six-week lockdown, with no sign that case numbers are decreasing.Pictured: A graph showing Victoria's second wave of COVID-19 cases

She later returned a positive result, prompting the closure of stores in Orbost and nearby Marlo for deep cleaning and contact tracing.

'It sent those two small towns into a panic,' East Gippsland Mayor John White told 3AW radio on Wednesday.

'I just can't understand these people, they're such a small minority affecting the majority.'

Meanwhile, as six prisons across the state are in lockdown after an officer tested positive for COVID-19.

The guard worked at Ravenhall Correctional Facility, which was placed into lockdown along with Barwon Prison, Hopkins Correctional Centre, Fulham, Langi Kal Kal and Loddon.

A Department of Justice spokeswoman said the officer had been self-isolating since July 16 after being notified they were a close contact of a positive case.

VICTORIA'S ACTIVE CASES BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS Hume - 308 Brimbank - 289 Melbourne - 272 Wyndham - 370 Moreland - 191 Casey - 103 Moonee Valley - 212 Stonnington - 38 Banyule - 130 Whittlesea - 166 Melton - 119 Boroondara - 43 Darebin - 88 Greater Geelong - 18 Mornington Peninsula - 11 Monash - 37 Glen Eira - 18 Port Phillip - 34 Yarra - 119 Maribyrnong - 95 Frankston - 12 Manningham - 39 Hobsons Bay - 65 Bayside - 15 Kingston - 26 Whitehorse - 48 Greater Dandenong - 44 Knox - 14 Cardinia - 18 Mitchell - 14 Greater Shepparton - 2 Maroondah - 13 Advertisement

David Jones' Chadstone store was also forced to close on Tuesday after a staff member tested positive for the virus.

The employee last worked in the store on July 13 and is currently self-isolating. Contact tracing and deep cleaning are underway.

And coronavirus infections in aged care homes continue to rise, with cases linked to St Basil's Homes for the Aged in Fawkner quadrupling to 51 since Monday and 42 cases to Estia Health in Ardeer.

As of Tuesday, thirty-one cases are now linked to Glendale Aged Care facility in Werribee and 17 infections have been traced to Embracia Aged Care Moonee Valley in Avondale Heights.

Three women in their 80s, 90s and 100s died from the virus, bringing the state's death toll to 42 and the national toll to 126, it was confirmed on Tuesday.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is considering harsher restrictions for locked-down Melbourne. Pictured: Residents on Wednesday

Two of the women were residents of aged care facilities where outbreaks have occurred.

An outbreak in Colac, about 150km southwest of Melbourne, has grown to 27 people.

Thirteen of those cases are linked to Australian Lamb Company, while a student at nearby Trinity College also tested positive.

'People are worried, people are anxious but on the positive side, people have locked themselves away,' Trinity College principal Paul Clohesy said, noting the school had decided to return to remote learning until August 3.

'That'll give 14 days to see where this virus spreads in Colac and to make sure we aren't opening and having to close again.'

The state recorded 374 new cases on Tuesday, with 3078 cases active and 174 people in hospital, 36 of whom are in intensive care.

From Thursday, residents of metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire must wear a face-covering in public or risk a $200 fine.

Scott Morrison slams 'appalling' Black Lives Matter protesters for planning a mass demonstration in Sydney as the city's coronavirus outbreak grows

Scott Morrison has said a planned Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney on Tuesday is 'appalling' and should be cancelled.

About 4,000 are expected to take to the streets to demand justice for David Dungay junior, an Indigenous man who died in custody in 2015.

Police want to ban the protest because it breaks NSW coronavirus restrictions which limit gatherings to 20 people in a public place - but organisers have insisted it will go ahead.

Scott Morrison has said a Black Lives Matter protest planned in Sydney on Tuesday is 'appalling' and should be cancelled. Pictured: Protesters in June

Some 10,000 people packed Melbourne for a Black Lives Matter protest (pictured) on June 6, a day after zero cases were recorded in Victoria for the first time

Asked what his message is for the protesters, the Prime Minister said: 'I just think that's appalling.'

'Where the police and where the state government has said that there's a mass gathering that can't go ahead, well, people should obey the law,' he told Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday morning.

'I mean there's no special rule for people to not obey the law. I mean, what gives people a ticket to not obey the law?'

Poll Should Tuesday's Black Lives Matter protest go ahead in Sydney? Yes No Should Tuesday's Black Lives Matter protest go ahead in Sydney? Yes 29 votes

No 999 votes Now share your opinion





NSW has suffered double-digit cases of coronavirus almost every day since 13 July after a freight worker from Melbourne spread the disease at a pub in south-west Sydney.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told the protesters to express their views 'in a different way'.

'Irrespective of the issue, we need to follow the health advice. Large crowds are a huge concern. We cannot allow that march to continue unfortunately,' she told the ABC on Wednesday morning.

'If people feel strongly about that issue, they're welcome to express their views in different ways, but it's just not sensible at this time to expose yourself and others to the spread of the virus.

'We're at a critical point in New South Wales and we don't want to see the virus spread and actions like that are a huge health risk.'

Protest organiser Paddy Gibson said the risk of attending is less than visiting the beach or a shopping centre.

'At our protest, we will have COVID-safe teams specifically designed to be going around the crowds distributing masks, everyone attending will be asked to wear a mask, hand sanitiser will be distributed and people will be socially distanced,' he said.

Mr Dungay was just 26 when he died after he was forcibly removed from his Long Bay prison cell when guards rushed to stop him from eating biscuits.

Mr Gibson told the Today show on Tuesday it was 'critical' the rally went ahead while the world was 'finally listening' to the concerns of black voices.

At least 4,400 are expected to take to the streets next Tuesday to demand justice for David Dungay Jnr (pictured), an Indigenous man who died in custody in 2015

He said the risk posed by the protest was no more than the risk hundreds of people had taken in recent weeks by visiting the beach, packed markets or shopping centres.

'I do understand people would be concerned. I was at the markets on the weekend where hundreds, if not thousands, of people went through the markets,' Mr Gibson said.

Mr Gibson guaranteed the protest would be 'far better organised and with better attention to COVID safety than what I saw at the markets'.

He recalled watching people 'piled on top of each other with no hand sanitiser and very few masks'.

'Everyone will have a mask at the rally and we will have hand sanitiser and we can spread out far more safely than people in shopping centres,' he said.

He also cited the prime minister's decision to attend a football match last weekend as reason to believe the protest could be safely managed.

'All of these activities are continuing and we believe with social distancing, everyone wearing masks, we can put the message across and say justice must be done and the guards must be charged for this killing,' Mr Gibson said.

He told host Karl Stefanovic there had not been one example of known community transmission at any of the recent rallies in Australia, and said he'd attended plenty.

'But there is plenty of transmission that's happened in shopping centres. None of them have been closed down,' he pointed out.

Police spray protesters with pepper spray inside Central Station following the protest in Sydney on June 6 (pictured) as tensions spilled over

'We say this is a double standard. We say if we are allowed to space out, it will be far safer to be on the streets with our critical message, end the mass incarceration of Aboriginal people, deliver justice for the people that have been killed. We want to see charges laid.'

As New South Wales battles to control a second wave of COVID-19, which spread from Victoria, Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has said he will ask courts to block the rally.

'I don't want to see the same thing happen in NSW, and getting a big group together for a Black Lives Matters protest in Sydney, when you know the dangers, is playing Russian roulette with the nearly eight million people who live in the state,' Commissioner Fuller told The Australian.

'We'll be going to the Supreme Court to stop it from going ahead - win, lose or draw, if anyone turns up and breaches public health orders, we'll start writing tickets for a thousand dollars.'

Organiser Paddy Gibson (pictured) told the Today show on Tuesday it was 'critical' the rally went ahead next Tuesday, while the world was 'finally listening' to the concerns of black voices

Mr Fuller said organisers had lodged an application for the protest in late July, but police were prepared to fine those attending.

Even if the protest is deemed legal, police will still be able to fine people breaking NSW public health rules which limit gatherings to 20 people.

Six people who attended a mass rally in Melbourne in June tested positive for coronavirus.

Health officials said they were not infectious at the rally and did not catch the virus there.

But Health Minister Greg Hunt said their behaviour helped spread the virus by leading people to believe that social distancing requirements were over.

'Once the protests occurred, there were some who saw what appeared to be an understandable view of a double standard, and changed their behaviours,' he told Nine's Today show on July 9.

'Those behaviours - reduce the engagement and the movement with other people,
TWS earphones are now rising in demand ever since professionals and college students have been working/studying from home. With daily calls and having the need to watch movies or listen to music; one really needs to invest in a TWS earphone.

 MensXP/Akshay Bhalla

However, due to the anti-China movement in the country, many customers have been asking us for alternate options.



Having said that, if you are looking for a budget TWS earphone; your best option is still something made by a Chinese brand which means many of the earphones on this list may not be budget-friendly.

Here are some of the best earphones you can get in India right now:

1. AirPods Pro/AirPods

 MensXP/Akshay Bhalla

If you're an Apple user, you really cant look ignore the AirPods or AirPods Pro, as they are one of the best TWS earphones you can buy right now. In fact, the AirPods Pro also offers noise-cancelling features which would be perfect to use at home to avoid distracting noises from family members and pets.



Both AirPods and AirPods Pro are excellent in what they do and works seamlessly with iPhones and MacBook laptops.

2. Sony WF-XB700

 MensXP/Akshay Bhalla

We recently reviewed these TWS earphones by Sony that is targeted more towards music enthusiasts than casual users.



It isnt particularly budget-friendly either, however, it does make up for it with sound quality. If youre a fan of music genres that has heavy bass (lower frequencies) these may just be the right earphones for you.

3. Galaxy Buds+

 MensXP/Akshay Bhalla

The Galaxy Buds+ is by far, one of the best TWS earphones you can get right now especially for Samsung and Android users. It offers great sound and has a comfortable fit that enables the user to use it for hours.



Samsung has also improved the battery life drastically where the earbuds can last 11 hours on a single charge and is doubled with the charging case bringing it to a total of 22 hours.

If you want to know more about the Galaxy Buds+; read our detailed review here.

4. Boat AirDopes 441

 boAt

If you are looking for a budget-friendly TWS then there arent many quality options out there. However, the Indian company BoAt recently launched the AirDopes 441 which cost only Rs 2,999 and offers 17.5 hours of total battery life.



The earphones also have support for digital voice assistants, IPX6 water and sweat resistance and touch controls for music playback.

5. Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2

 MensXP/Akshay Bhalla

If you are looking for superior sound quality and have no budget constraints, we recommend looking at the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2. These TWS earphones are, by far, the best sounding truly wireless earphones on the list and also has a hefty price tag.



It has an IPX4 which is not entirely ideal for use when working out and costs a lot more than anything on this list. If you are a true audiophile and want a great wires audio experience, you can have a look at the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2.
Austin, TX, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- InBloom Autism Services announced today that they will be offering comprehensive diagnostic evaluations to identify Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children between the ages of 18-months and 5-years-old, at no cost, to qualified families in Texas between now and October 1, 2020. The complimentary evaluations are a part of the InBloom Cares community outreach program, which was designed to help provide financial relief to families who have been seeking a diagnostic evaluation for their child, and have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

InBloom has been providing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy services to young children living with ASD throughout greater Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio since early 2019. According to a spokesperson for InBloom, the organization added comprehensive diagnostic evaluations performed by a clinical psychologist to their service offerings in early 2020, after many families in Texas expressed the inability to be seen for an affordable diagnostic evaluation in a timely manner elsewhere.

InBloom Founder and CEO, Kiel Rager, said that despite the impact that COVID-19 has had on communities throughout Texas, the organization will continue to do everything they can to stand by their clients and their clinicians during this time.

"We know the impact has been great, and a significant number of children living with ASD are now living with disruptions in their daily routines, or are going without the critical therapeutic support they need to progress toward their developmental goals, said Rager. As an essential healthcare provider, we immediately took the necessary actions to allow us to continue to provide diagnostic evaluations and ABA therapy during this time, while also keeping everyone as healthy and safe as possible. Anything less is just not an option for our team, because we know our families depend on us.

Rager said that because his staff throughout Texas have been vigilant with enhanced disinfection requirements, daily health screenings, hand washing frequency, face coverings, and social distancing policies, InBloom now has an opportunity to help more families by offering complimentary diagnostic evaluations in each of their service areas through the InBloom Cares initiative.

Story continues

I could not be more proud of our staff and the way they have handled themselves over the past few months. At no time did the idea of stopping services ever enter the discussion. We are a team of dedicated healthcare professionals who are committed to ensuring the development and progress of the kiddos who rely on us. That commitment is what makes InBloom so special, and because of that commitment we are able to roll out the InBloom Cares outreach program, offering comprehensive evaluations to families in our communities who need our help.

InBlooms Corporate Headquarters is located in Fort Lauderdale, FL, where the company was founded in 2015, but the organizations Director of Diagnostic Services, Dr. Scott Allen, Psy.D., operates out of InBlooms Austin Learning Center, where he provides support to the rest of InBlooms clinical psychologists throughout Texas.

Diagnosis is a critical stage of any individuals life, and the way that it is done matters. A diagnosis gives an individual and their family a general idea of areas that require support and also helps to guide families toward critical interventions. Using the collection of data gained in a diagnostic evaluation, were able to use our experience working with individuals with ASD to help determine strengths and challenges for kiddos and make recommendations that are critical toward enhancing future development, said Dr. Allen. Im personally excited because I have the opportunity to intervene at a point in development that really counts, and were able to have a lasting impact on the kiddos and families that we get to meet. Texas, as a whole, does not have many clinicians who offer thorough, targeted evaluations at an attainable price for some families. Im very excited to help continue this program and be a part of the InBloom Cares initiative with these facts in mind.

Families looking for a diagnostic evaluation as part of the InBloom Cares community oureach program, ABA therapy services for their child, or to learn more about any of the InBloom Learning Centers throughout Texas can call 888-754-0398 to speak with a Care Team representative, or visit inbloomautism.com.

###

ABOUT INBLOOM AUTISM SERVICES

Founded in 2015 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, InBloom Autism Services provides diagnostic evaluations for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy to children living with Autism throughout Florida, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. InBlooms mission is to consistently achieve the best possible outcomes for their clients by focusing on clinical quality and innovation, hiring the best behavioral professionals, and investing in clinical support and professional development. To learn more visit: https://www.inbloomautism.com

Attachments

Will Posthumus - Chief Marketing Officer

InBloom Autism Services

313-770-6372

will@inbloomautism.com


Megachurch pastor warns 'woke' Christians: Don't jump on 'cultural hype trains'

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In todays relativistic culture, far too many Christian leaders and pastors blindly jump on the hype train of what culture applauds without filtering it through the lens of Scripture.

Thats according to Ed Young, senior pastor of Fellowship Church, one of North America's most attended churches over the past decade with locations in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. In an interview with The Christian Post, Young warned that too many Christians today are being sucked into the vortex of a secular worldview.

Woke Christian leaders and pastors today are jumping on the hype train of what culture is currently applauding, he said. But they don't really look at what the hype train is connected to. For example, many of the things culture applauds are connected to relativism, abortion, transgenderism, the breakup of the nuclear family.

One example of the hype train many Christians have been far too eager to jump on in recent months is the promotion of the Black Lives Matter organization, according to the pastor.

I wholeheartedly agree with the phrase black lives matter, Young clarified. I believe in it and the church should champion it. We should stand up for equality and justice. I believe we need to lead out.

"But I cant support or agree with the core beliefs of the organization Black Lives Matter. Its tied to abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and the breakup of the nuclear family, just to name a few. So I'm not going to hashtag that phrase because whenever someone hashtags something, they need to hash it out through Scripture, and they need to understand what the people who have started the hashtag are actually living out and what solutions are they recommending."

Many Christians blindly accept a secular worldview because theyre fearful of the backlash, of criticism, fearful of people bolting, the New York Times bestselling author contended.

We want to be liked, we want to seem woke, but in reality, were afraid to stand for truth or engage in healthy conversation, he stressed. We need to be wary of jumping on cultural hype trains. Racism is an obvious issue that must always be addressed. We must call it out and point people to the answers found in the person of Jesus Christ. Im all for supporting legislation that pushes the ball of equality down the field, but real change is only going to happen when we have a heart transformation. Too many leaders are fearful to stand. Where is the boldness? Both sides of the aisle have dropped the ball. We must have open conversations, face our fears, and find solutions that work."

When it comes to the issue of race, there is fear on both sides of the issue, Young said. On one side, theres a fear to talk about feelings, and then on the other side, there's probably a fear of listening and applying what the other side is saying and meeting in the middle and looking to God. We have to listen like never before. Notice the feelings you have about racism, injustice, equality and acknowledge them, and then filter them through Gods Word.

I think that we have more of systemic sin problem in our world than a skin problem. Most people I know arent racists  some are, yes, and I do believe theres a skin problem; I just dont believe its systemically the core issue. The real issue is sin, not skin. Thats the root issue, but were too fearful to say that because we could be misunderstood and maligned.

Believing fear is the root cause of many of todays issues, Young recently wrote his latest book, The Fear Virus: Vaccinating Yourself Against Lifes Greatest Phobias. In it, he identifies the common fears that hold many back from living in freedom and finding abundant life in Christ.

The number one command in Scripture is fear not. Yet I believe that what we're dealing with now is fear on a level like I've never seen it in my life, he said, citing issues like the current coronavirus pandemic, racial unrest, relativism and failure.

In his book, Young shares personal stories combined with biblical wisdom to help readers identify their own fears, offering the reminder that perfect love drives out all fear (1 John 4:18).

Fear drives us to do a lot of things that arent biblical, he said. Were afraid of the truth; those transcendent truths from God that are true in every circumstance and situation. When you don't have objective truth, you're going to follow your feelings, you're going to put your feelings at the center of your life. When you do that, you will walk in fear and there will be hate, turmoil, racism, greed, rioting  all sorts of things that arent pretty.

The pastor compared fear to a virus that can easily seep into every area of our lives. Its what holds many Christians back from addressing hot-button issues like adultery, pornography, racism, and homosexuality, Young said, adding that he, in his role as a pastor, has struggled with fear himself.

I talk about these issues from the pulpit, whether its homosexuality or adultery. I dont look to talk about these subjects, but they need to be dealt with, he admitted. Ive had people leave our church and unfollow me because of the truth from Gods Word that I preach.

When addressing uncomfortable issues through the lens of Gods Word, he clarified that the last thing he wants to do is be unkind.

I have friends who are gay, we have sex workers who attend our church, we have millionaires and those on welfare. We accept everybody, but it doesnt mean we approve of their behavior, he explained. What scares me about the secular worldview is they're trying to force us not only to accept but to approve. In our culture, we have totally conflated acceptance with approval.

Pastors are called to address issues culture addresses. We need to have a healthy fear of God. One day, we will be held accountable before Him. We need to have an answer when God asks, Were you true to my word? Did you preach the truth? Paul says, I am not ashamed of the Gospel. There is a way to build bridges with everyone but draw a line in the sand with the truth.

Many people are anchor-less, blown around by the winds of culture, he added. He encouraged Christians  and young people, in particular  to understand the difference between a biblical worldview and a secular worldview and understand what it truly means to fear God.

When we fear God, meaning, we have reverence and respect and obedience to Him, we shouldnt fear anything else, Young stressed. When people really take a long look at fear, and they start with the fear of God, then they can walk in victory. They can understand the situation that we're dealing with and find peace amid the mayhem.

Then they are able to live in the blessings God has spoken over His people."
1999 Falcon 2000 2002 Citation CJ1 2015 Cirrus SR-22 G5 1988 Citation II 1988 Citation II 1978 Cessna 421C 1956 T-28 Trojan 1977 Cessna 421C 1981 King Air F90

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The Assent team hosted the first and largest ever virtual luxury aircraft auction in May 2020, which had an exciting $18.9MM auction lineup and yielded more than 100,000+ viewer impressions, and delivered bids at or above market value for sixty-three percent (63%) of all consigned aircraft. The virtual auction model proved to be successful as Assent saw large demand for aircraft prior to and during the auction.

Assent's luxury aircraft auctions offer straightforward processes, contracts, and closing procedures that put excitement and clarity into the aircraft buying process. During the live virtual auctions, clients and partners are provided with the same level of expertise and service that they would receive at an in-person auction house event. With digital research tools provided by Assent's auction partners, auction attendees have immediate and streamlined access to the data they need to make educated bidding decisions.

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Kayode Fayemi, Ekiti state governor, has tested positive for COVID-19  after a third test. Fayemi, who is the chairman of the Nigeri...

Kayode Fayemi, Ekiti state governor, has tested positive for COVID-19  after a third test.





Fayemi, who is the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), disclosed his COVID-19 status on Twitter on Wednesday.





I took my third Covid-19 test yesterday and it came back positive. Im generally ok and Im already self isolating at home and receiving the best of care from my medical team. Im delegating critical tasks to my Deputy but will continue routine duty from home, the post read.

I took my third Covid-19 test yesterday and it came back positive. I'm generally ok and I'm already self isolating at home and receiving the best of care from my medical team. I'm delegating critical tasks to my Deputy but will continue routine duty from home. JKF  Kayode Fayemi (@kfayemi) July 22, 2020

Fayemi joins a list of governors who have tested positive for the virus, including Seyi Makinde of Oyo; Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo; Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, and Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna.





It is not clear how the governor contracted the virus but he had held series of meetings within and outside Ekiti state over the past two weeks, although in observance of physical distancing guidelines as provided by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).





As of July 21, 2020, a total of 86 people had been confirmed positive for the coronavirus in Ekiti, out of which 47 recoveries and two deaths have been recorded.




New Jersey Starbucks Worker Fired After Spitting in Coffee of Police Officer: Authorities

Officials said a New Jersey Starbucks barista was arrested and charged after spitting in the drinks of police officers.

Kevin Trejo, 21, of Westwood, was arrested July 20 following an investigation that he spat in the officers drinks, according to NorthJersey.com, citing police.

Park Ridge Police Capt. Joseph Rampolla noted that under the current COVID threat, it is extremely disturbing to think that someone would intentionally spit in your drink.

Rampolla added that he is now working to get the officers tested for the virus. Its not clear how many that would be.

Starbucks announced that it terminated Trejos employment at the company.

We will continue to support Park Ridge Police in their investigation and have a deep respect for the Park Ridge Police Department and the officers who help keep our partners and communities safe, the spokesperson told NorthJersey.com.

This individuals behavior was reprehensible and not at all a reflection of how our employees treat our customers on a daily basis, another spokesperson said to NJ.com. We want everyone who comes into our stores to receive a positive experience and when that doesnt occur, we move quickly to address it and hold ourselves accountable.

Rampolla said that Park Ridge police officers were known to frequent the Starbucks location over the years.

We believe this was an isolated act but it does not remove the shock and disgust that our officers feel, Rampolla said.

Trejo faces charges of subjecting a law enforcement officer to bodily fluid, purposely tampering with a law enforcement officers drink, and creating a hazardous environment.

Police Chief Joseph Madden said that officials received information that an employee of a local coffee shop was spitting in the drinks of law enforcement that patronized the establishment, adding that Trejo bragged about the incident, reported the Daily Voice.

Madden thanked the Starbucks managers for their service and cooperation, adding that the department has had an extremely positive relationship with this business establishment and they have welcomed our community policing initiatives.

The incident comes amid a wave of anti-police sentiment and Black Lives Matter protests.

Officers risk their lives daily, it shouldnt be while getting coffee, Patrick Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemens Benevolent Association, said in a statement. Every time I think we as society hit bottom, there is a new incident, he added, according to NJ.com.

In June, an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer alleged that a worker spiked his drink in Diamond Bar, California, prompting an investigation.
A 37-year-old former employee used a 9mm handgun late Tuesday night to blast his way into a closed pharmacy in Bethlehem and again to get at some drugs in a cabinet, but set off a burglar alarm and was arrested soon after as he drove away, city police report in court papers.

Officers arriving at 11:46 p.m. noticed a window at the front of Stekfo Pharmacy in the 1800 block of Stefko Boulevard was broken and saw a sedan driving off, police said.

The sedan was pulled over and Nicholas Kostandinos Loukas Jr., of the 2700 block of Red Oak Circle, was the only person inside, police said. There was a black 9mm handgun and a flannel shirt in plain view, police said. Loukas had scratches on the right side of his body and blood on his shorts, police said.

There was shattered glass inside and outside of the building near the broken window and a 9mm shell casing was found nearby, police said. There was also a bullet hole in a cabinet and an unfired 9mm round on the floor, police said.

When Loukas footwear was removed at police headquarters, shards of bloody glass fell to the floor, police said.

Although the burglar tried to spray paint the front door and a nearby security camera, there was video of a man dressed in similar clothing to Loukas firing a round into the window, then using the right side of their body to force their way past the broken glass and into the pharmacy, police said. He moves toward a black cabinet and then fires several shots into the cabinet door, police said. He takes bottles of alprazolam, an anti-anxiety drug, police said. He then leaves via the rear of the business, police said.

The business owner, who told officers that Loukas used to work there, estimated the pills were worth more than $1,000, police said.

Loukas was arraigned at 7:33 a.m. Wednesday before District Judge Alicia Rose Zito on charges of burglary, retail theft and criminal mischief (two counts), records say. He was housed in Northampton County Prison in lieu of 10% of $100,000 bail, records say. A preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled for 9 a.m. Aug. 6 in District Judge Nicholas Englessons courtroom not far from the pharmacy.

Court papers do not list an attorney for Loukas.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting lehighvalleylive.com with a voluntary subscription.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com.
ENDEAVOUR ANNOUNCES AN INCREASE OF 554,000 OUNCES IN M&I RESOURCES AT ITS HOUNDE MINE

2.5Moz of Indicated resources discovered at the Kari Area within three years at <$15/oz discovery cost.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Hounde M&I Resource increased by 554koz to 4.45Moz Au following further resource delineation at the Kari Area

Todays resource increase includes extensions for the Kari West and Kari Center deposits plus maiden resources for the adjacent Kari Gap, Kari South, and Kari Pump NE deposits

The Kari Area now accounts for 57% of the Hounde M&I resource, with 2.5Moz of Indicated resources discovered over the past three years

The Kari Area hosts high grade deposits with ~ 84% of Indicated resources grading more than 2.0 g/t Au, amounting to 2.1Moz

Low discovery cost of less than $15 per Indicated resource ounce for the Kari Area

An exploitation license has recently been awarded for the Kari Area and mining commenced at the Kari Pump deposit

Maiden reserves for Kari West, along with an updated Hounde mine plan, are expected to be published in Q3-2020 followed by maiden reserves for Kari Center and Kari Gap in Q4-2020

An additional 20,000 meter drill program is expected to start in H2-2020

Abidjan, July 22, 2020  Endeavour Mining (TSX:EDV) (OTCQX:EDVMF) is pleased to announce that Measured and Indicated resources at its Hounde mine in Burkina Faso have increased by 554,000 ounces to 4.5 million ounces following further resource delineation at the Kari Area, as shown in Table 1 below.

Sebastien de Montessus, CEO, commented:

We are very excited to announce this resource update as it continues to demonstrate the Hounde mines potential. Over 2.5Moz of Indicated resources have now been discovered in the Kari Area, ranking it as the largest resource in the Hounde mine complex. Our ability in moving the Kari Area from discovery to production in under three years underscores the success of aggressive exploration strategy and the value of our strong and established government partnerships in West Africa.

Story continues

Last year, the 1.0Moz Indicated resource delineated at Kari Pump led to a reserve conversion of over 700koz. We now look forward to quickly completing the work to convert the additional 1.5Moz of Indicated resources delineated for the other deposits. With 84% of the Kari Area resource grading above 2 g/t Au, we are confident we will achieve our goal of producing 250koz/year over a 10+ year mine life at Hounde by displacing lower grade material.

Table 1: Hounde Mineral Resource Evolution, current as at December 31, 2019

On a 100% basis.

Resources shown are

inclusive of Reserves. PREVIOUS RESOURCE UPDATED RESOURCE  AU CONTENT Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Au koz) Measured Resource 1.7 1.75 96 1.7 1.75 96 +0 Indicated Resource 58.6 2.01 3,797 72.9 1.86 4,351 +554 M&I Resource 60.4 2.01 3,893 74.6 1.85 4,447 +554 Inferred Resource 6.9 2.07 456 7.9 1.90 481 +24

Mineral Resource and Reserve estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definitions standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources are constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. The Hounde Mine Resource is current as at December 31, 2019 and includes Reserves but does not include 2020 mine depletion. For the notes relating to the Hounde Mine Resource Estimate, please consult the March 5, 2020 press release available on the Companys website.





As shown in Table 2 below, the Kari Area now accounts for 57% of the Hounde M&I resource with 2.5 million ounces delineated over the past three years.

Table 2: Hounde Mineral Resource Estimate

On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves. MEASURED & INDICATED RESOURCE INFERRED RESOURCE Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) Kari Area deposits 45.0 1.76 2,542 5.1 1.46 239 Vindaloo deposits 26.8 1.92 1,654 2.6 2.63 217 Other (Bouere, Dohoun) 2.9 2.69 251 0.2 3.39 24 Total deposits 74.6 1.85 4,447 7.9 1.90 481

Patrick Bouisset, Executive Vice President Exploration and Growth, said:

We are very pleased with the additional resources delineated at the Kari Area for a number of reasons. Firstly, the very favorable mineralization characteristics. A large portion of the resources is high grade, specifically those at Kari West. A large portion is also oxide and transitional material, while the Vindaloo deposit being mined currently is mainly fresh ore. These deposits are also amenable to open pit mining with potential strip ratios significantly lower than that currently being seen at the Vindaloo deposit and more than half of those at the high grade Kari Pump deposit. Lastly, the attractive metallurgy provides for potential gold recovery rates above 90%.

As we continue to drill in the Kari Area later this year and into 2021, we are confident that we will continue to delineate resources along the Kari Center trend, which remains open. In addition, we are keen to start drilling other high priority targets close to the Hounde mill after spending three years focusing mainly on the Kari Area.





ABOUT THE KARI AREA EXPLORATION PROGRAM





As shown in Figure 1 below, the Kari Area includes a large area of anomalous drill intercepts covering an area 5km by 4km wide and which is host to numerous deposits located 7 to 10km northwest of the Hounde processing plant.

Figure 1: Kari Area and Deposits

Location Map





The Kari Area has been the focus of extensive exploration since 2017, with over 400,000 meters drilled and six discoveries made: Kari Pump, Kari Center, Kari West, Kari Gap, Kari Pump NE and Kari South. The drilling activity is summarized in Table 3 below and it is estimated that approximately 20% of the anomaly remains to be drilled.





Table 3: Kari Area Drilling History

PROGRAM METERS DRILLED HOLES RESULTS Q3-2017

to Q4-2018 203,900 2,237 comprised of 1,431 AC, 716 RC and 90 DD - Kari Pump maiden Indicated resource Q4-2018

to Q4-2019 166,280 1,493 comprised of 886 AC, 538 RC and 69 DD H1-2020 44,445 370 comprised of 175 AC, 14 DD, 164 RC, and 17 RC/DD Total 414,625 4,100 - Discovery of 2.5Moz of Indicated resource

Further information regarding the 2017-2019 exploration results are available in the press releases published on November 13, 2017, May 24, 2018, November 15, 2018 and November 25, 2019, available on the Companys website.

As shown in Figure 2 below, 55% of H1-2020 drilling was concentrated on extending and delineating the Kari Center trend, with 15% directed towards delineating Kari Pump NE, while the remaining 30% was dedicated to Kari West infill drilling with the goal of converting Inferred resources into Indicated resource category and testing deeper extensions of the deposit. A total of 370 holes were drilled amounting to 44,445 meters comprised of 175 Air Core (AC) holes totaling 14,318 meters, 14 Diamond Drill (DD) holes totaling 2,916 meters, 164 Reverse Circulation (RC) holes totaling 23,427 meters, and 17 RC/DD holes totaling 3,784 meters. Exploration results were very good with over 80% of the holes completed during H1-2020, intersecting mineralization of at least two meter thickness (downhole) with grades of 0.5 g/t Au or above.

In addition, 35 DD and RC/DD holes totaling 5,853 meters were drilled for geotechnical and metallurgical testing purposes on Kari West, Kari Centre and Kari Gap. There was an additional 62,267 meters of grade control drilling completed at Kari Pump to prepare for H2-2020 production and 157 RC holes totaling 11,717 meters were drilled for sterilization of the Kari Pump waste dump and ROM pad areas.

Figure 2: H1-2020 Drilling Activity in the Kari Area







Selected intercepts from the H1-2020 drill program in the Kari Center structural trend include:

 Kari Center

(true width uncapped)  Kari Gap

(downhole thickness uncapped)



 Kari South

(downhole thickness uncapped)



 KC20-040: 3.0m at 7.77 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 16.30 g/t Au



 KC20-003: 18.7m at 1.55 g/t Au, including 2.90m at 5.15 g/t Au



 KS20-019: 8.0m at 2.54 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 3.82 g/t Au



 KC20-045: 11.0m at 2.46 g/t Au, including 3.0m at 5.42 g/t from



 KC20-004: 4.9m at 4.12 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 11.55 g/t Au



 KS20-047: 33.9m at 2.03 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 12.02 g/t Au



 KC20-052: 9.9m at 4.20 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 34.60 g/t Au



 KC20-005: 6.9m at 3.80 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 9.42 g/t Au



 KS20-050: 13.9m at 2.87 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 13.85 g/t Au



 KC20-055: 13.9m at 2.10 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 5.26 g/t Au



 KC20-006: 5.9m at 5.21 g/t Au, including 2.9m at 8.47 g/t Au



 KS20-065: 11.0m at 2.49 g/t Au, including 3.0m at 4.74 g/t Au



 KC20-056: 12.9m at 3.09 g/t Au, including 4.0m at 7.75 g/t Au



 KC20-008: 4.9m at 10.0 g/t Au, including 2.9m at 16.23 g/t Au



 KS20-067: 6.0m at 4.61 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 3.62 g/t Au



 KC20-080: 4.0m at 5.77 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 19.80 g/t Au



 KC20-010: 3.9m at 6.23 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 9.04 g/t Au



 KS20-070: 30.9m at 2.73 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 4.34 g/t Au



 KC20-081: 2.0m at 53.21 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 106.00 g/t Au



 KC20-030: 3.9m at 6.22 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 11.53 g/t Au



 KS20-114: 5.0m at 4.31 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 15.20 g/t Au



 KC20-092: 12.9m at 2.01 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 6.67 g/t Au, and including 2.0m at 4.18 g/t Au



 KC20-033: 20m at 1.43 g/t Au, including 0.8m at 3.02 g/t Au



 KS20-114: 4.0m at 7.07 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 23.5 g/t Au



 KC20-093: 7.9m at 3.30 g/t Au, including 1.0m at 9.19 g/t Au, and including 2.0m at 4.64 g/t Au



 KC20-110: 3.9m at 6.08 g/t Au, including 2.0m at 10.36 g/t Au



 KS20-125: 9.0m at 13.78 g/t Au, including 3.0m at 36.15 g/t Au, and including 1.0m at 5.43 g/t Au, and including 1.0m at 5.24 g/t Au





ABOUT THE KARI AREA RESOURCE

Todays resource increase includes extensions for the Kari West and Kari Center deposits and maiden resources for the nearby Kari Gap, Kari South, and Kari Pump NE deposits, as shown in Table 4 below.

Table 4: Kari Area Mineral Resource Estimate

PREVIOUS KARI AREA UPDATED KARI AREA  AU

CONTENT On a 100% basis.

Resources shown inclusive of Reserves. Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) koz % INDICATED RESOURCE Kari West 15.7 1.71 861 20.4 1.53 1,005 +144 +17% Kari Center 3.7 1.18 140 6.6 1.26 269 +129 +92% Kari Gap 0.0 0.00 0 3.9 1.41 176 +176 n.a. Kari Pump NE 0.0 0.00 0 0.3 1.98 21 +21 n.a. Kari South 0.0 0.00 0 2.1 1.09 75 +75 n.a. Kari Pump 11.3 2.71 987 11.6 2.66 996 +9 +1% Total Kari Area 30.7 2.02 1,988 45.0 1.76 2,542 +554 +28% INFERRED RESOURCE Kari West 3.4 1.65 179 2.5 1.41 114 (65) (36%) Kari Center 0.4 1.21 16 0.5 1.68 25 +9 +56% Kari Gap 0.0 0.00 0 0.1 1.76 8 +8 n.a. Kari Pump NE 0.0 0.00 0 0.0 1.81 3 +3 n.a. Kari South 0.0 0.00 0 1.7 1.30 69 +69 n.a. Kari Pump 0.3 2.21 20 0.3 2.16 20 0 0% Total Kari Area 4.1 1.64 215 5.1 1.46 239 +24 +11%

No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

Due to the intensive infill drill program conducted in H1-2020, 88% of the total resource for Kari West, Kari Center, Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE has been classified in the Indicated category, with the potential to convert additional resources through upcoming drilling.

The mineralized lenses have favorable mining characteristics as they are amenable to open pit mining with mineralization starting at surface. The deposits added in the Kari Area are expected to have low strip ratios, with the Indicated resource pit shell strip ratio amounting to 6.1, 7.1, 6.4 and 6.6 for Kari West, Kari Center, Kari Gap and Kari South, respectively. In addition, todays announcement brings significant oxide and transitional material additions, representing approximately 30%, 66%, 74%, 73% and 100% of the Kari West, Kari Center, Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE Indicated resources, respectively.

As shown in Table 5 below, the Kari Area hosts high grade deposits, with approximately 84% of Indicated resources grading above 2.0 g/t Au, amounting to 2.1Moz, at various cut-off grades.

Table 5: Kari Area Indicated Resource at an Average Grade of > 2 g/t Au at Variable Cut-off Grades

CUT-OFF

GRADE TONNAGE AVERAGE GRADE GOLD CONTENT WITH

AVERAGE GRADE >2 g/t

Based on various stated cut-offs TOTAL GOLD CONTENT

Based on 0.5 g/t cut-off PORTION OF TOTAL RESOURCE >2g/t (Au g/t) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Au koz) % Kari West 1.10 12.3 2.0 792 1,005 79% Kari Center 1.20 2.5 2.0 159 269 59% Kari Gap 1.00 2.1 2.0 133 176 76% Kari Pump NE 0.70 0.3 2.0 21 21 100% Kari South 1.35 0.5 2.0 30 75 40% Kari Pump 0.00 11.6 2.66 996 996 100% Total Kari Area 29.3 2.26 2,131 2,542 84%

Further details by deposit are provided in Appendix A of this press release. No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and based on stated cut-offs. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

A sensitivity analysis performed at various gold prices demonstrates the robustness of the Kari Area resource estimate, due to their shallow nature and advantageous mineralization characteristics, as shown in Tables 6 and 7 below.

Table 6: Kari Area June 2020 Indicated Resource Sensitivity

BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE OF $1,700/oz OF $1,500/oz OF $1,300/oz On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves. Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) INDICATED RESOURCE Kari West 21.1 1.52 1,029 20.4 1.53 1,005 19.2 1.54 951 Kari Center 7.5 1.22 296 6.6 1.26 269 6.1 1.26 247 Kari Gap 4.4 1.37 192 3.9 1.41 176 3.7 1.42 167 Kari Pump NE 0.4 1.95 22 0.3 1.98 21 0.3 2.00 19 Kari South 2.3 1.08 81 2.1 1.09 75 1.9 1.12 68 Kari Pump 12.0 2.61 1,006 11.6 2.66 996 9.7 2.94 914 Total Kari Area 47.7 1.71 2,626 45.0 1.76 2,542 40.9 1.80 2,366

No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and for sensitivity purpose by MII $1,300/oz and $1,700/oz pit shells and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

Table 7: Kari Area June 2020 Inferred Resource Sensitivity

BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE BASED ON GOLD PRICE OF $1,700/oz OF $1,500/oz OF $1,300/oz On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content Tonnage Grade Content (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) INFERRED RESOURCE Kari West 2.9 1.38 129 2.5 1.41 114 1.9 1.48 89 Kari Center 0.6 1.52 30 0.5 1.68 25 0.4 1.80 21 Kari Gap 0.2 1.67 9 0.1 1.76 8 0.1 1.94 6 Kari Pump NE 0.1 1.73 3 0.0 1.81 3 0.0 1.82 2 Kari South 2.0 1.22 80 1.7 1.30 69 1.2 1.39 52 Kari Pump 0.3 2.11 21 0.3 2.16 20 0.2 2.36 17 Total Kari Area 6.1 1.39 272 5.1 1.46 239 3.8 1.54 187

Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell and for sensitivity purpose by MII $1,300/oz and $1,700/oz pit shells and based on a cut-off of 0.5 g/t Au. Updated Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

ABOUT KARI WEST

In 2019, intensive RC drilling defined the Kari West target as a broad mineralized area extending over 1,000 meters in strike length at a width of 500 meters and delineated a maiden Indicated resource (published on November 25, 2019). As shown in Figure 3 below, the additional 69 holes, totaling 10,045 meters drilled in H1-2020, allowed for the conversion of most of the 2019 Inferred resource into Indicated status. As a result, the Indicated resource for Kari West increased from 861koz to over 1Moz of gold.

Figure 3: 2020 Drilling activity over Kari West

Drilling also demonstrated that the deposit remains open at depth, as shown in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4: Section 4960 at Kari West

At Kari West, the weathered bedrock and saprolite thickness varies between 25 meters and 75 meters with thicker zones noted to the south. Laterite up to 20 meters thick covers most of the area. The Kari West deposit is located in the hanging wall of a N240 trending and steep northwest-dipping lithological contact zone between dominantly meta-volcanic units (hanging wall) and a dominant metasedimentary unit (footwall). The deposit was formed under purely brittle conditions.

ABOUT KARI CENTER STRUCTURAL TREND AND DEPOSITS

Mineralization was first intercepted at Kari Center during initial AC reconnaissance drilling in 2017. Follow up RC and DD drill programs in 2018 confirmed mineralized trends and significantly extended the continuity towards the southwest. The Kari Area 2019 drilling campaign mostly concentrated on the larger Kari West deposit, but reconnaissance drilling along 200 azimuth delineated two main areas of mineralization on the broad Kari Center trend, each with their own characteristic of trends and dips. The whole Kari Center trend extends over a 3.5km stretch and was the subsequent focus of the H1-2020 drilling campaign with 175 holes totaling 23,634 meters.

This campaign was very successful, as shown in Figure 5 below, and allowed to confirm mineralization for the extension of Kari Center, the discovery of Kari Gap (which is near but separate from Kari Center), and the better definition of Kari South. The latter appears to be made of two mineralized trends. All three zones have characteristic trends and dips, which confirm the 3.5km concentration of mineralization hosted along a north-northeast trending shear corridor.

Figure 5: H1-2020 Drilling on Kari Center Trend

ABOUT KARI CENTER

At Kari Center, the main mineralization trends northeast and dips moderately steeply towards the northwest. The zone now covers an area approximately 1,000 meters along strike at a width of approximately 500 meters and is open at depth, in the direction of Kari Pump and Kari Gap.

Resource conversion drilling confirmed the geologic model and the continuity of two mineralized zones, both characterized by strong lithological and structural controls. The main mineralized corridor follows a 100 meter wide sericite-albite alteration corridor that has developed at the contact between a mafic volcanic unit to the northwest and a volcano-sedimentary unit (graywacke, locally black shales) to the southeast. It is associated with quartz veining and bleaching of the surrounding lithologies, along with fine disseminated pyrite and no arsenopyrite observed to date. The mineralization is diffuse, locally high grade (>2 g/t Au) but mostly lower grade with large volumes of oxidized and argilized ore in the main part of the deposit.

A second brittle mineralized corridor has developed to the southeast, parallel to the alteration corridor, in sedimentary units with no sericite-albite alteration expressed. Gold grades are structurally controlled, locally higher grade (> 5g/t Au) but on narrower tension gashe quartz vein type intercepts. Significantly, recent results indicate that the thinner higher grade mineralization is more consistent than previously thought. To date, neither visible gold nor arsenopyrite have been observed in drill cuttings.

Alteration has developed mainly in volcanics due to porosity but also due to rock chemistry (feldspar), giving bleached white rock totally overprinting original texture where the alteration is most intense, very similar to that observed at Kari West. In more impermeable sediments and with unfavorable chemistry, alteration is only very rarely expressed, only very locally along narrow veins.

ABOUT KARI GAP

Kari Gap is located 300 meters south-southwest of the southwestern tip of Kari Center and broadly follows the geological continuity of Kari Center. The deposit covers an area approximately 600 meters along strike at a width of approximately 300 meters and is today open at depth, towards Kari Centre, and towards Kari South.

Kari Gap exhibits a similar stratigraphic sequence as Kari Center, with lithological units dipping moderately to the northwest and consisting of volcanics with intercalated volcano-sedimentary units which seem to be narrower than those occurring at Kari Center. Sericite-albite alteration is also expressed, hosted in the volcanics at the hanging wall of the contact with the sedimentary unit.

The Kari Gap deposit is located at the intersection of northeast trending lithologic units and a north-northeast trending shear corridor. The mineralization has a strong lithological control as well as structural control, and in general, mirrors the lithological contact. The mineralization is associated with quartz veining and whitish sulphide-sericite-albite alteration and fine disseminated pyrite, like that observed at Kari Center. To date, neither visible gold nor arsenopyrite have been observed in drill cuttings.

Kari Gap is composed of two main zones hosting mineralized lenses. The first is hosted around the sericite-albite altered volcanics and in general provides lower grade and large volume, while the second zone appears to be hosted in brittle structures within and at the footwall of the volcano-sedimentary unit, and provides higher grades and smaller volumes, as shown in Figure 6 below.

Figure 6: Kari Gap Central Section

The area between Kari Gap and Kari Centre still host significant potential which will be addressed during the Q4-2020 drilling campaign.

ABOUT KARI SOUTH

Kari South represents the southern end of the mineralization system associated with the Kari Center shear corridor. It covers an area approximately 1,600 meters along strike at a width of 300 meters and remains widely open at depth and towards the south. Further potential exists to delineate additional resources as Kari Souths detailed structure and mineralization is still in the early interpretation phase.

Kari South is underlain by volcanics with minor thin intercalated volcano-sedimentary lenses. The mineralization generally trends north-northeast with some higher grade clusters and mostly consists of volcanics with pervasive sericite-albite alteration and disseminated pyrite (same as Kari Center and Kari Gap). Like in Kari Center and Kari Gap, neither visible gold nor arsenopyrite have been observed in drill cuttings.

ABOUT KARI PUMP NE

Step out drilling targeting the possible extension of near-surface mineralization near Kari Pump, over a 700 meter span towards the northeast, allowed for the discovery of new mineralization which appears to be of a similar spatial orientation as the Kari Pump mineralized shear, as shown in Figure 7 below.

Figure 7: Kari Pump NE and Selected H1-2020 Intercepts

The new mineralized interval is located approximately 40 meters beneath (footwall) the main Kari Pump mineralized shear and has similar thickness and grades in drill intercepts. As shown in Figure 8 below, it stretches out to the surface, approximately 200 meters to the northeast of the Kari Pump pit shell, and is open downdip to the west and down plunge to the northwest.

Figure 8: Kari Pump NE Section 8280

Although the Indicated ounces defined to date for Kari Pump NE are relatively modest (21koz), the occurrence of this new mineralization with Kari Pump characteristics below the main deposit at Kari Pump presents an additional exciting opportunity that will be pursued through additional drilling (DD and RC) during the next drilling campaign.

NEXT STEPS

Kari West maiden reserves expected to be published in Q3-2020

Kari Center and Kari Gap maiden reserves expected to be published in Q4-2020 following completion of metallurgical and geotechnical testing

A 20,000-meter drilling program is due to begin in Q4-2020, after the rainy season, and will continue in 2021, with the following key objectives: Pursue exploration at the junction of Kari Center and Kari Gap Pursue delineation and extend resource drilling on Kari South Test the extension of the Kari Pump NE mineralization to the north/northwest Explore the remaining targets in the Kari area Pursue exploration of other neighboring targets in the area such as Sia and Vindaloo South



KARI AREA RESOURCE MODELING

The geological models, statistical analyses and resource estimates were prepared by Helen Oliver, FGS CGeol. Ms Oliver is Endeavour Mining's Group Resource Geologist and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. The Kari West and Kari Center Mineral Resource Estimates (MREs) have been updated and Maiden MREs have been developed for Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE in Geovia Surpac software.

The mineralization model for Kari West has been updated with the new drilling and improved continuity has been proven, resulting in a reduction in the number of mineralized lenses from 94 to 70, grouped into four domains (reduced from eight). An additional eight mineralized lenses have been identified at Kari Center resulting in 22 mineralized zones. Eighteen mineralized lenses have been modeled at Kari Gap, fifteen at Kari South and seven at Kari Pump NE.

The gold assays from the drill holes were composited to one meter intervals within the mineralized wireframes and capped by lens or not at all depending on the high grade outliers within the individual lens. Two lenses at Kari West were capped at 25 g/t Au, one at 20 g/t Au, eight at 15 g/t Au and the remainder at 10 g/t Au, 5 g/t Au or not at all; Kari Center lenses were capped at 15 g/t Au, 10 g/t Au or not at all; Kari Gap lenses were capped at 15 g/t Au, 10 g/t Au, 5 g/t Au or not at all; Kari South was capped predominately at 5 g/t Au with two lenses at 10 g/t Au; and Kari Pump NE was capped at 10 g/t Au, 5 g/t Au or not at all. Each mineralized lens was subjected to a spatial analysis of the gold distribution using variograms. Except for Kari South, the majority of the lenses showed a good continuity of gold grade along strike and down-dip and were used to establish ordinary kriging (OK) estimation parameters.

Density parameters were determined by deposit and rock type. The laterite has a density ranging between 2.0 t/m3 and 2.1 t/m3, saprolite between 1.7 t/m3 and 1.9 t/m3, saprock between 2.2 t/m3 and 2.4 t/m3 and fresh rock between 2.7 t/m3 and 2.8 t/m3.

The gold grade was estimated by OK, constrained by the mineralized lenses in all the deposits with the exception of Kari South where inverse distance squared (ID2) was used due to poor variography. The grade was estimated in multiple passes to define the higher confidence areas and to extend the grade into areas of extrapolated mineralization. The grade estimation was validated by visually comparing drilling data and block grades, comparing inverse distance squared and OK estimated grades and by swath plots comparing block grades and composite grades.

The mineralization was classified as Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources depending on the sample spacing, number samples, confidence in mineralized zone continuity and geostatistical analysis. Indicated Mineral Resource classification was generally applied to blocks within the mineralized zone defined by a minimum of five samples from at least three drill holes within a 55 meter search at Kari West and 50 meter at Kari Center, Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE. Inferred Mineral Resource classification was defined by a minimum of three samples within a 75 meter to 85 meter search at Kari West and 80 meter at Kari Center and 75 meter at Kari Gap, Kari South and Kari Pump NE. The Mineral Resources were constrained by $1,500 gold price pit shells (sensitivity performed for $1,300 and $1,700) and a 0.50 g/t Au cut-off grade. The Whittle pit shell optimizations assumed a base mining cost of $2.00/t and an adjusted ore mining and haulage cost of $3.60/t for oxide, $4.60/t for transition and $4.80/t for fresh rock, a mining recovery of 95%, mining dilution of 0%, a pit slope of 40o, average gold recovery of 90% (94%, 89% and 82% for oxide, transition and fresh rock, respectively for Kari Pump NE), a processing and G&A cost of $14.00/t for oxide, $15.00/t for transition and $18.00/t for fresh rock, and a gold selling cost (royalty, refining and selling) of $80/oz.

ASSAYS AND QUALITY ASSURANCE / QUALITY CONTROL / DRILLING AND ASSAY PROCEDURES

RC drill samples were collected at one meter intervals using dual tube, percussion hammer with a drop center bit. This same configuration was used on modified AC drills for regional drill programs. RC and AC samples were split at the drill site using one tier or three tier riffle splitters based on bulk sample weight collected at the cyclone. The target was a 2kg to 3kg sample for Au analysis in addition to an equivalent backup reference sample. Bulk weights, analysis sample weights and reference sample weights were all recorded. All measures were employed to avoid collecting wet samples; however, if wet samples were generated the entire sample was dried and later split using one tier and three tier splitting equipment.

Representative samples for each interval were collected with a spear from the bulk sample bag and sieved into chip trays for geological logging and stored in a secure location. Drill core (PQ, HQ and NQ size) samples were selected by geologists and cut in half with a diamond blade saw at the project site. Half of the core was retained in the core trays at the site for reference purposes. The average sample interval was approximately one meter in length and 2kg to 3kg in weight.

All aspects of sampling at the Kari Area project sites were monitored with a quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) program, compliant with NI 43-101 Standards. To ensure there are adequate internal quality control samples in each analytical batch, a QA/QC insertion schema was generated by the Endeavour Exploration QA/QC management team for verification of the preparation and analysis at the laboratory. Coarse blanks, field duplicates and certified reference material (CRM) were inserted into the sample stream by the project chief geotechnicians. QA/QC sample insertion rates for reginal AC programs see one blank, one field duplicate and one CRM each 30 samples. One blank, one field duplicate and one CRM were inserted each 25 samples in RC delineation drilling. For DD core samples one blank and one CRM each 20 to 25 samples with the laboratory contracted to generate one pulp duplicate per each 30 samples in DD core sample sequences.

All samples were transported by road to ALS Chemex in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in secured, labelled poly-woven bags. The laboratory implements its own internal QA/QC protocol, the results of which are monitored by the Exploration QA/QC Management Team.

On arrival, the AC, RC and DD samples were weighed and crushed to -2mm (70% passing), and a two-kilogramme sample taken by a rotary split and pulverised to -75m (85% passing). The two kilogramme pulverized samples were analyzed for gold by Fire Assay (50g charge) with an Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS) finish.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, external consultants could not audit the Kari Area drill and QA-QC programs over the course of the drilling programs undertaken to date.

Full drill results covering January to May 31, 2020 are available by clicking here .

QUALIFIED PERSONS

The scientific and technical content of this news release has been reviewed, verified and compiled by Jonathan Lawrence, VP Exploration Burkina Faso for Endeavour Mining. Jonathan Lawrence (FAIG, MAusIMM) has more than 20 years of mineral exploration and mining experience and is a "Qualified Person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The resource estimation was completed by Helen Oliver, FGS, CGeol, Group Resource Geologist for Endeavour Mining and a "Qualified Person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Martino De Ciccio



VP  Strategy & Investor Relations

+44 203 640 8665

mdeciccio@endeavourmining.com Brunswick Group LLP in London



Carole Cable, Partner

+44 7974 982 458

ccable@brunswickgroup.com







Vincic Advisors in Toronto



John Vincic, Principal



(647) 402 6375

john@vincicadvisors.com

ABOUT ENDEAVOUR MINING CORPORATION

Endeavour Mining is a multi-asset gold producer focused on West Africa, with two mines (Ity and Agbaou) in Cote dIvoire, four mines (Hounde, Mana, Karma and Boungou) in Burkina Faso, four potential development projects (Fetekro, Kalana, Bantou and Nabanga) and a strong portfolio of exploration assets on the highly prospective Birimian Greenstone Belt across Burkina Faso, Cote dIvoire, Mali and Guinea.

As a leading gold producer, Endeavour Mining is committed to principles of responsible mining and delivering sustainable value to its employees, stakeholders and the communities where it operates. Endeavour is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, under the symbol EDV.

For more information, please visit www.endeavourmining.com.

Corporate Office: 5 Young St, Kensington, London W8 5EH, UK

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" including but not limited to, statements with respect to Endeavour's plans and operating performance, the estimation of mineral reserves and resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of future production, future capital expenditures, and the success of exploration activities. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects", "expected", "budgeted", "forecasts", and "anticipates". Forward-looking statements, while based on management's best estimates and assumptions, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to the successful integration of acquisitions; risks related to international operations; risks related to general economic conditions and credit availability, actual results of current exploration activities, unanticipated reclamation expenses; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; fluctuations in prices of metals including gold; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, increases in market prices of mining consumables, possible variations in ore reserves, grade or recovery rates; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labor disputes, title disputes, claims and limitations on insurance coverage and other risks of the mining industry; delays in the completion of development or construction activities, changes in national and local government regulation of mining operations, tax rules and regulations, and political and economic developments in countries in which Endeavour operates. Although Endeavour has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Please refer to Endeavour's most recent Annual Information Form filed under its profile at www.sedar.com for further information respecting the risks affecting Endeavour and its business. AISC, all-in sustaining costs at the mine level, cash costs, operating EBITDA, all-in sustaining margin, free cash flow, net free cash flow, free cash flow per share, net debt, and adjusted earnings are non-GAAP financial performance measures with no standard meaning under IFRS, further discussed in the section Non-GAAP Measures in the most recently filed Management Discussion and Analysis.

APPENDIX A

Table 8: Kari Area June 2020 Indicated Mineral Resources defined by cut-off grade

CUT-OFF GRADE TONNAGE GRADE CONTENT (Mt) (Au g/t) (Au koz) KARI WEST 0.1 22.9 1.40 1,032 0.5 20.4 1.53 1,005 1.1 12.3 2.00 792 1.5 7.9 2.41 610 KARI CENTER 0.1 7.8 1.12 281 0.5 6.6 1.26 269 1.1 2.9 1.88 174 1.5 1.6 2.38 121 KARI GAP 0.1 4.7 1.23 186 0.5 3.9 1.41 176 1.1 1.8 2.13 126 1.5 1.2 2.56 101 KARI PUMP NE 0.1 0.3 1.98 22 0.5 0.3 1.98 21 1.1 0.3 2.18 20 1.5 0.2 2.53 17 KARI SOUTH 0.1 2.7 0.94 82 0.5 2.1 1.09 75 1.1 0.7 1.70 41 1.5 0.4 2.14 25 KARI PUMP 0.1 11.7 2.65 997 0.5 11.6 2.66 996 1.1 9.5 3.05 936 1.5 7.3 3.59 843

On a 100% basis. Resources shown inclusive of Reserves.

No Measured Resources have been estimated. Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates follow the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") definition standards for Mineral Resources and Reserves and have been completed in accordance with the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Reported tonnage and grade figures have been rounded from raw estimates to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate. Minor variations may occur during the addition of rounded numbers. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Resources were constrained by MII $1,500/oz Pit Shell. Resources are as at June 30, 2020.

Attachment




Blank pages, pictures of hydrangeas and penguin, dummy text  these are what you will find on the website of the Niger Delta Developme...





Blank pages, pictures of hydrangeas and penguin, dummy text  these are what you will find on the website of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).





The NDDC has been in the news of recent for not so good reasons.





The commission is being probed by the national assembly over the alleged mismanagement of N81.5 billion by the interim management led by Kemebradikumo Pondei.





Appearing before the panel on Monday, Pondei was quizzed on why the commission is yet to pay students on scholarship. Before he could provide an answer, the NDDC acting managing director passed out and was taken out of the chamber after he was revived.

On Tuesday evening, TheCable checked the website of the commission for details of its operations.





A tab on the website labelled as Downloads led to a page with two files:  Annual Report and Scholarships.





The files are supposed to give detailed information on the annual activities of the commission and its scholarship programmes.





However, when downloaded, the file for annual report led to the picture of hydrangeas, a flowering plant, while the file for scholarships led to the picture of penguins, a group of aquatic birds.





The commission listed six projects and programmes under its Projects and Progammes tab. However, each of the projects leads to a blank page.





On the page where there ought to be details of the agencys staff and offices, what you find is dummy text.





The website only provides information on About Us, News and Contact.




RTHK: Brazil's Bolsonaro tests positive for virus, again

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has again tested positive for the coronavirus, his office announced on Wednesday, saying he would extend his two-week quarantine and suspend upcoming travel plans.

The far-right leader, who has faced criticism for downplaying the pandemic and flouting social distancing measures, has been in self-isolation in the presidential palace in Brasilia since first testing positive for the virus on July 7.

"President Jair Bolsonaro's health continues to improve, under the treatment of the presidential medical team," his office said in a statement.

"A (new coronavirus) test carried out yesterday on the president came back positive."

Bolsonaro, 65, has famously compared the virus to a "little flu" and attacked stay-at-home measures and other guidelines from public-health officials.

Until he was infected, he regularly hit the streets of Brasilia without a face mask, exchanging hugs and handshakes with supporters and urging Latin America's biggest country to get back to work despite the rapid spread of the virus.

Since testing positive after developing a fever and fatigue, he has been working by video conference from the presidential residence, the Alvorada Palace - a routine he admitted last week he "can't stand."

Following the latest positive test result, his third since getting infected, Bolsonaro has "indefinitely postponed" upcoming trips to the north-eastern states of Piaui and Bahia.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro greeted supporters at his residence, separated by a reflecting pool about two metres wide.

He removed his face mask to talk to them and proudly held up a box of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug he is taking against the infection.

Both Bolsonaro and US President Donald Trump, whom he admires, have touted the medication as a treatment for Covid-19, despite a lack of scientific evidence for its effectiveness.

Brazil is the country hit second-hardest by the pandemic, after the United States. It has recorded nearly 2.2 million infections and more than 80,000 deaths. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Theres a new tropical depression, and its in the Gulf of Mexico and headed for Texas.

A tropical storm watch was issued for much of the Texas coast late Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center, and what could by then be Tropical Storm Hanna is forecast to make landfall in the Lone Star state as soon as Saturday.

As of 10 p.m. CDT Wednesday, newly named Tropical Depression Eight was located 530 miles east-southeast of Port OConnor, Texas, and was moving west-northwest at 6 mph.

The depression had winds of 30 mph. A storm has to have winds of at least 39 mph to become a tropical storm and get a name. The next name on the list is Hanna.

The hurricane center said slow strengthening is expected, and the depression could become a tropical storm in a day or so.

The hurricane centers intensity forecast suggests the potential Hanna could peak with 45 mph winds before making landfall.

A tropical storm watch is now in effect for much of the Texas coast, from Port Mansfield to High Island.

A tropical storm watch means that tropical storm conditions are possible within the watch area within 48 hours. The hurricane center urged those elsewhere along the Texas and Louisiana coasts to keep an eye on the storm.

Landfall is expected on the Texas coast on Saturday, and tropical storm conditions will be possible in the watch area starting on Friday.

The storm could drop 2 to 4 inches of rain along the Texas and Louisiana coasts and inland through south-central Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. Isolated areas could get up to 6 inches, the hurricane center said.

The potential Hanna isnt expected to directly affect the Alabama coast but will bring an increased risk of rip currents, rain and high tides, according to the National Weather Service in Mobile.

Tropical Depression Eight isnt the only system being tracked. The hurricane center was also monitoring Tropical Storm Gonzalo in the central Atlantic, which was getting stronger and forecast to become a hurricane on Thursday.

And in the Pacific forecasters were also watching Hurricane Douglas, the first hurricane of the year in that basin and a potential threat to Hawaii.

The hurricane centers five-day forecast takes the storm in the direction of the Big Island on Sunday, but it is expected to weaken to a tropical storm before it reaches the islands.
After dragging their feet over insuring healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, general insurers seem to more open to the idea now.

Healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses and paramedical staff are seen as high-risk customers due to the environment they operate in, particularly in the current scenario. According to the Indian Medical Association, 99 doctors have lost their lives due to the pandemic in India so far. The association also issued a red alert asking medical professionals to raise their guard.

Coverage denial

There were instances of insurers denying coverage altogether to medical professionals after the COVID-19 outbreak in India. Recently, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) sought responses from insurers on whether they were denying coverage to healthcare workers. The regulator has sternly asked insurers not to discriminate against medical professionals while processing insurance proposals, said a senior industry executive, requesting anonymity.

Now, the Association of Medical Consultants, Mumbai, is on the verge of signing an agreement with a private insurer to provide Rs 1-lakh Corona Rakshak cover to healthcare workers employed with its member hospitals in Mumbai. The premiums, funded by owners of hospitals and nursing homes, will be linked to the age of hospital staff who enroll for the scheme.

COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine  one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show

This comes in the backdrop of the IRDAI mandating non-life insurers to offer standard, reimbursement-based Corona Kavach policies to pay for COVID-19 treatment expenses. The insurance regulator has also allowed all insurers to sell Corona Rakshak, a benefit-based health insurance policy, that hands out the entire sum insured if the policyholder tests positive and is hospitalised for at least 72 hours. Insurers will have to provide 5 per cent discount on premiums to healthcare workers.

However, convincing insurers to extend this cover was not an easy task. We negotiated with multiple government and private insurers initially, but could not make much headway. They were reluctant to cover hospital staff in large numbers through us. In fact, we had almost tied up with one private insurer for a group cover, but they pulled out at the last minute citing unviability, just when we were about the make the premium payment, says Dr Sudhir Naik, Chairman, Medico-Legal Cell, Association of Medical Consultants, Mumbai. The organisation represents doctors practising at government, corporate and tertiary care hospitals as also individual consultant doctors with their own nursing homes in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane.

Taking additional insurance

This apart, the association has also purchased a Rs 7-lakh group super top-up health cover from the state-owned Oriental Insurance for its member-doctors part of the association. It is a group cover. Member doctors have to pay an annual premium of Rs 6,500 for this super top-up cover, which will be triggered after our individual base policy of Rs 3 lakh is used up, says Dr Narendra Dedhia, member of AMC and President, Indian Medical Association, Central Suburbs. It will be a one-time policy, valid up to May 31, 2021.

On their part, insurers say they are open to issuing policies to individuals across professions. We do not discriminate against any profession. We only take into account the health parameters at the time of underwriting. As long as their answers to our questions on their health and medical test results meet our underwriting criteria, we do issue policies, says Nikhil Apte, Chief Product Officer, Health, Royal Sundaram General Insurance. Through the underwriting process, insurers assess prospective policyholders health parameters, decide whether or not to issue policies and also determine the premiums to be charged.

While insurers are coming forward to issue policies to healthcare professionals, others in the medical fraternity believe the central and state governments should take on the responsibility of insuring doctors and other medical staff. At present, its the hospitals that are taking care of their staff in case they get infected. Ultimately, this increased cost is passed on to patients. Governments must take charge and provide life as well as health insurance covers to medical professionals, said Alexander Thomas, President, Association of Healthcare Providers India.
New Delhi

The Supreme Court on Wednesday initiated contempt proceedings against lawyer Prashant Bhushan for accusing the judiciary of destroying democracy and keeping courts closed during the lockdown in two of his tweets in two tweets last month.

Issuing notice to Bhushan to respond by August 5, a three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said, We are, prima facie, of the view that the aforesaid statements on Twitter have brought the administration of justice into disrepute and are capable of undermining the dignity and authority of the Institution of Supreme Court in general and the office of the Chief Justice of India in particular, in the eyes of public at large.

Twitter Inc. was also made a contemnor by the Court along with Bhushan. Senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, appearing for Twitter Inc told the Court that a tweet can be disabled only on a judicial order. We are an independent platform unable to disable the tweet without an order from a Court. When he asked the Court to pass an order to this effect, the bench, also comprising Justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari said: Why should we direct? On your own you should have done it. Poovayya told the Court that he would consult with Twitter and respond by the next date. The Court has also issued notice to Attorney General KK Venugopal for assisting in this case.

Bhushan did not appear in court and was not represented by any lawyer. The Court order took note of the first tweet dated June 27, which was also carried in a national daily and the subsequent one on June 29, against which the Court received a petition for initiating contempt.

The first tweet said the last four chief justices of India had played a role in the destruction of democracy. The second tweet was aimed at current CJI SA Bobde. Captioning a picture showing CJI sitting on a bike, Bhushans tweet, now part of the order, said: CJI rides a 50 Lakh motorcycle belonging to a BJP leader at Raj Bhavan Nagpur, without a mask or helmet, at a time when he keeps the SC in Lockdown mode denying citizens their fundamental right to access justice!

Against this tweet, the court received a petition filed by Mahek Maheshwari on July 9. The matter was taken up on the administrative side. The court found that the Attorney Generals consent as required under the 1975 Rules to Regulate Proceedings for Contempt of the Supreme Court was not obtained. It was then decided to take up the matter as a suo moto petition on the judicial side to pass appropriate orders. the order of the Court said.

This is the third contempt petition Bhushan will face. The first refers to a 2010 interview by Bhushan to Tehelka magazine alleging half of the previous 16 CJIs were corrupt. The hearing on this matter began in 2010 ; it was last heard in 2012. After a gap of eight years, this matter is listed for hearing on Friday before a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra. Bhushans father and former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan intervened in this matter and filed a sealed cover giving instances of corruption against former CJIs.

Last year, in a tweet on February 1, 2019, Bhushan accused the Centre of misleading the court on the decision to appoint M Nageswara Rao as interim Director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Bhushan claimed that the High Powered Committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not decide on Rao as told to the court by Attorney General. Although he has apologised for the tweet, two contempt petitions by the Attorney General and the Union of India are still pending.
Studies through the decades have linked higher wages to education, with the greatest returns in developing countries. However, the correlation between higher wages and education doesn't always account for an individual's innate cognitive abilities, or the mental processes of gathering and processing information to solve problems, adapt to situations and learn from experiences.

How much of those wage gains come from schooling, and how much from cognitive abilities developed long before the student sets foot in a classroom?

Data on measures of cognitive performance have been limited historically, particularly in developing countries. Using data sets that only became available in recent years, Binghamton University Assistant Professor of Economics Plamen Nikolov, and graduate students, Nusrat Jimi and Jerray Chang, analyzed the wage impact of cognitive skills in "The Importance of Cognitive Domains and the Returns to Schooling in South Africa: Evidence of Two Labor Surveys" in the August 2020 edition of Labour Economics.

Economics research dating back to the 1970s links higher wages to more education; however, it wasn't until the 1990s that economists made headway in designing research that could tease out the true causes of such phenomena rather than just the correlation, Nikolov explained.

If non-experimental studies that explore the effects of education on wages don't account for cognitive performance in addition to schooling, the wage effect of school alone will seem higher than it really is, he pointed out. While cognitive skills may be further developed in the classroom, previous economics and psychology research shows that most of these skills are developed before people start elementary school.

In addition to the innate cognitive factor, the quality of education can also impact wages. During the Apartheid period, schools in South Africa were race-based, with those of worse quality attended by Black South Africans; this system was dismantled in 1994, although disparities remain. Black South Africans often had substantially less education than their white counterparts as a result.

"It is possible that people who have better cognitive performance are likely either to do better in school or to get more schooling. In our estimation, our conceptual argument is that both cognition and schooling separately and distinctly exert a positive effect on wages," said Nikolov, the lead author, adding that the empirical analysis already accounts for other factors that could potentially affect wages, such as socio-economic factors.

Cognitive skills and wages

The study used two surveys conducted between 2002 and 2014 in two distinct areas of South Africa: urban and rural. The surveys collected extensive household information, including dimensions of cognition: memory, orientation, numeracy and attention in one, and literacy and numeracy in the other.

Findings show that each additional year of school equates to an earnings increase of 18 to 20 percent. Returns are higher in the urban sector due to the preponderance of service-oriented and technical jobs, compared to rural South Africa, which has mostly low-paying agricultural work, Nikolov said.

Urban and rural environments also show differences in which types of cognitive skills are rewarded, once again connected with the types of jobs available. In rural environments, memory and orientation -- an awareness of one's time, place and person -- are most important when it comes to higher wages. In more urban environments, earnings are connected with higher order cognitive skills, such as arithmetic, literacy and planning.

A standard deviation increase in cognitive skills -- memory in rural areas and numeracy in cities -- is roughly equivalent to one more year of school. However, an extra year of school in a developing country such as South Africa has double the rate of return as an equivalent year in a high-income country such as the United States, according to the research.

While cognitive skills may predate schooling, that doesn't mean that classrooms aren't a worthwhile investment for developing countries -- quite the opposite, in fact.

"This wage effect implies that both cognitive skills and schooling matters, but schooling matters a lot more," Nikolov said.

###
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 18:18:54|Editor: huaxia

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A worker signals during the testing of the Mecca Light Rail in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on June 20, 2018. The light rail was built and operated by China Railway Construction Corporation Limited. (Xinhua/Dong Liwei)

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said he is ready to work with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to lead bilateral relations to new achievements in the new era for the benefit of both countries and their peoples.

In a recent exchange of congratulatory messages on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of China-Saudi Arabia diplomatic ties, Xi noted that over the past 30 years bilateral relations have seen steady development, with cooperation bearing rich fruits in various fields.

Particularly, the relationship has been advancing on the fast track in recent years since the two countries forged a comprehensive strategic partnership, he added.

Chinese medical experts pose for photos with others at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on April 15, 2020. A team of Chinese medical experts arrived in Riyadh on April 15 to assist the kingdom in combating COVID-19. (Xinhua/Tu Yifan)

At the moment, Xi said, China and Saudi Arabia are working together against COVID-19 to protect the health and well-being of both peoples, safeguard regional and global public health security, and have left behind touching stories of mutual assistance.

Stressing that he attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations, Xi said he stands ready to make concerted efforts with King Salman to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to better synergize the Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 and to further enrich the strategic significance of their countries' relationship.

In his message, King Salman said that since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties 30 years ago, great progress has been made in various fields in bilateral relations, demonstrating the profound friendship between the two countries and the high level of their strategic relationship.

The Saudi king said he is willing to push for continuous development of the special relationship so as to serve the common interests of both countries and their peoples.

Noting that the Saudi side holds the same or similar ideas with the Chinese side in dealing with the novel coronavirus pandemic, he said his country is ready to work with China to fight the epidemic.

He added that Saudi Arabia looks forward to carrying out more cooperation with China to promote regional and global security and stability. 
India's third Covid wave likely to peak on Jan 23, daily cases to stay below 4 lakh: IIT Kanpur scientist

COVID-19: Indias fatality drops from 3.36 per cent to 2.43 per cent

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: India's COVID-19 fatality rate has dropped significantly to 2.43 per cent from 3.36 per cent on June 17 due to effective clinical management of coronavirus cases, the Centre said on Tuesday, asserting the country has handled the pandemic "relatively well"

Thirty states and Union Territories have COVID-19 positivity rate lower than that of the national average which stands at 8.07 per cent, Rajesh Bhushan, officer on special duty in the Union health ministry, told a press conference here.

"Nineteen states and UTs are performing more than 140 tests per day per million population. Just doing tests is not enough, they have to be done at a level of 140 tests per day per million so that the rate of positivity reduces and comes down to 10 per cent first and then continue the testing process so that the rate of positivity further reduces to 5 per cent or lower," he said.

Serum Institute to begin trials of Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine candidate by Aug-end

"So that is the ultimate aim to maintain this level of testing and bring positivity lower to 5 per cent eventually or even lower than that," he said.

In India, the COVID-19 deaths per million population stand at 20.4 per million which is amongst lowest in the world, Bhushan said.

"There are several countries where deaths per million is 21 times or 33 times higher than in India. The global average stands at 77 deaths per million population," he said.

"So far, the nation has managed COVID-19 relatively well. The Government of India is cooperating with all states and UTs. All decisions are being taken based on science and evidence-based inputs and in consultation with domain knowledge experts," Bhushan said.

He also shared a chart showing that the COVID-19 case fatality rate has declined from 3.36 per cent on June 17 to 2.43 per cent now.

Delhi may have hit the COVID-19 peak: AIIMS Director

He asserted that the significant decline in the case fatality rate has been due to effective clinical management of cases.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

India recorded 37,148 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, pushing its tally to 11,55,191 , while the total number of recoveries increased to 7,24,577, according to Union health ministry data issued on 8 am Tuesday.

The death toll due to the disease rose to 28,084 with 587 fatalities reported in a day, the data showed.

There are 4,02,529 active cases of the coronavirus infection currently in the country, while 7,24,577 people have recovered till now.

Thus, 62.72 per cent people have recovered so far, the ministry said.
The now-deceased lawyer suspected of fatally shooting the son and seriously wounding the husband of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey on Sunday may have been targeting at least one other judge in New York.

Roy Den Hollander had a photo of that states Chief Judge Janet DiFiore in his car, her spokesman told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.

Thats what I understand to be true. At this point, thats all I have, said Lucian Chalfen, director of communications for New York State Courts. The information, which was relayed to Chalfen from the FBI, was first reported in the New York Times.

In addition to finding her photo in the car, authorities also found her name and address, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. New York State Police are providing security for DiFiore, he added.

Den Hollander, a self-described anti-feminist lawyer, was found dead in his car of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in Rockland, New York, about a two-hour drive from the North Brunswick home of Salas, officials have said.

From left, U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas, Roy Den Hollander and New York State Chief Judge Janet DiFiore.File

Investigators say Den Hollander, whose age in public documents is reported as 69 and 72, fatally shot the 20-year-old son of Salas, Daniel Anderl, and wounded her husband, criminal defense attorney Mark Anderl, 63, at their home about 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The son died of multiple gunshot wounds and Mark Anderl was in critical but stable condition at a local hospital, according to North Brunswick Mayor Francis Womack.

The family was attacked by a man wearing a face covering and a FedEx delivery driver uniform, officials said. Salas was in the basement at the time of the shooting as was not hurt.

Daniel Anderl, 20. (Photo courtesy of Catholic University)

The New York Times, citing two law enforcement officials, reported the FBI is investigating whether Den Hollander was involved in the July 11 killing of mens rights lawyer Marc Angelucci in San Bernardino, California.

Angelucci was shot at his front door by a gunman wearing a FedEx uniform, according to published reports.

Marc AngelucciFacebook

Based in Newark, Salas was the first Hispanic woman to be appointed to the U.S. District Court in New Jersey. She was nominated by President Obama as a U.S. District Court judge in December 2010 and confirmed by the Senate in June 2011.

Salas was the judge in a 2015 lawsuit Den Hollander filed in federal court claiming the Selective Service System, which requires men to register for military draft, discriminates against both sexes in violation of Equal Protection as incorporated into the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Den Hollander wrote in an online essay in 2019 about having cancer and about a planned hearing apparently before Salas.

Media across the street from the home of Judge Esther Salas where her husband Mark Andrel was shot and their son Daniel was killed, in North Brunswick, N.J. July, 20, 2020 Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Quark Expeditions has introduced a new expedition program in Greenland capitalizing on the Ultramarine's two twin-engine helicopters, dual heli-decks and a first-ever partnership with local communities in South Greenland that will offer off-ship adventure options (included in the trip package) exclusive to the company, according to a press release.

The ship is set to launch later this year with two twin-engine helicopters, 20 quick-launching Zodiacs and more, which has enabled Quark Expeditions to offer a new Greenland program in partnership with municipal, regional and national partners, including Tasermiut, a leading outdoor adventure specialist in South Greenland.

"The Greenland Adventure voyages are the first expedition voyages in history to be developed in full partnership with local community members and businesses in Greenland, from conception to execution," said Alex McNeil, Director of Expedition Experience and Innovation for Quark Expeditions. "The culture and expertise of the people of South Greenland will be woven into these voyages. Ultramarine's twin-engine helicopters will transport guests to remote locations for unique adventure optionssomething no other operator can provide. Aligned with our Polar Promise strategy, all of these activities are developed sustainably with our local partners."

Activities Incluide:

 Heli-hiking

 Helicopter-supported trekking on the vast Greenland Ice Sheet

 Overnight camping (via helicopter transfer) in Tasermiut fjord

 Helicopter-supported kayaking high up in alpine lakes

 Exploring Viking history in South Greenland

 Visits to Kujataa UNESCO World Heritage Site

 Roaming the tundra with a local chef after which guests enjoy an unforgettable meal made from fresh ingredients.

Quark Expeditions is hosting Greenland Adventure Week on Quark Expeditions' Polar Learning Channel from Monday, July 27 to Saturday, August 1, 2020 at 12:30 pm EST. The six-day program will feature guests from South Greenland and the Quark Expeditions team who have travelled extensively in Greenland. The audience will be able to listen to 20-minute themed presentations and ask questions.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered sympathetic words to Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein who stands accused of facilitating the abuse of girls by the now-deceased sex offender.

"I just wish her well, frankly," Trump said when asked about Maxwell during a news conference.

Maxwell, 58, was denied bail last week and is to remain behind bars as she awaits trial on charges she recruited girls for the financier to sexually abuse more than two decades ago.

The British socialite was a romantic partner of Epstein, who killed himself in prison several weeks after being charged with sex trafficking.

An indictment alleged that Maxwell groomed the victims to endure sexual abuse and was sometimes there when Epstein abused them. It also alleged she lied during a 2016 deposition in a civil case.

Epstein associated over the years with many high-profile figures in politics and business, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew of Britain and the retail mogul Leslie Wexner.

"I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach," Trump said of Maxwell.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and felony solicitation of prostitution. He served 13 months, most of it on work release program at a county jail.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / GATLING EXPLORATION INC. (TSXV:GTR)(OTCQX:GATGF) (the "Company" or "Gatling") is pleased to announce that Jody Dahrouge, P. Geo., has been appointed to the Company's Board of Directors.

Mr. Dahrouge is a senior geologist and President of Dahrouge Geological Consulting Ltd., a geological services company established in 1998, that provides consulting services to a broad range exploration and mining companies worldwide. He is a professional geologist (Alberta) and holds Bachelor of Science degrees in geology and computing science, both from the University of Alberta. Mr. Dahrouge is also the President of DG Resource Management Ltd., a project generator which has identified, acquired and advanced a number of gold projects throughout North America. He has also been a director of several public companies exploring for and advancing gold projects throughout the Americas.

Nav Dhaliwal, president and CEO of Gatling, commented, "Gatling's first drill program at the Larder gold project was a tremendous success - growing and connecting zones, as well as opening up an entirely new area 6km north of the main trend. We are planning an aggressive follow up and are delighted that Jody Dahrouge has joined the Board. His experience and insight will be of great value to the Company as we advance, and we look forward to working with him over the coming months."

The Company also announces that it has granted incentive stock options under its stock option plan to directors, officers and consultants for the purchase of up to 1,900,000 common shares at a price of $0.34 per share for a period of three years, subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Gatling Exploration

Gatling Exploration is a Canadian gold exploration company focused on advancing the Larder Gold Project, located in the prolific Abitibi greenstone belt in Northern Ontario. The Larder property hosts three high-grade gold deposits along the Cadillac-Larder Lake Break, 35 kilometers east of Kirkland Lake. The project is 100% controlled by Gatling and is comprised of patented and unpatented claims, leases and mining licenses of occupation within the McVittie and McGarry Townships. The 3,370-hectare project area is positioned 7 kilometers west of the Kerr Addison Mine, which produced 11 million ounces of gold. All parts of the Larder property are accessible by truck or all-terrain vehicles on non-serviced roads and trails.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS,

Nav Dhaliwal, President and CEO

Gatling Exploration Inc.

For further information on Gatling, contact Investor Relations

Telephone: 1-888-316-1050

Email: ir@gatlingexploration.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward Looking Statements: Statements contained in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, which are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainness and other factors that may cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in our forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, actual results may vary, and we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

SOURCE: Gatling Exploration Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598364/Gatling-Appoints-Gold-Explorer-and-Geologist-to-the-Board
Comedian Joe Wilkinson has said his weekly round-up of feelgood stories prove there are lots of lights at the end of the tunnel.

The stand-up comedian, 45, is working with The National Lottery to launch the Good News Bulletin, featuring people and projects from across the UK who have used National Lottery funding to combat the impact of Covid-19.

Among those featured in the YouTube series is Little Village, which provides clothes, toys and equipment to children up to the age of five, and Cinemagic, which hosts online film activities and workshops to keep children in Belfast entertained during lockdown.

Wilkinson told the PA news agency: There are some wonderful people doing wonderful stuff. There are lots of lights at the end of the tunnel.

Its reminding people that they are not on their own. Communities are really rallying round and its inspiring.

He added: Im not even that bothered about making people laugh. I just really want them to engage and remember that there is good stuff happening.

Thats what I felt when I watched the videos for some of the projects.

Honestly, it doesnt need me. Im happy to be involved but the stories are there. Im just a little bit of fluff in the way of the good stuff  a bit of nonsense.

Expand Close The Little Village iniative features in the bulletin (The National Lottery/PA) / Facebook

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For the first episode, which is available now, Wilkinson filmed himself social distancing in a field near his home in Brighton.

The comedian said he was especially touched by learning about the Team Jak Foundation, which supports young people with cancer.

He said: I was aware before that stuff couldnt be put on hold.

You might not be able to go to the dentist but there are people in the middle of really big moments in their life and they cant press pause on it.

So the fact that all this is going on and people are still making time to make sure these people are supported  that felt like a really special one.

A number of celebrity guests will appear throughout the series, which launches as The National Lottery announces its search for nominees for the 2020 National Lottery Awards.

The National Lottery has made up to 600 million available to help communities throughout the UK amid the outbreak.

The Good News Bulletin airs weekly on The National Lottery Good Causes YouTube channel.
Jaipur: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday (July 22, 2020) wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the alleged horse-trading in the state to topple his government.

In the letter, CM Gehlot said, "I would like to draw your attention towards the efforts being made to topple the elected governments in the states using horse-trading."

He added, "Amid the COVID-19 pandemic times, saving lives is our top priority, even then there is an attempt to topple the elected government in Rajasthan."

The Gehlot-led Congress government in Rajasthan is in turmoil after simmering differences between him and sacked Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot.

CM Gehlot in his letter referred to the Anti-defection law that was introduced by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 and was amended by Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government and said that there have been malicious attempts to destabilise the democratically elected state governments which is an insult to the people's mandate and is a violation of constitutional values.

He cited the examples of Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh where the Congress governments were toppled in the past few years.

CM Gehlot alleged Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat's and other BJP ministers along with some of his 'ambitious' leaders behind the horse-trading.

He also wrote, "I will always regret that when the Central and State governments have the responsibility of saving lives, how can the Central government get involved in toppling the state government in Rajasthan during COVID times."

Also read | Rajasthan crisis: Ashok Gehlot calls CLP meet at Jaipur hotel, says 'this battle is for truth'

CM Gehlot stated that similar allegations were also raised a few months back when the Madhya Pradesh government was toppled amid COVID times.

He stated that due to the multi-party system in the Indian Constitution, different state and central governments are elected of different parties, which is the beauty of the Indian democracy, that these elected governments have worked in the public interest from rising above the party politics.

"I do not know to what extent you are aware of this, or if you are being misled. History will never forgive those who have taken part in such actions," wrote CM Gehlot.

Gehlot concluded with, "I have full trust that truth along with the Constitutional values and democratic principles will win and we will complete our tenure with good governance."

Also read | Nobody knew that a person with such innocent face will do such thing: CM Ashok Gehlot on Sachin Pilot
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Jeremy Corbyn is facing legal action after criticising Labour's decision to apologise and pay damages to anti-Semitism whistleblowers who highlighted failings under his leadership of the party.

Seven former party staff members and journalist John Ware are bringing a case against the former opposition leader after he attacked successor Sir Keir Starmer's decision to settle a libel claim sparked by a BBC Panorama documentary.

After the programme aired last year, Labour accused the whistleblowers of being 'disaffected former officials' and said they had 'worked actively to undermine' Mr Corbyn as leader and had 'both personal and political axes to grind'.

In a statement released this afternoon Mr Corbyn, who quit after five tumultuous years in charge led to election humiliation in December, said the decision to settle was 'disappointing' and 'a political decision' as Labour's anti-Semitism civil war erupted into fresh conflict.

Mr Corbyn went on to say that the legal advice the party received said it had a 'strong case and the evidence in the leaked Labour report that is now the subject of an NEC inquiry led by Martin Forde QC strengthened concerns about the role played by some of those who took part in the programme.'

It is believed that it is this criticism that is the subject of the proposed new libel action. When asked if action would be taken arising from Mr Corbyn's statement after the hearing, lawyer Mark Lewis, from Patron Law, who represented the Panorama whistleblowers and Mr Ware, said: 'I can confirm that I have been instructed to pursue cases.'

And one of the whistleblowers, Louise Withers-Green, later told Times Radio: 'Jeremy Corbyn's comments were obviously disappointing. I would have liked him to take responsibility for the flourishing of anti semitism under his leadership.'

The decision to apologise and pay an estimated 500,000 in compensation and legal fees is part of a settlement aimed at drawing a line under allegations made during Mr Corbyn's leadership that the party had allowed the overt hatred of Jewish people to fester.

The decision was welcomed by MPs and Jewish Labour activists who have long campaigned against anti-Semitism within the party.

But in a sign that the move could reignite factional infighting with the party's hard Left element, Mr Corbyn and his followers including Unite leader Len McCluskey attacked the payout.

In other developments:

Labour also agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to journalist John Ware for falsely accusing him of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public' in the documentary

The whistleblowers' laywer, Mark Francis, said they would take further legal action against Corbynistas who had repeated the libellous claims or might do so in future

Labour's shadow attorney general Lord Falconer said the settlement drew 'a clear line under a dispute between the Labour Party and people who had been whistleblowers about anti-Semitism'

The move by Sir Keir Starmer's party is part of a settlement aimed at drawing a line under allegations made during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership that the party had allowed the overt hatred of Jewish people to fester

In a statement released this afternoon Mr Corbyn, who quit after five tumultuous years in charge led to election humiliation in December, said the decision to settle was 'disappointing' and 'a political decision'

Labour MPs and activists welcome decision to settle case Labour MPs and Jewish activists welcomed the decision to settle the libel claim this morning. The Jewish Labour Movement, which came close to disaffiliating with Labour under Mr Corbyn, said: 'It is a sad reflection of its historic role as the party of working people that Labour sought to pursue and silence its former employees for speaking out against racism. 'Panorama shone a spotlight on the Labour Party's failure to act and the growing culture of denial that sought to victimise those who had faced discrimination.' The group said that 'under new leadership, our hope is that the party will continue to demonstrate this willingness to change and act decisively against anti-Semitism'. Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge tweeted: 'Good! This is a big step in the right direction and shows just how far the Labour Party has come since last year.' Jewish former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth tweeted: 'This has been a long time coming, the whistleblowers were so brave to make a stand & their strength has been inspirational. 'They have been relentlessly attacked for simply being honest. @UKLabour are absolutely right to apologise for the shameless way they have been treated.' After losing her seat at last year's election, Ms Smeeth said Jeremy Corbyn's handling of anti-Semitism allegations had turned Labour in to the 'nasty party'. Advertisement

Writing on Facebook Mr Corbyn said: 'The Party's decision to apologise today and make substantial payments to former staff who sued the party in relation to last year's Panorama programme is a political decision, not a legal one.

'Our legal advice was that the party had a strong defence, and the evidence in the leaked Labour report that is now the subject of an NEC inquiry led by Martin Forde QC strengthened concerns about the role played by some of those who took part in the programme.'

Mr McCluskey, whose union is Labour's largest financial backer, tweeted: 'Today's settlement is a misuse of Labour Party funds to settle a case it was advised we would win in court.

'The leaked report on how anti-Semitism was handled tells a very different story about what happened.'

But former Labour MP John Mann, now an independent adviser to the Government on anti-Semitism, tweeted: 'The bravest of the brave are the Labour staff members who did what was right.

'Normal decent people doing what normal decent people do when faced with injustice. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.'

And at Prime Minister's Questions today, when Mr Corbyn's leadership came up, Sir Keir said the party was 'under new management'.

A spokesman for the Labour leader later pointed out that all the Labour leadership candidates earlier this year - Sir Keir, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy - had pledged to 'settle this issue', adding: 'It's a sign that we will take a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism.'

Mr Corbyn's criticism led the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to demand he be suspended and investigated.

Chief executive Gideon Falter, said: 'From the backbenches, Jeremy Corbyn continues to spread conspiracy theories to cover up how the Labour Party became institutionally racist under his leadership.

'A few weeks ago he gaslit the Jewish community by claiming that the EHRC, in whose investigation we are the complainant, is ''part of the government machine''. Now he is gaslighting the whistleblowers he bullied for standing up to Jew-hatred.'

The investigation, 'Is Labour Anti-Semitic?' was screened in July last year and made a number of serious claims about the party's internal culture for dealing with complaints of anti-Semitism.

In a statement when the programme was broadcast, a Labour spokesman - acting for Mr Corbyn - called the whistleblowers 'disaffected former officials' and said they had 'worked actively to undermine' the leader and had 'both personal and political axes to grind'.

Both Mr Corbyn and the Momentum founder, Jon Lansman, also suggested in statements following the programme that it had a pre-determined outcome.

Following those statements, seven of the eight whistleblowers, who are all former Labour staffers, instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to take action against the party.

They claimed senior figures had issued statements attacking their reputations and suggesting they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party.

Among the former Labour staffers taking action were the former head of disputes Sam Matthews; the former head of compliance Mike Creighton; Dan Hogan, a former disputes team investigator; and Louise Withers Green, a former disputes officer.

The others were Katherine Buckingham, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman.

Iain McNicol, the party's former general secretary who was the eighth interviewee on the programme, was not involved in the action.

At a brief hearing in London, William Bennett QC, barrister for the seven whistleblowers, said: 'The whistleblowers were highly critical of the Labour Party's approach to tackling anti-Semitism within its ranks.'

He told Mr Justice Nicklin: 'Before the broadcast of the Panorama programme, the Labour Party issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about the whistleblowers.'

Mr Bennett said Labour 'accused the whistleblowers of having acted in bad faith during and after their employment with the intention of harming the Labour Party', allegations he said were 'untrue and defamatory'.

He added: 'The Labour Party is here today to set the record straight and to apologise unreservedly to the claimants for the distress and embarrassment that the publication of the false allegations have caused them and for the continuing damage that has been caused to their reputations.

'The Labour Party also has agreed to pay substantial damages to the whistleblowers.'

Mark Henderson, representing Labour, told the court: 'The Labour Party acknowledges that these claims about the claimants are untrue, and we retract and withdraw them and undertake not to repeat them.

'The Labour Party is here today to publicly set the record straight and to apologise to the claimants for the distress and embarrassment that it has caused them.'

At the same hearing, Labour also apologised to John Ware - the journalist who made the Panorama programme - for falsely accusing him of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public'.

Mr Bennett said Labour had alleged that Mr Ware 'invented quotes, flouted journalistic ethics and ... knowingly promoted falsehoods' in pursuit of 'a pre-determined outcome to the question asked by the Panorama programme'.

He added that the party had agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to Mr Ware.

The 500,000 payout that Labour has to make covers damages for Mr Ware and the seven whistleblowers, as well as legal costs.

In a statement, the claimants' solicitor Mark Lewis said: 'Today in the High Court, the Labour Party retracted its false allegations made about the Panorama programme asking whether Labour was anti-Semitic.

'The answer was a clear ''yes''. Labour chose to double down and attack the programme's presenter, John Ware, and the whistleblowers rather than addressing the truth of the problem.

'It is ironic that the workers' party chose to act as disgruntled bosses who had been caught out.'

He added: 'This is just the start. Actions are being taken against those who repeat the libels, and will be taken against those who choose to do so in future. An honest opinion has to be based upon facts.

'Regrettably, there are too many out there who do not bother to check the facts when the facts do not support their factional view.'

Ofcom rejected 28 complaints against the programme for alleged bias, concluding that it was 'duly impartial' and included Labour's response prominently throughout.

Today, the party issued a press release entitled 'an apology from the Labour Party to Kat Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Dan Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Benjamin Westerman and Martha Robinson'.

It said: 'The Labour Party has today issued an unreserved apology to the former members of staff who contributed to a BBC Panorama programme about anti-Semitism within the Labour Party in July 2019.

'Before the broadcast of the programme, the Labour Party issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about these whistleblowers.

'We acknowledge the many years of dedicated and committed service that the whistleblowers have given to the Labour Party as members and as staff. We appreciate their valuable contribution at all levels of the Party.

'We unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and lying. We would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress, embarrassment and hurt caused by their publication. We have agreed to pay them damages.

'Under the leadership of Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, we are committed to tackling anti-Semitism within the Labour Party. Anti-Semitism has been a stain on the Labour Party in recent years. It has caused unacceptable and unimaginable levels of grief and distress for many in the Jewish community, as well as members of staff.

'If we are to restore the trust of the Jewish community, we must demonstrate a change of leadership. That means being open, transparent and respecting the right of whistleblowers. We are determined to deliver that change.'

A BBC spokesman said today: 'The BBC will always support fair and impartial reporting, exposing wrongdoing and holding power to account. The Panorama programme did precisely that, but was subject to an extraordinary and vitriolic attack by the Labour Party.

'We welcome today's long overdue apology to John Ware and the seven Panorama whistleblowers, who have been subjected to painful and damaging personal attacks on their integrity and character.

'We applaud their strength to take this case forward and are pleased it has been recognised in court that these extremely serious and damaging allegations against them were false and have been unreservedly withdrawn. 'John Ware is a reporter with an extraordinary record of excellence at Panorama for investigative journalism in the public interest.'

Speaking outside court after the hearing, Labour's shadow attorney general Lord Falconer said: 'It is a clear line under a dispute between the Labour Party and people who had been whistleblowers about anti-Semitism.

'The Labour Party made absolutely clear in its statement in open court that it withdrew completely any allegation of dishonesty or bad behaviour against the whistleblowers and the journalist involved.

'It is for the (Equality and Human Rights) Commission to make its findings public when it chooses ... but we have brought to an end a chapter when the Labour Party was accusing whistleblowers of behaving dishonestly and I'm incredibly glad that we have brought it to an end.

'We can focus now not on litigation, which is a disastrous thing for a party to be focusing on.

'Instead, it should be focusing on championing the things that matter to the public, so it's a good day.'

It comes nine days after Labour received a copy of a long-awaited report into whether it victimised Jews during the Corbyn years.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's draft conclusions have not yet been made public, but insiders expect them to be 'damning'.

The watchdog said when it launched its official inquiry last May that it 'suspected' that Labour had committed 'unlawful acts' in its handling of its anti-Semitism crisis.

Last month Sir Keir told his hard-left former leadership rival Rebecca Long-Bailey to resign after she retweeted an online interview which contained an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

There was fury over a passage in Maxine Peake's offending article where the actress said the US police had learned the tactics that killed George Floyd from the Israel secret services.
Police officers injured in the line of duty have told how cost-cutting attacks on their pensions have now devastated their retirement.

Money Mail reported last week how penny-pinching police chiefs were targeting pensions paid to injured officers.

Now retired officers have come forward to tell of their treatment at the hands of police forces they risked life and limb for.

Pension threat: An officer, who fell from a horse during a Black Lives Matter march in London, is pulled away by colleagues. Police chiefs are targeting pensions paid to injured officers

Injured officers say they have been accused of fraud, spied on, bullied into handing over medical records, and even been driven to attempt suicide.

Injury pensions are paid for life  but only if an officer can no longer work owing to harm suffered in the job.

Around 13,000 former officers receive injury pensions.

The awards are paid on top of their police pensions, which are typically reduced because the officer was unable to complete their service.

The payments can be reviewed, but campaigners and lawyers say police forces are increasingly abusing regulations and hauling retired officers before medical review panels  purely to save money.

Last week, 17 former Staffordshire Police officers took chief constable Gareth Morgan to a judicial review after his force demanded their full medical records, then slashed their pensions when they refused.

A judgment is expected within weeks.

Now, more injured officers have come forward to tell how the threat to their pensions has added to their pain.

Rate docked in identity error

Injured firearms officer Kevin Bridgwood was told his pension would be cut after blundering investigators at Staffordshire Police mistook him for someone else online.

Kevin suffered a severe spinal injury when he was brutally beaten rushing to the aid of a colleague on Christmas Eve in 1986.

He was finally forced to take an injury pension retirement in 1993, and now lives with constant pain.

But 25 years later, he was told that his injury and pension needed to be re-evaluated by Staffordshire Police.

Mr Morgan wrote to him last year, to say it would be cut because he had been working as a volunteer for St John Ambulance and also had a job in the construction industry.

He wrote: 'I considered that you were trying to prevent the true state of your disablement being revealed.'

It is understood the force had confused him online with another person of the same name. The chief constable wrote to him again last month to admit the error and withdraw the threat to his pension.

Kevin, who has not been able to work since he retired, says: 'It is unbelievable that a police force today could act like that.'

Kevin, who has also had to fund more than 500 physiotherapy appointments, is also now taking legal action against the force after it asked the NHS to share his private medical information.

Now 62, Kevin says: 'I've got no problem with reviewing, as long as they are doing it properly. But they aren't doing it properly.

'They just want to trawl through your records to find something to reduce your pension.'

Police forces say it is their duty to review injury pensions paid for from the public purse. But lawyers say that regulations require the reviews to be conducted on a case-by-case basis  and only at suitable intervals.

A Northumbria Police report from 2015 showed that reviewing nearly 300 injury payments over three years would cost 576,000. But the exercise would likely make the force 885,000 if one in four pensions were cut  saving 309,000 over the three years.

Many police forces do not routinely review injury pension payouts, unless requested by the officer. Kevin adds: 'It is just a postcode lottery.'

Stress triggered suicide attempt Distress: David Curry was attacked by three armed robbers in Gateshead town centre in 1987 David Curry was just 27 when he was brutally attacked by three armed robbers in Gateshead town centre in 1987. He was repeatedly bashed over the head with bricks, leaving his skull cracked open, and breaking his jaw, shoulder and back. The young officer was forced to retire aged 28 with an injury pension because he could no longer serve with Northumbria Police. Yet, more than 30 years later, he is now battling to protect his injury pension, which pays around 750 a month. David's brain trauma means he has memory problems, epilepsy, and suffers from seizures triggered by stress. He also has post-traumatic stress disorder. But, around five years ago, Northumbria Police wrote to him, demanding his condition be reassessed and his pension re-evaluated. The stress caused David to attempt suicide and be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He also says it contributed to the end of his marriage of 36 years. His GP has also even written to the force to say he had a 'poor prognosis' and the reviews were causing him a 'great deal of distress', causing his condition to deteriorate. David adds: 'They are like a dog with a bone, they won't let it go. It is scandalous. The public do not have a clue what is happening. They all assume we are being looked after.' Now 60, he says: 'It makes me feel very angry and bitter. I did the job a police officer should be doing. 'Their treatment years later, the way they are doing this, is totally reprehensible. It's disgusting the way they have been treating me and other officers. We are going to die eventually, just leave us alone.'

Put under surveillance

Officers harmed in the line of duty have been accused of malingering, and have even been put under surveillance by their own forces.

Injured officers say there is often a suspicion that they are exaggerating their injuries to get their hands on an injury pension. Yet in reality, many would be better off if they could keep working.

Jennifer, who did not want her full name published, suffered a back injury lifting a drunk into a police van in 2007.

But after complaints that she had 'misrepresented the extent of her disability', she was watched over four days and videotaped on the school run.

The investigation found she had no case to answer for misconduct and she was awarded an injury pension after she was forced to retire aged 35 in 2011.

But she was awarded the lowest rate, paying between 200 and 300 a month. Only last year was her condition reviewed on her request, and she was awarded more than 2,000 a month.

Police injury pensions are calculated on your ability to earn a wage outside the force. Jennifer is now fighting to win back more than 100,000 by taking legal action against Lancashire Constabulary, claiming it exaggerated her earning capacity by including bonuses she could earn in an office job.

Now, 43, she says she cannot sit down for longer than 10 minutes without pain.

She says: 'I did not want to give up. I loved being a cop. If anything, I was always making out that I was better than I was. I didn't want people to see I was broken and struggling.'

Force broke income for life promise Beaten unconscious: Ralph Barlow with his wife Ann Ralph Barlow served Staffordshire Police for 23 years, in a career that saw him beaten unconscious and stamped on. He was finally forced out of the job in 1993, when injuries to his ankle and spine meant he could no longer carry out his duties. In 2008, the force promised his pension was safe, in a letter that read: 'Your current injury award banding and pension are guaranteed for life.' But now, aged 71, he is locked in a legal battle with the force after chief constable Gareth Morgan demanded he hand over his medical records and cut his pension when he refused. Ralph, who is among the officers who took the chief constable to judicial review last week, says: 'What they are doing is diabolical.' The retired officer first risked his life for the force in 1974, when he was beaten unconscious by thugs and left with internal bleeding and a displaced spine. His wife Ann had been told that he could die. In the late Eighties, a prisoner stamped on his ankle, severing the membrane from the bone. But Ralph says: 'It counts for nothing now. I am just a drain on their financial resources.' The grandfather, who lives in Stoke-on-Trent with his wife of 50 years, says his injury pension pays around 5,000 a year  far less than what he would get if he had been able to finish his service. If the former officers lose the judicial review, Ralph will have to pay back around 7,000 of his pension. Ann, 71, says: 'I can remember when Ralph was proud to serve for Staffordshire Police, but he is not now. 'I don't think Gareth Morgan is any better than the criminals who injured my husband. He is still injuring him now, causing him pain and stress.'

Payments cut after diagnosis

Police dog handler Martin Howard* broke his back when he was thrown through the windscreen in a head-on crash with a patrol car.

He was out of action for a year and returned to duty, but could not cope and was forced to retire with an injury pension in 1995.

However, Northumbria Police cut his pension by more than 1,000 a month upon hearing he had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia.

Now 62, Martin says his pension was slashed when he revealed the diagnosis to the force in a questionnaire it sent to him. He says: 'I thought they would just leave me alone, but it was a red rag to a bull. It feels like they have persecuted me.'

It is understood that the force claimed the diagnosis had overtaken his brain injury as the prime reason he could no longer work.

The father-of-two, whose marriage broke down after the diagnosis, is now waiting to hear after appealing against the force's decision. He says: 'It is just a horrible way to do it.

'It's got to the stage now when retired injured officers are afraid to go to the doctor.

'I am in constant pain. I struggle with everything. I shouldn't have to spend my life fighting a police force who should have a duty of care.'

Around 13,000 former officers receive injury pensions, paid on top of their police pensions, which are typically reduced because the officer was unable to complete their service

Doubting their honesty

Paralegal and former policeman Mark Botham says his firm, Haven Solicitors, has had to fight for fairer payouts for officers who have suffered horrendous harm.

He says: 'They are put through a process where their honesty and integrity is called into question, when the only thing they have done wrong is be injured on duty.

'These people who have been very badly injured, often years ago, try to move on with their lives, and then they are subjected to a process that takes them back to where they started, by people who don't seem to have any empathy.'

Solicitor Mark Lake, of Taylor Law, adds: 'It is horrendous what these people go through. Most people in life have to cope with adversity, but what people can't abide by and struggle to deal with, is the uncertainty of it all.

'Some of them live in a siege mentality where they constantly fear the next review.'

An Injury on Duty Pensioners Association spokesman says: 'Poor and unfair treatment by forces has a huge negative impact on officers and their families.

'Marriages sadly fall apart owing to the stress, and those who are mentally unwell can end up suicidal or even find themselves sectioned to hospital, all because of how their force has treated them.'

A Northumbria Police spokesman says its reviews are carried out by an independent doctor to ensure injured officers receive the right amount of money and that the force spends public money appropriately.

He says: 'We remain committed to supporting our former officers throughout this process, and proactively engage with them directly and through the Police Federation.'

Staffordshire Police says Mr Morgan recognises the 'service and sacrifice made by officers who are permanently disabled by an injury on duty'.

b.wilkinson@dailymail.co.uk

(*not his real name)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio House Bill 6 bailed out two FirstEnergy power plants and gave subsidies to coal plants, while dismantling mandates designed to move Ohios clean energy landscape forward.

The controversial bill, passed last year, is now the centerpiece of a federal bribery investigation, which implicates Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, one of the most outspoken supporters of HB6, and four associates.

The corruption scandal is now prompting groups that already opposed HB6 because of its implications for the economy or environment to call for a re-examination of the bill, or its total repeal. Both the Sierra Club and American Wind Energy Association issued statements on the case Tuesday evening.

The legislative push to bail out legacy generation and roll back Ohios renewable energy commitments was always against the will of Ohioans, who overwhelmingly support renewable energy, American Wind Energy Association Eastern State Affairs Director Andrew Gohn said in a statement. It now appears that the passage of this bill was not just against the will of the people, but also may have involved serious and possibly criminal impropriety.

Supporters of the bill claimed the bailout would save jobs in nuclear energy and reconfigure surcharges to Ohio customers to save money. But those fighting against it, including environmental groups, balked at the changes which effectively gutted energy-efficiency and renewable-energy mandates for utilities.

The bill changed Ohios renewable-energy goal from a maximum of 12.5 percent by 2027 to 8.5 percent by 2026. Under Ohio requirements introduced in 2008, utilities must reduce customers power usage by 22 percent by 2027.

Under House Bill 6, these standards would end after utilities companies reached a 17.5 percent drop in customer power use.

The bill also included subsidies for coal power plants.

Neil Waggoner, the Sierra Club Ohios Beyond Coal Campaign representative, said this year the group has seen utilities companies petitioning the states public utilities commission to end energy efficiency programs, because companies are already hitting the lowered standard.

Theres a reason why people called HB6 one of the most regressive energy bills in the United States, he said.

The bill also had economic implications for renewable energy projects, like wind and solar, that might have expanded jobs in the clean energy space. Its difficult to discern the effect of the bill so far on those jobs because the clean energy market was also hit hard by the coronavirus.

One in six Ohio workers employed in clean energy are now out of work because of the pandemic, according to a report released in June from business group Environmental Entrepreneurs, or E2.

But clean energy advocates were also concerned that companies looking to start renewable energy projects in Ohio would be scared off because of the legislatures attitude toward the environment.

Jane Harf, the executive director of Green Energy Ohio, said businesses might not commit because of the instability of the clean energy sector caused by HB6. Companies want to know, when they start projects, that the states guidelines on clean energy arent going to change over the course of the project.

(Ohio is) a state that has not had that consistent policy profile, she said.

A lack of jobs could also cause the state to lose young professionals who want to combat climate change or work in clean energy. Before the coronavirus hit, clean energy jobs were growing 5 times faster than the overall economy, according to Clean Jobs Midwest.

Its also a position that might alienate young professionals who list a dedication to renewable energy as a priority when choosing somewhere to live, Waggoner said.

If youre looking at Ohio and youre seeing what were doing to fight climate (change) here is bailing out coal plants and making it harder to build clean energy, thats not a particularly attractive policy view, he said.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday called plans for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to send federal agents to Chicago a wrongheaded move on the part of Donald Trump, on the part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Pritzker said hes called the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security about the matter, but was told he couldnt possibly get back to me until about 48 hours from now.

Thats ridiculous, Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference Tuesday morning in downstate Collinsville. Theyre thinking about sending agents in, Federal Protective Service agents, into the state of Illinois, they need to answer to the governor of the state, to the mayor of the city of Chicago, to the attorney general of the state of Illinois. Were going to do everything we can to prevent them from coming, and if they do come were going to do everything we can from a legal perspective to get them out.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is crafting plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to the city this week, the Chicago Tribune reported on Monday.

The Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, agents are set to assist other federal law enforcement and Chicago police in crime-fighting efforts, according to sources familiar with the matter, though a specific plan on what the agents will be doing  and what their limits would be  had not been made public.

DHS in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while the Department of Justice indicated an announcement would be forthcoming on an expansion of what has been dubbed Operation Legend, which saw several federal law enforcement agencies assist local police in Kansas City, Missouri, including the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service.

One Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in Chicago, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, confirmed the deployment was expected to take place. The official noted that the HSI agents, who are part of ICE, would not be involved in immigration or deportation matters.

Federal agents being used to confront street protesters in Portland, Oregon, has raised alarm in many circles. Chicago, too, has dealt with protests that have led to injuries in recent days.

At an unrelated news conference Monday morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she has great concerns about the general possibility of Trump sending feds to Chicago based on what has happened in Portland.

If Trump wants to help, she said, he could boost federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives resources and fully fund prosecutors.

We dont need federal agents without any insignia taking people off the streets and holding them, I think, unlawfully, Lightfoot said.

Late Monday, Lightfoot appeared on the MSNBC show The ReidOut and said she will use every tool she has to stop Trump from sending troops to the city, including filing a lawsuit.

Were not going to have tyranny in the city of Chicago, Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot said the federal government could help by sending resources that work through the existing federal infrastructure but said shes concerned about the possibility of what happened in Portland happening in Chicago.
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As conversations over police brutality and racial inequality continue nationwide, students and faculty of California's largest university system have been calling for anti-racism reforms at their campuses.

Earlier this month, the California Faculty Association, the union that represents Cal State University faculty, laid out a raft of proposed changes for the 23-campus system, including that the CSU:

Require students to take an ethnic studies course to graduate

Defund and disarm on-campus police

Offer free tuition to Black and Indigenous students

Sharon Elise, the union's associate vice president of racial and social justice and a sociology professor at CSU San Marcos, said the union was "galvanized by the police murder of George Floyd to really step up" and address racism.

"We witness that our campuses have yet to really reform education, so that it would be culturally relevant to students of color, and that we need to address some of the things that really retard the success of students of color in particular," Elise told our culture and public affairs show Take Two.

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ETHNIC STUDIES

The union wants CSU to support AB 1460, a bill that would require students to take a three-unit class in one of the following ethnic disciplines: Native American studies, African American studies, Asian American studies, or Latina and Latino studies.

Michael Uhlenkamp, a Cal State spokesman, told us in a statement that CSU is committed to "working to address racial inequities" -- he noted that CSU and the union both support the repeal of Proposition 209, which has for years prevented universities from considering race or ethnicity in admissions decisions -- but otherwise "the tactics to accomplish this differ from what the union is presenting."

CSU Chancellor Tim White put forth an alternative proposal for students to have the option to take either an ethnic studies course or a social justice course before they graduate. A CSU Board of Trustees committee approved the proposal on Tuesday. It now goes before the full board on Wednesday.

But Elise argues a more general social justice course doesn't address the core issue. Ethnic studies "are explicitly linked to the struggles of people of color in society. These programs emerged from those struggles, and they express the academic side of those struggles," she said.

Brett Hernandez, a current student at Cal State LA, said he liked "that people of color are being given a voice to tell their story through ethnic courses," and have the opportunity to share "their history, their American journey, despite all the racial injustices"

"Ethnic courses should have been made mandatory long ago," he added.

Elise said that based on her 30-year teaching experience, "the fact of the matter is a single course can transform a student's outlook," and will usually "whet the appetite of students for further study and engagement."

Still while AB 1460 has passed in the Senate and Assembly, it has yet to be signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom. If he does sign it, AB 1460 would supersede the chancellor's proposal.

DEFUNDING POLICE

Each of the 23 campuses currently has its own independent police department, and officers in those departments have access to firearms and other weapons.

CSU faculty said the Cal State schools need to "remove armed police from our campuses, and join CFA in exploring community based strategies as alternatives to policing that are based in community accountability and transformative justice."

Elise added that they are advocating for the CSUs to reallocate funds to instead provide more mental health counselors and crisis intervention teams.

"We are told when we come into our campuses as new faculty ... for all kinds of crises that we are to call the police. So this is the kind of training we get in our orientations: call the police," she said. "When you see an upset student: call the police. If you need to address an intense situation, given our own traumatizing experiences with police as well as those of our students, we know police are not counselors. They're not social workers."

There are far too many polie on campus "and they often disproportionately police and harass students of color," said Siana Fields, a student at CSU Monterey Bay.

"I think it might be very striking to some people to have an idea of not having police on campus," she added. "But I think the CFA does an important job of including that there are other ways and other alternatives to policing."

Uhlenkamp said the universities' police departments are all committed to community policing and have pledged to implement recommendations from President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, including providing more data on police shootings and on civilians' attitudes toward the police, as well as removing policies that reward officers who produce more arrests and convictions.

This particular demand comes as the country continues to grapple with the police killings of Black men and women, and as the Black Lives Matter movement pushes for police reform -- a demand that has been promoted regarding campus police at K-12 schools across California, but not yet at public universities.

Earlier this month, LAUSD board members voted to cut $25 million from the L.A. School Police Department. Meanwhile in northern California, the Oakland school board voted to eliminate its police department altogether.

FREE TUITION FOR BLACK AND INDIGENOUS STUDENTS

The CSUs are some of the most ethnically and racially diverse universities in the country: 38% of CSU employees and 60% of CSU students are people of color. But gaps remain.

The faculty union is calling on the CSU to provide free tuition for students who are Black or Indigenous due to a "decades-long trend of declining enrollments amongst" that population.

As part of its call for free tuition for these students, campuses need to "prioritize increasing enrollment and retention rates for marginalized students, particularly Black students," the union said.

In a follow-up interview, Elise said the union thinks tuition should be free for all students, but the short-term focus is on those populations that have seen a decline in enrollment. She said Latinos, for instance, "are in sufficient numbers at our universities, they can have some assurance that they'll find other students like them on campus."

When asked how CSU should fund this demand and others, Elise said the university should "draw from its rainy day funds in the same way that the state has been doing."

"We know it's raining," she added. "And we need to redirect the resources that we do have to prioritize addressing systemic racism, just as the governor has drawn from rainy day funds to address the covid crisis."

LISTEN TO THE FULL SEGMENT FROM TAKE TWO:

UPDATES:

Thursday 7/23 at 3:47 p.m.: This story was updated with a follow-up quote from Sharon Elise.
New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry in a press release on Wednesday (July 22, 2020) informed that India has recorded the highest ever number of recoveries in the last 24 hours. With as many as 28,472 patients getting discharged the total number of recoveries is more than 7.5 lakh. The recovery rate in India is over 63%.

The increasing number of recovered patients has widened the difference between the active cases and recovered cases downt to 3,41,916 with as many as 4,11,133 actve cases re. This difference is showing a progressively growing upward trend.

While in 19 States/ UTs the recovery rate is higher the national average. Delhi tops the chart with the highest number of recoveries at 84.83% followed by Ladakh and Telangana with 84.31% and 78.37%, respectively.

Other states and UT's on the list are: Haryana with 76.29%, A&N Islands with 75.00%, Rajasthan with 72.50%, Gujarat with 72.30%, Chhattisgarh with 71.81%, Assam with 71.05%, Odisha with 70.96%, Tamil Nadu with 70.12%, Manipur with 69.48%, Chandigarh with 68.97% and Uttarakhand with 67.99%.

Meanwhile, India on Wednesday recorded a spike of 37,724 cases and 648 deaths in the last 24 hours. The country's total tally mounted to 11,92,915 which includes 4,11,133 active cases, 7,53,050 cured/discharged/migrated and 28,732 deaths, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has tested a the total of 1,47,24, 546 samples till July 21 including 3,43,243 samples tested yesterday.
As Massachusetts schools continue to prepare their reopening plans, state education officials released protocols for responding to COVID-19 scenarios in schools.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the 19-page guidance this week which outlines school responses for if a student or school staff member tests positive for coronavirus, who should get tested for COVID-19 and when and in what circumstances members of the school community would need to quarantine.

The guidance follows a recommendation from top education officials that Massachusetts students return to the classroom.

Part of our responsibility as educators, administrators, and parents is to do all that we can to help our children in this difficult time, said Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeffrey C. Riley said in June. As we all know, there is no substitute for the attention and engagement that is only possible with in-person learning. We can mitigate the risks associated with COVID-19 for in-person school programs and prevent the significant consequences of keeping students out of school and isolated. It will take all of us working together to make this successful.

The decision to reopen schools was based in part because of the lower infection rate of COVID-19 among children and the negative impact of keeping children out of the classroom.

In a Suffolk University/MassLive poll released in June respondents were split on whether they thought it was safe to send children back to schools for in-person learning, with 50.8% of respondents indicating they do not yet feel comfortable sending kids back to the classroom.

While there is a push to return students to the classroom, educators are preparing for the transition to remote learning both on an individual level for students who test positive or need to quarantine due to a possible exposure or if positive cases within the school or community require a school-wide transition to remote learning.

The following are answers regarding reopening schools in the fall.

What if a student or school staff member exhibits symptoms of COVID-19?

They must get tested for an active COVID-19 infection and the result return as negative prior to returning to school.

What are symptoms of COVID-19?

The symptoms include:

Fever (100.4 Fahrenheit or higher), chills, or shaking chills

Cough (not due to other known cause, such as chronic cough)

Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath

New loss of taste or smell

Sore throat

Headache when in combination with other symptoms

Muscle aches or body aches

Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea

Fatigue, when in combination with other symptoms

Nasal congestion or runny nose (not due to other known causes, such as allergies) when in combination with other symptoms

Where can my child get tested?

A list of test sites is available here, and Massachusetts also has an interactive testing map. Additionally, every school should maintain a list of available testing sites.

Will COVID-19 testing be offered in schools?

As of now, its not recommended by state education officials. Students and staff should discuss testing with their health care providers.

A student is tested and the results come back negative for COVID-19. When can they return to school?

The student can return to school once they are asymptomatic for at least 24 hours.

What if a student tests positive?

Remain home. Notify the school of the results, the local board of health and people with whom the child has been in close contact with recently. Most people who have relatively mild illness will need to stay in self-isolation for at least 10 days and until at least 3 days have passed with no fever and improvement in other symptoms, the guidance states.

What if my child is symptomatic but I cannot get them tested?

State guidance tells parents to remain home in self-isolation for 14 days from when symptom(s) first presented.

What action will occur if a student exhibits symptoms on the school bus?

Education officials emphasize that families are the most important first line of defense for monitoring symptoms. Students are expected to stay home if they exhibit symptoms of COVID-19.

Bus drivers and monitors will be trained on watching for possible symptomatic students. If a student shows symptoms of being sick while getting on the bus, state education officials said they should not be allowed to board and their caregiver should take them home. That protocol assumes a parent or guardian is waiting at the bus stop with the student.

If a student exhibits symptoms on the bus, they must keep their mask on and distance from other students. The bus driver will place a call to the bus service dispatch to contact the school regarding the possibly symptomatic child.

Upon arrival, the school nurse will evaluate the student. If they exhibit symptoms, they will be placed in the designated medical waiting room to be picked up by their parent or guardian.

What if a student is symptomatic at school?

The student will be evaluated by the school nurse for symptoms. If they exhibit symptoms, they will be placed in the designated medical waiting room to be picked up by their parent or guardian.

What if a staffer is symptomatic at school?

They develop symptoms during the day they see the school nurse to be evaluated for symptoms. If the nurse determines there are no COVID-19 symptoms, they must follow the schools standard protocols for being excused due to illness. If COVID-19 symptoms are presented, they must head home then follow testing protocols.

If their test returns negative, they must stay home until they are asymptomatic for 24 hours.

If their test returns positive, they must remain at home. Notify the school of the results, the local board of health and people with whom the staffer has been in close contact with recently.

A family member or another person my child was in close contact with tested positive. What should I do?

If the child was at home when their parent or guardian learned of the possible exposure, they should be kept at home and be tested four to five days after their most recent exposure to the person.

If they are at school when the possible exposure is learned of, state guidance calls for the student to be masked for the remainder of the day (including K-1 students) and adhere to strict physical distancing. At the end of the day, they should go home and should not take the bus home. They should stay at home and be tested 4 or 5 days after their last exposure.

After being tested, they should follow the above-outlined protocols for if they test negative, positive or are not tested.

How will a school respond to a student or staff member testing positive for COVID-19?

The school will determine when the last time the student or staffer was on school grounds two days prior to the onset of symptoms - or testing if they were asymptomatic. The school must close off areas visited by the positive student or staffer so they can be cleaned and disinfected prior to reopening. If the student or staffer traveled on the school bus, it must be disinfected as well.

For elementary school: Communication will be sent to other families in the students class to notify them of a positive test without naming the person. Those who may have gotten within six feet of the student are staffer will be urged to get self-quarantine and get tested four to five days after their last exposure to the person. If they choose not to get tested, they must remain home for 14 days.

For middle and high school students: As students in upper grades shift between classrooms more, the school will contact staffers and families of students in classes throughout the students scheduled day.

Students who were within six feet of the individual in class or on the school bus will be urged to get self-quarantine and get tested four to five days after their last exposure to the person. If they choose not to get tested, they must remain home for 14 days.

Multiple students and/or staff members test positive. Will the school close?

If there is more than one confirmed COVID-19 case (students or staff) in the school at one time, or if there is a series of single cases in a short time span, school leaders and the superintendent should work with the local board of health to determine if it is likely that there is transmission happening in school, state guidance says.

When there is in-school transmission beyond a single classroom or cohort, school officials may close part of the school or the entire school for several days for an extensive cleaning - likely one to three days - or close the school fully or partially for two weeks to allow for a school-wide quarantine period.

If multiple cases are present in multiple schools, district officials must consult with the local board of health in determining if there will be a district-wide closure for several days or weeks.

If a school decides to close, it will immediately transition to remote learning.

My community is seeing a growing number of COVID-19 cases. Will the schools close?

In the case of a significant municipal outbreak, as determined by the local board of health or DPH, the superintendent and school leaders must consult with the local board of health to determine whether it is appropriate to close a specific school, schools, or an entire district, the guidance states.

Will there be another statewide transition to remote learning?

Its likely. Each district is being asked to outline how they welcome back students for in-person learning at the start of the school year, a mix of in-person and remote learning and exclusively remote learning. Districts are expected to invite as many students back into the school as possible for in-person learning this fall though be prepared for shifting back to remote learning temporarily or for an extended period again.

Each plan must offer remote learning for children who cannot safely return to the classroom due to underlying medical conditions.
A Chinese coast guard ship is seen from an Indonesian Navy ship during a patrol in waters of Indonesias exclusive economic zone north of Natuna Island in the South China Sea, Jan. 11, 2020.

Indonesia is staging a major naval exercise this week in the Java Sea and the South China Sea, the contested waterway where tensions have risen lately between China and the United States.

The Indonesian Navys Western Fleet held an exercise in the Java Sea on Wednesday as part of a week of drills by Southeast Asias largest nation that began on July 18, naval officials said. These will include an amphibious warfare exercise on the beach at Singkep, an island in Indonesias Riau chain in the South China Sea, they said.

The program includes sea battle simulations and 2,000 personnel, 26 warships, 19 aircraft and 18 marine combat vehicles are taking part in the drills, Naval Fleet Command I spokesman Lt. Col. Fajar Tri Rohadi said.

At the fleet level, this is the most complex exercise, because there will be more exercises involving all naval units, Fajar told BenarNews on Wednesday. The days drills in the Java Sea included damage control activities, communications, simulations of anti-submarine and surface warfare, he said.

The exercises were designed to be just like real operations, Naval Fleet I chief Rear Adm. Ahmadi Heri Purwono said, according to Viva, an Indonesian news portal.

In other developments related to the defense of the archipelago nations coasts and territorial waters, the coast guard (Bakamla) announced Wednesday that it had launched the Indonesia Maritime Information Center (IMIC), which will publish periodic reports on the nations maritime security.

Sending a message

Beni Sukadis, a military observer at the Indonesian Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies, said the drills are part of the countrys efforts to assert its maritime sovereignty.

Even though we dont have many warships, we are showing that we have the determination to assert our sovereignty, he told BenarNews.

In terms of capacity building and professionalism, routine exercises are necessary. It can be once or twice a year. It sends a message that the Navy is trying to improve its capacity, he added.

According to the Global Power Fire (GFP) 2019 report, Indonesias navy has 282 ships in its fleet, including seven frigates, 24 corvettes, five submarines and 156 patrol vessels. However, the Indonesian Navy has no aircraft carriers.

In mid-2019, the military branch conducted a month-long exercise involving 8,493 personnel in the Java Sea.

Indonesia is not a claimant in the South China Sea dispute, which involves the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam  all fellow members of the ASEAN  along with China and Taiwan.

But in 2016 and late 2019, tensions flared between Jakarta and Beijing over the presence of Chinese fishing boats swarming in South China Sea waters near Indonesias Natuna Islands, which are located in Riau Islands province.

Indonesia has declined Chinas invitation to hold talks on what Beijing called overlapping claims of maritime rights and interests in waters off the Natunas, which lie in the southern reaches of the South China Sea.

Beijing claims historic and fishing rights in parts of the sea that overlap Indonesias exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but Indonesia rejects this.

Meanwhile last week, in the disputed Paracel Islands, a chain claimed by both China and Vietnam, eight Chinese fighter jets were visible at Beijings key military base in the area.

The aircrafts sighting coincided with another round of naval exercises Thursday involving two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups  the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan. The first maneuvers began on July 4 and lasted six days, the first such dual carrier drill by the U.S. in the South China Sea in at least four years.

In a watershed statement issued earlier this month, the United States toughened its stance on the South China Sea issue when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that America stood with its Southeast Asian allies in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources.

Pompeo included Indonesias Natuna Islands in the statement that branded Beijings claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea as completely unlawful.

The two rival superpowers have since traded verbal criticism over the South China Sea. Beijing, through its embassy in Washington, responded to Pompeo by accusing America of continuing to interfere in the South China Sea issue and stirring up tension and inciting confrontation in the region as well as flexing its muscles under the pretext of preserving stability.

In recent days, apart from its public denunciation of Beijings claims and actions in the South China Sea, the United States has also carried out a series of actions targeting China, including sanctions over Chinas imposition of harsh security laws in Hong Kong and over human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
A screen grab shows a watch party ad for the Korean show "Strong Woman Do Bong Soon," which features, from left, actors Ji Soo, Bo-Young Park and Hyung-shik Park. (Rakuten Viki)

The first episode of the Korean fantasy drama Guardian: The Lonely and Great God started at 7 p.m. last Wednesday. Viewers reacted to the scenes unfolding in front of them, commenting on the actors, the plot, and urging others to not spoil the show for newcomers.

Its much more fun to watch this again with other people, one viewer said early in the showing.

It may seem like a typical movie night among friends, but the comments were all made online, and most of the viewers had likely never met.

The streaming site Rakuten Viki launched its Watch Party function in May, giving users the chance to connect with each other across screens. Unlike Netflix Party, the free Google Chrome extension that allows friends to watch shows together, Rakuten Viki plans the watch party itself and any of its users can join.

The streaming service, which offers free and paid tiers, has surged in popularity this year. The company said it now has more than 15 million subscribers globally (including those watching free with ads), up 50% from a year ago.

While many streamers have seen increased traffic since the COVID-19 pandemic locked people in their homes, Rakuten Viki has capitalized on the rising demand for Korean content and become a go-to streaming site for East Asian television shows and films. In the last year, U.S. demand for Korean-language content has grown by 66%, according to the L.A.-based research firm Parrot Analytics.

The trend in the Korean wave actually began over 20 years ago, and its been building for many years leading up to the recent breakthrough, Rakuten Viki Chief Executive Sam Wu said. So weve been seeing that growing appetite in Asian content firsthand here.

On Rakuten Viki, users can curate collections of shows on the site, at least one of which is focused on dramas that feature K-pop idols. Additionally, many of the sites subtitles in more than 130 languages are generated by users and volunteers who compete to contribute the most content, giving the site its name.

Story continues

Viki is meant to be a mix of the words "video" and "Wiki," playing on the idea that the subtitles are user-generated, like content on the site Wikipedia.

Owned by the Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten, Viki offers more than 1,300 shows and movies, including originals, from Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based company was launched in 2007 by three Stanford and Harvard graduate students  with funding from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and a Singapore startup backed by Joichi Ito  to tap into the growing global demand for Asian content.

Tokyo-based Rakuten, which also owns companies in advertising, telecommunications and e-books, acquired the streaming site in 2013 as part of its own global expansion.

Rakuten Viki uses a tiered subscription system, offering free content with ads and monthly subscriptions of $4.17 or $8.33.

Although it targets a global audience, Rakuten Viki has a big following in the U.S., where it attracted 5 million users in the last month. The company has more than 100 employees with offices in Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo and Singapore.

The platform boasts the largest library of Korean content, which gained popularity after the film Parasite won four Academy Awards in February.

Streaming site Rakuten Viki uses a tiered subscription system, offering free content with ads and monthly subscriptions of $4.17 or $8.33. (Rakuten Viki)

A similarly focused streaming site, DramaFever, was owned by Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank Group, and streamed Korean content to global audiences. But in 2016, Warner Bros. acquired the company, and within two years shut it down amid licensing violations and other problems, leaving an opening for Viki and others.

Several other streaming sites have since broken into the genre as demand for Korean content has climbed. Netflix started expanding its original and licensed Korean content after it launched in Asia about five years ago. And NBCUniversal, which just launched its new streaming site, Peacock, signed a deal with South Korean streaming site Wavve to license content and invest in the production of future content.

Even so, Rakuten Viki maintains it has the shows that American viewers want to watch. Among the sites hosting the top 10 most in-demand Korean-language series in the U.S., Rakuten Viki beat out Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube.

"In fact, Viki houses three of the four most in-demand Korean-language series with U.S. audiences," said Alejandro Rojas, director of applied analytics at Parrot Analytics. "As the streaming market gets more crowded and competitive, personalized curation of foreign content is a successful strategy to cut through the clutter."

Rakuten Viki recently signed a nonexclusive deal with Orange County-based distribution company 815 Pictures, adding more than 30 projects from the company to the site, including "Midnight Runners," "Mr. Zoo: The Missing VIP" and "A Violent Prosecutor." But 815 Pictures Managing Partner K.J. Lee said the deal goes beyond licensing agreements.

He said Rakuten Viki is very in-touch with the U.S. Asian film market, giving 815 Pictures recommendations on which projects to acquire based on which actors are doing well in the U.S., and what films are trending.

"Sometimes, before we acquire the contents from Asia, we discuss with Viki, 'Hey Viki, we have this kind of opportunity, what do you think?' Lee said. We highly respect their comments on those contents.

Wu says his company's niche content offers unique interactions with the fan base of Korean and other Asian content, giving it an edge in the market, especially considering the fan base is known for its force online.

K-pop fans allegedly reserved tickets to President Trumps rally in Tulsa, Okla., and never attended, and flooded the hashtag #WhiteLivesMatter with signals of support for the Black Lives Matter movement, all the while sharing videos and photos of K-pop stars.

The community within Viki, they really like to share their fandom," Wu said. "So that means they love to share this with friends, families, on social media."

Rakuten Vikis Watch Party is just the most recent addition to expand the site's community of users at a time when people remain sheltered in their homes and unable to go to movie theaters or concerts.

Wu said the function was being developed well before the pandemic, but it has presented a solution to the new issues of isolation.

We've heard from users that through Viki, they feel a sense of belonging and they feel connected to the community when they consume content, Wu said. They feel like theyre no longer alone, and they feel like theyre a part of a community, and they feel connected to other fans that love the same type of content that they love."
Are you in the mood for a great short movie-or a lineup for a double feature in the home theater? Check out this list of the best movies that clock in on the short side.
CALGARY, Alberta, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Toscana Energy Income Corporation ("Toscana" or the "Corporation") (TSX: TEI) announces financial and operating results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020.



Financial and operating results:

This news release summarizes information contained in the Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements (unaudited) and Managements Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020. This news release should not be considered a substitute for reading the full disclosure documents, which are available under the Corporations profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Corporations website at www.toscanaenergy.ca .

Three months ended Six months ended June 30 June 30 2020 2019 Change 2020 2019 Change OPERATIONAL Average daily production (boe/d) 661 1,080 (39%) 771 1,102 (30%) Gas (Mcf/d) 1,852 2,463 (25%) 1,936 2,563 (24%) Oil (bbl/d) 332 612 (46%) 413 604 (32%) NGL (bbl/d) 20 58 (66%) 35 70 (50%) Average prices received ($/boe) 14.78 45.87 (68%) 24.48 43.51 (44%) Gas ($/Mcf) 1.54 1.10 40% 1.73 1.69 2% Oil ($/bbl) 19.79 73.54 (73%) 35.54 68.47 (48%) NGL ($/bbl) 17.35 32.25 (46%) 24.04 31.60 (24%) FINANCIAL Petroleum and natural gas revenue, net of royalty expense ($) 736,771 4,035,543 (82%) 3,050,048 7,966,721 (62%) Total revenues ($) 838,207 5,334,208 (84%) 5,111,264 8,145,192 (37%) Netback ($) (1) (678,937) 1,817,481 >100% (932,118) 3,030,547 >100% Netback per boe ($/boe) (1) (11.29) 18.49 >100% (6.64) 15.20 >100% Adjusted funds flow from (used-in) operations ($) (1) (122,173) 650,896 >100% (1,711,557) 695,030 >100%

Notes:

(1) Non  IFRS measure.





Outlook

As a result of the world wide COVID-19 pandemic and continued over-supply of oil by OPEC countries and other producing countries, global oil prices continue to remain volatile. The Corporation has shut-in its low netback oil wells and minimized future spending on all of its assets. Lower oil prices and the reduced average daily production volumes, due to shut-in oil wells continues to negatively impact the Corporations cash flows from operations. The COVID-19 pandemic is an evolving situation that is expected to continue to have widespread implications on the Corporations business, results of operations, financial condition and the environment in which it operates.

Non-IFRS measures:

Management uses netback, Adjusted funds flow from operations, to analyze operating performance and to determine the Corporations ability to fund future capital investment. These terms, as presented, do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and therefore may not be comparable with the calculation of similar measures for other entities. Readers are cautioned regarding the reliability of such measures.

Netback typically equals (a) petroleum and natural gas revenue (including royalty revenues), net of royalty expense (b) realized gains and losses on risk management contracts and (c) less operating costs, net of processing income and is generally calculated on a per boe basis. As a non-IFRS measure, operating netback is an indicator of the financial performance of the Corporation. The Corporation uses such term as an indicator of financial performance because such term is commonly utilized by investors to evaluate companies in the energy sector. The Management of the Corporation believes that operating netback is a useful supplemental measure as it provides investors with information on operating margins per barrel of oil equivalent for such periods.

Management calculates Adjusted funds flow from operations as net earnings (loss) plus the addition of non-cash items (depletion, depreciation, accretion, share-based compensation, gains or losses on the sale of property and equipment and unrealized gains or losses on risk management contracts, gain on dentures amendments, etc.) and settlement of decommissioning liabilities.

As a non-IFRS measure, these measures are an indicator of the financial performance as it demonstrates the Corporations ability to generate the cash necessary to fund future capital investments and to repay debt. The Corporation uses such term as an indicator of financial performance because such term is commonly utilized by investors to evaluate companies in the energy sector. The Corporation believes that these measures are a useful supplemental measure as it provides investors with information of what cash is available in such periods.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This news release contains forwardlooking statements and forwardlooking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forwardlooking statements or information. Forwardlooking statements and information are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "appear", "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "approximate", "expect", "may", "will", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intend", "could", "might", "should", "believe", "would" and similar expressions.

More particularly and without limitation, this news release contains forwardlooking statements and information such as growing oil production should provide for better operating netbacks; the forecasted weak natural gas prices and whether or not resolving natural gas pipeline constraints will generate a significant change in natural gas prices. Although management of the Corporation believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forwardlooking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

The forwardlooking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forwardlooking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws or the Toronto Stock Exchange. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

About Toscana Energy Income Corporation

Toscana Energy Income Corporation is a conventional oil and gas producer with the mandate to acquire high quality, long life oil and gas assets.

For further information, please contact:

Ryan Heath, Chief Executive Officer

Tel: (403) 355-0455

Fax: (403) 444-0090

SOURCE: Toscana Energy Income Corporation
North West Migrants forum (NWMF) is inviting anyone and everyone to come along to join its 5k Community walk towards racial equality in St Columb's Park on Saturday at 12pm.

The Derry-Londonderry based charity is holding the community walk in facilitation with their Friendly Faces Club that exists to connect people and communities while promoting good health and well-being.

PPE equipment, such as facemasks and gloves, will be available for everyone in attendance and there will also be a light lunch provided at the outdoor facilities of Cafe in the Park.

Aynaz Zarif, the Friendly Faces coordinator from North West Migrant Forum said: Since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, all of our groups, have gone online and met virtually so we are very excited to be getting to meet in person again.

"As with all the services and events we run at the NWMF, the core purpose of everything we do is to help us move towards a society where all human rights are respected and equality, justice and fairness are guaranteed for all citizens. Holding this community walk is a way to help us raise awareness for our cause while also having fun and staying fit in the process.

"We also want to reassure everyone that as per the government regulations, groups of up to 30 people are allowed to gather outdoors so therefore we will be allocating participants to different groups, with a maximum of 30 per group. This event is suitable for everyone aged 11+ but families with children under 11 are also welcome to attend however the NWMF will not be responsible for anyone in attendance under the age of 11."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 10:42:27|Editor: huaxia

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OTTAWA, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Canadian Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Howard Njoo urged Canadians Tuesday to continue following public health measures as COVID-19 cases among young people continue increasing.

"We've succeeded overall in flattening the curve (of COVID-19), but that success is fragile and it only takes a few sparks and so on to backslide," said Njoo at a press conference in Ottawa.

Njoo made the remarks as COVID-19 cases trend upwards in Canada, especially among young people, with many cases linked to bars, restaurants and private parties.

Canada's averaged daily count stood at 300 cases in early July, which rose to an average of 350 per day over the last week, and in the last four days, there have been around "450, 460 cases per day," he said.

"We're concerned and we're monitoring closely in terms of, hopefully, it's just a temporary blip. But we will obviously have to see what happens in the days and weeks to follow in terms of following the number of cases among young adults," Njoo said.

If certain venues, such as bars and restaurants, continue to be associated with the transmission, "they're prepared to make adjustments as necessary," he said.

Restaurants and bars have reopened in recent weeks almost across Canada, though owners are required to follow strict distancing guidelines.

As of Tuesday evening, Canada reported 111,697 confirmed cases with 8,783 deaths, according to CTV News. Enditem
<! Funtua and Obasanjo >

By Adejoke Adeleye

Former Nigerias President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has recounted how late Ismaila Isa-Funtua fought the late despotic leader, Gen. Sani Abacha with his newspaper.

Obasanjo, who reacted to the death of Funtua on Tuesday said he was the publisher of the Democrat Newspapers during military dictatorship, particularly the regime of General Sani Abacha, when decrees restrained freedom of speech.

He said Funtuas newspaper thundered against the ills of that era and that until his death, he was the life patron of Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and that his contributions were always that of a committed patriot with a well-developed sense of equity, justice and fair-play.

Obasanjo described Funtua as a rare quality during his tenure as the President of Nigeria in 1999-2007.

Obasanjo in reaction to the death of the elder statesman, business mogul and politician, through his media aide Kehinde Akinyemi, said that his contributions to the implementation of the nations capital in the years would not go unrecognized.

He said there is no doubt, this is a grievous loss to his family, his friends and associates, Katsina State and, indeed, the entire nation. We commiserate with the entire family of Mallam Isa-Funtua and the great people of Katsina State over this great loss.

Mallam Isa-Funtua was a well-respected elder-statesman, an accomplished business mogul/publisher, an astute politician and a frontline industrialist whose various contributions to the development of governance and public administration have ensured for him an evergreen memory in the hearts of many admirers and associates, particularly during the administration of H.E. President Shehu Shagari under whom he served as Honourable Minister of Water Resources as well as during his membership of the committee of the 1994-1995 Constitutional Conference that came up with models in key areas of Nigerias existence.

As the founder of Bulet International Nigeria Limited, Mallam Isa-Funtuas robust identification with the objective of my administration as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007 in implementing the master plan of the nations capital, FCT, cannot go unrecognised. He built some of the iconic public buildings in Abuja and remained steadfast in making the FCT a more habitable place and a major tourist and investment zone.

Obasanjo also acknowledged Funtuas efforts in educational and philanthropic activities, in particular, his great contributions, as a member of Board of Trustees of the Bells University of Technology (BUT) to the orderly growth and development of the institution will remain evergreen in the annals of the University.

He exhibited boundless generosity through his kind donation to the erection of the entrance gate of the BUT. His direct involvement in the administration of the University and kind gestures, no doubt, could easily be considered as a testimony of his deep love, concern and admiration for the University in particular and human capital development in general.

Our nation also certainly owes him a debt of gratitude for the immense contributions he had made over the years to the development of media industry in the country. He was the publisher of the Democrat Newspapers during military dictatorship, particularly the regime of General Sani Abacha, when decrees restrained freedom of speech and his newspaper thundered against the ills of that era. Until his death, he was the life patron of Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and his contributions were always that of a committed patriot with a well-developed sense of equity, justice and fair-play.

For his patriotism, courage, frankness and steadfastness, Mallam Isa-Funtua will be long remembered by those who knew him and those who care about the evolution of a virile democratic culture in our nation.

We pray that the Almighty will forgive him his sins and comfort his family and friends.

Related
LOS ANGELES - The Sierra Club apologized Wednesday for racist remarks its founder, naturalist John Muir, made more then a century ago as the influential environmental group grapples with a harmful history that perpetuated white supremacy.

Executive Director Michael Brune said it was time to take down some of our own monuments as statues of Confederate officers and colonists are toppled across the U.S. in a reckoning with the nations racist history following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Muir, who founded the club in 1892, helped spawn the environmental movement and is called father of our national parks, figures prominently in what Brune called a truth-telling about the groups early history.

He made derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life, Brune wrote on the groups website. As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muirs words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of colour.

Muir, who was born in Scotland, came to the U.S. as a young man and travelled and wrote extensively, romanticizing nature in breathless passages. He emphasized the need to preserve the land but also disdained American Indians as dirty savages and Black people as lazy Sambos, a particularly offensive slur.

He also kept company with other early club members and leaders, such as Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan, who advocated for white supremacy and promoting the race through eugenics, which called for forced sterilization of Blacks and other minority groups, Brune said.

Until recent years, Muirs legacy has been largely untarnished and focused on his conservation efforts, such as saving Yosemite Valley before it became a national park and preserving the worlds largest trees in what became Sequoia National Park.

But Richard White, a Stanford history professor, said Muirs advocacy for wilderness has an inherent racial bias.

Muirs image of pristine wilderness unshaped by humans only existed if native people werent part of it. Even though they had been there for thousands of years, Muir wrote that they seemed to have no right place in the landscape. American Indians needed to be removed in order to reinvent those places as untouched.

There is a dark underside here that will not be erased by just saying Muir was a racist, White said. I would leave Muirs name on things but explain that, as hard as it may be to accept, it is not just Muir who was racist. The way we created the wilderness areas we now rightly prize was racist.

Muir is so widely revered that his name appears across California on everything from schools to national monuments, one of the states highest peaks, a giant swath of scenic Sierra Nevada wilderness that is bisected by a trail in his name and a national historic site. The discernible profile of Muir  with long beard, brimmed hat and walking stick gazing at Yosemites Half Dome  was stamped on the 2005 California quarter when the U.S. Mint was producing a commemorative coin for every state.

In Alaska, where he travelled extensively, a glacier and an inlet in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve are named for Muir, as likely is a mountain east of Anchorage.

You cant walk into a national park gift shop without coming face-to-face with T-shirts, mugs and tchotchkes bearing one of his pithy  often overused  quotes, such as The mountains are calling and I must go.

Revisiting Muirs offensive remarks comes as environmental groups and the outdoor industry aim to be more inclusive during renewed racial awareness following Floyds death. The killing of the Black man in May has sparked weeks of protests and led to calls to rename places named for Confederate officers and remove statues of historical figures who held slaves or colonized or exploited Native Americans.

Brune said the Sierra Club once excluded people of colour as it catered to middle- and upper-class whites. He said the focus on preserving recreational lands once inhabited by Indigenous people who had been driven out by white settlers wilfully ignored the plight of minorities who were fighting environmental injustices in their own communities.

For all the harms the Sierra Club has caused, and continues to cause, to Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of colour, I am deeply sorry, Brune wrote.

He pledged to hire a more diverse staff and invest in environmental and racial justice work.

___

Associated Press journalist Mark Thiessen in Anchorage contributed.
How the bridge stretching between Northern Ireland and Scotland could look

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce funding for a study to explore the viability of a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The Daily Record has reported that Mr Johnson will announce the plan as part of his visit to Scotland on Thursday.

When contacted by the Belfast Telegraph Downing Street said they would not be commenting on the speculation.

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It's understood the bridge study is part of the PM's 5bn "build, build, build" strategy to help the UK recover from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The bridge, between Portpatrick and Larne, would span 28 miles and cost in the region of 20bn to build, with Mr Johnson previously estimating the cost at around 15bn.

It was revealed last month that no money had been spent looking into the idea, despite the PM speaking publicly in favour of it several times.

Expand Close Boris Johnson has repeatedly spoken about the prospect of a bridge linking Scotland and Northern Ireland (Stefan Rousseau/PA) / Facebook

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Asked in March why no funding had been announced for the plan in Chancellor Rishi Sunak's budget, Mr Johnson's Scottish Secretary Alister Jack responded "watch this space".

Mr Jack has also suggested that a tunnel may be a more viable option than a bridge.

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The idea has been backed by the DUP, with First Minister Arlene Foster described the suggestion as positive and MP Sammy Wilson saying that Mr Johnson could "win back the trust" of unionists by building a link between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

However SDLP Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon said the money would be better off spent tackling existing issues within Northern Ireland, a view echoed by UUP leader Steve Aiken.

The Scottish Government has also expressed skepticism at the plans.

Then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, speaking last October, said Mr Johnson was "genuinely interested" in building the bridge.

I know people dismiss it, but I dont. It needs to be looked at. It needs to be at least examined," he said.

Critics have hit out at the cost of the bridge and spoken of the risks of World War Two munitions still in the Irish Sea.

Economic experts at the Fraser of Allander Institute said a new crossing would neither boost the economy nor improve connectivity.

In short, it wont deliver the economic boost some claim, it isnt a priority, it would go to the wrong location, it wouldnt be consistent with climate change objectives and the money could be better spent on other things," their assessment read.

Apart from that, its a cracking idea.
Rouhani: Iraq PM visit to Iran milestone in bilateral ties

Iran Press TV

Tuesday, 21 July 2020 3:44 PM

President Hassan Rouhani says the visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi  the latter's first foreign trip in the capacity  will serve as a "milestone" in bilateral ties between the two neighbors.

"I am positive that this trip functions as a milestone in [the process of] development of the two friendly and brotherly countries' relations," Rouhani said at a joint press conference with Kadhimi in Tehran on Tuesday after a face-to-face meeting with the premier.

The Iraqi prime minister arrived in the Iranian capital earlier in the day at the head of a high-ranking politico-economic delegation at Rouhani's invitation. Upon arrival, the Iraqi delegation was welcomed by Iran's Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian before an official ceremony at the Saadabad complex in Tehran.

Kadhimi, who assumed his country's premiership in May, had planned to visit Saudi Arabia on his first official trip, but he postponed the visit on account of Saudi King Salman's hospitalization for "some medical tests."

$20-billion trade in focus

After welcoming the Iraqi delegation and expressing gratitude towards Kadhimi for accepting his invitation, Rouhani said his administration was determined to take the volume of Iran and Iraq's annual bilateral trade to $20 million.

The president acknowledged that Kadhimi took over Iraq's premiership "in very sensitive circumstances." Nevertheless, his incumbency so far has witnessed "a favorable movement [forward]" in the development of the countries' bilateral trade, Rouhani added.

The chief executive also said the Islamic Republic was capable of providing Iraq with whatever it needed in terms of sanitary and medical requirements in the face of the new coronavirus outbreak.

Rouhani also honored the memory of "the two heroes of anti-terrorism fight," Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force.

General Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was assassinated in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport on January 3, along with Abu Muhandis and a number of their companions. The strike came while General Soleimani was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital.

Both commanders were extremely popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

Earlier in July, Agnes Callamard, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, underlined the "unlawful" nature of the operation because the US had failed to provide evidence of an ongoing or imminent attack against its interests to justify the strike.

The visit by al-Kadhimi, who has defined Iraq's sovereignty as his redline, came after the Arab country's Supreme Judicial Council said Baghdad regarded the US assassination of the duo on its soil as a criminal act. The Council also said Baghdad and Tehran would jointly sue the United States over the atrocity.

Rouhani said General Soleimani and Abu Muhandis were among those "who strove towards Iraq's security over the past years," adding that his talks with Kadhimi also featured "the role that Iraq can play as a powerful Arab country in the region" among other issues that concern the regional affairs and stability.

Al-Kadhimi: Defending Iran our 'rubric'

The Iraqi premier, for his part, thanked Rouhani for inviting him to travel to Iran "in order to fortify the countries' historical relations." He said the countries' ties dated back hundreds of years, and were not simply based on continuity.

"Iraq will be treating defending Iran as a rubric [defining its performance]," Kadhimi noted.

He said Iraq's foreign relations were "balanced" and free from all favoritism. That is why Iraq would never let its soil serve as a launch pad for any threat against "our friendly" neighbor, Kadhimi said.

"We fought against Takfiri terrorist outfits together," he said. "The Islamic Republic was among the first countries to stand by Iraq's side [in the area] and we will not forget this."

The Iraqi prime minister was referring to the military advisory support that Tehran started extending to Baghdad after Daesh's emergence in the Arab country in 2014.

Iraq after 'premium' ties with Iran

"I emphasize this as I am addressing my Iranian brothers that Iraq wants premium relations with the Islamic Republic that are based on the principle of non-intervention in each country's internal affairs," Kadhimi noted.

He laid emphasis on the need for optimum coordination between the countries that would serve their respective interests in light of the existing challenges, including the coronavirus outbreak and the fall in oil prices.

"Iraq will also help Iran put the economic challenges that it faces behind," he concluded, asserting that his country has turned into a sizable market for Iranian trade.

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Some people are afraid to have a test because they would have to isolate if its positive

More than 1,300 people have refused a Covid-19 test despite being at risk of the killer disease after being in close contact with an infected person.

The figure showing 1,314 have snubbed the offer was revealed by the HSE to the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response.

National clinical director for health protection Dr Lorraine Doherty said the HSE was concerned about people not turning up for tests.

"It shows the public are becoming disengaged with the idea of having a Covid-19 test if they are symptomatic or if they are a contact because they understand the implications of having a test and that they would need to restrict their movements," she said.

"For people in workplaces, they might be reluctant to be tested.

"However, our public health messaging is very clear - you should have a test if you are symptomatic or in contact with someone who is symptomatic."

Fine Gael TD Fergus O' Dowd said: "The gardai may need to call to people's doors if they refuse to come for a Covid-19 test."

It comes as 36 more people were diagnosed with the virus yesterday, confirming an on- going high level of new infections.

There were no deaths from the virus, the sixth day in the past 10 days when no fatalities have been reported.

The number of patients in intensive care remains low at seven.

Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said: "Today I am asking everyone to stay the course on the public health measures needed to suppress Covid-19, such as covering coughs, handwashing, use of face coverings and two-metre social-distancing, which are essential for continuing the momentum toward the re- opening of our schools and the resumption of our healthcare services."

Stark

The HSE also indicated yesterday that it will reduce the two-metre rule in some settings to facilitate health services.

Meanwhile, a stark insight into poor infection control in many Covid-hit nursing homes, where the doors of infected residents' rooms were left open and staff suggested a "neighbour might do the laundry", was revealed in a report yesterday.

Half of all people who have died from the virus in Ireland were residents of nursing homes, and the report, based on inspections by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), shows how many homes were ill-equipped to deal with the threat.

In one case, chief inspector Mary Dunnion was so concerned about the ability of one outbreak-hit nursing home to care for 16 residents that there was an emergency court order to close it down on May 30.

The report shows that of the 44 homes inspected since May, most failed to fully meet regulations and six in 10 were in breach of governance and management standards.

The findings revealed:

Half of the nursing homes visited had inadequate infection prevention and control measures in place.

In one case, the bedroom door of a resident positive for the infection was open.

Staff were observed caring for residents in close proximity without using surgical masks.

In other homes, temperature checks on staff were not logged.

Nursing homes were hit by staff shortages, and in some cases had outdated layouts where residents shared bedrooms and bathrooms.

In more than one in five of the homes, there was a lack of staff, with several off sick with the virus.

Covid-19 has brought into sharp focus the need for reform of current models of care for older people.

Ms Dunnion said: "We must look to complementary models of care, such as homecare and assisted living, and ensure that there is improved clinical oversight in all nursing homes."
My Criminal Record Doesn't Make My Life Any Less Valuable

A Black Man's Experience of the American Justice System

Being a Black man in America is hard. The odds are stacked against you from birth, up until you reach your final resting place. The terrain is filled with various landmines: be it impoverished living conditions, single-parent homes, a society that was built to systematically oppress you and impede your ability to build generational wealth. These themesthough nothing neware permeating conversations across the media today, not to mention dinner tables of those who have not been directly exposed to injustice.

RELATED: How Black Men Move Through the World

While being a Black man is a continuous struggle in itself, being a Black man with a criminal record is a whole different animal. In my experience, it can expose you to the worst that the American criminal justice system has to offer.

Before My Incarceration

As a youth, I can vividly recall various occasions when the presence of law enforcement felt more threatening than reassuring. I once witnessed my fathera convicted felonbeing led out of our home by officers after violating his parole. The charge stemmed from an incident between my father and a fellow colleague who referred to him in a racially-derogatory manner. My father, who admittedly threw the first punch, was fired and sent back to prison. The other employee was issued a warning and sent back to work. Although he later explained to me that he could have handled the situation better, the lesson I took from it was that there are different sets of rules for Black men and those of other races.

As I peered out the window and looked at my father in cuffs, a deep sadness came over me. The altercation would go on to affect my immediate family economically and emotionally.

Years later, that moment would also prove to have an adverse affect on my view of law enforcement and the criminal justice system. At the age of nine, I understood the impact that removing a father from the family unit has on a household. He wasnt the only of my relatives and friends' fathers who was absent due to the legal systemminor or non-violent infractions, mind you.

Experiences Magnified

Outside of my own experiences, tragedies like the deaths of Sean Bell, George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks are also reminders of how Black men are a target. According to the research group Mapping Police Violence, who are able to track over 90% of killings in the United States, of more than 1,000 American civilians killed by police in 2019, 24% were Black (though Blacks comprise only 13% of the population).

Like my father (and me), Sean Bell was a convicted felon who had been previously arrested on drug and firearms charges. He was fatally shot by undercover cops on the morning of his wedding day, when they wrongly suspected he was carrying a firearm. In the aftermath of that shooting, his reputation was tarnished, and his efforts at reforming his life ignored or downplayed. As I watched the medias portrayal of what happened to Bell, a question crossed my mind: Should having a criminal record make your life any less valuable?

My Rights

As I grew older, the experiences my father faced (plus, other men in my community) gradually became my own. My friends and I would often get harrassed and profiled by local patrolmen. We were young, brown and mischievous. As I came of age, I admit to making some bad decisions. A joyride in a stolen car led to my own arrest, leaving me with the first real blemish on my adult criminal record. I was tased after I gave up the chase. Lucky for me, the "resisting arrest" charge was ultimately dropped.

I didn't face any significant jail time as a result. Years later, I would go on to have multiple encounters with law enforcement, judges, and prosecutors. A Black man with a criminal history tends to put a target on your back. Regardless of how long you've been out of trouble, your past can haunt you. Cops will ask, have any priors? When the answer is yes, the line of questioning deepens even when youre not doing anything wrong.

So I ask this: People who have been convicted of crimes and paid their debt to society by serving timeare they ever fully cleared? From Mike Brown to Rayshard Brooks who have perished at the hands of others, were their lives valued? Were their lives perceived as important as people without criminal records? Now, change their skin color. How would you answer? Would their lives be valued then?

At 32, I am a decade removed from my last criminal conviction. I've turned my passion for storytelling into a career as a writer and journalist and by most accounts am a law-abiding citizen. However, every time I'm ever asked about my criminal history and ethnicity during the application process for a job or opportunity, it gives me cause to pause. Will I be less valuable?

And if I ever find myself staring at the barrel of a police officer's gun, they wont ask about my character, inquire about my past contributions to my community, or consider that Im a productive member of society. They'll just ask if I have a criminal record.

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Ruling party should first build consensus



Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon, floor leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), has reignited a debate about relocating the country's capital to the newly built administrative town of Sejong, 130 kilometers south of Seoul. On Monday, Kim called for Cheong Wa Dae, other remaining government offices and the National Assembly to be moved out of Seoul to Sejong.



The next day he proposed the establishment of a special National Assembly committee to discuss how to "complete the formation of an administrative capital." He emphasized the need for a "balanced development" of the country through the relocation of the capital. His proposal is gaining support from some DPK heavyweights such as former Prime Minister Rep. Lee Nak-yon, and former Interior Minister Kim Boo-kyum.



Even President Moon Jae-in has virtually endorsed the suggestion by making a pitch for balanced development in his recently announced Korean New Deal program. During a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Moon said the program was aimed at "shifting the axis of national development" from the capital and its surrounding metropolitan area to other parts of the country.



We could not agree more with President Moon and Rep. Kim. It is imperative for South Korea to address decentralization with the serious problem of economic and demographic concentration in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province where 50.2 percent of the country's population resides.



But the liberal government and the ruling DPK should take a more careful and sophisticated approach toward the capital relocation issue. The Roh Moo-hyun administration tried and failed to push for a similar plan in the face of strong objections from conservative opposition parties and residents of Seoul and the sprawling metropolitan area. The opponents brought the issue to the Constitutional Court which ruled in October 2004 that the relocation plan was unconstitutional.



The ruling made the Roh government push for its plan on a limited basis. As a result, the next government under President Lee Myung-bak began to move government ministries and agencies to Sejong in 2012. But the presidential office, several ministries including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and other judiciary buildings remain in Seoul.



Now, the Moon administration is pushing for the once-botched plan to relocate all the buildings of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary to Sejong. The new push is nothing more than a relocation of the capital to the new administrative town. That is why such a plan requires a constitutional revision.



The government and the DPK should first build a national consensus in order to revive the relocation plan. If they cannot do so, the plan cannot be pushed again. The conservative main opposition United Future Party (UFP) is firmly against the relocation although it agrees on the need for decentralization.



By proposing the capital relocation, the DPK is also trying to bring the issue of a constitutional amendment to the fore. Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug and Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun have recently floated the idea of changing the basic law since Moon failed to push for the revision in time for the June 2018 local election. It, however, remains to be seen whether the ruling camp can successfully push for an amendment to change the power structure and relocate the capital to the new city.


Details added: first version posted on 12:42

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 21

By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:

Azerbaijan is not going to participate in the imitated negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Assistant to Azerbaijans President, Head of Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev said.

He made the remark at a press conference held on July 21, commenting on the OSCE Minsk Group activity, Trend reports.

The mandate envisions holding negotiations, guided by international principles, the Helsinki Final Act and UN Security Council resolutions, he added.

The assistant to Azerbaijans president also stressed that the Azerbaijani side expects from the Minsk Group co-chairs to multiply their efforts and intensify the negotiations.

Hajiyev said that 11 states are participating in the Minsk process, and it is necessary to hold an extended meeting with the participation of all the states.
In some senses, Rockridge Little School has not changed since COVID-19 engulfed the Bay Area. Wooden blocks and cubbies still line the shelves. Small jackets still hang from the coat racks. Scraps of butcher paper from an unfinished art project lie scattered across the tables.

But after a three-month closure, the school shrank from 110 students to 30, forcing founder Holly Gold to close one of her three Oakland facilities. She and the teachers divided the remaining kids into pods and set up partitions to keep them from mingling: The red group uses a separate toilet and sink from the blue group, and children follow a trail of masking tape to stay in their contained area each morning.

Meanwhile, Gold is piling up debt from another school she remodeled in North Berkeley, in hopes of opening it this fall. Its future is uncertain.

During an interview Monday, she broke into tears.

Everything was perfect and ready to go, she said. I have the staff, I have the school, I have the philosophy, I have this amazing space. Im just hoping that September will be a turning point.

Her financial burdens resemble those of child care programs throughout the state. Some have closed their doors permanently. Others opened reluctantly, fearing that a long-term closure would drive them out of business. Many are on the edge, unable to pay the rent and lacking money to buy snacks or cleaning supplies.

Photos by Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

A new report from UC Berkeleys Center for the Study of Child Care Employment presents the crisis in stark terms. After surveying 953 programs throughout California from June 22 to July 1, it concluded that the states attempt to restart the economy has only escalated the crisis in California child care, exposing providers to the dual threats of health risk and the potential collapse of their programs.

As the pandemic surges and counties stumble through the start-stop process of reopening, the child care industry  a vital crutch for working parents  is facing financial ruin. The report lays out a grim scene. Roughly a quarter of the programs remain closed, and of those that have opened, 77% have lost income from tuition and 80% now contend with higher cleaning costs.

Providers are taking on credit card debt, missing rent or mortgage payments, and paying employees but not paying themselves, said Sean Doocy, co-author of the report.

New social distancing rules have limited most programs to a fraction of their normal capacity, adding to the financial strain and creating a child care shortage just as parents prepare to return to work. Many who relied on public school as a path to child care are now casting about for babysitters, moving back home with grandparents or leaving the workforce altogether. Parents of kindergartners are trying to keep those children in preschool.

Yet the coronavirus has also exposed an unsettling social divide, as wealthy parents shell out for tutors and nannies, and lower-income parents compete for a dwindling number of child care spots or subsidies. The child care industry, a patchwork of small businesses and nonprofits run mostly by underpaid women of color, will now have to fill in for public schools that have closed.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Doocy and other experts are now grappling with the conundrum that child cares are struggling so much, at a time when theyre also desperately needed.

We know educators in kindergarten through 12th grade are voicing concerns about health risks of opening schools, he said. Theyre writing op-eds, theyre unionized, they have collective bargaining power not to go back to work.

His voice fell. Thats not the case with this workforce. These are economically disadvantaged women of color who live in communities that are more at risk of COVID-19.

Beatriz Leyva-Cutler sees all sides of the child care puzzle in her role as executive director of the Bay Area Hispano Institute for Advancement, a Berkeley nonprofit that provides bilingual preschool and child care.

There are different camps of families, Leyva-Cutler said. Some have resources. They can (pay for) an in-home nanny or they open their circles to collaborate with other families. Other parents are taking their children to work with them, she said, noting that many people who work as nannies or caretakers now bring their own children along.

Still others have lost jobs and are now applying for child care subsidies so they can return to the workforce, Leyva-Cutler said. With the limited (subsidy) slots we have, that means all the child cares will have long waiting lists.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Kristin Bailey and her wife, Erica Simon, count themselves among the lucky. They live in Berkeley and still have steady jobs  Bailey managing a health care portfolio, Simon as a physician  earning enough to pay for nannies to look after their 3-year-old sons. But COVID-19 still added financial stress. The two moms had made a $2,000 deposit for a preschool, but decided not to send their children for fear of exposure to the coronavirus. They ate the loss and increased their nannies wages, which now hover at about $50,000 a year.

Were so lucky, and were just trying to do the best thing for everyone, Bailey said. Nonetheless, she worries about what would happen if she got laid off.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

And then were doing a major left-hand turn, she said.

In addition to financial hardships, many child care providers say they are frustrated with the states nebulous and inconsistent guidelines, some of which are difficult to implement. Of the programs interviewed for the UC Berkeley study, 34% said they cannot adhere to social distancing guidelines with young children. Twenty-seven percent say the guidelines are unclear. Some say the only way for the government to truly help is to offer more money.

San Mateo County is doing just that. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors earmarked $2 million in federal stimulus funds for child care, worried that a scarcity of these programs would prevent parents and caregivers from working.

Gold is contending with a different problem. Shes open for business in an area where families are more affluent, and have the income to hire nannies or babysitters. With fears of shared spaces still omnipresent, Gold is trying to lure them back.

On Tuesday morning, her big school on College Avenue seemed empty, with no one playing with the train set or sitting on the circular rug. But the kids who had come that day were happy, she said. Most were bouncing outside in the playground, behaving just as they had before shelter-in-place orders took hold.

Theyre having a great time, Gold said. I dont think theyve missed a beat.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan
" " The Cape Florida Lighthouse at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne, Florida, off the coast of Miami, stands at the site of one of the major launch points of the Underground Saltwater Railroad. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

When we hear the term "Underground Railroad," we usually think of the network of secret overland routes traversed by fugitive slaves escaping north into Ohio and across the border into Canada.

In early 19th century America, the Underground Railroad launched a freedom movement that brought people of varying religions and races together in a unified fight against the horror and injustice of chattel slavery.

But did you know there was a Southern version of the Underground Railroad as well?

"There is a Southern Underground Railroad that is little known, not just to the average American, but also to many students of U.S. history," says Dr. Paul George, resident historian at HistoryMiami Museum, in an email interview.

In the early 1800s, enslaved Black people in Florida and other regions of the deep South were hundreds of miles from border states like Maryland and Kentucky and thousands of miles away from the "promised land" of British Canada, making their options and odds for a successful escape close to zero.

"The Saltwater Underground Railroad headed south into Spanish Florida  a region which was really off the grid and close to other areas outside of the U.S. which might be havens for fugitive slaves," says George.

Believed to have operated between 1821 and 1861, the Saltwater Underground Railroad refers to the coastal escape route followed by fugitive slaves into the British-controlled Bahamas. Fugitives from Southern slave states sought refuge on South Florida's beaches. "An underground from Georgia and Alabama, maybe South Carolina too, extended into Spanish Florida," says George.

From there, some paid for their passage on Bahamian vessels, while others made their way across the perilous Atlantic in dugout canoes and small boats. Once out to sea, under cover of night, they faced unimaginable unknowns: unpredictable weather and storms, recapture by slave hunters, assault by pirates, and unfathomably deep, dark waters.

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Why Escape To the Bahamas?

Situated 150 miles (241 kilometers) off the coast of Key Biscayne in Miami, Florida, the Bahamas were a viable destination for several reasons. For one, in 1825 the British government decreed that anyone who relocated to British territory was free, regardless of their prior status. And in 1834, slavery was abolished in all British territories, including the Bahamas. Secondly, most of its inhabitants were Black, making it possible for resistance movements on the islands to take hold. Free Blacks in the British Bahamas could get married, own land and pursue an education  basic human rights that were inconceivable for enslaved human beings in the antebellum South. And because the population was mainly Black, it was easy for fugitive slaves to assimilate into a diverse community of native Bahamians, made up of Bahamian descendants of African slaves, Africans and maroons, also called "Black Seminoles," who were runaways from the deep South and Gulf coast who sought refuge with the Seminole Indians in Florida.

" " The sign at Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne, Florida, commemorating the Underground Saltwater Railroad. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

"They settled into neighborhoods alongside families of earlier fugitives," says George. "Many of their descendants still reside there. Maritime people, as well as farmers."

Between 1821 and 1837, in the early years after the U.S. acquired Florida from Spain in 1819, hundreds of maroons fled to Andros Island in the Bahamas. The U.S. paid off Spain's debt to landowners who'd lost their slaves, aka "property," and began a 40-year campaign to locate and capture formerly enslaved Africans who had escaped to Spanish Florida in order to avoid plantation slavery, as well as to force the Seminoles onto reservations west of the Mississippi on the Trail of Tears.

In 1526 the Spanish had brought the first enslaved Africans to what would later become America's Southern shores  nearly 100 years before the British colonized North America. "Slaves had been in Spanish Florida since the late 16th century. They labored in the fields and groves," says George.

In an effort to destabilize British colonies farther north, Spain began offering asylum to fugitive slaves in 1693, but only if they converted to Catholicism and did four years of military service. That enticing policy made Spanish Florida into a haven for fugitive slaves and led to the birth of the first sanctioned free black settlement  Fort Mose  in what would ultimately become the United States.

"There was, near St. Augustine, Fort Mose, a community of ex-slaves, who likely provided assistance to fugitives from points north," says George. "Ultimately, the fugitives ended up at the Cape Florida Lighthouse, awaiting evacuation to the Bahamas by abolitionists or boat captains. Andros Island was a favorite refuge of these fugitives."

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Florida Becomes a U.S. Territory in 1821

But with the ratification of the Onis-Adams Treaty in 1821, Florida effectively became a U.S. territory that allowed slavery, spurring Black Floridians to make their way through palmetto fields, dense marshy flats, mangrove forests, swamps with jutting aerial roots, and other harsh terrain, to the beaches of southern Florida where they could hopefully secure safe passage to freedom in the Bahamas.

"Miami was likely the main escape point of the Saltwater Underground Railroad, more specifically Key Biscayne on the bay and ocean, seven miles southeast of Miami. With the Cape Florida lighthouse up by 1825, it was all over for that main escape route of the Saltwater Underground Railroad," says George. "We tend to view history from a British vantage point. Thus, all things Spanish Florida at the time were overlooked. Ironically, the Saltwater Underground Railroad ends on the tip of Key Biscayne about where the lighthouse stands today."

Here is an introduction to a series called the "Saltwater Underground Railroad Experience: Retracing Pathways to Freedom:"

Historians estimate that by the 1830s as many as 6,000 enslaved people had escaped to the Bahamian islands.

Today there are two designated National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom sites in Florida: Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas and Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne.

Now That's Interesting If the first attempt to plant a colony on American soil hadn't collapsed, the first permanent settlement founded by non-indigenous people would not have been European  it would have been African.

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Originally Published: Jul 22, 2020
SANTA CLARITA, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Due to the continued progression of COVID-19 and related decisions of various government, health authorities, and airlines regarding travel restrictions, Princess Cruises is extending its pause in cruise operations impacting the following voyages:

All cruises sailing in and out of Australia on Majestic Princess, Regal Princess, Sapphire Princess, Sea Princess, and Sun Princess through October 31, 2020

All sailings in Asia , Caribbean, California Coast, Hawaii, Mexico, Panama Canal, South America & Antarctica , Japan, and Tahiti/South Pacific through December 15, 2020

"We share in our guests' disappointment in cancelling these cruises," said Jan Swartz, Princess Cruises president. "We look forward to the days when we can return to travel and the happiness it brings to all who cruise."

Guests currently booked on these cancelled voyages who have paid Princess in full will have the option to receive a refundable Future Cruise Credit (FCC) equivalent to 100% of the cruise fare paid plus an additional non-refundable bonus FCC equal to 25% of the cruise fare.

For guests who have not paid in full, Princess will Double the Deposit, providing a refundable FCC for the money currently on deposit plus a matching bonus FCC that can be used on any voyage through May 1, 2022. The matching bonus FCC is non-refundable, will not exceed the base cruise fare amount of the currently booked cruise, and will have a minimum value of $100 per person.

To receive the above FCCs, no action is required by the guest or their travel advisor. Alternatively, guests can request a full refund for all monies paid on their booking through this online form. Requests must be received by August 31, 2020 or guests will be registered for the Future Cruise Credit option.

Princess will protect travel advisor commissions on bookings for cancelled cruises that were paid in full in recognition of the critical role they play in the cruise line's business and success.

The most current information and instructions for booked guests affected by these cancellations, and more information on FCCs and refunds, can be found online at Information on Impacted & Cancelled Cruises.

About Princess Cruises :

One of the best-known names in cruising, Princess Cruises is an the fastest growing international premium cruise line and tour company operating a fleet of 18 modern cruise ships, carrying two million guests each year to 380 destinations around the globe, including the Caribbean, Alaska, Panama Canal, Mexican Riviera, Europe, South America, Australia/New Zealand, the South Pacific, Hawaii, Asia, Canada/New England, Antarctica and World Cruises. A team of professional destination experts have curated 170 itineraries, ranging in length from three to 111 days and Princess Cruises is continuously recognized as "Best Cruise Line for Itineraries." In 2017 Princess Cruises, with parent company Carnival Corporation, introduced MedallionClass Vacations enabled by the OceanMedallion, the vacation industry's most advanced wearable device, provided free to each guest sailing on a MedallionClass ship. The award-winning innovation offers the fastest way to a hassle-free, personalized vacation giving guests more time to do the things they love most. The company is part of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK).

SOURCE Princess Cruises

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The State Department confirmed on Wednesday the U.S. has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston, prompting Beijing to insist on firm countermeasures unless Washington immediately reverses its decision.

The move is an escalation of political tensions between the world's two largest economies.

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the directive to close China's consulate general Houston was made to protect American intellectual property and the private information of its citizens.

The Vienna Convention says diplomats must "respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State" and "have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State," Ortagus continued.

She added that Washington would not tolerate the People's Republic of China's violations of U.S. sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior.

China condemned the decision, warning of firm countermeasures if the U.S. fails to urgently rescind the order.

"The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily news briefing, The Associated Press reported.

Washington has given China three days to close the consulate in the fourth largest U.S. city, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.

Alongside the embassy in Beijing, the U.S. has five consulates in mainland China, according to its website, in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang and Wuhan, where the coronavirus pandemic started. A possible closure of the Wuhan consulate could complicate efforts to share information about the virus.
A woman holds a small bottle labeled with a "Vaccine COVID-19" sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken on April 10, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

The phase-two clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate created by the Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Chinese biotech company CanSino Biologics has found that it is safe and can induce an immune response, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday.

Also on Monday, The Lancet published the results of phase-one and phase-two clinical trials of a similar adenovirus vectored vaccine developed by scientists at Oxford University and biotech company AstraZeneca. That vaccine also demonstrated success in safety and potency against COVID-19.

Experts have called these results "promising". However, pressing questions remain, such as the longevity of its protection, the appropriate dosage to trigger a strong immune response and whether there are host-specific differences such as age, sex or ethnicity. These questions will be probed in larger scale phase-three trials.

An adenovirus vectored vaccine works by using a weakened common cold virus to introduce genetic material from the novel coronavirus into the human body. The idea is to train the body to produce antibodies that recognize the coronavirus spike protein and fight it off.

In the phase-two trial of the Chinese vaccine, 508 people took part, 253 of them receiving a high dose of the vaccine, 129 a low dose and 126 a placebo.

Ninety-five percent of participants in the high dose group and 91 percent in the low dose group had either T-cell or antibody immune responses 28 days after receiving the vaccine. T-cells can directly target and kill invading pathogens, making them a key part of the human immune response.

The authors emphasized, however, that no participants were exposed to the novel coronavirus after vaccination, so it is still too early to say whether the vaccine candidate can effectively protect against COVID-19 infection.

As for adverse reactions, fever, fatigue and injection-site pain were some of the noted side effects of the Chinese vaccine, though most of these reactions were mild or moderate.

Another caveat was that with the vector for the vaccine being a common cold virus, people may have preexisting immunity that kills the viral carrier before the vaccine can take effect, which could partially hamper the immune responses. Compared with younger people, older participants generally had significantly lower immune responses, the study found.

Chen Wei, who spearheaded work on the vaccine, said in a news release that elderly people might possibly require an additional dose to induce a stronger immune response, but further research would be needed to evaluate that approach.

CanSino, the developer of the vaccine, is in talks on launching phase-three trials in several foreign countries, Qiu Dongxu, executive director and co-founder of CanSino, said at a conference in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, on Saturday.

An accompanying editorial in The Lancet on the two latest vaccine studies called the results of the trials from China and the United Kingdom "broadly similar and promising".
Katie Price has been left devastated after her daughter Princess' puppy Rolo tragically passed away.

The TV personality, 42, was reportedly distraught after the French bulldog was found dead, mere weeks after she bought him for Princess' 13th birthday.

Princess also took to Instagram to pet a heartbreaking tribute to Rolo, saying she 'missed him already' along with a gallery of snaps of her pet.

Sad: Katie Price has been left devastated after her daughter Princess' puppy Rolo tragically passed away

Princess penned the tribute: 'Rip baby boy I love you so much u meant everything to me miss you already @katieprice.'

A source also told The Sun: 'Rolo was found dead by Harvey's carer and they had to phone Katie to break the news.

'Katie is devastated and heartbroken and had to call Princess and break the news. Everyone's in floods of tears.

'It was a tragic accident nobody could have foreseen - it's no-one's fault, but Katie can't stop crying.'

A representative for Katie Price declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline.

Tragedy: A source claimed the TV personality was distraught after the French bulldog was found dead, mere weeks after she bought him for Princess' 13th birthday

Emotional: Princess also took to Instagram to pet a heartbreaking tribute to Rolo, saying she 'missed him already' along with a gallery of snaps of her pet

'I miss him': The devastated teen shared a gallery of snaps featuring her beloved pet, following news of his tragic death

Passed away: The tragedy comes just five months after Katie's pet Alsatian Sparkle died, after she escaped from her home before being hit by a car

Katie bought little Rolo for her daughter Princess as a 13th birthday present last month, and the teen had already shared videos of her pet's tricks on her YouTube channel.

It was reported Katie bought the dog after Princess' dad Peter Andre refused, due to his wife Emily suffering an allergy to dogs.

The tragedy comes just five months after Katie's pet Alsatian Sparkle died, after she escaped from her home before being hit by a car.

Sweet: Katie bought little Rolo for her daughter Princess as a 13th birthday present last month, and the teen had already shared videos of her pet's tricks on her YouTube channel

It's the latest pet of Katie's to sadly pass away, after her dog Queenie also died in 2018 after being hit by a delivery driver.

Katie currently owns another Alsatian named Blade, who sleeps in her room and acts as a protection animal for the household, after being the victim of a carjacking last year.

It also comes after she was seen emotionally leaving the hospital with her son Harvey, 18, after he spent 10 days fighting for his life in intensive care.

A source close to the former glamour model told MailOnline she was 'delighted' to be taking her son home after a 10-day long stint in hospital.

Katie recently revealed eight doctors fought to save Harvey's life after suffering from breathing complications and his temperature rising to 42 degrees.
Donald Trump announced Wednesday he will "sruge" federal law enforcement officers to Chicago "immediately" to quell violence there, building on a similar force already operating under legally questionable orders in Portland.

Democratic lawmakers have accused the president of using the federal police deployments as a campaign tactic. Part of his sales pitch for a second term, despite trailing former Vice President Joe Biden nationally and in most key swing states, is that he is a "law-and-order president." But majorities of American voters, according to multiple polls taken in recent weeks, oppose Mr Trump's response to violence across the country, a large portion of which is linked to the killing of George Floyd and other black people by white police officers.

The FBI, ATF, Drug Enforcement Agency, US Marshall's Service and Department of Homeland Security will send "hundreds" of what he called "very skilled" officers to Chicago "immediately," he said during an East Room ceremony.

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Linkedin Steve Scherer (Reuters) Ottawa, Canada  Wed, July 22, 2020 11:11 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066858c73 2 World Canada,justin-trudeau,ethics,ethic-probe,coronavirus,COVID-19,spending Free

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's third ethics probe in as many years will bring greater parliamentary scrutiny to his government's COVID-19 spending, analysts said on Tuesday, as polls showed him losing gains made while managing the pandemic.

Trudeau's Liberal Party was soaring in polls earlier this month after having shoveled more than C$210 billion in direct emergency aid out the door in less than four months and as Canada got the coronavirus outbreak under control.

But the tide turned quickly after Canada's ethics commissioner put the prime minister under investigation for breaking conflict-of-interest rules when his government tapped WE Charity Canada, which had paid significant speaking fees to his mother and brother in recent years, to run a C$900 million student grant program.

"It's very hard to play politics with the pandemic," said David Coletto at Abacus Data, whose poll this week showed the Liberals had lost four points since the previous survey in June, though they still lead the Conservatives. "But an ethics scandal is music to [the opposition's] ears."

After several months of lockdown, Canada is gradually opening up again. The sense of urgency has passed, Coletto said, making way for additional scrutiny that will slow the creation of future COVID-19 aid or stimulus.

"The nature of this crisis is no longer, Move fast!" he said. "Public appetite for a slower, more deliberative process is higher now than it was."

Trudeau lost his majority in parliament in October and depends on opposition parties for support. The latest ethics scandal has united those three parties -- at least temporarily -- and they have opened their own investigation in the House of Commons finance committee.

Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau, whose daughter works at WE Charity, have been called on to testify to the committee. Morneau is due to appear on Wednesday. Trudeau has yet to say whether he will go.

The government "did have a bit of a free ride for a long time," said Garry Keller, a former senior conservative staffer who is now vice president at Strategy Corp, a public affairs consultancy. "Now the opposition can control the agenda."

The shift was evident. The House of Commons, which has been mostly closed during the pandemic, has been open this week so the government can pass changes to its wage subsidy program. But Trudeau's ethics have been the heart of the debate.

"Justin Trudeau cannot be allowed to sweep this latest scandal under the rug," Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said Monday in the House. "We are going to use every tool at our disposal at the various committees."

Peter Donolo, vice chair at Hill+Knowlton Strategies and previously the director of communications for former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien, said there will be additional scrutiny for many months to come.

"I'm quite confident that within the year, [the opposition] will be going through this stuff with a fine-tooth comb," Donolo said. "It's irresistible. ... It was evident from the beginning that when you spend that kind of money, there's going to be spillage."
Bangkok, July 22 : Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha told the press that he has a new list of names for his cabinet reshuffle after several ministers resigned earlier.

Prayut initially said that the cabinet reshuffle could be done after the budget debate, but decided to quickly line up his cabinet team to help reboot the Thai economy hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis.

"I have these new names in mind but will not officially reveal who they are until their qualifications are checked and verified," Prayut said on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"When that is over the new cabinet line-up would go to His Majesty the King for endorsement and the swearing-in ceremony would follow," he said.

Prayut had however, earlier confirmed that he had approached top banker Preedee Daochai to join his new cabinet lineup team.

Preedee is a co-president of Kasikornbank, a Thai commercial bank, as well as the chairman of the Thai Bankers' Association.

Just on Monday, Labour Minister Chatumongol Sonakul announced his resignation to quit the Cabinet.

Five other cabinet members have already left the government, including Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak.
ALBANY  Savannah is not much bigger than Albany, but the Georgia city is nevertheless one of the country's great places. The history is rich, the architecture is gorgeous and the beach is close by.

Yet Savannah is not a city that many New Yorkers eagerly visit during the height of summer. This time of year, Savannah is hotter and more humid than dog breath, which explains why moss is its iconic flora. Take a walk around the block and you return looking like you fell in the hotel pool.

Despite the climatic unpleasantness, Savannah this week became the first out-of-state stop on Andrew Cuomo's coronavirus victory tour.

The governor didn't call it that, of course. Ostensibly, he went to Georgia to deliver personal protective equipment and to advise the yokels on how best to combat COVID-19. But since Cuomo's counsel could have been offered more easily (and safely) via phone or Zoom, let's be honest about what the trip really was: a publicity stunt.

It was a chance to once again advance Cuomo's favorite narrative, which posits him as the superhero governor who conquered COVID. It was an opportunity to bathe in praise and raise the national profile  and in a potential 2024 swing state, no less!

"When you want to win, you follow winners," Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said Monday during a press conference with Cuomo that, as I'll discuss in a bit, led to some controversy. "New York state nearly went from worst to first, and they have shown the entire country, the entire world, the way to do this right."

With all due respect to the mayor, he might want to redact the praise. After all, more than 32,000 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19 so far, twice as many as in New Jersey, the state with the next highest total.

Georgia has suffered just 3,200 confirmed deaths. Texas, California and Florida, the nation's three biggest states by population, have lost about 17,000 residents combined to COVID-19.

Look honestly at the statistics and it's clear New York didn't win. We lost, badly.

Oh, I understand about flights from Europe and Manhattan's population density and subways and all the other factors that helped make New York an epicenter. But even taking all that into account, nobody should say New York is a success story in this pandemic. To do so is to slap on blinders and propagate myths.

Yes, New York has flattened the curve and now has one of the nation's lowest infection rates. Cuomo deserves credit for that.

But even if we set aside the mistakes he made along the way  um, nursing homes? and acknowledge the many things the governor did right, it's too early for a victory lap marked by abundant self praise. The governor is standing on an aircraft carrier under a "Mission Accomplished" banner before the enemy is vanquished.

As Cuomo sat in Savannah, his state remained in an unprecedented crisis. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are out of work, and the economy is in shambles. State government is facing a staggering budget deficit and municipalities from Montauk to Buffalo may yet be forced to lay off scores of teachers, cops, firefighters and more.

Many small businesses, restaurants especially, may never recover. Millions of New Yorkers can't pay their rent or mortgages. Parents across the state can't be sure schools will stay open this fall, in part because there's a distinct possibility New York could experience a second wave of the virus.

But sure, go to Georgia. Nothing important to do at home.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Even before the trip, critics were noting that Cuomo's frequent, self-congratulatory national media appearances didn't jibe with the reality of the New York experience. Nor did the tasteless poster Cuomo released last week  yours for just $11.50!  which managed to lionize the governor while failing to acknowledge the searing tragedy of 32,000 dead New Yorkers.

CNN's Jake Tapper called out both the poster and Cuomo's "revisionism," saying the governor's crowing is offending New Yorkers mindful of the state's death toll. To which Sanjay Gupta, the network's medical expert, added that gubernatorial humility might be wise, given how the coronavirus continually upends expectations.

Alas, "humility" and "Cuomo" are not words that often appear in proximity. And criticism from Tapper or anyone else won't dissuade the governor from mythmaking, not when he has a potential 2024 presidential bid to consider.

Georgia, meanwhile, is on New York's quarantine list, which means travelers from the state are supposed to isolate for 14 days. There will be no quarantine for Cuomo, however. The Democrat said he won't isolate because he's an "essential worker" who spent less than 24 hours in Georgia.

Yet eyebrows and hackles were raised when, at the end of Monday's press conference, the governor and the mayor stood near each other WITHOUT WEARING MASKS as Johnson presented Cuomo with a key to his city.

"We messed up," Johnson admitted the next day. "I mean, yeah, we messed up."

cchurchill@timesunion.com  518-454-5442  @chris_churchill
An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced Mohammed Abdulai, alias Dangote and Abass Issah alias Siza to 15 years imprisonment each in hard labour for robbery.



Abdulai, and Issah pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit crime to wit robbery and robbery but they were found culpable after trial, an accomplice, whose name was not given is still at large.



Police Inspector Samuel Ahiabor told the Court presided over by Mrs Afia Owusua Appiah that Abdulai, 30, is a head porter whilst Issah, 22, is a vulcanizer.



He said Mr Johnson Odum and Mr Kwabena Arhinful are drivers mates and the complainants in the case.



Inspector Ahiabor said on August 23, 2019, at about 2200 hours at CP, Kwame Nkrumah Circle, the complainants were watching movies at a spot close by when suddenlly the gang of three including Abddulai, Issah and another, armed with knives threatened to stab them if they did not hand over their cellular phones and monies.



Prosecution said they succeeded in collecting two Techno mobile phones valued GH200.00; one pen drive valued GH50.00; and a cash of GH200.00 from the complainants and fled.



The Prosecution said the next day, the complainants reported the incident to the Police which led to the arrest of Abdulai who also led Police to arrest Issah at his hideout at Kofikrom near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.



He said a separate search on Abdulai revealed the two mobile phones and GH165.00 whilst a face mask and a jack knife was found on Issah.



Inspector Ahiabor said during their cautioned statements, they confessed to the crime but failed to lead Police to their accomplice and after investigations they were arraigned.

Source: GNA









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As school districts throughout the Downriver area and across the state work on plans for the upcoming year, Melvindale-Northern Allen Park Public Schools are among the first to announce children wont be attending in-person classes this fall.

In a July 20 letter sent to parents, Supt. Kimberly Soranno said that after deliberating over the past two weeks, conducting a great deal of research and much soul searching, a decision was made to begin the school year totally online.

I feel, along with the school board and administrative staff, that beginning the year this way will allow for teachers and other staff members to make decisions and plans for students early, so that we may offer the best program possible for our students, Soranno said. The teachers will have the opportunity to plan and manage an online curriculum that will be as close as possible to face-to-face learning.

The superintendent said that at some point, when things become more stable in the state, the district can easily transition back into classroom learning. She said the safety of students and staff was at the forefront of this decision.

The present plan that the governor released does not allow for the social distancing in our schools to be safe for students at this point in the virus outbreak, she said. Returning to school in late August with the heat, wearing a mask will not be conducive to the health and welfare of our students or our staff.

Soranno said she is aware that there are many questions that as of yet are still unanswered, but district officials will answer those questions as they continue to meet and the transition begins to take place.

She said the district will supply students with the technology and guidance they will need for online learning.

She concluded by saying that as soon as the virus becomes more controlled, the district will resume in-person instruction.
With President Uhuru Kenyatta set to host Governors on Friday for the Fifth Extraordinary Session following a surge of COVID-19 infections, some county bosses have indicated they will ask the Head of State to re-impose the lockdown.

Last week, the Council of Governors expressed concern over the soaring number of COVID-19 infections since President Uhuru Kenyatta lifted the cessation of movement order.

In the event that the situation gets dire, individual county governments will have no choice but to, in consultation with President Uhuru Kenyatta, seek to lock down the affected counties to contain the rapid spread and protect lives, COG Chairman Oparanya said.

His sentiments have been echoed by Nakuru Governor Lee Kinyanjui who was opposed to the lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions.

We must not allow short economic gains to overshadow the greater public health risks, he said.

Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga also joined the bandwagon saying focus should be on hotspot counties, where the disease must be contained.

We will have all the facts on the table on Friday during the meeting with the President. We have been caught between a hard place and a rock but we will strive to strike a balance, he said.

I support Oparanya and Kinyanjui. We must decide whether to continue to allow people to walk in and out of counties, even when cases continue to rise, Mutahi added.

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua said the Friday summit will consider the impact of the lockdown measures on the economy but tough decisions will have to be made.

It will be a balancing act. The rising cases were expected but is the national government doing enough to combat the disease? he posed.

It is better to stay alive and suffer the economic consequences, he added.
Twenty-three children have been rescued by authorities in Mexico after they were abducted and forced to sell crafts.

The authorities rescued the children from a house in San Cristobal de Las Casas, in the state of Chiapas on Monday, the states attorneys office announced in a statement.

The children were mainly between the ages of two to 15 years old, but some were as young as three months, according to the authorities.

They were taken from their families and forced to sell the crafts and trinkets to tourists, while threatened with physical and psychological violence, according to CNN.

The area in Southern Mexico is known for tourism, with markets selling trinkets and handmade crafts commonplace throughout the city.

Three women were arrested as part of the rescue and are facing possible charges of human trafficking and forced labour.

In a statement released on Monday, Jorge Llaven, a Chiapas state prosecutor, said the children had to bring a certain amount of money back to the house each day to be allowed to eat at night.

According to the children, many of them were forced to go out on the streets to sell things, and moreover they were forced to return with a certain minimum amount of money for the right to get food and a place to sleep at the house, he said.

Additionally, many of the children were forced to sleep on cardboard and blankets on a cement floor, according to the Associated Press.

The house was discovered after the authorities began a search for two-year-old Dylan Esau Gomez Perez, who went missing from his family while at a market in the city on 30 June.

Recommended US border agent found dead after disappearing on patrol in New Mexico

Video surveillance footage showed the child being led away from his parents by a girl who appeared to be 13 years old, which has led authorities to believe that some of the children were being used to abduct kids, according to the AP.

However, despite the authorities rescuing the twenty-three children, the toddler has still not been found, according to his mother, Juana Perez.

Ms Perez, who has asked Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to help her locate her son, told reporters: None of the children (rescued) is my son

I havent heard anything about my son.
WASHINGTON - Georgetown University announced Tuesday that it will offer tuition discounts to many undergraduate students starting classes in August.

Students who are not invited to live on campus, which includes most upperclassmen, will receive a 10 percent cut in tuition totaling about $2,800, officials said. They said undergraduates who return to the campus in Northwest Washington will have access to services that will be unavailable to students living away from the school.

Georgetown, like many other universities, has scaled back on-campus housing amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. A limited number of single bedrooms are being offered to first-year students, some resident assistants and students with special circumstances - including those enrolled in certain academic programs and students with family situations that what would make it difficult to continue school away from campus.

Students who live on campus will pay the full $28,692 in tuition for the semester but will be charged a lower double-occupancy rate for housing instead of a pricier single-occupancy rate, leaders said. Housing and dining fees will also be slashed by 20 percent to account for a shorter-than-normal semester. Students will take a combination of in-person and online classes for most of the semester - which begins Aug. 26 - and then shift to remote learning the week of Thanksgiving.

The discount applied to housing and dining will vary by student but will hover around $2,000.

Officials said all undergraduates will be given a 10 percent tuition reduction if public health concerns prevent students from returning to campus before the start of the semester.

"We recognize the significant investments students and families make to pursue a Georgetown education," Provost Robert Groves and Geoffrey Chatas, senior vice president and chief operating officer, said in a letter sent to undergraduates. "We continue to minimize tuition increases, and we maintain our deep commitment to attracting the most promising students regardless of their financial circumstances."

The announcement comes amid a budget crisis that has hit nearly every college and university throughout the country. In May, Georgetown shared plans to suspend contributions to employee retirement plans, introduce a voluntary furlough program and halt some construction as it prepared to enter the academic year with a $50 million shortfall.

But the decision to slash tuition can be credited, in part, to students who pressured the administration to make concessions for those who will spend much of their time in online classes and away from their peers, which they call the virtual opposite of the traditional college experience.

Jackson Butler, a rising Georgetown senior studying finance and accounting, wrote a petition last month urging the university to lower tuition. He promoted the petition on social media and persuaded roughly 2,000 other students to sign.

"Once your experience is being vastly diminished, you expect the cost, the value to be diminished as well," he said in an interview. "I think it's a call for other universities to do the same."

But the university had a different message for graduate students, most of whom can also expect to spend much of their time in virtual classes.

There was no mention of tuition adjustments in a message shared with graduate students Tuesday, but a reminder that fees are due Aug. 21. In an FAQ about the fall semester costs, the campus said the planned tuition cut for some undergraduates recognizes the fact undergraduates are typically offered on-campus housing. Graduate students are not, the university said.

Henry Watson, who is pursuing a PhD in government, said the university's announcement is emblematic of a culture that places more emphasis on undergraduate students.

"The graduate students often tend to feel like an aside," Watson said. "I do think that it's unfortunate that there's a discount being offered to undergraduate students but not graduate students. The experience isn't going to be the same for anyone."

Graduate tuition varies by program, but a juris doctorate costs roughly $33,000 per semester. A full-time master of business administration degree is about $30,000 per semester.

The university said faculty have worked to ensure courses can be taught in-person and remotely.

"Because this flexibility has been built into the curriculum, tuition and mandatory fees will not be reduced or subject to refunds even if there is a change in the method of instruction during the academic year," officials said in the note to graduate students.

Students of all walks of university life have clamored for housing refunds and tuition adjustments since the coronavirus pandemic forced campuses to shutter in March, arguing that taking online classes in their parents' homes was not worth paying full tuition. University leaders hoped emergency federal funding would have provided relief, but the stimulus package passed in March fell about $36 billion short of education advocates' expectations. District of Columbia-area schools received about $65 million for direct student assistance.

Georgetown, which has an endowment of about $1.8 billion, is one of a handful of universities that says it is able to discount tuition for some of its students. Princeton University recently disclosed plans to cut its undergrad tuition by 10 percent, setting the cost of attendance at about $48,500 for the coming school year.

But Georgetown's neighbors in the District haven't budged on tuition. Officials at American University told students a tuition adjustment isn't possible but offered discounts ranging from 18 to 30 percent on student activity fees.

George Washington University in its most recent update to the campus said tuition will remain the same, regardless of the format in which classes are delivered. Howard University leaders shared concerns about being able to afford a tuition reduction.

"While other highly ranked institutions have large endowments and have been able to use them to absorb the unexpected costs of the pandemic, Howard University does not have that same luxury or comparable investment resources," officials said in a statement. "Howard's tuition is also significantly lower than comparably ranked universities and the University also maintains a very large financial aid program."
Oakland police are investigating possible hate crimes related to death threats and racist comments made by a rogue group of individuals who disrupted a virtual candidate forum.

Male-sounding voices joined the public forum for Oakland school board candidates Cherisse Gash and Dia Penning via Zoom on Saturday about 25 minutes into the meeting. With music blaring, the meeting crashers made threatening comments after organizers tried to remove them from the meeting and mute them.

We have your addresses, a voice said. If you try, if you move, were going to kill all your kids or your family if you even move in.

The incident was frightening, said Melissa Korber, who helped moderate the meeting and co-founded its sponsor, Oakland Not For Sale. The group opposes the closure of local public schools.

It was pretty shocking, Korber said, adding shes seen Zoom bombing before, but this was different. Theyre threatening children and families.

During the encounter, one of the interlopers posted Korbers home address 48 times in the meetings comment section.

The attack was racist, sexist, and political, Korber said. At one point, an attacker wrote: Kill Leftists twice during the meeting chat.

It appeared there were multiple people logging on, but organizers werent sure if it was one person or several.

Gash and Penning have announced their candidacy for the school board, and the forum was an opportunity to introduce themselves to the public, organizers said. There were about 17 people logged onto the event when the attack occurred.

Korber said participants filed reports with the FBI and Oakland police, who interviewed her about the incident. Police officials confirmed the departments Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.

The meeting and encounter, preserved in a recording, show Penning speaking about her candidacy when the infiltrators joined the meeting. She went silent as she realized what was happening.

I have a bomb on me. Im a bomb ISIS bomber coming in, one of the voices said. F-ing n-ga kill yourself.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Penning looked startled and then shocked as she heard the threats and racist language.

As I watched the faces of my fellow candidates and community members, I was struck at how not much has changed in the last 70 years and how terror tactics continue to be used to sideline and silence people of color, she said in a statement released Tuesday.

Korber and the candidates said they believe the incident was not a random Zoom bombing, but a planned attack to intimidate the candidates. The posting of the home address seemed to indicate they knew who was on the video conference ahead of time, Korber said.

Its unclear how many candidates drop out of races, or determine its too big of a risk to subject themselves to threats of violence, said Shay Franco-Clausen, Pennings campaign manager. This is what we, as a nation, are trying to combat, across the country and here in Oakland.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
Dublin, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Vegan Cosmetics Market - Growth, Trends, and Forecasts (2020 - 2025)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



Vegan Cosmetics Market is anticipated to register a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecasted period (2020-2025).



The market growth is driven by increasing consumer awareness of the usage of animal-derived ingredients and increasing demand from mainstream consumers across the world for vegan-certified products is expected to push the revenue generation in the global market.



Millennial customers are the major consumers of the market since they are more attracted to innovative products. The demand for natural hair colors is growing in the cosmetics market, hence, the manufacturers put their emphasis on vegan and toxin-free ingredients in the hair care products.



Key Market Trends



Growing Demand Of Halal Comstic Products Among Asian Consumers



Demand for halal cosmetic products among consumers across Malaysia, Indonesia, Jorden, and the United Arab Emirates is increasing as more and more products in the halal cosmetic market space are produced and ingredients are increasingly halal certified. Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, spending USD 218.8 billion across the Islamic economy sectors in 2017, with 215 million Muslims representing 13% of the global Muslim population in 2015. Also, more recently, countries like Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates have undertaken important initiatives across regulation, trade, and industry in order to position themselves in the growing halal cosmetics products market. For example, Malaysia established the International halal Accreditation Board that aims to address short-term profit-seeking among certifiers. Furthermore, an increasing number of manufacturers are launching halal cosmetics products in the halal free zones of North America, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea.



Europe Holds A Major Share In The Market



The region has witnessed an increasing demand for natural and organic products, due to the rise in consumer awareness about the harmful effects of certain compounds, such as paraben and aluminum compounds present in the skincare, hair care, and deodorants. A high percentage of European consumers choose one brand over others, based on its natural formulation. This has enhanced an increase in the demand for safe, natural, and organic deodorant products in recent times. The purchases are made based on efficacy, with longer-lasting protection, and clinical properties. The demand for natural ingredients has been quite evident in the market, and this has led to a majority of companies launching products with nature-inspired ingredients, such as plant-inspired and premium botanical ingredients, coupled with multi-functional properties.



Competitive Landscape



The global vegan cosmetics is a fragmented market. Major players are focusing on introducing new products in the market to cater to the interests of the players to enhance their spot in the market. New product development is the most preferred strategy in the market. Manufacturers of vegan cosmetics are more focused on developing innovative products to fulfill the changing needs and demands of consumers by using innovative ingredients.



Reasons to Purchase this report:

Story continues

The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format

3 months of analyst support



Key Topics Covered:



1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Study Deliverables and Study Assumptions

1.2 Scope of the Study



2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY



3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3.1 Market Overview



4 MARKET DYNAMICS

4.1 Market Drivers

4.2 Market Restraints

4.3 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

4.3.1 Threat of New Entrants

4.3.2 Bargaining Power of Buyers/Consumers

4.3.3 Bargaining Power of Suppliers

4.3.4 Threat of Substitute Products

4.3.5 Intensity of Competitive Rivalry



5 MARKET SEGMENTATION

5.1 By Product Type

5.1.1 Facial Cosmetics

5.1.2 Eye Cosmetic Products

5.1.3 Lip and Nail Make-up Products

5.1.4 Hairstyling and coloring products

5.1.5 Others

5.2 By Distribution Channel

5.2.1 Supermarkets/Hypermarkets

5.2.2 Convenience Stores

5.2.3 Specialty Stores

5.2.4 Online Retailers

5.2.5 Other Distribution Channels

5.3 Geography

5.3.1 North America

5.3.1.1 United States

5.3.1.2 Canada

5.3.1.3 Mexico

5.3.1.4 Rest of North America

5.3.2 Europe

5.3.2.1 Spain

5.3.2.2 United Kingdom

5.3.2.3 Germany

5.3.2.4 France

5.3.2.5 Italy

5.3.2.6 Russia

5.3.2.7 Rest of Europe

5.3.3 Asia Pacific

5.3.3.1 China

5.3.3.2 Japan

5.3.3.3 India

5.3.3.4 Australia

5.3.3.5 Rest of Asia-Pacific

5.3.4 South America

5.3.4.1 Brazil

5.3.4.2 Argentina

5.3.4.3 Rest of South America

5.3.5 Middle East and Africa

5.3.5.1 South Africa

5.3.5.2 Saudi Arabia

5.3.5.3 Rest of Middle East and Africa



6 COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

6.1 Most Active Companies

6.2 Most Adopted Strategies

6.3 Market Share Analysis

6.4 Company Profiles

6.4.1 MuLondon

6.4.2 Billy Jealousy

6.4.3 Beauty Without Cruelty

6.4.4 Nature's Gat

6.4.5 MO MI BEAUTY

6.4.6 Emma Jean Cosmetics, INC

6.4.7 Inika

6.4.8 Gabriel Cosmetics Inc.



7 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND FUTURE TRENDS



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/b0jxte

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com

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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Construction of a $880 million light rail project linking Malaysia's southern state of Johor with neighbouring Singapore will begin next year, after both countries formalise the deal on July 30, Malaysia's transport minister said on Tuesday.

The Rapid Transit System (RTS) Link, as the project is known, was suspended last year after the former Malaysian administration led by Mahathir Mohamad pledged to tighten finances and review major deals.

The countries had earlier this year agreed to a July 31 deadline to finalise the project, after talks were hit by movement restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Malaysia's Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong said the agreement will be signed on the Johor Causeway - the main thoroughfare for land traffic between Malaysia and Singapore - in a brief ceremony to be witnessed by both prime ministers.

"Our expectation is by the end of 2026, we will see the start of RTS operations between Johor Bahru and Singapore," Wee said at a news conference in parliament.

Wee said the total cost of the project would be 3.75 billion ringgit ($880.28 million), including the construction of a maintenance depot which was not included in the earlier estimate.

Singapore is paying 61% of the costs and Malaysia 39%, a transport official said.

Both sides have an agreed text on the changes to the project for presentation to both governments for approval, Singapore's transport minister Khaw Boon Wan said in a post on his Facebook page, adding that a venue for the signing of the deal was being discussed.

Mahathir had said in October that the project cost was cut by a third from about 4.93 billion ringgit to 3.16 billion ringgit after discussions between both countries.

In March, a new Malaysian government led by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin was sworn in after Mahathir's sudden resignation.

($1 = 4.2600 ringgit)

(Reporting by Joseph Sipalan, additional reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Editing by Kim Coghill and Chizu Nomiyama)
The sexual misconduct accusations against late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon have renewed focus on the outlandish gender segregation practiced by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

The eponymous "Pence Rule" states that the pious vice president will never eat alone with a woman other than his wife and will not attend functions featuring alcohol without her by his side.

Some companies here have adopted the Pence Rule to guard against endemic sexual harassment in the workplace and enforced after-work drinking sessions, but it is not only men who complain that this was a panic reaction to the "Me Too" movement.

Women have in some cases borne the brunt because their male bosses excluded them from any office socializing or simply fired them to avoid temptation or false accusations.
Whether white blood cells can be found in the brain has been controversial, and their role there a complete mystery. In a study published in Cell, an international team of scientists led by Professor Adrian Liston (Babraham Institute, UK & VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium) describe a population of specialised brain-resident immune cells discovered in the mouse and human brain, and show that the presence of white blood cells is essential for normal brain development in mice.

Like a highly fortified headquarters, our brain enjoys special protection from what is circulating in the rest of our body through the blood-brain barrier. This highly selective border makes sure that passage from the blood to the brain is tightly regulated.

The blood-brain barrier also separates the brain from our body's immune system, which is why it has its own resident immune cells, called microglia, which trigger inflammation and tissue repair. Microglia arrive in the brain during embryonic development, and later on, the population becomes self-renewing.

Yet, white blood cells--which are part of our immune system--have been found to play a role in different brain diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease or stroke. Whether or not white blood cells can be found in healthy brains as well, and what they might be doing there, has been subject of intense debate. An interdisciplinary team of scientists led by Prof. Adrian Liston (Babraham Institute and VIB-KU Leuven) set out to find the answers.

White blood cells in the brain

"A misconception about white blood cells comes from their name," explains Dr Oliver Burton (Babraham Institute). "These 'immune cells' are not just present in the blood. They are constantly circulating around our body and enter all of our organs, including--as it turns out--the brain. We are only just starting to discover what white blood cells do when they leave the blood. This research indicates that they act as a go-between, transferring information from the rest of the body to the brain environment"

The team quantified and characterised a small but distinct population of brain-resident T helper cells present in mouse and human brain tissue. T cells are a specific type of white blood cells specialized for scanning cell surfaces for evidence of infection and triggering an appropriate immune response. New technologies allowed the researchers to study the cells in great detail, including the processes by which circulating T cells entered the brain and began to develop the features of brain-resident T cells.

Dr Carlos Roca (Babraham Institute): "Science is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary. Here, we didn't just bring in expertise from immunology, neuroscience and microbiology, but also from computer science and applied mathematics. New approaches for data analysis allow us to reach a much deeper level of understanding of the biology of the white blood cells we found in the brain."

An evolutionary role

When T helper cells are absent from the brain, the scientists found that the resident immune cells - microglia - in the mouse brain remained suspended between a fetal and adult developmental state. Observationally, mice lacking brain T cells showed multiple changes in their behavior. The analysis points to an important role for brain-resident T cells in brain development. If T cells participate in normal brain development in mice, could the same be true in humans?

"In mice, the wave of entry of immune cells at birth triggers a switch in brain development," says Liston. "Humans have a much longer gestation than mice though, and we don't know about the timing of immune cell entry into the brain. Does this occur before birth? Is it delayed until after birth? Did a change in timing of entry contribute to the evolution of enhanced cognitive capacity in humans?"

The findings open up a whole new range of questions about how the brain and our immune system interact. "It has been really exciting to work on this project. We are learning so much about how our immune system can alter our brain, and how our brain modifies our immune system. The two are far more interconnected than we previously thought," says Dr Emanuela Pasciuto (VIB-KU Leuven).

The study also brings in a connection with the gut microbiome, says Liston: "There are now multiple links between the bacteria in our gut and different neurological conditions, but without any convincing explanations for what connects them. We show that white blood cells are modified by gut bacteria, and then take that information with them into the brain. This could be the route by which our gut microbiome influences the brain."

Taken together, the results contribute towards the increasing recognition of the role of immune cells in the brain and shed new light on its involvement in a range of neurological diseases.

###
Spire Condominiums at sunset. The building celebrates the topping offa major construction milestonetoday.

Leaders of Laconia Development, PCL Construction, and Realogics Sothebys International Realty (RSIR) celebrated the topping off today for Spire, a new luxury condominium building in the center of Downtown Seattle, situated at 600 Wall Street, just two-and-a-half blocks from the world headquarters of Amazon.

This major construction milestone indicates the impending completion of this highly anticipated new community in vibrant Belltown, scheduled for the spring of 2021. While robust interest in the building means some of the 342 one-, two-, and three-bedroom units have already been purchased, many condominiums of varying sizes and styles are still available to buyers, and the Spire team is thrilled to share this exciting milestone with all of its current and future homeowners.

Reaching this landmark momentdespite the complications and setbacks that new construction projects have faced in recent months due to the coronavirus pandemicSpire has shown itself to be a step ahead of many other condominium developments in the Seattle area, a forward-thinking model of how a modern, high-rise condominium community can welcome the Seattle of the future.

Paul Menzies, CEO of Laconia Development, stated, We could not have asked for a better general contractor than PCL to lead this project under such extraordinary circumstances. Reaching the topping off milestone is an incredible accomplishment for any high-rise, and so much more so given the challenges of the past several months.

PCL is proud to be part of such a fantastic project and team, said Tyler Kautz, PCLs operations manager. The team has overcome countless roadblocks, but consistently approached them in a collaborative way that focused on the best interest of the project as a whole, rather than individual groups. From the ownership expertise of Laconia and a truly talented consultant team, to the great design and subtrade partners, it is a special group of professionals that we are fortunate to be part of.

PCL poured a staggering 25,000-plus cubic yards of concrete, reinforcing it with about 9 million pounds of steel to construct the buildings tower, which sweeps skyward to reach a staggering 41 stories with beautiful residences as well as premium amenity spaces and a stunning, open-air roof deck. The buildings sheer height, as well as the approximately 162,000 square feet of window walls that are nearly complete, create Spires spectacular and completely unobstructed views of the iconic Space Needle, city skyline, Elliot Bay, and South Lake Unionarguably the projects most standout featureand flood each expansive home and gathering space with natural light.

With thoughtfully designed, nature-inspired interiors created by the award-winning Robin Chell Design, stunning panoramic views, and incomparable access to the very best of the cityits a five-minute walk to South Lake Union, major tech campuses, Denny Park and transportation, with close proximity to both I-5 and SR99Spires homes offer enormous value to potential buyers. Pricing starts in the $600,000s and reaches over $3 million for the most luxurious penthouse units.

A representative collection of the remaining Spire inventory is as follows:

UNIT 502 | 2 Bedroom/2 Bathroom | $1,169,950 | 9-FT Ceilings | 1,154 SF

UNIT 510 | 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom | $899,950 | 9-FT Ceilings | 985 SF

UNIT 708 | 2 Bedroom/2 Bathroom | $1,319,950 | 9-FT Ceilings | 1,188 SF

UNIT 806 | 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom | $569,950 | 9-FT Ceilings | 531 SF

UNIT 809 | 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom | $775,000 | 9-FT Ceilings | 765 SF

UNIT 1503 | 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom | $799,000 | 9-FT Ceilings | 684 SF

UNIT 2401 | 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom | $979,950 | 9.5-FT Ceilings | 765 SF

UNIT 2404 | 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom | $1,089,950 | 9.5-FT Ceilings | 814 SF

UNIT 2502 | 2 Bedroom/2 Bathroom | $1,624,950 | 9.5-FT Ceilings | 1,154 SF

UNIT 2708 | 2 Bedroom/2 Bathroom | $2,049,950 | 9.5-FT Ceilings | 1,188 SF

UNIT 3009 | 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom | $1,079,950 | 9.5-FT Ceilings | 765 SF

UNIT 3605 | 2 Bedroom/2 Bathroom | $1,774,950 | 9.5-FT Ceilings | 1,126 SF

As work at Spire continues to move forward at a fast pace, its iconic silhouette and groundbreaking architecture are now clearly visible against the Seattle skyline. PCL estimates that 250,000 hours of labor have gone into the buildings construction so far.

For more information on Spire listings, visit: (http://www.spireseattle.com)

About PCL Construction (https://www.pcl.com/)  PCL is a group of independent construction companies owned by employee shareholders across the United States, Canada, and Australia. As a diversified general contractor, PCL celebrates the past and builds for the future.

About Laconia (http://www.laconiallc.com/)  Bay Area-based Laconia Development, LLC, is a full-service real estate investment and development firm that envisions and builds high-rise and mid-rise residential communities and mixed-use environments in dynamic urban centers. By focusing on emotionally resonant architectural design, Laconia creates landmark developments that command attention and enhance existing neighborhoodsbuildings that residents are proud to call home.

About Realogics Sotheby's International Realty (http://www.RSIR.com)  Artfully uniting extraordinary homes with extraordinary lives, Realogics Sotheby's International Realty is a leading global sales and marketing brokerage firm in the Pacific Northwest. Recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal amongst the fastest-growing private companies in Washington State in recent years and ranked #8 in the top ten largest residential real estate brands, the boutique real estate firm of 235+ brokers service branches in downtown Seattle, Bainbridge Island, Kirkland, Issaquah and Madison Park. RSIR is a leading project marketing specialist currently representing more than $1 billion in new condominium developments planned throughout the Puget Sound region.
Ongoing tension in the South China Sea has reached a new tempo as China sends some flankers into contested claims. This comes as the US sends a rebuke to all China claims as illegal.

Before this reaction of China, when the US initially sent the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Nimitz, and Ronald Reagan for combined naval exercises, it included Air Force and submarine units that trained how to deal in a wartime situation that China belched at, reported Forbes.

On July 15, evidence of four jets sent to one of the reclaimed bases emerged, several of these islands can host several aircraft. Transfer of these PLA Air Force flankers came after U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, dismissed illegal claims of Beijing. This sets the stage for a tenser showdown in the waters occupied by the US Navy and the PLA Navy holding exercise.

Chinese Flankers are illegal copies of the Su-27

So far, the inventory of the PLA Air Force has the J-11 that was reverse-engineered by Beijing without Soviet consent. The J-11 is claimed to be close to the F-15 Eagle of the US Air Force. Versions reverse-engineered from the Su-27 are several in the PLA Air force inventory. Most Flanker versions are hard to tell apart based on the photos that capture them, but they are Flankers, no doubt.

One of the biggest problems of the PLA Air Force is the distance these planes have to go. In-flight, they may need to drop tanks to extend the flight range. The sending over the J-11 means sacrificing some armament for more range. It is a handicap with few aerial tankers at the PLAs disposal.

Also read: US Guided-Missile Destroyer Sails Close to Spratly Islands, Rejects China's Claims

The J-11s were sent to the Paracel Islands

This island chain has been militarized by Beijing, with installations on it to support a fleet of ships with a small number of planes as well. Despite control by Beijing, there are claims by Vietnam and Taiwan. Facilities have been upgraded to accommodate fighters and bombers to serve as an airbase in the SCS.

Its just the start of establishing an ADIZ (air defense identification zone) that will cover part of the SCS and interdict US Naval Forces. Another is to exert control in the air, just like in the sea that other neighbors are chaffing against intrusions.

Pompeo stated that the communist overreaching claims are for total control. Having planes in the Paracels gives Beijing an advantage without the US blunting them.

Sino J-11s were discovered by OPSINT (open-source intelligence) analysts with low-resolution commercial satellite sources. One Twitter user Duan Deng shared an image on Thursday with verification from Airbus.

Beijing is getting fidgety

Sending over the J-11s is connected to several recent developments of late. One is the US taking a tougher stance on the communist party's expansionism. Next is the deployment of two carrier strike groups to the Indo-Pacific in one of the biggest naval exercises that included US allies. Last, is the FONOPs of USS Ralph Johnson recently to challenge China.

Related article: Chinese Air Support Weakened by Only Three Aerial Tankers Compared to US in Taiwan Invasion

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Oil energy stocks climbed higher after the European Unions (EU) fiscal stimulus package raised optimism for the bloc to overcome the coronavirus pandemics economic fallout. Oil prices rallied to their highest level since early March, when the commodity was trading in the bearish territory following the pricing war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

European Union Stimulus Deal

To safeguard EU economies that have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, European leaders have decided to create a recovery fund of roughly 750 billion following five days of discussions.

The EU will tap the financial market to borrow the amount. Of the total recovery fund, 390 billion will be distributed to severely hit EU member states as grants. The remaining fund will be distributed as loans. The agreement also comprises a fresh budget of roughly 1.1 trillion for 2021 to 2027, thereby creating a combined spending package of 1.8 trillion.

Coronavirus Vaccine Hopes

There has been growing optimism surrounding the development of a coronavirus vaccine by 2020-end after three of the leading candidates in the world recently reported promising early trial data. The studies established that the three vaccine candidates have generated sufficient immune responses. Also, no serious side effects were reported by the participants through the study period, signifying that the vaccines were well tolerated and safe.

One of the three promising vaccine candidates is being developed by the Oxford University researchers and AstraZeneca PLC (AZN). The other two are experimental vaccines of German biotech firm BioNTech SE (BNTX) and U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc. (PFE); and Chinas CanSino Biologics.

EU Deal & Vaccine Hopes Lift Oil

The news of EU stimulus deal and advancement of coronavirus studies have made investors more hopeful that fuel demand will improve following the gradual recovery of global economies. On Jul 21, the price of crude oil rallied to a four-month high, buoyed by the positive news.

Story continues

The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude surged 3.3% to touch $42.17 per barrel mark, the highest since Mar 6. The price of Brent crude also surged 3.2% to $44.67 per barrel, the highest since early March.

Stocks Poised to Gain

The surge in oil price, recovering more than 230% since late-April, is supportive of upstream energy operations. Hence, it will be wise for investors to consider upstream energy stocks with oil contributing majorly to production volumes. We have shortlisted four stocks with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Cimarex Energy Co. XEC is among the leading energy firms with strong footprint in the Permian, the most prolific basin in the United States. The company, with oil contributing significantly to its total production volumes, has witnessed upward estimate revisions for 2020 bottom line in the past 30 days. Notably, the Zacks Rank #2 stock gained 10.9% on Jul 21 following the news of the EU stimulus deal.

Diamondback Energy, Inc. FANG, being engaged in exploiting and developing unconventional onshore oil reserves in the Permian, is also a leading energy player. The Zacks #2 Ranked company has also witnessed upward earnings estimate revisions for 2020 in the past 30 days. The stock gained 9.2% on the day.

Centennial Resource Development, Inc. CDEV also has a strong footprint in the Delaware Basin, a sub-basin of the Permian Basin. In the past 60 days, the oil producer with a Zacks Rank of 2 has seen upward estimate revisions for 2020 bottom line. The stock gained 12.5% on Jul 21.

Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc. BCEI is a leading oil producer in the domestic market. The #1 Ranked stock has seen upward earnings estimate revisions for 2020 in the past 30 days. The company also gained 8.3% on Jul 21.

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Athens:

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday issued a warning against crude nationalism following Donald Trumps shock election win as he visited Europe on a mission to reassure jittery allies.

Obama, making his last foreign trip as president, said the NATO alliance was absolutely vital to US interests and stressed a strong, unified Europe was good for America, after Trump, on the campaign trail, appeared to play down the importance of transatlantic ties.

ALSO READ: (US President warns Trump of revisiting Iran, Paris deals Highlights of Obamas first major speech after elections)

After a year of populist shocks, from Britains vote to leave the EU to Trumps surprise victory last week and the rise of anti-migrant movements in Europe, Obama cautioned against succumbing to divisive instincts.

We are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them, Obama said in Athens.

We know what happens when Europeans start dividing themselves up... the 20th century was a bloodbath, he said, adding that the United States was also painfully aware of the dangers of (dividing) ourselves along lines of race or religion or ethnicity.

Europeans, especially those in eastern countries close to Russias orbit, have been shaken after Trump appeared to call into question Washingtons near 70-year security guarantee by saying he would only help NATO allies if they paid their way.

ALSO READ: (Watch: US President Obama meets Pres-elect Trump, assures full support)

Obama stressed that the transatlantic relationship was the cornerstone of our mutual security as well as prosperity and that was the case regardless of who was sitting in the Oval Office.

Across Democratic and Republican administrations there is a recognition that the NATO alliance is absolutely vital, he said.

As Obama touched down in Athens, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said he was confident Trump would live up to US commitments to the alliance.

I am certain that he will be a president... who will live up to all the commitments of the United States in the alliance, because a strong NATO is important for Europe but its also important for the United States, Stoltenberg said.

Obama met Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for talks and praised Greece for showing extraordinary compassion to hundreds of thousands of people arriving in Europes migrant crisis.

More than 800,000 migrants passed through Greece last year, and the crisis-hit country has struggled to accommodate some 60,000 left stranded on its territory when Balkan states further north closed their borders earlier this year.

Greek leaders are anxious for a new US pledge to help alleviate the countrys enormous public debt, a measure actively sought by the International Monetary Fund but opposed by leading European lender Germany.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
An off-duty police officer from Auburndale, Florida, was arrested in the Keys Wednesday morning on aggravated battery and kidnapping charges.

He is accused of attacking his pregnant girlfriend and refusing to let her leave the Cheeca Lodge hotel room where they were vacationing.

Dane Henwood

Officer Dane Alexander Henwood is being held in Plantation Key jail, with no bond information immediately available. The sheriffs office did not provide his age on the arrest report.

His girlfriend, who FLKeysNews/Miami Herald is not naming because she is an alleged domestic abuse victim, told Monroe County Sheriffs Office deputies that she and Henwood argued late Tuesday night because she was angry he was drunk.

They were lying in bed when he rolled on top of her, placing pressure on her pregnant torso, she told deputies, according to the arrest report. She said he then grabbed both of her arms.

During the argument, before it became physical, she said Henwood placed his gun on the bedside table, but only because he heard someone at the ice machine outside, Deputy Anfernee Hernandez wrote in his report.

The woman told deputies that when Henwood drinks, he becomes controlling with her, usually grabbing her in such a manner that it makes it difficult for her to move or get away, Rodriguez wrote.

The woman said Henwood fell asleep, and she began gathering her belongings to leave. She went to the bathroom, and when she got out, Henwood was awake and had her car keys in his pocket, according to the report.

The woman then called 911. The emergency operator who took the call could hear a man in the background telling the woman do not do that the police are going to come, according to the report.

Deputies arrived at the Islamorada hotel around 12:30 a.m.

Henwood told Rodriguez that he did not touch the woman or prevent her from leaving.

Rodriguez said Henwood appeared intoxicated. There was a huge empty bottle of alcohol in the trash can and another nearly empty bottle on the table, according to the report. Deputies found a loaded Taurus semi-automatic pistol, which was legally registered to Henwood, inside a duffel bag, according to the report.

Story continues

Chief Andy Ray of the Auburndale Police Department said in an email Wednesday afternoon that Henwood has been summarily relieved of duty pending the outcome of an administrative investigation by this department.

We received a copy of the offense report and we have reviewed it, Ray said.

Auburndale is in Polk County.

According to the departments Facebook page, Henwood was sworn in as an officer in May 2019.
W henever theres a row about womens rights, Caitlin Moran thinks of men and despairs.

I hate any disagreement in feminism, says the journalist and author, taking a drag on her black vape. When the gender critical feminists are arguing with the pro-trans feminists the patriarchy is just sitting over there, twitching its penis going, she puts on a deep voice, Keep going ladies, I love it, put on a bikini, this is good for me.

Does she have faith in our mainly male government making life better for women? For f***s sake, she sighs, skewering Michael Gove for not wearing a mask on a trip to Pret, as if he thinks he cant get the virus there. Countries with female leaders have coped much better with the pandemic. It turns out women arent hysterical leaders who nuke Russia when they have their period. She is concerned that Covid has taken feminism back a century. Women took on the burden of childcare and tend to do more part time work. Moran, 45, is speaking to me on Zoom from her spare room in Crouch End, where my daughters dump everything they dont want. Her dark hair, with its blonde badger stripe, is in perky plaits and shes wearing a bright red polka dot shirt. The past four months havent been too different from usual: she writes at home, occasionally taking the dog out so I dont become 27 stone, though the release of her film, an adaptation of her 2014 novel How to Build a Girl starring Beanie Feldstein, has been postponed. Thats just a little sorrow, she quotes Duran Duran.

She has honed the art of deploying humour to drive home more serious points. When people despair of whats happening politically I just say this is like a high tide for asshats, all the terrible people have declared their asshattery, we know who they are and we can get rid of them. She notices I look sceptical. Remember Im an incorrigible optimist, she says as a caveat. If you were being eaten by Godzilla Id tell you itd make an amazing movie.

Moran put feminism on the agenda again with her 2010 memoir How to Be a Woman, but this month on Twitter, where she has 850,000 followers, her views were deemed too narrow and too focused on white people. Im cagey talking about racial matters because it is better to listen to people of colour, she begins. But at the same time I apply the argument that people make when they say men cant be feminists. Even if every woman in the world believed in feminism, we still wont get equality if the other half of the planet doesnt believe in it. If you say white people cant help black people its not going to work. You want as many people as possible trying not to be asshats.

The trans debate is an example of how toxic Twitter can be. Both sides are equally hurt and scared of male aggression  their description of that is what they are disagreeing with but they are all scared of the same thing. I see the points on both sides but discussing it on social media isnt getting us anywhere.

You have to think, what are 13-year-old trans girls and natal girls thinking when they see these conversations happen? They do not need to see the elders fighting about it on social media.

Cancel culture makes her uneasy. It comes from a younger generation who dont have power and jobs railing against an older generation of progressives. Some of that is useful, there should be pushback, but Im always wary of any movement that is removing huge swathes of its elders.

Caitlin Moran attends the "How To Build A Girl" premiere during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival / Getty Images

A sequel to How to Be a Woman, More than a Woman, is out in September, expanding on her arguments about gender. In it, she tries to re-explain socialism and dismantle taboos around discussing class. The uniting thing in black lives matter, feminism and LGBTQ+ issues is class. Its socioeconomic disadvantage, its not having connections, its not having access.

The arts are dominated by middle-class stories. Im constantly frustrated by how many stories are about affairs or professional rivalry when most peoples lives are about, bitch gotta pay rent. This is the main character Johanna Morrigans catchphrase in How to Build a Girl. Like Moran, Morrigan grew up in a large family on a council estate in Wolverhampton and finds a job aged 16 at a music magazine in London. There is a touch of artistic licence in the film  the men working in the music industry have ripped bodies. Moran laughs: The directors thought the truth about what men in the music industry looked like was too depressing.

Moran has two daughters aged 16 and 19 (with music journalist Pete Paphides) whom she describes as more middle class than her. Theres no fabulous middle-class treat I dont ruin for them by telling them I didnt have that in my childhood. They are strident feminists, which puts Moran at a disadvantage. Theyve grown up with intersectionality, which my generation had to learn about, so there are clashes. I was slut-shamed by my daughter for telling her she couldnt go out in a dress. I said, come on, Im a feminist, you cant. Its 10pm and Im too tired to debate slut shaming. She makes a funny mock defeated face with raised eyebrows. The dedication to her book Moranthology promises her daughters she will give them her credit card pin if they read it but they havent taken her up on the offer. Its understandable  they dont want to read about their mum having a wank. Itd be creepy if they were massive fans.

How to Build a Girl is about a girl who wasnt victimised or sad she was big. Like the teenage Moran, she doesnt have friends and, (spoiler alert), doesnt end up with a man. The plot is a parable about social media. I was probably the only 16-year-old with a national platform to be a c*** because I was a journalist; now every teenager has that power. You start off positive, sharing pictures of your dog and you looking cute in a bikini, she says in a sing-song voice. Then someone goes, you look fat, your dog is shit, and you put on this armour of cynicism for protection, but you cant grow in armour, you cant dance, youre in negation of the most important thing about being a human, pointing out the good things to progress by doing more of them.

The energy that women have to expend to pass in a male environment, is staggering. You cant see all the women who couldnt do a quip and carry on, turning into someone else to survive. Instead of being floored by this, she thinks of Emma Thompson in the film, playing a commissioning editor (Moran admires Thompson so much she once ate a picture of her ). Its getting better, there are more women commissioning  were realising that 53 per cent of audiences are women, you dont have to please the boys.

How To Build A Girl will be released on Amazon Prime Video on July 24
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi Tuesday pledged to protect Irans sovereignty as he made his first foreign visit to the Islamic Republic.

The US ally met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in capital Teheran. The Iranian leader according to the media reports indicated that the visit heralds a turning point in relations between the two countries.

We still remain ready to stand by the Iraqi nation and apply efforts for stability and security in Iraq and the region, Rouhani added.

Iraq will not allow the posing of any threat from its soil against Iran, Khadhimi replied.

Iran is very wary of US military presence in Iraq. President Trump also early January ordered the assassination of Iran top military commander Qasem Soleimani, killed in air strikes outside Baghdads international airport.

Iraq condemned the act and demanded the withdrawal of US and international forces present in the Arab country.

The visit came following that Irans top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Baghdad over the weekend. Zarif visited the scene of Soleimanis assassination. The Iranian official, The New Arab reports, said Iran-Iraq relations will not be shaken despite the generals death.

Iran wields a huge influence in Iraq where it backs Shia paramilitary forces who participated in the defeat of the Islamic State in 2017. Iran-backed forces have vowed to weed out the US forces.

The former Iraqi spy Chief was scheduled to visit Irans rival Saudi Arabia first but the trip was cancelled after King Salman was admitted early this week to hospital. He is also set to visit Washington next few months.
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The year Donald Trump was carried into office on a frothing anti-immigrant platform, there were an estimated 10.5 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Roughly two-thirds had been here for more than a decade. Prior administrations had abysmal records, but generally acknowledged that the U.S. was enriched by the immigrants who chose to build their lives here. Its why Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to some 3 million undocumented immigrants, why George W. Bush supported a path to legal citizenship, why Barack Obama  labeled deporter-in-chief after removing nearly 3 million people  also created DACA to protect immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

But from the start, Trump embraced a rabid xenophobia once restricted to the furthest fringe in modern American politics, slashing refugee admissions, rescinding DACA, and ratcheting up arrests of longtime residents. All of that was before the pandemic hit, shutting down immigration courts, turning detention centers into viral tinderboxes, and giving the administration cover to institute some of its most draconian measures yet.

More from Rolling Stone

A year ago, Rolling Stone began documenting the stories of immigrants around the country who are fighting removal, waylaid in detention centers or mired in endless court proceedings, with the stability and safety of their families hanging in the balance. (Last names have been withheld out of concern over retaliation.)

There was a moment in the story when we were in a church in Mississippi for the celebration of a Quinceanera, filled with Guatemalans dressed in their traditional clothing, says photographer Federica Valabrega, herself an immigrant from Italy. All I could hear was their Mayan dialect, and I remember having chills. I felt so included and so close to the immigrants reciting prayers in their own dialect to keep their identity intact. I felt we were all immigrants in a foreign country trying to make ends meet, while never forgetting where we came from.

Story continues

Along with video producer Reed Dunlea and writer Tessa Stuart, Valabrega documented people whove lived and worked in the U.S. for years  some with little memory of their birth country  who now face removal. Beto, a 25-year-old DACA recipient, was deported back to a country he hadnt seen since he was nine. Ignacio, a father of three, may be forced to leave his family and the town hes lived in for more than three decades.

But despite the administrations best efforts to drive them away, these families share a determination to hang on to the lives theyve made here. What we want is the same as any Americans, says Hormis, Ignacios wife. We dream of buying a house, like anyone. We have a family, we have a dog. Were hardworking people that love the country. Thats why were here.

Here are those families stories.

Alfredo | Queens, New York

A family strains under the pressure of uncertainty as the father awaits a ruling on his removal

In July 2018, Alfredo boarded a Greyhound bus in New York City bound for Seattle, to meet with his brother. I was super excited, Alfredo says. It looked like we were going to have months of work. But near Buffalo, New York, the driver announced that the bus was being diverted into Canada. Thats when things started to make a turn.

Searches of Greyhound and other bus lines by Customs and Border Protection increased dramatically in the first year of the Trump administration. An internal CBP memo called it an opportunity the likes of which we have not seen in a decade, and was signed, Happy hunting!

Alfredo, who had his Mexican passport and a drivers license from Washington state, where he lived after first immigrating to the U.S. from Puebla, Mexico, without papers in 2004, was taken into custody by Canadian authorities, then sent to an ICE detention center near Buffalo, where he spent 20 days while his wife raised money for his bond back home in Queens.

Alfredo, 38, has since had a work permit approved, but hes still waiting to find out if he will be deported; his next court date is not until 2021. Before the pandemic, he was working at a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan, but he doesnt know if that job will ever come back. He says he feels depressed and unsure of his future, and that the ordeal has ended his marriage.

With the stress of what was going on, she didnt want to be involved with the case, so she kind of distanced herself, Alfredo says. They share joint custody of their three kids: Eduardo, seven; Valentina, six; and Hector, five. When Im with them, I try to stay relaxed, not sort of transmit to them whats going on  the emotion of whats going on, he says. But he can tell that they worry. Whenever they see police, they hug me and say, Oh, theres cops over there, lets go this way. It really affected them.

Rosalina | Ossining, New York

A nanny contracts coronavirus as she fights for the return of her husband from Guatemala

Jorge and Rosalina are both from Guatemala, but they met and fell in love in Ossining, New York, a small village on the Hudson River where Jorge worked in a deli for 13 years. In 2008, they returned to Guatemala and opened a general store, but it wasnt long before the threatening phone calls started  gangs demanding that Jorge deposit money for them into a bank account. And that if he didnt, the kids would pay, Rosalina recalls.

The family crossed back into the U.S. on Christmas Eve 2016, seeking asylum from gang violence and extortion. Rosalina and the kids were allowed to go back to Ossining, where she works as a nanny, to await hearings, but Jorge was detained for eight months, then deported. In 2018, he attempted to cross again and spent almost two years in a Texas detention center, working as a cook for $3 a day, before he was deported in December. Hes in hiding in Guatemala, even as his asylum case is still being appealed.

Their daughter Angelica, 19, speaks to her dad often, but not about the gangs. I dont have the courage to speak about it, she says. A grocery worker, Angelica contracted the coronavirus in March, at the same time as her mother. They have both recovered, but it hasnt been easy, says Rosalina. I know the kids are watching me, so I tell them weve got to keep going.

Fredy | Carthage, Mississippi

After living in the U.S. for 18 years, a father is swept up in the largest coordinated workplace raid in ICE history

Fredy was driving a bus in Guatemala some 20 years ago when the woman who would become his wife got on. Thats where everything started, he says. She came to the United States first; he followed on foot in 2002.

They settled in Mississippi, where he found work at a chicken-processing plant. I started from the very bottom  in the area where they cut the breast in half, he says, but worked his way up, becoming a janitor, then a painter, and finally a mechanic. Thats what he was doing in August 2019 when he and 679 other undocumented workers were swept up in the largest coordinated workplace raid in ICE history.

The day he was detained, he couldnt stop thinking about his wife and four children, about his oldest daughter, Marleny, and the 15th birthday she had coming up. In that moment, many things were running through my mind because my family was home and I didnt know anything about them, he says. All my sons and daughters were born here. If we take them there, they are going to be immigrants like us.

The raid ostensibly targeted the executives at seven Mississippi plants, but to date none of them have been prosecuted. An ICE official expects that all of the workers, including Fredy, who was released with an ankle monitor, will be deported. A few months after the raid, many of them gathered to celebrate Fredys daughters quinceanera. Even though we are going through tough times, the best solution is to come together, spend time together, and forget our sorrows, he says.

Fredys final hearing was set for June, but Rolling Stone has been unable to contact him since early spring, around the same time COVID-19 swept through his community  dozens of cases were reported at the same plants raided months earlier.

Back in November, Fredy said he hoped the Trump administration realized it was wrong: They left a lot of children without parents. With our kids, we can give back. A doctor, a lawyer  our daughters and sons can become that. If we have done something wrong, it was not because we want to take from your country, but because we want to give something good.

Beto | Chicago, Illinois

A birthday hiking trip turns into a nightmare for a former DACA recipient

Fresh air  thats what I miss the most, Beto said from behind the glass at the Hardin County Jail in Eldora, Iowa, back in February. Over the previous nine months, hed lost 30 pounds as he bounced between three different county jails that had contracts to hold ICE detainees.

Last May, he and three friends went hiking in Colorado to celebrate his 25th birthday. Beto, who arrived in Illinois from Guadalajara, Mexico, with his parents on a tourist visa when he was nine, was napping in the back seat on the drive home when the car was pulled over for speeding.

They were booked for possession of marijuana, but the charges were soon dropped. His friends were citizens: They went home. I didnt go home, he says. Beto had been a DACA recipient, but when the Trump administration rescinded DACA in 2017, his status was thrown into limbo. With support from his community in Chicago, Beto made bail. But in June, in the midst of the pandemic, he was called back to Iowa for a hearing. If he failed to show, he was told, his $25,000 bond would be forfeited and a warrant would be put out for his arrest.

Beto was detained at the hearing, transferred to Nebraska, given a flimsy mask for protection, put on a plane to Texas, then driven across the border to Reynosa, Mexico. From there, he had to find his way to an uncle in Guadalajara, more than 600 miles away. Just one week later, the Supreme Court declared that Trump had ended DACA illegally. Its a place I dont recognize, he said on the phone from Mexico in June. Ive been trying to adapt, but its difficult. My life belongs over there, with my parents and my family.

Ignacio & Hormis | Wolcott, New York

A married couple  one a citizen, and one undocumented  fights to keep their family together

Ignacio came to the United States some 31 years ago, on foot through Tijuana, when he was just 18. I dont remember much about Mexico, he says, now 49. But he does remember when he first met Hormis. She arrived from Mexico at the apple orchard where he worked in 2003. They married two years later, settled into the steady rhythm of life at the orchard that they now supervise, and had three sons.

In December 2016, Ignacio was putting the kids on the school bus when he noticed a black sedan parked a few doors down. It was ICE. The kids got back from school and asked where their dad was, Hormis says. She told the oldest child the truth, but initially kept it from their two younger sons: I had to lie and tell them he had gone to work someplace far.

Released after six months on $15,000 bond, Ignacio was given an order of removal; the family is appealing and also applying for a green card based on his marriage to Hormis, who became a citizen in 2017. If hes deported, she and their sons will stay in Wolcott. But it wont be easy without him: When COVID struck, Hormis had to cut back hours at the orchard to home-school the kids. I tell them not to worry, says Ignacio. I might not be there, but theyre in my heart, wherever I am.

Suyapa | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A domestic-abuse survivor gets a visa after two years of hiding, and emerges to a pandemic

For 562 days, Suyapa and four of her children lived on the second floor of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia. She came to the United States in 2014 after her oldest daughter was granted asylum. A victim of domestic violence, Suyapa, 38, had applied for a special visa, but ICE refused to defer her deportation while the application made its way through the system. Thats why the family sought refuge inside the church. She just didnt expect to be there as long as she was.

Its not so easy being in the sanctuary  the girls are closed in, Suyapa said in September. God gives me strength. People in the church are supportive. Once a month, Suyapa cooked dinner for the parishioners; she hopes to one day open a Honduran restaurant.

On March 12th, Suyapas visa was finally approved, and she left First United for the first time in nearly two years  just as the country was going into lockdown for COVID.

Almost immediately, Suyapa got sick with symptoms of COVID. She recovered, but amid the economic crisis, shes struggled to find work. I feel safe, she says. Its just when the rent is due, I start to worry.

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The company says a patch has been applied

Goodwill has reportedly become the victim of a data breach that is directly impacting the users of its ShopGoodwill.com e-commerce platform.

TechRadar reports that hackers made their way into the companys platform via an exploitable vulnerability that allowed them access to customer names, phone numbers, email addresses, and postal addresses. The larger unanswered question is how many customers the breach actually affected.

Goodwill stated that it patched the vulnerabi...
A new snapshot of the frantic global response to the coronavirus pandemic shows some of the world's largest government donors of humanitarian aid are buckling under the strain: Funding commitments, for the virus and otherwise, have dropped by a third from the same period last year.

The analysis by the UK-based Development Initiatives, obtained in advance by The Associated Press, offers a rare real-time look at the notoriously difficult to track world of aid.

At a time when billions of people are struggling with the pandemic and the ensuing economic collapse _ on top of long-running disasters like famine, drought or unrest _ more, not less, money is urgently needed.

New virus protection equipment must be bought for almost everything, from maternity wards in African villages to women's shelters in Syrian refugee camps.

``We have not seen substantial funding for COVID, yet the situation is going to get worse,'' Rosalind Crowther, South Sudan country director for the aid group CARE, told the AP in May, saying ``some donors have backtracked on earlier commitments.`` The group runs two dozen health centers, more than 40 feeding centers and a safe house in one of the world's most fragile countries following civil war.

In Somalia, a mother of twin baby boys told Amnesty International she had to give birth in her makeshift home in a camp for displaced people because no local health clinic was open. Aid workers told Amnesty researcher Abdullahi Hassan the newly reduced services were due to lack of funding.

``You can imagine how risky this is,'' he told the AP.

During the first five months of this year, overall aid commitments from the largest government donors were $16.9 billion, down from $23.9 billion in the same period last year, according to the new analysis, which drew on data from the United States, the United Kingdom, European Union institutions, Germany, France, Canada and others.

Many of these donors _ notably the UK, whose aid commitments have dropped by nearly 50% from last year, according to the analysis _ are struggling as their economies contract.

The sheer magnitude of the crisis is another challenge as every part of the world needs help _ and now.

The reality on the ground could be even worse than the analysis indicates: Crucially, it only shows promises of aid. Just how much of the billions of dollars pledged have reached those in need is not yet clear.

In some cases, the response to the pandemic has been alarmingly slow. In June, more than two dozen international aid groups wrote to the US about its pledged coronavirus aid, saying that ``little to no US humanitarian assistance has reached those on the front lines`` and calling the uncharacteristic delays ``devastating.''

Their letter came as the US promoted global leadership on the COVID-19 response with more than $1 billion committed. Aid groups are now waiting to see whether the US will deliver millions of dollars this month as indicated.

This new analysis, like any measure of aid, is imperfect _ it looks at data published to the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which is voluntary but widely used. It is also more current than other measures: The data was downloaded on July 10.

The drop in funding is keenly felt by aid groups on the ground.

A survey in May of 92 members of Bond, the UK network for nongovernmental organizations working in international development, found just 16% had received any new funding from the UK's Department for International Development while fighting the pandemic in developing countries, and 41% were responding without any extra funding at all.

Some aid groups are warning the window to prevent the pandemic's worst effects is narrowing while the global humanitarian response ``remains woefully underfunded,'' as Refugees International said last week.

Meanwhile, ``we are concerned that we are seeing a repurposing of existing funds ... rather than a release of new funding,'' Selena Victor, Mercy Corps' senior director for policy and advocacy, has said of the EU's response.

An UN-run emergency delivery service that has kept tons of humanitarian aid flowing to scores of countries hurt by travel restrictions could shut down in the coming weeks because ``there has been no significant funding'' from donor countries, the World Food Program said. Just 19% of the $965 million request has come in.

While individual governments struggle, the largest so-called multilateral organizations including the World Bank and the Global Fund have stepped up, perhaps not yet affected by budget constraints.

Their commitments this year are $48.8 billion, or 70% greater than the same period last year, according to the analysis. That's a positive sign but ``must be sustainable to tackle the whole crisis,`` according to the analysis.

The challenges remain vast as various streams of assistance, including remittances, falter. ``All resources ... are set to fall,'' according to a separate new Development Initiatives report.

That drop could continue for months. Official development assistance _ government aid for developing countries' economic development and welfare _ could shrink by almost $20 billion worldwide between last year and 2021 under a worst-case scenario that envisages an extended pandemic. The cuts could continue ``as government assess domestic priorities,`` that report says.

COVID-19 arrived in a world already facing a growing number of humanitarian crises, from Yemen to Myanmar to West Africa's Sahel. Now the pandemic ``threatens to create a funding vacuum,'' the report says.

As of the end of June, it says, UN-coordinated calls for aid for this year were up 25% from last year because of additional needs created by the pandemic, reaching more than $37 billion.

Last week, the United Nations again increased its request for the pandemic response alone to $10.3 billion _ the largest appeal in its history.

Only $1.7 billion has been received. Up to $40 billion might be needed.

``The response of wealthy nations so far has been grossly inadequate and dangerously short-sighted,'' UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said. ``Failure to act now will leave the virus free to circle `round the globe.''

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Malone Mukwende, a 20-year-old medical student, found himself repeatedly asking the same question: "But what will it look like on darker skin?"

He's publishing a book to answer that question.

Since his first class at St George's, University of London, "I noticed a lack of teaching about darker skin tones, and how certain symptoms appear differently in those who aren't white," said Mukwende, who recently completed his second year of study in the medical program.

Whether a rash, a bruise, blue lips or other common physical reactions, "it was clear to me that certain symptoms would not present the same on my own skin," said Mukwende, who was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in London. "I knew that this would be a problem for patients of a similar skin tone to mine, or of a darker skin tone in general."

Not only was there an absence of imagery to highlight the difference, but students were not instructed on the correct terminology to describe conditions that appear on darker skin, Mukwende said.

He hatched a plan.

"I knew something needed to be done to address the situation," said Mukwende, who added that he suspects most medical schools worldwide share a similar curriculum gap. "I wanted to create a universal tool."

Mukwende began brainstorming ideas and consulted with staff at the university about his concerns. Margot Turner, a senior lecturer in diversity and medical education, immediately got onboard.

"Malone came to me and said, 'I'm not learning anything that could help my family at home,' " said Turner, who is responsible for infusing diversity into the curriculum. "I told him we can change this. We worked with Dr. Tamony and applied for a student-staff partnership grant."

Peter Tamony, a lecturer in clinical skills and the co-lead of a peer tutor program, had already been working for more than a year on making the curriculum at the medical school more inclusive.

As a doctor and educator, Tamony said he thought Mukwende's project was critical: "Our methods of teaching were unfairly disadvantaging and 'othering' students from black and minority ethnic groups," he said. "The other issue is one of patient safety. Are we adequately training our students to be competent health-care professionals who can detect important clinical signs in all patient groups?"

With Mukwende at the helm, he and the lecturers came up with the idea to write a book called "Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin."

Mukwende's inspiration for the name of the handbook came from the London metro system, where warning signs saying "mind the gap" are used to alert passengers to take caution while crossing the gap between the train and the station platform.

" 'Mind the gap' is a warning sign to alert you of a danger and if you don't do anything about it, there can be fatal consequences," said Mukwende. "Similarly, if we don't do anything about addressing the issue at hand, people will continue being misdiagnosed."

Once the grant was approved in December 2019, the team of three co-authors began compiling a number of conditions to put in the handbook, including Kawasaki disease - which presents in an obvious red rash on white skin, but is far less conspicuous on darker skin tones - as well as skin cancer, meningitis, jaundice, eczema, psoriasis and even covid-19, among other conditions.

Mukwende spent hours each week researching for the book, he said, on top of his rigorous course load.

The manual will feature images of common clinical signs, along with descriptors and suggested language for health-care workers to learn and adopt.

"It's really about the words we use," said Turner. "We are looking to decolonize the curriculum and make sure the medical education is reflective of everyone."

Gathering photos has been a challenge, she said, which further reinforces the lack of medical resources pertinent to nonwhite patients.

"We've been approached by the British Association of Dermatologists and the NHS (National Health Service) digital services, because they too find it difficult to get pictures," Turner said.

Mukwende is constructing a website to address this scarcity, with the goal of encouraging people to send in their own photos to be used as examples in the handbook.

In fact, the ultimate plan for the manual is to make it a "live document," whereby clinicians, medical students and patients can actively contribute their own images and descriptions.

"The idea is to keep expanding the literature, not only in relation to the pictures, but in relation to the language, as well," Turner said.

Others in the medical community have vouched for the importance of the project.

Minal Singh, the curriculum director at the School of Medical Sciences at the University of Manchester, and the chair of medical student education at the British Association of Dermatologists, commended Mukwende and the issues he has highlighted.

"I think that the role of medical education is to teach across all types of diversity," she said. "Whether you're talking about race, sexuality or social inequality, medical education must teach all varieties and backgrounds."

"Malone has identified an absolute need," Singh continued. "It's not so much just the visual pictures that are important, it's understanding the story the patient has told."

Tamony agrees. That's why part of the project includes diversity training for staff at the university.

"Alongside the handbook, we have been reviewing our curriculum," Tamony said. "As part of the project, our team delivered diversity training to our clinical skills peer tutors."

Patricia Louie, an incoming assistant professor at the University of Washington, who co-authored a paper in the National Library of Medicine on the representation of race and skin tone in medical textbook imagery, has done extensive research on the subject.

"We found that medical textbooks overrepresented light skin tones and underrepresented dark skin tones," said Louie, adding that nearly 75 percent of the images found in widely used medical literature showcase light skin tones, while fewer than 5 percent feature dark skin tones.

Likewise, her research demonstrated that the majority of textbooks used in South Africa's top medical schools also feature mostly white bodies and light skin tones, despite the fact that the population is predominantly black.

Beyond incorporating more diverse imagery in the medical curriculum, "it is pertinent that doctors understand the role that structural racism plays in producing these disparities in the first place," Louie said.

"Mind the Gap" is not the first of its kind, as similar texts have been written in the past. But the goal of this particular project is to make the content dynamic, concise and, above all, easily accessible.

"We want it to be a resource that everybody around the globe can pick up and read," Mukwende said.

The project, which is supported by St George's, is nearly completed, and the authors are determining how best to disseminate the handbook, which will not be sold for profit.

"This has taken off way beyond our expectations," said Turner, who said people have already started asking for copies.

"We hope that this project results in lasting change to clinical training across universities and is just the start of similar initiatives by ourselves and other institutions, to level the playing field when it comes to equitable health care," said Jane Saffell, deputy principal for education at St George's.

Mukwende said the coronavirus pandemic - which has disproportionately impacted people of color - coupled with the global reckoning on race, has made his project more critical than ever. People are demanding change, he said, as evidenced by a recent petition with thousands of signatures, calling for medical schools to include BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) representation in clinical teaching.

"My hope is that the handbook will become a staple resource in medical settings around the world," said Mukwende. "I want it to empower medical professionals, so they feel more competent, and so patients can be confident that their doctors understand them."
Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell at a fashion show on September 18, 2000, in New York City.

Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

During Tuesday's coronavirus briefing, President Donald Trump sent his well-wishes to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was recently arrested on charges related to child sex trafficking.

Trump was asked if he thought powerful men would be exposed as part of the high-profile case.

"I don't know. I haven't really been following it too much," Trump said.

"I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years," he added.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

During his first coronavirus briefing since April, President Donald Trump made surprising comments about Ghislaine Maxwell, who was recently arrested on sex-trafficking charges.

Trump was asked if he thought Maxwell would "turn in powerful men" following her arrest, given that she is Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend and accused of being his coconspirator. Epstein died in jail last year awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

"I don't know. I haven't really been following it too much," Trump said of the Epstein case.

"I just wish her well, frankly. I've met her numerous times over the years  especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach  but I wish her well, whatever it is," he added.

The reporter also mentioned Prince Andrew and the allegations that he abused an underage girl he met through Maxwell in London, but Trump did not delve into the topic beyond a quick comment.

"I don't know the situation with Prince Andrew. I just don't know. Not aware of it," he said.

Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire earlier this month on six charges related to child sex trafficking, including conspiracy to entice minors, traveling to engage in illegal sex acts, and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Trump and Epstein had a friendly relationship over the years. They were once party buddies, but the president said he was "not a fan" of Epstein after the financier's arrest last year.

Read the original article on Business Insider
On July 21, armed formations of the Russian Federation violated the ceasefire in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) area in Donbas nine times.

The enemy used 82mm and 120mm mortars, weapons on infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers of different systems, heavy machine guns, and small arms to attack Ukrainian positions. The servicepersons of the Joint Forces decisively responded to enemy shelling and continue to monitor the situation on the contact line. Our soldiers are always ready to react immediately to possible threats from any direction, the press center of the JFO Headquarters reports.

In the zone of action of tactical force North, the enemy used 120mm mortars to shell Ukrainian positions near Novotoshkivske (53km west of Luhansk); 82mm mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns  outside Krymske (42km north-west of Luhansk); heavy machine guns and grenade machine guns  in the area of Khutir Vilnyi.

In the zone of action of tactical force East, Russian-occupation troops fired 82mm mortars and grenade launchers on Ukrainian defenders near Hnutove (20km north-east of Mariupol); heavy machine guns and grenade machine guns  outside Pavlopil (25km north-west of Mariupol); weapons on infantry fighting vehicles  in the area of Lebedynske (16km east of Mariupol); tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns  near Vodiane (94km south of Donetsk).

One Ukrainian soldier was killed, another one was wounded over the past day.

Today, the Russian armed formations have already violated ceasefire four times. No casualties among Ukrainian troops have been reported.

The situation in the JFO area remains controlled.
Former President Barack Obama joined his vice president, Joe Biden, in criticizing President Donald Trumps leadership in a campaign video to be released Thursday.

In a teaser Wednesday, Obama and Biden focused on Trump saying he took no responsibility for a lag in nationwide testing for the coronavirus during the pandemic.

Can you imagine standing up when you were president and saying 'it's not my responsibility. I take no responsibility. Literally. Literally," Biden said in a clip from the video released Wednesday.

Obama replied: "Those words didn't come out of our mouths while we were in office."

"No. I don't understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through," Biden said. "He just can't relate in any way."

Ken Farnaso, a Trump campaign spokesman, said the president has tapped into the real concerns of everyday Americans since he was elected in 2016, while Biden's lengthy tenure in the Senate and vice presidency left him out of touch.

Joe Bidens five decade long tenure in Washington has been mired in controversy and failed policies that dont reflect American values," Farnaso said. "Despite false narratives promoted by the Democrats and media, the presidents unifying message and steadfast leadership is resonating with Americans throughout our country  especially during the pandemic and recent riots  while Biden seeks to create more division and embraces a socialist agenda.

Obama, who endorsed Biden on April 14, is a potent weapon for Biden, with a joint video event drawing 120,000 viewers and campaign contributions totaling $7.6 million, according to the campaign.

The clash over responsibility stemmed from a question to Trump at a news conference March 13. Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, had called the lack of widespread testing a failure during congressional testimony. Trump was asked whether he took responsibility for the lag in testing.

Story continues

I don't take responsibility at all, because we were given a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time, Trump said. And what we've done is redesigned it very quickly with the help of the people behind me. And we're now in very, very strong shape.

Barack Obama presents outgoing Vice President Joe Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 2017. Obama says he and Biden became close friends during their administration. "Choosing Joe to be my vice president was one of the best decisions I ever made," he says.

Through Monday, the U.S. has had nearly 4 million cases of coronavirus and more than 142,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Trump resumed his coronavirus briefings Monday after a hiatus of nearly three months. He said a vaccine would be developed and that the virus would disappear, but he acknowledged conditions could worsen.

It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better  something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is, Trump said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Obama joins Biden in criticizing Trump's response to coronavirus
Iran's Judiciary Dismisses Online Campaign To Stop Executions

Radio Farda July 21, 2020

Reacting to more than 11 million tweets calling for an end to executions in Iran, the Islamic Republic Judiciary spokesman has said, "We are not obliged to listen to the counter-revolutionaries, aggressive opposition movements and the media empire."

Furthermore, Gholam Hossein Esmaeili dismissed the record-breaking and unprecedented online campaign as "produced by robots."

The hashtag, "No to Death Penalty," launched July 14 was initially used to stop the execution of three young men who were arrested during last November's protests in Iran. But the hashtag quickly turned into a call to abolish capital punishment.

Within a few days, the hashtag was retweeted by more than eleven million times and seen by over eight billion globally.

Speaking to the monopolized state-run TV Monday evening, Esmaeili claimed that some people "unknowingly" joined the online campaign, without being aware of its nature.

A day after the onset of the "Do Not Execute" campaign joined by numerous officials worldwide, the attorneys of the three young defendants announced that the Islamic Republic Judiciary had agreed with their request for a retrial.

Confirming the attorneys' announcement, Esmaeili reminded on Monday, "The Supreme Court would 'consider' the request but since late March 85% of petitions for retrial were rejected."

The trio sentenced to death are in their twenties and identified as Mohammad Rajabi, Amirhossein Moradi, and Saeed Tamjidi.

They were arrested for taking part in the nationwide protests in November 2019, triggered by economic hardship and anti-regime sentiments.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-s- judiciary-dismisses-online-campaign- to-stop-executions/30739073.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Delhis ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has joined the call for Tripura chief minister Biplab Debs resignation over his controversial comments alleging members of the Jat and Punjabi communities had inferior intellect compared to the Bengali community. Senior party leader and Delhi minister Kailash Gehlot also asked Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for a clarification on the issue.

Tripura CM Deb had triggered a controversy by claiming that Punjabis and Jats are physically strong but were not mentally as sharp as Bengalis. He yesterday apologised for his comments and stated that he didnt intend to hurt sentiments of the Jats and Punjabis.

I ask Dushyant Chautala, youre also a Jat, if youre feeble-minded or mad, then how did you become Haryanas deputy chief minister? Chautala should ask for Tripura CM Biplab Debs resignation. We demand Biplab Debs resignation. Insult of Jats wont be tolerated, said Kailash Gahlot.

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Dushyant Chautalas party is running a coalition government in Haryana with the BJP as the senior partner. AAP has fought elections in Haryana, which has a sizable population of the Jat community.

Gehlot also cited names of some prominent Jat leaders in an attempt to corner the BJP over Debs comments.

BJP goes to nooks and crannies to ask for votes from the Jat community and calls them dim witted and mad after winning elections. I want to ask the BJP if Sir Chotu Ram ji and Chaudhary Charan Singh were intellectually inferior, Gehlot asked.

Sir Chotu Ram was a leading Jat leader of the pre-independence India who formed the Unionist Party (Zamindara League) with the alliance of Hindu and Muslim agriculturists; Chaudhary Charan Singh was also one of the foremost peasant leaders of the country who served as Indias fifth prime minister.

Also Read: Kejriwal announces scheme to deliver ration at doorstep of card holders in 6-7 months

Biplab Debs comments have invited the wrath of several other political formations including the Akali Dal, which is an ally of the BJP in Punjab. Party leader and Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Manjinder Singh Sirsa had suggested that Deb should step down as chief minister and spend some time enhancing his knowledge about the Sikh community.

On Monday, Congress, too, had hit out at Deb and demanded that the BJPs central leadership take action against him.

After the backlash, Deb asked for forgiveness in a series of tweets and said that he was proud of the contributions of the Punjabi and Jat communities in the freedom struggle of the country and had many friends among them.

I had expressed the views some people have about them. I am proud of Punjabi and Jat communities. I have lived among them for quite some time... If my statement has hurt anyones feelings, I apologise for that, the chief minister said on Twitter.

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BAY CITY, MI - George Heron, a former and longtime executive director of United Way of Bay County, has died. He was 81.

Heron was born Aug. 30, 1938, in Newark, New Jersey. He was ordained at Maryknoll College in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and he earned his Master of Social Work from Fordham University in New York City. In the 1960s, Heron began to advocate for civil rights, welfare rights and workers rights alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Margaret Meade and other prominent figures.

Heron married Carol Williams in 1974, and they had four children together. They moved to Essexville in 1983 so Heron could take to the position of executive director at the United Way of Bay County. He held the position for 23 years.

As executive director, Heron raised over $30 million at the agency and established the Early Childhood Advisory Council, the Senior Task Force, the Self-Sufficiency Task Force, the Youth Task Force and the United Way Pillars Club.

Marybeth Laisure, the current United Way of Bay County executive director, worked with Heron for a number of nonprofits throughout Bay County. While she didnt work with him at United Way, she said his leadership helped the organization grow and thrive.

George was a guiding light in the structure of the United Way during the 80s and 90s and early 2000, Laisure said. His leadership built a strong base in campaign development, ensuring that the United Way of Bay County, partnering with local nonprofits, serve those who need us most.

In a 2006 interview with The Bay City Times, Heron said he was most proud of the fact that the United Way moved from being a fundraising organization to becoming a community problem solver during his time there.

We raised the funds, others did the work, Heron said. Now, were working with our partner agencies and public sector. I feel weve made a lot of progress.

Heron was also a member of the Rotary Club, a past president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a member of the Saginaw Valley Torch Club, the membership director of the International Association of Torch Clubs, as well as a member of several other organizations.

A few years after retiring from United Way in 2006, Heron joined Saginaw Valley State University as an adjunct social work faculty member until this May. He taught social welfare policy, and he was awarded adjunct faculty of the year honors earlier this year.

Heron is survived by his wife; his children, Hex, Matthew, Shannon and Michael and his sister, Colleen Dooley.

In lieu of flowers, family asks that memorials be made to the United Way of Bay County. The family will receive friends at the Wenonah Park Pavilion at 1 p.m. on Saturday, followed by a celebration of his life at 2 p.m. Further arrangements will be announced at a later date. Heron died on July 18.

Arrangements are by Penzien Steele Funeral Home.

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PALO ALTO, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HGGC, a leading middle market private equity firm, today announced that it successfully assisted portfolio company PCF Insurance ("PCF") in the acquisition of four regional brokerages since HGGC invested in the business in April. PCF is a leading national commercial insurance brokerage providing complete risk management and employee benefits solutions to small and mid-sized businesses and personal clients. The four acquisitions, in addition to the nine completed since January 1, will diversify PCF's product expertise, add great talent to the organization and expand its reach to thousands of new clients.

The brokerages that have joined PCF are:

First Fidelity Brokerage, a New York City-based full-service property & casualty insurance broker with a core focus on the education, construction, finance and real estate sectors.

Horizon Insurance, a Bradenton, Fla.-based provider of personal, commercial and financial services insurance with a reputation of proactive and comprehensive service and education to policy holders.

Moulton Insurance, a Western Massachusetts-based broker offering auto, home life and business insurance. Moulton offers personalized service with the one of the highest ratios of licensed agents to professionals in the area.

Avidity Insurance, an Overland Park, Kansas-based broker that has saved clients more than $3.6 million over the past five years through dedicated, on-the-ground service.

"PCF's fast start is the result of a cohesive, shared vision with Peter and his team, and an efficient execution playbook driven by decades of shared industry experience," said John Block, Partner at HGGC. "Together, we are building a platform that can offer win-win partnerships to brokers across the country as the insurance industry enters a hardening market."

HGGC has also supported PCF as it is building out an accomplished leadership team by adding new talent to functions including finance, human capital, M&A strategy and IT.

"PCF's story is resonating in the market, evidenced by our success rate with new brokerage partners," said PCF CEO and Chairman Peter Foy. "The PCF model offers a unique combination of accelerated growth opportunities and continued entrepreneurship that is highly attractive to the agency owner who believes his or her agency's future is even brighter than the past."

"HGGC's added resources and deep industry experience have been instrumental to helping us build an accretive M&A pipeline, operations support infrastructure exemplified by our new shared services office in Salt Lake City and a highly-skilled management team," added Foy.

About HGGC

HGGC is a leading middle-market private equity firm with $4.3 billion in cumulative capital commitments. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., HGGC is distinguished by its Advantaged Investing approach that enables the firm to source and acquire scalable businesses through partnerships with management teams, founders and sponsors who reinvest alongside HGGC, creating a strong alignment of interests. Over its history, HGGC has completed more than 180 platform investments, add-on acquisitions, recapitalizations and liquidity events with an aggregate transaction value of over $26 billion. More information, including a complete list of current and former portfolio companies is available at www.hggc.com.

About PCF

Founded in 1987 and headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA, PCF is a full-service insurance brokerage firm which provides complete risk management solutions with a broad array of property & casualty, life and health, employee benefits and workers' compensation insurance products. Due to its scale and growth, PCF is a top 50 broker in the United States by revenue. Additional information can be found at www.pcfinsuranceservices.com.

SOURCE HGGC

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Vaibhav Gehlot's aide Ratan Kant Sharma who has been under the ED scanner in an alleged fertiliser scam skipped his ED summons on Wednesday. The owner of Mayank Sharma Enterprises Ratan Kant Sharma is said to allegedly have business links with Vaibhav Gehlot. Ratan Kant Sharma was brought under ED scanner after he received funds amounting to Rs 96.7 crores from Mauritius. He also holds a stake in Jaipur's Hotel Fairmont. According to the ED, fresh summons will be issued to the businessman.

This comes shortly after the Income Tax Department asked Ratan Kant Sharma to join the investigation after they recovered coded entries on a parallel book of accounts maintained by Sharma proving to be Prima Facie evidence against him exposing his alleged tax evasion and Benami transactions.

Read: Income Tax Dept Issues Notices To Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot Aides

Read: ED Raids At Fairmont Hotel Where Gehlot Planned Taking MLAs; IT Raids Rajasthan CM's Aides

ED probes alleged fertilizer scam

In a nationwide crackdown, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out multi-city searches in a fertiliser camp on Wednesday. The agency carried out searches at six locations in Rajasthan, four places in Gujarat, two in West Bengal and one in Delhi. Top sources have confirmed to Republic TV that Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother Agrasen Gehlot's premises in Jodhpur is being searched by ED in connection with an alleged scam in exporting fertiliser.

A Rs 150 crore transaction made by a company linked to Agrasen Gehlot for the purpose of exporting fertilisers meant for farmers has now come under the scanner of the agency. Agrasen Gehlot has already appeared before the Customs department and said that few middlemen had bought MOP from him to distribute it to the farmers but instead exported it.

Read: Rs 150 Cr Transaction By Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot's Brother Under ED Scanner

Read: Mumbai: IT Dept Raids Office Of Ashok Gehlot's Son Vaibhav's Business Partner
For weeks, the coronavirus has been spreading out of control in the southwestern American state of Arizona.

Just last month, Arizonas cities began to require people to wear face masks in public. Not everyone agrees, however. Recently, a few hundred people gathered in the city of Scottsdale to make clear they did not want government officials telling them to cover their faces.

While speaking, city council member Guy Phillips tore off his black face mask, and declared, I cant breathe! He said later that his words were meant to show problems with the masks, and not to insult the dying words of George Floyd, killed by a Minnesota police officer.

Phillips words were widely considered as racist.

The incident helps reinforce the image of Arizona, where many people have strongly opposed government rules since the days of the Wild West.

The message that my mask protects you, your mask protects me is not always accepted in a place with a mind-your-own-business mentality.

After all, Arizona was home to two outspoken U.S. senators who tried but failed to become president. Barry Goldwater, known for his small-government conservatism, was the Republican Partys candidate in 1964. Forty-four years later, the Republicans chose John McCain, known for his idealism, as their presidential candidate.

Historically, Arizona has been something of a loner state, and many Arizonans seem to still like that image, notes David Berma.

Itswere out here, were individuals, we dont need the government, keep it small, let us do our thing, he explained.

Berma is retired, but once served as a professor at Arizona State University. He has written extensively on the states history and political culture.

Many Arizonans simply do not believe that coronavirus is dangerous or that masks are effective.

One of our very first things we fought for in the Revolutionary War was the idea you cant have a king over you making laws, we have a democratic process, said Sherry Wootan. She identified herself as a Republican Party supporter.

Wootan said she wears a mask only when required, and she does not cover her nose.



Arizonas government reaction to the coronavirus health crisis was slow and ineffective, even as cases began to increase in June. Many believe, however, that Arizonas anti-government attitude caused many people to ignore public health experts.

In many ways, the state still ignores customs long accepted in the rest of the country. Arizona was the last state to accept Martin Luther King Junior Day as a holiday. It still does not change to daylight saving time in the spring. Arizonas social welfare programs are relatively small.

Since the virus arrived in Arizona, the states Republican governor, Doug Ducey, has said he will fight the virus the Arizona way. Ducey resisted pressure to slow the economic reopening of the state or order people to wear masks in public. He later gave city mayors and county leaders the power to order masks. He urges people to wear them but has not made it a state requirement.

Ducey has given nearly all businesses, including restaurants, permission to stay open. The restrictions in place now are less restrictive than those in place in the spring.

This month Arizona has reported among the highest coronavirus rates per person among all U.S. states. About 90 percent of the states intensive-care hospital beds are in use. Arizona has set records for the number of hospital beds and ventilators being used by patients with COVID-19.

Billie Orr is vice mayor of Prescott, a conservative city north of Phoenix. Prescotts government has not required people to wear masks.

We get a lot of emails  You need to mandate masks. You need to close everything up. At the same time, you have to balance your economy, Orr said.

When asked many Arizona citizens used words such as kings, dictators or tyrants to describe government leaders who demand masks be worn.

Some blame one man: Governor Doug Ducey.

Yes, Arizonans are independent and tend to take their own path, said Terry Goddard, a former mayor of Phoenix. But, he added, it is more about leadership and confusion at the top than resistance to government overreach.

Im Susan Shand.

The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

mask  n. a facial covering

king  n. a royal ruler

attitude  n. a point of view

ventilator  n. a machine that helps a person breathe

mandate  n. to demand, or pass a law

tyrant  n. a cruel, undemocratic ruler

tend  v. to take care of

confusion  n. uncertainty
The Jefferson County Coroners Office is asking for help identifying two people whose decomposing or skeletal remains were found in Birmingham earlier this month.

The first discovery was made July 5 when Birmingham police were called to investigate a decomposing body found on the front porch of a vacant house at 6231 Second Avenue North, near Kennedy Alternative School in East Lake.

The remains are those of a Black male believed to be between 60 to 70 years old. He was 5-feet, 11-inches tall with a medium build. Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates said the man had balding, tightly curled, short white hair, a white beard a several missing teeth. His fingernails were neatly trimmed, and he had an 11-inche horizontal scar across his upper abdomen.

All organs were present, as well as all fingers and toes. He died of natural causes.

The following day, on July 6, Birmingham police were called to investigate skeletal remains found in a wooded area behind the Roebuck Shopping Center. The remains were found lying on top of a sleeping bag inside a makeshift tent, and the immediate area of the tent had the appearance of a homeless camp for one person. The location was in the 9000 block of Roebuck Boulevard.

Yates said the remains were those a white male believed to be over the age of 30. He was 5-feet, 10-inches tall with a medium build and brown hair.

He was missing multiple molars in the lower jaw and had multiple fillings in the upper molars. Clothes found with the remains included a short-sleeved maroon shirt with an Alabama logo, a long-sleeved navy shirt, a dark-colored, short-sleeved shirt and a pair of trousers with a black belt through the loops.

The cause of death has not yet been determined but there was no sign of trauma or foul play.

Anyone with information is asked to call the coroners office at 205-930-3603.
In the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, New York City Police officers in tactical gear cleared out the "Occupy City Hall" encampment that had made City Hall Park its home during a month-long demonstration against police brutality.

Recently, the City Hall Park set-up had attracted a number of homeless people. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the decision to shut down the demonstration was made on Tuesday night, out of concern for public health and safety.

What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protest and more and more of an area where homeless folks were gathering, he said.

Just before 4 a.m., officers in helmets moved in with a wall of plastic shields in place. Seven individuals were arrested following clashes with the officers. One person was taken into custody after throwing a brick at a policeman.
Race and ethnicity did not affect pregnancy and birth outcomes in women with SARS-CoV-2 infection who gave birth at two hospitals in northern Manhattan during the height of the pandemic in New York City, according to a preliminary report from researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian.

The study - one of the first to examine the impact of race and ethnicity on pregnancy and birth outcomes in women with COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic in New York City -- was published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

"We did not detect an impact on obstetric complications and symptoms of COVID-19 in different groups of women, though we need to look at a larger group to make more definitive conclusions," says the report's first author Ukachi N. Emeruwa, MD, MPH, a postdoctoral clinical fellow in obstetrics and gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care delivery and outcomes

Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare delivery and outcomes have been well-described in most areas of medicine.

Such disparities have become a flash point during the COVID-19 pandemic, with several studies showing that ethnic minorities, including Blacks and Hispanics, have disproportionately higher infection rates and worse outcomes compared with other groups.

However, previous studies have not determined whether obstetric outcomes for pregnant women with COVID-19 vary by race and ethnicity.

What the researchers found

Between March 13 and April 23, 2020, 673 women gave birth at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital or NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital.

Among the first 100 women who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, 73 identified themselves as Hispanic, 10 as non-Hispanic Black, 13 as non-Hispanic white, and 4 as other.

Among these patients, Hispanic women were more likely to have SARS-CoV-2: 18% tested positive compared to nearly 13% of Black women and 9% of white women.

All of the groups had fairly similar rates of conditions like gestational diabetes and preeclampsia and complications including bacterial infections, preterm delivery, and postpartum bleeding. There were no differences in neonatal outcomes.

Close follow-up care

"Our medical center was among the first in New York City to implement universal SARS-CoV-2 testing among women admitted for delivery and provide more frequent follow-up care for women and newborns with COVID-19," says the study's senior author Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, MD, MSc, the Ellen Jacobson Levine and Eugene Jacobson Professor of Women's Health in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a maternal-fetal medicine expert at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "These measures may explain why we found similar birth outcomes across all ethnic groups, including those from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods."

Emeruwa and Gyamfi-Bannerman are now conducting a larger study that will compare birth outcomes in women with and without COVID-19 from different ethnic and racial groups.

###

More information

The study is titled, "Influence of Race and Ethnicity in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Rates and Clinical Outcomes in Pregnancy."

The other authors (all from Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian) are Jessica Spiegelman, Samsiya Ona, Ka Kahe, Russell S. Miller, Karin M. Fuchs (CUIMC and NYP), Janice J. Aubey (CUIMC and NYP), Whitney Booker, Mary E. D'Alton, Alexander M. Friedman, Aleha Aziz, Desmond Sutton, Stephanie E. Purisch, Dena Goffman, and Alexander Melamed.

The authors reported the following disclosures:

Dr. D'Alton received funds for participating on the advisory board of Merck for Mothers. Dr. Gyamfi-Bannerman received funds for participating in the advisory board of Sera Prognostics.

The other authors report no financial or other conflicts of interest.
People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers march next to the entrance to the Forbidden City during the opening ceremony of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing on May 21, 2020. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images)

Canadians Face Greater Threat Than Americans From Investing in Chinese Companies

Chinese companies aim to attract US dollars at all costs as part of undeclared economic war

News Analysis

Its a case of buyer beware when investing in stocks of Chinese companies, not to mention businesses with significant operations in China.

And Canadians are more vulnerable than Americans are to financial fraud by Chinese businessessuch as overstated revenue and asset valuesdue to Canadas use of international accounting standards that give greater leeway to a firms executives, according to investigative forensic accountant Al Rosen.

People think they have this comfortable investment, but the point is, its wide open to manipulation, Rosen told The Epoch Times.

Financial deception is part of a Chinese master plan, according to Carson Block, founder and chief investment officer of Muddy Waters Capital. He says China is waging an undeclared economic war against the West.

This system whereby they protect frauds that list in the United States, and raise capital from U.S. investors, I think is one leg of a capital markets strategy. That is one leg of this undeclared economic war, Block said.

He was speaking at a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) panel in Washington, D.C., on July 9, about investing in emerging markets (EM). The discussion concentrated on China almost exclusively, as it is the biggest allocation in EM at 41 percent, according to Morgan Stanleys indices.

Corruption Leads to Fraud

Block explained that many EM lack the standard of rule of law found in western democracies. Whats problematic is that even if a company is listed on a North American stock exchange, the ability to enforce a Canadian or American court decision is limited in the foreign country.

With China having a much weaker rule of law, Block questions why business leaders there would be inclined to adhere to the more stringent western standards.

In China, the corruption cascades from the top down, Block said.

If you have a corrupt leadership, much of the society will operate that way. And what that means is many of the people who come to control significant businessesthe kinds that list in the U.S.are beneficiaries and participants in that system, he said.

In a book Rosen co-authored with his son Mark, Easy Prey Investors: Why Broken Safety Nets Threaten Your Wealth, Rosen said some of the common financial manipulations include overstating profits and cash flows. Other schemes include excessive executive pay through flawed compensation agreements.

Investors looking for growth were fooled into thinking that the once TSX-listed Sino-Forest was a proxy for Chinas economic rise. But the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) found that the company had falsified assets and sales records and given inaccurate statements to external auditors. In 2017, the OSC ruled that Sino-Forest had defrauded investors and misled investigators.

The U.S. firm Muddy Waters was instrumental in bringing about the end for Sino-Forest in 2011.

Companies like Sino-Forest locate themselves in Canada by design, Rosen wrote.

In fact, Canadian investors are much better protected by U.S. regulators than they are by regulators in their own country, he said in his book.

Where Canada is more vulnerable than the United States, Rosen argues, is due to the accounting standards it followsinternational ones that use current value accounting. This method is more easily abused, as companies can apply overly rosy assumptions, such as the likelihood of revenue collection or price appreciation of an assetas opposed to recording it at cost, according to the U.S. standard, the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

For Chinese or other EM assets, such as infrastructure and even some infrequently traded stocksknown as Level 3 assets, where there are no recent prices determined between buyers and sellersRosen says its a bad combination for Canada to be using international accounting standards.

Youve got a problem of how can I possibly calculate a current value, without making a dozen or so assumptions, Rosen said.

In recent months, the United States has ramped up efforts to crack down on Chinese companies, as it is a matter of grave apprehension for the White House; however, similar concerns in Canada fall on the shoulders of the provincial authorities, who have not attempted similar efforts.

Investor Protections Insufficient

Roger Robinson Jr., president and CEO of RWR Advisory Group, a firm that specializes in tracking and assessing the risks of foreign state-controlled enterprises, told the SEC panel that the Chinese Communist Party controls all Chinese enterprises and implants its cells in their senior management structures.

Article 7 of Chinas National Intelligence Law enables the state to call upon Chinese firms and citizens to support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work and to keep the secrets of that work from the public.

What troubles Robinson is that some Chinese companies are illegal for U.S. firms to do business with, yet investors can invest in them. The companies could be complicit in human rights abuses and be threats to national security, but such information is not required to be disclosed as material risksones with a significant potential for harm to U.S. investors, according to Robinson.

For example, investors can own the FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap China A Inclusion Index via an investment management companys exchange traded fund (ETF). Investors buying shares in such an ETF are unwittingly providing U.S. dollar capital to some of the 20 companies that the Pentagon says are owned or controlled by Chinas military, like China National Nuclear Power Corp. and China Shipbuilding Industry Corp. Such companies could face additional U.S. sanctions.

Robinson reiterated that China is an authoritarian police state and that the United States needs far more discipline in regulatory enforcement. Due diligence is lacking on these Chinese companies, and the SEC should be regarding human rights abuses and national security risks as material to investors. So should the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a U.S. body created to protect investors by overseeing audits done for publicly traded companies.

We need far more discipline and far more regulatory enforcement than we have today. This multi-trillion-dollar free-lunch program for China is unsustainable, he said. Weve looked at the prospectuses. Weve looked at the SEC filings. And some of the most obvious risks are not there. So I think we have a lot of work to do here.

Rosen said Canadian provincial financial markets regulators cannot do much about this nefarious risk.

You would need a change in their whole mandate legislation and so on for them to take a look at it, he said.

The British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) told The Epoch Times that company management itself is responsible for determining what is material to investors, and the regulator can prevent a company from listing if it believes the company is not conducting its business with integrity.

Securities laws do not limit business activities. Instead, they require timely disclosure of material information so that investors can make informed investment decisions, the BCSC told The Epoch Times.

More Sino-Forests Out There?

It would appear ambitious for U.S. and Canadian regulators and accounting bodies to expect greater cooperation from China given the inherent corruption, its disregard for the rule of law, and its capital markets strategy that is part of a larger undeclared economic war, as Block put it.

The China expert, in a recent interview with Bloomberg Asia, said he believes the country has no real intention of cooperating with U.S. authorities.

China is to stock fraud as Silicon Valley is to technology, Block said. In his firms investment strategy of shorting stocksprofiting from the drop in value of a stockChina will be 2025 percent of their focus.

He also warns that audits can provide a false sense of security for investors. They are meant to check that accounting standards have been properly followed. They are not meant to catch or prevent fraud.

Rosen has testified in Singapores high court on some of the financial shenanigans there that caused huge losses for Canadian-based investors.

It has to blow up at some point, Rosen said.

The $400 billion Canada Pension Plan, one of the worlds largest pension funds, plans to ramp up investment in China to 20 percent of the funds assets by 2025.
New initiative urges all Christians to vote in November; pandemic could impact turnout

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In 2016, the year President Donald Trump was first elected, white evangelical Christians spoke powerfully in his favor with their votes and are on track to deliver again in November based on polling data. A significant portion of practicing Christians did not vote that year, however, and a new bipartisan initiative called Our Church Votes is hoping to activate them all for Jesus in 2020.

We are trying to reach every church. We are trying to call every church in America that follows Christ, that believes the Bible is true. Were asking each and every church to engage their congregation and to hold at least one voter registration drive before the elections to encourage and equip the attendees, the members of their church, to be a part of this process, Jason Yates, CEO of My Faith Votes, told The Christian Post in an interview Wednesday.

Our Church Votes, which is an initiative of My Faith Votes, a non-partisan movement that encourages Christians in America to vote in every election, says in 2016, more than 25 million Christians chose not to vote. By focusing on their faith in 2020, Yates wants all these inactive Christians, along with active ones, to exercise their right to vote with the principles of Jesus in mind.

The number of inactive Christians, according to Yates, was arrived at through internal research and includes followers of Christ who practice independent or organized religion.

We recognize that Christians, God gives us passions and pursuits that may lead people one way or the other but what we are calling people to do is to vote not right/left, donkey, elephant, but the Lamb and to think about what Jesus principles are, Yates said.

The Our Church Votes initiative is a resource that was created specifically for pastors and other church leaders to help them engage with their congregations about the political process and reflect on how they can bring their faith to bear on it in a non-partisan way.

Elections are happening. Its on everyones mind. They hear about it and so how can we help church leadership engage their congregations and encourage them and do it in a way that points to Jesus and nothing else, the My Faith Votes CEO said.

Some Christians, explained Yates, have disengaged from politics because they have been led to believe that religion and politics shouldnt mix or there should be a separation of church and state. Those mantras, he said, should not be used as a directive to not vote.

A lot of people are unable to connect their faith to politics. They dont know how those are connected and they buy in to the mantra, frankly, that we hear in our society  that basically that religion and politics dont mix. That there is a separation of church and state, he said.

While the initiative has been getting positive feedback from churches, the idea among some that churches shouldnt engage in the political process has been expressed in some of his meetings, Yates noted.

I was meeting with a pastor just last week and he was shocked when I shared with him that clause separation of church and state does not belong in any of our documents. Its not in our Constitution, its not in the Declaration of Independence, its not in the Bill of Rights, and he was shocked. He thought it was because you hear that all the time. And I said no, that doesnt exist.

That was a letter written to the Danbury Church by Thomas Jefferson and it was actually expressing a need for the Church to influence politics but to be separate in spirit from politics to maintain their Christianity.

Yates highlighted the Johnson Amendment as another reason why some Christians have shied away from the political process. The Johnson Amendment, which has been in effect since 1954, is seen by supporters as a way to separate church and state in modern American life. It forces religious leaders to give up their 501(c)3 tax-exempt status if they choose to give sermons endorsing specific candidates ahead of elections. It also prohibits churches, synagogues, mosques and other nonprofit institutions from raising money for political candidates.

I think the Johnson Amendment in the late 1900s also influenced that belief because it says churches as non-profits, 501(c)3s cannot speak into, [what] a lot of people heard, is cannot speak into politics. Of course they cant endorse candidates, they cant give money to candidates, etc., and they cant oppose candidates. I think with the Johnson Amendment and this belief around this clause of separation of church and state theres a lot of people who just buy into that and believe we need to be separate, we shouldnt be part of politics, he said.

This election cycle, however, Yates wants Christians to think of their political participation as adding salt and light to the process.

Were called to be an influence in our culture, in our society. I often talk about the verse Galatians 6:10 that says as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially those in the faith and I describe our opportunity to vote is an opportunity to do good. Its not the good that the world necessarily knows or believes but its a good of who we serve, he said.

Some Christians, he argued, may also think that their vote wont make a difference but urged them to look at their participation as part of a collective that can speak loudly.

A lot of us give to charities. A lot of us do things that our one act does not necessarily impact the overall objective or move the overall objective or mission forward but our collective action does. So if we want to solve poverty and we give to a group that feeds the homeless, our one gift doesnt always move that forward but our collective support does, he said. If were reacting to a natural disaster, our one gift or act of volunteerism doesnt always make a large dent in that effort but our collective acts do and its the same with the voting. And so why do we think of it differently when it comes to voting? We shouldnt.

The initiative comes as the nation is fighting a new pandemic that has led to shutdowns of the economy and churches. Two-thirds of Americans believe the COVID-19 outbreak will disrupt the presidential election, according to Pew Research. Many Americans, particularly Democrats, believe it will impact voter turnout.

Notably, a 2015 study, Does Church Attendance Cause People to Vote? Using Blue Laws Repeal to Estimate the Effect of Religiosity on Voter Turnout, published by Cambridge University Press, found that church attendance may have a significant causal effect on voter turnout. It showed that when the blue laws restricting Sunday retail activity were repealed in the U.S., it led to a 5% decrease in church attendance which correlated to a 1% drop in voter participation.

This decline in turnout is consistent with the large effect of church attendance on turnout reported in the literature, and suggests that church attendance may have a significant causal effect on voter turnout, the study said.

As the coronavirus outbreak has forced most Christians to worship from home, with church doors closed, attendance among practicing Christians has gone down, according to a recent Barna report.

Recent data show that, among practicing Christians  those who identify as Christian, agree strongly that faith is very important in their lives and attend church at least monthly (prior to COVID-19)  over half (53%) say they have streamed their regular church online within the past four weeks. Another 34 percent admits to streaming a different church service online other than their own, essentially church hopping digitally, Barna stated in its report this month.

About one-third of practicing Christians (32%) says they have done neither of these things. Though some of these churchgoers may be part of the minority of congregations that were still gathering for physical worship during these weeks, we can, for the most part, confidently interpret this group as those who have dropped out of church for the time being.

Yates noted that the impact of the pandemic in getting his message out is a big issue but he is still happy that he can connect with churches online.

This is a big issue. First of all, churches have migrated to digital connection with people and much smaller groups. So the idea, even with Our Church Votes, when we launched that, we launched it with an idea that a church is gathering and you have a pastor who has a voice and can speak into and talk to the group, maybe even provide people with forms to register to vote, that type of thing. And now we have a much different situation at least as far as the pandemic and what that looks like, he said.

One of the things that Im really pleased about is all of the tools and resources that we offer through Our Church Votes are provided in such a way that a church absolutely can engage in a digital means  whether thats social media, whether thats through their website, whether thats through email  and provide people with ways to engage, not just to register to vote, but also sign up to get voting reminders for every election going forward and do that all digitally, do it all online without paper, without handling things, without much in the way of even human resources to do that.
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Mexicos $218.7 million presidential plane has returned to Mexico City after it spent 18 months in the United States while the Mexican government searched for a potential buyer.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had vowed to sell the Boeing 787 Dreamliner a day before he took office in December 2018. The leftist leaders casted the jumbo jet as a symbol of excess and corruption under previous governments in a country where around half the population lives in poverty.

The airplane arrived back in Mexico from California on Wednesday afternoon and will now be kept at the presidential hangar.

The Boeing Dreamliner 787 was back in Mexico on Wednesday after it was sent to a hangar in California to be sold because it was considered a luxury by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane, purchased by the administration of President Felipe Calderon, includes a master bedroom (as seen in the image above)

Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has been brought up the possibility of trading the plane with the United States government for medical supplies

The jet was acquired former President Felipe Calderon and was used towards the end of former President Enrique Pena Nietos administration for 214 official flights beginning February 2016 for two years and 10 months.

The airliner also got a huge makeover during Pena Nieto's term in office to the tune of $70million - most of which was spent tailoring the aircraft's meeting room. The plane was reconfigured to fly only 80 people and was fitted with marble-lined bathrooms, a 'presidential suite' and a private bath.

According to Univision, Pena Nieto and his ex-wife Angelica Rivera spent $14,000 on 746 bottles of liquor to treat their guests between 2012 and 2015.

In all, the former presidential couple drew a bill of $860,000 for food and booze during their time in power.

The presidential plane underwent a dramatic makeover during former President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration. Pictured above is a marble-lined bathroom

The grounded Mexican presidential airplane went through a dramatic makeover when former president Enrique Pena Nieto had it spruced up to the tune of $70 million after buying it for $218.7 million in 2012

The presidential plane was last used by Pena Nieto for the 2018 G20 meetings in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since then Lopez Obrador opted to fly in commercial planes, including earlier this month when he traveled to Washington for his first foreign trip as Mexicos leader for a meeting with his United States counterpart Donald Trump.

In April 2019, Lopez Obrador took to Facebook to write: We will first offer it to Trump, for being a neighbor, and if not to any other character, Boeing or an airline.'

The Dreamliners sale has been stuck due to Lopez Obrador's unwillingness to accept offers below a United Nations-backed valuation of $130 million, even as the plane was potentially losing value as it sat unused in southern California.

Lopez Obrador did have plans to sell the plane in a raffle, where the plane was going to be the prize. Later he said the raffle would be a lottery-style event, with 100 winners getting about $1 million each rather than the plane.

Earlier this month, the government said Mexico was considering a $120 million bid for the jet after an unidentified prospective buyer offered to pay part in cash and part in medical equipment.

People look on as Mexico's presidential plane, which President Andres Manuel Lo4pez Obrador is selling, lands in Mexico City during its return from California

The Dreamliner (pictured) was supposed to be sold through a raffle before the government stopped and announced that it would be providing million dollar cash prizes instead of the jumbo jet itself

The Mexican president has said his government is considering a $120 million bid for the jet after an unidentified prospective buyer offered to pay part in cash and part in medical equipment

The cockpit of the Mexican Air Force Presidential Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner is pictured during a media tour before is put up for sale in December 2018
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a new regional political front is taking shape in the northeastern state of Assam where assembly elections are due next year. Once a powerful regional party, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP)  now part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government is fast losing ground. And there has been a demand from various quarters to fill this space, especially since the statewide protest against the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, last year.

Last month, six regional outfits formed an umbrella body called Anchalik Gana Morcha to take on the ruling BJP in the forthcoming polls. Among the most prominent faces on this front are veteran journalist-turned-Rajya Sabha member Ajit Kumar Bhuyan and Prodyut Bora, former BJP IT cell chief and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

This time regional power will conquer Dispur by defeating BJP. We will put effort to form a bigger forum; however characteristics will be different from earlier regionalism. We have already sat for discussion with several regional bodies. Our prime focus is to appear as a regional power by uniting different bodies in one single platform, Bhuyan, chief convener of the platform, told reporters in Guwahati.

While it is not clear whether this front will go for any alliance with mainstream political parties such as the Congress, it is likely to seek support from indigenous outfits including All Assam Students Union (AASU), Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) which played a key role in the anti-CAA protests.

Faulty NRC, CAA Irked People

Assam, along with several other states, had witnessed massive protests, following the enactment of CAA, which grants citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2014. In Assam particularly, citizenship is a highly contentious issue linked to the six-year-long Assam Agitation, a movement against illegal immigrants by indigenous people of the state.

One of the highlights of the Assam Accord, a tripartite document signed at the end of the agitation in 1985 by the Centre, Assam government and leaders of the movement, was updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC). NRC is aimed at weeding out undocumented immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh irrespective of their religion. While the successive governments kept dilly-dallying over the NRC, the BJP came to power in 2016 with a promise to implement it expeditiously.

However, what it did was a complete mess  the final list published on August 31, 2019 left out over 1.9 million names while including more than 31 million people, fuelling fears that a large number of suspected people had made it to the NRC. The state government is now exploring legal options for re-verification of names in the final list.

As if that were not enough, the BJP-led central government amended the citizenship law, which in essence, nullifies the very concept of NRC  the latter is a process to identify illegal immigrants while the CAA allows entry of immigrants on the basis of their religion.

The CAA also came in conflict with the BJPs 2014 poll promise of addressing the issue of infiltration and illegal immigrants in the Northeast on a priority basis.

Regional Sentiments Take Root, Again

Ahead of the 2016 assembly elections, the BJP tried to fan regional sentiments by highlighting issues such as NRC, land rights of indigenous people, flood and erosion control, protecting socio-economic and political identity of indigenous Assamese Muslims, providing scheduled tribe status to six communities in Assam in a strict time-bound manner, among others.

Voters also put in their trust in the BJP in the absence of a credible alternative, as the only regional party, the AGP, which was born out of the Assam Agitation, was fighting for its survival. The BJP registered a massive victory securing 60 out 126 seats, while its allies AGP and Bodoland Peoples Front bagged 14 and 12 seats respectively.

However, the new citizenship law came as a big disappointment, and sparked huge outrage in Assam. The people, especially the indigenous communities in the state, not only saw it as a big U-turn by the ruling BJP, but also as a betrayal by the AGP. So much so, AGP founder president and two-time chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta openly denounced the party leaders who supported that CAA.

It was for the first time in 34 years that the entire state erupted in protest  people from all walks of life and all ages joined the peaceful rallies and processions. For the majority of the people in Assam, the CAA brought a sense of deja vu.

Like in the time of the Assam Agitation, there was a groundswell of support for civil society organisations such as AASU, AJYCP and KMSS. Writers, activists, journalists and intellectuals also backed the idea that its time the state needed a strong regional party or a political forum, which could safeguard the states interests.
Kannada Bigg Boss 3 contestant Jayashree Ramaiah set off an alarm on Facebook on Wednesday morning after she posted "I quit. Goodbye to this f*****g world and depression." Her followers on social media immediately drew attention to her post and friends and acquaintances began reaching out to the actress, asking her to return their calls and desist from taking any extreme steps.

A few hours after the "I quit" post, Jayashree removed it from Facebook and said, "I'm Alright and safe!! Love you all." Her friend and actress Advithi Shetty commented, "Be strong always . Your a bold girl n u know it . You will rock it girl . U have so many people for u lots of hugs n love to u Jayashree Ramaiah (sic)"

Adhvithi told ETimes that Jayashree has been battling depression for a while now. "She had family issues and was also concerned about the lack of work. She has shared several times about how low she's been and I would try to cheer her up. But the problem was that she'd keep changing her phone number so often that it became difficult to keep track of how she was doing," she said.

Around four months ago, Jayashree reportedly moved into her own home, but went incommunicado again. "A few days ago, I messaged her on social media and she said she was doing fine. So I was shocked to see this update on Wednesday morning. I am awaiting more clarity on the issue," said Adhvithi.

Jayashree is a model-turned-actress who made her acting debut with Imran Sardhariya's Uppu Huli Khara. She shot to fame with Bigg Boss Kannada season 3.
Jana Jumpp spends eight hours a day updating a spreadsheet  not for work, but a recent hobby: figuring out how many of Amazons 400,000 warehouse workers have fallen sick with the coronavirus.

Amazon wont give a number, so Jumpp tracks it on her own and shares what she finds with others. She relies on Amazon employees at more than 250 facilities who call, text or send her Facebook messages with possible cases. She asks for proof, like messages or voicemails from Amazon, and tries to make sure she doesnt count the same case twice.

Its time consuming, but Jumpp says workers should know if theres an outbreak and just how risky it is to head to work.

Amazon is not going to do it, so its up to us, says Jumpp, 58, who lost her job in July at an Amazon warehouse in Jeffersonville, Indiana, after she went on leave for fear of contracting the coronavirus and ran out of paid time off.

Major companies are keeping their employees in the dark on just how prevalent the virus is in their warehouses, stores and meatpacking plants. That has left workers like Jumpp to become amateur sleuths in their spare time. Unions and advocate groups have taken up the cause, too, creating lists or building online maps of stores where workers can self-report cases they know about.

The numbers are publicized by the unions and labor groups and used to organize worker protests. But mainly, the reason for collecting them is so that workers can make decisions about their health.

Companies have no legal obligation to publicly reveal how many of their workers have contracted the virus, and few are doing so.

No names are included, and those keeping track say their numbers likely reflect far fewer cases than there actually are. Companies typically notify employees if they may have been exposed to the virus by a coworker but critics claim they wont reveal the totals because it could spook workers and turn off customers.

Marc Perrone, the president of the the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents grocery and meatpacking workers, called it stunning that this many months into the pandemic some of Americas largest companies still refuse to release this information.

Companies have no legal obligation to publicly reveal how many of their workers have contracted the virus, and few are doing so.

Employers do have to provide a safe working environment, which means they must alert staff if they might have been exposed to the virus without revealing the name of the person who tested positive, according to guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that enforces workplace safety. They are also obligated to keep track of COVID-19 infections contracted on the job, and must report to OSHA if there is a hospitalization or death related to the disease.

Imperfect Picture

Companies cannot consciously ignore the possibility that their workers are getting sick at their jobs and keep that information from the government, says Aaron Holt, an employment attorney at Cozen OConnor.

Generally, in my experience, the clients Im talking to are doing their best but its an imperfect picture, he says.

In the absence of full transparency, the UFCW has asked local unions to keep record of members who have gotten sick or died. According to its count, more than 25,000 people have been infected or exposed to the virus at supermarkets and meatpacking plants; roughly 150 have died.

United for Respect, a labor group, collects anonymous reports from Walmart and Amazon workers through a new website. So far, they have received reports of more than 800 cases at Walmart and more than 1,760 at Amazon warehouses, though the group has only been able to independently verify a fraction of the cases.

Its really about Walmart employees stepping in where managers are failing, says United for Respect member Cindi Murray, who works at a Walmart in Laurel, Maryland.

Walmart said that its COVID-19 cases track with the rest of the country but didnt explain why it doesnt provide numbers. It noted that it has temporarily closed some stores to conduct testing as well as for additional cleaning and sanitizing.

Faced with pressure, some companies are offering a glimpse into their numbers. Tyson Foods, the meat processing company that has had multiple outbreaks and been sued by the families of three workers who died after contracting the coronavirus in an Iowa meat plant, is testing workers at some of its plants and publishing the results on its website. The company says about a third of its workforce, or about 40,000 people, have been tested.

Other companies keep the numbers close, even when pressed by politicians or state officials. When Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker asked meat processor Smithfield to release the number of workers who have fallen sick, the company responded in a June letter: Employees should never be reduced to numbers; even one loss scars our hearts.

Breakdown Not Useful

In May, attorneys general of a dozen states asked Amazon for a state-by-state breakdown of COVID-19 cases and deaths at its warehouses and its Whole Foods grocery stores. Amazon did not provide the numbers, according to the Massachusetts attorney generals office, and did not explain why when asked by The Associated Press. But in a May interview with 60 Minutes, Amazon executive David Clark said that case totals are not a particularly useful number.

Jumpp first started tracking COVID-19 illnesses in March, concerned about the growing cases and her own health. When she took up the tracking project, she would get about five new cases a day. But then it quickly rose to 20.

Amazon notifies workers through text messages or robotic calls if theres been a coronavirus case at their location. At first, the company provided numbers but now will only say if there has been an additional case. Jumpp counts that as one. If Amazon says there have been additional cases, she counts that as two, an imperfect system that likely leads to an undercount. According to Jumpps tally, there have been more than 1,600 cases at Amazon warehouses. At least one other worker has counted 1,500 cases.

Inspired by warehouse workers, Katie Doan started tracking cases at Amazon-owned Whole Foods in April, searching Reddit, Twitter and news articles when she wasnt stocking shelves at a Whole Foods in Testin, California. Some workers sent tips through messaging app Telegram.

In late May, Doan was fired from her Whole Foods. She was told it was because she left work for 45 minutes for a panic attack, but she thinks her outspokenness played a role. Whole Foods says leaving her post was the only reason for her firing.

Even though she doesnt work there anymore, the 25-year-old journalism student is still tracking cases at Whole Foods, which she says have surpassed 630.

Im reporting something that needs to be put out there, she says.

Top Photo: Katie Doan, a former Whole Foods employee, poses for a photo Thursday, July 16, 2020, in Costa Mesa, Calif. Doan started tracking COVID-19 cases at Amazon-owned Whole Foods in April. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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New Delhi: The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) is expected to release the result of Maharashtra SSC Class 10 board exams or SSC results this week. However, there is no official confirmation yet about the date of declaration of MSBSHSE Maharashtra SSC 10th Results 2020.

The results will be available on the official websites - mahresult.nic.in, maharashtraeducation.com, and mahahsscboard.maharashtra.gov.in.

About 17 lakh students had registered for the board exams this year. This year, the Geography exam could not be held due to the Coronavirus COVID-19 induced lockdown across the country. The board has decided to grant marks for Geography subject on the basis of internal assessment.

This year, the results, which are expected to come out next week, would be unique in itself as the board could not conduct all the exams.

To pass the Maharashtra SSC exam, students need to score an aggregate score of 35 per cent with at least 20 per cent marks in the theory of every subject. Going by trends of previous years, the results for Maharashtra Board class 10 exams are most likely to be announced in a week after the declaration of Maharashtra HSC results. Maharashtra HSC result 2020 was declared on July 16, 2020.

On July 16, the MSBSHSE declared the Maharashtra HSC Class 12 results 2020. The results were declared at 1 pm on Thursday. After the official declaration, the links of the results were made available on MSBSHSE's official websites.
They're planning to split the $230,000 cash prize if they win Big Brother Australia on Wednesday.

And just hours before the grand finale, lovebirds Chad Hurst and Sophie Budack cosied up together and put on a united front as they stepped out in Sydney.

The pair were spotted at the Sunrise studios with fellow finalist Daniel Gorringe.

The countdown is on! On Wednesday, Big Brother couple Chad Hurst and Sophie Budack cosied up together as they joined Daniel Gorringe in Sydney ahead of the grand finale

Model Chad, 27, looked casual and relaxed in a grey sweater, which he teamed with beige trousers and white sneakers.

Sophie, 25, looked chic in a floral mini-dress, which she wore with a beige blazer and white sneakers.

Former AFL star Daniel, 28, wore black trousers and a sweater, with a khaki puffer jacket on top.

Three's a crowd! The pair were spotted at the Sunrise studios with fellow finalist, Daniel Gorringe (right)

Casual: Model Chad, 27, looked casual and relaxed in a grey sweater, which he teamed with beige trousers and white runners

The Big Brother grand finale is set to air on Wednesday night, with the winner being decided by a public vote.

There's a lot on the line for finalists Chad, Daniel and Sophie - namely the $230,000 cash prize.

As of Wednesday morning, 27-year-old model Chad is tipped to win the show, according to leading bookmakers.

Lovebirds Sophie and Chad told Daily Mail Australia earlier this week that they had agreed to split the $234,656 cash prize if either of them wins.

'I would obviously share the money with Sophie. We both agreed. It's just fair. We came in together, we've done everything together, so to share the money is the right thing to do,' Chad said.

Who will win? The Big Brother grand finale is set to air on Wednesday night, with the winner being decided by a public vote. As of Wednesday morning, 27-year-old model Chad is tipped to win the show, according to leading bookmakers

'There's just no way I'm not going to share the money with Sophie,' he added.

Sophie also said: 'We were a team in the house and we have come up with a deal that the winner will give a cut to the other person.'

'Without a question, we're both equally deserving of the win.'

However, Daniel was a little more skeptical of the deal the pair had made.

'If they split that money, I'll eat my left shoe. It's very hard when the money is in front of you. They might prove me wrong and I hope they do,' he said.

'Sophie and Chad would deserve that win if they get it.'

The Big Brother finale begins Wednesday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven
It seems that a user on weibo recently leaked tech specs relating to the OPPO K7 5G smartphone, which is expected to be unveiled very soon. Based on the leak, it seems that the aforementioned smartphone is expected to come equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G as well as 5G connectivity support.

Not only that, but the aforementioned smartphone is expected to come equipped with a 60Hz 6.4-inch FHD+ display, and a 4025mAh internal battery that supports 30W fast charging. Onto the camera department, theres not much information other than it will come equipped with up to a 64MP image sensor.

With all that said, do take some of the information with a grain of salt, due to the fact that OPPO has yet to provide an official statement on the leak. Not only that, but theres also no news on the Malaysia release date, local pricing, and exact tech specs for now.

Would you be interested in getting the OPPO K7 5G as soon as it is available in the local market? Let us know on our Facebook page and for more updates like this, stay tuned to TechNave.com.
- The Court of Appeal has dismissed a case against uniCredit Savings and Loans and fined the Bank of Ghana an amount of GHc2,000

- This comes after the court ruled that the Bank of Ghana had no right to revoke the licence of the company

- To the court, the arguments presented by the Central Bank were not convincing enough

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

Information available to YEN.com.gh shows that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has been slapped with a GHc2,000 cost by the Court of Appeal.

This comes after the court dismissed its case against HODA Holdings after uniCredit Savings and Loans licence had been revoked.

HODA Holdings, the parent company of uniCredit Savings and Loans, then took the BoG to court to challenge the revocation of the licence.

Dr Ernest Addison, Governor of the Bank of Ghana Source: graphic.com.gh

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Seth Terkper: Former Finance Minister calls for audit of COVID-19 funds

Before the substantive case was heard, the Bank of Ghana filed an application asking the court to trash the case.

Per a report by classfmonline.com, it explained that uniCredit failed to properly invoke the jurisdiction of the court.

The BoG further argued that the applicant ought to have first begun an arbitration process.

According to the court, the bank failed to make a convincing case, hence it's ruling.

The judges who determined the case were Justice Welbourne, Justice Eric Kyei-Baffour, and Justice N. C. A. Agbevor.

Justice Gifty Agyei Addo of the Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court earlier dismissed an application by the bank. The application was intended to halt proceedings initiated against the Central Bank by HODA Holdings.

In other news, Danquah Institute, a policy think-tank, has responded to claims of playing a role in the collapse of banks in Ghana.

According to the institute, it had no hand in the collapse of banks owned by Dr Kwabena Duffuor or Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom.

Until the collapse of their banks, the two men owned uniBank Ghana Limited and GN Bank.

READ ALSO: Gov't to soon roll out packages for unemployed Ghanaians - Finance Minister

Enjoyed reading our story? Download YEN's news app on Google Playstore now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

Want to be featured on YEN.com.gh? Send us a message on our page or on Instagram with your stories, photos or videos

Source: YEN.com.gh
Ghaziabad: Vikram Joshi (35), a Ghaziabad-based journalist with a local Hindi newspaper, succumbed to his injuries at a private hospital early morning on Wednesday after he was shot at by a group of men in front of his two minor daughters on Monday late evening.

The police arrested nine people in connection with the crime on Tuesday, while one suspect is absconding.

Joshi, who was on way on his bike along with his two minor daughters, was cornered by a group of men at Mata Colony in Ghaziabad on Monday late evening and was roughed up. Soon, one of the attackers shot at him from a close range and he sustained bullet injuries in his head.

Joshi was admitted to the intensive care unit and was put on ventillator support. There were internal haemorrhage and acute blood loss due to the gunshot injury in his head. He suffered cardiac arrest and expired at 4:01 am on Wednesday, said Dr. Sangeeta Garg, chief medical superintendent, Yashoda Hospital, Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad.

On Monday morning, Joshis family members refused to take his body away for a post-mortem examination and demanded

to speak to the district magistrate (DM) Ajay Shankar Pandey and the senior superintendent of police (SSP), Ghaziabad, Kalanidhi Naithani, who later arrived at Yashoda Hospital.

The DM spoke to the deceaseds family members and offered financial help, including taking care of his minor daughters education and a job for his wife depending upon her educational qualification. Later, the family members allowed his body to be taken away for an autopsy, said Rakesh Mishra, circle officer, City-1, Ghaziabad Police.

The SSP, however, was unavailable for his comments, despite repeated attempts by HT.

The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government and district administration are concerned about the murder of Joshi. The state government has announced an Rs 10-lakh compensation to his family. Free education will be arranged for his two minor daughters. The family was also assured of a job to his wife as per her educational qualification, said the district information officer.

The police have identified the nine suspects as Ravi Kumar, Chotu (who goes by a single name), Mohit Kumar, Dalvir Singh, Akash Nath, Yogendra Singh, Abhishek Kant, Abhishek Mota, and Mohammad Shakir, while another one, Akash Bihari, is still absconding.

All suspects are residents of the same locality in Ghaziabad.

Earlier on July 16, a fight had broken out between Joshis family and the rival group after which both parties had approached the local police authorities in Vijay Nagar. The rival group alleged that Ravi Kumar -- one of the suspects behind the journalists murder --sustained severe injuries, while Joshis family alleged that the men were harassing the journalists niece.

The police said that investigation is on over Joshi familys allegations of harassment of the girl.

The police said Ravi was hospitalised after the July 16 fistfight, but he sent his accomplices to physically assault Joshi on Monday late evening. Joshi was shot at in the presence of his two minor daughters. The incident was caught on closed-circuit TV (CCTV) cameras, where one of his minor daughters was seen crying for help after Joshi sustained bullet injuries in his head.

Nine people, including Ravi, have been arrested. One suspect is still on the run. The SSP has suspended the local police post in-charge and a departmental probe has been initiated against him, Mishra added.

The incident has snowballed into a raging political controversy, as former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday morning tweeted and offered condolences to Joshis family and also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led UP government over its rising crime graph.

Vada tha Ram raj ka, de diya gundraj (Ram raj was promised but they gave gunda raj), Gandhi tweeted.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee also weighed in on the incident.

My heartfelt condolences to the family members of Vikram Joshi, a fearless journalist, who passed away on Wednesday morning. He was shot in UP for filing an FIR to book his nieces molesters. An atmosphere of fear has been created in the country. Voices are being muzzled. Media not spared. Shocking, Banerjee tweeted.

On Tuesday, Priyanka Gandhi, general secretary, Congress; and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav also slammed the UP government and questioned the worsening law and order in the countrys most populous state.

The government has directed the Ghaziabad administration for all help to Joshis family and financial assistance. Besides free education to his children, his wife will get a job in the state government. The police have acted promptly in the case and nine people were arrested. An investigation is on in the case, said Chandra Mohan, BJPs UP spokesperson.
(Natural News) In a series of columns over the span of two weeks, New York Post writer Michael Goodwin dropped some bombshells on the family that owns rival paper The New York Times, and frankly, it should have been enough to ignite the Left-wing Marxist cancel culture mob.

But it hasnt so far, and that in and of itself is telling.

In his first column, published July 11, Goodwin exposed the Times for its historical ties to racism:

Four years after it abandoned its traditional standards of fairness to try to defeat Donald Trump, the paper is now fixated on rewriting the story of America. The drive-by attack on the Rushmore presidents was part of its cancel-culture agenda.

Yet the Times has never applied to its own history the standards it uses to demonize others. If it did, reporters there would learn that the Ochs-Sulzberger family that has owned and run the paper for 125 years has a complicated legacy of its own.

First and foremost, he noted that the Times patriarch, Adolph S. Ochs, not only supported the Confederacy, but he actually contributed money to the building and fashioning of Confederate monuments the paper now pretends to hate  one of them being Stone Mountain in Georgia, featuring images of top Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and General Stonewall Jackson.

The legacy complications begin with Ochs, a Tennessee businessman who took control of the struggling New York Times when he was just 38 years old. He already owned the Chattanooga Times, which he called a conservative Democratic newspaper  at a time when nearly all black citizens in the South were Republicans, Goodwin wrote.

He noted further that Ochs brought his Southern sympathies with him to New York. Ten years after taking over the paper, it published a glowing account of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Meanwhile, Ochs parents, Julius and Bertha Levy, were German Jewish immigrants who had differing views on slavery. Accounts of the time noted that Julius abhorred the slave trade, but that Bertha embraced a contemptuous antebellum view of blacks, and for the rest of her life was dogmatically conservative, even reactionary.

In fact, a descendant of hers called her that Confederate lady. She had at least two brothers who joined the Confederate army.

The following week, Goodwin added to his original report, noting that he had discovered evidence that members of the Ochs extended family in the South were indeed slaveholders.

After recounting what he had written earlier, Goodwin adds, A week ago, I was aware of no evidence or claims that any members of Berthas family owned slaves or participated in the slave trade.

That statement is no longer accurate. I have found compelling evidence that the uncle Bertha Levy Ochs lived with for several years in Natchez, Miss., before the Civil War owned at least five slaves, he noted.

Goodwin cited records regarding John Mayer [Levy], a store owner and prominent leader of the small Jewish community in Natchez dating to the 1860 Census showing that a separate slave schedule lists two males, ages 70 and 26, and three females  65, 45, and 23  as being his.

That makes it likely that Mayer had slaves when niece Bertha lived with him for several years before she married Julius Ochs in 1853. Mayer and his wife had 14 children and were affluent enough that it would have been unusual if they didnt own slaves, according to Robert Rosen, author of The Jewish Confederates, the NY Post columnist noted further.

These columns have been out for days now  where is the outrage from the Left-wing woke brigades? Why arent they calling for The New York Times owners to either sell the paper or tear it down?

The answer is obvious: The Times is the leader of the anti-Trump resistance. So, like Ralph Blackface Northam got away with posing in a pic with a KKK outfit, the Times will be excused by the same hypocrites. See NYTwatch.com for more accurate reporting about the treacherous New York Times.

Sources include:

NYPost.com

NaturalNews.com
The Australian Federal Police commissioner has accused Facebook of contributing to the rape and torture of children.

Reece Kershaw has torn into tech giants for allowing paedophiles to hide behind end-to-end encryption.

'If I was running those companies, and you were going to contribute to the rape and torture of children, I can't see why that's a good thing,' he told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw has torn into tech giants for allowing paedophiles to hide behind end-to-end encryption

Mr Kershaw said Australian tech companies were extremely co-operative in helping the AFP weed out criminals exploiting encrypted platforms.

'The tech companies here are excellent and have been very helpful and supportive of what we have been trying to achieve,' he said.

'I'm not that happy with, obviously, Facebook and others.'

Mr Kershaw said his officers would be further disadvantaged by tech companies planning to use even more secure communication methods.

'Paedophiles are counting down the days because they cannot wait,' he said.

He said Australians could no longer ignore news of child exploitation.

'As a country we need to be more outraged,' Mr Kershaw said.

He challenged Australians who opposed legislation giving law enforcement access to encrypted communications to explain it to victims of child exploitation.

The AFP has received more than 11,000 referrals about child exploitation so far this year

'They may never get justice because technology has been designed to keep the identity of their monster a secret,' Mr Kershaw said.

The AFP has received more than 11,000 referrals about child exploitation so far this year.

Mr Kershaw believes the insidious crime is 10 times more prevalent in the shadows of the dark web.

He warned more Australians were accessing child pornography during the coronavirus pandemic.

'There are more people at home on their computers and more desperate people across the world,' he said.

The AFP is increasingly vigilant to foreign interference in Australia, which security agencies believe has reached levels not seen since the Cold War.

'It's here, it's in our country,' Mr Kershaw said.

'Those that try to, under the auspices of a foreign principal, try to interfere in our systems and our processes, whether that's commonwealth or state government, we will take action.'

The AFP is also focused on the growing threat of right-wing terrorism.

'We don't discriminate on what the ideology is,' Mr Kershaw said.

'If you're out there to harm through violence and try and murder Austalians here or offshore then we're going to come after you, no matter what you believe in.'

Mr Kershaw, who is nine months into the role, wants his officers to seize between $600 million and $1 billion worth of criminal assets over the next five years.
The Space Force has debuted its official logo, which reprises the use of the delta symbol from the service's seal and flag.

The service introduced the logo Wednesday, accompanied with its formal motto, "Semper supra," which translates from Latin as "always above," according to an announcement on Twitter.

Read Next: 'I Never Looked Back': Goldfein Says Trump's Joint Chiefs Chairman Pick Wasn't Personal

The motto "represents our role in establishing, maintaining, and preserving U.S. freedom of operations in the space domain," the Space Force said.

The logo itself is a delta symbol, which also appears on the Space Force seal and flag.

With each unveiling, Twitter users have been quick to point out that the insignia is highly reminiscent of the "Star Trek" Starfleet Command logo; but the military says the symbol is part of its history, too.

"The delta symbol, the central design element in the seal, was first used as early as 1942 by the U.S. Army Air Forces; and was used in early Air Force space organization emblems dating back to 1961," an official previously told Military.com. "Since then, the delta symbol has been a prominent feature in military space community emblems."

The U.S Space Force released its logo and motto, Semper Supra (Always Above), July 22, 2020 at the Pentagon, D.C. The logo and motto honor the heritage and history of the U.S. Space Force. (U.S. Space Force)

The logo has four pronounced bars within the delta to represent the four military branches -- Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps -- that support the Space Force, according to an explanation released with the image.

The Space Force's seal was unveiled by President Donald Trump in a tweet in January; in May, the president hosted Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John "Jay" Raymond, and Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman, senior enlisted adviser to the Space Force, during a ceremony to present the flag at the White House.

Each image also has Polaris, or the North star, which officials have said signifies the Space Force's "core value, our guiding light."

The delta will also have a place within the organization's structure.

Last month, the sixth military branch said it will have only three echelons of command: field commands, deltas and squadrons. By comparison, in the Air Force, the service headquarters has subordinate major commands, which are composed, in descending order, of a numbered air force, wing, group, squadron and flight.

Pending Space Force decisions include uniform updates, insignia and a rank structure. Officials are also deciding what to call its members.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related: Space Admiral? House Lawmakers Want Navy Ranks for Space Force
People attempt to talk to someone at the Chinese consulate in Houston on July 22, 2020. (Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese Consulate in Houston Was Massive Spy Center, Rubio Says

The Chinese consulate in Houston, which has been ordered by the United States to close, was a massive spy center for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to Senate Intelligence Committee acting Chairman Marco Rubio.

Chinas consulate in Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Partys vast network of spies and influence operations in the United States. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest, Rubio said on Twitter on July 22, adding that the closure is long overdue.

The United States on July 22 said it ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston to close, according to State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus. The spokeswoman said the closure was ordered to protect American intellectual property and Americans private information.

Chinese embassies and consulates worldwide are mandated to influence local politicians and government officials and mobilize members of the Chinese community and Chinese students to advance the CCPs influence, according to Chen Yonglin, Beijings first secretary and consul for political affairs in Sydney, Australia, who defected in 2005.

The control of the overseas Chinese community has been a consistent strategic objective of the Chinese Communist Party as a way to penetrate into the mainstream of the host country, he said. Its not just in Australia. It is done this way in countries such as the U.S. and Canada too.

The closure order came on the heels of an indictment of two Chinese nationals for a decade-long cyber espionage campaign in which they were accused of stealing information on weapons designs, drug information, software source code, and personal data.

In April, court documents from an unsealed federal lawsuit in Connecticut alleged that Chinas ambassador to the United States and a top Chinese diplomat in New York City facilitated the covert recruitment of scientists in the United States. The Daily Beast was the first to report on the case.

In September last year, the United States expelled two Chinese embassy officials for driving onto a sensitive military base in Virginia, the first time in more than 30 years that Chinese diplomats were expelled over suspected espionage acts.

Top U.S. officials have recently amplified their criticism of the CCP, saying the regime is the biggest threat to the United States.

Roughly 80 percent of all economic espionage prosecutions brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) allege criminal conduct intended to benefit the CCP. China is involved in some way in about 60 percent of all trade secret theft cases, according to the DOJ.

FBI director Christopher Wray said the bureau is opening a new counterintelligence investigation involving China every 10 hours. The bureau has more than 2,000 active China-related investigations, as part of the China Initiative, a large-scale counter-CCP campaign launched in November 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

China called the order to close the consulate an unprecedented escalation and said it would retaliate if the United States did not revoke the order. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the United States gave it three days to close the consulate.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the consulate is operating normally, but did not respond to questions about reports of documents being burned in the courtyard of the consulate. A video sent to a local news station and posted on social media showed several open fire pits in the courtyard.

Houston police told FOX 26 that staff there were burning documents because they are being evicted from the building.

It appears to be open burning in a container within the courtyard of the Chinese consulate facility. It does not appear to be an unconfined fire but we have not been allowed access, Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel Pena told KTRK.

The State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the alleged spy activities at the consulate. Ortagus did not offer further details on the closure order, but pointed to a pair of statements from the Vienna Convention which mandate diplomats to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving state and have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that state.

Omid Ghoreishi and Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.
There are many things travellers took for granted up until 2020. The ability to jet 8,000 kilometres just to dangle your feet off an overwater bungalow (with the sound of a bath running in the background) is just one of them.

On that note, if recent events are sapping your soul, we have some news you may find soothing.

While around the world, The Pandemic has bankrupted hotels, restaurants, bus operators, and car rental agencies, and sucked an estimated 100 million people out of work, it has also sparked innovation.

The work from home revolution has been fast-forwarded by 10 years, mens grooming has hit milestone after milestone and The Maldives has found a way to help tourists bypass the boredoms of quarantine.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hotels (@hotels_around_the_world) on Jun 22, 2020 at 8:58pm PDT

Regularly listed in rankings of the worlds most luxurious destinations, this island nations ruffled waters and Instagram-perfect bungalows epitomise opulence.

But if you have to quarantine for 14 days in the airport, or in a grimy city hotel, its not exactly the trip many would be inspired to take.

The Maldivian authorities, however, have come up with a solution that will help travellers enjoy a trip to the Maldives without spending the whole time counting ceiling tiles.

As CNN Travel reports, though border restrictions and quarantine measures are keeping people from visiting many of the worlds most popular travel destinations at the moment, one country famed for its natural beauty is now welcoming all guests  the Maldives.

As of July 15, this island nation in the Indian Ocean is reopen to international tourism.

Most intriguingly; as CNN Travel puts it, perhaps remarkably, very few strings are attached, too. International holidaymakers  US citizens included  will not have to undergo a mandatory quarantine upon arrival at Velana International Airport in the capital, Male, nor produce proof they have tested negative for coronavirus.

There are also no new visa requirements or additional fees to pay.

A brave move, one might argue, considering the skyrocketing confirmed cases in the US right now.

The logic behind the move is hard to argue with though: the idea is that international visitors, for now, will only be permitted on the resort islands and they must book their entire trip in one registered establishment.

One island, one resort.

Exemptions will only be made for transit arrangements, the Maldives government guidelines state. In terms of pandemic prevention, tourism officials, according to CNN Travel, are banking on the fact each resort essentially offers its own form of quarantine already  albeit a pretty enjoyable one.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Beach Hopping (@beachpostcards) on Jul 21, 2020 at 7:44pm PDT

The Maldives, which is comprised of 26 atolls filled with over 1,000 islands, spread over 90,000 square kilometers, is arguably tailor-made for this kind of approach.

CNN Travel reports, Most of the islands in the Maldives developed for tourism feature just a single resort. Should guests or staff come into contact with someone who tests positive for Covid-19, in theory they will be easily traceable, while the potential for spread is kept to a minimum.

Of course for now, as titillating as a trip like this sounds, many countries are not allowing residents to leave, even if the Maldives is ready to accept them. Not to mention, travel insurance is a huge grey area (at best) right now.

But once travel insurance companies, tourists home nations and the world more generally all adapt to the new normal, and confirmed Virus cases dwindle, The Maldives will be ahead of the curve, so to speak, when it comes to safely  and luxuriously  accepting guests.

As CNBC reports, despite the Maldives being open for business, hotels are only gradually reopening, with Conrad Maldives Rangali Island planning to reopen at the end of September, and St. Regis and all other Marriott International hotels in the Maldives not planning to reopen until October.

However, as Sonu Shivdasani, CEO and founder of Soneva, which has two Maldives resorts, recently told CNN Travel, there are positive signs when it comes to demand: We have more on the books at Soneva Fushi for August than we had at the same time last year. As the borders open, and our main markets are allowed to travel to us, it could be our best August ever.

Read Next
It's worthwhile remembering the plaudits that the Democrats come up with when one of their own veteran solons dies. Regardless of the racism and callousness of that Democrat, the words "conscience" and "moral compass" get thrown around. Doesn't that limit their ability to honor a genuine hero?

Joe Biden:

The Congressman was "truly a one-of-a-kind, a moral compass who always knew where to point us and which direction to march." You know, I am struck by the history of this moment. You read about the great Congressmen who served. I can't help but feel privileged to have served with a man whose name will go down in history beside those men as one the greatest in history.

Senator Patrick Leahy:

We are all saddened by the news of Congressman's passing. No Congressman came to care more about the Constitution or to be a more effective defender of our constitutional government. I know him as a mentor and a friend. I was honored to stand with him and fight against assaults on the Constitution and against an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq. He was a self-educated man who learned much throughout his life and had much to teach us all and he was an extraordinary American.

Senator Dianne Feinstein:

[H]e was tough. He was strong. He cared. Many times the Constitution popped out of his vest pocket. He certainly  I think in anyone's book  a titan in the Congress. And he has left an indelible imprint. He will be missed.

Biden:

The Congressman was a friend, a mentor, a guide.

Barack Obama:

I was saddened to hear this morning that the people of The United States have lost a true champion, Congress has lost a venerable institution, and America has lost a voice of principle and reason with the passing. The Congressman's story was uniquely American. He was born into wrenching poverty, but educated himself to become an authoritative scholar, respected leader, and unparalleled champion of our Constitution. He scaled the summit of power, but his mind never strayed from the people of his beloved home state.

L.A. Times:

The Democrat was often called the conscience of the Congress for his devotion to the system of constitutional checks and balances and the prerogatives of power.

The Hill:

He is the conscience of the Congress, in ways reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson's rules for conducting Congressional business.

The first quote was about a true racism-fighter, John Lewis.



Photo credit: Lorie Shaull.

The next five are about a racist former KKK leader, who filibustered the Civil Rights law when he was over 40. The last one was about Ted Kennedy, who left a mistress to die while he escaped the car he had driven off a bridge and protected his political power. He also participated in a brutal "waitress sandwich" with Senator Dodd, whom Biden has picked to help him search for a V.P.

(I changed the quotes above to take out any reference to the Senate. I changed them all to "Congressman" and "members of Congress." I did not change the meaning of the quotes or take anything out of context.)

Byrd would not serve in World War II because he might have to serve alongside "race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimans from the wild."

Sen. Robert Byrd not only was a KKK member but led his local Klan chapter

Byrd joined the Klan at the ripe young age of 24  hardly a young'un by today's standards, much less those of 1944, when Byrd refused to join the military because he might have to serve alongside "race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds," according to a letter Byrd wrote to Sen. Theodore Bilbo at the height of World War II.

Is it any wonder that a party that honored Byrd and Kennedy as the conscience of Congress would support a corrupt, career criminal named Hillary Clinton and the corrupt, incompetent Joe Biden for president?

How long would the media have allowed a Republican former KKK member to serve, or a Republican who left his mistress to die? Would they have ever forgiven and honored them?

Today, radical groups, with the support of Democrats and the media, are ripping Washington, Jefferson, Columbus, and others, but a few years back, they honored Byrd.

Robert Byrd dies at 92; U.S. senator from West Virginia Robert Carlyle Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who was often called the conscience of the Senate for his devotion to the system of constitutional checks and balances and the prerogatives of power, died early Monday. He was 92.

The conscience of the Senate Ted Kennedy embodies this ethic of dreaming big dreams, realized through hard work. He is the conscience of the Senate, in ways reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson's rules for conducting Senate business.

In 2015, the Obama administration refused to change the names of military bases, and very little outrage ensued. If we had an honest media, they would point out that Trump's position on the bases is the same as Obama's, but they never tell the public that fact. They want the public to believe that Trump is a racist.

Obama Admin Turned Down Renaming of Army Bases: 'Reconciliation, Not Division' The idea emerged in the wake of the mass shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which a white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners. In the aftermath, the state government removed the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state capitol, noting its history as a symbol of division. However, the Obama administration rejected the idea of renaming military bases named for Confederate bases, noting that many of the names had been adopted as symbols of reconciliation between North and South after the brutal Civil War.

During the Obama-Biden years, we did not hear about systemic racism, did not have radical groups tearing down statues throughout the country, did not have anarchists taking over areas of cities and burning police cars and stations and did not have radical groups painting black lives matter in front of the White House or other places.

Selective outrage is fake, as fake as:

The Russian dossier

The Russian collusion stories and investigations

The "hands up don't shoot" narrative used to gin up racial hate.

The fictional narrative about what Trump said at Charlottesville about white supremacists

The attack piece on Covington boys for wearing MAGA hats.

The Jussie Smollett story which was used to harm Trump.

The modeling numbers and predictions on COVID 19 that have been 100% wrong.

The modeling numbers and predictions on climate change that have been 100% wrong

That "no one was above the law" during the Obama/Biden years

That the Justice Department was independent during the Obama/Biden years

That allowing babies to die after birth without providing health care is reproductive choice.

The Me-Too movement: No one gave a damn about all the women Bill and Hillary physically and mentally abused and sought to destroy. The media were major participants in burying stories on Weinstein, Epstein and the Clintons for decades because they wanted the Clintons in power. How many women and young girls were abused because the media, entertainers and other Democrats intentionally looked the other way?

The polls that show Biden way ahead. Polls that only sample 24% Republicans are intentionally fraudulent in order to mislead and discourage the public.

That protests are safe but voting in person is dangerous.

That requiring photo ID's to vote is racist.

That enforcing immigration laws that Congress passed is racist.

And as fake as Chris Wallace calling Trump a liar for saying Biden wants to defund the police. Instead of the media fact checking Wallace, they cheer and cover up for Biden because they know how unpopular defunding the police and all the other radical positions Biden is supporting are with the public.

Trump Was Right: Biden First Said He'd Defund Police But earlier this month on liberal commentator Ady Barkan's podcast, Biden was asked if he supported defunding the police. Barkan asked Biden: "[D]o we agree that we can redirect some of the [police] funding?" Biden responded: "Yes, absolutely." Supporters of police defunding across the nation have called for massive reductions in police spending in the wake of the George Floyd death, with the money cut from police budgets diverted to welfare and education programs. After Biden's clear cut call for redirecting police funds, his campaign went into cleanup mode, denying Biden supported police defunding.

For the last four years we have essentially had a temper tantrum by radical groups, most journalists, entertainers, professors and other Democrats throwing themselves on the floor because their chosen criminal was defeated at the ballot box.

It is the media who intentionally seek to divide the country as they pretend, they want to unite us. They cover up or downplay all the violence and crime in Democrat-run cities. They cover up or downplay crimes by illegal aliens. They report all the fake stories and bury stories that would harm Democrats. They do not report on how disastrous liberal policies have been to the poor and minorities for the last fifty years.

Social media and other media outlets claim they outlaw hate speech and racist remarks, but every day they allow people to call Trump and his supporters racists, bigots, homophobes, sexists, xenophobes, deplorables and irredeemable. All those are hate speech terms used to gin up division. The term white privilege is used to gin up racial hate and division. It is meant to show that all people who are white have only succeeded because of their color and all people who are non-white are victims of oppression.

I have lost hope that most journalists care about the truth and will ever change.
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HR technology companies Wade & Wendy, pymetrics, and SeekOut have announced a donation drive benefiting Code2040 as part of the upcoming virtual event the Recruitment Automation Conference: Diversity & Inclusion on July 23, 2020.

Code2040 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working to break down the structural barriers preventing full participation and leadership of Black and Latino/Latina technologists in the innovation economy. Wade & Wendy, pymetrics, and SeekOut will be sponsoring the donation drive and matching a portion of the donations raised as part of the conference.

The Recruitment Automation Conference is a virtual conference series organized by Wade & Wendy that focuses on the intersection of technology and human processes in recruiting and talent acquisition. You can learn more about the RAC at www.recruitmentautomationcommunity.com.

The Recruitment Automation Conference: Diversity & Inclusion is wholly focused on improving diversity and inclusion initiatives and making a systemic change in hiring practices to reduce - and ultimately eliminate - bias. The conference runs from 11 am ET to 6 pm ET on Thursday, July 23rd. Programming is highlighted by a keynote address from Torin Ellis (host of "Career Mix" on SiriusXM), as well as panelists that include leaders from companies like Unilever, T Mobile, Bayer, Workday, Okta, Fairygodboss, and more. You can learn more and register here for the free-to-attend conference.

About Code2040

Code2040 is a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to educational, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities with a specific focus on Blacks and Latino/as. CODE2040 aims to close the achievement, skills, and wealth gaps in the United States. Our goal is to ensure that by the year 2040 - when the US will be majority-minority - Blacks and Latino/as are proportionally represented in America's innovation economy as technologists, investors, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs. Find out more at www.code2040.org.

About Wade & Wendy

Wade & Wendy is an on-demand recruitment automation platform that increases recruiters' bandwidth to make for a better  and more human  candidate experience. Their AI recruiter platform automates task-driven recruitment processes: sourcing, screening and recommending qualified & interested candidates. In addition, their platform engages diverse candidate communities through the sourcing process and uses its blind AI screening technology to mitigate bias in the evaluation process.

Wade & Wendy also automates scheduling and coordinating the next steps in the process, a digital-first platform that improves collaboration across teams and engages candidates regardless of geography.

You can learn more at wadeandwendy.ai

About pymetrics

pymetrics is a talent matching platform that makes workforce decisions more efficient, accurate, and fair. We use behavioral science-backed games to measure the cognitive, social, and emotional attributes of individuals and a data-driven approach to match them with the right opportunity - based on their potential, not their pedigree. Our ethical and audited AI-powered insights and recommendations equip employers with accurate and actionable information to manage the entire talent lifecycle, from hiring to internal mobility and beyond. To learn more visit pymetrics.ai .

About SeekOut

SeekOut is an AI-powered talent search engine that enables the modern recruiter to nd great candidates fast. With SeekOut, recruiters and sourcers can leverage untapped talent pools of hundreds of millions of candidates, easily discover great candidates with fast and accurate talent search powered by the latest AI and search algorithms, and analyze then understand strategic talent pool insights with an intuitive visualization and intelligence tool built on SeekOut's AI-powered talent search engine.

SeekOut also enables customers to take action to improve diversity in their organization by finding and including highly qualified, diverse candidates in their recruiting pipelines.

Learn more about SeekOut at www.seekout.io .

About the Recruitment Automation Community

The Recruitment Automation Community (RAC) is a group of over 3,000 talent acquisition and human resource professionals interested in shaping the evolution of digital recruitment, made up of recruiters, sourcers, executives, technologists, and industry experts. The group comes together regularly at Recruitment Automation Conference events, as well as on the group's LinkedIn community page (to request to join, click here ). You can learn more at www.recruitmentautomationcommunity.com

Media contact:

Dave Mekelburg

[email protected]

SOURCE Wade & Wendy, Inc.

Related Links

https://wadeandwendy.ai/


<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="" xml:lang=""> <head> <title>/nwsys/www/images/PBC_1238063</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"/> <meta name="generator" content="pdftohtml 0.36"/> <meta name="date" content="2020-07-21T08:20:29+00:00"/> <style type="text/css"> <!-- .xflip { -moz-transform: scaleX(-1); -webkit-transform: scaleX(-1); -o-transform: scaleX(-1); transform: scaleX(-1); filter: fliph; } .yflip { -moz-transform: scaleY(-1); -webkit-transform: scaleY(-1); -o-transform: scaleY(-1); transform: scaleY(-1); filter: flipv; } .xyflip { -moz-transform: scaleX(-1) scaleY(-1); -webkit-transform: scaleX(-1) scaleY(-1); -o-transform: scaleX(-1) scaleY(-1); transform: scaleX(-1) scaleY(-1); filter: fliph + flipv; } --> </style> </head> <body bgcolor="#A0A0A0" vlink="blue" link="blue"> <!-- Page 1 --> <style type="text/css"> <!-- p {margin: 0; padding: 0;} .ft00{font-size:18px;font-family:Times;color:#000000;} .ft01{font-size:18px;font-family:Times;color:#1257c7;} .ft02{font-size:13px;font-family:Times;color:#0d0c0c;} .ft03{font-size:13px;font-family:Times;color:#000000;} .ft04{font-size:13px;font-family:Times;color:#1b62b7;} .ft05{font-size:13px;line-height:30px;font-family:Times;color:#000000;} .ft06{font-size:13px;line-height:30px;font-family:Times;color:#0d0c0c;} --> </style> <div id="page1-div" style="position:relative;width:918px;height:1188px;"> <img width="918" height="1188" src="http://mco.acquiremedia.com/images/PBC_1238063001.png" alt="background image"/> <p style="position:absolute;top:155px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft00"><b>Research Announcement: </b></p> <p style="position:absolute;top:155px;left:364px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft01"><b>Moody's - Saudi Arabia's credit profile reflects</b></p> <p style="position:absolute;top:180px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft01"><b>robust but weakening balance sheet and high level of economic strength</b></p> <p style="position:absolute;top:216px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">DIFC - Dubai, July 21, 2020 --</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:257px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05"> Government balance sheet likely to continue to weaken in the next few years<br/> Economy expected to grow at an average rate of around 3% during 2021-24</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:323px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Saudi Arabia's credit strengths include a robust but deteriorating government balance sheet,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:343px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">underpinned by still-moderate debt levels and substantial fiscal and foreign currency buffers,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:362px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Moody's Investors Service said in an annual report today. A large stock of proved hydrocarbon</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:382px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">reserves with low extraction costs and prudent financial system regulation also support the sovereign</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:401px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">credit profile.<br/>The Saudi government has made some initial progress in its ambitious and comprehensive reform</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:451px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">plans to diversify fiscal revenue streams and the economy away from hydrocarbons, said Alexander</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:470px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Perjessy, a Moody's Vice President - Senior Analyst. However, their full implementation will be</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:490px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">challenging and their positive impact will only be felt over the longer term.<br/>Saudi Arabia's credit challenges include its economic and fiscal exposures to declines in global</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:540px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">oil demand and prices, such as those in 2020, and socioeconomic challenges posed by rapid</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:559px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">population growth and elevated unemployment. Geopolitical risk also weighs on the credit profile,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:579px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">driven by regional security threats and tensions with Iran.<br/>The negative outlook reflects increased risks to fiscal strength stemming from the shock to global oil</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:628px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">demand and prices triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and uncertainty regarding the degree to</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:648px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">which the government will be able to offset its oil revenue losses and stabilize its debt burden and</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:667px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">assets in the medium-term.<br/>Evidence that the government is able to contain the deterioration in its balance sheet and stabilize</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:717px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">and ultimately reverse the debt trajectory through implementation of additional fiscal consolidation</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:737px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">measures, possibly supported by a faster recovery in oil prices, would likely lead to the outlook being</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:756px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">stabilized.<br/>The increasing likelihood of a materially larger fiscal deterioration  with a markedly faster rise in the</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:806px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">governments debt burden or erosion of reserve buffers than in Moody's baseline scenario - would</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:826px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">likely put downward pressure on the rating.<br/>Subscribers can access the report at: </p> <p style="position:absolute;top:856px;left:372px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft04">http://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:875px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft04">docid=PBC_1225754</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:906px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">NOTE TO JOURNALISTS ONLY: For more information, please call one of our global</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:925px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">press information hotlines: New York <PhoneNo>+1-212-553-0376</PhoneNo>, London <PhoneNo>+44-20-7772-5456</PhoneNo>, Tokyo</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:945px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02"><PhoneNo>+813-5408-4110</PhoneNo>, Hong Kong <PhoneNo>+852-3758-1350</PhoneNo>, Sydney <PhoneNo>+61-2-9270-8141</PhoneNo>, Mexico City</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:964px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02"><PhoneNo>001-888-779-5833</PhoneNo>, Sao Paulo <PhoneNo>0800-891-2518</PhoneNo>, or Buenos Aires <PhoneNo>0800-666-3506</PhoneNo>. You can also email</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:984px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">us at mediarelations@moodys.com or visit our web site at www.moodys.com.</p> </div> <!-- Page 2 --> <style type="text/css"> <!-- p {margin: 0; padding: 0;} .ft07{font-size:13px;line-height:23px;font-family:Times;color:#0d0c0c;} --> </style> <div id="page2-div" style="position:relative;width:918px;height:1188px;"> <img width="918" height="1188" src="http://mco.acquiremedia.com/images/PBC_1238063002.png" alt="background image"/> <p style="position:absolute;top:114px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">This publication does not announce a credit rating action. 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From Ahmad SAKA, Bauchi

The Bauchi State Coalition Against Financial Crimes and Injustice BACAFCI has filed three fresh different petitions against Former State Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar before Independent Corrupt Practices ICPC, and Economic Financial Crimes Commission EFCC over alleged fraud, financial misappropriation and abuse of office.

A statement signed by the Chairman of BACAFCI Mallam Bibi Dogo which was distributed to reporters in Bauchi yesterday said we have filed three different petitions we want the two anti-graft agencies to investigate , we have filed a petition tittle of financial scams in the procurement of fertilizer where over two billion Naira was siphoned, we have filed a petition before the EFCC for a suspected fraudulent payment of N5,028,249,914,00 We have also filed a petition in the name of purchase of fake shares for the 20 local government areas to the tune of N250,000,000 and we have uncovered a fraudulent payment of N1,659,209.79 via ministry of finance cheque to mauritz Walton

Dogo said there was a report of a suspicious scam between the former Governor Abubakar and Agro allied Company Limited in the name of purchase of shares for the 20 LGAs at the cost of 250,000,000, fake certificates was issued to the councils on 31/10/2018.

Chairman who was a member of the State Asset and Recovery Committee said the Ministry for Local Government signed the agreement between the company and the councils but later it was discovered by the State Auditor General for Local Government and the present administration of Senator Bala Mohammed asked the asset and recovery committee to recover the sum of N246, 829, 00 out of the money from the company because till date no share certificates have been issued to the councils.

He said the committee invited the management of the company Messrs Holyphant and agro allied Company Limited and reach agreement that they will pay the money but to date they didnt pay.

Dogo alleged that without shame, without any agreement for consultancy Ex Governor Abubakar directed the payment of over 5bn amount to 15% Paris club refunds to Mauritz Walton and on 21st /12/2016 the sum of N1, 640, 659, 209, 79 was again paid to the company without following due process

Officials of the EFCC and ICPC confirmed that they have received the petitions on 3rd and 7th July 2020 and they are studying the petitions for necessary action.

A close aide to the Former Governor said it was a Political witchhaunt against the former Governor because the Governor has served the State with Patriotism and commitment and he commit nothing wrong while in office and explained that My Boss is always ready and available to answer any allegations made against him
World US Indicts Chinese Hackers for Sweeping Global Computer Intrusion

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WASHINGTONUS authorities said Tuesday they have indicted two Chinese hackers suspected of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade secrets and other valuable information from companies worldwide, and also targeting firms developing vaccines for the coronavirus.

The two individualsLi Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33have allegedly worked with the Chinese Ministry of State Security in what the US Justice Department called a sweeping global computer intrusion campaign against companies located in Australia, Britain, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

Read more.

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US to Block Chinese Passenger Airline Flights

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By Online Desk

As many as 29,557 COVID-19 patients have recuperated in a 24-hour span till Thursday morning, the highest recorded in a day so far, taking the recovery rate to 63.18 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said.

The number of tests for detection of COVID-19 also crossed the 15-million mark as the number of cases surged to 12,38,635 on Thursday.

According to data updated at 8 am, total recoveries have climbed to 7,82,606 and exceeded the active cases of COVID-19 by 3,56,439 as on date.

Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 case tally crossed the 12 lakh mark on Thursday with highest single-day spike of 45,720 new cases and 1,129 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Total COVID-19 positive cases stand at 12,38,635 including 4,26,167 active cases, 7,82,606 cured/discharged/migrated and 29,861 deaths, as per the Health Ministry data.
At the same time, the U.S. is also urging countries to divert supply chains away from China while also moving to deny Huawei Technologies Co. access to American technology, making it difficult for the company to design and produce its own chips. The Trump administration is conducting a formal review of TikTok, the addictive video-sharing app owned by the Chinese company Bytedance Ltd., following Indias ban on scores of Chinese apps.
Bakri Eid commemorates the story in the Quran of God appearing to Ibrahim in a dream and commanding him to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience.

Eid al-Adha or Bakri-Id/ Bakr Eid is one of two Eids celebrated by Muslims annually, the other one being Eid al-Fitr. The latter means the festival of breaking the fast, and is celebrated at the end of Ramadan. Eid al-Adha, on the other hand, is the feast of the sacrifice and is observed two months later, coinciding with the end of Hajj, which is the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Significance

Eid al-Adha commemorates the story in the Quran of Allah appearing before Ibrahim in a dream and commanding him to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience.

According to beliefs, as Ibrahim was about to go through with the sacrifice, Allah stepped in and stopped his hand. Instead, he was given a sheep or ram in place of his son. A version of the story also appears in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, a CNN report mentions.

How Muslims celebrate the festival

The report adds that to commemorate God's test of Ibrahim, many Muslim families have an animal slaughtered and distribute the meat to neighbours, and to the poor. Families begin their day with prayers, celebrate with relatives and friends and also visit the graves of loved ones.

A Times Now report states that Eid al-Adha is celebrated on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah (the 12th and last month of the Islamic calendar) and depends on the sighting of the moon.

Bakri Eid to be celebrated on 1 August this year

The report mentions that Saudi Arabia has announced 31 July to be the date of Eid al-Adha or Bakri Eid this year. However, India will celebrate it the next day as the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari said that Eid al-Adha will be celebrated on 1 August as the moon was not sighted on Tuesday night.

Syed Ahmed Bukhari (in file pic), Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid announces that #EidAlAdha to be celebrated on August 1, Saturday after the moon was not sighted today. pic.twitter.com/j26UuiZPZe  ANI (@ANI) July 21, 2020

However, as per the report, Kerala will celebrate the festival on 31 July.

Restrictions due to COVID-19

This year, the festival will be celebrated amidst the coronavirus pandemic, when most state governments have barred religious and social gatherings. The COVID-19 pandemic has also had an impact on the sale and purchase of animals. According to a report in the Times of India, goat sellers were banned from Delhi's Meena Bazaar this year to prevent congestion due to social distancing norms. The sale of goats has also been impacted due to travel curbs and loss of livelihoods, states the report.

According to news agency PTI, the Maharashtra government is planning to set up an online mechanism for the sale and purchase of goats. According to the news agency, state minister Aslam Sheikh has said that gathering of people for 'qurbani' (sacrifice) of goats will be prohibited.

Markets will only be allowed on open ground and no celebrations will be permitted in containment zones, the minister added.

With inputs from agencies
Ontario reports 203 new COVID-19 cases, the majority in people under age 39

Ontario reported 203 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, the most on any single day in about three weeks.

In a series of tweets this morning, Health Minister Christine Elliott attributed the uptick to "localized increases," namely in Peel, Ottawa and Windsor-Essex. The three regions each confirmed 57, 43 and 24 new cases, respectively.

Officials from Peel Region said its total Tuesday reflected a backlog resulting from a switch over to a new reporting system, and that the actual total of new cases in the region was 22.

Another 30 cases were reported in Toronto.

Some 57 per cent of today's newly confirmed infections of the novel coronavirus are in people 39 years old or younger, Elliott said.

"I just have a message for young people: Don't go to a party, simple. It might be you, but it's going to be your parents or your grandparents," Premier Doug Ford said at his daily COVID-19 news conference. "You're hurting people by doing this."

"You've got to rein it in," Ford said, saying young people have been going "hog wild."

The premier also urged people to wear masks and stay socially distant where masks aren't possible.

But he said said the province has no current plans to take action against young people who break the rules, such as imposing extra fines.

And as for how bad things would need to get for the province to roll back on reopening from Stage 3 to Stage 2, Ford didn't specify.

WATCH | Doug Ford's message to young people: Don't go to parties:

Meanwhile medical experts are warning that a negative COVID-19 test is no reason to socialize in larger groups. Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist, says the tests can't detect the coronavirus if it is still in the incubation period.

He says it's possible for a person to test negative but then show symptoms and become infectious days later. Experts also note it's possible to be exposed to the virus right after getting tested.

Story continues

CBC News

Ontario has now seen a total of 37,942 cases of COVID-19 since the outbreak began in late January. Of those, about 88.6 per cent are resolved.

After several weeks of steady decline, the number of active cases in the province has risen this week, up to about 1,584 at present.

The jump in new daily cases comes one day after Premier Doug Ford announced that another seven public health units would be moving into Stage 3 of the province's reopening plan on Friday. That means by the end of the work week, only Toronto, Peel and Windsor-Essex will remain in Stage 2.

CBC

Ontario's official COVID-19 death toll grew by one in today's update, and now sits 2,753. A CBC News count based on data provided directly from public health units puts the real current toll at 2,785.

Meanwhile, the province's network of labs processed nearly 23,000 tests for the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours. Another 11,842 are in the queue waiting to be completed.

Plans for 640 new long-term care beds in Mississauga

On Tuesday, the province announced a program to accelerate the building of two new long-term care homes in Mississauga, which are expected to be ready "in a matter of months, not years," it said in a news release.

The homes will have 320 beds each, Ford said Tuesday.

The pilot program is part of a larger plan to create new long-term beds across Ontario, bringing in air conditioning into homes that don't already have it.

"Between 2011 and 2018, just 600 beds were added to Ontario's long-term care system  that's less than one bed per home. Our government intends to do better to meet the needs of our aging population," said Minister for Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton.

Front-line hospital staff hold protest

Front-line hospital staff in Ontario are planning a five-minute in-hospital protest this morning to fight the proposed extension of the province's emergency orders.

The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, a division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, says it does not want the province's emergency order extended in its current form because it suspends their collective bargaining agreement.

The Progressive Conservative government introduced a bill two weeks ago that would allow it to keep some emergency measures in place in the months ahead.

The union says that without the CBA in place they have no workplace rights, including having the time and location of shifts changed without notice or vacations cancelled.

Union president Michael Hurley argues that while those measures were acceptable at the start of the pandemic the emergency is over in most of Ontario.

CUPE hospital workers staged workplace rallies across Ontario opposing aspects of Bill 195 on Friday.

The union's membership voted in favour of further political protest actions last night unless the bill is amended.

Health-care workers in Ontario do not have the right to strike and have a very limited right to refuse unsafe work.

Ontario passes COVID-19 emergency law

Meanwhile, the Progressive Conservative government passed a law that will allow it to extend or amend some emergency orders a month at a time, for up to two years.

The government can now move parts of the province back to earlier stages of the pandemic lockdown if required. It could also continue the redeployment of health-care staff and change public-health orders limiting social gatherings.

The bill has prompted criticism from groups on both sides of the political spectrum as a violation of charter rights.

One Tory legislator broke ranks with the government and voted against the measure. Belinda Karahalios called the bill an "unnecessary overreach" on parliamentary democracy.

"By transferring away the ability for Ontario MPPs to consider, debate, and vote on how emergency powers are used on Ontarians, Bill 195 essentially silences every single Ontario MPP on the most important issue facing our legislature today," she said in a statement.

Shortly after the bill was passed, the PCs announced Karahalios had been ejected from caucus.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the government does not need the powers granted to it under the new law. It should return to the legislature and seek consent if it needs to restart the state of emergency in the province, he said.

"To provide this government with emergency powers that affect our civil liberties [and] our constitutional rights ... for up to two years whether we're in a state of emergency or not, is wrong," he said.
Microbiologists have created a massive list of the bugs that live in the human gut, finding we only know about 30 per cent of them.

Many studies of the microbiome of the human digestive system have been done by "culturing" or growing the tiny organisms in a lab from human faecal samples.

Researchers have catalogued the genetic information of over 5000 gut bugs, the vast majority of which have never been studied in a lab. Credit:Shutterstock

Scientists had long suspected they were not getting the full picture through that method, so several large-scale studies were done which looked for distinct genomes within the samples.

Researchers from the University of Queensland in partnership with the Wellcome Genome Campus in Britain analysed three of these studies to create a comprehensive list of the microbes that call our gut home.
BENZIE COUNTY -- Northern Michigan is safe to travel, at least for those willing to follow safety guidelines.

That is the message that Dave Lorenz, vice president of Travel Michigan, is trying to get out after spending the past few weeks touring much of Northern Michigan as part of his inspections of travel industry partners and how they are adjusting their practices and also his efforts to promote safe travel through local media.

Lorenz's travels took him to Benzie County on July 16 as part of his visit to the Greater Traverse City Area.

Overall, Lorenz said he has been very pleased with the safety measures and innovation by businesses in the region to help significantly reduce the possible spread of COVID-19.

"Here in the Greater Traverse City Area, everybody that I have seen so far has been doing everything that we had hoped they would," Lorenz said. "I was at Grand Traverse Resort (on July 16). They are going a great job. Even downtown, (on July 15), I got in late and went into a restaurant and I was really impressed with how they did all of their adjustments. Everybody seems to get it here."

Lorenz also had specific praise for a pair of Benzie County businesses.

"I was very impressed with Crystal Mountain. I totally expected to be, and I was more impressed than I anticipated," Lorenz said. "It's the same thing with Iron Fish Distillery. I hear that they had made a big pivot to make hand sanitizer, but I was really surprised at all of the adjustments that they made to their property to still be very welcoming to guests who want to come into the distillery."

"I feel so positive for the safe ability for people to travel right now after seeing what I've seen in the Traverse/Benzie area," Lorenz continued. "I am very impressed."

While Lorenz said that area businesses have created a safe environment for summer vacations to continue to take place, he added that travelers also share in the responsibility of maintaining and fostering a safe traveling environment for all.

"I am trying to get across the message that this is a serious thing, and we can get through this pandemic without any unnecessary illnesses if we just play our roll," Lorenz said. "If we do that, we are going to be able to bring our travel industry back into health and as travelers enjoy the things that we all love to do."

Lorenz has tried to accomplish this role in several ways. He has engaged with local media and been very active on social media, but he said sometimes the best way to get this message across is to have conversations with the people he meets.

"On both the right and the left, people think that politics is part of these safety protocols, but it's really not. I am a non-politician," Lorenz said. "I am someone who wants to do all that I can to make sure that our residents, our employees and our visitors are all safe and that we can continue to enjoy the things that we want to enjoy."

For those who would rather not wear a mask or abide by COVID-19 safety guidelines, Lorenz said he can respect their beliefs. He just has one simple request for them.

"If people do not want to wear masks, for whatever reason, I respect that. All I ask them to do is to delay their travel plans for a year, not just to delay them in Michigan but to delay them anywhere," Lorenz said. "In a year, I'm sure that we'll get a vaccine, and we'll be fine. But for now, nobody wants those people to travel. No one wants somebody to travel into their community that they are trying to keep as safe as possible, so just put it off."

For those already living in Northern Michigan who want to enjoy summer but want to do so without a wearing a mask, Lorenz reminds them they still can enjoy the many outdoor destinations this area has to offer.

"I think there is a real confusion. Some people think that you have to wear masks all the time, but that is not the case," Lorenz said. "If you are outside hiking around, then hey, you're not around people. Take it off and breathe in the fresh air."

Lorenz added that he thinks that this local luxury has drawn a higher percentage of out of state visitors than he anticipated.

"I have been noticing a lot of plates from Iowa, Missouri and some other places," he said. "I talked to some people from St. Louis, and they were making it really clear that they wanted to get out of the heat and humidity like they always want to, but they also wanted to go to a place where they could feel that they were taking safety protocols seriously and they could enjoy what we offer."

Lorenz already visited the Upper Peninsula and other Northern Michigan destinations prior to his visits to Benzie County and the Traverse City area last week.

This week, Lorenz plans to continue his tour of the state with a visit to Michigan's Adventure, which his office has worked closely with for months to develop safety protocols for the water park.

Eventually, he will make it to some of the downstate locations that have been slower to open up due to a higher volume of COVID-19 cases.

"I have been doing the northern properties first that have been cleared for most everything. Then, I am crossing my fingers that as we go further south and east that some things will be able to open up," Lorenz said. "You never know. But even if that is not the case, I would like to know what the industry is doing to maximize their opportunities and keep everybody safe."

For those looking to plan a summer getaway, Lorenz said that advanced planning is more important than ever this year. Due to occupancy restrictions, places are filling up quickly.

Lorenz recommends that prospective travelers use Michigan.org as a resource in planning their trip.

"You can do you research about that hotel you want to go to, or that attraction or activity, and see through their websites how seriously they are changing their protocols to keep everybody safe," Lorenz said.

In addition to serving as a portal to finding more information about destinations, Michigan.org has also added a Travel Safety Page featuring safety guidelines with which travelers should abide.
Around 10,000 students will get help buying laptops, tablets and internet access with a grant of 15 million, while 41 million is being spent on health protection measures to allow colleges reopen safely.

3 million will be spent on mental health support and 16 million to double the student assistance fund.

Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris says while many students will learn online, it is important first years are on campus as much as possible:

We want to maximise the on-site experience, and Im particularly eager for first year students  Im not sure you can introduce somebody to college through zoom  so I think for first year students, there needs to be a particular focus on them being able to attend on-site as much as possible.

He said the two-metre-rule will apply on college campuses:

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That may require face coverings, it may require shorter lecture times, it may require fewer people in a lecture hall at a time  a variety of things. So, the two metres is the public health advice, Irelands position on that has not changed.

University of Limerick is one third level institution that has welcomed the funding.

Incoming Interim President Professor Kerstin Mey said: Over the past five months our university has faced extraordinary challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic... like all Irish universities we are facing a funding deficit so it is very welcome news today.

The universitys new term will commence for students on September 28th of this year, with teaching delivered through blending learning  both online and face-to-face on campus.

The university recently came under fire from parents paying for student accommodation following the announcement that most students will be allowed on campus for just one week each month.
Scientists have genetically modified a "mild virus" which generates antibodies in humans just like the novel coronavirus, but without causing severe disease, an advance which they say will enable more labs across the world to safely test drugs and vaccine candidates against COVID-19.

The researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis in the US engineered the mildly infecting vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) which virologists widely use in experiments by swapping one of its genes for one from the novel SARS-CoV-2.

According to the study, published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the resulting hybrid virus infects cells, and is recognised by antibodies in humans just like SARS-CoV-2, but can be handled under ordinary laboratory safety conditions.

Since the novel spreads easily via aerosols, and is potentially deadly, the scientists said it is studied only under high-level biosafety conditions.

They said scientists handling the infectious virus must wear full-body biohazard suits with pressurised respirators, and work inside laboratories with multiple containment levels and specialised ventilation systems.

While necessary to protect laboratory workers, the study note that these safety precautions slow down efforts to find drugs and vaccines for COVID-19 since many scientists lack access to the required biosafety facilities.

"I've never had this many requests for a scientific material in such a short period of time," said study co-senior author Sean Whelan from the Washington University School of Medicine.

"We've distributed the virus to researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and, of course, all over the US," Whelan said.

In order to create a model of SARS-CoV-2 that would be safer to handle, the scientists said they started with VSV, which they added is "fairly innocuous and easy to manipulate genetically."



VSV, according to the researchers, is a workhorse of virology labs, and primarily a virus of cattle, horses and pigs.

They said it occasionally infects people, causing a mild flu-like illness that lasts three to five days.

The researchers removed the VSV's gene for its surface-protein, which it uses to latch onto and infect cells, and replaced it with the one from SARS-CoV-2, known as the spike (S) protein.

They said this switch created a new virus, dubbed VSV-SARS-CoV-2, that targets cells like the novel coronavirus, but lacks the other genes needed to cause severe disease.

The scientists then used serum from COVID-19 survivors and purified their antibodies, and showed that the hybrid virus was recognised by these antibodies very much like a real SARS-CoV-2 virus that came from a COVID-19 patient.

The study found that antibodies which prevented the hybrid virus from infecting cells also blocked the real SARS-CoV-2 virus from doing so.

It said the patient serum proteins that failed to stop the hybrid virus also failed to deter the real SARS-CoV-2.

The scientists also found that a decoy molecule was equally effective at misdirecting both viruses and in preventing them from infecting cells.

"Humans certainly develop antibodies against other SARS-CoV-2 proteins, but it's the antibodies against spike that seem to be most important for protection," Whelan said.

"So as long as a virus has the spike protein, it looks to the human immune system like SARS-CoV-2, for all intents and purposes," he added.

According to the researchers, the hybrid virus can help scientists across the world evaluate a range of antibody-based preventives and treatments for COVID-19.

They said the new virus could be used to assess whether an experimental vaccine elicits neutralising antibodies, and to measure whether a COVID-19 survivor carries enough neutralising antibodies to donate plasma to COVID-19 patients.

According to the study, the hybrid virus may also help identify antibodies with the potential to be developed into antiviral drugs.

"One of the problems in evaluating neutralizing antibodies is that a lot of these tests require a BSL-3 facility, and most clinical labs and companies don't have BSL-3 facilities," said Michael Diamond, who is also a professor of pathology and immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine.

"With this surrogate virus, you can take serum, plasma or antibodies and do high-throughput analyses at BSL-2 levels, which every lab has, without a risk of getting infected. And we know that it correlates almost perfectly with the data we get from bona fide infectious SARS-CoV-2," Diamond said.

Since the hybrid virus looks like SARS-CoV-2 to the immune system but does not cause severe disease, it is a potential vaccine candidate, he said, adding that the scientists are currently conducting animal studies to evaluate this possibility.

(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.)
An overhead shot of San Cristobal de Las Casas: (Sin Postal - YouTube)

Twenty-three children have been rescued by authorities in Mexico after they were abducted and forced to sell crafts.

The authorities rescued the children from a house in San Cristobal de Las Casas, in the state of Chiapas on Monday, the states attorneys office announced in a statement.

The children were mainly between the ages of two to 15 years old, but some were as young as three months, according to the authorities.

They were taken from their families and forced to sell the crafts and trinkets to tourists, while threatened with physical and psychological violence, according to CNN.

The area in Southern Mexico is known for tourism, with markets selling trinkets and handmade crafts commonplace throughout the city.

Three women were arrested as part of the rescue and are facing possible charges of human trafficking and forced labour.

In a statement released on Monday, Jorge Llaven, a Chiapas state prosecutor, said the children had to bring a certain amount of money back to the house each day to be allowed to eat at night.

According to the children, many of them were forced to go out on the streets to sell things, and moreover they were forced to return with a certain minimum amount of money for the right to get food and a place to sleep at the house, he said.

Additionally, many of the children were forced to sleep on cardboard and blankets on a cement floor, according to the Associated Press.

The house was discovered after the authorities began a search for two-year-old Dylan Esau Gomez Perez, who went missing from his family while at a market in the city on 30 June.

Video surveillance footage showed the child being led away from his parents by a girl who appeared to be 13 years old, which has led authorities to believe that some of the children were being used to abduct kids, according to the AP.

However, despite the authorities rescuing the twenty-three children, the toddler has still not been found, according to his mother, Juana Perez.

Story continues

Ms Perez, who has asked Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to help her locate her son, told reporters: None of the children (rescued) is my son

I havent heard anything about my son.

Read more

7.4-magnitude earthquake kills at least six in Mexico
Federal law enforcement officers face off with rioters in Portland, Ore., on July 21, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

Portland Leaders Need to Contain Violence or Resign: Expert

Portland officials need to get the violence in their city under control or step down, a law enforcement expert told The Epoch Times, especially Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler.

I just look at this with total disbelief. There has to be a certain level of leadership, said Maria Haberfeld, professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Its all about creating a peaceful environment for people who live in your city. And if you cannot come up with a plan, then you have to step down.

Nightly riots have left a portion of downtown Portland boarded up and have caused an estimated $23 million in damage and lost revenue.

Members of far-left group Antifa and others have used fencing and other items to block exits and entrances to a federal courthouse, a city building that includes a police precinct, and other facilities. Theyve broken into and looted businesses, tried to breach the federal and city facilities, set fires, and assaulted police officers who respond to the mayhem.

Rioters work to barricade an entrance to the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 17, 2020. (Mason Trinca/Getty Images)

Rioters set off smoke grenades on the steps of Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 17, 2020. (Mason Trinca/Getty Images)

The situation was completely mishandled since day one. Theres absolutely no room for vandalism, devastation, violence, disruption of everyday life. This needs to be handled from the first moment it occurs, Haberfeld told The Epoch Times.

The longer its tolerated, the more out of control it becomes, the harder it is to contain it.

The offices of Wheeler and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, both Democrats, didnt respond to requests for comment.

Both officials want federal forces to withdraw entirely from the city. The Trump administration sent federal assets to Portland on July 4 after rioters began targeting the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, a federal courthouse.

Wheeler can be opposed to federal intervention but he must show he can contain the problem locally, Haberfeld said.

He displays zero leadership, she added. He has no concrete plan of how to contain it.

Mannequins are seen through shattered glass at an H&M store in downtown Portland, Ore., after violent demonstrations the night before, on July 13, 2020. (Gillian Flaccus/AP Photo)

Damage from a recent fire set by demonstrators seen on the boarded-up windows of a hair products business that caters to African-American customers in a historically Black neighborhood in Portland, Ore., on July 1, 2020. (Gillian Flaccus/AP Photo)

Details on city and state plans to contain the violence have been scant.

Wheeler told reporters in a virtual briefing last week that a combination of appeasement and de-escalation was working before the federal surge.

Ordering police officers to hide inside the Justice Center, instead of engaging the rioters, was working because it removed any opportunities for a back-and-forth between demonstrators and law enforcement, or vice versa, Wheeler claimed.

What we saw was the numbers were dwindling, the energy in the crowd was decreasing or moving elsewhere to do other things. Then the feds came in, he said.

Theres absolutely no question that the protests were calming down, and that the presence of federal troops here  has substantially exacerbated an already challenging situation, Brown said during a recent appearance on MSNBC.

While the rioters numbers have swelled since the surge in federal agents, there appears to be no independent evidence to support the claims.

Demonstrators gather amid lingering tear gas fired by federal law enforcement officials in Portland, Ore., on July 19, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

A federal officer pulls his sidearm while dispersing a crowd of about a thousand at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 20, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

A police official told reporters on July 8 that the level of violence seen since May 28 is really unprecedented in Portlands history.

Were always hopeful that were winding down, but were six weeks into this. Weve never seen this intensity of violent, focused criminal activity over this long of a period of time, at least in the time I have been here, Portland Deputy Police Chief Chris Davis said.

Walking downtown will expose people to a scene of boarded-up windows and extensive damage to public property, he added.

Quite frankly, this is not sustainable. Violence and damage have displaced the message about systemic change in the wake of the George Floyd murder. Theres a very big difference between protests and the kind of mayhem that weve seen every night, Davis told reporters.

Demonstrators gather in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on July 20, 2020. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

A Black Lives Matter demonstrator burns an American flag outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on July 20, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (Noah Berger/AP Photo)

The riots started at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Southwest Portland on May 28 before shifting to the Justice Center area the next evening.

Police officers have witnessed widespread burglary, theft, property damage, fires being set downtown, and assaults on police officers.

Rioters broke into and set fire to the Portland police union building and entered a Multnomah County Sheriffs Office facility, where they searched through records and committed arson. They also breached the Justice Center and started a fire.

Peaceful protests do occur on a daily basis, Davis stressed, but they devolve into violence at night. He blamed a small group of agitators for the violence.

The Portland Police Association, a police union, says city officials arent able to resolve the situation.

We have no confidence that City Council will stop the rioting and looting and protect the safety and livelihoods of all Portlanders, the unions executive board said earlier this month.

Jo Ann Hardesty, Portland city commissioner, speaks during a demonstration in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, Ore., on July 17, 2020. (Ankur Dholakia/AFP via Getty Images)

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler poses for a photo in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 5, 2019. (Craig Mitchelldyer/AP Photo)

Wheeler is on the City Council, along with four others: Commissioners Amanda Fritz, Jo Ann Hardesty, and Chloe Eudaly, and City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero.

Hardesty, a Democrat, tried pressuring Wheeler over the weekend into giving up control of the police department, accusing the bureau of collaborating with this federal occupying force.

You are putting our community in danger. You are putting my staff in danger. We need you to be better. We need you to stop denying the violence being perpetrated by our own police force and make clear local police should never work with federal officials, Hardesty said in a statement sent to the mayor.

Wheeler said in a statement on Monday that he will not step down as police commissioner.

When the riots eventually come to an end, it will be because of government action, Haberfeld, the police expert, told The Epoch Times.

I think the police can definitely handle it, but they have to be empowered by the mayor, she said.

I do know that when a city is on fire for almost two months, and the mayor refuses to contain it, then there is a role for [the] federal government.
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer criticized Enbridge Inc. on Wednesday for what she described as the companys refusal to make an airtight pledge to pay for damages caused by a potential oil spill from its pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel.

The Democratic governors administration is pressuring the Canadian pipeline company for an explicit acknowledgment of financial responsibility for any release from its Line 5 into the Straits of Mackinac. Enbridge insists it already made such an assurance under a 2018 agreement with former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to construct an underground pipeline tunnel beneath the straits.

Im shocked at Enbridge Inc.s refusal so far to sign a written agreement promising to cover the costs of an oil spill in the Great Lakes if this unthinkable event were to happen, Whitmer said in a statement.

When I was a kid, my parents taught me: You break it, you pay for it. It seems thats the bare minimum Enbridge owes every Michigander so long as the company continues to pump crude oil through the Straits of Mackinac.

Enbridge said last week in response to a letter from the state Department of Natural Resources that it pledges to take full responsibility for the cleanup of any incident in Michigan or anywhere along our pipeline system.

Mike Koby, president of U.S. operations for Enbridge Energy LP, repeated the promise in a letter Monday to Dan Eichenger, director of the state department.

But Eichenger responded Wednesday that the company still hadnt gone far enough.

Line 5 carries oil and liquids used in propane from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario. A nearly 4-mile-long (6.4-kilometers-long) segment, laid in 1953 beneath the Straits of Mackinac, is divided into two pipes.

The straits connects Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. It is a popular tourist draw and has cultural and economic importance to native tribes that operate commercial fishing vessels in the area.

The state is asking Enbridge to carry $900 million of liability insurance and have about $1.88 billion in additional assets available for a worst-case rupture in the straits. Enbridge says its doing so under the 2018 tunnel agreement with Snyder.

But that deal was signed by Enbridge subsidiaries not Enbridge Inc., their parent company based in Calgary, Alberta.

The disagreement centers on whether the parent company is bound by the deal or by terms of a 1953 easement the state granted to put the dual pipelines in the straits.

Based on a contractors analysis, the state contends Enbridge Inc. is off the hook and should make an explicit commitment in writing.

But in his letter, Koby told Eichenger the 2018 agreement requires that the Enbridge entity or entities that own and operate Line 5, or the parent companies  will maintain in force financial assurance mechanisms" to deal with a spill.

He added that the substantial assets of Enbridge subsidiaries in the United States are more than sufficient to cover Enbridges assurance obligations." Under the U.S. Oil Pollution Act, the owner of Line 5 would be obligated as a responsible party to assume the cost of any cleanup, Koby said.

Environmental groups that have long pushed to shut down the pipeline said the financial dispute should be the final straw.

If the governor now fails to begin the legal process of decommissioning Line 5 she will be responsible for the financial consequences of any Line 5 rupture on her watch, said Sean McBrearty, coordinator of Oil & Water Dont Mix.

A state judge ordered a temporary Line 5 shutdown last month after Enbridge reported damage to a steel anchor holding a section of one pipe in place. The judge later allowed oil to resume flowing through the other underwater pipe.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Fatal crash case against famous Russian actor Efremov reaches court

 RAPSI, Eugeny Varlamov

12:11 22/07/2020

MOSCOW, July 22 (RAPSI)  The Presnensky District Court has registered a case against famous Russian actor Mikhail Efremov accused of committing a fatal road traffic accident in a drunken state, according to a spokesperson of the court.

The trial start date has not been scheduled yet, according to the court representative.

Prosecutors earlier approved indictment against the defendant.

On June 9, Moscows Tagansky District Court ordered Efremov to be put under house arrest until August 9. In particular, he was banned from communicating with other case parties, using mobile phone and Internet.

The famous actor stands charged with commiting a traffic offense in a drunken state that led to a victims death. He could face from 5 to 12 years behind bars if conficted.

On the evening of June 8, Efremov driving his car crossed into the oncoming lane in central Moscow and collided with a delivery service vehicle. He was arrested on the scene. Alcohol and drugs were reportedly found in his blood. Victim Sergey Zakharov was taken to hospital where he died early in the morning of June 9.
The Receiver of the defunct 347 microfinance companies, 23 savings and loans and 39 micro-credit companies has recovered GH598 million out of the targeted combined assets of GH2.9 billion.



The amount was recouped from loan recoveries (GH44 million), placements and investments (GH495 million), balances transferred from other banks (GH50 million), sale of vehicles (GH4 million) and cash in vault (GH5 million).



The receiver



Addressing the media at a press briefing in Accra last Friday, the Receiver, Mr Eric Nana Nipah, said his office had made low recoveries due to the poor quality of assets of some of the institutions, asset diversions and misstatement of a significant number of assets of some of those companies.



Some of the institutions do not have records on their assets at all, and for some of them, we dont even have records to validate depositor claims. Another reason is encumbered assets  the fact that some of the operators of the institutions used some of the assets as collateral and security to other institutions, he said.



Report to EOCO



The Receiver said he had, therefore, made a report to the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) to help with the tracing of assets of the affected institutions.



We have involved EOCO in the tracing of assets and EOCO has done some good work in this area, where they have been able to trace some assets of these institutions. We forwarded the list of the top 10 institutions from whom we have received the highest claims from depositors to EOCO and asked it to do some investigations to trace the assets of those institutions.



The intention is to recover all these assets and pay all creditors of the affected institutions. As we speak, we have initiated processes and started the phase two of sale of motor vehicles and landed properties of the institutions, he noted.



Claims received



Mr Nipah has so far received claims from the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA)/Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to the tune of GH18 million, with claims from employees, including outstanding salaries and compensation due them, amounting to GH131 million.



He said his office had also received claims from 490,000 depositors, amounting to GH8.5 billion.



The government has given us GH6 billion, which is made up of GH2 billion cash and GH4 billion in bonds, so we have been paying depositors through the CBG.



As part of the scheme that was designed, there was a time frame for depositors to submit their claims and so far we have received claims of GH8.18 billion from depositors only. Out of this amount, GH1.7 billion was submitted after the deadline, he explained.



He further said the government made provision for GH6.44 billion, which was submitted within the deadline, and out of that amount, as part of the validation process, about GH390 million was knocked off against peoples loans.



Claims rejected



Mr Nipah said his office also rejected claims, amounting to GH380 million.



Some people thought there was free money somewhere so they wanted to take advantage. Some had liquidated their investments but still presented their certificates for claims, he said.



Another reason for rejection, he said, was that as part of the laws that governed the special deposit-taking institutions, they were not supposed to deal in the trading of foreign currencies, but most of them were doing that.



Once its against the law, we rejected those claims and referred the matter to EOCO. The claims in this category were around GH70 million, he pointed out.



Unavailability of records



Those rejections then brought the claims to be dealt with to GH5.6 billion, out of which GH5.3 billion had been validated, with the rest yet to be done due to the unavailability of records on some of the institutions, he said.



There are 36 institutions on which we do not have records to be able to validate the claims. We cannot rely only on the claims submitted by the depositors and make payment, he said.



He said his outfit had also forwarded that issue to EOCO to investigate.



In the case where EOCO doesnt get the records, we will request our client, which is the Bank of Ghana, to advise us on the way forward, he noted.



330,000 depositors



Mr Nipah said his office had so far made cash payments of GH2.13 billion to depositors, while the rest had been paid with bonds.



As part of the scheme, we grouped depositors into various classifications. We had financial institutions, individual depositors, companies, social organisations such as schools, churches, hospitals and welfare organisations.



With respect to individual depositors, we have paid 330,000 claims, and with those claims, 320,000 have been paid in full in cash and these claims were below the GH70,000 threshold, he added.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Retired Major General Max Young shares his memories of Korean War



By Jung Da-min





Max Young, a 97-year-old retired major general of the Philippine Army and veteran of three wars  World War II (1939-45), Korean War (1950-53) and Vietnam War (1955-75). Courtesy of Max Young
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 00:11:50|Editor: huaxia

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DUBAI, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Tuesday announced 305 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 57,498.

UAE's Ministry of Health and Prevention said in a statement that the new cases of many nationalities are all in a stable condition and receiving medical treatment.

And 343 more patients have recovered from the virus, taking the tally of recoveries in the UAE to 49,964, according to the ministry.

It also confirmed one more death, pushing the country's death toll to 341.

The UAE was the first among the Gulf countries to report COVID-19 cases.

It has been showing solidarity with China in fight against COVID-19. On Feb. 2 and March 12, the iconic landmarks in the UAE, including Burj Khalifa in Dubai, were lit up twice in the colors of China's national flag to show its solidarity with China.

In late April, the Chinese consulate general in Dubai organized an online conference for Chinese doctors and medical experts to share experience in preventing and treating the coronavirus with UAE counterparts. Enditem
Chinese newspaper Global Times takes to Twitter to call it a "crazy move", while Chinese Foreign Minister expresses negative sentiment implying that the sudden restrictions on Chinese diplomats in the US might further escalate tensions between the two countries, as US goes a step ahead and asks China to close its Consulate General in Houston.

US has asked China to close its Consulate in Houston in 72 hours. Hu Xijin, Editor-in-chief of Chinas state-run Global Times in a tweet said: The US asked China to close Consulate General in Houston in 72 hours. This is a crazy move.

Earlier in the day, US media had reported that Police and fire officials in Houston responded to reports that documents were being burned in courtyard of Consulate General of China in Houston. Relations between US and China have worsened in recent times over a range of issues.

In response, China is calling on the United States to immediately abolish the decision to close Chinas Consulate General in the city of Houston, the Foreign Ministrys spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, said on Wednesday.

#US imposed restrictions on Chinese diplomats to the US in October 2019 & June 2020 and also opened Chinese diplomatic bags on many occasions. The decision to close the Chinese Consulate General in Houston is an unprecedented escalation of its moves against #China: Chinese FM pic.twitter.com/Z1a5X3Yvlf  Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 22, 2020

Also read: Covid outbreak likely to get worse before improving: Trump

Also read: US calls world to unite against China, says China using Covid to bully neighbours

Earlier in the day, Global Times editor-in-chief wrote on Twitter that the US government had ordered closing the diplomatic mission within 72 hours.

This is a US unilateral political provocation, it is a grave violation of the international law, the key regulations related to international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US. China firmly condemns this revolting and unjustified move, undermining the Chinese-US relations  China calls on the US to immediately abolish this erroneous decision, Wang said at a briefing.

If the decision is not canceled, China will certainly retaliate, the diplomat warned.

Chinas move to impose national security law in Hong Kong, its human rights violation in Xinjiang and territorial aggression in South China Sea have all drawn fierce criticism from Washington.

Accusing China of bullying smaller countries, US Defence Secretary Mark T Esper on Tuesday vowed to deter against Chinas coercive behaviour in the South China Sea.

Also read: US charges 2 Chinese Hackers for attempting to steal Covid related data

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- Kenyatta National Hospital said the patient's family took him to the facility but left to beat curfew hours

- The CEO Kamuri explained the 53-year-old had left the accident and emergency area awaiting to be moved to the ward

- The hospital management assured the public its priority was to establish the patient's whereabouts

The authorities have launched a search for a patient who disappeared from the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) before he was admitted.

In a statement on July 22, the hospital management said the 53-year-old man was confirmed missing from the main facility during the admission process on July 20.

READ ALSO: Murang'a: School deputy principal, 2 sons drown in river on way to farm

READ ALSO: Boni Khalwale scoffs at Oparanya over reports he allocated land for COVID-19 victims' burial

"We regret to report an incident that occurred on July 20 at our main facility where a patient was noted missing during the process of his admission," KNH CEO Evanson Kamuri stated.

Kamuri said the patient was brought to the facility by his family and the emergency team advised he be admitted to begin treatment.

READ ALSO: Cristiano Ronaldo's partner Georgina signs new 5-figure Instagram deal

The patient left the accident and emergency area so as to be admitted to the ward. Photo: Kenyatta National Hospital.

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Coronavirus: First Lady Kenyatta receives 18k surgical masks from China

"His family had to leave him under our care to be home before the curfew currently instituted by the government," he added.

Preliminary investigations showed the man whose identity was withheld left the accident and emergency area awaiting to be moved to his ward when he went missing.

"Investigations are ongoing to establish the whereabouts of the patient and upon establishment of the facts, KNH management will take appropriate action. Our priority now is to find the patient and connect him with his family and to provide appropriate healthcare," he added.

The hospital, later on, said it had received reports indicating the patient was spotted in Karen C area and a team dispatched to trace him.

This came a couple of months after the hospital appealed for help to connect nine patients with their kin.

The nine were stuck in the facility without identification.

Cases of families abandoning their kin in the hospital have heightened owing to the high cost of medical care in Kenya.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Kamotho, Virginia and Tabitha meet in Court, media barred from covering the custody case | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
President Trump admitted at his first coronavirus press briefing since April that the outbreak in the U.S. will "probably, unfortunately get worse before it gets better," adding: "Something I don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is."

Why it matters: For weeks, Trump has dismissed the rise in infections as a product of more testing, insisting that the coronavirus will "just disappear" one day. He repeated that claim on Tuesday, but called the surge in cases in the South "concerning" and urged all Americans to wear a mask when social distancing is not possible: "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact."

The big picture: Despite his acknowledgement of the severity of the situation, Trump continued to tout the administration's advancements in testing, therapeutics and vaccine development and stressed that other countries are struggling with the virus as well.

Trump said American voters should judge him on his handling of the pandemic "among other things," before rattling off a list of his favorite accomplishments related to the economy, the military and more.

Pressed on his change in tone and previous claims that the U.S. was dealing with virus "embers," Trump responded:

"We have embers and fires and we have big fires and unfortunately now, Florida is a little tough or in a big tough position. You have a great governor there, great governor in Texas. People that are very, very skilled people and I think they're going to handle it very well. Their hospital capacities are holding up. Texas is a big state and it's very well-run and so is Florida and I think they'll do a very good job.

What to watch: Trump said he will continue to do briefings "quite often" in order to keep the public aware of developments related to the coronavirus and the economy.

Go deeper: Fauci says he wasn't invited to Trump's coronavirus press briefing
Roger C. Gagnon, left, and his wife Sandy, on right, along with their daughter Tami Girard, top, stand with a mural they created in tribute to their daughter and sister Tanya Gagnon, the victim in a domestic homicide in Woonsocket on June 17. The family is planning a candlelight vigil at Barry Field on Aug. 1, at 6:30 p.m.
Monument builders were not Nazi sympathizers'

To the Editor:

I was shocked that your newspaper allowed distorted facts about Italian-Americans to be published. I am referring to Fully embrace democratic values: Remove Columbus statue, by Philip Arnold and Sandy Bigtree.

We Italian-Americans do not assemble at Columbus Circle to honor Columbus. We assemble to honor our forefathers who traversed the Atlantic Ocean in spaces designed for freight, not people. The reward was a

Mayor Ben Walsh is making the right choice to seek common ground for all members of our community.

The Resilient Indigenous Action Collective is a group of individuals who choose to remain anonymous. But at the same time they issue demands and use the internet to organize flash mobs.

The people who built this monument were not Nazi sympathizers.

This attack on Italian-Americans is proof that racism and oppression still exist for the Italian-American community.

They fail to explain that the statue was paid for by the nickels and dimes of working men and women of Italian origin. My grandparents were among those who contributed.

The angry mobs vandalizing and tearing down Columbus statues across the country are not democracy in action. They are a dangerous example of anarchy.

Joe Russo

Syracuse

Letter writer disputes two points

To the Editor:

In reference to Fully embrace democratic values: Remove Columbus statue, by Philip P. Arnold and Sandy Bigtree (July 19, 2020 Post-Standard), numerous misleading and false statements cry out for correction. However, in the interest of brevity, I will confine myself to enumerated points two and four.

Point two. While it is true that Columbus was sent back to Spain in irons, that is the only true statement in the paragraph. Because of criticisms that Columbus was not sufficiently protecting the interests of the settlers, the king and queen sent a nobleman, Francisco de Bobadilla, to investigate. After a few days, Bobadilla arrested Columbus, sent him back to Spain in irons, and fabricated the tale of his cruelties. He then assumed the position Columbus had held. Shortly after Columbus arrived in Spain, the king exonerated him. The only evidence of Columbus crimes are in Bobadillas letter, which was discovered in 2006. No other contemporaneous evidence supports what he alleged. The accusation that Columbus was a mass murderer is a libelous calumny that has been criticized by Stanford Professor Emerita Carol Delaney, who said, I think he has been terribly maligned.

Point four. The Doctrine of Discovery was authored by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493. I took the trouble to find it online and read an English translation. At a time when the entire known world was ruled by kings, Pope Alexander declared that the new lands discovered by Columbus, unless found to be already ruled by a Christian king, belonged to Spain and were to be ruled by her governors. In addition, he said that the indigenous peoples, whom Columbus had learned already believed in one supreme God, were to be taught the Christian religion and instructed in good morals. He said nothing about enslaving people or otherwise mistreating them. He did not indicate that teaching Christianity was to be accomplished by force or coercion. Settlers after Columbus who mistreated, murdered and raped indigenous peoples bear the responsibility themselves. The Pope didnt authorize such behavior, and Columbus didnt practice it.

Kay Fiset

Syracuse

Dont like existing monuments? Build your own

To the Editor:

It has become fashionable to vandalize, remove and destroy monuments and statues deemed politically incorrect.

I am wondering, therefore, why these groups do not take the time to educate us all by erecting monuments and statues of their own? Dont tear down the Columbus statue. Put some cash together, research your subject, get a sculpture and a permit, and erect your own monument.

J. Iovine

Syracuse
By PTI

RANCHI: The Jharkhand government on Tuesday extended the prohibition on the manufacture, storage, sale, and distribution of Gutka and Pan Masala containing tobacco or nicotine as ingredients till July 25, next year.

The order signed by the Principal Secretary-cum-State Food Safety Commissioner, Nitin Kulkarni, said that under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 the ban is hereby extended for one year, up to 25-7-2021 in the interest of public health.

Earlier the Jharkhand government on May 8 this year had banned manufacture, sale, and storage of 11 brands of pan masala for a year saying these products contain a chemical that is harmful to the heart and can cause various diseases.

The state government had on April 22 imposed a ban on all tobacco products to prevent spitting in public places that could increase the threat of the spread of novel coronavirus infection.
Hundreds of citizens from the Spis region working in the UK are now free to return home from holiday without any quarantine or testing obligations. Their hometowns worry about potential outbreaks.

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Our paywall policy: The Slovak Spectator has decided to make all the articles on the special measures, statistics and basic information about the coronavirus available to everyone. If you appreciate our work and would like to support good journalism, please buy our subscription. We believe this is an issue where accurate and fact-based information is important for people to cope.

The easier travel from the United Kingdom to Slovakia as of this week has left some eastern-Slovak municipalities worried about potential outbreaks of the coronavirus infection.

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The Slovak government has put the United Kingdom on the list of less risky countries. People who come from the UK are thus not required to go into self-isolation and take a COVID-19 test five days after they enter Slovakia. Some have called it a political decision after the UK did not put Slovakia on its own green list of countries. After Slovakia lifted the limits on travel from the UK as of this Monday, July 20, the Foreign Ministry also sent a diplomatic note to the British authorities to prove its good epidemiological results.

Several eastern-Slovak municipalities are aware of dozens of their citizens who live and work in the UK and tend to return home to Slovakia for holidays every year.

Related article

Related article Distrust in UK data on COVID-19 in Slovakia. The country sends over its own Read more

This is the case of the town of Spisske Podhradie and the village of Zehra, both in the Spis region, where entire communities were quarantined in the spring, the Korzar daily reported. In Zehra, the local marginalised Roma community was quarantined for three months.

The Slovak Medical Chamber (SLK) has joined the concerns.

Hundreds of people may come

In the past month, 130 people returned from the UK to Spisske Podhradie. The mayor says 19 of them tested positive. A further 150 town citizens are estimated to be residing in the UK at the moment.

"Perhaps they will return home for holidays as they used to. They will come and walk around the town without restrictions," Mayor Michal Kapusta said. He suggests that the self-quarantine obligation could be reintroduced for the localities in England where "our Roma" are staying.

"Let them go into quarantine for five days. We will test them and when they are negative, it will be all fine," the mayor told Korzar. Such a system had been in place for the UK until July 20, when the measures eased.

Doctors: Quarantine those coming into "risk areas"

The nearby village of Zehra estimates that about 100 of its citizens returned from the UK. Only four of them tested positive and currently there are no positive residents in the village, according to Milos Pacovsky from the Zehra Municipal Office.

"As of Monday, the measures are more benevolent and it is hard to predict how many people will return," Pacovsky told Korzar. Currently, about 400 people from Zehra work in the UK, he estimated.

The Slovak Medical Chamber voiced concerns that the municipalities in the Spis region might see new coronavirus outbreaks due to the homecomers. The chamber has also called on the government to not just monitor but also test Slovak citizens returning from the UK to "risk areas", as they put it according to Korzar.

Read more about the coronavirus outbreak in Slovakia:
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22) Malacanang on Wednesday refuted claims that the countrys COVID-19 inter-agency task force has been failing in its pandemic response, saying critics have been resorting to politicking amid the health crisis.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made the statement in response to Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilons view that the IATF has failed to address the pandemic problem in the Philippines.

Speaking to CNN Philippines, Roque advised critics particularly the opposition to set aside politics while the country continues to battle the crisis.

I dont think we failed, for as long as we did not meet the 3.5 (million cases) projection of UP (University of the Philippines), Roque said in an interview with The Source when asked to respond to the senators pronouncement.

We will always have different points of view, particularly because theyre coming from the opposition and I think theyre resorting to politicking too early. The appeal of the President is to concentrate on COVID-19, set aside politicking for the time being which I think is a very wise policy, he added.

In a statement on Tuesday, Drilon said the task force has failed to effectively prevent the spread of the virus, with COVID-19 infections in the country rising by the day.

The IATF should take a second look at what they have done. They should review their performance and find out how they can be more effective. What did Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam do that we failed to do? Drilon added.

Roque meanwhile cited that the country has seen fewer deaths for the infectious disease in the past few days a data he sees as a success given the large daily spikes in infections.

He added the governments recently-launched Oplan Kalinga program may also be a game changer for the countrys COVID-19 battle as it would help isolate patients deemed as silent spreaders. In the said initiative, COVID-19 patients who cannot comply with the home quarantine protocols will be fetched from their houses and brought to government quarantine facilities to help curb virus transmission.

To date, coronavirus cases in the country have surpassed 70,000. A total of 1,837 have died due to the viral disease, while 23,281 have recovered.
Reportedly, a second group of volunteers completed Phase 2 trials on Monday. Tsalikov said in an interview with Argumenty I Fakty newspaper which was published on Tuesday that all volunteers have developed immunity from the novel coronavirus. However, he did not mention anything about the third phase that is large- scale trials or about the date when production of the vaccine might begin.

Tests of the vaccine are continuing, the Interfax news service reported, citing the Health Ministry in response to the statement.

Theyre all getting ahead of themselves, Sergei Netesov, a former executive at Vector, a state-run virology center in Novosibirsk thats also working on an inoculation, told the media. The third phase has not started yet, or even been announced. The reason theyre in such a rush is completely incomprehensible.

The army is developing a vaccine in association with the state- run Gamaleya Institute in Moscow and also with Russian Direct Investment Fund. Phase 3 trials of the vaccine is likely to include thousands of people in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is scheduled to commence from August 3. The distribution of the vaccine is likely to begin as early as September according to RDIF head Kirill Dmitrievs statement to the media.

According to Dmitriev, Russia could make 30 million doses domestically in 2020, and 170 million abroad, with five countries expressing interest in producing the vaccine and others willing to produce it.

Russia, which has the fourth-most coronavirus cases in the world, has accelerated the testing process and is funding production even before the vaccine is known to work, amid a global race to find defenses against the deadly pandemic that has wreaked economic havoc. In developed economies, Phase 3 trials typically take months to run in order to better understand a drugs effectiveness, Hindustan Times cited in its report.
This story has been updated to include comments from a ground vehicle analyst.

WASHINGTON  Humvee-maker AM General has been acquired by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity firm known for buying financially distressed manufacturers, the companies announced Wednesday.

KPS acquired AM General of South Bend, Indiana, from MacAndrews & Forbes in a deal in which terms were not disclosed. AM General has largely been stagnant since losing the competition for the U.S. Armys Joint Light Tactical Vehicle in 2015 to Oshkosh.

Following its loss in the JLTV competition, the company turned to the international market to continue growing its Humvee business, such as through offering to foreign customers a multipurpose truck with a military-grade rolling chassis from its Humvee design with a la carte add-ons.

KPS Partner Jay Bernstein said in a joint statement that the firm would continue to work with AM Generals chief executive, Andy Hove, as well as its management and employees to build on this great platform, organically and through acquisition.

We intend to leverage the Companys commitment to research, technology, innovation and new product development, as well as its heritage and iconic brand name, Bernsteins statement read.

Hove said the firm would work with KPS to continue to execute our strategy and invest in our very ambitious growth plan.

KPS demonstrated commitment to manufacturing excellence, continuous improvement and commitment to invest in technology and innovation will only enhance the Companys ability to compete in todays military and commercial marketplace, Hove said.

Plenty of industrial companies and investment firms had considered buying AM General, James Hasik, senior fellow at the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, told Defense News July 22. And plenty of companies have considered teaming with AM General for a bid on a forthcoming production program.

AM General has continued to try to adapt to the needs of the U.S. military, bringing a robotic combat vehicle to an Army demonstration last year as the service mulls the future of robots on the battlefield. The company also competed for the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport vehicle program but was not selected.

Story continues

Yet, AM General has remained a single-product firm with the Humvee, Hasik noted, and the future of the Humvee is hard to call.

Many militaries around the world use Humvees, and the U.S. Army plans to keep some in its fleet, but the U.S. Marine Corps is divesting its stock. According to Hasik, its possible that since the Humvee is less expensive than the JLTV and would likely be relegated to noncombat roles, the Army might choose to purchase pickup trucks instead.

The Humvee was developed in part because the Armys pickup trucks of the 1970s were unimpressive, but that was 50 years ago, and automotive technology has advanced, he said. Todays pickup trucks are much cheaper to buy and operate, and thats what the Canadian Army has done.

While AM General has come up with some novel ideas, nothing has stuck, Hasik said. For several years, the company has shown up at trade shows touting a howitzer on a Humvee, like it did at Londons DSEI exposition in late 2019. Still, the U.S. Army is struggling to figure out how it would fit into formations.

The good news for KPS is that the company has a running factory with efficient, medium-speed production of 4x4 military trucks and a production team who know how to do that, Hasik said. Thats an important skill set, as it works better for military programs than enlisting a pickup truck factory, which must make them in the hundreds of thousands to make money.

AM General has advertised on its website that it could build bigger trucks, and the Army has just issued a request for information for a program to replace all of its heavy trucks, Hasik pointed out. It could also build small trucks, similar to the Humvee, for future autonomous applications. Theres no guarantee, but we might see lots of those in a few years.

All in all, I suspect that KPS didnt buy AM General just to wring some more efficiencies out of the Humvee program. The folks there probably see some of these upside possibilities as well, he added.
President Hassan Rouhani's Chief of Staff announced July 21 the "release of blocked Iranian financial assets" in some countries and maintained that these resources would be used for international payments.

The official government news website, IRNA, cited Mahmoud Vaezi as saying, "The released assets will be used for addressing the concerns and problems of importers." In other words, foreign currency will be made available for imports.

However, he has stopped short of referring to the amounts released or the countries that had blocked Iran's "assets."

Most of Irans money in foreign countries is not actually frozen by any government but impossible to transfer due to U.S. banking sanctions. If Vaezis statement is true, it means the United States must have agreed for some banks to transfer money to Irans central bank.

Vaezis claim has not been confirmed by the U.S. or other governments and foreign banks.

However, the chairman of Iran's Red Crescent Society announced July 20 that that the United States has allowed the launch of a financial channel for transfer of international humanitarian aid to Iran. It is not clear if both officials spoke about the same development.

Lack of dollars and other major currencies in recent months have led to a a steep devaluation of Irans currency. The central bank was forced to pump $300 million into the market on July 18 and 19 to prevent a further drop of the national currency.

Vaezi described the recent "turmoil in Iran's currency market" as a "psychological and sensational war imposed" on the Islamic Republic.

Several "war rooms" are active in creating the turmoil, Vaezi claimed, naming Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan, as two main centers of directing the currency war against Tehran.

Opponents of the Rouhani administration believe that recent fluctuations in the local exchange market is merely a ploy to generate income for the government which is facing a huge budget deficit.

Responding to the critics, the Governor of the CBI, Abdol Nasser Hemmati, dismisses such intention, maintaining that opponents' allegation is unfounded.
MONTREAL, Ont. - Canadian National Railway Co. has laid off about 4,000 employees from its workforce this year as profits sagged 60 per cent in the second quarter amid fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shipments declined nearly across the board, prompting layoffs that left the countrys largest railroad operator down 5,100 employees from June 2019, when it had some 26,500 workers.

Roughly 3,000 of the 4,000 workers who were let go in 2020 are on furlough  meaning they can be recalled if business picks up  while some 1,000 others were permanently laid off, said CEO JJ Ruest.

We unfortunately had to do quite a few layoffs. The good news is were starting to recall some people back to work, Ruest said on a conference call with analysts on Tuesday.

The pandemic adversely impacted earnings, with revenue from auto and petroleum/chemicals shipments dropping 72 per cent and 25 per cent year-over-year, respectively, CN said.

Container shipments  CNs most lucrative category at $874 million, accounting for close to one-third of freight revenue  declined by 12 per cent as consumer spending plummeted amid lockdowns and store closures.

The railways trough in May saw furlough numbers peak in lockstep with low points such as a 90 per cent plunge in auto revenue that month, Ruest said.

Cautious optimism remains, however. After taking 14,500 cars off the tracks between April and June, CN has started to bring some out of storage for auto and lumber traffic. With more cars come more recalled workers.

Were very methodical about bringing them back, said chief operating officer Rob Reilly. Were still trying to figure out what the future volumes going to be.

Grain and fertilizer shipments held firm in the second quarter, helping to mitigate damage from other categories at the company.

CN set records for grain volume in four consecutive months this year. The planned acquisition of 1,500 high-capacity hopper cars aims to continue that trend, CN said.

Nonetheless, net income dropped to $545 million in the quarter ended June 30, compared with $1.36 billion a year earlier.

Revenue decreased by $750 million or 19 per cent year-over-year to $3.21 billion in the second quarter, the Montreal-based company said.

On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share fell 26 per cent to $1.28 from $1.73, matching analyst predictions, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 21, 2020.

Companies in this story: (TSX:CNR)
Rajasthan orders closure of schools in urban areas, Sunday curfew; logs 5,660 new Covid cases

Bikaner-Guwahati Express train derailment: Rajasthan govt to send 2 ministers to Bengal for coordination

To keep a family happy, nation has paid price: Union Minister's swipe at Gandhis

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, July 22: Amid the unfolding political crisis in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat attacked the Gandhi family following the rebellion by Sachin Pilot and MLAs loyal to him.

"The whole country has paid the price for keeping a family happy," Union Minister and BJP MP from Jodhpur Gajendra Singh Shekhawat tweeted in hindi.

The Congress has alleged that the BJP leader's voice figure in them, a charge refuted by him.

Rajasthan political crisis: CM Ashok Gehlot assures party's safety; Urges supporters to 'stand firm'

The BJP has called these clips "manufactured" and demanded a CBI probe, questioning if the state police tapped phones of politicians in violation of rules.

The FIR registered by Rajasthan Police mentions details of alleged conversations of rebel Congress MLA Bhanwarlal Sharma with Gajendra Singh and a third man, named Sanjay Jain. The police have arrested Jain.

The Congress claims Gajendra Singh, the name mentioned in the FIR, is a reference to Union minister Shekhawat.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

Rajasthan plunged into a political crisis after Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's deputy Sachin Pilot rebelled. The Congress later removed Pilot as the deputy chief minister and also as the party's state unit head.

Congress MLA in Rajasthan alleges Sachin Pilot offered him money to join BJP

The BJP has 76 MLAs in the 200-member Rajasthan assembly and to form government, the party will need the support of at least 25 more MLAs. But the BJP is looking at an additional 10 MLAs as a buffer.
Are you that type of person who always holds their phones, takes pictures, record videos, etc.? If yes, here's a warning for you. There are apps on your phone that could be listening or recording your camera or microphone contents, without you knowing. Luckily, an iOS 14 app is now heading to Android to fix this problem. Meet the app called 'Access Dots.'

What is 'Access Dots'?

Last month, Apple announced an iOS 14 free app that allows its users to know whether someone secretly records their mic or camera. It was one of the standouts among other apps introduced in the launching. However, it's only available for iPhone users at the time.

Now, Android Police and The Next Web reported that Android users can now have access to the app, 'Access Dots.' As explained, this app monitors the usage of all your downloaded apps on your phone. Whether its a gaming or a telecommunication app, 'Access Dots' can identify which among them is a 'Peeping Tom.'

Here's how it works. When you downloaded the app, your phone will automatically show a glowing dot at the top of your screen. This is the identifier, whether your phone is compromised or not. Like in the iOS, an orange indicator means someone is accessing your mic, and the color green is for the camera access.

Once you see it at the top, check all your currently-used or remaining apps immediately, and you can identify which among them uses your mic or camera, without your permission.

Here's its difference between iOS and Android

Although the Access Dots is now available on Android, there are still minor differences with its application to iOS and Android phone users.

In iOS 14, the app is not technically an app, but a part of the new iPhone's software. But with Android users, it is a downloadable app that will show the little circle identifier on the screen, not on the status bar itself.

You also have an option to make the circle bigger or smaller, as you prefer. Or even change the colors for the camera and mic, just in case you've lost track. However, these changes will cause charges ranging from $2.50 to $27.

How many apps track your info

Privacy is a very sensitive issue between consumers and tech companies. Despite that, there are still tons of applications out there that illegally track your info, images, and documents.

New York Times reported in 2018 that at least 75 companies receive user's info like location through devices.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said companies should inform their users whenever they secretly access their accounts.

"It's not right to have consumers kept in the dark about how their data is sold and shared and then leave them unable to do anything about it," he added.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
If the networks of the U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence community and a slew of other U.S. federal agencies were running the software of a company with deep ties, not only to foreign companies with a history of espionage against the U.S. but also foreign military intelligence, it would  at the very least  garner substantial media attention. Yet, no media reports to date have noted that such a scenario exists on a massive scale and that the company making such software recently simulated the cancellation of the 2020 election and the declaration of martial law in the United States.

Earlier this month, MintPress News reported on the simulations for the U.S. 2020 election organized by the company Cybereason, a firm led by former members of Israels military intelligence Unit 8200 and advised by former top and current officials in both Israeli military intelligence and the CIA. Those simulations, attended by federal officials from the FBI, DHS and the U.S. Secret Service, ended in disaster, with the elections ultimately canceled and martial law declared due to the chaos created by a group of hackers led by Cybereason employees.

The first installment of this three part series delved deeply into Cybereasons ties to the intelligence community of Israel and also other agencies, including the CIA, as well as the fact that Cybereason stood to gain little financially from the simulations given that their software could not have prevented the attacks waged against the U.S. electoral infrastructure in the exercise.

Also noted was the fact that Cybereason software could be potentially used as a backdoor by unauthorized actors, a possibility strengthened by the fact that the companys co-founders all previously worked for firms that have a history of placing backdoors into U.S. telecommunications and electronic infrastructure as well as aggressive espionage targeting U.S. federal agencies.

The latter issue is crucial in the context of this installment of this exclusive MintPress series, as Cybereasons main investors turned partners have integrated Cybereasons software into their product offerings. This means that the clients of these Cybereason partner companies, the U.S. intelligence community and military among them, are now part of Cybereasons network of more than 6 million endpoints that this private company constantly monitors using a combination of staff comprised largely of former intelligence operatives and an AI algorithm first developed by Israeli military intelligence.

Cybereason, thus far, has disclosed the following groups as lead investors in the company: Charles River Ventures (CRV), Spark Capital, Lockheed Martin and SoftBank. Charles River Ventures (CRV) was among the first to invest in Cybereason and has been frequently investing in other Israeli tech start-upsthat were founded by former members of the elite Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200 over the last few years. Spark Capital, based in California, appears to have followed CRVs interest in Cybereason since the venture capitalist who co-founded Spark and led its investment in Cybereason is a former CRV partnerwho still has close ties to the firm.

While CRV and Spark Capital seem like just the type of investors a company like Cybereason would attract given their clear interest in similar tech start-ups coming out of Israels cyber sector, Cybereasons other lead investors  Lockheed Martin and SoftBank  deserve much more attention and scrutiny.

Cybereason widely used by US Government, thanks to Lockheed

A match made in heaven, trumpeted Forbes at the news of the Lockheed Martin-Cybereason partnership, first forged in 2015. The partnership involved not only Lockheed Martin becoming a major investor in the cybersecurity company but also in Lockheed Martin becoming the largest conduit providing Cybereasons software to U.S. federal and military agencies.

Indeed, as Forbes noted at the time, not only did Lockheed invest in the company, it decided to integrate Cybereasons software completely into its product portfolio, resulting in a model of both using Cybereason internally, and selling it to both public and private customers.

Cybereason CEO and former offensive hacker for Israeli military intelligence  Lior Div  said the following of the partnership:

Lockheed Martin invested in Cybereasons protection system after they compared our solution against a dozen others from the top industry players. The US firm was so impressed with the results they got from Cybereason that they began offering it to their own customers  among them most of the top Fortune 100 companies, and the US federal government. Cybereason is now the security system recommended by LM to its customers for protection from a wide (sic) malware and hack attacks.

Rich Mahler, then-director of Commercial Cyber Services at Lockheed Martin,told Defense Daily that the companys decision to invest in Cybereason, internally use its software, and include the technology as part of Lockheed Martins cyber solutions portfolio were all independent business decisions but were all coordinated and timed with the transaction.

How independent each of those decisions actually was is unclear, especially given the timing of Lockheed Martins investment in Cybereason, whose close and troubling ties to Israeli intelligence as well as the CIA were noted in the previous installment of this investigative series. Indeed, about a year prior to their investment in the Israeli military intelligence-linked Cybereason, Lockheed Martin opened an office in Beersheba, Israel, where the IDF has its cyberhub. The office is focused not on the sales of armaments, but instead on technology.

Marilyn Hewson, Lockheed Martins CEO, said the following during her speechthat inaugurated the companys Beersheba office:

The consolidation of IDF Technical Units to new bases in the Negev Desert region is an important transformation of Israels information technology capabilityWe understand the challenges of this move. Which is why we are investing in the facilities and people that will ensure we are prepared to support for these critical projects. By locating our new office in the capital of the Negev we are well positioned to work closely with our Israeli partners and stand ready to: accelerate project execution, reduce program risk and share our technical expertise by training and developing in-country talent.

Beersheba not only houses the IDFs technology campus, but also the Israel National Cyber Directorate, which reports directly to Israels Prime Minister, as well as a high-tech corporate park that mostly houses tech companies with ties to Israels military intelligence apparatus. The area has been cited in several media reports as a visible indicator of the public-private merger between Israeli technology companies, many of them started by Unit 8200 alumni, and the Israeli government and its intelligence services. Lockheed Martin quickly became a key fixture in the Beersheba-based cyberhub.

Not long before Lockheed began exploring the possibility of opening an office in Beersheba, the company was hacked by individuals who used tokens tied to the company, RSA Security, whose founders have ties to Israels defense establishment and which is now owned by Dell, a company also deeply tied to the Israeli government and tech sector. The hack, perpetrated by still unknown actors, may have sparked Lockheeds subsequent interest in Israels cybersecurity sector.

Soon after opening its Beersheba office, Lockheed Martin created its Israel subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Israel. Unlike many of the companys other subsidiaries, this one is focused exclusively on cybersecurity, enterprise information technology, data centers, mobile, analytics and cloud as opposed to the manufacture and design of armaments.

Haden Land, then-vice president of research and technology for Lockheed Martin, told the Wall Street Journal that the creation of the subsidiary was largely aimed at securing contracts with the IDF and that the companys Israel subsidiary would soon be seeking partnership and investments in pursuit of that end. Land oversaw the local roll-out of the companys Israel subsidiary while concurrently meeting with Israeli government officials. According to the Journal, Land oversees all of Lockheed Martins information-systems businesses, including defense and civilian commercial units for the United States and elsewhere.

Just a few months later, Lockheed Martin partnered and invested in Cybereason, suggesting that Lockheeds decision to do so was aimed at securing closer ties with the IDF. This further suggests that Cybereason still maintains close ties to Israeli military intelligence, a point expounded upon in great detail in the previous installment of this series.

Thus, it appears that not only does Lockheed Martin use Cybereasons software on its own devices and on those it manages for its private and public sector clients, but it also decided to use the companys software in this way out of a desire to more closely collaborate with the Israeli military in matters related to technology and cybersecurity.

The cozy ties between Lockheed Martin, one of the U.S. governments largest private contractors, and the IDF set off alarm bells, then and now, for those concerned with U.S. national security. Such concern makes it important to look at the extent of Cybereasons use by federal and military agencies in the United States through their contracting of Lockheed Martins Information Technology (IT) division. This is especially important considering Israeli military intelligences history of using espionage, blackmail and private tech companies against the U.S. government, as detailed here.

While the exact number of U.S. federal and military agencies using Cybereasons software is unknown, it is widespread, with Lockheed Martins IT division as the conduit. Indeed, Lockheed Martin was the number one IT solutions provider to the U.S. federal government up until its IT division was spun off and merged with Leidos Holdings. As a consequence, Leidos is now the largest IT provider to the U.S. government and is also directly partnered with Cybereason in the same way Lockheed Martin was. Even after its IT division was spun off, Lockheed Martin continues to use Cybereasons software in its cybersecurity work for the Pentagon and still maintains a stake in the company.

The Leidos-Lockheed Martin IT hybrid provides a litany of services to the U.S. military and U.S. intelligence. As investigative journalist Tim Shorrock noted for The Nation, the company does everything from analyzing signals for the NSA to tracking down suspected enemy fighters for US Special Forces in the Middle East and Africa and, following its merger with Lockheed and consequential partnership with Cybereason, became the largest of five corporations that together employ nearly 80 percent of the private-sector employees contracted to work for US spy and surveillance agencies. Shorrock also notes that these private-sector contractors now dominate the mammoth U.S. surveillance apparatus, many of them working for Leidos and  by extension  using Cybereasons software.

Leidos exclusive use of Cybereason software for cybersecurity is also relevant for the U.S. military since Leidos runs a number of sensitive systems for the Pentagon, including its recently inked contract to manage the entire military telecommunications infrastructure for Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). In addition to maintaining the military telecom network, Cybereason is also directly partnered with World Wide Technologies (WWT) as of this past October. WWT manages cybersecurity for the U.S. Army, maintains DISAs firewalls and data storage as well as the U.S. Air Forces biometric identification system. WWT also manages contracts for NASA, itself a frequent target of Israeli government espionage, and the U.S. Navy. WWTs partnership is similar to the Lockheed/Leidos partnership in that Cybereasons software is now completely integrated into its portfolio, giving the company full access to the devices on all of these highly classified networks.

Many of these new partnerships with Cybereason, including its partnership with WWT, followed claims made by members of Israels Unit 8200 in 2017 that the popular antivirus software of Kaspersky Labs contained a backdoor for Russian intelligence, thereby compromising U.S. systems. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the alleged backdoor but did not mention the involvement of Unit 8200 in identifying it, a fact revealed by the New York Times a week later.

Notably, none of the evidence Unit 8200 used to blame Kaspersky has been made public and Kaspersky noted that it was actually Israeli hackers that had been discovered planting backdoors into its platform prior to the accusation levied against Kaspersky by Unit 8200. As the New York Times noted:

Investigators later discovered that the Israeli hackers had implanted multiple back doors into Kasperskys systems, employing sophisticated tools to steal passwords, take screenshots, and vacuum up emails and documents.

Unit 8200s claims ultimately led the U.S. government to abandon Kasperskys products entirely in 2018, allowing companies like Cybereason (with its own close ties to Unit 8200) to fill the void. Indeed, the very agencies that banned Kaspersky now use cybersecurity software that employs Cybereasons EDR system. No flags have been raised about Cybereasons own collaboration with the very foreign intelligence service that first pointed the finger at Kaspersky and that previously sold software with backdoors to sensitive U.S. facilities.

SoftBank, Cybereason and the Vision Fund

While its entry into the U.S. market and U.S. government networks is substantial, Cybereasons software is also run throughout the world on a massive scale through partnerships that have seen it enter into Latin American and European markets in major ways in just the last few months. It has also seen its software become prominent in Asia following a partnership with the company Trustwave. Much of this rapid expansion followed a major injection of cash courtesy of one of the companys biggest clients and now its largest investor, Japans SoftBank.

SoftBank first invested in Cybereason in 2015, the same year Lockheed Martin initially invested and partnered with the firm. It was also the year that SoftBank announced its intention to invest in Israeli tech start-ups. SoftBank first injected $50 million into Cybereason, followed by an additional $100 million in 2017 and $200 million last August. SoftBanks investments account for most of the moneyraised by the company since it was founded in 2012 ($350 million out of $400 million total).

Prior to investing, Softbank was a client of Cybereason, which Ken Miyauchi, president of SoftBank, noted when making the following statement after Softbanks initial investment in Cybereason:

SoftBank works to obtain cutting edge technology and outstanding business models to lead the Information Revolution. Our deployment of the Cybereason platform internally gave us firsthand knowledge of the value it provides, and led to our decision to invest. Im confident Cybereason and SoftBanks new product offering will bring a new level of security to Japanese organizations.

SoftBank  one of Japans largest telecommunications companies  not only began to deploy Cybereason internally but directly partnered with it after investing, much like Lockheed Martin had done around the same time. This partnership resulted in SoftBank and Cybereason creating a joint venture in Japan and Cybereason creating partnerships with other tech companies acquired by SoftBank, including the U.K.s Arm, which specializes in making chips and management platforms for Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

SoftBanks interest in Cybereason is significant, particularly in light of Cybereasons interest in the 2020 U.S. election, given that SoftBank has significant ties to key allies of President Trump and even the president himself.

Indeed, SoftBanks Masayoshi Son was among the first wave of international business leaders who sought to woo then-president-elect Trump soon after the 2016 election. Son first visited Trump Tower in December 2016 and announced, with Trump by his side in the buildings lobby, that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 jobs. Trump subsequently claimed on Twitter that Son had only decided to make this investment because Trump had won the election.

Son told reporters at the time that the investment would come from a $100 billion fund that would be created in partnership with Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund as well as other investors. I just came to celebrate his new job. I said, This is great. The US will become great again, Son said, according to reports.

Then, in March of 2017, Son sent top SoftBank executives to meet with senior members of Trumps economic team and, according to the New York Times, the SoftBank executives said that because of a lack of advanced digital investments, the competitiveness of the United States economy was at risk. And the executives made the case, quite strongly, that Mr. Son was committed to playing a major role in addressing this issue through a spate of job-creating investments. Many of SoftBanks investments and acquisitions in the U.S. since then have focused mainly on artificial intelligence and technology with military applications, such as killer robot firm Boston Dynamics, suggesting Sons interest lies more in dominating futuristic military-industrial technologies than creating jobs for the average American.

After their initial meeting, Trump and Son met again a year later in June 2018, with Trump stating that His [Sons] $50 billion turned out to be $72 billion so far, hes not finished yet. Several media reports have claimed that Sons moves since Trumps election have sought to curry favor with the President.

Through the creation of this fund alongside the Saudis, SoftBank has since become increasingly intertwined with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), a key ally of President Trump in the Middle East known for his authoritarian crackdowns on Saudi elites and dissidents alike. The ties between Saudi Arabia and SoftBank became ever tighter when MBS took the reins in the oil kingdom and after SoftBank announced the launch of the Vision Fund in 2016. SoftBanks Vision Fund is a vehicle for investing in hi-tech companies and start-ups and its largest shareholder is the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Notably, Son decided to launch the Vision Fund in Riyadh during President Trumps first official visit to the Gulf Kingdom.

In addition, the Mubadala Investment Company, a government fund of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), gave $15 billion to the Vision Fund. UAE leadership also share close ties to the Trump administration and MBS in Saudi Arabia.

As a consequence, SoftBanks Vision Fund is majority funded by two Middle Eastern authoritarian governments with close ties to the U.S. government, specifically the Trump administration. In addition, both countries have enjoyed the rapid growth and normalization of ties with the state of Israel in recent years, particularly following the rise of current Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and Jared Kushners rise to prominence in his father-in-laws administration. Other investments in the Vision Fund have come from Apple, Qualcomm and Oracles Larry Ellison, all tech companies with strong ties to Israels government.

The Saudi and Emirati governments links to the Vision Fund are so obvious that even mainstream outlets like the New York Times have described them as a front for Saudi Arabia and perhaps other countries in the Middle East.

SoftBank also enjoys close ties to Jared Kushner, with Fortress Investment Group lending $57 million to Kushner Companies in October 2017 while it was under contract to be acquired by SoftBank. As Barrons noted at the time:

When SoftBank Group bought Fortress Investment Group last year, the Japanese company was buying access to a corps of seasoned investors. What SoftBank also got is a financial tie to the family of President Donald Trumps senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

According to The Real Deal, Kushner Companies obtained the financing from Fortress only after its attempts to obtain funding through the EB-5 visa programfor a specific real estate venture were abandoned after the U.S. Attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission began to investigate how Kushner Companies used the EB-5 investor visa program. A key factor in the opening of that investigation was Kushner Companies representatives touting Jared Kushners position at the White House when talking to prospective investors and lenders.

SoftBank also recently came to the aid of a friend of Jared Kushner, former CEO of WeWork Adam Neumann. Neumann made shocking claims about his ties to both Kushner and Saudi Arabias MBS, even asserting that he had worked with both in creating Kushners long-awaited and controversial Middle East peace plan and claimed that he, Kushner and MBS would together save the world. Neumann previously called Kushner his mentor. MBS has also discussed on several occasions his close ties with Kushner and U.S. media reports have noted the frequent correspondence between the two princelings.

Notably, SoftBank invested in Neumanns WeWork using money from the Saudi-dominated Vision Fund and later went on to essentially bail the company out after its IPO collapse and Neumann was pushed out. SoftBanks founder, Masayoshi Son, had an odd yet very close relationship with Neumann, perhaps explaining why Neumann was allowed to walk with $1.7 billion after bringing WeWork to the brink of collapse. Notably, nearly half of SoftBanks approximately $47 billion investments in the U.S. economy since Trumps election, went to acquiring and then bailing out WeWork. It is unlikely that such a disastrous investment resulted in the level of job creation that Son had promised Trump in 2016.

Given that it is Cybereasons top investor and shareholder by a large margin, SoftBanks ties to the Trump administration and key allies of that administration are significant in light of Cybereasons odd interest in 2020 U.S. election scenarios that end with the cancellation of this years upcoming presidential election. It goes without saying that the cancellation of the election would mean a continuation of the Trump administration until new elections would take place.

Furthermore, with Cybereasons close and enduring ties to Israeli military intelligence now well-documented, it is worth asking if Israeli military intelligence would consider intervening in 2020 if the still-to-be-decided Democratic contender was strongly opposed to Israeli government policy, particularly Israels military occupation of Palestine. This is especially worth considering given revelations that sexual blackmailer and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who targeted prominent U.S. politicians, mostly Democrats, was in the employ of Israeli military intelligence.

Notably, Cybereasons doomsday election scenarios involved the weaponization of deep fakes, self-driving cars and the hacking Internet of Things devices, with all of those technologies being pioneered and perfected  not by Russia, China or Iran  but by companies directly tied to Israeli intelligence, much like Cybereason itself. These companies, their technology and Cybereasons own work creating the narrative that U.S. rival states seek to undermine the U.S. election in this way, will all be discussed in the conclusion of MintPress series on Cybereason and its outsized interest in the U.S. democratic process.
Bang & Olufsen a/s' Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday 20 August 2020 at 16:00 CEST at Bang & Olufsen a/s, Bang og Olufsen Alle 1, DK-7600 Struer, Denmark.

Please see attached file for further details.

For further information, please contact: Director, Investor Relations, Martin Raasch Egenhardt, phone: +45 5370 7439.

Attachment




It sounds like pure sorcery: using diamonds to observe invisible power swirling and flowing through carefully crafted channels. But these diamonds are a reality. JQI Fellow Ronald Walsworth and Quantum Technology Center (QTC) Postdoctoral Associate Mark Ku, along with colleagues from several other institutions, including Professor Amir Yacoby and Postdoctoral Fellow Tony Zhou at Harvard, have developed a way to use diamonds to see the elusive details of electrical currents.

The new technique gives researchers a map of the intricate movement of electricity in the microscopic world. The team demonstrated the potential of the technique by revealing the unusual electrical currents that flow in graphene, a layer of carbon just one atom thick. Graphene has exceptional electrical properties, and the technique could help researchers better understand graphene and other materials and find new uses for them.

In a paper published on July 22 in the journal Nature, the team describes how their diamond-based quantum sensors produce images of currents in graphene. Their results revealed, for the first time, details about how room-temperature graphene can produce electrical currents that flow more like water through pipes than electricity through ordinary wires. "Understanding strongly interacting quantum systems, like the currents in our graphene experiment, is a central topic in condensed matter physics," says Ku, the lead author of the paper. "In particular, collective behaviors of electrons resembling those of fluids with friction might provide a key to explaining some of the puzzling properties of high-temperature superconductors."

It is no easy task to get a glimpse of current inside a material. After all, a wire alive with electricity looks identical to a dead wire. However, there is an invisible difference between a current-bearing wire and one carrying no electrical power: A moving charge always generates a magnetic field. But if you want to see the fine details of the current you need a correspondingly close look at the magnetic field, which is a challenge. If you apply to blunt a tool, like a magnetic compass, all the detail is washed away and you just measure the average behavior.

Walsworth, who is also the Director of the University of Maryland Quantum Technology Center, specializes in ultra-precise measurements of magnetic fields. His success lies in wielding diamonds, or more specifically quantum imperfections in man-made diamonds. The Rough in the Diamond

"Diamonds are literally carbon molecules lined up in the most boring way," said Michael, the immortal being in the NBC sitcom "The Good Place." But the orderly alignment of carbon molecules isn't always so boring and perfect.

Imperfections can make their home in diamonds and be stabilized by the surrounding, orderly structure. Walsworth and his team focus on imperfections called nitrogen vacancies, which trade two of the neighboring carbon atoms for a nitrogen atom and a vacancy.

"The nitrogen vacancy acts like an atom or an ion frozen into a lattice," says Walsworth. "And the diamond doesn't have much of an effect besides conveniently holding it in place. A nitrogen vacancy in a diamond, much like an atom in free space, has quantum mechanical properties, like energy levels and spin, and it absorbs and emits light as individual photons."

The nitrogen vacancies absorb green light, and then emit it as lower-energy red light; this phenomenon is similar to the fluorescence of the atoms in traffic cones that create the extra-bright orange color. The intensity of the red light that is emitted depends on the how the nitrogen vacancy holds energy, which is sensitive to the surrounding magnetic field.

So if researchers place a nitrogen vacancy near a magnetic source and shine green light on the diamond they can determine the magnetic field by analyzing the produced light. Since the relationship between currents and magnetic fields is well understood, the information they collect helps paint a detailed image of the current.

To get a look at the currents in graphene, the researchers used nitrogen vacancies in two ways.

The first method provides the most detailed view. Researchers run a tiny diamond containing a single nitrogen vacancy straight across a conducting channel. This process measures the magnetic field along a narrow line across a current and reveals changes in the current over distances of about 50 nanometers (the graphene channels they investigate were about 1,000 to 1,500 nanometers wide). But the method is time consuming, and it is challenging to keep the measurements aligned to form a complete image.

Their second approach produces a complete two-dimensional snapshot, like that shown in the image above, of a current at a particular instant. The graphene rests entirely on a diamond sheet that contains many nitrogen vacancies. This complementary method generates a fuzzier picture but allows them to see the entire current at once. Not Your Ordinary Current

The researchers used these tools to investigate the flow of currents in graphene in a situation with particularly rich physics. Under the right conditions, graphene can have a current that is made not just out of electrons but out of an equal number of positively charged cousins--commonly called holes because they represent a missing electron. In graphene, the two types of charges strongly interact and form what is known as a Dirac fluid. Researchers believe that understanding the effects of interactions on the behaviors of the Dirac fluid might reveal secrets of other materials with strong interactions, like high-temperature superconductors. In particular, Walsworth and colleagues wanted to determine if the current in the Dirac fluid flows more like water and honey, or like an electrical current in copper.

In a fluid, the individual particles interact a lot--pushing and pulling on each other. These interactions are responsible for the formations of whirling vortices and the drag on things moving through a fluid. A fluid with these sorts of interactions is called viscous. Thicker fluids like honey or syrup that really drag on themselves are more viscous than thinner fluids like water.

But even water is viscous enough to flow unevenly in smooth pipes. The water slows down the closer you get to the edge of the pipe with the fastest current in the center of the pipe. This specific type of uneven flow is called viscous Poiseuille flow, named after Jean Leonard Marie Poiseuille, whose study of blood travelling through tiny blood vessels in frogs inspired him to investigate how fluids flow through small tubes.

In contrast, the electrons in a normal conductor, like the wires in computers and walls, don't interact much. They are much more influenced by the environment within the conducting material--often impurities in the material in particular. On the individual scale, their motion is more like that of perfume wafting through the air than water rushing down a pipe. Each electron mostly does its own thing, bouncing from one impurity to the next like a perfume molecule bouncing between air molecules. So electrical currents tend to spread out and flow evenly, all the way up to the edges of the conductor.

But in certain materials, like graphene, researchers realized that electrical currents can behave more like fluids. It requires just the right conditions of strong interactions and few impurities to see the electrical equivalents of Poiseuille flow, vortices and other fluid behaviors.

"Not many materials are in this sweet spot," says Ku. "Graphene turns out to be such a material. When you take most other conductors to very low temperature to reduce the electron's interactions with impurities, either superconductivity kicks in or the interactions between electrons just aren't strong enough." Mapping Graphene's Currents

While previous research indicated that the electrons can flow viscously in graphene, they failed to do so for a Dirac fluid where the interactions between electrons and holes must be considered. Previously, researchers couldn't get an image of a Dirac Fluid current to confirm details like if it was a Poiseuille flow. But the two new methods introduced by Walsworth, Ku and their colleagues produce images that revealed that the Dirac fluid current decreases toward the edges of the graphene, like it does for water in a pipe. They also observed the viscous behavior at room temperature; evidence from previous experiments for viscous electrical flow in graphene was restricted to colder temperatures.

The team believes this technique will find many uses, and Ku is interested in continuing this line of research and trying to observe new viscous behaviors using these techniques in his next position as an assistant professor of physics at the University of Delaware. In addition to providing insight into physics related to the Dirac fluid like high temperature superconductors, the technique may also reveal exotic currents in other materials and provide new insights into phenomena like the quantum spin Hall effect and topological superconductivity. And as researchers better understand new electronic behaviors of materials, they may be able to develop other practical applications as well, like new types of microelectronics.

"We know there are lots of technological applications for things that carry electrical currents," says Walsworth. "And when you find a new physical phenomenon, eventually, people will probably figure out some way to use it in technologically. We want to think about that for the viscous current in graphene in the future."

###

In addition to Walsworth, Ku, Yacoby and Zhou, Qing Li, a physics graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Young J. Shin, a scientist at Brookhaven National Lab; Jing K. Shi, a scientist at the Institute for Infocomm Research; Claire Burch, a former research intern; Laurel E. Anderson, a physics graduate student at Harvard; Andrew T. Pierce, a physics graduate student at Harvard; Yonglong Xie, a joint postdoctoral fellow at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Assaf Hamo, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard; Uri Vool, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard; Huiliang Zhang, a staff engineer at PDF Solutions; Francesco Casola, a quantitative research associate at Capital Fund Management; Takashi Taniguchi, a researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan; Kenji Watanabe, a researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan; Michael M. Fogler, a professor of physics at UC San Diego; and Philip Kim, a professor of physics at Harvard, were also co-authors of the paper.

The Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) is a partnership between the University of Maryland (UMD) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that is dedicated to the broad study of quantum science from theory to experiment.

RESEARCH CONTACTS

Ronald Walsworth

walsworth@umd.edu

Mark Ku

mku@udel.edu
In Portland, the District of Columbia and other U.S. cities shaken by protests in recent months, the Trump administration has leaned on the considerable authority and assets of the Department of Homeland Security - an agency formed to prevent another Sept. 11, 2001, attack - to spearhead the federal response.

Images of militarized Border Patrol agents clubbing protesters and stuffing them into unmarked vehicles have alarmed civil liberties advocates and administration critics, and the displays of government power echo tactics long associated with authoritarian rule.

Legal analysts say that while the department has broad authority to enforce federal laws, officers' actions - especially in Portland, Ore. - seemed to be pushing the boundaries and pulling DHS into a domestic policing role.

"There's a line that it certainly looks like they've crossed. And, if I may, it's an important line because it's the difference between federal law enforcement and a roving commission where you're using these law enforcement officers to go out and restore what they deem to be order," said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

DHS officials defended their tactics in Portland again Tuesday, saying the department has an obligation to protect government buildings in the city that have been targeted for more than 50 consecutive nights by black-clad protesters shooting fireworks, lobbing projectiles and attempting to set alight the federal courthouse.

Chad Wolf, the acting DHS secretary, said federal agents are not deployed widely across the city and described the situation there as "unique," blaming local officials who have eschewed cooperation with the Trump administration.

DHS agents have been deployed "to protect a symbol of justice - the courthouse," Wolf said. "We mostly do that in a very defensive posture. However, we have been forced because of a lack of local enforcement presence to take measures, such as arrests, to protect our officials."

Over the weekend, demonstrators pulled down a fence, employed radio frequency jammers, attempted to set the courthouse on fire and used slingshots to hurl ball bearings and batteries at federal agents, Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said Tuesday.

While DHS and Justice officials have strained to depict their actions in Portland as isolated, emergency measures, President Donald Trump has undermined that message with statements linking "chaos" in the city to a surge in violent crime in Chicago, New York and elsewhere.

Struggling in the polls and beset by multiple crises, Trump has been eager to more widely deploy DHS personnel he views as loyal to "dominate" U.S. cities as he campaigns for reelection as an urban lawman.

The president has exercised federal power primarily through DHS and its subagencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where several top political appointees lack Senate confirmation but appear almost daily on cable television to praise Trump's resolve.

At the center of his strategy is a willingness to deploy U.S. border and immigration enforcement agents on American streets, relying on agents who are accustomed to operating at airports and border crossings where they are generally subject to fewer constraints than ordinary police officers.The fact that many of those officers are not accustomed to dealing with urban unrest, analysts said, is also problematic.

"It increases the danger both for the law enforcement officers and for the civilian population when you have law enforcement agents who are not trained in a particular duty being asked to perform that duty," said Jonathan Meyer, a former DHS lawyer now in private practice at Sheppard Mullin.

Those specialized teams are among the most "heavily militarized" components in federal law enforcement, normally assigned to "engage in low-grade warfare against heavily armed narco-terrorists," said Paul Rosenzweig, a former DHS official who now works as a senior fellow at the R Street Institute.

"I think it is not illegal, but it is an expansion of mission and what I would characterize as a misapplication of authority," Rosenzweig said. "So make it lawful but awful."

Trump has signaled that he intends to increase the federal law enforcement presence in other cities run by Democrats - drawing pushback from local mayors who say they will not welcome it.

In the coming days, two administration officials said, the Justice Department is expected to announce an expansion of its "Operation Legend," an initiative to surge federal agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to Kansas City, Mo., to help address a spike in violent crime. That operation, officials said, is distinct from the efforts in Portland, which have largely been focused on courthouse protection and civil unrest. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss law enforcement deployments that have not yet been made public.

One of the cities to which federal authorities will deploy is Chicago, according to an official familiar with the matter; that city's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has expressed concern over the plan because of what happened in Portland.

DHS officials familiar with the Chicago preparations say it will include about 150 ICE agents from the Homeland Security Investigations divisions, which target drug networks, human trafficking and transnational crime. The HSI agents will not be deployed in an urban policing role, officials say, and will instead help target gang members and others driving the crime increase.

Legal analysts said the department is well within its legal authority to surge federal agents in cities - even to places that don't want them.

"Federal law enforcement is not a by-invitation-only exercise," said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional expert and criminal defense attorney who represented journalists and legal observers arrested as part of a mass roundup during demonstrations in the District of Columbia in 2002.

DHS officials have also expanded their abilities to gather intelligence on protesters who may be targeting federal monuments and statues, according to a memo that surfaced this week. DHS officials say they are relying on open-source social media posts to find whether violent actors are planning to show up.

Trump's eagerness to leverage DHS powers and "send in the feds" has brought a backlash that increasingly includes Republicans wary of an expanded federal role on American streets.

Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor who served as the country's first homeland security secretary under George W. Bush, said during an interview Tuesday with broadcaster Michael Smerconish that DHS was established to protect the country "from the ever-present threat of global terrorism."

"It was not established to be the president's personal militia," Ridge said.

"It would be a cold day in hell before I would consent to a unilateral, uninvited intervention into one of my cities," he added, "and I wish the president would take a more collaborative approach toward fighting this lawlessness than the unilateral approach he's taken."

The federal government's power is not unlimited, legal analysts said. Federal agents can only investigate and enforce federal crimes, though that gives them the ability to go after gang and drug activity or other crimes involving the crossing of state lines. They can help enforce state laws if state or local authorities give them the authority to do so - which is common on task forces with state and federal law enforcement agencies, analysts said.

If state or local officials seek to pull back that power, analysts said, it might hamper federal law enforcement's effectiveness.

"The problem with Operation Legend is that it can only fully function with the cooperation of local law enforcement," Turley said. "The federal government has no authority to enforce local, criminal laws."

Trump's response to the unrest is partly an outgrowth of the border crisis he faced in 2018 and 2019, when record numbers of Central American families and children crossed into the United States and overwhelmed U.S. agents. Trump responded by deploying U.S. troops and tightening immigration laws, while heaping praise on Border Patrol agents and ICE personnel.

Some of the DHS officers' recent tactics have generated controversy, including their wearing of uniforms that sometimes do not clearly note their identity or which agency they work for, and their use of unmarked vans. Legal analysts, though, said such tactics - while possibly objectionable - are legal and commonplace.

"Police use unmarked cars regularly to conduct arrests," Turley said.

DHS has also stirred controversy by sending CBP drones to track protests from the sky, but officials said the agency regularly uses surveillance aircraft to monitor large gatherings that could be a target for terrorist attacks, including sporting events.
The Amarnath ice lingam seen in a Twitter image posted by defence minister Rajnath Singh when he visited the shrine on July 18. (PTI)

Srinagar: The naturally formed ice lingam in Amarnath cave shrine has melted almost completely owing to increased temperature, reports received here said.

According to earlier reports, the Shiv lingam had fully formed by mid-June but its size and girth started decreasing thereafter. It was reduced to half by the first week of July and when defence minister Rajnath Singh visited the place of worship on July 18, it had melted more than 80 percent.

Security personnel posted at the shrine.

The legend goes that during the month of Sawan or Shravan (July and August), the ice stalagmite forms a natural Shivling or ice-lingam which waxes and wanes with the phases of the moon at Amarnath. It's a phenomenon that attracts tens of thousands of devotees from across the country and abroad every year. However, this years yatra has been cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic.

During the pilgrimage the devotees embark on an arduous journey over rugged mountains by walking or on ponyback, or are carried, to pay obeisance at the cave, which is believed to be the abode of Lord Siva. By the side of Siva's are two other ice lingams, believed to be those of Parvati, and their son, Ganesha.

In May, the security forces deployed at a nearby base had reported that the ice lingams of Parvati and Ganesha had also formed fully. The cave-shrine has been secured by a 53 feet wide and 7 feet tall second rung of grill fencing which has made it impossible for anyone to go near the sanctum sanctorum. Even the security forces deployed in the cave periphery have been kept at bay.

In 2008, the cave-shrine witnessed a magnificent formation of the Shiv Lingam after three years. Some experts had attributed the non-formation of the lingam in some years to global warming and shifting of glaciers.

History records that the first pilgrimage to the cave-shrine was undertaken in 1000 BC, though little else is known of the antiquity of Amarnath.
A group of hoons that drove a car down a bike path have been slammed for their dangerous stunt.

Video footage showed a car racing down a bike path next to Tonkin Highway near Perth's airport at night.

'This is how we party in Forrestfield, where you go and get blind and drive on footpaths,' one passenger could be heard saying in a video clip provided to Seven News.

Video footage showed a car racing down a bike path next to Tonkin Highway near Perth's airport at night

'Perth shortcuts, does anyone know this road?'

The driver is spurred on by his passengers who call his antics 'f***ing dope'.

He also compared the driver's actions to a popular race car video game.

One resident described the actions of group as 'anarchy'.

Bollards normally block access to the footpath but they were out of action at the time of the incident.

They have been reinstalled since.

A Western Australia Police spokesman said police are investigating the matter.
A white theatre director has stepped down from his role on the Bob Marley musical to give the job to a black director.

Dominic Cooke, who is best known for his work on Follies and the Olivier Award-winning Ma Raineys Black Bottom, had been brought on to direct Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Story ahead of its scheduled opening in Londons West End in spring 2021.

However, on Wednesday (22 July), Cooke announced that he was standing aside from the project so that Clint Dyer, who has written and directed plays including Death of England and Sylvia Plath, could take over instead.

In recent weeks the conversation about race has changed in theatre, as it has across society, Cooke said. With that in mind, and after much reflection, I have decided to step aside from my role to make way for Clint Dyer to lead the project.

Clint is a brilliant theatre-maker and an inspiring leader. I cant wait to see what he brings to this powerful story The world needs Bob Marleys transformative message now more than ever.

Thanking Cooke for his respect, dignity and heart, Dyer said: I am incredibly honoured to be offered the opportunity to take on the role of director. As a British-Jamaican I have been a Marleyite since I could hear, so understand the great honour this actually is.

Get Up, Stand Up! will run at the Lyric Theatre and stars Girl from the North Country actor Arinze Kene as Marley himself.

The show features many of the reggae musicians biggest hits, including No Woman No Cry, Exodus and Three Little Birds.
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His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Bauchi State, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed CON, ( Kauran Bauchi) has today flagged off the distribution of Keke Napep tagged  Kaura Economic Empowerment 2020 to various beneficiaries across the state.

Governor Bala said to ensure the actualisation of the project, Bauchi State Government deposited 250 million naira.

The governor during the occasion has made it clear that the ban of achaba operations in the state is a temporary and would be suspended when the State Government overcome criminal activities associated with the Okada Operation.

Governor Bala therefore assured that two vital components of wealth creation and economic empowerment plans to provide commercial loan cluster to traders and artisans are on final stage of collaboration with the Bank of Industry in which 250 million naira have been paid.

The historical distribution was attended by prominent personalities notably the Speaker, Bauchi State House of Assembly, Rt Honorable Abubakar Y Suleiman, his deputy, Dallami Ahmed Kawule, Secretary to the State Government, Sabiu Baba, Chief of Staff, Government House Bauchi, Dr Ladan Salihu, State PDP Chairman, Hamza Koshe Akuyam and Honorable Commissioners.
Like most nonprofit organizations struggling with fundraising events in the time of COVID-19, Lula Lake Land Trust is no different. Their biggest fundraiser, Hike Bike Brew Lula Lake Beer Festival, was rescheduled from March to August, and now theyve had to make a tough decision due to the ongoing pandemic.Hike Bike Brew is, by far, Lula Lake's biggest fundraiser, says Matthew Hubbard, LLLT director of Development. Our beer festival is a crowd favorite, drawing people in from as far as Seattle and New York City.Were putting the safety of our community first by making the decision to cancel Hike Bike Brew. This event is a staff favorite too, and we worked tirelessly planning it. Then we worked even harder re-planning it in hopes to help raise funds for Lula Lakes trails and conservation efforts.After making the decision to cancel, an idea sparked through discussions with staff and brewery sponsors that led to the creation of a "plan C" for the fundraiser."LLLT is proud to present Brewery Quest: Alternative Beer Festival to raise funds in the void left by the cancellation of Hike Bike Brew," officials said. "Each 'Explorer' ticket buyer will embark on a solo mission to visit eight Chattanooga area breweries, and they will receive a voucher for one 'Hike Bike Brew pour' at each brewery in addition to a limited edition, eco-friendly souvenir cup."Were so honored by the breweries and the willingness of our corporate partners to back this alternative beer festival, Mr. Hubbard said. Hike Bike Brew would have raised funds equivalent to six miles of new trails. LLLT can only hope our community will embrace this new route as well as support small business by visiting each brewery.Explorer Tickets for Brewery Quest are $50, which includes the vouchers and souvenir cup, plus a 15 feet of trail work guarantee, can be purchased online at www.LulaLake.org/Events. Pick-up for ticket purchases will be in downtown Chattanooga or the LLLT offices in August. Full details are on ticketing website.Brewery Quest: Alternative Beer Festival and Lula Lakes trail work initiatives are sponsored by Five Wits Brewing Company, Chattanooga Brewing Company, WanderLinger Brewing Company, Big River Grille & Brewing Works, Naked River Brewing Company, OddStory Brewing Company, Phantom Horse Brewing Company, Dalton Brewing Company, Elly, Southeastern Salvage Home Emporium, Audi Chattanooga, Village Volkswagen of Chattanooga and First Horizon.
With Laredo having suffered 52 deaths since July 1 and 77 deaths total since the start of the pandemic, the citys health authority is developing an imminent death protocol so that people here will no longer have to die alone.

I have been with patients that are dying, and they know theyre dying and theres no family with them, Health Authority Dr. Victor Trevino said Wednesday. And all they do is look at us. This is a very difficult thing to see because it is very, very heartbreaking  no family members can be with them.

Because COVID-19 is so contagious, people who are infected have to self-isolate in order to curb any further spread of the virus. This isolation extends even to their death beds.

Trevino said the imminent death protocol they are now working on would allow family members to say goodbye their relatives in the hospital who are in critical condition or have a very poor prognosis. There have been several requests from local family members to allow this, he noted.

That way well at least have some closure for the families, the health authority said.

The protocol involves training the visitors on how to put on and take off gloves, facemasks and face shields; confirming that they havent been around anyone who is infected; and ensuring they are healthy, without underlying health conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension or emphysema.

City Manager Robert Eads said the fact that they are having to develop imminent death protocols should shock anyone listening.

I never once thought Id be saying those words or even knowing what that was. Its sad to contemplate what that would look like, he told reporters Wednesday.

Eads also mentioned that in order to protect city staff and the community, they are deploying around a dozen disinfection tunnels wherever there are still large congregations of people working. They would also like to put a disinfection tunnel on or near the pedestrian bridge to Nuevo Laredo.

If they cant put the tunnel on the bridge itself, theyll put it on nearby city property, he said.

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
A judge in Minnesota on Tuesday lifted a gag order in the criminal case against four former officers charged in the death of George Floyd, but said he would take a news media coalitions request to make body camera footage more widely available under advisement.

Even though the gag order was vacated, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said he still expects all lawyers involved in the case to follow the rules on disclosure of information. In announcing his ruling, Cahill said he agreed with defence lawyers arguments that a gag order would be unfair to their clients and limit their ability to defend themselves against negative publicity.

Cahill also ruled Tuesday that he would not hold the lead prosecutor in the case, Attorney General Keith Ellison, in contempt of court as two defence attorneys requested, saying a statement Ellison made when he announced that additional lawyers would be assisting the prosecution was innocuous and did not violate the gag order.

Floyd, a Black man who was handcuffed, died May 25 after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, pressed his knee against Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd said he could not breathe. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Three other officers who were at the scene, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J Kueng, are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. All four officers were fired.





Police body camera videos were filed with the court this month by Lanes attorney, Earl Gray, as part of a request to have Lanes case dismissed. Gray said he wanted the videos to be made public  prompting Cahill to issue an order barring attorneys and parties from discussing the case.

Defence lawyers for all four of the former officers asked that the gag order be lifted.

Cahill made the videos available for in-person, by-appointment viewing only. Media attorney Leita Walker objected to that format, saying it violated the common law, rules of public access to records and the United States Consitutions First Amendment, and was essentially equivalent to keeping the videos under seal.

Records of all courts are presumed to be open for public inspection with limited exceptions. Prosecutors said that a court may impose restrictions if that access will interfere with the fair and impartial administration of justice, and that reasonable alternatives are not adequate.
Doha (AFP) - Qatar Airways said Wednesday it will seek $5 billion in compensation from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt for closing their airspace to the flag carrier as part of a regional feud.

"The arbitrations seek redress for the blockading states' actions to remove Qatar Airways from their markets and to forbid the airline from flying over their airspace," the airline said in a statement, adding that at least $5 billion would be sought.

The International Court of Justice last week ruled Qatar could challenge the airspace restrictions imposed by the four countries before the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The overflight restrictions are part of a raft of measures taken by the Saudi-led nations since June 2017 as part of their coordinated effort to pressure Qatar over its alleged support for radical Islamist movements and Iran.

Qatar repeatedly denied the allegations and sued the four countries before the ICAO.

"After more than three years of efforts to resolve the crisis amicably through dialogue yielded no results, we have taken the decision to issue Notices of Arbitration and pursue all legal remedies to protect our rights and secure full compensation for the violations," the airline's chief executive, Akbar Al-Baker, said in the statement.

Qatar Airways is the second largest airline in the Middle East after Dubai-based Emirates, operating a modern fleet of 250 aircraft.

Since the start of the air embargo, the national carrier has posted losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.
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One of the most significant passages of Scripture is one in which Luke calls attention to a habitual practice of Jesus. Luke says that when our Lord came to Nazareth, His hometown, He went to the synagogue, as His custom was, on the Sabbath day (Luke 4:16). Its difficult to diminish the critical importance of attending corporate public worship when we understand that Christ made a habit of it. Regular church attendance is something that should characterize the life of everyone who identifies as a Christ-follower.

In one of the great exhortations of Scripture, Christians are told, Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another  and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25).

It was quite disturbing to recently read a report from Barna Research which stated, One-third of all practicing Christians havent been watching either their church online or another churchs streaming worship services since the state lockdowns in response to the coronavirus

The report also noted that half of practicing Christian millennials had not attended church in the past four weeks, and thirty-five percent of Gen X Christians and twenty-six percent of Baby Boomer Christians had foregone digital church attendance.

The report said these trends highlighted the importance of churches continuing to reach out and disciple the next generation, especially those who are seemingly falling away during the pandemic.

The Barna report comes at the same time a megachurch with a pastor, who has a high national profile, just announced that his church is suspending in-person services until 2021. The pastor said the reason was that the leadership couldnt guarantee their congregants' safety.

I cant help wondering, which safety is the pastor talking about, his parishioners physical or spiritual health? It appears he was talking about being unable to protect them from COVID-19, but is the spiritual somehow less vital than the physical?

We seem to be living in a time when we are experiencing the birth pangs of a coming judgment. Those birth pangs increase with intensity with each passing day. Certain signs of the times indicate that the return of Christ may be very near. Wasnt that what the writer of Hebrews was saying? Since the storm clouds are gathering about us, since we see the lightning and hear the thunder, since our redemption may be drawing near, isnt this the time when we should be giving ourselves all the more to the place of worship and prayer?

When I read the pastors reasons for choosing to suspend services, I couldnt help but think of the one hundred and thirty-five cases of persecution that occurred in the first half of 2020 for Christians in India. Some were lynched, some experienced community ostracization. Two Christian men were sodomized, according to one report. Do we think that their church leadership could guarantee their safety when attending church?

Ive gone to India three times as a short term missionary. I can tell you first hand that every time many of our Indian brethren choose to meet, wherever they decide to come together, they are living with the ongoing threat of radical Hindus and Muslims bent on harming them because they worship Christ.

Theyre dealing with COVID over there too, plus persecution! I dont mean to diminish the importance of safety, but when it comes to worship safety shouldnt it be the first or only concern of the church?

Perhaps so many in this country have forgotten how essential church is to ones spiritual health. Im not referring to merely watching a service online, but attending and assembling with other believers.

Barna also noted in its findings that respondents who had stopped attending church during COVID-19 were less likely than those who were still attending to say they were not anxious about their lives  that they had an inner peace from God. Those who had stopped attending in recent weeks were more likely to say they felt insecure. But I suggest the matter is of much deeper significance.

James Collins, a Kansas pastor, and columnist has written of late that the question is whether we believe the church is essential. Collins said that when the coronavirus hit and churches were forbidden to attend their services, he called and emailed several federal, state, and local officials and asked them whether they believed the church was essential.

Most of them refused to answer. In my way of thinking, not answering was an answer of No. However, one local politician that I spoke with on the phone answered with a flat-out, No! Churches are not essential. We are living in a time where liquor stores, marijuana dispensaries, and abortion clinics are considered essential, but the blood-bought church is not, wrote Collins.

Let me share something that is even more tragic. Its when the blood-bought church of Christ acts as though its services are not essential.

I certainly cant tell church leaders how they should conduct their services. Nevertheless, I do echo the sentiments of Christian apologist, Alex McFarland, who recently told American Family Radio:

If youre not meeting for corporate worship, youre not practicing New Testament Christianity.

McFarland added that neither was this the time for churches to permanently adapt to online services and conclude this is the new way to do church in the 21st century. I am saying, it is time for churches everywhere to meet, he said.

Coronavirus or no coronavirus, even in states where it might call for civil disobedience, church leaders must find creative ways for their people to meet regularly. Leadership and members alike should observe reasonable precautions and health protocols. Nonetheless, steady and recurring times of gathering together as the family of God are a must, even during a pandemic.
The Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA) is calling for clarity on the green list of countries approved for international travel, stating that unless current travel restrictions are lifted, the publication of a green list is futile.

The Association believes that the list could cause confusion for both inbound and outbound travellers, unless travel advice relating to the countries on the list changes.

The current advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team states that all non-essential foreign travel should be avoided, regardless of whether a country is on the proposed green list or not. The Association is dissatisfied with the mixed messaging from the Government, and believes that a clear decision must be made between cancelling all flights and offering compensation to affected customers, or lifting the non-essential travel ban for the countries on the green list. The ITAA has previously discussed implementing air bridges on routes within countries in Europe with a similar rate of recovery to Ireland.

The ITAA is also concerned at the lack of protection afforded to consumers under the current guidelines, as many customers are not entitled to a refund if they choose to cancel their flights. The Association believes that the Government and Department of Foreign Affairs needs to make a clear decision on travel restrictions going forward, for the benefit of Irish consumers and member travel agents.

ITAA CEO Pat Dawson stated, Unless the current travel restrictions are lifted, there is no point in issuing a green list of countries for Irish travellers, as the Department of Foreign Affairs is still advising against all non-essential travel out of Ireland. The current guidelines have had a huge impact on Irish consumers, as the non-essential travel ban is not covered by insurance. If consumers follow guidelines and choose not to go on their holidays, they are not entitled to a refund. If the Department of Foreign Affairs issued a do not travel advisory, at least consumers would be able to get money back for their flights.

He continued, The current travel restrictions provide no relief to either inbound or outbound travel, which will have a knock on effect on the Irish travel industry well into the future. We are asking the Government and the Department of Foreign Affairs to make a clear decision on the current guidelines so that we can begin to rebuild our industry.

The Irish travel sector has been drastically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic; since March 2020 the industry is down by 98%. Domestic tourism accounts for 30% of the overall tourism spend in Ireland, meaning that the industry relies on overseas tourism for 70% of its revenue. There are currently 250,000 jobs at risk in the tourism sector, which is Irelands largest indigenous industry.
MEMPHIS, Tenn., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) has elected Judge Dan H. Michael of Memphis and Shelby County, Tenn., to president of the NCJFCJ Board of Directors.

Judge Dan H. Michael Elected as 76th President of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

"Judge Dan Michael is the definition of judicial leadershipleading on and off the bench to create change in their community while impacting reform nationwide," said Joey Orduna Hastings, NCJFCJ CEO. "Judge Michael's active efforts in Memphis and Shelby County is a national model. He has created a trauma-responsive court and has eliminated juvenile court fees for children and families, shifting how we all approach systems reform. The NCJFCJ has been fortunate to have Judge Michael as an active leader for many years and his unwavering commitment to children and families will make him a seasoned leader of the NCJFCJ."

Judge Dan H. Michael was elected to the bench of the Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court in 2014. With more than 20 years of juvenile law experience, he has dedicated his career to advocating the rights for children who have been abused and neglected.

"Tennessee's judiciary is made up of individuals who not only strive to bring fairness and justice to the communities in which they serve but individuals who also lead outside their courtroom to make an impact at the national level," said Chief Justice Jeffrey S. Bivins, Tennessee Supreme Court. "The NCJFCJ is in good hands with Judge Michael at the helm, and Tennessee's judiciary is strong because of individuals like him."

Judge Michael received his law degree at Memphis State University's Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. During law school, he volunteered with Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Memphis and Shelby County. Upon graduation, he entered into law as a CASA attorney. He later became the Executive Director of CASA of Memphis and Shelby County.

"This is a meaningful and significant appointment, and it reflects well upon the Memphis community," said Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09). "As one of the oldest judicial membership organizations, the NCJFCJ plays an important role in guiding children and families through our often complex and confusing legal system. I am confident Judge Dan Michael's expertise will be an asset to the organization and its members."

Judge Michael has been a member of the NCJFCJ since 2003, board director since 2016, and served on numerous committees and as Treasurer and President-elect.

Judge Michael was interviewed on Bloomberg Law to discuss his goals for juvenile and family courts.

Contact:

Chrisie Yabu, APR

[email protected]

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Judge Dan H. Michael

Judge Dan H. Michael Elected as 76th President of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

SOURCE National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
As I walked a country road near my rural town this past week, a local slowed his pickup alongside me. Were moving to Florida, Jim. He paused, then: Illinois is not well managed, you know.

Three weeks ago, a hugely successful commodities trader friend, who lives in splendor on a big swath of Lake Michigan in Lake Forest, called: Jim, were moving to Florida. Its the taxes and the weather. And I can work from there.

Illinois population has grown only slightly since 1970  from 11.1 million then to 12.67 million today. The U.S. population, meanwhile, has increased from 205.1 million to 328.2 million during that same time. The population growth in Illinois has been augmented largely by Latinos and Asian Americans. Illinois white population has dropped from 8.9 million in 1970 to 7.5 million today.

People move for many reasons. Weather is obviously part of it, though Minnesota has harsher winters and higher taxes, yet has been gaining population. Minnesota is better managed than Illinois, and citizens there apparently sense it.

Our state has been ineptly managed for a long time. The last good manager was probably Gov. Jim Edgar (1991-98). He was known as Gov. No, because people who went into his office to ask for money were told no.

Since then, debt, unfunded pension obligations and deficit spending have piled up to the point our state has the worst credit rating in the nation.

In efforts to find money for pensions and Medicaid health insurance for the low income, Illinois has over the past two decades cut employees, ignored critical information technology needs and shorted both social services and higher education.

Managing a big, boisterous state is tough, really tough, even without a pandemic.

First, the governor doesnt alone run the state, as recent Gov. Bruce Rauner learned the hard way. The guv shares power with not only the Legislature but also the state high court and public employee unions.

Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan, in the Legislature for half a century, can kill literally any bill  any bill  he wishes, with but a wave of his hand. A fetter on management.

The Illinois Supreme Court, dominated by Chicago Democrats since 1964, has rejected term limits, pension reform and popular efforts for nonpartisan redistricting  decisions all neatly in line with Madigans wishes. More fetters.

By the way, without reform of its ballooning pension obligations, the state will likely never stabilize its budget situation.

Mike Madigan is not an evil guy. He is a product of the Boss Daley political machine, which worked tirelessly to benefit and protect its own, meaning government workers and unions. After all, they are generally Democrats.

Thats fine, but over the years, with the arrogance of dominance, they have gone way too far.

For example, the public employee unions have negotiated such sweetheart contracts  often bargaining with sympathetic governors  that union rules basically manage state agencies day to day.

An illustration: Agency directors are basically unable to recruit top talent from the outside. Union rules say employees  last time I looked 95% of all state employees belonged to unions  have first crack at all jobs, even if they arent qualified. More fetters.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is a decent guy, trying to do a good job, Im sure, and he didnt create the present mess. However, born with a gold spoon in his mouth, he appears to take the spend to solve approach to government management.

Pritzker has put $56 million of apparently limitless billions into his campaign to enact an amendment in November that would tax the rich at higher rates.

Our fiscal plight is so grave, however, that it cannot be fixed solely by hoisting ever more taxes onto the backs of a few rich people. Our fiscal hole is so deep that, in the short run certainly, more taxes on all of us will be required, something neither side of the political divide will admit.

Jim, if we dont pass the governors tax proposal, Illinois will crash and burn, said a Dem friend of mine.

I responded: Illinois has been crashing and burning for years now  in slow motion.

An abrupt crash-and-burn scenario might just startle governor, lawmakers, and the state high court into dramatic actions, which could unshackle some of the fetters on management of our state. If not, our elected officials will simply kick the can down the road, as ever, and population flight will continue.

After all, Illinois is not well managed, as my Florida-bound friend observed.

Jim Nowlan is a retired professor, former state legislator and senior aide to three unindicted governors. He is president of Stark County Communications, a member of the Illinois Press Association. He can be reached at jnowlan3@gmail.com.

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President Trumps return to the White House podium on Tuesday to discuss the coronavirus pandemic took an unusual detour when he offered warm words for Ghislaine Maxwell, who is facing federal charges of helping Jeffrey Epstein recruit, groom and sexually abuse girls.

Mr. Trumps comment about Ms. Maxwell, who was arrested in New Hampshire this month and is being held without bail in a federal jail in Brooklyn, came in response to a reporters question about whether he expected her to go public with the names of powerful men who have been accused in lawsuits of taking part in the sex-trafficking ring that Mr. Epstein allegedly ran.

I dont know, Mr. Trump said. I havent really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly.

Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach, the president continued, referring to the Florida town where his Mar-a-Lago resort is and where Mr. Epstein had a home. But I wish her well, whatever it is.
Hilary Duff is still feeling optimistic about her Lizzie McGuire sequel series.

The 32-year-old actress said she has 'high hopes' that the continuation of the popular Disney Channel series will return to production in an interview with E! News.

The actress revealed that she and the creative team behind the new Lizzie McGuire series have been having regular conversations about how to move forward with Disney+ after the streamer halted production and fired the showrunner over concerns that the new show was too adult-oriented.

Staying positive: Hilary Duff, 32, said she has 'high hopes' that her Lizzie McGuire sequel series will still move forward after Disney+ halted production over fears that it was too 'adult'; publicity still for the new show with Adam Lamberg

'We are very much still in conversation with them a couple of times a week, which is really nice,' she said.

'We started shooting, and then obviously that got on hold for a couple of different reasons not involving the pandemic,' the actress continued. 'But you know what, I have high hopes that we are going to make it work.'

Hilary said she wanted to do justice to the character she's most identified with.

'It's like a responsibility to [Lizzie], honoring her and the fanbase that grew up with her,' she said. 'We kind of put her on pause, and had to go back to the drawing board, but I feel optimistic that it will happen.'

Staying in touch: 'We are very much still in conversation with [Disney] a couple of times a week, which is really nice,' she said; still from The Lizzie McGuire Movie with Yanni Gellman

Doing her justice: 'It's like a responsibility to [Lizzie], honoring her and the fanbase that grew up with her,' Hilary said. 'We kind of put her on pause, and had to go back to the drawing board, but I feel optimistic that it will happen'

Though there hasn't been any word from Disney+ on whether it plans to move forward with the series after two episodes were filmed, the show is still be developed.

'A lot of writing is happening,' Hilary continued. 'We are being told to have patience, which is good, so I feel optimistic.'

The Cheaper By The Dozen star also encouraged fans of Lizzie McGuire to voice their desire for the new series.

'I think they can continue to be vocal about wanting to see the show,' she said, adding that she hoped for an 'outpouring of love and excitement' for the show's return.

While Disney+ has stayed mum about why the new Lizzie McGuire series was put on hold, Variety reported in February that its now-fired showrunner Terri Minsky wanted to create a more 'adult' version of the character, who would now be in her 30s.

Disney may have balked at the first episode, which referenced the existence of sex and featured a cheating plot, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Still moving forward: 'A lot of writing is happening,' Hilary continued. 'We are being told to have patience, which is good, so I feel optimistic'; still from Lizzie McGuire

Growing up: Variety reported in February that now-fired showrunner Terri Minsky wanted to create a more 'adult' version of the character, who would now be in her 30s; shown in January

Back in February, Hilary said it would be a 'disservice' to the series to try to sanitize an adult version of her iconic character.

'Was incredibly excited to launch Lizzie on D+ and my passion remains!' she wrote on Instagram earlier this year.

'However, I feel a huge responsibility to honor the fans' relationship with LIZZIE who, like me, grew up seeing themselves in her. Id be doing a disservice to everyone by limiting the realities of a 30 year olds journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating.'

Not worth it: Back in February, Hilary said it would be a 'disservice' to the series to try to sanitize an adult version of her iconic character

After Disney+ moved a sequel series to the film Love, Simon to Hulu, Hilary saw it as a way forward for her own series.

'Sounds familiar,' she captioned a screenshot of an Advocate article noting the move to the service, which is also owned by Disney and features more adult content than Disney+ currently allows.

'It would be a dream if Disney would let us move the show to Hulu, if they were interested, and I could bring this beloved character to life again,' she wrote on Instagram in February.

So far, Hilary's interest in moving the show hasn't budged Hulu's head of original content Craig Erwich, who said the streamer wasn't in talks to acquire Lizzie McGuire last month.
Building the post-pandemic church: Out of ashes (part 1)

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On April 15, 2019, Paris Notre Dame Cathedral burned. The structures that had been a familiar landmark for centuries were reduced to ashes. Thankfully, the great nave of the Cathedral was spared, though damaged.

Important official voices immediately declared that the Church would be rebuilt. Architects, church and government authorities, and others began speculating on what the future edifice would look like.

There is a parable here for the church in our times. COVID-19 has swept through many churches, burning up old strategies, styles, and institutional structures. The questions are on the lips of many leaders and their congregations: What will the post-pandemic church look like? What will arise from the ashes?

Those concerns take me back thirty-four years. In the summer of 1986, I was in my eighth year as pastor of a large church in Birmingham, Alabama. One afternoon my administrative assistant buzzed me on the intercom. You have two long distance calls that have come in at almost the same moment, she said.

Ill take line one and you tell line two to hold, I replied. I punched the line-one button. The caller identified himself as the chairman of a pastor search committee for a church in Georgia. His committee wanted to interview me about considering a call to be their pastor. The congregation, he said, consisted of 4,400 people. The church services were telecast on several cable systems, and the future plan was to build a 5,000-seat auditorium.

The church I was serving in Birmingham had almost 2,000, so becoming pastor of the larger Georgia church seemed a logical career move. We chatted about scheduling a meeting. I hung up with a sense of excitement, and punched line two.

Im on a pulpit committee in Houston, Texas, and you probably wont want to come here, the man said. Houstons energy-based economy was in a periodic slump, and unemployment was at critical levels. It was difficult to sell or buy property. Besides, there was the grueling Houston weather and traffic.

The church that was interested in me being pastor had had a flash of glory in the 1970s but had been reduced to metaphorical ashes. About 100 people remained and met weekly in a moldy gymnasium sitting on a meager two acres of land.

Ultimately, the Georgia church voted to call me as pastor, as did the Houston congregation. I couldnt believe my own voice when I told the Georgia pulpit committee that I was accepting the Houston call.

A major reason stemmed from a 1973 experience I had. After almost three years on the White House staff I had moved back to Birmingham to resume my journalism career at The Birmingham News, at that time, Alabamas largest daily newspaper. However, a few months after returning, the Lord renewed within me a call to be a pastor. I had first heard that call when I was fifteen, but midst the turbulence of the 1960s I had turned away. After the White House years, and more time spent covering the civil rights crisis in the Deep South, I had become convinced of the importance of the church, and responded positively to the Lords calling.

In late 1973 I became pastor of a small church in south Alabama. Though I had been to college and seminary, I had little practical knowledge as to what I should do to lead the church in growth.

Church growth theories and movements were abounding in the 1970s. So, I bought books, tapes, and how to guides, and studied them intensely. However, I didnt know which strategy to choose.

One day, sitting amid a stack of church growth materials, a realization struck me like lightning: Jesus never had to work to grow a crowd... He always had a flock, sometimes so large He had to teach from a small boat just offshore to keep from being shoved into the water!

That prompted a question that would change my life and ministry: What did Jesus do that reached so many people?

In 1986, the Houston pulpit committee told me that I could lead the church any way I desired. I told them we would build the Jesus Church, though I did not fully understand what that was. I put aside church growth books and began to study the Gospels to see what Jesus did in His incarnate ministry.

The conviction built within me: If the New Testament Church is the body of Christ, then it ought to do what Jesus did in His body.

As I probed more deeply, I discovered these specific actions characterized His earthly ministry:

Jesus worshipped

Jesus interceded

Jesus proclaimed the gospel of the Kingdom

Jesus discipled those He reached

Jesus served human need in the name of the Father

As John put it in the closing words of his Gospel, there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

Nevertheless, the major five ministry actions listed above became the strategic plan for the church in Houston. Ultimately, attendance grew to a thousand and more on weekends, with vibrant ministries throughout the week.

So, as the fire at Notre Dame prompted the need for renewal of its structure, COVIDs searing effects on contemporary churches has also sparked a need for rebuilding, renewing, and restoring.

The good news is, this moment is a kairos, an opportune time to build The Jesus Church as the post-pandemic church. The next installments in this series will provide details.
Care homes residents are 13 times more likely to die from coronavirus than elderly people in the community, a study suggests.

Canadian experts analysed Covid-19 deaths in more than 600 care homes in Ontario and compared them to victims of a similar age from the province.

They found care home residents were at a 13.1-fold greater risk of succumbing to the coronavirus than people of the same age who lived at home.

Elderly people normally end up in homes when they are too frail to live on their own or are suffering with health troubles  both of which drive up the risk of infection leading to severe illness.

The researchers behind the study pointed to overcrowding, staffing shortages and a lack of PPE and tests as being the main factors behind why the death risk is so much higher.

They say untested staff bringing the disease into the homes was another 'strong' driver behind the fatalities.

Yesterday, England's chief medical officer admitted ministers and experts didn't consider this 'obvious' risk in their plans to throw a protective ring around the sector.

This allowed the disease to race through the sector and kill more than 30,000 vulnerable residents, Professor Chris Whitty conceded.

Care homes residents are 13 times more likely to die from coronavirus than elderly people in the community, a study suggests. Pictured: Temple Grove in East Sussex is one of the only care homes in the UK not to experience a single case of Covid

The research, by academics from the University of Toronto, looked at the crises in 627 care homes in Ontario up until the first week of April.

Of the 627 care facilities, 272 (43 per cent) reported Covid-19 infections in residents or staff.

By this time, 83 care home residents had passed away from the virus out of a total of 79,498 (0.11 per cent).

The researchers compared this to the number of deaths involving people over the age of 69 in Ontario who didn't live in homes.

RAPID COVID-19 TEST TO BE TRIALLED IN LONDON CARE HOMES New Covid-19 swab tests that give a diagnosis in under an hour are being trialled in London care homes. Queen Mary University researcherswill give the tests to up to 2,000 staff and residents in 50 care homes. They want to see how effective rapid daily Covid-19 testing is at reducing rates of infection, hospitalisation and deaths in the sector. At the moment, outbreak control in homes and communities is hindered by limitations in testing. It can take days to swab a person suspected of having COVID-19, send the sample to a laboratory and receive the results. The rapid PCR based testing system in this trial has been developed in the UK by Novacyt, and uses the Covid-19 PCR test already in use in NHS laboratories. Residents, staff and visitors in 25 care homes will receive daily testing on the rapid testing machines which each have the capacity to process up to 100 samples a day. Meanwhile the other 25 care homes will receive the standard central laboratory testing once a week to serve as a control group to compare the results to. The trial team comprises researchers, medical students and laboratory experts from Queen Mary and Novacyt, who are also using a new and more convenient simple nose swab for daily testing, instead of the more common and invasive nasopharyngeal swab which involve throbbing deep at the back of the throat. Professor Jo Martin from Queen Mary University of London who is leading the study said: 'This work has the potential to bring a new rapid COVID-19 testing system to those at highest risk, and help interrupt community transmission. 'If found to be successful in care homes, it could be very useful in a wide range of settings, helping to make a quick diagnosis and keep an environment free of COVID-19. 'With rapid daily testing, we can report back to the care home on the same day, so that they can take action to reduce transmission in their care home and prevent outbreaks into the wider community. By undertaking this study in the diverse East London community, we're hoping to protect one of the most vulnerable groups in the UK, and the frontline staff who are caring for them.' Henry Black, chief finance officer, NHS North East London Commissioning Alliance said: 'Working with our partners in East London we are at the forefront of detecting COVID-19 infections. Rapid testing is essential if we are to reduce transmission of the disease in social care settings. 'The testing equipment is also portable enough to be used in community situations and we believe it will be a valuable tool in tackling any local outbreaks.' Advertisement

By April 10, there had been 229 victims out of 1,731,315 individuals in that age group in the province (0.013 per cent).

The researchers said this amounted to a 13-fold greater risk of Covid-19 death for care homes residents  even though the raw data showed the difference was eight times greater.

The study also found the risk of dying from Covid-19 was seven times greater for care home residents compared to over-80s in the community.

People in that age group, regardless of where they live, are at a huge risk of dying from coronavirus, which explains why the difference is lower.

Most humans only live until they are in their eighties because the immune system, as well as vital organs, degrade over time.

They are also more prone to having deadly underlying health conditions - such as dementia and heart disease.

A vicious disease like Covid-19 is often too taxing on the body for people in this age group.

And, when comparing care home deaths to over-60s in the community - the risk of coronavirus to care home residents was 23.1 times greater.

Professor David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the university and lead researcher, wrote in the study: 'In the context of Covid-19, this susceptibility has proven particularly deadly, with (as we demonstrate here) an incidence of mortality more than 13 times greater than that seen in community-living adults older than 69 years during a similar period, with relative risk of death rising sharply over time.

'We also found documented infection in facility staff, as opposed to residents, is a strong identifiable risk factor for mortality in residents, with temporality suggesting that residents are infected by staff and not vice versa.'

The analysis - published in the journal JAMA Network Open - was completed in April, when the virus was just starting to peak.

But, as of June 10, at least 1,766 Covid-19related deaths have occurred in care homes in Ontario, making up 71 per cent of all virus victims in the city.

Across Canada, it is estimated that more than 80 per cent of its near-9,000 Covid-19 deaths have occurred in care homes.

Professor Fisman added: 'The prevention of such deaths requires strategic guidance from health regions and the provision of sufficient testing and personal protective equipment.

'Provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) has benefits both in bidirectional prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission and in providing workers peace of mind to stay on the job.

'Expanded testing, including testing of minimally symptomatic infection, will facilitate the early identification of infection and the implementation of effective infection control strategies.

'Integrated regional approaches to LTC [long term care homes] facility human resource management, such as limiting workers to a single facility and ensuring that these workers earn a living wage to prevent the need for multiple jobs while at the same time maintaining adequate staffing levels, are also needed.'

Yesterday, England's chief medical officer admitted ministers and experts didn't consider care home residents were being put at risk of Covid-19 because of agency staff working across multiple homes.

Part-time carers and bank staff who were infected but showed no symptoms were able to move freely between care homes at the start of the crisis without being tested.

Staff on zero hours contracts also went to work despite feeling ill because they were not guaranteed sick pay, which helped the disease to race through the sector and kill more than 30,000 vulnerable residents.

In a virtual grilling by MPs, Professor Chris Whitty acknowledged the error seemed glaringly 'obvious in retrospect' but had not been recognised earlier on in the pandemic.

Speaking to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, he said: 'The fact that people working in multiple homes, people who were not paid sick leave, that is a clear risk... these were major risks in health and social care settings.

'So I think there are a lot of things that we have learned that we will, we can now do a lot better in social care, and I don't think any of us would look back on what has happened in social care and say the ideal advice was given.'

Boris Johnson provoked fury earlier this month by implying care homes were responsible for their virus death toll by failing to follow correct procedures.

But Professor Whitty told MPs today his 'enthusiasm for blaming people for anything is zero, adding: 'That is absolutely not the way we deal with any kind of situation in health and social care and that's across the board. '

I think it's clear that every country that has a care sector has not handled this well.

'The UK is one country that has not handled this well in terms of issues in social care but the same is true, as previous speakers have said, the numbers are very similar or even higher in terms of proportions of deaths in almost every country where you look at this.

'So this is across the board, this has been a major problem... I think there are a lot of things that we have learned that we will, we can now do a lot better in social care, and I don't think any of us would look back on what has happened in social care and say the ideal advice was given and this is the fault of anyone. I personally would shy away from that.'
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is calling for the immediate dismissal and prosecution of the Minister of Special Development Initiatives, Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson for firing a gunshot at a registration centre.

Hawa Koomson who is also the Member of Parliament for the Awutu Senya East constituency, on Monday, July 20, 2020, admitted firing a warning shot at a voter registration centre in her constituency during a confrontation.

At a press briefing at the NDCs headquarters in Accra, the Director of Elections of the party, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said Hawa Koomsom and her accomplices should be made to face the law with immediate effect.

The NDC is totally disgusted by the thuggish and criminal shooting incident involving a gang of NPP thugs who were led by Madam Mavis Hawa Koomson which has received both national and international condemnation and which has been admitted by the Minister of State herself. We condemn in no uncertain terms such thuggery sponsored and led by a high ranking government official and lawmaker who is supposed to uphold the law at all times.

Hawa Koomson has by this singular criminal act and the many others committed before and together with her gang and all that theyve meted out to NDC supporters and innocent Ghanaians in the last couple of weeks demonstrate that she is a gangster who does not deserve to occupy any public position of trust and we join the many voices of conscience in our society to demand her immediate dismissal from office and prosecution for these heinous crimes.

The NDC has also served notice that it will prosecute Hawa Koomson should John Mahama emerge victorious in the December 2020 general elections if President Akufo-Addo fails to act.

In any civilized society, this gangster would have been arrested and made to stand prosecution by now and this is exactly what her appointor, President Akufo-Addo should have done by now if he had any integrity, honour, and conscience left. But because he is the chief promoter and enabler of the unprecedented culture of lawlessness we are witnessing in this country, we will not be surprised if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook like the several NPP criminals such as the Double and Azugu masked national security operatives who perpetrated the Ayawaso West Wuogon violence, [and] the NPP Delta Force who attacked the court of competent jurisdiction in broad day and others.

All these people have been shielded from prosecution by no other person than President Akufo-Addo. We will, therefore, like to serve notice that if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook by President Akufo-Addo as we anticipate, the next NDC Mahama government in the year 2021 shall arrest and prosecute her and all the thugs who were involved in this unlawful shooting incident and all the other related criminal acts.

---citinewsroom
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Kathmandu, Nepal  Wed, July 22, 2020 15:08 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a4066871876 2 News Nepal,travel,tourism Free

Nepal on Tuesday said it will resume international commercial flights in mid-August and announced an end to its coronavirus lockdown in a boost for the struggling tourism sector.

The Himalayan nation shut its airports in late March to combat the spread of the virus, which has so far infected 17,844 people and claimed 40 lives in the country.

The shutdown hit just before the peak of the tourism season, when hundreds of mountaineers and trekkers visit Nepal, costing the industry -- a key part of the economy -- millions of dollars.

The decision to restart commercial domestic and international flights from August 17 was taken in a cabinet meeting Monday, Nepal's Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Yogesh Bhattarai said.

"The ministry is working on safety protocols for airport management, flight operators and passengers for the purpose," he told AFP.

The announcement came ahead of the government's decision late Tuesday to lift the months-long lockdown, which has been gradually eased over the past few weeks.

"We are ending lockdown from tonight (midnight) but it doesn't mean that we don't have any threat of health risks," government spokesman Yubaraj Khatiwada told reporters in Kathmandu.

Read also: Canadians still stranded in Nepal must find their own way home

Khatiwada said Nepalese should continue to observe social distancing and other virus-safety measures.

Schools and cinemas would remain closed and large-scale gatherings would be banned.

Long-distance buses are set to resume operations on the same day as flights.

All arriving and departing international passengers would need to have a certificate saying they are not carrying the virus.

Bhattarai said arriving travelers would also have to stay in quarantine, without specifying the duration.

About one-third of the 1.2 million visitors to Nepal last year arrived during the autumn season, according to government figures.

"It is... positive news and we have been receiving questions from clients," Nabin Trital of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal told AFP.

"We are discussing... protocols to ensure (the) safety of those who visit."

Topics : Nepal travel tourism
Jung Chang-ok, a protester who threw his shoe at President Moon Jae-in last week in the National Assembly, speaks during an outdoor news conference in front of Dong Hwa Duty Free Shop in central Seoul, Monday, with his shoe on the table. Some right-wingers lauded him as a man of courage. / Yonhap



By Kang Hyun-kyung



Shoes, eggs and paintings.



These three objects appear to have nothing in common. In the discourse of freedom of expression, however, they are interrelated. Outraged people and sarcastic artists use them as mediums to express their anger and resentment toward politicians responsible for dysfunctional policies that put their lives in peril.



Egging and throwing shoes at politicians are considered forms of protest and vandalism which have been utilized to make dissenting voices heard. Satirical paintings, meanwhile, are a non-violent form of protest and criticism designed to humiliate the targeted public figures. It's a shame tactic.



These actions, however, spark a heated means vs. ends debate in freedom of expression. People are divided over whether or not such vandalism or humiliation tactics, albeit minor compared to violent acts in terms of the physical effects on the victims, can be justified in the name of freedom of expression.



Egging has been a rite of passage for prominent politicians. The late former President Roh Moo-hyun was the most unfortunate politician when it comes to the assault  he was pelted with eggs four times. Three other former presidents  Kim Young-sam, Chun Doo-hwan and Lee Myung-bak  were also humiliated by eggings.



Conservative politician Lee Hoi-chang, who unsuccessfully ran in presidential elections three times in 1997, 2002 and 2008, managed not to show embarrassment on his face with his witty reaction to egging. In November 2007, he was hit by an egg thrown by an angry resident in the southern city of Daegu during his presidential election campaign. Without revealing his emotions, Lee said his skin was softened thanks to the egg.



The form of protest has developed into something more aggressive after President Moon Jae-in took power  people throw shoes at politicians.



On Saturday, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation in Jung-gu, central Seoul, demanding the Moon government scrap a set of what they called exploitive real estate policies and heavy taxes levied on owners of multiple home. The signs they held during the rally had various messages. One read "Like tenants, landlords are citizens to be protected." Another read "The Moon Jae-in government is worse than coronavirus."



In the middle of the protest, all the protesters threw their shoes in the air.



Inspired by a protester who was arrested after throwing his shoe at President Moon a couple of days earlier, the landlords did the performance to ridicule the government's "excessive" tax policies on real estate and owners of multiple homes. Throwing shoes in the air was also their satirical reaction to the law enforcement agencies which "overreacted" to the shoe-throwing incident.





Jung's shoe / Yonhap



Jung Chang-ok, 57, threw his shoe at a lawn Wednesday when President Moon walked down on the stairs of the National Assembly toward his vehicle after delivering an opening address in the legislature. Jung's shoe fell near the red carpet rolled out for the President after Moon's vehicle had already left the Assembly.



Calling Moon "ppalgaengi" (communist), he alleged that the President is a fraudulent human rights advocate and urged him to step down.



Jung was arrested by the police on the spot and questioned for eight hours. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office sought an arrest warrant on charges of obstructing justice and trespassing, which was denied by a court later.



In an outdoor press conference in front of Dongwha Duty Free Shop building near Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul on Monday, Jung's lawyer Yoo Seung-soo claimed hurling his shoe was Jung's way of expressing his frustration and anger toward the President, thus his client shouldn't be punished. Yoo raised the police brutality issue, accusing the police of having used "excessive" physical force to arrest and restrain Jung. Jung was spotted wearing a neck brace and cast on his right arm when he was released from detention after the court denied his arrest warrant.



On the internet, Jung rose to stardom among right-wing YouTubers. Jung is portrayed as a hero by his supporters. Some described him as a man of courage whose heroic act was something akin to that of independence fighters who tried to save Korea from Japan's colonial rule through self-immolation protests.



Lawyer Park Sang-yung said throwing shoes or eggs at politicians is not allowed and it will be inevitable that those who carry out such acts will face legal consequences.



"Imagine what would happen if people are allowed to throw shoes or eggs at others in the name of freedom of expression. I understand a certain action is protected under freedom of expression only when the doer doesn't use violence," he said. "Egging and throwing shoes are violent acts."



Oh Yoon-sung, a professor of criminology at Soon Chun Hyang University, however, says there's room for tolerance in Jung's shoe-throwing protest, noting the court will rule whether he's guilty or not.



"I think whether throwing shoes at a politician is punishable or not should be determined based on a case-by-case principle," he said.



He mentioned an Iraqi journalist who threw both of his shoes at then U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference in 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq, as the incident is similar to what happened in Korea.



"The Iraqi reporter was imprisoned for his action because his deed could have put Iraq's relations with the United States to the test. I think the protester who threw his shoe at President Moon is different. He appeared not to have the intention to hurt the President, considering the distance his shoe fell on the ground and what he did after he threw his shoe. He chanted several political slogans. This makes me think that what he did was a political statement, rather than a criminal act to harm the President."





Artist Lee Gu-young stands near his satirical painting "A Dirty Sleep" exhibited at the National Assembly in this January 2017 file photo. In the painting, a naked woman with then-President Park Geun-hye's face sleeps in a bed and near her is her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil. The work ignited a heated debate on freedom of expression at the time as some alleged it was an insult and sexual harassment in the guise of art. / Korea Times file
In his new role, O'Halloran will oversee operations across the global network.

Thomas-Copeland joins from OPMG Health, an Omnicom Precision Marketing Group network, where he served as Global CEO. Widely regarded as a disruptive leader in data and analytics with a passion for creativity, Thomas-Copeland is a modern marketer who connects creative ideas with data and customer experiences that effectively drive outcomes for our clients

"Marty has a remarkable track record and a relentless focus on adding value. With his guidance and leadership, DDB has become a creative force across Australia and New Zealand," said Chuck Brymer, Chairman of DDB Worldwide. "Marty knows that creativity is the most powerful force in business, and has a reputation for delivering long-term success for our clients."

"Justin has been a standout leader within Omnicom, using his ability to glean intelligence out of complex data to inform smart, effective creative," added Brymer. "I'm thrilled to have Justin bring his skills and capabilities in data and his eye for creativity to lead the team in North America."

"At Omnicom, we place considerable emphasis on succession planning which is why we continually invest in our talent." said John Wren, Chairman and CEO of Omnicom Group. "Marty and Justin are well known within Omnicom as transformative leaders with unique insight into creating successful global brand experiences. With their leadership and commitment, I am confident that DDB is well-positioned for success."

ABOUT DDB

DDB Worldwide (www.ddb.com) is one of the world's largest and most influential advertising and marketing networks. DDB has been named Agency of the Year numerous times by the Cannes International Festival of Creativity and the industry's leading advertising publications and awards shows. The Gunn Report has listed DDB as one of the Top 3 Global Networks for 12 of the last 15 years. The agency's clients include Volkswagen, McDonald's, Unilever, Mars, Johnson & Johnson, and the U.S. Army, among others.

Founded in 1949, DDB is part of the Omnicom Group (NYSE) and consists of more than 200 offices in over 90 countries with its flagship office in New York, NY.

ABOUT OMNICOM

Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE  OMC) is a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom's branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.

Contact:

Rahel Rasu

[email protected]

SOURCE DDB Worldwide

Related Links

https://www.ddb.com


IRVINE, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Starting in August, Mazda Motor Corporation will return to normal factory operations, or pre-COVID-19 levels, amid increased sales and future forecast for product demand in the U.S. In June, Mazda North American Operations achieved a sales increase of nearly 11 percent year-over-year. Most notably, the three-row CX-9 and MX-5 roadster volumes grew approximately 50 percent and 25 percent, respectively.

Through the remainder of July, Mazda will end production adjustments implemented at plants in Japan, Mexico and Thailand caused by the pandemic. Mazda has been monitoring inventory levels and modifying production since the end of March. Currently, almost all dealerships worldwide have resumed sale operations.

Globally, Mazda remains cautious and flexible regarding the risk posed by COVID-19 and will closely monitor trends and demand in each market where Mazda vehicles are shipped.

Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, California, and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through approximately 620 dealers. Operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City. For more information on Mazda vehicles, including photography and B-roll, please visit the online Mazda media center at InsideMazda.MazdaUSA.com/Newsroom.

Follow MNAO's social media channels through Twitter and Instagram at @MazdaUSA and Facebook at Facebook.com/MazdaUSA.

SOURCE Mazda North American Operations

Related Links

www.mazdausa.com


SEATTLE, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A new landmark study published today in Nature by Global FinPrint reveals sharks are absent on many of the world's coral reefs, indicating they are too rare to fulfill their normal role in the ecosystem, and have become "functionally extinct." Of the 371 reefs surveyed in 58 countries, sharks were not observed on nearly 20 percent, indicating a widespread decline that has gone undocumented on this scale until now. The survey also identified conservation measures that could lead to recovery of these iconic predators.

Essentially no sharks were detected on any of the reefs of six nations: the Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar. Among these, a total of only three sharks were observed on more than 800 survey hours.

"While Global FinPrint results exposed a tragic loss of sharks from many of the world's reefs, it also shows us signs of hope," said Jody Allen, co-founder and chair of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. "The data collected from the first-ever worldwide survey of sharks on coral reefs can guide meaningful, long-term conservation plans for protecting the reef sharks that remain."

This benchmark for the status of reef sharks around the world reveals an alarming global loss of these iconic species that are important food resources, tourism attractions, and top predators on coral reefs. Their loss is due in large part to overfishing of sharks, with the single largest contributor being destructive fishing practices, such as the use of longlines and gillnets.

"Although our study shows substantial negative human impacts on reef shark populations, it's clear the central problem exists in the intersection between high human population densities, destructive fishing practices, and poor governance," said Dr. Demian Chapman, Global FinPrint co-lead and Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Institute of Environment at Florida International University. "We found that robust shark populations can exist alongside people when those people have the will, the means, and a plan to take conservation action."

The study revealed several countries where shark conservation is working and the specific actions that can work. The best performing nations compared to the average of their region included Australia, the Bahamas, the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, the Maldives, and the United States. These nations reflect key attributes that were found to be associated with higher populations of sharks: being generally well-governed, and either banning all shark fishing or having strong, science-based management limiting how many sharks can be caught.

"These nations are seeing more sharks in their waters because they have demonstrated good governance on this issue," said Dr. Aaron MacNeil, lead author of the Global FinPrint study and Associate Professor at Dalhousie University. "From restricting certain gear types and setting catch limits, to national-scale bans on catches and trade, we now have a clear picture of what can be done to limit catches of reef sharks throughout the tropics."

The FinPrint team is wrestling with the fact that conservation action on sharks alone can only go so far. Researchers are now looking at whether recovery of shark populations requires management of the wider ecosystem to ensure there are enough reef fish to feed these predators.

"Now that the survey is complete, we are also investigating how the loss of sharks can destabilize reef ecosystems," said Dr. Mike Heithaus, Global FinPrint co-lead and Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences & Education at Florida International University. "At a time when corals are struggling to survive in a changing climate, losing reef sharks could have dire long-term consequences for entire reef systems."

Launched in the summer of 2015, Global FinPrint's data were generated from baited remote underwater video stations (BRUVS) that consist of a video camera placed in front of a standard amount of bait  a "Chum Cam." Coral reef ecosystems were surveyed with BRUVS in four key geographic regions: The Indo-Pacific, Pacific, the Western Atlantic and the Western Indian Ocean.

Over the course of four years, the team captured and analyzed more than 15,000 hours of video from surveys of 371 reefs in 58 countries, states and territories around the world. The work was conducted by hundreds of scientists, researchers, and conservationists organized by a network of collaborators from Florida International University, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Curtin University, Dalhousie University, and James Cook University.

For more information, visit https://globalfinprint.org.

About Global FinPrint

Global FinPrint is an initiative of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and led by Florida International University, supported by a global coalition of partner organizations spanning researchers, funders and conservation groups. The project represents the single largest and most comprehensive data-collection and analysis program of the world's populations of reef-associated sharks and rays ever compiled.

About the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation

For more than four decades the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation has focused on changing the trajectory of some of the world's toughest problems. Founded by philanthropists Jody Allen and the late Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, the foundation supports a global portfolio of frontline partners working to preserve ocean health, protect wildlife, combat climate change, and strengthen communities. The foundation invests in grantees to leverage technology, fill data and science gaps, and drive positive public policy to advance knowledge and enable lasting change.

About Florida International University

Florida International University is Miami's public research university, focused on student success. According to U.S. News and World Report, FIU has 42 top-50 rankings in the nation among public universities. FIU is a top U.S. research university (R1), with more than $200 million in annual expenditures. FIU ranks 15th in the nation among public universities for patent production, which drives innovation, and is one of the institutions that helps make Florida the top state for higher education.

CONTACT:

[email protected]

SOURCE Paul G. Allen Family Foundation
The Fisheries Research and Production Center - a subsidiary of the National Agrarian Science and Education Center - and the Institute of Hydrobiology have embarked on a study of the Caspian seals under the 2018-20 program, Trend reports citing Kazinform.

The study focuses on the Caspian seals' nutritional status, hauling-out, population conditions in the Kazakh part of the Caspian Sea as well as possible threats to their survival, including overfishing, habitat degradation, contamination, and entanglements. Notably, the Caspian seal is introduced in the IUCN Red List (The International Union for Conservation of Nature) as endangered species.

The study suggests some legislative amends to the Environmental Code including limited oil operations, restrictions on navigation and fishing near haul-outs of the seals. The study also centers on raising public awareness on the impact of fishing on population conditions of the Caspian seal.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States  Wed, July 22, 2020 13:45 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406686bc7e 2 World Boeing,Boeing-737-MAX,planemaker,aviation,aviation-industry,aviation-safety,aviation-technology Free

The grounded Boeing 737 MAX moved another step closer towards flying again Tuesday as US regulators said they would soon accept public comments on a roadmap to recertify the jet.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would issue a proposed airworthiness directive for the MAX, which has been grounded since March 2019 following two deadly crashes.

The listing published in the Federal Register will seek comments on suggested design changes and crew procedures "to mitigate the safety issues identified during the investigations that followed the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines accidents," the FAA said.

The public comment period will be open for 45 days.

The FAA statement moves the MAX a step further on the recertification path after the agency on July 1 completed test flights on the plane.

While the FAA said the announcement is an "important milestone," the agency emphasized that recertifying the MAX was not a done deal and that there were additional steps even after the public comment period is complete.

These include a final report reviewing and addressing public comments, and a review of Boeing's final design documentation. All MAX aircraft manufactured since the crashes also will need to be personally inspected by FAA staff.

"The FAA will not speculate when the work will be completed. The agency continues to follow a deliberate process and will take the time it needs to thoroughly review Boeing's work," the FAA said.

"We will lift the grounding order only after FAA safety experts are satisfied that the aircraft meets certification standards."

The MAX has been grounded worldwide since March 13, 2019, following an Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people. That catastrophe came just a few months after a Lion Air MAX crash that killed 189 people.

The MAX's anti-stall flight system, the MCAS, was partially to blame for both crashes.

But other technical malfunctions, including one involving electrical wiring, were subsequently detected during the aircraft's modification process, slowing down its recertification.

The FAA, like Boeing, is under scrutiny over its role in the development of the MAX, which has been sharply criticized by government auditors and on Capitol Hill.

Representatives Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat who chairs the House Transportation Committee, and Rick Larsen, a Washington state Democrat who chairs the aviation subcommittee, released a letter late Monday asking the agency to provide a recent safety culture survey of employees.

"We believe reviewing the results of this survey will help our Committee properly fulfill our congressional role overseeing the FAA and its efforts to help improve the safety culture at the agency," DeFazio and Larsen said.
rsted expands Atos' APAC and European mission-critical communications contract to support renewable energy goals in the US

Paris, France and Irving, Texas, July 22, 2020 - Atos , a global leader in digital transformation, today announced it has been selected by rsted , a global leader in offshore wind recognized as ' the most sustainable company in the world' , to implement mission-critical communications solutions1 for a fast, secure system to aid rsted in its goal of delivering clean, reliable energy for the environment and local East coast communities in the United States.

With its strong footprint in the United States, Atos meets rsted's requirements. Atos is already supporting the offshore wind leader in the APAC region and in Europe, and this new agreement further recognizes Atos' expertise in mission-critical communications.

As part of this contract, Atos will be responsible for the whole critical communications value chain: from engineering and design, to installation, testing and commissioning, and a 5-year maintenance support. The solution will include:

Professional Mobile Radio system,

Marine and aviation communication system,

Marine and aviation tracking system,

Microwave links,

Network management and a

Voice dispatching system

"We are proud to support rsted in its production of green electricity, and in securing its offshore wind turbines in the Unites States, in addition to its farms in Europe and Asia. Our experts in critical communication constantly strive to provide the best services to rsted, and it is on this basis of trust and excellence that we strengthen our long-term relationship.", said Cyril Dujardin, Atos Senior VP, Mission-Critical Systems, Big Data & Security. "Atos puts safety and decarbonization at the heart of its business approach, with strong commitments, and is proud to support companies that have chosen to develop renewable energies."

Both companies have signed an exclusive agreement which covers current and future rsted offshore windfarms projects in the US region.

More information about Atos' critical communication solutions for the industry, IoT, and for missions: https://atos.net/en/solutions/critical-communications-systems-ccs .

***

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 110,000 employees in 73 countries and annual revenue of  12 billion. European number one in Cloud, Cybersecurity and High-Performance Computing, the Group provides end-to-end Orchestrated Hybrid Cloud, Big Data, Business Applications and Digital Workplace solutions. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos|Syntel, and Unify. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.

Press contact

Global: Lucie Duchateau - +33

North America: Maggie Wainscott | +1







1 Based on TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) technology





Attachment
While the rest of the world continues to struggle with fuel demand recovery in fits and starts, China has been a key factor in supporting oil prices as it breaks crude oil import records. Record Chinese crude oil imports over the past few months have supported still weak global oil demand and instilled confidence in the market that the demand recovery will continue.

But the Chinese buying spree may be coming to an end, as oil is not as dirt cheap as it was in April and as China is estimated to have amassed large crude inventories in commercial and strategic storage.

Potentially lower-than-record Chinese oil imports in the coming months, combined with growing fears of a second COVID-19 wave, could be major drags on oil prices, especially if demand recovery outside China stalls.

China Splurges On Record Crude Oil Imports

For two consecutive months, China broke all previous records for crude oil imports. Sure, recovering fuel demand after Chinas lockdown played its role in higher consumption, but the major driver of record-breaking crude imports was the lowest oil price in nearly two decades in April, when global demand crashed by close to 20 million barrels per day (bpd).

Chinese refiners, both state-held giants and independent refiners in the Shandong province, rushed to stock up on ultra-cheap crude oil, locking in crude for delivery in May, June, and July. No wonder then that Chinas crude oil imports in May and June smashed records.

In May, China imported a record-high 11.34 million bpd of crude oil. While part of the record imports was driven by economic activity picking up, the other driver was Aprils meager oil prices, which incentivized Chinas crude oil stockpiling in strategic and commercial inventories.

Then in June, China smashed its record from a month earlier and imported an all-time high of 12.9 million bpd of crude, more than 1.5 million bpd higher than the imports in May and a 34-percent jump compared to June last year, according to Reuters calculations of data from Chinas General Administration of Customs.

Related: Mexico's Pemex Scrambles To Save Itself From Oil Price Crash

For the first half of 2020, despite the lockdown in the pandemic, Chinas crude oil imports jumped by 10 percent year over year to an average of 10.95 million bpd.

Oil Storage Filling Likely Hit Record Too

According to calculations by Reuters columnist Clyde Russell, China hoarded crude oil at a rate of 1.88 million bpd between January and May, up by around 670,000 bpd from the 2019 estimated fill rate of 1.21 million bpd.

In June, this rate may have been as high as 2.77 million bpd, Russell estimated, which suggests that China may be stockpiling the dirt cheap oil it bought at Aprils prices for processing later this year.

Since China doesnt report inventory levels either in commercial storage or strategic reserves, analysts can only speculate how much crude oil the worlds top oil importer has stashed and, more importantly, how much storage capacity it has left for the oil that will be arriving in the coming months.

Chinese refiners processed a record-high amount of crude oil in June, 14.08 million bpd, and yet China is estimated to have stashed a record-high daily volume of oil last month.

Oil Import Growth Could Slow Down Through The Rest Of 2020

Despite processing rates hitting a record in June, Chinas exports of refined oil products were lower than those in May and lower by 29 percent compared to June 2019, according to Reuters estimates of customs data. This suggests that demand in Asia is still weak, even if Chinas domestic demand looks strong.

Going forward, Chinas record crude oil buying spree may be coming to an end.

Related: U.S. Fracking Services Pioneer Files For Bankruptcy



First, oil prices are now double the lows from Aprilthis could discourage refiners from importing record volumes from August onwards, especially as oil in storage is abundant.

Then, weaker fuel demand recovery in the rest of Asia still weighs on refining margins in the regionthis could discourage refiners in China from continuing to process record volumes of crude oil.

Next up, theres the storage wild cardno one outside China is really certain how much crude the worlds largest oil importer has amassed in commercial and strategic inventories. But estimates point to growing amounts of oil in both onshore storage and floating storage off China.

Oil prices doubling from April to over $40 a barrel in July have likely put an end to the bargain hunting of Chinese refiners. Crude oil imports are likely to stay high this month and probably next, until all the oil bought in April and May is delivered to Chinese shores.

But after that, toward the end of the third quarter, Chinas record pace of crude oil import could stumble, especially if demand recovery in the rest of Asia falters and continues to depress refining margins, discouraging China from exporting high volumes of fuels to the neighboring markets.

If China doesnt keep its record imports of crude oil through the rest of the year, it could remove a major support factor for oil prices, especially if oil demand recovery elsewhere wanes in a second coronavirus wave.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
While marijuana has been legalized to varying degrees in 33 states (as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico), many financial institutions remain hesitant to offer banking services to marijuana-related businesses (MRBs) because marijuana remains federally illegal.

To address this FinCEN issued guidance in 2014 (BSA Expectations Regarding Marijuana-Related Businesses) that clarifies how financial institutions can provide services to marijuana-related businesses consistent with their BSA obligations, so as to enhance the availability of financial services for, and the financial transparency of, marijuana-related businesses. However, FinCEN stops short of officially sanctioning marijuana banking, so many banks and credit unions continue to withhold basic depository and lending services from MRBs.

In response, the House of Representatives passed the Secure And Fair Enforcement Banking Act of 2019 (SAFE Banking Act) at the end of last year. The SAFE Banking Acts intention is to increase public safety by ensuring access to financial services to cannabis-related legitimate businesses and service providers and reducing the amount of cash at such businesses. If signed into law it would provide that safe harbor missing from FinCENs guidance, thereby encouraging banks and credit unions to open their doors to MRBs. Because the SAFE Banking Act enjoyed strong bipartisan support in the House, many financial institutions have adopted a wait and see approach to banking MRBs: We want to bank marijuana but were going to wait until the SAFE Banking Act passes.

While this seems prudent, I encourage you to reconsider because right now credit unions have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get ahead of the big national banks against which they so often struggle to compete in all other areas.

None of these banks currently offer services to MRBs, but I dont think its because theyre afraid that they would be unable to build a compliant marijuana banking program based on FinCENs guidance. Consider that the legal marijuana industry generated upwards of $13 billion dollars in medical and adult-use (recreational) sales in 2019 according to Marijuana Business Daily. The impact that access to that $13 billion market would have on a credit union is very different than it would be for a big national bank. To put this into perspective, according to the NCUA the Q1 2020 total assets held by all federally-insured credit unions combined were $1.64 trillion while JP Morgan alone boasted Q1 2020 total assets of approximately $2.7 trillion per their most recent FFIEC call report. For a national bank theres not necessarily a compelling reason to assume any additional risk exposure by offering services to MRBs because the risk isnt worth the reward. Theyre content to sit back and wait.

However, I think its a safe bet to assume that these banks have programs ready to come off the shelf as soon as the SAFE Banking Act is passed. With their brand recognition, large existing customer base, and geographic reach theyll be able to dominate the market on day one. So while the big banks sit and wait, credit unions have a chance to get ahead of them by bringing marijuana banking programs to the market. But how can a credit union do this confidently if they feel that the FinCEN guidance alone isnt enough?

Before this coronavirus pandemic deeply wounded the economy, credit unions were often reluctant to engage with the marijuana industry because there was a fear that MRBs werent stable businesses because they could presumably be shut down by the federal government at any time. However, throughout this crisis MRBs have been surprisingly resilient, being officially recognized by state governments as essential businesses that were allowed to stay open while so many other small businesses were forced to close and furlough employees. Were learning that what many had hoped would be purely temporary closures of those small businesses might well become permanent. In June, MarketWatch drew on Yelp data to estimate that in Los Angeles alone over 11,000 small businesses like restaurants, bars, and shops might never open their doors again. Recent experience shows that MRBs will not only survive, but in some cases thrive, contributing tax revenue, providing employment opportunities, and supporting the work of service providers like plumbers, accountants, and lawyers.

At the same time, states are losing significant tax revenues engaged in the fight against coronavirus at a time when theyre rapidly losing the businesses that would otherwise contribute to replenishing those coffers. However, having designated MRBs as essential they are keenly aware that the businesses have continued to contribute their share throughout this crisis. This has led to a commonly-held assumption that states are going to take advantage of this opportunity and expand their marijuana programs to bring in the one of the few new potential sources of tax revenue. Take for example, John Fetterman, the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, who was recently quoted as saying Theres already a thriving marijuana market in Pa. Why not make it legal, why not make it safe and why not make it taxable to help Pa. get back on its feet? Marijuana businesses will be essential to our economic recovery.

This all comes along at a time that American attitudes towards marijiuana are overwhelmingly positive and politicians that are otherwise bitter partisan rivals on seemingly every other major policy point are ready to work together to expand, or at the very least protect, legal marijuana programs. A 2019 study by the Pew Research Center found that two thirds of Americans were in favor of the legalization of marijuana, and this is the case (to varying degrees) regardless of political party, race, sex, or educational experience. To put it plainly, marijuana is no longer terribly controversial.

There are a lot of reasons to bank the marijuana industry, all of which exist without the SAFE Banking Act. I absolutely understand that it would be ideal for the federal government to offer legal protections for financial institutions that want to bank the cannabis industry, but any credit union that waits until then will have to go toe-to-toe with the big national banks that are going to be ready to hit the ground running. If you want to bank marijuana you cannot afford to wait.
Central Asia has a great climate for growing marijuana. The cannabis plant, which is indigenous to the region, blankets hillsides and reveals itself stubbornly in urban parks. Archeological evidence suggests cannabis was used in Central Asia 6,000 or more years ago and spread along early trade routes with Europe and East Asia.

Eurasianet reports in its article Uzbekistan returns to its roots with cannabis cultivation that now Uzbekistan, which promotes itself as the tourist-friendly heart of the Silk Road, is experimenting with the plant anew. This is not good-time ganja, however. A French-Uzbek joint venture will begin growing industrial hemp, which contains low amounts of mind-altering tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, in Khorezm region, Uzbekistans Foreign Ministry said this month. The plants fibers have a variety of uses: in paper, ropes, building supplies and textiles. In many ways, hemp is a lot like Uzbekistans infamous cash crop  cotton. But hemp uses less water, the Foreign Ministry pointed out, a fact that should excite farmers in the rapidly desiccating region.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a law in March allowing for the commercial cultivation of hemp containing up to 0.2 percent THC for industrial purposes not related to the production or manufacture of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, which remain illegal. (By comparison, marijuana sold legally for recreational use in Massachusetts may contain up to 0.3 percent THC.)

If this miracle crop sounds too good to be true, it may be. The environmental benefits of hemp are often exaggerated in the popular press; hemp is not the key to our green future, wrote Jerome H. Cherney of Cornell University and co-author Ernest Small in the journal Agronomy in 2016. Hemp is susceptible to significant soil erosion and soil nutrient depletion, and also has a relatively high water requirement. In particular, the relatively high nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium requirements of a hempseed crop tend to refute the excessive sustainability claims for hemp.

Uzbekistan isnt the first country in modern Central Asia to pursue industrial hemp production. In neighboring Kazakhstan, an outfit called KazHemp has been harvesting the plant since 2017. One ton was reportedly exported in 2018. But the Interior Ministry has cooled on the project and that year authorities destroyed a batch of KazHemps harvest for containing too much THC. Asked by local journalists earlier this year if KazHemp operates legally, an Interior Ministry official declined to answer, but said the ministry reserves the right to analyze the companys output at any time.
Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has asked the Akufo-Addo government to stop giving herself a pat on the back so far as the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned.



Ghana's COVID-19 has exceeded 28000, however over 25000 are said to have recovered from the disease.



The country's death toll remains at 153.



Although the country has not yet overcome the pandemic as every country worldwide likewise is struggling with the disease, the government and health officials are sounding the trumpet for good news.



NPP National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye is also optimistic the government's efforts coupled with Ghanaians' obedience with the health protocols could result in victory over the disease.



But, to Kwesi Pratt, the nation is nowhere near the expected victory.



Speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', he stated that when it comes to the worse countries dealing with the disease in Africa, Ghana is ranked 4th.



''The facts must speak for themselves . . . Amongst the more than 50 countries in Africa, Ghana is fourth in terms of worse cases. In fact, when you mention five worse cases, Ghana is among; we're listed number 4. So, if in spite of this statistics, somebody wants to learn from Ghana; then I really wish them well''.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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
D onald Trump has conceded the coronavirus pandemic is likely to get worse for a time as he revived his daily briefings.

The early evening address at the White House came as the next stage of the federal government's response to the crisis was being crafted on Capitol Hill.

Politicians and officials were opening negotiations on a trillion-dollar "phase four" rescue package.

"It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better," the US President said from the White House on Tuesday evening.

But he also touted a reduction in deaths and progress on vaccines and treatments for Covid-19, which Mr Trump referred to repeatedly as a the "China virus".

He also continued his belated encouragement of Americans to wear masks when social distancing is not possible, saying: "Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact."

With three months to election day, President Trump is hoping that the podium spotlight will give him an edge against Democratic rival Joe Biden.

He appeared at the White House solo, without the medical experts or government supply experts he previously relied on to explain his response to the public health emergency.

"The vaccines are coming, and they're coming a lot sooner than anybody thought possible," President Trump promised.

As early as next week, the first possible US vaccine is set to begin final-stage testing in a study of 30,000 people to see if it really is safe and effective.

A few other vaccines have begun smaller late-stage studies in other countries, and in the US a series of huge studies are planned to start each month through fall in hopes of, eventually, having several vaccines to use.

Already, people can start signing up to volunteer for the different studies.

Health authorities warn there is no guarantee - it is not unusual for vaccines to fail during this critical testing step.

But vaccine makers and health officials are hopeful that at least one vaccine could prove to work by year's end.

Companies already are taking the unusual step of brewing hundreds of millions of doses so that mass vaccinations could begin if the Food and Drug Administration signs off.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said he was glad President Trump has begun to promote mask-wearing and expressed optimism the president would reinforce that message.

"If we, during those conferences, come out and have consistent, clear, non-contradictory messages, I believe it will be very helpful in getting people on the track of knowing the direction that we need to go to get this pandemic under control," he said.

In addition to discussing medical developments, he also was expected to focus on his advocacy for schools to reopen for in-person education, following his threat to try to withhold federal funds from those that stick to remote education.
On March 12, 1990, alarmed that legislation to protect their rights was stalling in the House, disability activists from Houston joined others in Washington, D.C. Dozens from across the country took part in what came to be known as the Capitol Crawl  they abandoned their wheelchairs and other mobility devices to climb the steps of the U.S. Capitol  to make their struggles truly be seen.

It worked. On July 26, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. It barred discrimination against people with physical and mental disabilities, requiring most employers to provide reasonable accommodations and nearly all public spaces to be accessible.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the ADA and Houstons role in its enactment, the Mayors Office for People with Disabilities, in collaboration with the Houston Center for Independent Living, Southwest ADA Center, TIRR Memorial Hermann and Jewish Family Service, is presenting Houston ADA30 Celebration, an online program. With the theme Generation ADA: Paving the Road for the Next Thirty Years, the event will feature remarks by Mayor Sylvester Turner; a keynote interview with ADA architect Lex Frieden, who directs the independent-living research program at TIRR; disability-themed music by local performers with disabilities; and more. The event will be simulcast on Zoom and Facebook Live.

In truth, the Bayou City propelled the ADA before the Capitol Crawl.

More Information Houston ADA30 Celebration When: 2-3:30 p.m. July 26 Where:facebook.com/houstonMOPD/live or register for the Zoom webinar at bit.ly/2Wslo4U See More Collapse

Houston advocates played a pivotal role en route to the 1990 ADA enactment, Frieden says, noting the citys hosting in 1989 of the seminal congressional field hearing at the Metropolitan Multiservice Center, attended by more than 500 Texas advocates. Mayor Kathy Whitmire endorsed the ADA on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, after which municipalities across the country rallied in support of the measure.

Without Houstons support, the ADA might never have been, Frieden recalls Bush saying.

At the celebration, Houston disability-rights activist Maria R. Palacios, who participated in the Capitol Crawl, will read a poem she wrote in honor of the anniversary, We Dare to Dream.

While writing this piece, I couldnt help but think of the civil rights movement and (Martin Luther) Kings dream of equality and justice, says Palacios, artistic director of the events committee. As disabled people, we continue to be left out and marginalized, and on this 30th anniversary of the ADA, we dare to dream of a more inclusive future.

Its passage left Palacios hungry for more, she says. In a world that only saw disability as brokenness, the ADA brought a promise of freedom and liberation, a promise of inclusion and a window into my personal wholeness. It was, for me, the birth of disability pride  the birth of positive disability identity.

A Special World shares programs and experiences by and for the disabled community in Greater Houston.

suzanne.garofalo@chron.com
Lucknow, July 22 : Even as the Muslim clerics and Islamic seminaries seek a lifting of the ban on animal slaughter for Bakrid, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has written to the police chiefs of all the states. It has called upon them to take all possible precautionary measures to stop the illegal transport and killing of animals in the lead-up to Bakrid.

PETA India Advocacy Associate Pradeep Ranjan Doley Barman said in a statement, "All religions call for compassion -- none requires killing or eating animals, and hacking them to death with weapons is just plain cruel." He said that the state governments have a duty to uphold and enforce India's animal protection laws, and PETA India is calling on authorities to prohibit the cutting of animals' throats by untrained people in the open.

PETA India, in its letter, has pointed out that on two matters regarding the sacrifice and killing of animals for meat, the Supreme Court has ruled that animals can be slaughtered only in officially licensed slaughterhouses and that municipal authorities must ensure compliance with this ruling.

The laws regarding preventing cruelty to animals and the food safety and standards guidelines permit the slaughter of animals for food only in registered or licensed slaughterhouses equipped with species-specific stunning equipment.

Laws on the transportation of animals are also frequently violated during this festival.

PETA India said that thousands of goats, buffaloes, camels, and other animals are killed during festivals such as Bakrid, which will be celebrated on August 1 this year.

"Common illegal practices during these holidays include cramming animals onto severely crowded trucks -- which routinely causes suffocation and broken bones -- breaking their tails and beating them to keep them moving while marching them to the place of sacrifice, and slaughter by untrained people who slit animals' throats with dull knives in full view of one another and, often, in front of traumatised and upset children who want to protect them from harm," the PETA statement said.
The Trump administration will pay Pfizer nearly $2 billion for a December delivery of 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine the pharmaceutical company is developing, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced Wednesday.

The US could buy another 500 million doses under the agreement, Azar said.

'Now those would, of course, have to be safe and effective' and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Azar said during an appearance on Fox News.

Pfizer and BioNTech SE announced separately that the agreement is with HHS and the Defense Department for a vaccine candidate the companies are developing jointly. It is the latest in a series of similar agreements with other vaccine companies.

Shares for Pfizer rose one percent on the heels of the announcement. Shares for BioNTech SE shot up more than five percent.

The agreement is part of President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, under which multiple COVID-19 vaccines are being developed simultaneously.

The program aims to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.

Under the initiative, the government will speed development and buy vaccines - before they are deemed safe and effective - so that the innoculations can be in hand and quickly distributed once the FDA approves or authorizes their emergency use after clinical trials.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (pictured, file) announced the nearly $2 billion deal with Pfizer for at least 100 million vaccine doses on Wednesday

Pfizer and BioNTech said the US will pay $1.95 billion upon receipt of the first 100 million doses it produces, following FDA authorization or approval.

Americans will receive the vaccine for free, the companies said.

Azar said the contract brings to five the number of potential coronavirus vaccines that are under development with US funding.

Nearly two dozen are in various stages of human testing around the world, with several entering final test to prove if they really work.

Trump said Tuesday at a briefing that 'the vaccines are coming, and they're coming a lot sooner than anyone thought possible, by years.'

As early as next week, a vaccine created by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. is set to begin final-stage testing in a study of 30,000 people to see if it really is safe and effective.

Shares for Pfizer rose by just over one percent on the heels of the Wednesday announcement

A few other vaccines have begun smaller late-stage studies in other countries, and in the US a series of huge studies are planned to begin each month through fall in hopes of, eventually, having several vaccines to use.

Pfizer is finishing an earlier stage of testing to determine which of four possible candidates to try in a larger, final study.

Other countries are also scrambling to get a vaccine for COVID-19, which has killed more than 617,000 people, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Nearly 4 million Americans have been infected by the new coronavirus and at least 142,000 have died from COVID-19, the disease it causes, according to Johns Hopkins.

Britain announced Monday it had secured access to another 90 million experimental COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and others, a move some campaigners warned could worsen a global scramble by rich countries to hoard the worlds limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines.

The Trump administration already had a contract, also worth nearly $2 billion, with British manufacturer AstraZeneca to purchase 300 million doses of the vaccine it is making in collaboration with Oxford University.

Trump and Operation Warp Speed officials have narrowed the field to five main contenders to make a coronavirus vaccine for the US.

AstraZeneca, Merck, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have all received US government funding for the research and development of their vaccines but, until Wednesday, AstraZeneca was the only one with a contract promising the US would purchase its shot.

Newly-contracted Pfizer turned down US funding, a move it claimed to make in order to keep its pathway to a shot as clear and efficient as possible, but which drew questions for potential price-gouging during a Tuesday Congressional hearing.

Pfizer's candidate coronavirus vaccine showed promising signs it could trigger the production of neutralizing antibodies against coronavirus in early testing in July

China, where the new coronavirus originated, also has several vaccine candidates entering final testing.

Trump blames Beijing for not doing a better job of containing the virus and allowing it to spread around the world. Still, he said he'd be willing to work with China if it were first to the market with a reliable vaccine.

'We're willing to work with anybody that's going to get us a good result,' Trump said Tuesday.

'We're very close to the vaccine. I think were going to have some very good results.'

The FDA has told manufacturers it expects any vaccine to be at least 50 percent effective to qualify. But at a congressional hearing Tuesday, Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, said he was worried Trump could push the agency into prematurely clearing a vaccine.

'My fear is that FDA will be forced by the Trump administration to approve a vaccine that lacks effectiveness,' Pallone said.

Executives from five leading vaccine companies testified that they will take no shortcuts in their testing of the shots, so that people can be confident in the results. In addition, it won't be just the FDA rendering an opinion - each vaccine will likely be judged nearly simultaneously by regulatory authorities in Britain and Europe.

'I don't think any of the regulatory bodies that we have interacted with are lowering their standards,' said Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president of AstraZeneca, which is manufacturing a potential vaccine developed by Oxford University.

'We would not be trying to launch a medicine that is not effective.'
The assembly of a limited African Union (AU) summit on Tuesday afternoon, via videoconference, seemed to hold little hope of reassuring Egypt over its water security concerns.

The Blue Nile is the source of by far the largest part of Egypts annual share of Nile water, and it is across the Blue Nile that Ethiopia has built the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), with its 74 billion cubic metre (bcm) reservoir.



The limited summit convened in the wake of what Egyptian negotiators said were major differences on technical and legal issues related to the filling and operation of GERD.



According to an AU source who spoke briefly on the phone on condition of anonymity, the reports that Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt presented following two weeks of negotiations conducted through videoconference under the auspices of the AU reflect major differences in what the three countries perceive to be their legitimate rights.



Ahead of the mini-summit Egyptian, African and other sources close to the file expected South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current chair of the AU, to present Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa with possible alternative solutions to their outstanding differences, and to ask them to give negotiations another go, this time aided by legal and technical assistance panels provided by the AU.



While Egyptian officials had been maintaining that Cairo would not continue to negotiate in a vacuum, this week they sounded more reconciliatory, arguing that Egypt could well give the AU a chance to deliver by considering a limited extension of the talks.



Egypt had demanded Ethiopia to refrain from officially inaugurating the first filling of the dam for as long as the negotiations unfold. It also requested that the AU compile a precise schedule for the participating countries to meet. Cairo is keen to secure the support of the AU presidency.



The same officials say agreeing to an extension to negotiations is one thing, and agreeing to an open-ended exercise another.



Officials who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly on the possible length for an extension to the negotiation process put it at between three and five weeks.



The wet season for the Blue Nile began last week. It usually continues for 10 consecutive weeks. Last Wednesday, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Service quoted the Minister of Irrigation Seleshi Bekele as saying Ethiopia had started the first filling and that the time had arrived for the people of Ethiopia to celebrate.



The news came while consultations were underway between South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to set a date for the limited African summit that is supposed to review the disagreements contained in the reports Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia submitted to the AU following two weeks of negotiations.



Initially, officials in Cairo said Egypt would recall ambassadors from Addis Ababa and Pretoria to protest against the breach of the negotiating rules, and head back to the UN Security Council that in June, on Egypts request, discussed the GERD dispute and asked the AU to facilitate talks and to report on the outcome of the negotiations.



A round of phone calls by Foreign Ministry officials and a couple of phone calls between the Egyptian president and his South African counterpart managed to contain the crisis. Ethiopia also backtracked, with its minister of irrigation saying his words had been taken out of context.



Sudan was sceptical about Addis Ababas backtracking: Khartoum had already announced a decline in the level of the Blue Nile. It did, however, opt to give Ethiopia the benefit of the doubt.



For its part, Egypts Foreign Ministry requested clarification from Addis Ababa on the confusion surrounding the start of the first filling.



According to a political source in Cairo, Ethiopias reply to both Egypt and Sudan was vague: Addis Ababa said the deliberate filling had not been initiated, and that Bekele was referring to the natural flow of Blue Nile water to the GERD reservoir.



The same source said Ethiopia told South Africa that it had allowed water to gather behind the low-level gates of GERD to test the dam.



On Tuesday following the limited AU summit, the office of the prime minister of Ethiopia issued a statement stating that the first filling was already done. The current rainfall and runoff situation in the region have made it conductive to fill the dam, and that it has become evident over the past two weeks in the rainy season that GERDs first-year filling is achieved and the dam under construction is already overtopping, the statement said.



The statement of the Ethiopian prime minister, meanwhile, announced that the three riparian countries would continue to negotiate in the pursuit of an agreement.



To the chagrin of Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopian officials had maintained during negotiations that the first filling, of less than 5bcm, was part of the testing of the hydrological functions of the dam and did not contradict the 2015 Declaration of Principles.



The crisis appeared to have been put on ice, without being resolved, to allow the Tuesday summit to convene as Ethiopia continued to refuse to commit to halting the first filling during the current rainy season. After the summit, an Egyptian government official said that Cairo and Khartoum accept that Addis Ababa projected the matter as natural filling. He added that it was important that Ethiopia refrained from acting defined and that it was the high-level decision in Cairo that it is in the interest of Egypt to keep the negotiations going.



According to one official, speaking in advance of the summit, the next step depends on the ability of South Africa to secure a commitment from Ethiopia that it will negotiate in good faith and refrain from any unilateral action. After the summit he said that the AU chair promised to invest every effort to make sure that the three countries walk their way towards a fair agreement that should accommodate the demands of all parties.



Neither Egyptian nor Sudanese sources are particularly hopeful. Sources from both countries say the Ethiopian prime minister lacks the political capital to suspend the first filling pending the conclusion of talks, though a Sudanese source did not exclude the possibility for a reconciliatory deal provided there is a political will on all sides.



Egyptian sources were more pessimistic, pointing to years of evidence that Ethiopia lacked the will to negotiate a fair deal.



Ethiopia, they argue, is negotiating in an attempt to pressure Egypt and buy time. Had Ethiopia been serious about reaching a deal it could have struck one earlier this year on the text its delegation negotiated in Washington with the support of the US and the World Bank.



After the summit, Sudan sounded less upbeat than Ethiopia. It just said that the Tuesday summit was productive. For its part, Egypt in a statement issued by the presidents office said it is sticking to its demands of a fair and legally binding agreement.



Last week, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent a special envoy to meet with Turkeys foreign minister to discuss cooperation. The visit came as tensions between Cairo and Ankara over Libya reached boiling point.



A day later Ahmed arrived in neighbouring Eritrea for talks with his counterpart Isaias Afwerki who had met with Al-Sisi in Cairo a few days earlier. The Egyptian-Eritrean talks were interpreted in Addis Ababa as an attempt by Cairo to build alliances with Ethiopias regional rivals.



According to Hani Raslan, a political commentator who has followed the GERD dispute closely, this does not at all seem to be a scene set for deal-making.



Talks might continue because Egypt wants to exhaust every possible chance of negotiations but clearly the gap is really wide.



On Monday, Al-Sisi addressed unfolding political developments in a telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump.



In addition to facilitating three-way talks late last year, the US supported Egypts request for a UN Security Council session to discuss the GERD dispute.



Officials say Cairo is likely to repeat its request for the US to help secure another UN Security Council session on GERD if the extended talks under the supervision of the AU hit the expected impasse.



The US, the same officials say, has been also encouraging Ethiopia to come round to an agreement in return for economic and political support from Washington.



Egypt is also lobbying the support of other permanent members of the UN Security Council, though Russia and China are both wary of the council becoming a venue for transboundary river disputes.



If the talks go nowhere, then Cairo is hoping to get a UN Security Council position  a resolution or a presidential declaration  to protest the filling and call on Ethiopia to suspend any action pending an agreement.



The first filling is less than 5bcm, Raslan said, which is a violation of the negotiating terms but far from being the worst thing that Egypt may have to swallow.



That, Raslan added, lies 12 months away, during the 2021 rainy season, when Ethiopia will move towards a second filling of 18+ bcm.



By which time, Raslan stated, Egypt would have to have made its mind on how it will handle Ethiopian intransigence.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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A corporate identity is the face of an organisation and it means a lot to an organisation as they continuously engage with their audience. Usually the change of identity happens when there is a new collaboration or change in core values or vision of the company as they embark on a new journey or mission. The primary purpose of a corporate identity is to create an image and distinct identity, which will influence the key stakeholders and shape a positive opinion. SBI General Insurance has had quite a successful journey in the last decade and achieved several important milestones. These milestones and achievements have given more power to the general insurance business to surge ahead and present a more dynamic and futuristic looking company to their audiences and business partners.

Also Read: SBI General Insurance appoints PC Kandpal as MD and CEO

Now, as part of an overall marketing and communication strategy, the company felt a need to change their corporate identity for general insurance and bring in the trust and security elements to their several loyal customers. Along with the new identity, the company also launched a tagline  Suraksha aur Bharosa, Dono.

To understand more about the new corporate identity and the refreshed vision of the company, Adgully spoke to Shefali Khalsa, Head  Brand and Corporate Communications, SBI General Insurance.

SBI General Insurance has been in existence for quite some time. Why did the need for a change in identity arise after such a long time? What was the objective and purpose behind this revamp?

Weve had a great journey in the last decade, achieving various meaningful milestones. These achievements have given us the power to surge ahead, better ourselves, and look beyond. In todays age, the world is changing fast, and so are the customer segments, behaviour, and requirements, which make it necessary to evolve and adapt quickly.

In hindsight, if we look at the insurance industry, it has traditionally been slow to modernise and is mostly a relationship-based, face-to-face interaction-oriented business. The current scenario shifted the focus on trying to capitalise that personal equity, digitally. As a company, we are quite prepared for the situation with our robust BCP in place.

After achieving so many milestones, we can proudly say that with new-age processes and services, we are ready to serve the growing needs of an evolving consumer, consisting of traditionalists and modernists alike. That is precisely the story of our new logo.

The insurance category in India is riddled with fear and insecurity. To address this and to live up to our brand belief that resonates with trust, we have derived the tagline  Suraksha aur Bharosa, Dono, which in English means Security and Trust, both.

The brand identity is the face of any corporate brand. How do you plan to translate the new ethos attached to the new brand identity to your end customers?

I think it is the other way around; we have been at the forefront of going digital, having focussed processes, and being future-ready. This was a result of our customer-centric approach and the digitally savvy vision. The new identity underlines that and is a reminder that we continue to be true to the values that we serve our customers with. The new logo with swipe button design, cues the digitised and future-ready service approach.

Overall identity marks SBIGs 2.0 Version, a new milestone after a decade long journey. Appeals to masses and reinforces trust and security in the Company. The new brand logo and tagline are not just a change in its external identity, but it reflective of its approach, belief and way of working, that will redefine SBI General Insurance as a new-age and future-ready brand.

Here is what the new identity means to us  Progressive, Inclusive, Energised, Future-ready, Transparent, Empathetic, Agile, Dedicated & Customer-Centric

With our new logo, we reinstate and reassure our customers that we are ready to serve their growing needs with new-age processes and services while retaining their Trust.

Can you please tell us more about the core idea and thinking on the design about this new identity? How is it different from the earlier identity? What was the process followed in developing this new identity?

Through the new identity, we aim to stand out from category clutter. We wanted to resonate with the evolved & digital spirit of SBI General Insurance while retaining the values and identity of the parent brand. We also wanted to convey to the newer generation the usefulness and youthfulness of SBI General Insurance.

So, in the new logo, we have retained the parent brand SBI, which reinforces trust and security. Inspired by the SBI Yono, we have taken the purple color, which denotes youthfulness, wisdom, and devotion. For the font, we have general in lowercase to represent uniformity, we have used a curvier typeface to show agility. The entire logo represents swipeable buttons to cue the digital age. It reflects SBI Generals future-readiness through the usage of a gradient.

As for the tagline, to understand the challenges that the general insurance category faces, we had connected with our employees and arrived at an insight indicating two significant issues confronting our customers i.e., fear and insecurity. Also, we have observed that people do not approach the insurance category in India with a lot of trust. So, we conducted a survey internally and concluded that the two words 'Suraksha' (protection) and 'bharosa' (trust) should be communicated to the public to address these fears.

By creating this new identity how is SBI General insurance going to benefit? Will you be seeing some business growth post the unveiling of the new identity?

Through the new identity, we will continue to serve traditional and modern customers needs alike. We will also fulfil the needs of the evolving customer with the help of new-age processes and services.

The new brand identity not only has an impact on the external world, but also on the internal approach. We took this bold decision to revamp the brand in the current scenario, with the belief that this will bring a new and fresh wave for each employee and a spike in our visibility amongst our stakeholders. We have woven digitisation in all possible areas, enabling transparent and smooth transactions.

The overall insurance market is already crowded both on the Life and General Insurance front. How will this new brand identity help you break the clutter and stand out top of mind?

India is one of the top countries in the world when it comes to mobile penetration. With low cost handsets available, most of the population knows and understands certain symbols. Thus, 'swipe' logo is easily recognisable. The tagline has been created keeping in mind our customers all over the country. The language is simple and yet something that people can relate to. Additionally, the unmatched reach of our parent brand SBI will help us take this new identity to every corner of the country. These aspects will help us break the clutter. Apart from this, we continue the privilege to carry the SBI emblem in the logo, being a subsidiary of SBI. This emblem is certainly a clutter breaker in the crowd.

The new brand identity execution is an uphill task. How will you ensure that this is carried and extended to all collaterals? Most importantly, maintaining consistency especially getting the right colours in the smaller towns. Will there be a brand manual created to achieve and maintain consistency?

We are very proud of our reach to every nook and corner of the country. With the new logo launch, it will require changing the last mile of the logo presence and will be done with extra finesse. We have ensured a rigorous communication cascading to every employee, channel partner, and customers. Considering the lockdown situation, we have concentrated the launch through digital platforms, at large.

What is the plan for promoting the new identity to all your stakeholders? Any campaign has been designed to communicate about your new brand identity? When will the entire country get closely connected with the new identity?

The entire plan was focused on four buckets, starting the launch with employees, customers, stakeholders, and the external world. An exhaustive plan is in place, right from launch to sustenance. However, considering the sensitive situation, we have gone ahead and focussed more on the digital launch. A robust plan is in the pipeline for the coming quarters.
Becca Kufrin is not taking any criticism from fans about her relationship with Garrett Yrigoyen. On July 20, Kufrin shared a photo on Instagram of her niece while visiting Wisconsin. When multiple fans commented on the photo and criticized Kufrin and her relationship, she responded and called out fans for their behavior.

Becca Kufrin | Jim Spellman/Getty Images

Her relationship with Garrett Yrigoyen recently upset fans

On June 4, Yrigoyen caused controversy on social media when he published an Instagram post in support of law enforcement amid the Black Lives Matter protests. A few days later on an episode of the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast, Kufrin discussed Yrigoyens post with her co-host Rachel Lindsay. While she defended her fiance, she also admitted that she did not agree with him.

Garrett is my fiance and I love him and to his core, I believe that he is a good person. What he posted  I dont align with and I dont agree with, said Kufrin. I dont think he meant it in a malicious way, I do think it was tone deaf and it was the wrong time and message and sentiment Im trying to get him to see the bigger picture.

In a follow-up episode of Bachelor Happy Hour released on June 16, Kufrin told fans she was unsure about where things stood with Yrigoyen.

RELATED: Garrett Yrigoyen Jokes That He Talked to Mother Teresa After Becca Kufrin Hints Their Relationship Is Rocky

I want to say to our listeners out there  because Im sure many will hear this back and wonder and ask and have opinions  for those who are curious about my relationship with Garrett at this point, all I can say right now is I dont know, she said. I cant give anything more than that. Its something that we are trying to work through and discuss and do work on at home at this time and thats where the work will remain and thats really the best can give you at this point.

Becca Kufrin called out fans on Instagram

Based on their social media activity, Kufrin and Yrigoyen have spent the past couple of weeks apart and Kufrin is visiting her family in Wisconsin. However, the two are still commenting on each others Instagram posts.

In Kufrins recent Instagram post from July 20, Yrigoyen commented, Twinning :).

Kufrin replied to his comment. @gy_yrigoyen Immi told me I had to match her. And you know what she says, goes.

Fans of The Bachelorette also commented on Kufrins post, but not all of the comments were positive.

One Instagram user commented, Some girls just self destruct in relationships.. and Kufrin responded, OMG please write an advice book for all of us girls who apparently cant handle ourselves in our own relationships! We definitely need a man to tell us how to act.

When another fan wrote, So disappointed in you, Kufrin sarcastically replied, Im SO sorry that by me spending an afternoon with my niece makes you upset.

Fans are speculating about the status of Becca Kufrins relationship

While Kufrin is clearly not here for fans inserting themselves in her personal life, a number of fans commented on her Instagram post asking if she was still with Yrigoyen. Fans of The Bachelorette have also created Reddit threads dedicated to analyzing if the couple are still together.

I think Garrett and Becca broke up. Super unverified and no one has confirmed, but theyre spending fourth of July apart and havent posted any pictures together Something seems up, a fan wrote on Reddit.

They both seem too happy in their stories to have just broken up an engagement in my opinion. I think theyre just spending some time apart and visiting their respective families separately for the holiday, possibly also because of the tension between Garrett and Beccas family, another Reddit user commented.
By Easton Sanders Jul. 21, 2020 | 07:30 PM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY

Since taking the job in 2018, Dunn and his team have had their work cut out for them. His office has reviewed approximately 33 percent of the county so far, which comes out to about 11,000 properties. To date, his team has located 58 properties that were not assessed.





According to Dunn, the value of the unassessed properties is at least $17 million.





Although it has been a lot of work, Dunn says his team is working through it thanks to additional staffers.





"The key was getting more people down here. I think I've nearly doubled the staff." Dunn continued, "We weren't making progress at the rate I needed us to so I hired two ladies to specifically review aerial photography."





Dunn says the aerial team will examine everything remotely first. If there's something they can't assess remotely, then they send in-person inspectors to the property.





Like with so many others, the rise of COVID-19 has created additional challenges for his office to deal with.





He said, "it's gotten a little cumbersome. We're still able to do business, but the state has limited the number of people we can have in the office at one time. So now 50 percent of my staff are in the office and the other 50 percent are working from home."





Although the pandemic has created additional challenges, he says they are still getting the job done.





According to Dunn, the assessments will add approximately $212 million to the county's tax-roll.





In closing, Dunn says his goal is only to determine fair market value of everyone's property.





"Our task is not to raise revenue for the city, county, or school board. Our job is just to fairly assess everyone's property." Dunn continued, "It doesn't matter to me if your value goes up or down, we're just trying to be accurate. That's my goal, to be accurate in my assessments."





You can find additional information at the link below.



McCracken County Property Valuation Administrator (PVA) Bill Dunn continues to find unassessed and underassessed properties within the county.

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Stephan Francis will spend the next four years in jail for having a loaded AR-15 rifle and f
Posted on Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Dr. Richard Miller, a Texas A&M University-Kingsville psychology professor, was one of only ten professors across Texas who was selected as a Piper Professor.

The Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation, a non-profit, charitable corporation that was organized in 1950, annually awards professors for superior teaching at the college level. Selections are made on the basis of nominations submitted by each college or university in Texas, the website states.

"To be Texas A&M-Kingsvilles nominee for this award was an honor itself and to actually receive the award is both thrilling and humbling, especially since it is for teaching," Miller said. I am proud to have been recognized for the services provided to this state, this university, my discipline and more importantly, my students - past, present and future. They are the reason that we do what we do and they remain our greatest asset.

Miller joined Texas A&M-Kingsville in 2014 as Chair of the Department of Psychology for a four-year term. He then chaired the Department of Clinical Health Sciences for one semester and then returned to the classroom as a professor of psychology.

His teaching interests include attitude structure and change, cross-cultural psychology, organizational behavior, environmental psychology and developmental psychology.

Miller has received numerous awards for his teaching including the Robert Daniel Teaching Excellence Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and was named US Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In 2012, he received the Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award from the American Psychological Association.

He has received awards from A&M-Kingsville including the College of Arts and Sciences Awards for Leadership and for Scholarship. He currently serves on the Faculty Senate and served on the Undergraduate Education Advisory Committee of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. He is currently the editor of the Javelina Undergraduate Research Journal.

Miller has published articles and contributed chapters on social psychology, research ethics, teaching methods, student engagement, leadership and organizational behavior and other topics.

He has also directed a summer camp in Mallorca, Spain for more than 30 years.

As a teacher, my passion is mentoring undergraduate students in conducting empirical research, Miller said. In my classes, I hope that students come to wonder about the why behind what we know.

Miller said he is committed to promoting undergraduate student research. In the past six years, he has sponsored 96 presentations at regional conferences, fourteen journal publications and six successful grant applications by undergraduate students.

"I think communicating to students that they can be more than they thought possible is an important characteristic of being a good teacher. All of us in the academy are incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to do what we love, with students who are ready and eager to share our enthusiasm.
by Fady Noun

To mark the centenary of Greater Lebanon, the university magazine Travaux et Jours * dedicates a special issue to the genesis of the Lebanese state. "History is littered with destroyed nations," Mauriac writes, but the fact that Lebanon "is not eternal" does not mean that it is moribund.

Beirut (AsiaNews) - For the centenary of Greater Lebanon, the university magazine "Travaux et Jours * dedicated a special issue to the genesis of the Lebanese state. Its editor in chief, Antoine Courban, titled his editorial "Un identite nationale a conquer," setting the tone for the whole issue, affirming a fundamental truth: like any historical, political and social reality, Lebanon is a developing nation, it is not a fixed reality.

This introductory text reproduces a passage from a pastoral letter from Patriarch Elias Hoyek dating back to 1931. As he negotiated the creation of Greater Lebanon in Versailles he warned military chiefs and sovereigns of the time to be guardians of the common good and not personal interests:

He writes: You who are heads of the country, you judges of the earth, you deputies of the people who live on behalf of the people, (...) are obliged, in your official capacity and according to your responsibilities, to seek the best interest of the public. Your time should not be dedicated to pursuing your own gain, your action is not for you, but for the state and for the homeland you represent. This distress signal was launched ten years after the announcement of General Henri Joseph Eugene Gouraud. Antoine Courban comments: "He (the Maronite patriarch) had percieved the danger of clientelism and bad government, of which, a hundred years later, we can observe the disastrous effects of the damage to our country".

The appeal of Patriarch Hoyek is still extremely timely. Is Lebanon ungovernable? Is it just a mistake of history? Faced with the ideologies that present it as "detached" from the French mandate, from a "natural" Syria, does Lebanon justify itself as an independent state?

Jacques Keilo, cartographer engineer, doctor of the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne provides a convincing response. This scholar of political geography maintains that the answer to this central question is  without a shadow of doubt - negative. Keilo aims - certainly within the limits of a newspaper article - to deconstruct the ideological discourse that seeks to dilute Greater Lebanon into a larger political entity that precedes it.

Using the two concepts of "continuation" and "succession", the researcher shows that the Syrian Arab Republic is "neither the continuation nor the succession" of this distant reality which is the ancient historical-geographical space called Syria and that, from Classical antiquity to the Ottoman Empire, it has various outlines. However, he admits that Lebanon and Syria are almost two, each in its own way, "cultural heirs" of this space, of which they reproduce certain characteristics, since geography necessarily conditions history.

In an article published in L'Orient-Le Jour ("The 'Phenicia, Entering Historical Reality and Political Recovery, March 2, 2019), Keilo also applies the same reasoning to an ideology that some" Lebanese "have developed as an argument against the partisans of Greater Syria. It assures us, therefore, that it is equally false to inscribe the Lebanese in "continuity or succession" of historical Phenicia, as it is to include them in the continuity or succession of ancient Syria.

Lebanese and Arabists

These ideological historical constructions clashed, sometimes vehemently, between 1918 and 1920, the period immediately following the end of the First World War, the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the proclamation of Great Lebanon on September 1, 1920. In two articles distinguished, the historian Carla Edde, vice-rector of the USJ and the essayist Youssef Moawadan analyze this pivotal period, each from a different perspective.

The doubts also come entirely from the mandated power. Carla Edde speaks of the genesis of the Lebanese state as a "difficult learning in dissent and negotiation". We see in this period the "Lebanese" oppose the "Arabists", as well as the partisans of an Arab Syria and those of a Syrian Syria. "Shouldn't we commemorate the genesis of the Lebanese state in 1920? (...) A hundred years later, the issue is still dividing in Lebanon," notes the author of the article. So if we are not a mistake in history, after a hundred years of bad governance, we are certainly still an unfinished chapter.

For his part, addressing the topic from a purely Maronite perspective, Youssef Moawad evokes a population of survivors of the great famine of 1915-1918, who see Lebanon as "a country at hand". "The weight of the claims of the mountain Christians and of Beirut was decisive (in the decision to create the state of Greater Lebanon), writes Moawad. This helps to better understand why the figure of the Maronite patriarch of the time, Bishop Elias Hoyek, occupies a prominent place in the portrait gallery of the founding fathers of modern Lebanon".

"Travaux et Jours" a great undertaking

It should be recognized that the publication of Travaux et Jours, in this period of financial confinement and collapse, is a true result, which we must acknowledge to Antoine Courban. The magazine is also a tribute to a university that has continued since its inception in 1875, and particularly after the announcement of Greater Lebanon, to promote the values of national unity and joint research.

It is not excessive to say that Saint Joseph University has contributed greatly to instilling in the generations that it has formed a spirit of national belonging to their homeland. In the same way, it has always promoted a culture of political unity and a constant and loyal attachment to a sovereign state. A heritage that should motivate the generation of October 17 even more to rectify the institutions and fight a clientelism that provokes discord and suffocates the State.

Pictured: General Henri Gouraud, who proclaimed Greater Lebanon, and Patriarch Elias Hoyek in Dimane, home of the Maronite patriarchs.

(*) The "Travaux et Jours" magazine can be purchased online at: https://www.usj.edu.lb/publications/catalogue/my-usjinfo.php?perpubid=2957

It is available in bookstores and / or on order.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Blustery with snow showers. High near 25F. Winds NNW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of snow 60%..

Tonight

Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 9F. Winds NNW at 15 to 25 mph.
BP has donated $2 million and manpower to help Houston implement its Climate Action Plan, setting up a four-year partnership on the wide-ranging framework the city unveiled in April.

City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to accept the money. The $2 million will fund two employees in the citys sustainability office, and the remaining resources will go toward yet-to-be-identified initiatives in the plan.

The oil company will also serve as a strategic partner, making experts available and leading or supporting working groups that stem from the plan.

The very fact that BP is being very supportive, not just in words but in terms of their resources, means a great deal in terms of the sort of plan thats being put forth here in the city of Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner said.

District C Councilmember Abbie Kamin called the donation a really big deal. Other cities have dozens of staffers in their sustainability offices, Kamin said. Houston is seeking two.

This is really important in terms of moving forward so we can implement the citys Climate Action Plan, Kamin said. Its a good step in the right direction.

Houstons 97-page plan, unveiled on Earth Day in April, set a goal of the city becoming a net-zero emitter of greenhouse gases by 2050, which means it would take more gases out of the atmosphere than it produces.

The plan did not enact any policies but laid out four areas to target for reducing emissions: transportation, energy transition, building optimization and materials management. It lists strategies and goals to further those initiatives.

One of those goals  to power municipal operations with entirely renewable energy by 2025  already has been met. The city secured its first 100-percent renewable electricity contract with NRG in the spring. Last Friday, the city released a solicitation to expand charging stations for electric cars.

In addition to asking residents to take individual actions, such as limiting car travel and reducing waste, the citys climate plan calls for the regions energy companies to help lead the transition to renewable energy.

Not so long ago, you would not see oil companies coming forward to support a program like this, said Lara Cottingham, the citys chief sustainability officer and author of the climate plan. The fact that BP has made very large, ambitious climate goals  shows that this is not the same type of oil company.

BP, which has its U.S. headquarters in Houston and operates a chemical plant in Texas City, applauded the plan at its release and now is committing resources toward implementing it. Under new CEO Bernard Looney, BP has committed to becoming a net-zero emitter itself by 2050 and pulled out of three industry trade groups over climate change.

The transition to a cleaner, net zero future is an extraordinary opportunity for Houston to lead the global energy transition while also improving the quality of life for millions of people in the region, said William Lin, executive vice president of BPs Regions, Cities and Solutions team, in a statement.

Loren Steffy, an author and former journalist who has written books about the company, said there is certainly some self-interest in BPs move.

Obviously, theres a PR element to it, Steffy said. Its good for them.  Its not a lot of money for them, right?

Still, Steffy said the venture, coupled with the companys other moves, marks a more sincere effort toward recognizing climate change. In Europe, companies have gone further to get ahead of the issue, or at least have a seat at the table, he said.

You look at what BP has done, the direction they seem to be heading in, they clearly see that when you look down the road 20 to 30 years, theres not going to be as much demand for their traditional products, he said.

Stephanie Thomas, an organizer and researcher with the nonprofit Public Citizen, said she recognizes the citys cash-strapped nature and need for resources, but she has mixed feelings about BPs donation.

This is good news in that the city needs funding in order to move this forward, she said. Were all becoming much more comfortable with the idea of energy transition in Houston.

Thomas said she struggles with BP and other oil companies legacy on carbon emissions and promoting confusion on the science behind climate change and global warming. She cited a 2017 report from CDP Worldwide that ranked BP as 12th in the world in the intensity of its carbon emissions.

Its really important that BP recognizes that the climate crisis is a systemic problem that has real impacts on peoples health.  This is one way of beginning that investment, Thomas said. I think its also important for BP to listen to front-line communities and people who have been doing this work for a long time.

John Hall, director of regulatory and legislative affairs for the Environmental Defense Funds Texas office, said it is the citys plan that gives him hope.

Im not so sure $2 million is a big deal for BP, he said.

The plan and its accompanying commitment to electrify all non-emergency city vehicles by 2030 are laudatory, Hall said.

We believe it makes Houston one of the national leaders, he said.

dylan.mcguinness@chron.com
Describing India as one of the few trusted like-minded countries, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that New Delhi is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

In his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council (USIBC), Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a 'rising' US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

The United States, he said, 'desires a new age of ambition' in its relationship with India.

Asserting that the US has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Trump's foreign policy.

"We don't just interact on a bilateral basis. We see each other for what we are great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India is one of the few trusted like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration on issues that span continents," Pompeo said.

"I'm confident that our relationship is only getting stronger. Let's emerge from this current challenge more resilient and innovative than before.

"And let's seize this moment to deepen cooperation between two of the world's greatest democracies," he added.

Pompeo said the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G7 meeting to be hosted by President Trump.

"We will advance the economic prosperity network. It is the group of countries and organisations that we consider natural partners with we share values like democracy, transparency and rule of law," Pompeo said.

The Group of Seven (G-7) is an international intergovernmental economic organisation consisting of seven major developed countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are some of the largest IMF-advanced economies in the world.

Pompeo also said that he was happy to report that India is a rising US defense and security partner, in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

"I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests," he said.

"We've revived the so-called quad that comprised the US, India, Japan and Australia. India is also part of a group of likeminded nations that I've convened regularly to advance shared interests," he said.

Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in view of China's growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource-rich region.

On Monday, a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz carried out a military drill with a fleet of Indian warships off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Four frontline warships of the Indian Navy participated in the 'PASSEX' exercise when the US carrier strike group was transiting through the Indian Ocean Region on its way from the South China Sea.

The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of tensions between India and China in eastern Ladakh as well as in China's military assertiveness in South China Sea.

'Recent clashes initiated by PLA latest examples of unacceptable behaviour of CCP'

Pompeo said the recent clashes 'initiated' by the Chinese military against India in eastern Ladakh are the latest examples of the 'unacceptable behaviour' of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Pompeo also praised India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, which he said presents 'serious security risks' to the Indian people.

"It's important that democracies like ours work together, especially as we see more clearly than ever the true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party.

"Our infrastructure projects, our supply chains, our sovereignty, and our people's health and safety are all at risk. If we get it wrong," Pompeo said in his virtual keynote address.

"The recent clashes initiated by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) are just the latest examples of the Chinese Communist Party's unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the deaths of 20 Indian service members. I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests," he said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5.

The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

Pompeo's remarks came a day after US Defence Secretary Mark Esper described the Chinese military's aggressive activities in the region as 'destabilising'.

Esper also said the US was 'very closely' monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

In his virtual address, Pompeo commended India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok, that he said present 'serious security risks' for the Indian people.

Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a 'rising US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally'.

Asserting that the United States has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

"We work closely together to make sure that the world intellectual property organisation election was won by someone who respects property rights. It seems pretty basic," Pompeo said amidst Washington's growing dispute with Beijing over intellectual property rights.

Relations between the US and China have taken a turn for the worse in recent months over Beijing's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Fresh concerns over China's crackdown of its Uigur Muslims in Xinjiang and Beijing imposing a controversial national security law in Hong Kong have also raised bilateral tensions.

Pompeo noted that the so-called Quad, comprising the US, India, Japan, and Australia, has been revived.

"India is also part of a group of like-minded nations that I've convened regularly to advance shared interests," he said.

The US and China are at odds over Beijing flexing its military muscles in the strategic South China Sea.

He also noted that the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G-7 Summit where the leaders will advance the economic prosperity network.

The G-7 is a group of countries and organisations that the US considers natural partners because they share values like democracy and transparency and the rule of law.
Last month the Houston Association of Realtors made national news for its decree that real estate listings would no longer mention master bedrooms or master bathrooms because of the word masters slavery connotations. Read more

Theres always the possibility of going too far.

As our language gets long-overdue scrutiny for which of our everyday words have racist histories and ought to be retired, some individuals have bent so far backward that theyve conjured problematic histories where none existed before. These efforts ignore history and etymology, and ultimately cheapen the otherwise worthwhile endeavors to identify problematic language. As a result, everyone loses.

Last month the Houston Association of Realtors made national news for its decree that real estate listings would no longer mention master bedrooms or master bathrooms because of the word masters slavery connotations.

Sounds like a well-meaning idea. Trouble is, thats the wrong history.

The word master is old. Like, really old. Forms of it crop up in early Old English, hundreds of years before slave traders brought Africans to the Americas. To be sure, enslaved people had to refer to their owners as master even before the dawn of the American slave trade, and so did many women when referring to their husbands. Condemn master for its sexism too if you like, but tying its use in real estate entirely to slavery is a stretch.

Maybe we shouldnt take language advice from a group that thinks REALTOR should be written in all caps. Master bedroom isnt nearly as problematic as real estate listings of lovingly maintained homes that mean you get sad wood paneling in every damn room, or of properties in Point Breeze that refer to the neighborhood as Graduate Hospital South.

Eliminating master bedroom is a nice, arguably misplaced gesture. But like so many of the gestures since half the country discovered systemic racism two months ago, its a fig leaf for the harder work of undoing a history of oppressive industry practices. Start by providing reparations for the deadly effects of a century of redlining (through which banks and governments wouldnt grant mortgages in BIPOC neighborhoods), restrictive covenants (racist property deeds that restricted who can buy or rent a home), and real estate agents not showing as many housing units to nonwhite families as they do to white families. Then we can talk about the biggest bedroom in the house.

Its not just real estate. The tech world is another industry that has moved in recent weeks to change some of its terminology  some words more inherently problematic than others.

This month Twitter, along with several other tech giants, announced that it was abandoning several common industry terms: master and slave, which refer to different types of computer code, and blacklist/whitelist, which anyone whos had an important email get caught in a spam filter has encountered.

Yes, master and slave in those contexts should go  usage of those terms minimizes an atrocious history. But trying to undo a couple thousand years of negative associations between the words black and evil is going to take more than a few tweets.

Negative references to darkness go back at least to the Bible, which establishes light as good from its opening lines. But while there was certainly slavery in the Bible, anti-Black racism didnt yet exist at the time of its writing. Later societies would use the Bible to justify slavery and racism, falsely citing the Mark of Cain and the Curse of Ham, both found in Genesis, as evidence that slavery was Gods will. Though scholars differ on exactly where racism originated, most agree that those biblical interpretations didnt crop up till centuries later. Darkness and light had negative and positive connotations very early on, but for a long time, they were just abstract concepts; they didnt apply to people. It would take centuries before those general associations were applied to darker and lighter people, evolving into what we today recognize as racism.

When we consider eliminating words like blacklist, whitelist, and master from our lexicon, we have to heed those words histories. If every association you have with the word black is negative, and every association with white is positive, perhaps you have to examine not the words, but yourself.

To do otherwise is just a careless, ahem, whitewash of history.

The Angry Grammarian, otherwise known as Jeffrey Barg, looks at how language, grammar, and punctuation shape our world, and appears biweekly. Send comments, questions and giedds (Google wont help you here, so I will: thats Old English for stories) to jeff@theangrygrammarian.com.
A damaged building at Irans Natanz uranium enrichment facility after a fire on July 2. Photo: Handout/AP/Shutterstock

Over the past few weeks, a series of suspicious fires and explosions have occurred at Iranian civilian and military facilities, including the countrys main missile-production and nuclear complexes. While a few of these incidents might have been accidental, the timing and specific targets suggest that at least some were the result of sabotage by Israel, and the provocations raise the possibility of a spiraling conflict in the Middle East just in time to become an issue in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Added the Isfahan incident today, July 19, to the #Iran fires/explosions map pic.twitter.com/sLfMkQyWsu  Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) July 19, 2020

Via anonymous leaks to major media outlets, Israeli intelligence sources have more or less copped to the countrys involvement in some of the incidents. After an explosion at the Natanz nuclear-fuel-enrichment complex in early July, which may have set back Irans progress toward a nuclear warhead by months or years, a Middle Eastern intelligence official with knowledge of the episode told the New York Times that Israel was behind the attack. Right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman implicitly accused Mossad chief Yossi Cohen of being the Times source, suggesting that the leak was part of Cohens campaign to succeed legally embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as head of the Likud Party.

If Cohen is leaking, though, hes not the only one. A former Israeli defense official told Insider that it was common knowledge in Israeli intelligence circles that some of these events were Israeli intelligence operations. I dont know which ones exactly and wouldnt tell you anyway because the entire point is for the Iranians to feel considerable stress trying to decide what might have been our work, they said. A European Union intelligence official echoed that understanding, calling it part of a campaign of maximum pressure, minimal strategy to disrupt Irans nuclear program.

Israel isnt the only party anonymously taking credit for these attacks. A hitherto unknown Iranian dissident group calling itself the Homeland Cheetahs emailed the BBC shortly after the incident at Natanz occurred but before it became public, claiming to have attacked the plant as part of an ongoing campaign of sabotage against Iranian strategic sites. The email from the group, allegedly composed of dissidents within Irans military and security forces, contained details that aligned with what was soon reported, suggesting that the authors had foreknowledge of the attack. However, this could also have been an act of misdirection to sow doubts about who was responsible. Its also not an either/or proposition: Israel has in the past carried out joint operations against Iran with domestic anti-regime elements like the Mujahideen-e Khalq.

In any case, with so much smoke leaking out of Israels military-intelligence Establishment, the presence of fire is very likely. In further reporting from the Times, more officials familiar with the explosion compared the complexity of the Natanz attack to Stuxnet, the sophisticated joint U.S.-Israeli cyberattack on Iranian nuclear facilities uncovered in 2010. It is unclear whether the explosion was the result of a physical bomb or a cyberattack used to ignite the plants gas supply. Either way, Israel is generally considered the only one of Irans regional adversaries with the intelligence capabilities to pull off an attack of this magnitude on such a sensitive, closely guarded facility.

Nor is there much mystery as to why Israel would be pursuing this campaign at this particular moment. Iran has been in a weakened state, its economy hobbled by U.S. sanctions and its regime facing domestic discontent, including a massive protest campaign last fall. Those protests raised hopes among Iran hawks in the U.S. that their dreams of regime change might soon be realized. The regime did not, in fact, collapse, but its weak position was revealed when it was unwilling or unable to mount a meaningful response to the assassination of its special-operations commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad by a U.S. drone strike in January  then provoked widespread outrage among Iranians by shooting down an airliner filled with its own citizens and initially lying about its responsibility.

Iran was also the first Middle Eastern country to experience a major outbreak of COVID-19 in February, and its case count and death toll are both believed to be significantly higher than the government is reporting. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani issued a puzzling statement on Saturday, saying that about 25 million Iranians had already been infected with the virus, while 30-to-35 million others were at risk of getting infected. That number was orders of magnitude greater than Irans officially reported number of infections (271,606) and would appear to make the reported death toll of around 14,000 seem minuscule. Indeed, downplaying the impact and threat of the coronavirus may have been Rouhanis intent, though again, Iran is already widely suspected of undercounting its coronavirus deaths. In any case, the pandemic has further damaged Irans stability and its already shaky economy.

And on Sunday, the regime in Iran suspended the executions of three men linked to anti-government protests in November after a massive social-media campaign calling for their release last week. That decision suggests that Tehran is wary of provoking more civil unrest. Meanwhile, there were a few more mysterious explosions and so-called industrial accidents in Iran this weekend:

Video coming in of now another fire near Tabriz at a factory. This is the second incident today after an explosion at a power plant in Isfahan. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/GKeip6hYpx  Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) July 19, 2020

With the regime apparently on the ropes, Israel sees an opportunity to set back Tehrans military and nuclear ambitions, especially at a moment when Netanyahus hawkish government is actually being criticized for not having done enough to counter the Iranian threat. Israels current Iran policy is known as the campaign between wars: a targeted effort to counter Irans ability to threaten Israel through proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and (increasingly) Iraq. These short-of-war actions are intended to prevent Iran from establishing an advantageous position in a more direct conflict that Israel eventually expects to break out.

That campaign has expanded over the past few years with the blessing of President Donald Trump, who shares Netanyahus interest in fomenting regime change in Iran but would prefer not to commit U.S. military personnel directly to that project. Israels new approach since 2018, called the octopus doctrine, has entailed targeting the Iranian advisers and officials who direct and support proxy forces in other countries (like Soleimani), rather than targeting the proxies themselves.

The meeting of the minds between the Netanyahu and Trump administrations on Iran is another likely motivation for the timing of its covert sabotage campaign. The Israeli government is as aware as anyone of the polls showing that Trump seems likely to lose reelection in November and exit the White House in January (nightmare constitutional crises and soft-coup scenarios notwithstanding). A potential Biden administration would probably not continue Trumps maximum pressure approach to Iran and would not be as solicitous of Israels covert operations. It is unclear whether the U.S. has explicitly or tacitly blessed the past months attacks, but the administration certainly isnt condemning them. Israel may have a limited window of time to act with carte blanche from Washington and is perhaps seeking to do as much damage to Iran as possible before that window closes.

The danger, of course, is that these provocations could escalate into the all-out war Israel has been trying to avoid. Uncorroborated reports are emerging that Iran is preparing to retaliate militarily against Israel and the U.S. for these attacks, amid other threatening statements from Irans military over Israeli attacks on Iranians in Syria. However, Iran declined to take major retaliatory measures after the assassination of Soleimani and is arguably in an even worse position to escalate conflict now than it was in January. Some experts told Vox they doubted Iran would see these acts of sabotage as a reason to mount a forceful response, especially from its current position of weakness.

Nonetheless, the E.U. official who spoke to Insider expressed fear that the Israeli plan here is to provoke an Iranian response that can turn into a military escalation while Trump remains in office. Indeed, it may be Israel, not Iran, that makes the decision to escalate. Perhaps Netanyahu decides that war with Iran is the lever he needs to secure his political future; perhaps Trump, who has been trying to obfuscate his disastrous mishandling of the pandemic, comes to the same conclusion for himself. More likely, Israels military leaders consider war with Iran a risk they are willing to take to severely set back its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, as long as they know they would have the backing of the U.S. in any such conflict.

If Israel goes all in on crippling Irans military capabilities over the next three months, the likelihood of war will continue to increase whether or not Israel intends to start one or Trump wants to join in. That danger becomes greater if either Netanyahu or Trump sees a political opportunity in confronting the Iranian regime head-to-head. Whether such a confrontation would actually redound to Trumps electoral benefit is doubtful, as opinions on Iran are already baked into the partisan cake and more proximate domestic crises are more likely to decide Novembers outcome. Still, any event that escalates the sense of chaos and national emergency in the U.S. will be unwelcome in the run-up to what is already likely to be a historically dysfunctional presidential election. As we all wait with bated breath to find out if there will be some kind of October surprise this fall, we unfortunately cant rule out the possibility of another destructive war in the Middle East.
We are dedicated to providing the best services to our relationship customers, and Valley Republic Bank can now do that for credit cards with the full featured program from Corserv, said Geraud Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer of Valley Republic Bank.

Corserv, a company that empowers Banks and Fintechs with payment programs, announced today that Valley Republic Bank has partnered with Corserv to offer credit cards to their professional, business, and non-profit relationship customers.

We are dedicated to providing the best services to our relationship customers, and Valley Republic Bank can now do that for credit cards with the full featured program from Corserv, said Geraud Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer of Valley Republic Bank. Corservs program enables us to provide excellent customer service and powerful features such as alerts, controls, and virtual cards for a full suite of competitive credit card products.

We support Valley Republic Banks focus on relationships and service with a program that considers the overall relationship with their customers when making credit decisions, and provides excellent customer service online, in branches, through a call center, or using an IVR, said Jerry Craft, CEO of Corserv. Corservs newest features for invoice payment automation and an expense reporting system enables Valley Republic Bank to better service local businesses, municipalities, and non-profits.

Through Corservs program, Valley Republic Bank offers bank-branded Mastercard Platinum Low-rate, Platinum, Platinum Rewards, and World cards to consumers and businesses, with Corporate, Corporate Rewards, Purchasing and Virtual cards offered to commercial customers. Use of these cards within Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay is also supported.

Learn about these Mastercard credit card products now from Valley Republic Banks relationship bankers.

Contacts:

Valley Republic Bank: Christopher ONeil, AVP Bankcard Manager, (1.661.564.3203), c.oneil@valleyrepublic.bank

Corserv, Inc.: David Luther, Chief Business Officer, (1.404.822.8418), dluther@corservsolutions.com

About Valley Republic Bancorp and Valley Republic Bank

Valley Republic Bancorp is a bank holding company formed in 2016. Valley Republic Bank is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Valley Republic Bancorp, headquartered in Bakersfield, California. The Bancorp is subject to the regulatory oversight of the Federal Reserve Bank, and the Bank is subject to the regulatory oversight of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the California Department of Business Oversight. Valley Republic Bank is an insured, state-chartered, non-member bank of the Federal Reserve System. The Bank is in its twelfth year of operation, having been established in 2009. Valley Republic Bank is a full-service, community bank with three full-service banking offices in Bakersfield, one full-service banking office in Delano, and a loan production office in Fresno. Valley Republic Bank emphasizes professional, high quality banking services provided to a wide range of businesses and professionals. The Bank also provides a full complement of banking services that are available to individuals and non-profit organizations.

About Corserv

Corserv provides payment services including a turnkey issuing program for credit cards, P-cards, and virtual cards that enables Banks and Fintechs to deliver competitive, branded payment services to their customers. Corservs secure hosted programs combine our credit, compliance and marketing expertise with our modern online solution and open APIs  everything clients need to quickly build a successful card-issuing business. Our Bank and Fintech clients increase their earnings per share by benefitting from loan interest, interchange, fee income and economies of scale from Corservs client base. Most importantly, they deepen their customer relationships. For more information, please visit http://www.corservsolutions.com.
Facing strong retaliation from the Indian side after its misadventure on the Line of Actual Control, China has now started buying Jammu and Kashmir based websites. This started in mid-April, following the Indo-China Standoff in Ladakh. In one such attempt by China, a Jammu based daily newspaper's website https://jammuexpress.com/ taken by a Chinese user.

The website is owned by a user named "tao tao peng" of "peng tao tao" Company. The details further read that user is from Zhejiang, the eastern coastal province of China. The mobile number of the user registered is also a china based number +86.57164***099. The user from China has purchased this website domain from an email id qq.com which is banned by Government of India. While accessing qq.com from India, it reads, "Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact the administrator for more information".

READ | US Accuses Xi & China Of Global Hacking Attempt To Steal Millions In Covid Vaccine Secrets

'Site may be used for anti- India propaganda'

The website https://jammuexpress.com is related to Jammu based daily newspaper "Jammu Express" which is a registered title as per the official website of Office of Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) and is registered on the name of Sonam Deep Singh Aulakh, a resident of 10- Sadar Bazar, Jammu Cant. Satwari, J&K.

"There is a high possibility that such websites be used for Anti- India propaganda as for a lay internet user, it gives a sense that it is a J&K website. Since one such incident has come into the light, there will be many more which go unnoticed and could become a threat to the country," Prof. Vinod Sharma, Computer Science and Cyber Security analyst told Republic Media Network.

READ | US House Of Representatives Unanimously Condemns China's Aggression Against India

READ | US, Indian Navy To Hold Drills Near Andaman And Nicobar Amid Tensions With China

READ | China Cornered: Countries Launch Crusade Against Red Dragon After Indias App Ban

"This website as per records available was purchased by a Chinese user on 25th April 2020 which is days after Chinese Army started its misadventure along the Line of Actual Control which led to violent Indo-China Standoff on June 15 in which 20 of brave Indian Soldiers attained martyrdom. This has to be seen seriously as such attempts are always made to spread Anti- India propaganda," another Cyber Security Expert said.
YEREVAN, 22 JULY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 22 July, USD exchange rate up by 0.46 drams to 484.16 drams. EUR exchange rate up by 5.37 drams to 558.96 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate stood at 6.83 drams. GBP exchange rate stood at 613.72 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 445.58 drams to 28681.32 drams. Silver price up by 17.64 drams to 319.96 drams. Platinum price up by 448.35 drams to 13589.21 drams.
New products unveiled during SKYWORTH's Summer Product Launch cement the brand's leading position in the 5G+8K and big-screen AIoT space

SHENZHEN, China, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SKYWORTH, a leading global television brand, today launched the S81 Pro, a premium TV with gaming-level specifications at its Summer launch event. At the launch event, SKYWORTH also announced the latest addition to its 8K ecosystem, the LIFErecorder 5G Box. The two new offerings are testament to SKYWORTH's dedication to perfecting the 5G+8K and smart home ecosystem, creating an all-inclusive and ultra-connected experience for consumers.

Tony Wang, Chief Executive and President of SKYWORTH TV said "At SKYWORTH, we believe our core value as a company is to add value for our customers. With over 30 years of experience and expertise in the market, SKYWORTH has been at the forefront of developing next-generation technologies and services. We are dedicated to standing by our motto and continuously strive to enhance and improve the lives of our customers through our latest value-adding product offering."

S81 Pro - A Flagship with Best-in-class Configuration that Delivers a Supreme Gaming and Viewing Experience

Powered by Crystal Motion OLED (CMO) technology, the S81 Pro performs video frame interpolation on a 120Hz 4K OLED screen, delivering an ultra-smooth and stutter-free visual experience, replicating a refresh rate similar to 240Hz. With built-in Wi-Fi 6 hardware, which supports a lightning fast speed of 9.6Gbps, users can seamlessly access the 4K 120FPS and 8K 60 FPS online videos. The S81 Pro also supports VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) all the way from the port to the SoC, and to the screen, automatically adapting the screen refresh rate to the inputted frame rate in real time to guarantee an optimal frame rate for a range of different gaming scenarios, eliminating image stuttering and freezing for a smooth gaming experience.

Using advanced AI technologies like facial recognition and scene detection, the 4K AI Image Processing Engine sharpens, brightens and improves picture quality in real time. Featuring the 3D LUT Original Film Colors function which shapes and fine-tunes color, saturation and brightness using a professional-level color calibration technique. Coupled with the 20-Point White Balance setting, the S81 Pro achieves ?E 0.98, an expert level of color accuracy, bringing all the visuals on your screen to life in true-to-life color.

The S81 Pro is also SKYWORTH's first TV to adopt home-grown OLED basic modules equipped with Crystal Sound OLED (CSO) technology. Producing sound through screen vibrations, CSO technology is able to beautifully and precisely sync sounds with motion pictures, offering a realistic audio output. Coupled with the Dolby Atmos Speaker System (DASS) 2.0.2, the two CSO channels create a sense of sound coming from above, providing users with a supreme surround-sound experience that is truly immersive.

As the pioneer of AIoT, SKYWORTH has packed the S81 Pro with a range of features that enhance connectivity, further extending the application of big-screen AIoT and far-field cross-screen interactions. Paired with the Swaiot PANEL, the S81 Pro can access SKYWORTH's Swaiot OS, an open ecosystem which allows the TV to serve as a hub for smart home devices. Users can also enjoy SKYWORTH's cross-screen connection feature through the Swaiot APP, achieving all-scenario screen mirroring and enhancing the gaming experience for mobile gamers. With TrensAI, SKYWORTH's smart home assistant, the S81 Pro responds intelligently 24/7 via far-field voice control to meet users' needs, supported by TrensAI Voice Assistant, TrensAI AOD (Always On Display) and TrensAI EYE, a pop-up AI camera.

Pairing the LIFErecorder 5G Box with LIFErecorder 8K Camera - Perfecting SKYWORTH's 5G + 8K Ecosystem

As the world enters the year of 5G commercial applications, SKYWORTH is leading the trend by creating a full circle 5G + 8K ecosystem that offers consumers a seamless, low latency and ultra-high definition viewing experience. At SKYWORTH's Spring Launch this year, the brand debuted the LIFErecorder 8K camera, answering consumers' need for more 8K content. To further enhance the company's 8K ecosystem, SKYWORTH introduced the LIFErecorder 5G Box, the industry's first 5G module tailored for 8K cameras. The device will enable 8K cameras to transmit high-quality video content in high-speed, benefiting users' viewing experience. To further enrich the company's 8K offering, SKYWORTH also announced a number of strategic partnerships with content providers to make more high quality 8K video content available for its users to enjoy.

SKYWORTH continuously innovates and expands its product offering. To enrich the Swaiot Ecosystem, the brand recently announced partnerships with Midea, JD.com and Huawei Cloud to offer even more smart home solutions. SKYWORTH TVs can now be connected to over 20 billion smart home devices, covering over 60 device categories.

The S81 Pro comes in 55" and 65" and will be available in China at RMB 12,999 and RMB 19,999 respectively starting August 10.

About SKYWORTH

SKYWORTH GROUP LIMITED (HKG: 00751) is a leading supplier of uniquely advanced and affordable technology solutions. It is valued in excess of US$ 19 billion and employs over 40,000 people worldwide (as of 1 March 2019). Headquartered in Shenzhen, China's "Silicon Valley", SKYWORTH offers consumer electronics, display devices, digital set-top boxes, security monitors, network communication, semi-conductors, refrigerators, washing machines, cell phones and LED lighting. Founded in 1988, it is now one of the Top Five Color TV brands in the world and a top brand in the Chinese display industry market. It is also a Top Three global provider of the Android TV platform. For more information, please visit: https://www.skyworth.net/global

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1218104/SKYWORTH_S81_Pro_Key_Visual_TV.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1218105/SKYWORTH_S81_Pro_Key_Visual_TV.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1218112/RGBLogo.jpg
The grounded 737 MAX, blamed for two crashes that killed 346 people, will probably not return into commercial service until next year, government and industry officials said.

While a public comment period on software and hardware changes wont be closed until November, pilot training, maintenance checks and final FAA approvals are still not expected to be finished until well into December, officials told the Wall Street Journal.

It remains possible that the aircraft type could be brought back into service sooner, the same officials told the Journal. However, a sooner return isn't what observers keeping a close eye on the process expect.

At least one airline won't be returning the aircraft into service any earlier than mid-December according to its schedule, a person with knowledge of the timing told the Journal.

The grounded 737 MAX, blamed for two crashes that killed 346 people, will probably not return into commercial service until next year, say government and industry officials. Workers at Boeing's Renton, Washington, plant are pictured working on a MAX jet

The aircraft has been grounded impacting airlines across the world after the deadly crashes of MAX planes in Indonesia in 2018 and in Ethiopia the following year. Pictured are grounded MAX aircraft at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, last month

Problems with ground simulator training for a select group of international pilots also may present further delays.

Investigators probing the cause of the deadly crashes from almost two years ago have focused on a flight-control system, new to the Max, that pushed the nose of both planes down based on faulty readings from sensors.

Boeing has been working to fix the system and make other changes since shortly after the first crash in Indonesia in October 2018. The aircraft type was grounded after a second MAX plane crashed after take off from Ethiopia in May 2019.

Chicago-based Boeing was struggling before the coronavirus pandemic hit because of the grounding of the MAX - once its best-selling plane.

The coronavirus compounded the company's problems by causing a deep slump in air travel that has left airlines around the world with too many planes, not a need for more.

Boeing was forced to ground the MAX after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia happened less than six months apart.

The first disaster happened October 29, 2018, when a MAX flying as Lion Air flight JT 610 fell into the Java Sea 15 minutes after taking off from Jakarta.

All 189 aboard the plane died, including 180 Indonesians, one Italian and one Indian.

The second crash occurred on March 10, 2019, when Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302, which also was a MAX jet, took off from Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital and crashed.

Boeing was forced to ground the MAX after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia happened less than six months apart. Pictured are remains from the first from October 29, 2018, when a MAX flying as Lion Air flight JT 610 fell into the Java Sea 15 minutes after taking off from Jakarta

The second crash occurred on March 10, 2019, when Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302, which also was a MAX jet, took off from Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital and crashed. Pictured are remains at the crash scene of the doomed flight

US carriers American, United and Southwest had to cancel flights for the holidays, including over Christmas and into the new year, after the plane was grounded around the world.

Boeing reported July 14 that customers canceled orders for 60 of the grounded 737 MAX jets in June. The aircraft maker removed another 123 planes from its backlog over doubts that the deals will be completed.

The slump in aircraft sales extends across the Atlantic. European rival Airbus reported no new orders in June.

American Airlines is demanding that Boeing help it find financing for 17 MAX jets that the airline expected to receive at least a year ago. Last month, Norwegian Air Shuttle announced that it plans to cancel its remaining order for 92 of the planes, saying that it had not settled with Boeing over compensation for the grounding of its current MAX jets.

American Airlines is demanding that Boeing help it find financing for 17 MAX jets that the airline expected to receive at least a year ago. Several of the carrier's 737 MAX jets are pictured grounded at Tulsa International Airport

Boeing's lone sale last month was a cargo jet ordered by FedEx. That compared with nine orders a year ago and 158 in June 2018.

So far this year, Boeing has recorded 59 new orders. That figure is dwarfed, however, by 382 cancellations - most of them abandoned orders for the MAX - and the downgrading of 323 other orders because of uncertainty about the deals going through.

The company's backlog of unfilled orders for passenger planes fell to 4,552, including 3,595 for 737s, a figure which includes both the MAX and an older version of the plane called the NG.

Boeing Co. delivered 10 planes in June, compared with 37 a year earlier.

Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith said Boeings defense and other businesses "will continue to provide some stability as we navigate through the pandemic and rebuild stronger on the other side."

Airbus was shut out for new orders, but the European plane maker said it delivered 36 passenger jets in June, including 31 of its A320neo jets, which compete with the MAX. Airbus said it ended June with a backlog of 7,584 planes.
Bald men are 40 per cent more likely to end up in hospital with the coronavirus, a study has claimed.

Dermatologists uncovered the link between hair loss and coronavirus severity by analysing data from 2,000 British men in hospital.

Results showed a fifth of men with no hair tested positive for the virus in hospital  compared to 15 per cent of those who had a full head of hair.

Because the men tested positive in hospital, it indicates they had a severe form of Covid-19. But patient outcomes were not revealed to confirm the claim.

The study  not the first to stumble across the bizarre link  said other risk factors for Covid-19, such as diabetes and age, did not explain the gap.

It has been theorised the male hormones that fuel hair loss in both men and women also help the virus to enter cells. But there is no evidence to support this.

Experts warned the findings are 'not terribly strong' and said there is a whole list of other factors that may explain why bald men are dying more. For example, ethnicity is linked to a higher risk of severe Covid-19, but this study didn't appear to take that into account.

Dr Michael Kolodney and his colleagues calculated bald men were 40 per cent more likely to test positive than those with a full head of hair (1 is baseline, therefore 1.4 is a 40 per cent higher risk)

West Virginia University researchers investigated the link between hair and Covid-19. Results were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

They used 1,605 patients who tested negative for the infection and 336 patients of a similar age and BMI who swabbed positive and were 'hospitalised'.

The Covid-19 test was carried out because they had symptoms of the coronavirus listed by the NHS, including a fever and persistent cough.

All the men were part of the UK Biobank, a huge data-set of 500,000 people that has collected information on volunteers over the past 14 years.

For the most recent data collection, carried out last year, men described how much hair they had.

The four options were pattern 1: 'no hair loss', pattern 2: 'slight hair loss', pattern 3: 'moderate hair loss', and pattern 4: 'severe hair loss'.

Fifteen per cent of men in the pattern 1 group tested positive for Covid-19 and it was slightly higher (17 per cent) for men in the next group.

Some 18 per cent of men with pattern 3 tested positive, jumping up to 20 per cent in those who were completely bald.

Dr Michael Kolodney and his colleagues calculated bald men were 40 per cent more likely to test positive than those with a full head of hair.

They took into account other Covid-19 risk factors including high blood pressure and diabetes in order to focus solely on the impact of baldness severity.

The academics noted their findings supported those made by Dr Carlos Wambier, a dermatologist at Brown University, Rhode Island.

He has led two studies in Spain, the findings of which are published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Both have found a disproportionate number of men with male-patterned baldness being admitted to hospital with the deadly disease.

Bald men are 40 per cent more likely to end up in hospital with the coronavirus, a study claims

In one study, 79 per cent of 122 men who tested positive in three Madrid hospitals were bald.

An earlier, smaller study from Professor Wambier revealed 71 per cent of 41 hospitalised Covid-19 men in Spain were bald.

In comparison, the rate of baldness in white men of a similar age to those studied is between 30 and 50 per cent  significantly lower.

Professor Wambier told The Telegraph: 'We really think that baldness is a perfect predictor of severity.'

Kevin McConway, an emeritus professor of applied statistics at The Open University, Milton Keynes, noted all studies so far have only been observational.

He told MailOnline: 'They simply looked at the chance of testing positive in different groups of men, classified by how bald they had said they were.

COVID-19 IS 'CAUSING HAIR LOSS' Coronavirus survivors have revealed how they are suffering extensive hair loss triggered by the illness. Eva Proudman, of the Institute of Trichologists, which specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and disorders of the hair and scalp, told FEMAIL they could be experiencing telogen effluvium, a 'shedding' condition triggered by a number of potential factors. Among them is a continuous high temperature like those experienced by some Covid-19 patients, as well as childbirth, trauma or illness, stress, extreme weight loss, medications, or a skin condition affecting the scalp. Eva said: 'Generally with a normal growing and shedding cycle for your hair, around 85 per cent of your hair is the growing phase with 15 per cent either resting, shedding or moving back to regrow. 'However with telogen effluvium this can effectively switch, leaving a very thin covering of hair on the head. Fortunately, with correct diagnosis and treatment, a good recovery can be obtained.' Grace Dudley, 30, a mother of one from Romford, Essex, spent almost a fortnight in hospital after contracting Covid-19 from her father, who later died of multiple organ failure caused by the virus. More than a month after she was discharged, Grace, a make-up artist, began to notice her hair falling out in large clumps, seemingly without reason. 'I woke up and noticed it was on my pillow and thought, "that's not good",' she said in an interview with FEMAIL. 'Every time I brushed my hair it was falling out and it's still happening. I've lost about 55 per cent of my hair every day and I'm losing more.' Grace was told by an expert that her hair loss was linked to Covid-19. According to Grace, the trichologist said the severe hair loss had been triggered because the body had been so close to death that it had began to 'shut down' follicles on her head in a bid to conserve energy for essential functions. Meanwhile, others have taken to Twitter to share their experiences of hair loss weeks and even months after the initial symptoms of Covid-19 have passed.

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'But the problem is there are many differences between the baldest and the least bald men, other than the state of their hairline.'

Professor McConway added: 'If nothing else, bald men are likely to be older on average than less bald men.

'Any differences in Covid-19 risk might be caused by these other differences, and not have any cause-and-effect link with baldness.

'This research made no adjustment, for instance, for ethnicity, or any measure of poverty or deprivation, or the job that the men do.

'If any of those things are also, separately, related to baldness, then they might be the real cause of differences between the baldest and the least bald men.'

Professor McConway also said there is uncertainty around the results, therefore the risk to bald men may be insignificant.

He added: 'Overall the evidence that baldness is a risk factor, from this study, is not terribly strong.'

Professor Wambier believes that bald men could be at a higher risk of dying from coronavirus because male hormones help the virus enter cells.

He has said: 'We think androgens or male hormones are definitely the gateway for the virus to enter our cells.'

SARS-CoV-2 latches on to ACE-2 receptors which coat cells' surfaces and act like a gateway in.

An enzyme called TMPRSS2 helps primes the virus, enabling it to bind to the ACE-2 receptors.

The gene that encodes TMPRSS2 is activated when male hormones, particularly dihydrotestosterone (DHT), bind to androgen receptors.

The theory is that the more male hormones there are, the more TMPRSS2 is present, and the easier it is for virus to enter cells.

High levels of androgens, which also include testosterone, are associated with hair loss in genetically susceptible people.

DHT is the main androgen responsible for androgenetic alopecia  also known as male pattern baldness.

Data has been clear since the start of the pandemic to show that men are at greater risk of severe infection and death from Covid-19 than women.

Public Health England suggested working age men were twice as likely as women to die of the virus in a report in June.

But while some scientists believe hair loss is causing men to die of Covid-19 more than women, there are many other suggested explanations.

These include the theory that men are more likely to smoke, raising the likelihood of pre-existing health conditions.

Genetic differences also make men's immune systems slightly weaker than womens, which is already seen to impact the outcome from a wide range of infectious diseases.
Despite the fact that the widely esteemed theologian J. I. Packer never lived in the United States, the theologian greatly influenced American evangelicals. One key way this transpired occurred through Packers longstanding relationship with Christianity Today.

Packers first piecea lengthy article on the opportunity and challenges for evangelicalismwas published in 1958. After the publication of his best-known work, Knowing God, he became contributing editor at Christianity Today in 1983 and then senior editor in 1985. He continued to serve the magazine in similar roles for the next three decades. In 1992, he wrote about how he envisaged his relationship with the publication:

One role of CT, which is a features-news-and-thought journal anchored in the historic faith, is to keep you posted, one way and another, on the theological front. I suppose I should see myself as a kind of point man for this purpose.

But most of all, I want to be a plumber and sewage man, as I said when I started, and most of all, I want CT always to be showing how head and heart should be joining in mature discipleship today. Head-without-heart journals and heart-without-head journals make for misshapen and underdeveloped Christians. It is important that we should find and follow the better way.

Timothy George, distinguished professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, was a contemporary of Packers at CT.

I would say his role at CT was a mentor to the whole enterprise, especially to all the editors, said George. For me and others that worked with him constantly in those days, we respected him and looked to him as someone who was a pioneer in the very thing that we were giving our lives to.

George joined global media manager Morgan Lee and editorial ...

1
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd July, 2020) Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum will pay an official visit to the Russian capital of Moscow on Wednesday far talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on bilateral ties and developments in the Northern African and middle Eastern region.

Boukadoum's visit is taking place at Moscow's invitation and aims at enhancing bilateral relations and reviewing ways to expand cooperation.

According to the Algerian Foreign Ministry, the meeting is an opportunity to discuss various regional and international issues of mutual concern, including the situation in Libya, Mali and Syria, as well as prospects to promote international peace and security.

On July 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmajid Tebboune, held a phone conversation on coordination in the global energy market in the context of the OPEC+ oil production cuts deal.
SUNRISE, Fla., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- ReloQuest Inc., the leading global business solution for furnished accommodations and hotels, has expanded its Account Management Team. Relocation Industry expert, Paula Holloway, has joined ReloQuest as Global Account Manager. Paula's contribution will impact client success and continue to strengthen ReloQuest's award-winning account management program.

Paula Holloway, Global Account Manager

Paula brings over twenty years of corporate housing and relocation management experience. Proven to be a capable professional with in-depth industry knowledge, Paula will support both ReloQuest's accelerated growth and the client's unique needs.

Self-motivated and solutions-driven, Paula's experience includes account management for multinational companies. A high-level achiever with a career history that includes managing large corporate housing portfolios, ReloQuest has every confidence Paula will deliver results to propel growth within our client's respective organizations.

Paula's goal-oriented focus and industry expertise include the development of global business strategies for client success, business analysis for growth objectives, client implementation and integration, training, the introduction of new technology solutions, and documentation.

As a committed member of the Mobility industry, Paula is a board member for both Charlotte Metro Area Relocation Council and the Southeastern Regional Relocation Council.

Paula stated, "This industry requires a diversity of skills from compassion to tactical problem-solving. Especially in today's time, where we all must adapt to meet the evolving world. I am looking forward to helping our clients achieve their global growth goals and also improve their employees/guest experience."

Jeff Mahoney, ReloQuest COO, stated, "Paula brings a combination of Corporate Housing and Relocation Management experience which will serve as a benefit to ReloQuest clients. Her vast industry knowledge enables Paula to assist clients in achieving their goals and will support their individual program needs. She is a true team player focusing on client relationships."

Dedicated to our client's success, Paula's expertise in managing implementation and support services will undoubtedly advance client goals to mobilize today's workforce.

Paula attended Indiana Wesleyan college, earning a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration.

About ReloQuest:

ReloQuest is a global business solution providing furnished accommodations and hotels for the travel and relocation management industry. As the largest marketplace of corporate housing and hotels in over 162 Countries, ReloQuest compares global accommodations based on individual needs and allows business travelers to select the best options. The technology is a single-source solution. It's comprehensive yet simple to use. The platform delivers instant options at the most competitive rates with 100% transparency, real-time data metrics, substantial cost reduction, direct communication with live 24/7/365 support, and 80 % increased efficiency.

Contact: Jeana Giordano

[email protected]

SOURCE ReloQuest Inc.

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AMSTERDAM (dpa-AFX) - Dutch supermarkets and eCommerce company Ahold Delhaize N.V. (ADRND.PK, AHODF.PK) said that its U.S. brand Stop & Shop reached a tentative agreement to terminate its participation in the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) - Industry Pension Fund or the 'National Plan'.?



The company noted that tentative agreement does importantly improve the security of pension benefits for associates as well as reduces financial risk for the company. If ratified by the UFCW Locals, the transaction will be treated as an extraordinary item and will therefore not impact the underlying operating results outlook for 2020.



Pending ratification of this agreement, Stop & Shop expects to pay the National Plan withdrawal liability of $649 million, on a pre-tax basis, to fulfill Stop & Shop's obligations for past service for associates and retirees in the National Plan.



Stop & Shop will also make an $18 million contribution to a transition reserve for a new variable annuity pension plan. On an after-tax basis, the withdrawal liability and contribution to the transition reserve total approximately $500 million.



The withdrawal liability will be satisfied by installment payments to the National Plan over the next three years.



Kroger and Albertsons have also entered into separate tentative agreements with the UFCW Locals and the National Plan Trustees to withdraw from the National Plan. Together, Ahold Delhaize's brand Stop & Shop, Kroger, and the UFCW Locals plan to create the UFCW International Union-Industry Variable Annuity Pension Plan for future benefits.



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As many as 250 million children across Africa are currently unable to access primary and secondary schools as a result of COVID-19-related closures. Analysts have shared concerns that this may create a lost generation of learners, causing many children to leave school prematurely. Avaya, a global leader in solutions to enhance and simplify communications and collaboration, is helping to stem this loss across the continent by enabling students to stay on track with their studies using Avaya Spaces.

Avaya Spaces, the all-in-one video collaboration app for the digital workplace, changes the way works gets done. It helps bring together distributed groups of people instantly with immersive work spaces where they can message, meet, share content and manage tasks from a browser or mobile device, and provides an easy, secure and effective way to collaborate in the cloud.

Earlier this year, Avaya Spaces was offered for free to educational institutions worldwide, giving them all the meeting and team collaboration features they needed to keep students learning and curriculums on track.

With Avaya Spaces, African schools such as Icon International School in Ghana, Charter College in South Africa, and Waldorf Woodlands in Kenya, have kept students safely engaged in their education by using the app to create virtual classrooms that can be accessed securely from anywhere on any device.

Analysts and researchers have noted the importance of easy-to-use collaboration tools for education institutions to maintain their connections with students, to support bright futures in the face of todays challenges. Investing in training and education is the best way to secure the future prosperity of the African region, said Adrian Ho, Practise Leader, Enterprise Advanced Digital Services, Omdia. The COVID-19 pandemic has made its struggles more challenging. Harnessing technologies like Avaya Spaces will help bridge the training and educational gaps of the future workforce in Africa, allowing the region to be globally competitive.

The crisis has forced educators across Africa and around the world to adapt in order to avoid losing educational progress made throughout the first half of the academic year, said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President, Avaya International. With our Avaya Spaces offer, we have helped teachers and students continue to focus on education, and were proud to have played a small part in seeing off worries of a lost generation of learners.

Icon International School, a leading Ghanaian institution that caters to learners from multiple grade levels, is one such school that has turned to technology to ensure the continued delivery of education for its students. Initially getting by with various freemium consumer apps, the school eventually put in place a comprehensive remote learning program for students using Avaya Spaces. The cloud-based video and collaboration app enables Icon to seamlessly deliver a Montessori-style education across geographies.

With Avaya Spaces, teachers are able to attend to the individual needs of every learner, said Elizabeth Owusu-Bennoah, Proprietress, Icon International School. We have found the task management features particularly effective, as they enable us to plan, type out assignments, and follow up on them all within the same app. Previously, there was a lot of copying and pasting between various different apps, but now everything is held within an easy-to-access online space. With Avaya Spaces, we are able to create a rich and academically stimulating environment that students can access from the safety and comfort of their own homes.

In South Africa, Charter College International High School moved classrooms online with Avaya Spaces to enable continued learning amid a shutdown of schools across the country. Working with Avaya, Charter College deployed business licenses for its teachers and staff  enough to support over 1,000 student users in virtual classrooms.

We join a growing number of educational institutions worldwide who have had to temporarily cancel in-person classes, but weve worked extremely quickly to move lessons online and ensure that our students are still being provided with a top education, said Alison Dodge, Principal at Charter College International High School.

Despite South African schools now being officially open, Charter College will continue using Avaya Spaces to keep students and teachers engaged and collaborating  and can maintain a continuity of education if classes shut again.

Our first priority is the safety of our students. During a global pandemic, our goal is to provide continuity of their classes while ensuring were following the most up-to-date health advice from government bodies. Avaya Spaces has already proven indispensable with its task management features, and it provides us with a viable remote learning option if we ever need to temporarily shut the school again, Dodge added.
Recent joint naval drills between the Indian Navy and US Navy warships were done in the Indian Ocean by the two navies and their respective governments.

Current activities by the Chinese military has threatened the security of the Indo-Pacific and surrounding territories contested. Both New Delhi and Washington are working together to coordinate their maritime forces in times of tension with the Chinese Communist Party, reported VOA News.

The naval exercises started on Monday located near the India borders of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. These locations are a distance from the Indian mainland, but near one of the shipping routes near the Malacca straight that China is looking at, cited India Today.

According to the India Navy, the exercises are a passage exercise, which is when two warships will do a transit with another allied ship.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Tuesday remarked that joint exercises with the Indian Navy and USS Nimitz aircraft carrier was a display of committing to stronger alliances. By committing to co-mutual cooperation via naval forces, it will help keep the Indo-Pacific free from any controlling influence.

These India and US navy exercises were done last November and the first activity of such with India. There are plans for a summit in 2020 which will be held with top officials of both governments, added Esper.

Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, remarked in a statement that the exercises were for the interoperability and is a testimony that both navies can work together.

Also read: US Navy Sends Two Carrier Strike Groups as Show of Force Against PLA Naval Exercises

In the South China Sea, two of the carrier strike groups of the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan have joint carrier exercises in there. One of the goals was to show China that all ships had a right to access the SCS, and the communists cannot claim illegally any territory. Conducting freedom of navigation operations called FONOPs show defiance of China's claims.

Compared to 2015, there were more FONOPs in the South China Sea when these presence operations were established by the US Navy. As the territory grabbing practices got worse, with China's aggressive stance in the SCS, these operations remind Beijing that the US is around, mentioned Defense News.

China through its military claims other waters as theirs but have been rebuked by The Hague and international courts. Using reclaimed and stolen areas as theirs and regularly bullying neighbors, US warships have sailed the Paracels, Spratlys, and other islands that have been militarized unhindered.

Just like Beijing's tiff with India, New Delhi has kept mum about it until recently. The Indian Foreign Ministry proclaimed last week that the South China Sea is a global common, not the domain of China, adding that it is in the best interest of New Delhi to keep the peace in the Indo-Pacific.

China is saber-rattling at the border of India and claims to have killed 20 Indian soldiers.

Esper added that the US is keeping an eye on the situation, saying that both are dialing down the tensions in the disputed border. As China alienated its close neighbors, they will cause more cooperation with Washington.

The next joint naval drills may include Australia, with Indian Navy and US warships for the yearly Malabar exercise.

Related article: Chinese Flankers Sent to South China Seas as the US Declares All Sea Claims Illegal

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Visitors from countries deemed to have high levels of Covid-19 may be required to produce a negative test for the virus before they can travel to Ireland.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said passengers from so-called Red List countries may be required to provide a certificate showing they have tested negative for Covid-19 in the past 48 hours before they are permitted to board a plane to Ireland.

Speaking to Independent.ie, Mr Coveney said: They may be able to get tested in a credible way 48 hours before coming, and then effectively have a certification that that shows that they've that they've tested negative before coming to Ireland.

I certainly think that that would be very helpful if we could put a system like that in place and a country like Austria, for example, is doing that at the moment, he added.

The minister said a decision on increasing travel restrictions for countries deemed Covid hotspots will be taken by Cabinet in the coming weeks.

Read More

Mr Coveney also said the Governments messaging around the Green List of countries exempt from quarantine rules.

He said there is a general message from government that the safest course of action for you and your family then holidaying at home makes sense.

We also have an obligation to recognise that there will be some international travel, people will choose to travel, he added.

We have an obligation to give them accurate information based on reliable unreliable data that can assess the risk and on the basis of that risk level.

The minister said people have to distinguish between the official travel advice from his department which is based on data and science and risk and the Governments overarching message which is based on Nphet advice and government advice.

Meanwhile, Higher Education Minister Simon Harris also said Cabinet asked public health experts to consider randomised testing at airports, as well as testing people intending to travel to Ireland from countries where the virus is not being suppressed.

Government has asked our public health experts to consider - and I feel very strong about this - the idea of randomising testing at our airports and also consideration to be given that if you are travelling from a country that may be perceived to be a hotspot that even if you are travelling from there and willing to self-restrict your movement for two weeks when you get here, that perhaps you might need to take a test, either in advance of travelling or on arrivals, Mr Harris said at a press conference at Government Buildings.

Mr Harris, the former health minister, stressed on Wednesday that people should not book holidays to Green List countries, which includes popular tourist destinations like Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta.

Expand Close "The advice is clear: we do not want people in this country to go abroad on holidays. We believe the safest thing you can do is holiday in Ireland," said Higher Education Minister Simon Harris / Facebook

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Whatsapp "The advice is clear: we do not want people in this country to go abroad on holidays. We believe the safest thing you can do is holiday in Ireland," said Higher Education Minister Simon Harris

He rejected the contention that the Government is stigmatising foreign holidaymakers. Certainly were not stigmatising anybody here, he said.

The advice of the Government and our public health experts that you should holiday in Ireland and not abroad. Let there be no ambiguity about that.

Were not travel agents, the Green List is not a list of destinations, the Green List is the Department of Foreign Affairs fulfilling its obligation to provide factual data-based information about the state of the virus and the precautions that you as an Irish person take if you decide to visit that country.

But the advice is clear: we do not want people in this country to go abroad on holidays. We believe the safest thing you can do is holiday in Ireland.

He said that the best way to help the country from an economic point of view is to support the domestic tourism industry. He said a data-driven framework that underpins the Green List will be updated and tell Irish people the facts.

Mr Harris said the government made a number of decisions last night to tighten up things in relation to people coming through our airports, including an online passenger locator form.

Read More

We will know, the State, where every single person coming to our airport has been and indeed where they are going to and thats really, really important information.

He added: We have seen time and time again when you ask the people of this country to put their shoulders to the wheel, to keep each other safe and to get the schools back open, to support our local business and our communities.

"That's what they do and the message is really clear: We're asking you not to go on holidays, please, abroad.
The Kano State Executive Council has cancelled all traditional Eid-el Kabir festivities, to consolidate the successes it had recorded in the war against COVID-19 in the state.

The states Commissioner for Information, Muhammed Garba, made this disclosure in a statement made available to journalists on Wednesday.

The council, after deliberations at its weekly meeting held on Tuesday at Africa House, Government House, Kano, agreed that the conduct of Eid congregational prayers across the state would be under strict observance of safety protocols.

The congregational prayers will be strictly supervised by government officials to ensure compliance.

The council agreed that all the five Emirs in the state would go to the Eid Prayer Grounds in their respective domains, in vehicles.

It further agreed that there would be no visit to Shettima House, Hawan Daushe, Hawan Nassarawa, durbar and all other traditional outings in the emirates.

The council also agreed that the government would assist in the provision of safety materials that included face masks and hand sanitisers, as well as ensure strict observance of social distancing at the praying grounds.

NAN reports that the Kano State Executive Council had cancelled all Eid-el Kabir traditional celebrations, in its bid to consolidate the states efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in the state.

It is expected that Eid-el Kabir will be celebrated globally on July 31, 2020.

(NAN)
Reading, PA (19601)

Today

Turning out mostly cloudy and not as cold. There might be a rain or snow shower late..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with some rain and snow showers. Any rain will be early in the night.
Zareen Khan says people still assume Salman Khan helps her find work: "I cannot be a monkey on his back"
Noida (UP): A Samsung engineer was arrested on Tuesday in connection with theft of mobile phone parts worth 80 lakh from a company warehouse in Noida, police said.

The arrest comes two days after four men, including a mobile phone shop owner in Delhi's Gaffar market, were held in the case, they said.

An FIR was lodged in the case on July 18 at the Phase 2 police station based on a complaint from a Samsung official, who alleged mobile phone parts were being stolen from the warehouse for four months, according to officials.

"During investigation, it came to light that Samsung company's engineer Vikas Kumar Garg, aged around 35, was entrusted with the responsibility of locking the logistics vehicle using a special seal. He would steal some of the seals and keep them at his home and later collude with the vehicle driver for stealing the boxes filled with the costly phone parts," a police spokesperson said.

Garg, who worked in the Original Equipment Manufacturing department of Samsung, was arrested and eight seals were recovered from his rented accommodation in Greater Noida, the spokesperson said.

He has been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 411 (dishonestly receiving property), police said.

Earlier, the police arrested four men in connection with the case. Those held included Gaurav Sikka, who runs a mobile phone shop in Gaffar Market in Delhi's Karol Bagh, Ashok Kumar, Luvkush Singh and Ajay Lal.

Luvkush worked for private company Dixon Technologies in Noida which provided electronic items to Samsung. His job was to ensure delivery of products from his firm to the Samsung warehouse, according to police.

Luvkush came in contact with Kumar, who was a vehicle driver in the logistics chain, and together they found Lal, a local resident, who told them he knew someone (Gaurav Sikka) at Gaffar Market who would be ready to buy phone parts from them, police said.

They then planned regular theft of mobile phone parts from the warehouse and continued it for four months which were bought by Sikka at 1,000 per octa (diplay screen) which actually costs 2,250 per piece, it said.

Total 22 boxes of mobile phone parts pegged worth 80 lakh were stolen by them. Eighteen boxes were recovered on July 18 and 20 lakh that were earned by them by selling the remaining parts have also been seized, it added. PTI KIS ABH ABH

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.

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MUSKEGON, MI -- Several popular Muskegon-area restaurants closed their doors as a safety precaution after employees were diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The Deck, a waterfront bar and restaurant at Pere Marquette Park, 1601 Beach St.; Pints & Quarts, a pub and American-style eatery at 950 W. Norton Ave.; and one Topshelf Pizza & Pubs location at 2155 E. Apple Ave. have each closed temporarily in the last week to clean their restaurants after members of their staff contracted COVID-19.

A voicemail at the Topshelf location states that the restaurant is closed while fellow employees are being tested, while the Deck and Pints & Quarts both announced their closures on social media.

We are temporarily closed due to an employee testing positive for COVID-19, the Topshelf voicemail states. Remaining staff are being tested. We will reopen as soon as we know it is safe for our staff and customers.

In a Facebook post shared Tuesday night, The Deck said it was bringing a cleaning company onto its premises after an employee tested positive for the disease.

To our loyal customers, WE ARE CLOSED THIS EVENING, TUESDAY 7.21! Our team wants to be very transparent as we guide... Posted by The Deck on Tuesday, July 21, 2020

We have from day one been in constant coordination with the Health Department to make sure we had their guidance on how to handle this situation and be proactive if a staff member or customer came in contact with the virus, the business wrote, saying that an employee had recently said they were in contact with someone who had the disease.

The employee demonstrated no symptoms, and had not been in the building for 10 days, The Deck further wrote.

The Health Department believes this situation to be low risk since our team handled the situation at the time of the screening. No other employees have shown symptoms or tested positive, according to The Decks post.

The restaurant reopened on Wednesday, according to Fred Scharmer, who owns Harris Hospitality, the local restaurant group that operates the Deck.

Harris Hospitality also owns the Roosevelt Park restaurant Pints & Quarts. That eatery closed on Friday, July 17, after an employee tested positive, too.

That restaurant also announced the closure on social media, saying that the employee in question had last worked on July 10, alone in a room coordinating takeout orders, and had not come into contact with customers or staff.

Our team has been strict from day one, we want to ensure you we are taking this very seriously. Our team screens every employee prior to their shift along with temperature readings, that post reads. No other employees have had symptoms or tested positive.

Pints & Quarts was closed for 24 hours for a deep clean, and reopened on Saturday.

Both of those social media posts were greeted with dozens of comments thanking the restaurants for transparency and vigilance.

After each closing, Harris Hospitality has completed contact tracing of its employees, Scharmer said, confirming that the cases were caught away from the restaurant, and to identify who else may have been exposed.

Two other Deck employees had to quarantine as a result of their coworkers case, Scharmer said, but have not yet exhibited symptoms.

Nevertheless, the cost of closing down, as well as regular screenings, temperature taking and covering the cost of employee tests is a horrible expense, said Scharmer, adding their precautions arent mandated, but taken in conjunction with the Muskegon County health department.

Its not really a business decision, its based off what theyre instructing us to do, he said. Theyre the experts.

Topshelf is owned by JPN Restaurants, a local restaurant group that also owns a Topshelf location on Western Avenue, and 794 Kitchen & Bar and Capones Speakeasy, both at the Northtown 794 development at 794 Pine St.

JPN Restaurants owner, Jim Noel, could not be reached for comment.

Read more on MLive:

Muskegons third marijuana dispensary to open July 23

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Local Eats: If you visit Muskegons Dockers restaurant, try the boozy blackberries
Sonia Aguirre, right, and 9-year-old Abdiel Sanchez pay respects to his great-grandfather, Fernando Aguirre, who died of COVID-19 at age 69. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

At 2 days old, David Alejandro Vega weighed just 3 pounds, spindly arms and legs reaching from his neonatal intensive care incubator for a mother he couldnt touch.

She was quarantined across the hospital in a maternal coronavirus ward.

Like many expectant mothers with COVID-19, Mayra Vega delivered several weeks premature, by caesarean section, on Thursday. She was barred from holding, nursing or even seeing her son, beyond the photographs and videos nurses let her glimpse from a computer screen.

David was born into a pandemic, but Vega, 27, was grateful he tested negative for the virus, which has already killed 398 in the surrounding Rio Grande Valley, about 10% of Texas' COVID-19 deaths.

If hes OK, Im OK. It doesnt matter how long it takes to hold him, Vega said in Spanish from behind a mask in her isolated hospital room.

David Alejandro Vega is being treated in the neonatal intensive care unit at DHR Health in Edinburg, Texas. His mother, Mayra Vega, who tested positive for COVID-19, had been unable to hold or nurse him. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Mayra Vega, 27, who tested positive for COVID-19 while she was pregnant, is isolated from her son, David Alejandro Vega, born prematurely Thursday. But the nurses took photos and video of him. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

But few things are OK in South Texas. Days and nights bring whispered names and fresh pain.

The coronavirus has upended fronterizo, or borderland, traditions from birth to death in the valley, one of the countrys poorest and hardest-hit hot spots. The virus has cut through generations of families. It has taken pastors and farmworkers. Deaths here are multiplying, crematoriums are backed up for weeks, and at one cemetery, so many graves were dug that the backhoe broke down and men had to take to shovels.

Many were vulnerable from the beginning, and as Texas reopened in May, extended Tejano families went back to work, even though many were uninsured and suffered high rates of diabetes and obesity, putting them at greater risk of dying from the virus.

On sweltering weekends, families gathered for church, pachanga parties and beach vacations on South Padre Island. Within weeks, many were quarantined, hospitalized or dead. The valley's COVID-19 death rate this month was 17 per 100,000, exponentially more than the state (3 per 100,000). Gov. Greg Abbott met virtually Tuesday with local leaders, promising to send more resources, even as he prevented officials from enforcing stay-home orders.

Story continues

MaryLou Chavez prays in the hospital parking lot for friend Jose Garcia, 52, who is sick with COVID-19 and receiving treatment at South Texas Health System McAllen. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The valley has become a landscape of prayers, graves and sorrow: hospitals built temporary COVID-19 wards to care for hundreds of new patients, scores of bodies lie stacked in refrigerated trailers and hundreds of contract nurses, some dispatched from as far as Florida and New York, have descended on brush land communities clustered along the Rio Grande.

Most of the hospitalizations and deaths this month have been in the heart of the valley in Hidalgo County, where all 2,000 hospital beds are full, said Dr. Ivan Melendez, the county health director, who returned to work last week after recovering from the virus.

The hospitals are a mess, he said.

Nurses Catrina Rugar, second from left, and Hannah Woodward, second from right, and clinical coordinator Veronica Gomez, right, treat a patient at DHR Health in Edinburg, Texas, in one of several new COVID-19 units. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Melendez ordered the start of county schools be postponed until September, even as Abbott has threatened to withhold state funding unless they open for in-person instruction next month.

How can I, in good faith, open schools when the hospitals cannot accommodate another patient? said Melendez, a valley native. Were saturated.

In the county seat of Edinburg, DHR Health  a 530-bed, physician-owned facility  added 210 beds for COVID-19 patients last week and was still expanding, said Dr. Robert Martinez, who was leading the hospitals response.

Since the start of the pandemic in March, it has admitted 454 COVID-19 patients, 107 of whom died, including 96 this month.

Its hard to find colleagues whose family hasnt been touched by death, said Dr. Carlos Cardenas, the hospitals chief executive. We look at life down here in terms of holidays, because families get together Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Cinco de Mayo. Anytime there is an excuse for our gente to have a party, a pachanga, we worry.

The COVID-19 death rate in Rio Grande Valley this month was 17 per 100,000, exponentially more than the state of Texas (3 per 100,000). Above, a team of medical workers provide care. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

But such celebrations have led to the loss of grandparents, parents and children as young as 15: This virus is terrible for people with a culture like ours, he said. Its just a tragedy to watch this unfold.

His hospital last week was treating 197 COVID-19 patients, 62 in intensive care, about half on ventilators. Dozens lay unconscious in one of several new makeshift COVID-19 wards, where visiting nurses scooted between curtained rooms, adjusting beeping ventilators. Many also suffered from morbid obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions. The doorways to some rooms were labeled DNR, do not resuscitate.

A former hospital staffer posted claims on Twitter this week showing substandard equipment and a female patient in a COVID-19 unit with ants crawling on her back. The staffer said they complained to supervisors and requested that patients be moved to an adjacent hospital handling elective procedures, but that supervisors refused because they wanted to keep the main hospital clean of COVID-19.

The patients are dying left and right, the staffer wrote.

Bertha Garcia, left, prays for husband Jose Garcia, who is fighting for his life in the COVID-19 ward at South Texas Health System McAllen hospital. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Marissa Castaneda, senior executive vice president of DHR Health, said the claims were being investigated and that the hospital stands by the efficacy of providing the highest level of care.... The entire Rio Grande Valley healthcare community is being faced with unprecedented times and the number of COVID-19 patients is increasing daily.

Catrina Rugar, 34, a Florida-based nurse who deployed first to the outbreak in New York City, then to the Edinburg hospital, said she had seen the claims and that nurses had faced shortages of supplies and support.

"Its the norm in a crisis situation, Rugar said, noting that some temporary nurses left the hospital in protest this month before completing their contracts.

She said conditions at the hospital had improved, but that nurses still faced shortages of medications and respiratory staff to help with ventilators.

Outside another hospital in nearby McAllen this week, more than 50 people from two local churches formed socially distanced groups in the parking lot to pray for their 37-year-old pastor, Gerardo Garcia, who was hooked to a ventilator.

The coronavirus is spreading rapidly through Texas' Rio Grande Valley. Above, a man is transported to a hospital on a gurney. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Juan Trevino, 38, a part-time pastor for Congregacion Sendas Antiguas, said Garcia visited him when he was hospitalized with COVID-19 last month after his family vacationed with friends on South Padre Island. Trevino's mother became infected while working at a nearby migrant-holding area for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which lost a veteran agent in the valley to COVID-19 earlier this month. Now her husband is sick, too.

That's how it is here; no one knows who will be taken next.

Hours after he prayed, Trevino learned that Garcia had died.

Joe Vargas, 43, a deacon in the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, is conducting three funerals a day while wearing an air purifier around his neck to help protect him from the coronavirus. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Other valley churches remained open this week, including Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Mission, where the Rev. Roy Snipes, 75, stopped baptisms and first communions, but was still performing gravesite funerals, weddings and daily Mass. His doctor told him it was too dangerous for him to keep visiting patients at the local hospital to administer last rites.

On Saturday, one of the couples Snipes married were nurses, the groom at a local COVID-19 unit. All 50 in attendance wore masks, except the bride, whose face was hidden beneath a lace-edged mantilla veil. Every other pew was taped off. Hand sanitizer replaced holy water at entrances. The reception, which had been planned for 400, was postponed.

Im surprised they even let them out of the hospital, said the grooms mother, Leticia De Leon, 62, an occupational therapist who was careful not to touch her son as they posed for photographs.

Hed been working 14-hour shifts.

He doesnt want to tell me, but I see it in his face, she said.

Wedding guests  some in face shields  watch as Nicholas De Leon and Fabiola Hernandez, both nurses, get married Saturday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Mission, Texas. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Flower girl Drea Cedillo, 5, wears a mask during a family wedding Saturday at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Mission, Texas. She walks past pews blocked off for social distance. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Bridesmaid Roxy Perales, a nurse practitioner, was nervous to attend. She didnt want to expose her patients, but the masks reassured her.

Because this is going on doesnt mean life has to stop, said Perales, 35. Youre in South Texas  we know what were doing.

Another valley nurse, Priscilla Garcia, wasn't so sure. She lost her 70-year-old parents  high school sweethearts  to the virus this month, days apart, then fell ill herself. She self-quarantined in her parents' brick ranch house, their ashes in wooden boxes on the coffee table.

Were in hell right now," she said.

Her husband, daughter, aunt, uncle and cousin all got the virus, although only her aunt was hospitalized. Garcia persuaded friends and relatives not to return to work, even after authorities cleared them, because they still had symptoms.

I have so many people sending me information saying, They cleared me to go back to work and I had a fever at work, she said. My aunt is in Rio Grande Regional fighting to not get on a ventilator. Shes fighting hard. She doesnt even know my mom passed away.

Priscilla Garcia, 38, a Rio Grande Valley nurse, sits with the ashes of her parents Sunday. Both died of COVID-19 earlier this month. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Facebook feeds are full of death. Transport companies that once moved 10 bodies a week were moving twice as many in a day, around the clock. At La Piedad Cemetery in McAllen, where the first ornate graves were erected in 1895, staffers were digging so many this week, their backhoe broke, manager Jose Mata said. He had to hire men to shovel them by hand.

One of the graves was for Fernando Aguirre, 69, who died of COVID-19 last week at the same hospital where, a day later, David Alejandro Vega was born. Aguirre died after attending his granddaughters graduation party, where only he and a few others wore masks. Son Fernando Freddie Aguirre Jr., 49, didnt attend and pressured his parents not to.

Staffers at La Piedad Cemetery in McAllen were digging so many graves that the backhoe broke. So workers like Jesus Torres, 75, were hired to shovel them by hand. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

I tried so hard, he said as he stood at his fathers gravesite before his burial Tuesday.

His younger sister, who hosted the party, fell ill soon afterward. Their uncle died, then their father. Their mother Ofelia Aguirre, 67, was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator. A plot waited for her next to her husband, beside another fresh grave.

About 20 relatives gathered for Aguirres burial, all in masks, including the daughter with COVID-19. She wailed as she placed a white rose atop the grave.

Freddie Aguirre and his other three siblings kept their distance, waving instead of hugging. So far, they had tested negative. But they were more afraid than ever.
We reviewed this mid-range smartphone whose main chops are supposed to be great cameras. But there is much more there.

Brand: Realme

Product: X3 SuperZoom

Key specs: 120Hz LCD screen, 64-megapixel primary rear cameras with Periscope lens, 4200mAh battery.

Price: 27,999 (For the base model)

Rating: 3.5/5

Cameras in a smartphone are important, yes we get that. It is one of the deciding factors when you are buying a handset - we get that too. But while these cameras have gone beastly in terms of megapixel counts (108MP is the threshold for now) and moving lenses (Gimbal cameras) this year, unfortunately you have to shell out way more for that superior performance and features. So, at least some of that goodness should reach the affordable handsets as well.

Following that train of thought is Realme, which recently unveiled its Realme X3 SuperZoom before the Indian market.

The highlight here, as one can also guess from the name, are the cameras and their zooming ability. The X3 SuperZoom has 60x digital zooming tech, thanks to Periscope lenses, something that has not become a norm in smartphones yet.

It is definitely not close to Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultras 100x zoom by any means but is still more than any smartphone can possibly offer right now in the given price range.

But were not here just for the cameras are we? Its not just the 64-megapixel sensor for which you are paying 27,999. Its more than that. So, we reviewed this mid-range smartphone and heres what we think about it.

Design

For the most part, this smartphone has a quintessential Realme look to it. It might be working well for the brand but it is something that has been done to death now. We have seen this design in practically every Realme smartphone launched recently. Take Realme 6/6 Pro, Realme X50, Realme 5i, Realme XT and a few more, all have nearly the same look. So much so that you may not be able to pick out the Realme X3 SuperZoom if you place it among them.

Sure, it is quite an upgrade over the Realme X2s design but its high time Realme should try to move on to a new look, something we can call as refreshing. Also, the market is saturated with devices that look similar to Realme X3 SuperZoom now, so it's high time.

The Arctic White colour version that we have is fortunately, a better looking model than the Glacier Blue one. This has a matte finish and a tinge of elegance in it with brushed metal sides, which did convince us that it's at par with what you are paying.

Realme X3 Superzoom (HT Tech)

Another point of concern is that this handset misses out on a 3.5mm headphone jack despite having the thickness. It is a step towards the future but in a Realme smartphone that is priced around 30,000, this is something that most buyers might be looking for.

If you ignore the same design and the missing 3.5mm headphone jack, this is a good looking phone and we would recommend you to get the Arctic White colour model if you are planning to. Even the build is robust and gives you the assurance of handling some rough use as well. Also, the fingerprint sensor-carrying, side-mounted power button is within reach and worked flawlessly.

Display

One of the highlights here is the 120Hz refresh rate, a tech that some of us are familiar with and most of us arent. Those who dont know about it, its a tech that essentially results in smoother animations and scrolling effects.

You wont get to know the difference right away when switching from 60Hz (in a regular smartphone) to 120Hz but will really feel the difference when you go back to the 60Hz. There arent many handsets with this feature under 30,000 so Realme does get something to brag about here.

Whats interesting is that Realme went ahead with a 120Hz LCD screen instead of 90Hz AMOLED, which it has used in predecessor X2. Now we know this is subjective and some may prefer a higher refresh rate over the quality of panel. But if you ask us, we wouldve preferred a 90Hz AMOLED in this one considering it delivers deep blacks, punchy colours while maintaining the UI smooth-ness.

Realme X3 SuperZoom (HT Tech)

But that doesnt mean the LCD panel is a deal breaker. It works well and youll be fine streaming Netflix and YouTube videos on it. The dual punch hole at the top left corner might be bothersome but for the most part, it manages to stay discreet. Also, the brightness levels are just about fine. Dont expect the LCD panel to work extremely well in daylight.

Performance

Performance-wise, the Realme X3 SuperZoom is rather snappy and does the work without showing any signs of lag. You can, in fact, expect it to be better than most smartphones in the sub- 30,000 segment as majority of them are powered by Snapdragon 700-series while the X3 SuperZoom is powered by the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ processor. It is the flagship processor from last year but then it's not bad by any means. It is, instead, a good deal if you look at the pricing, specially when youre looking for a camera-centric, powerful smartphone.

The user interface here is subjective. Some may like it and some may not. We are not really a big fan of the UI but we still find it better than what Xiaomi, Vivo or Oppo offer. Opening apps, switching between them, playing heavy titles are a breeze in this one. The device did not get warm during tests or shooting 4K video for 10 minutes straight or even while playing PUBG Mobile. Launching apps is smooth. Club it with the 120Hz screen and youve got a fluid performance across the board.

The mono speaker is just about fine. We didnt find it extremely loud or underwhelming but something that should just be good enough. Whats rather impressive is the tactile motor engine, which is of course not the best in the industry but miles ahead of what the most obvious rivals are trying to deliver. It does make a difference while typing or moving between app interfaces. It is also effective during gaming.

Realme X3 Superzoom (HT Tech)

Talking about gaming, the X3 SuperZoom, although not being a gaming phone, manages to feature some software smarts like others to keep the user away from unwanted or unexpected notifications while playing. All thanks to Game Space for this.

And finally, the combination of face unlocking and fingerprint sensor on the side power button is pretty good. It is still a hit or a miss when it comes to recognising face in dim lighting situations but then you may have to press the side/power button, which unlocks the phone pretty fast. We found the fingerprint sensor more reliable in daily use.

Cameras

Camera performance is everything that Realme X3 SuperZoom is banking upon this time. And it is worth it, for the most part. The quad-camera setup includes a 64-megapixel primary camera powered by 1/1.72-inch Samsung GW1 sensor, f/1.8 aperture and 6P lens. This uses the 4-in-1 pixel binning tech to show the images clicked using the 64-megapixel sensor in 16-megapixel. In daylight, as expected, theres hardly anything to complain about. You get rich, detailed shots with good colour saturation. We didnt see it overblowing the saturation and highlight levels at any point. Even the HDR mode is balanced and not overdone. Whats interesting is that in artificial light conditions, the setup did a better job than what we expected.

We, however, noticed that the 16-megapixel primary camera works best until 5X, after which the Periscope lens takes over. Once the Periscope lens takes over, the clarity in the resulting image gets better. So, clicking in 64-megapixel mode and cropping it manually is not as good as clicking the subject with 5x zoom. On the other hand, if you want to click images at night, the primary shooter gets more light than the Periscope lens. Hence, we found cropping the 64-megapixel image at night, more ideal than shooting it zoomed-up with the Periscope lens.

Realme X3 Superzoom (HT Tech)

In any case, the night shots are good and the setup does a good job in balancing the noise levels. You can always use the Night mode, which makes images visibly sharper and brings in more colours. The Pro night mode worked better for us, specially while capturing reds.

The 60x zoom, which the Realme X3 SuperZoom is boasting about, unfortunately, doesnt give you the quality and for now that seems like a feature that exists only to be boasted about. We found 10x as the last zooming stage where you could get a good quality image. Anything beyond that might not be apt for photography purposes.

We had no complaints with the Macro and the ultra-wide cameras as both worked as advertised. The macro lens did struggle on locking the focus on a subject when being clicked in low light but for the most part, it does the job well. The 8-megapixel wide angle lens with 119 FoV was snappy and reliable enough to simply switch from the regular mode and click.

Since it's a camera-focused smartphone, it is possible to click RAW files as well. The X3 SuperZoom clicks .dng files which are not editable on the handset itself and are clicked at a slightly smaller 15.8-megapixel size (4592x3440 pixels). The average weight of an image is 30MB, so you better not leave it enabled for all your shots. However, we did like that RAW image capturing worked with the wide-angle, ultra-wide angle and telescopic lens as well.

As for the videos, Realme claims that its UIS and UIS Max Image Stabilisation uses AI algorithm in real time. This does work and we could see the visible changes while recording videos. But then, no such feature comes without a drawback. In this one, enabling the stabilisation locks the videos to FHD resolution at 60fps, whether you're on HD or QHD or at 30fps or 60fps. However, since the results were convincing, it balanced out the loss.

Realme X3 Superzoom (HT Tech)

At the front, you get dual selfie cameras with 32-megapixel primary Sony sensor and a 105-degree ultra-wide lens. But then again, the Ultra-wide angle lens clicks images in 8-megapixels or 3264x2448 pixels. However, when it comes to capturing colours, saturation, contrast and highlights, the front cameras do a really good job. You can be sure of it getting the focus right and the skin tones close to natural. This goes for both primary and ultra-wide selfie cameras.

The Portrait selfie shots are clicked in 32-megapixel. Since theres no dedicated lens or sensor for recognising the foreground and background, one can say that the blurring algorithm and software does a good job here as the resulting images are good to look at.

Battery

Realme X30 SuperZoom does a good job in the battery department. At todays date if you are using a smartphone for playing PUBG Mobile, multi-tasking on documents and editing images in an app while staying connected to Wi-Fi all the time and getting calls frequently, and still ending the day with some battery left, its a really good battery - Yes, were talking about X3 SuperZoom here.

On an average we were able to run the smartphone for more than 12 hours at a stretch on average use, although the phrase average use could mean different things for different people. What adds to this 4,200mAh goodness is the 30W Dart Charge, which charges the smartphone from 0 to full in little more than an hour.

Verdict

Realme X3 SuperZoom manages to tick most boxes that are required to get a perfect smartphone. Yes, it has some bulky-ness to it but the design has been implemented really well. In addition you get everything from 120Hz refresh rate screen to impressive cameras, even more impressive front cameras and a fairly good battery life.

Realme X3 Superzoom (HT Tech)

If you want performance, it is also there but for those hunting for a good set of specs, Snapdragon 855+ might bring that last years processor ring to it. There's no AMOLED screen and no flexibility in capturing stable videos. However, like we said above, its not bad at all. There couldve been a 3.5mm headphone jack and the Realme UI has a long way to go (although it has improved) but thats just a few of the sacrifices youre making here.

That said, the company has played a really safe bet here by pricing the handset 27,999, a segment that doesnt have as many competitors right now. In addition, the smartphone doesnt really give you a sense of being overpriced because of the cameras. The feature to price ratio is well balanced with X3 SuperZoom and that might just work well for Realme. And to seal the deal, this handset is a camera-centric device, which makes it one of the only good camera smartphones in the 20-30k range.
A Malaysian judge Wednesday overturned a decision to cane 27 Rohingya refugees for entering the country illegally and slammed the "inhumane" sentence, their lawyer said, following an outcry from activists. The men arrived in Malaysia by boat in April after a treacherous voyage but were then jailed and sentenced to three strokes of the cane each. Muslim-majority Malaysia is a favoured destination for Rohingya, who face persecution in their mostly Buddhist homeland of Myanmar, but authorities have in recent months been trying to stop them entering over coronavirus fears. A judge at the High Court in the northern city of Alor Setar threw out the caning sentence handed down by a lower court following an appeal, lawyer Collin Andrew told AFP. His reasons included that "these persons are Rohingya refugees, who are in need of international protection due to the persecution faced by them", Andrew said. He also ruled it was "inhumane to impose a sentence of whipping" on the men, who were not habitual offenders and had not committed acts of violence, the lawyer added. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had called on authorities not to go ahead with the punishment. Once they finish serving their seven-month jail sentences, the refugees will be allowed to stay in Malaysia as they are registered with the United Nations. Refugees are not officially allowed to work in Malaysia but many do illegally, in industries ranging from construction to agriculture. The country has stepped up maritime patrols since the outbreak of the pandemic in a bid to stop Rohingya boats from landing over fears that migrants could be carrying the virus. Many boats have been turned back, sparking anger from rights groups, although some have made it ashore.
By Akbar Mammadov

A group of Armenians have vandalized the building of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Paris during an unauthorized rally, the embassy reported on July 21.

We strongly condemn the acts of vandalism committed by Armenians provocateurs, the embassy said in a statement published in its Twitter account.

Armenian radical groups attacked the building of the Azerbaijani Embassy in France on July 19.

Another attack on the embassy building took place on July 14

The embassy called that attack an act of vandalism flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

It should be noted Armenian radical groups attacked a small group of Azerbaijani counter-protesters in front of the Azerbaijani General Consulate in Los-Angeles on July 22, as a result of which seven Azerbaijanis and one police officer of LAPD were injured. Armenians also sought to stage a provocation against the Azerbaijani Embassy in Poland on July 17.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Not many might have recognised actor Jaideep Ahlawat even a couple of months ago

During an interview recently, while commenting on the nepotism debate, film director R. Balki stated that there are no better actors in Bollywood than Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor! Id ask one simple question: Find me a better actor than Alia Bhatt or Ranbir Kapoor, and well argue.

Its unfair on these few people whore probably some of the finest actors, the PadMan director was quoted as saying.

Balkis statement didnt go down well within the fraternity. The first one to hit back was Manvi Gagroo, who asked the director on Twitter, How to apply sir, (sic). Manvi, rose to fame with her OTT shows Pitchers, Tripling and Four More Shots Please, also acted in Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, which starred actors Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar in lead roles.

A world of better actors

To some extent, one might consider Balkis argument, calling nepotism a foolish debate because as he pointed out, despite the easy launch pad star kids may have, they have to still prove their worth to sustain in the industry.

However, challenging one to show him better actors than Ranbir and Alia certainly proves that the director has been rather near-sighted, missing all the actors in the industry who, despite being outsiders, have paddled their way to success, not only in Bollywood but also beyond.

Beyond the A-list film dynastic families, many actors including Manoj Bajpayee, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Irrfan Khan, Kangana Ranaut, Priyanka Chopra, Taapsee Pannu, Vidya Balan and Richa Chaddha have carved a niche in Bollywood.

Apart from these mainstream actors, a pantheon of stars such as Pankaj Tripathi, Rasika Duggal, Shweta Tripathi, Jitendra Kumar, Amit Sadh, Sumeet Vyas, Maanvi Gagroo, Sayani Gupta and Barun Sobti, who came from obscure backgrounds, have gone on to find the ground beneath their feet and build their own castles in the field, thanks to their works on the OTT platforms.

They have shown immense talent, looking effervescent on the on OTT platform screens, as does any other star belonging to the mainstream cinema.

Building their own castle on OTT

Not many might have recognised actor Jaideep Ahlawat even a couple of months ago.

Even after doing meaningful cinema for over a decade in top films such as Raazi, Gangs of Wasseypur, Commando and Baaghi 3, Jaideep finally found stardom as the protagonist of crime thriller Paatal Lok streaming on an OTT.

Actress Sayani Gupta who plays a journalist in the series Four More Shots Please is another example of an actress deservedly soaring high with her role in the series.

For the uninitiated, before her OTT debut, Sayani had done movies such as Article 15, Margarita with a Straw, and Jolly LLB 2. Fame, however, seems to have followed her only after

Four More Shots Please.

Another case is of Tripti Dimri, who cant seem to have enough of the recognition she is getting from her recent show Bulbbul, which is streaming on Netflix. Previously, the multi-talented actress had done films such as Laila Majnu and Poster Boys before but it was not until Bulbbul that fame beckoned her.

Actress Anushka Sharma, who produced of Paatal Lok and Bulbbul, believes that the lines are getting blurred between theatrical and digital platforms.

I think you will see a lot of actors getting into streaming platforms given the ability to explore characters more deeply and freely there, adds Anushka.

Another fine example of an actor who lacked not only recognition but also perhaps the right opportunities in mainstream cinema is Radhika Apte. Radhika, who has done 40 full-length films despite having no relations in the cinema line, attributes her fame and recognition to the series she did on Netflix, such as Sacred Games and Lust Stories.

In fact, some might even argue that it was Radhikas presence in Sacred Games  which was also Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khans OTT debut  that made the Netflix series trend in India back in 2018.

Radhika believes that it is a great time for actors, a development she attributes to OTT platforms.

The platform offers actors with multiple opportunities to do different things, she says. Its a platform for actors to explore and the OTT platforms are even helping the rise of many wonderful actors.

Shattering the conventional star image

In Bollywood, stars, sometimes mediocre, headline the projects, and talented actors are mostly used as garnishing to make the mediocre look better but never to outshine them.

Now, just as some actors claim, the digital medium has the power to fight the conventional belief.

Namit Das, another actor who is now making headlines as Jawahar in the Sushmita Sen-starrer series Aarya, believes that unlike cinema, which mostly focuses on stars, streaming platforms are more based on performance and talent.

It is very exciting that you need to exhibit your talent to be a part of a project, shares Namit, who features in Mira Nayars A Suitable Boy on Netflix and Mafia on Zee5. The platform also brings you much closer to the audiences. Added to it, you have great directors ready to give you opportunity to perform. So, yes, I believe this is the best time to be an actor.

Before venturing into OTT, the actor worked in big movies such as Wake Up Sid, Sui Dhaaga, Ankhon Dekhi and Pataakha with A-list stars, but he could only get his due with Aarya.

Actor Amit Sadh, who started with TV and then a few films such as Kai Po Che!, Sultan and Super 30 didnt get him much recognition or big roles. But his web show Breath into the Shadows on Amazon Prime sees his prolific performance surpassing Abhishek Bachchan in the show.

The actor is clearly crushing the idea that Bollywood was built on nepotism.

The mediums may be different but the work is the same and technique too is more or less the same, says Amit. Yes, the way of storytelling is different but, as an actor it is the same for me. I am fortunate that through the medium of OTT, I could reach more people in India and abroad. It has brought me a lot of fans as well as exposure.

 With inputs from Sanskriti Media
New Delhi: Trials of Indias anti-tank guided missile Dhruvastra has recently been successful at the Interim Test Range (ITR) in Odisha. The helicopter-launched Nag Missile (HELINA), which has now been named as 'Dhruvastra', is a third-generation fire and forget class anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system mounted on the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH).

Last year, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) carried out three successful test firings of the NAG missiles in the Pokhran firing ranges.

According to DRDO website, "HELINA (Helicopter based NAG) is a third-generation fire and forget class anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system mounted on the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH). The system has all-weather day and night capability and can defeat battle tanks with conventional armour as well as explosive reactive armour."

"The HELINA missile can engage targets both in direct hit mode as well as top attack mode. HELINA Weapon Systems is being inducted into the Indian Army (IA). A variant of HELINA Weapon System called DHRUVASTRA is being inducted into the Indian Air Force (IAF)," it added.

Earlier, the Defence Acquisition Council approved the procurement of the DRDO-designed and developed NAG Missile System (NAMIS) at the cost of Rs 524 crore. The induction of the NAG missile is expected to give a quantum boost to the Indian Army's capability.

According to Army technology website, key design and features of the NAG missile are:

1. Nag is a third-generation, fire-and-forget, anti-tank guided missile to support both mechanised infantry and airborne forces of the Indian Army.

2. The missile incorporates an advanced passive homing guidance system and possesses high single-shot kill probability. It is designed to destroy modern main battle tanks and other heavily armoured targets.

3. Nag can be launched from land and air-based platforms. The land version is currently available for integration on the Nag missile carrier (NAMICA), which is derived from a BMP-2 tracked infantry combat vehicle.

4. The helicopter-launched configuration, helicopter-launched NAG (HELINA), can be fired from Dhruv advanced light helicopter (ALH) and HAL Rudra (ALH WSI) attack helicopter.

5. The Nag anti-armour guided weapons airframe is built with lightweight and high-strength composite materials. It features top-attack capability and has high immunity to countermeasures.

6. The missile is equipped with four foldable wings and has a length of 1.85m, diameter of 0.20m, wingspan of 0.4m and weight of 43kg.

7. A blunt nose cone houses the guidance system, while the middle portion accommodates a compact sensor package and the main charge of the warhead. A booster rocket motor is located towards the rear. Four tail fins are fitted at the rear to stabilise the missile while in flight.

8. A real-time image processor with fast and efficient algorithms is installed next to the guidance section to provide automatic target detection and tracking capabilities. The digital autopilot offers guidance, stability and control for the missile during the flight.

9. Nag is also outfitted with an electric actuation system for flight control.

10. Nag is fitted a with high-energy propulsion system consisting of booster and sustainer propellants. The sustainer propellant burns a nitramine smokeless extruded double base (EDB).

11. It can fly at a speed of 230m/s and has the capability to engage both static and moving targets under all weather conditions during the day and at night. The range of the land version is 4km, while HELINA can reach up to 7km.

12. Up to eight ready-to-fire missiles can be carried in two quadruple armoured box launchers mounted on the NAMICA anti-tank guided missile.

13. Each launcher can fire four missiles in one minute. The NAMICA vehicle can be optionally equipped with an additional four missiles.
Out-of-state travelers from states with high cases of COVID-19 will be required to to fill out a form showing where they are from, where they are staying in Connecticut and for how long, Gov. Ned Lamonts office said Tuesday.

Under an executive order, travelers will now have to submit the form to the Department of Public Health prior to or upon arrival in Connecticut.

With infection rates out of control in much of the South, Midwest, and Southwest, and many tourists coming to Connecticut for summer vacation, I have made the determination that we need an enforceable quarantine order to keep Connecticut residents as safe as possible, Lamont said in a prepared statement announcing the order.

The order comes as the governor has told visitors from 31 states they must self-quarantine for 14 days, in concert with New Jersey and New York.

Travelers from affected states that dont fill out the form or self quarantine can face fines up to $1,000.

Travelers must also include their name, date of birth, cell phone and contact phone number while in Connecticut, according to the text of the executive order.

Out of state travelers from affected states can avoid the 14 day self-quarantine if theyre able to show they tested negative for COVID-19 within the last 72 hours, according to Tuesdays executive order.

Workers traveling to Connecticut from high risk states to work in critical infrastructre are exempt from the self-quarantine requirement. That includes students in exempt health care professions, according to the order.

If such worker was in an Affected State for a reason other than Connecticut-related work (e.g., vacation), such worker shall self-quarantine and complete the Travel Health Form, the order reads.

The order comes as infections and hospitalizations for coronavirus have tapered off over the last month. On Tuesday, the state reported 41 new cases, eight new hospitalizations, and zero deaths from the day before.

In taking this action, I am empowering the Department of Public Health to hold travelers accountable with significant fines for anyone not following the rules, Lamont said. While we do have a very low COVID-19 positivity rate in our state right now, that can change very rapidly, and this is no time to relax about taking every precaution we can to slow down the spread of the virus.
The Chinese Navy and Australian warships were engaged in a stand-off last week after a confrontation in the South China Sea.

The Australian vessels were sailing close to the Spratly Islands - which are claimed by Beijing as well as the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam - when the incident happened, the ABC reported.

Australian warships - including HMAS Canberra, HMAS Hobart, HMAS Stuart, HMAS Arunta and HMAS Sirius - are on exercise in the region ahead of military war games off Hawaii with the US and Japan.

The Chinese Navy and Australian warships (pictured) were engaged in a stand-off last week after a confrontation in the South China Sea

'Unplanned interactions with foreign warships throughout the deployment were conducted in a safe and professional manner,' Defence said in a statement.

'Australia is committed to a secure, open, prosperous and resilient Indo-Pacific region. We routinely work with regional partners to address shared security challenges,' a Defence spokesman said.

'Activities conducted during this routine deployment are part of the Australian Defence Force's regular military-to-military engagements throughout the Indo-Pacific, which are conducted each year.'

Beijing claims most of the South China Sea based on the 'nine-dash line', a vague delineation which dates back to the 1940s.

The Australian vessels were sailing close to the Spratly Islands - which are claimed by Beijing as well as the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam - when the incident happened

Beijing has spent years building military bases on artificial islands in the area, which is home to valuable oil and gas deposits and is a vital commercial waterway.

Earlier this month China accused the US of 'sailing through the world like a bully' after two aircraft carriers, the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan, were dispatched to the region in a show of force.

Hours after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo branded Beijing's claim over the waters as 'completely unlawful', China's embassy in Washington hit back by accusing Donald Trump's administration of 'flexing muscles, stirring up tension and inciting confrontation' with a 'completely unjustified' attack.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:12:38|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on July 16, 2020 shows a container dock in Tangshan City, north China's Hebei Province.(Xinhua/Yang Shiyao)

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- By renewing its pledge to further protect market entities and spur their vitality in times of difficulty and uncertainty, China has given its economy and all market players a fresh shot of confidence.

Chairing a symposium with entrepreneurs Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping listened to their opinions and advice on the economic situation, assuring them that policy support will be enhanced so that market entities can "not only survive but also thrive."

The pledge comes as China, through the combined efforts of the whole nation, has achieved strategic results in epidemic containment and started to see a bounce-back in the epidemic-battered economy.

China saw its gross domestic product expand 3.2 percent year on year in the second quarter, following a 6.8 percent contraction in the first quarter, official data shows.

The better-than-expected recovery has been a result of effective virus control and heavy macro-policy backing, as well as the arduous efforts of all market entities.

However, given the continuous global spread of the virus and mounting external risks, enterprises and individual businesses are still facing challenges, and ensuring their well-being is crucial for sustaining the hard-won rebound.

Workers check a production line at Lianyungang Economic and Technological Development Area in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu Province, July 16, 2020. (Photo by Geng Yuhe/Xinhua)

To protect market entities is to protect productivity. By 2019, China had around 123 million market entities. They have played a major role in the country's development by participating actively in economic activities, creating jobs and pushing technological progress.

Their roles will be increasingly essential as China works to create a new development pattern in which domestic and foreign markets boost each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay.

To provide true support, the symposium touched upon issues of great concern, including relief measures, business-environment improvement and the government-business relationship. Opinions and suggestions from entrepreneurs will also be taken into account in the formulation of policies, such as China's 14th Five-Year Plan.

Xi promised that the Chinese government will provide more high-quality public services to help entrepreneurs take root in China and cultivate the Chinese market.

With such support and solidarity, China's market entities are expected to make greater contributions to the country's economic restoration and the pursuit of socialist modernization. Their hard work and strength will serve to bolster the long-term resilience and vitality of the Chinese economy and beyond. 
A Covid-19 vaccine could be rolled out for vulnerable Britons within months of one being found to work, according to the UK's vaccine tsar.

Normally, it takes up to two years before a medication is given the green light by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the UK's drugs watchdog.

But Kate Bingham, chair of the UK's vaccine taskforce, says a coronavirus jab could be fast-tracked through the process.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has already announced frontline health and care workers, and those at an increased risk of serious disease, including elderly care homes residents, will be first in line to get access to a vaccine.

Over-50s and those with heart and kidney disease would be next, according to Mr Hancock, who said health bosses were also considering fast-tracking access for people from BAME backgrounds, who are disproportionately affected by Covid-19.

Hopes of a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year were raised again this week after Oxford University revealed there was still a chance it could deliver its experimental jab by Christmas.

There has been growing concern not enough people are catching the virus in the public anymore, which makes it hard to test whether the jab actually protects people from catching it.

Oxford has moved its trials abroad to South Africa and Brazil  where Covid-19 is still rife  to speed up the so-called efficacy trials.

Kate Bingham, head of the UK vaccines taskforce, said a coronavirus vaccine could be rolled out in Britain before it has been approved by medical regulators under compassionate grounds

Oxford scientists say it's possible their AZD1222 jab will be available by December, or by early 2020

Mrs Bingham said vaccine manufacturers were in constant communication with the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to get any jab rolled out as quick as possible, if trials are successful.

She said: 'A coronavirus vaccine would be eligible for an accelerated review from regulators without compromising on safety standards.

'The exact timeframe for review will depend on what data is submitted when, but it is anticipated that the review period will be significantly shorter than the standard length of time for assessment.'

Mrs Bingham told The Telegraph: 'Oxford will file their submission with the EMA, plus there is a route for compassionate or emergency use in the UK, and MHRA have been working joined at the hip with these different vaccine companies.

'By engaging regulators early and involving them in key decision-making and key safety aspects everything can be done much more quickly.'

WHAT ARE THE LEADING COVID-19 VACCINE CANDIDATES? University of Oxford Oxford University academics began developing the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine in January. It is now named AZD1222, after the researchers signed a manufacturing partnership with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. Human trials started on April 23 and they are now in the final phase, with trials being carried out in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. Lead of the project Professor Sarah Gilbert told The Times she is '80 per cent' confident of its success. The science behind Oxford's vaccine attempt hinges on recreating the 'spike' proteins that are found all over the outside of the Covid-19 viruses. It is made from a weakened version of an adenovirus from chimpanzees that has been genetically changed so it is impossible for it to grow in humans. Imperial College London Fifteen volunteers have already been given Imperial's trial jab and testing is expected to ramp up to include as many as 200-300 participants in the coming weeks. A second trial, with 6,000 people, will come later. But Professor Robin Shattock, lead researcher, said the vaccine won't be available until at least 2021 even if everything goes according to plan. If the jab works, the team want to make it as cheap as possible so the entire British population could be vaccinated for the 'really good value' of just under 200million. Imperial's vaccine also attempts to mimic the spikes on the outside of the Covid-19 virus. However, it will work by delivering genetic material (RNA) from the virus, which programs cells inside the patient's body to recreate the spike proteins. Pfizer/BioNTech US drug giant Pfizer  famous for Viagra  and German firm BioNTech have been working on a number of potential Covid-19 vaccines under the 'BNT162 program'. It reported positive preliminary results from the ongoing Phase I/II clinical trial of one called BNT162b1 on July 1. Tests on 24 volunteers showed that it was well tolerated and produced dose dependent immunity. Dr Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer's head of vaccine research and development, said the vaccine 'is able to produce neutralizing antibody responses in humans at or above the levels observed' in Covid-19 survivors. Pfizer received fast track designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for two of their four potential Covid-19 vaccines this month. The vaccine is one which injects RNA - genetic material - which codes the body to produce proteins that look like the spike proteins that would be found on the outside of the real coronavirus. Valneva French firm Valneva have yet to begin human trials of their Covid-19 vaccine, called VLA2001. Company bosses hope to scale up testing by the end of this year. The jab is currently only in pre-clinical studies  meaning it is being tested in the lab and on animals. If proven successful, the vaccine will be manufactured at its facilities in Livingston, Scotland and in Solna, Sweden. Valneva's jab is based on injecting people with dead versions of the coronavirus. This is called an inactivated whole virus vaccine and works by injecting the virus itself but versions that have been damaged in a lab so that they cannot infect human cells. They can be damaged using heat, chemicals or radiation. Even though the viruses are inactivated the body still recognises them as threats and mounts and immune response against them which can develop immunity. Moderna Massachusetts-based Moderna was the first US company to start human trials of its potential Covid-19 vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, on March 16. The jab has proven to trigger an immune response in all 45 injected volunteers, according to a study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine on July 14. Moderna's shot showed early promise in its phase 2 human tests last month. The company reported that it triggered antibody production on par with that seen in recovered coronavirus patients. CanSino Chinese vaccine Ad5-nCoV, made by CanSino, was the very first shot to enter clinical trials earlier this year and is a leading candidate. A trial of 108 healthy volunteers in China showed it safely triggered an immune response in participants. Results published May 22 in The Lancet showed most of the people dosed with the vaccine had immune responses, although their levels of antibodies thought to neutralize the virus were relatively low. Researchers saw a stronger ramp-up of other immune compounds, called T-cells, that might also help fight the infection off. Johnson & Johnson The drug giant started work on the vaccine in January, two months before Covid-19 was labelled a global pandemic. A vaccine trial spearheaded by Johnson and Johnson will start recruiting people in September, with clinical data available by the end of the year. An 'emergency use' batch of the vaccine is anticipated to be authorised as early as 2021, which would likely be prioritised for vulnerable people. CureVac CureVac, a German company, secured permission last month to begin first phase clinical trials of its attempt at a coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine, named CVnCoV, works by injected RNA designed to force the production of coronavirus-like proteins in the body and trigger an immune response. The first trials will involved 168 people between the ages of 18 and 60 in Germany and Belgium. Advertisement

'I don't know how long it will take, but regulators are receiving all the non-data aspects of the trials already so they can look at manufacturing facilities and assays and lots of things that are non-clinical before they open the envelope and get the results.'

Boris Johnson this week dampened hopes of a vaccine in the near-future by admitting he wasn't certain a jab would be available until 2022.

But just hours later Oxford scientists said their candidate - called AZD1222 - could be ready by December at the soonest.

Promising data has shown the Oxford jab is safe and provokes an immune reaction that lasts for at least two months.

More than 91 per cent of volunteers injected produced an immune response against the coronavirus that lasted a month or more.

Immune responses remained strong for at least 56 days, according to results in The Lancet.

The jab is already being manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the UK Government has ordered 100million doses ahead of time.

But ministers aren't putting all of their eggs in one basket and have struck deals for a further 90million doses of two types of experimental jab being developed in France and Germany.

Britain is shoring up stocks of vaccines in development all over the world in its spread-betting approach in the hope that at least one of them will pay off.

One of those, made by BioNTech, has shown good results in early trials which proved it could produce a safe immune response in a group of 45 people.

Matt Hancock has told the House of Commons health select committee that he is optimistic a vaccine will be ready this year.

Asked by MPs whether a jab would be ready in time for Christmas, the Health Secretary said: 'I can't promise to play Santa. I am an optimist in life, and in the best case scenario the answer is yes.

'My job is not to second guess whether we will or not  vaccines are an uncertain science and we need to be cautious, but I will throw everything at it.'

Results from the first phase of clinical trials of Oxford's vaccine were published on Monday in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

They revealed that the Covid-19 vaccine had been given to 543 people out of a group of 1,077.

The other half were given a meningitis jab so their reactions could be compared and scientists could be sure the effects of the coronavirus jab weren't random.

Researchers wanted to find out whether the vaccine boosted either of two types of immunity  antibodies, which are disease-fighting substances; and T-cell immunity, with T cells able to produce antibodies and also to attack viruses themselves.

The vaccine produced 'strong' responses on both accounts, the study found.

It showed that the T cell response aimed at the spike protein that appears on the outside of the coronavirus was 'markedly increased' in people who had had the jab, in tests of 43 of the participants. These responses peaked after 14 days and then declined before the end-point of the trial at 56 days.

Antibody immunity, on the other hand, peaked after four weeks and remained high by day 56, the point at which the last measurement was taken, meaning it may well last for even longer.

After 28 days, up to 100 per cent of a group of 35 people still had a strong enough 'neutralising' immune response to destroy the virus, researchers found.

A neutralising response means the immune system is able to destroy the virus and make it unable to infect the body.

The researchers could not test this on more people because they didn't have enough time, they explained.

Scientists had to wait a month after vaccinating people, with many of them vaccinated in late May. And Sir Mene Pangalos, a vice-president of research and development at AstraZeneca, said the tests used were 'very laborious' so the team weren't able to get more data in time for the paper.

Sir Mene added that the researchers were 'veering towards a two-high-dose strategy' because that seemed to be producing the strongest immune response.

Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, said: 'Its possible therell be a vaccine being used by the end of the year.

'What that needs is enough cases in the probably about 50,000 people who will be in trials by six weeks time, including the very large US trial, and to have an adequate incidence.

'But of course the vaccine has to work. Even if it worked by early November, it might be a little before that, you might have emergency use authorisation in a month and then you would be deploying in December.

'So its possible but we certainly cant guarantee it  that depends on incidence of the disease, as I said earlier.'

And vaccine researcher Dr Sandy Douglas added: 'A really important part of the question of when the vaccine will be available is Who will it be available to?

'I think the vaccine may be available for some people in high risk groups in the UK by the end of the year. But it wont be made available to everybody immediately.

'Its likely to be given to the people who have the most to gain from it earliest, then gradually introduce it for other people.'

A second study, of a vaccine being made by the Chinese company CanSino, has also had promising results published in The Lancet this week.

That jab, which works in the same way - by piggybacking coronavirus genes onto a common cold virus - has also produced both antibody and T cell immunity.

The study involved 508 people, of whom 253 received a high dose of the vaccine, 129 received a low dose and 126 were given a placebo.

In a group who were given a high dose of the vaccine, 95 per cent of people still had immune responses 28 days after receiving the jab.

More than half of them (56 per cent) still showed what is called a 'neutralising' antibody response, meaning their immune system could destroy the virus completely. And 96 per cent of them had a 'binding' antibody response, meaning their antibodies could latch onto the viruses and prevent them getting into the body but did not destroy them completely.

In the low dose group, 47 per cent of people had a neutralising response after four weeks and 97 per cent had a binding response. 91 per cent still had some form of immune reaction a month after the jab.

The results of both trials came after announcements earlier today that the Government has bought orders for two other potential vaccines from France and Germany.

Agreement has been reached for 30million doses from German firm BioNTech and the US company Pfizer, and 60million doses from France's Valneva.

BioNTech's vaccine is another one that has shown good results in early trials.

A first-phase study on 45 adults, nine of whom received a placebo, found that the vaccine was well-tolerated and didn't produce serious side effects.

It also triggered the immune system in the right way in all of those who it was given to. The immune reaction was dose-dependent, meaning people who received larger doses produced a larger immune response.

The figure is in addition to the 100million doses of vaccine that are being developed by Oxford University in partnership with AstraZeneca, as well as another at Imperial College London which started human trials in June.

The speed at which Covid-19 vaccines are being developed has been described as 'unprecedented' and a marvel of modern science.

Normally it takes years or even decades to get one into human trials but international collaboration, huge amounts of funding and the instantaneous publishing of scientific research online has allowed scientists to do it in record time.

The Oxford jab, for example, took just 103 days to get from being designed on a computer to entering human trials.

Long, repeated testing means it takes, on average, 10 years to develop a vaccine, according to the Wellcome Trust,
United Vines, a new project founded by Eli and Jake Rallo, partnered with Isabella Oddero of Piemonte, Italy, to produce a wine that raises money for social justice charities. The idea behind United Vines is to use society's love for wine to bring people together to fight for equality for all. The proceeds of every purchased bottle of United Vines will go to a charitable foundation at the heart of a specific humanitarian cause.

United Vines CEO Eli Rallo, along with her brother Jake, grew up in the restaurant business. Their father, noted New Jersey restaurateur Vic Rallo, owns Undici in Rumson, NJ; Birravino in Red Bank, NJ; and Esca in New York City among several other restaurants. Eli is a graduate of the University of Michigan and will be attending Columbia University to complete her Masters in Journalism in the Fall. Jake is currently attending Cornell University and has a strong belief that the world's future lies with conducting productive spaces in the realm of hospitality; he is honored to combine his passions for food and beverage with serving others. The passion Jake and Eli have for Italian wine, hospitality, and social justice led them to create United Vines.

I have been interested in the way we can help prioritize good Italian wine, while teaching millennial drinkers to appreciate the wines and also give back, comments United Vines Founder Eli Rallo. We will be donating the funds from the sale of the Oddero Langhe Rosato to the ACLU and Donne in Rete in order to help promote women's rights.

United Vines Langhe DOC Rosato, 2019 is 75% Nebbiolo and 25% Barbera. It is cultivated from parcels of the Oddero family vineyards in the village of La Morra, Italy, in the heart of the Barolo DOCG. The 2019 vintage in Barolo has demonstrated a classic vintage showing good structure and ideal balance. Bottles of United Vines Langhe DOC Rosato 2019 are available exclusively at Birravino in Red Bank, New Jersey, and Undici in Rumson, New Jersey. The inaugural vintage was a limited release and is expected to sell out soon. Plans for broader distribution with future vintages are in the works.

The 2019 vintage will raise $10,000 for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the United States to focus on equal rights for women across the world.

For more information on United Vines, please contact Michelle Erland at merland@colangelopr.com.

###

About United Vines: United Vines is the cornerstone of hospitality and the social justice movement. Born and bred from a passion for wine and social justice, United Vines seeks to make every sip of your glass of wine an act of passive resistance.

About Oddero Poderi e Cantine: is a historic brand among Barolo producers. The winery's roots go back to the end of the 18th century when our ancestors began to make wine under their name. The wine cellars, located in the frazione Santa Maria of La Morra, are raised on a natural terrace and overlook the Langhe's hills. Immersed in a sea of beautifully tended vineyards, our winery cultivates 35 hectares of the best cru of the Langhe and Asti territories to make some of Piedmont's most renown wines: Barolo, Barbaresco, Langhe Nebbiolo, Dolcetto d'Alba, Barbera d'Alba, Barbera d'Asti, and Moscato
US Allows Iran To Use Financial Channel For Humanitarian Aid -Iran Official

Radio Farda July 21, 2020

Chairman of Iran's Red Crescent Society (IRCS) Karim Hemmati on Monday announced that the United States has allowed the launch of a financial channel for transfer of international humanitarian aid to Iran.

Speaking to the government news agency IRNA Hemmati said the launch of the channel was negotiated through the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross with the U.S. Department of Treasury and Diplomacy Division.

Hemmati also said a portion of the aid that had been reserved for Iran's Red Crescent Society abroad and could not be transferred to Iran due to the U.S. sanctions has now entered the country by the virtue of the waiver.

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control requires a special license for making charitable donations to Iran.

According to the Chairman of IRCS, the U.S. Treasury will not object to transfer of aid by individual or legal entities provided that none of the parties is American.

Iranian officials including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif often suggest that U.S. sanctions hamper international humanitarian aid to Iran but U.S. officials have repeatedly rejected that.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, several countries have offered material and financial support to Iran to combat the spread of coronavirus including several shipments of pharmaceutical ingredients, test kits and medicines from Germany and South Korea but this is the first time that aid in the form of foreign exchange funds is being made available.

The Chairman of the IRCS did not disclose the amount of the transferred and expected aid but the official government news agency IRNA said the amount of the foreign exchange funds expected to be transferred to Iran in the near future is "significant".

There has been no confirmation yet of an agreement by U.S. officials.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/us-allows-iran- to-use-financial-channel-for-international -humanitarian-aid/30739012.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Nowhere do we have a nation that will help us like Denmark, he said. Nowhere have we better upheld our shared values than with the Kingdom of Denmark and the great work weve been able to do on Greenland. Quite simply, its a new day for the United States and Greenland.
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Linkedin Dmitry Zaks (Agence France-Presse) London, United Kingdom  Wed, July 22, 2020 12:30 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406686425e 2 World US-China,US-China-Uighur,US-China-Hong-Kong-tension,US-China-tension,US-China-tension-COVID-19,US-China-trade-war,bilateral-spat,bilateral-tension,Mike-Pompeo Free

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged "the entire world" Tuesday to stand up to China but denied forcing Britain's hand in its decision to ban the communist superpower's private telecoms giant Huawei.

Pompeo met Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the heat of an emerging crisis in relations between London and Beijing over everything from China's treatment of Hong Kong to its persecution of more than one million ethnic Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities.

The top US diplomat used a press conference with his UK opposite number Dominic Raab to air a host of grievances President Donald Trump's administration had built up against Beijing.

He accused China of engaging in "a cover-up and co-opting" the World Health Organization by allegedly suppressing early details of the "preventable" coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 610,000 people globally.

The Chinese Communist Party's "exploitation of this disaster to further its own interest has been disgraceful", he said.

Pompeo also castigated China for claiming disputed areas of the South China Sea "you have no lawful claim to" and trying to "threaten and bully" its neighbors.

"We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order," he said.

'Right thing to do'

Pompeo's last visit to London in January came just days after Johnson ignored Washington's warnings and allowed Huawei to take a leading role in building Britain's next-generation mobile data network.

This trip was announced just a day after Johnson last week decided to risk drawing the wrath of China and phasing out Huawei from the speedy new system.

The Chinese foreign ministry responded by accusing Britain of becoming "America's dupe".

But Pompeo and Raab both tried to dispel suggestions the White House was dictating British affairs.

"I think that decision was made not because the United States said it was a good decision but because the leadership here in the United Kingdom concluded [that it was] the right thing to do," Pompeo said.

Johnson is keen to avoid being too closely associated with Trump -- whose approval in Britain is languishing at around 20 percent -- despite the "special relationship" between the two historical allies.

The UK government stresses it only ditched Huawei after new US sanctions imposed in May endangered the safety of future 5G equipment produced in China.

"The reality is it is a result of US sanctions," Raab said.

Washington argues that the Chinese Communist Party can force Huawei to either intercept UK data or shut down the British network in times of war.

Huawei has always denied this and Britain had previously concluded that it could mitigate any security flaws.

'Golden decade'

But the range of steps taken by Johnson in the past month threaten to bring an early end to a "golden decade" in cooperation that former British finance minister George Osborne promised on a visit to Beijing in 2015.

London has also outraged Beijing by offering nearly three million residents of Hong Kong a pathway to UK citizenship in response to a highly controversial security law that China imposed on the former British colony last month.

Britain followed that up on Monday by suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and extending an arms embargo of "potentially lethal weapons" that had previously applied only to mainland China.

Pompeo's visit includes a sideline meeting with exiled Hong Kong protest leader Nathan Law aimed at further stressing the seemingly new understanding about Beijing.

The UK parliament's release of a delayed report that took the government to task for failing to properly look into any Russian meddling in the 2016 Brexit referendum also hung over Pompeo's visit.

The report was commissioned in response to concerns that Moscow attempted to help Trump win the presidency in 2016.

Trump and Pompeo reject suggestions that Russia played any meaningful role in the vote.

Raab said Britain viewed Russia as "a top national security priority" but Pompeo did not address the issue in his public remarks.
HDFC Bank Managing Director Aditya Puri had recently professed his love for shoe-brand Bata, a choice of most Indians across different stature. As a token of his appreciation, Puri sent the company a cake along with a heartfelt note. Puri congratulated Sandeep Kataria, CEO of Bata India for the journey of the household brand.

"Dear Sandeep, I have watched the transformation of the brand in recent years with great interest. I wear Bata as a preferred choice very proudly. My best wishes to the entire Bata family," said Puri in his note.

When appreciation comes from stalwarts, it means a lot to us. The man who has always been comfortable in his own shoes still wears Bata. Thank you sir, #AdityaPuri @HDFC_Bank pic.twitter.com/VS0R4zOXge BATA India (@BATA_India) July 21, 2020 It all started when the HDFC Bank MD revealed his long-standing relationship with the company's products. "We came to start this bank 25 years ago, a bunch of us so-called kids at that time, who had grown up in middle-class backgrounds sharing a coke and wearing Bata shoes," said Puri during his address to the bank's shareholders. Bata responded to Puri's comments and said that they were humbled to be part of the banker's journey to the top. "It is humbling to see what people with dreams can achieve. We are glad to be a part of your journey Aditya Puri and we wish you more power ahead," it said. It is humbling to see what people with dreams can achieve. We are glad to be a part of your journey #AdityaPuri and we wish you more power ahead. https://t.co/SylVyKCYa9 BATA India (@BATA_India) July 19, 2020

To this, Puri sent the scrumptious cake along with a heartfelt note. The company took to sharing the image on Twitter.

The Swiss footwear brand is part of Bata Corporation established in 1894. Although a Swiss company, Bata has been so widely preferred in the country for so long that it is often misidentified as a homegrown company.

Also read: 'Sharing a Coke, wearing Bata shoes': HDFC Bank chief Aditya Puri takes a walk down memory lane
However, low fixed costs and better export realisations helped cushion the impact of operations on its margins. Dragged down by poor volumes, which came on the back of a total shutdown in April and partial resumption of operations in May and June, profit before tax (PBT) and profit after tax (PAT) at the Pune-based firm more than halved to Rs 682 crore and Rs 528 crore, respectively, in the June quarter, against Rs 1,579 ...

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Hamilton police rescued two adult women on an inflatable toy who were blown three kilometres off shore Monday afternoon.

Another day, another floatie rescue, Hamilton Police Services marine unit tweeted Monday.

The women were rescued shortly after 3 p.m., after they called 911 for help using a cellphone, Const. Lorraine Edwards said in an email.

The women were found three kilometres from Van Wagners Beach in Hamilton. They had been floating for about an hour before they were rescued, Edwards said.

The vessel, a blue-and-white inflatable in the shape of a speedboat, was not equipped with paddles or any other safety equipment, and the women were not wearing life-jackets, Edwards said.

This is the second Lake Ontario floatie rescue for Hamilton police this week. The first was a family of three  two adult children and their mother  who were rescued at around 2 a.m. on July 15 after floating for nearly four hours on a giant inflatable pink flamingo.

These items should be secured to shore, Hamilton police tweeted. Offshore winds can take them out quickly.
FRC urges Trump admin. to sanction Nigeria; cut aid over inability to stop killings of Christians

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A leading conservative evangelical advocacy group is calling on the Trump administration to consider sanctions against Nigeria in response to the governments inability to thwart communal and extremist violence that has led to the deaths of thousands of Christians in recent years.

In a policy paper released last week, the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council called on the U.S. government to impose hard-hitting sanctions against Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and consider cutting aid to the West African country until steps are taken to address the violence routinely committed against Christian communities.

The new report, titled The Crisis of Christian Persecution in Nigeria, was written by FRC Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom Lela Gilbert.

Gilbert and others working to restore religious freedom for Christians are calling on the Trump administration to appoint a State Department envoy for Nigeria as Boko Haram extremists and radical herdsmen continue to attack and kill hundreds of civilians each year.

The individual serving in this position would be responsible for making sure that violent attacks against Christians are documented accurately.

In the fiscal year 2020, the U.S. provided Nigeria with nearly half a billion dollars in foreign assistance. Gilberts report suggests making the foreign aid conditional upon specific demands, such as governmental curbs on deadly attacks.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Gilbert called on the global Christian community to rally in support of Christians facing persecution and death in Nigeria.

We really have to pray for our Nigerian brothers and sisters because they are facing horrendous attacks and constant danger in some places, Gilbert said. We believe in doing all we can do otherwise, of course. But we also want to ask God to intervene to help these people. If our voices are raised as one, I know that Hell hear us.

Persecution and slaughter of Christians has been a common occurrence in Nigeria in recent years and the situation doesn't seem to be improving.

Referring to the country as a killing field of defenseless Christians, a report compiled by the Nigeria-based International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law earlier this year estimates that between 11,500 and 12,000 Christian deaths were recorded between June 2015 and March 2020. The same group estimated that as many as 1,200 Christians have been killed in the first six months of 2020.

June 2015 was when Buhari first came to power.

Most of the bloodshed against Nigerian Christians has been attributed to radical members of the nomadic Fulani ethnic group, who have been accused of carrying out many brutal overnight attacks against predominantly Christian farming communities in the countries farm-rich Middle Belt, the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province in northeast Nigeria.

Gilberts paper criticized Buhari, an ethnic Fulani, for doing virtually nothing to address the behavior of his fellow tribesmen.

Even after President Donald Trump publicly confronted him about violent attacks on Nigerian Christians, Buhari has not offered a substantive response to the crisis, she wrote.

Christian leaders in Nigeria and some international human rights groups have described what has taken place in their country as a genocide.

Yet, as Gilbert noted, the U.S. and other western governments have taken little action over the years to hold the Nigerian government accountable for its apathy toward the genocide that has taken place in their country. Although the State Department last December added Nigeria to its special watch list of countries that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom, advocates want to see more action taken.

In her report, Gilbert cited the deeply secular perspective of many diplomats, intelligence, and media talking heads as one reason for the complacency regarding the crisis in Nigeria.

These secularists greatly diminish or utterly overlook the role religious faith plays  for better or for worse  in the world, she said. More than a few policy-makers and media voices are convinced that religion simply amounts to cultural norms or a picturesque assortment of traditions rather than deeply held beliefs.

Gilberts report also pointed to the perception that climate change is the driving factor behind the Fulani radical attacks on Christian farmers as fertile land is becoming more scarce.

Initially, Fulani violence against Christians was attributed to climate change, she wrote. It has been widely reported that due to drought and the receding of pastures for their flocks, desperate Fulani migrant herders began to confiscate land on which to graze their animals. However, due to ever-increasing evidence of rampant bloodshed, outrageous brutality, and Islamist chants and declarations during attacks, the Fulani marauders jihadi intentions have been exposed.

In spite of the lack of observable concrete action taken to address the terror against Christians in Nigeria thus far, Gilbert remains optimistic.

The Trump administration has done more than any other administration in my memory to intervene in matters of religious freedom and Christian persecution, Gilbert told CP.

Were hoping that some of these things will happen before the election. But of course, even if they dont, then well continue to push for them. We know that we have a responsive administration, and we really hope these things will be addressed quickly.
Technavio has been monitoring the automotive navigation systems market and it is poised to grow by 6.56 million units during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 2% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005696/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Automotive Navigation Systems Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Alpine Electronics Inc., Continental AG, DENSO Corp., Garmin Ltd., Panasonic Corp., Pioneer Corp., Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and TomTom International BV are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The minimization of vehicle operating costs has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, complexities associated with customization might hamper market growth.

Automotive Navigation Systems Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Automotive Navigation Systems Market is segmented as below:

Product IVS PND

Type Passenger Cars Commercial Vehicles

Geography APAC North America Europe South America MEA



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44363

Automotive Navigation Systems Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our automotive navigation systems market report covers the following areas:

Automotive Navigation Systems Market size

Automotive Navigation Systems Market trends

Automotive Navigation Systems Market industry analysis

This study identifies the increased support for open source and standard platforms for application development in automotive infotainment as one of the prime reasons driving the automotive navigation systems market growth during the next few years.

Automotive Navigation Systems Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the automotive navigation systems market, including some of the vendors such as Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Alpine Electronics Inc., Continental AG, DENSO Corp., Garmin Ltd., Panasonic Corp., Pioneer Corp., Robert Bosch GmbH, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and TomTom International BV. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the automotive navigation systems market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Automotive Navigation Systems Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist automotive navigation systems market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the automotive navigation systems market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the automotive navigation systems market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of automotive navigation systems market vendors

Table Of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five Forces Summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Product

Market segments

Comparison by Product

IVS Market size and forecast 2019-2024

PND Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Product

Market Segmentation by Type

Market segments

Comparison by Type

Passenger cars Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Commercial vehicles Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Type

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Volume Drivers Demand led growth

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd.

Alpine Electronics Inc.

Continental AG

DENSO Corp.

Garmin Ltd.

Panasonic Corp.

Pioneer Corp.

Robert Bosch GmbH

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

TomTom International BV

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Last month, Gov. Greg Abbott shut down bars in Texas due to the surge of coronavirus cases in the state. One San Antonio bar on the St. Mary's strip is doing what it can to stay afloat during the uncertain times.

El Ojo, located at 3000 N. St Mary's St., will serve some of its popular cocktails through a curbside service from 7 to 11 p.m. on Saturdays. Because a local establishment needs to sell food with an alcohol sale, Con Safos, a local food truck, will be selling nachos.

READ ALSO: Ming's Noodle Bar restaurant expanding near Pearl with a second location this summer

The bar, which is celebrating its second anniversary this week, received a small business loan, but Issac Guitron, a co-owner of El Ojo, said the loan is running out and they now need help paying rent for the building.

"We are just a small business and we are regular people," Guitron said. "We aren't millionaires and we are just trying to make rent. We aren't even trying to make a profit. We just want to stay on the St. Mary's strip. We love being here and want to stay."
This is an opinion column.

Dont rename that bridge.

Not yet.

John Lewis, who passed away last week, deserves all the honors and thousands of petitioners have proposed replacing the vile racist Edmund Pettuss name with the civil rights hero who led marchers there on Bloody Sunday. Renaming the bridge after Lewis could be a kind gesture. And maybe one day it would be fitting. But renaming it now would imply that some victory has been won, that something significant has changed.

Changing? Maybe. Hopefully so.

But were not there yet.

Look around and you will see the things Lewis fought for  Black enfranchisement, equal protection under the law, and the right to vote  all being undone right in front of us. This is no time to declare victory and celebrate.

When Lewis and the Bloody Sunday marchers crossed that bridge, they did so to demand their rights be honored and the Constitution fulfilled. They were met on the other side by a vicious assault, police brutality that shocked our nation.

More than a half-century later something similar is still happening.

It takes a crazy kind of courage to walk headlong, chin up into a phalanx of police armed with gas, batons and guns as Lewis did right before an Alabama State Trooper cracked his skull with a club. In Portland, Oregon  not a full day after Lewis passed  a 53-year-old Navy veteran named Christopher David summoned similar courage.

He went to witness another night of Black Lives Matter protests that have continued in that city for more than a month. For several nights, unidentified federal agents in military camouflage and driving unmarked cars had refused to identify themselves as they abducted protestors from the streets and detained them without charges. On Saturday night, they attacked demonstrators, including a protest by mothers  some of them pregnant. David walked up to those secret police armed only with a question.

Why are you not honoring your oath? he shouted at them. Why are you not honoring your oath to the Constitution?

Federal police strike protester with baton, use pepper spray and tear gas outside courthouse in Portland pic.twitter.com/VX2xTVaaYq  Zane Sparling (@PDXzane) July 19, 2020

One of the secret police beat Davids arms, hands and legs with a baton. Another pepper-sprayed him in the face. After taking blows that would put a lot of folks in the hospital, he turned and calmly walked away from the agents. Despite having broken bones in one hand, gave them a double gesture perhaps too rude for Lewis day.

But make no mistake. That was some fine good trouble.

As familiar as this moment might feel, theres an important difference between the present day and the Selma marches.

During the civil rights movement, the federal government was an equalizing force in the struggle between activists and Southern segregationists. In 1965, the Selma marchers had the benefit of a federal judiciary that upheld Constitutional rights. When the marchers finally made their trek from Selma to Montgomery, they did so protected by a National Guard federalized by a sympathetic president.

Today its the federal forces we have to be most afraid of and the president is on the other side.

Under orders from Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has created a national police force that dresses more like U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan than cops on a beat. DHS has deployed this new secret police force to Portland, and the president has promised to send them to other cities soon.

Im going to do something  that, I can tell you, Trump told reporters this week. Because were not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these  Oakland is a mess. Were not going to let this happen in our country.

If theres any confusion left whose country Trump thinks this is, consider his answer Sunday to a question about the Confederate battle flag.

When people proudly had their Confederate flags theyre not talking about racism, Trump said. They love their flag, it represents the South. They like the South.

And whose South would that be, Mr. President?

Not John Lewis South.

The president is ordering these crackdowns, not because protests in these cities had deteriorated into unmanageable civil unrest nor because local officials had asked for his help. Quite the contrary, the mayor and governor there want the federal forces to leave. Rather, turning American cities into military police states is part of his campaign strategy and a gruesome distraction from the slow violence of the coronavirus.

This is all about the election.

In the wake of Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act, but Shelby v. Holder has stripped the law of its protections. Voters dissatisfied with the presidents job performance will have to go the polls without it. Is it unimaginable that, when they do, they might have to pass secret police in military fatigues to get there?

Confederate monuments needed to come down, but at some point, the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement got directed toward tearing down racist symbols and iconography first and systemic racism and oppression later. It has brought down a lot of statues but hasnt changed many statutes. The greater honor for Lewis would be to turn those priorities around.

Now or later, restoring the Voting Rights Act is the first best honor we could give to Lewiss memory.

So, too, must we demilitarize our police, reform our criminal justice system and change the culture of law enforcement to protect Black lives rather than taking them.

Until those things happen, renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge will not be a bittersweet irony, just a bitter one.

A day will come when its right to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

But not until we get America on the other side.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram.

More columns by Kyle Whitmire

Adios, Jeff Sessions

Alabama Senate leaders coronavirus plan: Get sick, try not to die

Do your job, Kay Ivey

Trump ignored facts so he could blame the Black guy.

Good luck, America! Alabamas given up.

Alabamafication unmasked

NASCAR and the GOP have the same problem. Only one is trying to do something about it.

Kay Ivey is not your Mee-Maw: What the governor needs to tell Alabama about COVID-19

Alabama monuments law affects more than Confederate monuments

Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 arent competing stories. Theyre the same story.

Dont be fooled. Huntsvilles Confederate monument isnt going anywhere.

Alabama monument law turns AG into stone

If Alabama has a coronavirus plan for nursing homes, its hiding it

The Confederate monument is gone, but white supremacy still rules Alabama

When a Confederate monument wouldnt fall, rioters turned on Birmingham

Congrats, Twitter, youve been Jeff Session-ized

Alabamas Black Belt is in trouble, again

Remember when Alabama lawmakers said porn was a public health emergency? That was three months ago.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Ghazal Sharifi is an Afghan woman and mother of two. But she says her labor pains were nothing compared to the pain of not being able to legally represent her children.

In Afghanistan, women cannot obtain a passport for their children without the presence of the father. The mother's name isnt allowed on the child's identification card, either. Longstanding taboos and fiercely defended societal restraints deny women the agency to make important decisions for their children, their families, and themselves in a deeply patriarchal society in which men are shamed for even mentioning the names of their female relatives.

As Afghan society makes efforts to advance in regard to gender roles and norms, many women are questioning the male-dominated power structure currently in place in the country. But the issue is layered.

Mawlawi Hamidullah Haidary, an Islamic scholar, tells Radio Free Afghanistan that from the point of view of Islam and Sharia, there is no problem, but Afghan society does not accept this, they are not ready to accept this, and its seen as shameful.

Sharifi says that when she went to the legal offices to register her childs ID, she was told she could not use her name. The officials said they would accept the name of her brother-in-law, or even that of her nephew, but not hers.

"At that moment, I felt so belittled as a mother, she told RFE/RLs Radio Free Afghanistan. I felt that my husband's brother or nephew had more rights over my own children than I did. I got pregnant and gave birth, but unfortunately men have the authority to get IDs for their children, rather than their own mothers.

Under Afghan law, the sexism extends much further than IDs. When deciding custody rights of a child, institutions give preference to the father or grandfathers rather than the mother.

In the eyes of Sharifi and many others, this is cruel.

Yet while the issue has gained a certain amount of traction among progressive Afghans in recent years, including a 2017 campaign called Where Is My Name? that sought to eradicate long-standing taboos by generating discussion on the importance of making women's names and identities visible across all aspects of society, a larger discussion has been missing due to the powerful sway of a male-dominated society.

Haidary, the scholar, says that the Afghan government has bigger issues requiring its attention, such as widespread corruption. Focusing on small issues like a woman's name does not solve our bigger problems, he said.

But for Naheed Farid, a member of the Afghan Parliament, the issue is an important starting point in ensuring women gain their due rights and should be a top priority for a society that is attempting to reshape itself.

When the names of fathers and grandfathers are mentioned in ID cards and the names of mothers are not, this alone is an act of violence against women, she said. It's important to have a meaningful presence of women in society, not just in legal documents but also for their right to work, get an education, and acquire other basic rights.

Members of the Where is My Name? campaign are encouraged that after three years of fighting for womens rights to identities, the issue has now reached the doors of the Afghan Parliament. It will be on the public agenda when the parliament reconvenes in September.

Young parliament members like Farid are ready to vote for a positive change in the constitution, paving the way for Afghan women to be recognized in official and legal documents.

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghan women have regained many of the rights that were previously off limits to them. But despite being able to work and vote, many must still deal with the conditions of a patriarchal system that holds back on allowing them to be equal citizens.

-- Nilly Kohzad wrote this story based on Shafi Karimi's reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
The Manitoba Metis Federation has partnered with Steel River Group, an Indigenous-owned Alberta construction company, that will allow both entities to take part in more and larger construction projects.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Metis Federation has partnered with Steel River Group, an Indigenous-owned Alberta construction company, that will allow both entities to take part in more and larger construction projects.

From the MMFs perspective, the key operational feature of the new partnership will be a stand-alone joint venture arrangement with Metis N4 Construction, Inc., a project management construction company owned by the Metis Economic Development Trust.

Spokespeople from both MMF and Steel River said the partnership  which does not include any money changing hands  will benefit both.

"It really is a symbiotic arrangement," said Peter Pilarski, a spokesman for Steel River, the larger and more experienced of the two construction companies.

While Metis N4 Construction has worked on such projects as Manitoba Hydros Bipole III and the most recent expansion of Enbridges pipeline in Manitoba, Marci Riel, a spokeswoman for MMF said the partnership with Steel River will give Metis N4 a chance to bid on more work outside Manitoba.

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"The MMF is focused on the opportunities to benefit the Manitoba Metis community but also across the homeland of the Metis nation," she said. "This partnership with Steel River is an excellent opportunity for us to move forward on other initiatives that we might not otherwise be able to bid on as a single entity."

In fact, the partnership has already identified 15 upcoming projects, including the Wanipigow silica sand extraction project and the Saskatchewan River Delta project, that it might be able to bid on.

Steel River already has forged a number of similar partnerships with other Indigenous organizations. Pilarski said one of the driving principles of the company is enhancing governance capabilities among those organizations and doing capacity building.

"We want to be able to change the point at which Indigenous communities get involved in projects so that, for instance, they may be able to own the project rather than getting involved at the 11th hour," he said.

Both sides agree that the partnership is premised on governing principles based on Indigenous culture and beliefs centered around supporting people, families, and their communities. The strategic partnership will seek to capitalize on opportunities in mining, energy infrastructure, power generation, and municipal infrastructure.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
UPDATE: U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen on Wednesday granted The Department of Homeland Security's request for a long-term order to continue feeding and hydrating the man.

***

Federal officials are asking permission to continue force feeding an immigrant from Bangladesh who is on a roughly four-week-long hunger strike at a Houston-area detention facility.

Mahbub Ahmed-Begum has lost about 20 percent of his body weight since he stopped eating on his own last month at the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, officials said during a federal court hearing Tuesday in the Southern District of Texas. The center houses men and women of all nationalities detained by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.

Doctors at the facility testified that his extreme weight loss could cause irreversible damage to his organs and lead to his death. It could also heighten the risk of exposure to COVID-19, officials said.

Ahmed-Begum told doctors that he would rather die than go back to his country, because he knows if he goes back they will kill him, according to testimony from Dr. Uchenna Orazulike. Speaking through a translator at the hearing, Ahmed-Begum said he is not able to swallow without the fear coming up.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen last week granted a temporary emergency request by the The Department of Homeland Security to involuntarily feed the man. Doctors began feeding him through a nasal tube. Tuesdays hearing, held by phone, centered on a request for a long-term order that allows immigration officials to continue feeding him through the tube.

Hanen had not made a ruling as of Tuesday night.

Most people cannot survive after 40 days on a continuous hunger strike, Orazulike said. People who can survive longer have more fat than Mr. Ahmed does now.

Richard Kincheloe, the attorney representing The Department of Homeland Security, told the judge that he did not know whether Ahmed-Begum had a scheduled deportation date. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they could not discuss specific details about his case without his consent.

Due to privacy rules, ICE is prohibited from discussing individuals engaged in a hunger strike by name or by the specifics of their case absent the detainees consent., the agency said.

An agency spokesman added: (ICE) fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference. ICE does not retaliate in any way against hunger strikers. ICE explains the negative health effects of not eating to our detainees, and they are under close medical observation by ICE or contract medical providers. For their health and safety, ICE carefully monitors the food and water intake of those detainees identified as being on a hunger strike.

Orazulike said Ahmed-Begum weighed 136 pounds before the hunger strike. His weight dropped to 109 pounds by July 13, she said.

Since doctors started feeding him through a nasal tube, he has gained back about 1.5 pounds, Orazulike said. She expects his condition to gradually improve if the judge grants the request for a long-term order.

Its unclear whether Ahmed-Begum has contracted COVID-19. He was twice tested for the virus over the last month. One test came back positive while the other was negative, officials said.

He was tested again Monday, when he was taken to an emergency room after coming down with a fever. Those results have not been returned. Ahmed-Begum was released from the hospital later that day, and he did not have a fever on Tuesday, officials said.

Another doctor at the Montgomery Processing Center, a psychologist only identified in court records as Dr. Riley-Bass, said she has spoken to Ahmed-Begum about the damage the hunger strike is doing to his body. She encouraged him to protest in a less harmful way, but so far he has refused.

He is quite depressed, she said. He does not have a history of mental health problems. His current state of depression is specific to his current situation - based on the idea of returning to his country.

When asked by the judge for any final comments, Ahmed-Begum only answered: I just need one chance, only one chance to stay in this country and survive.

julian.gill@chron.com
A tsunami warning was issued for parts of Alaska after a powerful earthquake hit the state late Tuesday. The National Tsunami Warning Center canceled the warning about two hours later, after the threat had passed.

The magnitude-7.8 quake was centered offshore, south of the Alaska Peninsula, and struck around 10:12 p.m. local time, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The epicenter was about 60 miles south of Perryville, which has a population of about 100, and more than 500 miles southwest of Anchorage.

There were no immediate reports of damage.

The tsunami warning was issued for some parts of the Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands and south Alaska. Residents of those areas, a stretch of more than 500 miles along the coastline, were warned to head for higher ground and leave designated danger zones.

In Kodiak, residents were evacuating to safe locations, including about 300 who took shelter at Kodiak High School. On an island in the Pacific, you take these things seriously, said Larry LeDoux, superintendent of the Kodiak Island Borough School District. Were well prepared.
Safety OnDemand provides better, faster and easier online safety content, said Rick Fineman, vice president of risk management. When a company commits to regular safety education, they experience fewer accidents, illnesses, citations, and deaths.

To expand its suite of customized safety services and provide the latest tools and resources, ICW Group Insurance Companies, a leading group of property and casualty carriers, announced today the launch of Safety OnDemand  its newest e-learning safety platform for its workers compensation policyholders.

Safety OnDemand is an award-winning, online safety and learning management system that provides ICW Group policyholders with free access to a host of customizable, up-to-date and ready-to-deliver resources. Policyholders will have access to the latest information and guidance on safety topics across hundreds of industries. Topics range from COVID-19 and weather-related preparedness to sexual harassment and OSHA compliance.

Promoting safety within an organization is one of the most important investments a company can make and its especially challenging during this difficult time, said Rick Fineman, vice president of ICW Groups Risk Management Department. Safety OnDemand gives our policyholders unlimited access to preventative safety information thats easy to find, easy to use, and easy to make a seamless part of their business.

ICW Group partnered with Bongarde Media, a web-based compliance and training company, to provide the content for Safety OnDemand, which replaced ICW Groups previous RMRx Safety Advisor application.

Safety OnDemand provides better, faster and easier online safety content, which is essential to promote a culture of safety within an organization, said Fineman. When a company commits to regular safety education, they experience fewer accidents, illnesses, citations, and deaths.

Some of the features policyholders will find include:



Safety library with more than 3,000 materials

More than 500 training courses and videos to assign to employees and track progress

More than 500 pre-packaged safety talks with presentations, handouts, quizzes and videos

An OSHA program creator that provides step-by-step guidance for creating compliant safety plans

Ability to create tailored courses using a companys own materials

Reporting that gives supervisors insights into trends and completion rates

For more information about ICW Groups Safety OnDemand offering, visit the Safety OnDemand resources page on its Policyholder Center website.

About ICW Group

Based in San Diego, ICW Group Insurance Companies is the largest privately-held insurance company domiciled in California. Quoting more than $3 billion annually, ICW Group represents a group of Property, Auto and Workers Compensation insurance carriers, including Insurance Company of the West and Explorer Insurance Company. ICW Group is recognized nationally as an industry leader in helping policyholders achieve fewer and less costly claims, and is committed to meeting the needs of its policyholders and elevating the trusted agents and brokers who advise them. More information is available at http://www.icwgroup.com, http://www.twitter.com/ICWGroup, http://www.linkedin.com/companies/icw-group and http://www.facebook.com/ICWGroup.
Dublin, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Online Grocery: Lessons from Asia's Response to COVID-19" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



With the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, online grocery became a vital element of people's lives. However, e-commerce infrastructure is very different across markets, leading to large variations in out-of-stocks as demand surged. This briefing uses case studies from the world's most developed countries in e-commerce - China and South Korea - to showcase best practices during crisis-buying scenarios.



Online Grocery: Lessons from Asia's Response to COVID-19 offers an insight into the development of the market, highlights buzz topics, emerging geographies, categories and trends as well as pressing industry issues and white spaces. It identifies the leading and emerging companies and brands, offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market. Forecasts illustrate how the market is set to change and criteria for success.



Data Coverage: Market sizes (historic and forecasts), company shares, brand shares and distribution data.



Why Buy This Report?

Get a detailed picture of the e-commerce market;

Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change;

Understand the competitive environment, the market's major players and leading brands;

Use five-year forecasts to assess how the market is predicted to develop.

Key Topics Covered



Overview The Strength of e-Commerce in Asia-Pacific Case Studies from South Korea and China The Impact of e-Commerce Power

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/niv268

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900




Climate change threatens to create turmoil in the financial markets, and the Federal Reserve and other regulators must act to avoid an economic disaster, according to a letter sent on Tuesday (US time) by a group of large investors.

"The climate crisis poses a systemic threat to financial markets and the real economy, with significant disruptive consequences on asset valuations and economic stability," reads the letter, which was signed by more than three dozen pension plans, fund managers and other financial institutions that together manage almost $US1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) in assets.

The letter warned that climate change may cause the price of some companies to fall suddenly, the effects of which would then ricochet throughout the broader economy. Credit:AP

That financial threat, combined with the physical risks posed by climate change, may create "disastrous impacts the likes of which we haven't seen before," the letter says. It urges the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies to "explicitly integrate climate change across your mandates."

Investors worry that if regulators do not act, climate change may cause the price of some companies to fall suddenly, the effects of which may ricochet through the economy. Providing more information about that risk  for example, by requiring companies to disclose more about their greenhouse gas emissions, or which of their facilities are at risk from rising seas  could help investors make better decisions.
Although we recognize that our police officers are often asked to make split second decisions, we expect them to do so with respect for the dignity and worth of black lives, wrote Judge Henry F. Floyd, who referred to the police killings of Floyd in May and Michael Brown in 2014 in his ruling. He continued, This has to stop.
Online boom: Ted Baker said digital sales have far outstripped its expectations

Ted Baker shares surged more than 14 per cent as investors welcomed signs its online sales boomed during lockdown.

The struggling retailer said digital sales far outstripped its expectations, rising by 35 per cent to 35million in the 11 weeks to July 18.

This was helped by the company upping its social media and digital marketing to target customers, despite slashing spending in many areas of the fashion business. But coronavirus still hit trading, as shop closures wiped 79 per cent off store sales  with total revenue falling by 55 per cent to 61million.

Boss Rachel Osborne said the figures were 'encouraging'.

But she cautioned that it is 'still early days' for the company, which is emerging from a tumultuous period that included a string of profit warnings, an accounting scandal, and the exit of founder and former boss Ray Kelvin over allegations of inappropriate hugging, which he denies.

Shares jumped 14.5 per cent, or 10.2p, to 80.8p.
Officials with the Bloomsburg Fair have made additions to their earlier statement about a controversial dunk tank event, photos of which were shared on the Bloomsburg Fairs Facebook page before being deleted earlier this week.

Fair organizers drew criticism from many for the post, which suggested that the man in the dunk tank was meant to resemble Dr. Rachel Levine, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

In a statement to media today, representatives from the Bloomsburg Fair said that the man in the dunk tank (who was not identified, but was stated as not directly affiliated with the fair) was meant to resemble movie icon Marilyn Monroe, rather than Dr. Levine, the Times Leader reported. The dunk tank was part of a fundraising effort for area fire companies held at the fairground.

According to the Times Leader, officials said that despite the initial intent of the dunk tank, unfortunately, this soon transformed into a disrespectful parody of Dr. Levine, and that on behalf of the Bloomsburg Fair Association Board of Directors, our sincerest apologies how out to Dr. Levine, our shareholders, our sponsors and others for this serious lapse in judgment.

This statement came after a response from the Bloomsburg Fair earlier today, which stated, At no time was it the intention of Bloomsburg Fair, anyone affiliated with the Fair, including any sponsors of the carnival, to knowingly utilize the likeness of Dr. Lavine in a dunk tank as any form of commentary on Dr. Lavines transgender identity.

The initial post from the Bloomsburg Fairs Facebook page states, Dr. Levine? Thank you. You were a hit and raised a lot of money for the local fire companies, accompanied by photos of the man in a dress and wig at the dunk tank. The post was later deleted, but not before screen shots were captured and shared criticizing the comments and the costume as transphobic.

Levine, who is a transgender woman, has been at the forefront of the states coronavirus pandemic response. Criticism of Dr. Levine has frequently been accompanied by attacks on her gender identity. The Pennsylvania State Commission for LGBTQ Affairs released a statement in June defending Levines public service and denouncing such vile and toxic gender-based attacks.

At a news conference with Gov. Tom Wolf Tuesday, Levine was asked about the controversy involving the Bloomsburg Fair fundraiser.

In response, Levine said, I am going to stay laser-focused on protecting the public health in Pennsylvania.

As for those who disagree with her views, Levine added, Their health is still important to me.
BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - German stocks fell on Wednesday as the initial euphoria over an agreement on EU stimulus package faded and the focus shifted back to surging coronavirus cases around the world. U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic would get worse before it got better. Traders also kept an eye on worsening U.S.-China relations. The U.S. gave China 72 hours to close its consulate in Houston, according to Hu Xijin, the editor of the Communist Party's Global Times newspaper. The benchmark DAX dropped 71 points, or 0.54 percent, to 13,103 after rallying 1 percent the previous day. Software AG shares soared 7 percent. The enterprise software company reconfirmed its current 2020 guidance as a whole after reporting a decline in second-quarter profit. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that he is prepared to send state troopers into New York City if upward crime trends continue.

After a conversation with President Trump on federal law enforcement actions in other American cities, Cuomo said the president agreed to speak with New York officials before taking any action here, and that the state is prepared to do what it needs to do.

In recent weeks, federal agents in other cities -- particularly Portland, Oregon -- have raised concerns and criticisms about overreach on the part of the Trump administration.

Cuomo said Trump raised concerns about increasing crime rates in the five boroughs, and said that he shared those concerns.

I also said that, at this point, I think the situation can be managed by the state to the extent anything has to be done, and that I was totally prepared to do that, the governor said.

City Hall did not respond to a request for comment on the governors comments, but Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed to take legal action against the Trump administration if federal agents are sent to New York City.

In a Wednesday letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, de Blasio voiced his objections to a federal law enforcement presence in the city.

We do not consent. We object. Do not send the proposed agents and officers from the Department of Homeland Security or other federal agencies to New York City, de Blasio wrote. They have not been requested. They are not needed. And they have proved to bring way more harm than good.

In Portland, protests have been ongoing since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and federal officers were first noted 31 days into the protests, according to the Oregonian, which is owned by the same parent company as the Advance/SILive.com.

Officials with the Trump administration, including Wolf, have said the officers are there to protect federal property, and blamed local officials for not taking steps to curb violence.

If you did your job from a local perspective, we wouldnt be there, said Chad F. Wolf. What we have in Portland is very different than what we have in any other city.

For their part, officials in the beaver state, including Gov. Kate Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, have criticized the federal presence saying it has led to more confrontations with protestors.

On Tuesday, Wheeler said in a statement that the federal intervention is uninvited, untrained, and unwelcome.

The Acting Secretary knows we feel that way, but were happy to tell him again, Wheeler said. The violence was being contained and started to de-escalate before they arrived. They intervened and escalated tensions to new levels.

Cuomo said he is working with de Blasio and is prepared to deploy state police to ensure federal properties are protected.

Early Wednesday morning, the NYPD cleared an encampment that established itself outside City Hall in June.

Originally, protestors set up Occupy City Hall to call on the City Council to include a $1 billion NYPD budgetary cut in the city budget.

That cut came, but the encampment remained outside City Hall. De Blasio said it had become clear that the occupation had become less of a protest and more of a homeless encampment.

What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protests, more and more it became an area where homeless folks were gathering, de Blasio told reporters during a Wednesday press conference.

I said repeatedly, we do always respect the right to protest, but we have to think about health and safety first, and the health and safety issues were growing, so it was time to take action, he said.
The Nigerian Communications Commissions (NCC) has begun the implementation of the accounting separation framework in the telecoms industry, a statement has said.

The statement, signed by the agencys spokesperson, Ikechukwu Adinde, on Wednesday said the commission committed to the creation of an enabling environment for competition among operators in the industry.

The Accounting Separation Framework issued by the NCC provides a comprehensive set of policies and guidelines for generating detailed Regulatory Financial Statements.

It is considered to be an effective, least invasive and less costly solution to implement to meet regulatory objectives.

The statement said it will ensure the provision of qualitative and efficient telecoms services as stipulated in the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003.

In order to further ensure transparency and accountability in regard to effective regulation and prevention of anti-competitive behaviour, the NCC has commenced the implementation of the Accounting Separation Framework (ASF) in the Nigerian telecoms industry effective from July 15, 2020, the statement highlighted.

The policy document, Determination on the Implementation of an Accounting Separation Framework for the Nigerian Telecoms Industry, which was developed via a consultative process in 2015, has undergone a comprehensive review by the regulator in collaboration with telecoms licensees and other critical industry stakeholders.

With the commencement of the implementation of the framework, telecoms licensees are, henceforth, obligated to submit their Regulatory Financial Statement (RFS) to the Commission in line with the new ASF, within seven months after the end of the licensees financial year.

Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC said the new ASF will promote an industry environment that fosters open and transparent financial reporting while ensuring that charges for telecom services are cost-based and non-discriminatory.

The statement explained that submission of RFS in line with the new framework is currently limited to and mandatory for only six telecom licensees, adding that this will subsist for an initial period of two years after which the regulator may review the list to include other operators.

The six licensees include Airtel Nigeria, MTN Nigeria, Emerging Markets Telecommunications Services Limited (9Mobile), Globacom Nigeria, Main One Cable Company Limited and IHS Nigeria.

READ ALSO:

Adducing reasons for limiting compliance to six operators for now, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said the decision was taken to ensure the necessary structure is in place for reviewing and analysing the accounts before applying the new framework to all licensees in the industry.

Mr Danbatta said any licensee willing to prepare its financial statements in line with the new framework is allowed to voluntarily do so.

He said the commission may exercise its discretion to demand that a licensee prepare and submit a separate account where it is determined that the activities of such a service provider are deemed critical to the overall well-being of the Nigerian telecoms industry.

Therefore, for full and effective implementation of the Framework, every operator under the ambit of accounting separation is required to prepare an Operator-specific Accounting Separation Manual (OASM) containing policies, principles, methodologies and procedures for accounting and cost allocation, which must be submitted to the Commission on or before October 30, 2020, for regulatory approval.

Licensees shall also be required to prepare their financial and non-financial reports in line with the Guidelines for the ASF while reports shall be furnished by the licensees for every accounting year beginning from the 2020 financial year-end.

Also, as part of operators licensing conditions, the Commission requires licensees to prepare, in respect of each complete financial year or of such lesser periods as may be specified, separated accounting statements for all their activities.

According to the statement, the commission considers the Accounting Separation Framework as an effective, least evasive and less costly solution to implement to meet its regulatory objectives, adding that the implementation of the Framework is also a key deliverable for the Commission in the new National Broadband Plan (NBP), 2020-2025.

He added that the Commission took into consideration the inputs from industry stakeholders and has provided capacity-building for operators and for relevant staff of the Commission to ensure seamless implementation of the Framework.
by Biju Veticad

Card. Angelo De Donatis, vicar of Rome, has granted the community of Indian origin the use of Saint Anastasia on the Palatine. The faithful, almost 7 thousand throughout the Italian capital and the province, are celebrating: "It is a great gift from the diocese of Rome and the Vatican".

Rome (AsiaNews) - The faithful of the Syro-Malabar rite now have a basilica for worship. The community coordinator, Fr. Biju Muttathunnel, comments: "We are all celebrating, it is a great gift from the diocese and the Vatican". An estimated 7 thousand faithful belonging to this rite live in the Italian capital and surrounding province: originating in Kerala (southern India), they are now integrated within the Italian community.

According to Catholic tradition, this Eastern rite church traces its origins to the preaching of St. Thomas the Apostle on the subcontinent. For more than 25 years it was sui iuris, and therefore has the right to erect its own communities where the faithful have emigrated.

There is a large presence of Syro-Malabarians in Chicago, Melbourne, Canada and the United Kingdom. In Europe the community has an apostolic Visitor, Msgr. Stephen Chirappanath, who coordinates the communities of Zurich, Cologne, Frankfurt and Vienna.

The request to have a place of worship was presented to Pope Francis by the bishops of this rite. During the ad limina visit in 2019, the president of the bishops - Card. George Alencherry - presented this need to the pontiff. Last July 8, with the announcement of the cardinal vicar, "this dream has become reality".
Chattanooga Workers for Black Lives: Rally, Stories and March will be held on Saturday from 5-7:30 p.m.

Gatherers will meet at Miller Park for the opening address.

"We will begin our walk at 5:20 p.m., where we will hear from essential workers, faith leaders and labor leaders at key sites throughout downtown," officials said.



The event is hosted by Unity Group of Chattanooga & East TN Poor Peoples Campaign, with support from Chattanooga Area Labor Council, IATSE Local 140, CWA-UCW Chattanooga, USW 15120, ATU 1212, Cumberland Center for Peace & Justice, DSA Chattanooga and Tennessee United.



Officials said, "As workers, we realize that we cannot fight for workplace rights and economic justice without also fighting for racial justice. Now more than ever, it is important for our labor and community movements to recognize the struggles of our black and brown brothers and sisters.

"This Saturday, we invite our co-workers and neighbors to gather at Miller Park and walk to key sites around downtown and Westside Chattanooga. As we walk, we will hear from essential workers, faith leaders and labor leaders about the intersection of the labor movement and the struggle for black and brown futures.



"In the midst of Covid-19, essential workers everywhere have been put on the front lines of a global health crisis without proper personal protective equipment, adequate healthcare and hazard pay. As we continue to see record levels of unemployment, federal UI benefits are set to expire next week leaving millions of American workers with no safety net. This is disproportionately affecting our black and Latinx communities.

"Now more than ever, we must be vigilant in passing local and state budgets and other legislation that confronts privatization and layoffs to undo the legacy of white supremacy and poverty. We must build solidarity with other grassroots organizations fighting for our communities. We must pay attention to and get involved in our local elections. We must organize with our co-workers. We must actively confront racism in our personal lives and in our workplaces and remember that 'an injury to one, is an injury to all.'



"We will be encouraging attendees to call Senator Lamar Alexander and ask him to vote "Yes" on the HEROES Act to ensure that workers are provided hazard pay, and that UI benefits are extended.



"We will be using sidewalks and following all pedestrian right-of-way laws as we walk. We will be providing masks, and water to make sure everyone stays safe and hydrated."
HOUSTON, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, PDV Holding, CITGO Holding, and CITGO Petroleum secured a swift and unanimous victory in the Delaware Supreme Court in the matter of Jimenez v. Palacios. The boards of these three entities were reconstituted in 2019, after the United States formally recognized Interim President of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, and the Venezuelan National Assembly appointed an Ad Hoc Board of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), Venezuela's state-owned oil company, which was empowered to manage its U.S.-based subsidiaries. Following the reconstitution of these boards, a slate of former directors appointed by former President Maduro sued in the Delaware Chancery Court seeking a judgment that they were the rightful boards of PDV Holding, CITGO Holding, and CITGO Petroleum. On August 12, 2019, the Chancery Court summarily denied the Maduro directors' claims and ruled that under the political question doctrine and act of state doctrine, U.S. courts must accept as binding the U.S. President's recognition of the Guaido government and assume the validity of the Guaido government's appointments to the PDVSA Board (and the Board's subsequent replacement of the boards of PDV Holding, CITGO Holding, and CITGO). Today, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a unanimous Order summarily affirming the Delaware Chancery Court's August 2019 opinion.

About CITGO:

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, CITGO Petroleum Corporation is a recognized leader in the refining industry with a well-known brand. CITGO operates three refineries located in Corpus Christi, Texas; Lake Charles, La.; and Lemont, Ill., and wholly and/or jointly owns 48 terminals, nine pipelines and three lubricants blending and packaging plants. With approximately 3,400 employees and a combined crude capacity of approximately 769,000 barrels-per-day (bpd), CITGO is ranked as the fifth-largest, and one of the most complex independent refiners in the United States. CITGO transports and markets transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products and supplies a network of approximately 4,700 locally owned and operated branded retail outlets in 30 states and the District of Columbia. CITGO Petroleum Corporation is owned by CITGO Holding, Inc. For more information, visit www.CITGO.com .

SOURCE CITGO Corporation

Related Links

www.citgo.com


Some people have been eagerly returning, especially when it comes to activities tougher to do at home, like strength training or swimming. But others are still wary of venturing back to shared workout spaces, especially if they invested in home exercise equipment while their gym was closed, or are struggling with new financial pressure.
Bullet Express is on a digitalisation journey in response to the rapid pace of technology change, booming eCommerce and omnichannel sectors, and a strong market for third party logistics services.

Glasgow-based third-party logistics provider, Bullet Express (BE), has gone live with Microlistics Express Warehouse Management System (WMS) in its 210,000 sq ft warehouse in Glasgow, Scotland, providing a platform to offer a broader range of supply chain and logistics services to its growing list of customers.

The Glasgow DC serves customers across varying industries including food and beverage, medical equipment, steel and paper products, plastic decking, engineering products, and furniture. BEs services now include storage, picking, and packing of all distribution orders.

In seeking a WMS, BE wanted a solution that would be highly-scalable as the business continues to grow, with functionality that would provide customers full visibility of the inventory it manages on their behalf as well as comfort that BE had invested in a world-class Warehouse Management System to support their customers businesses.

Microlistics Express WMS is a Tier-1, off-the-shelf solution that supports all typical warehousing operations in a comprehensive, easy to install and easy to use system. There is no need for additional programming or system tailoring  saving both time and cost, and providing a rapid return on investment due to its non-Tier 1 price tag.

David McCutcheon, Chief Executive Officer at BE, sees the company utilising the new WMS to connect supply chains and businesses, bringing them together to overcome and capitalise on the pressures and business changes caused by Covid-19.

Bullet Express is on a digitalisation journey in response to the rapid pace of technology change, booming eCommerce and omnichannel sectors, and a strong market for third party logistics services. We are growing rapidly and continuing to form partnerships with clients in new industries and were ready to invest in technology both in the warehouse and across our delivery fleet.

Implementing the high-calibre Microlistics Express WMS  a WMS with powerful 3PL functionality  along with Microlistics vast experience in the 3PL space and ongoing place in the Gartner WMS Magic Quadrant, gave us a high level of confidence in our choice of the solution and business partner.

Another key factors in BEs decision to implement the Microlistics Express WMS solution was the ability for it to be deployed in only 30 days. A claim that would be tested by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Remote go-live

The WMS was implemented despite severe Covid-19 operating restrictions. Warehouse Manager, Charles Mooney felt the implementation went smoothly despite the curve balls sent by the pandemic.

The virus challenged the deployment teams to be innovative. Bullet Express and Microlistics stayed well connected via Microsoft Teams. Due to the need for a remote go-live, we did a lot of additional preparation before the date to ensure the implementation went smoothly. And it did.

Improved productivity and service

Bullet Express has so far successfully on-boarded all its customers to the new platform. BE has evolved from being largely a storage and transport centric company, to offering fully-fledged 3PL warehousing services to its customers, with technologically advanced pick, pack, and dispatch services, with full visibility.

BEs new service offering is already attracting enquiries for its 3PL services, such as one customer with 14,000 SKUs requiring 60,000 square feet of storage and pick, pack, and dispatch services.

Microlistics Express WMS has given BE immense operational improvements in productivity and efficiency, along with faster, more efficient service for its customers. It now has real-time visibility of operations, integrated and accurate real-time 3PL billing, activity-based costing, no paper, reduced double-entry/data keying, and improved stock rotation.

David McCutcheon noted the marked improvement in productivity and accuracy.

We have moved from a paper-based system to a system-directed RF operation achieving better stock rotation and task efficiency, and this has had a massive impact on our order accuracy, which has skyrocketed. It is a really pleasing result for us.

Microlistics Founder and Managing Director, Mark Dawson, said that the Express version of Microlistics WMS was designed to meet the needs of 3PLs like Bullet Express.

Were pleased that the software and expertise that comes with our Express WMS offering is having such a measurable and immediate impact on the Bullet Express business, and we look forward to this successful partnership continuing into the future.

About Bullet Express

Established more than 30 years ago, Bullet Express is a Glasgow based third party logistics provider. Their services include pallet distribution throughout Scotland, the UK and Ireland, same day delivery, secure storage and worldwide import, export and freight forwarding services. https://www.bulletexpress.co.uk/

About Microlistics

Microlistics is an industry-leading Warehouse Management Solutions company solving warehousing for small local companies to large multi-site, multi-brand, multi-channel international companies globally. Its award-winning WMS solution, a single product, has successfully been deployed across multiple market verticals. Recognised in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Microlistics is a part of WiseTech Global. http://www.microlistics.com
Beijing:

China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning carrier is now ready for combat, a major breakthrough for Chinese navy which has been trying to display its power amidst territorial disputes with various neighbouring countries.

The Liaoning carrier, made from an empty hull of a Soviet-era ship, recently left its shipyard in Qingdao in east China to start a new training mission to test its combat capacity as it is prepared to "fight against enemies".

The construction of China's second indigenously-built aircraft carrier is already underway at a feverish pitch.

Liaoning, which had previously been described in Chinese media as a surface platform for tests and training, has now "formally been described as having a real combat capacity," the state-run Global Times said.

"As a military force, we are always combat ready and our combat capacity also needs to be tested by war. At this moment, we are doing our best to promote our strength and use it to prevent war. But we are preparing for actual combat at any time," Senior Captain Li Dongyou, the political commissar of the vessel, told the daily.

The refurbished ship was launched by former president Hu Jintao in 2012.There are more than 1,000 non-commissioned officers (NCOs) on the Liaoning, and they are the main part of China's aircraft carrier.

"Among them, we have 42 Chief Petty Officers with an average age of 40 and experience of serving in the navy for more than 20 years," Li said.

"Weaponry is the key for combat capability on the carrier. As China's first generation of NCOs on the carrier, these officers' capability on how to operate, repair and maintain equipment is irreplaceable. And they are the source of our confidence," Li said.

The report did not elaborate on how China plans to use the carrier, but Liaoning is seen as to put more muscle behind the Communist giant's increasing assertive moves in the South China Sea, where territorial claims by neighbouring nations have dogged China's expansionist idea, and where it faces challenges from the US.

The South China sea, through which USD 5 trillion of trade passes annually, has been a centre of dispute between China and Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

"As a combat platform, China still lags behind the US in technology and capability to execute missions, but three senior US officials who visited the Liaoning before all gave a positive evaluation on the management of the carrier - officers and soldiers' daily lives and training are well organised and the equipment maintenance is fine," Li said.

Chinese media reports have said that as the construction of the second aircraft carrier picked up pace, China has stepped up preparations to deploy the first carrier force by putting in place a new batch of carrier-based fighter pilots.

With plans to build two more carriers, the PLA has built up its largest carrier-based pilot team after more than three years of intensive training, media reports had said in August.

Speculation is rife that China may deploy one of the aircraft carriers in the South China Sea.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A growing number of chemicals in pesticides, flame retardants, and certain plastics have been linked to widespread health problems including infertility, diabetes, and impaired brain development, a set of reviews of hundreds of studies concludes.

Led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine, a team of environmental health experts analyzed research published in the past five years on endocrine disruptors, as well as American and European policies to regulate them. These chemicals are believed to interfere with the function of hormones, signaling compounds made in glands that circulate to influence processes throughout the body.

Publishing online July 21 in the journal The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, the new reports focused on "chemicals of concern," endocrine disruptors common in industrial and household goods., These include perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), toxins found in non-stick pans and waterproof clothing, and bisphenols, substances used in many plastics and can linings.

Exposure to certain chemicals found in industrial and household goods has been linked in new studies to obesity; to endometriosis, a painful and abnormal growth of tissue on the outside of the womb; and to polycystic ovary syndrome, a significant cause of infertility.

The recent reviews add 17 ties between certain medical conditions and endocrine disruptors to a list of 15 others already identified by a 2015 joint investigation led by the United Nations and the World Health Organization. For example, new findings suggest that PFAS, bisphenols, and certain pesticides may damage semen. In addition, the review identifies numerous new studies that link brain-related health concerns, such as IQ loss and attention deficit disorder (ADD), to flame retardants and chemicals found in certain pesticides.

"These newer studies have strengthened the evidence linking endocrine disruptors to physical and especially neurological health issues," says one of the reviews' lead authors, Linda Kahn, MPH, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pediatrics at NYU Langone Health.

"Our review of American and European policies argues that current regulations meant to reduce exposure to this class of chemicals are falling short," adds Kahn. "While further research is needed to more firmly establish cause and effect, urgent action is needed now because the public is already paying the costs through serious and long-lasting health problems."

The team's policy review found a lack of a consistent definition of endocrine disruptors across countries. The authors are concerned that current U.S. regulations are based only on exposure to large doses of chemicals, not small, everyday doses over many years, even though recent findings demonstrate that such chemicals are cumulatively dangerous at low levels.

"Our understanding of endocrine disruptors has evolved, but the regulations in place to protect against them have not," says the senior author of the reports, Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, the Jim G. Hendrick, MD Professor at NYU Langone. "What's needed are more rigorous tests of commercial chemicals that account for these complexities."

Trasande, who also serves as chief of environmental pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at NYU Langone, calls for stricter controls akin to nationwide efforts to reduce exposure to cancer-causing substances. He suggests that a much-needed step is establishing an international program that identifies hazards so they can be effectively regulated before use, rather than after they may have already caused harm.

Trasande says more research is needed to corroborate or disprove the health effects identified in these studies, as well as to evaluate the economic costs of exposure to these chemicals. He notes that the Environmental Protection Agency established a protocol in the late 1990s to better regulate these chemicals. However, the effort made little headway, Trasande explains, largely because of a perceived lack of conclusive studies and fierce lobbying by the chemical and manufacturing industries.

Funding for the reports was provided by National Institutes of Health grants R01 ES022972, R01 ES029779, P30 ES000260, K99 ES030405, K22 ES025811, and U01 ES02614.

In addition to Kahn and Trasande, other researchers involved in the reports include Christopher Kassotis, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was the lead author on one of the reports. Other research support was provided by Laura Vandenberg, PhD, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; Barbara Demeneix, PhD, at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris; Miquel Porta, MD, MPH, PhD, at the Hospital del Mar Institute of Medical Research in Barcelona; Remy Slama, PhD, and Claire Philippat, PhD, at the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale , in Grenoble, France; and Shoji Nakayama, MD, PhD, at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Japan.

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D ave Grohl has spoken out in defence of "devoted" teachers as he criticised Donald Trump's "politicised" plans to reopen schools.

The comments from the Foo Fighters founder came in an eight-minute recording as part of a series called "Dave's True Stories", which has been keeping fans entertained during the coronavirus lockdown.

In the first audio version of the series, titled "In Defence of Our Teachers", Mr Grohl recalls his memories of growing up while his mother taught in schools.

"As a single mother of two, she tirelessly devoted her life to the service of others, both at home and at work, Mr Grohl said, before recalling the multiple jobs she worked to help support the family.

"Unsurprisingly, her devoted parenting mirrored her technique as a teacher. Never one to just point at a blackboard and recite lessons for kids to mindlessly memorise, she was an engaging educator, invested in the wellbeing of each and every student who sat in her class."

Mr Grohl took aim at the Trump administration's plans to reopen schools in September.

He said: "Americas teachers are caught in a trap, set by indecisive and conflicting sectors of failed leadership that have never been in their position and cant possibly relate to the unique challenges they face."

He added: "Until you have spent countless days in a classroom devoting your time and energy to becoming that lifelong mentor to generations of otherwise disengaged students, you must listen to those who have.

"Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be?"

White House press secretary: Science shouldn't stop schools reopening

The musician also raised concerns about the lack of resources available to schools.

"Most schools already struggle from a lack of resources," he said. "How can they possibly afford the mountain of safety measures that will need to be in place?

He concluded: "Remote learning is an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution, but as much as Donald Trumps conductor-less orchestra would love to see the country reopen schools in the name of rosy optics, ask a science teacher what they think about White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnanys comment that science should not stand in the way.

"It would be foolish to do so at the expense of our students, teachers and school."

Earlier this month, Mr Trump said pressure will be put on state governors to reopen schools in September, as he continued to claim that some have remained closed for "political reasons".

"They think it's going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed," the president said at a White House discussion on school plans.

"No way. We're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools."

But the president of the nation's largest education union said Mr Trump is "more interested in scoring points for the November election than in keeping students safe".
Syrian Media: Israeli Airstrikes Kill 5 Pro-Iranian Fighters

By Linda Gradstein July 21, 2020

Syrian state media reports say Israel carried out airstrikes in Syria near Damascus Monday for the first time in several weeks, targeting Iranian-linked sites and killing at least five Iranian-backed fighters. Israel has not confirmed it was behind the airstrikes, which come after a series of explosions in Iran itself over the past few weeks. While Israel may not have been responsible for all of the attacks in Iran  some observers in Israel argue Iran could strike Israel as a way of diverting attention from sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group in Britain, said there were several explosions around the town of Kisweh, a town that has long been associated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards. The airstrikes hit weapons depots and military positions belonging to Iran-backed militia fighters.

The Syrian news agency blamed Israel, saying the missiles were fired from the Golan Heights. Israel did not confirm it was behind the attack. Israeli forces have carried out hundreds of similar attacks in the past.

The strikes also raise tensions between Israel and Iran - already running high. A series of fires and explosions over the past ten days in Iran has also contributed. Most notably was an explosion in the Natanz area at a plant where centrifuges were manufactured that analysts in Israel said would delay Iran's nuclear program by at least a year.

The New York Times newspaper quotes an unidentified senior Israeli official, widely believed to be the head of the Israeli Mossad, that Israel was responsible.

Former senior U.S. official John Bolton told Israel's Army Radio Tuesday he supports these attacks on Iran.

"I don't claim to have any special knowledge about how these events happened, but they seem clearly aimed at both the Iranian nuclear weapons program and its ballistic missile program. Whoever is doing it they have my complete support. It may be dissidents inside Iran, it may be working with outsiders, it may be a combination, but, look, even despite the economic pressure that has been put on Iran since the U.S. withdrew from the nuclear deal there's obviously still a lot more to do and I think this is exactly what we need," he said.

But some Israeli analysts say that Israel should be careful about antagonizing Iran. Iran is faltering under a serious economic crisis and international sanctions, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic. Iranian leaders are still angry about the U.S.' targeted killing of Revolutionary Guards leader Qassem Soleimani in January.

The Iranian currency, the rial, has lost half of its value in recent months.

Analysts say Iran might launch a direct attack, or more likely, use its proxy Hezbollah to launch an attack on Israel to divert attention from Iran's difficult situation.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a press conference in Austin, Texas, on May 18, 2020. (Lynda M. Gonzalez/Pool/Getty Images)

Texas Governors Office: Countys Stay-at-Home Order Not Mandatory

A Texas countys harsh shelter-at-home order that went into effect Wednesday is only a recommendation, Gov. Greg Abbotts office said.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, a Democrat, signed a new mandate this week that ordered residents to shelter-at-home. It says that no law enforcement or other official may detain, arrest, or confine in jail any person for a violation of this order.

This order has no enforcement mechanism, which makes it simply a recommendation for those to stay home if they can, which Governor Abbott supports, a spokesman for the Republican said in a statement to news outlets.

The mandate is one of the strictest imposed anywhere in the nation during the pandemic, including a nightly curfew for everyone 18 or older and the requirement that children 17 or younger be accompanied by an adult when leaving their home.

Some exceptions apply to the restrictions, primarily surrounding so-called essential services like obtaining grocery services or traveling to certain types of jobs.

A woman shapes a Stetson hat in front of clients while wearing a mask at the manufacture store in Garland, Texas on July 20, 2020. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

The mandate also requires every person to wear face coverings when out in public or inside private homes when social distancing, or six feet of distance from non-household members, cannot be maintained. It orders residents to not travel in cars in groups larger than two. And it encourages commercial businesses to cease any operations that cannot be provided through curbside, drive-through, or take-out services.

The order went into effect on July 22.

Our rise in numbers and fatalities says that we need to take action now and do whats in the best interest of our community, Cortez, who signed the order in his capacity as the countys emergency management director, said in a statement. This action will help us do the right thing to save and protect each other from this deadly disease by sheltering at home.

Abbott told KGRV that parts of the order are enforceable, including the curfew.

That is one of the strategies to make sure they reduce the number of people out and about, he said.

The governor earlier in July issued a statewide requirement to wear masks in public. People who get caught violating the order twice or more can land a $250 fine. The Republican also warned that he could impose a lockdown if masks arent worn. He later claimed he had not made that threat.

This order does not force businesses to shut down in the Rio Grande Valley. Enforcing the existing protocols, including wearing face coverings, is proven to slow the spread of COVID-19, said the governors office.

Starr County Judge Eloy Vera, a Democrat, urged residents to shelter-in-place earlier this month. Hospitals in the county ran out of beds, he claimed.

Protective equipment and medical supplies in a hospital in Houston, Texas, on July 16, 2020. (David J. Phillip/AP Photo)

Vera said Tuesday that he plans to issue a stay-at-home order.

We are literally in a life and death situation, he told reporters at a virtual press conference.

Vera admitted that county officials dont have the legal authority to compel residents to stay home but urged them to follow the planned mandate anyways.

If the people in our community, the citizens of this community, dont help us get a handle on this thing, were going to lose it and, in fact, were very close to losing the situation, he said.

Abbotts current executive orders dont allow local governments to enforce stay-at-home orders they issue.

County officials wrote a letter to Abbott urging the governor to return emergency management authority to local jurisdictions. Other officials in the area, including Cortez, also want that authority restored.

Hidalgo County health officials on Tuesday reported 49 deaths, a single-day record, from complications related to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. The virus causes COVID-19, which is a disease.

Some 1,080 patients with COVID-19 are currently hospitalized, with 257 patients in intensive care units, according to county data.

Starr County officials said 1,083 COVID-19 patients are recovering under medical care. Starr County Health Authority Dr. Jose Vasquez said during the briefing that hospitals one month ago had no COVID-19 patients.

We had an eight-bed COVID unit that was filled up very soon after the reopening started.

The county now has 28 patients in the unit.

The county has 17 fatalities with COVID-19 and 27 others pending confirmation from the state.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan legislation, urging China to peacefully de-escalate the situation with India along the Line of Actual Control.

The legislation on Tuesday came a day after the House unanimously passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), slamming China's aggression against India in the Galwan Valley and its growing territorial assertiveness in and around disputed areas like the South China Sea.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5.

The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

The resolution, sponsored by Indian-American Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi along with eight others, was passed by the House along with National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2021 and condemned Chinese aggression towards India along the Line of Actual Control.

"Through the passage of today's bill, the House has sent a clear, bipartisan message that the government of the People's Republic of China must peacefully de-escalate the situation along the Line of Actual Control with India," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement.

ALSO READ | Ladakh standoff: Chinese positions unchanged since last Corps Commanders meet, says officer

"China's military provocations of India are unacceptable, and the peaceful resolution of their border standoff will help restore greater security to the Indo-Pacific region," he said.

Through this vote, the US House of Representatives has reaffirmed the readiness of the US to stand with its allies and partners like India against Chinese military aggression, Krishnamoorthi said.

Other co-sponsors of the resolution are Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna and lawmakers Frank Pallone, Tom Suozzi, Ted Yoho, George Holding, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Haley Stevens and Steve Chabot.

In the months leading up to June 15, along the Line of Actual Control, the Chinese military reportedly amassed 5,000 soldiers; and is trying to redraw long-standing settled boundaries through the use of force and aggression, the Congressional resolution says.

Noting that India and China have reached an agreement to de-escalate and disengage along the Line of Actual Control, the resolution says that on June 15, at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unconfirmed number of Chinese soldiers were killed in skirmishes following a weeks-long standoff in Eastern Ladakh, which is the de facto border between the two countries.

"The Government of the People's Republic of China should work toward de-escalating the situation along the Line of Actual Control with India through existing diplomatic mechanisms and not through force," it said.

It is the sense of the Congress that there is significant concern about the continued military aggression by China along its border with India and in other parts of the world, including with Bhutan, in the South China Sea, and with the Senkaku Islands, as their aggressive posture towards Hong Kong and Taiwan.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory.

China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

China has impeded commercial activity like fishing or mineral exploration by countries like Vietnam and the Philippines.

Ties between China and Japan have been strained by a territorial row over a group of islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China.

A day earlier, the House had passed a similar NDAA amendment moved by Congressman Steve Chabot and Indian-American lawmaker Ami Bera which said that India and China should work towards de-escalating the situation along the LAC and also expressed concern about Chinese aggression in an around disputed territories like the South China Sea.

The resolution comes days after the House of Representatives Caucus on India and Indian-Americans in a letter to India's Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, said that over the last few months, the Chinese authorities have been acting with impunity and have attempted to transgress on the LAC, which resulted in diplomatic discussions to implement a process for de-escalation along the LAC on July 6.

It was led by Congressmen Holding and Brad Sherman and signed by seven other lawmakers.
Pakistan: Life and livelihood: Fisherman turned needle maker

July 22,2020 | Source: The International News

Mumtaz Shaikh, a small fishing boat owner in Rehri Mayan, one of the largest fishermen localities in Karachi, is among many people, who have left his profession and shifted to another source of income. I sold my boat eight years back after realising that fishing was no more a profitable source of income for my family, he said. Since then, I, being a mechanic continued different technical jobs, including making hard netting needles (locally known as Torr), which are used in fishing net weaving and repairing. Justifying the decision, he said, It was the consensus of the entire family, including my young sons, to avoid losses and sell the boat. We utilised the money to build a shelter, where we now live safely. Besides making netting needles, he weaves fishing nets as well for both small and large fishing boats, he shared. Shaikh has learned multiple skills, including mechanical work, net and boat engine repair work, and tool-making for fish net mending.



He uses wood, plastic and copper for making seven-eight net needles. He sells each netting needle at Rs120-Rs150 and earns Rs1,000-Rs1,500/day. Though made-in China plastic netting needles are available in the market at cheaper prices, fishermen prefer to buy locally made items, which they believe are user-friendly. Each boat requires these tools to repair tattered nets on the way to the open sea to make the trip productive. Shaikh said he uses various sustainable and cheap materials to prepare the tools. Netting needles started becoming part of the fishing boat toolbox from the time when inland marine fishing emerged.



Earlier, fishermen used to cotton-made thread nets, which were woven locally through wooden needles. Then readymade nylon fishing nets emerged in the market and many fishermen replaced their old cotton nets with these new nets, considering previous nets were unsustainable. Despite changing net sizes, needles have the same importance among the community people. Shaikh started fishing as a child along with his father and other relatives. When he grew older, he bought a small boat and started earning to feed his family. He is a father of four children, including two sons, who work with a private company as daily wagers. Presently they are jobless because of closure of companies following Covid- 19. They tried to join boats, but the fishing activities have also been disturbed due to the ban on fishing in July.



He claimed boat owners bear the brunt of rising prices as far as fishing activities and needed items are concerned, but complained that the price of fish does not increase in the market. Thus, returns on fishing activities have been low for many years. Senior fishermen have also realized that at present the people associated with the fishing sector are facing multiple challenges, like rise and fall in weather phenomenon, marketing and price hike of essential items, which everybody requires for survival. Akhtar Shaikh, a community activist, said there was a large number of skilled workers who could be seen moving from one jetty to another to keep their contracts intact, preferring to live connected with community people, who might offer little work to them at any time.



He said foreign-made tools were not trustworthy among the community people, therefore they preferred to buy local-made items, which they believed were user friendly. Recalling the recent past, he said all family members were related to different works within the fishing sector, like supplying water, ration and repairing nets at jetties. Women, besides travelling to the open sea with their males, used to work for peeling shrimps at centres within the locality and at homes to earn a little and ease their familys problems.



However, with increasing commercialism at all levels, he said women too have lost their jobs, except a few, who have adopted alternative sources of income. Similarly, men were also experiencing hard times now. Akhtar realises that for small-scale fishermen, fishing is no more a profitable job. Many outside people have joined this sector. They have made huge investments to build larger boats and were hiring fishermen from outside for their business.



This rapid commercialisation was also impacting small-scale fishermen negatively. This has forced many of them to sell their small boats and change professions or to work as labourers on larger boats. Acquiring new skills thus was helping many people like Shaikh to depend on an alternative source of income, while staying connected with their old profession. Many of these fishermen families had been associated with fishing for generations, and switching professions had an impact on their overall wellbeing. Akhtar said keeping fishing boats at present time was only the business of rich people, who could afford to bear the loss and recover the same next time. But poor small boat owners in case of returning empty handed cannot afford to bear the loss of paying for fuel, ice and ration for crew members in each trip, he added.



In this challenging situation, he said many fishermen workers preferred to join other larger boats as labour instead of keeping their own boat. Thus, the number of small-scale fishing boats was declining in coastal villages. For example in some neighbourhoods, where there were 25 boats about 10-12 years back, there were hardly five boats now. Other people have either sold their boats to utilise the amount for setting up other work or they have joined larger fishing boats as labourers.
Torremolinos town hall has announced the opening of a new Tourist Information and Visitor Centre.

The three-storey building due to open in January will replace the central office in Plaza de Andalucia, which will close at the end of July.

The centre, located in Cuesta del Tajo, the steps that lead from Calle San Miguel to the beach, will also offer an exhibition space that will address the history of Torremolinos as a tourist municipality.

The scheme is part of the area's regeneration project, which includes the renovation of the Pimentel Tower.

Councillor for Tourism Aida Blanes said, "The centre will demonstrate how Torremolinos went from being a small fishing village to becoming the epicentre of tourism in Europe."
Air Indias (AI) senior pilots have expressed discontent over the differences in pay cuts announced by the national carrier for pilots and senior management. They claim that the salaries of top AI officials have been reduced by a smaller percentage, as compared to their own.

Pay of AI pilots has been reduced by 60% (40% on salary and 85% on flying allowances) owing to the new wage structure and leave without pay policy. The airline management, on the other hand, has taken a 50% cut on just their allowances.

Senior pilots, unhappy with the decision, said allowances paid to high-ranking officials are a small portion of their salaries, unlike that of pilots, whose allowances constitute 70% of their salaries.

Explaining the matter, a senior pilot said the airline has imposed a 40% pay cut on their gross salary and also reduced their flying allowance.

Other airlines have announced an overall percentage cut on the gross salary. Air India has announced a 40% salary cut for pilots and will also pay allowances for a maximum of 20 hours of flight time instead of 70. With the current situation, when the demand is low and flight operations are restricted, it is impossible to fly for 70 hours. All the top officials are aware of this, said an airline official.

When contacted, Air India did not comment on the matter.

Another senior pilot said, Senior management has taken a cut on just arbitrary allowances, which comprises around 20% of their salary, so their cut comes down to just about 3-5%. Deductions have been strategically applied majorly on flying allowances; this move targets only pilots and brings down a pilots gross salary by 60-65 % on average.

We are still ready to take the cut in the interest of the company, but the top bosses must lead by example by agreeing to the same income loss as the frontline workers. Its like cutting doctors pay during the Covid pandemic, but protecting the pay of those in the hospital accounts section, said a senior pilot.

He said that the pilots were not only flying to bring back stranded Indians but also to transport necessary personal protection equipment (PPE) and medicines during the lockdown.

If a pilot gets infected with the virus, he is de-rostered without pay. He has to prove his complete medical fitness before boarding a flight. If a pilot sustains long-term lung damage or neurological or cardiovascular damage as a side effect of Covid-19, he will lose his livelihood, the pilot added.

Jitender Bhargava, former executive director of Air India, said, The airlines senior management should set an example for its employees by taking at least an equivalent pay cut if not more than their staff. This wage structure is a poor decision taken by the airline.
The streak was always going to be broken. As the virus sped through areas to the south, east and west, it was naive to think that Manitoba would remain an island. Yet hope is the most tenacious of seeds, and during those 13 days this month in which there were no new cases it burst through the cracks of our caution, a strong and beautiful weed.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The streak was always going to be broken. As the virus sped through areas to the south, east and west, it was naive to think that Manitoba would remain an island. Yet hope is the most tenacious of seeds, and during those 13 days this month in which there were no new cases it burst through the cracks of our caution, a strong and beautiful weed.

Still, it's important to keep the bad news in perspective. While Manitobans watched with dismay as our active cases jumped from one to 40 in less than a week, it was easy to lose sight of the fact we are still weathering the storm better than others: a hop-skip over the border, North Dakota reported more than 600 new cases in just five days.

Meanwhile, the fact that most new cases in Manitoba are linked to Hutterite communities doesn't reveal anything except for what we already knew: that COVID-19 is still out there, and can spread quickly in group settings. That travel, even to areas exempt from the 14-day self-isolation rule, risks bringing the virus home with us.

Really, what it comes down to is this: as Manitoba opened up, the province's Hutterite communities did, too.

Yet the public dialogue has seized on the Hutterite angle, both as a source of reassurance (the new outbreaks are mostly limited to colonies) and frustration: on social media, some reactions were tinged with mistrust. On Monday, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin warned against stigmatizing communities.

This is fair. For one thing, stigma doesn't make us safe. There are 120 Hutterite colonies in the province; only a few have COVID-19 cases. So when people took to Twitter or Facebook to announce they'd seen Hutterites at a store or gas station, the spectre of stigma bared its teeth without protecting anyone.

Still, there is some value in further discussion. To get through this pandemic, we must learn its lessons.

First, a confession: it's difficult for me to write on this topic. Difficult because, in recent years, I've spent many days visiting friends on Hutterite colonies. Those memories linger in my mind as treasured vignettes, as scenes of strolls through afternoon orchards and morel hunts in green forests, always to the tune of lively conversation.

When people took to Twitter or Facebook to announce they'd seen Hutterites at a store or gas station, the spectre of stigma bared its teeth without protecting anyone.

On these visits, I learned a lot from my friends. About Hutterites, yes, but also about life, and about nature, and about the bonds of sisterhood. I borrowed books on Hutterite history, and took a twirl in my first Hutterite klad, or dress. I ached to go back.

Many outsiders who have spent meaningful time on Hutterite communities have described experiencing a similar phenomenon. A longing for something long forgotten. Hutterites are often the first to say their way of life isn't perfect; there is beauty in it yet.

None of this makes me an expert on the Hutterian experience. But it does make me a friend, and it is in the spirit of friendship that I am now called to reflect on the effect of COVID-19. In this, I find myself feeling protective: of their privacy, of their safety, of their space to navigate this issue as a community, free from unkind eyes.

What I do know is this: at the outset of COVID-19, I spoke to a number of Hutterite folks about the response in their community. I learned how they were working hard to educate their members, and to develop new protocols to meet public health orders: everything from how they worked and worshipped to how they served dinner.

Even then, it was notable how, after their concern for the safety of their communities and the province as a whole, some folks I spoke to also worried about how an outbreak on a colony would be perceived should one occur. They winced to think about how it might play into long-simmering narratives about who they are.

"We find ourselves in the media spotlight because we could have done a better job of staying at home and be more mindful of our choices."  Hutterian Safety Council

"It'll be fine," I replied, in retrospect, naively.

One problem, I think, is that most Manitobans know little about Hutterite life. Relatively few of us get the chance to build meaningful relationships with Hutterite people. As a result, we don't really understand who they are, how they live, or what they believe. Instead, we often resort to drawing assumptions.

This isn't really anyone's fault. With a sort of stubborn independence forged over hundreds of years of persecution in Europe, Hutterites have, for the most part, asked little of the wider Canadian society, except to be given space to live in peace. They give much to that wider world, in labour and charity, but seek little attention in return.

So misconceptions run rampant. One is that outsiders tend to perceive Hutterites as unchanging; the reality is quite different. In truth, the history of Hutterite life in North America is a remarkable story of intentional transformation, of a culture that gamely found ways to adapt to what it cannot control, and choose how it engages what it can.

Within Hutterite culture, these changes have never been without debate. That is another part outsiders rarely see: Hutterites are not monolithic, in act or belief. They are, rather, engaged in a vibrant and perpetual discussion about their communities and values, and how those ought to respond to the events that unfold around them.

The same is true with COVID-19. In this way, Hutterites are no exception, but rather a microcosm of the issues playing out across Canada and the United States. Some of us are cautious about the virus, some casual. Some are laissez-faire or even resistant to public health directives, others diligent and quick to embrace them.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS As Manitoba opened up, the province's Hutterite communities did, too.

Every community in Canada is wrangling with how to get everyone on board. For Hutterites, there's just the added wrinkle that they are identifiable and seen as a group in ways that people in Winnipeg, for instance, are not. (If my neighbour refused to wear a mask, nobody would think it reflected on me or my values.)

Jen Zoratti | Next A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

But there is some light in this discussion. It is my belief that Hutterite culture is equipped with unique tools to respond to COVID-19 outbreaks. These tools include lightning-fast informal news sharing, an ability to limit people who go in or out of their communities, and leadership rooted in personal connections.

Above that, they also have the experience and the language to challenge themselves as a community. On the weekend, the Hutterian Safety Council put out a statement titled A Call for Common Sense. It shows dismay at how Hutterites broke into the headlines, but focuses its gaze firmly within.

"Presently, we find ourselves in the media spotlight because we could have done a better job of staying at home and be more mindful of our choices," the statement read. "Please help us contain the story that we permitted to develop through our actions and apply common sense moving forward."

One last thing. When the COVID-19 threat landed in Canada, Hutterites quickly pitched in. Women on many colonies sewed masks for donation. Some communities pivoted their manufacturing resources to make medical supplies.

When Manitobans were called on to help, Hutterites answered. Let's not forget that.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca
We are excited to partner with Clinica Sierra Vista to provide ThriveAP's comprehensive and interactive training program to help further develop the skills of Clinica's nurse practitioners, said Chris Poole, CEO of ThriveAP.

ThriveAP, a Nashville-based education and training resource for Advanced Practice Providers and their employers throughout the US, announced today its selection by Clinica Sierra Vista, one of the nations largest Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) organizations, to enroll its family nurse practitioners (FNPs) into the companys post-graduate certified education accredited training program.

ThriveAPs educational programs help facilitate the growing impact of Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) in the delivery of healthcare throughout America and Clinica Sierra Vistas new class will be the companys largest to date.

Recent studies have identified APPs as the fastest growing segment of professional healthcare delivery and is the target group of students fueling ThriveAPs growth and demand for its services.

Clinica Sierra Vista is a comprehensive healthcare organization serving the primary medical, dental and behavioral health needs of 200,000 people in the Central Valley of California. The organization is a Top 25 health care services organization among the almost 5,000 FQHCs in America.

We chose ThriveAP to join this most recent training program class based on prior experience with their programs, said Dr. Meave, Chief Medical Officer of Clinica Sierra Vista. By relying on a single educational company, we are able to promote better health care and ensure the continuity of the care we provide. We are excited by the possibilities of enrolling a large class in what will be a year-long program led by a high-quality faculty, all delivered through the convenience and efficiency of ThriveAPs digital learning program.

We are excited to partner with Clinica Sierra Vista to provide ThriveAP's comprehensive and interactive training program to help further develop the skills of Clinica's nurse practitioners, said Chris Poole, CEO of ThriveAP. The ongoing physician shortage and our nation's shortfalls in delivering care has increased the reliance on advanced practice providers which, in turn, has led to growth in their employment and expansion of their autonomy and responsibility. As a result, employers are increasing their investments in training and education programs to support the importance of these professionals.

ABOUT THRIVEAP

Founded in 2012 as MidlevelU, ThriveAP has become an important education and training resource for Advanced Practice Providers and their employers throughout the US. Our accredited programs are recognized for their quality, relevance, and convenience; these programs help facilitate and promote the growing impact of APPs in the delivery of healthcare.

Effective May 1, 2020, the company changed its name to ThriveAP. This change reflects the growth of the companys offerings and is in response to the increasing demand for Advanced Practice Providers. ThriveAPs programs are focused on improving clinical and professional skillsets as well as overall performance of Advanced Practice Providers in whatever settings they practice.

ABOUT CLINICA SIERRA VISTA

Clinica Sierra Vista is a comprehensive healthcare organization, serving the primary medical, dental and behavioral health needs of about 200,000 people in Kern, Fresno and Inyo counties. With the continued support of federal, state and local governments, Clinica Sierra Vista has been able to reach out to thousands of new patients, offering comprehensive programs tailored to the needs of those we serve over a vast geographical region in the heartland of California.

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Syracuse, N.Y.  Last year, Johnny Angels in Skaneateles had to change its popular Thursday night burger special.

The half-pound Angus beef burgers  self-serve topping bar included  had been $3, but due to increased costs, owner Bill Lynn had to raise the price to $5.

This spring, amid temporary shutdowns of beef processing plants due to the coronavirus pandemic, the price increases were too great. The restaurant temporarily suspended the Thursday night promo. The self-serve topping bar has also been removed in favor of pre-packed portions of lettuce, tomato, onion and other toppings.

Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the nationwide impact. The price of meat has increased more than 16% from June 2019 to June 2020. Of all meats, the price of ground beef increased the most  more than 26% year-over-year.

Of all the foods listed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, ground beef had the largest jump in price from 2019 to now.

Lynn said his cost increases were even higher. His beef costs jumped from under $3 a pound to around $7 a pound.

We cant have another price increase, he said.

The Power Play burger at Ale N Angus Pub in Syracuse.Stephen D. Cannerelli

Another temporary casualty: One of Central New Yorks most celebrated burgers.

The Power Play burger, with its combination of a half-pound patty topped with sliced prime rib, has won numerous awards for Ale N Angus Pub. But owner Randy Beach said it got to the point where the prime rib that topped each burger got too expensive to maintain the status quo.

Beach considered raising the price$14, side includedor scrapping both it and his prime rib cheesesteak sandwich off the menu.

It would be pretty bad if Ale & Angus stops selling burgers, Beach said.

Ultimately, in early June, Beach decided to reformulate the burger using a less-expensive cut of roast beef. He dubbed it the Penalty Box Burger.

The price of prime rib was steadily increasing. At first, Beach absorbed the higher cost. But eventually the price of prime rib reached upwards of $12 to $13 per pound  more than double it was before  and he decided they needed to change.

While Beach, who owns the downtown Syracuse pub along with his son, Matt, has been forced to ride the roller coaster of beef prices, hes been lucky that his ground beef prices have largely stayed level.

He locked in a set price with his supplier and said that while the price he paid did creep up a little bit, it was nothing compared to the extra $5 to $7 per 10-pound case he would have spent otherwise.

Thats a substantial hit to us, Beach said.

Owner Tom Tiffany in the take-out "command center" -- usually the main dining room -- at the Scotch N Sirloin, next to ShoppingTown Mall in DeWitt. The restaurant, which had been open for takeout only, has reopened to dine-in customers. Don Cazentre

Tom Tiffany, owner of the Scotch N Sirloin steakhouse in DeWitt, also had the foresight to stock up on beef as soon as he knew hed be transitioning the steakhouse to a curbside operation right at the onset of the pandemic.

But that supply only lasted so long. Hes been consistently ordering beef all while watching the prices steadily go up. Only recently did the cost of middle primal cutsyour ribeyes, strip steaks, filet mignons and other premium cutsbegin to drop.

But the price of ground beef hasnt.

Ground beef went ballistic around five to seven weeks ago, Tiffany said. In May, nearly 20% of Wendys restaurants in the US were running out of burgers due to ground beef shortages.

Scotch & Sirloin does have a burger on its menu, but thats actually one item thats held steady this whole time. Thats because Tiffany sources his ground beef from Gridleys Cold Spring Farm in Fayetteville. Not impacted by the coronavirus outbreaks that wrecked havoc at large Midwestern meat processors, the price hes paid for the local ground beef has remained the same.

With takeout now accounting for the majority of the steakhouses businesses, Tiffany is seeing a boost in burger sales, as customers looking for a weeknight dinner are increasingly opting for the lower-priced burger. The half-pound grass-fed burger is $15.50.

If this situation doesnt make you do more local, youre not paying attention, Tiffany said.

Fortunately, help may soon be on the horizon. Beef wholesale prices have begun to revert back to the historical average, as cattle slaughter, which by May had dropped 35% over last year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, has returned to near normal levels.

On Tuesday, Beach got his first delivery of prime rib roasts since June. It was $7 a pound. It was still more than he paid before the pandemic, but affordable enough that the Power Play burger should be back on the menu soon.

Jacob Pucci writes on food, restaurants and all things gastronomic across Central New York. Contact him by email at jpucci@syracuse.com.
Launching Cloghane-Brandons Feile Lughnasa Festival which takes place from July 23  27 were (back, from left): committee members Maire Aine Ui Mhurchu, Helen Nic Gearailt, Caitriona Ni Churrain, Eileen Nicholls, James Kildea, Gearoid O Cathasaigh and (front) Donal O Muircheartaigh and Sinead Ni Dubhda. Details on how to get involved can be found on www.cflt.ie

The festival of Lughnasa, which has been celebrated in Cloghane since the time of the early Celts, will be held once again this year but in a way that has never before been seen.

This year's celebration of the festival is a potpourri of family oriented events including creative writing, sand castle building, dressing up events for children and talks and drama for adults, as well as a daily quiz for all the family.

However, this year people will submit photographs of their entries rather than coming together. The idea has caught on and the organisers are delighted with the response, with photographs of sandcastles pouring in according to Comharchumann Forbartha an Leith-Triuigh Teo, Runai Gearoid O Cathasaigh.

A talk on the history of the Cloghane Pattern by Micheal O Ruairc and a one-man play entitled 'Mikey Tatey and Crom Dubh' performed by Frank Houlihan of Hi Brazil Theatre Company will be videoed and broadcast on the CFLT website and on their social media pages.

Meanwhile, modern day scribes are asked to put fingers to the keyboard and compose a short story on the theme of Crom Dubh, the pagan god from whom 'Domhnach Crom Dubh', the last Sunday of July and the traditional date of Feile Lughnasa gets its name. The writers, of all ages, are invited to submit a story starting with one of six supplied first lines. The competition has three categories 5-13 years, 14- 18 years and 18 years plus, with prizes for the winner in each category.

The Comharchumann, with the support of Glor na nGael, have also commissioned a replacement for the sculpted Crom Dubh stone which was stolen from beside Cloghane Church in 1993. They are seeking suggestions from the community as to where the new stone head should be located.

Even though the events are being held online, the level of organisation and work involved is still substantial. Gearoid said the help from local language student Yasmin Griffin, who is on placement with the Comharchumann, has made it all possible.

"Jasmin is doing a great job. Ta si go h-iontach." he said. Normally donations from local businesses would fund the festival weekend but this year the committee decided not to approach hard-pressed business owners and are instead asking people to support the festival by making a donation via the 'donate' option on the www.cflt.ie website, where full details of the events are also available.

* The head of the pagan god Crom Dubh, which stood in Cloghane for more than 1,500 years, has not been seen since it was stolen on Wednesday, August 18, 1993. A report in The Kerryman of the time quoted Nessa O'Connell of the National Museum of Ireland saying: "It is a very important stone, and has huge historical significance for the area. It dates back to the Iron Age, around the time of Christ".
The Duke of Edinburgh speaks to a bugler at Windsor Castle during a ceremony for the transfer of the Colonel-in-Chief of the Rifles from Philip to the Duchess of Cornwall (Adrian Dennis/PA)

The Duke of Edinburgh may rarely be seen in public these days but he showed he has lost none of his mischievous sense of humour when he joked with a soldier about his fitness levels.

Philip shared a chuckle with Lance Corporal Colin Streetin, 33, when he attended a Windsor Castle ceremony to formally hand over his role as Colonel-in-Chief of the infantry regiment The Rifles to the Duchess of Cornwall.

Philip has been closely associated with The Rifles and its earlier regiments for almost 70 years.

But the 99-year-old Queens consort, who retired from public duties in 2017, has now handed over his role to Camilla.

The duchess took part in the second half of the ceremony almost 100 miles away, at her Highgrove home in Gloucestershire.

The Rifles Colonel Commandant, General Sir Patrick Sanders, said: We feel its a bittersweet day because were enormously proud of our association with the Duke of Edinburgh, who has been the most amazing Colonel-in-Chief, and weve really flourished under his tenure.

The Duke has been Colonel-in-Chief of successive Regiments that have made up The Rifles since 1953, and today, they are the largest infantry Regiment in the British Army. pic.twitter.com/XV3WI7fz7y  The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) July 22, 2020

But its also really special to have the Duchess of Cornwall coming in because she has a long association with The Rifles.

The sprightly duke carefully walked down the steps of Windsor Castles Equerries Entrance to meet four buglers from the Band and Bugles of The Rifles during the ceremony.

L/Cpl Streetin said afterwards that Philip quizzed him about his other roles when not playing the bugle and he highlighted his work as an assault pioneer, providing engineering support to frontline troops.

Expand Close The Duke of Edinburgh speaks to a bugler at Windsor Castle (Adrian Dennis/PA) PA / Facebook

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The soldier said he told the duke: Were assault pioneers as well, and he replied Oh, youre keeping up your fitness then?

He added: But he looked me up and down and I thought Are you trying to say Im fat?  thats what we were laughing about.

The ceremony was the highest profile official public engagement Philip has attended since his farewell retirement event in August 2017, when he met Royal Marines in Buckingham Palaces forecourt.

He has been seen at royal weddings  including the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs nuptials in 2018 and Princess Beatrices recent big day  held various private audiences over the years and was recently featured with the Queen in pictures to mark his 99th birthday on June 10.

The Duke has been Colonel-in-Chief of successive Regiments that have made up The Rifles since 1953, and today, they are the largest infantry Regiment in the British Army. pic.twitter.com/XV3WI7fz7y  The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) July 22, 2020

The open-air ceremony was staged on the castle steps overlooking the quadrangle and the duke, who was treated in hospital last December for a pre-existing but undisclosed condition, looked well.

Dressed in a suit and wearing The Rifles regimental tie, Philip returned the salute of the Assistant Colonel Commandant, Major General Tom Copinger-Symes who highlighted it was Salamanca Day, the annual regimental day.

He said: Your Royal Highness, Colonel-in-Chief, good morning. And happy Salamanca Day All Rifleman, whether serving or retired would like to thank you for 67 years of continuous service, support and leadership to the Rifles and to our forming and antecedent regiments.

And on this occasion, as you hand over your duties as Colonel-in-Chief to her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall, we would like to wish you fair wind and following seas. And with that, Sir, may I have your leave for the Bugle Major to sound the Rifle Call and No More Parades.

The Duke was thanked for his 67 years of service and support to the Regiment, before the Buglers sounded the No More Parades call, marking HRHs final ceremony as The Rifles Colonel-in-Chief. pic.twitter.com/4TBllrOVX6  The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) July 22, 2020

The duke had been Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles since its formation in 2007, but his connection stretched back further, as he has served in the same role since 1953 with successive regiments which now make up The Rifles.

After chatting to the four buglers taking part in the ceremony the duke was off following a wave and a thank you, and he walked back inside the castle.

Major General Copinger-Symes said they could not have been more lucky in having the duke as their Colonel-in-Chief, and highlighting some of his qualities added: The ability to make an instant connection with Riflemen, whether junior or senior, of all ranks.

And just to be able to put them at their ease and get the best from them and leave them feeling like theyre the only person in the room  or indeed the quadrangle of Windsor Castle  which you saw in the eyes of the buglers.

 Four Buglers sound The Rifles Assembly, marking the transfer of Colonel-in-Chief of The @RiflesRegiment from The Duke of Edinburgh to The Duchess of Cornwall. pic.twitter.com/MaNQecG2Py  The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall (@ClarenceHouse) July 22, 2020

The ceremony continued at Highgrove House, near Tetbury, where Camilla was addressed by The Rifles Colonel Commandant, General Sir Patrick Sanders, who welcomed the duchess as the new Colonel-in-Chief.

The brief ceremony was concluded when four buglers sounded The Rifles Regimental Call and The Advance.

Camilla wore a Rifles brooch to mark the occasion and was dressed in a bespoke bottle green dress with black trim, modelled on the Rifles uniform and featuring the same buttons, with a bugle motif, as stitched to the soldiers tunics.

The duchess has been Royal Colonel of 4th Battalion The Rifles since 2007 and will continue to hold the position.

Afterwards, she met the buglers and a small party from 4th Battalion The Rifles, before holding a private meeting with General Sanders.

The duchess supported the Battalion during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, writing to next of kin, sending letters to the injured, and meeting families  as well as attending traditional medals parades.
While taping over (and removing in the future) the images of the KKK on the fountain at the Napa Mill may be well-intentioned, I find that it is a form of ("Section of Napa Mill mosaic depicting historic Ku Klux Klan activity covered with tape," July 16). An image of the KKK burning a cross is a grim reminder that Napa has a dark history of racism, as expressed in an earlier article by Alexandria Brown on June 25 ("Napa's Black community fought for freedom from the start").

I am a high school teacher. I take my students on walking field trips to discuss the way local history is depicted in our public art. My students are always surprised to see the depiction of the KKK as well as the burning of Napa's Chinatown. We read the plaque to understand what is going on, and then we go back to the classroom to research and discuss. The mural sparks students' interest in our local history.

We do need to take a closer look at our public displays. Who, what and how do we honor? If viewers are reading the mural as a glorification of the KKK, then perhaps it does need to be changed, as that was obviously never the artist's intent.

And although it may not have been the intent of those who adopted the Bear Flag, the California state flag is a perfect example of honoring a racist past. If Mississippi can finally do it, why not us?

Nancy Hale

Napa
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The United States and allies have been too slow to react to Chinese and Russian interests in the Arctic region, U.S.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The United States and allies have been too slow to react to Chinese and Russian interests in the Arctic region, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Danish public broadcaster DR in a recorded interview on Wednesday.

"I think we have all been a little bit naive to watch not only the Russians but the Chinese interest there continue to become more and more aggressive," Pompeo told DR during a diplomatic visit in Copenhagen.

"We are a little late. That's alright, I've been late to parties before and had a great time. We'll succeed."

(Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Chris Reese)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Of all the catastrophes that might catch governments by surprise, climate change wont be one of them. Each year brings a new chorus of warnings from experts, and to some, a missed opportunity for preventive measures. A 2018 report by the sustainability-focused nonprofit Ceres called for an additional $1 trillion of investment, globally, every year until 2050, to prevent global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Seeing the writing on the wall, and given doubts about the U.S. governments leadership on that front , a new crowdfunding marketplace for green-energy projects is proposing to help investors, businesses and governments take action at the state and local level.That could mean, for example, a city crowdfunding to put solar on the roofs of buildings it owns, or perhaps for green infrastructure to help deal with stormwater.The marketplace is called Raise Green announced today and co-founded by Franz Hochstrasser, an eight-year veteran of the Obama administration in various roles, including on the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Hochstrasser toldthe Raise Green website is a product of discussions between him and his co-founder Matthew Moroney, a data and climate scientist he met at Yale. Hochstrasser said they originally intended to create a network of mobile air quality sensors to raise awareness about air pollution and climate change, but they quickly realized a more important piece would be convincing individuals to actually get involved  to do something.We feel pretty strongly that were in an unprecedented and catalytic time in history, Hochstrasser said. From our perspective, this is a defining decade in the fight against climate change, and Raise Green is a sort of local Green New Deal that can be implemented right now, as opposed to waiting for the federal government to take action.Having participated in international climate negotiations, including the Paris Agreement, Hochstrasser said one of the biggest hurdles to green infrastructure and climate-related projects is financing. With that in mind, he and Moroney founded Raise Green in early 2018 and spent two years developing it at the startup incubator Greentown Labs. Hochstrasser described the platform as a two-sided marketplace: one side for investors, launching today, and the other for project creators, or originators, which will roll out as a software-as-a-service tool over the course of the summer. It's a kind of TurboTax of project finance, Hochstrasser said, that walks someone through the process of creating, financing, building and running their clean energy project.To get a project listed on the site, originators  meaning business owners, nonprofits, local governments, school districts or anyone who wants to own and operate a clean energy project  must set up a consultation with Raise Green, which will then assess the projects revenue, ambition, impact and social and environmental metrics. R.A.I.S.E. metrics, if you will.We have around 50 or so folks that are playing that [originator] role right now, Hochstrasser said. Theyre everyone from a first-time developer whos got an idea for how they can help their local grocery store, to folks who have developed tens or hundreds of solar projects, and are using this as a more inclusive way to do that.On the investment side, Hochstrasser clarified a point about crowdfunding. Unlike Kickstarter, GoFundMe or other donation-based platforms, he said, this is a true investment platform that sells debt notes or equity stakes in clean energy projects, with a minimum investment determined by the project originator. The website lists six project categories, including solar power, affordable housing, EV charging stations, agriculture, water projects and microgrids. Hochstrasser said the public can browse available projects, but in order to invest and view all the details, one needs to create an account on the website with information that will enable Raise Green to verify their identity.Its flipping the script on traditional finance, where an individual whos looking for financing will go to a bank and present themselves, and the bank decides based on an algorithm whether they qualify for a loan, Hochstrasser said. Whereas, in this case, an individual or organization looking to start their own clean energy project can come to us, get the proper resources for creating and developing that project through our originator engine [software], then set the terms that they want to see, and turn it out to the crowd and find out if the crowd wants to see that project in the world.One of the people responsible for validating projects, MIT Media Lab researcher and entrepreneur John Clippinger, extolled the Raise Green platform as the first of its kind, creating opportunities for a wider range of people to invest in clean energy.One of the most significant ways to ensure we can tackle climate change is by empowering as many people as possible to invest in sustainable, energy-efficient solutions, Clippinger wrote in an email. Raise Green is the first impact investment marketplace for green infrastructure and clean energy projects to allow ordinary Americans and institutional investors to put their resources together to make a demonstrable impact in fighting against our climate crisis.Hochstrasser said Raise Green has recruited a little more than 100 investors to the website so far, and a mailing list of about 3,000 who are interested. With about 50 projects in the pipeline, most of them community-scale solar projects between the sizes of about 50 and 500kW that have yet to be finalized, the platform has one project available to investors at the moment. The National Energy Improvement Fund (NEIF), a public lender, is offering loans to families and small businesses to add energy efficient retrofits and upgrades for HVAC, roofing, lighting, battery storage and other purposes. The minimum investment is $1,000, which will go toward helping NEIF expand its programs and personnel and extend its loan offerings to more low- and moderate-income borrowers.According to Hochstrasser, the clearest opportunity for state or local government with Raise Green is on the originator side. For example, he said they could create their own projects and seek investment from citizens, or buy the electricity generated from a citizens project.There are  a lot of places that municipalities hold the deeds to, and if they were willing to make those available for local entrepreneurs to create their own green jobs and start a climate solution project using that land, that could be an excellent ecosystem to create, Hochstrasser said. Or if they have a building they want solar on, but the city or state budget cant afford it at the time, they could make that rooftop available and lease it to a local citizen, who would create a project company and could raise the money on Raise Green, and enable anyone to own a piece of. Then, effectively, you have citizens selling clean electricity to the city and benefitting from the payout and ownership of that.Observing a recent trend in the financial industry of growing interest in environmental and social governance, of investing in projects that create value beyond their financial yield, Hochstrasser was hopeful that hed made a platform to connect good will with opportunity.This is a way for those impact investors to find locally impactful projects that are verifiable and that demonstrate the kind of change theyre trying to create with their dollars, he said.
Bindi Irwin stays busy taking care of her late father's zoo in Australia alongside her mother Terri, younger brother Robert, and her husband Chandler.

But on Tuesday, the conservationist, 21, said she's been missing her family in the U.S amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Wildlife Warrior shared several photos from recent trips to the States visiting Oregon, where her mother Terri is originally from.

'Missing them all so much': Bindi Irwin shared photos of her family in Florida and Oregon and says she is missing them as the US continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic

She also included pictures Florida, where her husband Chandler's family lives.

The brunette beauty wrote in the caption: 'Thinking of my lovely family in Florida and Oregon and looking back on these cherished memories captured on camera.

'Missing them all so much. This pandemic has changed our lives. Sending love and strength your way.'

Bindi's heartfelt message to her family in America comes as Florida recorded 89,557 cases, while Oregon recorded 15, 257 cases, according to the latest numbers as of Wednesday July 22.

'Thinking of my lovely family': The Wildlife Warrior shared several photos from recent trips to the States visiting Oregon, where her mother Terri is originally from (Bindi and Chandler pictured with relatives)

'Sending love and strength your way': She also included pictures Florida, where her husband Chandler's family lives. Bindi wrote in the caption 'This pandemic has changed our lives. Sending love and strength your way'

Bindi and Chandler's family in the US were unable attend their wedding at Australia Zoo back in March as the Australian Government enforced strict border closures because of the pandemic.

The trailer for the latest season of 'Crikey! It's the Irwins: Life in Lockdown' shows the Irwins family and their zoo staff go into survival mode in response to the lockdown measures.

Terri revealed the zoo spends a whopping $400,000 per week on wages, plus $78,914 on food for the animals.

Survival mode: The trailer for the latest season of 'Crikey! It's the Irwins: Life in Lockdown' shows the Irwins family and their zoo staff go into survival mode in response to the lockdown measures

To make ends meet, she was forced to cut jobs and operate with a skeleton crew of employees and the family take on more work to help maintain the zoo during strict lockdowns.

Terri said in the episode, set to air on Animal Planet in August: 'I'm the pilot of a big plane and the plane is going down, and I'm handing out all the parachutes I've got.

'Sometimes at the end of the day I've just got my head in my hands wondering what we're going to do tomorrow.'

Terri said she, 'can't even come close' to paying the bills.

Double the work: To make ends meet, she was forced to cut jobs and operate with a skeleton crew of employees and the family take on more work to help maintain the zoo during strict lockdowns

Terri said the zoo's hardship was particularly emotional due to a promise she made to Steve, who converted his family's Beerwah wildlife park to Australia Zoo in the 1990s.

'This was Steve's passion. Steve would say to me, "if anything happens to me, make sure the zoo continues". So it's really important that we keep this going,' she said.

Steve tragically died on September 4, 2006, after a stingray attack at Batt Reef near Port Douglas, Queensland. He was 44.

Crikey! It's the Irwins: Life in Lockdown will document the family's time in lockdown at the Sunshine Coast tourist attraction, it premieres on Saturday, August 1 at 7.30pm on Animal Planet.
Prince William and Prince Harry's brotherly quarrel has been one of the most talked-about issues in the history of the monarchy. However, a rumor suggested that it would not happen if only the tense moment between Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle did not occur.

Meghan's Bad Attitude

Meghan's alleged horrifying attitude reportedlt started the rift between Prince William and Prince Harry, a royal author has claimed

In an interview with the Daily Star, Tom Quinn revealed that Meghan's "foot-stomping" behavior at a royal staff frightened the Duchess of Cambridge.

Quinn also confessed that he spoke to multiple insiders, which led him to think that the rift between the Sussexes and the Cambridges started from the said incident

"After a couple of incidents, the foot-stamping incident and getting cross with one of the people that worked for Kate, there was a kind of frostiness because, as I understand it from my contacts, Harry felt that Meghan was being judged harshly," the royal expert said.

Since the Duchess of Sussex was new to the royal family at that time, the monarchy made adjustments to her tantrums, but her attitude somewhat went overboard.

The Rift Ignited Between The Fab Four

As her loving husband, Prince Harry defended his wife, and it ignited the rift between the Fab Four. The event even pushed them to avoid each other since their relationship has already turned "frosty" and cold.

"They had all been part of a charity that was set up by William and Kate but Harry and Meghan parted too, and they split," Quinn went on. "That was such an obvious sign that things were not going well."

Prince Harry and Meghan decided to split from the joint charity they shared with the Cambridges through a statement released by the royal palace. The decision was reportedly aimed to at least calm down the issue and help the "Fab Four" be united again.

However, the said rift continued until the last quarter of 2019 when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle appeared on ITV's documentary "Harry & Meghan: An African Journey." In the docu, Prince Harry finally broke his silence and admitted the fact that there's truly a royal rift.

"Part of this role and part of this job, and this family, being under the pressure that it's under, inevitably, you know, stuff happens," the Duke of Sussex shared. "But look, we're brothers, we'll always be brothers. And we're certainly on different paths at the moment, but I'll always be there for him, as I know he'll always be there for me."

Furthermore, royal expert Katie Nicholl highlighted that Prince Harry blamed his brother for not putting some effort to embrace Meghan in the family.

"Harry felt William wasn't rolling out the red carpet for Meghan and told him so. They had a bit of a fall-out, which was only resolved when Charles stepped in and asked William to make an effort," the royal author disclosed.

Even Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II "worked incredibly hard to try and make sure everybody reunites." However, it was not successful at all as the brothers drifted further away from each other.

READ MORE: Royal Exit: Prince Harry Suffers From DEVASTATING Change After Megxit
Four former presidents of the D.C. Bar Association have signed a letter calling on the group to investigate whether Attorney General William Barr has violated its rules. The District of Columbia Bar authorizes lawyers to practice in the city and has the power to punish them for breaking its rules and to revoke their law licenses.

The complaint argues that Barr has broken Washington's ethics rules by being dishonest and violating his oath to uphold the Constitution, along with other charges. And it highlights four episodes in Barrs time as attorney general to make the case: his characterization of special counsel Robert Muellers report on Russias 2016 election interference, his criticism of an inspector general report on the Russia probe, his criticism of FBI officials in a TV interview, and his role in the disbursement of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House. A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment.

Mr. Barrs client is the United States, and not the president, the letter says. Yet, Mr. Barr has consistently made decisions and taken action to serve the personal and political self-interests of President Donald Trump, rather than the interest of the United States.

Barrs early description of the Mueller report and his handling of protesters in Lafayette Square have long drawn pointed criticism. But his comments on the inspector general report on the FBIs Russia probe hasnt drawn as much attention. In an NBC News interview after the reports release, Barr called the FBIs basis for opening the Russia probe very flimsy. The letter argues that the criticism was dishonest.

Indeed, the notion that the legitimacy of an FBI investigations initiation should be judged by its end, if applied broadly, could easily chill the initiation of wholly legitimate inquiries for fear of being second-guessed, the letter adds.

The letter also argues that Barr broke the D.C. Bars rules when he criticized former FBI officials decisions regarding the Russia probe and suggested they could be prosecuted. The letter focused on a comment Barr made in a CBS News interview: Just because something may even stink to high heaven and ... appear [to] everyone to be bad, we still have to apply the right standard and be convinced that theres a violation of a criminal statute.

Story continues

The letter argued the statement could unfairly influence potential criminal proceedings against those officials and that Barr should have followed the standard DOJ practice of declining to comment on ongoing investigations. John Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, is investigating the Russia probes origins. Some Trump allies, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have intimated that he will bring criminal charges against officials who worked on the probe.

Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec recently told Fox News that Durham is expected to issue a report by summers end. There are no guarantees in life, but we certainly hope to see one by the end of the summer. I think its important, she said.

The complaints signatories include a host of legal ethics experts and former government lawyers. Andrea Ferster, Philip Allen Lacovara, Marna S. Tucker, and Melvin White  all former presidents of the D.C. Bar  also signed on.

Bar associations can take years to review disciplinary complaints, and their processes are kept confidential. The letter comes as Barr faces sharp criticism from leaders in the legal profession. Late last month, the president of the New York City Bar Association and chair of its task force on the rule of law sent a letter to top members of Congress calling him unfit for his job and raising some of the same concerns raised in this letter.
On July 14, the Trump administration withdrew a July 6 ruling by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requiring 900,000 international students to take at least one in-person class this falleven as many universities move fully online in response to coronavirus pandemicputting tens of thousands at risk of detention and deportation.

The ruling was revoked before initial arguments were set to be heard in a lawsuit brought against the Trump administration by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was supported by tens of other colleges. Separate lawsuits had also been filed against the ruling by a number of California universities and a coalition of seventeen states.

Despite the Trump administrations withdrawal of the order that would have threatened the residency status of 900,000 F-1 visa holders, international students right to study in the US remains precarious. The revocation was little more than a tactical retreat in the ongoing war against all immigrants waged by the Trump administration with the crucial support of the Democratic Party.

Far from representing any principled recognition of the rights of students, the revocation of the order is only the latest in a string of increasingly unstable vacillations from a ruling class wracked by crisis. In contrast, the Socialist Equality Party, which fights for the interests of the international working class and young people, insists on the right of every individual, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, to high quality education and to work, to study and live in any country they please with full citizenship rights.

The extent to which the Democratic Party has responded to the ruling has been limited by what they perceive to be the interests of US imperialism. Rather than asserting the democratic rights of the students themselves, the Democrats cited the contribution made by international students to the US economy, their role in critical American research projects and the ties this education fosters to the foreign government officials, many of whom attended college in the US.

Unless students break decisively with the Democratic Party and its pseudo-left agents, they will become pawns in the factional disputes amongst the American ruling class. As soon as the Democrats determine international students no longer suit American imperialisms geopolitical interests, any pretense of their defense will be dropped forthwith.

Universities themselves have also shown they cannot be relied upon to defend the rights of their students. The Harvard lawsuit did not seek to defend any of the democratic rights of international students. Instead, it simply requested a restraining order on ICEs July 6 rule which had reversed a March 13 order that gave a temporary moratorium on the requirement that international students take in-person classes. Following the Trump administrations reversal, it is still the case that F-1 visas holders right to live and study in the United States rests on a temporary order.

The legal argument used in the Harvard suit against the contentious July 6 ICE ruling was to invoke the Administrative Procedures Act. However, as Nolan Rappaport, an ex-adviser on immigration law to the House Judiciary Committee, wrote in the Hill, this argument applies also to the more generous March 13 directive that the administration has agreed to reinstate, and for the same reasons. Consequently, it is likely to be vacated if someone challenges it in court.

If the Trump administration or aligned right-wing institution wishes to challenge the March order, it is extremely likely that the temporary exemption for international students will be overturned. As the economic crisis intensifies and efforts to scapegoat immigrants escalate, a legalistic approach to the defense of international students rights will be proven futile.

Ultimately, the inability of universities to defend the rights of their students reflects the integration of academic institutions into the US state apparatus. For the last three decades universities have been increasingly corporatized, subordinating their research activity to the dictates of Wall Street, the Pentagon and other state agencies. In conditions where US universities are in financial crises of their own, nominal opposition to the Trump administrations policies will likely melt away in the face of government bailouts or military contracts.

One reason for the Trump administrations withdrawal was the recognition that universities have a valuable role to play in the advancement of the aims of US imperialism. A manifestation of this was the appointment of fascist Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump White House advisor, to the National Security Education Board (NSEB), also announced on July 14.

The NSEB leads the recruitment of college students into the US military, State Department and intelligence agencies, with a particular focus on students with linguistic and cultural knowledge that can be used to further US imperialist interests in war and diplomacy. The appointment of a Trump confidant to this position exemplifies efforts of the White House to further integrate the universities into the machinery of US imperialism.

Another motivation for the withdrawal was the recognition that other means can be utilized to deport Chinese students from the country, a long-term goal of the fascist cabal around Trump led by ex-adviser Stephen Miller. On July 15, the New York Times reported White House plans to place a travel ban, similar in form to those placed on seven majority-Muslim countries in 2017, on the members of the Chinese Communist Party and their family members. This would strip 370,000 Chinese students of their right to reside in the US.

At every level, the pandemic is being used as an excuse to restructure society to the benefit of the ruling class. Universities and education more broadly are major targets in this assault. Nowhere is the American ruling classs callous indifference to human life seen more clearly than in the bipartisan reopening campaign, which in the midst of a deadly pandemic aims to fully reopen schools and universities in the fall, even as tens of thousands continue to be diagnosed with COVID-19 every day.

In contrast to the cynical pro-immigrant posturing of the Democratic Partywhich under President Barack Obama deported more people than any other administration and built up the network of detention camps now used by Trumpstudents and immigrants must be defended on the basis of their fundamental democratic rights.

The defense of these rights is impossible outside of a frontal assault on the capitalist system, and an orientation to the only social force capable of such an offensivethe international working class. In the context of the intensifying persecution of immigrants and the deadly reopening campaign, students must turn to the working class. In this struggle, the following demands must be raised:

Oppose the assault on international students and all deportations. All students and workers have the right to live, study and work wherever they choose, with full citizenship rights.

Abolish ICE and other immigration agencies. Immigrants in detention must be released immediately with full citizenship rights.

The abolition of tuition and cancellation of all student loan debt. Education is a fundamental right that must be provided, free of charge, to the entire working class.

Safe working and learning conditions. There must be no reopening of campuses until it is deemed safe by committees of workers and students, in consultation with medical experts.

An immediate reversal of all cuts and layoffs. The trillions mobilized for Wall Street must be seized and redirected to support the needs of workers and students.

Following the lead of auto workers in the Midwest, to enforce these demands and protect their lives, students, professors and all academic workers must form rank-and-file safety committees that are independent of the corrupt unions. These committees must seek to connect the struggle in universities to the wider actions of workers taking place across the US and internationally.

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) and the World Socialist Web Site will provide all the assistance it can to students, youth, and workers who want to establish rank-and-file safety committees. We urge all students and youth to study our program and make the decision to join the IYSSE.
Queen Letizia of Spain was the picture of understated elegance as she attended an engagement alongside King Felipe today.

Letizia, 47, and Felipe VI, 52, were joined by their daughters Princess Leonor, 14, and Princess Sofia, 12, as they continue their nation-wide tour during the visit to Merida this evening.

The mother-of-two opted for a stunning glittering evening dress for the occasion, pairing the look with a set of espadrille wedges.

Meanwhile the entire family donned masks as they waved to a crowd of royal fans who had gathered outside their hotel.

Queen Letizia of Spain, 47, cut an elegant figure in a relaxed black sparkling slip-dress as she joined King Felipe VI, 52, and their daughters Princess Leonor, 14, and Princess Sofia, 12, to continue their nation-wide tour of the country

The family donned medical face masks as they waved to crowds who had gathered outside their hotel

The mother-of-two wore her brunette locks in her typical style - loose around her shoulders and tucked behind her ears - and opted for a light layer of make-up.

Meanwhile her husband opted for a relaxed green shirt for the occasion, pairing it with a pair of white chinos and brown shoes.

Eldest daughter Leonor matched her mother in a set of pretty espadrilles and a floral dress, while Princess Sofia showed off her summer tan in a white gown.

The royals have undertaken several weeks of intense travel around the country in the wake of COVID-19, starting a tour of Spain on Monday 22 June.

The royals could be seen greeting a crowd of people from a safe distance as they visited the city this evening

King Felipe and Queen Letizia were joined by their daughters Princess Leonor, 14, (right), and Princess Sofia, 12, for the evening out

They started the tour in the Canary Islands before heading to Mallorca, Sevilla and Aragon.

This week, they had three engagements after starting the week by attending the Mariano de Cavia, Luxa de Tena and Mingotie Awards gala in Madrid on Tuesday, which is organised by the Spanish national newspaper ABC.

Queen Letizia is mother to Princesses Leonor, 15, and Sofia, 12, with husband King Felipe who ascended to the Spanish throne in 2014.

Letizia married King Felipe ten years ago at Cathedral Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena in Madrid.

Crown Princess Leonor, King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and Princess Sofia visit the National Museum of Roman Art during their visit to Merida, Spain

The royal family visited the city as part of their national tour after COVID-19 disease pandemic

The family receive a tour of the National Museum of Roman Art, located at one of the largest and most extensive archaeological sites in Spain

The relationship began in November 2002 and in 2003, just months after she had been promoted to the position of anchor on the national news channel, she quit her job and days later the royal engagement was announced.

The former newsreader is the granddaughter of a taxi driver and the eldest daughter of Jesus Jose Ortiz Alvarez, a journalist, and first wife Maria de la Paloma Rocasolano Rodriguez, a nurse and hospital union representative.

She attended public high school and did a degree at the Complutense University of Madrid. She later gained an MA in Audiovisual Journalism at the Institute for Studies in Audiovisual Journalism.

King Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014 in favour of his son, now King Felipe VI.

Spanish Crown Princess Leonor appeared relaxed in her medical mask as she posed for photographs with her family today

At one stage the father-daughter duo appeared to share a small from behind their masks as they posed for snappers during their visit to Merida

While Queen Letizia opted for a chic black evening dress, King Felipe cut a casual figure in a relaxed green shirt and white trousers

More than 300,000 people have been infected with Covid-19 in Spain, with the country's death toll at 28, 413 according to latest figures.

British tourists were allowed to enter Spain for the first time in three months on June 21 when the country's state of emergency ended.

In the first lockdown of its kind since the end of the state of emergency around 140,000 people in Lleida, a city just under two hours drive west of Barcelona have been told to remain in doors and only leave for food or to work if 'essential'.

People in another seven municipalities near Lleida in the Segria region have also been given the new lockdown order, which means they can only venture outdoors to buy food or go to the bank or for work if it is an 'essential service' and cannot be done from home.
Jabal Omar Development Company (JODC) issued on July 16, 2020, a uniform ownership deed on the company's project covering 231,940 sq m in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, the company said in a bourse filing.

The ownership deed will boost JODC's ability to fund current and planned projects, in addition to expansions, the Saudi developer said in its filing to Saudi Tadawul.

A major player in the Saudi real estate sector, JODC boasts a key multi-use real estate mega development project, Jabal Omar, located within a walking distance of the Grand Mosque.

The ownership deed move comes in line with the company's strategic restructuring plan, which was put into action early this year.-TradeArabia News Service
I watched the interview of my friend and former political opponent, Senator Mike Braun, Republican of Indiana, on the Tucker Carlson show recently regarding the topic of BLM and police reform. I know Senator Braun because we are both from Jasper, Indiana, a small town in south-central Indiana, population of 15,000. Braun is an immensely successful businessman whose company employs more than 600 individuals. I came to know Mike when we ran against one another for the state representative seat for Indianas 63rd district in 2014. We spoke before the same audiences and sat at the same tables. We discussed issues and philosophies. He defeated me handily.

I would not describe him as a movement conservative, which meant he was likely to move leftward once ensconced in D.C. after winning the Senate seat in 2018. He favored lower taxes and large deductibles for health insurance coverage. All well and good, but limited. Beyond that, I felt he knew little. Not on national or international matters, on energy or immigration. Nor on cultural issues, which Republicans have ignored, to the nations detriment, for decades. Braun provided a clue of the direction he would take when in his very first year in the Senate he joined with Senator Chris Coons, (D-DE) to form the first Senate bipartisan caucus on finding solutions to climate change. Not a good start, Mike. Still, I thought, in most ways, at least, he would have conservative, common-sense instincts as a Jasper man, Midwesterner, and successful businessman.

As many have seen, I could not have been more wrong. Brauns response to the post-George Floyd rioting was to introduce a bill named the Reforming Qualified Immunity Act. This bill would have taken aim at qualified immunity, which protects police from frivolous lawsuits pursued in the regular discharge of an officers duties. Braun, in so doing, was accepting the BLM-leftist premise that one of the significant problems confronting blacks in America was the statistically invalid claim that there is widespread police brutality targeting blacks. He neglected to mention the exploding rates of black out-of-wedlock childbirth, welfare dependency, educational failure, drug addiction, criminality, incarceration, and the formation of an entrenched black underclass since the Great Society. Braun felt that cops needed to be held accountable. He brought up the cases of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Breonna Taylor. He signaled his support for Black Lives Matter, a Marxist organization that has called for the killing of police and the abolition of the Western-prescribed nuclear family.

We also learn of the efforts of Senator John Cornyn, (R-TX), who sponsored a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. This day, June 19, marks the anniversary of the last slaves officially liberated in Texas and the Confederacy in 1865 after the Civil War had ended. Senators Ron Johnson, (R-WI), and James Lankford, (R-OK) agreed with the bill but went a step further by recommending exchanging it for Columbus Day, effectively eliminating that holiday, a position advocated by BLM Marxists. Johnson cited concerns over the debt. This, after Johnson and most of Congress had already voted for stimulus packages of more than $2 trillion in the wake of the COVID pandemic and a likely federal deficit of $4 trillion for 2020.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd incident on May 25, Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, announced to reporters on Capitol Hill that we are still wrestling with Americas original sin [of slavery]. He later spoke of obvious racial discrimination in policing that would require legislation.

Joining a protest against police brutality, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah stated that We need to stand up and say that black lives matter. A GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee approved a proposal to strip Confederate names from military bases. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, (R-CA), said he was not opposed to renaming bases.

These Republican efforts come as avowed communist activists pull down statues, deface monuments, loot, burn, and pillage their way through the land, undertaking to destroy our economic and political systems and erase our history. The tactic of destroying memorials to Robert E. Lee and other confederates moved at lightning speed to engulf the founders and other historic American heroes, including Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, Frederick Douglass, and others. Columbus became another favored target. For leftist book burners, Columbus is a genocidal racist, responsible for Western colonialism, slavery, and oppression of indigenous people. Their cultural jihad has now moved to our churches, synagogues, and Jesus himself.

In the face of this cultural onslaught by the Left, supported by our dominant institutions, including academia, the media, the Democrat Party, and corporate America, the Republicans speak of police reform, renaming military bases, and eliminating Columbus Day. But then Republicans begin every confrontation with the Left by accepting their premises and narrative, fighting, in effect, on their territory and disagreeing minimally if at all, seemingly oblivious to the threat.

Wars, however, are not won by playing defense. Republicans should begin by defending our culture, institutions, and history. They should extoll our legacy of human rights, liberty, Constitutional governance, and Western achievements in art, music, literature, science, and technology. Our unparalleled standard of living and material, moral, and spiritual riches should be proudly brandished and upheld.

But Republicans must also go on the offensive, and attack the decadent, degenerate Left, within our country and without. Point out their record of poverty, oppression, and genocide. Describe the devastation of the Soviet Union, Red China, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Wrap the Marxist record of destruction around the necks of their successors in the American Left and the Democrat Party who now openly embrace that corrupt system. Draw inspiration from a previous Republican leader, Ronald Reagan, who confronted tyranny and defended liberty. Reagan lambasted the Soviets as the evil empire, and demanded that Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev tear down this wall to the chagrin of RINOs and Democrats of his day.

But that is not what you will get from the BLM Republicans, our chestless Republican boys. They lack the stomach for political warfare. A new political vehicle is required, or the party drastically reformed. It must become a party and movement that will unabashedly defend our institutions and history. Only when we have such a party, capable of attacking the Revolutionary Left, can we save the country. Would that Braun of Indiana, or others in the Republican fold, consider such change with the nation under siege.

Richard Moss, M.D., a surgeon practicing in Jasper, IN, was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has written A Surgeons Odyssey and Matildas Triumph, available on amazon.com. Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The feud between the ruling BJP and opposition Congress has intensified in Uttrakhand a day after Congress state president Pritam Singh and about 150 other party workers were booked for alleged violation of Covid-19 norms on Tuesday in Uttarkashi district.

Citing the incident, Congress has accused BJP-led government of targeting its leaders in a bid to suppress their voice while the BJP has justified the action claiming Congress leaders political events held in public are hampering the fight against the pandemic.

Pritam Singh had held a rally and a political event in Uttarkashi on Monday to protest against the rising fuel prices. On Tuesday, he along with about 150 other party members was booked for violating Covid-19 norms by allegedly holding the events without prior permission. This was the second case against him after he was booked in Dehradun on June 25 for the same offense in a similar case.

Apart from Singh, another senior leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat was also booked for alleged violation of Covid-19 norms for holding a bullock cart rally in protest of the rising fuel prices in Dehradun on June 29.

Also Read: Senior Uttarakhand cop warns criminals: Surrender or be ready to face consequences

What the BJP government is doing is nothing but vindictive action against our leaders. They are afraid of our aggressive posture against the BJP governments at the Centre and in the state over relevant public issues like rising fuel prices and bad handling of the pandemic, said Suryakant Dhasmana, party state vice-president, who, too, was booked along with Singh on June 25.

He termed the FIR to be a tactic to suppress the voice of opposition.

These are just dictatorial moves by the BJP, both in Centre and all other states where they are in the government. They dont want the opposition to exist and raise their voice. In Uttarakhand, what they are doing with our leaders is part of that vindictive plan only, said Dhasmana.

The Congress vice-president also dared the government to register as many cases as they want against the Congress leaders.

Let them register as many false cases as they want. We will also see. But we want to tell them that we wont stop raising our voices for the public and continue to raise their issues, he said.

Dhasamana also alleged that action against Congress leaders citing Covid-19 norms was discriminatory.

All the cases for violating Covid-19 norms are against our leaders only. If they are so worried about the Covid-19 norms, then why didnt they take any action against BJP state president Bansidhar Bhagat, who got a temple opened in Haridwar and held prayers there? Was it not a violation of the Covid-19 norms?, said Dhasmana adding, We dont have any demand from the government but have a clear message that we will not stop our protests.

The BJP however, justified the action saying Congress intention behind holding public events was not about opposing the government policies but about hampering the fight against the pandemic.

The actions taken against their party president Singh and former CM Rawat are absolutely justifiable. Their protests and rallies are helping in increasing the spread of Covid-19 and not curbing it, said Devendra Bhasin, BJP state vice-president.

Also Read: Uttarakhand releases guidelines for private hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients

Bhasin said, As far as the allegation of suppressing the opposition is concerned, thats in the DNA of the Congress and not the BJP. What they did during the emergency everybody knows. There is no democracy inside their own party only.

The ruling party leader also dismissed the allegations of discriminatory action against Congress leaders and said, Their demand to book our party state president stands no ground because he worshipped in a Haridwar temple with only three others in attendance while maintaining necessary social distancing.
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Fishermen in Central Region have received an unprecedented boost in their trades with the receipt of 300 outboard motors at highly subsidized prices on Tuesday, 21st July, 2020.

As directed by H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the support which is being funded under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP), is being offered through a collaborative effort of the Coastal Development Authority (CODA), Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MOFAD) and is intended to alleviate the plight of fishers and empower them in their business for national development.

Under the intervention, a 40 horsepower outboard with a market price of GHS19,000 is being offered to the fishers at GHS10,100 representing a subsidy of 47.3%. Similarly, a 15 horsepower which costs GHS14,500 is being offered at GHS5,100 representing a subsidy of 65%.

A colourful event was organised at the residence of the Central Regional Minister, Hon. Kwamena Duncan for the formal handing over of the equipment by CODA and MOFAD for onward distribution to the fishers who were ably represented by Chief Fishermen of the Region led by Chairman Nana Obrenu Dabun III of Gomoa Feteh and members of landing beach committees in the region.

Chief Fishermen present included Nana Kojo I, Nana Afful Awuotwe II. Nana Mesi Ansa V, Nana Fynn Bonsu II and Nenyi Mbir. The rest were Nana Kwesi Asabir, Nana Kwabena Quarcoo, Nenyi Kwamena Mortey VI, Farnyi Kweigya VII and Nana Senaman Tawiah II.

The event was also graced by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) of Assin Central, Mfantseman, Abura Asebu Kwamankese, Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem and Gomoa Central. Other MMDCEs present were from Ekumfi, Cape Coast, Gomoa West and Awutu Senya.

Timely and impactful intervention

In a statement, the Regional Minister thanked H. E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for hearing the cry of fishers and swiftly coming to their aid with the subsidised outboard motors. Hon. Duncan also commended the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CODA for his instrumental leadership in ensuring broad consultations with stakeholders in the fishing industry to ascertain the reality and also for standing firm with fishers throughout the process. He encouraged the fishers to show gratitude to the President for the huge subsidy.

Hon. Kwamena Duncan also stated that the fishing industry has experienced a marked improvement in the management and distribution of premix fuel, a phenomenon that has brought joy to fishers.

Member of the Council of State, Obrempong Appiah Nuamah II, Omanhen of the Twifo Mampong Traditional Area commended CODA for procuring the outboard motors, adding that it was ample proof of the commitment of H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to develop all sections of Ghanaian society in all parts of Ghana.

The Chairman of Chief Fishermen in Central Region, Nana Obrenu Dabun III thanked H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for prioritizing the development of fishing and aspirations of fishers. He further stated that, fishers are upbeat about their expectations of government since the President has appointed officials who understand the business of fishing to oversee development in coastal communities.

The Intervention and Modalities

In his speech, CEO of CODA thanked the Regional Minister for his consistent and sustained efforts; MMDCEs and other stakeholders for prioritising the welfare of fishers and development of the fishing industry.

Lawyer Jerry Ahmed Shaib made it clear that the procurement of the outboard motors was in response to requests from the fishers to the government, following which H.E Nana Akufo-Addo directed CODA to fund the intervention under IPEP

He stated that, following the President's directive, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Hon. Elizabeth Afoley Quaye (MP) took steps to commence the procurement process by liaising with CODA to bring the intervention to fruition.

Committees were then formed comprising representatives from CODA, MOFAD, MMDAs, landing beach committees and chief fishermen to identify, scrutinize, shortlist and recommend potential beneficiaries on the basis that they are actively engaged in fishing.

Other interventions for fishers

Touching on other IPEP-funded support for fishers, CEO also stated that the fishers will be supported with interest-free microcredit facilities under the CODA Credit Union to give their business a financial boost.

Additionally, CODA is constructing eleven (11) landing beaches in all coastal regions to improve Infrastructure for aquaculture.

According to him, ongoing construction of the Jamestown Harbour in Accra will also significantly transform the fortunes of fishers when completed.

Distribution

The outboard motors presented form part of 1,300 pieces received as the first tranche of a total of 5,000 procured. They were shared as follows:

Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem  43

Abura Asebu Kwamankese  25

Awutu Senya West  20

Mfantseman  40

Gomoa West  40

Ekumfi  36

Cape Coast  35

Effutu  35

Gomoa East  26

Other regions within the Coastal Development Zone are expected to receive their share of first tranche of outboard motors in the coming days.
Attacking China for its aggressive moves against its neighbours, including "instigating" a deadly confrontation with India in eastern Ladakh, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Beijing cannot threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas.

Speaking at a news conference in London on Tuesday, Pompeo said China was one of the important parts of his discussions with his British counterpart Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

"You can't go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You can't threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. You can't engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organisation," Pompeo said.

Pompeo's comment on Chinese bullying of its Himalayan neighbours came in response to a question if the US would like the UK to do more to confront China.

"I don't think about it that way; we don't think about it that way. We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order," he said.

"We talked about how we've seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed. We've watched the CCP bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India," Pompeo said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5. The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

China recently staked claim over the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary in Bhutan at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council and opposed funding to the project.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The discussions between Pompeo and Raab came hours after the UK suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to a controversial security law imposed by China in the former British territory.

He praised the UK for its recent decision on China in particular those related to Hong Kong and banning Huawei from the UK's 5G networks.

"I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the British government for its principled responses to these challenges. You made a sovereign decision to ban Huawei from future 5G networks. You've joined other free nations to condemn China's broken promises on the Sino-British treaty," he said.

The US wants to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy and values that and knows that it is important to their own people, their own sovereign country to be successful, to understand this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing to them and to work both themselves and collectively to restore what is rightfully theirs, he said.

Describing his meeting with Raab as productive, Pompeo said that they talked about the challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the COVID-19 virus that originated from Wuhan, China.

"On behalf of the American people, I want to extend my condolences to the British people for your losses from this preventable pandemic. The CCP's exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi (Jinping) has shown the world the party's true face," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, during his interaction with London-based think-tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, described the Chinese military's aggressive activities "destabilising" and said America was "very closely" monitoring the situation between India and China along the Line of Actual Control.

Esper also highlighted the "increased" military cooperation with India and called it as "one of the most important defence relationships of the 21th century."

In his address, Esper said China has a catalogue of bad behaviour which accompanies a pattern of its brazen disregard for international commitments, from its failure to uphold its obligations under the World Trade Organization to regularly disrespecting the rights of other nations under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention.

Esper called on China's leaders to abide by the international laws and norms that China and the Chinese people have benefited greatly from over the years.

"We are committed to a constructive and results-oriented relationship with China and within our defence relationship to open lines of communication and risk reduction," Esper said.
The number of people who settled Garda fines for driving a car without an NCT increased by 15% last year.

At least 6,000 motorists were punished for driving a car that was not roadworthy.

If someone is caught driving a car that does not have an NCT, they get at least three penalty points and a minimum fine of 60.

These new figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal how many people broke that law.

In 2018, just over 5,100 drivers paid Garda fines. Last year, that jumped to more than 6,000 drivers.

In 2019, nearly a third of fines were in Dublin, while 534 were in Cork and 403 were in Kildare.

Alec Lee's 15-year-old daughter was killed in a road crash and he says tougher laws are needed.

He said: Id like to know how many of these 6,000, how many of those cars were seized by the gardai?

Because they did not have full insurance so the cars should have been seized as well as the people charged with no NCT.

Mr Lee said it was a lackadaisical approach by the gardai.

Conor Faughnan, from the AA, said seizing a vehicle for not displaying an NCT disc is pretty unusual but said, the power is there.

The region with the least amount of fines paid last year was Sligo-Leitrim, at just 61.
Stanton Public Policy Center and #PurpleSashRevolution Congratulate New York Planned Parenthood for Removing Margaret Sanger's Name from Clinic Brandi Swindell, Founder and CEO of Stanton Public Policy Center, protests the inclusion of a bust of Margaret Sanger at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. NEWS PROVIDED BY

Stanton Public Policy Center

July 21, 2020



WASHINGTON, July 21, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- As America currently wrestles with racial injustice and inequity, it is deeply troubling to honor and celebrate Margaret Sanger, an avowed racist and eugenicist, who diminished communities of color and the marginalized.



Stanton Public Policy Center sees this as a first step in defunding Planned Parenthood as it is clear Americans do not want public money going to an organization founded by a racist.



Stanton Public Policy Center is a women's advocacy and educational group that works on issues of human rights and justice that empower and inspire women. It is affiliated with Stanton Healthcare which has life-affirming women's health clinics in America and internationally.



Planned Parenthood removing Margaret Sanger's name from their New York clinic fits into Stanton's national campaign to have Margaret Sanger removed from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.



This national campaign includes: public protests, educational initiatives, petition drives, networking with African-American organizations and members of Congress.



Congressman Russ Fulcher, recently sent a letter to the Honorable Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, who is the head of the Smithsonian Institution. In his letter, Congressman Fulcher asked for the removal of Margaret Sanger's bust from the National Portrait Gallery.



Here is a link which contains Congressman Fulcher's full letter:

http://christiannewswire.com/images/Bunch-Letter.pdf



Stanton Founder and CEO, Brandi Swindell, states; "Stanton congratulates New York Planned Parenthood for removing Margaret Sanger's name from their abortion center. As America is currently dealing with racial injustice and inequity, it is deeply troubling to honor and celebrate Margaret Sanger, an avowed racist and eugenicist, who diminished communities of color and the marginalized. However, removing the name of Margaret Sanger from a Planned Parenthood clinic is only a first step. The final goal should be removing public funding from an organization founded by a racist and eugenicist.



"We also continue to call for the removal of a display honoring Margaret Sanger from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C." Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Chief Strategy Officer for Stanton Public Policy Center, comments; "The national campaign to remove the bust of a racist like Margaret Sanger from the National Portrait Gallery is not an attempt to rewrite or change history. Rather, it is a way to ensure we celebrate individuals whose lives reflect and embody the very best of who we are as a nation and honor the values we cherish.



"As America confronts racial injustice, it is critical our national institutions honor those who have inspired us to be our 'better selves' instead of honoring those who malign and diminish entire communities." For more information or interviews contact:

Rev. Patrick Mahoney at 540.538.4741 or stantoninternational.org.



SOURCE Stanton Public Policy Center



CONTACT: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, 540-538-4741



Related Links



stantoninternational.org



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Common objections to Christianity (part 1)

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The Christian Posts series Leaving Christianity explores the reasons why many Americans are rejecting the faith they grew up with. In this eight-part series, we feature testimonies and look at trends, church failures and how Christians can respond to those who are questioning their beliefs. This is part 7a. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7b, and 8.

The Christian Post received numerous testimonies from those who were raised in largely conservative churches but eventually left Christianity. All of their experiences and questions were considered as we put this series together, and particularly for part 7, which features eight common questions and concerns in objection to Christianity.

We reached out to various theologians and experts to respond.

My Christian school taught that the earth is 6,000 years old but whats taught in public schools is that the earth is millions of years old. Evolution also seems to contradict creationism. How do I reconcile the two? Is it a matter of choosing science over the Bible?

April Maskiewicz Cordero: At first glance, evolution and creationism do seem to contradict each other. But if we dig a bit deeper, we often find that people are making incorrect assumptions about both evolution and creation. Therefore, it is important to start this conversation by clarifying exactly what we mean by these terms.

If we define creationism as God creating the universe and all living organisms in six 24-hour days, and evolutionism as an explanation for the diversity of life on earth that rejects a divine creator, then yes, they are contradictory. But these two specific terms, both ending in ism are not the best ways to talk about or understand the emergence of earths biological diversity or Gods role in creating it.

I find that the best way to begin thinking about the evolution and creation issue is to focus on the fact that all Christians agree that God created and it was good. In this way, we are all creationists because we believe in a divine power who created. What we may disagree on, however, is how God created  the mechanism of Gods creation.

Was it one week, or billions of years? This question, while not as important as acknowledging the Creator, leads many to wonder about a conflict between Genesis and other creation stories and the findings of science.

I appreciate and value most theologians and biblical scholars perspectives that many parts of the Bible are often interpreted in ways that were not necessarily intended originally. For example, many biblical scholars agree that Genesis was not written as a scientific explanation of creation. This is supported by the fact that the order of creation given in Genesis 1 and 2 are quite different.

Brad Kelle Ph.D., an Old Testament scholar and author of Telling the Old Testament Story: Gods Mission and Gods People, believes we need a shift in our thinking. Instead of asking what Genesis 1 and 2 have to do with science, he says we need to ask what Genesis 1 and 2 are about. On their own terms, what is the message these chapters are trying to convey?

Kelles basic conclusion is that we should not expect the Bible to speak authoritatively about geology or geography, because that was not its function when (and for whom) it was written. Rather, the Bibles function is to be a guide to salvation. Scripture tells us about who God is and Gods relationship to us.

As Christians, we must acknowledge that different books of the Bible were written at different times for different groups of people and that when viewed within their context, the messages from these books are more beautiful and profound than without this perspective.

If we can learn to take the Bible on its own terms  not forcing it to answer questions or provide information it is not intended to address  than we have the freedom to take science on its own terms.

With this in mind, we return to what the biological theory of evolution really asserts. In its most simplistic form, biological evolution is a well-tested and well-confirmed explanation for the incredible diversity of species we have on earth.

The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on earth shares a common ancestor through the process of descent with modification. (I encourage you to spend time understanding what evolution really is and is not. See: this article.)

Biological evolution is completely neutral about a higher power. When some people claim that evolution proves there is no creator, they are overstepping the boundaries of science. Science cannot answer such metaphysical questions like whether or not there is a God.

It's important to recognize that accepting consensus scientific findings like biological evolution does not require one to adopt a philosophical naturalists view of life: that nothing exists except the natural world.

Rather, Christians who boldly pursue an understanding of science are doing so with a confidence that what we learn from studying creation will ultimately reveal more about the Creator. Just because we can describe or explain something in scientific terms does not leave less room for God in the process.

Science gives us the mechanism by which life develops and religion gives us the agency behind the mechanism. When Christians speak about God as the creator, we are speaking about the agency behind that cause, not the causal mechanisms themselves.

The author of the original question in this series asked if accepting evolution means we have to choose science over the Bible. The answer is no! If we believe that God created, then scripture and creation cannot be in conflict. Instead, our interpretations of scripture and our interpretations of nature are what are in conflict. If we see a conflict, we may need to reevaluate our interpretations. Doing this, however, requires courage.

Pursuing an understanding of science may require us to uncouple our personal theology about creation from our trust in God. In other words, we need to maintain our trust that God is the creator and savior while re-examining our beliefs about how God created.

Over 1,500 years ago, Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430) gave advice for all Christians faced with the task of interpreting Scripture in the light of scientific knowledge in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis. According to Augustine, our trust in the revelation of Scripture should not blind us to the revelation we can gain from the study of nature. Both areas of knowledge are worthy of full development. I firmly believe that following the path of truth, whatever its source, is a profound act of faith for the Christian.

April Maskiewicz Cordero is a professor of biology at Point Loma Nazarene University in California. Her research focuses on developing more effective approaches for teaching ecology and evolution. She is also a member of the BioLogos advisory council.

SeJin Koh: Any serious attempt to answer the questions in the evolution-creationism debate calls for multi-disciplinary studies of the Bible, geology, biology, history, archaeology, theology and even philosophy.



As an archaeologist, one question in the evolution-creationism debate with which I am often confronted concerns the age of the earth. No human being witnessed the beginning of the earth, and the Bibles photograph of that moment was not recorded to teach us the age or chronology of the earth and all its living creatures.

Nevertheless, Christians have often tried to use the Bible as if it were written as a science textbook, resulting in unsatisfactory conclusions.

For more than a century, Christians have vigorously debated theories of a young earth versus an old earth. In some circles, anyone who supports the idea of an old earth is labeled an atheist and anyone who is open to evolution is treated like a pagan.

In places where Christians have active involvement in social and political issues, like the USA and South Korea, pastors, theologians and pious scientists (including geologists, biologists, and astrophysicists) teach as dogma the young earth theory that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

This young earth dating can be found as early as the fourth century in the writings of the early church fathers. Eusebius and Jerome proposed that the earth was 4,000 to 6,000 years old. In Martin Luthers commentary on Genesis, he wrote that the earth did not exist until 6,000 years ago.

Widespread belief in the young earth theory was triggered by James Ussher, a pious Irish priest and scholar in the 17th century. In his book Annales Veteris Testamenti published in 1650, he concluded that the earth was created on October 22, 4004 B.C., thus giving a total history for the earth of 6,000 years. This was then printed in the margin of the King James Version and was treated as if it had the same authenticity as the biblical texts.

In 1961, John Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, neither of whom were geologists, published The Genesis Flood. This book sensationally promoted the theory of a 6,000-year-old earth. It is still an influential text in South Korea, a country that may have elevated young-earth creationism to the level of dogma more than any other country. This movement has created a huge controversy and division between churches and schools, and between people of faith and scientists.

In my work as an archaeologist, it is difficult to accept the theory of a 6,000-year-old earth. Material culture shows that an agricultural sedentary lifestyle began 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Techniques used to fashion earthen vessels (pottery) were invented around that time or a little later. This dating is not consistent with a young earth theory.

Young earth theoreticians oppose or deny the validity of scientific results which are based on Carbon-14 dating and modern geological techniques. Frustrated by the opposition, Davis A. Young and Ralph F. Stearley published The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth in 2008. This book is the most comprehensive treatment of the subject, utilizing research from four different fields: history, the Bible, geology, and philosophy. The authors are Bible-believing Christians. Their findings do not support the young earth theory and yet they do not find it in conflict with the Bible or their Christian faith.

The dating of the earth is just one issue in the evolution-creation debate. The issue is complex and controversies, as well as disagreements, exist even among scientists.

The theory of evolution fails to provide some of the critical missing links between the species or to provide answers to questions regarding the meaning of life or the presence of evil. There are also valid questions by scientists as well as biblical scholars regarding the Genesis account of creation.

Struggling with the conflict between evolution and creationism, 25 Christian scientists, pastors, theologians and philosophers published the bookHow I Changed My Mind About Evolution: Evangelicals Reflect on Faith and Science. This book would be a worthwhile investment for Christians who want to understand the evolution-creationism debate. But readers should be aware that the authors accept evolutionary creationism, which means evolution was a method of Gods creation. This may sound more like a compromise than a solution.

The pioneers of evolution, such as Alfred R. Wallace who wrote The Malay Archipelago and Charles Darwin who wrote The Origin of Species spent enormous amounts of time, energy and resources for their research. Diligent Christians should do the same, examining all sides of the issue to determine the strengths and weaknesses of various theories and arguments, not simply looking for facts to support what one already believes.

The authority of the Bible does not depend on human arguments and a sincere search for truth should never be feared as a threat to ones faith.

SeJin Koh is director of Aksum Archaeological Expedition in Ethiopia, and former president of Asia United Theological University, Korea.
Joe Biden wants Islam taught more in schools, decries 'rise in Islamophobia'

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Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden said Monday that he wants schools in the U.S. to teach more about Islam and claimed that there is an unconscionable rise in Islamophobia under the Trump administration.

"I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith, Biden, a Catholic, said during his video remarks played at the Million Muslim Votes summit organized by the Muslim American political action committee Emgage Action.

I wish we talked about all the great confessional faiths. [Islam is] one of the great confessional faiths. What people don't realize is ... we all come from the same root here, in terms of our fundamental basic beliefs. I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity for being engaged, for committing to action this November.

Emgage Action boasts of being the political home for Muslim Americans" and endorsed Biden in April after initial endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the Democratic presidential primary.

Donald Trump has fanned the flames of hate in this country, across the board, through his words, his policies, his appointments, his deeds and he continues to fan those flames, the 77-year-old Biden, who served as vice president under former President Barack Obama, said. Under this administration, we have seen an unconscionable rise in Islamophobia, including kids being bullied at school and hate crimes in our communities.

Biden also claimed that Trump has named people with open Islamophobia  who have no business serving in high positions in our government to key leadership roles in our Department of Defense [and] the U.S. Agency for International Development.

It is an insult to our values, it weakens our standing in the world, Biden said. What message does this send to the rest of the world?

Despite calling out administration officials he accused of being Islamophobic, Biden mentioned nothing in his speech about confronting the presence of radical Islamic extremist groups that are responsible for the killing of thousands around the world.

Biden praised Emgage Action for its effort in getting 1 million Muslim voters to show up to vote in November.

You are doing what has never been done before, Biden said. It matters. Your voice is your vote. Your vote is your voice.

Biden admitted that the voice of Muslim Americans have not always been recognized or represented in the fashion that it deserves.



He went on to say that this is the most important election in modern American history.

Biden also asserted that Muslim communities were the first to feel Donald Trumps assault on black and brown communities in this country with his vile Muslim ban.

The so-called Muslim ban was an executive order during the first days of the Trump administration in 2017 that temporarily halted immigration and refugee resettlement from several Muslim-majority countries that failed to meet minimum security and information-sharing requirements. The order was opposed by immigration and refugee advocacy groups.

That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure and insults and attacks against Muslim American communities, Latino communities, black communities, AAPI communities, Native Americans, Biden said of the Trump administrations travel bans.

Biden vowed to end the Muslim ban on day one. Biden also vowed to work with Congress to pass hate crime legislation and legislation to end racial and religious profiling by federal law enforcement agencies.

As Trump has built up relationships with several national leaders and strongmen around the world, such as North Koreas Kim Jong Un, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Arabias crown prince, Biden vowed that he wont be writing any love letters to dictators.

Biden also said his administration would work with international partners to meet the demands of the humanitarian crisis in Syria, Yemen and Gaza. He also said that he would continue to push for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.

He further declared that as president, he would seek out and incorporate the ideas of Muslim Americans on everyday issues that matter most to our communities. Biden said he would include having Muslim American voices as part of his administration.



I want to make sure your voices are included in the decision-making process as we work to rebuild our nation, Biden said.

The former Delaware senator said he is not just asking for Muslims' support but stressed that he wants to earn their vote.

Bidens comments on wanting to see more Islam taught in public schools come as many public school districts around the country already include units on Islam in high school and, in some cases, middle school social studies class.

Bidens comment drew the ire of some Christian conservatives on social media.

"Basement Biden should have stayed in basement, conservative author and radio host Wayne Allyn Root wrote in a tweet.

Outside of radical Dementia-crats, his comments scare the be-Jesus out of Americans. Teach Islam in schools. No wonder they keep him in basement. The more he talks, the more he horrifies Silent Majority, he added.

Christian Broadcasting Network analyst David Brody opined on Twitter that Bidens comment will help Trump immensely in 2020.

Christianity and its history/values are being eliminated/distorted in public schools and @JoeBiden wants MORE teachings on Islam? Brody asked.

Also speaking at the summit was controversial activist Linda Sarsour, a Muslim of Palestinian descent who was a founding board member of the Women's March movement before leaving the board after accusations of antisemitism.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that Sarsour holds "positions that delegitimize Israel." Sarsour has in the past reportedly praised one of the alleged unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, and referred to him as a mentor.

Also speaking at the conference was controversial pro-BDS Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

"Biden has a lot of work to do to win the hearts of young Muslim Americans who were core to Bernies campaign," Sarsour wrote in a Twitter thread. "They are anti-war, pro-Palestinian, pro-Abolition of ICE & support defunding of police. They care about Rohingya, Uighur Muslims, Kashmir, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen & Syria."

"I choose Biden. But I choose him as my opponent in the White House," Sarsour added. "I want him to defeat Trump so we can mobilize our movements to hold him accountable and push him to do and be better. We cant do that with Trump."
Syracuse, N.Y.  Bars and restaurants in New York continue to lag behind those in most other states in their rates of opening back up and pouring draft beer, according to a new report from a Syracuse-based technology company.

Meanwhile, some of the states that have seen recent spikes in new coronavirus cases are nearer the top of the reports list of places where bars and restaurants are open and taps are flowing.

New York state ranks 37th in the percentage of draft beer locations that have reopened in the most recent survey by BeerBoard, an Armory Square company that monitors taps at thousands of accounts across the country. With 83.3% of its locations open as of last weekend, New York falls behind the national average of 91.1%.

In the measure of the percentage of total available taps pouring beer, New York is at 49%, meeting the national average. But states like Florida (53% of taps pouring), Georgia (57%) and Texas (54%) show higher tap usage.

New York taps in use actually dropped 9.3% in the past two weeks. Florida remained steady while tap use in George and Texas increased slightly.

In BeerBoards report on draft location reopenings, Florida ranked 15th with 97.5% in operation and Georgia ranked 16th with 97.4% operating. Texas, which came in at No. 34 with 87.4% open, has instituted two rounds of new bar closings and restaurant occupancy limits in the past month.

Thirteen states report 100% reopening or opening rates in the latest BeerBoard report. Nationally, the rate of locations that are open jumped from just 16% in mid-May to 91% last weekend.

Meanwhile, Florida reported 78,205 new coronavirus cases in the past week; Georgia had 21,286 new cases and Texas had 70,956 new cases, according to numbers tracked at National Geographic. New York state in the past week had 5,014 new cases.

Those numbers mirror tracking by other sources, such as the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

To be clear, BeerBoard simply reported the bar opening and draft beer numbers, as it has several times since the phased-in reopening of bars and restaurants around the country. BeerBoard itself did not draw a correlation between reopenings and new coronavirus cases.

But its team did note that some states where cases have spiked, like Teaxas, are pulling back on bar and restaurant reopenings.

The next few weeks will be interesting to track, as states begin to roll back policies and reintroduce restrictions for on-premise dining and alcohol consumption, the BeerBoard report said.

In New York, bars and restaurants have been allowed to reopen since late June with limits of 50% capacity and other restrictions. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo has threatened to re-close close bars and restaurants if they fail to ensure compliance with rules meant to limit the spread of the virus.

Cuomo has also issued new directives, such as a requirement that alcohol be served with food and a partial ban on walk-up service at bar tops food counters. Those are intended to contain the kind of mingling that occurs when people drink at bars instead of sitting down to eat.

Those measures have been criticized for being confusing  and some people have claimed they go too far in clamping down on small business.

But Scott Wexler, executive director of the Empire State Restaurant & Tavern Association, offered his support for many of Cuomos directives in a statement this week.

NYs restaurant and tavern industry knows that protecting the states success in combating coronavirus is the key to keeping their businesses afloat, Wexler wrote. We support Governor Cuomos calls to enforce physical distancing and face covering protocols. Large gatherings at or near bars need to end. Bad actors need to be shut down immediately if they wont comply with the rules.

Wexler even called on the State Liquor Authority to summarily suspend the licenses of non-compliant businesses and allow compliant business to continue to follow the rules and serve customers safely.

BeerBoards data paints an imprecise picture, but it could indicate that New Yorks alcoholic beverage industry is resuming more cautiously than in other states. The states lag may be largely explained by the fact that its most populous region, New York City, has not yet reopened for indoor dining and drinking.

BeerBoard, headquartered at 225 W. Jefferson St. in Armory Square, uses its technology to track more than $1 billion in draft beer sales through more than 60,000 tap lines across the country.

Its clients include many independent bars and restaurants along with national chains like Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooters, Applebees, Twin Peaks, Mellow Mushroom and BJs Restaurant & Brewhouse. Its also been adding breweries to its client list, and offers services to brands like Heineken, Diageo (the parent of Guinness), Genesee, Labatt USA, Lagunitas, Stone Brewing and Founders.

BeerBoards products include SmartBar, which generates real-time data insights on what the bar is pouring; BeerBoardTV, big screen digital menus visible from the bar or dining area; BeerBoard Menu, automated print and website menus; and BeerBoard Mobile, a mobile application designed for consumers.

All that gives BeerBoard the data it can use to determine the most popular beers, and beer styles, for the accounts it serves. It periodically mines its date to produce other reports, such as the look at recent pour volumes.

MORE ON FOOD AND DINING RULES

From chips with booze to walk-up service: State clarifies Cuomos new bar rules

Chips? Chips and salsa? Cuomos rules on food sales at bars still causing confusion

Cuomo threatens to reverse NY bar, restaurant reopenings if big crowds continue

Cuomos new booze rules: What bars can and cant do (and do chips count as food?)

No more alcohol without food at NY bars and restaurants, Cuomo says

Winery, brewery, and distillery tasting rooms: Open, but different

Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
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To fill the massive gaps in our understanding of the Sun, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Solar Orbiter mission on 9 February 2020.

The spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June and the first images from it have now been released, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun.

"These amazing images will help scientists piece together the Suns atmospheric layers, which is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system," said Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

At the time the images were captured, the spacecraft was just 77 million km away from the Sun, Science Daily reported.

An instrument called the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on the Solar Orbiter captured this first image, showing "campfires" during its first perihelion  the position of the spacecraft in its elliptical orbit where it makes its closest approach to the Sun.

"The campfires are little relatives of solar flares that we can observe from Earth, million or billion times smaller," Science Daily quoted David Berghmans of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), Principal Investigator of the EUI instrument, as saying.

Berghmans also said that the Sun might look quiet at first glance, but those miniature flares can be observed everywhere when we look in detail.

Scientists are unsure if these campfires are just tiny versions of big flares or they are generated due to an entirely different mechanism that isn't yet known.

ESAs Solar Orbiter project scientist Daniel Muller said that they did not expect these results so early, adding that the photos show the spacecraft is "off to an excellent start."

According to EurekAlert, the coronavirus pandemic threw multiple challenges to the mission. It led to the shut down of mission control at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, for over a week. Owing to the COVID-19 situation, teams involved in the mission also had to perform some critical operations remotely.
The journalist was returning home in Vijay Nagar area when he was waylaid by over half a dozen armed men and suffered a bullet injury in the head

Journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by unknown miscreants near his residence in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad on 20 July, breathed his last at a hospital, doctors said on Wednesday.

The doctor monitoring Joshi told ANI that the veins in the journalists' head had got badly damaged due to the bullet injury. Meanwhile, the Station in-charge has been suspended and departmental inquiry initiated after the family of the journalist alleged inaction by the police.

Joshi was returning home in Vijay Nagar area with his two daughters on a motorcycle when he was waylaid by over half a dozen armed men at around 10.30 pm on Monday, officials told PTI. A total of nine accused have been arrested in the matter and efforts to nab another accused are underway.

The incident occurred on Monday, days after Vikram Joshi had filed a complaint with Vijay Nagar Police Station stating that some men were harassing his niece. Joshi has suffered a bullet injury on his head.

Joshi's brother, Aniket Joshi had said, "A few men were harassing his niece a few days ago and my brother had opposed it and also filed a police complaint on 16 July. A case was also registered following which he was shot at by those miscreants."

The FIR was registered under Indian Penal Code sections 307 (attempted murder), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (act done by several people with a common intention) on complaint by Joshi's brother Aniket Joshi, Naithani said.

The FIR had three named suspects Chhotu, Akash Bihari and Ravi besides some unidentified people. Chhotu and Ravi have been arrested, while searches are underway to nab Akash and six police teams are working on the case, he added. The police have also arrested Mohit, Dalbir, Babu, Yogendra, Abhishek, Abhishek and Shaqir based on evidence in connection with the case, Naithani added.

Journalist Vikram Joshi's death case: UP Police releases list of 10 persons; of which 3 are accused and arrested, while 6 have been detained & one is absconding. pic.twitter.com/dh4DXhFhnH  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) July 22, 2020

The journalist was given a life threat by the accused men, according to the allegations made in the FIR.

The family has also alleged inadequate action by the local police post in-charge, who has been suspended with immediate effect considering the gravity of the matter. A departmental inquiry has been ordered and the local Circle Officer will probe the matter, SSP Naithani said.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attacked the Uttar Pradesh government over the law-and-order situation in the state following the incident.

"Ghaziabad falls in NCR. Going by the state of law and order here, one can get an idea of the situation in the entire state of UP. A journalist was shot at because he complained to the police against molestation of his niece. How will common man feel safe in such a jungle raj," she said in a tweet in Hindi.
LANSING, Mich.  My state was hit hard by Covid-19. For many weeks, we had the nations third-highest number of deaths despite having only the 10th-largest population. As a result, we took some of the most aggressive measures in the country in the fight against the disease, and our hard work paid off. Our actions saved thousands of lives.

We are now working around the clock to restart our economy in a way that protects workers, businesses and families. But as people in Michigan and across the country begin to return to work, cases are rising again. To slow the rise and further protect our families from this virus, we need the Trump administration to issue a federal mask mandate.

When more Americans wear a mask in public, we can save lives and put ourselves in a better position to send our children back to school in the fall.

Governors of both parties in at least half of the states have issued mask orders to protect their residents. Kay Ivey in Alabama just required everyone to wear a mask in indoor spaces open to the public and outdoor public spaces where 10 or more people are gathered. In Michigan, I issued a similar order that also requires any business that is open to the public to deny entry to people who refuse to wear a face covering, with limited exceptions.
NYPD cops joined in a water fight with civilians on a scorching day in Queens after stopping at a 99-cent store to arm themselves with water pistols.

Footage of the officers' antics was filmed and shared by a restaurant chef who delighted in seeing 'police playing with us' on the streets.

Some of the laughing cops got out of their vehicles to spray water over bystanders on 165th Street while another fired their toy weapon from the seat of his car.

The moment of light relief comes amid a looming crisis for the NYPD as it faces a drastic $1billion budget cut despite an alarming surge in murders, shootings and burglaries in the city.

Play fight: A cop fires a water pistol from the window of a police car in Queens after the officers stopped at a 99-cent store to arm themselves with water pistols

The chef, who goes by the name Chef Matt, took the video while cooking on a barbecue grill on the street.

Looking up from his food, he sees two police cars slowly approaching - before an orange water pistol appears at the window and a cop takes aim at a bystander.

Two more cops then get out of the second police car and pull out their own water pistols, firing at a woman wearing a mask and brandishing her own toy weapon.

Several others join in the water fight as Chef Matt declares 'look at this you dont get that nowhere' and repeats the name of the restaurant, Mama's Kitchen.

Matt told the New York Post that the cops 'saw us playing with our water guns' and 'went to the 99 cent store and came back' so they could join in the fight.

Several of the cops gave a 'shout out' to Mama's Kitchen at Matt's request before laughing with pedestrians as they continued their patrol.

Some of the laughing cops got out of their vehicles to spray water over bystanders on 165th Street while a restaurant owner filmed the moment of light relief

The jolly antics come as the NYPD faces a $1billion budget cut amid a surge in violent crime and a financial crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

On July 6, cops announced a 'sharp increase in shootings and violence' in June 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

Shootings were up by 130 per cent and rose in every borough of New York, while burglaries were up 118 per cent and murders 30 per cent.

Over the first six months of 2020, there were 181 murders in the city - up by 23 per cent from the equivalent figure of 147 in the first half of 2019.

New York City's 2021 budget will see $484million cut from the NYPD's operating budget and $354million transferred to other city agencies.

The city faces a $9billion hole in its budget because of the virus pandemic, with warnings of lay-offs for as many as 22,000 municipal workers.

The push for cuts was given further momentum by the George Floyd protests with their slogan of 'defunding the police' to prevent brutality against black people.

The cuts include the cancellation of the July enrollment of what would have been more than 1,100 new recruits, though another class will be enrolled in October.
LONDON  Britain's Prince George, the country's future monarch, celebrated turning 7 Wednesday. To mark the event, the palace released pictures taken by his mother, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, showing the young prince in a T-shirt and flashing a gap-toothed smile in the sunshine.

George is third in line to the throne after his grandfather Prince Charles and father, Prince William, and is the eldest of the Cambridges' three children  his sister Charlotte is 5 and his brother Louis is 2.

William and Kate's three children are rarely seen in public and few photographs of them are released, but it has become a tradition for snapshots taken by Kate to be published to mark special occasions.

George's birth in the private Lindo Wing of St. Mary's Hospital in London in 2013 caused global headlines with international crowds of photographers and media vying for a glimpse of the future monarch.

In May, the Cambridges released images of their daughter delivering food packages to people during the coronavirus lockdown to mark her fifth birthday.

Her grandfather Prince Charles contracted COVID-19 but made a swift recovery in March and the royal family have been vocal in their support of health care workers and businesses during the pandemic.

Many of the lockdown measures are beginning to ease in England, with the young prince expected to celebrate his birthday at home. Last year, he spent his big day on vacation with his family on the Caribbean island of Mustique.

Earlier this month, Princess Beatrice, the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, married in a private ceremony due to the coronavirus restrictions. She donned a vintage dress and a diamond tiara that she borrowed from her grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, who attended the small wedding.

Reuters contributed to this report.
A mother is angry and confused after Tri-Lake Health Centre staff in Killarney refused to allow her four-day-old newborn inside with her, then sent her outdoors to breastfeed.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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A mother is angry and confused after Tri-Lake Health Centre staff in Killarney refused to allow her four-day-old newborn inside with her, then sent her outdoors to breastfeed.

Staff also denied Liza-Jane Porters husband entry.

Liza-Jane Porter breastfeeds four-day-old Ivy-Lea outside the Tri-Lake Health Centre in Killarney the evening of July 16 because staff did not allow the newborn into the facility. Porter was admitted to emergency after a C-section three days earlier. (Submitted)

Meanwhile, other area hospitals  in Brandon and in Boissevain  offered a more agreeable policy, and told her they would not separate a breastfeeding newborn from their mother and her husband could attend with her as a support person.

Prairie Mountain Health declined to comment on this case, with chief executive officer Penny Gilson noting by email that they do "not comment on individual client circumstances in the media."

Liza-Jane gave birth to Ivy-Lea by C-section on July 13. A few days later, on July 16, she experienced problems, called Health Links and was told she needed to be seen.

"We packed up the little one because I had to take her with me," Liza-Jane said.

Her husband, Dustin Porter, dropped her off at the front door of the hospital so she wouldnt have to walk across the parking lot in extreme pain. He parked the car, then headed in with Ivy-Lea to join his wife.

Staff turned both Dustin and Ivy-Lea away.

Liza-Jane had the nurse come into the room where she waited, and explained her breast was sore and a lump was beginning to form. She told the nurse she had to feed her daughter.

"I need her in here," Liza-Jane told the nurse.

She says she was denied again. She sat in her room crying. After her blood was taken, she once again stated she had to feed Ivy-Lea. Staff put her into a wheelchair and a nurse pushed her outside.

"We sat outside. I was ticked off. Here I am sitting outside feeding my kid. The mosquitoes are out. The suns going down. Im pretty upset. My husband is upset," Liza-Jane said.

"Im struggling with breastfeeding as it is because shes still new and not latching quite the right way."

Liza-Jane said a nurses aide came out to ask if she was done. She allegedly attempted to make Liza-Jane cover her breast because of the care home next door. Her breast was uncovered so she could better help her baby get used to breastfeeding.

She also claims the nurses aide also said: "I hope she doesnt get sick."

Frustrating them further, the couple say they witnessed a nurse come out from the hospital, hug, talk and visit with a small group of people outdoors, then head back into the hospital.

"(My husband) was absolutely floored that my kid cant come to me but this nurse is coming out on her break and hugging and touching her family, and going inside. That nurse was actually the one who administered my drugs that night."

And, to top it all off, the newborn was scheduled for blood work at the same hospital the very next morning.

"I did let the nurses know. You wont let her in tonight, but were coming back tomorrow at 11 a.m. for her blood work. So how does she do blood work? Do we have to do this outside? Does the public health nurse come outside?"

Liza-Jane said while at the hospital on July 17, the care team manager apologized and, among other statements, said it was for Ivy-Leas protection. The manager also allegedly asked why she didnt breastfeed in her car.

"Not the point. Not the point. I said, Ive got a Jeep. Its a small Jeep. Ive got a car seat in the middle of the back seat. I can barely walk. It takes me multiple minutes to get in and out of my car because Im in so much pain. And you want me to wiggle my butt into my car and breastfeed my kid?" Liza-Jane said.

"Not the point."

Liza-Jane said that manager also contacted the Killarney Mb. Community Chat Facebook group admin and demanded her husbands post about the incident be removed. The post was removed.

Since she hadnt overnighted at the hospital July 16, primarily because she could not keep her infant with her, Liza-Jane still required care Friday. She was admitted to Brandon Regional Health Centres emergency department, even as her daughter underwent treatment for newborn jaundice in another area of that hospital. They were well treated and well cared for.

Area resident Brenda Mitchell heard about the couples ordeal and shared similar outrage to that expressed by several people on social media.

She told The Brandon Sun she would not normally speak out, "but it really upset me."

"I have been to that hospital recently for blood work. No screening nor hand sanitizing at the door but waiting to be let in," she said in an email.

"I wore a mask but not sure it was required. Meanwhile, a person visiting a family member breezed in with no mask nor any visible precautions taken. If they are selective with the rules, surely this family was treated with unreasonable cruelty."

Liza-Jane has lodged a complaint on Prairie Mountain Healths patient-relations line. The health authoritys website states a reply could take up to five days. As of Tuesday afternoon, she had not yet received a response.

The Sun asked the health authority to describe what COVID-19 protocols exist related to the matters in this story and what training hospital staff receive to ensure protocols are carried out similarly at all locations. The Sun also asked if it is usual for hospital management to interfere with peoples right to share their experiences.

"Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) follows all of the provincial Infection Prevention and Control protocols, available on the Shared Health website. All staff are regularly reminded to keep updated on the protocols and managers regularly reinforce this  sometimes the guidelines are subject to interpretation and judgment of the providers (depending on the circumstances at the time)," Gilson said.

"We are however, further investigating this situation and will follow up directly with the client and family as needed."

 mletourneau@brandonsun.com

 Michele LeTourneau covers Indigenous matters for The Brandon Sun under the Local Journalism Initiative, a federally funded program that supports the creation of original civic journalism.
Police said Matiullah Jan was last seen outside a government school in Islamabad on Tuesday morning. An Islamabad police spokesperson said that they are investigating the case.

Islamabad: Prominent Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan has been freed, hours after he was abducted by plainclothes and uniformed personnel in the national capital, an incident that evoked strong outrage from the court, media, rights groups and the diplomatic community.

Jan is highly critical of the government and the security institutions of the country.

Glad to receive my friend @Matiullahjan919 - welcome. He has been released after 12 hours abduction. pic.twitter.com/nIIjwoIDZq  Azaz Syed (@AzazSyed) July 21, 2020

His brother Shahid Abbasi said the journalist was preparing to appear in the Supreme Court on Wednesday where he was facing contempt of court proceedings for an allegedly controversial tweet.

Abbasi told the media that he received a call from an unknown number to pick him up from a place in Fateh Jang area of Attock district Punjab province, which is not very far from Islamabad.

"I am back home safe and sound. God has been kind to me and my family. I am grateful to friends, national and international, journalist community, political parties, social media and rights activists, lawyers bodies, the judiciary for their quick response which made it possible," Jan tweeted on Wednesday.

Abbasi said the captors blindfolded Jan after abducting him on Tuesday and kept him in the car for most of the time he was in their captivity.

No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction but a video revealed that about half a dozen men in plain clothes and uniform forced him to come out of his car and forcibly put him in a vehicle in the G-6 area of the capital.

The abduction created an outrage in the country as the media, right groups, politicians and diplomatic community joined to demand his safe release.

The Islamabad High Court also ordered Secretary Interior, Commissioner Islamabad and Inspector General, Islamabad to produce the journalist on Wednesday or personally appear before the court.

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari demanded that the government to ensure his safe return soon. The matter was also taken up in the Pakistan National Assembly where opposition parties and the journalists covering the proceedings staged a walkout from the house.

Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists for press freedom, expressed outrage over Jan's abduction, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Canada's High Commissioner to Pakistan Wendy Gilmour tweeted, "very worrying development: the role of the media in a democracy is crucial, and must be protected. I trust that @Matiullahjan919 will be soon safely reunited with his family."
It started with a confession and ended with a demand for the finance ministers resignation.

On Wednesday, just hours before testifying before a parliamentary committee probing a now-cancelled government deal with WE Charity, Finance Minister Bill Morneau sent WE a cheque for more than $40,000 to cover expenses for trips he and his family took with the organization.

In his opening statement to the finance committee now reviewing the Liberal governments decision to strike a deal with WE Charity to administer a $900-million student grant program, Morneau said he had made a mistake.

Several days before testifying, he said, he reviewed his familys personal records and found that WE covered some costs during overseas trips, including for accommodation and around WE activities.

This was to my surprise, said Morneau, who insisted several times during his testimony on Wednesday he was previously unaware of the unpaid expenses.

Today, I wrote a cheque in payment of $41,366, he said. I expected and always had intended to pay the full cost of these trips and it was my responsibility to make sure that was done.

This was a mistake on my behalf, said Morneau.

The revelation immediately sparked calls for Morneaus resignation from Conservative MPs Pierre Poilievre and Michael Cooper, who sit on the committee. Allegations were levelled by Opposition MPs that hed violated ethics rules by accepting the payments for his trips.

The deepening scandal comes just as COVID-19 cases are spiking across Canada, economic havoc continues due to the pandemic, and scrutiny intensifies around the WE deal.

The new financial ties to WE also come during an ethics probe of Morneau  which is focused on his decision to approve the student grant deal  and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose brother and mother received a combined $282,000 between 2016 and 2020 from the WE organization in speaking fees.

In 2017, Morneaus wife and daughter took a trip to Kenya to learn about WE school projects. Later, Morneau travelled with his family to Ecuador to take part in WE programs there. The $41,000 cheque was to cover expenses for these trips, he said.

Morneau also revealed that his wife has made two $50,000 donations to the WE organization over the last several years.

Still, he stuck to the line that while he should have recused himself from discussions about awarding WE the deal to receive upwards of $43.5 million to administer the student grant program, he didnt think he had a conflict of interest.

I do not believe I had a conflict, although I fully recognize that there are legitimate questions about the perception of a conflict, said Morneau on Wednesday.

The minister said he turned over the new information about the expenses paid by WE to Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion.

Earlier this month, Dion announced his ethics investigation into Morneau after it was revealed that the finance ministers daughter works for WE.

But with Morneaus Wednesday testimony, questions continue to swirl, and the finance committee will have the chance to put some of them to Trudeau.

The prime minister has taken the rare decision to testify before the group of Liberal and Opposition MPs, a spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. The committee hopes to hear from Trudeau on July 28.

The latest scandal is not the first time Morneau has been at the centre of an ethics controversy.

In 2017, he paid a small fine for failing to disclose that he set up a corporation that owned his villa in France. He also faced Opposition criticism as he sold off shares in Morneau Shepell, a move that followed allegations of a conflict for his introduction of a pension reform bill that critics said could have boosted the share price.

Opposition MPs sitting on the finance committee have been grilling witnesses for days, asking if red flags were raised around the WE agreement and financial ties between ministers and the charity.

The Canada Student Service Grant program was developed throughout April. In a tight timeline of events Morneau laid out, he said that he had a conversation with Craig Kielburger, co-founder of WE Charity, on April 26.

We would have broadly discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Morneau said. He did not raise the Canada Student Service Grant, nor did I.

But the life of the program began earlier.

During the height of the pandemic, Morneau said that on the evening of April 5, he had a call with Trudeau and talked about getting support to students who were hit hard by the coronavirus-created economic crisis.

The finance minister said department of finance officials and his ministerial team began to look at how to tackle this.

On April 7, Morneau said about a dozen organizations, including WE, were contacted by officials as part of an engagement effort.

Several days after that, WE sent a proposal to Morneaus office, but he said it had to do with social entrepreneurship and not the summer student grant program, which was in its infancy, and that he didnt look at it at the time.

On April 18, officials told him that a partnership with a third party might be the way to go in delivering a program with the scale that the government was hoping for, said Morneau. WE was raised as one potential option.

This was the first time that Id been involved with any discussion related to WE Charity and what would become the Canada Student Service Grant, he said.

On April 21, he verbally approved the grant program being potentially administered by a third party, but said that WE, or another group, hadnt been selected at that point.

The social entrepreneurship proposal that had gone to Morneaus office earlier in April, and had been before other ministers, was adapted to fit a pitch to run the grant program.

That proposal was received by bureaucrats working on the file on the same day the program was announced, April 22.

Throughout May, Morneau was part of cabinet meetings where the agreement with WE was discussed and he said again on Wednesday that he should have recused himself.

I provided approval on the final revised funding decision for the program on June 3, said Morneau. That was my last direct engagement with the programs development.

Correction  July 23, 2020: This story has been edited to note that Finance Minister Bill Morneaus wife and daughter took a trip to Kenya to visit WE school projects. Morneau himself was not on that trip.
Does our vote matter as Americans, or can anyone  say, citizens of El Salvador, China, Mexico, or the Philippines  have full American legislative representation and all of its powers, just by having two feet here?

That's the deeply relevant issue from President Trump's executive order to exclude illegal aliens from the count for congressional representation. According to Fox News:

President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to prevent illegal immigrants [sic] from being counted for the purposes of re-drawing congressional districts after the 2020 census  reheating a fiery debate from last year on if illegal immigrants [sic] should be counted in the census. "There used to be a time when you could proudly declare, 'I am a citizen of the United States.' But now, the radical left is trying to erase the existence of this concept and conceal the number of illegal aliens in our country," Trump said in a statement accompanying the apportionment memorandum on Ensuring American Citizens Receive Proper Representation in Congress. "This is all part of a broader left-wing effort to erode the rights of Americans citizens, and I will not stand for it," he said. The order says that for the purposes of reapportionment, "it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status...to the maximum extent feasible and consistent with the discretion delegated to the executive branch."

Trump's measure seems like a quixotic effort, for sure, given that the courts, even the Supreme Court, rules against even the most ordinary enforcement of established immigration law as long as President Trump is involved, constantly siding with the interests of illegally present foreign nationals instead. The U.S. Census question asking about citizenship was nixed by the Roberts court, even though the question had been asked for more than a century in one heck of a precedent. The Court also nixed Trump's bid to end President Obama's executive order on DACA, which itself was a highly questionable override of a law that failed to pass in Congress and shouldn't have been on the books at all. Seems any executive order President Obama makes is now permanent law according to this Supremes precedent, with any future Republican presidents prohibited from getting rid of it, or else making a new executive order. So it's natural to think this bid to halt congressional representation by illegals from President Trump will be all for naught.

Give Trump credit for fighting for rule of law as it's written, maybe.

For sure, there will be another fight from the radical left, and the courts may well side with the crazies.

ACLU says in statement it will sue Trump over recent executive order excluding undocumented people from the census apportionment count  Sam Levine (@srl) July 21, 2020

But there is great value in what President Trump is doing, in that he's bringing forward to the public that not all of our representatives in Congress actually represent Americans.

Certain districts of Los Angeles County, for instance, more accurately represent states of Mexico or El Salvador, given the sizable illegals tally. These congresspeople, all leftist Democrats, all wield the same amount of power as districts solely populated by Americans.

Should El Salvador really be entitled to a congressional seat just because it's encouraged its nationals to move illegally to America? Should China? You can bet these congressional representatives will naturally support the interests of these countries.

But is that actually fair? If El Salvador gets a seat in the U.S. Congress, why shouldn't, say, France get a seat, too, or Australia, if this is how it's going to be? El Salvador, to take another example, calls Los Angeles County its 15th departamento (state) based on the number of its illegally present nationals there, and El Salvador's newspapers cover Los Angeles County as a domestic beat.

In any case, nations respond to incentives, and free congressional representation without the bother of diplomacy is a game some malevolent nations are very likely to play. How long is it going to take for China to recognize that the way to get a voice in Congress is not through diplomatic persuasion, but by seeding a congressional district or two with its own nationals, legal or illegal, and in the throes of the Chinese government? Forgive them the smuggling fees in order to pad a congressional district? It wouldn't be surprising if it's already happened.

Some of the most powerful Democrats in Congress and in various statehouses already represent districts with voting turnout figures of around 9% and an even tinier number when all residents, registered voters, legal aliens, illegal aliens, and minors are tallied. Political consultants call these "dead" districts. That's because illegals generally don't vote, although this may change with ballot-harvesters, some themselves illegal, now going door to door in places like California to let illegals know that the Democratic Party knows where they live, while very few illegal voting cases by foreign nationals are ever prosecuted, and certainly not in blue states. Democrats are really big on ballot-harvesting these days.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is very likely in this 'dead district' category. Her Bronx/Queens 14th district sported a 37,825 voter turnout rate in last month's New York primary (of which she drew all of 27,460 votes), and he average congressional district represents 711,000 people. What we see are 27,460 voters representing a 711,000 or so district. A tally like this shows that it's quite likely that she draws her power in Congress not from Americans but from the presence of illegally present foreign nationals padding her district and whose loyalties may well be at odds with those of the United States.

Bad as the outlook is for Trump, the Trumpsters aren't giving up, and that is a good sign. They are in fact giving some pretty good reasons for the executive order that are going to be hard for Justice Roberts to dismiss easily.

According to Fox News:

"Todays action to exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base reflects a better understanding of the Constitution and is consistent with the principles of our representative democracy," Trump said. "My Administration will not support giving congressional representation to aliens who enter or remain in the country unlawfully, because doing so would create perverse incentives and undermine our system of government. Just as we do not give political power to people who are here temporarily, we should not give political power to people who should not be here at all."

There will be a protracted argument about the constitutional provision of "persons in each state" as if all illegally present Americans were planted here like elms. (Reality: a very large number go back and forth).

There will be another argument about how resources are distributed, which is a function of the Census. After all, if a Los Angeles school district has a majority illegal child population, and a law that it must teach them, it's going to need resources. The Trumpsters can argue that the Census count on legal and illegal residents is not part of this, just the question of unearned political representation.

There will also be arguments about where the Trump administration is going to find out who is in the country illegally, particularly since the Census citizenship question loses a useful pointer. The White House has said it has more accurate ways of determining illegals, which may come to the fore and it will have to be ready for answers.

Some conservatives will argue that the best solution will simply be removing illegals, which is true  if there were decent enforcement at all this wouldn't happen. But a structure that supports illegal immigration and gives illegals real political power in their representation is a very major part of the problem. Knocking down the structural incentives to illegal immigration is important because it's a big reason why the U.S. cannot get control of its borders or its immigration situation at all. If nothing else, maybe it will remind the citizen voters that representation is important and get them to turn out to vote.
About 6,317 Nigerians have been evacuated from around the world since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic, a government official said Tuesday.

The Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, gave the figure during a briefing with reporters in Abuja on Tuesday, ahead of the National Diaspora Day celebrations on July 25.

Mrs Dabiri-Erewa said the evacuation began after the upsurge in coronavirus cases across the globe and appeals from stranded Nigerians abroad.

Currently, COVID-19 is still on rampage, so the evacuation continues, she said.

During the outbreak, Nigerias Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the commission and Nigerian embassies around the world came up with the evacuation exercise to bring home those trapped in foreign nations.

While many complained about the evacuation fee of N290,000, the Foreign Affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the federal government had no resources to foot the bills of returning Nigerians.

This is not by any stretch of imagination something the government is happy to do. As I mentioned, if the resources were there, we would evacuate everybody, he said.

At the initial stage of the evacuation, Mr Onyeama, at a May briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said the fee covered accommodation and feeding bill of the returnees who were taken in on a 14-day quarantine before they dispersed to their various homes.

But at a later review of the exercise, Mr Onyeama said evacuees would no longer go into 14-day government monitored quarantine if they test negative from their countries of residence.

The evacuees are to be tested at most nine days before their flight takes off and those who test positive are not allowed on the flight.

According to him, the new policy will give the Nigerian government enough latitude to fly more citizens home.

Breakdown

Meanwhile, a breakdown of the figures shows the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has the highest evacuees with 1,405, followed closely by the United Kingdom with 831 and the United States with 806 stranded Nigerians repatriated in three batches.

Other countries where Nigerians have departed include Saudi Arabia  117, Egypt  372, France  70, India  540, Turkey  324, Sudan  365, Uganda and Kenya  172.

Additionally, Nigerians have been evacuated from Senegal  17, Pakistan  56, Egypt  102, China  268, Malaysia and Thailand  247, Lebanon  147, Canada  51, South Africa  324 and Ghana  205.
Sudans former President Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown last year by the military in the face of mass protests against his rule, has gone on trial in the capital over his role in a coup that brought him to power more than 30 years ago.

Al-Bashir, who has been jailed in Khartoum since his removal, faces charges of undermining the constitution, violating the Armed Forces Act and fomenting a coup in 1989 against the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.

Before any statements or evidence could be given on Tuesday, the trial was adjourned until August 11 to reconvene in a bigger court to allow more lawyers and family members of defendants to attend.

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Unknown gunmen on Monday shot dead a popular businessman, Magaji Muktar, and a vigilante member, Ibrahim Sule, during an attack on Garki L.G.A, Jigawa state, police and residents said.

The Jigawa police spokesperson, Audu Jinjiri, told PREMIUM TIMES that the attackers shot the businessman inside his home in Garki town following his refusal to give them money.

However, residents said late Mr Muktar was shot by the gunmen in the midst of his two wives, following refusal to follow the kidnappers as they demanded, after giving an unspecified amount of money to the attackers.

They were not satisfied with the amount of money he gave them and they decided to take him with them, he refused and they shot him dead, a family source said, asking not to be named, for security reasons.

A resident said a local vigilante member, Ibrahim Sule, was killed in an attempt to foil the gunmens attack after he heard the sound of gunshots and moved toward the area with a torchlight.

The police also said they rushed to the scene and gave the gunmen a chase in the midnight attack, engaging them in a shootout. However, the hoodlums escaped using motorcycles.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how another businessman, Yusuf Maifata, was kidnapped on his sickbed in the Ringim Local Government Area. He reportedly died in captivity, despite an alleged N5 million ransom payment.

Before his death, Mr Maifata was a renowned businessman and contractor supplying food items to government schools in Jigawa State.

Just like Mr Maifata, Mr Muktar was also a businessman and a contractor supplying food items to government schools in the state. The killings sparked speculation about the activities of informants feeding gunmen about activities of the local businessmen.

On Tuesday, the states governor, Muhammad Badaru, after Inaugurating Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC), acknowledged the upsurge of insecurity across the state following activities of gunmen.

The governor said the increase in criminality in the state is, however, small, in comparison to what is happening across the country, adding that even with the surge, Jigawa is still the least affected.

We had series of security meetings on Monday and a lot of steps have been taken to address the issue of rising insecurity. I want to assure the residents with their prayers, God guidance, the state would overcome the challenges, the governor said.

In his acceptance address, the chairman of the Jigawa police-community relations committee, Haruna Dangyatin, said managing crime and criminality is the responsibility of all constituents, not just the police or government alone.

He said as chairman of the committee, he would work towards re-energizing the PCRC and repositioning it towards a more people-oriented performance outfit, creating a crime-free state, incomparable to any other, in Nigeria.
A secret Picasso sketch has been found hidden beneath one of his famous artworks after experts used X-ray scans to examine wrinkles on the canvas.

The drawing, which appears to show a pitcher, cup and newspaper resting on a chair, was scribbled on the back of the canvas used for his 1922 piece Still Life.

The legendary Spanish artist, who created more than 50,000 pieces during his lifetime, regularly reused canvases by painting over previous drawings.

The hidden Picasso sketch (pictured) appears to show a large pitcher, cup and newspaper all resting on a chair

The drawing was scribbled on the back of the canvas used for his 1922 abstract piece Still Life (pictured)

But researchers at the Art Institute of Chicago, where Still Life hangs, have described the latest find as unusual.

The drawing seems to have been erased using a thick layer of white paint before he began the final abstract masterpiece, according to Live Science.

The new sketch was only uncovered after scientists used high-tech scans to analyse Picasso's painting techniques on the renowned artwork after noticing wrinkles on the canvas.

'X-ray and infrared imaging revealed that Picasso had originally painted a neo-classical still life on the canvas,' according to research published in the journal SN Applied Sciences.

The legendary Spanish artist (pictured in 1946) regularly reused canvases by painting over previous drawings

Picasso (pictured in front of his paintings at his home in Mougins, France) created more than 50,000 pieces during his lifetime

'He applied a lead-white-based priming layer over the first composition before painting the linear abstract Still Life dated February 4, 1922.'

There is reasonable certainty that the sketch are that of the legendary artist as they bare striking resemblance to other of his drawings including those on display at the Gothenburg Museum of Art in Sweden.

Similar sketches have previously been found beneath other Picasso masterpieces including that of a man found beneath his painting of a bathing woman in The Blue Room in 2014.
Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has expressed concerns over the recent complicated developments over the East Sea with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Tuesday.

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (right) and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi co-chaired the 12th meeting of the Steering Committee for Vietnam-China Bilateral Cooperation on Tuesday.

The diplomat asks that the two countries better manage the sea dispute, refrain from acts that complicate the situation or expand the dispute, and asked that China fully respect the legitimate rights and interests of Vietnam, contributing to peace and security in the East Sea.

The maritime dispute between the two countries over the resource-rich sea was raised during the 12th meeting of the Steering Committee for Vietnam-China Bilateral Cooperation, held virtually on Tuesday.

The two foreign ministers agreed to abide by the high-level mutual understanding and agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of maritime issues between Vietnam and China, comply fully with international law  especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and promote negotiation mechanisms for maritime issues that would bring practical results.

Vietnam and China also agreed to effectively and fully implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) in its entirety, and step up efforts towards an early conclusion of an effective and substantive Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

However, the two sides have acknowledged the positive results attained through the past 10 negotiations on maritime delimitation and development cooperation conducted since the 11th meeting of the steering committee two years ago in HCM City, as well as acknowledging the bilateral cooperations achievements in less sensitive areas at sea.

The meeting drew the attendance of many ministerial leaders and local leaders of Hanoi, Hai Phong as well as seven border provinces.

At the conference, the two sides agreed that since the last meeting, Vietnam-China ties had sustained a positive upward trend as high-level exchanges were maintained by flexible forms, with Vietnamese General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping communicating, exchanging letters and congratulatory messages.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attended a number of economic forums in China, and discussed COVID-19 cooperation with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in April this year, while Vietnamese National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan paid an official visit to China in 2019.

It was noted that while bilateral trade had suffered considerable blows as a result of the pandemic but still within the first six months of the year, trade between the two sides posted a growth of 4.5 per cent, while many Vietnamese products  notably milk and mangosteen  had officially reached the Chinese market for the first time.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from China in 2019 ranked 7th out of 132 countries and territories currently investing in Vietnam.

Before the coronavirus crisis, China had for many consecutive years dominated the number of tourist arrivals to Vietnam, while Vietnam was one of the ASEAN countries with the largest number of visitors to China.

The two sides had cooperated and supported each other in COVID-19 prevention and control efforts and carried out many activities on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations (1950-2020).

The meeting also discussed the long-standing issues regarding bilateral cooperation despite remedial efforts from both sides, such as Vietnams trade deficit with China, problems plaguing a number of Chinese-invested projects or Chinese contractors in Vietnam, and the disbursement or implementation of concessional loans and grants from China to Vietnam, though interested by both sides, had progressed slowly.

At the meeting, the two sides identified and discussed with depth some key tasks in the future to promote the sustainable development of the comprehensive strategic cooperation partnership between Vietnam and China.

The two sides agreed to promote high-level visits when conditions permit, but maintain contacts in appropriate manner while the pandemic situation remains complicated.

Vietnam and China also concurred to enhance effective cooperation between the two Communist parties; promote the role of the two foreign ministries in coordinating and deepening bilateral relations; implement cooperation mechanisms in the fields of defence, security and law enforcement; and exchange experiences and carry out cooperation regarding COVID-19 prevention and control.

The two also agreed to work on resuming commercial flights between Vietnam and China to facilitate travel and flow of goods and services.

The two countries agreed to continue promoting cooperation in the field of economics, trade and investment in a sustainable manner.

Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh asked that China create favourable conditions for bilateral trade activities  including border trade  to grow, import more of Vietnamese products  especially agricultural products, encourage Chinese enterprises to boost investment in modern and environmentally friendly technologies, and direct efforts to thoroughly resolve obstacles and outstanding issues in some cooperation projects.

Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that he would push the relevant agencies to seriously consider proposals put forward by Vietnam.

The two sides agreed to further cooperation in the fields of science and technology, environment, transportation, agriculture and health; expand cooperation in the fields of culture, education, tourism and people-to-people exchanges; and strengthen mutual support at multilateral forums.

Vietnam and China have also discussed issues related to land borders, noting that basically the situation is now stable with two sides effective management of land borders.

The two countries have managed to maintain border economic activities, even during the pandemic.

The two sides agreed to strengthen coordination in border management and protection, strictly comply with the provisions of three legal documents on land borders and related agreements. VNS

Press teleconference talks Vietnam-China relations The Chinese Embassy in Vietnam held a press teleconference in Hanoi on May 7 to discuss bilateral ties and international cooperation in the fight against COVID-19.
While some businesses are doing really well, sadly others arent in the same position. Hospitality and gymnasiums are an example of that, theyre really battling it, said Mike McShane (pictured above), director at McLardy McShane.

Read next: Australia hit by spike in coronavirus cases

McShane manages around 100 Melburnian clients in industries including retail, transport, services and construction, but he says its the hospitality sector that will suffer the most.

Hospitality is struggling, and Ive got a few hotels and restaurants who are really battling, he admitted. Theres not a lot we can do other than try when possible to minimise their premiums by reducing estimated turnovers. Some are accepting of those and some arent. Weve had to change a couple of things in their coverage to adapt to those slight changes in business.

While restaurants, cafes and bars are using this down time to re-evaluate their menus, staffing and marketing, McShane says theyre only surviving on thin ice thanks to government support.

A lot them are now looking at how they could keep their business going by utilising the government stimulus and by also offering takeaway food, takeaway alcohol and home deliveries, he continued. While they havent had the same sort of turnover, with the help of the government stimulus, a lot of them have just survived.

Scott ONeill (pictured below), director of CP Insurance Services which specialises in retail, paints a similarly bleak picture.

The discussions about the second wave are certainly very concerning for businesses and the biggest challenge is to work out how theyre going to navigate their way through the ever-changing climate that were facing, ONeill conceded.

Much like back in March, when we first saw the initial set of restrictions coming in, they were being imposed so quickly that it felt like just as we got used to them, a second set of restrictions came through.

ONeill believes that if Premier Daniel Andrews imposes Stage Four restrictions, the situation will deteriorate.

How are they going to get through this and ensure that their business stays alive or continues through? If the shutdown goes further to Stage Four, they may have to shut their doors and thats going to have a really dramatic impact on their business, he said. Thats the concern.

Gavan Burke (pictured above), director at Active Insurance Solutions, which services around 200 Melbourne clients in the gym and fitness industry, says the decline in income has devastated his clients.

If the government had terminated the JobKeeper program in September, it could have spelled the end for many.

The drop in income has been significant for these businesses, Burke said. Theyve had significant downturn in income  a lot of them are closed and, for others, JobKeeper is the only thing keeping them going, he conceded.

At the end of August, when theyre able to reopen and receive an income then it shouldnt be so bad. But if the government extends the shut down and JobKeeper ends, they will be significantly impacted, and I say that some businesses wont survive.

Read more: "The single biggest challenge will be once JobKeeper finishes"

The federal government outlined JobKeepers future on Tuesday, announcing the vital program will continue are lesser rates. However, if the outbreak in Melbourne is controlled during the six-week lockdown, Burke says his clients will be less dependent on government support.

JobKeeper ending in September was a significant concern for them, he said. If JobKeeper ends but the government successfully manages the virus in the six-week lockdown period, then JobKeeper wont be that much of an issue because they will be able to get back to work, so its what happens within the next six weeks that counts.

However, its not just financial hardship facing some of Burkes clients  with temporary closures leaving vacant properties vulnerable, some have had to lodge claims for burglaries and damaged property, such as broken windows and water damage from leaked water fountains.

Burke says supporting clients around the clock during the second wave has been his highest priority.

Weve been here full-time; we havent stopped trading whatsoever. Weve been here 100% of the time back in the office - its all about providing advice and service, he said.

ONeill echoes these sentiments, encouraging brokers to support their clients experiencing hardship.

Find a way to work with your clients  work together as a team and recognise that youre there to help them out. Youre not the bad guy, we cant help them by giving them a loan or we cant extend their mortgage  we can instead help them in other ways, he said.

Just take the opportunity to affirm with your clients that youre there to work with them and that youre also a part of the team at their disposal.
Technavio has been monitoring the baby toiletries market and it is poised to grow by 5.55 bn during 2019-2023, progressing at a CAGR of 5% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005681/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Baby Toiletries Market 2019-2023 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Beiersdorf AG, Johnson Johnson Services Inc., Kimberly-Clark Corp., The Procter Gamble Co., and Unilever Group. are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Awareness about baby health and hygiene has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market.

Baby Toiletries Market 2019-2023: Segmentation

Baby Toiletries Market is segmented as below:

Distribution Channel Offline Online

Geographic Landscape APAC Europe MEA North America South America



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR31792

Baby Toiletries Market 2019-2023: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our baby toiletries marketreport covers the following areas:

Baby Toiletries Market size

Baby Toiletries Market trends

Baby Toiletries Market industry analysis

This study identifies product portfolio extension and innovation leading to product premiumization as one of the prime reasons driving the baby toiletries market growth during the next few years.

Baby Toiletries Market 2019-2023: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the baby toiletries market, including some of the vendors such as Beiersdorf AG, Johnson Johnson Services Inc., Kimberly-Clark Corp., The Procter Gamble Co., and Unilever Group. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the baby toiletries market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Baby Toiletries Market 2019-2023: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2019-2023

Detailed information on factors that will assist baby toiletries market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the baby toiletries market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the baby toiletries market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of baby toiletries market vendors

Table Of Contents :

PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORT

2.1 Preface

2.2 Preface

2.3 Currency conversion rates for US$

PART 03: MARKET LANDSCAPE

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis

PART 04: MARKET SIZING

Market definition

Market sizing 2018

Market size and forecast 2018-2023

PART 05: FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

PART 06: MARKET SEGMENTATION BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL

Market segmentation by distribution channel

Comparison by distribution channel

Offline Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Online Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Market opportunity by distribution channel

PART 07: CUSTOMER LANDSCAPE

PART 08: GEOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

APAC Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Europe Market size and forecast 2018-2023

North America Market size and forecast 2018-2023

MEA Market size and forecast 2018-2023

South America Market size and forecast 2018-2023

Key leading countries

Market opportunity

PART 09: DECISION FRAMEWORK

PART 10: DRIVERS AND CHALLENGES

Market drivers

Market challenges

PART 11: MARKET TRENDS

Increased offering of multipurpose baby toiletry products

Growing demand for natural and organic products

Increase in R&D investment

Other trends

PART 12: VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Overview

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

PART 13: VENDOR ANALYSIS

Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Beiersdorf AG

Johnson Johnson Services Inc.

Kimberly-Clark Corp.

The Procter Gamble Co.

Unilever Group

PART 14: APPENDIX

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

Definition of market positioning of vendors

PART 15: EXPLORE TECHNAVIO

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005681/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

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Email: media@technavio.com

Website: www.technavio.com/
TDT | Manama

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, emphasised yesterday the importance of further enhancing the operational efficiency and performance of the government, in order to meet the goals of the Kingdoms comprehensive development, led by His Majesty the King.

In this regard, HRH the Crown Prince highlighted Bahrains commitment to further develop the quality of government services to citizens and residents. This came as HRH the Crown Prince chaired the Civil Service Council meeting, held remotely.

HRH the Crown Prince noted the Civil Service Bureaus (CSB) efforts in successfully restructuring the organisational structures of various government entities, efforts which will support the Kingdoms further growth and development.

On this note, HRH the Crown Prince highlighted that 51 out of 57 government entities have successfully completed their organisational restructuring processes, which will pave the way to facilitate the implementation of strategies and plans during the next phase of development.

HRH the Crown Prince further highlighted the important role played by Team Bahrain during this next phase as the Kingdom further strengthens its key sectors. HRH the Crown Prince underscored that cooperation between Team Bahrain members is vital to overcome the challenges presented by the global coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, adding that joint efforts between all entities is imperative to ensure the Kingdom continues on its path towards further development.

HRH the Crown Prince noted that current challenges and opportunities call for the further strengthening of government operational efficiency to ensure flexibility when dealing with challenges, as well as to ensure quality services benefitting citizens and residents can continue to be provided.

HRH the Crown Prince expressed his gratitude to various government entities that have successfully completed restructuring processes, and for their continued cooperation with the CSB on this matter.

The restructuring processes have reduced the number of assistant undersecretaries within the different entities from 80 to 63, and the number of directors from 261 to 228; thus enhancing the efficiency of government performance and productivity
Amid the pandemic, the number of consumers requesting airline refunds has reached new heights. In fact, the Department of Transportation has received "an unprecedented volume of complaints from passengers" regarding airline refunds during this time, CNBC reported.

And on CNBC's new web series "Got a Money Dispute? Ask Kevin," host Kevin O'Leary says arguments over travel refunds are "one of the most common" disputes he sees nowadays.

"With the pandemic leading the cancellations left and right, folks are fighting over money like never before," O'Leary said during the fifth episode of his web series, which premieres Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET on YouTube.

"Consumers want their hard earned cash back."

During the most recent episode, O'Leary received a plea for help from David, who said he booked a $10,000 family vacation package through JetBlue, and because of the pandemic, now wants a refund.

"Mr. Wonderful, please help me," David wrote to O'Leary. "Our family wants to cancel our trip to Aruba originally booked from August 29 through September 5."

David told O'Leary that JetBlue had offered him a credit good for two years, but "I need the cash," David said. "I need the money now, not a voucher."

JetBlue cited company policy, David said, and refused to give a cash refund.

"Now, credit isn't [cash]," O'Leary agreed. "I understand that. That's some serious money. I totally get it."

But before O'Leary could even begin to help, the family had an update.

After writing the letter asking for O'Leary's advice, "my daughter Danielle heard me complaining so much," David told O'Leary.

"We were at dinner and [David] was ranting, which is fine," Danielle told O'Leary.

"We went on the JetBlue website, looked at their leadership team. I saw their president and COO [Joanna Geraghty]. I decided to see if I could send her a tweet. So, from my Twitter, I sent her a very polite tweet asking if I could have [10] minutes of her time. I'd love to just to talk to her and see if there was anything we could do."

O'Leary read her tweet aloud: "I am hoping to get some help with travel we have booked and Covid, we are saddened with the response from your team from loyal customers! Would love 10 mins of your time!"

O'Leary was impressed. "Wow, I like that," he said.

Danielle told O'Leary a JetBlue customer relations representative then called her dad.

"The [JetBlue customer relations] woman was very nice," David said to O'Leary on the episode.

"She said that's [JetBlue's] policy [to not refund] but this is a one-time thing that they will do and they will reimburse us online, and she did. She sent us back our money, and I was pleasantly surprised."

O'Leary was surprised of the outcome  which came without his help this time.

"Danielle, it sounds like you're a master of social media," O'Leary said. "You tweet once. It totally works. You're batting a thousand."

"Usually, I'm the one giving the advice. But in this case, I ended up learning a lesson."

O'Leary was impressed that Danielle "didn't waste any time" after contacting him for help. "You did the right thing," he said.

The "Shark Tank" investor said he learned two things from David and Danielle.

"One, big corporations cover themselves with contracts but that doesn't mean they stick to them. Sometimes, you have to take your own initiative. Use the power of social media to do that," O'Leary said. "No. 2 is, you've got to be polite about it because you're dealing with a big company that could go either way. They can tell you to pound sand, or they can help you."

"[JetBlue] saw you reach out, and you were polite, Danielle. That was amazing for you to think that through. And bingo! You don't have to listen to your dad whining anymore at dinner. This is a fantastic outcome."

Not only is this a lesson for consumers, O'Leary said, but a lesson for a "big corporation": "Take care of your customers and they'll be loyal."

All in all, David and Danielle "taught all of us a lesson on what it takes to get it done," O'Leary said. "Love it!"

JetBlue did not immediately respond to CNBC Make It's request for comment.

Check out more episodes of CNBC.com's "Got a Money Dispute? Ask Kevin on YouTube, and ask Kevin your questions during his live chat today at 2 p.m. ET.

Don't miss:
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Donald Trump's federal cops used batons and tear gas to fight off Portland's moms last night as protests entered day 55 in the city amid a growing backlash against the president's troops.

Armed with assault rifles, federal cops pushed back against the helmet-wearing 'Wall of Moms' who were protesting their presence in the city and acting as human shields for Black Lives Matter protesters.

Footage showed the cops dispersing protesters with their bare hands and shoving some of the women in the chest while using tear gas to break up the crowds on Tuesday night.

The group of mothers and fathers have been forming a human barrier between demonstrators and police at protests this week, amid allegations of brutality by the federal agents.

As well as the backlash in the streets, the Trump administration is also facing one in the courts, with several lawsuits filed in the last week in efforts to force the federal agents out of the city.

This comes as Trump continues to plow ahead with his law and order takeover in Democrat-run states, as he vowed to send in 150 agents to tackle the wave of violence and ongoing protests in Chicago.

Scroll down for video

Armed with assault rifles, federal cops pushed back against the helmet-wearing 'Wall of Moms' who were protesting their presence in the city and acting as human shields for Black Lives Matter protesters

Crackdown: A federal law enforcement officer pushes a mother back during a demonstration against the presence of Trump's federal cops in Portland last night

Defense: One of the women holds a makeshift shield with messages urging the federal cops to 'please go home' - as Donald Trump threatens to extend his intervention in Portland into other Democratic-led cities

A protester is pinned to the ground and detained by heavily-armed federal law enforcement officers in Portland last night

Enforcement: Tear gas hangs in the air as federal officers attempt to bring order to Portland on the 55th consecutive night of the protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd

The 'Wall of Moms' lead protests outside the Multnomah County Justice Center Tuesday night

The group linked arms in peaceful protest for the fourth night while holding peace symbols and banners reading: 'Don't mess with mama bear' and 'Mother Mary lost a son to state violence'

Federal police deployed tear gas and crowd munitions during the protests in Oregon on Tuesday night (pictured, a US flag is waved in front of a fire during the demonstrations)

Retired US Army major intelligence officer Jenine Betschart (center) protests outside the Multnomah County Justice Center along with the 'Wall of Moms' as night fell on the city

Federal officers pushed back moms in helmets using batons and tear gas, assault rifles being carried for crowd control pic.twitter.com/08SU3mRb4X  Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) July 22, 2020

Hundreds of protesters gathered in the streets of Portland Tuesday night, holding banners aloft as they marched peacefully through the city.

The 'Wall of Moms' led protests outside the Multnomah County Justice Center, sporting their signature yellow t-shirts.

The group linked arms in peaceful protest for the fourth night while holding peace symbols and banners reading: 'Don't mess with mama bear' and 'Mother Mary lost a son to state violence'.

Most were pictured wearing face masks and cycle helmets, and several held aloft flowers.

Outside the central police precinct, demonstrators waved their cell phone lights as they sang a rendition of We Shall Overcome.

But the situation turned ugly after midnight as a small group of people moved toward the federal courthouse and tried to remove the fence around the building.

Trump's federal cops and Portland's moms faced off again Tuesday night as protests entered day 55 in the city and the president's men face a growing pushback from demonstrators and local officials

The self-proclaimed 'Wall of Moms' took to the streets of Portland to protest the presence of federal agents in the city and act as human shields between them and Black Lives Matter protesters

As well as the backlash in the streets, the Trump administration is also facing one in the courts, with several lawsuits filed in the last week in efforts to force the federal agents out of the city

The Wall of Moms and federal agents square off in front of the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse Tuesday night

Without warning, federal enforcement officers began streaming out of the building, throwing tear gas canisters and firing rubber bullets and sting balls to disperse the crowd.

One masked demonstrator hurled an expletive at the officers while others tossed back some of the gas canisters.

'Stay together, stay tight,' the protesters chanted, backing away from the tear gas. 'We do this every night.'

Protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality have taken place across Portland for almost two months - ever since the death of black man George Floyd at the hands of a white cop in Minneapolis during an arrest over a fake $20 bill.

But the yellow-clad activist moms have only taken to the streets since Saturday, driven by a need to protect fellow protesters after Trump sent in federal troops.

Mardy Widman, a 79-year-old grandmother of five, said she had stayed away from the protests against racial injustice for fear of contracting coronavirus but she felt compelled to act when federal agents arrived in the city.

'It's like a dictatorship,' Widman said Monday, holding up a sign that read: 'Grammy says: Please feds, leave Portland.'

'I mean, that he can pick on our city mostly because of the way we vote and make an example of it for his base is very frightening.'

Protesters are seen protecting themselves with makeshift shields and umbrellas as they faced off with federal agents Tuesday night

Federal officers disperse Black Lives Matter protesters outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse early Wednesday morning

Federal agents faced off with protesters Tuesday night who have demanded the officers leave their city

Federal agents fire munitions into the crowd of protesters in front of the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse

Federal officers use chemical irritants and crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse early Wednesday morning

A federal officer is seen pinning down a Black Lives Matter protester outside the Portland courthouse on Tuesday

Federal agents detain a protester in front of the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse Tuesday night

The crowd is seen reacting as multiple munitions are launched their way during Tuesday night's demonstration

Protesters were seen Tuesday night holding up makeshift shields to keep them safe from rubber bullets

A protester reacts during a demonstration against the presence of federal law enforcement officers and racial inequality in Portland on Tuesday

Federal forces were deployed to Portland early July, and tensions have arisen between law enforcement and protesters ever since with claims their deployment has sparked more violence and reignited demonstrations that were dwindling in size.

'Right or left, I think here in the Pacific Northwest, we're all very much opposed to the federal government taking over our streets,' said Carlos, a demonstrator marching late Monday who asked to be identified only by his first name.

'When you send federal troops here, you're incensing the entire region.'

On July 11, a protester was hospitalized with critical injuries after a US Marshals Service officer struck him in the head with a round of less-lethal ammunition.

Anger flared again over the weekend after video surfaced of a federal agent hitting a Navy veteran repeatedly with a baton while another agent sprayed him in the face with pepper spray.

A statue of President Thomas Jefferson is defaced with paint and graffiti reading 'Slave owner and rapist' in the Chinook Land Autonomous Territory outside the Multnomah County Justice Center

Protests in Portland continued for the 55th night Tuesday as tensions escalate between federal agents and peaceful demonstrators

Protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality have taken place across Portland for almost two months - ever since a white cop 'murdered' black man George Floyd during an arrest over a fake $20 bill

But the yellow-clad activists have only taken to the streets since Saturday, driven by a need to protect fellow demonstrators after Trump sent in federal troops. Pictured the moms call on the federal agents to 'go home'

Protestors at the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse which has been covered in graffiti following weeks of protests

Demonstrators are seen chanting during Tuesday night's protest against police brutality

A group of federal agents are seen walking toward protesters during a demonstration on Tuesday night

Federal agents launched munitions into a crowd Tuesday night, but a protester used a tennis racquet to launch a munition right back

Richard Cline, principal deputy director of the Federal Protective Service, told reporters Tuesday that the officers are part of the Marshals Service and that the Justice Department's inspector general is investigating.

The US Department of Homeland Securitys Customs and Border Protection (CBP) arm confirmed on Tuesday it has deployed officers from three paramilitary-style units to join a federal crackdown on protests in Portland.

'We have agents and officers from our special operations groups deployed,' a CBP official said in an email. The official did not respond to questions about the number of officers deployed.

CBP, which patrols land borders and operates checkpoints for people arriving at US airports and other transportation hubs, has three specially trained units that have deployed officers to Portland, the official told Reuters.

According to the CBPs website, one of these units, the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, 'provides an immediate response capability to emergent and high-risk incidents requiring specialized skills and tactics'.

CBP said it also sent agents from its Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue and Special Response teams to Portland.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized the Trump administrations deployment of such forces.

'Donald Trump has no justification for deploying paramilitary troops to the streets of Portland or any other American city,' Wyden said.

'These occupying forces are creating conflict, attacking peaceful protesters and making my hometown more dangerous. For Portland to find peace, Trump needs to pull unwanted federal agents out of our city immediately.'

Demonstrators are seen barricading the doors of the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse Tuesday night

A protester is seen holding a 'go home' sign near others carrying makeshift shields outside the Portland courthouse

Demonstrators are seen carrying umbrellas and makeshift shields during a face-off with federal agents

Myke Tabarres is seen leading a Wall of Moms in chants during Tuesday night's demonstration

Protesters duck behind makeshift shields while wearing helmets and other guards to protect them from rubber bullets

Federal agents are seen standing outside the courthouse as they observe protesters Tuesday night

Protesters are seen entering the perimeter of the courthouse during a demonstration on Tuesday night in Portland

Allegations have also surfaced of federal agents whisking people away in unmarked cop cars without probable cause.

On Monday, video showed federal agents in Portland firing tear gas at protesters pulling down fencing around the federal courthouse.

Federal agents again used force to scatter protesters early Tuesday and deployed tear gas and rubber bullets as some banged on the doors of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse and tried to pull plywood off the shuttered entryway.

The boarded-up courthouse, which has been a focus of protests, is now covered with graffiti.

Portland police said some protesters lit fires in the street and tried several times to set them at the courthouse doors.

Oregon's governor and Portland's mayor have expressed anger over the presence of the federal agents, saying the city's protests had started to ease just as the federal agents started taking action and stoking up more hostility.

'It is time for the Trump troops to go home and focus their attention on other activities,' Democratic Gov. Kate Brown told MSNBC.

The 'Wall of Moms' march heads to the justice center as night falls Tuesday, with many linking and wearing face masks and helmets

Hundreds of protesters wearing yellow gather along the Portland waterfront as the 'Wall of Moms' march begins

Protesters pose for chalk outlines on the ground in remembrance of black lives lost in police custody

The moms have gathered demanding the federal agents go home as several lawsuits have also been filed against the Trump administration over the move to send in troops

Crowds in Portland had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 1,000 over the weekend as outrage grew at the federal agents' presence and their heavy-handed tactics.

While outrage has been building in the streets over the move, lawsuits have also been filed against the Trump administration.

One suit filed Tuesday claims federal agents are violating protesters' 10th Amendment rights by engaging in police activities designated to local and state governments.

The legal action was filed by the Portland-based Western States Center, which helps organize and promote the rights of communities of color and low-income people.

This comes after Oregon's attorney general sued last week, asking a judge to block federal agents' actions.

The state argued that masked agents have arrested people on the street, far from the US courthouse that's become a target of vandalism, with no probable cause.

Trump is showing no signs of backing down after he said Monday he would also send federal agents to other cities including Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia to crack down on protests there.
An Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court (HC) has upheld a trial court view that the result of a DNA test is not a conclusive piece of evidence in rape cases, and rejected a bail plea of a rape convict from Latur district. A DNA test has revealed that the convict was not the biological father of the rape survivors child.

According to the prosecution, the survivor, a 16-year-old hearing and speech impaired girl, was raped in February 2018, but her pregnancy came to light when she got married a few months after the incident. A day after the marriage, her husband noticed that she was pregnant, and took her back to her parents house.

A first information report (FIR) was registered against the applicant, based on the girls testimony, and he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by a special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act court.

The convict had moved a plea seeking suspension of the sentence and appealed for bail during pendency of his appeal against conviction, primarily on the grounds that the DNA test result of December 2018 proved that he was not the biological father of the survivors child, and thus, falsified the charge of rape levelled against him.

An assistant public prosecutor, however, opposed the plea, submitting that in her statement in the FIR, and her testimony before the trial court, the survivor clearly stated that she was raped by the applicant, because of which she became pregnant.

The prosecutor submitted that the trial court had rightly held that a negative result of the DNA test did not rule out the possibility of the applicant raping the girl. He submitted that the applicant took advantage of the fact that the survivor was handicapped, and her mother was blind, and thus, deserved no sympathy.

Justice Vibha Kankanwadi found force in the prosecutors submissions, noting that the trial court had taken pains to point out that the DNA test cannot be considered conclusive evidence regarding rape, and cannot be solely relied on to exclude ocular evidence (testimony of the survivor).

This court agreed to the observation made by the learned trial judge that the DNA report is a corroborative piece of evidence, said justice Kankanwadi, while approving the view adopted by the special court, and rejecting the convicts plea.

HC also clarified that the general principle is that when there is a variance between ocular and medical evidence, then the former has to be given weightage over the later.
One of the perverse features of the Covid-19 airline industry wrecking ball is that it makes the colossal mismanagement of the Boeing 737 Max less consequential. According to the Seattle Times, orders for 800 planes have been cancelled or designated as doubtful since the start of 2020.

Nevertheless, its still not a good look that the 737 Max out of the regulatory doghouse date keeps being pushed back. Wed speculated that it would take most of 2020 if not longer before the plane was allowed to fly again, given the nature of the problems with the software and critically, the related hardware. Supposedly knowledgeable parties pooh-poohed that idea.

And despite having been slapped down by the FAA for trying to pressure the agency with overly optimistic messaging, Boeing again has been forecasting approval dates that the FAA is rejecting. Boeings most recent good to go estimate was mid-September. Thats now being officially pushed back both due to additional FAA review plus a 45 day public comment period. Again, in a sign of Boeing hubris, the aircraft maker had pushed for the comment period taking place after the FAA had green-lighted the plane. Not only does that obviously render the comment process moot, but not surprisingly, thats not how the agency normally does things.

Having said all that, theres an interesting disconnect in the press accounts of Boeings latest embarrassment. The Seattle Times and the Wall Street Journal disagree on when the FAA is likely to allow the 737 Max to fly. The Seattle Times says the plane is not likely to be deemed airworthy before mid-October, and admittedly does not give any other time estimate. The Journal, citing government and industry officials says the plane is not likely to be carrying passengers before early 2021. The Seattle Times account was published first but the Wall Street Journal labels its story an exclusive, as in it is depicting its later report as more authoritative.

Frankly, I find the Journals estimate more realistic simply based on a summary of what has to happenwhich is set forth in the Seattle Times. One important novel feature is the need for foreign regulator signoff. Recall that before the FAA lost credibility by being the last major regulator to ground the 737 Max, its certifications were accepted without question by other national regulators.

Now other major authorities, particularly the EUs, Chinas and Canadas regulator have all said they want to make additional reviews. The FAA could approve the 737 Max for passenger flight without waiting for the other regulators to sign off, and what happens may be less consequential given the severely depressed state of air travel. But if the FAA issues a go-ahead much in advance of other regulators, it runs the risk of alienating gun-shy consumers. Recall that Delta didnt buy any 737 Max planes, so theres no risk of last-minute 737 Max substitution for Delta passengers.

As you can see from the Seattle Times, there are still a lot of moving parts in the approval process:

The FAA said Tuesday it will soon formally publish the proposed design changes to the Boeing 737 MAX flight control system as well as proposed new pilot procedures, and will allow 45 days for public comment ahead of clearing the jet to fly passengers again. After the public comment period closes, the FAA will take some weeks to review the comments and respond to them in a public posting in the Federal Register. The remaining steps then include a report issued by both the FAA and a panel of international regulators  the Joint Operations Evaluation Board (JOEB)  on proposed new training procedures for 737 MAX flight crews. That will also be posted for public comment. In addition, the 737 MAX Technical Advisory Board (TAB)  consisting of experts from nine civil aviation authorities worldwide as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the FAA  must review Boeings final submission of documents on the MAX design changes to evaluate compliance with all FAA regulations. Only then will the FAA be able to issue an Airworthiness Directive, which will lay out for airlines exactly what design changes must be installed on each airplane before it may re-enter commercial service. This directive would finally be Boeings long-awaited clearance to reenter service. With that, U.S. airlines could start taking their parked MAX planes out of mothballs and start training their pilots on the new procedures. Scheduled domestic passenger flights on the MAX could follow some 30 to 60 days later.

As I read this, at best, the 737 Max TAB review could happen in parallel with the other reviews. However, it would seem unrigorous to proceed before at least the domestic comment period was completed, particularly since unions or whistleblowers could raise important challenges. Recall that the Southwest pilots union has taken the unusual step of suing Boeing.

So back of the envelope.two weeks for the FAA to post the proposed changes. 45 days for the comment period. At least two weeks to write up the report on the comments. Thats already early-mid October. If you assume the reviews that include foreign regulators come after that, thats at least two more months, assuming a 30 day comment period and two weeks on either end (to frame and announce the comment period and to review results and publish a report). So that takes us to mid-December, which means nothing will get going till the holiday period is over.

In other words, I dont see how anyone can be fantasizing that the 737 Max will be carrying passengers before February 2021, and the odds favor later than that.

So no wonder the Journal is taking a more sober view:

Boeing Co.s 737 MAX isnt likely to resume widespread passenger flights until early next yearnearly two months beyond previous expectationsdue to another regulatory delay, according to U.S. government and industry officials. That means the jets are expected to be grounded at least as long under the plane makers chief executive, David Calhoun, as under his predecessor, Dennis Muilenburg, who was ousted at the end of 2019 following repeated delays in getting the plane back into service. The latest timeline, these officials said, anticipates the Federal Aviation Administration wont finish work to lift its March 2019 grounding order until late October or early November, because the agency has decided to ask for public comments before finalizing software and hardware changes. Regulators overseas could take days or weeks longer to concur in those decisions.

The Journal appears to have missed that foreign regulators are also planning a public comment period. Or perhaps they assume its going to take place in parallel with the US public comments. But thats politically risky and with the airplane biz in hibernation anyhow, whats the rush? Plus Europe is on holiday in August, another impediment to moving forward with alacrity.

Benzinga nevertheless reported a wave of large option bets, largely bullish, after the FAA announcement. Id like to know what they are smoking, although in fairness, Boeing keeps blowing a lot of smoke and Boeing is also highly motivated to do everything it can to prop up its stock price. Or maybe these are some remaining Robinhood punters who have not yet blown themselves up.

Well see who has the better guesstimate in due course. In the meantime, the Seattle Times reported that industry analyst Ken Herbert of Canaccord Genuity forecast that Boeing would make only 40 737 Max deliveries, assuming the old mid-September FAA greenlight. Its hard to make an upbeat case if Boeing cant yet expect buyers to pay for planes.
ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- US Inventor, a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of inventors, is hosting an election to choose one or more delegates to sit on the Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC). The PPAC is an official committee created by the U.S. Congress and charged with reviewing operations of the USPTO and advising the Director of the USPTO. The 1999 law requires the Secretary of Commerce to appoint the 9 members of the committee, including at least one independent inventor.

According to US Inventor President Randy Landreneau, "Inventors face increasing obstacles to obtaining and enforcing their patent rights, such as the Patent Trial and Appeal Board  a division of the USPTO that has invalidated 85% of the granted patents they have reviewed." In the view of US Inventor, policies such as this have failed to account for unintended consequences affecting legitimate inventors  those who rely on patents to protect inventions, access capital, build businesses, and create jobs. Research and experience have proven that independent inventors are a critical source of innovation. They need trustworthy and capable advocates who will ensure that the USPTO upholds justice for inventors.

With these concerns in view, US Inventor is hosting this election to provide an opportunity for inventors and their supporters to choose their representative on the PPAC. The election employs an "approval" format whereby voters can choose any number of candidates. Provided all other requirements are met, the candidate receiving the most votes will be nominated on behalf of the voters to the Secretary of Commerce. "We are confident that Secretary Ross will favorably receive our nomination as the best representative for the job, as our election will produce the most qualified and supported individual for the job".

The candidates are: Jeff Hardin of Houston, TX; Blake Hudson of Atlanta, GA; Shana Pollack of Henderson, NV; Dan Brown from Evanston, IL; Sean McKirdy of Newington, CT; Adrian Pelkus of Lexington, SC; Steve Lyon of Minnetonka, MN; David Breed of Miami Beach, FL; and David Boundy of Newton, MA.

Everyone who supports inventors is encouraged to participate by voting at inventorvote.org. Polls are open through July 27.

Contact:

Kevin Lampe

Kurth Lampe Worldwide

[email protected]

Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12831115

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE US Inventor
US-Chinese relations, already tense over the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing's crackdown in Hong Kong, deteriorated once again Wednesday as Washington ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston within 72 hours. China slammed the US move, which came one day after the unveiling of a US indictment targeting two Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking hundreds of companies worldwide and seeking to steal virus vaccine research. President Donald Trump threatened more consulate closures, telling reporters "it's always possible." "We're setting our clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Denmark. "President Trump has said 'enough,'" Pompeo added. The secretary of state cited the indictment of the two Chinese nationals for computer hacking but did not specifically mention the order to close the Houston consulate. The closure of the Chinese diplomatic installation in one of America's biggest cities marks a dramatic escalation in tensions between the world's top two economies. Washington and Beijing are feuding over a slew of issues ranging from trade to the pandemic to China's policies in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the Houston consulate the "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States." Michael McCaul, Republican Leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, echoed this, saying the consulate was the "epicenter" of efforts to steal "sensitive information to build up their military." State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the consulate was ordered shut "in order to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information." The State Department said China has engaged in massive spying and influence operations throughout the United States for years. "These activities have increased markedly in scale and scope over the past few years," it said. - 'Outrageous and unjustified' - In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the order to close the consulate was an "outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations." "China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision, or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," Wang said. The ministry spokesman claimed the United States "opened without permission Chinese diplomatic pouches multiple times, and confiscated Chinese items for official use." He also said its embassy in Washington had received "bomb and death threats on Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel in the US." Before the closure order was announced, firefighters and police were called late Tuesday to the consulate building over reports that documents were being burned in trash cans in the courtyard, according to local media. The Houston police force said smoke was observed, but officers "were not granted access to enter the building." "Everybody said 'there's a fire, there's a fire,' and I guess they were burning documents or burning papers? And I wonder what that's all about," Trump asked later. The Chinese consulate in Houston was opened in 1979 -- the first in the year the United States and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations, according to its website. The office covers eight southern US states -- including Texas and Florida. There are five Chinese consulates in the United States, as well as the embassy in Washington. Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times launched a poll on Twitter asking people to vote for which US consulate in China should be closed in response, including the ones in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Chengdu. The United States has an embassy in Beijing plus five consulates in mainland China and one in Hong Kong. - 'Significant challenge' - Trump's administration has ramped up pressure on China on a wide range of issues, imposing sanctions over policies in Tibet and Xinjiang, where an estimated one million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are believed to have been rounded up and held in re-education camps. The United States has also downgraded relations with Hong Kong after China implemented a new security law which Washington says is in violation of Beijing's promises of autonomy for the territory. Last week, Washington formally declared Beijing's pursuit of territory and resources in the South China Sea as illegal, explicitly backing the rival territorial claims of Southeast Asian countries. Washington has also infuriated Beijing by banning equipment made by telecom giant Huawei and seeking the extradition from Canada of top executive Meng Wanzhou. "We find the China-US relationship today weighed down by a growing number of disputes," deputy secretary of state Stephen Biegun told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday. "We are up against a significant challenge in China."
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Media bodies on Wednesday condemned the attack on Ghaziabad-based journalist Vikram Joshi, who succumbed to his injuries during treatment, and demanded a judicial probe into it as well as other incidents of assault on scribes in Uttar Pradesh.

Observing that attack on journalists, especially in Uttar Pradesh, has been increasing in the recent times, the Press Association and the Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC) demanded that the Uttar Pradesh government bring to book all the culprits in the attack on Joshi as well as in other assault on scribes in the state.

Joshi, who was shot in the head by some assailants, succumbed to injuries at a private hospital early on Wednesday. He had lodged a complaint with the police alleging harassment of his niece on July 16 and was shot around 10:30 pm on Monday near his home in Vijay Nagar area, according to officials.

ALSO READ| Ghaziabad journalist murder: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal demands strict punishment for culprits

The Press Association and the IWPC condemned the "dastardly attack" on Joshi. "We observe that attack on journalists, especially in Uttar Pradesh, is increasing in recent times. At the same time, no concrete action has been taken by the state government in many of the cases," the Press Association and IWPC said in a joint statement.

"We demand that all the culprits in this case as well as in previous cases must be brought to book by launching a 'special operation' by the state government," they said. The two media bodies also demanded adequate financial help for the bereaved family of Joshi.

More importantly, considering the past record of murderous attacks on the next of kin of the victims in Uttar Pradesh, the state government must provide adequate security to the members of Joshi's family, the statement said.

They said that there also should be a high-level judicial inquiry into this incident and past incidents of attack on journalists. "We understand that nine accused have been arrested and the station in-charge has been suspended with the initiation of departmental inquiry after the family of the journalist alleged inaction by the police. But these are not enough to bring out the truths and bring the culprits to book," the Press Association and IWPC said.
BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - The United States asked China to close its Consulate General in Houston in 72 hours. 'We have directed the closure of PRC (People's Republic of China) Consulate General Houston, in order to protect American intellectual property and American's private information,' State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus told reporters during Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to Danish capital Copenhagen. 'The United States will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behaviour,' she added. RBeijing condemned the move and warned of retaliation unless the U.S. to immediately correct its mistakes. 'It is a political provocation unilaterally launched by the US side, which seriously violates international law, basic norms governing international relations and the bilateral consular agreement between China and the US.' Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at the regular briefing Wednesday. 'China strongly condemns such an outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-US relations. We urge the US to immediately withdraw its erroneous decision, otherwise, China will make legitimate and necessary reactions,' he told reporters. Washington on Tuesday had accused Beijing of hacking US labs developing Covid-19 vaccines. U.S. media reported that documents were burning in a container within the courtyard of the Chinese consulate facility in Houston on Tuesday night. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Students in Clear Creek schools will start classes a week later than originally planned through a phased approach in which all students will work online away from campuses for the first week of instruction.

The change follows new Texas Education Agency guidelines. The school year was originally slated to begin Aug. 18 with students either physically in schools or, they choose, receiving lessons online. But the TEA recently said that schools could start the year with up to eight weeks of all students on online instruction before opening buildings.

Many districts in the area made the decision to push back the start of the school year and on July 20, the Clear Creek board followed suit.

Classes will now resume Aug. 24, but the buildings will not be open for students, who will receive all lessons online for the first week.

Reasoning behind the districts approach

Schools will be physically open Aug. 31, but only for a comparative handful of the districts students.

The Galveston County Health District has endorsed our transition plan to bring smaller numbers of students in first, Superintendent Greg Smith said.

The pupils who will be physically able to go into schools will be those in pre-K, kindergarten and sixth and ninth grades  children who will be entering school at new levels, such as elementary, intermediate and high school. Students in the rest of the grades will continue to receive instruction online.

The toughest transition is the one going to a new (level of) school, Smith said.

On Sept. 8, the day after Labor Day, all the schools will be open for those students whose parents opted for on-campus instruction.

We will be able to go full bore with all the students, Smith said.

The slow ramp-up will be beneficial for both teachers and students, the superintendent said.

The one-week delay to the start of the calendar will allow educators time to get familiar with safety protocols and prepare for the demands of online teaching. In the following weeks, both students and teachers will ease into the virtual education process.

Even though the school year is starting a week later, the last day of school will remain May 27, since 10 minutes have been added to the school day to provide time for hand washing and sanitizing materials and extend the time for passing between classes.

Numbers close between those choosing online, on-campus learning

Parents have been asked to go online and choose a learning option for their child, whether it is the traditional on-campus way or going online.

To date, the results have been pretty evenly split, with the number of students going the brick-and-mortar route totaling 5,711, while 4,840 wanted to get their lessons via computer.

Breaking things down further, at the elementary level, the parents of 2,260 students have chosen to physically be in school, while parents of 1,945 wish to go online. At the intermediate level, the split is 1,407 for in-person attendance and 1,356 for studying at home, while 2,044 high schoolers wish to be on campus and 1,539 plan to study online.

Smith said that while only 10,551 of the districts 42,000 students had made their choices by July 20, the district expects the numbers to keep trending the same way, with about 52 percent of students staying on campus and 48 percent learning online. But, if no choice is made, the default is that the kids would attend school in the traditional manner.

Parents have until Aug. 11 to make their choices. To access more information about making that choice, visit https://bit.ly/3jlimJE.

Online classes will be done through the districts Clear Connections online learning program, and for the most part, the teachers for on-campus students will be different from those who go online. Some however, may be teaching some in-person classes and some via the internet, but not at the same time.

With the large number of students opting for virtual learning, district trustees OKd hiring more online instructors to the tune of $771,600. The exact number needed will not be known until the final counts for in-person and online students is completed.
Beirut, July 21, 2020 (AFP) -

Five Iran-backed fighters were killed in an Israeli missile strike south of the Syrian capital, a Britain-based war monitor said on Tuesday.

The missile attack on Monday night hit weapons depots and military positions belonging to Syrian regime forces and Iran-backed militia fighters south of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The attack wounded at least seven Syrian troops, according to the official SANA news agency, which said the missiles were launched by warplanes over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The pro-regime Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah said one of its fighters was among the dead.

The five killed were all non-Syrian paramilitary fighters, according to the Observatory.

It added that 11 combatants were wounded in total -- four non-Syrian fighters and seven Syrian troops, of which two were in critical condition.

A military spokesman in Israel told AFP that its army "does not comment on foreign reports".

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria since the start of the country's civil war in 2011.

It has targeted government troops, allied Iranian forces and fighters from Hezbollah, saying its goal is to end Tehran's military presence in Syria.

It rarely confirms details of its operations in Syria but says Iran's presence in support of the regime is a threat and that Israel will keep up strikes.

The nine-year-old conflict in Syria has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced more than half of the country's pre-war population.
If customers are coming in and they dont want to wear a mask, what am I supposed to do as a business owner? said Bird, a former economic development director for the city. Somebodys been shopping at this store for 40 years, and they are a great customer and they walk in without a mask, and Im going to call the police and say 'I have a trespasser'? Thats going to be good for business.

Bird said he wears a mask while in the store and that the majority of his customers do. But if he sees patrons without face coverings, he doesnt ask them to don one.

We have places like Costco and Walmart, he said. They are big enough entities that they can mandate to their customers that you dont come in without a mask. Its not like its going to devastate their business in any form or fashion.

Bird said the mandate could provoke a confrontation between the masked and unmasked.

If I get two of those in here at the same time, and one is like, You need to call the police on him. Hes not wearing a mask, Im not going to do that. Then they say, Im not shopping here anymore. Either way, Ive lost one of those customers forever.
New Delhi: Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that digital platforms need to be responsive, accountable, and sensitive to the concerns of sovereign nations as far as safety, defence and privacy are concerned.

Addressing a virtual meeting of G20 Digital Economy Ministers here on Wednesday (July 22), hosted by Saudi Arabia, Union IT Minister said, "Digital economy must go hand in hand with Data economy. We need to acknowledge the sovereignty over data. Data must belong to sovereign nation concerned, to protect also the privacy concern of its people."

Ravi Shankar Prasad told the global gathering about how India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has managed the COVID-19 crisis far better than many other countries. "The bold decision of the Prime Minister to go for an early nationwide lockdown helped in the country in curbing the spread of the virus as well as prepare for the upcoming challenges effectively," he said.

Sharing Indias digital innovations that helped in the fight against COVID-19, Prasad spoke about initiatives like Aarogya Setu mobile app, a geofencing system for monitoring quarantined patients, and COVID-19 Savdhan bulk messaging systems.

He also spoke about how digital technology helped the government of India in providing relief to the economically weaker sections of society during this crisis.

"Using digital innovations of India like Direct Benefit Transfers and digital payments even the weakest in the society was provided various financial relief during the lockdown," said the statement issued by the ministry.

Prasad strongly emphasized the need for building a resilient global supply chain and shared PM Modi's vision for making India an attractive destination for investment closely integrated with global supply chains.

Talking about Indias commitment to leverage emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence for inclusive growth and development especially in healthcare and education, Prasad emphasized the need for building trustworthy Artificial Intelligence systems that can transform the society.

Prasad mentioned that India is soon going to put in place a robust personal data protection law that will not only address the data privacy-related concerns of citizens but also ensure the availability of data for innovation and economic development.

He also told the digital ministers of the G20 countries that it is time to acknowledge that digital platforms anywhere in the world have to be responsive and accountable towards the sovereign concerns of countries including defence, privacy, and security of citizens.
COLUMBUS, Ohio  A down-and-out state lawmaker who needed money to bankroll a political comeback. Powerful Columbus lobbyists. And a utility company with Monopoly money to spend on a plan to push through a bailout for two failing nuclear power plants.

Federal charging documents unsealed Tuesday describe how the company, FirstEnergy, spent $60 million to get House Speaker Larry Householder and his favored candidates elected, securing in return a $1.3 billion bailout, paid for by Ohio ratepayers. The morning arrest of Householder, an aide and three lobbyists who helped him sent shock waves through Ohio political circles.

"It is a shocking day: The only thing that is clear to me is that pay-to-play is rampant in Ohio," said Catherine Turcer of the government watchdog group, Common Cause Ohio. "Utility money is the grease of the machine of the Statehouse."

The scheme, federal agents wrote, was the essence of a corrupt exchange. It played out in three chapters.

1. Get Householder elected

The complaint lays out a political playbook designed by Householder and Jeff Longstreth, a top aide who helped plot the political strategy that allowed him to take the speakers gavel. Neil Clark, a prominent Columbus lobbyist, also said he played a key role in developing and executing the strategy.

Ohio House members are forced by term limits to leave the chamber every eight years, while speakers are chosen by their colleagues. At the time, then-Speaker Cliff Rosenberger was set to leave office at the end of 2018, but quietly backed a different candidate, state Rep. Ryan Smith, as his replacement. That left an opening for Householder to recruit his own slate of candidates to fill a dozen seats that would be open in 2018.

Under the heading Building Team Householder, the complaint described how Longstreth and Householder set up Generation Now, a secretive political nonprofit that could raise and spend unlimited amounts of money.

In 2017, Householder and Longstreth strategized what it would take to get elected. A game plan developed by Longstreth asked who would be Team Householders main financial backer. The group needed $2 million to pay staff, wage legal challenges and fund advertising for candidates.

FirstEnergy Corp., which wasnt explicitly identified in charging documents but clearly referenced throughout, meanwhile was seeking legislation to grant subsidies to two Ohio nuclear plants, one near Toledo and the other east of Cleveland. Rosenberger and Smith didnt support the legislation.

FirstEnergy ended up paying $2.4 million to Generation Now, plus another $500,000 to another campaign group supporting Householder, either directly or through a pass-through affiliate. Most of Householders favored candidates won their primaries, and eventually, most of them won their November elections.

Ultimately, the Enterprises Game plan 2018 worked. By coordinating and financially backing the Team Householder candidates using Company A [FirstEnergy] money, the Enterprise helped elect a group of representatives loyal to Householder, the complaint reads. All of the candidates who were financially supported by the Enterprise and won in their 2018 general election voted to make Householder, instead of Representative 1 [Ryan Smith] as Speaker. With their votes, Householder secured the Speakership in 2019. And as described in the next section, two of the Team Householder candidates carried the Company A [FirstEnergy] legislative bailout for him.

2. Pass bailout

Having secured Householders power as Speaker, the Enterprise transitioned quickly to fulfilling its end of the corrupt bargain with Company A  Passing nuclear bailout legislation, the complaint reads.

Householder picked two freshman legislators he helped elect, state Reps. Jamie Callender, of Lake County, and Shane Wilkin, of Highland County, to carry the legislation. In April 2019, House Bill 6 was introduced. The legislation would raise more than $1 billion for two nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, a former FirstEnergy subsidiary. He argued the money would save the jobs of the plants thousands of workers, and secure Ohios diversity of energy sources.

As far back as May 2018, Juan Cespedes, a lobbyist for FirstEnergy Solutions, had written in a Word document that Householder was willing to work on energy legislation and was traditionally close to FirstEnergy. In a September 2018 document, Cespedes wrote that FirstEnergy should continue to support the Householder caucus because Householder has a history of favorably rewarding those who provide both early and late money into his efforts.

Cespedes wrote in the document that FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones had spoken with Householder where [Jones] suggested that we [FirstEnergy Solutions] would/should independently support him as well.

The complaint documents how Householder and his team pressured reluctant lawmakers to vote yes. In one instance, an FBI agent was interviewing a representative when Householder texted them.

The lawmaker had been telling the agent that Clark, the lobbyist supporting Householder, had warned him to vote yes. They werent sure whether to take it as advice from a friend or a threat.

The representative then received a text from Householder that said: I really need you to vote yes on HB 6, it means a lot to me. Can I count on you?

The representative showed the text to the FBI agents. After reiterating he would vote no, Householder responded: I just want you to remember  when I needed you  you werent there. twice.

The next day, House Bill 6 passed. Later, an intermediary told the unnamed representative Householder wanted the texts deleted.

Shortly after the bill got to the Senate, FirstEnergy sent $7.3 million more to Generation Now, which used the money on polls and advertising. Clark also began whipping support for the vote, calling state senators and reporting the results to Longstreth, who regularly reported back to Householder.

All the while, FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions were in touch with Longstreth, through Cespedes. Also while the bill was pending, FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and other company officials spoke with Householder more than 300 times, the complaint says.

In one recorded meeting between Clark and FirstEnergy, Clark complained that another public official who got financial support from FirstEnergy had backed away from the legislation. But Householder went to war for them.

Clark said he wants to be around politicians who will go to the wall, but those guys that go to the wall can only do it once a year because if they do it all the time everybody knows theyre pay to play.

In another recorded conversation, Clark described FirstEnergys support for the bill.

On HB6, [FirstEnergy] got $1.3 billion in subsidies, free payments so what do they care about putting in $20 million a year for this thing, they dont give a [expletive.]

Clark called FirstEnergy the campaigns bank. Generation Nows money was unlimited, he said.

3. Defend the bill

After Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill in July 2019, opponents, allied with natural-gas and environmental interests in the state, got to work trying to repeal it. They cleared an initial hurdle, collecting 1,000 valid signatures from voters, at the end of the following month. They had until Oct. 21 to gather hundreds of thousands more signatures.

In June, Cespedes described to Longstreth a conversation with Matt Borges, a former Ohio Republican Party chairman turned lobbyist who was working to defend the bailout: Borges mentioned this morning that the opposition has engaged signature gatherers. Not sure who or if its real. Just want u to be aware.

The next week, Longstreth and Cespedes exchanged texts, agreeing to work to hire signature-gathering companies.

I was hoping that we could take out all the big players and limit their chances, Cespedes wrote. Its impossible to referendum proof imo. We can make it tougher.

After media outlets connected the dots between Generation Now and the House Bill 6 campaign, the Householder group used a different company, Ohioans for Energy Security, to defend the bill against the repeal effort.

At a Sept. 23 meeting, Clark said allowing the bill to be repealed would set a bad precedent. An unnamed staffer added: its the beginning of your Speakership: it sets a bad precedent for the next six years, what we need to make them realize is that you [Householder] cant be [expletive] with.

FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions sent $38 million to Generation Now, which sent $23 million to Ohioans for Energy Security. In a conversation, Borges referred to the influx of funds Monopoly money.

The campaign spent millions on mailers and ads discouraging Ohioans from signing the petitions, falsely tying the repeal effort to the Chinese communist government. It also hired petition firms to prevent them from working for the repeal side.

For example, the complaint reads, in a meeting on July 24, 2019, which was recorded, Clark stated that he wired about $450,000 today hiring signature collections people to not work.

Some of the petitioners worked as blockers, disrupting the other sides signature gathering efforts by following them around and making possible signers uncomfortable.

All the while, Borges reached out to an unidentified person working as a supervisor for the repeal campaign, offering to pay them for inside information. The person was upset by Borges solicitation and contacted the FBI after meeting with Borges in early September.

Afterward, the person recorded his conversations with Borges. At first, he told Borges he wasnt interested. He explained he couldnt sell this team down the river, concluding, So. It may not land me in the car, house, job or financial situation I want to be in  but I couldnt face myself if I did anything but work for this and do it honestly. Borges responded he understood, but said: No matter what  dont ever tell anyone about our conversation from earlier.

Later, the FBI encouraged the person to re-connect with Borges to inquire about the offer. Borges responded later with an offer to buy out the unnamed repeal workers contract. In a meeting, which was recorded, Borges gave the repeal worker a $15,000 check, funded by Generation Now.

Although in initial conversations Borges had indicated that the money was an advance for insider information to defeat [the] ballot campaign, when Borges handed the check to [the repeal worker], he said it was Borges own money, that no one knew about the transaction, and that it was for the [repeal workers] help in planning a reunion amongst former staffers, the complaint reads.

The HB6 campaign also bribed signature collectors, offering them $2,500 and plane fare to stop collecting signatures and to provide inside information related to the referendum. Clark outlined the strategy to Householder and others during the Sept. 23 meeting.

The efforts were successful: on Oct. 21, the repeal campaign missed their deadline. Householder celebrated the victory with a press release, stating: I am pleased that House Bill 6 will go into effect at midnight tonight and am confident it will produce positive results for Ohio.

The next day, according to the complaint, a FirstEnergy / FirstEnergy Solutions affiliate sent $3 million to Generation Now. On Jan. 13, 2020, Longstreth wired $1 million into his brokerage account. And between September and December, Householder used $101,825 in FirstEnergy-funded Generation Now payments to pay for costs associated with his house in Florida. In 2020, Householder spent $20,000 in Generation Now money to pay off credit card debt.

In May 2020, FirstEnergy Solutions, now renamed Energy Harbor, announced it would buy $300 million of its own stock, boosting its share price and cashing out investors.

Cleveland.com / Plain Dealer reporter John Caniglia contributed to this story

Read related coverage by cleveland.com:

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FirstEnergy Solutions emerges from bankruptcy, becomes Energy Harbor

Ohio nuclear bailout defenders deploy ground troops to thwart repeal efforts signature collection

Nuclear bailout bill passes Ohio legislature, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine

Nuclear bailout bill shows how big money can be put to work in the Ohio Statehouse

FirstEnergy and its allies, seeking nuclear plant bailout, have spent millions on influence campaign
MEXICO CITY The luxurious presidential airplane that Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador has been trying to sell returned to the capital Wednesday after drawing a bid while it was in a hangar in the United States.

Lpez Obrador has been flying commercial airlines or travelling by road since taking office in late 2018, and views the custom Boeing 787 jet as a symbol of wasteful luxury. He bought regular airline tickets for his first trip abroad to Washington in earlier July, with layovers both ways.

Lpez Obrador recently revealed that the government has received a $120 million offer in cash and medical equipment for the plane. But the government has not revealed the identity of the potential buyer, or why the plane was being brought back to Mexico.

Sales of tickets in a symbolic raffle for the plane have also resumed after a months-long pause caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly a quarter of the 6 million $25 tickets have been sold. Each of the 100 winners will collect about $1 million.

The plane was purchased for $200 million and was used by the previous president, Enrique Pea Nieto. It has been difficult to sell because it is configured to carry only 80 people and has a full presidential suite with a private bath. Experts say it would be costly to reconfigure into a typical passenger jet that would carry up to 300 passengers.

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Iraqis are showing little interest in remembering Saddams invasion of Kuwait three decades ago, but ignoring his legacy is dangerous

On 2 August 1990, Saddam Hussein ordered his elite Republican Guard to storm into neighbouring Kuwait, claiming Iraq was answering a call from a group of revolutionary army officers in the tiny emirate that had overthrown the government.

Although the Iraqi forces were driven out of Kuwait by a US-led international coalition seven months later, the invasion had devastating consequences for Iraq and established the Middle East as we know it today.

Despite being banished almost entirely from public spaces and official narratives, the 30th anniversary of the adventure has made itself present in other ways throughout political life in Iraq, which is still paying the invasions heavy cost.

Nonetheless, Saddams invasion of Kuwait still raises many puzzling questions. What would have happened if Saddam had not invaded Kuwait? What if Saddam had seized part of the disputed border instead of occupying the entire emirate? What if Saddam had won the war that was waged to expel him from Kuwait?

But while these remain what if questions, a less hypothetical question is why did the former dictator, the leader of an already oil-rich country that had just emerged from a long and debilitating war with Iran, invade Kuwait in the first place, and why did he resist a peaceful resolution to the conflict and persist in a war-fighting strategy?

The conventional wisdom holds that Saddam invaded Iraqs southern neighbour after he accused it and the United Arab Emirates of increasing their oil production to lower prices, which he blamed for drastically cutting Iraqs badly needed revenues.

Yet, the reasons for Saddams invasion of Kuwait have also been explained by several other factors, including the inconclusive outcome of the Iraq-Iran War that ended in 1988 and fears of the immense military power that Saddam had built up during the eight-year war despite its misery and destruction.

But while those were the immediate factors that may have triggered Iraqs invasion of Kuwait, historical forces, whether real or imaginary, also played a major role in developing the crisis and consequently the threats that led to the war.

Historically, Iraq had always had issues with Kuwait, which successive Iraqi governments since the modern state of Iraq came into being in 1923 had declined to accept in its British-drawn borders that established it as a separate sheikhdom after the signature of the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913.

While resistance to the border demarcation and squabbles over islands covering access to Iraqs Gulf ports came from successive regimes in Iraq, some Iraqis also claimed that Kuwait itself belonged to Iraq.

Saddams initial response to the conflict in 1990 was to emphasise Kuwaits alleged encroachments along the 80-mile border and its allegedly unlawful drilling of oil wells in Iraqs southern oil fields, thus causing Iraqis to face starvation.

In geostrategic and historical terms, these allegations prompted the crisis with Kuwait to overshadow immediate factors and made the explosion of a territorial dispute into conflict inevitable.

While decision-making depends largely on the skills and judgement of those in power, in a totalitarian state that lacks democratic institutions it is usually the personal qualities and mental capacity of the leader that determine failure or success.

As supreme commander with ultimate military and political authority in Iraq, Saddam had the final say on any subject in which he took an interest, making his choices and decision-making strategy crucial.

There is no shortage of evidence to suggest that Saddams decisions during the crisis were dictated by his instincts and driven by a personality characterised by grandiosity and paranoid retaliatory behaviour.

Like many other despots, Saddam suffered from a personality disorder characterised by a long-term pattern of an exaggerated ego, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy towards subordinates and people in general.

Saddam was always known to be harbouring dreams of glory propelled by a personality cult manifested in the image of an idealised leader, lavish celebrations, a massive propaganda machine and countless giant images and statues across the country.

His war with Iran was called Saddams Qadissiya after the Arabs early victory over the Persian Sasanian Empire in the 7th century CE in Qadissiya in southern Iraq.

Throughout the crisis over Kuwait that came to a head in early 1990, Saddams malignant narcissism was evident. At each stage, questions were raised about his decision-making capacities and whether he had the relevant expertise to engage in a war with a superpower like the United States.

Saddams narcissistic tendencies made him an extraordinarily easy person to be manipulated by his foes, and these became his greatest point of weakness along with his tendency to confuse reality with what he wanted to be true.

Having covered the conflict and the subsequent invasion, this writer has long argued that Saddam led himself into a quagmire by shunning any sensible and prudent policy that could have avoided fighting an unwinnable war.

Saddams being out of touch with political reality meant that he was easily guided by intuition in his decision-making and susceptible to manipulation and deception.

For much of the crisis that preceded the invasion, Saddam was pushed into a corner where his moves could be directed through remote control or some kind of telepathy (whatever that meant in parapsychology) by his adversaries.

Intelligence analysts from Washington to London and Paris were more or less aware of all this after working to analyse Saddams personality and understand how much this affected his leadership style, perceptions and decision-making.

They studied his mind through his hundreds of public speeches, briefings they received from diplomats and officials who had met him, and his body language, and through their resulting mind control they steered him in a certain direction or controlled his perceptive processes.

This was the kind of analysis that was apparently made available to policy-planners in the lead up to the conflict, with recommendations being made to push Saddam forward and then let him dig his own grave, allowing Saddams enemies to exonerate themselves from the ensuing tragedy.

While covering the Kuwait crisis in 1990-1991 for an international news agency in Baghdad, the idea of a trap having been set for Saddam alarmed me, but at the same time I was daunted by the international diplomacy, or the lack of it, that was apparently trying to stop Saddam from invading Kuwait.

There were public protests, but there were no attempts to talk Saddam into a negotiated solution to the crisis or to offer him some carrot that could prevent the invasion, a policy possibly influenced by the failure of the British to stop Nazi leader Adolf Hitler from beginning World War II.

There was plenty of evidence that some statements by Western leaders like then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher were deliberately made to humiliate Saddam and to make him refuse mediation and any compromise.

The narrative that Kuwait, Washington and their allies had failed to anticipate Iraqs incursion into Kuwait despite Saddams repeated threats and the massive troop buildup on the border was seen as awkward by observers, including myself, who had been watching the situation on the border closely.

In my attempts to write a journalistic first draft of the history of the conflict, including reporting on Saddams threats and the military buildup, I was approached by Kuwaits ambassador in Baghdad at the time, Ibrahim Jassim Al-Bahu, who wanted to pick my brain on the escalation.

My assessment that the Iraqi invasion was inevitable was included in Al-Bahus 1995 testimony to a Kuwaiti parliamentary committee probing the invasion, though he attributed it to observers in Baghdad.

In memoirs written by Arab officials such as then Saudi oil minister Hisham Nazir and then Syrian foreign minister Farouk Al-Sharaa we are also told that Saddams invasion was widely expected and that Kuwait was confident that it would be helped by its friends to kick Saddam out when it happened.

Indeed, Saddams enemies spearheaded by the United States perceived the Iraqi dictators threats to be not only a challenge but also an opportunity to undermine his regime and get rid of a leader whose defiance had risen another notch in its intensity.

By making himself a power beyond Iraq and making his dream of Arab leadership be taken seriously, Saddam was starting to be portrayed as another Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the former Egyptian leader who championed anti-Western and anti-Israeli policies.

The Gulf crisis represented an opportunity for the Western nations and their Arab allies to reject the Iraq-dominated Middle East they feared Saddam was trying to impose and work instead for one based on the traditional balance of power.

Rather than let Saddam off the hook, this alliance of necessity wanted to shift the regional balance of power in accordance with changes expected to occur as a result of the crisis.

This required a carefully crafted approach to annihilate Iraqs power, erode its strategic and moral position and produce the conditions for a new regional order in the name of raison detre.

To me it became crystal clear when I heard former Japanese prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, in Baghdad at the time in an effort to defuse the crisis, urging then PLO chairman Yasser Arafat on 20 November 1990 to tell Saddam that Iraq would be sent back to the pre-industrial age if he did not withdraw from Kuwait.

Iraqs 13 years of isolation and UN sanctions, bombings, two wars, occupation and a prolonged conflict that have cost the country dearly in terms of human lives lost and material destruction since cannot be considered as the unintended consequences of the anti-Saddam campaign.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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The department of livestock production management at the College of Veterinary Science, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU), organised a national-level webinar on Global corona crisis: Impact and strategic measures to uplift poultry industry on Wednesday.

The webinar was conducted and moderated by head of department Dr Manish Chatli and former dean, Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (LUVAS), Hisar, Dr N K Mahajan; and director, CPDO, Chandigarh, Dr Kamna Barkataki; and DGM-Punjab, Suguna Foods Private Limited, Dr GG Barley were the key speakers.

Dr Mahajan emphasised on the need for biosecurity on farms and on the restriction of use of antibiotics and hormones in poultry birds. Dr Barley highlighted the socio-economic impact of coronavirus on poultry industry and management strategies to make poultry farming capable of withstanding this global crisis, and emphasised on the importance of precision poultry nutrition to reduce the cost of production.

Dr Kamna highlighted the importance of backyard farming for the livelihood of the downtrodden rural population. She also detailed the government guidelines during this crisis.

Dr Daljeet Kaur conducted the question-answer session and extended a vote of thanks to all. Vice-chancellor of GADVASU, Dr Inderjeet Singh said that the students should adopt poultry farming as an enterprise and become an employer rather than exploring government jobs.
A bloodied demonstrator is arrested by federal police during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Monday in Portland, Ore. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

PORTLAND, Ore.  Federal law enforcement officers actions at protests in Oregons largest city, conducted without local authorities consent, are raising the prospect of a constitutional crisis  one that could escalate as weeks of demonstrations find renewed focus amid clashes with camouflaged, unidentified agents outside Portlands U.S. courthouse.

A protester gestures in front of federal police personnel in Portland, Ore., as protests continue across the United States. (AFP )

A demonstrator shouts slogans using a bullhorn next to a group of military veterans during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

Federal officers advance on protesters during a Black Lives Matter demonstration at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

Demonstrators use leaf blowers to try to blow back tear gas launched by federal officers during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

Demonstrators sit and kneel as tear gas fills the air during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

A demonstrator plays a trumpet from atop a steel fence during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

A demonstrator speaks to a crowd from the bed of a pickup truck during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

A demonstrator argues with a federal officer during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

Protestors carry umbrellas as they gather at the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (AFP)

Federal officers walk through tear gas while dispersing a crowd of about 1,000 people during a protest at Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

A protester escapes a federal officer during an arrest attempt in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Hundreds of protesters hold their phones aloft on Monday in Portland, Ore. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

A federal officer pepper-sprays a protester in front of the federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., on Monday. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Portland demonstrators on Monday. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Federal agents use crowd-control munitions to disperse protesters on Sunday. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

Protesters flee through tear gas. ( Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Federal officers on the streets of Portland on Tuesday. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

A naked woman confronts federal officers in Portland on Friday. (Dave Killen / Oregonian)

Police walk through fire and smoke in Portland. (Dave Killen / Oregonian)

A protester walks past a line of federal officers on Tuesday. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Tear gas in Portland. (Dave Killen / Oregonian )

Police respond to protesters. (Dave Killen / Oregonian )

A police officer is silhouetted near a burning car. (Mark Graves / Oregonian)

Outside the federal courthouse in Portland on Monday. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

A federal officer points to a protester while clearing the street in front of the federal courthouse. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Federal agents try to disperse protesters. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

Protesters outside a police station in Portland. (Sean Meagher / Oregonian )

Federal officers and a protester carrying an American flag face off. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)

Federal agents and tear gas. (Dave Killen / Oregonian)

A protester waves an American flag. (Nathan Howard / Getty Images)
Shaking hands may become a thing of the past because of Covid-19, public health experts have said.

And the UK should replace the traditional greeting with bowing, according to one scientist who argued Britain needs a more 'Japanese approach'.

Professor Dame Anne Johnson, vice president of the Academy of Medical Science, said a cultural shift was needed to stop a second wave and called for fewer hand shakes and less kissing.

Professor Peter Piot, a microbiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, added: 'Shaking hands is probably out forever.'

Shaking hands is 'probably out forever' according to public health experts and the UK could be set to adopt the Japanese-style greeting of bowing. Stock picture

Professor Dame Anne Johnson, vice president of the Academy of Medical Science, said a 'more of the Japanese approach' will be how to prevent a second wave of the virus. Pictured: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe greets Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike

Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds speak with heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua at the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey on Commonwealth Day on March 9

WHY DO SCIENTISTS ADVISE AGAINST HANDSHAKES? Scientists believe that one of the most common ways to transmit coronavirus is through picking up the virus from contaminated surfaces and then touching the face. Mobeen Rathore, chief of paediatric infectious diseases and immunology at Wolfson Children's Hospital of Jacksonville, Florida, told the Huffington Post that researchers are still unsure how long the virus can last on skin. He said: 'This virus is only a few months old and we don't know as much about it as people sometimes make it sound. What we do know is it stays on hard surfaces, likes counter-tops, for two to three days. ' On the topic of how long the virus can survive on skin, Dr Rathore added: 'It's fair to say it stays long enough to spread from person to person'. He added: 'The most common mechanism for transmission is related to hands, because were using them all the time, constantly touching things, and we arent even aware of it. Then we touch our faces all the time without even thinking about it.' Advertisement

The two experts appeared in front of the House of Lords' Science and Technology select committee yesterday.

Professor Piot said that individual behaviour needs to change in order to combat coronavirus and the possibility of other epidemics.

During the discussion on Covid-19 with peers, he said: 'Using face masks when you have a common cold should be the norm.'

He also claimed there was evidence from Australia to show that Covid-19 prevention measures were also stopping the spread of other illnesses.

Professor Piot also said the origin of not shaking hands in some cultures 'may have been determined by the need to avoid epidemics', The Telegraph reports.

He did not name the countries he was referring to  but Japan is one country that is famed for eschewing hand shakes in favour of bowing.

It's unclear where the Japanese tradition of bowing in greeting originated from  but historians believe it can be traced back to the 5th century.

In the same briefing, Dame Anne said: 'It's really important to suppress the virus as much as we can.

'If you've got a cold or flu stay home, stay out the way. Less shaking of hands, kissing and more of the Japanese approach.'

Professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, president of the Royal Society, said prevention measures would only be necessary until a treatment is proven to work.

The comments on hand shakes come after it was revealed leading scientific advisers urged the government to tell people to stop shaking hands on March 3.

But it was the same day Boris Johnson boasted about shaking hands with 'everybody'  20 days before he announced the UK's lockdown.

A meeting of the behavioural group that feeds into SAGE on March 3 concluded that 'Government should advise against greetings such as shaking hands and hugging'.

'A public message against shaking hands has additional value as a signal about the importance of hand hygiene,' the experts said.

'Promoting a replacement greeting or encouraging others to politely decline a proffered hand-shake may have benefit.'

However, that evening Mr Johnson told a press conference in Downing Street that he 'continued to shake hands' and the important thing was washing them.

He said: 'I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands.

'People obviously can make up their own minds but I think the scientific evidence is our judgement is that washing your hands is the crucial thing.'

Over subsequent days Mr Johnson was seen shaking hands with celebrities and dignitaries.
By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kim Kardashian on Wednesday asked for compassion and empathy for her rapper husband Kanye West's struggles with bi-polar disorder that have led to a series of rambling public remarks on subjects ranging from politics to his marriage.

Kardashian's statement on her Instagram stories account was her first public comment on weeks of interviews, public appearances and Twitter comments by West that have raised concern about the Grammy-winning singer's mental health.

"As many of you know, Kanye has bi-polar disorder," she wrote, calling him a "brilliant but complicated person."

Kardashian did not mention West's stated plan to run for the White House in the November 2020 election. West held a rally in South Carolina at the weekend under his self-styled Birthday Party banner but has not outlined any coherent political policies.

"Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions," Kardashian wrote.

Kardashian's comments followed another late-night series of tweets from West, including one where he said he was trying to divorce Kardashian. His tweet was swiftly deleted. The couple married in 2014 and have four children

Earlier this week West tweeted that his family was trying to get him committed to a psychiatric institution.

West announced he had bi-polar disorder in 2018 and has in the past lamented that he feels medication stifles his creativity. He was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in 2016.

Bi-polar disorder is a form of mental illness characterized by unusual mood swings between extreme energy and activity and depression, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. It can be treated with a combination of medication and therapy.

Kardashian, a cosmetics businesswoman who first found fame on the TV reality show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," said she and her family were trying to get help for West, and spoke about the stigma and misunderstandings around mental health.

Story continues

"Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor," she said.

She said individuals themselves have to engage in the process of getting help, no matter how hard family and friends try.

"I kindly ask that the media and public give us the compassion and empathy that is needed so that we can get through this," she added.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Howard Goller)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 09:19:42|Editor: huaxia

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ISLAMABAD, July 22 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 people were killed and several others injured on Tuesday in different rain-related incidents in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province as the country witnessed torrential monsoon spell, local media reported.

According to the reports, the majority of the deceased lost their lives due to roof collapse incidents caused by heavy rains which continued for hours in different areas of the province.

The roof of a house collapsed due to rain in Tandlianwala area of Faisalabad district of the province, killing seven members of an unfortunate family while injuring five others.

Another incident of roof collapse occurred in a village on the outskirts of Faisalabad, leaving three people including two brothers and their sister dead while injuring four others.

At least three people died in three house collapse incidents in Kasur district, while different districts, including Multan, Pakpattan and Vehari witnessed the electrocution of two persons each, the reports said.

The injured were rushed to hospitals where some of them were reportedly in critical condition.

Chief Minister of Punjab Usman Buzdar expressed grief and sorrow over the loss of lives in the incidents and directed to provide the best medical facilities to the injured. He also held a high-level meeting to view the measures taken by the government to deal with the torrential rains.

Intermittent rains are still pouring in different districts of the country, and people are reportedly facing problems due to power outages, flooding of low-lying areas and inundation of roads and streets causing disruption of traffic. Enditem
He is best known for portraying a medical genius on the hit series House.

And Hugh Laurie has taken the reins of another role as he portrays forceful politician Peter Laurence in the new thriller Roadkill by David Hare.

The actor, 61, looked well and truly in character as the charismatic leader as he waved to a crowd in a first look at the the new BBC One series.

First look: Hugh Laurie, 61, looked in character in the first look at his new role as forceful politician Peter Laurence in the BBC One thriller Roadkill by David Hare

Hugh sported a black coat and a shirt and tie in the image as he appeared to walk past government buildings.

In the series, Peter's public and private life seems to be falling apart - or rather is being picked apart by his enemies.

As the personal revelations spiral, he is shamelessly untroubled by guilt or remorse, expertly walking a high wire between glory and catastrophe as he seeks to further his own agenda whilst others plot to bring him down.

However events show just how hard it is, for both an individual and a country, to leave the past behind.

Plot: In the series, Peter's public and private life seems to be falling apart - or rather is being picked apart by his enemies (pictured in January 2020)

With enemies so close to home, can Peter Laurence ever out-run his own secrets to win the ultimate prize?

The series also stars the likes of Helen McCrory, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Saskia Reeves and Sarah Greene.

Roadill, which was filmed in London last year, will consist of four episodes that were all helmed by Line of Duty director Michael Keillor.

Screenwriter David Hare told Radio Times: 'I first worked with Hugh Laurie in 1987 when he set off on his riveting change of direction from adroit comedian to commanding dramatic actor.

Series: Roadill, which was filmed in London last year, will consist of four episodes that were all helmed by Line of Duty director Michael Keillor (pictured in October 2019)

'I can't wait to see him embody the fictional future of the Conservative party in Roadkill.

Piers Wenger, Controller of BBC Drama said of the show: 'Roadkill is a thriller which explores the relationship between personal morality and political power.

'Hugh Laurie is an incredible actor who will play this fictional role with utter conviction, and it is a great honour to work once again with David Hare and The Forge to bring this brilliantly sharp and funny drama to BBC'.
China is stepping up military preparedness to overtake Taiwan, the self-ruled island's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu warned today.

Taiwan has complained that China has stepped up threatening military activities in recent months near the island which Beijing considers its own.

But Chinese authorities have not renounced the use of force to bring the democratic island under its control.

China is stepping up military preparedness to overtake Taiwan, the self-ruled island's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu warned today. The file picture taken in April 2018 shows China's sole operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning (front), sailing with other ships during a drill at sea

Taiwan has complained that China has stepped up threatening military activities in recent months near the island which Beijing considers its own. In this file picture taken on January 29, 2016, soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy patrol at Woody Island

'Looking on the long-term trend, China appears to be gradually stepping up its military preparedness, especially in the air or on the waters near Taiwan,' Wu told reporters on Wednesday.

'What China is doing now is continuing to ramp up preparedness to solve the Taiwan issue,' he said.

'The threat is on the rise.'

Beijing routinely says such exercises are nothing unusual and are designed to show the country's determination to defend its sovereignty.

Beijing routinely says such exercises are nothing unusual and are designed to show the country's determination to defend its sovereignty. This file picture taken on October 1, 2019 shows a Chinese soldier saluting in front of a drone during a parade at Tiananmen Square

Taiwan's defence ministry in June reported eight incidents of intrusion of Chinese military planes in its air defence identification zone, in which Taiwan jets gave radio warnings to usher the intruders out of the airspace.

Wu said such intrusions 'happened almost every day' in June and were 'much more frequent' than what the government had disclosed to the public. He said China has also made several 'simulated' military attacks on Taiwan.

'These behaviours worry us,' Wu said, adding that Taiwan was deepening its security ties with allies, including the United States which has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is its strongest international backer and main arms supplier.

Taiwan's defence ministry in June reported eight incidents of intrusion of Chinese military planes in its air defence identification zone. This file picture taken on July 14 shows US-made AH-64E Apache attack helicopters flying in formation during military drills in Taichung

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who won re-election by a landslide in January pledging to stand up to China, has made military modernisation a priority. Two US-made F-16V fighter aircraft are seen releasing flares after dropping bombs during the Han Kuang military drills

Wu said attacking Taiwan could be a 'very convenient scapegoat' for the Chinese government to divert domestic pressure, which he said is struggling with a fast-slowing economy amid the coronavirus pandemic and the current wave of floods.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who won re-election by a landslide in January pledging to stand up to China, has made military modernisation a priority. The island unveiled its largest defence spending increase in more than a decade last year.

Taiwan, one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, conducted live-fire exercises simulating the repulsion of an invading force last week, with Tsai saying it showed their determination to defend the island.
Renewable power for the first time contributed a bigger share in the European generation mix than fossil fuels as the fallout from the pandemic cut energy demand.

About 40 per cent of the electricity in the first half in the 27 EU countries came from renewable sources, compared with 34 per cent from plants burning fossil fuels, according to environmental group Ember in London. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector fell 23 per cent.

The rise is significant and encouraging for law makers as Europe prepares to spend billions of euros to recover from the virus and set the bloc on track to neutralize its carbon footprint by the middle of the century.

This marks a symbolic moment in the transition of Europes electricity sector, said Dave Jones, an electricity analyst at Ember. For countries like Poland and Czech Republic grappling with how to get off coal, there is now a clear way out.

While power demand slumped, output from wind and solar farms increased because more plants came online in breezy and sunny weather. At the same time, wet conditions boosted hydro power in Iberia and the Nordic markets.

Those conditions helped renewables become a rare bright spot throughout the economic tumult this year. In many areas, renewable sources of electricity have priority to the grid, meaning they could keep growing even as demand shrank and other power plants were turned off.

Electricity demand in the EU fell seven per cent overall. Fossil-fuel power generation plunged 18 per cent in the first half compared with a year earlier. Renewable generation grew by 11 per cent, according to Ember.

Coal was by far the biggest loser in 2020. Its one of the most-polluting sources of power and its share is slumping in Europe as the price of carbon increases and governments move to cut emissions. Power from coal fell 32 per cent across the EU.

Despite the economics, the decision to shut off coal for good will come down to political agreements between producers and governments.

One consequence of the jump in renewables is that negative prices have increased. On particularly windy or sunny days when there isnt much demand, the grid can be flooded with power. Thats leading wind farms to be shut off and customers to be paid to consume electricity.
AUSTIN, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) this week passed Railroad Commission Chairman Wayne Christian's (R  Texas) resolution urging the federal government to investigate excessive dumping of crude oil by Saudi Arabia and Russia and take appropriate action.

You can read the Chairman's resolution here .

"For much of 2019 and early 2020, Saudi Arabia shipped relatively little crude to America, with average arrivals running at about 475,000 barrels a day," said Christian. "After the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the U.S. oil and gas industry, Saudi Arabia shipped 1.3 million barrels a day to our nation, roughly four times February's daily volume and the highest figure since 2014."

"Flooding the market during ongoing negotiations with President Trump and the international community is disingenuous," continued Christian. "More than 100,000 oil and natural gas jobs in the United States have been lost according to Rystad Energy Group. Our federal government must push back against international efforts that harm American energy dominance."

While discussing the resolution, Christian emphasized that the United States produced a record 12.4 million barrels in August 2019, making our nation the top producer in the world and leading to economic growth, new jobs, energy sovereignty, and greater national security.

The IOGCC is a multi-state government agency that works to ensure our nation's oil and natural gas resources are conserved and maximized while protecting public health, safety and the environment. IOGCC was created more than 80 years ago when six states joined together to resolve common issues and share best practices for industry regulation to minimize federal intervention. Christian was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott as Texas' official representative to IOGCC in April 2017 and currently serves on several committees, including as Chairman of the Nominating Committee.

A lifelong conservative businessman, Wayne Christian was elected as our 50th Texas Railroad Commissioner in November 2016. In June of 2019, Christian was elected to lead the agency as Chairman by his fellow commissioners. Prior to his time at the Commission, Christian served seven Sessions in the Texas House of Representatives, accumulating a strong record of standing for free markets and against burdensome regulations. In addition to his duties as Commissioner, Christian was appointed by Governor Greg Abbott to serve as the Official Representative of Texas on the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. Christian is married to his wife, Lisa, and together they have three daughters, Liza, Lindsey and Lauren. You can learn more about Commissioner Christian here: https://rrc.texas.gov/about-us/commissioners/christian/ . ###

https://thepermianfuelsamerica.com

SOURCE The Permian Fuels America Task Force

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Gemist, a Los Angeles, CA-based digital jewelry brand, received an investment from De Beers Group Ventures.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

Led by Madeline Fraser, Founder and CEO, Gemist utilizes a try-and-buy technology that allows consumers to customize jewelry and accessories online then receive no-cost replicas of the pieces offline for all occasions before completing the purchase.

As part of the investment, De Beers Group Executive Vice-President, Consumer and Brands, Stephen Lussier will join the companys Board. De Beers Group will also work with Gemist on consumer engagement approaches, particularly with regards to responsible sourcing of natural diamonds. The company is backed by Legendary Ventures, Lightspeed Scout and Luma Launch.

FinSMEs

21/07/2020
Archaeologists have uncovered 1,900 stone artifacts in Chiquihuite Cave, a high-altitude site in the Astillero Mountains in northern Mexico. DNA analysis of the plant and animal remains from the sediment packed around the tools dates the human occupation of the site to 25,000-30,000 years ago. These findings challenge the commonly held theory that the Clovis people were the first human inhabitants of the Americas 15,000 years ago.

The initial peopling of the Americas is a contested and evolving topic, with the exact timing of the first arrivals still unknown.

Historically, Mexicos understudied and controversial archaeological record has remained on the periphery of First Americans research.

Evidence of human presence at Chiquihuite Cave extends this antiquity and attests to the cultural variability of older-than-Clovis sites and the earliest humans on the continent.

For decades people have passionately debated when the first humans entered the Americas, said Professor Eske Willerslev, a researcher at St Johns College at the University of Cambridge and director of the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen.

Chiquihuite Cave will create a lot more debate as it is the first site that dates the arrival of people to the continent to around 30,000 years ago  15,000 years earlier than previously thought.

These early visitors didnt occupy the cave continuously, we think people spent part of the year there using it as a winter or summer shelter, or as a base to hunt during migration.

We dont know who they were, where they came from or where they went. They are a complete enigma, added Dr. Ciprian Ardelean, an archaeologist at the University of Zacatecas.

We falsely assume that the indigenous populations in the Americas today are direct descendants from the earliest Americans, but now we do not think that is the case.

By the time the famous Clovis population entered America, the very early Americans had disappeared thousands of years before. There could have been many failed colonizations that were lost in time and did not leave genetic traces in the population today.

Professor Willerslev, Dr. Ardelean and their colleagues excavated a total of 1,930 stone tools such as knives, scrapers and arrowheads in Chiquihuite Cave.

The collection of artifacts reveals advanced flaking skills applied to a challenging raw material, represented by green and blackish varieties of recrystallized limestone, the scientists said.

The flaked tools reflect a previously unknown and mostly unchanged technological tradition.

The authors also attempted to identify ancient human DNA in all archaeological layers of the cave.

However, no evidence of human DNA within the samples was found. This adds weight to the theory that the early people didnt stay for long in the cave.

We identified DNA from a wide range of animals including black bears, rodents, bats, voles and even kangaroo rats, said Dr. Mikkel Winther Pedersen, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen.

We think these early people would probably have come back for a few months a year to exploit reoccurring natural resources available to them and then move on. Probably when herds of large mammals would have been in the area and who had little experience with humans so they would have been easy prey.

The location of Chiquihuite Cave definitely rewrites what has conventionally been taught in history and archaeology and shows that we need to rethink where we look for sites of the earliest people in Americas.

The results were published online today in the journal Nature.

_____

C.F. Ardelean et al. Evidence of human occupation in Mexico around the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature, published online July 22, 2020; doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2509-0
But the opposition says the new steps are linked to anti-government protests planned for next week.

Zimbabwes government has imposed a night-time curfew and tightened other measures to tackle rising coronavirus infections.

But the opposition says the new steps are linked to anti-government protests planned for next week.

Al Jazeeras Haru Mutasa has more from Harare.
RTHK: Trump threatens to veto defence act

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday passed its version of the National Defence Authorisation Act, a US$740 billion bill setting policy for the Pentagon that President Donald Trump has threatened to veto over a provision removing Confederate names from military bases.

The Democratic-led House backed the measure by 295 to 125, paving the way for negotiations with the Republican-led Senate on a compromise version of the NDAA, which Trump would then sign or veto.

Earlier Tuesday, the White House issued an official announcement that Trump would veto the bill if it required the Defence Department to strip the names of Confederate generals from US military bases.

"Section 2829 is part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct," the White House said in a statement deploring a "left-wing cultural revolution."

The White House said it also objected to provisions of the House NDAA deemed to impinge upon Trump's authority, including limits on the use of funds in the war in Afghanistan and controls on deploying National Guard troops within the United States.

State and local leaders have objected to recent deployments of national guard troops during anti-racism demonstrations.

The Republican-led Senate is debating its version of the NDAA this week. The Senate bill also includes a plan to change the names of bases such as Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, which honour men who fought against US troops 155 years ago during the Civil War.

Their names, and statues honouring men who owned slaves or fought on the pro-slavery side, have been targeted in the protests over police brutality across the United States - and the world - sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody in May.

Trump has called protesters "anarchists and agitators."

The Senate on Tuesday defeated an NDAA amendment that would have blocked the Pentagon from transferring to local police military-grade equipment that has been used against demonstrators. It did approve a measure to provide more training for police and put more controls on such transfers.

A Pentagon spokesman said he expected Congress and the White House would work out their differences. "They understand the importance of the NDAA, and we're confident... the NDAA will be signed and implemented on time so that we can have a budget for our forces," he said.

Congress has passed the NDAA for 59 straight years. It is one of the few major pieces of legislation treated as "must-pass" because it governs everything from pay raises and benefit changes for the troops to how many aircraft should be purchased or how best to compete with rivals like Russia and China. (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
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The Queen Mother initially didn't approve of Prince Philip as a match for her daughter, then Princess Elizabeth, because she saw him as a 'dangerously progressive' man, a new documentary claims.

The Queen Mother, who died in 2002 aged 101, was concerned about Philip marrying into the family and viewed him as 'the enemy' once he joined the The Firm because she disliked vying with him for her daughter's attention, according to the documentary The Private Lives of the Windsors.

The final episode of series, which airs next Monday on the Smithsonian Channel, claims the Queen Mother was used to getting her own way and was resentful when she had to let an outsider, Prince Philip, into her close circle because he 'challenged her authority as family matriarch'.

The programme also claims the Queen Mother became jealous of her daughter when she ascended the throne because all of the 'power and privilege' that came from being the Queen passed from her to the new monarch.

The Queen mother didn't approve of Prince Philip as he was 'dangerously progressive' and had sisters in the Nazi party, a new documentary has revealed. Pictured: Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, leaving the Nepalese Embassy in London on 18th October 1960

The final episode of The Private Live of the Windsors, which airs Monday on the Smithsonian Channel, reveals the Queen Mother (centre) was use to getting her own way, and was resentful when she had to let an outsider into her close circle - as Philip (second left) 'challenged her authority as family matriarch'. Pictured is Princess Elizabeth's (now the Queen) engagement photo to Philip Mountbatten (now the Duke of Edinburgh) at Buckingham Palace in 1947. From left: Elizabeth, Prince Philip, The Queen mother, King George VI (the Queen's father) and Princess Margaret

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who died in 2002 aged 101, was concerned about Philip marrying her daughter and viewed him as 'the enemy' once he joined the The Firm, as she often fought for her daughters time and attention from her son-in-law. She is pictured on her 50th birthday in 1950

When King George VI died in 1952, all 'the power and prestige of the title Queen went from the elder Elizabeth to the younger one, and Bowes-Lyon was demoted to the title '"the Queen mother"'. She is pictured in 1940 with her two daughters Princess Margaret (right) and the then Princess Elizabeth (now the Queen)

Historian and biographer Professor Jane Ridley explains Her Majesty still asked to receive foreign office telegrams after stepping down from being monarch, meaning she wielded more power than any Queen Mother before her.

But the one major obstacle to her power, was her son-in-law, Professor Ridley explains: 'The Queen Mother viewed him as rather an enemy and in fact one would see those early years as being a tug-of-war and a tussle for the ear of the Queen.'

Christopher Warwick, royal biographer also explains in the programme how her husband death's left the monarch in an usual position: 'With the death of King George, we have to remember how young they were. The King was 56, the Queen mother was 51.

'So she felt they'd been cut off in her prime, she loved the position of being Queen and suddenly all that was taken from her. The Queen mother minded very much being Queen mother, and she was jealous of her daughter having become Queen.'

The documentary reveals how the Queen mother (pictured writing a letter) was felt she was 'cut off in her prime' when she became widowed at 51

The Queen mother (third right) is pictured with a young Princess Elizabeth (third left) at a visit to the Royal Navy College in Dartmouth in 1939. Also pictured is the Queen's father, King George VI (second left), Lord Mountbatten (standing, right) and the Queen's future husband Prince Philip (standing, second from right). Despite fighting for the British army in World War II, the royal couple didn't approve of the Prince of Greece and Denmark for Elizabeth as all four of his sisters had joined the Nazi party

But years before the royals power struggle, both the Queen mother and King George VI didn't approve of Prince Philip, but their daughter, then Princess Elizabeth, was set on marrying him.

'Philip may have served in the British army, but his four sisters had married Germans, who fought for the Nazis,' historian Professor Kate Williams explains.

'The Royal family were quite keen to keep Elizabeth away from Prince Philip, as she was clearly devoted to him and was determined to marry him, but she had a lot of concerns about his suitability.'

Professor Williams adds that the Queen Mother made the 'best of a bad situation' after the wedding went ahead and wrote to her 'darling Lillybet' [the family's nickname for Elizabeth] saying they were so happy to embrace Philip as a new son.

But as a newlywed, Philip wanted to move away from his in-laws and pave the way for his future with his new wife, which created distance in the family.

As the King's health declined, his wife took on more of his duties but when he passed away from lung cancer in 1952, she had to take a step back and retreat to Balmoral, while her daughter stepped into the spotlight as Queen.

The royal made the 'best of a bad situation' after the wedding went ahead and wrote to her 'darling Lillybet' that she would welcome Prince Philip as a son, the documentary reveals. Pictured: The Queen mother writing a letter - she would run the royal household and took over royal correspondence when her daughter was on official trips

It wasn't until then Prime Minster Winston Churchill visited her that she was convinced to step back into public life.

Historian Piers Brendon explains: 'Churchill had the idea that she could perform a useful role in helping Elizabeth II be Queen.

'He was keen to have her as an ally behind the throne and he thought she could act as a a barricade from too much influence from Philip, because Philip was then regarded as a quite dangerous progressive and the Queen mother was deeply old fashioned and reactionary.

Eventually, Churchill convinced Elizabeth to return to public life, and the widow undertook many solo trips including to the US and Tunisia.

But back home, the Queen mother and Prince Philip continued to clash, notably over the direction of the royal family and the education of the next King, Prince Charles.

As a newlywed, Philip wanted to move away from his in-laws and pave the way for his future with his new wife, which created distance in the family. But the ended up in power struggle with his mother-in-law over Princes Charles' schooling. Pictured, from left: Princess Anne, the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret; and her husband Lord Snowdon at Prince Charles investiture as the Prince of Wales at at Caernarvon Castle in 1969

After her husband's death, the royal went 'into hiding' at Balmoral, but later took many solo trips, she is pictured at a London airport following a trip to Australia and New Zealand in 1958

The Queen mother grew 'very close' to Prince Charles, and understood him better than anyone in the family, the documentary claims. Charles is pictured walking arm-in-arm with his grandmother in 1969 at Sandringham. Prince Philip, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew all walk behind them

'The Duke of Edinburgh was determined to make a man of his first born son,' Piers explains, 'but very early on, Charles was a wimp and the Duke of Edinburgh never really understood his son.

'Indeed, his son became a source of considerable irritation to him as he grew up, whereas the Queen mother reported what she needed was delicate nurturing, sympathy and understanding'.

This put the The Duke of Edinburgh and Queen mother again at loggerheads.

'The way the royal family worked it was Prince Philip was head of the family, while the Queen was head of the country,' Kate adds.

Philip was determined to send his son to his alma mater Gordonstoun in Scotland, which was 'very tough' while the Queen mother wanted to send him to Eton, which is just a stone's throwaway from Windsor Castle, and the Royal Lodge, where she lived at the time.

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen mother, with her grandson Prince Charles and Pippin the dog in 1950. The royal recognised her grandson's 'sensitive side' and wanted to send him to Eton rather than Prince Philip's tough alma mater Gordonstoun in Scotland

'Charles had a miserable time at Gordonstoun, he's very heavily bullied, he struggles with the routine' Kate continues. The Queen mother understood him like no other, and this is so important, she really has a viral role in shaping the future king.'

The show also revealed how Queen mother, the ninth child of a Scottish aristocrat, was 'the most popular debutante of her day' and turned down the proposal of Prince 'Berite' Albert, three times before finally agreeing to wed.

Letters reveal her 'horror and emotion at becoming queen' after her brother-in-law abciated to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, and that she was 'distinctly underwhelmed' with the second son of George V, who she married assuming he would never become King.

The documentary also reveals how Queen mother, the ninth child of a Scottish aristocrat, was 'the most popular debutante of her day' and turned down the proposal of Prince 'Berite' Albert, three times before finally agreeing to wed. She is pictured on a beach in Norfolk with a beloved corgi

Letters reveal the royal's 'horror and emotion at becoming queen and that she was distinctly underwhelmed' with the second son of George V, who she married assuming he would never become King
The number of people infected with the coronavirus in different parts of the United States was anywhere from two to 13 times higher than the reported rates for those regions, according to data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study indicates that even the hardest-hit area in the study  New York City, where nearly one in four people has been exposed to the virus  is nowhere near achieving herd immunity, the level of exposure at which the virus would stop spreading in a particular city or region. Experts believe 60 percent of people in an area would need to have been exposed to the coronavirus to reach herd immunity.

About 40 percent of infected people do not develop symptoms, but they may still pass the virus on to others. The United States now tests roughly 700,000 people a day. The new results highlight the need for much more testing to detect infection levels and contain the viral spread in various parts of the country. (New York Times)

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Russian Influence in Britain is 'New Normal,' Intelligence Committee Warns

By Jamie Dettmer July 21, 2020

A long-awaited House of Commons report laying bare Kremlin-sponsored bids to influence the outcomes of British elections and other votes, and to meddle in the workings of British democracy generally, was released Tuesday, with lawmakers on the intelligence and security committee saying Russia sought to break up the United Kingdom by attempting to "influence" the 2014 Scottish independence vote.

The nine-member cross-party committee, which scrutinizes the work of Britain's spy agencies, dubbed the meddling in the referendum, in which the Scots opted by a small but healthy margin to remain tied to Britain, as the first time the Kremlin had sought to shape a vote in western Europe since the end of Soviet Communism.

Committee member Stewart Hosie said, "The UK is one of Russia's top intelligence targets." He added that Russia had weaponized information and disinformation. "Russia's cyber capability is matter of grave concern and poses an immediate threat to security," he added.

Russian political interference comes in a variety of forms, the panel said, including promoting disinformation to support or undermine a particular side. "Russian influence in the UK is the new normal," the report found. The panel noted the Kremlin has been disseminating fake news and controversial voices via state-backed news outlets like RT and Sputnik, and it has been using automated bot and troll accounts on social media sites Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

The panel, which heard testimony from senior officials from the country's spy agencies MI6, MI5 and GCHQ, as well as other expert witnesses, and was provided with secret intelligence material, expressed alarm about Russia-linked donations to Britain's political parties and issued a caution about the influence of Russian money on the City of London.

Britain's politicians, businesses people, lawyers, real estate agents, accountants and bankers were all warned in the report against becoming too involved with Kremlin-linked oligarchs. The committee criticized British "enablers and fixers," including members of Britain's House of Lords, who have facilitated the flow of Russian money into Britain over the past decade and enriched themselves while turning London into a "laundromat" for Russian cash.

"The arrival of Russian money resulted in a growth industry of enablers  individuals and organizations who manage and lobby for the Russian elite in the UK. Lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR professionals have played a role, wittingly or unwittingly, in the extension of Russian influence which is often linked to promoting the nefarious interests of the Russian state," the committee members said in their report.

The panel recommends the introduction of vigorous controls on Russian investments, saying the Kremlin and friends of Russian president Vladimir Putin sought to gain respectability by doing business in Britain and nurturing contacts in Westminster and the City to leverage cash into political influence. The report's annexes, which contain some of the evidence on which the conclusions are based, were redacted on the grounds of national security.

The committee blamed successive governments, Conservative and Labor, for being too lenient with Moscow even after it became clear Putin had become increasingly hostile toward Britain and the West. "Russia under Putin has moved from potential partner to established threat," according to the report, citing the murder on British soil of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence officer and Putin critic, and the annexation of Crimea as "stark indicators" that Russia is "unwilling to adhere to international law."

Andrei Kelin, Russia's ambassador in London, dismissed the report's conclusions, telling British broadcasters, "We do not interfere at all. We do not see any point in interference because for us, whether it will be [the] Conservative Party or Labor Party at the head of this country, we will try to establish better relations than now."

And Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-friendly political commentator and a member of Russian government advisory panels, mocked the report, saying the findings were predictable. "Russia is guilty  Russia is guilty of nearly everything. We make lot of jokes about this," he said.

The panel's report comes just days after Britain's foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, claimed it was "almost certain" Russia had tried to interfere in the 2019 British general election. He told lawmakers last week that "Russian actors" had tried to influence the electoral contest by "amplifying" online stolen British government papers detailing US-British trade negotiations.

The committee did not examine Russian activity during last year's election campaign, having already concluded its inquiry. Panel members had pushed for the release of their findings before the last election, but publication was blocked by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, apparently fearful of an adverse political impact on the ruling Conservatives.

That delay was criticized by committee members Tuesday as they announced key findings.

The panel said it had not seen clear evidence of Russia seeking to influence the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum, saying it would be "difficult - if not impossible - to prove" allegations that Moscow tried to influence the vote. But the committee criticized the government and intelligence agencies for failing to be more alert about the danger of interference and for not undertaking subsequently to find out whether there was Russian interference on the Brexit referendum."

The committee members urged Johnson to order an assessment of possible Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum, saying the government "did not want to know" if there had been interference in the 2016 vote  and had "actively avoided looking for evidence."

A former British security minister Pauline Neville-Jones said Tuesday she suspects Kremlin did have an ongoing cyber and social media operation aimed at shaping the Brexit referendum, saying it struck her as highly unlikely that the Kremlin would interfere in the Scottish vote but would stay its hands in the Brexit referendum. "It is an objective of Russian policy to weaken democratic institutions in our countries and to weaken alliances between democracies," she added.

The findings of the 50-page report, based on an 18-month long inquiry, will add political. pressure on Johnson to adopt an even tougher line with Russia, and it increases the likelihood that Downing Street will impose further sanctions on Russia, say analysts and diplomats.

Britain's foreign secretary recently hinted at the possibility of new sanctions being imposed on Russia, in addition to those already in effect for Russia's annexation in 2014 of Ukraine's Crimea and for a nerve-agent attack on England targeting a Russian defector.

American, British and Canadian officials last week accused the Kremlin of being behind a massive and ongoing cyber-hack aimed at stealing research into coronavirus vaccines and treatment therapies from western pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. In a joint statement, the governments of all three countries said the hacking operation started in February and has been unrelenting since.

The allegation was dismissed as nonsense by Kremlin officials, who said they had no need to steal coronavirus secrets as Russia was already far advanced in efforts to develop a vaccine and that the Kremlin had already negotiated to buy any successful vaccine developed by British scientists.

Bill Browder, the American-born financier who has campaigned to expose high-level corruption in Russia and Kremlin subversion overseas, welcomed the report, saying Kremlin-linked oligarchs "spend their money on highly placed people who would basically do intelligence and influence work" for Russia.

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President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that the nasty horrible coronavirus will get worse in the U.S. before it gets better, but he also tried to paint a rosy picture of efforts to conquer the disease that has claimed more than 140,000 American lives in just five months.

He also professed a newfound respect for the protective face masks he has seldom worn. He pulled one from his pocket in the White House briefing room but didn't put it on.

After a three-month hiatus from his freewheeling daily virus briefings, Trump returned to the podium, keeping the stage to himself without the public health experts who were staples of his previous events but keeping close to scripted remarks prepared by aides.

Besides declaring support for masks as a way to fight the pandemic, he admonished young people against crowding bars and spreading the disease.

It all marked a delayed recognition by Trump that the economic reopening he's been championing since April  and, more importantly, his reelection  were imperiled by spiking cases nationwide.

There were no guarantees how long Trump's more measured tone, delivered with an eye to halting a campaign-season erosion of support, would last. Along the way Tuesday, the president still worked in jabs at the news media and Democrats for focusing on disease-fighting shortcomings in the U.S. as the rest of world also struggles with the virus. He also belatedly addressed bipartisan criticism of virus-testing delays that have hampered reopening plans.

It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better, Trump said from the White House. But he also touted a reduction in deaths and progress on vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, which he referred to repeatedly as a the China virus. He continued his recent encouragement of Americans to wear masks when social distancing is not possible.

Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact," he said. "Im getting used to the mask, he added, pulling one out after months of suggesting that mask-wearing was a political statement against him.

Swaths of the country are now battling rising infections and growing deaths, and some states are once again having to close businesses and rethink school in the fall. Many retailers themselves are insisting their customers don masks.

For months, the nations top health experts have pleaded with Americans to wear masks in public and steer clear of crowds -- calling those simple steps life-saving -- even as the presidents stance fueled a partisan social divide.

The early evening show at the White House came as the next stage of the federal governments response to the pandemic was being crafted on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers and White House officials were opening negotiations on a trillion-dollar-or-more phase four rescue package.

For weeks, White House aides have pressed Trump to grow more disciplined in his public statements about the pandemic. On Tuesday, he steered clear of what has been a favored talking point: that widespread testing for the virus in the U.S. created more cases, as aides noted that was false and projected a lack of responsibility.

Little more than three months from Election Day, Trump and his political team hoped that the podium spotlight would give him an edge against Democratic rival Joe Biden.

The vaccines are coming, and they're coming a lot sooner than anybody thought possible, Trump promised anew.

As early as next week, the first possible U.S. vaccine is set to begin final-stage testing in a study of 30,000 people to see if it really is safe and effective. A few other vaccines have begun smaller late-stage studies in other countries, and in the U.S. a series of huge studies are planned to start each month through fall in hopes of, eventually, having several vaccines to use. Already, people can start signing up to volunteer for the different studies.

Health authorities warn theres no guarantee -- its not unusual for vaccines to fail during this critical testing step. But vaccine makers and health officials are hopeful that at least one vaccine could prove to work by years end. Companies already are taking the unusual step of brewing hundreds of millions of doses so that mass vaccinations could begin if the Food and Drug Administration signs off.

Trump also acknowledged bipartisan criticism of delays processing testing results.

"Well be able to get those numbers down," Trump said, saying his administration was working to improve the availability of rapid, point-of-care tests like those used to protect him at the White House.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told NPR Tuesday that he was glad Trump has begun to promote mask-wearing.

If we, during those conferences, come out and have consistent, clear, noncontradictory messages, I believe it will be very helpful in getting people on the track of knowing the direction that we need to go to get this pandemic under control, he said.

Biden, for his part Tuesday, launched into scathing criticism of Trump as he outlined the latest plank of his economic recovery plan, charging that Trump failed his most important test as an American President: the duty to care for you, for all of us.

Hes quit on you, hes quit on this country, Biden said.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump took to Twitter to claim that by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well  and we have done things that few other countries could have done!

In fact, the U.S. leads the world in confirmed cases and deaths from the virus -- and ranks near the top on a per capita basis as well.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans have broken with the White House in seeking additional federal funding for testing and contact-tracing in the next relief bill.

Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, in a news conference, encouraged White House aides to keep Trump away from the podium, calling the president "a threat to public health."

Trump's daily turns in the White House briefing room largely ended in late April after the presidents widely derided suggestion that injecting toxic disinfectant could help treat the coronavirus. The comment prompted widespread medical warnings against the potentially deadly move.

Scrapping the briefings was welcomed by aides who believed they were dragging down the presidents poll numbers, particularly with older voters. However, with his trademark rallies largely on hold because of the coronavirus, the view in Trumps circle is that he needs an alternate means to reach voters.

And Trump missed the days when he would dominate cable television ratings with his early evening briefings. Tellingly, when he announced Monday that the sessions could return, he did so with an eye toward their time slot and a boast about ratings.
The Rajasthan political slugfest has reached the Supreme Court as assembly Speaker CP Joshi on Wednesday challenged the high court order directing him to defer action against Sachin Pilot and other dissident Congress MLAs to avert a constitutional crisis in the state.

The Rajasthan high court had on Tuesday told the Speaker not to move forward on the disqualification notices till Friday, when a two-judge bench will deliver its ruling.

But Joshi said the court proceedings were tantamount to rightful division of powers being circumvented, and asked why the HC was even entertaining a petition at the procedural level when the Speaker did not pass any order and only issued show cause notices.

"The Speaker had the full authority to send notice. It can be judicially reviewed only later, after the Speaker's decision," said Joshi, calling the petition by rebel MLAs a dangerous precedent that could lead to a breakdown of constitutional rules.

A Special Leave Petition, which has been filed, says the HC can't 'order' another constitutional authority and the delicate balance of democracy was being destroyed by the HC order". "HC order is direct intrusion into the exclusive domain of the Speaker, the petition says.

The Speaker is likely to seek a hearing of the matter on Wednesday itself. In 1992, a constitution bench said that the court will not interfere in such actions, he said.

Sachin Pilot and 18 lawmakers close to him were issued disqualification notices last week for anti-party activities after a complaint from the Congress that accused them of trying to topple the Ashok Gehlot government.

The Speaker had earlier too deferred his deadline for action on the notices as the court proceedings continued beyond the expected time.

The argument that the petition was premature and courts cannot intervene before Speaker issues any orders was also adopted by the Speaker in the HC.

Mukul Rohatgi, arguing on behalf of Pilot, mentioned that the high courts power in this case cannot be curtailed and that it has the jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the matter.

Rohatgi also maintained that the Speakers order issuing notices goes against the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.

Even as the action shifts to the top court now, speculation is rife that CM Ashok Gehlot may call a session of the Rajasthan assembly soon to test the strength of his government.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Tuesday in support of barring undocumented immigrants from being counted for congressional apportionment next year.

Doing so, he said, would represent a "better understanding of the Constitution" than the way apportionment has been implemented for over two centuries.

"For the purpose of the reapportionment of Representatives following the 2020 census, it is the policy of the United States to exclude from the apportionment base aliens who are not in a lawful immigration status . . . to the maximum extent feasible and consistent with the discretion delegated to the executive branch," the memo said.

Democratic lawmakers blasted it, and civil rights organizations that successfully challenged the administration's attempt to add a citizenship question to the census said they will sue over it.

"Today's memorandum will end up in the dustbin of history as yet another exemplar of Donald Trump's disturbing embrace of white nationalism," Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), said in a statement. "MALDEF will be in court to stop this latest example of blatantly unconstitutional executive action by a failed presidency."

Dale Ho, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that Trump's "latest attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities will be found unconstitutional. We'll see him in court, and win, again."

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who led a multistate suit against the question, also said she will challenge the memo in court.

Since taking office, the Trump administration repeatedly has tried to change the way the decennial census is carried out and how its data is used.

A draft of an executive order less than two weeks after his inauguration recommended that the census ask about immigration status. The following year, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced that the question would be added to the survey, leading to lawsuits that revealed a paper trail of administration officials struggling to justify the move. The litigation also showed that the administration had been in contact with a now-deceased Republican strategist who had determined that a citizenship question would give an electoral advantage to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

Last summer, after the Supreme Court struck down the question, saying the administration had presented a "contrived" reason for wanting to add it, Trump ordered federal agencies to share administrative-records data on citizenship with the Commerce Department. Civil rights organizations have filed a lawsuit saying that order is discriminatory and violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the same law that challengers invoked against the citizenship question.

The administration also last month added two high-level political appointees to the bureau, eliciting criticism from Democrats in the House and Senate and raising concern that the new hires could attempt to influence the count.

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, called the memo "an illegal and unconstitutional attempt to scare people from participating in the Census and influence congressional representation."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, said the committee will hold an emergency hearing on the census next week and is considering additional ways to respond to the memo.

"Taking this step right in the middle of the ongoing Census is particularly egregious and sinister because it appears purposefully designed to depress the count, deter people from filling out their forms, and corrupt the Democratic processes on which our nation is founded," Maloney said in a statement co-signed by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., chairman of the subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties. "We fought and defeated the President's last attempt to scrawl his anti-immigrant graffiti all over the Census, and we'll stop him again now."

The memo seeks to overturn a system in place since the decennial count began in 1790. Typically by the end of a census year, the data from the count is delivered to the president, who then presents it to Congress to use for apportionment of representatives, based on the count of people living in each jurisdiction.

In a statement, Trump referred to his order last July for federal agencies to share administrative records.

"Today, I am following through on that commitment by directing the Secretary of Commerce to exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base following the 2020 census," he said, adding that the action "reflects a better understanding of the Constitution and is consistent with the principles of our representative democracy."

But the wording of the memo implies that it is not necessarily actionable. It stipulates that the commerce secretary "shall take all appropriate action, consistent with the Constitution and other applicable law, to provide information permitting the President, to the extent practicable, to exercise the President's discretion to carry out the policy."

Legal and census experts said the plan is neither legal nor practicable.

"It's patently unconstitutional," said Thomas Wolf, senior counsel and Spitzer fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law. For apportionment, Section 2 of the 14th Amendment requires a count of all persons, he said.

"Persons means people. Everyone must be counted . . . regardless of race or ethnicity or citizenship status," he said, adding that implementing what the president proposes "would be asking every American to disregard the plain text of the Constitution and ignore what their eyes tell them about what the law and the American Constitution is about. It's another example of the Trump administration putting some ill-conceived notion of ideology or self-interest ahead of the country."

A likely outcome is that the Commerce Department's general counsel will tell the secretary that it is not legal to exclude anyone living in the country from being counted for apportionment, said Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

"I think this ends up doing nothing," he said. "It will take somebody to go back [to the president] to say, 'We cannot do this practicably and consistent with applicable law.' "

In addition to congressional apportionment, data from the 2020 Census, which is currently underway, will be used to determine state redistricting and $1.5 trillion a year in federal funding.

The 2020 count has been beset, first by the citizenship question litigation, and now by the pandemic, which has hampered the Census Bureau's ability to collect data on schedule.

In April the administration asked Congress to extend the deadline for reporting the data by four months. Census Bureau Associate Director for Decennial Census Programs Albert Fontenot said this month that at this point it is too late for the bureau to deliver an accurate count by its original Dec. 31 deadline.

But a four-month delay could create a roadblock for any plan to exclude undocumented immigrants if Trump is defeated and a new administration takes over in January, before the data becomes available to use for reapportionment.

In its Heroes Act, the House approved the bureau's request for the delay, along with an additional $400 million to help with the count.

It is unclear whether a pending Senate relief bill will approve a change in the deadline.

Even if the administration found some way to legally exclude undocumented people from the count, it would be impossible to implement, Levitt said, adding that by law, apportionment must be based on the decennial census, which does not ask about respondents' legal status.

"There is no list of citizens, so there's nothing to do the math with," Levitt said, adding that he wouldn't be surprised if the memo spurs lawmakers to draft a bill that clarifies that everybody must be counted.

Litigation over a version of Tuesday's memo is already playing out in Alabama, which has sued the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau, arguing that immigrants should not be counted for apportionment or federal funding if they are not in the United States legally, even if they do fill out the decennial survey.

The 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War, mandates that representatives be apportioned "counting the whole number of persons in each State." (The Constitution originally contained similar language but distinguished between free people and enslaved people, who counted as three-fifths of a person.)

It is unlikely that either Tuesday's memo or the Alabama suit would prevail in court. But some see the administration's repeated rhetoric about excluding undocumented immigrants as a strategy to move the needle on the national debate.

The memo could be a sign of desperation from a president whose popularity is taking a beating in an election year, Levitt said. "Part of the impact of floating the idea is probably the messaging - showing this to his supporters as him fighting for them."

Tuesday's memo comes as the Census Bureau begins outreach to the nation's hardest-to-count groups, including immigrants. If the government is seen as trying to disenfranchise them, some might be less likely to respond to the survey, immigrant advocates said.

"This is an order designed to sow fear and mistrust between peoples and becomes a matter of life and death as the US battles a deadly pandemic," said a statement from the Industrial Areas Foundation, a group that works with churches and organizers in the West and Southwest to educate and support minority communities.

Wolf said the memo is not only frivolous but potentially dangerous for anyone in an area that gets undercounted, regardless of whether they are in the United States legally.

"Right now we're in a pandemic, and the census is going to be key," he said, noting that census data is used to determine education, food assistance, transportation and health care. "Every community that's suffering from the pandemic is going to need as much help as it can get, and if any community gets undercounted at the end of the day, every American is going to be left holding the bag."
To investors, analysts, financial media

Basel, July 22, 2020

Invitation to Dufry's Half-Year Results 2020 Conference and Management Call on August 03, 2020 in Zurich, CH

Dufry is pleased to invite you to our Half-Year Results 2020 Conference in Zurich, Switzerland:

Monday, 03 August, 2020

From 14.30 to 16.00 (CEST)

Zurich Marriott Hotel (Room Century)

Neumuehlequai 42, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland

Speakers will be Julian Diaz, CEO of Dufry Group, and Yves Gerster, CFO of Dufry Group. The presentation will be held in English.

Time/Agenda (CEST)

- 2:00 PM Doors Open & Welcome Coffee

- 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM Investor & Analyst Presentation and Q&A

Due to social distancing measures, the numbers of participants will be limited to 30 people. To register for the presentation, please send an e-mail to ir@dufry.com by 30 July, 2020. Please note that registrations will be handled on a first come, first served basis.

In line with current Swiss regulations, we kindly remind you to avoid shaking hands during the Conference, maintain a distance of 1.5 meters from other participants and stay at home if you have any symptoms. Depending on further developments or changes in the applicable regulations, we reserve the right to amend the above requirements or to take any further necessary measures at short notice.

If you are not able to participate in person, the Presentation and Q&A can be followed via Conference Call:

Telephone

Pre-registration

Participants are invited to pre-register for the conference call here. In this case, participants will receive the dial-in numbers and a personal pin-code.

Direct dial-in

Europe: +41 (0) 58 310 5000 UK: +44 (0) 207 107 0613 USA: +1 (1) 631 570 5613 Brazil: 0800 891 2164 / +55 (0) 11 3172 5519 Singapore: +65 3158 0802

Webcast

The access to the webcast platform will be available on the website https://www.dufry.com/en/investors.

A playback option will be available in the webcast platform until 3 September, 2020.

Participants to the conference call or webcast will be requested to indicate their name and company.

Dufry will publish its 2020 Half-Year Results on August 3, 2020, at 6.30am CEST.

For further information, please contact:

Dr. Kristin Kohler Renzo Radice Global Head

Investor Relations

Phone: +41 61 266 44 22 Global Head Corporate Communications

& Public Affairs

Phone: +41 61 266 44 19 Kristin.koehler@dufry.com renzo.radice@dufry.com

Dufry Group - A leading global travel retailer

Dufry AG (SIX: DUFN) is a leading global travel retailer operating over 2,400 duty-free and duty-paid shops in airports, cruise lines, seaports, railway stations and downtown tourist areas.

The Company, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, operates in 65 countries in all six continents.

Social Responsibility

Dufry cares for children and supports social projects from SOS Kinderdorf in Brazil, Cambodia, Mexico, Morocco and Ivory Coast. SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-political and non-demonstrational organization established for orphaned and destitute children all over the world.
The State Bond Commission has approved roughly $550,000 in grant funding for improvements at Stamford High School.

The Bond Commissions approval of $551,110 will go toward renovations to science classrooms and parking, as well as the creation of courtyard instructional space at the school, school officials said.

Roughly 10 of the older labs and classrooms do not meet the requirements of the schools early college experience and International Baccalaureate diploma programs, according to a statement from members of Stamfords legislative delegation.

Education and upgrading our schools remain a high priority, said state Sen. Carlo Leone, D-Stamford.

The funding, he said, will ensure we create a more vibrant, up-to-date, school building for teachers and students.

Raymond Manka, principal of Stamford High School, said the funds will go a long way to improve our academic environment and support our students.

State Rep. Patricia Billie Miller, D-145, said the renovations to the older science labs will create a more conducive learning environment for our students to grow academically.
SoftBank has been exploring a sale or stock listing of Arm, which it acquired for $32 billion in 2016. But the nature of Arms business makes any outright acquisition by a chipmaker a difficult proposition, as Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Anand Srinivasan has pointed out. The Cambridge, England-based firm licenses its designs for central processing units to many of the worlds chipmakers to adapt. These include Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Broadcom Inc., and plenty more besides. Arm-based CPUs are the brains for most of the worlds smartphones.
KALAMAZOO, MI -- An estimated 750 Kalamazoo County residents received incorrect ballots in the mail this month.

County Clerk Tim Snow addressed the issue during the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, July 21.

Incorrect ballots displayed District 4 county commissioner candidates, when they should have displayed District 5 candidates. This affected Kalamazoo Township voters in Precinct 7.

The issue was first flagged by Democrat Veronica McKissack, a Kalamazoo County commissioner candidate in District 5.

The mistake was missed during the proofing process, Snow said. McKissack alerted the Kalamazoo Township clerk about the misprint on July 11. Replacement ballots were printed the same day and made available to the township on Tuesday, July 15, Snow said.

He said all the replacement ballots had been processed and sent out through the Kalamazoo Township clerks office by Friday, July 17.

Members of the the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus of Kalamazoo met virtually with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Friday to discuss the issue.

County commissioner Stephanie Moore, who is chair of the Black Caucus chapter, said she would like to see more oversight of the election process and an investigation into what went wrong.

During the board meeting, Moore asked Snow what will happen to the incorrect ballots mailed in if voters do not replace them with the correct ballot. Snow said that if the affected voters do not the correct return ballots then the clerks office will transfer their votes onto a new ballot but exclude the incorrect county commissioner race.

The new ballots will have a sticker on the envelope identifying it as a replacement ballot and will include a letter from the clerk addressing the issue, Snow said.

Moore urged the county clerks office to compensate for the error with more education but Snow deferred to the local municipalities.

I just do hope that we do some work around the education, Moore said. Because now some people are fearful of the absentee ballot process and we really want to promote that as a way to have better access to voting.

Snow said as of Tuesday afternoon 54,000 ballots had been issued to registered voters. That number marks almost 27% of registered voters.

More on MLive:

Social worker, union leader face off in Kalamazoo County Democratic primary for District 5

Kalamazoo Township trustee challenges longstanding county commissioner for District 4 board seat

2 Kalamazoo County commissioners compete for Democratic nomination in state House race

All candidates and issues on the ballot for Kalamazoo Countys August primary election
On Monday, various US trade unions, including the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), organized what they called a Strike for Black Lives.

According to the events website, it demanded justice for Black communities, that elected officials use their authority to rewrite the rules so that Black people can thrive [and] that corporations dismantle racism, white supremacy and economic exploitation. Several Democratic Party-aligned groups also took part in organizing the event.

The so-called strike was a political fraud. Its purpose was to promote the Democratic Partys attempt to divert and disorient popular opposition by injecting racial communalism into the broad multi-racial movement against police brutality. It was also aimed at covering for the role of the unions and the Democrats in endangering the lives of workers by forcing them to remain on the job during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Strike for Black Lives was not a real strike. It consisted for the most part in brief demonstrations held outside normal working hours, or, in some cases, during lunch breaks. Despite the nationwide character of the event, which involved the participation of unions that collectively have millions of members, only a few thousand people took part, according to the unions.

The event was fully supported by big business. Short-term rental giant Airbnb even offered its employees time off to participate.

It was promoted by the corporate press. All of the major national newspapers provided significant coverage.

These same outlets, led by the New York Times, have spent months attempting to condition public opinion to accept a premature return to work under conditions where the COVID-19 pandemic has not been contained and no serious measures have been taken by corporations to protect their workers from the deadly disease. All of these media outlets are complicit in the explosive rise in infections and deaths that have resultedand were certain to resultfrom the back-to-work campaign dictated by big business and carried out by Democratic governors and mayors as well as the Trump White House.

Unsurprisingly, these same publications have ignored genuine strikes that have broken out in recent months in auto, meatpacking and other industries in defiance of joint union-management attempts to keep workers on the line during the pandemic.

The demonstrations that did take place served as a backdrop for speeches by Democratic Party politicians. In New York City, at a protest of a few hundred people, the unions turned over the microphone to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, known as the senator from Wall Street, who played a leading role in the passage of the CARES Act. That piece of legislation authorized a multitrillion-dollar bailout of the banks and corporations and sent stock prices soaring.

Former presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren tweeted their support.

The UFCW, one of the main sponsors of the event, has been instrumental in keeping hundreds of thousands of grocery and food processing workers on the job during the pandemic, even as their workplaces became centers for the spread of the disease in their communities. In response to a wildcat strike two weeks ago at the JBS beef processing plant in Greeley, Colorado, UFCW Local 7 declared the strike a violation of the contract and distributed a leaflet ordering workers to return to work. Six workers at the facility have already died of COVID-19.

The bogus character of the strike is in keeping with countless similar stunts by the American trade unions over the years, including a general strike at non-union Amazon involving only a few hundred union members and actions at a handful of fast food restaurants by the SEIU and other unions as part of their Fight for $15 campaign to raise the minimum wage to the poverty level of $15 an hour.

The main purpose of such events has been to encourage an expansion of the unions declining dues base into traditionally nonunion workplaces, while signaling to corporate America that they will do nothing that disrupts the intensifying exploitation of the working class. The demand for a starting wage of $15, which was repeated at Mondays protests, is so paltry that it was adopted by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world, as a public relations stunt.

But the unions Strike for Black Lives serves an additional political function: to bolster the Democratic Partys racialist campaign within the working class, where it has little support as compared to the affluent layers of the upper-middle class that form the partys core base.

The Democrats false portrayal of America as seething with racial hatred is a response of the ruling class to the signs of an emerging mass, multi-racial and multi-ethnic movement of the working class, powerfully foreshadowed in the nationwide and international demonstrations against police brutality. Such developmentspart of a growing wave of strikes and mass protests over the past several yearsterrify the ruling class.

The unions, controlled by bureaucrats whose six-figure incomes are tied to the profit interests of the corporations, feel equally threatened by such a development.

The aim of the Democratic Party-led ideological campaign is to frustrate the organic striving of workers to unite across racial and national distinctions and distract attention from the fundamental dividing line in capitalist societyclass. In keeping with the age-old ruling class tactic of divide and rule, the promoters of racial politics seek to whip up a political atmosphere of communalism based on the false notion that ones race, rather than social class, determines ones social interests.

In particular, the Strike for Black Lives seeks to divert growing anger among low-wage retail and fast food workers over unsafe conditions, which it casts as the product of white supremacy. This is why it combines a racial focus with an insistence that all initiative be left in the hands of corporate America. One of the demands on the events website is that Corporations take immediate action to dismantle racism, white supremacy, and economic exploitation wherever it exists, including in our workplaces.

A genuine fight against exploitation and unsafe working conditions can be carried out only in conscious opposition to the trade unions, which were long ago transformed into an arm of the corporations and the state, and a rejection of all forms of racial ideology.

This requires that workers form their own rank-and-file committees to fight for safe working conditions and decent wages, a task that is already being taken up by autoworkers. This must be accompanied by a political struggle to unite the working class in opposition to capitalist exploitation and social inequality through a fight for socialism.
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Linkedin Djemi Amnifu (The Jakarta Post) Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara  Wed, July 22, 2020 13:23 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668689e6 1 National Kupang,stranded,East-Nusa-Tenggara,blue-whale Free

Fishermen found a 100 ton dead blue whale stranded and decaying in Kupang Bay, specifically on Na Batu Kepala Beach in Nunhila subdistrict, Alak district, East Nusa Tenggara, on Tuesday afternoon.

The blue whale is the largest animal on Earth. The discovery of the 29-meter-long carcass immediately went viral and became a spectacle for thousands of residents of Kupang city and its surrounding areas.

[We] responded quickly to reports from residents regarding the marine mammal stranded at the beach, Kupang Water Conservation Area Agency (BKKPN) head Ikram Sangadji said on Tuesday.

Ikram said the dead whale was first spotted by fishermen at around 10 a.m. in Kupang waters, before it was moved by the tide and left stranded at the beach at 3 p.m.

The Kupang waters are part of the Sawu Sea National Marine Park, which covers 10 regencies in NTT and has been a crossover area for cetaceans.

People gather to see the carcass of a blue whale at Na Batu Beach in Nunhila subdistrict, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, on Tuesday afternoon. (Courtesy of Kupang National Marine Conservation Agency) #jakpost pic.twitter.com/e56PKTE1bD  The Jakarta Post (@jakpost) July 22, 2020

This was not the first time that a cetacean has been stranded at the shores. In January, a dead sperm whale was found in an area of mangrove trees on Tasilo Beach, Rote Ndao regency.

The monitoring conducted by the BKKPN shows that 16 species of cetaceans have appeared, consisting of eight types of dolphins and eight types of whales, Ikram said.

Ikram said the dead blue whale would be buried at the sandy beach for environmental reasons and because the skeleton could be dug up later for preservation.

He said the burial would be carried out near the Kupang Oceanic and Fisheries Resources Surveillance Directorate General in Nunhila.

The blue whale is a protected animal. Therefore, [...] preservation of its specimens will provide accurate evidence of the existence of the organism in a location, he said.

In addition, said Ikram, the preservation would serve as an educational tool and allow further research on various topics, such as the animals kinship, behavior, anatomy, habitat and morphological variations. (syk)
Prominent Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan has been freed, hours after he was abducted by plain clothed and uniformed personnel in the national capital, an incident that evoked strong outrage from the court, media, rights groups and the diplomatic community.

Jan is highly critical of the government and the security institutions of the country. Abbasi said the journalist was preparing to appear in the Supreme Court on Wednesday where he was facing contempt of court proceedings for an allegedly controversial tweet.

Jan's brother Shahid Abbasi told the media that he received a call from an unknown number to pick him up from a place in Fateh Jang area of Attock district Punjab province, which is not very far from Islamabad.

"I am back home safe & sound. God has been kind to me & my family. I am grateful to friends, national & int. journalist community, political parties, social media & rights activists, lawyers bodies, the judiciary for their quick response which made it possible," Jan tweeted on Wednesday.

Abbasi said the captors blindfolded Jan after abducting him on Tuesday and kept him in the car for most of the time he was in their captivity. No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction but a video revealed that about half a dozen men in plain clothes and uniform forced him to come out of his car and forcibly put him in a vehicle in the G-6 area of the capital.

The abduction created an outrage in the country as the media, right groups, politicians and diplomatic community joined to demand his safe release.

The Islamabad High Court also ordered Secretary Interior, Commissioner Islamabad and Inspector General, Islamabad to produce the journalist on Wednesday or personally appear before the court.

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari demanded that the government ensure his safe return soon. The matter was also taken up in the Pakistan National Assembly where opposition parties and the journalists covering the proceedings staged a walkout from the house.

Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists for press freedom, expressed outrage over Jan's abduction, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Canada's High Commissioner to Pakistan Wendy Gilmour tweeted, "very worrying development: the role of the media in a democracy is crucial, and must be protected. I trust that @Matiullahjan919 will be soon safely reunited with his family."




Publication of a clinical study on the advantages of

Mont-Blanc 3D+ in the treatment of scoliosis

Spineway, specialized in the treatment of severe disorders of the spine, announces the publication of a scientific article in the renowned scientific journal Spine Deformity1 highlighting the benefits of the Mont-Blanc 3D+ technology for the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

An international clinical study of 49 patients

This clinical study carried out by Professor Carlos Barrios (Universite Catolique de Valencia, Spain) covered four countries and involved post-operative follow-up of an average of 32 months by surgeons Dr. Jose Lajara (Spain), Dr. Philippe Mazeau (France), Dr. Karen Weissmann (Chile), Dr. Guahua Lu (China), Dr. Bing Wang (China), Dr. Lei Kuang (China), Dr. Yong Hai (China) and Dr. Jose I. Maruenda (Spain).

This multicentric group provided the clinical data on 49 patients suffering from adolescent idiopathic scoliosis and, in particular, studied the restoration of thoracic kyphosis (curvature in the middle of the spine) in patients after corrective surgery.

The article, written by Professor Carlos Barrios, concludes that the use of Spineways Mont-Blanc 3D+ instruments provides a better correction of thoracic kyphosis based on vertebral co-planar alignment than the other methods and instruments used for comparison in the study.

Restoration of the thoracic spines natural curves

Current techniques using pedicle screws have successfully corrected the spinal deformation of scoliosis patients from a frontal view without, however, restoring the thoracic spines natural curves from a sagittal view. These effective alignment methods unfortunately often result in patients having flat backs.

The natural thoracic curve plays a part in the bodys overall balance and failure to reconstruct this natural curve creates long-term problems (pain, compensatory deformation in the cervical spine causing vision problems, balance, etc.) that are currently the subject of many publications and communications.

Story continues

The corrective technique provided by Spineways Mont-Blanc 3D+ instruments allows for frontal-view restoration of a deformed spine as well as sagittal view restoration of a patients thoracic curve in a way that is controlled by the surgeon. This three-dimensional correction of the vertebrae thus protects the patient from possible long-term adverse effects.

Stephane Le Roux, Chairman and CEO of Spineway, said, We are happy and proud of this article that is the fruit of collaborative work that began over five years ago with top surgeons specialized in the treatment of scoliosis. The results obtained in these different countries confirm the Groups ability to offer innovative instruments and implants for the spine. It shows Spineways ongoing desire to provide solutions that contribute to the improvement of care for patients with disorders of the spine. I would like to thank all the surgeons who participated in this study for their trust and participation.

This article shows the quality of the Mont Blanc 3D+ instruments developed and patented by Spineway, and the progress this means for patients everyday comfort, as well as for the surgeons operating technique.

Upcoming: 27 October 2020  2020 half-year results

SPINEWAY IS ELIGIBLE FOR THE PEA-PME (EQUITY SAVINGS PLANS FOR SMES)

Find out all about Spineway at www.spineway.com

This press release on July 22, 9 am has been prepared in both English and French. In case of discrepancies, the French version shall prevail.

Spineway designs, manufactures and markets innovative implants and surgical instruments for treating severe disorders of the spinal column.

Spineway has an international network of over 50 independent distributors and 90% of its revenue comes from exports.

Spineway, which is eligible for investment through FCPIs (French unit trusts specializing in innovation), has received the OSEO Excellence award since 2011 and has won the Deloitte Fast 50 award (2011). Rhone Alpes INPI Patent Innovation award (2013)  INPI Talent award (2015).

ISIN: FR0011398874 - ALSPW

Contacts:

Spineway



Shareholder-services line



Available Tuesday through Thursday



(10 a.m.  12 p.m.)



+33 (0)811 045 555 Eligible PEA/PME



ALSPW





Euronext Growth AELIUM Finance & Communciation



Investor relations



Solene Kennis



spineway@aelium.fr











1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs43390-020-00067-8





Attachment




"I feel an obligation, how they will take to show how she and I are in league with each other, to lift her up in the minds of the people who live down there with her, who have known her, who have never, to my way of thinking and understanding, since we're playing dirty, said that she was given favors because favors of a fleshy nature were expected in return.

"Now I don't know if Senator Slama has heard what they are saying about her and why the governor picked a very young person with no life experiences. I didn't know they had traveled together. How would I know that if white people didn't tell me? They want to play dirty; well, let's get dirt out here on everybody.

"I feel more protective toward my daughter than some white men feel toward theirs. My daughter could not be put in a position where certain salacious things were suggested about her because of some older white man who was supposed to symbolize power and why he's putting her in that position when she has no credentials to justify it. Only one thing. And that's what's being said about Senator Slama. She knows it. You all know it around here because some of you have told me, but I'm not going to out you."
Senators Introduce Bill Allowing Americans to Sue China Over Pandemic

Six Republican senators have jointly introduced a bill to allow Americans to sue China over the COVID-19 pandemic in U.S. federal courts.

In a July 20 press release, Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) stated: Americans who have been victimized by the lies and deceit of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)  deserve the opportunity to hold China accountable and to demand just compensation.

McSally added that the bill would provide Americans with the legal tools necessary to sue the Chinese government in federal court for creating and worsening the COVID-19 pandemic.
China orders Christians to take down crosses, images of Jesus; worship communist leaders, not God

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Amid the coronavirus outbreak, poor Christian villagers in China have been ordered to renounce their faith and replace displays of Jesus with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi Jinping or risk losing their welfare benefits.

Religious liberty magazine Bitter Winter reports that in April, officials with China's Communist Party visited believers homes in Linfen, a prefecture-level city in the northern province of Shanxi. While there, they ordered residents who receive social welfare payments from the government to replace crosses, religious symbols, and images in their homes with portraits of China's communist leaders.

If Christians resisted the order, officials annulled their subsidies.

All impoverished households in the town were told to display Mao Zedong images, a local pastor told Bitter Winter. The government is trying to eliminate our belief and wants to become God instead of Jesus.

A member of a state-sponsored Three-Self church in one of the villages recounted how local officials tore down all religious images and a calendar with an image of Jesus in his home and posted a portrait of Mao Zedong instead.

Impoverished religious households cant receive money from the state for nothing  they must obey the Communist Party for the money they receive, the believer quoted an official as stating.

In May, an official in the eastern province of Shandong stormed into the home of a local Christian. While inside the Christian's home, the official posted portraits of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping and reportedly said, These are the greatest gods. If you want to worship somebody, they are the ones."

In April, the government of Xinyu city in the southeastern province of Jiangxi canceled a disabled Christians minimum living subsidy and a monthly disability allowance of 100 RMB (about $14) because the believer continued to attend worship services despite government orders.

Similarly, in Jiangxis Poyang county, a Christian woman in her 80s was removed from the governments aid list because she said Thank God after receiving her monthly 200 RMB (about $28) subsidy in mid-January.

They expected me to praise the kindness of the Communist Party instead, she said.

Another elderly Christian woman from Henans Shangqiu city had her minimum living allowance canceled after government officials found a cross image posted on the door of her home.

They tore it down immediately, she said. Afterward, both my minimum living allowance and poverty alleviation subsidy were canceled. I am being driven to a dead end. I have diabetes and need injections regularly.

The Communist Party previously targeted images and photos of Jesus as part of its campaign to transform believers in religion into believers in the party.

In 2017, The South China Morning Post reported that CCP officials removed more than 600 Christian symbols from the living rooms of believers in Yugan county of Jiangxi province, and 453 hung portraits of the communist dictator.

SCMP, a newspaper that kowtows to the communist regime, claimed the move was part of a state-sponsored campaign to alleviate poverty in the region since some CCP members believe families faith is to blame for poverty.

Many poor households have plunged into poverty because of illness in the family. Some resorted to believing in Jesus to cure their illnesses, the head of the government campaign told SCMP. But we tried to tell them that getting ill is a physical thing, and that the people who can really help them are the Communist Party and General Secretary Xi.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, rights groups, and the U.S. State Department have condemned Chinas continued crackdown on religion and religious minorities.

In its 2020 Annual Report, USCIRF called upon the Trump administration to impose targeted sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for severe religious freedom violations. It noted that Chinese authorities not only removed crosses from churches across the nation but also banned youth age 18 and younger from participating in religious services.

In June, a Christian man was arrested and at least two women were injured in Chinas Henan province after 200 communist officials stormed into Sunzhuang Church and demolished the structure using cranes and heavy-duty machinery.

On Open Doors USAs World Watch List, China is ranked No. 23 on its list of countries known for persecuting Christians. The organization notes that all churches are perceived as a threat if they become too large, too political, or invite foreign guests.
Apple will announce a new processor for its Mac computer line at its virtual World Wide Developers Conference later this month, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Fulfilling a years-long rumor, the company will begin using an ARM chip based on Apples A14 processor, which will be featured in the next iPhone.

Although the next generation of Macs will run on a mobile chip, the computers will continue to use macOS and not Apples mobile operating system, iOS, Bloomberg noted.

ARM chips tested inside Apple reportedly have shown sizable improvements over Intel-powered versions, especially in graphics performance and artificial intelligence.

The Apple processors are more power-efficient than Intels, which could lead to lighter, thinner Macs.

In addition to the main processor, Apples ARM SoC (system on a chip) for the Mac will have a graphics processing unit and a neural engine for handling machine learning functions, Bloomberg noted.

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reportedly will produce the new processors using five nanometer technology, which it already uses to produce chips for Intel rivals Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices.

Apple likes to make their own components. They did it first for the iPhone and iPad, and now theyre extending that to the Mac, said Bob ODonnell, chief analyst at Technalysis Research, a technology market research and consulting firm in Foster City, California.

Apple just wants to control the whole experience, and they feel that if they design the chips, they can design the software to best take advantage of those chips, and they can get the best possible performance and experience for their users, he told TechNewsWorld.

Better Cost Control

Users, developers and Apple itself will benefit from the companys move away from Intel chips in favor of designing its own processors, maintained Linn Huang,research vice president for devices and displays at IDC, a market research company in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Intel supply disruptions over the course of the last two years, as well as its slowness to land on 10 nanometer, have been a thorn in the side of Apple, which likes its supply chain the way it likes its ecosystem  tightly integrated, he told TechNewsWorld.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Moving towards their own platform allows them to be in more control of their feature set and roadmap, Huang added.

Bringing Macs into the ARM fold can help Apple manage some of its costs, maintained San Jose, California-based Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, a high-tech research and advisory firm.

It allows Apple to spread the development costs of its A-series ARM processors over more chips, he told TechNewsWorld. This would really be an opportunity for Apple to differentiate itself from the rest of the PC industry even further.

5G Roadmap

Apple will benefit from severing ties with Intel, suggested David McQueen, research director at ABI Research, a technology advisory company headquartered in Oyster Bay, New York.

Apple now wont be beholden to Intels chipset launch dates and update cycles, he told TechNewsWorld.

Moving to ARM-based chips can bring efficiencies and better battery life without sacrificing performance, McQueen added.

Some of Apples A chips already perform well in benchmarks against those from Intel, he said. The move may also help cut out some size constraints, possibly allowing Macs to be made thinner, while also negating a need for fans.

In addition, the move could pave the way to make all of Apples devices 5G-enabled, potentially using its own 5G modems in the future, the fruits of its billion dollar deal to obtain Intels smartphone modem business last year, McQueen speculated.

ARM-based PCs will be able to behave more like smartphones and smart speakers, noted Frank E. Gillett, principal analyst at Forrester Research, a market research company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The PC may be able to gauge a users emotions and ask to help. It could sense when a user approaches and starts up the computer, before its touched, he told TechNewsWorld.

All those things require low-power background processing, which has been difficult to add to the Intel architecture, which wasnt designed for those things, Gillett said.

Heavy Lifting for Developers

One potential drawback to Apples move is that as a chip maker, the company would have to keep up with demand for its chips and stay ahead of the curve in chip technology, ABIs McQueen pointed out.

But it seems to have done pretty well so far at that with its A series of processors for iPhones and iPads, and the advantages seem to outweigh any challenges, he said.

However, Apples plan does raise some questions.

Its a risky and expensive move for Apple, and right now Im scratching my head on why Apple would do this, said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, a technology analyst and advisory firm in Austin, Texas.

Theres no clear benefit for developers or for users, and it appears Apple is trying to boost profits, he told TechNewsWorld.

All things equal, Apples new CPUs would need to outperform Intels to translate the X86-Intel-AMD world to ARM, Moorhead noted. To get a strategic benefit, Apple needs developers to rewrite applications to take advantage of its GPUs and NPUs, which is a heavy lift.

An Apple First

ARM adoption across the Apple line could be beneficial to developers, however, suggested Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a technology advisory firm in Campbell, California.

Developers would have a single processor platform to develop for, which would make their development for Apple devices easier and more consistent, he told TechNewsWorld.

The biggest impact of the move could be on Apples development community, which now develops applications for ARM devices on MacBooks running X86 processors, noted IDCs Huang.

In the future, developers could build iOS apps on ARM architecture and then deploy into ARM servers, he said. Consequently, the biggest ripple might not be for Apple or its users, but for the developer ecosystem.

When ARM-based Macs roll off the production line, it will be the first time in the 36-year history of the company that the computers will be based on a chip made by Apple.

It has changed processors twice in the past. In the early 1990s, it went from a Motorola processor to one made by IBM, the PowePC chip. Then in 2005, the company announced a switch from IBM to Intel at its WWDC, and the new Intel Macs began appearing in January 2006.

To cushion the blow of the change on users during the PowerPC to X86 transition, Apple included an emulation program called Rosetta in all Macs.

Apple will likely provide an x86 to ARM emulation layer, much as Microsoft has done in the Windows-on-ARM versions of Windows, observed Tirias Krewell.

Apples done this before, and theyve been successful doing it, said Technalysis ODonnell. The difference now from the past is that so much software is Web- and cloud-based. That makes things theoretically easier.
Political brinksmanship may cost the commuting public a seat on Caltrain in the future. Caltrain has been a win for commuters in the Bay Area, generating 70% of its operating costs through the farebox, higher than almost any other Bay Area transit agency. In an effort to make it self-sustaining, a -cent sales tax ballot measure was proposed for November, but its being used as a pawn in an ongoing battle regarding governance.

SamTrans has been the adult in the room for decades  buying the railroad when San Francisco and Santa Clara counties didnt want to ante up. The other counties pledged to pay but have been slow and at times completely unable to pay their entire share of the purchase cost. So SamTrans stepped up a second time, ultimately negotiating a deal to forgive purchase-related interest owed by the other two in exchange for the right to operate the system. A total of $20 million in principal repayment was also lifted off the backs of the two other agencies. At some point there may be value in a new governance structure, but governance is already divided three ways among the three counties. No agency has 100% control. Why would we want to jeopardize a winning transit system today over who gets to hold the gavel tomorrow?

Let the voters decide the fate of Caltrain through a vote on a one-eighth-cent sales tax. Dont kill the future of the train system over a power grab.

Rep. Jackie Speier, San Mateo

A political ploy

Regarding Trump: Federal forces may head for Oakland (July 21): Its a time-tested political ploy that when a president is down in the polls, hell start a war, hoping to rally voters around the flag. Trump, unimaginative as ever, is now following that tired old script, but with a twist: hes waging war against his own citizens.

Rik Myslewski, San Francisco

John Lewis sacrifice

Regarding An act of honor (Editorial, July 21): In honoring the late Rep. John Lewis, let us remember that his sacrifice and that of other civil rights leaders in the cause of racial justice helped all people of color, not only African Americans. As Asian Americans in the 1950s, my family was denied the right to buy a house in Maryland because a neighbor objected to Asians living next to them. I was denied entry into college fraternities because of white-only bylaws. When I served in the military and visited an installation in the South, I refused to leave the base because I didnt know which restroom in town to use, white or colored. Clearly, I was neither. We have all come a long way.

Ken Kashiwahara, Millbrae

Backward approach

Regarding Cautious hope for agreement on rescue pact (July 21): In the European Union, where COVID-19 has killed 135,000 people, German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised a carefully negotiated $2.1 trillion budget and coronavirus recovery fund by stating, An extraordinary situation demands extraordinary efforts. In the United States, where COVID-19 has killed over 140,000 people, President Trump is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in an upcoming coronavirus relief bill, and continues to insist that this health crisis will simply go away. While Europe is moving forward to address this pandemic, the U.S. is tragically moving backward.

Umberto DAvila, Sausalito

Unchecked growth

Regarding Housing goals high  but also too low? (July 21): Stop. Stop the insanity of growth as a solution to problems when it only exacerbates them. Its more congestion, more pollution, useless freeways and the mindless march toward a critical mass that our environment cannot support. Any system that destroys its environment destroys itself. Our urban centers are very close to doing so, as is our extraction of the natural resources from less-congested regions that fuel this unchecked growth. Our economic system values growth and ties it to profits and prosperity. But can we truly prosper if we destroy the planet we inhabit?

Bill Nichols, San Francisco

Trouble with writing

Regarding Mail ballots haphazard signatures spell trouble (July 19): I was very disheartened to see the article concerning ballot signatures by John Wildermuth, as I am one of the 930,000 people in the United States who suffers from Parkinsons disease. One of the things that can happen with Parkinsons disease is it affects your ability to write. Ones writing becomes so small  micrographia  that I cant even read my own writing. I have no idea how long ago I signed my initial signature, which they will be using to compare with my current illegible writing, and I fear it will be rejected. I want my vote to count each and every time I vote by mail, as do thousands of other people with Parkinsons.

Michelle Johnston, Alameda

Dont get complacent

Regarding Biden needs bigger lead to ensure victory (July 19): Thank you, former Mayor Willie Brown, for reminding us in his Sunday column that Joe Biden supporters must not get complacent regarding Bidens poll numbers. It would be helpful for Brown to inform Biden supporters of the many ways to get involved in his campaign to ensure his victory. Organizations such as Vote Forward, Indivisible, Swing Left and Postcards to Voters are providing ways to be involved and volunteer from home. Also, it would be helpful if Brown would let us know how he is working to ensure Biden is our next president.

Sandy Franchini, Benicia

Unaddressed issues

Regarding Bay Area lays plans for 2050 (Page 1, July 20): The plans for the Bay Area as projected into 2050 are completely lacking in the effects that continuing global warming are going to have on the Bay Area and California as a whole. In addition, these plans by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission have been made without mentioning the large chances of a major earthquake in the Northern California area. There are also many other factors that have been ignored, such as the increasing deterioration of the Bay Area from the explosion of homelessness that will certainly occur as our state and nation are still failing to make a real commitment to end this growing social crisis. I urge our local, state and national governments to stop pretending that these impending crises of climate and total environmental change, plus unaddressed poverty and homelessness, will somehow disappear without our real commitment to solving them. Our nations leaders seem to be living in a dream world that will soon be shattered by a most shocking reality.
On July 22, India registered 28,472 recoveries from COVID-19, the highest so far according to the Union Health Ministry data. With this, the recovery rate has improved to 63.13 percent.

Meanwhile, the lead developer of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has told the media that there is no certainty that the vaccine could be rolled out by the end of the year.
Europe should resist U.S. pressure to isolate China and remain independent in its decision making in the face of so-called security concerns, a Spanish expert has said.

"If the U.S. wants to include Europe in its 'anti-China' strategy because it does not want anyone to threaten its hegemony, the EU must bear in mind that China is not a threat to its security," said Xulio Rios, director of the Spanish Observatory of Chinese Politics in Spain, in an analysis titled Huawei and the Mantra of Security.

A ban against Huawei will result in European countries' increasing dependence on U.S. technology, Rios said in the article published Monday, calling it "the American trap."

The repeated use of national security to discredit Huawei looks like a good story, and "it seems that with any technology where China excels, there will be a problem of this nature," Rios said.

However, "there is no evidence, only suspicions, even though they (the U.S. side) will have to look for it intensely," he stressed.

The truth behind the U.S. pressure on its allies to block Huawei is that "Huawei's technology is highly competitive and places China ahead in the marketplace" and threatens Washington's dominance in such fields, he said.

"America's record in cracking down on any foreign company that challenges its technological leadership shows the forcefulness of its pressure. But we are talking about the commercial policy and not security issues," he added, comparing the Huawei ban to the acquisition of French company Alstom.

In April 2013, Frederic Pierucci, a former executive of Alstom, was arrested in New York by the U.S. authorities for his alleged role in a corruption case involving Alstom in 2003-2004 in Indonesia. A year later, Alstom was asked to pay a huge fine of 772 million U.S. dollars, which eventually led to the partial acquisition of the French company by General Electric, its arch rival and a giant technology corporation based in the United States, and blocked a potential merger between Alstom and Shanghai Electric Company.

The United States was using a similar strategy against Huawei by arresting Huawei financial director Meng Wanzhou in Canada, Rios said. "By taking over Alstom, the U.S. gained control of the maintenance of all French nuclear power plants ... And hardly anyone said anything ..."

The expert urged the EU to stick to its "strategic autonomy" to make independent decisions despite the U.S. pressure, especially after Britain's announcement of a Huawei ban earlier this week.

"London's decision will have broad implications for relations with Beijing. It is not just about the millions of pounds of added cost and the delay in launching the 5G network, but the damage to the mutual trust between the two parties," Rios said.

"Europe's economic cooperation with China is as vital as transatlantic distancing and is the only way to strengthen itself if it aspires to avoid decline," Rios said.

"China has made huge investments and developed bold policies that have contributed significantly to its progress in the technology research and development that we are seeing today," he said.

"National security is a priority for everyone, but there is no evidence to support a ban on Huawei equipment," he said, pointing out the existing interconnection between European and Chinese tech companies and markets, such as Nokia and Ericsson operating in China and Huawei's cybersecurity labs in Europe.

"Symbolically defeating Huawei may be tantamount to defeating China. But it also subdues, once again, Europe," he concluded.
A woman who hurled a chair off a high-rise balcony onto a busy highway has been spared jail.

Marcella Zoia was given probation, 150 hours of community service and a C$2,000 (1,165) fine on Tuesday after the stunt in Toronto, Canada in 2019.

The prank by Ms Zoia, 20, was filmed and posted to social media, where it quickly went viral, gaining hundreds of thousands of views.

Prosecutors had sought six months in prison for Ms Zoia. Her sentencing was delayed several times because of coronavirus but finally went ahead remotely on Tuesday.

Ms Zoia preparing to throw the chair / Toronto Police

She was "ecstatic" to escape jail, her lawyer Gregory Leslie told local reporters and "maybe had a tear or two in her eyes" at the news. Ms Zoia gained an adult criminal record.

The video, which first surfaced on Snapchat, showed Ms Zoia throwing a folding wooden chair from her balcony in a tower block flat onto the Gardiner Expressway, a very busy multi-lane road, in February 2019.

No one was hurt in the incident. But the clip soon came to the attention of local police, who charged her with mischief endangering life, mischief endangering property and common nuisance.

The Gardiner Expressway / Toronto Police

Ms Zoia said last year she was "very sorry for her actions" and added that she had been drinking the night before the incident and was under "peer pressure," local media reported.

Ms Zoia gained some local notoriety, even getting cast in a music video by rapper Drake, who is from Toronto.
Northrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/21/2020 -- The report "Immersion Cooling Market by Type (Single-Phase and Two-Phase), Application (High Performance Computing, Edge Computing, Cryptocurrency Mining), Cooling Fluid Type (Mineral Oil, Synthetic Oil, Fluorocarbon Based), Geography - Global Forecast to 2024" The immersion cooling market is projected to grow from USD 177 million in 2019 to USD 501 million by 2024, at a CAGR of 23.2% from 2019 to 2024. The increasing server rack density and growing need for eco-friendly and cost-effective data center cooling solutions is expected to drive the immersion cooling market during the forecast period.



View detailed Table of Content here - https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/immersion-cooling-market-107040948.html



The single-phase immersion cooling type segment is projected to lead the global immersion cooling market during the forecast period

Based on type, the single-phase immersion cooling market is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2019 to 2024. In single-phase immersion cooling, the fluid has a higher boiling point and remains in the liquid phase throughout the cooling process. Electronic equipment is submerged in a non-conductive liquid bath in an accessible, sealed enclosure. Pumps are used to direct the heated fluid to a heat exchanger, where it is cooled and recycled back into the bath without any loss of fluid. Single-phase immersion has been recognized as the next-generation cooling technology by all the major immersion cooling manufacturers, as it has proven to be low-cost and highly reliable. Most of the hyperscalers and cryptocurrency miners have adopted single-phase immersion cooling, thus fueling the growth of this segment during the forecast period.



The high performance computing segment is projected to lead the immersion cooling market during the forecast period

Based on application, the High Performance Computing (HPC) segment of the immersion cooling market is projected to grow at a higher CAGR during the forecast period. The adoption of HPC is gaining traction, as enterprises across various industry verticals are focusing on scaling-up their complex applications. HPC enables scientists and engineers to solve complex, compute-intensive problems.



Download PDF Brochure @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=107040948



Some of the benefits of HPC include high network performance, fast storage, large volume of memory, and very high compute capabilities. Thus, HPC enables organizations to develop new, innovative products and services to maintain a competitive edge in the market. The costs and logistics of conventional cooling become more challenging as server racks become denser thermally. These difficulties are faced in HPC where the systems can be twice or thrice denser. This encourages HPC customers to switch from traditional cooling methods to immersion cooling solutions, thus, driving the growth of the market during the forecast period.



The immersion cooling market in the Asia Pacific is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period

The immersion cooling market in the Asia Pacific is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2019 to 2024. China, India, Japan, and South Korea are key countries contributing to the increased demand for immersion cooling in this region. The increasing adoption of immersion cooling in applications, such as high performance computing, cryptocurrency mining, edge computing, especially in China, Japan and India is expected to drive the immersion cooling market in the Asia Pacific region during the forecast period.



Fujitsu Limited (Japan), Green Revolution Cooling Inc. (US), Submer Technologies (Spain), Allied Control Ltd. (Hong Kong), Asperitas (The Netherlands), Midas Green Technologies (US), Iceotope Technologies Limited (UK), DCX  The Liquid Cooling Company (Poland), LiquidCool Solutions (US), DownUnder GeoSolutions Pty Ltd. (The Netherlands), ExaScaler Inc. (Japan), and Horizon Computing Solutions (France) are some of the leading players operating in the immersion cooling market.



Speak to Analyst @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=107040948



Recent Developments :

- In October 2018, Asperitas and 2CRSI, a manufacturer of very high-performance servers entered into a partnership for immersed computing to develop new cutting-edge server solutions for immersed computing to be offered to customers with high performance requirements.

- In July 2017, Iceotope Technologies Limited launched the EdgeStation - a portable edge server designed to withstand challenging environments. EdgeStation cools and protects IT components from harsh working environments, delivering maximum performance with minimum footprint. It is designed to meet the growing demand for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0.



Key Questions Addressed by the Report:

- How are the developments that were undertaken by various companies expected to affect the immersion cooling market in the mid- to long-term?

- What are the upcoming industry applications of immersion cooling?

- What is the impact of changes in government policies on the immersion cooling market?

- What is the estimated size of the immersion cooling market in 2019?

- What are the different applications of immersion cooling?



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There are no actions following the amendments to the law on the Constitutional Court of Armenia. This is what Minister of Justice of Armenia Rustam Badasyan told reporters today, touching upon the fact that Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan signed the law today.

If you are referring to the nominations for judges of the Constitutional Court, these are the sequential actions following the constitutional amendments. The Constitution provides for a two-month period for constitutional bodies to nominate judge candidates, and time is flying, meaning those bodies need to nominate the candidates very soon. The law also eliminated the disparity between the Constitution and the law on the Constitutional Court, Badasyan said, adding that it was impossible to adopt the constitutional amendments and the amendments to the Law on the Constitutional Court immediately.

He emphasized that the three judges of the Constitutional Court (Alvina Gyulumyan, Hrant Nazaryan and Felix Tokhyan) are no longer judges of the Constitutional Court following the constitutional amendments. As far as the candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court are concerned, when the candidate for judge of the Constitutional Court participates in the government session, the governments candidate will be clear.

There are principles under which we believe the Constitutional Court needs to be formed. Candidates need to be as apolitical as possible and people who can ensure independence of the judiciary. I cant say which candidates are being considered, but I believe they will be announced in late July or early August, Badasyan added.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) held a second online rally last week for the forthcoming 2020 general elections. The party is standing a total of 43 candidates for the Colombo, Jaffna and Nuwara Eliya districts in the scheduled August 5 poll.

SEP (Sri Lanka) online meeting

Around 100 people from Sri Lanka and internationally participated in the event which was streamed on the partys Facebook page. More than 2,000 have since viewed the broadcast with many sharing it and posting greetings, comments and questions, including about the SEPs call for the formation of rank and file committees and the SEPs future work.

The meeting was chaired by SEP Political Committee member Pani Wijesiriwardena who is a candidate for the Colombo district. He explained that the central theme of the SEP election campaign election was the Fight against war, social catastrophe and dictatorship.

Wijesiriwardena explained that the Sri Lankan president is rapidly militarising his administration in preparation to suppress the mounting working-class opposition to government and employer attacks on wages, jobs and basic democratic rights.

The so-called opposition United National Party, Samagi Jana Balavegaya, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and Tamil National Alliance have not challenged the preparations for presidential dictatorship, he said. They too are pushing for their own class-war program.

Wijesiriwardena reviewed the disastrous international situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Rajapakse governments boasting to have defeated the COVID-19 pandemic is false, he said, pointing out that infections had emerged in many parts of the country which indicated the growing danger posed by the virus.

Paramu Thirugnanasampanthar, who heads the SEP list in the Jaffna district, spoke about the pledge made by the Tamil National Alliance [TNA]the main Tamil bourgeois party in the North and East of the islandto support Rajapakse, even as the Sri Lankan president prepares for repressive action against all working people.

The Tamil nationalist parties have continuously bargained for power-sharing agreements with the Colombo government and their attempts have always failed The democratic rights of Tamil masses can be only won through a unified struggle of Sinhala, Tamil and workers for a socialist program with the support of the international working class, he said.

Dinesh Hemal spoke on behalf of the IYSSE, explaining the disastrous impact of the COVID-19 on children and young people internationally and particularly in South Asia where 240 million children are already living in poverty. UNICEF has predicted that in the next six months another 120 million children will be added to this category, he said.

Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs or face wage cuts throughout the world, many of them young with no prospect of finding a decent job, he said. There is no solution to the problems facing young people within the capitalist system.

SEP General Secretary Wije Dias, the last speaker, reviewed the refusal of the capitalist classes in every country to take serious action to stop the spread of COVID-19 and their demands that workers must now return to work in dangerously unsafe conditions.

The actions of the capitalist class, Dias said, are guided by its thirst for profits and are unconcerned about the fate of humanity. This demonstrates that the capitalist system can offer only barbarism and shows the necessity for the working class to replace it with socialism.

The speaker referred to the World Socialist Web Site perspective, The decade of socialist revolution begins, published on January 3, and explained that the COVID-19 pandemic had intensified the crisis of world capitalism and the objective processes that produce mass revolutionary struggles internationally.

Dias said that President Rajapakse and his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, were campaigning to secure a two-thirds parliamentary majority in the election for their Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). This was in order to abolish the 19th constitutional amendment, which nominally pruned some of the powers of the executive presidency, and to rewrite the constitution to give the president even greater anti-democratic powers.

Significant steps had already been taken towards a presidential dictatorship with the insertion of retired and active military officials in central positions in the administration, Dias said. These moves are in preparation for a brutal clamp down on working people and the youth of all communities, who are bound to vehemently resist the governments austerity measures now being imposed amid the spread of the pandemic.

The TNA, the speaker continued, has expressed its willingness to support the government. In an interview with the Daily Mirror, TNA spokesman and parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran said that, If the government is ready to fulfill the aspirations of the Tamil people his party is ready to work with the government.

Dias said that the term Tamil people is used to hide the real aspirations of the Tamil bourgeoisie which for many decades have craved a deal with Colombo in order to jointly subject both Sinhala and Tamil working class to the ruthless exploitation of finance capital.

The speaker reviewed the deepening economic crisis, growing international debt repayments and falling growth rates in Sri Lanka now being exacerbated by the pandemic. The Rajapakse government has responded to this by giving huge tax concessions to the rich while imposing higher taxes on consumer goods imports that have sent the prices of essential food items through the roof.

Dias explained: The SEP participates in the election not to cultivate false hopes in the utterly discredited parliament system, which is nothing more than a rubber stamp for all the social counter-revolutionary steps of the executive presidential rule.

On the contrary, the SEP has advanced an election statement which stresses the need to build action committees in work places and the neighbourhoods of urban and rural poor. These organisations have to be totally independent of every faction of the bourgeoisie, and their left hangers-on, and the trade unions and need to be based on the fight for the establishment of a workers and peasants government.

Such a government would implement a socialist program that incorporates the democratic demands of the oppressed masses and provides viable solutions to the burning issues of defending living conditions and social rights. This must include decent wages and jobs for all those who want to work, free health services and education, agrarian supplies to the poor farmers at concessionary prices, and the abolition of discrimination on the grounds of language, religion, caste or sex.

Dias referred to the right-wing election intervention of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) that began as a petty-bourgeois party based on a mixture of Che Guevarism and Maoism. In 1971 and 1987, the JVP resorted to extra-parliamentary armed adventures, hoping to work out a political deal with Colombo. Now, under the name Jathika Jana Balaya [National Peoples Power], this organisation calls for reform and the cleansing of parliament, he explained.

In one election statement, JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake declares: We have presented a group of candidates to bring decency to the parliament. Parliament was full of looters, those engaged in illegal sand mining, owners of public bars and criminals. It must be cleansed. You have got the opportunity to fill the parliament with good persons if you vote for us.

The JVP, Dias told the online meeting, tries to resurrect parliament at the very time that the bourgeoisie wants to discard it and go for a military-fascist dictatorship, and as working people and youth are looking for an alternative form of rule that can serve their aspirations.

In different ways, all the pseudo-left groups follow the same rotten political agendato prop up crumbling bourgeois rule and, through it, to disarm the working class from taking the necessary political steps to rally the oppressed social layers under its socialist banner in preparation for the overthrow of the decadent capitalist system that can offer only war and barbarism.

Only the International Committee of the Fourth International and its sections throughout the world provide a program and perspective to guide working people and youth for the socialist revolution internationally, Dias said in conclusion.
A vegan popsicle vendor in Chicago has apologized and backed out of plans to sell from a push cart in a public park after being accused of 'cultural appropriation'.

Frozen desert startup Peachy issued the apology on Tuesday, after the company's enthusiastic announcement of the new push cart in Logan Square was met with furious online backlash.

Hundreds mobbed the company's Facebook page this week, accusing Peachy of stealing job opportunities from Hispanic street vendors, and of appropriating the culture of paleteros, as the roving ice treat vendors are known.

'Just get rid of this!' one person commented. 'Let the hardworking paleteros make their earnings!!'

Peachy owner John Lawrence Geary (seen above) apologized and pulled plans to sell popsicles from a pushcart after being accused of cultural appropriation

Geary had planned to launch a pushcart (left) to sell popsicles in Logan Square Park (right), but backed down after accusations that he would 'steal' income from Hispanic competitors

Peachy owner John Lawrence Geary, 35, did not immediately respond to a message from DailyMail.com, but gave an emotional phone interview with Block Club Chicago.

'I'm coming from such a place of love that it's just saddening to me that I'm getting so much hate for it,' Geary said, choking back tears.

Geary explained that he had lost his job at a concert venue when the coronavirus pandemic hit, and in response poured his time and savings into the new frozen dessert venture.

His goal was to open a storefront healthy snack counter in the neighborhood, but when the plan hit regulatory snags he decided to start selling from a pushcart temporarily.

'I saw it as a viable way to  as a one-person  entrepreneur on a shoestring budget  to get started when I felt like I've been sitting on my hands waiting because the space isn't ready,' he told the outlet.

The controversy first unfolded on Saturday, when Peachy announced it would be launching a cart selling frozen vegan treats in Logan Square Park, at the center of the neighborhood on Chicago's northwest side.

'Today we officially launch Peachy Vegan Ice Cream ... and soon so be brick and mortar ice cream shop / cafe featuring quick vegan and vegetation focused food items in Logan Square,' the company said in a Facebook post.

Peachy's Facebook announcement on Saturday was met with a flood of online backlash

Thousands responded spurning Peachy's sweet treats (above), saying that selling from a pushcart in a park is cultural appropriation of Hispanic paleteros

Geary showed off his new pushcart with pride on Facebook, but was unprepared for backlash

'Today we'll be in the park at the monument with this cart slangin' Vegan Ice Cream Popsicles (today's flavs are Peach and Strawberry)... non dairy, vegan, all organic ingredients ... locally made, small batch and home schooled,' the post continued.

The company's announcement was met with a flood of vitriol, with thousands of comments accusing Peachy of cultural appropriation and gentrification.

'Way to whitewash a paleta cart. Please leave Logan alone,' one person wrote.

Another chimed in: 'Our food is better than yours I get it. If i was white I'd be pretty annoyed that Mexicans had better foods, but how about you just make better food? Stop cultural appropriation!'

'While paleteros struggle to support their families during the pandemic. Y'all think it's cute to compete against them with your hobby,' still another wrote. 'Go to non POC [person of color] neighborhoods that don't have paleteros to sell your fake paletas.'

The Census tract that includes Logan Square Park is 56 percent white, 32 percent Hispanic, 5 percent black and 4 percent Asian, according to 2010 Census data.

In recent decades, the area has seen an influx of young, white and unmarried residents, as well as an explosion of trendy bars and restaurants catering to affluent young residents.

'You already took over people's neighborhoods, don't you dare take their jobs too,' one Facebook comment advised Peachy.

Peachy apologized in a somber statement on Tuesday. 'I'm surprised and saddened by all of the negativity that has developed over trying to sell ice cream from a push cart and start a small business, from a truly positive place in my heart,' the statement read.

Geary (above) poured his savings into the venture after losing his concert venue job in the pandemic. He responded to the backlash with a tearful apology

Some of Peachy's frozen treats are seen above. The future of the company is uncertain, as Geary's efforts to open a storefront have been hampered by regulatory snags

'I had no intentions of offending, appropriating or insulting anyone, nor did i mean to take away from or encroach on existing paletas,' the statement continued.

'I understand how treasured paletas are in the community as both real direct sources of income for individuals / families as well as a cherished cultural tradition. Push carts are part of many ethnic cultures all over the world. I am listening and hear the community feelings towards this  We will no longer be using the cart,' the company said.

The company added that its intentions were to provide 'healthy, organic food accessible and affordable to everyone' and that 'it's odd and terrible to read false reviews from people who've never tried anything from peachy.'

Despite the online backlash, some did respond to Peachy's pushcart announcement with messages of support on Facebook.

'The Chinese invented Ice cream about 1500 years ago and a man named Charles Goodnight invented the concept of food trucks/carts in 1866,' one person wrote. 'The idea of cultural appropriation over this is absolutely ridiculous.'
Following the nomination of Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman as the running mate to former President John Dramani Mahama, flag bearer of opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), there have been mixed reactions from the public.

Whereas many have celebrated her nomination as victory for gender mainstreaming, equality and progress, others, especially those from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) have lampooned the nominee while citing Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman's performance at University of Cape Coast when she was in active service and at the Ministry of Education when the NDC was in government.

However, Concerned Mothers Movement, one of the vibrant voices in Western Region, that campaigned vigorously against injustice faced by families of the three missing Takoradi girls during the heat of the country's reported kidnapping cases, has declared unflinching support for the NDC running mate.

Members of the group, have also called for the total support of women from the political divide to aid the chances of Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman of becoming the first female Vice President of the country.

At a press conference organized last week Friday to throw their weight behind the former Vice Chancellor of University of Cape Coast, the group touted her credentials and indicated that she was more than qualified, capable, suitable and affable to occupy the position of Vice President.

Consequently, the group, led by the Convener, Madam Josephine Amo, cautioned political figures against the unwarranted attacks on the NDC running mate.

"We have taken note of some unfortunate comments from certain individuals especially from the ruling New Patriotic Party. We believe that all these comments were not meant to attack her credentials but her person as a woman."

The group cited Majority leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonso, General Secretary of NPP, John Boadu, and Ashanti Regional Chairman of NPP Bernard Antwi Boasiako also known as Wontumi, for disparaging comments they all made about the aspiring Vice Presidential candidate.

They want Ghanaians to rise up and speak against the pandemic voices in order to sanitize the political space with decent volcanic voices as Ghana cruises towards the December polls.

The leader of the Concerned Mothers Movement explained that Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman, remained a celebrated first female Vice Chancellor of a public University.

"As the first female Vice Chancellor of a public University in the country, her achievements in this direction, has motivated a lot of women to aspire to the highest office in their academic endeavors," she noted.

Under the circumstance, the Concerned Mothers Movement, has called on women, irrespective of their political affiliations, to rally behind Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman to emerge victorious.

"If we missed the opportunity, we may not get it again. This is a clarion call and a national agenda, " Madam Josephine Amo emphasised.
Air Canadas (TSX:AC) chief medical officer sent a letter to the transport minister and other cabinet ministers. He urged the government to take a more scientific approach to reopen and to ease travel restrictions. He feels that the travel restriction and stringent reopening policies the government put forth are disproportionate for a country thats seeing a relatively swift recovery.

Many of Air Canadas trouble stems from the fact that a relatively smaller chunk of its revenue generation comes from international travel. The regional business makes up only about 30% of Air Canadas total business. The letter outlined some measures the government can take to provide the airline with some breathing room.

Proposed travel easing

The letter is in response to the governments extension of mandatory quarantine rules that the government imposes on anyone entering Canada. The rules state that anyone who enters Canada (either by air or sea) should quarantine for 14 days if they dont have any symptoms. If they are exhibiting any symptoms, then they should properly isolate themselves.

The rules seem adequate and very reasonable if you consider travellers from across the border, which has become the new hot spot for the virus. But for travellers from European countries that are past the viruss current peak, these rules only discourage people from traveling to Canada, directly impacting Air Canadas ability to make money from regular international operations.

The chief medical officer claimed that travellers from low-risk countries like New Zealand, Bahamas, Germany, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., pose no greater threat of transmission than the local, provincial travel does. He said that the government should exempt travellers from these countries from the 14-day quarantine rule.

Air Canada stock

Air Canada stock showed a little bit of life in mid-July and reached beyond $18 in valuation, but then dropped again. Though this fluctuation is understandable, the fact that the stock hasnt been able to stick to the $20 mark in four months is troublesome. Travel restrictions aside, the company, even with all its cost-cutting and cash-raising efforts, has been unable to raise investor morale.

Story continues

At its current valuation, it might attract investors who are hoping that the countrys premier airline will surge again and reach its pre-pandemic values and growth pace (even if it takes a few years). But many investors  even those who cant pass up a good bargain  arent willing to bet on Air Canada.

If the company doesnt make it on its own and requires government intervention, its difficult to say how it will impact the stocks valuation.

Foolish takeaway

Airlines across the border have been looking a bit less grim lately because many vaccine trials are offering promising prospects, and investors are trying to ride the surging wave ahead of optimism. But its too soon to say whether or not a fully functional vaccine will come in time to save Air Canada.

The post Oops! Air Canada (TSX:AC) Isnt Out of Trouble Yet appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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Fool contributor Adam Othman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2020
Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

When Diana Trueblood visited the Detroit county jails medical unit in early March, she encountered a gentle and kind doctor named Angelo Patsalis.

Halfway through her incarceration for a probation violation, Trueblood remembered sitting knee to knee with Patsalis, who pulled down his face mask to speak to her about a tuberculosis skin test. She and other inmates were not provided with face masks, she said, and they pulled up their T-shirts to shield their mouths.

Related: Health workers filed more than 4,000 complaints about protective gear. Some still died

He was blunt but he was concerned about my health, Trueblood said. In jail usually, they just dont care.

Trueblood and other inmates knew something serious was going on. Cramped in their cluttered cells, they tried to watch the news about the pandemic on a little TV way up high, she said. But you could barely hear it  and we could just see their lips move. Most of what we found out was through our families.

The jail system, they would learn, was at the center of a coronavirus outbreak.

Within four weeks of Truebloods first appointment with Patsalis, the doctor died of Covid-19. The virus soon claimed another doctor, as well as the commander and a sheriffs deputy at the Wayne county sheriffs office (WCSO), a three-facility maximum-security jail system in the Detroit area for inmates charged with violent crimes and non-violent crimes.

Amid overcrowding and a shortage of PPE, at least 208 employees and at least 83 inmates have tested positive for Covid-19 at WCSO to date.

The Wayne county jail in downtown Detroit. Public health experts have for months warned that US jails and prisons face catastrophe. Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

Public health experts have for months warned that US jails and prisons face catastrophe. At least 100,000 people in US jails and prisons have been infected, and almost 800 inmates and staff have died, according to the New York Times.

The failures at the Detroit county jails echo those in neighboring Oakland county jail and across the US, including facilities in Miami; the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana; and Californias San Quentin prison, where over 2,000 inmates have coronavirus and 10 have died.

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Wayne county jails have long been in disrepair, with issues ranging from hot-water boilers in disrepair to black mold, rust, a recent failed fire inspection and reports of rats and cockroaches. Plans for upgrades have been delayed due to the pandemic.

The problems jails face are clear. First is rapid turnover  of new detainees who could be infected, Dr Fred Rottnek, a professor and the director of community medicine at Saint Louis University, who inspected the three jails as part of a lawsuit lodged against WCSO over allegedly inadequate Covid-19 protections. In addition, in both jails and prison settings, officers, medical staff and vendors can act like vectors, bringing the infection into the facility, or back out into the community, with each shift change.

While touring the medical clinic, Rottnek witnessed two correctional officers sitting side by side without face masks. The officers later put them on once Rottnek introduced himself.

WCSO commander Donafay Collins died of Covid-19 on 25 March. Photograph: Wayne county sherriff/Reuters

Detroit had its first confirmed case of Covid-19 on 11 March. That same day, the WCSO jail commander, Donafay Collins, 63, became ill. He had attended an annual gathering of current and former WCSO employees at Berts Marketplace in Detroit almost a week earlier. A handful of other attendees also developed Covid-19.

Collins, the jail commander, died on 25 March followed by medical deputy Dean Savard on 3 April.

The deputies union became concerned and criticized the jail system and county officials for downplaying the crisis, for lacking proper PPE for inmates and for neglecting social distancing requirements. Inmates even took to social media to voice concerns.

The union called on everyone to be tested in the sheriff department, said Reginald Crawford, the president of the Wayne county Deputy Sheriffs Association. The deputies, the civilian employees, the doctors, the nurses and the inmates. We wanted all to be tested so we knew how to deal with this.

Patsalis, the doctor, had trouble breathing and developed a terrible cough.

The next thing I know [his fiancee] called me and said he was on a ventilator in a medically induced coma, said his cousin John Patsalis.

Born in Detroit, Patsalis graduated from Wayne State University and the University of Ioannina medical school in Greece. As a child, he often spent summers in Platsa, a village in southern Greece and the birthplace of his father, Nicholas Patsalis. As an adult he loved to hunt, and was dedicated to his Greek Orthodox faith, patients and family.

He had been working at the Wayne county jail systems medical department for at least six years and was about to marry. He was a wonderful and irreplaceable person, his fiancee, Denise Bargon, told the Guardian. He just put everything into being a doctor.

Five days after being intubated, Angelo Patsalis died on 6 April. He was three weeks away from celebrating his 64th birthday. His father, 86, died from Covid-19 two days after his only son.

Some inmates particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 because of health issues, or who were accused of non-violent crimes, were released in order to ease the burden on the jails. Trueblood was one of them. They were not tested for the virus, however, and former inmate Michael Meshinski, who fell ill during his detainment, died at home days later from Covid-19.

On 16 April, Patsaliss colleague, Dr Richard Miles also died as a result of the coronavirus. Miles had been a doctor for 36 years, and before working in the jail system he was a physician who helped elderly patients with complex health issues on home visits.

With his knowledge and experience and his understanding of what these older, chronically ill patients were experiencing, he was doing his very best to help them deal with that, said Michael Flannery, a social worker, recalling a time that Miles telephoned him to discuss a patient, which few other doctors did. He had a passion for home care and he had a passion for all his patients.

Patsalis and Miles were both contract physicians employed by Wellpath, a controversial Nashville-based corporation that provides inmate healthcare. In an email to the Guardian, Judy Lilley, a Wellpath spokeswoman, said the company followed the latest guidance from the department of public health and the CDC, including numerous changes to training, policy and practice.

Widespread testing of WCSO employees, which was essential in order to slow transmission, began on 21 April. Testing for inmates began on 7 May.

Several civil rights groups have sued Wayne county jails to obtain the immediate release of vulnerable inmates, and have alleged the jail is not providing adequate safeguards against the threat of the coronavirus, and are requesting the release of some unhealthy inmates, who would be fitted with GPS tethers. Nurses at the jail system recently spoke out about how staff shortages are limiting their ability to treat inmates, to the point that not all inmates are receiving their medications.

Im very confident that those allegations that were lodged in that lawsuit will prove to be untrue, said Robert Dunlap, the chief of jails. It is not indicative of the care, concern, commitment and compassion that the men and women of the Wayne county sheriff department have about the care and custody of human beings.

Crawford, the head of the deputies union, said that most of all he wanted to know the full picture.

All we want is transparency and truth. We want to know the truth because we can deal with the truth. Everyone needs to be transparent. And thats not only Wayne county, everyone in government needs to tell everyone the truth. What are the real numbers? What are we really dealing with here?
As of August 1, 2020, Theodor Swedjemark (40) will join the Executive Committee of ABB as the company's Chief Communications Officer. Swedjemark has held the position on an interim basis since March 1, 2020.

Swedish-national Swedjemark has been at ABB since 2006. He joined the company as an executive management trainee before moving to the group M&A department at ABB's headquarters in Zurich. In 2014, he took over a senior management role for Electrification products in the Czech Republic, covering the Central and Eastern European market. After returning to Zurich, Swedjemark managed the Strategic Portfolio Review of the Power Grids project during 2016, after which he assumed the role of Chief of Staff in 2017, later adding group responsibility for government relations public affairs.

Under his remit, Swedjemark will be functionally responsible for: external and internal communications, brand management, ABB Formula E, government relations public affairs, as well as sustainability HSE. Swedjemark holds a master's degree in business administration and economics from Linkoping University in Sweden.

Bjorn Rosengren, CEO of ABB said: "We are delighted that Theodor has taken this all-important role that is now elevated to the level of Executive Committee, underlying the importance of professional and clear communication at a time of change for ABB. Theodor is a true ABB-insider, with a strong range of business, financial, leadership and diplomatic skills to support the company with the implementation of its strategy."

As of August 1, 2020, the Executive Committee will comprise of: Bjorn Rosengren, Chief Executive Officer; Timo Ihamuotila, Chief Financial Officer; Tarak Mehta, President Electrification; Peter Terwiesch, President Industrial Automation; Morten Wierod, President Motion; Sami Atiya, President Robotics Discrete Automation; Sylvia Hill, Chief Human Resources Officer; Maria Varsellona, General Counsel Company Secretary; and Theodor Swedjemark, Chief Communications Officer.

ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a leading global technology company that energizes the transformation of society and industry to achieve a more productive, sustainable future. By connecting software to its electrification, robotics, automation and motion portfolio, ABB pushes the boundaries of technology to drive performance to new levels. With a history of excellence stretching back more than 130 years, ABB's success is driven by about 110,000 talented employees in over 100 countries. www.abb.com

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After a dramatic stand down by Nepalese Communist Party co-chairman P K Dahal during a political duel with Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli last week, the stage is now set for a possible cabinet reshuffle in the Himalayan Republic after the party standing committee meets on July 28. It is the allotment of cabinet berths to various factions of NCP which will define the politics ahead.

While it is known that the morning meeting between co-chair Oli, Dahal and Madhav Nepal on July 15 was acrimonious to say the least, it is still not clear who ensured the stand down from Dahal after a lunch with Nepalese PM the same day and at what cost. It is only after this crucial lunch meeting with two associates of the two leaders negotiating on the sidelines that Oli refused to step down either from PM post or the party post and Dahal caved in by saying that he was opposed to the division of the party. Oli got a walkover in the duel last week and Dahal is now looking towards more Cabinet berths to maintain his political clout. The Chinese Ambassador to Nepal, Hou Yonqi, on her part is preparing for another political battle ahead in an uncertain Nepal. We do not know whether it was lure of incentives or threat of vulnerabilities that settled the round last week. But what is definitely know is that the Chinese had a major role to play in avoiding the bust-up, said a western diplomat based in Kathmandu.

Ambassador Hou, the master handler of Kathmandu

Although the politics in Nepal continues to be fluid and uncertain, Hindustan Times explored the background of Ambassador Hou, who is at the centrestage of the political games in the Republic.

Born in Shanxi province in March, 1970, Hou is a master of arts and holds a major in Urdu language from Peking University, and is fluent in Hindustani language. While many assume that she has an PLA Intelligence background as she was Director, Department of External Security Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2012-2013, Hou for the record is a career diplomat with a firm belief that diplomacy is war by other means.

For the past 24 years since 1996, Ambassador Hou has been attached to department of Asian Affairs and rose up to one of the four Deputy Director Generals in that department from 2015-2018 before becoming a master handler of Nepal. Barring a stint as Attache in Pakistan in 1996-2001 and 2007-2009 tenure as Consul at the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, Hou has served only in Asian Affairs department to date.

While Ambassador Hou has been successful in keeping the NCP flock together and orchestrated Olis needling of India through cartographic expansion, Beijing has not been so-successful in reading the Nepalese society. Even though China has now offered to revive one of the two hydropower projects in Nepal for free, the hill people of Nepal are still to be enamoured.

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The states largest teachers union said an in-person return to school should be delayed until the state can guarantee full compliance with federal and state health and safety guidelines, sufficient funding for COVID-19 expenses, weekly testing for all and a plan B for staff and students who feel safer continuing with remote learning.

The 15-page, six-point reopening plan from the union comes days before school districts are to deliver customized reopening plans of their own that answer a state call that all schools reopen fully in the fall.

Nothing is more important than keeping our students, our educators and our families safe, said Connecticut Education Association President Jeff Leake. We owe our students and educators the measures of safety and security they deserve. We must not fail to provide the necessary protections and risk new increases in COVID-19 infection rates, especially in light of new evidence showing that most school children can spread the virus the same as adults.

In the absence of meeting the six actions, the CEA wants the opening of school in the fall delayed.

Using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data and public health and safety requirements as their guide, the union wants assurances that state-provided personal protective equipment will be worn; classes, hallways and other school spaces will be disinfected; spacing between students will be six feet apart and school buses will not be filled to capacity.

There is also a call for COVID-19 testing and contact-tracing protocols.

Speaking Tuesday in Windsor, Gov. Ned Lamont said any teacher who wants to get tested can go to a federally qualified health center.

You can get tested. Symptomatic, asymptomatic, no questions asked, no cost, Lamont said. We have said to the teachers weve got your back. When it comes to masks and protections and disinfecting and all the things we need to open that school safely, were going to take care of that.

The states 50-page guide released late last month does not require students to be spaced six feet apart, does not dictate bus capacity and does not require COVID-19 testing or even temperature checks.

Instead, the state urges schools to cohort students into groups that will stick together for most of the school day.

It also gives parents the option of keeping their kids home for district-supplied instruction. District plans are due to the state by Friday.

Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona on Tuesday said his departments priority has and always will be the health and safety of students, educators and staff.

After reviewing the plan shared with us by CEA, we unequivocally agree that each and every single decision made concerning the start of the 2020-21 school year must happen with that safety at the forefront, Cardona said.

The state plan, Cardona added, was developed in close consultation with public health experts and educational stakeholders and includes several safeguards the CEA is demanding.

Leake, however, said the states plan raises serious questions about maintaining the safety of everyone during a pandemic that is not fully under control.

The state Department of Education on Tuesday also released a statement from the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and state Association of School Based Health Centers highlighting the critical link between in-person learning and childrens well-being and medical care through school-based health centers.

Returning to school is vitally important for their social and emotional development and well-being, including the promotion of health and wellness activities that support better student outcomes, Cardona, said.

Don Williams, executive director of the teachers union, said schools cant reopen safely unless all CDC guidelines are followed. And that includes transportation.

Particularly social distancing, Williams said. We dont see how it will be an effective way to deal with a pandemic if you cohort during the day time and at beginning and end of the day that changes and a different group is together. That undermines safety precautions.

The result, he said, is that schools can be a conduit to a resurgence of the virus in Connecticut.

Williams did not suggest the union would tell teachers not to return to school. A large number of teachers have expressed concern on their own about returning to school with the pandemic still a threat.

It is undeniable that reopening Connecticut schools safely will cost significantly more than in pre-COVID times, and we must ensure that the state provides the funding needed in every school district, especially those in our poorest communities," Leake said.

District reopening plans are to include cost estimates, not just for protective supplies but also additional staff if classes need to be separated into smaller groups.

Leake said students living in high-poverty districts, students with special needs and English learners cannot be made to fall further behind because there is not enough funding.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck
WASHINGTONIt will probably get worse before it gets better, President Donald Trump said Tuesday at the first White House coronavirus briefing hes held since late April. Thats something I dont like saying about things, but thats the way it is, its what we have.

The last time the president held a briefing on the virus, he was bragging that his handling of the pandemic meant deaths in the U.S. would probably top out at 60,000, 70,000. Since then, the death toll has risen to more than 140,000  more than 5,000 of those in the past week alone  as states that followed his demands to reopen early such as Florida and Texas are in crisis. His reelection poll numbers have plummeted.

By Tuesday, the numbers were not all that had changed: reviving the media briefings in an apparent attempt to turn his campaign around, the presidents message was notably tweaked, acknowledging surges in the southwestern states that required a response and the prospects for things to get worse.

And perhaps most noticeably, encouraging people to wear masks. Wear a mask, he said. Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. Theyll have an effect. We need everything we can get.

Trumps past resistance to masks has fuelled a culture war in the U.S. over the face coverings recommended by public health authorities. Asked about his own use, he pulled one bearing the presidential seal out of his pocket and said that while he and others around him are tested often, lowering his danger level, he wears one in many situations. Im getting used to the mask, he said. It helps. It helps.

Trump also urged people to avoid crowded bars and indoor situations where social distancing is difficult. He acknowledged there were things the U.S. could have done better, and said hes willing to listen to doctors on the need to improve the availability of rapid-response testing.

Of course, not everything in Trumps message had changed  he still called coronavirus the China virus and blamed that country for it; he still said his handling of the virus early on was made up of tremendous moves that saved thousands of lives; he still referred to statistics to portray the U.S. situation as good by international standards when in fact the country suffers among the highest death rates by population in the world.

(Trump used a chart showing Americas relatively low case fatality rate, a number many experts say is misleading for many reasons, including because its percentages are made small by the vast number of positive confirmed U.S. cases, and that the mass of deaths from the recent surge in cases are likely still weeks away.)

Yet for Republicans hoping to see Trump address dismal reviews for his handling the pandemic, the news conference likely accomplished some of its immediate goals. Many feared hed go off the rails, in the freewheeling and often accusatory improvisational style that characterized his briefings in the spring, during which he often ad-libbed comments that directly contradicted the messages he and his advisers were delivering in prepared remarks. On Tuesday, Trumps new message would be welcomed as progress, and he stayed on that message pretty much as closely as he ever does  at least, on the topic of coronavirus.

He raised eyebrows, however, when he was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been arrested following allegations that she collaborated with her late friend, Jeffrey Epstein, in the sexual abuse of teenage girls. Trump was asked if he thought Maxwell was likely to turn in any powerful men.

I just wish her well frankly. Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is, Trump said, claiming he hadnt been following the case closely.

Its a fair guess that best wishes for the defendant in the worlds highest-profile sex crimes prosecution wasnt part of the preferred message. Soon after, he cut off questioning.

Trump ended by promising these revived briefings would be held regularly. In the past, commentators have noted that at points where Trump appears to have changed message or adopted different tone, he often reverts to his previous form within hours or days. If he continues to hold prime-time briefings again as promised, Americans will soon see if his new mask message sticks  and if hell continue to read a script written to address problems as he did on coronavirus today, or veers off from it and creates new problems as he did on the question of Maxwell, and has so often in the past.

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Amid simmering tensions between Indian and Chinese at Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address US-India Business Council's India Ideas Summit on Wednesday night.

In his address, PM Modi would speak on how India-US partnership can play pivotal role in shaping the post-COVID-109 world. Union Minister of External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sithamran will also speak at the summit.

Looking forward to addressing the #IndiaIdeasSummit, organised by @USIBC today at 9 PM. Will be sharing my views on Building a Better Future. Do watch. https://t.co/70XBBZRghL  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 22, 2020

Notably, India Ideas Summit marks the 45th anniversary of the formation of US-India Business Council. According to US Defence Secretary, the relationship with India is "one of the all important defense relationships of the 21st century

In 2019, USIBC hosted over 400 attendees over two days for its first India Ideas Summit in Washington. Over 50 dynamic speakers, 10 panels focused on trade and connectivity between the United States and India, and across the Indo-Pacific.

The Summit also featured the 2nd annual USIBC startup pitch competition, designed to connect under-represented entrepreneurs with investment and mentorship.

It is expected that the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic would be broad theme of discussions along with a focus on India-China border dispute in the wake of violent clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley. PM Modi may also raise the issue of national security vis-a-vis Chinese tech companies during the summit.

The summit will also be attended by some of the best names of Indian I-T companies such as C Vijayakumar, President & CEO, HCL Technologies, N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Group & Co-Chair of the U.S.-India CEO Forum are also likely to attend and participate in panel discussions.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 16:09:30|Editor: huaxia

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Tourists spend their leisure time at a countryside hostel in Shanbao community of Jiuba Township, Tongzi County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, July 21, 2020. Rural development in Tongzi County has gained new momentum in recent years as efforts are put into local tourism which features beautiful countryside hostels. So far, more than 500 locally registered poverty-stricken rural residents have been directly employed in the tourism industry. Meanwhile, some 6,000 others have seen their income rise while working in tourism-related businesses. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)
Two Chinese Hackers Working with the Ministry of State Security Charged with Global Computer Intrusion Campaign Targeting Intellectual Property and Confidential Business Information, Including COVID-19 Research

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Indictment Alleges Two Hackers Worked With the Guangdong State Security Department (GSSD) of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), While Also Targeting Victims Worldwide for Personal Profit

A federal grand jury in Spokane, Washington, returned an indictment earlier this month charging two hackers, both nationals and residents of the People's Republic of China (China), with hacking into the computer systems of hundreds of victim companies, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individual dissidents, clergy, and democratic and human rights activists in the United States and abroad, including Hong Kong and China. The defendants in some instances acted for their own personal financial gain, and in others for the benefit of the MSS or other Chinese government agencies. The hackers stole terabytes of data which comprised a sophisticated and prolific threat to U.S. networks.

The 11-count indictment alleges LI Xiaoyu (), 34, and DONG Jiazhi (), 33, who were trained in computer applications technologies at the same Chinese university, conducted a hacking campaign lasting more than ten years to the present, targeting companies in countries with high technology industries, including the United States, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Targeted industries included, among others, high tech manufacturing; medical device, civil, and industrial engineering; business, educational, and gaming software; solar energy; pharmaceuticals; defense. In at least one instance, the hackers sought to extort cryptocurrency from a victim entity, by threatening to release the victim's stolen source code on the Internet. More recently, the defendants probed for vulnerabilities in computer networks of companies developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments.

The charges were announced by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers; FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich; U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington William D. Hyslop; and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Seattle Field Division Raymond Duda.

"China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being 'on call' to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist party's insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies' hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers.

"Today's indictment demonstrates the serious consequences the Chinese MSS and its proxies will face if they continue to deploy malicious cyber tactics to either steal what they cannot create or silence what they do not want to hear," said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich. "Cybercrimes directed by the Chinese government's intelligence services not only threaten the United States but also every other country that supports fair play, international norms, and the rule of law, and it also seriously undermines China's desire to become a respected leader in world affairs. The FBI and our international partners will not stand idly by to this threat, and we are committed to holding the Chinese government accountable."

"The cybercrime hacking occurring here was first discovered on computers of the Department of Energy's Hanford Site in Eastern Washington. As the grand jury charged, the computer systems of many businesses, individuals and agencies throughout the United States and worldwide have been hacked and compromised with a huge array of sensitive and valuable trade secrets, technologies, data, and personal information being stolen. The hackers operated from China both for their own gain and with the assistance and for the benefit of the Chinese government's Ministry of State Security. This prosecution is occurring as a result of the combined unwavering efforts of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Washington, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We seek justice for these victims and others affected and we intend to prosecute these defendants for their alleged crimes," said U.S. Attorney William D. Hyslop for the District Eastern District of Washington.

"The complicated nature of cyber investigations is only exacerbated when the criminal is backed by the resources of a foreign government. The nature and value of the material stolen by these hackers cannot just be measured in dollars and was indicative of being state driven. This case demonstrates the FBI's dedication to pursuing these criminals no matter who is sanctioning their activities," said Special Agent in Charge Raymond Duda of the FBI's Seattle Division.

According to the indictment, to gain initial access to victim networks, the defendants primarily exploited publicly known software vulnerabilities in popular web server software, web application development suites, and software collaboration programs. In some cases, those vulnerabilities were newly announced, meaning that many users would not have installed patches to correct the vulnerability. The defendants also targeted insecure default configurations in common applications. The defendants used their initial unauthorized access to place malicious web shell programs (e.g., the "China Chopper" web shell) and credential-stealing software on victim networks, which allowed them to remotely execute commands on victim computers.

To conceal the theft of information from victim networks and otherwise evade detection, the defendants typically packaged victim data in encrypted Roshal Archive Compressed files (RAR files), changed RAR file and victim documents' names and extensions (e.g., from ".rar" to ".jpg") and system timestamps, and concealed programs and documents at innocuous-seeming locations on victim networks and in victim networks' "recycle bins." The defendants frequently returned to re-victimize companies, government entities, and organizations from which they had previously stolen data, in some cases years after the initial successful data theft. In several instances, however, the defendants were unsuccessful in this regard, due to the efforts of the FBI and network defenders.

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to steal trade secrets from at least eight known victims, which consisted of technology designs, manufacturing processes, test mechanisms and results, source code, and pharmaceutical chemical structures. Such information would give competitors with a market edge by providing insight into proprietary business plans and savings on research and development costs in creating competing products.

The defendants are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison; one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; one count of unauthorized access of a computer, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; and seven counts of aggravated identity theft, which each carries a mandatory sentence of two non-consecutive years in prison. The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencings of the defendants will be determined by the assigned judge.

The investigation was conducted jointly by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Washington, the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, and the FBI's Spokane Resident Agency and San Antonio Field Office. The FBI's Cyber Division assisted in the investigation and, along with FBI's Cyber Assistant Legal Attaches and Legal Attaches in countries around the world, provided essential support. Numerous victims cooperated and provided valuable assistance in the investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Goeke of the Eastern District of Washington and Trial Attorney Scott McCulloch of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting this case.

The details contained in the charging document are allegations. The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Attachment(s):

Download 2020_07_21_indictment.pdf

Download xiaoyuweb.pdf

Topic(s):

Counterintelligence and Export Control

National Security

Component(s):

National Security Division (NSD)

USAO - Washington, Eastern

Press Release Number: 20-675

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Thousands rally outside the prime ministers official residence as protests mount over his handling of the pandemic.

Dozens of Israeli demonstrators have been arrested after chaining themselves together and briefly blocking the entrance to Parliament, as protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government grow louder.

The gathering in West Jerusalem on Wednesday was called to protest against an upcoming vote to grant the government sweeping authority to bypass the Knesset  Israels parliament  in enacting measures to combat the rapid spread of the new coronavirus. At least 34 protesters were arrested.

It came the morning after a night of intense street protests, in the latest outpouring of discontent with Netanyahu and his government over the handling of the pandemic. Public anger has been compounded by corruption allegations against the long-serving prime minister, who went on trial in May for bribery, fraud and breach of trust  charges he denies.

Demonstrations outside the prime ministers official residence have become a weekly occurrence, with police increasingly taking harsher measures against demonstrators. Last month, they arrested a retired Israeli air force general, setting off an uproar.

The protests have since drawn a younger crowd and have grown more defiant. In the past week, thousands of Israelis have participated in some of the largest anti-government demonstrations in nearly 10 years.





Netanyahu has come under growing criticism for holding office while on trial for corruption, pushing for seemingly anti-democratic measures under the guise of combating the virus and mismanaging a deepening economic crisis.

The government has also been accused of issuing contradictory guidelines that have only further stoked the anger of everyday citizens.

On Tuesday night, a large coalition of protest groups combined to march through the streets of Jerusalem from Netanyahus residence to the Knesset. They beat drums, banged on pots and blared on trumpets while calling on the prime minister to resign.

Its humiliating and insulting. You pay social security and taxes for thirty years and then have to beg (the authorities) in order to make ends meet. Im here to protest, so that this evil government quits, Doron, a 54-year-old protester, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

He said he has been on unpaid leave for three months.

Public anger has also been heightened by corruption allegations against Netanyahu [Amir Levy/Getty Images]

Israel in May lifted a partial lockdown that had flattened the infection curve. But a second surge of COVID-19 cases and ensuing restrictions have seen Netanyahus approval ratings plunge to below 30 percent and unemployment soar to 21 percent.

The concern now is that its too late in terms of testing to catch up with the sheer scale of the second wave, said Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from Tel Aviv.

Israels missed opportunity on testing and contact tracing is now seen as a wider political failure to tackle the pandemic.

An economic aid plan announced by Netanyahu last week, which would see hundreds of dollars handed out to every Israeli household, was widely condemned by economists and has hit a snag in Parliament.
Lite Bite Foods, which operates 30 restaurant brands, including Punjab Grill, TRES, The Artful Baker, Zambar and Asia Seven Express, recently saw one of its outlets set a record, albeit a dubious one. The highest number of dine-in guests we have served on a single day (since services resumed) is just 15 at Punjab Grills Saket (Delhi) outlet, Rohit Aggarwal, Director, Lite Bite Foods, told Moneycontrol.

Things are no different for Prabhjot Aneja of The Great Wall Restaurant, Overall sales have come down to 30 percent of what they used to be before Covid-19, he said.

Akanksha Chaudhary, Assistant Director, Sales & Marketing, JSM Corporation, which manages the Hard Rock Cafe in Bengaluru, also said sales were at barely 20 percent of the pre-lockdown level, on average.

The collapse in business being experienced by these restaurants is being felt across the country. Quite simply, Indias restaurant business has been battered by the strict lockdowns imposed to prevent the spread of Covid-19, as well as by customers unwillingness to eat out where services have been allowed to resume.

Lockdown blues

Restaurants and malls were among the first to be hit as several States directed them to shut down citing safety reasons. In cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, which have a high density of restaurants, public venues and dine-ins were directed to close before the national lockdown.

While most States allowed service deliveries with Unlock 1.0 and 2.0, not all restaurants are fully operational. About 40 percent across the country are still shut owing to lockdowns.

In Maharashtra, the lockdown, which began in March, has been extended until July 31. Restaurants and malls are still awaiting the go-ahead to resume operations and allow dine-in services. Until then, restaurant owners will have to rely on deliveries to run their business.

People are still apprehensive about stepping out and going to confined public places such as malls and restaurants. Because there is no movement of people and they are absolutely cautious about what to eat and what not to, demand is presently at 15-20 percent from what it used to be before the lockdown, said Shivanand Shetty, President, AHAR (Indian Hotel & Restaurant Association).

He also said that regular customers are also extremely cautious on their spending because of pay cuts and the possibility of job losses. Shetty believes it will be at least a year before demand is back on track.

Another huge challenge is that migrant workers have gone back to their villages because of which the industry wont be able to function normally post the lockdown, when restaurants open, he said.

Delivery model not sustainable

The post-unlock situation is not very motivating. Walk-in numbers are extremely low and our operational cost is soaring, Aggarwal of Lite Bite Foods told Moneycontrol. Aggarwal said that to meet operational costs, Lite Bite Foods restaurants that are open (YouMee in Bengaluru and Delhi and four outlets of Punjab Grill across Delhi-NCR) have been taking delivery orders as well. Despite this, sales are at just 20 percent sales of the level they were at before the Covid pandemic struck.

Things are slightly better for Chai Point. Speaking to Moneycontrol, Amuleek Singh Bijral, its Co-founder and CEO, said: We are doing about 65 percent of the pre-Covid delivery revenue with less than 70 percent of our stores being open.

In certain States, such as Maharashtra, where dine-in is not allowed, delivery is the only source of income. But Shetty says this is not a viable option to run the business in the long run.

While the Maharashtra Government is yet to announce SOPs for standalone restaurants, small restaurants are struggling to survive as takeaway/home delivery is not viable for them and they are unable to cover even their input costs. Takeaway/home delivery is hardly a viable option for restaurants. Hence, there should be no cap on customers who can be served at restaurants. Opening at 100 percent capacity, with due respect to SOPs and social distancing norms, will be the only viable option, said Shetty.

A new dine-in experience

To prevent any infection and reassure customers, restaurants are going the extra mile to re-align their strategies to meet the new normal and gain customer confidence once States allow dine-in services to resume.

The focus has shifted from aesthetic cleanliness to clinical cleanliness, said Amanpreet Matharu, Director-Food and Beverages, The Westin Gurgaon, New Delhi. We have charted a contact-less journey for our guests, right after their temperatures are checked upon arrival. They can check in or place orders through a simple touch on their personal devices and even make digital payments without any human interference. We are ensuring strict adherence to all the standard guidelines issued by the authorities, Matharu said.

He pointed out that restaurants and banquets will need to be mandatorily set to 50 percent of their previous capacity. The buffet will be done away with to make way for pre-plated portions and dining areas will have more space.

Jaydeep Mukherjee, Brand Head, Smoke House Deli, said: Seating has been re-aligned to maintain social distancing norms, and easy and intuitive contactless ordering and payment has been facilitated from each table directly through a new tech platform.

The entire outlets staff is armed with safety gear such as face masks, gloves, and visors at all times while handling, prepping, and cooking food. Their body temperature is checked regularly, and they ensure they wash and sanitise their hands every hour, said Mukherjee.

Most restaurants owners said that inside the kitchen, chef workstations, kitchen utensils, machines, crockery and cutlery are sanitised.

In public areas, sanitisers have been placed on every table, and tables and chairs are sanitised after every use.

Bijral of Chai Point said its outlets have been redesigned for a Safe & Quick experience. For instance, it has installed toe-operated door openers and kick plates. GMTS (Gloves, masks, temperature check and sanitisers) are a must for both staff and customers. Whatsapp and QR code-based contactless ordering, E-bills with staff temperatures, social distancing markers, plexi-glass at the billing counter, sanitised trays and foot-operated sanitisers are other features.

Rishi Bajoria, Chief Mentor at Royal China, Kolkata, said they have reduced seating, provided masks to all staff, and sanitisers to all guests. Guest areas and touch points are constantly cleaned and disinfected.

Aneja of The Great Wall Restaurant said it is important to ensure customers do their bit to nullify the risk of infection. From using masks, face shields and gloves to disinfecting the place regularly, we are taking all the safety precautions, he said. If people show up and see that there are regular temperature checks and sanitisation, it would help us gain their trust and they would be willing to visit us more frequently, he added.
BERLIN - Two more former executives at bankrupt German payment company Wirecard were arrested on Wednesday in the fraud scandal that brought down the one-time tech star and its former CEO was taken back into custody after the case against him was expanded, prosecutors said.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prosecutor Anne Leiding informs the media about the "latest developments" in their Wirecard probe during a statement in Munich, Germany, Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Wirecard AG had repeated contact with Angela Merkel's chancellery in the months before its collapse, according to a chronology of events by her office. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

BERLIN - Two more former executives at bankrupt German payment company Wirecard were arrested on Wednesday in the fraud scandal that brought down the one-time tech star and its former CEO was taken back into custody after the case against him was expanded, prosecutors said.

The former Wirecard managers are suspected of defrauding investors of some 3.2 billion ($3.7 billion) by inflating the company's balance sheet.

The two newly arrested ex-managers are the company's chief financial officer until the end of 2017 and its former head of accounting, Munich prosecutor Anne Leiding said. She identified them only as L. and von E. respectively, in keeping with German privacy rules.

Prosecutor Anne Leiding informs the media about the "latest developments" in their Wirecard probe during a statement in Munich, Germany, Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Wirecard AG had repeated contact with Angela Merkel's chancellery in the months before its collapse, according to a chronology of events by her office. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

The case against ex-CEO Markus Braun was expanded and a judge ordered him kept in custody, Leiding said. Braun was first arrested last month on suspicion of market manipulation and falsifying financial results, and then released on bail. A fourth former executive, the head of a subsidiary in Dubai, was arrested in early July.

Wirecard filed for protection from creditors through an insolvency proceeding on June 25 after executives admitted that 1.9 billion euros ($2.2 billion) that had been represented as being held in trust accounts in the Philippines probably did not exist. The company said it is investigating the scope of its business handling payments through regional third parties, a major source of profits, and how that business was being conducted.

Leiding said prosecutors believe that the four suspects arrested, along with others, agreed in 2015 to inflate Wirecard's balance sheet by faking income from business with so-called third-party acquirers, making it more attractive to potential investors.

In reality, it was clear to the suspects by the end of 2015 at the latest that Wirecard was losing money overall with its actual business, she told reporters. The suspects initiated talks that resulted in banks in Germany and Japan - along with other investors hoodwinked by the over-rosy annual accounts - providing some 3.2 billion euros in total, Leiding said. The money is probably lost now that the company is insolvent, she added.

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Leiding wouldn't break down the potential charges against the individual suspects, but said they include fraud, breach of trust, misrepresentation and market manipulation.

The Wirecard debacle has raised questions about the effectiveness of German financial regulation, and about who in the government knew what when. The German parliament's finance committee plans a special meeting next Wednesday, which the finance and economy ministers are expected to attend. Officials also have acknowledged that the chancellery was in contact with Wirecard advisers.

The scandal has been viewed as a setback for the investment climate and attempts to promote the country as a base for financial services companies.

The whereabouts of one key figure at Wirecard  former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek, who was fired last month  remain unclear. Recent media reports have suggested that he may have fled to Belarus or Russia.

Asked where Marsalek is, Leiding replied: You tell me.

It is obvious that we are trying to get in contact with everyone who may have been involved, but I can't say anything about that, she added.
Designer Lin Fanglu in 2016 sitting on a chair she made at her studio in Beijing, with her installation work, She, hanging on the wall behind her. [China Daily]

Ancient craft is given a new lease of life by a critically-acclaimed designer who marries imagination with tradition, Xing Wen reports.

Inside a two-story studio in the prosperous, bustling Lidu business district in northeastern Beijing, artist Lin Fanglu sharpens her skill in the time-consuming process of tie-dyeing.

The techniques involved in this ancient art take time to master. To tie-dye, fabric must be manipulated by folding or twisting or pleating using needles and threads before the dye is applied.

The designer Lin, 31, learned the traditional way of tie-dyeing six years ago from a group of farmer-housewives living in a remote, tranquil village of the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, when she toured as a postgraduate student of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Her reputation is synonymous with the craft. In February, she was shortlisted as one of the 30 finalists for the Craft Prize 2020 organized by the Loewe Foundation and her large installation work, entitled She, has been shipped to Paris, ready to be exhibited sometime next year at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. If not for the COVID-19 outbreak, her work, together with those of the other shortlisted finalists, was to be exhibited from May to July this year.

With a design in her mind, Lin would pinch, crimp, fold, roll and squeeze a piece of white cotton cloth, or white mixed cotton-flax cloth, to form certain shapes and fix them by stitching and binding.

Then knots would be strategically applied.

Lin is picking Radix Isatidisroots, a typical Chinese medicinal herb, a key dyeing agent, in Yunnan Province.[China Daily]

After being washed with clean water, the knots would be put into a vat in which crushed Radix Isatidis roots, a Chinese medicinal herb, served as the dyeing agent.

Parts that are fully immersed and exposed to the dye would appear to be dark blue but those parts that had been tightly stitched would appear in a lighter hue.

Combined, they present a variety of exquisite, decorative patterns.

The tie-dyed fabric is less likely to fade than that which has been through a chemical process, according to Lin.

As a time-honored traditional technique of the Bai ethnic group, which can be traced back to more than 1,000 years ago, tie-dyeing was listed as a national-level intangible cultural heritage in May 2006.

When Lin first saw several Bai women conduct the tying and dyeing in a yard in Zhoucheng Village of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in 2014, she was immediately captivated by the complex textured shapes created by the women's artistic needlework.

The then postgraduate major in household product design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts simply marveled at the exquisite beauty of the handicraft.

"It's full of primitive power," recalls Lin.

"I was impressed that with only needles and threads, they could turn a piece of soft cloth into different shapes, which are also varied in texture and tension.

"As an art student, I saw the possibility of using the technique for self-expression."

She then decided to stay in the village for a few months and learn from the Bai women how to proceed with drawing patterns in a series of steps, including knotting, soaking, dyeing, heating, drying, string-removal and cloth-grinding.

"These rural women, mostly in their 50s, usually help with the farm work in the fields, do the household chores and take care of their children. In their 'leisure time', they make money to support the family by making tie-dyed fabrics," says Lin.

A chair she designed and made from tie-dyed cloth.[China Daily]

"I was touched by their tenacity."

Inspired by the spirit of those Bai women, Lin has used the stitching techniques of tie-dyeing to create the installation artwork, She.

With various, complicated, bold shapes of stitched thick cloth with intricate patterns fixed on wooden frames, it is 6 meters long and 3 meters wide. If viewed from a distance, it resembles a cloud.

She spent three months performing repetitive, scrupulous work, "knotting, stitching, folding and pleating" the white cotton cloth, and the artwork is her tribute to the Bai women and their persistent application of the labor-intensive 1,000-year-old technique.

Lin says that if the viewer gets closer to appreciate the piece, the various folds, detailed knots and complex textures "may tug your heartstrings".

The work provides a metaphor for the Bai women's struggle for change to the status quo, after she made friends with them and sensed their yearning.

"All in all, the big piece, hanging on the wall, also symbolizes their determination to grow and soar," says Lin.

Over the past six years, she has also used tie-dyeing to make stylish furniture, such as sofas and chairs, to bring the traditional technique into modern households.

"I try to add a modern, artistic touch to the age-old traditions of tie-dyeing, hoping that the installation artworks, pieces of the soft sculpture and furniture that I've designed could help the public get a new appreciation of the craftsmanship of the Bai ethnic group," says Lin.

She puts tied cloth into a vat full of the herb to dye. [China Daily]

She plans to learn batik techniques at some ethnic villages in Guizhou Province and continue to take in the primitive power of folk craftsmanship.

She has signed with the Art Plus Shanghai Gallery, where many of her artworks are displayed.

Ana Gonzalez, the gallery's partner from Spain, says that the traditional technique Lin employs, coupled with the vision of a young, talented and hard-working artist, "gives birth to compelling, visually intriguing contemporary works of art".

"I've seen her desire to experiment with, learn and implement, in her future work, the knowledge about the world's ancient crafts," comments Gonzalez.

"She seems to tap even deeper into Chinese ancient crafts to make it an exciting and promising step for the development of her artistic career. It's also an important contribution to the world of art, craft and design."

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)
Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it.





I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends.





More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it.





The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity.





About me:

I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS.

Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line).

Age: 42

Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed.





I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it).
A Taiwanese Air Force F-16 in foreground flies on the flank of a Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) H-6 bomber as it passes near Taiwan, on Feb. 10, 2020. (Republic of China (ROC) Ministry of National Defense via AP)

Taiwan Says China Sending Planes Near Island Almost Daily

TAIPEI, TaiwanChina is sending military planes near Taiwan with increasing frequency in what appears to be a stepping up of its threat to use force to take control of the island, Taiwans foreign minister said Wednesday.

Such flights are more frequent than reported in the media and have become virtually a daily occurrence, Joseph Wu told reporters.

Along with Chinese military exercises simulating an attack on Taiwan, the flights by China are causing major concern for Taiwans government, Wu said.

What it is doing now is unceasingly preparing to use force to resolve the Taiwan problem, Wu said.

China claims the self-ruling island democracy as its own territory and threatens to use the Peoples Liberation Army to bring it under its control. The sides split in a civil war in 1949 when Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalists fled to the former Japanese colony as the Communist Party took control in mainland China.

Taiwanese domestically-built Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDF) take part in the live-fire, anti-landing Han Kuang military exercise, which simulates an enemy invasion, in Taichung, Taiwan, on July 16, 2020. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen leaves the annual Han Kuang military drill in, Taichung, Taiwan, on July 16, 2020. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Beijing has cut ties with the islands government since Taiwan elected independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016 and has sought to isolate it diplomatically while raising the military threat. Despite that, Tsai was reelected this year by a wide margin.

Wu said China appeared to have grown in confidence following its crackdown on opposition voices in the former British colony of Hong Kong, facilitated by the national legislatures passage of a sweeping security law.

If international society does not give China a sufficiently clear signal, I believe China will take it that international society will not impede it in doing other things, Wu said. This is what we are extremely worried about.

Wu stressed the need for coordination with allies such as Japan and the United States, neither of which has official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but which maintain close relations. U.S. law mandates that Washington ensure the island can maintain a credible defense and treat all threats against the island as matters of grave concern.

Support among Taiwanese for political unification with China has long been weak and has fallen further following the crackdown in Hong Kong. That comes as Chinese Communist Party leader and President Xi Jinping pursues an increasingly assertive foreign policy, leading to speculation he may attempt a military confrontation in the region.
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott had a frank discussion with the rank and file at Ingleside Station Thursday evening about race, policing and his support for Black Lives Matter posters going up in stations. Not everyone was happy with what they heard.

When asked about BLMs message to kill cops  ACAB (all cops are bad)  he said to ignore it. He said that Black people being in housing projects and San Quentin is due to racism. He said our profession has a long history of racism and we are still racist. He said posters are going up, one person who was there said in a text. The person, who was not cleared to speak for the department, didnt want to be identified. The Chronicle is not using the persons name in accordance with its anonymous sources policy.

He basically said that he knows times suck right now. Its gonna get worse so just deal with it. Nothing you can do. If you want to leave, theres the door, the attendee said.

Word of the nearly two-hour meeting quickly spread throughout the department.

From what I hear, it was contentious. He walked in and alienated the men and women who work for him, said Police Officers Association President Tony Montoya, a consistent critic of the chief and the placement of BLM signs in the stations.

When asked about the meeting, Scott said it was a frank discussion, but I never said, theres the door. What I said was, that this is a very diverse and well-educated department and that all of us have a choice and we choose to be here.

On the issue of Black Lives Matter, Scott said he told the officers that he doesnt consider SFPD to be racist, but nonetheless racism exists in America and in policing  and that it is time for a real change.

Ive never seen any movement like this, not after Rodney King not after Ferguson, Scott said.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

As for the BLM signs, Scott said everyone opened their remarks saying they believed that Black Lives Matter, but ... then voiced their objections to various BLM stances, like that police are murderers.

Scott replied that because everyone said they supported Black lives matter, it is an expression of the departments values, so putting up the signs was the right thing to do.

As for the more-incendiary BLM stances, Scott said, there are factions in every group, but you cant paint a whole group with the same brush, just like you cant paint police with a single brush for the actions of a few.

These are unprecedented times, but we will work through it, the chief said.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KGO-TV morning and evening news and can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier
Jaipur, July 23 : Congress MLA Prithviraj Meena filed an application before Rajasthan High Court seeking Centre to be impleaded in the ongoing case filed by rebel Sachin Pilot and 18 other MLAs case challenging Para 2 (1) (a) of the Schedule X of the Constitution.

In his petition filed on Wednesday, he said, "It is humbly prayed that Union of India through The Secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice (Department of Legal Affairs), be made a Party Respondent to the present writ petition in the interest of justice and law." The Speaker CP Joshi served disqualification notices to 19 rebel MLAs including Pilot for their alleged "anti-party activities" soon after they skipped two meetings of Congress legislative party meetings.

He was first asked to defer action by three days last week, when the High Court began the hearing of the case.

Team Sachin Pilot was given second three-day breather on Tuesday by the High Court after it finished hearing its arguments and reserved its judgement to be announced on July 24.

The rebels had argued that no whip can be in place when the assembly is not running in session and said they have no plans to quit the Congress but they want change in its Rajasthan leadership.

Meanwhile speaker Joshi on Wednesday filed a CLP in SC and its hearing is scheduled on Thursday.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Preparing for fall

Contingency plans

(TNS)  Schools quickly made the dramatic shift to remote teaching when school closed in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Crisis learning took over, with varying degrees of success.Districts hope to be better prepared than the last time.But will they?It may come down to teacher training. And with less than two months to go before the school year is slated to begin, what districts are doing varies widely.For example, Erie 1 BOCES, which partners with 21 area school districts, is holding a number of training sessions this summer, with a focus on using remote technology and implementing best practices.Other districts will use professional development days in September to continue training.Buffalo has four teacher-only days scheduled for early September, before classes begin. Three of them will be used to train staff to use Schoology, an online platform, and other tools for remote instruction.And in West Seneca, N.Y., a distance learning plan was included as part of the teachers contract.We negotiated there has to be a digital learning plan in place and were working now with the district to have that so we can make sure there is the proper training that is in the best interests of the students, the parents and is consistent and clear, said Joe Cantafio, president of the West Seneca Teachers Association.Districts are anticipating Covid-19 may force them to rely on remote learning either partially or fully at some point during the year, and theyre under pressure from parents and the state Education Department to provide better than what was offered in the spring.Instruction, according to state guidance released last week, must include regular and substantive interaction with a certified teacher  regardless of how its being delivered.I feel like the community was very patient and kind with us the first time, Niagara Falls Superintendent Mark Laurrie said. Weve got to do a much better job the second time.In the spring, some schools had success with conducting classes over Zoom, while others sent packets of work home. Some teachers checked in with students frequently, others less often.Learning fatigue set in, as some students turned in assignments in the middle of the night, while others just stopped logging on.The lack of access to technology and the internet for some students was an eye-opener.With the emergency remote instruction, obviously, it was a crisis situation, that instruction had to be turned around very quickly," said Steve Graser, director of professional development and instructional technology resources for Erie 1 BOCES."Now that there is time for planning, we can be very thoughtful about delivery of instruction, whether it be face to face, hybrid or remote," he said.From April to June, Erie 2 Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES trained more than 500 teachers across 27 districts from southern Erie County to the Pennsylvania border, said Erica Case, director of staff and curriculum development. Another round of professional development will start again next week, she said."Its not that all teachers get Google 101, its the teachers that need introductory training, receive the introductory training, and those that are more advanced, we differentiate the training for them just like we would do for students," Graser said.Kenmore East special education teacher Jessica Kelly used a number of tools this spring to teach remotely, including Zoom, Google Classroom and the Remind app. She also set up a Facebook group to offer homework help to students.But, like many teachers, she found that some students werent doing their work, no matter what she tried.After we first closed, even though we called and actually talked to parents, they did not participate. I would think, Ill Zoom with them on this day, but then they didnt pick up, she said. I think in the fall I would try to put things in place that would maybe improve participation for some kids.She thinks its likely that, even if schools open up either fully or partially online in September, some students will be learning remotely, either for long-term health issues or because they have to quarantine. So shes starting to think about how to account for that.Maybe we set up a camera in the classroom and then post a video of the lesson online every day, Kelly said.In Buffalo, some parents and students complained about a lack of live instruction when schools closed in March. That will change this fall.It will be different in the sense that it will be more structured, said Darren Brown-Hall, the districts chief of staff. Thats what parents asked for and I think thats what students need, so that real online learning and instruction is taking place.The district also plans to provide training sessions this summer for parents.Some districts may be planning to hold classes in person for elementary grades, and remotely or a hybrid mix for secondary students, Robert N. Lowry Jr., deputy director the New York State Council of School Superintendents. But the council has no data on how many might do that.I also think that districts will need to have contingency plans for reverting to remote instruction in the event of renewed infections, Lowry said. Hopefully it doesnt come to that, but I think its something districts have to prepare for.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana (in blue, white and red jacket) and the other military officials are welcomed by residents during a ceremony at the newly built beach ramp at the Philippine-claimed island of Pag-asa, also known as Thitu, in the disputed South China Sea, June 9, 2020.

The Philippines has installed improved tracking equipment in the South China Sea to protect areas it claims, the countrys defense secretary said Wednesday, as he took a strong stand against China.

Speaking at an online news briefing, Delfin Lorenzana said the Philippines would pursue a principled foreign policy that serves our national interest, and that defending national sovereignty and protecting territorial integrity is a paramount priority of this administration.

The comments came after Manila made an about-face in early June on its plan to cancel a key military pact with the United States, and more recently welcomed Washingtons new policy of overtly siding with Southeast Asian nations on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

In addressing recurrent tensions and harassments by military and civilian Chinese vessels, the Philippines has taken diplomatic actions against China for activities against our national sovereignty, Lorenzana said.

It has also enhanced surveillance, security and development capabilities in the area, he said.

The AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) improved its identification, detection and interdiction efforts through our newly-installed air defense surveillance radars, the conduct of wider air and maritime patrols, and setting up additional detachments in strategic locations, Lorenzana said.

Last month, the Philippine military installed a new beaching ramp and a sheltered port for Filipino fishermen on Pag-asa island, or Thitu island. The ramp allows ships to dock on the island, making access for the construction of development projects easier.

That was just one of the developments that the government is aiming to implement in the nine islands in the municipality of Kalayaan, which covers Pag-asa.

Incursions

Lorenzana said that the Philippines was still pushing for effective implementation of a code of conduct in the South China Sea, which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea, that has been under negotiation for almost two decades.

While agreeing to such a code in principle, China has repeatedly carried out actions in disputed waters in the potentially resource-rich sea region.

Vessel-tracking data and satellite imagery show that a vessel in service with Chinas geological survey agency, the Hai Yang Di Zhi 12, was conducting a survey within 50 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal as of Tuesday, and a China Coast Guard (CCG) that arrived at Scarborough Shoal on Monday was patrolling that feature, which is claimed by the Philippines.

Two other Chinese survey vessels, the Shiyan-1 and the Shen Kuo, have intruded into the Philippines exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in recent weeks. The Shiyan-1 entered the Philippines EEZ on July 6 and is now in the middle of a survey covering the northern South China Sea and Macclesfield Bank area. The Shen Kuo was within 80 nautical miles of the Philippine coast on Tuesday, but left Philippine waters Wednesday.

Apart from China and the Philippines, other claimants in the South China Sea are Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. had earlier issued a statement commemorating the fourth anniversary of the July 12, 2016 decision of the United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, when the court sided with the Philippines in a case that Manila brought against China over a territorial dispute in the sea.

Locsin called on China to comply with the courts decision, which has been repeatedly rejected by Beijing.

But Locsin and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi met virtually last week to talk about managing territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a day after a stern warning from the United States.

The two engaged in open, cordial and fruitful discussions that centered on the conflict in the maritime region, a statement by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs department said.

The top Chinese and Philippine diplomats met after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that Beijings claim over rocks and reefs in the Spratly Islands, a chain in the South China Sea, was unlawful, and its maritime claims based off alleged ownership of those features was in clear violation of international law.

In his statement issued on July 13, Pompeo slammed Chinas insistence on holding economic rights to waters around Scarborough Reef, Mischief Reef, and Second Thomas Shoal, all of which are claimed by the Philippines.

The U.S. government in recent days has carried out a series of actions targeting China, ranging from sanctions over Chinas imposition of harsh security laws in Hong Kong and over human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang to public denunciations of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea. China has fired back, accusing Washington of meddling in its internal affairs with a series of provocative actions aimed at undermining Beijing.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Massive Surge in Americans Searching for Info on How to Move Out of the U.S. Americans are looking to escape. First, theres the uncertainty surrounding the election, which drives people to consider a Plan B should their preferred candidate lose. We saw this same trend in 2016, though to a lesser degree.

Since May 2020, International Living has seen a massive 504.97% surge in traffic to its How to Move Out of the U.S. coverage, which identifies the steps for successfully planning a move.

Americans are looking to escape. First, theres the uncertainty surrounding the election, which drives people to consider a Plan B should their preferred candidate lose. We saw this same trend in 2016, though to a lesser degree, says Jennifer Stevens, Executive editor, International Living.

This year, in addition, the pandemic has created huge financial challenges for millions of people whose jobs have evaporated. Worried about staying afloat in the States, it stands to reason that theyre looking right now to explore good-value places abroad where their dollars will stretch further.

Plus, its clear other countries have handled the COVID-19 situation better than the U.S. has. They are now opening up again while many parts of the U.S. seem headed for a second shutdown. I think that makes people pause and consider: Where would I rather be next time something like this happens? What places seem to have their act together?

Though Americans face travel restrictions at the moment, eventually those will lift.

People searching for move-overseas information seem to be using this time at home to investigate their options. In greater numbers, theyre using search terms like, moving out of the U.S., I want to move out of the U.S., moving out of America, how to leave America, and leaving Americawith the top search volume coming under the phrase how to move out of the United States.

International Living has seen a spike in interest in move to specific countries as well, among them Belize, Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Italy with traffic up as much as 798.01% over the last three months.

In the best-value places abroad, expats are able to lower their cost of living but raise their quality of life.

The bang for buck that can be had in some places overseas is really extraordinary, says Stevens. On a budget that would have you living hand-to-mouth in the States, you could live extremely well in a place where health insurance can cost less than $1,000 a year, you could have a housekeeper help you out three days a week for $135 a month, and rent on a furnished two-bedroom home could be $750 or even less.

People may be seeking information on moving abroad because they feel pushed to do so right now, but once they see how far their dollars can stretch, I predict theyll feel encouraged and excited by the prospects they have.

Why Move to Belize?

International Living has seen a whopping 798.01% increase in traffic to its Move to Belize page since May 2020.

Belize is a barefoot nirvana. Its hard to put its charm into words, but the best description might include the phrase rustic paradise.

From its secluded beaches to its steamy rain forests, Belize is a country of diverse natural beauty. Its slow pace of life makes it a popular tourist destination, and the cost of living remains low. For the more adventurous traveler, activities can include a trek into the jungle in search of Maya ruins, spotting parrots, toucans, and maybe even a jaguar along the way.

Laura Diffendal, IL Belize Correspondent, moved to Belize in 2014 from Cleveland, Ohio. The Belizean culture, I found, is somewhat like the Midwest culture that I came from, she says. Theres a lot of value placed on hard work, modesty, grit, resilience, and leaving things better than you found it. I spend most of my time right now on the island of Ambergris Caye, which is known as the very fun, energetic Jimmy Buffett Island. And I also spend time in Placencia which is sort of a quieter, bohemian place, much calmer and much less crowded, a lot more like tranquil, open beaches.

A couple living and renting on Ambergris Caye can live well on a monthly budget from $2,875.

Why move to Spain?

International Living has seen a 655.16% surge in traffic to its Move to Spain page since May 2020.

Folks dreaming of a romantic, affordable European lifestyle, are looking at Spain. Western Europes second-largest country, Spain offers fantastic variety in terrain, culture, and lifestyle. The country has nearly 3,100 miles of coastline, and much of it is beach.

Youll also find a lively, outgoing lifestyle and some of the best food and wine around. In Spain, life is meant to be enjoyed, and hanging out is an art. Even better, it all comes at an affordable price: Spain has one of the lowest costs of living in Europe.

Ive never been happier, says Marsha Scarborough, IL Spain Correspondent who lives in Madrid, Spain. I have so many friends, young people who think Im really interesting. My social life is on fire. I go dancing, we go out for wine and drinks, and go on picnics. Its been a great adventure. I dont think that that would have happened if I stayed in the U.S.

A couple can live the good life in Spain in a mid-sized city like Alicante on a monthly budget from $2,409.

Why Move to Mexico?

International Living has seen a 311.37% increase in traffic to its Move to Mexico page since May 2020.

As many as 1 million U.S. and Canadian citizens already call Mexico home, with more clearly looking to join them.

Thanks to Mexicos large size, varied geography, and affordable real estate, prospective residents are spoiled for choice among silver-mining towns, fishing villages, beach retreats, and cosmopolitan cities.

Another big benefit of living in Mexico is the lower cost of living, says Jason Holland, IL Roving Latin America Editor, who lives in San Miguel de Allende with his family. You can get by here on much less money than you would in the U.S. We have a much bigger house than we would have been able to afford at home. We enjoy having great meals out and paying about half to maybe a third of what we pay for a similar meal in the U.S. So that makes date nights very doable in Mexico.

A couple can live well in the Caribbean beach town of Akumal, Mexico, south of Cancun, for instance, on a monthly budget from $2,240.

Why Move to Costa Rica?

International Living has seen a 152.98% increase in traffic to its Move to Costa Rica page since May 2020.

The countrys political stability and low-key profile are proving to be increasingly strong draws for expats.

Of course, theres no lack of drama in Costa Ricas landscapeyouve got jaw-dropping expanses of coast, jungles rich with everything from spider monkeys and sloths to scarlet macaws and quetzals, gorgeous lakes and volcanic valleys.

Ticos (the moniker Costa Ricans give themselves) have established one of the worlds most stable democracies. The country dissolved its standing army in 1949 and the reallocated funds are spent on education, healthcare, and pensions instead of the military.

I had the travel bug from an early age, from studying overseas to extended vacations with my family, and I really wanted to embrace a new culture, says Kathleen Evans, IL Costa Rica Correspondent who moved to Tamarindo, Costa Rica. My husband, Steve, and I read International Living magazine diligently, and whenever we traveled, we checked out the various countries it mentioned.

We made a list of criteria about whats important to us and what we want our new home country to be likeI wanted to hear and see the ocean every day, I never wanted to wear a coat again and we also wanted a country with a stable democracy and an educated population close to home in the U.S. Over time, checking various countries, we kept coming back to Costa Rica and we realized that it checked every possible box for us.

A couple a can live well in Costa Ricas cooler-weather Central Valley in a town like Atenas, for instance, from $1,518 a month.

Why Move to Italy?

International Living has seen an 80.73% increase in traffic to its Move to Italy page since May 2020.

Italy provides the very definition of the sweet lifefrom romantic cities and timeless hill towns, to rivetingly beautiful coastline and vineyard-covered countryside, Italy has so much to offer. Expats in Italy say they love not only the art, culture, impressive architecture, world-renowned food, and easy access to the rest of Europe, but also the slower pace of life and the culture that prioritizes family and friends over work and to-do lists.

We werent unhappy in our lives in America, says Valerie Schneider, IL Italy Correspondent. We were living in New Mexico, a little bit north of Albuquerque, with a very nice house and a nice mortgage to go with it. We had good jobs and a good level of stress to go along with that.

We started taking trips to Italy. We started talking about it more seriously, spending time in one place, and evaluating what it was really like to live in a town in Italy. And we really liked what we saw. We liked the culture, the pace of life, the emphasis on social interaction, and how people gather in the piazza, and we liked the food, of course. But for me, its really the people. The Italian people are warm, welcoming, and friendly, and that is really what won us over and what keeps us here.

A couple can live comfortably in the southern region of Puglia, for instance, in a city like Lecce (the Florence of the South) on a monthly budget from $1,398.

The International Living website has seen similar increases in traffic to other country-specific pages such as Move to Portugal, Move to Vietnam, Move to Thailand, and  Move to Uruguayan indication that there is a strong movement occurring across the States with people actively looking to move out of the United States of America.

The full article with details on the necessary steps to move out of the U.S. can be found here: How to Move Out of the U.S.

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About International Living

Since 1979, InternationalLiving.com has been the leading authority for anyone looking for global retirement or relocation opportunities. Through its monthly magazine and related e-letters, extensive website, podcasts, online bookstore, and events held around the world, InternationalLiving.com provides information and services to help its readers live better, travel farther, have more fun, save more money, and find better business opportunities when they expand their world beyond their own shores. InternationalLiving.com has contributors traveling the globe, investigating the best opportunities for travel, retirement, real estate, and investment.
Hanoi looks different from a birds-eye view of both its old and new bridges spanning the Red River.

In addition to the current six bridges spanning the Red River, the capital city has more new bridges planned for the next few years, including Tran Hung Dao Bridge and Tu Lien Bridge, to realise its socio-economic development goals.

Long Bien Bridge is the first steel bridge to span the Red River in Hanoi, connecting the districts of Hoan Kiem and Long Bien.

Nhat Tan Bridge has a total length of 9.17 km, with the main part stretching 3.9 km and the leading road 5.27 km.

The bridge connects the suburban district of Dong Anh with inner Tay Ho District. Construction commenced in March 2009 and was completed nearly six years later in January 2015.

Built from 1898-1902, during French colonial rule, Long Bien Bridge is the first steel bridge in Hanoi to span the Red River. Nowadays, it mainly serves motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians.

Chuong Duong Bridge was put into use in 1985-1986, becoming an important and effective route in the capital city.

The bridge is a part of the National Highway No. 1A. At 1,230m long, it consists of 21 spans, divided into four lanes running in two directions, with each being 5m wide.

Chuong Duong is the first large bridge built totally by Vietnamese engineers, without foreign technical assistance in design nor construction.

Thanh Tri Bridge was inaugurated and opened to traffic in February 2007. It is the largest among Hanois bridges spanning the Red River. The bridge starts at the intersection of National Highway 1A in Phap Van, Thanh Tri District, and ends at National Highway No. 5 in Sai Dong, Gia Lam District.

The main part of Thanh Tri Bridge is 3,084m long, while its total length measures more than 12,000 m, with six lanes, allowing vehicles to travel at a maximum speed of 80 km/h.

Vinh Tuy Bridge opened to traffic on September 25, 2009, after four years of construction. The bridge starts from the Tran Quang Khai - Nguyen Khoai - Minh Khai intersection and ends at the Long Bien - Thach Ban intersection.

The main part of the bridge spanning the Red River is 955m long. It was constructed using cantilever technology and set a record for Vietnam's largest cantilever span.

Thang Long Bridge connects Noi Bai International Airport with the capital city. Construction began in 1974 and it was inaugurated in 1985, the longest construction period for any bridge in Hanoi.

The two-storey steel truss bridge is 3,250m long, featuring 25 spans of the main bridge section and 46 additional spans for railroad and rudimentary vehicles.

The middle of the first floor is the 11m wide railway, for the Van Dien - Bac Hong rail route, in addition to two lanes for motorbikes and bicycles. The second floor is for trucks with a width of 21 m. This concrete surface also has two lanes for pedestrians.

The projected Tran Hung Dao Bridge aims to connect the inner districts with the eastern part of the capital city, while reducing the pressure on Long Bien Bridge and Chuong Duong Bridge.

Tran Hung Dao Bridge has a projected length of about 5.5km. Its starting point is at the Tran Hung Dao - Le Thanh Tong - Tran Thanh Tong - Han Thuyen - Tang Bat Ho intersection (in the districts of Hoan Kiem and Hai Ba Trung). After crossing Nguyen Van Linh Street (National Highway 5), the bridge will be connected to planning roads in Viet Hung Ward, Long Bien District.

Nhan Dan

Design plan revealed for new bridge on Hanoi's Red River A design plan for the Tran Hung Dao Bridge that spans the Red River and connects Hoan Kiem and Long Bien districts have just been revealed.
FILE PHOTO: An office building with Westpac's logo in Sydney

(Reuters) - Australia's corporate watchdog said on Wednesday it would not appeal against the Federal Court's dismissal of its lawsuit accusing Westpac Banking Corp of not adhering to responsible lending obligations in approving mortgages.

"ASIC is mindful of the impact of the additional time required to resolve this matter in the current challenging economic circumstances," the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said in a statement.

Last month, the court dismissed the lawsuit accusing Australia's second largest lender of having approved mortgages without adequate credit checks.

It was one of numerous regulator lawsuits after a Royal Commission inquiry found evidence of widespread misconduct in the financial sector in 2018 and 2019.

The regulator said it would review its updated regulatory guidance for credit licensing.

(Reporting by A K Pranav in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
For high-flying Russians used to spending summer holidays at Mediterranean resorts or in London penthouses, coronavirus restrictions that closed borders and grounded flights have made international travel a distant dream. Yet many of Russia's super-rich who hold second passports or residence permits abroad have discovered an elegant way of bypassing anti-virus measures to reach second homes in London, Cyprus, Monaco or Nice: private jets. Privately-operated flights from Moscow's airports more than doubled between April and mid-June, the RBK business news portal reported in late June citing sources at two of Moscow's airports. Soaring from 400 to 850 per month, a majority of the flights were bound for overseas, RBK reported. Russians skirting the restrictions have to provide evidence that the journey is a necessary work trip or is essential for health reasons, as part of a multi-layered approval process with aviation authorities. For unlucky Russians who do not own a jet, a handful of companies that rent planes also offer to cut through the red tape of getting permission to fly from the nation's aviation authority, Rosaviatsia. At the Moscow branch of jet rental agency Leading Charter Technologies (LTC), director Lev Shalayev dressed from head to toe in Gucci, is delighted at the increase in requests to "more than 50" per day. "Many people who used to fly business class are now our customers," he told AFP. He said popular destinations include luxury spots like Nice, Malaga, Alicante and Barcelona. Many clients are flocking to Cyprus, a favourite among Russians for business and leisure. "Right now, most of our travellers are going on vacation," he said. In planes that seat up to 13, the price of a ticket can start at 4,000 euros ($4,575), he said. With borders closed, the only way to fly out of Russia is on board flagship carrier Aeroflot, which sells seats on irregular outbound flights returning stranded Russians from abroad. "Since June, Russians have been allowed to fly for medical reasons ... so some medical tourism is developing," said Russian aviation columnist Anastasiya Dagayeva. "For example, you can book a treatment at a Spanish clinic and fly to Spain." - Avoid contact with people - Russian reality TV star and one-time presidential hopeful Ksenia Sobchak alluded to this workabout when she wrote on Instagram that her friends were escaping Russia for foreign seaside destinations. "My friends have already left, some on foreign passports, some due to 'medical needs,'" she said. Shalayev of LCT says the private jet boom could continue even after Russia reopens its borders. "Lots of people say they are thinking of using our services on a regular basis going forward since they can avoid coming into contact with a lot of people" and reduce the risk of getting infected, he said. Fears of falling ill have also fuelled helicopter travel for short trips. Twenty kilometres (12 miles) north of Moscow, the HeliTech company meets and greets clients in a cozy lounge near helicopter hangars. Director Viktor Martinov says sales have jumped 30 percent since the beginning of the year. "Clients think of helicopters as a sure method of transport that avoids any risk of getting COVID-19," he said. Helicopters were already popular among businessmen eager to avoid rush-hour traffic during their morning commutes, he says. But new clients are also looking for safe ways to travel for pleasure. The company offers models ranging from $50,000 to $1.2 million. Would-be international travellers can also fly to Minsk, the capital of neighbouring Belarus, or Belgrade in Serbia, where they can venture onwards to countries that accept Russian citizens. Yet most Russians are at home whether or not they own villas in Europe. Coronavirus restrictions have kept amateur artist Lina Chaikovskaya from spending the summer at her holiday home on the Spanish coast. Instead, she is "taking walks and marvelling at the flowers in my garden". "I heard about the private jet options," she told AFP. "But it's expensive and I don?t have an acute need to fly anywhere." Chartering a private plane or helicopter is one way rich Russians are getting around coronavirus travel restrictions Industry players believe demand for chartering private jets and helicopters will continue after the coronavirus crisis abates
The spacecraft launched at 6.58 this morning (local time) from the Tanegashima space center (Japan). The unmaned capsule named "Al Amal (hope)". It will study the climate of the red planet for a whole Martian year to prepare - within 100 years - a possible human settlement. "A message of pride" for young Arabs and a renewal of the "golden age of Arab and Islamic discoveries".

Dubai (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The first space mission to the planet Mars, signed by the "Emirates", was launched this morning from the space center of Tanegashima, Japan. Its launch had been delayed twice due to bad weather. This morning at 6.58 (local time in Japan), the rocket carrying the uninhabited capsule "Al Amal (hope)" , which serves as a scientific laboratory, made a sucessful lift off.

"Al Amal" is expected to reach Mars' orbit by February 2021, thus celebrating the 50th anniversary of the unification of the seven emirates within the UAE.

The race to Mars has two other competitors: China with the Tianwen-1 and the United States with Mars 2020. Unlike these, the Arab spacecraft will not land on Mars, but will remain in orbit for about 687 days, an entire year. Martian. The aim is to study the climate in the atmosphere of Mars and prepare for the possibility of building a human settlement on the red planet within the next 100 years.

According to official statements, the UAE government wants the Martian project to serve as an ideal inspiration for young Arabs, in a region marked by fundamentalisms and economic crises. The launch - followed in live streaming througout the emirates - is a message of pride, hope and peace for the Arab region; it renews the golden age of Arab and Islamic discoveries."
Biggest single day surge in southern states, over 17K COVID-19 cases reported

India

pti-PTI

Chennai, Jul 22: South Indian states--Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala--achieved an unenviable record on Wednesday when all of them reported the biggest single day spike in Coronavirus caseloads, with the highest exceeding the 6,000 mark in AP. Collectively, the fresh infections from the four states totalled 17,696, as the Union Territory of Puducherry reported another 124 new cases today.

Andhra Pradesh topped the chart with 6,045 cases while Tamil Nadu came second at 5,849. Karnataka reported 4,764 cases, with 2,050 of them coming from the capital city Bengaluru, where a week-long lockdown clamped to prevent the spread of the virus ended this morning, even as the government had ruled out its extension.

COVID-19: India registers 45,720 fresh cases, 1,129 deaths, tally crosses 12 lakh

Kerala, witnessing a spurt in cases after managing to keep the numbers down earlier, saw 1,038 persons getting infected with the virus on Wednesday. Andhra Pradesh also registered 6,494 discharges and 65 deaths, all new single day high, taking the aggregate number of cases to 64,713 and the toll to 823 on Wednesday.

The state now has 31,763 active cases after a total of 32,127 recoveries. The infection positivity rate shot up to 4.51 per cent while the recovery rate was 49.65 per cent. The mortality rate stood at 1.27 per cent.

Galwan martyr Colonel Babu's wife appointed Deputy Collector | Oneindia News

An MLA of the ruling YSR Congress tested positive for coronavirus in Guntur district, the seventh legislator to have contracted the disease. Tamil Nadu, whose numbers were hovering in excess of 4,000 cases a day for the past few days, saw the cases race past the 5,000 mark on Wednesday, taking the count to 1,86,492.

Recoveries stood at 1,31,583, leaving 51,765 active cases. The toll from the virus was 3,144. In Karnataka, the day also saw a record 1,780 patients getting discharged after recovery. Out of the 4,764 fresh cases today, a whopping 2,050 were reported from Bengaluru urban alone.

Help family of doctor who died of COVID-19, urges Priyanka Gandhi

As of July 22, cumulatively 75,833 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 1,519 deaths and 27,239 discharges. Kerala, which reported the country's first Covid-19 case on January 30, a student who had returned from the virus epicentre city of Wuhan in China, saw for the first time, the single day fresh positive cases breach the 1,000 mark.

While 785 people contracted the virus through contact, the source of infection of 57 people is not known, Chief Minister Vijayan said in Thiruvananthapuram. Of the infected, 87 had come from abroad and 109 from other states. The death toll has climbed to 45. The cumulative tally of the infection was 15,032 in the state, while 1.59 lakh people are under observation.
The British Government 'badly underestimated' Russian Political Interference

The responsibility for defending the UKs democratic processes from Russian disinformation campaigns has been passed around like a hot potato, according to the British Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committees (ISC) Russia Report. The report has concluded that the UK government "badly underestimated" the Russian threat and the response it required.

The delayed publication of the ISC Report on 21st July finds that British intelligence agencies, along with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), did not see themselves as holding primary responsibility for the active defence of the UKs democratic processes from hostile foreign interference.

The Report into Russian activity in the UK said the government was "playing catch-up" and needed to take "immediate action". The Report says It appears that Russia considers the UK one of its top Western intelligence targets  that the UK sits just behind the US and NATO in any priority list. This is likely to be related to the UKs close relationship with the US

The Report says that social media companies "hold the key and yet are failing to play their part", adding that the government should "name and shame those which fail to act."

The Report also claims the government made no effort to investigate Russian interference in the EU referendum. While it does not contain conclusive proof of Russian interference in UK politics, this is because the UKs intelligence services have not, as far as the ISC can tell, ever properly investigated the matter.

Its most damning finding is the distinction it draws between US intelligence services, who two months after the election of Donald Trump had produced and published a comprehensive report into attempts by Kremlin news sites, bots and hackers to influence the outcome.

The ISC's inquiry covers a number of topics, including disinformation campaigns, cyber tactics and Russian expatriates in the UK. Much of the "highly sensitive" detail was not published due to fears Russia could use the evidence to threaten the UK.

The committee said Russian influence in the UK was now "the new normal", and the UK was a "top Western intelligence target" for the state, only behind the United Nations and US.

ISC member, Scottish Nationalist Party MP Stewart Hosie, told reporters the government "took its eye off the ball, because of its focus on counterterrorism", adding: "The government had badly underestimated the response required to the Russian threat, and is still playing catch up."

In its report, the group said UK was "clearly a target" for disinformation campaigns around its elections, but that the issue was described as a "hot potato", with no one organisation taking a lead to tackle it.

The report criticised intelligence agencies for not taking action during the EU referendum, despite there being "credible open source commentary" suggesting "influence campaigns" from the Russians during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.

Further, the report say the UK government only "belatedly realised the level of threat which Russia could pose" after the so-called "hack and leak" operation against the Democrats in the 2016 US election, calling it a "game changer".

Unexpectedly, the report concludes the problem was the government and the British national spy spy agencies failure to even look at this question, with the government holding ultimate responsibility.

The report raises several serious questions about the failure of the UK to confront the spread of Russian money and influence over a long period and publication has been met with urgent calls for new legislation to deal with the challenge.

Intelligence & Security Committee: BBC: Independent: CNN: Verdict:

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Britain Plots Cyber Revenge On Russia For Novichok Poisonings:
Or consider a 2019 paper, False Equivalence: Are Liberals and Conservatives in the United States Equally Biased? by Jonathan Baron and John Jost, professors of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and N.Y.U., who write, Nowadays we read that liberals are every bit as authoritarian as conservatives; as rigid and simple-minded; as intolerant; as prejudiced.

The authors found it

ironic and more than a little bewildering that social psychologists are drifting into this relativistic view of morality and politics just as authoritarian conservatism (and illiberal hostility to democratic norms) seem to be reaching new heights of popularity and brazenness not only in Trumps America but also in Erdogans Turkey, Orbans Hungary, and Netanyahus Israel.

Baron and Jost also cite studies suggesting that those on the right are more susceptible to authoritarian appeals:

Conservatives score higher than liberals on measures of personal needs for order and structure, cognitive closure, intolerance of ambiguity, cognitive or perceptual rigidity, and dogmatism.

Liberals, they write, perform better than conservatives on objective tests of cognitive ability and intelligence while conservatives score higher than liberals on measures of self-deception and are more likely than liberals to spread fake news, political misinformation, and conspiracy theories throughout their online social networks.

In a 2018 paper, Baron argues for the necessity of flexible thinking in a democracy:

In order for a democracy to function well (both for its own citizens and outsiders), its citizens need to endorse three (somewhat synergistic) social norms, which I called cosmopolitanism, anti-moralism, and actively open-minded thinking.

In making his case, Baron cites John Stuart Mills essay On Liberty, specifically this famous passage:

The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious.

It may be, however, that the very complexity of thought and resolve proposed by Baron and Mill would be resisted, and indeed resented, by many on the right.

In a February 2019 paper, Liberals lecture, conservatives communicate: Analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 political speeches, four political scientists, Martijn Schoonvelde, Anna Brosius, Gijs Schumacher and Bert N. Bakker, argue that speakers from culturally liberal parties use more complex language than speakers from culturally conservative parties and that this variance in linguistic complexity is

rooted in personality differences among conservative and liberal politicians. The former prefer short, unambiguous statements, and the latter prefer longer compound sentences, expressing multiple points of view.

The authors cite studies suggesting that this linguistic divide is persistent: The Readability and Simplicity of Donald Trumps Language, published in The Political Studies Review and

Research on linguistic habits of American and British politicians shows that conservative politicians make less complex statements than liberal politicians.

One study showed that

the speeches of liberal US presidents score higher on integrative complexity than those of conservatives, as measured by the presence of words involved in differentiation (exclusive words, tentative words, negations) as well as integration of different perspectives (conjunctions).

Another found that

conservative political bloggers use less complex language than their liberal counterparts and conservative citizens use language that scores lower on integrative complexity than liberal citizens.

Separate studies of the language used by presidents  both The Readability and Simplicity of Donald Trumps Language, and an analysis of the language used by the last 15 presidents on the blog Factbase  concluded that President Trump speaks at the lowest level of all those studied, as measured on the on the Flesch-Kincaid index. As Factbase put it:

By any metric to measure vocabulary, using more than a half dozen tests with different methodologies, Donald Trump has the most basic, most simplistically constructed, least diverse vocabulary of any president in the last 90 years.

Some scholars argue that a focus on ideological conflict masks the most salient divisions in the era of Donald Trump: authoritarians versus non-authoritarians.

Karen Stenner, the author of The Authoritarian Dynamic, emailed me on this point to say that

Its really critical to help people understand the difference between conservatives and authoritarians. Conservatives are by nature opposed to change and novelty, whereas authoritarians are averse to diversity and complexity. Its a subtle but absolutely critical distinction.

What were facing, she continued,

is an authoritarian revolution  not a conservative revolution, the term is inherently contradictory  which in the U.S. has been creeping up since the 1960s.

Authoritarianism, Stenner continued, is

clearly distinct from what I call laissez faire conservatism. In fact, in cross-national research I consistently find that these two dimensions are actually negatively related. If anything, authoritarians tend to be wary of free markets and more supportive of government intervention and redistribution, perhaps even schemes of equalization and progressive taxation.

For Stenner, the overriding objective of the authoritarian is always to enhance oneness and sameness; to minimize the diversity of people, beliefs and behaviors.

In a 2009 paper,  Conservatism, Context-Dependence, and Cognitive Incapacity, Stenner wrote:

Authoritarianism is a functional disposition concerned with maximizing oneness and sameness especially in conditions where the things that make us one and the same  common authority, and shared values  appear to be under threat.

Threat, she continued, sets in motion an authoritarian dynamic that activates

latent predispositions to authoritarianism and increases their expression in manifest intolerance. That is to say, intolerance is a function of the interaction of authoritarian predisposition with conditions of normative threat.

In her email, Stenner argued that non-authoritarian conservatives, opposed to change, dedicated to upholding laws, and to the defense of legitimate political and social institutions that underpin societal stability and security are a crucial pillar of democratic governance.

In the real world, she continued, it is the authoritarians who are the revolutionaries.

Because of this authoritarian revolution, here and abroad, Stenner contends that

the whole of liberal democracy is in grave danger at this moment. But the fault lies with authoritarians on both the right and the left, and the solution is in the hands of non-authoritarians on both sides.

Stenner makes the case that the authoritarian revolution began in the 1960s: Once the principle of equal treatment under the law was instituted and entrenched by means of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, traditional conservatism  fidelity to the laws of the land and defense of legitimate institutions  took a back seat to authoritarianism as a factor driving expressions of racial, moral and political intolerance.
The man accused of fatally shooting a teenage girl in the back of the head in March was denied a bond reduction on Tuesday during a court hearing.

READ MORE: Laredo man claims self-defense in shooting death of teenage girl, according to arrest records

Kevin Costilla, 20, has been behind bars since his arrest for the shooting death of Victoria Vicky Mireles, 16. His bond remains at $125,000 cash, bail, surety.

Laredo police said the case dates back to March 30. At about 9:38 p.m., officers responded to a report of one female shot in the 4000 block of Totem Pole Lane. Officers encountered Mireles lying face down with a gunshot wound to the back of the head, according to an arrest affidavit.

Witnesses identified the shooter as Kevin Castillo or Kevin Castro. An investigation revealed that the shooter was someone Mireles had met on Facebook.

Detectives confirmed that the shooter was Kevin Costilla, as several messages were discovered on the victims cellphone, giving a motive that Kevin Costilla was upset over a stolen cellphone taken from him by victim or victims friends, the affidavit states.

Police detained Costilla without incident at a residence in the 2600 block of South Louisiana Avenue. He allegedly agreed to provide a statement. Authorities said he gave a confession to shooting Victoria Vicky Mireles in self-defense.

Costilla claimed self-defense that Victorias friends barged into Vickys room where they were lying in bed pointing a gun at him. Costilla claimed that  China was asking for his cellphone, a new iPhone 11 Pro Max but was too afraid to rob him at gunpoint. Costilla alleges that Vicky took the gun away from China and pointed that gun at his face, robbing him at gunpoint now. Costilla states that once Vicky turns around to look at her friend, he took out his gun and shot her once unknown where, states the affidavit.

Investigators said that Costillas self-defense claim did not coincide with the evidence discovered and the witness statements. Authorities then questioned Costilla about a supposed warning shot.

According to the affidavit, Costilla then changed his story saying that he first fired a warning shot while China had the gun to intimidate her, but he alleged that Vicky took the gun and pointed it at his face.

When Vick turned to look at her friends giving off the impression that she got this, Costilla states that he shoots her, the affidavit states.

READ MORE: Laredo man arrested after shooting death of teenage girl

Records further state, Costilla believes that Vicky set him up to steal his cellphone.
Transaction comes on the backdrop of the governments commitment to major investments in healthcare infrastructure.

22 July 2020 Accra - Standard Chartered has announced the completion of an agreement for a EUR 78 million UKEF (UK Export Finance) supported financing to the Ministry of Finance, for the purpose of designing, constructing, and equipping the new Eastern Regional Hospital at Koforidua in Ghana.

The transaction provides a significant contribution to the Governments commitment to major investments in healthcare infrastructure and aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 (Access to Health Services).

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Ghana announced plans to construct district and regional hospitals, to complement the existing health infrastructure and fortify health service delivery in the country.

Making the announcement, Mrs. Mansa Nettey, Chief Executive, Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited said that the Bank continues to leverage its network to support diverse sectors of Ghanas economy.

This is a landmark transaction for Standard Chartered Bank in Ghana, as it marks the banks first Export Credit Agency (ECA) - supported financing for the Ministry of Finance. Given our unique position, having operated in this market for over 120 years, we remain a conduit for the long term project and infrastructure financing.

She added this transaction stays true to Standard Chartered Banks brand promise, Here for good and underscores our adeptness and capacity to provide sovereign solutions while supporting Government to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of providing adequate healthcare infrastructure for Ghanaians.

Commenting on the transaction, Minister for Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu said, This project has given Standard Chartered Bank the opportunity to support the Governments agenda of boosting healthcare delivery in the country and demonstrates the Governments commitment to work with the private sector to bridge the infrastructure investment gap.

The Ministry of Health has a number of mandates with Standard Chartered and I laud the bank for successfully closing the first ECA transaction, indicating it is a solid ECA Bank of choice, added Hon. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu

On his part, Richard Annor Bram, Acting Head of Global Banking, Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited said that this demonstrates the banks aptitude to provide well-structured transactions and drive sustainable finance that supports the UN SDGs in its footprint markets. Standard Chartered acted as the Sole Lead Arranger, Original Lender, Structuring Bank, and Agent for the total financing package of EUR 78 million. The efficient and successful closure of this transaction has reinforced the banks relationship with UKEF.

Standard Chartered Bank is committed to supporting initiatives that lead to socio-economic development and sustainability and believes that Ghanaians, especially the residents of Koforidua and the entire Eastern Region will enjoy quality healthcare services for decades to come courtesy of this project.

Speaking after the sod-cutting event, British Charge d'affaires to Ghana, Thomas Hartley, said: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now as we continue to respond and recover from the virus, I am proud that the UK and Ghana have worked shoulder-to-shoulder to save lives, support business, and industry and share expertise to lessen the spread of coronavirus. At todays sod-cutting ceremony I saw the UK-Ghana partnership in action once again, resulting in a hospital which will change healthcare provision across the Eastern Region for the first time in more than 100 years.

Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited

Standard Chartered Bank Ghana Limited is Ghanas premier bank established in 1896. We are part of a leading international banking group Standard Chartered PLC, with a presence in 59 of the worlds most dynamic markets. Our purpose is to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity.

Our heritage and values are expressed in our brand promise, Here for good.

The Bank is listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange and has been one of the leading stocks over a sustained period.

Standard Chartered PLC is listed on the London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges as well as the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges in India.
The co-founder and CEO of Airbnb has issued the dire forecast that travel will never recover to its level before the coronavirus pandemic, saying that his company had been devastated by the crisis.

'Travel has changed forever,' Brian Chesky told Yahoo Finance in an interview published on Tuesday. 'The world of travel as we knew it in January is never coming back... I feel confident very about that.'

'We spent 12 years building our business and within six weeks lost about 80 percent of it,' he said of Airbnb, which was reportedly valued internally at $26 billion in early March, and was forced to suspend plans for an initial public offering when the pandemic hit.

'It felt like you on a ship and it was getting sideswiped. It was incredibly intense, everything was breaking at once,' Chesky said, adding that business has rebounded in the months since.

'Travel has changed forever,' Brian Chesky (above) told Yahoo Finance in an interview published on Tuesday. 'The world of travel as we knew it in January is never coming back.

Chesky was adamant that the experience of the pandemic will alter the way Americans travel forever.

Business travel may never rebound to pre-pandemic levels, he said, after companies grew comfortable using videoconferencing for meetings from afar during lockdown.

Vacation habits may also shift long term, as more Americans choose closer destinations that can be reached by car, and opt for rural destinations rather than big cities, Chesky said.

'People are saying they do want to get out of the house, regardless what country they're in,' Chesky told Yahoo Finance editor Andy Serwer.

'But they aren't right now super comfortable getting on airplanes. They want to get in cars, and they want to travel not more than 300 miles away or 200 miles, a tank of gas,' he said.

'A whole bunch of people who thought they had to get on an airplane and go to a city and stay in a central district realize, well, there are 400 national parks in the United States, and I live near one and maybe I should go see a natural park,' he adds. 'Suddenly, you can't like undo all this knowledge.'

An empty check-in counter is seen at Los Angeles International in May. More travelers are opting to take vacation close to home amid the pandemic, a trend that may continue

Air travel in the U.S. remains down about 80 percent from the same period last year, the latest daily screening data from the Transportation Security Administration shows.

Air travel was slowly recovering until the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. surged, especially in the Sun Belt, starting around late June.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut now require visitors from 31 states to quarantine themselves for 14 days upon arrival, and other states have similar edicts.

About 530,000 people went through U.S. airport security checkpoints on Tuesday, the lowest number in July other than the Independence Day holiday, and down 78 percent from a year ago.

A traveler passes through a deserted walkway at Boston Logan International Airport in April. Air travel in the U.S. remains down about 80 percent from the same period last year

However, Chesky said that Airbnb has seen a rebound in business as people take vacations closer to home, claiming that the company's bookings are on par with last year's levels.

'They're looking to stay in homes. So that has been a surprise to us,' said.

Airlines and hotels have been among the businesses hardest hit by the pandemic, and only hundreds of billions in federal bailout dollars have kept the nation's airlines afloat.

United Airlines executives said Wednesday that the airline's revenue will stall at around 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels until there is a vaccine.

United said its average flight from April through June was 35 percent full and it estimates the July average will be 45 percent.
A woman who said she has known San Francisco congressional candidate Shahid Buttar for nearly 20 years is accusing him of repeatedly sexually harassing her.

Elizabeth Croydon, a comedian, artist and filmmaker, wrote in a Medium post published Tuesday that Buttar harassed her starting when they both lived in Washington, D.C., in 2003, and continued to do so over several years.

Buttar is challenging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Democrat, for the San Francisco seat she has held since 1987. He is a democratic socialist who says Pelosi is insufficiently progressive.

We on the left must hold ourselves to a higher standard as we are committed to creating a just and equitable world, free from sexual misconduct, misogyny and bullying, Croydon wrote. The left can do better than Shahid Buttar.

Buttar said Croydons accusations are false.

Every survivor must be heard, and I hope to be allowed the same opportunity to be heard as well, Buttar, an attorney and activist, said in a statement. Sexual harassment is despicable. Those who exploit structural sexism and power imbalances must be exposed. I am committed to putting survivors interests before my own.

The San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is considering rescinding its endorsement of Buttar in response to Croydons charges.

Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are antithetical to the principles of democratic socialism, and are issues that DSA San Francisco takes seriously, Yuhe Faye Wang, co-chair of the organizations steering committee, said in an email to The Chronicle. Wang said the group is in the process of gathering information and would not comment further until it takes up the issue Aug. 4.

Buttar said, I invite their examination of the issues and our campaign welcomes any scrutiny.

Efforts to reach Croydon on Tuesday evening were unsuccessful.

Croydon, who has appeared on NBCs The Tonight Show and Last Comic Standing, wrote that she first met Buttar in 2003 in Washington, when he lived in a communal home which served as a hub for freelance opportunities in activism and the arts. She said she went there to network and see other artists despite the fact that Shahid consistently made me feel uncomfortable.

She wrote that Buttar repeatedly pursued me for sex.

I physically distanced myself from him at parties, turned down invitations, informed a friend I felt uncomfortable, avoided being alone with him, and eventually stopped going to the communal home until he moved out, Croydon wrote. Shahid let me know he was sexually available to me for years.

Croydon said one incident that happened a decade later was intimately embarrassing and traumatic for me to talk about. After a poetry performance, she wrote, she and Buttar gathered with a group of people to catch up. One friend asked everyone when was the last time they had sex, and Croydon said she had been celibate for years, she wrote.

Shahids response shocked and embarrassed me, Croydon wrote. Oh, my god, that is way too long! How can you go without sex that long? Thats insane! I couldnt do it, you poor thing. It must be so hard.

Croydon wrote that she had replied that her celibacy was a voluntary decision because it helped me cope with surviving sexual assaults, batteries and other misconduct. I felt degraded, nauseated, and revolted that he would mock me in front of friends who looked to me as an outspoken voice for women.

In addition to the Democratic Socialists of America, the pro-Bernie Sanders group SFBerniecrats has endorsed Buttar in his race against Pelosi. On Tuesday, the group said it was reviewing Croydons accusations.

There were other signs that San Francisco progressives were backing away from Buttar. Supervisor Dean Preston pulled his name off Buttars website after his November election opponent, Vallie Brown, said Buttars alleged conduct absolutely disqualifies him for office.

These allegations are deeply disturbing. As soon as I learned of them, I signed a ... petition to unendorse him, and immediately had my name taken off Shahids website, Preston said in a statement to The Chronicle.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
The U.S. on Wednesday announced an agreement to pay pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and biotech firm BioNTech nearly $2 billion for 100 million doses of their coronavirus vaccine.

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department will acquire 100 million doses of the experimental vaccine under the $1.95 billion deal with Germany-based BioNTech and New York City-based Pfizer. The U.S. can also obtain an additional 500 million doses of the vaccine, developed jointly by the companies.

The doses are expected to be made available to Americans at no cost, provided the vaccine passes a large phase-three clinical trial and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, HHS said. A large trial with up to 30,000 participants is slated to begin later this month, the companies said.

The agreement is the largest of several recent deals the Trump administration has made to acquire experimental coronavirus vaccines as part of its Operation Warp Speed.

Through Operation Warp Speed, we are assembling a portfolio of vaccines to increase the odds that the American people will have at least one safe, effective vaccine as soon as the end of this year, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement Wednesday. Depending on success in clinical trials, todays agreement will enable the delivery of approximately 100 million doses of vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.

The U.S. also struck a $1.2 billion deal with AstraZeneca for at least 300 million doses of a vaccine developed by scientists at the University of Oxford, an early human trial of which yielded a strong immune response in hundreds of people. Another $1.6 billion agreement with Novavax will fund testing and manufacturing of a vaccine with a goal of acquiring 100 million doses by January. The government has reached agreements to invest millions of dollars in vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Emergent Biosolutions as well.

At least 23 of about 100 experimental coronavirus vaccines have reached the human trial stage. Widespread availability of a vaccine for the coronavirus, which has infected more than 14 million people globally and killed more than 606,200, is expected next year if trials are successful.

More from National Review
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 15:04:57|Editor: huaxia

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CANBERRA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Australia reported the largest number of COVID-19 cases in a single day on Wednesday with 502 people being diagnosed in the past 24 hours.

Michael Kidd, the Australian Government Deputy Chief Medical Officer, said in an update on Wednesday afternoon that this is the single largest daily number of diagnoses of COVID-19 in Australia since the pandemic began. The previous highest reported number of new cases in a single day was 469, almost four months ago, on March 28.

According to him, as of Wednesday afternoon, there had been 12,896 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia.

Of the 502 new cases, 484 were in Victoria, a record-high daily increase for the state. And there were two deaths in the past 24 hours in the state, taking the national total to 128. Both deaths were male aged care facility residents in their 90s.

Also on Wednesday, Australia's peak medical body called for a national position on face masks.

Tony Bartone, president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), called for the National Cabinet, which is composed of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and state and territory leaders, to adopt a nationwide policy on face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Face masks will be mandatory across the metropolitan Melbourne area in Victoria from Thursday.

Bartone said that use of masks in areas with community transmission of the virus was "essential."

"And the evidence is now really clear that if we do add another layer of protection, in terms of wearing face masks, to the other measures of physical distancing, hand hygiene, cough etiquette, we will significantly reduce the rate of COVID-19 spread in our community," he told Seven Network television. Enditem
The New Program Will Allow Sellers to Get Top Dollar for Their Homes

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / Coltyn Simmons, the founder of Custom Fit Real Estate Group and Custom Fit Construction in Las Vegas, is pleased to announce that he will now cover the cost of his clients' home repairs, so that they can sell at top dollar.

To learn more about Custom Fit Real Estate Group and how Simmons' program is extremely advantageous to home sellers, please visit https://www.coltynsimmons.com/.

As a company spokesperson noted, Simmons has met plenty of people through his career in real estate who want to sell their homes, but are concerned about the work that they need to do to fix it up and make it more presentable to potential buyers. He also understands that few homeowners have the money saved up to make often-costly upgrades and repairs to their home.

To help these homeowners to be able to not only put their home on the market, but also get an amazing listing price for their home, Simmons was inspired to launch his new program where he will cover any needed repairs and updates at no cost to the seller.

"We take care of repairs and updates with no cost out of pocket with our In-House Licensed Construction company," the spokesperson noted, adding that those who qualify for this program can repair and upgrade their home with $0 in up-front costs; the costs will be paid through the close of escrow.

Thanks to his 14-plus years of experience in construction and carpentry, Simmons has a keen eye for needed repairs and what should be taken care of prior to putting a home on the market. In addition, Simmons uses this same knowledge to advise buyers on homes that are well-built.

As the spokesperson noted, Simmons gets a great deal of satisfaction in helping his sellers to get the best price possible for their homes, as well as in assisting buyers in creating the home of their dreams from start to finish.

About Coltyn Simmons:

Coltyn Simmons is the Founder of Custom Fit Real Estate Group and Custom Fit Construction in Las Vegas. He will cover the cost of his clients' home repairs so they can sell at top dollar. To find out more about how homeowners can upgrade and repair their home before they sell, they are welcome to call Simmons at (702) 408-4191 or visit https://www.coltynsimmons.com/

Contact:

Dan Stanley

dan.lee.stanley@gmail.com

(702) 408-4191

SOURCE: Coltyn Simmons

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598440/Coltyn-Simmons-Founder-of-Custom-Fit-Real-Estate-Group-in-Las-Vegas-is-Covering-the-Costs-of-His-Clients-Home-Repairs
President Muhammadu Buhari will Thursday depart for Bamako, Republic of Mali on a one-day visit, following the briefing by the ECOWAS Special Envoy to the country, former President Goodluck Jonathan.

A release from the presidency on Wednesday said the Nigerian President and some ECOWAS leaders led by the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the sub-regional organisation, President Issoufou Mahamadou of Niger Republic, agreed to meet in Mali to engage in further consultations towards finding a political solution to the crisis in the country.

Mali is currently experiencing a political logjam that has attracted the intervention of African leaders.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Jonathan, who handed over power to the incumbent Nigerian leader was at the State House, Abuja on Tuesday to update the president on his recent international mediatory assignment in Mali.

PREMIUM TIMES also reported how Mr Jonathan, while in Mali, recommended the formation of a government of national unity with members drawn from different interest groups in the country, including the ruling coalition, the opposition parties and the civil society.

Release

Host President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Presidents Machy Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Alassane Ouattara of Cote dIvoire are expected to participate in the Bamako meeting.

Former President Jonathan was at the State House in company of President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, on Tuesday to brief President Buhari on the unfolding situation in Mali, necessitating the visit of ECOWAS leaders to consolidate on the agreements reached by various parties, presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina said.

We will ask the President of Niger, who is the Chairman of ECOWAS to brief us as a group, and we will then know the way forward, President Buhari had reportedly said.

He (Buhari) thanked Dr Jonathan for his comprehensive brief on the situation in Mali, which you had been abreast with since when you were the sitting Nigerian President.

The former President had filled in President Buhari on his activities as Special Envoy to restore amity to Mali, rocked by protests against President Keita, who has spent two out of the five years second term in office.

Former Nigerian President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, visits president Muhammadu Buhari at the state house. [PHOTO CREDIT: Official Twitter handle of Buhari || @MBuhari]

A resistance group, M5, is insisting that the Constitutional Court must be dissolved, and the President resign, before peace can return to the country, Mr Adesina added.

Crisis had erupted after the court nullified results of 31 parliamentary seats in the polls held recently, awarding victory to some other contenders, which the resistance group said was at the instigation of President Keita.

Riots on July 10 had led to the killing of some protesters by security agents, causing the crisis to spiral out of control, hence the intervention by ECOWAS.
As the coronavirus epidemic brought the worlds second-largest economy to a near-halt during the early part of the year, Chinese crude importers engaged in a massive buying spree, but now the Chinese bounty appears to be evaporating, and the bulls have been put on high alert by the weakening of a key oil price catalyst, Oil Price reports in its article Chinas Hunger For Crude Is Waning.

In May, China's crude imports soared to an all-time high, with imports clocking in at 47.97 million tons, or 11.34 million barrels a day, according to Bloomberg. The furious buying by the worlds largest crude importer was a key reason why oil prices were able to stage a quick come back from their historic lows in April. But after two consecutive months of heightened purchases, Chinese imports of crude oil slowed quite dramatically in the month of June, with traders from Houston to Geneva to Singapore reporting that the countrys appetite for crude had cooled considerably in recent weeks. Customs data from 27 producer countries shows that exporters loaded ~2.55 million barrels a day, or 22%, less of crude headed for China during the month of May.

Unsustainable Pace

The export slump could be taken to mean either of two things: Chinas oil demand is hitting reverse gear once again, maybe due to the so-called second wave of Covid-19, or the pace of crude buying was unsustainable and is now reverting to the mean. Luckily for the bulls, the second option appears to be a more valid reason for the unfolding scenario.

Chinas price-sensitive independent refiners--aka the teapots--took advantage of the oil price crash in April to stock up on cheap crude and cut their purchases sharply after crude prices rebounded. China imported a record 19.1 million barrels of Russias Urals for April loading. The journey from Russias Baltic Sea ports takes about 40-50 days, meaning much of the April-loaded oil would have arrived at Chinese ports in June.

What some traders are latching onto is the hope that Chinas teapot refineries are still hungry--desperately so--for crude imports, if only to hold on to their government licenses to import at a certain quota.

Further noted by traders is the fact that imports by the Chinese giants--China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec)--didnt miss a beat.

This in turn means that imports are likely to remain lackluster in July and July and probably recover in September. This optimism, however, fails to account for the fact that the teapots make up over one-fifth of Chinese crude processing capacity.

But theres another problem on the horizon for teapots in particular, if not for global traders: China is gearing up to build a mega refinery (400,000 barrel-per-day) in Shandong. That refinery is slated to come online in 2024, and it would render a lot of teapots irrelevant.

Regarding demand being wrecked by the pandemic, China has been successful at dealing with its second Covid-19 wave, quickly bringing the situation under control in a matter of weeks and has remained relatively stable for at least a month now. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the giant North American markets.

Global Demand Still Recovering

You can expect to see more of this kind of trader-driven ebb and flow from the Chinese market in the future. Despite a slump in demand by a key customer, the price of Urals has held up pretty well. Russias flagship brand as well as Saudi and OPEC crude have been enjoying much better pricing power as we explained here thanks to the deep production cuts. Overall, global oil prices appear to have consolidated ~$40/barrel and are likely to remain range-bound until another big catalyst emerges.

In the meantime, its worth keeping an eye on Chinas yuan-denominated crude-oil futures, launched in March 2018, because global interest is gathering--even if slowly. Challenges remain to this becoming a global benchmark, but its clearly headed in that direction.

Global interest has increased because of fairly stable Chinese oil prices this year thanks to price controls that allowed it to slide through the oil price war that saw prices go negative for WTI in April, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In 2018, there were only 45 international brokers offering up Chinese yuan-denominated oil futures. Now, there are 60, says WSJ, and they include JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Further, for the first time, its profitable for traders to deliver this contract. Industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday that BP has now officially become the first major global firms to deliver oil to the Shanghai contract in July. BP reportedly delivered 3 million barrels of Iraqi oil to the contract, and is set to deliver another million barrels next month.
When it comes to radical activism, there are few who can hold an ethically-sourced candle to Michael Shellenberger.

At 16, he threw his first fundraising party for a rainforest conservation group. At 17, he lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution.

By his early 20s, he was raising money for Guatemalan womens co-operatives and small farmers to fight off corporations trying to take their land in the Amazon. In 2008, Time magazine named him its Hero of the Environment. His ideas to promote renewable energy led to the Obama administration pumping $150 billion into the now trendy sector.

But far from being a hero of the Green movement, hes now become a heretic theyd happily burn at the stake  if that didnt increase the global carbon footprint, of course. For the American environmentalist has changed his mind. Rather drastically.

When it comes to radical activism, there are few who can hold an ethically-sourced candle to Michael Shellenberger (pictured)

Distilling the contents of his new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, he recently wrote an online opinion article for the business magazine Forbes entitled On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologise For The Climate Scare. He continued: Climate change is happening. Its just not the end of the world. Its not even our most serious environmental problem.

A few days later, Forbes took the story down without explanation, eventually claiming it had removed the article because it violated its editorial guidelines around self-promotion. (Shellenberger was plugging his book).

Shellenberger, 49, claimed  understandably  that he had been censored after his article sent the Green lobby into a frenzy. But if this was censorship, it backfired spectacularly as his offending article was republished all over the internet and the uproar propelled his book into most bestseller lists (rising to seventh in Amazons non-fiction list).

His essential message is not one his old comrades would want you to hear. His thesis is that rabid Green alarmism is creating a raft of dangerous myths about climate change and blinding the public to real solutions that could address far more pressing global problems. Having once campaigned for them, Shellenberger now believes that most forms of renewable energy such as solar and wind power are simply impractical for large scale use in much of the world. Theyre also damaging because they require huge amounts of land and harm wildlife.

Meanwhile, hysterical Green doom-mongers  he singles out Britains Extinction Rebellion group and 17-year-old Swedish eco-warrior Greta Thunberg  must stop saying the world is about to end due to climate change. It isnt even close, he says.

The humdinger of a row sparked by his extraordinary volte face comes just two months after Michael Moore, documentary-making darling of the Left, created a similar stink with Planet Of The Humans, a new film that also claimed that Green energy cannot possibly solve the worlds energy needs and isnt nearly as renewable as is claimed.

Shellenberger is putting a big red pen through pretty much everything the modern Green movement holds dear. He takes particular aim at the UKs Extinction Rebellion (file image)

If the Greens felt annoyed by Moore  usually so reliable on liberal causes such as gun control and the awfulness of Republicans  they are incandescent at Shellenberger. After all, hes meant to be one of them, a veteran of the cause whos spent 30 years as an environmentalist.

In his new book, he takes aim at a cornucopia of the Green movements treasured beliefs. Man-made climate change is not causing a new mass extinction of species as only 0.001 percent of the planets species go extinct annually; the Amazon is not the lungs of the world and carbon emissions are not soaring but declining in most rich countries, including Britain.

Contrary to what we are often led to believe, climate change is not making natural disasters worse, Shellenberger (pictured) says

Contrary to what we are often led to believe, climate change is not making natural disasters worse, he says: the greater use of wood fuel and the growing number of houses near forests are the real reasons why there are more severe fires in Australia and California.

Some of the statistics he brandishes are shocking to anyone remotely acquainted with the environmental movement, especially its claims that we need to become vegan and stop consuming meat to save the planet.

According to Shellenberger, the co-founder of a think tank called Environmental Progress, becoming a vegetarian actually reduces ones emissions by less than four per cent while free range beef  usually claimed to be more eco-friendly than the intensively farmed variety  requires 20 times more land and produces 300 per cent more carbon emissions.

As for starvation fears, we produce 25 per cent more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter. Meanwhile, switching to 100 per cent renewable energy is unfeasible  the U.S. would need to devote between 25 and 50 per cent of its total land to energy generation, compared with the 0.5 per cent it takes up now.

He also attacks the myth that plastics linger for thousands of years in the ocean, saying theyre broken down by sunlight and other forces. As for the whales, they were saved not by Greenpeace as many believe, but by industry switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil, he says. Again and again, says Shellenberger, the Greens have actually made things worse rather than better with their misguided views.

Contrary to what we are often led to believe, climate change is not making natural disasters worse, he says: the greater use of wood fuel and the growing number of houses near forests are the real reasons why there are more severe fires in Australia (file image) and California

He maintains the worlds most pressing environmental problem is not climate change but the continued burning of wood as fuel by up to two billion people  a consequence, he says, of poverty.

Environmentalists got it exactly wrong, Shellenberger told me this week. Motivated by left-wing, anti-capitalist, anti-growth ideas, they have pushed for a low energy, low consumption world  essentially a return to Elizabethan England, he says  when what is needed is the opposite. Industrialisation in the Third World (where carbon emissions are rising the fastest) may cause a short-term rise in carbon emissions, he argues, but in the long term it benefits the environment as it pushes people out of the countryside and into cities. Farmland can revert to nature and people get richer, allowing them to switch to cleaner forms of energy.

A critical way of saving the environment, says Shellenberger, is to produce more food, particularly meat, on less land. He also argues Western banks and governments should stop forcing renewable energy technology such as batteries and solar panels on developing countries and let them build hydroelectric dams and efficient fossil fuel power stations. Rich nations are trying to make poverty sustainable rather than history in the Third World, he says damningly.

He says his argument is particularly relevant in a world crippled by coronavirus, as it has laid bare how, in order to prevent pandemics (a far greater threat than climate change, he notes), we need to reduce our exposure to wild animals. That means creating more chicken, pork and beef in modern, safer facilities.

The news on climate change has actually been getting better, he says. Every rich countrys carbon emissions are already down and in the UK, France and Germany, those emissions peaked in the 1970s.

Its not hard to see why his old allies are so riled. Shellenberger is putting a big red pen through pretty much everything the modern Green movement holds dear. He takes particular aim at the UKs Extinction Rebellion, whose celebrity supporters range from Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman to Ellie Goulding and Bob Geldof.

During the two weeks of chaos caused by the groups protests in October last year, spokesmen made a raft of alarming claims  billions of people were going to perish from climate change, the Earth was dying and government was doing nothing. Their apocalyptic predictions were echoed by Greta Thunberg. I dont want you to be hopeful about climate change, she said, I want you to panic.

Pointing out that the groups popularity plunged after the protests, (and in fact its spokesman, British activist Zion Lights, actually defected to his group, Environmental Progress), Shellenberger says climate alarmism is self-defeating. Not only is it unnecessarily scaring the wits out of people  he cites a poll showing one in five British children report having nightmares about climate change (not surprising given Extinction Rebellion banners claimed Climate Change Kills Children) but it turns off working people who feel environmentalists dont actually care about them. And theyre right, they dont, he adds. [Climate alarmism] also destroys the credibility of science and, right now, trust is everything.

He says he wrote Apocalypse Never because the conversation about climate change and the environment has, in the past few years, spiralled out of control. Much of what people are being told about the environment, including climate, is wrong, and we desperately need to get it right.

Hes fed up, he adds. with the exaggeration, alarmism, and extremism that are the enemy of a positive, humanistic and rational environmentalism. The people most apocalyptic about environmental problems tend to oppose the best and most obvious solutions to solving them.

He isnt, however, calling for complacency and rejects accusations  fuelled by the fact that hes now being lionised by some conservative groups  that hes a shill for global warming deniers. Its true that climate change is real and it does present some potential risks, he told me. But its nothing like this Hollywood, Mad Max, End of the World, Crazy Town scenario that was painted by Extinction Rebellion and Greta last year.

He maintains the worlds most pressing environmental problem is not climate change but the continued burning of wood as fuel by up to two billion people. Pictured: A polar bear on melting sea ice in Canada

We need to get our priorities right, he says. Just think how much more useful it would have been if all those climate change protesters had marched instead for pandemic preparedness, he points out. What message does he want the public to take from his book in altering their behaviour? I want them to know what matters, he replies. They should feel happy buying cheap fast fashion because it not only liberates the women who make the clothes in Third World factories by giving them jobs, but as it moves them from countryside to urban areas, it returns the land to nature as less is used for food production.

In fact, Shellenberger says climate change is intrinsically linked with poverty, and that if people in the Third World have more money, they can invest in cleaner energy, using gas and electricity, for example, rather than burning wood.

People should also eat farmed fish (which are much more ethically produced now than they used to be, he says) rather than wild ones because overfishing is a huge threat to the oceans. Naturally the Green movement hasnt taken all this lying down, challenging some of his claims as inaccurate. In particular, they take issue with his assertions that global warming isnt threatening a lot of species and that it hasnt made natural disasters more frequent.

On the latter, Shellenberger counters that theyre conflating extreme weather events  which include heatwaves, wild fires and hurricanes  with actual disasters which involve major damage and loss of life. While he concedes that first category has become more severe and common, he says the opposites true of natural disasters. Other scientists and academics, however, have praised his book for finally calling time on climate change alarmism.

Shellenberger isnt surprised hes drawn flak although the personal attacks  being threatened with castration on Twitter  have been a deeply unpleasant experience.

The vehemence may be understandable given his belief that this apocalyptic view of climate change is an evangelical, fundamentalist religion that doesnt respond to rational arguments.

It satisfies a basic need for something to believe in, he says, and its followers can convince themselves they are serving a higher purpose [saving the planet].

These people are in the grip of a religion, says Shellenberger, and they dont know it.
Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip is the best foldable we've tested so far this year, and it's a little odd to see that sentiment in writing -- it feels like we published that review a lifetime ago, not five months back. What's more peculiar is just how quickly Samsung cooked up a new version of its charming foldable flip phone. The company officially announced the Galaxy Z Flip 5G this morning, and as its name suggests, the device packs the next-generation network support the original missed out on.

The first Galaxy Z Flip used Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset, a sliver of computing silicon that was about a year old when Samsung squeezed it into its second foldable. We didn't have any issues with how the chipset's octa-core processor ran, but it was a generation older than what we got in the Galaxy S20 series and couldn't play nice with 5G networks -- not exactly a great look for a $1,380 phone. The new, $1,450 Z Flip 5G remedies that by using the Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset instead, making this new model at least marginally faster than the S20s we got earlier this year. (We'll let you know how much faster when we can; this will be one of the first 865+ phones to hit the US.)

Samsung hasn't confirmed if it will continue to sell the original Z Flip alongside the 5G model, but we'll update this story once we know for sure either way. We do know, however, that AT&T and T-Mobile will be selling the phone starting on August 7th, alongside Amazon and Best Buy.com. For now at least, that means Samsung is focused on getting the Z Flip 5G into the hands of customers connecting to more widely available sub-6 5G networks, rather than the hyper-local mmWave deployments carriers like Verizon initially focused on. It's worth noting though that the Snapdragon 865+ actually plays nice with both kinds of 5G networks, so it seems the only things stopping a new Z Flip from showing up on Verizon store shelves are some handshakes and signed agreements.

Story continues

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5G

Apart from all that, the rest of the Z Flip formula hasn't changed much. There's still a tiny, 1.1-inch LCD screen on top of the phone -- or on its back, depending on how you look at it -- and its dual battery capacity is still locked at 3,300mAh. That's not to say Samsung just swapped chipsets and called it a day, though. The biggest physical difference between the original versions and these new models are their colors: The Z Flip 5G comes in Mystic Gray and the same Mystic Bronze we've seen in all those Galaxy Note 20 leaks. And these new Z Flips pack updated software features, like a new Multi-window panel that makes it easier to launch two apps on top of each other, and the ability to run YouTube in Flex Mode. (Presumably, these tweaks will land on the older Z Flip via software update soon enough.)

As usual, a bevy of pre-launch leaks means the Z Flip 5G's existence wasn't much of a secret. What's more surprising is Samsung's timing: It seems unusual for the company to be talking about its foldable plans right now, with Unpacked set to unfold in a web browser near you in just a few weeks. On the other hand, though, today's announcement may have just made Samsung's Unpacked agenda more obvious.

Tae-moon Roh, president and head of Samsungs mobile communications business, wrote in a recent blog post that the company plans to announce "five new power devices" during the streamed event. The current list of leaks either confirms or strongly suggests that some Galaxy Notes, a Galaxy Watch, some bean-shaped earbuds and a new Galaxy Tab to take on the iPad Pro will be among the devices Samsung reveals on August 5th -- now that the Z Flip 5G is official, it may be that Samsung's last big Unpacked reveal will be the next-generation Galaxy Fold. Or not. There might not be a last big reveal if one of those five slots is technically occupied by something like a Galaxy Note 20 Ultra instead, but were hopeful that Samsung isnt done talking about new foldables just yet.
Dear Editor:

Republican Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida verbally attacked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on July 21 over unrest in several cities.

Lets agree with the congressman (without the expletives) that stealing is bad. But lets also agree with Ocasio-Cortez that desperate people faced with losing everything might try to even things, given obscene levels of inequality (a kind of stealing) that officials ignore or actually encourage.

The root problem is simple: too few jobs for too many people, exacerbated by efforts to replace people in work wherever possible.

Bangladesh, after separating from Pakistan, needed a capital city with government offices. One of the large international engineering and construction companies probably could have done the job expeditiously, though saddling the infant nation with significant debt. Instead, architect Louis Kahn developed a design that largely could be built by the Bangladeshis themselves, with shovels, mixers, etc. One of the last scenes in My Architect, his sons tribute to Louis Kahn, shows the final result, which is stunning in its beauty.

There is a lot that needs to be done in our nation,and a lot of people struggling. Perhaps we can solve both problems by putting our people to work on them.

Frank Stoppenbach

Red Hook, N.Y.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 22:29:16|Editor: huaxia

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NEW DELHI, July 22 (Xinhua) -- India on Wednesday received the first tranche of 4,475 Oxygen Concentrators from a Singapore company, out of the total 20,000 which the latter had committed to donate, said an official statement issued by the federal health ministry.

The remaining Oxygen Concentrators will be received next month.

According to the statement, these devices will be made available to states and union territories for use in management of moderate cases of COVID-19.

An Oxygen Concentrator is a device that concentrates the oxygen from a gas supply by selectively removing nitrogen to supply an oxygen-enriched product gas stream.

The first tranche was received by the country's junior health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey.

Expressing gratitude towards the Singaporean company, the minister said that the Oxygen Concentrators will substantially aid the fight against COVID-19 in the country. Enditem
The distillery's continuous focus on expanding its aged and super premium offering aligns with increased consumer demand and curiosity in the segment. Jaiker Soto , Master Blender, crafted a vibrant blend of multi-column distilled light rums and single copper column distilled heavy rums, which were aged for a minimum of seven years in American white oak barrels. For this unique blend, Soto collaborated with Silvia Santiago , Senior VP of Manufacturing and Maestra Ronera, along with Roberto Serralles , sixth-generation rum maker, bringing together decades of rum making experience for the creation of this superb rum.

The team hand selected and blended Puerto Rican rums that were aged for a minimum of seven years to create a new Don Q rum variant that is radiant and bold with an intricate start and a mature, yet brilliant, long finish. This versatile rum expression is best enjoyed neat, on the rocks, in a cocktail like the Classic 7 or Honey Breeze, or to elevate a favorite mixed drink, simply by adding soda or fresh juice.

"We wanted to create a rum with a distinctive flavor profile and maturity that had balanced notes and the characteristics fans have come to expect from Don Q Rums. With Reserva 7, our goal was to craft a rum that honored the Serralles family and their legacy of making world-class rum," says Soto. "It was an honor to taste through reserves and blend a selection of aged rums to create a smooth and elegant expression with notes of roasted oak, caramelized fruit, honey and chocolate."

Color: Bright intense amber

Aroma: The rum greets the nose with refined notes of oak, dark caramel and spices, characteristic of its long aging. Its robust body is reminiscent of chocolate, toasted almonds, raisins and apricot.

Alcohol: 80 Proof, 40% ALC/VOL

Don Q Reserva 7 is presented in a new bottle design with the brand's updated image and logo. The elongated glass bottle evokes the refinement and simplicity that has characterized the rums crafted by the Serralles family for 155 years. The brand's new packaging highlights Don Q's values of heritage and quality and was executed by Stranger and Stranger, the world-renowned, internationally awarded British firm that specializes in packaging design for premium spirit brands globally.

Don Q's Reserva 7 will be available starting August 2020 at select liquor stores, supermarkets, hotels and restaurants, Drizly and other third-party services throughout the country and online via https://donq.com/ with a MSRP of $24.99. For more drink recommendations, visit https://donq.com/ or follow on social media: Facebook.com/DonQ and @donqrum.

About Destileria Serralles:

Destileria Serralles is one of America's oldest family-owned businesses with a rum making tradition that spans 6 generations and 155 years. Based in Ponce, Puerto Rico, the distillery produces its flagship product, the award-winning Don Q rum brand, the #1 selling rum on the island. The Distillery has been awarded the "Green Award" from The Drinks Business, which recognizes leaders in environmental practices within the beverage industry, and more recently was recognized as "World Class Distillery," by World Spirits Awards. For additional information, visit us at https://donq.com/ and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/DonQ and @donqrum.

About Serralles USA:

Serralles USA, based in Stamford CT, is the USA distribution company of Destileria Serralles. Serralles USA's portfolio includes: Don Q Cristal, Don Q Gold, Don Q Gran Anejo, Don Q Reserva 7, Don Q Signature Release Single Barrel 2005, 2007 & 2009, Don Q Double Aged Vermouth Cask Finish, Don Q Double Aged Sherry Cask Finish, Don Q Oak Barrel Aged Spiced, Don Q Limon, Don Q Coco, Don Q Pasion, Don Q Pina, Don Q 151, Reserva de la Familia Serralles, Palo Viejo & Caliche Rum; as well as a sales and marketing alliance with Barrow's Intense Ginger Liqueur. Please visit us at https://donq.com/ and follow us on http://facebook.com/DonQ and @donqrum.

For more information about Don Q Rum, please contact Baltz & Company:

Sarah Abell (917.584.8567; [email protected]) or

Annette Malkin (212.600.5828; [email protected])

SOURCE Don Q Rum

Related Links

https://donq.com/


A workers compensation insurer cannot charge an employer an extra $1.7 million in premiums for the risk presented by employees who were exempt from coverage under Iowas workers compensation law, a federal appellate court ruled Monday.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected LM Insurance Corp.s argument that it is entitled to premiums for covering the Newt Marine Service employees because it had been forced to pay claims for other exempt workers. The extra premium had been billed for employees classified as seaman, who were covered by a separate Jones Act policy.

Both the district court and appellate court said in their decisions that the Liberty Mutual unit did not provide any clear explanation as to why it paid claims for the exempt workers. Attorney David J. Dutton, who represents the Dubuque-based dredging and marine construction company, said he believes LM voluntarily paid benefits under state only so that it could charge the company for extra premiums.

They did not seek dismissal of the workers comp claims, Dutton said. If they had, the Iowa Workers Compensation Commission would have said, youre right, and dismissed the case.

LM insured Newt Marine from 2013 to 2016 through Iowas residual market plan, which assigns risks to carriers to ensure that coverage is available to employers who cannot purchase a policy in the voluntary market. Newton, based in Dubuque, Iowa, does most of its construction and dredging business from a barge that works the Mississippi River.

Most of Newt Marines employees are classified as seaman who are covered under the federal Jones Act. The policy issued by LM exempts any employee classified as a seamen. Newt Marine purchased a separate policy from American International Group to insure those workers.

Newt Marine provides harbor fleeting, marina and dock construction, ship repair, barge rentals, habitat restoration and other marine services.

Despite the exemption, Newt Marine filed state workers compensation claims on behalf of three injured workers who are classified as seamen. General Manager Marcus Murphy told the insurer that the workers had been reassigned and were working on land at the time they were injured, so the Jones Act coverage didnt apply.

LM didnt contest that argument. It paid the claims even though the workers were supposedly exempt from the policy. But the carrier got its revenge. LM conducted a premium audit for the 2013, 2014 and 2015 policy years and decided that premium was owed for all of the workers who had been classified as seamen because any of them could be reclassified at any time.

LM sent Newt Marine a bill for $1,675,260.94 in additional premiums and interest. The carrier filed a lawsuit to collect after Newt refused to pay.

LMs central argument in the suit was that Section C2 in the insurance policy stated that premiums would be owed for all other persons engaged in work that could make (the insurer) liable. Newt Marines decision to file claims under the state workers compensation law showed that the insurer could be liable for injury claims even if they were classified as exempt seamen, the carrier argued.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Roberts in Dubuque noted that LM did not seek to recover the claim payments that were made for the employees who were exempted from coverage, nor did it explain how it could have been held liable for their injuries.

Iowas workers compensation law clearly exempts workers who are covered under a federal work-injury plan, including the Jones Act, Roberts said. All of the case law that LM cited to support its argument related to independent contractors who were deemed eligible for coverage even though no premium had been collected for them. The judge said none of the cases involved employees who were specifically exempt from state workers compensation law and excluded from coverage by the policy in question.

Because the premiums LM Insurance charged to Newt Marine were not merited, Newt Marine did not breach its obligations under the workers compensation insurance policies by refusing to pay, the 8th Circuit panel concluded in its opinion. Summary judgment was therefore appropriately granted to Newt Marine because LM Insurances breach claims fail as a matter of law.

Topics Carriers Workers' Compensation Claims Commercial Lines Abuse Molestation Business Insurance Iowa
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have divided fans since their arrival in Australia on Monday, after it emerged they'd been granted permission to self-isolate at their $6.5million Southern Highlands estate instead of going through mandatory hotel quarantine.

And a new poll conducted by Daily Mail Australia shows that the public has very little sympathy for the A-list couple - despite the fact that Nicole is in the country making a TV show that will provide an economic boost to the struggling local film industry.

The Oscar-winning actress, 53, was recently given the green light to film her new series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in Australia, and the production is set to create 'hundreds' of local jobs when filming commences on August 10.

However, the results of the poll show that only 19 per cent of people support the pair being granted exemption from the strict COVID-19 quarantine rules.

In stark contrast, a whopping 81 per cent of readers said that 'everyone should be treated the same' regardless of their celebrity status.

The results are in: Eighty per cent of Daily Mail readers say Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban SHOULD have quarantined at a hotel like everyone else - as they self-isolate at their $6.5million country estate. Pictured arriving in Sydney during an earlier visit in December

The vast majority were against the Tennessee-based couple and their daughters, Sunday, 12, and Faith, nine, receiving special permission by the New South Wales Government to self-isolate at home, after flying into Australia via private jet.

Less than a fifth of voters agreed that the family deserved exemption because of Nicole's plans to help the local film industry during the economic downturn.

After news of their exemption made headlines, some Australians angrily suggested that COVID-19 travel restrictions only seem to affect ordinary people, not the rich and famous.

Helping out: The Oscar-winning actress, 53, was recently given the green light to film her new series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in Australia, and the production is set to create 'hundreds' of local jobs when filming commences on August 10

One fan fumed on social media: 'This is SO wrong! First, bloody Dannii Minogue and now these two. Completely unfair and wrong!

'If we all have to do it and no one is getting exemptions then EVERYONE should have to do it! And they wonder why people start breaking the rules.'

Another wrote: 'Two different sets of laws: one for the rich and powerful and one for the ordinary person.'

'Why special treatment?' a third asked, pointedly.

Not happy: However, the results of Daily Mail Australia's poll show that only 19 per cent of people support the pair being granted exemption from the strict COVID-19 quarantine rules

However, many others pointed out that they didn't see a problem with it if the pair stayed at home for two weeks.

One supporter wrote: 'This is right decision. They have their own property, why not? They both deserve a little credit for promoting Australia every day... Welcome home.'

Another added: 'Why is everyone carrying on? They are isolating at home, just not at a hotel. So what if they are stars? They still have to isolate away from everyone.'

A similar comment read: 'I don't see why people are tripping out. As long as they quarantine, what and where does it matter the place they do it?'

Nicole and Keith have been allowed to self-isolate at home instead of staying at a state-approved hotel for two weeks, which is what the vast majority of international arrivals must do amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the NSW Government website, people returning from overseas are only exempt from staying at a quarantine hotel if there are 'strong medical, health or compassionate grounds'.

'Unfair': After news of their exemption made headlines, some Aussies angrily suggested that COVID-19 travel restrictions only seem to affect ordinary people, not the rich and famous

The couple's arrival Down Under comes after Nicole was given the green light to film her new TV series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in Australia.

The production, based on the 2018 novel by Liane Moriarty, will reportedly inject $100million into the struggling local film industry by creating hundreds of jobs.

Strict COVID-19 restrictions are in place, according to local news reports, and production is based out of Nicole and Keith's Southern Highlands home.

Cast and crew members flying from overseas or interstate will be made to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days upon their arrival in NSW.

Nicole and her fellow producers will also be responsible for paying all medical and security costs.

The limited series is being produced by Nicole's production company, Blossom Films, alongside Big Little Lies collaborators Bruna Papandrea and David E. Kelley.

Nicole will also star in the show with the likes of Melissa McCarthy, Luke Evans and Manny Jacinto.

Commitments: The couple's arrival Down Under comes after Nicole was given the green light to film her new TV series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in Australia. Pictured in September 2019

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph on Sunday, the acclaimed actress said she was 'thrilled' to be able to inject new life into the local film industry.

'It is a great opportunity for me to give back to the community that nurtured me through so much of my career,' she said.

The series will tell the story of nine stressed-out urbanites who escape to a wellness retreat run by Nicole's character.

Filming will begin on August 10 and will run for 19 weeks.
A British former spy who penned a 2016 dossier on alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia said he thought it would stay private, describing it being released as 'morally repugnant'.

Christopher Steele, 56, told Mr Justice Warby he took great care to ensure intelligence was handled and communicated carefully.

Mr Steele pointed out his business depended on confidentiality, and told the judge he never 'knew, intended or foresaw' that any media organisation would publish information from the dossier to the 'world at large'.

His private intelligence report alleged collusion between Donald Trump's election campaign and the Kremlin.

Mr Steele was giving evidence at a High Court trial in London on Wednesday after being sued for defamation by a Russian businessman named in the dossier

Christopher Steele, 59, on his way to the High Court for his defamation case in London

Aleksej Gubarev, who runs an IT infrastructure business, has told the judge he was stunned when BuzzFeed reported that the Steele dossier had linked him to a US Democratic Party 'hacking incident'.

Mr Gubarev, and a company he runs called Webzilla, took legal action after the news site published the dossier in January 2017, the month Mr Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States.

He says he has been defamed by Mr Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based corporate consultancy and wants 'very substantial' damages. They are both fighting the claim and deny defamation.

Mr Steele insisted in a written statement: 'It is not in Orbis's interest for any of our intelligence work to be aired in the media or public domain, especially in raw or unanalysed form.

'Our business depends on the confidentiality of our clients and sources. If these are exposed to the world, no-one will contact Orbis to do discreet work on their behalf.

'It would therefore be professionally ruinous - and also morally repugnant - for us to do anything that could risk exposing a source, especially in a ruthless, lawless place like Russia, as a result of any such (especially media) exposure.'

Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev ( on right) leaves the Royal Courts of Justice

He said that if he had known that BuzzFeed had a copy of the dossier, and intended to publish, he would done 'whatever I could do to prevent this'.

The case has already heard how Mr Gubarev said he had never been involved with Russian Federal Security Services or any cyber-attacks on the US Democratic Party.

Mr Gubarev, and a company he runs called Webzilla, took legal action after BuzzFeed published the 'Steele Dossier' in January 2017, the month Mr Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States.

The businessman, who lives in Cyprus, said he was receiving 'multiple messages and phone calls' within minutes of the BuzzFeed article being published.

President Trump, pictured yesterday, is the subject of the dossier by Mr Steele

Christopher Steele: The British ex-spy whose Russia dossier sent shockwaves through the Trump White House Christopher Steele embarked on a well-trodden path when he was recruited from Cambridge straight into MI6. After a stint in London, he was stationed in Moscow just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He returned to London and in 2006 was made head of MI6's Russia desk, where he led the investigation into the poisoning of former Russian operative Alexander Litvinenko. But he only became world-renowned after becoming a private intelligence consultant and writing the sensational Trump-Russia dossier in 2016. His evidence was rubbished by Trump, but formed part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. In an interview at Oxford University, Mr Steele said he had been questioned for 'two whole days' but was disappointed with Mueller's final report. 'I was surprised that very little of what I had discussed with them appeared in the final report. He criticized the report for being 'too narrow' and failing to follow up on crucial evidence. 'There were many things about the report that were good but other (aspects) that were not so good,' he said. Mr Steele said the fact that 'a number of witnessesincluding for instance, Donald Trump Jr.' had avoided being interviewed 'wasn't great.' Dismissing longstanding allegations of political bias, he described himself as simply 'an opponent of President Putin.' He said that Trump is naturally hostile toward the intelligence community. 'Trump himself doesn't like intelligence because its ground truth is inconvenient for him,' he said. Advertisement

'When I read and saw that my name and companies were being accused, I was stunned,' he said, in a written witness statement.

'I have never been involved with the Russian Federal Security Services or any cyber-attacks on the US Democratic Party.'

He said it was difficult to convince people that the allegations were false.

'The situation was, and remains, very humiliating and embarrassing which has caused me to suffer from on-going anxiety about how my reputation is now in tatters,' he said.

'It has been exhausting trying to constantly convince people that I was not involved in the Democratic Party hacking incident...'

He added: 'I don't want to have to keep explaining that I am not a criminal and did not do what I am alleged to have done.'

Mr Gubarev said Mr Steele had not apologised and that refusal prolonged the damage.

The dossier had been commissioned by a Washington DC consultancy acting for a law firm, the judge has heard.

He has been told that the 'ultimate client' was the 'Democratic National Committee and/or Hillary Clinton's Presidential election campaign'.

Andrew Caldecott QC, who leads Mr Gubarev's legal team, has told the judge that there is a 'practical ceiling' of about 325,000 on defamation damages awards.

He said he would not argue that an award at the 'very top of the bracket' was appropriate.

But he said 'very substantial damages' were required to vindicate and compensate Mr Gubarev.

Mr Caldecott said there was 'no suggestion' that the allegations against Mr Gubarev and Webzilla were true.

He said BuzzFeed had apologised and 'redacted' the names of Mr Gubarev and Webzilla from their website.

And, he said, Mr Gubarev was not suggesting that Orbis and Mr Steele had been 'malicious'.

Mr Caldecott said the 'central question' was whether Orbis and Mr Steele were 'responsible in law' for the publication of the Steele dossier by BuzzFeed.

He said Mr Gubarev's case was that they were.

Mr Steele disagrees and says the claim should be dismissed.

The hearing is due to end later this week
Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four associates were arrested Tuesday for a $60 million bribery and corruption scheme, according to authorities.

Others arrested were Householder adviser Jeffrey Longstreth, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges, and lobbyists Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes.

Cespedes was also the co-founder of The Oxley Group, which is a Columbus-based consulting firm.

The $60 million bribery case was connected to a taxpayer-funded bailout of Ohio's two nuclear power plants, CBS News report said

U.S. Attorney David DeVillers said during a press conference that the case was "likely the largest bribery scheme ever perpetrated against the state of Ohio."

DeVillers thanked the citizens who aided law enforcement in the case.

"We are grateful to those who felt a moral duty to work together with agents in bringing to light this alleged, significant public corruption," he was quoted in a report.

Householder was one to push for the nuclear plants' financial rescue.

This added a new fee to every electricity bill in the state and aligned over $150 million a year through 2026 to Cleveland and Toledo's plants.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine called for Householder's resignation after the House speaker's arrest.

DeWine said that this was a sad day for Ohio.

Ohio governor said that because of the nature of the charges against Householder it would be impossible for him to lead the Ohio House of Representatives.

Alleged Corruption Case

There were previous attempts to bail out the nuclear power plants that were stalled in the Legislature even before Householder became speaker.

Months after becoming a speaker, Householder presented a new plan to subsidize the nuclear plants and remove renewable energy incentives.

This was approved a year ago despite opposing cries from many business leaders and the manufacturing sector.

Generation Now was also charged as a corporation in the case. The group was involved in putting out efforts to repeal the bailout law on Ohio's ballot.

FBI also said that Group Now received $60 million from an unidentified company for the past three years.

This allowed Householder and the other people charged to work on passing the nuclear plant bailout and deny attempts to overturn it.

Householder and others reportedly used the money to preserve and extend his political power in Ohio.

FirstEnergy Corp.'s former subsidiaries owned the plants. The corporation donated heavily to Householder's campaign and his backer in the Ohio House.

This contributed around $25,000 to Householder's campaign in 2018, according to an analysis by a government watchdog Common Cause Ohio.

Householder used the company's plane and flew to President Donald Trump's inauguration in 2016.

FirstEnergy Corp.'s subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, changed its name to Energy Harbor. It now operates the said nuclear plants as an independent company.

Energy Harbor has spent millions on campaign contributions and trying to persuade federal and state authorities to give its nuclear plants support.

Householder and Four Others in Court

The defendants were not required to enter a plea. The judge ordered Householder not to obtain a passport, restricted his travel to the southern half of Ohio, and prohibited any contact from other defendants.

The judge also ordered Householder to remove any guns from his home.

The next hearing was tentatively scheduled on Aug. 6. If found guilty, Householder could face 20 years of prison time.

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The big question is: Will her release be a threat to Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami? The answer is, while it may give him moments of nervousness, he will not be replaced, say political experts.

T E Narasimhan reports.

The past three and a half years have been tough for Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.

He faced challenges, including keeping his flock together, and handling cyclones, a water crisis, an economic downturn, and now the pandemic.

Soon Palaniswami faces one more challenge -- the release of V K Sasikala, the jailed aide of former chief minister Jayalalithaa.

The big question is: Will her release be a threat to Palaniswami? The answer is, while it may give him moments of nervousness, he will not be replaced, say political experts.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Aseervatham Achary recently tweeted that Sasikala would be released on August 14.

Sasikala was sent to jail for four years in February 2017, when the Supreme Court overruled the Karnataka high court's judgment acquitting Jayalalithaa, Sasikala, and her relatives Ilavarasi and Sudhakaran in the Rs 66-crore disproportionate assets case.

According to media reports, any prisoner is eligible for remission after he or she serves two-thirds of the sentence.

Generally, according to prison rules, remission is allowed on the basis of conduct and employment in prison. In Karnataka, learning Kannada is also taken into account for remission.

A convict on simple imprisonment is eligible for holiday/leave for six days in a month.

In Sasikala's case, she is eligible for 216 days' holiday/leave for three years (earlier she had stayed in prison for 35 days in 1996-97 and 2014).

All told, it comes to roughly 250 days. If this is anything to go by, she can stay out at least for 250 days till February 14, 2021, when her jail term of four years will end.

The big battle

Subramanian Swamy, the BJP MP, earlier said when Sasikala was released after the end of her prison term, a major change in Tamil Nadu politics would come about.

"It will be difficult to do politics in the state without Sasikala. She has experience and talent. Her community is backing her."

She belongs to the Thevar community, a backward caste dominant in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, while Palaniswami represents the Gounder community.

Traditionally, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, to which Palaniswami belongs, had been dominated by Thevvar community, but in recent times the Gounders have gained more prominence.

Lack of charismatic leaders with a mass appeal in the party has helped Palaniswami.

Political analyst Sumanth C Raman says: "I don't believe the release of Sasikala will have a major impact on the stability of the government. She does not enjoy public support and even the disgruntled leaders in the AIADMK know that.

"While she will be useful as a bogey to threaten the chief minister, I don't see her taking control of the AIADMK. The party will have virtually no chance if it faces the electorate in 2021 under her leadership."

Sasikala will not be able to contest election for six years because she is a convicted person.

Agreed senior AIADMK leaders, who are loyal to Sasikala but continuing in Palaniswami's camp.

Former Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam leader V Pugazhendhi, who joined the AIADMK early this year, said Sasikala's early release would set the ball rolling for realignment in the AIADMK and bring stability to the party.

Pugazhendhi said the dual leadership in the AIADMK -- of the chief minister and his deputy, O Panneerselvam -- had not provided the required stability.

"The AMMK has faced setbacks with many leaders deserting the party under Dinakaran's leadership. She (Sasikala) alone could be the unifying force," he said.

Political analyst Babu Jayakumar, in a report, was quoted as saying that all the AIADMK ministers, and lawmakers, as well as front line leaders, owe their positions to Sasikala.

"EPS (the chief minister) himself was her nominee and he seldom utters a word against her, and there are unconfirmed reports that he is in touch with her," said Jayakumar.
JACKSON, Miss. - Charles Evers, who led an eclectic life as a civil rights leader, onetime purveyor of illegal liquor in Chicago, history-making Black mayor in deeply segregated Mississippi and contrarian with connections to prominent national Democrats and Republicans, died Wednesday. He was 97.

Evers  who was the older brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers  died of natural causes at a home in the Jackson, Mississippi, suburb of Brandon, where he was surrounded by relatives, Rankin County Coroner David Ruth told The Associated Press. Ruth said the cause of death was not the coronavirus, and no autopsy is planned.

Charles and Medgar Evers both served in the military during World War II, and they became active in the NAACP when they returned to their home state of Mississippi and continued to face discrimination.

Medgar Evers had been field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP for more than eight years when he was assassinated outside his Jackson home in June 1963. In 1968, a former fertilizer salesman and self-avowed white supremacist, Byron De La Beckwith, went on trial twice in the killing, but all-white juries deadlocked and did not convict him.

The case was later revived, and a jury of eight African Americans and four white people convicted Beckwith of murder in 1994. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld that conviction in 1997.

Before, the killer of a Black man would go free. Now we know you just cant go out and kill a Black man or woman and nothing is done, Charles Evers said after that Supreme Court decision. Justice finally came.

Charles Evers was appointed to lead the Mississippi NAACP after his brother was killed. In 1969, he was elected mayor of the southwestern Mississippi town of Fayette, becoming the first Black mayor of a multiracial town in the state since Reconstruction.

During his long career, Charles Evers ran several businesses in Chicago and Mississippi. A Mississippi Blues Trail marker commemorates his career as a concert promoter with blues legend B.B. King, and it notes that Charles Evers was once in the bootleg liquor business.

In his office at a Jackson radio station in 2008, Evers displayed photos of himself with two former Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush; and with Democrat Robert F. Kennedy. As the U.S. attorney general, Robert Kennedy sat with Charles Evers at the funeral of Medgar Evers. Charles Evers worked on Robert Kennedys 1968 presidential campaign and with with him the day Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Evers was among the passengers on the plane that took Kennedys body from Los Angeles to New York.

Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said in a statement Wednesday that Charles Evers was one of his favourite people, with a career that covered the spectrum from his roguish youth to a respected civil rights leader, mayor, businessman and radio host.

Charles Evers was never afraid to challenge the accepted norms or fly in the face of political correctness, Wicker said. As an elected official, he navigated the circuitous route from Freedom Democrat to Independent to Republican. ... He used his powerful personality and platform to change Mississippi for the better.

Evers ran unsuccessfully for an open U.S. House seat as a Democrat in 1968. He served on the Democratic National Committee in the mid-1970s.

He ran as an independent for Mississippi governor in 1971 and for a U.S. Senate seat in 1978. Although he lost those elections, Evers influenced the outcome of the Senate race by drawing support away from the Democratic candidate. That led to a victory by Republican Thad Cochran, who later became chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee and remained in the Senate until early 2018.

Evers endorsed Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, and served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1996 and 2000. He publicly supported Democrat Barack Obama for president in 2008 and 2012. Then, after the 2016 presidential election, Evers cast one of Mississippis six electoral votes for Republican Donald Trump.

Trump on Tuesday tweeted a photo of Evers sitting with him in the White House.

I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friend Charles Evers, Trump wrote. Charles was a trail blazer in politics and a fearless leader, alongside his brother Medgar, for Civil Rights.

On the day Evers cast the electoral vote for Trump, he described himself as an independent Republican.

Im a great believer in earning something. Democrats always want to give away something, Evers said after the electors voted.

He said he is a longtime supporter of Trump.

Hes a multimillionaire, Evers said. I like rich folks. Cant nobody buy him.
The Supreme Court will hear on Thursday a plea by the speaker of Rajasthan legislative assembly, CP Joshi, challenging the July 21 order of the Rajasthan high court asking him to defer till July 24, action on notices he issued to Sachin Pilot and 18 dissident Congress legislators, as the first step in their disqualification process.

Joshi said in his plea that the high court order restraining the speaker of the assembly from continuing with disqualification proceedings is in violation of settled legal principles and an intrusion into the exclusive domain of the speaker.

The Supreme Court has a duty to ensure that the all the authorities under the Constitution exercise their jurisdiction within the boundaries and respective Lakshman Rekha envisaged by the Constitution itself. Judiciary was never expected under the 10th schedule to interfere in the manner it has done in the instant case resulting in this constitutional impasse, the plea filed through advocate Sunil Fernandes said.

We need to see if a mere show-cause notice (issued to the MLAs) on a petition (submitted by chief whip Mahesh Joshi) is beyond the speakers authority, Joshi said earlier in the day in a press conference in Jaipur, during which he said he would approach the apex court.

Meanwhile, Pilot and the 18 MLAs also filed a caveat before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, which means they will have to be heard by the Supreme Court before any order can be passed.

The law on this aspect is settled since a long time. In 1992, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court in Kihoto Hollohans case upheld the validity of the 10th Schedule (which deals with disqualification of law makers for defection) of the Constitution and said that courts cannot pass any stay order on proceedings before the speaker. The order of Rajasthan high court stays the disqualification proceedings before the speaker, which is in conflict with the Kihoto judgment and, hence, we have approached the Supreme Court to stay the high court order, Fernandes said.

That case stemmed from disqualification of some MLAs of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly and crystallised many principles regarding the powers of the speaker.

In his press conference, Joshi too referred to the case, Kihoto Hollohan vs Zachillhu and Others, dating back to 1992, and that in it, the Supreme Court ruled that till the speaker takes a decision on disqualification applications, injunction orders arent passed related to members against whom applications are pending. I am disappointed with the courts directions, he added. This matter is of urgent nature. The order has reduced my constitutional authority, which is prima facie against the apex courts decision.

In that case, the top court ruled that the judicial review should not cover any stage prior to the making of a decision by the speaker/chairman. No interference would be permissible at an interlocutory stage of the proceedings, the court said then.

Joshis petition emphasises that.

In view of the aforesaid, the (high court) order is ex-facie illegal, perverse, and in derogation of the powers of the Speaker under the Constitution and hence deserve to be set aside, it said.

The Rajasthan high court, on Tuesday, directed the speaker not to take any action against Pilot and other MLAs till July 24.

This order was passed after Pilot and the other MLAs had approached the high court on July 15, challenging the speakers notice which had asked them to furnish an explanation by July 17 on why they shouldnt be disqualified from the assembly for their conduct, which the Congress party alleged was detrimental to the interest of the party and showed their intention to quit the party.

I am bound to pass orders on these applications as a constitutional authority, Joshi said in the press conference.

Pilot and Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot have been at odds since the Congress government came to power in 2018. Gehlot was made CM while Pilot had to settle for the post of Deputy CM. Gehlot blamed Pilot for the partys rout in the Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan last year; Vaibhav Gehlot, the chief ministers son, lost from Jodhpur in the election. Pilot, in turn, believed that he had no powers, with even appointments in ministries under him being made by Gehlot.

The tussle became public earlier this month after Rajasthan police sought to question Pilot over allegations of attempting to pull down the Congress government in Rajasthan. Pilot was eventually sacked as deputy CM.

The speakers notice to Pilot was based on the disqualification petition filed by the chief whip of the Congress in Rajsthan, Mahesh Joshi. Joshi, in his plea, cited the absence of the MLAs from two Congress legislature party meetings, held on July 13 and 14, despite specific instructions to attend it. This, he claimed, showed their intention to leave the Congress.

Pilot and the other dissident MLAs have maintained they never had the intention to leave the Congress party and were exercising their right to criticise the party leadership and the functioning of chief minister Ashok Gehlot. In a democratic set-up, voicing disagreement with policies or decisions made by the party doesnt amount to acting against the interests of the party, so as to lead to disqualification, they said in their petition before the high court.

Kihoto Hollohan is very specific that no quia-timet actions (injunctions to prevent wrongful acts) can be entertained. The speaker under the 10th schedule, may act as a tribunal, but judicial review is available only after the final judgment. Courts do not get into the internal functioning of legislatures is the principle of law since Bradlaugh v Gosset (UK judgment of 1884) and Keshav Singh case (of 1964) in India, senior counsel Sanjay Hegde told HT.

The matter will be heard by a three-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra and also comprising justices BR Gavai and Krishna Murari.

The petition by the speaker is pre-mature since the honourable high court has only reserved its order. It is only appropriate that the party to the case wait for the high court order before approaching the Supreme Court in appeal, Pilots lawyer S Hariharan told HT.
The state govt told a bench headed by CJI SA Bobde that the committee will also probe circumstances under which Dubey, who was facing 65 FIRs, was released on bail

New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday that former apex court judge Justice (Retd) BS Chauhan has given his consent to be a part of the committee set up for inquiry into the encounter killing of gangster Vikas Dubey's ealier this month.

The state government told a bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde that the inquiry committee would also probe the circumstances under which Dubey, who was facing 65 FIRs, was released on bail.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, read out the terms of reference of the inquiry committee.

The apex court was hearing a batch of petitions which have sought court-monitored probe into the encounters of Dubey and five of his alleged associates.

Some of the pleas have also sought probe into the killing of eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, who were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on 3 July.

Dubey was killed in an encounter in the morning of 10 July when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area, the police had said.
A scarily realistic deepfake video shows what it would have looked like if President Richard Nixon was forced to deliver a sombre address to the world had the Apollo 11 mission ended in disaster.

It is well-known that the American president had two speeches prepared, one in case of a safe landing and one in the event that tragedy struck.

Fortuitously, the landing on July 20 1969 by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was a resounding success, rendering the latter redundant.

However, experts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created an entirely artificial video showing what it may have looked and sounded like.

It is part of a project called 'Moon Disaster' and is designed to draw attention to the risk deepfakes pose and how they can manipulate people and spread fake news.

A scarily realistic deepfake video shows what it would have looked like if President Richard Nixon was forced to deliver a sombre address to the world had the Apollo 11 mission ended in disaster (pictured, the deepfake video as Nixon starts his speech)

Deepfakes are forged videos that look realistic and have already created issues in the real-world.

Last year, a viral video of Nancy Pelosi slurring her words and appearing drunk circulated around social media. However, it was doctored and not a legitimate representation of a speech she did give.

While this was not technically a deepfake, it showed the power of disingenuous videos online.

Other deepfakes have emerged since the infamous Pelosi video, including Mark Zuckerberg discussing privacy and several targeting Donald Trump.

As a results, experts have been debating how to curb the spread of the misleading videos which have the potential to ruin reputations and endanger the public.

The MIT campaign used the 51st anniversary of the moon landing to reignite the conversation.

The video comes with a clear disclaimer stating 'what you are about to see is not real'.

It lasts more than seven minutes and is a well-edited tape which combines deep-learning, acting and genuine NASA footage.

The video comes with a clear disclaimer stating 'what you are about to see is not real'. It lasts more than seven minutes and is a well-edited video tape which combines deep-learning, acting and genuine NASA footage (pictured, a shot used of genuine NASA footage from the Apollo 11 mission)

At the end of the faked broadcast, the video flashes up another warning that the video is not legitimate. Titles on the screen say explain how the video was created and ends with 'check your sources'

Facebook algorithm can spot less than two-thirds of deepfake videos Algorithms designed as part of a contest run by Facebook struggled to reliably identify digitally manipulated videos called deepfakes. According to the company, which recently announced the results of its contest, the best performing algorithm in its competition - which had more than 2,000 participants - was able to identify 'challenging real world examples' of deepfakes about 65 per cent of the time on average. While the results of the contest are far from perfect, Facebook's Mike Schroepfer, the company's chief technology office, told journalists in a press call that its contest exceeded expectations. 'Honestly the contest has been more of a success than I could have ever hoped for,' said Schroepfer according to The Verge. The technology will be released to the public as an open-source code for researchers . Advertisement

After appearing to show the Apollo 11 mission fail catastrophically, it cuts to Richard Nixon who begins his speech.

Had this happened in real life, it would have been one of the most forlorn pieces of broadcast of all time.

The first line is: 'Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.'

The full speech is available in the US National Archives and was read aloud by an actor.

Physical facial movements of the president and his voice were made convincing via AI-powered 'deep-learning' technology.

It took a full team to produce the video and the seven-minute clip took several months to create.

The results from the team of experts at MIT are sensational and look extremely lifelike, unlike some deepfakes which have emerged recently.

The video was first put on display at a physical art installation at MIT late last year and has now been made publically available on YouTube.

At the end of the faked broadcast, the video flashes up another warning that the video is not legitimate.

Titles on the screen say: 'This project shows the dangers of misinformation.

'Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to simulate people doing and saying things they never did, typically without their consent.

'The project used a range of techniques from video dialogue replacement and voice conversion systems to more traditional video editing techniques to demonstrate the range of misinformation that is possible.

'Check your sources.'
Hoi An ancient city (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Vietnam has made the shortlist in 11 categories at the prestigious World Travel Awards (WTA) 2020.

It was nominated for awards in the Asian region for Leading Culinary Destination, Leading Cultural Destination, Leading Destination, Leading Heritage Destination, Leading Nature Destination, Leading River Cruise Destination, Leading Sustainable Tourism Destination, and Leading Youth Travel Destination.

The capital city of Hanoi was shortlisted as Asias Leading City Break Destination, while the ancient city of Hoi An in the central province of Quang Nam was nominated in Asias Leading Cultural City Destination.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism is also in the running for the Asias Leading Tourist Board award.

The WTA is especially calling for votes in the categories of Asias Leading City Break Destination, Leading Culinary Destination, Leading Destination, and Leading Heritage Destination.

To cast votes for Vietnam, please access https://www.worldtravelawards.com. The voting will close on September 24.

The WTA was launched in 1993 to acknowledge excellence in the travel and tourism industry. Heralded as the travel industrys equivalent of the Oscars by the Wall Street Journal, the awards are based on votes from the public and travel professionals across the globe.

The 26th World Travel Awards for Asia and Oceania selected Vietnam as Asias Leading Culinary Destination at a ceremony in October 2019 in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang.

Vietnam was also named Asias Leading Destination and Asias Leading Cultural Destination, while Hoi An won the title of Asias Leading Cultural City Destination.

The country was then honoured as a World Leading Heritage Destination 2019 by the WTA at an awards ceremony in November in Oman.
Technavio has been monitoring the global automotive active grille shutter market size and it is poised to grow by 2.13 million units during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 3% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005694/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Brose Fahrzeugteile SE Co. KG, COMPAGNIE PLASTIC OMNIUM SE, Flex Ltd., Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Magna International Inc., Rochling SE Co. KG, SRG Global Inc., and Valeo SA are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The increasing government support to promote EVs has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the ongoing slowdown of the economy in China might hamper market growth.

Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market is segmented as below:

Application Passenger Cars Commercial Vehicles

Geography Europe North America APAC South America MEA



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44349

Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our automotive active grille shutter market report covers the following areas:

Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market size

Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market trends

Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market industry analysis

This study identifies the development of smart electric actuators for active grille shutters as one of the prime reasons driving the automotive active grille shutter market growth during the next few years.

Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the automotive active grille shutter market, including some of the vendors such as Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Brose Fahrzeugteile SE Co. KG, COMPAGNIE PLASTIC OMNIUM SE, Flex Ltd., Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Magna International Inc., Rochling SE Co. KG, SRG Global Inc., and Valeo SA. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the automotive active grille shutter market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Automotive Active Grille Shutter Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist automotive active grille shutter market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the automotive active grille shutter market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the automotive active grille shutter market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of automotive active grille shutter market vendors

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019-2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by Application

Market segments

Comparison by Application

Passenger cars Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Commercial vehicles Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Application

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Overview

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd.

Brose Fahrzeugteile SE Co. KG

COMPAGNIE PLASTIC OMNIUM SE

Flex Ltd.

Ford Motor Co.

General Motors Co.

Magna International Inc.

Rochling SE Co. KG

SRG Global Inc.

Valeo SA

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Mr Kwaku Osei Bonsu, a Veteran Journalist, has urged the media to strive for objectivity and accuracy in their reportage as the nation prepares for the presidential and parliamentary elections on December 7.



What is at stake is the future of the nation. Our prospects and the choices that we will make will be based on the information we have, he said.



Mr Bonsu, the out-going Acting Director of Editorial of the Ghana News Agency (GNA), was speaking at a send-off ceremony held in his honour after 28 years of service to the nation through the GNA.



He rose through the ranks to become the Ag Director of Editorial, covered key local and international assignments and was the Presidential Correspondence during Former President John Agyekum Kufuors Administration.



Mr Bonsu said beyond the duty of journalists to report accurately was the crucial responsibility to ensure national cohesion and peace, especially in the election year.



As you cover the election, refuse to be manipulated, resist the pressures of your own opinions and ensure fair and balanced reportage, Mr Bonsu said.



He commended the staff for their support and hard work during his tenure, and urged them to rally in unity behind the incoming Director of Editorial, Mrs Beatrice Akua Savage, and remain supportive and disciplined to maintain the gains made.



Mr Albert Kofi Owusu, the General Manager of the GNA, praised Mr Bonsu for his support to the growth of the Agency and his exemplary leadership.



Mr Osei Bonsu has been a great advisor and a pillar of support to me, the Editorial Staff and the Agency in totality. His exemplary leadership is worthy of emulation, he said.

Mr Owusu said his special touch when dealing with various issues, even when those issues proved to be difficult, was highly commendable.



He urged the staff to aim towards impacting people positively, which was one of the legacies of the out-going Director of Editorial, work hard and take their assigned roles seriously to achieve more laurels for the Agency.



He wished Mr Bonsu well in his retirement and said the Agency would always contact him for his good counsel.



Mrs Beatrice Akua Savage, incoming Director of Editorial, urged the staff to emulate the good examples by Mr Bonsu and rally together in unity towards the progress of the Agency.



For the objectives of the Agency to be achieved, it is important that we apply the excellent tutorials, principles and discipline Mr Bonsu is leaving us with, she said.

She urged the staff to be committed to duty and avoid underhand schemes against each other to ensure a strong and united front.



The General Manager presented an undisclosed amount of money to Mr Bonsu while the Newsroom and Home Desk presented assorted items with a citation that read: The Editorial Department of the Ghana News Agency is much richer by your 28 years of distinguished service. With gratitude and love, we pray for Gods grace, strength and peace for you in your next chapter of life. Ayekoo!

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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A grieving mother whose baby was kidnapped, raped and murdered by her de facto after he brutally assaulted her in Western Australia's north has failed in her bid to have an inquest held, arguing police action contributed to the death.

Mervyn Bell attacked Tamica Mullaley on a Broome street, stripped her naked then drove off before returning and attempting to drive over her in March 2013.

He was not there when police arrived and arrested Ms Mullaley after she became aggressive.

Mervyn Bell attacked Tamica Mullaley (pictured) on a Broome street, stripped her naked then drove off before returning and attempting to drive over her in March 2013. He was not there when police arrived and arrested Ms Mullaley after she became aggressive

Bell then abducted 10-month-old Charles 'Charlie Boy' Mullaley (pictured) from two young neighbours who were caring for him while his mother was in custody

Bell then abducted 10-month-old Charles 'Charlie Boy' Mullaley from two young neighbours who were caring for him while his mother was in custody.

Bell proceeded to sexually abuse and torture the infant, inflicting broken bones, burns and bruises during a 15-hour road trip before the baby died.

Shortly after the abduction, Ms Mullaley's father called police, asking them to look for Bell, saying he had taken the child and threatened to kill him.

A Corruption and Crime Commission reviewed the internal police investigation into their response to that alarming report, finding it was delayed and ineffective but there was no serious misconduct.

A coroner investigated the death but did not hold an inquest, which Ms Mullaley called for last year, backed by the National Justice Project, which cited a section of the Coroner's Act that an inquest must be held if it appears a death was caused, or contributed to, by any police action.

Her request to the Supreme Court of WA was rejected on Wednesday.

Bell (pictured) proceeded to sexually abuse and torture the infant, inflicting broken bones, burns and bruises during a 15-hour road trip before the baby died

Ms Mullaley submitted police decided to leave Charlie in the care of the neighbours but the court found that was her decision.

'The police officers did not assume care of Charlie and did not, on the face of it, breach any obligation or depart from any norm or standard by not taking him into care and protection,' Justice Rene Le Miere said.

Bell was serving a minimum 27 years behind bars when he took his own life in 2015.

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This article is adapted from A Concerned Citizen, the final episode of Slow Burns fourth season.

The second televised debate between Edwin Edwards and David Duke took place on Nov. 6, 1991. That was 10 days before the runoff election to decide the next governor of Louisiana. Duke and Edwards sat onstage in a TV studio with a moderator between them. Four political journalists had been brought in to ask them questions. One of them was Norman Robinson.

Robinson was one of New Orleans best known and most respected news anchors. He was also a Black man. Hed considered, for a moment, not taking the debate assignment. But Robinson decided that he owed it to himself to meet David Duke head on.

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I considered it in the final analysis to be a challenge, he told me, to confront him and compartmentalize my anger.

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Robinson had been suppressing his rage for as long as he could remember. He was 4 years old in 1955, when Emmett Till was lynched in his home state of Mississippi. He was 5 when he saw the photos of Tills disfigured body, and when his parents told him, Thats what some white folks will do to you.

He was living in Mobile, Alabama, eight years later, when Klansmen bombed a church in Birmingham, murdering four Black girls who were just about his age.

It was an emotional time in our household. We were stunned. We were almost immobilized physically and mentally, Robinson said. I think its something that I tried to bury. But, you know, its still there. It never goes away.

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For Robinson, David Dukes rise in Louisiana felt like a scab getting pulled off an old wound. And he was done hiding his injuries. At the debate, he made his question to Duke a personal one:

Mr. Duke, I have to tell you, I am a very concerned citizen. I am a journalist. But first and foremost, I am a concerned citizen. And as a minority who has heard you say some very excoriating and diabolical things about minorities, about Blacks, about Jews, about Hispanics, I am scared, sir.

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By challenging Duke head-on, Robinson was making himself vulnerable. I wanted him to see me as a human being, not as some journalist, he explained.

But Robinson was a journalist. And on that stage, he showed that he could be both things at once: a human being who felt threatened by Duke and a reporter who could expose who Duke really was.

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Robinson had prepared for the debate using research from the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism. He chose to focus on Dukes own wordsstatements hed made to the graduate student Evelyn Rich in 1986, and in his televised debate with Jesse Jackson in 1977. Robinson didnt get his question approved in advance. And it wasnt until he was sitting in that studio, watching Duke deflect and evade, that he decided exactly how he wanted to phrase it.

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Norman Robinson: Ive heard you say that Jews deserve to be in the ash bin of history. Ive heard you say that horses contributed more to the building of America than Blacks did. Given that kind of past, sir, given that kind of diabolical, evil, vile mentality Moderator: Mr. Robinson Norman Robinson: Convince me. Moderator: Your question. Norman Robinson: Convince me, sir, and other minorities like me, why they should entrust their lives and the lives of their children to you.

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When the camera cut away from Robinson, he was staring straight at David Duke. When Duke appeared on screen, he cast his eyes downward before he began to speak.

Mr. Robinson, I dont think theres a human being on this earth or in this state who hasnt been at some time intolerant in their life. And I think thats true of white people. I think its true of Black people. I think its true of everybody at one time or another. You know, I regret some of the things that Ive said in my life. I have been too intolerant at times. No question about that. But thats not how I live today. And I hope thats not the way you live today. Maybe youve never said something in your life that could be taken as racially biased or concerned. Everybodys said things.

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Pressed by Robinson, Duke said he repudiated the Klan and any other racist or intolerant organization. This is how their exchange ended:

Duke: Theres a lot of racism that exists in all communities, not just the white community. Theres violence in our streets every day directed against white people as well as the other way around. Robinson: As well as Black people? As well as against Black people? Duke: Look, Mr. Robinson, I dont think youre really being fair with me. Robinson: I dont think youre really being honest, sir. Duke: Well, youre not. You know, youre doing the debate here, arent you? Youre not even asking questions. Youre here to put me down, and thats your prerogative.

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Robinson feels he succeeded in creating a human connection with Duke in the moment. Thats what made it so significantthat we got to the bottom of what it is that needed to be discussed, he said.

The television station that broadcast the debate got 150 calls after it was over. Most of them were from viewers complaining about Norman Robinson. The Times-Picayune published letters chiding the TV anchor for his extremely unprofessional behavior and his lack of objectivity. And then theres the mail that Robinson himself got:

One letter said, We thought you were intelligent. We thought you were of the same mind as us. Now we see your true colors. Youre just a nr with a suit. 

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For months, Robinson didnt go anywhere but work and home, and he started carrying a pistol. But he never regretted doing what he did.

Much of the campaign against Duke warned voters about the second-order effects of a Duke governorshiphow Louisianas reputation and economy might suffer because of how Duke was perceived. But in the debate, Robinson called out Dukes bigotry directly and unashamedly.

It was cathartic for me, in a sense. I got to confront a lot of demons that Id been suppressing for a long time. And I think it was liberating for a lot of people, Robinson said.

Listen to this full episode of Slow Burn below, or subscribe to Slow Burn on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join Slate Plus for your ad-free feed.
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The best Lifestyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel Lifestyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Shaynna Blaze and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand.
USA Rare Earth said today that production at its Round Top Mountain project will be powered by 100% renewable energy.

The U.S. government has thrown its support behind securing guaranteed supplies of rare earth. Currently China is the world's largest producer and exporter of rare earths.

At its Round Top Mountain, USA Rare Earths said the project contains 13 of the 35 minerals deemed critical by the Department of the Interior, and the company now said it has a way to power a future mine.>

"West Texas is widely recognized as one of the best places in the world for solar power. Hudspeth County reports 292 days of sunshine a year with annual average sunshine of approximately 10 hours per day," writes the company.

"USA Rare Earth estimates it will require approximately 15 MW to support mining and processing, which it estimates will require a solar farm of approximately 45 acres. This could increase if the Company decides to relocate its sintered neo magnet manufacturing facility and associated infrastructure to the Round Top Mountain site."

The company said it has a PEA showing an internal rate of return of 70% and average annual net revenues of $395 million a year after average royalties of $26 million a year payable to the State of Texas.

In Northwest Territories, Cabin Radio reported on Vital Metals, ;which runs a rare-earth minerals project east of Yellowknife.

Vital is creating a small demonstration plant, a $3.7 million ore sorting plant situated ina 40-foot long shipping container. Processing is set for the fall.

The original plan for the site called for a $1.5 billion open pit mine, which couldn't be supported by rare earth prices.
An African Union (AU) summit between the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan underscored the importance of reaching a legally binning deal on the filling and operation of a massive hydroelectric dam Addis Ababa is building on the Blue Nile that should include a mechanism for resolving disputes, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The virtual mini-summit summit was chaired by South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current head of the African Union, to discuss outstanding points of contention over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which has sparked years of tension with Cairo.

The meeting came after an 11-day round of talks mediated by the African Union failed to reach an accord over the massive hydropower project.

According to the Egyptian ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez, Tuesday's summit stressed that a legally binding dispute settlement mechanism would be the reference for interpreting and implementing the agreement  which is in line with the demands of Egypt and Sudan.

Addis Ababa, on the other hand, has repeatedly refused to include this mechanism in the deal, prompting Cairo to accuse it of seeking sole control of the river and looking to change the rules of operations unilaterally without the approval of the downstream countries.

Sudanese Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas told a press briefing on Tuesday that Addis Ababas major concern is that any agreement would curtail future development projects on the Blue Nile.

Abbas said once the agreement over this aspect is reached, Ethiopia will retain the right to amend some figures relating to the dams operation during drought periods.

A deal proposed by Sudan gives Ethiopia the right to build additional reservoirs and other projects as long it notifies the downstream countries and they are in line with international law, he added.

Agreeing on this main principle will facilitate reaching an agreement over other points, he said.

Sudan said last week that the three sides have agreed on binding mediation to resolve future disputes, and if the parties fail to reach consensus, the mediator will issue a final and binding decision".

The Egyptian foreign ministry said Wednesday that the leaders stressed that refraining from taking any "unilateral measures" on the project constitutes the cornerstone of making the negotiations successful.

Egypt fears the $4.8 billion hydropower dam will diminish its water supply and Sudan has expressed concerns that the project could endanger its own dams.

The summit called for focusing negotiations on the dam as a power generation project, not a water-consuming structure, and not involving aspects related to Ethiopias future aspirations in the talks, the ministry statement said.

The three countries have agreed to press ahead with negotiations, while giving a priority to reaching a binding deal on filling and operating the 6,000-megawatt dam near the border with Sudan. The countries will then work towards reaching a comprehensive agreement on joint cooperation, the ministry added.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement on Tuesday that the first-year target for filling the GERD has been reached, and that Egypt and Sudan have agreed on reaching major common understanding which paves the way for a breakthrough agreement.

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Women at Google lose out on thousands of dollars each year compared with men as a result of discriminatory practices including pushing female employees into lower-paying career tracks, a lawsuit has alleged.

The findings stem from an ongoing lawsuit brought against Google in 2017, which accused the tech company of gender pay discrimination between female employees  from coders to teachers in its in-house childcare department  and their male counterparts. More details about the extent of the pay disparity emerged in a memorandum filed in court on Tuesday to classify that lawsuit as a class action, which, if approved, would mean it applies to 10,800 women who have been employed by Google at any time since September 2013.

The women affected encompass a large variety of positions, and more than half are software engineers.

Women at Google make an average of $2,000 less per year than men on paper, but may be losing out on even more, David Neumark, a University of California Irvine distinguished professor of economics, found in a study cited in the lawsuit. His calculations showed women at Google may be losing out on $17,000 a year because of discriminatory job classifications.

Related: Fifth Google worker-activist fired in a month says company is targeting the vulnerable

Google has a pattern and practice of channeling women with comparable education and experience into lower-salary levels, James Finberg, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the case said.

The former employees bringing the lawsuit against Google have alleged the company tied starting salary to prior pay, perpetuating wage inequality. Google discontinued this practice in 2017, but has since failed to address the existing inequalities at the company, the lawsuit alleges.

Googles job classification system divides employees into different responsibility levels to determine tasks and compensation. Under that system, workers in the same job family at Google are those that are doing similar job duties and responsibilities but stratified at different levels of capabilities or skill sets. Different levels within each job family come with different salary grades. The lawsuit alleges women were consistently pushed into lower-level job tracks and paid less than men with similar job descriptions.

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Kelly Ellis, a plaintiff in the case, claimed she experienced this when she was first hired at Google. She felt she had enough experience to be placed at a higher responsibility level, but was told all employees are initially assigned a lower responsibility level and thus paid less.

Throughout my time at Google, I always felt like I was behind where I should have been and trying to catch up, she said. Later she learned that wasnt the case for her male colleagues: they had been assigned more responsibilities and higher pay from the beginning.

Ultimately Google paid women less base salary, smaller bonuses, and less stock than men in equal job codes and locations, the lawsuit alleges. The likelihood of such a disparity occurring by chance rather than by direct discrimination is 1 in 100, Neumarks analysis showed.

Heidi Lamar, another plaintiff in the case claims she experienced the same patterns in her position in the Google childcare facilities. She said Google management blamed it on her work quality or the performance in her initial job interview, but investigations as part of the lawsuit found this wasnt the case. In this discovery process, during which the legal team searched for evidence of discrimination, an evaluation of her interview showed she received high marks.

I felt very vindicated when I saw my interview scores were higher than my male colleagues, she said. I suspected as much, but it was nice to have it proven.

The discovery process revealed a number of systemic discriminations, including that 49% of people hired as Level 2 software engineers were women but that percentage dropped for higher level positions  22% for Level 3, 14.2% for Level 4, and 7.2% for Level 5. Ellis said that when she was hired, she was asked what she was paid at her previous job and given the same salary at Google.

I didnt really realize the full extent to which I was discriminated against until I stopped working there, and I realized even more being involved in this lawsuit just how blatant and what a pattern it all was, Ellis said.

To address pay equality, Google has been running yearly pay equity analyses since 2012, said Eileen Naughton, vice-president of People Operations at the company. As a result of these investigations the company made salary adjustments for 2% of employees in 2019, totaling $5.1m.

The claims in this lawsuit are unfounded and we plan to defend our policies and practices, Naughton said.

There will be a hearing for the case on 2 December.
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Oil rig construction company Lamprell plc. (LAM.L) Wednesday said it expects first-half EBITDA to be broadly breakeven reflecting the cost cutting measures, despite headwinds of COVID-19 and low oil prices. Revenue in the first half was $142 million. In its trading update, the company said its backlog as of June 30 increased to $580 million from $470 million as of December 31, 2019 following two new project wins in the first half of 2020. Net cash increased to $71.4 million at 30 June 2020 from $42.5 million at 31 Dec 2019 The company reported robust operational progress in the year to date period on all current projects. Both the IMI rigs and Moray East projects are progressing well and in line with expectations. COVID-19-related cost savings are expected to generate a $10 million reduction in costs in 2020. These are largely associated with a 25% reduction in fees, salaries and allowances for the Board, senior management and professional staff for the initial period of April through to September 2020. Further, the company remains on track to deliver a $24 million reduction in overheads as a result of operational restructuring. Group cost base in 2020 is anticipated to be approximately $80 million. Looking ahead, Christopher McDonald, CEO, Lamprell, said, 'There is good momentum in the business and our operational performance. The proactive actions we have taken on costs, and an active bid pipeline with exposure to buoyant regions in both oil & gas and renewables, provide us with confidence that we are successfully navigating the challenges of COVID-19 and the industry downturn.' Lamprell will announce its 2020 interim financial results on October 1. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Goya is good advertising for President Donald Trump as he tries to win Latino voters over Democrat Joe Biden.

The Trump campaign debuted a series of wild, new Spanish-language television and radio ads highlighting liberals' call to boycott Goya after the company's CEO Robert Unanue appeared at the White House on July 9 and praised Trump.

One of the radio ads goes from blasting Democrats for 'taking away my tacos' to saying they're 'burning churches and even the Virgin Mary' and then calls Biden 'the deportations guy,' according to the English translation.

A series of new Spanish language radio and television ads debuted featuring the recent controversy over Goya, a food company popular with Latinos

The ads feature President Donald Trump's Democratic rival Joe Biden linking him to the Goya boycott and liberal extremists

Joe Biden (left) and Bernie Sanders are both pictured in the TV ad, while a Goya-themed radio ad calls Biden 'the deportations guy'

The Trump campaign's Goya ad also features Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, linking AOC and other Democrats to leftist figures

Both the radio and TV ads stoke fears that Democrats are in line with socialists and leftist figures like Che Guevara

The ads capitalize on a controversy started after Goya CEO Robert Unanue (pictured) appeared at the White House on July 9 and praised President Donald Trump

Both President Donald Trump (left) and first daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump (right) have showed support for the company since liberals suggested boycotting it

Another radio ad says 'Democrats and their socialist mouthpieces want to shut down Goya just because its CEO visited the White House.'

'Many Hispanics would lose their jobs but Democrats like Joe Biden do not care,' it goes on. 'They're hypocrites and very extreme.'

The spot also warns Latino voters that Democrats 'want to raise our electric bills.'

'And Biden is too weak to defend us,' it says.

A third ad, which features a conversation between two Spanish-speaking women, has one saying, 'I think the Democrats have a loose screw mama.'

And another pointing out, 'And did you see them marching with the Che Guevara flag over by Biscayne?' which is a Miami-based reference.

The ads will target Florida's Latino voters.

The Trump campaign recruited actress Susana Perez to read the voiceover in the television ad, which shows imagery of Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez labeling them as extremists and socialists and linking them to leftists figures like Guevara.

Trump will likely need to win Florida again if he plans to beat Biden in the Electoral College.

He could do so with Latino voters who Biden is seeing less support from than Trump's 2016 rival Hillary Clinton.

In the 2020 Democratic primary, Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic-socialist, attracted a big chunk of the Democratic Latino vote, which allowed him to easily win the Nevada caucuses.

Biden, on the other hand, attracted protesters throughout the primary over the Obama administration's deportation record.
Heres the painful reality: It is likely that during the 2020-21 academic year, many school districts will have to shift back to full-time remote learning, some just for short periods and others for much longer stretches of time.

A growing number of school districts have already decided theyll be starting the year with full-time remote learning , acknowledging its widely regarded as the safest approach despite stern warnings from federal officials to reopen school buildings.

Schools and society at large have an advantage this time around, though: Nearly everyone experienced it in the spring, and the memories are still fresh. Efforts to bridge tech equity gaps that became evident in the spring are already underway , and more time to prepare reduces the risk of being caught off guard.

But that does not mean there still isnt a lot of work to be done. Experts are imploring schools to take steps now to account for the possibility that another rapid transition back to full-time remote learning will take place if the coronavirus continues to spread in most parts of the United States.

Heres how to get ready for that rapid transition:

Teachers

Continue to learn remote teaching skills even while schools are open

Some professional development programs will be mandatory, while others will be optional. Theyll cover basics like how to use the learning management system and steps for communicating more effectively with students. Teachers will also need training on establishing a remote learning cadence, balancing synchronous (live lessons) and asynchronous (assignments and projects completed anytime) teaching, finding supplementary online curriculum materials, and reconfiguring time management to remote teaching environments.

Share virtual teaching tips and online curriculum ideasnow!

District and school leaders are confronting difficult, high-stakes decisions as they plan for how to reopen schools amid a global pandemic. Through eight installments, Education Week journalists explore the big challenges education leaders must address, including running a socially distanced school, rethinking how to get students to and from school, and making up for learning losses. We present a broad spectrum of options endorsed by public health officials, explain strategies that some districts will adopt, and provide estimated costs.

At a time when everyone is stretched thin, teachers can help each other by sharing lesson plans and curriculum materials, and by sharing expertise and tips on online tools with each other. They can also team up to reshape the curriculum with virtual learning in mind, by cutting out excess material and leaving more room for the fundamentals. Teachers who are comfortable working with students remotely might be assigned populations of students who most benefit from carefully designed, personalized remote instruction.

This idea that a teacher walks into the room, closes the door, and shes the queen of her castle, that often doesnt produce as good of results as when you have folks that are team teaching in a way where folks can do things to their strengths, said Michael Barbour, an associate professor of instructional design at Touro University California.

Require that students use the learning management system

Lack of experience using learning management systems was a problem in many places last spring when schools pivoted to remote learning. Even if most students are in school buildings, educators can prepare them for a potential shift to full-time virtual learning by requiring that at least one assignment per week is done online, and by using the learning management system as the primary hub for course materials.

Teachers can also get the school year off on the right foot by working with students and parents to turn off unnecessary email and text notifications that the district automatically sends to parents and students.

Principals

Anticipate more emails and online feedback from parents

At-home learning gives parents a daily window into the classroom that they dont have when students are in school buildings. That means some will gain a new appreciation for the hard work teachers do, while others will find more opportunities to be critical of their kids teachers and schools.

In almost all cases, parents will need more help than they usually do, whether theyre seeking information about technology tools or guidance on how to help their child learn within the limited windows of time they have. Some districts are creating online parent academies  that anticipate as many questions parents might have as possible. Preparing those materials ahead of time also reduces the burden on staff to answer emails and phone calls once the school year starts.

Construct and distribute a readiness assessment

The school needs to know whether parents want or need to send their children to the physical building; what kind of digital device and broadband access students will have if they stay home; and whether students living situations and learning habits are conducive to virtual education. Teachers will also need to have a plan for how to gauge students progress through the learning material given the disruptions this spring.

Its particularly important to understand the additional support students feel they would need to learn more effectively at home. Children of essential workers should be prioritized in this data-gathering operation, as theyre most likely to need additional support while their families are not at home during the school day.

Those plans will help guide the districts next steps, which could include:

purchasing and distributing mobile hotspots

dispatching Wi-Fi-equipped buses to communities underserved by internet service providers

establishing an emergency IT repair desk to handle quick fixes on students essential equipment

developing a list of students who will most need in-person support this fall

Explore external partnerships

State-run online schools as well as local virtual charters and online education support organizations have spent years developing resources that could be useful for districts getting up to speed with remote learning. Priorities should include:

Borrowing or adapting digital content thats already proved effective in virtual classrooms

Gaining insights and best practices from virtual teachers experiences

Establishing partnerships to share online courses and minimize duplication of resources

Tech Leaders

Get everything uploaded online

Dont assume teachers and students know how to productively use even the most familiar or basic technology programs. Offer frameworks and structures that teachers can mimic for structuring content in the online platforms they use to deliver content to students. A primary goal should be getting as many learning materials as possible into a digital environment, in time for the start of the school year regardless of the reopening strategy. Similarly, schools should prioritize developing a consistent standard for measuring attendance/engagement and, where necessary, adopting a technology platform that can help teachers easily track those metrics for students.

Professional development opportunities will be most valuable to teachers if they mimic the delivery method of a course their students will experience this fall. For instance, If students will be learning at home using digital tools, professional development for teachers should be offered using those same digital tools, so teachers can see how students will experience them.

Advocate for low-cost internet access

Many internet service providers have been offering discounts on broadband service to households that need it during the pandemic. Some of those offers expired this summer, and new ones are cropping up as the new school year approaches. Keep track of the available offerings in your area, and if they arent sufficient to address access gaps in your district, contact those providers and advocate for increased access. Be mindful of specific areas within your district that might need special attention, such as Native or rural communities.

Ed-tech groups are also calling on Congress to provide billions of dollars to improve broadband infrastructure nationwide.

Carefully vet tech products and scrap those that didnt work

Decisions to sign contracts with technology providers should be driven by schools demonstrated needs , and governed by principles including keeping students data safe and secure, and avoiding or minimizing bias perpetuated by algorithms. Whenever possible, schools should consult usage data from the spring, combined with qualitative insights from students and teachers, to get a clear picture of the technology needs and to identify products that might not be worth another investment.
A California district judge ruled on Tuesday against the Socialist Equality Partys lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional the ballot access requirements in the state for the 2020 presidential elections during the coronavirus pandemic.

In her 12-page decision on Joseph Kishore, et al. v. Gavin Newsom, et al., Judge Dolly M. Gee of the US District Court of the Central District of California ruled that SEP candidates Joseph Kishore for US president and Norissa Santa Cruz for US vice president must collect the signatures of 200,000 voters on nominating petitions in order to appear on the ballot.

In their lawsuit, filed on June 30, the SEP candidates, who are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, challenged Californias requirement that they gather and submit nearly 200,000 physical signatures over 15 weeks from April 24 to August 7 to obtain ballot status for the November 3, 2020, election.

The case was filed against Californias Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who are the defendants, and called on the court to impose a mandatory injunction blocking the states petitioning requirements as effectively impossible to satisfy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The California Attorney Generals office responded on behalf of Newsom and Padilla on July 12, arguing that the SEP lawsuit, if victorious, would result in an unmanageable and overcrowded ballot for the November presidential general election that would cause voter confusion and frustration of the democratic process.

In response to the states filing, the SEP filed a reply on July 15 comprehensively substantiating Kishore and Santa Cruzs case that the requirement of collecting 200,000 physical signatures during the pandemic was impossible, in light of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and the states countermeasures to it.

In her ruling yesterday, Judge Gee wrote that while the SEP candidates concerns about in-person contact with potential voters during a pandemic were understandable, they did not meet the burden of demonstrating that such contact would be deadly when undertaken with recommended safety precautions, such as social distancing, the wearing of face coverings, and proper hygiene.

Providing an example of how SEP petitioning for ballot status should supposedly be conducted during the pandemic, Judge Gee stated that consumers regularly are required to line up outside of grocery stores and other open public establishments at least six feet apartnothing would have prevented Plaintiffs signature gatherers from distributing leaflets, posting signs, or otherwise engaging with interested voters (from a safe distance) on how they may sign nominating petitions or register to vote near the entrance to a supermarket, train station, or other public place.

Based on this reasoning, Judge Gee determined that the pandemic and the lockdown did not severely burden the SEP candidates ability to get on the ballot.

Judge Gee also claimed that the SEP had a path to ballot access other than collecting 200,000 physical signatures on petitions, which allegedly involved registering 68,000 California residents as Socialist Equality Party voters. She writes, There are many ways to drum up voter registration, several of which do not require in-person contact, appearing in public, leaving the home, or the use of the mails, which Plaintiffs decry as prohibitively expensive.

At the oral arguments on Monday, the SEP candidates attorneys pointed out that this reasoning effectively punishes them for failing to have a time machine. Registering people as party voters is much more difficult than gaining physical signatures, and if the SEP had wanted to attempt to gain ballot access through that method, it would have begun those efforts in 2019.

Judge Gee also responded to the SEPs observation that early in the campaignwhen Governor Newsom imposed a state of emergency and issued a stay-at-home orderthe guidance from the state was vague, difficult to find and stated only that election personnel were considered essential workers.

Judge Gee writes, But even assuming that is true, California clarified in early May and early June that election-related activities and signature gathering were essential activities exempted from the stay-at-home mandate.

Elsewhere in the ruling, Judge Gee says that California remedied any such confusion by June 5, 2020 at the latest by uploading an exception to a Q&A web page.

In their most recent legal brief, filed on July 15, the SEP candidates wrote that the uploading of these vague phrases to an obscure Q&A web page never viewed by Plaintiffs is not sufficient to trigger an obligation for Plaintiffs to begin collecting signatures... Most importantly, none of this has any bearing on whether signature-gathering was safe.

Judge Gee also claimed that the SEP should have filed its lawsuit earlier, instead of delaying until late June. In summing up her decision, Judge Gee writes, Plaintiffs have not shown that they exercised reasonable diligence to maximize their efforts to appear on the ballot in November 2020. The Court therefore concludes that Californias ballot-access requirements and stay-at-home orders do not significantly impair Plaintiffs access to the ballot.

Finally, in a footnote on page 11 of the ruling, Judge Gee acknowledges that the SEP lawsuit is calling on the court to impose a mandatory injunction against the states ballot access laws and proceed one step further by affirmatively ordering California to place them on the ballot or, in the alternative, order California to adopt an easier-to-satisfy access requirement, adding, Put simply, Plaintiffs essentially ask the Court to write their names onto Californias ballot by judicial fiat. For the reasons addressed above, the Court cannot do so.

I think that what is basically ridiculous is that they are treating our gathering of signatures as supposedly essential, equating it with people getting food or health care, said Norissa Santa Cruz, reacting to the ruling.

This is not an essential activity. Health care workers are essential. Firefighters are essential. Gathering signatures outside of a Costco during a deadly pandemic involving an airborne contagion is not essential. This is an obstacle that the state has placed between us and our participation in the elections.

What if one of our supporters got sick? Or what if someone died? Would we still be expected to gather 200,000 signatures? Nobody has answered these questions. She continued, This is the same callous attitude that is being displayed towards teachers and other workers who are being sent back into their workplaces before it is safe for them to do so.

California is refusing to provide us with a safe way to get on the ballot, she said. We disagree with this decision and intend to appeal.
Dublin, July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) - Market Insights, Epidemiology and Market Forecast - 2030" drug pipelines has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



This report delivers an in-depth understanding of the disease, historical & forecasted epidemiology as well as the market trends of CKD in the United States, EU5 (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom) and Japan.



The report provides the current treatment practices, emerging drugs, market share of the individual therapies, current and forecasted market size of Chronic kidney disease (CKD) from 2017 to 2030 segmented by seven major markets. The report also covers current treatment practice/algorithm, market drivers, market barriers and unmet medical needs to curate best of the opportunities and assess underlying potential of the market.



Epidemiology



The Chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemiology division provide the insights about historical and current patient pool and forecasted trend for every seven major countries. It helps to recognize the causes of current and forecasted trends by exploring numerous studies and views of key opinion leaders. This part of The report also provides the diagnosed patient pool and their trends along with assumptions undertaken.



Key Findings



The disease epidemiology covered in the report provides historical as well as forecasted epidemiology (Diagnosed Prevalent cases of CKD, Prevalent cases of CKD by stage, Prevalent cases of CKD by etiologies, Comorbidities associated with CKD, Dialysis dependency in CKD) scenario of Chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the 7MM covering United States, EU5 countries (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom) and Japan from 2017-2030. According to the publisher, the total number of prevalent cases of Chronic kidney disease (CKD) in 7 MM was found to be 122,704,658 in the year 2017.



Drug Chapters



This segment of the Chronic Kidney Disease report encloses the detailed analysis of marketed drugs and late stage (Phase-III and Phase-II) pipeline drugs. It also helps to understand the clinical trial details, expressive pharmacological action, agreements and collaborations, approval and patent details and the latest news and press releases.



The chronic kidney disease (CKD) drugs market is categorized on the basis of drug class such as Erythropoietin stimulating agents (ESA), Angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors and Angiotensin receptor blockers (ACE-I and ARBs), Antidiabetics, Secondary Hyperparathyroidism Treatment (SHPT), and Urate Lowering Therapies.



Marketed Drugs



Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa): Amgen



Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa) is an erythropoiesis-stimulating protein that is produced in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells by recombinant DNA technology. It is a synthetic form of erythropoietin that stimulates erythropoiesis (increases red blood cell levels) and is used to treat anemia, commonly associated with chronic renal failure and cancer chemotherapy and works similar like endogenous erythropoietin



Emerging Drugs



Daprodustat: GlaxoSmithKline



Daprodustat is an oral hypoxia-inducible factor prolyl hydroxylase inhibitor. The product is being developed by GlaxoSmithKline and company has filed the application to the Japan authorities for the treatment of Anemia Associated with Chronic Kidney Disease.



Market Outlook



The Chronic kidney disease market outlook of the report helps to build the detailed comprehension of the historic, current and forecasted trend of the market by analyzing the impact of current therapies on the market, unmet needs, drivers and barriers and demand of better technology.



This segment gives a through detail of market trend of each marketed drug and late-stage pipeline therapy by evaluating their impact based on annual cost of therapy, inclusion and exclusion criteria's, mechanism of action, compliance rate, growing need of the market, increasing patient pool, covered patient segment, expected launch year, competition with other therapies, brand value, their impact on the market and view of the key opinion leaders. The calculated market data are presented with relevant tables and graphs to give a clear view of the market at first sight.



According to the publisher, the market of Chronic kidney disease in 7MM is expected to undergo a major positive shift during the course of the study period (2017-2030). Among the 7MM, the United States accounts for the largest market size of CKD, in comparison to EU5 (the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain) and Japan. As per the analysis the market size for CKD is expected to increase with a CAGR of 5.9% during the forecast period for 7MM.



Drugs Uptake



This section focuses on the rate of uptake of the potential drugs recently launched in the market or will get launched in the market during the study period from 2017-2030. The analysis covers market uptake by drugs; patient uptake by therapies and sales of each drug.



This helps in understanding the drugs with the most rapid uptake, reasons behind the maximal use of new drugs and allows the comparison of the drugs on the basis of market share and size which again will be useful in investigating factors important in market uptake and in making financial and regulatory decisions.



Chronic Kidney Disease Pipeline Development Activities



The report provides insights into different therapeutic candidates in Phase II, and Phase III stage. It also analyses Chronic Kidney Disease key players involved in developing targeted therapeutics.



Reimbursement Scenario



Approaching reimbursement proactively can have a positive impact both during the late stages of product development and well after product launch. In report we take reimbursement into consideration to identify economically attractive indications and market opportunities. When working with finite resources, the ability to select the markets with the fewest reimbursement barriers can be a critical business & price strategy.



KOL - Views



To keep up with current market trends, we take KOLs and SME's opinion working in Chronic Kidney Disease domain through primary research to fill the data gaps and validate our secondary research. Their opinion helps to understand and validate current and emerging therapies treatment patterns or Chronic Kidney Disease market trend. This will support the clients in potential upcoming novel treatment by identifying the overall scenario of the market and the unmet needs.



Competitive Intelligence Analysis



The publisher performs Competitive & Market Intelligence analysis of the Chronic Kidney Disease Market by using various Competitive Intelligence tools that includes - SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter's five forces, BCG Matrix, Market entry strategies etc. The inclusion of the analysis entirely depends upon the data availability.



Scope of the Report

Story continues

The report covers the descriptive overview of Chronic Kidney Disease, explaining its causes, signs and symptoms, pathophysiology and currently available therapies

Comprehensive insight has been provided into the Chronic Kidney Disease epidemiology and treatment in the 7MM

Additionally, an all-inclusive account of both the current and emerging therapies for Chronic Kidney Disease are provided, along with the assessment of new therapies, which will have an impact on the current treatment landscape

A detailed review of Chronic Kidney Disease market; historical and forecasted is included in the report, covering drug outreach in the 7MM

The report provides an edge while developing business strategies, by understanding trends shaping and driving the global Chronic Kidney Disease market

Report Highlights

In the coming years, Chronic Kidney Disease market is set to change due to the rising awareness of the disease, and incremental healthcare spending across the world; which would expand the Size of the market to enable the drug manufacturers to penetrate more into the market

The companies and academics are working to assess challenges and seek opportunities that could influence Chronic Kidney Disease R&D. The therapies under development are focused on novel approaches to treat/improve the disease condition

Major players are involved in developing therapies for Chronic Kidney Disease. Launch of emerging therapies, will significantly impact the Chronic Kidney Disease market

A better understanding of disease pathogenesis will also contribute to the development of novel therapeutics for Chronic Kidney Disease

The in-depth analysis of the pipeline assets across different stages of development (Phase III and Phase II), different emerging trends and comparative analysis of pipeline products with detailed clinical profiles, key cross-competition, launch date along with product development activities will support the clients in the decision-making process regarding their therapeutic portfolio by identifying the overall scenario of the research and development activities

Companies Mentioned



Amgen

Amag Pharmaceuticals

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals

Abbvie

Vifor Pharma

OPKO Health

Chong Kun Dang Pharmaceutical

GlaxoSmithKline

Akebia Therapeutics

FibroGen/Astellas Pharma/AstraZeneca

Boehringer Ingelheim

Tricida

AstraZeneca

Corvidia Therapeutics

Reata Pharmaceuticals

For more information about this drug pipelines report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/2xm0y2

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

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Cats could be subject to overnight lockdown orders in a Darebin Council bid to stop the household pets from slaughtering native birds and animals.

The council, which takes in a swath of Melbourne's north from Northcote through to Reservoir, has been surveying residents for support on a "dusk to dawn" cat curfew.

Reservoir cat owner Greg Giannis with Grover. Credit:Chris Hopkins

In a previous survey of 269 residents, 49.4 per cent of people said a cat curfew would be "very effective". The council is testing support for a curfew between 7pm and 7am, as part of its Domestic Animal Management Plan.

Greg Giannis and his family have always kept Grover the cat indoors since adopting him from the RSPCA's Epping Animal Welfare Facility earlier this year.
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Linkedin Eisya A. Eloksari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, July 23, 2020 21:56 545 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406687dca8 1 Business cybersecurity,malware,phishing,Palo-Alto Free

Indonesian companies plan to increase their cybersecurity budget this year amid the high number of cyberattacks during the pandemic, signalling a growing awareness and commitment in digital safety, a survey by a cybersecurity company shows.

US-based Palo Alto Networks stated that, based on the firms survey in February, around 84 percent of Indonesian companies planned to raise their IT budget this year, 44 percent of which would allocate more than half of their IT budget to cybersecurity investment.

The number of companies in Indonesia committed to increasing the IT budget is higher than the ASEAN average of 73 percent.

Almost all companies in the country have put cybersecurity as their business enabler in this digital era, said Palo Alto Networks Indonesia country manager Surung Sinamo in a press briefing on July 15. This shows that we are moving on the right track in terms of digital safety awareness.

He went on to say that the top reasons these companies increased their budget were to tackle the growing number of sophisticated cyberattacks, upgrade their existing security framework and keep up with competitors.

Attackers are now using artificial intelligence, so it is important for businesses to start relying on automation such as machine learning for security, he said, adding that one of Palo Alto Networks banking clients had seen a 200 percent increase in cyberattacks during COVID-19 compared to usual.

Indonesia recorded more than 88 million cyberattacks during the first four months of the year, with more than half of the cyberattacks being malware and phishing scams, according to the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN).

In May, three Indonesian e-commerce platforms, including Tokopedia, reportedly experienced data breaches in which their customers' details were stolen, which were then sold on the dark web.

A report by American tech company Microsoft, titled Security Endpoint Threat Report 2019, stated that developing countries, including Indonesia, were most vulnerable to malware and ransomware threats in 2019.

Read also: IBM advises tighter cybersecurity in new remote work era

In line with the finding, the survey revealed that most of the companies considered having antimalware and antivirus software as the most important cybersecurity tools.

Companies are overwhelmed by the complexity of multiple security tools. They need a single platform that can give them integrated protection from cyberattacks, he said. But as Indonesian companies increase their cybersecurity investment, there is a willingness to fix this and become more confident.

However, despite efforts to enhance their security, 44 percent of Indonesian companies still lack confidence in their cybersecurity investments.

Surung said the reason for the lack of confidence was that companies were doubtful in their employees' cybersecurity awareness, or the fact that their security infrastructure was outdated as well as a lack of end-to-end protection.

Palo Alto Networks survey also showed that companies considered digital payment and e-commerce platforms as the top window for attackers to take advantage of. The reason was both platforms contained much financial data that hackers could immediately use for personal gain, Surung added.

According to Bank Indonesia, electronic transactions increased to Rp 15 trillion (US$1 billion) in May compared to Rp 12.8 trillion in the same period last year. Meanwhile, the central bank recorded e-commerce transactions growing 26 percent during the pandemic.

Surung stated that 39 percent of companies were most concerned about losing their external data such as user information, while 37 percent were worried about internal data loss such as employees personal data.

E-commerce platform Blibli.com senior manager of information security Ricky Setiadi told The Jakarta Post on July 17 that malware and phishing attacks were some of the main threats Blibli continuously took precautions for, as both were potential entrance points for further data breaches.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to cybersecurity risk profiles that diverge from those seen during normal conditions, he said. Therefore, we have adapted our budgets to conduct the necessary system and protocol upgrades to address the shift in risk profiles and maintain the integrity of our security systems.

Similarly, e-wallet provider LinkAja chief technology officer Arman Hazairin said in an e-mail on July 16 that the company also experienced increased transactions during the pandemic, which led to added supervising and preventive measures to increase cybersecurity.

This means allocating more resources, including funds, people and time, for cybersecurity, he said.

While e-wallet platform DANA refused to comment on its cybersecurity budget, the companys communication vice president Steve Saerang said that it was already equipped with an artificial intelligence-based risk engine to analyze unusual transactions and biometric verification as fraud prevention measures.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The global soap dispenser market size is anticipated to reach USD 1.84 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 5.3% from 2020 to 2027. Increasing focus on cleanliness and hygiene among consumers has resulted in rising frequency of washing hands, which, in turn, is expected to drive the market in coming years.

Key suggestions from the report:

By product, automatic soap dispenser is projected to be the fastest growing segment with a CAGR of 6.0% over the forecast period

The residential application segment was valued at USD 447.0 million in 2019

North America held the largest share in 2019 and is foreseen to remain at the forefront in the forecast period.

Read 80 page research report with ToC on "Soap Dispenser Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Automatic, Manual), By Application (Residential, Commercial), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2027" at:https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/soap-dispenser-market

With the advent of new technology, soap dispensers have become the bath and kitchen essentials. A soap dispenser is a device that usually dispenses soap in small quantities for single use, when triggered correctly. Rapid growth of the bathroom fittings industry is offering lucrative opportunities for soap dispenser manufacturers. In addition, rising demand for multi-functional soap dispensers that are aesthetically appealing and complement other plumbing fixtures is boosting the market growth.

Continuous expansion in the commercial construction sector has also paved the way for plumbing fixtures, including soap dispensers. The hospitality sector in particular, which includes hotels, resorts, and hospitals, is enhancing the need for soap dispensers in these segments. For instance, according to the London Hotel Development Monitor Report 2018, the hotel industry in London is expected to add around 11,600 rooms to its hotel market by the end of 2020. With rising number of hotels and other commercial establishments, the need for proper hygiene and sanitation facilities is expected to increase, thereby propelling the demand for soap dispensers in coming years.

By product type, automatic soap dispensers are foreseen to witness significant growth in the forecast period owing to rising application in the commercial and residential sectors. Increased spending on renovating bathroom fixtures has driven the application of automatic soap dispensers in bathrooms across the residential sector. However, rising penetration of smart bathrooms across restaurants, hotels, resorts, and other commercial spaces has boosted the application of automatic soap dispensers as an integral component of bathroom fittings. For instance, in 2018, U.S. had more than 620,000 eating and drinking places and this count is foreseen to increase in coming years. This is expected to generate significant demand for soap dispenser over the forecast period.

Asia Pacific is foreseen to register the fastest CAGR of 6.2% over the forecast period. Continuous expansion of the residential sector and commercial spaces, including restaurants, hotels, educational institutes, hospitals, and corporate offices, in emerging countries, such as China, Indian, and Indonesia, is foreseen to drive the demand for soap dispenser over the forecast period. In Asia Pacific, China is expected to hold a dominant market share and projected to witness notable growth over the forecast period. It is attributed to growing China's hospitality industry in cities, such as Hong Kong, Macau, and Haitang Bay, which is expected to create positive outlook for the market.

Grand View Research has segmented the global Soap Dispenser Market based on product, application and region:

Soap Dispenser Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

Automatic



Manual

Soap Dispenser Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

Residential



Corporate Offices



Commercial



Educational Institutions



Healthcare



Public Places



Transportation

Soap Dispenser Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2016 - 2027)

North America



U.S.



Europe



Germany





U.K



Asia Pacific



China





India



Central & South America



Brazil



Middle East & Africa

&

South Africa

List of Key Players of Soap Dispenser Market

Toto Ltd.



Kohler Co.



ASI American Specialties, Inc.



simplehuman



Bradley Corporation



GOJO Industries, Inc.



Bobrick Washroom Equipment, Inc.



Duravit AG



Georgia-Pacific LLC



Sloan Valve Company

Find more research reports on Homecare & Decor Industry, by Grand View Research:

Electronic Soap Dispenser Market - The global electronic soap dispenser market size valued at USD 668.3 million in 2018 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.0% from 2019 to 2025.

in 2018 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.0% from 2019 to 2025. Water Dispenser Market - The global water dispenser market size was valued at USD 1.95 billion in 2018. The market is estimated to expand further at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2019 to 2025.

in 2018. The market is estimated to expand further at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2019 to 2025. Air Freshener Dispenser Market - The global air freshener dispenser market size was valued at USD 4.9 billion in 2018 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 15.2% from 2019 to 2025.

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About Grand View Research

Grand View Research, U.S.-based market research and consulting company, provides syndicated as well as customized research reports and consulting services. Registered in California and headquartered in San Francisco, the company comprises over 425 analysts and consultants, adding more than 1200 market research reports to its vast database each year. These reports offer in-depth analysis on 46 industries across 25 major countries worldwide. With the help of an interactive market intelligence platform, Grand View Research helps Fortune 500 companies and renowned academic institutes understand the global and regional business environment and gauge the opportunities that lie ahead.

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THE ISSUE:

An inexperienced Cuomo insider might be on track to head the SUNY system.

THE STAKES:

In this time of crisis, SUNY needs an independent chancellor with experience.

---

If you were charged with picking the next State University of New York chancellor, would you choose:

A.) A person with a track record of success running a university system that approaches the complexity and dynamism of the sprawling 64-campus SUNY network, or ...

B.) A confidante of Gov. Andrew Cuomo with very limited experience in higher education?

The better choice is option A, obviously, but the SUNY Board of Trustees is under pressure to instead give the job to Jim Malatras, a 42-year-old friend of the governor who has been president of SUNY Empire State College for just over a year.

As the Times Union's Rachel Silberstein reports, Dr. Malatras is considered energetic and talented  a bit of a policy wonk. Less attractively, he is also known for an aggressive management style and a volcanic temper.

The bigger concern, though, is that Dr. Malatras simply lacks the experience required to run one of the nation's biggest university systems. The Delmar resident's biggest qualification seems to be his membership in Mr. Cuomo's inner circle.

With all due respect, SUNY can and should do better. With Chancellor Kristina Johnson stepping down in September, such an important job  guardian of one of New York's true public jewels  should not simply be handed to a Cuomo loyalist and should not be filled without a thorough national search for the best candidate.

Almost surely, a national search would uncover prospects who are better qualified that Dr. Malatras. It could also bring forward candidates possessing what should be a prerequisite: independence.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

Anyone who pays even a little attention to state government understands that Mr. Cuomo tries to extend his sphere of control as widely as possible, and the governor would certainly like to add the SUNY system to the areas of state government under his thumb.

That wouldn't be what's best for SUNY's employees and its more than 420,000 students (more than 2 million when adult education is added in). They need a strong, experienced and authoritative chancellor who will put their interests ahead of Mr. Cuomo's. They need a leader willing to stand up to the governor as crucial policy and budgetary decisions are made.

That's especially true at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has turned higher education upside down, posing an existential crisis for some SUNY campuses that face enrollment declines and severe budget shortfalls. SUNY has never more urgently needed experienced, credible leadership.

But so far, the system's Board of Trustees has not announced a vote on whether to conduct a search for SUNY's next chancellor. That it has failed to do so a full seven weeks after Dr. Johnson publicly announced her departure should concern those who value public higher education in New York.

SUNY needs a truly independent chancellor. The Board of Trustees can demonstrate its own independence by attempting to hire one.
Gilbert Garcia remembers making a pitch to manage a large bond portfolio when someone on the other side of the table proclaimed that Garcia, Hamilton and Associates was just too white to count as a Hispanic asset management firm.

Garcia, the managing partner, looked around the table, where eight of his firms 10 top executives were Hispanic. Then he realized the problem.

Theres an image of what they think a Hispanic should look like, and thats what were reminded of every day in our natural business lives, Garcia told a recent Securities and Exchange Commission hearing.

In some ways, though, that was an improvement.

Ive been told point-blank by a consultant that they would never hire us because we dont have enough white, male partners, he added.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: WANTED: CEO to fight income inequality by cutting executive pay

Garcia still has grown his company to manage $15 billion in assets, the largest based in Houston. The SEC has also made Garcia chair of an advisory committee examining institutional and systemic racism in the asset management industry.

Pension funds, university endowments and family trusts hire asset managers to oversee their investments, usually based on the recommendation of independent consulting firms. Minority and women-owned firms manage only 1.3 percent of the $71 trillion in assets under management, according to the Knight Foundation, a proportion that has not changed in a decade.

There are only two possible explanations for this disparity. Either minorities and women cannot manage money as well as white men, or the old-boys club on Wall Street is not giving minority and women-owned firms a chance.

Statistically, firms owned by minorities and women are consistently over-represented among the top-performing asset managers. That leaves only one possibility.

I have never seen anything like the bias I have encountered at the most elite levels around asset management, said Robert Raben, founder of the Washington-based Raben Group, which helps Americas top corporations promote diversity and inclusion.

In Rabens surveys of the top funds, endowments, asset managers and investment consultants, most senior executives refuse to acknowledge demographics matter, and two-thirds refuse to disclose their ethnic and gender mix.

When the SEC recently asked for demographic information in an annual survey, only 69 or 1,367 regulated entities bothered to answer.

Most white people do not want to have this conversation, Raben concluded.

Until recently, the SEC also has demurred. The financial industry declares that numbers do not lie, and if minority or female traders perform well, they will be rewarded. But heres the problem: most minorities and women never get a tryout.

The critical chokepoint is the investment consulting firm, which funds hire to help them find the best asset managers. The top 10 consulting firms have 80 percent of the market share, Garcia explained. If those consultants do not consider your firm, you dont get work.

Consulting firms tend to equate minority or woman-owned asset managers as emerging companies, a place to put only a small amount of money, despite their track records, Rabens research shows. When a minority firm underperforms, the assumption is that all will underperform. When a female manager outperforms, shes considered an exception, not proof that gender does not matter.

Theres also tokenism, where a consultant recommends that non-white, non-male firms only get so much business. Consultants worry about overexposing investors to minority-owned asset managers, a concern that never comes up with a white-owned firm, Raben added.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Americans must address protesters social and economic grievances

During the SEC hearing last week, no one even hinted at establishing quota-based affirmative action. No one believes that an investor should sacrifice return on investment to hire a minority or female asset manager.

The argument was the opposite. We know that diverse and inclusive boards of directors and management teams consistently make more money than companies with white, male-only leadership. The real problem is that predominately white and male firms are underperforming for their clients.

Minority and women-owned companies are overrepresented among the top-performing firms not because minorities and women are smarter, but because diversity in thinking produces a higher return on investment. Perhaps not every time, but more often than not. Too many funds are hiring their buddies to manage assets, not the best firm for the job.

Garcia wants consultants and investors to question their assumptions that have produced todays stark disparities. By looking at the statistics, perhaps they will recognize the financial value in diversity and inclusion rather than consider it a politically-correct requirement.

Whether at protests or in an SEC hearing, Americans are recognizing that race and gender diversity is not only about justice but also about profit.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

twitter.com/cltomlinson

chris.tomlinson@chron.com
- Vice Ganda shared his reaction to the rumor online regarding his showbiz career

- According to the rumor, TV5 rejected hiring Vice due to his P3-million talent fee

- The said rumor surfaced after Vices home network, ABS-CBN, got shut down due to its franchise renewal issue

- However, the superstar comedian completely denied the rumor, calling it fake news

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Vice Ganda (Photo from Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/saraabend/15431245156)

Source: Instagram

Vice Ganda took to social media to share his reaction to the rumor online regarding his showbiz career.

KAMI learned that the rumor says TV5 rejected hiring Vice due to his P3-million talent fee.

The said rumor surfaced after Vices home network, ABS-CBN, got shut down due to its franchise renewal issue.

However, the comedian completely denied the rumor, calling it fake news. He also cursed at the people who created the fake news about him and TV5.

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Mga ulul! Mga bulaang ulul! #Pekfakenews, Vice posted on his Instagram stories.

Screenshot by Fashion Pulis

Source: Instagram

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Vice Ganda is a famous actor, comedian, television host, and recording artist in the Philippines. He starred in many blockbuster movies including Praybeyt Benjamin."

The Kapamilya comedian recently buzzed the online community after he walked out during the opening number of ABS-CBN's It's Showtime after becoming emotional.

He was also featured in GMA-7's 24 Oras alongside other executives from ABS-CBN after the news show reported the media giant's current issue with their franchise renewal. Vice Ganda also slammed those who are responsible for shutting down the Kapamilya network.

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Ranchi, July 22 : Jharkhand reported a record number of more than 500 coronavirus cases including a former minister, health officials said on Wednesday.

BJP Ranchi legislator and former Minister C.P. Singh informed on Twitter that he has tested positive for coronavirus. "I am corona positive. Those who have come in contact with me should get themselves tested," Singh tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.

Jharkhand has registered a record number of 510 coronavirus positive cases in the last 24 hours, including 120 in Ranchi, taking the total number to more than 6,200.

In the last 24 hours more than seven deaths have been reported in the state taking the death toll to 62.

As per the data provided by the health department, the number of active cases in the state is 3,192.

In the last 24 hours 107 people have recovered and have been discharged from various dedicated Covid-19 facilities in the state including 21 in Hazaribagh followed by 20 from Giridih, 12 patients from East Singhbhum, 11 from West Singhbhum, 10 each from Ramgarh and Koderma, 8 from Deoghar, 7 from Dumka, 3 from Bokaro, 2 from Godda and 1 from Palamu.

Jharkhand had reported its first coronavirus case on March 31 when a Malaysian woman had tested positive for Covid-19.

Due to the rampant rise in coronavirus cases across the state the recovery rate of Covid-19 patients has plummeted to 47.48 per cent.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-21 22:54:26|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on July 21, 2020 shows solar panels on umbrellas at an open public beach near the city hall of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni municipality in southern Athens, Greece. As of Tuesday, the dozens of umbrellas scattered along the beach, in line with the safe distancing measures for protection against COVID-19, are fitted with a system consisting of solar panels and USB ports offering free of charge and environmentally friendly charging. Under a pilot program launched on Tuesday, sunbathers will be contributing to energy-saving efforts using solar energy and will be able to see how much electricity was saved on a website run by the scientists of the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens. (Photo by Lefteris Partsalis/Xinhua)

ATHENS, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Beachgoers heading to the open public sandy beach near the city hall of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni municipality in southern Athens no longer need to carry chargers for their mobiles, tablets or power banks next to the sunscreen and towel.

As of Tuesday, the dozens of umbrellas scattered along the beach, in line with the safe distancing measures for protection against COVID-19, are fitted with a system consisting of solar panels and USB ports offering free of charge and environmentally friendly charging.

Under a pilot program launched on Tuesday, sunbathers will be contributing to energy-saving efforts using solar energy and will be able to see how much electricity was saved on a website run by the scientists of the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens.

The institute's experts cooperated with municipal authorities and the European Commission's Representation in Greece for the program which will last to the end of September, they told Xinhua after signing a memorandum of understanding on the site.

The program named "GrEEnBeach solar charging system" marks the European Green Deal's arrival to the Greek beaches, officials explained.

Under the ambitious deal reached among EU member states last year, Europe intends to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, transforming its economic model to become sustainable and setting out to cut CO2 emissions, to protect the environment, stop climate change and improve quality of life.

"It is a clear example of what we are calling in Europe 'Green transition'. We want to show that on a daily basis we can use technology which is also environmentally friendly. In 2050 we want Europe and our planet to be, if possible, climate neutral, meaning to have zero greenhouse gas emissions which are damaging the planet," George Markopouliotis, Head of Representation of the European Commission in Greece, told Xinhua and other local media.

"It is a very innovative action which actually shows what digital technologies are all about and how they can serve environmental protection," Grigoris Konstantellos, mayor of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni municipality, added.

"It is a pilot project and we will certainly evaluate the valuable results at the end of the summer season and we will expand this program also to other open public beaches and suggest it also for closed beaches in our region," he said.

"(The system) allows us to continue our everyday routine even at the beach, but also do this in an environmentally friendly manner. It is a very important initiative that we hope we will expand to other municipalities, other beaches as well as to public squares and all other spaces with crowds," said Dr. Angelos Amditis, research director of ICCS. Enditem
Three people have been rushed to hospital after a pick-up truck plowed into an outdoor dining area in Brooklyn.

Surveillance footage shows shows a blue Ford hurtling into a seating barrier set up outside L'Wren in Sunset Park on Tuesday evening.

The impact knocked two women and one man to the ground and they were taken to nearby Lutheran hospital with minor injuries, according to FOX 5.

The video shows tables and chairs were also flying into the air, as other patrons shot out of their seats to escape the oncoming vehicle.

Surveillance footage shows shows a blue Ford hurtling into a seating barrier set up outside L'Wren in Sunset Park on Tuesday evening. The restaurant's outdoor dining section is seen on social media

Footage indicates that the diners were likely saved by a large, heavy barrier that the restaurant had erected around their tables.

The 22-year-old driver of the pick-up truck pulled over, stayed at the scene and co-operated with authorities. He returned a negative alcohol reading.

The driver was issued a summons, and police believe it was an accident.

Authorities have not released the names of the three injured diners, although they are believed to have been released from hospital.

Fellow diner Julian Davis told FOX 5 that the incident left many diners shaken, with children in tears for the course of the evening.

'Two kids that were sitting there [outside] were shaken up, they were crying the entire time after the fact,' he stated.

Davis added it was a 'miracle' that no was killed.

'If the barriers weren't here, they would've died,' he proclaimed.

An indoor security camera captured vision of the blue Ford slamming into the seating barrier. It's impact sent three diners flying into the air

Many New York City restaurants have expanded their dining facilities onto sidewalks and nearby roads amid the coronavirus pandemic.

With indoor dining still prohibited by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, business owners have been eager to maximize their outdoor space and take advantage of the warmer weather.

With many outdoor areas impinging onto roadways, some New Yorkers say it was only a matter of time until an accident occurred.

However, Davis says he was left stunned when the pick-up truck came hurtling towards his table on Tuesday.

'I knew it was possible but I didn't think it was ever going to happen,' he remarked.
FRESNO, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fieldin today announced a strategic partnership with Wilbur-Ellis Agribusiness to deliver its expansive smart farm platform to specialty crop growers in the Western U.S.

Fieldin's Control Center helps growers leverage real-time field data to better manage and optimize spray applications, harvest activities and other cultural practices.

Using proprietary sensors and user-friendly apps, Fieldin's platform seamlessly connects in-field sensors, tractors and machinery to provide managers with actionable data and reporting that improves production and operational efficiency in the field.

"With this partnership, Wilbur-Ellis will be able to complement our precision services and provide our growers with an additional layer of field data to improve operational efficiencies," Wilbur-Ellis Director of Business Development Doug Grott said. "Fieldin's technology will help give our growers actionable insights into everything from their early-season cultural practices and spray programs, to late-season harvesting activities."

Fieldin's services will be offered through Wilbur-Ellis starting this season in California, where nut, tree fruit and grape growers are making final preparations for harvest season. Using Fieldin's Control Center, growers can track efficiencies and timing of spray applications, monitor and compare operators and equipment during harvesting activities, and improve efficiencies across almost any mechanized cultural practice.

"We're excited about this partnership, working with an experienced company like Wilbur-Ellis and its network of trusted advisors," said Fieldin CEO Boaz Bachar. "The move continues to solidify our service and will get our data in the hands of more growers during a time when operational efficiency is critical."

Wilbur-Ellis, celebrating its 100th anniversary this coming year, will offer Fieldin's service to its specialty crop growers through its team of full-service crop advisers, using the real-time field data as a value add for customers.

To get started or learn more about the partnership, contact your local Wilbur-Ellis representative or visit fieldintech.com/wilburellis.

About Fieldin:

Founded by CEO Boaz Bachar and COO Iftach Birger in 2013, Fieldin's field intelligence platform helps growers manage and optimize spray applications, harvest activities and other critical field operations.

Using proprietary sensors and mobile-friendly software, Fieldin's technology seamlessly connects tractors, machinery and in-field sensors to provide managers with actionable data that improves production, transparency and efficiency in the field.

To learn more, visit www.fieldintech.com.

About the Wilbur-Ellis Companies

Founded in 1921, the Wilbur-Ellis companies are leading international marketers, distributors and manufacturers of agricultural products, animal nutrients and specialty chemicals and ingredients. By developing strong relationships, making strategic market investments and capitalizing on new opportunities, the Wilbur-Ellis companies have continued to grow the business with sales of over $3 billion. For more information about Wilbur-Ellis' 100th Anniversary celebration, please visit www.wilburellis.com/100th-anniversary and for information about the Wilbur-Ellis companies, please visit www.wilburellis.com.

Wilbur-Ellis Agribusiness generates more than $2.1 billion in sales revenue annually and has over 160 branch locations throughout the U.S. For more information, please visit www.wilburellisagribusiness.com.

Media contact:

[email protected] | (559) 246-1525

SOURCE Fieldin
Rachel Riley has revealed that she came to the aid of one of her friends suffering domestic abuse, after learning of her plight during lockdown.

The Countdown whizz, 34, spoke out as she got candid about the abuse so many more women are experiencing behind closed doors.

She told The Mirror: 'Ive been supporting a friend who I didnt know was in a situation of domestic violence for some years. While I cant go into specifics, I know COVID has made things more difficult.

Helping hand: Rachel Riley has revealed that she came to the aid of one of her friends suffering domestic abuse, after learning of her plight during lockdown. Pictured in May 2019

Its been so hard for women in her situation, without direct access to support services. I saw a poster that said "Domestic abusers have always worked from home" and thats so true.

Theres no outlet currently. People are trapped at home, the kids arent at school and police and social services are running a limited service.'

The TV personality is preparing to present the 2020 National Lottery Awards which, for the first time, will be honouring people who have made a positive impact on the community during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Word of warning: The Countdown whizz, 34, spoke out as she got candid about the abuse so many more women are experiencing behind closed doors. Pictured in March 2019

One of the bodies that caught the mother-of-one's eye was the Womans Trust, a London-based charity providing therapy and counselling for women who have survived domestic abuse.

Rachel has been spending lockdown with her husband Pasha Kovalev, 40, their seven-month-old daughter Maven Aria, and her Russian mother-in-law Galina, whose month-long visit to the UK was extended amid the pandemic.

Rachel and Pasha, who became first-time parents to Maven in December, have been enjoyed extended time off at home amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking on Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Lucy Horobin, Rachel recently admitted the countrywide lockdown has been something of a blessing for the family as they have been given 'enforced maternity and paternity leave'.

Family first: Rachel has been spending lockdown with her husband Pasha Kovalev, 40, and their seven-month-old daughter Maven Aria

Jamie asked Rachel how she's feeling about new parenthood in lockdown, saying: 'Now Rachel I know you had a baby at the end of last year, how are you adjusting to parenthood in lockdown, hows that been for you?'

Rachel responded: 'Well were quite fortunate in a way, I was supposed to be back at work, Pasha was supposed to be on tour, and its kind of enforced maternity and paternity leave we didnt have before so were loving it...

'Shes just over five months, Ive left her in bed in kind of the same sleeping position as Pash, if you hear crying it could be either one of them I have no idea.'

Jamie admitted lockdown 'fits' having a young baby, to which Rachel responded: 'Yeah we couldnt go out in the evenings anyway because she refused a bottle...

'So I needed to be with her and I just developed all the bad habits they tell you not to do because Im here...

Family: Rachel and Pasha welcomed their beloved baby daughter to the world in December

'My mother in law, she was over from Russia visiting me and she got here with the Russian borders closing so Ive got a live-in babysitter as well so as lockdowns go, were really lucky and cant complain.'

Lucy queried: 'Are you coping well with each other as well? I mean Ill put my hands up and say my boyfriend and I have had a fair few tiffs during lockdown. It can get a little bit much sometimes, how have you faired?'

Rachel said: 'I mean were just in the new baby glow...

'Thankfully the weather has been lovely and every day I wear my sling which is guaranteed some sleep and I just got to the park and the sun is shining , and all the ducklings are coming out so its quite lovely.

Speaking to MailOnline, Rachel went on: 'I've developed bad habits because there's now this enforced maternity leave that Pasha and I wouldnt have had otherwise. So we are home with Maven all the time. That means we've got a very happy baby!'
COLLINSVILLE  Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday morning joined the Illinois Department of Transportation in announcing the release of a $21.3 billion plan to improve Illinois roads and bridges over the next six years.

Under the 2021-2026 IDOT plan, about $1.82 billion would be provided to state highways in IDOT District 8 which includes Madison, Greene, Jersey and Calhoun counties.

Pritzker said the planned investment over the next six years is possible through the Rebuild Illinois capital plan, the first in nearly a decade. The full plan is available here.

Illinois remains a hub for commerce and transit  and not just for this nation, but for the entire global economy, he said. We are the 5th largest economy in the United States, and the crossroads for national and international companies who need our roads and airports and rail and rivers and people to move their products.

Even in a pandemic  especially in a pandemic  our transportation systems connect the lives of our residents and our communities, he said. The Multi-Year Plan were announcing today provides funding to reconstruct over 3,300 miles of roads and over 8 million square feet of bridges and, more importantly, create and support hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next 6 years for hardworking Illinoisans across our state.

Last year, Pritzker announced the first Multi-Year Plan under Rebuild Illinois. Since then, IDOT began multiple construction projects, including the ongoing $67 million Interstate 255 rehabilitation project in Madison and St. Clair counties. Construction, begun in February of this year, will fix one of the worst roads in the state.

By closing I-255 completely during the work, IDOT officials say they will be able to complete the work in one construction season instead of several and save an anticipated $14 million.

Based on current funding levels, the FY2021-26 Proposed Highway Improvement Program will improve 3,356 miles of roads and 8.4 million square feet of bridge deck. Of the total $21.3 billion included in the six-year program, $3.15 billion has been identified for the current fiscal year.
OTTAWA - Allegations that Gov. Gen. Julie Payette mistreated staff members prompted calls for investigations of varying stripes on Wednesday, with one expert suggesting the matter should be dealt with quietly to preserve the integrity of the office.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA - Allegations that Gov. Gen. Julie Payette mistreated staff members prompted calls for investigations of varying stripes on Wednesday, with one expert suggesting the matter should be dealt with quietly to preserve the integrity of the office.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to investigate the matter, while one Liberal cabinet minister said it was the job of Rideau Hall to probe the complaints.

Governor General Julie Payette delivers the Throne Speech in the Senate chamber, Thursday, December 5, 2019 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Meanwhile, Philippe Lagasse, an expert of Westminster-style democracy, said it was in the interest of the country for Trudeau and Payette's offices to resolve the matter behind closed doors to prevent more damage to the institution of the Governor General.

"Everybody's best option right now is to try to deal with the issue decisively but discreetly," said Lagasse, of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

"You don't want to turn this into a confrontation between the prime minister and the Governor General, nor do you want to be in a situation where the prime minister feels that he either needs to pressure the Governor General to resign or ultimately advise the Queen to dismiss her. It shouldn't get there."

The controversy erupted after a CBC News report that quoted anonymous sources as saying Payette has created a toxic environment at Rideau Hall.

The CBC reported Tuesday that Payette had yelled at, belittled and publicly humiliated employees, reducing some to tears or prompting them to quit.

Workplaces need to be safe, and employees must feel they are heard when they raise concerns, said Singh.

"I'm not being prescriptive about what the prime minister must do exactly. But there is no question there is an obligation, a responsibility of the prime minister in this case, with the Governor General and the complaints that we've seen, to do something, to follow up with those complaints," he said.

"People should be able to feel safe to come forward. I think that's always a struggle for people," Singh added. "There needs to be some manner for someone independently to assess the complaints."

Singh pressed Trudeau on the matter in the House of Commons but the prime minister did not specifically address it.

"Every Canadian has the right to a safe, secure workspace, free from harassment and that is extremely important," Trudeau said.

"That's why we moved forward on June 22 with announcements on strengthening the oversight in federally regulated agencies and environments, including the public service."

Earlier Wednesday, Trudeau did not take questions as he entered the Commons. The Prime Minister's Office declined Tuesday to answer questions about the report but said every Canadian has the right to work in a healthy, respectful and safe environment.

Lagasse said as long as new allegations don't surface against Payette and other parties don't pile on, the matter could be resolved without doing damage to the governor general's office.

But if the office is undermined, that would have ramifications if Payette were called upon to decide a dispute on who should form a government in a continuing minority parliament scenario.

If the Trudeau government were defeated in a confidence motion and the prime minister asked Payette to call an election but the opposition wanted to form a government, it would be a reasonable for Payette to side with Trudeau because it has been more than six months since the last election, said Lagasse.

"So, let's just imagine that in the subsequent election, the Conservatives had more seats, but the Liberals chose to stay in power," he added. "If there's any sense that somehow she's been placed in a position where she has to side with the current prime minister or anything to that effect, any perception of that would make her decision more difficult."

Economic Development Minister Melanie Joly, who used to oversee relations with Rideau Hall in her previous portfolio at Canadian Heritage, said she was surprised by the allegations, and she clung to the government's line that all workplaces should be harassment-free.

"I value the work of the Governor General, and that's Julie Payette," Joly said. "Rideau Hall needs to look into this very, very carefully  Rideau Hall needs to address the issue and my understanding is that they went out with a statement today."

The CBC reported that Payette's secretary sent a memo to Rideau Hall employees on Wednesday promising to improve the working environment.

That followed a public statement Tuesday, which said Rideau Hall strongly believes in the importance of a healthy workplace, adding the CBC story stands in stark contrast to the reality of working at the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General.

"We deeply regret this reporting, which is in stark contrast to the reality of working at the OSGG, and obscures the important work done by our dedicated staff in honouring, representing, and showcasing Canadians," said the Rideau Hall statement.

Rideau Hall said it has "stringent internal processes for our employees to voice concerns" through its human resources department, an independent ombudsman, and its "excellent relationships" with the unions that represent employees.

"Since the beginning of the mandate, no formal complaint regarding harassment has been made through any of these channels," the statement said.

Rideau Hall said it has a lower turnover compared with other departments, and that one of the benefits of being in the public service is the ability to move to different departments.

The statement said that is "something that is personally encouraged by the Governor General, who believes that career growth and opportunity are vitally important."

Adam Vaughan, a Toronto Liberal MP, said a thorough investigation needs to take place but he said it was "tricky one" to decide who should lead it.

"The allegations are serious, and they deserve a serious response and a serious investigation."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2020.
Spains lower house, the Congress of Deputies, approved on Wednesday the majority of the conclusions from the coronavirus economic and social recovery commission, which was formed in May with the aim of designing plans to help Spain bounce back from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The commission, which is made up of politicians from all parties, put forward a series of recommendations on four different issues: the European Union, healthcare system, economic reform and social policies.

The social policies document included recommendations for the rental market, the basic minimum wage and the fight against gender violence

Congress approved all of the documents, except the one regarding social measures, which included recommendations for the rental market, the basic minimum wage and the fight against gender violence.

The text on public healthcare received 256 votes in favor, 88 against and three abstentions; the economic recommendations received 169 votes in favor, 168 against and 101 abstentions; while the European Union guidelines received 276 votes in favor, 59 against and 13 abstentions.

The social policies document, which sought to reinstate a large part of the welfare state, was voted down by lawmakers from the conservative Popular Party (PP), Ciudadanos (Citizens), the far-right Vox, as well as some regional parties like the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). In total, it received 172 votes in favor, 175 against and one abstention.

Spains minority government is run by a coalition between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and junior partner Unidas Podemos and it needs the votes of other parties to pass key legislation. In an effort to secure support for the four texts, the government agreed to 61 transactional amendments with eight different political parties.

Although the recommendations for social policies were rejected by Congress, the government can salvage the measures in other proposals or within its budget plans for 2021.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Federal authorities said a longtime Columbus lobbyist became Ohio House Speaker Larry Householders fixer in recent years, concocting clever ways to ensure that the speakers interests were furthered with millions of dollars in dark money under their control.

Neil Clark was an integral and foul-mouthed part of an organization the FBI referred to in court filings as Householders Enterprise. Hes portrayed as the one with the juice to corral votes to ram through House Bill 6  the $1.3 billion 2019 bailout of the Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp.s nuclear interests  as well as the one developing the schemes to make sure voters didnt overturn it through a ballot measure.

He was also the one with the wherewithal and knowledge to ensure Householder had millions of dollars of FirstEnergy money at his disposal in secret through the group Generation Now, which Householder used to target his political foes and to strengthen public support for the nuclear bailout, the FBI said.

Agents said Clark benefitted from FirstEnergys payments to the Enterprise, receiving at least $290,000 in money funneled to Generation Now. All the while, he told people he respected Householder for taking millions from a company and was willing to go to war for them.

Clark explained that the way politicians get exposed for pay to play is through stupidity or people who get aggrieved leak it, a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday said.

Clark, 67, was one of five people the FBI arrested Tuesday on a racketeering conspiracy charge in what David DeVillers, the U.S. attorney in Columbus, said was likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people in the state of Ohio. The complaint said FirstEnergy, identified as Company A, funneled more than $60 million to Householder and his associates through Generation Now.

Householder was also arrested, and the quintet is free on bond.

Clarks attorney William Ireland said in a brief phone call that it is the governments burden to prove that his client was criminally culpable. He said Clark is innocent.

Clark, who owns Grant Street Consultants and was previously a budget director for the Ohio Republican Caucus, is a longtime lobbyist. He has taken on other high-profile clients, including the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow online charter school, the payday lending industry and nursing home industries.

He garnered a reputation as a big talker who makes grand pronouncements  something fellow lobbyist and defendant Matthew Borges referred to as typical Neil bulls--t stuff, according to an affidavit written by FBI agent Blane Wetzel. However, Borges noted that Clarks role as a close Householder advisor was real and defined.

Wetzel portrayed Clark as a profane yet influential politico who knew how to give Householder and his group access to unlimited money through Generation Now while obfuscating the speakers involvement.

Nobody knows the money goes to the Speakers account, it is controlled by his people, one of his people, and its not recorded, Clark said to Householder last year, according to the FBI.

More importantly, Wetzel said Clark was Householders fixer and stand-in. He also referred to himself as the speakers hit man who does the dirty s--t, the agent wrote.

Those actions, according to the FBI, included getting legislators to support the bill.

They also included spending $450,000 in a single day to hire 15 signature collection firms so they had a conflict and could not collect names for a proposed ballot measure to overturn HB6, agents said.

The lobbyist was also involved in schemes to bribe workers to stop collecting signatures and provide inside information to Householder allies, the FBI said.

Above all, the plan was to make sure that HB6 stick. It was important to make sure voters did not overturn the bill because it would set a bad precedent for the rest of Householders tenure as speaker, he and others said at a dinner club meeting in 2019.

It sends the message to everyone else  if you attack a member, were going to f-----g rip your d--k off, Clark said.

Read more:

Who is Larry Householder and what is he accused of the the Ohio statehouse bribery case

Who is Jeff Longstreth and what is he accused of in the Ohio statehouse bribery case?

Who is Matthew Borges and what is he accused of in the Ohio Statehouse bribery case?

Who is Juan Cespedes and what is he accused of in the Ohio statehouse bribery case
Angolas new licensee Africell has set a goal of launching commercial services by mid-2021.

Local outlet VerAngola reports that the new market entrant is planning to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in building out its network, with the operators chief investment officer Ian Paterson telling news agency Lusa that it is in advanced discussions with several financing partners.

Earlier this month, Africell was officially confirmed as Angolas fourth recipient of a Unified Global licence, allowing it to offer fixed, mobile, internet and pay-TV services. The operator is still negotiating the final terms of its licence with the Angolan government, but expects to conclude this process by the end of September 2020.

TeleGeography reports that Angolas mobile market is effectively a duopoly between Unitel and Movicel, although state-owned fixed provider Angola Telecom is the third Unified Global licence holder and has outlined a roadmap to launch services in partnership with Angorascom.

Paterson noted that Angola was very attractive because there is very little real competition Unitel is a dominant player in the market and customers suffer as a result. He noted that new players in the market would foster more competitive pricing and service quality, saying that Africell would offer pricing plans that are much more creative and flexible with more high speed solutions, more value-added services. He added that the operator plans to offer mobile payments.

In its discussions with the regulator, Africell is pushing it to support the sharing of tower and fibre infrastructure so that operators can save money on duplicate build-outs.
1,038 new Covid-19 cases have been reported in Kerala today

Manipur to go under complete lockdown for 14 days, starting 2 pm tomorrow

5,849 new Covid-19 positive cases and 74 reported in Karnataka today

In last 24 hours, 45 new Covid-19 positive cases reported in Manipur

In last 24 hours, 1,020 new Covid-19 positive cases and 20 deaths reported in Gujarat

With 196 new Covid-19 cases, Ahmedabad count rises to 24,963

1,554 new Covid-19 positive cases and 9 deaths reported in Telangana today

451 more test positive for Covid-19 in Uttarakhand, tally crosses 5,000

Total number of Covid-19 cases in Assam stand at 27,744 including 19,350 discharged cases

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to grapple countries across the world, US President Donald Trump warned that the nasty horrible virus will get worse in the US before it gets better.

According to the data published by John Hopkins, 14,845,978 people have been confirmed of Covid-19 globally. While the 615,364 people have succumbed to the virus with the US recording the maximum number of deaths.

On Tuesday, the country reported more than 1,000 new fatalities, in a first time since June 10. More than 140,000 Americans have lost their lives in just five months in the US due to Covid-19.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Meanwhile in India, at least half of the population was confined to their homes under various types of lockdowns  full, partial or weekend  according to orders issued by different state governments over the past few days.





Follow all the live updates here:
Our mission is to bring Shakespeare to northwest Indiana and to Gary, she said. It doesnt say that Shakespeare has to be our best show. And I can tell you right now that this isnt going to be our best production because its hard to do brilliant Shakespeare when youre in a box on the computer. But what it will be is still people that want to do it and people with huge hearts that are working hard on a show that want to bring Shakespeare and the arts to people.
Guwahati, July 22 : An accident at the natural gas blowout site in eastern Assam's Tinsukia district on Wednesday injured three of the six foreign experts involved in the dousing of the well fire raging for around 43 days, officials said.

According to officials of Oil India Limited (OIL), three experts of Singapore-based firm ALERT -- Anthony Steven Reynolds, Doug Dallas and Craig Neil Duncan -- suffered minor burn injuries while removing a spool from the well head.

"The three injured experts were provided immediate medical treatment by doctors at the well site. Subsequently, they were taken to the burn unit section of Astha Nursing Home at Dibrugarh. They have been released after dressing of the burn injuries. It is expected that operations would once again resume at Baghjan on Thursday," the officials said.

Natural gas and oil condensate started leaking from the state-owned OIL's oil well at Baghjan in eastern Assam's Tinsukia district around 57 days ago and it later caught fire.

Besides hostile weather, OIL has been facing numerous other problems to put out the fire and cap the gas leak at Baghjan, around 550 kms east of Assam's main city of Guwahati. OIL officials said that despite partial withdrawal of agitation by locals, youth organisations and others including a section of local people agitating for higher compensation even as state-owned OIL continues to lose production of oil and gas.

So far, since May 27, over 15,590 MT of crude oil and around 34 million standard cubic metres per day of natural gas has been lost as a section of agitators continue with their protests in a few locations in Tinsukia district.

Though a section of agitators called off the protests and road blockade last month, others continue to demand higher compensation for the affected people and hold OIL responsible for the mishap. OIL has so far provided Rs 30,000 to each of the affected families. OIL officials said transportation of consignments, comprising various heavy machineries and equipment, from Rajahmundry (Andhra Pradesh), Vadodara (Gujarat) and other places was delayed due to COVID-19 protocols and standard operating procedures.

In the meantime, the Army has built a 150-metre bridge over a water body to facilitate technical works to control the gas leak and oil well fire, following a request from Tinsukia Deputy Commissioner Bhaskar Pegu.

Around 10,000 people have been evacuated and sheltered in 14 relief camps as the fire damaged many houses and various other properties. Local people said the fire had left a trail of devastation in the adjoining areas, including a famous lake. Farms with standing crops as well as ponds and wetlands in the adjoining villages have also been affected.

Various NGOs and government bodies, including Tata Energy Research Institute, have been conducting environmental and pollution studies in view of the fire and blowout of natural gas and oil condensates. The TERI is also arranging drone-fly cameras for aerial photography and videography of affected areas and surveys are being carried out depending on weather conditions.

"Heavy rain and floods affected the operation and damaged many machinery and makeshift structures. Despite that officials, engineers and workers continued to work to control the situation," the OIL official said.

US and Canadian experts and engineers, who are associated with Singapore-based ALERT, firefighters, NDRF personnel and OIL and ONGC engineers continued their efforts to check the gas leak and douse the well fire at Baghjan.
TAIPEI, TAIWAN / ACCESSWIRE / July 21, 2020 / With the COVID-19 situation stabilized, Wu, Li-Ying smoothly completed the university entrance examination and is taking courses. Sixty-eight years old, Taiwanese Chinese brush painter and calligrapher Wu, Li-Ying has been a student of Chinese brush painting for more than 30 years. She took first place in the entrance exam to become the most senior student of the College of Art Design, Hsuan Chuang University.

Due to the breakout of COVID-19, many universities are still not open yet. Now that the epidemic condition is relatively stable in Taiwan and the study and entrance exams have already been completed, students are enjoying their summer break and starting to prepare for next semester's courses. Taiwan is moving toward an aging society, and people are thus paying more attention to retirement preparations. Under a diversified education system, people are encouraged to return to school for study.

Located in Hsinchu, Taiwan, the College of Art Design, Hsuan Chuang University recently announced the entrance exam score of 68-year-old Chinese brush painter and calligrapher Wu, Li-Ying, who got top marks and has become the oldest freshman of that college. Wu, Li-Ying said that people should follow their hearts at any age. This opportunity to study across the field means a most beautiful start and resilience for the second half of her life.

Wu, Li-Ying started learning Chinese brush painting more than 30 years ago. In her creative life, she received first place in the Golden Wheel Awards in the Chinese brush painting category, issued by the Hsinchu General Union and was the first Chinese brush painter and calligrapher to win a gold medal in Chinese brush painting from the Chinese Art and Culture Exchange Association. She has spared no effort in the exchange of art and culture across the strait. She was arranged as the Persona of Cross-Strait Contemporary Chinese Painting and Calligraphy several times. She was invited to participate in cross-strait Chinese painting and calligraphy exhibitions and to perform on site many times. Her works have been preciously collected by Guangrao County Art Museum and White Crane Ridge Underwater Museum in Chungching.

Hsuan Chuang University values the development of cultural and social science knowledge and its incorporation with the college of art design, focusing on painting, craft, and design courses to contribute new vitality to Taiwanese art and culture. Wu, Li-Ying yearns for the campus life to get involved with diversified art knowledge and create works full of vitality via innovative painting skills. Meanwhile, learning together with young students may energize her spirit and lifestyle.

Wu, Li-Ying said that now is the start of the second essential time of life to pursue her dream in her own time. She is aggressively preparing for her "second life" after retirement to learn new knowledge through various methods and actively participate in diverse events to create the next part of her brilliant story.

(via Wu Li-Ying Art Gallery)

(via Wu Li-Ying Art Gallery)

(via Wu Li-Ying Art Gallery)

(via Wu Li-Ying Art Gallery)

Contacts:

Company: Wu Li-Ying Art Gallery

Name: Wu, Li-Ying

E-mail: wuliying26@gmail.com

SOURCE: Wu Li-Ying Art Gallery

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/598382/At-Age-68-Chinese-Brush-Painter-and-Calligrapher-Wu-LI-Ying-Aced-the-Entrance-Examination-of-the-College-of-Art-Design-Hsuan-Chuang-University
Founder, Khuluka Movement Josina Machel, appeared on Network Africa on Tuesday, 21 July 2020 in Channels TVs regional flagship program offering insights and updates on news around the continent.

Speaking on her ordeal as a victim of domestic violence, Ms. Machel explored the intrigues of her case, while highlighting the vulnerable nature of most African judicial systems.

Machel, who is the daughter of Graca Machel and Samora Machel, the first President of Mozambique; and stepdaughter to freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela was violently attacked by her then partner Rufino Licuco in October 2015. A protracted legal battle saw Licuco being convicted in February 2017 and then acquitted in June 2020, completely overturning the earlier judgment.

Commenting on her reaction to this judgment, Josina stated it felt like a knife stabbing me in the stomach. She goes on to clarify that her status has not offered her any privileges, likening her harrowing experience to that of millions of women around the world and Africa, in particular."

Despite being signatories to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Maputo Accord, Machel notes that there are little to no success stories of implementation of these laws  a similarity shared by African countries such as Nigeria, which has seen mass protests against sexual and gender-based violence in recent times.

By demanding that I provide eyewitnesses to a crime that left me blind in one eye, the court has strengthened my resolve to look out for all other women around me. Machel says this has strengthened and empowered her to continue the battle for justice, truth, and dignity, not only for herself but for all women. Shes calling for Justice4Josina and Justice4AllWomxn.

An inclusive, social media-driven campaign, #Justice4AllWomxn is geared towards creating awareness and ensuring that justice is served for all victims and survivors of gender-based violence, who have been denied justice by the very systems designed to protect and defend them.

Speaking to the thrust of the campaign, Machel concludes, Victims and survivors of GBV are not statistics, but individuals with names, faces and voices, even where they are not able to speak for themselves. It is against this backdrop that we say NO MORE.
Bachelor Nation got a sweet treat on July 21, 2020, when former contestant Victoria Fuller finally spilled the tea on her relationship with Chris Soules. Fans love hearing the way Fuller and Soules met, and that he didnt simply slide into her DMs.

The Bachelor host Chris Harrison and contestant Victoria Fuller | Kelsey McNeal/ABC via Getty Images

The Bachelor fans suspected the Fuller Soules relationship since April 2020

On April 15, 2020, The Bachelor spoiler king Reality Steve shared that Fuller and former Bachelor Soules were in Iowa together quarantining.

One of the more random Bachelor couples that I cant say I ever wouldve guessed, shared Reality Steve. I dont know how long this has been going on or how serious it is, but I can confirm that Victoria Fuller is currently together in Iowa for the week with Chris Soules. Discuss.

RELATED:Bachelor Fans React to the Dumpster Fire That Is Victoria Fuller and Chris Soules Dating  Is It a Match Made in Prison?

After the announcement, fans noticed small things that confirmed the rumor. Both Fuller and Soules shared a photo on their Instagram of the sunrise over the same field. Then on June 2, 2020, Fuller wrote back to a fan who criticized her, I have a bf.

An unnamed source told Us that Soules slid into Fullers DMs on Instagram. However, the 26-year-old from Virginia Beach laughed at how impossible that was.

How did The Bachelor contestant Fuller meet Soules?

Fuller met the former Bachelor Soules through a fellow contestant from Peter Webers season  Kelsey Weier. Miss Iowa USA suggested that the two would be a good match.

She was like, I think hes single, and hes very attractive, you should talk to him, Fuller told People on July 21, 2020.

The Iowa native and fourth-generation farmer does not send out direct messages on Instagram. Fuller admits that hes not the most tech-savvy person.

RELATED:The Bachelor: Shiann Defends Victoria F. For White Lives Matter Scandal  Shes One of Those Pure People

He ended up texting me [in March], and we connected, Fuller explained. Some people said he slid into my DMs, but he literally owns an iPhone 2 and can barely send out a text! But if he had, I would have responded.

They were both very nervous about the meeting; however, they immediately clicked. The two have been dating for four months and are enjoying each others company.

Were really happy, Fuller continued. The last few months have been really special for us. Were enjoying each other!

How do The Bachelor fans feel about the Fuller and Soules relationship?

Excuse you, WHAT?? wrote one shocked fan on Reddit. I never thought wed get an update like this!! Its Christmas morning!

Fans are ecstatic about the relationship announcement between Fuller and Soules.

Hearing her talk about him is warming my bitter cold heart, added another fan.

Other viewers add that they enjoy this relationship more than Weber and Kelley Flanagans. However, it is in part because it is so secretive.

All we see is a glimpse of their relationship in rarely seen Instagram photos, one fan pointed out. There are no ads from them monetizing their relationship, no silly Tik Tok dances, no drama, US Weekly stories or podcasts. Its early, but maybe these two will show others how a relationship can be successful if you just dont share your life to social media followers every second.

Fans are wishing Fuller and Soules all the best in their long-distance relationship.
Hong Kong Security Law Prompts International Organizations to Consider Relocating

By VOA News July 21, 2020

The controversial national security law imposed by China on Hong Kong has brought deep concern among its robust civil society and non-governmental organizations who use the territory as regional hub, prompting some to relocate their staff while others fear over their fate under the new legislation.

After Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, the "one country two systems" formula allowed its freewheeling civil society, including many international and domestic NGOs, to continue operating. But the national security law passed on July 1, dubbed the "second handover," is causing jitters in the non-profit sector.

Many nonprofit groups say they are worried about being implicated by the law, which aims to "prevent, suppress and impose punishment" for secession, subversion, terrorism and "collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security."

The authorities have emphasized the need for a sweeping law to stamp out Hong Kong's yearlong anti-government protests, which have often turned violent. On Monday, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai insisted that the law will make Hong Kong's business environment "more stable and secure." Chinese officials have said the law was intended to act as a "deterrent" and hang over potential troublemakers "like the sword of Damocles."

The law appears to have achieved its aim to intimidate.

At least one international NGO has moved all its workers out of Hong Kong while others are planning to shift some of their operations abroad. Some NGO workers have resigned while others have moved abroad or sought to relocate. Those who have decided to stay in Hong Kong, for now, say they must tread a fine line when doing their work to avoid falling afoul of the law, which has broad and vague definitions of security crimes. All of those who spoke to the VOA declined to be identified for fears of retribution from the authorities.

"It's a really difficult time for many NGOs," a veteran human rights worker said. "We don't know how this law will be implemented and to what extent they will use it. Everyone is really nervous."

NGO workers say clauses in the law, particularly those that criminalize "conspiring" with or receiving instructions, funding or support from foreign countries or organizations, make them particularly vulnerable. Groups that have advocated democratization or have criticized the dictatorial nature of the Chinese Communist Party also run the risk of being found guilty of "altering by unlawful means the legal status" of the regime, or "inciting hatred" towards the Chinese or Hong Kong governments, as stated in the law.

An international NGO worker said Hong Kong used to be a place that was convenient to work on projects in China while keeping in touch with the international community, but these advantages are no longer viable under the new law.

"There are no such freedoms anymore. The authorities' hostility is very apparent, and they could arrest people any time under this broad and vague law," she said. "When we're under these threats and limitations, it is very difficult to work."

She added that the fate of the two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, detained in China in December 2018 and now charged for espionage, could easily befall on foreign nationals or people working for international NGOs in Hong Kong.

A board member of a small human rights group said most of its staff have resigned and the group must completely restructure its work and move some projects outside Hong Kong.

"Our staff are worried, we really understand," he said, adding that his group will need to give up some of its overseas funding due to the law's restrictions on foreign "collusion."

"There's so much about this sweeping law which is in the unknown and we can easily be accused of collusion with foreign powers (for our international advocacy)," he said.

Groups that have projects in mainland China have already experienced severe restrictions under its national security law to the extent they can no longer operate there.

The head of a small Hong Kong organization said her group has ceased operation in China for a few years, after the implementation of the national security law in 2015 and the overseas NGO law in 2017. Now she feels the draconian measures and comprehensive government control over society have been extended to Hong Kong.

"The National Security Law is only the first step," she said, stressing that China's all-round suppression of civil society will eventually end many NGOs operating in Hong Kong.

She said her group will try to continue working in Hong Kong for as long as possible, but they will have to work under extremely tight limitations to avoid falling afoul of the law.

"They're implementing this law to intimidate organizations and hope they'd all close down without the authorities having to take actions," she said. "When civil society has shrunken sufficiently, it would be less costly for them to deal with them."

"Their aim is to bring them under control," she said.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

Trend:

The US Department of State issued a newsletter on July 20, 2020 entitled US Support for Democracy, Good Governance, and Human Rights in the Global Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic which also includes references about Azerbaijan, Spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva said, Trend reports on July 22.

The US Department of State urges Azerbaijani authorities to ensure that actions taken in response to COVID-19 are not used to silence civil society advocacy, opposition voices, or public discussion.

The entire world community is concerned about the riots that have been observed in the US after the assassination of George Floyd, the spokesperson added.

"We cannot understand who and why the US Department of State is concerned about amid these events," Abdullayeva said.
by Veronica Gill - Shafique Khokhar

A Christian man was mortally wounded for bathing in a tube-well pool used by Muslims. Although the countrys constitution protects religious freedom, minorities continue to be discriminated in terms of equality, education, and political representation. Theocracy has deep roots in the laws of the land.

Lahore (AsiaNews) - I saw my son bleed, bruised, unconscious. I shouted his name, splashed water on his face and gently slapped him to wake him up, but he no longer moved, said Ghafoor Masih, a Christian, father of Saleem Masih, who was beaten to death in Baguyana village on 25 February.

The 24-year-old was punished for bathing in a tube-well pool used by Muslims. His father spoke about the incident that led to his sons death in an interview with the British Pakistani Christian Association, a non-profit organisation.

Pakistan broke away from India for the sake of religious freedom, but it is now the home of many Ghafoor Masihs, who seek justice for their loved ones; all religious minorities are discriminated against in the country, not only Christians.

Why are minorities in Pakistan the victims of repression? Was the country founded only for Muslims? Of course not. Its founder, Quaid-e-Azam (Great Leader) Muhammad Ali Jinnah paid great attention to religious freedom.

You are free; Jinnah said, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State".

For not following Jinnah's words, Pakistan has become the 7th most dangerous place in the world for religious minorities, according to Human Rights Watch.

The problem goes way back. Discrimination began in 1949, right after the Constituent Assembly approved the Objectives Resolution whereby all laws must conform with Islamic precepts.

Pakistans first foreign minister, Zafarullah Khan, an Ahmadi, paid the price and was removed at the request of religious scholars.

Ever since the resolution was adopted, minorities have lived in fear as discrimination spread across the land, making life worse for them.

According to government statistics, Pakistans minorities dropped from over 20 per cent in 1951 to 3.74 per cent today, as noted in the latest census.

Minorities in Pakistan have had to suffer a lot, from rape to forced marriages, verbal abuse to mental torture, physical injuries to brutal killings.

Pakistans constitution gives ample space to freedom for minorities. The country is also bound by numerous international treaties that protect their rights. However, there is a huge difference between what is written and what is practised.

The states constitutional and international obligations

Under Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Pakistan must guarantee every minority the right to freely profess and practise their religion and use their language.

Similarly, Article 22 (1) of the Pakistani Constitution bans schools from forcing students to receive instructions or take part in any ceremony other than those of their faith.

Despite what is in the law, various school boards impose the teaching of Quranic and Islamic verses. Non-Muslim students are asked not only to read them, but also to memorise them.

Ethics has been introduced into the national curriculum as an alternative subject to Islam for non-Muslim students. However, many schools still do not teach this course for lack of trained staff.

Equality

Article 25 (1) of the Constitution guarantees full equality for all citizens. At the same time, article 18 of the ICCPR recognises the freedom to have and adopt the religion or faith of one's choice.

However, according to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace, about a thousand girls and young women, aged 12 to 28, of non-Muslim (mainly Hindu) origin, are converted by force every year and compelled to marry Muslim men. The authorities usually take no serious action against such criminal acts.

Religious institutions

Article 20 of the Constitution gives every faith community the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institution.

Research by the Centre for Social Justice and the National Justice and Peace Commission found more than 50 cases of criminal attacks against minority places of worship in the past two decades.

During the same period, almost 40 armed actions by extremist groups were reported.

Representation

Article 36 of the Constitution protects the legitimate rights and interests of minorities, including their representation in federal and provincial institutions.

The problem is that the authorities  at various levels of government  have failed to ensure the protection of minority interests.

The countrys National Assembly reserves them 10 seats out of 342. In Punjabs provincial parliament, 8 seats are reserved out of 371; 9 out of 168 in Sindh; 3 out of 124 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; and 3 out of 51 in Baluchistan. Is this a fair share?

Many other rights are formally recognised by the laws, but not in everyday reality. The framers of the constitution had established that the state would not be ruled under theocratic principles.

Unfortunately, discrimination against minorities shows that theocracy has deep roots in Pakistani laws.

The issue must be dealt with seriously, very seriously. Otherwise hundreds of thousands of Saleem Masihs will die every day, and offenders will never pay for their crimes.
Elizabeth Potthast Castravets family has never gotten along with her Moldovan husband, Andrei Castravet.

Elizabeths father, Chuck Potthast, as well as her siblingsincluding her brother, Charlie Potthasthave regularly accused Andrei of being lazy, controlling, and even dishonest. When the 90 Day Fiance stars headed to Andreis home country for their second wedding in Moldova, things between Andrei and his in-laws seemed to get even more tense than ever.

In a new sneak peek of an upcoming episode of TLCs 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After, Chuck and Charlie landed in Chisinau and immediately began to question Andrei about his past. Andreis evasive answers about his past work as a policeman and his sudden move to Ireland made Elizabeths dad and brother wonder what shed gotten herself into.

Andrei Castravet, Elizabeth Potthast Castravet, and baby Eleanor | Elizabeth Potthast Castravet via Instagram

Charlie and Chuck wanted to use the trip to Moldova to find out more about Andrei

In the 90 Day Fiance sneak peek, Elizabeth and Andrei had very different reactions to her brothers and fathers impending arrival at the airport.

Elizabeth was thrilled that her family would be attending her second wedding. But Andrei made it clear that he wouldnt be putting much effort into making his in-laws feel welcome.

My relationship with Elizabeths family is strictly because I have her as my wife, the 90 Day Fiance star told TLC producers bluntly. Honestly, if I was not with her in a relationship, I would not probably have friends with any of them.

As for Chuck and Charlie, they had their own motives for coming to Andreis home country. Elizabeths dad and brother told producers that they wanted to dig a little more in Andreis past.

Before Libby started talking to Andrei, we had never even heard of Moldova, Elizabeths brother explained. So we definitely want to learn more about him, his family, his culture, his past, where he grew up.

Andrei and Elizabeth met online and moved really fast, Charlie addedwhich left her family a little suspicious. Theres still a lot of question marks about who he is, Charlie said of Andrei.

Chuck agreed, telling 90 Day Fiance producers, This is gonna be really nice, to see how he acts in his own environment.

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Andrei Appears to Call Elizabeth a C*** in New Preview Clip

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Andrei Castravet Claps Back at a Fan Who Calls Him a Poor Excuse of a Man

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Fans Are Divided About Whether Andrei Castravet and Elizabeth Potthast Castravets Storyline Is Staged

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Some Fans Wonder Why Andrei Castravet Didnt Marry a Moldovan Woman

Andrei explained that hed left his job as a detective to move to Ireland

Elizabeths family members wasted no time in probing into Andreis history. On the way to the hotel from the airport, Chuck and Charlie began to grill Elizabeths husband about his former job as a police officer in Moldova.

I was not patrol, Andrei explained. I was in the office. Like a detective.

You were a detective in Moldova? Chuck asked incredulously, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. After working as a detective in his home country for several years, Andrei left for Ireland and worked in bars as a bouncer. Elizabeths father considered this to be a downgrade in terms of his son-in-laws career, which made him wonder if there was another reason that Andrei had made an abrupt career change.

Andrei told 90 Day Fiance producers that he left Moldova because the work conditions at his job were substandard. Before I left for Ireland, I was working as a policeman. That life was pretty hard. It was stressful, he explained. The work conditions were not up to the standards that there has to be. They treated the people bad, so thats why I left. Then I moved to Ireland, and I was working as a bouncer.

But he didnt have the same explanation for his in-laws. Ehjust a stage in life, you know? Andrei responded vaguely to Chuck and Charlies questions about his move to Ireland.

Charlie laughed, That didnt sound too convincing.

Both Elizabeths dad and brother wondered aloud why Andrei would leave a country where hed lived all of his life in order to move to Ireland. After all, they speculated, he left his family and friends behind for the move.

Clearly disgruntled by the line of questioning, Andrei gave another vague explanation, saying he just needed some changes in his life at the time. Then, the 90 Day Fiance star added, Well, I had some problems.

You got in trouble? Charlie wanted to know. Yeah, something like that, Andrei smirked, seemingly enjoying his brother-in-laws discomfort.

But Andrei made no bones about the fact that he wasnt going to answer any more prying question about his past. When Charlie asked what kind of trouble hed faced in Moldova, Andrei retorted harshly, You dont need to know that s*it.

Elizabeths family thought Andreis story was shady

Chuck and Charlie continued to pressure Andrei to spill the beans about his past, especially because Andrei and Elizabeth were already married (and parents to baby Eleanor) and he was family now. But Elizabeths husband refused, informing them that his brother wasnt about to tell them anything, eitherno matter how much they asked.

Elizabeths dad seemed more than a little unnerved by his son-in-laws vague answers about his past. You know, maybe its me being an overprotective dad, Chuck told 90 Day Fiance producers. But what I found a little strange was why he would leave a nice career and move to a foreign country. Theres a lot of red flags there.

As for Elizabeth, she didnt understand why her family was already interrogating her husband just after arriving in Moldova. But she also didnt understand why Andrei was refusing to answer simple questions about his past.

Andrei told me that he moved to Ireland because his cousin had a job for him there, the 90 Day Fiance star said. I dont know why hes being so evasive about it, but they really need to ease up on all their questions, because this isnt a good way to start the night.

Despite his daughters obvious unease, Chuck vowed to find out the truth about Andreis life by the end of his trip to Moldova. It really seems strange that Andrei is uncomfortable with us asking questions about his past, Elizabeths dad said ominously. Hes starting to throw out the vibe to me that theres more to it than just him quitting a job.
The following editorial appeared in Wednesday's Japan News-Yomiuri:

- - -

The central government's strong support and further self-help efforts by local governments are needed to deal with an infectious disease and heavy rain disasters.

The spread of the novel coronavirus has forced prefectural governments to sharply increase their expenditures. The amount of money used to provide financial assistance in the form of cooperation money to businesses that complied with requests to suspend operations has increased. It is hoped that prefectural governments will prepare for a second wave of infections in a planned manner.

In dealing with the first wave of infections, there was a big difference between the Tokyo metropolitan government, which is financially strong, and other prefectural governments.

The metropolitan government quickly decided to provide up to 1 million yen in financial assistance in the form of cooperation funds, which won the understanding of business operators. In neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture, the provision of cooperation funds stood at up to 300,000 yen. Some prefectural governments did not provide the cooperation funds because they prioritized improving the medical system. The Osaka prefectural government evenly split the cost with municipalities.

Prefectural governments must not hesitate to take necessary measures, such as asking businesses to suspend operations, on the grounds of fiscal difficulty. In the supplementary budgets, the central government secured 3 trillion yen in special subsidies to local governments for regional revitalization. Each local government will have a responsibility to appropriately use the subsidies, taking into account local conditions, such as the level of infections.

Many municipalities provide cash benefits to their residents. There is a fear that the virus epidemic could become further prolonged. Hopefully, measures will be implemented in serious consideration of their purposes and effects, rather than ending up as careless lavish spending.

Not a few prefectures have reached into their fiscal adjustment funds, which are equivalent to local governments' savings accounts. The Tokyo metropolitan government used 90% of its 934.5 billion yen fund. Many prefectures have been unable to use the funds for measures against the coronavirus, as their funds had already been depleted due to frequent disasters.

Concerning fiscal adjustment funds that have increased, there has been criticism that the central government runs up debts, while local governments boost their savings. Although it is a problem that funds are lopsidedly concentrated in the Tokyo metropolitan government, it can be said that the significance of ensuring extra financial resources for times of emergency has been demonstrated in this situation.

The central government plays a major role in disaster recovery. It will provide more than 400 billion yen in assistance to victims of heavy rainfall in Kyushu and other parts of the country by using reserve funds from this fiscal year's budget. It is important to deliver the assistance funds quickly to these victims.

Both the central and local governments will inevitably see their tax revenues drop due to the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus disaster. Local governments must review their policies without preconceptions to identify nonessential and nonurgent expenditures. It is important to continue independent efforts, rather than depending on the central government.

The central government should strengthen its support for local governments so that their fiscal management will not be hampered, such as by allowing them to flexibly issue local government bonds, which are debts owed by local governments.

While the population is rapidly declining, the fiscal future of local governments seems tough as they face growing demand for medical and nursing care services for the elderly. They also must deal with aging infrastructure. They must constantly improve their fiscal structure and prepare for crises.
What's a lily-white law firm, headquartered in rich, ritzy, exclusive La Jolla (home of Mitt Romney), doing suing three big-tech giants for not having enough black people on their corporate boards?

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

A Qualcomm shareholder has sued the company's corporate directors for failing to bring Blacks onto the board or into top executive roles while repeatedly touting diversity efforts in public. The lawsuit, which comes in the wake of widespread Black Lives Matter protests over racial inequality, is one of three shareholder derivative legal actions recently filed against technology giants by the law firm of Bottini & Bottini in La Jolla. Other tech firms sued this month include Oracle Corp., on allegations similar to the Qualcomm suit, and Facebook on claims that it has no African Americans among its senior executives. The Qualcomm case filed July 17 in San Diego federal court contends that the company's board is "all-white," and there are no Blacks in the top six C-suite executive jobs.

From Bottini's own website, here's how sincerity-challenged it sounds:

Bottini & Bottini Inc. unconditionally supports the Black Lives Matter movement. Many organizations have issued statements in support of the movement, but Bottini & Bottini has made a major commitment to the movement by being the first law firm in the United States to file lawsuits against corporate America to attempt to bring about much-needed increased diversity on the Board and among the senior executives at some of America's largest and most powerful corporations. On July 2, 2020, Bottini & Bottini filed the first lawsuit in the United States seeking such change. The case was filed in San Francisco against Oracle Corporation -- a company that has an abysmal record regarding diversity and discrimination and has no African Americans on its Board or among its top 40 senior executives, and which has been sued by the Department of Labor for underpaying women and minorities by $400 million over a four-year period. The same day, Bottini & Bottini filed another case against Facebook, a company which has no African Americans among its senior executives, and which has facilitated discriminatory advertising practices that have resulted in a massive boycott of the Company by its advertisers. On July 17, 2020, Bottini & Bottini sued Qualcomm, which has no Blacks on its Board or among its senior executives, and which employs only 1.5% African Americans at the company. The stark reality is that diversity must start at the top, and racism and discrimination cannot and will not be eliminated in this country unless we increase diversity at the very top, which in the case of corporate America means at the level of the Board of Directors and C-suite. Statements of "support" for the BLM movement are necessary, but it is even more important to take action. For that reason, Bottini & Bottini has made a major commitment of resources and personnel to bring these groundbreaking lawsuits against corporate America. The companies named as defendants in these cases have all said the "right" things in the past about their supposed "strong commitment" to diversity and inclusion, but these statements ring hollow because the companies have not actually caused the changes to be made. We hope to bring about that change now through these important lawsuits, which seek to increase economic opportunities and representation for African Americans and other minorities at publicly-traded corporations.

How stupid do they think we are with all that virtue-signaling and self-promotion? A look at the Bottini & Bottini website shows that all of its attorneys are white as snow. Qualcomm, by contrast, to take one target, is 68% minority-populated, with board members from India and Brazil of multiple colors. How about some practicing what they preach?

And as for self-promotion, what's this ":Many organizations have issued statements in support of the movement, but Bottini & Bottini..." claptrap? Everyone is wicked except Bottini & Bottini? Nobody thought of this before?

Having taken a project management certificate program at San Diego Continuing Education, I learned a lot about what corporate boards are for and what chairmen are for. Board members make the most important decisions about the direction of the company, the CEO executes the plan, and the chairman keeps them from fighting with each other. Legislative, Executive and Judicial, kinda.

Appointing board members is arguably one of the most critical in terms of needing people who understand the industry and specifically how a company works, and it's a position that takes utmost trust. A chairman or CEO can be replaced if their results don't work out, but a board member is one of a group that pays close attention to operations and can fall into groupthink, or meld into the required cooperation and insider savvy from all sides to make a company profitable. In the tech industry, whites, South Asians, and East Asians have the largest talent pool, and the male component is higher than most other industries, so it's pretty natural that the people who would rise to board-member-able are going to be in those racial groups. And it's very important to have knowledgable people rather than perfect skin-tone bean-counting because profits are at stake.

The shakedown for determining board members by skin color is nothing but a bid to make American tech companies less knowledgable and less profitable, but much more virtue-signaling.

At Google, to take a benchmark example, 3.7% of the employees are now black, up from 1.9% in 2014. You can bet the wokesters at that company tried hard to get qualified Black people, and Being Google, they had their choice of Black talent. According to the Los Angeles Times, black people are in short supply in Silicon Valley and that's been known for awhile. A couple years ago Apple Computer spread a lot of cash to non-Silicon Valley cities to train minority coders because they couldn't find enough in Silicon Valley, and San Diego was one of them.

The LAT dismisses the educational system as the root of why there are not enough Black tech people, which is complete leftist bee ess, because we all know that Black children are trapped in failing schools under the oppressive and do-zero thumb of the teachers. The LAT instead blames networking good ol' boys networks, originating from venture capital firms, which finance the startups that eventually create the tech giants, because they have even fewer Black venture capitalists in their numbers, less than 1%. Maybe Bottini & Bottini can put its money where its mouth is and give a few million to a black VC company to get the ball rolling if they're really serious about getting Black people in Silicon Valley. Or better still, they can work toward freeing our public schools which has made the quality of education so abysmal for Black people.

But that's probably not what this is about.

Here are some opening theories about what it might be about.

Politics? You bet. In the Qualcomm case (and this La Jolla law firm is closest of all to the doings of San Diego-based Qualcomm so color me suspicious), there's a congressional race on for the 54th district, with two far-left Democrats on the ballot, Sara Jacobs, and Georgette Gomez. Jacobs is an heiress to the Qualcomm fortune, and Gomez is an Black Lives Matter supporter. Both candidates are awful, but Gomez is probably more awful, she represents the crazy-left, the Sanders on amphetimines branch, plus the really extreme unions. Idle-rich Jacobs, 30, represents the Obama-Clinton left. Might this be a bid to paint Qualcomm as racist (it clearly isn't, based on this San Diego Union-Tribune story) in order to pin something on Jacobs and whip up the crazy left. I haven't found any smoking guns yet, but rest assured, I'm looking.

Or how about politic in a more lateral sense. Qualcomm is the only major tech firm with a significant conservative presence -- 50% leftist- 50% Republican. CNBC has this list of left-right political donation breakdown among tech giants. Qualcomm has that 50-50 breakdown, likely because it's not in that Silicon Valley nest of leftism, but there's also Oracle, which has some hugely leftist people living as heirs off the original pile made, but has a Trump-supporting CEO, Larry Ellison, and a not-insignificant 33% conservative donor presence. Think these lefty lawyers might just want to shake them down and paint them as racist? Facebook, meanwhile, is ignoring a wokester-corporate boycott in the name of not censoring free speech, which makes it a target, too, for seeding these boards with people who may not know the industry.

In any case, the last part of Bottini & Bottini's claimed reason for its lawsuits is most disingenuous -- which seek to increase economic opportunities and representation for African Americans and other minorities at publicly-traded corporations. These board seats won't increase economic opportunity for any Black people as a group. They won't level the playing field, they won't change the venture capital system, they certainly won't free Black children from execrable public education. What they will do is reward an already existing Black elite - the Valerie Jarretts, Michelle Obamas, and Eric Holders -- who know nothing about what it takes to make a company succeed and everything about how to wreck it. Wokeness over merit is no way to stay competitive.

These lawsuits are clearly a shakedown on corporate America from a bunch of rank hypocrites taking orders and cash from ... someone.

Image credit: Logo via Wikimedia Commons, fair use




By Kim Jae-heun







LG International was selected as the 15th "Inclusive Company" by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Wednesday.







The government established the Inclusive Companies Project to facilitate shared growth by connecting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with large enterprises.







Previously selected "Inclusive Company" firms include Naver, Woori Bank and the Korea Rail Network Authority. However, LG International will be the first one helping SMEs in their overseas operation.







"This will provide an opportunity for our small and medium-sized venture startups to gain knowhow and a network of large companies and help them to enter the global market successfully," SMEs Minister Park Young-sun said.







"For LG International, this project will allow them to expand their existing business model. We thank LG International for suggesting a win-win model that can create a synergy effect with SMEs, and the government will support the interested parties as well."







LG International will support venture companies' overseas market development, along with their business expansion there, by utilizing the infrastructure of the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) and the ministry's K-Startup Center.







In addition, LG International will foster startups and invest in them by providing opportunities to expand overseas, together with KITA.







LG International has international business experience that spans 70 years. It will help SMEs to connect with local online and offline retailers.







In the second half of this year, the trading company will host an export consultation meeting online for SMEs while establishing an offline showroom for them abroad. It will also offer low-interest loans utilizing a 60 billion won fund.







LG International has recently been developing new businesses in energy and industrial goods.


Texas Republican Representative Roger Williams denied on Tuesday that he threatened to "throw urine" at the Puerto Rican Democrat during a heated argument.

According to an article by The Hill, the confrontation came after Florida Representative Ted Yoho approached Ocasio-Cortez on the east side of the Capitol on Monday to call her "disgusting." A reporter who heard the brief exchange claimed the Republican confronted AOC after she suggested that poverty and unemployment caused a rise in crime rate in New York City.

Ocasio-Cortez shot back at Yoho, telling him he was being rude before walking away. He met Williams a few steps down before he was heard saying, "F-- b--."

AOC confirmed the brief exchange on Twitter on Tuesday. But a spokesman for Yoho later issued a statement denying the claims. The spokesman said Yoho only used a "barnyard epithet" during their confrontation.

Ocasio-Cortez, who is the youngest woman to ever serve in Congress, also accused Williams of yelling at her and threatening to throw urine at her.

According to Fox News, Heather Douglass, the Republican senator's communications director, said Williams would have immediately condemned foul language towards his colleagues.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, a Democrat, called for Yoho to apologize to AOC on the House floor. She said his actions were despicable and an act bullies would do.

What did AOC say about New York?

Earlier in the month, reporters asked Ocasio-Cortez about the rising cases of gun violence in New York. The progressive Hispanic suggested economic hardship and the failure of policymakers to fund programs to level economic disparities led to the surge in petty crimes.

She also suggested that glitches in the delivery of direct payments and unemployment benefits have helped trigger the crime spike.

AOC has long since advocated for policies that would cut funding for police to shift the money to education, mental health, and social services.

Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a third-generation Bronxite who made headlines after she beat former U.S. Representative Joe Crowly in the Democratic primary in June 2018.

She made waves again after she refused to attend President Trump's third State of the Union address in February 2020.

She attended Boston University where she earned her degrees in economics and International Relations. She began working with the National Hispanic Institute as an Educational Director. Her position allowed her to help Americans, DACA-recipients, and undocumented immigrants in community leadership and college readiness.

Being a Democratic Socialist, she supports the Medicare-for-all program. The initiative aims to create one national health insurance plan for all Americans. The program would cover all forms of health care.

Ocasio-Cortez, who was still paying off her college debts in 2019, is a firm believer of tuition-free public colleges and universities. In an interview with Business Insider, AOC also said she wants to give Americans a guaranteed living wage "so no one in the U.S. is too poor to live."

Want to read more? Check these out:
Diamon Eichelburger was found unresponsive on the ground of a 7-Eleven parking lot on Monday morning, according to the Kansas City Police Department A Kansas City woman is dead after she was fatally shot while pushing a 1-year-old baby in a stroller.
We've lost count of how many times insiders have accumulated shares in a company that goes on to improve markedly. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of share prices declining precipitously after insiders have sold shares. So shareholders might well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Greenhill & Co., Inc. (NYSE:GHL).

What Is Insider Selling?

It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required.

Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. As Peter Lynch said, 'insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise'.

Check out our latest analysis for Greenhill

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Greenhill

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Chairman & CEO Scott Bok for US$2.0m worth of shares, at about US$14.54 per share. That means that even when the share price was higher than US$11.80 (the recent price), an insider wanted to purchase shares. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. To us, it's very important to consider the price insiders pay for shares. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when an insider has purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price. Scott Bok was the only individual insider to buy shares in the last twelve months.

Scott Bok bought a total of 175.98k shares over the year at an average price of US$14.22. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

Story continues

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership

I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Greenhill insiders own about US$41m worth of shares. That equates to 20% of the company. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

So What Do The Greenhill Insider Transactions Indicate?

It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded Greenhill shares in the last quarter. But insiders have shown more of an appetite for the stock, over the last year. Insiders own shares in Greenhill and we see no evidence to suggest they are worried about the future. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Greenhill. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Greenhill you should be aware of, and 1 of them is significant.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
M ore than 150 migrants were brought ashore in six hours after crossing the English Channel to the UK in small boats.

Border Force intercepted 13 boats between 6.20am and 12.30pm on Tuesday, the Home Office said.

They were carrying a total of 159 people with pictures showing at least three young children among the group.

Those on board told immigration officials they were Kuwaiti, Iranian, Syrian, Palestinian, Yemeni, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Afghan, Libyan, Sudanese, Moroccan, Turkish and Chad nationals.

The Dover Lifeboat and Border Force officers tow small boats into Dover, Kent / PA

It takes the total number of migrants who have reached the UK so far this year to more than 3,000, analysis by the PA news agency shows.

Last week more than 350 people made the crossing, with 137 on Friday alone.

A young boy is carried by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover, Kent / PA

Some 180 reached the UK on July 12  the current single day record for the year.

More attempted crossings were thought to be under way on Wednesday morning.

The latest wave of incidents comes amid a bout of warm weather and calm waters.

A young girl is carried by a Border Force officer / PA

On Monday, it emerged that hundreds of boats believed to have been used in past attempts are being stored at a high-security government compound in Dover.

The discarded dinghies and rowing boats, which were discovered piled on top of one another, were pictured at a warehouse storage facility on an industrial estate in the Whitfield area of the Kent port town.

The boats are stored to use as evidence in people-smuggler prosecutions, the Home Office said.

The Dover Lifeboat and Border Force officers tow small boats into Dover, Kent, following a number of suspected migrant incidents in The Channel / PA

Despite agreeing to launch a Franco-British intelligence cell, it emerged that the countries are embroiled in a row on tactics used to tackle the crossings crisis  particular whether maritime law permits French authorities to intercept boats at sea and take them back to the Continent.

Earlier this month, Home Secretary Priti Patel said that no new target date has been set for when the crossings would become an infrequent phenomenon.

Less than a year ago she vowed urgent action on the dangerous journeys, aiming for them to be virtually eradicated by spring this year.

Charities have repeatedly insisted that the only way to tackle the crossings is by committing to providing migrants with safe, legal routes of passage for those seeking sanctuary in the UK.

The Home Office has said migrants should be claiming asylum in the first safe European country they arrive in.
CAMAS, Wash., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fisher Investments, one of the world's largest fee-only investment advisers with over $125 billion in assets, and also an ERISA 3(38) Investment Manager, has signaled its strong support for Pooled Employer Plans (PEPs) in a letter to the Department of Labor (DOL), but cautioned that regulatory guidance for these plans should be crafted carefully to avoid inadvertent or counterproductive limitations on options available to plan participants.

PEPs, which were established as part of the 2019 Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, will allow unrelated and smaller employers that don't share a common industry or location to participate in a single, shared 401(k) plan so they can take advantage of their collective purchasing power to provide retirement plans to their employees.

Fisher Investments expressed its views in response to the DOL's Employee Benefits Security Administration's (EBSA's) request for comments on its planned regulatory guidance on PEPs. In its response, the firm asserts that additional exemptions and limitations on products and services do not need to be added to PEP plan rulemaking. The letter focused on two key points:

A single entity can serve as the pooled plan provider and the investment manager, without raising the need for additional prohibited transaction relief;

Not all proprietary investment products raise prohibited transactions.

PEPs empower plan administrators to act as Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) fiduciaries on behalf of participating employers. Similar to Multiple Employer Plans (MEPs), the ultimate goal of this new approach will be to provide an efficient retirement alternative to small, independent employers.

Fisher Investments' letter covers issues around plan structure and investment options including:

How the firm would structure PEPs to maximize retirement savings while addressing the varied needs of plan participants with different levels of sophistication.

Potential conflicts of interest that may arise in working with PEPs and how these can be avoided.

Appropriate investment products that may be included in plans.

"Pooled Employer Plans present a major opportunity to increase the retirement security of working Americans by providing them access to top quality investments. In creating this option, the Department of Labor and EBSA have struck a blow in addressing the current retirement savings crisis," said Nathan Fisher, Founder and Senior Executive Vice President of Fisher Investments 401(k) Solutions. "With the correct approach, these plans can provide a vital new retirement savings vehicle for a significant number of Americans."

The letter can be read in its entirety here at the following link.

About Fisher Investments

Fisher Investments is one of the world's largest independent, fee-only investment advisers and serves over 74,000 clients globally. Fisher Investments and its subsidiaries currently manage over $125 billion in assetsover $78 billion for North American private investors, over $31 billion for institutional investors, over $12 billion for European private investors and over $1 billion for small and mid-size business 401k plans. Fisher Investments maintains four principal business groups: US Private Client, Institutional, Private Client International and 401(k) Solutions, which serve a diverse global client base. Founder and Executive Chairman, Ken Fisher, wrote the Forbes "Portfolio Strategy" column from 1984 through 2016, making him the longest continuously running columnist in the magazine's history. He now writes monthly, native language columns in major media organs spanning Western Europe and Asia, including Germany's Focus Money, Denmark's Brsen, the Netherland's De Telegraaf, Switzerland's Handelszeitung, Spain's El Economista, Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore, France's L'Opinion, Belgium's La Libre, Austria's Trend, China's Caixin, the Hong Kong Economic Journal, Taiwan's Business Weekly, and South Korea's Chosun Ilbo. Ken has also written 11 books, including 4 New York Times bestsellers. For more information on Fisher Investments, please visit www.fisherinvestments.com or call us at 1-888-823-9566.

SOURCE Fisher Investments

Related Links

https://www.fisherinvestments.com/en-us


Rating Action: Moody's confirms ratings of five Vietnamese financial institutions, concludes review

Global Credit Research - 22 Jul 2020

Singapore, July 22, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has confirmed the long-term ratings and assessments of three finance companies and two banks in Vietnam.

The three finance companies are VPBank Finance Company Limited (FE Credit), Home Credit Vietnam Finance Company Limited (HCV), and SHBANK Finance Company Limited (SHB Finance).

The two banks are Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VP Bank), which fully owns FE Credit, and Saigon - Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), which fully owns SHB Finance.

With the exception of VP Bank's long-term foreign currency deposit rating which is on a negative outlook, the outlook on all other ratings of the finance companies and banks, where applicable, are stable.

Moody's rating action concludes the review for downgrade initiated on 07 April 2020.

A list of all affected ratings and assessments is provided at the end of this press release.

RATINGS RATIONALE

CONFIRMATION OF FE CREDIT, HCV AND SHB FINANCE'S RATINGS

The confirmation of FE Credit, HCV and SHB Finance's ratings takes into account Moody's expectation that solvency and liquidity risks caused by the coronavirus is mitigated by (1) early reopening of Vietnam (Ba3 negative)'s economy due to the successful control of the outbreak; (2) stabilizing financing conditions supported by ample liquidity following supportive domestic and global measures; and (3) the companies' ability to manage credit and liquidity risks amid disruptions from the coronavirus outbreak.

The companies' funding and liquidity positions were stable during the review period supported by ample international and domestic liquidity, which helped the companies to roll over their existing funding and access new funding. The companies have diversified their funding sources and reduced their funding costs during the same period. However, the companies' reliance on wholesale funding and limited balance sheet liquidity remain a weakness for their credit profiles.

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The short duration of the economic disruptions in Vietnam has helped the companies to manage delinquencies and collections within the historical range. While Moody's has observed early signs of stress in delinquencies and collections, especially in April due to social distancing measures, collections recovered and delinquencies dropped in the rest of the second quarter of 2020. The companies have also shown prudent risk management, such as tightening underwriting criteria against the backdrop of slowing economic growth.

CONFIRMATION OF RATINGS OF VP BANK AND SHB

In confirming VP Bank's b1 Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA), Moody's acknowledges the bank's above-industry average profitability and strong capitalization, offset by the heightened credit risk from its consumer finance subsidiary that targets the low-income population in Vietnam, as well as its rapid loan growth in previous years. VP Bank has higher reliance on market funds than other rated Vietnamese banks because of the non-deposit taking nature of its consumer finance subsidiary. But Moody's views the associated risks to be offset by the bank's comfortable stock of liquid assets.

In the case of SHB, the confirmation of its b3 BCA takes into consideration the steady improvements made by the bank in resolving its legacy problem assets, albeit offset by downside risks posed by the ongoing coronavirus outbreak on the debt repayment capacity of the bank's borrowers and the thin loss absorbing buffers SHB has against rising risks. The BCA also takes into account SHB's modest capitalization and profitability compared to other rated banks in Vietnam.

STABLE OUTLOOKS ON THE RATINGS

In the wake of coronavirus-related shocks, Moody's expects slower economic growth for Vietnam in the next 12-18 months, which will result in negative pressure on asset quality and profitability of banks and finance companies. Deteriorating external demand is weighing on exports and tourism, while global containment measures disrupt supply chains, curb consumption and weaken investment activity. That said, the stable outlooks reflect an abatement in the degree of downside risks than initially expected when Moody's took the rating action on the five financial institutions in April 2020, and Moody's views that the downside risks have already been adequately factored into their standalone credit profiles.

The negative outlook on VP Bank's long-term foreign currency deposit rating mirrors the negative outlook on Vietnam's sovereign rating, because a downgrade of the sovereign rating would likely lead to a corresponding lowering in the country's foreign-currency bank deposit ceiling, which is currently at B1.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OF THE RATINGS

FE Credit, HCV, SHB Finance, VP Bank, SHB

A rating upgrade is unlikely given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

FE Credit

** A downgrade in FE Credit's Standalone Assessment could result in a downgrade of its ratings.

** Moody's could downgrade the company's Standalone Assessment if (i) there is a material deterioration in its asset quality and profitability, as a result of a more challenging operating environment following a resurgence in coronavirus infections and the revival of social distancing measures in Vietnam; and (ii) the company faces liquidity shortfalls due to an unfavorable financing conditions or deterioration in loan collection.

** A downgrade of VP Bank's BCA or any indication of a change in the company's importance to its parent, which would alter Moody's assessment of the probability of parental support, could lead to a downgrade of FE Credit's rating.

HCV

** A downgrade in HCV's Standalone Assessment could result in a downgrade of its ratings.

** Moody's could downgrade the company's Standalone Assessment if (i) there is a material deterioration in its asset quality and profitability, as a result of a more challenging operating environment following a resurgence in coronavirus infections and the revival of social distancing measures in Vietnam; and (ii) the company faces liquidity shortfalls due to an unfavorable financing condition.

SHB Finance

** A downgrade in SHB Finance's Standalone Assessment could result in a downgrade of its ratings.

** Moody's could downgrade the company's Standalone Assessment if (i) there is a material deterioration in its asset quality and profitability, as a result of a more challenging operating environment following a resurgence in coronavirus infections and the revival of social distancing measures in Vietnam; and (ii) the company faces liquidity shortfalls due to unfavorable financing conditions.

** A downgrade of SHB's BCA or any indication of a change in the company's importance to its parent, which would alter Moody's assessment of the probability of support in times of stress, could also lead to a downgrade of SHB Finance's ratings.

VP Bank

** A resurgence in coronavirus infection rates both globally as well as in Vietnam would depress economic activities and weaken borrowers' debt repayment capacity.

** Moody's could downgrade VP Bank's ratings and assessments if the bank's BCA is downgraded. VP Bank's BCA could be downgraded if its solvency weakens as a result of a prolonged outbreak of the coronavirus. Material deterioration in the credit strength of its consumer finance subsidiary, FE Credit, will also be credit negative for VP Bank.

** While Moody's expects VP Bank's funding and liquidity to remain stable over the next 12 -- 18 months, any indication of a bank run will be negative for the bank's BCA.

SHB

** A resurgence in coronavirus infection rates both globally as well as in Vietnam would depress economic activities and weaken borrowers' debt repayment capacity.

** Moody's could downgrade SHB's ratings and assessments if the bank's BCA is downgraded. SHB's BCA could be downgraded if its solvency weakens as a result of a prolonged outbreak of the coronavirus. While Moody's expect SHB's funding and liquidity to remain stable over the next 12 -- 18 months, any indication of a bank run or limited access to market funds will also be negative for the bank's BCA.

RATING METHODOLOGY

The principal methodology used in rating Home Credit Vietnam Finance Company Limited, SHBANK Finance Company Limited and VPBank Finance Company Limited was Finance Companies Methodology published in November 2019 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1187099. The principal methodology used in rating Saigon - Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank and Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank was Banks Methodology published in November 2019 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1147865. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of these methodologies.

VPBank Finance Company Limited (FE Credit), headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, reported total assets of VND69 trillion as of 31 December 2019.

Home Credit Vietnam Finance Company Limited (HCV), headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, reported total assets of VND24 trillion as of 31 December 2019.

SHBANK Finance Company Limited (SHB Finance), headquartered in Hanoi, reported total assets of VND3 trillion as of 31 December 2019.

Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VP Bank), headquartered in Hanoi, reported total assets of VND399 trillion as of 30 June 2020.

Saigon - Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB), headquartered in Hanoi, reported total assets of VND369 trillion as of 31 March 2020.

LIST OF AFFECTED RATINGS

..Issuer: VPBank Finance Company Limited (Lead Analyst: Jeffrey Lee)

.... Corporate Family Rating, Confirmed at B1

.... Outlook, Changed to Stable from Ratings Under Review

..Issuer: Home Credit Vietnam Finance Company Limited (Lead Analyst: Jeffrey Lee)

.... Long-term Issuer Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Confirmed at B3

.... Corporate Family Rating, Confirmed at B3

.... Outlook, Changed to Stable from Ratings Under Review

..Issuer: SHBANK Finance Company Limited (Lead Analyst: Jeffrey Lee)

.... Long-term Issuer Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Confirmed at B3

.... Corporate Family Rating, Confirmed at B3

.... Outlook, Changed to Stable from Ratings Under Review

..Issuer: Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (Lead Analyst: Rebaca Tan)

.... Adjusted Baseline Credit Assessment, Confirmed at b1

.... Baseline Credit Assessment, Confirmed at b1

.... Long-term Counterparty Risk Assessment, Confirmed at Ba3(cr)

.... Long-term Counterparty Risk Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Confirmed at Ba3

.... Long-term Issuer Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Confirmed at B1, Outlook changed to Stable from Review for Downgrade

.... Long-term Senior Unsecured Medium-Term Note Program (Foreign Currency), Confirmed at (P)B1

.... Long-term Senior Unsecured Bond (Foreign Currency), Confirmed at B1, Outlook changed to Stable from Review for Downgrade

.... Long-term Deposit Ratings (Foreign Currency), Confirmed at B1, Outlook changed to Negative from Review for Downgrade

.... Long-term Deposit Ratings (Local Currency), Confirmed at B1, Outlook changed to Stable from Review for Downgrade

.... Short-term Issuer Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Affirmed at NP

.... Short-term Deposit Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Affirmed at NP

.... Short-term Counterparty Risk Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Affirmed at NP

.... Short-term Counterparty Risk Assessment, Affirmed at NP(cr)

.... Outlook, Changed to Stable(m) from Ratings Under Review

..Issuer: Saigon - Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Lead Analyst: Rebaca Tan)

.... Adjusted Baseline Credit Assessment, Confirmed at b3

.... Baseline Credit Assessment, Confirmed at b3

.... Long-term Counterparty Risk Assessment, Confirmed at B1(cr)

.... Long-term Counterparty Risk Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Confirmed at B1

.... Long-term Issuer Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Confirmed at B2, Outlook changed to Stable from Review for Downgrade

.... Long-term Senior Unsecured Medium-Term Note Program (Foreign Currency), Confirmed at (P)B2

.... Long-term Deposit Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Confirmed at B2, Outlook changed to Stable from Review for Downgrade

.... Short-term Issuer Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Affirmed at NP

.... Short-term Deposit Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Affirmed at NP

.... Short-term Counterparty Risk Ratings (Foreign and Local Currency), Affirmed at NP

.... Short-term Counterparty Risk Assessment, Affirmed at NP(cr)

.... Outlook, Changed to Stable from Ratings Under Review

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.

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These ratings are solicited. Please refer to Moody's Policy for Designating and Assigning Unsolicited Credit Ratings available on its website www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

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Myanmar: Denmark funded community centres for fishermen in Tanintharyi and Rakhine state in Myanmar

by Zazithorn Ruengchinda

July 22,2020 | Source: Scand Asia

The Danish embassy in Denmark announced a progression on a project to establishes community centres for fishing families in Tanintharyi and Rakhine state on 16 July 2020. The coastal communities in Tanintharyi and Rakhine were enabled to keep working on the establishment of the community centres amid the Covid-19 crisis.



The facilities, funded by Denmark, will be used as information centres and offices for community members who are involved in the co-management of Sustainable Coastal Fisheries Programme. They will also serve as shelters for the communities from any natural disasters, including heavy storms and cyclones during monsoon season.
New Delhi, July 22 : In yet another reform initiative in the oil and gas sector, pipeline operators in the country may shift to a unified or pooled tariff regime for inter-connected cross-country gas pipelines from September 1.

A unified tariff may do away with levy of multiple tariffs on customers, ensuring equitable distribution of gas and uniform gas-based economic development across the country.

The current system of tariff determination leads to multiple pipeline tariffs on customers who have contracted for gas which flows from multiple pipeline operators.

According to official sources, downstream oil and gas regulator, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) has finalised the draft regulation on unified tariff and would fix the tariff by August-end and implement it from the first day of September.

With this, one nation, one gas grid, one pricing would be implemented across the country, bringing relief to customers in far-flung areas who were being charged extra for gas transmission but raising charges for other existing customers to bring about price equalisation.

According to a report by ICICI Securities, unified tariff mechanism would boost utilisation on GAIL's Jagdishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra pipeline (JHBDPL) by virtue of lowering of tariff under pooling of transmission prices.

When the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the JHBDPL, GAIL had proposed unified tariff to ensure viability of this pipeline, and had estimated unified tariff on the JHBDPL and other inter-connected pipelines at Rs 57/mmbtu vs Rs 173/mmbtu, if fixed separately for the JHBDPL.
Ukraine's Rada approves cut in feed-in tariffs

11:40, 22.07.20 2716

The draft law was backed by 288 MPs with at least 226 votes required.
Kanye West has been making his rounds in the headlines since announcing his bid for the presidency on July 4. Many people at the time thought the rapper was merely pulling a publicity stunt.

However, West has continued along this path, hosting his first official campaign rally in South Carolina on Sunday. At the rally he spoke about he and wife Kim Kardashian's decision not to abort their oldest child North West, and claimed Harriet Tubman had never actually freed slaves.

The rally left some concerned for West, who was emotional to the point of tears and singled out members in the audience for wearing mask.

A day later in a series of now deleted tweets, West accused both his wife and and his mother-in-law Kris Jenner of trying to have him "locked up."

The 43-year-old compared his life to Jordan Peele's 2017 film 'Get Out' and seemed to address his wife's past, saying he puts his life on his God that "Norths mom would never photograph her doing playboy" (Kim has posed nude for the outlet in the past.)

While some people said the rapper sent the tweets for clout and to promote his upcoming album DONDA, titled after his late mother, the recent rant sparked conversations of mental health in the Black community and how it is not taken seriously.

H-TOWN HIP HOP: Travis Scott drops new music, clears air over T-Pain incident

Twitter user @qssley said the Black community constantly dismisses mental heath. Another Twitter user, @infallibelle, said bipolar disorder isn't a joke and is something people struggle with daily.

Twitter user @devitoandcrew_ said it broke her heart to see West's tweets.

In an episode of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman last year, Kanye spoke openly about his personal struggles with mental health.

"It is a health issue that has a strong stigma on it, and people are allowed to say anything about it and discriminate in any way," said West. "This is like a sprained brain, like having a sprained ankle. If someone has a sprained ankle, you're not going to push on him more."

At the time, West said when you're in that state, you're hyper-paranoid about everything.

"This is my experience," he said. "Everyone now is an actor. Everything is a conspiracy. You see everything. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you're being recorded, you feel all these things."

During the interview with David Letterman, West said if you don't take your medication daily to keep you at a certain state when you're bipolar, you have the potential to ramp up and it can take you to a point where you can even end up in the hospital.

"You start acting erratic, as TMZ would put it."
(TNS)  Spectrum is seeking CARES Act funding to connect four under-served streets in Keene to high-speed Internet.The telecommunications company has applied for a $189,750 grant through New Hampshires Emergency Broadband Expansion Program, City Manager Elizabeth Dragon said in an email Monday. If its application is approved, it would mean that 76 homes on Hurricane, Daniels Hill, Langley and Chesterfield roads that have had difficulty getting online would finally have a more reliable connection.These streets are all on the western side of the city, with the latter three in Keenes southwestern corner.This would be a big deal for those neighborhoods, Dragon said Thursday, during a meeting of the City Council held via Zoom. They have had some real challenges  connecting their children to education and connecting to their work.She said Monday that some portions of the streets in question do have access to high-speed Internet, but others dont.During the council meeting, Dragon encouraged residents in these neighborhoods to reach out to the Governors Office For Emergency Relief and Recovery to advocate for the project.The $50 million Emergency Broadband Expansion Program was announced by Gov. Chris Sununu in June and is funded via the federal CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion aid package signed into law by President Donald Trump in mid-March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.School and business closures related to the outbreak have forced students and many workers to adapt to remote learning and working environments, which has highlighted gaps in Internet availability. Telemedicine has also been a primary concern, as patients look for ways to follow social-distancing protocols while also staying in touch with their physicians.[The CARES Act money] is really designed to get out and really provide some relief to folks that have been affected by COVID, be they businesses or nonprofits, Sununu said in June after announcing the program. Areas where we clearly need to make investments to help make sure that were closing those gaps that may have either been exacerbated by, or made more problematic through, the COVID crisis.The program requires the projects to support Internet speeds of 25 Mbps minimum for downloads and 3 Mbps minimum for uploads.Spectrum spokeswoman Heidi Vandenbrouck on Tuesday confirmed the company has filed the grant application to extend services to the four city streets.We will provide our services to those areas should the grant be awarded, she said in an email.Mayor George Hansel said Monday that getting these areas of Keene connected has been a struggle for some time, and the city has been looking for ways to improve the situation.Both he and Dragon said those neighborhoods dont have the same Internet access as other parts of the city because low population levels make them less appealing for providers to build out their infrastructure.Those are very sparsely populated streets, Hansel said. They dont meet the calculation usually used by providers to install the last mile of broadband.Hansel said Assistant City Manager Rebecca Landry pointed out the potential project to Spectrum, which then applied for the grant following her recommendation. While the city is not directly involved in the grant application, he said officials will continue to advocate for the needs of the community and provide any necessary information.The application was submitted in early July, but so far there has been no word on whether its been accepted, according to Dragon. The governors website indicates that the anticipated start time for contracts is mid-July.The program does require that projects be complete before the end of this calendar year, she said. So we expect to learn more soon.
'Trump is using us': TV ads pressure Christians as GOP group spends millions in 2020

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Never Trump Republican groups are spending millions this year in a bid to sway conservative and faith-based voters in battleground states away from voting for Donald Trump in November, with one group running commercial advertisements telling Christians that Trump is using them.

Republican Voters Against Trump, a political initiative affiliated with anti-Trump conservatives like Bill Kristol and former Jeb Bush aid Tim Miller, is running digital and television advertisements featuring testimonials from Republican voters about why they cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump in the upcoming election.

Sarah Longwell, one of the organizers of the initiative, confirmed for The Christian Post that the organization plans to spend upwards of $10-$15 million in 2020 in a bid to defeat the president and elect Democrat Joe Biden as it takes its advertising to swing states like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.

It will be mostly digital with some TV, Longwell said. On TV, they have to be 30 to 60-second spots. But a lot of what we are going to do digitally is just running the unfiltered testimonials from people. Thats really what the project is built for. We spent a lot of time thinking over the last couple of years how to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

One commercial that aired in North Carolina last week is titled Trump is Using Us.

The commercial is aimed at Christian conservatives, a major voting bloc for Trump in 2020 as he campaigned on promises to promote pro-life policies, protect religious freedom and appoint conservative judges.

I grew up in the church. I attended a private, Christian high school. You look at a way someone lives their life, and you believe them, one self-proclaimed Republican voter identified as Tommy says in the advertisement. The commercial then jumps to an audio clip of taped comments that surfaced in 2016 of Trump saying he likes to grab women by the p----."

The advertisement shows another self-proclaimed Republican voter saying that as Christians, we should love our neighbors as ourselves. The commercial then jumps to a clip highlighting how Trump once retweeted a video that, among other things, showed a man chanting white power!

Another Republican identified as Pat said in the advertisement that he dislikes how Trump used force to bludgeon and gas protesters at Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., on June 1 so that he could take photographs in front of a church while posing with a Bible.

The moment that he held up that Bible, he revealed that this president is using us, Pat said. Christians have to resist being used to justify things that Jesus would never justify.

The advertisement concludes with a clip of Trump saying that there were very fine people on both sides in remarks about the violence that took place between white nationalist demonstrators and counter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Whats going on now is wrong. And as a Republican, as a Christian, we simply cannot allow this man to be reelected, a Republican name Shawn concludes.

The advertisement that ran in North Carolina is just one of the many advertisements that Republican Voters Against Trump will run this year targeting conservative voters.

All of our research showed that what worked best with potentially persuadable voters, especially women, is other Republican voices talking about why they cant support Trump in 2020 and in fact, can support Joe Biden, Longwell said. If you watch a bunch of the videos, the testimonials are very powerful. We have been testing them to see which ones are the most persuasive with our target audience. We are just going to run those unfiltered, unedited [targeted] at voters in the swing states.

While the initiative is highlighting the testimonials of voters who say they cant vote for Trump, that doesnt mean that every person giving a testimonial is going to vote for Biden, she noted.

According to Longwell, Republican Voters Against Trump aims to be a broad coalition of voters who have voted Republican in the past. This may include conservatives who will vote for Biden but vote for Republicans in down-ballot races.

Unlike some Never Trump Republican groups, Republican Voters Against Trump will not be active in down-ballot races.

At least one anti-Trump conservative group, The Lincoln Project, is also purchasing six-figure ad buys to help bring down Senate lawmakers who have shown their loyalty to Trump. Those being targeted by the group are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as well as Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona and Jonie Ernst of Iowa, according to McClatchy DC.

But for Longwell and Republican Voters Against Trump, it is important to build a big tent of people who will not vote for Trump.

That included people who were lifelong Republicans that have now left the party because Donald Trump drove them out of it, she said. It also includes people who are going to vote potentially for Thom Tillis or Joni Ernst but they are not going to vote for Donald Trump. They are going to split their ticket.

Republican Voters Against Trump was launched as an initiative of Defending Democracy Together, a political group that was founded by prominent Never Trump conservatives like Longwell, Kristol, former Nancy Reagan speechwriter and conservative author Mona Charen, among others.

Defending Democracy Together has received some criticism for accepting donations from a left-wing organization. Longwell admitted to CP that Defending Democracy Together has in the past accepted funding from a 501(c)(4) organization called Democracy Fund Voice, a group that is created by left-wing donor Pierre Omidyar. InfluenceWatch, which cited tax returns, reports that Democracy Fund Voice gave $1.6 million in two grants to Defending Democracy Together in 2018.

Longwell said that while Democracy Fund Voice has given money to DDT, that money has gone toward DDTs other initiative, Republicans for the Rule of Law, not the Republican Voters Against Trump campaign.

[Funding is] coming from all kinds of different places, she said. We have raised a lot of money in small-dollar donations that just come online. We hope to continue to raise more that way. It also comes from a wide spectrum of donors. Some of them have supported our Republicans for the Rule of Law work. Some of them have come in in more recent months. There is always a spectrum.

There is a lot of things I tell people. Never Trump isnt just for voters, but donors too.

As the Never Trump movement now encompasses various organizations and coalitions, the Trump campaign has shot down the idea that the movement will make an impact in the 2020 election.

"President Trump is the leader of a united Republican Party where he has earned 94% of Republican votes during the primaries  something any former president of any party could only dream of, Trump campaign spokesperson Erin Perrine said in a statement to The Hill last week.

Longwell referred to data from a recent Quinnipiac University poll that suggests that support for Trump in the Republican party is at 84%, down from 92% in June.

I think this election is bigger than just about individual policies. It is about whether or not we have a president who respects the Constitution and respects the rule of law, Longwell, the publisher of the Trump-critical news outlet The Bulwark and a Washington-based communications executive, said.

I think there are a lot of Republicans out there who find that Joe Biden is talking about the importance of the Constitution and some of his broader themes very heartening about uniting the country and not being as divisive. In this moment of a health crisis and economic crisis and a racial crisis, having somebody who doesnt make the crisis worse is very attractive.

Longwell suggests that Biden should pick a vice presidential running mate who is more moderate, rather than picking from the far left.

I think not pushing too far left [is important], she said. Trump is trying to paint Joe Biden as a radical socialist. I think it is really hard to do that considering that in a field of 20 Democrats during the primaries, Joe Biden was probably the most moderate, with the exception of maybe Mike Bloomberg.
Lavrov hails Iran-Russia cooperation deal as significant

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Moscow, July 21, IRNA -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday said that the agreement signed on the basis of mutual relations and principles of cooperation between Iran and the Russia is an important deal which determines shape of bilateral relations and the principles of interaction as the key areas are mentioned in the document.

In a press conference with his visiting Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, he added that 20 years have passed since the signing of this agreement during which various developments, threats and challenges to humanity, including terrorism, climate change and spread of viruses happened.

The Treaty on the Basis of Mutual Relations and Principles of Cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation was signed in Moscow on March 12, 2000, during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami and during his visit to Russia.

The treaty includes 21 articles and concluded for a period of ten years but it was extended for another ten years.

Zarif has also said that extension of the deal is on Iranian Foreign Ministry's agenda.

If the Russian friends are ready to have another long-term contract, it can also be examined, he said.

8072**1424

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Celebrity chef George Calombaris (pictured) has waved goodbye to his career as a high-flying restaurant mogul with the sale of his final food business

Celebrity chef George Calombaris has waved goodbye to his career as a high-flying restaurant mogul with the sale of his last food business.

The former MasterChef host has sold the up-market Yo Chi frozen yoghurt chain he owned with former Swisse vitamins boss Radek Sali.

The franchise was bought by two entrepreneurs in their 20s, who are the sons of Boost Juice founder Janine Allis.

The sale signals the full collapse of his restaurant empire which was made up of 18 venues across Melbourne including the Press Club, Gazi and Hellenic Republic.

Made Establishment folded in February with just a pitiful $389 in the bank and owing $22million to creditors.

Yo Chi frozen yoghurt operates four stores in the Melbourne suburbs of Balaclava, Carlton, Hawthorn and Malvern.

The former MasterChef host has sold the up-market Yo Chi frozen yoghurt chain he owned with former Swisse vitamins boss Radek Sali (Pictured: George Calombaris and his wife Natalie Tricarico)

Yo Chi Frozen yoghurt operates four stores in Melbourne suburbs Balaclava, Carlton, Hawthorn and Malvern

The upmarket dessert bar was the only business in the group that wasn't placed into voluntary administration.

Proceeds from the sale will go straight to the Commonwealth Bank which is owed $8.5million after the collapse of the restaurant empire, The Age reported.

The new owners are the two sons of Boost Juice founder Janine Allis - Oliver Allis, 23 and Riley Allis, 20.

Corporate records show a company owned by the two called Embrace the Chi took over the website domain registration and trademarks for Yo Chi in late May.

The takeover appears to be the first foray into business for the children of hospitality queen Janine Allis.

The new owners are the two sons of Boost Juice founder Janine Allis, Oliver Allis, 23 and Riley Allis 20

Corporate records show 'Embrace the Chi' took over the website domain registration and trademarks for Yo Chi (pictured) in late May

She is one of the most successful women in the food and beverage sector after launching Boost Juice in 2000.

The chain now spans 14 nations with more than 550 shop fronts.

The takeover signals the end of the George Calombaris' time on top as restaurant mogul, after 13 years forging his name as an industry leader in Australia.

It only took 12 months for it all to come crumbling down after reports emerged in July last year he had underpaid hundreds of workers by nearly $8million.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted George Calombaris' management for comment.

The Melbourne-based restaurant empire, founded by Calombaris, operated 18 venues including the Press Club, Gazi and Hellenic Republic (pictured)
Jim Clarke has never filed for unemployment benefits.

Clarke, of Freehold, is a New Jersey native who has never been out of work. Not even during the coronavirus pandemic.

But last week, the father of three learned someone filed an unemployment claim in his name.

His employer received a form from the Labor Department  form BC-3E  to validate the claim.

Clark said he knew his Social Security information could have been compromised in past data hacks, so he wasnt surprised that his private information could be out there.

He said his employer called the Division of Unemployment Fraud reporting line and left a message. The voicemail recording specifically said the employer would not get a call back, he said, so Clarke wondered how they would know if there was any follow-up action on the phony claim.

What does this mean for me? I am horrified that my identity is being stolen and I am now spending money on things like Lifelock to hopefully cut it off if possible, Clarke said.

He also feared if benefits were wrongly paid out to the scammer, it could cause trouble for his 2020 tax return because the Labor Department would report income that he never received.

Clarke said hes also concerned that he and his employer might never know whether Labor registered the fraud complaint.

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Weve seen other cases of fraud, which the Labor Department said it takes very seriously.

Like the woman who tried to file for unemployment but couldnt because someone had already filed in her name. The Labor Department fixed her claim so shed be able to get benefits and it said it would investigate.

Those who defraud the unemployment fund are in for hefty penalties, according to the Attorney Generals website.

Theft of more than $200 is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine. If its more than $500, youre looking at jail time of three to five years and a fine of up to $15,000. Theft of $75,000 or more is a second degree crime, punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison and a $150,000 fine, it said.

The Labor Department confirmed it doesnt directly respond to fraud reports because it cant readily verify the identity of whoever is doing the reporting on the fraud line.

However, an employer will be able to see if the fraudulent claim charges are listed on their account when they review their quarterly Unemployment Insurance charges, Labor spokeswoman Angela Delli-Santi said. If the charges appear, the employer can file a protest of the charges.

Delli-Santi said the BC-3E form is reviewed and referred for either a fact-finding interview with the worker or it goes to Labors fraud unit.

Even though fraud allegations reported by phone or email are not directly responded to, each allegation is taken seriously and is reviewed, she said.

Then, theres an analysis to determine whether the claim is fraudulent. If it is found to be fraudulent, the claim is immediately suspended, she said.

Within the allegation, regardless of the source  phone/email/employer  if a mention of filing a new claim is made, investigators authenticate the allegation and individual, and we assist with the new claim filing, she said. No liability is applied to either the victim or employer if fraud is determined.

Delli-Santi wouldnt go into much detail on what the agency does to stop false claims from being processed, but she said Labor uses a number of tools.

Once claims are filed, we conduct cross-matches to validate the application and certification for benefits, she said. We also are a member of the National Association of State Workforce Agencys Integrity Center for a cross-match of fraudulent claims filed throughout the country. And, we work closely with the Attorney Generals office, USDOL and other authorities to combat fraud.

The Labor Department says the agency also conducts random investigations to review your eligibility, payroll records, and work search contacts.

Delli-Santi wouldnt say how many claims have been deemed fraudulent since the start of the pandemic or how much money has been wrongly paid or recovered after investigations.

The Labor Department encourages you to report potential fraud by calling (609) 777-4304, by faxing (609) 292-5593, or online.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
When I first tuned in to the data emerging from the progress of the COVID-19 epidemic in Minnesota, it quickly became clear that we had a nursing home crisis that had been invoked to justify a devastating statewide lockdown. Katherine Kersten expanded on this point in the Star Tribune column Minnesota must recover from its pandemic of fear.

The share of total COVID-19 deaths attributed to deaths in long-term care facilities had risen from two-thirds to 80 percent. Adding decedents with significant underlying conditions brought us to 99 percent of all deaths. At last word, that number was roughly 98 percent. Whatever it is, it still accounts for nearly all deaths attributed to the epidemic and the median age of all decedents has risen to 83.5.

On April 27 I was expelled from the daily Department of Health press briefings for asking questions about the nursing home crisis. MDH denies that. They say my expulsion on that date was simply coincidental with my emailed questions that they flagged for further discussion with Governor Walzs staff.

In his daily briefing on May 7 Walz finally turned to the nursing home crisis. Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm had prepared a five-point battle plan. Malcolm presented it following Walzs opening remarks. She illustrated her plan with accompanying Power Point slides that summarized her presentation.

I thought the presentation tacitly acknowledged the validity of the obvious point I had been trying to make and represented a massive failure on the part of state authorities. I wondered how it had taken them so long to tumble to it. The circle of media love surrounding the governor may have played a role. I thought we would all have been better served by a critical press fulfilling its true purpose.

Yesterday Governor Walz and his supporting cast called a press conference to report on the progress made in controlling the epidemic in long-term care facilities. I have embedded video of the press conference below.

The Star Tribunes Jeremy Olson and Chris Serres report on the press conference in a manner that must please Governor Walz in Deaths in Minnesota long-term care drop tenfold. Subhead: Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm also cautioned that the virus still presents challenges.

Olsons May 8 story on the battle plan and Serress May 20 story on nursing homes provide further context. Olson and Serres dont provide much context in their current story.

Key moments at the press conference occur at 30:00-42:00 as Walz responds to questions. Should he have addressed this issue earlier? Couldnt they have gotten a clue from the experience of Washington state? Walzs position is that any errors are attributable to their reliance on the federal government for personal protective equipment. Hes a little touchy on this point: its not his fault.

Yesterday we had only three new deaths attributed to the virus in Minnesota. One such death involved a long-term care resident.

More Walz to come. He will announce a statewide face mask mandate at 2:00 p.m. today. Oh, goody. Or, as Kevin Roche puts it, More gibberish from state officials.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:02:41|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed on Wednesday with his French and German counterparts the recent developments in war-torn Libya.

Shoukry stressed "the necessity for a cease-fire in Libya," said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez in a statement.

Hafez added that the three top diplomats discussed "the importance of pushing the political settlement forward" in separate phone conversations.

Shoukry reiterated that Egypt prioritizes working on reaching a cease-fire and Libyan-Libyan solution based on negotiations to promote the unity of the Libyan territories and to uproot the terrorist groups and militias.

The Egyptian foreign minister added that only a political settlement for the ongoing conflicts in Libya will stand firmly against the spread of extremist organizations.

On July 16, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi vowed that "his country will not stand idle in face of any direct threats to the security of Egypt and Libya."

His remarks came one day after tribal leaders allied to the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Khalifa Haftar authorized him, during a meeting in Cairo, to intervene militarily in Libya.

On Monday Egypt's parliament approved sending troops to the western strategic direction to defend Egypt's national security.

Libya has been suffering a civil war since the ouster and killing of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The situation escalated in 2014, splitting power between two rival governments with warring forces, namely the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital Tripoli and the other in the northeastern city of Tobruk allied with LNA. Enditem
YEREVAN, JULY 22, ARMENPRESS. Diario de Noticias (DN) Portugese periodical (published since 1864) published an article headlined The return of fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

ARMENPRESS presents the key parts of the extended article.

The level of tension in the Caucasus, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, remains high, although in the last few hours the situation can be described, according to official sources, as "relatively calm". Still, at a press conference on Monday morning in the Yerevan capital, Artsrun Hovhannisyan, a member of the Armenian armed forces and spokesman for the crisis office, stressed that the country is "ready to defend its borders from any attempted invasion or violation of territorial integrity ".

Despite the relative tranquility, between Sunday night and Monday morning - according to what the Armenian Ministry of Defense spokeswoman, Shushan Stepanyan, told DN - the Azerbaijani armed forces violated the fragile ceasefire firing and throwing grenades towards military positions, having forced the Armenian side to return fire.

Until the recent escalation of violence last week, the situation was more peaceful than previous years. June had even been the quietest month of all, with no record of incidents, according to data from the International Crisis Group.

On the 12th, in the province of Tarvush, in northwestern Armenia, a military vehicle from Azerbaijan approached the border, which was considered provocative. That was the fuse for the confrontations that followed, considered the most serious since what became known as the April War in 2016. To date, there have been 17 fatalities - 12 military personnel and one civilian from Azerbaijani side and four Armenian military personnel. According to the Armenian news agency, the Azerbaijani bombings also damaged 50 homes along the border between the two countries.

The bellicosity of the declarations has been rising in tone, namely with Azerbaijan threatening with an attack on the Metzamur nuclear power station, located about 35 kilometers from the capital Yerevan. "May the Armenian side not forget that we have weapons capable of accurately targeting the Metzamur power station, which would be a tragedy for them," said Azerbaijan Defense Ministry spokesman Vagif Dargyakhly on Thursday.

"We regard these statements as terrorism, as well as a manifestation of the genocidal intentions on the part of Azerbaijan", underlines to DN Anna Naghdalyan, spokesman for the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "On the one hand, Azerbaijan has on several occasions been concerned about the safety conditions of our nuclear power plant, on the other hand, now, it threatens to destroy it", adds the same official.

For Olesya Vartanyan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, an eventual attack on nuclear facilities would, for obvious reasons, be a kind of "suicide" for Azerbaijan and put the entire region at risk. "Often the statements are made to please internally. This is one of those examples," adds, in statements to DN, the specialist in matters of the Caucasus. It is not the first time that Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan, has been accused of sparking conflicts in order to divert attention from internal problems.

At the political level, recent hostilities have also rolled heads. Elmar Mammadyarov, who has held the post of head of Azerbaijan diplomacy since 2004, was fired and replaced by Jeyhun Bayramov, formerly responsible for the Education portfolio. Olesya Vartanyan regrets the changes in the Azerbaijani Executive: "It is not good that the Minister of Foreign Affairs is removed in the midst of very serious tensions, precisely when it was necessary for a diplomat with experience who could dialogue with the international community".

For some time now, Mammadyarov's position seemed at risk, after Hikmet Hajiyev, President Ilham Aliyev's chief foreign policy advisor - who in 2017 gave an interview to DN - has come to assume more and more prominence. Something unexpected, however, was the attack made public by Hajiyev, last Wednesday, July 15, toasted his now ex-minister during an Executive meeting. "In the past few days, everything has happened under my command. I've been talking to my adviser Hajiyev probably about ten times a day to give directions. And what has the Foreign Minister been doing? Where has he been? On the 12th, when it started, we were all working in our offices, but I was unable to find him ".

According to reports by international information agencies, the president will then have turned to the prime minister to clarify the matter. Ali Asadov, chief executive, reported that Mammadyarov had told him that he was working from home.

The DN tried to contact the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs by email, but received no response. Tensions between President Aliyev and Mammadyarov had been made public in recent times. The minister had already been criticized by the head of state after, in recent months, the dialogue with Armenia was reestablished, partly due to health issues raised by the covid-19 pandemic. "Unfortunately, our diplomacy has been involved in useless negotiations. What kind of covid negotiations can we have with an enemy country that is at war with us. It is absurd. Does this mean that we will start to cooperate with Armenia? ", can be read in an article published on the Eurasianet news site.

To what extent can the changes in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs be interpreted as a policy change by Azerbaijan? "It is difficult to say and you will have to wait and see. As a rule, Baku's attitude towards the peace process is the result of the ideology and preferences of the country's leader and not of his officials. It has been like this for decades," explains Olesya Vartanyan.

Speaking to DN, Anna Naghdalyan, spokeswoman for the head of Armenian diplomacy, shares the same forks: "Azerbaijan's foreign policy is defined by its highest leadership". "We do not exclude the possibility of war" In the wake of the recent conflicts, last Wednesday, the streets of the capital of Azerbaijan were filled with thousands of protesters, calling for an open war against Armenia and a military solution to the conflict between the two countries over Nagorno- Karabakh.

Contrary to what happened in 2016, this time the clashes took place far from what is known as the contact line, the border that separates Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan. Still, this is not a new fact, in the past, there was an exchange of fire and fatalities on the official border between the two nations. "In view of Azerbaijan's rhetoric, we do not exclude the possibility that the clashes will escalate to an open war," explains to DN Shushan Stepanyan.

"The conflict can only be resolved by peace. This is something we have said many times," adds Anna Naghdalyan.

The peace process between the two countries is carried out in the sidelines of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States. The Baku government continues to assert that it will never give up Nagorno-Karabakh and the United Nations does not recognize the region's independence. One of the issues that has also worked as an obstacle to the negotiations is the fact that Azerbaijan does not accept that the government officials of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, sit at the negotiating table.

The international community, namely Russia, the United States and the European Union, reacted to the recent fighting once again by calling for restraint and dialogue between the two countries. On the other hand, Turkey quickly sided with Baku. "I strongly condemn the attack that Armenia launched against Azerbaijan, our friendly and brother country. We will always be ready to rise up in response to attacks against the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Following an appeal by the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, at the end of June, 170 countries signed an appeal for a global ceasefire at a time when the world is struggling against the health crisis caused by the COVID-19. Azerbaijan has not signed the document.

Peacekeeping in the Caucasus is of great importance for the international community, since the region serves as a corridor for the supply of oil and natural gas between the Caspian Sea and the global markets. This energy issue and the existence of numerous civilian communities along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in contrast to what happens at the Nagorno-Karabakh contact line - a much less populous area , leads the analyst Olesya Vartanyan to devalue the possibility of large-scale armed confrontation.
This is not a time to go silent with donors. Remote engagement is the new normal. Its also absolutely crucial to protect the data and financial information of supporters as we engage them and receive pledges and gifts.

RNL has officially achieved PCI-DSS 3.2 compliance and certification for RNL Engage Remote Engagement with WebRTC. This tested solution allows RNL partners to engage across multiple channels, including phone, email, text, and personalized video to remotely engage donors when institutions cannot operate traditional in-person centers.

RNL is a pioneer in higher education fundraising, providing platforms, software, consulting, and innovations that have powered college and university fundraising for nearly 30 years.

RNL Engage is the successor to the industry-leading engagement center platform, CAMPUSCALL, with new donor engagement capabilities designed for the smartphone era and modern fundraising management. This industry-standard security certification helps assure campuses that remote engagement, pledge, and gift acceptance are done safely. Donor and supporter information is stored securely in cloud-based servers, and ambassadors can engage and be supervised from anywhere.

Our partners need to continue engaging donors during this challenging time, and they know from experience that student ambassadors are highly effective and can connect personally with supporters. We are excited to offer this secure and high impact platform to engage donors 1:1 across multiple channels, said Dr. Sumit Nijhawan, president and CEO of RNL. In the first few months of remote engagement, RNL partners have achieved high ROI and find that donors enjoy the connection with student ambassadors.

This is not a time to go silent with donors. Remote engagement is the new normal. Its also absolutely crucial to protect the data and financial information of supporters as we engage them and receive pledges and gifts, said Josh Robertson, senior vice president for product strategy. Donors love the personal contact, and being able to continue to work remotely helps students financially and with the valuable experience being an engagement ambassador brings.

The RNL Engage platform is available today and can be implemented within a few weeks. RNL Remote Engagement includes advanced prescriptive analytics to drive calling, email, text, and personalized video messages to donors. The platform can support annual, leadership, and major giving, along with engagement contacts, surveying, and virtual event support. RNL Engage also integrates with the industry-leading RNL ScaleFunder crowdfunding and giving day platforms.

To learn more, visit RuffaloNL.com/RNLEngage or contact Brandon Trissler at Brandon.Trissler@RuffaloNL.com. To schedule a walkthrough of RNL Engage and find out how you can have remote engagement from your ambassadors up and running quickly, contact RNL today.

About RNL

RNL is the leading provider of higher education fundraising, enrollment, and student success solutions. The firm serves more than 1,900 colleges and universities through data-driven solutions focused on the entire lifecycle of enrollment and fundraising, assuring students find the right program, graduate on time, secure their first job in their chosen field, and give back to support the next generation. With a deep knowledge of the industry, RNL provides institutions the ability to scale their efforts by tapping into a community of support and resources. Learn more at RuffaloNL.com.
Clovity, Lenovo, and Microsoft Azure present a Smart Thermal screening bundle solution The Clovity thermal screening solution with Lenovo smart devices allows employers to accurately check the temperatures of people entering the building without the risk of additional face-to-face contact during screenings.

IoT in the age of COVID-19 has become a necessity, not just an optimization and monitoring value add. As states, cities, and companies open up with the pandemic far from over, every precaution must be taken to ensure people and places are protected. Clovity, a thought and product leader in the IoT space has created an effective way to screen individuals accurately for above-threshold body temperatures with amazing accuracy.

Clovity is launching a Zero-Touch Smart Thermal Solution bundle that includes SeekScan (made by Seek Thermal) cameras, Lenovo GPIO Nano devices, and Clovity's CSensorNet IoT Software platform offered as an IoT-as-a-Service solution hosted in Microsofts highly-scalable Azure cloud. The Smart Thermal Camera and AI detection IoT solution readily identifies those entering a campus, office building, or public area that are running an abnormally high body temperature. The threshold for what constitutes an abnormally high body temperature can come at a standard setting or be fully customizable based on the requirements of the facility or local ordinances. However, the solution formally only does thermal readings, any other facial recognition will be added only at the request of the client and will always keep in mind privacy concerns for facial recognition. The solution enables clients to easily set automated alerts to supervisors or trigger lockout protocols through Clovitys CSensorNet, the system ensures prompt reaction to elevated body temperature scans and provides warnings of potential virus carriers entering the facility.

Offering Thermal Screening as an IoT-as-a-Service solution enables clients to get up and running within one week and bundles the components in one package for convenient pricing and a single deployment. Clovity provides the hardware, installation, software, and maintenance to simplify this IoT-based solution for facilities.

When combined with Clovitys CSensorNet IoT platform and Edge CSensorNet Lite, Lenovos GPIO devices are able to scan temperatures in a matter of seconds and determine if an individual's body temperature falls under or exceeds the threshold set by the employer. Mobile or fixed applications of this solution are +/- .4 degrees (over 50%) more accurate than current US Federal Drug Administration recommends with a variation standard of +/-.9 degree. Clovity achieves this level of accuracy by utilizing Elevated Body Temperature (EBT) instead of the more common Elevate Skin Temperature (EST) which is known to be significantly more inaccurate. EBT is considered the gold standard for thermal imaging accuracy reducing false positives and missed high temperature readings from external factors. From a user experience perspective, administrators will be able to look granularly as well as at an organization level in terms of pass/fail readings at the specific entrance or for the entire facility.

By utilizing Lenovos smart GPIO devices, Clovity can quickly process and send alerts in real time to facility management or security and also establish protocols to stop potentially infected people from entering an enclosed facility. This type of functionality will allow the system to function on its own without having someone to physically monitor individuals entering the restricted area. Furthermore, deploying this solution on Azure gives Clovity clients the scalability and flexibility to cover multiple doors and multiple sites without taxing the system including additional add on IoT solutions for increased value.

As people begin to return to an office setting, businesses must take every precaution to protect their employees and customers. The Clovity thermal screening solution with Lenovo smart devices allows employers to accurately check the temperatures of people entering the building without the risk of additional face-to-face contact during screenings, said Daniel Olsen, executive director, North America Workstation and OEM Sales, Lenovo. This IoT solution is designed to help businesses reopen safely and efficiently.

Clovity and Lenovo have strategically partnered to ensure that companies and government entities that are looking to open up safely have the technology means to do so, says Anuj Sachdeva, Chief Executive Officer of Clovity. Our collaboration will ensure not only extremely fast processing times for thermal screening but it will also facilitate intelligence on the edge making it capable of locking doors, triggering alerts to staff, and taking complimentary responses in a matter of seconds.

Come join our panel webinar with Lenovo and Microsoft on August 5th, 2020 on Smart Thermal Solutions!

To learn more about Clovity and Lenovos collaboration on the Zero-Touch Smart Thermal solution bundle or to set up a demo, please reach out to us on our website or to sales@clovity.com. If you would like to see other solutions Clovity has created to help fight the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, head to our Return to Work page.

About Clovity

Clovity is a privately held, Certified Minority-Owned professional services and IoT Platform company based in the heart of Silicon Valley, California. We work to develop smart products, connected solutions and operate as a Service. Clovity is rapidly growing by partnering with many global hardware, software and sensor manufacturers to fully integrate our software into their products and/or software.

Clovity specializes in 4 practice areas - IoT, Cloud, Data and Digital powered by our platform CSensorNet and it brings together connected things and data computing closer to the edge, enabling interactions with connected devices to happen much faster. Clovitys IoT software is geared for the Industrial, Transportation, Retail, Smart Cities, Telecom, Agriculture, Financial Services as well as Healthcare verticals. We have pre-packaged HW/SW bundles for vertical industry focused use cases such as Smart E-Houses, Smart Industrial, Smart Building, Smart Asset etc. which combines our software platform and leading HW providers OOB.

We were named 2018 and 2019 Top Growth IoT Provider in the US by CIO Review magazine as well as 2020 IoT Breakthrough Award for Emerging Company of the Year for the Enterprise Market. Clovitys platform and global partnerships enable millions of interactions with thousands of connected devices daily, while serving up massive amounts of actionable data in milliseconds for numerous types of vertical use cases.

Clovity is a fully staffed software and services organization, with operations in major US cities and abroad in New Delhi India where our Deliver Center is located. We are also Diversified and Inclusive certified, an approved Government Services Provider, and are a Minority owned Business.

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By Ayya Lmahamad

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Belarus exceeded $122 million in January-June, local media reported with the reference to the State Statistics Committee of Belarus on July 20.

According to the statement, during the reporting period export from Azerbaijan to Belarus amounted to $65.7 million, while import amounted to $56.4 million.

It should be noted that the volume to import- export transactions between Azerbaijan and Belarus exceeded $227 million in 2019, which is by $23 million more than in 2018.

Overall, Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover amounted to $9.8 billion during the reporting period. Out of this, the value of exported products amounted to $5.8 million, or 57.7 percent, and the value of imported products amounted to $4.2 million, of the trade turnover. Thus, Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover resulted in the surplus of $1.5 billion.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
New Zealand Parliament has been rocked by its second political scandal within days after a cabinet minister was sacked over an 'inappropriate' relationship' with a former staffer.

The 12 month affair cost Iain Lees-Galloway his job as immigration and workplace minister after he admitted a consensual relationship had occurred with an employee in one of the departments he headed.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern advised the minister on Tuesday night that his position was' untenable.'

'The minister has shown a lack of judgement over a period of 12 months. In undertaking this relationship he has opened himself up to an allegation of improperly using his office,' Ms Ardern told reporters on Wednesday.

Jacinda Ardern (left) has sacked minister Iain Lees-Galloway (right) over an inappropriate relationship he had with a former staffer, which has since ended

'He has not modelled the behaviour I expect as a minister that is in charge of setting a standard and culture in workplaces.'

'His actions have ultimately led me to lose confidence in him as a minister.'

'Politics is a place where we need to maintain standards and politicians should pay the price for their mistakes.'

Mr Lees-Galloway, 41, a married father-of-three, has taken full responsibility for his actions and announced he won't contest September's election.

Sacked minister Iain Lees-Galloway (pictured with wife Clare) is a married father-of-three

He has also taken down his social media accounts and online political profiles.

'I accept the Prime Minister's decision and apologise absolutely. I have acted completely inappropriately in my position and can not continue as a minister,' Mr Lees-Galloway said in a statement.

'I have apologised to my family for letting them down. Please appreciate their privacy.

'I also apologise to anyone who has been hurt by my actions.'

The minister's relationship with the former staffer ended prior to the allegations bring aired.

The latest scandal to hit parliament comes two days after opposition MP Andrew Falloon resigned over revelations he sent pornographic photos to young women.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrives at a press conference with Iain Lees-Galloway on July 6. He has since been sacked as minister

National leader Judith Collins pre-empted Mr Lees-Galloway's demise earlier on Wednesday, telling Network Three she had received a tip-off about a Labour minister a day prior.

'I have advised the prime minister and I have asked for anybody who has that information to send it directly to her,' Ms Collins said.

'I am not going to be indulging in any attacks on Labour on these things.'

Jacinda Arden (left) has described Iain Lees-Galloway's (right) position as untenable

The Prime Minister has confirmed Ms Collins advised her on Tuesday afternoon of an email she had received regarding Mr Lees-Galloway.

Ms Collins told Ms Ardern she had asked the individual to relay anything directly to the Prime Minister's office.

'My chief of staff subsequently contacted the leader of the Opposition's office to pass on contact information, should that be required by the correspondent,' Ms Ardern told reporters.

'At around 3pm my office received an email directly from a third party alleging that the minister had an inappropriate relationship with a former staffer who worked in one of his agencies.'

Mr Lees-Galloway has been the MP for Palmerston North in 2008 and had been a minister since 2017.

He was also Deputy Leader of the House for almost three years before his dismissal.
The Big Brother grand finale is set to air on Wednesday night, with the winner being decided by a public vote.

And there's a lot on the line for finalists Chad Hurst, Daniel Gorringe and Sophie Budack - namely the $230,000 cash prize.

As of Wednesday morning, 27-year-old model Chad is tipped to win the show, according to leading bookmakers.

So who are YOU backing? There has been a shock development in the Big Brother betting odds after longtime bookies' favourite Daniel Gorringe was dethroned by Chad Hurst (pictured)

Chad has odds of $2, according to TAB.

Former AFL player Daniel, who was the clear favourite to win earlier in the season but whose popularity has dipped recently due to a 'villain' edit, has longer odds of $2.75.

Sophie, meanwhile, has odds of $4, making her the least likely to win.

Voting has now opened for Channel Seven's rebooted season of Big Brother.

How much?! There's a lot on the line for finalists Chad, Daniel Gorringe (left) and Sophie Budack (right) - namely the $230,000 cash prize

Who will win? Chad has odds of $2, according to TAB. Daniel, who was the clear favourite to win earlier in the season, has longer odds of $2.75. Sophie, meanwhile, has odds of $4

The housemates are now competing for a reduced prize of $234,656, after Kieran Davidson stole more than $15,000 from the winner's kitty last week.

Lovebirds Sophie and Chad told Daily Mail Australia earlier this week that they had agreed to split the $234,656 cash prize if either of them wins.

'I would obviously share the money with Sophie. We both agreed. It's just fair. We came in together, we've done everything together, so to share the money is the right thing to do,' Chad said.

'There's just no way I'm not going to share the money with Sophie,' he added.

How sweet: Lovebirds Sophie and Chad told Daily Mail Australia earlier this week that they had agreed to split the $234,656 cash prize if either of them wins

Sophie also said: 'We were a team in the house and we have come up with a deal that the winner will give a cut to the other person.'

'Without a question, we're both equally deserving of the win.'

However, Daniel was a little more skeptical of the deal the pair had made.

'If they split that money, I'll eat my left shoe. It's very hard when the money is in front of you. They might prove me wrong and I hope they do,' he said.

'Sophie and Chad would deserve that win if they get it.'

The Big Brother finale begins Wednesday at 7.30pm on Channel Seven
The US is known as the land of opportunity. Unfortunately, however, the divide between rich and poor is increasing as time goes on. As a small percentage of Americans earn bigger and bigger salaries each year, some are staying still, and others are seeing the buying power of their wages actually go down.

It is a sad fact that almost 12% of the entire US population now lives in poverty, amounting to about 38 million people. It is also true that between 2017 and 2018, the number of people living in dire straits went down across the country, but when a greater economic picture is taken into consideration, the view is not really so rosy. Inequality is real and it is a problem.

It is true in the US that as the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer.

Facts About Inequality In The US

Unidentified homeless people camping out and living on the streets in Downtown Denver. Image credit: Jim Lambert/Shutterstock.com

Out of all the G7 nations, the US has been found to have the highest level of income inequality in the world. Data gathered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found this was true using something called the Gini coefficient.

Just how big is the gap between the rich and poor? Here are some details. Between 1989 and 2016 according to Pew Research Center, the wealth gap between the richest and poorest families in the country more than doubled. In 1989, the richest families in America had about 114 times the wealth of families that were just one tier above those in the worst poverty in the country. By 2016, these guys held 248 times as much wealth.

Adding insult to this injury is the fact that from 2007, the year the Great Recession hit, until 2016, the wealth of the top 20% of wealthiest families in the country increased by 13%. Those living in the lower levels of wealth, however, saw their net worth drop by at least 20%. In fact, families in the second-lowest category of wealth actually saw their net worth drop by an astounding 39%. This is a huge gouge.

It is true that the US median household income is now the highest it has ever been. This is a good thing, right? Well, sort of. In 29 states, however, and in Puerto Rico, the median household income is now lower than the national average.

But Isnt the Poverty Rate Decreasing?

Yes, the poverty rate is decreasing. If we look at the changes that are happening however, they are slight, compared to the growing wealth gap. According to the latest US Census, in 2018 there were 1.4 million fewer people living in poverty in the US compared with 2017. The poverty rate did not change for everyone living on low levels of income but it did go down for many. This included females, non-Hispanic Whites, native-born people, those living in cities, those in the Northeast, Midwest, and West, and those without a disability. People with some college education, those living in families, and those in households with a single mom all saw their rate of poverty go down.

It is also true that the number of people working full-time all year-round did increase by several hundred thousand people.

The Problem With Income Inequality

Image credit: Hyejin Kang/Shutterstock.com

Even if the poverty rate goes down, however, a widening income gap is troublesome.

According to William M. Rodgers III, professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center at Rutgers University speaking to NPR.org, a widening wealth gap contributes to fewer people working in jobs that are protected by organized labor unions. It also encourages tax policies that favor those in the higher income brackets, and businesses, instead of the working poor.

According to Christopher Ingraham writing for the Washington Post, studies have shown that when people live with greater income inequality, their societys economic growth is depressed. Wide income gaps are also just dangerous: they make more people into criminals, studies have shown. When the wealth of others seems entirely unattainable and you continue to struggle to meet your daily needs, the allure to give up and join gangs and organized crime in order to make money, can increase in attraction for some people.

Some income inequality can be good, of course. Ingraham states that it can spur growth. This happens in countries with a Gini coefficient below 27. The US has a Gini coefficient of about 41 right now, however. This is when we get into the dangerous zone.

Recent statistics have shown that the number of Americans who see college as important fell from 70% in 2013 to just 51% in 2019. Studies also show that in order to ensure the US keeps pace with other countries on the global stage, more college graduates will be needed in the future, especially in areas such as artificial intelligence, which will matter for reasons of national security. But if college education becomes too expensive for middle-class Americans, this will be a problem. These individuals can end up taking on more debt than they can pay back. This is just one example of how a greater gap can end up bringing everybody down.

If left unchecked, some experts believe that the top 1% of Americans may be controlling up to 25% of the countrys income by 2030.

The Importance Of Education

Studies show that those who go to college earn about 80% more than those people who only have a high school diploma. That is a huge gap. So, go study something.

Between 2017 and 2018, people who did not have a highschool diploma were actually the only group in the US to see themselves diving even deeper into poverty. Get your highschool diploma and go to college. It is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

What Else Can Be Done

Fight Poverty Not the Poor protest at Drake University outside of the Democratic Debate in Des Moines, Iowa. Image credit: Aspects and Angles/Shutterstock.com

Aside from what you can do as an individual, some say that government needs to put in place the right checks and balances to minimize inequality, and maximize wealth for all. No one is calling on a socialist society to be implemented in the US around the corner, but a smaller concentration of wealth at the top will clearly benefit all. Yes, the rich are getting richer, the poor, poorer. And this is something for everybody to worry about.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday invited Americans to invest in India saying that here has never been a better time to do so.

American investors often look out for the perfect time to enter a sector or country, To them, I would like to say here has never been a better time to invest in India, Modi said in his keynote address at the India Ideas Summit hosted by the US-India Business Council.

Modi called for investment in defence, health, insurance and aviation sector saying, The rise of India means a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale.

The Prime Minister also cited rising foreign direct investment (FDI) to tell the Americans of the opportunities that India offers.

Every year, we are reaching record highs in FDI. Each year is significantly higher than the earlier one. FDI inflows in India in 2019-20 were 74 billion dollars. This is an increase of 20 percent from the year before that, he said.

He also cited Indias open market policy and it rise in the World Banks index of ease of doing business.

When the markets are open, when the opportunity is high and the options are many, can optimism be far behind! You can see the optimism when India rises in key business ratings. Particularly the Ease of Doing Business ratings of the World Bank.

Modis pitch comes a day after commerce minister Piyush Goyal proposed a preferential trade agreement with the US covering a limited number of goods and services as the next step after a likely quick trade deal before India and the US conclude a more ambitious Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that could take years.
Border crossing between Nepal, China reopens; trade resumes

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Kathmandu, July 06: Nepal on Monday reopened one of its key border trade routes with China, six months after it was closed following the coronavirus pandemic, according to Nepalese officials. The Rasuwagadhi-Kerung border point is one of the two main border points for international trade between Nepal and China.

Another border point, Tatopani-Zhangmu, reopened in late March, more than two months after its closure. For the time being only one-way goods transport has been resumed between the two countries. Goods stranded at Kerung of Tibet, have started entering Nepal through the border point from Monday, the officials said.

China shares borders with 14 countries, has territorial dispute with all

Rasuwagadhi has been opened to facilitate goods coming from China to enter Nepal. No human transport is allowed in the border point for the time being. Two-way operation and human movement will resume after some time, they said. A total of 120 tonnes of goods will be delivered to Nepal everyday from China, the officials said.

NSA Doval talked to China's Foreign Minister before PLA pulled back from Galwan| Oneindia News

Chief of Rasuwa Customs Office, Punya Bikram Khadka said four trucks will be allowed to operate in the beginning and the number will be continuously increased as the service improves, MyRepublica newspaper reported. Out of the many goods imported from China, fruits, readymade goods, electronic gadgets, equipment required by telecom and hydropower projects are among the prominently imported ones, the report said.

The goods will enter Nepal according to their turns, Khadka said. The border point has remained closed since January due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nepal on Sunday reported 293 new coronavirus cases, taking its total count to 15,784, according to the Ministry of Health and Population. Till now, 32 people have died due to the disease in the country.

The deadly coronavirus originated in China's Wuhan city in December. China has reported 83,553 confirmed cases and 4,634 deaths since the pandemic began. Nepal has submitted the details of 15 drivers and 15 labourers who will be handling the goods and transport them to Nepal. All the labourers and drivers engaged in the process will take care of their works at their designated locations and will work without direct contact, the report added.

The Chinese side will bring the goods and unload them and the Nepali side will take care of the remaining tasks till it reaches Nepal," Khadka said.

Front-line troops taking effective measures to disengage: China on Ladakh row

The Rasuwagadhi border point that officially came into use from 2015, registers more than 250 vehicles carrying goods for import and export on a daily basis, MyRepblica reported. The number of trade, traders and cargo trucks passing by largely increased in Rasuwagadhi after China officially declared this border point as one of its international borders, it added.

The Kerung Valley of Tibet is just 24 kilometers away from this border point. Although the border was closed in January, traders from Kerung were still using this thborder to travel back and forth until February.
Hearts collected from nearly two dozen patients who died of coronavirus at University Medical Center are offering LSU researchers clues about how the disease affects vital organs, according to new research published Tuesday in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association.

When researchers began examining the 22 hearts, they expected to find evidence of heart inflammation that contributed to the deaths of patients.

Inflammation of the heart is a factor leading to death in other flu-like illnesses -- and is often the primary cause of death. In early research into COVID-19, there was evidence from China that heart inflammation could be an important factor in why people died of the disease, according to Dr. Richard Vander Heide, a cardiac pathologist with LSU Health New Orleans.

But the hearts from New Orleans patients suggested otherwise.

"There was no significant myocarditis in these patients," said Vander Heide, referring to the particular type of inflammation under study.

Coronavirus vaccine volunteers needed in New Orleans, Baton Rouge; here's how study will work After a vaccine for coronavirus showed promising results in a 45-person study conducted by biotech company Moderna, research sites in New Orle

Instead of inflammation, the researchers were surprised to find scattered dead cells in heart muscles. And unlike other types of coronavirus infections such as SARS, in the 22 patients LSU researchers studied there was no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 within the heart muscle cells or blood clots in the coronary arteries.

Researchers don't know why that's the case, but it nevertheless challenges some earlier assumptions about how coronavirus attacks the body.

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The heart is still showing signs of dysfunction, but it may be a result of the heart having to work more to get blood into an injured lung, said Dr. Jay Kolls, a researcher who studies infection and inflammation at Tulane University School of Medicine, and who was not involved in the study.

(The injured lung) is stiff, so the heart has to pump harder," Kolls said.

The research builds on a previous study from the authors of the lungs of 10 of the patients whose hearts were used in this latest study. That study, published in The Lancet, found that tiny clots in the small vessels lining the lungs of every patient contributed to their death.

Blood clots likely one of the major hallmarks in coronavirus deaths, LSU researchers say Autopsies of 10 African American victims of coronavirus in New Orleans show that the insides of their lungs were riddled with blood clots, add

The 22 hearts were donated by the families of 10 male and 12 female patients ranging in age from 44 to 79. Nineteen were Black, one was Asian, one was Hispanic and one was White. About half were obese and half had Type 2 diabetes. Most had been treated for high blood pressure.

The research is part of a larger effort to create a database of tissues from organs affected by coronavirus. LSU Health New Orleans is collecting tissues of patients that researchers across the country are requesting, said Vander Heide. Because New Orleans was a hotspot for the virus, they were able to complete autopsies earlier than most other cities.

"Hopefully we can use our tissue database to help other investigators, physicians and people across the world to help understand and treat this disease better," said Vander Heide. "It isn't like any other virus that has been reported. It's got some very unique characteristics that we're still discovering and trying to understand."
Baptisms, miracles taking place in revival at site where George Floyd died, Christian groups say

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A number of Christian groups that have been holding revival services at the site where George Floyd died in Minneapolis say they're seeing many people turn to God in baptisms and miracles are happening.

So tonight Gods moving. Theres a lot of people that gave their lives to the Lord again. We were baptizing people right here at the memorial. Gods on the move. Its wonderful, said Joshua Lindquist, a young Christian leader with Global Revival Harvest, who has been broadcasting the Unity Revival on his Facebook page since it started on Wednesday.

I have a friend of mine, his name is J.T. Thomas, he said, revival is the new form of protest. Meaning, when injustice happens and the pain is there, the best way to heal hearts and to bring whats right and to bring whats truly real, is to petition Heaven. When revival breaks out its the kingdom of Heaven breaking in, he said in a broadcast from Thursday night.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was shown on eyewitness video dying on May 25 with the knee of white officer Derek Chauvin pressed into his neck as two other officers with the Minneapolis Police Department held onto his back and legs while he was handcuffed and on the ground. Four officers were at the scene and none took action to physically pull Chauvin off Floyd, who said he was struggling to breathe.

Officer Thomas Lane, who was holding on to Floyd's legs, twice asked whether they should roll Floyd on his side, saying he was concerned about "excited delirium." The final time Lane asked that question Floyd was already unresponsive. Chauvin, however, continued to press his knee into Floyd's neck even after he was dead.

All the officers involved in the tragedy have been fired.

Chauvin, 43, has been charged with second-degree murder while former Minneapolis officers J. Alexander Kueng, 26, Lane, 37, and Tou Thao, 34, have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for their role in Floyds death.

Massive protests nationwide and globally have been calling for justice and police reform.

Pointing to the Parable of the Unjust Judge told by Jesus in Luke 18, Lindquist said the Church can help bring justice to the crisis beyond what the world can offer. In the parable, a poor widow seeking justice is initially rejected by a judge, but because she is persistent with her demand, he eventually responds.

She was persistent and [it] says in Luke 18, shall not God avenge his elect that cry out day and night and she cried out for justice.  The earthly courts can only do so much, politicians can only do so much, we need to petition the politicians  ultimately petitioning the throne of God, revival is the new form of protest, Lindquist said. I just believe that the church can step in and see a move of God that can bring healing to hearts that can bring justice down from Heaven.

In a broadcast from Wednesday night, Lindquist explained that they were invited into the community by a local church and noted the presence of Pastor Charles Karuku of International Outreach Church, a growing multi-racial congregation in Burnsville, Minnesota, who he said was asked by Floyds family to spread the message of healing and forgiveness in the community.

This pastor who is preaching right now, his name is Charles Karuku and George Floyds family asked him to come here and share his message of forgiveness and healing through Jesus every day he can. They endorsed him. They said, please, this is the message the community needs, he said.

He also confirmed that along with a number of baptisms he had witnessed, he also saw miracles.

I dont know if you believe in miracles but I do, and there was a deaf ear that popped open. God did a miracle. Gods using this tragic situation for his glory. God is shifting the narrative. Out of his (Floyds) life, many will come to the Lord. Many will come to Jesus, he said.

Other ministries that have been at the site include Youth With a Mission and Circuit Riders, a California-based missions movement, Fox News reported.

Christophe Ulysse, 37, a YWAM leader based in Kona, Hawaii, told the news network they were witnessing real change in the community.

"We're going from pain and hatred to healing and hope," Ulysse, who's a black Canadian Christian leader, said.

We need to show that we can affect positive change," Ulysse continued. "You have a voice and you can go to the nations. You can carry this on. Were empowering them to be carriers of hope."

He explained that while the tragedy has affected his diverse team differently, he has been inspired by the hope of the Gospel.

"I came here and I was broken. It affects team members differently, but those of us of color, as we're here, we're watching the change happen through the Gospel. My heart is so filled with hope. Those in the neighborhood are saying this is unprecedented unity. They're feeling an outpouring of love and hope from this nation, he said.

"For us, there is this deep conviction that we have tried everything to deal with this issue. We've tried politics, we've tried economics, and we've tried social reform," Ulysse, who recalled the Rodney King riots as a kid, noted. "It's the same thing over and over. We have to go back to what actually works."
Egypt will allow restaurants and cafes to operate until 12am instead of the previous closing time of 10pm and at an increased occupancy limit starting 26 July.

The measure is part of the gradual reopening of the countrys economy, which has taken a hit due to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to an official statement by the Cabinet, Prime Ministry Mostafa Madbouly chaired a meeting by the higher committee for managing the coronavirus crisis, where they approved the partial lifting of restrictions implemented to stem the spread of the virus.

Starting Sunday, cafes, restaurants, and other venues will be allowed to operate until 12am, with commercial malls and shops to close at 10pm. They will be allowed to operate at an increased maximum occupancy rate of 50 percent instead of the previous limit of 25 percent.

Cinemas and theatres will continue to see an occupancy rate of 25 percent, the statement said, adding that the closure of public beaches and parks will remain in effect.

According to the statement, the Cabinet said it will discuss after Eid Al-Adha holiday next week the possibility of reopening public parks and beaches with entrance tickets at an occupancy limit of 50 percent.

Starting October, conferences will be allowed with a maximum of 50 participants, on the condition that the occupancy rate of the conference hall is no less than 100.

A decree making wearing facemasks mandatory nationwide will remain in effect.

Eid Al-Adha, which Egyptians will celebrate this year on 31 July, will see its communal prayers suspended due to the virus, limiting the celebration to a live broadcast of the prayers from one of the countrys prominent mosques.

The statement said that the religious endowments ministry will set controls on the gradual return of Fridays congregational prayers and present a report to the governmental committee in upcoming meetings.

Wednesdays announcement comes nearly a month after Egypt gradually began lifting its coronavirus restrictions, abolishing a nighttime curfew imposed to limit the spread of the virus.

The curfew was first introduced in March as part of a series of measures to curtail the spread of the virus and has been revised several times since. Other measures included suspending air traffic, shuttering schools and universities and banning public gatherings.

However, since June, Egypt has moved towards a gradual reopening of its economy, part of a plan to coexist with the virus.

On 1 July, Egypt started gradually resuming regular international flights, which had been halted since March, at all its airports, with foreign tourists only allowed into three coastal governorates.

The areas open for foreign tourists in the first stage are South Sinai, where the popular seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh is located, the Red Sea governorate, home to the city of Hurghada, and Marsa Matrouh on the Mediterranean.

On Tuesday, Egypts health ministry announced that no new coronavirus cases were detected in the Red Sea and South Sinai governorates, two major hubs for tourism, for the first time since the virus outbreak in mid-February.

Authorities have said lockdown measures would be reviewed periodically before they decide to gradually relax them further, warning that "strict measures" would be imposed if citizens failed to adhere to the rules.

However, Egypt continues to see a significant drop in detected coronavirus cases, registering less than 1,000 daily cases in the past few days.

The total infection tally has reached more than 89,000, with 4,399 fatalities recorded.

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CAIRO (AP)  Sudans ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir was back in court Tuesday, this time facing charges of plotting the 1989 Islamist-backed coup that removed an elected government and brought him to power.

Dozens of people, mostly al-Bashir supporters, gathered outside the courthouse in the capital, Khartoum, amid tight security as the former president was brought from jail and the proceedings got underway. Al-Bashir appeared in court wearing a traditional white robe and turban.

Shortly after the proceedings opened, the trial was adjourned till Aug. 11 so that the defense lawyers could prepare their arguments, said attorney Mohammed al-Hassan who is on al-Bashir's defense team.

The military overthrew al-Bashir in April 2019 amid massive public protests against his rule. Months after the overthrow, the army generals and a pro-democracy movement behind the protests set up a transitional government.

The 76-year-old al-Bashir has been jailed in Khartoum since his ouster, facing several separate trials related to his rule and the uprising that helped oust him. He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and genocide linked to the Darfur conflict in the 2000s.

Sudans transitional authorities announced in February that they have agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC to face justice, as part of a deal with rebels to surrender all those wanted in connection with the Darfur conflict. But since that announcement, there has been no follow-up action on his extradition.

In one of he cases he faces in Khartoum, al-Bashir was convicted last December of money laundering and corruption and sentenced to two years in a minimum security lockup.

In Tuesday's case, prosecutors accuse al-Bashir of plotting the 1989 coup that ousted the elected government of Prime Minister al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, according to the state-run SUNA news agency.

Al-Bashir is on trial along with over two dozen top officials in his government, including former vice president, Ali Ossman Taha, and former defense minister, Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein, who is also wanted by the ICC over the Darfur conflict.

Story continues

Al-Hassan, the lawyer, said coups happen historically, from time to time, referencing the many upheavals since Sudan gained independence in 1956.

We think that there is no case for something that is part of Sudans history, he said.

During his three-decade rule, al-Bashir kept an iron grip on power and brutally suppressed any opposition, while monopolizing the economy through allied businessmen.

After years of war, he was forced to allow the secession of South Sudan, a huge blow to the norths economy. He became an international pariah over the bloodletting in Darfur and the United States targeted his government repeatedly with sanctions and airstrikes for his support of Islamic militants.
A copy of the book, "The Room Where It Happened," by former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, is seen at the White House in Washington DC on June 18. The 500-plus page memoir was released in South Korea last week. AP



By Jung Min-ho



Top U.S. officials in current and past administrations have maintained that "the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization" is an essential precondition for any negotiations with North Korea. A new book by former National Security Advisor John Bolton suggests that President Donald Trump has been the only one open to other possibilities.



In his memoir, "The Room Where It Happened," Bolton criticized Trump's way of dealing with North Korea, which, in his view, was "naive" and "dangerous." Trump, the book clearly shows, truly believed it would be possible to rid North Korea of its nuclear arms through diplomatic means and was ready to make concessions he deemed necessary  if he was not stopped by his key aides.



One of many such moments came during Trump's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi on Feb. 28, 2019. In exchange for sanctions relief, North Korean officials offered to dismantle their Yongbyon nuclear facilities, while their U.S. counterparts were not interested in anything other than complete denuclearization.



But then, "Trump asked again if Kim could add something to his offer, such as asking only for a percentage reduction in the sanctions rather than completely removing them. This was beyond doubt the worst moment of the meeting," Bolton writes. "If Kim Jong-un had said yes there, they might have had a deal, disastrously for America. Fortunately, he wasn't biting, saying he was getting nothing, omitting any mention of the sanctions being lifted."



For Trump's foreign policy aides, the summit, which ended without much substance, was a great relief. But it was disappointing news for the South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who was promoting peaceful engagement and rapprochement, known as the "Moonshine" policy (Moon's version of the "Sunshine" policy).



A few days after the summit, Bolton says he had a phone conversation with Chung Eui-yong, his South Korean counterpart, who reflected on Moon's "schizophrenic" idea that North Korea's willingness to dismantle Yongbyon was a "very meaningful first step" that would lead it to an "irreversible stage of denuclearization." "This last contention was nonsense," he writes.



Bolton does not hide his deeply skeptical view of Moon's peaceful unification goal. He accuses the South Korean left of "worshipping" the "Sunshine" policy, which he thinks "subsidized the North's dictatorship."



"To many people, it was the U.S. presence that allowed the South Korean political left to engage in the fantasy of the Sunshine Policy to begin with," he writes. "If we ever left Korea, they would be effectively on their own and would feel the consequences of their foolishness, which I believed they themselves feared."





In this file photo taken on May 13, 2019, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton listens while President Donald Trump speaks to the press. AFP
China on Wednesday said it hoped India will uphold an independent foreign policy, in the clearest statement yet asking New Delhi not to align all its strategic interests with the United States.

We hope and believe that as an important force in the global multi polarisation, India will stay to its independent diplomatic policy and play a constructive role in maintaining regional peace and stability and in the management of international affairs, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.

Wenbin statement came in response to external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, on Tuesday saying that, like in the past, New Delhi will never join any system of alliance as it never did in the past. But he added that Indias policy of non-alignment was for a specific era, and the country cannot be a bystander anymore and needs to take risk in its multilateral relations.

The statement came in the backdrop of the worst chill in India-China ties in decades following the hostile border standoff and the violent Galwan Valley clash in eastern Ladakh last month, in which 20 Indian soldiers had died, and New Delhi carrying out a military naval drill with US aircraft carrier, Nimitz, near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands this week.

India and the US have also intensified intelligence and military collaboration and cooperation to an unprecedented level over the last one month, with China being a common worry for both nations.

On Wednesday, the US told China to close its consulate in Houston, deepening the deterioration in bilateral relations. News agency Reuters reported Beijing was considering shutting down the US consulate in Wuhan in response.

Beijing would have also taken note of the Indian navys drills with its US counterpart. The USS Nimitz and warships of the Indian Navy conducted exercises designed to maximise training and interoperability, including air defence. The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, the US Navy said, is currently deployed in the Indian Ocean in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Nimitz along with another carrier USS Ronald Reagan had earlier carried out a drill in the South China Sea region, deeply riling China.

The two countries have also been working to step up information sharing between security, military and intelligence branches of the two countries.
COVID-19 is wiping more than a decade of life expectancy from those who die from the disease, while comparatively young and healthy patients who recover are suffering ongoing symptoms such as headaches, fatigue and breathlessness.

New data on the first four months of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia shows the disease strips an average 17 years of life expectancy from every man to die from the disease and 14 years for every woman to die.

Data shows young and healthy people are still suffering the effects of a COVID-19 infection months after beating the disease. Credit:Getty Images

The analysis, published in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's national health report card, warns of COVID-19s potential to "seriously affect not just those who are elderly or in very poor health, but also people who may not have been considered to be at the highest risk."

It comes as initial observations from a UNSW Kirby Institute study of the long-term effects of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 indicates that one in five patients experience ongoing symptoms, including breathlessness, fatigue, anxiety and "brain fog".
A person holds a piece of gold at a jewelry shop in Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

Gold prices surged to a new peak in Vietnam on Wednesday after global prices rose driven by expectations of more stimuli from governments.

State-owned Saigon Jewelry Company sold its popular SJC gold at VND52.98 ($2,285) per tael of 37.5 grams (1.2 ounces), up 2.9 percent from Tuesday.

The countrys largest jewelry company, DOJI, sold at 52.7 million ($2,294), up 1.9 percent.

Global prices went up by 0.9 percent on Wednesday to $1,857.86 per ounce, or close to a nine-year high, after European Union leaders on Tuesday sealed a 750-billion-euro recovery plan and the U.S. administration and opposition Democrats discussed a next round of relief that would include extended unemployment insurance.

"The specter of these stimulus packages has pushed investors back into non-yielding assets like gold," Reuters quoted ANZ analyst Daniel Hynes as saying.
In the five years of Muhammadu Buharis presidency so far, a name that kept ringing as a top confidant of the president was Ismaila Is...





In the five years of Muhammadu Buharis presidency so far, a name that kept ringing as a top confidant of the president was Ismaila Isa Funtua. The government, it was alleged, was being controlled by a cabal in which Funtua reportedly played an active role  alongside Mamman Daura, Babagana Kingibe and Abba Kyari, the late chief of staff to the president.





Rather than shy away from the now popular cabal label, Funtua declared that he was, in fact, not a member of the presidents clique but was the cabal himself.





At the time, Aisha, Buharis wife had complained that some of her husbands associates had hijacked the government. But Funtua said the president had not committed any crime by having his trusted friends around him.





Im not a member of any cabal, Im cabal myself, he responded wittily to a question on Arise TV in January.

What is cabal? In short I think it means kitchen cabinet, people that you trust. People you believe will not deceive you, that they can do things in the interest of the country.





He said Nigerians were imputing derogatory meaning to the word cabal which he said has an innocuous connotation.





The cabal himself breathed his last on Monday evening, and the news of his death came as a shock. Just three hours before he reportedly died of cardiac arrest, he had spoken on the phone with Ben Murray-Bruce, former senator, who said the late media colossus promised to call again the next day.





SECOND REPUBLIC MINISTER WHO FOUGHT MILITARY RULE

In the second republic, Funtua served as the minister of water resources under President Shehu Shagari.





The government was later toppled by the military  and with Buhari, his kinsman, becoming the head of state.





Funtua founded the Democrat Newspaper during military rule and at a time decrees were issued to restrain freedom of speech.





His newspaper was at the forefront in the struggle against dictatorship, especially in the 90s during the regime of Sani Abacha.





Funtua was said to have been marked as a target on Abachas purported hit-list for his consistent fight against military rule.





He also was a member of the 1994-1995 constitutional conference.





HE DID NOT BELIEVE IN RESTRUCTURING

In an interview with Arise TV in 2017, Funtua said he was always amazed when Nigerians talked about restructuring of the country.





There have been divided opinions on restructuring governance in Nigeria, and for Funtua, attention should be paid more on leaders at all tiers of government rather than on restructuring the entity.





We are not holding our leaders accountable all along and why are we not holding our leaders accountable? Who pays tax in this country? We arent doing our social responsibility so if we arent really honouring our social responsibility our strength to fight our leaders is very limited and today if everybody would pay his dues to a large extent we wont be crying so much; even at the state level, the local government level they couldnt pay salaries and when people are talking in this country of restructuring I am always amazed, he said.





What do they mean by restructuring? I am a Nigerian they shouldnt turn us to educated illiterates. They should come out and tell us to restructure what from what level to what level? Now we have three tiers of government, local government was the third tear but now it is only on paper because governors have turned local government to their own personal estates, the monies of local and federal account go into their pockets, they spend it the way and manner they want.





GOVERNMENT CANNOT DO EVERYTHING

When asked, in the same interview, if the country was moving in the right direction, Funtua gave a nod, but said things should not be left alone to the government because all citizens have roles to play.





When people talk of the government, the government alone cant do everything without us, he said.





If I know you are a thief and you have stolen billions and you are sitting on it, we are all Nigerians we know ourselves, we know what everybody has to a large extent and we are not saying this person is dishonest and he has taken our properties. How do we want the government to know everything?





But you know the people that have stolen, you do know people who steal money, buy private planes, buy all types of properties and nothing is done to them.





When you asked a question at the beginning about $15 billion [power sector expenditure under President Obasanjo] and the report is there, all what Nigerians need to do, instead of demonstrating over nothing, they should demonstrate and ask or they should call on the government to prosecute those people and collect their money because the money belongs to them and not the government. What is the government about? The people.





THE ELITE ARE TO BLAME FOR NIGERIAS PROBLEMS





A member of the elite himself, Funtua believed that his class are to blame for Nigerias problems.





Describing Nigerians as resilient people who weather the storm under any situation, in the interview, he said: When you talk about Nigeria sometimes, we the elites should be blamed for what is happening in our country for not rising up to make sure it is being addressed and for our needs we are living above our means. Our needs are higher than our income.





Why should we live as a nation where ordinary toothpick we are importing into the country and that toothpick is being imported with dollars? I was laughing and nearly hit my head on the bed when I was reading one guys tweet that I was being given dollars and I was making $1 billion every week and I said I wish they were giving me, I need it.





IF IGBO WANT TO BE PRESIDENT, THEY MUST BELONG





While there was a clamour for a president of Igbo extraction, Funtua said the Igbo would have to step up their game in politics to get this dream achieved.





northerners. In another interview in January, Funtua explained how he worked for Alex Ekwueme in 1999 for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket. He said Ekwueme lost the presidential bid to Olusegun Obasanjo because he was not going to rub minds withnortherners.





When Ekwueme contested again, he was defeated in the contest for the nomination of the party by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Why? His attitude had changed. I went to that constitutional conference with my boss and we wanted him to be leading us and be holding some caucus meetings in his house but he stepped back and did not want to have anything to do with the northern or national caucus because he believed the 1983 coup was staged to prevent him from becoming president, he said.





He continued by asking: Since when has politics in Nigeria become turn by turn Nigeria Limited?





He said he was the coordinator of the campaign of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in 1983 and understood Nigerian politics.





If the Igbo want to be president, then they must belong. If you dont belong, then you cant be the president. That is the issue and we have seen it with MKO Abiola of blessed memory. He went out of his way, he cultivated people, he said.





HE ALWAYS DEFENDED THE MEDIA

Funtua was largely regarded as a bastion of the media. He was always on the front-line on any issue affecting the industry.





In a tribute, the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos, described the late entrepreneur who was the chairman of the governing council of the institution, as a strong pillar of support.





The Chairman was a committed and passionate defender of freedom of speech, press freedom and democracy. In pursuant of this commitment, he established the Democrat Newspaper during the era of military dictatorship in Nigeria, it said.





Mallam Ismaila Isa was always quick to rally the media community against any legislation or policy targeted at stifling the media. In recognition of his astute leadership qualities and investment in the media industry, he was first elected as Vice President of the Newspaper Proprietors of Nigeria (NPAN) under the Presidency of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola. He was later elected the President of NPAN, a position he held with dignity and honour, promoting and defending media interest in Nigeria, Africa and the world. He was instrumental to Nigerias hosting of the International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress and General Assembly in Abuja, in 2018.





Ifueko Omoigui Okauru, former chairperson of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), also foregrounded Funtuas passion for the defence of his media constituency in her tribute to him. She said the late NPAN patron came to her office when she was at FIRS to protest against a letter, which though not from her, rankled media proprietors.





He introduced himself as a life patron of the International Press Institute and Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) (I had no clue of what that meant) and said he had a matter to discuss with me. He brought out an official letter purportedly written on my behalf regarding unilaterally imposing VAT on the newspaper industry, she wrote in her tribute.





First, this was the first time I was seeing the letter. Second, it was not my style. I didnt and still dont take unilateral actions such as was suggested in the letter without consultation even if that was what I wanted to do. I was shocked. He mentioned the reason he came. That he didnt know me but decided to meet with me.That after reading the letter from the FIRS, the newspaper proprietors had met and decided to fight the FIRS and its reforms on an action that was to cripple the entire industry without even any engagement.





UK-TRAINED ADMINISTRATOR

Born in January, 1942, Funtua trained as an administrative officer at the Institute of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria.





He later proceeded to Manchester University in the UK. He was the monitor-general of the course 9 at National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPS), Kuru.





For seven years, he served as an administrative officer with the Katsina Native Authority. He served in different ministries as an administrator in the defunct northern region.





He rose through the ranks to become personnel manager of the United Nigerian Textile Company, Kaduna.





Funtua was the founder of Bulet International Nigeria Limited, founding managing director of the New Africa Holdings (publishers of the defunct The Democrat).





He later became the president of NPAN, and until his death, he was life patron of the association.





In his condolence message, Buhari said the death of his ally has created a huge gap.





Indeed, it is a seismic loss.

culled: TheCable
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jul. 21, 2020 | PADUCAH

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 21, 2020 | 08:28 PM | PADUCAH

At a meeting held Thursday, John Truitt was unanimously voted to fill the position of Sprocket board chair. In addition, Ines Rivas-Hutchins was appointed to fill the open board seat.



The Chair ship, formerly held by Monica Bilak, was vacated when she resigned to accept the position of Regional Director of GroWest, a consortium of innovation hubs that, along with Paducah, includes Madisonville, and Murray.



I am thankful for the boards confidence in me and will do all I can to advance and support the creation of tech-based businesses in the region, said Truitt. This is a very crucial moment for us economically, he added. I think if theres one industry we need to focus on in this midst of the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, it has to be tech.



Truitt is a co-owner and founder of Kalleo Technologies, a company that provides network management solutions, cloud-based services, and outsourced network monitoring and help desk support to corporations. The company employs 65 workers and recently relocated to the former TTECH building in downtown Paducah.



Earlier this year, Truitt was appointed to a steering committee by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development to advise on the development of programs for KY Innovation which is the new state program for supporting Tech startup businesses.



Ines Rivas-Hutchins has for the past four years been at the helm of INTEC Group, LLC, the Paducah company she founded. INTEC specializes in construction services to the Federal Government including the U.S. Department of the Army, U.S Air Force, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Considered one of Western Kentuckys top woman-owned government contractors, INTEC Group has successfully managed over 150 federal projects with contract values in excess of $70 million dollars. Rives-Hutchins serves as an officer on the board of the Women Construction Owners and Executives, a national organization dedicated to advancing women in the construction industry.



I am very excited to join the Sprocket team and look forward to continuing my work to promote female entrepreneurship, she said. Women are too often underrepresented, and its my hope that through Sprocket programs and technology, we can help level the playing field regionally.



Sprocket, Inc. is a non-profit center for entrepreneurship, education, and community learning located at the rear of the Coke Plant in midtown Paducah.



More on Sprocket: https://www.facebook.com/paducahinnovation/

Sprocket is part of the GroWest regional consortium: https://www.facebook.com/growestky/
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 06:06:59|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, July 21 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said on Tuesday that the United Nations will continue its efforts to resuscitate a dialogue among all stakeholders in the Middle East with no preconditions.

"The secretary-general and the UN will continue efforts to resuscitate a dialogue among all stakeholders, with no preconditions, and in the interest of peace and a negotiated resolution to the conflict," Mladenov told the Security Council quarterly open debate on "The Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question" in open videoconference (VTC) format.

"For these efforts to stand a chance of success, there must be political will from all parties. Otherwise, the path to a negotiated solution risks quickly becoming unnavigable, moving instead towards a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict," he said.

The special coordinator reiterated the UN chief's call to members of the Middle East Quartet, Arab countries, and the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to re-engage urgently.

"We need to restart diplomacy," he said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic and its ensuing economic crisis, which has sent Israeli unemployment soaring past 20 percent, are a chance to move forward along the path to a negotiated two-state solution in line with UN resolutions, bilateral agreements and international law.

"The ferocity of the COVID-19 virus and its devastating human and economic toll demand extraordinary measures (that) rise above politics-as-usual," he said. "Immediate efforts to curb the virus and to mitigate its impact must be prioritized. Israeli and Palestinian leaders have a duty to protect the lives and livelihoods of their populations."

On the annexation plans, Mladenov said, in recent weeks, the region and the broader international community have continued to express their firm rejection of annexation.

He reiterated the secretary-general's call on the Israeli government to abandon plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

On May 28, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was committed to annexing parts of the West Bank in July once a joint Israeli-U.S. team completes mapping the exact territory based on the conceptual map released by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. However, the July 2020 annexation plan was later pushed back.

On the profound impact of COVID-19, the envoy said that the situation on the ground is rapidly being impacted by the dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel. The challenges of confronting the rapid increase in cases in the West Bank and boosting prevention efforts in Gaza has been significantly compounded by the ending of coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

The World Health Organization on Monday put the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Israel at 49,481, with 403 fatalities. In the West Bank and Gaza, it reported 10,052 cases and 65 deaths.

In response, Mladenov noted, the United Nations has engaged with all sides to ensure the continued and unimpeded provision of humanitarian assistance. Enditem
With 26 years in the military, retired Navy Capt. Richard Dick Campbell has no lack of stories about when he served.

The El Cajon resident, named last week as the citys Veteran of the Year, said one of his most vivid memories are of sailors on his ship shooting down a plane in the mid-1960s off the coast of northern Vietnam and southern China.

We were on the destroyer, the USS Henry B. Wilson, it was 1966 or 1965, Campbell recalled. Our ship received a distress call telling us one of our planes had been damaged over Hanoi. The caller told us his plane was disabled but that he was unable to make it back to our carrier, that he had bailed out.

Well, we were concerned about the plane knowing he bailed out. And so then we saw it, the plane was overhead  without a pilot. That posed a hazard to us, so we shot it down. And that was only plane we shot down in the Gulf of Tonkin.

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Campbell was presented his award at Tuesdays City Council meeting. He also was honored on Nov. 11 at El Cajon Centennial Plaza and Veterans Memorial as part of the citys Salute to Veterans celebration.

Campbell, 84, was recognized and honored by the citys Veterans Commission, chosen from a group of local vets for going above and beyond in serving their community through their leadership abilities and/or community service in El Cajon, making a big impact on those they serve.

Campbell was nominated by some of his friends in the Kiwanis Club of El Cajon Valley, of which he has been a member for 20 years. He has served as the service clubs president, secretary and treasurer.

Campbell guided the clubs co-sponsorship of the Ka-Boom! playground program in building three parks in the city. He also spearheaded the establishment of a Kiwanis K-Kids Club at Anza Elementary School.

Campbell and his wife of 60 years, Mary, have four adult daughters, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Campbell was born in Hollywood and was raised in Los Angeles. He attended John Brown University in Arkansas and graduated with a bachelors in mechanical engineering. He also met his wife while attending the school.

Campbell served in the Navy from 1956-82, and was on eight ships  two destroyers, two cruisers, three service force ships and an aircraft carrier.

Campbells duties included chief engineer, repair superintendent in a naval shipyard, staff engineer for a squadron of eight ships and engineering examiner.

For a time, he commanded the USS Navasota, which was a fleet oiler that carried 6 million gallons of fuel. The Navasota fueled other ships on the water.

He was also the first commanding officer of USS Yellowstone. The Yellowstone was a construction repair ship built in San Diego by National Steel and Shipbuilding Co.

Among his military awards, Campbell has received a Naval Achievement Medal, two Navy commendation medals and six Vietnam service medals.

Campbell has coordinated or participated in community projects including Project Amped, in which lunch was served to more than 100 wounded warriors at Camp Pendleton.

He also worked with Kiwanis during Radys Childrens Hospitals Miracle Mile of Quarters fundraiser.

Campbell has been a member of the East County Career Center, the Association of Realtors and had a four-year term on the citys Personnel Commission.

The Campbells have made Fletcher Hills in El Cajon their home for 43 years. Campbell said the citys varied recreation programs when their children were young was a big reason why they settled in the city.

Campbell expressed deep appreciation for his wife, a retired choir teacher at Christian High in El Cajon, who raised their children alone while he was out at sea.

(Being in the Navy) was harder on my family than I had anticipated, he said. Had I not had a very resourceful wife, this would not have worked. Military life, especially career military life, is very hard on marriages, and only the strong survive.

Mine has survived and not a day goes by that Im not saddened that I didnt appreciate her more, basically raising our children on her own It was remarkable, now as I look back on it.

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com
E scooters could catch fire and explode on Britain's streets, commuters have been warned.

Electrical Safety First (ESF) have revealed that e scooters and e-bikes could catch fire, risking a repeat of the hoverboard 'fiasco', which saw a spate of the gadgets catch fire due to faulty lithium batteries.

It comes as a trial of e scooters in the UK launched in Middlesbrough to test if they should be allowed on British roads.

Currently, e scooters are illegal on public roads and pavements amid fears over the safety of the vehicles.

They have already been involved in fatal accidents including YouTube star Emily Hartridge who was en route to a fertility clinic scan last July when she was killed in a crash in Battersea, south west London.

Electrical Safety First (ESF) have warned that e scooters and e-bikes could catch fire and explode. Pictured is one in Dublin

It fears that, when the original batteries run out, people could buy poor quality replacements online

However, despite the fears, an estimated 200,000 e scooters have already been bought in the UK.

One in seven UK adults are planning to buy an e-bike or e-scooter this year, according to a survey.

Many have turned to cycling to avoid public transport as lockdown eases, but research by Electrical Safety First suggests more are considering an e-bike or e-scooter.

One in three of the 3,002 adults surveyed said they would be willing to purchase a battery charging pack for their e-bike or e-scooter from an online marketplace, which opens the risk of consumers acquiring substandard and dangerous imitations.

E-bikes and e-scooters are almost all powered by lithium-ion batteries, charged from the mains outlet in a property.

The charity warns that substandard versions can have explosive consequences, leading to fire and injury.

There have already been reports of faulty escooter batteries catching fire and exploding in places where the devices are widely used, such as China.

In December, there was a report of an e scooter catching fire at Dublin home.

"As personal transport evolves, we are becoming increasingly dependent on electricity and consumers should be cautious of the risks involved," said Martyn Allen, technical director at Electrical Safety First.

"Items such as e-bikes and e-scooters are powered by lithium-ion batteries and will be required to charge for long periods of time.

"Substandard versions of these batteries can pose a serious risk to life if a fault occurs.

"Where you purchase your batteries and charger packs is just as important as the bike or scooter itself.

"With so many set to make the purchase of an electric bike or scooter this year, consumers should exercise caution about whom they are buying from."

Under the Government Middlesbrough trial, people can only ride hired e-scooters from approved vendors. Riders must be over 16, have a driving licence and cannot ride the e-scooters at more than 15.5mph.

It comes as a trial of e scooters in the UK launched in Middlesbrough to test if they should be allowed on British roads

YouTube star Emily Hartridge was en route to a fertility clinic scan last July when she was killed in a crash on her e-scooter. Pictured is the presenter showing her joy as she is presented with the scooter

The trials are being held for 12 months to assess whether the devices reduce traffic and what impact they have on the safety of users and those around them.

International firms are already vying for a slice of the UK's new e-scooter trade - prompting fears that cities will be awash with them, as they have been in Europe.

Eighteen companies have bid to be part of the trial and they include UK-based shared bike operator Beryl, which has recently launched a range of e-scooters, Swedish scooter startup Voi, Berlin-based scooter company Tier, Amsterdam-based scooter provider Dott and US-based Bird, Lime and Spin.

Tier says it already has 1,000 scooters at the ready in a UK warehouse  and will be shipping over more soon.

Lime added says it has 'thousands of scooters ready to be rolled out across the UK'.

European cities including Paris and Brussels have seen locals complain about the number of e-scooters now clogging up their roads.

In Paris 13 firms piled into the market in the first year and soon the French cpatial was awash with 20,000 e-scooters.
SAN FRANCISCO (dpa-AFX) - Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), in an update on the status of the ongoing regulatory review for the pending acquisition of Acacia Communications Inc. (ACIA) by Cisco, said that the companies remain actively engaged with the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People's Republic of China, and expect the acquisition to receive regulatory clearance. In July 2019, Cisco said that it agreed to buy Acacia Communications for $70.00 per share in cash or about $2.6 billion on a fully diluted basis, net of cash and marketable securities. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Hindustan Zinc, one of worlds largest and India's only integrated producer of Zinc-Lead and Silver today announced the elevation of Mr. Arun Misra as its Chief Executive Officer. He has been the Deputy CEO in the company since November 2019 and will take the office effective 1st August 2020. He succeeds Mr. Sunil Duggal, who is now leading the Group Company Vedanta Limited as CEO. In his elevated role, Mr. Misra will play an integral role in strategizing business operations and spearheading the companys expansion.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sunil Duggal- CEO Vedanta Limited said, I am happy to welcome Arun as the CEO of HZL. I am sure that with his stellar track record, deep strategic expertise and proven experience of driving transformation, he is well placed to lead the company to the next level of growth. I wish him all the very best.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Arun Misra, CEO Designate, Hindustan Zinc, said, Its a matter of privilege for me to take on the baton from stalwarts who has been leading this company by example. HZL has a fantastic team of professionals and we will all work together to enhance our footprint as a leading global producer of zinc-lead and silver.

Mr. Misra brings with him a vast experience of 31 years having held several leadership roles. Prior to joining Hindustan Zinc, Mr. Misra was associated with Tata Steel as Vice President - Raw Materials. He is also the Vice President of Indian Institute of Mineral Engineers and has published several papers in their journal of national repute.

Mr. Misra completed his Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from IIT  Kharagpur with a Diploma in Mining and Beneficiation from New South Wales Sydney, and another diploma in General Management from CEDEP, France.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said tunnelling operations have begun at its 250 MW hydroelectric power station in Hatta, a first-of-its-kind project in the GCC region, being built at an investment of Dh1.42 billion ($386.5 million).

The construction contract for the pumped-storage hydroelectric power station was awarded to a consortium led by Austrian construction company Strabag, with key partners Strabag Dubai, Andritz Hydro and Ozkar, said the statement from Dewa.

Electricite de France (EDF) is the consultant of the project, which is scheduled to be commissioned by February 2024.

The 250 MW station will generate electricity by making use of the water stored in Hatta Dam. It will have a storage capacity of 1,500 MWh and a life span of 80 years, it stated.

"The hydroelectric power station translates Dewas hard work to implement the directives of the wise leadership to protect natural resources and increase the share of clean and renewable energy," remarked Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO.

"This is what we strive to achieve through the pumped-storage hydroelectric power station, which is the first of its kind in the Arabian Gulf region. This promotes Dubais position as a global hub for clean energy and green economy," said Al Tayer, after reviewing the work progress of the project.

Al Tayer was accompanied by Nasser Lootah, EVP-Generation at Dewa, Yousef Jebril, EVP-Power and Water Planning at Dewa, Dr Yousef Al Akraf, EVP-Business Support and HR at Dewa, Mansoor Alsuwaidi, VP- Projects Generation at Dewa and Khalifa Albedwawi, the project manager.

During the visit, Al Tayer and his delegation were briefed about the project by Dirk Leitzig from Strabag AG.

"The tunnelling operations have started at the hydroelectric station. This phase is very critical and uses the latest and safest drilling technologies to fit Hattas geological features while following the highest international environmental standards," he stated.

Al Tayer said this strategic project would diversify the energy mix and support Hattas economic, social and environmental development.

"It will also help achieve the goals of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 to provide 75% of Dubais total power output from clean energy by 2050," noted the top official.

According to him, the project is part of Dewas initiatives to provide leading and innovative job opportunities for Emirati citizens in Hatta.

It will also feature a visitors centre and outdoor activities and tourist facilities that will support the sustainable development of Hatta and enhance its position as one of most prominent tourist attractions in Dubai, he added.

The 250MW power station will use water in the Hatta Dam and an upper reservoir that will be built in the mountain, said the statement from Dewa.

During off-peak hours, advanced turbines will use clean solar power from the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park to pump water from the dam to the upper reservoir, it stated.

Turbines operated by the speed of waterfall from the upper reservoir will be used to generate electricity through a 1.2 km subterranean water canal, with high efficiency in power generation and storage, and with a 90-second response to demand for electricity, it added.-TradeArabai News Service
Rating Action: Moody's affirms State of Colorado's Aa1 issuer rating; outlook stable

Global Credit Research - 21 Jul 2020

New York, July 21, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has affirmed the State of Colorado's Aa1 issuer rating. In conjunction with this action, we have also affirmed the following long term ratings: Aa2-rated General Fund Certificates of Participation (General Fund COPs); Aa2-rated Building Excellent Schools Today Certificates of Participation (BEST COPs); Aa2-rated Colorado Department of Transportation Certificates of Participation (CDOT COPs); Aa2-rated Rural Colorado Certificates of Participation (Rural Colorado COPs); Colorado School District Enhancement Program's Aa2 programmatic issuer rating; Colorado Higher Education Enhancement Program's Aa2 programmatic issuer rating; and Colorado Charter School Moral Obligation Program's Aa3 programmatic issuer rating. The outlook is stable.

Please click on this link http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc.aspx?docid=PBM_PBM906595753 for the List of Affected Credit Ratings. This list is an integral part of this Press Release and identifies each affected issuer.

RATINGS RATIONALE

The State of Colorado's issuer rating of Aa1 reflects the state's strong economic performance in the years preceding the current pandemic, higher-than-average income levels, and relatively low debt levels. Balanced against these strengths are narrow reserves, above average pension liabilities, and constitutional restrictions and voter initiatives which constrain budgeting flexibility.

Like all US states, Colorado is facing a significant shortfall in tax revenues in fiscal 2020 and 2021 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and economic slowdown. Moody's expects that the shortfall will be addressed by a combination of spending cuts, measured drawdowns of reserves, and federal assistance.

We regard the coronavirus outbreak as a social risk under our ESG framework, given the substantial implications for public health and safety. The coronavirus crisis is not a key driver for this rating action. We do not see any material immediate credit risks for the State of Colorado. However, the situation surrounding coronavirus is rapidly evolving and the longer term impact will depend on both the severity and duration of the crisis. If our view of the credit quality of the state changes, we will update the rating and/or outlook at that time.

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The Aa2 rating on the all of the state's certificates of participation, including its General Fund COPs, BEST COPs, CDOT COPs and Rural Colorado COPs, is one notch below the state's issuer rating of Aa1. The one notch distinction reflects the moderate legal structure inherent in an annually renewable lease-backed security, the essentiality of the leased assets, and the state's established track record of making appropriation-backed debt payments under similar financing agreements. Lease payments securing the general fund COPs, the BEST COPs, and, to the extent they are made from the general fund, the Rural Colorado COPs, are subject to annual appropriation by the state legislature. Lease payment securing the CDOT COPs and, in part, lease payment securing the Rural Colorado COPs are to be paid from fuel taxes, registration fees and other transportation-related revenue deposited annually in the State Highway Fund (SHF). Payments from the SHF are not subject to appropriation, but are subject to annual allocation by the State Transportation Commission. The rating on the CDOT COPs and the Rural Colorado COPs incorporates the breadth and stability of the transportation-related revenues from which all or part of the lease payments securing these COPs will be made, offsetting the more narrow source of payment compared to the state's purely general fund-backed COPs.

The Aa2 ratings on the Colorado School District and Higher Education Enhancement Programs are based on Moody's assessment of the program mechanics, history, and the state commitment, including the statutory requirement of an unlimited advance from available state funds.

The Aa3 rating on the Colorado Charter School Moral Obligation Program reflects the credit quality of the State of Colorado (Issuer Rating Aa1 stable) and the provisions of the program. The program's strengths include statutory requirements that the Colorado Education and Cultural Facilities Authority and the governor request the legislature to make an appropriation to replenish the debt service reserve fund of any charter school bonds covered by the program in the event of a draw on that fund. The rating also reflects the importance of charter schools in the state's K-12 education system, the legislature's demonstrated support for assisting charter schools with the financing of capital projects, and the state's established track record of making appropriation-backed debt payments under a variety of financing agreements for state projects. The two-notch distinction between the programmatic rating and the state's issuer rating reflects the contingent, subject-to-appropriation nature of state's support; the generally low investment grade underlying credit quality of the charter school bonds covered by the program; and the risks inherent in charter school debt.

RATING OUTLOOK

The outlook for Colorado's long-term ratings is stable. The state has generally conservative financial practices and a history of timely appropriations for the lease payments securing the vast majority of its debt. The economy's fundamentals remain strong and a better than average recovery from the current slowdown is likely. Debt levels are expected to remain moderate.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OF THE RATINGS

- A significant and sustained increase in financial reserves.

- Voter actions that enhance the state's fiscal health and flexibility.

FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS

- A sustained weakening of GAAP-basis fund balances or a significant weakening in liquidity.

- Voter actions that further constrain the state's fiscal flexibility.

- A protracted weakening of the state's generally strong economic fundamentals.

LEGAL SECURITY

The issuer rating represents the rating Moody's would assign to the state's general obligation bonds.

The general fund COPs are secured by lease payments made from the state's general fund for use of the various lease properties. The lease payments are subject to annual appropriation by the state legislature.

The Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) capital construction program was approved by state statute in the 2008 legislative session. The outstanding BEST COPs are payable on a parity basis solely from gross lease payments annually appropriated by the legislature. The state has identified specific revenue streams from which it anticipates making these appropriations. These include revenues from the State School Land Trust, matching payments made by the local school districts participating in the program, certain excess lottery revenues, and an allocation of marijuana excise tax revenues. The State School Land Trust receives rent and royalty payments from various land lease agreements in the state. Ultimate security for the bonds is provided by the state's ability to appropriate funds from any legally available source, including the state's general fund, if revenues from the State School Land Trust and other identified revenues are insufficient to make certificate payments. The obligation to make lease payments is absolute and unconditional, once appropriated, and the availability of the state general fund, if needed, mitigates risk of any failure to receive participant matching payments.

The CDOT COPs are payable from lease payments to be made by CDOT for use of the leased assets, including its headquarters facilities in Denver, Pueblo, Greeley and Aurora. Lease payments are not subject to appropriation by the legislature but are subject to allocation by the STC as part of its approval of CDOT's budget.

The Rural Colorado COPs are secured by lease payments to be made by the state for the use of certain existing state facilities. Annual lease payments are to be made, in part, from the state's General Fund and, in part, from the State Highway Fund. Payments from the General Fund are subject to annual appropriation by the state legislature. Payments from the State Highway Fund are not subject to appropriation, but are subject to annual allocation by the state's Transportation Commission.

The Colorado School District and Higher Education Enhancement Programs are unlimited advance programs whereby, upon notification from a paying agent, the state treasurer will make up debt service deficiencies for a school district from immediately available funds as outlined in state statutes.

The Colorado Charter School Moral Obligation Program is open to charter schools that have issued bonds through the Colorado Education and Cultural Facilities Authority and have received an underlying investment grade rating. Charter school bonds that have qualified for and are participating in the program have a debt service reserve funded at MADs. Per the statutes, if there is a draw on the bond debt service reserve that is not immediately replenished, the authority shall submit to the governor a certificate certifying the amount required to restore the bond debt service reserve to the reserve requirement. The governor, in turn, shall submit to legislature a request for an appropriation in an amount to restore the bond debt service reserve fund. In the indentures for the charter school bonds, the authority covenants to make the notice to the governor. Per authority staff, the notice to the governor would be made "within days" of a draw on the bond debt service reserve. The statutes and the indenture do not specify the timing of the actions by the authority and the governor, a weakness compared to other moral obligations.

Charter school bonds participating in the Moral Obligation Program also benefit from the Colorado Charter School Debt Service Reserve Fund (CCSDSRF). This is a separate reserve, held by the State Treasurer, which is available to pay debt service on participating charter school debt. The balance in the fund totals over $14 million, funded by annual 10 bps payments by participating charter schools and funds appropriated by the state legislature. If, 10 days prior to a debt service date, the trustee for a participating charter school bond has not received funds for the payment of principal and interest and the bond debt service reserve has been depleted, the trustee shall notify the State Treasurer and the State Treasurer will make the debt service payment using money in the CCSDSRF. Payment of debt service using money in the CCSDSRF does not require additional appropriation by the legislature.

PROFILE

Colorado is the 21st largest state by population, at 5.8 million. Its state gross domestic product, $390.3 billion, is the 16th largest. Income levels are above average--the state's per capita personal income is equal to 108.3% of the US level and its poverty level is among the lowest in the nation.

METHODOLOGY

The principal methodology used in the the State of Colorado's issuer rating was US States and Territories published in April 2018 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBM_1084466. The principal methodology used in the Colorado Charter School programmatic issuer and lease ratings was Lease, Appropriation, Moral Obligation and Comparable Debt of US State and Local Governments published in July 2018 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBM_1102364. The principal methodology used in the enhancement program ratings was State Aid Intercept Programs and Financings published in December 2017 and available at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBM_1067422. Alternatively, please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of these methodologies.

REGULATORY DISCLOSURES

The List of Affected Credit Ratings announced here are all solicited credit ratings. Additionally, the List of Affected Credit Ratings includes additional disclosures that vary with regard to some of the ratings. Please click on this link http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc.aspx?docid=PBM_PBM906595753 for the List of Affected Credit Ratings. This list is an integral part of this Press Release and provides, for each of the credit ratings covered, Moody's disclosures on the following items:

- Rating Solicitation

- Issuer Participation

- Participation: Access to Management

- Participation: Access to Internal Documents

- Disclosure to Rated Entity

- Endorsement

For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and Sensitivity to Assumptions in the disclosure form. Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions can be found at: https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_79004.

For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.

Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.

Moody's general principles for assessing environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks in our credit analysis can be found at https://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1133569.

Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.

Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.

Kenneth Kurtz Lead Analyst State Ratings Moody's Investors Service, Inc. One Front Street Suite 1900 San Francisco 94111 US JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Marcia Van Wagner Additional Contact State Ratings JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653 Releasing Office: Moody's Investors Service, Inc. 250 Greenwich Street New York, NY 10007 U.S.A JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376 Client Service: 1 212 553 1653

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Little Traverse Bay Humane Society hires training and behavior specialist

Sarah Schertel will serve the training needs of Little Traverse Bay Humane Society, in addition to offering classes to the public.
Laid-off workers are having to open up their options to get a new job, Photo: Dung Minh

Several months ago, Nguyen Anh Tuan from the northern province of Nam Dinh was a driver for Hanoi-based G7 Taxis. The job provided Tuan and his wife stable income to cover living expenses in the big bustling city. His earnings also helped him pay off loans and save for their three children, who are living with their grandparents at home.

Now, instead of wheeling around Hanois streets with his passengers, Tuan has been travelling to the Hanoi Centre for Employment Services (HCES), patiently waiting to file for unemployment and draw benefits.

Tuan shared with VIR that the COVID-19 pandemic had taken away his livelihood. During social distancing without any customers, he had to sell the car to pay his debts, and accepted any temporary job in order to earn a living.

I will receive more than VND40 million ($1,740), including a five-month basic salary of unemployment benefits, plus a one-time payment upon withdrawal. This amount is not that large, but can be enough for my family for a few months until I find a new job, Tuan said.

Tuan represents some 31 million workers in Vietnam in the same situation, with the pandemic sweeping away their jobs, and their lives facing little ahead except for disturbance.

According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam recorded a dramatic slash in the labour force with the number of employees in the second quarter surging 2.2 million from the previous quarter, falling by 2.4 million on-year. Labour market participation rates have fallen even further in rural areas and among the female workforce.

The second quarter also witnessed the highest unemployment rate among the working age in the past 10 years, which peaked at 2.73 per cent, with the low- and unskilled worker group seeing the highest rate.

Also in the previous quarter, for the first time in five years the average monthly income of Vietnamese workers bottomed out at VND5.2 million, down 5.1 per cent compared to the same period in 2019.

The labour market in the second quarter of 2020 suffered from a mix of elements, said Valentina Barcucci, economist at the International Labour Organization in Vietnam. We observe workers who have lost their jobs but are not looking for new ones, probably because there are not many opportunities around.

The rocketing jobless rates are significantly responsible for the dramatic increase in applications for unemployment benefits in the first half of the year, which stands at nearly 570,000. According to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), 507,585 people have received unemployment benefits within the first six months of 2020, a year-on-year increase of 32 per cent.

In the first half of 2020, the HCES granted unemployment benefits in nearly 40,000 cases, an increase of around 8,750 against the same period last year, of which the group under 35 years old contributed significantly to applications, with nearly 22,000 people accounting for 54 per cent of total unemployment benefit applications.

Nguyen Thi Huu, 25, used to work as office staff in Ho Chi Minh City but after maternity leave moved to Hanoi and has been unemployed ever since. For three months she has visited the HCES frequently for unemployment allowance of around VND4 million ($175) a month.

Finding a new job is a battle now, Huu stated. I have gone to some job interviews but there has been no reply so far. I only have two months of benefits left and I have no choice but to find a job by then.

In such an employment crisis, localities have strengthened connections by recruiting, setting up vocational training units, and organising a series of activities to help jobseekers.

While the worker supporting programme by the Ho Chi Minh Youth Employment Services Centre has introduced some 15,000 vacancies to young people, the Binh Duong Employment Services Centre has also provided employment information from businesses to employees and assisted students and trainees to get internship course.

In Hanoi, the HCES has launched schemes to support recruitment registration for businesses through job exchanges, including offline services and online interviews. HCES deputy director Vu Quang Thanh said that Hanoi is currently seeing nearly 1,000 enterprises registering to recruit more than 10,000 employees, focusing on business, mechanics, electronics, accounting, and administration.

The MoLISA has, meanwhile, reported that Vietnams labour market is showing signs of recovery with a number of halted sectors resuming. It is expected that in the third quarter, the market will prosper with about 55.4 million employed workers.

Fast-moving consumer goods, transportation, supply-logistics, agriculture, and food and beverage production chains are on the rise again, said Vo Thi Bich Thuy, manager of Permanent Recruitment and Consulting Services at ManpowerGroup Vietnam. The online business sector also continues to increase recruiting demand for positions of skills of all levels, she added.

On the other hand, before waiting for the labour market to revive, many Vietnamese workers have taken advantage of the period of hardship by actively learning additional skills and improving older ones in order to have more chances of a suitable job.

Former taxi driver Tuan, after a period of unemployment, has now become an apprentice mechanic and is also installing air conditioners. Tuan has found that the income from this job averages about VND200,000-300,000 ($8.70-13) for half a day, taking up much less time than being a taxi driver. I am thinking about becoming a freelance worker, if possible, Tuan said with optimism. There is a chance my life could be even better than before.
Officers engaged in a roaming gun battle with a fleeing suspect on the streets of southeast Houston Wednesday morning.

The two Houston police officers spotted the man driving recklessly in the 3300 block of Old Spanish Trail near Texas 288 around 12:45 a.m., according to Houston Police Department Executive Asst. Chief Troy Finner. As they tried to pull the man over, he allegedly sped away.

A few minutes into the pursuit, the man allegedly shot at the officers with a rifle as the chase wove through residential streets in the South Union area. While they were still pursuing the man in their patrol car, one of the officers returned fire, Finner said.

The pursuit continued for a short time after the gunfire until the man crashed into a curb around the same place where the pursuit started on Old Spanish Trail, Finner said. He briefly ran before officers detained him.

Paramedics took him to a nearby hospital in an unknown condition. He will likely face a felony charge of aggravated assault on a peace officer, Finner said.

None of the officers were injured. Officers found a rifle and several shell casings inside the car, Finner said.

The two officers involved have each been on the force for two to three years. Houston police officers involved in shootings are typically placed on paid leave pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation.

Houston police officers are prohibited from discharging their weapon from a moving vehicle unless the officer has an "objectively reasonable" belief that doing so would prevent serious injury or death, according to HPD policy. Officers must also exhaust all "reasonable alternatives" before opening fire from a moving vehicle.

The investigation into the officers' actions continues.

jay.jordan@chron.com
Zimbabwean police have issued the countrys leading operator Econet Wireless with a search warrant over suspected involvement in money laundering.

Reuters reports that Econet stands accused of creating fictitious mobile money and converting it to cash to facilitate purchasing foreign currency on the black market and taking the money out of Zimbabwe.

The warrant demands that Econet surrender a list of subscribers along with financial statements and records of transactions made via its EcoCash mobile money service between 2nd January and 30th June 2020 for the purpose of investigating or detecting a case of money laundering.

Zimbabwes central bank has previously accused Econet of similar misconduct, with the operator claiming its innocence. On this occasion the operator provided no official comment, but an official who remained anonymous on the grounds that he was not authorised to speak to the media claimed that Econet would launch a legal challenge against the warrant.

Last month, Zimbabwe temporarily suspended a number of financial transactions relating to mobile money in a bid to root out what the government termed malpractices, criminality and economic sabotage perpetrated by the wolves in sheep skins amongst our population. It also suspended trade on the countrys stock exchange, which has spooked investors.
Donald Trump has announced he will surge federal law enforcement officers to Chicago immediately to quell violence there, building on a similar force already operating under legally questionable orders in Portland.

Democratic lawmakers have accused the president of using the federal police deployments as a campaign tactic, targeting cities with Democratic leadership. Part of his sales pitch for a second term, despite trailing former vice president Joe Biden nationally and in most key swing states, is that he is a law-and-order president. But majorities of American voters, according to multiple polls taken in recent weeks, oppose Mr Trumps response to violence across the country, a large portion of which is linked to the killing of George Floyd and other black people by white police officers.

The FBI, ATF, Drug Enforcement Agency, US Marshals Service and Department of Homeland Security will send hundreds of what he called very skilled officers to Chicago immediately, he said during an East Room ceremony.

The president said violent protesters in Chicago and other cities are breaking multiple federal laws, and he expects the federal police forces to make many arrests as Chicagos mayor offered a lukewarm reaction.

If those agents are here to actually work in partnership ... not trying to play police in our streets, then thats something different, and that may add value, said Democrat Lori Lightfoot. But the proof is going to be in the pudding.

Amid reports Kansas City is next, the president said additional deployments to other cities are coming soon. Specifically, he pointed to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He accused Democratic officials at the local, state and national level of trying to defund the police and catering to violent undocumented immigrants as the announcement turned into yet another campaign event.

Opportunity cannot thrive where there is violence, he said. Security cannot exist where there are violent criminals.

Attorney general William Barr, who spoke after the president, added Kansas City to the list, saying others will be added to the list in the weeks ahead.

Mr Barr said recent violence is directly related to an attack on police, presumably the defund the police slogan pushed by some black activists and a number of Democratic lawmakers.

When that slogan went viral earlier this year, many House and some Senate Democrats repeated it publicly. But they quickly were forced to scramble and explain they meant not to completely strip monies from police departments, explaining that they wanted to transfer some of their funding to other social programmes.

Rampage of violence



"This rampage of violence ... shocks our nation. ... We will not stand by and watch it," Mr Trump added, criticising Democratic leaders

Shocking explosion of ... murders ... and heinous crimes, the president said, vowing to bring violent perpetrators to justice.

We just started this process and, frankly, we have no choice but to get involved, he added, vowing to make every city safe. We will bring that safety. You will see, he said.

Portland protesters clash with federal police Show all 17 1 /17 Portland protesters clash with federal police Portland protesters clash with federal police A group of moms stands between federal agents and demonstrators during a Portland protest REUTERS Portland protesters clash with federal police A group of moms link arms to stand between federal officers and demonstrators in Portland. The call themselves the 'Wall of Moms' REUTERS Portland protesters clash with federal police Teal Lindseth reacts to tear gas after federal officers dispersed protesters from in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon Getty Images Portland protesters clash with federal police Federal officers disperse protesters at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, during demonstrations in favour of racial justice and against militarised federal officers making arrests AP Portland protesters clash with federal police A protester flies an American flag while walking through tear gas fired by federal officers during a protest in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon Getty Images Portland protesters clash with federal police A federal officer pepper sprays a protester in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon Getty Images Portland protesters clash with federal police Federal police disperse a crowd of about a thousand protesters at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon Getty Portland protesters clash with federal police Federal officers use crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon AP Portland protesters clash with federal police A protester reacts to milk poured on his eyes after being tear gassed during a protest against racial inequality in Portland, Oregon REUTERS Portland protesters clash with federal police A Black Lives Matter protester carries an American flag as teargas fills the air outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon AP Portland protesters clash with federal police Orion Crabb holds his head back while a medic rinses tear gas from his eyes after federal officers dispersed a crowd of about 1,000 protesters from in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon Getty Images Portland protesters clash with federal police Federal officers use crowd control munitions to disperse Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon AP Portland protesters clash with federal police A protester kicks in temporary boarding at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon AP Portland protesters clash with federal police A protester holds his hands in the air while walking past a group of federal officers during a protest in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon Getty Images Portland protesters clash with federal police Hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters hold their phones aloft during a demonstration in Portland, Oregon, where militarised federal police have been arresting demonstrators AP Portland protesters clash with federal police Federal police walk through tear gas while dispersing a crowd of about a thousand protesters at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon Getty Images Portland protesters clash with federal police KaCe Freeman chants during a Black Lives Matter protest outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon AP

He singled out Chicago, saying so many people have been shot there  including 23 on Tuesday  that recent crime numbers there are not too be believed. Over Fathers Day weekend, 104 people were shot and 15 were killed, including five young children.

Its just so sad to see ... how these lives have been just torn apart, the president said, reading slowly and sombrely from an autocue, appearing to ad-lib at times.

Like a bulldozer

The new deployments, expected to be carried out by federal officers under the wing of the Department of Justice, follow a controversial one to the Oregon city.

We had a contained [situation], we were using our deescalation strategies. We were engaged in limited arrests of people who were engaged in illegal activity, thats modern policing. And then these guys came in like a bulldozer, Portland mayor Ted Wheeler said. And what it did was re-energised Portlanders, it brought people back into the streets.

Mr Wheeler and other Oregon Democrats are accusing the president of using the deployment there to help his bid for a second term. He has lost ground with suburban and older voters; Democrats claim he is trying to win back security-minded voters in a handful of battleground states experts say will decide the election on 3 November.

Legal experts and Democratic officials are questioning the legality of the deployments, saying they raise a raft of questions  although there is no serious push on Capitol Hill to try limiting or stopping them. Senior lawmakers are focused on trying to broker another coronavirus recovery deal.

One expert said some aspects of the federal police operations are probably legal, while others may not be.

Theres definitely reason to be alarmed about whats going on in Portland. And even if the federal officers are technically complying with the relevant statutes, theres something more than just unseemly about camouflaged officers who refuse to identify themselves or their employer purporting to conduct arrests on the streets of American cities, according to Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Whether these officers are in fact abusing their authorities or not remains to be seen, but either answer would be deeply troubling.
A key partner of Portlaoise hospital wants investment and recruitment to cement a network set up to deliver safe maternity care at the Laois hospital.

However, the Coombe the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital (CWIUG) also referred to the plan to remove services as representing a longterm vision for the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise.

The hospital issued a statement to the Leinster Express in response to a query as to whether the link with Portlaoise was addressed at a recent meeting between the Dublin hospital's management team and the new Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly.

The meeting between the Minister for Health was a private one and therefore we cannot add to the statement issued by the Department of Health, it said.

However, a Coombe statement did expand on the integration process.

The Dublin Midlands Hospital Group (DMHG) is committed to further integration within a collaborative clinical network of Portlaoise maternity services and the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital (CWIUH). However, this needs to be facilitated through necessary capital investment and further recruitment of agreed key personnel.

 A proposed Action Plan for the New Model of Clinical Services Delivery in the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group was submitted to the Department of Health in December 2016, with a final version submitted in September 2017.

The Plan, which was developed by an advisory group, led by the DMHG and included all the relevant HSE National Clinical Leads, fulfils a Hiqa mandate from May 2015 to develop a long-term strategic vision for MRHP.

On 19 December 2018, the then Minister for Health publicly stated that a consultation process with local stakeholders will be developed.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed in March 2015 between the CWIUH and the HSE. A senior Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist from the CWIUH was appointed as Clinical Director for Integration to lead the implementation of the Clinical Network.

Professor Michael OConnell has since become Master of the CWIUH and Clinical Director for Obstetrics & Gynaecology of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group, in addition to retaining his Integration role, it said.

The Coombe outlined what has been achieved under Prof O'Connells leadership:

 Collaboration with the CWIUH to train a midwife sonographer

 Introduction of anatomy scanning service

 Increased support of mandatory training through skills and drills, PROMPT training and neonatal resuscitation programme training

 Recruitment of bereavement support nurse, clinical midwife specialist in diabetes and more internationally trained midwives.

 Upgrade of maternity facilities.

 Introduction of fetal fibronectin testing.

 Introduction of prophylactic Anti D 2

 Development of memorandum of understanding for midwifery student training placements with Trinity College Dublin.

 Joint consultant obstetrician & gynaecology posts

 Joint consultant neonatology posts across CWIUH and MRHP

 Joint consultant perinatal mental health post between CWIUH and MRHP

 Medical social worker for women and infants services.

The Department of Health said maternity networks are being established across hospital groups to provide improved governance and oversight and facilitate the sharing of expertise.

It is envisaged that the establishment of such networks will strengthen the operational resilience of smaller units and support such units to provide safe quality services.

Continuing the development of robust maternity networks has been identified as a priority action for the HSEs National Women and Infants Health Programme in 2020, it said.
PRESS RELEASE  Dr. Dana Riley Black, former Assistant Superintendent of Everett Public Schools in Washington state, is now The Museum of Flights new Vice President of Education. Riley Black brings to the Museum more than a decade of high-level successes in both formal and informal STEM education. After a nationwide search, the obvious choice ended up being virtually in our back yard, said the Museums President and CEO Matt Hayes. In addition to Danas many achievements in formal education, her formation of strong partnerships between education institutions and the broader community has resulted in consistently positive outcomes for diverse students across the area. Riley Black succeeds Reba Gilman, who is transitioning to consulting after six ground-breaking years as the Museums first VP of Education, a position that also oversees the Museums Boeing Academy for STEM Learning.

Dana Riley Black

Dr. Dana Riley Black is continually inspired by innovation in education and industry. Her focus is on contemporary educational research, practices and policies; workforce trends; and convening collaborative partnerships from across a diversity of community sectors including business, labor, and non-profit organizations.

Before accepting her Museum post, Riley Black was an Assistant Superintendent with Everett Public Schools in Washington state. There she launched six career pathways for students, as well as a region-wide student internship partnership with the City of Everett. Prior to joining Everett Public Schools, she was the director of the Logan Center for Education at the Institute for Systems Biology, a vast collaborative and cross-disciplinary nonprofit biomedical research organization based in Seattle.

Earlier in her career Dana worked for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and University of Washington where she developed UWs K-12 Institute for Mathematics and Science Education. Her initial job out of college was as a Science Education Associate at the Pacific Science Center.

Riley Black earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Washington, a Masters in Education in Science Education, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership and Curriculum Studies from Miami University; and her dissertation work was conducted in partnership with the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History.

Reba Gilman

Riley Black succeeds Reba Gilman, who is transitioning to independent consulting and spending more time with family after six years as the Museums Vice President of Education and decades of outstanding achievements in education. Among her achievements are being selected as a Pathfinder honoree by the Museum of Flight and induction into the Pathfinder Hall of Fame, Administrator of the Year by the Washington Association of Career and Technical Administrators, Lifetime Achievement Award by the Highline Schools Foundation for Excellence, Propelling Education Award by the Red-Tailed Hawks Organization, and Administrator of the Year by the Washington PTSA. She led the development of Raisbeck Aviation High School, from concept initiation to locating the school on the campus of the Museum of Flight, serving as its first CEO/Principal from 2004-2014.

The Museum of Flights Boeing Academy for STEM Learning

All education programs at The Museum of Flight operate under the umbrella of

The Boeing Academy for STEM Learning, which was created in 2015 through a major investment by The Boeing Company. From pre-kindergarten to college prep and career readiness programs, the Academy provides unparalleled learning opportunities for students to explore and prepare for education and career pathways in flight, engineering, and space.

The Academy strives to accelerate opportunities for all youth, with particular focus on under-resourced and underrepresented populations, by connecting them to fulfilling, in-demand STEM careers. The Academy operates in partnership with schools, community-based organizations, government, business and industry to ensure that the next generation of workers are ready to lead and innovate.

The Museum is temporarily closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please check the Museum Website for updates regarding the re-opening (date TBD).
Investigators have discovered the charred remains of a body in a Minneapolis pawn shop that was set ablaze in the riots after the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on Tuesday.

The building that housed the pawn shop, Max It Pawn, was burned to the ground on May 28. Agents from the Minneapolis Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found the body while following up on an anonymous tip.

The body appears to have suffered thermal injury and we do have somebody charged with setting fire to that place, police spokesman John Elder told the Tribune. Elder said the victims identity would be released after an autopsy is performed.

Max It Pawn is three blocks east of the Minneapolis third police precinct, which was burned to the ground on May 25. George Floyd was killed during his arrest by officers from that precinct.

Federal prosecutors have charged Montez Terrill Lee, 25, with the arson of the building that housed Max It Pawn. Lee, from Rochester, Minn., can allegedly be seen pouring liquid from a metal cannister inside the shop in video footage provided anonymously to police. In another clip, Lee was allegedly recorded standing in front of the building saying, [Expletive] this place. Were gonna burn this [expletive] down.

The riots following the death of Floyd have caused roughly $500 million in damage to Minneapolis businesses, according to Minnesota governor Tim Walz. The Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier this month denied Walzs request for $16 million in aid to rebuild damaged buildings.

The impact to public infrastructure is within the capabilities of the local and state governments to recover from, FEMA said in a statement at the time.

More from National Review
Lamone said early voting will be available at 78 locations from Oct. 22 to Oct. 29 and Election Day voting will be held at 1,600 polling places across the state. Given the pandemic, she expects that the number of voters who will request and receive absentee ballots this year will be significantly greater than those in previous elections.
CONROY Gold and Natural Resources says a joint venture agreement could see gold mined near Clontibret, Co Monaghan, within four years.

The Irish firm led by industry veteran Richard Conroy has reached heads of agreement for a 7m joint venture with Anglo Asian Mining, a London-based company that operates gold, copper and silver mines in the central Asian nation of Azerbaijan.

Conroy Gold's shares nearly doubled in the initial hour of trade yesterday on London's AIM exchange. They closed at 21 pence each, still up 40pc.

Under terms of the deal, Anglo Asian will invest at least 4m in developing a gold mine at Conroy's key site southeast of Clontibret. It plans to spend 3m pursuing prospects at other Conroy Gold-licensed sites stretching from Slieve Glah in Co Cavan across the Border to Clay Lake in Co Armagh.

Anglo Asian will receive an initial 17.5pc stake in three newly created joint venture companies. If it invests the full 7m envisaged, this stake will increase to 55pc. It also will receive warrants for Conroy Gold shares that, if the joint venture is fully completed, would convert into a 7.45pc stake in Conroy Gold itself.

Yesterday's share rise valued Conroy Gold at 5.5m (6.1m), a two-year high.

Mr Conroy said his firm had already identified gold deposits exceeding 500,000 ounces within a two-square-kilometre site. He said Anglo Asian's money and expertise would help Conroy Gold to find "many millions more".

He concedes he's been saying this for years - but sees the deal as a watershed moment.

"People will be reasonably sceptical. But we believe in doing things slowly and getting the results," Mr Conroy said in an interview.

"A partner is coming in to do the work necessary to confirm our findings and hopefully to bring in a mine. You can never guarantee anything, but we've made a lot of progress."

He says the two firms' geologists will work side by side in exploratory drilling for 18 months, then seek planning permission for a mine.

"It'll be another 18 months on top of that before you get excavation into the ground for mining the ore. So yes, 2024 is a fairly realistic target."

Mr Conroy said Anglo Asian's directors have visited the Clontibret site and his own firm's board in Dublin several times in the past year.

"These people are specialist gold miners," he said. "So they are a very welcome addition, not only financially but for their expertise and the technical team they will bring to Ireland."

Anglo Asian CEO Reza Vaziri said the deal was "designed to minimise risk to the company". It would "retain a significant interest in the licences even if it decides to proceed no further after this initial expenditure" of 4m at Clontibret. The warrants "will enable us to benefit from any increase in the share price of Conroy Gold", he said.

Anglo Asian said it has deposited 250,000 into a segregated account to fund the start of its Irish work. This will be doubled once the agreement is signed and regularly topped up.

A committee composed equally of Anglo Asian and Conroy Gold directors will oversee the venture. Anglo Asian said the deal "will immediately add gold resources to our inventory and there is a well-defined path to production at Clontibret".

Anglo Asian's own AIM-listed shares traded higher for much of yesterday but closed 0.75pc lower at 132 pence.
While most law enforcement agencies say theyve been blessed to have healthy employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 13 law enforcement staff members in the Mountain Empire have tested positive for the coronavirus  including eight employees at the Smyth County Sheriffs Office and four officers in the Bristol Virginia Police Department.

Deputies in Smyth County, Wythe County and Bristol, Virginia, have tested positive within the last two weeks, authorities said.

Smyth County Sheriff Chip Shuler said that eight positive COVID-19 tests have been reported at his office, including four bailiffs, one patrol deputy, one captain and two support staff members.

Shuler said he believes one of his deputies contracted the virus after encountering a Wythe County deputy. The deputy was among the officers at the July 3 protests in Marion but stayed on standby at the Smyth County Courthouse.

Another Bristol, Virginia, police officer who assisted with the protests may also have contracted the novel coronavirus in Marion. A total of four police officers from the Bristol Virginia Police Department were positive for the virus as of Friday.

Bristol Virginia City Hall and the citys police department announced they will be closed to the public until further notice. City Manager Randy Eads said both buildings would undergo a thorough disinfectant process. On Thursday evening, Eads said the three officers were having mild symptoms and doing well.

Those at the Bristol Virginia Police Department are continuing to respond to calls, and the 911 dispatch center is operational. Anyone with an emergency can still call 911, Eads said. Because a number of officers have been quarantined, school resource officers and detectives are responding to calls, the department said Friday.

Due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in the region, Eads also said all Bristol Virginia Parks & Recreation activities will be suspended for two weeks, including activities at the senior center. The campground at Sugar Hollow Park and the picnic area will be closed for a two-week period, which began Monday.

Washington Countys employees have avoided known infections so far.

We have not had any employees test positive, said Washington County Sheriff Blake Andis. We are taking extra precautions.

Washington County Sheriffs Office staff members are being screened daily for any COVID-19 symptoms to prevent any spread to others, Andis said. Officers also go through many hours of training on how to protect the public from communicable diseases.
U.S. House Approves More Sanctions Related To Nord Stream 2

By RFE/RL July 21, 2020

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an amendment that would impose new sanctions on companies helping Russia complete a controversial natural-gas pipeline to Germany.

The Democratic-controlled House passed the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on July 20.

The NDAA must be approved by the Senate and signed by the president before the new sanctions would become law.

Russia is seeking to complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 project, which would transport gas to Europe under the Baltic Sea.

European vessels laying the pipeline halted work in December following the first round of U.S. sanctions that specifically targeted their activity.

Russia is hoping to complete it using its own ships, prompting the United States to include the amendment in the NDAA to widen the sanctions beyond vessels to any company.

The project is more than 90 percent built. It consists of two parallel lines running under the Baltic Sea, each 1,230 kilometers in length.

The nearly $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would have an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters a year, would largely reroute gas to Europe around Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of billions of dollars in annual fees.

The United States opposes the project on the grounds that it strengthens the Kremlin's grip on the European energy market and punishes Ukraine, which is battling Russian-backed separatists in its eastern provinces.

"Russia is trying to develop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to exert undue control on our European allies and their energy supplies. We must stop [President Vladimir] Putin's hostile influence strategy," Representative Steve Womack (Republican-Arkansas) said in a tweet after the vote.

Russia has accused the United States of using sanctions as a weapon to boost its energy exports. The United States is seeking to increase liquefied-natural-gas exports to Europe.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who warned companies last week against helping Russia finish the pipeline, is scheduled to travel to Denmark this week. The portion of the pipeline that remains to be build lies in Denmark's economic waters.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-house- approves-more-sanctions-related-to- nord-stream-2/30738780.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Philadelphia in March, Rayannah Mitchell has been a mother, teacher at Mastery Charter School, and tutor to her two children who attend Chester Arthur in South Philadelphia. When the school year starts, her older child will begin high school at the Science Leadership Academy.

Her feelings about school resuming in the fall are conflicted.

As a parent, I dont want to send my children. I do have a teenager. I know he wants to venture out and experience high school, Mitchell said. On the flip side, Im concerned about my students. When it comes to hygiene, some of them are not the best at it.

Temwa Wright, who has two children at Science Leadership Academy Middle School, is tired of juggling homeschooling and work. She supports moving forward with a hybrid-education model but remains cautious about the challenges that lie ahead.

I think the kids are missing socialization, and I think parents are fatigued with having the responsibilities to coeducate kids at different levels, said Wright, executive director of the nonprofit Pamoza International. I respect the plan that the school district has put together. Its very comprehensive, but proof is in the implementation. When September comes, I wont be surprised if the plan shifts, especially as its a constantly changing world with COVID-19 updates.

How to safely and smartly start the school year is a hotly debated subject, and local schools are exploring a world of options. On one hand, reopening schools in-person while the number of new coronavirus cases is still high puts students and adults health at risk. But prolonged social isolation poses its own risks to kids health and learning.

The Philadelphia School District announced earlier this month its plan to reopen in September with a hybrid of in-person and online education. New Jerseys school districts are still developing reopening plans, but Gov. Phil Murphy announced that the state will spend millions to ensure all students have access to remote learning. Many organizations are coming up with guidelines to help schools plan and prepare, but families still feel split.

 READ MORE: Every teacher I know is flipping out: As pandemic back-to-school plans form, educators are wary

Schools not resuming in-person isnt ideal for kids. Among many reasons, some families rely on school lunches, some kids dont feel safe at home, and some parents need to work and dont have access to child care or the time to home-school. Studies have shown that social isolation can lead to mental-health problems. Plus, kids use interaction with their peers as a way to grow emotionally and socially, which cant be replicated virtually or with parents.

Peer interaction is important for child development. In preschool, kids learn how to share, play, and take turns. As they progress into elementary school, they learn how to develop friendship and emotional skills, said Jessica Kendorski, chair of the department of school psychology at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and a mother of two school-age kids. Social interaction is especially important during adolescence  this is when their peer groups shape their identity.

But experts also point out that in-person schooling, if not executed safely, could lead to other mental-health concerns.

Maybe they come back to school, and a student, teacher, or relative passes away  now were dealing with a traumatic stress response, said Terri Erbacher, a school psychologist at Delaware County Intermediate Unit and professor of school psychology at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

 HELP US REPORT: Are you a health-care worker, medical provider, government worker, patient, frontline worker, or other expert? We want to hear from you.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, about 3.3 million people over age 65 live in a household with a school-age child, and infections could spread to older and other high-risk individuals, even if coronavirus rates among kids are low. A new study from South Korea found that kids under age 10 transmit the coronavirus less often than adults do, while kids between 10 and 19 may spread the virus more easily within a household compared with other age groups. However, it is unclear whether the children studied actually infected other secondary cases.

Still, the rates of coronavirus transmission from children are not zero, and given the health risks for children, teachers, staff, and their families, experts emphasize safety. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued a joint statement with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, and the American Association of School Administrators emphasizing science and safety toward decision-making.

Above all, safety first. The academy does not support opening schools if it puts peoples lives at danger, said Arthur Lavin, a pediatrician and chair of the AAP Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. We talk about the mental-health cost of attending school  the mental-health costs of someone dying is much more.

For many families, the most important thing is weighing the risks and taking a measured approach, and identifying rates of coronavirus transmission in the community is a necessary first step.

There is pressure to get kids back to school when were not aware of what the coronavirus numbers will look like a month from now, Erbacher said. Since entering the green phase, numbers have increased a bit. So lets start planning virtual, and we can reconsider as we go. If the numbers look good, then we can plan on moving toward in-person school.

Mitchell, the South Philly mother and teacher, has noticed that some of her students have thrived while being home-schooled, but she knows not every family has a strong support system. Wright also believes that kids being at home increases education inequity.

If you cant control the education environment, you lose kids in the gap, Wright said.

In the long run, the decision to resume school in-person will continue to evolve.

Schools are going to have to be flexible and respond to new information, Lavin said. Each day, the school system has to look and see whether the approach is working. The same set of questions [whether to stay open] need to be asked on the second day of school, or the 10th day, or the 100th day.
Australians love a numptie.

Take Chad for instance: the alleged international model with no idea and no IQ, who got gifted a hero's edit on Tuesday's Big Brother.

Just like the viewers, his helpless fellow housemates could only watch on in agony, pleading for this torturous season to just hurry up and end already.

Our hero: Australians love a numptie. Take Chad for instance: the alleged international model with no idea and no IQ, who got gifted a hero's edit on Tuesday's Big Brother - just one day before the finale

Back To (The) Basics

Obligatory montage: Hope you like highlights packages, because Tuesday's onslaught is just the beginning - how else are they going to kill time during Wednesday's one-hour live finale?

Hope you like highlights packages, because Tuesday's onslaught is just the beginning (how else are they going to kill time during Wednesday's one-hour live finale?)

In the lounge room, our final four were treated to a montage of congratulatory messages from the 16 mostly-boring bogans who came before them.

First up was nerdy spoon-player Ian, who slapped out an 'Ode to the fame whores' on his pasty thighs to the tune of The Horses by Daryl Braithwaite.

Eccentric talent agent Garth returned in his 'Auntie Garth' persona, which was about as laughable as a late era Adam Sandler film.

Blast from the past: In the lounge room, our final four were treated to a montage of congratulatory messages from the 16 mostly-boring bogans who came before them

'Who the f**k is that?' Australia said in unison with the housemates, when mother-of-some Danni popped up with more to say here than in her three weeks in the house.

And it wouldn't be a trip down memory lane without a completely unnecessary sob story - this time from Sophie.

Remember me? 'Who the f**k is that?' Australia said in unison with the housemates, when mother-of-some Danni popped up with more to say here than in her three weeks in the house

She burst into tears at the sight of Adelaide's worst driver Kieran, just a few days removed from the pair's insufferable staged asylum storyline.

Sophie, as per the rules established after the 'letters from the outside' episode, you are now banned from the rest of the recap. You were warned.

Elsewhere, Sophie got herself banned from the rest of the recap by breaking my 'unnecessary sobbing' rule when Kieran popped up on screen. You were warned

How To Make A Hero

At Channel Seven HQ, the producers were locked in a heated debate over how to best manipulate the audience ahead of Wednesday's live finale

At Channel Seven HQ, the producers were locked in a heated debate over how to best manipulate the audience ahead of Wednesday's live finale.

Producer A: 'Right. We f**k one of the villains off tonight and we're left with three. Who gets the hero's edit?'

Producer B: 'Well, all I know is that watching Chad bludgeon the English language to death over the last six weeks has made me feel a hell of a lot better about myself.'

The room erupted in a chorus of approving nods, high-fives and open-mouthed kisses.

Producer A: 'Right. We f**k one of the villains off tonight and we're left with three. Who gets the hero's edit?' Producer B: 'Well, all I know is that watching Chad bludgeon the English language to death over the last six weeks has made me feel a hell of a lot better about myself'

Producer A: 'So it's settled! Mat and Daniel cop the villain edit, Chad's the fan favourite and have I forgotten anybody?'

Producer B: 'What about Soph...'

NO! She's banned.

Producer A: 'So it's settled! Mat and Daniel cop the villain edit, Chad's the fan favourite and have I forgotten anybody?' NO. Sophie's banned

Chad Gets A Leg Up

You're a hero, Chad! 'Chad to the diary room!' said Big Brother, informing the tradie-slash-alleged-international-model of the good news. Chad: 'So what does a "hero's edit" even mean?'

'Chad to the diary room!' said Big Brother, informing the Campbelltown tradie-slash-alleged-international-model of the good news.

Chad: 'So what does a "hero's edit" even mean?'

Big Brother: 'It means just be yourself mate. How's your ankle by the way? I heard you severely injured it during last week's nomination challenge?'

Big Brother: 'It means just be yourself mate. How's your ankle by the way? I heard you severely injured it during last week's nomination challenge?' Chad: 'It feels fine actually, never better'

Chad: 'It feels fine actually, never better.'

Big Brother: 'So you're pushing through the pain? Bloody hero!'

Chad: 'What? I said it didn't hurt at all.'

Big Brother: 'You're so modest. Australia is going to love you. Run along now.'

Big Brother: 'So you're pushing through the pain? Bloody hero!' Chad: 'What? I said it didn't hurt at all.' Big Brother: 'You're so modest. Australia is going to love you. Run along now' PICTURED: Chad's 'injured' ankle

The diary room door remained shut.

Big Brother: 'Silly Chad! There's a special exit for heroes, right through here.'

Cut to the sound of a gullible idiot shuffling through a darkened corridor, the SNAP of metal on skin and a loud 'ow, me leg! A monster's got me leg!'

The diary room door remained shut. Big Brother: 'Silly Chad! There's a special exit for heroes, right through here.' Cut to the sound of a gullible idiot shuffling through a darkened corridor, the SNAP of metal on skin and a loud 'ow, me leg! A monster's got me leg!'

Big Brother: 'HOW DOES YOUR ANKLE FEEL NOW, CHAD? I'll ask again: Are you going to be a hero? Or are you going to f**k with the will of reality TV producers?'

Chad (screaming and crying): 'Okay! I'm a hero! I'll do anything you need, please just stop!'

Very brave, mate.

Big Brother: 'HOW DOES YOUR ANKLE FEEL NOW, CHAD? I'll ask again: Are you going to be a hero? Or are you going to f**k with the will of reality TV producers? Chad (screaming and crying): 'Okay! Okay! I'm a hero!' Very brave, mate

Broken Man From Broken Hill

Chad's hero: The stakes were high for the final nomination challenge, with the winner having the power to send the final housemate packing

The stakes were high for the final nomination challenge, with the winner having the power to send the final housemate packing.

It involved both intellect and running - surely an impossible task for a deads**t with a broken ankle?

Not when you're copping the hero edit!

It involved both intellect and running - surely an impossible task for a deads**t with a broken ankle? Not when you're copping the hero edit!

Against all odds, Australia's hero Chad won, sending country bumpkin Mat packing.

There goes a broken man from Broken Hill.

He shot one last salty glance at his co-dependent bro-lover, Dan, who knew that he too was about to be boned harder than Jess Rowe on the Today show.

'Turn's out nice guy's finish last!' Mat scoffed, clearly unaware that he'd been edited to look like a manipulative psychopath with about as much moral fibre as hair follicles.

Against all odds, Australia's hero Chad won, sending country bumpkin Mat packing. There goes a broken man from Broken Hill

Silly Mat! Nice guys don't finish last! They get pipped at the post by a lovable 'hero' whose only power is that they make us all feel superhuman by comparison.

Just ask Donald Trump, Scott Morrison, Kevin Rudd, Pauline Hanson, Kim Beasley, Guy Sebastian, Casey Donovan, Kyle Sandilands, Corey Worthington, Steven Bradbury, Rebecca Judd, Georgia Love, Sophie Monk, Honey Badger, Karl Stefanovic, all of the new Wiggles... and Chad.

Betting is still open by the way!

'Turn's out nice guy's finish last!' Mat scoffed. Silly Mat! Nice guys don't finish last! They get pipped at the post by a lovable 'hero' whose only power is that they make us all feel superhuman by comparison
The Coca-Cola Company on Tuesday reported a 16 per cent decline in its unit case volume for the second quarter. (AP Photo)

New Delhi: Global soft drink major Coca-Cola Company on Tuesday reported a 16 per cent decline in its unit case volume for the second quarter dragged by markets such as India and Western Europe.

The Atlanta-headquartered company has reported a 28 per cent drop in its net revenues to USD 7.2 billion and its operating income declined by 34 per cent.

Sparkling soft drinks declined 12 per cent, led by a decline in India, Western Europe and the fountain business in North America due to pressure in away-from-home channels, said CocaCola in an earning statement.

India, which is the fifth-largest market for CocaCola global, had gone through lockdown imposed by the authorities and disrupted the supply chain in the April-June quarter.

In the Asia Pacific region, CocaCola has witnessed a decline of 18 per cent in volumes during the quarter and this was primarily due to strict lockdowns in India.

Unit case volume declined 18 per cent, primarily due to strict lockdowns in India to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The unit case volume decline was partially offset by positive performance in China.

The Coca-Cola Company remained agile in the second quarter, with a focus on maintaining a safe environment for employees while also providing necessary products and services to consumers during this unprecedented time.

Commenting on the performance, James Quincey, chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company said: "We believe the second quarter will prove to be the most challenging of the year; however, we still have work to do as we drive our pursuit of ''Beverages for Life'' and meet evolving consumer needs."

CocaCola has also reported a decline in the performance of its Bottling Investments Group, which represents the company-owned bottling plants.

Unit case volume declined 36 per cent driven by India and South Africa due to the impact of the coronavirus, said CocaCola.

Unit case volume means the number of unit cases of company beverages directly or indirectly sold by the company and its bottling partners to customers.
Everyone in France is now required to wear a face mask in enclosed public spaces. President Emmanuel Macron has ruled out making masks free for all but has agreed to "help" people in need. Free or not, some people don't want to wear them.

It's not the job of French tax payers to pay for masks for everyone, all the time, president Macron told TF1 on Tuesday, adding that people who couldn't afford them would be helped.

Macron was responding to calls for masks to be made free for poorer families after Monday's decree levied potential fines of 135 for people who failed to wear them when shopping or entering any other enclosed space open to the public.

On Wednesday the president of the Ile-de-France region, Valerie Pecresse, announced it would provide free masks to all charities who work with the region, and two washable masks to each of 500,000 high school students when school begins in September.

It's a big budget for families to have to buy masks everyday, Pecresse told France 2 TV.

Who's wearing them?

The compulsory wearing of masks in shops, restaurants, cafes, banks and so on was introduced after several coronavirus clusters have reappeared in France prompting concerns over a possible "second wave" in the Autumn.

Shops now carry signs making it clear you have to wear a mask to enter.

But whatever the cost, free or not, some people are not playing ball.

According to a recent survey by BVA, 85 percent of the French are in favour, 15 percent are not.

Among the 18-34 age group the number of anti-maskers is slightly higher at 22 percent.

I don't feel comfortable with a mask, a thirty-something man in an indoor Paris market told RFI. It's tiring and complicated when you're out for a drink.

Many agree that wearing a mask all day isn't exactly pleasant.

I put up with it for the two or three hours we're on shift, but wearing it the whole day is difficult, said waiter Thomas Messe, as he zig-zagged between tables, tray in hand.

Breathing in and out gives me a headache and dries your mouth. So I pull it down a bit, under the nose, to have a bit more air.

Nathalie, manager of a cosmetics shop in Paris, welcomed having the force of the law behind her after weeks of clients saying she was "paranoid" because she insisted they wear a mask when entering her shop.

It's been difficult, but now it's clear, she told RFI. I just tell them to put on a mask and if the person refuses I don't let them in.

I think it's altogether normal to wear one. We have to respect the rules until the situation improves.

I'm not the police

Other shop owners are finding it more complicated.

Eric Demergian runs a shoe repair shop in Vanves, south of Paris. He's posted a bright red masks are obligatory sign on his shop front and another on the plexi-glass cover behind which he spends his day mending other people's shoes.

I wear a mask to greet customers, to set an example, he said. But when I'm working, I put it under my chin. It's hot, uncomfortable, and you can't communicate with people properly.

Not all his customers wear masks when they come in, but he wouldn't dream of refusing them entry.

I don't say anything. I'm not the police, he said coolly.Demergian has been running the shop for 40 years and has a lot of regular customers. The last thing he'd want to do is vex them, especially in the current economic climate.

I would never ask them to put on a mask. It wouldn't be good for business, he reckoned.

In larger shops, it's easier to filter out the non-masked customers.

At the nearby Carrefour supermarket security guards are permanently placed at the doorway and stop anyone whose face is uncovered.

In a large DIY store in neighbouring Chatillon a security guard stops a woman who's wearing a simple kerchief and offers her a disposable mask instead.

Government U-turn

It comes as little surprise that some people in France are skeptical about being obliged to wear face masks.

At the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, the French government argued against mask-wearing.

It is useless to wear masks in the street, Macron was heard saying on 27 February while visiting a Parisian hospital.

But the government later admitted its recommendation had been guided by fears that panic buying of its limited mask supplies would lead to shortages for frontline health workers.

The turnabout undermined confidence in the government and in April an opinion poll showed that three out of four French people believed the government had lied to them.

The mask-sceptics

In the UK, Canada and U.S., some people are out protesting against being forced to wear masks in public.

Protesters in the UK's Keep Britain Free campaign claim that refusing to wear a mask is a political choice, not a public health choice.

Up until Tuesday, even U.S. President Donald Trump reserved his right not to wear a mask in public. But as Covid-19 cases continued to rise he changed tack declaring mask-wearing could be seen as a sign of patriotism.

While a minority of French people remain opposed to wearing masks altogether, they haven't been out on the streets, preferring to vent their views on social media.

A petition claiming wearing a mask is "useless" and even "dangerous" has gathered more than 6,000 signatures.

On the Facebook group "Accrochez-vous, ca bouge" they describe mask-wearers as "sheep" blindly following the "dictatorship".

"Let's stay united! Create our own networks, put protest messages on our masks, boycott shops which oblige us to wear masks, create 'Drive-ins' without masks" reads one Facebook post.

Another insists "it's not because we don't wear masks that we lack respect, we simply think your fear isn't our problem".

In Quebec, which introduced compulsory mask-wearing in closed public spaces on 18 July, the Facebook group groupement contre le port du masque obligatoire (group against compulsory mask-wearing), has picked up followers here in France.

"Help!" reads the homepage, "my government is threatening to force me to wear a mask. We must stick together!"

"The principle argument AGAINST wearing the mask is that wearing it in an inadequate way is more dangerous than not wearing it according to WHO and INSPQ the group proclaims.

One popular graphic on social media claims masks reduce oxygen intake, increase the inhaling of toxins and weaken the immunity system.

It's pure fantasy, Yves Coppieters, epidemiologist and professor of public health at the University of Brussels, told AFP, showingthe charges were scientifically inaccurate.

One of "the weapons"

There is still no clear evidence that wearing masks can stop the spread of coronavirus; physical distancing remains the best method.

But in areas, such as shops or on public transport, where that is not possible they remain a useful tool said Coppieters.

While he understood there was a certain wariness among the French, masks remain necessary and efficient. We don't have many weapons against Covid-19. The mask is one of them, he said.

A group of French health workers recently published an open letter requesting more widespread wearing of masks following recent studies suggesting the Covid-19 virus could also be airborne.

On Wednesday the town of La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast made the wearing of masks obligatory in the busy port area and in the centre of town. It's the first town to have introduced such a measure in outdoors.
Patterson Legal Group will give away 300 free backpacks on August 27th in Wichita, KS. "We decided to host the backpack giveaway to help offset costs associated with preparing for the 2020-2021 school year. " -Gary Patterson, Esq.

Patterson Legal Group is pleased to announce that their law firm will host a backpack giveaway on Thursday, August 27 at Sedgwick County Park (6501 W. 21st Street, Wichita, KS 67205). 300 backpacks stuffed with school supplies will be handed out in the parking lot next to the Boundless Playground from 5:30 p.m. through 7:30 p.m., while supplies last. The law firm decided to host the backpack giveaway to help offset costs associated with preparing for the 2020-2021 school year.

The law firm is hosting two other backpack giveaways in St. Joseph, MO on Saturday, August 8 and Topeka, KS on Saturday, August 29.

Parents with school-age children may find this upcoming school year extra challenging because of financial difficulties related to COVID-19 closures. That is why our team decided to host a backpack giveaway. We wanted to assist our community neighbors to offset back-to-school costs and give students tools to make the school year a success," remarked Managing Partner, Gary Patterson.

Social distancing and other precautionary measures will take place to ensure the health and safety of all participants. Those interested in attending are advised to arrive early as supplies are limited and will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis while they last.

For more information about the Patterson Legal Group backpack giveaways, please contact Ella Reusser with Patterson Legal Group at (888) 687-2400, or via email at ella@pattersonlegalgroup.com. You can also contact the law firm by sending a direct message through their Facebook page.

More About Patterson Legal Group, L.C.

Patterson Legal Group is a personal injury law firm with offices located throughout Kansas and Missouri. Founded on the principle of helping injury victims pursue their legal rights, they are not afraid to take on large insurance companies or to hold negligent persons accountable for injuring a client. Their lawyers are champions of consumer rights with a strong track record for helping people suffering from personal injury or disability. Learn more about the specific legal services and community outreach activities of Patterson Legal Group at pattersonlegalgroup.com. You can also connect and socialize with their legal team through the law firms Facebook page (/PattersonLegalGroup/).
Defense Secretary Mark Esper has raised concerns within the administration about federal agents patrolling the streets of U.S. cities in camouflage uniforms similar to those worn by troops in war zones, his spokesperson said Tuesday.

After nationwide protests over racial injustice and police violence erupted in June, Esper expressed concern that in some cases, federal law enforcement officers were being confused with troops because of their similar uniforms, said Jonathan Hoffman, chief Pentagon spokesperson. Esper urged efforts to more clearly distinguish between the two, Hoffman said.

"We saw this take place back in June when there were some law enforcement that wear uniforms that make them appear military in appearance," Hoffman said. Esper has told administration officials that "we want a system where people can tell the difference."

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper delivers a statement on Iraq and Syria, at President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Esper may be looking to have a conversation with Attorney General William Barr, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and their teams about the issue in the near future, Hoffman said, but did not specify a timeline.

Hoffman's comments come amid rising alarm over federal agents dressed as troops sweeping into Portland, Ore., this week on President Donald Trump's orders. Trump threatened to send additional agents into other major cities, including New York City and Philadelphia, if the "liberal Democrats" in charge don't tamp down on civil unrest.

Hoffman stressed that there are no plans to send active-duty troops to Portland. Federal law enforcement and active-duty military operate under different authorities with regard to their interactions with the U.S. public. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, active-duty troops cannot interact with civilians unless expressly granted an exception by the president under the Insurrection Act.

Images of federal agents in Portland this week echoed the initial days of the June protests, when law enforcement used violence against mostly peaceful protesters. In a speech at the White House amid the protests, Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military forces on the streets of American cities.
Egypts COVID-19 peak, in terms of new infections, came on 19 June when more than 1,700 new cases, and more than 90 fatalities, were reported. This week, the average daily infection hovered around 700, and deaths dropped to 80 per day. On Monday, 16 hospitals in nine governorates reported no new COVID-19 patients.

Ain Shams field hospital was established in mid-June to deal with the spiralling number of cases. It was set up in just 15 days, in cooperation with the Armed Forced Engineering Authority and the Tahya Misr fund. The hospital has so far hosted 168 patients, of which 117 have been released after making a full recovery. The hospitals ICU now has just eight patients.

Is there a discrepancy between the number of infected COVID-19 patients officially announced and the actual number?

Any discrepancy is because the announced numbers of COVID-19 patients include only those who have undergone a nasopharyngeal swab at a hospital affiliated to the Ministry of Health, or at the ministrys central laboratories. Patients treated at private clinics or hospitals, or who have nasopharyngeal swabs at private laboratories, are not included in the official numbers. Also, patients with mild symptoms who isolate at home, or those with moderate symptoms who did not have a nasopharyngeal swab, will be uncounted.

The number of new cases appears to be dropping. Why?

Protective measures, and the weakening of the virus, are among the main reasons the number of COVID-19 patients, and of fatalities, is falling. The majority of patients display mild symptoms, without the respiratory complications that require hospital or ICU admission, and therefore do not undergo a swab test.

Our main concern centres on the elderly, and people who suffer from chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, or who have heart, kidney or liver problems.

Egypts desert climate, with extremely high temperatures during the summer months, especially in Upper Egypt, is helping halt infections. And the relatively low number of cases and fatality rate in Egypt may suggest that the strain of COVID-19 here is not as aggressive as in some countries.

Do current treatment protocols differ from those adopted earlier in the pandemic?

The Ministry of Health has issued a standardised guide for the diagnosis and management of COVID-19. Under the protocol, patients are classified on clinical grounds into mild, moderate, severe and critical cases. The medical protocol adopted relies on a medical team composed of different specialties  pulmonology, internal medicine, tropical medicine, infectious diseases, intensive care, radiology, clinical pathology, clinical pharmacy, and infection control  to take care of patients in quarantine hospitals. Each patient has their own medical protocol depending on their general health condition. The medical protocol is determined in collaboration with the medical team caring for the patient, with reference to the patients blood tests and CT scans.

The protocols have changed as we learned more about the virus. In the early days we were treating the symptoms, not the disease.

Now we have a clear plan. We use anticoagulants, cortisone, vitamins and oxygen in some cases. Remdesivir is used in critical cases.

After the patient is released from hospital we follow up for two weeks to make sure that there are no further health problems.

Which cases must be hospitalised rather than treated at home?

Cases with mild clinical symptoms, with no signs of pneumonia in chest imaging, and moderate cases with symptoms such as fever or manifestations of chest disease, or imaging results indicative of pneumonia, generally do not need to be hospitalised and can quarantine at home. Severe and critical cases, with the previously mentioned symptoms along with respiratory problems or respiratory failure, must be hospitalised, and some may need to be placed in an IC.

Why is the infection rate so high among medical staff such as doctors and nurses?

It is the result of exposure to the virus due to contact with patients. Doctors and nurses dealing with COVID-19 patients should not be in direct contact with patients unless they are wearing a face mask, goggles, face shield, gloves and the sterilised suit specially designed for dealing with COVID-19 patients. However, it is possible that a doctor or a nurse forgets to wear the goggles or the gloves.

Members of medical teams stay in the hospital for 14 days, after which team members should be tested for COVID-19 through nasopharyngeal swabs. Negative team members are released for home self-isolation for another 14 days. Positive members, if any, stay in the quarantine hospital for medical care.



Should we fear from a second wave?

A second COVID-19 wave is expected to reach Egypt in winter, with the drop in temperature. Low temperatures, and a relaxation of social distancing measures, increases the possibility of a second wave. The field hospital will remain operating so we can deal with the situation.

We hope people will be more resistant to any coming wave, that large numbers will have formed anti-bodies against the virus.

Is a COVID-19 vaccine a possibility soon?

The government has announced a deal with AstraZeneca, the multinational pharmaceutical company, to supply Oxford Universitys vaccine for COVID-19, though the quantities involved have not been revealed. I dont think a COVID-19 vaccine will be available for at least a year.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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A major drawback of the Anti-Defection Law is the lack of precise definition of defection itself, points out Rup Narayan Das.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

In a democratic parliamentary polity changing party affiliation on part of the legislator who is elected from one political party to another subsequent to the election raises the issue of principles.

If dissent is a legitimate democratic right, then the legislator shifting political loyalty is justified.

But it is always a difficult task to draw the fine line between principle and political opportunism.

When a legislator or a splinter group breaks away from the parent party and forms another political entity or merges with another party, it is preconceived as political opportunism, but if one looks from the other end of the spectrum, if the defecting legislator or the splinter group is not allowed to move on, then the denial stifles his democratic and political freedom.

The recent political development in Rajasthan and similar cases earlier elsewhere, is such glaring examples of the dichotomy between principles and opportunism.

With a view to regulating political defection, the Constitution of India was amended in 1985 by the Fifty Second (Amendment Act), 1985 incorporating the Tenth Schedule in the Constitution which enumerated the provisions for disqualifications of members of legislatures, both Parliament and state legislatures on grounds of political defection.

The statement of objects and reason in the Bill stated, 'The evil of political defections has been a matter of national concern. If it is not combated, it is likely to undermine the very foundations of our democracy and principles which sustain it...'

But nowhere in the Constitution including the Tenth Schedule, has the term defection been defined.

The Tenth Schedule, however, for the first time mentioned legislature party/political party in the Constitution.

As per the provisions of the Anti-Defection Law, a member of the legislature is liable to be disqualified from the membership of the legislature by the presiding officer broadly on two grounds.

In the first place if he 'voluntarily' gives up his membership of such political party; secondly if he votes or absents in the legislature to any direction issued by the political party to which he belongs or by any person or authority authorised by it in his behalf, without obtaining in either case, the prior permission of such political party, person or authority and such voting or abstention within fifteen days from the date of such voting or abstention.

Over the years certain lacunae of the Anti-Defection Law have come to the forefront.

One such major congenital defect was the clause 4 of the original Anti-Defection Law pertaining to provision relating to 'split', which was rampantly misused by power that be leading to unethical practice of 'horse trading'.

It was against this background that the provision relating to splits was deleted from the Tenth Schedule by the Ninety-first Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003.

The Amendment also provided for debarring the defecting legislators from holding ministerial or remunerative political posts unless re-elected to the legislatures.

The Amendment further stipulated that the total number of ministers in the council of ministers shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the legislature, both at the Centre and the State.

The Anti-Defection Law originally debarred courts in respect of any matter connected with the disqualification of a member of the legislature under the Tenth Schedule.

This paragraph, however, has been held by the Supreme Court as ultra virus of the Constitution in their majority opinion in Kihota Hollohon vs Zachilhua & others in 1993 on the ground of its non-ratification by the state legislatures.

The apex body of the all India presiding officers conference in an emergent meeting held in 1992 unanimously agreed that in matters relating to Anti-Defection Law before the courts, the presiding officers would furnish the records, if called for and respect the decisions of the courts.

They would, however, not subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the courts.

Thus, a very healthy convention has already been established in the relationship between the legislature and the judiciary.

All these have certainly brought some degree of sanity in the narrative of our political discourse.

But still there are some grey areas which need to be addressed.

Certain issues relating to the Anti-Defection law which have traction in view of the ongoing political development in Rajasthan can be flagged.

A major drawback of the Anti-Defection Law is the lack of precise definition of defection itself.

Similarly, terms like voluntarily giving up party membership and political party have not been defined.

The Anti-Defection Law itself does not expressly take into account the activity of a legislator outside the legislature.

Both the presiding officers and courts have given their rulings and pronouncements on the basis of creative interpretation of the law, earlier rulings given by the presiding officers and related Constitutional provisions, rules of parliamentary procedures, conventions and proprieties.

As regards the issuance of 'whip', it may be mentioned that the Law Commission of India under the Chairmanship of Justice B P Jeevan Reddy in its 170th report, inter-alia had observed 'whips may be issued only when the voting in the House affects the continuance of the Government and not on each and every occasion. Such a course would safeguard both the party discipline and freedom of speech and expression of the members.'

Rup Narayan Das, PhD, is a senior fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi.

Feature Production: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
China relieves student loan borrowers of debt burden - China.org.cn

China has revised its state-subsidized student loan policy in a bid to further reduce the debt burden of college student borrowers, according to an official circular.

State-subsidized student loans are priced at 30 basis points below the loan prime rate (LPR) - a market-based benchmark lending rate - of the same class and same term, said the circular, made public on Tuesday on the website of the Ministry of Education (MOE).

The latest rate applies to contracts dated from Jan. 1, 2020, said the circular.

Moreover, the grace period for principal repayments has been extended from three years to five years after graduation, said the circular. Students only need to pay the interest in this period.

Borrowers need to pay off all the principals and interest within 15 years after graduation, and the maximum term is 22 years, it added.

The last time China adjusted its student loan policy was in 2015 when it extended the repayment period to 13 years after graduation, with an upper limit of 20 years.

The circular, dated July 3, was jointly issued by the MOE, the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance, and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.
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.ft01{font-size:18px;font-family:Times;color:#1257c7;} .ft02{font-size:13px;font-family:Times;color:#0d0c0c;} .ft03{font-size:13px;font-family:Times;color:#000000;} .ft04{font-size:13px;font-family:Times;color:#1b62b7;} .ft05{font-size:13px;line-height:30px;font-family:Times;color:#0d0c0c;} --> </style> <div id="page1-div" style="position:relative;width:918px;height:1188px;"> <img width="918" height="1188" src="http://mco.acquiremedia.com/images/PBC_1237593001.png" alt="background image"/> <p style="position:absolute;top:155px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft00"><b>Research Announcement: </b></p> <p style="position:absolute;top:155px;left:364px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft01"><b>Moody's - Hospitality and retail sectors to</b></p> <p style="position:absolute;top:180px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft01"><b>bear the brunt of coronavirus impact among Singapore REITs</b></p> <p style="position:absolute;top:216px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Singapore, July 22, 2020 --</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:246px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft03"> Rated REITs aggregate EBITDA will decline 7% in fiscal 2020, but those in hospitality and retail</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:266px;left:127px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft03">face steeper drops</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:296px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft03"> Office REITs will also see worsening performance, but industrial and healthcare REITs should</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:316px;left:127px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft03">remain resilient</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:351px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Moodys Investors Service says in a new report that coronavirus disruptions will weaken the credit</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:371px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">quality and leverage of most rated Singapore real estate investment trusts (S-REITs), with the extent</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:390px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">of the impact depending on the trusts underlying asset portfolio.<br/>Hospitality and retail focused REITs will be most severely affected because of an immediate hit to</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:440px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">earnings, followed by a second-order of impact from the slowing economy on REITs in the office and</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:460px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">industrial sectors, says Sweta Patodia, a Moodys Analyst.<br/>Specifically, hospitality and retail REITs' earnings will decline at around 25% on average,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:509px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">significantly higher than the 12 rated S-REITs group average of 7%, adds Junling Tan, a Moodys</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:529px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">Analyst<br/>While rental rebates and deferments will significantly weaken retail REITs earnings, the reopening</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:579px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">of shopping malls  if sustained  will provide relief to CapitaLand Mall Trust (CMT, A2 review for</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:598px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">downgrade), Mapletree Commercial Trust (MCT, Baa1 negative) and Frasers Centrepoint Trust</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:618px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">(FCT, Baa2 negative).<br/>At the same time, increasing unemployment, corporate cost-cutting and the shift towards home</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:667px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">working will likely reduce the demand for office space, in turn weakening the performance of REITs</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:687px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">with office assets such as CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT, Baa2 review for upgrade) and</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:706px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">Frasers Commercial Trust (FCOT, Baa2 negative).<br/>In contrast, industrial and healthcare REITs are best placed to maintain their credit quality in the</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:756px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">near term, as strong e-commerce activity will boost demand for warehouses and logistics assets.</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:776px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Meanwhile, the operating performance of healthcare REITs such as Parkway Life REIT (PLife REIT,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:795px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">Baa2 stable) will be resilient on lease structures that protect against rental reductions.<br/>Subscribers can access the report REITs  Singapore: Hospitality and retail REITs'</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:845px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">earnings to decline the most on coronavirus disruptions at: </p> <p style="position:absolute;top:845px;left:524px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft04">http://www.moodys.com/</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:865px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft04">researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1223355</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:895px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">NOTE TO JOURNALISTS ONLY: For more information, please call one of our global</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:914px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">press information hotlines: New York <PhoneNo>+1-212-553-0376</PhoneNo>, London <PhoneNo>+44-20-7772-5456</PhoneNo>, Tokyo</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:934px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02"><PhoneNo>+813-5408-4110</PhoneNo>, Hong Kong <PhoneNo>+852-3758-1350</PhoneNo>, Sydney <PhoneNo>+61-2-9270-8141</PhoneNo>, Mexico City</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:953px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02"><PhoneNo>001-888-779-5833</PhoneNo>, Sao Paulo <PhoneNo>0800-891-2518</PhoneNo>, or Buenos Aires <PhoneNo>0800-666-3506</PhoneNo>. You can also email</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:973px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">us at mediarelations@moodys.com or visit our web site at www.moodys.com.<br/>This publication does not announce a credit rating action. For any credit ratings referenced in this</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1023px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">publication, please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on </p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1023px;left:574px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft04">www.moodys.com</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1023px;left:701px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02"> for the most</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1042px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">updated credit rating action information and rating history.</p> </div> <!-- Page 2 --> <style type="text/css"> <!-- p {margin: 0; padding: 0;} .ft06{font-size:13px;line-height:23px;font-family:Times;color:#0d0c0c;} --> </style> <div id="page2-div" style="position:relative;width:918px;height:1188px;"> <img width="918" height="1188" src="http://mco.acquiremedia.com/images/PBC_1237593002.png" alt="background image"/> <p style="position:absolute;top:114px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Sweta Patodia</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:133px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Analyst</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:153px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Corporate Finance Group</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:172px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Moody's Investors Service Singapore Pte. Ltd.</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:192px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:211px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">Client Service: 852 3551 3077<br/>Vikas Halan</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:261px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Associate Managing Director</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:280px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Corporate Finance Group</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:300px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Moody's Investors Service Singapore Pte. Ltd.</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:319px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:339px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft05">Client Service: 852 3551 3077<br/>Releasing Office:</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:389px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Moody's Investors Service Singapore Pte. Ltd.</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:408px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">50 Raffles Place #23-06</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:428px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Singapore Land Tower</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:447px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Singapore, 048623</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:467px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Singapore</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:486px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">JOURNALISTS: 852 3758 1350</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:506px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Client Service: 852 3551 3077</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:595px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02"> 2020 Moodys Corporation, Moodys Investors Service, Inc., Moodys Analytics, Inc. and/or their</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:615px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">licensors and affiliates (collectively, MOODYS). All rights reserved.<br/>CREDIT RATINGS ISSUED BY MOODY'S INVESTORS SERVICE, INC. AND/OR ITS CREDIT</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:657px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">RATINGS AFFILIATES ARE MOODYS CURRENT OPINIONS OF THE RELATIVE FUTURE</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:677px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">CREDIT RISK OF ENTITIES, CREDIT COMMITMENTS, OR DEBT OR DEBT-LIKE SECURITIES,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:696px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">AND MATERIALS, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND INFORMATION PUBLISHED BY MOODYS</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:716px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">(COLLECTIVELY, PUBLICATIONS) MAY INCLUDE SUCH CURRENT OPINIONS. MOODYS</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:735px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">INVESTORS SERVICE DEFINES CREDIT RISK AS THE RISK THAT AN ENTITY MAY NOT</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:755px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">MEET ITS CONTRACTUAL FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS AS THEY COME DUE AND ANY</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:774px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">ESTIMATED FINANCIAL LOSS IN THE EVENT OF DEFAULT OR IMPAIRMENT. SEE MOODYS</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:794px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">RATING SYMBOLS AND DEFINITIONS PUBLICATION FOR INFORMATION ON THE TYPES</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:813px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">OF CONTRACTUAL FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS ADDRESSED BY MOODYS INVESTORS</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:833px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">SERVICE CREDIT RATINGS. CREDIT RATINGS DO NOT ADDRESS ANY OTHER RISK,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:852px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: LIQUIDITY RISK, MARKET VALUE RISK, OR PRICE</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:872px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">VOLATILITY. CREDIT RATINGS, NON-CREDIT ASSESSMENTS (ASSESSMENTS), AND OTHER</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:891px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">OPINIONS INCLUDED IN MOODYS PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT STATEMENTS OF CURRENT</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:911px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">OR HISTORICAL FACT. MOODYS PUBLICATIONS MAY ALSO INCLUDE QUANTITATIVE</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:930px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">MODEL-BASED ESTIMATES OF CREDIT RISK AND RELATED OPINIONS OR COMMENTARY</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:950px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">PUBLISHED BY MOODYS ANALYTICS, INC. AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES. MOODYS CREDIT</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:969px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS AND PUBLICATIONS DO NOT CONSTITUTE</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:989px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">OR PROVIDE INVESTMENT OR FINANCIAL ADVICE, AND MOODYS CREDIT RATINGS,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1008px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS AND PUBLICATIONS ARE NOT AND DO NOT PROVIDE</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1028px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">RECOMMENDATIONS TO PURCHASE, SELL, OR HOLD PARTICULAR SECURITIES. MOODYS</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1047px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">CREDIT RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS AND PUBLICATIONS DO NOT</p> </div> <!-- Page 3 --> <style type="text/css"> <!-- p {margin: 0; padding: 0;}--> </style> <div id="page3-div" style="position:relative;width:918px;height:1188px;"> <img width="918" height="1188" src="http://mco.acquiremedia.com/images/PBC_1237593003.png" alt="background image"/> <p style="position:absolute;top:114px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">COMMENT ON THE SUITABILITY OF AN INVESTMENT FOR ANY PARTICULAR INVESTOR.</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:133px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">MOODYS ISSUES ITS CREDIT RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS AND OTHER OPINIONS AND</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:153px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">PUBLISHES ITS PUBLICATIONS WITH THE EXPECTATION AND UNDERSTANDING THAT EACH</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:172px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">INVESTOR WILL, WITH DUE CARE, MAKE ITS OWN STUDY AND EVALUATION OF EACH</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:192px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">SECURITY THAT IS UNDER CONSIDERATION FOR PURCHASE, HOLDING, OR SALE.<br/>MOODYS CREDIT RATINGS, ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS, AND PUBLICATIONS</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:234px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">ARE NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY RETAIL INVESTORS AND IT WOULD BE RECKLESS</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:254px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">AND INAPPROPRIATE FOR RETAIL INVESTORS TO USE MOODYS CREDIT RATINGS,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:273px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">ASSESSMENTS, OTHER OPINIONS OR PUBLICATIONS WHEN MAKING AN INVESTMENT</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:293px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">DECISION. IF IN DOUBT YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR FINANCIAL OR OTHER</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:312px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">PROFESSIONAL ADVISER. 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Because of the possibility of human or mechanical error as well as other</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:573px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">factors, however, all information contained herein is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind.</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:592px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">MOODY'S adopts all necessary measures so that the information it uses in assigning a credit</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:612px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">rating is of sufficient quality and from sources MOODY'S considers to be reliable including, when</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:631px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">appropriate, independent third-party sources. However, MOODYS is not an auditor and cannot</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:651px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">in every instance independently verify or validate information received in the rating process or in</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:670px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">preparing its Publications.<br/>To the extent permitted by law, MOODYS and its directors, officers, employees, agents,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:713px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">representatives, licensors and suppliers disclaim liability to any person or entity for any indirect,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:732px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">special, consequential, or incidental losses or damages whatsoever arising from or in connection</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:752px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">with the information contained herein or the use of or inability to use any such information, even if</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:771px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">MOODYS or any of its directors, officers, employees, agents, representatives, licensors or suppliers</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:791px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">is advised in advance of the possibility of such losses or damages, including but not limited to:</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:810px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">(a) any loss of present or prospective profits or (b) any loss or damage arising where the relevant</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:830px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">financial instrument is not the subject of a particular credit rating assigned by MOODYS.<br/>To the extent permitted by law, MOODYS and its directors, officers, employees, agents,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:872px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">representatives, licensors and suppliers disclaim liability for any direct or compensatory losses</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:892px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">or damages caused to any person or entity, including but not limited to by any negligence (but</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:911px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">excluding fraud, willful misconduct or any other type of liability that, for the avoidance of doubt,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:931px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">by law cannot be excluded) on the part of, or any contingency within or beyond the control of,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:950px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">MOODYS or any of its directors, officers, employees, agents, representatives, licensors or suppliers,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:970px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">arising from or in connection with the information contained herein or the use of or inability to use</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:989px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">any such information.<br/>NO WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE ACCURACY, TIMELINESS,</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:1032px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">COMPLETENESS, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OF</p> </div> <!-- Page 4 --> <style type="text/css"> <!-- p {margin: 0; padding: 0;}--> </style> <div id="page4-div" style="position:relative;width:918px;height:1188px;"> <img width="918" height="1188" src="http://mco.acquiremedia.com/images/PBC_1237593004.png" alt="background image"/> <p style="position:absolute;top:114px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">ANY CREDIT RATING, ASSESSMENT, OTHER OPINION OR INFORMATION IS GIVEN OR MADE</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:133px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">BY MOODYS IN ANY FORM OR MANNER WHATSOEVER.<br/>Moodys Investors Service, Inc., a wholly-owned credit rating agency subsidiary of Moodys</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:176px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Corporation (MCO), hereby discloses that most issuers of debt securities (including corporate and</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:195px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">municipal bonds, debentures, notes and commercial paper) and preferred stock rated by Moodys</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:215px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Investors Service, Inc. have, prior to assignment of any credit rating, agreed to pay to Moodys</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:234px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Investors Service, Inc. for credit ratings opinions and services rendered by it fees ranging from</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:254px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">$1,000 to approximately $2,700,000. MCO and Moodys investors Service also maintain policies</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:273px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">and procedures to address the independence of Moodys Investors Service credit ratings and credit</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:293px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">rating processes. Information regarding certain affiliations that may exist between directors of MCO</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:312px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">and rated entities, and between entities who hold credit ratings from Moodys Investors Service and</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:332px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">have also publicly reported to the SEC an ownership interest in MCO of more than 5%, is posted</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:351px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">annually at </p> <p style="position:absolute;top:351px;left:188px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft04">www.moodys.com</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:351px;left:315px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02"> under the heading Investor Relations  Corporate Governance </p> <p style="position:absolute;top:371px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft06">Director and Shareholder Affiliation Policy.<br/>Additional terms for Australia only: Any publication into Australia of this document is pursuant to the</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:413px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">Australian Financial Services License of MOODYS affiliate, Moodys Investors Service Pty Limited</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:433px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">ABN 61 003 399 657AFSL 336969 and/or Moodys Analytics Australia Pty Ltd ABN 94 105 136</p> <p style="position:absolute;top:452px;left:108px;white-space:nowrap" class="ft02">972 AFSL 383569 (as applicable). 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The former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd was charged Wednesday with multiple felony counts of tax evasion.

Derek Chauvin, 44, and his estranged wife, Kellie May Chauvin, 45, are accused of failing to file income tax returns and pay state income taxes, dating back to 2014.

The charges claim they underreported and underpaid taxes on income they earned from various jobs each year, including at least $96,000 the ex-cop earned in off-duty security work.

The criminal complaint alleges they underreported more than $460,000 in earnings in total and owe the U.S. government nearly $38,000, the Star Tribune reports.

Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who was arrested for the May 25 death of George Floyd, is now facing multiple felony counts of tax evasion. Chauvin and his wife, Kellie May Chauvin, were charged Wednesday in Washington County, Minnesota

Kellie Chauvin, the wife of the white police officer who was seen kneeling on George Floyd's neck during a fatal forgery arrest, was charged with multiple felony counts of tax evasion along with her husband Derek Chauvin on Wednesday. She was voted Mrs. Minnesota in 2018

The complaints allege that they also failed to pay proper sales tax on a $100,230 BMW purchased in Minnesota in January 2018.

Prosecutors say the Chauvins bought the car in Minnetonka but registered it in Florida, where they paid lower sales taxes.

The couple has a condo just outside of Orlando, the Star Tribune reports.

The car was serviced eleven times in Minnesota but never in Florida, however.

The taxes due on the SUV would amount to $5,053.

The Chauvins were each charged in Washington County with six counts of filing false or fraudulent tax returns for the tax years 2014 through 2019.

They were also charged with three counts of failing to file tax returns for 2016, 2017 and 2018.

The complaint states that between 2014 and 2019, the Chauvins underreported their joint income by $464,433.

Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck on May 25. He is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

They would owe $21,853 in taxes but $37,868 in total, once charges and penalties are applied.

Between 2014 and 2019, Chauvin would have earned between $52,000 and $72,000 annually as a police officer, the complaint says.

Kellie Chauvin worked as a real estate agent and ran a photography business.

Yet Derek also worked as an off-duty security guard at the El Nuevo Rodeo dance club, Cub Foods, Midtown Global Market and EME Antro Bar on E. Lake Street.

The complaint claims he failed to pay taxes on nearly $96,000 he earned from the dance club alone.

Floyd, a Black man who was handcuffed, died May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd pleaded for air.

Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

He and three other officers who were at the scene - Thomas Lane, J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao - were fired.

Chauvin is in custody on the charges in the Floyd case. He remains behind bars on $1.25 million bond pending trial.

Kellie Chauvin, who filed for divorce after Floyd's death, is not in custody.

Online court records didn't list attorneys for either in the tax evasion case.

Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said the investigation into the Chauvins was started in June by the Minnesota Department of Revenue and Oakdale Police Department.

He told the Star Tribune that Minnesota Department of Revenue officials contacted him in June about the records they had found.

'They were sending him letters last year' about the failure to file tax reports, he said, 'and they got no response'.

Kellie Chauvin was previously charged with writing a bad $42 check in February 2005

Pictured: The El Nuevo Rodeo club where Derek Chauvin also worked as a security guard

Orput added that the couple's tax crimes are 'run of the mill, but it just happens to be the [police officer] sitting in Oak Park [Heights prison].  The guy owes us money, and I want to collect. I don't care about his other problems'.

The couple's home was searched on June 25 and a box of tax documents, financial information and work schedules were recovered.

Derek Chauvin's father, an accountant who prepared their 2014 and 2015 tax returns, said that they had failed to provide him with the information to file returns from 2016 onward.

Kellie Chauvin, a former Mrs. Minnesota America winner, told investigators they didn't file because 'it got away' from her.

She was previously charged with writing a bad $42 check in February 2005.

Despite multiple letters sent to her home about the bad check, she hadnt paid the owed money by July of that year, leading to a criminal complaint being filed against her.

Kellie, who at the time was married to her late ex-husband Kujay Xiong, eventually paid the money and the case was dismissed.

On Wednesday, her attorney also requested that the file on her divorce from Chauvin be sealed following 'constant harassment from the public'.

'The circumstances surrounding Respondent's incarceration has resulted in rage and violence throughout the community directed at both Petitioner and Respondent,' the filing said.

'Allowing public access of this file will allow further harassment of Petitioner and not allow any privacy in this matter.

'In addition, allowing public access will allow the public and media to have notice of when hearings occur and will allow the general public to know the whereabouts of each party during the proceedings. Such access will negatively affect the parties from a safety standpoint.'
Technavio has been monitoring the anti-fatigue mat market and it is poised to grow by USD 633.24 million during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 4% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200721005709/en/

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Anti-Fatigue Mat Market 2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. 3M Co., American Mat Rubber, American Pro Marketing LLC, Checkers Safety Group, COBA International Ltd., Mountville Mills Inc., Ranco Industries Inc., SATECH Inc., UniFirst Corp., and Wearwell LLC are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Increased employer focus on healthy work environment has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, huge competition from the unorganized market might hamper market growth.

Anti-Fatigue Mat Market 2020-2024: Segmentation

Anti-Fatigue Mat Market is segmented as below:

End-user Residential Non-residential

Distribution Channel Offline Online

Geography North America APAC Europe South America MEA



To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR44303

Anti-Fatigue Mat Market 2020-2024: Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our anti-fatigue mat market report covers the following areas:

Anti-Fatigue Mat Market size

Anti-Fatigue Mat Market trends

Anti-Fatigue Mat Market industry analysis

This study identifies multiple benefits of using anti-fatigue mats as one of the prime reasons driving the anti-fatigue mat market growth during the next few years.

Anti-Fatigue Mat Market 2020-2024: Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the anti-fatigue mat market, including some of the vendors such as 3M Co., American Mat Rubber, American Pro Marketing LLC, Checkers Safety Group, COBA International Ltd., Mountville Mills Inc., Ranco Industries Inc., SATECH Inc., UniFirst Corp., and Wearwell LLC. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the anti-fatigue mat market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Anti-Fatigue Mat Market 2020-2024: Key Highlights

CAGR of the market during the forecast period 2020-2024

Detailed information on factors that will assist anti-fatigue mat market growth during the next five years

Estimation of the anti-fatigue mat market size and its contribution to the parent market

Predictions on upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior

The growth of the anti-fatigue mat market

Analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors

Comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of anti-fatigue mat market vendors

Table Of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Value chain analysis

Market Sizing

Market definition

Market segment analysis

Market size 2019

Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 2024

Five Forces Analysis

Five forces summary

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of new entrants

Threat of substitutes

Threat of rivalry

Market condition

Market Segmentation by End-user

Market segments

Comparison by End-user

Non-residential Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Residential Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by End-user

Market Segmentation by Distribution Channel

Market segments

Comparison by Distribution channel

Offline Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Online Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Market opportunity by Distribution channel

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Geographic segmentation

Geographic comparison

North America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

APAC Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Europe Market size and forecast 2019-2024

South America Market size and forecast 2019-2024

MEA Market size and forecast 2019-2024

Key leading countries

Market opportunity by geography

Market Drivers Demand led growth

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor landscape

Landscape disruption

Competitive scenario

Vendor Analysis

Vendors covered

Market positioning of vendors

3M Co.

American Mat Rubber

American Pro Marketing LLC

Checkers Safety Group

COBA International Ltd.

Mountville Mills Inc.

Ranco Industries Inc.

SATECH Inc.

UniFirst Corp.

Wearwell LLC

Appendix

Scope of the report

Currency conversion rates for US$

Research methodology

List of abbreviations

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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VEVEY (dpa-AFX) - Nestle (NSRGY.PK, NSTR.L) is exploring options for its bottled water business in China, including a potential sale, CNN Business reported. The Swiss food major sells some of its upscale international brands in China, including Perrier, Acqua Panna, and San Pellegrino. But the company's best selling water brands in China are a locally sourced version of Nestle Pure Life and Da Shan Yunnan Spring. The company is reportedly considering a sale of its Yinlu Foods division in China. Last month, Nestle said it was exploring a sale of most of the North America waters business, including brands like Poland Spring and Pure Life. The company expected to complete the strategic review by early in 2021. The company then said it would focus on international brands like San Pellegrino and Perrier, as well as functional water, like caffeinated water. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
1 of 1

How to Find PG Accommodation? Tips to Negotiate with PG Owners?

khaskhabar.com : , 22  2020 11:45 AM
When King took over the unions in 2014, federal labor investigators instructed King that the union funds were to be used only for the benefit of the union members, and that personal use of the union funds was a violation of federal law, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Phelps said at the Maryland federal court hearing, which was held by video conference because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A new citywide blood sampling will be carried out in the first five days of every month beginning in August, Delhis health minister Satyendar Jain said on Wednesday, announcing a regular survey to determine how much further Covid-19 may have spread in the Capital  a strategy that could show how close the city is to achieving herd immunity and whether it needs to tweak its response measures.

The announcement came a day after the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) released results from the first such surveillance  known as a serological study  showing that 22.86% of 21,387 people who were tested showed signs of being exposed to the virus.

Sero-survey identifies people who have recovered from the disease. The 23% result of the previous survey is most likely to be people who got infected around mid-June, because antibodies take around 15 days to develop. It has been more than a month now. The government plans to make it a monthly exercise. We shall be doing the next sero-survey between August 1 and 5, Jain said.

The figures from the NCDC report, if extrapolated, could mean that over 4.5 million people -- or nearly 1 in every 4 - have had the disease and recovered till June end, manifold more than the 126,323 confirmed till Wednesday. They also suggest that the disease kills only 0.07% of people infected, as opposed to the 2.94% fatality rate in the city.

The findings led experts to conclude that the peak of infections in the Capital was definitely over. The biggest silver lining is that if we have such high population that was exposed in the past but did not largely display serious symptoms or succumbed -- then it is as good as a vaccine, Dr Sujeet K Singh, director, NCDC, told HT on Tuesday.

But, experts maintain that there is no room for complacency and people need to continue with precautionary measures such as social distancing and wearing masks.

Epidemiologists believe an infection prevalence rate of 40-65% in a particular population could be adequate to reach a level known as herd immunity, when the number of people who have never had the disease (and are not protected by antibodies that infected people build) dwindle to such an extent that an infectious disease dies out due to a lack of vulnerable hosts.

Jain, when asked about herd immunity by reporters he was interacting with, said even experts differ on this concept. Usually, it is perceived as a stage when around 40% to 70% people have recovered from the disease. We cannot comment on herd immunity at this stage. We will get a better picture of that after the numbers of fresh cases stop emerging, he said.

The minister added that there definitely was spread in the community. Whether one can call it community spread is a very technical thing as per the guidelines and protocols that are followed, he said, asking people to remain cautious.

Around 77% of people are still vulnerable and we cannot be complacent. We should be serious about maintaining social distance, wearing masks and washing our hands regularly.

According to Jain, the protocol for the new surveys is still being finalised. We are chalking out a strategy. It will be spread across the city, cover both containment zones and normal areas, include individuals of different age groups and the sample size will not be less than the previous survey, he said.

Officials in the health department, who asked not to be named, said the survey will be carried out by district surveillance teams and health department officials between the 1st and 5th of every month.

The teams will fan out across neighbourhoods from where they will pick out people according to the stratification they need to follow, varying samples by age, gender and locality to represent as random a set as possible, this person said. The tests will be done through the Covid Kavach kit developed by Gujarat-based Zydus Cadila.

NCDC, which carried out the previous survey on behalf of the Delhi government, is unlikely to be involved this time. The local teams carrying out the process will report to the district magistrates.

The sero surveys need to be repeated periodically to be able to establish a trend with respect to the disease spread. When ICMR approved antibody (blood) testing, it had advised all states to conduct sero-surveillance using the test from time to time to get a sense of how the disease has spread within the community. This is to be done by states and the Centre will pitch in if they require assistance, especially those with high disease burden, said a Union health ministry official, requesting anonymity.

Dr Lalit Kant, the former, former head of epidemiology and communicable diseases department in the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said: Sero-survey done periodically can help the government focus their efforts  both in terms of speed and scale  in protecting the population still vulnerable to exposure to the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

As far as the sample size is concerned, it is determined through a formula that primarily depends on prevalence rate of the disease. In Delhi, the prevalence rate has gone up, so the sample size for the upcoming survey is likely to be higher, he added.

Experts cautioned that Covid-19 still is scantly understood, especially with how it can lead to no symptoms in large proportions of the infected population, and that antibody testing in itself was a complicated process due to the way the virus behaves.

We are dealing with a new virus here and there is a lot of unknown. For instance, at this juncture, we do not know how long antibodies would stay in the human body after recovery from Covid. That is what makes trend analysis important, said Puneet Misra, professor of community medicines in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi.

Methodology and sample selection will play a crucial role in the upcoming sero-surveys and the government should consider involving experts and specialists in this regard, he added.

(With inputs from Rhythma Kaul)

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New Delhi, July 22 : As the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out searches on Wednesday at over a dozen locations in Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and West Bengal in the fertiliser scam case, including the house of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother Agrasain Gehlot, the congress questioned the timing of the action.

Following the ED raids, the Congress flayed the Modi government and maintained that when the Centre's attempts to topple the party's state government failed, the ED had conducted raids, including at the premises of Gehlot's brother.

"Whenever the BJP is in trouble, when the BJP fails to topple any government, then they take the support of the ED, CBI and the Income Tax," Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala told reporters in Jaipur.

The ED searches are being carried under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

The ED has filed a case under the PMLA based on a Customs Department complaint and charge sheet in the alleged fertiliser scam case.

A top ED official told IANS: "The ED is conducting searches at 13 locations across the country -- four in Gujarat, six in Rajasthan, two in West Bengal and one in Delhi." The official said that the financial probe agency is also carrying out searches at the premises of Agrasain Gehlot, whose firm Anupam Krishi held authorised dealership of Indian Potash Ltd (IPL).

An ED source claimed the company owned by Agrasain Gehlot was involved in exporting Muriate of Potash (MoP) fertiliser, which is banned for exports. MoP is imported by IPL and distributed among farmers at subsidised rates.

The source further said that Agrasain Gehlot is facing a Rs 7 crore Customs penalty in the fertiliser case.

According to the source, Agrasian Gehlot was an authorised dealer for IPL and between 2007-09, his company bought MoP at subsidised rates and instead of distributing to farmers sold it to few other companies, who in turn exported it to Malaysia and Singapore in the guise of industrial salt.

The searches comes in the backdrop of a political crisis in Rajasthan after the rebellion by then Deputy Chief Minister and PCC President Sachin Pilot, who was sacked from these posts on July 14.

The case was unearthed by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in 2012-13. The BJP had raised the issue in 2017.
The American Museum of Natural Historys recent decision to remove the statue of Theodore Roosevelt from its Central Park entrance gives us all the opportunity to revisit and rethink a wide range of things we have taken for granted in American history and American memory. Although the Roosevelt debate has largely focused on the statue groups depiction of him as a cowboy or Rough Rider on horseback, leading a Native American on one side and an African gun bearer on the other to a more civilized future, it might be useful to give some attention to the distinguished American sculptor who fashioned the sculpture.James Earle Fraser (1876-1953) was born in Winona, Minn., but he grew up near Mitchell, S.D. His father was a railroad engineer who spent the summer of Frasers birth in Montana gathering up the remains of George Armstrong Custers Seventh Cavalry members who perished at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 26, 1876, to return them to their homes in the East. Young Fraser discovered his artistic vocation while carving scattered chunks of limestone near his home. He was inspired by the architecture and sculpture he observed at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893. He studied in Paris, before returning to the United States in 1902, where he set up a studio in New York that he made his headquarters for the next 50 years.Among others, Fraser sculpted statues of Alexander Hamilton (D.C.), Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson City, Mo.), Albert Gallatin (D.C.), John Hay (Cleveland), Benjamin Franklin (Philadelphia), Abraham Lincoln (Jersey City, N.J.), Thomas Edison (Dearborn, Mich.), Harvey Firestone (Akron, Ohio), and General George Patton (West Point). His Roosevelt group for the American Museum of Natural History was dedicated in 1940. Fraser is best known, however, for two other works: the Indian Head (Buffalo) nickel in 1913 and his sculpture The End of the Trail, first exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, where it won a gold medal.The Indian Head nickel was Americas standard five-cent coin between 1913 and 1938. It was preceded by the Liberty Head nickel (1883-1913) and was replaced by the Jefferson nickel, which (somewhat redesigned) still circulates. The Fraser Indian Head nickel was part of a general currency reform undertaken by President Theodore Roosevelt, who engaged his friend Augustus Saint-Gaudens to give our coinage a more modern and more quintessentially American look. This was the same impulse that led TR, when the White House was remodeled in 1902, to insist that the carvings on the stone fireplace mantel in the State Dining Room be changed from lions to the American bison (buffalo).The buffalo on the reverse side of the Indian Head nickel (tails) was probably modeled after a bison bull in New Yorks Central Park Zoo named Black Diamond. Black Diamond was the offspring of a bull and cow given to the zoo by the Barnum and Bailey Circus. It is also at least possible that the nickel buffalo was modeled after one of the bulls brought back from the Montana frontier by William Hornaday, the man who did more than anyone else to save the buffalo from extinction, and the first director and one of the founders of the Bronx Zoo. Frasers accounts of the sculpting process varied over time, but he knew the artistic effect he wanted to achieve, and it was identical to the cultural philosophy of Theodore Roosevelt. When I was asked to do a nickel, I felt I wanted to do something totally Americana coin that could not be mistaken for any other countrys coin. It occurred to me that the buffalo, as part of our western background, was 100 percent American, and that our North American Indian fitted into the picture perfectly.Frasers Indian was a composite. The depiction of the Native American on the obverse face (heads) was based on several of Frasers encounters with Plains Indians. Before the nickel was made I had done several portraits of Indians, among them Iron Tail [an Oglala who performed with Buffalo Bill], Two Moons [a Cheyenne who participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn], and one or two others, and probably got characteristics from those men in the head on the coins, but my purpose was not to make a portrait but a type. As is often the case in cultural history, a number of different Native Americans later claimed to have been Frasers model. The result is quite beautiful, with perhaps just a touch of probably unintended caricature. Today, Fraser would probably be accused of a mild form of cultural appropriation, though the Sacagawea dollar that circulated during the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (2003-2009) was also partly a composite, and it was also designed by a non-Indian artist.The End of the Trail is one of the most iconic images of American Indians in our culture. It depicts a Native American man slumped over an exhausted horse standing gingerly at the end of the trail, overlooking, Fraser said, the Pacific Ocean, because American Indians had been driven out of all of their traditional homelands farther and farther west until there was nowhere left for them to go. The Native man is holding a lance which is pointed toward the ground, not in defiant resistance but in defeat. Fraser fashioned the lance so that from a distance it appears to have transfixed the Native man.Its a great sculpture by a distinguished American artist. I have been drawn to it all of my adult life. You can hardly go through a whole day of traveling through the American West without seeing it on a car decal, a belt buckle, a t-shirt, or a motel sign. Even though I have always loved the image, I have for a long time felt uneasy about it. Created in 1915 not long after the century of the Indian Wars ended at Wounded Knee (Dec. 29, 1890) and with the passage the Dawes Act (Feb. 8, 1887), which parceled out the reservations into small square homesteads, many of them claimed as surplus by white pioneers, The End of the Trail expresses genuine sympathy with the plight of Native Americans. Thats almost everyones first impression of the sculpture. But it represents nobility in defeat, dignity in loss, the end of Indian resistance, and the vanishing Indian, as if once Native American resistance to the white conquest of the continent was over, Indians would simply disappear over the horizon.This, in fact, is the message of John Gasts famous 1872 painting American Progress, in which the angel Columbia floats over the landscape stringing telegraph wire while the Natives ride off once and for all into the sunset as covered wagons, steamboats, plowmen, and railroads occupy their former hunting grounds. It is also the burden of a number of state seals: white pioneers advancing, Natives receding into the past. Frasers sculpture manages at the same time to be triumphalist for white civilization  the conquest of the continent is now complete  and yet compassionate. He is well aware of the cost of American civilization.But heres what I consider to be the problem with Frasers famous sculpture. During the conquest period, from 1607 to 1900, the European-derived white Americans were so threatened by the idea of Native American sovereignty and resistance, so determined to take the continent by whatever means necessary, no matter how ruthless, that they did not have the luxury of exhibiting much respect or sympathy for the peoples they were displacing. Native Americans were denigrated and demonized, called savages, red devils, prairie n.rs, and worse.Even in the 1880s, the most famous re-enactment in Buffalo Bills Wild West was the Indian attack on the settlers cabin, finally repelled, of course, and the virtue of Victorian wives and daughters preserved by the white cavalry. Frontier newspapers wrote front page editorials dripping with unguarded racism, some of which unapologetically called for the actual extermination of American Indians.It is a sad but telling irony that the most popular genre of frontier encounters literature was the captivity narrative, in which a white woman is kidnapped by marauding savages and handed around to lusty warriors to suffer a fate worse than death at their hands. Rather than a narrative, say, in which Native peoples are minding their own business on their ancestral lands when an armed white militia group arrives to wipe out men, women, and children in a dawn raid.By the time Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States, the Indian Wars, were over  many of them clearly fueled by the leftover testosterone and white male rage of the Civil War (on both sides). American Indians had been pacified, thrust onto reservations, many of which were incapable of supporting the resident population, forced to take up till agriculture on barren lands, their children carried off by force to faraway boarding schools where they were taught to be red Americans. Finally, victory in hand, it was possible for white colonialist civilization to step back and take a deep breath. The threat was over. Crazy Horse (Oglala) was dead. Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa) was dead. Red Cloud (Lakota) was disarmed (in every sense of the term). Geronimo (Apache) and Chief Joseph (Nez Perce) were sufficiently tamed to be pressed into marching in Roosevelts March 1905 Inaugural Parade, like conquered Gauls in one of Julius Caesars Roman triumphs.Now it was possible to pull back a little on the steam juggernaut of Americas Manifest Destiny and find some sympathy, in defeat, for the Native peoples the United States had spent the previous 100-plus years dispossessing, fighting, cheating, and offering one lying promise after the next. How many times had white negotiators in the Black Hills or the Wallowa Valley in Washington said, Give us this much land and we promise we will never be back for more?The narrative of the vanishing Indian has a long pedigree in American culture. In the 1830s, American ethnographer and artist George Catlin and the German prince Maximilian of Neuwied traveled on separate missions to the northern Great Plains to capture Native American culture before it was too late. Catlins paintings and essays, together with the magnificent watercolors of Maximilians artist Karl Bodmer, provided the world an indelible portrait of Native American life just when the fur trade was beginning to destabilize Upper Missouri cultures dramatically.Half a century later, the Seattle-based photographer Edward S. Curtis undertook a 30-year project to photograph Native Americans of the trans-Mississippi West in their native clothing and in as close to a pre-white cultural landscape as was still possible, again, to get it all down before it was too late. Frasers gorgeous The End of the Trail is perhaps the greatest  certainly the most iconic  rendition of the vanishing Indian genre. It spoke powerfully to the American public in 1915 and it still speaks to the world in 2020.But its message is problematic. First, there is the hypocrisy of just starting to celebrate the American Indian when you have finished the work of vanquishing him. Fraser would not have received acclaim if he had presented the sculpture in 1870 or even 1890, while the mad conquest was still unfinished. Second, as any Native American cultural representative will tell you, Indians didnt vanish after all. They morphed, accommodated, adjusted, partially assimilated, ducked below the radar, regrouped, resisted, and above all survived. They are still among us, though you and I might not always recognize them in their 21st-century clothing, working side by side with their white and Black counterparts all across the United States and Canada.The End of the Trail may mark the end of one phase (one trail) of the history of indigenous Americans, but it did not extinguish them biologically or culturally, in spite of the best efforts of the 18th- and 19th-century conquerors. As Mark Twain put it about newspaper reports that he had died, reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Reports of the final vanishing of Native Americans have always proved to be more pessimistic than accurate. In fact, one of the single most remarkable, even stunning, facts of American history is the resilience and now resurgence of Native American culture  language, craft work, agriculture, religious observance, and cultural pride.What links The End of the Trail with the TR statue group at the Museum of Natural History is an understanding, even if a somewhat melancholic one in the case of the vanishing Indian, that white Europeans and Americans were the dominant race of the world, destined to bring civilization to all the benighted indigenous people of the planet, whether in South Africa, Rhodesia, New Zealand, and the American West, whether they liked it or not, and at the end of the Gatling Gun if necessary.It was widely thought in Roosevelts era that Native Americans could not co-exist with white civilization, at least not in any recognizable form. Frasers The End of the Trail evokes sympathy not righteousness, a post-conquest respect rather than a guilty call for attempting to undo what Helen Hunt Jackson called a century of dishonor. It may have been necessary to be ruthless in bringing about the Europeanization of North America and other waste places, as Roosevelt termed them, but it was then thought to be the burden and destiny of Anglo-Europeans and Teutonic peoples to extend the blessings of civilization to the far corners of the earth. This, certainly, was Roosevelts view and he was, in his four-volume, entirely unapologetic about it. The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, he wrote. American and Indian, Boer and Zulu, Cossack and Tartar, New Zealander and Maori  in each caser the victor, horrible though many of his deeds are, has laid deep the foundations for the future greatness of a mighty people.If we want to understand the current cultural moment, we must try to understand it in the troubled context of American history.I believe it would be a crime against art and human creativity to destroy any of James Earle Frasers sculptures. All of his work is characterized by soulfulness and generosity of spirit. Even the two Natives in the Roosevelt statue group in New York are depicted with a kind of sensual dignity. Separated from TR on horseback, they would perhaps now be regarded as beautiful and non-controversial, although the fact that the African is depicted as a gun bearer signifies his subordinate status.Frasers art should not be lumped in with a hastily rendered statue of Stonewall Jackson thrown up in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement in the deep south to intimidate African Americans and maintain the apartheid of Jim Crow America. No fair person can look at Frasers sculpture and believe he was a deliberate racist. He was not one of those whites Martin Luther King denounced in August 1963, as vicious racists . . . lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification.In fact, the ambivalences of Fraser and the ambiguities of his sculpture are precisely what we prize in great art. Who has ever written a definitive essay on "Hamlet" or explicated Joycesto the satisfaction of the rest of us, or figured out precisely what is going on in an Emily Dickinson or Langston Hughes poem? Our best strategy  I know I write as a white male of privilege  is to remove such statues as now intensely irritate, offend, or hurt, to contextualize the ones that are in any significant way problematic, and then to place at least the best of the offensive statues in obscure rooms in our museums with plenty of critical interpretation. Iconoclasm is always a gross form of art criticism and it paints our rich, nuanced, often tragic history with a very broad and sometimes unjust brush.If James Earle Fraser were alive today, I doubt that he would fashion the TR sculpture group as he did. He would not presume to appropriate Native American iconography to form a composite Indian for the nickel, and he would find it conceptually impossible to believe that Native Americans, some of whom have been governors and U.S. Senators, presidents of universities, great athletes, internationally revered hoop dancers and flutists, and extraordinary doctors, lawyers, CEOs, and writers, were a vanishing race.That was then.
Copyright  2020 Albuquerque Journal

State and local leaders reacted with swift condemnation Tuesday to reports that President Donald Trump may send federal forces to the Duke City.

Sheriff Manuel Gonzales, meanwhile, headed to the White House, ensnaring himself in the controversy.

Gonzales is scheduled to meet with Trump Wednesday  a visit that is being condemned by Sen. Martin Heinrich, who is calling for his resignation, and other fellow Democrats.

On Monday, CBS News reported it had obtained a memo from the Department of Homeland Security saying it plans to deploy officers to a number of cities, including Albuquerque, Kansas City and Chicago, to assist local police departments.

The news set off a firestorm among city and state leaders, who expressed concern that the federal officers were being sent here to quell protests and would use violent tactics that have been shown in news broadcasts from Portland, Oregon.

Mayor Tim Keller and Police Chief Michael Geier condemned the idea of federal forces coming to the city and questioned whether the move is a political stunt.

But one Department of Justice official told the Journal the planned dispatch of federal resources is aimed at combating violent crime and not an attempt to crack down on protests.

Regardless, Sheriff Gonzales is being slammed by several local officials ahead of his visit to the White House to meet with Trump. A news release from the BCSO said the meeting was to discuss the sheriffs office success combating Albuquerques crime crisis as part of a joint operation.

But Sen. Heinrich blasted Gonzales, tying his visit to the Portland events. He called for Gonzales to resign, saying he doesnt represent Bernalillo County, and needs to step aside to make room for someone who will make maintaining the peace and promoting the safety and protection of residents a top priority.

Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the Presidents stormtroopers into Albuquerque, Heinrich wrote in a statement. If we can learn anything from Portland, its that we dont need this kind of help from the White House. The President is currently using federal law enforcement agents like a domestic paramilitary force. Thats precisely how fascism begins and none of us should ever encourage or accept it.

In response, BCSO sent a statement saying Senator Heinrich couldnt be more  out of touch with the local social problems and the great work being done by our deputies and the other first responders.

The citizens of Bernalillo County deserve to live in safety, Gonzales wrote in a statement. Many cities including Albuquerque continue to see levels of extraordinary violence. As the constitutionally elected sheriff, I seek to ensure that no citizen is excluded from the peace and security that should be enjoyed by all Americans.

Several national news outlets have reported  and shown video of  federal officers confronting protesters in Portland. The agents have been reportedly pulling protesters into unmarked vans to detain them.

Overall, most demonstrations in Albuquerque have remained peaceful. Following one protest, vandals rushed through Downtown setting fires in trash cans and breaking windows. And last month, a demonstrator was shot during a confrontation with a counterprotester. There have also been a handful of times in which APD riot officers were deployed, and used gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Operation Legend

The news that federal agents may be sent to Albuquerque broke the night before the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office announced Sheriff Gonzales will meet with President Trump and Attorney General William Barr.

According to a news release from BCSO, the meeting, which will be held on Wednesday, is to discuss BCSOs success combating Albuquerques crime crisis as part of Operation Relentless Pursuit.

Few other details about the meeting were immediately available Tuesday, but an official with the Department of Justice who spoke with the Journal on background said the meeting isnt related to civil unrest or situations like those happening in Portland.

Rather, he said, the Department of Justice will announce the expansion of an operation to combat violent crime in cities across the country.

The DOJ is going to make an announcement some time this week about an expansion of Operation Legend, the official said. Thats an initiative to combat violent crime. Sheriff Gonzales appearance is related to Operation Legend.

AG Barr announced the launch of that operation July 8. It is named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro of Kansas City, Missouri, who was shot and killed last month while he slept. The operation has sparked protests and concerns in Kansas City as well, according to local news reports.

According to a news release on the DOJ website, the operation will be a sustained, systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative across all federal law enforcement agencies working in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight the sudden surge of violent crime, beginning in Kansas City, Missouri.

Its unclear what would constitute a recent surge in violent crime in Albuquerque.

Its also unclear how Operation Legend and its goals are different from another initiative the Department of Justice launched to fight violent crime last year.

In December, AG Barr announced Albuquerque was one of seven cities  Kansas City was another  that would receive an influx of grant funding and a surge of federal agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as part of Operation Relentless Pursuit.

In April, the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office was awarded $1.4 million as part of that operation. The Albuquerque Police Department was awarded $9.7 million, but it is unclear if it will be able to receive that funding since the DOJ says provisions in the citys immigrant-friendly ordinance are contrary to some of the grant conditions.

Focus on reform

The sheriffs meeting with the president and the possibility of a surge of federal officers in Albuquerque drew condemnation within City Hall as well.

Federal agents in Oregon are snatching protesters off the street without identifying their agency or establishing probable cause. It is an unconstitutional affront to representative democracy, wrote City Attorney Esteban Aguilar Jr. in a statement. These forces do not abide by the constitutional crime-fighting reforms implemented under the DOJ, and will break the trust APD and our community have invested years in rebuilding. We did not request this and do not need it. If the Sheriff really wanted to help, he would be here following APDs lead, not in D.C. for a photo-op with Trump.

Mayor Keller and Police Chief Geier both criticized the idea of federal forces in the city as political rather than real and constitutional crime-fighting police work.

We will not sell out our own community, or our own police department, for this obvious political agenda; as they try to incite violence by targeting our city and our residents, Keller wrote in a statement.

Geier pointed out that APD already coordinates with federal law enforcement every day.

Contrary to the claims of the politicians in Washington, D.C., we came into long-standing challenges with crime in Albuquerque and have worked closely with our community to make the city safer, Geier wrote in a statement. Homicides are down this year and protests have been mostly peaceful in Albuquerque, and much less violent and destructive than other cities because of our focus on reform and community policing.
A term coined by Mike Pompeo to coalesce companies against the Chinese threat to worldwide data security, US has now added India's Reliance Jio among a list of companies deemed "Clean Telcos" , slammed China over authoritarianism and attempt to sabotage communication networks across the globe.

The United States has listed Reliance Jio among the companies that are becoming Clean Telcos, saying they are rejecting doing business with tools of the Chinese Communist Partys surveillance state, like Huawei.

According to US State Department, Clean Network is a comprehensive effort by a coalition of like-minded countries and companies to secure their critical telecommunications, cloud, data analytics, mobile apps, Internet of Things, and 5G technologies from malign actors by relying on only trusted vendors who are not subject to unjust or extra-judicial control by authoritarian governments such as the Chinese Communist Party.

Some of the largest telecom companies around the globe are also becoming Clean Telcos. Orange in France, Jio in India, Telstra in Australia, SK and KT in South Korea, NTT in Japan, and O2 in the United Kingdom are rejecting doing business with tools of the Chinese Communist Partys surveillance state, like Huawei, the State Department said in a statement.

Also read: Covid-19 impact: IndiGo decides to lay off 10% staff

Also read: Ugly faces: US, China embassies lash out at each other in Myanmar

Last week, Reliance Industries Limited Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced that Reliance Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch and the same will be ready for trials as soon as 5G spectrum is available.

He said the 5G solution can be ready for field development next year.

On April 29, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US Department of State will begin requiring a Clean Path for all 5G network traffic entering and exiting US diplomatic facilities.

The 5G Clean Path is an end-to-end communication path that does not use any transmission, control, computing, or storage equipment from untrusted IT vendors, such as Huawei and ZTE, which are required to comply with directives of the Chinese Communist Party, the statement read.

The 5G Clean Path embodies the highest standards of security against untrusted, high-risk vendors ability to disrupt, manipulate or deny services to private citizens, financial institutions, or critical infrastructure.

The United States had designated Chinese telecom companies Huawei and ZTE Corp as national security threats, saying they have close ties with the Chinese Communist Party and Chinas military apparatus.

Also read: Canada to review security equipment deal worth $6.8 million with China

For all the latest World News, download NewsX App
The depth of a hydraulic fracturing well in Oklahoma, among other factors, increases the probability that fracking will lead to earthquake activity, according to a new report in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

The researchers hope their findings, published as part of an upcoming BSSA special issue on observations, mechanisms and hazards of induced seismicity, will help oil and gas operators and regulators in the state refine drilling strategies to avoid damaging earthquakes.

During hydraulic fracturing, well operators inject a pressurized liquid into a rock layer after drilling vertically and often horizontally through the rock. The liquid breaks apart--fractures--the rock layer and allows natural gas or petroleum to flow more freely. A growing number of studies suggest that this process can induce seismic activity large enough for people to feel, possibly by increasing fluid pressures within the rock that relieve stress on faults and allow them to slip.

In one rock layer examined in the BSSA study, the likelihood that hydraulic fracturing triggered seismic activity increased from 5 to 50 percent as well operations moved from 1.5 to 5.5 kilometers (0.9 to 3.4 miles) deep, the researchers found.

Although the exact mechanisms linking well depth and seismic probability are still being examined, Michael Brudzinski and colleagues suggest that the overpressure of fluids trapped inside the rock may be important.

"The deeper the rock layers are, the more rock that is sitting on top of a well, and that is going to potentially increase the fluid pressures at depth," said Brudzinski, the study's corresponding author from Miami University in Ohio.

Oklahoma has been at the center of a dramatic increase in earthquake activity over the past decade, mostly caused by oil and gas companies injecting wastewater produced by drilling back into deeper rock layers. However, a 2018 study identified places in the state where significant amounts of seismic activity were linked to nearly 300 hydraulic fracture wells.

Hydraulic fracturing is associated with a magnitude 4.6 earthquake in Canada and a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in China, although fracking-induced earthquakes tend to be smaller in magnitude than those caused by wastewater disposal. As a result, oil and gas operators and regulators would like to know more about why some wells trigger seismic activity, and how to adjust their operations to prevent damaging earthquakes.

Brudzinski and colleagues found the link between depth and seismic probability in their examination of data from 929 horizontal and 463 vertical hydraulic fracturing wells in Oklahoma. The scientists used publicly available data on injected volume at well sites, the number of wells on a drilling pad, what kind of fluid was injected, and the vertical depth of the well, among other features.

The total volume of injected liquid at the Oklahoma wells did not affect the probability of seismic activity near the wells--a surprising finding that differs from other studies of induced seismicity. Some previous hydraulic fracturing (and wastewater disposal) studies show an increase in seismic activity with increasing volume.

Most of the wells in the current study are single wells, however, and not multiple wells clustered on a drilling pad, Brudzinski noted. In some places in western Canada and Texas, where there is a link between the injected volume and seismicity, multiple wells on a pad are more common.

"So that's where we started to think that perhaps that's the difference between what we're seeing in our study versus other studies," Brudzinski said. "We're proposing that multiple wells injecting next to each other may be why volume does matter in those cases, although we need to study it more."

"It could be that volume does still matter, but more so in a cumulative way than for any given well," he added. "An isolated well with a large volume may not have nearly as much of a [seismic] risk as a large volume well that is in close proximity to other large volume wells."

The researchers also compared the probability of seismic activity in wells where the injected liquid was a gel versus "slickwater"--water with chemicals added to increase flow. They found a lower level of seismicity in gel operations compared to slickwater, although the difference wasn't as statistically significant as the other trends.

Simulation studies suggest that the more viscous gel may not flow as far as the slickwater, limiting its effects on faults, Brudzinski said.

###
GREENWICH  Andrew Byrne will soon begin his second stint at Greenwich High School, this time as the Folsom House administrator and mathematics program coordinator.

Greenwich High Headmaster Ralph Mayo made the announcement Wednesday, appointing Byrne to his new role, effective Aug. 17.

Most recently, Byrne was the director of human resources at the United Nations International School in New York City. He served as the interim administrator at Folsom House and interim math and computer science program administrator at Greenwich High during the 2018-19 scholastic year, before accepting a job at the United Nations International School.

Contributed Photo / Greenwich Public Schools

I am excited to return to the teaching and learning community of Greenwich High School as head of Folsom House, Byrne said. My goal will be to provide leadership during these unprecedented times, to assist teachers and administrators in their mission to fulfill the ideals of the vision of the graduate and to support the academic and social-emotional needs of our students as we prepare them for the future.

He will replace Dana Tulotta, who recently accepted the role of assistant headmaster at Greenwich High.

In Byrnes new role, he will be responsible for the social, emotional and academic needs of Folsom House students and have oversight of Folsom House staff as well as the curriculum and instructional practices for the mathematics program.

The high school is very fortunate to have such an experienced leader to be appointed as the Folsom House administrator, Mayo said. Mr. Byrne is a highly collaborative individual who works extremely well with students, parents and staff. GHS is pleased that he will be rejoining our leadership team as the staff will clearly benefit from his ability to develop innovative practices and strategies that will move the GHS Mathematics Department and the Folsom House team forward.

Byrne is eager to start his new role at GHS.

In this role, I will be an active contributor to the community by sharing my experiences, creating an open dialogue and building new relationships, he said. I look forward to working collaboratively with Mr. Mayo and the leadership team to provide our students with the most rigorous, accessible, and comprehensive academic, social, and emotional learning experience possible.

While at the United Nations International School, Byrne was responsible for leading all human resources functions, including hiring, onboarding, payroll, benefits, union negotiations and immigration matters.

Before arriving at Greenwich Public Schools in 2018, he spent eight years with the Darien Public Schools, serving as an assistant principal at Middlesex Middle School and co-principal for Royle Elementary School.

Bryne also worked at Sacred Heart Greenwich in multiple roles, including dean of faculty, academic dean, mathematics department chair, and mathematics and science instructor. He began his educational career at the Canterbury School as a mathematics instructor.

He has a bachelors degree in biology and mathematics from Bates College, a masters in education with a focus in secondary education from the University of Massachusetts and a masters in education with a focus in education administration and supervision from Fordham University. He also holds an ABD in Executive Leadership from Fordham University.
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Class-12 students fared better than Class-10 students in Mathematics, Hindi and English in the exams conducted by Board of School Education Haryana (BSEH) this year.

Around 85.68%, Class-12 students passed the English exam while 80.97% Class-10 students cleared the exam. In Mathematics, 80.18% Class-12 students cracked the exam while 71.52% Class-10 students cleared the exam. As many as 97.87 % Class-12 students passed the Hindi exam as compared to 90.30% Class-10 students.

This year, 80.34% students passed the Class-12 exam and 64.59%cleared the Class-10 exam.

BOARD SECY BLAMES GOVT POLICY

Board secretary Rajiv Prasad said the Class-10 students performed poorly as compared to Class-12 students in Mathematics, English and Hindi because the government had made it mandatory to pass all students till Class-8.

Now, the state government has decided to conduct Class-8 board exams after a long gap. I am sure that the Class 10 results will be better in the coming years. The board is an autonomous that evaluates the performance of students and by restarting Class-8 board exams, weak students will be filtered. Many students did not take studies seriously till Class 8 as they knew they will be passed, he added.

Government Senior Secondary School mathematics lecturer Naveen Soni of Bhiwanis Gurera also blamed the nondetention policy for students dismal performance. .

Government policies need to be revised as we cant strike out the name of a student who has not come to school for 21 days and he can repeat the same pattern after attending classes for a day. Many students take advantage of such rules. The Class-12 students are more focused towards their target as compared to Class-10 students, he said.

Soni further said that teachers need to access the most scoring portions of syllabus instead of blindly teaching everything.
Harris County leaders and public health officials are calling on local school districts to consider delaying in-person instruction for the first eight weeks of the 2020-21 school year.

In a recently circulated letter to area school superintendents, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and executive director of Harris County Public Health Umair Shah said it's unsafe for students to return to classrooms until the region's COVID-19 outbreak is under control. The officials are recommending face-to-face instruction be delayed until at least Sept. 7 for all students from kindergarten through grade 12.

"In-person instruction would inevitably give way to countless interactions and a new wave of cases and hospitalizations," the letter states. "There is no evidence of successful school reopening with this level of community transmission."

The Texas Education Agency is requiring school districts to provide face-to-face instruction five days a week to families that request it, although there is some leniency to the order. After backlash from educators and parents, the TEA extended the original transition period for schools to start the year virtually from three weeks to eight weeks to allow for more flexibility. However, districts that do not offer in-person classes to students who lack the needed technology at home risk losing state funding.

THE BIG DEBATE: With COVID-19 cases spiking in Texas, should schools return via virtually or in-person?

Houston ISD, the largest school district in Texas, is among several Houston-area districts that have announced plans to begin the year virtually. Other districts such as Humble ISD plan to start the year with students in classrooms while offering a mix of in-person and virtual instruction. Humble ISD will have about 65 percent of its students on campus at the start of the year.

Texas continues to break records in COVID-19 cases and deaths, with the state reporting a record-high number of COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday. Harris County is still at the most critical threat level for COVID-19 spread and rising cases have strained contact tracing and testing efforts.

Hidalgo and Shah also ask in the letter for local school districts to make internet access and devices available to all students who need it, delay extracurricular activities, competitions and events until in-person instruction is safe to resume and develop a comprehensive plan for in-person instruction safety protocols.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: TEA releases new guidance for Texas schools on online-only classes, start of year

"...the return to in-person instruction must be phased, careful, make use of containment tools to reduce likelihood of outbreaks, and learn from other communities which have reported in-person successfully over the longer term," the letter states. "The faster we bring the virus under control and bring the curve down, the sooner schools will be able to reopen safely and stay open."

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the order calls for in-person instruction to be delayed until at least Sept. 7.

rebecca.hennes@chron.com
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On the eve of his funeral, a horse-drawn carriage will take The Rev. C.T. Vivian's casket to Martin Luther King Jr.'s tomb in Atlanta on Wednesday.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Sen. Nikema Williams and other local politicians joined mourners to pay their respects for the respected civil rights activist as his body lay in state in the rotunda of the Georgia Capitol.

After mourners have paid their respects the carriage will take his coffin to the front of Kings crypt tomb located in Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.

Vivian died Friday at age 95.

More than a decade before lunch-counter protests made headlines during the Civil Rights movement, Vivian began organizing sit-ins against segregation in Peoria, Illinois, in the 1940s.

Scroll down for video

The Georgia state flag is prepared to lie on the casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian in the capitol rotunda during his memorial service, Wednesday

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp prepares to speak during a memorial service

He met King soon after the budding civil rights leader's victory in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Vivian helped organize the Freedom Rides to integrate buses across the South and trained waves of activists in non-violent protest.

It was Vivian's bold challenge of a segregationist sheriff while trying to register black voters in Selma, Alabama, that sparked hundreds, then thousands, to march across the Edmund Pettus bridge.

'He has always been one of the people who had the most insight, wisdom, integrity and dedication,' said Andrew Young, who also worked alongside King.

Cordy Tindell Vivian was born July 28, 1924, in Howard County, Mo., but moved to Macomb, Ill., with his mother when he was still a young boy.

Mourners pass the casket of Rev. C.T. Vivian in the capitol rotunda during his memorial service

Mourners sit in the capitol rotunda around the casket

Georgia state Sen. Nikema Williams (center) is consoled during the memorial service for the activist

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and First lady Marty Kemp bow their heads during prayer service at the mermorial

As a young theology student at the American Baptist College in Nashville, Vivian helped organize that city's first sit-ins. Under King's leadership at SCLC, Vivian was national director of affiliates, traveling around the South to register voters.

In 1965 in Selma, he was met on the Dallas County courthouse by Sheriff Jim Clark, who listened as Vivian argued for voting rights, and then punched him in the mouth.

Vivian stood back up and kept talking as the cameras rolled before he was stitched up and jailed. His mistreatment, seen on national television, eventually drew thousands of protesters, whose determination to march from Selma to Montgomery pressured Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act later that year.

The tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King at the MLK Center is seen above in this file photo. A horse-drawn carriage will take Vivian's casket past Martin Luther King Jr.'s tomb in Atlanta following the service

Pallbearers bring the casket into the rotunda of the building

Mourners pass the casket of The Rev. C.T. Vivian in the capitol rotunda during his memorial service ahead of the casket beng taken to the tomb

Vivian helped organize the Freedom Rides to integrate buses across the South and trained waves of activists in non-violent protest (Pictured with marchers in Selma)

Vivian served in the SCLC after King's assassination in 1968, and became its interim president in 2012 (pictured in 2011)

Vivian continued to serve in the SCLC after King's assassination in 1968, and became its interim president in 2012, lending renewed credibility and a tangible link to the civil rights era after the SCLC stagnated for years due to financial mismanagement and infighting.

Vivian was honored by former President Barack Obama with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

Vivian 'was always one of the first in the action - a Freedom Rider, a marcher in Selma, beaten, jailed, almost killed, absorbing blows in hopes that fewer of us would have to,' Obama said in a statement shortly after his death.

A private funeral is set for Thursday at Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta.

He is survived by four daughters and two sons, along with several grandchildren. Vivian's wife died in 2011, AJC reports.
Fifty million unemployed workers, 25 million families evicted or foreclosed on, 15 million small businesses gone bankrupt: This is what another Great Depression could look like. And we are on the brink of this very thing.

Decisions made this month by Congress will decide whether we tip over into depression or not.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Congress enacted and the President signed the CARES Act. It was designed to address the economic stress from a short shutdown of the economy to fight COVID-19. The additional $600 a week for the unemployed, the $1,200-a-person stimulus check, and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) all were created by the act.

But the pandemic remains largely uncontrolled in the U.S., months after the CARES Act was passed. As a result of the act, over 50 million people are unemployed. And even still, large numbers of people have not received their $1200 stimulus check or have not received pandemic-related unemployment payments. The CARES Acts short-term benefits and terrible structure have run its course as many of its provisions expire at the end of the month.

So where is Congress?

Congress has the power to save the economy while we fight COVID-19. No matter how long it takes.

They can do this by guaranteeing the paychecks of all workers in all businesses (even the now unemployed) and by guaranteeing the other essential overhead costs of all businesses that have suffered from the economic shutdown of the pandemic.

By doing this there is little motive to reopen the economy before the pandemic is under control. Workers will still be attached to their job and health insurance and receive their normal paycheck. Businesses will keep their physical resources unharmed and their workforce attached. And the economy will be more or less intact and ready to go when the pandemic is finally under control.

Many other nations are successfully doing this very thing, including Denmark, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia.

There are three bills that would save lives and livelihoods: Rep. Pramila Jayapals (D-Seattle) Paycheck Recovery Act H.R. 6918; Sen. Mark Warners (D-VA) Paycheck Security Act S. 3793; and Sen. Josh Hawleys (R-MO) Rehire America Plan, which has not been introduced.

These bipartisan bills have been on the table for months. Only H.R. 6918 has had a committee hearing, one of three required, at the beginning of July. Both House and Senate leadership have failed to take further action on these bills that our country needs at this time.

Failure to act on these bills means that Congress will allow, at best, the kicking of the can down the road as it will double down on the flawed CARES Act, which put tens of millions of workers into unemployment.

At worst, Congress will be directly responsible for throwing the U.S. into another Great Depression.

Tell Senators Tester and Daines and Representative Gianforte to co-sponsor one or all of the bills, for none of them have yet. The time is now!

Josh Decker and Mark Anderlik are co-chairs of the Western Montana Democratic Socialists of America, and write from Missoula.

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O nly 10 per cent of full-time working Londoners can afford to buy a home using the Governments new affordable housing scheme, designed to help Covid-19 heroes.

First Homes is the latest high-profile initiative, conceived to get key workers such as nurses, firefighters and teachers on to the property ladder in their local area. It will be piloted next year, offering a 30 per cent discount on certain new-build homes which would then be passed on to future buyers.

The 1,500-home trial was announced this month as part of the Governments 12 billion post-pandemic affordable homes package. It is considered to be the replacement for Help to Buy when it ends in 2023.

A Housing Ministry spokesman said: We recognise the significant contribution made by key workers during the coronavirus pandemic. The Governments First Homes scheme will cut the costs of some new homes by a third for first-time buyers, with councils able to prioritise frontline workers.

Bronze, Wandsworth: flats and duplexes are priced from 445,000. One-bedroom flats are available with Help to Buy

How does First Homes work  and who will actually benefit?

But analysis exclusive to Homes & Property reveals a little over 200,000 individuals in London, working full-time, could afford the average first-time house price of 479,000, even after applying for the 30 per cent discount.

Buyers wishing to use the First Homes scheme would need a salary of 71,000-plus after the third off, research by property group JLL shows. This only accounts for 10 per cent of the full-time workforce.

This calculation includes the aspiring buyers five per cent deposit and is based on a mortgage being secured at 4.5 times annual salary. In contrast, about 14 per cent of Londons full-time employees could afford an average-priced home in the capital using Help to Buy.

Outside London it is a different story. About 40 per cent of the UKs full-time employees could afford to buy an average-priced home of 233,000 using First Homes, compared with 30 per cent who can use Help to Buy.

JLL analyst Veronica Spanos McGill is calling for the Government to increase the size of the discount in London to allow for the much higher house prices.

Another criticism levelled at the First Homes scheme is its impact on other affordable housing products such as shared ownership, intermediate rent and social rent.

Upton Gardens, East Ham: the redeveloped West Ham Utd FC ground, by Barratt London, has homes from 474,000

How the scheme will be funded

First Homes will be funded out of a developers section 106 social contribution. This is when a housebuilder, in return for profiting from building and selling private homes in an area, must give back to the community.

A section 106 contribution can range, for example, from social housing to a new library and is negotiated with a council. The more First Homes are built, the less social housing, or accommodation for the homeless, could be delivered.

First Homes is a comfort blanket to help the lucky few, says Polly Neate, chief executive of homelessness and housing charity Shelter. It will provide nothing for those at the sharp end of the housing crisis, she warns.

The Tories have pledged 19,000 new homes under the First Homes umbrella available by the mid-2020s. And JLLs Spanos McGill points to one positive. The discount on a First Homes house remains in perpetuity. This means it will stay as an affordable home for generations to come, unlike Help to Buy which does not benefit a future buyer.
A hot potato: Big tech companies including Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google have been under a ton of antitrust scrutiny as of late, with Microsoft surprisingly being the one that had managed to stay under the radar. That may start to change, with Slack accusing the Redmond giant that it is boosting adoption for its competitor work chat app by forcing it onto Office 365 customers.

Slack has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in the European Union, alleging the latter company is stifling competition with unfair practices such as bundling its collaboration app, Teams, with its Office productivity suite.

In the complaint, Slack alludes to the way Microsoft did things with Internet Explorer, a web browser that achieved incredible adoption numbers by virtue of being bundled with the Windows operating system. Slack believes that Teams is being forced onto Office 365 customers, who are seemingly unaware of the added cost and don't have the option to remove it.

Last May, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield insisted that Microsoft Teams is not a competitor to Slack and that Microsoft baking it into its productivity suite was a move made in frustration over low adoption numbers. Now that teleconferencing apps have seen a surge in demand, that position has changed to acknowledge that Teams and Slack do have some similarities in terms of their overall scope.

In a statement today, Slack VP of Communications and Policy Jonathan Prince explained that "Slack threatens Microsofts hold on business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means Slack threatens Microsofts lock on enterprise software."

He also noted that Microsoft wants to dominate their customers' entire software stack, while Slack is designed as a piece of the puzzle that organizations can use as part of their custom mix of productivity tools.

The European Commission will now review the antitrust complaint to decide on whether an investigation is in order. But while Slack is asking the EU to level the playing field, the complaint comes at a time when the two companies are fighting to dominate the future of workplace collaboration. To see that, look no further than Slack's recent partnerships with IBM and Amazon, its largest customers to date.
Here are some of todays biggest headlines from select sources.

EU leaders agree on landmark economic stimulus plan After almost five days of fraught discussions, European Union leaders have agreed on an unprecedented plan to fund Europes recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

Things could get very ugly: Experts fear post-election crisis as Trump sets the stage to dispute the results in November Voting experts and political strategists from across the political spectrum are increasingly alarmed about the potential for a disputed presidential election in November, one in which one candidate openly questions the legitimacy of the results or even refuses to concede.

Luxury homes in Australia are falling into the ocean In a coastal neighborhood in Australias New South Wales state, luxury beachfront homes are in danger of collapsing into the ocean.

UK suspends Hong Kong extradition treaty and extends China arms embargo to the city The UK will suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong immediately and indefinitely due to the controversial national security law implemented in the city by mainland China.

Why North Korea, yet to report a single Covid-19 case, is working on a vaccine North Korea says it is joining the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, a global contest that has already drafted in some of the worlds best medical minds and is shaping up to cost billions of dollars.

Body found in Minneapolis building burned during George Floyd protests Minneapolis police said officers found the body of a man in a building burned down during the protests over the death of George Floyd in May.

CBS reporter Nina Kapur, 26, dies after rental moped accident in New York Nina Kapur, a 26-year-old reporter in New York City, died after she fell from a moped that had been rented from Revel, a popular moped sharing service.

The AN-225: How the Cold War created the worlds largest airplane (CNN)  The first powered plane flight, performed by the Wright Brothers over the windswept beach of North Carolinas Kitty Hawk in 1903, covered 120 feet. That historic flight would fit entirely in the cargo hold of the Antonov AN-225 Mriya, the worlds biggest fully operational plane.

Scientists trace back strange behavior in South Atlantic magnetic field 11 million years Strange behavior in a South Atlantic magnetic field can be traced back as far as 11 million years ago, and its unlikely to be linked to any impending reversal of the Earths magnetic field, researchers have found.

Keanu Reeves is writing comic books  the first issue is out in October The Hollywood action man has teamed up with New York Times bestselling graphic novelist Matt Kindt to produce a 12-issue action series, BRZRKR.

Kim Kardashian orders Kanye West to drop his presidential campaign Kanye West went on a Twitter rant Monday night, posted a flurry of messages before deleting some later He wrote that wife Kim Kardashian had tried to fly to their ranch in Wyoming to lock him up with a doctor He also urged Kardashians mother, Kris Jenner, to call him,

Clinton says Trump commuted Stone to help Russian election meddling Hillary Clinton appeared on Joy Reids inaugural The ReidOut show on MSNBC Monday night The host asked her to respond to Donald Trump commuting Roger Stones three-year sentence this month for lying to operatives and witness tampering Its clear that Stone threatened him privately and publicly of what he would

Joe Biden says he is vetting FOUR black women as his VP pick Joe Biden shed a little more light on his vice presidential selection process during a Monday night interview on MSNBCs The ReidOut I am not committed to naming anyone but the people Ive named, among them there are four black women, the presumptive Democratic nominee revealed Host Joy Reid had

Bombshell lawsuit accuses ex-Fox News anchor Ed Henry of rape The federal suit was filed Monday in New York by Jennifer Eckhart, a former associate producer at Fox Business, and Cathy Areu Henry was fired by Fox News on July 1 after an unnamed employee accused him of sexual misconduct Eckhart claims Henry raped her in 2017 after trying to

Donald Trump FINALLY publicly tells people to wear a mask President Trump tweeted Monday in support of mask-wearing, which he suggested was patriotic Many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you cant socially distance, Trump wrote He added, There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!

Red rash-like splotches in the MOUTH may be new symptom of coronavirus Researchers examined 21 patients at a hospital in Madrid, Spain, who had skin rashes and a confirmed cases of coronavirus One-third of the patients had enanthem, which are rash-like lesions that usually form in the mouth All the patients with the rash-like splotches were between ages 40 and 69 and four of the six were female Mouth lesions and spots on the palate may be a new symptom of the novel coronavirus, a new study suggests.

The 20 best space movies you can launch right now Although Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson would like to tell you otherwise, the vast majority of humans will never go anywhere near space. But that doesnt mean we cant experience it vicariously.

Anti-mask Facebook group suspended for spreading coronavirus misinformation Facebook is, by and large, a wretched hive of misinformation and villainy. Fortunately, its just a tiny bit less scummy now, with the site having suspended one of its largest anti-mask groups. The Verge reports that Facebook group Unmasking America! has been removed for spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

TV news reporter dies after being ejected from Revel scooter A local news reporter died after being thrown off an electric moped scooter in New York City. The moped was a rental from the scooter-sharing service Revel. According to a police spokesperson who spoke to , CBS 2 New York television reporter Nina Kapur was riding as a passenger on the back of a Revel scooter in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Saturday.

This website lets you see how conspiracy theorists fall down the YouTube rabbit hole Ever wonder how your dear Aunt Karen got radicalized into believing the bizarre conspiracy theories she shares on social media? What about your apolitical college buddy who suddenly cant seem to stop complaining about social justice and cancel culture? Well, theres a good chance they fell down the YouTube rabbit hole .
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- After weeks of deliberation, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea agreed to send cops early Wednesday morning to clear out Occupy City Hall protesters who had been camping outside of City Hall for the last month.

De Blasio and Shea approved the raid late Tuesday night after the mayor said it had become clear that the occupation had become less of a protest and more of a homeless encampment.

What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protests, more and more it became an area where homeless folks were gathering, de Blasio told reporters during a press conference Wednesday hours after the raid.

I said repeatedly, we do always respect the right to protest, but we have to think about health and safety first, and the health and safety issues were growing, so it was time to take action, he said.

The Occupy City Hall protests began last month as City Council members mulled cuts to the NYPDs budget in the citys $88.1 billion budget on the heels of nationwide racial injustice protests.

Protesters vowed to not leave City Hall Park until the City Council included a $1 billion NYPD budgetary cut in the city budget.

But the protesters remained outside of City Hall Park until Wednesday even after the City Council and the mayor included the cuts.

Graffiti started to appear on municipal buildings in the Lower Manhattan area like the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building and courthouses as the encampment continued.

In 2011, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the NYPD to clear Occupy the Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park, de Blasio, then the citys public advocate, said Bloomberg had made a needlessly provocative and legally questionable decision to clear out protesters, Gothamist reported.

But de Blasio insisted his and Bloombergs decisions were apples and oranges, arguing the Occupy Wall Street encampment was a protest, unlike the Occupy City Hall encampment.

[The Occupy Wall Street encampment] consistently was a political situation and a protest situation, it was not this at all, so I just think theyre apples and oranges, de Blasio said when pressed about his 2011 remarks.

Shea told reporters Wednesday that as many as 50 people were at the encampment when cops arrived at the scene.

Shea said cops working with attorneys arrested one protester who threw a brick at an officer and summoned another six of them.

Cops found bricks, brooms, sticks, and drug paraphernalia in some of the tents, Shea said.

Shea said the NYPD was currently working with the Department of Sanitation to clean the area up.

FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER.
Managers of a Pennsylvania Walmart are being accused of racial profiling after they called police on a black man riding a bike through their store before purchasing it.

Viral video shared to Facebook on Tuesday shows two officers arresting Stanley Gaston Gracius, 37, in front of startled onlookers inside the Walmart in Wyomissing.

In the clip, Gracius is seen on the ground being handcuffed by cops as he yells out that he has paid for the bike he was riding and has a receipt to prove it.

'I did nothing wrong! I paid! I paid! I have a receipt!' Gracius wails before he is escorted out to a police cruiser in the parking lot.

Two cops wrestled Gracius to the ground and placed him in handcuffs in front of stunned staff and customers

Viral video shared to Facebook on Tuesday shows officers arresting Stanley Gaston Gracius , 37, at a Walmart in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania

A second video uploaded to Facebook shows the officers trying to put Gracius into their vehicle as he tells onlookers to record the incident and share it on social media.

'Today in Walmart I went to purchase a bike for my son. Everybody saw, and it's on camera. I paid with cash and a credit card, and I had a receipt. Why are these cops doing this to me? Please tell me what I did wrong!' Gracius states.

The officers continue to push Gracius into the cruiser as he resists and complains that he is being 'kidnapped'.

Gracius was pushed into the back of the police cruiser after refusing to cooperate with the police

One of the policemen is seen returning with a leather belt which was reportedly used to tie Gracius' legs together to restrain him.

The cruiser eventually leaves the parking lot, and Gracius is driven to the local sheriff's office.

According to the Facebook user who posted the two videos, Gracius was riding the bike around the store playing music from his speaker before the cops were called.

'He was literally spreading love asking how others were. He rode his bike to the cash register and paid. After, the cop said he was free to go since he'd paid. Once the man [Gracius] told the officer to have a nice day, he [the cop] grabbed his wrist,' the Facebook user claimed.

However, the Berks County District Attorney has disputed that version of events, saying cops were called to the Walmart because Gracius was 'yelling profanities at other shoppers' and refused to leave the premises.

In a Facebook status, the DA wrote: 'Gracius was asked to leave the store by the store manager but refused to do so. When the Wyomissing Police arrived at the store, the manager reported that the male was in the store and was paying for a bicycle.

'She informed the Wyomissing Police that this individual was riding the bicycle through the store, weaving back and forth in the aisles, hitting some shopping carts and almost hitting other shoppers. Again, she told the male to leave but he refused saying "You're not going to tell me what to do."'

And while the viral video showing Gracius' arrest has sparked outrage, the Berks County District Attorney has defended the officers' conduct.

'At all times during the encounter, the Wyomissing Police showed restraint, acted professionally, and did a good job deescalating the situation with the defendant,' the DA's Facebook statement read.

The incident occurred at the Wyomissing Walmart (pictured) on Tuesday

Gracius has now been charged with Aggravated Assault, Simple Assault, Disarming Law Enforcement Officer, Resisting Arrest, Defiant Trespass and Disorderly Conduct.

According to Heavy, Gracius was booked into the Berks County Prison and held on $2,500 bail.

If he is unable to make bail, he will be transported to Berks County Jail. A hearing is scheduled for August 6.

According to the Berks County District Attorney, Gracius plead guilty in 2014 to charges of resisting arrest, disarming a law enforcement officer and defiant trespassing.




A high-profile North Korean defector recently elected to South Korean parliament said Tuesday Pyongyang has received more than $920 million in economic loans from Seoul, citing official government data.







Thae Yong-ho, the former North Korean diplomat who fled Pyongyang's Embassy in London in 2016, said Seoul began to provide loans to the North after 2000, when then-President Kim Dae-jung met with then-North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.







Thae said the South must demand the loans be repaid. The only instance of North Korean repayment occurred in 2008, when the regime repaid debts with $2.3 million in iron commodities, Thae said, Yonhap reported Tuesday.







The lawmaker said in his analysis South Korean unification ministry data indicates Seoul has spent more than $920 million on loans to North Korea.







From 2000 to 2007, Seoul loaned $724 million for North Korea food shipments. From 2002 to 2008, Seoul used about $134 million of taxpayers' money on loans for railroads in the North, where infrastructure has been described as rundown in poverty-stricken areas.







"North Korea has no intention of repaying the South," the lawmaker said. "The South must stop pouring funds into the North and demand debt repayments."







Thae, a conservative with the main opposition United Future Party, has been critical of President Moon Jae-in's engagement with Kim Jong Un.The lawmaker has also disagreed with the administration on real estate policy. Seoul has raised capital gains and other taxes on residential real estate as prices continue to climb in Seoul, the densely populated capital. (UPI)


New Delhi: Markets opened on a negative note during the morning session of the trade however it pared opening losses and turned marginally higher.

The BSE Sensex was trading higher by 17.72 points or 0.05 percent to 37,948.05 while the NSE Nifty was trading at 11,168.15, up 5.90 points or 0.05 percent.

HUL, Infosys, HDFC Bank, SBI, Kotak Bank, LT, Maruti, Bajaj Auto, TS, HDFC, Asian Paint, and Tech Mahindra were the top laggard in the Sensex pack, falling upto 1.67 percent. On the other hand, major gainers in the Sensex pack were Axis Bank, NTPC, Powergrid, Titan, ITC, Bajaj FInserve, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, RIL, Sun Pharma, M&M and ONGC, rising upto 5.24 percent.

In the previous session on Tuesday, markets closed at 4-month high. The BSE Sensex closed 511.34 points or 1.37 percent higher at 37,930.33. Similarly, the NSE Nifty rose 140.05 points, or 1.27 per cent, to end at 11,162.25.

Among Asian peers, MSCI`s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2% to sit just below a five-month top made on Tuesday. Japan`s Nikkei dipped 0.2%, a Reuters report said. On Wall Street overnight the benchmark S&P 500 index poked in to positive territory for the year so far, but struggled for headway and closed 0.16% higher.

Oil prices remain rangebound, but hung on to most of their overnight gains. Brent futures slipped 0.5% to $44.12 per barrel and U.S. crude fell 0.5% to $41.70 a barrel, Reuters said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:39:40|Editor: huaxia

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RAMALLAH, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China has become a model in the global fight against COVID-19, a senior Palestinian official said Wednesday, adding that Palestine appreciates the support provided by China in confronting the pandemic.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Nabil Shaath, adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for international relations, said that Palestine implemented China's instructions on curbing the virus.

Noting that Palestine is now facing a resurgence in the spread of the coronavirus, Shaath said that China still provides logistical and spiritual support for Palestinians.

The Palestinian people will never forget China's humanitarian assistance, Shaath stressed, adding that there are common interests that can link China and Palestine economically.

In mid-April, China handed over a batch of medical supplies to Palestine, while a shipment of medical aid was also donated by Chinese company Alibaba.

Since April 14, Chinese doctors and medical experts have held three video conferences with their Palestinian counterparts to share China's experience on containing the outbreak.

"China has (played) a great role in curbing the virus, as it has provided medical aid as well as dispatched medical experts to teach the Palestinian staff how to deal with the unprecedented situation," Shaath said.

A Chinese medical team arrived in Palestine on June 10 for a week-long mission. The 10-member team, sent by China's National Health Commission, consisted of experts specializing in various medical fields, including infectious diseases, virus examination and health management.

The week-long visit aimed to enhance bilateral relations in the health sector, as well as facilitate the exchange of expertise in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. Enditem
(Natural News) You know those rippled blue face masks that are being sold or handed out pretty much everywhere these days? Most of them are made in China, more than likely by Uyghur concentration camp slaves who are reportedly being forced to manufacture all sorts of personal protective equipment (PPE) for mass distribution.

An in-depth investigative story published by The New York Times found that the forced labor of Uyghur Muslims and other political and religious prisoners living in concentration camps throughout Chinas Xinjiang province represents the production chains for at least 17 different Chinese companies that sell face masks to foreign markets.

Prior to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) plandemic, only four companies were producing so-called medical grade equipment in Xinjiang. Now, there are at least 51 of them, 17 of which reportedly participate in a program that provides them with cheap forced labor from captured Uyghurs.

As we have been reporting, Uyghur Muslims are horribly mistreated in China, where they are treated like subhuman animals. The human rights violations are off the charts, as many Uyghurs are beaten or killed for refusing to conform to the communist blueprint for Chinese society.

These Uyghurs continue to suffer horrific abuses at the hands of their communist overlords, which routinely test experimental drugs on them and murder their children. And now they are being forced to manufacture those blue face coverings that so many people are wearing these days, thinking that they are saving lives by doing so.

We traced a shipment of face masks to a medical supply company in the U.S. state of Georgia from a factory in Chinas Hubei Province, where more than 100 Uighur (an alternate spelling of Uyghur) workers had been sent, the Times reports.

The workers are required to learn Mandarin and pledge their loyalty to China at weekly flag-raising ceremonies.

If you buy Chinese-made products, you are probably supporting forced slave labor in Chinese concentration camps

Chinese officials of course deny these claims, insisting that Uyghur captives are voluntarily learning useful skills, and agreeing to work for Chinese companies for little-to-no pay. But the Times says that the quotas on the number of workers put in the labor program and the penalties faced by those who refuse to cooperate prove that the program is coercive.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) insists that these slave labor camps are actually vocational training schools where those who attend are able to learn new skills and improve their job prospects. But the reality is that they are actually reeducation camps coupled with slave labor programs.

And sadly it is not just face mask companies that are benefitting from the exploitation of Uyghur slaves. A study published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) back in March found that at least 83 different companies, both Chinese and foreign, are currently benefitting in some way from Chinas Uyghur slave labor programs.

Further evidence that China is lying about the nature of these vocational training schools was uncovered in intercepted internal CCP communications, in which Uyghurs were described as lazy, lax, slow, sloppy, freewheeling and individualistic, the individualistic part being totally incongruent with communist Chinas just another cog in the wheel mentality with regards to human dignity.

The CCP has also been caught admitting that Uyghurs and other individualistically minded people need to be forced to renounce their selfish ideas, which sounds eerily similar to the current rhetoric among many mask-wearers here in the U.S. who insist that not wearing a mask is selfish, as is trying to stand up for ones constitutional rights.

To keep up with the latest about communist Chinas horrific human rights abuses, be sure to check out Tyranny.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com
NEW YORK, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market Research Report by Technology (Deep Learning, Machine Learning Platforms, Machine Vision, Robotic Processes Automation, and Text Analytics & NLP), by End User (Automobile, Energy and Power, Food and Beverages, Heavy Metals and Machine Manufacturing, and Pharmaceuticals) - Global Forecast to 2025 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19





Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913262/?utm_source=PRN





The Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market is expected to grow from USD 1,346.66 Million in 2019 to USD 13,347.42 Million by the end of 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 46.56%.



Market Segmentation & Coverage:

This research report categorizes the Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-markets:



On the basis of Technology, the Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market is studied across Deep Learning, Machine Learning Platforms, Machine Vision, Robotic Processes Automation, and Text Analytics & NLP.



On the basis of End User, the Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market is studied across Automobile, Energy and Power, Food and Beverages, Heavy Metals and Machine Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, and Semiconductor and Electronics.



On the basis of Geography, the Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market is studied across Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, Middle East & Africa. The Americas region is studied across Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and United States. The Asia-Pacific region is studied across Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. The Europe, Middle East & Africa region is studied across France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom.



Company Usability Profiles:

The report deeply explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market including Cisco Systems, Inc., DataRPM Corporation, General Electric Company, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Rockwell Automation Inc., and Siemens AG.



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market on the basis of Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies. The Competitive Strategic Window helps the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. During a forecast period, it defines the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth.



Cumulative Impact of COVID-19:

COVID-19 is an incomparable global public health emergency that has affected almost every industry, so for and, the long-term effects projected to impact the industry growth during the forecast period. Our ongoing research amplifies our research framework to ensure the inclusion of underlaying COVID-19 issues and potential paths forward. The report is delivering insights on COVID-19 considering the changes in consumer behavior and demand, purchasing patterns, re-routing of the supply chain, dynamics of current market forces, and the significant interventions of governments. The updated study provides insights, analysis, estimations, and forecast, considering the COVID-19 impact on the market.



The report provides insights on the following pointers:

1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on sulfuric acid offered by the key players

2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyzes the markets

3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments

4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players

5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and new product developments



The report answers questions such as:

1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market?

2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market during the forecast period?

3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market?

4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market?

5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market?

6. What are the modes and strategic moves considered suitable for entering the Global Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing Market?



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05913262/?utm_source=PRN



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BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:

Azerbaijans Sumgait Technologies Park (STP) is negotiating with foreign companies on the export of its disinfection tunnels, PR manager of the STP Rashad Aliyev, told Trend.

The first commissioning of these disinfection tunnels took place at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport in May 2020.

Production of disinfection tunnels at STP began in May 2020. Since the introduction of a new product on the market, our company regularly receives orders for tunnels, the production of which is currently continuing with the provision of timely delivery to buyers, Aliyev said.

The PR manager noted that STPs buyers are various government agencies, private companies and airports.

Due to the uncertain situation caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of international trade in Azerbaijan has significantly decreased. Therefore, it is difficult to make any predictions about the increase in STPs production this year, he added.

STP, commissioned in December 2009, is a complex of big plants specializing in various fields of production.

It has 50 hectares of closed production area per 250 hectares of the companys total area. It consists of 12 factories and over 30 production sites, which employ more than 2,000 workers.

STP products distinguished by high quality are supplied to the markets of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Turkey, and are sold under the 'Made in Azerbaijan' brand.

---

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Hard disk drive manufacturers are leveraging the growing demand for computer systems during the lockdown period of the coronavirus pandemic, as work-from home goes mainstream

DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / July 22, 2020 / With the massive economic and industrial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the hard disk drives market has witnessed increased demand, as remote working operations have become mainstream on a global scale. However, lockdown measures have hurt sourcing of essential components, which is likely to reverse growth trends in the short term throughout the duration of the pandemic.

"With the growing competition arising from SSD alternatives, hard disk drive manufacturers can leverage sales with a focus on developing economies including those in Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, aiming towards long term storage applications, which will help sustain growth for years to come" says the FMI analyst.

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Hard Disk Drives - Primary Takeaways

USB 3.0 drive interfaces are highly sought after, largely owing to demand from developing markets that are transitioning from USB 2.0 systems.

Network attached storage applications of hard disk drives contribute substantially to revenue, owing to widespread enterprise-scale demand.

North America is projected to be surpassed by Western Europe, aided by the presence of major computer manufacturers in the region.

Hard Disk Drives - Growth Factors

Increased focus on sustainability and availability of options such as helium hard disk drives will contribute to market growth.

Transition to USB 3.1 Gen 2 hard disk drives will generate lucrative opportunities in the market.

Superior security functionalities of hard disk drives will bolster adoption rates.

Hard Disk Drives- Major Constraints

Sustained demand for major increases in data storage abilities is a key obstacle to market growth.

Faster performance and lower prices of solid-state drive alternatives will hinder growth of the hard disk drive market.

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The Projected Impact of Coronavirus

The coronavirus outbreak has had a negative impact on hard disk drive supply chains, despite efforts from the industry to keep up with the rising demand. While demand has gone up owing to home working practices, supply issues have become a problem, especially after the shut down of Chinese production facilities. The market is likely to display gradual recovery towards the end of 2020, as the gap between demand and supply shrinks, with a steady drop in new orders.

Competition Landscape

The hard disk drives market comprises players including but not limited to Buffalo Americas Inc., Western Digital Corp., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development, Seagate Technology LLC, ADATA Technology, Toshiba, and Transcend Information Inc. Market players are pushing for product launches and cost reductions to keep up with SSD alternatives. For instance, Western Digital announced HDD products with energy-assisted magnetic recording technology.

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More About the Study

The FMI study provides detailed insights on hard disk drives. The market is broken down in terms of drive (desktop HDDs, portable HDDs, and network-attached storage HDDs), storage capacity (less than 250 GB, 250GB to 1TB, and above 1 TB), drive interface (USB 3.0, USB 2.0, ethernet, USB 3.1 Gen1, USB 3.1 Gen 2, and others) and power source (AC adapter, USB port, e-SATA Bus, and plug-in) across seven key regions (North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and MEA).

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Frustrated protesters blocked off the entry to a Bunnings store following its decision to cease use of local native timber.

About 20 protesters cordoned off Bunnings in Traralgon, Gippsland in Victoria on Wednesday with four massive logging trucks.

Bunnings stopped using local timber after the Federal Court found VicForests breached environmental law by illegally logging.

About 20 protesters cordoned off Bunnings in Traralgon, Gippsland in Victoria on Wednesday with four massive logging trucks following the hardware giant's decision

Trucks piled with timber blocked off the entry to the Bunnings store in Traralgon, Gippsland

'Bunnings has a zero-tolerance approach to illegally logged timber that dates back two decades and our commitment is to only source timber products from legal and well managed forest operations,' Bunnings Merchandise Director Phil Bishop said.

'We have long supported VicForests' efforts to pursue FSC Controlled Wood certification by 2020 and its roadmap to get there.

'However, in light of the recent legal finding that VicForests has breached the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014, we will be discontinuing all sourcing of timber from VicForests and will no longer be accepting raw material input into our supply chain from VicForests as of 30 June.'

Felicia Stevenson attended the protest as it affects her husband and two sons who work in the timber industry.

She said it was worrying not knowing where the next pay check was coming from given the current situation.

'It's not knowing from day to day whether there's going to be an income coming in. Who's going to be paying my bills? Who's going to be paying my mortgage?' she told ABC.

The decision comes after the Federal Court found VicForests of illegally harvesting timber

Despite the decision, Bunnings will continue to sell a 'small portion' of VicForests' timber and will work on a transition plan

The Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) slammed move, which Bunnings had been threatening for two years.

'Workers and communities that depend on the timber industry are sick and tired of being victimised by large multinationals who think it's okay to import forest products from unsustainable forests overseas,' CFMMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor said.

'They import timber products from forests from other countries where the harvesting practices are a disgrace.'

Despite the decision, Bunnings will continue to sell a 'small portion' of VicForests' timber and will work on a transition plan.

'Ultimately, we believe that customers and team members have the right to expect that the timber they purchase is sourced from responsible and lawful forestry operations,' Mr Bishop said.
Drivers enter the Warner Center COVID-19 testing location on Monday, July 20, 2020 in Woodland Hills. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

COVID-19 has altered the course of our nations history in so many ways. Even as we fight to bring the virus under control and save lives, we are also aware that our country will be feeling the effects of the pandemic for years and possibly decades to come. It isnt enough to beat the virus, we have a responsibility to learn from our mistakes so we can be better prepared in the future.

This pandemic has devastated communities across America. As this piece gets posted, nearly 4 million Americans have been confirmed as infected, and more than 140,000 have died. Our home state of California is particularly hard hit, with most of the state seeing a renewed surge of cases and hospitalizations.

The economic devastation, too, is of historic proportions. Tens of millions are unemployed or under-employed. The unemployment rate skyrocketed from 3.5% earlier this year to 11% today, and many of those who were laid off wont get their old jobs back.

And unfortunately, we are still in what the scientists say is the first wave of this devastating virus. In other words, it will likely continue to get worse before it gets better. Many regions of the U.S. reopened too soon or with insufficient safeguards  such as universal masking and adequate distancing leading to the exact increase in infections and deaths that health experts warned us about.

We all have to take steps now to contain this virus to save lives and let people get back to school and work safely, but its not too early to start planning for the next virus, and that starts with examining how we got here. Thats why we introduced legislation in the Senate and the House to ensure a comprehensive review of the action, and inaction, that led us to this crisis point.

After the shock of the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans demanded action, but they also demanded answers. Answers about how the attacks took place, what we missed, and what we needed to do better to secure our nation from terrorist threats.

Story continues

In the wake of that tragedy, Americans, and especially the families of those who we lost, supported a truly comprehensive review of the attacks. Congress passed legislation in 2002 to create the bipartisan 9/11 Commission that was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

The commissions work was independent, impartial and thorough. The country suffered from many of same partisan divides we have today, but the commission didnt seek to assign blame to score political points. It simply got to work to ensure we could prevent future tragic events.

The 9/11 Commissions hearings were deemed invaluable in explaining to the American people how those attacks came about, and its recommendations were widely respected and largely implemented. For example, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center  two essential components of the U.S. intelligence community  were created as a direct result of the commissions findings and recommendations.

We are presented with a similar opportunity today, a chance to look back, so that we can move forward together.

To that end, our legislation would create a bipartisan commission that would begin work in 2021. It would rigorously examine U.S. government preparedness in advance of this pandemic, as well as the federal governments response, complementing other oversight efforts in Congress. The commission would provide recommendations to improve our ability to respond to and recover from future pandemics.

And importantly, the commission would hold open hearings, as the 9/11 Commission did, to obtain information to provide a full accounting to the president, Congress and the American people of the facts and circumstances related to the outbreak in the United States. We need a firmer grasp on the best information, not as a political exercise to cast blame, but to learn from our mistakes so we can prevent the problems we now face from being tragically repeated. It is our hope that Congress and the White House, this one or a future one, would share a similar desire to enact legislation to establish a COVID-19 commission in support of our nations health and welfare.

The nations response to the pandemic presents us with an opportunity to learn what has worked, and what hasnt. An honest analysis is the only way to adequately prepare for the next novel virus or another disaster. An effective response can save lives, but designing it requires a transparent reckoning with all the facts.

Democrat Dianne Feinstein is the senior senator from California. Democrat Adam Schiff represents Californias 28th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.




Amber Heard said Johnny Depp tried to suffocate her with a pillow during a fight when they were married, a friend of the actress has claimed.

Melanie Inglessis, a make-up artist and friend of Ms Heard, told the High Court on Wednesday that the actress said Mr Depp had attempted to suffocate her during an incident in December 2015, the day before she was due to appear on James Cordens Late Late Show.

Ms Inglessis said Ms Heard told her that she felt he tried to kill her that night and she said he dragged her by her hair.

She also told the court that she had many conversations with Ms Heard about her relationship with Mr Depp and the 2016 restraining order against her then-husband did not come out of the blue.

Ms Inglessis was giving evidence as part of Mr Depps libel action against The Sun newspaper over a 2018 article which described him as a wife beater.

Earlier in the day, Ms Heard told the court that Mr Depp had thrown bottles like grenades in an explosive argument in Australia during a trip which she had previously described as a three-day hostage situation.

Mr Depp has denied 14 allegations of violence against Ms Heard and claimed he was the victim of violence in the relationship.

During Wednesdays proceedings, the court also heard evidence from Joshua Drew, another friend of Ms Heard, who claimed Mr Depp demanded that his then-wife stop doing nudity in films and cut down on intimate scenes in her work.

Mr Drew alleged he had heard Mr Depp had a particular issue with fellow actor James Franco and mention of his name would cause fights between the couple.

He added that interactions with Ms Heards friend Raquel Rocky Pennington, Mr Drews then-wife, had given him the impression that Mr Depp was jealous.

Rocky told me, based on her conversations with Amber, that Johnny had a particular issue with James Franco because he and Amber had some intimate scenes in a project they were filming, which Johnny did not want her doing, Mr Drew said.

His name came up often and it would cause fights between them. They were arguing about it very regularly.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by PA
New Jersey is planning to start resuming jury trials as early as September, using mostly virtual jury selection and even multiple courtrooms and plexiglass barriers to maintain social distancing during the trial.

The process is to begin later this month with the mailing of juror summonses and will continue with piloted jury selection and trials in Bergen and Atlantic/Cape May vicinages, the New Jersey judiciary announced at a press conference Wednesday.

We do not have the option of shutting down. The critical work of the court needs to continue, said Judge Glenn A. Grant, acting administrative director of the courts. He said approximately 4,700 pre-trial defendants are sitting in the states county jails, though nearly half of them are not near the trial phase. There are also civil cases that just need to be tried, he said.

The announcement comes a day after the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (ACDL) of New Jersey held a virtual town hall to call for legislative hearings on the plans, as well as the states virtual grand jury hearings being piloted in Bergen and Mercer counties. The association is among those in the legal community raising concerns over possible constitutional and logistical issues with the work arounds the court is proposing.

Today, this organization and others forced the @njcourts to come clean and air to the public their secret jury trial resumption program. The need for legislative oversight is now, more than ever, apparent. This unconstitutional experiment with WiFi justice must end.  ACDL-NJ (@ACDLNJ) July 22, 2020

Like courts around the nation, New Jerseys state courts have been facing an ever-growing backlog of cases that have been unable to resolve since the courts closed in March due to the coronavirus.

While the court has held tens of thousands of other hearings virtually since then, including detention hearings, pleas and sentencings, trials present a unique challenge for several reasons, including the defendants right to face and question his or her accusers.

The courts plan calls for the initial stages of jury selection to be done virtually, while the judge, attorneys and defendants participate from the courtroom. The final round of jury questioning and empaneling will take place in person with only a limited number brought before the judge at a time.

For trials in courthouses with large courtrooms, all parties including jurors will be in the room but maintain six feet of distance, said Jessica Lewis-Kelly, of the Administrative Office of the Courts. In courthouses with small courtrooms, jurors may need to be in another courtroom watching the proceedings on a video feed, she said.

In some courthouses, that will mean only one trial can go on at a time, Lewis-Kelly said.

The first courthouses to restart criminal trials will be Bergen and Atlantic/Cape May vicinages, followed by the Cumberland-Salem-Gloucester vicinage. Grant said defendants will not be able to opt out of such a trial.

Lewis-Kelly said it isnt clear when trials of more complex civil matters will restart.

Asked by reporters during the press conference, Grant dismissed criticism from members of the legal community, including that social distancing requirements will impede communication between defendants and their attorneys during trial, even with stopgap solutions like ear buds.

We have to start jury trials. We are willing to work with the bar, work with the judges to design strategies to meet all their concerns, Grant said.

Matthew Adams, chairman of the ACDLs Pandemic Task Force, said the fact that the court has not worked out that problem  implicating a defendants constitutional right to effective legal counsel  is just one example of why the plan is fundamentally flawed.

The ACDL is calling for the assembly and senate judiciary committees to hold public hearings on the plans before they go into effect. The group also implored the court to slow down its plans so the parties could work out such issues, Adams said.

Instead of doing that, theyre running ahead, he said.

Kimberly Yonta, president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, said the associations pandemic task force did submit recommendations to the judiciary about virtual jury selection, including some that apparently were adopted. The association had not reviewed the judiciarys plan as of Tuesday afternoon and did not have an official comment.

I can say as a criminal defense lawyer, there are some concerns for me, she said. It would seem to me there are significant constitutional concerns with having them watching in another room. Youre talking about determining the veracity of witness testimony without being able to be in the same room with the parties while the evidence is being presented.

Jennifer Sellitti of the state Office of the Public Defender said that its likely public defenders represent most of those who are jailed and awaiting trial, so she appreciates the need to resume in-person trials. But she does have concerns about juries being in separate rooms, being able to communicate with clients, the thoroughness of jury questions online and the ability for the court to be flexible given the mandates.

Im hoping that because it was kind of rolled out quickly  input from stakeholders was taken, but this is very clearly the [Administrative Office of the Courts] plan  I hope that they are going to empower judges to make decisions on a case-by-case basis by working with the parties in the room, she said.

One obvious issue with virtual jury selection is the likelihood that potential jurors will not have the physical technology or internet access needed. To try to alleviate that, the courts will provide whatever is necessary for every potential juror to be part of the virtual juror orientation and questioning by the judge over Zoom, Grant said.

When summoned, potential jurors will fill out a questionnaire and jury management staff will contact them for prescreening and to determine if they need technology.

It wont be cheap or easy. The court has purchased 2,000 Samsung tablets for $600,000, some of which have already been used in virtual grand juries, plus additional computers that will be distributed to courthouses for use by prospective jurors. The judiciary said it may cost anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 for network costs for homes that dont have internet access.

That doesnt include the $750,000 the courts spent on its Zoom accounts for the year for all court proceedings.

Even with those plans, Adams said he believes the jury selection process will still unlawfully exclude those jurors who have limited technology. Its the same issue both the ACDL and the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey have raised in objecting to virtual grand juries.

Adams said it will have a disparate impact on people of lower socioeconomic means and people of color. And in a time in our country when we are supposed to be moving forward and progressing in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd we are, as a criminal justice system in New Jersey, taking giant leaps backward, he said.

Members of the media or the public who would like to watch a trial will have to contact the court to get information on how to watch it via Zoom, Grant said.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:41:23|Editor: huaxia

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SINGAPORE, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have concluded a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) on aviation health safety measures in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a press release issued Wednesday.

Under the MoC, both parties commit to work together to validate and harmonize aviation health safety measures for air travel, with the common objectives of protecting the health and safety of passengers, air crew and airport staff, and strengthening traveler confidence to facilitate the recovery of air travel between Singapore and Europe.

The MoC also provides for CAAS and EASA to support the participation of Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport Group in the EASA Aviation Industry Charter (AIC).

Launched to promote the implementation of operational guidelines developed by EASA and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), AIC is aimed to assist aircraft and airport operators in protecting the health and safety of passengers, crew and staff whilst maintaining safe and secure operations.

As participants of the AIC, Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport Group commit to implement these operational guidelines for air services between Singapore and European cities.

Kevin Shum, director-general of CAAS, said that amidst serious challenges posed by COVID-19, the collaboration with EASA is "timely and crucial" in supporting the ongoing efforts by the aviation industry to protect public health, ensure safety of travelers and aviation workers, and boost confidence in air travel.

Patrick Ky, executive director of EASA, said that this cooperation with CAAS on aviation health safety measures, bolstered by the signing of the AIC by Singapore Airlines and Changi Airport, is a significant step forward in increasing passenger confidence for travel between Europe and Singapore. Enditem
Kanye West says COVID-19 vaccine is 'mark of the beast;' Hank Hanegraaff responds

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Hank Hanegraaff, also known as the "Bible Answer Man," weighed in on whether or not a COVID-19 vaccine could be the mark of the beast as referenced in Revelation 13:18 in response to comments made by Kanye West.

In a July 15 episode of his Bible Answer Man broadcast, Hanegraaff shared his thoughts on the issue after West told Forbes Magazine he was extremely cautious about the idea of a coronavirus vaccination.

Its so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralyzed. ... So when they say the way were going to fix COVID is with a vaccine, Im extremely cautious, West said. Thats the mark of the beast. They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we cant cross the gates of Heaven. I'm sorry when I say they, the humans that have the devil inside them. And the sad thing is that, the saddest thing is that we all wont make it to Heaven, that therell be some of us that do not make it.

In his podcast, Hanegraaff warned that Wests interpretation of Scripture is as misleading as it is dangerous and completely indefensible.

I say this because biblically, the mark of the beast is symbolic is quite obviously a parody of the mark of the lamb, he stressed. Biblical interpretation matters. If we interpret the Bible incorrectly, well think the Bible is a bunch of nonsense.

The mark in Revelation 13 symbolizes identity with the beast. And as such, identifying with Satan's kingdom is what will keep you out of Heaven, not getting vaccinated, said Hanegraaff. As Kanye West must surely know, the forehead and the hands of people are Old Testament symbols of their beliefs and behavior.

Hanegraaff pointed out that in Exodus 13, eating unleavened bread is likened to a sign on the hand and a reminder on the forehead of the children of Israel. And thus, the mark of the beast in Revelation is securely tethered to the Scripture.

Kanye Wests interpretation of the mark of the beast as a vaccination or silicon or microchip is tenuously tethered to thin air, he added. The multitudes who follow West should know taking on the mark of the beast is the intentional denial in thought, in word, in deed of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Rather than fearfully avoiding vaccinations, Christians should with fear and trembling resist the temptation to be conformed to the evil systems of this world, systems that play fast and loose with biblical monikers and traffic in the selling of sensationalism.

Fall in love with the Word of God all over again, rather than falling in love with the words of social icons, he advised. How about loudly accepting the mark of the lamb? How about offering up your body as a living sacrifice by being transformed by the renewing of your mind?

Such interpretations of Scripture are toxic to a watching and skeptical world, Hanegraaff warned. It is so important that we stop falling for selling in sensationalism and  we learn to read the Bible for all its substantial worth  because Christianity is the only hope for western civilization.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that about 7 in 10 Americans say they would get a vaccine to protect against the virus if immunizations were free and available to everyone.

West is not the only person to suggest a COVID-19 vaccine could be used to prepare for the distribution of the mark of the beast. Earlier this year, Pastor Curt Landry warned his viewers that any coronavirus vaccine is from the pit of Hell.

Do not pray, do not hope, do not think, Oh, praise God they are going to have a vaccine, Landry said in April. That vaccine is from the pit of Hell, OK? Do not pray for those vaccines, and do not take the vaccine. These vaccines are coming, they are not going to be good. Theyre not good for you physically, and spiritually, theyre a set-up for what shall come later.

Similarly, Pastor Ronnie Hampton, who later died from COVID-19, warned his congregation against the vaccine via social media.

Theyre gonna come up with a vaccine and in that vaccine everybody is gonna have to take it  and inside of that vaccine theres going to be some type of electronic computer device thats gonna put some type of chip in you and maybe even have some mood, mind-altering circumstances  and theyre saying that the chip would be the mark of the beast.

However, such theories have been debunked by pastors and Christian leaders. Christian scholar Matthew Halstead used biblical analysis to explain that in Revelation, the mark of the beast is by no means a medical procedure or even a physical or visible mark at all.

Contrary to some of the more fear-inducing theories that have in the past gained steam in some evangelical circles, the mark is not at all something that could be accidentally taken either, he wrote. Why? Because the mark of the beast (Rev. 13:16-18) is a mark that is closely tied to the worship of the beast (13:12, 15; cf. 19:20; 20:4). Thus, the mark of the beast is a mark of loyalty and devotion to the beast.

So you dont need to fear getting the beasts mark by taking a vaccine  unless, of course, you plan to treat the vaccine as a sort of symbolic expression or 'unholy sacrament' (sorry for the oxymoron!) of your wilful and public rejection of the Christian faith that you despise. If thats you and if thats your plan, then its not the vaccine thats the problem.
VICTORIASustainable funding is on the way for search and rescue groups in British Columbia that are seeing an uptick in calls in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says the province has committed $6 million to 79 search and rescue groups every year beginning in 2022.

He says the funding is in addition to the $10 million B.C. provides each year for search-related operational costs.

The province says search and rescue groups on the ground have responded to more than 700 calls across B.C. since January 2020.

Chris Kelly, president of the B.C. Search and Rescue Association, says call volume is slightly higher than the usual at this time of year and August is expected to be busy as lockdown-weary residents venture into the backcountry.

Farnworth is asking people to be prepared and stay safe when heading outdoors because while search and rescue teams volunteer their time freely, they are not immune to COVID-19.

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Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans  The list of winners in the piano category of Downbeat magazines annual Critics Poll is like a roll call of jazz titans. And the latest name to be added, just this month, is Vancouver native and University of Toronto alumna Kris Davis.

I never, ever thought that would happen, says Davis. Shes on the phone from her home just up the Hudson River from New York City, where she moved in 2001 as a freshly minted graduate, with no profile, a few contacts, and a desire to make adventurous, non-commercial music in the epicentre of jazz. Now, after 19 years of playing, studying, writing, teaching, organizing bands and steering her course resolutely beyond the mainstream, she is unexpectedly becoming one of her genres most celebrated names.

There are 150 or so professional gatekeepers who vote in the Downbeat poll; it often indicates just how long it takes for the jazz establishment to welcome change. This years overall winner for Jazz Artist of the Year category, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, is the first-ever female instrumentalist to top the poll in all of its 68 years.

Two years ago, Davis was named the Rising Star in the piano category; by that time, she had already released eight albums under her own name and five as part of different groups. Even now, she shares the spotlight, in a tie with septuagenarian piano legend Kenny Barron, who first topped the piano poll back in 1993. Thats quite a juxtaposition of two very different pianists, she says, and I love it. Thats what Im all about: being able to occupy all these different spaces.

What makes DavisS career so compelling is her drive to explore new sounds and expand her creative vision. After joining her high school jazz band in Calgary, she moved to Toronto at age 17, to learn more about the genres tradition.

Brian Dickinson, one of her teachers at U of T, recalls, She was working on more conventional things back then. Schools can sometimes pigeonhole people and teach in a generic manner, and I know she did not that like that very much. She was nice about it, and I always tried to be more open-minded. All the big innovators we encourage (students) to study were trying to do something different, to express themselves and thats one thing I can see in her career path. You can tell its her when shes playing.

She put herself through school performing jazz standards at the Courtyard by Marriott on Yonge Street. Davis remembers her residency there with fondness. I could play the tunes I was working on at school and I could really stretch! Sometimes Id get sick of playing a tune and would just play a vamp for 20 minutes.

Other gigs with her peers, especially at the Rex Hotel, let her play even more freely, leaving chord changes behind  a form of improvisation she continues to pursue. She also started a funk band called The Source, playing classics by Stevie Wonder. She would draw both these strands of her art together much later, on her relentlessly inventive 2019 album Diatom Ribbons. With Carrington on drums and Haitian artist Val Jeanty on turntables, as well as guest spots by Esperanza Spalding and guitarists Nels Cline (Wilco) and Marc Ribot (Tom Waits), Davis melds her more outside playing with both snaky breakbeat grooves and searing, shredding rock.

Both the New York Times and National Public Radio declared Diatom Ribbons their No. 1 jazz album of 2019; it also received raves from outside the jazz press, including Popmatters and Pitchfork. Davis released it on her own label, Pyroclastic, named after the explosion of gas and rock from a volcano  and descriptive of her playing at its most intense. She launched it in 2016, as a non-profit, in order to keep her master recordings and help others do the same  giving back to a group of musicians that has constantly supported her.

New York may be the best place from which to launch a jazz career, but it isnt the easiest. As Dickinson puts it, You see people just get worn down by the rat race and, with the sheer number of people too, it can be hard to stick out.

Davis recalls that for a time in her late 20s and early 30s, I was seeing some of my peers go on to have good opportunities and I wasnt. I was questioning, Should I be here? Whats really going on? I made a lot of life changes.

Among them were starting a degree in composition at City College New York and trying to follow the breadcrumbs of encouragement she was receiving, from the press and from her peers. By avoiding the well-trodden route to New York jazz success involving competitive late-night cutting session jams in small bars, she had met a supportive community of artists more devoted to free playing. And although its even harder to make it in jazz if your music is avant-garde, Davis notes, so many women musicians who stayed on the traditional straight-ahead jazz path experienced a lot more misogyny than I ever did.

As Daviss career has taken flight, so too have those of collaborators such as German saxist Ingrid Laubrock (with whom Davis has just released the sprightly duo album Blood Moon) and guitarist Mary Halvorson. Carrington, meanwhile, last year hired Davis to be associate program director of creative development at Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, which the drummer herself directs.

Its not just focused on women, says Davis. Its about trying to find gender balance within the ensemble. The male students in the institute are so devoted to gender equity, its incredible. Its a safe space for students who are trying to figure out if theyre gender non-conforming or non-binary, to be who they are.

Davis was supposed to have played the Toronto Jazz Festival this summer with Carrington and Jeanty, but that performance, like so many others, has been indefinitely postponed. Winning the Downbeat poll has been a bittersweet experience as she cant make the most of the opportunity. Online performances can go some way toward making up the financial shortfall, but Davis says, It feels like a big hole in my life and for everyone I talk to. We miss playing and connecting, and that close personal contact and interaction that cant really be replaced.

Her last pre-pandemic concert was in Toronto, at the Women from Space Festival on International Womens Day. She looks forward to when she can perform with others again: Theres something really special about being able to continue a musical conversation with somebody you really care about. Theres just no limit on, Is this popular? Are people going to be able to grasp this? If were serious about the music and it resonates with us, people will be drawn in.

Correction - July 23, 2020: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said drummer Terri Lyne Carrington won Best New Artist category. In fact, she won best Jazz Artist of the Year, top Jazz Album and top Jazz Group.
The United States' sanctions against Chinese entities and officials over issues related to China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region are typical political maneuvering and interference in the country's internal affairs, Xu Jianying, a research fellow at the Research Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told China.org.cn in a recent interview.



On July 9, the U.S. placed visa and asset sanctions on one Chinese government entity and four officials in Xinjiang over alleged human rights abuses in the region based on U.S. domestic laws. In response to these wrong moves, the Chinese government has announced corresponding sanctions against a U.S. entity and four U.S. officials.

The anti-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang are legitimate, and have effectively curbed the rise of violent terrorist activities, as well as protected the basic human rights of people of all ethnic groups in the region, said Xu.

"In the past few decades, when the human rights of people in the region were trampled over by terrorists, why did the U.S. not stand up and condemn the terrorist forces?" asked Xu. "The recent U.S. sanctions are purely political maneuvering."

Having spent decades studying the history and current situation of Xinjiang, Xu argued that human rights are being used as an excuse to interfere in China's internal affairs and the U.S. moves are by no means for the interests of people in Xinjiang.

Xu explained that the U.S. sanctions against Xinjiang companies are designed to break the country's industrial chain, noting that Xinjiang is an important cotton producing area in China, with an annual output of more than 5 million tons, accounting for more than 80% of the national total.

"People can clearly see what's going on when it comes to the question of whether the U.S. is interested in helping lift Xinjiang people out of poverty or creating more unrest to curb China's development."

He also dismissed claims of "forced population control" in Xinjiang, saying that such claims are ridiculous and unfounded smears.

"The Uygur population in Xinjiang increased from around 3.2 million back in 1949 to nearly 12 million by 2019. Over the past 70 years, it has increased by more than 3.7 times. In the same period, the country's total population rose from 540 million to 1.4 billion, approximately a 2.6-fold increase," Xu said.

"Judging from this growth rate, how can the Western media allege that China limits the population growth of the Uygur people?"

Xu believes that the ultimate purpose of the U.S. is to hamper the economic development of Xinjiang, stir up ethnic tensions, and even split the region from China, so as to contain the country's development.

"Xinjiang is home to a number of ethnic groups, and faces threats from terrorism, religious extremism and separatism. Terrorist and separatist organizations including the U.S.-funded World Uyghur Congress collude with some Western anti-China forces. Therefore, Xinjiang has been chosen as a tool to contain China," Xu added.
At least three people were injured on Wednesday when a massive explosion took place near a gas well of Oil India Limited (OIL) at Baghjan in Tinsukia district of Assam. The huge blast occurred near well number five of OIL inuring three foreign experts at the site, as reported by news agency ANI.

The injured people have been rushed to the hospital. The incident occurred when operations to douse the fire at Baghjan oil field was going on. The operation has been halted now.

The well has been spewing gas since May 28 and a fire has been raging in the area since June 9 in which two firefighters lost their lives.
A Chinese envoy said Tuesday that China is deeply concerned about reports of the plan to annex part of the occupied Palestinian territory.

"Such a plan, if implemented, will seriously violate international law and relevant UN resolutions, and imperil the 'two-state solution.' We urge the relevant party to refrain from taking any unilateral actions, and do its best to de-escalate conflict and tension. It's also our firm position that no country should support unilateral actions," Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, told the Security Council's virtual meeting on the situation in the Middle East.

"It is equally imperative to stop settlement activities, the demolition of Palestinian structures, and the violence against civilians. The Security Council should discharge its mandate, and play its part to ensure that its decisions, including Resolution 2334, are fully implemented," he added.

Speaking of the Middle East peace process, the ambassador said that it is a critical moment to advance the process and resume equal and meaningful peace talks between Palestine and Israel.

International agreements such as relevant UN resolutions, the "land for peace" principle and the two-state solution are important parameters in the Middle East peace process. They embodied the wisdom and hard work of several generations, and should be observed and implemented, he said.

"China supports President Abbas's call for an international peace conference and an enlarged multilateral mechanism for peace, and will positively consider participating in appropriate ways," Zhang said.

"We call on the international community, especially countries having influence on Palestine and Israel, to stay impartial and just in promoting peace talks," the envoy added.

On the humanitarian situation in occupied Palestinian territory and the hardship Palestinian people are suffering, the ambassador said "we should never lose sight of" them.

"Continued blockade of Gaza Strip has aggravated the humanitarian situation on the ground. The suspension of bilateral agreements and coordination in response to the annexation plan have brought consequences felt by ordinary Palestinians. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic further added up to Palestine's economic and social fragility," he said.

Stressing that the Middle East is now at a crossroads between peace and turbulence, Zhang said that the Security Council should and must stand with peace and justice, with righteousness and conscience, and play its active role in bringing about a comprehensive, just and enduring solution to the Palestine question.
ty for the post, op.





I wonder how many poc staff members got chastised or even fired for making internal complaints/critiques that were only finally addressed afte Mr. floyd was violently murdered.



Edited at 2020-07-22 12:42 am (UTC)

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I've heard multiple people complain about the past couple years so I'm glad. I don't shop at trader Joes but I'm glad.







Edited at 2020-07-22 12:44 am (UTC)

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Digging the new name, kitten.

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Thanks BB. Rina is my new top fave of all time. I have to stan. 

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I dont get the appeal of Trader Joes Ive never found anything I like there

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Cheap wine during college + their frozen food selections tbh

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second the frozen section like i try to cook fresh but for lazy or long work days they have decent just heat up in the oven food.

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Their frozen Indian meals are worth the trip alone.

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Theyve got a great seasonal candy selection that is packaged well enough for gifting imo.

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They have a lot of vegetarian options and cheap wine that's pretty good. And they have some really nice face products!

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Thats a problem with you, not them.

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i avoided it for a long time thinking it was just quirky whole foods until i found out how low the prices are



they also have great seasonal stuff, especially in the fall imo

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I just like it for the seasonal stuff and very specific things only they make. I probably go once every other month though. It's a pain to do all your grocery shopping there.

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I like some of their stuff but its like a fancy convenience store to me rather than a real grocery store. They are a good source for single people and appetizer style party food as well as cheap fresh flowers. I miss their free coffee and samples, I doubt that in a post COVID world tat is ever coming back.

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V. cheap for what you get in most sections

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It's not like it's some clothing store with a specific trend. It's a grocery store. It has food just like any other grocery store.

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Do you mean the novelty stuff because they have a bunch of normal food lol

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I dont cook so trader joes is a literal godsend for me. Plus their meals are healthy enough. I LOVE all of their desserts too. Theyre low calorie enough that I can have dessert every night. 

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as a single person who sucks at cooking and doesnt have energy for it most days, i love it bc i'm able to buy and eat a lot of different, mostly healthy, options w/o having to exert a huge effort

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they have a great cheese selection and things are actually much more affordable than you think

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I can't get enough of their focaccia bread.

I started putting their red pepper eggplant & garlic spread on it and it is **chef's kiss**.

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finally! i can't believe it took this long. these have always been gross names

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I've shopped at Trader Joe's many times and never even noticed the names, fucking oblivious over here. I'm glad they are changing them, there is no purpose to them other than "look they are ethnic".

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I didnt notice them either but I didnt buy any of that stuff.

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I really like their new (I think its new ish) cheddar garlic bread loaf

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Oh my god that sounds delicious

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Oooh.. fresh or frozen?

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Fresh



Its focaccia

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I haven't seen that at mine and that's all I want :(

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some dumbass made a joke about the trader giottos one, as if that's the one that people were complaining about.



i haven't been to TJ's since last year with the border closure ... my freezer broke a few months ago so i lost the gyozas.

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Trader Joe's hasn't really made it close to me. Bedford, but I'm not driving there for groceries.

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i love coming across your new hampshire references, as a new hampshire girl in la. ha ha. makes me happy! i never went to it either, because i never went to bedford, except when i walked from manchester into bedford to go to that like..strip mall that had a really good home goods.

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I think the Trader Joe's is right near there. also, Whole Foods. Bedford is bougie.

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I dont get how this is racist when its just the name Joe in different languages, but eh 

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Same. I found it as a lighthearted (ironically) inoffensive way of acknowledging cultural roots of certain specialty items. I think of how I would feel if they had done it for my ethnic group - I think Id playfully eye roll because of how lame it is not because I was offended but I would appear to be in the minority so since its clearly causing upset for others, theres no harm in getting rid of it.



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Yeah I was in the same boat, but then again I'd only noticed Jose, Giotto, & Josef myself before reading this. Some of the other examples in the post I can definitely see people having a problem with. But if it's bothering people I'm totally fine with them doing away with it.

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Literally copied and pasted from the post above: The Trader Joes branding is racist because it exoticizes other cultures  it presents Joe as the default normal and the other characters falling outside of it  they are Arabian Joe, Trader Jose and Trader Joe San,



Like Giottos maybe??? but Trader Mings is definitely 1000% racist af

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yeah i thought it was kinda cute, but i guess i see why some people don't like it

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yep another misguided corporate virtue signal. if anything, i think variations on the name don't indicate Joe is the default normal, but rather one of many! ugh.

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Same tbh, I thought "Trader Giotto's" was a fun way of marketing the Italian products. "Arabian Joe" is... not it though, like yikes.

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Yeah I personally liked it and thought it was extra funny because my brother's Chinese name is Ming so we'd always hype up the Trader Ming products and thank him for the excellent dumplings.

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Im half Japanese, spent part of my childhood in Japan and then moved there in adulthood (have since moved back). IMO Trader Joes San is not racist, San is just something we add to someones name. If your name is Amy and you go to Japan, they will call you Amy San.

(I dont speak for other countries.)



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Trader Ming is like Cho Chang level racist. White people basically make noises and think it's Chinesey. (Yes I am aware there could be a person called Ming.)

A much more common name would be like Trader Zhang, but wypipo can't say that shit

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Lol Im not surprised. I stopped fucking with Trader Joes for months since the pandemic anyways. Im still mad they only sell their stupid delicious Kings of Prohibition red wine exclusively there

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Trader Joe's is the only grocery store I've felt good about going in here. They make sure every cart is cleaned, everybody is masked (they just fully mandated, but most of the time almost all guests had masks), someone is limiting the number of people in the store.



The local grocery chain is a shit show. I get so fed up with having to try to congregate around a sanitizing station to clean a cart/basket elsewhere. I rarely shop at Wal-Mart, but the last time I was there they had one set of doors open (grocery). People congregated in the entry to clean carts. Then you stepped through the door and they had a damn pallet of fucking corn right near the entry so motherfuckers were standing there SHUCKING THEIR damn corn into garbage cans. All crowded around. How am I supposed to socially distance when I can't do it because I have to clean the cart/basket and I have to work my way around people who are congregating inside the doors. (If you can't tell, I was pretty livid.)

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Yea no other store near me is taking any precautions aside from masks which is more a state thing anyway.

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I agree, Trader Joes is doing it better than normal grocery stores right now

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im so glad to have wegmans bc they sanitize carts and have them labeled like take these NOT THESE OVER HERE, theres clear floor markings, each cashier wipes down the conveyor belt and card reader with sani spray after each transaction.



when i visited my folks (restrictions not as intense) the local grocery store you had to wipe down your own cart and i was like 



wegmans is the best.

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IA. They have it down. The first time I went there during COVID they only took a certain number of people at the register before they shut it down to clean (they cleaned in between customers as well) and then moved the line over to the next.

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i can't remember the last time i stepped foot in a trader joe's. they use so much unnecessary packaging and it's always way too crowded to actually shop so i've stopped going.



but good. i'm glad they're changing this shit.

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Yeah, if they weren't always packed I would definitely go there more often bc they're one of the least expensive options.

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I've lived in several different cities and every single Trader Joe's I've ever seen is in the most packed shopping area with hardly any parking, and when you go into the store everything is narrow and crowded as hell. I never thought "oh I just need a few things real fast" and wanted to go to Trader Joe's

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I think they're supposed to be phasing out a lot of their plastic.

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i bought tea and each teabag was wrapped in plastic. i felt so guilty

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I knew about Jose, Josef, & Giotto but hadn't noticed any of the others. Apparently they also had a Trader Jacques - https://www.clubtraderjoes.com/category/trader-jacques

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like GI Jacques

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Ukrainian businesses need cheap loans  PM Shmyhal

12:20, 22.07.20 1040

Cooperation between the government and the National Bank is constructive, the official believes.
Pedestrians near the Huntington Beach Pier. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

As Brad Colburn whisked his metal detector over the tan sands of Huntington Beach, a rejection of Orange County's spiking coronavirus infection rates surfaced.

I dont believe it. I dont believe the rates are rising," Colburn said. "Theyre inflated. Its another way of shutting everything down  of the Democrats trying to get what they want.

The 58-year-old Huntington Beach resident said he has yet to wear a mask outside of shopping. Standing by a beach path as cyclists and in-line skaters zoomed by, he offered his own alternative policy to restrictive coronavirus health orders.

If you dont want to go outside, dont go outside, Colburn said.

More than any other place in California, Huntington Beach has come to symbolize resistance to many of the coronavirus safety rules government officials have imposed in recent months. It's not as though no one in the city is wearing masks and social distancing.

But many who oppose mandatory mask rules and other measures like closing beaches have been outspoken here, and used the tourist mecca as a platform for their views. In May, angry demonstrators converged a block away at the now mostly quiet Huntington Beach Pier to protest the state-ordered shutdown of local businesses.

Since then, many roaming through the city's downtown area are proudly not wearing masks. And the stance has even inspired a parody video that went viral on social media in recent weeks.

Fred Smoller, a professor of political science at nearby Chapman University, described Huntington Beach as a conservative stronghold and said that the attitudes about the coronavirus there reflect larger political divides.

Their ideology is a lens through which they are viewing the coronavirus, Smoller said. I would imagine many people there see it as a hoax, which the president has encouraged them to do in order to up his chance of reelection. Im sure theres quite a bit of animus toward the governor. Theyre viewing [state restrictions] as further evidence of the deep state and of an intrusive government.

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Huntington Beach Mayor Lyn Semeta said the city would continue its educational efforts to keep residents safe. Masks, she said in an email statement to The Times, are "critical in keeping people healthy and helping our businesses operate safely in the limited capacity they are able to.

When asked about opposition to COVID-19 restrictions in Huntington Beach, Semeta said she was aware people around the state are uncomfortable with the use of face coverings.

I can certainly understand that sentiment. However, while there is still much we are learning about this virus, health experts have come out strongly recommending face coverings as an effective measure that helps stop the spread of COVID-19, Semeta said, urging residents to wear them.

The number of Orange County coronavirus cases has surged in recent weeks, with more than 31,000 confirmed cases and more than 500 deaths. The number of hospitalizations has tripled in the last two months and overall infections have grown so dramatically that the county is now second in the state to Los Angeles County.

There is widespread acceptance that masks play a key role in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, and their widespread use in other countries is credited with slowing infections dramatically.

But skepticism abounds over the seriousness of the outbreak.

Hundreds gather this month for the weekly Saturate OC worship event in Huntington Beach. (Raul Roa / Daily Pilot)

The Orange County Board of Education voted last week to approve recommendations for reopening schools that did not include mandatory use of masks or increased social distancing in classrooms. The board, however, did leave reopening plans up to individual school districts.

But those concerns became moot Friday when Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an order that would not allow most California schools to reopen when the academic year begins, shifting instead toward full-time remote learning in response to the summer surge in coronavirus cases.

In a viral video thats generated more than 1.5 million views since last week, YouTubers Tom Allen and John Parr offered Huntington Beach residents face coverings.

Allen and Parr, who use the pseudonyms Chad Kroeger and JT Parr, respectively, are West Hollywood-based comedians who run a web series called Chad Goes Deep. Previously, they advocated for house parties during an L.A. City Council meeting.

No one here has a mask, but we brought our own supply to fix the problem, Allen said at the beginning of the video, which showed mostly spiteful reactions to the offering. The two quickly learned the dearth of face coverings didnt stem from need.

We found out that its not really a shortage, people just kinda think they suck, Allen told The Times. Parr said Huntington Beach seemed "relatively safe" during their visit in early July, when the duo passed out all 20 packs of masks they brought. The mask promotion angered some residents, however.

Some dudes tried to fight us, which was scary, Parr said.

Hauling an orange surfboard toward Huntington Beachs famous waves last Thursday afternoon, one young man, face covered in drying sunscreen, offered his own appraisal of masks.

Wack. Never wear it, said the man, who declined to give his name as he got to the ocean.

It hasnt affected me at all, besides that I cant go to a bar and have a drink and really kick it with the boys, the man said. He called the restrictions pretty lame but acknowledged the deadliness of the gnarly coronavirus.

After hailing a beach path biker who had dropped a wallet, Sophia Darr shared her thoughts on the pandemic.

Im not afraid of it. I do think its overplayed. I think the media made it something it shouldnt be, Darr, 15, said. She wears a mask covered in pink peaches when she delivers food to the hungry, but said she didnt feel like she typically needs to wear one.

I wear it to respect the other people around me. Personally, I dont really care, Darr said. Before Newsom's order was issued, she said she wouldnt wear a face covering when returning to Huntington Beach High School for her junior year. She supports some of the loosened restrictions, like being able to eat outside, she said.

On the pier, Enoc Step fished for whatever bites, which on this day was Spanish mackerel and sardines. A home health nurse, he said he follows professional protocol but wants to see less government-mandated health policy and more individual accountability.

If I get it, I get it, Step, 52, said of the virus. Im doing the best I can: wash your hands, dont touch your face, put on a mask in an enclosed room and stay away from people.

He said hes seen a sharp reduction in work over the last few months, which he related to shutdowns he found unnecessary.

People are tired of it. People must be given responsibility for their own actions, said Step, a Fullerton resident. Newsom needs to stop being a monarch. The government should focus on information sharing, he said.

How can you fight something that you have no control over, he said.

Eleanor Dunais mask was fixed to her wrist as she passed Main Streets now outdoor-only restaurants on her way home from the post office. She said she wears the face covering in enclosed spaces but not outside where there's a beach breeze.

I think its kind of off-the-cuff, Dunai, 57, said of the state's COVID restrictions. She thinks gyms shouldnt have opened before salons, which she feels safer in. Both gyms and salons have shut down again.

It seems like the smallest fraction of the population are getting their way, not the majority, she said. Polling shows a slight majority of Californians believe the state reopened too quickly, and more than three-quarters of the population are concerned they or their family members will contract COVID-19. She said she worries, too, but thinks strict health orders no longer make sense.

If we continue to hide and be totally isolated, were dragging it out, Dunai said. People need to take responsibility for their own actions.

For the record:

10:47 AM, Jul. 22, 2020: In an earlier version of this article, YouTubers/comedians Tom Allen and John Parr were identified by their pseudonyms, Chad Kroeger and JT Parr, respectively.


J. I. Packer was my teacher at Regent College when I was a young graduate student. Some years later, he became my colleague and next-door neighbor in the hallways at the college and a fellow church member at St. Johns Anglican Church in Vancouver. I will forever be grateful to have known him. He shaped my life and thought in many ways, and I am not alone in this experience.

In light of his recent passing, I have been thinking more about his wider legacy and especially his significant contribution to evangelicalism as a whole. In the present political culture, however, the word evangelical or evangelicalism is freighted with a good deal of baggage thats worth shedding immediately.

We can do so by going back in time. The Old English word gospel never got a proper Old English adjective and had to steal a Greek one: evangelical. But the noun and the adjective belong together. And as the great Bible translator William Tyndale put it, evangelical is a word that signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a mans heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy.

This vibrant relationship between word and life, message and experience, doctrine and devotion was absolutely central to the evangelical movements in Germany and English-speaking lands that emerged at the beginning of the modern period.

Evangelicals today claim some sort of genealogical or theological continuity with these movements. But wherever we see the preaching of Jesus Christ generate new life and set people in joyful motion, that is where we properly use the adjective evangelical in its most important and basic sense. It is why we cannot, I think, abandon the term. Again, the words gospel and evangelical ought always to be kept together. Indeed, Jim Packer played a significant role in evangelicalism over the past six decades precisely because he helped those who identify as social evangelicals to be theological and spiritual evangelicals as well.

With this context in mind, I can think of six roles that sum up Packers contribution to the modern evangelical movement.

First, he was the Robin Hood of evangelicalism, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

By training and by dint of his own disciplined study, Packer acquired early in his career a deep knowledge of church history and the classic works of Christian theology. Popular evangelicalism, on the other hand, has often been profoundly ahistorical and anti-intellectual in its outlook. Just as the absence of good King Richard left England in turmoil during the time of Robin Hood, so modernity has caused troubles for the church.

Image: Illustration courtesy of Phil Long

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Packer described North American Protestantism as man-centred, manipulative, success oriented, self-indulgent, and sentimental. He therefore contrived, like Robin Hood, to take from the rich and give to the poor. He was able to retrieve riches from the past and employ them for the purpose of renewing the life of Christians in the present.

In his essay, On from Orr, Packer wrote, As an Anglican, a Protestant, an evangelical, and  a small-c catholic, I theologize out of what I see as the authentic biblical and creedal mainstream of Christian identity, the confessional and liturgical great tradition. From these riches, he addressed the poverty of popular evangelicalism, which he once described as 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep. We are all richer on account of his theological generosity.

Although he stole from the whole wealth of church history and the great tradition, he came early to the conviction that the Puritan tradition, in particular, contributed much to the church today. Indeed, he was one of the key catalysts in the post-war revival of Puritan or neo-Calvinist theology among evangelicals on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Second, Packer was what Time once called the theological traffic cop of evangelicalism.

Throughout its history, evangelicalism has been a movement, with all the fluidity that that word implies. Without a magisterium or a visible church order or hierarchy, it has not always been clear how theology functions to regulate evangelical belief and practice or to unite evangelicals around core doctrines. In this context, amid all the diversity and denominational pluralism of 20th-century evangelicalism, Packer was, according to Time, a doctrinal Solomon.

Mediating debates on everything from a particular Bible translation to the acceptability of free-flowing Pentecostal spirituality, wrote the magazine, Packer helps unify a community that could easily fall victim to its internal tensions.

Image: Illustrations courtesy of Phil Long

Through the influence of Knowing God, Packer emerged as a theological arbiter among evangelicals. In the West, as well as in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and other countries where his works have been translated and loved, many evangelicals have looked to Packers writings as the embodiment of evangelical theology. Packer was an international traffic cop, too.

In his regulatory role, Packer was willing to engage in controversy and contend for the faith. Any number of issues within evangelical ranks drew his fire, but he was especially concerned with the threat of theological liberalism to the faith of ordinary Christians. As he often said, liberal Christianity has no grandchildren. Wherever Packer saw revisionist liberal traffic approaching, he held up a hand, blew his whistle, and refused to let it merge onto the evangelical roadway.

In addition to being a Robin Hood and a theological traffic cop, Packer was also a plumber.

In the winter of 1989, on the occasion of his installation as the first Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology at Regent College, Packer gave an inaugural address titled An Introduction to Systematic Spirituality.

He called for a marriage of sorts: I want our systematic theology to be practiced as an element in our spirituality, he said, and I want our spirituality to be viewed as an implicate and expression of our systematic theology. Evangelical theology and evangelical life were to be inseparable.

Image: Illustrations courtesy of Phil Long

At the close of his address, though, Packer donned his plumbers bib and brace, as it were, and described his role alongside Jim Houston, who had been teaching spiritual theology at Regent for more than a decade. Strengthening every way I can the links between spirituality and systematic theology will certainly be high on my agenda, Packer said. I do not think l shall cramp Dr. Houstons style. What I do will be more in the nature of digging out foundations and putting in drains, leaving the air clear for him to fly in, as at present.

The role of Packer the plumber at Regent College might be extended more broadly to his work within evangelicalism at large. In the context of a growing interest in spirituality by the wider postmodern culture, Packer played a role as Plumber in Chief, keeping the drains clear and digging out the foundations with the aim that all may soar aloft in healthy, unpolluted air.

Packer was also fundamentally a catechist.

Image: Illustrations courtesy of Phil Long

From his post at Regent, and with the popularity of Knowing God, Packer effectively became a catechist-at-large for evangelicals. This was his sweet spot as a communicator. He was a scholar through and through, as bookish and tweedy as they come, yet he spoke and wrote not for specialists in peer-reviewed publications but for general audiences. To be sure, he was never short on contentPacker by name, Packer by nature, he saidbut he wrote to be understood.

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While some academics might have wished that Jim had written more for specialists, this was not his sense of personal mission. He was a catechist first. Given the social structure and character of evangelicalism as a popular movement, it will always need those who can communicate in exactly this register. And Jim did this better than anyone.

From my perch in Vancouver, I was privileged to witness some of the ways that Packer lived out his catechist vocation in our local church. For decades, he was the inspiration behind a thriving adult Sunday school class that still goes by the humble name Learners Exchange. Although Jim regularly contributed, the course was lay led and lay taught most weeks. He sat there utterly in his element and positively beaming while adult Christians, serious about their faith, learned together Sunday after Sunday.

Fifth, Packer was a bridge-builder among evangelicals.

My wife and I live on the south arm of the mighty Fraser River on the delta where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. Some years ago, our provincial government employed an army of engineers to plan a new bridge to span the river and connect us better to the rest of Vancouver.

We might picture Packer as one of those highly skilled bridge-building engineers who knew exactly how and where to connect distinct communities. He was Reformed, he was Anglican, and he was evangelical. Yet in his writing, teaching, debating, and worshipping, he looked for common ground with charismatics, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers.

Image: Illustrations courtesy of Phil Long

Packers approach was not to pursue some sort of abstract via media agenda but rather to unite Christians around biblical teaching and a thoughtful consideration of church history. He described evangelicalism as an ethos of convertedness within a larger ethos of catholicity.

Convertedness is a divine dynamic, generated by an understanding of the gospel and issuing forth in a renewal of life. Its like a mainstream current within the great Mississippi River, a mainstream that flows onward, despite eddies and bayous, mudflats, and reed beds. Creeds and councils mark the banks of the river. Faith, repentance, fellowship, communion, holiness, and service are all the while being renewed by the coursing life of the Spirit. Given this spiritual ethos, Packer was eager to make common cause with faithful believers in other Christian communions.

The last role I would assign to Jim Packer is, well, that of Tigger from A. A. Milnes Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

In The House at Pooh Corner, where the character is first introduced, Tigger says of himself, Bouncing is what Tiggers do best. Piglet agreed: He just is bouncy  and he cant help it. For many years, this is the picture I have had of Jim Packer coming into the building at Regent College with a spring in his stepboing, boing, boingas if he were walking on springs. Being more temperamentally an Eeyore by nature, I have looked on in wonder and admired his effervescent Christian joy.

Image: Illustrations courtesy of Phil Long

Jim had a zest for life, a real whimsical streak, and a genuine cheerfulness. He also had a remarkable, dry wit, a love of clarinet and classic jazz music, a love of steam trains, a love of literature, and a love of food. His Asian friends like to see him keep up with them, spoonful for spoonful, with the hottest curries and spicy meals.

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By the grace of God, he sustained this joyful spirit even in the midst of suffering and real disability. His personal witness to the joy of being a Christian and a theologian was itself a significant contribution to evangelicalism.

This brings us full circle to Tyndales idea that the word evangelical signifieth good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a mans heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy. Like Tigger.

Indeed, in his old age, Packer knew that there was still a joy set before him. As his beloved Richard Baxter wrote in Saints Everlasting Rest, We are on our way home, and home will be glorious. Packer knew well that the wise man will live, as it were, packed up and ready to go.

Friends, Packer was packed. Here, at the end, in his joyful expectation of heaven, he was doing what he had always done: keeping evangelicals connected with the gospel.

Bruce Hindmarsh is the James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology and professor of the history of Christianity at Regent College, as well as the author of The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World.

This essay was adapted from a talk titled The Significance of J. I. Packer for Evangelicalism, given at the 2016 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society on the occasion of Packers 90th birthday.
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Electrical goods company Polycab that saw a 13 percent year-on-year decline in June quarter (Q1) net profit at Rs 117.5 crore is looking to expand the share of exports in its revenue.

In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Gandharv Tongia, Chief Financial Officer of Polycab said that in the next three to five years, the company wants exports to be 10 percent of the top-line.

For Q1FY21, the revenue from operations stood at Rs 976.6 crore, seeing a 50 percent YoY decline due to the Coronavirus-led lockdown. Here, export contribution to top-line was almost 11 percent in Q1 compared to 2 percent in Q1FY20 but was primarily driven by Dangote Project in Nigeria. Export business roughly contributed Rs 100 crore to the top-line of the company.

We want export contribution of 10 percent and not through Dangote which was a one-off large project that we won. For Polycab, the idea is that 10 percent of top-line via exports should be through diversified and sustainable means and that is possible if we get into distribution, he added.

Polycab has set up subsidiaries in United States and Australia. Tongia added that the company has identified around 10 geographies in the export business so far.

Business prospects

Tongia said that the first quarter was a washout due to the lockdown imposed in April and May. But he added that things have started improving from June onwards.

In terms of sales, the first six weeks of FY21 were a washout due to the lockdown. But May sales was better than April, and June was better than May. July is looking better than last year July. This shows that the situation has improved for the company. There is an element of pent-up demand for sure especially in FMEG space, he added.

In the sales, Tongia said that there has been an increase in the business-to-customer (B2C) segment share which now constitutes 43 percent of total sales. It was 35 percent earlier.

With respect to the fast-moving electrical goods (FMEG) space, Tongia said that there was an adverse leverage in the profitability but topline impact was due to the lockdown. Fan is seasonable business and April/May there was no traction.

FMEG total income saw a 43 percent YoY decline to Rs 137.8 crore in Q1FY21. But FMEG contribution to overall sales increased 177 basis points YoY to 14 percent in the June quarter.

When it comes to margins, PAT margin stood at 12 percent, seeing a YoY growth of 510 basis points. Tongia explained that this was due to one-off items.

There was a favourable tax order on income tax and so Rs 84 crore was credited. Further, there was Rs 16 crore interest on the income tax refund that has been credited into other income in Q1. Also, we increased our stake in a company Ryker which is now a wholly owned subsidiary. Here, there is a Rs 9 crore gain because as per IFRS rules we have to derecognize equity interest we had in the company, he said.

As far as the cash position is concerned, Polycab is net cash positive. At the end of Q1, the net cash stood at Rs 205.7 crore. Tongia added that the company also has adequate liquidity.

As soon as the lockdown was announced in March, we took steps to ensure that we have adequate liquidity and cost optimization was done. On credit facilities, we have Rs 4,000 crore of lines available and hardly anything has been utilized, he added.

Going forward, Tongia said that the September quarter will be better (Q2) than Q1 and also that H2 will be better than the first half of the financial year.

Polycab has now engaged a large strategy firm to look into the costs incurred by the company and suggest ways how these expenses can be optimized.

This strategy firm will do a cost optimization programme for us so that we can reduce cost on a sustainable basis, he said.

Polycab was listed on the stock exchanges in April 2019. Apart from FMEG, the company is a large player in the wires and cables business.
Tragic photos show just how much Megan Gale's late brother loved his dog, Badge - as mates reveal he was struggling with the deaths of his pet and a co-worker.

The body of Jason Gale, the Australian supermodel's 'very private' construction worker older sibling, was found in bushland south-east of Perth on Tuesday.

Animal lover Jason had been missing for a whole week before he was found, in what the Gale family has described as a 'very sad and stressful time'.

Close friend Belinda Murray said Jason had been struggling with the fallout from two personal tragedies.

'He hasn't been the same since witnessing the death of a co-worker a few years ago, then the death of his beloved Doberman, Badge on top of that,' she said.

Megan Gale's brother, Jason, with his good-natured pet Doberman Badge (front, with black collar on). Mr Gale was found dead near his car in bushland south-east of Perth on Tuesday

The death of Mr Gale - supermodel Megan Gale's 'very private' older sibling - has sparked a huge outpouring of support for the family from locals

Mr Gale's grieving friend Belinda Murray shared photos of the construction worker mucking about with his pet dog Badge on Wednesday

A grieving Ms Murray on Wednesday released photographs of a calm and happy Mr Gale playing with Badge and some of the Dobermans she breeds.

Ms Murray described Badge as being Jason's 'stability' and said the pooch's death would leave him 'feeling very isolated inside'.

Friends agreed that he had struggled after witnessing the tragic death of his colleague, Robert Cunico, while at work on April 20, 2018.

Mr Cunico, an on-site supervisor, was struck and killed by a burst pipe at Perth's Woodman Point wastewater treatment plant.

Mr Cunico's widow, Debby, said in a Facebook post at the time that Jason was one of the people 'who was there with Rob at his time of need.

'They all stayed with him the entire time holding him and comforting him.

Friends said Mr Gale was haunted by the tragic death of mate and colleague Robert Cunico (above) in a horror work site accident in April 2018

Robert Cunico's widow Debby (pictured with her late husband) was among the worried friends who publicly appealed for everyone to keep an eye for Jason Gale last week

'At least we can take comfort in knowing that Rob did not pass alone you are all legends for this we will be for ever grateful to you.

'There are no words that will ever be enough to express our love for you and for what you did,' Ms Cunico said.

Ms Cunico was among the many concerned friends who urged everyone to keep an eye out for Mr Gale following his disappearance.

A neighbour was quoted telling The West Australian newspaper that Mr Gale never went into detail about how he lost his friend.

'He kept it all inside of him,' the neighbour was quoted saying.

Last sighting: Mr Gale bought petrol and water from a general store in Pingelly, south-east of Perth. His body was found near bushland a week later

Jason Gale, 49, was last seen at about 9.40am on Tuesday July 14 buying water and petrol during a stop in Pingelly, some 160km south-east from his Perth home

A still of Jason Gale's 1999 silver-coloured Honda CR-V station sedan, with plates 1BOI107 when he was last seen more than a week ago

Mr Gale was last seen about 9.40am on July 14 in Pingelly, about 160km south-east of his home in Bibra Lake, near Fremantle.

He stopped and purchased $50 of fuel and $3 for water at a local general store then drove off, heading in a northerly direction.

Mr Gale lived on his own and was known for 'going bush' and enjoying nature but he had never disappeared like this before, sparking fears for his welfare.

Tragically, a member of the public found Mr Gale's car in bushland at Karragullen on Tuesday, West Australian Police said.

The circumstances of his death were not suspicious and police are preparing a report for the coroner.

Mr Gale's best friend, Peter Murphy, said: '(You) couldnt meet a better person and I was lucky to have such a great person as a great mate.'

For confidential crisis support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyondblue on 1300 22 46 36.
Indian Matchmaking shows picky individuals with a long list of demands that centre around caste, height and skin colour.

A new Netflix show about an Indian matchmaker catering to the high demands of potential brides and grooms, and their parents, has stoked an online debate about arranged marriages in the country.

The eight-part series, Indian Matchmaking, premiered on Netflix last week and is currently among its top-ranked India shows. It features Sima Taparia, a real-life matchmaker from Mumbai, who offers her services to families in India and abroad.

Arranged marriages in India are mostly guided by parents who want to find a suitable match for their children.

The show has become the subject of memes, jokes, and criticism, about the pickiness of the potential spouses and their parents, with long lists of demands centring around factors like caste, height or skin colour.

Indian Matchmaking isn't just about the liberal colorist and sexist fabric South Asian cultures are steeped in. It's about Brahmanical patriarchy. It's shaped by gender, caste, and economic relationships, and Indian Matchmaking depicts exactly that.  Sharmin Hossain (@sharminultra) July 19, 2020

The show makes very clear how regressive Indian communities can be. Where sexism, casteism, and classism are a prevalent part of the process of finding a life partner, wrote Twitter user Maunika Gowardhan.

Thousands of Twitter and Instagram posts echo that view. The show is simply holding a mirror to the ugly society we are a part of, Vishaka George, another Twitter user, wrote.

The Oedipus Complex is strong with this one.#IndianMatchmaking pic.twitter.com/cvLaZ4kRav  Varsha Singh (@RhythmOfDaRain) July 20, 2020

Created by Oscar-nominated director Smriti Mundhra, the show focuses on matchmaker Taparias visits to the homes of families who want her to help find an ideal spouse.

After listening to their wishlists, she presents the resumes of prospective matches and then arranges for meetings.

The two families have their reputation and many millions of dollars at stake. So the parents guide their children, Taparia says at one point in the show, referring to some of her wealthier clients.

wow Indian matchmaking is really a cesspool of casteism, colourism, sexism, classism and what is this matching kundlis and all. are we in the 21st century?? @NetflixIndia wtf do better!!  Riddhi (@riddhhiiii) July 16, 2020

In the first episode titled Slim, Trim and Educated, we see Taparia sitting with an Indian mother. Just as she says: So you want a smart, outgoing, height  the mother interjects, I wont even consider [a girl] below 5 feet 3 inches.

The mother tells Taparia her son had received a lot of marriage proposals, but none have panned out because, in most cases, the prospective brides education or height were not ideal.

In India, an arranged marriage proposal can involve the parents of either bride or groom reaching out to the families of prospective matches.

Some have praised the show for its honesty and treating its subjects respectfully.

The hate against it is, frankly, baffling  Indian Matchmaking is well on its way to becoming a cultural phenomenon, a column in Mint newspaper said.
News of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry headed to the Bahamas emerged after the couple said they reached their breaking point.

In an article by OK! Magazine, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are said to be getting ready for their dream vacation.

An unnamed tipster told the magazine, "They're jetting off to an exotic locale with their son, Archie, to relax and decompress."

They claim that the timing of their luxurious getaway also came at the right time after Meghan and Prince Harry have been dealing with a tremendous amount of stress since relocating to the US.

According to the source, the parents-of-one thought that moving to Meghan's home country and leaving Prince Harry's family behind would give them a much-needed fresh start.

However, the couple is shocked to know that even moving across the pond; they are still the talk of the town. It's like they're back in the UK, said the source.

The publication further alleged that the Duchess not only dealt with her fallout with Queen Elizabeth II, but both Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are the main subjects of a new explosive book, "Royals at War: The Untold Story of Harry and Meghan's Shocking Split With the House of Windsor."

As per the source, the former "Suits" star and her husband are desperate to get away severely from "everyone and everyone."

The magazine added that the negative attention is taking a toll on both of them, so they felt they deserved a break and are "willing to spend top dollar to make it super special," hoping that they can come back feeling refreshed.

While it seems like it's something the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would do, Gossip Cop has debunked the story.

They claim that because of the coronavirus, the Bahamas is banning travelers from the US to keep the virus from spreading.

They also doubt that the royal couple is an exception to the rule.

It's not the first time that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were the subjects of marriage woes.

Globe previously claimed that the 38-year-old American issued Prince Harry a divorce ultimatum.

According to their news, Meghan Markle has asked Prince Harry who will he choose, "'It's me or them.'"

Their source revealed that Meghan was furious when her blue-blooded husband was said to have negotiated to end their "royal exile."

According to them, the brunette beauty yelled at Prince Harry saying, "'You can go back - but Archie and I are staying in America.'"

The palace source further said that Prince Harry blames his wife for "masterminding their disastrous 'we quit' move to America."

The Prince also reportedly promise Meghan that she would be part of the royal line, however, the Duchess of Sussex allegedly doesn't want any part of it.

"She knows she's worn out her welcome with her diva demands, temper tantrums and publicity stunts and just wants to get on with her celebrity life," the source claimed.

Meghan has also said to have warned Prince Harry to "make the right decision or not see Archie again."

But Gossip Cop has also said that the entire story is "completely made up."

READ MORE: The One Person to Blame For Prince Charles and Princess Diana's Failed Marriage
Staff Reporter  The Zimbabwe Daily

Harare, Zimbabwe  MDC Alliances Youth Assembly has sent a stern warning towards the ZANU-PF Youth League ahead of the 31 July nationwide protests.

The warning comes after the ZANU-PF Youth League promised to counter the protests if they are not forfeited.

Reckless utterances by the ZANU-PF Youth League that they are going to counter 31 July mass protests against corruption are unfortunate and ill thought.

Statements by the delusional ZANU-PF Youth League Deputy Secretary one Tendai Chirau that they will counter 31 July is a clear manifestation of wishful thinking and day dreaming.

- Advertisement -

July 31 is about the people, the suffering masses so not even a small youth grouping of a political party in dilapidation like ZANU-PF has the capacity to stop Zimbabweans from speaking against corruption.

Whatever victory Chirau claims they will be celebrating, they better do that inside their Shake Shake building.

Out there people are hungry and angry hence, we are not going to entertain any tomfoolery meant to harbour corrupt government criminals.

Just like 1979, July 31 knows no puppets of dictators and those that stand in the way of the people will be swept aside. Forewarned is forearmed, said Stephen Chuma, MDC Alliance Youth Assemblys national spokesperson.

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Prominent Pakistani Journalist Kidnapped, Was Critical Of Country's Powerful Army

By RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal July 21, 2020

A prominent Pakistani journalist known for his criticism of the country's powerful military has been kidnapped, raising concerns his life may be in danger.

Matiullah Jan, one of the country's leading journalists, was abducted on July 21 in the capital, Islamabad, by several men after they intercepted his car, his colleague Asad Toor said.

Footage from surveillance cameras showed men dragging a driver out of his vehicle and pushing him into another car before driving away. Jan's wife said the first car in the video belonged to her husband.

Information Minister Shibli Faraz would only confirm that Jan had been kidnapped.

Leading politicians, activists, and journalists took to Twitter to call for the journalist's release, with the hashtag #BringBackMatiullah trending in the country, while the Austrian-based International Press Institute (IPI) demanded that Jan be freed.

"We fear that Matiullah Jan's life is in danger, and immediate steps must be taken to locate him and ensure his release from his apparent kidnappers," IPP Deputy Director Scott Griffen said in a statement. "Given the history of violence against journalists in Pakistan, the authorities cannot delay in seeking to protect Jan's safety."

Jan, who has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for the past three decades, has previously been intimidated, harassed, and attacked, his friend Azaz Syed said.

After being fired by Pakistan's Waqt TV station, allegedly under pressure from the military -- a frequent target of his criticism -- he continued to maintain a voice via social media, including on YouTube and Twitter, even receiving a contempt of court notice earlier this month for a tweet.

Criticism of the army has long been seen as a red line for the media, with journalists and bloggers inside Pakistan complaining of intimidation tactics including kidnappings, beatings, and even killings if they cross that line.

The military has an oversized role in the domestic and foreign affairs of the South Asian country of around 220 million.

A spokesperson for the military declined to comment on Jan's case.

Several Pakistani journalists were briefly detained in recent months, allegedly by the military's spy agency, in what is thought to be an attempt to silence criticism of the powerful military.

The military has denied the accusations.

With reporting by dpa and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistani -journalist-critical-of-army- believed-kidnapped/30739505.html

Copyright (c) 2020. 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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Since 2012, Endeavors has deployed emergency services and support to families and children in emergencies and shelters due to catastrophic events or evacuations. By maintaining a ready reserve workforce of 1,600 trained personnel throughout the United States, Endeavors can rapidly deploy where needed to support three different operations: Natural Disaster Emergency Response and Evacuee Support; Crisis Emergency Response; and Pandemic Emergency Response (COVID-19 Emergency Shelters). Endeavors can provide up to 150 staff within 48 hours and a 500-person team within 72 hours upon activation, 365 days a year, in the event of a disaster or crisis.

Jon Allman, President & CEO at Endeavors, said, "Endeavors has a proven core competency to respond quickly and simultaneously to multiple locations. We are proud to do our part by providing reliable, efficient, and compassionate care when a crisis arises."

Services include residential supervision, crisis, and clinical case management, logistical and supply inventory management, facilities management, and transport services. Proficiencies include crisis intervention, bilingual skills, first aid and CPR, national incident management system.

Chip Fulghum, Chief Operating Officer at Endeavors, said, "Our services can rapidly deploy humanitarian operations to the country's most vulnerable populations. Our personnel are specialized in emergency shelter operations, and we have seen an uptick in this specific need since the COVID-19 crisis began. We're a resource ready to deploy for communities in need."

Currently, Endeavors provides emergency shelter staffing in support of the ongoing services at the Kay Baily Hutchinson Convention Center for the homeless population. The deployment came with the need for social distancing as a result of the Novel Coronavirus in the City and County of Dallas, Texas. Our Shelter Monitors help with daily intake, food distribution, hyper-sanitation, resource distribution, and residence monitoring. Endeavors' efforts are to ensure the homeless population has a place to stay, are protected, and cared for during the COVID-19 health crisis.

In El Paso, we provide a Shelter Unit Lead, Shelter Monitors, Shelter Custodial / Hyper-Sanitization, and Shelter Intake Coordinators (HMIS Data Entry Specialists) to help support the ongoing services at the Welcome Center & Delta Haven Center. The Center provides temporary emergency shelter to persons experiencing homelessness during a COVID-19 health crisis. Endeavors staff is trained to adhere to the Local Health Department's guidance, which includes initial screening, monitoring of symptoms, and isolation measures. Shelter staff provide essential support services to residents and help prevent at-risk families or individuals from becoming homeless by providing case management and referrals.

In San Antonio, Endeavors is providing Intervention Specialists and Youth Care Specialists for ongoing services to licensed state residential foster care facilities caring for children from 0-18 years old. Endeavors' Specialists provide direct care supervision of residents to ensure a safe, trauma-focused place for children who were removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment. The children may have potentially been discharged from a psychiatric hospital, released from juvenile detention, have emotional disorders, or challenging behaviors. Specialists' go through an intense two-week long training that covers: State Licensed Minimum Standards Regulations, Trauma-Informed Care Methods, and Trust-Based Relational Intervention.

Endeavors is also providing The Salvation Army of North Texas with Shelter Monitors and Shelter Support Staff for homeless residents' ongoing services. The goal is to ensure quality staff is available to help deliver proper surroundings, where homeless individuals receive meals, counseling, and assistance in finding employment. Shelter Monitors help provide case aid, assist residents with daily living essentials and monitoring.

"Our priority is to ensure the safety and well-being of North Texans in need during this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic by providing essential resources to help them get back on their feet," said Major Todd Hawks, area commander of The Salvation Army of North Texas. "Thanks to community partners, like Endeavors, we are able to continue serving our vulnerable neighbors as record unemployment rates and lost wages continue to rise across the region."

In addition, Endeavors has entered into an agreement with Harris County to provide shelter support at a hotel for individuals seeking a quarantine location should the need arise.

"As the number of reported cases continues to grow, COVID-19 is expected to spread exponentially in the coming weeks," said David Hernandez, Senior Director of Emergency Services at Endeavors. "We've seen how this can overwhelm other providers, and Endeavors is a resource available when shelters need additional assistance."

To learn more about how Endeavors can rapidly deploy to help your community stay safe during COVID-19, contact us at [email protected] .

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Hazel Behan, who now lives in Co Westmeath, says she vomited when she noted similarities between the attack on her and a rape committed by Christian Bruckner

Police in Portugal have reopened their investigation into the rape of Irish woman Hazel Behan after she came forward to say she believes her attacker may be Madeleine McCann suspect, Christian Brueckner.

Ms Behan (37), who is originally from Dublin and now lives in Westmeath with her family, was working as a holiday representative in Praia da Rocha when she was viciously assaulted in June 2004, two weeks before her 21st birthday.

Expand Close Suspect Christian Brueckner / Facebook

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She told police her attacker was about 6ft 1in tall (1.85m), had blond eyebrows, piercing blue eyes and spoke English with a German accent.

The victim believes a key suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, named as German Christian Brueckner, could be her attacker after she noted similarities between Bruckners 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz and her own ordeal.

Sky News is now reporting that Portuguese detectives collected archived files earlier this week in order to reopen her case.





Expand Close Maddie McCann disappeared during a family holiday / Facebook

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Whatsapp Maddie McCann disappeared during a family holiday

Noeline Blackwell, lawyer and head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said it is heartening that police are reopening their investigation.

It is never going to be an open and shut case until such a time as the perpetrator or perpetrators are brought to justice, she told Independent.ie.

One of the things that is going to make progress for us as an Irish and European society, is somebody who is the victim can depend on the cooperation between European states and can depend on a high level of knowledge in the area of sexual violence.

Sexual violence can happen any time, anywhere, police throughout the union need to be well equipped to investigate these crimes and to bring perpetrators to prosecution.

It is important to see that increasingly throughout the whole EU there is more recognition of sexual violence as a real crime.

I know she was unhappy with the initial investigation, and what I can do is hope that progress can now be made.

Brueckner is currently serving a 15-month jail term for drugs trafficking and has applied for early release. He has also been identified as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann disappearance. He has denied any involvement.

Hazel, who waived her right to anonymity, told The Guardian last month: My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out.

I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience.

This woman was the victim of a horrific crime and she has suffered a lot. It is a matter for police all over Europe to do their best to bring the person who carried out this crime to justice, she said.

Recalling the horrific ordeal, Hazel said: I had gone to bed around 1am, and was awoken by someone calling my name.

I turned on to my back and standing there was a masked man dressed in tights and what resembled a leotard, a machete around 12in long in his hand.

The man had removed his shoes at the door and set up a video camera in the room.

He took out a bag full of whips and chains before cutting her clothes from her body and gagging her.

She said: It seemed to me he had worked everything out, he had a plan and was very deliberate.

He consistently cleaned his hands, and repeatedly changed condoms. This went on, I guess, for around four or five hours.

He got angry and ordered me into the bathroom and he picked up the machete. I was convinced he was going to kill me and I threatened to scream and said I would not go in there.

My hands were still tied behind my back and he leaned me over a small bench and put a sheet over my head.

I thought that was it, my life was over. But underneath the sheet I watched as he backed out of the door, put on his shoes and ran away down the street.

Once her attacker left, she ran down the corridor to find help and shortly after, around 30 policemen and officials came to investigate. Hazel said they took her back to the room where I was asked to strip off and stand in a star jump-like stance whilst they took pictures of me. That was one of the most humiliating aspects of the whole ordeal.

She was brought to the local hospital where she was examined, but she does not know if forensic evidence was taken.

Hazel added that she is not very confident police examined her room correctly either.

She said she had little hope over the past 16 years that detectives would find her assailant.

I was told at the time that I should just be quiet, that if I talked about what had happened I would bring bad publicity to the resort and put off the tourists.

Then I read about the poor American woman who was raped in September 2005  who I would love to talk to  and the possible link that was being made between her attack and the person who abducted Madeleine McCann, and I was so full of anger, I knew in my gut it was the right thing to do to speak out.

I think if the police had done their job investigating what happened to me, if this is indeed the same man that attacked the American and abducted Madeleine McCann, they might have prevented the attack on her and Madeleine would now be at home with her parents.

Hazel gave a statement to the London Met Police, who have told her they are taking her case seriously and would be contacting Portuguese police.

Independent.ie has contacted the Met Police and Portuguese police for comment.

Last year she was selected as Sinn Feins candidate for the Kinnegad area in Mays local elections.

She is an advocate for people who have experienced domestic abuse or sexual abuse and has worked with families living with addiction.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centres 24-hour helpline can be contacted on 1800-77-88-88.
The City of Grosse Pointe Park joins the MITN Purchasing Group The City of Grosse Pointe Park invites all potential vendors to register online.

The City of Grosse Pointe Park has officially joined the MITN Purchasing Group, one of BidNets regional e-procurement solutions, providing vendors throughout Michigan easy online access to its upcoming solicitations. The City of Grosse Pointe Park invites all vendors to register online at http://www.bidnetdirect.com/mitn.

The regional purchasing group connects local governments with vendors looking to do business with public agencies. On the MITN Purchasing Group, vendors seeking business with nearly 250 participating agencies can register online to gain access to a single point of entry for opportunities throughout Michigan. By posting upcoming bids and RFPs on the MITN Purchasing Group, the City of Grosse Pointe Park ensures an entire community of vendors can view their solicitation, download documents, and receive notification of addenda. The vendors self-register and ensure their contact information is up to date.

The City of Grosse Pointe Park invites all local vendors to visit http://www.bidnetdirect.com/mitn and register to receive access to its upcoming solicitations as well as the upcoming bids and RFPs from 235 other public agencies participating on the MITN Purchasing Group. Registered vendors have the option to upgrade their service to receive customized bid alerts, notification of term contract expiration, and notification of a real-time addendum.

About the City of Grosse Pointe Park:

The City of Grosse Pointe Park is a small, urban city located on the shores of Lake St. Clair on the north west side of the City of Detroit. Grosse Pointe Park is home to 11,555 residents according to the 2010 U.S. Census (estimate). Grosse Pointe Parks character has always been appealing to families with its walkable business districts, two lake front parks, superior schools, and safe neighborhoods.

Current City services include water, wastewater, parks and recreation, city marina, public works and a combined public safety department that provides police, fire, and EMS services. To learn more about the City of Grosse Pointe Park, please visit: http://www.grossepointepark.org

About BidNet Direct:

BidNet Direct, a Mediagrif product, is a sourcing solution of regional purchasing groups available at no cost to local government agencies throughout the country. BidNet Direct runs regional purchasing groups, including the MITN Purchasing Group, across all 50 states that are used by over 1,500 local governments. To learn more and have your government agency gain better transparency and efficiency in purchasing, please visit https://www.bidnetdirect.com/buyers
Activists rally during a protest to the mark the one year anniversary of the Trump administration's executive order banning travel into the United States from several terror prone countries, in New York City, on Jan. 26, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

House of Representatives Votes to Repeal Trump Travel Ban

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill to repeal President Donald Trumps travel ban along partisan lines.

The measure, introduced by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), passed 233 to 183, with Democrats voting in favor and Republicans voting in opposition.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the bill, called the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants Act, is meant to curb federal overreach.

When the Trump administration issued its first version of the ban in January 2017, it was immediately apparent it was unconstitutional, discriminatory, and morally reprehensible. Its chaotic rollout undermined the cruelty of this policy, he said on the House floor on Wednesday.

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the House essentially was wasting its time.

We are spending our time with this bill that would limit it and make it more difficult for the president of the United Statesany president, just because some people dont like this president, they are going to make it harder for any presidentto keep Americans safe, he said on the floor. That includes terrorists abroad or whether its for health pandemics that might break out again in the future, he said. This is lunacy.

On Monday, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would overturn Trumps travel ban if he is elected in November.

That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure and insults and attacks against Muslim American communities, Biden said.

The measure is mostly symbolic, as it is not expected to be taken up by the GOP-controlled Senate.

After he was sworn in in 2017, Trump signed an executive order, officially titled Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States, that banned foreign nationals from seven terror-prone countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The ban was challenged in court several times before the Supreme Court upheld it in 2017.

Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump formally threatened to veto a $740 billion military spending bill Tuesday hours before the House passed the legislation by a veto-proof majority, heralding a potential showdown between the White House and Congress over a bipartisan effort to rename several Army posts that commemorate Confederate generals.

The president's threat - and House lawmakers' response - is a moment of reckoning for Senate Republican leaders, who must decide whether to allow votes on key bipartisan modifications to their version of the annual defense bill that might incur a similar veto warning, or attempt to tailor their legislation to stay closer in line with Trump's wishes.

In a statement, the White House listed several provisions of the House's legislation that the president considers objectionable, chief among them a directive to the Pentagon to rename the 10 bases within a year. While avoiding mention of the Confederacy, White House advisers nevertheless called the order "part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct" and an attempt "to rewrite history and to displace the enduring legacy of the American Revolution with an ever-shifting standard of conduct."

Trump's move, which had been expected, failed to prevent the Democratic-controlled House from approving its version of the defense bill four hours later, in a vote of 295 to 125. But while the veto threat was focused solely on the House bill, it also presents a challenge for the Republican-controlled Senate, where lawmakers are debating a parallel measure ordering similar changes to bases named for Confederate officials, albeit under a three-year timeline.

Trump's veto threat makes no mention of the speed with which lawmakers want the names changed; it objects to there being any mandate at all.

Senators are expected to vote on their bill next week. But in the meantime, they are waiting on leaders in that chamber - particularly Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla. - to indicate whether there will be votes on a series of proposed amendments that could either bring the Senate more in line with Trump's wishes or put that chamber on a similar collision course with the White House.

Inhofe has indicated a preference not to change the bases' names, but he has not announced whether an amendment from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., that would remove the mandate, replacing it with a study process, will get a vote in the Senate. Legislation also is pending from Senate Democrats that would accelerate the three-year timeline to one year.

Trump's veto threat is not based on the issue of Confederate names alone. The president's advisers also objected to other provisions in the House bill that would restrict the commander in chief's ability to redirect troops and other service members at will - including language to block Trump from removing U.S. troops stationed in Germany until the administration can show that maintaining such a presence in Europe is no longer necessary. A bipartisan group of senators wants to take a similar step.

Last month, the president approved a plan to remove 9,500 of the approximately 35,000 U.S. troops stationed in Germany, in a move that was roundly criticized by both Democrats and Republicans. In the House, lawmakers responded this month by including a provision in their defense bill requiring the administration to first prove to Congress that redirecting those forces would not negatively affect the United States or its allies.

In the Senate, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has been pushing for a similar provision in its version of the defense bill. His bipartisan amendment is co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida, suggesting that if the legislation came up for a vote, it could secure enough votes to pass. Inhofe, who has expressed his disappointment with the decision to withdraw troops from Germany, has not said whether Romney's amendment will be considered on the Senate floor.

Representatives for Inhofe did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Before any bill is sent to the president's desk, the Senate and the House must work their separate versions into one product that can pass both chambers. At this stage of the process, it is not unique for the president to issue a veto threat. President Barack Obama regularly threatened to veto the defense bills that emanated from the Republican-controlled chambers of Congress, and in 2015 made good on his threat by vetoing a bill in a dispute over federal spending.

But the top-line matters over which Trump has threatened to veto this year's defense spending measure - or at least the House's version - reflect issues over which Trump has faced disapproval from lawmakers, including members of his own party. Democrats and a large swath of the Republican Party have criticized Trump for playing fast and loose with traditional European allies since he took office, and many such as Romney say that shifting troops away from Germany would be a "free gift to Russia."

Likewise, removing the names of Confederate generals from military installations is an initiative whose critics appear to be concentrated in the president's political base, which has also voiced objections to the nationwide protests against racially motivated police brutality.

The House's bill would require all federal law enforcement officers who are dispatched to help quiet protests to clearly display the insignia of the force they belong to, and require the top official of a state, territory or protectorate to consent before the National Guard is deployed there to conduct certain functions. The White House objected to the latter provision in its veto threat as well, arguing that it would give too much power to the mayor of Washington, D.C. "to deny the president" use of the National Guard "to defend the seat of the United States Government."

Earlier this month, the Pentagon banned displays of Confederate flags at military installations. The House's defense bill seeks to expand that ban in statute to cover all Confederate symbols displayed on military facilities, except in museums and similar settings.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22)  Retired Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to compel the Duterte administration to put on hold the implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Law, which took effect last week.

In the 11th petition filed before the Supreme Court related to the controversial law, they asked the high court to issue a status quo ante order, temporary restraining order, and/or writ of preliminary injunction to stop government officials named as respondents from implementing the law pending the court's decision.

The two former members of the Supreme Court also filed a motion for special raffle and oral arguments.

The two legal luminaries were joined by maritime law expert Jay Batongbacal, ex-Magdalo Rep. Francisco Acedillo, former Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te, and several other law professors from the University of the Philippines as petitioners.

They said they are one with the government's quest to stamp out and stop terrorism, but highlighted its unconstitutionality.

The petitioners said the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 or ATA should be voided as a whole as it curtails rights to due process, to presumption of innocence, to bail, against incommunicado detention, against unreasonable searches and seizures, to privacy of communication and correspondence, among others. In the alternative, they want to nullify several provisions.

"The ATA is unconstitutional as written. It is mired by vagueness and overbreadth that repress protected speech, justifying its facial invalidation," the petitioners wrote.

Carpio, Carpio-Morales, and the other petitioners said the creation of the Anti-Terrorism Council  which is made up of nine Cabinet and government officials  transgresses the principle of separation of powers.

Named respondents are council officials  Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr, Defense Chief Delfin Lorenzana, Interior Head Eduardo Ano, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, Justice Chief Menardo Guevarra, Information and Communication Head Gregorio Honasan II, and Anti-Money Laundering Council Executive Director Mel Georgie Racela. The petitioners said these officials are given extraordinary powers that will violate the separation of powers stated in the Constitution.

"[The creation of the ATC and] conferring it with powers greater than what the Constitution gives to the President in times of invasion and rebellion, including the power to order the arrest and detention of individuals on mere suspicion for a maximum period of 24 days, and the search and seizure of their property (in both cases without court intervention)," they said.

The petitioners said they stand to suffer "immediate or imminent danger" in the enforcement of the ATA, considering they have all publicly criticized President Rodrigo Duterte and his policies. Carpio and Batongbacal have condemned the Duterte administration's inability to defend the rights of the Philippines over the West Philippine Sea, while Carpio-Morales filed a complaint against Chinese President Xi Jinping before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Senate President Vicente Tito Sotto III expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will not strike down the anti-terrorism law, despite the rising number of petitions challenging its constitutionality. He maintained that there was nothing unconstitutional with Republic Act No. 11479, noting that lawmakers have consulted with various experts and constitutionalists in its drafting process.

The anti-terrorism law formally took effect on Saturday, or 15 days after its publication on July 3. Its IRR, however, is still being finalized by the council, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. earlier told CNN Philippines.

The measure, which repealed the Human Security Act of 2007, will give more surveillance powers to government forces. It will also implement stricter penalties for suspected terrorists including a longer detention period without judicial warrant of arrest.
twitter keeps removing my post showing police brutality in philadelphia yesterday. officers spraying mace point blank in peaceful protesters faces while they sit still and comply. disgusting abuse. please share and retweet. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/G7qfsqCqtZ

Philadelphia SWAT officer Richard P. Nicoletti was filmed last month pulling masks off peacefully kneeling protestors and blasting them with pepper spray. He turned himself in today and will likely face charges of simple assault, reckless endangerment, official oppression, and possession of an instrument of crime.

From The Inquirer:

On June 1, as demonstrators gathered on the highway, Nicoletti could be seen on video dousing three of them with pepper spray as they knelt in the middle of the road.

Video showed Nicoletti pulling down the mask of the first woman he sprayed in the face, dousing a second woman at point blank range, then spraying a man in the face several times while also shoving him to the ground.

Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and Mayor Jim Kenney described Nicoletti's actions as unacceptable, and Outlaw said she was "disgusted."

John McNesby, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said that protesters had created a dangerous situation by entering the highway, and that the union would defend Nicoletti as the department's disciplinary process played out.
Editor's Note: With so much market volatility, stay on top of daily news! Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news and expert opinions. Sign up here!

Global stock markets were mostly lower in overnight trading. The U.S. stock indexes are pointed toward lower openings when the New York day session begins. Traders and investors are more risk averse at mid-week.

China-U.S. relations continue to erode after the U.S. abruptly closed the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas. China called the U.S. move an unprecedented escalation in U.S-China tensions.

President Trump has started doing Covid-19 briefings again and on Tuesday said the pandemic in the U.S. will get worse before it gets better. Trump also did an about-face by urging Americans to wear masks.

Hopes of another U.S. government financial aid package to Americans coming quickly have faded this week, amid disagreement among legislators on the packages contents.

The important outside markets today see Nymex crude oil prices weaker and trading around $41.30 a barrel after hitting a 4.5-month high on Tuesday. The U.S. dollar index is lower in early trading and near this weeks 4.5-month low. The yield on the benchmark U.S. Treasury 10-year note is currently around the 0.59% level.

U.S. economic data due for release Wednesday includes the weekly MBA mortgage applications survey, the monthly house price index, existing home sales, and the weekly DOE liquid energy stocks story.

Technically, the gold bulls have the strong overall near-term technical advantage. Bulls next upside price objective is to produce a close in August futures above solid resistance at $1,900.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $1,800.00. First resistance is seen at the overnight high of $1,866.80 and then at $1,875.00. First support is seen at the overnight low of $1,842.10 and then at $1,829.80. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 9.0.

September silver futures bulls have the strong overall near-term technical advantage. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $25.00 an ounce. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $20.00. First resistance is seen at the overnight high of $23.35 and then at $24.00. Next support is seen at $22.50 and then at $22.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 9.5.
Jamieson Wellness Inc.'s (TSE:JWEL) price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 41.4x might make it look like a strong sell right now compared to the market in Canada, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios below 13x and even P/E's below 7x are quite common. However, the P/E might be quite high for a reason and it requires further investigation to determine if it's justified.

Earnings have risen firmly for Jamieson Wellness recently, which is pleasing to see. It might be that many expect the respectable earnings performance to beat most other companies over the coming period, which has increased investors willingness to pay up for the stock. If not, then existing shareholders may be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.

View our latest analysis for Jamieson Wellness

Where Does Jamieson Wellness' P/E Sit Within Its Industry?

An inspection of average P/E's throughout Jamieson Wellness' industry may help to explain its particularly high P/E ratio. The image below shows that the Personal Products industry as a whole also has a P/E ratio higher than the market. So we'd say there could be some merit in the premise that the company's ratio being shaped by its industry at this time. Some industry P/E's don't move around a lot and right now most companies within the Personal Products industry should be getting a boost. However, what is happening on the company's own income statement is the most important factor to its P/E.

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Want the full picture on earnings, revenue and cash flow for the company? Then our free report on Jamieson Wellness will help you shine a light on its historical performance.

How Is Jamieson Wellness' Growth Trending?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far outperform the market for P/E ratios like Jamieson Wellness' to be considered reasonable.

If we review the last year of earnings growth, the company posted a terrific increase of 23%. Still, EPS has barely risen at all from three years ago in total, which is not ideal. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Story continues

Weighing the recent medium-term upward earnings trajectory against the broader market's one-year forecast for contraction of 8.3% shows it's a great look while it lasts.

With this information, we can see why Jamieson Wellness is trading at a high P/E compared to the market. Investors are willing to pay more for a stock they hope will buck the trend of the broader market going backwards. However, its current earnings trajectory will be very difficult to maintain against the headwinds other companies are facing at the moment.

The Bottom Line On Jamieson Wellness' P/E

Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-earnings ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

We've established that Jamieson Wellness maintains its high P/E on the strength of its recentthree-year growth beating forecasts for a struggling market, as expected. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/E as they are quite confident earnings aren't under threat. We still remain cautious about the company's ability to stay its recent course and swim against the current of the broader market turmoil. Although, if the company's relative performance doesn't change it will continue to provide strong support to the share price.

You need to take note of risks, for example - Jamieson Wellness has 3 warning signs (and 1 which is a bit unpleasant) we think you should know about.

You might be able to find a better investment than Jamieson Wellness. If you want a selection of possible candidates, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a P/E below 20x (but have proven they can grow earnings).

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.



Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
Out were some of the traditional urban elites who had sat for years in the 250-seat Syrian Peoples Council, as the parliament is known. Taking their place are some of the militia leaders and war profiteers who have risen to prominence over the past nine years of civil conflict, to considerable resentment on the part of ordinary Syrians, who have seen their living standards collapse as the wars destruction took its toll.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ordered today that prayers for the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday be performed at home. It is one of the first virus-related restrictions in the region for the upcoming Muslim holiday.

The Emirates National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority issued a series of directives for Eid al-Adha today. The holiday commemorates Abrahams willingness to sacrifice his son on Gods command. In the Muslim world, it typically involves dayslong feasts and social gatherings in homes, in addition to prayers. It is expected to begin in late July this year.

Observers in the Emirates are to pray at home, the authority said in a tweet. Mosques will remain open during the holiday, but they have to be at 50% capacity. Mosque goers must also social distance by 2 meters (about 6 feet), thus limiting the number of people who can pray at the houses of worship. Local authorities will inspect slaughterhouses for meat during the holiday and regulate congestion there, among other measures, according to the authority.

Countries in the Middle East are beginning to institute restrictions for Eid due to the continued coronavirus pandemic and the risk of spread associated with large gatherings that are common during the occasion. Oman announced that domestic travel will be prohibited during the holiday.

The UAE has largely opened up since its strict coronavirus lockdown earlier in the year. The Gulf state ended its curfew in late June.

Many countries in the region similarly instituted strict restrictions for the Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday in May.
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dover (NYSE: DOV), a diversified global manufacturer, announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2020.





Three Months Ended June 30,

Six Months Ended June 30, ($ in millions, except per share data)

2020

2019

% Change

2020

2019

% Change U.S. GAAP Revenue

$ 1,499



$ 1,811



(17) %

$ 3,155



$ 3,535



(11) % Net earnings 1

125



198



(37) %

301



304



(1) % Diluted EPS

0.86



1.35



(36) %

2.07



2.07



 %

























Non-GAAP Organic revenue change









(16) %









(10) % Adjusted net earnings 2

164



229



(28) %

368



412



(11) % Adjusted diluted EPS

1.13



1.56



(28) %

2.53



2.80



(10) %

1 Q2 2020 and 2019 net earnings include rightsizing and other costs of $13.4 million and $5.1 million, respectively. Q2 2020 also includes a $0.6 million expense related to the sale of AMS Chino. Q2 year-to-date 2020 and 2019 net earnings include rightsizing and other costs of $19.6 million and $8.2 million, respectively. Q2 year-to-date 2020 also includes a $4.4 million non-cash gain on the sale of AMS Chino, and year-to-date 2019 includes a $46.9 million non-cash loss on assets held for sale related to Finder.

2 Q2 2020 and 2019 adjusted net earnings exclude after tax acquisition-related amortization costs of $25.7 million and $26.2 million, respectively, and rightsizing and other costs of $13.4 million and $5.1 million, respectively. Q2 2020 also excludes a $0.6 million expense related to the sale of AMS Chino. Q2 year-to-date 2020 and 2019 adjusted net earnings exclude acquisition-related amortization costs of $51.3 million and $52.9 million, respectively, and rightsizing and other costs of $19.6 million and $8.2 million, respectively. Q2 year-to-date 2020 also excludes a $4.4 million non-cash gain on the sale of AMS Chino, and year-to-date 2019 excludes a $46.9 million non-cash loss on assets held for sale related to Finder.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2020, Dover generated revenue of $1.5 billion, a decline of 17% (-16% organic) compared to the second quarter of the prior year. GAAP net earnings of $125 million decreased 37%, and GAAP diluted EPS of $0.86 was down 36%. On an adjusted basis, net earnings of $164 million declined 28%, and adjusted diluted EPS of $1.13 was down 28% versus the comparable quarter of the prior year.

For the six months ended June 30, 2020, Dover generated revenue of $3.2 billion, a decline of 11% (-10% organic) compared to the first six months of the prior year. GAAP net earnings of $301 million decreased 1%, and GAAP diluted EPS of $2.07 was flat year-over-year. On an adjusted basis, net earnings of $368 million declined 11%, and adjusted diluted EPS of $2.53 was down 10% versus the comparable quarter of the prior year.

A full reconciliation between GAAP and adjusted measures and definitions of non-GAAP and other performance measures are included as an exhibit herein.

MANAGEMENT COMMENTARY:

Dover's President and Chief Executive Officer, Richard J. Tobin, said, "We are proud of our work and results in the second quarter. Economic uncertainty and operational disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic slowed activity across many markets and made the operating environment undeniably challenging. Our businesses have navigated the quarter well, as we focused on what was and remains within our control: diligently managing our costs and cash flow, providing a safe working environment for our associates and supporting our customers with the critical products they needed to keep their essential operations running.

"As we expected, activity declined across a majority of the markets we serve, albeit the impact varied widely across our diverse portfolio with many businesses proving their profitability and cash flow resilience in challenging conditions. Demand conditions in textile printing, foodservice, below-ground fueling, food retail and automotive aftermarket were particularly challenged, partially offset by relative resilience in biopharma, aerospace & defense, heat exchangers and marking & coding. We remain positioned well for the second half with a higher backlog compared to this time last year, driven by our longer cycle businesses and sequential intra-quarter improvement in many shorter cycle businesses.

"Global lockdowns, travel restrictions, proactive production curtailments and reduced volumes created a challenging operating environment in the second quarter, but our cost controls and continued execution of our multi-year productivity program resulted in a satisfactory decremental margin performance, positioning us well to reach or exceed our annual conversion margin target.

"Looking forward, the demand outlook for the remainder of the year remains uncertain, with activity across most markets improving but not back to business-as-usual. As a result of our improved demand visibility into the third quarter, and our solid margin performance year-to-date, we are making the decision to reinstate our annual guidance, though with a wider range than usual for the mid-year reflecting the fluidity of market conditions. We retain additional flexibility to adjust our cost base if macroeconomic conditions in the second half of the year necessitate a response."

FULL YEAR 2020 GUIDANCE REINSTATED:

In 2020, Dover expects to generate GAAP EPS in the range of $4.16 to $4.41 ($5.00 to $5.25 on an adjusted basis). A full reconciliation between forecasted GAAP and forecasted adjusted EPS is included as an exhibit herein.

CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION:

Dover will host a webcast and conference call to discuss its second quarter and year-to-date 2020 results as well as updated 2020 guidance at 9:00 A.M. Eastern Time (8:00 A.M. Central Time) on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. The webcast can be accessed on the Dover website at dovercorporation.com. The conference call will also be made available for replay on the website. Additional information on Dover's second quarter results and its operating segments can be found on the Company's website.

ABOUT DOVER:

Dover is a diversified global manufacturer and solutions provider with annual revenue of approximately $7 billion. We deliver innovative equipment and components, consumable supplies, aftermarket parts, software and digital solutions, and support services through five operating segments: Engineered Products, Fueling Solutions, Imaging & Identification, Pumps & Process Solutions and Refrigeration & Food Equipment. Dover combines global scale with operational agility to lead the markets we serve. Recognized for our entrepreneurial approach for over 60 years, our team of over 23,000 employees takes an ownership mindset, collaborating with customers to redefine what's possible. Headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, Dover trades on the New York Stock Exchange under "DOV." Additional information is available at dovercorporation.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This press release contains "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. All statements in this document other than statements of historical fact are statements that are, or could be deemed, "forward-looking" statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous important risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, some of which are beyond the Company's control. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, the impacts of COVID-19, or other future pandemics, on the global economy and on our customers, suppliers, employees, business and cash flows, other general economic conditions and conditions in the particular markets in which we operate, changes in customer demand and capital spending, competitive factors and pricing pressures, our ability to develop and launch new products in a cost-effective manner, our ability to realize synergies from newly acquired businesses, and our ability to derive expected benefits from restructuring, productivity initiatives and other cost reduction actions. For details on the risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein, we refer you to the documents we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. These documents are available from the Securities and Exchange Commission, and on our website, dovercorporation.com. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

INVESTOR SUPPLEMENT - SECOND QUARTER 2020 DOVER CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (unaudited)(in thousands, except per share data)



Three Months Ended June 30,

Six Months Ended June 30,

2020

2019

2020

2019 Revenue $ 1,499,175



$ 1,810,706



$ 3,155,114



$ 3,535,463

Cost of goods and services 947,577



1,138,113



1,991,273



2,239,328

Gross profit 551,598



672,593



1,163,841



1,296,135

Selling, general, and administrative expenses 366,740



396,634



753,681



805,100

Loss on assets held for sale 











46,946

Operating earnings 184,858



275,959



410,160



444,089

Interest expense 28,711



31,754



55,979



63,562

Interest income (728)



(945)



(1,911)



(1,835)

Loss (gain) on sale of a business 781







(5,770)





Other income, net (735)



(4,589)



(8,467)



(5,695)

Earnings before provision for income taxes 156,829



249,739



370,329



388,057

Provision for income taxes 32,063



51,654



69,284



84,267

Net earnings $ 124,766



$ 198,085



$ 301,045



$ 303,790

















Net earnings per share:













Basic $ 0.87



$ 1.36



$ 2.09



$ 2.09

Diluted $ 0.86



$ 1.35



$ 2.07



$ 2.07

Weighted average shares outstanding:













Basic 143,955



145,366



144,107



145,227

Diluted 144,995



147,179



145,359



147,041

















Dividends paid per common share $ 0.49



$ 0.48



$ 0.98



$ 0.96

















* Per share data may be impacted by rounding.















DOVER CORPORATION QUARTERLY SEGMENT INFORMATION (unaudited)(in thousands)



2020

2019

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD Q3 Q4 FY 2019 REVENUE



















Engineered Products $ 408,160

$ 342,380

$ 750,540



$ 418,851

$ 429,928

$ 848,779

$ 426,689

$ 422,089

$ 1,697,557

Fueling Solutions 359,982

326,495

686,477



373,050

390,586

763,636

411,769

444,772

1,620,177

Imaging &

Identification 256,765

227,977

484,742



268,354

266,588

534,942

275,109

274,420

1,084,471

Pumps & Process

Solutions 319,536

309,095

628,631



330,219

338,924

669,143

341,337

328,048

1,338,528

Refrigeration & Food

Equipment 311,913

293,527

605,440



334,643

385,474

720,117

370,335

306,165

1,396,617

Intra-segment

eliminations (417)

(299)

(716)



(360)

(794)

(1,154)

106

95

(953)

Total consolidated

revenue $ 1,655,939

$1,499,175

$3,155,114



$ 1,724,757

$ 1,810,706

$ 3,535,463

$ 1,825,345

$ 1,775,589

$ 7,136,397























NET EARNINGS



















Segment Earnings:



















Engineered

Products $ 69,094

$ 47,702

$ 116,796



$ 67,119

$ 77,129

$ 144,248

$ 74,367

$ 73,233

$ 291,848

Fueling Solutions 53,498

47,214

100,712



37,230

52,637

89,867

68,069

73,937

231,873

Imaging &

Identification 51,482

38,046

89,528



55,955

54,641

110,596

61,655

57,233

229,484

Pumps & Process

Solutions 1 66,079

67,702

133,781



14,991

76,278

91,269

77,433

71,379

240,081

Refrigeration & Food

Equipment 2 23,529

11,459

34,988



24,807

44,375

69,182

35,211

14,439

118,832

Total segment

earnings (EBIT) 263,682

212,123

475,805



200,102

305,060

505,162

316,735

290,221

1,112,118

Corporate expense /

other 3 24,097

27,311

51,408



30,866

24,512

55,378

28,658

63,781

147,817

Interest expense 27,268

28,711

55,979



31,808

31,754

63,562

31,410

30,846

125,818

Interest income (1,183)

(728)

(1,911)



(890)

(945)

(1,835)

(1,263)

(1,428)

(4,526)

Earnings before

provision for income

taxes 213,500

156,829

370,329



138,318

249,739

388,057

257,930

197,022

843,009

Provision for income

taxes 37,221

32,063

69,284



32,613

51,654

84,267

51,924

28,900

165,091

Net earnings $ 176,279

$ 124,766

$ 301,045



$ 105,705

$ 198,085

$ 303,790

$ 206,006

$ 168,122

$ 677,918























SEGMENT MARGIN















Engineered Products 16.9 %

13.9 %

15.6 %



16.0 %

17.9 %

17.0 %

17.4 %

17.4 %

17.2 %

Fueling Solutions 14.9 %

14.5 %

14.7 %



10.0 %

13.5 %

11.8 %

16.5 %

16.6 %

14.3 %

Imaging &

Identification 20.1 %

16.7 %

18.5 %



20.9 %

20.5 %

20.7 %

22.4 %

20.9 %

21.2 %

Pumps & Process

Solutions 1 20.7 %

21.9 %

21.3 %



4.5 %

22.5 %

13.6 %

22.7 %

21.8 %

17.9 %

Refrigeration & Food

Equipment 2 7.5 %

3.9 %

5.8 %



7.4 %

11.5 %

9.6 %

9.5 %

4.7 %

8.5 %

Total segment

operating margin 15.9 %

14.1 %

15.1 %



11.6 %

16.8 %

14.3 %

17.4 %

16.3 %

15.6 %























DEPRECIATION AND AMORTIZATION EXPENSE Engineered Products $ 10,122

$ 9,722

$ 19,844



$ 10,359

$ 10,452

$ 20,811

$ 10,095

$ 10,126

$ 41,032

Fueling Solutions 18,339

17,968

36,307



17,879

18,945

36,824

18,744

19,477

75,045

Imaging &

Identification 8,769

9,224

17,993



7,435

7,413

14,848

7,360

8,322

30,530

Pumps & Process

Solutions 18,336

17,572

35,908



17,548

16,201

33,749

16,018

17,817

67,584

Refrigeration & Food

Equipment 11,548

11,421

22,969



13,011

12,777

25,788

13,047

12,525

51,360

Corporate 1,638

1,696

3,334



1,506

1,981

3,487

1,523

1,726

6,736

Total depreciation

and amortization

expense $ 68,752

$ 67,603

$ 136,355



$ 67,738

$ 67,769

$ 135,507

$ 66,787

$ 69,993

$ 272,287























1 Q1 and FY 2019 include a $46,946 loss on assets held for sale for Finder Pompe S.r.l. 2 Q1, Q2, and Q2 YTD includes a $6,551 gain, a $781 expense and a $5,770 net gain on the sale of the Chino, California branch of The AMS Group ("AMS Chino"), respectively. Q2 and Q2 YTD also include a $3,640 write-off of assets. 3 Q4 and FY 2019 include a $23,543 loss on early extinguishment of debt.

DOVER CORPORATION QUARTERLY EARNINGS PER SHARE (unaudited)(in thousands, except per share data*)

Earnings Per Share





















2020

2019

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD Q3 Q4 FY 2019 Net earnings per share:



















Basic $ 1.22

$ 0.87

$ 2.09



$ 0.73

$ 1.36

$ 2.09

$ 1.42

$ 1.16

$ 4.67

Diluted $ 1.21

$ 0.86

$ 2.07



$ 0.72

$ 1.35

$ 2.07

$ 1.40

$ 1.15

$ 4.61























Net earnings and weighted average shares used in calculated earnings per share amounts are as follows: Net earnings $ 176,279

$ 124,766

$ 301,045



$ 105,705

$ 198,085

$ 303,790

$ 206,006

$ 168,122

$ 677,918























Weighted average shares outstanding:













Basic 144,259

143,955

144,107



145,087

145,366

145,227

145,372

144,966

145,198

Diluted 145,782

144,995

145,359



146,911

147,179

147,041

147,051

146,790

146,992























* Per share data may be impacted by rounding.





DOVER CORPORATION QUARTERLY ADJUSTED EARNINGS AND ADJUSTED EARNINGS PER SHARE (NON-GAAP) (unaudited)(in thousands, except per share data*)

Non-GAAP Reconciliations

2020

2019

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD Q3 Q4 FY 2019 Adjusted net earnings:



















Net earnings $ 176,279

$ 124,766

$ 301,045



$ 105,705

$ 198,085

$ 303,790

$ 206,006

$ 168,122

$ 677,918

Acquisition-related amortization, pre-

tax 1 34,062

34,101

68,163



35,635

34,997

70,632

34,244

33,460

138,336

Acquisition-related amortization, tax

impact 2 (8,411)

(8,451)

(16,862)



(8,964)

(8,777)

(17,741)

(8,624)

(8,403)

(34,768)

Rightsizing and other costs, pre-tax 3 7,859

16,840

24,699



3,963

6,457

10,420

3,807

17,926

32,153

Rightsizing and other costs, tax

impact 2 (1,605)

(3,452)

(5,057)



(861)

(1,377)

(2,238)

(806)

(3,745)

(6,789)

Loss on extinguishment of debt, pre-

tax 4 















23,543

23,543

Loss on extinguishment of debt, tax

impact 2 















(5,163)

(5,163)

Loss on assets held for sale 5 







46,946



46,946





46,946

(Gain) loss on disposition, pre-tax 6 (6,551)

781

(5,770)















(Gain) loss on disposition, tax-impact 2 1,592

(190)

1,402















Adjusted net earnings $ 203,225

$ 164,395

$ 367,620



$ 182,424

$ 229,385

$ 411,809

$ 234,627

$ 225,740

$ 872,176























Adjusted diluted net earnings per share:















Diluted net earnings per share $ 1.21

$ 0.86

$ 2.07



$ 0.72

$ 1.35

$ 2.07

$ 1.40

$ 1.15

$ 4.61

Acquisition-related amortization, pre-

tax 1 0.23

0.24

0.47



0.24

0.24

0.48

0.23

0.23

0.94

Acquisition-related amortization, tax

impact 2 (0.06)

(0.06)

(0.12)



(0.06)

(0.06)

(0.12)

(0.06)

(0.06)

(0.24)

Rightsizing and other costs, pre-tax 3 0.05

0.12

0.17



0.03

0.04

0.07

0.03

0.12

0.22

Rightsizing and other costs, tax

impact 2 (0.01)

(0.02)

(0.03)



(0.01)

(0.01)

(0.02)

(0.01)

(0.03)

(0.06)

Loss on extinguishment of debt, pre-

tax 4 















0.16

0.16

Loss on extinguishment of debt, tax

impact 2 















(0.04)

(0.04)

Loss on assets held for sale 5 







0.32



0.32





0.32

(Gain) loss on disposition, pre-tax 6 (0.04)



(0.04)















(Gain) loss on disposition, tax-impact 2 0.01



0.01















Adjusted diluted net earnings per

share $ 1.39

$ 1.13

$ 2.53



$ 1.24

$ 1.56

$ 2.80

$ 1.60

$ 1.54

$ 5.93























1 Includes amortization on acquisition-related intangible assets and inventory step-up. 2 Adjustments were tax effected using the statutory tax rates in the applicable jurisdictions or the effective tax rate, where applicable, for each period. 3 Rightsizing and other costs include actions taken on employee reductions, facility consolidations and site closures, product line exits and other asset charges. 4 Represents a loss on early extinguishment of 300,000 2.125% notes due 2020 and $450,000 4.30% notes due 2021. 5 Represents a loss on assets held for sale of Finder Pompe S.r.l. ("Finder"). Under local law, no tax benefit is realized from the loss on the sale of a wholly-owned business. 6 Represents a (gain) loss on the disposition of AMS Chino within the Refrigeration & Food Equipment segment.





















* Per share data and totals may be impacted by rounding.

DOVER CORPORATION QUARTERLY SEGMENT ADJUSTED EBIT AND ADJUSTED EBITDA (NON-GAAP) (unaudited)(in thousands)

Non-GAAP Reconciliations

2020

2019

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD Q3 Q4 FY 2019 ADJUSTED SEGMENT EBIT AND ADJUSTED

EBITDA

















Engineered Products:



















Segment earnings (EBIT) $ 69,094

$ 47,702

$ 116,796



$ 67,119

$ 77,129

$ 144,248

$ 74,367

$ 73,233

$ 291,848

Rightsizing and other costs 361

4,169

4,530



80

1,125

1,205

590

1,355

3,150

Adjusted EBIT - Segment 69,455

51,871

121,326



67,199

78,254

145,453

74,957

74,588

294,998

Adjusted EBIT % 17.0 % 15.2 % 16.2 %

16.0 % 18.2 % 17.1 % 17.6 % 17.7 % 17.4 % Adjusted D&A 2 10,122

9,722

19,844



10,359

9,855

20,214

10,095

10,126

40,435

Adjusted EBITDA - segment $ 79,577

$ 61,593

$ 141,170



$ 77,558

$ 88,109

$ 165,667

$ 85,052

$ 84,714

$ 335,433

Adjusted EBITDA % 19.5 % 18.0 % 18.8 %

18.5 % 20.5 % 19.5 % 19.9 % 20.1 % 19.8 % Fueling Solutions:



















Segment earnings (EBIT) $ 53,498

$ 47,214

$ 100,712



$ 37,230

$ 52,637

$ 89,867

$ 68,069

$ 73,937

$ 231,873

Rightsizing and other costs 1,493

868

2,361



752

1,768

2,520

811

1,554

4,885

Adjusted EBIT - Segment 54,991

48,082

103,073



37,982

54,405

92,387

68,880

75,491

236,758

Adjusted EBIT % 15.3 % 14.7 % 15.0 %

10.2 % 13.9 % 12.1 % 16.7 % 17.0 % 14.6 % Adjusted D&A 2 18,339

17,783

36,122



17,879

18,945

36,824

18,744

19,477

75,045

Adjusted EBITDA - segment $ 73,330

$ 65,865

$ 139,195



$ 55,861

$ 73,350

$ 129,211

$ 87,624

$ 94,968

$ 311,803

Adjusted EBITDA % 20.4 % 20.2 % 20.3 %

15.0 % 18.8 % 16.9 % 21.3 % 21.4 % 19.2 % Imaging & Identification:



















Segment earnings (EBIT) $ 51,482

$ 38,046

$ 89,528



$ 55,955

$ 54,641

$ 110,596

$ 61,655

$ 57,233

$ 229,484

Rightsizing and other costs 264

(527)

(263)



389

1,268

1,657

301

4,392

6,350

Adjusted EBIT - Segment 51,746

37,519

89,265



56,344

55,909

112,253

61,956

61,625

235,834

Adjusted EBIT % 20.2 % 16.5 % 18.4 %

21.0 % 21.0 % 21.0 % 22.5 % 22.5 % 21.7 % Adjusted D&A 2 8,769

9,224

17,993



7,336

7,317

14,653

7,286

7,892

29,831

Adjusted EBITDA - segment $ 60,515

$ 46,743

$ 107,258



$ 63,680

$ 63,226

$ 126,906

$ 69,242

$ 69,517

$ 265,665

Adjusted EBITDA % 23.6 % 20.5 % 22.1 %

23.7 % 23.7 % 23.7 % 25.2 % 25.3 % 24.5 % Pumps & Process Solutions:



















Segment earnings (EBIT) $ 66,079

$ 67,702

$ 133,781



$ 14,991

$ 76,278

$ 91,269

$ 77,433

$ 71,379

$ 240,081

Rightsizing and other costs 3,846

4,691

8,537



414

903

1,317

943

3,868

6,128

Loss on assets held for sale 1 







46,946



46,946





46,946

Adjusted EBIT - Segment 69,925

72,393

142,318



62,351

77,181

139,532

78,376

75,247

293,155

Adjusted EBIT % 21.9 % 23.4 % 22.6 %

18.9 % 22.8 % 20.9 % 23.0 % 22.9 % 21.9 % Adjusted D&A 2 16,230

16,816

33,046



17,548

16,199

33,747

16,018

17,004

66,769

Adjusted EBITDA - segment $ 86,155

$ 89,209

$ 175,364



$ 79,899

$ 93,380

$ 173,279

$ 94,394

$ 92,251

$ 359,924

Adjusted EBITDA % 27.0 % 28.9 % 27.9 %

24.2 % 27.6 % 25.9 % 27.7 % 28.1 % 26.9 % Refrigeration & Food Equipment:

















Segment earnings (EBIT) $ 23,529

$ 11,459

$ 34,988



$ 24,807

$ 44,375

$ 69,182

$ 35,211

$ 14,439

$ 118,832

Rightsizing and other costs 704

6,016

6,720



2,293

666

2,959

840

2,243

6,042

(Gain) loss on disposition 3 (6,551)

781

(5,770)















Adjusted EBIT - Segment 17,682

18,256

35,938



27,100

45,041

72,141

36,051

16,682

124,874

Adjusted EBIT % 5.7 % 6.2 % 5.9 %

8.1 % 11.7 % 10.0 % 9.7 % 5.4 % 8.9 % Adjusted D&A 2 11,548

11,421

22,969



13,011

12,777

25,788

13,047

12,525

51,360

Adjusted EBITDA - segment $ 29,230

$ 29,677

$ 58,907



$ 40,111

$ 57,818

$ 97,929

$ 49,098

$ 29,207

$ 176,234

Adjusted EBITDA % 9.4 % 10.1 % 9.7 %

12.0 % 15.0 % 13.6 % 13.3 % 9.5 % 12.6 % Total Segments:

















Segment earnings (EBIT) 4 $ 263,682

$ 212,123

$ 475,805



$ 200,102

$ 305,060

$ 505,162

$ 316,735

$ 290,221

$ 1,112,118

Rightsizing and other costs 6,668

15,217

21,885



3,928

5,730

9,658

3,485

13,412

26,555

Loss on assets held for sale 1 







46,946



46,946





46,946

(Gain) loss on disposition 3 (6,551)

781

(5,770)















Adjusted EBIT - Segment 5 263,799

228,121

491,920



250,976

310,790

561,766

320,220

303,633

1,185,619

Adjusted EBIT % 4 15.9 % 15.2 % 15.6 %

14.5 % 17.2 % 15.9 % 17.5 % 17.1 % 16.6 % Adjusted D&A 2 65,008

64,966

129,974



66,133

65,093

131,226

65,190

67,024

263,440

Adjusted EBITDA - segment 5 $ 328,807

$ 293,087

$ 621,894



$ 317,109

$ 375,883

$ 692,992

$ 385,410

$ 370,657

$ 1,449,059

Adjusted EBITDA % 5 19.9 % 19.5 % 19.7 %

18.4 % 20.7 % 19.6 % 21.1 % 20.9 % 20.3 % 1 Q1 and FY 2019 include a $46,946 loss on assets held for sale for Finder. 2 Adjusted D&A is depreciation and amortization expense, excluding depreciation and amortization included within rightsizing and other costs. 3 Q1, Q2, and Q2 YTD includes a $6,551 gain, a $781 expense and a $5,770 net gain on the sale of a business for AMS Chino, respectively. 4 Refer to Quarterly Segment Information section for reconciliation of total segment earnings (EBIT) to net earnings. 5 Refer to Non-GAAP Disclosures section for definition.

DOVER CORPORATION REVENUE GROWTH FACTORS (NON-GAAP) (unaudited)(in thousands, except per share data*)

Non-GAAP Reconciliations

Revenue Growth Factors



2020

Q2

Q2 YTD Organic





Engineered Products (20.1) %

(11.1) % Fueling Solutions (14.8) %

(8.9) % Imaging & Identification (14.0) %

(9.2) % Pumps & Process Solutions (8.8) %

(5.0) % Refrigeration & Food Equipment (20.2) %

(12.8) % Total Organic (16.0) %

(9.5) % Acquisitions 0.7 %

0.8 % Dispositions (0.7) %

(0.7) % Currency translation (1.2) %

(1.4) % Total* (17.2) %

(10.8) %

* Totals may be impacted by rounding.



2020

Q2 Organic

United States (10.3) % Other Americas (33.5) % Europe (19.5) % Asia (14.3) % Other (33.1) % Total Organic (16.0) % Acquisitions 0.7 % Dispositions (0.7) % Currency translation (1.2) % Total* (17.2) %

* Totals may be impacted by rounding.

Adjusted EPS Guidance Reconciliation

Range 2020 Guidance for Earnings per Share (GAAP) $ 4.16



$ 4.41

Acquisition-related amortization, net

0.71

Rightsizing and other costs, net

0.16

Gain on disposition, net

(0.03)

2020 Guidance for Adjusted Earnings per Share (Non-GAAP) $ 5.00



$ 5.25



DOVER CORPORATION QUARTERLY CASH FLOW AND FREE CASH FLOW (NON-GAAP) (unaudited)(in thousands)

Quarterly Cash Flow

2020

2019

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD Q3 Q4 FY 2019 Net Cash Flows Provided By (Used

In):



















Operating activities $ 75,863

$ 271,809

$ 347,672



$ 24,524

$ 208,709

$ 233,233

$ 350,865

$ 361,208

$ 945,306

Investing activities (230,511)

(67,763)

(298,274)



(217,690)

(69,755)

(287,445)

(48,612)

(48,198)

(384,255)

Financing activities 280,954

(67,458)

213,496



36,067

(60,596)

(24,529)

(277,901)

(255,612)

(558,042)



Quarterly Free Cash Flow (Non-GAAP)

2020

2019

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD Q3 Q4 FY 2019 Cash flow from operating

activities $ 75,863

$ 271,809

$ 347,672



$ 24,524

$ 208,709

$ 233,233

$ 350,865

$ 361,208

$ 945,306

Less: Capital expenditures (40,172)

(38,999)

(79,171)



(37,122)

(53,970)

(91,092)

(46,184)

(49,528)

(186,804)

Free cash flow $ 35,691

$ 232,810

$ 268,501



$ (12,598)

$ 154,739

$ 142,141

$ 304,681

$ 311,680

$ 758,502























Free cash flow as a

percentage of revenue 2.2 % 15.5 % 8.5 %

(0.7) % 8.5 % 4.0 % 16.7 % 17.6 % 10.6 %





















Free cash flow as a

percentage of net earnings 20.2 % 186.6 % 89.2 %

(11.9) % 78.1 % 46.8 % 147.9 % 185.4 % 111.9 %

DOVER CORPORATION PERFORMANCE MEASURES (unaudited)(in thousands)



2020

2019

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD

Q1 Q2 Q2 YTD Q3 Q4 FY 2019 BOOKINGS









































Engineered Products $ 414,972

$ 278,373

$ 693,345



$ 427,697

$ 397,420

$ 825,117

$ 426,059

$ 457,145

$ 1,708,321

Fueling Solutions 373,070

311,498

684,568



343,083

394,256

737,339

450,727

425,698

1,613,764

Imaging &

Identification 272,604

221,315

493,919



267,762

264,175

531,937

284,527

276,451

1,092,915

Pumps & Process

Solutions 369,403

275,872

645,275



369,801

375,905

745,706

329,642

318,482

1,393,830

Refrigeration & Food

Equipment 355,157

326,400

681,557



376,998

384,365

761,363

323,422

361,970

1,446,755

Intra-segment

eliminations (375)

(460)

(835)



(725)

(490)

(1,215)

(528)

872

(871)

Total consolidated

bookings $ 1,784,831

$ 1,412,998

$ 3,197,829



$ 1,784,616

$ 1,815,631

$ 3,600,247

$ 1,813,849

$ 1,840,618

$ 7,254,714























BACKLOG









































Engineered Products $ 453,867

$ 378,874





$ 451,335

$ 418,154



$ 416,025

$ 452,142



Fueling Solutions 211,518

199,305





185,847

186,202



223,081

205,842



Imaging &

Identification 170,119

168,904





118,177

116,810



121,877

125,775



Pumps & Process

Solutions 397,969

379,090





353,066

378,427



361,478

353,073



Refrigeration & Food

Equipment 356,133

390,368





311,632

310,454



262,870

320,577



Intra-segment

eliminations (159)

(367)





(403)

(141)



(252)

(249)



Total consolidated

backlog $ 1,589,447

$ 1,516,174





$ 1,419,654

$ 1,409,906



$ 1,385,079

$ 1,457,160



























Bookings Growth Factors



2020

Q2

Q2 YTD Organic





Engineered Products (29.8) %

(15.6) % Fueling Solutions (18.2) %

(5.3) % Imaging & Identification (16.5) %

(8.0) % Pumps & Process Solutions (25.7) %

(11.9) % Refrigeration & Food Equipment (11.6) %

(7.9) % Total Organic (20.6) %

(10.0) % Acquisitions 0.7 %

0.9 % Dispositions (0.6) %

(0.7) % Currency translation (1.7) %

(1.4) % Total* (22.2) %

(11.2) % * Totals may be impacted by rounding.

Non-GAAP Measures Definitions

In an effort to provide investors with additional information regarding our results as determined by GAAP, Management also discloses non-GAAP information that Management believes provides useful information to investors. Adjusted net earnings, adjusted diluted net earnings per share, total segment earnings (EBIT), adjusted EBIT by segment, adjusted EBIT margin by segment, adjusted EBITDA by segment, adjusted EBITDA margin by segment, free cash flow, free cash flow as a percentage of revenue, free cash flow as a percentage of net earnings, and organic revenue growth are not financial measures under GAAP and should not be considered as a substitute for net earnings, diluted net earnings per share, cash flows from operating activities, or revenue as determined in accordance with GAAP, and they may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies.

Adjusted net earnings represents net earnings adjusted for the effect of acquisition-related amortization, rightsizing and other costs, loss on extinguishment of debt, loss on assets held for sale, and a gain/loss on disposition. We exclude after-tax acquisition-related amortization because the amount and timing of such charges are significantly impacted by the timing, size, number and nature of the acquisitions the Company consummates. We exclude the other items because they occur for reasons that may be unrelated to the Company's commercial performance during the period and/or Management believes they are not indicative of the Company's ongoing operating costs or gains in a given period.

Adjusted diluted net earnings per share represents adjusted net earnings divided by average diluted shares.

Total segment earnings (EBIT) is defined as net earnings before income taxes, net interest expense and corporate expenses. Total segment earnings (EBIT) margin is defined as total segment earnings (EBIT) divided by revenue.

Adjusted EBIT by Segment is defined as net earnings before income taxes, net interest expense, corporate expenses, rightsizing and other costs, a 2019 loss on assets held for sale and a 2020 gain/loss on disposition. Adjusted EBIT Margin by Segment is defined as adjusted EBIT by segment divided by segment revenue.

Adjusted EBITDA by Segment is defined as adjusted EBIT by segment plus depreciation and amortization, excluding depreciation and amortization included within rightsizing and other costs. Adjusted EBITDA Margin by Segment is defined as adjusted EBITDA by segment divided by segment revenue.

Management believes these measures are useful to investors to better understand the Company's ongoing profitability as it will better reflect the Company's core operating results, offer more transparency and facilitate easier comparability to prior and future periods and to its peers.

Free cash flow represents net cash provided by operating activities minus capital expenditures. Free cash flow as a percentage of revenue equals free cash flow divided by revenue. Free cash flow as a percentage of net earnings equals free cash flow divided by net earnings. Management believes that free cash flow and free cash flow ratios are important measures of operating performance because it provides management and investors a measurement of cash generated from operations that is available for mandatory payment obligations and investment opportunities, such as funding acquisitions, paying dividends, repaying debt and repurchasing our common stock.

Management believes that reporting organic revenue growth, which excludes the impact of foreign currency exchange rates and the impact of acquisitions and dispositions, provides a useful comparison of our revenue and bookings performance and trends between periods.

Performance Measures Definitions

Bookings represent total orders received from customers in the current reporting period. This metric is an important measure of performance and an indicator of revenue order trends.

Organic bookings represent total orders received from customers in the current reporting period excluding the impact of foreign currency exchange rates and the impact of acquisition and dispositions. This metric is an important measure of performance and an indicator of revenue order trends.

Backlog represents an estimate of the total remaining bookings at a point in time for which performance obligations have not yet have satisfied. This metric is useful as it represents the aggregate amount we expect to recognize as revenue in the future.

We use the above operational metrics in monitoring the performance of the business. We believe the operational metrics are useful to investors and other users of our financial information in assessing the performance of our segments.

Investor Contact:

Media Contact: Andrey Galiuk

Adrian Sakowicz Vice President - Corporate Development

Vice President - Communications and Investor Relations

(630) 743-5039 (630) 743-5131

[email protected] [email protected]





SOURCE Dover

Related Links

http://www.dovercorporation.com


He is an up and coming model known for his strong resemblance to his mother, actress Elizabeth Hurley.

And Damian Hurley showed off his modelling chops as he fixed the camera with a smoldering stare while posing shirtless in a new Instagram snap.

The 18-year-old let his brunette locks fall loose down his shoulders in the photo and he wore a silver necklace.

Holiday: Damian Hurley, 18, showed off his modelling chops as he fixed the camera with a smoldering stare while posing shirtless in a new Instagram snap

Damian appears to be enjoying a holiday in Mykonos, Greece and captioned the snap: 'Swipe right'.

In the second photo he uploaded, the teen proved he is taking the ongoing coronavirus pandemic seriously as he sported a variety of protective gear.

Damian sported a face mask along with a face shield and a pair of blue gloves as he set out during his stay on the island.

Damian made his first foray into the modelling world when he shot his debut campaign for Pat McGrath last summer.

Safety first: In the second photo he uploaded, the teen proved he is taking the ongoing coronavirus pandemic seriously as he sported a variety of protective gear

He recently appeared in a very steamy make-up campaign alongside supermodel Irina Shayk, 34.

The sensual video, shot prior to the coronavirus lockdown, saw Damian straddled by the leather-clad bombshell as they promoted Pat McGrath's new Dark Star Mascara.

Sharing the video to Instagram Damian wrote alongside: 'the breathtaking @irinashayk and I for my favourite Aunty @PatMcGrathReal, directed by the extraordinary #StevenMeisel.'

Steamy! Damian was straddled by leather-clad supermodel Irina Shayk, 34, as they starred in a steamy new campaign for beauty brand Pat McGrath

Spot the difference: Damian looks just like his famous mother Elizabeth (pictured) in the new video

At first, only Irina is in view, but soon the racy clip shows the model wrapping her body around Damian as the leather clad pair intertwine while an intense heartbeat plays.

At times, the pair gaze into the camera while elsewhere Damian can be seen resting with his eyes closed, appearing to be lost in the moment.

Irina caresses Damian's head whilst wearing a pair of long leather gloves, while the teenager gently touches the top of her thigh with his bare hand.

Sensual: In the VERY sensual video for Pat McGrath's new #DarkStarMascara (shot prior to the coronavirus lockdown) Irina wraps her body around Damian

As the pair move, spoken word is read out: 'I love her beauty, but I fear her mind' - a quote from 19th century French writer Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal.

The author's name is also read out, and is of particular note given that Stendhal's syndrome is a psychosomatic condition involving rapid heartbeat, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations, allegedly occurring when individuals become exposed to objects or phenomena of great beauty.

Damian has certainly inherited his mother's cool confidence in front of the camera.

Proud mama! Elizabeth Hurley expressed her pride by sharing a screen-grab of the video alongside an adoring caption

In fact, the actress expressed her pride by sharing a screen-grab of the video alongside an adoring caption.

She wrote: 'Proud Mama had to post this ravishing shot of my son @damienhurley with the gorgeous @irinashayk for the new @patmcgrathreal campaign shot by Steven Meisel.'

Irina shared the full video, writing: Major new #DarkStarMascara directed by the iconic #StevenMeisel for the legendary @patmcgrathreal! New must have.. alongside the most amazing beauty @damianhurley #PatMcGrathLabs.'

Who's who? Pat McGrath muse Damian imitated his mother Elizabeth when he donned a blazer inspired by the 1994 Versace gown which made her famous last July

At the end of last month, Damian was informed that his father Steve had jumped to his death at the age of 55.

The teenager said he was experiencing a 'strange and confusing time' as he took to Instagram hours after the 'devastating news' emerged that the millionaire filmmaker and philanthropist had taken his own life.

Damian was born after an 18-month relationship between the entrepreneur and actress Elizabeth in the early 2000s, before the pair split amid a bitter paternity row.

While it had been reported that Bing had never met his son, Damian's mother Elizabeth also took to social media to say they had grown close in recent times and had spoken on his 18th birthday.
New national strategy sought to root out data pitfalls, illustration photo

Addressing a workshop in Hanoi last week, deputy country director of Oxfam Vietnam Pham Quang Tu called for a national strategy for data protection. Its vitally important to protect personal data and privacy. This will ensure efficient exploration and protection of civil data and privacy as well as personal rights, Tu said at the event.

According to data published by the Vietnam Competition and Consumer Authority (VCCA) under the Ministry of Information and Communications, nearly one-third of the total number of complaints is now related to debt through phone calls even if the caller has not borrowed any cash.

Huynh Nguyen Anh Duong, a 27-year-old office clerk in Hanois Ba Dinh district VIR, Websites regularly require users like me to register accounts to get permission to utilise them. Therefore, I provide my personal information even if I only access some sites once in a year. I receive a lot of calls from real estate brokerage firms that have already grasped much information about me although I have never contacted them before.

Duongs case partially reflects the popularisation of data sharing in Vietnam. In recent times, personal data has been put on sale at rock-bottom prices. The operator of data seller danhsachmoi.com told VIR that the data of 60,000 people can sell for around VND2.5 million ($110).

Speaking at last weeks workshop Nguyen Tien Lap, senior executive partner of NHQuang&Associates, said it is hard to determine and handle violations related to users privacy in this country. Laws have yet to clarify sanctions for revealing personal data without users permission. That has contributed to a wider gap in the legal framework as personal data has been exploited as a new resource in the age of digital transformation.

It is necessary to outline the codes stipulating how much individual information is allowed to be exploited, and also specific sanctions for the cases stealing deeper data for their own purposes, said Lap.

Even though social media sites like Facebook have strict data-sharing agreements that users may or may not read before accepting, the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal nevertheless roused awareness of the role their personal data. The personal information of more than 87 million Facebook users was utilised for games and applications related to data exploitation group Cambridge Analytica. About 400,000 of the 87 million users involved were Vietnamese.

At the time Viviane Reding, member of the European Parliament said, Facebook is free but we have to pay with our own information.

The information often includes date of birth, email address, home address, ID number, and phone number, among others. Sellers and data miners collect the data from Facebook accounts or many other websites to profit from them in one way or another.

Holding billions of users globally, Facebook uses information to earn great advertising income. According to German market research firm Statista, Facebook last year saw nearly $70.7 billion in revenue with about 2.6 billion users across the globe.

By understanding the hobbies, characters, and even political tendency of users, Facebook and other social networking sites can more easily target appropriate advertisements to them, making them attractive to businesses.

According to the Ministry of Public Security (MoPS), collecting and putting personal information on sale is encroaching user privacy, which should be sanctioned under criminal penalties. In fact, many other countries already outlaw this.

According to Article 159 of the Criminal Code, a person who appropriates another persons mail, faxes, or other documents transmitted on the postal or telecommunications network in any shape or form shall receive a warning, be liable to a fine of VND20-50 million ($870-2175), or face a penalty of up to three years community sentence.

Meanwhile, Article 288 also stipulates that illegal provision or use of information on computer networks or telecommunication networks will be applied the highest sanction of seven years imprisonment.

However, applying these penalties is a rather complicated procedure as many of the data-collecting companies are situated in other countries and boast extensive terms and conditions that are often hard to understand for many users.

Despite the increase in awareness, regular online users are often still clumsy with the management of their personal data and do not just fall victim to data mining firms that often operate in legal grey areas but also to more targeted  and clearly illegal  approaches by groups that take advantage by tricking them into downloading questionable files that track a users behaviour and input.

Last month, spyware penetrated mobile phones and stole the personal data of hundreds of Vietnamese. Experts said the VN84App spyware was distributed via faked official websites, one of which mimicked the MoPS website. When successfully installed, the app collected messages and phone numbers.
Investigators also located a series of semi-nude photos of another woman whom Perrine identified as a co-worker, and he said he accessed her phone without her knowledge and copied the photos to his cellphone, according to the report.

He was booked into the Tulsa County jail July 15 on three complaints of peeping Tom and one complaint each of distribution of child pornography and possession of child pornography. He was released July 16 on $50,000 bond, according to jail personnel.

The preschool at Congregation Bnai Emunah said in its statement that the child pornography found was explicit images of teenagers.

According to the Tulsa Police Department, there is no concern about Preschool children in this episode, the preschool said in the statement. The ongoing investigation has revealed no evidence pointing to the victimization of a child of any age in the Synagogue schools.

The school hired Perrine last August, and the statement mentioned that as a candidate for employment he had positive references and passed the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations security check without complication.
JPMorgan Chase private bank managed at least $10 million for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein, it was reported on Wednesday.

The New York-based bank was also the long-time partner of Epstein, despite warnings from compliance officers in 2008 that he posed reputational damage to the institution.

Prosecutors say Epstein gave Maxwell at least $20million throughout their relationship.

She managed his properties but accusers also say she recruited underage girls for him.

Epstein, who had been charged with sex crimes and pleaded guilty in 2008 to solicitation of prostitution, remained a JPMorgan client until 2013. He had banked there for over 15 years, The New York Times reported.

His banking with Deutsche Bank - which continued to do business with him even after he was convicted of child sex trafficking in 2008 - has also caught the eye of regulators.

Deutsche Bank has been fined $150million for carrying on with its relationship with Epstein despite his criminal record and despite suspicious activity in his accounts like payments to women.

Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, pictured in 2005. The pair were initially romantically linked, with their relationship later becoming that of assistant and patron

Epstein, who met Maxwell around 1991, and with whom he was initially romantically involved, died by suicide in August 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Bloomberg News reported the detail of Maxwell's finances on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Maxwell's money was handled by a team that included several dozen relationship managers, advisers and others who specialize in closely held businesses, Bloomberg reported.

JPMorgan declined to comment.

A lawyer for Maxwell, 58, was not immediately available for comment.

Maxwell faces six criminal charges, including four related to transporting minors for illegal sexual acts, and two for perjury in depositions about her role in Epstein's abuses.

She has pleaded not guilty, and a tentative trial date has been set for July 2021.

If convicted, she faces 35 years in prison.

Ghislaine Maxwell pictured in October 2016, around the time she sold her Manhattan home

Maxwell is spending the next year in jail in part because her 'opaque' finances led the judge overseeing the case to conclude she was an extraordinary flight risk.

'At a basic level, the defense argument is that she cannot remember off the top of her head just how many millions of dollars she has,' said Alison Moe, Assistant U.S. Attorney, at Maxwell's bail hearing last week.

DEUTSCHE BANK FINED OVER TIES TO JEFFREY EPSTEIN New York regulators on July 7 fined Deutsche Bank $150 million and criticized the lender for 'mistakes and sloppiness' in its relationship with accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Authorities said Deutsche Bank's 'significant compliance failures' allowed Epstein to conduct hundreds of transactions totaling millions of dollars that should have prompted additional scrutiny. The New York State Department of Financial Services said Deutsche Bank failed to detect 'many subsequent suspicious transactions' conducted by the late multimillionaire, who died in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. Advertisement

The prosecutor said Maxwell's claims to have less than $1 million in the bank and no monthly income was 'implausible.'

She said the government was aware of a Swiss trust benefiting Maxwell that held over $4 million last month and in which a relative served as trustee.

Evidence of great wealth on Maxwell's part, especially if the money came from Epstein, could bolster prosecutors' depiction of her as fully complicit in his crimes.

Her lawyers have so far suggested Maxwell, 58, is less wealthy than many believe and sought to distance her from Epstein's private-jet and private-island lifestyle.

At the bail hearing, prosecutors said they had identified more than 15 different bank accounts associated with Maxwell from 2016 to the present, with balances ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $20 million.

She sold a Manhattan townhouse for $15 million in 2016 and still has one in London that she offered as a bail guarantee.

According to prosecutors, a New Hampshire estate where she was arrested on July 2 was actually purchased by Maxwell for $1 million in cash using a limited liability company.

At the hearing, Maxwell's lawyer Mark Cohen insisted that the prosecution's depiction of her as an extraordinarily wealthy woman posing extreme flight risk was wrong, and particularly rejected their allegations that she was 'associated' with 15 accounts.

'No detail, no explanation to the court, just more dirt,' Cohen said.

'Well, she has three bank accounts that she disclosed.'

JPMorgan's headquarters, on Park Avenue in New York City

He said it was possible there were other accounts related to a now-defunct non-profit that Maxwell formerly ran that they were willing to track down if the court deemed it important.

Cohen also said proceeds from Maxwell's Manhattan townhouse sale have already been depleted due to various liabilities and expenses, including 'extensive, substantial litigation.'

Maxwell in 2017 settled for undisclosed terms a defamation suit by Epstein victim Virginia Roberts-Giuffre and is now paying four lawyers to defend her against criminal charges.

In March, Maxwell sued Epstein's estate to cover her legal costs, claiming he had always pledged to provide her with financial assistance.
ACC officially declares Full Operating Capability for Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber)

By Sharon Singleton and Jennifer Spires, Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber) Public Affairs / Published July 21, 2020

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas (AFNS) -- Gen. Mike Holmes, Air Combat Command commander and Lt. Gen. Timothy D. Haugh, Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber) commander declared Full Operating Capability for Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber) during a virtual ceremony held at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland July 14.

The declaration of FOC signifies that the Air Force's Information Warfare organization met a rigorous set of criteria, including an approved concept of operations and demonstrated performance of mission under stress in simulated and real-world conditions.

"Today's declaration of FOC demonstrates the Air Force's trust and confidence in the Airmen of Sixteenth Air Force to deliver information warfare outcomes for the nation," Haugh said.

In nine months and three days, the Airmen of the Sixteenth Air Force proved they are able to fully employ and maintain readiness to meet operational requirements. This is a testament to the commitment of every Airman who ensures the IW force is ready to defend the nation.

Haugh highlighted the IW Numbered Air Force's readiness through the approach of convergence in response to our adversaries.

"We have adopted an approach of convergence that enables a clear focus on these hard problems," Haugh said. "Convergence takes a global viewpoint and uses access to data across each functional area to generate insights and ... integrates IW capabilities to produce timely effects in the information environment."

As the Sixteenth Air Force looks towards the future, it will realize convergence by leveraging the inherent strengths of all the Sixteenth Air Force units.

"Convergence has brought previously segmented elements in our enterprise together  to synchronize on common operational priorities that cross combatant command boundaries," Haugh said. "As we scale and build upon convergence in the information environment and implement material solutions that automate data awareness and sharing  we will begin to generate global outcomes at the speed of the information war."

Holmes' shared Haugh's sentiments and believes the new combined environment has streamlined the way the Sixteenth Air Force gathers, integrates, implements and communicates IW technologies and the opportunities the NAF has given to expedite experimentation and create these modes of ingenuity that we need as a joint force to maintain our advantage will be easier to come by.

"Listening to everything the units are doing filled me with certainty that pulling this Numbered Air Force together was the right thing to do," Holmes said. "You've worked relentlessly to optimize the readiness, employment, and presentation of not just (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) resources but cyberspace, electromagnetic spectrum and other information-operation assets. It's a great day for our United States and our combatant commanders as you have now presented new ways to use our assets to maintain our global superiority in this ever-evolving fight."

Holmes concluded the ceremony by extending his thanks to the entire Sixteenth Air Force team and signing the FOC declaration.

"As you go forward I believe that it's going to be crucial for you to continually develop the United States multi-domain warfighting capabilities and to ensure that our methods are the most effective, most lethal and that they remain on the cutting edge. I believe that the establishment of the Sixteenth Air Force will help us to modernize the way information flows from Airmen to four-star generals," Holmes said.



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The high court had said on Tuesday that it would deliver its order on July 24 on a petition filed by Pilot and 18 other MLAs.

New Delhi: Rajasthan Assembly Speaker CP Joshi Wednesday moved the Supreme Court against the high court directive to defer till July 24 the disqualification proceedings against 19 dissident Congress MLAs, including sacked deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot.

The high court had said on Tuesday that it would deliver its order on July 24 on a petition filed by Pilot and 18 other MLAs, challenging the disqualification notices sent to them. It asked the Speaker to defer the disqualification proceedings till then.

The Speaker, in his plea filed through advocate Sunil Fernandes, has said that the disqualification process is part of the Assembly proceedings and hence, the high court could not have interfered by asking him to defer it till Friday.

Later, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was appearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde in another matter, raised the issue of having a mechanism in the top court for urgent mentioning and listing of petitions like the one filed by the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker.

The CJI told Sibal to raise the issue of urgent listing before the apex court registry.

The Speaker's counsel had twice before agreed to the high court's request to extend the deadline for receiving replies from the MLAs to the show cause notices.

Pilot and 18 dissident Congress MLAs have challenged their disqualification notices in the high court.

The notices to MLAs were served after the party complained to the Speaker that the legislators had allegedly defied a whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings, on Monday and Tuesday last week.

The Pilot camp, however, has argued that a party whip applies only when the Assembly is in session.

In its complaint to the Legislative Assembly Speaker, the Congress had sought action against Pilot and the other dissidents under paragraph 2(1)(a) of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.

Pilot was sacked as deputy chief minister and the president of the state unit of the party after he rebelled against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
At some point, Jesse Jimenez and his parents got into an argument over a lost key to a door in the basement, where the son lives, according to the investigators documents filed in court. Jesses sister heard the noise, went downstairs and tried to calm the situation before going back upstairs, investigators wrote in court papers. At some point later, the sister returned to the basement, where she, her brother and her parents all made their way into her brothers bedroom.
President Donald Trump.

Associated Press

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Justice Department would allocate $61 million and send federal law-enforcement officials into several US cities to crack down on violent crime.

The department will "surge" federal law-enforcement officials to Chicago, and they will "vigorously charge federal crimes," Trump said.

He also said he sent federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri, and would soon deploy agents to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to restore order.

Both Trump and Attorney General William Barr have, without evidence, linked a recent rise in violent crime to demonstrations against police brutality.

The president's announcement came as civil-rights advocates and local officials sounded the alarm over the appearance of unmarked federal agents in Portland, Oregon, who have been seen pulling people off the streets.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Justice Department would send federal law-enforcement officials into more US cities as civil unrest continues unfolding in the wake of the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd.

Trump said the Justice Department would "surge" federal law-enforcement officials to Chicago and that they would "vigorously charge federal crimes." The president also said he sent federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri, and would soon deploy agents to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Trump announced the department would also allocate $61 million in grants to send more police officers to US cities as part of a mission dubbed Operation Legend. The president said Operation Legend was meant to "answer the pleas of those crying for justice and crying for help" across the country.

Attorney General William Barr echoed Trump and said the initiative was meant "to combat rising violent crime in a number of our cities." He also linked the recent uptick in violent crime to anti-racism protests. But neither Barr nor the president pointed to any evidence that the protests were responsible for the increase in crime.

Story continues

Wednesday's announcement marked a dramatic escalation of the federal government's crackdown on largely peaceful demonstrations following Floyd's killing, and local officials also expressed alarm over the development.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tweeted that she and the state's attorney general would "actively monitor for potential civil rights violations if and when the federal government sends officers to our state."

"We would welcome a genuine conversation about community public safety work and fighting violent crime," she added. "I hope that is the case."

"If the Trump administration wishes to antagonize New Mexicans and Americans with authoritarian, unnecessary and unaccountable military-style 'crackdowns,' they have no business whatsoever in New Mexico," Lujan Grisham said.

Over the past several days, the president has faced backlash over the sudden appearance of federal agents in Portland, Oregon. The officials have been seen wearing uniforms without identifying insignia and driving unmarked vans while pulling people off the streets.

Politico reported Wednesday that the 114 federal agents in the city appeared to be part of a Rapid Deployment Force from the Department of Homeland Security.

Over the weekend, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced her state was suing the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and other federal agencies to "stop the federal police from secretly stopping and forcibly grabbing Oregonians off our streets."

And Oregon Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden described the federal agents in Portland as a paramilitary force.

"First, they are deploying paramilitary forces with no identification indicating who they are or who they work for. Second, these agents are snatching people off the street with no underlying justification. Both of these acts are profound offenses against Americans," Merkley said last week, while calling for the agents to be "immediately" withdrawn.

John Haltiwanger contributed reporting.

Read the original article on Business Insider
HENRIETTA TOWNSHIP, Ohio  A tow truck driver and the driver of a disabled vehicle both were killed late Tuesday night when they were hit by a pickup truck while on the side of the Ohio Turnpike, according to the State Highway Patrol.

Eric Ackerman, 42, of Sandusky, who was driving a tow truck from Interstate Towing of Norwalk, was pronounced dead at the scene, a news release from the Milan post of the Highway Patrol says. The driver of the disabled vehicle also died at the scene, but troopers did not release an identity pending notification of family members.

The crash occurred at about 11:23 p.m., with the tow truck and disabled vehicle on the right shoulder of the eastbound lanes of the turnpike, troopers say. Ackerman was helping the other driver load two Sea-Doo watercraft from the trailer of the disabled vehicle onto the tow truck when they were hit by a 2009 Chevrolet 2500 pickup.

The pickup truck hit the tow truck and trailer, becoming airborne and landing on its top in the right lane of turnpike, troopers say. Ackerman was wearing a reflective vest and the overhead emergency lights on his truck were on with the crash occurred, according to troopers.

The driver of the pickup truck, a 30-year-old Bellevue resident, was treated at Mercy Health Hospital in Lorain for minor injuries, troopers say. Its unknown if drugs or alcohol were factors. The crash remains under investigation.

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A small South Korean survey of people with no history of COVID-19, but living in a city with the most cases, showed that roughly one in 13 had antibodies to the novel coronavirus, indicating the virus may have spread more widely than thought.



The study said based on the survey, roughly 185,290 people could have contracted the virus in Daegu city, which is the country's fourth-largest city with a population of 2.5 million.



"It was estimated that the number of undiagnosed missing cases may be 27-fold higher than the number of confirmed cases based on PCR testing in Daegu," the study said. Daegu city recorded 6,886 coronavirus cases alone as of June 6, said the study published online in the Journal of Korean Medical Science (JKMS) on July 16, but announced by the journal on Tuesday night according to local media.



The study done between May 25 and June 5 followed 198 people in Daegu city who had never been tested for COVID-19, and found 15 of them, or 7.6%, had antibodies.



That is a much higher infection rate than that found in a survey of more than 3,000 people in South Korea that excluded Daegu, in which only one person showed neutralising antibodies to the novel coronavirus earlier this month.













Health authorities urged caution over the study, considering the small specimen size and a use of rapid antibody test kits with 92% specificity.



"We do estimate there are more infections than the confirmed patients in Daegu. We are in talks with the city to conduct antibody tests for some 3,300 people to estimate the size," Jeong Eun-kyeong, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) director, told a briefing on Wednesday.



Antibody, or serology, tests show whether a person has been exposed to the virus. Similar studies have shown infection rates ranging from 0.1% in Tokyo to 17% in London and 5.2% in Spain nationwide.



South Korea, an early success story in containing the virus among its 51 million population after a severe outbreak in Daegu in March, has reported 13,879 cases and 297 deaths. The country is now battling small but persistent clusters of infections with 63 new cases reported on Tuesday. (Reuters)


Ayodhya, July 22 : The Uttar Pradesh Bullion Association has donated silver bricks, weighing more than 40 kilograms to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust that is overseeing the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The silver bricks are to be laid in the foundation of the proposed temple.

The 'bhumi pujan' is slated to take place on August 5 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The silver bricks were handed over to the trust official, Anil Mishra, in a simple ceremony in Ayodhya on Tuesday.

Recently, temple trust president and prominent seer Mahant Nritya Gopal Das had said that the Ram temple would be constructed with funds and voluntary contributions from the general public.

According to sources, a silver slab weighing nearly 40 kg will be placed in the sanctum sanctorum of the proposed Lord Ram temple during the foundation laying ceremony.

The rituals would be presided over by the priests from Varanasi.

The foundation of the temple is scheduled to be laid at 12.13 p.m, which is believed to be an auspicious time based on the astronomical calculations by the Hindu priests and seers.

Meanwhile, the Bullion Association's legal advisor Ravindra Nath Rastogi said that the association would continue to provide all possible help and contributions towards the construction of the Ram temple.

Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) spokesperson Sharad Sharma said "The general public and various organisations are coming forward to donate and contribute towards the temple cause." The width and length of the proposed Ram temple is likely to be raised from 140 feet to 270-280 feet and from 268 to 280-300 feet, respectively. Besides, the height is proposed to be increased from 128 feet to 161 feet, as per the new model prepared by the chief architect, Chandrakant Sompura, and his architect sons Nikhil and Ashish, who are overseeing the entire temple project.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
IF your lifelong intimate partner came to you in obvious emotional pain and asked, Do you love me? to reply I love everyone could well be true, but it would also be cruel, and excruciating.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

IF your lifelong intimate partner came to you in obvious emotional pain and asked, "Do you love me?" to reply "I love everyone" could well be true, but it would also be cruel, and excruciating.

"Black Lives Matter" (BLM) began as a hashtag in 2013 and exploded into a global social movement, one that abhorrent recent events have returned to the headlines. It has been opposed constantly by the assertion that "all lives matter." On "Juneteenth" (June 19) last month, the commemoration of the end of slavery in America, white evangelical U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence, when requested directly three times by three black pastors, refused each time to speak the words "Black lives matter," maintaining instead that "all lives matter."

Not so ironically, the BLM movement now embraces more lives, including those of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) and LGBTTQ+ people.

The "all lives matter" rebuttal is a brazen faux cry foul, in that it implies all lives are equally at risk, when they demonstrably are not. Hence its offence. It ignores, or worse, denies the disrespected and disadvantaged life experience of BIPOC, and silences their voices. It keeps white supremacy intact, white privilege invisible, and systemic racism in place.

While "all lives matter" is held true in principle, it is not true in practice. It remains true only in philosophical abstraction, not applicable in everyday life.

Part of the problem is the concision of slogans that characteristically attempt to say as much as possible as powerfully as possible in as few words as possible, relying on their context to render the intended interpretation. Clearly, the implication here is not that only Black lives matter, nor that Black lives matter more, but rather that Black lives matter, too.

That should be obvious in our cultural context, in which all lives have yet to matter equally. To miss, or worse, dismiss that reality by generalizing to "all lives matter" does indeed suggest something more sinister at work, and the need for a slogan that is all about focus, not exclusion. To focus on something that matters is not to say that nothing else does. In Time editor Jeffrey Kulgers analogy, "If I say Save the whales, it does not mean Screw the eagles."

This, said Judith Butler of the University of California, Berkeley, "is precisely why it is most important to name the lives that have not mattered... It is true that all lives matter, but to make that universal formulation concrete, to make that into a living formulation, one that truly extends to all people, we have to foreground those lives that are not mattering now."

Or, as the placard of one protester explained, "Yes, all lives matter, but were focused on the Black ones right now, OK? Because it is very apparent that our judicial system doesnt know that. To us, if you cant see why were exclaiming that Black lives matter, youre part of the problem."

"Baby on Board" window signs on vehicles are not countered by "Adult on Board" decals. Cancer Awareness events are not contested by All Diseases Matter symposia. Fire trucks arriving at a house ablaze are not confronted by neighbours insisting that all houses matter. So something else, something deeper, must be driving "all lives matter" to "correct" Black Lives Matter.

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Thus, the debate about which slogan is implicitly racist. Those claiming colour-blindness as their virtue  the white privilege of being able to ignore race  insist that "only racists see race," thereby accusing BLM of being inherently racist. However, colour-blindness in a societal context in which colour does empirically make a drastic difference, in which some lives do matter more than others, is far more logically and likely to be racist, either unintentionally, or worse, intentionally.

As Carla Shedd of Columbia University put it, the intent of "all lives matter" may be a "shared humanity," but its essence is actually the opposite, because it "erases the vulnerability and dehumanization of Black people."

"All lives matter" traces back to one particular conception of generic humanity forged by white European Enlightenment elites, which paradoxically functions as the foundation of white supremacy. Their moral duty, "the white mans burden," was then to "civilize" the non-white world. What ensued was one of the most tragic chapters of human history: the age of colonialism.

BLM now pleads for an actual generic humanity, an actual practice of all lives mattering equally, by focusing on those who do not yet.

As in all forms of social inequality in which the privileged patronize the disprivileged, such as gender, the insight of Indigenous Australian activist Lilla Watson is profoundly instructive, and hopeful: "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

Dennis Hiebert is a professor of sociology at Providence University College, Manitoba.
The special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Wednesday rejected the interim bail plea of driver Shyamwar Rai, one of the accused in the Sheena Bora murder case.

Rai, a close aide of the prime accused Indrani Mukerjea, has turned approver in the sensational murder case that was uncovered by Mumbai Police in August 2015.

Rai had moved a 45-day interim bail plea in the special CBI court via e-mail because of the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak among inmates and personnel at Thane Jail, where he is currently lodged.

He is in jail since his arrest in August 2015.

CBI prosecutor Manoj Chalandan opposed Rais interim bail plea, as jail authorities are taking appropriate measures to tackle the viral outbreak and all inmates are being looked after well.

He also pleaded before the court that Rai is an approver in the case and cannot be released until the trial concludes.

The special CBI court rejected Rais interim bail plea while considering the probe agencys objections.

Bora was killed on April 24, 2012, allegedly by Mukherjea, her second and former husband Sanjeev Khanna, and driver Rai, who has since turned a prosecution witness and approver in the case.

The trio allegedly strangled Bora in the car on April 24, and later her body was dumped into a bag and kept overnight in a garage at Mukerjeas house.

The bag was taken to Pen village in Raigad district the following day and was set on fire.

Initially, Boras remains were found in May 2012.

The murder case came into light after the arrest of Rai in August 2015.

He was arrested by Khar police for illegal possession of a pistol.

During the questioning, Rai had confessed to Boras murder.

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The US government abruptly ordered China to close its consulate in Houston in an unprecedented escalation, the Foreign Ministry said, in the latest sign of deteriorating ties between the worlds biggest economies.

China said the move was unilaterally initiated by the U.S. and Beijing would react with firm countermeasures if the Trump administration doesnt revoke this erroneous decision. It accused the U.S. of harassing diplomatic staff and intimidating Chinese students, confiscating personal electrical devices and detaining them without cause. Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel also recently received bomb and death threats, it added.

China strongly condemns such an outrageous and unjustified move which will sabotage China-U.S. relations, the Foreign Ministry said. We urge the U.S. to immediately withdraw its erroneous decision. Otherwise China will make legitimate and necessary reactions.

It wasnt immediately clear what spurred the move by the U.S., which has clashed with China over everything from trade and 5G networks to territorial disputes and responsibility for the pandemic. The Justice Department on Tuesday accused two Chinese hackers of working for Beijing to steal or try to steal terabytes of data, including coronavirus research, from Western companies in 11 nations.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the statement, China said infliltration and interference is never in the genes and tradition of Chinas foreign policy, without referring to anything specific.

On Tuesday night in Houston, police and firefighters descended on the consulate following witness reports that papers were being burned outside in open containers, the Houston Chronicle and two local TV stations reported, citing local police.

In videos posted online by local media outlets in Houston, fires could be seen in multiple containers, with smoke rising into the sky. TV stations KPRC and KHOU said firefighters were not allowed inside the complex, and KHOU said the fires were later extinguished. The Chronicle said no injuries were reported.

The Chronicle and both stations separately reported the consulate would be evicted on Friday at 4 p.m. local time, each citing unnamed sources.

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Water laps, house music trills, bikini bods sizzle and you sip Mango Daquiris by the pool. Before you even mention the 5 metre diving board (and charcoal cuisine), Mrs Sippy is already Instagram Nirvana.

A Mediterranean-inspired Oasis in the heart of Seminyak, Mrs Sippy plays host to the largest saltwater pool in Bali, is one of the islands coolest day clubs and has inspired 18,000 Instagram posts in its honor (60,000, if you include the generic #MrsSippy as well as #MrsSippyBali).

But while many tourist institutions, over the years, have been skewered for being too haughty (see: A.A Gills Tour De Gall) or phoney (see Carina Chocanos The Coast Of Utopia), Mrs Sippy doesnt pretend to be anything other than what it is.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MRS SIPPY BALI  POOL CLUB (@mrssippybali) on Nov 20, 2019 at 11:01pm PST

This was a disaster for your correspondent, who had arrived hoping to prick the bubble of the Australian dream. Looking for irritating influencers and hypocritical expats at every turn, I was disappointed to find clumps of friends from all over the world chilling on sun loungers, drinking ice cold beers (delivered in eskies), eating (premium) surf n turf, and jumping off the diving board.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MRS SIPPY BALI  POOL CLUB (@mrssippybali) on Jan 24, 2020 at 4:01pm PST

As the day progressed people took to the floating beanbags and began mingling in the pool. The diving board antics also went from timid hops

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MRS SIPPY BALI  POOL CLUB (@mrssippybali) on Dec 13, 2019 at 4:47pm PST

 to handstands and somersaults.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MRS SIPPY BALI  POOL CLUB (@mrssippybali) on Dec 20, 2019 at 10:01pm PST

I quickly realised: this place isnt exploiting some impossible dream. This is not Fear & Loathing in Seminyak. Much as I wanted to find the dark, superficial heart of Australias influencer scene, its not there in that way.

Of course, its no different to any other Australian-owned business in Bali in that it exploits the cheaper lifestyle costs of a location like Indonesia to turn a profit. But there are worse places than Mrs Sippy.

Despite a rocky start which involved legal disputes over building permits, Mrs Sippy employs local staff and, in terms of the dream they are selling, is refreshingly upfront  chill in the sun, listen to nice tunes  pretend youre in Bondi, but without the stress.

Also, while there may have been one or two Instagram personalities there, despite their reputation, they didnt bother anybody.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MRS SIPPY BALI  POOL CLUB (@mrssippybali) on Feb 6, 2020 at 12:01pm PST

The sad thing is, while Australians may rave about Mrs Sippy to their close friends, due to the ~basic~ reputation of sipping cocktails with other tourists rather than doing a boutique grass roots guided tour around Ubud (presumably with other tourists), or getting your wallet stolen by monkeys in Uluwatu, most are sheepish to admit they went to The Land Of The Gods and got crunk by the pool.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MRS SIPPY BALI  POOL CLUB (@mrssippybali) on Feb 23, 2020 at 8:01pm PST

Perhaps theres a good reason for this. But theres also a good reason to celebrate honesty, which is why wed rate Mrs Sippy over anywhere that pretends to offer a true local experience to assuage your conscience, then offers you much the same inauthentic, touristy experience (see: the token spiritual ceremonies provided in most high end Bali hotels).

So while A.A. Gill wrote that Brits and Americans From Bill Clinton to Woody Allen would continue returning to the worst restaurant in the world because they felt obliged to submit themselves to an authentic, sadistic, French experience, wed argue that Australians do the opposite in Mrs Sippy.

From Double Bay influencers to Surry Hills uni students, Australians will continue visiting Mrs Sippy, because it is so defiantly inauthentic that it is authentic. And rather than trying to keep it a secret or a please dont write about it Bistro a la LAmi Louis, we will happily, and authentically, keep on posting and posing about it (though on our stories, not our feeds  were not heathens, for heavens sake).

Thats once reality resumes, of course. In the meantime: live vicariously.

Read Next
Ever wonder why some of our elected officials have it in for immigrants?

All of us could easily trace our citizenship back to the time that our forebears arrived on our shores.

In a sense we are all immigrants, some more mindful of it than others.

I have always wondered what my first immigrant families might have uttered when they first saw the USA.

My Lucas family came by sailing vessel to Ame...
Volvo Cars is facing supply chain issues from factories in Mexico, according to CEO Hakan Samuelsson.

Samuelsson said supplier issues in Mexico and lower demand for its S60 sedans were partly to blame for the Ridgeville, South Carolina, plant being idle since June 3.

"First is the disturbances in the supply of parts from Mexico. But it is also a supply-and-demand issue for the S60. There is definitely a market trend toward SUVs," Samuelsson said Tuesday in Automotive News Europe.

Volvo's Ridgeville plant is the company's first manufacturing facility in the U.S., employing nearly 1,500 people. It currently builds the S60 sedan. In 2022, the plant is slated to build the next-generation XC90 sport utility vehicle.

The Ridgeville plant was closed in March and restarted on May 11. The plant was then closed again in June due to supply chain disruptions.

Samuelsson said the company hopes to have the factory running "within some weeks."

Like many U.S. automakers, Volvo relies on suppliers operating in Mexico. The company has around 29 parts and component suppliers south of the border, mostly located in northern Mexico.

Ford Motor Co. discussed shutting down factories in the U.S. if the company did not receive engines built at its plant in Chihuahua, Mexico, according to Kumar Galhotra, Ford president, Americas and International Markets Group on July 9.

Mexico continues to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, with 349,300 cases, according to the National Agency of Science and Technology. As of Tuesday, 39,485 people had died.

Click for more FreightWaves articles by Noi Mahoney.

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Canadian firm to build third manufacturing plant in Juarez, Mexico

French aerospace firm to build new factory in northern Mexico

New USMCA trade pact enters into force

See more from Benzinga

 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Liberty University will not require students to be tested for COVID-19 ahead of the first day of fall classes, according to a proposed operations plan submitted to the state for approval.

In addition to Liberty, two other institutions of higher learning in the Hill City  the University of Lynchburg and Randolph College  will not make testing mandatory for students, according to draft reopening plans.

The proposed plans, submitted to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia for certification, are expected to be finalized by the end of July. A spokesperson for the council said several plans are undergoing revisions and could differ from their initial drafts.

Instead of testing, Liberty students must complete an electronic health questionnaire before returning to campus and daily symptoms screenings throughout the semester as part of the universitys attempt to shield students and faculty members from the pandemic.

Liberty will follow applicable public health guidance on who should be tested for COVID-19 and when, the schools 23-page proposal for in- person instruction and campus operations states. Currently, such guidance does not recommend testing all college students and employees.

According to the yet-to-be- approved plan, Liberty will offer tests to any student or employee who requests one through the universitys health center, including asymptomatic individuals.

Current state guidelines recommend colleges and universities develop a testing strategy for students with COVID-19 symptoms or who have been exposed to the virus. But they do not require those institutions to conduct campus-wide testing.

Still, as the fall semester approaches, a growing number of large colleges and universities across the country, including the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University, are requiring students to undergo a COVID-19 test before classes start.

Purdue University, which Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. has held up as a model for reopening amid the pandemic, also recently announced it would require students to get tested prior to returning to campus.

Liberty is proposing in-person classes for virtually all instruction starting Aug 24. New students and others living in university housing will move in on a staggered schedule the week before classes begin, according to the draft plan.

Falwell told The Morning Show on WIQO last week he anticipates campus will be full this fall with a similar number of students when compared to last year. Nearly 15,000 students were enrolled in Libertys residential program last fall, of which about 8,000 lived in campus dorms.

Its going to be business as usual, Falwell said on the local radio show.

In addition to social distancing requirements on campus, Falwell said the university intends to limit the interaction students have with the local community.

Falwell did not explain how the school intends to decrease interactions between students and the public or how commuter students could be shielded from city residents. Libertys draft reopening plan makes no mention of such steps.

Our campus is pretty much self-contained, Falwell said. The ones who have apartments in town, theyre no different than people who already live in those apartments. Theres nothing we can do about that.

City Manager Bonnie Svrcek said she has not reviewed Libertys operations plan but is confident the school will adhere to the states health and safety requirements.

I trust that the college presidents and their board of trustees are going to act as responsibly as they possibly can in the interest of safety for their students and their staff and the community, she said.

A university spokesperson did not respond to a list of written questions emailed to the college on Monday about the reopening process, including testing requirements.

Under the submitted plan, students are required to wear masks in certain settings, including campus restaurants, stores, event venues and some lab or studio settings. Wearing face coverings is not required  but is encouraged  in other areas of campus, including dorms and where social distancing is not possible.

Campus gyms will operate at 75% capacity and venue spaces will be capped at 1,000 people in accordance with current state restrictions. Convocation, a thrice-weekly campus assembly, will be streamed online at the start of the semester.

Campus Community, a weekly worship event normally held in the 10,000-seat Vines Center, will take place over two services at Thomas Road Baptist Church to allow for social distancing. Face coverings are required during the start and end of the service but are not mandatory during the praise and worship portions.

Social distancing requirements, which call for at least six feet of separation between individuals in most places on campus, will be enforced by campus security personnel and other employees, the plan states.

Libertys draft plan also outlines certain triggers that would force the school to transition to online-only education or to shutter much of campus.

Among the criteria that would lead to a shutdown include a government order, a lack of available testing or a lack of space to quarantine sick students. Liberty plans to house quarantining students at a former university-owned hotel located a few miles north of campus.

According to the plan, if 5% of Libertys total on-campus population  including students, staff and faculty  test positive for COVID-19, the school will suspend in-person instruction in favor of online education. If 15% become infected, Liberty will close the campus and dismiss students. Students unable to return home will be allowed to remain in campus dorms.

Nathan Creekmore, a rising junior studying nursing who was critical of Libertys approach to the pandemic earlier this spring, said he is encouraged by the social-distancing requirements and mandatory health screens outlined in the proposed reopening plan.

Still, he is concerned the school will not readily enforce those measures when the time comes, especially since Falwell has repeatedly and publicly denounced the coronavirus restrictions handed down by the state.

Im scared that security and employees are not going to enforce the requirements enough or  more realistically  the student population is just not going to care enough, he said. They can put all these things in place, but it actually comes down to how strictly they try to enforce it.

Richard Chumney covers Liberty University for The News & Advance. Reach him at (434) 385-5547.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 23:30:03|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China has taken "an active part in international cooperation" on the research and development (R&D) of COVID-19 vaccine, which is "the ultimate solution to win the final victory over the virus," a senior Chinese diplomat has said.

Liu Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to Britain, made the remarks while meeting on-line with Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and his team. The two sides exchanged views on enhancing international cooperation on the vaccine R&D.

"In R&D of COVID-19 vaccine, China has not only worked hard itself but also taken an active part in international cooperation," Liu said.

The Chinese side appreciates the work that the CEPI has done to promote international cooperation on R&D of vaccine and its achievements so far, and looks forward to closer exchanges and cooperation with the CEPI, and more positive contribution from the CEPI to safeguarding the safety and health of people of all countries, Liu said.

A phase 2 trial of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate conducted in China has found that the vaccine is safe and induces an immune response, according to a new study published Monday in medical journal The Lancet.

The results provide data from a wider group of participants than the phase 1 trial, which was published in May. Phase 1 trial involved 108 healthy adults and it demonstrated promising results.

China has pledged that when a COVID-19 vaccine is successfully developed and put to use in China, it will be shared with the world as a global public good to ensure vaccine accessibility and affordability, especially in developing countries.

The CEPI is an innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil society organisations launched in Davos in 2017.

It focuses on vaccine development, licensure and manufacturing while supporting the efforts of its partners in vaccine discovery and delivery. Enditem
Holidaymakers could be able to travel quarantine-free between England and Portugal in a matter of days.

The government is expected to update its air bridge policy to, with The Times reporting Portugal and the Maldives could be added to the list of 59 countries where English passengers will not need to isolate on return.

News of Portugal's addition comes amid discussion that 'regional' air bridges could be set up to allow people to travel to specific areas of countries where there are lower rates of coronavirus infections.

Lisbon has seen a spike in Covid-19 cases over the past months, but infection rates are thought to be lower in tourist hotspots such as the Algarve.

It is thought ministers are considering plans to introduce 'regional' air bridges to allow travel to low risk areas of high risk countries. Pictures in a beach in Oeiras, outside Lisbon

Paul Charles, travel consultant, told The Times: 'I think Portugal will be added. Portugal has already lost British tourists for July and there will be absolute uproar if it loses August as well.

'Confidence in the travel industry is thin. People are going on holiday but numbers are still only at 30 per cent of what they would have been this summer. The government has to do more to boost confidence and that can only come through testing at airports in place of quarantine.

Ministers are believed to be considering introducing the measures in order to restart travel to countries like Portugal and the US.

The 'regional' air bridges plan could see low risk areas identified in high risk countries which travellers would be able visit without then being subject to 14-day quarantine rules upon their return.

Such a move would mean the end of outright travel bans on entire countries and represent a further easing of quarantine rules.

It is thought the air bridge plan is being looked at as part of a review of current travel restrictions, with changes due to be announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on Monday.

Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, will announce the results of a review of coronavirus travel restrictions on Monday next week

The introduction of 'regional' air bridges could open up travel to tourist hotspots like The Algarve and Madeira in Portugal while keeping a ban on going to areas like Lisbon where coronavirus is more prevalent.

It could also allow for the return of some travel to the US amid fears the national scale of its outbreak could result in a long term ban.

A source told The Telegraph: 'Regional air bridges are an option for countries with localised outbreaks.

'The US is a major issue. If you judge it nationally, the absence of travel could go on for months, which is where individual testing of arrivals could work.'

Gloria Guevara, president of the World Travel and Tourism Council, told The Times: 'The establishment of air corridors between financial centres where infection levels are low, such as between London and New York, would provide a vital boost to business travel and aid the economic recovery.'

Earlier this week Virgin Atlantic resumed flights to New York and Los Angeles, running three round trips a week, to try and encourage passengers to cross the Atlantic.

Operating chief Cornell Koster told Bloomberg TV last week: 'Bookings initially are looking limited and load factors will be relatively low.

'We do believe there is pent-up demand out there, but we don't know when our major market to and from the US will open.'

Meanwhile, ministers are also believed to be looking at introducing coronavirus tests before or on arrival at UK airports in a further measure which could reopen travel to the US.

Mr Shapps will set out on Monday any changes to the current travel rules and announce whether any countries will be added to the 74 which are already exempt from the 14-day quarantine requirement.

Mr Shapps would not be drawn this morning on what could be announced next week.

He told Sky News: 'I will be talking more about the way forward on things like international travel corridors then.

'Regional' air bridges could allow for some travel to resume to parts of the US amid fears the state of its national coronavirus crisis could see restrictions in place for a long time

'But now, each week actually, we are reviewing and, where required, updating the list of countries it's safe to travel to.'

The Transport Secretary also said he 'can't confirm' whether the Government has considered suspending Air Passenger Duty to support airlines hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Asked if the Government would look at making such a change, he told Sky News: 'I'm the Transport Secretary rather than the Chancellor so I can't, I'm afraid, tell them that.'

He added: 'I can't get into pre-empting budget and other measures, so I can't confirm that at all, I'm afraid.'
Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, on Tuesday, said calls on the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta to account for the monies approved by Parliament to fight COVID-19 pandemic during the mid-year budget review are wrong.

He explained that all the country's expenditures at the end of each year, are submitted to the Auditor General to audit, after which he submits the accounts back to the House.

Dr Assibey-Yeboah gave the opinion at the Parliament House, Accra, ahead of the presentation of the mid-year budget review to Parliament by the Finance Minister on Thursday, July 23, 2020.

Dr Assibey-Yeboah asked: How can the Minister who have been given money come to the House to say, I am accounting for this it is for the Auditor General to vet the accounts and submit a report to the House?

Dr Assibey-Yeboah also explained that the Minister was expected to appraise the legislature on how the Government of Ghana intended to realign government expenditure, the public debt stock, the financing and revising of the projected GDP of 6.8 percent growth and exchange rate depreciation, which he said would be difficult to achieve because of the pandemic.

In the mid-year budget review, the Minister of Finance is expected to appraise Parliament on the macro-economic figures of the country for the first six months as well as an update on the full year 2019 numbers including the revenue and expenditure of the Government.

The mid-year review spells out what is required of the Finance Minister to do under section 28 of the Public Financial Management (PFM), Act.

Dr Assibey-Yeboah also indicated that the Minister was likely to inform the House about the shortfalls in revenue in addition to the GH9.5 billion gap in the budge as well as projections for the end of year December.

He revealed that the government had used GH 20 billion for the banking sector cleanup, which he recognized would add to the government's debt stock but not part of the country's deficit.

Mr Ras Mubarak, Member of Parliament (MP) for Kumbungu in his reaction described as outrageous a comment by Dr Assibey-Yeboah that the country has run a deficit budget all these years and was not expecting it to go away anytime soon.

He criticized the government for not being prudent in managing the economy, saying, the government was spending more than they earn in revenue.

We must accept that we are spending more than we earn in revenue and the deficit is happening because we are not prudently raising more than we are spending, he said.

Mr Mubarak said when the Finance Minister came for the COVID-19 fund as part of the conditions to allow him to take the money from the Contingency Fund, it was for him to report back to the Parliament how he intended to pay that money.

He said they expected that even if he comes back to tell Parliament that the gap has increased, what has been given him how does he anticipate to spend that.

---GNA
More than 600,000 people worldwide have fallen victim to the lung disease COVID-19 so far, which is caused by the SARS coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). In order to obtain an effective therapy for COVID-19 as quickly as possible, drugs that are being used to treat other diseases are currently being repurposed for COVID-19 treatment.

The Infection Biology Unit of the German Primate Center (DPZ)  Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Gottingen, together with colleagues at the Charite in Berlin, was able to show that the malaria drug chloroquine, which has been demonstrated to inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 infection of African green monkey kidney cells, is not able to prevent infection of human lung cells with the novel coronavirus.

Chloroquine is therefore unlikely to prevent the spread of the virus in the lung and should not be used for the treatment of COVID-19 (Nature).

It is known that SARS-CoV-2 is able to use two different routes to enter cells. First, after attaching to the cells, the virus can fuse directly with the plasma membrane and introduce its genetic material into the host cell. Second, it can enter the interior of the cells upon uptake via transport structures, called endosomes.

In both cases, the attachment of the virus to the cells and subsequent entry is mediated by the viral spike protein. For this purpose, the spike protein must be activated either by the enzyme cathepsin L (in endosomes) or by the enzyme TMPRSS2 (on the cell surface). Depending on the cell type, both enzymes or only one of them can be available for activation.

Chloroquine is a drug that is used to treat malaria. Since chloroquine inhibits the infection of monkey kidney cells with SARS-CoV-2, chloroquine has been tested in clinical trials as a possible candidate for the treatment of COVID-19. However, how chloroquine inhibits the infection of monkey kidney cells was not clear.

The current study shows that chloroquine inhibits viral entry into these cells, most likely by blocking cathepsin L activity. This raised the question whether chloroquine also inhibits the infection of lung cells that are known to produce TMPRSS2 but only a small amount of cathepsin L.

The study shows that chloroquine does not prevent SARS-CoV-2 entry into human lung cells and subsequent spread of the virus in these cells. In this study, we show that the antiviral activity of chloroquine is cell type-specific and that chloroquine does not block the infection of lung cells.

This means that in future tests of potential COVID-19 drugs, care should be taken that relevant cell lines are used for the investigations in order not to waste unnecessary time and resources in our search for effective COVID-19 therapeutics, says Stefan Pohlmann, head of the Infection Biology Unit at DPZ, adding: COVID-19 is primarily caused by the infection of lung cells, for this reason these cells should be given priority in efficacy tests.

The study was conducted in cooperation with the Charite in Berlin and the University of Bonn.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Pohlmann

Phone: +49 551 3851-150

Email: spoehlmann@dpz.eu

Dr. Markus Hoffmann

Phone: +49 551 3851 338

Email: mhoffmann@dpz.eu

Hoffmann M et. al (2020): Chloroquine does not inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection of human lung cells. Nature. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2575-3

http://medien.dpz.eu/pinaccess/showpin.do?pinCode=mOY9OaArgbzM  Printable pictures

https://www.dpz.eu/en/home/single-view/news/malaria-medikament-chloroquin-hemmt-  Press release on DPZ-website
A man allegedly found in possession of a quantity of cannabis and cocaine had his case adjourned at a Naas District Court sitting on July 9 last.

Terry Murphy, 30, whose address was given as Hortland, Donadea, faces allegations of possessing a drug and possessing a drug for the purpose of sale or supply at Hortland, Donadea, on February 22 last.

Defending solicitor Tim Kennelly said at a previous sitting that the case was first listed in February, and no directions on how the issue should proceed have been issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

He added that his strict instructions are to have this proceed as soon as possible.

We are coming up to nearly five months, this should have been analysed, added Mr Kennelly.

He added that the defendant is very anxious to get this over and had a job offer in Scotland that he could not take up.

Sgt Brian Jacob said the delay was not down to the DPP but to the fact that Forensic Science Ireland is effectively working at 50% capacity on a week on, week off basis.

We are awaiting analysis, he told Judge Desmond Zaidan.

On July 9 said that the drugs had been analysed.

However fingerprints and DNA reports are awaited and the Director of Public Prosecutions office wants all these reports. Mr Kennelly again queried the delay and asked why it is taking so long to proceed. He opposed an application made by Sgt Jacob for an adjournment until October.

Judge Desmond Zaidan adjourned the matter until September 17.
There will be new rules for visitors to Niagara Regions long-term care homes, starting Wednesday.

Outdoor visit parameters are being loosened, and indoor visiting programs will be permitted, Adrienne Jugley, the commissioner of social services, wrote in a report to regional council.

Outdoor visitors at Region-run homes will no longer be required to complete COVID-19 testing before visiting.

Indoor visits, which were limited to essential workers and families of palliative patients, will resume with an array of protocols to keep residents safe.

COVID-19 still presents a very real risk, and we are asking all visitors to ensure they follow all the health and safety protocols as we collaborate to protect residents who are highly vulnerable to the virus, Jugley said.

For outdoor visits, two people can have scheduled visits with a resident if each passes an active screening (including taking temperature) before the visit begins. They will be required to bring and wear a mask and follow infection prevention and control measures, including using hand sanitizer and ensuring social distancing.

For indoor visits, two visitors will be permitted at scheduled times with each to be screened before the visit begins. Indoor visitors must also have completed a COVID-19 test within 14 days of the visit and provide a record of a negative result.

Visitors will be provided with a surgical mask. They must wear the mask throughout their time in a home and follow usual infection prevention and control procedures.

The report said visitors should consider their health and susceptibility to the virus in determining whether visiting a long-term care home is appropriate.

Homes will continue to offer virtual visiting options.

If a home enters into an outbreak, all non-essential visitations will be suspended. Also, if there is a steady increase in community cases of COVID-19, the health department may require temporary cessation of visits, the report warned.
Vampire bats, those bloodsucking, flying critters with razor-sharp teeth, are rather social beings. They love grooming one another and sharing food supplies, which consists of regurgitated blood from some other unfortunate mammal. These bats also call out to one another when theyre apart from their group.

But when theyre ill, they call out less frequently and have fewer interactions with family and friends, new research suggests.

In 2020, such behavior sounds a lot like social distancing. But the scientists do not think the bats self-isolation is intentional. Publishing their findings last week in Biology Letters, the researchers believe that when bats are ill, they just have trouble mustering up the energy to call out.

Its like us, said Sebastian Stockmaier, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, Austin, who led the study. When they are sick and feeling bad, they are not interested in social interactions.
4 interesting things Trump said in interview with Fox

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In a wide-ranging interview with "Fox News Sunday," President Donald Trump faced some tough questions from anchor Chris Wallace. Here are four interesting things the president said.

1. If Biden wins, religion will be gone.

If Joe Biden got in, first of all, he wont call the shots, Trump said in the interview aired Sunday. The people  the radical left people thats around him  will call. Religion will be gone, OK?

When Wallace asked Trump to elaborate, the president said, "Look at what theyre doing to the churches. They wont let the churches even open if they want to stand in a field six feet apart. Weve had churches that wanted to stand in fields six feet apart."

He also said, Life, you could forget about that, the whole question of life, referring to abortion. He also mentioned Supreme Court...

Biden, Trump added, will destroy this country, but it wont be him.

It will be the radical left. The same type ideology that took over Venezuela, one of the richest countries in the world. They now have no water, they have no food, and they have no medicine.

Trump said he wont lose because the country in the end, theyre not going to have a man whos shot. Hes shot, hes mentally shot.

2. U.S. has one of the lowest mortality rates in the world when it comes to COVID-19

Wallace told Trump, We have the seventh highest mortality rate in the world. Our mortality rate is higher than Brazil, its higher than Russia and the European Union has us on a travel ban.

Trump responded, Yeah. I think what well do  well, we have them under travel ban, too, Chris. I closed them off. If you remember, I was the one that did the European Union very early.

But when you talk about mortality rates, I think its the opposite. I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.

Wallace said, It's not true, sir. We had 900 deaths on a single day.

Trump then asked his staff for the numbers on the mortality rate. He was given papers that showed the U.S. as having one of the lowest mortality rates for COVID-19.

Wallace clarified that he was going by numbers from Johns Hopkins University, where the U.S. ranked seventh (ranked 10th as of Monday at 3.7%) out of 20 countries. The White House, meanwhile, cited numbers from the European CDC, which shows the U.S. as having the second lowest mortality rate at 3.7% among eight countries.

Trump said, I hope you show the scenario because it shows what fake news is all about  Now we have somewhat of a surge in certain areas. And other areas were doing great  But you dont hear people complaining about ventilators. Weve got all the ventilators we can use. Were supplying them to other countries.

We go out into parking lots and everything, everybody gets a test Im glad we did what were doing. But we have more tests by far than any country in the world.

3. Police kill many whites too

Wallace told Trump, Nationwide, blacks are twice as likely, fewer in absolute numbers, but in terms of per capita, blacks are twice as likely to be shot and killed by police as whites are. In Minneapolis, over the last five years, police used force against blacks at a rate seven times that against whites. Can you understand why blacks would be angry at that?

Of course I do, Trump responded. Many whites are killed also. You have to say that.

I mean, many, many whites are killed  This is going on for decades. This is going on for a long time, long before I got here. You know, if you look at whats gone on in Portland, those are anarchists and weve taken a very tough stand  You know, weve arrested many of these leaders. If we didnt take that stand, right now, you would have a problem like  they were going to lose Portland.

When asked if he felt the Confederate flag was offensive, Trump said, "It depends on who youre talking about, when youre talking about. When people proudly had their Confederate flags, theyre not talking about racism, they love their flag, it represents the South, they like the South.

"I say its freedom of many things, but its freedom of speech.

"Im not offended either by black lives matter, thats freedom of speech."

On the call to rename military bases named after Confederate leaders, he said, "You know the whole thing of cancel culture, we cant cancel our whole history, we cant forget that the North and the South fought. We have to remember that. Otherwise well end up fighting again.

"Fort Bragg is a big deal, we won two world wars, nobody even knows General Bragg. Go to that community  say how do you like the idea of renaming Fort Bragg? What are we going to name it? Youre going to name it after the Rev. Al Sharpton?

"We won two world wars  out of Fort Bragg, won them out of all these forts and now, they want to throw those names away. No, Im against that. Most other people are."

We cant cancel our whole history. We cant forget that the north and the south fought. We have to remember that, otherwise well end up fighting again. You cant just cancel all...

4. Ive been very unfairly treated.

I think I was very unfairly treated, Trump told Wallace, after he asked, Whether its in 2021 or 2025, how will you regard your years as president of the United States?

Trump said he was under investigation by a bunch of thieves, crooks and from before I even won.

The president called the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016 illegal.

I have done more than any president in history in the first three and a half years, and Ive done it suffering through investigations where people have been  General Flynn, where people have been so unfairly treated.

The Russia hoax, it was all a hoax. The Mueller scam, it was all scam. It was all false. I made a bad decision on  one bad decision; Jeff Sessions, and now I feel good because he lost overwhelmingly in the great state of Alabama.

The bottom line is Ive been very unfairly treated, and I dont say that as paranoid.  Everybody says it.

He then claimed, President Obama and Biden spied on my campaign. Its never happened in history. If it were the other way around, the people would be in jail for 50 years right now.
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2 people wounded in shooting Tuesday near 73rd, Prospect, police say Two people were seriously injured in a shooting Tuesday evening near 73rd Street and Prospect Avenue, Kansas City police said.Police officers were called about 7 p.m. to the area and found a male and female suffering from gunshot wounds.

Quick reminder that "the discourse" hasn't really moved the dial much on local streets . . . One example out of many:
New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the demonetisation scheme, terming it as a fraud aimed at benefiting a particular political party, a veiled reference to BJP.

Kejriwal tabled a resolution in the Delhi Assembly in this regard during its one-day emergency session. The resolution, which will be discussed in the AAP-dominated House, also urges President Pranab Mukherjee to direct the Centre to withdraw the measure.

ALSO READ: (Demonetisation debate: BJP MLA Vijender Gupta marshalled out of Delhi Assembly)

The emergency session, convened to deliberate on the issues arising out of ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, began on a stormy note and had to be adjourned for 15 minutes soon after Kejriwal tabled the resolution, amid sloganeering against Prime Minister Narendra Modi by AAP MLAs.

Participating in the discussion, AAPs Okhla MLA Amanatulalh Khan said that Modi will not understand the pain being faced by families due to demonetisation as he does not have a wife or children.

Protesting Khans remark, Leader of the Opposition Vijender Gupta made certain personal allegations relating to Kejriwal, enraging the AAP MLAs, some of whom came into the well of the House forcing an adjournment.

ALSO READ: (PM Modi's war on black money: Here's how world media responded to Indian currency's overhaul)

Earlier, the members also observed a two-minute silence to pay homage to those who lost lives while standing in queues outsides banks and ATMs to withdraw money. Gupta and BJP MLA Jagdish Pradhan walked out protesting against it.

Resolves to urge upon the President of India to direct the Government of India to withdraw at once the draconian demonetisation scheme and to take necessary steps to institute a high-level probe to be monitored by Supreme Court of India to look into the allegations that the scheme is a fraud on the nation and that it has been launched to benefit a particular political party through its agents in black money market, the resolution moved by Kejriwal said.

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Faced with a belligerent Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) in East Ladakh, Indian security agencies have red-flagged the penetration of companies believed to have ties with the Chinese government in critical sectors, particularly telecommunications, higher education, and power supply and distribution.

While the government remains tight-lipped over the issue, it is understood that last week, the senior-most bureaucrats of the critical ministries met on directions from the top leadership to understand the extent of this penetration. Senior officials of security agencies sensitized the officers on the issue, and the government has since issued verbal instructions to various departments to prevent this intrusion, HT learns.

Also Read: The Middle Kingdoms rush of blood and the need for strong Indian deterrence

Two core areas highlighted in the presentation made by the security agencies were education and telecommunications. In education, under the garb of cultural promotion, Indian universities and colleges have tied up with their Chinese counterparts through Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs), often without the requisite clearance of the designated authority  in this case, the Ministry of External Affairs or the Human Resource Development ministry. A classic example in this are the Chinese-government funded Confucius Institutes to promote Han Chinese language and culture  typicality set up in association with a local partner institution.

The other area of serious concern is telecommunications, where private sector companies have preferred cheaper Chinese infrastructure for mobile and internet telephony. Sure, this isnt unique to India, but security agencies fear that Beijing has made serious inroads into this sector. There have even been allegations that large tenders are sometimes designed to suit the Chinese companies.

These concerns arent new. But many have been amplified in recent months, especially after relations between India and China took a turn for the worse following Beijings aggression in East Ladakh. Some departments acted immediately.

Also Read: India bans TikTok, other Chinese apps

For instance, the Department of Telecommunications, last month, asked BSNL to tweak its tender to exclude Chinese equipment makers from a large 4G upgrade project.

And the power ministry, on July 2 already issued a detailed order where all equipment, components and parts imported for use in the power supply system and network will be tested in the country to check for any kind of embedded malware/trojans/cyber threat and adherence to Indian standards.

The order states that power is a strategic and critical sector that supports not only Indias national defence, vital emergency services and critical national infrastructure but also the entire economy and the day to day life. Any danger or threat to power supply system can have catastrophic effects and has the potential to cripple the entire country, said the order, a copy of which has been seen by HT.

Also Read: Chinas Xi Jinping is a successor to dictator Joseph Stalin: US NSA OBrien

In order to protect the security, reliability and integrity of the system, the ministry has decided that all testing of equipment for use certification will only be done by laboratories designated by it. In addition, any import of equipment/components/parts from so-called prior reference countries will require permission of the Indian government.

HT learns that pressure is now on the HRD and telecom ministries to review Chinese involvement in light of the presentation made by the security agencies. The security agencies, a person familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity, have been instructed to investigate those ministries that are in violation of the directions.

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In a speech on the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., addressed his confrontation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Yoho, who is retiring at the end of his term, apologized for the abrupt manner of their conversation while continuing to deny a report that he used a sexist expletive.

I stand before you this morning to address the strife I injected into the already contentious Congress, Yoho said, reading from prepared remarks. I rise to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York. It is true we disagree on policies and visions for America, but that does not mean we should be disrespectful.

He concluded by saying he cannot apologize for my passion.

Ocasio-Cortez responded to Yohos speech, saying she didnt consider it an apology.

Republican responds to calling a colleague disgusting & a fing b*tch w/ I cannot apologize for my passion and blaming others, she tweeted. I will not teach my nieces and young people watching that this an apology, and what they should learn to accept. Yoho is refusing responsibility.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Rep. Ted Yoho. (Erin Scott/Reuters, via House TV)

Ocasio-Cortez told Yahoo News that the Florida Republican put his finger in her face and flew into a rage as she was heading in to a vote on Monday.

According to Ocasio-Cortez, Yoho came out of nowhere and started going off about shootings and bread and nonsense, calling me crazy, shameful, out of my mind, etc.

At first I tried to talk to him, but that just made him yell over me more, she continued. I said he was being rude and that this was unbelievable and started to walk away. He said, IM RUDE? Youre calling ME rude?! And I just kept walking to my vote.

According to The Hill, which first reported the incident, Yoho called Ocasio-Cortez a f***ing bitch as he walked away. Yoho denied using those words.

Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, Im very cognizant of my language, he said. The offensive, name-calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues, and if they were construed that way, I apologize for misunderstanding.

Story continues

Ocasio-Cortez told Yahoo News she did not hear exactly what he said at the time.

He kept muttering insults at me as I was walking away, but I didnt try to make it out, she said. I actually confronted him later that day about what he did, and he doubled down, yelling at me again for a second time later in the afternoon.

Yohos remarks on the Capitol steps may have been triggered by comments Ocasio-Cortez made during a virtual town hall about a recent spike in crime in New York City.

Ocasio-Cortez, who represents the Bronx and Queens in Congress, said economic desperation caused by the coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame.

Maybe this has to do with the fact that people arent paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent, and so they go out and they need to feed their child and they dont have money, she said. Theyre put in a position where they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry that night.

The comments were featured on Fox News and by other outlets, accusing her of conflating petty crime and gun violence.

Ocasio-Cortez said her comments were purposely taken out of context by the right, but she couldn't recall any past conversations with Yoho on this or any other topic.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the House steps. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

As my colleagues know, Im passionate about those affected by poverty, Yoho said in his speech on the House floor. My wife and I started out at the age of 19 with nothing. We did odd jobs and we were on food stamps. I know the face of poverty, and for a time it was mine.

That is why I know people in this country with all its faults can rise up and succeed and not be encouraged to break the law, Yoho continued. I will commit to each of you that I will conduct myself from a place of passion and understanding, that policy and political disagreement be vigorously debated with the knowledge that we approach the problems facing our nation with the betterment of our country in mind and the people we serve.

I cannot apologize for my passion, or for loving my God, my family or my country, he added.

Its unclear what, if any, repercussions Yoho could face for his conduct.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had called on Yoho to apologize on the House floor.

Mr. Yoho owes not only the congresswoman an apology, but also an apology on the floor of the House of Representatives, Hoyer told reporters Tuesday.

It was the act of a bully, the Maryland Democrat added. Bottom line, I think it was despicable conduct. It needs to be sanctioned.

___

Read more from Yahoo News:
Two men have been arrested after police allegedly seized a number of dangerous firearms including a double-barrelled shotgun converted into a pistol.

Officers from the State Crime Command's South East Region Major and Organised Crime Squad swooped on a Mermaid Waters home in Queensland on Tuesday.

Police footage shows officers searching the home as they allegedly located firearms in the oven and drugs in a zip lock bag.

A double-barrelled shotgun converted into a pistol was allegedly seized during the police raid in Mermaid Waters

A 33-year-old-man and a 24-year-old man were arrested following the raid on Tuesday

The footage then cuts to show a bag filled with crisp-looking $50 notes as well as ammunition.

Police seized the items and arrested a 33-year-old-man and a 24-year-old man and charged with drug and weapon offences including unlawfully possessing weapons, possessing dangerous drugs, possession of tainted property and possession of explosives (ammunition).

The pair are due to appear in Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Acting Detective Inspector Ian Galpin said officers will continue to work with the community to remove any dangerous weapons and drugs.

'The possession of dangerous drugs and firearms is a dangerous combination that presents significant risk to police, the community and the persons involved,' he said.
Microplastics have been found in the guts of sharks that live near the seabed off the UK coast.

University of Exeter scientists studied four species of demersal (seabed-dwelling) shark.

Of the 46 sharks examined, 67% contained microplastics and other man-made fibres.

A total of 379 particles were found and - though the impact on the sharks' health is unknown - the researchers say it highlights the "pervasive nature of plastic pollution".

"Our study presents the first evidence of microplastics and anthropogenic fibre contaminants in a range of native UK demersal shark species," said lead author Kristian Parton, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

Commenting on the possible sources of the particles, he added: "We were surprised to find not only microplastics but also particles such as synthetic cellulose, which is most commonly found in textiles (including disposable hygiene items like facemasks) and clothing.

"When clothes are washed, or items are discarded as litter, tiny fibres are released and these often flow into water sources and out to sea.

"Once in the sea, microfibres can either float or sink to the bottom, which is where these sharks live.

"The fibres could then be ingested via the sharks' food, which is mostly crustaceans, or directly through the sediment on the seabed.

"In terms of the other types of microplastics we found, many of these may have come from fishing lines or nets."

The research team, which included scientists from Greenpeace Research Laboratories, examined the stomachs and digestive tracts of four species: small-spotted catshark, starry smooth-hound, spiny dogfish and bull huss.

These species can be found at varying depths from 5-900m, but usually live and feed near the sea floor.

Though the study is based on a modest sample size, the findings suggest larger sharks contained more particles. No differences were found based on sex or species.

The study was conducted in Cornwall, UK, using sharks caught as "bycatch" (by accident) in a demersal hake fishery, fishing in and around the North-East Atlantic and Celtic Sea.

Study co-author Professor Tamara Galloway, of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, said: "We were not expecting to find microfibres from textiles in so many of our native shark species.

"Our study highlights how important it is to think before we throw things away."

Dr Laura Foster, Head of Clean Seas at the Marine Conservation Society, added: "The new research from into these iconic shark species around the UK shows high levels of microplastic ingestion, with 95% of the contaminants found being fibrous."

###

The paper, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is entitled: "Investigating the presence of microplastics in demersal sharks of the northeast Atlantic."
As the retail industry undergoes a seismic shift because of the coronavirus pandemic, its workforce is more vulnerable than ever.

Permanent store closures number in the thousands, putting them on pace to break records. Dozens of retailers have filed for bankruptcy  while others remain at risk. Meantime, a growing number of customers want to shop online and get their purchases through curbside pickup or home delivery, creating a much greater need for people to pick and pack items.

These fast-changing dynamics have led to a shakeout for workers. They've been hired, furloughed, laid off or assigned to new roles. Retailers, analysts and trade groups say the pandemic could change the size and makeup of the retail industry now, and for years to come.

Read more: Retail workers slammed by job cuts, pushed into new roles as coronavirus shakes their industry

More than one in four American jobs were supported by the retail industry before the Covid-19 crisis hit the U.S., according to the National Retail Federation. That made retail the largest private sector-employer in the country. (That number includes people who work directly for a retailer, like at an apparel store, warehouse or coffee shop. It also includes jobs created by the industry, such as construction workers building a mall.)

During the pandemic, the number of workers in stores has gotten smaller, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly 15.7 million were employed by retailers in February. That dropped by about 2.4 million in March and April, but recovered somewhat in May and June as stores began to reopen. About 14.4 million employees made up the workforce, as of June.
When Tomaz digs a small figurine out of the rich, dark earth in Amulet, he has no sense of the trouble it will bring. Students of the cinematic supernatural will know better, given the fantastic objects scattered throughout the horror genre, with its demonic dolls, cursed videotapes and enchanted fetishes. The object here is worn and pale as bone, with breasts and a shell-like disc fanning above its head like a mantilla.

Tomaz (Alec Secareanu) enters, wreathed in mystery and isolated in deep woods. The storybook setting makes a curious fit with his rifle, uniform and the roadblock he guards (sometimes while reading Hannah Arendts On Violence). My, what big eyes and brain you have, viewers may think, as they wonder where he is and what hes doing there. The writer-director Romola Garai, though, keeps his background and the larger picture blurred, allowing your imagination to roam free as the trees rustle and the camera glides. That hes a soldier without an obvious cause or country only adds to the spooky, anxious vibe.

A malevolent fairy tale about men and women, violence and power (and things that go eek in the night), Amulet frays your nerves beautifully for its first creepy hour. Working with a crack team both in front of the camera and behind it, Garai teases the story slowly, sprinkling in sharp, resonant details amid wails from a banshee chorus (courtesy of the composer Sarah Angliss). When Tomaz takes out a straight razor to shave, the moment sets off Chekhovian-Hitchcockian alarms in one wittily economic image. The brandished blade also suggests, simply by association, that Tomaz has something to do with the abrupt edits and destabilizing narrative fragmentation.

The plot thickens after Tomaz unearths the figurine, which is followed by a shot of him gasping awake as if from a nightmare. Now bearded and living in London, he seems to be a stray, though its initially unclear whether this is the present or another period. He flops at what looks like a squat, works in construction and seems wholly adrift, a meander that ends when he meets a solicitous nun, Sister Claire (Imelda Staunton, in a brief, delicious turn). In short order, she delivers him to one of those creaking, squeaking houses with peeling walls and alarming stains, an apparent damsel in distress, Magda (Carla Juri), and a shrieking enigma inhabiting the top floor.
A doctor from Pune, who worked at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Baj RR Covid Hospital in Dombivli for two months, has complained of non-payment of salary and sudden termination by the management of the private hospital.

The doctor, who tested positive to Covid-19, has been undergoing treatment at a hospital in Ulhasnagar since the past eight days.

In a letter to Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) commissioner Vijay Suryavanshi, he stated, I joined on May 3 at the Covid hospital in Dombivli and was terminated on June 28 without any prior notice. They also assured to pay the salary of two months by July 15, but there was no further communication. When I asked the hospital management, they threatened to cancel my medical registration.

The 32-year-old, who earlier worked in a hospital in Pune as casualty doctor, joined Baj RR Hospital for three months on a contractual basis that assured 55,000 salary per month. He moved from Pune to Dombivli to join the hospital and had treated around 40 Covid-positive patients. However, he tested positive for Covid-19 on July 14.

I am sure the hospital got my replacement for lesser salary and hence they removed me. Its not just me; there is another doctor and two ward boys who are not paid. I am admitted in a hospital now and if the salary is not paid how am I supposed to pay my bills. I have mailed a letter with my complaint to the KDMC chief as I am helpless, he said.

Another doctor, Pawan Saini, 28, who left the work at Baj RR Hospital on June 30, also complained of non-payment of salary.

I left the job due to personal reasons and my two months salary is pending. They had agreed to pay me on July 15, but now there is no communication. I dont understand why my payment is held, said Saini who worked at the hospital at the ward since January.

When asked, Bharat Tiwari, chief executive officer of the hospital, said, He [the doctor from Pune] was warned thrice before the termination as he fought with staffers and was also caught eating inside the ICU. As his salary was delayed, I received threatening calls from random people in the past few days. Hence, I decided to hold the salary.

The other doctor has also ganged up with him. Unless he gives me a written apology, we will not pay him, added Tiwari.

The doctor, however, refuted the allegations saying, These are false allegations. I was terminated without any valid reason.

Suryavanshi did not respond to calls, while KDMC health officer Dr Pratibha Panpatil claimed that she was not aware of the complaint.

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London: The first major examination of Britain's strict coronavirus lockdown has found the mental health of women, the young and people living with children have been most affected by the upheaval.

The peer-reviewed study by experts from the University of Manchester and other institutions found the percentage of people with a potentially "clinically significant" level of mental distress rose from 18.9 per cent before the COVID-19 outbreak to 27.3 per cent after the first month of the United Kingdom's lockdown.

Researchers said the increase "might represent a so-called spike in emotional response" that stabilises or falls with time as people adjust to lockdowns and social distancing.

However co-author Dr Matthias Pierce said it was "reasonable to expect" any improvement would be overtaken by sustained distress as a deep coronavirus-induced economic recession takes hold.
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 21, 2020) - Aranjin Resources Ltd. (TSXV: ARJN) (the "Company" or "Aranjin Resources") announces that it has concluded an agreement to divest its Brazilian subsidiary, Five Star Mineracao Ltda, to a private investor group for future consideration.

As noted in Company filings over the past 18 months, investor appetite for investment in the diamond mining sector has been very low. The Company has been unable to secure investors to support the development of the Company's Brazil diamond assets, and this situation has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 public health crisis.

The Company is pleased to announce the sale to a private investor with the expectation that we can recoup some investment through the contingent consideration. We have transferred all related assets and liabilities to the purchaser.

The total consideration payable by the purchaser is composed of a cash payment of up to C$4M plus a 1% NSR on any production at the Catalao Project, based on future sales locally or exported.

The cash payment portion of the purchase price will be due when the Catalao Project becomes operational, per below:

C$500,000 within 6 months after start of commercial production of Alterated Zone;

C$500,000 within 12 months after start of commercial production of Alterated Zone;

C$1m within 6 months after start of commercial production of Fresh Rock;

C$2m within 12 months after start of commercial production of Fresh Rock.

Mr Wood, Chairman of Aranjin Resources stated, "We are very pleased to be able to divest our diamond assets whilst maintaining upside to potential development scenarios in the future. Aranjin Resources will now be exclusively focused on discovering copper deposits in the world class and underexplored copper provinces of Mongolia. Exploration programs have commenced and additional acquisition opportunities are being assessed."

Story continues

On behalf of the Board

Matthew Wood

Chairman

Aranjin Resources Ltd.

+1.647.981.1703

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

Correction of finder's fees

Further to the announcement on July 3, the Company wishes to provide a correction to the cash compensation amount paid to eligible finders in connection with the closing of the financing, as the Company paid C$38,761.25 in cash compensation as opposed to C$38,860 as announced in its July 3, 2020 news release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60226
Donald Trump is set to escalate his federal intervention in cities Wednesday by expanding 'Operation Legend,' deploying FBI and other agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to quell what he claims is out of control violence.

The move was to be announced Wednesday afternoon by Trump at the White House - putting him once again at odds with Democratic mayors, especially Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

They have opposed deploying federal forces to tackle protests. But Operation Legend, which was started in Kansas City, MO, involves surging Department of Justice, not Department of Homeland Security, agents to tackle crime rather then protests.

Lightfoot offered some off-ramp to the tensions Wednesday, saying a plan to surge FBI and DEA agents to help her city contend with local crime had her approval - but not an 'undemocratic' insertion of unidentified Homeland Security agents, as Trump has ordered in Portland.

Her statement signaled a possible de-escalation as critics fume about the Trump administration's use of 'secret' Homeland Security Investigations agents who have taken part in violent clashes with protesters in Portland.

Lightfoot, who has publicly clashed with President Trump, had vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' in her city, just hours before gun violence erupted at a funeral.

Fifteen people were wounded on Chicago's South Side in the shooting outside a funeral home Tuesday night. Police said at least 60 bullets were fired in the shootout when gunmen in a car opened fire on the funeral party, who then returned fire on the vehicle.

Violent crime is soaring across Chicago, with 12 killed in shootings and another 51 injured this weekend.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot vowed there would be no 'Portland-style deployment' of federal agents in her city

CCTV footage believed to be from the incident shows the horrifying moment mourners are shot at while standing outside the funeral home. A dark car is seen pulling up by the pavement where attendees of the funeral are gathered. Gunshots can then be heard and the people run for cover from the bullets

Police investigate the scene of the shooting Tuesday - in what marked yet another day of shocking violence in the city

The Trump expansions of Operation Legend puts AG Bill Barr's resources into both Chicago and Albuquerque.

While crime has soared in Chicago - there were 116 murders over the 28 days through July 19, an increase of nearly 200 percent, police department data shows - the reason for the deployment to the New Mexico city is less clear-cut.

OPERATION LEGEND: FEDS' SURGE IN KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, SPREADS Operation Legend is named for four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was asleep in his mother's apartment in Kansas City, Missouri, when he was killed by gunfire from outside the home. The killing came amid a 40 per cent increase in homicides in the city so far this year. In the wake of the June 29 killing, the city's mayor welcomed help from the Department of Justice to crackdown on killings. A total of 100 FBI, U.S. Marshals, DEA and ATF were ordered by Attorney General Bill Barr to surge into the city, working with local police to tackle violent crime. The operation, launched on July 8, was intended to bring an 'increase in prosecutions' which have yet to materialize. Advertisement

The Bernalillo Democratic sheriff, Manuel Gonzales, was expected at the White House Wednesday, the Albuquerque Journal reported, but the city's mayor Tim Keller - also a Democrat - said he did not want federal assistance.

Operation Legend was launched in Kansas City at the invitation of local officials, who were concerned about a rise in gun crime - not about protests.

It has seen FBI, DEA and ATF agents increase their presence in the city.

It announced its first arrest Monday: Monty W. Ray, 20, who agents pulled over in a stolen vehicle. They called him a 'violent crime waiting to happen.'

He had outstanding warrants for assault on an officer and fleeing after he allegedly ran over a police officer's foot. His lawyer said he was a habitual drug user.

In Chicago, police superintendent David Brown blamed turf battles among the roughly 117,000 gang members in the city of 2.7 million people, where one shooting begets another in an endless cycle of revenge.

'This same cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. This cycle is fueled by street gangs, guns and drugs,' he said. 'Too many people in Chicago have been touched by gun violence.'

Lightfoot also vowed in a tweet before that incident: 'Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trump's troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.'

Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, told reporters Tuesday she spoke with U.S. John Lausch and received reassurances, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. On Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported DHS would dispatch 150 of its HSI agents to the city, after Trump said he was 'sending in law enforcement.'

According to an HSI website, its agents tackle a variety of crime, including 'narcotics and weapons smuggling/trafficking' as well as 'transnational gang activity.'

'I don't put anything past this administration, which is why we will continue to be diligent and why we will continue to be ready,' sad Lightfoot. 'If we need to stop them and use the courts to do so, we are ready to do that.'

Lightfoot tweeted after 15 were injured in a Chicago shooting Tuesday

Federal agents disperse Black Lives Matter protesters near the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse on Monday, July 20, 2020, in Portland, Ore. Officers used teargas and projectiles to move the crowd after some protesters tore down a fence fronting the courthouse

Amid confusion about what federal agents might be sent in, Lightfoot hedged her language. DHS has refused to comment on 'leaked' reports about its agents being deployed.

'What I understand at this point  and I caveat that  is that the Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago,' she said.

'As I understand it, what we will be getting are some additional resources in the FBI, the DEA and the ATF,' she added.

She even described the federal help as potentially useful in combatting the city's crime wave  which Trump made a campaign issue in 2016 and has been fuming about again.

'What we will receive is resources that are going to plug into the existing federal agencies that we work with on a regular basis to help manage and suppress violent crime in our city,' she said.

She said Laushch would be 'in the loop.' She called what happened in Portland 'not only unconstitutional, it was undemocratic.'

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had to field questions at Tuesday's press briefing about a former U.S. Navy serviceman who was beaten and pepper sprayed by federal agents in Portland, where protests have centered around a federal courthouse.

McEnany cited a statute allowing for the protection of federal assets as the justification for sending federal agents there despite opposition from state and local officials. There was no such immediate threat to a federal building in Chicago.

She also cited instances of protesters hurling objects at police. The feds sent in the forces after weeks of protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for information about what federal agents were being sent to Chicago.

Police said the incident Tuesday night took place near where a funeral was being held for a man shot and killed last week in the city.

Lightfoot tweeted: ''When a person picks up a gun, we suffer as a city. This cannot be who we are. Too many guns are on our streets and in the hands of people who should never possess them. These individuals will be held accountable.'

Trump brandished the power of federal law enforcement at the White House on Monday.

'I'm gonna do something, that I can tell you,' Trump vowed, 'because we're not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these  Oakland is a mess. We're not going to let this happen in our country,' he said.

There will be 'more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,' Trump said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 17:37:47|Editor: huaxia

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by Peerzada Arshad Hamid

NEW DELHI, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Lightning strikes continue to kill people in India's eastern state of Bihar as floods have affected over 400,000 people in eight districts, officials said on Wednesday.

According to officials at Bihar disaster management department, 18 people lost their lives in the past 24 hours due to lightning strikes in nine districts of the state.

The deaths have taken place in Banka, Jamui, Nalanda, Nawada, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Jehanabad, Lakhisarai and East Champaran.

"Six people were killed in Banka district, three each in Jamui and Nalanda, and one each in Nawada, Gaya, Bhagalpur, Jehanabad, Lakhisarai and East Champaran districts," an official at Bihar disaster management department said.

So far close to 200 people have been killed in lightning and thunder strikes across the state over the past several weeks.

Disaster management officials said the victims were either working inside their fields or had taken shelter under trees at the time of lightning.

Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar has expressed grief over the deaths in lightning strikes across the state and announced monetary relief for victim families.

Kumar has appealed people to take care during bad weather conditions and avoid venturing out at the time of lightning and thunderstorms.

He also urged people to strictly follow the precautionary measures issued by the disaster management office for bad weather conditions.

The meteorological department officials have cautioned people to remain vigilant as more rain and lightning strikes were expected during the next 24 hours in different parts of the state.

People have been advised to remain indoors during bad weather conditions.

Meanwhile, floods have wreaked havoc in the state's eight districts, affecting 413,952 people.

The floods have inundated Sitamarhi, Sheohar, Supaul, Kishanganj, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj and East Champaran.

Authorities have set up relief camps in Supaul and Gopalganj for people.

Reports said people in other affected districts have taken shelter with their friends and relatives.

Officials said water in Ganga, Baghmati, Kamlabalan and Mahananda rivers was flowing above the danger level at several places.

A spokesman said local government officials were inspecting relief and rescue operations in the flood-affected areas of the state.

"The district magistrates in the flood-affected areas are reviewing preparedness and undertaking visits to the affected areas to ensure affected people are taken care of," an official at information and public relations department in Bihar said.

According to the official, the disaster response force personnel were present in the flood-hit districts to carry out rescue work.

Floods have also wreaked havoc in India's two northeastern states of Assam and Meghalaya. Enditem
THE green-list chaos can really be summed up by the fact that one of the 15 countries which features doesnt even have an airport.

Some of the other countries, like San Marino, will be familiar to Irish soccer fans from obscure European qualifiers - and arent easy or cheap to get to.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney accepted that the green list is confusing, which is perhaps an understatement.

So heres a travel guide which will hopefully help clear up any confusion.

Monaco is on the list, how can I get there?

It will have to be by helicopter - or a six-hour flight which includes a stopover in Paris and a connecting flight to Nice. Whats wrong with that, you ask? Well, Nice happens to be in France, a country that didnt make it on to the list and is currently seeing a rise in coronavirus cases.

The only aviation facility in Monaco is a helipad in the luxurious Monte Carlo. If you want to get there from Nice it will involve using public transport, a taxi or renting a car. Flights to Nice, which is 13km from Monaco, dont come cheap, either. To fly from Dublin or Cork to Nice with Aer Lingus on Saturday, returning a week later, will set you back around 460.

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Can you make connecting flights in countries that are not on the list?

Simon Coveney said there is no need to restrict movements if you make a connecting flight in countries not on the list. It is the final destination which matters. However, this doesnt mean you can stay in a country not on the green list and then make your way to somewhere which is.

"Its obviously different if you stay in France for the weekend and then fly on to Monaco," he said. "If you actually leave the airport and then spend some time in a country, then that is the country that determines the risk status."

As disclosed above, you cant fly to Monaco, or get there by boat as its landlocked by France at the north.

How much will a summer holiday in Greenland cost?

If you search flights on Skyscanner, the following comes up: Cheap flights from Dublin to Greenland for 895.

So, not that cheap at all. Flights only operate from Dublin once a week. To go there for a week in August will cost 1,286, will take 33 hours to get there and involve three stopovers.

What other countries are on the list and are any of them easily accessible?

San Marino, Gibraltar, Latvia, Slovakia, Greece, Lithuania, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Malta, Finland, Norway and Italy.

Ryanair is offering round trips to Malta from 116. The company is also chartering flights to Rome, Venice, Naples and Milan from between 60 and 166.

There are also flights available to Rhodes, Athens and Corfu in Greece, but most involve connecting at a UK airport.

If you wish to holiday in San Marino, be prepared for a long trip of between eight and 10 hours. You will need to fly into Italy and then travel by train to Rimini, before bussing it to San Marino, as the country is not accessible by rail.

Most flights from Ireland to Gibraltar will involve an overnight layover in the UK, which is not on the green list.

Irish holidaymakers usually fly directly to Malaga and make their way to the Gibraltar peninsula. However, Malaga is in Spain, which is also not on the green list.

Ryanair flies directly to Kaunas in Lithuania and Budapest in Hungary, with flights at the moment coming in at around 200 return.

Nordic countries Norway and Finland also feature on the list and are accessible by plane.

Norwegian flies directly from Dublin to Oslo in Norway for around 88 return.

While Finnair is operating round-trips to Finlands capital, Helsinki, for around 200.

The Government said earlier this week that the safest thing to do is not to travel - Im so confused.

Arent we all. The Department of Foreign Affairs' travel advice for countries on the green list has now been downgraded from "avoid non-essential travel" to take "normal precautions". Nphet is still encouraging people to holiday at home.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin yesterday told the Dail: The safest thing to do is not to travel and urged people to holiday at home.

He denied being at odds with Tanaiste Leo Varadkar over foreign travel after a testy exchange with Sinn Fein leader Mary-Lou McDonald, in which she accused the Government of operating on a wing and a prayer.

Former health minister Simon Harris also urged people not to holiday abroad.

Essentially, heres a list of places you can travel to but wed prefer if you didnt go there.

Whats the difference between the red list and green list?

Red-list countries are countries which have high levels of Covid-19, such as Spain and the UK. People arriving from these countries will be required to quarantine in Ireland for 14 days after arrival, unlike visitors from green-list countries.

Minister Coveney today said that passengers from so-called red-list countries may be required to provide a certificate showing they have tested negative for Covid-19 in the past 48 hours before they are permitted to board a plane to Ireland.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 02:30:16|Editor: huaxia

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A staff member demonstrates how to use a COVID-19 test kit in a BIPA store in Vienna, Austria, on July 21, 2020. (Photo by Georges Schneider/Xinhua)

-- Austria to make masks mandatory again in supermarkets, banks and post offices;

-- COVID-19 infections on rise again in Netherlands;

-- Cyprus asks European Commission for 1.2 mln doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

BRUSSELS, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in European countries.



VIENNA -- Masks will be mandatory again from Friday in banks, supermarkets and post offices in Austria, the government announced Tuesday.



This tightening of COVID-19 measures is primarily about protecting vulnerable people or high-risk groups, according to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

"Everyone has to go there, you don't have choices. We therefore decided to reintroduce the obligation to wear masks in supermarkets as well as in banks and post offices," said Kurz at a press conference held here on Tuesday afternoon.

A visitor disinfects her hands before visiting the reopened Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, June 1, 2020. (Photo by Sylvia Lederer/Xinhua)

THE HAGUE --The spread of the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands grew significantly in the past week after months of slowing down, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) announced on Tuesday.

Over the past week, 987 new COVID-19 infections were reported, which are nearly twice as many as the previous week, when 534 new infections were reported.

A total of 19 COVID-19 patients were admitted to hospital, an increase of three patients compared to last week, while seven deaths were reported, one less than the week before.

A woman wearing a face mask and gloves refuels a vehicle at a gas station in Nicosia, Cyprus, on May 4, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Baoping)

NICOSIA -- Cyprus has asked the European Commission to count it in for 1.2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines when it comes to collectively purchasing the medicine, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

A ministry statement said that the eastern Mediterranean island is participating in the initiative of European Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakidou, through which 2.7 billion euros (3.12 billion U.S. dollars) will be invested in companies that the European Commission believes will move fast or are at an advanced level in relation to vaccine research.

"In this case, the Commission is already negotiating with AstraZeneca, which is at a fairly advanced stage of the vaccine development," the ministry said.
We have never been in a situation like this before, and its scary, Zelaya said. This helps, she continued, pointing at the brown paper bags lined up on tables under the entrance canopy. Some pantries dont regularly have vegetables, she explained. Others have vegetables but no meat. Others meat only. You have to know which ones to go to.
Andrew Whitaker is a staff photojournalist at The Post and Courier. Previously, he's worked at The Southeast Missourian, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, The Hutchinson News, The Saginaw News and The Holland Sentinel.
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This article was originally posted inConvivium.



Caught between two tectonic plates, Turkey has always been the epicenter of catastrophic earthquakes. This time an earthquake of a symbolic nature is in the making.

It has ominous implications for the minority Christian population  mainly Assyrians/Syriacs/ Chaldeans, Greeks and Armenians  within the country. The world beyond Turkeys borders wont escape unscathed, either.

The coming quake is already an audible rumble for most of the Western worlds governments and political leaders. Canada, alas, appears deaf so far to warning sounds of destabilization coming from Istanbuls iconic Hagia Sophia (Church of the Divine Wisdom).

The ancient cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a magnet for millions of visitors from around the world. Much more, for 85 years it has served as neutral ground in Turkeys contested religious space.

Yet, at the stroke of a Turkish court decision and a decree from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this historical and cultural treasure became a mosque. Once the greatest and most beautiful basilica in Christendom, it had previously been turned into a mosque when the Byzantine capital Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell to Turkish Muslim invaders in 1453. Since 1935, however, it has functioned as a museum on the orders of then Turkish leader Mustapha Kemal Ataturk.

President Erdogan would like the world to believe the reversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque is a minor matter. It isnt. Worldwide furor about it is already building. As a responsible member of the international community, Canada cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.

The move could well signal the launch of an aggressive campaign to take back possessions the dying Ottoman empire lost to European powers at the end of the First World War. If the campaign escalated, it would inevitably risk igniting another flare-up in Turkish-Greek relations. One more lethal layer would be added to the volatility of Middle Eastern politics.

I had followed the story for weeks and read the coffee dregs (a custom a Turkish friend introduced me to as the cultural equivalent of reading tea leaves). I had foreseen it as fait accompli for President Erdogan, whose celebration of the fall of Constantinople the Hagia Sophia on May 29 seemed a prelude to an unfolding drama of reviving 15th century antagonisms.

When the news broke, my heart broke too. Granting the status of a mosque to the cathedral, once the jewel in the crown of Byzantine Christianity, sends an ominous signal for Turkeys Christian minority. Its also a serious step backwards for any kind of rapprochement between Greece and Turkey.

From a Christian and aesthetic point of view, I fear its priceless mosaics, paintings and Christian symbols will be erased or defaced beyond recognition since visual representations of any kind are taboo in Islamic practice.

I have visited Istanbul and the Hagia Sophia four times during the last 10 years. Each time, I was mesmerized by the ethereal beauty and architectural magnificence of the cathedral, which was built in 537 AD by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. He is said to have declared upon its completion Oh Solomon, I have surpassed thee, referring to the Temple of Jerusalem.

It may be a secular museum now, I wrote after my first visit. But this space is somehow sacred, a mirror of eternity. The mosaic of Christ Pantokrator (Almighty) appears to be watching us from above. With its lifelike face and piercing eyes, it is an incredible work of art that is nothing short of miraculous.

Pope Benedict, on his visit to Istanbul in 2007, prayed that Turkey would be a bridge of collaboration between the peoples of the Islamic and Christian faiths. In 2014, Pope Francis, in a gesture of goodwill to the Islamic world, prayed along with the Grand Mufti (leader of the Muslim community) of Istanbul at the Blue Mosque, which is a short walk from the Hagia Sophia.

Now it seems the political winds in Turkey are blowing in a completely different direction. The papal vision of inter-faith harmony has been replaced by one of renewed antagonism between ultra right-wing nationalism/ religious fundamentalism and peaceful co-existence.

The changed status of Hagia Sophia can only deepen the interfaith divisions simmering below the surface in Turkish society.

While the move sits well with Erdogans support base of religious nationalists, opponents complain their voices have been silenced or ignored.

Orhan Pamuk, Turkeys most celebrated author and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006, told BBC the decision would take away the "pride" some Turks had in being a uniquely secular Muslim nation.

A BBC article from July 10 quotes Pamuk as saying: "There are millions of secular Turks like me who are crying against this, but their voices are not heard.

Long before the decree was issued, it was a foregone conclusion despite these dissenting voices.

What can I say as a Christian clergyman and the Greek patriarch in Istanbul? Instead of uniting, a 1,500-year-old heritage is dividing us. I am saddened and shaken, said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, in the Washington Post on June 24.

Deeply troubling is the official language and symbolism used in the lead-up to the decree. These include the May 29 celebration of the 1453 conquest of Constantinople, ending an epic battle between the Christian emperor Constantine and the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II.

Equally concerning was the internal messaging delivered through the Turkish media that the spoils of war, including the Hagia Sophia, rightfully belong to the Muslim heirs of the Ottoman Empire.

Christian sources in Turkey, who insisted on remaining anonymous, told Convivium all this represents a stirring up anti-Christian sentiments. They fear attacks by fundamentalists emboldened by the language of antagonism.

The provocation extends to the Greek Orthodox Church, and beyond it to the governments of Greece and Cyprus. In a joint press conference with Nicos Anastidades, President of Cyprus, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called for a comprehensive European response, including sanctions, to Turkeys unnecessary and petty decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

Both U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the U.S. Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, have urged the Turkish government to maintain the site as a museum. Pope Francis has expressed deep pain and sorrow at its conversion to a mosque, as have other Christian leaders.

From Canada, the silence from official sources has been ear-splitting to say the least. Some civil society organizations are urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne to take swift action.

We have sent a letter to the Prime Minister to get on the world stage and send a clear message to Turkey that this is not acceptable, and that Turkey must abide by UNESCO rules since the Hagia Sophia is a world heritage site, Dr. Theodore Halatsis President of the Canadian Hellenic Congress told Convivium.

Halatsis added that more letters demanding action and co-signed by other organizations such as the Armenian National Committee of Canada are on their way to the Canadian government and to Audrey Azoulay, the director general of UNESCO.

The Canadian government should make this issue a high priority, and work with like-minded members of the international community to reach an acceptable compromise with Turkey.

If Minister Champagne and the bureaucrats at Global Affairs take the lead in crafting a response that gives President Erdogan room to reverse his decision without obviously bowing to international pressure, it would be an achievement worthy of the best Pearsonian diplomacy.

The opportunity to sustain Hagia Sophia as a jewel of inter-faith relations is also a chance for Canada to shine again on the world stage.
Highgate Senior Living is constructing a 90,000-square-foot senior living community on McMillan Mesa for completion in spring 2021.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held July 9 for the roughly $25 million project, a three-story building located at 1831 N. Jasper Drive that will include 60 suites  with studio and one- and two-bedroom options  for assisted living residents and 32 spaces for individuals with mid- to late-stage cognitive impairment. Other features include an exterior courtyard, spa, activities area, bistro and mens lounge.

Highgate, a Washington-based company focused on holistic care, has communities in Washington, Montana, California and Arizona  in Prescott, where it opened a similarly-sized building to the Flagstaff development in 2011.

Marjorie Todd, CEO of Highgate, said the team has been working in Flagstaff for the last five years, doing a market study.

We know that the Flagstaff community is very into health, healthy living, alternative types of treatment and care for people and just that holistic approach, so its a good fit for us because thats what we believe in, Todd said, adding that the organizations emphasis on building community relationships works best in smaller towns like Flagstaff.

She said the location on McMillan Mesa was ideal not only for its views, but also for its proximity to the hospital and many medical practices, as well as Buffalo Park and Basis Flagstaff, where she hopes residents will be able to volunteer with students.

Theres two things that we really feel passionate about and that is our holistic approach to care and purposeful living, Todd said. Just because youre old doesnt mean you dont want to add value and be needed and important so our programming is really centered around helping residents engage in things that make them feel purposeful, useful and needed.

In Highgates other communities, Todd said residents participate in activities such as baking for first responders and local homeless shelters as well as being pen pals with local students.

The groups holistic practices are based on its line of specialty teas and aromatherapy products, plus spa baths and massage.

We dont believe were going to be the solution for everybody, Todd said. We really focus on good quality dementia care and we focus on assisted living and that higher acuity yet cognitively intact resident. Were not in independent living. We dont pretend to be. Our premiere product we feel proud of is that dementia care product and how we take care of those residents.

According to its website, Highgates memory care program uses internationally recognized programs that emphasize positive interactions with residents, such as a system using gem colors to signify different stages of dementia. These categorizations are intended to help people better interact with and understand individuals with dementia.

Highgate at Flagstaff plans to hire a team of up to 90 team members, with 10 administrators, in the areas of care partners (its term for caregivers), activities professionals, servers, housekeepers, chefs and more. A local recruitment is scheduled to begin this fall, with the goal of hiring and training staff before it opens the building to residents.

The senior living community has set up a temporary information center at 617 N. Humphreys St. For more information, visit www.highgateseniorliving.com/communities/flagstaff.

Kaitlin Olson can be reached at the office at kolson@azdailysun.com or by phone at (928) 556-2253.

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European Union leaders have finally agreed a 1.82trn budget and coronavirus recovery fund after four days of sometimes bitter negotiations.

<p>The 750bn (677bn) coronavirus fund will be used as loans and grants to the countries hit hardest by <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/coronavirus-8483" target="_blank">the virus</a></strong>.</p><p>The remaining money represents the <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/european-union-5818" target="_blank">EU</a></strong> budget for the next seven years.</p><p>The talks began on Friday between leaders of the 27-nation group, with a divide emerging between those nations hardest hit and those intent on a more "frugal" package of measures.</p><p>Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria all pushed back on an initial package of grants worth 500bn (450bn), reportedly causing <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/emmanuel-macron-6240" target="_blank">Emmanuel Macron</a></strong>, the French president, to bang his fists in anger.</p><p>Hard-hit countries, such as <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/spain-6015" target="_blank">Spain</a></strong> and <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/italy-7435" target="_blank">Italy</a></strong>, were asking for a more flexible deal to help them deal with the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>Announcing that a deal had been reached after a gruelling 90 hours of negotiations, president of the European Council, Charles Michel, wrote "Deal!" on Twitter at 3.31am local time (4.31am UK time).</p><p>Talks lasted so long that leaders of Ireland and Luxembourg had to briefly leave Brussels to travel home, before returning to the negotiations later on.</p><p><strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/ursula-von-der-leyen-8457" target="_blank">Ursula von der Leyen</a></strong>, the European Commission president, told a press conference that the long summit had been "worth it", adding: "Europe as a whole now has a big chance to come out stronger from the crisis".</p><p>Mr Macron called the the deal a "historic day for Europe", while German Chancellor <strong><a href="https://news.sky.com/topic/angela-merkel-5924" target="_blank">Angela Merkel</a></strong> said: "This is an important signal beyond Europe's borders that the EU, even with all the (leaders') varying backgrounds, is able to take action."</p><p>Italian leader Giuseppe Conte said the plan "will allow (Europe) to face the crisis with strength and effectiveness."</p><p>Mr Conte added that almost 30% of the 750bn (677bn) recovery fund will be headed to Italy - a country where more than 35,000 people have died.</p><p>Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands and one of the so-called "frugal-five", said that despite tough negotiations and disagreements, relations with EU partners remained "strong".</p> <p><strong>:: Listen to Sophy Ridge on Sunday on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sophy-ridge-on-sunday/id1201909139?mt=2" target="_blank">Apple podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hdWRpb2Jvb20uY29tL2NoYW5uZWxzLzQ5MDI2NzIucnNz" target="_blank">Google podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3XkMvSBWMps5qqDjTLbazo" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.spreaker.com/show/sophy-ridge-on-sunday" target="_blank">Spreaker</a></strong></p><p>Europe became the centre of the outbreak in the early stages of the pandemic as strict lockdowns were imposed and tens of thousands of deaths recorded.</p><p>More than 135,000 people have died with coronavirus across the EU, with the bloc's economy shrinking by 8.3%.</p><p>Now that most countries have significantly eased their lockdowns and stabilised the situation there is a focus on dealing with the huge economic fallout.</p><p><strong>Analysis: 'Almost everyone... will be able to claim this as a victory'</strong></p><p><strong>By Adam Parsons, Europe correspondent</strong></p><p><em>The remarkable thing about this summit was not the gruelling length, the sniping, or the vociferous, sometimes vicious, arguments, but the fact that a deal came out of it at all. </em></p><p><em>Yes, this was a compromise, but that was the only way the European Union could possibly have got any kind of agreement. There was no way that Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte would have agreed to the initial recovery plan.</em></p><p><em>Similarly, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron weren't going to give up on it - and with the massive sums at stake, it was inevitable talks would be tough.</em></p><p><em>So what have we learnt? Certainly that Europe remains politically divided. It's clear that some "frugal" nations, led by Mr Rutte, suspect that grants will be frittered away; that a chance has been missed to push some countries (notably Italy, which will almost certainly get the biggest grant) into confronting endemic corruption.</em></p><p><em>We can see the nervousness about Poland and Hungary trimming citizens' rights and also that budget rebates, dreamt up by Margaret Thatcher and hated by Mr Macron, are now right back in fashion as a way of buying support.</em></p><p><em>But ultimately, the take-out from this summit is that Europe has come up with a deal that is unprecedented in the EU's history, and a budget that everyone has signed up to.</em></p><p><em>And, like all successful deals, almost everyone - from Mr Rutte to Mr Conte and Mr Macron, Mrs Merkel to Mr Orban, as well as EU leaders Charles Michel and Ursula Von der Leyen - will be able to claim this as a victory. </em></p>
On the fifth season of TLCs 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After, Andrei Castravet and Elizabeth Potthast Castravet are navigating new issues in their marriagelike parenting one-year-old Eleanor and planning their second wedding in Moldova.

But some of the challenges theyre facing are familiar to fans whove watched their journey from the beginning. Andreis clashes with his in-laws, especially Elizabeths father and sisters, as well as the couples financial issues (in part due to Andreis unemployment), are still a problem for the pair. Whats more, Elizabeth and Andrei still dont always seem to see eye to eye when it comes to the roles of men and women in marriage.

In a recent episode of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After, Andrei and Elizabeth argued about gender roles and cultural differences in front of Andreis parents. Fans took to social media to comment on the preview clips, suggesting that Andreis comments about Moldovan women were uncalled for when he married an American woman.

Andrei Castravet and Elizabeth Potthast Castravet | Elizabeth Potthast Castravet via Instagram

Elizabeth called Andrei out for acting like a chauvinistic alpha male after an argument

The day after Andrei and Elizabeth arrived in Moldova for their second wedding, they immediately began bickering in front of Andreis parents. (Luckily, Andrei noted, the language barrier meant they likely didnt understand much of the argument.)

When Elizabeth asked if Andreis mother always went to such great lengths to set up an elaborate breakfast spread, her husband seemed to take a jab at his own wifes homemaking abilities. This is how it is in Moldova. You work all the time and just move, the 90 Day Fiance star told his wife.

Elizabeth took offense at the comment, appearing to think of it as passive aggressive. Okay, so are you trying to say I dont do that? she asked Andrei.

When Andrei insinuated that Moldovans were harder workers, Elizabeth pointed out that Andrei didnt exactly have a steady job lined up. Is that why you have a job? Is that right? she asked him sarcastically.

But Andrei told 90 Day Fiance producers that there was a clear difference between Moldovan and American women. This is how Moldovan women do it, Andrei insisted. They make breakfast. They clean the table. They clean the house. And plus, they raise children, and plus, they work. Libby got a little bit offended. I didnt mean no harm by it. Maybe shes gonna take example for it.

He even took the liberty of telling his wife of the differences between their home countries: Over there, you listen, and here, you listen double.

Elizabeth told 90 Day Fiance producers that she wasnt happy with Andreis behavior in Moldova. Claiming he was acting like a chauvinistic alpha male, she pointed out that she, in fact, was the breadwinnerwhile her husband was the stay-at-home parent.

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Elizabeth Struggles To Find a Dress That Covers Her Cleavage For Her Moldovan Wedding

90 Day Fiance fans suggested that Andreis comments were hypocritical

Some 90 Day Fiance fans immediately pointed out that Andreis comments about traditional gender roles didnt match up with his reality. After all, Elizabeth worked full-time, while Andrei didnt. Whats more, the couple had often had to accept money from Elizabeths family in order to stay afloat.

Andrei is a jobless lazy ass who mooches off of his American wifes family, not to mention one of the most entitled characters on #90DayFiance, one critic wrote on Twitter. I cant believe he has the audacity to try and tell Libby how she should listen double like a Moldovan woman.

Libby: I can't believe Andrei is acting like a chauvinistic alpha male!



Everyone watching this show: wow this is so out of character for feminist hero Andrei #90DayFiance  emily (@emabelanger) July 6, 2020

Another 90 Day Fiance viewer argued similarly, Andrei wants to talk about womens roles. Its like this ON-DRAY, she didnt get a Moldovan man who takes care of his family. She got a woman who stays home. Perhaps you need to learn to listen, and listen more.

Some wondered why he didnt marry someone from his home country after his remarks

After Andreis comments about Elizabeth, in which he appeared to compare American women unfavorably to Moldovan women, some 90 Day Fiance fans pointed out that he could have married someone from his own home country.

Hey Andrei maybe you should have married someone from Moldova a**hole!! one Twitter user argued during the episode.

Another agreed, I cant stand Andrei! Why didnt he just marry a woman from Moldova?

Yet another viewer argued that Andrei could have married someone from Moldova if he preferred someone who didnt differ from him culturally. If Andrei had antiquated views of relationships, why did you marry an American woman? they wrote. This isnt 1955, you have to share responsibilities with the baby.
The officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday raised the premises of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlots brother Agrasen in a money laundering case linked to fertiliser scam.

Other places too were raided by ED officials as part of a natiowide search. A Jodhpur-based company named Anupam Krishi, owned by Agrasen Gehlot, is among those where raids are being conducted.

The probe revolves around the export of Muriate of Potash or MoP, which is essential for plant growth and quality. According to ED officials, Agrasen Gehlot is accused of selling the MoP, which he got at subsidised rate, to companies based abroad.

The export was first caught by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in 2012-13.

The ED has registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA); it said Rajasthan CMs brother got the MoP between 2007 and 2009.

The ED officials said that the MoP was sold to companies in Malaysia and Singapore as industrial salt. The loss incurred to the government due to wrongly claimed subsidy was 60 crore, said ED officials.

Six places in Rajasthan, four in Gujarat, two in West Bengal and one location in Delhi are being raided by the agency under the PMLA, officials said.
Kyla Artigo, center, during an Asian American studies class at Cal State Long Beach. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

In the first major change to general education across its system in decades, all 430,000 undergraduates attending Cal State universities must take an ethnic studies or social justice course, a requirement approved by CSU trustees Wednesday following a fierce two-day debate that left some longtime social activists in the awkward position of voting "no."

The requirement will take effect starting in the 2023-24 academic year in the nation's largest four-year public university system. Five trustees voted against it  including State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and social justice activists Lateefah Simon and Hugo Morales  who said it did not hew closely enough to the definition of ethnic studies. One trustee abstained.

Two questions dominated their debate: What should an ethnic studies requirement include? And who should decide: faculty, trustees or state lawmakers?

"Im trying to hold with fidelity to what ethnic studies is and has been and what those who framed it and have been fighting for 52 years have asked for," Thurmond said at the meeting Wednesday, referring to the discipline's focus on the experience of four oppressed groups in the U.S.: African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and Indigenous peoples.

Morales asked to rename the proposal as simply a "social justice" requirement. "This is about social justice, which we have championed," he said.

But Chancellor Timothy P. White said that disciplines evolve, and the requirement his office was advancing offers students more choices.

"Ethnic studies has matured," he said. "Its deep, its powerful, but it's more than what it used to be."

The new requirement creates a three-unit, lower-division course requirement "to understand ethnic studies and social justice." The requirement could be met by a traditional ethnic studies course or by a class focused on social justice or social movements.

Story continues

Many were opposed to White's plan  including educators and activists  and prefer a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), that more narrowly defines the requirement, limiting it to ethnic studies courses. AB 1460, which passed both the Assembly and Senate, will go back to the Assembly for concurrence next week before being sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk. If he signs it, that requirement will supersede the one approved by the CSU Wednesday.

"Weve asked you to join the Legislature and support 1460, not put us in the same position we were in 1967, where we as entities were trustees fighting faculty, fighting students," Weber, former president of the National Council for Black Studies, said during public comment Tuesday.

Questions about the content and mission of ethnic studies courses  which have also been raised in the discussion over whether to mandate a requirement at the K-12 level  go back half a century, when students and faculty at San Francisco State went on strike to create the first-ever ethnic studies department.

"The CSU is really proud of its heritage as the birthplace of ethnic studies," said Loren Blanchard, executive vice chancellor for academic and student affairs.

Blanchard said the new requirement "elevates" the study of the four racial and ethnic groups that traditionally comprise ethnic studies to the same level as the natural and life sciences, the arts and humanities. It also "makes room for the voices and experiences of other oppressed and marginalized groups," he said.

The requirement, for instance, could also be met with classes in Jewish or Muslim studies, LGBTQ studies or social justice, including courses on social change and social movements in the U.S., historical and cultural perspectives in disability studies, and health disparities in urban communities.

"For the system to stand up and say were going to make three units be ethnic studies and social justice is important," said Alison Wrynn, associate vice chancellor for academic programs, innovations and faculty development, in an interview prior to the meeting. "Our students see themselves with multiple identities. ... Our requirement is going to give them that opportunity to really see themselves in the curriculum."

But trustee Silas Abrego objected.

"Lets be clear," he said. "This is not a requirement for ethnic studies. A student could meet this requirement without ever having to take an ethnic studies course."

The California Faculty Assn. has formally opposed the chancellor's proposal and endorsed Weber's bill.

"CFA is severely disappointed in todays decision," President Charles Toombs, a professor of Africana studies at San Diego State said in a statement after the vote.

Toombs said the chancellor's proposal did not reflect adequate consultation with ethnic studies faculty in particular.

"Since the overwhelming number of ethnic studies faculty are people of color, the lack of inclusion of their expert voices is a potent and real example of how systemic racism works in the CSU," he said.

Simon, an advocate for civil rights and racial justice, said she had received emails and phone calls from ethnic studies leaders around the country who expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal.

"It is not in my conscience at at this moment to support this," she said. "That pains me [because] I understand the work put in ... I understand the 50-plus year quest for ethnic studies."

The systemwide Cal State Academic Senate opposes Weber's bill, arguing that state legislators are improperly interfering in matters of higher education curriculum, setting a dangerous precedent. Some Cal State officials cited those faculty concerns.

"If we were in a different state, we would be scared out of our wits by the idea that the Legislature would be telling us what we should be teaching," trustee Rebecca Eisen said. "This is our responsibility."

Board Chair Lillian Kimbell agreed. "If we dont vote to approve this proposal, essentially what we are doing is ceding to the Legislature their right to create policy on what we teach," she said. "This is a protest against that."
In early June, hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters languished for days in cramped New York City jail cells. Stuck in holding pens without masks and exposed to soiled conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic, they were unable to reach loved ones or lawyers. The protesters were effectively disappeared into New York Citys detention system.

Attorneys from the Legal Aid Society went to court to demand the protesters immediate release. In a lawsuit filed against the New York Police Department, attorneys from Legal Aid, a public defense organization, alleged that over 400 individuals in city detention facilities had been held for more than 24 hours without seeing a judge, in breach of state law and detainees constitutional rights.

The public defenders accused the police department of deliberately slow-rolling standard procedures to keep protesters in jail as payback for demonstrations against police brutality. Lawyers for the police asserted that the NYPD faced unprecedented challenges with both a pandemic and widespread protests raging.

In a one-line decision, Judge James M. Burke of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan sided with the police. All writs are denied, he ruled. In doing so, Burke accepted the NYPDs rationale that the conditions on the ground should overrule preexisting state law: The 1991 Roundtree v. Brown decision established the 24-hour standard from arrest to arraignment.

Burkes decision set off a firestorm. Protesters flocked to Manhattans Foley Square, near the state and federal courthouses, demanding the release of the protesters.

The law doesnt have a looter exception, it doesnt have a Covid-19 exception, said Russell Novack, one of the Legal Aid staff attorneys who brought the suit. This was deliberate, intentional punishment for protesting.

In the state capital of Albany, a progressive Democrat from Queens said his new bill would ensure that New Yorkers are never again disappeared into detention. State Sen. Michael Gianaris introduced a bill to codify the Roundtree decision and better track detentions. Already having pushed the legislation through two committees, Gianaris will bring his bill before the legislatures full upper chamber on Wednesday.

The law doesnt have a looter exception, it doesnt have a Covid-19 exception. This was deliberate, intentional punishment for protesting.

The bill would oblige all police departments in New York State to either bring an arrested individual before a judge within 24 hours or immediately release them upon request.

It would also add a new section to the laws governing habeas corpus in New York, clarifying that anyone held for more than 24 hours before their arraignment is entitled to release unless the police produce clear and convincing evidence that such a delay is warranted. Under the new statute, police departments would have to give an individualized explanation for each persons delay  something the NYPD did not have to do last month.

In the United States, we like to fancy ourselves as having a justice system that protects civil liberties, Gianaris told The Intercept. An important tenet of that is that one shouldnt be imprisoned without being found guilty of a crime and certainly not without being charged with a crime.

A key component of the bill, Gianaris said, is that it would force all municipalities in New York state with over a million residents  only New York City would qualify  to create a detained persons registry. The registry would serve as a database of all arrested individuals and be accessible only to authorized users from public defender organizations  such as the Legal Aid Society and others like the defenders network that operates around the city  contracted with the city to represent criminal defendants.

The registry would eliminate the arbitrary power of the police to disappear people in the system, he added. Thats a very scary proposition, Gianaris said of allowing police to hold individuals over 24 hours without seeing a judge.

The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment on the bill.

The bill is widely expected to sail through the Democratic-controlled Senate before heading to the Assembly as soon as this week. It is unclear whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who in June called on city district attorneys to keep looters in jail for longer than 24 hours, would seek to veto the measure.

The Intercept reached out to several protesters swept up in the mass arrests last month. All declined to speak on the record, citing ongoing cases against them, including breaking Mayor Bill de Blasios weeklong curfew, which could carry a Class-B misdemeanor charge.

The district attorneys for Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx have publicly stated that they will not prosecute protesters arrested for low-level offenses. Still, the court cases remain scheduled, in September and October.

Steve Zeidman was a supervisor at the Legal Aid Society on the Roundtree case. Nearly three decades later, he said the decision has never been properly enforced. The Gianaris bill, he said, will only be successful if judges choose to enforce it.

The courts unwillingness to hold the prosecutors and the police departments feet to the fire rendered the Roundtree decision toothless in many cases, said Zeidman, a CUNY Law School professor. The crisis is that this bill is even necessary.

The post NYPD Disappeared Black Lives Matter Protesters Into Detention For Days at a Time. Lawmakers Want to End the Practice. appeared first on The Intercept.
Update: This story has been changed to include a correct wedding booking date of May 29, 2019, instead of 2020.

HOLLAND, MI -- A West Michigan couple is suing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and asking for an emergency court order to allow their indoor wedding Friday, claiming the ceremony is a religious event.

David Vansolkema and Kiley Stuller filed the lawsuit against Whitmer, state Attorney General Dana Nessel and Ottawa County Health Officer Lisa Stefanovsky.

The couple booked the Baker Events center in Holland, a former furniture factory turned into a venue space, on May 29, 2019. They made plans for a July 24, 2020 wedding there.

But Gov. Whitmers orders on gatherings during the coronavirus crisis -- limiting indoor gatherings to 10 people and outdoor gatherings to 100 -- remain in effect.

Vansolkema and Stuller want a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order to allow Fridays wedding and a tentative hearing is planned for Thursday, July 23.

They claim the wedding should be viewed as a religious service.

Under Whitmers order, organized religious services are exempt from penalties.

Plaintiffs Vansolkema and Stuller want to exercise their rights to religious freedom and expressive association by having their wedding at the Baker Events wedding property. This is their chosen place of religious worship for their wedding, according to the lawsuit.

Baker Events has multiple air purifiers, hand sanitizing stations and mask-wearing protocols, according to the lawsuit.

And while an outdoor tent could serve 100 attendees, attorneys for the couple say it is less than ideal because it greatly limits the number of persons who can attend the wedding, and it does not protect the wedding guests from adverse weather, including driving rain and hot and cold temperatures.

The couples attorneys argue restaurants are being treated more favorably under Whitmers orders.

COVID-19 PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

Read more on MLive:

Pfizer gets $2B federal contract to produce coronavirus vaccine with Michigan link by years end

Thinking about getting a coronavirus test? 4 pieces of advice from Michiganders who have

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WASHINGTON  The U.S. House of Representatives passed its huge annual defense bill Tuesday after fighting off a challenge from liberal Democrats to cut defense spending by more than 10 percent and plowing past a veto threat from President Donald Trump.

The bill maintains Connecticut-based programs for jet engines at Pratt & Whitney and helicopters at Sikorsky, and increases funding for submarines at Electric Boat in Groton.

The $741 billion bill, which received over 700 amendments, includes dozens of policy changes affecting the military and Department of Defense  including renaming bases named for Confederate leaders. The House voted 295 to 125 in favor of passage.

Critically, the bill fully funds a second Virginia class submarine  about $2.5 billion worth of business for Electric Boat  whereas the Senate version of the bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, only provided for an option for the boat.

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2, said he worked to restore this submarine since February.

The budget request we received from the Administration didnt just call for the fewest new ships in over a decade, it also eliminated construction of the second Virginia-class submarine  a vessel the Navy has since listed as its most urgent unfunded priority in 2021, and that is crucial to our undersea capabilities and production rates, Courtney said.

The effort to cut defense sharply was led by Congressional Progressive Caucus leaders, Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Pramila Jayapal of Washington. Such cuts would have likely meant reductions in Pentagon purchases from Connecticut manufacturers, but the amendment was voted down.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, a progressive caucus member, voted against the cut.

Last year, the Pentagon budget was 90 times the budget of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This year  in the midst of a pandemic  that gap has widened further, with Congress proposing $8 billion in funding for the CDC, while the proposed Pentagon budget has ballooned to a record-breaking $740 billion, Pocan and Jayapal said. Congresss priorities are so severely unbalanced that  even as millions of people across the country fall ill from the novel coronavirus  our leaders refuse to muster the political will to reinvest wasteful Pentagon spending in programs that will keep Americans safe and healthy.

Hours before the final vote, the White House warned lawmakers that if Trump were asked to sign the bill in its current form, his senior advisers would recommend he veto it. The administration strongly objects to provisions of the bill that would rename military bases called after confederate leaders.

In June, Trump tweeted he would veto the bill if the renaming provision was left in. Lawmakers of both parties have supported the provision which would rename the 10 Army bases bearing Confederate names. They dismissed Trumps veto threat Tuesday.

The White House letter also said the bill micro-manages the administrations national security strategy, including in Afghanistan.

The legislation, which sets a 3 percent pay raise for troops and approves new defense programs, included a version of the proposal of Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to reform the Insurrection Act  a law which gives the president authority to use federal troops to violence and uprisings within the country. Trump threatened to use this law earlier this year to send more troops to cities with crime accompanying large, peaceful protests against police brutality and racism.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, issued a statement praising the bill, which includes:

* $6.8 billion for the Virginia class submarine, including restoration of a second boat

* $4 billion to start building the next-generation Columbia class, nuclear armed submarine to replace the Ohio class

* $2.8 billion for ongoing development of the B-21 Raider Air Force Bomber by Northrop Grumman, powered by Pratt & Whitney.

* $1 billion for 60 Blackhawk helicopters

* $1 billion for 7 new CH-53K heavy-lift helicopters

* $799 million for engines for 79 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft

The NDAA also included funds to help the country prepare for future pandemics.

House members also approved more than a dozen reforms to reduce and remediate toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS on military bases. Several of them would require the Pentagon to phase out use of PFAS in items such as cookware, sunscreen and food packaging; stop incinerating the chemicals; and adhere to state laws regarding their cleanup when state law is stricter than federal law.

PFAS, which are known to cause negative health effects, have been confirmed at Bradley International Airport and a military facility in New London County, according to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. The House passed PFAS regulation legislation in January, but that bill has not gained traction in the Senate.

The Republican-led Senate simultaneously debated their own version of the NDAA, voting to pass amendments such as one that would ban the transfer of some military grade equipment to local police departments and support de-escalation training for the police.

The two chambers will hammer out the differences between their two bills and pass a final version later this year.

emilie.munson@hearstdc.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson
Amid simmering tensions between Indian and Chinese along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday is addressing the US-India Business Council's India Ideas Summit. In his address, PM Modi will speak on how India-US partnership can play a pivotal role in shaping the post-COVID-109 world. Union Minister of External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sithamran will also speak at the summit.

It is expected that the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic would be a broad theme of discussions along with a focus on India-China border dispute in the wake of violent clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley. PM Modi may also raise the issue of national security vis-a-vis Chinese tech companies during the summit.

Here are the highlights:

* The US-India friendship has scaled many heights in the past. Now it is time our partnership plays an important role in helping the world bounce back faster after the pandemic: PM

* For this vision, there are few better partners than the United States of America. India and the USA are two vibrant democracies with shared values. We are natural partners: PM

* The rise of India means: a rise in trade opportunities with a nation that you can trust, a rise in global integration with increasing openness, a rise in your competitiveness with access to a market which offers scale: PM

* India invites you to invest in energy as India evolves into the gas-based economy. There will be big investment opportunities for US companies. There are also opportunities in clean energy. To generate more power for your investment, this is the best time to enter the Indian power sector: PM

* India invites you to invest in finance and insurance. India has raised FDI cap for investment in insurance to 49%. Now 100% FDI is permitted for investment in insurance intermediaries: Prime Minister Narendra Modi at India Ideas Summit hosted by US-India Business Council

* India invites you to invest in defence & space. We're raising the FDI cap for investment in the defence sector to 74%. India has established 2 defence corridors to encourage the production of defence equipment & platforms: PM Modi at India Ideas Summit hosted by US-India Business Council

* Civil Aviation is another area of great potential growth. The number of air passengers is expected to more than double within the next 8 years. The top private Indian airlines plan to include over a thousand new aircraft over the coming decade: PM Narendra Modi

* India invites you to invest in healthcare. The Healthcare sector in India is growing faster than 22 per cent every year. Our companies are also progressing in production of medical-technology, telemedicine and diagnostics: PM Modi

* Today, there is global optimist towards India. This is because India offers a perfect combination of openness, opportunities & technologies. India celebrates openness in people & in governance. Open minds make open market &open markets lead to greater prosperity: PM Narendra Modi

* India is emerging as a land of opportunities. Let me give you one example of the tech sector. Recently, an interesting report came out in India. It said for the first time ever, there are more rural internet users than even urban internet users: PM Modi at India Ideas Summit

* During the last six years, we have made many efforts to make our economy more open and reform-oriented. Reforms have ensured increased Competitiveness, enhanced Transparency, expanded Digitization, greater Innovation and more Policy stability: PM Modi

* India is contributing towards a prosperous and resilient world through the clarion call of an Atmanirbhar Bharat. For that, we await your partnership: Prime Minister Narendra Modi at India Ideas Summit hosted by US-India Business Council

* Global economic resilience can be achieved by stronger domestic economic capacities. This means improved domestic capacity for manufacturing, restoring the health of the financial system and diversification of international trade: PM Narendra Modi

* We all agree that world is in need for a better future. And, it is all of us who have to collectively give shape to the future. I firmly believe that our approach to future must primarily be a more human-centric one: PM Modi at India Ideas Summit by US-India Business Council

* The summit will also be attended by some of the best names of Indian I-T companies such as C Vijayakumar, President & CEO, HCL Technologies, N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Group & Co-Chair of the U.S.-India CEO Forum are also likely to attend and participate in panel discussions.

* Notably, the India Ideas Summit marks the 45th anniversary of the formation of US-India Business Council. According to the US Defence Secretary, the relationship with India is "one of the all-important defence relationships of the 21st century. In 2019, USIBC hosted over 400 attendees over two days for its first India Ideas Summit in Washington. Over 50 dynamic speakers, 10 panels focused on trade and connectivity between the United States and India, and across the Indo-Pacific.
By PTI

MUMBAI: Budget carrier GoAir on Wednesday launched GoMore scheme, which will allow passengers to book an adjacent seat on the same PNR in order to maintain social distancing amid the pandemic.

Besides, the city-based airline also announced the launch 'Online Doctor Consultation' facility in association with MFine, an on-demand healthcare platform.

The Wadia Group-promoted GoAir is the third domestic carrier after Vistara and IndiGo to come out with such an offer, wherein the passenger will have to shell out additional cost for a safe air travel.

The Supreme Court on June 26 had ordered that the airlines in the country will not have to keep the middle seat vacant.

READ| Double trouble: Indigos seat booking option earns flak from public

The apex court held that airlines had followed adequate safety measures to ensure safety of passengers during COVID-19 pandemic.

"GoAir today launched two initiatives that will provide deep confidence to passengers when they plan their travel.

The airline has introduced GoMore wherein passengers can book another adjacent seat on the same PNR in order to provide additional safety.

"Also with the launch of online doctor consultation, GoAir passengers will have instant access to over 3,000 doctors across more than 500 hospitals network on a beck and call by just paying consultation fee of Rs 99," the airline said in a release.

The two initiatives come on the back of Quarantine packages scheme launched by GoAir last week for passengers arriving into different cities in India from overseas or within India to ensure the passengers get quarantined easily at the select hotels.

At GoAir, it is our endeavour to provide a safe and confident journey.

There is no higher priority to our entire GoFamily than the safety of our customers and employees.

At every stage, we want our passengers to feel confident when travelling with GoAir and to achieve that, we are introducing a slew of measures," a GoAir spokesperson said.

The GoMore ticket can be booked across channels, including the airline's website, mobile app and travel agents, it said, adding for the adjacent seat, no additional baggage allowance, meals or any other service will be available.

Given the risk of visiting a hospital or clinic for consultation and unnecessarily exposing oneself to other infections, the MFine app connects the GoAir passenger to top doctors in the city from the most trusted hospitals, the release said.

Passengers can consult with health experts across over 30 specialities.

Besides, the MFine app can also help GoAir passengers get consultation for COVID-19 symptoms.

If the passengers experience any symptoms of flu or any viral infection, then they can get their symptoms assessed by a doctor immediately, it added.
Just as we are required and compelled to do in the offices, in our communities, and in the field, we have to find the best possible way to keep industry momentum, productivity, and quality on the rise in a safe and healthy manner."

SECO20 will be a virtual event on a robust digital platform that in many ways will replicate the attendee, presenter, exhibitor experience so many manufactured housing professionals have come to appreciate and enjoy during the organizations 10-year run.

The SECO National Conference of Community Owners was organized for community owners, by community owners with an annual conference in the Atlanta area that has grown to a national event representing all parts of the industry.

In recent years, SECO has attracted more than 400 attendees. Organizers anticipate attendance could increase in 2020 due to the virtual access and the limited number of industry events being held.

In addition to attending, individuals and organizations in the manufactured housing industry can benefit from unique exhibitor and sponsorship opportunities with SECO20.

For more than a decade, the committed group of manufactured housing professionals has assembled and dedicated itself to building an industry meeting in an effort to share best practices and form new ideas.

In 2020, the SECO National Conference of Community Owners again seeks to create a fresh and compelling experience this time in a virtual setting, and with all of the access and camaraderie attendees have come to expect.

The dates for the SECO are Sept. 28 through Oct. 1.

We anticipate accommodating just as many attendees, if not more, for our first conference on a virtual platform, SECO Co-Founder Spencer Roane said. We want our attendees to be able to have continued access to the offerings that matter most to them, which includes interacting with industry exhibitors, as well as sitting in on educational panels and discussions, and being able to step aside for more personal interaction with other attendees.

SECO20 Goes Virtual for COVID-19 Limitations

For months, COVID-19 and associated protocols have kept people at home, or in as limited circulation as possible. However, the manufactured housing industry is essential and work must continue in the safest way possible.

While travel, and gathering as large groups may be difficult to impossible in the coming months, the essential work of our industry must continue and is continuing, SECO Co-Founder David Roden said. Just as we are required and compelled to do in the offices, in our communities, and in the field, we have to find the best possible way to keep industry momentum, productivity, and quality on the rise in a safe and healthy manner. And working on a virtual platform to share our intentions and ideas is a great way to do that.

SECO20 will be held on video screens nationwide, with 2- to 3-hour segments that allow manufactured housing professionals to continue their daily work and get the industry interaction and experience they need to be successful.

SECO20 Topics In Development



How to stage manufactured homes

Digital marketing tips

Discussion on chattel financing

How to manage manufactured home community upgrades

Mechanisms in manufactured home financing

What to expect from the rental market

1-minute money makers

Introduction to manufactured housing for new operators

More to come!

For added information on registration, exhibiting, and sponsorship at the 2020 SECO National Conference of Community Owners Sept. 28-Oct. 1, go to http://www.secoconference.com.

About SECO National Conference of Community Owners

The SECO National Conference of Community Owners was founded a decade ago by a small group of committed manufactured housing professionals and has been held each year near Atlanta. The gathering is dedicated to building an industry environment and culture that looks to share best practices and help form new ideas. For community owners, by community owners SECO also is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. All proceeds go toward planning and programming for the next years national gathering. Any excess revenue supports the Veterans Assistance Fund founded by SECO organizers in 2018.
The mask may have reached a tipping point.

US President Donald Trump's administration has pushed to encourage mask-wearing, explicitly endorsing a measure widely seen as crucial to stemming the coronavirus pandemic, and potentially quelling a bitter debate that experts say costs lives.

The president, who for months resisted covering his face in public, tweeted that "it is patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance".

And Vice-President Mike Pence told governors in a teleconference that he supported their mask mandates, with the administration even sending a memorandum to New Jersey recommending that it continue its order.

The reversal followed polls that showed Mr Trump's refusal to champion masks was out of step with citizens terrified by rising case counts nationwide.

It also comes as Republican governors, facing outbreaks spiralling beyond control, begin to break with Mr Trump on the issue.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week cast masks as key to ensuring the state wouldn't need to shut down its economy a second time, though he resisted ordering their use. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves on Monday required residents of 23 hard-hit counties to start wearing masks.

"We have to take Covid-19 seriously," he said at a news conference. "This virus is not going away. There are lives on the line."

Coronavirus cases in the US increased on Monday to 3.79 million, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg.

The disease has killed almost 141,000 Americans so far.

The administration's refusal to formulate a national plan to fight the virus has become a major hurdle to Mr Trump's re-election, and the president said he would resume regular Covid-19 briefings.

Mr Pence told governors that the administration would support the mask orders, according to a person who heard the call. He also suggested bars be closed in states or regions with high virus spread, according to Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

In the afternoon, Mr Trump sent the tweet showing himself in a mask with the presidential seal. "There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!" he wrote.

CNN, citing anonymous sources, reported that the tweet was prompted by internal polling that showed disapproval of Mr Trump's handling of the pandemic.

Cloth masks don't guarantee protection from the virus. But they do help block droplets of water vapour, carried on breath, from spreading far beyond the face.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 22) President Rodrigo Duterte is not using Health Secretary Francisco Duque III as a scapegoat for the governments lapses in the COVID-19 response, Malacanang said Wednesday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque refuted Senator Leila de Limas remark that Duque has been keeping his post to play the role of a whipping boy or a person blamed for others faults for the administration despite supposed shortcomings in his duties.

I can tell you the President has not been treating Secretary Duque as a whipping boy. It has never been the case that I think the President has ever used him as a whipping boy, Roque said in an interview with The Source.

Roque stressed that the Health chief continues to earn the Presidents confidence, even with criticisms hounding his post.

He is always been supportive of Secretary Duque, he says mistakes have been made, for as long as these mistakes were done in good faith, then its no reason for him to lose confidence so lets leave it at that, the spokesperson noted.

In a statement on Tuesday, De Lima questioned why Duterte has been too lenient with his subordinates, and why Duque has remained unscathed despite shortcomings in the job.

My guess is the President just needs a whipping boy for the tragedy that they themselves have brought to our nation. Kaya siguro hindi niyo matanggal-tanggal para laging may masisisi ang taumbayan (maybe thats why you cant fire him, so that the public can blame someone). Is that your strategy? Have we cracked the code? So basically, you are letting Sec. Duque act as captain of the sinking ship so that he can be this administrations fall guy? the detained senator wrote.

Duque has not issued an immediate comment on De Limas statement.

The Health Secretary was earlier subjected to a probe by the Office of the Ombudsman, which sought to tackle supposed irregularities in the DOHs pandemic response measures including delayed procurement of protective equipment for health workers, and confusing reporting of COVID-19 data, among others.

The agency maintained it has remained transparent with its regular publication of the countrys coronavirus numbers.

Majority of senators back in April also signed a resolution asking Duque to resign for his "failure of leadership, negligence, lack of foresight, and inefficiency" in measures carried out by the DOH. Duterte, however, rejected the call, as he has repeatedly expressed faith in the Health chief.
Updated 7/21/20 at 6:18 PM EST with comments from Hoffman.

WASHINGTON  U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has released a pair of memos to the Department of Defense, outlining concerns about operational security and issuing new guidance on dealing with the media.

One of the memos, entitled Reinforcing Operations Security and the Importance of Preventing Unauthorized Disclosures, was leaked to Defense News Tuesday morning. In it, Esper writes that ongoing reviews reveal a culture of insufficient OPSEC practices and habits at DoD. The existence of both memos was first reported by CNN. (After publication of this initial story, the memo was posted to the Defense Departments website. )

The Department of Defense (DoD) remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust, Esper writes. However, Unauthorized disclosures jeopardize our DoD personnel, operations, strategies and policies to the benefit of our adversaries.

A second memo, released concurrently, also lays out guidelines for the force when interacting with members of the news media must be coordinated through DoD public affairs, per CNN. However, a department spokesman denied that the two memos are directly linked, saying the media memo is focused on internal communications strategies.

The memos come two weeks after Esper revealed at a House Armed Services Committee hearing that he had launched an investigation that is underway to go after leaks, following reports in the media, based on intelligence sources, that Russia was paying insurgents in Afghanistan to target American forces.

At the hearing, Esper also said he is launching a new effort to remind people of operational security issues in the Pentagon. The memo obtained by Defense News seems to fall into that category.

The memo comes with five action points:

A call to not share information with outside sources, even if they previously worked in the building. Just because someone has a clearance, or previously worked for DoD, does not mean they have a need to know, Esper writes, with the last part underlined.

Ensure that the appropriate DoD Public Affairs office authorizes the release of information to media.

Comply with the official prepublication review process, which Esper in the memo stresses is required even after you retire, resign or are dismissed from your Government service or contract.

Comply with security clearance related obligations.

Review current DoD wide OPSEC practices to make sure your office is in compliance. As part of this requirement, Esper has ordered that all DoD personnel, including civilians and contractors, take multiple courses hosted online by the Center for Development of Security Excellence within the next 60 days.

Story continues

In addition, Esper writes that he has directed Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security Joseph Kernan to take several actions to assess and improve our OPSEC and other security-related postures, policies, requirements, practices and, importantly, accountability.

Brent Colburn, who served in 2014 and 2015 as the top public affairs advisor to secretaries Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter, questions whether Esper is going about this process in the wrong way.

Leaks are a problem, and they can cause real damage, especially when they involve classified or operational information, Colburn said. But the number one mistake most leaders make when it comes to curtailing leaks is treating it like an enforcement problem. Its not an enforcement problem, its a cultural problem. People who respect their bosses and believe in the direction of their organization are far less likely to leak.

Not all leaks are created equal. There is a difference between information that puts lives at risk, and information that puts egos at risk. One is always worth chasing, and the other usually isnt.

While the second memo has yet to be made pubic, Jonathan Hoffman, the departments chief spokesperson, told media that the goal is not to create a chilling effect across the department.

Its not a blanket or ban on talking to the for authorized disclosures to the press, not at all, Hoffman said, categorizing the memo as pertaining to internal coordination, particularity through recently stood up strategic communications desk. The goal is to have coordination on major issues throughout the DoD, he said.

There have been attempts in the past to limit communication between members of the military and the press; the memo immediately brought memories of a 2018 attempt made under then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to put strict limits on information sharing with the media.

I can just reiterate my commitment to you that were going to be talking with you guys about issues that come up, youre going to be able to have conversations with the PAOs and with senior officials and others throughout the building, Hoffman said.
New Delhi, July 22 : Following the death of a Ghaziabad based journalist after being shot on Monday night for protesting against the harassment of his niece, the Congress has hit out at the Uttar Pradesh government. Addressing a press conference on Wednesday party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate asked "So who is answerable for it today, where does the buck stop?" Shrinate said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is conspicuously silent on the consistently rising crime graph. Should one be surprised that increasingly those being accused of criminal acts are either from the BJP or associated with some of its top leaders or enjoy their political patronage, she asked.

"I have been a journalist and so I feel very strongly about what is happening to my fellow journalists in UP. Every agency, brute police force, false cases are being used to silence the critics of this government, to clampdown on honest journalism," said Shrinate.

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi too have targeted the UP government and termed it as "Jungle Raj".

Journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by armed assailants near his residence in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad on June 20, passed away on Wednesday.

The scribe was attacked when he was returning from his sister's house along with his two daughters on a motorbike on Monday night. He had suffered a bullet injury on his head after the assailants opened fire at him.

The Chief Minister has announced a job for the victim's wife and cash compensation.

.

Nine people have been arrested in connection with the shooting.

Meanwhile, police officer Raghvendra has been suspended for not taking swift action and ignoring the complaint filed by the family of the victim.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

During which time Goka became a centre of religious pilgrimage, at the height of renowned prophetess Maame Sarah of blessed memory's miraculous works, a rich pilgrim from Berekum sought spiritual guidance from the prophetess against his pursuers who were after his life, wealth, and bed.

This rich pilgrim from Berekum was one of the few who was honoured to share a dinner table with the English Candace, Queen Elizabeth II, on her visit to a new republican Ghana.

Agya Kofi, as he gave his name, the rich pilgrim made his riches from farming, Cocoa farming. And his home, one of the seemingly sky-kissing storey buildings that lined the edges of the Berekum paved roads, earned the city its name; the Golden City, pronounced by the very saintly mouth of the British Queen.

Agya Kofi, as he told the nephew of his host, a Prince, and an heir apparent to the Domeabra throne of Goka, he's a major contributor to the success story of Berekum and the Republic of Ghana. A doing he'd expected to be loved by his kinsmen and compatriots, but had to, now, as a fugitive, exiled himself to Goka and be clothed under the wings of the prophetess if he will live to expiration in peace, but not extinct through violence and cruel murder.

His crime. As the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah mobilised cocoa farmers who can't again succumb to the manipulations of the overseas companies that bought the raw cocoa beans at a give away price, he joined the patriotic Ghanaian farmers who gave out bags of their products to be burned as a registration of their displeasure to the exploiters whose only aim was a ravenous patronage, a cheating win-loss, not the gentlemanly win-win marketing. A single demonstration that skyrocketed the price of the indispensable product, and within few years, as they the farmers got good deals, they proved the sagely words of Kwame Nkrumah that:

"When given the chance, the Blackman is capable of managing his own affairs".

Agya Kofi and his friends changed the look of Berekum. No slums were seen in the streets, nothing befitting of sane men lacked the Berekum people. Schools, health facilities, business centres, and the gilded looks of the people alone was royalty.

For such a praiseworthy doing, Kwame Nkrumah, hosting the visiting Queen who was bent on establishing a lasting embassies with the newly independent Ghana, owing to her vast bequeathed resources, had to enplane Queen Elizabeth to Berekum, meeting the farmers behind the envious feat. As she stepped out of her motorcade, the occupant of the Buckingham Palace, with a glowing brightness and amazement in her eyes, praised: "wow, what a Golden City".

From that day forward, and even as today's Berekum is a pale-shadow of its beautiful past, the relished relic of the vestige of Golden City exists in the fancied minds of the inhabitants and natives of Berekum. Though the useful hot embers of old have long burnt into useless ashes.

Agya Kofi, per his hardworking, deserved a monument built in his name to immortalise him, but like they who waste their youth in idleness and only bet their hopes on murdering and inheriting industrious men, he was in Goka as a fugitive, learning from abundant testimonies that the Goka prophetess not only guide good souls to live an exemplary lives. Or never lied in her prophecy as John IV, successor to Atta Mills, himself testified that until he became president of Ghana, he'd doubted the prophecy on his life as the next leader of Ghana by the Maame Sarah. The prophetess cover the pursued, and repel unjustifiable murder, and in many cases, yoke same fate in the necks of the immoral aggressive killers.

Goka then is the ideal refuge for Agya Kofi. And for the many years he lived there, he disguised himself as a middle-class gentleman, and the Goka people saw him always in the company of the learned Prince, who repaying Agya Kofi in kind for benefitting from his tutorials in building ideal kingdom even with proceeds from farming, taught the rich farmer how to read and write in the Ghanaian Language Twi, and that of the Queen's English Language. The farmer would later be known as lettered.

Agya Kofi outlived his detractors, and those who salivated on how they would take his life and warm their beds with the Harem he built, their hopeless widowed spouses threw themselves to the feet of Agya Kofi, and were accepted as concubines to the now busy on books rich farmer.

In the first year of Addo Dankwa, the successor to John IV, as a president of Ghana, Agya Kofi was given the highest honour, Order Of The Star Of Ghana. And as an ambassador for the Ghana Cocoa Industry to negotiate with chocolate companies against the disproportionate market deals, the Coronavirus Covid-19 induced global lockdown trapped Agya Kofi in the Communist Republic Of China, the birthplace of the global pandemic. And as remarkable of his life, Agya Kofi died a noble death there as he fought a noble fight in seeking the best for Ghana and mankind.

The Chinese authorities reported the Berekum hero died of the novel virus, and therefore cremated his remains.

Though Covid-19 took away a beautiful soul, but not with him a lasting legacy and the maidens from her palace he affianced to the Goka Prince, adjuring him to continue the good fight, and always put God and country first in everything he did.

If Agya Kofi contributed to a city that was christined Gold, the Goka Prince is on the path to leading Ghana to its beautiful past of Gold Coast, a Paradise status, and a pilgrim's pride. Because, he's doubly blessed with his own learning and the guidance of history of his forebears.

To make a mark in the sand of history, the archived life of Agya Kofi is the religion that is bent on proselytizing faithfuls that would rebuild Ghana to her deserving status.

Long live the chosen builders!

Long live a prosperous Ghana!

Written By: Charles Yeboah (Sir Lord)

The Founder Of One Ghana Movement (#1GhM)

WhatsApp /Contact: +233249542111

Email: [email protected]
A man was found dead in the Tennessee River in Morgan County early this morning, the authorities said.

Sheriffs deputies were called just before 6 a.m. to Bluff City Landing in the Somerville area. Marine patrol workers pulled the body from the river.

[Death Investigation] Deputies have removed the body located in the Tennessee River at Bluff City Landing. It is now en route to Forensics to confirm cause of death and attempt identification. pic.twitter.com/tmdVq16wOd  Morgan County Sheriff's Office (@morgan_sheriff) July 22, 2020

The mans name and cause of death havent yet been determined. Mike Swafford, a sheriffs office spokesman, said the authorities believe the man could have been between 40 to 55 years old. The body is being taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy.

Swafford said the death investigation is continuing.

Further information wasnt immediately available.
Judge Georgiou cited a report by Dr Rajan Darjee who assessed Singhs mental health after he was jailed who said that his rape was characterised by entitlement, a lack of sexual experience, language barriers, intoxication, and a desire to appear masculine.

[Singh] had a sense of entitlement because he paid for sexual services. It was the right of the victim to withdraw her consent at any time Instead, [Singh] ignored her repeated requests to stop. In the face of those requests, [Singh] asserted [his] physical strength.

In the early hours of February 11 2018, Singh and two friends visited the Collingwood brothel. The victim told police that Singh was slurring his words and appeared drunk, and was reluctant to take him as a client.

The victim told police that the receptionist at the brothel said it would be unprofessional to refuse and that she may not get further shifts if she turned away too many clients.

When they commenced intercourse, the victim said, he immediately became rough and aggressive, pinning her down, hurting her, and prompting her to ask him to stop, which he did not.
AstraZeneca, the Ghana Health Service and PATH Ghana have marked the one-year anniversary of the launch of the Healthy Heart Africa programme in Ghana.



HHA has conducted over 275,800 blood pressure screenings in the community; identified over 44,500 elevated blood pressure readings and diagnosed over 10,200 people with high blood pressure.



Over the first year of implementation, the programme has conducted over 275,800 blood pressure screenings in the community; identified over 44,500 elevated blood pressure readings and diagnosed over 10,200 people with high blood pressure, contributing to national testing efforts.



The partnership seeks to contribute to the prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in Ghana with the emphasis on hypertension.



In 2014, the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey reported a 13.0% prevalence of hypertension among persons aged 15 to 49 years. Prevalence among male respondents was 12.1% and 13.4% among females. Among those who were diagnosed with hypertension, 45.6% were previously aware of their hypertension status, 40.5% were receiving treatment for the condition and 23.8% had their blood pressure controlled.



Ghana Health Service has worked with the Healthy Heart Africa programme to increase awareness and demand for hypertension services by maximizing opportunities for screening and linking patients to care. On the occasion of the programmes one year anniversary in Ghana, I wish to express our gratitude for the programmes support in improving hypertension service delivery in the Ashanti Region and to emphasise the need to be aware of the dangers of elevated blood pressure, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and to seek help when needed. Ghana Health Service will continue to support and commit to working in partnership with the Healthy Heart Africa programme to improve health outcomes for persons living with hypertension in the region and Ghana, said Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye Director General of the Ghana Health Service.



The programme is currently implemented in 35 facilities within seven districts of the Ashanti Region and has trained over 120 healthcare workersi to provide education and awareness, screening and treatment. In addition, HHA has provided blood pressure screening equipment and patient education materials to improve on the quality of care.



The importance of access to healthcare and strengthening local health systems resilience through training and guidelines has been spotlighted by the challenges that the global healthcare community is currently facing in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. I am pleased to mark one year of the implementation of the Healthy Heart Africa programme in Ghana, with the results demonstrating the work in partnership and commitment of local stakeholders to address the burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). We commend the Ghana Health Service for their unwavering partnership and support, as we work together to contribute to the achievement of our shared goals to expand prevention of NCDs, raise health awareness and improve hypertension care in the country, said Ashling Mulvaney, Global Head of Access to Healthcare, Global Sustainability, AstraZeneca.



Even though high blood pressure is a rising problem for populations in Ghana, national understanding and awareness of its prevalence, treatment and control is limited.



Working with community health nurses and community health volunteers, the HHA programme has integrated education on lifestyle modification and blood pressure measurement at the community level. This strategy has extended reach to a larger number of people in a more cost-effective way and significantly contributed to strengthening of community health systems.



The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the urgency of strengthening access to care for NCDs. PATH has been pleased to implement this timely project in Ghana over the past year to improve access to hypertension detection and management. We appreciate AstraZenecas support that has allowed us to quickly contribute to the COVID-19 response in Ghana and protect people living with NCDs whilst strengthening access to care, said Helen McGuire, Director Non- Communicable Diseases PATH.



Since launching in Kenya in 2014 and subsequently expanding to Ethiopia in 2016, Tanzania in 2018, Ghana in 2019 and Uganda in 2020, HHA has: iii

 Conducted over 15.09 million blood pressure screenings in the community and in healthcare facilities



 Trained over 7,290 healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, community health volunteers and pharmacists to provide education and awareness, screening and treatment



 Activated 800 healthcare facilities in Africa to provide hypertension services

 Identified over 2.72 million people with elevated blood pressure.



About Healthy Heart Africa



Healthy Heart Africa (HHA) is AstraZeneca's innovative programme committed to tackling hypertension (high blood pressure) and the increasing burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Africa.



To achieve this, HHA supports local health systems by increasing awareness of the symptoms and risks of hypertension and by offering education, screening, reduced-cost treatment, and control.

In March 2020, AstraZeneca proposed to HHA programme partners that screening funding should be reallocated to activities to combat the spread of the coronavirus in the communities where the programme operates, through raising awareness and providing personal protective equipment (PPE) to healthcare workers.



A total of $250,000 was reallocated to be used across active sites in four countries, including Ghana.



Ghana Health Service



The Ghana Health Service (GHS) is a Public Service body established under Act 525 of 1996 as required by the 1992 constitution. It is an autonomous Executive Agency responsible for the implementation of national policies under the control of the Minister for Health through its governing Council - the Ghana Health Service Council. The establishment of the Ghana Health Service is an essential part of the key strategies identified in the Health Sector Reform process, as outlined in the Medium Term Health Strategy (MTHS), which are necessary steps in establishing a more equitable, efficient, accessible and responsive health care system.



About AstraZeneca



AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialisation of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of diseases in three main therapy areas - Oncology, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Diseases, and Respiratory.



The Company also is selectively active in the areas of Autoimmunity, Neuroscience, and Infection. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide.

In June 2020, AstraZeneca in Ghana donated 35,000 surgical masks to the COVID-19 Management Team in the country in support of the governments response to the pandemic.



About PATH in Ghana



PATH is an international, non-profit global health organization launched in 1977. PATH works to accelerate health equity by bringing together public institutions, businesses, social enterprises, and investors to solve the worlds most pressing health challenges. With expertise in science, health, economics, technology, advocacy, and dozens of other specialties, PATH develops and scales solutionsincluding vaccines, drugs, devices, diagnostics, and innovative approaches to strengthening health systems worldwide. PATH works with ministries of health to strengthen access to NCD prevention and care with programming in East and West Africa, Asia, and Latin America.



PATH aims to deliver the expertise, resources, and innovations of private industry to improve health for all. Today, the organisation harnesses the power of data and digital tools. Forging unexpected partnerships across borders and sectors. Defending against new disease threats and epidemics.



Creating models to transform health care delivery. And fostering innovation in communities everywhere to bring good healthand the jobs and economic stability that come with itwithin reach of more people faster.





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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Instagram model Casey James has splashed out on a stunning art deco apartment in Bondi - just a stone's throw away from the beach.

The 22-year-old, who is based in Avalon on Sydney's northern beaches, spent $1.025 million on the two-bedroom unit, Realestate.com.au reported on Tuesday.

It sits on the top floor and features high ceilings, polished timber floors and has white painted walls - maximising the home's bright and breezy feel.

It pays to be an Instagram model! Casey James has splashed out $1.025 million on a stunning two-bedroom art deco apartment in Bondi

The spacious first bedroom is positioned at the front of the property and features a window seat that looks out on to the street leading down to the sand and surf.

It is then followed by a well-designed and minimalist bathroom featuring marble hexagon mosaic tiles.

Meanwhile, the second bedroom offers guests staying over a spacious area.

Spending the big bucks: The 22-year-old has modelled for Lorna James and Cotton On

Bright: The spacious first bedroom is positioned at the front of the property and features a window seat that looks out on to the street leading down to the sand and surf

Stylish: It is then followed by a well-designed and minimalist bathroom featuring marble hexagon mosaic tiles

The open living and dining space features large windows that allow natural light to flow through during the day and amplify the neutrally decorated room.

Among the details throughout the 65sqm home is the ornate ceilings and decorative joinery, typical of the property as it was built in the 1930s.

The home's combined kitchen and laundry features sleek, white cabinetry and plenty of storage space, as well as marble counter tops for a luxurious feel.

Spacious: The open living and dining space features large windows that allow natural light to flow through during the day and amplify the neutrally decorated room

Modern: The home's combined kitchen and laundry features sleek, white cabinetry and plenty of storage space, as well as marble counter tops for a luxurious feel

Aside from being just a short walk away from Bondi Beach, the apartment is also close to local restaurants, cafes and boutique stores.

Casey, who has modelled for the likes of Lorna James and Cotton On, announced the purchase on Instagram on Sunday.

'Celebrating big things,' she wrote in the caption.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:38:09|Editor: huaxia

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LAGOS, July 22 (Xinhua) -- An airstrike by Nigerian troops has destroyed a camp of an armed group inside Kagara Forest in the northwest state of Zamfara and killed several bandits, a military spokesman said Wednesday.

The mission was conducted on Monday after intelligence reports indicated heavy presence of the armed bandits, along with a large number of rustled livestock, in a portion of the forest, said John Enenche, a military spokesperson in a statement reaching Xinhua.

He said the intelligence was later confirmed by series of aerial surveillance missions, leading to the air bombardment on the location.

According to the spokesman, the command in charge of that part of the country dispatched air force fighter jets to engage the location, with their ammunitions hitting the targets leading to the killing of some of the armed bandits.

He said some of them who were seen attempting to escape camouflaged in between the livestock were taken out in follow-on attacks. Enditem
The nation had united and lit lamps, candles and torches in April when the battle against COVID-19 had just started. Though on a much smaller scale, many citizens across the nation performed the same gesture, this time for Sushant Singh Rajput. In the same manner, many celebrities had joined the movement then, the stars participated in seeking justice and paid tribute to the actor, who passed away last month.

READ: Ankita Lokhande Pays Tribute To Sushant Singh Rajput As #Candle4SSR Trends On Twitter

Kangana Ranaut, who has been among the most prominent names to raise her voice against the big names, lit a candle for Sushant. The actress team shared the picture from her hometown Manali, while using the trending hashtag.

Heres the post

The Suman family, Shekhar Suman, wife Alka and son Adhyayan also joined the movement and lit lamps for Sushant.

Adhyayan wrote that Sushant will beburning in our hearts forever, hoping he was 'at peace', as he demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the death. Shekhar Suman wrote that Sushant will be missed dearly.

#Candle4SSR in the memory and support of sushant singh rajput.may you get justice soon.we all miss you https://t.co/YjuU4RaW4K happy where ever you are. pic.twitter.com/j3Jeu0ZpT2  Shekhar Suman (@shekharsuman7) July 22, 2020

You will be burning in our hearts for ever #SSR love you I hope wherever you are..you are at peace brother ! #Candle4SSR #CBIEnquiryForSushantSinghRajput pic.twitter.com/a182l736Hx  adhyayan summan (@AdhyayanSsuman) July 22, 2020

READ: Subramanian Swamy Leads #Candle4SSR Movement Demanding Justice For Sushant, Others Join

Actor Meera Chopra prayed for Sushants soul and stated that it was still hard for her to accept that he was no more. Using the hashtag, she hoped justice prevailed.

May your soul rest in peace. This is for you #SushantSinghRajput my heart still refuses to accept that you are no more. Hope justice prevails! #Candles4SSR pic.twitter.com/wLuCMYYuZc  meera chopra (@MeerraChopra) July 22, 2020

Sushants former co-star and girlfriend Ankita Lokhade also performed the gesture and sent him 'hope, prayers and strength' and adding, 'keep smiling.'

HOPE,PRAYERS AND STRENGTH !!!



Keep smiling



wherever you are pic.twitter.com/c7MZci4yJ6  Ankita lokhande (@anky1912) July 22, 2020

The hashtag was initiated by Ishkaran Singh Bhandari, the lawyer who has been appointed by Dr Subramanian Swamy to look into the scope of a CBI probe into the case. He termed it as 'world's No 1 digital protest for justice for Sushant Singh Rajput.' Dr Swamy too joined the movement by lighting the lamp, as he spoke to Republic TV, urging the need for the film industry to be cleansed and that pinning the blame only on Sushant was unacceptable.

READ: Kangana Ranaut 'wants To Record Statement' In Sushant's Case, No Official Summon Received

READ: Sushant Case: Subramanian Swamy Answers 'how Much Time For Justice?', Team Kangana Agrees
An encampment of U.S. asylum-seekers in Matamoros has dwindled to less than half its size as the coronavirus pulses across the Americas.

Migrants are leaving the camp, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, out of fear and futility as immigration courts close indefinitely and cases of COVID-19 began to appear in their community. Some are going to other parts of Mexico to start a life there. Others are returning to the violence and persecution from which they fled in their home countries.

Theres people who are scared and want to go home. And people who are fatigued from being here. They cant endure it all, said Perla, 45, a Nicaraguan asylum-seeker who asked her last name not be used for fear of retribution. Hope is ending.

As recent as last month, the camp of tents and tarps was home to 2,500 asylum-seekers, stuck in the nearly defunct U.S. Remain in Mexico program. But only about 1,000 migrants are left there. A census by the nonprofit Angry Tias and Abuelas counted 960 migrants at the camp, including at least 300 under the age of 17.

Perla has been living at the encampment since last August awaiting U.S. asylum proceedings. She was selected to be leader of the Nicaraguans and gets paid to help in the Global Response Managements pharmacy trailer. She said shes holding out until September, the month of her next hearing. But if it gets postponed?

I dont know what Ill do. I dont want to think about it, she said. Shes at the camp after fleeing violence and persecution with her 7-and 8-year-old granddaughters.

An increasing number of migrants are quarantined in the camp. After the first positive coronavirus case three weeks ago, at least four more migrants have tested positive, with many more awaiting test results. Nearly two-dozen are in isolation. Some volunteers think they may have to start reverse quarantine procedures - where those who are healthy are isolated from the majority-sick population.

On ExpressNews.com: First coronavirus cases in Remain in Mexico camp

Definitely COVID has been a tipping point for some people, said Elizabeth Cavazos, a volunteer at Angry Tias and Abuelas, a group that has been providing resources to the camp residents for months. Remember these are people who are already stress-saturated.

On Friday, the Department of Justice announced that all courts for Migrant Protection Protocols - the governments term for its Remain in Mexico policy  will be closed indefinitely citing coronavirus risks.

The courts are on the edge of the U.S.-Mexico border, some of them pop-up tents that cost millions of taxpayer dollars to build to adjudicate MPP migrant cases. The migrants crossed the international bridge at their appointed court date, were escorted into the white tent, and then videoconferenced before a judge in San Antonio.

Since March, the Justice Department has been pushing back migrants court dates to a month or two in advance, requiring migrants to come to the bridge at their appointed time and then receive a new notice with a date a few months ahead.

But now, as Texas and other states grapple with a coronavirus surge, the courts are shutting down until three criteria are met: Texas, Arizona and California are all in phase three of reopening (only Texas has reached that phase); the federal governments global health advisory lowers to level two (it is currently at level four Do Not Travel); and until all the states at Mexicos northern border are yellow in the countrys stoplight system (Tamaulipas, where Matamoros is located, is red).

Once all three criteria are met, there will be social distancing protocols, mask requirements, temperature screenings and capacity considerations as the courts reopen, according to the DOJ.

Mexican state authorities report more than 13,500 cases of coronavirus in Tamaulipas, and its two border cities have its highest numbers: about 2,590 cases in Matamoros and 2,969 in Reynosa.

Because of the continued court postponementst, many of the migrants at the camp have been waiting for over a year, relying on outside donations to survive. Theyre camped next to the international bridge and the Rio Grande on a piece of Mexican federal land. Some got jobs in Matamoros, but many of those establishments have been shut down because of the pandemic.

Informal classes taught by educated asylum-seekers for the young children also have ended, Perla said.

The courts closing has definitely sparked conversation about Well, what can we do? And thats why we are trying to find resources for them to pursue other avenues of asylum in Mexico or relocating. It definitely feels like the straw, said Cavazos.

On ExpressNews.com: Immigrants languish in detention as immigration courts close suddenly amid coronavirus fears

She said Angry Tias and Abuelas is looking into reintegration programs for the migrants that decide to attempt to take root in Mexico. The decision is a gamble: there have been dozens of reports of kidnappings and extortion of U.S. asylum-seekers who were caught in Remain in Mexico.

That light at the end of the tunnel, it keeps getting pulled further and further away, said Cavazos. For them, God is a great mitigator, and thats who they keep hanging on to. But you know, its hard when you keep getting thrown obstacles.

Perla said she doesnt think the camp will close. Too many people put too much on the line to bear the thought that it was all for nothing, and give up.

I really cant go back to my country. Just the other day they burned the house of a family member, she said. And I cant turn back after coming here with all those dreams, after all those sacrifices and all that Ive paid. We have to endure. We will.

Silvia Foster-Frau covers immigration news in the San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas area. To read more from Silvia, become a subscriber. sfosterfrau@express-news.net | Twitter: @SilviaElenaFF
SAO PAULO, July 22 (Reuters) - Privatizing Brazilian state power company Eletrobras is a priority for the government, the energy minister said on Wednesday, the day after his ministry made public a request for funding to carry out the privatization process.

The privatization of Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA , as the company is formally known, would require the approval of Congress and faces an uphill political battle. Still, the possibility has caused brief rallies in its shares in recent years.

In the documents released Tuesday, the Mines and Energy Ministry requested 4 billion reais ($781 million) in its 2021 budget to create a separate state firm to hold some vestigial Eletrobras assets, should it be privatized.

"Within the Pro-Brazil agenda, it's one of the priorities," Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque told journalists on Wednesday, referring to a federal government program to reignite growth amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. "It's a priority of the government."

($1 = 5.12 reais)

(Reporting Luciano Costa; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Brad Haynes and Leslie Adler)
Advance pricing provides security to both the drugmaker and the government. Pfizer knows it has a market, and the government doesnt have to worry about fighting over price in a variety of possible futures where it has even less leverage. The government would be in a tough position absent this contract, for example, if Pfizers vaccine proved to be the only successful option among the many now under development. The country could wind up bidding against others for limited supply with limited recourse for ensuring affordability. A fragmented health system and curbs on federal power make it hard for the U.S. to restrain prices.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 01:50:57|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-chair the 12th meeting of the China-Vietnam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh via video link in Beijing, capital of China, July 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The 12th Meeting of the China-Vietnam Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation was held via video link Tuesday.

State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi co-chaired the meeting with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

Wang said since the COVID-19 outbreak, China and Vietnam have given full play to their respective institutional advantages, and effectively controlled the epidemic successively.

Trade between the two countries increased by more than 18 percent against the trend in the first half of this year, showing huge space and complementary advantages for bilateral cooperation, he said.

For his part, Pham spoke positively of the developments of cooperation between the two countries in recent years and expressed confidence in the development prospects of Vietnam-China relations.

The two sides both agreed to take the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations as an opportunity to continue to strengthen strategic communication and promote cooperation in various fields, such as anti-epidemic measures.

Talking about the South China Sea issue, Wang Yi said that China's policy has not changed. Due to geostrategic needs, however, the United States fanned the flames everywhere to stir up tension and turmoil in the region.

"China and Vietnam should control their differences through bilateral dialogue and consultation in accordance with the consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and countries," Wang stressed.

He also called on the two sides, together with other ASEAN countries, to abide by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), push forward the consultation on the Code of Conduct (COC), and not to give any opportunity for interference and destruction by external forces.

Pham expressed Vietnam's willingness to work with China to safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea, and promote maritime cooperation and common development. Enditem
Lucknow, July 22 : Muslims in UP will have to offer prayers and celebrate the upcoming Bakrid (Eid-ul-Adha) festival at their homes.

According to the guidelines issued by the Yogi Adityanath government, Muslim clerics have been asked to ensure that people don't collect in groups, but celebrate the festival at their homes.

Police officials in all districts have been asked to remain on vigil and take note of even the smallest incident in their respective areas. Intelligence agencies have also been asked to remain on high alert and pre-empt any untoward incidents.

District officials have also been asked to ensure that pigs and other animals don't roam on roads around the mosques and other shrines.

Transportation of meat and animal slaughter in the open have been banned.
CHANGSHA, China - The United States abruptly ordered China to close its consulate in Houston by Friday, striking at what U.S. officials described as an espionage hub for Beijing and sending relations between the world's two biggest political and economic powers to a new low.

China immediately promised to retaliate for the "unprecedented escalation," raising the specter of a tit-for-tat battle that could prompt Beijing to shutter at least one U.S. consulate soon and adopt more punitive measures later.

One potential target is the U.S. Consulate in Wuhan, which closed after the coronavirus epidemic began spreading across the city in January. The diplomatic missions in Wuhan and Houston are considered "sister" consulates.

The acrimony between Washington and Beijing has been growing for months, but it was not immediately clear why the United States decided to order the Houston consulate closed now.

The consulate was notified of the order early Tuesday, according to a former senior U.S. official with knowledge of the situation. U.S. agents monitoring the consulate observed personnel going to a Home Depot to buy barrels, which they used to burn documents, the former official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

"The Houston consulate is well known across the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community for its malign activities," the official said.

The out-of-a-spy-novel confrontation widens a conflict that already has spanned trade and technology, freedom of the press and religion, students and scientists, human rights principles and the race for a coronavirus vaccine.

Analysts on both sides say bilateral relations are at their worst since before 1979, when the United States formally recognized the People's Republic of China.

After the news broke, a phrase that Mao Zedong, who established the Communist-run People's Republic of China, wrote in 1949 about the China-U.S. relationship began trending on the Chinese Internet: "Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle."

"At this rate, I wouldn't even be surprised if Trump decides to sever diplomatic relations with China someday," said Chu Shulong, a professor in American politics and diplomacy at Tsinghua University, suggesting that this was part of President Donald Trump's reelection strategy.

Jessica Chen Weiss, a Cornell University expert on China's foreign relations, said that the move appeared calculated to drum up fears of China as an existential threat, rather than as indictment of specific actions.

"Closing the consulate does not appear to be part of a coherent strategy to deter or compel China to alter its behavior," Weiss said. "It looks more like a 'shock and awe' strategy to distract U.S. voters from the Trump administration's disastrous response to the pandemic."

The Trump administration ordered the consulate's closure "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Wednesday.

"The United States will not tolerate the PRC's violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people, just as we have not tolerated the PRC's unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs and other egregious behavior," she said, using the abbreviation for China's official name.

In a separate statement, the State Department accused China of having engaged "in massive illegal spying and influence operations," interfering in "domestic politics," coercing "our business leaders" and threatening "families of Chinese Americans residing in China, and more."

The Chinese Embassy in Washington condemned what it called "an outrageous and unjustified move which sabotages China-U.S. relations." The embassy said it has followed the rules laid out in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and accused the United States of unlawfully opening diplomatic pouches and searching the contents.

"Because of the willful and reckless stigmatization and fanning up of hatred by the U.S. side, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has received threats to the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic missions and personnel more than once," it said in a statement.

The Chinese government is suspected of using the Houston consulate as a hub for aggressive intelligence operations that U.S. officials said had gone too far, and its closure can be read as a rebuke and a warning to Beijing, said a U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

Another U.S. official said that the People's Liberation Army has been sending Chinese students to American universities, and that the Houston consulate is the epicenter of all the malign activities facilitated by China.

The closure came one day after the Justice Department unsealed indictments against two Chinese hackers, accusing them of stealing intellectual property from U.S. firms researching the novel coronavirus and other sensitive information.

The FBI is investigating clandestine Chinese activity in American research institutions, a law enforcement official said. Officers with the People's Liberation Army have come to the United States masquerading as doctors and medical researchers and embedding with universities, research facilities and pharmaceutical companies, the official said.

On Monday, for example, federal authorities arrested a Chinese woman who had claimed to be a neurologist coming to California to conduct brain disease research at Stanford University. In reality, she is affiliated with the Chinese Air Force, according to the Justice Department.

Last month, U.S. authorities arrested a Chinese scientific researcher as he tried to fly out of Los Angeles. According to court documents, he said the head of his military university lab had ordered him to observe a lab at the University of California in San Francisco, and relay information so it could be replicated in China.

The United States expects foreign governments to conduct intelligence activities within its borders, but espionage usually follows a set of unspoken rules.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the acting chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the consulate a "central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies" and said that closing it "needed to happen."

At a news conference in Copenhagen, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said European intellectual property had also been stolen, "costing hundreds of thousands of jobs - good jobs for hard-working people all across Europe and America stolen by the Chinese Communist Party."

"We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave, and when they don't, we're going to take actions that protect the American people, protect our security, our national security, and also protect our economy and jobs," he added.

The first sign of the American order came when Houston NBC affiliate KPRC2 aired video showing people in the courtyard of the consulate apparently burning documents after 8 p.m. local time Tuesday. The consulate's staff had been told it would be evicted from the building at 4 p.m. Friday, the Houston Chronicle reported.

In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry responded angrily to the order. The U.S. government "abruptly informed" China on Tuesday that it had to immediately close its consulate in Houston, Wang Wenbin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters Wednesday.

"The U.S. has far more diplomatic missions and staff working in China. So if the U.S. is bent on going down this wrong path, we will resolutely respond," he said.

In addition to its embassy in Beijing, the United States has consulates in Shenyang, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu and Guangzhou. Analysts expect the Chinese government to respond by ordering one of them closed. The Wuhan consulate, evacuated in January as the coronavirus began spreading in the city, has not reopened, and the embassy and other consulates are operating with skeleton staffs, according to American officials.

Wang said the order came amid American attacks on China's political system, harassment of Chinese diplomats and intimidation of Chinese students. He said the consulate had been getting prank phone calls and even received a bomb threat on Monday.

The United States and China have battled for supremacy since the start of the Trump administration, centered on trade and technology. Both sides have expelled journalists this year and slapped sanctions on each other's officials.

But the hostilities have become much more serious with Trump's efforts to blame the Chinese government for the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan at the end of last year and retaliatory actions over journalists in the countries.

The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday renewed its travel warning for Chinese students in the United States, advising them to be aware of arbitrary interrogations, the confiscation of personal belongings and possible detentions.

Chu, the Tsinghua professor, agreed that there was potential for further tension.

"China could always evict a U.S. consulate in retaliation, and that could go on and on," he said.

- - -

Morello, Nakashima and Harris reported from Washington. The Washington Post's John Hudson in Copenhagen and Liu Yang and Lyric Li in Beijing contributed to this report.
Help.org, a trusted online resource for individuals who struggle with addiction and their loved ones, has announced the Best Rehab Facilities in Auburn, California for 2020. The informational guide recognizes the top 6 rehab facilities based on cost, treatment options, location, accompanying services and more.

According to recent studies, drug overdose is the leading cause of death among people under age 50. In Auburn, deaths related to opioid abuse increased significantly from 2011 to 2015. Substance abuse among adolescents is also escalating in Auburn with 55 percent of high school students reported using alcohol, 38 percent reported using marijuana, 8 percent reported using prescription drugs without a valid prescription, and 2 percent reported using heroin. With the growing need for accessible and high-quality rehab programs, Help.org has developed a unique ranking process to help connect individuals with treatment providers that meet their needs.

The Help.org research team analyzed thousands of facilities across the country and then identified the most cost-effective and highest rated programs in larger cities like Auburn. Each facility was evaluated based on rehabilitation services, treatment approaches, cost, special programs for unique demographics and ancillary services. The website also provides information about drug use and side effects as well as educational articles. For a detailed listing of the Best Rehab Facilities in Auburn, California please visit https://www.help.org/drug-and-alcohol-rehab-centers-in-auburn-ca/

2020 Best Rehab Facilities in Auburn, California (in alphabetical order)

Aegis Roseville

1133 Coloma Way, Suite C

Roseville CA 95661

916-774-6647

Granite Wellness Centers

12183 Locksley Lane, Suite 101  104

Auburn, CA 95602

530-885-1961

Hope Canyon

2821 Lange Avenue

San Diego, CA 92122

619-343-2395

Hope, Help and Healing, Inc.

11960 Heritage Oak Place, Suite 20

Auburn, CA 95603

530-885-4249

New Dawn Treatment Centers

9960 Business Park Drive, Suite 160

Sacramento, CA 95827

866-969-4300

ABOUT HELP.ORG

Help.org is an online resource for individuals who struggle with addiction and their loved ones. The website provides the latest research through scientifically proven methods, community recovery resources as well as information about local financial assistance. Help.orgs team of researchers, activists and writers work together with addiction counselors and other professionals to offer useful and accurate resources to help individuals seeking recovery. To learn more, visit https://www.help.org/.
TORONTO, July 21, 2020  Thomson Reuters (TSX/NYSE: TRI) today announced the appointment of two key executives to the leadership team under Steve Hasker, president and CEO of Thomson Reuters.

I am pleased to welcome Kirsty Roth as our Chief Operations and Technology Officer, and David Wong as our new Chief Product Officer, said Hasker.

As a business whose customers truly value our solutions, we now need to reimagine the customer experience by providing them with a world-class experience from the front-end to the back-end, particularly in todays environment. We are determined to enhance both innovation and integration across the company and to do so means we must attract world-class talent to help drive the business forward. In Kirsty and David, I am confident we have two seasoned performers who will enable us to achieve these objectives, he continued.

Kirsty Roth joins from HSBC where she was Global Head of Operations and a Group General Manager, leading a team of 36,000 across 52 countries where she oversaw the digital transformation of HSBCs operational functions. Prior to that, she was COO for Finance, Operations and IT at Credit Suisse from 2011 to 2015 and a Consulting Partner with Deloitte for 10 years, based in London, Zurich and New York. Kirsty lives with her husband and two daughters in Switzerland and will be based at our operational centre in Zug starting August 24.

David Wong recently joined from Facebook where he was responsible for building products for marketers that measure the effectiveness of their investments in the $70 billion Facebook advertising platform. He is a leader in product methodology research and an inventor and innovator on four patents. David previously held senior roles at both Nielsen, as SVP of Product Leadership leading the digital measurement product portfolio, and prior to that at McKinsey & Company. David will be based at our corporate headquarters in Toronto. He and his husband currently live in San Francisco.

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is a leading provider of business information services. Our products include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the worlds most global news service  Reuters. For more information on Thomson Reuters, visit tr.com and for the latest world news, reuters.com.

CONTACT

MEDIA

David Crundwell

Head of Corporate Affairs

+44 79 0989 8605

david.crundwell@tr.com

INVESTORS

Frank J. Golden

Head of Investor Relations

+1 646 223 5288

frank.golden@tr.com
In a major relief to Vodafone Idea, the Supreme Court has asked the Income Tax Department to refund Rs 833 crore to the troubled telecom operator immediately. The apex court upheld an order by Bombay High Court in this regarding, quashing a special leave petition filed by the tax department against it, CNBC-TV18 reported.

The matter stems from Vodafone's refund claims for the Assessment Year (AY) 2014-15. The telco had originally sought tax refund of Rs 4,759.07 crore for assessment years 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. On April 29, the Supreme Court had dismissed Vodafone Idea's appeal for refunding its total claim and asked the Income Tax department to refund Rs 733 crore within four weeks.

After the apex court order, on May 28, the department had determined the net refund of Rs 833 crore. However, no refund was released despite many reminders. Following which, Vodafone Idea moved the Bombay High Court over non-issuance of refund.

Vodafone had stated that the department itself had concluded that refund worth Rs 833 crore was payable to the company and it had no power to withhold the same. The tax department, in its defence, had said that the refund was denied in view of outstanding tax demands pending against Vodafone

The Bombay High Court had ruled that the department cannot withhold the admitted refundable amount on grounds of probable tax demands arising out of the pending assessment orders. It had ordered I-T Department to issue the refund of Rs 833 crore to Vodafone within two weeks.

In its latest order, the Supreme Court also upheld that the Income Tax Department cannot withhold refunds on the basis of undetermined future refunds.

This comes as a major relief for Vodafone Idea, which has been grappling with fund shortage on the back of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) payout to the Department of Telecommunications. Vodafone Idea and other telcos had sought a window of 15 years from the Supreme Court for paying their AGR dues after the apex court said that they should seek a reasonable time for payment as 20 years is too long a period. The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra has reserved its orders on the time to be given to telcos for staggered paym
Footy fans have been left furious after the size of their hot chip buckets were shrunk due to coronavirus restrictions.

Fries served to Adelaide Crows fans were overflowing before the COVID-19 pandemic forced stadium authorities to pre-package the food and close the lid.

But the move by the Adelaide Oval left fans feeling short-changed at Monday's Crows vs St Kilda match - with some particularly irked the venue had heavily advertised their reduced food and beverage prices in the week before.

The Adelaide Oval's decision to close the lids of their chip boxes due to the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn anger from fans complaining about the number of fries inside. Pictured left are the size of the fries before the change

Hot chips are now served pre-packaged with the lid closed, leading to fans complaining they were not getting bang for their buck

'Think it's pathetic the oval PR team did the big splashy spiel about making it more affordable while showing the food in its full size glory then neglect to let the consumer know reduced prices also includes reduction in portions,' one person wrote on social media.

'Smaller chips and even smaller soft drinks! Adelaide Oval should be shamed of themselves! No wonder they're cheaper! I bet there making the same profit,' another said.

'Much smaller boxes. Never full to the top either! Ridiculous,' another added.

The Adelaide Oval's general manager Darren Chandler said following feedback the venue would be increasing the size of its chip boxes.

'We serve all our food as pre-packaged - previously the chips were overflowing and now we need to close the lids,' he told reporters.

'But as a result that has made us aware that there were less chips being served, so we are changing the size of that packaging to make sure we can get the same number of chips in a sealed package.'

Mr Chandler also responded to complaints there wasn't enough soap in the men's bathroom - saying management were working with cleaning teams at the stadium to monitor the situation.

Fans were left feeling short-changed at Monday's Crows vs St Kilda match - with many unimpressed with the quantity of fries they received for $5.50

The Adelaide Oval's general manager Darren Chandler said the stadium would be increasing the size of chip boxes to allow more fries to fit inside

Pictured: Crows fans before Monday's round seven match between Adelaide and St Kilda

Hot chips prices were dropped last week from $5.90 to $5.50 as part of price reductions across the oval's food and drink menu.

'Almost every South Australian family has faced economic pain as a result of the COVID-19 situation,' Adelaide Oval CEO Andrew Daniels said.

'We recognise that and are doing something about it by reducing the prices of our most popular items.'
Trump, who ran for office in 2016 promising that Mexico would pay for the border wall, has obtained more than $15 billion in U.S. federal funds for his signature project, including $5 billion provided by Congress through conventional appropriations. The president has tapped into Pentagon accounts for the remaining $10 billion, including the $2.5 billion transfer last year that the Ninth Circuit said was unlawful.
I am taking the risk of not mentioning some of the outstanding authors of articles and books that will inform the readers and new comers to the history of the Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia areas. Said oversight is not intentional.



Any history of Hamilton County, Tennessee must begin with Dr. James W. Livingoods 1981 novel A History of Hamilton County, Tennessee (Memphis State University Press).



The Chattanooga Regional Historical Journal is another excellent publication that comes with a yearly membership to the Chattanooga Area Historical Association that can be obtained with a $20.00 individual membership and purchase of copies of old and new journals for $5.00 and $6.00.

Many of the best historians regularly send in articles and include, Sam Elliott, Kay Baker Gaston, LaVonne Jolley, Smith Murray, Maury Nicely, Micky Robbins, Anthony Hodges and Alex McKeel to name just a few.



The surrounding counties in both Tennessee and Georgia have historical societies that contain much of the history in their area and several have museums that display many items pertaining to local history.



The Chattanooga Public Library under the leadership of Corrine Hill has a wealth of history information including back copies of former and existing newspapers. The staff is always helpful and Suzette Raney is a regular article contributor.



Linda Moss Mines is the current Hamilton County Historian and weekly contributor of an article in the Perspective Section each Sunday in the Chattanooga Times/Free Press. Mark Kennedy is also a member of the local paper that writes timely historical articles.



John Shearer and the author contribute historical articles under the Happenings Section in the Chattanoogan.com web paper of John Wilson. Roy Exum when not writing about politics will also contribute a historical article.



John Wilson is likewise a former Hamilton County historian and his published works, Chattanoogas Story (1980); Scenic Historic Lookout Mountain (1977); Railroads in and Around Chattanooga (2017); The Remarkable Stokes Collection (2014); Hamilton County Pioneers (2017) and Early Hamilton Settlers (2018) all contain photos and important historical data.



The Paul Heiners Historic Chattanooga (2016) contains over 3000 photos of Chattanooga and can be seen on the Chattanooga Public Library website.



Spokesman David Moons Picnooga.com contains 16,000 current and 13,000 potential digitized photos that were donated to the Public Library or Chattanooga History Center when the Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga News Free Press were merged in 1999 and are available for viewing on the website.



Sam Hall in 2014 created a website that is now known as Chattanooga History.com that is another source of additional information on the history of our area.



David Carroll, Earl Freudenberg, Harmon Jolley, and Dr. Wayne Shearer often make valuable contributions about the history of the media in our hometown.



If you want to check on history on a statewide basis a $35.00 membership with the Tennessee Historical Society will get you a copy of the Tennessee Historical Quarterly.



The specific information on how to contact each of the sources mentioned in this article can be found by going to Google Chrome and inserting the name of the individual in the publication in Chattanooga.



By logging in on any of the above you will enter a world of knowledge and history about the present topics, persons and events in the State of Tennessee that we proudly call home as well as Alabama and Georgia.



Enjoy your trip.






BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Nargiz Ismayilova - Trend:

The export of Azerbaijani products to Ukraine increased by 23.2 percent from January through June 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, Trend reports citing the statistical bulletin of the State Customs Committee.

According to the bulletin, the export of Azerbaijani products to Ukraine in the first half of this year amounted to $230.4 million, while in the same period of last year this indicator was $186.8 million. The share of Ukraine in the total export of Azerbaijan increased from 1.87 to 3 percent of the total volume of export.

In 1H2020, foreign trade operations between Azerbaijan and Ukraine amounted to $443.3 million, which is 10 percent more compared to 1H2019.

At the same time, the volume of import of Ukrainian products to Azerbaijan declined by 1.4 percent, amounting to $212.9 million. Ukraines share in the total import of Azerbaijan increased from 3.08 to 4.27 percent of the total volume of import.

The foreign trade balance of the two countries for the reporting period was positive and exceeded $17.4 million.

In the first six months of 2020, Azerbaijan's foreign trade turnover amounted to $12.6 billion, having decreased by 34.1 percent year-on-year. The balance of foreign trade turnover on an annualized basis declined by 10 percent and remained negative, amounting to $2.6 billion.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @IsmailovaNargis
Wisconsins Department of Health Services reported yet another grim milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic on Tuesday, with the state seeing its highest-ever single-day increase in positive COVID-19 cases.

On Tuesday, DHS reported a total of 44,135 known COVID-19 cases, a single-day increase of 1,117. The death toll reached 859, an increase of 13 over Monday. Deaths now comprise 1.9% of the total cases reported.

Stephanie Smiley, DHS Division of Public Health interim administrator, said the rise in cases is a cause for concern.

The trend is going in the wrong direction, Smiley said. We want to see decreases in the number of cases each day. Were really hoping that people will try to make some changes in terms of their behavior and really ensuring that theyre doing their part to stop the spread.

Smiley emphasized Wisconsinites should make use of preventive measures as much as possible, including staying home, social distancing, wearing masks or cloth face coverings, washing hands for at least 20 seconds and getting tested if you have symptoms or have been exposed to COVID-19.

Smiley pointed to wearing a mask and social distancing as two of the most important measures people can take to protect themselves and others.

Smiley said there is currently higher disease activity across the state than in March, when Wisconsin first grappled with the virus and shut down swaths of the economy.

Disease activity across the state is definitely high, and it is high in most of the counties in our state, Smiley said. When things were shut down, you can imagine disease activity was much lower.

Smiley said that toward the beginning of the pandemic, it was typical to see people who contracted the virus reporting three to five contacts. But now, she said, people with the virus are reporting contacts of 15 to 20 others.

Since May, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned Democratic Gov. Tony Evers statewide stay-at-home order, its been up to local governments to issue COVID-19-related regulations. Republicans who control the Legislature have determined they prefer a county-by-county approach to managing the virus rather than a statewide one.

Cases started rising again last month after the first wave that began in March started to level off or abate. Smiley said people attending social gatherings have typically been the drivers of the current spread.

So far, 794,697 people have been tested in the state, a 14,488 increase from Monday. A total of 4,194 people have been hospitalized with the disease, which represents 9.5% of those who tested positive for the virus.

COVID-19 in photos: How Wisconsin is managing the pandemic
Rhodes University confers an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) on Dr Andrew Mlangeni in April 2018.

Rhodes University is deeply saddened by the death of one of the bravest and most committed freedom fighters against apartheid, Dr Andrew Mokete Mlangeni.

Dr Mlangeni, aged 95, died at 1 Military Hospital in Thaba Tshwane in Pretoria on Tuesday night, 21 July 2020, where he was admitted after experiencing abdominal pains.

Rhodes University conferred one of its highest honours on Dr Mlangeni, that of a Doctor of Laws (LLD) (honoris causa), at its annual graduation ceremony in April of 2018.

During his graduation speech, he said, In line with the motto of the University: Strength, Courage, Truth, I am pretty confident that this University, which I join today as an honorary member, will continue to play its role to help transform our country into a nation that will counted the best amongst the nations of the world.

Born on 6 June 1926, Dr Mlangeni started working at a young age.

I was born under the farm labour tenancy system. Which means from the day I was conceived, I was destined to be a future farm worker because of the labour tenancy system. A condemnation which many farm tenants children are still subjected to in this day and age in our modern society. Indeed, it is not yet UHURU for the majority in our country, he said.

After his father tragically passed away, the family had to move off the farm. Miraculously I escaped, not because of my own making, but because of the tragic event in my early life, the death of my father, the head of the house.

Popularly known as prisoner number 46764 in political circles, Dr Mlangeni spent years of unswerving and sustained commitment to the fight against apartheid. He embodied the values of selfless dedication to the cause of freedom, justice and human dignity.

Dr Mlangeni was among the first people to be deployed for the ANC military training wing Umkhonto WeSizwe outside the country. On his return in 1963, he was arrested after state witnesses told the court that he was one of the people responsible for recruiting and training an armed force. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.

He said: One of the biggest prisons we were afraid of being locked up in though, was the jail of ignorance. We had to demand to have access to education, a fight that was fought over a period of three years until it was granted 1967. Guess who was the first among the inmates to register to study? Some fellow called Andrew Mlangeni.

The freedom fighter spent 26 long years locked up in Robben Island as Nelson Mandelas next-door inmate neighbour. He was released in 1989, during the negotiations between the government and the African National Congress (ANC).

While on Robben Island, he obtained a degree in Political Science and Public Administration. He also graduated with a BA Honours in Political Science. Upon his release in 1989, he continued to study a law degree, which he unfortunately did not complete because of his work for the ANC preparing for the first democratic elections.

My generation, and especially the comrades with whom I was locked up, among the first things we fought for the very first day we landed on Robben Island, knowing that we had all the time because we had to do time, was to fight for our right to study, the right to education, said Dr Mlangeni.

He referred to the now famous quote by his fellow prisoner and comrade, Nelson Mandela, who said, Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can change the world.

When Madiba uttered those words, he had a dream of a people who can really turn things around using education as the agency for change, Dr Mlangeni said.

He reminded the 2018 graduates to emulate the values of stalwarts such as Madiba and Albertina Sisulu. The right to human dignity enjoins us to treat people with reverence and dignity. Their selflessness should be embodied by the whole world not only on their months of birth, but every day.

During his lifetime, Dr Mlangeni was the recipient of several awards including the ANC Isithwalandwe, the highest honour awarded by the ANC to those who have made an outstanding contribution and sacrifice to the liberation struggle, as well as The Order for Meritorius Service Class 1 (Gold) in 1999 (then the countrys highest honour, awarded to South Africans who had rendered exceptional public service).

Dr Mlangeni was an embodiment of humility and gentleness. He was integrity and kindness personified. He was an epitome of noble commitment and dedication to social justice, freedom, human rights and human dignity. He was a quintessential gentleman. Our nation and humankind owe Bab uMlangeni an unpayable debt of gratitude, said Rhodes University Vice-Chancellor, Dr Sizwe Mabizela.

Rhodes University would like offer heartfelt condolences to the Mlangeni family and friends. He was a self-sacrificing struggle veteran who dedicated his life to fighting for the freedom of the people of South Africa.

Source: Communications

Please help us to raise funds so that we can give all our students a chance to access online teaching and learning. Covid-19 has disrupted our students' education. Don't let the digital divide put their future at risk. Visit www.ru.ac.za/rucoronavirusgateway to donate
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will start releasing data from Chandrayaan-2 for global use in October.

The agency announced it on Tuesday which marked the first anniversary of the launch of Chandrayaan-2, India's second moon mission.

It was on this day that India released the GSLV rocket, nicknamed 'Bahubali' from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

ISRO further said that all eight payloads on Chandrayaan-2 are performing well and it has acquired extensive data from them.

Also Read: Chandrayaan 2: Not ISRO or NASA, it's techie from Chennai who found Vikram lander on Moon

The space agency also informed that the global mapping of the lunar surface as well as polar coverage are being conducted as per the mission plan.

"Parameters are being derived for the presence of water-ice in the polar regions, X-ray based and infrared spectroscopic mineral information, and mid and high-latitude presence of Argon-40, a condensable gas on the Moon which gets released internally by the radioactive decay," it said in an official statement, reported IANS.

ISRO initially planned to release the report on major findings from Chandrayaan-2's science experiments at the Annual Lunar Planetary Science Conference in March this year.

Also Read: Chandrayaan 2 landing failed: Communication from lander Vikram lost during descent

However, the event got cancelled due to COVID-19, the agency added. The Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was inserted into lunar orbit on August 20, 2019.

In September 2019, the spacecraft's Vikram Lander lost communication with ISRO moments before its scheduled landing on lunar surface. The lander, with rover 'Pragyan' tucked inside Chandrayaan-2, was just 2.1 kilometres above the lunar surface when it lost contact with the space agency.

On December 2, 2019, US space agency NASA found the lander on moon's surface after which it released the images of its impact site.
After successful launches in other European markets, company expands localization efforts to Italy and the Netherlands

Fiverr International Ltd., (NYSE: FVRR), the company that is changing how the world works together, announced the continuation of its international expansion efforts with the launch of its site in two new languages, Dutch and Italian. This follows the success the company saw with its expansion efforts in Germany, France and Spain.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005136/en/

Fiverr Announces Expansion into Italy and the Netherlands (Graphic: Business Wire)

"Expanding our global footprint is a key growth strategy for Fiverr, and we believe there is huge potential in the Italian and Dutch markets," said Micha Kaufman, founder and CEO of Fiverr. "Though very different markets, we have already seen fantastic signals in both countries for instance, from February to March of this year, visitors from Italy to the website went up 97%. By giving users the opportunity to interact in their native language, we're increasing trust in our brand, which will ultimately lead to increased adoption of our platform in these markets."

Italy is built on a foundation of small and independent businesses that make up the backbone of the Italian economy the third largest in Europe after Germany and France. Their contribution to the overall GDP of the nation is about 73%, according to the OECD. That said, similar to the U.S., the country is also embracing independent work, as the number of freelancers in Italy keeps rising year over year. Right now there are 5.5 million freelancers in the country, who represent almost 16% of the Italian GDP. This provides solid opportunities for growth on both sides of Fiverr's marketplace.

The Netherlands is also a country wherein Fiverr has been strong in the past, but sees further opportunity by creating a local language site. The number of self-employed people continues to grow at the moment there are around 1 million freelancers, who make up roughly 17% of the workforce. In the Netherlands particularly, there is a trend in which older people who are highly-educated and highly skilled are looking to become freelancers. On the flip side, there are about 1.2 million small businesses in the country.

In addition to localizing the site for both Italy and the Netherlands, Fiverr will also be increasing marketing efforts in both countries. This includes local public relations and targeted performance marketing campaigns and later down the line, brand marketing campaigns and community engagement.

About Fiverr

Fiverr's mission is to change how the world works together. The Fiverr platform connects businesses of all sizes with skilled freelancers offering digital services in more than 300 categories, across 8 verticals including graphic design, digital marketing, programming, video and animation. In the twelve months ended March 31, 2020, 2.5 million customers bought a wide range of services from freelancers across more than 160 countries. We invite you to visit us at fiverr.com, read our blog and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005136/en/

Contacts:

Abby Forman

press@fiverr.com
(Natural News) A public health laboratory in the state of Connecticut has determined that Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) tests being administered all across the country are fundamentally flawed, which is part of the reason why the nation is now seeing a massive spike in supposed new infections.

The error was identified in the testing platform manufactured by a company known as Thermo Fisher Scientific, which provides Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) tests to many different commercial laboratories across the U.S. In Connecticut alone, this flawed test has resulted in at least 90 people, mostly living in nursing homes and assisted care facilities, testing positive for the virus when they are actually healthy and normal.

It was employees at Connecticuts official state laboratory that first discovered the flaw and brought it to the publics attention. Their hope is that the problem can be quickly rectified, allowing clinics all over the country that have been using the faulty test to switch to something else, as well as to account for and discard any erroneous data that came from its use.

Dr. Deidre S. Gifford, Connecticuts acting public health commissioner, has indicated that her agency is reaching out to labs all across her state to determine how many of them have been using the flawed test. Josh Geballe, Governor Ned Lamonts chief operating officer, is also reaching out to all clinicians who have tested people with the flawed test to find out who was tested, where they live, and what results were gathered.

In a state like ours, which is using large-scale, intense testing to keep down transmission, we are going to have false positives, admitted Dr. Albert Ko, a Yale University epidemiologist and co-chair of Gov. Lamonts reopening advisory committee, about the situation.

And thats going to happen even in the best of tests because none of them are 100 percent positive, he added, noting that the scientists who uncovered the flaw deserve a shout-out for the contributions in bringing much-needed scrutiny to the testing process.

How many other coronavirus testing kits are also producing false positives?

According to the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH), the affected patients it has already identified were all tested with the faulty tests between June 15 and July 17. Of the 144 people that supposedly tested positive, 90 of them turned out to be false positives, which have since been reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

In a written statement, DPH indicated that it does not yet know the precise reason why the tests are creating false positives, but that it is currently being investigated. It was merely identified during an analysis of background information on previously collected specimens that something was amiss, and that these specimens shouldnt have been reported as positive, to quote DPH scientists Dr. Jafar Razeq.

It has also been revealed that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had been collecting and reporting gobs of false positives from many other states before it was revealed that the agency was mistakenly perpetuating fake science.

In Connecticut, there are now more than 48,000 reported positive cases of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), though it remains unclear how many of these might be false positives. Even so, this figure reflects a 0.6 positivity rate in the state, which is among the lowest in the country.

Connecticut has also implemented new quarantine rules for out-of-state travelers who visit the area, requiring them to fill out online travel health forms and stay isolated for at least 14 days. Those who are caught violating the order could face a fine of $1,000.

More related news stories about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) are available at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

WashingtonTimes.com

NaturalNews.com
Peterboroughs move to mandatory face masks while loosening other COVID-19 restrictions will be mandatory only in the loosest sense of the word.

The order issued by the local medical officer of health requires a best effort by owners and operators to ensure everyone who comes into a bar, restaurant, office building or other indoor space wears a mask.

The order also covers buses, cabs and any other form of public transportation.

While potential fines are laid out, enforcement will on a good faith principle and the order focuses on educating people about mask wearing.

Education suggests no prosecution. At least for now.

Whether slow and easy is the right approach wont be known until the rules have been in place for a while.

And there is a real possibility the right-or-wrong question will never be answered, which would be fine.

In that scenario, Peterborough and area simply continues its mostly successful pandemic trajectory.

As Stage 3 moves further along and larger public spaces like fitness centres and museums open to the public there would likely be a few more cases. But any spike would be moderate and match what happens in other mid-sized Ontario communities that have done a good job of keeping infections to a minimum.

Whether requiring masks in indoor areas will contribute to a successful outcome along those lines is to some degree a matter of opinion.

Dr. Rosana Salvaterra, medical officer of health of Peterborough city and county and Curve Lake and Hiawatha First Nations, isnt as convinced as some of her peers that masks make a big difference.

That is apparent in the soft approach on enforcement, and the fact that a mask order announced on July 20 doesnt take effect until Aug. 1.

No great hurry, in other words.

Salvaterra has said: Although not conclusive, there is increasing scientific evidence that wearing a face covering can help reduce COVID-19 transmission.

That contrasts with the approach in Kingston region, which issued a mask order nearly a month ago.

There, owners and operators must Prohibit Persons from entering the premises without a mask. As justification, the order notes that expert opinion supports the widespread use of Face Coverings to decrease transmission of COVID-19.

The Peterborough order doesnt mention prohibiting anything. It requires that, Best efforts (a verbal reminder) shall be made to only allow entry to persons wearing a face covering.

Kingston had drawn praise for its success in curtailing the virus. There have been no deaths, no outbreaks in seniors homes and among the smallest number of cases per capita in Ontario.

However, Peterborough has a similar record. So do many other jurisdictions. As of this past weekend, 18 of 24 Ontario health units had no new cases and 28 had five or fewer.

The key is that people follow the rules, particularly social distancing and hand washing. Masks in public indoor spaces are now added to the mix.

If Peterborough residents continue to stick to the rules, fines for not wearing a mask shouldnt be necessary.

The soft approach will also lessen the likelihood of confrontations with people who will, inevitably, resist masking up.

A tougher stand can be taken if cases start to spike. For now, masks that sit tight to the face and rules that sit lightly is the right approach.
There remains a risk that a limited number of locust swarms could migrate from northeast Somalia to the Indo-Pakistan border area during the remainder of this month, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of United Nations said on Tuesday.

In its last situation update, the FAO said that in Somalia, ground and aerial control operations are underway against immature swarms on the northern plateau between Hargeisa and Garowe. The swarms are moving eastwards across the north and they could continue to migrate across the Indian Ocean to reach the summer breeding areas along both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border.

Control operations are in progress against hopper groups and bands in the Nagarparkar area of southeast Sindh near the Indian border in Pakistan. Groups of adults are maturing in Tharparkar and Cholistan deserts where laying is expected in areas that have already received monsoon rains. This will cause a further increase in locust numbers as hatching and hopper band formation occur in the coming weeks, the FAO said.

On the situation in India, the organisation said that adult groups and swarms are maturing throughout Rajasthan where laying is underway in many areas. So far, a few hopper groups and bands have formed but substantial hatching is expected in the coming weeks. There have been no recent reports of additional locusts in the northern states as most of the adult groups and swarms have returned to Rajasthan as expected.

We have an eye on FAOs updates and ground situations. Every effort is being made to control locusts. So far, the state government and the organisation together have controlled locusts in about three and a half lakh hectare area, said KL Gurjar, Deputy Director of Locust Warning Organization (LWO).

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) had recently said that locust attacks are posing a serious threat to food security in parts of East Africa, India and Pakistan as a result of changing climate conditions that can be linked to human activity.

The specialised agency of the United Nations said extreme weather events and climatic changes such as increases in temperature and rainfall over desert areas, and the strong winds associated with tropical cyclones, provide a new environment for pest breeding, development and migration.
Roughly two weeks after a massive Black Lives Matter street painting appeared in downtown Redwood City, Calif., it was washed away - leaving the asphalt without a trace of the message's familiar bright yellow paint. But unlike in other cities where vandals targeting BLM murals have been arrested and even charged with a hate crime, this time it was the city that suddenly removed the artwork.

Despite granting permission for the temporary street art and even providing the paint for the July 4 project, officials in the Northern California city ordered the painting removed from its prime location late last week, KPIX reported.

"Staff is concerned about public safety issues that may arise from painting murals on its public streets, which could result in driver confusion and traffic accidents," city spokeswoman Jennifer Yamaguma told The Washington Post in a statement early Wednesday. "Thus, the existing mural has been removed from Broadway and no further art installation will be authorized on the City's streets."

But supporters of the artwork, who have expressed outrage over its removal, point to another factor they say actually prompted the city to take action: one resident's request to paint "MAGA 2020" along the same stretch of street.

"They made the decision to take Black Lives Matter off the street at the first person that proposed the MAGA 2020," Redwood City resident Dan Pease, who spearheaded the effort behind the original art piece, told KRON.

The request came from local attorney Maria Rutenburg, who told The Washington Post late Tuesday that she emailed city officials just hours after the Black Lives Matter painting had been completed asking if she could also paint the truncated version of President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign slogan nearby.

"I'm a Trump supporter and the slogan is important to me," said Rutenburg, 44, who is white, arguing that once the well-known yellow words were painted on the street, it effectively became "a public forum."

"Everybody has a chance of saying whatever they feel like," she added. "My speech is just as important as BLM."

Rutenburg said she immediately heard back from city officials noting that they were considering her proposal. Just over a week later, they denied her request over concerns that the painting would be a "traffic hazard," she said.

Not long after Rutenburg's proposal was turned down, Pease was informed by city officials of plans to wash away his street art, he told the San Mateo Daily Journal.

"I'm not upset the piece is being taken down because it's just words on the street. It doesn't represent real change," said Pease, who is white. "What is upsetting and frustrating is someone who disagrees with the thought of Black Lives Matter has the audacity to come out with . . . a comparable counter punch to Black Lives Matter. That to me is disgusting."

In the statement to The Post, Yamaguma explained that the temporary painting had been "allowed as an extension of City efforts to preserve art related to the peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in Redwood City," and was also intended to complement a recently commissioned chalk mural in same area.

"The painting was informally processed, and intended for a short duration," the statement said.

While Pease told KPIX over the weekend that he was aware of the artwork's limited life span, he said he was still "disappointed."

"Because we were using the poster board paint that would eventually deteriorate over time, my understanding from them was that the mural would last as long as the paint lasted," he said.

The news that the city would be erasing the giant letters was swiftly met with outcry. People flooded a public Facebook group for Redwood City residents with critical posts blasting the city and Rutenburg. Meanwhile, an online petition to protest the erasure of the painting was also launched.

"Such negation of the community's voice is itself an example of white supremacy - privileging one white voice over the community's," the petition read. As of early Wednesday, it had received nearly 900 signatures.

In response to the barrage of criticism targeting her, Rutenburg defended herself on social media, penning lengthy Facebook posts insisting that she did not intend for the existing art to be removed. Rutenburg noted in one post that she and her family have weathered death threats in the aftermath of the painting being washed away.

"I'd like to make it clear now: this is not the outcome I wanted, nor one that I requested," she recently wrote in the community Facebook group. "I made my request because I saw that the courthouse square was being used as a public forum, and, as a Redwood City resident, wanted to participate."

She added: "I did not ask for the mural's removal, nor did I threaten legal action."

On Tuesday, Rutenburg stressed in an email to The Post that her request to paint "MAGA 2020" had been an attempt to ensure that "free and open political discussion for all sides" is allowed.

"I think we can all agree that black lives matter, and that equality is important. These are really fundamental truths," she wrote. "But what's happening is now is one loud political group intimidating the cities into speaking their own private agenda just because cities are afraid of being called racist if they do not give in on the spot."

Pease, however, disagreed.

"Black Lives Matter is not a political statement," he told KRON. "Black Lives Matter is a human rights issue. Black Lives Matter is a call; it's a message, it's a symbol."
Check out the news you should not miss today:

Society

 Vietnams novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) tally on Wednesday morning rose to 401 with five new imported cases from the U.S. and Russia confirmed by the Ministry of Health. Currently, Vietnam has 36 patients in treatment and 365 recoveries.

 Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper in collaboration with the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union will organize a program to celebrate frontline workers in the fight against COVID-19, with more than VND2 billion (US$87,000) in cash and gifts expected to be given to around 400 individuals and five groups that have made great contributions to the country's COVID-19 response.

 The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport has proposed investment to improve transportation connectivity between the city and neighboring Long An Province to promote the two localities economic development, including extending Ho Chi Minh Citys Vo Van Kiet Avenue to Long An.

 A court in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long on Tuesday sentenced a 25-year-old man to 15 years in jail for illegally trading narcotic substances.

Business

 With about 2.5 months to the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most celebrated fests in Vietnam, the sale of mooncakes at throwaway prices has taken over the Internet in the Southeast Asian country.

 The Japanese government has supported fifteen Japanese enterprises in moving factories to Vietnam to fix the gap in the Japanese supply chain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Vietnam News Agency quoted the Japan External Trade Organization as saying.

Lifestyle

 The Hue Festival 2020 will open on August 26, two days earlier than the previously-decided date of August 28, its organizing board said on Tuesday.

Education

 Vietnam's Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said at a conference on Tuesday that the ministry has reviewed and suspended nearly 200 foreign affiliate programs over quality concerns.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
The Sierra Club has said it is moving to tear down 'monuments' to its founder John Muir over his racist remarks and friendships, and apologized for the conservation group's 'substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.'

Muir, who died in 1914, was a native of Scotland who emigrated to America and played a key role in preserving the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park. He co-founded the Sierra Club in 1892.

In his writings from the late 19th and early 20th century, he was also known to make racially disparaging remarks. In one memoir, he cruelly described black people as 'well trained' but 'making a great deal of noise and doing little work'.

'It's time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club's early history,' said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune in a statement on Wednesday.

John Muir, who died in 1914, was a native of Scotland who emigrated to America and played a key role in preserving the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park

'As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muir's words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club,' Brune said.

A spokesman for the group clarified to DailyMail.com that the Sierra Club does not have any prominent physical monuments or statues to Muir, and that Brune was speaking metaphorically of publicly reckoning with the group's history.

Although a bronze relief of Muir used to hang in the Sierra Club's legislative offices in Washington DC, it was removed prior to April, the spokesman said.

Physical statues of Muir do stand in several national parks, including one at Muir Woods National Monument in Mill Valley, California.

This bronze relief of Muir (seen with artist Homer Daehn) used to hang in the Sierra Club's legislative offices in Washington DC, but was removed some time ago. The group does not own other prominent physical monuments to Muir, and was speaking metaphorically

In addition for his disparaging comments about black people Muir also once insultingly referred to Native Americans as 'lazy' and 'superstitious.'

In other writings, his views appeared to evolve, and he praised Native Americans for their low impact on nature and wilderness, compared with that of white people.

In his statement, Brune explained that some of Muir's associations were as troubling as his racist statements.

Muir (right) poses with 26th President Theodore Roosevelt on Glacier Point in Yosemite

He noted that Muir 'maintained friendships with people like Henry Fairfield Osborn, who worked for both the conservation of nature and the conservation of the white race.'

Osborn was a eugenicist who viewed northern Europeans as superior, and advocated the preservation of 'good' racial stock.

'Other early Sierra Club members and leaders - like Joseph LeConte and David Starr Jordan - were vocal advocates for white supremacy and its pseudo-scientific arm, eugenics,' Brune said.

Brune wrote that due to its origins as a mountaineering club for middle class white men, the Sierra Club was long blinded to the notion that 'only people insulated from systemic racism and brutality can afford to focus solely on preserving wilderness.'

'The persistence of this misguided idea is part of the reason why we still get comments from our own members telling us to 'stay in our lane,' and stop talking about issues of race, equity, and privilege,' Brune wrote.

He vowed to publish a series of further blog posts that would 'talk more about the struggles Indigenous people, people of color, and their white allies went through to get this organization to evolve on issues like immigration and environmental justice.'

Brune said the Sierra Club would shift $5 million in its budget 'to make long-overdue investments in our staff of color and our environmental and racial justice work.'

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune (above) announced the group's public reckoning with its own history and founder in a statement on Wednesday

Though Brune did not address it directly in his post, the Sierra Club was for decades staunchly opposed to immigration-driven population growth, on the basis that higher population density would threaten the wilderness.

In 1996, the group adopted an official position of neutrality on the subject of immigration, reportedly under pressure from mega-donor David Gelbaum.

'I did tell [then-Sierra Club executive director] Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me,' Gelbaum told the Los Angeles Times in 2004. He went on to donate some $200 million to the group.

In recent years, the Sierra Club has made more concrete statements supporting amnesty for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, and Brune himself has called President Donald Trump's immigration policies 'racist.'

Brune said on Wednesday that the Sierra Club would 'spend the next year studying our history and determining which of our monuments need to be renamed or pulled down entirely.'
Malta, the beautiful Mediterranean island archipelago, has now re-opened its borders for visitors of selected countries, including the UAE.

Malta International Airport officially re-opened for commercial flights in the beginning of July to a select list of countries that are considered safe, which states that passengers coming from those countries can enter Malta without quarantine or any special permits.

The list of safe-corridor countries was further extended on July 15, and the UAE has been included in the list alongside other safe countries like Japan, Netherlands, Germany, and South Korea, as well as other Mena countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia.

With the annulment of travel restrictions, Malta is back as a prime destination for Middle Eastern tourists with its fair weather, crystalline beaches, and Mediterranean flair.

Families of the region can escape the summer heat and the post-lockdown anxiety to enjoy sightseeing in one of Europes most intriguing islands. The Maltese islands are home to beautiful beaches, diverse archaeological sites, world-famous diving spots, one-of-a-kind natural phenomena, delicious food, and much more.

Additionally, several events are scheduled throughout the coming months for visiting enthusiasts like, the Mdina Grand Prix for classic cars, the Rolex Middle Sea Race organised by Royal Malta Yacht Club, and XTERRA Gozo Trail Run. - TradeArabia News Service
A campaign ad for U.S. President Donald Trump that aims to promote him as a guarantor of public safety features a photo of pro-democracy protesters in Ukraine battling with police during the 2014 Maidan events.



The ad, which appeared on the presidents official Facebook page, consists of two images: one showing Trump standing alongside law enforcement officials on the left side and citizens in helmets fighting with police on the other side.



The caption below the photos reads Public Safety vs Chaos & Violence.



The United States has been rocked by violent protests over police brutality against black Americans following the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota law enforcement officers.



Stores in major cities were looted and businesses destroyed while some activists and police were injured.



Though Trump has called the death of Floyd, an African American, terrible and said it should never have happened, he has stood by law enforcement, a key constituency.



Trump is seeking reelection in November.



However, the violence depicted in the Trump ad shows pro-democracy protesters fighting police in Ukraine in 2014 and not the recent U.S. protests.



The ad has since gone viral among Trump critics. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to media inquiries about the ad.

The United States backed the Ukrainian protesters, who took to the streets after then-President Viktor Yanukovych agreed to closer ties with Russia, angering those citizens who wanted Ukraine to eventually join the European Union.



The protesters, some of whom stood for weeks in the freezing cold and faced police brutality, were admired around the world.
July 22 : Actor Sanjay Dutt, despite being hailed as the bad boy of Bollywood, is actually a diehard romantic at heart, and his latest post wishing his wife Maanyata on her birthday is proof!

Sanjay Dutt's wife Maanayata Dutt is celebrating her birthday today. She is currently in Dubai with her daughter, Iqra Dutt and son, Shahraan Dutt. They have been away from the actor for months now due to the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown.

On her special day, the actor took to his Instagram handle to pen a sweet post for his wifey and fans can't get enough of them! The post read, Happy Birthday Mom...For those of you who dont know, I call her Mom. Thank you for coming into my life & making it so beautiful. You are amazing & I love you so much! I wish I was there with you & the kids today but I hope your day is as special as you are to me

Meanwhile on the work front, Dutt and Alia Bhatt are currently shooting for Sadak 2. He is also part of historical film Bhuj: The Pride of India, which will feature an ensemble cast consisting of Ajay Devgn, Sonakshi Sinha and Parineeti Chopra.

Sanjay Dutt will soon be seen in Torbaaz, which is an upcoming action thriller film directed by Girish Malik. The will release soon on Netflix.

Dutt is also part of K.G.F: Chapter 2, a sequel to the 2018 film K.G.F: Chapter 1, the film stars Yash in the lead reprising his role from the first film and Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt as the antagonist.
Resident Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin would only confirm one case on Tuesday but told The News Herald that at this stage, they suspect there is more than one positive case of employees at the courthouse. He said there will be intensive cleaning of the building to try to deal with any potential risks that might be posed to the public or employees.

Ervin said the cleaning includes Courtroom 2, which will be used today and Thursday. He said the day-to-day health of the employees in the building will be monitored and anyone showing any symptoms, the instructions from public health and Administrative Office of the Courts are that they need to leave the building.

The situation is evolving and we will continue to monitor and take steps to protect the public and employees, Ervin said.

Ervin said the chief justice entered an order last Thursday ordering that everyone in the courthouse in common areas wear masks. Prior to that, people were being encouraged to wear masks, he said.

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Jury trials have been postponed until October.
Tonopah West Optioned to Blackrock for US$3,000,000, Retained 3% NSR

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) -Ely Gold Royalties Inc. (TSXV: ELY) (OTCQX: ELYGF) ("Ely Gold") is very pleased to acknowledge the recent significant drill results disclosed by Blackrock Gold Corp. ("Blackrock") on its Tonopah West Project ("Tonopah West") located on the Walker Lane trend of Western Nevada (see press releases dated July 20, 2020). Ely Gold optioned the consolidated Tonopah West Project to Black Rock Gold in April of this year (the "Blackrock Agreement") (see news release dated April 3, 2020) under an option to purchase agreement, for a total of US$3,000,000 over four years while retaining a 3% NSR.

The Tonopah West Project includes 98 patented claims and 17 unpatented claims located in Esmeralda and Nye Counties, Nevada. Ely Gold consolidated the western portion of the Tonopah District in a series of transactions over the past four years, having most recently purchased the 73 patented mining claims where current drill targets are located (see news release dated February 3, 2020 and April 3, 2020). Ely Gold acquired 100% of the 73 Tonopah Extension Claims for a cash consideration of US$650,000 and issuing 600,000 Ely Gold share purchase warrants to a private company.

Trey Wasser, President & CEO of Ely Gold stated, "The high-grade silver and gold results from Blackrock's drill campaign released this week are extremely encouraging. We would like to congratulate entire Blackrock Team on their successful exploration program at Tonopah West. This is an exciting Nevada discovery and we look forward to more positive news from subsequent drill campaigns. The consolidation and sale of Tonopah West is an excellent example of our successful and profitable Royalty Generation Program."

The Tonopah District

The entire Tonopah District is an epithermal precious metal deposit of the quartz-adularia type, which may be divided into gold-rich and silver-rich subtypes. The Tonopah West Property is a prominent example of the silver-rich subtype. Some silver-rich quartz-adularia type deposits have significant base metal content, but Tonopah is relatively base metal poor. The only larger deposit of this type known in the United States is the Comstock Lode, a relatively gold-rich deposit, which has greater total production of both gold and silver than Tonopah. The Tonopah District has a historical production of 174 million ounces of silver and 1.86 million ounces of gold.

Qualified Person

Stephen Kenwood, P. Geo, is director of the Company and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Kenwood has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release.

About Ely Gold Royalties Inc.

Ely Gold Royalties Inc. is a Nevada focused gold royalty company. Its current portfolio includes royalties on the Jerritt Canyon, Goldstrike and Marigold, three of Nevada's largest gold mines, as well as the Fenelon mine in Quebec, operated by Wallbridge Mining. The Company continues to actively seek opportunities to purchase producing or near-term producing royalties. Ely Gold also generates development royalties through property sales on projects that are located at or near producing mines. Management believes that due to the Company's ability to locate and purchase third-party royalties, its strategy of organically creating royalties and its gold focus, Ely Gold offers shareholders a favourable leverage to gold prices and low-cost access to long-term gold royalties in safe mining jurisdictions.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Signed "Trey Wasser"

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

trey@elygoldinc.com

972-803-3087

Joanne Jobin, Investor Relations Officer

jjobin@elygoldinc.com

647 964 0292

FORWARD-LOOKING CAUTIONS: This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including, but not limited to, statements regarding completion of the Transaction. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include the Company's inability to control whether the buy-down right will ever be exercised, and whether the right of first refusal will ever be triggered, uncertainty as to whether any mining will occur on the property covered by the Probe Royalty such that the Company will receive any payment therefrom, and the general risks and uncertainties relating to the mineral exploration, development and production business. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effect.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60238
Shares of 11 sugar makers rose by 1.52% to 3.69% after the government on Tuesday (21 July) fixed an export quota of 10,000 tonne of sugar at concessional rate for the European Union under a specific provision.

Balrampur Chini Mills (up 4.69%), Dhampur Sugar (up 4.08%), Rana Sugars (up 4.03%), Dwarikesh Sugar (up 3.33%), Uttam Sugar Mills (up 2.59%), Sakthi Sugar (up 2.52%), Avadh Sugar & Energy (up 2.5%), Shree Renuka Sugar (up 2.06%), Bajaj Hindustan (up 1.98%), Triveni Engineering (up 1.92%) and EID Parry (up 1.52%) all advanced.

Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said that the quantity of 10,000 tonne of sugar (raw and/or white sugar) to be exported to EU under CXL quota from 1 October 2020 to 30 September 2021 has been notified.

The release of sugar under this concession is subject to the presentation of a Certificate of Origin issued by the competent authority. The certificate of origin would be issued by the additional DGFT, Mumbai. Availing the CXL concessions on export to the EU, traders can export sugar at relatively low or zero customs duty.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Belfast Harbour has now secured planning permission for a 45m investment to its film studios - currently hosting a movie starring Nicole Kidman.

Belfast City Council confirmed it had given the green light to the construction of phase two of the studios at Giant's Park on the North Foreshore.

The Harbour has said it is monitoring demand in the market - and in June a spokesperson told the Belfast Telegraph that the expansion was "under review".

Earlier this month, chief executive Joe O'Neill said Belfast Harbour was hopeful it would get the go-ahead.

But he said that afterwards "we absolutely have to look at what market demand looks like".

He added that "if the market prospects appear strong to us then we are committed to make further investments in that sector".

Its plans include additional film studios/sound stages, workshops and offices, as well as car parking and landscaping.

Now the council's planning committee has given the thumbs-up to the plans after the application was lodged in February.

It is expected that the project would bring 200 construction jobs and ultimately support 1,000 creative industry jobs.

DUP councillor John Hussey, chairman of the planning committee, said: "This is great news for the city, it will create 1,200 jobs and boost Belfast's flourishing film and creative sectors."

Production work on The Northman, a Viking-era drama starring Nicole Kidman, was suspended at the outset of the pandemic.

As well as in Belfast Harbour, filming is also due to take place at Torr Head in Co Antrim, where a model Viking village has been built.

Speaking last month, Sinn Fein councillor Cara McShane said she was pleased to see the filming take place in her area.

"It is a privilege that we live where we do and it is great to see more and more of the media industry using this remote area," she said.

The Northman is set in Iceland at the turn of the 10th century and is directed by Robert Eggers. The revenge drama also stars Claes Bang, Alexander Skarsgard and Willem Dafoe.

Filming of BBC police drama Line of Duty was also suspended as a result of the pandemic.

Northern Ireland's creative industry has been building on the success of fantasy drama series Game Of Thrones, which was partly filmed there between 2011 and 2019.

Belfast City Council has also given an update on the work of the planning committee over the last year.

The council said that in the last 12 months, it had granted approval to 1,300 new homes, 519 applications from householders, five new hotels and a new Children's Hospital.

The total number of applications received was 2,738 - an almost 12% increase from the same period the previous year (2,426).

Thirty-two major applications were submitted, with 29 processed during the period, compared to 23 for the same period last year. The average processing time for planning applications received was 37 weeks.
The Trump administration recently attempted to ban international college students from attending online-only courses.

This diminishes our America that thrives by attracting the best minds that subsidize our local students. It is also just mean.

A seventh-generation teacher who has taught at community colleges, the Ivy League, abroad and a decade at the University of Tulsa, I love the rare leveled playing field of the classroom where effort, words, evidence and reason matter.

No one quite knows what classrooms will look like this fall, a probable mix of in-person and online courses that meet needs in a dynamic pandemic.

But by pressuring universities to offer in-person instruction, this ban puts everyones health more, not less, at risk.

It also violates a kindergarten rule: extend equal opportunities to all.

Last year, brilliant students from four continents brought fresh and valuable perspectives to my classrooms. We all came here as Indigenous, immigrant or refugee peoples.

Yet, international students come paying premiums to learn, serve and grow.
Rajinikanth had criticised YouTube channel Karuppar Koottam, which aired a video that allegedly denigrated Lord Murugan and the popular hymn sung by devotees

Rajinikanth on Wednesday lauded the Tamil Nadu government for taking action against a YouTube channel, which had allegedly denigrated Lord Murugan and said religious hatred and "God-baiting" should at least stop now.

The denigration of 'Kanda Sashti Kavacham', a Tamil hymn sang in praise of the Lord, had hurt "crores of Tamils," he said in a tweet. "My wholehearted appreciation to the Tamil Nadu government for the quick action taken against those who had very badly denigrated Kanda Sashti Kavacham and hurt many crores of Tamils," he said and welcomed the reported removal of related videos from the channel.

He described the vulgar interpretation of the hymn as a "lowly act".

"Atleast now, let religious hatred and God-baiting end... it has to," he said in the Tamil tweet. All religions were acceptable, he said, adding Kandanukku Arogara, a term used to hail Lord Muruga, and it soon began to trend on Twitter.

Earlier, a row erupted in the state after the YouTube channel Karuppar Koottam (Black Group) gave a vulgar interpretation to 'Kanda Sashti Kavacham', prompting the BJP and pro-Hindu organisations to go up in arms against the group, even as they filed police complaints.

Four people, including the anchor who appeared in the video, have been so far arrested, with the city asking YouTube to block the channel for the alleged offensive content.

The video post against the 'Kavacham' hymn, considered sacred and recited every day by millions of Tamil Hindus, seeking divine protection from Lord Muruga, caused outrage and many people took to social media to register their protest and seek action.

In the post, the anchor Surendran alias ''Nathigan'' (atheist) allegedly gave a vulgar and offensive interpretation to the centuries-old hymn authored by a revered saint, Bala Devaraya Swami at the famed Chennimalai Sri Subramania Swamy temple near Erode in western Tamil Nadu.

Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Minister Sevoor S Ramachandran had also assured due action will be taken against the channel.
SPRINGFIELD  Rabbi Mark D. Shapiro, who served for 28 years as spiritual leader of Sinai Temple until his retirement in June 2016 at age 66, was remembered following his death Tuesday as a man of faith and community across spiritual traditions.

Shapiro was long active in interfaith affairs and had served since August 2016 as the first rabbi-in-residence at Christ Church Cathedral, the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

He was involved in community and national affairs through his opinion pieces and participation in countless civic events.

A letter sent to Sinai members called Shapiros death a deep loss for us and for the wider Springfield interfaith community in which he inspired a deeper understanding of Judaism, leaving a legacy of kindness and inclusion.

The Right Rev. Douglas Fisher, Episcopal bishop, called Shapiro a longtime colleague.

Marks sense of humor, his kindness, and his ability to connect across interdenominational lines made him a joy to be with, Fisher said. Mark appreciated the commonality among our faith traditions and he saw our differences as helping us grow toward our God who is beyond any one religion.

He added that Shapiro helped deepen the dioceses commitment to interfaith collaboration as its first rabbi-in-residence.

Mark as a gifted teacher and preacher enhanced and expanded our adult faith formation, Fisher said. And his commitment to social justice inspired us all.

Fisher said he would particularly miss the podcast the two hosted together called The Bishop and the Rabbi in which they discussed the scripture readings used on upcoming Sundays.

Mark had a blessed ability to convey deep scholarship in a way that opened the Bible up to everyday living, Fisher said.

Ill miss our banter in those podcasts and the insights he provided. I will miss an ally in social justice causes. And I will always be grateful for his lively spirit, his dedication to all Gods people and his clarity of faith in the Living God.

Similarly, outgoing Bishop Mitchell Rozanski of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield referenced kindness and a broad vision in speaking of Shapiro, adding that it was with great sadness he learned of the passing of the rabbi.

Rabbi Shapiro exemplified the best of the Jewish tradition  a man dedicated to his family, his synagogue community of Sinai Temple and the larger civic and religious communities, said Rozanski, archbishop-designate of St. Louis.

I benefited from his deep understanding of Scripture, his delightful sense of humor and his insights into life here in Springfield. I remember his kind invitation to me to speak at Sinai Temple on the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate (In our Times'). With our entire ecumenical and interfaith community, I mourn his passing and commend him to our Creator, whom he served so well in this life.

Shapiro was a former president and longtime member of the Interfaith Council of Western Massachusetts.

Dr. M. Saleem Bajwa, a Holyoke physician and member of the Islamic Society of Western Massachusetts, called Shapiro a good friend and mentor in interfaith works and said center and interfaith council members were mourning his death and praying for his peace and honor in the next world.

He was always smiling, always willing to listen to others and to teach about his own faith politely, Bajwa said.

Rabbi Jeremy Master, who was installed as Sinais spiritual leader in the fall of 2018, added that Shapiro as rabbi emeritus warmly welcomed me with open arms into this community as the new rabbi.

We met regularly for coffee to talk, study, and share our thoughts, Master said.

I will always appreciate the kindness he had in welcoming me to town and the warm rapport we developed in the short time I had to get to know him.

At the time of his retirement, Shapiro told The Republican it was a his privilege to share life with the people of Sinai Temple.

We have been privileged to see children born; we have been privileged together to see children grow up, become teenagers and get married and, at different times, people have died along the path," he said.

We have had some good times and some bad times, and we have shared all of that. ... Sometimes, not often, but when I look out at the congregation, I am just mindful of all the deep connections that exist, I hope, between me and the people who look back. We have a story to tell. That is very gratifying.

The letter to the Sinai congregation stated that Shapiro watched over the temples every detail while at the same time inspiring it to be a home for Jewish observance, community, and social justice and noted that members thought that he would be blessed by a joyful and productive retirement for many more years.

But he is now sadly gone, it said.

Yet, he will always be with us in the lives and memories of everyone he touched.

Mayor Domenic J. Sarno issued a statement calling Shapiro a gentleman, a calming influence and a friend and offered his thoughts, prayers, sympathy and encouragement to his family and friends.

He was taken away from us all much too early, Sarno said. May God rest his soul. God Bless.
Established in 2014, the LPCC's 'Entrepreneurial Woman Project' is open to women of all nationalities. Previous editions have seen 3-7 businesses launched in Luxembourg as a result of the project.

The Entrepreneurial Women Project (EWP) was first run in 2014, and is an initiative by LPCC with support from the Ministry of Economy, the Polish embassy in Luxembourg, and the Luxembourgish embassy in Poland.

According to LPCC, over a hundred entrepreneurial women apply to take part in the project ever year, and around 30 are selected for each edition. Beyond building a strong network of useful contacts, the project also includes a series of workshops ranging from how to generate a business idea, to creating a business plan, analysing market opportunities, raising money from investors, as well as how to set up a business in Luxembourg and meet tax obligations.

Workshops are held over six full Saturdays. For more information and registration, visit their website.

Sofie Verstraeten of Fitness Dionysos - a former participant

To get a better idea of what value participants draw from the programme, we got in touch with Sofie Verstraeten (of Fitness Dionysos), who attended the 2019 edition of the project. We asked her what she thought the most valuable takeaways from the course were for her personally:

"I might get a little lengthy here, but I want to note few important takeaways:

- One, this course is well rounded: you will learn about all aspects that (can) come into play in your business. Company and legal entity types, taxation, marketing, public speaking, business plan, so in the end you can leave with a deeper insight and a better perspective. When it comes to business, we tend to overlook the pieces we do not like or we do not need, but lets be honest - we still need a basic level of knowledge.

- A lesson I really liked was about planning and creating strategies in your business - simply because this is a field we tend to minimize and let everything just happen. I have experienced in my own business, you need a strategy for all fields, and you need to have clear plans with well-defined expectations and outcomes, or you will have no idea where your business is going. During the course they talked about all from strategies to money to business plans and even marketing.

- And one more, which in my opinion is the most valuable piece of the course: we have had the chance for public speaking. It helps you to recall your whole business plan and present it to others. Now it can happen that you will never make any public speeches, but I believe, you want to be able to talk about your business and ideas to others in a clear, convincing and easy-to-understand language. In the course, it happens in a friendly, supportive environment after getting a good foundation and all the information necessary  so if the speech makes you feel uncomfortable or you are not able to deliver your idea as youve imagined, you still did not risk anything, but you will find the fields of improvement before going real!"

Sofie had already founded her business when she attended the course and had been running it for 19 months. As the owner of a personalised fitness studio, she was very comfortable with and focused on the service aspect of the business - but said that she found herself avoiding the parts of the business with which she was less comfortable, such as accounting, marketing strategies, and operational procedures. She found that the course helped her realise how important those elements are, and gave her the tools needed to deal with them more effectively.
Violence in West Jerusalem as thousands of protesters call on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign over corruption charges and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thousands of Israelis are protesting in West Jerusalem calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down.

Thirty-four people were arrested outside Parliament, in the latest of several mass demonstrations in recent weeks.

Netanyahu has come under growing criticism, for staying in office while facing trial on corruption charges.

He is also being accused of mismanaging the pandemic and a deepening economic crisis.

Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett reports from Tel Aviv.
Georgian Dream begins election campaign

By Malkhaz Matsaberidze

The ruling team has officially started the election campaign and is preparing to win the elections. Eventually, it will be confronted by a highly diverse opposition team. The main demand of both the opposition and Georgias Western friends to the government remains unchanged - to ensure that the next parliamentary elections are held in a democratic manner.On July 14, the Georgian Dream appointed Irakli Kobakhidze, the party's executive secretary, as head of the election headquarters. Representatives of the ruling team also said many positive words towards Kobakhidze. It was noted that Irakli Kobakhidze is an experienced professional, he feels good about the election process, his name is always associated with success and it will be the same during the next parliamentary elections. Kobakhidze is known for his harsh remarks against the opposition, and it is likely that the ruling party's election campaign will end in a similar style.The Georgian Dream has a difficult job ahead of it to determine the list of its 30 MPs. It is also mentioned that the party will present new faces before the elections, replacing those with lower ratings. The party stated that Archil Talakvadze will remain as the head of the Parliament.It is clear to everyone that the decisive vote in compiling the pre-election list belongs to the party chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili. It was also mentioned that Bidzina Ivanishvili was remotely involved in the meeting of the election headquarters. This became a subject of irony on the part of the opposition, as Ivanishvili had not appeared in public for several months after the outbreak of the epidemic.According to the comments made by the opposition and experts, Bidzina Ivanishvili will definitely be at the top of the Georgian Dream's electoral list, but they also point out that Ivanishvili's rating, unlike before, is sharply reduced. Some even think that Ivanishvili needs the mandate of an MP for immunity - if sanctions are really imposed on him, which has been talked about by a small group of US congressmen so far.The opposition has been preparing for the elections for a long time. By July 15th, political parties that do not have a representative in the parliament have to apply to the Election Administration of Georgia - there are 68 such parties.Whatever the case, the 1% threshold in proportional elections is appetizing for many. Of these parties, 14 have already been registered, one has been rejected and 53 are under consideration.The list of election subjects in the ballot paper given to the voters will be very long. Clearly, this will benefit the ruling party more than the opposition, which includes open or concealed allies of the government.In the upcoming elections, the Georgian Dream and its main opponent, the United Opposition, are announcing their future victory. Irakli Kobakhidze has repeatedly mentioned the opposition with a 3% rating, which is afraid of elections and which will be easily defeated. For his part, Giorgi Vashadze, one of the leaders of the opposition, said that the Georgian Dream cannot get more than 30% of the maximum number of votes.One by one, the political parties in the United Opposition have stated that they do not intend to leave the union. Recently, there was a great resonance with the information that the "National Movement" was going to leave the union. The party leaders categorically denied it.United Opposition agreed that they would have a common majoritarian candidate in Tbilisi, and in other constituencies they would support the opposition candidate who won in the second round, unless, of course, the case went to the second round.The Western friends of Georgian continue to call on the authorities to conduct the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for October 31st, in accordance with democratic standards. 15% of the US's aid to Georgia will be frozen in case of violations and such a sanction had never been imposed on Georgia's strategic partner before. A few days ago, MEPs also called on the Georgian government to hold democratic elections. They hope that the coming parliamentary elections will be an important testament to Georgia's democracy and that the pre-election period will end in a fair, competitive environment. The European Parliament will adopt a resolution on Georgia in September, further developments in the pre-election period will either tighten or soften the wording of the draft resolution.
Who is arriving from so-called high-risk areas abroad, will be immediately tested upon return to the Coronavirus. At German airports, the test should be set up. On a recommendation of the Minister of health of the Federation and the Lander according to the news Agency dpa agreed on Wednesday at a circuit conference. A formal decision was not initially like, on Friday further discussions are planned.

under current law, people who return from areas of risk must days, in Germany first, 14 in-home quarantine. The largest part of the countries worldwide is currently classified as a risk area, no quarantine is mandatory for persons Entering the EU from almost all EU member States and Schengen-associated countries such as Switzerland and Norway. Further, there is no travel warning for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland is currently. The exception, however, is Luxembourg, for which the Foreign office had pronounced the previous week a travel warning. For Sweden, the travel warning was on 14. July repealed.

for Detailed notes on specific countries see this website of the Federal foreign office.

Whether travelers actual go always in quarantine, however, is questionable. The Chairman of the conference of Ministers of Health, of Berlin, Department head Dilek Kalayci (SPD), had in mind recently a doubt recognize. "My fear is not (...), that returnees hold it," she said in the previous week.

Updated Date: 22 July 2020, 13:20
In the viral audio clip, Vikas Dubey can be heard threatening the head constable of the Chaubeypur police station against filing a case against him. He can also be heard browbeating that he could commit a major crime to avenge the procedural act.

Around three-four days before the Kanpur encounter, in which eight cops were killed in Bikru village here, the main accused Vikas Dubey allegedly threatened a Head Constable of Chaubeypur police station and asked him to see that a case is not registered against him.

In the purported audio which went viral on social media platforms, he is apparently threatening Rajeev Chaudhary, a Head Constable of Chaubeypur police station, that case should not be registered against him.

The purported audio shows that Dubey gets to know that a woman has reached Chaubeypur police station to register a case against him on a land issue and he uses foul language while conveying his threat to the Head Constable.

The gangster is heard saying,Yeh kaun mahila hai jo mere khilaf mukadma likhwa rahi Vikas Dubey aifarji mukadma likha jaa raha hanahin toh mai itna bada kaand karunga ki sab yaad rakhenge ki kis se pala pada hai. Yeh Vikas Dubey ka shikaar hoga, jab tak isko maar nahi lunga tab tak ghar nahi lautunga. (Who is this woman registering a case against me? A false cas is being registered.. otherwise I will commit such a crime that he will know who he is dealing with. He will be killed by me. Till the time I kill him, I will not return home).

Also read: Rajasthan HCs breather to Team Pilot questioned: Speaker CP Joshi to move SC

Also read: Cong will be reduced to a party that only tweets: Prakash Javadekar slams Rahul Gandhi

In the purported audio, Dubey talks spending his whole time in jail while also apparently referring to a police jeep.

However, due to Dubeys influence, the case was not registered against him based on the womans complaint.

ANI could not independently corroborate the authenticity of the audio clip. However, top UP Police sources said that the audio clip is authentic and is of three-four days before the incident in which eight policemen were killed by Dubey and his men. The policemen had gone to arrest him.

Chaudhary was among the seven police personnel suspended after police came to know that they were allegedly involved in tipping off Dubey.

In the audio, Chaudhary is referring to Dubey as Bhaiya.

Dubey was arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police in Ujjain on July 9 from premises of Mahakal temple after he was on the run for some days in the encounter. He was killed in an encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police on July 10 after he attempted to flee.

Also read: SC to UP Govt on Vikas Dubey Encounter: Its your duty to uphold law and order

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
Haps of unpaid debt, unsympathetic banks and investors, slow oil demand, and looming bankruptcies: this is the landscape in U.S. shale oil right now. Most forecasts for the future, however, are upbeat, with analysts expecting production to actually rebound to pre-Covid-19 levels at some point in the next five years. But will it?

Since March, total U.S. oil output has declined by as much as 2.6 million bpd, thanks to the double blow from the oil price war and the coronavirus pandemic that shattered demand. Most forecasters, including Morgan Stanley, Rystad Energy, Wood Mackenzie, and IHS Markit, believe there is little chance that U.S. oil production will return to growth this year or next. But after that, there will be a rebound. By 2023, U.S. drillers will be producing more than 12 million bpd of crude again, if those forecasts pan out.

But not everyone agrees. According to industry vet Arthur Berman, the U.S. energy dominance agenda is dead. Berman expects oil production to drop by as much as 50 percent over the next 12 months, and not because of low oil prices but because of the number of idled drilling rigs.

"The U.S. tight oil or shale rig count has fallen 69% this year from 539 in mid-March to 165 last week. Tight oil production will decline 50% by this time next year. As a result, U.S. oil production will fall to less than 8 mmb/d by mid-2021," Berman wrote in an article for Oilprice.com, adding "What if rig count increases between now and then? It won't make any difference because of the lag between contracting a drilling rig and first production."

But to start returning drilling rigs to the field, shale drillers need to have the cash to pay the operators of the rigs. Moreover, they need to have the certainty they would be able to sell the new oil at a profit. Right now, they have neither.

Related: Iran Could Flood Oil Markets If Biden Becomes U.S. President

Cash is tight and, it appears, it has been tight since the start of the shale revolution, or Shale 1.0. A recent report by Deloitte calculated that U.S. shale producers have burned through a collective $300 billion in cash without making a profit. What's more, the industry also wrote down as much as $450 billion in invested capital in the last 15 years. And the only thing it has to show for it is record-high production, which made the U.S. the world's largest oil producer and helped swing the world into yet another oversupply that is now hitting U.S. oil producers hard.

Meanwhile, banks have grown cold to the industry that they happily funded for more than a decade. One of the reasons is the oil price crash. Another is the fact that oil well yields have fallen short of expectations. A third is the cash burning. As a result, banks are slashing credit lines, with Moody's and JP Morgan estimating the average asset-backed loan cut for the industry at 30 percent, which translates into billions of dollars. And existing debt is maturing, with more billions due to be paid over the next five years.

Capital is still flowing into the U.S. oil industry, even though the flow has slimmed down, beginning even before the oil price crash and the pandemic. And the companies are using this flow to reduce their debt loads and extend bond maturities, rather than for boosting production, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Will this be enough to carry shale over the crisis and help it survive?

It may, with some help. The last crisis, when Saudi Arabia tried to stifle shale with overproduction, led to many bankruptcies. But it also led to a leaner and meaner Shale 2.0. Producers cut their production costswith the help of oilfield services providersand kept on pumping. A consistent growth trajectory in oil demand helped them, too. This time, they would need a deficit of supply to swing it, as the dominant opinion on demand is cautiously optimistic with many, including industry executives, uncertain about whether demand will ever recover to pre-crisis levels.

Related: Russia Delivers First Arctic Oil To Key Ally China



So, the number-one question for U.S. shale, whose answer will determine whether it has a future as a disruptive force in the global oil industry, is whether the market will swing into a supply deficit before the money dries up completely.

According to JP Morgan's oil analysts, it will--and as soon as 2022. This would push Brent up to $60, spurring shale drillers into action. The deficit could then continue to widen by 2025, with Brent potentially hitting $100, effectively ushering another golden age for shale, or Shale 3.0.

But given that U.S. shale's biggest rivals in the Middle East and Russia are well aware of what price shale drillers need to get back on their feet, things may play out differently. The deficit may come later than hoped and be smaller than hoped. Because peak oil demand may be looming on the horizon, much sooner than everyone expected, thanks to the pandemic and its devastating effect on fuel demand.

"Shale is not broke; shale is not gone; shale will come back," ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Ryan Lance told IHS Markit Vice Chairman Daniel Yergin in June.

"But I do think it comes back slower because there's going to be pressure on companies to confine their capital program, maybe not grow dramatically as they were before, because I don't think the access to capital in the investor community, at least in the public side of the business, is going to be as robust as it was over the last decade," Lance added.

Perhaps this will be Shale 3.0, a lot leaner than Shale 2.0 and not as mean but rather more careful with its long-term strategy, after it became painfully clear how small the step could be between uncontrolled growth and bare survival.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Robin Williams' daughter Zelda made a series of donations to honor her late father's birthday on Tuesday.

'Today wouldve been Dads 69th birthday, so to honor him (& that glorious number), I will be donating $69.69 to as many local homeless shelters as I can,' Zelda, 31, wrote on social media. '

She continued: Join me if you like, but regardless, know I am wishing you all at least one hearty, immature belly laugh on Dad today.'

Honored: Robin Williams' daughter Zelda made a series of donations to honor her late father's birthday on Tuesday. The pair were snapped in 2009 in LA

Zelda shared screengrabs documenting the donations she made in memory of her beloved father, who took his own life at 63 in August 2014 amid a battle with Lewy body disease.

Two years ago, the daughter of the Oscar-winner looked back on the anguish she experiences as the tragic anniversary of his passing approaches.

'Its that time of year again,' she said. 'Everyone who has dealt with loss knows the pain of certain anniversaries, moments full of memory that come round like clockwork and usurp all others, no matter how hard you may try to prepare for or avoid them.'

She continued: 'These weeks are the hardest for me, and thus, youll see me a lot less, if at all. For all the internets good intentions in expressing to me their fondness for dad, its very overwhelming to have strangers need me to know how much they cared for him right now. Its harder still to be expected to reach back.'

Survivor: Zelda has taken many charitable actions in memory of her late father. She was snapped last year in LA

Generous: Zelda shared a series of donations she made to her Twitter

The daughter of the beloved Mrs. Doubtfire actor implored his fans to help homeless people in his memory.

'If youd like to do something in his honor, volunteer at your local homeless shelter, or look up how to make homeless aid backpacks. 'Give one in his name,' she wrote. 'Hed have loved that.'

Vanessa Lachey also posted a moving tribute to the late star.

'Today, Robin Williams would have celebrated his 69th Birthday,' she wrote. 'To watch him was like watching magic, but just to be in his presence was magical. He has a divine spark that comes around only once in awhile.

'I feel lucky to have met, danced & laughed with one of the greatest entertainers our lifetime has seen. Happy Birthday among the real stars! You are missed.'

A look back: Robin and Zelda posed at a 2018 event in LA

Retro: Vanessa Lachey also posted a moving tribute to the late star

The beloved actor began his career in standup comedy and went on to star in TV's Mork & Mindy.

He was nominated for four Oscars, capturing one for his performance in the 1997 drama Good Will Hunting.

If you or anyone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, text 'STRENGTH' to the Crisis Text Line or click here.
Croatia, a member of the European Union, has reopened borders to travelers from United States. This country clamped down on coronavirus early and reopened borders also to citizen from Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Germany, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia or Poland with no need a reason to enter.



(TRAVPR.COM) ITALY - July 22nd, 2020 -

Over these last couple of weeks, airlines has reinstated flight from UK to Croatia (including Wizz Air), restaurants, bars and beaches in the meantime are already opening implementing new precautions in place.

Providing relevant proof U.S. citizens could enter in Croatia since July 1st as well as all European Union nationals that hold a permanent residence in E.U. without any restrictions.

The requirements now include a negative PCR test no older than 48 hours, stating from the time of taking the test until arrival at the border crossing and a confirmation of the reservation. These requirements are valid also for passengers and crews traveling by yacht, according to the U.S. Embassy in Croatia.

In case your test is older than 48 hours you will be allowed to enter Croatia, however you will be on a self-isolation order and will have to take a test again on your own expense (around $ 230). While the result of the test is pending you will be on self-isolation. If you arrive in Croatia without a negative PCR test for at least seven days prior to taking a local PCR test you will be on quarantine/self-isolate. If travellers arrive and refuse to take the test or fail to present a PCR test will be ordered to self-isolate or quarantine for 14 days. As soon as you receive the test result and it is negative a local epidemiologist has to be contact and wait the self-isolation will be cleared.

Haute Retreats believes Croatia should be on your to go places post-lockdown and here are 8 reasons:

The beaches

Croatian beaches are typically pebbly, so dont forget to bring your swimming shoes to enjoy your time the most on the beach. When thinking of Croatian Beaches V-shaped Zlatni Rat on Brac comes to mind, but there many secluded beaches like Krivica Beach on Losinj and Stracinska on Solta that are beautiful. There are also beautiful sandy beaches in the little island of Rab.

A less beaten area in Croatia is also Zadar riviera known for the exceptional variety and richness of the seashore. There are many large and small bays. Some islands in this riviera located North Split are not inhabited and perfect if you are seeking some quiet time. The beaches in this area are also different including sandy, small-pebbled secluded beaches among the rocks. If you like wind surf or kite surf this is the perfect area for you.

Dubrovnik free of crowds

Since only few small ships are now docking in Dubrovnik and throughout the summer, now is the perfect time to enjoy this Unesco-listed Old Town. Excellent time to explore the city walls considering that the admission fee has been cutoff. Dont miss to take a shuttle boat to one of the many islands for an excursion or hike the Mount Srd, a mountain peak at an elevation of 393m (1289ft) above the sea level, located just behind Dubrovnik

Island Exploring

Considering that only 1244 islands and islets of Croatia are habitable and it is challenging to choose one, Haute Retreats suggests to take an island tour. From Split you can reach Hvar, Brac, Vis, Solta and Korcula, and head south towards Dubrovnik to discover the lush green Mljet and the Elaphiti islands. Losinj can be reached via a connecting bridge from Cres. Rab island is served by regular ferries as Krk island. If you are staying in the Zadar Riviera dont miss to cruise around the archipelago and stop in Dugi Otok.

The national parks

It is now the perfect time to explore the 16 lakes and countless waterfall in the celebrated Plitvice Lake National Park. Dont miss the Magnificent Seven near Sibenik. If you like hiking you should climb the peaks at Paklenica and Risnjak.

Croatian Cuisine

The food in Croatia is a combination of savour and fresh ingredients. From simply grilled fresh fish to delicious Ston oysters, or an octopus salad dressed with olive oil and garlic or truffles from Istria, Croatia has an array of tasteful food. Another typical specialty of this country is the ispod peke that includes pork, veal or lamb cooked for hours in an iron pot buried in embers, the result is a succulent meal.

The ancient history

Romans left so much history in this land. Staring with Pulas amphitheatre, the Roman Forum in Zadar and the ruins of Salona located north of Split, in Solin. Croatia offers so much to see and experience.

Wine

Considered one of the most exciting wines in Europe, the Croatian wine offers dry white grk from Lumbarda in Korcula and crisp white zlahtina from Vrbnik in Krk. The perfect climate of southern Dalmatia is perfect for the heady reds and other varieties that are grown nowhere else.

Read Also https://hauteretreats.com/discover-croatian-wine-types/

Private Villas

Haute Retreats offers a great selection of luxury villas in Croatia. Our professionals are following protocols that are safe, implementable and make sense. Our local teams are all trained, and keep training for hand hygiene and respiratory etiquette. A zero-contact approach is being followed for check-ins.

We are also implementing a 24 hour gap between two bookings. Our private villas in Croatia features spacious living areas and all have a private bathroom for each guest suite all being regularly cleaned and sanitised.

https://hauteretreats.com/croatia-luxury-villa-rentals/

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Australia's largest private health insurers have been named and shamed for their 'failed' responses to the coronaviurs crisis.

The consumer advocacy group CHOICE has accused the nation's top two health funds of gouging its customers at a time when they are most in need of support.

Health giants Bupa and Medibank were the worst performers of the top five when it came to putting profits ahead of its customers.

Bupa is Australia's largest private heath insurer and has been accused of not doing enough to help customers during the coronavirus crisis (stock image)

When elective surgeries and 'extras' such dental and optical were shut down back in March for a six-week period, health funds were able to collect their usual fees without having to pay out (stock image)

Medibank is Australia's second-largest private health provider and has been accused of gouging its customers at a time when they are most in need of support (stock image)

'The two biggest funds have performed the worst when it comes to helping Australians during COVID-19,' CHOICE health campaigner Dean Price said.

'With people struggling during this economic and health crisis, they are keen to do what is best for their health and their finances.

'But Medibank Private and Bupa need to do a lot more to help Australians through this.'

Private health insurers raked in over $1billion in profits during the coronavirus lockdown, which is still continuing in Victoria, the Daily Telegraph reported.

When elective surgeries and 'extras' such dental and optical were shut down back in March for a six-week period, health funds were able to collect their usual fees without having to pay out.

Customers will be dealt another blow in October when four out of the five largest health providers - Bupa, Medibank, HCF and NIB - go ahead with their annual premium increase.

'The two biggest funds have performed the worst when it comes to helping Australians during COVID-19,' CHOICE health campaigner Dean Price said

Private health insurers have raked in over $1billion in profits during the coronavirus lockdown

'In an example of industry leadership, HBF deserves to be recognised for its decision not to increase premiums in the middle of this pandemic. This is in stark contrast to the other funds who are increasing their premiums on 1 October,' Mr Price said.

CHOICE IS CALLING FOR FIVE KEY ACTIONS In light of increasing hardship suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer advocacy group CHOICE have called on private health firms to take five key actions. 1. Not increase premiums on 1 October. 2. Give any windfall gains back to customers. 3. Let people use any unused extras next year. 4. Have hardship policies in place for people who have lost their job. 5. Publish their hardship policies online for greater transparency Advertisement

'With Victoria in lockdown again and unemployment still rising, it's just outright greed for any private insurer to charge Australians more on 1 October.

'Other sectors, like banking and utilities, have recognised that the impact of this pandemic is going to be felt for a long time to come and extended their response beyond 1 October. The private health insurance industry needs to keep up with these industries who have acted more fairly.'

To ease the hardship on customers, choice suggests five areas in which health insurers can provide relief.

They are calling for no premium increases for 12 months, discounts on premiums, unused extras available next year, greater hardship options during COVID-19 and more transparency.

'Instead of telling customers what help they're eligible for, they've sent out media releases and continued to make people jump through hoops,' Mr Price said.

'While their marketing departments have been quick to tell the community how they're helping, our research has found a lot left to be desired in their COVID-19 responses.'

Bupa has rejected the scathing criticism and labelled CHOICE's claims 'irresponsible'.

'We have provided more than $184m in financial assistance and savings directly to customers and there has been no 'super profits' as claimed,' Bupa' Managing Director of Health Insurance Emily Amos said in a statement posted to the company's website.

Although there was a sharp decrease in claims over the six-week nationwide shut down, elective surgeries and extras have now rebounded above normal levels, Medibank CEO Craig Drummond claims (stock image)

'The pause on non-urgent elective surgery and some ancillary services lasted for six weeks. During this six-week period we paid out over $280million on almost 100,000 episodes of hospital care for around 70,000 members.'

Medibank CEO Craig Drummond also hit out at the consumer group calling their accusations a 'publicity stunt'.

'On top of postponing premiums for 6 months, we have chosen to support our customers and community in additional ways including a 50 per cent premium discount for six months for those doing it hardest,' he said.

Although Mr Dummond said there was a sharp decrease in claims over the six-week nationwide shut down, elective surgeries and extras have now rebounded above normal levels.

'The industry regulator APRA recognises this 'catch up' and has told insurers to expect the majority  if not all  of surgeries and extras services disrupted through COVID-19 to ultimately take place,' Mr Drummond said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- It may still be summer, but that doesnt mean you cant plan ahead for the next school year -- especially as things will look different this year during the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The Archdiocese of New York Superintendent of Schools recently released the 2020-2021 school calendar for Catholic school students on Staten Island.

The Archdiocese unveiled a framework last week of plans to return students to Catholic elementary schools during the pandemic on an alternating, staggered schedule -- blending in-person and remote learning.

However, most school buildings cant accommodate all students while social distancing for a full five days every week. Students will attend school two or three days a week on an alternating schedule, with plans created by principals. Parents can also choose full-time remote learning for their child.

Wednesday, Sept. 9, is the first full day for Catholic school students on Staten Island. For those students entering eighth grade, the Test for Admission to Catholic High Schools (TACHS) will be given Friday, Nov. 6.

This is a generic, system-wide calendar. Check your schools calendar for all school-specific dates.

Here are the key dates you need to know for the 2020-2021 school year.

September 2020

Sept. 9 -- Classes begin for all Staten Island students

October 2020

Oct. 12 -- Schools closed for Columbus Day

November 2020

Nov. 11 -- Schools closed in observance of Veterans Day

Nov. 26-27 -- Schools closed for Thanksgiving

December 2020

Dec. 24 -- Christmas recess begins

January 2021

Jan. 4 -- Classes resume after Christmas recess

Jan. 18 -- Schools closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

February 2021

Feb. 15 -- Schools closed for Presidents Day

April 2021

April 2 -- Schools closed for Good Friday

April 5 -- Schools closed for Easter Monday

May 2021

May 31 -- Schools closed for Memorial Day

June 2021

June 18 -- Last day of classes

FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER.
by Sumon Corraya

The mostly Christian ethnic group has been the victim of decades of land grabbing that has left its members in dire poverty. Protesters also demand justice for three Santal killed by the police in 2016. Those responsible for their death have never been punished.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  More than a thousand ethnic Santal held a peaceful protest to demand the return of their land and justice for three Santal killed by the police.

Santal are mostly Christian, treated as "second-class citizens, their lands seized for decades. I know at least 2,500 Christian Santal who lost their land, said Fr Samson Marandy, pastor at Mariampur parish, Katamor (northern Bangladesh)

Their existence is inhuman: sleeping outdoor, without resources. The government should end this injustice. Arent Santals also citizens of this country?

For Dr Philemon Basak, head of the Land Rescue Committee representing victims, the rally was an important signal.

In the November 2016, the police killed three Santal who were peacefully protesting, he said. The culprits have not yet been identified and punished.

For this reason, We will continue to demonstrate, even at the national level, until we have justice.
Amazon and Apple are facing more antitrust accusations. This time, Italy is investigating. Authorities want to know whether the two companies agreed to prevent retailers who are not part of Apples official program to sell Apple products and Beats headphones, Reuters reports.

Officials launched the investigation this week and searched the Italian offices of both Amazon and Apple on Tuesday. In a statement provided to Engadget, an Amazon spokesperson said the company is fully collaborating with the Authority.

This is certainly not the first time officials have raised concerns about the companies practices. In the US, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are facing a federal antitrust probe, and the companys CEOs are expected to testify on July 27th. Apple Pay and the App Store are facing an antitrust investigation in the EU, and the EU is reportedly planning to file antitrust charges against Amazon over seller data.

Amazon and Apple are not alone. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google will likely face antitrust lawsuits later this year, and Facebook is being investigated in the UK, in addition to the US. At least in the US, this is part of a larger power struggle between big tech and the government.

Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment.
Social's role in marketing continues to evolve as it increasingly plays a role in linking brand and performance marketing and in converting engagement into effectiveness via social commerce.

This is one of the conclusions outlined in WARC's latest study, the 2020 Effective Social Strategy Report, which provides insights and themes from the winners of the Effective Social Strategy category of the 2020 WARC Awards. It also includes an assessment of the implications for advertisers, agencies and media owners alongside contributions from members of the judging panel and other expert commentary.

Also highlighted in the report is the need for social strategies to be relevant not just to the audience they're targeting but also the platform where they run, and that brands facing dramatic shifts in budget can learn from the social efforts of non-profits.

Lucy Aitken, Managing Editor, Case Studies, WARC, comments: "We've analysed this year's winning case studies to identify the key social marketing trends and the main drivers that link a social strategy to business success. In this report, we provide actionable insights for marketers and agencies that can be applied to the social strategies of future campaigns."

Linking brand and performance marketing A clearly articulated social strategy can help join the dots between brand and performance marketing. When insights mined from social platforms are combined with the right data, it becomes easier to target the right people with the right message at the right time, boosting click-through rates and subsequent engagement. German Rail did just that with social video showing young Germans how much money and CO2 could be saved through domestic tourism. Carla Funk, Senior Strategic Planner, Ogilvy Germany, advises: "To link brand and performance marketing, avoid silo mentality and embrace a common goal." S-commerce is on the rise Social commerce is becoming more prevalent, particularly due to brands accelerating their e-commerce strategies because of lockdowns: 62% of brands say they will decrease their investment in brand advertising in the coming months, while 32% say they will be spending more on e-commerce. This year's winners, particularly those in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) sector, offer valuable lessons in how to engage people throughout the funnel and convert engagement into effectiveness. Burger King achieved a sales uplift by promoting its new product through a campaign based on 'creeping' on social media influencers' pages. More recently, new iterations of social commerce have started to emerge, particularly in China where consumers are starting to purchase more regularly from livestreams and short-form videos. Jury member Zoe Virtue, Head of Social & Digital, Mango Communications, says: "While consumer behaviour evolves, so must brands. The only certainty from here is that when it comes to e-commerce, social media will continue to be one of the most important channels." Audience and platform relevance is needed Social strategies must be rooted in both platform and audience culture if they're to be relevant to both the audience they're targeting and the platform where they run. This is particularly the case when targeting younger audiences. Care must be taken to execute authentically and on the right platform for the right audience: for instance, TikTok is now as popular as Twitter among 18- to 24-year-olds in the UK. Brands can learn from non-profits Non-profit brands can offer commercial enterprises some inspiration on developing a successful social media strategy and achieving reach on a limited budget. For example, a simple Instagram idea, through Facebook Creative Shop for WWF, hijacked Black Friday by targeting people in a shopping frame of mind only to reveal a powerful message around endangered species. WARC's 2020 Effective Social Strategy Report identifies four key themes:

The 2020 Effective Social Strategy Report in full is available to WARC subscribers on warc.com and includes in-depth chapter analysis with views and opinions from the judges, what the trends mean for advertisers, agencies and media owners, data analysis and summaries - objectives, insights, strategies and results - of the winning case studies.
WALTHAM, Mass., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO), the world leader in serving science, today reported its financial results for the second quarter ended June 27, 2020.

Second Quarter 2020 Highlights

Second quarter revenue increased 10% to $6.92 billion .

. Second quarter GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 5% to $2.90 .

. Second quarter adjusted EPS increased 28% to $3.89 .

. Leveraged our industry-leading scale and expertise to meet strong global demand for COVID-19 products and services. Highlights in the second quarter included:

Generated approximately $1.3 billion of COVID-related revenue

of COVID-related revenue

Received expansion of emergency use authorization (EUA) to run our PCR test on additional instruments and consumables for greater workflow flexibility



Designed and built a new facility in Lenexa, Kansas , to manufacture highly specialized viral transport media (VTM) for sample collection under a U.S. government contract

, to manufacture highly specialized viral transport media (VTM) for sample collection under a U.S. government contract

Formed a collaboration with WuXi Diagnostics and Mayo Clinic to develop a total antibodies serology test



Secured a multi-year pharma services contract with the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to support accelerated vaccine development and production.

Continued to increase our global pharma services capacity to meet strong customer demand, announcing a strategic partnership with CSL Limited to provide our entire portfolio of pharma services and operate their new biologics facility in Lengnau, Switzerland , and beginning construction of a new site in Plainville, Massachusetts , that will double our viral vector manufacturing capacity.

, and beginning construction of a new site in , that will double our viral vector manufacturing capacity. Launched innovative products and services across our businesses, including two new-generation Exploris mass spectrometers that extend our Orbitrap platform, a digital service offering for increased remote instrument support and a cell culture medium that enhances bioproduction efficiency.

Adjusted EPS, adjusted operating income, adjusted operating margin and free cash flow are non-GAAP measures that exclude certain items detailed later in this press release under the heading "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures."

"We delivered an extraordinary quarter," said Marc N. Casper, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific. "We quickly mobilized our resources to support the global COVID-19 response and made a significant contribution to our customers and society while effectively managing the company through the current economic environment.

"Our teams worked with relentless intensity to establish Thermo Fisher as a global leader in COVID-19 testing and leverage our pharma services leadership to support the development and production of therapeutics and vaccines. At the same time, we continued to execute our growth strategy, developing new products and capabilities across our businesses that will position us well for years to come."

Casper added, "I'm very proud of what we've accomplished so far this year. Our performance demonstrates the strength of our company, the talent and sheer determination of our teams, and the scale of our role in helping customers and governments navigate these unprecedented times."

Second Quarter 2020

Revenue for the quarter grew 10% to $6.92 billion in 2020, versus $6.32 billion in 2019. Organic revenue growth was 11% and currency translation decreased revenue by 1%.

GAAP Earnings Results

GAAP diluted EPS in the second quarter of 2020 increased 5% to $2.90, versus $2.77 in the same quarter last year. GAAP operating income for the second quarter of 2020 was $1.39 billion, compared with $1.50 billion in the year-ago quarter. GAAP operating margin was 20.1%, compared with 23.7% in the second quarter of 2019. GAAP results for the second quarter of 2019 reflect a gain on the sale of the company's Anatomical Pathology business in June 2019.

Non-GAAP Earnings Results

Adjusted EPS in the second quarter of 2020 increased 28% to $3.89, versus $3.04 in the second quarter of 2019. Adjusted operating income for the second quarter of 2020 grew 26% compared with the year-ago quarter. Adjusted operating margin increased to 27.0%, compared with 23.5% in the second quarter of 2019.

Segment Results

Management uses adjusted operating results to monitor and evaluate performance of the company's four business segments, as highlighted below. Since these results are used for this purpose, they are also considered to be prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Life Sciences Solutions Segment

In the second quarter of 2020, Life Sciences Solutions Segment revenue was $2.60 billion, compared with revenue of $1.71 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Segment adjusted operating margin was 47.4%, versus 35.6% in the 2019 quarter.

Analytical Instruments Segment

Analytical Instruments Segment revenue was $1.05 billion in the second quarter of 2020, compared with revenue of $1.32 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Segment adjusted operating margin was 12.9%, versus 21.6% in the 2019 quarter.

Specialty Diagnostics Segment

Specialty Diagnostics Segment revenue was $0.99 billion in the second quarter of 2020, compared with revenue of $0.94 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Segment adjusted operating margin was 21.6%, versus 25.7% in the 2019 quarter. The company sold its Anatomical Pathology business at the end of June 2019.

Laboratory Products and Services Segment

In the second quarter of 2020, Laboratory Products and Services Segment revenue was $2.79 billion, compared with revenue of $2.63 billion in the second quarter of 2019. Segment adjusted operating margin was 10.1%, versus 13.1% in the 2019 quarter.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to the financial measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), we use certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EPS, adjusted operating income and adjusted operating margin, which exclude certain acquisition-related costs, including charges for the sale of inventories revalued at the date of acquisition and significant transaction costs; restructuring and other costs/income; and amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets. Adjusted EPS also excludes certain other gains and losses that are either isolated or cannot be expected to occur again with any predictability, tax provisions/benefits related to the previous items, and the impact of significant tax audits or events. We exclude the above items because they are outside of our normal operations and/or, in certain cases, are difficult to forecast accurately for future periods. We also use a non-GAAP measure, free cash flow, which is operating cash flow, excluding net capital expenditures to provide a view of the continuing operations' ability to generate cash for use in acquisitions and other investing and financing activities. We believe that the use of non-GAAP measures helps investors to gain a better understanding of our core operating results and future prospects, consistent with how management measures and forecasts the company's performance, especially when comparing such results to previous periods or forecasts.

For example:

We exclude costs and tax effects associated with restructuring activities, such as reducing overhead and consolidating facilities. We believe that the costs related to these restructuring activities are not indicative of our normal operating costs.

We exclude certain acquisition-related costs, including charges for the sale of inventories revalued at the date of acquisition and significant transaction costs. We exclude these costs because we do not believe they are indicative of our normal operating costs.

We exclude the expense and tax effects associated with the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets because a significant portion of the purchase price for acquisitions may be allocated to intangible assets that have lives of 3 to 20 years. Based on acquisitions closed through the end of the second quarter of 2020, adjusted EPS for full-year 2020 will exclude approximately $3.23 of expense for the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets. Exclusion of the amortization expense allows comparisons of operating results that are consistent over time for both our newly acquired and long-held businesses and with both acquisitive and non-acquisitive peer companies.

We also exclude certain gains/losses and related tax effects, the impact of significant tax audits or events (such as changes in deferred taxes from enacted tax rate changes or the estimated initial impacts of U.S. tax reform legislation), which are either isolated or cannot be expected to occur again with any predictability and that we believe are not indicative of our normal operating gains and losses. For example, we exclude gains/losses from items such as the sale of a business or real estate, gains or losses on significant litigation-related matters, gains on curtailments of pension plans and the early retirement of debt.

We also report free cash flow, which is operating cash flow, excluding net capital expenditures to provide a view of the continuing operations' ability to generate cash for use in acquisitions and other investing and financing activities.

Thermo Fisher's management uses these non-GAAP measures, in addition to GAAP financial measures, as the basis for measuring the company's core operating performance and comparing such performance to that of prior periods and to the performance of our competitors. Such measures are also used by management in their financial and operating decision-making and for compensation purposes.

The non-GAAP financial measures of Thermo Fisher's results of operations and cash flows included in this press release are not meant to be considered superior to or a substitute for Thermo Fisher's results of operations prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of such non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are set forth in the accompanying tables. Thermo Fisher does not provide GAAP financial measures on a forward-looking basis because we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty and without unreasonable effort items such as the timing and amount of future restructuring actions and acquisition-related charges as well as gains or losses from sales of real estate and businesses, the early retirement of debt and the outcome of legal proceedings. The timing and amount of these items are uncertain and could be material to Thermo Fisher's results computed in accordance with GAAP.

Conference Call

Thermo Fisher Scientific will hold its earnings conference call today, July 22, 2020, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. To listen, dial (877) 273-7122 within the U.S. or (647) 689-5496 outside the U.S. You may also listen to the call live on our website, www.thermofisher.com, by clicking on "Investors." You will find this press release, including the accompanying reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures and related information, in that section of our website under "Financial Results." An audio archive of the call will be available under "Webcasts and Presentations" through Friday, August 28, 2020.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue exceeding

$25 billion. Our Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, improving patient diagnostics and therapies or increasing productivity in their laboratories, we are here to support them. Our global team of more than 75,000 colleagues delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services and Patheon. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

The following constitutes a "Safe Harbor" statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including statements about expected revenue growth and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties relating to: the duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic; the need to develop new products and adapt to significant technological change; implementation of strategies for improving growth; general economic conditions and related uncertainties; dependence on customers' capital spending policies and government funding policies; the effect of economic and political conditions and exchange rate fluctuations on international operations; use and protection of intellectual property; the effect of changes in governmental regulations; and the effect of laws and regulations governing government contracts, as well as the possibility that expected benefits related to recent or pending acquisitions, including our pending acquisition of QIAGEN N.V., may not materialize as expected. Additional important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are set forth in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 28, 2020, which is on file with the SEC and available in the "Investors" section of our website under the heading "SEC Filings." While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if estimates change and, therefore, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of any date subsequent to today.

Media Contact Information:

Karen Kirkwood

Phone: 781-622-1306

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.thermofisher.com

Investor Contact Information:

Ken Apicerno

Phone: 781-622-1294

E-mail: [email protected]

Consolidated Statement of

Income (unaudited) (a)(b)



















Three Months Ended



June 27,

% of

June 29,

% of (In millions except per share amounts)

2020

Revenues

2019

Revenues

















Revenues

$ 6,917







$ 6,316





Costs and Operating Expenses:















Cost of revenues (c)

3,416



49.4 %

3,368



53.3 % Selling, general and administrative expenses (d)

1,417



20.5 %

1,261



20.0 % Amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets

417



6.1 %

429



6.8 % Research and development expenses

264



3.8 %

246



3.9 % Restructuring and other costs (income), net (e)

12



0.2 %

(484)



-7.7 %



5,526



79.9 %

4,820



76.3 % Operating Income

1,391



20.1 %

1,496



23.7 % Interest Income

8







60





Interest Expense

(137)







(181)





Other (Expense) Income, Net (f)

(9)







18





Income Before Income Taxes

1,253







1,393





Provision for Income Taxes (g)

(97)







(274)





Net Income

$ 1,156



16.7 %

$ 1,119



17.7 %

















Earnings per Share:















Basic

$ 2.92







$ 2.80





Diluted

$ 2.90







$ 2.77





Weighted Average Shares:















Basic

395







400





Diluted

398







403









































Reconciliation of Adjusted

Operating Income and

Adjusted Operating Margin















GAAP Operating Income (a)

$ 1,391



20.1 %

$ 1,496



23.7 % Cost of Revenues Charges, Net (c)

2



0.0 %

5



0.1 % Selling, General and Administrative Charges, Net (d)

42



0.6 %

36



0.6 % Restructuring and Other Costs (Income), Net (e)

12



0.2 %

(484)



-7.7 % Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets

417



6.1 %

429



6.8 % Adjusted Operating Income (b)

$ 1,864



27.0 %

$ 1,482



23.5 %

















Reconciliation of Adjusted Net Income















GAAP Net Income (a)

$ 1,156







$ 1,119





Cost of Revenues Charges, Net (c)

2







5





Selling, General and Administrative Charges, Net (d)

42







36





Restructuring and Other Costs (Income), Net (e)

12







(484)





Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets

417







429





Other Expense (Income), Net (f)

25













(Benefit from) Provision for

Income Taxes (g)

(104)







122





Adjusted Net Income (b)

$ 1,550







$ 1,227























Reconciliation of Adjusted Earnings

per Share















GAAP EPS (a)

$ 2.90







$ 2.77





Cost of Revenues Charges, Net of Tax (c)

0.00







0.01





Selling, General and Administrative Charges,

Net of Tax (d)

0.08







0.07





Restructuring and Other Costs (Income),

Net of Tax (e)

0.03







(0.74)





Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets, Net of Tax

0.85







0.84





Other Expense (Income), Net of Tax (f)

0.05







0.00





(Benefit from) Provision for Income Taxes (g)

(0.02)







0.09





Adjusted EPS (b)

$ 3.89







$ 3.04























Reconciliation of Free Cash Flow















GAAP Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities

(a)

$ 1,886







$ 1,294





Purchases of Property, Plant and Equipment

(269)







(220)





Proceeds from Sale of Property, Plant and Equipment

2







6





Free Cash Flow

$ 1,619







$ 1,080







Segment Data

Three Months Ended



June 27,

% of

June 29,

% of (In millions)

2020

Revenues

2019

Revenues

















Revenues















Life Sciences Solutions

$ 2,602



37.6 %

$ 1,710



27.1 % Analytical Instruments

1,051



15.2 %

1,324



21.0 % Specialty Diagnostics

988



14.3 %

943



14.9 % Laboratory Products and

Services

2,787



40.3 %

2,633



41.7 % Eliminations

(511)



-7.4 %

(294)



-4.7 % Consolidated Revenues

$ 6,917



100.0 %

$ 6,316



100.0 %

















Operating Income and Operating Margin















Life Sciences Solutions

$ 1,234



47.4 %

$ 609



35.6 % Analytical Instruments

135



12.9 %

286



21.6 % Specialty Diagnostics

214



21.6 %

242



25.7 % Laboratory Products and Services

281



10.1 %

345



13.1 % Subtotal Reportable

Segments

1,864



27.0 %

1,482



23.5 %

















Cost of Revenues Charges, Net (c)

(2)



0.0 %

(5)



-0.1 % Selling, General and

Administrative Charges,

Net (d)

(42)



-0.6 %

(36)



-0.6 % Restructuring and Other (Costs) Income, Net (e)

(12)



-0.2 %

484



7.7 % Amortization of

Acquisition-related

Intangible Assets

(417)



-6.1 %

(429)



-6.8 % GAAP Operating Income (a)

$ 1,391



20.1 %

$ 1,496



23.7 %























(a) "GAAP" (reported) results were determined in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).



(b) Adjusted results are non-GAAP measures and, for income measures, exclude certain charges to cost of revenues (see note (c) for details); certain credits/charges to selling, general

and administrative expenses (see note (d) for details); amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets; restructuring and other costs, net (see note (e) for details); certain other gains

or losses that are either isolated or cannot be expected to occur again with any predictability (see note (f) for details); and the tax consequences of the preceding items and certain other

tax items (see note (g) for details).



(c) Reported results in 2020 include $2 of accelerated depreciation on manufacturing assets to be abandoned due to facility consolidations. Reported results in 2019 include $5 of charges

for the sale of inventories revalued at the date of acquisition.



(d) Reported results in 2020 and 2019 include i) $42 and $37, respectively, of certain third-party expenses, principally transaction/integration costs related to recent/pending acquisitions and a divestiture.

Reported results in 2019 also include $3 of credits from changes in estimates of contingent acquisition consideration offset in part by $2 of accelerated depreciation on fixed assets to be abandoned

due to integration synergies and facility consolidations.



(e) Reported results in 2020 and 2019 include restructuring and other costs, net, consisting principally of severance, abandoned facility and other expenses of headcount reductions within several businesses

and real estate consolidations. Reported results in 2019 include $505 of gain on the sale of the Anatomical Pathology business and $6 of charges for impairment of acquired technology in development.



(f) Reported results in 2020 include $27 of costs for the Qiagen acquisition, primarily for amortization of bridge loan commitments fees and entering hedging contracts, offset in part by $2 of gains from investments.

Reported results in 2019 include $1 of net gains from investments and $1 of net charges for the settlement/curtailment of pension plans.



(g) Reported provision for income taxes includes i) $102 and $(86) of incremental tax benefit (provision) in 2020 and 2019, respectively, for the pre-tax reconciling items between GAAP and adjusted net income; ii)

$2 in 2020 of incremental tax benefit from audit settlements; iii) $7 in 2019 of incremental tax provision from adjusting the company's non-U.S. deferred tax balances as a result of tax rate changes; and iv) $29 of

incremental tax provision in 2019, principally to adjust the impacts of U.S. tax reform legislation based on new guidance/regulations issued during the period.



Notes:

Consolidated depreciation expense is $157 and $142 in 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Consolidated Statement of Income

(unaudited) (a)(b)



















Six Months Ended



June 27,

% of

June 29,

% of (In millions except per share amounts)

2020

Revenues

2019

Revenues

















Revenues

$ 13,147







$ 12,441





Costs and Operating Expenses:















Cost of revenues (c)

6,781



51.6 %

6,661



53.5 % Selling, general and administrative expenses (d)

2,668



20.3 %

2,492



20.0 % Amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets

842



6.4 %

851



6.8 % Research and development expenses

509



3.9 %

494



4.0 % Restructuring and other costs (income), net (e)

50



0.4 %

(473)



-3.8 %



10,850



82.5 %

10,025



80.6 % Operating Income

2,297



17.5 %

2,416



19.4 % Interest Income

44







127





Interest Expense

(263)







(370)





Other Income, Net (f)

3







37





Income Before Income Taxes

2,081







2,210





Provision for Income Taxes (g)

(137)







(276)





Net Income

$ 1,944



14.8 %

$ 1,934



15.5 %

















Earnings per Share:















Basic

$ 4.91







$ 4.84





Diluted

$ 4.87







$ 4.80





Weighted Average Shares:















Basic

396







400





Diluted

399







403









































Reconciliation of Adjusted

Operating Income and Adjusted

Operating Margin















GAAP Operating Income (a)

$ 2,297



17.5 %

$ 2,416



19.4 % Cost of Revenues Charges (c)

4



0.0 %

11



0.1 % Selling, General and Administrative Charges, Net (d)

48



0.4 %

47



0.4 % Restructuring and Other Costs (Income), Net (e)

50



0.4 %

(473)



-3.8 % Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets

842



6.4 %

851



6.8 % Adjusted Operating Income (b)

$ 3,241



24.7 %

$ 2,852



22.9 %

















Reconciliation of Adjusted Net Income















GAAP Net Income (a)

$ 1,944







$ 1,934





Cost of Revenues Charges (c)

4







11





Selling, General and Administrative Charges, Net (d)

48







47





Restructuring and Other Costs (Income), Net (e)

50







(473)





Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets

842







851





Other Expense (Income), Net (f)

39







(7)





Benefit from Income Taxes (g)

(202)







(3)





Adjusted Net Income (b)

$ 2,725







$ 2,360























Reconciliation of Adjusted Earnings per Share















GAAP EPS (a)

$ 4.87







$ 4.80





Cost of Revenues Charges, Net of Tax (c)

0.01







0.02





Selling, General and Administrative Charges, Net of Tax (d)

0.10







0.09





Restructuring and Other Costs (Income), Net of Tax (e)

0.10







(0.72)





Amortization of Acquisition-related Intangible Assets, Net of Tax

1.67







1.64





Other Expense (Income), Net of Tax (f)

0.07







(0.01)





Provision for Income Taxes (g)

0.01







0.03





Adjusted EPS (b)

$ 6.83







$ 5.85























Reconciliation of Free Cash Flow















GAAP Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities (a)

$ 2,242







$ 1,943





Purchases of Property, Plant and Equipment

(522)







(421)





Proceeds from Sale of Property, Plant and Equipment

6







12





Free Cash Flow

$ 1,726







$ 1,534







Segment Data

Six Months Ended



June 27,

% of

June 29,

% of (In millions)

2020

Revenues

2019

Revenues

















Revenues















Life Sciences Solutions

$ 4,376



33.3 %

$ 3,317



26.7 % Analytical Instruments

2,152



16.4 %

2,646



21.3 % Specialty Diagnostics

1,946



14.8 %

1,900



15.3 % Laboratory Products and Services

5,517



42.0 %

5,146



41.4 % Eliminations

(844)



-6.5 %

(568)



-4.7 % Consolidated Revenues

$ 13,147



100.0 %

$ 12,441



100.0 %

















Operating Income and

Operating Margin















Life Sciences Solutions

$ 1,909



43.6 %

$ 1,170



35.3 % Analytical Instruments

306



14.2 %

568



21.4 % Specialty Diagnostics

450



23.1 %

484



25.5 % Laboratory Products and Services

576



10.4 %

630



12.2 % Subtotal Reportable Segments

3,241



24.7 %

2,852



22.9 %

















Cost of Revenues Charges (c)

(4)



0.0 %

(11)



-0.1 % Selling, General and Administrative Charges, Net (d)

(48)



-0.4 %

(47)



-0.4 % Restructuring and Other (Costs) Income, Net (e)

(50)



-0.4 %

473



3.8 % Amortization of

Acquisition-related

Intangible Assets

(842)



-6.4 %

(851)



-6.8 % GAAP Operating Income (a)

$ 2,297



17.5 %

$ 2,416



19.4 %























(a) "GAAP" (reported) results were determined in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).



(b) Adjusted results are non-GAAP measures and, for income measures, exclude certain charges to cost of revenues (see note (c) for details); certain credits/charges to selling, general and

administrative expenses (see note (d) for details); amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets; restructuring and other costs, net (see note (e) for details); certain other gains or

losses that are either isolated or cannot be expected to occur again with any predictability (see note (f) for details); and the tax consequences of the preceding items and certain other

tax items (see note (g) for details).



(c) Reported results in 2020 include $2 of charges to conform the accounting policies of a recently acquired business with the company's accounting policies and $2 of accelerated depreciation

on manufacturing assets to be abandoned due to facility consolidations. Reported results in 2019 include $11 of charges for the sale of inventories revalued at the date of acquisition.



(d) Reported results in 2020 and 2019 include i) $48 and $48, respectively, of certain third-party expenses, principally transaction/integration costs related to recent/pending acquisitions and

a divestiture. Reported results in 2019 also include $3 of credits from changes in estimates of contingent acquisition consideration offset in part by $2 of accelerated depreciation on fixed

assets to be abandoned due to integration synergies and facility consolidations.



(e) Reported results in 2020 and 2019 include restructuring and other costs, net, consisting principally of severance, abandoned facility and other expenses of headcount reductions within

several businesses and real estate consolidations. Reported results in 2019 include $505 of gain on sale of the Anatomical Pathology business and $6 of charges for impairment of acquired

technology in development.



(f) Reported results in 2020 include $44 of costs for the Qiagen acquisition, primarily for entering hedging contracts and amortization of bridge loan commitments fees, and $1 of net charges for

the settlement/curtailment of pension plans, offset in part by $6 of gains from investments. Reported results in 2019 include $8 of gains from investments and $1 of net charges for the

settlement/curtailment of pension plans.



(g) Reported provision for income taxes includes i) $206 and $16 of incremental tax benefit in 2020 and 2019, respectively, for the pre-tax reconciling items between GAAP and adjusted net

income; ii) $6 and $11 in 2020 and 2019, respectively, of incremental tax provision from adjusting the company's non-U.S. deferred tax balances as a result of tax rate changes; iii) $2 in 2020

of incremental tax benefit from audit settlements; and iv) $2 of incremental tax provision in 2019, to adjust the impacts of U.S. tax reform legislation based on new guidance/regulations issued

during the period.



Notes:

Consolidated depreciation expense is $306 and $275 in 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet (unaudited)





















June 27,

December 31, (In millions)

2020

2019









Assets







Current Assets:







Cash and cash equivalents

$ 5,818



$ 2,399

Accounts receivable, net

4,478



4,349

Inventories

3,648



3,370

Other current assets

1,831



1,775

Total current assets

15,775



11,893

Property, Plant and Equipment, Net

4,887



4,749

Acquisition-related Intangible Assets

13,170



14,014

Other Assets

2,061



2,011

Goodwill

25,700



25,714

Total Assets

$ 61,593



$ 58,381





















Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity







Current Liabilities:







Short-term obligations and current maturities of long-term obligations

$ 675



$ 676

Other current liabilities

5,338



5,521

Total current liabilities

6,013



6,197

Other Long-term Liabilities

5,067



5,433

Long-term Obligations

20,638



17,076

Total Shareholders' Equity

29,875



29,675

Total Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity

$ 61,593



$ 58,381





Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows (unaudited)





















Six Months Ended



June 27,

June 29, (In millions)

2020

2019









Operating Activities







Net income

$ 1,944



$ 1,934











Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:







Depreciation and amortization

1,148



1,126

Change in deferred income taxes

(318)



(392)

Gain on sales of businesses





(505)

Other non-cash expenses, net

202



144

Changes in assets and liabilities, excluding the effects of acquisitions and disposition

(734)



(364)

Net cash provided by operating activities

2,242



1,943











Investing Activities







Acquisitions, net of cash acquired

(3)



(1,686)

Purchases of property, plant and equipment

(522)



(421)

Proceeds from sale of property, plant and equipment

6



12

Proceeds from sale of business, net of cash divested





1,126

Other investing activities, net





19

Net cash used in investing activities

(519)



(950)











Financing Activities







Net proceeds from issuance of debt

3,464





Repayment of debt

(2)



(3)

Net proceeds from issuance of commercial paper

383



1,895

Repayment of commercial paper

(387)



(1,855)

Purchases of company common stock

(1,500)



(750)

Dividends paid

(163)



(144)

Net proceeds from issuance of company common stock under employee stock plans

125



122

Other financing activities, net

(121)





Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities

1,799



(735)











Exchange Rate Effect on Cash

(107)



(61)

Increase in Cash, Cash Equivalents and Restricted Cash

3,415



197

Cash, Cash Equivalents and Restricted Cash at Beginning of Period

2,422



2,117

Cash, Cash Equivalents and Restricted Cash at End of Period

$ 5,837



$ 2,314





















Free Cash Flow (a)

$ 1,726



$ 1,534















(a) Free cash flow is net cash provided by operating activities less net purchases of property, plant and equipment.

SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific

Related Links

http://www.thermofisher.com


Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.
Finally, crude prices hit more than four-month high yesterday as the global outlook for demand seems bullish at the moment. The European Union leaders struck a stimulus deal yesterday, which led to the uptick. Moreover, positive coronavirus vaccine data supported bullish market sentiments.

Crude Price Movement

Brent Crude price rose to more than $44 per barrel mark from around $19 on Apr 21. Also, the U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude crossed the $42 per barrel mark, which is the highest since Mar 6. These significant gains in crude prices are expected to provide a profit-boosting opportunity for exploration and production companies.

Hopefully, if the gains sustain, upstream energy companies will likely witness sequential improvement in the bottom line in the third quarter. To understand whether the upward thrust is sustainable, we have to delve deeper into the factors that are pushing oil prices.

EU Stimulus Deal

The European Union leaders agreed on a 750-billion (around $860 billion) recovery fund, following almost five-day talks in Nice, France. The tweet from Charles Michel, European Council president, We did it! We have reached a deal on the recovery package and the European budget for 2021-2027 underscores the deals importance. The fund incorporates a total of 390 billion non-repayable grants to the countries hit hardest by the pandemic and a 360-billion low-interest loan.

The agreement comes on top of individual government stimulus packages that were announced after the pandemic struck Europe. In addition, Euro zone finance ministers approved a 540-billion short-term fiscal stimulus package last April.

The latest deal is expected to boost the EU economies, which will likely enhance energy demand. With OPEC+ following through the curtailed production plan, U.S. upstream companies will likely gain from this expected rise in oil demand. In fact, following the positive news that boosted oil prices, upstream companies like Matador Resources Company MTDR, Centennial Resource Development, Inc. CDEV, SM Energy Company SM, Cimarex Energy Co. XEC and others recorded double-digit gains in stock prices.

Story continues

U.S. Package to Follow?

The extended unemployment aid in the United States is set to expire this month. As such, lawmakers are expected to agree on a new stimulus package that will provide support to struggling small businesses, and aid American families as well as schools. This move will likely give a push to the domestic economy, further boosting energy demand.

COVID-19 Vaccine Hopes

The oil price rise also received support from encouraging coronavirus vaccine data released this Monday by Oxford University and AstraZeneca PLC AZN. The vaccine candidate yielded a dual response in volunteers aged between 18 and 55 years. While several companies are racing to develop a successful vaccine against the virus, U.S. biotech firm Moderna, Inc. MRNA and a Chinese candidate have recorded favorable results.

Easing coronavirus-induced lockdowns and the gradual lifting of travel bans are expected to further increase energy demand. The demand hike, which will increase oil prices, is likely to sustain. On top of the economic stimulus, vaccine hopes are expected to improve the global economic outlook.

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He went into grand final week with an advantage, but Mat Garrick, the boy from Broken Hill, was unable to secure a place in the Big Brother grand final.

Last night he was voted out when model Chad Hurst won a winner takes all challenge, enabling him to choose whom he would site beside in the grand final. At stake is the remaining $234,000 cash prize, with the winner voted by viewers.

Chad won a gruelling battle despite an injured ankle, after Dan, Sophie and Mat all dropped racing balls from challenge track. After no question on choosing his house partner Sophie to join him, the final eviction was a vote between alpha-friends Mat and Dan.

Im pretty shattered but Chads played a great game, said Mat. He fought through adversity today and he won fair and square, so absolutely no hard feelings towards Chad at all. I would like to be remembered as someone who was just themself in there. Im a nobody from Broken Hill but it just proves that being yourself can take you a long way, in a game like Big Brother and in life itself. Hopefully I make the town and region of Broken Hill really proud with what Ive done.

I feel like Dan deserves it, Chad said, of choosing to save Dan. When Sophie made a return, Dan took it better. I think Dans a solid guy. I feel like hes going to beat me, but Ive played this game so that when mum watches the show, shell be proud of me. If I won this whole show breaking morals and making stupid moves thats not winning. You get cash at the end of the day, but you dont win as a person. Final threeI couldnt be happier, Im proud. Its up to Australia now. Whoever wins bloody deserves it, dead set.

Sophie Budack from Darwin said of her season, Im so happy, this is literally my dream come true. This is what I was striving for, I wanted a podium finish. Chad and I about to enter the real world together and Im so excited to see where this relationship goes. Its going to be good to get out of the house and give us a shot of normality.

Daniel Gorringe of Melbourne said, Ive never, ever, ever done something like this, Ive never achieved anything close to this, ever. I feel like for once in my life Ive achieved something. Ive made people like my family and Ana so proud. Thats what I wanted to do, I wanted people to be proud of me. And hopefully now Im in the top three Ive done that and its an awesome feeling.

Tonights final sees returning cast members (except for Melburnians Laura and Zoe) reunite in a Live grand final hosted by Sonia Kruger. You can vote here.

7:30pm tonight on Seven.
The opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) Members of Parliament for Effutu, James Kofi Annan has cautioned the Winneba Police Commander to stop being bias against the NDC or hell have himself to blame when theres a change of government.

According to him, Chief Superintendent Okanta has consistently been doing the bidding of the ruling New Patriotic Party(NPP) and has failed to remain neutral in matters between the NDC and the NPP in Effutu.

The Police Commander on Wednesday ordered the arrest of James Kofi Annan after he reportedly disrupted the arbitration hearing of challenged voter ID card holders.

He became agitated after some people hes alleged to have illegally bussed into Effutu were denied their ID cards and started attacking some of the members of the committee overseeing the process.

Speaking to the media, James Kofi Annan stated that Chief Superintendent Okanta develops cold feet whenever he has to take action against wrong-doing NPP members and rather leave them to walk about freely.

He warned that Winneba will know no peace as Ghana heads to the general elections if Chief Superintendent Okanta does is not neutral.

If the Police Commander wants Winneba to remain peaceful he should do should be professional and neutral. It was wrong and unfair to arrest only NDC supporters and leave the NPP supporters to go free, this will not bring peace to Winneba.

We wont sit down and allow the Police Commander to continue being bias, he should stop harassing NDC supporters. He should remember that a government will be kicked out of power and another government will assume power. When this happens what will be your fate if you dont want to be neutral as a police commander.

---Kasapafmonline.com
People hold up smartphones with QAnon-related messages on display, at a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Feb. 21, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Twitter Bans 7,000 QAnon Accounts, Limits 150,000 Others

Twitter has banned thousands of QAnon accounts and limited the reach of around 150,000 others as part of a suppression of what the company says is behavior that could lead to offline harm.

Weve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, Twitter wrote in a July 21 tweet, characterizing its actions as work at scale to protect the public conversation in the face of evolving threats.

A company spokesperson cited by The Wall Street Journal said more than 7,000 QAnon-related accounts have been subjected to outright bans, while circulation would be limited for around 150,000 others.

Other restrictions include blocking QAnon-related URLs from being shared on Twitter and no longer highlighting QAnon activity in searches, conversations, and recommendations, the company said in a separate statement.

Twitter said its cracking down on accounts spreading QAnon-related content because of violations of the social media giants policies on operating multiple accounts, trying to skirt earlier suspensions, and targeted harassment.

We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspensionsomething weve seen more of in recent weeks, Twitter stated.

These actions will be rolled out comprehensively this week. We will continue to review this activity across our service and update our rules and enforcement approach again if necessary.

While opinions vary as to its nature and intent, QAnon is a movement that started on 4chan and 8chan message boards with a trickle of clandestine-sounding posts, often centered on the theme of big government plots to curb individual liberties and advance so-called deep state and globalist agendas. It grew into a large underground movement with a number of splinter groups and sometimes claims that members of the worlds social, economic, and political elites have engaged in child sex trafficking, abuse, and cannibalism.

Reactions to the announcement ranged from supportive to critical.

Social media personality Robby Starbuck wrote in response to Twitters announcement: Not a Q follower but Antifa, Louis Farrakhan, Hamas, Iranian terrorists & more terror groups are on Twitter yet you do nothing. Why are you targeting only QAnon? Will you go after these terror/hate groups? Will you investigate alleged bot use by Dem coalition?

Television personality Chrissy Teigen reportedly blocked more than 1 million accounts after claiming harassment by QAnon followers. She tweeted her support for Twitters ban by responding to a post that denounced the crackdown as suppression of free speech.

The account Quantum Mechanic wrote about Twitters QAnon ban, Censorship like this is a communist tactic to silence free thinkers in order to create an homogenous groupthink echo chamber. Actions speak louder than words. Disagreeing with dissenting opinions is one thing. Actively censoring them is another thing entirely.

Teigen responded to the critical post, writing: You dont have a right to coordinate attacks and make death threats. It is not an opinion to call people pedophiles who rape and eat children.
A police official in Chennai is winning tremendous praise on Twitter after he helped a woman, who recovered from Covid-19, resume her job.

Tweets shared by DCP Adyar and IPS Association explain how the official convinced flat association members, who asked the woman not to resume her work even after she recovered from corona.

I appreciate Hari Kiran IPS, DCP T.Nagar for his commitment in personally convincing the association members to provide employment to Radha amma, who was asked not to report even after recovering from corona, tweeted DCP Adyar.

I appreciate Hari Kiran IPS, DCP T.Nagar for his commitment in personally convincing the association members to provide employment to Radha amma, who was asked not to report even after recovering from corona. pic.twitter.com/JIClPRYPip  DCP Adyar (@DCP_Adyar) July 19, 2020

The Twitter handle of IPS Association shared the tweet using the hashtag #GoodJobCop. Radha Amma (a sanitary worker) treated every home as her own but flat association members were hesitant to get her back after she beat COVID. Hari Kiran IPS, DCP T.Nagar convinced the members to provide employment to her, said the tweet.

Radha Amma (a sanitary worker) treated every home as her own but flat association members were hesitant to get her back after she beat COVID.



Hari Kiran IPS,DCP T.Nagar convinced the members to provide employment to her.#GoodJobCop@copmahesh1994 @chennaipolice_ @CMOTamilNadu https://t.co/TZo8Cmpazv  IPS Association (@IPS_Association) July 22, 2020

The tweets have received several appreciative comments from tweeple.

Thank You! Thank you very much for the support. God Bless You- I am truly holding my tears, wrote a Twitter user. Excellent job, wrote another.
Lucknow: The mother of deceased criminal Vikas Dubey has issued an appeal to her younger son, Deep Prakash Dubey, to surrender before to police. Deep, also an accused in the incident during which eight cops were killed in Vikru village in Kanpur, has been absconding and carries a reward of Rs 20,000 on his head. An FIR is lodged against him in the Krishnanagar police station on Vineet Pandey's complaint for fraud and extortion.

Issuing an appeal to her younger son, Sarla Devi said, Deep, you should come and surrender to police, else you and your family might also be killed in the encounter. You should come forward and tell police that you have not done anything; you will also get police protection. Do not hide just because you are the brother of Vikas Dubey.

'

As per information, an FIR was filed at Krishna Nagar Police station in Lucknow against Vikas and Deep as both the brothers allegedly tried to grab a car bought in an auction and demanded money.

According to police, Deep has been part of several crimes committed by his brother. He has been absconding since the killing of eight policemen on the intervening night July 3. Police suspects that he is hiding somewhere in Lucknow but constantly changing his location. Policemen have been deployed outside his Lucknow house to keep a watch.
Aircraft from Carrier Air Wing 5 and Carrier Air Wing 17 fly in formation over the Nimitz Carrier Strike Force (CSF). The USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) Carrier Strike Groups are conducting dual carrier operations in the Indo-Pacific as the Nimitz CSF.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Keenan Daniels

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned Beijing on Tuesday that the US isn't "going to be stopped by anybody" in the South China Sea, stressing that US aircraft carriers will continue to sail these waters.

His remarks follows a statement last week from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejecting many of China's maritime claims and criticizing its efforts to enforce its will.

While Esper was tough on China in his remarks, he extended an olive branch that revealed that he is planning a trip to China, his first as secretary of defense, before the end of the year.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Video: Why China loves Tesla

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned Beijing on Tuesday that the US isn't "going to be stopped by anybody" in the South China Sea, the latest in a series of tough remarks from the US on the strategic waterway.

He said at a virtual International Institute for Strategic Studies event that China "continues to engage in systematic rule-breaking, coercion, and other malign activities, and most concerning, to me, is the People's Liberation Army continues its aggressive behavior in the East and South China Sea."

"We hope the [Chinese Communist Party] will change its ways, but we must be prepared for the alternative," he added. "We must uphold the free and open system that has secured peace and prosperity for millions and defend the principles that undergird it."

The secretary said that the US military is positioning forces to counter Chinese behavior and support US policies, revealing that the US conducted more freedom-of-navigation operations challenging unlawful movement restrictions and excessive claims in 2019 than it has any year in the past four decades. "We will keep up the pace this year," he said.

Last Tuesday, the US Navy destroyer USS Ralph Johnson conducted its sixth FONOP this year in the South China Sea, as the service calls patrols through disputed areas that the US considers international waters. And, two times this month, Esper noted, the US Navy has conducted dual carrier operations in the waterway with two carrier strike groups.

Story continues

China has bristled at the presence of US Navy aircraft carriers in the South China Sea. The inflammatory Global Times, controlled by China's Communist Party, wrote earlier this month that the "South China Sea is fully within the grasp of the Chinese People's Liberation Army," and "any US aircraft carrier movement in the region is solely at the pleasure of the PLA."

The US Navy said at the time that it is "not intimidated."

aNavy Chief of Information (@chinfo) July 5, 2020

The secretary of defense said Tuesday that he doesn't "know what the Chinese meant by that hollow statement about American carriers being there by the pleasure of the PLA or something."

"American aircraft carriers," he said, "have been in the South China Sea in the Indo-Pacific since World War II and will continue to be there, and we are not going to be stopped by anybody."

"We're going to sail, fly and operate where international law allows, Esper said, "and we do that, again, to assert international law and rights to back up the sovereignty of our friends and partners and to reassure them that we will be there to defend those things."

Esper's comments on the South China Sea follow a statement from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last Monday rejecting many of China's maritime claims and criticizing its efforts to enforce its will in the area.

"The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire," the secretary stated.

"Beijing's claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them," Pompeo said, adding that "the PRC's predatory world view has no place in the 21st century."

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the US statement on the South China Sea "irresponsible."

"It violates and distorts international law, deliberately stokes territorial and maritime disputes, and undermines regional peace and stability," Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian said last Tuesday.

Despite Esper's tough rhetoric on China's behavior, he extended an olive branch to Beijing Tuesday, saying that he is planning to visit China before the end of the year to "establish the systems necessary for crisis communications and reinforce our intentions to openly compete in the international system in which we all belong."

If he travels to China, it will be Esper's first trip to China as secretary of defense.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Following the recent elections in Syria, Turkish President Erdogan has insisted their forces will remain in Syria until its people are free reports Asharq Al-Awsat.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkish forces, which have carried out several incursions into northern Syria since 2016, would remain in the country until Syrians can live in freedom and safety.

Nowadays they are holding an election, a so-called election, Erdogan said of a parliamentary election on Sunday in Syrias government-controlled regions, after nearly a decade of war.

Until the Syrian people are free, peaceful and safe, we will remain in this country, he said in a speech in Ankara.

The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
New Delhi, July 23 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday asked Bollywood to renounce its links with Pakistan's spy agency ISI after pictures of several film stars posing with known anti-India activists abroad, surfaced on social media.

Bollywood became the center of controversy after pictures of Shahrukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan appeared with California based Kashmiri separatist as Tony Ashai, who has been urging Kashmiri youth to fight against India.

A popular Srinagar-based activist who goes by the name Al iskandar @TheSkandar on Twitter posted a series of tweets claiming that Tony Ashai, also known as Aziz Ashai, has been a member of the terror group Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) sponsored by ISI.

Quoting Ashai's incendiary tweets, Al iskandar tweeted that he "himself is sitting in the cozy rooms of California and provoking Kashmiri youth to pick up stones and guns while his own son Bilal Ashai recently graduated from Los Angeles, University of Southern California with Masters degree." Tony Ashai, he said, has designed Shahrukh Khan's Dubai buildings and Los Angeles apartments. The Bollywood superstar, according to the Srinagar activist, hired Ashai as an architect. Khan's wife Gauri, he claimed is involved with Ashai in a lot of her projects.

Al iskandar said that "it's a well documented plan" for Tony Ashai to use his Bollywood influence. Shahrukh Khan, he said, is a patriotic person himself but is not aware about Tony Ashai's plans.

Aziz Ashai (Tony Ashai) went to university in Buffalo, US, completely funded by JKLF, he claimed adding that there was a JKLF meeting which happened after his graduation in Italy. Moreover his first business, Ashai Design was also funded by JKLF, he tweeted.

"$450k came from a shell company in Birmingham in autumn of 1992. Moreover, his son (Bilal Ashai) is a member of MSA which has links to The Muslim Brotherhood." Posting Ashai's pictures with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Al iskandar claimed that Ashai "is on payroll of ISI, who is in touch with many people in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country." As the tweets went viral, many Twitter users dug out several pictures of Shahrukh, his wife and Tony on social media. Some users pulled out pictures of other stars like Anil Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Karan Johar and others with another anti-India activist based in the UK.

Taking note of the barrage of tweets, Vice President of the BJP, Baijayant Panda, reacted saying, "Came across shocking threads documenting personal & business links of some Bollywood personalities with certain Pakistanis & NRIs with undeniable track record encouraging violence in J&K, who have verifiable links to ISI & Pak army. I urge patriotic Bollywoodies to renounce them."
The Nobel Prize banquet has been annulled for the first time since 1956 in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

Although winners for 2020 will be announced, the event that traditionally marks the conclusion of the Nobel week will not be held this year.

The banquet is organised on December 10 every year and usually hosts over 1,300 guests comprising the prize winners and Swedish royal family.

Also Read: Battling coronavirus: Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo have this advice

The event is held in the Swedish capital Stockholm where the winners are invited for talks and prize ceremony.

The last time it was cancelled was in the year 1956, in protest of Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary. The event was also annulled during World War One and Two. However, this year it will not go ahead due to fears over coronavirus.

Meanwhile, all announcements, for the first time, will be streamed live on nobelprize.org this year.

Also Read: Coronavirus lockdown: Amartya Sen, Raghuram Rajan, Abhijit Banerjee suggest economic measures

"There are two problems. You cannot gather that many people next to each other. And it is uncertain whether people can travel to Sweden to the extent they want," Nobel Foundation Chairman Lars Heikensten told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, Reuters reported.

The prizes for achievements in science, literature, and peace were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday urged the Serum Institute of India (SII) to keep Odisha as a priority state for COVID-19 vaccination once necessary clearances are obtained.

Speaking to Serum Institutes CEO Adar Poonawalla through video conferencing on the progress of a COVID-19 vaccine, Naveen congratulated him for the recent promising results published in international journal Lancet.

Serum Institute of India has collaborated with Oxford University to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and its subsequent human trials. The institute plans to start trials of the vaccine on around 5,000 volunteers in the country in August after it gets necessary approvals.

Naveen applauded the philanthropic activities carried out by Poonawalla and its foresight in tying up with various research institutions across the globe to develop the vaccine. He said the state government will be in touch with SII for this purpose.

Poonawalla appreciated the Chief Minister for approaching the institute to ascertain the progress of the vaccine and keeping track of the test results.

He said the vaccine developed by Oxford University has shown promising results in the first phase trial. The next phase trial will start in mid-August in India and the vaccine will be ready by October-November this year, he said.

Serum Institute and the state government will remain in touch with each other and carry forward the collaboration once the vaccines are cleared and ready, Poonawalla added.

The vaccine under development will undergo a three-phase trial in the country before the antidote is introduced for mass vaccination.

AstraZeneca, the multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company that has partnered with Oxford University to develop the vaccine, plans to manufacture up to seven crore doses of the vaccine per month up to October and take it up to 10 crore doses per month by December.
The police have inspected Kim Van Bons house and seized a number of documents related to his embezzlement charges.  Photo plo.vn

NGHE AN  Police in the central province of Lai Chau have launched legal proceedings against Kim Van Bon, an official from the provincial Ethnic Affairs Committees Policy Affairs Sub-department on embezzlement charges.

Bon, 38, is accused to have taken advantage of his position to forge papers to illegally appropriate hundreds of millions of Vietnamese ong, causing losses to the State budget.

The money came from projects supporting socio-economic development of ethnic minority people in the 2016-25 period.

The project, which had been approved to support the O u ethnic minority in Nghe An, had total investment of VN12 billion (US$516,200). It is divided into two phases. The first phase in 2016-20 had capital of VN6.16 billion and the second phase in 2021-25 had VN5.84 billion.

The project will be implemented in Nga My Communes Vang Mon Village and Luong Minh Communes ua Village in Tuong Duong District. The provincial Ethnic Affair Committee was been authorised to carry out the project.

Although no O u ethnic people live in ua Village, relevant agencies and local authorities still include 45 households with 231 people who are Thai and Kho Mu ethnic minorities in the project.

Late in September last year, the provincial Peoples Committee has excluded the ua Village from the project. The committee also requested the Ethnic Affairs Committee to exercise socio-economic development for ethnic minority people in accordance with State regulations.

The police inspected Bons house and seized a number of documents related to his embezzlement charge.

An investigation is ongoing.  VNS
Since the time former master corporal Patrik Mathews was identified as a white supremacist who was allegedly inciting racial violence, there have been disturbing questions: why did it take an undercover journalist to publicly expose the reservists behaviour? Why didnt the military expel the poison within its ranks before it became a front page story?

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Since the time former master corporal Patrik Mathews was identified as a white supremacist who was allegedly inciting racial violence, there have been disturbing questions: why did it take an undercover journalist to publicly expose the reservists behaviour? Why didnt the military expel the poison within its ranks before it became a front page story?

The answers to those questions might not come until the trial of Mr. Mathews, who is in custody in the U.S., accused by the FBI of participating in a plot to start a race war.

Forces issues new orders on 'hateful conduct' Click to Expand A Canadian flag patch is shown on a soldier's shoulder in Trenton, Ont., on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014. The Canadian Armed Forces has issued new orders to military personnel as senior commanders seek to address allegations of having been soft on hate in the ranks. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg Posted: 6:01 AM Jul. 19, 2020 OTTAWA - The Canadian Armed Forces has issued new orders to military personnel as senior commanders seek to address allegations of having been soft on hate in the ranks. The orders, which aim to take a harder line on "hateful conduct," follow a rash of high-profile incidents in which the military was caught flatfooted as service members were publicly linked to hateful actions or groups. Read Full Story

In the meantime, the Canadian Armed Forces last week issued orders for military personnel to take a harder line on "hateful conduct." This policy requires troops to report to their commanders all such incidents  including, presumably, overhearing colleagues such as Mr. Mathews express hateful views  and commanders are required to act when incidents are reported to them.

In the eight years Mr. Mathews was a reservist, before the Free Press first reported his white-supremacist activities in 2019, he worked as a member of 38 Canadian Brigade Group in Winnipeg. His position as a combat engineer would have kept him in close contact with colleagues on training courses, during military exercises and possibly during social activities as casual as going for a beer.

It stretches the limits of credulity to imagine that none of his workmates had heard hateful comments from Mr. Mathews, whose views are so strong he recorded himself advocating for killing people, poisoning water supplies and derailing trains to incite a civil war in the name of creating a white "ethno-state."

In fact, Mr. Mathews told the Free Press he tried to recruit two of his colleagues for a white-supremacist group called The Base.

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The militarys new policy bans anything  words, images or symbols  that encourages, justifies or promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups.

Theres a long history of military personnel as "brothers in arms," a term that means group members have each others backs against outsiders: what happens within the group, stays within the group. One can reasonably speculate this tradition of tacit silence played a part in Mr. Mathews fellow reservists failure to come forward with suspicions there was a dangerous racist in their midst.

Mr. Mathews case is not the only instance that has tarnished the Canadian military with links to hateful behaviour. Sailors tied to the white supremacist Proud Boys group disrupted a Mikmaq ceremony in Halifax in 2017, and a military intelligence report in 2018 identified 53 service members as belonging to hate groups or having otherwise made discriminatory or racist statements between 2013 and 2018.

The militarys new policy bans anything  words, images or symbols  that encourages, justifies or promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups. This includes discrimination based on nationality or ethnic background, race, colour, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status or disability.

The policy as written seems sound, if overdue. But its just words until action is taken to begin the laborious process of changing the military culture so that everyone, from generals to greenhorn privates, takes it as a personal mission to root out hatred.

The military is actively trying to recruit more women, visible minorities and Indigenous people. The words of the anti-hate policy will sound encouraging to the type of marginalized candidates the military seeks. But only action will convince potential candidates the military is a safe place for all Canadians to don a uniform.
Wirecard AG had repeated contact with Angela Merkel's chancellery in the months before its collapse, according to a chronology of events by her office.

Merkel has come under pressure to clarify her interactions with the digital payments company after the chancellery confirmed that the German leader promoted Wirecard during a trip to China in September 2019 after her office was informed of ongoing investigations.

Opposition lawmakers are threatening to call for a parliamentary investigation as they press Merkel's administration over how it pursued fraud allegations against Wirecard, a member of Germany's benchmark DAX index.

Underscoring the impact of the scandal, the finance committee in Germany's lower house of parliament plans to interrupt the summer recess to hold a special session on July 29 to discuss the firm's collapse. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Economy Minister Peter Altmaier have been invited.

Munich prosecutors on Wednesday scheduled an ad hoc press conference to inform about the "latest developments" in their Wirecard probe. The investigators declined to say beforehand what the announcement will be. The press conference is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. local time.

Here's a time line of interactions between the German government and Wirecard as laid out by the chancellery:

--Nov. 19, 2018: Digitalization czar Dorothee Baer visited Wirecard's offices in Aschheim

--Nov. 27, 2018: Wirecard's then-CEO Markus Braun requested a meeting with Merkel and her chief of staff

--Jan. 22, 2019: Merkel's office turned down the request and instead offered an appointment with Merkel's economic adviser Lars-Hendrik Roeller, which Braun canceled

--Aug. 23, 2019: Finance Ministry relays information to Roeller about Wirecard, including market-manipulation probes, in preparation for a meeting with a company representative

--Sept. 3, 2019: As part of preparations for a trip to China, Merkel meets Wirecard representative Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a former defense minister who resigned in disgrace over plagiarism. Guttenberg follows up with an email about Wirecard's plans to acquire Chinese company Allscore Financial to gain a license in the Asian country

--Sept. 5-7, 2019: Merkel mentions Wirecard's plans during her trip to China. "At the time of her trip she had no knowledge of possibly severe irregularities at Wirecard," the chancellery said, adding that the company wasn't part of the delegation

--Sept. 8, 2019: Roeller informs Wirecard of the discussion and offers additional followup. He asked for and had contact with Germany's ambassador in Beijing and China's ambassador in Berlin about Germany's economic interests in China, but didn't further follow up on the Allscore acquisition

--Sept. 11, 2019: Roeller has meet and greet with Wirecard officials, who speak broadly about Asian activities

--May 20, 2020: Braun holds a telephone discussion with Roeller. He rejects press reports of accounting irregularities and promises a thorough clarification.

--June 10, 2020: As the head of a DAX company, Braun takes part in a video conference about Germany's coronavirus tracking app with Merkel

--June 30, 2020: Merkel informed of the accounting scandal and Wirecard's insolvency

Asked whether Roeller should have warned Merkel about Wirecard before her China trip, Merkel's deputy spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said on Wednesday: "If we had known what we know today about a financial scandal which led to the bankruptcy of a DAX company, this is true, but the knowledge at that point of time was a different one."
Retail giant Walmart will permanently close its only Princeton location next month, a company spokesman told NJ Advance Media.

The 135,000-square-foot store, which opened in 1995, is located technically in West Windsor just off of Route 1 at 101 Nassau Park Blvd., although Walmart lists it as its Princeton store. It will close Aug. 21.

Walmart said the store is closing because of declining financial performance, but the coronavirus pandemic is not responsible.

After a careful and thoughtful review process, we have made the difficult decision to close our Walmart store in Princeton, the spokesman said. The decision is based on several factors, including the stores overall performance.

There are no plans to relocate the store. The 200-plus employees who work there will have the opportunity to transfer to another store, Walmart said. The nearest locations are in Hamilton at 1700 Nottingham Way and East Windsor at 839 Route 130.

A liquidation sale is not currently in progress. Walmart said it expects to sell most inventory prior to the closing date, and any remaining perishable items could be donated to local hunger relief organizations.

There are currently about 70 Walmart stores in New Jersey. The retailer also has been offering some noteworthy deals online recently.

Walmart also recently announced it will not be open on Thanksgiving Day, bucking a trend from recent years.

It has been a rough few months for the brick-and-mortar retail industry, which already had been struggling before the pandemic hit.

Brooks Brothers, JCPenney, Nordstrom, New York & Company and Sur La Table are among the many retail companies that have recently announced store closures.

RELATED STORIES ABOUT RETAIL:

Parent company of Mens Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank could shutter up to 500 stores

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Amazon officially postpones Prime Day, but you can still snag deals this summer

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Nicolette Accardi can be reached at naccardi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter: @N_Accardi. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
Nearly 90 per cent of Australians believe the 4 per cent of income taxes allocated to fund aged care should be increased substantially, with most agreeing it should be more than doubled.

A survey to be released on Thursday of more than 10,000 Australians not using aged care found that 72 per cent were willing to pay more to access aged care at home to avoid entering residential care.

A new report finds many Australians are willing to pay at least double the amount allocated from income tax to fund aged care. Credit:AFR

When asked what they considered to be "satisfactory" care, most people said a residential facility that treated older people with respect and dignity and had adequate numbers of staff with the skill and training to provide appropriate care. Asked what constituted "high quality" care, respondents listed the ability to lodge complaints with confidence that appropriate action would be taken.

The research by Flinders University's Caring Futures Institute was commissioned by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Safety and Quality to explore views on how aged care should be funded.
Greater demand for healthcare services combined with strained government public resources provide opportunities for a growing healthcare industry in Vietnam.

The EVFTA and the amended Law on Investment will benefit foreign producers and suppliers wishing to enter the Vietnamese market, which still largely relies on imported medical equipment and medicines.

COVID-19 has accelerated created greater demand for technology-enabled services, a phenomenon that is likely to continue in the next decades with the arrival of Industry 4.0 innovations.

Vietnam is currently undergoing economic and demographic transformations that provide great potential for its healthcare industry. In 2019, Vietnams healthcare expenditure was approximately US$17 billion, equivalent to 6.6 percent of its GDP according to Fitch Solutions. The firm also expects that healthcare spending will reach US$23 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.7 percent.

The COVID-19 outbreak certainly dampened economic activity in Vietnam, but it is unlikely to reverse ongoing socioeconomic changes. Rather, health stands firmly as the top priority and concern for both the Vietnamese people and the government.

We provide an overview of the opportunities for the healthcare industry in light of the current developments in Vietnam and survey three key sub-sectors: medical equipment and devices, pharmaceuticals, and digital healthcare.

Changes in society create opportunities and challenges

Fast-growing middle class and aging population

The healthcare sector in Vietnam has a lot of potential due to the demographic and socioeconomic changes currently underway. Vietnams rapid economic development has boosted demand for higher quality and specialized healthcare services, especially among the growing middle class.

The COVID-19 outbreak has proven that health is, and will certainly continue to be, a priority for most Vietnamese. Moreover, growing concerns over food safety, pollution, and unsafe living and working conditions have also made people more willing to spend on medicines and healthcare.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the country has entered the aging phase since 2011. It is expected that by 2038, 20 percent of Vietnamese people will be over 60 years old. As more women join the workforce, a declining fertility rate will accelerate the aging of the population, straining the social welfare system.

Expansion of health insurance and hospital system

Social health insurance is the main public financing method for healthcare in Vietnam. With 87 percent of the population currently covered under this scheme according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the government continues to work towards achieving universal healthcare coverage.

Under a new document issued by the Ministry of Health (MoH), provincial departments of health and Vietnam Social Security branches are asked to encourage participation in and implementation of health insurance across the country. The government has also recently set new social insurance, employment insurance, and health insurance contribution rates that apply to both national and expatriate workers and employers.

To prevent overcrowding and ensure that both urban and local patients can access medical services, the government continues to finance the construction of new hospitals. Since public hospitals rely on a government budget, the country will need to mobilize various sources of investment to upgrade its medical facilities. Further, the healthcare system also suffers from a shortage of qualified physicians, especially those in specialized fields.

Meanwhile, private hospitals and clinics have sprung up in major cities to cater to the middle-class segment.

To help it shoulder the burden of rising healthcare costs, the government is increasingly looking at investment from the private sector and international firms. These changes mean that there will be more business opportunities in the healthcare sector in Vietnam in the upcoming years.

Medical equipment and devices

In February 2020, the government enacted Resolution No.20/NQ-CP to license the export of fabric face masks in response to high demand from different markets such as the US, the EU, and Canada. This has helped local businesses, namely textile and garment workers who reported rising orders after the enactment of the resolution. Face masks are not the only products that have been sought after during the pandemic: ventilators, gloves, gowns, and testing kits from Vietnam have also been accepted around the world. As a result, Vietnam shipped a total of 1.37 billion medical face masks as per the General Statistics Office (GSO) in 2020. Facemasks were exported to the US, the EU, Singapore, and South Korea among others

Although the MoH has predicted that the countrys medical equipment market will grow at a rate of 18 to 20 percent from 2016 to 2020, most medical equipment, however, needs to be imported. There are very few local manufacturers of sophisticated and specialized devices that meet international standards. In fact, more than 90 percent of medical equipment is imported from countries such as Japan, Germany, the US, China, and Singapore, while domestic enterprises account for only 10 percent of market share.

In public hospitals across the country, there is a lack of sufficient equipment for surgery and intensive care units. Furthermore, the existing equipment is outdated and needs to be replaced. As such, because local production cannot meet demand, the Vietnamese government encourages the import of medical equipment by setting low import duties and no quota restrictions.

Medical device producers can look forward to opportunities created by trade agreements such as the European Union Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). Improvements in regulatory standards, exchange of information on customs requirements, and the simplification of customs procedures are a few of the anticipated benefits from the implementation of the EVFTA.

Pharmaceuticals

Although the government aims to increase the share of locally produced pharmaceuticals to 80 percent, an average of 55 percent of medicines in Vietnam are imported every year. One of the reasons for Vietnams reliance on imports is that most domestic companies lack research and development capabilities, and do not meet the European Union Good Manufacturing Practice (EU-GMP) or Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme Good Manufacturing Practice (PIC/S-GMP) standards required to manufacture high-quality generic drugs.

Further, Vietnam imports more than 90 percent of drug inputs, half of which are from China. With the closure of many Chinese factories due to environmental concerns, the price of raw materials has surged, decreasing the profit margins of Vietnamese companies.

The implementation of the EVFTA will remove tariffs for pharmaceutical products from the EU, and allow foreign companies to import and sell pharmaceuticals to Vietnamese distributors and wholesalers.

Currently, there are only two multinational companies, Sanofi-Aventis (France) and AstraZeneca (Britain-Sweden), that have medicine import licenses. Although the presence of more foreign pharmaceutical companies will improve the supply of high-quality medicines, domestic companies may be negatively affected by the increased foreign competition.

Seventy percent of drugs in Vietnam are sold through hospitals, while the remaining 30 percent comes from pharmacies. The growing number of private hospitals and a greater concern for health among the public has led to an increasing demand for drugs.

Buoyed by increasing demand for medicine amid the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical companies registered positive results in the first quarter of 2020. The countrys largest pharmaceutical firm, DHG Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company had a US$5 million profit, which represented a 31 percent year-on-year increase.

Other major firms also saw their profits going up from the same period last year. While its clear that the pandemic benefitted the pharmaceutical industry in the short term, firms may have to consider diversifying and importing raw materials from other regions rather than China in case a similar pandemic strikes again.

Hospital system

The hospital network in Vietnam is fairly extensive. There is a total of 1,531 hospitals, 86 percent of which are public and 14 percent are private mostly concentrated in major urban areas such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Da Nang. The 1,318 public hospitals are administered in a decentralized system, classified at the central, provincial, and district or commune level.

Though the system is well-established, Vietnamese hospitals are facing a number of important challenges. Most public hospitals in the country were built more than two decades ago and need to be upgraded.

Hospitals also face an overcrowding issue. The beds-to-inhabitants ratio, or bed occupancy rate in Vietnam far exceeds the threshold occupancy rate of 80 percent recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Adding to the problem is the inequality of care: patients would rather get treated in overcrowded national level hospitals than provincial or district level ones due to the availability of higher quality medical equipment and staff in the former. Meanwhile, doctors and nurses have to tend to a large number of patients, working long hours under stressful conditions with relatively low wages.

Thus, the Vietnamese hospital system needs an upgrade to its facilities, equipment, and services. The current gaps create opportunities for foreign investment in the construction and management of infrastructure facilities, medical equipment, and vocational training.

Digital healthcare

In light of the current challenges faced by public hospitals in Vietnam and the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital healthcare sector holds a lot of promise.

On April 18, 2020, the MoH in coordination with the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) launched a telemedicine program. Developed by Viettel Group, the countrys largest telecommunications service company, the program provides remote healthcare services by connecting patients and doctors through a virtual platform. With 70 percent of the Vietnamese population living in a rural or remote area, telehealth will help improve access to quality healthcare while reducing its costs.

The private sector was also quick to take advantage of the shift towards technology-enabled healthcare services. Many start-ups already present in Vietnam before the COVID-19 outbreak have expanded and optimized their operations.

However, the burgeoning health tech sector is still in its infancy, attracting significantly less investment than other related sectors such as payments or e-commerce. The sector also largely depends on the development of Industry 4.0 technologies such as 5G networks, artificial intelligence (AI), and the internet of things (IoT).

To help the health tech sector sustain the momentum post-pandemic, companies not only have to appeal to investors and consumers but they also have to be integrated with Vietnams national health framework. The government will have to play a bigger role in encouraging collaboration between industry players and other stakeholders, provide incentives, and formulate clear policies.

On June 22, 2020, the MoH approved a five-year project on remote medical examination and treatment involving 24 hospitals. Apps and medical services will be developed to manage files and knowledge systems, as well as helping patients find medical information, make their appointments, and consult doctors.

These measures will accelerate the digitalization across Vietnams hospital network, which is currently fragmented and mainly implemented in central level public hospitals and private hospitals in major cities.

The private sector was also quick to take advantage of the shift towards technology-enabled healthcare services. According to a YCP Solidiance report, private hospitals have relatively advanced health management systems compared to their public counterparts for several reasons.

Their higher-income patients are more willing to pay for modern and high-quality healthcare services. Seeing digitalization as a competitive advantage, private hospitals have an incentive to invest and upgrade in their digital infrastructure. They also commonly use products and services from leading information and technology companies such as Oracle or SAP and have standardized systems in place across individual hospital branches. Therefore, the implementation of digital tools at private hospitals is less complicated compared with public hospitals.

A number of important barriers still hinder digital adoption in Vietnamese hospitals, both public and private. First, healthcare professionals and patients are reluctant to use digital-based systems due to unfamiliarity with these tools and technological constraints at home.

Second, unclear and complicated administrative processes slow digital adoption. Digital signature for national health insurance reimbursement is a notable example: doctors and nurses who are responsible for their registration need the approval of two different departments, the Electronic Health Administration under the MoH and the Vietnam National Security.

Thirdly, the output of data is not standardized across hospitals, and data security remains a concern for healthcare providers, weakening inter-hospital integration.

The start-up sector in Vietnam, albeit small in size compared to that of other Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore or Indonesia, is also actively contributing to the digitalization of healthcare.

Many start-ups already present in Vietnam before the COVID-19 outbreak have expanded and optimized their operations. Some provide booking services that allow patients to schedule appointments with doctors without visiting hospitals, thereby reducing long queues and minimizing infection risks. Patients are able to discuss their health concerns and obtain answers from healthcare professionals, which is difficult in public hospitals where consultation times are limited.

Though these apps and services contribute to healthier lifestyles, their fees are considerably higher than those at public hospitals. Only a minority of middle to high-income urbanites are willing to pay for more convenience and flexibility. Start-ups also struggle to attract new customers due to limited brand awareness and a lack of engagement with well-known healthcare professionals.

Further, the burgeoning health tech sector is still in its infancy, attracting significantly less investment than other related sectors such as payments or e-commerce. To help the health tech sector sustain the momentum post-pandemic, companies not only have to appeal to investors and consumers but they also have to be integrated with Vietnams national health framework.

Like pharmaceuticals and medical devices, health tech start-ups operate in a highly regulated sector where there are still many uncertainties in the regulatory landscape. The government will have to play a bigger role in encouraging collaboration between industry players and other stakeholders, provide incentives, and formulate clear policies.

Thus, though there is still a lot of room for the health tech sector to grow, the digital transformation of healthcare in Vietnam is already well underway.

Opportunities: What do investors need to know?

Market access

Though the health sector in Vietnam is very attractive, policy barriers and a weak legal framework continue to make it challenging for inexperienced foreign investors. The industry is strictly regulated, yet investment procedures are still not very clear and specific.

The Law on Pharmacy sets out the legal framework for the registration, sale, and distribution of pharmaceuticals. Circular No. 32/2018/TT-BYT specifies the procedure regarding the registration of pharmaceutical products. Investors have expressed concerns over the ill-defined roles and responsibilities of foreign and domestic companies, and the cumbersome administrative process, which can delay access to the Vietnamese market.

Similarly, medical devices are subject to requirements set by the MoH. Foreign suppliers often work through local distributors or agents, as only companies with a legal business entity in Vietnam and an import license can distribute medical equipment. Imported devices, unlike those manufactured in Vietnam, are not required to be registered and only need a Certificate of Free Sale from the Embassy of Vietnam in the originating country.

In the digital healthcare sector, administrative complexity and an unintegrated system create a challenging environment for existing and prospective industry players. Furthermore, the future of digital health hinges on the availability of enabling technologies and infrastructures, such as high-speed networks, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing.

Mergers and acquisitions

Keen interest from private and foreign investors has benefited Vietnams healthcare industry. Private hospitals and healthcare providers such as Tam Tri Medical and Vietnam Integrated Medical Services received major investments from private equity firms.

Many major pharmaceutical companies such as Abbott (USA), Taisho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Sanofi (France) have been in Vietnam for several years, and some even decades. Not only have their products become available across the country, but they have also invested new plants and research and development (R&D) facilities.

Over recent years, there has been a growing number of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), with many foreign investors purchasing large amounts of shares in Vietnamese companies. These moves ease market access for foreign firms and help them avoid restrictions on foreign direct investment. For domestic companies, the integration creates more R&D opportunities and allows for the sharing of expertise and best governance practices, as well as access to foreign markets.

Amended Law on Enterprise and Law on Investment

The passing of the new Law on Investment (No. 51/2020/QH14) effective January 2021, incentivizes investment in five key sectors including healthcare. Projects in these sectors will benefit from preferred enterprise income tax, exemption or reduction of land lease fee, and credit support.

Previously, an ineffective private-public partnership (PPP) agreement made investment attraction difficult. However, the new law puts forth changes that eases risks for investors. It offers guarantees to PPP projects, including access to land, provision of civil service, right to the mortgage of property, revenue risk sharing, and foreign currency balance-ensuring scheme among others. The law also specifies the total investment capital requirement for a PPP project depending on its type and location. A projects value must be at least around US$8.6 million, but the threshold of healthcare projects is half that.

The law also requires projects to apply to an open bidding process for the selection of preferred investors except for those in priority areas. Foreign investors will be able to compete in good faith to win the bids of major projects.

The new law also lowers the foreign investor threshold from 51 percent to 50 percent. Foreign investors holding a majority equity stake in a company are treated as foreign investors for purposes of licensing and investment activities. This determines the conditions and procedures of establishing subsidiaries or acquiring shares or other equity interests, which are different and more cumbersome than for those considered domestic investors.

Regarding M&As, the law removes the need for approval if the transaction does not increase the foreign investors ownership ratio in the target company. The M&A approval requires a number of documents to be notarized and legalized by consular authorities in the foreign investors home jurisdiction, thus taking up a significant amount of time in the pre-completion process.

Overall, these measures confirm the Vietnamese governments commitment towards creating a favorable business environment, especially to meet demands in the growing healthcare industry.

Note: This article was first published in August 2020, and has been updated to include the latest developments.
Singapore Airlines launches Miles Of Good campaign to thank essential workers

Singapore Airlines has launched a corporate social responsibility campaign called Miles of Good under its #SIAcares initiative.

This campaign aims to raise 100 million KrisFlyer miles that will be donated to selected frontline and essential workers, who have been tirelessly serving the public during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a statement, SIA said KrisFlyer members can nominate deserving individuals with a minimum donation of 1,000 miles. The members and their nominees must reside in the same country or territory.

Photo: Connected to India

Eligible nominees include healthcare workers, public transport workers, supermarket employees, cleaners, as well as food delivery, courier and postal services personnel.

Members can also donate their miles without making any nomination.

SIA hopes to raise 70 million KrisFlyer miles through these donations and will contribute another 30 million miles towards Miles of Good. Nominations end on August 10, although members have up to November 20 to donate their miles.

Singapore Airlines will then get in touch with the successful nominees, who will receive up to 60,000 KrisFlyer miles credited into their accounts. These miles can be used to book flights on Singapore Airlines, SilkAir, Scoot or on other KrisFlyer partner airlines.

They can also be used to redeem gift items, hotel stays, car rentals, or shopping, dining, wellness and grooming services via KrisShop, KrisFlyer vRooms, and KrisPay*.

The Miles Of Good campaign is an opportunity for us to join hands with our KrisFlyer members, and show our appreciation to the individuals who have been working on the frontlines during the Covid-19 pandemic," said JoAnn Tan, Acting Senior Vice President, Marketing Planning.

"This is one way in which we can recognise the efforts of those who have been helping all of us through this challenging time.
Oregon lawmakers plan to kick off three days of online hearings Wednesday morning on nearly $400 million of tentative state budget cuts in response to the fiscal havoc wreaked by the pandemic.

The trims are part of top leaders proposal to close a more than $1 billion general and lottery fund budget shortfall with a combination of cuts, withdrawing another $400 million from a state reserve fund for schools, and swapping various pots of money to safeguard as much general fund as possible.

Oregons general fund and lottery budget is roughly $25 billion.

Lawmakers and Gov. Kate Brown have said they want to protect K-12 education, university funding and the states child welfare program which includes foster care. The plan released by the co-chairs of the Ways and Means Committee last week largely does that. Brown is expected to announce any day now that she will call lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special session, possibly in the first week or two of August.

On Wednesday, a budget writing subcommittee will kick off the vetting process with a 9 a.m. hearing on spending cuts and other changes to the states environmental and natural resources programs. Watch this and other hearings on the Legislatures website and find out how to submit testimony here.

Proposed cuts include delaying some wildfire fighting equipment purchases and postponing implementation of some parts of Cleaner Air Oregon, the governors regulatory response to concerns over toxic air in Portland going back to 2016.

In the afternoon Wednesday, a subcommittee focused on general government programs will take input on changes including nearly $600,000 from leaving unspecified jobs in the governors office unfilled for the next 12 months and saving nearly $500,000 by cutting two new and two yet-to-be-filled jobs that were supposed to help respond to electronic public records requests. The Legislature could also cancel $400,000 in spending on a grant to the James Beard Public Market food hall planned for Portland.

Budget writers will take testimony on Thursday about education and human services budget changes, once again starting at 9 a.m. and continuing into the afternoon. They are considering scaling back Outdoor School and Farm to School grants, limiting which students qualify for free community college, and cutting help for intellectually and developmentally disabled Oregonians and support for early childhood programs.

On Friday, another budget subcommittee will take public input starting at 9 a.m. on proposed cuts to public safety programs, transportation and economic development programs. Plans include delaying state police vehicle purchases and closing two prisons. Shutter Creek, a 300-bed facility in North Bend, would close quickly while Warner Creek, a 492-bed facility in Lakeview, would close during the budget cycle that runs from 2021-23. A budget document estimates closing Shutter Creek would save roughly $3.4 million but does not say how much the state would save by closing Warner Creek.

Also up for consideration Friday is a proposal to cut $6.2 million in spending by the Employment Department on preparations to launch Oregons new family and medical paid leave law.

-- Hillary Borrud: hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud

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Kanye West's Wyoming ranch was aflutter with activity as construction continued Wednesday on his pet project of affordable-living domes.

Photos of Monster Lake Ranch, located near Cody, Wyoming, show the domes in various states of construction.

The 43-year-old rapper has been sequestered at his Western home in recent days while launching Twitter tirades against his wife Kim Kardashian, who said in a statement on Tuesday that her husband was suffering from bipolar disorder.

Still going: Construction crews were hard at work on new affordable-living domes on Kanye West's Wyoming ranch on Wednesday, after he launched twitter tirades from his Western retreat; pictured in March

Space age: Aerial photos of the ranch showed a cluster of dome and egg-shaped buildings that were in the midst of construction

Aerial photos of the ranch showed a cluster of dome and egg-shaped buildings that were in the midst of construction.

Construction workers could be seen atop the largest building, which was the least completed of the four.

The unfinished exteriors made the domes translucent, revealing the wooden structure.

Kanye had previously constructed prototypes of the affordable-housing domes near his home in Calabasas, California, but he was forced to tear them down in September of last year after failing to get a permit for their construction.

More to do: Construction workers could be seen atop the largest building, which was the least completed of the four

Redo: Kanye had constructed prototypes of the affordable-housing domes near his home in Calabasas, California, but he was forced to tear them down in September due to improper permitting

At the time, it was reported that crews had been working during weekends when they were supposed to hold off on construction, leading to multiple noise complaints from neighbors.

Forbes reported that the homes, which had concrete foundations and were sunken into the ground, were inspired by the rounded huts on Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine, as immortalized in the original Star Wars.

Kanye suggested in the same profile that the deceptively large buildings might be used to house homeless people in the future.

Other photos from his ranch indicated that large pits had been dug out of the dry earth.

One wide yet shallow pit had been excavated next to the domes, while an even deeper hole had been dug from a mount of dirt next to Kanye's garage.

The property was also dotted with earth-moving vehicles and motorhomes as work continued.

Noisy: At the time, it was reported that crews had been working during weekends when they were supposed to hold off on construction, leading to multiple noise complaints from neighbors

Curious: Other photos from his ranch indicated that large pits had been dug out of the dry earth

Emptied out: One wide yet shallow pit had been excavated next to the domes, while an even deeper hole had been dug from a mount of dirt next to Kanye's garage

Bustling: The property was also dotted with earth-moving vehicles and motorhomes as work continued

The images also revealed oddities about the property, including a white tipi located near the shore of the lake abutting the property.

The My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy rapper had a decorative circle of stones, possibly for bonfires, laid out near the shore and the tipi.

Pictures taken further from the property showed a massive earth wall being built running parallel to the road connecting Kanye's ranch to the outside world.

Odd additions: The images also revealed oddities about the property, including a white tipi located near the shore of the lake abutting the property

Building the wall: Pictures taken further from the property showed a massive earth wall being built running parallel to the road connecting Kanye's ranch to the outside world

Tough time: Kanye has been hunkered down at his ranch (one of two he owns near Cody) in recent days, even as he has left many fans and friends concerned about his mental state

Kanye has been hunkered down at his ranch (one of two he owns near Cody) in recent days, even as he has left many fans and friends concerned about his mental state.

He raised eyebrows on Sunday with a rally in South Carolina in which he claimed his wife Kim considered aborting their seven-year-old daughter North, before bursting into tears.

During the event, Kanye said, 'Harriet Tubman never actually freed the slaves, she just had them work for other white people,' which elicited groans from the audience.

By Tuesday, the Monster rapper was claiming he had been 'trying to get divorced' from his wife Kim Kardashian follower her meet-up with fellow rapper Meek Mill at the Waldorf Hotel.

The couple married in 2014 and share four children: North, seven, Saint, four, Chicago, two, and Psalm, one.

Bring in the trucks: Trucks were still hauling equipment and debris from the construction site on Thursday

Pods: Domes under construction are shown in the foreground as trucks drive away

Climb: Workers showed climbing and working on the wooden structure of a dome

Concerning: He raised eyebrows on Sunday with a rally in South Carolina in which he claimed his wife Kim considered aborting their seven-year-old daughter North, before bursting into tears

It was reported in recent weeks that the two had staked out spaces on opposite sides of their home, before Kanye moved out to their Wyoming ranch.

'Since lockdown they've had daily bust-ups over literally everything. But mainly about the kids, their future, and the different directions they're going in,' a source told the Sun.

'They've barely had a functioning marriage for the last year and Kim has been finding living with him too difficult.

'He's very demanding and always obsessed with one of his schemes  she's exhausted. They live totally separate lives now.'

Sources for People and UsWeekly have both said on Wednesday she has been thinking about divorcing the rapper.

'There has been enough communication, both in the past few days and in the weeks prior, to establish that both sides feel the marriage is over,' a source told People.

The source added that Kanye is 'paranoid and convinced' he needs protection from Kim and her mother Kris Jenner.

On the rocks: By Tuesday, the Monster rapper was claiming he had been 'trying to get divorced' from his wife Kim Kardashian follower her meet-up with fellow rapper Meek Mill at the Waldorf Hotel

Isolated: The rapper is hiding out in a bunker at his ranch in Wyoming, amid sources claiming he has lost trust in his wife Kim Kardashian, 39, and Kim's mum Kris; shown in November

After tweets from Kanye accusing Kim of trying to have him committed for his mental health flare-up, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star posted a statement to Instagram about her husband's bipolar disorder.

'Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor. People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try,' she wrote.

The statement tried to explain the rapper's recent actions and concluded with a defense of his talents.

'Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some,' she wrote. 'That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true.'
San Juan, PUERTO RICO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- San Juan, PUERTO RICO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BOTS, Inc. (OTC: BTZI) (GERMAN EXCHANGE: M06.SG) an emerging innovator of products, technologies, and services for the rapidly growing digital robotic automation and manufacturing industry is proud to announce that it has joined the Open Invention Network (OIN), the largest patent non-aggression community in history. Bots Inc has become a licensee and member of the 3,200 strong community of OIN licensees. As a leading provider of robotic and blockchain technology and infrastructure, BTZI is committed to embrace open source software (OSS). The company has acquired Bitcoin ATM patent and other patent pending from First Bitcoin Capital Corp (OTC : BITCF) and is planning to develop Global Bitcoin ATM network utilizing open source software platform as a Joint Venture with First Bitcoin Capital.

In addition to being actively involved in blockchain and robotic automation development, Bots, Inc. is consistently monitoring the trends in this rapidly evolving industry, said Paul Rosenberg, Companys CEO. By joining the Open Invention Network community, BTZI is further demonstrating its support for developing open source software. By joining the Open Invention Network, we show our continued commitment to innovation, and support for patent non-aggression in open source projects.

About Open Invention Network

Open Invention Network (OIN) is the largest patent non-aggression community in history and supports freedom of action in Linux as a key element of open source software (OSS). Patent non-aggression in core technologies is a cultural norm within OSS, so that the litmus test for authentic behavior in the OSS community includes OIN membership. Funded by Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Sony, SUSE and Toyota, OIN has more than 3,200 community members and owns more than 1,300 global patents and applications. The OIN patent license and member cross-licenses are available royalty-free to any party that joins the OIN community.

Open to all, OINs community practices patent non-aggression in core Linux and adjacent open source technologies by cross-licensing Linux System patents to one another on a royalty-free basis. Patents owned by Open Invention Network are similarly licensed royalty-free to any organization that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System. The OIN license can be signed online at http://www.j-oin.net/.

For more information, visit www.openinventionnetwork.com .

About BOTS, Inc.

Headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico, BOTS, Inc. - publicly traded on the OTC Markets under the symbol (BTZI) and on Borse Stuttgart under ticker (M06.SG) - is a diversified company developing and servicing blockchain solutions and robotics for its clientele. The Company is committed to drive the innovations needed to shape the future of digital robotic automation management through digital technology and decentralized blockchain solutions. Management is dedicated to the strong growth of Distributed Asset Technology and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Bots, Inc. has been featured in media nationwide, including CNBC, Bloomberg, TheStreet.com. For more information, visit http://www.bots.bz

Visit us on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/Bots.Bz/

Follow us on Twitter @Bots_bz

About First Bitcoin Capital Corp

First Bitcoin Capital Corp (OTC:BITCF) began developing digital currencies, proprietary blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange - www.CoinQX.com (in Beta) in early 2014. We saw this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex blockchain technologies and in developing new types of digital assets. Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company, we provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies.

BITCF also owns patent U.S. Patent No. 9,135,787 - Bitcoin Kiosk / ATM Device and System Integrating Enrollment Protocol and Method of Using the Same. Known as the Bitcoin ATM patent this patent is related to the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies utilizing a Bitcoin ATM or kiosk that allows customers to purchase Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies by using cash, debit or credit cards.

The Company began developing its own blockchain and cryptocurrency called First Bitcoin (COIN:BIT) in 2016. Recently the Company updated the BIT wallet and added more functionality. Users are able to generate BIT through the processes of POW and POS mining. The First Bitcoin cryptocurrency has a current supply of 20,707,629,255 BIT. It is currently trading on LIVECOIN.net with its explorer at www.explorer.bitcf.net

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/first-bitcoin/

Contact us via: info@firstbitcoin.io or visit www.firstbitcoin.io

follow us on Twitter; @1stBitCapital

follow us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/first-bitcoin-capital-corp/

follow us on FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/BITCF/

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's website and filings.

Contact:

Paul Rosenberg

CEO

paul@bots.bz
An escape artist dog lost for three years has been reunited with her owner thanks to a beer can.

Florida beer company Motorworks Brewing helps out a local dog shelter by featuring dogs needing a new home on beer cans. But little could anyone imagine that for one dog, she would soon be reunited with her owner 1,700 miles away in Minnesota.

Hazel, renamed Day Day by the shelter, had vanished from the yard of her familys then-home in Iowa in 2017. Unfortunately, the mutts disappearance was rather mistimed as her owner Monica Mathis moved north to the neighboring state, Minnesota, a few days later.

Though Hazel the Houdini pup was microchipped, the paperwork for her chip went missing too. So Mathis was unable to update the microchips contact details. Despite Mathiss best efforts, she was unable to trace her dog in time and reluctantly left without her.

She was an escape artist; she was very good at getting loose, Mathis told CNN affiliate WWSB. Bolting right through the door. Knocking me over just to get out the door.

Quite how Hazel, a pit bull mix, made it to Florida over 600 miles away remains a mystery. However, she ended up at the Manatee County Animal Services shelter near Bradenton. Staff checked the dogs chip but were unable to trace Mathis as the information was out of date; Hazel was thus put up for adoption.

Luckily, the 7-year-old Hazels picture was featured on the Motorworks Brewing beer can earlier this year to appeal for adoption. By chance, Mathis noticed Hazel on the social media post about the beer can and instantly recognized her long-lost dog.

I was looking at the dogs, and I was like oh my gosh, thats Hazel, Mathis told CNN affiliate Bay News 9.

Mathis immediately got in touch with the animal shelter. She submitted vet records and photographs of Hazel to prove she was her owner.

Manatee County Animal Services (Screenshot/Google Maps)

I guess you can say I was a little hysterical because I was scared someone was going to adopt her at that point or something, Mathis told WWSB. I was scared I was gonna lose her again.

Everything checked out, and the animal shelter began trying to figure out how to get Hazel to Minnesota. Hans Wohlgefahrt, of Manatee County Animal Services, told CNN: Shes grown attached to me. But Im happy to see this all the way through, even if it requires a really long road trip.

Wohlgefahrt said that until Mathis saw Hazels picture emblazoned on a beer can there had been no way to track her down. Hazels incredible multi-state odyssey, however, has proven to be an opportunity for the Manatee animal shelter to underline not only the importance of having pets chipped but also to keep your contact details up to date.

There was really no way we could trace [Hazel] back to that particular owner, Wohlgefahrt told Fox News. Its a great reminder to people when they do these things to go into their profile and make sure all their contact information is up to date.

After hearing of Hazels fantastic story, the Friends of Manatee County Animal Services stepped in and offered to transport her back to Minnesota, reported Fox News.

The inspiring doggy tale is a good reminder for pet lovers to always keep their contact details up to date and never give up hope, for who knows what good fortune the world may randomly throw up if your pet goes missing one day.

We would love to hear your stories! You can share them with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.nyc
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FILE - In this March 16, 2020, file photo, a subject receives a shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine by Moderna for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, at FILE - In this March 16, 2020, file photo, a subject receives a shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine by Moderna for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute. Ted S. Warren Dr. Veronica Fragoso Garcia of Texas Center for Drug Development. Photo Courtesy Of TCDD/DM Clinical Research

Looking for a way to give back safely during the pandemic? Some Texans have decided to "pay it forward" through participation in the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trial. The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is now entering the Phase 3 of testing, and Houston clinics are looking for volunteers.

"It's super exciting," Recruitment lead for DM Clinical, Dr. Sarah Hasan said. "The volunteers who are taking their valuable time to help us are medical heroes. Without these medical heroes, we wouldn't have the vaccines that we now have."

COUNTY WARNING: Texas county warns COVID-19 positive residents must stay home or face prosecution

Houston is one of the 87 locations across the country where the Moderna vaccine will be tested. Approximately thirty thousand people will receive testing in Phase 3. The Texas Center for Drug Development is looking for 1,000 volunteers for participation in the vaccine trial.

"We're looking to enroll 1,000 total, but that means we may have to talk to 3,000 or 5,000 people," Hasan said. "It's a huge project."

Hasan emphasized that this vaccine trial is a safe procedure.

"It's not a live vaccine, so you cannot get coronavirus from this" Hasan said.

Those who would not qualify are those who have active cancers or autoimmune disorders. For those who are interested in the vaccine trial, you can apply at www.houstonfightscovid.com. You must be 18 or older to be eligible to apply for this vaccine trial.

EXHAUSTED DOCTORS: Houston ICU doc says caregivers are exhausted, describes long-lasting effects of COVID-19

"These participants can get up to $2,000 because we know how valuable their time is," Hasan added. "We also offer transportation costs. We show them how grateful we are for these medical heroes."

"We hope that by end of this year, or the beginning of 2021 we will at least have an answer whether the vaccine or vaccines - plural - are safe and effective," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told NBC News.

Hasan said that the vaccine trial projects has been one of the most rewarding experiences for her as a doctor.

"I'm really lucky because I've been a part of this," Hasan said. "Something like this affects everybody. This is a direct help for my family, my friends. If I'm able to help out a little bit, that's the real point of living. The way Houstonians come together is amazing."

alison.medley@chron.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 11:15:56|Editor: Lu Hui

Video Player Close

TIANJIN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- China's Tianjin port saw iron ore imports rise 13.6 percent year on year to around 37.86 million tonnes in the first half of this year, according to Tianjin Customs.

The sustained growth in iron ore imports is attributed to the huge raw materials demand of the country's steel industry and increasingly strict environmental protection requirements, under which domestic steel mills have to increase the imports of high-quality iron ore to optimize the capacity utilization rate of their blast furnaces.

The iron ore imports via the port during the six-month period mainly came from Australia and Brazil, which together provided more than 89 percent of the port's total iron ore imports.

Meanwhile, the port has seen increased iron ore imports from countries and regions along the Belt and Road including South Africa, Mozambique and Mauritania.

The port on the coast of the Bohai Sea is a pivotal shipping outlet for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Enditem
(CNN)  The Republican speaker of Ohio's House of Representatives was arrested by federal officials Tuesday (Wednesday in the Philippines) on charges connected to a $60 million bribery scheme.

Larry Householder and four other political operatives were charged with racketeering in what US Attorney David DeVillers described as "likely the largest bribery money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio."

"Make no mistake, these allegations are bribery. Pure and simple," DeVillers said in a news conference. "This was pay-to-play. I use the term pay-to-play because that's the term they've used as alleged in the affidavit."

A criminal complaint filed on Thursday and unsealed on Tuesday specifically alleges that Householder and four others orchestrated an operation to accept over $60 million dollars from "Company A" in return for a public bailout for the company worth more than $1 billion.

While the complaint does not name "Company A," prosecutors indicate at numerous points that the company is FirstEnergy Corp. --including citations to news articles that mention the company by name.

The company told CNN in a statement Tuesday they have "received subpoenas in connection" with the investigation.

"We are reviewing the details of the investigation and we intend to fully cooperate," FirstEnergy Corp. said.

CNN has reached out to Householder's office for comment.

Extensive racketeering conspiracy

The charges against Householder were laid out in an extensive complaint that detailed a broad criminal operation involving wire fraud, receipt of millions of dollars in bribes and money laundering.

Householder -- along with four associates- took in millions of dollars from FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for help in passing House Bill 6, a billion-dollar bailout that saved two nuclear power plants operated by the company.

Prosecutors allege the scheme started when one of the associates incorporated "Generation Now" as a social welfare entity in 2017. It was secretly controlled by Householder, who received quarterly payments of $250,000 into the bank account of the entity, according to prosecutors.

The defendants then spent large sums of money on Householder's bid to become speaker and for their own personal gain.

In all, Householder received more than $400,000 in personal benefits as a result of the payments into "Generation Now," the Department of Justice said in a news release. These funds were used to pay for costs associated with his residence in Florida, settle a personal lawsuit and pay off thousands of dollars of credit card debt.

"All forms of public corruption are unacceptable," FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Chris Hoffman said in a statement.

"When the corruption is alleged to reach some of the highest levels of our state government, the citizens of Ohio should be shocked and appalled."

'Resign immediately'

News of the charges was met with swift condemnation Tuesday, with many political figures in the state calling on Householder to resign from his post.

"I am deeply concerned about the allegations of wrongdoing issued today by the U.S. Attorney's Office. Every American has the presumption of innocence until proven guilty," Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tweeted.

"Because of the nature of these charges, it will be impossible for Speaker Householder to effectively lead the Ohio House of Representatives; therefore, I am calling on Speaker Householder to resign immediately," he continued. "This is a sad day for Ohio."

That message was echoed by Ohio Secretary of State Frank Larose who tweeted, "There is important work for the state legislature to do on behalf of the people of Ohio. That work can't get done with the Speaker under arrest in an ongoing federal investigation."

"@HouseholderOH, do the right thing for the people of our state and resign today," he said.

Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken similarly cast the charges as cause for Householder to resign.

"Greed, lust for power, and disdain for ethical boundaries are not unique to any particular political party," Timken said in a statement.

"If our country is going to endure these difficult and divisive times, we must unite in the notion that people who break the law should be held accountable."

Householder's district includes parts of the state east of Columbus. He was first elected to the state House in 1996 and served until 2004, when he left office due to term limits, according to his official biography, which says he had also served as House speaker during that time. He was elected back to the chamber in 2017.

This story was first published on CNN.com 'Ohio state House speaker arrested in connection to $60 million bribery scheme'
(Photo : Denise Jans / Unsplash) Tower in Auckland, New Zealand

Two men whom the media called "daredevils" have filmed themselves on the tallest buildings and skyscrapers in Auckland, but the police stopped their actions in no time, 1 News reported

Is it to gain attention? These men were reportedly filming themselves at 178 meters from the ground at the Pacifica building in downtown Auckland. Pacifica tower is the second tallest in the area.

However, the police did not waste time and slammed what they did, indicating that they were putting their lives at risk, and also of the lives of others. People who might watch the video can anytime mimic their actions.

The video had a caption that showcases them being "fearless." The video showed the two men walking on top of the structure, and dangling from the scaffolding. It is reminiscent of a scene in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy where The Joker dangles from the building, mocking the caped crusader.

The caption read, "I wish I could describe the complexity and process of becoming fearless. Danger might be real but fear is a choice, all of the fears we don't face quickly become our limits."

The caption, coincidental as it may sound, seemingly sounded like Joker's statements from the movie.

Parallels

In the Batman story, the Joker and his adventures with the main character tackled on themes of conquering fear, as the hero itself was a fearful person during his childhood. In the Nolan film, the Joker, portrayed by Heath Ledger, was seen hanging from a building, saying, "Madness as you know, is like gravity all it takes is a little push."

Surprisingly, one of the men in Auckland said and warned users not to watch the video "if you have anxiety."

Mixed reactions

The video has received mixed reactions on social media since the time it was released. There were few who had fun, and supported them, while others condemned their action.

A netizen on Instagram wrote, "Love you bro so don't you dare let go."

Another user posted, "Nope, nope, nope".

The police warned these men to stop doing these acts, threatening arrests or worse should they continue on. They said, "Anyone carrying out this activity is not only putting their own lives and others at risk but also risk getting arrested."

The project head behind the tower, Liz Scott, said that the company is distancing itself from the stunts, and even passed the questions over to the builder on how the men were able to get into the building.

Also Read: Woman recreates catcalling video in New Zealand and gets dramatically different results

Scott said that the media must speak to Dan Ashby, the construction lead of the skyscraper. Ashby said, "The site team have appropriate security measures in place, including full time night security on-site and a lock-up procedure. We do not yet know how that was breached and are currently investigating to identify when and how it happened."

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Epic Summer Sales Events is taking place at Mathews Hyundai in Marion this month

Mathews Hyundai, a dealership located in Marion, is currently promoting its Epic Summer Sales Event. This event, which features special offers on new Hyundai vehicles, is taking place this month at the dealership. Drivers who are interested in purchasing a new Hyundai vehicle are encouraged to take advantage of these special offers before they go away.

The Epic Summer Sales Event features special offers for leasing and financing. One of the vehicles that are available at the dealership with a special offer is the 2020 Hyundai Sonata. For those who want to lease, they can lease a 2020 Hyundai Sonata for $189 a month with $2,799 due at signing. For financing, customers can get a zero % APR financing rate for up to 60 months or they can get up to $2,000 in total savings.

Another vehicle with a special incentive is the 2020 Hyundai Tucson. Customers can lease the 2020 Hyundai Tucson for just $199 per month at Mathews Hyundai if they sign this month. For that deal, customers will need to pay $2,699 at signing. If the customer prefers to finance their new vehicle, they can enjoy a zero % APR rate for up to 72 months with no payments for 90 days or they can choose to save up to $2,000 in total savings.

To learn more about the special offers and incentives at Mathews Hyundai during the Epic Summer Sales Event, customers are encouraged to visit or contact the dealership at their earliest convenience or visit the dealership's website, mathewseasthyundai.com. Offers expire on August 3, 2020.
Amid simmering tensions between India and China at Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday (July 22) addressed the top commanders of the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Addressing the inaugural session of three-day-long Air Force Commanders Conference, which started on Wednesday, Singh stated that the professional manner in which IAF conducted the airstrikes in Balakot as well as rapid deployment of IAF assets at forward locations in response to the prevailing situation in Eastern Ladakh has sent a strong message to the adversaries.

Singh also talked about the "ongoing efforts for de-escalation on LAC" and urged the "IAF to stand ready to handle any eventuality." Singh added that IAF assets are deployed in "forward locations" in response to situation at LAC in Eastern Ladakh.

"IAFs role in some of the most challenging circumstances is well regarded by the nation. Their contribution during the nations response to COVID-19 pandemic has been highly praiseworthy," noted the Union minister.

The theme of the conference is "Indian Air Force in the Next Decade". It will also be attended by Defence Secretary and Secretary Defence Production. Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria, will chair the Air Force Commanders Conference.

According to IAF sources, during the three day conference the commanders would take stock of the current operational scenario and deployments. The commanders will also discuss action for operational capability enhancement of the IAF in the next decade.

It is expected that the IAF top brass would also hold discussions over the rapid deployment and operationalisation of the Rafale aircraft arriving from France by July-end. It is to be noted that ythe IAF has deployed almost all its front-line combat aircraft like Sukhoi 30 MKI, Jaguar, Mirage 2000 at key frontier IAF bases in East Ladakh and locations along the LAC. The IAF has also deployed Apache attack helicopters and Chinook helicopters to transport troops to various advance locations.
The UK oil industry has slammed the government for refusing to provide it with the means for blanket testing for Covid-19, Bloomberg reports, noting that, according to the government, it has the capacity to test 300,000 people daily.

Offshore platformswhere almost all of UK crude oil is producedare one of the riskiest places to work in a pandemic because of the confined space and the fact it is shared by a lot of people.

Oil platforms are just like cruise liners an oil workers union official told Bloomberg. The confined space, the communal areas, food handling, hygiene, everything.

And yet the government is only providing testing for people already exhibiting symptomsthats the type of testing it can do for 300,000 people daily. Asymptomatic testing, or the testing of people who have not yet exhibited symptoms of the disease, is only reserved for frontline workers in the National Health System.

According to the regional government in Aberdeen, Scotland, which is the center of the UKs oil industry, asymptomatic testing of offshore platform personnel would not remove the risk of people incubating the disease becoming symptomatic offshore.

Still, according to industry officials, the blanket testing is worth doing, as offshore workers are no less critical than other groups identified as such as provided with asymptomatic testing.

The U.K. is reliant the North Sea for domestic energy supply, so the personnel that produce it are absolutely critical, the oil workers union official, Jake Molloy, told Bloomberg, adding that offshore workers should be treated as shop assistants and taxi drivers, who are being tested asymptomatically.

Covid-19 has burdened additionally the already troubled North Sea oil industry, just as it has burdened oil industries across the world. Recently, energy industry officials warned that as many as 7,500 jobs have disappeared from the North Sea platforms with more to follow. Exploration for oil and gas in the North Sea had effectively come to a stop because of the pandemic, one professor from Heriot Watt University told the UK Parliament.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
LONDON - Britains government announced Wednesday that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining U.K. citizenship for up to 3 million eligible Hong Kongers as of January, taking another step toward solidifying a policy denounced by China.

In a statement, the Home Office said holders of the British National Overseas passport and their immediate family members can move to the U.K. to work and study. The change to immigration rules was introduced after Beijing imposed a new, sweeping national security law on Hong Kong.

Todays announcement shows the U.K. is keeping its word: We will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

Britain announced in early July it was extending residency rights for some 2.9 million people eligible for the British National Overseas passport in Hong Kong, stressing that it would uphold its duty to the former British colony after the new law was imposed.

Eligible individuals from Hong Kong currently can come to the U.K. for six months without a visa. With the rule change, they will have the right to live and work in the country for five years. After that, they will be allowed to apply for settled status and then again for citizenship.

Those eligible can access the British job market at any skill level and without a salary threshold, but wont have access to public funds.

The U.K. introduced a special, limited type of British nationality in the 1980s for people who were a British dependent territories citizen by connection with Hong Kong. The passports did not confer nationality or the automatic right to live and work in Britain, but entitled holders to consular assistance from U.K. diplomatic posts.

Britain handed over Hong Kong, its former colony, to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997 under a One Country, Two Systems framework that was supposed to guarantee the city a high degree of autonomy and Western-style civil liberties not seen on mainland China.

The new national security law, enacted just ahead of the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong becoming a special administrative region of China, criminalizes subversive, secessionist or terrorist activities and collusion with foreign forces to intervene in the citys affairs.

In some cases, mainland China will assume legal jurisdiction and suspects could be sent there for trial.

The changes are seen by many as Beijings boldest move yet to erase the legal firewall between the semi-autonomous territory and the mainlands authoritarian Communist Party system.

Beijing has said that Britains move to offer refuge to Hong Kong residents constitutes interference in internal matters.
Actor Gulshan Devaiah refused to fit into any description of insider or outsider amid a raging debate on nepotism in the Hindi film industry. He also criticized the lack of civility in the discussion that began in the aftermath of Sushant Singh Rajputs death.

On July 21, the actor called himself a grade A+++ actor as he tweeted, I am not an outsider or an insider. I feel comfortable being me. I exist, I belong & my life has meaning. I dont depend on anyone else to tell me all these things. This is how I want to be & I definitely dont want anyone else to fight for me either & I am grade A+++ Smiling face with sunglasses.

I am not an outsider or an insider.

I feel comfortable being me.

I exist, I belong & my life has meaning.

I dont depend on anyone else to tell me all these things.

This is how I want to be & I definitely dont want anyone else to fight for me either & I am grade A+++   Gulshan Devaiah (@gulshandevaiah) July 21, 2020

Being civil is honourable but its not entertaining and hence the crusaders choose the entertaining way.  Gulshan Devaiah (@gulshandevaiah) July 21, 2020

How will you feel if those who you are ridiculing (not taking sides here) decide to do end themselves due to the constant harassment ?

Will you feel victorious? Will it give you a sense of achievement?#onlineharresment #trolling  Gulshan Devaiah (@gulshandevaiah) July 21, 2020

Recently, Kangana Ranaut alleged in an interview that there is a prevalent culture of nepotism in Bollywood and it resulted in Sushant Singh Rajputs death. She also called Taapsee Pannu and Swara Bhasker B-grade actresses and needy outsiders.

Gulshan, in an oblique reference to the debate, wrote, Being civil is honourable but its not entertaining and hence the crusaders choose the entertaining way. He also asked for civility as he wrote, How will you feel if those who you are ridiculing (not taking sides here) decide to do end themselves due to the constant harassment? Will you feel victorious? Will it give you a sense of achievement? #onlineharresment #trolling.

I only have to lose here, because tomorrow they (referring to the movie mafia) will get some 20 needy outsiders like Taapsee Pannu and Swara Bhasker who will say oh only Kangana has a problem with Karan Johar, but we love Karan Johar. If you love Karan Johar, why are you both B-grade actresses? You are better looking than Alia Bhatt and Ananya, you both are better actresses, why dont you get work? Your existence is a proof of nepotism. What are you telling me how happy you are with this industry? Kangana had said in the interview.

Gulshan Devaiah will next be seen in Pichchar with Viineet Kumar. He was also seen in Vidyut Jammwals Commando 3.

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver the keynote address at the India Ideas Summit on Wednesday (22 July).

The theme for this years India Ideas Summit is Building a Better Future. The virtual summit is being hosted by the US-India Business Council. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the formation of the Council. The Summit will witness discussions on areas including India-US cooperation and future of the relation between the two counties in a post pandemic world.

PM Modi has tweeted:

Looking forward to addressing the #IndiaIdeasSummit, organised by @USIBC today at 9 PM. Will be sharing my views on Building a Better Future. Do watch. https://t.co/70XBBZRghL  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 22, 2020

The India Ideas Summit will feature high-level presence from Indian and US government policymakers, state-level officials, and thought leaders from business and society. Other key speakers at the Summit include Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Mr Mike Pompeo, Senator of Virginia and co-chair of Senate India Caucus Mark Warner, Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, among others.

USIBC hosted over 400 attendees over two days for its first India Ideas Summit in Washington last year. Over 50 dynamic speakers, 10 panels focused on trade and connectivity between the United States and India, and across the Indo-Pacific.

The Summit also featured the 2nd annual USIBC startup pitch competition, designed to connect under-represented entrepreneurs with investment and mentorship.
CHICAGO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Envestnet, Inc. (NYSE: ENV) announces that Dani Fava has joined the firm as Head of Strategic Development. In her newly created role, Ms. Fava will work closely with business, product, and client-facing teams to identify, analyze, and prioritize transformative opportunities to expand and deliver on Envestnet's strategic roadmap.

Ms. Fava reports to Rich Aneser, Group Head of Strategy at Envestnet, who came aboard in the first quarter of this year to build Envestnet's new Strategy Office. The group partners with teams across Envestnet to manage strategic development, engagement, and planning across the organization, including organic cross-functional efforts, external partnerships, inorganic M&A, and evaluation of growth opportunities.

"Since our establishment 20 years ago, Envestnet has helped advisors stay one step ahead of the ever-evolving wealth management industry," said Bill Crager, CEO of Envestnet. "Dani and the other members of our Strategy Office will work closely with teams across our organization to respond proactively to industry trends, and ensure the needs of advisors and their clients continue to drive the financial wellness network we are building."

Ms. Fava most recently served as Director of Institutional Innovation at TD Ameritrade Institutional, where she managed the launch of the iRebal portfolio rebalancing solution on the Veo platform, and the Model Market Center. She was also responsible for rolling out TD Ameritrade's voice-first capabilities, which deploy conversational AI for communicating with advisors. Prior to joining TD Ameritrade in 2012, Ms. Fava was a Senior Product Manager and Strategist at Fiserv.

Ms. Fava, who has more than 15 years of wealth management and technology experience, was named to the 2020 IA25 by ThinkAdvisor, which also honored her as one of the Top Women in WealthTech for 2019. She graduated from Wagner College with a Bachelor of Science in Finance.

"Cutting-edge technology and strategic partnerships make it possible for Envestnet to grow and implement its vision to make financial wellness a reality for more people," said Dani Fava, Head of Strategic Development at Envestnet. "I have been able to get to know Envestnet's unified technology platform through our deep integrations over the years, and look forward to working with the other members of the Envestnet team to make sure our entire organization remains at the forefront of innovation."

About Envestnet

Envestnet, Inc. (NYSE: ENV) is transforming the way financial advice and wellness are delivered. Our mission is to empower advisors and financial service providers with innovative technology, solutions, and intelligence to make financial wellness a reality for everyone. Over 103,000 advisors across more than 4,900 companies including 16 of the 20 largest U.S. banks, 46 of the 50 largest wealth management and brokerage firms, over 500 of the largest RIAs, and hundreds of FinTech companies, leverage the Envestnet platform to grow their businesses and client relationships.

For more information on Envestnet, please visit www.envestnet.com, subscribe to our blog, and follow us on Twitter (@ENVintel) and LinkedIn.

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Politics are real. Politics sets priorities between competing public interests. The process is never perfect. It gets ugly when existing political interests work against your individual rights.

Lets take an easy example first. Suppose you want to gather people together and voice your opinions. The government says you need a permit for a public gathering. The rationale is that we dont want several groups trying to use the same space at the same time. Now you learn that there is a permit process, a required interview, and an application fee. The bureaucrats say they are busy and schedule your interview for nine months from now due to Covid-19. Clearly, your right of free speech has been infringed.

Things like that happen more often and in more ways than wed like to admit. The reasons are easy to understand. Politicians dont want the protesters complaints voiced in public. The news media might pick up the story and amplify the citizens concerns. Politicians dont want to see a large group of passionate people expressing a clear and compelling message. The politician might have to change how public resources are spent because that will upset the existing interests that got the politician elected.

Scheduling a demonstration on public property was first called a public safety concern but it was quickly manipulated by politicians to serve their personal interests. When politicians restrict the right of free expression, many protesters simply bypass bureaucratic roadblocks and hold illegal assemblies.

That was an easy example of public policy. Now Ill make the example more difficult, but no less hard to swallow.... .....
Rohingya wear masks and maintain social distance as a precaution against COVID-19, while waiting to receive goods from volunteers in Kuala Lumpur, April 7, 2020.

A court in northern Malaysias Kedah state threw out a lower courts ruling that 27 Rohingya be caned for entering country illegally, calling it inhumane to punish refugees with strokes from a rattan stick, their lawyer said Wednesday.

Alor Setar High Court Judge Arik Sanusi heard from a lawyer representing the Rohingya and a deputy public prosecutor before delivering his decision Wednesday, according defense attorney Collin Andrew.

Andrew said Judge Arik based his decision on the Rohingyas status as refugees and noted the situation in Myanmars Rakhine state, the home of the stateless Muslim minority group.

These persons are Rohingya refugees who are in need of international protection due to the persecution faced by them.  As a result and in line with the international principle of non-refoulement, they cannot be returned, Andrew told BenarNews, quoting from Judge Ariks ruling.

The judge cited several other grounds including that the Rohingya were not habitual offenders nor were they violent, so it was inhumane to punish them this way, according to the lawyer.

Judge Arik also said that these persons are registered with UNHCR as refugees, a sentence of whipping will only add to their sufferings, Andrew said.

The judge also instructed that six 17-year-old Rohingya who are serving seven months for entering the country illegally be released to UNHCR  the United Nations refugee agency  upon completion of their sentences on July 27.



The Rohingya were charged on March 23 with illegal entry under the Immigration Act.

On June 23, 40 Rohingya pleaded guilty after the charges were read before Magistrate Mohd Ridzuan Salleh in Langkawi Magistrate court, the Malay daily newspaper Sinar Harian reported, basing its information on a statement from the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency. Langkawi is a district of Kedah.

It reported that the magistrate had sentenced 31 men to seven months in jail and three lashes each and nine women to seven months in jail.

On Wednesday, Andrew said the number of men sentenced to be caned was just 27, adding they were not represented by an attorney when their case first went before the magistrates court.

I applied for the court appeal on July 6 when I found out about the sentence, he said.

The Immigration Act allows for fines, imprisonment of five years and caning for those convicted of entering Malaysia illegally. According to Andrew, judges in previous decisions had said they reserved canings in cases where there were acts of violence, those sentenced were habitual offenders or had threatened public order. His 27 Rohingya clients did not meet any of those criteria, he said.



Decision applauded

Jerald Joseph of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) said the judge was right.

This is definitely good news and the right direction to go when it comes to refugees, the judge also recognized that they are refugees and took note of their situation, Joseph told BenarNews.

While applauding the ruling, Joseph questioned the authorities decision to address the matter judicially instead of the usual method for dealing with refugees. He said the normal action was to detain them in immigration depots pending documentation and registration with the UNHCR.

That is the most logical thing to do since we cannot deport them, cannot send them back to Myanmar and also cannot send them back to Bangladesh. So why not keep the same procedure? asked Joseph.

Advocacy group Amnesty International (AI) welcomed the news but in a statement called on the government to release all Rohingya who are jailed, calling their detention not justifiable amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even before the pandemic, detention solely for immigration purposes was only allowable in the most exceptional of circumstances. In the present global public health crisis, migration-related detention is not justifiable, AI Malaysia Researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard said.

Similarly, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW)  in a statement issued before the high court judge in Alor Setar ruled against the canings  called for authorities to stop prosecuting Rohingya refugees over illegal entry and ensure they are protected in accordance with international law.

Phil Robertson, HRWs deputy Asia director, said the original punishment was brutal and would constitute torture under international human rights law.

Malaysia is unlawfully treating as criminals people who fled atrocities in Myanmar. Rohingya arriving by boat should be considered as refugees who have a right to protection under international law, he said.

Malaysia is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its Protocol and there is no legislative or administrative framework for dealing with refugees. Instead, everyone entering the country illegally are lumped together as illegal migrants.

Wednesdays ruling came a day after the Malaysian coast guard arrested 25 undocumented Rohingya at a safe house controlled by a human trafficking syndicate on Langkawi Island, within hours of their arrival aboard a boat, officials said. Also arrested were two Rohingya smugglers.

The 25 were taken to immigration transit houses while the smugglers were detained under remand by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for allegedly attempting to bribe enforcement authorities to release the migrants.



Officials from Malaysias new government had earlier indicated that the country would not take in more Rohingya refugees, and they were planning to send 269 who had landed in Langkawi in June back to the sea once their boat was fixed.

But Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin recently said that this was not the case.

The government had never planned on sending the Rohingya illegal immigrants back out to the open sea, he said in a written response to a parliamentary inquiry earlier this month.



Nisha David in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
As the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine has been at the forefront of the states coronavirus pandemic response. This has led to criticism about her handling of the response, along with frequent insults and derision for her identity as a transgender woman.

But despite the personal attacks, Levine has kept her attention on her job, not her critics. And that job is trying to keep everyone healthy - including those who have targeted her for abuse or mockery.

My only reaction is that I am going to stay, no matter what happens, laser-focused on protecting the public health in Pennsylvania, Levine said at an event at WellSpan York Hospital on Tuesday. Our vision at the Pennsylvania Department of Health is a healthy Pennsylvania for all. And Im going to do absolutely everything I can to achieve that, whether people agree with me, or if they dont agree with me. Their health is still important to me.

Levines comments were the only response given by the secretary to questions about a recent controversy, which arose after photos were shared from at a fundraiser held at the Bloomsburg Fair. The fundraiser, designed to raise money for area fire companies, included a dunk tank where a man wore a dress and wig, and a post to the Bloomsburg Fair Facebook page implied that the man was meant to resemble Dr. Levine.

READ MORE: Bloomsburg Fair fundraiser dunk tank targeting Rachel Levine criticized as transphobic

The man was identified by the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg as Main Township fire Chief David Broadt, who said he was initially going for a Marylin Monroe look, a sentiment echoed by a statement from the Bloomsburg Fair. However, the idea later changed while the dunk tank was in operation, as shown by the Bloomsburg Fairs Facebook post

Dr. Levine? Thank you. You were a hit and raised a lot of money for the local fire companies, the post read. It went on to say Wonder why so many were trying to dunk you with a smiling emoji, suggesting disapproval or dissatisfaction with Levine and the states handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Both Broadt and the Bloomsburg Fair spokespeople have denied any insult was intended to Dr. Levine based on her gender.

The post was quickly removed from the Bloomsburg Fairs Facebook page, but the images were saved and the dunk tank condemned by many on social media, including the NEPA Rainbow Alliance and Bloomsburg University.

The dunk tank is not an isolated incident: the secretary has been the target of recent public examples of misgendering, including by a reporter from a Pittsburg radio station and a township commissioner from Allegheny County (who has since resigned).

But Levine is also not without support from public officials, including Pennsyvlania State Representative Brian Sims and US Senator Bob Casey.

Dr. Levine is an honorable public servant whose tireless work to keep PA safe and healthy has saved countless lives. She is owed an apology. https://t.co/VMzwuDn6Ue  Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) July 21, 2020

Her position as a high-profile transgender woman in a position of authority during a major health crisis has drawn the attention of national news outlets.

People fear what they dont understand, and obviously they have a heightened sense of fear and anxiety given the uncertainties of our times, Levine said in an interview with NBC. I hope that by being a public figure and being secretary of health during this public health crisis, that that educates people about LGBTQ individuals and transgender individuals  and if they are educated, then they fear less. Thus, they get less angry, and thus, they hate less.

At a press event on Tuesday, representatives from the Bloomsburg Fair stated on behalf of the Bloomsburg Fair Association Board of Directors, our sincerest apologies how out to Dr. Levine, our shareholders, our sponsors and others for this serious lapse in judgment. The representatives also stated that the firemans carnival also served as a learning experience, and that officials have set a deadline of August 1 for deciding if the Bloomsburg Fair would be held this year, or canceled due of the pandemic.
CHICAGORealtor Kate McClelland knew she was in for surprises when she moved into the city from the suburbs.

Turns out, the north-side neighbourhood of Mayfair turned out to be a happy discovery for the suburbanite who had just divorced.

I ended up with neighbours on either side of me who sort of decided that they were going to help take care of me, McClelland said.

A neighbour down the street makes it a point to text her when she has a package on her porch or when her daughters vehicle is parked in the wrong spot on street-cleaning day. The son of another neighbour clears her snow with his snow blower. And the care is reciprocated. McClelland rakes leaves in a neighbours yard when doing her own. She has delivered baked goods to neighbours when shes stress-baking and bonded over political signs with a young couple down the street.

The neighbours on my block watch out for each other, McClelland said. Its like a microcosm of the melting pot of Chicago, and everybody gets along.

Neighbours have an impact on happiness. According to a 2018 study by the American Association of Retired Persons, getting to know the neighbours can help reduce loneliness. The study found 61 per cent of adults aged 45 and older who have never spoken to a neighbour are lonely, compared with 33 per cent of those who have.

I think that people have different ideas, depending on what their experience has been about what neighbours are good for, what theyre bad for, and how much attention to pay to them, said Julienne Derichs, a licensed, clinical professional counsellor in Chicago.

If you feel disconnected in your environment, that does impact happiness, said Derichs. What we know about happiness is, when people are connected with other people, their levels of happiness go up.

Alex Smith, founder and CEO of The Cares Family, a U.K.-based organization aimed at reducing loneliness across generational divides, said that urban living can contribute to people feeling alone.

One of the things that makes big cities amazing are there are people and cultures from every corner on Earth, and that draws people as well as the economic and cultural opportunities. But that same transience and speed in the city is what is increasingly leaving people feeling left out, left behind and lonely, said Smith.

Neighbour relationships can keep a resident from leaving a community  even with major life changes. McClelland has seen clients who had a new baby refuse to move to a more appropriate space because their sense of belonging and connection to their neighbours is tangible.

We dont always like to be around people, but we do always want people to be around, Smith said. Relationships lift us up, particularly in times of challenge and times of change.

Derichs encourages individuals to recognize people in their neighbourhoods, and interact  safely  with those who may be different. The counsellor suggests simply making eye contact, smiling and saying hello, when you see your neighbours and people in your neighbourhood; it offers an opportunity to connect with them.

Its the micro-moments that we have in life that bring us happiness.
On Wednesday, July 22, Philadelphia held hearings on whether the statue of Christopher Columbus should be removed from its place of prominence and honor in the heart of the citys Italian-American community to a storage facility. Many voices were heard, many stories were told, and the statue still stands. Regardless of what the city decides, either through its Arts Commission, or the Historical Commission, or by edict from the mayor, it is likely that the statue will remain in its decades-long home when the snows begin to fall.

That is because the so-called consensus that Columbus was a genocidal racist, and that his stone effigy is a public danger, and that Italian Americans should be ashamed to cling to his memory, is a fabrication that has taken hold of the gullible. And gullible people tear down statues in the heat of the moment, or vandalize them to feed their righteous (but misplaced ) indignation. They are no match for those who understand order, process, dignity and the power of the law.

As I listened to those who represented the city and the mayor in their attempt to erase and relocate uncomfortable history, it became quite clear that the facts were ignored, or at the very least manufactured. The Art Commissions process for accepting comments about what the Columbus statue meant to Philadelphia and Philadelphians allowed multiple comments from people who self-identified, which basically means that there is absolutely no way to gauge the authenticity of the response. I say that because, amazingly, the commission announced that a review of the responses on their website showed that 80 percent of the residents in South Philadelphia area codes of 19145 and 19148, closest to Marconi Plaza, were opposed to the Columbus statue and wanted that removed. Eighty percent? Really? Can it be that the vast majority of Italian Americans, the sons and granddaughters and great grandsons of Italian immigrants supported the erasure of their history? To call that doubtful is to consider St. Thomas the Doubter a profile in certitude.

That was just one example of the disinformation being disseminated by those who are afraid of independent thinkers, and who fear transparency.

From the beginning of this controversy, ever since George Floyds murder triggered a national reckoning on race and racism, there has been a troubling trend toward burning down the structures and institutions that are imperfect, but not fundamentally poisoned. The problem is that far too many people arent willing to do the work, the heavy lifting, the difficult balancing of competing honors and heritage that make hiding and erasing and destroying anathema. We owe ourselves, and those who will come in the future, those we will never know, at least that much.

Sadder than shutting out voices is pretending to give them a forum, but then muting them with flawed processes. The Arts Commission, which was appointed by the mayor who has shown animus and hostility toward Italian Americans through his words and actions, is creature of Kenney. Therefore, it is difficult to believe that there were minds open to preserving the statue at that hearing. Nonetheless, the commissioners were forced to listen to many Philadelphians who treasured their heritage and history, and who refused to be labeled vigilantes for simply defending their birthright (which is, after all, the birthright of everyone who believes that history should not be rewritten to appease the aggrieved). Here is what I told them:

The statue means several things to me as an attorney, an Italian, a Catholic, a Philadelphian, and a woman who appreciates the sacred nature of history, as it happened, not as it is reimagined from a distance of decades and centuries. It represents the single most important event in the history of western civilization, namely, the expansion of society beyond the European circle, and an understanding that the earth was, in fact, not flat. It represents the majestic history of Italian wayfarers, who courageously brought the culture and rich traditions of the Old World to the New, and permitted the blending of those cultures to create a new and unique society. It represents a system of order, the extension of legal processes and systems to world where no order previously existed. It represents the sharing of a faith system that was monotheistic, to the reaches of a world that did not yet have its benefit. It represents the proudest of Philadelphia traditions, part of my Italian-American heritage, something which instills me with pride. And as an immigration attorney who values and cherishes the immigrant traditions of all people and resists and rejects the demonization of one group by another, based on misrepresentation, the continued vitality and existence of a statue that honors Italian immigrants in this city is an imperative. In effect, to pull it down is a crime of moral and ethical magnitude. That is what the statue means to me, Christine Flowers.

The statue should not be moved to a private location, where it can be hidden from public view. To do so is a tacit admission that there is something wrong with the people and the traditions that are represented by this symbol, and a direct attempt to demean their status in a pluralistic community, and in a city to which they have contributed infinitely, and well.

And let me close with this statement from Martin Neimoller, since we are talking about Italians today, and perhaps others, tomorrow:

They first came for the communists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didnt speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.

They likely didnt listen. But words do not need to be heeded, to be heard.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a resident of Delaware County. Her column usually appears on Sunday. Email her at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
New Delhi, July 22 : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday commended India for banning 59 Chinese apps including TikTok citing a serious security risk even as he launched a scathing attack on China, saying that Beijing cannot threaten countries and "bully them in the Himalayas".

Pompeo said, "India has a chance to divert global supply chains away from China and reduce reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecom, medical supplies and others. India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations including the US." Pompeo was addressing the India Ideas Summit.

In a reference to the India-China border standoff, Pompeo accused Beijing of bullying its neighbours and blamed it for instigating the deadly confrontation with India in eastern Ladakh.

He also referred to the recent clashes initiated by China's PLA calling them examples of the Communist Party of China's "unacceptable behaviour". He also expressed condolences on the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in the Galwan valley clash.

"We think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order.

"You cannot go make claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. You cannot threaten countries and bully them in the Himalayas. You cannot engage in cover-ups and co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organisation," the top US diplomat said earlier on Wednesday.

"The CPC's exploitation of this disaster to further its own interests has been disgraceful. Rather than helping the world, General Secretary Xi Jinping has shown the world the party's true face. We talked about how we have seen Hong Kong's freedoms crushed. We have watched the CPC bully its neighbours, militarise features in the South China Sea, and instigate a deadly confrontation with India," Pompeo said.

The top US diplomat urged the international community to "work together to ensure that every country, including China, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate and consistent with the international order".

He stressed on the need of international cooperation in the face of Chinese overreach. "Important that democracies like ours work together at a time when we see true scope of challenge posed by the Chinese Communist Party," he said.

"I am happy to report that India is a rising US defence and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally," he added.

Addressing the event, US Ambassador to India Ken Juster said, "No one wants to have conflict in the region (Indo-Pacific region). We want it to be an inclusive vision but we're going to need to work with trusted and likeminded partners to develop guidelines, redlines and other ways to fulfill the vision we share for the Indo-Pacific region." Indian envoy to the US T.S. Sandhu said that President Donald Trump's visit to India in February this year has helped elevate the relationship to a comprehensive global strategic partnership. "The world has changed a lot since then. There has been expanded collaboration between our countries in health & vaccine development," he said.
PLAYA VISTA, CA - July 22, 2020 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Water /nanotech stocks news American Premium Water Corporation (OTC: HIPH) (the "Company") announced today that it has entered into an investment and distribution agreement with BioHealth Water Inc. ("BioHealth Water"), a newly formed wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore eDevelopment Limited (SGX:40V). BioHealth Water has acquired 9.99% of the total issued and paid-up stock capital of the Company, as well as both exclusive international distribution rights and non-exclusive domestic distribution rights for the Companys products. BioHealth Water will focus on distributing the Companys aerosolized sanitizing machines throughout hospitals and hotels, as well as focusing on distributing to businesses affected by the pandemic. The Company will also develop and launch two new products using its proprietary Hydro Nano technology.

Ryan Fishoff, CEO of American Premium Water, commented, "I am excited to announce the investment and partnership agreement with BioHealth Water. This is a monumental deal for the company, as it solidifies the beginning of a partnership for American Premium Water that will execute many of the strategic initiatives that I established at the beginning of the year. I have always believed that our proprietary Hydro Nano technology is a unique and undervalued asset that the company possesses, and I believe that this transaction validates the power of this technology."

The Company announced in April that it developed a prototype of an aerosolized sanitizing machine using its proprietary Hydro Nano technology. In addition to this device, American Premium Water will be producing two new proprietary products utilizing its Hydro-Nano technology: Nano Energy Water, which creates natural energy by increasing blood flow upon ingestion, and Nitrous Oxide Energy Shots, a natural alternative to caffeine, which stimulates the blood vessels to expand, resulting in increased blood flow and stimulation after ingestion. Both products are expected to be released this year.

Chan Heng Fai, Chairman and CEO of Singapore eDevelopment, commented, "I am very excited to partner with American Premium Water and its management team. American Premium Water has extraordinary technology that can create products with real impact. I look forward to working with Ryan and his team to create many new products utilizing their technology to be sold across our HWH global distribution network (www.hwhworld.com). Right away I see a lot of opportunity with the sanitizing machine. There are so many small businesses that need a product to help bring back a sense of normalcy, especially to restaurants, stores, and other retail-based businesses. This agreement is the start of what I foresee to be a very prosperous relationship. I see a lot of potential growth for American Premium Water, and I believe with the help of our team we can make this another successful turnaround like other companies in which we have invested."

About American Premium Water Corp.

American Premium Water (OTC: HIPH) is a diversified luxury consumer products company focused on businesses in the health and beauty and biotech sectors. The company is focused on harnessing the powers of Nano technologies paired without cannabidiol (CBD) to treat health disorders and enhance quality of life. The companys portfolio includes the LALPINA Hydro and LALPINA CBD brands (www.lalpinahydrocbd.com), Gents (www.gentsco.com), Vanexxe (www.vanexxe.com) plant + body essentials (www.plantbodyessentials.com).

About Singapore eDevelopment Limited

Incorporated on 9 September 2009 and listed on the Singapore Exchange in July 2010, Singapore eDevelopment Limited is involved in (i) property development and investments primarily in the United States and Western Australia; (ii) information technology-related businesses; (iii) development, research, testing, manufacturing, licensing and distribution of biomedical products; and (iv) investment activities. For more information on SeD visit www.sed.com.sg.

Safe Harbor Notice

Certain statements contained herein are "forward-looking statements" (as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). American Premium Water Corporation cautions that statements made in this news release constitute forward-looking statements and makes no guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management at the time statements are made. These statements may address issues that involve significant risks, uncertainties, estimates and assumptions made by management. Actual results could differ materially from current projections or implied results. American Premium Water Corporation undertakes no obligation to revise these statements following the date of this news release. Additional details of the Company's business can be found in its public disclosures as a reporting issuer under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC") EDGAR database.

This press release is issued on behalf of the Board of Directors of American Premium Water Corporation.

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Coronavirus doesnt discriminate, but people of color in Oregon are more likely to be essential workers or have health conditions that can put them at greater risk. And the data show those communities are, in fact, bearing the brunt of the pandemic.

On the latest episode of Beat Check with The Oregonian, reporter Celina Tebor discusses how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting a wide range of communities of color in the state.

We talked about her reporting on the Pacific Islander community, which is perhaps the hardest hit, and how health officials and community leaders are racing to try and address the crisis.

We also discussed her reporting on the Bhutanese refugee community in the metro area and how it is faring, and how Newports fishing industry was hard hit by the virus and why Lincoln County was well-prepared to respond to the indigenous Latinx community there.

Heres the full episode.

-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation (Abacus or the Company) (TSXV: AME) is pleased to announce a non-brokered private placement (Offering) for proceeds of up to $600,000 through the issuance of 6,000,000 units ("Units") at a price of $0.10 per Unit. Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company and one half of a non-transferable common share purchase warrant, with each warrant exercisable to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of $0.15 per common share for a period of 2 years from the date of closing of the financing.



Proceeds from the financing will be applied towards a program of geophysics and drilling at the Company's Jersey Valley gold property in Nevada as well as for general working capital. Recent reinterpretation of historic geophysics at Jersey Valley has demonstrated the existence of compelling, open along strike, untested targets, which led to an approximate doubling of the staked claim group.

Jersey Valley is prospective for both intrusion-related sediment hosted, and for epithermal precious metal mineralization. The property is located within north-central Nevada within the Battle Mountain trend, in close proximity to both the Phoenix/Fortitude mine complex (approximately 14 Moz gold plus significant Ag and Cu past production and a proposed mine life to 2063) and the Cove/McCoy Mine: 3.4 Moz gold and 110 Moz Ag past production. (Past production data is from the Newmont Mines and Premier Gold Mines websites. The reader is cautioned that the mineralization hosted on nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization hosted on the Companys Jersey Valley gold property). The Jersey Valley property has a well-maintained sealed road running through it, which provides access to a 15 MW geothermal power plant located on the edge of the claim group.

The Company also holds options and leases on the Willow and adjacent Nev-Lorraine copper-molybdenum properties in Nevada, and a carried interest in the advanced Ajax copper-gold development project in B.C.

The Willow and adjacent Nev-Lorraine copper-molybdenum properties are in the Yerington copper camp, southeast of Reno, Nevada. Drilling by the Company in 2018 intersected a key intrusive rock unit on Willow that hosts all known porphyry Cu-Mo deposits at Yerington. This rock unit was not previously known to exist on the Companys property, and it represents a key new discovery. The target is large and robust, and it remains essentially untested.

The Company also continues to advance its Ajax copper-gold project, located near Kamloops, British Columbia. Abacus holds a 20% ownership interest in the project, which is managed by base metal major KGHM Polska Miedz S.A., who hold the remaining 80%. The Ajax Project contains significant quantities of copper and gold, within a NI 43-101 Proven and Probable Mineral Reserve of 426 Mt at 0.29% Cu, 0.19 g/t Au and 0.39 g/t Ag. Contained metal is in the order of 2.7 Bil lbs Cu, 2.6 Moz Au and 5.3 Moz Ag*. KGHM have begun the process of re-engaging the project stakeholders geared toward potentially resubmitting the environmental application for the project.

The financing is subject to TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) approval. In connection with the offering, certain finders may receive a cash fee and/or non-transferable finder warrants. All securities issued will be subject to a four month hold period under Canadian securities law.

The Offering is being offered to existing shareholders of Abacus who are permitted to subscribe pursuant to British Columbia Instrument 45-534  Exemption from Prospectus Requirement for Certain Trades to Existing Security Holders (the Existing Shareholder Exemption), as well as under other available prospectus exemptions. Any existing shareholders interested in participating in the Offering under the Existing Shareholder Exemption should contact the Company at the contact information set out below in order to determine whether they are eligible to participate. Unless the Company increases the size of the Offering, if subscriptions received for the Offering (based on all available exemptions) exceed the maximum Offering amount of $600,000, Units will be allocated pro rata among all subscribers qualifying under all available exemptions.

The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul G. Anderson, M.Sc., P.Geo., a Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101.

* Wardrop Engineering Inc. 2012. Ajax Copper/Gold Project, Kamloops, British Columbia  Feasibility Study Technical Report. Doc. No. 1054610300-REP-R0004-02. January 2012.

On Behalf of the Board,

ABACUS MINING & EXPLORATION CORPORATION

Paul G. Anderson

President and COO

About Abacus

Abacus is a mineral exploration and mine development company currently focused on its optioned Willow copper-gold property located near Yerington, Nevada in which it can acquire up to a 75% ownership interest, and the contiguous Nev-Lorraine claims subject to a ten-year lease agreement. The Company also holds a 20% ownership interest, together with KGHM Polska Meidz S.A. (80%), in the proposed copper-gold Ajax Mine located southwest of Kamloops, B.C., which has recently undergone a joint provincial and federal environmental assessment process. On December 14, 2017, a decision was made by the B.C. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum resources to decline to issue an environmental assessment certificate for the Project. For the latest reports and information on Abacus projects, please refer to the Companys website at www.amemining.com .

Forward-Looking Information

This release includes certain statements that are deemed forward-looking statements. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that Abacus expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward- looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words expects, plans, anticipates, believes, intends, estimates, projects, potential and similar expressions, or that events or conditions will, would, may, could or should occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include changes to commodity prices, mine and metallurgical recovery, operating and capital costs, foreign exchange rates, ability to obtain required permits on a timely basis, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward- looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
QIAGEN N.V. (NYSE: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) announced today the publication of its Supplemental Reasoned Position Statement in response to the amended Offer Document published by Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc (NYSE: TMO) on July 17, 2020. The Offer Document relates to the recommended offer by Thermo Fisher to fully acquire all issued ordinary shares in QIAGEN for an increased offer price of 43.00 per QIAGEN share in cash, as announced on July 16, 2020.

QIAGEN has published the Supplemental Reasoned Position Statement of the Managing Board and the Supervisory Board in accordance with Section 27 para. 3 in connection with Section 14 para. 3 of the German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act (Wertpapiererwerbs- und Ubernahmegesetz) and Section 18 para. 2 in connection with Annex G of the Dutch Public Offer Decree (Besluit openbare biedingen Wft

The Supplemental Reasoned Position Statement, together with the Reasoned Position Statement already published on May 18, 2020, provides in detail the underlying financial and non-financial aspects and the overall circumstances which the Managing Board and Supervisory Board considered when reaffirming their unanimous recommendation of the offer and their unanimous recommendation that all QIAGEN shareholders accept and tender all of their QIAGEN shares in the offer prior to the end of the acceptance period on August 10, 2020. Each of the members of the Supervisory Board and Managing Board has tendered or will tender all of their QIAGEN shares in the offer.

The English and German version of the statement is published on QIAGEN's website at http://www.qiagen.com/investors. Copies of the German version of the statement can also be obtained free of charge by contacting QIAGEN via e-mail at IR@qiagen.com or by telephone at +49 (0)2103 29 11709.

About QIAGEN

QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, is the leading global provider of Sample to Insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life. Our sample technologies isolate and process DNA, RNA and proteins from blood, tissue and other materials. Assay technologies make these biomolecules visible and ready for analysis. Bioinformatics software and knowledge bases interpret data to report relevant, actionable insights. Automation solutions tie these together in seamless and cost-effective workflows. QIAGEN provides solutions to more than 500,000 customers around the world in Molecular Diagnostics (human healthcare) and Life Sciences (academia, pharma R&D and industrial applications, primarily forensics). As of June 30, 2020, QIAGEN employed approximately 5,200 people in over 35 locations worldwide. Further information can be found at http://www.qiagen.com.

Forward Looking Statement

Certain statements contained in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. To the extent that any of the statements contained herein relating to the recommended offer by Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. and the expected benefits related to the proposed transaction are forward-looking, such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that involve a number of uncertainties and risks. Such uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with management of growth and international operations (including the effects of currency fluctuations, regulatory processes and dependence on logistics); variability of operating results and allocations between customer classes; the commercial development of markets for our products to customers in academia, pharma, applied testing and molecular diagnostics; changing relationships with customers, suppliers and strategic partners; competition; rapid or unexpected changes in technologies; fluctuations in demand for QIAGEN's products (including fluctuations due to general economic conditions, the level and timing of customers' funding, budgets and other factors); our ability to obtain regulatory approval of our products; difficulties in successfully adapting QIAGEN's products to integrated solutions and producing such products; the ability of QIAGEN to identify and develop new products and to differentiate and protect our products from competitors' products; market acceptance of QIAGEN's new products and the integration of acquired technologies and businesses; actions of governments, global or regional economic developments, weather or transportation delays, natural disasters, political or public health crises, including the breadth and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the demand for our products and other aspects of our business, or other force majeure events; as well as the possibility that expected benefits related to recent or pending acquisitions, including the pending acquisition by Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., may not materialize as expected; and the other factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in Item 3 of our most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F. For further information, please refer to the discussions in reports that QIAGEN has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Additional Information and Where to Find It

This communication is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell any ordinary shares of QIAGEN or any other securities, nor is it a substitute for the tender offer materials that Thermo Fisher or its acquisition subsidiary file with the SEC and publish in Germany. The terms and conditions of the tender offer are published in, and the offer to purchase ordinary shares of QIAGEN is made only pursuant to, the offer document as permitted for publication by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht) and related offer materials prepared by Thermo Fisher and its acquisition subsidiary, including the amendment of the offer. The offer document and related offer materials have been published in Germany and filed with the SEC in a tender offer statement on Schedule TO on May 18, 2020, as amended from time to time. The amendment of the offer has been published in Germany and filed with the SEC in an amendment to the tender offer statement on Schedule TO on July 17, 2020. QIAGEN has filed a solicitation/recommendation statement on Schedule 14D-9 with the SEC with respect to the tender offer on May 18, 2020, as amended from time to time; in addition, QIAGEN has published a document combining the recommendation statement pursuant to Sec. 27 of the German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act (Wertpapiererwerbs- und Ubernahmegesetz, "WpUG") and the position statement (gemotiveerde standpuntbepaling) pursuant to Section 18 and appendix G of the Dutch Decree on Public Takeovers (Besluit Openbare Biedingen). In addition, on July 22, 2020, QIAGEN has published a supplement to the solicitation/recommendation statement, which QIAGEN filed with an amendment to its solicitation/recommendation statement on Schedule 14D-9 with the SEC. The offer document for the tender offer and the amendment of the offer (in German and in English) containing the detailed terms and conditions of, and other information relating to, the tender offer, among other things, are published on the internet at https://corporate.thermofisher.com/en/offer.html.

Acceptance of the tender offer by shareholders that are resident outside Germany and the United States may be subject to further legal requirements. With respect to the acceptance of the tender offer outside Germany and the United States, no responsibility is assumed for the compliance with such legal requirements applicable in the respective jurisdiction.

THE TENDER OFFER MATERIALS (INCLUDING THE OFFER DOCUMENT, A RELATED LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL AND CERTAIN OTHER TENDER OFFER DOCUMENTS), THE SOLICITATION/RECOMMENDATION STATEMENT ON SCHEDULE 14D-9 AND QIAGEN'S RECOMMENDATION STATEMENT PURSUANT TO SEC. 27 WPUG AND POSITION STATEMENT (GEMOTIVEERDE STANDPUNTBEPALING) PURSUANT TO SECTION 18 AND APPENDIX G OF THE DUTCH DECREE ON PUBLIC TAKEOVERS (BESLUIT OPENBARE BIEDINGEN), AS THEY MAY BE AMENDED FROM TIME TO TIME,CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. INVESTORS AND SHAREHOLDERS OF QIAGEN ARE URGED TO READ THESE DOCUMENTS CAREFULLY BECAUSE THEY, AND NOT THIS DOCUMENT, GOVERN THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE TENDER OFFER, AND BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION THAT SUCH PERSONS SHOULD CONSIDER BEFORE MAKING ANY DECISION REGARDING TENDERING THEIR ORDINARY SHARES.

The tender offer materials, including the offer document, the amendment of the offer and the related letter of transmittal and certain other tender offer documents, and the solicitation/recommendation statement, the supplemental solicitation/recommendation statement and other documents filed with the SEC by Thermo Fisher or QIAGEN, may be obtained free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or at QIAGEN's website at www.qiagen.com or by contacting QIAGEN's investor relations department at 240-686-2222 or at Thermo Fisher's website at www.thermofisher.com or by contacting Thermo Fisher's investor relations department at 781-622-1111. In addition, Thermo Fisher's tender offer statement and other documents filed with the SEC are available at https://ir.thermofisher.com/investors. Furthermore, copies of the offer document and the amendment of the offer are also available free of charge by contacting D.F. King Co., Inc., Thermo Fisher's information agent for the tender offer.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005384/en/

Contacts:

John Gilardi

Vice President Corporate Communications and Investor Relations

+49 2103 29 11711 and +1 240 686 2222

john.gilardi@qiagen.com
Growing up, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said he was called a "chink." People threw eggs at his home, his family's tires were slashed, and peers would parody the Chinese language to him.

Lieu went on to join the Air Force in 1995 in part, he says, to further assert his Americanness after confronting racism in his younger years. Having immigrated to the United States from Taiwan when he was 3 years old, he says he also did it to give back to his country. Lieu served active duty both in the country and abroad, and says his time in the Air Force, where he remains a colonel in the reserves, was one of many experiences that fueled his desire to speak out in the memorable and impactful ways for which he has become recognized.

Image: Ted Lieu with his mother (Courtesy Lieu Family)

Lieu is now known for acts like calling out internet trolls for stupid racist shit comments about COVID-19. Or playing an audio of crying migrant children, who had been separated from their parents, on the House floor In response to Trumps zero tolerance immigration policy in 2018. The congressman, whos currently running for re-election, cemented his status as a critic of xenophobia and racism in the political sphere. Supporters say Lieus voice is particularly critical at a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric is on the rise.

If I'm not going to be doing things or speaking out, then I should give this job to someone else, he said weeks before the lockdown took hold of the U.S.

For Lieu, the seeds of his bold conduct were planted in his youth, growing up in a working class, Asian American household, and contending with his identity as an immigrant kid. Born in Taiwan, he noted that he now reflects on his Asian American identity with a healthy dose of confidence, his heritage now a source of pride. However his younger years were dusted with uncomfortable experiences that didnt always make the road to self-acceptance so seamless.

Image: Ted Lieu (Courtesy Lieu Family)

As he tells it, Lieus parents settled in Cleveland after looking at a map of the U.S. It was in that city where he would spend his formative years.

Story continues

We were poor, he recalled of his family, who lived in the basement of a womans home in his earliest years stateside. [My parents] did not speak English well and they went to flea markets to sell gifts to make ends meet.

Lieus parents put in the hours, saving up enough money to open a gift store in a shopping plaza. As years passed, packed with long, seven-day workweeks, they were able to gradually expand to six stores, where he and his brother filled their time outside of school, watching over the shops. As he witnessed his mother and father put down roots for his family, doing well enough so they could afford a house of their own, he contended with the reality that the environment wasnt always so welcoming to them.

Image: Ted Lieu with his family (Courtesy Lieu Family)

Growing up where I did, there were times when I was made to feel like I did not belong. That I was a foreigner in my own country, Lieu said.

An unfortunate byproduct of such experiences, he said, was the unease he felt when around his parents native tongue.

I would, as a kid, feel embarrassed about my parents in public settings when they would speak Chinese. Now, I'm proud that they did that, they made me speak Chinese at home because now I can speak Chinese, he said looking back.

Having stomached these disempowering experiences, Lieu said he reacted by demonstrating his loyalty as an American, perhaps looking to the Air Force for acceptance. The military proved a transformative experience for the young Lieu. He noted that it was where he felt seen for his missions and rank, his substance, rather than just his race. It was in the military, Lieu says, where he came into his own and felt humanized beyond two-dimensional Asian American labels. Even now, when Lieu crosses paths with others on an Air Force base, he himself assesses them by rank and service.

Image: Ted Lieu in uniform near the Statue of Liberty (Courtesy Lieu Family)

With a background in the armed forces and an upbringing in an Asian immigrant household, Lieu doesnt necessarily match the profile of a typical internet resistance hero. Yet, his snappy criticisms of the Trump administration have drawn in more than 1.3 million followers.

Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy and political science professor at the University of California, Riverside, explained that Lieu is representative of a new generation of outspoken, activist-savvy Asian American politicians like Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., whove carved similar paths, gaining favor with younger generations and party support alike.

Ted Lieu is emblematic of a new kind of AAPI representation, where he is able to carve out a particular brand that is based in part on his social media savvy and also from his background and expertise in national security, Ramakrishnan said. He has been able to leverage his experience to build a strong following among the Democratic base more generally, and not just among AAPIs or among residents in his district.

Given the time spent away from his family and the sacrifices hes needed to make as a public servant, Lieu said the position would only be worth it if he stayed true to his moral compass and speak my mind and do the right thing. And he has. After GOP congressman Devin Nunes, threatened to sue him earlier this year. Lieu wrote a letter back, telling his colleague to shove it. Even his recent campaign ad was a parody of Trumps attempt to prove his good health at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally in which the president chugged a glass of water after critics had questioned his well-being. Indeed, Lieus been called spicy more than once, and its had nothing to do with his admitted habit of dumping spice onto his food.

Even so, his follower count confounds him.

I find it bizarre that I have as many followers as I have because Im not doing magic. Im just telling you the truth, Lieu said.

His followers have transcended the Asian American community and Lieu regularly backs legislation that benefits those outside of his own race. Ramakrishnan pointed out that though the racial climate in the U.S. makes it difficult to see Lieu as an elected official completely independent of his race, many view the politician as a sharp-witted critic, of the Trump administration on matters related to national security and democratic rule.

Even so, Lieu continues to find duty in representing Asian Americans. On Monday, he led a bipartisan letter from 150 members of Congress demanding Attorney General William Barr publicly condemn acts of anti-Asian bias stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, hes vocally pushed for an added layer of review when it comes to espionage cases so that Asian Americans scholar and scientists, like Sherry Chen and Xiaoxing Xi, are no longer wrongfully accused.

It sort of occurred to me as I was working on this, that it's true that an Irish American member of Congress could have done exactly the same thing that I did. And other non-Asian members could have done the same thing, except no one did, he said. It actually took Asian American Congress [members] to get upset about an issue that was affecting the Asian American community, to then get changed.

For Lieu, working on the espionage-related issue drove home why its important that the American government is stronger if it looks more like the people it actually represents.

As the three-term congressman gears up for re-election, Lieu gets introspective about his time serving constituents. He said his career has always been cause-driven and by continuing to keep his motivations front of mind, hes got through any bad days.

I believe I could never give back to America everything this amazing country has given to me.
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Variably cloudy with snow showers. Some sleet may mix in. High -4C. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 60%..

Tonight

Snow showers this evening. Becoming partly cloudy later. Low -16C. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 50%.
Lemma pioneer in programmatic Digital out of home along with Elevision Media, a leading OOH firm in the UAE blazed a new trail, launching the first programmatic DOOH campaign in Dubai for Microsofts Azures Global cloud. Local presence brand message.

A strategic partnership that utilized Elevisions premium network of large format digital screens &Lemmas programmatic DOOH platform sought to increase relevant exposures through targeted impressions & dynamic ads rendered on 36 large format screens across Dubais premier business district  Dubai International Financial Centre.

Using programmatic technology layered with data enabled targeting decision; the campaign attained higher OTS (opportunity to see) by delivering the ad at the right time to the right set of people. Exposures to ads took place only when the footfall volume was dense, thereby ensuring maximum relevant audience reach for the campaign.

Gulab Patil, Founder & CEO at Lemma, Programmatic technology in OOH is certainly a game changer & advertisers & screen owners who move fast will experience the first mover advantage. This campaign with Microsoft, along with Elevision, displays the unison of data, technology and DOOH screens, highlighting the process efficiencies, optimized spends & improved ROI that can be obtained with a simple integration of Programmatic DOOH as a part of OOH solutions. As pioneers weve consistently delivered campaigns across many countries & are excited about our new beginnings in the Middle East. 

Eamon Sallam, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Elevision Media said It was an exciting campaign to be a part of and we were thrilled to have a chance to deploy our programmatic platform for a world class client such as Microsoft. Content is king in our business, and with the help of the team at Lemma we were able to deliver dynamic, contextual content to a premium audience in the DIFC. Lemmas platform enabled our client to better segment their audience, optimise their budget and helped to deliver great results using Elevisions assets.
In this episode of The Filter Koffee Podcast, noted Bengali author and activist Taslima Nasreen is joined by translator Arunava Sinha; they discuss their individual creative processes.

The Filter Koffee podcast is not an interview. It is a window into the minds of the most interesting people that the host has met  a peek into their craft, passions and convictions. It is about a great conversation  the kind that enhances your worldview from what it was 40 minutes earlier. And much like coffee itself, the ingredients make the experience.

The Filter Koffee Podcast is all about creating those experiences every week through hand-picked guests, who are among the most interesting minds in India. They talk about their journeys, body of work, convictions, inspirations and the tales they lived to tell.

Karthik Nagarajan, cryptographer-turned- researcher-turned- screenwriter-turned-marketer sits down with creators, activists, business leaders, and the occasional neighbour for an unstructured chat

***

Shameless

Taslima Nasreen and Arunava Sinha discuss Nasreen's latest book, Shameless, which was published by HarperCollins as an e-book earlier this year. Shameless is the sequel to the renowned Bengali author's most popular and controversial work, Lajja. Nasreen also talks about living in quarantine with her cat in Delhi, her days in exile away from her homeland Bangladesh and struggles of writing in Bengali away from Bengal. Sinha, who has translated Nasreen's Shameless , details his process of translation. He reveals how he always tries to avoid reading the original book beforehand and instead reads as he translates because he believes then "the discovery process is very raw and that also percolates into the translation."

Taslima Nasreen is a writer, physician, feminist, secular humanist and a human rights activist. She is known for writing on women's oppression and criticism of religion, as a result of which she has been forced into exile for the last 25 years. She is the author of over 40 works of fiction and non-fiction in Bengali which have been published in over 30 different languages worldwide.

Arunava Sinha translates classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction, non-fiction and poetry from India and Bangladesh into English. More than 50 of his translations have been published in India so far. He teaches translation and creative writing at Ashoka University.

Listen to the episode here.

Listen to all the episodes here.
The devastated mother of a 13-year-old girl revealed she tried to take her own life 10 times in two months.

Meron Savage made the excruciating decision to turn off her daughter Kate's life support on Thursday evening, one day after she tried to take her own life.

The teenager was on her way home from therapy at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and had asked to visit the local pet store first.

After the visit, where she seemed 'really happy' she stopped on the a highway in Perth and turned back to look at her parents and sister.

'She stopped at the kerb and turned around to look at us, smiled and she hasn't woken up since,' Ms Savage told 9News on Thursday.

Kate Savage's (pictured) mother turned off her life support on Thursday. Kate had been hospitalised 10 separate times in the last two months alone for trying to take her own life

Kate had been hospitalised 10 separate times in the last two months alone for trying to take her own life.

Each time, she was admitted into a ward for a few days before medical teams determined she was free to leave again.

Ms Savage believes the mental health system in Perth let her daughter down.

'There was nowhere  there is nowhere  for suicidal teens,' she said.

'She was so severely suicidal by then that she was trying to take her life all the time  anything, everything, constantly.

'The crisis was never over. She would come home and she'd have another attempt.'

Ms Savage believes the mental health system in Perth let her daughter down. 'There was nowhere  there is nowhere  for suicidal teens,' she said

Ms Savage faced the heartbreaking decision to turn off her 13 year old Daughter's life support

Ms Savage has vowed to fight for a change to the system in Kate's honour following her tragic death.

The family created a fundraiser to ease the financial burden of Kate's funeral and future therapy.

'Kate has succumbed to her long standing mental illness,' Ms Savage explained on the fundraiser.

'She leaves behind a devastated sister, mother and father each with their own mental illnesses.

'Any donations to help us get through this difficult time and help with funeral and therapy costs would be appreciated.'

Almost 130 people have donated in excess of $11,000 since the fundraiser began.

For confidential help please call Lifeline 13 11 14, BeyondBlue 1300 22 4636 or Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Nargiz Ismayilova - Trend:

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) plans to increase the share of high-quality bonds in 2020 in the portfolio of securities with fixed income, which are characterized by a lower risk of price volatility, Executive Director of SOFAZ Israfil Mammadov told Trend.

Mammadov was answering the question about increasing the share of the state bonds in SOFAZs investment portfolio.

"For this purpose, the corporate bonds are being replaced with state bonds and bonds of state agencies with high credit ratings on the most favorable terms of purchase and sale," executive director said.

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan was established in 1999 with assets of $271 million.

According to the SOFAZ regulations, its funds may be used for the construction and reconstruction of strategically important infrastructure facilities, as well as for addressing important national problems.

The main goals of the State Oil Fund include accumulation of resources and placement of assets abroad in order to minimize the negative effect to the economy, prevention of 'Dutch disease' to some extent, promotion of resource accumulation for future generations and support of current social and economic processes in Azerbaijan.

----

Follow the author on Twitter:@IsmailovaNargis
Thats why the resignation letter of Bari Weiss  a now former writer and editor for the opinion department of The New York Times  is so epic. It doesnt just say what so many of us would like to say on our way out the door. Its also an autopsy, explaining in powerful language what killed opinion journalism at once great newspapers like the Grey Lady.

Weiss wrote in her letter that she was hired by Times publisher Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger to showcase first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home.

The experiment was doomed to fail. The worker ants decided they should have a voice too, and they believed that  because their voices had the added benefit of being progressive  what they had to say was more important than whatever anyone else could offer.
Developing a rich user experience is essential for a higher ed website today...When you help visitors find what they want by optimizing on-site search, theyre more satisfied with their experience on the website.  Michael Stoner, President and Co-Founder

mStoner, Inc. and Funnelback announce the release of a white paper: The State of Site Search on Higher Ed Websites 2020.

The State of Site Search identifies key takeaways from hundreds of surveyed higher ed web and marketing professionals, reviews of the top national liberal arts college websites, and a qualitative analysis of current web practices. This research unearths statistics and observations that will help college and university web professionals provide the best experience for their online visitors and increase conversions.

Key findings include:



43.7% say site visitors use site search  this is a growing trend at the majority of institutions.

74% report website search as a top-five website management pain point, citing old or irrelevant results as the leading issue.

71% note website search is more important to visitors today than in 2016.

According to Michael Stoner, president and co-founder of mStoner and author of the report, Developing a rich user experience is essential for a higher ed website today  and robust on-site search is an important adjunct. When you help visitors find what they want by optimizing on-site search, theyre more satisfied with their experience on the website. More importantly, though, finding what they want quickly can move them to convert. That means that they are more likely to take an action like applying or giving to your institution.

In addition to analyzing what impact a high-quality search function has on institutional websites, The Site Search report also explores the importance of site search on institutional websites, key search tools, pain points for higher education web professionals, best practices for college and university websites, and how personalized search results can help guide visitors to the most important content, ultimately leading to conversions.

Download The State of Site Search on Higher Ed Websites white paper: https://mstnr.me/SiteSearch

About mStoner

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In addition to its embassy in Washington and its mission to the United Nations in New York, China has consulates in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. In an apparent bid to stave off the reciprocal closure of an American diplomatic mission in China, the State Department told the Chinese that it would not reopen its consulate in Wuhan, according to two U.S. officials who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
By Ayya Lmahamad

Some 850 citizens were fined during the past 24 hours across the country for violating the strict quarantine regime, the main traffic police department under the Ministry of Interior reported on July 22.

All 850 were fined according to Article 211.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences. Of them 775 were drivers who failed to follow the quarantine regime requirements and 75 were citizens not using facial masks in the public transport.

In the meantime, 310 cars, which had sought to leave these territories were stopped, and returned back during the reporting period.

Earlier, it was reported that 38,136 citizens were fined in the period of June 21 and July 20 for violating the quarantine regime, 635 drivers were fined during June 14-16 lockdown, while 2,524 drivers were fined during June 6-7 lockdown.

Azerbaijan first introduced quarantine regime on March 24, and on June 18 decision was taken to extend special quarantine regime until August 1.

On July 17, Cabinet of Ministers announced decision to prolong a strict quarantine regime till August 5.

The new lockdown imposed on July 20 to August 5 include Baku, Jalilabad, Ganja, Masalli, Sumgayit, Yevlakh cities and Absheron district, and Goranboy, Goygol, Mingachevir, Barda, Khachmaz, Siyazan and Sheki.

There is a change in the SMS permit system to control the citizens movement. According to the new rules, the duration of the permits have been extended from two to three hours.

The work of beauty salons and barber shops have also been resumed under the new rules.

The work of transportation, will remeain suspended over the weekends  on July 25-27 and August 1-3.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Before you fly out on United Airlines, there are a few new rules to about masking up, even while you're in a Houston airport. If you don't, travelers could actually be banned from flying, according to United Airlines.

"If customers refuse to comply, they may be refused travel and banned from flying at least while the mask requirement is in place," a company statement read. The only passengers now excluded from the policy are children under 2 years old.

TOAST TO PATIOS: Texas breweries now may keep patios partially open again, according to TABC option

The new policy will be effective for all customers traveling on and after July 24, according to United. In June, United took a strict, no-mask, no-travel policy. Any passenger who refused to comply onboard would be placed on an internal travel restriction list. United's aggressive stance on masks began in April when it became the first U.S.-based airline to require flight attendants to wear a face mask while on duty. That mandate was expanded in May.

United's CEO, Scott Kirby reassured passengers that flying is "one of the safest environments you can be in indoors."

"It's not like being in a restaurant or an office building or even a hospital for that matter," Kirby told CNBC. United Airlines also added a new feature onboard--an enhanced ventilation system earlier this week.

Note to travelers: United workers will offer a free mask if customers aren't wearing one. Those who don't comply will receive a reminder card detailing the policy. United stated that they will post plenty of signage throughout the airport to reinforce the new policy.

POST-PANDEMIC FLIGHT: Here's what air travel might look like after the pandemic

"The most important thing any of us can do to slow the spread of the coronavirus is to simply wear a mask when we're around other people," said Kirby. "A mask is about protecting the safety of others, and I'm proud of the aggressive and proactive steps United Airlines has taken to ensure people are wearing a face covering in the airports where we operate and onboard the aircraft we fly."

This new mask policy has plenty of travelers talking on social media. Some are open to the idea, while others are balking at the actual safety onboard planes and the risk of coronavirus spread.

According to United Airlines, passengers will be reminded of its updated face covering policy at numerous points in the travel journey.

"United's extended face mask policy adds another layer of protection for travelers, even before they board an aircraft," said Dr. James Merlino, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Cleveland Clinic. "Wearing a face mask is an incredibly simple measure that we all can take to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

alison.medley@chron.com
Singapore's Health Sciences Authority has approved clinical trials for a coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by Arcturus Therapeutics and Duke-NUS Medical school.

Arcturus, a San Diego, California-based biopharmaceutical company, in partnership with Singapore's Duke-NUS said they will begin human dosing tests as soon as possible.

In a joint statement, the company and medical school said the volunteer study would include up to 108 adults and would examine several dose levels.

Ahead of Arcturus and Duke-NUS' announcement, there were more than 140 candidate vaccines in pre-clinical evaluation and 24 in clinical evaluation, according to the World Health Organization.

In its preclinical data, researchers found that a single 0.2, 2 or 10 microgram dose resulted in neutralizing antibodies continuing to increase over 50 days. They tested for antibodies in mouse serum every 10 days after vaccination for a 60-day period.

Professor Ooi Eng Eong, deputy director of the emerging infectious diseases program at Duke-NUS, said in a statement, citing preliminary data, that "a single dose of this vaccine may be sufficient to trigger robust and durable immune responses."

Arcturus President and CEO Joseph Payne similarly suggested, citing the preclinical data, "a potential single administration, at very low doses" triggers an immune response.
Many Milwaukeeans fondly remember Boy Blue, the soft serve ice cream stands that dotted southeast Wisconsin and northern Illinois during the 1960s, '70s and '80s and beyond.

Now, the home of the last area Boy Blue to close  around 2005  is again for sale. Here's your chance to open the frozen custard stand of your dreams!

The stand, at 8322 W. Lincoln Ave. in West Allis, carries an asking price of $99,500 for the building and the lot, which is just under a quarter-acre. The building, which is air conditioned, has a classic vintage ice cream stand look, with big windows and a sloping roof.

The stand was built in 1953 as one of five area Carvel stands (the others were at 6520 W. North Ave. 4915 N. Hopkins St., 10424 W Bluemound Rd. and 309 W. Silver Spring Dr.).

Tom Carvel had partnered with custard maven Leon Schneider, who sold Carvel's Custard King machines in the area. In the early 1960s, the two fell into conflict, which led to a pair of interesting results.

An October 1953 ad for Carvel in Milwaukee. Below, at right, a 1963 Boy Blue ad.

First, Carvel ceased sending parts to Schneider to repair Custard Kings, which led Leon to begin making his own parts and, later, his own custard machines, many of which are still in use at stands around the area.

Second, Schneider led a group of Carvel franchisees in Wisconsin in Illinois in breaking away from Carvel and rebranding as Boy Blue.

Note, however, that like Carvel by this period, Boy Blue did not sell frozen custard. In fact, its product was so low in milkfat that it was technically classified as ice milk.

Later, the brand expanded throughout the Midwest and to other parts of the country, too.

But I digress.

The 84th and Lincoln stand was the last surviving Boy Blue in the area and after it closed, the building sat vacant for a time.

Most recently, the site served as a second home to Mister Bar-B-Que. But now that has appears to have moved on and the building is again available. Click here to see the full listing.

(Learn more about artist Patrick Castro's work and how to order prints here.)
The Thermo Scientific Sentinel 1000 Selectscan Metal Detector system features two technologies intended to help food and personal care manufacturers achieve a higher level of safety and quality. Selectscan enables the user to select the ideal frequency, from 50 to 1000 kHz, and is designed to optimize the probability of detecting ferrous, non-ferrous and stainless steel foreign objects. Autolearn rapidly guides the user through product set up to optimize operational efficiencies and detection performance to support plant production goals. Combined, these features raise the bar for safety, reducing the risk of costly contamination events, scrap, rework and recalls.

As part of the Sentinel suite of metal detection products, the Sentinel 1000 Selectscan Metal Detector is a cost-effective solution for manufacturers who value consumer safety and brand protection.

"Quality assurance personnel are the first and last line of defense to ensure consumer safety and protect against a product recall. They often manage multiple production lines, ensuring equipment is set up for optimal detection results in a fast-moving manufacturing environment. Rapid changeovers are commonplace and the new Autolearn feature allows them to be up and running in minutes," said David Lamprey, senior product marketing manager with Thermo Fisher's product inspection business. "Protecting consumers while supporting our customers' compliance with global food safety standards and retailer codes of practice is our business priority."

In addition to providing enhanced metal detection, the Sentinel 1000 Selectscan has an IP69K rating for manufacturing environments that require high-pressure sanitation. For more information on the Thermo Scientific Sentinel 1000 Selectscan Metal Detector, please visit thermofisher.com/sentinel1000.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue exceeding $25 billion. Our Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, improving patient diagnostics and therapies or increasing productivity in their laboratories, we are here to support them. Our global team of more than 75,000 colleagues delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services and Patheon. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.

Media Contact Information:

Nick Brown

InkHouse for Thermo Fisher Scientific

[email protected]

401-595-7836

SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific

Related Links

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Help.org, a trusted online resource for individuals who struggle with addiction and their loved ones, has announced the Best Rehab Facilities in Aurora, Colorado for 2020. The informational guide recognizes the top 8 rehab facilities based on cost, treatment options, location, accompanying services and more.

According to recent studies, drug overdose is the leading cause of death among people under age 50. In Aurora, deaths related to opioid abuse increased significantly from 2011 to 2015. Substance abuse among adolescents is also escalating in Aurora with 55 percent of high school students reported using alcohol, 38 percent reported using marijuana, 8 percent reported using prescription drugs without a valid prescription, and 2 percent reported using heroin. With the growing need for accessible and high-quality rehab programs, Help.org has developed a unique ranking process to help connect individuals with treatment providers that meet their needs.

The Help.org research team analyzed thousands of facilities across the country and then identified the most cost-effective and highest rated programs in larger cities like Aurora. Each facility was evaluated based on rehabilitation services, treatment approaches, cost, special programs for unique demographics and ancillary services. The website also provides information about drug use and side effects as well as educational articles. For a detailed listing of the Best Rehab Facilities in Aurora, Colorado please visit https://www.help.org/drug-and-alcohol-rehab-centers-in-aurora-co/

2020 Best Rehab Facilities in Aurora, Colorado (in alphabetical order)

Colorado Health Network Inc

DBA Colorado AIDS Project SHARE Program

6260 East Colfax Avenue

Denver, CO 80220

303-837-1501

Community Reach Center Inc

3031 West 76th Avenue

Westminster, CO 80030

303-853-3661

Community Reach Center Inc

11285 Highline Drive

Denver, CO 80233

303-853-3400

Community Reach Center Inc

8931 Huron Street

Denver, CO 80260

303-853-3500

Salvation Army

Adult Rehab Center Denver

4751 Broadway

Denver, CO 80216

303-294-0827

University of Colorado Denver ARTS Specialized Outpatient Clinic

1648 Gaylord Street

Denver, CO 80206

303-333-4288

University of Colorado Denver ARTS Westside Center for Change

6303 Wadsworth Bypass

Arvada, CO 80003

303-935-7004

University of Colorado Health Science Center ARTS Parkside Clinic

1620 Gaylord Street Denver, CO 80206

303-388-5894

ABOUT HELP.ORG

Help.org is an online resource for individuals who struggle with addiction and their loved ones. The website provides the latest research through scientifically proven methods, community recovery resources as well as information about local financial assistance. Help.orgs team of researchers, activists and writers work together with addiction counselors and other professionals to offer useful and accurate resources to help individuals seeking recovery. To learn more, visit https://www.help.org/.
The Electoral Commission (EC) has cautioned politicians to desist from visiting registration centres to resolve issues.

At a press conference on Wednesday, July 22, 2020, it urged aggrieved persons to rely on authorised mechanisms like the Commissions district review committees to have their issues ironed out.

This caution followed the shooting incident during a confrontation at a registration centre in the Awutu Senya East constituency following suspicions that non-constituents were being bussed in to register.

The Awutu Senya East MP, Mavis Hawa Koomson, admitted she fired a gun at the registration centre during the confrontation.

Also sparking controversy earlier on, the Tema West MP, Carlos Ahenkora, made his way to a registration centre whilst being COVID-19 positive .

Addressing the press conference, the Chairperson of the commission, Jean Mensa stressed that no politician or Ghanaian is supposed to go to the centres to resolve issues.

We are not policemen of the registration and there are laid down procedures to follow in the event that you have issues with it.

She assured that the district review committees, which are made up police, EC officers, police, among others, are well placed to deliberate on all challenges encountered during the registration process.

So we encourage Ghanaians and politicians and what-have-you to go through the procedures that have been put down when we try to resolve these issue on our own, we find that it leads to a chaotic situation, Mrs. Mensa said. Blaming EC unfair

The commission further denied culpability in the eruption of violence in Awutu Senya East which also saw persons assaulted and motorbikes set fire to.

A Deputy Chairman of the commission in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey said blaming the EC for incidents of violence during the registration process are unacceptable and unfair.

Deputy Chairman of the Electoral Commission in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey

Security issues are the responsibility of the security agencies, he argued.

However, we also wish to state that we will continue to work with the security agencies to ensure peace and stability at all registration centres and this is what we have constantly been doing, he added.

---citinewsroom
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A Hezbollah fighter was among those killed by suspected Israeli airstrikes in Syria on Monday. The Lebanese Shiite group previously said it would avenge Israeli attacks on its soldiers in Syria.

The fighter, Ali Mohsen, was killed as a result of the airstrikes near the Damascus airport, Hezbollah said today, as reported by the Lebanese news outlet Al-Akhbar. Reuters also reported his death.

On Monday night, Syrian government and opposition media both reported that Israel bombed Iran-backed militia and government targets near Damascus. Israel is suspected of frequently attacking Iranian forces in the country. Both Iran and Hezbollah are in Syria to help the government in its war against rebel groups, and Iran is Hezbollahs main backer. Israel does not comment on its military actions abroad, but Israeli leaders have hinted that they have struck Iranian targets in Syria in the past.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed to avenge the deaths of his fighters by Israel in Syria last year. If Israel kills any of our members in Syria, we'll respond from Lebanon, said Nasrallah in August 2019.

Nasrallah made good on his word at the time. Following the deaths of two Hezbollah soldiers via a suspected Israeli airstrike in southern Syria last August, Hezbollah fired missiles at Israeli forces along the Lebanese border.
The Uttarakhand government on Tuesday released guidelines, including rules on minimum charges and separate wards and doors, for private hospitals on treating patients of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

According to the guidelines, a co-morbid Covid-19 positive patient will be given treatment as per the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The guidelines said hospitals should be registered under the Clinical Establishment Act, 2010, have a separate Covid-19 ward with separate entry and exit doors, 24x7 emergency and ICU facilities with specialists on-call.

They also mentioned that hospitals can charge co-morbid patients for the original disease as per those set by them but only bare minimum extra cost to treat the patient for Covid-19like that of personal protection equipment or PPEcan be charged.

Uttarakhand reported 210 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, taking the tally to 4,849 with 85 recoveries.

With 65 new cases, Dehradun district accounted for the highest number of cases in the state. The other districts that reported the coronavirus disease cases were Almora (5), Champawat (2), Haridwar (52), Nainital (15), Tehri (21), US Nagar (34) and Uttarkashi (16).

Of the infections reported on Tuesday, 77 were found to be contacts of earlier detected positive cases while the others had returned to the state from places like Delhi-NCR, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Hyderabad, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu. Many had also come back from foreign countries.

Eighty-five patients were also discharged from hospitals during the day with a maximum of 61 patients being from US Nagar.

The rate of doubling of cases based on the last seven days now stands at 20.21 days, while the infection rate is 4.20%. The state has so far tested 1.27 lakh samples of which results of over 11,000 are awaited.

In Nainital district, five sub-inspectors along with 13 police personnel tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday. All police personnel have been isolated at Susheela Tiwari Hospital in Haldwani.

The close contacts of these police officials have also been quarantined.

Sunil Kumar Meena, Nainitals senior superintendent of police, on Tuesday ordered police officials to follow the lockdown rules like wearing masks properly and maintaining social distancing.

All field staff have been asked to do their duty by taking full precautions.
Sartorius, a leading international partner of life science research and the biopharmaceutical industry, raised its growth and earnings guidance for the current year based on its very dynamic business performance in the first six months of 2020, as well as on high demand expected to continue for the rest of the current fiscal year.

In the Bioprocess Solutions Division, growth was strong across all product categories and geographies, where additional demand particularly in connection with Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics was higher than previously expected. The business of our Lab Products & Services Division that was noticeably impacted by the pandemic crisis in the first months of the year also showed a positive trend. Moreover, integration of the life science businesses acquired from Danaher into both of our divisions is progressing well despite the current restrictions. Therefore, we are entering the second half of the year with great confidence, even though the pandemic still poses considerable challenges and uncertainties. Joachim Kreuzburg, CEO

Business development of the group

Group sales rose in the first half by 17.9 percent to 1,056.8 million euros, which is a reported increase of 18.1 percent while order intake surged by 27.5 percent (reported: +27.8 percent) to 1,244.8 million euros. This strong development was primarily fueled by the very dynamic business of the Bioprocess Solutions Division. The Laboratory Products & Services Division progressed moderately in a partially challenging economic environment weakened by the coronavirus pandemic. The acquisition of Danaher's businesses consolidated as of May 2020 as well as the majority takeover of the cell culture media specialist Biological Industries in December 2019 together contributed close to four percentage points to sales growth in the first half, as planned.

Earnings of the Sartorius Group grew at a significantly overproportionate rate with respect to sales. Underlying EBITDA was 293.5 million euros, up 23.5 percent from the year-earlier figure of 237.6 million euros. The respective margin rose from 26.6 percent to 27.8 percent. The most recent acquisitions did not have any significant effect on earnings, as expected, yet foreign currencies had a slightly negative impact of close to half of a percentage point.

Relevant net profit for the Group also rose over proportionately relative to sales by 22.4 percent to 124.3 million euros. Earnings per ordinary share were 1.81 euros (previous year: 1.48 euros) and per preference share, 1.82 euros (previous year: 1.49 euros).

Double-digit sales growth in all regions

All business regions of the Group increased their revenues by double digits. In the EMEA region which contributes the highest share of total Group sales of around 40 percent, revenue stood at 419.5 million euros, up 16.0 percent. The Americas region accounting for some 35 percent of total sales recorded the highest momentum, with business rising 19.7 to 373.1 million euros. The Asia | Pacific region, which generates around 25 percent of Group sales, saw revenue rise by 18.4 percent to 264.2 million euros.

Business development of the divisions

Based on high demand across all its product categories, the Bioprocess Solutions Division which offers a broad range of innovative technologies and products for manufacturing biopharmaceuticals increased its sales revenue by 21.3 percent (reported: +21.6 percent) to 809.3 million euros. Acquisitions accounted for a good two percentage points of growth. Bioprocess Solutions order intake surged in the first half of 2020 at an even stronger rate than sales (in constant currencies: +33.5%; reported: +33.9%) to 984.9 million euros. The coronavirus pandemic had a positive effect on growth and resulted in additional demand for Sartorius products used to manufacture vaccines and antiviral medications. Strong project business, particularly in the Asia | Pacific region, also contributed to substantial order intake. Hence, the strong dynamics at the beginning of the year continued into the mid-year. The division's underlying EBITDA grew over proportionately by 29.1 percent to 247.2 million euros. Despite slight dilution by currency headwinds and the most recent acquisitions, the divisions margin driven by economies of scale rose to 30.5 percent, up from 28.8 percent in the comparable year-earlier period.

The Lab Products & Services Division, which specializes in products and technologies for laboratories primarily in the pharmaceutical sector and life science research, increased its first-half sales revenue by 8.1 percent (reported: +8.1 percent) and was thus within the range of expectations adjusted after the first quarter. While the impact of the pandemic had a dampening effect on demand, the most recent acquisitions contributed close to nine percentage points to sales growth. Order intake developed positively, rising by 8.9 percent (reported: +8.9 percent) to 259.9 million euros. Because of lower capacity utilization at the beginning of the year and a negative currency impact of a good 0.5 percentage points, the divisions underlying EBITDA after the first six months was at the prior-year level of 46.4 million euros (+0.4 percent). The divisions underlying EBITDA margin was 18.7 percent, with acquisitions in the reporting period having a slightly overall positive effect. (All figures on sales revenue and order intake in constant currencies. Sales revenues and margins of the divisions in the comparable period adjusted to reflect the reallocation of two small product segments.)

Key financial indicators

The equity ratio of the Group continued to remain at a very robust level of 30.1 percent, even after the acquisitions had closed (December 31, 2019; 38.1 percent). The ratio of net debt to underlying EBITDA for the past 12 months increased as expected, from 2.0 at year-end 2019 to 2.8 for the period ended June 30, 2020. The ratio of capital expenditures (CAPEX) to sales revenue was 8.5 percent in line with expectations (prior-year period: 12.8 percent).

Number of employees increases

As of June 30, 2020, the Sartorius Group employed a total of 9,729 people worldwide. Compared with December 31, 2019, head count thus rose by 693 or around 7.7 percent, with around 300 employees joining the company following the acquisition of the Danaher businesses. The remaining increase resulted in particular from hiring additional production staff due to the rising capacity utilization at a few manufacturing sites. At the end of the reporting period, around 6,500 people were employed in the EMEA region, more than 1,700 in the Americas and about 1,500 in the Asia | Pacific region. (Prior-year base slightly adjusted due to the change in the scope of consolidation.)

Guidance for the full year of 2020 raised

Management now expects consolidated sales revenue to increase by 22% to 26% (previously 15% to 19%) and the Groups underlying EBITDA margin to reach around 28.5% (previously about 27.5%). Compared with the previous forecast, a significant part of the additionally expected business is attributable to the current coronavirus pandemic as Sartorius products are used for development and manufacturing of both vaccines and antiviral medications. As projected so far, initial consolidation of Biological Industries is expected to contribute close to 1.5 percentage points and inclusion of the portfolio acquired from Danaher a good five percentage points to sales growth. The ratio of capital expenditures (CAPEX) to sales revenue continues to be forecasted at around 10 percent (previous year: 12.3 percent). Net debt to underlying EBITDA is expected to be slightly below 2.75 by year-end 2020 (previously around 2.75; 2019: 2.0).

Outlook for the divisions

For the Bioprocess Solutions Division, management now forecasts sales growth of 26 percent to 30 percent (previously 17 percent to 21 percent). As projected so far, consolidation of Biological Industries is expected to contribute around one percentage point and that of the Danaher portfolio around 3.5 percentage points. The divisions underlying EBITDA margin is projected to be approximately 31 percent (previously around 30 percent), which includes slightly dilutive effects due to consolidation of the acquisitions.

The outlook for Lab Products & Services remains unchanged as well, with sales revenue expected to grow by 10 percent to 14 percent at an underlying EBITDA margin of approximately 20 percent. Consolidation of Biological Industries continues to be forecasted to contribute 2.5 percentage points and that of the Danaher portfolio around 10 percentage points to growth. While consolidation of the Danaher portfolio is likely to increase the divisions margin by 1.5 percentage points, consolidation of Biological Industries is anticipated to result in slight dilution of the divisions margin.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, this guidance is subject to greater uncertainty than usual. In particular, these updated projections are based on the assumptions that logistics chains will continue to be stable and production lines remain in operation. All forecasts are based on constant currencies, as in the past years.

Medium-term forecast unchanged

Despite the currently increased demand, Sartorius does not see any need to adjust its medium-term forecast up to 2025 at the moment. The company continues to expect to achieve sales revenue of around 4 billion euros at an underlying EBITDA margin of about 28 percent in 2025. This is based on the fact that the medium-term fundamentals of the biopharmaceutical industry have remained unchanged. Therefore, it is currently not foreseeable whether the current additional demand for vaccines and antiviral drugs will lead to a sustained increase in demand in these areas. In addition, signs are becoming apparent that the market approval of some biopharmaceuticals could be delayed due to postponed clinical test series as a result of the pandemic. It is currently not possible to quantify the impact of these various effects concerning monetary amounts or timing.
TRUMP: Biden wants to defund the police.  Fox interview.

THE FACTS: To be clear, Biden has not joined the call of protesters who demanded defund the police after George Floyds killing in Minneapolis. Hes proposed more money for police, conditioned to improvements in their practices.

I dont support defunding the police, Biden said last month in a CBS interview. But he said he would support tying federal aid to police based on whether they meet certain basic standards of decency, honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community.

Bidens criminal justice agenda, released long before he became the Democrats presumptive presidential nominee, proposes more federal money for training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths and hiring more officers to ensure that departments are racially and ethnically reflective of the populations they serve.

Specifically, he calls for a $300 million infusion into existing federal community policing grant programs.

That adds up to more money for police, not defunding law enforcement.

Biden also wants the federal government to spend more on education, social services and struggling areas of cities and rural America, to address root causes of crime.
Lafayette Colleges Path to Fall 2020 is changing course and keeping most students at home.

Instead of returning in August to the Easton campus, the college on Wednesday said all fall semester courses will be online, and the majority of students will study from home.

In light of the change, the college is cutting tuition by 10% for students who study from home, and reversing a planned 3.75% increase this year in tuition, fees, and room and board, President Alison Byerly said.

In June, the college announced the The Path to Fall 2020 plan to resume classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It included starting the fall semester two weeks early and ending on-campus classes at the start of Thanksgiving break.

Lehigh University and Moravian College also announced plans to have students return in the fall.

Throughout this crisis, we have said that Lafayettes highest priorities would be the health and safety of our community, and the quality of the academic experience, Byerly said in Wednesdays announcement. Given the dramatic changes that have taken place in the national landscape since we formulated our plan in early June, we now believe that these goals are best met by a curriculum of engaging and rigorous online courses, and a minimal student population on campus.

The decision was made in part because of the increased spread of the virus across the country, the impact on the availability of testing supplies, and the latest trend of COVID-19 cases increasing in young people. The Pennsylvania Department of Health has warned of increasing cases among 19- to 24-year-olds in the state.

NPR reports more colleges and universities are changing previously announced plans to bring students back to campus, including Dickinson College in Carlisle, the University of California at Berkeley and several historically Black colleges in Georgia.

A limited number of students may be allowed to live on campus, including returning international students, students in research or work requiring campus facilities, and students who need access to campus resources.

Students who have signed leases for off-campus housing can still live near campus, but all students will take courses online, Byerly said.

Earlier this month, Lafayette joined other colleges and universities fighting a new visa rule that would have deported international students enrolled in online-only courses in the fall. The Trump administration eventually rescinded the rule change issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The college is hosting two Zoom meetings on Thursday, one for faculty and staff, and the other for students and their families.

The tuition cut and halting the planned increase in tuition and other costs comes after Lafayette previously said its budget gap could be anywhere from $20 million to $60 million if there was extended remote learning or a shutdown.

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Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com.
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Linkedin David Ljunggren (Reuters) Ottawa, Canada  Wed, July 22, 2020 10:33 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a40668553bb 2 World Canada,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-infection,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Canada's recent increase in coronavirus infections was expected as the economy reopens, a senior medical official said on Tuesday, while expressing concern about young people contracting the virus.

Howard Njoo, Canada's deputy chief public health officer, said the success of efforts to combat the outbreak was fragile and could be undermined by complacency.

The daily case count across Canada is around 460, compared with 300 earlier this month. The 10 provinces are gradually lifting restrictions imposed in March.

"Provinces [are]... trying to reopen at I think a very prudent pace. But everyone recognizes we would expect to get clusters of cases," Njoo said.

Officials in major cities attribute the spike in part to young people gathering in bars and at parties.

Njoo said young adults made up around 55% of new cases, compared with one third in May.

"That is concerning," he said, blaming fatigue after months of lockdown and a feeling among the young that they are invincible.

The premier of Ontario, the most-populous Canadian province, said he was concerned by an uptick in cases among people under 39, blaming a small number of young people "going hog wild."

"Just don't go to a party, simple ... you're hurting people by doing this," Premier Doug Ford said.

The western province of Alberta is also seeing a spike in cases. Premier Jason Kenney said, however, that it would fully reopen schools this autumn.

Evidence is overwhelming that schools can be operated safely and with little health risk for children and teachers, and low risk of causing outbreaks, Kenney said.

Canada has recorded 111,124 cases and 8,858 deaths, far fewer per capita than in the United States.

"All of us in Canada ... are looking very carefully and I think with some alarm, at what's happening in the United States," said Njoo.
Gary Coronado, Staff / Houston Chronicle

Eight Texas Democratic lawmakers are asking for seven Confederate monuments to be removed from the state Capitol complex.

The Democrats, in a letter to the chairs of the House and Senate Administration committees on Monday, also asked that the John H. Reagan State Office building be renamed because of Reagans support of slavery.
Chandigarh (Haryana): In view of the COVID-19 situation, the Haryana government has decided to designate one central and three district jails as Special Jails for male prisoners under judicial custody.

These Special Jails (temporary jails) will be for prisoners, under judicial custody, in the state till their COVID-19 report comes, according to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.
Labour has agreed to pay substantial damages to seven whistleblowers over defamatory and false allegations made following a BBC Panorama investigation into antisemitism.

The party also issued an unreserved apology to the former staff members and to John Ware, the journalist who presented the July 2019 programme.

In a statement Labour said that before the programme was broadcast the party had issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about their own employees and Mr Ware.

We unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and lying. We would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress, embarrassment and hurt caused by their publication. We have agreed to pay them damages, the party said of the whistleblowers.

It also withdrew the allegations about Mr Ware, saying: John Ware is a very experienced broadcast and print journalist, producer and author, and we have agreed to pay damages to him.

Keir Starmer, the new Labour leader, has committed to tackling the antisemitism crisis which has dogged his party for four years.

In the statement Labour said it acknowledged that in order to restore with the Jewish community it had to be open, transparent and [respect] the right[s] of whistleblowers and the free press.

A BBC spokesperson said: The BBC will always support fair and impartial reporting, exposing wrongdoing and holding power to account. The Panorama programme did precisely that, but was subject to an extraordinary and vitriolic attack by the Labour Party.

We welcome todays long overdue apology to John Ware and the seven Panorama whistleblowers, who have been subjected to painful and damaging personal attacks on their integrity and character. We applaud their strength to take this case forward and are pleased it has been recognised in court that these extremely serious and damaging allegations against them were false and have been unreservedly withdrawn.

John Ware is a reporter with an extraordinary record of excellence at Panorama for investigative journalism in the public interest.

It is thought the party will pay a six figure settlement.

The Jewish Labour Movement welcomed the decision to apologise and pay damages.

The group said the whistleblowers had brought to the publics attention the scale of discrimination perpetrated against Jewish Labour members.

It is a sad reflection of its historic role as the party of working people that Labour sought to pursue and silence its former employees for speaking out against racism.

The Panorama row happened when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader. Sir Keirs predecessor has always denied allegations he presided over a surge into antisemitic abuse within the party when he was leader.

An unprecedented investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into Labour and antisemitism is expected to be published later this year.
Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media

The state Legislature made clear from the beginning of its planning for this summers special session that it was acting in response to protests that developed across the state and around the nation following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Legislators said the time is now to act on a series of meaningful changes to state law that would allow a new measure of justice to take hold. They cant falter now just as they near the point of action.

Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders made clear that the parameters of the special session were to be limited to keep the Assembly from being distracted and that only the most pressing issues would take focus. One of these was ensuring the use of absentee ballots for the November election as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and despite some protests from Republicans, that measure appears to be on track, as it must be.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AppOmni, the leading provider of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) for SaaS, today announced the deployment of AppOmni solution by Ping Identity, (NYSE: PING), the Intelligent Identity solution for the enterprise, to help the company obtain full visibility and control over Salesforce.

Ping Identity sought a vendor who could meet their high standards for an approach that would be both comprehensive and easy to adapt to their ongoing SaaS security needs. Their security experts were immediately drawn to the preventative and holistic approach taken by AppOmni to secure SaaS. Because AppOmni runs parallel to the SaaS cloud, and integrates through APIs, the company uses a non-blocking approach to monitor which users have access to what data. Through an in-depth understanding of risky configurations in SaaS, AppOmni alerts Ping Identity's IT team early enough to catch policy violations before they turn into breaches. This was precisely the proactive, easy-to-adapt SaaS management and security solution that Ping Identity required.

"AppOmni provides a seamless and proactive security solution that integrates with an enterprise's existing processes and technology and doesn't require additional in-house expertise," says Brendan O'Connor, CEO and Co-Founder, AppOmni. "We are excited to partner with Ping Identity to provide them with unprecedented visibility and control over their SaaS environment. By providing security guardrails for leading SaaS applications, AppOmni enables IT and business users to move quickly with confidence. Businesses need to move fast and enable remote work, while safeguarding their mission critical SaaS applications and data."

AppOmni has extensive expertise with Salesforce and other SaaS, providing customers with a deep understanding of the application's security specifications which can be applied when assessing customers' security postures. The company provided Ping Identity with an in-depth analysis of their Salesforce instance, including the portal community, along with the recommended steps to further enhance the security of the SaaS instance. AppOmni also delivered proactive alerts when access settings are incorrect or violate policies in addition to providing a multi-stage, long-term strategy for preventing and remediating Salesforce data access and security posture issues. Ping Identity obtained full visibility into internal and external user data access within Salesforce.

"By partnering with AppOmni, we gain the necessary insight into the various users and their roles in our Salesforce instance to instill the level of security we needed," said Arthur Loris, manager of product security at Ping Identity. "AppOmni has also helped our SaaS and IT administrators collaborate and streamline our overall security process."

To learn more about AppOmni Enterprise Essentials, please visit www.appomni.com.

About AppOmni

AppOmni is the leading provider of Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) for SaaS. AppOmni provides unprecedented data access visibility, management and security of SaaS solutions, enabling organizations to secure mission-critical and sensitive data. AppOmni's patent-pending technology deeply scans APIs, security controls, and configuration settings to evaluate the current state of SaaS deployments and compare against best practices and business intent. With AppOmni, organizations can establish rules for data access, data sharing and third-party applications that will be continuously and automatically validated. The company's leadership team brings expertise and innovation from leading SaaS providers, high tech companies, and cybersecurity vendors. For more information, please visit www.appomni.com .

Media contact:

Lumina Communications for AppOmni

Danielle Scotto

646-775-6303

[email protected]

SOURCE AppOmni

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Ukraine has once again reaffirmed its full readiness to comply with the agreements reached during the Paris summit in December.

The Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on July 22 held a video conference during which the parties agreed on a new, full and comprehensive ceasefire in Donbas, eastern Ukraine.

It is to start at 00:01 Kyiv time on July 27, the press service of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's Office said in a statement on the official website on July 22.

"During today's TCG meeting, the parties, mediated by the OSCE, agreed on the implementation of measures to reinforce the ceasefire until the full settlement of the international armed conflict in Ukraine's Donbas," the statement said. "The corresponding measures were agreed at the TCG [meeting] by Ukraine and Russia and backed by the OSCE. The full and comprehensive ceasefire  if the other side abides by it  is a basic prerequisite for the fulfillment of the Minsk accords and opens the way for the implementation of other provisions of these agreements."

Read alsoTrilateral Contact Group on Donbas discusses local elections, POW lists, opening of two checkpoints

Zelensky's Office says this breakthrough in the TCG's work is the result of the effective work of the Ukrainian delegation with the support of Berlin and Paris, as well as political advisers and foreign ministers in the Normandy format.

According to the statement, Ukraine has once again reaffirmed its full readiness to comply with the agreements reached during the Normandy summit in Paris in December and its adherence to the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine will facilitate and support the fulfilment of these measures, Zelensky's Office said, stressing that the complete ceasefire is a basic precondition for a political settlement.

Local elections in Russia-occupied districts in Ukraine's east are possible only under the following conditions: comprehensive de-escalation; the withdrawal of foreign military units and equipment, the disarmament of illegal armed formations; restoration of control by the Ukrainian government over the Ukrainian-Russian border. What is more, the elections must take place exclusively in accordance with the legislation of Ukraine and in compliance with the OSCE Copenhagen Document.

"As part of the [TCG's] humanitarian subgroup, the Ukrainian side, as agreed, has handed over lists of persons for mutual release and expects the same from the other side," Zelensky's Office said.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump came prepared.

As he took the podium Tuesday to give a briefing room update on the coronavirus for the first time in months, the president was asked an obvious question: If wearing a mask is patriotic, as he tweeted this week, why didnt he wear one more frequently?

Well, I do actually do it when I need. I mean, I carry the mask, Trump responded. He reached into his suit jacket pocket and produced his for the cameras: navy blue, with a presidential seal.

I have no problem with the masks. I view it this way: Anything that potentially can help, and that certainly can potentially help, is a good thing. I have no problem. I carry it, I wear it ... and Ill continue, he added.

The comments were a dramatic about-face for a president who, for months, resisted wearing a face covering in public and complained privately he thought it would make him look weak and would focus attention on the public health crisis rather than the economic recovery.

Even as top public health officials, who initially had advised the public not to wear masks, became convinced that face coverings could effectively halt the spread of the virus and begged the public to embrace them, Trump resisted. He mocked Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing one, asked reporters to remove them and entertained the idea that people might be wearing them to spite him.

I just dont want to wear one myself, he said in April. I dont know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk  the great Resolute Desk  I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I dont know. Somehow, I dont see it for myself. I just dont. Maybe Ill change my mind.

By Tuesday, as coronavirus cases continue to rise across much of the nation, Trump finally came around, saying, Im getting used to the mask.

I will use it gladly, no problem with it, he said, urging those watching to follow his lead.

When you can, use the mask. If youre close to each other, if youre in a group, I would put it on, he said.

But that pronouncement was too little, too late for some public health officials, who have blamed the mixed messaging and Trumps personal actions for politicizing mask-wearing and fueling a partisan social divide.

I think it would have been enormous impact if he had done it from Day One, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University. He worried that Trumps words would have only marginal impact in moving Americans who arent consistently wearing masks in public to do so.

If, from the beginning, you had consistent messages at the federal, state and local level, if everyone had been on the same page all along on the importance of masks, wed be in a different situation, Gostin said.

And Trump still declined to wear a mask at the briefing  noting that he and the reporters who cover him are frequently tested. And he was seen without one Monday evening at the Trump hotel in Washington, where he attended a fundraiser and ate dinner.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an occasional informal Trump adviser, had urged the president to wear a mask to the briefing, saying during an appearance on Fox and Friends Tuesday, Thats whats going to convince people that hes serious about this.

Trump tweeted a photo of himself in a face mask Monday, calling it an act of patriotism. He wore one for the first time in public earlier this month during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Were all being enslaved. We are. Were afraid to go into a store without a mask. ... It is about tyranny. Ammon Bundy.

This is the kind of hyperbole thats fomenting a dangerous and detrimental anti-government sentiment thats putting public health at risk and shutting down democratic debate needed to tackle pressing issues.

Youve heard of the silent majority. Here in Idaho we have the vocal minority, shoving, bullying and threatening their way through what should be civil discussions about important matters, from wearing masks in public to defunding the police.

Unfortunately, their uncivilized behavior is causing a shutdown of debate.

Twice now, the Southwest District Health board has had to cancel meetings because of security concerns from people such as Bundy and his followers who refuse to follow the rules of public safety.

This comes at a time when coronavirus cases are spiking in Canyon County and deaths are beginning to mount.

Canyon County has the highest seven-day rolling rate of new cases in Idaho, at an average of 60.7 new cases per day, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute, which suggests that any rate over 25 cases per day should trigger a stay-at-home order. Canyon County remains at Stage 4 of reopening and has no requirement for wearing a mask in public.

If ever there were a time that the Southwest District Health board needs to meet and make decisions about COVID-19 to protect public health, its now. Instead, theyve been bullied into not even meeting.

Meanwhile, groups and individuals, including Nazis and white supremacists, have been showing up at peaceful Black Lives Matter rallies for the sole purpose of intimidating and shouting down the rallies message. Threats of violence, even suggestions of a civil war, have caused some to back away from Tuesdays planned rally calling for a discussion about defunding and reforming the police.

Boise Mayor Lauren McLean urged residents to stay away from downtown.

Factions  many from outside of our community  will again come to our great city and seek to intimidate, threaten and incite violence, all at the very time our community is most in need of unity and compassion, McLean said Monday. We must not let ourselves get distracted by the efforts of a vocal minority or be pulled into violence they seek to instigate. As a city, we will not tolerate violence, and will hold those accountable.

Some have seen fit to arrive at McLeans home to protest. They have done similarly at the private residences of Gov. Brad Little and Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen, as well.

Even worse, a comment on social media allegedly made by a local music teacher suggests that McLean should get laid ... by (Black Lives Matter) members. Should be a group activity.

Folks, this is not what democracy looks like. Its the very opposite of a healthy democracy.

Little appears to be kowtowing to the fringe, as well, by not mandating masks statewide or even in the parts of Idaho that are seeing spikes. While back home in Idaho, Little talks the talk, telling Idahoans to wear a mask and practice social distancing, he doesnt walk the walk, as he was seen not wearing a mask or practicing social distancing last week at Trump press conference/campaign rally about deregulation.

These issues are too important and vital to our public health, economy and well-being to allow a few fringe fanatics dictate what we do. Extremists and bullies apparently are running the show. We need to put them aside and deal with adult problems like adults, listening to experts, having civil debate about the issues and not shoving and screaming.

Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion expressing the consensus of the Idaho Statesmans editorial board. Board members are publisher Rusty Dodge, editor Christina Lords, opinion editor Scott McIntosh, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members Bob Kustra, Mike Wetherell and Sophie Sestero.

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Egyptian authorities have done little to improve conditions for prisoners amid coronavirus pandemic, rights groups say.

Rights groups and the UN have made numerous calls since the coronavirus outbreak for Egypt to improve conditions for prisoners, but the country has done little to address the crisis, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

At least 14 prisoners and detainees have died in Egypt, most likely from COVID-19 complications in 10 detention facilities as of July 15, according to HRWs latest report published on Monday.

Prisoners have shown COVID-19 symptoms, but have had insufficient medical care and no access to testing. Authorities have done little to isolate prisoners who show symptoms and have further imposed a strict information blackout amid the pandemic, the New York-based rights group said.

Last week, Egyptian journalist Mohamed Monir, 65, died after contracting the coronavirus during the two weeks he spent in pretrial detention at Cairos notorious Tora prison.

The veteran journalist was arrested in June on charges of joining a terrorist group, spreading false news, and misusing social media after appearing on Al Jazeera Media Network, which is banned by Egypt.

Al Jazeera journalist Mahmoud Hussein has spent more than 1,307 days in prison without trial.

An Egyptian national, Hussein was arrested in December 2016 on dubious charges, according to HRW, shortly after his arrival in Egypt on a personal visit.

Last year, an Egyptian court rejected an order by the state prosecutor to release him. He remains detained in Tora Tahqiq prison, one of Egypts most infamous facilities, under inhumane conditions.





Amr Magdi, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that, so far, three inmates have died of COVID-19 in Tora Tahqiq prison, as well as a prison employee.

This is very concerning, Magdi said. We still call for [Husseins] immediate release, and it is extremely outrageous that he has even exceeded the two-year limit for pretrial detention in Egyptian law, which is already abusive.

Egyptian authorities dont just disrespect international norms, they even [violate] their own abusive laws, Magdi said.

According to the Geneva-based Committee for Justice, there are 149 suspected cases of coronavirus in Egyptian prisons and detention facilities.

Prisoners released

In May, the World Health Organization released a joint statement with UN agencies stating the health response to COVID-19 in closed settings alone is insufficient and urged governments to consider prisoner releases.

A month prior, the UN urged Egypt to release prisoners convicted of non-violent offences and those who are in pretrial detention who make up just below one-third of those in jail.

It noted Egypts detention facilities are often overcrowded, unhygienic and lack resources.

Official records show Egyptian authorities have released about 13,000 prisoners since late February, but that number is not enough to ease overcrowding, according to HRW.

Among the prisoners freed, some include those convicted of murder and other serious crimes.





They have released several thousand prisoners, but these tend to be people who have a short time left to serve in their sentences, Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW, told Al Jazeera.

What is most notable is that these releases did not include any of the people arrested on political grounds and who are particularly the ones who have not been tried. We know people who have been  in custody under so-called investigation for months and months.

They havent been accused of anything, havent been charged with anything, theyve had no trial. Notably, none of them, or very few of them, have been released, Stark said.

Clearly, [the Egyptian authorities] are not listening.

Strict information lockdown

According to international human rights law, prisoners should receive the same standard of healthcare that is available in the community.

Egyptian prison laws also state that prison doctors must protect inmates from epidemic diseases, including providing medical quarantine and to immediately inform a prisoners family in case of serious illness.

But a prisoner at the Tora Tahqiq prison told HRW the protection measures taken by authorities were merely decorative.

In March, the prison administration offered PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests for two inmates only, and no other tests were provided even though several prisoners developed a respiratory illness.

Since a ban on prison visits was implemented on March 10, thousands of inmates have been kept in incommunicado detention with little if any communication with lawyers and family members, as part of an information blackout, according to the report by HRW.

There are some notable cases of brothers and sisters going to get news of the health of their loved one in prison and not being able to get any information, Stark said.

Theres a very strict information lockdown  Egyptian authorities have been behaving very badly.





Over the years, Egypt has developed a track record for its lack of judicial or independent oversight.

HRW noted since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power in 2013 in a coup, most likely hundreds of prisoners have died in detention, many following torture or inadequate care.

But despite the warnings issued by the UN and rights groups, countries worldwide have done little to apply pressure on Egypt to comply with international law.

We havent seen too much interest on the part of other countries  the US, Italy, Germany, France, UK  countries that have big arms deals with the Egyptian military, Stark said.

So far, Im not aware of them making any efforts in this area.
When researchers deployed 15,000 underwater video cameras on coral reefs around the world, they expected to see sharks in most if not all of the footage they would gather over a three-year span.



The international team was keen to come up with what had to date been an elusive goal: an abundance baseline for the iconic animals. To do that, they set up video stations on 371 coral reefs in 58 different tropical nations in the Indo-Pacific, Pacific, the Western Atlantic and the Western Indian Ocean.



What they found, however, was grim corroboration that overfishing had dramatically depleted the abundance of reef sharks to the point that some are too rare to fulfil their normal role in the ecosystem and would now be considered functionally extinct.



This study pulls back the curtain on the state of reef sharks around the world, says Aaron MacNeil, associate professor in Biology at Dalhousie and lead author of the landmark Global FinPrint study published today (Wednesday, July 22) in Nature.



While reef sharks have been studied in a few places, this work gives us a basis for understanding the extent and magnitude of the impact people have had on reef sharks, and what we might do about it.



Indications of widespread decline



Of the reefs surveyed, sharks were not observed on nearly 20 per cent, suggesting a widespread decline that has gone undocumented on this scale until now. Yet the survey also identified critical conservation measures that could lead to a recovery of these iconic predators.





Sharks were largely not seen on the reefs of six nations: the Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar. Among these, a total of only three sharks were observed on more than 800 survey hours. The researchers define reef sharks as those species that spend most of their life on or around reef habitats or regularly visit reefs, such as grey reef, whitetip reef, blacktip reef, nurse, great hammerhead and lemon sharks.



This first-ever benchmark for the status of reef sharks around the world reveals an alarming loss of an important food resource, tourism attraction, and top predator on coral reefs. Their loss is due in large part to shark overfishing to feed local people, as well as a global demand for shark products, such as fins and meat. The single largest direct contributor to that decline is the use of destructive fishing practices, such as longlines and gillnets.



Although our study shows substantial negative human impacts on reef shark populations, its clear the central problem exists in the intersection between high human population densities, destructive fishing practices, and poor governance, says Demian Chapman, Global FinPrint co-lead and Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Institute of Environment at Florida International University.



We found that robust shark populations can exist alongside people when those people have the will, the means and a plan to take conservation action.



The results also suggest that long-term, socio-economic disparities have likely led to the functional extinction of sharks from survey reefs in up to eight nations. This emphasizes that, for many places, there are no clear solutions to promoting the recovery of reef sharks without addressing the socio-economic challenges that indirectly lead to overexploitation, the authors write.



Why conservation matters



The study identified several countries where shark conservation is working and the specific actions that can be effective.



The best performing nations included Australia, the Bahamas, the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, the Maldives and the United States. These nations reflect key attributes associated with higher shark populations: being generally well-governed and either banning all shark fishing or having strong, science-based management that limits how many sharks can be caught.





These nations are seeing more sharks in their waters because they have demonstrated good governance regarding shark fisheries, said Dr. MacNeil. From restricting certain gear types and setting catch limits, to national-scale bans on catches and trade, we now have a clear picture of what can be done to limit catches of reef sharks throughout the tropics.



For example, Dr. MacNeil says the presence of a shark sanctuary, where there is no targeted catch or trade in shark products, was linked to a 50 per cent higher relative abundance compared to nations without such a protection.



In places where sharks are fished and regulations are currently absent, the authors estimate that regional abundance could increase by 15 per cent if catch limits were introduced, while banning certain equipment and introducing closed areas may increase abundance by nine per cent and eight per cent, respectively.



Now that the survey is complete, we are also investigating how the loss of sharks can destabilize reef ecosystems, said Dr. Mike Heithaus, Global FinPrint co-lead and Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences & Education at Florida International University.



At a time when corals are struggling to survive in a changing climate, losing reef sharks could have dire long-term consequences for entire reef systems.



A global network of cameras



Launched in 2015, Global FinPrints data were gathered from 15,000 remote underwater video stations (BRUVS) that consist of a video camera mounted on a frame with a pole that contained about one kilogram of oily fish bait in a cage, dubbed a Chum Cam.





Over the course of four years, the team captured and analyzed more than 15,000 hours of video from the surveys, spotting 59 species of sharks. The project represents the single largest and most comprehensive data-collection and analysis program of the worlds populations of reef-associated sharks and rays ever compiled.



The work, which was funded by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, was conducted by hundreds of scientists, researchers and conservationists organized by a network of collaborators from Dalhousie, Florida International University, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Curtin University and James Cook University.

Additional images by Global FinPrint and the Wildlife Conservation Society.


(Natural News) A man who set a Seattle police building on fire that officers had abandoned ahead of occupiers turning the area into an autonomous zone has now been charged in a federal court.

According to police, 35-year-old Isaiah Thomas Willoughby was seen on video at 3:00 a.m. on June 12 emptying a red container full of gasoline onto a pile of debris next to the precinct.

He then left the scene before returning, lighting something, and throwing it on the pile. The criminal complaint filed by the US attorneys office for the Western District of Washington said that bystanders extinguished the fire; the ongoing occupation in the Capitol Hill organized protest zone meant that firefighters were not able to respond to the scene.

A witness to the incident posted photos of the suspect on Twitter, and Seattle police distributed bulletins to the public with the photos in hopes of getting some leads. An anonymous caller who knew Willoughby informed them that he posted on Facebook that he had burned the precinct before later deleting the post as the media coverage of the incident ramped up.

According to the tipster, the suspects yellow hoodie had a unique design on it that was part of a line of clothing represented by Willoughby. A second anonymous caller confirmed that the man in the photos was Willoughby. Police then received a call from the mans aunt who said, The person who started the fire is my nephew. Come and get him.

Willoughby had been living with his aunt and uncle in Tacoma and participating in the protests. When they confronted him about the fire, he admitted to setting it.

He was arrested on July 14 and appeared in court the following day. He is being charged with arson and is facing up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted; arson carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.

Willoughby stated that he started the fire because he was mad about the way officers from the precinct treated him in a previous arrest. A search warrant found items of clothing matching those worn by the suspect in the video, and officers were also able to track down his statement about burning down the precinct on a Facebook page linked to him.

Additional charges for other crimes are forthcoming

US attorney Brian Moran said in a statement: This is the third case we have charged federally for the criminal acts that tainted otherwise peaceful protests. Other crimes remain under investigation and may result in additional federal charges.

He added: Those who worked to turn protests into riots will not escape accountability for their criminal conduct.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Acting Special Agent in charge of the Seattle field division, Mickey French, said: We support every Americans right to protest, but when someone turns to an act of violence, putting many lives in danger, ATF will work to ensure he or she is held accountable.

Two other people have been charged with crimes related to the protest in Seattle. Margaret Aislinn Channon was charged with five counts of arson for setting police vehicles on fire on May 30. She used an accelerant lit like a blowtorch to set the fires, putting people nearby at risk. She was identified using tattoos on her arms and hands that were clearly visible in video footage of the incident. Meanwhile, Devinare Antwan Parker was charged with possessing an improvised destructive device for an improvised firearm that he brought to a May 31 protest.

Sources for this article include:

TheEpochTimes.com

SeattleTimes.com

KIRO7.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:45:00|Editor: huaxia

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KUWAIT CITY, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait on Wednesday reported 751 new COVID-19 cases and five more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 61,185 and the death toll to 417, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Currently, 9,248 patients are receiving treatment, including 127 in ICU, the statement added.

The ministry also announced the recovery of 601 more patients, raising the total recoveries in the country to 51,520.

Kuwait and China have been supporting each other and cooperating closely in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kuwait donated medical supplies worth 3 million U.S. dollars to China at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak.

On April 27, a team of Chinese medical experts visited Kuwait to assist the Gulf country's anti-coronavirus fight, through sharing their experience and expertise in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. Enditem
As Welland Transit moves to up its services levels, the city is strongly recommending people wear face masks while riding buses.

But that recommendation may be moot if Niagara Region passes a regionwide mandatory mask bylaw, Welland councillors were told during a special meeting Tuesday night.

Mayor Frank Campion said he believed buses will fall under enclosed spaces, and the bylaw would have implications on Welland Transit.

He said he supports the Regions mask initiative.

Steve Zorbas, Wellands chief financial officer, said hed update council once regional council makes a decision either way on the bylaw.

Ward 2 Coun. Leo Van Vliet asked about people who cant wear masks on board buses for various health reasons. Zorbas didnt have an answer but said he would discuss it with transit manager Dave Stuart.

At a previous council meeting, politicians heard Lexan barriers installed next to each bus operators compartment would provide a hygiene barrier and keep staff and residents safe.

During Tuesdays meeting, council heard beginning Sunday, Aug. 2, buses will now run 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with hourly service between 6:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.

The citys four busy routes  505, 506, 508 and 509  will operate on half-hour service from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The four busy routes take in Seaway Mall, Niagara College, SmartCentres Welland  which includes Walmart, Canadian Tire and other retail stores  and the length of King Street.

Hourly service on all eight routes runs 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday service will see buses operate hourly from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Welland Transits full service sees buses run every half-hour Monday to Friday 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturdays have half-hour and hourly service from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sundays feature hourly service from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Its unknown when the city will return to that level of service.

Transit had been operating at reduced levels since March when ridership declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A reserve-a-ride system was put in place April 13 and buses operated Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with residents asked to call 24 hours in advance to book trips to medical appointments, work or get groceries (once a week only).

That service saw 25 passenger trips on slow days and about 35 trips on busy days and riders were not paying fares.

In mid-June, the city introduced east and west community bus routes running 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, which saw passenger trips climb to about 150 on busy days.

A week later, the city upped service levels once again. All eight buses routes were brought back into operation with hourly service from 8 a.m to 6 p.m., and the fare system was back in place.

Zorbas told councillors it could take between 10 and 14 days to return to pre-COVID-19 service levels and that staff would be monitoring ridership numbers, especially on the busier routes in the city.

Were in Stage 3 now, and we think ridership will continue to increase, he said, adding students returning to Niagara College and Brock University could push those numbers higher.
The federal officers who have whisked away demonstrators in unmarked vehicles have no probable cause, lawyers argue.

A federal judge heard arguments Wednesday on Oregons request for a restraining order against federal agents sent to the states biggest city to quell protests that have spiralled into nightly clashes between authorities and demonstrators.

The lawsuit, filed by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, alleges that federal agents sent by President Donald Trump have arrested people with no probable cause, whisked protesters away in unmarked cars and used excessive force to quell the unrest. It is part of growing pushback against the Trump administrations use of federal agents in Portland and its plans to do the same in other cities.

In a twist, the judge hearing the case  US District Court Judge Michael Mosman  works out of the Mark O Hatfield Federal Courthouse, which has been a target for more than 50 nights of protests following the killing of George Floyd. Floyd, a Black man, died after being pinned at the neck by a white Minneapolis police officer, igniting protests against racial injustice nationwide.

The motion for a temporary restraining order asks the judge to immediately command agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the US Customs and Border Patrol, the Federal Protective Service and the US Marshals Service to immediately stop detaining protesters without probable cause, to identify themselves before arresting anyone and to explain why an arrest is taking place.

During the hearing  held by videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic  Rosenblum said she was asking the court to declare it not acceptable for federal officers to use unconstitutional police state-type acts to detain citizens of Oregon without cause.

There are 114 federal agents in Portland, according to Steve Lippold, another lawyer for the state.

David Morrell, a lawyer for the US government, called the motion extraordinary and told the court it was based solely on a few threadbare declarations from witnesses and a Twitter video.

Its important to underscore whats at stake here. The Hatfield courthouse did not damage itself, he said, calling the protests dangerous and volatile.

Mosman said the declaration of one man, who said in court papers that he was arrested by federal agents for no reason and later released, seemed to meet the bar for Oregons motion for a temporary restraining order.

But in a back-and-forth with Oregon lawyers, Mosman focused on a Twitter video of another arrest that showed a person being placed in an unmarked van and seemed sceptical of the states argument that that arrest, in particular, was made without probable cause.

It was not clear when Mosman would rule.

A Black Lives Matter protester displays a pyrotechnic grenade he found on the street after federal officers used chemical irritants and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators [Noah Berger/AP Photo]

The suit by Oregons attorney general is one of several filed over law enforcements response to the Portland protests. On Thursday, a judge will hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of journalists and legal observers who say they were targeted and attacked by police while documenting demonstrations.

A freelance photographer covering the protests for The Associated Press submitted an affidavit that he was beaten with batons, chemical irritants and hit with rubber bullets.

US Judge Michael Simon previously ruled that journalists and legal observers are exempt from Portland police orders requiring protesters to disperse once an area has been declared an unlawful assembly. Federal lawyers say in court filings that journalists should have to leave when ordered to do so.

The Trump administration also faces another lawsuit, accusing federal agents of violating protesters 10th Amendment rights by engaging in police activities designated to local and state governments. That legal action was filed by the Western States Center, which helps organise and promote the rights of communities of colour and low-income people.

Before Wednesdays hearing, a fence was raised around the federal court, outside of which protesters and federal agents had clashed again overnight, according to the Portland police, who were not present.

Protesters repeatedly tried to break into the court and set fires around it, and the federal agents drove them back with tear gas and stun grenades, the police said.

Far from tamping down the unrest in Portland, the presence of federal agents on the streets of the progressive city has recently energised the nightly protests. Crowds had recently numbered fewer than 100 people but swelled to more than 1,000 over the weekend, attracting a broader base in a city thats increasingly unified and outraged.

Under no circumstances will I allow Donald Trumps troops to come to Chicago and terrorize our residents.  Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) July 21, 2020

The use of federal agents against the will of state and local officials also has set up the potential for a constitutional crisis, legal experts have said. It could escalate if Trump sends federal agents elsewhere, as he said he plans to do, including to Democratic-led Chicago.

During a US Senate committee hearing Wednesday, one of Oregons senators reiterated what state officials have said: that he believes the use of federal agents in Portland is unconstitutional.

If the line is not drawn in the sand right now, America may be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election, said Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat.

Federal authorities, however, have defended their response, saying officials in Oregon had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers and the US court in Portland.

We need to find a peaceful outcome, acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said at a news conference Tuesday in Washington. At the end of the day, we have to protect the federal property and the law enforcement officers.

Wolf said agents had been assaulted with lasers, bats, fireworks, bottles and other weapons. While he said federal agencies had made 43 arrests since July 4, he disputed that they were done by unidentified agents, noting that they have the word police on their uniforms.

Demonstrators hold their hands up in Portland, Oregon, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, who died May 25 after being restrained by police in Minneapolis [Craig Mitchelldyer/AP Photo]

Among the protesters this week was Maureen Healy, who joined a march with a family member, as demonstrators sang songs, chanted the names of Black lives lost and held moments of silence.

Just after midnight, she saw a line of authorities wearing camouflage and dark outfits emerge and advance on the crowd. The crowd retreated, and Healy said she heard bangs, saw smoke and was struck by a projectile as she turned away. She felt blood on her temple and went to the hospital with a black eye, cut to her face and a possible concussion.

This is my home. I was protesting peacefully, so why did federal troops shoot me in the head? asked Healy, 52, who is the chair of the History Department at Lewis & Clark College.
Less than a week after the Texas Education Agency revised its guidance to allow school districts to delay in-person instruction for up to two months, at least 17 Houston-area ISDs have clarified or announced new plans for how their school years will start this fall.

School boards in at least five districts  including Cypress-Fairbanks and Conroe ISDs  approved plans this week to push back their start dates, and Spring Branch Superintendent Jennifer Blaine asked her board Tuesday to approve a return after Labor Day at a special meeting Friday.

Clear Creek, Conroe, Galena Park, Montgomery, Magnolia, Texas City, Tomball and Fort Bend ISDs announced the vast majority of their students would start the school year remotely until after Labor Day or later in September. Others, including Katy and Cy-Fair ISDs, affirmed that students who chose to learn on campuses five days a week would start doing so as soon as the school year begins.

At a specially-called board meeting Tuesday, Cy-Fair ISD Superintendent Mark Henry said pushing that district's start date to Sept. 8 would give the administration more time to receive shipments of laptops and mobile wifi hotspots for families that would prefer to do virtual instruction but may lack the necessary equipment. However, he told trustees, the goal is to get students back in the classroom as soon and as safely as possible.

Our virtual platform is going to be 10 times better than it was in spring, but theres nothing that replaces in-person instruction, Henry said. We can provide a schooling online, but we cant provide an education online.

The changes and announcements follow last Fridays release of the Texas Education Agencys revised guidance and requirements for school reopenings as COVID-19 continues to spread around the state.

The new guidelines allow districts to start the school year with distance learning for four weeks, so long as students have access to the needed technology. Districts can receive a waiver to remain remote for an additional four weeks if they receive board approval.

Marie D. De Jesus, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Families still can choose to have their kids receive in-person instruction five days a week if they are in prekindergarten through eighth grade, but districts can limit the amount of time high schoolers spend on campus to 40 percent of their time, as long as the rest is spent learning virtually.

The TEA added the flexibility as statewide COVID-19 cases continue to climb. Tuesday saw 10,848 patients hospitalized with the new coronavirus across Texas  a record number  and 157 more people died from the illness. The percentage of tests coming back positive rose to 15 percent. However, in Greater Houston, the numbers appear to be improving. Recent data shows a slight decline in Texas Medical Center hospitalizations, a decrease in the percentage of tests coming back positive and a downward trend in the amount of viral spread.

Still, the Houston region has more cases of COVID-19 than any other metropolitan area in the state. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo sent a letter to school districts Monday asking that they keep students off campus for the full eight weeks granted by the TEA. Montgomery Countys Public Health District also sent districts a letter Monday, asking them to postpone in-person instruction until no earlier than Sept. 8.

Unlike orders issued by health authorities in Tarrant, El Paso and several Rio Grande Valley counties mandating that schools remain closed, Hidalgo and the Mongtomery Public Health Districts letters contained only recommendations.

In a letter to parents Wednesday, Tomball ISD Superintendent Martha Salazar-Zamora cited the local health recommendations as part of the suburban northwest districts decision to keep students learning remotely for the first four weeks of the school year.

Stafford MSD, Alief ISD, Fort Bend ISD and New Caney ISD officials said they would rely on local health authorities expertise before committing on a date to bring students back into classrooms. All four said they would start their school years remotely.

We will continue to monitor circumstances as we begin school and consult with local and state officials who are working to mitigate the crisis, New Caney ISD Superintendent Kenn Franklin told parents and staff in a video Tuesday. It is our hope that we can resume on-campus learning sooner rather than later.

Sehba Ali, superintendent of KIPP: Texas charter schools, released plans Friday pushing back her schools start date to Aug. 24 and keeping students learning virtually until Oct. 12  one of the latest dates announced for beginning in-person instruction. While she and other administrators are relying on health authority guidance, she said it was important to publish dates for remote and in-person instruction.

It was really important to us we give our families and our staff an anchor  a date for not only when students will go back to school virtually but also back in person, Ali said. We know for our children its important to provide as much information as possible so parents can plan around their own work schedules and day care needs.

School leaders cautioned that the newly announced plans, and plans were already published before the TEA put out revised guidance, could change before the start of the school year.

Here is a list of districts that announced changes or new plans for the start of school after TEA announced its revised guidance last Friday. Click the districts name for a link to its plans for starting school:

Alief ISD: All students will begin the school year virtually on Aug. 6, and they will remain virtual until a date that has not yet been decided. Originally, Superintendent HD Chambers said the district would conduct virtual learning for the first three weeks of school.

Clear Creek ISD: The start date for the 2020-21 school year has been pushed back to Aug. 24, and all classes will be virtual until Aug. 31. On that date, some student groups, such as those receiving special education or English language learner services, will return to campuses. All students who opt for in-person instruction will return to campus on Sept. 8.

Conroe ISD: All students will start the school year online on Aug. 12, and will continue distance learning for four weeks until Sept. 8, which is when students who choose in-person learning will return to campuses.

Cypress-Fairbanks ISD: The start date has been pushed back to Sept. 8. Students who seek in-person instruction will return to campuses then.

Fort Bend ISD: The start date has been pushed back five days to Aug. 17. Almost all students will learn remotely for the first four weeks, except for some in special education and a few other subgroups. Families that choose in-person instruction will send their students back after at least the first four weeks and once local health authorities say it is safe to return to campuses.

Galena Park ISD: The start of the school year has been pushed back to Sept. 8, and students will learn remotely for the first four weeks of the school year.

Katy ISD: Students will begin in-person and remote instruction on Aug. 19, depending on which option they choose.

KIPP: Texas/ Houston: School will start virtually on Aug. 24, and in-person instruction will not begin until Oct. 12.

Klein ISD: School will start virtually on Aug. 19. In-person instruction for students who select that option will begin no earlier than Sept. 9.

Magnolia ISD: Students will start the school year Aug. 12 virtually, and those who choose in-person instruction will return on Sept. 8.

Montgomery ISD: Students will start the school year Aug. 13 virtually. Students who opt for in-person instruction will return Sept. 8.

New Caney ISD: Students will start the school year virtually on Aug. 10. Superintendent Kenn Franklin said in a video message to parents Tuesday: We will continue to monitor circumstances as we begin school and consult with local and state officials who are working to mitigate the crisis. It is our hope that we can resume on-campus learning sooner rather than later.

Splendora ISD: Students in grades prekindergarten through 1 who se parents choose in-person instruction will start the school year on campus on Aug. 17, while all other students will start the year online. Students in grades 2 and 3 who choose in-person instruction will return to schools on Aug. 24, and students in grades 4 through 8 will be able to return to campuses on Aug. 31. High schoolers who select in-person learning will be able to return to school on Sept. 8, but will have a hybrid schedule in which they attend in-person classes part of the time and work from home the other part.

Spring Branch ISD: Superintendent Jennifer Blaine asked the board to push the start of the school year back to Sept. 8, which trustees will consider Friday. If the board approves the change, both in-person and remote instruction will begin on that date.

Stafford MSD: All students will start the school year virtually on Aug. 19. They will continue virtual learning for at least the first four weeks of the school year, after which district officials will consult with local health authorities on whether students can return to campuses.

Texas City ISD: All students will begin the school year remotely on Aug. 24 for the first three weeks of school. In-person instruction will begin for students that select that option on Sept. 14.

Tomball ISD: Students will begin the school year remotely on Aug. 18, and will keep distance learning for four weeks. Students who would like to learn on campus will be able to return to schools on Sept. 15.

Here is a list of districts that announced their plans for the start of the school year prior to the revised guidance. These plans, like all plans for reopening schools, could change before the start of the school year:

Aldine ISD: The school year will start virtually on Aug. 17, and students will be able to return to campus on Sept. 8.

Channelview ISD: Schools will start virtually on Aug. 17, and in-person instruction for students that selected that option will begin Sept. 8.

Dickinson ISD: In-person and remote instruction will begin on Aug. 24.

Goose Creek CISD: The start of the school year has been pushed back to Sept. 8. All students will learn remotely for the first three weeks of the school year.

Houston ISD: Officials pushed back the start date to Sept. 8, and all students will learn remotely for the first six weeks until Oct. 19.

Lamar CISD: Campuses will reopen for students who selected in-person learning on Aug. 24, and students who opted to remain virtual will also begin on that date.

La Porte ISD: The school year will begin virtually on Aug. 19, and students who chose in-person instruction will return to campuses on Sept. 8.

Santa Fe ISD: Students will start the school year virtually on Aug. 13, and those who prefer on-campus learning will return Sept. 8.

shelby.webb@chron.com
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The Apostle Paul will always be hard to beat when it comes to having the most profound impact and legacy for promoting Christianity.

In recent times, Billy Graham comes first to mind as the last big promoter of Christianity that remained free of corruption.

So, who's it going to be next?

Revival is certain  it's just a matter of when.

Interpreting the times through the lens of COVID suggests that revival will come big-time throughout the whole world. In the context of spiritual warfare, COVID is the pre-emptive strike from the enemy to contain the next big move of God.

We know that God is using this time during COVID to his advantage to re-shape the church.

But what about engaging the secular world?

Will there be another household name for the secular world promoting the message of Christianity that they will accept like Billy Graham?

Obviously that's up to God, but let's speculate for fun about how he might be preparing a person to fulfill that purpose.

Here's my top 10 list of essential character requirements for the next big promoter of Christianity.

A love for God before anything else. An incorruptible heart that does God's will and free of any idols. Authentic as opposed to performing. An ability to operate and communicate effectively in the world and the Kingdom to engage the secular. (Jesus ate and drank with the Gentiles). Reveal the supernatural power of God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Have no financial interest associated with the ministry. Total transparency to the public about money that funds the ministry. Not identify with a social scene before God (eg. hipster). Not affiliated with any specific denomination or church to prevent perceived favoritism or bias. Instead, representing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Always seeks Gods approval before people. Interesting, engaging, fun, and not boring.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and we know from the Bible that God chooses the most unlikely people to assist him on Earth!

One thing is certain: Gods Kingdom will advance. We wait patiently for His will to be revealed which just might include a new promoter of the Christian faith whos legacy surpasses even that of Billy Grahams.
Amarnath Yatra

Srinagar: The Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) decided to cancel this year's pilgrimage to the cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas in the wake of the closure of religious places in Jammu and Kashmir due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The decision to cancel the annual Amarnath Yatra was taken at a meeting of the shrine board chaired by SASB chairman Lieutenant Governor G C Murmu here.

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Amarnath Yatra"Based upon the circumstances, the Board decided with heavy heart that it is not advisable to hold and conduct this year's Shri Amarnathji Yatra and expressed its regret to announce the cancellation of Yatra 2020," the SASB said in a statement.

It said the board will, however, live telecast the ''virtual darshan'' of the prayers twice a day.
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Market Overview

The significant factor driving the growth of the Organic Sugar Market Size is the increasing demand of ready to eat foods, both in the developed and developing economies. Sugarcane crop is increasingly sprayed with harmful pesticides and chemicals during growing stage to protect crops from various pests and weeds. These pesticides can cause severe health issues among consumers. However, organic farming of sugarcane eliminates the risk of harmful pesticides. Hence, lack in use of pesticides is another key factor spiking the demand for organic sugar. Organic sugar retains various nutrients which otherwise are lost during over-processing of conventional sugar. The organic unrefined sugar contains 17 amino acids, 11 minerals (such as sodium, magnesium, and calcium) and many different vitamins. It retains its fructose and glucose along with sucrose, while the processed sugar only contains sucrose and glucose. Therefore, this factor is playing a key role to drive sales of organic sugar.

The market players have increased their level of investment in research to identify right formulation and to improve product functionality to capture lions share and create brand recognition in organic sugar market. Also, government authorities, NGOs, and farmer organizations in developing countries are promoting organic farming by providing financial support, market information and trends in organic foods market. Developing countries are providing subsidies to small farmers to promote organic farming. NGOs, farmer organizations, traders are conducting training programs to encourage farmers to adopt organic farming. Government and non-government organizations such as FiBL (Switzerland), APEDA (India), and USDA (U.S.) support conventional farmers to switch to organic farming. All these efforts from government and NGOs are supporting the use of organic sugar.

Competitive Analysis

Key manufacturers are focusing to enhance its brand name by arranging various promotional activities. The company has participated in various social media promotions, events, and interaction with the consumers. The manufacturers have demonstrated their new product offerings to attract the new customers. By this strategy, the product of the company will be popular among the consumers which will aid to increase the overall profitability of the company. Moreover, the key players are emphasizing in the research & development process to introduce new product also to extend the product line. Key players are introducing various new products to increase the volume sales and also to increase the overall revenue of the company.

The key players profiled in Organic Sugar Market Size are Cosan Ltd. (Brazil), Tereos Internacional (Brazil), Shree Renuka Sugars Limited (India), Raizen S.A (Brazil), Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Limited (India), Mitr Phol Group (Thailand), Wangkanai Group (Thailand), and Bunge Limited (Brazil) among many others.

Market Segments

Global Organic Sugar Market has been divided into application, and region

Based on Application: Food & Beverages, Pharma and personal care, Others

Based on Region: Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World

Browse Full Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/organic-sugar-market-4252

Regional Analysis

Global Organic Sugar Market is segmented into Latin America, APAC, and Rest of the World (RoW). Latin America is estimated to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period of 2017-2024. Among the Latin American countries, Brazil is accounting for major market share due to the high production of organic sugar. Paraguay is also holding 30% of the market proportion in the Latin America organic sugar market. Also, Paraguay exports the maximum production to USA. Asia Pacific region is also accounting for significant market share in the global organic sugar market in the year of 2017 and it is expected to witness massive growth during the forecast period. Among the Asia Pacific, Thailand is one of the attractive destinations among the organic sugar manufacturers. Apart from that, Colombia, and Ecuador collectively account for 80% of the market share in the Rest of the World.

Related Covid-19 Analysis on FnB Reports:

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-a2-milk-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-alternative-sweeteners-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-artisan-bakery-market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/report/covid-19-impact-rtd-beverages-market

NOTE: Our Team of Researchers are Studying Covid19 and its Impact on Various Industry Verticals and wherever required we will be considering Covid19 Footprints for Better Analysis of Market and Industries. Cordially get in Touch for More Details.
Christian adoption agency can sue NY for threatening closure over not placing kids with gay couples

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An appeals court has revived a Christian adoption agencys lawsuit against officials in New York state who are seeking to force the charity to place children with unmarried and same-sex couples instead of referring them to other providers.

New Hope Family Services filed a lawsuit against state officials after it was told that its policy of only placing children in married heterosexual homes violated a 2013 state law.

In 2018, New Yorks Office of Children and Family Services concluded that New Hope violated a 2013 state law prohibiting discrimination against applicants for adoption services on the basis of sexual orientation and marital status.

A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Tuesday to send the case back down to the district court, ruling in favor of the Christian charity.

Circuit Judge Reena Raggi authored the panel opinion, writing that New Hope had a valid suspicion of religious animosity in light of how state law was being used against the Christian adoption agency.

 for New Hope to continue its adoption ministry in New York, OCFS insisted that it compromise  i.e., abandon  its own religious views about family and marriage and subscribe to the states orthodoxy on such matters, wrote Raggi.

Construed in this light, the allegations cannot be dismissed for failing to state a plausible Free Exercise claim.

Raggi also believed that further inquiry was warranted over why New Hope was not seen as violating state antidiscrimination from 2013 to 2018.

It is plainly a serious step to order an authorized adoption agency such as New Hope  operating without complaint for 50 years, taking no government funding, successfully placing approximately 1,000 children, and with adoptions pending or being supervised  to close all its adoption operations, continued Raggi.

All the more serious when, as just discussed, the agency has, for five years and without objection by OCFS, used recusal and referral to avoid rejecting applicants on the basis of its religious beliefs.

Alliance Defending Freedom's Vice President of Appellate Advocacy, John Bursch, whose organization is representing New Hope, celebrated the appeals court decision.

New Hopes faith-based services do nothing to interfere with other adoption providers, but banishing it means fewer kids will find permanent homes, fewer adoptive parents will ever welcome their new child, and fewer birth parents will enjoy the exceptional support that New Hope has offered for decades, stated Bursch.

Additionally, government officials are not being neutral when they single out religious organizations for hostile treatment based on their beliefs about marriage. Thats a flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution.

In recent years, some Christian adoption agencies have found themselves at odds with states seeking to have them conform to antidiscrimination laws mandating that they place children in same-sex or LGBT households.

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will hear arguments in the case of Fulton v. Philadelphia, centered on the issue of faith-based adoption agencies and government support.

In that case, Catholic foster care parents sued Philadelphia for no longer placing children with Catholic Social Services because the group does not place children with same-sex couples.
'We are beginning to see that the rest of the world will not simply accept the domination of one power'

'China is compelling many of its neighbours to build stronger ties with the US including on defence and security cooperation'

China will face the consequences of its misplaced aggression in eastern Ladakh and other parts of Asia because its misadventures may trigger nationalist counter-responses among neighbours who will simply not accept any attempted domination, a strategic affairs expert said Wednesday.

Prof C Raja Mohan, who heads a prestigious institution in Singapore, also said China's actions in eastern Ladakh have created conditions for a 'fundamental reset' of New Delhi's ties with Beijing as its 'unacceptable assertion' of power and quest to grab more land undercut nearly three decades of efforts to build mutual trust.

China has been equally belligerent in South China Sea and East China Sea much to the chagrin of countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia.

Prof Mohan said China will face consequences for its misplaced aggression as Asian countries will produce counter-responses, including a push for re-balancing of power in the region.

"We are beginning to see that the rest of the world will not simply accept the domination of one power," he said.

"I think the important point here is that the Chinese might have fundamentally miscalculated the nature of nationalism in Asia. Most countries in Asia are nationalist, India is nationalist.

"There is a strong sense of nationalism all across South East Asia," Prof Mohan told PTI in a telephonic interview from Singapore.

"The very attempt at imposing one nation's will is going to produce a backlash just as most Asian countries like China fought off colonial powers. So they are not going to simply accept the attempted domination by any new power in Asia," he said.

The noted Indian strategic affairs expert is currently serving as director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.

He said China has been pushing the countries closer to the US by its aggressive behaviour, adding there has been a resistance from the rest of the world to counter Beijing as the global community cannot simply accept the attempted domination of one power.

"What China has done is to nudge most of the countries towards the US. The countries which were hesitant or reluctant to deal with the US. China is compelling many of its neighbours to build stronger ties with the US including on defence and security cooperation," he said.

"So the effect of its action is counter-productive even from China's own perspective purely looking at it as an analytical thing. So my sense is, even within China, I am sure there are people who see this as a miscalculation and that the consequences of needless assertion will cost China," Prof Mohan observed.

He said the primary consequence of China's misadventure in eastern Ladakh including the Galwan Valley clashes was the impact on the three decades of normalisation of India-China relationship that began with the visit of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 and subsequent signing of a series of agreements.

The relationship suffered a massive setback when 20 Indian army personnel were killed in Galwan Valley clashes on June 15.

"But by unilaterally trying to change the border and adopting an aggressive posture on the Ladakh frontier and other places, China has dramatically undercut the developing trust in Beijing by the Indian people and this has created conditions for a fundamental reset of the relationship," Prof Mohan said.

"What China might gain in territory, it loses in terms of the steady expansion of goodwill for China among the Indian population and the larger benefits of economic cooperation with India," he added.

During an interview with PTI last month, Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong had refused to answer why China resorted to such aggressive military behaviour when the world was battling COVID-19.

He wouldn't say what was the motive behind the massive build-up of troops and why Chinese military carried out the brutal assault on Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley.

The Chinese envoy was also asked whether China will punish the soldiers involved in the attacks on Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley, or what the Chinese casualty figure was.

He wouldn't even say why China has not allowed Indian patrols from Finger 4 to Finger 8 areas in Pangong Tso and remained mum when asked if he thought the border standoff will have a huge impact on economic ties between the two countries.

The Chinese envoy also did not respond to questions in the course of the interview on why China violated an agreement the two sides reached on June 6 to disengage from all the friction points on the Line of Actual Control(LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

When asked about the Chinese behaviour on the Indian border, Prof Mohan said it might have been quite surprising to a large number of people in India, but appears to be part of a general pattern that has been seen elsewhere.

He said China under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and 90s agreed to put aside territorial disputes and focus on regional cooperation.

"Deng Xioaping's philosophy was there must be peace on the frontiers, and India-China normalisation was also based on Deng's formula of keeping peace on the borders.

"What we have seen under Xi Jinping's leadership in the last few years is to abandon the approach of peace and unilaterally assert China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, in the east China Sea, more muscular behaviour towards Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the Indian case," he said.

Prof Mohan said China's aggression in eastern Ladakh is not exclusive to India, but seems to be part of a pattern where China has asserted itself in a 'strange ways' on its territorial disputes.

"This is part of a larger transformation of China that is taking place under Xi Jinping," he added.

Asked whether China has been attempting to change the world order, Prof Mohan said China benchmarks itself against the US and sees itself as about to overtake the US, believing that it has the means and the capacity to restructure the global order.

He said one of the negative consequences of what China's behaviour has been is making the US an ally of nationalist sentiments in Asia.

"Today, because of its actions, it is making the US a natural ally of nationalism in Asia."

"By aggressively embarking on a unilateral change of territory and unilateral assertion of power, China is pushing the rest of the world to counter.

"Normally, the tendency by most of the states is that look when you have a strong power, you do not want to pick a fight especially when you have a lot of economic stakes in the relationship."

He said all of Asia was looking up to China as there has been deeper and greater economic interdependence with that country. But today, because of China's pressure, he observed, there is a pushback from the rest of the world.

Prof Mohan said most countries want economic cooperation with China but are reconsidering such commercial engagement because of its expansionism.

"People are trying to get together to deal with Chinese assertion of their power. Maybe Beijing calculated that others will not react or that it is not possible for them to resist.

"But we have already seen in the case of 5G, in the case of emergence of new institutions of collaboration like the Quad and other institutions."

"When you are pushed around by somebody, you try to balance. I think that is the natural impulse. If China rides roughshod over its neighbouring countries, the countries will seek balance. I think that is what is beginning to happen," he added.
Four Blackfeet men are stalked by the vengeful spirit of an elk they slaughtered 20 years earlier (The Only Good Indians). A mysterious power outage plunges an isolated Anishnaabe community into a violent power struggle (Moon of the Crusted Snow). Indigenous people are hunted down for their bone marrow in a dystopian future (The Marrow Thieves) and an Inuit shaman faces off against a ravenous black wolf with red eyes (Those Who Run in the Sky).

Four very different novels from four very different authors, all drawing upon tropes and storylines familiar to horror and dystopian fiction fans everywhere. Dig deeper, though, and youll uncover a trove of themes and collective fears unique to the Indigenous experience in North America.

In Stephen Graham Jones new novel, The Only Good Indians, which is already a bestseller in its first week of release and is garnering comparisons to Jordan Peeles horror film Get Out as a cultural touchstone, four young Blackfeet men pay a terrible price when they hunt on land reserved for the communitys elders. Twenty years later, an entity named Elk-head woman returns to exact brutal justice on middle-aged hunters and their families.

Jones, a Blackfeet author who has written more than 20 books and teaches literature at the University of Colorado Boulder, is reluctant to assign too many distinct characteristics to Indigenous horror. For him, its more a case of knowing it when he sees it. When I read stuff by Indians, he says, there tends to be a lot of lightheartedness there. If you look back at the horrors weve faced over the last four or five hundred years  I mean, you have to find a way to laugh about it. His novels are shot through with mordant humour. If I want to embody some of that (Indigenous) experience, I have to include that lightheartedness.

There are also distinct cultural concepts of justice and recompense central to what can be broadly termed Indigenous horror. Speaking of The Only Good Indians, Jones says, The justice in the novel is very harsh. I mean, these four guys make a stupid mistake when theyre young and the next thing you know theyre getting decapitated! Its like that initial mistake has accrued interest over time so that, in the end, the payback is so much bigger.

The sense that Indigenous people pay a disproportionate price for their typically human mistakes permeates the novel. And though Elk-head woman is a monster as vicious and implacable as Jason of the Friday the 13th franchise or Freddy Krueger of Nightmare on Elm Street, she is presented throughout the novel more as a victim of violence than a perpetrator.

I wanted to show that, yes, you make mistakes and you try to move on, Jones explains. But you also have to think about the victim of those mistakes. What is the proper way to think about the victim and their need for recompense? You cant move on without answering those questions.

Injustice and the outsize suffering of innocent victims is a collective legacy for Indigenous cultures, the novel suggests, but young people  here in the form of Denorah, the daughter of one of the hunters who faces off against Elk-head woman in the climax  have to imagine other narratives beyond survival. When I was growing up in a small town in West Texas, Jones says, the Conan stories and novels were so important to my development. Being able to imagine a place like Hyperborea (the sagas mythical setting), it was so transportive.

As Jones points out, Indigenous horror is informed by apocalyptic violence. As the heirs to 500 years of colonial violence, pandemics, land grabs and the near-destruction of their traditional languages and cultures, Indigenous authors naturally gravitate toward the apocalyptic in their work. As an elder in Waubgeshig Rices haunting Moon of the Crusted Snow puts it so succinctly: Apocalypse. Weve had that over and over. But we always survived.

In the typical apocalyptic novel, the survivors must fall back on their own survival skills. Fellow survivors are viewed as either uneasy allies or existential threats. Moon of the Crusted Snow makes a radical break from this every-person-for-themselves trope by having the survivors work together to fight the threat.

From my own perspective as an Anishinaabe person who grew up on the rez, I know that my people have come together to rebuild after these world-ending moments, Rice explains. We have the perspective of what is needed in times of crisis, a coming together.

The young Indigenous survivors in Cherie Dimalines award-winning The Marrow Thieves also overcome despair and selfishness to work together. Even in this horrible dystopian future, Dimaline told the Star in a 2017 interview, people are being hunted, theres a terrible outcome; theres still so much hope in that group of characters.

In both novels, the survivors draw upon communal traditions and survival skills that predate colonialism, a timely metaphor for the ongoing struggle to protect Indigenous traditions from extinction. Without access to those traditions, the authors suggest, there is little hope of surviving the horrors of the modern world.

Inuit author Aviaq Johnstons work, including her Governor General Award-nominated YA novel Those Who Run in the Sky, is steeped in the cultural traditions of the Arctic. When she recently edited Taaqtumi: An Anthology of Arctic Horror Stories, she found a group of geographically dispersed authors drawing on the same font of story and tradition: Inuit Nunangat (homeland) across the Arctic is rich with the stories our ancestors have passed on for millennia, and our unique environment and wildlife are great inspiration  A lot of our legends and stories also have creepy and gruesome themes. Scary stories are simply part of growing up in Nunavut.

Those traditional stories, Rice agrees, are key to understanding modern Indigenous horror. Traditionally a lot of Indigenous cultures have stories about scary things, but they are all lessons, they are all teaching moments. Of course, when youre a kid and you hear these stories, they scare the sh-t out of you. Thats the point: you get scared and you learn from them!

James Grainger is the author of Harmless
Not all foreign investors who leave China will automatically choose Vietnam as the next destination, Deputy Regional Managing Director of the US-ASEAN Business (USABC) Council Vu Tu Thanh said recently.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has decided to set up a special taskforce in charge of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), which has changed its direction after Covid-19.

Deputy Regional Managing Director of the US-ASEAN Business (USABC) Council Vu Tu Thanh

The move has been described by Thanh as a new push and the first action taken by the government to implement the Politburos Resolution No 50 on attracting FDI by 2030.



USABC is an organization representing 160 member corporations which have business activities all over the globe, the most of which are listed among 500 US leading companies named by Fortune.

The representative of USABC said not all investors leaving China will choose Vietnam. When leaving China, foreign investors will consider ASEAN and India for their next destinations.

The representative of USABC said not all investors leaving China will choose Vietnam. When leaving China, foreign investors will consider ASEAN and India for their next destinations.

India is a market with high competitiveness. ASEAN is also worth considering while Vietnam is seen as an important member economy which contributes to the growth engine of the entire ASEAN.



No single economy in ASEAN, however, is capable of replacing China to attract multi-national groups global supply or distribution chains.



If localities in Vietnam follow their own individual policy, investors will not organize production on a large scale to cut costs and increase competitiveness.



There are many factors that affect foreign investors decisions on whether to go to Vietnam.



Investors will pay attention to industrial zones (IZs), where they will set up factories.



The governments Decree 82 on the management of IZs and economic zones (EZs) mentions the grading of IZs, assigning the Ministry of Interior Affairs. However, the IZ ranking is just the initiative of some localities such as Dong Nai, while the national criteria for ranking have not been set.



Vietnam has 374 established IZs and 259 unestablished IZs, but not all large multi-national groups will flock to Vietnam.



Thanh believes that it will be better for Vietnam to not only attract big investors, but also small and medium sized investors.



Attracting several big investors is enough to be considered a great success, Thanh said, adding that when big investors come to Vietnam, they will bring small and medium enterprises in their supply chains.



Vietnams enterprises wont be able to become first-class vendors for large groups immediately, he explained.

In 2019, Vietnams FDI performance hit a decade-long high at around $38 billion pledged, according to the Vietnam Investment Review.

Chi Mai

Land price escalates on news about FDI 'wave' Someone said the land rent in IZs has surged to $150-200 per square meter. But rent of $100 is considered high already, said Do Nhat Hoang, director of the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA).
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 21:05:15|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike on Wednesday urged residents of the capital to refrain from going out unnecessarily during the upcoming four-day weekend amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in Tokyo and as the nationwide daily tally hit a new record.

"We have to stop the spread of infection no matter what. If you are going out, I ask citizens to take thorough measures to prevent infection," Koike told a press conference on the matter.

"Moreover, I want citizens to refrain from going out as much as possible during the four-day weekend starting Thursday. We need to keep our guard up to be ready for a second wave of infections," Koike added.

Koike's remarks came as the capital of 14 million reported 238 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with the city's cumulative total now reaching 10,054 infections.

The latest figure marks the second day COVID-19 infections have surpassed 200, with the number of infections remaining in triple digits every day in July except for two.

Nationwide, meanwhile, new COVID-19 cases surged by a record 747 on Wednesday, bringing Japan's cumulative total to 27,222 infections, not including those related to a cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama near Tokyo in February.

The number eclipsed the previous record set on April 11 when 720 new daily cases were recorded nationwide.

The national death toll now stands at a total of 1,002, according to the latest figures Wednesday evening.

Tokyo, the hardest-hit by the virus of all of Japan's 47 prefectures, has been grappling to deal with a resurgence of cases since a state of emergency over the virus was fully lifted on May 25.

The city's record hit 293 cases last Friday, the metropolitan government said, having previously raised its pandemic alert to the highest on its four-tier scale, stating that "infections are spreading."

On Wednesday, Osaka Prefecture, Japan's second hardest hit region by the virus, reported a record number of new daily COVID-19 cases at 121, according to Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura.

The prefecture's cumulative total has now risen to 2,662 cases.

Concerns have also been voiced about Tokyo's surrounding prefectures seeing cases spike commensurate with the capital's uptrend.

Kanagawa Prefecture on Wednesday reported 68 new COVID-19 cases, bringing its cumulative total to 2,105 infections, while cases in Saitama Prefecture, also close to Tokyo, increased by 62 to total 1,888 cases.

Chiba Prefecture, meanwhile, saw total cases rise to 1,364 following 40 new cases being reported Wednesday, the latest official figures showed.
Wyoming voters got their first real look at the Republican candidates seeking to replace longtime U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi on Tuesday night in the 2020 campaign seasons first televised debate.

Fundraising numbers frame the race as primarily between former U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis and Converse County Commissioner Robert Short. But the debate offered less of an opportunity to compare and contrast local policy viewpoints and more of a free-for-all between eight Wyoming candidates  and an outsider from Scottsdale, Arizona  who debated everything from the tearing down of Confederate statues to immigration reform to the censorship of conservatives on social media platforms.

In two one-hour segments, the candidates  divided into two randomly selected groups  were offered different sets of questions broaching a wide variety of topics, including their support for funding organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whether they believed systemic racism exists in the United States and how they felt the nation should rebound in the wake of COVID-19.

Short and Lummis were placed in separate groups and offered different sets of questions, leaving both to grapple with a variety of candidates without an opportunity to stack their policies against the other presumed frontrunners.

This left the evenings debates as a sprawling affair between a broad spectrum of candidates. Lummis found herself head-to-head with Sheridans Bryan Miller, political newcomers Donna Rice and Michael Kemler, and scrappy outsider Joshua Wheeler, who has campaigned aggressively thus far. Short found himself facing off against Laramie attorney John Holtz and Centennial resident Mark Armstrong  both of whom are registered in the state but have failed to file a single report with the Federal Elections Commission this cycle  as well as Arizona resident Star Roselli, who has done little to no in-state campaigning. Roselli endorsed an unfounded conspiracy theory that Mark Zuckerberg is the grandson of David Rockefeller and repeatedly referred to Native Americans as Indians throughout the evening.

Beyond the nights numerous distractions  including a long segment in the second debate about whether social media organizations should be regulated to end the supposed practice of censoring conservatives  the differences between the policies expressed by most of the candidates were few.

Those who were asked were mainly on the same page about building a physical perimeter between the United States and Mexico while expanding merit-based immigration into the U.S. Almost every candidate endorsed increasing domestic manufacturing and school choice. And all in the first debate expressed dissatisfaction with the tearing down of statues and monuments, the use of federal coronavirus relief money to reimburse states for lost revenues and Democratic proposals for some form of socialized medicine.

There were some distinctions between candidates, however. Where most candidates in the first debate were advocates of private insurance, Miller and Lummis suggested tangible policy solutions, with both advocating for the increased deregulation of insurance markets to allow interstate competition and for more price transparency from pharmaceutical companies and health care providers. Lummis also pledged support for legislation sponsored by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy aiming to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Lummis also differentiated herself from her debate field by saying the use of federal agents to quell protests in cities around the country  which her fellow candidates supported with few caveats  should only occur to protect federal property, leaving local law enforcement to the municipalities themselves.

All candidates in the first debate also agreed that structural racism  an issue at the root of widespread protests around the nation and abroad  was not a federal issue in need of Congressional action, with each stating that racism was not an issue of policy (extensive research by groups like the Urban Institute shows it is) but of the heart. While Lummis said efforts to combat racism should come at the personal and community levels, Miller claimed restorative justice programs by the government are counterproductive and have actually caused more problems in Democratically-run major cities for decades, citing recent examples of rioting and looting.

We need to enjoy our great diversity, Rice said in her response. It is a beautiful, woven blanket of humanity, and we need to enjoy that and embrace it, not put each other down and look at each other differently because we have different colors of skin. I have freckles, does that make me bad?

Candidates in the second debate grappled with a different series of issues, including topics like the national debt, reforms to social security, and the unilateral powers of the president and public health officers to make policy decisions without congressional input. (All favored local control for public health orders and were not in favor of reining in the presidents ability to pass executive orders.)

Candidates also had an opportunity to weigh in on the place of federal treaties with tribal governments in land management decisions, a question that led Holtz to express his disappointment over a recent decision by the Supreme Court to prevent employer discrimination against the LGBTQ community, which he described as an expansion of homosexual rights.

I am in a profession that seems to have lost its moral compass, he said.

The Democratic candidates are scheduled to debate at 7 p.m. Thursday at Central Wyoming College in Riverton. A livestream of the debate will be available on the Wyoming PBS YouTube page and will be simulcast by Wyoming Public Radio.

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The MiG-29Ks can be used for combat air patrols in the Ladakh sector

New Delhi: The Navys MiG-29K maritime fighter jets are being deployed at airbases in the northern sector to beef up the Air Forces strength following the heightened tensions with China at the Line of Actual Control. The MiG-29Ks can be used for combat air patrols in the Ladakh sector.

The Indian Navy has around 40 MiG-29K fighters, only half of which are deployed on aircraft-carrier INS Vikramaditya. The MiG-29K jets were procured by the Navy along with the aircraft-carrier over a decade ago.

The Navys P-81 surveillance aircraft have reportedly already been deployed in Ladakh to carry out surveillance and reconnaissance of the Chinese PLA troops. Interestingly, it was during 73-day standoff with China in Doklam in 2027 that the Navys P-81 aircraft were deployed to gather crucial intelligence on Chinese troops. The Army was amazed at the kind of intelligence that the P-81 aircraft could pick up on the PLA troops operations as it was felt that these aircraft could only be used in sea operations.
Florida teachers sued Monday to block what they call the reckless and unsafe reopening of public school campuses for face-to-face instruction.

The Florida Education Association lawsuit argues that reopening this fall would put students and school employees at risk  as well as accelerate the spread of the coronavirus. The lawsuit, filed in state Circuit Court in Miami, names as defendants Gov. Ron DeSantis, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, the Florida Department of Education and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

Governor DeSantis needs a reality check, and we are attempting to provide one, said FEA President Fedrick Ingram. The governor needs to accept the reality of the situation here in Florida, where the virus is surging out of control.

Everyone wants schools to reopen, but we dont want to begin in-person teaching, face an explosion of cases and sickness, then be forced to return to distance learning, Ingram added.

Florida reported another 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the 12th day since the Fourth of July the number has topped that threshold. The state Department of Health reported 10,347 new cases and 90 deaths. That brings the states totals for the entire pandemic to more than 360,000 cases and over 5,100 deaths.

The new reported deaths brings Floridas seven-day average to about 114 per day. Its overall deaths rank 25th in the nation per capita, or about 7 times less than highest-ranked New Jersey.

Hospitalizations for the disease continued to increase, standing at 9,452 statewide in the late morning Monday _ up about 160 from the day before. Though the increase has slowed when compared to about a week ago, those additional patients have been straining intensive care units of some hospitals in the South Florida, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville areas.

Statewide, 18% of ICU beds were available.

The skyrocketing caseload is making for a strange summer in the Sunshine State, where many popular beaches are shuttered, residents and tourists can be fined for not wearing masks, and bars across the state arent allowed to pour liquor.

The upcoming plan to have the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville to renominate President Donald Trump continues to be on shaky ground. Even after the GOP announced plans to scale back the convention and hold more events outside, the local sheriff said peoples safety cannot be guaranteed.

Where we are today is we cant support this plan, Sheriff Mike Williams told local news outlets Monday. Where do we go from here is a good question. But where we are today, we cant support it.

Williams added: Theres got to be some major reworking of whats happening.

Critics have complained that DeSantis has not mandated a statewide mask ordinance as cases rise. The governor has repeatedly said policies in hard-hit South Florida might not make sense in the Panhandle, where the infection rate is lower, even as his fellow Republicans increasingly acknowledge the need for a unified, nonpartisan message.

Speaking at blood center in Orlando, where he was interrupted by chanting protesters Monday, DeSantis said parents should be given a choice as to what is the best option for their children, whether virtual learning, in-class schooling or a combination of the two. Schools also need to make health accommodations for employees too if they are high risk, the governor said.

Parents need to choose the best environment for their students, their kids, the Republican governor said. If a teacher doesnt feel comfortable there  I think they should be given as many options as possible.

When asked about a Department of Education order requiring brick-and-mortar schools to reopen, DeSantis distanced himself from it.

I didnt give any executive order. That was the Department of Education, DeSantis said. Obviously, if you look at the epidemic, its more severe in some parts than others, and I think you should recognize that.

Later on Monday, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran suggested that the states emergency order merely restates current law that requires schools to operate 180 days a school year. Corcoran, a former state House speaker, works for the governor.

The order, he said in a statement, did not order any new directives regarding the requirements of schools to be open, adding that it simply created new innovative options for families to have the choice to decide what works best for the health and safety of their student and family.

DeSantis was at OneBlood to encourage people who had been infected with the virus and recovered to donate blood plasma that can be used in the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

_____

Associated Press writers Mike Schneider in Orlando and Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee contributed to this story.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Florida Training Development
South Africa's health system has a longstanding problem: a severe shortage of medical staff. The World Bank estimates that South Africa has only 0.9 medical doctors for every 1,000 people compared with the global average of 1.6. The country has only about 1.3 nurses and midwives for every 1,000 people, compared to the global average of 3.8.

COVID-19 is rapidly adding to this problem. The International Council of Nurses estimates that about 230,000  or 7%  of all COVID-19 cases worldwide are among healthcare workers.

In South Africa, healthcare workers have not been spared. By mid-July doctors, nurses, allied health workers, laboratory workers, paramedics or porters admitted to hospital accounted for 3% of total COVID-19 admissions.

The rates of infection and hospital admissions among healthcare workers is likely to increase as has been the case elsewhere in the world. The government recently allocated an additional R12.6 billion (over US$754 million) to frontline health services.

But there's no coherent welfare strategy for healthcare workers. There are medical protocols in place to reduce hospital and clinic staff's risk of infection at work. But it's not clear how the government seeks to assist staff with the extraordinary practical and psychological challenges of working daily  and over many months  with the threat of infection.

A welfare strategy should also include protocols for monitoring the effectiveness of plans and procedures to protect staff so that they can be revised if necessary. This will be inevitable as understanding of the virus improves.

Below we outline 10 elements of a coherent strategy to improve the welfare of healthcare workers as a result of COVID-19. These interventions are based on research and emergent practices in the field.

What a strategy should contain

Prioritise screening and testing for healthcare workers: The Imperial College London's COVID-19 response team model shows that a regular testing approach on top of other measures, like healthcare workers self-isolating if they develop symptoms, could reduce staff's contribution to transmission of the virus by 25%-33%. Some South African hospitals are using a dedicated staff tracker and report cases daily to the health department. In hospitals with limited testing kits, staff can conduct daily self-monitoring for COVID-19 symptoms.

There also needs to be vast improvement in the turnaround time (48 hours) for communicating test results. In public hospitals this can take as long as 12 days. It's also recommended that in high COVID-19 prevalence areas, all incoming patients be treated as potential COVID-19 cases to improve infection control.

Provide adequate personal protective equipment and train people in how to use it: Health facilities still report not having enough quality personal protective equipment and it's poorly used . Equitable distribution of personal protective equipment is also a concern. Provision of personal protective equipment has to be accompanied by frequent regular training and is an urgent priority.

Step up disinfection procedures: One hospital investigation showed the main way the virus spread was through droplets left on surfaces and transferred by health workers. Recent evidence on aerosol transmission of the coronavirus means that this vector of infection has been previously underestimated. Yet a recent report indicates that COVID-19 patients are being treated in same ward as non COVID patients.

Health facilities need support to reduce this means of transmission. This can be done by reviewing the ventilation, improving air filtration, installing ultraviolet lights, and disinfecting high-contact areas such as reception and communal eating spaces. Ensuring that COVID-19 patients are kept in isolation with minimal movement is important.

Step up mental health and support services: Healthcare workers are exposed to high levels of work stress. This can lead to mental exhaustion, anxiety and even post-traumatic stress disorders. COVID-19 also brings about issues of stigma because of the threat of infecting their families and others.

Professional and social support is required. There are some promising initiatives. For instance, a Cape Town based technology start-up, Vula Mobile , is being used nationwide to relieve distress through a mental health helpline for healthcare workers. A Healthcare Workers Care Network has been launched nationwide by the South African Society of Psychiatrists, the South African Medical Association, and the South Africa Depression and Anxiety Group to provide psychosocial support and education. But facilities need accessible on-site support.

Recruitment drive: South Africa currently has a shortage of more than 12,000 healthcare workers . More healthcare workers are likely to get sick or go into self-isolation. An urgent recruitment strategy is needed to increase personnel through volunteers, bursar nurses, intern and foreign doctors, and students. Staffing replenishment has to be paired with COVID-19 training to be effective.

Move to digital platforms: A new, ambitious digitisation project is being implemented at Tygerberg Hospital in the Western Cape to stop the spread of COVID-19 from patients to healthcare workers. The hospital is doing away with paper records in intensive care units while freeing up nursing capacity to focus on high-quality care to patients. More support is required for such innovations which can improve staff infection control by up to 50% .

Confront the risk and concerns: Healthcare workers are anxious about the possibility of infecting their families. As COVID-19 infections peak, more staff may wish to have alternative accommodation to avoid the risk of household transmission. The feasibility of using unoccupied student residences and hotels as temporary places for rest and self-isolation should be considered. Even the distribution of clear guidelines on how to reduce infection risks at home would help.

Provide financial motivation and dedicated transport: Given the ongoing salary disputes between healthcare workers and the government, incentives such as risk allowances could improve motivation. This was seen in the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa . Dedicated transport to and from work can also limit risk of infections, as healthcare workers are not happy with public transport (for example, minivan taxis now allowed to function at full loading capacity).

Communicate between facility management and staff: There have been reports of some hospitals hiding information about positive cases in the workplace. Transparency and frequent communication is necessary to curtail infection. It could also address anxieties, curb fake news and reduce staff absenteeism. Using health and safety committees in hospitals to ensure COVID-19 compliance and communicate key health messages is important.

Provide financial compensation for illness or death: There should be coherent and free plans for the care of healthcare workers and their families.

As the COVID-19 epidemic intensifies, so too will the burden on healthcare workers. Healthcare workers are the country's most important resource in the crisis response. In the face of these extraordinarily difficult challenges, the health ministry needs to be innovative and transparent in supporting healthcare workers.

Kaymarlin Govender currently receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation, SADC HIV secretariat and Sida. He leads an NRF-STINT partnership with University of Gothenburg, Sweden on social determinants of HIV/AIDS. He also provides technical support to the Regional Inter Agency Task Team (RIATT-ESA), on HIV/AIDS policy and programming for young people in Eastern and Southern Africa

I disclose there are no conflicts of interest

Gavin George and Sean Beckett do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

By Kaymarlin Govender, Research Director at The Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division (HEARD), University of KwaZulu-Natal And

Gavin George, Programe Leader, Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division (HEARD), University of KwaZulu-Natal And

Sean Beckett, Research Fellow, Health Systems, Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD) Institute, University of KwaZulu-Natal And

Tim Quinlan, Associate Research Professor/Senior Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu-Natal
WASHINGTON  Speaking from the White House briefing room, President Trump weighed in on the arrest of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, saying, I just wish her well.

Maxwell, the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, has been charged with helping financier Jeffrey Epstein in an elaborate international scheme to recruit teenage girls for sexual liaisons with older men. Trump acknowledged knowing the pair but said he hasnt been monitoring the saga and doesnt have an opinion on whether she might implicate other powerful men.

I havent really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly. Ive met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach, but I wish her well whatever it is, Trump said.

The question came during a briefing and press conference called to discuss the administrations coronavirus response, at which Trump, who had been downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic, acknowledged that the situation would probably get worse, but nevertheless predicted that the virus ultimately will disappear.

The briefing was the first one since April. The president had announced he would resume the regular pressers on Monday.

Maxwell was arrested earlier this month on multiple federal charges, including transporting a minor for the purposes of criminal sexual activity and engaging in a conspiracy to entice minors to travel for criminal sexual acts. Her arrest came almost exactly one year after Epstein was arrested in conjunction with federal sex trafficking charges. Epstein subsequently was found dead in his jail cell on August 10, 2019.

Epsteins death was ruled a suicide, but it has since been the subject of intense speculation driven by his powerful connections, including the many high-profile names in his infamous black book. One of the most famous men in Epsteins circle was Trump himself. The pair socialized regularly for years before having a falling-out in the early 2000s. Trump and his wife, Melania, were photographed with Epstein and Maxwell on numerous occasions. Associates have said Trump and Epstein split over a real estate deal.

Story continues

Donald Trump, his girlfriend and future wife, Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Fla., February 2000. (Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)

Trump has scarcely discussed their relationship beyond saying, I was not a fan of his shortly after Epsteins arrest.

Maxwell, who was at times Epsteins girlfriend, was one of his closest associates and has been accused by multiple alleged Epstein victims of grooming underage girls to be with him and providing them to some of his well-heeled friends. Since Maxwells arrest, questions have swirled around whether she might link other powerful men to Epsteins sex trafficking.

At the White House briefing, Trump was specifically asked about two men whose names have been linked to Epstein  former President Bill Clinton and Britains Prince Andrew.

Virginia Giuffre, one of Epsteins victims, has accused Maxwell and the financier of forcing her to have sex with the royal. Prince Andrew has denied the allegations. Federal prosecutors investigating Epstein have sought to speak with Andrew about the case.

I dont know the situation with Prince Andrew, just dont know, Trump said. Im not aware of it.

Trump didnt respond to the mention of Clinton, who traveled on Epsteins private jet and met with him. Clinton has denied having a close relationship with Epstein.

Clintons ties to Epstein led to an awkward moment for Trump earlier this month. On July 2, shortly after Maxwell was arrested, the presidents son, Eric Trump, tweeted a photo showing the socialite at the wedding of Clintons daughter, Chelsea. Erics post led to a flood of messages showing pictures of Trump with Maxwell and Epstein. Eric subsequently deleted his tweet.

Fox News later ran a photograph of Epstein and Maxwell with Melania Knauss, at the time Trumps fiancee  cropping Trump himself out of the photo. The network said the editing had been done mistakenly.

Cover thumbnail photo: Sarah Silbiger/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Read more from Yahoo News:
A group of rare rhinos were among dozens of animals released in India's northeastern Assam state...

after they were rescued from the flood-hit Kaziranga National Park.

Nine have drowned, and much of the land in the park is submerged under water.

Rhinos, elephants, and deer have been forced to seek refuge on roads and in human settlements...

Here's Rathin Barman, the joint director of the park's rescue center.

"We have rescued about 57 numbers of elephant 57 numbers of animals in this flood out of which we could release 37 numbers of animals."

Intense rain and floods in Assam have killed over 86 people and displaced nearly 3 million since May.

Downpours have also impacted tea production in the region

with prices jumping to record highs.

The price spike could support the beleaguered Indian tea industry, which has struggled with rising production costs,

but may limit New Delhi's exports and boost shipments from rivals such as Kenya and Sri Lanka, according to multiple trade sources.

Neighboring China is also suffering through some of its heaviest rainfall in decades.

On Tuesday (July 21) a landslide blocked a tributary of the Yangtze river near the city of Enshi in neighboring Hubei province, creating a barrier lake that could possibly submerge nearby villages - triggering further evacuations.

China's state weather bureau said on Wednesday that the country was hit by fresh rounds of torrential rain this week, further raising flood risks throughout the country.

The government has allocated $47 million in disaster relief funding to aid agricultural production in southern provinces.

The fund is aimed at helping farmers resume work after the disaster and repairing damaged agricultural facilities, as well as reducing the loss of farm income.
A COVID-19 patient who received a double-lung transplant surgery was discharged from hospital after a full recovery on July 21 in Wuhan, capital of central Chinas Hubei province.

(Photo/People's Daily App)

The 65-year-old man, Cui Zhiqiang, left the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, 92 days after he underwent the operation.

At a ceremony the hospital held for him that day, Cui expressed his gratitude to his doctors by writing a thank you message to the medical team for the care he received during his 166 days there.

Of the 10 COVID-19 patients who received lung transparent surgeries around the world, Cui is the first one to be discharged from hospital. Six patients underwent such surgeries in China, and one each in Italy, the U.S., Austria and South Korea.

Cui Zhiqiang is discharged from the hospital. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)

Ma Xudong, an official with the National Health Commission, said the commission organized an expert lung transplant team consisting of the countrys top specialists to treat Cui from mid-April. Online discussions on Cuis treatment plan were held several times after two expert teams from east Chinas Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces left Wuhan.

Cui tested positive for COVID-19 on Feb. 7 and was treated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a life-support machine, for 62 days.

Although his nucleic acid test results turned negative following treatment, he suffered from irreversible pulmonary interstitial fibrosis and respiratory failure.

Lin Huiqing, a senior thoracic surgeon with the hospital, decided to perform a lung transplant surgery for the patient.

(Photo/People's Daily App)

On April 20, more than 20 experts from the national expert team of lung transplant and medical workers from various departments at the hospital performed a successful double-lung transplant that lasted over six hours in a negative-pressure operating theatre. The medics wore goggles, full-body protective suits and head shields throughout the procedure.

The operation was highly risky, said Lin, explaining that the medical workers were not able to verbally communicate during the operation as they were wearing positive-pressure head covers, and had to rely on their experience and mutual understanding to complete the surgery.

Doctors unhooked him from the ECMO two days after the operation. Later, Cui was treated for rejection reaction, serious infection, multi-drug resistance, and bowel function failure following the surgery. He also received intensive recovery treatment.

Cui was able to stand on his own in mid-June and move in a wheelchair in July. He is the last COVID-19 patient to be cured and discharged from the hospital.
Former Supreme Court judge BS Chauhan will head the judicial commission that will inquire into the encounter killing of Vikas Dubey.

Justice Chauhan was the last chairperson of the Law Commission, and he served in the Supreme Court as a judge between 2009 and 2014.

Seeking a report from the commission within two months, the top court emphasised that "why Dubey was out on bail or parole despite so many criminal cases against him is the single-most important factor of the entire matter.

Apart from Justice Chauhan, retired Allahabad High Court judge Shashi Kant Agarwal and former DGP KL Gupta will be the other members of the commission.

The bench approved the draft notification, adduced in the court by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on behalf of the Uttar Pradesh government.

The terms of reference will include inquiry into killing of eight policemen by Dubey and his gang on July 2-3, Dubey's encounter on July 10, encounter of his associates, possible nexus of Dubey with state functionaries and how the history-sheeter was out on bail.

The bench said that the commission will start functioning within a week and will submit its report before the top court and also before the state, in accordance with the Commission of Inquiry Act.

It asked the central government to provide secretarial staff and other amenities to the commission. Mehta, on his part, said the commission will also be given assistance of officials from the CBI or the NIA if they so require.

About monitoring the case, the CJI clarified that the apex court will not monitor the investigations into Dubey's encounter

"Just because it has received so much publicity, we can't start monitoring criminal investigations," said the CJI, noting there is already a special investigation team set up by the state government for this purpose.

On the last date, the bench had asked for state government to include a former judge of the top court in the commission. It had also termed as "failure of the institutions" that Dubey was out in spite of 63 pending criminal cases against him.
Ghislaine Maxwell's 'husband' Scott Borgerson has been seen for the first time since Maxwell was charged in connection to Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring, exclusive DailyMail.com photos show.

The British socialite cried when she learned last week that she would be held without bail at a New York prison until her trial next year, as a prosecutor dropped the bombshell that the 58-year-old was married.

Borgerson, 44, was seen on Tuesday looking glum, as DailyMail.com can reveal he is taking care of Maxwell's dog while she's in prison.

The wealthy tech CEO hung his head while sitting on his patio in Manchester-by-the-Sea, with Maxwell's medium-sized pet running around him.

Borgerson had once shared the stately Massachusetts home with Maxwell, buying it together in 2016. The brazen socialite even gave tours of the lavishly decorated mansion to her none-the-wiser neighbors.

But when DailyMail.com tracked down the lovers - possibly husband and wife - and revealed their relationship last summer, neighbors were 'disgusted' that an accused sex trafficker was living among them and tried to push her into leaving town.

Law enforcement sources admitted that Maxwell might not have ever been caught on July 2 in Bradford, New Hampshire if she first wasn't discovered in the well-to-do town outside of Boston by this website's investigative team.

Ghislaine Maxwell's 'husband' Scott Borgerson is pictured for the first time since she was charged in connection to Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring in these exclusive DailyMail.com photos

Borgerson had once shared the stately Massachusetts home with Maxwell, buying it together in 2016. The brazen socialite even gave tours of the lavishly decorated mansion to her none-the-wiser neighbors

Borgerson, 44, was seen on Tuesday looking glum, as DailyMail.com can reveal he is taking care of Maxwell's dog while she's in prison. The wealthy tech CEO hung his head while sitting on his patio in Manchester-by-the-Sea, with Maxwell's medium-sized pet running around him

The 58-year-old British socialite cried when she learned last week that she would be held without bail at a New York prison until her trial, which is expected to start next July. Borgerson is believed to have met Maxwell six years ago through speaking engagements connected to ocean preservation, a subject on which they share a passion. They were both pictured speaking at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2014 (left and right)

Last summer, DailyMail.com photographed Borgerson walking Maxwell's dog in Boston, shortly after she was revealed to be living in the quiet town of Manchester-by-the-Sea with him

The wealthy tech CEO had once shared the stately home with Maxwell, buying it together in 2016, with the brazen socialite giving tours of the lavishly decorated mansion (pictured) to her none the wiser neighbors

'When that piece was published all hell was let loose in Manchester,' said one town resident who has close ties to law enforcement. 'Police here had no idea she was living there until then.'

On Tuesday afternoon, Borgerson was seen with his ex-wife Rebecca and their two children, a boy aged 11 and a nine-year-old girl, at his colonial home.

His head hung low with his hands in his lap, and he didn't join his family when his ex took the children down to play in the water.

Borgerson is taking care of Maxwell's dog during her time in prison, as the pet was seen running around the patio. Last year, DailyMail.com photographed Borgerson walking the same dog in Boston.

Maxwell and Borgerson, who both share a passion for ocean conservation, first met at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2014, shortly before he and his wife divorced.

Maxwell maintained a residence at her 7,000 sq. ft., five-story Beaux Arts-style townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side, but as interest in Epstein's story grew and the spotlight turned to her, she sold it in April 2016 for a little over $15 million and disappeared. She had originally bought it in 2015 for $16.9 million.

Less than two months later, it has now been revealed, she used the name Jennifer Ellmax to join Borgerson in a limited liability company called Tidewood.

That company bought the Manchester-by-the-Sea home - the Phippin House - for a little more than $2 million.

It cannot be seen from the road and the couple installed security cameras so they would know if anyone was on their property, which overlooks the ocean on the spectacular 40-acre Sharksmouth Estate in Manchester.

Even a court case brought against Maxwell and Borgerson last year failed to alert authorities to her location.

On Tuesday afternoon, Borgerson was seen with his ex-wife Rebecca and their two children, a boy aged 11 and a nine-year-old girl, at his colonial home

As the spotlight was turned on Maxwell as interest in Epstein's story grew, she sold her NYC in April 2016 for a little over $15 million and disappeared. Less than two months later, it has now been revealed, she used the name Jennifer Ellmax to join Borgerson in a limited liability company called Tidewood

Maxwell is believed to have moved into the Manchester home with Borgerson almost immediately after it was bought, taking valuable artwork from her Manhattan home

As DailyMail.com revealed exclusively last week, a trust that owns land all around the Phippin House took the pair to court in a bid to prevent them from using the trust's land. The trust took the action after discovering Maxwell's past and the accusations that she procured girls, some as young as 14, for Epstein's perverted pleasure

Did Ghislaine lie about ending relationship with Epstein? Photo shows Maxwell receiving package with pedophile's name in 2015 DailyMail.com has uncovered a never-before-seen photo that could prove Ghislaine Maxwell is lying about ending her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Lawyers for the socialite-turned-alleged-madam insist that Maxwell had nothing to do with Epstein  who died in prison in August last year  for at least the last 11 years of his life. DailyMail.com has exclusively uncovered a photograph of a mysterious box labeled 'Mr. Jeffrey Epstein' being delivered to her apartment in January 2015 But DailyMail.com has exclusively uncovered a photograph of a mysterious box labeled 'Mr. Jeffrey Epstein' being delivered to her apartment just over five years ago. The picture, unseen until now, was taken on January 6, 2015 as a DHL delivery truck was unloading parcels at Maxwell's Manhattan townhouse, just seven city blocks from the huge home where Epstein lived and abused dozens of young girls. The picture, unseen until now, was taken on January 6, 2015 as a DHL delivery truck was unloading parcels at Maxwell's Manhattan townhouse (pictured), just seven city blocks from the huge home where Epstein lived and abused dozens of young girls In court last week lawyers for Maxwell insisted she had no contact with the convicted child molester 'for more than a decade' after he was released from his initial prison sentence in 2008. They filed papers that unsuccessfully said she should be allowed $5 million bail while she awaits trial on charges relating to the procurement of young girls for Epstein and perjury. They wanted her to stay in a luxury hotel, be subject to GPS monitoring and said she would surrender her three passports, one British, one American and one French. 'On August 10, 2019, Epstein died in federal custody, and the media focus quickly shifted to our client  wrongly trying to substitute her for Epstein  even though she'd had no contact with Epstein for more than a decade,' her attorneys, Mark Cohen and Jeffrey Pagliuca, wrote to the court. The attorneys did not respond to questions about the picture. Advertisement

As DailyMail.com revealed exclusively last week, a trust that owns the land all around the Phippin House took the pair to court in a bid to prevent them from using the trust's land.

The trust took the action after discovering Maxwell's past and the accusations that she procured girls, some as young as 14, for Epstein's perverted pleasure.

The second the trustees learned Maxwell was involved with Epstein, they decided 'to try to limit how much they could use the land,' one local said.

But Judge Howard Speicher ruled against the trust on all counts when he delivered his judgment in March.

Maxwell is believed to have moved into the Manchester home almost immediately after it was bought in 2016, taking valuable artwork from her Manhattan home.

'She had one painting of a pig that she said was worth millions,' a local resident told DailyMail.com. 'She kept telling the movers: 'Be careful with that, it's worth $3 million.'

She went by the name G-Max, never letting on her real identity. 'She and Scott came in my shop with another man and just looked around,' said Tom Lang, who runs a high-end antiques store in neighboring Essex, Massachusetts.

'I asked her her name and I guess she said ''G'' in a very high-class British accent. I didn't really understand what she was saying  it sounded more like ''Zhee''  but I didn't want to ask a second time.'

Despite his wealth, Borgerson did not move in Manchester's high society circles, preferring to mix with more down-to-earth locals. He and his ex-wife Rebecca sent their two children, a boy now aged 11 and a nine-year-old girl, to public school in a nearby town.

'My take on that is that he knew the millionaires around here would ask too many questions,' said Carl McKay-Stratton, a local who describes himself as a philanthropist. 'But the regular folk were just in awe of his wealth.'

One woman who went with her child to a birthday party for Borgerson's son in 2018 said she was 'just blown away' by the way the couple had decorated The Phippin House.

'Half of it was old, classic New England style and the other half was ultra-modern,' said the mom, who asked not to be identified to protect her children.

'The landscaping was the most beautiful I have ever seen anywhere,' she added. 'It really was the lap of luxury.'

The woman said Borgerson and Maxwell were very proud of their home and organized little tours for the guests. 'G-Max was the one who introduced it as her house. I remember her office was on the second floor,' she said.

'There were photos of them all over the house, including one of her as a helicopter pilot. She just seemed like a very accomplished person. I didn't know who she was at the time and there was nothing to raise any red flags.'

What the woman did not know was that Epstein had paid for Maxwell to get her pilot's license and then bought her a $4 million Sikorsky chopper allegedly so she could ferry young girls to Little St. James, his private island in the US Virgins.

McKay-Stratton said the only thing people on Cape Ann  which encompasses Rockport, Gloucester, Manchester and Essex  found abnormal was the age difference between Borgerson and Maxwell; she is 14 years older than him.

'It just didn't make sense. Why would he divorce his wife to be with her? In the looks department at least, he definitely traded down,' she said.

'My experience is that when one partner is several years younger than the other it is normally for the money  and that's what was generally thought around here.'

Prosecutor Alison Moe claimed in court that Maxwell has a spouse whom she had refused to identify to the FBI. No marriage license has so far been found.

'If she was married, I can't think it would be to anyone other than Scott Borgerson,' said McKay-Stratton. 'They certainly lived together as man and wife for several years.'

Borgerson did not respond to emails requesting comment.

After Epstein's arrest and death last August, Maxwell disappeared from Manchester. The FBI arrested her in a July 2 raid on Tuckedaway, the home she bought in December for just over $1 million.

Records revealed the home was purchased by a company that has ties to Borgerson.

The buyer is listed as Granite Reality LLC - a mysterious corporation that was set up just weeks prior the purchase.

Granite Reality LLC is managed by Boston lawyer, Jeffrey W. Roberts, who is also the registered agent of a second company, Hopely Yealton. The manager of Hopely Yealton is listed as Borgerson.

Prosecutor Alison Moe said when Maxwell bought her $1 million Bradford, New Hampshire home (pictured), she toured the home back in November of 2019 using the alias of Janet Marshall and claimed to the real estate agent that she worked as a journalist. The man she was there with gave his name as Scott Marshall

In April 2019, Boregerson's LLC Tidewood took the three trustees, John Appel, Kathrine Rive and Curtis Hollingsworth, to an obscure judicial branch  the Massachusetts Land Court  where Borgerson successfully argued that the privileges allowed the Barkers were transferable, court papers uncovered exclusively by DailyMail.com show (pictured)

Maria Farmer (pictured), the first woman to allege sexual abuse by Epstein, told Australian 60 Minutes that Maxwell would bring girls so young they still had braces on their teeth to Epstein's mansion. Farmer said she had occasionally been in the car with Maxwell when she went looking for girls

Previous owner of the Bradford home, Richard Yospin told DailyMail.com he never met the buyers of his house. 'That's the way they wanted the sale and that's the way they got it,' he said.

Yospin said that at the closing they were represented by a property manager who had a distinct English accent. 'But I couldn't identify him if my life depended on it  which fortunately it does not,' he said.

The buyers identified themselves as a couple called the Marshalls  he was either Steve or Scott and she said she was a journalist named Janet or Jen, Maxwell's real estate agent Jennifer Johnson told the FBI. Johnson said she didn't realize her client's true identity until Ghislaine was arrested.

Johnson declined to talk to DailyMail.com about Maxwell. 'My job is very personal,' she stormed. 'Why would anyone want to know?

She then repeatedly said: 'This is New Hampshire. We respect our privacy here.'

Meanwhile more details of Maxwell's alleged role in procuring girls has been revealed.

Maria Farmer, the first woman to allege sexual abuse by Epstein, told Australian 60 Minutes that Maxwell would bring girls so young they still had braces on their teeth to Epstein's mansion.

'As school was getting out she's like 'I've gotta get the nubiles. I'm going to get the nubiles,' said Farmer.

'When I asked her what she meant by that, she said she needed models for Victoria's Secret,' part of The Limited Corporation, the company run by financier Epstein's main client, Leslie Wexner.

'One time I asked 'why are they so young? And she said the Limited Corporation has a lot of companies and these girls model and they start young. I thought it strange because I did see a couple of girls in braces  and I have never seen a model with braces.

'All of them were completely flat-chested and sometimes they would be wearing a (school) uniform being marched upstairs. One day a girl came down crying and I asked Ghislaine 'Why is she crying?' and she said: 'She didn't get the job. She needs to toughen up.'

Farmer said she had occasionally been in the car with Maxwell when she went looking for girls.

'She would ask the driver to stop the car,' said Farmer. 'He would stop it immediately and she would dash across to the school or the park or wherever she was going and she would write down her phone number  for a child, a young girl  and she'd get their phone number. And then I'd see that child at the house.'
Lenovo has announced its first gaming phone, which is now officially the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel. It is powered by the refreshed Snapdragon 865+ (or Plus) SoC, and has 12 or 16GB of RAM. It is also now confirmed to have the unique landscape-oriented pop-up rear camera set-up shown in numerous leaks, and has a 64MP dual main camera.

Working For Notebookcheck Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! English native speakers welcome! News Writer (AUS/NZL based) - Details here

Today (July 22, 2020) seems to be a day for relatively low-key premium mobile device reveals. To this end, Lenovo has issued a press release for the new Legion Phone Duel. This latest entrant into the high-end casual gaming machine arena is powered by the Snapdragon 865+, which makes it (sub-6GHz only) 5G.

The Legion Phone Duel - which is also known as the Lenovo Legion Phone Pro for the Chinese market - also has up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of internal UFS 3.1 storage. Its near-silent announcement also explains assertions of 90-watt charging associated with this phone.

It seems it has dual 2500mAh batteries, each of which has its own USB type C charging port: one along the Duel's side and one along its bottom edge like every other phone out there. This technology may thus allow it to charge both batteries at 45 watts (W) each, adding up to the spec of 90W Turbo Power Charging.

Then again, this dual-port feature may be SKU-dependent; in other words, only available in more expensive variants. Either way, its combined 5000mAh battery will power a 6.65-inch FHD+ AMOLED display that has a top-end 144 hertz (Hz) refresh rate and 240Hz touch-sampling rate.

The Legion Phone Duel is, of course, packed with other gaming-focused features. They include Dirac Audio, "dual liquid" cooling equipped with copper tubing and the Lenovo Legion Assistant. This is a panel of enhanced haptics and gyroscopics that might enhance immersion and apprehension during gameplay.

There is also a Lenovo Legion Realm, an area within the Duel's UI that helps the user tweak hardware performance settings, evaluate new games on the Google Play Store and switch through data sources for those with the least congestion and latency possible from minute to minute.

Further to that UI, it will be ZUI 12 or Legion OS, depending on the region in which the Legion Phone Duel unit in question is sold. Either way, this skin will be based on Android 10. Lenovo has yet to reveal pricing or availability data on this new potential rival for current 2020 gaming phones.

Indeed, it will now be exceptionally interesting to see what Asus' ROG Phone 3 will bring to the table. Considering that a race to release Snapdragon 865+ devices has now seemedly officially begun, we will not have long to wait to find out.
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You're stressed - you need some yoga. Preferably somewhere exotic. Here MailOnline Travel writer - and yoga teacher - Samantha Lewis will guide you around some of the world's most scenic and luxurious yoga retreats, from the Himalayas to Arizona via the Maldives and the Cotswolds countryside.

Here is her pick of places where you can sun salutation in style...

Bamford Wellness Spa, Daylesford Organic Farm, Gloucestershire

Ahh-some: Accommodation options for the Bamford Wellness Spa include luxury cottages, pictured, on the Daylesford Organic Farm estate

Bamford Wellness Spa offers everything you need for the lowering of blood pressure. Yoga is taught by resident teacher Cristina Chandika in a light and airy studio

Pictured left is a chic bedroom in a Daylesford estate cottage. On the right is the Bamford Wellness Spa entrance

Bamford Wellness Spa sits within the renowned Daylesford Organic Farm estate  a veritable theme park for organic food lovers and tranquillity-seekers that also comprises a cookery school, farm shop and, a half-hour walk away, a boutique pub with rooms called The Wild Rabbit.

The spa offers everything you need for the lowering of blood pressure from crystal sound healing to bespoke facials and massages - plus yoga classes with resident teacher Cristina Chandika in a light and airy studio.

Daylesford runs several wellness retreats throughout the year and accommodation is top-notch - luxurious Cotswold cottages on the farm, which can also be booked on an ad-hoc basis.

Ananda in the Himalayas, India

Namaste: Ananda specialises in traditional Indian healing practices, including Ayurveda, yoga and meditation

The retreat stands in a 100-acre estate surrounding a maharaja's palace with views over the sacred town of Rishikesh

Guests can enjoy wandering around the beautifully manicured grounds or go for a treatment in the award-winning spa. Pictured is the enticing outdoor heated pool

Nestled in Himalayan foothills close to the sacred town of Rishikesh, Ananda is one of India's most luxurious wellness retreats. It stands in a 100-acre estate surrounding a maharaja's palace and specialises in traditional Indian healing practices.

Packages include Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation immersions for between seven and 21 days. It also offers retreats that can be tailored to suit specific health goals such as weight loss and stress management.

Plus, there's an award-winning spa with 24 treatment rooms, an outdoor heated pool and hydrotherapy facilities.

Artah Retreats, villa Can Terrades, Spain

Switch off: Artah is a transformative wellness retreat nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees

The stunning 12-bedroom villa has an outdoor pool where guests can lap up the sprawling mountain views

Stressed-out souls are invited to stay for four or seven days and a typical day includes vigorous hikes, yoga, detox massages, and wholesome plant-based meals

Artah is the passion project of Rhian Stephenson - a nutritionist and CEO of Beckham-approved spin studio Psycle London - offering transformative programmes designed to help you reset your mind and reconnect with your body.

Guests are invited to stay for four or seven days and a typical day includes vigorous hikes, yoga, detox massages, LED treatments and wholesome plant-based meals.

There is also plenty of relaxation time scheduled for enjoying the stunning 12-bedroom villa - Can Terrades - which is tucked away in the foothills of the Pyrenees about 45 minutes from Girona. Sprawling mountain views come as standard.

Mii Amo, Arizona

Mii Amo, which translates as 'journey' in the Native American language, is said to be a favourite of wellness guru Gwyneth Paltrow

Awe-inspiring: This spa and spiritual retreat is set amid the soaring Red Rocks of Sedona in Arizona

The 16 rooms and suites are decorated in desert-inspired tones and have their own private patio or balcony. Pictured is the Luxury Suite

A favourite of wellness guru Gwyneth Paltrow, Mii Amo is a spa and spiritual retreat set amid the soaring Red Rocks of Sedona in Arizona.

Mii Amo translates as 'journey' in the Native American language - and that's precisely what it asks you to go on for three, four or seven days. Bespoke itineraries feature spa treatments, yoga classes, lectures and intention setting ceremonies.

The 16 rooms and suites are decorated in desert-inspired tones and have their own private patio or balcony.

The Cliffs of Moher Retreat, Ireland

Peaceful: The glass-fronted yoga studio at The Cliffs of Moher Retreat has spectacular panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean

And breathe: Guests can relax in the outdoor wood burning hot tub or sauna after class

There are retreats all year ranging from weekend breaks to longer four or five-night stays, including full yoga immersions and women-only retreats. Pictured are the Cliffs of Moher

For a break that will fill you with energy and leave you feeling brand new, head to The Cliffs of Moher Retreat on the west coast of Ireland.

It's a family-run business that hosts yoga holidays where you can downward dog against the backdrop of the dramatic Cliffs of Moher and the Atlantic Ocean.

There are retreats all year ranging from weekend breaks to longer four or five-night stays, including full yoga immersions and women-only retreats.

Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giraavaru

Dream destination: Landaa Giraavaru is a Four Seasons resort located in the Baa Atoll Unesco Biosphere Reserve

The resort runs a three or five-day yoga therapy programme under the leadership of Ayurvedic guru Dr Shylesh Subramanya

Wow-factor: There are 103 thatched beach and water villas on the island. Pictured is a Sunrise Water Villa with private pool

Fancy going on a yogi adventure to the picture-perfect Maldives? Landaa Giraavaru, located on a private island in the Baa Atoll Unesco Biosphere Reserve, runs a unique three or five-day yoga therapy programme.

Under the leadership of Ayurvedic guru Dr Shylesh Subramanya, each course is tailored to individual needs and can be used to treat modern-day ailments such as stress and poor posture.

Other highlights include anti-gravity yoga classes and a yoga energy trail.
New Delhi, July 22 : Amid political crisis in Rajasthan, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday issued fresh summons to the business partner of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav Gehlot in a money laundering case.

Investor Ratan Kant Sharma, close aide of Vaibhav Gehlot, Ashok Gehlot's son, has been asked to appear before the agency sleuths no Monday in Jaipur.

Sharma had allegedly received around Rs 96.7 crore from Mauritius and has stakes in Hotel Fairmont.

The ED last week carried out searches at the Fairmont Hotel in Jaipur in connection with the case.

Sharma was summoned by the ED two days ago, however, he did not join the probe.

The agency suspects that large scale overseas transactions have taken place.

The Income Tax department had also summoned Sharma earlier last week for questioning.
July 22, 1930: Carl Pleasant, Inc. says paving of Highway 9 from Plainview to Hale Center is now complete and will be open to traffic on Aug. 1.

July 22, 1960: Hale County wheat growers voted almost twenty to one in favor of 1961 marketing quota.
Even teleprompter could not take so many lies: Rahul's dig at PM Modis Davos speech

Congress will soon become a party of tweets: BJP

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: In a swipe at Rahul Gandhi over his regular tweets attacking the central government, the BJP said on Tuesday that the Congress will become a "party of tweets" as it is doing no work among people and "losing" one leader after another.

Hitting back at the Congress leader, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said the anti-CAA Shaheen Bagh protests and Delhi riots were the Congress' "achievements" in February followed by desertion of Jyotiraditya Scindia and loss of power in Madhya Pradesh in March, and "incitement" of migrants in April.

Javadekar said May marked the sixth anniversary of the Congress' loss of power at the Centre while the party "advocated" for China in June and then it was "finished" in Rajasthan in July.

Fabricated strongman image has become India's biggest weakness: Rahul Gandhi on PM Modi

"Rahul Gandhi is tweeting on a daily basis. It seems the Congress will become a party of tweets as they are doing no work among the people and losing one leader after another. A frustrated and depressed party is trying to launch all sorts of attacks on the government," he told reporters.

Taking a dig at the Modi government, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had earlier listed the alleged attempt to topple his party's government in Rajasthan and the "Namaste Trump" event as among the Centre's "achievements" in the COVID-19 era.

"Achievements of the government in the COVID-era: February -- Namaste Trump, March-- toppling the government in Madhya Pradesh, April -- making people light candles, May -- government's sixth anniversary, June -- Bihar virtual rally, July -- Attempt to topple the government in Rajasthan," Gandhi said in a tweet.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

The opposition is rudderless says Prakash Javadekar

Hitting back, Javadekar said Gandhi's mocking reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to the people to light candles is a reference to the masses and also to "corona warriors", as this was aimed at motivating these emergency workers.

"People are standing with Modi. Congress has become helpless," he said.
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020 (12:01 am) - Score 3,335

Transport for London (TfL) has today awarded Capita the contract to design and roll-out key parts of a new 4G (mobile) based Emergency Services Network (ESN) throughout the London Underground, which will be used by the police, fire, rescue and ambulance teams to communicate during any incidents that may require their attention.

The contract  to design and deliver the network infrastructure which underpins ESN for the London Underground  is said to be worth 23.5m over 12 months (funded by the Home Office). The new setup will replace the existing Motorola-owned Airwave network, which harnesses TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) network technology (sadly this only tends to deliver dialup style data speeds).

The scope of the contract includes the design, installation and testing of network cables in TfLs underground tunnels, as well as the installation and testing of the Local Area Network (LAN) infrastructure on platforms and in stations. The service itself is to be delivered by mobile operator EE (BT).

Shashi Verma, CFO of TfL, said: This contract delivers key elements of the infrastructure required to bring the new Emergency Services Network to the London Underground network. With close to half of the Tube located underground, its vital that this system will help support the police, fire and ambulance services if they are required to help our customers.

The new ESN is designed to work independently of public mobile phone networks, although its worth noting that Capita also worked with TfL on their project to deliver the first publicly available 4G mobile (mobile broadband) service on the London Underground, which was launched as a pilot project in March 2020 (here)  along the Jubilee Line, between Westminster and Canning Town, and the platforms from Westminster to North Greenwich.
Syria's air defenses respond to Israeli missile attack over Damascus

Global Times

Source: Xinhua Published: 2020/7/21 11:13:40

The Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli missile attack over the capital Damascus on Monday evening, state news agency SANA reported.

The Israeli warplanes launched their attack from over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The air defense missiles were seen in the sky over Damascus chasing after the Israeli missile strike as people heard explosions around the capital.

The Syrian state media report said several Israeli missiles were intercepted before reaching their targets.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli missile strike targeted military positions of the Syrian army and the pro-government Iranian militias in the vicinity of the capital.

Throughout the Syrian crisis, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria, as well as convoys transporting weapons to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia allegedly backed by Iran.

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U.S., alleging espionage, tells China to close a consulate

China vowed to retaliate after the United States abruptly ordered China to close its consulate in Houston by Friday. Washington has accused Chinese diplomats of aiding economic espionage and of attempted theft of scientific research.

Hours after the administration issued its order to the Chinese ambassador on Tuesday, consulate employees burned papers in open metal barrels in a courtyard of the Houston building, prompting police officers and firefighters to rush to the area.

Context: The order was a sharp escalation of the U.S.s moves against China, and comes after the pandemic and Beijings repressive measures in Hong Kong have spread tensions to virtually every aspect of the two countries relationship. President Trumps campaign strategists, anxious about his failures on the pandemic, have recently been rolling out a blanket anti-China message to appeal to his supporters.

Related: Several Chinese firms and the major international brands they supply pushed back against the Trump administrations decision to blacklist 11 Chinese companies for aiding human rights violations, saying they had found no evidence of forced labor or other abuses in their supply chains.
Describing India as one of the few trusted like-minded countries, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that New Delhi is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy. In his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council (USIBC), Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a "rising" US defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

The United States, he said, "desires a new age of ambition" in its relationship with India.

Asserting that the US has never been more supportive of India's security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Trump's foreign policy.

We don't just interact on a bilateral basis. We see each other for what we are great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India is one of the few trusted like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration on issues that span continents, Pompeo said.

"I'm confident that our relationship is only getting stronger. Let's emerge from this current challenge more resilient and innovative than before. And let's seize this moment to deepen cooperation between two of the world's greatest democracies," he added.

Pompeo said the US has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G7 meeting to be hosted by President Trump.

"We will advance the economic prosperity network. It is the group of countries and organisations that we consider natural partners with we share values like democracy, transparency and rule of law," Pompeo said.

The Group of Seven (G-7) is an international intergovernmental economic organisation consisting of seven major developed countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are some of the largest IMF-advanced economies in the world.

Pompeo also said that he was happy to report that India is a rising US defense and security partner, in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests he said.

We've revived the so-called quad that comprised the US, India, Japan and Australia. India is also part of a group of likeminded nations that I've convened regularly to advance shared interests, he said.

Navies from the US, India, Australia, Japan and France have been deepening their mutual cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in view of China's growing attempt to expand military influence in the resource-rich region.

On Monday, a US Navy carrier strike group led by nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz carried out a military drill with a fleet of Indian warships off the coast of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

our frontline warships of the Indian Navy participated in the "PASSEX" exercise when the US carrier strike group was transiting through the Indian Ocean Region on its way from the South China Sea.

The USS Nimitz is the world's largest warship and the exercise between the two navies assumed significance as it took place in the midst of tensions between India and China in eastern Ladakh as well as in China's military assertiveness in South China Sea.
The No. 2 House Democrat demanded that Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, one of the Houses most conservative members, apologize to Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Houses most progressive, over Mondays confrontation. A spokesperson for Yoho denied that the lawmaker had used a sexist slur, saying the Florida congressman had instead muttered bull to himself to describe Ocasio-Cortezs policies.
Mumbai, July 22 : Veteran actress Zarina Wahab explores the medium of short film in her upcoming project.

Zarina returns to the screen as the female protagonist of the upcoming short film "Kashmiriyat". She points at its intense storyline while saying that it was quite taxing for her to shoot the film.

"Despite decades of playing so many roles, this one was definitely taxing and extremely indulgent, especially for the climax! I can definitely say that I had seen the film (in my head) even before it was shot! Mainly because of the rightly dramatised narration by the director. And then during the shoot, I was impacted right till the last minute. Honestly, it has still stayed with me," she said.

The story of the film revolves around a mother-son relationship.

The director of the film, Divyansh Pandit, being a Kashmiri, expressed his emotional attachment to the story.

"Being a Kashmiri, I always wanted to tell its story and I'm finally telling one through my medium. The voices that are driven by agenda and a major section of the media have always portrayed a typical image of Kashmir, its people and the Indian Army, which is utter nonsense," said Divyansh.

He further claimed: "In our short film, we have shown how the vicious cycle in the Valley that is made to look organic is actually planned. Kashmir as a subject is extremely complex. Since the world is fed only a one sided narrative and nobody puts in an effort to know the reality behind its complexity, I, through my short film, have tried to put out a perspective that has never been portrayed in the mainstream." "Through this mother and son story, most of the layers of the Valley will be witnessed by the audience," added Divyansh.

Along with Zarina, the film also features Naveen Pandit, Anshul Trivedi, Abhay Bhargava and Rohit Sagar Girdhar.

Produced by Ashutosh Pandit, the film will release on YouTube on August 12.
Qatar Airways is suing its neighbors in the Gulf over the closure of their airspaces to the Doha-based airline.

The head of the group that owns Qatars flagship carrier said the closure by Saudi Arabia and its allies during the 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis violated international aviation norms and caused unlawful damages.

The decision by the blockading states to prevent Qatar Airways from operating in their countries and flying over their airspace is a clear breach of civil aviation conventions and several binding agreements they are signatories to, Qatar Airways Group CEO Akbar Al Baker said in a statement.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Bahrain closed their airspace to flights originating from Qatar. They also closed their land and sea borders with Qatar and severed diplomatic relations with Doha, among other measures. The Gulf countries said that Qatar was supporting terrorism. The dispute relates to Qatars support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which is an opponent of the Egyptian and Saudi governments in particular. It also tied into Qatars relatively closer relations with Iran and Turkey.

The airspace closure means that Qatar Airways has to circumvent Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain when flying, leading to longer flights. It also means Qatar cannot offer services to airports in the countries.

The airline is seeking at least $5 billion from the states for compensation related to the closure, according to the statement.

Qatar Airways lawsuit follows an international court ruling in Dohas favor. This month, the UNs International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the UN agency the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had jurisdiction over the airspace dispute. Qatar brought a challenge of the airspace closure to the organization, which regulates international air travel. In 2018, the ICAO ruled it had jurisdiction over the case  which Saudi Arabia and its allies appealed  but the ICJ rejected this appeal.

Qatar Airways is a major international airline, and its base in Doha is a common location for international connecting flights. The airline was unique among Middle Eastern airlines in that it has continued regularly scheduled passenger flights throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The carrier did suspend some flight routes but is now resuming many. In July, Qatar returned offering services to the Maldives, Ethiopia, Djibouti and other countries.

Also like other Gulf carriers, Qatar experienced major financial losses due to the downturn in global travel resulting from the pandemic. In May, Qatar Airways announced it was cutting jobs and seeking billions in loans.
An empty House of Commons chamber in Ottawa is seen on April 8, 2020. (The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)

WE Scandal: Normal Parliamentary Sittings Vital for Scrutiny, Say Democracy Advocates

Democracy advocates say the WE Charity scandal clearly demonstrates that Canadians deserve a Parliament that sits regularly in order to hold the government to account.

Normal House of Commons sittings have been largely adjourned since mid-March as a result of the pandemic lockdown. The Commons chamber will only be occupied three more timesJuly 22, Aug. 12, and Aug. 26before the fall session resumes on Sept. 21.

Meanwhile, a special COVID-19 committee has acted as a stand-in for the chamber.

I think the fact that without Parliament and the Opposition having a forum to speakand the media doesnt seem to give them much attentionthat its very damaging to a democratic system, a parliamentary system, David E. Smith, adjunct professor of political science at Ryerson University, said in an interview.

The Trudeau government remains embroiled in controversy over a sole-sourced contract given to WE Charity, which has deep ties to the federal cabinet. Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion is investigating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau for violations of the Conflict of Interest Act for not recusing themselves from discussions about the contract.

A parliamentary ethics committee has also been looking at the issue, but Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch says committees cant create as much scrutiny as a sitting Parliament.

The parliamentary committees are good for bringing attention to issues, but they are kangaroo courts where everyone around the table is acting for political reasons, not based on the evidence or the law, Conacher told The Epoch Times. And we saw that with the Liberals filibuster, one of the committees, the ethics committee, trying to stop it from even coming to a vote.

The seeds of the scandal were sown in April when Trudeau announced that a new Canada Student Service Grant would be provided to volunteers. In June, WE Charity received a sole-sourced contract worth up to $43 million to handle the new $912 million program.

Neither Trudeau nor Morneau recused themselves from cabinet discussions on the contract despite potential conflicts of interest. Trudeaus mother was paid about $250,000 for speaking at 28 events, while his brother received roughly $32,000 for speaking at 8 events. One of Morneaus daughters is employed by WE, and another daughter has spoken at 3 WE events.

Liberal connections to the WE Charity dont end there. Current Liberal Chief of Staff Katie Telford and Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O Reagan helped raise $400,000 for WE Charity in 2010 and 2011.

WE Charity backed out of the contract on July 3. However, it has previously received five federal sole-source contracts worth $120,000. WE has also received nearly $5.2 million in grants and contributions from federal departments since 2017. It had only received $1 million from the federal government between 2012 and 2016 under its former name, Free The Children.

Conacher has called on Dion and the RCMP to investigate whether Trudeau or anyone acting on his behalf is guilty of a breach of trust.

The ethics commissioner is not investigating how the contract recommendation came about, and that is the big question. If he doesnt investigate that then he is not investigating the situation, he is just looking around the edges, Conacher says.

We know that Katie Telford took part in those discussions. We know that she was there. The question is, did she communicate in any way to try and direct things in a favourable way in WEs direction? If so, its a breach of trust.

Smith wonders why Trudeau, who has apologized for not recusing himself, didnt have better judgment.

Its kind of inexplicable to me why the prime minister would have involved himself to the degree that he did. Youd think it would have been kind of obvious that this would instantly become known and would be detrimental to the Liberal party. I dont quite understand that, he said.

Author and lawyer Don Hutchinson has blogged his concerns for months regarding the lack of parliamentary oversight during the pandemic. He says parliamentary oversight is critical.

Canada is in life-of-the-nation threatening danger if continuing efforts to expand executive power and ignore parliamentary requirements are not curtailed. It is to prevent unfettered dictatorship that Canadians have the historic and constitutional authority of Parliament to hold the executive to account between elections, Hutchinson told The Epoch Times by email.

A critical question is whether Canadians care enough to demand Parliament hold the government to account, or have we been lulled by months of daily announcements that more money is heading for citizens bank accounts? he says.

The current probe by Dion is the third such ethics investigation into Trudeaus conduct. He was found to have violated the Conflict of Interest Act in the previous two instanceshis vacation on the Aga Khans private island and the SNC-Lavalin affair. Hutchinson says if a finding of guilt accompanied by a fine in the current case doesnt deter the prime minister from future ethics infractions, the pressure of Parliament and the public will.
A Guzman y Gomez fast food outlet in Sydneys south-west has been put on alert after a positive case of COVID-19.

Anyone who visited the popular taco restaurant in Hoxton Park on July 12 from 7.30pm to 9pm has been advised to monitor for symptoms of coronavirus.

If symptoms occur, people are urged to self-isolate and get tested immediately.

Several clusters have emerged in Sydney's south, which health officials believe sprung up after an infected man from Melbourne visited a popular pub.

Anyone who visited Guzman y Gomez in Hoxton Park on July 12 from 7.30pm to 9pm has been advised to monitor for symptoms of coronavirus

New South Wales recorded 16 new cases on Wednesday, three linked to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula and 11 associated with the Thai Rock restaurant in Wetherill Park.

The total number of cases linked to the Crossroads Hotel cluster has now reached 53.

A staff member at Ashfield Baptist Homes aged care in Sydney's inner-west tested positive after dining at the Thai Rock Restaurant.

Other staff and residents at the facility are now in isolation and being tested for the deadly respiratory infection, New South Wales Health said in a statement.

The risk to other staff and residents is considered to be very low as the staff member wore masks, gloves and gowns when working with residents and did not work while symptomatic,' the statement said.

Ashfield Baptist Homes has since been closed to the public pending test results.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said her state was facing the most 'critical time' since the initial March lockdown.

New South Wales recorded 16 new cases on Wednesday, three linked to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula and 11 associated with the Thai Rock restaurant in Wetherill Park. Pictured: testing at Bondi

She said it was reassuring there were no new outbreaks of coronavirus popping up across the state but was still concerned about community transmission.

'The next few weeks are the most critical in NSW since the lockdown earlier in March and April,' she said.

'We are not out of the woods yet, quite the opposite ... We have some level of anxiety regarding the extent of community transmission.'

Victoria recorded 484 new cases and two more deaths on Wednesday, bringing its total of active cases to just over 3,400.
The fatalities in serious flooding and landslide caused by prolonged torrential rains over the past few days in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang increased to five as of 15:00 on July 21,

according to the office of the national steering committee for natural disaster prevention and control.

Officers and soldiers in Ha Giang help locals deal with consequences of floods.

Among the deaths, three in Ha Giang died when their houses were buried under landslides while two were drown being swept away by floods. Three others suffered from injuries in Ha Giang and nearby Cao Bang province.

Floods also damaged 57 houses and inundated 524 others.

Two hydropower plants have to suspend operation and many sections on roads are blocked by landslides. Hundreds of hectares of food crops, forests and aquaculture were submerged.

Local authorities have immediately mobilized local forces to rescue and move people in flooded areas to safe places as well as to clear roads.

As more rains are forecast in the next days, northern mountainous provinces are warned to take urgent measures to respond to torrential rain, flooding, and landslides, thus reducing losses in life and property.

Measures include keeping a close watch on developments, preparing search and rescue activities, alerting people in affected areas, and ensuring the safety of reservoirs and dams.

Flooding kills two in northern Ha Giang province

Prolonged torrential rain overnight on July 20-21 caused flooding in a number of localities in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang, killing two and injuring one, according to the Ha Giang Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control.

Ly Gia Tin, 44, and his daughter Ly Thi On, 15, both from Coc Nam village in Ban Nhung commune, Hoang Su Phi district, were killed, while Dang Van Dai from Tung San commune in Hoang Su Phi was injured.

Hundreds of houses in Ha Giang city and other localities are submerged in floodwaters, with some sites up to 1.2 m under water.

Floodwaters also damaged major roads in the province while inundating crops in Ha Giang city and Hoang Su Phi district. Landslides also caused traffic congestion along a five-kilometre stretch of National Highway No 2 from Ha Giang to Hanoi.

Local authorities are directing the rescue and evacuation of local people in at-risk areas and the clearing of the roads.

The National Steering Committee for National Disaster Prevention and Control sent a dispatch on July 21 asking the committee in northern mountainous provinces as well as relevant agencies to apply a number of urgent measures to respond to torrential rain, flooding, and landslides, thus reducing losses in life and property.

Measures include keeping a close watch on developments, preparing search and rescue activities, alerting people in affected areas, and ensuring the safety of reservoirs and dams. VNA

Severe flooding halts hydropower plant in northern Vietnam A prolonged period of heavy rain which triggered severe flooding from July 19 to July 21 in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang has caused significant losses to local households and construction sites throughout the locality.
New Delhi: Taking a dig at the Congress for its former president Rahul Gandhis regular tweets criticising Modi government over various issues, Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday said the Opposition party it seems will become a party of tweets as it is doing no work among people and losing one leader after another.

In his latest tweet Mr Gandhi listed achievements of the Modi government since February in which he counted Namaste Trump event to attempts to topple the Congress led Rajasthan government in July and took a dig that these are the reasons why India has been left atmanirbhar(self reliant) to battle against COVID-19 pandemic.

Hitting back at the Congress leader, Javadekar listed Shaheen Bagh protests against CAA and Delhi riots in February followed by desertion of its prominent leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and loss of power in Madhya Pradesh in March, and "incitement" of migrants in April, as the Congress's achievements.

The Union minister said May marked the sixth anniversary of the Congresss loss of power at the Centre while the party "advocated" for China in June and then it was "finished" in Rajasthan in July.

"Rahul Gandhi is tweeting on a daily basis. It seems the Congress will become a party of tweets as they are doing no work among the people and losing one leader after another. A frustrated and depressed party is trying to launch all sorts of attacks on the government," said Javadekar

Javadekar said the Congress leader making fun of Prime Minister Narendra Modis call to the people to light candles is insulting Indians and "corona warriors" as the call was to support and motivate these emergency workers who are working are frontline warriors against COVID-19.
22.07.2020 LISTEN

Gabby Otchere-Darko, a leading member of the governing New Patriotic Party, is optimistic that President Nana Akufo-Addo will emerge victorious in the 2020 elections based on government's developmental agenda.

According to him, the elections will avail Ghanaians the opportunity to compare the economic performance of the current government to that of former President John Dramani Mahama.

With barely four months to the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections, both the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have both assured their supporters of victory.

Speaking on Citi TV's Face to Face programme, Gabby Otchere-Darko said former President Mahama will be rejected by voters because of his shambolic performance during his tenure as President.

You have a candidate who just lost the last election and his successor. This is the third time they will be meeting. It is not about what they promised the voters, but it is about the candidates. The promise must be measured against what one did when he was given the opportunity to serve.

If Akufo-Addo comes today and he says he will deliver free [SHS], you will have to find out what he promised and whether he delivered. If John Mahama comes today and he says, he will manage the economy better, I will ask him some serious questions because he inherited an oil-rich economy and within a matter of two years, he has sent us to the IMF for rescue, he added.

---citinewsroom
The blockbuster Supreme Court term that just ended was a (nearly) unmitigated disaster for movement conservatives. Chief Justice John Roberts declined to overturn precedent on abortion rights. Conservative activist Justice Neil Gorsuch showed he would join the courts liberals when the statutory text tells him to. The natural question then is, whats next? What are the implications for the future of the court?

The short answer is that the courts future direction is in flux like no other time in recent memory. And what happens next will be determined by the 2020 election and the justices health.

The first crucial point here is that, had Roberts and Gorsuch not crossed the courts ideological lines in the most high-profile cases of the term, we would be looking at an extremely conservative court for the foreseeable future, regardless of the outcome of the November vote.

The court has five conservative justices who  until this term  seemed capable of acting as an unassailable voting bloc for the indefinite future. (The oldest, Justice Clarence Thomas, is only 72.) This bloc was formed after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate blocked a confirmation vote on Judge Merrick Garland during the Obama administration, allowing a newly elected President Donald Trump to appoint Gorsuch. The retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a swing voter who repeatedly delivered liberal-friendly results on issues like gay rights, abortion and Guantanamo, then allowed Trump to appoint Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is (so far) a much more reliable conservative.

Commentary: Don't pack the Supreme Court, Democrats. You'd live to regret it. Democrats are starting to sound serious about expanding the Supreme Court in hopes of reversing its rightward march. They need to stop. Court packing would be bad politics and something worse: a threat to the rule of law.

This conservative majority was the first on the court in nearly a century, and conservative activists anticipated that it would overturn Roe v. Wade and hold the line on cultural issues like transgender rights.

Instead, the opposite happened. Without Kennedy on his left, Roberts chose to become the swing voter himself  and saved Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision co-authored by Kennedy, Justice Sandra Day OConnor and Justice David Souter that itself declined to overturn Roe. The blow to pro-life conservatives is utterly devastating. This was their best shot, and they missed it.

Then Gorsuch, with Roberts and the four liberals joining him, held that employment anti-discrimination law applies not only to gays and lesbians but also to transgender people. This, too, was a body blow to movement conservatives, who had invested considerably in opposing transgender rights even after losing the gay marriage issue because of Kennedy.

For conservatives, the only way out of their newly weakened position is to reelect Trump and keep the Senate Republican. Then they would have to hope for retirements from Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (87) and Stephen Breyer (81). If Trump picked even one strong conservative, they would probably have the votes to overwhelm Roberts on abortion. If Trump got two, they could roll back Gorsuchs Title VII ruling, too.

Commentary: The Senate will be fine without the filibuster It might be a good idea to make the Senate reflect the will of the public more than it has traditionally done. Entrenching minority veto power can certainly have moderating effects. It also blocks one of the most basic principles of democracy: the idea of majority rule.

If Joe Biden is elected, the question then becomes whether the Senate goes Democratic at any time during his presidency. Under McConnells rules, it seems basically certain that if the Senate remains Republican, Biden would not be able to get even one justice onto the court. That would mean Ginsburg and Breyer would try to stay on  and concern about their health, already pressing for court-watching liberals, would continue to be a major preoccupation. (Ginsburg was hospitalized Tuesday to treat a possible infection; headlines ensued.)

If one or both of them had to step down, the court would be reduced to eight or seven members indefinitely  a phenomenon Ive called the incredible shrinking Supreme Court. A 4-3 conservative majority including Gorsuch could potentially repudiate Roberts and overturn Roe; but the three stalwart conservatives couldnt touch Gorsuchs Title VII decision.

However, if Biden is elected and gets a Democratic Senate, its widely expected that Ginsburg and Breyer will retire and be replaced by like-minded liberals. That would maintain essentially the current configuration on the court. The power of the swing vote would lie with Roberts and occasionally Gorsuch. The liberals would not be able to count on any major new wins, but they also wouldnt have to panic about major rollbacks or the overturning of settled precedent.

Commentary: The Constitution is alive, no matter what Trump does Even Trump's challenges to the constitutional order exemplify a familiar aspect of constitutional systems, which have to be stress-tested every so often and must able to withstand powerful challenges and challengers.

The wildcard here is Thomas. He will not willingly step down if a Democratic president is in a position to replace him with a liberal. If he has to, however, the courts balance will change radically: There would likely be a 5-4 liberal majority for the first time since the 1960s. The probability of that happening is low, but for conservatives it remains the nightmare scenario.

The takeaway is that the best laid plans of political movements focused on the Supreme Courts personnel have a tendency to go awry. One of the most famous liberals ever named to the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter, ended up as a judicial conservative (although he insisted that he never changed, as Roberts surely also would insist). Putative conservatives like Kennedy and OConnor (both appointed by Ronald Reagan) and Souter (appointed by George H.W. Bush) ended up writing important liberal decisions.

Now Roberts (George W. Bush) and Gorsuch (Trump) can be added to the list of justices who didnt do what was expected of them. But while its tough to know in advance how a new justice will vote, one thing is clear: The consequences of the 2020 vote on the Supreme Court, and the country, could not be greater.

Watch Now: Explaining Californias new gig worker labor law
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Jeremy Corbyn blasted his successor Sir Keir Starmer today over a 'political decision' to pay 'substantial damages' to seven whistleblowers over 'defamatory and false allegations' as Labour's anti-Semitism civil war erupted into fresh conflict.

The former opposition leader said the decision to settle a High Court case today over a BBC Panorama investigation into the party was 'disappointing' and claimed legal advice was that Labour had a 'strong case'.

The move by Sir Keir Starmer's party, which also apologised to the seven, is part of a settlement aimed at drawing a line under allegations made during Mr Corbyn's leadership that the party had allowed the overt hatred of Jewish people to fester.

The whistleblowers sued the party for defamation after the bombshell Panorama investigation last year  and MailOnline understands the party paid out 500,000 in compensation and legal fees.

The decision was welcomed by MPs and Jewish Labour activists who have long campaigned against anti-Semitism within the party.

But in a sign that the move could reignite factional infighting with the party's hard Left element, Mr Corbyn and his followers including Unite leader Len McCluskey attacked the payout.

Writing on Facebook Mr Corbyn said: 'The Party's decision to apologise today and make substantial payments to former staff who sued the party in relation to last year's Panorama programme is a political decision, not a legal one.

'Our legal advice was that the party had a strong defence, and the evidence in the leaked Labour report that is now the subject of an NEC inquiry led by Martin Forde QC strengthened concerns about the role played by some of those who took part in the programme.'

Mr McCluskey, whose union is Labour's largest financial backer, tweeted: 'Today's settlement is a misuse of Labour Party funds to settle a case it was advised we would win in court.

'The leaked report on how anti-Semitism was handled tells a very different story about what happened.'

But former Labour MP John Mann, now an independent adviser to the Government on anti-Semitism, tweeted: 'The bravest of the brave are the Labour staff members who did what was right.

'Normal decent people doing what normal decent people do when faced with injustice. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.'

And at Prime Minister's Questions today, when Mr Corbyn's leadership came up, Sir Keir said the party was 'under new management'.

A spokesman for the Labour leader later pointed out that all the Labour leadership candidates earlier this year - Sir Keir, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy - had pledged to 'settle this issue', adding: 'It's a sign that we will take a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism.'

In other developments:

Labour also agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to journalist John Ware for falsely accusing him of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public' in the documentary

The whistleblowers' laywer, Mark Francis, said they would take further legal action against Corbynistas who had repeated the libellous claims or might do so in future

Labour's shadow attorney general Lord Falconer said the settlement drew 'a clear line under a dispute between the Labour Party and people who had been whistleblowers about anti-Semitism'.

The move by Sir Keir Starmer's party, which also apologised to the seven, is part of a settlement aimed at drawing a line under allegations made during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership that the party had allowed the overt hatred of Jewish people to fester. They are pictured together at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in 2017

Sir Keir heading to Parliament for Prime Minister's Questions this morning

Labour MPs and activists welcome decision to settle case Labour MPs and Jewish activists welcomed the decision to settle the libel claim this morning. The Jewish Labour Movement, which came close to disaffiliating with Labour under Mr Corbyn, said: 'It is a sad reflection of its historic role as the party of working people that Labour sought to pursue and silence its former employees for speaking out against racism. 'Panorama shone a spotlight on the Labour Party's failure to act and the growing culture of denial that sought to victimise those who had faced discrimination.' The group said that 'under new leadership, our hope is that the party will continue to demonstrate this willingness to change and act decisively against anti-Semitism'. Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge tweeted: 'Good! This is a big step in the right direction and shows just how far the Labour Party has come since last year.' Jewish former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth tweeted: 'This has been a long time coming, the whistleblowers were so brave to make a stand & their strength has been inspirational. 'They have been relentlessly attacked for simply being honest. @UKLabour are absolutely right to apologise for the shameless way they have been treated.' After losing her seat at last year's election, Ms Smeeth said Jeremy Corbyn's handling of anti-Semitism allegations had turned Labour in to the 'nasty party'. Advertisement

Mr Corbyn's criticism led the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to demand he be suspended and investigated.

Chief executive Gideon Falter, said: 'From the backbenches, Jeremy Corbyn continues to spread conspiracy theories to cover up how the Labour Party became institutionally racist under his leadership.

'A few weeks ago he gaslit the Jewish community by claiming that the EHRC, in whose investigation we are the complainant, is ''part of the government machine''. Now he is gaslighting the whistleblowers he bullied for standing up to Jew-hatred.'

The investigation, 'Is Labour Anti-Semitic?' was screened in July last year and made a number of serious claims about the party's internal culture for dealing with complaints of anti-Semitism.

In a statement when the programme was broadcast, a Labour spokesman - acting for Mr Corbyn - called the whistleblowers 'disaffected former officials' and said they had 'worked actively to undermine' the leader and had 'both personal and political axes to grind'.

Both Mr Corbyn and the Momentum founder, Jon Lansman, also suggested in statements following the programme that it had a pre-determined outcome.

Following those statements, seven of the eight whistleblowers, who are all former Labour staffers, instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to take action against the party.

They claimed senior figures had issued statements attacking their reputations and suggesting they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party.

Among the former Labour staffers taking action were the former head of disputes Sam Matthews; the former head of compliance Mike Creighton; Dan Hogan, a former disputes team investigator; and Louise Withers Green, a former disputes officer.

The others were Katherine Buckingham, Martha Robinson and Benjamin Westerman.

Iain McNicol, the party's former general secretary who was the eighth interviewee on the programme, was not involved in the action.

At a brief hearing in London, William Bennett QC, barrister for the seven whistleblowers, said: 'The whistleblowers were highly critical of the Labour Party's approach to tackling anti-Semitism within its ranks.'

He told Mr Justice Nicklin: 'Before the broadcast of the Panorama programme, the Labour Party issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about the whistleblowers.'

Mr Bennett said Labour 'accused the whistleblowers of having acted in bad faith during and after their employment with the intention of harming the Labour Party', allegations he said were 'untrue and defamatory'.

He added: 'The Labour Party is here today to set the record straight and to apologise unreservedly to the claimants for the distress and embarrassment that the publication of the false allegations have caused them and for the continuing damage that has been caused to their reputations.

'The Labour Party also has agreed to pay substantial damages to the whistleblowers.'

Mark Henderson, representing Labour, told the court: 'The Labour Party acknowledges that these claims about the claimants are untrue, and we retract and withdraw them and undertake not to repeat them.

'The Labour Party is here today to publicly set the record straight and to apologise to the claimants for the distress and embarrassment that it has caused them.'

At the same hearing, Labour also apologised to John Ware - the journalist who made the Panorama programme - for falsely accusing him of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public'.

Mr Bennett said Labour had alleged that Mr Ware 'invented quotes, flouted journalistic ethics and ... knowingly promoted falsehoods' in pursuit of 'a pre-determined outcome to the question asked by the Panorama programme'.

He added that the party had agreed to pay 'substantial damages' to Mr Ware.

The 500,000 payout that Labour has to make covers damages for Mr Ware and the seven whistleblowers, as well as legal costs.

In a statement, the claimants' solicitor Mark Lewis said: 'Today in the High Court, the Labour Party retracted its false allegations made about the Panorama programme asking whether Labour was anti-Semitic.

'The answer was a clear ''yes''. Labour chose to double down and attack the programme's presenter, John Ware, and the whistleblowers rather than addressing the truth of the problem.

'It is ironic that the workers' party chose to act as disgruntled bosses who had been caught out.'

He added: 'This is just the start. Actions are being taken against those who repeat the libels, and will be taken against those who choose to do so in future. An honest opinion has to be based upon facts.

'Regrettably, there are too many out there who do not bother to check the facts when the facts do not support their factional view.'

Ofcom rejected 28 complaints against the programme for alleged bias, concluding that it was 'duly impartial' and included Labour's response prominently throughout.

Today, the party issued a press release entitled 'an apology from the Labour Party to Kat Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Dan Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Benjamin Westerman and Martha Robinson'.

It said: 'The Labour Party has today issued an unreserved apology to the former members of staff who contributed to a BBC Panorama programme about anti-Semitism within the Labour Party in July 2019.

'Before the broadcast of the programme, the Labour Party issued a press release that contained defamatory and false allegations about these whistleblowers.

'We acknowledge the many years of dedicated and committed service that the whistleblowers have given to the Labour Party as members and as staff. We appreciate their valuable contribution at all levels of the Party.

'We unreservedly withdraw all allegations of bad faith, malice and lying. We would like to apologise unreservedly for the distress, embarrassment and hurt caused by their publication. We have agreed to pay them damages.

'Under the leadership of Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, we are committed to tackling anti-Semitism within the Labour Party. Anti-Semitism has been a stain on the Labour Party in recent years. It has caused unacceptable and unimaginable levels of grief and distress for many in the Jewish community, as well as members of staff.

'If we are to restore the trust of the Jewish community, we must demonstrate a change of leadership. That means being open, transparent and respecting the right of whistleblowers. We are determined to deliver that change.'

A BBC spokesman said today: 'The BBC will always support fair and impartial reporting, exposing wrongdoing and holding power to account. The Panorama programme did precisely that, but was subject to an extraordinary and vitriolic attack by the Labour Party.

'We welcome today's long overdue apology to John Ware and the seven Panorama whistleblowers, who have been subjected to painful and damaging personal attacks on their integrity and character.

'We applaud their strength to take this case forward and are pleased it has been recognised in court that these extremely serious and damaging allegations against them were false and have been unreservedly withdrawn. 'John Ware is a reporter with an extraordinary record of excellence at Panorama for investigative journalism in the public interest.'

Speaking outside court after the hearing, Labour's shadow attorney general Lord Falconer said: 'It is a clear line under a dispute between the Labour Party and people who had been whistleblowers about anti-Semitism.

'The Labour Party made absolutely clear in its statement in open court that it withdrew completely any allegation of dishonesty or bad behaviour against the whistleblowers and the journalist involved.

'It is for the (Equality and Human Rights) Commission to make its findings public when it chooses ... but we have brought to an end a chapter when the Labour Party was accusing whistleblowers of behaving dishonestly and I'm incredibly glad that we have brought it to an end.

'We can focus now not on litigation, which is a disastrous thing for a party to be focusing on.

'Instead, it should be focusing on championing the things that matter to the public, so it's a good day.'

It comes nine days after Labour received a copy of a long-awaited report into whether it victimised Jews during the Corbyn years.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's draft conclusions have not yet been made public, but insiders expect them to be 'damning'.

The watchdog said when it launched its official inquiry last May that it 'suspected' that Labour had committed 'unlawful acts' in its handling of its anti-Semitism crisis.

Last month Sir Keir told his hard-left former leadership rival Rebecca Long-Bailey to resign after she retweeted an online interview which contained an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

There was fury over a passage in Maxine Peake's offending article where the actress said the US police had learned the tactics that killed George Floyd from the Israel secret services.
Photo: The Canadian Press Rail cars wait for pick up in Winnipeg.

Canadian exports of crude oil by rail plunged by 63 per cent in May compared with April as North American fuel demand dropped due to measures taken to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Canada Energy Regulator says rail shipments of oil in May fell to a four-year low of about 58,000 barrels per day, down from 156,000 bpd in April and 351,000 bpd in March.

Shipments reached a record high of 412,000 bpd in February.

Rail transportation of crude oil is considered to be more expensive than shipping by pipeline so shippers tend to use it only when pipelines are full or if the destination market offers much higher prices than can be achieved in Canada.

Western Canadian producers shut down more than 800,000 barrels per day of oil production at times in the past few months to avoid selling at low prices, thus freeing up space on export pipelines.

In May, Enbridge Inc. reported that its Mainline oil export pipeline system, which is typically oversubscribed by shippers, transported 400,000 fewer barrels of oil per day in April than its average of 2.84 million bpd in the first quarter.
SPRINGFIELD  In its latest round of coronavirus relief grants, the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts has awarded $725,000 to 26 local nonprofits, according to an announcement Wednesday.

The money targets employment assistance, food insecurity, homelessness and foreclosure prevention, and addressing immediate needs during the coronavirus pandemic.

The awards bring the total amount granted through the COVID-19 Response Fund for the Pioneer Valley since the start of the pandemic in March to $5 million. The Community Foundation has awarded 249 grants to 115 organizations, said Ellen Leuchs, vice president of philanthropic services.

"A number of nonprofits have received multiple grants because of ongoing need," she said.

The COVID-19 Response Fund has collected $7.6 million in cash and pledges from 650 donors, including foundations, businesses, and individuals, since March, she said. That leaves more than $2 million on hand to distribute.

And donations are still coming in, Leuchs said.

"Not at the rate they were coming in in the beginning, but they are coming in," she said.

Some donors send money monthly, she said. And she's not worried about running out of funds.

The foundation is looking ahead to expanding grant making from addressing basic human needs to looking at the infrastructure and organizations that provide those supports.

"They have been hit hard," she said.

Nonprofits faced loss of revenue and added expenses from increased need and the requirements to maintain sanitary environments to fight the virus. Some had to expand their space so folks could maintain social distancing.

As we begin to see the longer-term impacts of the pandemic, she said, we are going to have to think about our grant making.

The statewide Massachusetts COVID-19 Relief Fund has provided $4.3 million in funding to support the Community Foundations response to the pandemic crisis in Western Massachusetts, according to a news release.

MassMutual donated $1 million toward the COVID-19 Response Fund for the Pioneer Valley in March to start it off.

Dress for Success of Western Massachusetts is one recipient in the latest grant round, according to the news release.

Located in Springfield, Dress for Success used the money to address the digital divide and obstacles for job seekers during the pandemic.

As soon as the Governor announced shelter in place, we picked up the phone  we spoke directly to our participants and asked them about their current needs. We quickly found that 1) the digital divide was a barrier to women accessing online training and work opportunities and 2) we had to take all of our programs online, said Margaret Tantillo, executive director, in a statement.

Funding from the Community Foundation has allowed us to maintain our staffing levels so we can address both of these issues. We are able to continue to deliver our quality programs and add a new program around digital literacy. The women in our community are going to play an essential role in the economic recovery, and we are providing the essential tools to help women maintain their employment and/or reenter the workforce when businesses start reopening.

Rivera & Rivera Act Against Foreclosure Inc. in Springfield used grant funds to address food insecurity by feeding the homeless and the community.

We feed and serve the community daily while providing breakfast and lunch, clothing, personal hygiene products, diapers, undergarments, to underprivileged populations, President Marisol Feliciano said in a statement. This funding will help our program provide these services for the next six weeks.

The 26 nonprofits that received grants from the COVID-19 Response Fund for the Pioneer Valley are:
Congress leader Kapil Sibal used the recent developments in the country to attack the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre.

He tweeted on Wednesday morning to allege that the rule of law has become the law of he who rules in the country.

In my country, has the Rule of Law become the law of He who Rules. Custodial deaths, Fake encounters, Toppling elected governments (money +), Intemperate language by the powerful, Persecuting the innocent, Highly questionable judicial verdicts. Save my country! Sibal tweeted.

In my country



Has the " Rule of Law "



become



The law of " He who Rules "



Custodial deaths

Fake encounters

Toppling elected governments ( money + )

Intemperate language by the powerful

Persecuting the innocent

Highly questionable judicial verdicts



Save my country !  Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) July 22, 2020

With this tweet, Sibal continued the Congress attack on the government in the recent days. The attack has been led by Rahul Gandhi, who has been targeting the central government over the border row with China and a host of other issues.

On Tuesday, he took a swipe at the Centre, listing the alleged attempt to topple the government in Rajasthan and the Namaste Trump event among its achievements in the Covid-19 times. He said due to such achievements of the government, the country is now Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) in the fight against the pandemic.

Achievements of the government in the Covid-era: February - Namaste Trump, March - toppling the government in Madhya Pradesh, April - making people light candles, May - governments sixth anniversary, June - Bihar virtual rally, July - attempt to topple the government in Rajasthan, Gandhi said in a sarcastic tweet in Hindi.

The BJP hit back, saying the Congress will become a party of tweets as it is doing no work among people and losing one leader after another.

Union minister Prakash Javadekar responded to Gandhi, calling protests against the amended citizenship law, the Delhi riots in February the Congresss achievements followed by loss of Jyotiraditya Scindia and power in Madhya Pradesh in March, and incitement of migrant workers in April.

Sibal then released a video message in which he said that Javadekar should stop polluting the countrys politics with his harsh words and instead focus on better governance.

Sibal said the BJP does not know how to govern but knows how to attack and use harsh words.
This is included because the guidelines are not as clear as they might be, though the expectation is that certain salary costs will be eligible, Barr said. It also includes any protective gear, things we have need to deal with the situation were in now.
There is no need to restrict movements for passengers from Ireland who make connecting flights in countries who are not on the Green list, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has said.

Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Mr Coveney said that if a passenger is travelling to one of the 15 Green list countries, they do not have to restrict movements if they make a connecting flight in another country.

If youre transiting through an airport, and we checked this with the World Health Organisation, the Minister for Health spoke to Mike Ryan whos a senior figure in the World Health Organisation, and they dont have a concern at all with transit airports, if you like, he said.

If you fly through an airport into another destination, its the destination that youre heading to, or the destination that you originate from, thats the country that determines whether you are effectively on the so-called Green list.

Its obviously different if you stay in France for the weekend and then fly on to Monaco, if you actually leave the airport and then spend some time in a country, then that is the country that determines the risk status, he said.

Read More

The list of countries on the Green list are as follows: Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco, and San Marino.

These countries have lower rates of Covid-19 to Ireland.

He said that there has been confusion surrounding international travel and the Green List in recent weeks, as the government advice continues to be that non-essential travel should be avoided.

I can accept that there has been some confusion in the last number of days and thats why it was important that the government made a definitive decision last night.

Its important to say that the travel advice has changed to countries that are still on this so-called Green list."

While the advice for people who were travelling abroad used to be to self-isolate for 14 days, this was changed recently to advise that people should restrict their movements instead.

The advice has changed for good reason, he said.





Under our contract tracing system here, if youve been in close contact with somebody who has tested positive, you are asked to restrict your movements.

We are applying that same restriction to people who come into Ireland from countries who have a higher risk of Covid-19 that Ireland has.

He added that it is not doable to require all passengers coming into the country to self-isolate for 14 days in an airport hotel as this would lead to clusters.

If you put a lot of people that come from abroad into one hotel and keep them there for 14 days, theres a danger that it becomes a problem in its own right, he said.

Mr Coveney added that the Cabinet decided last night to digitalise the passenger locator form and all information on it will be verified by August 10.

A call centre will also be set up for passengers coming into the country to ensure that they are restricting their movements.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 18:03:41|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday urged government officials to avoid convening gatherings as the country battled the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a televised address, Museveni said politicians must stick to the guidelines issued by the health ministry to avoid spreading the virus.

The president said Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng got herself in a regrettable situation, where crowds gathered around her as she launched the distribution of face masks in her home district Lira, northern Uganda.

Museveni said the country has tested over 25,000 people since March 21. Of the 1,072 who tested positive by July 20, 958 have been discharged and no death has been registered.

He said although the country has made tremendous progress in fighting the disease, the public should not relax in implementing the preventive measures.

He said places of worship will remain closed but hair salons can open.

The country's Entebbe International Airport and the borders will also remain closed until the global COVID-19 situation is under control, Museveni said.

The president also shortened the night curfew to start at 9:00 p.m. and end at 5:30 a.m. Previously it started from 7:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m..

He also said that those who are calling for protests would be arrested. Enditem
An employment expert says the dole could be scrapped if every Australian who needed work was paid $754 a week to help their local community with a guaranteed job.

University of Newcastle economics professor Bill Mitchell wants the federal government to instead directly fund minimum-wage jobs paying $39,198 a year.

That is more than double the base rate of the dole, which pays $14,700 a year before coronavirus supplements.

Under his Job Guarantee plan, local councils around Australia would be directly allocated $51.7billion from the commonwealth over 12 months to create 1.2million jobs during the COVID-19 crisis.

An employment expert says the dole could be scrapped if every Australian who needed work was paid $754 a week to help their local community with a guaranteed job. Pictured is a Centrelink queue in Melbourne in March

Professor Mitchell, the director of the university's Centre of Full Employment and Equity, argued that directly funding $753.80-a-week jobs meant Australians wouldn't need the dole because there would be no unemployment.

University of Newcastle economics professor Bill Mitchell wants the federal government to instead directly fund minimum-wage jobs paying $39,198 a year

'I'd get rid of the dole,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Why do you need the dole if you offer jobs?

'The dole doesn't do anything for anybody.

'I know all the arguments, some people prefer the dole but in surveys it's about one per cent.'

Since April 27 the dole, known as JobSeeker, has been effectively doubled to $1,115.70 a fortnight with a $550 coronavirus supplement but this boost is being reduced on September 25 to $250, taking the dole down to $815.70 until December 31.

The dole for singles was $14,708 a year before the pandemic but in 2020 short-term coronavirus boosts, costing taxpayers $17.9billion, will see the unemployed pocket $22,233 in one year.

Under his Job Guarantee plan, local councils around Australia would be directly allocated $51.7billion from the commonwealth over 12 months to create 1.2million jobs during the COVID-19 crisis. This could include planting trees. Pictured is a Landcare project

Instead of receiving JobSeeker, Professor Mitchell said Australians would have jobs created, doing things like planting trees and clearing away rubbish in bushfire-hit areas.

Poll Should the dole be replaced with a taxpayer-funded guaranteed job? Yes No Undecided Should the dole be replaced with a taxpayer-funded guaranteed job? Yes 80 votes

No 37 votes

Undecided 18 votes Now share your opinion





'In regional areas, you could have massive tree planting that would fix up the land, provide jobs,' he said.

Almost one million Australians, or a record 992,300 people, were officially unemployed in June.

Since the COVID-19 shutdowns in March, 580,000 people have given up looking for work, a situation known as hidden unemployment.

Another 3.5million were receiving $1,500 a fortnight in JobKeeper wage subsidies but from September 28, their number will more than halve to 1.4million as the payment is reduced to $1,200 every two weeks.

Taxpayers would have paid $86.6billion for JobKeeper programs.

Australia's unemployment rate last month rose to 7.4 per cent, the highest level since November 1998, and the Reserve Bank of Australia fears it could hit nine per cent by Christmas, reaching a level unseen since November 1994.

Instead of receiving JobSeeker, Professor Mitchell said Australians would have jobs created, doing things like planting trees and clearing away rubbish in bushfire-hit areas. They would be doing the kind of work now being done by Landcare volunteers (pictured)

Professor Mitchell calculated his plan would see unemployment fall to just four per cent - a level last seen in early 2008 during the mining boom.

Unemployment during June amid COVID-19 Australia's unemployment rate climbed from a 19-year high of 7.1 per cent in May to 7.4 per cent in June - the highest since November 1998 Number without work climbed from 923,000 to a record-high 992,300 Close to a million people unemployed for the first time ever - surpassing 960,200 record set in December 1992 Unemployment increased even though 210,800 more people were employed as COVID-19 shutdowns eased That was because the participation rate increased from 62.7 per cent to 64 per cent as more people looked for work Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data for June Advertisement

As recently as February, Australia had a jobless rate of just 5.1 per cent, a level considered by orthodox economics theory to be near full employment before wage pressures intensified.

The federal government has already spent more than $174billion on welfare-related stimulus packages since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March and there are concerns Australia will have deficit budgets for the next three decades as government debt levels approached $1trillion by the end of the 2020s.

Professor Mitchell however argued his $51.7billion jobs plan would increase Australia's gross domestic product by $101billion.

He is also a father of the Modern Monetary Theory which argues government budget deficits are a good thing.

Australia hasn't had a budget surplus since 2007 but Professor Mitchell said deficits had occurred in 80 per cent of budgets since Federation in 1901 and were particularly necessary now.

'If we don't run the deficits now, we will have economic catastrophe - that's the reality,' Professor Mitchell said.

'Australians are going to have to get used to very high deficits for the next decade, this is a once-in-a-hundred year crisis, and capitalism now is on life support.'

Former American Democrat presidential primaries candidate Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, has been associated with advisers who favoured this policy.
Kevin Booth

Im an optimist  the documentary Shadows of Sofia Part II ends with Peevski and Boyko as cellmates. If your going to dream  dream big

 ,            .



,  .
Twelve Felician Sisters died of COVID-19 in one month at a convent in Livonia, Michigan. (Courtesy of Felician Sisters of North America)

Convent Outside Detroit Lost 13 Nuns to COVID-19 With 12 Dying in One Month

The CCP virus spread so quickly through a convent in Michigan that it claimed the lives of 12 nuns in one month, beginning on Good Friday.

They were all members of the Felician Sisters convent in Livonia, outside of Detroit, ranging in ages from 69 to 99, the executive director for mission advancement, Suzanne English, confirmed to CNN on Tuesday. A 13th sister initially survived the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus but passed away from its effects in June.

The women were long-time members of the convent and leave behind a legacy of service, according to their obituaries supplied by English. They all served others through different roles, from teaching to helping at-risk children to playing music to publishing a 586-page book about the history of the convent.

One sister won a commercial script-writing contest for Campbells Soup with her second-grade class. Another was assigned to the Felician Generalate in Rome twice and worked as a secretary in the English section of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

We grieve for each of our sisters who has passed during the time of the pandemic throughout the province, and we greatly appreciate all of those who are holding us in prayer and supporting us in a number of ways, said Sister Mary Christopher Moore, provincial minister of Our Lady of Hope Province.

The women all lived and worked on the 360-acre campus that was once home to 800 sisters, according to the Global Sisters Report, an independent, non-profit Catholic news publisher. Now, only around 50 reside there, according to English.

English said the Livonia convent is one of 60 convents in the United States and Canada, plus a mission in Haiti, where the 469 Felician Sisters of North America reside.

The Global Sisters Report said the death of the 13 nuns in Livonia may be the worst loss of life to a community of religious women in the United States since the 1918 influenza pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, the convent, like other long-term housing residences, implemented a no-visitors rule and placed restrictions on group activities to help curb the spread of the CCP virus, according to Global Sisters Report.

A nun prays as St. Patricks Cathedral re-opens for Mass at 25% capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York, on June 28, 2020. (Bryan R. Smith / AFP via Getty Images)

It Kind of Shattered Our Faith Life a Little Bit

But the CCP virus spread through the convent and on Good Friday, April 10, came the first death: Sister Mary Luiza Wawrzyniak, 99.

Her death was followed by Sister Celine Marie Lesinski, 92, and Sister Mary Estelle Printz, 95, who both died on Easter Sunday, April 12.

By May 10, a total of 12 sisters died, according to English. They include Sister Thomas Marie Wadowski, 73, Sister Mary Patricia Pyszynski, 93, Sister Mary Clarence (Adeline) Borkoski, 83, Sister Rose Mary Wolak, 86, Sister Mary Janice (Margaret) Zolkowski, 86, Sister Mary Alice Ann (Fernanda) Gradowski, 73, Sister Victoria Marie Indyk, 69, Sister Mary Martinez (Virginia) Rozek, 87, and Sister Mary Madeleine (Frances) Dolan, 82.

The convent grappled with how they were able to care for each other and only 10 people could attend each funeral, according to Global Sisters Report.

The faith we share with sisters as they are dying, the prayers we share with sisters as they are dying: We missed all that. It kind of shattered our faith life a little bit. Sister Joyce Marie Van de Vyver told the publication.

At the end of June, the convent lost Sister Mary Danatha (Lottie) Suchyta, 98, to COVID. In total, at least 30 sisters in Livonia were infected with the CCP virus and 17 recovered, English said, citing Sister Noel Marie Gabriel, director of clinical health services for Our Lady of Hope Province.

Some of our sisters who have had COVID-19 are struggling to recover from a variety of effects, including continuing weakness, respiratory issues, and more, a statement released by Felician Sisters in early July read.

In the United States, nearly 142,000 have died from the CCP virus, according to Johns Hopkins Universitys tally of cases on Tuesday. More than 3.89 million people have been infected with the CCP virus in the United States.

The Livonia convent is not the only religious order that has seen the devastating effects of the CCP virus. Sister Mary Ramona (Florence) Borkowski, 93, died of COVID-19 on April 18 at a convent located in Lodi, New Jersey. In 1971, Borkowski founded and became the director of the Felician School for Exceptional Children in Lodi, a position she held until 2018, according to her obituary.

Between April and May, six sisters of different religious orders that lived at Our Lady of the Angels Convent in Greenfield, Wisconsin, died from COVID-19.

The CNN Wire and NTD staff contributed to this report.
Chandigarh, July 22 : The Punjab cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, here on Wednesday, okayed direct recruitment of 305 warders through the Punjab Police Recruitment Board by taking these posts out of the purview of the Subordinate Services Selection Board.

It would help improve prison management by providing adequate manpower. The process of recruitment would be completed within four months, a spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office told IANS.

Punjab jails that currently house over 24,000 convicts and under-trials are facing shortage of manpower.

The paucity of staff was being felt more acutely since the Nabha jail break incident of November 27, 2016. It was required to be beefed up to check recurrence of such incidents, the cabinet felt.

The high-powered committee set up to probe the Nabha jail-break incident had also identified shortage of staff as a major cause of the incident.
Three foreign experts were injured on Wednesday in an explosion that occurred near Oil India Limited (OIL)'s gas well number 5 at the Baghjan oil field located in Assam's Tinsukia district. The three injured foreign experts have been rushed to a hospital.

"The incident occurred when operations to douse the fire at Baghjan oil field was going on. The operation has been halted now," news agency ANI quoted Tridip Hazarika, the spokesperson of Oil India Limited, as saying.

"Three foreign experts who were at the site are injured. They have been rushed to hospital," Hazarika added.

The massive explosion took place when operations were underway to douse the fire at OIL's Baghjan well.

Assam: An explosion occurred near well no.5 of Oil India in Baghjan, Tinsukia. 3 foreign experts at the site injured. They have been rushed to hospital. The incident occurred when operations to douse the fire at Baghjan oil field was going on. The operation has been halted now. https://t.co/d8mzsmwdPc pic.twitter.com/0azjUzRRrR - ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2020

The oil well in upper Assam's Tinsukia district has been leaking gas for the last 27 days and it caught fire on June 9, killing two of OIL's firefighters at the site. Operated by Oil India Limited, the country's second largest crude oil producer, the Baghjan oil field has a total of 22 producing wells -- 18 crude and four gas. The oil well has been in operation since 2003.

Oil India said that gas production at oil wells have been affected by blockades put up by people at several areas of the district. As many as 14, out of 17, oil and gas wells under Baghjan EPS were shut since July 7, 2020. There was production loss of 420 metric tonnes (MT) of Crude Oil and 1.52 million metric standard cubic metres (MMSCM) of natural gas as reported on July 20.

"Operations were disrupted in 13 oil wells and 05 gas wells. Cumulative production loss since 27 May, 2020 due to bandhs and blockades: 15,247 MT Crude oil, 32.73 MMSCM of natural gas," the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

The state-owned oil company said that a crucial packing element for the casing hanger will be airlifted from Singapore on Monday. The consignments being mobilised from outside Assam were stuck at Dalkhota, West Bengal due to a very long waiting queue for COVID testing, it said.

OIL also said various assessments and impact studies of the blowout, as well as the blaze, in villages and nearby forest areas, are being conducted by multiple agencies such as ERM India, TERI, CSIR-NEIST and Assam Agricultural University.

By Chitranjan Kumar

Also Read: Oil India's natural gas well explodes in Assam; 1,610 families evacuated

Also Read: Baghjan gas well blowout threat to tea industry, says Tea Association

Also Read: Experts submit plan to control Assam gas well fire to centre, OIL operations affected by local stir
A German state has banned children from wearing burkas in schools after claiming the full-face coverings do not "belong in a free society".

Baden-Wurttemberg's city council's decision to ban burkas matches the ban for teachers that is already in place, broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports.

The south western state's Premier Winfried Kretschmann said cases of full-face veiling in schools were rare, but a legal ruling was necessary.

He said the full-face covering "did not belong in a free society" and the rules will apply to children at primary and secondary schools.

Introducing a ban at university level was more complex, Mr Kretschmann said.

Germany introduced a partial burka ban back in 2017 / PA

Back in 2017, German lawmakers voted for a partial burka ban that would prevent civil servants, judges and soldiers from wearing the Islamic face veil in public.

A few months earlier, the state of Bavaria announced plans for a local burka ban in government workplaces, schools, universities and while driving.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has previously called for a ban on full-face veils in public.

Supporters of the ban say it is necessary to protect young girls and encouraging them to wear a full-face covering infringes their rights.

Baden-Wurttemberg Green party leaders Sandra Detzer and Oliver Hildenbrand have previously called the burka a "symbol of oppression".

But a student in Hamburg recently fought and won a legal battle allowing her to wear a face covering.

The court said the woman had a "right to unconditional protection of her freedom of religion".

A YouGov poll in 2019 found that 54 per cent of respondents in Germany would support a ban on burkas, according to Deutsche Welle.
(Newser)  An "unstable" armed man who seized more than a dozen hostages on a long-distance bus in the western Ukraine city of Lutsk was detained late Tuesday after a standoff that lasted for over 12 hours and all hostages were freed unharmed, officials said. At one point during the standoff, the assailant fired his gun and a bullet narrowly missed the first deputy chief of national police, Yevhen Koval. Shortly after, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy granted one of the man's demands and posted a brief video message on his Facebook page to urge Ukrainians to watch the 2005 animal rights documentary Earthlings, the BBC reports. Minutes later, the assailant surrendered to police and authorities said all 13 hostages were freed. Several others, including pregnant woman, were released earlier in the standoff.

story continues below

Speaking to reporters after the drama ended, Ukraines Interior Minister Arsen Avakov described the assailant as an "unstable man who invented his own world. Police sealed off the center of Lutsk after the assailant, who police said was armed and carrying explosives, took over the bus, the AP reports. At one point, the assailant threw explosives out of a bus window, but no one was hurt. He also fired several shots at a police drone. Authorities identified the man as Maksim Krivosh, a 44-year-old who had reportedly been convicted twice on a wide range of charges, including robbery and fraud, and spent a total of 10 years behind bars. "Human life is the most important value. We haven't lost anyone," Zelenskiy said In a Facebook post.

(Read more Ukraine stories.)
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (PANA) - The much-travelled and flamboyant Burkinabe forward, Aristide Bance, has called time on his international team career after 17 years, meaning he will no longer wear the Burkinabe national colours
S ir Keir Starmer put clear blue water between himself and his left-wing predecessor Jeremy Corbyn today by declaring: The Labour Party is under new management.

During a lively debate over Russian interference at Prime Ministers Questions, the new Labour leader called for Kremlin-backed news outlet Russia Today to be banned.

The position is in stark contrast with that of Mr Corbyn, who has appeared on the channel and previously endorsed it.

Sir Keir told the Commons: One way the Government can seek to clamp down on Russian influence is to prevent the spread of Kremlin backed disinformation.

Obviously social media companies have a big role to play but the report also highlights serious distortions in the coverage provided by Russian state owned international broadcasters such as Russia Today.

The High Court has ruled that Russia Todays broadcasts pose actual and potential harm. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that its time to look again at the licensing for Russia Today to operate in the UK?

Boris Johnson hit back, saying: This would come more credibly from the leader of the opposition had he called out the former leader of the opposition when he took money for appearing on Russia Todayhe protested neither against the former leader of the opposition's stance on Salisbury, nor against his willingness to take money from Russia Today.

"He flip flops from day-to-day. The leader of the opposition has more flip flops than Bournemouth beach.

Russian twist The Prime Minister attacked Sir Keir over his predecessors links with Russia Today  despite Mr Johnsons own father and a string of Tory MPs also appearing on the channel. Stanley Johnson has appeared on RT to promote his book in 2017. Meanwhile Tory MPs Steve Baker, Kwasi Kwarteng, Mike Freer, Johnny Mercer, David Davies and Michael Fabricant have all also appeared on the channel.

Sir Keir replied: Pre-prepared gags on flip flops  this is the former columnist who wrote two versions of every article ever published.

In case the Prime Minister hasnt noticed  the Labour Party is under new management.

And no frontbencher of this party has appeared on Russia Today since Ive been leading this party.

During the heated exchange, Mr Johnson accused Sir Keir of having "sat on his hands" and doing "nothing while the Labour Party parroted the line of the Kremlin" in the wake of the Salisbury poisonings.

However, ten days after the attack Sir Keir appeared on BBC's Question Time, saying: "It deserves to be condemned by all of us without reservation. Without reservation."

Sir Keir asked the PM to withdraw his comment, adding: "I stood up and condemned what happened in Salisbury and I supported the then-Prime Minister on record. I urge the Prime Minister to check the record and withdraw that."

More follows
Chinese filmmaker Ann Hui will be presented with a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in September.



Venice festival director Alberto Barbera in a statement praised the Hong Kong-based director as "one of Asia's most respected, prolific and versatile directors of our time; her career spans four decades and touches every film genre."

The decision was made by the board of directors of the Biennale di Venezia upon recommendation of Barbera.

He concluded: "In a trailblazing fashion, through her language and her unique visual style, not only has she captured the specific aspects of the city and the imagination of Hong Kong, she has also transposed and translated them into a universal perspective. "

Hui responded by saying that she was so happy to receive this news and honored for the award. "So happy that I feel I cannot find the words. I just hope everything in the world will turn better soon and everybody can feel again as happy as I am in this moment."

The Chinese director will become the first female director to earn this top honor at Venice. She is no stranger to Venice, where Hui's "A Simple Life" and "The Golden Era" both world-premiered at the festival.

Hui emerged as one of the pivotal figures of the Hong Kong New Wave in the 1980s, following her debut feature "The Secret" (1979). During her 45-year career, she produced many classics, such as "Boat People" (1982), "Song of the Exile" (1990), "Summer Snow" (1995), "July Rhapsody" (2002), "The Way We Are" (2008), and "Our Time Will Come" (2017). She has won more best director awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards than anyone else with six awards.

Hui's latest drama is "Love After Love," a film adaptation of a short story "Aloeswood Incense" by the late Eileen Chang, who is one of the most popular women writers in China. To celebrate her Venice honor, Alibaba Pictures and other producers of the new film released a new poster for "Love After Love," designed by Huang Hai.

The film tells the story of a young woman who travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong in pursuit of education but ends up living beyond her means.

Actors Ma Sichun, Yu Feihong, Eddie Peng, Fan Wei, and Isabella Leong star in the new film. Hui recruited a multi-award-winning crew, including Christopher Doyle ("In the Mood for Love," "Chungking Express"), costume designer Emi Wada ("Ran," "Hero," "House of Flying Daggers"), art director Zhao Hai ("The Golden Era," "A World Without Thieves"), sound designer TuDuu-Chih ("In the Mood for Love"), and editor Eric Kwong Chi-Leung ("Battle of Wits") as well as famous musician and score composer Ryuichi Sakamoto ("The Revenant," "The Last Emperor").

The release date is not known due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Besides Ann Hui, British actress Tilda Swinton will be presented with a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in September.

The 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival is set to run Sept. 2  12. The line-up will be announced on July 28.
A sign for the AFP Headquarters is displayed in Canberra, Australia, on June 6, 2019. (Getty Images)

Complex $17M Fraud Ring Busted, 12 Charged in Australia

Sydney construction identity George Alex is accused of leading a criminal syndicate behind a complex $17 million tax fraud scheme.

NSW, Queensland and ACT properties were raided on July 21 after an 18-month joint investigation into tax fraud and money laundering by federal police, the Australian Tax Office and corporate regulator ASIC.

Police have charged 12 people in connection with the crime group including seven men in Queensland, two men and two women in NSW and an ACT man.

Alex, 49, and his 22-year-old son Arthur were among those arrested in southeast Queensland, with six scheduled to face Southport Magistrates Court on Thursday.

All seven men are expected to be extradited to NSW to face court at a later date.

It is alleged the syndicate used labour hire and payroll companies to withhold more than $17 million in owed taxes though elaborate phoenix activity.

This process involves the creation of a new company to replace a deliberately liquidated business to avoid paying tax, creditors and employee entitlements.

The AFP has frozen $21 million worth of assets connected to the syndicate including 12 properties, 17 vehicles, 65 bank accounts, a caravan and a boat.

AFP investigations commander Kirsty Schofield said crime gangs were diversifying and no longer operating solely in tobacco, drugs or firearms trades.

They will deal in anything that makes them money and theyre actively recruiting specialists from the finance, accounting, legal and banking sectors, Schofield told reporters on Wednesday.

This syndicate specifically included a mix of financial industry experts to provide the level of expertise required to commit the fraud and keep it ongoing.

ATO assistant commissioner Aislinn Walwyn said phoenixing causes harm to peoples livelihoods and lines the pockets of criminals.

Some people may think that non-compliance with tax obligations is a victimless crime but this couldnt be further from the truth, Walwyn said.

The whole community is impacted by this behaviour.

Callum Godde in Sydney
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Cincinnati seized $478,000 worth of cocaine hidden in a shipment of women's shoes.

The shipment was moving through a Cincinnati express consignment facility when officers discovered 21 pounds of cocaine.


WASHINGTON  Senior officials with the Department of Homeland Security addressed the increased presence of federal agents in Portland, Ore., in a press briefing for the first time on Tuesday, defending the tactics of the agents who have been widely criticized for escalating an already tense conflict with protesters.

They said agents of the department would remain in the city until the unrest had subsided.

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security, cast blame for the unrest on Portland politicians who have publicly pleaded that he remove the agents from the city. But Mr. Wolf said the crackdown  which has included personnel from the U.S. Marshals and tactical agents from Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in addition to the Federal Protective Service, which was already stationed in Portland  was specific to the Pacific Northwest city, distancing his department from President Trumps commitment this week to send agents to other major cities, from Oakland to New York.

Violent anarchists in Portland versus normal city criminal activity behavior by gangs and criminal element, those are two different things, Mr. Wolf said, adding that the department had recorded 43 arrests in the protests. What we have in Portland is very different than what we see in other cities.

The Trump administrations plan, revealed on Monday, to send 150 Homeland Security Investigations special agents to Chicago for 60 days is separate from the deployment of camouflage-wearing tactical agents in Portland, but the deployment of federal agents to another major city has stoked concern among local mayors and governors that the efforts are making the unrest worse.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has tightened New York's outdoor dining rules to force bars to sell substantial amounts of food, and not just snacks, with drinks - a move that has been labeled a 'thumb in the eye' to an already crippled industry.

On June 22, outdoor dining resumed in New York City which brought long-awaited relief to the hospitality industry and to the remaining residents eager to patronize them.

At the time, Cuomo did not specify that only restaurants could provide the service.

The city's bars, eager to finally make money again, leaped on the chance to set up high-top tables and chairs in designated street spaces.

Most complied with social distancing rules and enforced them but some allowed large groups to gather outside which drew complaints from many and fears of a second wave of the virus.

Groups had been gathering outside bars before then, when buying take-out drinks, and in parks and streets.

Gov. Cuomo on Tuesday. He has threatened to close all bars and restaurants and is forcing bars to sell 'substantial' amounts of food with alcoholic drinks which has sparked outrage among the hospitality industry

Gov. Cuomo is tightening the rules for bars which he says are not allowed to offer outdoor service at tables if people are only drinking, and now they must enforce 'substantial' food orders

But last week, Cuomo tightened the rules to force bars and restaurants to serve food with drinks, in an apparent attempt to circumvent the social distancing problems. The bars responded with $1 or 50-cent menus, offering items like 'Cuomo chips' in a bowl or peanuts to meet the new rules but still draw in customers.

Now, the governor is clamping down on them again and ordering that they have to serve a 'substantial' amount of food to people to be able to stay open.

The ever changing rules and lack of clarity is creating enormous challenges and concerns for small business owners who are in a crisis Andrew Rigie, Executive Director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance

He also said on Tuesday that he never actually gave bars the green-light to offer outdoor service in the first place, a kick in the teeth to the thousands of bar owners across the city.

The new guidance has confused and angered many.

'The ever changing rules and lack of clarity is creating enormous challenges and concerns for small business owners who are in a crisis,' Andrew Rigie, Executive Director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, told DailyMail.com on Wednesday morning.

He also called Cuomo's remark that he never gave bars permission to reopen 'inaccurate'.

'All the terminology is off so its difficult to understand what the Governor technically meant, again, one of the reasons why theres been so much confusion.

'There are different types of liquor licenses.

'If when he said bars he is referring to establishments with a tavern license (which have limited kitchen operations) then there was never anything that said they couldnt openand even now they can if they meet the new food requirements,' he added.

Many bars complied with social distancing while still allowing people to sit outside and drink

When Cuomo last week mandated that they sell food, bars improvised with cheap menus to still allow people to patronize them

While most bars have complied, others have not. In Astoria, Queens, huge crowds have gathered in the streets, without masks, to party

The White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village lost its liquor license after failing to enforce the rules

Bars started offering $1 menus to try to get around the rules when Cuomo enforced food with drinks

Bars took the menu enforcement in their stride and offered things like 'Cuomo fries'

Cuomo claimed on Tuesday that there had been a 'disconnect' with the reopening rules and that he never intended for bars to set up tables and chairs outside, claiming instead that it was only ever meant for restaurants.

'Let's be clear. Outdoor dining is now permitted statewide. Outside drinking is not,' he tweeted on Tuesday night.

Twitter users criticized him for applying one set of rules to one side of the industry and another to bars.

'I guess you cant get COVID if youre eating. Who knew?!' one remarked.

Another quipped: 'So let me get this straight, I can order dinner and drink anything and as much as I want.

'But, if I go to the property next door 100 feet away and sit at that outside table provided by a bar that doesn't serve food I instantly become a super-spreader.'

Since the start of the pandemic, bars have been able to offer take-out food and drinks. With nowhere for people to sit once they got their orders, it created a trend of people gathering in the street to consume food and alcohol.

On June 22, the rules changed to allow outdoor dining but only at reduced capacity and if patrons were wearing masks unless sat at their table.

Some have not obeyed the rules and have had their liquor licenses suspended indefinitely as a result.

Now, there is a 'three strike' rule for businesses that flout the rules.

Cuomo shared a photo of him with his daughter enjoying indoor dining in Albany, where eating inside restaurants is allowed, on Monday.

He captioned it: 'Had a great time outdoor dining with Michaela at @thelocal217 in Albany. Thanks to owner Susie for the great food & being a model of perfect COVID safety compliance!'

However he came under fire from NYC's Bungalow Bar in Rockaway which called him out for holding it up as best practice.

Bungalow Bar pointed out that where Cuomo was dining has paper menus and does not have disposable cutlery.
Her passion for the business started at an early age as she was exposed to some of the most breathtaking properties in the world, accompanying her mother on business trips to Europe and Asia.

Haute Residence is pleased to welcome Jenny Lenz to the exclusive Haute Residence Network as its representative in the Upper East Side in New York City, New York real estate market.

Jenny Lenz is a native New Yorker. She attended The Dalton School on Manhattan's Upper East Side and subsequently The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, majoring in Economics and French. While there, she worked at Barclays as a Summer Analyst in the Investment Banking Division and upon graduation accepted a full-time Analyst position in its Industrials Group.

She then transitioned into real estate, following in her mother's footsteps working for Dolly Lenz Real Estate. Her passion for the business started at an early age as she was exposed to some of the most breathtaking properties in the world, accompanying her mother on business trips to Europe and Asia.

Jenny has also fulfilled numerous speaking engagements at real estate conferences throughout the U.S and Australia. She strives to continue her mother's tradition taking on the New York and international real estate markets. She is regularly asked to opine on real estate matters on various media outlets including CNBC, NBC, and Fox Business. Jenny is also a columnist for The Australian  Mansions.

Visit Jenny Lenz's Haute Residence profile at: https://www.hauteresidence.com/member/jenny-lenz/

Visit Jenny Lenz's website at: https://dollylenz.com

ABOUT HAUTE RESIDENCE

Designed as a partnership-driven luxury real estate portal, Haute Residence connects its affluent readers with top real estate professionals, while offering the latest in real estate news, showcasing the worlds most extraordinary residences on the market and sharing expert advice from its knowledgeable and experienced real estate partners.

The invitation-only luxury real estate network, which partners with just one agent in every market, unites a distinguished collective of leading real estate agents and brokers and highlights the most extravagant properties in leading markets around the globe for affluent buyers, sellers, and real estate enthusiasts.

HauteResidence.com has grown to be the number one news source for million-dollar listings, high-end residential developments, celebrity real estate, and more.

Access all of this information and more by visiting: http://www.hauteresidence.com
A mber Heard's sister has been accused of lying after claiming she was not "frightened" of her older sibling.

Ms Heard, 34, has concluded her evidence in her ex-husband Johnny Depp's libel case against The Suns executive editor Dan Wootton and the papers publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN). The actress has made over 14 allegations of domestic violence, which NGN relies on in its defence of an April 2018 article which branded Mr Depp, 57, a "wife beater". Mr Depp denies the allegations and accuses Ms Heard of orchestrating a #MeToo "hoax" against him.

Ms Heard's younger sister Whitney Henriquez had told the High Court she was not "frightened" of her sibling and denied ever being on the receiving end of any violence.

But Mr Depp's lawyer David Sherborne accused Ms Henriquez of lying on Friday and a bombshell tape was played in court which shows injuries said to have been inflicted on her by Ms Heard. Mr Sherborne said his team was given the video overnight "to explain Amber Heard has a history of violence and attacking people".

Follow here for lives updates...
You don't need an expensive tutor or a semester abroad in order to learn a new language  you just need Busuu.

Busuu is the world's largest language-learning community, offering courses in 12 different languages to more than 100 million users. When you subscribe, you gain access to 1,000+ lessons created by expert linguists, personalized study plans, speech recognition technology, and so, so much more.

As anyone who sat glossy-eyed and bored in their high school foreign language classes knows, actually speaking the language is much more effective than simply memorizing vocabulary words. That's why, with Busuu, you get to practice directly with native speakers worldwide. By receiving instant feedback, you will gain both the skills and the confidence necessary to start engaging in conversations.

With a two-year Premium Plus membership, you will also receive the ability to earn official McGraw-Hill Education certificates, which you can show off on your resume or LinkedIn page. On top of that, you will also receive access to advanced features such as additional grammar lessons, adaptive vocabulary training. and the ability to access your content offline.

Let's also take a moment to talk about the accolades. The Busuu Learning Language app was named the App of the Year by the Apple App Store and Editors' Choice app on the Google Play Store. Plus, with more than 373K reviews on the Google Play Store, it earned a whopping 4.5 out of 5 stars!

You can learn up to 12 languages  including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, and Arabic  over the next two years, for just $89.99. That's 50% off of Busuu's usual price of $180.

Hearst Newspapers participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.
A New York City teenager has been left orphaned after losing both of his parents to COVID-19.

Roberto Tobias Jr., 17, is now being cared for by relatives after his father, Roberto Sr., and his mother, Loida, both died from the virus within weeks of one another.

The couple both tested positive to the coronavirus back in late March, as the city shut down and infection rates soared.

Tobias and his older sister, Beverly, 29, were also struck down with the disease but only experienced minor symptoms.

However, Roberto Sr. and Loida, both suffered from preexisting conditions - including diabetes - and were admitted to Mount Sinai hospital in Queens.

Tobias says he was largely left alone in the family home as his parents battled the virus in intensive care.

'That was a pretty rough period, as well. Just sort of seeing the house empty, not lively, as it normally would,' the teen told WIS News on Tuesday.

Roberto Tobias Jr., 17, has been left orphaned after his father and mother died from the contagious virus within weeks of one another

Tobias' father, Roberto Sr., and his mother, Loida, both died from the contagious virus within weeks of one another. The couple immigrated from the Philippines in the 1990s

While the teen was unable to be with his parents due to social distancing requirements, doctors eventually allowed him to be reunited with his dad as his condition deteriorated on May 30.

'I started breaking down almost immediately. I held his hand, and with my mask on, I kissed him on the forehead, and I sort of just had my last words with him,' Tobias told the news network.

Roberto Sr. succumbed to the disease just hours later.

Things became even more tragic for the Tobias family as treatments failed to help mom Loida.

She died from COVID-19 on June 30.

'I was devastated and in shock knowing I lost my parents exactly a month from each other,' Tobias stated.

He said his parents had both immigrated from the Philippines in search of a better life.

Tobias is pictured with his older sister Beverly (right) and their late parents, Loida and Roberto Sr.

Roberto Sr., and his mother, Loida, both immigrated from the Philippines. They hard-working couple encouraged their children to pursue higher education

Loida was employed as a nurse at Harlem Hospital, which is where she may have contracted the coronavirus.

'She was such a small woman, but she managed to accomplish so many trials and so many feats,' Tobias remarked to WIS News.

He said his father, Roberto Sr., had worked at the Windows of The World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center prior to the 9/11 attacks.

'I think he has a lot of the same traits as my mom, and I'm assuming that's sort of why they worked together so well. He was so compassionate, so hard working. He was such a resilient person,' Tobias explained.

Despite the trauma of losing both of his parents, Tobias will soon commence his senior year at the Frank McCourt High School on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

He has a grade point average of 93, and is determined to make his parents proud by entering a top college.

Despite the trauma of losing both of his parents, Tobias will soon commence his senior year at the Frank McCourt High School on Manhattan's Upper West Side

A GoFundMe has been set up to help Tobias with expenses when he does eventually goes off to university.

He says he plans to study pre-med and eventually hopes to become a neurologist.

So far, more than $68,000 has been raised - an amount that has left the teen feeling overwhelmed.

'I want my parents to rest knowing that their youngest son is going to be set in life and able to navigate through everything without the need of my parents there,' Tobias stated.

'My parents were amazing and lived exceptional lives. They grew up in their own impoverished homes back in the Philippines, but they always pursued higher education to be able to take care of their brothers, sisters, and their parents. Despite the conditions they were born and forced into, they managed to persevere,' he explained.

Tobias' story has captured the hearts of the 1,800 people who have donated to his page.

'Stay strong boss! Education can and will unlock many pathways in your life! I'll be rooting for you always,' one donor wrote.

Another stated: 'As a parent myself and also someone who also has lost both her parents, the pain and sadness knowing you can never kiss, hug, talk to or see them again is heartbreaking. I wish you all the best in life. May God bless you.'

If you wish to donate to Roberto Tobias Jr.'s fundraiser, you can click here.
July 22, 2020--(BRONX, NY)-- A new study led by Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System confirms the findings of the large scale British trial of steroid use for COVID-19 patients and advances the research by answering several key questions: Which patients are most likely to benefit from steroid therapy? Could some of them be harmed? Can other formulations of steroids substitute for the agent studied in the British trial? The research was published today in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

The U.K. RECOVERY trial, a prospective, randomized, open-label study of the steroid dexamethasone versus standard of care, involved more than 6,000 patients with COVID-19. Dexamethasone reduced deaths by about one-third in patients on ventilators and by about one-fifth among people who needed oxygen but were not on ventilators. However, the study leaves questions about the use of steroids for treating some patients.

"Our study is consistent with the promising findings from Britain, but for the first time, we are able to demonstrate that people can see the same life-saving benefits with steroid formulations other than dexamethasone," said Marla Keller, M.D., vice chair for research in the department of medicine at Einstein and Montefiore and lead author of the study. "We also found that a common blood test may identify the best candidates for steroid treatment." Dr. Keller is also professor of medicine and of obstetrics & gynecology and women's health at Einstein and an infectious disease specialist at Montefiore.

Authors of the Einstein-Montefiore study compared outcomes for two groups selected from nearly 3,000 people hospitalized at Montefiore with a positive COVID-19 test. One group of 140 patients was treated with steroids within 48 hours of hospital admission; and a control group of 1,666 similar patients did not receive steroid therapy. Most of the patients who received steroid therapy received prednisone. Some received dexamethasone and methylprednisolone.

Nearly all patients initially had a blood test to measure levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), which the liver produces in response to inflammation. The higher the CRP level in the blood, the greater amount of inflammation. A normal CRP level reported in the study is below 0.8 milligrams per deciliter of blood.

We found that in patients with high levels of inflammation, namely a CRP level greater than 20, steroids were associated with a 75% reduction in the risk of going on mechanical ventilation or dying, said Dr. Keller. Critically, we also found that for patients with a lower level of inflammationCRP levels less than 10steroid use was associated with an almost 200% increased risk of going on mechanical ventilation or death.

A large percent of the people who succumb to COVID-19 die from the body's intense inflammatory response, which can overwhelm and severely damage the lungs. "Our findings suggest that steroid therapy should be reserved for people with high inflammation, as indicated by markedly elevated CRP levels," said William Southern, M.D., M.S., professor of medicine and chief of the division of hospital medicine at Einstein and Montefiore and the study's senior author. "It's a different story for people who do not have significant inflammation: for them, any benefit is outweighed by the risks from using steroids."

Study co-author Shitij Arora, M.D., associate professor of medicine at Einstein and a hospitalist at Montefiore, noted that the Einstein-Montefiore study included approximately equal numbers of male and female patients. In addition, nearly 40% of patients studied were Black and 36% were Hispanic. "The demographic diversity of the patients in this study suggests that steroid therapy benefits hospitalized COVID-19 patients affected by significant inflammation regardless of their race or ethnicity," he said.

The title of this paper is "Effect of Systemic Glucocorticoids on Mortality or Mechanical Ventilation in Patients With COVID-19." Other Einstein and Montefiore authors were Jen-Ting Chen, M.D., M.S., Elizabeth Kitsis, M.D., M.B.E., Shivani Agarwal, M.D., M.P.H., Michael Ross, M.D., and Yaron Tomer, M.D.

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About Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Albert Einstein College of Medicine is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2019-20 academic year, Einstein is home to 724 M.D. students, 158 Ph.D. students, 106 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 265 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 1,800 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates . In 2019, Einstein received more than $178 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in aging, intellectual development disorders, diabetes, cancer, clinical and translational research, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical and dental professions in the United States through Montefiore and an affiliation network involving hospitals and medical centers in the Bronx, Brooklyn and on Long Island. For more information, please visit http://www.einstein.yu.edu, read our blog, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and view us on YouTube.

About Montefiore Health System

Montefiore Health System is one of New York's premier academic health systems and is a recognized leader in providing exceptional quality and personalized, accountable care to approximately three million people in communities across the Bronx, Westchester and the Hudson Valley. It is comprised of 11 hospitals, including the Children's Hospital at Montefiore, Burke Rehabilitation Hospital and more than 200 outpatient ambulatory care sites. The advanced clinical and translational research at its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, directly informs patient care and improves outcomes. From the Montefiore-Einstein Centers of Excellence in cancer, cardiology and vascular care, pediatrics, and transplantation, to its preeminent school-based health program, Montefiore is a fully integrated healthcare delivery system providing coordinated, comprehensive care to patients and their families. For more information please visit http://www.montefiore.org. Follow us on Twitter and view us on Facebook and YouTube

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From September 14 to 15, 2013, the 6th Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) and the 9th Joint Working Group Meeting on the Implementation of the Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) were held in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province (China). Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh led a Vietnamese delegation to the events (Photo: VNA)

2015 marks 20 years of Vietnam's accession to ASEAN. In photo: Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attends the opening ceremony of the 26th ASEAN Summit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 27, 2015 (Photo: VNA)
New Delhi, June 19 (IANS) With just a few hours to go for the scheduled all-party meeting over the India-China military faceoff called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of the killing of 20 Indian soldiers by Chinese People's Liberation Arm Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, July 22 : Rashtriya Janata Dal's Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Kumar Jha on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concerns over the flood situation in several parts of Bihar and the surge in the number of coronavirus cases in the state.

In his letter to the Prime Minister in Hindi, Jha said, "There was already a lot of concern about Covid-19. But Bihar suffered a double whammy due to the floods during the Covid-19 situation." The situation of health sector is critical in Bihar and the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the state a lot. Stressing on the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, the RJD leader said that every day the number of Covid-19 patients in Patna and adjoining districts is going up while still there is no adequate number of tests.

He also pointed out that there are very few committed Covid-19 centres in the state. Jha further alleged that the results of the Covid-19 tests were not being made available to the people for several weeks and even the personal protective equipment (PPE) kits are not available to doctors in many districts. Talking about the floods, the RJD leader said that due to floods many people are unable to follow social distancing.

He further pointed out that most of the migrant workers have returned to the flood-affected districts of the state. Jha further said that the floods will only make the situation explosive in the state in absence of proper sanitation and clean drinking water in the flood-affected areas. About 4.13 lakh people in eight districts have been affected due to the floods in the state.

Earlier in the day, RJD President and former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav toured the flood affected areas in Darbhanga and Madhubani districts. According to the Union Health Ministry data, there are 28,952 Covid-19 cases in Bihar.
After the happy ending of the hostage situation in the Ukraine without the injured want to find out, the investigators more about the offender. The man will accused of terrorism and taking of hostages, said Deputy interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko after the liberation of the 13 hostages on Wednesday night. In addition, to be created, as usual in such cases, a psychiatric evaluation of the perpetrator. The man who sat already in prison, faces up to 15 years in prison. He had in Lutsk in the Western Ukraine for half a day more than a dozen people in a bus in its violence.

The man had brought on Tuesday morning, 13 people in the Bus in Lutsk in its violence. He had grenades, an assault rifle, a pistol and hand and threatened to explosives in the city of ignition. After hours of negotiations, stormed the forces on the evening of the Bus, the man surrendered and was arrested. There were no casualties.

Curious receivables

Curiously, the demands of the offender that is described in the Ukrainian media as animal rights activists were. First, he claimed that, among other things, representatives of Church and state refer to publicly as "terrorists". President Volodymyr Selenskyj was on the phone even minutes with the man and agreed to post a short Video on his Facebook page. Therein Selenskyj for the documentary "Earthlings advertises watch" on animal protection from the year 2005. This is the culprit that fights for animal rights in his homeland, is said to have demanded from Selenskyj.

Updated Date: 22 July 2020, 05:20
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Miwe company of Turkmenistans Lebap region signed separate contracts with local farmers for the supply of vegetables this year, Trend reports with reference to the Business Turkmenistan information portal.

Contracts were signed with 266 farmers for the supply of potatoes and with 172 farmers for the supply of onions.

The company has special warehouses to store products. In particular, these warehouses currently store some 2,200 tons of products.

The products stored at the warehouses include about 140 tons of onion, about 60 tons of beet, more than 250 tons of carrots, more than 30 tons of watermelons, 2.5 tons of cucumbers, half a ton of tomatoes and more than 10 tons of cabbages.

In addition, dozens of tons of crops are brought to the company every day, the report says.

In general, the company stores vegetables in 2 warehouses  one is designed to store 1,000 tons of crop, and the second for 3,000 tons.

Meanwhile there are plans to build additional warehouses for food storage in other regions - refrigerators for storing and processing agricultural products are planned to be set up in the Dashoguz region of the country.

Some 1.6 hectares of land has been allocated for the construction of one of the refrigerators. The warehouse will be designed to store 350 tons of vegetables and fruits. Another one will be built in the same region on 3 hectares of land, to store 8,000 tons of agricultural products.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
After concluding a "quick" trade deal, India and the US need to sit down on the negotiating table for working towards a more sustainable, robust and enduring partnership in the form of a free trade agreement (FTA), Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.

For the FTA, the minister said, India is willing to work with an open mind, with a willingness to open markets with a corresponding opportunity for Indian businesses in the US. "I believe we have a quick trade deal which has some of the pending matters built up over the last couple of years which we need to get out of the way quickly. We are almost there. I think another couple of calls and we should be able to solve that out.

"Post that, as was already intimated to the US Congress, the US and India need to sit down on the negotiating table, I do not know if that can be done before the (US) elections or post the elections, but we need to work towards a much more sustainable, a much more robust, a much more enduring partnership in the form of a FTA," he said in a webinar of US-India Business Council. Goyal said that both countries should also look for a preferential trade agreement (PTA) which can include 50-100 products and services. While in a PTA two trading partners eliminate or significantly reduce import duties on a limited number of goods traded between them, in a FTA the countries remove duties on the maximum number of products.

"We believe we should also look at an early harvest in the form of a PTA, so that we can rather than waiting for the gains of a FTA, which may take several years to conclude, we could look at an early harvest of maybe 50 or 100 products and services, where we can engage with mutual trust and open spirit. So that the partnership between the US and India can kick start much faster," he added.

India and the US are negotiating a limited trade deal with a view to ironing out differences on trade issues to boost economic ties. India is demanding exemption from high duties imposed by the US on some steel and aluminum products, resumption of export benefits to certain domestic products under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), and greater market access for its products from sectors such as agriculture, automobile, automobile components and engineering.

On the other hand, the US wants greater market access for its farm and manufacturing products, dairy items and medical devices, apart from a cut in import duties on some information and communication technology products. The US has also raised concerns over trade deficit with India. Further, the minister stated that the government is taking several steps to further improve the business climate to attract investors. He said businesses are looking for a stable and predictable policy environment, fair play, ease of doing business, better infrastructure in terms of logistics, utilities, and common facilities required for manufacturing firms.

"By enlarging industry and business wants to be left alone, wants the freedom to operate and is willing to commit itself to work within the framework of a country's laws. And I think India is working towards making all of these enablers...whether it is the ease of doing business, whether it is improving our competitive edge, bringing down logistics cost, making it easier to get approvals. All of these typical needs of the business which we in government are trying to address," he said.

He added that there is an opportunity and a trust deficit available globally and India is willing to fill that gap in the international supply chain as a trusted partner. Talking about the formulation of the single window clearance process, he said a team is working on this by understanding the needs of businesses, their pain points and requirements.

"We are understanding industry pain points and their requirements. We are trying to create such a genuine single window and not a window behind which it opens to 10 doors. It is a herculean task, will take some time but I assure you that we are committed to make it happen," the minister said. To begin with one of the first things that on a pilot basis, the government is going to release "very soon" is a GIS-based land bank availability across the country, he said adding "we have identified in six states a few hundred thousand hectares of land and we are actually going to offer you a Google earth view of particular lands available for industry to buy. Taking it forward from there so much so that my intention is that a person sitting in Iceland should be able to not only locate the land he wants but also pay for it and buy it".

"I will give you a simple example of how I am explaining it (single-window process) to my own officers. I said look at the common application form that a student who applies to US university has to fill up. It's eight universities, one form, a small supplement to each...," he added.

The minister also said that India has become self-sufficient in ventilators and "I will shortly be starting the export of ventilators". In March, the government banned the export of ventilators in wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The US remained India's top trading partner for the second consecutive fiscal in 2019-20.

According to the data of the commerce ministry, in 2019-20, the bilateral trade between the US and India stood at USD 88.75 billion, as against USD 87.96 billion in 2018-19. The US is one of the few countries with which India have a trade surplus. The trade gap between the countries has increased to USD 17.42 billion in 2019-20 from USD 16.86 billion in 2018-19. In 2018-19, the US had surpassed China to become India's top trading partner.
Mark Zuckerberg does not do anything by accident.

This was my first reaction after reading strange headlines this week: Mark Zuckerbergs Absurd Sunscreen Face Haunts the Internet. Mark Zuckerberg Spooks the Internet With Too Much Sunscreen on His Face in Hawaii. Memes From Mark Zuckerbergs Extreme Sunscreen Experiment.

You get the idea. But if you want to see the haunting photos, click over to Us Weekly or the New York Post, which published galleries of Zuckerberg riding Pacific waves after apparently dunking his face in a bowl of bleached pancake batter. The memes compared him to Mrs. Doubtfire, Data, Marcel Marceau, Jason Voorhees, Guy Fawkes, Slender Man, No-Face and, confusingly, Bigfoot.

Or as Stephen Colbert put it on Tuesday night while feigning shock at one photo: Shouldnt you be scaring kids from a sewer?

Zuckerbergs SPF-1000000 facial was not the only focal point of anatomical mockery. Others also ridiculed the billionaires posterior, referring to it as a dump truck ass, caboose, fat ass, dumper, huge ass and two honey baked hams. Its as if the guy co-founded Buttbook.

This body shaming was so cruel, I felt compelled to stand with my back to a mirror, yank down my trousers and look over my shoulder, to see if I too was cursed with bulging glutes.

Im afraid the jury is out. But whats clear here is a conspiracy.

Am I saying Zuckerberg does not resemble an amphibious mime who was sent from the future to sell our data to Satan in exchange for having a cursed throw pillow extracted from his derriere? Im not. But if Zuckerberg does everything on purpose  and he does  why would he allow himself to be photographed by professional shooters while looking like the Jokers nephew during tax season?

He didnt even apply this Benjamin Moore sunscreen to the back of his neck, where hed be most likely to burn. These images dont feel gotcha  they feel staged. Looking at them carefully, Im not even sure its sunscreen. It looks more like war paint stirred in a bubbling cauldron of damage control.

The timing of these photos is suspicious and it could well be a distraction. Facebooks honcho is under siege on multiple fronts. The social media behemoth is staring down an escalating ad boycott. The companys soft stance on privacy is a perennial abyss. There is a petition on Change.org  Stop Mark Zuckerberg from Colonizing Kauai  that accuses him of bullying and suing locals into selling their land so he can build a mansion. By Wednesday, the petition had more than 800,000 signatures.

Then there are the charges that Zuckerberg gives special treatment to Donald Trump to use Facebook as a clearing house of disinformation and outright lies because its good for the bottom line. If the U.S. president was actually Pinocchio, his nose would now be big enough to cut off and use as that border wall that will never get built. But for the last four years, Zuckerberg has allowed Team Trump to squat and turn his site into a home base of manipulation for gullible rubes in red hats. Zuckerberg cowers behind a dustbin of free speech as democracy is savagely beaten with the broom handle.

Is he slathering on sunscreen to protect against the UV rays of Facebooks cancer on society?

With more than 2.6 billion active users each month, his site has greater global reach than any other social media platform. Its not even close. Facebook is a way to stay connected to anyone youve ever known, which sounds deranged, but is actually beautiful. Facebook allows you to share the passages and milestones of life. When my cat Cordy died a few years ago  Im honestly still heartbroken  I wrote about the sudden loss only on Facebook.

But while the platform animates personal networks, in the macro its a scourge. By allowing itself to become a digital Wild West, Facebook has enabled the worst kind of partisan treachery and intellectual dishonesty. If youre virulently racist, there are a million FB groups to join. If you are hostile to objective reality, there are countless like-minded souls to Friend. Think the Earth is flat? Facebook is your safe space. It is to conspiracists as The Gap is to T-shirt lovers. It validates the negative. It hands a blowhorn to the ignorant. It divides while preaching unity. It breathes life into ideas that should be dead. It makes communities out of the anti-social.

So if you want to laugh at the photos of Zuckerberg in whiteface, have at it.

Me, Im finding it hard to see past his whitewashing of personal responsibility.

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WASHINGTON  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the first-term New Yorker who is a favorite of the progressive left and a frequent target of President Trump and Republicans, said on Tuesday that she had been the victim of virulent harassment by a Republican congressman who referred to her with a pair of expletives on the steps of the Capitol.

In a confrontation on Monday outside the Capitol reported by The Hill newspaper, Representative Ted Yoho of Florida approached Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and told her she was disgusting for suggesting that poverty and unemployment were driving a rise in crime in New York City.

After a brief and tense exchange, the newspaper said, Mr. Yoho walked away from Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, uttering a pair of expletives.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, confirmed the exchange on Twitter on Tuesday, though a spokesman for Mr. Yoho later denied that the congressman had called her any names, saying he had instead used a barnyard epithet to describe what he thought of her policies.
US Army officials announced Tuesday that the body of another Fort Hood soldier has been found, marking the third time in a month that a corpse related to the Texas base has been discovered.

Pvt. Mejhor Morta, 26, of Pensacola, Florida was found unresponsive July 17 in the vicinity of Stillhouse Hollow Lake, around 15 miles from the Fort Hood base, officials said.

Stillhouse Hollow Lake is a reservoir located in Bell County that's managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Fort Worth District.

The discovery of Morta's body comes after the long search for 20-year-old solider Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, whose remains were first found on June 30. She was found days after search teams discovered of the corpse of missing soldier Pvt. Gregory Wedel-Morales, 24, on June 19. Foul play is suspected in both of their deaths.

Following the Morta's death lawyers for Guillen's family pointed fingers to the embattled station saying, 'our soldiers are not safe living on this dangerous base'.

The body of a third Fort Hood soldier has been discovered near the base in a month. Pvt. Mejhor Morta, 26, of Florida was found unresponsive on July 17 near Stillhouse Hollow Lake

The discovery of Morta's body comes after the long search for 20-year-old solider Pfc. Vanessa Guillen (left), whose remains were first found on June 30. She was found days after search teams discovered of the corpse of missing soldier Pvt. Gregory Wedel-Morales, 24, (right) on June 19. Foul play is suspected in both of their deaths

'As we all know, our soldiers are not safe at Fort Hood,' Natalie Khawam, the Guillens attorney, said after learning of Mortas death.

Timeline of Fort Hood disappearances August 19, 2019: Pvt. Gregory Wedel-Morales, 24, disappeared. He was last seen driving his personal vehicle outside of Fort Hood days before he was due to be discharged. He was listed as a deserter by the Army one month after he was last seen. April 22, 2020: Vanessa Guillen goes missing last seen in parking lot of base. She disappeared after telling her family she was being sexually harassed by a sergeant on the base. June 19, 2020: Search teams discover of the corpse of missing soldier Wedel-Morales following a tip to Army base investigators. Remains were found a field in Killeen, just over 10 miles from Stillhouse Hollow Lake, five miles from Fort Hood. June 30, 2020: First parts of Giullen's remains found about 20 miles east of Fort Hood July 17, 2020: Pvt. Mejhor Morta, 26, of Pensacola, Florida was found unresponsive July 17 in the vicinity of Stillhouse Hollow Lake, around 15 miles from the Fort Hood base.

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'Unfortunately, this U.S. soldiers death is consistent with our concerns, that these soldiers are living on a dangerous base and are being threatened if they speak up. Enough is enough.'

'We the people demand a congressional investigation. How many more soldiers need to die before Congress agrees to convene a congressional investigation?' she said, according to The Statesman.

The Bell County Sheriffs Department, who is investigating the incident, is waiting for preliminary results from an autopsy before releasing any further information, Maj. T.J. Cruz, spokesman for the department, said.

Officials have not said whether the death is considered suspicious.

'The Black Knight family is truly heartbroken by the tragic loss of Private Mejhor Morta,' Lt. Col. Neil Armstrong, commander of 1st Brigade 5th Cavalry. Regiment, said. 'I would like to send my heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and loved ones.'

Morta entered the Army in September 2019 as a Bradley Fighting Vehicle mechanic.

Since May 2020, he had been assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, according to a statement from Fort Hood.

Morta's awards and decorations include the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon.

Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, of Texas, disappeared from the base in Killeen, Texas on April 22. She vanished after telling her family she was being sexually harassed by a superior sergeant at the base.

Morta entered the Army in September 2019 as a Bradley Fighting Vehicle mechanic. Since May 2020, he had been assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division in Fort Hoos

She had left behind her car keys, identification card and wallet, launching a massive search for her fueled by social media cries of help.

It took more than two months to discover her body near the Leon River in Bell County, about 20 miles east of Fort Hood. She had been brutally dismembered, buried, and covered in concrete, the family's lawyer said.

Authorities believe she was killed in the armory on the base by another enlisted soldier Aaron David Robinson, 20. Upon hearing about the discovery of the remains he fled Fort Hood then fatally shot himself shortly after midnight when police tried to arrest him in Killeen, Texas.

Vanessa Guillen, 20, was reported missing from Fort Hood on April 22 shortly after she told her family she was being sexually harassed and felt unsafe. She was last seen in the parking lot of her regimental engineer squadron headquarters at the Killeen, Texas, base around 1pm

The search for Guillen took place in part along the Leon River about 20 miles from the Fort Hood base after the first evidence connected with Guillen's disappearance was found there

Morales, who was also known as Gregory Wedel, was last seen on August 19, 2019, driving his personal vehicle outside of Fort Hood. He was to be discharged within days after his disappearance, the Army said

A woman who authorities say is Robinsons girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, 22, was taken into custody, alleged to have assisted Robinson in disposing of Guillens body. On July 2 she was charged with one federal count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence.

Guillens remains were found not far from the remains of another missing soldier Gregory Wedel-Morales, which were first discovered on June 19 about 10 months after he vanished from the base. Official suspect foul play in his death.

He disappeared August 19, 2019 driving his personal vehicle outside of Fort Hood days before he was due to be discharged. He had been listed as a deserter for the previous 10 months.

Theres no indication that the deaths of Morales and Guillen are connected.

Vanessa's family mourns her death during a military memorial ceremony at the Fort Hood base on July 17

Protests have unfolded in various cities in Texas denouncing the Army and Fort Hood and demanding answers into her and other disapperances at the base. A march and vigil for Guillen pictured in Austin, Texas on July 12

Juan Cruz, the boyfriend of Vanessa Guillen, kneels in front of a mural honoring her on Sunday in Houston, Texas, her hometown

On July 10 the US Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy announced a 'full independent review' of Guillens case.

Guillen's family is now calling for a congressional investigation into the base's handling of her case.

Guillens high-profile cast shed a light on how the military handles sexual abuse and harassment cases, sparking the #IAmVanessaGuillen were veterans shared their own harrowing experiences where they reported abuse and were met with retaliation.

On Tuesday members of Congress joined advocates to demand change in the military.

Fort Hood spans 218,000 acres in central Texas and has nearly 37,000 service members assigned to units including the 1st Cavalry Division, Operational Test Command and the 13th Sustainment Command.
European Union leaders for the first time introduced language linking funding to upholding the rule-of-law, but its vague wording allowed both rogue members and rights champions to claim victory and pushed the debate to later this year.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the text adopted after four days of non-stop budget talks for providing a "clear link" between financing and adherence to the EU's democratic standards. On the other side, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he'd "fought off" just such an attempt.

The upshot is that the fight over whether the EU will have a functioning tool to rein in countries flouting its democratic values will likely continue into autumn, when the actual regulation will be hammered out, according to Daniel Hegedus, a Budapest-based fellow at the German Marshall Fund. Hungary and Poland, both under formal EU probes for undermining the rule-of-law, could lose billions of euros if tough rules are enacted.

"Everyone is claiming victory, but the real battle is still to come," Hegedus said. "The question is whether the EU will have a mechanism that bites or one that continues to be prey to political wheeling and dealing, in which case the rules will be toothless."

At stake is whether the EU can defend its values against the type of nationalist drives undertaken by governments -- like in Hungary and Poland -- that have disavowed liberal democracy and have pursued unprecedented consolidations of power. Steps have included extending politicians' influence over the courts, media, education and culture.

The text adopted this week calls for a "regime of conditionality" to be introduced to protect EU funds. The European Commission, the EU's executive, will formulate the rule, which will need a qualified majority among EU governments to become law.

At the same time, the conclusion adds that the European Council, comprised by the heads of governments, "will revert rapidly to the matter" -- which some, including Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, seized on to claim it affords any country a veto over the type of rule to be adopted.

"The European Council - it is clearly written there - means unanimity. Without the consent of Hungary, without the consent of Poland, without the consent of the Visegrad Group, nothing will happen here," Morawiecki said after the summit. "Poland won't lose a euro cent from what we earmarked for expansion."

Orban, for his part, said attempts to link EU funding to rule-of-law conditions were "successfully rejected." Backers of the provision disagreed.

"I understand that Mr. Orban is selling this as a victory, and that's his role," Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said. "But it's no victory because we finally have values attached to the distribution of funds and money, which for us is a very important new step."

The contrasting views suggested that the matter will be addressed later this year.

"This is the starting basis," said European Commission Spokesman Eric Mamer. "We will reflect now on the steps forward in the coming days."

The most important element to watch, according to Hegedus, is whether the commission sticks to an earlier draft version of a proposed mechanism that would require a reverse qualified majority to approve breaches. If it does, that would mean a qualified majority would be need to block -- rather than approve -- a proposal to cut funding.

"We know the biggest fight is still ahead of us," Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga said in an interview with the Magyar Nemzet newspaper published Wednesday. "We're prepared for it."
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Gov. Mike DeWine called on Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to resign following a federal criminal complaint targeting Householder for taking $60 million in bribes.

Householder, top aide Jeff Longstreth and lobbyists Matt Borges, Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes were charged with racketeering on Tuesday as part of the criminal complaint. The Department of Justice alleges Householder and the others took $60 million in bribes to help power company First Energy obtain a $1.3 billion bailout for aging nuclear power plants.

DeWine, who aided in passing the bailout and signed the bill into law, described Householders arrest as a sad day for Ohio before calling for his resignation.

I am deeply concerned about the allegations of wrongdoing in the issued today by the U.S. Attorneys Office, DeWine said in a statement. Every American has the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Because of the nature of these charges, it will be impossible for Speaker Householder to effectively lead the Ohio House of Representatives; therefore, I am calling on Speaker Householder to resign immediately.

Listen to a special episode of our This Week in the CLE podcast about the corruption case here.

A number of other state officials and party leaders from both sides of the aisle also issued statements calling for Householders resignation.

Attorney General Dave Yost, a Columbus Republican:

"Larry Householder sold out the people of Ohio in exchange for power and dirty money. The 81-page sworn affidavit filed today shows plainly he cannot be trusted to act in the public interest, or trusted with public authority.

"He is entitled to a presumption of innocence regarding the criminality of his acts, but he is entitled to no presumption of continuance in office. He should resign immediately. If he refuses, the House should eject him under Article II, section 6 of the Ohio Constitution."

Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Hudson Republican:

There is important work for the state legislature to do on behalf of the people of Ohio. That work cant get done with the Speaker under arrest in an ongoing federal investigation.

@HouseholderOH, do the right thing for the people of our state and resign today.

There is important work for the state legislature to do on behalf of the people of Ohio. That work cant get done with the Speaker under arrest in an ongoing federal investigation.@HouseholderOH, do the right thing for the people of our state and resign today.  Frank LaRose (@FrankLaRose) July 21, 2020

Senate President Larry Obhof, a Medina Republican:

The allegations made today are very detailed, they are very serious, and they are very troubling to me, and undoubtedly, to the people of Ohio. Every member of the Ohio legislature has a sacred trust with the citizens of this state, and the people deserve the honest services of their elected representatives. The seriousness and gravity of the allegations cast a dark shadow over the Peoples House. It is clear that he cannot continue to lead the Ohio House of Representatives. He should resign.

U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson, a Zanesville Republican:

Today is a sad day in Ohio. I have always believed that holding public office is a high honor and should be treated as such. The allegations against Speaker Larry Householder appear to be significant. If true, they are shocking and serve as evidence that he violated the publics trust and federal law. He should resign immediately.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat:

Sadly, this situation appears to be very serious. It bodes poorly for Ohio. There is much to be learned in the coming days about the latest apparent pay-to-play scheme in the Ohio State House. Ohioans deserve honest and visionary leadership. The arrest of the Republican Speaker of the Ohio House and the former Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party (Borges) undermines public confidence and underscores the corrosive impact money has on our politics. While these matters are adjudicated, Ohioans should demand a top to bottom reform of Ohios ethics and campaign finance system to put an end to pay-to-play in the Buckeye State.

Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken:

I understand and respect the presumption of innocence. All charges filed must be proved in court. These are basic legal rights. However, there is no right to hold public office. This is a privilege extended by the people of Ohio to officeholders. Its a higher calling and requires a higher level of responsibility. Thats why Im calling on Larry Householder to step down as Speaker of the House and resign as a legislator.

...As a party that prides itself in leading the right way, the political elite have failed too often by allowing these corrupt and shameful individuals to have a place in our party. All Republicans need to take a hard look at who they surround themselves with and root out this type of corruption and greed from our party.

Ohio Democratic Party Chair David Pepper:

The revelations contained in todays criminal complaint against the Republican Speaker of the House and his associates tell the tale of conspirators who have been at this for a long time and know how to evade accountability for their corrupt actions. Thats because, for decades, the culture of Columbus and the Ohio Statehouse under GOP leadership is fundamentally one of corruption, kickbacks and pay-to-play.

...Given what was revealed in todays complaint and the taint of corruption over Ohio legislative activity, we believe Speaker Householder should step down from leadership immediately as he avails himself of his due process rights. Our greatest hope for Ohio is that those officials who have defrauded the taxpayers and abused the peoples trust finally have a moment of accountability, whether that comes from the legal system or at the ballot box this November.

Ohio House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat:

This is a sad day for Ohio. As Ohioans are grappling with a public health and economic crisis like we havent seen in generations, this is an unnecessary distraction from the very important business facing our citizens. Because of this, we demand the immediate resignation of Larry Householder as Speaker of the House and implore our Republican colleagues to announce a new leader for this body as soon as possible. We cannot let this situation distract us from the important work that needs to get done.

Theres no enjoyment in todays news which will no doubt lead to the further deterioration of the publics trust in our institutions.

The shocking news of the impending criminal charges against Householder started this morning as FBI officials raided his property in Perry County. Householder, Longstreth, Borges, Clark and Cespedes all appeared in front of a federal court in the afternoon.

They were released without bond, though were required to turn over their firearms. Their travel will be restricted to the Southern District of Ohios boundaries, which covers most of the state from the Columbus area to Cincinnati.

Not all Ohio elected officials called for Householders resignation. U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, a Marietta Republican, issued a statement calling the charges against Householder and his allies very serious, but added that the U.S. Justice Department should go after those who perpetrated the Russian Collusion hoax.

We cant have a two-tiered system of justice - one for Republicans and another for Democrats, Johnson stated. Were still waiting.
The LG UltraGear 27GN950 4K gaming monitor was first shown off at CES 2020. The monitor has a response time of 1MS. It has a 4K resolution and is NVIDIA G-SYNC compatible.

At CES 2020, LG showed off a lot of tech geared towards gamers. While the 48-inch LG CX OLED TV is what gamers are looking forward to the most, those looking for a more up-close experience have the LG UltraGear 27GN950 to look forward to. The monitor brings with it an impressive set of features and specifications. It has a Nano IPS display and boasts of support for NVIDIA G-SYNC along with a 1MS response time. It also boasts of VESA DisplayHDR 600 letting users enjoy HDR content on the monitor. It has a refresh rate of 144Hz. Lets take a look at the specifications of the monitor in detail

LG UltraGear 27GN950 4K gaming monitor specifications

The LG UltraGear 27GN950 has a 27-inch Nano IPS display with a 4K resolution and support for VESA DisplayHDR 600. It has a typical brightness of 400 nits but with HDR content can go up to 600 nits. The monitor can cover 98 percent of the DCI-P3 colour space. For your reflex needs the monitor has a refresh rate of 144Hz with a 1ms response time.

The monitor supports NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible along with Radeon FreeSync2. To give you a comfortable gaming experience the monitors stand is height adjustable along with support for pivot and tilt.

When it comes to connectivity options, the monitor comes with 2 HDMI ports, 1 DP, a USB 3.0 and audio out. At CES 2020 we spent some time with the LG UltraGear 27GN950 4K gaming monitor and you can check out our impressions in the video below.

We are excited to bring NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible support to LGs most advanced UltraGear model yet, said Kaustubh Sanghani, vice president and general manager, GeForce OEM at NVIDIA. Gamers will be blown away by the responsiveness and the lifelike visuals when playing the latest PC games that feature real-time ray-tracing powered by GeForce technology.

Our latest gaming monitor delivers the unrivalled performance consumers have come to expect from LG UltraGear, said Jang Ik-hwan, senior vice president and head of the IT business unit of LG Electronics Business Solutions Company. UltraGear monitors will continue to push the boundaries of monitor technology, leveraging our advanced IPS 1ms GTG display technology to take gaming to even greater heights.

LG UltraGear 27GN950 4K gaming monitor pricing and availability

The LG UltraGear 27GN950 4K gaming monitor is listed as coming soon on the LG India website and there is no information on a concrete launch date. In the US the LG UltraGear 27GN950 4K gaming monitor has a price tag of $800 which translates to roughly Rs 60,000. With the taxes and duties in India, it looks like this monitor will cater to the elite gamers when it launches.
Local shoppers can take advantage of affordable financing offers on select 2020 Hyundai Tucson and Santa Fe models.

Hyundai of Mankato is celebrating summer with a July sales event, going on now through Aug. 31. Local shoppers can take advantage of 0 percent annual percentage rate (APR) for up to 72 months and no payments for 90 days when they purchase select new Hyundai SUVs.

The dealership is offering this money saving deal on select 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe and 2020 Hyundai Tucson models. Prospective buyers are subject to credit approval by Hyundai Motor Finance prior to offer signing. Shoppers cannot combine this limited time offer with other specials available at Hyundai of Mankato.

Shoppers interested in a family-friendly SUV may be interested in the in-stock 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe models at Hyundai of Mankato. This Hyundai SUV offers two rows of seats, making room for up to five adult passengers plus 35.9 cubic feet of standard cargo space. The Santa Fe is an ideal match for camping trips thanks to its 71.3 cubic feet of maximum cargo space behind the first row of seats.

The 2020 Hyundai Tucson is a perfect fit for shoppers looking for a smaller SUV that still offers plenty of interior space. The five-passenger Hyundai Tucson offers a modern style and adventure-set performance. The Tucson makes room for up to 61.9 cubic feet of cargo when the rear seats are folded down or 31 cubic feet of space when all five seats are in place.

Anyone can learn more about these qualifying Hyundai models by visiting the dealerships website, https://www.hyundaiofmankato.com/. For a more personal interaction, contact a member of the Hyundai of Mankato team by phone, 507-550-1175. Hyundai of Mankato is located at 1281 Raintree Rd, Mankato, MN 56001 and is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.
Mumbai:

Former media baron Peter Mukerjea's lawyer on Tuesday told in the Bombay High Court that his client never objected to the relations between his son Rahul and Sheena Bora, his wife Indrani's daughter from earlier relationship.

Only Indrani, the main accused in Sheena murder case, was opposed to this relationship, said advocate Aabad Ponda, seeking bail for Peter.

Arguing before Justice N W Sambre, Ponda said Peter was not aware of any conspiracy allegedly hatched by Indrani, her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyamwar Rai to kill Sheena.

He claimed that when Peter came to know in 2011 that Rahul and Sheena had got engaged, he sent an SMS to his son from his driver's phone congratulating him and giving them his blessings.

"He did not have any hatred towards Sheena. The only fault of Peter was that he obeyed everything Indrani told him which is why he is in jail now. When Indrani told Peter to stop talking to Rahul he agreed. But he was not aware of what conspiracy Indrani was hatching," Ponda said.

Citing confessional statement of the driver Rai, Ponda said, "The statement clearly says Indrani wanted to kill both Sheena and Mikhail Bora as they were both threatening to reveal to everyone that they were her children and not siblings as she had claimed and they demanded money from her."

Peter, arrested by CBI in the case last November, has moved the HC for bail after the sessions court rejected his plea.

CBI has contended that Peter, with Indrani and Sanjeev Khanna, entered into a criminal conspiracy to kill Sheena as they were opposed to her relationship with Peter's son Rahul. "Peter was not against Rahul and Sheena's relationship. Indrani was against the relationhip and in fact Peter and Indrani had frequent quarrels over this. Peter was only against Rahul and Sheena living together without getting married and with no job. Peter objected only to them living together in 2007 and he separated them," Ponda argued.

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The Uttar Prdaesh government informed the on Wednesday that former apex court judge Justice (Retd) B S Chauhan has given his consent to be a part of the committee set up for inquiry into the encounter killing of gangster Vikas Dubey's ealier this month.

The state government told a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde that the inquiry committee would also probe the circumstances under which Dubey, who was facing 65 FIRs, was released on bail.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, read out the terms of reference of the inquiry committee.

The apex court was hearing a batch of petitions which have sought court-monitored probe into the encounters of Dubey and five of his alleged associates.

Some of the pleas have also sought probe into the killing of eight policemen, including DSP Devendra Mishra, who were ambushed in Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur when they were going to arrest Dubey and fell to bullets fired from rooftops shortly after midnight on July 3.

Dubey was killed in an encounter in the morning of July 10 when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape from the spot in Bhauti area, the police had said.

(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.)
Indias nuclear strategy, which has traditionally focused on Pakistan, has now increased emphasis on China, and Beijing is now in the range of Indian missiles, according to a report. The report said that this posture has likely been reinforced after the 2017 Doklam standoff, during which Chinese and Indian troops were placed on high alert over a dispute near the Bhutanese border.

An analysis of Indias nuclear forces published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on July 20 by Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda makes this observation. The authors said, "While Indias primary deterrence relationship is with Pakistan, its nuclear modernization indicates that it is putting increased emphasis on its future strategic relationship with China. All the new Agni missiles have ranges that indicate their primary target is China. This posture is likely to be reinforced after the 2017 Doklam standoff, during which Chinese and Indian troops were placed on high alert over a dispute near the Bhutanese border. Tension remained high in 2019, with troop injuries on both sides of the border."

"The expansion of Indias nuclear posture to take a conventionally and nuclear superior China into account will result in significantly new capabilities being deployed over the next decade, which could potentially also influence how India views the role of its nuclear weapons against Pakistan," they said.

"According to one scholar, we may be witnessing what I call a decoupling of Indian nuclear strategy between China and Pakistan. The force requirements India needs in order to credibly threaten assured retaliation against China may allow it to pursue more aggressive strategies  such as escalation dominance or a splendid first strike  against Pakistan," the report said.

"India has long adhered to a nuclear no-first-use policy, even though the policy was weakened by Indias 2003 declaration that it could potentially use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks (which would, therefore, constitute nuclear first use, even if it were in retaliation). Yet amid the 2016 dispute with Pakistan, thenIndian defence minister Manohar Parrikar indicated that India should not bind itself to that policy. Although the Indian government later explained that the ministers remarks represented his personal opinion, the debate highlighted the conditions under which India would consider using nuclear weapons," the report added.

"Current defence minister Rajnath Singh has also publicly questioned Indias future commitment to its no-first-use policy, tweeting in August 2019 that India has strictly adhered to this doctrine. What happens in the future depends on the circumstances. Recent scholarship has further called Indias commitment to its no-first-use policy into question, with some analysts asserting that Indias NFU policy is neither a stable nor a reliable predictor of how the Indian military and political leadership might actually use nuclear weapons," it added.

" Even so, Indias NFU policy might have served to limit somewhat the scope and strategy of Indian nuclear forces for the first two decades of its nuclear era. Additionally, although India has long been thought to store its nuclear warheads separate from deployed launchers, there is growing speculation that India may have increased the readiness of its arsenal significantly over the past decade by pre-mating warheads with missiles in canisters for a subsection of the ballistic missile launchers, and possibly also storing some bombs at airbases. There is still some uncertainty about how ready those missiles are on a day-to-day basis, since only the Agni-V, which is not yet deployed, is reported to be carried in a canister. But this trend will likely strengthen with Indias development of a sea-based leg of its nuclear triad, which, at least in the way the United States and Russia operate ballistic missile submarines, has typically involved mating warheads with missiles," it further added.

"Fighter-bombers were Indias first and only nuclear strike force until 2003 when the Prithvi-II nuclear-capable ballistic missile was fielded. Despite considerable progress since then in building a diverse arsenal of land- and sea-based ballistic missiles, bombers continue to serve a prominent role as a flexible strike force in Indias nuclear posture. We estimate that three or four squadrons of Mirage 2000H and Jaguar IS aircraft at three bases are assigned nuclear strike missions against Pakistan and China," the report said.

It said, "The Mirage 2000H Vajra (divine thunder) fighter-bombers are deployed with the 1st, 7th, and possibly the 9th squadrons of the 40th Wing at Maharajpur (Gwalior) Air Force Station in northern Madhya Pradesh. We estimate that one or two of these squadrons has a secondary nuclear mission. Indian Mirage aircraft also occasionally operate from the Nal (Bikaner) Air Force Station in western Rajasthan, and other bases might potentially function as nuclear dispersal bases as well."

"The Indian Mirage 2000H was originally supplied by France, which used its domestic version (Mirage 2000N) in a nuclear strike role for 30 years, until its retirement in the summer of 2018. The Indian Mirage 2000H is undergoing upgrades to extend its service life and enhance its capabilities; the modernized version is called Mirage 2000I. The Indian Air Force also operates four squadrons of Jaguar IS/IB Shamsher (sword of justice) aircraft at three bases (a fifth squadron flies the naval IM version). These include the 5th and 14th squadrons of the 7th Wing at Ambala Air Force Station in northwestern Haryana, the 16th and 27th squadrons of the 17th Wing at Gorakhpur Air Force Station in northeastern Uttar Pradesh, and the 6th and 224th squadrons of the 33rd Wing at Jamnagar Air Force Station in southwestern Gujarat. We estimate that one or two of the squadrons at Ambala and Gorakhpur (one at each base) are assigned a secondary nuclear strike mission. Jaguar aircraft also occasionally operate from the Nal (Bikaner) Air Force Station in western Rajasthan," it added.

"India is searching for a modern fighter-bomber that will probably take over the air-based nuclear strike role in the future. On September 23, 2016, India and France signed an agreement for delivery of 36 Rafale aircraft. The order was considerably reduced from initial plans to buy 126 Rafales. The Rafale is used for the nuclear mission in the French Air Force, and India could potentially convert it to serve a similar role in the Indian Air Force," it said.

"The Rafales will be deployed in two equally-sized squadrons of 18 fighters and four dual-seat trainers: one squadron (17th Golden Arrows Squadron) at Ambala Air Base Station, located only 220 kilometers from the Pakistani border, and the other squadron (101st Falcons Squadron) at Hasimara Air Force Station in West Bengal. New infrastructure developments to accommodate the planes are being constructed at both bases, and the Indian Air Force is reinstating the squadrons to active duty after they had both been decommissioned years earlier," the report said.

The report also said:

Land-based ballistic missiles: India has four types of land-based, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that appear to be operational: the short-range Prithvi-II and Agni-I, the medium-range Agni-II, and the intermediate-range Agni-III. At least two other longer-range Agni missiles are in development and nearing completion: the Agni-IV and Agni-V. It remains to be seen how many of these missile types India plans to keep in its arsenal. Some may serve as technology development programs toward longer-range missiles. Although the Indian government has made no statements about the future size or composition of its land-based missile force, short-range and redundant missile types could potentially be discontinued, with only medium- and long-range missiles deployed in the future to provide a mix of strike options against Pakistan and China. Otherwise, the government appears to be planning to field a diverse missile force that will be expensive to maintain and operate.

Despite widespread speculation in news media articles and on social media that the Agni-V will be equipped with multiple warheads  or even multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs)  there is good reason to doubt that India can or will add MIRVs to its missiles in the near future. There are no official reports that the Indian government has approved a MIRV program, and loading multiple warheads on the Agni-V would reduce its extra range, a key purpose of developing the missile in the first place.

The Agni-V is estimated to be capable of delivering a payload of 1.5 tons (the same as the Agni-III and -IV), and Indias first- and second-generation warheads, even modified versions, are thought to be relatively heavy compared with warheads developed by other nuclear-armed states that deploy MIRVs. It took the Soviet Union and the United States hundreds of nuclear tests and 25 years of effort to develop reentry vehicles small enough to equip a ballistic missile with MIRVs. Moreover, deploying missiles with multiple warheads would invite serious questions about the credibility of Indias minimum deterrent doctrine; using MIRVs would reflect a strategy to quickly strike multiple targets and would also run the risk of triggering a warhead race with adversaries. Unless China develops an efficient missile defense system with capability against intermediate-range ballistic missiles, there seems to be no military need for MIRVs on Indian missiles.

It seems likely, though, that Chinas recent decision to equip some of its ICBMs with MIRVs, and Pakistans announcement in January 2017 that it had test-launched a new Ababeel medium-range ballistic missile with MIRVs, will strengthen the hand of those in the Indian military-industrial complex who favor development of a MIRV capability, if for no other reason than to avoid falling behind in MIRV technology.

Although Ministry of Defence officials have recently indicated that Indias strategic missile force will be capped for the present with the Agni-V, with no successor or next series on the horizon or even on the drawing board, India apparently has also begun development of a true ICBM, known as Agni-VI. Official data is scarce, but an article posted on the governments Press Information Bureau website in December 2016 claimed the Agni-VI will have a strike-range of 8,00010,000 kilometers and will be capable of being launched from submarines as well as from land (Ghosh 2016). Whether these claims are accurate remains to be seen; a range improvement of roughly 50 percent to nearly 100 percent of that of the Agni-V seems exaggerated. The US Air Force, National Air and Space Intelligence Center estimates the range is closer to 6,000 kilometers (3,730 miles).

India has also converted some of its ballistic missile technology into an anti-satellite interceptor. In March 2019, the Defence Research and Development Organisation completed its first successful anti-satellite test (Mission Shakti) against one of its own satellites.

Sea-based ballistic missiles: India operates a ship-launched and a submarine-launched, nuclear-capable ballistic missile and is developing a second submarine-launched ballistic missile for eventual deployment on a small fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. India also appears to be developing its next generation of SSBNsthe S-5 class. To arm the SSBNs, India has developed one nuclear-capable sea-launched ballistic missile, and is working on another: the current K-15 (also known as Sagarika or B-05) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) with a range of 700 kilometers, and the future K-4 SLBM with a range of about 3,500 kilometers.

Cruise missiles: India is developing a ground-launched cruise missile, the Nirbhay. The missile looks similar to the American Tomahawk or the Pakistani Babur and might also be intended for air- and sea-based deployment. The Indian Ministry of Defence describes the Nirbhay as Indias first indigenously designed and developed long-range subsonic cruise missile having 1,000 kilometer range and capable of carrying up to 300-kilogram warheads.

Although there are many rumors that the Nirbhay is dual-capable, neither the Indian government nor the US intelligence community has publicly stated such. A test of the Nirbhay cruise missile fitted with an indigenous propulsion system was scheduled for April 2020; however, it appears to have been postponed, likely due to the spread of COVID-19. The Defence Research and Development Organisation confirmed in early 2020 that additional variants of the Nirbhay cruise missileincluding submarine-launched and air-launched versionsare in the early stages of planning and development.
Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has condemned the violent acts at some registration centres in the country.



On Monday, July 20, 2020, the Minister for Special Development Initiatives, Hawa Koomson had violent clash with some unidentified people after she went to a voter registration centre in the Awutu Senya East constituency.



She explained that she went to the registration centre following a tip-off that some unknown people had been bused to the constituency to participate in the ongoing voter registration exercise.



She sensed danger and so picked up a gun to the centre where she fired warning shots.



The Minister claimed she acted out of self-defence.



"I realised the lives of my people were in danger. So I wanted to scare the people. I fired the warning shots. I didnt direct it at anybody," she said on Adom News.



Kwesi Pratt's take on registration violence



Speaking on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', Kwesi Pratt questioned why people would go to the registration centres armed with offensive weapons.



To him, there cannot be any justificaton for whatever reason behind such actions.



"We're just going to write our names to express our minds when the time for the elections is due. Simple! Should this result in pulling knives? Must this lead people to hide pepper in their pockets to the registration centres? What's the purpose for the pepper? Are you going to eat kenkey with it or what? Just going to register your name and you have pepper to spray into people's eyes, others with machetes to hack people and the worse of all is those who pull guns; are you going for hunting?" he fumed.



According to him, he is "embarrassed whenever I hear or see things like what's happening . . . Terrible; so embarrassing!''



"When you do all this for power, what will you use it for? When you kill someone, sprays pepper into people's eyes and do all these things, and you're given the power, what unique thing can you really do?" he further asked.





The electoral management body has also condemned the violent clashes at the registration centers across the nation.The Electoral Commission issued a statement on Monday, July 20, 2020 stating ''the Commission condemns such acts during a civil exercise like the Registration of Voters and calls on security agencies to investigate the issue as a matter of urgency to bring the perpetrators to book. These acts constitute a breach of the Vigilante and Related Offenses Act, 2019 Act 999. The Act seeks to disband violent activities of Political Parties and makes political vigilantism an offence punishable by a prison term''.It also reminded the public, particularly political party agents, that ''any person who wishes to challenge an Applicant on the basis of ineligibility must fill a Challenge Form, which will then be presented to the District Registration Review Committee for a ruling on the matter. Political Party agents are therefore cautioned against the use of violence to challenge a persons eligibility''.

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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KHABAROVSK, Russia -- Hundreds of supporters of the arrested ex-governor of Russia's Far Eastern Khabarovsk Krai region, Sergei Furgal, have rallied for a 12th day, this time demanding the resignation of the country's president, Vladimir Putin.



The demonstrators gathered on the central square in the regional capital, Khabarovsk, on July 22, chanting "Putin must resign" and "No trust in 20 years," referring to Putin's ruling the country as president or prime minister since 1999.



Police were present at the rally but did not interfere as the protesters made their way across the city chanting slogans denouncing the newly appointed acting governor of the region, Mikhail Degtyaryov.



Degtyaryov was appointed by Putin, on July 20. He arrived in Khabarovsk on the morning of July 21, but did not meet with the protesters, who were demonstrating at the time against his appointment.



Degtyaryov posted a video statement on his Instagram account on July 22 saying that he was not going to leave Khabarovsk and that he wished Furgal all the best in his upcoming trial. He added that there "must be someone" behind the ongoing protests, though he did not specify who.



Degtyaryovs statement on Instagram sparked a huge wave of criticism online.



Putin fired Furgal on July 20 before appointing Degtyaryov to the post. Both are members of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).



On July 21, two local lawmakers, Pyotr Yemelyanov and Aleksandr Kayan, quit the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia to protest Furgals dismissal from office.



Furgal, who was arrested in Khabarovsk on July 9 and transferred to Moscow, is charged with attempted murder and for ordering two murders in 2004-2005. He denies the allegations.



He was elected governor of the Khabarovsk region, which borders China, almost two years ago in an upset for the longtime incumbent who represented the ruling United Russia party.



The Khabarovsk rallies have attracted thousands of people on the weekends and are the largest protests in the city since the fall of the Soviet Union.



Such sizeable demonstrations far from the Russian capital are a rare public show of defiance against the Kremlin and come following a controversial nationwide vote that set the stage for Putin to remain in power until 2036.



Authorities have been unnerved by the protests, with the regional capital's mayor calling for calm and saying such rallies were illegal and could help accelerate the spread of the coronavirus.



Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) had also warned of an alleged terrorist threat involving explosives, which it claimed to have already foiled.



Authorities in Khabarovsk region have also said they were considering a return to strict quarantine measures and attributed this to the difficult situation with the spread of coronavirus infection.
Drinkworks, a joint venture between Keurig Dr Pepper and Anheuser-Busch, announces second premium spirits partnership with initial cocktail Pods due to launch in late 2020

BEDFORD, Mass., July 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beverage innovation company Drinkworks  and spirits company Heaven Hill Brands today announced a partnership to develop cocktails for use in the Drinkworks Home Bar system. Through the new licensing agreement, consumers will be able to enjoy signature Elijah Craig Bourbon and Deep Eddy Vodka cocktails from Drinkworks Pods, with the initial selection expected to hit the market in late 2020.



Partnering with Heaven Hill is an exciting evolution of our broadening co-branded cocktail portfolio, said Drinkworks CEO, Nathaniel Davis. Were proud to work with a renowned family-owned spirits company like Heaven Hill to deliver even more premium cocktail experiences to our Drinkworks Home Bar owners.

"This partnership gives cocktail enthusiasts more ways to enjoy their favorite Heaven Hill brands  like Elijah Craig and Deep Eddy  at the push of a button, said Heaven Hill Brands President Max L. Shapira. Were thrilled to partner with an innovative company like Drinkworks as we collaborate to deliver on consumer desire for a bar-quality version of our brands signature cocktails in the comfort of the home.

The new co-branded cocktails will be produced by Drinkworks and be available on drinkworks.com and at select retailers across the country. The initial menu of signature cocktails  featuring an Elijah Craig Old Fashioned and a Deep Eddy Texas Mule  will join the Drinkworks portfolio of over two dozen beverages. This partnership marks the second premium spirits company to be included in Drinkworks open system, following the announcement of a similar partnership last fall.

The Drinkworks Home Bar by Keurig is available nationwide on drinkworks.com, as well as through in-store and online retailers. For more information and to see a list of participating retailers in each state, please visit www.drinkworks.com.

Story continues

About Drinkworks

Drinkworks is a design-driven, user-centric beverage innovation company defining new ways to make it remarkably simple to enjoy a variety of bar-quality drinks at home with convenience. The Drinkworks Home Bar by Keurig is a first-of-its-kind appliance designed to use Drinkworks pods to prepare cocktails, brews, ciders and more at the touch of a button. A joint-venture between Keurig Dr Pepper (Keurig) and Anheuser-Busch InBev, Drinkworks is committed to making the entire drinking experience  from purchase, to creation, to enjoyment  more remarkable through innovation. The company is headquartered in Bedford, MA with facilities in Williston, VT. For more information and to purchase the Drinkworks Home Bar by Keurig, Drinkworks pods and Drinkworks accessories, visit www.drinkworks.com.

About Heaven Hill

Founded in 1935, Bardstown, KY -based Heaven Hill Brands (www.heavenhill.com) is the nations largest independent, family-owned and operated spirits producer and marketer and the worlds second-largest holder of Kentucky Bourbon. Heaven Hills diversified portfolio of brands includes Evan Williams, Elijah Craig, Larceny, and Henry McKenna Bourbons; Rittenhouse Rye Whisky; Deep Eddy and Burnetts Vodkas; Admiral Nelsons and Blackheart Rums; Black Velvet Canadian Whisky; Lunazul Tequila; The Christian Brothers Brandies; HPNOTIQ Liqueur; Carolans Irish Cream Liqueur; PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur; Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur.

About Anheuser-Busch InBev

Anheuser-Busch InBev is a publicly traded company (Euronext: ABI) based in Leuven, Belgium, with secondary listings on the Mexico (MEXBOL: ANB) and South Africa (JSE: ANH) stock exchanges and with American Depositary Receipts on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BUD). Our Dream is to bring people together for a better world. Beer, the original social network, has been bringing people together for thousands of years. We are committed to building great brands that stand the test of time and to brewing the best beers using the finest natural ingredients. Our diverse portfolio of well over 500 beer brands includes global brands Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois; multi-country brands Becks, Castle, Castle Lite, Hoegaarden and Leffe; and local champions such as Aguila, Antarctica, Bud Light, Brahma, Cass, Cristal, Harbin, Jupiler, Michelob Ultra, Modelo Especial, Quilmes, Victoria, Sedrin, and Skol. Our brewing heritage dates back more than 600 years, spanning continents and generations. From our European roots at the Den Hoorn brewery in Leuven, Belgium. To the pioneering spirit of the Anheuser & Co brewery in St. Louis, US. To the creation of the Castle Brewery in South Africa during the Johannesburg gold rush. To Bohemia, the first brewery in Brazil. Geographically diversified with a balanced exposure to developed and developing markets, we leverage the collective strengths of approximately 175,000 employees.

About Keurig Dr Pepper

Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) is a leading beverage company in North America, with annual revenue in excess of $11 billion and nearly 26,000 employees. KDP holds leadership positions in soft drinks, specialty coffee and tea, water, juice and juice drinks and mixers, and markets the #1 single serve coffee brewing system in the U.S. and Canada. The Companys portfolio of more than 125 owned, licensed and partner brands is designed to satisfy virtually any consumer need, any time, and includes Keurig, Dr Pepper, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Canada Dry, Snapple, Bai, Mott's, CORE and The Original Donut Shop. Through its powerful sales and distribution network, KDP can deliver its portfolio of hot and cold beverages to nearly every point of purchase for consumers. The Company is committed to sourcing, producing and distributing its beverages responsibly through its Drink Well. Do Good. corporate responsibility platform, including efforts around circular packaging, efficient natural resource use and supply chain sustainability. For more information, visit, www.keurigdrpepper.com.

For more information, contact:

Tom Donda

tom@praytellagency.com

(847) 274-8354

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/55a01450-ec1f-4db2-b0e9-34f1a3178c97
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 22, 2020) - Origen Resources Inc. (CSE: ORGN) (the "Company" or "Origen") is pleased to provide highlights from the historical trenching and drill programs conducted at the Company's Wishbone property (Wishbone" or "Project") prominently situated within British Columbia's Golden Triangle. Exploration field crews are currently at site assessing the numerous high grade gold occurrences reported from the historical work conducted at the Windy Gold Zone.

Key Highlights

Seven gold mineralized quartz-sulphide veins were uncovered by Teck in 1986 within a small

400 x 500 metre area;

400 x 500 metre area; Main Vein was traced for 500 metres in length and is apparently getting wider to the east where depth of overburden precluded exposure by hand trenching; 7.8 g/t Au over 3.3m, including 19.1 g/t Au over 1.6m, chip samples at the eastern end of the Main Vein;

All the known veins remain open along trend;

Nine drill holes tested the central area of the exposed veins with all the holes reporting notable intersections of gold mineralization;

Region of highly anomalous gold in soils remains unexplored 200m to the south of the Main Vein; and

Origen geological crews are currently in the field.

"The magnitude of what was discovered at Windy in such a small area across four short exploration campaigns confirms that we are, in fact, in an extremely prospective high-grade gold mineralizing zone. The Windy Gold Zone represents just one of nine underexplored gold mineralization zones on the Wishbone property and we are incredibly excited about the remainder of our 2020 season if the opportunity we see at Windy is an indication of the property's potential as a whole," states Blake Morgan, Company President.

Windy Gold Zone Historical Trench Results

The Windy Zone is situated within the northern part of the Wishbone property and was the primary target area of interest through Teck's 1981 to 1988 exploration programs on the property. Subsequent to Teck in 1981 and 1982 discovering a concentration of markedly high gold grades in soils (see Company news release dated July 15, 2020) and the discovery of the first gold bearing quartz vein in 1986, Windy was subject to a more comprehensive prospecting and trenching program in 1987.

At the conclusion of the 1987 exploration program, seven gold mineralized quartz-sulphide veins were discovered within a small 400 x 500 metre area (Figure 1). A total of 45 trenches, totalling 398 linear metres, were excavated to bedrock with 344 rock chip samples collected and assayed for gold and silver.

The Main Vein trending E-W along Line 600 South and dipping steeply to the north was traced for 500m in length with a width of 6.7 metres at its widest exposure in the most eastern trench reporting a 3.3m chip sample grading 7.8 g/t Au, including 19.1 g/t Au over 1.1m.





Figure 1. Satellite image of the Windy Gold Zone showing trenches, quartz veins and drill traces (source: BC Geological Branch Assessment Reports 16942 and 17927)

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/7117/60283_90a5895844c11a35_001full.jpg

A vein which occurs about 60 m north of the Main Vein designated as North Main Vein is uncovered in only four places along a 125 m length. The most eastern trench returned chip samples averaging 4.9 g/t Au over a 2.8 m and in the most western trench one chip sample assayed 10.4 g/t Au over 1.0 m.

The Camp Vein trending E-W, located 250m north of the Main Vein, was traced for 75m by seven trenches excavated at this locale and reported a maximum width of 5.1 metres, at its widest exposure in the most eastern trench, grading 2.1 g/t over the entire width. Other trenches reported high grades of 38.6 g/t Au over 0.3 m, 4.2 g/t Au over 4.6 m and 4.2 g/t Au over a 4.8 m chip sample.

About 35 m north of the Camp Vein another vein, designated the North Camp Vein, returned chip samples grading 17.3 g/t Au over 1.8 m and 8.1 g/t Au over 2.1 m from two trenches 78 m apart with reports of visible gold panned from the soil in the trenches.

Of note, all the veins are open along strike and appear to be thickening to the east, however the historical field crews were unable to further expose the veins by hand trenching in this direction due to the increasing depth of overburden.

Trench rock chip highlights from the Windy Zone include:

Location Width Gold Grade

(m) (oz/T) (g/t) Main Vein (215E) 6.8 0.06 2.0 including 2.8 0.12 4.0 including 0.8 0.27 9.2 Main Vein (350E) 5.5 0.12 4.0 including 2.5 0.19 6.4 Main Vein (360E) 1.5 0.88 30.3 Main Vein (550E) 3.3 0.23 7.8 including 1.1 0.42 19.1 North Main Vein 2.8 0.14 4.9 North Main Vein 1.0 0.30 10.4 NE Vein 3.0 0.10 3.5 Camp Vein 0.3 1.13 38.6 Camp Vein 1.4 0.26 9.1 Camp Vein 4.6 0.14 4.2 Camp Vein 1.2 0.19 6.5 Camp Vein 4.8 0.14 4.2 North Camp Vein 1.8 0.51 17.3 including 0.8 1.09 37.4 North Camp Vein 3.4 0.25 8.5 including 1.1 0.50 17.1 North Camp Vein 2.1 0.24 8.1

Chip sampling was accomplished with a moil and hammer with the samples sent to ACME Analytical Labs in Vancouver for analysis. Standard fire-assay techniques were utilized. Quality assurance and quality control ("QA/QC") measures were not documented, however a qualified person for Origen considers that the quality of the work, the established standing of the operator and the use of a reputable analytical laboratory supports that the chip sample results disclosed are suitable for guidance and characterization of the area at the current stage of exploration. The channel samples disclosed in this news release were sourced directly from geological maps and assay certificates within assessment reports available on the ARIS (Assessment Report Indexing System) collection of technical assessment reports administered by the B.C. Geological Survey. The current exploration field crew will aim to verify the location of the historical trenches and collect representative chip samples where viable.

Windy Gold Zone Historical Drill Results

In 1988 Teck drilled nine (9) holes totalling 1,353.2m to test the down dip extent of the gold bearing quartz veins uncovered in the 1987 exploration program. All the drill holes intersected notable gold bearing mineralization with the latter portion of hole BJ88-02 providing the longest mineralized widths in a silicified breccia zone.

Of note, due to the design of the drill program only a narrow 100 m wide North-South corridor transecting the gold bearing quartz veins was drill tested. This represents a small portion of the prospective area and the apparent thickening of the quartz veins in the western portion was not tested.

Drilling highlights from the Windy Zone include:

Hole From To Width Gold Grade Target

(m) (m) (m) (oz/T) (g/t)

BJ88-01 58.0 61.2 3.2 0.09 3.1 North Camp Vein BJ88-02 36.9 38.4 1.5 0.08 2.7 Camp and North Camp Vein BJ88-02 151.7 153.4 1.7 0.11 3.8 Camp and North Camp Vein BJ88-02 166.6 173.6 7.0 0.05 1.6 Camp and North Camp Vein BJ88-02 176.8 181.2 7.7 0.09 3.2 Camp and North Camp Vein BJ88-03 60.7 61.2 0.5 0.11 3.7 North Camp Vein BJ88-04 83.1 84.4 1.3 0.05 1.5 North Camp Vein BJ88-05 98.6 99.0 0.4 0.31 10.5 Main and North Main Vein BJ88-06 134.1 138.3 4.2 0.08 2.6 Main and North Main Vein BJ88-06 142.8 148.2 5.4 0.04 1.4 Main and North Main Vein BJ88-07 148.9 150.8 1.9 0.05 1.7 North Main Vein BJ88-08 87.1 87.5 0.3 0.28 9.4 North Main Vein BJ88-08 207.0 216.0 9.0 0.03 1.0 North Main Vein BJ88-09 99.4 100.8 1.4 0.07 2.3



Drill Location (UTM Zone 9) and Orientation:

Hole No. Easting Northing Azimuth Dip Depth (m) BJ88-01 382428 6339190 150 -050 100.6 BJ88-02 382428 6339190 180 -045 197.2 BJ88-03 382428 6339190 180 -063 117.3 BJ88-04 382428 6339190 215 -045 100.4 BJ88-05 382478 6339008 153 -045 154.5 BJ88-06 382478 6339008 216 -045 157.6 BJ88-07 382478 6339008 216 -062 175.9 BJ88-08 382396 6339104 180 -045 230.7 BJ88-09 382396 6339104 150 -045 118.0

Core sample intervals ranged from 30 cm to 2.0 metres in length and were sent to ACME Analytical Labs in Vancouver for analysis with standard fire-assay techniques. Duplicates and standards were not inserted into the sample series for QA/QC measures, however a qualified person for Origen considers that the quality of the work, the established standing of the operator and the use of a reputable analytical laboratory supports that the drill hole results disclosed are suitable for guidance and characterization of the area at the current stage of exploration. The core sample results disclosed in this news release were sourced directly from geological maps, sections and assay certificates within assessment reports available on the ARIS (Assessment Report Indexing System) collection of technical assessment reports administered by the B.C. Geological Survey. The current exploration field crew will aim to verify the location of the historical drill collars, locate the drill core and if viable verify the historical results. The drill intervals reported in the news release are the down-hole core length. The Company has not performed sufficient work to determine the veins' orientation and calculate a true width for the drill intersections.

Windy Zone Soil Geochemical Targets

The exposed gold mineralized quartz veins are coincident with a number of the exceedingly high gold in soil geochemical samples collected in previous years (see Company news release dated July 15, 2020), however one of the areas reporting the greatest concentration of >1 g/t gold in soils remains unexplored to the south of the known quartz veins.

2020 Exploration Program

Origen geological crews are currently in the field to re-establish the historical work at the Windy Zone, evaluate the highly prospective areas defined through trenching and soil sampling, and design the program to make this prospect drill ready.

John Harrop, P Geo., a Qualified Person as that term is defined in NI 43-101 has prepared, supervised the preparation or approved the scientific and technical disclosure in the news release.

Wishbone Property Background

The Wishbone project sits prominently within British Columbia's Golden Triangle (Fig 1), a richly endowed mineral district in the northwest of the province. The Property contains numerous, underexplored gold vein, gold stockwork and copper-gold volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) prospects with the gold vein mineralizing event reporting a similar age as that of the mineralization at Brucejack.

Wishbone consists of a group of 10 claims totalling 3,832 ha approximately 45km northwest of Bob Quinn Lake on the Stewart-Cassiar highway (Hwy 37), 12km west of the Company's LGM property and is immediately adjacent to the east of the Galore Creek Mining Corp claim block (Fig 2).

The Property contains numerous, underexplored gold vein, gold stockwork and copper-gold porphyry prospects. This news release describes the background of one of the main prospects on the Wishbone claims.

Originally staked by Teck Explorations Limited in 1980 and operated until 1988. Teck conducted systematic detailed mapping, soil sampling and trenching which identified at least nine (9) mineralized zones over a N-S trend of approximately 10km length. Teck followed up with a nine hole drill program in 1988 totalling 1353.2m to test encouraging trench results developed from their multi-year exploration program at the Windy Zone.

About Origen

Origen is an exploration company engaged in generating, acquiring and advancing base and precious metal properties. The Company currently holds a property portfolio of four 100% owned precious and base metal projects in southern British Columbia and recently acquired a 100% interest in the 26,771 ha LGM project and an option to acquire a 100% interest in the 3,971 ha Wishbone property in the mineral rich Golden Triangle of British Columbia.

On behalf of Origen,

Blake Morgan

President

For further information, please contact Blake Morgan, President at 236-878-4938 or Gary Schellenberg, CEO at 604-681-0221.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/60283
By Ayya Lmahamad

The Turkish Competition Council has given permission to SOCAR and BP to establish a joint venture that will operate in the petrochemical sector, local media reported on July 22.

Earlier it was reported that SOCAR and BP applied to the relevant institutions in Turkey to establish a joint petrochemical company, which will be called Mercury complex, in April 2020.

Recall that on December 20, 2018 SOCAR and BP signed contractual principles for evaluation of plans for creation a world-class petrochemical complex in Turkey and establishment of a joint venture to manage it.

The construction of the new petrochemical complex is expected to enable Turkey to cover the current account deficit by $6 billion annually.

Moreover, the project will increase the share of SOCAR in petrochemical market of Turkey to 35-40 percent.

Construction of the complex was planned to begin during the current year in order to put the enterprise into operation in 2023-2025. However, due to low oil prices and to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project implementation has been postponed until 2021.

The Mercury complex will be built near the Petkim petrochemical complex and the STAR refinery in Aliaga region. The enterprise will produce 1.25 million tons of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), 840 thousand tons of paraxylene (PX), 340 thousand tons of benzene.

PTA is the main raw material in the production of polyester from which beverage and food containers, packaging materials, photo and film and other consumer and industrial goods are derived.

__

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
A QANTAS Boeing 747 flies extremely low past buildings and industrial sites on its final approach to the city's airport, in Sydney.

Australia said goodbye to an era of aviation Wednesday as it sent its final Boeing 747, fondly dubbed the "Queen of the Skies", to its retirement in California's Mojave Desert, where it will be parked and stripped for parts.

Qantas, the country's flagship airline, first began receiving the long-range wide body jets nearly half a century ago in 1971. Now, as the global airline industry reckons with a historic plunge in air travel due to the coronavirus pandemic, aviation giants are being forced to reimagine and restructure the future of air travel.

The farewell was extravagant and emotional, with a water cannon salute, a nostalgia-filled ceremony by Qantas featuring poems and video tributes, and hundreds of plane spotters and airline staff gathered to wave goodbye as the jet taxied along the runway. People wrote messages on the aircraft's belly and Aboriginal elders performed a ceremony, local news reported.

The departing aircraft was seen by flight radar platforms to have created the shape of a kangaroo, the airline's mascot, in the sky just off the Australian coast.

Tweet 1

Qantas' 747 retirement came six months early due to the impact of the pandemic on air travel. The company is also slashing 20% of its staff, and has grounded its fleet of double decker Airbus A380s  wide-body jets used for long haul travel  for the next three years.
MARLTON, N.J., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Freedom Mortgage, one of the nation's largest full-service non-bank mortgage companies and a leader in VA and government-insured lending, plans to add 3,000 mortgage professionals and support staff over the next six months to help meet increasing demand for mortgage refinancing and loan servicing. The company generated $8 billion in originations in May and over $11 billion in June, a new monthly volume record.

Freedom Mortgage has already added more than 1,200 new employees throughout the company since March, bringing its employee count to over 7,000 nationwide. The company, which is experiencing record volume in new originations and fundings, is aggressively hiring in its servicing, sales call center, wholesale and correspondent departments as well as its traditional retail channel. Freedom is also expanding its operations in Oregon and Jacksonville, Florida and has entered the Texas, Michigan and Virginia markets through acquisition.

"As our business continues to expand, robust recruiting efforts have been necessary to ensure we're able to provide our customers with the type of top-notch service Freedom is known for, regardless of their home financing needs," said Freedom Mortgage CEO Stanley C. Middleman. "Whether it's keeping up with growing demand for home refinancings or helping borrowers through forbearances, we are committed to having the staff on hand to give every borrower the best possible experience."

Beginning in March, Freedom seamlessly moved 98 percent of its employees to work from home without any drop in efficiency. "I was really impressed by how well everyone made this transition," Middleman said. "Working from home has also helped our growth, since we are not limited by office space. As we grow and increase our market share, we'll continue to offer work from home positions."

Freedom Mortgage's Fishers, Indiana location has been recognized as a 2020 Top Workplace for central Indiana by The Indianapolis Star for the fifth year in a row and is also on this year's Philadelphia Inquirer list. What differentiates The Top Workplaces program is that the award is based solely on an anonymous survey of employees that measures several aspects of workplace culture, including alignment, execution, and connection. Being on the list and receiving the employee endorsement is special and is attributed to the company's vibrant, diverse work environment, and its passion for giving back to the community. Freedom employees are encouraged to take part in various fundraisers and events throughout the year.

Freedom garners high ratings on Glassdoor, the top job research site for job seekers that posts company reviews from employees. Over the past eight weeks, Freedom's ratings on Glassdoor have soared to a 4.0 company rating, and 77 percent of employees would recommend the company to a friend. These are higher numbers than several large national lenders.

The company has also been recognized for its top of the line training through programs such as the Freedom Mortgage First Flyers and Fast Track sales training for recent college graduates, as well as providing opportunities for mortgage professionals to advance their careers. Freedom has invested heavily in the professional development and success of its employees by providing flexible training programs and the best technology tools to help maximize their work and efficiency.

Anyone interested joining Freedom can view current opportunities at www.freedommortgage.com/careers.

About Freedom Mortgage

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Marlton, New Jersey, Freedom Mortgage is a non-bank, full-service mortgage company that provides mortgage loans through retail, wholesale, and correspondent channels. One of the nation's largest loan originators and servicers, the company is licensed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Freedom Mortgage is a leader in VA mortgage lending and one of the mortgage industry's largest philanthropic supporters of the USO and military families. The company is also renowned for its vibrant work environment where its team members can thrive. For more information, please visit FreedomMortgage.com.

CORPORATE CONTACT

Audrey Shapiro

Freedom Mortgage Corporation

856-380-9073

[email protected]

PRESS CONTACT

Henry Drennan

Strategic Vantage Marketing & Public Relations

(615) 497-8358

[email protected]

SOURCE Freedom Mortgage Corporation
Throughout most of his campaign, Joe Biden has sought to put forward a singular idea: I care.

On Tuesday, he extended that sentiment into a specific proposal - to provide hundreds of billions of dollars for the care of young and old Americans.

The proposal, which would cost $775 billion over 10 years, would provide universal preschool to 3- and 4-year-old children, fund the construction of new child-care facilities and offer tax credits and grants to help pay for care positions for the young and the elderly.

It would be funded in part by rolling back some tax breaks for real estate investors and by "taking steps to increase tax compliance for high-income earners," according to the Biden campaign.

Biden cast his plan as a lifeline to middle-class families, saying that even before the pandemic they were feeling squeezed by the need to provide care for their children and in some cases also their parents. These families, he said, are now even more desperate, as care has become increasingly difficult to find.

"Everything feels different," said Biden, speaking for just over 20 minutes from the Colonial Early Education Program at Colwyck Center in New Castle, Del. "There is just that feeling, that sense, that you don't know if everything is going to turn out OK. I'm here to say it can be and it will be."

Biden said his plan would "build a critical part of the labor force and help us recover faster and stronger."

Biden's plan also would fund 150,000 community health-care workers, with many targeted to work in low-income and racially diverse areas. It would create an $8,000 tax credit to help low-income families pay for child care. And it would add funding for community colleges so they can provide child care for students.

The plan builds on earlier Biden proposals to create a $5,000 tax credit for "informal caregivers" and some Social Security credits for those who care for parents or relatives.

Since locking up the Democratic nomination, Biden has sought to contrast himself with President Donald Trump in various ways, from competence to integrity. But in few areas has he been as pointed as his assertion that Trump does not care about ordinary Americans the way Biden does.

Trump and his supporters take issue with that, saying the president's record on job creation and tax cuts has done far more to help ordinary people than Biden's big-government plans ever could.

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign suggested Biden's plans would threaten the country's free-enterprise system. Campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said the caregiving plan was an attempt to "remake America with socialist policies."

Biden estimated that Tuesday's proposal would lead to 5 million additional jobs, including new caregiving positions and jobs the campaign said Americans could pursue once they are free from caring for children or relatives.

The proposal is the third part of a larger economic "Build Back Better" plan that Biden has rolled out over the past few weeks. He proposed spending $700 billion on American products as part of an economic plan. He also unveiled a $2 trillion clean energy initiative to eliminate carbon pollution from power plants by 2035.

Biden was among the few candidates who did not offer a child-care plan during the Democratic primary, and liberal activists have been pushing his team to propose one.

Wendoly Marte, director of Economic Justice with Community Change Action, said she detected Sen. Bernie Sanders's, I-Vt., influence in Biden's proposal, particularly his focus on increasing pay for care workers by allowing them to unionize.

"Oftentimes child care and early learning is just presented from parents' perspective," Marte said. "We want a broader conversation" that includes workers.

Biden referred repeatedly to caregivers' working conditions during Tuesday's speech, saying his proposal was "about dignity and respect for working people" and pledging that "no one should have to work more than one job to make ends meet."

He signaled that he would again focus on caregivers on Wednesday, when he will participate in a virtual town hall with the Service Employees International Union. Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, also praised Biden's plan Tuesday, saying it will ensure that workers receive"the respect they deserve."

Biden previously called for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. He also called for higher pay for teachers, grocery store workers and health-care employees, saying the coronavirus has laid bare the need to protect workers who previously went overlooked.

Marte said that her group is "still analyzing" the details of the plan but that it appears to be a "good start." In general, some critics have said Biden's plans for funding his proposals are vague or impractical.

Over the past few weeks, Biden has floated the idea of the federal government helping Americans take care of their families, including their parents and children. He said his plan was mostly aimed at women and predicted broad support.

"Think of the millions of people out there, particularly women who are home taking care of daughters, taking care of their elderly parents, people who are there taking care of the young and the elderly with special needs. They should be paid," he said during a fundraiser in June co-hosted by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. "We can make sure that we have a civilian force that is able to take care of those people and get paid to do it."

During an economic roundtable last month in Philadelphia, Biden spoke about workers having difficulty obtaining affordable child care during the pandemic and said the government should pay for it "for as long as this crisis exists." He touted the idea of hiring 100,000 people as contact tracers to curb the spread of the disease, promising they would earn "a decent wage" and would then form the basis for a new public health workforce.

In his economic proposals, Biden has offered his own life story as the reason he understands the middle class. On Tuesday he made a point of discussing how much help he needed when caring for his two sons after his first wife and daughter died in a 1972 car accident.

"As many of you recall, I was a single parent," Biden said Tuesday. "Even though I had a lot more support than people going through tough times today, it was hard."

He contrasted his story, and his empathy, with how he believes Trump has approached the presidency. "Donald Trump fails the most important test to being American president: the duty to care for you, for all of us," Biden said, referencing news stories that Trump has lost interest in focusing on solving the public health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

"For all his bluster about his expertise on the economy he's unable to explain how will actually help working families hit the hardest," Biden said. "You know, he's quit on you. And he's quit on this county."
Washington, DC, US (PANA)  The World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved a $30-million International Development Association (IDA) grant to support agricultural productivity and access to markets for smallholder farmer-agribusiness in Sierra Leone
Villages Buried in Mudslides  The China Angle with Simone Gao

Welcome to Zooming In, Im Simone Gao. China is experiencing one of its worst floods in a century, and the end hasnt yet arrived. As buildings and villages are washed away, how are the locals responding? How are government officials handling the crisis? Is this purely a natural disaster, Have human factors made things worse? Today well look at both sides in this episode of the China Angle.

More bizarre weather is striking China. Snow has Chinas southernmost province, the tropical island of Hainan. A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck the city of Tangshan on July 12. This was one of six earthquakes inside China in a two day period. The last earthquake in Tangshan city, in 1976, killed over 240,000 people. Further, current flooding in China is the worst in 100 years time.

Flooding is not new to China, lets take a quick look at how these disasters have shaped China.

According to Chinese history, a disastrous flood was the birth of the first Chinese dynasty, known as the Xia dynasty. 4000 years ago, one man, named Yu the Great, managed the consistent and destructive flooding of the Yellow River, turning the land around it into an agricultural powerhouse. That is, the birth of the first Chinese dynasty was through flooding. Fast forward to the 20th century, and we find that the 3rd worst flood in human history happened during Chinas communist revolution. Soviet engineering and low design standards were to blame. Today, what sort of historical impact will todays flooding have on China?

Time will tell for that question, but for right now, the ones bearing the brunt of the disaster are the average Chinese citizens.

Monsoon rains usually fall in China during the months of july and august. This year, the rains started in June, and have not relented. Most of the flooding so far has been restricted to the southern half of China. The vice minister of water resource said that the rainfall along the Yangtze river was between 1.5 and 2.6 times more than the previous year. Officials are expected to evacuate affected locals. The locals tell another story.

Phone interviews with the Chinese division of Epoch Times came from people in several provinces down the Yangtze river, including Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangxi. These three provinces are downstream of Chinas three gorges dam. It is one of the largest dams in the world, and has come under scrutiny in the wake of the floods.

A consistent claim was that officials did not offer assistance to people. Further, locals claim that, because of embankment breaches, authorities are discharging flood water from lakes and rivers. One man, surnamed Wang, said that officials were abandoning reinforcements on smaller dikes to protect large ones. Wang and 12,000 others from the city of Tongling have retreated to shelters. He said that the shelters lack basic flood-time necessities, like drinking water, tents, raincoats, and insect repellent. He said food was also limited. Wang said all he and the others can do is to nervously wait, wondering if their property will be swept away.

And there are disasters upstream too. The first major city before the three gorges dam is Chongqing. Rain began falling on July 1st, and water filled into the first floors of buildings by the next day. This area, though affected, is not as severe as the cities downstream of the three gorges dam.

This disaster was predicted by one Chinese hydrologist, who opposed the three gorges dam since the idea was first presented. Huang Wanli consistently warned the CCP about the disasters that would follow building such a dam, yet was imprisoned and disgraced from his work position. Now his children are pointing out the warnings and predictions their father made years ago.

On July 12, one of Huangs sons, named Huang Guanhong, told NTD news that whether the dam releases the water or not, there will be massive flooding. If the Three Gorges Dam doesnt release its waters, Chongqing city [on the upper stream] will be submerged. If the dam discharges water, Wuhan [on the downstream] would be inundated. The latter is the current situation.

Statements from the dam management said all of the power facilities within are operating at maximum capacity, implying that the maximum amount of water is passing through it. One expert hydrologist named Wang Weiluo said that releasing water from the three gorges at this time is making the destruction up to 25 times worse. That is, it is not just the volume of water, but the flow speed of the water is being increased. The flow is 25 times more than a normal flood, making for a much more destructive flood.

A Chinese online content source called Net Ease (Wangyi) worked to turn focus away from the Three Gorges Dam. The report was titled The Three Gorges Dam is already sparing no efforts, please do not blame it further. One of the initial arguments for building the dam was to help with flood control. As for the effect the dam is having on preventing flooding, the same report said there was nothing more that could be done. The report has since been removed from NetEase, but shared across other Chinese news websites.

Chinese citizens have told the Chinese Epoch Times that flooding is being amplified due to the extra water from the three gorges drainage. One example was a mudslide that hit in the early hours of July 8th in Chinas southern Guizhou Province. Officials in Tongren city said the mudslide destroyed 133 houses, bringing 507 people to homelessness. Local residents tell a different story.

One man contacted by the Chinese Epoch Times said the mudslide leveled much of the village. Almost the whole village was buried. Only three or four houses are still standing. They [the rescue team] dug out many fellow villagers from the mud, but they had already died.

The village is far away from the city center in Tongren. The rescue team arrived after 10 a.m., more than five hours after the mudslides occurred. He went on to describe that the flood waters washed away many villagers, submerged over one thousand acres of land, and destroyed roads connecting neighboring villages outside the city.

Another individual interviewed in a neighboring village said that officials blocked off the city from outsiders. The officials also forbade locals from using their phones outside. It is likely because of the footage that they were capturing.

There is also opposition to that footage from the media. The host of one state-run media channel claimed that all the talk of flooding was fake news. She said that all of the flooding is an illusion, caused by people carelessly spreading rumors on the internet.

Why, after building so many dams, is there more and more flooding? Thats because the internet is getting better, and this disaster information continuously is coming into your smartphone. It is giving people the false impression that the flood is becoming worse.

No CCP officials have visited the regions affected by the flood. So far, the floods have affected nearly 40 million people, and caused billions of dollars in damages. The waters, along with mudslides, have washed away houses, bridges, and even dams. In the months time since the flooding began, no senior CCP officials have visited the seriously affected areas. On july 6th, Chinas number 2 in charge, Li Keqiang, travelled to the southern province of Guizhou. The area he visited suffered much less damage than areas along the Yangtze river. Further, the Yangtze does not cross through Guizhou. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has not made an appearance in any of the flooded areas.

On July 13, the CCP declared a disaster funding effort in response to the floods. They said the government will provide 309 million yuan in disaster relief funds. That may sound like a lot, but with 40 million people, that comes out to about 10 yuan per person, or 1-point-5 dollars. The money wont be directly provided to disaster-stricken citizens. It will be supplied for restoration projects.

New humanitarian crises may be on the horizon for China. On july 14th, the WHO issued a warning on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. The WHO urged flooding victims to drink boiled or chlorinated water. It advised against using clothes or other materials that had contact with floodwaters but have not been washed with bleach. Also, they should not eat food that they found in floodwaters, nor any food items that had contact with floodwaters.

Speaking of food, the massive floods may significantly influence farm yields for this year. Prices have already started climbing on food inside China. At the same time, a video circulated on Chinese social media allegedly showing the quality of Chinas grain supplies. At a corn storage facility in northeastern Heilongjiang province was allegedly full of moldy kernels. Chinese social media platforms censored the video.

Weve seen what the locals are dealing with, and weve seen how the officials are responding. Right now, all we can do is hope for the best for the people of China. This has been the China Angle on Zooming In, Im Simone Gao, thanks for watching.
Remote work is becoming more popular, in the short term because of the global health crisis, but in the long term because of increasing acceptance of the value of remote work. Operating remotely, companies can save money, access a bigger talent pool and look more attractive in the eyes of job seekers. But that also comes with drawbacks, including a less cohesive brand culture and more challenging communication.

To anxious entrepreneurs and traditional team leaders, operating fully remotely is a scary thought. But there are plenty of examples of companies that have thrived using a purely remote model. What is it that led them to success? And can you replicate their approach for your own business?

Related: 4 Tips for Managing Communication Among Remote, Multilingual Teams

Lets take a look at some of the most prominent examples of successful businesses that have operated fully remotely (or close to it):

Automattic

One of the most commonly cited names in the world of fully remote businesses is Automattic, better known as the parent company of Wordpress  the most popular blog and website creation tool in the world. Wordpress, which is now used by 30 percent of all websites, was created with a completely virtual workspace. So what made it so successful? Part of the answer lies with its communication philosophy. Most companies that go fully remote simply turn meetings into video conferences and rely more heavily on email and instant chat, but Automattic takes things a step further. It has completely re-optimized its communication systems with many different channels, including a social media-like shared blog for public communication. Additionally, Automattic keeps employees connected and talking to each other with shared activities, like coloring, chair yoga, book clubs, virtual dog parks and even an open mic night.

InVision

InVision is a product design and prototyping app used by more than three million designers, but whats really impressive is that the company operates with a distributed team across 25 countries. Part of whats made the company successful is its robust investment in its employees. InVision offers employees a comprehensive medical insurance package, along with gym memberships that both keep employees healthy and give them a platform to socialize. Additionally, employees can enjoy a generous salary, substantial equipment allowances and a roomy budget for travel and conferences.

Buffer

Buffer is a company that creates tools that make social media much easier to manage. Its also been fully remote from the very beginning. So whats the secret to its success? If theres one factor to consider more than the others, its the businesss flexibility. Employees have the option to work wherever they want, whether its from a local cafe or from their own home. Additionally, employees can exercise autonomy over their own projects and their own hours, allowing them to work in the ways that allow them to reap their full potential.

Related: 5 Tips for Aligning Your Remote Team's Goals

Zapier

Zapier makes automation software, enabling companies to automate their workflows and combine the functionality of several apps simultaneously. Its also been operating fully remotely since its launch nearly 10 years ago. One of its best qualities is its effective use of tools. Most modern remote teams already understand the need for certain tools to enable communication and collaboration across vast distances, and the power that automation can have in reducing the burden of small, menial tasks. Your choice in tools, and how you use them, plays a major role in determining your success. Zapier figured that out early and either purchased or created the best possible combination of tools for its team to use.

Mozilla

Best known as the creator of the Firefox browser, Mozilla is a development company with an impressive talent pool and an ongoing commitment to creating great products. Its kind of cheating to put it on this list, since its workforce isnt fully remote, but more than half its workforce has been remote for much of its history. As with many of the companies on this list, there are many factors responsible for its success, but one of the most notable is its emphasis on the brands core values, among them being transparency. Mozilla coordinates and unifies its teams by setting strict company policies and encouraging all its employees to live and thrive in the same brand culture.

Learning from the best

Obviously, there are other factors for success we didnt discuss here. Many of these businesses are tech companies, making them better poised to operate remotely than, say, a fitness center. They also have strong business models that could have made them a success regardless of whether or not they had a remote workforce.

But looking beyond these additional factors, there are many lessons an aspiring entrepreneur can learn. When you give your employees more flexibility, the tools they need to communicate effectively and unify them under the same banner, you enable them to do their best work, even when theyre working outside of the conventional office. Take lessons from these remote work leaders, and consider applying them to your own business.

Related: 7 Mistakes Leaders Make When Managing a Remote Team

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Gehlots OSD questioned in suicide case of Rajasthan police officer

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, July 22: The CBI on Tuesday questioned Deva Ram Saini, OSD to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, in connection with the alleged suicide by state police officer Vishnudutt Vishnoi in Churu on May 23, officials said.

A team of special crime unit of the CBI from Delhi is in Jaipur to record statements in connection with the death of Vishnoi, who was SHO of Rajgarh. His body was found hanging from the ceiling of his official residence in Churu, officials said.

The move comes at a time when the Rajasthan government is facing political turmoil after Sachin Pilot's rebellion and his subsequent sacking as deputy chief minister.

General consent for CBI probe withdrawn by Rajasthan government

Sources, however, made it clear that the agency is conducting investigation in a professional manner in a case handed over to it by the state government itself.

The agency had on Monday evening questioned Congress MLA Krishna Poonia for nearly three hours at her home in Jaipur, they said.

The sources said people are being examined to know various aspects of the case and it does not mean that they are accused as a final picture will emerge only after completion of the probe.

The Rajasthan Government had handed over the probe to the CBI in the case.

Bishnoi's brother had filed a complaint with the Rajasthan police alleging he was under pressure which led him to take this drastic step, they said.

Two suicide notes were recovered from Vishnoi-- one addressed to his parents and the other to the Superintendent of Police of the district.

Delhi Health Minister: Sero surveillance from the 1st till 5th of every month | Oneindia News

In the suicide note to the SP, Vishnoi had said he was not able to bear the pressure put on him. In his suicide note, he had also said that he tried to give his best to the Rajasthan Police.

Act on plaint against Congress demands Rajasthan BJP

A screenshot of a purported WhatsApp chat that Vishnoi had with one of his activist friends, in which the police officer talked about being trapped in dirty politics, had also gone viral.

The leaders of the BJP and the BSP have alleged that the officer, who was known for his honesty and hardwork, was being pressured by Congress MLA Poonia, a charge that she has denied.

Poonia represents Sadulpur constituency in Rajasthan.
Randeep Surjewala

Jaipur: The Centre has created a 'raid raj' but the Congress won't be scared, the party's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said on Wednesday after the Enforcement Directorate conducted searches at the home of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's brother.

Randeep SurjewalaThe Congress leader also reacted to the killing of a journalist in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and said there was 'gunda raj' and 'jungle raj' in the state.

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"It is clear there is no law and order in Uttar Pradesh. Becoming a journalist in Uttar Pradesh has become a sin," he said.

Responding to the raids against Agrasen Gehlot in Jodhpur, Surjewala told reporters, "Prime Minister Modi has created 'raid raj' in the country but we are not going be scared."

When the Centre's gimmicks failed to topple the Congress government in Rajasthan, ED raids started at the premises of Gehlot's elder brother, the spokesperson said.

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Randeep Surjewala

"The CBI also interrogated CM's OSD and now ED raids are being conducted at CM's elder brother residence," he said.

The ED raids against the chief minister's brother are part of countrywide raids in connection with a money laundering case linked to a fertiliser scam, officials said.
Amid the ongoing border tensions, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China has continued the deployment of around 40,000 troops in its front and depth areas of the Eastern Ladakh sector indicating unwillingness to de-escalate the situation.

The Chinese are not honouring their commitment for disengagement at the friction points in Eastern Ladakh, news agency ANI reported. In complete disregard to the agreed terms during the multiple rounds of talks at the government and Army level, the PLA is refusing to move back.

"The Chinese have not shown any signs of de-escalation as they continue to maintain their heavy troop deployment of almost 40,000 troops supported by heavy weaponry like air defence systems, armoured personnel carriers and long-range artillery in front and depth areas," ANI quoted its source as saying.

There have no been progress in the disengagement process since the last round of talks between the two Corps Commanders held last week and ground positions have also not changed.
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Expresses His Deep Gratitude To God And All Abians For Their Prayers

After a period of isolation, treatment and recovery from COVID-19, the Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, PhD is back home.

The Governor, his wife, his two daughters and a few of his aides went straight to the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Umuobiakwa for a brief Thanksgiving Service presided over by the President of the East Nigeria Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church Nigeria, Pastor Dr. Bassey Udoh.

The Governor expresses his deep and profound appreciation to the Almighty God whose grace and loving kindness kept him throughout the difficult period as he battled with COVID-19.

According to the Governor, the mercy of God is the only reason he is alive today.

He thanked the team of doctors and other medical personnel who attended to him for their dedication and professionalism.

The Governor expresses his gratitude to the Deputy Governor, Rt Hon Ude Oko Chukwu for courageously holding the forte during his period of absence and commended him for his statesmanship in the running of the affairs of the State.

Governor Ikpeazu sends his appreciation to the Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Chinedum Orji and all members of the State Assembly for their display of patriotism during the period.

The Governor is also grateful to the Secretary to the Government of Abia State, Barrister Chris Ezem, Chief of Staff to the Governor, Dr ACB Agbazuere and all members of the State Executive Council, as well as Chairmen of the Transition Committees of the 17 Local Government Areas of the State.

The Governor is thankful to all religious leaders from different faiths and denominations who prayed fervently for his recovery and their unending messages of goodwill.

In addition, the Governor sends his sincere appreciation to all Traditional Rulers, Elder Statesmen, Political Leaders, Women and Youth groups from across the State and indeed all Abians across the globe who prayed for his recovery.

Governor Ikpeazu assures the people of the State that he is hale and hearty and fully prepared to resume duties and continue to discharge his divine mandate of leading the good people of Abia State.

While thanking God for His mercies, Governor Ikpeazu reminds Abians that the COVID-19 pandemic remains with us and this requires every single Abian to continue to take very seriously all the protocols enunciated by the NCDC. He reminds all Abians that the prevailing times demand the highest level of personal responsibility and asked our people not to let their guards down.

He sends his message of solidarity to all Abians who are still battling with the sickness, assuring them that they will come back better and stronger.

Our administration, the Governor continued, will continue to provide the needed support in the fight against the pandemic in the State. I am pleased that our molecular laboratory is now fully in place and I therefore appeal to all Abians to avail themselves of the services of the laboratories and get tested in the strong belief that the disease is not a death sentence.

Governor Ikpeazu thanked his Wife, Nkechi, their children and members of his family for being strong and steadfast throughout this period.

In the words of the Governor, Throughout my life, my faith and confidence in the Almighty God have remained unshaken and will remain so. It is His grace that upholds me. This latest in the series of the intervention of God in my life will spur me to rededicate my life to the service of our people.
Vietnam and China defined major tasks in the time ahead to beef up their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a sustainable way,

during the 12th meeting of the Steering Committee for Vietnam-China Bilateral Cooperation held in the form of teleconferencing on July 21.

The Vietnamese participants at the meeting

The meeting was co-chaired by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.



Representatives of many Vietnamese ministries, agencies, and Peoples Committees of Hanoi, Hai Phong city and seven northern border provinces also attended the event.

The two sides shared the view that since the committees 11th meeting in September 2018, the bilateral relationship has kept its overall positive growth momentum.

High-level contact has been maintained in a flexible manner, they said, noting phone talks and exchanges of letters and greetings between Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attended a number of economic forums in China, and talked on the phone with Chinese PM Li Keqiang on cooperation in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan also made an official visit China, they added.

Cooperation between ministries and agencies, and exchanges between localities have also been expanded.

Two-way trade rose 4.5 percent in the first half of this year despite the impact of the pandemic.

Chinese investment in Vietnam surged in 2019, and China now ranks seventh among 132 countries and territories investing in Vietnam.

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, China had been the biggest source of tourists to Vietnam for many consecutive years, while Vietnam was among the top countries in ASEAN with large numbers of holidaymakers visiting China.

The two countries have organised many activities to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.

They, however, pointed to outstanding issues in the bilateral ties, such as Vietnams trade deficit with China, the sluggish progress of certain projects whose investors and contractors are Chinese, and the slow implementation of preferential loans and non-refundable aid from China.

Given this, the two sides agreed to promote high-level visits when situation allows, maintain contact through appropriate forms amidst the pandemics complicated development, and step up cooperation between the two parties.

The two foreign ministries should play a more active role in coordinating and enhancing the bilateral ties, while collaboration mechanisms in national defence and security, and law enforcement should be implemented more effectively, they suggested.

The two sides shared experience and discussed cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 as well as the resumption of commercial flights, thus facilitating travelling and trading activities.

They agreed to work to boost cooperation in terms of trade, investment, and sustainable development.

Deputy PM and FM Minh asked the Chinese side to facilitate bilateral trade activities, including border trade; import more Vietnamese products, especially farm produce; and encourage Chinese enterprises to expand their investment in hi-tech and environmentally friendly sectors in Vietnam.

He also urged China to direct the thoroughly solution of existing problems in a number of cooperative projects.

Wang affirmed that he will push the governing bodies of China to actively consider Vietnam's proposals.

The two sides also agreed on stronger cooperation in science-technology, environmental protection, transportation, agriculture, health care, culture, education, tourism and people-to-people exchange, and to support each other at multilateral forums.

Regarding land border, the two sides said that the management of border lines, boundary markers and border gates has been implemented well, while cross-border economic activities have been promoted despite the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They agreed to strengthen coordination in border management and protection, strictly abide by provisions of the three legal documents on land borders and related agreements.

For sea-related issues, the two sides acknowledged the results of the 10 negotiations on maritime delimitation and joint development cooperation at sea conducted following the 11th meeting of the Steering Committee for VietnamChina Bilateral Cooperation; and the fruits of cooperation in less sensitive fields at sea.

They engaged in candid discussion about the recent situation at sea and their differences regarding sea-related issue.

Minh voiced his concern about the complicated developments in the East Sea recently, and proposed that the two sides control well disputes at sea, refrain from actions that complicate the situation and extend disputes, and maintain peace and stability in the waters. He asked the Chinese side to respect Vietnam's relevant legitimate rights and interests.

The two sides pledged to abide by high-level common perception and the Vietnam-China agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues, comply with international laws, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982), promote result-oriented negotiation mechanisms on maritime issues; fully and effectively implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and step up negotiations over a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) for substantial results.

They also agreed to exchange a list of issues that need the two sides coordination to address in the coming time after the meeting./. VNA
The case that was decided Wednesday was brought in 2017 by the Canadian Council of Refugees, the Canadian Council of Churches, Amnesty International and several individuals. They argued that the United States should not be considered a safe country for asylum seekers, because those who have been turned back have been detained and subjected to the risk of removal to their home countries and the persecution they were trying to flee.
Irvine, CA - July 21, 2020 - Patients with Alzheimer's disease frequently suffer from spatial memory loss, such as no recognition of where they are, and forgetting where they put their belongings. They often show a wandering symptom, which is also a feature of spatial memory impairment. Until now, the brain network mechanism that causes spatial memory impairment had been unclear.

Published today in Neuron, the study titled, "Disrupted place cell remapping and impaired grid cells in a knockin model of Alzheimer's disease," reveals how the normal brain network function of hippocampus cells which works to discriminate a distinct spatial environment in a process called "remapping," was disrupted in Alzheimer's disease. The study, done Alzheimer's disease model mice, found that this disruption of hippocampus is most likely caused by the activity impairment of the entorhinal cortex, a brain region that supplies information to the hippocampus.

"We recorded the brain cell activity in the hippocampus, which is the memory center of the brain, responsible for spatial memory, among other things," said Kei Igarashi, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. "Our findings could lead to the development of a method to reactivate brain activity of the entorhinal cortex, which may help establish new treatments for preventing the progression of spatial memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease patients."

Igarashi has been studying brain network mechanisms for Alzheimer's disease since he started his lab in 2016. "Our memory comes from activities of the brain network. To find out the cure for memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease, we need to understand how the network function is impaired," he said.

Igarashi is 2019 New Vision Research and BrightFocus Foundation award recipient. The first author on this study, Heechul Jun, is a MD/PhD student in the UCI Medical Scientist Training Program.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, there are an estimated 5.8 million Americans living with Alzheimer's disease. By 2050, that number is expected to increase to 13.8 million people. Spatial memory impairment, such as wandering behavior, is one of the most troublesome symptoms in Alzheimer's disease, and it occurs in more than 60 percent of Alzheimer's patients. Despite recent molecular and cellular findings in Alzheimer's research, it is still largely unclear how deterioration of brain circuit function causes spatial memory loss.

###

This study was supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health, BrightFocus Foundation, Alzheimer's Association, Brain Research Foundation, Donors Cure Foundation, Japan Science and Technology Agency and Whitehall Foundation.

About the UCI School of Medicine

Each year, the UCI School of Medicine educates more than 400 medical students, and nearly 150 doctoral and master's students. More than 700 residents and fellows are trained at UCI Medical Center and affiliated institutions. The School of Medicine offers an MD; a dual MD/PhD medical scientist training program; and PhDs and master's degrees in anatomy and neurobiology, biomedical sciences, genetic counseling, epidemiology, environmental health sciences, pathology, pharmacology, physiology and biophysics, and translational sciences. Medical students also may pursue an MD/MBA, an MD/master's in public health, or an MD/master's degree through one of three mission-based programs: the Health Education to Advance Leaders in Integrative Medicine (HEAL-IM), the Leadership Education to Advance Diversity-African, Black and Caribbean (LEAD-ABC), and the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC). The UCI School of Medicine is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Accreditation and ranks among the top 50 nationwide for research. For more information, visit som.uci.edu.
It was 35 years before the brothers met again, in 1982. My father was a visiting scholar for a year at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, where he conducted research on pulmonary edema, and he received a few months of clinical training in the intensive care unit at what is now called the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.

In the early 1980s, the gap between China and the United States was gigantic. And my father has always been grateful for the education he received at U.C.S.F. and the kindness and generosity of the Americans he met.

He brought his American training back to Nanchang to establish the first I.C.U. in Jiangxi Province and one of the first I.C.U.s in China. He also established one of the first  if not the very first  institute of molecular medicine in China.

In 1985, I followed in his footsteps and in those of my uncles  Uncle Tim (Xinghua) had immigrated to California as well: I went to San Francisco to study for my Ph.D., also at U.C.S.F. My younger brother moved to the United States a few years later.

In the 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet model, America seemed to be the only other exemplar left. Having studied in the United States and with plans to work and live there for the long haul, I applied for American citizenship and obtained it in 2000. My children were born in the United States.

But then 9/11 happened, and this axis of evil emerged: Dick Cheney (vice president); Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense); David Addington (counsel to the vice president); John Yoo (Justice Department lawyer and author of the Torture Memos). These men were ready to do anything to advance their agenda, imposing their own law  meaning, really, no proper laws and no rule of law  in Iraq, at Guantanamo and elsewhere. And too many Americans went along. That period proved to me that America was not the democratic beacon many of us had thought it to be.

I first started looking into how to renounce my U.S. citizenship while I lived in Chicago and then again after moving back to China in 2007. I completed the process in 2011  a decision that has been validated since by the advent of President Trump and Trumpism, which are a natural expansion of what was put in motion after 9/11.
Manitoba public health officials reported 12 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, including two in the Prairie Mountain Health region.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 21/7/2020 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Manitoba public health officials reported 12 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, including two in the Prairie Mountain Health region.

The new cases were reported the same day Premier Brian Pallister unveiled the province's draft Phase 4 reopening plan, including lifting the 14-day self-isolation rule for all domestic travellers and allowing movie theatres and casinos to open with restrictions.

The high case counts are reflective of an outbreak of cases in several Hutterite colonies and some international travel-related cases, health officials said, adding investigations are ongoing.

One of the individuals announced as a positive COVID-19 case was a passenger on flights from Melbourne, Australia to Winnipeg, including:

 July 5  Melbourne to Doha, Qatar Airways, QR905, rows 39 to 45;

 July 6  Doha to Montreal, Qatar Airways, QR763, rows 26 to 32; and

 July 6  Montreal to Winnipeg, Air Canada AC8595, rows unknown.

Individuals on these flights are advised to self-isolate for 14 days following the flight and monitor for symptoms. Passengers on these flights, but not in the affected seats, should self-monitor for symptoms and self-isolate if they develop.

Information about flights and affected rows will be updated as information becomes available at www.manitoba.ca/covid19/flights.html.

The new cases Tuesday bring the total number of lab-confirmed positive and probable positive cases in Manitoba to 366.

Meanwhile, one person is in intensive care being treated for COVID-19.

There are 41 active cases and 318 individuals have recovered from the virus.

An additional 1,201 laboratory tests were performed on Monday, bringing the total number of tests performed since early February to 77,551.

See Wednesday's Sun for more information on the Phase 4 reopening plan.

 The Brandon Sun
When Gabby McNary, 25, saw the coronavirus begin to take hold in the Philadelphia region, she immediately knew that she had to take it seriously. McNary, who lives just outside the city, tested positive for Huntingtons disease, a rare, inherited disorder that causes progressive nerve cell breakdown in the brain, in 2015.

Although McNary does not yet show symptoms of Huntingtons, she knows that if she were to get sick from COVID-19, the effect could be extremely serious.

Im trying not to dwell on it because life is short, McNary said. But it is the most isolating thing when we cant go to a friends house, or see our family.

For young adults with chronic illnesses and rare diseases, it can be frustrating to see their peers ignore public health recommendations and gather with friends at parties, bars, and beaches. Crowds of young people have caused many of the new cases across the country  in the Philadelphia region, people ages 19 to 24 now account for 17% of new cases, up from 5% in April, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

I cant even wrap my head around the younger crowd thats partying and not listening to guidelines, McNary said. Its incredibly disheartening to hear people say that this could be a media ploy.

Young adults who are immuno-compromised have to consider not just what theyre doing, but the actions of everyone around them in their immediate community, said Sheila Quinn, an internal-medicine specialist at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. That often means isolating themselves even more than others.

We all run the risk of getting COVID in our day-to-day life, and its not like [young people with chronic illness] have a higher risk of getting it, Quinn said. Its more if they get it, theyll get it in a much more severe way. The stakes are much higher. They might need much more substantial leave from work or school because the disease will take a much greater toll on their body.

The effect of chronic conditions on mental health

Morgan Rakay, a dance therapist based in Philadelphia who specializes in working with people with chronic illnesses, said the pandemic has caused some of her younger clients to feel as if their regular outlets for coping arent available right now.

This community often feels like an afterthought, she said. The expectation of that age group is to be really social and to be experimenting with who they want to be in the world. Chronic illnesses already change that for them a little bit, because they have to reimagine how they can do it, and with the pandemic, its definitely heartbreaking if someone felt like they were starting to identify the things that help them, like social engagement or going outside, and have it taken away.

Research has shown that living with a chronic illness or a rare disease can affect the mental health of children and adolescents because of the disruptions it can have on daily life. A recent study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London found that children with long-term health conditions showed higher rates of mental illness between ages 10 and 15 than children reported to be healthy.

The National Institute of Mental Health has also warned that people with other chronic medical conditions have a higher risk of depression, and a survey was launched by the NIHs Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network in May to examine the effects COVID-19 has had on individuals with rare diseases, as well as their families and caregivers.

 ASK US: Do you have a question about the coronavirus and how it affects your health, work, and life? Ask our reporters.

Quinn said that adolescents and young adults with chronic or rare diseases often struggle with the differences between themselves and their peers, which can lead to symptoms of anxiety or depression.

When you add an extra layer of the severity of quarantine for someone who needs to take it more seriously, it exacerbates that, she said. If you have any kind of chronic condition  youre probably still in a personal red zone, even if your city isnt anymore, and that can be really frustrating and doubly isolating.

Rakay encourages her clients to join support groups and online clubs that will help them feel more connected to people having similar experiences. She also said that now is a good time for people with chronic illnesses or pain to explore their bodies abilities at home.

Theres no one expecting you to go out, so Im telling people to try things like getting through a full yoga routine, Rakay said. Spending some time with your physical self with no expectations can be really helpful for people.

Its intimidating to be a high-risk student right now

Beyond mental-health concerns, people with chronic illnesses have also struggled to access medical care as hospitals continue to delay procedures that are not considered urgent. When the pandemic started in March, 22-year-old Sneha Dave, who currently lives in Indianapolis, had to delay treatment for ulcerative colitis because it wasnt categorized as an emergency. Dave said that, since then, shes been too stressed to start treatment because it could further compromise her immune system.

Thats been the biggest stressor, she said. That I have an underlying illness that I cant discount due to the pandemic.

Dave said that many of her college-age peers with chronic illnesses are struggling to figure out what the fall will look like for them. She talks to them weekly through meetings for Health Advocacy Summit, a nonprofit she created during her freshman year of college to empower young adults with chronic illnesses and rare diseases. These conversations have been a source of support throughout the pandemic, Dave said.

Its really intimidating to be a high-risk student right now, she said. Many students dont know how to deal with reopening because high-risk adolescents and young adults have been left out of the conversation. And recent graduates have to be proactive with finding a job because you have to have insurance if you have a chronic illness.

McNary has also channeled her anxiety into helping her community feel more connected. She currently leads the local chapter of the Huntingtons Disease Youth Organization, which provides support to young people affected by the disease. Since the pandemic, the group has had virtual hangouts and game nights.

Its been difficult not being able to see each other in person, McNary said. Huntingtons disease is a very isolating disease, and when you finally find your people who you feel close with and connected to, and cant see them because of COVID-19, its hard. Weve had to very quickly figure out ways to remain connected.

She said shes hoping to see her family in Seattle soon after having to cancel a trip due to the rising number of cases in Washington state.

For me, the most important thing in life is love and spending time with the ones I love, McNary said. But Ive lost enough family members to Huntingtons. And Im not going to risk bringing a sickness that could be fatal to them. For people who are not listening to the guidelines, I just hope they find something thats worth staying at home for, as well.
On Monday, Chief Justice of India SA Bobde had come down heavily on unrestrained criticism of serving and retired judges of the constitutional courts, saying: Enough is enough.

Two days later, the Supreme Court is set to examine a criminal contempt petition against renowned activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan over his two tweets, in particular, that purportedly targeted the present and the former CJIs.

A three-judge bench, led by Justice Arun Mishra, will take up the suo motu criminal contempt plea against Bhushan and Twitter India for the contentious social media posts. The bench, also has Justice BR Gavai  in line to become a CJI in future, and Justice Krishna Murari.

The decision to list the matter for hearing was taken on Tuesday, following which the matter was allotted to the bench, headed by Justice Mishra.

Before the top court decides to issue a formal show-cause notice of criminal contempt, the bench is expected to seek presence and assistance of Attorney General KK Venugopal during the proceedings, which will be conducted through video-conferencing.

On Monday, while hearing a bunch of petitions on Vikas Dubeys encounter killing case, CJI Bobde had criticised the tendency and attitude of lawyers casting aspersion or suggesting malafide against serving and retired judges without any substantiation.

Enough is enough. We will not tolerate this anymore. What is this tendency of saying objectionable things about judges without any basis? This must stop now, the CJI had told advocate Vishal Tiwari, one of the petitioners in the case. This attitude of mud-slinging at all must stop some time, he had added.

On July 10, Justice Bobde had observed that social media can be used by a person like a gun in his hand. The bench headed by him was at that time hearing a Congress leaders plea requesting the court to do away with the condition of bail that asked him to stay away from social media at least for 18 months.

Earlier also, while hearing a PIL relating to removal of porn videos from the social media platforms, the CJI had remarked that various things were being posted about the Supreme Court and its judges.

Days before taking over as the chief in November last year, Justice Bobde, in his interviews, had said that it bothers him when he sees judges feeling harassed due to their unrestrained criticism on social media, and finds the attack difficult to ignore.

They are not only scandalising but tearing apart people's reputation and judges' reputation, he had said while adding that criticism of judges, instead of judgements, amounts to defamation as well.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the court will take up another contempt petition against Bhushan, pending since 2009. This related to Bhushan reportedly criticising two former CJIs in his interview to a magazine. While the top court had ruled in 2010 that the contempt proceedings were maintainable, it did not hear the case after May 2012. It will also be heard by a bench led by Justice Arun Mishra.
Sushmita Sen is reported to have refused to lip-sync the lyrics of her hit track Mehboob Mere from Fiza (2000). The reason? Suggestive lyrics, as stated in a report.

Song choreographer Ganesh Acharya recalled shooting for Mehboob Mere with the actress and said that Sushmita refused to sing the lyric- aa garmi le mere seene se (come feel the heat of my bosom)- due to the suggestive nature. Ganesh added that Anu Malik, who was the music composer for the movie, got it changed to aa narmi le mere aankhon se (bask in the softness of my eyes). As per Ganesh, Sushmita commanded that sort of respect in the film industry that the changes were incorporated at her behest.

Sushmita is currently self-quarantined at home with her family due to coronavirus outbreak. She has been frequently sharing pictures and videos of herself, boyfriend Rohman Shawl and daughter son social media to keep her fans entertained.

On the work front, Sushmita was recently seen in web series Aarya. The show premiered in June and was well-received for its taut narrative and effective performances. The show marked Sushmita Sen's return to the screen, a decade after her last Hindi film No Problem.

The Disney+Hotstar series, an official remake of popular Dutch crime-drama Penoza, revolves around Aarya Sareen, played by Sen, a happily married woman whose world turns upside down when her husband is shot. Season 2 of Aarya has been announced by director Ram Madhwani.
The rescue teams carrying the search operation since Sunday night have retrieved three more bodies from the muck on Wednesday from a village taking the death toll in cloudburst incident in Munsiyari area of Pithoragarh to 10, officials said on Wednesday. Of the three bodies that have been recovered, two were of children while one was of an elderly man. All were trapped in muck which entered their house in Tanga village of Munsiyari area of Pithoragarh, officials informed.

Praveen Alok, media in-charge, state disaster response force (SDRF) which is involved in the rescue operation along with other agencies, said, The three bodies were recovered in the afternoon from the muck inside a collapsed house.

They were identified as Madho Singh, 65; Ratika, 8; and Divanshu, 12. After the recovery of the three bodies, four are yet to be found of the total 11 who went missing from the village on Sunday night after the cloudburst, said Alok.

Meanwhile, a team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has joined the ongoing search and rescue operation to find the seven people missing in heavy muck which entered their house in Sunday nights cloudburst incident in Munsiyari area of Pithoragarh district, said officials on Wednesday.

Also read: Uttarakhand releases guidelines for private hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients

A team comprising 29 men reached the spot on Tuesday evening to join the search and rescue operation carried by the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), along with local police and authorities.

Girija Shankar Joshi, district information officer, Pithoragarh said, The NDRF men reached the spot at around 5 pm on Tuesday. With them, the total number of men involved in the search and rescue operation has reached about 88 which includes 19 from Indo-Tibetan Border Police, 10 from SDRF and as many from local police.

The NDRF team joined the rescue teams on Tuesday when four bodies were recovered from Tanga village where 11 were missing since Sunday night. Before that, on Monday morning three bodies were recovered from the nearby Gaila village which too was affected by the cloudburst incident.

Chances of the remaining four people to be alive are very little as they are trapped in heavy muck which entered their house, said Joshi.

District magistrate Vijay Kumar Jogdande and other district administration officials are on the spot since Monday to monitor the search and rescue operation.
In these challenging times which we are faced with i.e. with a global pandemic, the growing effects of climate change and also increasing economic and political uncertainty I hope that Sri Lanka continues its efforts to attain reconciliation, unity and stability.





by Ambassador Jorn Rohde





With heavy hearts, it is time for my wife Sonia and I to bid farewell to Sri Lanka. It was four mostly wonderful and memorable years filled with utmost vibrancy and hospitality and we have thoroughly enjoyed it both personally and professionally. The terrible terror attacks on Easter Sunday 2019, of course, cast a deep shadow.













It was a privilege to serve in this beautiful island and witness the remarkable milestones achieved in our friendly relations during the past four years. In these challenging times which we are faced with i.e. with a global pandemic, the growing effects of climate change and also increasing economic and political uncertainty I hope that Sri Lanka continues its efforts to attain reconciliation, unity and stability.





(Jorn Rohde is German Ambassador to Sri Lanka)




The head of the State Security Services (SSS, also called DSS) at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, Safiyanu Abba, has been accused of slapping a security officer at the airport.

On Wednesday, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria said Mr Abba breached the security protocol and assaulted the officer for calling him to order on Friday.

FAAN said the SSS boss had prevented security officers at the airport from performing a mandatory check on a passenger.

We note with dismay that Mr Safiyanu Abba, the Head of DSS at NAIA deliberately obstructed airport Security process, and slapped an Aviation Security Officer who was performing his duty by calling on Mr Safiyanu Abba to desist from doing so.

This happened on the 17th July at about 15:25 hours. He breached security procedure by obstructing further searching of a visitor who had just walked through the metal detector and activated the alarm, the statement shared via its Twitter account read.

BREACH OF SECURITY PROCEDURE AND ASSAULT ON AVSEC OFFICER BY HEAD OF DSS AT THE INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL OF NAIA ABUJA We note with dismay that Mr Safiyanu Abba, the Head of DSS at NAIA deliberately obstructed airport Security process, and slapped an Aviation Security Officer..  Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (@FAAN_Official) July 22, 2020

FAAN condemned the action, describing it as an abuse of power and the security process in our airport.

The spokesperson of the SSS, Peter Afunaya, however, denied the allegation.

Responding to PREMIUM TIMESs enquiries on Wednesday, he said FAAN and the SSS have a robust relationship.

This is not true. DSS staff are well mannered and couldnt have slapped or fought a personnel of an agency he is working with. The Service and the DSS place premium on robust interagency relations needed to achieve positive outcomes in the workplace.
New Delhi:

In yet another blow to ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry in the ongoing Tata Sons-Mistry fued, independent directors of Tata Motors on Tuesday said that they did not offer unanimous support to his leadership and instead backed all decisions taken by the company, including on small car Nano, which have been criticised by the ousted chairman of Tata Sons.

Unlike the backing he got from independent directors of Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) and Tata Chemicals, the words of unanimous backing to Mistry's leadership during the crucial board meeting of Tata Motors were absent from the statement that the automaker issued after the meeting that lasted over five hours.

The board meeting of Tata Motors assumed significance against the backdrop of escalating feud between Tatas and Mistry as well as Tata Sons' decision to seek ouster of Mistry from key group companies.

Mistry continues to be chairman of several listed companies of Tata Group even after he was removed as chairman of the holding company, Tata Sons. These companies include Tata Motors, Tata Chemicals and IHCL.

In a statement, the country's top automaker said: "The independent directors of Tata Motors met today to consider and review the impact and significance of recent events and media reports relating to the governance, management and business of the company."

The independent directors have confirmed that all decisions taken by the board with regard to the strategy, operations and business of the company have been unanimous and executed by the chairman and the management accordingly, it added.

"The independent directors have further affirmed that the company continues to be governed, supervised and managed under the guidance and direction of the board.

"The management of the company and its subsidiaries have the full confidence and support the independent directors," the statement said.

The statement issued by Tata Motors was in contrast tothe ones issued by IHCL and Tata Chemicals which stated thatindependent directors had supported Mistry unanimously.

Sources said one of the independent directors came witha resolution backing Mistry but after the deliberations theresolution was not carried.

Other independent directors did not approve it suggestingbig differences in the board over the support to Mistry.

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History will be made Thursday in a near-empty State Capitol building, when the House of Representatives meets for the first time since March 11 to vote on coronavirus and Black Lives Matter-related bills in the first half of a two-day special legislative session.

The public and lobbyists will be prohibited from entering both the Capitol and nearby Legislative Office Building (LOB), where most lawmakers will be sequestered in their offices. Outside on the Capitol grounds, groups of police, school teachers and people opposed to expanded access to mail-in ballots will be protesting at various periods throughout the day.

Police are expected to demonstrate against a measure in a draft transparency bill that would end individual immunity from civil lawsuits resulting from police brutality. But in recent days, right up until Wednesday night, lawmakers were discussing the likely removal of the controversial section of the legislation.

Teachers are concerned about what they believe are currently vague return-to-school guidelines from Gov. Ned Lamont.

And Republicans, citing apparent limits in the state Constitution, will echo President Donald Trumps criticisms of potential fraud against efforts to provide absentee ballots for the November election to people who might be afraid to go to the polls if the coronavirus continues a rampage that has been implicated in the deaths of 4,406 people since March 17.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill recently mailed absentee ballot applications to all registered Republicans and Democrats for the Aug. 11 party primaries. While a group of four GOP hopefuls for nominations to challenge Democratic members of the U.S. House lost a hearing in the state Supreme Court on Monday, a ruling in state Superior Court on Tuesday set up another hearing with the Supreme Court on related issues, and their attorneys on Wednesday asked for an expedited hearing.

Inside the Capitol, the 151 House members will be discouraged from entering the ornate second-floor chamber except to speak on bills. The chamber will be occupied only by caucus and committee leaders, key staff members and print and broadcast reporters.

Rank-and-file lawmakers will be watching the proceedings on TV and voting remotely from warrens throughout the LOB and Capitol. Their computer keyboards will allow voting, and can signal Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz their requests to join the debate in the session, which is scheduled to start at 11 a.m.

Jessica Hill / Associated Press

Lawmakers will have to be physically present in the historic House chamber to speak on bills.

In addition to the police transparency bill, which would prohibit choke holds, mandate body and dashboard cameras and create new procedures to fire rogue police officers, there are two insurance related bills that would cap the price of insulin and provide for telehealth coverage, which has emerged as an important issue for lawmakers during a coronavirus public health crisis that has prevented many patients from going to doctors offices.

The unique legislative day, which will include an outdoor barbecue for lunch and boxed dinners that they will pick up from the cafeteria in the LOB and consume in their offices, will likely feature the telehealth and insulin bills early. The bills on mail-in balloting and police reforms are expected to take longer to debate.

Connecticut and the nation demand meaningful police accountability reform, and CCM supports reform said Joe DeLong, executive director and of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. If legislation eliminates local government immunity, however, the actions of rogue police officers may only further punish property taxpayers across Connecticut; force local tax hikes in poor, urban communities and bring about cuts in services where they are needed most.

But Kelly Moore, policy counsel for the ACLU of Connecticut, said the provision should remain in the legislation.

Qualified immunity only serves to further harm people whose rights have been violated by police, Moore said. It is an unnecessary doctrine that allows even police who've violated people's constitutional rights to avoid accountability. Ending qualified immunity in Connecticut is a critical piece of police accountability, and getting rid of qualified immunity is a necessary part of giving survivors of police violence and families of people killed by police the chance for redress in court.

The Senate is currently scheduled to meet next Tuesday to review, debate and vote on measures that pass the House. In the coronavirus pandemic the regular session of the General Assembly was abandoned on March 12 with only a handful of bills that had passed.

The insulin legislation in particular was a priority of Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, at the start of the regular legislative session and had already been approved in committee.

The General Assembly never got back together in time for its May 6 adjournment deadline. Last week the governor called the legislature back into special session and on Tuesday, the Senate adopted joint rules.

House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford said that navigating the indoor social distancing might be harder than discussing the actual quartet of bills.

Tomorrows going to weird in the chamber, Ritter said in a Wednesday afternoon interview. We are going to have a lot of rules issues. Unless you are in leadership or a top deputy, take a bill out as a committee chairman, or speak, we want you staying in the LOB.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
By Nazish Hussain, TwoCircles.net

Jharkhand: Nearly four years after the custodial death of 22-year-old Muslim youth Minhaj Ansari in Jamtara district of Jharkhand, the proceedings of the case are yet to begin.

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In October 2016, 22-year-old Minhaj Ansari from village Dighari in Jamtara district died in police custody in Narayanpur Thana, Jamtara.

Minhaj was one of the admins of a WhatsApp group where a picture of beef was allegedly shared by someone. A Bajrang Dal member Sonu Singh made a complaint before the police accusing Minhaj of hurting his religious sentiments. Acting on the complaint filed by Singh, Sub Inspector Harish Pathak of Narayanpur Police Station, Jamtara picked up Minhaj Ansari from his shop on October 3 and took him to a police station, where he was allegedly beaten resulting in his death.

The police officer who allegedly killed Minhaj recently got posted in the Chief Minister Hemant Sorens constituency where he continues to harass minorities, TwoCircles.net has learnt.

It has been four years and I am not able to understand whats going on. Till date, no justice has been served to me nor has the murderer been punished, Ajhela Bibi, mother of Minhaj Ansar told TwoCircles.net.

Being the eldest among six siblings, Minhaj was married and would take care of his familys needs. He ran a cellphone shop in the village which was the source of the familys income. Everything changed for the family after the police picked up Minhaj.

There is this green colour thing, they call it WhatsApp. I dont know what trouble it brought to my son. They sent my son to jail over it, Ajhela Bibi said.

Ajhela Bibi said that it was Harish Pathak who picked up Minhaj from his cellphone shop.

Ajhela Bibi, who was home at the time of his sons arrest, had no knowledge of what was going on with her son.

My younger son came running to me saying they took Bhai (Minhaj) away, she said, adding, When I asked who did, he told me it was Police.

The police had come in civvies and took away Minhaj. They had whisked him away in the jeep and started beating him, Ajhela Bibi narrates.

Shocked by the news, I started crying, she said.

Ajhela Bibi said that following his sons arrest, two police jeeps had arrived at her home. That time I was away. I went to the villagers, telling them that police have taken my son, hoping they would inform me of something, she says.

When Harish Pathak came to my home he started verbally abusing my daughter and daughter in law (Minhajs wife). He started banging the door with bricks, asking them to hand over the laptop and SIM card to him. He started threatening them of death. Then my daughter and daughter in law opened boxes and trunks for him to search. After that, Harish Pathak left, she said.

On the next day at 6 am Ajhela Bibi went to the police station to see her son. My son was in very poor condition. He was unconscious. He was not able to say anything. Seeing him like that I started crying. They tied my sons hand and legs to the chair and beat him, she said and added that when she tried to intervene, Harish Pathak verbally abused me and told me to go away from here or I will beat you too.

Ajhela Bibi adds, Sonu Singh was also there in the police station. Sonu Singh and Harish Pathak both were beating my son.

Senior Advocate Abdullah Allam told TwoCircles.net that the following day police took Minhaj to a local hospital where the hospital authorities refused to admit him saying he was severely injured. Then they took him to Sadar Hospital (Jamtara). From there they took him to Dhanbad Patliputra Medical College for his treatment, he said.

Advocate Allam says that they believe Minhaj was already dead due to police beating. Sonu Singh went after a few hours but who knows how much the police beat him during the whole night. They had already beaten him so much that he lost consciousness. They might have beaten him more after. When someone went to see Minhaj they saw foam coming out of his mouth. He might have been dead already, he adds.

According to the lawyer the police did not inform his family and took Minhaj to Dhanbad. When Minhajs family reached Dhanbad there the doctor said that Minhajs condition is very serious and there is no scope of his recovery. However, we believe Minhaj was already dead. But at the hospital they mentioned serious condition, he said.

He continues, There Minhajs family in anger said something to Harish Pathak, to which Harish Pathak pleaded guilty. He held his mothers hand saying he is responsible and if they want to beat him they can beat him. When Minhajs mother shook his hand he received a scratch on his hand from her bangles. Harish Pathak then filed another FIR stating that Minhajs mother and brothers beat him and attacked him with a blade. He filed this FIR on 6 October in Dhanbad.

Minhajs lawyer said that Police took Minhaj on 3 October and filed FIR on 4 October under the Jharkhand Bovine Animal Prohibition of Slaughter Act, 2005. They didnt give any information at the court regarding Minhajs arrest. They sent the FIR to court but didnt produce the candidate at the court. And the FIR that Ajhela Bibi filed which she submitted in Thana on 4 October, the police registered it on 6 October, he said.

On 6 October, Police brought Minhaj to Ranchi. It was at Rajendra Institute of Medical Science where they declared him dead.

However, Senior Advocate Allam says, Minhaj was dead already.

Talking about Harish Pathak, advocate Allam said, After his death, the officer did not send FIR within 24 hours to the Jamtara court. FIR was sent days later.

After the news spread of Minhajs custodial death, political leaders reached his home and promised justice. However, Minhajs mother said that there has been no justice yet.

Sibu Soren came to my home. He gave much assurance, saying he will help me get justice but nothing has happened yet, she said.

Ajhela Bibi also went to Delhi to meet Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. I went to Delhi once in 2016 with Irfan Ansari MLA, Jamtara. He took me to Delhi to meet Rahul Gandhi. He assured me of help. After that, demonetization started and then nothing happened.

In 2017, Advocate Allam filed two writs at the high court  one for compensation and job and the other criminal writ for CBI investigation and punishment against Harish Pathak.

The family has received rupees four lakh in compensation but no punishment or proceedings against the accused have been initiated.

After a letter by Human Rights Commission and Minority Commission, the case was handed to special Police, who filed a chargesheet in the case under section 304 IPC (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

Advocate Allam says that the government has been very lenient with the case. The case should have been filed under IPC 302 and not 304, he says.

The then Home Secretary Government of Jharkhands response came stating that the charge sheet has been filed, the prosecution has been sanctioned and the trial will go on.

Despite this, the proceeding couldnt go further as the public prosecutor is hand in glove with the police in Jamtara, claims Allam.

Allam said that their demand was the case be immediately regulated and handed over to CBI. These people are sitting on the case for the past 3 to 4 years, he adds.

Our appeal for a CBI inquiry is ongoing. But meanwhile, Harish Pathak managed to get a stay on the case, Minhajs lawyer informs.

Another complaint filed by Ajhela Bibi through her lawyer against Harish Pathak stating custodial murder has also been halted. Instead of running departmental inquiry on murder, the enquiry was done on being absent and delaying FIR. Thereafter, deducting one increment they revoked his suspension.

From all this, it is clear that government officials are with the accused. The prosecution did not do anything. And now, he has been given a new posting which he is enjoying, Allam said.

Harish Pathak is posted in Barhet Thana. He has been accused of targeting and abusing minorities and Adivasis and cases have been filed against him.

A complaint filed against Harish Pathak in April 2020 at Barhet Thana accuses him of harassing Adivasi and minority communities. Harish Pathak is also accused of using religious and casteist slurs and beating people including women. He is also accused of threatening poor people of implicating them in false cases and extorting money from them.

For Aljeha Bibi, recounting his sons death brings tears to her eyes. They broke the bones on his neck. I have spent the last four years in mourning. It has been very painful for me, she said.

Minhaj is survived by a wife and a daughter. They live with Ajhela Bibi who looks after them. My eldest son was there but they murdered him. Whenever I think of him I feel numb. I dont know who to approach and who to talk to. I dont even have anyone to share my grief with. Grieving over my son I have become a Diabetes patient now, she said.

Ajhela Bibi demands justice for her son and punishment to the accused. The one who killed my son the government gave him a job. I demand justice and I want the culprit to be punished. I want him to be hanged, she said.
Accountants and tax experts are warning tighter eligibility tests for JobKeeper mean businesses could lose the wage subsidy permanently if they start to recover even if lockdowns are reintroduced.

Under the $16.6 billion extension of the scheme until March 31, businesses will have to show an ongoing reduction in turnover to continue to receive fortnightly payments for staff.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have extended JobKeeper to March 31 but tightened eligibility criteria. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

JobKeeper 2.0 cuts the $1500-a-fortnight payments to $1200 for full-time employees and $750 for part-time workers for the last quarter of the calendar year, then to $1000 and $650 respectively from January to March 2021. Businesses' eligibility will be re-tested at the end of September.

While firms will still have to prove a 30 to 50 per cent fall in turnover, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand tax leader for Australia Michael Croker said these declines now had to be sustained over multiple quarters to remain eligible for JobKeeper.
EDWARDSVILLE  Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Tuesday during a visit to adjacent St. Clair County that he is seriously considering rolling back the state to Phase 3 as coronavirus cases continue to rise in southwest Illinois.

During a St. Louis area interview Tuesday, Pritzker said a Madison and St. Clair counties are making the entire states case data rise.

Edwardsville City Administrator Kevin Head wrote some remarks, which Mayor Hal Patton read during the city council meeting.

We received a warning from the governors office today that if we do not do a better job at containing COVID-19 cases in Madison and St. Clair counties, we will have to revert to Phase 3, which means the closure of quite a few of our businesses, effectively decreasing the size of groups who can meet and anything from restaurants to workout facilities, Patton said.

Thats a major concern to myself and to our city administrator, Patton said. Tonight, I am encouraging all residents of Edwardsville to wear masks, practice social distancing and wash their hands regularly. Madison County has had a recent spike in positive COVID-19 cases. Todays positivity rate in Madison County is 7.5 [percent]. The governor has announced his intent to impose more restrictive measures if Madison County reaches an eight percent positivity rate for three consecutive days.

Patton said the city is concerned about the health and safety of all of its residents and the economic success of its businesses.

Practicing these simple measures now will help keep our businesses open, our economy moving and most importantly, our friends and family healthy, Patton said. Please continue to shop and dine in Edwardsville but wear a mask to protect those around you and prevent the spread of the virus to those most at-risk.

According to the Madison County Health Department, there were 23 new cases of the coronavirus Tuesday, for a total of 1,544 cases since the pandemic started and 717 people have been released. Almost 29,000 people have been tested and 71 people have died.

Contrary to the figure Patton read, the county health department listed Tuesdays positivity rate at 11.39 percent. Patton said Wednesday that the figure quoted at Tuesdays meeting was from the health departments Monday data, the most recent available when the remarks were written. The state rolled into Phase 4 of Pritzkers Reopen Illinois plan on June 26.

During the meetings public comment portion, supporters of and those against the Ninian Edwards statue reinforced their positions, either in-person, on Zoom or via email. City Clerk Emily Bates read emails from two people. One person submitted comments under a pen name, Dagney Taggart, who wants the statue to remain and another, Mary Grose, suggested the statue should be placed in a museum with interpretive text to fully explain Edwards position in history. Asher Denkyirah spoke via Zoom in favor of removing the statue while residents Leo Murphy and John Birch made comments against removing the statue.

The next city council meeting is Aug. 4 at 7 p.m., either in city hall, located at 118 Hillsboro Ave. and via virtual Zoom meeting.

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at (618) 659-5735
LONDON  Britain and the United States have agreed to end a legal loophole that allowed an American woman to flee Britain after she was involved in a car accident that killed a teenager, the British authorities said on Tuesday, almost a year after the crash started a diplomatic tug of war between the two countries and sparked widespread outrage in Britain.

The woman, Anne Sacoolas, the wife of an American diplomat, fled Britain under diplomatic immunity weeks after her car collided with the motorcycle of Harry Dunn, 19, near Royal Air Force Croughton, a military base operated by the U.S. Air Force in central England.

For nearly a year, Mr. Dunns parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, have campaigned to have Ms. Sacoolas prosecuted in Britain, going to the White House in October, where President Trump welcomed them and tried to arrange a meeting with Ms. Sacoolas, who he said was waiting in a room nearby. Mr. Dunns parents refused to meet her.

In January, the United States turned down an extradition request for Ms. Sacoolas, a decision that the British government called a denial of justice. The change in the law does not apply to her case, but only to future incidents.
Cheshire is exploring moving most of the town's services to the former Cheshire School property.

Cheshire Digs Deeper Into School Project, Sets Town Meeting Date



Cheshire still has some issues to resolve but they are moving ahead with plans to rehabilitate the former school into a 'town hub' of services. CHESHIRE, Mass.  The Board of Selectmen continue to keep the redevelopment of the former Cheshire School on the front boiler.

The topic has been raised at almost every meeting for the past few months and the board hopes its diligence pays off soon with an request for proposals for design and architectural services. Board members did impose a slight tapping of the brakes Tuesday night but remain steadfast on making progress toward a comprehensive redevelopment plan.

Town Administrator Edmund St. John IV, with the blessing of the board, has been working on the RFP with a goal of issuing it in time to get responses prior to the warrant closing for the annual town meeting. This would give a firm financial picture to residents of what the cost would be to engineer and design documents for the school's reuse. The Board hopes to make it the center of operations for most town services. The RFP could yet be issued in time but the Board opted for prudence over pressure.

"There are a multitude of issues including the roof of the old section of the building, which is why Ed and I spoke several times this past week regarding the RFP and building in additional options into [that]. We may actually find that it's less expensive to demo the old section of the building than to completely reconstruct the roof and deal with accessibility issues and asbestos abatement," Chairwoman Michelle Francesconi said.

St. John said he had recently talked to both the Police and Fire departments and received a lot of usable input from both regarding what they might need in a new location. He was asked by Council on Aging Board member Peter Traub if he had received any input from them and St. John replied he had not. Given all the parties that would be involved in a complete relocation of town services, St. John felt, and the board agreed, it was best to slow down a tad.

"Sometimes after [the RFP] goes out there are items you want to see in it that aren't in it, that kind of creates issues down the road, so I think being deliberate about this, not too slow as to be stagnant, but being deliberate but making progress on this is definitely the way to go," he said.

"I agree with Ed and I think we do need to have a deeper discussion about this process rather than just fast tracking an RFP for such a large-scale project," Francesconi agreed.

The board approved Tuesday, Sept. 15, as the date for the annual town meeting. Several municipalities across Massachusetts, as well as the commonwealth itself, have postponed budget approvals past the June 30 deadline in response to the murky financial picture caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. State aid numbers have yet to be released making it difficult for towns to commit to a hard budget without much speculative accounting. There was some discussion from Francesconi, as well as Town Clerk Christine Emerson, about breaking from the traditional Monday for town meeting but both said if there is a year to do it, this is certainly the one.

"I know that's a Tuesday night and we have historically done a Monday night in June, of course there is nothing normal about this year so if we venture outside of the Monday time frame that would be fine," Francesconi said.

"In some people's minds the election is on the first Monday in May and the annual town meeting is the second Monday in June but as [Michelle] pointed out there is no norm anymore, everything is up for discussion," Emerson said.

The board set a new deadline for any citizen's petitions to be submitted in light of the change to annual town meeting. Residents will have until Tuesday, Aug. 18, to submit any petitions to the town. The board will be closing the warrant at that evening's meeting and no changes will be possible after that occurs. Another change would be the location of the meeting as the board hopes to hold it at Hoosac Valley Middle and High School for the first time rather than the former Cheshire School.

Board member Jason Levesque asked St. John if there might be a clearer picture of state aid by the proposed date. As usual with anything COVID-19 related there was no definitive answer but St. John did reference some potential good news, especially concerning school funding, regarding state revenue streams.

"So an interesting thing happened today. The Lottery Commission sent out its numbers and they actually posted their third best year in terms of revenue this year. With everything that happened they had a $979 million profit for the state to use for local aid," St. John said. "That kind of has me doing somersaults in the office today because with everything going on that seems to be an indication of some good news. I'm hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that the state aid numbers might come in at a decent amount."

The Massachusetts State Lottery consistently ranks in the top five nationally in both gross and net revenues and funds distributed are unrestricted so municipalities can use them as they see fit. According to The Lottery website, Cheshire received just over $650,000 from the program in unrestricted local aid in FY 2020.

As both state and national election season is rapidly approaching, and with the increase in mail-in and absentee balloting due to COVID-19, Francesconi had some advice for anyone voting by mail this fall.

"If you do mail in that vote-by-mail application, it is a postcard, I would strongly suggest that you take that postcard and put it in an envelope and put your own postage on it. It does contain personal information, including your legal signature. There is a barcode associated with you, your year of birth, there is a lot of personal information to be on an open post card that was just put in the mail," she advised.

In the leadup to the Sept. 15 meeting, the board will be holding a series of hearings with town departments regarding their fiscal needs for FY2021. They are scheduled for Aug. 6, 11, and 13 but check the town website for dates and times. St. John said they will also be holding informational sessions for all interested residents regarding town meeting on Sept. 3 and 10.

The next regular meeting of the Cheshire Board of Selectmen will be Tuesday, July 28, at 6:30 and will be held virtually. Visit the town website for login instructions.
Patna, July 22 : Amid the unabated increase in corona infections in Bihar, civil surgeon R R Jha and legislative councillor Sunil Kumar Singh of Samastipur district died due to Covid-19.

Civil surgeon in-charge of Samastipur Dr Satish Kumar Sinha on Wednesday morning said that after Jha was found corona-positive, he was admitted to AIIMS hospital in Patna where he passed away.

He said that Jha was also a kidney patient and his health worsened after being infected by the corona virus. On Tuesday evening, BJP legislative councillor Sunil Singh also died of coronavirus during treatment at Patna AIIMS.

An AIIMS official said that Singh, 66, was admitted to the hospital on July 13 after being found corona positive. The MLC, a Darbhanga resident, was already suffering from various ailments including diabetes. He was put on a ventilator as his condition became critical but he could not be saved.

After 1,109 fresh cases of Covid-19 reported on Tuesday, the number of corona-infected persons has increased to 28,564 in BIhar. As many as 18,741 infected persons have recovered after treatment. The death toll has reached nearly 200.
By Yoruk Bahceli, Olga Cotaga and Elizabeth Howcroft

LONDON (Reuters) - Investors cheered a key step toward fiscal integration in the European Union via a new recovery fund agreed on Tuesday, seeing it as a turning point for the region's financial assets plagued for years by debt crises and a north-south divide.

The 750-billion-euro ($864.68 billion) fund had been hailed as a game changer and unprecedented act of solidarity in almost seven decades of European convergence. The move helped the single currency hit one-and-a-half-year highs.

For years, threats like Greece's debt crisis and a eurosceptic populist government in Italy had stirred fear among investors that the end could be near for the euro zone.

So it was no surprise that the euro and Italian government bonds - assets that have taken a beating whenever those threats flared up - shined on hopes of European fiscal integration.

"This deal removed almost completely the risk of a European break-up, which has always been on the mind of investors," said Ugo Lancioni, head of global currency at Neuberger Berman.

Investors say the landmark deal to rescue EU economies from the coronavirus crisis bodes well for the euro and the bloc's equities, while Italy's soaring debt levels could cap further gains in Italian government bonds (BTPs).

"One of the reasons you would have been sceptical of the long-term value of the euro has been diminished," said Quentin Fitzsimmons, portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, which manages $1 trillion. Fitzsimmons has been building a long position in the euro over the last six weeks.

BTPs have returned 6% since the recovery package was first proposed in May, and Tuesday's breakthrough deal sent borrowing costs in Italy to their lowest since March, wiping much of the coronavirus sell-off.

RISING DEBT PILE STILL CONCERNING

Those gains led some money managers to pocket profits over the last few weeks while others were gunning to make more.

Story continues

Newton Investment Management's Paul Brain is happy to hold onto his overweight position, expecting the closely watched risk premium Italy pays for 10-year debt on top of Germany to fall to around 90 basis points from roughly 160 bps now.

Despite the new fund, others continued to see the rising debt pile from the crisis as a concern.

"Ultimately you shouldn't go all in just because of the recovery fund," said Andrea Iannelli, investment director at Fidelity International, who took profits from BTPs over the last two weeks.

The fund is unlikely to have a major impact on Italy's debt mountain as the net benefit it will receive pales next to the explosion awaiting its debt-to-GDP ratio, which could rise to 159% of GDP, from 134.8% in 2019.

That prospect led Kevin Zhao, head of global sovereign fixed income at UBS Asset Management, to cut his position in BTPs around a month ago. He's not thinking of adding back, seeing little prospect for a further rally.

"If the economy is still weak, you don't want to earn just a little carry without due consideration to future tail risks or shocks," he said, referring to a trade where investors use cheap funds to buy higher-yielding assets like Italian government bonds.

Expectations are rosier for stocks and the euro.

Morgan Stanley said it expected euro zone equities to outperform global peers by 10%, mainly led by Italy and Spain.

For the euro, investors said they chose not to overstretch their long positions this week, but added that steps toward fiscal integration strengthen the long-term case for the euro, boosting its appeal as a reserve currency.

That means the euro will tick more boxes when investors find new reasons to upsize their positions. One such situation is already brewing.

"On the other side of the Atlantic, you still have a tricky, messy political situation and the absence of any coherent response to COVID-19," said Vasileios Gkionakis, global head of FX strategy at Lombard Odier, already overweight the euro.

"It's really a perfect storm for the (U.S.) dollar and quite a strong tailwind for the euro."

($1 = 0.8674 euros)

(Reporting by Yoruk Bahceli, Olga Cotaga, Elizabeth Howcroft; editing by Thyagaraju Adinarayan and Mark Heinrich)
The United States has told China to close its consulate in Houston in a dramatic worsening of ties between the worlds two biggest economies, and a source said Beijing was considering shutting the US consulate in Wuhan in retaliation. Washington abruptly demanded closure of the Houston consulate on Tuesday, Chinas foreign ministry said, calling the move an unprecedented escalation. The editor of an official Chinese media outlet said China had been given 72 hours to do so. The State Department confirmed the decision and said the move was made ...
(Newser)  The US has ordered China to close its consulate in Houston in "one of the biggest blows to diplomatic ties between the two countries in decades," reports Bloomberg. Firefighters responded to reports of smoke at the consulate late Tuesday as footage showed officials burning documents in barrels in a courtyard. Firefighters ultimately stayed off the property and later footage showed officials putting out the fires, per KPRC, which reports the building is to be cleared out by 4pm Friday. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had been ordered to "cease all operations and events" at the consulate, which covers eight southern states and Puerto Rico. It called it a "political provocation" and "outrageous and unjustified move" in violation of international law and "basic norms governing international relations." It also threatened "legitimate and necessary reactions," per CNN.

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China said the US had been "shifting the blame to China with stigmatization and unwarranted attacks against China's social system, harassing Chinese diplomatic and consular staff in the US, intimidating and interrogating Chinese students and confiscating their personal electrical devices, even detaining them without cause." US State Department rep Morgan Ortagus responded that the closure was meant "to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information." She cited "unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," adding the US "will not tolerate  violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people." She also cited the Vienna Convention, which states diplomats must "respect the laws and regulations" of the host nation and not interfere "in the internal affairs of that State," per CNN. (Read more China stories.)
Hours after shots rang out in a quiet Middlesex County neighborhood on Sunday, leaving the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas dead and her husband critically injured, the FBI in Newark circled its nets around a killer.

Were looking for one subject and ask that anyone who thinks they may have relevant information (to) call us, the agency tweeted at 10:51 p.m. On Monday, the FBI identified New York attorney Roy Den Hollander as the gunman and said the suspect is now deceased.
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012. (Francois Mori / Associated Press)

Kim Kardashian is asking for compassion and empathy as her husband, rap mogul Kanye West, and their family deal with his recent behavioral outbursts that have called his mental health into question.

West, 43, accused the E! reality star of trying to lock him up this week after he criticized her at a campaign rally and in a flurry of tweets on Monday. Kardashian took to Instagram Stories on Wednesday morning to remind followers that West has bipolar disorder, a lifelong mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs and lows.

Though West has publicly refuted his diagnosis, Kardashian asked people to be sensitive to those who struggle with mental health issues.

"Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand," Kardashian said in her statement.

"I've never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye's right to privacy when it comes to his health," she added. "But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health."

The mother of four, who has been married to West since 2014, said that those who understand mental illness or compulsive behavior know that the family is powerless unless the person with the illness is a minor. She reminded people that an individual has to "engage in the process of getting help."

Her candid comments come amid renewed scrutiny of the Grammy-winning rapper after he announced he was running for president on July 4. A sprawling Forbes interview about his platform followed, as well as a heated campaign event in South Carolina where he claimed in part that Harriet Tubman did not actually free any slaves and said that when Kardashian, then his girlfriend, was pregnant with their first child, daughter North, he initially wanted her to get an abortion.

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That was promptly coupled with a tweet storm in which he accused his wife of trying to fly to their Wyoming ranch with a doctor "to lock me up like on the movie Get Out because I cried about saving my daughters life yesterday." In a since-deleted tweet, West claimed that Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner, wanted to put out a statement on the matter without his approval.

"I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions," Kardashian's statement continued. "He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder. Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions."

The rap star was hospitalized in 2016. In a 2018 visit to the White House, he told President Trump that he had been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and was simply sleep deprived.

The beauty mogul did not specifically address West's political ambitions or his new album, "Donda" (named after his mother), which he's expected to release this week. But Kardashian did speak about West's other lofty aspirations generally.

"Living with bi-polar disorder does not diminish or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas, no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some. That is part of his genius and as we have all witnessed, many of his big dreams have come true," she said.

"We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it most," she added, asking the media and public to give them "compassion and empathy."

West's fans believe that he is a victim of the so-called Kardashian machine  an often-overbearing lifestyle their reality show and fame demand of those in their orbit.
President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the killing of five staff of humanitarian agencies in Borno State, who were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists a month ago.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the killing of the aid workers and the circulation of the tragic video online.

A presidential statement issued on Wednesday said President Buhari sympathises with the families of the five aid workers, while praying that God will comfort them for their irreplaceable loss.

He assures them that his government will continue to do all it can to ensure that every remaining vestige of Boko Haram is wiped out completely from northeastern Nigeria and that the perpetrators of this atrocity face the law.

President Buhari also condoles with the State Emergency Management Agency, Action Against Hunger, Rich International, and International Rescue Committee, whose staff have suffered this gruesome fate.

He thanks them for their continued dedication and service to the victims of Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria. He assures them that security agencies in the state will work closely with their organisations to implement measures to ensure that no such kidnapping of staff occurs again, the release signed by spokesman, Garba Shehu, added.
UTICA, MI -- Police are asking for the publics help in identifying a man wanted for allegedly hitting a manager and a bartender at the Black Rock Bar & Grill after being asked to wear a mask inside. The incident took place around 9:40 p.m. on July 10 and the suspect fled the scene after hitting one of the staff members.

According to WDIV Detroit, the suspect was among a group of nine people who came to the bar. Four of the members of the group were not wearing masks and ignored social distancing guidelines. They were asked by staff to return to the lobby and put on masks. While most of the group agreed to wear a mask, the suspect became angry and yelled expletives at the staff and refused to wear a mask.

While being asked to leave, the suspect allegedly hit a bartender and a manager during his outburst, part of which was captured by surveillance cameras inside the restaurant.

The incident took place three days before Gov. Gretchen Whitmers executive order requiring all businesses to require masks indoors took effect. Two days after this incident, a man pulled a knife on staff at a Meijer in Acme Township.

Last week, Sean Ernest Ruis, 43, was shot and killed by an Eaton County Sheriffs deputy after he charged at the deputy during a police stop. Ruis was stopped by the deputy in connection with a stabbing that took place at a convenience store in which Ruis stabbed a 77-year-old man following an argument over wearing a mask inside.

PREVENTION TIPS

In addition to washing hands regularly and not touching your face, officials recommend practicing social distancing, assuming anyone may be carrying the virus.

Health officials say you should be staying at least 6 feet away from others and working from home, if possible.

Use disinfecting wipes or disinfecting spray cleaners on frequently-touched surfaces in your home (door handles, faucets, countertops) and carry hand sanitizer with you when you go into places like stores.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also issued an executive order requiring people to wear face coverings over their mouth and nose while inside enclosed, public spaces.

Read all of MLives coverage on the coronavirus at mlive.com/coronavirus.

Additional information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.

READ MORE

Complete coverage at mlive.com/coronavirus

Wednesday, July 22: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan
Freya wagged her tail as she boarded her kennel inside a Rescued Pets Movements van. It wasnt long ago that she was considered homeless after she was tossed from a truck along with her puppies in front of a Houston animal shelter.

Its a peculiar moment for Houstons Rescued Pets Movement. Shelters can only handle a limited intake of dogs and cats, demand for household pets is on the rise, and Houstons homeless animal population is still high.

RPM is a nonprofit that partners with animal shelters across the country by transporting potentially euthanized cats and dogs in Houston to areas of the country with high demand for adoptions. As of June this year, RPM has saved 53,487 animals.

Due to COVID-19, many Houston animal shelters like BARC are operating under special conditions and the process for residents to drop off animals is now through appointment only (except for sick or injured animals). BARC is encouraging residents to not pick up any stray animals unless they are prepared to care for them at home.

It may take a couple of days, it may take a couple of weeks before you can get an appointment, said RPM president and co-founder Cindy Perini. Not only has this led to Freya being tossed from a truck but some have been abandoned and found leashed to BARCs fence.

RPM steps in and takes animals from BARC and provides medical care for them in their facility and ideally puts them in a foster home. If no fosters are available, they stay in RPMs temporary shelter until their transport date.

On Thursday, RPM boarded 112 cats and 41 dogs into their vans to be transported to rescue shelters in Colorado and California. They stop every six hours to walk and feed the animals, and they dont stay in hotels.

Its actually been hard to get dogs from the shelters because so many are closed because of COVID-19, said Perini. If you find a stray you need to prepare to keep it long term because you dont know when you would be accommodated.

I also think with the economy being bad there are more people needing help with their pets. Maybe they have to move, they cant care for them, its a really strange time, said Perini.

Perini has worked in traditional pet rescue starting in the early 2000s. She moved to New Mexico in 2008 and volunteered with local animal shelters there. When she moved back to Houston in 2013 she saw how many adoptable pets were on BARCs euthanasia list and they all needed help.

By September 2013, the RPM was created.

Nobody was coming for the moms and so many puppies were on the euthanasia list, said Perini. Now I would say probably 100 percent of the moms and puppies get out of BARC alive.

In September 2013, BARCs live release rate was 48 percent, according to their Asilomar report. At the end of 2019, BARCs live release rate was 88.5 percent.

With RPMs rapid growth, their need for animal foster homes grows too; there are always more animals than there are fosters.

If interested in becoming a foster parent, go to www.rescuedpetsmovement.org/.

ryan.nickerson@hcnonline.com
A police hunt is underway for hoaxers who posted fake government notices in a Melbourne tower block ordering residents to adhere to bogus COVID-19 advice.

The poster, which had an imitation logo purporting to be from the Department of Health and Human Services, was found taped in various places across a Mentone apartment complex.

'To all residence (sic),' it begins.

'This letter is to advise you all that a resident in this building has tested positive for CoronaVirus (sic) and that precaution measures are to adhere to those living within the confines of this building.'

A police hunt is underway after fake coronavirus notices (pictured) were found around a Melbourne apartment tower

'Please keep hygiene standards high and avoid touching handrails and door handles entering and exiting the building compounds.'

The hoax warning also asked residents to 'please keep hallway door ways open'.

The grammatical error, along with others littered through the document, sparked suspicion, prompting someone familiar with the incident to share the letter with 3AW Breakfast's Rumour File on Wednesday morning.

The radio station contacted the COVID-19 hotline and police who confirmed there was no case in that apartment block and the letter is a fake.

'Investigations are now underway as to who on earth would do such a thing,' Ross Stevenson reported.

It is not the first time fraudsters have made counterfeit notices to poke fun at the pandemic.

Last week, fake council signs encouraging children to use playground equipment because they are 'safe' from coronavirus were found across parks in Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs.
NASA infrared confirms Douglas still a tropical storm

Infrared data from NASA's Terra satellite showed that dry air around Tropical Storm Douglas has been inhibiting it from strengthening into a hurricane.

On July 22 at 2:15 a.m. EDT (0615 UTC), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite gathered temperature information about Tropical Storm Douglas' cloud tops. Infrared data provides temperature information, and the strongest thunderstorms that reach high into the atmosphere have the coldest cloud top temperatures.

MODIS found powerful thunderstorms where temperatures were as cold as or colder than minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 Celsius) around the center and in a thick band of thunderstorms north of the center. Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms with the potential to generate heavy rainfall.

Forecasters noted that Douglas' overall appearance has changed little over the early morning hours on July 22. Douglas has not intensified to hurricane status because dry air is affecting the eastern portion of the cyclone's circulation and preventing thunderstorm development. A tropical cyclone consists of hundreds of thunderstorms.

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on July 22, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted the center of Tropical Storm Douglas was located near latitude 11.9 degrees north and longitude 128.0 degrees west. Douglas is centered about 1,875 miles (3,020 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.

Douglas is moving toward the west near 15 mph (24 km/h). A turn toward the west-northwest along with an increase in forward speed is forecast to occur by late Wednesday. The west-northwestward motion is forecast to continue at least through Saturday. Maximum sustained winds are near 65 mph (100 km/h) with higher gusts. The estimated minimum central pressure is 998 millibars.

Strengthening is forecast during the next couple of days, and Douglas is expected to become a hurricane on Wednesday, July 23. NHC forecaster Andrew Latto noted in the morning discussion, "The system is forecast to remain in a favorable environment for intensification for the next day or so. Beyond 36 hours, the combination of cooler SSTs and dry air should cause Douglas to slowly weaken."

Tropical cyclones/hurricanes are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www. nhc. noaa. gov

By Rob Gutro NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

###

This story has been published on: 2020-07-22. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Inquests into the deaths of seven women treated by breast surgeon Ian Paterson have been opened amid claims he or other clinicians may have 'caused or contributed' to them.

Paterson, 62, is currently serving 20 years in jail for 17 counts of wounding with intent on ten victims.

Birmingham and Solihull coroner Emma Brown today said she had reason to believe three further deaths 'may have been caused or contributed to by acts or omissions in the treatment provided by Mr Paterson, and potentially by other clinicians involved in the care.'

The deaths of jewellery-maker Judith Bruce, 47, kitchen assistant Christine Gould, 56, and housewife Lindsey Phipps, 57, are being examined. Cancer was recorded as their cause of death.

Four other inquests linked to the coroner's preliminary investigations into a sample of 23 deaths of former Paterson patients were opened and adjourned earlier this month.

These were the deaths of Deborah Hynes, 51, police officer Marie Pinfield, 50, Yvonne Cordon, 39, and Shionagh Gough, 76.

Inquests into the deaths of seven women treated by breast surgeon Ian Paterson (pictured outside Nottingham Crown Court) have been opened amid claims he or other clinicians may have 'caused or contributed' to them

Paterson was found to have carried out unnecessary operations in NHS and private hospitals, exaggerating or inventing cancer risks and claiming payments for more expensive procedures.

He was employed by Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (HEFT) but had practising privileges in the independent sector at Spire Parkway and Spire Little Aston in Birmingham.

Jailed for 20 years for wounding with intent: Ian Paterson Butchering breast surgeon Ian Paterson is currently serving his 20-year prison sentence. What was he convicted of? He was convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding between 1997 and 2011, after a trial in 2017. How did he harm patients? Paterson carried out 'experimental mastectomies' on women that left the breast tissue in place, allowing the cancer to return. In some cases, he also advised treatment for women when they did not have cancer and offered them more expensive procedures. Who has been affected? 675 out of 1,207 women who underwent the unregulated treatment had died by 2017. Where did he work? Paterson worked at NHS hospitals in the West Midlands and private clinics including those run by Spire hospitals. Advertisement

He was jailed in 2017 after being found guilty of 17 counts of wounding patients with intent, against 10 victims.

He was handed a 15-year prison term, but Court of Appeal judges later increased his tariff to 20 years.

In September 2017, more than 750 patients treated by Paterson received compensation payouts from a 37 million fund.

The independent Paterson Inquiry into the issues raised, published in February, found that many of Glasgow-born Paterson's patients were 'lied to, deceived or exploited', though the consultant maintains his innocence.

The inquiry, chaired by retired Bishop of Norwich the Rt Rev Graham James, said the surgeon was able to go on performing unnecessary operations for years amid a 'dysfunctional' healthcare system that failed patients.

He added that there were 'missed opportunities' to stop Paterson, describing the failure to suspend him in 2003, when an NHS colleague first raised concerns, as 'inexplicable'.

The inquiry was presented with NHS figures showing that of Paterson's 1,206 mastectomy patients, 675 had died by 2017.

Ms Brown formally opened the additional inquests in a hearing conducted over a video-link at Birmingham Coroner's Court, to comply with Covid-19 guidance.

She added it was 'anticipated' that further inquests would be opened.

The coroner's office is still carrying out investigations into those cases, after being asked by West Midlands Police in January to examine a sample of 23 deaths of former Paterson patients.

Inquests were opened on Wednesday into the deaths of three further women.

Miss Bruce, born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, but latterly of Chelmsley Wood, Solihull, died at Good Hope Hospital on August 6 2005.

Cause of death was given at the time as breast carcinoma with liver metastases.

Mrs Gould, of Willow Road, Solihull, was born in Smethwick, West Midlands, and died at a care home in Edgbaston on May 24 2003.

Her cause of death was recorded as metastatic breast cancer.

Mrs Phipps, of Morville Close, Dorridge, Solihull, was born in London, and died at Solihull Hospital on October 30 2017.

Four other inquests linked to the coroner's preliminary investigations into a sample of 23 deaths of former Paterson patients were opened and adjourned earlier this month. These included the death of Marie Pinfield, 50 (pictured)

Medical cause of death was a lower respiratory tract infection due to metastatic breast cancer.

Adjourning the hearings, the coroner said the inquests were 'likely' to be Article 2 hearings, which covers a much broader sweep of the issues surrounding each death.

She added that this was because of the 'apparent serious defaults by state organisations', identified by the bishop's inquiry.

Other issues likely to be raised included 'any failings' by colleagues, management and corporate governance, or any systemic failings or inaction by regulators.

Investigations into whether other inquests would be opened are continuing, the coroner added.

Ms Brown said a pre-inquest review hearing would be fixed in due course once the total number of inquests is known.
Hours after the United States ordered the closure of the Consulate General of China in Houston on Tuesday, witnesses spotted workers burning papers in the courtyard.

Firefighters said they could smell smoke and saw something burning in barrels, the Houston Chronicle reported. However, firefighters were not granted access to the building.

IN THE U.S.: Facing unrest on American streets, Trump turns Homeland Security powers inward

"All I know, it's illegal to have open burning in the city of Houston like that," Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said. "But it's a sovereign country, and we can't get access into those consulates so we're limited in what we can do."

The U.S. said in a statement that it ordered the closure of the Consulate "to protect American intellectual property and American's private information." State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the closure was due to "unfair trade practices, theft of American jobs, and other egregious behavior," the Associated Press reports. It is unclear why the Houston consulate specifically was ordered to close.

The Chinese government has strongly condemned the closure and warned of countermeasures against the U.S. if the decision was not reversed.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the closure an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.

The unilateral closure of Chinas consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Wang said at a news briefing in Beijing, the Associated Press reports.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is asking President Akufo-Addo to arrest and prosecute the Minister for Development and Special Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson, for firing a gun at a registration centre.

The MP who has confessed firing a warning shot at the centre claimed it was to defend herself after feeling threatened while touring registration centres at Kasoa.

Civil Society groups, as well as security analysts, have called for her arrest, prosecution and resignation.

Security expert Professor Kwesi Aning says the gun action by the Minister undermines President Akufo-Addos fight against vigilantism in the country.

According to him, the MP is unfit to hold herself out as a lawmaker and also as a member of the ruling New Patriotic Party.

Addressing the Media on Wednesday, Director for Elections for the opposition NDC Elvis Afriyie Ankrah said if President Akufo-Addo fails to prosecute the Minister, the next NDC government under John Mahama will ensure that the minister faces the law.

We condemn in no uncertain terms such thuggery, sponsored and led by a high ranking government official and lawmaker who is supposed to uphold the law at all times. Hawa Koomson has by this singular criminal act and the many others committed before, together with her gang and all that they have meted out to NDC supporters and innocent Ghanaians in the last couple of weeks demonstrated that she is a gangster who does not deserve to occupy any public position of trust and we join the many voices of conscience in our society to demand her immediate dismissal from office and her prosecution for these heinous crimes.

We will, therefore, like to serve notice that if Hawa Koomson is left off the hook by President Akufo-Addo as we anticipate, the next NDC-Mahama government in the year 2021 shall arrest, prosecute and punish her and all the thugs who were involved in this unlawful shooting incident, and all the other related criminal acts.

---starrfmonline
A pandemic can be a test of Gods existence for man. How do you worship without a church, temple, mosque? What shape does faith take as thousands die of a viral infection every day?

Back in his hometown of Bhopal since the first lockdown, Nizamuddin Siddiqui, 32, a senior research fellow at the OP Jindal law school in Haryana, has been watching with interest as his community navigates faith without a functioning mosque amid restrictions imposed for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

All large gatherings, including for religious purposes, have been barred since March. This has meant most temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras and other places of worship have either been closed or functioning under very changed circumstances.

The masjid is our social and religious centre, says Siddiqui. The main challenge for us has been how to keep the mosque alive. You meet your neighbour there five times a day and suddenly there is a void. In future, you may even develop a habit of not going.

The issue is not one of being left without religion, he adds (he prays in his room and has access, via YouTube and WhatsApp, to his religious leaders), but of being left without a community. Even for those who do still go to the mosque, there must be social distancing; ablutions are done at home; talk and interaction are at a minimum.

***

In Varanasi, a city of over 2,000 temples, religion cannot be seen to be organising itself too differently from pre-lockdown times. A temple is not a museum, it cant really be closed, says Vishwambhar Nath Mishra, the mahant of Varanasis Sankatmochan temple. And so, my temple is open. Im available to devotees online, he says. The pandemic is for human beings, not for God.

A recent Pew Research survey found that 24% of American adults had felt their faith become stronger during the Covid-19 pandemic; 2% said it had weakened. The majority said their faith hasnt changed much (47%), and a large number (26%) said the question wasnt applicable because they were not religious to begin with.

The average Indian, says psychoanalyst Ashok Nagpal, has a different alchemy. For us, religion is a socio-cultural encounter and to be able to replicate old habits maintained through institutions like the family is to be able to draw on inner recesses, and keep hope and faith alive. In times like these, its a force that releases new meanings and rituals.

Nagpal points to an interesting development  how the language of the state changed during the pandemic. In a recent interview, the Delhi CM said no one institution can do everything on its own. That there would be lapses in management and he would learn from criticism and from lived experience. He then added that only thus can we all come together, in collaboration, something religion also preaches. In this way, he brought faith and governance together in secular language.

***

For doctors, it is almost always the age of science. On a few occasions, though, Dr Hoshedar Tata, a professor of surgery, invoked god. While emerging from the OT to speak to a patients family, he would refer the matter upwards, says his student, Ambarish Satwik, now a surgeon with Gangaram Hospital, Delhi, and a writer.

For a man who was famously antipathetic to any superintending deity, this referral was never done shiftily or casually, but with the highest seriousness, almost as an act of faith, says Satwik. As the patients family would move away, he would then lob at the small congregation of surgery students trailing him, Marxs line: To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. But we do need to find out, hed often say, if God can heal oesophageal anastomosis.



Gods have been seen as crisis managers through history. The cults of Mariamman, a village goddess of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, coincided with smallpox epidemics in the areas, as did Sitalas in Bengal in the 17th century. But pandemics are hard to navigate for priests and religious institutions.

Surender Shukla, a priest at Trimbakeshwar, Nashik, one of Indias most-visited Hindu pilgrim towns, knows he is in for a long wait. No temple is open in Maharashtra. As numbers rise steadily, months into the pandemic in India, it is unlikely that places of worship will return to anything resembling normalcy for months yet.

Pratik Sharma, an event manager and Shiva devotee from Nashik, says he would rather be safe than make the trek to the citys famed temples; he now prays before a framed image of Shiva at home.

Donations have taken a hit, admits Sribash Bhattacharya, secretary of the Kali Mandir Society of Chittaranjan Park, Delhi. On average, earnings from daily offerings, before the lockdown would be around Rs 2.5 lakh. To make up for low physical attendance, we started the puja online in end June and asked for a minimum of Rs 101 online deposit per person. We have had 489 deposits so far.

People of all faiths are feeling the pinch. Santosh Kambli, a third-generation artist who makes the idol of Lalbaugcha Raja, Mumbai, one of most revered of Ganesh pujas in Maharashtra, says the pandal committee is cancelling its festivities, which were due to begin on August 22, as its puja draws huge crowds. But Bappa lives at Lalbaug. If you pass the spot, you will feel his aura, Kambli says.

On a YouTube channel, the disembodied voice of Father Stephen can be heard singing a psalm. He is one of three priests holding fort at south Delhis St Teresa church. Father Suresh fixes the camera on a stand. Father Julius leads the prayer.

At times, it does feel like a performance, he says. But then people start sending messages for prayer requests so you think this has meaning. Earlier 20 people would come for Mass, now 100 people watch live. There have been requests that we continue this even after things get back to normal.

What does this say about the future of religious institutions and its clergy? Can access to technology, video calls, lead to a new kind of congregation? These questions are not new, says Archbishop Anil Couto of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, Delhi. Organised religion has always faced the question of an unmediated, private relationship with God but the vibe that Im getting is that people want to come to a place of worship.

Delhi churches are closed till at least end-July. The problem is that unlike temple ceremonies where darshan involves people coming and going ours [as in Islam] is worship in a congregation, says Father Julius.

But faith will endure. John Dayal, spokesperson for the All India Catholic Union, says religions and ideologies and persuasions including atheism and agnosticism will survive Covid-19. This tussle is good. It keeps the quest alive, he adds.

Jasjit Chugh, a practising Sikh, says: Religious ceremonies require the attendance of people even if you do away with crowds. I would think the gods want us to be safe. Religious practices should not become more important than faith.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Paramita Ghosh Paramita Ghosh has been working as a journalist for over 20 years and writes socio-political and culture features. She works in the Weekend section as a senior assistant editor and has reported from Vienna, Jaffna and Singapore. ...view detail
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said the recent clashes "initiated" by the Chinese military against India in eastern Ladakh are the latest examples of the "unacceptable behaviour" of the Chinese Communist Party.

He also praised India's decision to ban 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok, which he said are "security risks" to the Indian people.

"It's important that democracies like ours work together, especially as we see more clear than ever the true scope of the challenge posed by the Chinese communist party.

"Our infrastructure projects, our supply chains, our sovereignty, and our people's health and safety are all at risk. If we get it wrong," Pompeo said in his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council.

"The recent clashes initiated by the PLA are just the latest examples of the CCPs unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the deaths of 20 Indian service members. I'm confident that with our concerted efforts, we can protect our interests," he said.

The troops of India and China are locked in a standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh since May 5. The situation deteriorated last month following the Galwan Valley clashes that left 20 Indian Army personnel dead.

Pompeo commended India's recent decision to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps, including TikTok that present serious security risks for the Indian people. "We will also look to reduce Chinese dependence in areas such as medicine," US Secretary of State added.

He said he was happy to report that India is a "rising US defense and security partner, in the Indo-Pacific and globally," he said. Asserting that the United States has never been more supportive of India's a security, he said New Delhi too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President Donald Trump's foreign policy.

Here's the full transcript of his speech

My trip to Delhi last year deepened the relationship between the two countries immensely. I know you are used to listening that India is the oldest and the most populous democracy in the world. That is true and it is important to be reiterated. We together have reverence for freedom, rule of law, human rights and other things.

We don't just interact on a bilateral basis, we see each other for who we are. We are two great democracies, global powers and really good friends. India's one of a few trusted and like-minded countries whose leaders I call on a regular basis for counsel and collaboration.

I am thankful in particular to Minister Jaishankar for his sage advice. It is important that democracies like us work together especially at the time when we see the true scope of the challenges posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Our infrastructure project, our supply chain, our sovereignty and our peoples health and safety is all at risk if we get it wrong.

The recent clashes initiated by the PLA are just the latest examples of CCPs unacceptable behaviour. We were deeply saddened by the death of 20 Indian soldiers. The United States commends ban of 59 Chinese apps including Tiktok that pose serious security risk for the Indian people and Im happy to say that India is the rising security partner in Indo-pacific and globally.

In December last year former Defence secretary Esper hosted the second ever two plus two dialogue with Indian counterparts. The US has never been more supportive of Indias security. India is an important partner and the key pillar of present Trumps foreign policy.

Multilateralists that actually works. We are closer to make sure that world intellectual property organisation election was won by someone who respects property rights. Weve revived the so called quad comprised of US, Japan, India and Australia. Weve also invited PM Modi to next G7 meet.

India has a chance to check global supply chains and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies like telecommunications, medical equipment etc. India has earned the trust of many nations around the world.

We are also working to promote high quality transparent infrastructure development. Free markets is the best way to lift people out of poverty. The private sector will be indispensable and overcoming economic damage caused by the pandemic. To achieve these goals India will need to encourage an environment which is open to increase trade and investment.

I know thats possible because Indians and Americans share a spirit of hard work and entrepreneurship. Im confident that this partnership is only getting stronger. Lets sieze this moment to deepen cooperation between two of the worlds greatest democracies.

(With PTI inputs)
ALBANY, N.Y. and PLAINVIEW, N.Y., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Associated Hemp ("the company"), a Long Island-based holding company that develops and markets a portfolio of CBD brands, announced today its entry into the marketplace with the launch of two premium brands, Citizens Hemp and GoCBD:

Citizens Hemp  the lifestyle brand for the wellness-driven consumer. Inspired by Mother Nature, Citizens Hemp is the CBD brand from the earth for the people. Products are sourced from only the finest United States -grown hemp, processed with only the cleanest methods, and marketed with only the highest level of transparency. A portion of each Citizens Hemp purchase goes toward helping preserve the world's rainforests through Rainforest Trust, bringing the brand's partnership with Mother Nature full circle  from the people for the earth. Rainforest Trust is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting threatened tropical forests and endangered wildlife through partnerships and community engagement. Citizens Hemp's current product line includes high-end flower, pre-rolls, tinctures, and freeze gels.





-grown hemp, processed with only the cleanest methods, and marketed with only the highest level of transparency. A portion of each Citizens Hemp purchase goes toward helping preserve the world's rainforests through Rainforest Trust, bringing the brand's partnership with Mother Nature full circle  from the people for the earth. Rainforest Trust is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting threatened tropical forests and endangered wildlife through partnerships and community engagement. Citizens Hemp's current product line includes high-end flower, pre-rolls, tinctures, and freeze gels. GoCBD  the go-to brand of choice for the on-the-go consumer. Developed by CBD consumers for CBD consumers, GoCBD offers convenient, high quality products that promise the same results and experience with every single use. GoCBD's current product line includes high-end flower, pre-rolls, tinctures, and creams.

"The CBD space is over-crowded with sub-par, misleading, and in some cases, fraudulent products," says Shak Anand, co-founder and CEO of Associated Hemp, who also co-led the company's seed round in 2019. "We set out on a mission when we started this company, and that was to bring CBD products to market that are held to higher standards than what consumers have been forced to accept. The launch of Citizens Hemp and GoCBD represents our first step in accomplishing this mission, and we're excited to introduce the CBD community  as well as broader mainstream consumers  to the real experience and true benefits of our products."

Both brands are available now in select stores throughout New York City and Long Island, as well as online through the brands' respective websites: www.citizenshemp.com ; and www.gocbdusa.com. To celebrate the launch, Associated Hemp will be running a special promotion of 15 percent off all products when you use the promo code LAUNCH at checkout through either website. For more information and promotional deals, follow GoCBD and Citizens Hemp on social media:

Instagram: @GoCBDUSA / @CitizensHemp

Facebook: @GoCBDUSA / @CitizensHemp

Twitter: @GoCBDUSA / @CitizensHemp

Associated Hemp's products are expertly developed in-house from conception to production, and use plant-based solvents to extract CBD from the highest quality locally grown hemp, promising a premium end product every time. All finished products are then packaged in recyclable containers. Associated Hemp's flower jars are sustainably produced and made with an organic microbial attractant that allows for an expedited decomposition process once they're disposed of. All Associated Hemp products undergo strict laboratory testing before formulation as well as batch testing on the final products before distribution.

In addition to the development and marketing of its own CBD brands, Associated Hemp provides CBD companies around the United States with a variety of white labeling and wholesale services, as well as distribution services in the greater New York tri-state area.

For more information about Associated Hemp, visit www.AssociatedHemp.com .

To learn about Associated Hemp's retailer partnership opportunities for Citizens Hemp and GoCBD, contact Kyle Solis at [email protected].

To learn about Associated Hemp's white labeling, wholesale, and/or distribution services, contact Robert Rapoport at [email protected].

ABOUT ASSOCIATED HEMP

Founded in 2019 by serial entrepreneurs, Associated Hemp is a Long Island-based holding company that develops and markets a portfolio of CBD brands. The company currently owns two distinct CBD brands: GoCBD and Citizens Hemp. Associated Hemp also provides a variety of white labeling and wholesale services for CBD companies around the country, as well as distribution services in the greater New York tri-state area. Associated Hemp is an Albany, New York-incorporated company maintaining its headquarters and warehouse operations outside New York City in Plainview, Long Island. The company sources hemp from several leading farms throughout the Northeast region of the United States. For more information, visit www.AssociatedHemp.com .

CONTACT

Liz Holman

Gaffney Bennett

[email protected]

SOURCE Associated Hemp

Related Links

http://www.associatedhemp.com


Hiring Decision-Makers and the Economy

The Majority of Canadian Hiring Decision-Makers88%are Concerned About the Economy

The Majority of Canadian Hiring Decision-Makers88%are Concerned About the Economy

50% Believe Canada is Already in a Recession



56% Wish Their Company was Doing More



TORONTO, July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A majority of hiring decision-makers are concerned about the Canadian economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is according to a newly released survey conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by Express Employment Professionals.

Eighty-eight per cent of hiring decision-makers are currently worried about the economy, and 56% wish their company was doing more in response to the unstable situation. Only 29% of Canadian hiring decision-makers expect their companys revenue to increase this year, while 43% anticipate it will decrease, and 24% expect it to remain the same.

Half of Canadian hiring decision-makers (50%) believe the country has already entered into a recession; nearly 2 in 5 (39%) say Canada will enter a recession within the next year.

Notably, 79% those who believe Canada will enter a recession say their company is planning to make changes when the recession occurs and 69% of those who believe Canada is already in a recession say their company is in the process of making changes as a result of the recession.

Everyone is concerned with the state of the economy, says Daniel Purdy, an Express franchise owner in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He notes that the June 2020 Business Council of British Columbia reported that the province's economy is slipping into a deep recession.

Most of my manufacturing, warehousing, and professional services clients are affected at some level, says Purdy.

Niven Lee, Express franchise owner in Delta, British Columbia, says that his clients expect a decrease in business volume.

The United States represents over 50% of both Canadas and British Columbias export merchandise, so if the U.S. cannot contain the spread of the virus and shutdowns continue in various states, it will inevitably impact demand across many industries, notes Lee.

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While some franchise owners are concerned about what could happen once government subsidies end, Purdy sees them as a barrier to small business success.

Previously productive workers are now accepting voluntary unemployment, as generous government subsidies nearly replace their need to work, says Purdy. The business owners and executives in my circles are very concerned with the inevitable increase in taxes, regulations, and further closures of business and borders.

Despite the potential for a recession and COVID-19 setbacks, both Lee and Purdy remain optimistic.

Even though we expect a recession, we are starting to have conversations with companies and entrepreneurs that see this as great opportunity, says Lee. For example, British Columbia real estate showings and prices have started to rise in certain areas, some restaurants have increased revenue 30-40% with no wait staff and dishwashers and companies are strengthening their operations to increase market share.

Purdy notes that Canadians are resourceful and resilient. As a direct result of this pandemic and temporary economic contraction, Canadians will discover new things, learn better ways and emerge less dependent on other countries to meet their demand for goods and services.

While others worry and fret, Canadians will move forward with a renewed sense of purpose, pride, and personal contribution to finish well in 2020, says Purdy.

Express CEO Bill Stoller says businesses should continue to be flexible to meet current product and service demands.

This pandemic may have taken businesses by surprise, but the best economic recovery strategy is to keep a tab on current market conditions and continue to adapt, he said.

Survey Methodology

The survey was conducted online within Canada by The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals between April 21 and May 6, 2020 among 501 Canadian hiring decision-makers (defined as adults ages 18+ in Canada who are employed full-time or self-employed or have been laid off, furloughed, or given a zero hour schedule in the past 60 days but worked full-time or were self-employed full-time prior, work at companies with more than 1 employee, and have full/significant involvement in hiring decisions at their company). Data were weighted where necessary by company size to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

If you would like to arrange for an interview to discuss this topic, please contact Adria Minsky at

(416) 620-7111 or email adria@mapleleafstrategies.com .

About Bill Stoller

William H. "Bill" Stoller is chairman and chief executive officer of Express Employment Professionals. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, the international staffing company has more than 825 franchises in the U.S., Canada and South Africa, and beginning in 2020 will expand to Australia and New Zealand. Since its inception, Express has put more than 8 million people to work worldwide.

About Express Employment Professionals

At Express Employment Professionals, were in the business of people. From job seekers to client companies, Express helps people thrive and businesses grow. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, our international network of franchises offer localized staffing solutions to the communities they serve, employing 552,000 people across North America in 2019. For more information, visit www.ExpressPros.com.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b3ae93bb-78ca-4d6e-ac4b-aeccc07f86bc




~ Protocols tend to change for August 1st, 2020.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Health and Labor Richard Panneflek announced that CPS is now monitoring 3 cases of positive COVID-19 cases. These persons are under quarantine at their homes. Panneflek said that only one person was tested positive that came in on the repatriated flight on Saturday, July 18th, while a second person was inconclusive. The Minister said that the person that tested positive did not have any symptoms when they arrived and as such the risk of spreading was minimal since the person wore a mask inflight.

Asked about the protocols in place the Minister of Health said that the flight that came in falls in the period while St. Maartens border is closed to the USA, thus persons that returned to the island during that period must adhere to the 14 days quarantine.

Panneflek said that should the borders reopen by August 1st to the US territories then the protocol will change. He said that right now both the French and Dutch authorities are working closely in monitoring the passengers that are arriving on St. Maarten through Princess Juliana International Airport.

He said an application will be available for incoming passengers traveling or returning to Sint Maarten who have a valid PCR test taken within the last 72 hours to upload prior to boarding the flight. Persons who have no valid PCR test within the required 72 hours will be PCR tested at the airport upon arrival. Dr. Perk will be the physician spearheading the operations at the airport on behalf of the Department of Public Health. Dr. Perls role will be to monitor and confirm the validity of COVID test results presented, to oversee testing for those without valid test results and persons whose results exceed the 72 hours mark.

So far, there are 81 confirmed COVID-19 cases on St. Maarten, 63 persons recovered, while 15 persons are deceased.

Persons that intend to visit St. Maarten as of August 1st are asked to follow the requirements such as having the PCR testing before arrival time.
Even the most casual architecture observers will likely recognize a Robert A.M. Stern Architectsdesigned residential building. Theres the stylea glorious melding of classic and cosmopolitan. Then there are the heightsinching close to 1,000 feet in the case of 220 Central Park South and nearly 800 feet at 520 Park Avenue, which features Manhattan's highest balconies.

There are also the materialscreamy limestone-clad facades that evoke a sense of glamour and timelessness at buildings such as 520 Park Avenue, 30 Park Place, and 15 Central Park West. And, of course, the prices: some of the most stratospheric in the world including the most expensive apartment ever sold in the U.S. a $238 million four-floor penthouse aerie at the Stern-designed 220 Central Park South that went into contract last year.

Now Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) is set to launch what could be the architects most distinctive residential project yet1228 Madison Avenue. A bijoux building in Manhattans Carnegie Hill, the development houses a mere 15 cooperatives tucked into a striking tower featuring limestone at the base and a tri-tone blend of gray brick with cast-stone accents above.

Inside, there are surprisingly contemporary interiors created by AD100 designer Kelly Behun, best known for her recent collaborations with everyone from The Rug Company to Hudson Valley Lighting. This is my first residential building, enthused Behun this week just as 1228 Madison Avenue was about to launch sales. But pairing the project with Robert Stern felt super compelling and really just sealed the deal.

At first glance, Stern and Behun might seem like an odd pairingwhat with his commitment to timelessness and tradition, and her whimsical embrace of color and craft. But 1228 Madison is uniquely positioned to maximize what both talents do best. Each of the two- to four-bedroom homes there are large14 full-floor units and a duplex penthouse that elegantly blends into the building's crown, itself composed of a series of setbacks.

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The crown feels quite romantic and the setbacks reveal a series of outdoor terraces, says RAMSA partner Paul L. Whalen, veteran of now-iconic RAMSA buildings including 15 Central Park West, 520 Park Avenue, and 20 East End Avenue. The duplex feels like its own house in the sky. Indeed, with its small unit number and extreme sense of privacyresidents literally have no neighbors on the same floorWhalen describes the building as a sort of vertical village[where] some houses are smaller, some larger, and it all just fits together.

Inside, Behun has infused the residences with equal doses of refined materials and whimsical design. Her touches are both subtle and dramatic: A soaring 18-foot living room, for instance, is anchored by a dramatic arch that leads to an alfresco terrace and fireplace. Accenting it all are Behun-helmed flourishes including chevron oak floors. Meanwhile, in the kitchens, Behun embedded a slim ribbon of oak into Portuguese-marble center islands and white cabinets.

The wood adds a strip of warmth to the kitchens entire perimeter, says Behun. Those chevron oak floors also appear in the kitchen, which really transforms it into an extension of the other living spaces.

Whalen says the buildings distinctive architecture was both inspired by and meant to hold its own among Madison Avenues surprisingly impressive trove of iconic design. Not only are elegant Baroque and Gothic buildings found on the avenue, its also one of the worlds great shopping streets, he says, noting that 1228 took many of its design cues from the great English architect Sir John Soane. Its a historic neighborhood and our building fits into this on the outside, with a more modern feel from Behun on the inside.

Although 1228 Madison was envisioned before the COVID-19 pandemic, its final design and layouts conform to the current eras new style of living. Along with the security and privacy of only one residence per floor, those floors have lots of windows and cross ventilation, Whalen says, to keep the air safe and clean.

While 1228 Madison Avenues location close to Central Park and prime Upper East Side schools will clearly appeal to families, Behun says the neighborhoodwhere she lived years agois actually far cooler than it might first appear. There is so much going on there architecturally, especially the nearby Guggenheim Museum, she notes. So some apartments will clearly appeal to families with children, she added, but upstairs could just as likely be some fascinating, jet-setting man of mystery.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
By PTI

JAIPUR: Rajasthan Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas on Wednesday said the Central government should play the role of a guardian, but the BJP-led NDA regime is "making all efforts" to topple the Congress government in the state.

"They are misusing Central agencies like the CBI, Income Tax Department and Enforcement Directorate against the state government and murdering the democracy. It seems they have taken a pledge to topple the state government," he told reporters outside the hotel at the Jaipur-Delhi Highway where the Gehlot camp MLAs are staying.

His statement came amid a political crisis in Rajasthan due to rebellion in the Congress, which the party has been blaming on the BJP.

Also, the CBI questioned Gehlot's OSD Tuesday in connection with the alleged suicide by a police officer, while the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday raided the premises of the CM's brother in a money-laundering case. "The Central government's role should be like a guardian...it should work for farmers, labourers and people. But they want to topple the state government," Khachariyawas said.

He said that these attempts are insult to the people of Rajasthan who gave a mandate to the Congress. "This is injustice and harassment. They are not bothered about price rise, fuel price hike and the coronavirus pandemic. They are making all efforts to topple the government," the minister claimed.

He added, "We are not going to be afraid. Since they have not been successful in toppling the government, they are misusing government agencies."
Lucknow, July 22 : Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Gopamau in Hardoi, Shyam Prakash, has once again embarrassed his own party by accusing bureaucrats of being corrupt.

"Maine apne rajnaitik jeevan mein itna bhrashtachar nahin dekha. Jisse shikayat karo wo khud wasooli kar leta hai (I have never seen this level of corruption in my political career. Whenever you lodge a complaint with anyone, he asks for bribe)," he wrote in a Facebook post.

The post, however, was deleted and the MLA said that he had deleted the post because people had started generalizing the issue.

In April this year, Prakash had been served a show cause notice when he made allegations of corruption in purchase of medical equipment in the fight against Corona pandemic.

He did not reply to the notice and was later suspended.

The MLA had demanded refund of Rs 25 lakh meant for battling the pandemic. Prakash had accused the district administration of not informing him about how money was allocated from his MLA funds.

Prakash was earlier with the Samajwadi Party and had joined BJP before 2017 Assembly elections.

A political turncoat, he has seamlessly moved to different political camps, including Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpai said, "Shyam Prakash does not appear to be in the right state of mind. He had been suspended from the party three months ago for accusing the state government of corruption."
Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) today released its regular weekly Net Asset Value ("NAV") and performance returns on its website, https://www.pershingsquareholdings.com/company-reports/weekly-navs/. The NAV and returns were computed as of the close of business on Tuesday, 21 July 2020.

PSH NAV per share as of close of business on 21 July 2020 was 36.08 USD 28.33 GBP and year-to-date performance was 34.7%.

Weekly net asset value ("NAV") is calculated as of the close of business on each Tuesday and posted on the following business day. In the event that Tuesday is not a business day, the Company will calculate the close-of-business NAV as of the business day immediately preceding that Tuesday. The end-of-month NAV is calculated as of the close of business on the last day of the month and posted on the following business day. For weeks that include a month-end NAV report, PSH will provide only the month-end NAV and not report the Tuesday NAV. Monthly NAVs are published in accordance with the Decree on Conduct of Business Supervision of Financial Undertakings under the Wft (Besluit Gedragstoezicht financiele ondernemingen Wft).

Performance is presented on a net-of-fees basis and reflects the deduction of, among other expenses: management fees, brokerage commissions, administrative fees and accrued performance fees, if any. The performance figure includes the reinvestment of all dividends, interest and capital gains. Depending on the timing of a specific investment, net performance for an individual investor may vary from the net performance as stated herein. Net performance is a geometrically linked time weighted calculation.

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. All investments involve risk including the loss of principal.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200722005936/en/

Contacts:

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Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, July 22, 2020 11:54 546 6657ac82168da9fa101c8a406685f0d4 1 News Iceland,psychological-aid,tourism,travel,pandemic Free

The Icelandic Tourism Board has launched a one-of-a-kind campaign to lift peoples moods during the pandemic.

Through a project called Let It Out, the board invites people around the world to record their screams online to release their bottled-up frustrations. The screams will then be played via huge speakers installed in some of Icelands most remote locations.

According to the projects official website, screaming is a therapeutic tool and can be effective to release pent-up emotion.

Part of the beneficial effect of screaming comes from being able to make a loud noise into a wide, open, undisturbed space, Zoe Aston, a therapist and mental health consultant said in the website.

Read also: Iceland to test airport passengers for coronavirus

People around the world can submit their screams by tapping a button on the website. After allowing the website to access your microphone and let it record.

Participants can expect their screams to be released at the country's beautiful, deserted locations, such as the peak of Fasterfjall in Reykjanes Peninsula, Videy Island in Reykjavik, and the Skogarfoss waterfall.

Tourism has been one of the most important industries in Iceland thanks to its pristine nature and unique northern atmosphere. It has brought economic significance over the past 15 years. In 2016 for instance, the tourist industry was estimated to have contributed 10 percent to the Icelandic GDP.

During the pandemic, Iceland is keeping its borders open only to residents of the Schengen Area, European Economic Area, European Free Trade Association, European Union and travelers from Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay, with extra precautions in place to contain the spread of COVID-19. (gis/kes)
There was no improvement Tuesday in the grim flood situation in Assam as the death toll rose by two to reach 87, while 24.19 lakh people in 24 districts are affected, a government report said. According to the daily flood bulletin by the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), one person died at Raha in Nagaon district and another at Morigaon town, taking the toll in the devastating floods to 87.

The ASDMA report said that at present 2,323 villages across Assam are under water and 1.10 lakh hectares of crop area has been damaged.

Besides, landslides triggered by the rains and the floods have claimed 26 lives so far this year, it said.

The flood-affected districts are: Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Biswanath, Darrang, Baksa, Nalbari, Barpeta, Chirang, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Dhubri, South Salmara, Goalpara, Kamrup, Kamrup Metropolitan, Morigaon, Nagaon, Golaghat, Jorhat, Majuli, Sivasagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Cachar.

The ASDMA report said the mighty Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger marks in Dibrugarh, Dhubri and Goalpara cities, besides at Nimatighat in Jorhat and Tezpur in Sonitpur districts.

Its tributary Dhansiri is flowing above the danger mark at Numaligarh in Golaghat district, Jia Bharali river at NT Road crossing in Sonitpur, Kopili river at Dharamtul in Nagaon district, Beki river at Road bridge in Barpeta and Kushiyara river at Karimganj town. Embankments, roads, bridges, culverts and many other infrastructure have been damaged at various places in Udalguri, Bongaigaon, Goalpara, Kokrajhar and Dibrugarh districts, the report said.

Massive erosion has been witnessed at different places of Majuli, Baksa, Sonitpur and Udalguri districts, it added.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal visited the erosion hit areas of Tulsijhara village near Hagrama bridge in Chirang district on Tuesday and assessed the devastations caused by Aie river.

He also visited two flood relief camps set up in schools by Chirang district administration and interacted with the inmates to take stock of the government services being provided to the affected people.

He told newsmen that the floodwaters of Aie river have devastated huge tracts of agricultural land and affected large number of people in both Chirang and Bongaigaon districts.

Sonowal assured prompt steps by the state government for a lasting solution to flood and erosion by Aie.

To a query on floods in Assam caused by swollen rivers in neighbouring Bhutan, the chief minister said that the Centre will take up the matter with the government of that country for an early solution to the issue.

Stating that he has visited various flood affected districts for a first hand understanding about the damages caused by the deluge and the quality of services rendered by the district administration to the affected people, he said that the local authorities are taking expeditious measures for helping them.

People on their part have extended their full cooperation, he said. Sonowal said the Narendra Modi government at the Centre has made sincere efforts to find a permanent solution to the flood and erosion problem of Assam.

Last night, the chief minister had taken stock of COVID-19 and flood situation in Chirang, Bongaigaon and Goalpara districts in a meeting with senior district officers, sources said.

A total 397 relief camps and distribution centres have been opened in 18 districts where 44,498 people have taken shelter currently, the ASDMA report added.
Pitching for an India-US partnership "beyond trade", External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday that Washington should learn to work in a multi-polar world and beyond old alliances. He added that India and US can together lead the world out of crisis.

"I think the US really has to learn to work with a more multi-polar world with more pluri-lateral arrangements, go beyond alliances with which it has grown up in the last two generations," said Jaishankar at the Ideas Summit hosted by the US-India Business Council.

Speaking in a session titled: 'Leading in Times of Crisis: Perspectives on US Cooperation' attended by US Senator Mark Warner, Jaishankar said that Washington and New Delhi should focus on geopolitical basket and people-to-people ties as they have the potential to create a durable bilateral relationship.

"There are two big baskets to the issue we should be looking at. These are two drivers of a stronger relationship -- one is the geopolitical basket and other is people-to-people ties," Jaishankar said.

"Each one is game-changer in themselves and they reinforce each other. They have the potential to create a durable relationship between India and the US," the minister said, adding that beyond trade, there is a much bigger connect between India and the US which he called knowledge innovation.

The virtual summit will see a high-level presence from Indian and US government policymakers, state-level officials and thought leaders from business and society. Other key speakers at the summit include Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo among others.

The India Ideas Summit will witness discussions on areas including India-US cooperation. The future of the relation between India and the US in a post-pandemic world will also be discussed in the summit.

Meanwhile, talking about trade issues between India and US, Jaishankar said, "For Indo-US relations, we need to think beyond trade. I learnt it a long time back that these are bread and butter issues. This is how countries deal with each other. Conversations are dominated by debates on trade problems. One important point is that India has changed as a country. It now has areas where it can make its presence felt. Established players generally want the rules that benefit then to stay that way. In a fair manner, genuine concerns of emerging players should also be considered. How well we harmonise that will decide our future course. And that is where we believe USICB will play an important part."

Here's The Full Transcript of His Speech

There are two big basket of issues that we should be looking at. These are the drivers in fat in the last 20 years of strong relationship. One is geopolitical and the second is people-to-people. Each one is a game changer in themselves. They reinforce each other, they have in the last 20 years.

They have the potential to create a very durable relationship between India and United States. Talking about the geopolitical aspect, The US really needs to learn to work in a multipolar world. Need to work more in a plurilateral arrangement. It needs to go beyond alliances that it has grown up with in the last two generations.

Now talking specifically of India, given our history of Independence and everything put together we are now coming together in different spaces. In the last two decades and I see that happen in the future the reality is to find more new common ground. We have the ability today to work together to shape the world.

Be it at maritime security counter terrorism, connectivity, In response to pandemic such as coronavirus we have also collaborated on climate change extra so the idea here is to keep working on our bilateral agenda and also play a part to shape a larger agenda. Mifi having worked with many previous administration. And in my experience working with various administrations including this one American policy makers have intuitively been going that way.

Now on the people-to-people side when America became independent there were three thousand Indian Americans living on the other side and perhaps a couple of million more Indian citizens on non immigrant visas. It has given a new face to the relationship and it has most importantly created a sense of bonding between the two cultures. And it is a bonding which is today very much centred around talent.

Innovation Technology quantitation Shepherd in a globalised knowledge economy work to my mind the key on the principles on which we should recognise and build a trusted talent. The key for this relationship is to recognise and build on trusted talent and creating more resilient supply chains in which both of us participate.

I understand the centrality of economic relations. I understood it during my days as a diplomat that is our bread and butter issues. These are what make countries deal with each other. But I think for India and the US while we work our trade issues we need to think bigger. I think for trade the last two years has been dominated by the conversation around your complaint in my complain. Beyond trade there is a larger connect between the two countries and the connect I believe is knowledge innovation based.

Apart from our strategies on exchange of goods, I think the ability to work together for innovation and technology is what will take us further. I believe that read issues need to be resolved and we need to work towards exploring the landscape that seem so similar to both the countries. However there is another point that needs to be made. Indian is also changing.

There are new capabilities that are emerging in India. There are domains and sectors in which we now have mastery which we did not have a few years earlier. Therefore you know our conversation is a reflection of a rebalancing act of the world economic conversation where up and emerging players have different concerns than established players. Established players want conversations around factors that help them to continue over the years. How well we harmonise that will decide our future course. And that is where we believe USICB will play an important part.
As the novel coronavirus spread globally, COVID has become the most tweeted topic by world leaders during the first three months of 2020, according to the newly released 2020 Twiplomacy rankings by leading global communications agency BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe).

Heads of state and foreign ministers took to Twitter to share critical coronavirus information and encourage their citizens to stay home and stay safe. Many leaders have been leading by example and updating their Twitter profiles, wearing a face mask and participating in the #SafeHands challenge. World leaders and diplomats also had to adapt to working from home and have been thrust into video conferences, making diplomacy truly digital.

The BCW Twiplomacy study 2020 focuses on how world leaders have tweeted during the coronavirus pandemic and how Twitter has tried to keep the chatter clean from disinformation.

The coronavirus has been the main topic on Twitter for the past three months, and due to the worldwide lockdown Twitter has seen increased interest, said Chad Latz, Chief Innovation Officer, BCW. It is therefore vital for world leaders to use channels like Twitter to reach out to their followers to spread critical health warnings and keep their followers abreast of the latest COVID-19-related information. As the pandemic abates in some countries, world leaders will find themselves with an expanded audiences for future engagement.

Also Read: Google bans ads touting Coronavirus conspiracies

For the fourth year running, U.S. President Donald Trump is the most followed world leader on Twitter, with 81.1 million followers on his @realDonaldTrump account which has grown by 33 percent year-over-year. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has moved up into second position with 57.9 million followers, ahead of Pope Francis who has 51 million followers on his nine different language accounts.

The heads of state and government of 163 countries and 132 foreign ministers maintain personal accounts on the platform. As of June 1, 2020, all 1,089 personal and institutional Twitter accounts of world leaders had a combined total of more than 620 million followers.

President Trump is also the most effective world leader on Twitter, since each one of his tweets garners on average 24,000 retweets, which is slightly better than Saudi King Salman who garners 23,573 retweets per tweet. However, Indian Prime Minister Modi leads the rankings in terms of true reach as calculated by Klear.com. The Narendra Modi account reaches on average 40 million followers, or 70 percent of his followers with his tweets, twice as many as President Trump who only reaches an audience of 20 million or a quarter of his followers.

According to the 2020 edition of Twiplomacy, the governments and leaders of 189 countries had an official presence on the social network, representing 98 percent of the 193 UN member states. The governments of only four countries do not have a Twitter presence, namely Laos, North Korea, Sao Tome and Principe and Turkmenistan.

For the first time the Icelandic Foreign Ministry (@MFAIceland) tops the rankings of the best-connected foreign offices, mutually following 147 other foreign ministries and world leaders. The European External Action Service (@EU_eeas), the UK Foreign Office and the Russian Foreign Ministry are in second place mutually following 145 foreign ministries and world leaders.

Other key findings include:

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan is still the most followed leader in the Arab world with 10,441,750 followers. However, her account has almost stagnated year-on-year and Sheikh Mohammed, the Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai is hot on her heels with 10,285,642 followers.

Muhammadu Buhari, the president of Nigeria is by far the most followed Sub-Saharan African leader with 3,121,169 followers ahead of Paul Kagame the president of Rwanda with 1,910,159 followers. Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa has seen the biggest growth over the past year more than doubling his followers reaching 1,386,849.

French President Emmanuel Macron is the most followed EU leader with 5,293,346 followers ahead of his institutional account for the Elysee Palace with 2,492,468 followers. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is in third position with 1,405,481.

Mexicos President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is Latin Americas most followed leader with 7,098,711 followers, ahead of Brazils President Jair Bolsonaro with 6,625,551 followers. Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro is in third position with 3,814,896 followers. Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador and Ivan Duque, the president of Colombia, have seen the strongest growth year on year both doubling their follower numbers.
The United States is leading the world in terms of Covid-19 testing and India is at second position, President Donald Trump said while giving an update on his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. So far more than 140,000 Americans have died due to coronavirus and 3.8 million have tested positive.

While the US economy is slowly coming back to normal, the pandemic is now spreading in the Sun Belt of the country. "As one family, we mourn every precious life that's been lost. I pledge in their honour that we will develop a vaccine and we will defeat the ...
Sgt. 1st Class Scott Bulthus said the company comprises about 150 troops who had been based in Kuwait. The troops have been away since COVID-19 has put most of the globe on lockdown and Bulthus said the disease has led to its own stress. Not only have the families had to socially distance from the community but the troops have had to take precautions to avoid getting sick. The pandemic has created its own risk.
A former British spy who wrote a 2016 dossier about alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia told a judge he never "knew or foresaw" that any media organisation would publish information to the "world at large".

Christopher Steele told Mr Justice Warby his business depended on confidentiality and he therefore took great care to ensure intelligence was handled and communicated carefully.

Mr Steele was giving evidence at a High Court trial in London on Wednesday after being sued for defamation by a Russian businessman named in the dossier.

The former MI6 agent runs the London-based Orbis Business Intelligence and was named in reports as having compiled the file on Mr Trump.

The 35-page dossier contains unverified allegations that Russian security officials have compromising material on Mr Trump that could be used to blackmail him.

Donald Trump has suggested American intelligence agencies may be responsible for the release of the explosive dossier / REUTERS

Aleksej Gubarev, who runs an IT infrastructure business, has told the judge he was stunned when BuzzFeed reported that the Steele dossier had linked him to a US Democratic Party hacking incident.

Mr Gubarev, and a company he runs called Webzilla, took legal action after BuzzFeed published the dossier in January 2017, the month Mr Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States.

He says he has been defamed by Mr Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence, and wants very substantial damages.

Orbis and Mr Steele are fighting the claim and deny defamation.

It is not in Orbiss interest for any of our intelligence work to be aired in the media or public domain, especially in raw or unanalysed form, Mr Steele told the judge, in a written witness statement.

Our business depends on the confidentiality of our clients and sources. If these are exposed to the world, no-one will contact Orbis to do discreet work on their behalf.

It would therefore be professionally ruinous  and also morally repugnant  for us to do anything that could risk exposing a source, especially in a ruthless, lawless place like Russia, as a result of any such (especially media) exposure.

He said that if he had known that BuzzFeed had a copy of the dossier, and intended to publish, he would done whatever I could do to prevent this.

The dossier was commissioned by a Washington consultancy acting for a law firm, the judge has heard.

He has been told that the ultimate client was the Democratic National Committee and/or Hillary Clintons presidential election campaign.

Lawyers representing Mr Gubarev have said there is no suggestion the allegations against Mr Gubarev and Webzilla were true.

They say BuzzFeed apologised and redacted the names of Mr Gubarev and Webzilla from its website.

The lawyers said Mr Gubarev is not suggesting Orbis and Mr Steele had been malicious, but the central question is whether they were responsible in law for the publication of the dossier by BuzzFeed.

Mr Gubarevs case is that they were. Mr Steele disagrees and says the claim should be dismissed.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.
By PTI

MUMBAI: Actor Sonu Sood on Wednesday launched an app to offer support to workers in finding right job opportunities in various sectors across the country.

Sood, who catapulted to the national spotlight for his work in helping migrants reach their homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, has come out with a free of cost online platform called 'Pravasi Rojgar', which will provide all the necessary information and right linkages to find jobs.

The 47-year-old actor said while arranging travel for the migrants, their conversations would often revolve around how they were looking for the right work opportunity amid the pandemic.

"Lot of thinking, planning and preparation have gone into designing this initiative over the last few months, in order to ensure that it is holistic and builds on the work already being done in the country.

"Extensive consultations have been held with top organisations that're involved at the grassroots level in skilling and placing the youth below the poverty line, NGOs, philanthropic organisations, government functionaries, strategy consultants, technology start ups and above all the returned migrants whom I have helped," Sood said in a statement.

The initiative will be supported by community outreach in the villages to find the right employment opportunities for migrant workers in different parts of the country.

According to the release, the online platform has over 500 reputed companies related to construction, apparel, healthcare, engineering, BPOs, security, automobile, e-commerce and logistics sectors, offering job opportunities.

'Pravasi Rojgar' will also be offering specific job training programmes like spoken English.

A 24x7 helpline have been set up in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad and Thiruvananthapuram.
SAN RAFAEL, Calif., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Phoenix American Financial Services and its wholly owned subsidiary PAFS Ireland, Ltd (collectively "Phoenix") announce today that John McInerney, Managing Director of PAFS Ireland, Ltd, has been honored with the Future Leader Award by Airline Economics magazine. Annually, Airline Economics recognizes emerging talent in the aviation industry with its 40 Under 40 list of outstanding professionals, nominated by their peers, who are under forty years of age. The candidate who receives the most nominations tops the 40 Under 40 list and is awarded the coveted Future Leader Award.

John McInerney, Managing Director, Phoenix American, PAFS Ireland, Ltd.

A chartered accountant, Mr. McInerney was promoted to managing director of PAFS Ireland in October of 2018, having served Phoenix American in various roles since 2008. Prior to joining Phoenix American, McInerney worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dublin and Boston. He was singled out for recognition with a record number of nominations from peers, clients and industry grandees, who all cite his professionalism, remarkable leadership qualities and "can do" attitude.

Mr. McInerney has been praised for overseeing the rapid growth of the Shannon office of Phoenix American Financial Services, which has grown to more than fifty individuals during his tenure. "The success of Phoenix American Financial Services Shannon is due in no small part to the leadership and clear thinking provided by John," says one client.

Phoenix American and Mr. McInerney's team, which service entities with over 1,400 aircraft and engines having a combined appraised value exceeding $35 billion, have been pivotal in many successful ABS transactions. Specifically highlighted is Mr. McInerney's work on the innovative and complex JOL Air 2019-1 ABS transaction, which not only featured Japanese tax equity for the first time but also required simultaneous novation and transition of all portfolio aircraft on the closing of the ABS deal. This deal closed successfully within a challenging timeframe, which is credited to Phoenix American's years of experience, Mr. McInerney's management style and the procedures he has implemented.

Mr. McInerney's professionalism has been applauded by clients and colleagues more recently during the pandemic crisis. Remaining calm under pressure and showing extraordinary leadership abilities, he shepherded his clients through unprecedented operational challenges with no interruption to day-to-day service. "The efficiency and effectiveness of John's leadership in serving a world-class roster of clients through a global catastrophe has been impressive in the extreme," says one nomination. On a more personable level, clients and colleagues refer to his natural ability to create trust and develop valued relationships across the industry. Client comments praise his responsiveness, dedication and "going that extra mile" to produce the best results. That obtainability combined with his professionalism, knowledge and efficiency has soothed the nerves of many new issuers when entering the ABS market.

Commenting on the current stress of the pandemic crisis, which has devastated the global air transportation industry, Mr. McInerney projects confidence and optimism. "Rising to the challenges of a crisis is nothing new to airlines and the broader aviation sector," he says. "Just as the industry has overcome past health epidemics, economic recessions, safety incidents, and other debilitating events, it will also overcome the COVID-19 crisis. If history has taught us anything, it is that aviation will bounce back. It is just a question of how long this will take," he says.

Phoenix American Financial Services

The Phoenix American Financial Services aircraft group, including its Irish subsidiary, PAFS Ireland Limited, provides managing agent services for asset backed securitizations in the commercial aircraft and engine leasing industry. The company is a division of Phoenix American Financial Services, Inc. which provides fund administration, investor services and sales and marketing reporting services to companies in the alternative investment industry. The Company is an affiliate of Phoenix American Incorporated along with Phoenix American SalesFocus Solutions. Phoenix American was founded in 1972, has six offices worldwide and is headquartered in San Rafael, CA.

For more information, contact Phoenix American at 1-866-895-5050 or visit www.phxa.com.

Media Contact:

David Fisher

Director

[email protected]

(415) 485-4673

SOURCE Phoenix American

Related Links

http://www.phxa.com


Mayawati 's critique of the state government of Yogi Adityanath arrived shortly after Rahul Gandhi of Congress said the region was "pledged Ram Raj" but got "goonda raj" after Vikram Joshi died early in the morning.

Attacking the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Wednesday alleged that jungle raj prevails in the state and crimes are increasing in the region.

The manner in which serious crimes are increasing in Uttar Pradesh, including murder and against women, it is clear that the jungle raj is prevailing in the state rather than the law. In Uttar Pradesh, more than coronavirus, crime virus dominates the region. The public is affected by this. The government must pay attention to the issue, she tweeted (roughly translated from Hindi).

The statement from the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister came after journalist Vikram Joshi, who was shot at by unknown miscreants near his residence in Vijay Nagar, Ghaziabad on July 20, died at a hospital on Wednesday.

Doctors monitoring Joshi had said that the veins in the journalists head had got badly damaged due to the bullet injury.Meanwhile, the station in-charge has been suspended and departmental inquiry initiated after the family of the journalist alleged inaction by the police.

The incident occurred on Monday, days after Vikram Joshi had filed a complaint with Vijay Nagar Police Station stating that some men were harassing his niece. Hours after the death of journalist Vikram Joshi, Uttar Pradesh Police on Wednesday stated that it has arrested nine people in the case, while one accused is absconding.

Slamming Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for commenting on the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh after the murder of a journalist in Ghaziabad, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Wednesday said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths government would not spare the culprits who killed Vikram Joshi.

We dont need proof about anything that is going in the state of Uttar Pradesh from Priyanka Gandhi. Whoever is the culprit, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanaths government will not spare them, Naqvi told ANI. Naqvis remark came after Priyanka had rebuked the Uttar Pradesh Government on Tuesday for the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, specifically mentioning the incident wherein a journalist in Ghaziabad was shot for complaining to the police about his niece being harassed.

Ghaziabad is in NCR. If such is the condition of law and order here, then you can guess the condition of law and order in the entire Uttar Pradesh. A journalist was shot because he had complained to the police about his niece being harassed. How will any common man feel safe in this jungle raj? Priyanka had written on Twitter.

Ghaziabad District Magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey has said that Rs 10 lakh economic assistance has been announced by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for the family of Joshi who died on Wednesday after being shot by miscreants on July 20.

Kalanidhi Naithani, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ghaziabad said, The case is registered. as per the CCTV footage, nine accused have been arrested. The main accused, Ravi and Chotu have been arrested. Ravi had planned the task and Chotu had shot at the journalist. Their illegal pistol was also seized. If anyone elses name comes up, that person will also be arrested.

The police have taken the statements of the accused. Security arrangements have been made for the family, the SSP said. Earlier in the day, a group of journalists held a protest against the murder of Joshi.

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As the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spreads throughout the world infecting millions, scientists are still frantically searching for an effective vaccine or antiviral.

One obstacle in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development is the absence of a small animal model that undergoes infection with SARS-CoV-2 in a manner similar to humans.

Now, a new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv* in July 2020 presents an engineered transgenic mouse that reproduces the functional and clinical characteristics of severe human SARS-CoV-2 infection. This will allow the study of the disease process in humans, as well as help increase the efficacy of vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 and therapeutic drugs for COVID-19 disease.

The Importance of ACE2 in COVID-19

The SARS-CoV-2 virus gains access to the human host cells via the receptor molecule called the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), used by both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. This receptor is found on a wide variety of cells, in the lung, the heart, the central nervous system, the kidneys, the gut, and in blood vessels as well as in fat tissue. Its physiological function includes negative regulation of the renin-angiotensin system and increased transport of specific amino acids.

K18 hACE2 transgenic mice develop rhinitis, pneumonia with associated pulmonary inflammation after infection with SARS-CoV-2. (A-D and I-L) WT C57BL/6 mice. Minimal mononuclear and neutrophilic interstitial pneumonia in WT lung at 2-DPI (A, B bracket). By 4-DPI (5C, D) minimal alveolar histiocytosis (D, asterisk) pneumocyte type II cells (D, arrowheads), perivascular mononuclear inflammation (D, bracket) and rhinitis with low numbers of neutrophils (K, arrowhead) were variably observed. Lymphocyte aggregates in the lamina propria of the small intestine (I, asterisk). Mixed mononuclear inflammation with individual hepatocellular necrosis (J, arrowhead). Brain from WT 4-DPI was normal (L). (E-H and M-P) K18 hACE2 transgenic mice. Interstitial pneumonia (E, F) associated with alveolar histiocytosis admixed neutrophils and lymphocytes (F, asterisks), mild type II pneumocyte hyperplasia (F, arrowhead), bronchiolar syncytia (F, arrow), endothelial cells hyperplasia and vasculitis (F, bracket) by 2-DPI. Gut associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) with prominent germinal centers was observed (M, asterisk). Liver inflammation with variable amounts of individual hepatocellular necrosis (N, arrowhead). Greater lung involvement indicative of pneumonia (G), with inflammatory cellular accumulations and hemorrhage in alveolar spaces (H, asterisk) and interstitium (H, bracket), intra-alveolar fibrin admixed cellular debris (H, arrow), vasculitis (H, bracket), edema (H, arrowhead) by 4-DPI. Neutrophilic rhinitis observed at 4-DPI (O, bracket). Mild meningoencephalitis with vasculitis (P, arrowhead). Scale bars left images, 1 mm. Scale bars right images, 50 mm. DPI: Days post-infection.

Small Animal Models in COVID-19

If a small animal model could reproduce the respiratory infectious disease features seen in humans with severe COVID-19, this would help test out hypotheses related to the mechanism of disease as well as of drugs and vaccines. Not only are mice docile and easy to use in laboratory studies, they are also readily available, inexpensive, and capable of undergoing tests that will show how severe disease evolved in some people with COVID-19.

Previously, transgenic mice with human ACE2 (hACE2) expression have had promoters that allow the infection of the mice to an extent such that features of mild to moderate COVID-19 develop in many organs, as well as weight loss and immune responses. However, none of the models have developed fatal SARS-CoV-2 infection. The current study was focused on determining the susceptibility of the K18 hACE2 mice to fatal infection with SARS-CoV-2.

The Study: Transgenic Mice and SARS-CoV-2

The researchers worked with a strain of laboratory mice called K18 hACE2 transgenic mice, which can be infected with this virus, according to recent studies. The expression of the hACE2 in these mice is due to the presence of the cytokeratin 18 (K18) receptor. However, the critical point is that these mice express the receptor in their airway epithelium, just like human COVID-19 patients.

Early and Severe Disease

The researchers infected these mice with the virus to evaluate its suitability as an animal model for COVID-19 disease. They found that indeed the infected mice developed rhinitis, pneumonia, and lung inflammation. They rapidly lost weight and died within 6 days post-infection (DPI). Female mice began to lose weight at the third DPI, but male mice started to lose about 5% of their weight from 1 DPI. After the third DPI, all mice were noticeably and progressively ill and died by the sixth DPI.

High Viral Loads

The severity and time of death correlated well with the intensity of viral replication in the upper and lower respiratory tract and brain, measured at 2 and 4 DPI. The mice had ~1x103 PFU and ~1x104 PFU in the nose and the lungs, respectively. These were sustained at 4 DPI as well. Control mice had undetectable viral loads throughout the same period.

Early Cytokine Storm

They also found that the occurrence of cytokine storm, vasculitis as well as other features of local tissue damage. The nose and lung epithelium also showed a high level of viral nucleocapsid (N) antigen. The early cytokine storm, occurring at around 2 DPI in the lungs of the K18 hACE2 infected mice, with a marked rise in a number of cytokines relative to the controls. All the cytokines did not follow the same pattern, with some falling by 4 DPI.

The cytokines observed to rise included the inflammatory mediators TNF, IL-6, IFN-, and IFN-), and those related to Th1 activation (IL-12, IFN-), TH17 (IL-17, IL-27) as well as to Th2 activation (IL-4, IL-10). Earlier reports indicate that IL-1 is the earliest to rise, and since this was not observed, earlier measurements should probably have been taken in this mouse model.

The cytokines that remained raised include TNF and the type I and III IFNs. Thus, these could be the promoters of progressive disease.

Reasons for Fall in Cytokine Titers

Significantly, other cytokines reduce even though the viral load is increasing, and the mice are showing progressively more severe wasting. The reasons for this could be the lymphoid infiltrate, which dampens the inflammatory response, the rise in Th2 cytokines which is anti-inflammatory, or the fibrosis-inducing IL-10 rise, which could also cause immunoparalysis by modulating the function of the neutrophils and monocytes recruited at the site of infection. Or the high IL-6 levels could enhance TNF activity in the acute phase, as well as recruit B cells to produce antibodies and induce fibrosis.

If one or more of these immunoregulatory mechanisms fails, an aberrant and dysregulated cytokine release might result, leading to a cytokine storm as seen in this mouse model.

Continuing Inflammation and Tissue Damage

Similarly, the sustained rise in the cell signaling molecule MCP-1/CCL2 could be a sign of continuing tissue toxicity and of the recruitment of more inflammatory cells to the site of infection. The resulting abundance of neutrophils and monocytes and subsequent vasculitis may be significant contributors to progressive and fatal COVID-19.

Here again, the researchers say, the K18 hACE2 transgenic mice replicate cytokine and chemokine storm traits observed in humans.

To measure systemic inflammation, chemokine titers in the spleen were assessed and found to be higher by 2 DPI, but not in the same pattern as those that arose in the lung. However, other tissues, including the spleen, failed to show evidence of a cytokine storm, showing this to be a local response.

Neurological Involvement

In the brain, Th1 and Th17 cytokines and chemokines rose by 4 DPI, which indicates that the virus may have reached the brain at this point. However, Th2 cytokines were dominant, probably upregulating IL-10 and thus modulating the inflammatory response. The occurrence of Th2 in the brain in control mice without evidence of the virus may mean that the virus can cross the blood-brain barrier. This could throw light on why some human infections are associated with neurological features. Interestingly, the Th1 and Th17 cytokines were higher in males than in females, while Th2 responses were higher in the latter. This may point to a propensity for neurological features in males relative to females infected with the virus.

The researchers also found that the hACE2 receptor was found in the lungs and nose, but also at high levels in the choroid plexus, which could indicate a potential route of spread of the virus within the central nervous system.

Conclusion: Mouse Model Could Help Unravel Disease Mechanism

The study concludes, Our data provide evidence that K18 hACE2 transgenic mice represent an excellent animal model of SARS-CoV-2 infection and associated severe COVID-19 disease, providing the research community with a much needed small animal model to evaluate vaccines and/or antivirals for SARS-CoV-2 infection and associated severe COVID-19 disease in vivo.

These findings will help to establish this mouse model which replicates the signs of terminal COVID-19 disease, and thus be an invaluable addition to non-human primates for preclinical testing purposes, since the latter do not show the signs of severe respiratory distress characteristic in humans.

*Important Notice

bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
Iran's Parliament on Wednesday elected a controversial politician known as an associate of the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the new head of its supervisory arm, the Supreme Court of Audit.

Mehrdad Bazrpash who is a former Basij militia leader, lawmaker and vice president in the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected with 158 of the total 244 votes cast on Wednesday's open session of the hardliner-dominated Parliament.

Several influential politicians and critics of the Principlist camp, as some hardliners are known, had strongly objected to Bazrpash's nomination to the post.

In a letter to the Parliament Speaker Mohamad Baqer Qalibaf the anti-corruption former lawmaker Ahmad Tavakoli, urged the Parliament to reconsider the nomination of Bazrpash. Tavakoli said Bazrpash lacked sufficient experience and related education to head the Court of Audit.

Tavakoli, himself a Principlist, is the founder of an anti-corruption, non-governmental organization Justice and Transparency Watch.

Bazrpash served as CEO of two of Iran's largest automakers  SAIPA and Pars Khodro -- during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency. He was later appointed as Vice President and head of the National Youth Organization. Bazrpash launched Vatan-e Emrouz, a pro-Ahmadinejad newspaper, shortly before the disputed 2009 presidential election.

The former vice-president allegedly used government funds and resources to publish Vatan-e Emrouz which ceased publication in August 2019 due to "financial issues" as well as corruption allegations dating to the time he was the CEO of SAIPA and Pars Khodro.

Before its closure, the newspaper avidly criticized President Hassan Rouhani and his government and often chose very controversial and provocative headlines against him and the government.

Bazrpash somehow distanced himself from Ahmadinejad after his second term of presidency came to an end in 2013. He is very close to the ultra-hardliner Paydari Front.

Iran's Supreme Court of Audit is one of the 191 members of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), a non-governmental organization with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.

There have been some suggestions in the media that the forty-year-old Bazrpash may be seeking to run in next year's presidential election.
Sotero, a Burlington, MA-based comprehensive data protection company, raised $5M in funding round.

The round was led by Gutbrain Ventures, with participation from Boston Seed Capital and PBJ Capital.

Led by CEO Purandar Das, Sotero provides a data protection platform offering field-level encryption for data in use, data at rest, and data in motion across on-premise and cloud data stores. The company utilizes sophisticated encryption for data in use, including deterministic, random and format-preserving encryption and is also compatible with all on-prem, cloud and hybrid data stores, including Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, Hadoop, Avalanche, Snowflake, Yellowbrick, Postgres, and MongoDB, and comes with pre-built integrations to leading access and key management solutions.

The company already serves as an encryption solution for Yellowbrick Data, the hybrid cloud data warehouse company, as well as for global business transformation experts, Holley Holland, among others.

FinSMEs

22/07/2020
<! Above ex-minister of petroleum, Dan Etete who triggered the $1.3 billion bribe scandal >

Italian prosecutors have asked for oil majors Eni and Shell to be fined and some of their present and former executives, including Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, to be jailed in a long-running trial over alleged Nigerian oil bribery scandal.

In a Milan court, prosecutors asked on Tuesday for eight years in prison for Descalzi and seven years and four months for Shells former head of upstream Malcolm Brinded, Reuters reported.

The prosecutors also asked for Eni and Shell to be fined 900,000 euros ($1.04 million) each and sought to confiscate a total of $1.092 billion from all the defendants in the case, the equivalent of the bribes alleged to have been paid.

In one of the oil industrys biggest scandals, centred on Nigerian oilfield OPL 245, Italian prosecutors allege Eni and Shell acquired the oilfield in 2011 knowing most of the $1.3 billion purchase price would go to politicians and middlemen in bribes.

The companies and individuals accused have all denied wrongdoing in the case.

Prosecutors made the request in their closing arguments in Milan in one of the biggest corruption cases in the oil industrys history.

They allege that nearly all of the $1.3bn Shell and Eni paid in 2011 for the OPL 245 offshore oil block went towards bribes for businessmen, middlemen and Nigerian officials, particularly Dan Etete, Nigerias former oil minister, who owned the block.

In his closing argument of the two-year trial, prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale cited emails and testimony that he said proved that Shell, Eni and some of their most senior executives knew that most of the money they paid for OPL 245 went towards bribes.

The OPL 245 saga began in 1998, when Mr Etete, then petroleum minister, awarded his own company, Malabu, the licence for the field.

Years of legal wrangling between Shell and Malabu ensued, as the block was awarded and revoked to one and then the other by successive governments.

The 2011 deal was aimed at settling the disputed ownership of OPL 245, but instead led, in part because of a complaint by the London-based campaigning group Global Witness, to the bribery probe in Milan and investigations in the US, UK and the Netherlands.

The Nigerian government has argued that it was the victim of a serious fraud, though the companies continue to operate in the country.

In a separate case in the UK, Nigeria is suing JPMorgan Chase, alleging that the bank facilitated the misappropriation of $845m in state funds related to OPL 245 via transfers from Malabu accounts. The bank denies any wrongdoing.

Related
Protesters gather at an encampment outside City Hall in New York City on June 30, 2020. (John Minchillo/AP Photo)

NYPD Clears Autonomous Zone Near NYCs City Hall

New York City police officers cleared the so-called autonomous zone near City Hall in the early hours of July 22, surprising the occupiers.

The demonstrators had set up an encampment near City Hall, utilizing a city park and a plaza that typically is little-used except for a smattering of food trucks.

Video footage showed dozens of officers equipped with shields and wearing helmets entering the space and removing tents, tables, and other items. The items were placed in Department of Sanitation trucks and taken away.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, told reporters later Wednesday that he made the call to clear the occupation.

What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protest and more and more became an area where homeless folks were gathering, he said.

I said repeatedly, we do always respect the right to protest, but we have to think about health and safety first, and the health and safety issues were growing.

He praised police officers for how the clearing was handled.

New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Dermot Shea said he was happy with how the operation turned out.

I would categorize this as one for the win column and another step toward getting back to normalcy in New York, he said.

New York police officers standby as sanitation workers remove graffiti at the site of Occupy City Hall protest in New York City on July 22, 2020. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Sanitation workers clean up graffiti at the site of Occupy City Hall protest in New York City on July 22, 2020. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Sanitation workers use a pressure washer to remove graffiti near City Hall in New York City on July 22, 2020. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Around 40 or 50 people were at the park when the zone was cleared. Thirteen people were arrested, 11 of whom were male, an NYPD spokeswoman told The Epoch Times. Charges are pending.

Police officials said there were no apparent injuries suffered during the operation.

City workers, some in Hazmat-like suits, were seen later cleaning the area. The plaza was marked with chalk and graffiti, as were parts of a subway station and the outside of a nearby city building.

The clearing came as de Blasio joined some other Democratic mayors in urging the Trump administration not to send federal agents, arguing theyre not needed to maintain order.

Crime has spiked in many of Americas largest cities in recent weeks, amid protests and riots sparked in part by the death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.

In a July 22 letter to Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, de Blasio said New York City officials do not consent to federal agents and officers being sent to assist local law enforcement.

They have not been requested. They are not needed. And they have proved to bring way more harm than good, he wrote, threatening to take the federal government to court.

De Blasio said at the briefing that federal officers are being sent to do work theyre not trained to do, such as crowd control.

It threatens the core values of this country. So what we see in Portland is that the federal presence is actually making the situation worse, he added.

Wolf disputed that type of characterization on Tuesday, telling reporters in Washington that federal officers typically take a defensive posture but have been forced to escalate what they do because of the lack of action from local law enforcement.

The fact that we are there is because local officials are not taking action, he said.
The Deal! that EU Council president Charles Michel announced in a one-word tweet early yesterday morning is historic. There will be much talk of the money involved to rescue Europe from the deepest recession since the 1930s.

More important than the money, however, is the modality.

For the first time, the European Commission will borrow money. Deficits for this intra-national organisation are now the new normal. That debt will be mutualised among the member states.

The amount of money, 360bn in loans plus 390bn in grants, is significant in the greater scheme of things, even among 27 states.

What is of historical importance is that the EU has taken on another aspect of statehood. It is not of itself decisive, but it is an appreciable move-on in a more federal direction.

All of its ultimate consequences are unknowable, but I clearly sense it is a major change in how the EU will work in future.

It is a 'what-if' now whether this would have passed if the UK were still a member state. What is certain is that it was an enormously significant change of position by Germany which made it possible.

Partial regime change in Berlin with a Social Democrat finance minister, coupled with political cover from the Covid emergency within her own party, allowed Angela Merkel to lead a historic about-turn in German policy.

There was also a realisation in Berlin and elsewhere that a repetition of the austerity-based response to the last economic crisis was unthinkable  at least politically.

This left the so-called frugal four of Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden opposed to the deal  belligerent, but ultimately isolated.

Interestingly, Ireland had previously parted company from the so-called New Hanseatic League of northern states, which included three of the four, on this issue already.

Although significant concessions were grafted around their objections, the ultimate isolation of the four should be a warning to Ireland for the future.

The League was intended to give cohesion on shared concerns after Brexit. In fact, what is underlined now is the rejuvenation of the Franco-German alliance and a historic change of direction.

The mutualisation of debt, the consequent requirement to submit national plans, the ability of those plans to be referred back to the European Council, and the always-on Brussels agenda on tax mean that whatever the merits of yesterdays deal, its full effects will only be understood years from now.

The deal was not just an answer to Covid, it was a change of context for the EU forever.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel address a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels. Weary European Union leaders finally clinched an unprecedented budget and coronavirus recovery fund yesterday Photo: Stephanie Lecocq/AP

For the founding six members of the then EEC, and its predecessor European Coal and Steel Community, Europe has always primarily been a political project.

Read More Fergus Finlay: Ingenuity required to deliver political myths and mantras

Others since have shared that vision with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Britain is the most obvious outlier.

Economically, it has been an astonishingly successful project, however.

Politically, Europe has served us well in giving a small country, only recently de-colonised, a major multilateral platform to pursue our mission as an independent state.

Inextricably linked now to the EU, we should be both clear as to its obvious advantages and clear-eyed on what are likely to be increased challenges in pursuing our future objectives.

Having taken the momentous step of taking on debt, and mutualising it, the harmonisation of taxation will now be resurrected as a concurrent requirement. The need for a revived New Hanseatic League seems clear, but prospects for its cohesion and effectiveness much less so.

Yesterdays decision is comparable in its consequences with the Van Gend & Loos case in 1963. The case itself was insignificant and to do with a Dutch haulage firm aggrieved over customs levied on plastics it imported from Germany.

The key point is that the European Court accepted jurisdiction in a case between a member state and one of its citizens. The states, in turn, accepted the jurisdiction of the court and a new judicial order came into being.

It has since resulted in a slew of critically important cases, including the Apple case. It was a progenitor of both a vastly enhanced EU.

That court case, like yesterday's deal, came from circumstances of chance, remoulded into a vision for the future of Europe present from its foundation in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Just as the states accepted the jurisdiction of the European Court in 1963, they have now accorded what is one critical aspect of sovereign power to the European Commission, namely the capacity to raise debt on the international money markets.

The governance arrangements are such that while, theoretically, the issues of ultimate power are opaque, in practice it may be much simpler.

We have just passed through a moment when, as in 1963, an apparently specific remedy  in this case for the economic consequences of Covid  will ultimately have far wider consequences than even the incoming recession.

The big money decided on in Brussels, of course, was the seven-year multi-annual Financial Framework of 1.8 trillion. With Britain gone, and a hole to fill, it was a considerable achievement getting this agreed at all. The hole was simply filled in by making cuts to the EU budget.

Some 10bn is gone from funds to assist with climate change, 15bn gone from rural development, and more. In a game of snakes and ladders, a 5bn Brexit Adjustment Fund was created.

Ireland can hope to do well out of this. Thats the good news.

The challenge will be for our national Government to backfill cuts to the Common Agriculture Policy.

Expect farmers to ask pointed questions of Government about how what was decided in Brussels shakes out in the farmyard and what national contribution will be made here.

And that agenda runs in parallel to something called 'internal integration', which means that, over time, all farmers are paid equally per hectare. That means a redistribution of payments from the east to the west of the country and from bigger to smaller farmers. Its fraught  and on farming especially, the devil will be in detail that has yet to arrive.

The EU has demonstrated again that it can work for its citizens. The summit was a triumph for Angela Merkel and a political victory for Germany and France. It showed how, after a mere four days and months of preparation, major change and compromise could be effected.

The messiness makes for good media. In fact, endless fudging and compromising displays extraordinary agility over time to steer and advance an unprecedently complex mechanism of 27 states that is overwhelmingly for the good.

It is now also fundamentally different.

The UK is gone, and the EU has radically expanded its footprint. Ireland faces new challenges in Brussels.
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), Australian Defense Force (ADF), and the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group began a trilateral exercise in the Philippine Sea, July 19.

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), Australian Defense Force (ADF), and the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group began a trilateral exercise in the Philippine Sea, July 19.

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Trilateral exercises between the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Australian Defense Force and U.S. Navy. (Picture source: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Codie L. Soule/Released)

U.S. Naval forces routinely operate alongside regional allies, strengthening shared commitments to regional stability, and a free and open Indo-Pacific through integrated training and cooperation.

Throughout the cooperative exercise period, participants will operate and train together, exercising integrated maritime operations in an all-domain warfighting environment. Professional integrated engagements allows the U.S. Navy and allies the opportunity to build upon existing strong relationships and improve collective readiness and response to any situation.

Australia and Japan have both fostered long-standing alliances with the United States. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the treaty of mutual cooperation and security between the United States and Japan.

The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group consists of Carrier Air Wing 5, the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 54), and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin (DDG 89). The ADF Joint Task Group comprises HMA Ships Canberra (L02), Hobart (DDG 39), Stuart (FFH 153), Arunta (FFH 151), and Sirius (O 266). Participating in the JMSDF is JS Teruzuki (DD 116).

The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is the U.S. Navys only forward-deployed strike group and one of Americas most visible symbols of resolve. Operating together alongside allies from the ADF and JMSDF strengthens each nations collective commitment to the international rules-based order.
City council voted Wednesday to increase fees on Uber and Lyft rides at the citys two major airports.

The council voted 16-1 to approve a deal between the companies and the Houston Airport System to hike the fees, a move that puts Houston more in line with what other large Texas cities charge.

The companies passengers had been paying $2.75 per trip to get picked up at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and $1.25 at William P. Hobby Airport.

Under the new agreement, passengers will get charged on both pick-ups and drop-offs. The fee at Bush will rise to $3, and the fee at Hobby will jump to $2.75, though the latter increase is contingent on the city making agreed-upon improvements to the airport.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Houston set to boost fees for Uber, Lyft rides to and from airports

The companies pass the fees onto riders.

District F Councilmember Tiffany D. Thomas was the lone dissenting vote, saying the move would place more financial strain on residents during a tumultuous economic period.

Im resistant to passing fees down to consumers at this time, especially since unemployment (benefits) are ending and people are requesting relief in various forms, Thomas said.

People can always get in a cab, Mayor Sylvester Turner replied.

Cab drivers are charged $2.75 per IAH transaction and $1.25 at Hobby, though they also are subject to prescribed rates set by the city.

The ride-share deal also gives drivers more flexibility in how they leave the two airports staging areas to pick up customers. Now, they can pick up a customer without going to the staging area if they are dropping off another person. They can also leave the staging area in anticipation of a pick-up request.

The new fees are expected to bring in about $11 million a year to the city airport system. The current fee produces about $4 million a year in revenue.

dylan.mcguinness@chron.com
Essential workers still on the job at San Francisco International Airport say they are grappling with paying for health insurance for themselves and their families, which could leave them more vulnerable to the coronavirus

San Francisco Supervisors Shamann Walton and Rafael Mandelman said Tuesday they are seeking an ordinance that would lower costs for airport workers.

The Healthy Airport Ordinance would lower prices for more than 9,000 cabin cleaners, luggage handlers, janitors, security officers, wheelchair attendants and caterers working at SFO, along with their families, according to the supervisors and the Unite Here Local 2 and Service Employees International unions.

The ordinance would amend the citys Health Care Accountability Ordinance, passed in 2001, and expand it to require employers at SFO to provide insurance benefits that meet certain minimum standards of the Affordable Care Act at no cost to employees. It isnt clear how much it would cost employers.

Employers could choose to instead pay into a Covered California medical reimbursement account for SFO workers, Mandelman said.

Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle

He said that as of Monday, 76 workers at the airport had tested positive for COVID-19, and many workers are uninsured or underinsured and cannot afford monthly premiums on meager salaries.

Pearl Li, a furloughed flight coordinator at SFO, would benefit from the proposed ordinance if she gets her job back.

Li worked for Gate Gourmet for almost 16 years organizing and moving food and beverages aboard aircraft and consulting with crew members before air travel slowed to a trickle during the pandemic and she lost her job.

She needs health insurance for herself and her husband, who suffers from diabetes and will likely require dialysis for the rest of his life for kidney problems.

Li had been purchasing insurance through Covered California for $541 per month, but the price jumped to $690 per month in July. That is on top of the $8,000 she said she pays each year out of pocket for medical expenses.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

I live paycheck to paycheck, Li said, noting that while her current premiums are high, the coverage offered through her employer is even more expensive.

Gate Gourmet did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The airport has increased cleaning protocols and requires workers and passengers alike to wear face masks and observe social distance while moving through the airport, among other precautions to guard against the spread of the virus.

Despite those rules, The Chronicle previously reported that many workers still face exposure to the virus while working in public spaces and in food prep areas as well as on planes. Some have chosen to quit their jobs, refusing to gamble with their health.

This state of affairs is inhumane and awful, and it is also dangerous for passengers, Mandelman said.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice
New Delhi, July 22 : Union Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said that digital platforms anywhere in the world should be accountable and responsive towards the sovereign concerns of countries, such as defence, privacy and security of citizens.

In his address at the virtual meeting of G20 Digital Economy Ministers, hosted by Saudi Arabia which is holding the presidency of G20, he emphasised on data-related issues and sovereign rights of countries to protect data privacy and security of its citizens.

Prasad mentioned that India is soon going to put in place a robust personal data protection law which will not only address the data privacy-related concerns of citizens but also ensure availability of data for innovation and economic development.

In view of these concerns, the digital platforms having presence in many countries must become trustworthy, safe and secure, he said.

Last month, the Indian government had banned 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, WeChat and UC Browser and Xiaomi's Mi Community over national security concerns amid the border tussle at Ladakh which also led to the death of 20 Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley clash with Chinese PLA troops.

Prasad also said that there is the need for building trustworthy Artificial Intelligence systems that can transform the society.

Further, in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, he emphasised the need for building a resilient global supply chain and shared the government's vision for making India an attractive destination for investment closely integrated with global supply chains.
Amber Heard testified for the third day on Wednesday amid Johnny Depps libel trial against U.K.s the Sun. Heard answered questions about what she claims was a three-day hostage situation in Australia, telling the court Depp launched alcohol bottles at her like grenades. The actor has alleged it was Heard who threw bottles in a rage, ultimately severing the tip of his finger. Both Heard, 34, and Depp, 57, deny they were abusive.

In witness statements obtained by Yahoo Entertainment, Heard detailed 14 alleged instances of abuse at the hands of Depp. One of the incidents supposedly occurred in March 2015 when Depp was filming the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie in Australia.

The best way I can describe what happened in Australia is that it was like a three-day hostage situation, Heard claimed, alleging the actor had already been using and had a bag of drugs.

I was in a remote house, at least twenty minutes from help; where I could not leave; was trapped and isolated with a violent person suffering from manic depression, bipolar disorder and a pattern of repeated, drug-induced psychosis and violence, who was on a multiple day drug and alcohol binge. Over the course of those three days, there were extreme acts of psychological, physical, emotional and other forms of violence. It is the worst thing I have ever been through. I was left with an injured lip and nose and cuts on my arms, Heard alleged in the document. (Depp has no known mental illness and Yahoo Entertainment can not verify the actresss claims.)

Heard expanded on that in Londons High Court on Wednesday, explaining a fight erupted over the actors drinking. (Depp previously claimed the two argued when he asked her to sign a postnuptial agreement, which she denied.)

He had given up the drinking for a while. It was on a list of: if this happens, I leave. He was taunting me to take [the bottle] and would revoke it when I reached, Heard said, according to the Guardian. She explained that when Depp was sober hed usually be grateful she saved his life by standing up to him about the booze, so she assumed that would happen again.

Story continues

I got the bottle a second time and I smashed it on the floor between Johnny and me. I think it snapped something in him. He started picking up bottles and was using them like grenades or bombs, throwing them one after the other in my direction, Heard told the court.

Amber Heard leaves after giving evidence at Johnny Depp's libel trial. (Photo: Getty Images)

I felt glass breaking behind me. I retreated into the bar and he didnt stop. I was too scared to look behind me. I felt glass hitting my arms. He threw all the bottles that were in reach except one, which was a celebratory magnum-size bottle of wine. There had been 30 or so bottles on the bar, she continued.

Depps attorney, Eleanor Laws, asked the actress if she was the one who threw alcohol bottles, as the actor has alleged. Heard denied throwing bottles and also denied the actors claim she burnt a cigarette out on his cheek.

No. Johnny [burned his cheek] right in front of me. He often did things like that, Heard stated.

You would get yourself into rages on some occasions, Laws asked.

Sometimes I would get angry but not to the extent of throwing something offensively, Heard replied. Sometimes I get angry and lose my cool, yes.

Heard claimed that the only times she threw things at Depp was to escape Johnny when he was beating me up.

The Aquaman star wasnt the only key witness called on Wednesday.

Heards makeup artist and friend, Melanie Inglessis, testified that she had to conceal Heards bruises, ripped out hair and a cut lip ahead of the actresss appearance on the Late Late Show with James Corden in 2015 following an alleged argument with Depp. Inglessis did not want to testify for fear that her career in Hollywood would suffer but was compelled to give evidence as her motion was denied in June.

In Heards witness statement, the actress described the Dec. 2015 incident as one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship. The pair got into an argument at their Los Angeles penthouse where Heard alleged Depp grabbed me by my throat, pushed me to the floor, and hit me in the back of the head. He grabbed my hair, slapped me in the face, and screamed and swore at me, saying that he was going to kill me. He was dragging me all over the carpet. She claimed he pushed her face into the mattress smothering me and pulling out more hair. I was suffocating.

Inglessis testified Heard told her about the alleged fight when the actress called her to come to the penthouse, per the Guardian. When she arrived, Inglessis said there were broken picture frames, glass on the floor and words written in gold paint on a table. Inglessis claimed Heard was upset, furious with a lot of emotion and she was quite distressed.

Inglessis came back the following day to get Heard ready for an appearance on Cordons show. There was a cut or scab on [Heards] lip, she said. She had minimal discoloration on the corners of her eyes by her nose.

She added: I used concealer to try and conceal some of the bruises  Ambers signature lip color was red, I said we had no other choice [than to use it] to cover up the injury on her lip.

When asked about the bruises, Inglessis replied, To my recollection they were not that dark or inflamed yet. I dont remember having trouble covering them.

The court was shown video from Heards TV appearance in which no injuries were visible. Depps attorney also pointed to one of their witnesses, stylist Samantha McMillen, who saw Heard that day with no makeup on and testified she saw no visible injuries. McMillen said last week she could see clearly that Heard had no marks, cuts or bruises one day after the alleged violent fight.

Depp is suing News Group Newspapers, owner of the Sun, and the tabloids executive editor, Dan Wooten, over a 2018 article that called the actor a wife-beater. Depp has repeatedly denied Heards claims that she was physically and verbally abused during their five-year relationship, insisting he was the one abused. Although the proceedings in the U.K. are not against Heard personally, she believes this is another way Depp is continuing to harass her despite the pair no longer being together.

I didnt file this case. Since I filed for divorce, all I have wanted to do is move on. I obtained a restraining order from a judge in 2016 to protect myself and then settled our divorce on terms which meant the details of our relationship  including the abuse I suffered  would not be discussed in public, or so I thought, Heard said in her fourth written witness statement.

Since then, I have continued to want nothing more than to be left alone. I find myself saying the same thing today that I was saying in 2016 when I got that restraining order: I just want him to leave me alone. It is Johnny who started giving public interviews claiming I lied and it is Johnny who brought these proceedings, the actress continued. Four years later, I am still having to participate in costly litigation and give public testimony about some of the most upsetting and painful events in my life.

Heard accused Depp and his lawyers of trying to smear her in the press ahead of the trial and embarrass and harass me and the people around me, including potential witnesses.

This campaign has affected my professional life, my personal life and my well-being, Heard stated. She noted the online petitions calling for me to be removed from any future sequel to Aquaman and from my association with LOreal. The actress said shes been the target of online abuse on social media.

It has been extremely upsetting. Johnny is so much more powerful than I am, in every way: physically, financially, and professionally. By leaving him I escaped the physical abuse, but for the past four years he has used his power and resources to continue the harassment and abuse through the various legal proceedings he has dragged me into and the publicity campaign his team has run alongside those proceedings.

Depps libel trial in the U.K. is expected to conclude this week. However, he and Heard are entangled in another lawsuit in the U.S. as he sued the actress for $50 million for defamation stemming from her abuse claims.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
In a case of honour killing, a couple was killed by their family members in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, police said. The incident occurred at Jarred village in Mansehra district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Police have registered an FIR against five people allegedly involved in the murders. Three persons have been arrested and search is on to nab the remaining two, police said.

"It is a case of honour killing. The boy and girl were cousins. The parents of the boy and maternal uncle of the girl killed the couple for wanting to marry against the consent of their families," Jareed Police Station SHO Wajid Khan told PTI. There are an estimated 1,000 honour killings each year in Pakistan, according to a 2019 report by the Human Rights Watch. But there are no official statistics around them, as they often go unreported or are logged as a suicide or natural death by family members, the report adds.
Posted by B. on at 10:20 AM CST

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Hobby manufacturing company, Kotobukiya (Tokyo, Japan), will release an ARTFX+ statue of TIE Fighter Pilot and Mouse Droid from Star Wars: A New Hope in August 2020. ARTFX+ Statues are fun-to-assemble pre-painted snap-fit kits that can be easily put together in seconds without glue or modeling skill.The Corellian Imperial pilot from Star Wars: A New Hope, Backstabber joins the Kotobukiya ARTFX+ line inAccompanying the ARTFX+ Backstabber is a 1/10th scale MS-6-series repair droid, also referred to as a mouse droid.The TIE Fighter Pilot Backstabber stands just over 7 inches tall (1/10th scale) and looks great in any collection!Product Name: TIE FIGHTER PILOT BACKSTABBER & MOUSE DROID EXCLUSIVESize: around 182mmSRP: $124.99(plus tax)Month of Release: August 2020Copyright: (C) & TM Lucasfilm Ltd.Product URL: http://en.kotobukiya.co.jp/product/product-0000003819/
Resumption of normal court proceedings could jeopardise the health of those who will attend them including judges and lawyers, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde said on Wednesday, hinting that physical hearings at the Supreme Court might not resume for the time being. The CJI also said a seven-judge administrative committee will decide in four weeks whether or not regular hearings can restart.

The remarks were made during hearings of two separate matters including a petition filed by Bar Council of India (BCI) highlighting the financial crunch faced by lawyers after the shutdown of courts due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The other matter relates to the reservation in promotions.

Resumption of normal court proceedings jeopardizes all those who attend Court - judges, lawyers and all those who attend court. Medical advice is to not start resumption of Court immediately. Nonetheless, we find it is not possible to ignore the plight of lawyers, the CJI said while hearing the BCI case.

The court then took up suo motu a case for extending financial assistance to lawyers and issued notices to all high court and the Supreme Court Bar associations to examine the feasibility of setting up a relief fund to support the deserving lawyers.

We issue notice to all recognized HC [high court] and SC [Supreme Court] Bar Associations to show cause why a fund for relief of deserving and eligible lawyers should not be set up and further to enable them to invite donations from own members or legitimate sources, the court said.

Notices were also issued to the Centre and high courts.

Later in the day, while hearing the case on the reservation, lawyers appearing in the matter requested the CJI to hear the case in open court and not via videoconferencing. The CJI then said the seven-judge committee will review the situation to take a call on whether or not physical hearing should resume.

The Supreme Court has been hearing cases via videoconferencing since March 23 in view of the Covid-19 pandemic that has necessitated social distancing norms.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-07-22 10:07:38|Editor: huaxia

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XIAMEN, July 22 (Xinhua) -- While the novel coronavirus outbreak threw many industries into dire straits, biotech enterprises in the eastern Chinese city of Xiamen steered through the epidemic by stepping up innovation.

Founded in 2013, Xiamen Wiz Biotech Co., Ltd. is committed to rapid diagnostic reagent, integrating R&D, production and sales. However, the epidemic seriously impacted its domestic business, said Lin Zhikeng, chairman of the company.

Opportunities always favor those who are prepared. After the epidemic outbreak, Lin responded instantly and led his team to develop testing kits for coronavirus.

"In the face of the crisis, we applied existing technologies to new fields and seized the opportunity to expand the overseas market," Lin said.

In March, the company's diagnostic kits were granted certification to enter the EU market and added to the list of China's reagent exports, said Lin.

So far, the company has exported more than 1 million testing kits.

"There is a huge market in subdivision areas of the biotech industry. Only through long-term research and innovation can we seize the opportunity," Lin said.

Xiamen-based Heat Shock Cell Biotechnology Co., Ltd., which focuses on the prevention and treatment of tumor and autoimmune diseases, increased its investment in R&D by 45 percent in the first half of this year.

"Our imports of cell lines, preparations and equipment were hampered because of the epidemic, which directly influenced our research and production," said Wu Jianhong, CEO of the company. "However, the crisis also brought us a chance to enhance innovation."

According to Wu, the company took to alternative means to continue its research, developed products that can enhance the body's immunity, and cooperated with several public hospitals to apply technologies in clinical practices.

In the factory of Xiamen Innovax Biotech Co., Ltd., workers were busy manufacturing China's domestically-developed HPV vaccine. Jointly developed by Xiamen University and Innovax, the HPV vaccine is a name card for the company home and abroad.

"It cost 17 years to develop the vaccine. After we meet the standard for securing investment, the annual output of the vaccine will reach 30 million units," said Li Shicheng, vice general manager of the company.

Earlier this year, Innovax applied for the WHO's "prequalification of vaccines," hoping to go global with its homegrown HPV vaccine.

So far, Innovax has inked contracts with at least four countries along the Belt and Road, including Indonesia and Bangladesh, to provide HPV vaccines.

The biotech industry in Xiamen has realized industrial agglomeration and talent gathering after a dozen years of development, said Ding Changfa, associate professor with the School of Economics, Xiamen University.

In June, Xiamen adopted a slew of policies to encourage innovations in the biotech industry and build itself into a city of life-science and technology in China. Enditem
The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has settled charges with Coinsquare and its executives after they admitted to having engaged in wash trading.

As part of the settlement, Coinsquare CEO Cole Diamond and president Virgile Rostand agreed to resign from their positions and paid penalties of $1 million and $900,000, respectively, the OSC announced on Tuesday.

Diamond and Rostand have also been banned from acting as registrants and directors for three years, meaning they cannot influence the management of Coinsquare for the said period. Coinsquare's chief compliance officer Felix Mazer has also resigned from the position and voluntarily paid $50,000 to the OSC. Mazer has also been banned from acting as a director or officer of a registrant for one year.

Additionally, Coinsquare, Diamond, and Rostand will pay a total of $300,000 toward the costs of OSC's investigation efforts, per the announcement.

The regulator said Coinsquare admitted that it engaged in market manipulation by reporting inflated trading volumes between 2018 and 2019. Coinsquare reported around 840,000 wash trades amounting to an estimated 590,000 bitcoins (currently worth about $5.5 billion). These trades had "no economic substance," said the regulator.

Coinsquare's wash trading practice came to light last month when Vice's publication Motherboard wrote a story on the matter after obtaining leaked emails, Slack messages, and other files. Earlier this month, the OSC charged Coinsquare and subsequently settled charges in a hearing on Tuesday.

Founded in 2014, Coinsquare has raised CA$ 53 million (~US$ 40 million) in funding to date, from investors including Canaccord Genuity, per Crunchbase.





 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
Kabul, Jul 22 (UNI) At least seven Afghan security forces were killed in a Taliban attack in the southern province of Kandahar on Wednesday, according to police chief Tadin Khan.

The Tolo news agency reported that clashes erupted in the province's Takhat bridge district after Taliban militants attacked security checkpoints, killing seven security forces members.

The security forces found Pakistani ID cards on the Taliban terrorists who were killed in Afghanistan and Marouf, police added.

The northern Afghan provinces have been the scene of heavy clashes between Taliban and security forces for years.

In May, at least 17 soldiers were killed and several others were injured after Taliban militants attacked military camps in two Afghan northern provinces.

UNI XC GNK ADG 1336
Mybeck and Carpenter are scheduled to perform at Hammonds EAT, albeit to an empty hall and are streaming the show through Stageit, a website which has hosted performances by everyone from Jon Bon Jovi and Tom Morrello to Sara Bareilles.

Proceeds from their Sunday set will go to the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana.

Weve got it set where if you want to pay a buck, thats fine, or if you want to pay $20, thats fine, Mybeck said. We just figured that rather than (the monies collected from the show) go to us that it goes to the food bank. This is a good opportunity for us to give back as well as for us to get out (and perform) in front of people.

While Mybeck is looking forward to getting in front of a live audience, he is hesitant to put any dates on the books just yet.

Its all just relative to whats going on out there and how other places are reacting and what theyre doing for sanitation and how proactive they are with (safety measures), he said.

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WASHINGTON - The House has approved a bill to remove statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol, as a reckoning over racial injustice continues following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.

The House vote also would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldnt be citizens.

The bill directs the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 10 statues honouring Confederate officials, including Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate Army, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. Three statues honouring white supremacists  including former U.S. Vice-President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina  would be immediately removed.

Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said at a Capitol news conference ahead of the House vote.

The House approved the bill 305-113, sending it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects are uncertain. Seventy-two Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, joined with 232 Democrats to support the bill.

Hoyer, a Democrat, co-sponsored the measure and noted with irony that Taney was born in the southern Maryland district Hoyer represents. Hoyer said it was appropriate that the bill would replace Taneys bust with another Maryland native, the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the high courts first Black justice.

The House vote comes as communities nationwide reexamine the people theyre memorializing with statues. Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month ordered that the portraits of four speakers who served the Confederacy be removed from the ornate hall just outside the House chamber.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said the statues honouring Lee and other Confederate leaders are deliberate attempts to rewrite history and dehumanize African Americans.?

The statues are not symbols of Southern heritage, as some claim, but are symbols of white supremacy and defiance of federal authority, Lee said. Its past time we end the glorification of men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans in chains.

Bills to remove the Taney bust and the statues of Confederate leaders have been introduced in the Senate, although they would require separate votes.

Even if legislation passes both chambers, it would need the presidents signature, and President Donald Trump has opposed the removal of historic statues elsewhere. Trump has strongly condemned those who toppled statues during protests over racial injustice and police brutality following Floyds death in May and other police killings.

The 2-foot-high marble bust of Taney is outside a room in the Capitol where the Supreme Court met for half a century, from 1810 to 1860. It was in that room that Taney, the nations fifth chief justice, announced the Dred Scott decision, sometimes called the worst decision in the courts history.

What Dred Scott said was, Black lives did not matter, Hoyer said. So when we assert that yes they do matter, it is out of conviction ... that in America, the land of the free includes all of us.

Theres at least one potentially surprising voice for Taney to stay. Lynne M. Jackson, Scotts great-great-granddaughter, says if it were up to her, shed leave Taneys bust where it is. But she said shed add something too: a bust of Dred Scott.

Im not really a fan of wiping things out, Jackson said in a telephone interview this week from her home in Missouri.

The president and founder of The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, Jackson has seen other Taney sculptures removed in recent years, particularly in Maryland, where he was the states attorney general before becoming U.S. attorney general and then chief justice.

Calhoun, who served as vice-president from 1825-1832, also was a U.S. senator, House member and secretary of state and war. He died a decade before the Civil War, but was known as a strong defender of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

His statue would be removed within 30 days of the bills passage, along with two other white supremacists, former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock and James Clarke, a former Arkansas governor and senator.

In the summer of 2017, shortly after white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Lee, Baltimores mayor removed statues of Lee, Taney and others.A statue of Taney was removed from the grounds of the State House in Annapolis around the same time. And a bust of Taney was removed that year from outside city hall in Frederick, Maryland.

Another Taney bust sits alongside all other former chief justices in the Supreme Courts Great Hall, a soaring, marble-columned corridor that leads to the courtroom. A portrait of Taney hangs in one of the courts conference rooms.

Jackson said she believes that what memorials honouring figures like Taney need is context. At the Capitol, the Taney statue sits in the place where the Dred Scott case was decided, but the fact he is there by himself is lopsided, Jackson said in suggesting a bust of Scott be added. She had proposed a similar fix for the Taney statue in Annapolis.

In Congress, Taneys bust was controversial from the start. When Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull proposed its creation in 1865, shortly after Taneys death, he got into a heated debate with Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner, a fierce opponent of slavery.

Let me tell that senator that the name of Taney is to be hooted down the page of history. Judgment is beginning now, Sumner said. And an emancipated country will fasten upon him the stigma which he deserves.

Funding for a Taney bust wasnt approved until almost a decade later. Today, near the Taney bust, inside the old Supreme Court chamber, there are also busts of the nations first four chief justices. The first, John Marshall, is the only person to serve as chief justice longer than Taney and a revered figure in the law.
Dairy farmers are trialling a new environmental planner app to help them make decisions on which agri-environment options to introduce on farms.

The E-Planner tool, created by scientists at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), has been customised for specific use in the dairy sector.

Farmers will - for the first time - be able to make science-based decisions on which agri-environment options to introduce, and identify where sustainability initiatives are likely to perform best.

The tool will be trialled by farmers who supply dairy co-operative Arla Foods, and will analyse satellite imagery and environmental datasets.

It will assess the suitability of unproductive or hard-to-farm areas of land for four agri-environment interventions, including: planting flower-rich pollinator habitats; creating woodland; protecting water resources from pollution; and sowing winter bird food.

The farms additionally trialled wet grassland restoration and grassland productivity mapping. In practice, this will mean farmers can gauge the likelihood of success of the different environmental interventions and select the most suitable areas to enhance.

The tool works by calculating environmental factors that affect the suitability of the land for different environmental options, such as proximity to watercourses, south facing slopes or shading.

The new app gives farmers a snapshot overview of each field

David Christensen, one farmer testing the technology, said the tool was helping to modernise the way he made management decisions for land that might have been previously considered unproductive in terms of sustainability and resilience.

"At the click of a button, were able to look at how the land behaves over time and can therefore make more educated decisions on how best to use all areas of the farm at key times of the year

"Its going to make an enormous difference to many farmers and the world around us," Mr Christensen said.

Arla said its farmer suppliers 'cannot be expected' to automatically know which environmental measures best suit the land around them.

Graham Wilkinson, agricultural director at the co-op, said: "We hope that in working with UKCEH we can ensure that they have access to the tools and resources that enable the best decisions.

UKCEH said the trial was a 'big step forward' in how scientists can advise farmers about environmental decisions.

John Redhead, senior spatial ecologist said: "Historically, its always been a challenge to bring together environmental information from digital data and farmer-specific local knowledge.

"The great thing about the tool is its ability to present complex and detailed environmental information in a way thats easy for farmers to access and explore , enabling them to make the best possible decisions.
Sudhir Surywanshi By

Express News Service

MUMBAI: Taking a cue from the Rajasthan politics, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray is convening meetings after meetings with allies and lawmakers and speaking with each stakeholder to remove any scope of miscommunication.

Notably, the Congress and the NCP  the Maha Vikas Aghadi allies  have often been sore about Uddhav not being easily available for discussing pubic issues.

This, the allies asserted, is leading to the bureaucracy gaining an upper hand in governance.

Two days back, Uddhav held a meeting with all alliance lawmakers till late night at 2.00 am.

He is meeting lawmakers region-wise. In the Vidarbha region meeting, he spoke to each MLA personally and asked their issues and promised them to resolve in two-to-three months, said an MLA who attended the meeting.

It was quite a pleasant surprise to see the CM himself take stock of pending projects of each constituency. There was no scope to meet and talk with the CM. Earlier, ministers were not getting an appointment, so you can well imagine in the case of the MLAs. We are happy that things are moving at right direction after the Rajasthan political drama, said a senior NCP leader.

Another change in Uddhavs functioning is that NCP and Congress leaders are attending meetings which he used to hold on his own with officials.
The womens wing of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the USA has said the selection of Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang as the running mate to Mr. John Dramani Mahama, flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will not guarantee the party's victory for election 2020.



According to Barbara Boafo, NPP USA Women's Organiser, even though Prof. Opoku-Agyemang may have a good character but doubt the value she brings to the ticket of the NDC party.



In a statement, the Womens Organizer  NPP-USA, Mrs Barbara Boafo, said: However, the selection of Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang as the running mate to Mr. John Dramani Mahama, flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) comes to us with lots of fear and consternation.



Our fear is premised on the fact that under the reign of Prof. Naana Opoku Agyemang as the Minister for Education under the erstwhile administration of the NDC, teacher and trainee nurses in the country went through several ordeals following the cancellation of trainee allowances which was a major source of reprieve for trainees.



She is, therefore, calling on trainees and all teachers to come out in their numbers come December 7, 2020 to vote against the NDC.



We believe that the Nana Addo  Dr. Bawumia led government has achieved tremendous feet that cannot be allowed to wash down the drain and must be guided jealously. As such, we are calling on all colleague trainees and other Ghanaians aspiring to pursue teaching and nursing as professions, and most especially parents to mass up at the various registration centres to register so as to vote massively against the NDC in the December 7 elections.



Below is her full statement:



STATEMENT BY THE NPP-USA WOMENS WING ON THE NOMINATION OF PROF JANE NAANA OPOKU AGYEMANG AS RUNNING MATE FOR MR JOHN MAHAMA



We wish to congratulate Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, former Minister of Education on her nomination as the Running Mate for Mr. John Dramani Mahama ahead of the December 7, general elections. As a Womens Wing, we can only welcome the symbolism as contributing to women empowerment.



However, the selection of Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang as the running mate to Mr. John Dramani Mahama, flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) comes to us with lots of fear and consternation.



Our fear is premised on the fact that under the reign of Prof. Naana Opoku Agyemang as the Minister for Education under the erstwhile administration of the NDC, teacher and trainee nurses in the country went through several ordeals following the cancellation of trainee allowances which was a major source of reprieve for trainees.



It took the intervention of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his able Vice President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia to restore these much-needed allowances for the trainee students and so if a competitor was raised to challenge such geniuses, then it would not be in the person of Prof. Naana Opoku Agyemang



Suffice it to say that with her selection as the running mate to Mr. Mahama, we have no doubt that she would pursue her agenda once again, in the unlikely event that the NDC wins the December 7, general elections and sends this country back again.



If Mr Mahamas crave for a Running Mate was for a female, it would have been some women who have demonstrable competence and have risen through the ranks to establish themselves firmly in the feminist sphere and one such a person could not have been Prof. Opoku-Agyemang.



We are certain that Prof. Opoku-Agyemang being a good woman has a good character but may lack the required qualities to improve the chances for Mr Mahama in the 2020 election, hence we doubt the value she brings to the ticket of the NDC party.



Devoid of her personality as a woman, but on the grounds of quality in governance; is she good enough to satisfy the ticket to ensure quality improvement in the governance? Is she capable of being described as the president in the absence of the President? In terms of the economy, how is she going to impact the economy, which is why we think she is a no match for Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who has made a niche in such ventures.



We believe that the Nana Addo  Dr. Bawumia led government has achieved a tremendous feat that cannot be allowed to wash down the drain and must be guided jealously. As such, we are calling on all colleague trainees and other Ghanaians aspiring to pursue teaching and nursing as professions, and most especially parents to mass up at the various registration centres to register so as to vote massively against the NDC in the December 7 elections.



Signed



Barbara Boafo (Mrs), Womens Organizer  NPP-USA

Source: Josephine Acheampomaa/[email protected]









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Oh Tae Joon, deputy CEO of Shinhan Finance, holding the Best Sustainability Development Company Vietnam 2020 award

Oh Tae Joon, deputy CEO of Shinhan Finance: We are honoured to have been awarded the Best Sustainability Development Company Vietnam in 2020. The recognition is based on a few guiding criteria such as the sustainable development goals, business practices, strategy, and sustainability management, employee safety and wellbeing, as well as stakeholder engagement and involvement in sustainable development in the region.

The path to get where we stand today has been consistent. We have convinced our investors and employees that sustainability was the way forward and could generate real value for Shinhan Finance.

What business development strategy and role does Shinhan Finance strive to assume in the future?

Atul Dixit, CEO of Shinhan Finance: Shinhan Finance is built on the strong fundamental pillars of sustainable growth, compassionate finance, and corporate social responsibility, we are committed to protect and enhance the credit environment in Vietnam. We have integrated sustainability as one of the most important criteria in our risk assessment and decision-making procedures, we shall strengthen it more in the coming years.

This would not only assist in our companys financial health but also contribute to banking and the financial stability of Vietnam under the State Bank of Vietnams direction, at the same time, it will pave the way for Vietnams economic growth and social development.

Shinhan Finance also named Best Consumer Finance Company for Customer Service Vietnam

Shinhan Finance, known for its Compassionate Finance, has built a business around the lending of lifestyle demands that was not only profitable and sustainable to uphold a virtuous cycle of shared prosperity but also helped enhance the health of national credit. It was time to re-embed this into the heart of the company.

What is Shinhan Cards key management direction for Shinhan Finance?

Cheung Soon Young, director and head of Global Business Department of Shinhan Card: Shinhan Card, as a leading multi-finance company of Korea, plans to expand the product portfolio of Shinhan Finance in Vietnam from the current credit loan centred to various financial products including consumer goods loan, auto instalment, and credit card business, incorporating the business know-how from our Seoul head office.

Also, Shinhan is actively making its transition to the Fourth Industrial Revolution through the adoption of big data, fintech, and AI. Shinhan Card is the No.1 multi-finance company with advanced financial business capabilities including highly effective marketing techniques and a pre-emptive risk management system.

 Shinhan Vietnam Finance Co., Ltd. is actively involved in the sustainable development of the region. Their sustainable development goals, business practices, strategy and sustainability management, employee safety and well-being, as well as stakeholder engagement, helped them stand out as a clear winner this year, said Wanda Rich, editor, Global Banking & Finance Review. We look forward to seeing more from them in the years to come.

Shinhan Card offers various digital and AI-based hyper-personalised marketing on everyday life through the No.1 life-financial platform Shinhan Pay FAN. We plan to bring a new wave to the Vietnamese market by introducing already confirmed and verified digital technology from the Seoul head office. With the opening of Shinhan Finance in Vietnam, Shinhan Card will continue to consistently integrate its capabilities to contribute to the financial development of Vietnam and to fulfil our corporate social responsibilities.